Farm On

LAURA DUNN is a filmmaker based in Austin Texas who directed a documentary called THE UNFORESEEN, as well as a more recent documentary which is the focus of our conversation: LOOK & SEE: A PORTRAIT OF WENDELL BERRY. The film is available on Netflix and I can't recommend it enough.

Laura and Wendell have a similar approach to their work, in that they are not putting themselves out there as a personality to shine brighter than the content of the work itself.

Look & See isn't merely a biopic with a message, but it's capturing the essence of a person, in this case a giant of the written word, someone who is as illusive as he is influential.

You will hear me try (and fail) to persuade Laura to get her two executive producers - Terence Malick and Robert Redford - to come on the show. You will also hear street noise, chirping birds, and a chatty toddler in the background (Laura conducted this phone conversation while walking her 2 year old to sleep).You will also hear the conviction of an artist who is using her chosen medium - film - to ask essential questions about the nature of life as we experience it, and all the contradictions and vulnerability that comes from such an inquisition. Laura certainly embodies a notable quote by Berry that goes: "when we are making our art, we are also making our lives. and I'm sure the reverse is equally true".

Find the film here: https://lookandseefilm.com/

DAVID METTLER is a nice guy who happens to be married to my good friend Kim. We occasionally bump into each other to eat and/or drink things over pleasant conversation. He's quite tall. Sometimes he is bearded. Other times, not so much.

David works as a freelance writer, producer and director of nonfiction tv and film in New York. He's worked across multiple genres for networks including History Channel, MTV, PBS, Discovery Channel, etc. David is most interested in telling stories that tie specific personal experiences of subjects together with larger social, historical, and cultural patterns. He is currently finishing a one hour documentary for MSNBC about the Iran-Contra affair.

But the gist of our conversation revolves around one of two wonderful episodes David wrote and directed for the new NETFLIX series ROTTEN. The piece we dig into is called GARLIC BREATH, a story that involves intrigue, scandal, greed, heroism, and yes, lots and lots (and lots) of garlic.

Imagine the scene: it's 1968, and you make the brazen decision to move with your soon-to-be pregnant wife to the country where you build a simple house from trees you cut down by hand, with no power tools. You then raise three children with no electricity or running water, subsisting on a system of vegetable plots that are innovative in the way they harness the innate power of nature. On these 60 acres you become a hero of the Organic movement by teaching apprentices, authoring pivotal books on growing methods, and even creating your own custom handtools that are sold as your signature models decades later.

If this bio describes you, then you are ELIOT COLEMAN. Now, imagine that your first daughter, born in the midst of this Back To The Land story and raised on the 60 acres of rugged Maine coastline utterly disconnected from modern society, decides to write a tell-all memoir about her experience, drawing from memories as young as infancy. The book tells of the timeless Summer afternoons, the joyful cycles of life, the struggles of survival, and the deepest recesses of mourning and loss. The book of course is called THIS LIFE IS IN YOUR HANDS, written by MELISSA COLEMAN and published in 2011 by HarperCollins, and it is a precious thing to discover.

The first time I read the book, I was just starting my own journey as a grower of things. Many years later after my son was born, the second reading revealed emotional notes that weren't available the first time around. I started my conversation with Melissa asking about what it was like to start her own family, in light of her own extraordinary childhood.

Happy new year, and happy birthday to FARM ON! The show is turning one year old, and I want to send a hearty THANK YOU to everyone for tuning in, and sharing these episodes with like-minded folks.

As a documentary director and producer, STEVE SUDERMAN has spent the last decade immersing himself in intimate and personal stories of people going through life-altering experiences. This trajectory started with Over Land (2008), a portrait of his own family in crisis as they lose their farm on the Canadian prairies.

The bulk of our conversation is on Steve's feature documentary, TO MAKE A FARM. The film follows five young people with urban backgrounds who decide to take up small scale organic farming. Facing daily challenges and overwhelming obstacles their first season on the land, joys and disappointments become a quiet manifesto for social change. To Make A Farm won the Santa Cruz audience choice award as well as three Golden Sheaf awards including Best of Festival in 2012. It was commissioned by TVO.

Soon to premiere on TVO and CBC documentary channel is Steve's new feature documentary, BEYOND THE SPECTRUM. This multi-platform project includes a theatrical documentary and mobile app. The film delves into the story of a family grappling with their two-year-old son's autism diagnosis. The accompanying free app (My Autism Passport), created through a partnership with St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, is designed to help parents plan, navigate and manage their child’s developmental treatment journey after they have received an autism diagnosis.

Follow Steve's films at his website: http://www.orangevilleroad.com

Ever heard of Mesoamerica? I'll be honest. I was clueless about the place until I stumbled on the work of today's guest.

Mesoamerica is a cultural and geographic region that forms a thin land bridge (or isthmus) between North and South America and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans—and is one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet.

Mesoamerica is also a Mega-development free trade disaster zone. A conduit for extractive industries from global South to global North. A monopoly board for international banks. A justification for CIA profits thanks to the ongoing so-called War on Drugs. A militarized zone. A roulette wheel where corporations spill blood for bananas.

Mesoamerica is caught between the trade winds of the dark North cloud that rains down violence, toxins, and cultural thievery - and the hurricane of the climate-changed South that rips through already marginalized communities, opening the door for disaster capitalism. The global East spews a typhoon of mass production, while a whirlwind of disposable consumerism gobbles it up in the global West. King Kool-Aid sails the crowded seas, dumping slavery-made sugar into every processed food in the grocery, while the Burger King Beef Boat tows a few thousand acres of clear-cut farmland, and leaves in its wake massive deforestation due to rampant cattle ranching. And in a twisted version of Noah's Arc, exotic animals snared after such deforestation are shipped far from their native habitat, replaced by cute, fuzzy animatronic icons of mass media.

Mesoamerica is drenched in pesticides and then greenwashed under the guise of conservation by the private sector, while the Wold Bank plays poker with loans sprung to life by economic bear traps. Mesoamerica receives gifts from the North in the form of military weapons wrapped with a bow.

And that's just the first 1/3 of a monumental graphic called MESOAMÉRICA RESISTE, meticulously researched and hand-drawn over the course of nine years by the BEEHIVE DESIGN COLLECTIVE: a loose conglomeration of anarchists who dedicate themselves to "cross-pollinate the grassroots" by creating collaborative, anti-copyright images for use as educational and organizing tools.

To see a web version of the explosive work Mesoamérica Resiste, including a full-screen flyover with a narrative tour, click the link below, and get ready to get drawn into a very deep rabbit hole.

http://beehivecollective.org/graphics-projects/mesoamerica-resiste/

The collective remains anonymous by choice, but I was lucky enough to sit down with one of the group's members, who goes by the name TYLER BEE. Since he met with me in between trips to Mexico, I started by asking Tyler Bee about the challenge of balancing a worldwide network of activism while at the same time remaining dedicated to the hyper local issues that fuel the group's mission.

Mentioned in our talk are two examples of work by others inspired by the Beehive Design Collective: WATERWAYS is fighting the spread of fracking in Pennsylvania (https://www.thewaterways.org/), while PROJECTE UTER is a group that is fighting for abortion rights in Spain (https://projecteuter.wordpress.com/)

In the early 60's, Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring was instrumental as a catalyst for the modern environmental movement. In fact, Silent Spring altered the course of history by forcing a ban on the herbicide DDT - an active ingredient in Agent Orange during the Vietnam war - and spurring sweeping changes in the laws that affect our air, land, and water.

My guest today has been compared to Carson for her book White Wash: The story of a weed killer, cancer, and the corruption of science. And it's a valid comparison. CAREY GILLAM is a veteran investigative journalist with 25 years under her belt as former senior correspondent for Reuters international news service, and she's been researching and writing about the health dangers associated with the agrochemical companies - namely Monsanto - and their products - namely RoundUp otherwise known as glyphosate - which continue to be so widely used in our food that we could easily remain uninformed if it weren't for the dedicated reporting of journalists like Gillam and organizations like the US Right To Know, a group that is Pursuing truth and transparency in America's food system.

Interviewing Carey was a stretch for me since she is an expert interviewer herself, but I think we had a good chat. I started by asking her about one of her most frequently practiced skills: filing for Freedom of Information Act requests. I hope you enjoy.

Learn more about White Wash here: http://www.careygillam.com

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For this episode I'm going to step out of the usual mode and talk to someone who stumbled onto gardening by a twist of fate, and who uses her garden's many lessons to teach us the living wisdom in our natural world. KAREN MAEZEN MILLER is a Zen priest at the Hazy Moon Zen Center in Los Angeles, and the author of Mama Zen, Hand Wash Cold, and a slender book called Paradise In Plain Sight which is the focus of our talk. Through Maezen's no-nonsense prose, rocks convey faith, ponds preach stillness, flowers give love, and leaves express the effortless ease of letting go. And the green space that provides her so many lessons is no ordinary patch of land, but a 100-year-old Japanese garden that she painstakingly restored with no prior gardening experience. This "one foot in front of the other" approach is often referred to as The Path in Buddhism, and I begin our conversation by asking Maezen about her own path from starting a business to shedding the trappings of success, and eventually earning the robes of a Zen priest.

Learn more about Maezen's writing and find her teaching and retreat schedule here: http://karenmaezenmiller.com

Back in episode #16, LARRY KORN was very excited to tell me about an Irish garden designer named MARY REYNOLDS. It turns out he helped to edit and wrote the forward for her phenomenal book THE GARDEN AWAKENING: DESIGNS TO NURTURE OUR LAND AND OURSELVES. Mary's life and work has been committed to discovering the sacred and the magical in every piece of land, because "the veil between this world and the world of spirit is very thin".

In this conversation, I ask Mary about fairy magic, sacred spaces, and the independent film inspired by her adventures becoming the youngest person to win the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show, and the romance that surrounded it. The film, DARE TO BE WILD, is set for release in the US sometime this year.

We also talk about Mary's own property in Ireland, for which she is seeking funding to build a living version of the book to educate children by connecting them with nature and to teach people how to turn their garden plots into massive opportunities for the land, nature's health and our own health.

Learn all about Mary's work and follow her here:

http://marymary.ie/

My good friend and New Zealander nomad VANESSA BECK takes the controls of this episode of FARM ON, and interviews poet and author HEATHER SWAN. Vanessa was the natural choice for this conversation since she and Swan share many traits in common: a keen sensibility for the natural world, deep compassion for the work of restoration, and first-hand experience with the art of BEEKEEPING. They spend the hour chatting about Swan's new book WHERE HONEYBEES THRIVE: STORIES FROM THE FIELD (Penn State University Press), which is "part love song, part lament, and part quest", and all love. Love for the honeybee, love for the people who spend their lives studying it, and love for endless pursuit of understanding through research.

In this talk, Swan explains how her journey in the field led her all over the world to learn from beekeepers, farmers and scientists. She also explores the inner life of a handful of artists whose shared muse is the archetype of the honeybee, and whose artwork shuffles the book's chapters in a kind of lyrical poem that straddles the intellect and the creative mind.

Get the book WHERE HONEYBEES THRIVE here:

http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-07741-3.html

Driving past corn fields in the Midwest can seem like a trip through a pastoral, idyllic farmscape, but in reality the corn commodity realm is a dystopian industrial wasteland that is genetically engineered and chemically supported. However, agriactivists like ANDY HAZZARD are proving that it is not only possible to cultivate ancient, heirloom grains, but it is also vital to our health and the health of the environment as we know it.

HAZZARD FREE FARM is the latest in a family tradition that dates back to 1847, and with Andy at the helm it is getting attention from folks who want to taste bread before it became the gluten-heavy substance we know, and who want their food source to live in harmony with the land. Before starting her own farm, Andy was "...suffering from cognitive dissonance, like an out of tune song my worldly work and actions were out of line with my beliefs. " She has found her tune through meticulously-sourced, stone-ground grains that hearken back to pre-industrial revolution era farming practices.

Learn more about Andy and her passion, and purchase her product directly at http://hazzardfreefarm.com