Reseed

How do we feed everyone, how do we feed cities? How do we tackle food deserts and food injustice? And what if there is not one answer to these questions - but many?

This experiment of how humanity tackles environmental breakdown requires all of us. People will find their niches. For Eddy Badrina, that niche is the intersection of economics, technology - and lettuce.

Guest Eddy Badrina is the Chief Executive Officer of Eden Green, a part vertical farm, part technology company that produces year-round harvests of locally grown leafy greens. Eddy is on the board of directors of Seed Effect, an economic development non-profit, and he is a dad.

In this conversation, we get curious about vertical hydroponic farming, reducing water and energy, and how to feed cities with locally-grown food. We explore how, when facing environmental breakdown - that most complex of problems - technology and innovation can be a part of a complex mix of solutions. 

Listen at reseed.ca. 

In these dark winter days at the beginning of a new unknown year, this reflective episode invites us to be quietly awake: awake to our true selves, awake to who we are in relationship with, awake to how we honour our responsibilities, and awake to justice. How can we be awake to beauty as well as the darkness of the world and the fragility of ecosystems and species? How can we be awake to the brokenhearted but resilient and courageous millions who refuse to abandon a planet that needs our care?

Guest Larissa Crawford is an acclaimed published Indigenous, anti-racism, and climate justice researcher, policy advisor and speaker. Larissa Crawford proudly passes on Métis and Jamaican ancestry to her daughter, Zyra. Larissa is the Founder of Future Ancestors Services, a youth-led professional services social enterprise that operates at the intersection of climate and racial justice. Since the launch of Future Ancestors Services in April 2020, the organization has mobilized +$95K in donations and gifted services for anti-racist and climate justice initiatives.

We talk about climate justice, reconciliation, motherhood, and a groundswell of activism. Larissa delves into her expertise in restorative circle keeping. We discuss the direct connection between anger and joy - and how that anger can fuel meaningful environmental action that is rooted in justice.

Listen at reseed.ca. 

Imagine creating a food future where all people have access to nourishing affordable food, growing practices are regenerative, and our food systems transition from being global and fragile to regional and resilient.

This conversation looks at our isolation from the Earth and food that nourishes us, and wonders about repairing our relationship with land and agriculture. We discuss the extractive systems on which we are dependent, and what happens when our systems are disrupted by climate change. We interrogate the prevailing economy which we have been serving and supporting - and look at other options, like a circular economy or a regenerative economy. 

Guest Barbara Swartzentruber is currently Executive Director of the Smart Cities Office at the City of Guelph, where the City and County of Wellington are collaborating with public and private sector partners to build a circular, regenerative regional food system. Building on the principles of a circular economy and leveraging the power of data, they are re-imagining a sustainable regional food system that increases access to affordable, nutritious food and finds new opportunities for waste reduction and recovery. Barbara has taught public policy, community development and advocacy at several Canadian universities, has been appointed to expert panels and as a Senior Fellow on the circular economy at esteemed institutions, and speaks internationally about reimagining resilient local food systems. 

Facing international problems of daunting proportions, we ask: what is the role of individuals, communities, and cities? What do we want the commons to look like? How can food not only feed and nourish people, but also connect and strengthen community?

Listen at reseed.ca or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Communicating the Anthropocene is an art and a science. Multiple messages, tactics, messengers, and channels can be harnessed to convey climate change problems and solutions to citizens. Environmental communications are one of the most underutilized solutions we have for rising to meet environmental crises. Every movement, every momentous and terrible human collective shift starts not with weapons or protests - they start with words.

Anthropocene problems are spiritual and cultural. Our greatest problems lie in a lack of sacredness, disconnection, isolation, rootlessness, too much stuff, too much pressure, distraction, division, and a lack of imagination of other realities. Enter storytelling and media - shapers of culture, givers of richness, enhancers of empathy, influencers of citizens and their politicians, and fertile soil for imagination.

Guest Sara Lopez is a social entrepreneur, creator, artist, writer, and culture worker. Her multicultural upbringing inspired her to study, document, and work with people from different cultures all over the planet. Along with Gabriel Alvarez, she co-founded The Jungle Journal, an online platform with an annual print magazine that covers themes around global cultures, ecosystems, past and modern histories, Indigenous activism, and reflections. Together, Sara and Gabriel share stories about cultures and people that go unnoticed and unheard.

How do we shift culture? How do we rebuild trust in each other, and the capacity to imagine and express? How do we dismantle what we see as truths, such as  the norms of capitalism and our role in keeping it humming along to the edge of the cliff? How do we shape stories that tell people what we are fighting for, and energize them to fight? Or love, or care, or tend? This conversation explores these questions, and looks at storytelling and the role of media in reconnecting with the Earth.

Listen at Reseed.ca. 

Looking at species in a landscape, we can see the stories of each creature and what role it plays in that ecosystem. So, what is our role in our landscapes? Are we an invasive species?

Too often we hear that we are doomed to be takers, who damage the planet with our very presence. However, it is possible to see ourselves as creative stewards of the Earth while meeting our own needs. Most of us have not seen a reciprocal reality brought to life, but this Reseed conversation about permaculture, agroecology, land rights, and ecosystem restoration illustrates how we can remember how to be a part of a natural world that we never left. 

Guest Tao Orion is a permaculture designer, teacher, homesteader, and mother living in Oregon. She is the author of the book Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration, and an expert and practitioner of permaculture and ecosystem restoration.

Tao takes listeners on her journey from growing up on a commune to her role as a mother and grower of food and steward of the land. She brings to life the restoration of creeks and ways to manage invasive species by looking at ecosystems as a whole, resulting in the hopeful return of biodiversity and flourishing webs of life. We discuss how to find balance, cultivate food, tend to land,  grow community networks, and mother future generations to see us through times of disasters and abundance.

Listen at reseed.ca. 

The ocean - which has always held mystery for us human beings - also holds powerful solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss. By rewilding our oceans and protecting the forests of the sea, we can bring back essential biodiversity, reduce the worst of climate change, and provide a sustainable source of food for humans and many ocean species. In a world of discouraging environmental news, stories of the proven successes and future potential of rewilding the ocean are a beacon of hope. 

Charles Clover is the Executive Director of the Blue Marine Foundation, and author of Rewilding the Sea: How to Save our Oceans. Charles has dedicated decades to conserving land and ocean, and made his name as an author and environmental journalist and editor. His book The End of The Line and the award-winning major documentary film of the same name highlighted overfishing as a global problem.

Delve into this conversation about rewilding the ocean, the mystery of seahorses, and witnessing one patch of land on Earth change over decades. Learn about the role of policy in protecting and restoring the health of our oceans, and how the sea connects to us all, no matter what ecology we call home. 

Listen at reseed.ca or wherever you find podcasts. 

Food justice is interwoven with conversations about our women ancestors and motherhood in this episode of Reseed. Food is interconnected with human health, planetary health, water, soil, animals, culture, and care. At its worst, the production of food is one of the most damaging sources of climate change and biodiversity loss, and it can be cruel to animals and exploitative to people. At its best, growing food roots us into this beautiful Earth, creating a reciprocal relationship with the land, connections with community - and the reclamation of rights. 

Guest Leticia Ama Deawuo has been a leading activist for food sovereignty and food justice for the past 15 years. She is the Executive Director of SeedChange, and spent four years as the Executive Director of Black Creek Community Farm, where she worked towards greater food justice with the Toronto community of Jane-Finch. She brings a unique perspective and expertise on food sovereignty, agroecology and food justice, thanks to her childhood spent on a small-scale farm in Ghana. She is also a filmmaker, currently working on a film on Women Indigenous Farmers in Africa that explores gender, racial equality, and indigeneity in African farming communities.

Ama sheds light on food sovereignty, a grassroots worldwide movement to reclaim food systems, with a particular focus on farmers’ rights. It focuses on the right to food, and grapples with questions of land ownership, distribution of resources, workers’ rights, environmental justice, and historical injustices. Could anything be more prescient to our precarious moment when workers are rising up and the Earth cries for our radical care?

Listen at reseed.ca or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Fossil fuel narratives seep into our culture, media, politics, and minds like pesticides through soil, water, and food. It can be hard to know where these pervasive and damaging narratives started, or how to extricate them from our lives. Fortunately, we can create our own hopeful narratives of possible climate futures that run like fast-moving rivers from person to person. 

Guest Grace Nosek is a climate justice scholar, community organizer, and storyteller. Grace has spent years studying and deconstructing the narratives and tactics of the fossil fuel industry - as well as creating her own hopeful climate narratives like the Ava of the Gaia trilogy and the Rootbound project. Her research on climate litigation and storytelling was cited in a critical international report and she contributed to the Good Energy Playbook on climate storytelling for Hollywood screenwriters.

We do not need to push for a more hopeful climate future alone. We do not need to dwell in a place of crisis, fear, and scarcity all the time. We can find the veins and rivulets of care that already exist in the growing climate movement, and together rewrite the future to be one - not of uncertain doom - but one of collective care, no matter what we may face.

Oceans, cities, farming, media, storytelling, seeds,  soil, and activism are being reimagined and revolutionized by the captivating guests who join season 2 of Reseed. 

Host Alice Irene Whittaker delves into thought-provoking, in-depth conversations with people who are repairing our relationships with nature. Seeds of change are being planted by these guests - and also by millions of us. Individually, these seeds seem small, but together, they transform our ecology and our selves.

We can repair, heal, cultivate, and steward when it is needed the most. This is our calling. Reseed conversations make space for the very real heartbreak of our moment, and they are also filled with joy, love, and care.

Listen at reseed.ca or wherever you listen to podcasts. The first episode of season 2 will be published November 1, 2022. 

We protect our gentle hearts and our fearful brains by saying things cannot change, telling ourselves it isn’t as bad as it is, or just ignoring environmental and social breakdown all together. Our disillusionment can be a slow erosion of imagination and hope, day by weary day, with global tragedies playing out behind our personal triumphs and pains. As an antidote to disconnection and despair, artists have a powerful role to play: making space to feel grief, sparking imagination, knitting people together in solidarity and shared experience, and rekindling a belief in what is possible. 

Guest Rebeka Ryvola de Kremer is an artist and illustrator who is creating a more just and caring world, as well as a learning advisor for the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. From guerilla protest art to art galleries to scientific reports to international UN conferences, Rebeka’s art brings creativity and human responses to creativity into many spaces and places. She sees art as a powerful medium to communicate climate messages and build community. Rebeka brings her faith in the power of curiosity, wonder, and connection to the work she does in service to people and the planet. She currently works primarily with illustration, visualization of data and information, live visual communication like scribing & cartoons, group facilitation, and public art installation. Her clients and collaborators include Black Lives Matter DC, the World Bank, the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, Yale University, Columbia University, and community organizations in Los Angeles, Washington DC, Mexico City, and Beirut.

Rebeka is the type of person who reignites your belief in magic and makes you want to reconnect with your creative self. She is also the artist who created the cover art for Reseed, and she was a part of the project before it ever reached listeners. This conversation examines being an artist in “serious” spaces, human migration across places, and disconnecting from social media and information overload for the sake of sanity and creativity. Art can be informed by science and evidence, and can responsibly connect humans with information and steward action. Art has often been disregarded or sidelined in climate and justice conversations, but creativity is essential for the revolution towards a regenerative and caring reality.

Listen at reseed.ca.