1. Unexpected Agricultures – The Human in the Food Web

With Lyla June Johnston & Michael Ableman.

We’re going to kick off the season by getting our feet down in the soil to talk about agriculture! Our two guests present a compelling vision of how agricultural systems offer humans a deeper sense of purpose that goes beyond the provisioning of food.

This is because farmers and producers often spend their days immersed in the lifeworlds of the land — in the delicate stalks of green, the humming of pollinators, the beating of bird feathers and the pungent smells of sprouting crops. Their survival depends on them paying very close attention, seeing and interpreting the world through other eyes, and by doing so a whole other human psychology unfolds.

Lyla June Johnston is an indigenous scholar, public speaker, artist, and poet of Diné, Tsétsêhéstâhese and European lineages. Lyla studied human ecology at Stanford and is writing her PhD on Indigenous Food Systems Revitalization. She describes millennia-old methods of agriculture that were ingeniously designed to harness nature’s flows, ranging from expansive clam gardens in the Pacific Northwest to the American grasslands. You’ll hear about governance systems and worldviews required to cultivate such abundant landscapes and how we can restore our relationship to farming and food.

Michael Ableman has been an organic farmer for over 50 years and is considered one of the pioneers of the organic farming and urban agriculture movements. He founded North America’s largest urban farm located in Vancouver, that employs people who have been impacted by long term addiction and mental illness. This experience has proven to Michael how farming can support profound healing, and with us he shares his intimate approach to farming, dropping hints as to how you can also listen to the land.

Episode Website Link: lifeworld.earth/episodes/unexpectedagricultures

Show Links:

• Lifeworlds Resource Page: Agriculture
• Architects of Abundance: Indigenous Food Systems and the Excavation of Hidden History
• Cultivating Food Forests with Indigenous Wisdom
• Lyla’s website
• Michael’s website
• Sole Food Street Farms

Look out for meditations, poems, readings, and other snippets of inspiration in between episodes.

Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock, Ellie Kidd & The Rising by Tryad CCPL

Photo Credit: Rob Kesseler

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