What Your Food Ate
This episode "What your food ate: How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health" with David Montgomery, professor of geomorphology and author of "What your food ate", will take you on a journey through the world's soil and its effects on farming and our health. All this just after listening to the sound of Tabloid and before the records of Copyflex.
What is the state of the world’s soil, and how has soil degradation shaped the course and fate of past civilizations? Why is soil life so critical to regenerative farming? How fast can regenerative farming practices bring degraded soil back to life? How do farming practices affect the nutritional profile of crops? Does soil health influence human health?
We all know that diet matters and have heard the old adage you are what you eat. But dig a little deeper and the importance of what your food ate comes into focus. For how we treat the soil on farms ripples through to affect the amount of health protective micronutrients and phytochemicals in our crops, and what we feed livestock affects the mix of fats in meat and dairy products.
Modern farming practices reliant on frequent tillage, excessive applications of soluble nitrogen fertilizers, and reliance on pesticides have both degraded agricultural soils and reduced the amount of beneficial compounds in foods. Yet in farms in both the industrialized and developing worlds improving soil health through adoption a combination of three transformational regenerative farming practices—minimizing soil disturbance, planting cover crops, and growing diverse crop rotations—offers a profitable way to rebuild the fertility of the soil and thereby reduce dependence on fossil fuels and agrochemicals.
Combining ancient wisdom with modern science, regenerative practices can be good for farmers and the environment, translating into farms that use less water, generate less pollution, lower carbon emissions, stash carbon underground, and produce more nutrient-dense food to better support human health. It turns out that what’s good for the land is good for us too.
Event held in English with the generous support of the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
Photo: Erin Lodi
Talk by
David Montgomery
David Montgomery is a MacArthur Fellow and professor of geomorphology at the University of Washington. He looks at the process shaping Earth’s surface and how they affect ecological systems—and human societies. He has studied everything from the ways that landslides and glaciers influence the height of mountain ranges, to the way that soils have shaped human civilizations both now and in the past. He has worked in mountain ranges throughout the world, from the Cascades in the Pacific Northwest, to the Andes in South America and Tibet and the Himalaya in Central Asia. In addition to his academic work, he has written a number of popular science books, three of which won the Washington State Book Award. One of his books, Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life focuses on the potential for regenerative farming practice to reshape agriculture. He is an elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and has received many awards throughout his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship and the Vega Medal. He has been featured in documentary films, network and cable news, and on a wide variety of TV and radio programs. His books have been translated into ten languages. He lives in Seattle with his wife, and co-author, Anne Biklé. Their new book What Your Food Ate: How to Health Our Land and Reclaim Our Health will be published Spring 2022. Connect with them at www.dig2grow.com or follow him on Twitter (@dig2grow).
Music by
Tabloid
With a mix of neo soul, jazz, hardcore elevator grooves and virtuose handling of their instruments, these gentlemen takes you on a journey in sound and complex- yet thrilling compositions that will automatically turn one cocktail into several cocktails as the houseparty continues into the night.
Live act by
Copyflex
Copyflex was born in the fjords of Norway on April 1st. 1977, relocating to Copenhagen in 1997. Here he first worked as a stockbroker for a boiler room turned legit and briefly for a local financial scandals socialite, all while slowly getting a foothold in the city's music scene.
Copyflex is also the founder of tropical bass pioneer band Copia Doble Systema and a part of space bass outfit Alo Wala. Copyflex also works with the french actionist artist COLONEL / Thierry Geoffroy as an producer, representative and musician.
Copyflex’ gig record is impressive. He’s played places like reggae bars and boat clubs in Hanoi, Filipino sports arenas, pirate parties in defunkt cinemas, ghetto parties and clubs in Cairo, on the Ipanema beach and in favelas in Rio de Janeiro, at a mall club in Caracas, Copenhagen Distortion’s frenzied street parties, illegal bars in London, Roskilde Festival (also at the camping raves), in Rome’s dirty underground, Berlin's mad squats and posh venues, south american radio shows, college fiestas, Venice Biennial, Miami Art Basel, Istanbul Biennale, on more beaches, plenty of boats and countless basements.
