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Elizabeth Whitlow, Executive Director of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, discusses the recently launched Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC) for farms, food, beverage, and apparel products. Integrating three key pillars: soil health, animal welfare, and farm worker fairness, the ROC is the most comprehensive and holistic third party certification available.
The ROC was established through a collaborative effort by Dr. Bronner’s, Patagonia, and the Rodale Institute, all three of which are at the forefront of the global regenerative movement (see episodes #111, #89, #70, #69, and #63 for more information). Acknowledging that “What we do to the soil, we do to ourselves,” and the ancient Hippocratic maxim, “Let food be thy medicine,” Elizabeth discusses the connection between soil health and well-being, and the converse, soil-toxicity and disease (including diabetes, heart disease, and myriad cancers). She also acknowledges the foundational contributions of George Washington Carver to the contemporary regenerative organic movement.
Elizabeth Whitlow’s role as the Executive Director of the Regenerative Organic Alliance (ROA) is the culmination of over 20 years working for systemic change in agriculture systems. Whitlow began her career as an advocate for shade-grown, fair-trade, and organic coffee growers in Central America. Since then, she has worked across the spectrum of elevated certifications, both in farming and ranching. She is now leading the charge for regenerative organic agriculture, managing the holistic and high-bar Regenerative Organic Certified™ (ROC™) standard. The ROC is the North Star of certifications, building upon the USDA Organic label through the pillars of soil health, animal welfare, and social fairness. She resides in Sonoma County, California tending to her micro-farm and an array of animals, promoting community-driven, local food systems.
Regenerating the living crust of the Earth has been Elizabeth Whitlow’s mission since she was first exposed in the 1990s to the harmful practices of industrial agriculture and the power of building thriving food systems. Thus, began the long journey of examining the deeper systemic policies of agriculture and advocating for programs that reward holistic farmers. Now, as the Executive Director of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, Elizabeth is overseeing the launch of a revolutionary certification program, Regenerative Organic Certified.
RESOURCES:Web: regenorganic.orgInstagram: @regenerativeorganic
Transcript
(Automatically generated transcript for search engine optimization and reference purposes – grammatical and spelling errors may exist.)
Welcome to the YonEarth community podcast. I’m your host, Aaron William Perry. And today we’re visiting with Elizabeth Whitlow, the executive director of the
regenerative organic alliance, hi Elizabeth. Hi there from hen right there nice to see you Aaron. Good to see you too for having me.
It’s a pleasure that had you on the show, and I’m really excited to dive into this conversation with you. And it’s a very important one. And before I share with folks just a little bit about you and your background I want to encourage folks to like subscribe and follow our
our podcast on YouTube and on your podcast channel of choice.
And yeah, we’re going to dive in and talk about regenerative agriculture and the new
regenerative organic certification here. So let’s dive in. Elizabeth Whitlow’s role as the
executive director of the regenerative organic alliance is the culmination of over 20 years
working for systemic change in agriculture systems. She began her career as an advocate for
shade grown fair trade and organic coffee growers in Central America. Since then, she has worked
across the spectrum of elevated certifications, both in farming and branching. She is now leading
the charge for regenerative organic agriculture, managing the holistic and high bar regenerative
organic certified standard. The ROC is the north star of certifications building upon
the USDA organic label through the pillars of soil health, animal welfare, and social fairness.
Now, in the approximately 37 seconds it took for me to read this brief bio, we have lost the
equivalent of 18 soccer fields of living top soil on our planet. And Elizabeth, it feels like
that is exactly the right place to kick off our conversation. Can you paint the picture and just
tell us a bit about what’s going on with soil right now? Yeah, then that’s and thank you so much
for the introduction. And that’s why it that bio ends with that really startling statistics. Like
it makes it so tangible for all of us. In this little moments that we get to say hello and talk
to each other, we’re losing field after field of top soil is blowing away and being destroyed
due to industrialized agriculture. So that is really where we can begin. And there’s a lot of
interest right now in soil, a lot of learning going on. It’s very emergent kind of topic where people
coming to this awareness of the fact that we’ve got more living beings in one teaspoon of soil
than we have humans on the planet. Another startling statistic that is kind of mind-boggling when
you try to get your head around that. That 85% of those living beings in that one little teaspoon
have not yet been identified. And all the different complex interactions that are going on between
all these living beings are still to be learned. We have so much to learn about what’s going on in
the soil. And so I think it’s just a really important and great starting point on why it is
important to farm in a way that preserves the soil. What we do to the soil, we do to ourselves.
It is the bedrock of our civilization, our culture. And I think the time for soil is now
the year of soil was a couple of years ago. I don’t know if you recall this, but it’s only
wonky kind of folks like me probably who were paying attention to that. But now it feels like a lot
more people are paying attention. And so I’m really grateful for the time to come and talk to your
audience. I know your listeners already are so up on all these topics and are probably very
well aware of what’s going on. But happy to jump in and elaborate on any points. So thanks, Aaron.
Yeah, you know absolutely. And we’re all learning together. And even if we’re hearing something
again, I think it really helps us absorb and understand even more deeply when we hear
additional perspectives on these same topics. And I’m encouraged to note that this is now
the decade on ecosystem restoration with the whole community through the United Nations. And of
course, soil is central to all of that work. So yeah, I mean, soil is so remarkable. And let’s
just talk a little bit about what you guys are doing with the certification and why
you chose the three pillars that you chose. Yeah, that’s the great starting point. So
I’m so lucky to be the executive director of the Regenerative Organical Alliance. You’ve had
several founding members from the ROA on your podcast that you had some great interviews with
my dear brother, David Bronner and Garo and Jeff Moyer. And you know, these are the founders
of the ROA along with the Patagonia company, Patagonia and not just the clothing, but they’ve
also got a food brand. And so these four founders or three really Patagonia, Rodale and Bronners,
came together and created the Regenerative Organic Certified Framework because they were
concerned about what they saw as kind of a weakening of the organic kind of the way organic was
being implemented on the ground. A weakening of the standard, there was this allowance for
hydroponics, which was a huge deal within that sector in 2017. On top of the Trump administration had
removed any provisions for animal welfare from the organic programs. So therefore, we were
ending up with kind of more factory style farms in the livestock realm for organic. And
yeah, there were just a lot of different concerns that were kind of coming up, bubbling up around a
weakening of the organic standards. So the founders came together and they were like, all right,
wait a minute, we love organic. We believe in organic. It’s the highest label out there. It’s the
highest designation you can earn as a farmer. It’s a lot of work many times. But we want to add to that.
We want to add on these additional provisions around soil health and around animal welfare.
And then also a really important and often overlooked. Critical component is the humans who work
in these systems. So they added this social fairness pillar to the framework and this is meant to
ensure fair treatment to farmers and to farm workers. And so those three pillars are the central
tenants of the programs, soil health and land management practices, animal welfare, and then
fairness to farmers and farm workers. And can you tell us a bit about some of the farmers and
ranchers that you’re already working with? And I know that you’ve got not only the incredible
accomplishment of putting this certification together and that is no small fee to maybe we can
dive into some of the details of the framework in a moment. But now you’re in the process of
implementation. And I imagine there’s a long line of farmers and ranchers who would like to
get this certification. You know, what does that look like, you know, sort of boots on the ground
and behind the scene? Yeah, we are super busy. We have been busy since the day I started.
It’s never slowed down and I keep getting to grow my team and get more people, but we seem
busier every time I don’t know. I keep thinking like, okay, we’re going to finally catch up now.
We’re not because I think everybody wants this. Everybody is reaching for this kind of ideal
of some things that would, you know, they can really feel good about in their purchases. And I
think one thing like just to kind of set that stage around agriculture as a huge problem
in this world. It contributes like up to 25, 30% of industrial kind of emissions, greenhouse
gases, but agriculture also has this huge potential to be a solution. And so how do we make this?
How do we help farmers get along this journey and farmers implement these practices and then
consumers learn to recognize and reward these farmers and pay the premiums that they deserve?
Those are all kind of really important aspects of this. The Rodale Institute has been looking
at regenerative organic farming for quite some time. In fact, Jeff Moyer is the CEO and ED there
at Rodale. And he founded this concept around the roller crimper. Long like I can’t remember,
I saw him first speak about that Aaron at the conference we were talking about where we’re going
to see each other in January the eco farm conference. So I saw Jeff speak about that roller crimper
there. And it’s just a really, there’s some fascinating work being done on the ground as far as
implementing new regenerative practices. There’s a whole contingent up north and west of you
up there in the Dakotas and Nebraska who have been doing a lot of incorporation of regenerative
practices. And so we really have to start there and we start with like how do farmers adopt these
practices a lot, a lot to be learned. But the basic principles, if you want me to outline some
of those principles really aligned with the regenerative, the more kind of general regenerative
movement is minimal soil disturbance. You keep the ground covered at all times. So that’s precious
soil doesn’t blow away. You keep living roots in the ground as long as possible or like vegetative
cover on the ground, a little armor, a protective armor for that soil. You incorporate diversity
into the soil into your planting theme and support biodiversity in that way. You bring animals
back into the farm and bring animal manure into the farm and grazing and all the kind of benefits
that that can bring to land. So those are just some of the key principles for generative.
So I’m sorry if I rambled on that. No, it’s really great and I’m scribbling some notes here,
you know, trying to keep up to do this summary in the show notes when we’re finished.
That is great to hear and it helps paint a picture of what’s happening on the farms. And I
was curious. I know many of our audience are familiar with this term regenerative, but I was hoping
you could a define it for us and also be speak to the potential risks we’re seeing of that term
itself, being watered down if we don’t have robust certifications like the ROC. Yeah, no, thank you
for asking that. I think that’s a really important part of this like the intentions of the founders
was number one, like they put the established regenerative organic certified in a link regenerative
to organic. And that’s key and that is putting a stake in the ground keeping organic from being
further weakened. And also to protect the term regenerative, the founders were really concerned
about this potential greenwashing from corporate interests. And they wanted to create this high bar
standard that would demonstrate and clarify what regenerative can and should be. And this is a
holistic type of agriculture that regenerates resources and considers all players in the farming
system from the soil microbiome to the animals to the waters. So we believe regenerative
organic always go together. And this is just something I think that is hugely important right now
and we’re seeing already in three years since I’ve been in this position. We now have very large
corporate interests. Everybody’s excited about this concept of regenerative and it’s becoming a
buzz word and it’s potentially getting weakened when we see that Walmart wants to be a regenerative
business. What does that mean? And when people are claiming regenerative by whose definition?
What is, you know, and so this is something where the founders put this framework out, got public
comment, 400 public comments came in and that’s when they were like, oh boy, we’re onto something and
they hired NSF International to be the program manager. And NSF took, they are an international
standards bearer. They have like 165 different standards they implement around the globe. So they
came in and they were brought on. This is before I was hired. They were the program manager and they
took in all that feedback. They worked with all these different task forces and advisory groups
on deliberating and through that feedback made recommendations to a second version of the framework.
The first version that came out said no till. And as you can imagine, you’re familiar with farming
and farmers were all like, what do you mean no till? That’s not going to work. So we want minimal till
or conservation till, but no till isn’t practical. And so there was a lot of, you know, feedback,
and critical feedback that was incorporated and addressed and built into that new second version.
That’s about when I came along. And we then did the pilot program. And so I’m maybe getting ahead
of myself. So I won’t go into the pilot. Maybe you want to talk about that in a bit. But just,
you know, as far as the term regenerative agriculture, this term was actually first
introduced by George Washington Carver. And then it was popularized by Robert Rodeo.
It was made pretty well most well known people we think perhaps because Rodeo’s our founder.
But it was made more well known by Robert Rodeo. And it’s a collection of practices that focus
on regenerative soil health and the full farm ecosystem. And I just want to acknowledge that
these practices, they come from traditional and indigenous practices that have been
searing land for millennia around the globe. And so, you know, I don’t want to underestimate
that contribution or make it seem like this, you know, the modern concept. It’s really old ways
of farming. So what’s old is new. Yes, it’s a thank you for acknowledging that and mentioning that.
And, you know, I think one of the one of the keys here that not everybody has a full appreciation
for quite yet is the degree to which we have toxified our agricultural soils and the waters
being used to irrigate those soils. Right. And, you know, this is this is one of the linkages
that has not only created massive dead zones, thousands upon thousands of acres of dead zones
at the river delta is the Mississippi and other great rivers around the world. But increasingly,
the medical community is linking this toxicification to our own cancers and other
severe diseases and ailments. And so, you know, there’s not only the climate imperative and the
biodiversity imperative, but this is very much about our own human health and wellness, right.
Totally. Food as medicine, you know, there’s food can be our medicine and should be. And we,
you know, we have an epidemic here of diabetes and heart disease. All these diet related illnesses
that we suffer here in the West and particularly in North America, I, you know, these are a result
of our reliance on our concept that our belief that we deserve cheap food, that we have a right
to cheap food. Number one, that one, I’m sorry, people may differ with me on that, but I just like
I really don’t believe in cheap food. Farmers should be paid cost money to grow food and to
tend to food in this way. And we have this false concept of like, oh, we should have dollar
dozen eggs and we should have all this abundance of corn and soy, which is used as just processing,
it’s just processed foods. And so cheap food is definitely not better. Everybody deserves access
to healthy quality fruits and vegetables and good grains and not like these massive kind of the
winter wheat, the soft winter wheat that a lot of people are developing the gluten, they have
problems with the gluten and digesting that same with the milk, the dairy that is mass produced,
same with the corn, all these people with diabetes, like these are all a result of the way we’re eating
and the way we’re producing our food. So yeah, it’s a bit of a, probably a bit of a soap box
that I can try and step off of. Yeah, no, it’s so important to connect these dots and I had the
opportunity to interview a brilliant young lady who happens to be my daughter about illness as
the eyes of the medical community. And she said that basically all illness boils down to
inflammation and toxicity. And you know, what we’re not going on especially in this country
is a super toxic food supply that is also highly inflammatory in many cases. So we’re sort of
getting the double whammy here, especially in the United States. Have you seen a new book
inflamed? I’ve seen it. I haven’t read it yet though. Medicine and the anatomy of injustice.
So Raj Patel, of course, probably most people know and Rupa is an amazing doctor and as she calls
herself Farmer’s wife, she’s right here in the Bay Area and she and her husband have known him
a long time, an amazing farmer and they’re doing some really amazing work here with some other
farming kind of ventures. He’s doing the farm the rooftop and they’re doing a lot of fantastic work
around this whole concept of helping indigenous people come back to their land and farm
traditional foods. And yeah, it’s it’s pretty powerful stuff. There’s also Daphne Miller
down in San Francisco. She’s done a lot of work on this topic. I don’t know if you know of her.
They actually do not at this point. So it would be fun to connect with her. Oh, yeah, she’s great.
Let me look and see what her book was. It’s pharmacophia. Farmer copia with an F. Yeah.
And she did a lot. She learned a lot from working with a lot of farm workers who Rupa and Daphne
both working with farm workers who were exposed to the toxic pesticides that you just were talking
about. And we’re talking about those dead zones and you know, you all are keenly aware of water
issues there. Colorado, what happens to that water is it keeps going down further down river
and getting more and more runoff goes to it and then it gets more concentrated by the time it gets
down south. It’s like just a trickle of toxic soup and who can grow food on that. And so there’s
an equity issue that is just so apparent to some of us and so not apparent to others. It’s really
challenging to think about solutions to that. But yeah, truly, we’ve got a lot of work to do.
Your comment about cheap food made me think of some statistics. I came across a few years back
that really shed some light on the situation and go something like this. Here in the United States,
we spend apparently only somewhere around 5% or GDP on food and something like 15 to 20% on health
care. Yes. In many other parts of the world, I’m remembering French statistics. It’s actually
the inverse, right? 50% on food and more like 5% on health. Thanks for that reminder. Yeah,
I forgot about that statistic. It’s really super revealing, right? Yeah.
And look at our health care costs and look at what’s going on in health care. And I think
it’s that pusher or farmer’s footprint who talks about this, like the trillion dollars that we
spend on health care. What if we just sent it on good quality food and grew, you know,
made healthier people? Exactly, right? And yeah, there’s a lot of opportunities for us to turn
this around. That’s the thing that I feel like your message. And when I get from your work,
Aaron, and Wiener, and what you and your community have been doing, like, let’s look to the hopeful
solutions. What do we need to do? Turn this around. And so, you know, there’s things that are very
impactful, very evident. We don’t have to prove the science on this. We know it. It’s been proven.
So let’s just go. Let’s make it happen, right? Yeah, I love this Elizabeth. And you know,
I think one of the secrets that hopefully is getting out more and more is that those of us who
are fortunate enough to be already engaged in this kind of lifestyle in the communities of
incredible farmers and leaders who are forging the way here, you know, there is a,
there is a quality of life experiencing that we get to enjoy. And I remember when you visited
Elk Run Farm just a few weeks ago, and we said, let’s not record a podcast quite yet. Let’s just
hang out and chat. So fun. You know, it’s so fun. And before you took off, we had traded all kinds
of ferments. And you gave me this amazing powder of beneficial herbs and roots and fungi that I’ve
been using in my smoothies and use some things. And it’s that there’s this this cultural experience
that I think our ancestors all had in their life ways, but we’ve really lost in this modern
industrial society of ours. And I think one of the real silver linings in all of this is we get to
not only restore soil and water, but also restore our own quality of life, basically. Yeah,
and that’s really beautiful. And it’s so true. Like that exchange is just really it’s so powerful.
And so so gratifying to just kind of like roaming through your your cabinet. Wow,
look at all this stuff. This is amazing. It was really fun. And your art and all your books,
yeah, it was really great. Yeah. I hope you enjoyed the Mulberry Strab. How’s that going?
So well, I mean, everything that you share. Yeah. Yeah, it’s great. I’m I’m curious if you could maybe
tell us just a little bit more about your partners. And I know you mentioned some of the three
founding partners, but you’ve also shared with me a number of other organizations who are involved in
the work you’re doing. And it might be nice to do a bit of a kind of survey and shout out to them
if you’d like. Totally. Yes. Gosh. So we have the other members of our board, amazing organizations
doing some phenomenal work. There’s textile exchange. And so like there’s there’s a huge
level of interest coming in from textile world. And so I feel like you and I are mostly talking
about food farming for food, but oh my gosh, the potentials with textiles and the interest coming
in from fashion sector is way up here. And so that’s some really cool stuff. And now you want to
think about cops and hemp, wool, cashmere, hides from leather. So there’s a ton of potential there.
And a lot of from high fashion to fast fashion, the fashion industry is really turning it around
and looking at itself and like, whoa, this is a very dirty polluting industry. And I think there’s
a lot of changes happening and that’s been pretty exciting to see. So we’ve got the textile exchange
representative. We’ve also got compassion in world farming. Amazing, really knowledgeable, technically
kind of super knowledgeable folks there who are helping us navigate the animal welfare standards
and find a way to let farmers, of course, raise livestock and incorporate livestock onto the farm,
but being reasonable about it and, you know, ensuring that animals who are going to be farmed and
raised for me that they get, I know it’s a little bit ironic, but that they have a really high
quality of life. Their entire life lets them live and express their natural behaviors up until
that one last bad day is my former board member, Will Harris, always said. The one the last bad day,
the only bad day they had was that day, you know, when they got to this slaughterhouse.
We also have David Bronner as a leader in a long time vegan and, you know, he’s a huge advocate
for for veganism, for less better meat. And so that is infused throughout a lot of our work.
Yeah, so we have others fair world project and Dana Geffner advocates on behalf of farm workers
all over. She’s doing a lot of work with the dairy sector here domestically and has always done
global work and then we have a new board member who I am just so gaga over is a Dave Romero
Breonis and she is from First Nations and she runs their sustainable food program and does a
lot of work around food sovereignty for indigenous peoples and she also was a former NOSB member.
So she knows the law, she’s trained as a lawyer, was formerly a judge, she’s just phenomenal
and and then Paul Dolan, another member of our board. He has always been a real leader in
the wine grape growing sector and we’ve had a lot of interest coming in from wine. And so Paul
was the leader who took the Fetzer wine label Fetzer company to organic in the 90s and then he
went even further from there, went and did up in biodynamics and he just keeps evolving and so
he’s gone from the organic biogenomics to now regenerative organic and he’s the chair of my board.
I think I caught everybody, oh no Alfred Grant, we have a farmer in Europe and he’s on the EU
mission board for soil health. He’s an infectious farmer crazy for worms and soil and all kinds of
good things. I think that rounds out my board and then what you and I were talking about was some
of our recently certified entities and I was talking to you about Poconos organic. I had just
been out to visit them and they’re just a ray of light in this work and really amazing folks
committed to food as medicine, the founders there, the founder of Poconos organics had some
health challenges that she was able to address by changing her whole eating style into an organic
now regenerative organic kind of lifestyle and she’s a big advocate for that and Poconos is,
this is the family, this is the Poconos race weight okay like I don’t know if you ever watch
NASCAR, I personally didn’t and I don’t but my dad raised NASCAR. Yeah and my dad was also an
NFL football player and after his football career he was racing cars and when I was home after I
saw you I was in Georgia and I had to go bury my my sweet dad that you know after losing him
last year but my brother was like Elizabeth dad raced at Poconos that was where I was with him
and that picture was white in his head off and it was kind of cool because I had no idea that my
dad was at that racetrack where I was just a week before but anyway that’s I that’s a side definitely
segue. Poconos organics doing amazing work and I had just been to visit our friends at organic
India they’re in Boulder and they have just recently become allies of the ROA and they’ve got
a couple of different farms in India in the that they’re applying for rock and so you know I
hope to see some sort of organic Tulsi tea from them in the coming year and they’re just amazing
folks they’re going to be opening up a really cool flagship store they’re on Pearl Street in Boulder
I’ll probably be out there to visit when they open in January so I expect to see you there.
Absolutely you know we’ll have to celebrate for sure yeah they’re going to do some really great
events there like educational events around you know healing of herbs and different aspects of
that and all right regenerative organic and yeah it sounds like it’s going to be a really neat shop
that is so cool yeah let me ask you know as consumers as all of this is
growing in scale and scope what is it we can be doing as consumers to help support all of this
and where can we find you know the the food companies and and fashion and clothing companies who
already have the certification yeah that’s a great question so one of the last emails I had
tonight was from my wonderful certification manager and she’s working in our database I’m
getting this almost ready for publishing we hope we’re expecting before like we leave for the
Christmas holiday that we are going to have the rock search directory live and running on our
website so you can go there and type in a type of commodity and you can get a search extension to
show you where you can get those types of crops or you know where those farms are located so that
might not necessarily mean you can walk to the store and buy that product right next year and
the second iteration of our farmer directory will include brands and products that are on the
market so that’s one thing I would point you and your friends to our Instagram page where we just
did this we had a whole series of titles we kind of like after my trip across the Midwest and seeing
all that corn and soy I’m like oh my gosh it just felt like so desperate we’re crossing this beautiful
prairies that have been converted to GMO corn and soy and this is awful and so we did this whole
like disturbing content post and we got a lot of interest and a lot of people saying oh my god
what can I do so we did a whole series of posts of what can I do as a farmer what can I do as a brand
what can I do as a consumer so there’s like 10 different things on each of those posts so
that it’s great and if you want I can say some of them out loud right now if you want I’m just
I just open it up let’s do it yeah let’s do it okay so as a consumer first of all um to buy
from farmers that’s the first thing is you know buy direct go to your farmers and get you know
be in touch with your farmer and buy direct and ask them how they farm right we don’t want to assume
that they don’t farm in ways that we would value and so um I just think you know having the
conversation is really important um also asking of your retailers and your brands that they are
carrying these types of products like it’s um pedagonia had a great ad campaign recently
to it was like demand more um demand more from your brands and consume less by the way
right and so like that’s that’s another one and um just educate yourself there’s so many
resources there’s so many ways to to support this movement to learn about the movement the
kiss the ground folks they’ve got a great soil advocacy training they’re about to embark on
a really cool project that we’ll be helping with and we’re going to try and you know help
anyway we can is regenerate America and it’s going to be all about the next farm bill and so
that farm bill you know we have this historic opportunity to influence change for this upcoming
farm bill the farm bill is why people eat the crappy food here in this country because of
snap because of the food stamps that drives people to purchase really cheap food that isn’t good for
them and so like getting more provisions in that farm bill to help people access healthy
foods and vegetables and help farmers to support farmers to access the land from marginalized
farmers to access land there are so many ways that we can turn the farm bill around so that it is
not just one giant sucking subsidy from on santo and cargo and all of the massive corporations who
have like 1400 lobbyists in Washington DC they get all the money they’ve got all the lobbyists
they get all the money and so the consumers people need to step up speak out and get that farm bill
turned around and so that’s going to be a great opportunity in the coming year to really activate
on that so that’s um those are a couple tangible things as a consumer that is super helpful
let me uh take advantage of this as a segue to uh to say that your instagram handle is at regenerative
organic and folks can also get a lot of additional information at your website which is regenorganic.org
and we’ll have these links in the show notes i want to take a quick moment to just remind our
audience this is the YonEarth community podcast i’m your host Aaron William Perry and today we’re
visiting with the executive director of the regenerative organic alliance elizabeth witlow and
want to give a huge shout out to our uh supporters who make this podcast series possible and this
includes earth coast productions the lich family foundation purium earth hero vera herbals growing
spaces soil works joyful journey hot springs spa earth water press doctor browners and
ecoversity and of course uh waylay waters is also a supporter and uh we have a wonderful uh
individual supporter program that you can join as a listener go to why on earth.org slash support
and sign up at any level that works for you uh on a monthly basis and if you would like to
sign up at the thirty three dollar level uh waylay waters will send you a jar of the regeneratively
grown uh have been fused organic coconut oil aroma therapy soaking salts as a thank you gift
so that’s um part of the win win win uh regenerative uh economic relationships we like to build
in the movement and of course just want to invite you again to like subscribe and follow
on youtube and on uh stitcher spotify apple podcast google podcast wherever you get your podcasts
that’s all very appreciated and uh yeah elizabeth i guess you know we’ve got uh in the coming year
a lot of very exciting uh things on on deck and getting on to the docket so to speak in addition to
the farm bill are there other initiatives and campaigns that that you’re aware of and that
you’re plugged into that you think we should know about um the american sustainable business council
does a really great job with this um i you know they um definitely keep up with policy and
upcoming policy bills to vote on and i you know i think the biggest one right now is that we just
passed with this infrastructure bill and let’s see how that goes um but there’s there was
initially a lot in there um to be happy about from choree booker and from others in this space um
so i’m not sure how much of that was intact i kind of lost track of it and all the
oh my gosh all the machinations yeah all the all that sausage making as people
wow yeah that was horrifying to see that sausage making but yeah it did make it and now let’s see
how it does with um when it gets to senate but um yeah that’s my opinion sustainable business council
has they do some great work on that so if you’re not involved with them that might be a good resource
for you that’s great yeah you know and i i want to share with folks too that uh you you were just
on this really amazing tour uh driving all around the country visiting all sorts of different
farms and organizations and i was wondering if you might just tell us a little bit about your adventures
yeah um and and we’re actually posting a bunch on our insta about it and actually i wanted to
also tell your folks if they wanted to get more information and learn more about regenerative we’re
developing out some really great resources and if you sign up on our mailing list we’ll send you a
series like three or four like the welcome email and then like some other emails with some great
resources and reading material and suggestions for how to educate yourself more about regenerative
organic and about these practices and what’s going on um all over the world and that’s the really
exciting thing too and as this is so global it’s actually we’re probably busier on the international
front than we are domestically and we’re really busy domestically so it’s crazy um so some of the
highlights of my trip i mean honestly one thing i really i had some reservations feeling like
okay here i come with California plates driving around the country in this big van and people
like we’re so politicized and people are so angry that nobody’s going to be nice to me you know
or like people are giving you your welcoming especially maybe like the west coast left coast
kind of liberal coming into the center of the country where things people are more traditional
and in fact i just sound quite the opposite i found this such a warm reception and so much kind
of graciousness and kindness and i was just really um it it just kind of filled my heart in a lot of
ways um in in that and visiting these farms was fantastic people really really need to see each
other and that i felt everywhere i went we were all just like you couldn’t get enough of like
having visitors and having people on site to see the farm and talk about what they were doing
because we’ve all been operating in this vacuum and you know gosh let’s hope that we’re going to
be coming out of it this year but um who knows who can predict um but yeah those are some of the
highlights um some really innovative farms and cool stuff happening that was great to see on the
ground i was hit about the most perfect time it was really harvest time and colors were changing and
by the time i left you and was heading west actually from you i went down to Denver and we had
this workshop with um we did a training for for N.O.P. auditors i think that was after i saw you
wasn’t it yeah yeah i think you wouldn’t tell us what N.O.P. stands for just sorry me and i my neck
acronyms in this industry at national organic program yeah that’s a federal law that oversees
tells us how organic works and then there are certifiers who do that work and so all the certifiers
any of the certifiers that we are working with at the regenerative organic alliance we have this whole
new territory which i spoke of earlier this social fairness component of our pillar and
typically the organic auditors have really in this in domestically don’t have any expertise
in this topic if you go to the global south or go to the international front where organic
auditors are all very accustomed to doing organic and fair trade audits at the same time because
that is like it’s been developing for 30 years in places where we see human trafficking and child
labor and all kinds of horrific things more commonly so here domestically it’s more hidden it’s
in the shadows and it’s not as as obvious to people that these things are happening right here under
our nose people are like oh but we have employment law we have OSHA but actually that doesn’t protect
the most vulnerable among us it doesn’t protect the undocumented individuals who make up 65% of our
agricultural labor so the social fairness component is really key in helping auditors learn
how to approach an audit in like it’s it was a very trauma-based approach to auditing trauma-based
kind of training and we did it in Denver with a wonderful group equitable food initiative
and their trainer from Chile who works with horses a lot and so we did part of our training at
an equine equine assisted facility for rescue horses and it was really all about body language
and learning the importance of reading like the body language of somebody who has been traumatized
in some way or another and learning how to be sensitive to that and how to handle it and in a
way that doesn’t further endanger them and so yeah it was a really powerful couple days there
that we spent together and and then from there after the training I just was head and west
yeah back to the west coast back to home and how far east did you get on your trip?
well I got to I drove all the way to Georgia but then I ended up leaving my little dog who you
met she wasn’t loving the trip so I left her in Georgia and I went up to Pennsylvania I flew
up there to get to Verdeo Institute and then to Poconos and then I came back and drove the van
up to Indiana and then started back across the country visited some really cool spots in the
Dakotas and in in Iowa at the Verdeo Midwest Center and yeah wonderful I was like such a cool adventure
it was really fun to be able to be a part of your kind of final stretch there you know part one of
my other highlights I could just share is because it’s really where I got my start in agriculture was
way too long ago back in the early 90s I was at the Prairie Institute or the Land Institute for
the Prairie Festival and that’s in Kansas and so I was really struck by the work that West Jackson
was doing then and still so like just reviewer that man and his work and the work that’s happening
at the Land Institute and so it’s interesting how this whole thing kind of came around full
circle for me because I also have always been a long admirer of a vanchenard and a vanchenard
was the one who got a hold of the Crenze grain and took it to excuse me to provisions and said
ask Bergett like let’s do something with this and that’s when they decide to make long route a
I have something in my truck just a minute. Sure.
Pam. You okay? I think I’m going to live. Good.
To the water. Oh yeah. A little tea. A little tea to get me through. It’s the end of day here,
almost six o’clock. It’s dark there too. Oh yeah. Evening hour. Yep indeed. Yeah. Well I am
just so happy Elizabeth that we could connect and record our conversation for our podcast audience
and before we sign off I just want to make sure to give you the floor. If there’s anything else
you’d like to say to our audience in general or any specific calls to action you might want to add
to what you’ve already shared with us. Gosh I mean I think I’ve been talking a lot and I would
just say like you know please learn what you can learn as much as you can about this movement and
support farmers who are incorporating these methods help farmers get on the trajectory so that
they can get to this type of farming. It does take a lot. Farmers are operating at very thin margins
and there’s a lot of volatility in it. Not only do you are you with the whims of like nature and
climate change floods and fires and all kinds of things but then you’ve got the market over here
and so it’s really tough. Tough road to hoe. So support your local farmer learn as much as you can
to support those farmers. Support the ROA if you like what we’re doing. Gosh we’re a nonprofit
and we could always use more support and when you support us we support them and so you know just
yeah feel free learn more about us and I think I’ll just leave it at that Aaron and thank you. I
can’t wait um can’t wait for the next uh I’m not sure if you can cut me off I’m not supposed to talk
about it. No we we’re we can think of by and uh you’re good. This is the great teaser for our audience
I don’t know where you’re going with this. Well we can ask about this thing that I’m so excited
it’s going to be coming out from you. Oh yeah we can talk we can talk about that in big terms
that’s a great teaser actually. Okay cool that’s not excited about and I’m excited about seeing
you in January. So I’m going to send you the conference um the schedule just to and text you
further so you get signed up. Yeah so Elizabeth is referring to I know some of you know this
we’ll be talking more and more about this in the next few months. I just finished writing
an epic eco techno thriller novel about these times that we’re living in and there are some
really exciting revelations and calls to action and so on and Elizabeth and I are talking a little
about this before we started recording today. So um yeah it’s going to be it’s going to be a blast
to drop a lot of teasers in the next few months and then finally share the book with folks
in the springtime when it’s published um but yeah Elizabeth and it’s so wonderful being connected
with you and having already planted many seeds for collaboration knowing that you know there’s
so much more work to do and that we get to enjoy collaborating and creating together.
Thank you there’s so much to do so much to be done and I know we’re going to get to
there together. I love that so thank you Aaron thank you so much for your good work.
I want you to do the I want to do the YonEarth kind of like YMCA thing but I’ve got the backdrop
on so I think my arms disappear. We’ll figure something out there too with Chris dance. Okay
Perfect. Thank you so much. We’ll see you around. Bye. Bye bye.
The YonEarth community stewardship and sustainability podcast series is hosted by
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