Episode 17, Carbon Farming – Crops to Stop Climate Change with Eric Toensmeier

There’s only a few days left in Eric’s crowdfunding campaign for Crops to Stop Climate Change, A Global Wiki! So go show some support by contributing or spreading the word!

Today’s guest is someone I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and learning from during a workshop put on by Crosshatch a couple years ago. Eric Toensmeier is the award-winning author of the books Perennial Vegetables and Paradise Lot, which describes how he converted his run-down city lot into a diverse plant sanctuary in Massachusets. He was also the co-author to Dave Jacke from episode 14 on the two volume set Edible Forest Gardens. Eric has a brand new book about to come out about Carbon Farming and the strategies that agriculture can use to sequester CO2 to help mitigate climate change. Needless to say, this guy knows plants.

Topics Covered in Sequence:

• How Eric discovered Permaculture
• Can agroforestry sequester enough atmospheric CO2 to mitigate Climate Change?
• What’s the ideal size for a sustainable farm?
• Sustainable Intensification
• What perennial species might become our staple foods in the future?
• Carbon negative meat
• Is eating bugs carbon negative?
• Tree crops along streets
• Industrial Food at the supermarket has better carbon footprint than a local CSA Farm?
• Biofuels and Bioplatics
• Crops to Stop Climate Change – A Global Wiki Crowdfunding Campaign
• Eric’s Brand Spanking New Book: The Carbon Farming Solution – A Global Toolkit of Perennial Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices for Climate Change Mitigation and Food Security

Again, there’s only a few days left in the crowdfunding campaign for the Apios Institute Global Wiki, so make sure you check that out on Indiegogo, it’s called Crops to Stop Climate Change, A Global Wiki. And don’t miss all the great knowledge on Erics site Perennialsolutions.org, as well as the page for his new book, carbonfarmingsolution.com.

Like Eric said, there are many people who saw this coming decades ago, and have been putting their lifes effort and work towards developing these holistic, nature based solutions, often times against the cultural and political grain of the times, and at great personal expense. So my hat is off to those who painstakingly laid the groundwork for the movement for cultural and ecological restoration that is currently swelling up just underneath the awareness of the mainstream media. All the solutions, and answers are out there ready to be implemented. OUR role is to now take these great gifts and apply them in our lives, in our communities, and in our cities all around the world. 

Keep your ham radios tuned right here, to the Permaculture Realized Podcast.