Authors@Google: John Jeavons

"John Jeavons spoke at Google in Mountain View on April 12, 2012 about his four decades pioneering biointensive farming and what we can do for food security in the future. He is introduced by Google Executive Chef Olivia Wu.

About the Author:

John Jeavons has been the Director of the GROW BIOINTENSIVE Mini-Farming program for Ecology Action since 1972. He is the author of How to Grow More Vegetablesand Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops Than You Ever Thought Possible On Less Land Than You Can Imagine, the primer on sustainable Biointensive Mini-Farming. Widely regarded as a food, soil, and organic farming expert, his food-raising methods are being used in 141 countries and by such organizations as UNICEF, Save the Children, and the Peace Corps.

John Jeavons website: http://www.johnjeavons.info/
Ecology Action website: http://growbiointensive.org/

His latest book, How to Grow More Vegetables (8th Edition) is available at: https://play.google.com/store/books/d...

• Category

  Nonprofits & Activism

[rubbernecker13]

This is probably the most important issue on the planet right now, I hope more people watch this.

[Nicko Ion]

Yes and we should all read chapter 14 of Yeoman's book "the city-forest".

What Jeavons is referring to is not that it takes time to regenerate soil. He shows it's indeed fast to regenerate a soil, that's what he did obviously, in one year he came from basically desert to a garden with his methods. It's about building a stable humus content, and this is a very long process. You can get a 8% org. mat. soil instantly with compost or crop rotation with permanent soil cover, yet this is not stable.

[aprat]

Science is progressing faster than at any point in human history and you want to go back to how they did it hundreds of years ago? Furthermore I'm not convinced yet that Jeavons has contributed much.

[sukumvit]

In conclusion, I think the one of the greatest tragedies is that occupations like farming, gardening and even building have come to be seem as occupations for "stupid" people, or at least the "non-academic", when in fact they are some of the most intellectually interesting and challenging tasks when undertaken properly. Corporate desk drone, on the other hand, could often literally be done by a trained monkey...

[sukumvit]

You assume people exist in neat "compartments" like "scientist" or "farmer" and only "scientists" can contribute to knowledge... Look at how much knowledge someone like Jeavons has contributed! Mendel's theory of genetics came about by studying peas - grown in his garden... Darwin's theories of evolution formed while studying relatively isolated areas of nature... Perhaps what we need is less corporate drones that contribute little and more polymaths - scientist gardener philosophers :-)

[Paul K.]

As I see it, this is about creating an alternative to the "factory farming" techniques, which are highly dependent on cheap fossil fuels. While the going is good now, it seems ridiculous to many that an alternative should be needed. But the way I see the trends and the data, it's critical to have a few different plan B's, and this is a heck of a good one. To put it more simply "these ideas are driven be anticipated necessity, rather than a feel good desire to have more people farming."

[aprat]

I didn't quite absorb everything about what the speaker is suggesting, so don't want to be too skeptical to begin with. However, it seems to me that he is suggesting that a much larger portion of humanity should be involved in farming. This seems problematic to me because it would raise food prices, and fewer people would be available to become scientist and other for jobs that advance knowledge.

If someone disagrees I'm open to change my mind.

[tigerone1970]

(Continued...) Lastly, you can very quickly build soil by: 1) adding water to the landscape, 2) incorporate wood or charcoal to sandy soil, which massively increases water retention capacity, and 3) let fast growing weeds provide carbon for the topsoil.

Once topsoil has developed, continuous crop rotation (Fukuoka style) is going to do the rest.

[tigerone1970]

I disagree that soil can only be built slowly. There are very fast soil building methods, like PA Yeomans keyline system (read: Water For Every Farm, by PA Yeomans). Also check out Geoff Lawton's video Greening The Desert, which saw a very rapid transformation of a salt desert near Nazareth.

[Nicko Ion]

Actually this will not happen in 4 billion years but in 1 billion year "only".

It will indeed help the biosphere if we choose not to destroy it. It will not be just fine at all if we destroy it. To be fine is to be sick ? This kind of orwelian way of thinking is a real concern. It seems it's even the minds that become eroded.

It's not because something can recover from a wound that stop wounding it is useless, it's a real help rather than wound something, help it grow.

[Jamie Somma]

Hey, John kinda looks the Lorax!