 a lot of the problems that we're facing in the world today you know I think of as kind of nature telling us sorry it doesn't work like that here you know and we need to rethink so you know we need to bring these different elements and the different crops the livestock the you know the trees the water and human living you know back into a more steady relationship and that has to be done locally you know it has to make sense locally in terms of you know the the local ecology in place. Chris Mage is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovator's Magazine. Chris co-runs a small farm in Somerset southwest England. Previously he was a social scientist working at the University of Surrey and and God Smith College. He has written about agriculture ecological and social issues for a variety of academic and non-academic publications and is the author of a small farm future which I have right here it was published by Chelsea Green Press and in 2020 so not that long ago he blogs at www.smallfarmfuture.org.uk he is currently a director of the ecological land co-op and in the show notes and description we'll put all his links and links on how you can get his book in the show notes and descriptions. Welcome to the podcast Chris it's great to have you. Yeah thanks Mark it's very nice to be here. So we're obviously here to talk about your book a small farm future and I've done this test to three people so far and showed them your book and it says what do you think this book's about and they're like oh small farming so maybe regenerative organic farming permaculture um I want I want to set it straight right right in your sub title of your book you're saying making the making the case for a society built around local economies self-sufficient agricultural diversity and a shared earth and you do a fabulous job but those who are expecting to hear here find a book just based off of the cover that we're going to hear a lot about farming practices and what to do best they might be a little disappointed because you go deep and you go deep really fast and and I love it and so I kind of just what if you don't mind in your own in your own words I'd love for you to kind of set it up a little bit and what your thought process was behind it and why you decided to go in this direction for farming and also I would love for you to answer the question if how do you think that's received by those who would potentially be the new peasant farmers or the new small agrarian farmers or the small farmers of the future those who we'd hope to reach or kind of convert into creating these new economies and in your thought process are they are they going to read this are they are they well read are we going to pick them up and catch them or do we need to kind of through this podcast and other means tickle them and grab them in another way right yeah a good question yeah I mean the I suppose the genesis of the book or like you say you know in some ways maybe it's a bit misleading that a small farm future title makes you think this is going to be all about farming but there's a lot of politics and and and history and and kind of sociology in it and I mean I kind of think we face these really intractable problems in the world today and you can approach them from more or less any angle and they take you into you know a whole bunch of other things I mean I happen to start from farming and I do think that's really important I mean I was an academic originally as as you said in the intro and and kind of uh yeah in in the 1990s when um you know people were starting to talk about climate change more seriously and and you know environmental issues were rising up the agenda and I guess I kind of was a little bit disillusioned with academic life and kind of had my midlife crisis a bit early so my wife and I you know we bought the little bit of land and and started farming locally you know we felt that this was kind of an important aspect to you know to to get into and that to sort of get right um but obviously it's quite hard as a um you know any any type of um small business small enterprise you immediately kind of face the you know the big juggernaut of the global economy and the the kind of way it you sort of get a bit crushed under its wheels and so that prompted me to start thinking and writing kind of drawing on social science and kind of bigger historical stuff you know why is it why is it so hard to to farm right or to do anything you know right to build build locality build community right and um the book kind of emerged from that um so and in terms of your question about um you know will it appeal to uh you know people how how will it um how does it relate to the new agrarianism I mean you know at one level I think you know some people find it um perhaps a little bit over theoretical and you know a lot of people just want to get their hands dirty and and you know grow some grow some vegetables you know build a barn and that's great because ultimately um you know that that's a big part of what I'm arguing you know we've we've sort of got to get down and dirty locally and and and kind of you know make our livelihoods and provide for our needs um but you know there's a lot of you know one of the encouraging signs I think in recent years is that you know farming used to be kind of like you know who would want to do that that's not a realistic job for anybody but you know in the 20 odd years that I've been involved in it more and more young thoughtful well educated people are beginning to to switch on to farming um you know partly perhaps because the mainstream job market doesn't look quite as attractive as it used to be but also you know for the same reasons I got into it people switching on to um you know food environment climate energy issues and thinking yeah you know we really need to um you know we need to get stuck into this locally and hopefully my but we'll be of interest to to those kind of people as a you know as a as a kind of overview and guide through some of those issues absolutely and I've I've seen you've done several podcasts around the world you know from America to to Europe and um spoken with a lot of the thought leaders also those who who get into the philosophy the theory that coming up with it you know what what are different economies that can work for the future so I absolutely love that and there is this thing so I've I've been a farmer for six generations a a biodynamic farmer so Demeter um um organic farmer uh and in this in this thought process anyway that farming has become not only political it's become a science and a lot of respects of how you do it whether it's regenerative organics whether it's permaculture or even whether it's especially if it's industrial agriculture uh very political and and um there's a lot of things you need to know and not only to how to how to run big big equipment if you do but also to to understand the mechanics and the politics and and uh are are you in it are you gonna be able to uh sustain yourself sustain your family continue on multiple generations so I love that you get into that and I think it's very fitting for many who are starting to say hey there's something wrong with our system there we've got to start to to do some fixing but before we go any further I really so we we've actually had this podcast scheduled for boy I think over four or five months where it was before we went into summer um I'd actually scheduled it with you and you were busy and and and working and couldn't couldn't get with me but um I want to know how in the hell have you weathered this crazy time you know we've had the uh the the brexit was part of it we've had the pandemic we've had coma covid we've had black lives matter asian lives matters we've had these floods around the world that are really tied to climate change and bad farming practices and and supercell storms and things um I generally am concerned I want to know how you and uh your wife and family have kind of weathered this storm and has there been any learning lessons for you as a as a small old farmer as an agrarian um a new agrarian farmer and I you know we're we're gonna get into some others any models that have come up and says boy we weathered this storm pretty good considering we had an economic downturn and all this other craziness going on in the world or where you hit just like everybody else or are there any kind of learning lessons that came up well I mean we've been very lucky really I mean you know here in southwest england we haven't really been hit with some of the uh you know the the freak weather events that we've been seeing um in other parts of the world or even in other parts of england here you know London and had some pretty big floods um but I think you know there are some agricultural learnings there in terms of diversity and and you know looking after the soil um you know one of the things I emphasise in the book is trade-offs you know it's um it's it's it's really hard to optimise on everything you want to optimise simultaneously you know so you you kind of you know one way of dealing with floods and soil erosion is you know more perennials more trees um more cover crops and this kind of thing but then you you know you potentially lose a bit of yield um but then I think you know that's the direction we need to be going in you know not not trying to max out on yield all the time but maxing out on diversity biodiversity resilience to to different events um but yeah we've been quite lucky here in that respect we haven't been hit too hard um this year COVID of course a whole different thing uh and again our our you know our business has been one of the ones that's been lucky I know you know other businesses have been hit really hard but partly with COVID and partly perhaps with Brexit which is a whole other story running here in the UK at the minute um you know the supermarket shelves emptied in the early stages of lockdown and particularly they emptied of fresh fruit and vegetables which is you know that which is what we specialise in and is what supermarkets um you know probably the worst at providing you know they're great at providing lots of processed and carbs and and proteins but you know getting the the flow of fresh fruit and vegetable you know they're these you know huge quite um fragile global commodity chains um so yeah within uh within a couple of weeks of lockdown suddenly the supermarket shelves were empty and you know normally we maybe get one or two um new customer queries a week and suddenly we were getting like 200 um and that was a real lesson I think not so much for us but for other people in you know in our locality about the resilience or lack of resilience of supply chains um and you know we did our best to grow a little bit more bring a bit of land into cultivation but you know we had to um we couldn't meet all of the demand we had to put people on waiting list and try and prioritise you know people that we felt were you know were most in need um and you know that um I think that that that did generate um more interest and more thoughtfulness uh about local food and supply chains you know inevitably as the supermarkets um readjusted the shelves filled again and you know one or two people went back to this sort of old familiar ways but you know I think as you pointed out in your question there are so many of these shocks coming from so many different angles that um you know ultimately I think we do need to rethink our models and and hopefully um you know in our own small way we're trying to do that here you you've been doing this for a while and and you're a social scientist um in academia for a while as well and I'm sure you just didn't write this all in just a couple months that it was probably a quite a journey this is I wouldn't say it's a biblical read but it is a it is a thicker very well thought out read that covers many different facets of complex system and also gets into some different um philosophies theories some different points of use and also touches on a lot of political or things that could be very political um I love how uh the book starts out so I uh I was one of the first 50 people trained by Al Gore as a as a climate speaker and mentor and and uh leader um and his ranch in Carthage, Tennessee but through through that climate reality project I had the opportunity to go to the Philippines a few times and do some training for other climate leaders and while I was there I was given some civet coffee right and this is the reason I bring this up this is how and I don't want to give away your entire book but I want to tease enough of some of the things that I just really found uh wonderful and then hopefully people run out grab the book and read it for themselves and kind of get into the deeper knowledge in the the multifaceted perspectives of what we need to be thinking about for changing to different economic models local economies to different types of farming and agrarian lifestyles or peasant futures whatever you want to call it um and it was when I read that in the beginning I was like oh and I and I was given this and it was presented you know this is coffee that comes from excretion of cat basically poop of these these civet I don't know it's a carnivorous uh almost like a weasel fox or a little type of uh I don't know what what you'd even call them yeah they're I think they're their own kind of genus they're quite unusual creatures that you know we don't have them here in Europe but yeah yeah it's kind of a weasel or a fox or kind of that's what they look like but anyway they've got a real fine nose and so they find these coffee um that when it's just the right ripeness and they eat it and then as it goes through their system the bean just the bean of they eat the fruit and then the bean comes out and it gets this anal gland secretion on it and the in the story and the way you tell it it's so interesting because us humans we're so so we try to see how how you know how can we mass produce this how this is fabulous this is a luxury coffee it's great how can we now cage these civets up and produce this on a mass scale instead of looking through the forest for poop you know right and and I just want to read this last summation if you don't mind um of what you say it's so it's so spot on in our bid to provide cheap food to our human multitudes the tradeoff is that a lot of people end up eating shit figuratively and as we just seen sometimes literally you know so what they did is they rounded up a bunch of civets put them in cages and fed them these coffee beans that one weren't ripe weren't made by the smell of the civets um and then the product that came out was not only animal cruelty but it was a product that wasn't luxurious and that and it's so interesting because it is really that that shit that we're sometimes eating the way we produce is just crazy how we've gotten into mass production industrial agriculture using chemicals and fertilize and pesticides trying to get up to speed with population and things and so that's how your book starts out and it is unbelievable that that story is in there and I've tried civic coffee and and know the stories of those in the Philippines who who are doing exactly that they're like oh this is that luxury coffee but what we've done is now they were the ones who are actually rounding them up in cages and trying to reproduce it and it and it's just not the same and then then in your book you you really start out with what everybody kind of needs to know the the setting the bar at what's what's our world what's going on in our world in agriculture what are the problems the top crisis is we're finding and it's the 10 crises of basically population climate energy soil stuff water land health and nutrition political economy and culture and you go through those 10 crises and relate them to your small farm thinking and how can we deal that what what what is the world that we're sitting on today what are we dealing with what do what does uh uh industrial agriculture let alone a small farm have to deal with in this day and age and really you um not only enlighten us about those topics which some people just don't know what farmers big or small have to deal with and then secondly what we need to do to get into another better situation where's the future going on that and um there's a lot of different views um there and I really like how how you bring that out and you're broken into is that three or four sections four parts three parts yeah there's four parts to the book overall yeah yeah and um yeah that's right I mean I'm glad you like the the civet story uh you know I learned about that and found it uh kind of use it as a metaphor for the fact that you know we it's kind of this real thing in in in the modern world where we think you know we find something that's that that's good and we think well we can you know we can make that you know we can make more of that and we can make it cheaper and you know there's this whole kind of narrative that there you know that there's we can do that with no downside and that's kind of partly I think why we've got into some of the problems um that the you know where we are um and you know it's a kind of strange moment in global history where some people are like yeah you know we need more of this and and you know like you were saying the way that we've industrialized food is and you know as we were just talking about supermarkets um there are certain types of food um you know that's something like 75 percent of global crop land is devoted to just 10 crops which uh you know mostly cereals and grain legumes which are very easy to industrialize and and and to process and to transport um and you know there's I'm not saying that you know they're great crops in in many ways and you know they've got a place in every agriculture you know we we grow them because they they do a lot of good things but we've kind of put too many of our eggs in one basket um basically and you know there is a downside you know both in terms of the the sort of global economics of that and how the food system entrenches um poverty for farmers and for you know people in communities worldwide and you know creates various other problems um so yeah the the book is um yeah I kind of go through those crises and and try and um um sort of set up um an alternative narrative and and part of that is to do with um you know we tend to focus on um the sort of initial problems that you mentioned like climate change energy um water issues you know we often look at them as as kind of technical problems kind of engineering problems if you like and and of course you know they do have that dimension but ultimately they arise out of um you know how we choose to organize ourselves as as societies you know how we how we think about our relationships with each other and with the natural world so I sort of try and have that trajectory from the more kind of immediate biophysical crises to you know issues like um you know politics economy culture you know ultimately that these are kind of spiritual issues almost you know so um so that's why the book you know it gets quite wide ranging because the moment you start talking about one of these things you know immediately um you know you spin off into all these other other dimensions um so hopefully in ways that are interesting to readers. I see it as really kind of the systems view of life and ecological perspective you are the director or on the board of directors of the ecological land co-op in in the UK and it's really interesting that you take this holistic uh systemic almost perspective that what you know all the things that you're touching upon in these top 10 crises um that that we're facing they're all really related to how our civilization functions how the infrastructure is and how they're tied to the basic needs of of us homo sapiens you know we need energy and if we food we need water we need these resilient infrastructures that are all bundled and tied together one way or the other whether it's weather or climate it's it's tied to that bigger system of where we get our food our water how our infrastructure is set up and and um do we do it because we're always running running um it kind of behind our exponentially growing world trying to keep up with population trying to keep up with production to to make sure we have enough or are we doing it because we're part of that system not esoteric not religious or not kind of uh this uh the crazy type of view but how are we keeping up with our exponentially growing world and what does that look like what are the systems and the main guys of the book is really local economies small farms um how do we create that resilience and that infrastructure there where we're at um and in that guys there's this this thing that comes up this political thing that comes up over and over you touch upon it many different ways how you know and you spoke about it when I asked you you know how we weathered this storm um being a farmer a lot of a lot of the global trade the global market your local economies affect do you make money do you have a market to sell at um how how does your your farm continue to go and how does the politics local politics influence that and so I really like that that's present in your book I need you to explain a couple a couple more things to us so in the book you mentioned peasant futures a lot and you mentioned new agrarian societies or to use the uh uh term you know these small urban agrarian terms and things I'd like you to kind of explain or define them for us so that we understand what that looks like and um in some respects I almost want you at this stage to kind of tell us the the summation of some of the solutions it's in the cover of your book you know small farm future um but it's really about creating these local economies these small farm futures can you explain that to us a little bit more yeah sure I'll do my best I mean um you know reflecting back on what you were just saying um you know one aspect of this I think is that most parts of the world over over long history over deep history have figured out um you know some type of local agricultural local livelihood making which is um quite renewable quite sustainable that cycles nutrients um and it usually does it you know there's a kind of mixed farming tradition where we bring together the different elements of the landscape um you know the trees the the the annual crops uh livestock grassland you know ways of using water and so on and it's usually quite um labor intensive or as I've been taught Helena Norburge taught me to say job rich and you know maybe that's a whole dimension of the conversation that we can have about um you know different employment sectors and why um you know why we need more people working in agriculture whereas the whole narrative has usually been about getting people out of agriculture but um the kind of essence of that is kind of working with the landscape good landscape design integrating the different elements and it's almost like humans then are kind of skimming off just the surface flow of of the ecology and letting it do its thing but we've got into this whole other way of thinking in in um the modern period where it's very much you know you talked about exponential growth and that's very much um you know the model of the of the sort of global economy where we're always looking to maximize return on investment um and uh you know I think that um you know has created some positive things perhaps but also has a downside you know we're back to trade-offs again and part of that is you know the downside is that the ecology doesn't really work in that way and you know we've tried to turn you know the civet coffee example is one you know it's like so often in agriculture it's like you know how do we you know how do we sort of squeeze more out of this how do we how do we make it cheaper and ultimately a lot of the problems that we're facing in the world today you know I think of as kind of nature telling us sorry it doesn't work like that here you know and we need to rethink so you know we need to bring these different elements and the different crops the livestock the you know the trees the water and and human living you know back into a um a more steady relationship and that has to be done locally you know it has to make sense locally in in terms of um you know the the local ecology in place of course that's hard to do with climate change and and and you know all the various other issues we're facing because it's not you know it's always a moving field we always have to be um um you know thinking ahead of the game but you know that that's the basic reality I mean the peasant thing is interesting now you know in some ways I regret um right you know it's kind of a term that kind of raises so many issues and resonances and you know to some extent I use it provocatively um but you know it's it's basically the idea of a self-reliant household uh you know set within a larger community and you know that's the way that a lot of agrarian societies have organized themselves historically um and you know we tend to be um quite scornful you know the word peasant in many uh languages or many settings nowadays is kind of an insult you know but I kind of feel you know part of what this book is about you know we can it can be a bit misleading when you you know this is like what I try and do in the book is not um not look that romantically not not kind of create a rural little and say oh you know everything was wonderful in the past we just need to replicate that but I think we do need to learn from the past you know people in the past figured out these systems because they had to solve real ecological problems and and we can learn from um from what they did you know uh one of the problems now is that we tend to be quite scornful about what people in the past did and are you know we've moved on from that but we haven't really you know we we face um the same kind of problems as to you know how to arrange our well-being you know how do we use energy how do we interact with the ecology so you know my book is you know kind of let's get beyond this kind of nostalgia versus progress thing and just you know just open-mindedly learn from how people have done things in the past um not try and replicate it um faithfully but but learn from the model and that's where um you know resilient household-based farming societies where you know people um know how to farm know how to interact with the local ecology um uh and you know create um uh social institutions locally that support that you know is is is something that we need to learn from but you know it also has its downsides and I I try and sort of address that in the book you know in terms of various types of um sort of inequality um you know various issues we we have to solve um but I think you know it's always worth wherever you are in the world it's always worth you know looking at you know what did the people going way back before the modern period um before energy was so cheap uh you know before the global economy made so many commodities available you know how did people organize themselves then to create a abundance and livelihood and we can always learn from that even if what we actually do isn't you know isn't exactly the same as what they did you know I think that's the first place to look absolutely and I love that you brought that up and I love that uh it's it's in the book and you kind of in your own way and and in the book it's kind of a snapshot of big history and kind of let us know many many respects you you all you don't go too deep into it but you talk about civilization frameworks you talk about how these structures are you bring up a little bit about how religion played a factor in in some of these civilization frameworks and and how it was in the past and and how you know the beginnings of agrarian society you know I could be said that it's up to the 12 000 years old one of the most successful economies our world's ever seen the one that employs the most people and is still growing and thriving today even in crisis is because it's the basic of uh energy needs for humanity breathing food and water you know basically that's that's the beginning of energy and you you quote people like Valkyrie Smil who's also said that you know he's written books on growth and also on energy and more than half of the book is all about agriculture and these agrarian societies and how energy and these things start up and are still going to till today it's it's really interesting because all those past models those lessons that we could learn of how it happened how it occurred how we got there what it was like why we did those things in the past have have really shown us that it's a it's a linear and siloed model it is local and a local economy but in a lot of respects it's one that we've seen more than 20 civilization frameworks and and the history of our earth that have collapsed they're no longer here we just see the ruins of them and all but two of those 20 plus civilization frameworks all collapse because of environmental or ecological collapse you know there's old stories of alexander the great you know going through the middle east and saying giving his description and some of the earliest histories of of of him describing what what it looked like back then green lush thriving plenty of food and and that and now it's a desert it's it's done it's you know there's not a lot going on there um right as far as lush and green right and that's you know that's a big problem I think in the modern world you know particularly with climate change and you know one of the points I make in the book is that we um you know one thing we've done is is become increasingly reliant on this small number of mostly cereal crops which increasingly are grown in a kind of bread basket parts of the world you know like the north american prayers would be one example um which are kind of semi arid areas which are you know very vulnerable to climate change and water stress um and um but also productive um you know as they've been very productive historically but the the kind of ironic result of that is is by um by producing this kind of real torrent of cheap grain which partly emerges from all the sort of the you know cheap fossil energy and other inputs and and also from government subsidies um you know that has historically has tended to undermine um people's um ability to produce subsistence um in other parts of the world and and using kind of more local subsistence crops and that pushes people into a you know a sort of more of a commercial model of farming you know in in lower income countries you know people producing well back to coffee would be one example you know or or tropical fruit crops um and that can be a very precarious existence so um yeah you know again there's this sort of trade-off this irony of of sort of greater and greater productivity threatening the the you know the ability for us to to to keep producing um you know to to keep up that abundance but also not being that great economically for us you know we need to um you know we need to sort of develop locally our own economies and that doesn't mean turning our back on people in other parts of the world but you know but uh kind of strength in diversity and and and sort of um you know as I was saying earlier attending more to those local ecological flows and making our local agriculture's um abundant and and ecologically sound and resilient and that means that kind of everyone um uh you know benefits from that. Do you feel like you're a global citizen and how would you feel about a world without nations borders and divisions of humanity one from another and I want and I want to kind of explain that a little bit in two respects one during this time of lockdown and pandemic food was a global citizen the pandemic was a global citizen affected us all over the world uh but humanity wasn't allowed to travel really we were on lockdown we had our borders closed a big distinction rise of nationalism and um I want to kind of get your thoughts and feelings on on this on this view if you think that would solve a lot of our problems the kind of where we're kind of not globalization in that respect but more so global citizens that we were also like species and food and things be being able to move around the world and interconnect with each other and the the other reason I asked that is in your book a lot of the the the science and theories and the people you quote they're all over the world they're they're in the united states they're and in Asia they're just stories and and historical things not only with religion they're world-based knowledge that that we're getting with experiences around the world and you you mentioned uh Helena Norberg Hodge and this is her book local as our future she does a lot with the Ladaki it's basically uh you know like a little Tibet type of a culture that he's seen these local futures occur but she's from originally from Sweden and speak German and linguists and been all over the world so I want to kind of for those who don't understand the distinction of this how can we be talking about all these global histories these learning lessons and and these things and what are the true feelings but how do we convert that into these local economies and kind of be connected and maybe you can help us as an educator in this wonderful book that you wrote help help us to understand how to decipher that right well it's a great question and I think you know in many ways it's the kind of fundamental social question of our age I mean the book was fairly as you say I did draw upon you know examples from many different parts of the world but it was quite generic you know I didn't I mean obviously you know I'm here in the in the UK and from a sort of rich country global north perspective so to some extent it's grounded in that but you know what I hope maybe is that people will sort of take the the the general analysis in the book and and sort of see to what extent it does or doesn't work or what modifications would be necessary you know in their own setting but I think you know what we're going to see in the world with climate change and energy the sort of energy squeeze in the future so so many of these kind of crises that we've been talking about you know it is going to be a huge challenge to the existing system of nation states and we are going to see an awful lot of human population movement you know climate, refugees and so on and you know partly what I want to argue is that you know we've got we've got to hang on to that sense of global citizenship at some level because if we you know if we revert to a simplistic kind of nationalist narratives or kind of you know here first you know we're the you know we're the real people of this of this neighborhood kind of ideas you know I think we're really sunk it's just going to be a recipe for so much misery and violence you know we're already seeing that in the world so you know part of what I try and do in the book is almost kind of like make a virtue out of the necessity and say look you know there's going to be people from all over the place all different backgrounds you know there's there's going to be the world is going to be upended in so many ways that we need to kind of create farm societies from anew and partly because you know in many parts of the world certainly here in the UK not many people know about or involved in farming and you know that's a problem but perhaps it's also helpful in the sense that you know we have to you know we have to learn this together we have to sort of create almost artificial institutions and I sort of talk a little bit in the book about the traditions of civic republicanism and such like as ways of helping us do that but it is you know and as I was saying earlier I think as much as is possible we need to stay communicating with other people but you know one of the iron is is that by attending to local needs locally rather than assuming that we have all the answers for people in another part of the world or that you know it's good for us to send our exports off to other parts of the world I think actually having a little bit more local distinctiveness is actually a positive in terms of creating you know positive connections between people in the world but it's definitely you know that that I think is the real fundamental social question you know as to you know how do we manage this transition in you know the sort of the very fundamentals of our sort of economic and social thinking which has been about nation states which has been about global trade and you know that my argument is kind of almost ironically that the you know the true globalism sort of is in localism but in being a kind of you know you hear the term cosmopolitan localism sometimes which I quite like you know it's it's not a localism that's kind of jealously guards its boundaries and tries to keep people out it's a localism that embraces you know whoever is in place and tries to figure out you know viable ecological but also social systems but you know that has to be worked out you know you can't just write a book about that and kind of say you know here this is how you do it it kind of has to be done in practice in place so you know all that you can do as a writer or educator is kind of draw attention to the issue and and draw on some resources that might help and you know the real um the real challenge is is you know is actually sort of realizing that um you know on the ground politically in real life so in the book you also touch upon a couple things that um and a couple different sections of the book where you touch upon neoliberalism and Darwinism or neo-Darwinism as well and I speak about that a lot and the reason is it's really as a farmer and I think especially as an organic or small whole farmer or subsistence farmer or one who is doing permaculture practices different types of there's this much deeper connection with ecology of the land there's a much deeper connection with your nature and surrounding and and how you use those as or you integrate as harmoniously as possible to kind of support each other and this this the staining sustainable system or this ecological system that goes on forever and in neoliberalism and neo-Darwinism there's really this this thing that comes out quite a bit natural selection survival of the fittest only the strong survive severe competition which is going back to industrial agriculture global commodity trade of food and products being shipped thousands of kilometers around the world you know that that there's some insanity in our industry in agriculture where people are shipping potatoes or crops thousands of cumulators across the world and those same crops are coming back into the same location to be consumed at those grocery stores but those two worlds aren't speaking to each other but that insanity of trade or that market that food as a commodity is just not only severe competition this neoliberalism neo-Darwinism but it's also just not how our world works and I'm kind of more of a proponent of Lynn Margolis and I don't know how much you know about her but basically that it's the symbiotic earth that's only in collaboration and cooperation that we work in harmony with with all other organisms bacteria micro organisms and this permanent culture and way of farming and interacting that that is one that can be resilient and sustain over long periods of times and so I love that you touch upon that and you bring that out and whether we're industrial farmers or small farmers or organic farmers I think we're not against each other we there is a way to combine and kind of enlighten each other how we can transition to something that will give us resilience and show us how the world really works and so I guess that that for me it ties to this this global perspective because it's not nationalism survival of the fittest natural selection which is a very a nationalistic way of looking at the world or a very divided way of looking in the world but it's more the symbiotic earth or symbiotic planet which is it's local to the indigenous microorganisms and to this symbiotic view locally but it's so much bigger than that it's that we're all these crew members on this spaceship earth and so I'd love to get your perspectives and why you kind of touched upon those and a little bit in the book but does that also why you why you touched upon kind of close towards the end you kind of touched about how do you go towards this small farm future and it's the super sedour state of of farming maybe explain to us a little bit more about that or make the connection unless I'm totally off base um yeah well you know yeah I mean that's interesting it kind of raises so so many different issues there but yeah I mean you know one of the problems is that the availability of cheap energy you know has has led to this sort of situation of kind of breaking down the coherence of the local ecology and like you say then you've got you know the the we're sort of maximizing on you know the the the kind of um the value that can be extracted globally from you know whatever the kind of easiest flow of commodity crops is so we get back to that thing you know like the 10 crops the cereals you know what whatever it might be um but you know I mean that's the the the funny thing about um you know an evolutionary perspective is that it's um or a social Darwinian perspective I mean I often think of a of an animal like the dodo you know which became flightless on its island because there was um there was no virtue to being able to fly when you're um you know a large bird on a on a sort of ground running bird on a small island so that was a kind of a strategy of evolutionary fitness but then of course people come along and a flightless bird is um you know almost literally a sitting duck and it becomes extinct um uh and that's the you know there's a kind of blindness to that process of you know natural selection doesn't think ahead but people you know we are able to think ahead and we are able to um you know not just to sort of identify you know what's going to make me the most money right now um you know it's more about um you know how can I make um this system that I'm part of resilient to long-term threats and you know ultimately what is what is life about natural selection never asks well you know what is the purpose of life um but you know cultures do people do it's you know how do I create good relationships with you know my my family my neighbors my friends my community and and people in the wider world so I think you know those are the questions that we just really urgently need to be asking right now and not assuming that um you know ways of maximizing value or profit are going to sort of deliver that by by default um you know that's kind of the Adam Smith argument I mean actually I talk a little bit about Adam Smith in the book who was actually a more sophisticated thinker than um you know that is uh than you get from that kind of uh invisible hand of the market um sort of thing but but but you know that's certainly been one development of his thought that um you know if we kind of selfishly concentrate on our own um immediate needs then somehow that's going to generate um wider collective benefit and I think you know we it's pretty much clear that that isn't the case certainly not in you know over the long run so um so yeah I mean I I I'm on board with you there that um you know we need to develop more resilient local farm systems that um you know that where we're uh alive to the to the different challenges on them and where we put them into this social context of you know what is this all about ultimately you know what are we trying to achieve and you know that's one of the funny things here our little site here we've got lots of people coming through we've got educational projects um you know kids who are on the point of being excluded from school we have a little project where they come here and um you know just just get to experience nature and it you know it can be quite transformative for them and you know we we need to sort of widen those those connections and those thought processes um in terms of your question about the super seizure state I guess that was um again another metaphor from nature from from from beekeeping it's partly um and it it does touch on those issues you were talking about about sort of nationalism and migration and future politics um I mean my feeling is that um we have these sort of centers of economic and geostrategic power globally um you know the US is an obvious one but you know other other parts of the world too and um and even and within a country you know it's the same thing it's a kind of fractal thing where you know here in the UK it's kind of London and the southeast that kind of dominates um the scene economically and I think you know that that that isn't going to change overnight but increasingly those power centers are you know it comes back to this extractive neoliberal model they are drawing more and more value um out from more distributed systems and sort of giving less and less back you know one sort of going back over the last couple of hundred years part of their success has been you know developing welfare systems developing health care social systems and so on but increasingly those are in crisis and it's kind of like people are uh are kind of putting more and more in and getting less and less out and when you add to that um you know the various crises we've been talking about um you know climate change energy water the the the kind of global migrations that we're going to see I think we're going to get to a situation where the um the economic and political power of those centers wanes without necessarily disappearing entirely I mean you know there's not going to be some revolution that's going to kind of destroy London you know there aren't some sort of goths waiting to sack London in the way that they they they once did right not right now anyway but nevertheless I think people are going to have to figure out these systems um a little bit more autonomously locally you know that that um and that's going to create frictions you know and it's and it's very hard to you know again as I was saying the the book is quite a general political argument and I certainly can't predict you know exactly how the politics are going to play out here or anywhere else I mean you know in some ways it's kind of crazy trying to write a book about the future because you know you're bound to be wrong in some sort of fundamental ways it's you know it's it's uh it's uh ideally I wouldn't really want to sort of be writing about the future but I kind of fulfill like you know the generations on earth at the moment we have to because it's so clear that the way we've been doing things you know and um up till now over the last couple of hundred years um you know are going to change they're going to have to change so we you know we need to apply our minds to that but you know I so I try and avoid too much sort of um detailed prediction or too many sort of blueprints about you know this is my ideal society that everyone should follow it's more about you know what are the kind of contours you know what are the kind of political and economic drivers and and forces that are going to affect us and how can we try and um you know we're not going to be able to fight against kind of like being a farmer you know you can't um you can't stop it raining you you can't stop the the sun shining uh you know all sorts of things you can't control but you try and work you know within them to sort of get out of it um you know what what you want and I think we you know we need to have the same mentality with our political and economic systems so it's kind of like how do we you know how do we create localism in the face of centralized states or you know sort of ideas of nationalism in the nation state that are not going to disappear they're not going to you know they're not going to disappear overnight but I think they're going to weaken and you know potentially they could um you know they could retrench themselves in all sorts of problematic ways that you know we are seeing in the in the world at present so I guess my book is about you know how can we you know how can we put a different twist on that narrative you know how can we try and create a better future out of them so um but yeah I mean I'm on board with you in terms of I think the poverty of some of those um kind of neoliberal and social Darwinian frameworks you know we need some other stories for sure yeah and I think you do a fabulous job of that I am in total alignment with you that we need to ask ourselves those questions we need to understand the big history and we kind of need to hear about those stories if we if we weren't educated in school about them but we need to start thinking and asking ourselves are because and I don't even think it's you're putting yourself out there on a limb by saying well it's kind of hard to predict the future write a book about the future because we need that if you don't and this is going to be my hardest question I have for you today I'm going to ask it in just a minute because if we don't have a clear vision or even a kind of a blurry vision of what the future is or where we're going I guarantee you we're never going to get there right without some kind of a course a direction a roadmap or an idea then whoever's in power whoever's politically leading for that four or five or eight year period or whatever it is are the ones who are going to be setting that for you and I guess that's where we become sheeple we just kind of a just kind of going wherever the wind blows or wherever whoever we're following but if we ask ourselves those questions I think that's that's that's really important before I ask you the hardest question today I want to kind of there was one last thing that that I really love that you touch upon in the book and so it kind of has to do with this ecological footprint this earth overshoot day was July 29th this year the day we went beyond the finite resources of our planet in Germany the Germany's overshoot day was Cinco de Mayo so May 5th four months into the year in five days they were already over their resources but that's based on this 1.6 global hectares which is replicable which means that if we each had that individually we could live a ripe old age if we were good stewards over that 1.6 global hectares now enough food water security shelter to self-sustain ourselves on a small farm and in in the book a couple times you say boy if we had that 1.6 global hectares what would our world look like what would it be I guess my question back to you is twofold one why why did you mention that why did you bring it up and two um it's it's really it is possible for each of us to have that 1.6 global hectares but it's a political thing in many respects I want you to know for over I think it's over 35 years we've been using the global hectare calculation it's scientific it's mathematical we've been using that for over 35 years to calculate earth overshooting but we could use it as an economic model as a small-hold farmer as a local economy's basis to it's a twist on universal basic income it's a twist on empowerment giving back to each individual to have them be the stewards and yeah they can still be part of communities and bigger cities you you give that stewardship or that global hectare to your community or city and if they're not good stewards of it you say I'm getting the hell out of Hamburg I'm going to go give it my global hectare to another city who treats the resources in the infrastructure the way that's going to sustain us well into the future and so I kind of you know that twofold question why did you include it why did you talk about it or maybe we could have a discussion about that and how do you feel about us using that as an economic model we've been using it in the negative way to calculate how shitty we're doing I guess earth overshoot but why couldn't we give that stewardship and use that as an economic model that that we already believed in we don't have to debate it otherwise we wouldn't be using it for 35 years as may be part of the solution to give that new a new agrarian new peasant futures you know the small old farmer yeah yeah interesting I mean you know maybe one way to to to get into answering that is just to go back to your previous point about or my previous point about thinking about the future and utopianism you know because again we use this term utopia very pejoratively it's like oh you know you're being utopian but I think we do I agree with what you were saying a minute ago we do need utopias we do need to sort of fix our our site ahead and think you know what is it that we're trying to achieve and you know the problem is if they're you know it can be sort of too unrealistic you know we need to be aware of the sort of complexities along the way but you know to my mind nothing is more utopian and unrealistic than the existing neoliberal model you know that kind of caricature of Adam Smith that if we all just selfishly make as much money as we possibly can everyone will be happy you know that I mean that's real problematic utopianism so I think we're sort of caught in this weird moment between utopia and dystopia I think that you know the kind of 1.6 hectare thing you know you could say well that's an incredibly utopian vision that you know everybody has their bit of land to you know to to produce their food and fiber and you know obviously in real life it's it's more complex than that we don't necessarily want everybody to be farming you know landscapes are different you know there's there's different types of farming different sorts of needs but I think it's it's useful to to have it in mind as as and to ask well you know why not why not more self-reliance why not more you know back to the land more more homesteading you know certainly we couldn't lead the sort of lives that a lot of people you know are familiar with in in in sort of very urbanized industrialized global north countries in terms of the level of consumerism but then you know that again trade offs that has its downside and I was just talking about the kids you know coming to our place who are so alienated you know so much loneliness so much you know so many urban problems violence drugs you know so yeah so I think you know it is worth focusing on on a different kind of future and on you know again going back to those ecological cycles you know if you've got access to a spread of land you know you potentially have your food you have your fiber you know you have a ability to build a you know to create a dwelling you have potentially a community and you know none of those things are you know a completely straightforward but it's something to to you know to to sort of aim at and part of the issue there is I think you know not you know not pushing in that exponential gross direction it's kind of self-limiting you know if you produce your food if you're part of a community you don't necessarily need that much more and I you know I talk quite a bit in the book in parts about this kind of tension between asceticism and consumerism you know because more and more stuff doesn't necessarily make us happy you know so again there's there's there's you know that there are these trade offs you know it can be dystopian if you're if you're scratching away on a tiny plot of land you know there's there's no kind of accumulation of resources there's no kind of supportive community you know that's a kind of worst case scenario so it's you know it's it's a matter of trying to make the you know trying to make the best of that likely future anyway because we know for sure that you know heavily urbanized industrialized societies that we've created are so energy and water reliant that you know it seems to me that that you know they're not really sustainable in the long run and in terms of you know turning it around and and and sort of making an economic narrative around it yeah it's an interesting one I haven't sort of thought the implications of that through fully but I think you know certainly a lot of this ultimately is about inequalities of economic power you know how we how we create boundaries between ourselves you know a lot of this is about kind of property rights and I'll talk about that quite a bit in the but you know I think we get a bit too hung up on these different political philosophies that you know it should be you know land should be run by the government or it should all be commons or it should all be privately owned and you know all of these things have their pros and cons and they all ultimately devolve to questions about you know who is making these decisions you know who has the power here who's being included who's being excluded and it you know whether it's public private or commons those questions are always there so yeah again as I say I sort of chart out a fairly generic picture in the book and you know exactly how you organize your commons organize your farming organize your property boundaries you know that's going to have to be thrashed out locally in terms of you know partly in terms of local traditions and histories but also those have to change in the light of of new realities and that's where the you know that projecting forward that that kind of new utopianism comes in so you know I can't chart it out you know for for every place in in in great detail but those are exactly the questions that we really need to be focusing on right now before they you know the more that we can think them through in advance the more utopian we can be in a way you know the less they're going to catch us out when you know when it comes to the crunch it's always interesting because in some respects so we call it utopian if we don't have a lot of case and examples where we can say you know no there there are examples or studies that have been done that these are better models to to go into those more sustainable or ecological type of futures that are more local and really there's more and more cases every single day coming out that conventional industrial agriculture and it's so inefficient that even some very hectare per hectare hectare equivalents small hold farmer permaculture regenerative ag and mixed use biodiverse equivalent piece of of land to industrial ag is much more fertile better for the soils better for the environment and much more diversity in the type of crops and the year round harvest of of different type of crops that they're seeing the not not only the short term but the long-term returns just a numerous come out there and there's just this year alone there's already been well over 16 new studies that have come out this says it's hands down it's a better model one of one of my friends and authors in in my book menu be as mark shepherd mark shepherd does regenerate regenerative agriculture restorative agriculture is his book and you know living proof you know water for any farm is this other book and restoration agriculture is this and he just talks you know that's let let nature kind of do its thing and set up your your farm no matter how small into into something that kind of you let nature work with along with you and you're not fighting it with chemicals and pesticides and things and that the over over time the returns are just continually coming back even up to large-scale farmers I have Eric tones mire he wrote the carbon farming solution book you know and he he was part of the drawdown review from Paul Hawkins book same thing he he has a much smaller I don't even think he's on an acre of land it's just a plot right in the middle of the city in Boston Massachusetts that he's you know he's gotten abundance of fruits and trees and vegetables and him and his son and are doing fabulous on that that there's cases that if we can do it differently we can do it you know what I think this industrial ag that we're getting in that that we do you talk about in the book a little bit on you know especially with the story in the beginning of how we're trying to keep up with the population demands and this high processing and how can we get the biggest return and efficiency is sometimes really coming back to bite us in the butt and it's really a crappier product a shittier product and it's bad for health in our environment human health the question sorry no no you're fine the the the the heart I want to ask you the burning question the hardest question I have for you today and it's really the burning question WTF and it's not the swear word which everybody probably these last two years have been saying but it's what's what's the futures and I say plural you know what's your vision what's your plan we know we know it's a local economy small futures small farm futures but I just in your perspective kind of maybe even as a summation as well what's the plan what's the future what's what's your vision well I think it's um I suppose my vision is a sort of mixture of utopia and dystopia where I kind of you know as I was saying I think you know so much of what we have become used to I mean it kind of touches on the points you were just making about the way we've become accustomed to the concept of livelihood is about an income it's about money and if you're a farmer it's about making you know maximizing your income from a product but and that's partly to do you know certainly in the rich countries with the fact that energy is cheap and labor is dear so you know we we we we sort of move to that quite monocultural model whereas you know a livelihood well-being is actually producing a diversity of foods that we like to eat producing the fibers that we need you know for construction and other such things so you know my model basically is a job rich peopleed countryside you know certainly small towns market towns you know not so much the sort of big mega cities which I think are just you know that they're only sustainable with cheap fossil energy you know people living and working in the countryside people in you know involved in trades allied with that and I think that's going to come about partly through force of circumstance which isn't going to always be very pleasant you know it's easy to mock this sort of thing as this kind of bucolic vision of the past but it's possible for you know it's a vision that a lot of people want to do you know a lot of people you know they work in the city they retire what do they do they want to buy a small holding in the countryside or you know they want to they want to have a garden you know so it's you know in some sense it's about kind of embracing that thing that you know and kind of not being embarrassed about advocating for you know the the the romance of of you know biodiversity the garden the farm but also being realistic that you know it's hard work there's a whole bunch problems that have to be solved you know the the you know farm communities are not always you know harmonious there's all sorts of issues about sort of gender and inequality so you know my vision is is really because we have to grounding that kind of small scale rural productive you know moving to a model of producerism rather than consumerism a world of you know growers and eaters as it's sometimes called rather than producers and consumers and you know being positive about the the good aspects of that whilst you know whilst not trying to sweep under carpet the fact that you know it's hard work it's hard work physically it's hard work getting the politics right but you know that is the world whether we like it or not that I think we're moving towards and so that's what we've got to focus our attention on I love that I have three more questions for you and they're for my listeners they're really takeaways for them that that kind of they can maybe apply in their life if if there was one or two messages you could depart my listeners as a sustainable takeaway that really has the power to change your life or a way they should be looking at the world what would it be your message I suppose it would be get growing get gardening and you can do that you know even if you live in a you know in a city tower block you can grow some stuff on your windowsill you know but you can also organize and get talking to people locally and that's a key thing I think you know if you start asking well where does my food come from you know how can I how can I support a you know a positive and life affirming food system rather than a negative and life destroying one you know not everyone is in a position to sort of you know we can't all just move to the country and live this kind of homesteading life but by asking those questions about food and by trying to take charge of it in our lives you know in however humble a way that we can it starts to build a kind of a new narrative and a new politics around it and you know that's what we need so at whatever level get growing I guess would be the message that's beautiful I'm you you mentioned that you have kids coming out to your farm and kind of an experience think what what should young innovators young people coming out to your farm who are going to be in your field or not be thinking about when they're looking for ways to make a real impact on this world or to change their lives um well yeah I mean that's that's a great question I mean I think you know we need to be talking about access to land for sure you know one one of the problems with you know with the way that land works and I talk a little bit about in the book is the way that property tends to concentrate you know it's like we play a game of monopoly and somebody always ends up with you know with all of the properties and that is something that you know that needs to be addressed so young people they need to be able to get on the land and have access to land I mean there's any number of you know we can talk about all different farming systems and you know whatever but people need to you know they need to have an opportunity to try things and to experiment and and and hopefully to do it you know use the accumulated wisdom and capital that we have in our societies to make that you know not not too traumatic a process so you know you mentioned the ecological land card that I'm part of that's something that you know within the limitations of the system we're in that the the ELC tries to do so you know I think young people need to keep some pressure on like hey you know farming you know I need to get into farming you know what can my my elders and betters you know how can they help me do that how can they help me realize that vision I love that and really the last question is more so for you because you were a social scientist and academics you still are but you were very heavy into it before in your life what have you experienced or learned in your professional journey to today that you would have loved to know from the beginning from the start say if I had known that would be leaps and bounds ahead a lot of people say a lot of people say it was the journey a lot of people say nothing it's the journey well yeah it has been the journey and you know I think if I'd known too much about what would lie ahead I might not have undertaken the journey in the in the first place but it's been a yeah sort of learning you know coming to farming like you know I think you know to be a good farmer you know people are often quite scornful about farmers or people that work with their hands and to be a truly skilled farmer is is just a lifelong process of learning and observation and I you know I feel like I'm you know a friend of mine calls himself a trainee peasant and I think that's kind of about right you know I feel like you know like a real novice but I think you know that one of the learnings I think is that we live in this very kind of word dominated and sort of intellect dominated culture and it's very easy to write a story about how the world is that kind of ignores the feedback that the physical world gives us so you know one of the things that I've learned from about farming is that you know you know hell this this machine doesn't work or you know the weather has destroyed this crop you know and you know if you're sitting in a study if you're an academic you can sort of write a story that works its way around you know these the kind of feedback of the messy feedback of life but you can't do that on the farm and you know I think certainly social scientists or you know it's kind of easy to you know it's easy to sort of build a story that you know that is a little bit detached from from ecological and physical reality so you know there's always something to be said for goes back to get growing you know just grow some crops get an allotment you know have a garden and I think that is a real stimulus to thought of you know whatever else you might be doing or whatever else you prioritize in your life you know there's always a case for growing some growing some crops that's absolutely true and it's even possible for those people who are my listeners who live in an apartment or in a small place I know a lot of people doing sprouting in apartments and having windowsill smaller gardens and it's amazing what's coming out of some of those a lot of a lot of good learning lessons depending where there are there are out around the world as well of different type of bugs and and things that just occur naturally from over watering or whatever their situation is but that is pretty much doable anywhere even in urban setting a good friend of mine Ron Finley is the gangster gardener he's doing it in Los Angeles right you know in the middle of a city so it is it is really possible to do anywhere and get started but the the hope is to get out into some real land and into nature and do it wherever possible and true nature Chris this is all the questions I have for you and this is your opportunity if there's anything that you didn't get a say or you'd like to tell us or catch us up to speed on or that you wanted to make sure we we knew or understood about your book this is your chance but I really want to thank you for letting us inside of your ideas and kind of giving us the view of a small farm future your book and pretty much everything we've talked about will put in the show notes or description but I really thank you for your time and your insights and wisdoms thank you well that's been a real pleasure talking to you I mean obviously these these discussions can go on forever I mean there's any number of things we can talk about but there's nothing particularly I have to add I think we've had a pretty wide ranging discussion and picked up on a lot of different aspects of the book so yeah I hope your listeners will have found it of interest and maybe we'll pick up the book and and perhaps you know come to my blog and continue the discussion there I'm sure they will and we'll put all your links and descriptions and push them there and I really thank you and wish you a wonderful day thank you thank you very much