Whatever It Is, Floor It: Linley Dixon on Real Organic, Regen Threats & Becoming Irresistible

Linley Dixon is co-host of The Real Organic Podcast, the weekly Anthem Award-winning ‘Best Sustainability, Environment and Climate Podcast’, recently also named one of the ‘best climate podcasts’ by Earth.org. That pod is produced by The Real Organic Project, that Linley co-directs with Vermont organic farmer Dave Chapman, a farmer-led movement, and add-on food label, dedicated to preserving the integrity of organic food. 

Right now, Linley sees the same patterns that have beset organics, coming for the regenerative movement. And in response to a challenge from Paul Hawken, and inspiration from so many pioneers, including some Aussies, Linley argues it’s time to join forces. 

Linley is a power of knowledge and experience in all this, with an incredible story to tell. Having started with nothing, her family did the hard yards and made a go of farming, but in the face of industrialised headwinds almost had to give it up, before a legacy moment occurred. But then, a horror contamination event. It was gutting. And it transformed Linley’s life. Along with so many others now, in turn.

Perhaps inevitably, as a fellow podcaster, Linley interviews me at times here too! So it’s a kind of 2-in-1. We compare all sorts of notes, including of our respective journeys across the States and Australia, speaking to people of all kinds, politics and other beliefs. Again, you guessed it, painting a picture you don’t commonly see on the TV, and mapping out the successful stuff we can build on. And again, it all culminates in an incredible exchange stemming from the music question! Before we go out with a subscriber voicemail.

This conversation was recorded just before the article I published on Substack last week on Trump’s Executive Order apparently advancing regenerative farming, said to be in part some MAHA triage. But we explore all its contexts here, including MAHA, its promise, and signs of divergence from Trump. 

We also look for what actually works: alliances across labels, cooperative models, food-as-medicine programs, directories and online marketplaces that connect eaters directly to trustworthy farms, and the cultural fuel it takes to keep pushing when the system is designed for consolidation. 

So ultimately, this episode feels perfectly timed this week. It really felt like we’d settled in on the porch at the farm too. I hope you enjoy the Summer evening hang with us.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 2 July 2026.

If you care about regenerative farming, organic integrity, soil biodiversity, pesticide contamination, and building a food system that earns trust, this one is for you. Subscribe, share it with a friend who buys groceries, and leave a review with the most important standard you think “regenerative” should require.

You can hear our visit to Churchtown Dairy, with Judith Schwartz and company, in episode 221: Restoring Dairy Farming with Family, Food & Festival. And the first listener mailbag went out from there too, in ep 219.

And the Grounded Festival podcast that features the session on Food as Medicine, with Steven Chen MD, and me hosting, is here.

Music: 

Organic Reflections, by Roie Shpigler (sourced from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

Transcript

A Porch Talk Sets The Scene

Linley 0:00

She's like, I don't care if geology isn't your thing, but whatever it is, floor it. Just, you know, go all out, and you will have the time of your life if you can just put that intensity and, you know, into whatever your passion is. And I have remembered that speech. It brought me to tears. It brought her to tears when she was telling it.

AJ 0:25

G'day, Anthony James here for The RegenNarration, featuring the stories that are changing the story, enabling the regeneration of this living planet. Linley Dixon is co-host of the Real Organic Podcast, the weekly Anthem Award-winning Best Sustainability Environment and Climate Podcast, recently also named one of the best climate podcasts by Earth.org. That pod is produced by the Real Organic Project that Linley co-directs with Vermont organic farmer Dave Chapman. It's a farmer-led movement and add-on food label dedicated to preserving the integrity of organic food. And right now, Linley sees the same patterns that have beset organics coming for the regenerative movement. And in response to a challenge from Paul Hawken and inspiration from so many pioneers, including some Aussies, Linley argues, it's time to join forces. Linley is a power of knowledge and experience in all this with an incredible story to tell. Perhaps inevitably. As a fellow podcaster, Linley interviews me at times here too, so it's a kind of two-in-one. We compare all sorts of notes, including of our respective journeys across the States and Australia, speaking to people of all kinds, politics, and other beliefs. Again, you guessed it, painting a picture you don't commonly see on the TV or the internet, and mapping out the successful stuff we can build on. And again, it all culminates in an incredible exchange stemming from the music question before we go out with a subscriber voicemail. This conversation was recorded at Tad Before the article I published on Substack last week on Trump's executive order apparently advancing regenerative farming, said to be in some part Maha Triage. But we explore all its contexts here, including Maha, its promise, and signs of divergence from Trump. So ultimately, this episode feels perfectly timed this week. It really felt like we'd settled in on the porch at the farm too. So I hope you enjoy the summer evening

Building A Farm From Nothing

AJ 2:28

hang. G'day Linley, great to speak to you. Thanks for joining me.

Linley 2:32

Thanks for having me, Anthony. This is usually pretty fun.

AJ 2:34

Yes. No, I'm so looking forward to it. Having heard you a lot and seeing you, of course, on your channel as well. So I'm really glad you're here. Thanks a lot. Let's start with where you are, because you've just said you've got the farm out the window there. It looks lovely and bright and summery. So where are you? And of course, in a sense, I'm more interested in how it feels to you. How does home feel?

Linley 2:56

Oh wow. You know, no one's ever asked me that, but I think about it a lot. I'm in I'm in Southwest Colorado on a small family farm that we started from nothing. I mean, we're first generation farmers and didn't know what we were doing, had no land, uh, and it took us forever to get to this moment where I'm talking to you, and I feel like it's working. It's all working. And not only is our farm working, but I feel like we've found a beautiful community around farming, both across the US and around the world, of just the practices that we've figured out how to do over time. And we did not start there. It really was difficult. You know, I the first big one was land access, but then uh overcoming just how to do this and uh then how to sell all the stuff that we were producing. I feel like uh we finally figured it out. And of course, there are still challenges every year uh, you know, in production. We're a small mixed vegetable production, and some things fail and some things are just miraculous every year. So someone once told me, if you're not okay with failure, don't get into farming because it's just part of it. And you have to learn not to take it so hard when when things don't work well. It's it's a horrible pea year. It's been really hot, and the spring peas just hate that. And so, you know what? It's okay. We'll get a good year next year or the future, and you know, we can enjoy all the heat-loving things that are early. So yeah, you just kind of roll with it. Very humbling.

AJ 4:28

Yeah, and the fact that you can wear that, you have peace of mind as opposed to the stressful time it is for so many when they haven't managed to do things in this sort of a way and and have the buffers there and I guess the diversity and so forth. But I I I sort of want to jump back to the almost the first thing you said with the community. Is that to say that even your neighbors, like your local community, you're not a a pariah or anything?

Linley 4:57

Uh yeah, I mean, we wouldn't be where we are if it weren't for the support of our local community. Even our land access, we had been renting for years and we had decided to call it quits. And the farm, well, the community, um, the farm was a community farm. It was a CSA. And we just started talking about, well, the you know, land is for sale and the season is short here, so we need to build infrastructure, and that's expensive, and we can't just have it, you know, swept out from under us. We can't just move farms um and farm at this high elevation. We're in southwest Colorado uh at 6,500 feet, and so that presents its own challenges. Uh, a lot of covered uh greenhouse space, hoop houses, even our field production has remained, uh some kind of uh frost protection or even hail protection during the season. So we just felt like we really um couldn't do it. It was too expensive. There's beautiful water here in this valley. And uh so we decided to call it quits. And the community found out, and uh through the grapevine, there was this piece of property that was up in foreclosure that someone had bought, and they wanted to see farmers on the land, and so they made it affordable for us. So uh not only the land access, but just continuing to support our farm um through the years. It's it's just every small farm needs needs a supportive community, or or it just doesn't work. It's too hard.

AJ 6:26

Yeah, that is a fascinating story in terms of what people who are selling, who are moving on, can do for the next generations, as it were, to be able to have the land cared for, if that would be a priority.

Linley 6:41

Yeah. They took a financial hit, right? So they they actually lowered the price of the land. And so ideally, there would be these land trusts, and there are examples of that. The American Farm Land Trust has done this. We just didn't have a land trust in our community that really acknowledged agriculture and and made up that difference for a small farmer. So they were seeing um you can't conserve land that's less than 30 acres, and this is a five-acre piece of land, and we're like, we can make a living on a small amount of land. Uh and and somehow these land trusts need to ensure that it stays in active farming, that is like their full-time income, and um makes up the difference so that, you know, there there's you often children want that inheritance, or you know, the farmers themselves need that money for retirement. And ideally, the land trust is making up that difference. I was just fortunate enough that the couple that we bought it from took the hit.

AJ 7:38

Yeah, right. But I don't expect they thought of it like a hit, which is saying as much about, I guess, again, how people have set themselves up, maybe maybe the good for I mean, however they did that, but it also says something about seeing meaning and legacy. I guess these are the words I've heard over here anyway, certainly when people are doing things.

Linley 7:58

What is value?

AJ 7:58

What is value?

Linley 7:59

Yeah, what is a rich life?

AJ 8:00

Bang. So it changes the frame from being a hit to what else are you gonna do with your money or your place?

Linley 8:07

Right. And this couple um one of them comes and helps us bag our produce, and it's kind of a social couple hours on Fridays before farmers market, and

Land Access And Community Backing

Linley 8:18

they love the food, you know, they get to take home food, and I think it fills their heart uh to see that they were part of in ensuring our success and and continue farming in this region.

AJ 8:28

Wow, to think you were on the cusp of not being there at all. Amazing. By the way, Lindley, at six and a half thousand feet, that puts you about at our highest peak. I I don't know if you've uh I don't know if you've ever been to Australia.

Linley 8:42

I have. Just cans. Yeah.

AJ 8:44

Just oh, just cans. What took you there?

Linley 8:47

Yeah. Well, uh, I was married to him, or still am uh married to a marine biologist. He just, I said was, because the poor thing is now a farmer. So I took him away from the ocean. Um and we lived on Guam for several years. I went to graduate school there, or actually um went to the graduate school at the University of Florida, but you know, did all my research on the South Pacific Islands um while he was getting his marine biology degree. So we took a a liveaboard trip down to Australia to see the Great Barrier Reef. And it was very stormy, so we didn't get to see a lot of we saw some really, you know, kind of cool things more inland. We didn't get to see um, you know, a lot of the sites. I want to go back, but I I don't know the health. It's been 20 years since we were there. How how is the health of the reef?

AJ 9:35

Oh, you know, it does what nature does, it comes back unbelievably.

Linley 9:40

Okay.

AJ 9:41

Especially as some efforts improve, like keeping runoff out. Yeah. Farmers are doing some amazing stuff in the catchments.

Linley 9:47

Oh, it's so good to hear.

AJ 9:48

And of course, people directly tending it are finding ways to uh well and they're observing more heat tolerant species surging. So it's a complex picture. There's positivity, but at the same time, the shocks, if you like, the heat waves come and still the pollution, thicker and faster. So and it's the same with the reef on the west coast here, which had been holding up incredibly well to literally just last summer when there was a massive bleaching event for the first time.

Linley 10:15

And I don't think we're talking enough about the soil I mean um the ocean acidification. No, it's a good thing. And and actually dissolving of the coral reef, you know, uh over time here. That's the scariest to me as as CO2 increases.

AJ 10:28

Yeah, and it's it means there's a context in which the coming back just can't get enough of a leg up. But you know, it just it just keeps coming back to, but it could if we if we improved the context, you know. So and there's efforts to do that, but we just could do it more, you know. So I haven't given up hope, but there is enough to say that yes, we are getting a window into what's been forecast for a while, that they literally won't be none of it will be here inside, you know, potentially a decade. And and as an ocean guy myself, so scary. Yeah, I that that's just one of the ultimate uh tragedies. But I guess it's you know, pick your tragedy, isn't it, when you get to that level of what the forces we're playing with. But fascinating to hear you are so you weren't in marine biology though, you were on that island, and then Ken's obviously related to that, but you're on Guam for plant research, yeah?

Linley 11:21

Yeah, I was an extension agent there for a little while, and I was studying a uh actually a plant pathogenic fungus that was infecting tomatoes and cucumbers and papaya, and uh it ended up being an evol evolutionary biology story because I was trying to figure out are these, you know, on a diversified farm, um, are these all the same pathogens that are infecting all these different plants, or are they, you know, kind of more species specific? And so your rotations and things like that can get rid of the fungus. So it's like what organic practices could actually reduce disease? And so I was collecting, because it was uh all the weeds were hosts as well. So I was collecting this plant pathogen from um all over on different islands and on different plants, just trying to understand uh the host range of it. Can it jump from this weed onto papaya? Can it jump from papaya to tomato? And that ended up being um a molecular systematic study. So in graduate school, I spent a lot of time like uh just sequencing uh, you know, all of these fungi and mapping them out and doing some pathogenicity studies. Uh and for me, it just gave me such an understanding of diversity, how life evolves. And um, you know, you I thought I was studying one fungus, and you know, this is actually a very specific fungus. And um, some of them were saprophytes, so they just could only grow on dead tissue. Some could infect, you know, the living host, but they were very host specific, like the

Reef Health And Ocean Reality

Linley 12:55

papaya isolate was very host specific to papaya. And others had these really um diverse host ranges. So these are things that we just can't see with our naked eye, and we were just calling it this one species of fungus. And then uh, you know, getting to dive in and really study the molecular variability and then its lifestyle, what it was actually doing, I just gained so much respect for how much genetic diversity is out there within one species of fungus alone, but knowing that that was true across all of life.

AJ 13:24

Incredible. So for all that's come since in in plant research, like in spades now and thick and fast, to you then I imagine none of that's been a surprise.

Linley 13:35

Uh I guess um I I'm shocked all the time by the beauty of uh what I see every day on the farm. And you know, it's funny, I didn't realize how much that that I knew I was always going to go back to farm, but I didn't realize how much that that perspective was going to influence my farming. And it gave me such an appreciation for how much diversity is in the soil. You know, I took all those courses, even if it wasn't kind of my specialty was in fungi and plant pathogens. Uh, understanding that biodiversity made me want to protect it on my farm and and encourage it. And so I do think it had a really profound impact on me. And of course, I um you don't really realize how toxic the other way is until you're personally affected by it. And uh I had my own uh contamination story where I was bringing in compost and it had resid uh residual herbicides in it and it it ruined my farm early on when I really needed the income. Uh and it, you know, it was being misdiagnosed locally. They thought it was a plant pathogen, actually. It was causing these virus-like structures on my tomato plants. And I said, nope, that's you know, this is my specialty. This isn't a plant pathogen. And slowly together working with the local extension agent, he was the one that said, Well, actually, I think this might be herbicide carryover. And sure enough, it was, and we were able to bring in a Dow representative because it was kind of in, it was in the uh municipal compost, the compost that people were picking up at the fairgrounds and you know, sharing in everybody's gardens. So we brought in uh the representative from Dow, this poor sweet, like recently hired to like take the community rage, you know. Of course, you know, some uh high up and a tie did not come. Um, and you know, they basically said, this is on you to make sure that any uh manure that uh has eaten hay that has but had our herbicide sprayed on it, you cannot use that in your garden. And it was just like that's what organic farmers do. You know, we cycle carbon on our farms and we cycle the waste of our community, and our waste is contaminated. So that was my big aha moment that I can't just farm in my own um little world over here. I have to kind of be more activist about the issues and the contamination that we're facing on a bigger scale. It's all connected.

AJ 16:01

Wow. How far into your farming journey was that? And what did you do next?

Linley 16:09

Year one.

AJ 16:10

Oh no.

Linley 16:11

You know, I I I was just like, oh my goodness, here's, you know, driving around collecting hay and here's a pile of manure, knock on the door. You know, I'm a farmer. I'd love to get some of your, you know, composted manure. I got the oldest piles, 10 years old, you know. I thought for sure it was like black gold, right? This is just the best stuff ever. And because it's so dry here, you know, if you look on the labels of these herbicides, they say it breaks down in 18 months. And this is a 10-year pile. Uh, but it's dry here. So there's not a lot of, you know, the piles can kind of go static, even though it looked like gorgeous compost. This herbicide had lasted through through that whole, you know, uh degradation of all the organic matter through the cow, you know, gut of the cow. Yes. And then sitting there exposed, you know, for 10 years and and the herbicide's still still there. So uh it's incredible. I I I think I never realized um, yeah, just how bad it was until it affects you personally. So it took uh three years, and you could there were other crops that the I mean these were parts per billion that were affecting the plants growing, so very small amounts, hormone-like um herbicides that that cause this effect. I mean, if you think about it, we're spraying these herbicides on pasture to kill broadleaf plants, and we're growing broadleaf plants, so it makes sense. But um it yeah, you could like cucurbits would grow. So I just my plan was to grow greenhouse tomatoes, and I'm doing that now, but I for a while I had to grow basil and cucurbits and things that just didn't react to this herbicide. So I figured it out, but I mean that was just one gut punch of many, you know, that that still come with farming.

AJ 17:50

Oh, yeah. So then what what was next? Was the real organic project? Is that what came next?

Linley 17:57

Well, uh So in order to get our own farmland, I realized that one of us had to work off the farm. And you know, I had kind of the most ability to do that with my degree. So started looking for jobs, and I started working for this nonprofit before the real organic project that went to the National Organic Standards Board meeting. So these are our national meetings that happen twice a year where we discuss, you know, is this input allowed in organic? And usually there's no farmers

Studying Fungal Diversity On Guam

Linley 18:25

there, it's all um these input uh, you know, the businesses, the suppliers, and they're fighting to get it on the national list and allowed in organic. And then you have all these great, beautiful nonprofit people who are like, no, you know, keep it out, and uh trying to protect the integrity of the organic label. So it's kind of this funny group of about 200 people that really deep dive, follow the standards. And I was looking around, I was like, where are all the farmers? You know? And in about it was about um 2016 where the issue of hydroponics started to come towards the board. Like, should we allow hydroponics in organic? And that um that issue is what brought farmers to the meetings. So that's where we uh had lots of protests and all these beautiful testimonies saying, you know, soil is the basis of organic farming. This is all we think about. You know, we're trying to grow our fertility in place for the next crop, and our job as organic farmers is just to cycle carbon. And so the idea of bringing in all of your fertility from some unknown outside source just it's just not what organic farming is. And it's funny, if you look at the organic law, um, AFBA, it's called the Organic Foods Production Act, uh, it was written in 1990. And this is a very progressive, revolutionary, regenerative law before that word was even really known. You know, it talks about soil. I mean, this was like the organic movement. There were farmers and eaters, and everybody was part of creating this legislation. It's a beautiful law. And so the idea that hydroponics would be part of organic was just so outside of you know what we thought was in the law, but we lost. And that's when the Real Organic Project formed in 20, uh, it was 2018, right after a vote in 2017, which uh was divided. And really we were trying to ban hydroponics. And since that didn't pass, the National Organic Program said, well, we're just allowing it. And it's really interesting. There were, um, if you go back in the history of the NOSB votes, um, back in 2010, there was a vote about hydroponics and they they didn't let it pass. So it was kind of this rewriting of history where the National Organic Program wanted it to happen because there were some really big brands that uh Driscolls is one of them that they wanted to make sure uh could you know keep their production the way they wanted. Um so it was a very top-down decision. And uh, when that didn't go our way, um it was actually really fun. I was like, I think I fit over with the farmers, you know. So they um kept meeting uh even after they lost and said, What should we do? And that's when they created an add-on standard to USDA organic. And here's the logo right here, the Real Organic Project logo. And we have increased uh pasture rules uh uh so that actually if you're producing chickens, they actually have to be moved on pasture. Um and you know, that's something that the National Organic Program has really failed. They've allowed these massive 200,000 bird uh buildings to be certified organic with the outdoor access that's required by law is just a porch. Uh so you know that was a really important thing to make sure that we were trying to correct. It was like, let's how do we create an organic movement that represents everything that we intended uh when the USDA has been getting it so wrong? So there were a number of issues that they realized were happening when they went to fight the hydroponic one. It was like, oh, this is a problem, you know, and we have import fraud and You know, the dairy cows aren't actually going out to graze. They're getting drought exemptions every year. You know, maybe we shouldn't have these huge dairies out in the desert. And so uh it was it was the farmers came together to address a number of these issues.

AJ 22:13

Wow. Let's come back to that, Lindley. I want to continue on that thread in terms of what's working, what might work ahead, and indeed some of the ongoing challenges that demonstrate perhaps what's at the heart of the matter. But before we do, did you grow up on a farm?

Linley 22:29

No, I was this weird kid that just knew I had to do it, but I wasn't exposed to it. So I gardened. You know, I would read. Um, I had Barbara Damrosh's uh, you know, garden primer in my night, like next my band uh bedstead next door, like when I was 11. I was like reading about plant families and how to do this. So I always knew it was something uh that I would do eventually. It just it wasn't an easy path for me because um yeah, I just I just didn't know how to get started without farmland or the know-how. So I worked on some farms. Um, but yeah, I was very, I was very drawn to just how biology and how does it all work. And it's it's kind of cool how it's it's come together and that all of those studies have connected uh back to back to farming for me.

AJ 23:16

It's fascinating. So when where were you when you were growing up?

Linley 23:20

I grew up in Baltimore, so in the middle of a city, and I actually knocked on my neighbors' doors and would have collect all their compost from their kitchen and I would just bury it, you know. We had a small backyard and and then I would like dig it up, and you know, I had this whole ecosystem that would form from that food, you know, like snakes and rats and all kinds of things, worms coming out of the food. So uh yeah, I just I liked watching the life in the soil.

AJ 23:44

Did everybody else like watching you watching that?

Linley 23:46

Uh I don't know. I don't know that anybody noticed. I was just that weird kid that just liked to like garden

Compost Herbicide Contamination Wake Up

Linley 23:52

and you know mow the grass. I just like be to be outside. So I don't know what my parents thought.

AJ 23:58

Didn't ask. And they didn't tell, they let you go, obviously. I I partly asked because we've got some good friends and podcast supporters indeed in Baltimore. Oh shout out to the Scott family and uh and that they're indeed making their little patchy yard into a vivacious garden as we speak. And and the initial neighbors' looks were like, What's that mess? Perhaps they've come around. Oh yeah.

Linley 24:19

My my gardens have always been a mess because I love the biodiversity. And like if you leave a weed and all of a sudden you'll see like a you know a bird hopping up and down it and eating the seeds, and you're just like, Whoa, you know, there's so many things to discover. If you just leave, you know, the plants, as long as you know your plants are big enough, you can have some neighboring weeds and they actually help each other out, you know. That was why the study of the mycorrhizal fungi was so interesting to me in graduate school. It's like, whoa, this, you know, next door plant isn't fighting for resources. They they're helping each other out, you know. As long as you can, you know, make sure that your crop gets ahead of the weeds, then it's no problem to have that green carpet around it.

AJ 24:59

Yeah, right on. I hear it so often. Keep your eye on what you actually want, not what you don't want. Focus on what you actually want. Yeah. So the parents weren't in farming, they just sort of let this kid run wild. Is there any your broader family story, your ancestry? Do you know much about it, where it came from? Have you been able to see yourself in anyone? Is there a throwback?

Linley 25:21

Huh. Um, you know, I think I think we're very American. Um, so you know, there's people that have like gone back to our history and like we might have been on the Mayflower or something. I don't know. But we've we go back a long ways and uh apparently we were either teachers or farmers in our in our um There you go. Or or preachers. Sorry, there were three teachers, farmers, or preachers. And it's funny, my dad is both. He he decided to be a preacher and then became a teacher. And it's it's kind of neat how farming alone ended up not being enough for me, that I did have that kind of grad school, and then now with the podcast trying to get the word out about how beautiful the soil life, how important it is, that educational component, I'm still very much drawn to. So I think there's that combination of farmer and teacher, you know, and and preacher, I suppose, with with what I'm doing right now, right? So it's in there.

AJ 26:18

100%. Yeah. So so then speaking of the podcast, then like firstly, yeah, congratulations for being such a success, such a recognized success too, with awards and so forth. So when did that start? And what was your I your thinking about, okay, this is what it's gonna achieve for us?

Linley 26:38

Well, we realized that mostly the Real Organic Project was not gonna be a traditional certification program just for a label from the beginning, that we lost organic because there were people on the National Organic Standards Board that are organic champions that thought that hydroponics could be organic. And farmers knew that soil was important, but they couldn't necessarily say why. You know, why does this matter so much? And so this became kind of for us, let's explore this issue. We're saying soil is all we think about. And how do we explain that to the customer? You know, why does your fruit taste better when it's grown in soil than those strawberries that are grown in this hanging pot that I, you know, you can experience it yourself. Um, and so, but we didn't really know. So uh COVID hit. Um, I I did do two years of the certification program um as a pilot just to like talk to organic farmers across the country. And man, what an experience to get to travel all over the country and talk to farmers about, well, we're losing USDA organic. What should we do about it? You know, what are the standards that we wish were there? Let's get them, you know, as part of our certification program. And of course, every farmer had a very different opinion about what, you know, forget the USDA. Let's let's just do this ourselves versus, are you kidding? You know, we've got something in law to protect the word organic. Why would we walk away from that and just hand it over on a pedestal to, you know, the industrial organic? We got to stay here and fight for it. So it was really incredible not only see how many beautiful diversified farms there are out there and their production practices, but talk to them about how important uh organic that word was to the pioneers that that got us the legislation. And honestly, as a you know, farmer that came around in 2000, I had no idea any of this history. I had, you know, I had seen organic, USDA organic as fairly corporate at this point and industrial, and you know, wondered if my small farm even should get certified organic because it was expensive. And, you know, the paperwork was a learning curve for me. Did I need to go down this road? And so uh then getting to hear from all the farmers how how important that fight was and why they even went down that road. And I think the regenerative movement is starting to experience that too. It's like they need a real regenerative movement, you know what I mean? And it's gonna be real organic, so we might as well just merge.

AJ 29:15

So let's come back to that.

Linley 29:18

Yeah, any anytime you have a movement and it's successful, the businesses are like, How can I get a piece of this, you know, and and uh greenwash it and somehow still not change what we're doing that's working for us to make money, but still, you know, take the market share. So it's that's happening in regenerative, it's happening in organic, and we just the importance of fighting for it. That's what I learned on the road from from the pioneers.

AJ 29:42

Yeah, that is fascinating. So you've got this certification, the label that you guys came up with, and this realization that the old's not to be given up on, they could be seen and perhaps felt

Why Hydroponics Split Organic

AJ 29:54

as geez, you can you do both? Like, are they contradictory? Are you forsaking it on the one hand but then trying to fight it on the other? How have you navigated that?

Linley 30:05

Yeah, that's a great question. And we're constantly asking it of ourselves. And and even Michael Pollan, when we interviewed him, he said, you are walking a really, you know, thin line or a you know, a tight, tight rope. And he said, on one hand, you have to criticize organic because it has been compromised. Uh, but you also have to convince people that it's worth saving and that it can be saved. And it it is tough. We want to for a long time the organic movement was very quiet about these problems, and we thought just fight, fight it at the Natural Organic Standards Board meetings, work on policy change, but don't shout it from the rooftops because our farms depend on the integrity of the organic seal. And it didn't work. We just kept losing and losing and losing. So I don't think staying quiet is a good um route to take. And I think that's a lesson to be learned uh for the regenerative movement as well. You know, as PepsiCo says, you know, we're gonna convert, we've committed to seven million acres of carbon offsets through regenerative farming. What does that look like? You know, and the real regenerative folks, we need to challenge it. You know, we need to say that's not regenerative. And it's funny when we look at um people, you ask people to list these uh regenerative tenants, and they're very much in the Organic Foods Production Act. Um, but it's like things like you know, keep the soil covered and living roots, and um, you know, it's context dependent and you know, integrate livestock, um, minimally disturb the soil. What's missing from those tenants? Don't apply toxic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers that eat up your organic matter. That's missing from our regenerative tenants. So we need to start shouting that out. That should be a tenant. That's why PepsiCo, that's why um, you know, Bear Monsanto, they can all be regenerative because we always forget that tenant. Make sure we say it. And I I have seen people say reduce the dependency on those things, but we need to we need to say it's not regenerative if we're applying synthetic fertilizers. That's actually eating up the carbon in your soil. Uh, you know, it's not regenerative to use herbicides and and do no-till. That that is actually depleting carbon. So so we need to start challenging this fake regenerative if if we really want it to have meaning into the future.

AJ 32:34

Oh, so I wonder what you found in terms of encouraging people in transition. Because I think that's part of the argument, isn't it? To to not cut them out because they're on the path. Yeah, yeah. So what do you if if you say, look, don't call yourself this until you're there, then what do you call yourself in between?

Linley 32:56

I think we forget to say to say what the where the end point is. We forget to talk about that. You know? I don't see it as an improvement to cut out tillage and and use herbicides if you're growing cover crops and incorporating that biomass. That to me is better than the no-till. So I don't think we're going forward. We're not we're not improving with a lot of these regenerative ideals because it's so heavily dependent on on you know uh fertilizers and uh pesticides still. I think to me that is the starting point. And it's gonna be rough. It's gonna take three years for your land to heal. That's why there is a transition period. But when you get to that three year mark, uh three-year mark, you're ready. You're ready for organic if you've truly been going down the path. So I think if we don't insist on some deadlines here, then it's just never really gonna be um what we want it to be. This this carbon offsetting idea. You know, it's it's the number of um fossil fuels that it takes to just synthesize uh synthetic fertilizer. We're not we're fooling ourselves. And then, you know, applying nitrogen that's that's that hot. Um we know this scientifically now, it burns up the carbon in your soil. So this this just is not a regenerative system. So if you can figure out how to get fully get rid of it, then great. Here's the roadmap to get there. But I just don't think we're setting those, you know, um, those deadlines. You can get there in three years. You really can.

AJ 34:36

Yeah, interesting. So we're gonna keep going on this thread, but just to keep on the podcast for a bit. So what have you found it do? What what's been the place in the scheme of all this and the power of it, I suppose? The success of it.

Linley 34:52

Uh, for you know, I was just talking to Dave, who does most of the interviews, and he said, I think we're writing a love letter to the future. Because these stories are getting lost. Uh, like I said, when I got started, I had no idea the history, the beautiful history of the organic movement and the lessons to be learned. Uh, and it, you know, it it doesn't necessarily mean that USDA organic or even the international organic is gonna save us. It might mean that we need to come together and and and do something different. But we're having these conversations, we're acknowledging the good and the bad, um, interviewing uh people that have kind of lived through uh and have so much history. I mean, I love listening to the podcasts of like the new farmers and the challenges that they're facing. But what I love about the Real Organic Podcast is, you know, we're interviewing farmers that talk about, you know, the fraud that happened, you know, in in California bananas when there was no organic seal, um, but people were just using the word organic, you know? And then they realized, okay, we need some rules, you know, we need to start testing. And so I just feel like um when when I wanted to just walk away from it all, because it all seemed bogus to me, I didn't know that history. And what does it mean when you just walk away from from all of that fight to get that legislation in? It felt a lot more uh important and uh I would do it carefully and I would do it with the whole organic movement. I wouldn't just say rah-rah and you know, go out and fight and walk away from something unless everybody was together on it. So I I I believe it's created a community and a movement to understand, you know, a food system

Founding The Real Organic Project

Linley 36:40

that's truly transformative. We can't do it alone, we can't do it um w without acknowledging the realities. You know, I think I think there's this desire to just talk about the good of organic, the good of regenerative, and not not fight PepsiCo for their claims, you know. Um you know, challenge them. Like can we get to all of your sourcing to organic in three years? We know how to do it. We can work with your farmers to get there. And I know Rodale has been doing that um education to try to get the farmers to actually be organic uh at the end of that you know three-year journey. So uh I think I think we need to be more revolutionary about claims because it's slipping away from us.

AJ 37:29

Yeah, okay. So revolutionary, but I'm hearing a type of revolution in that sense. Like you're engaging. You're not even saying, oh, PepsiCo, you're a serious bad guy, just get away. Get away from us. Don't come near my house. Like there's engagement there. So it's a different kind of thing. It's recognising, I guess, the context of not just the organic movement, but of everything else and trying to broach the lot. So let's go on a bit further then with how that actually might be achieved. And I guess then you're talking about yeah, the bridging over to the regenerative movement. Um, and there'd be other like I think of just even people from different political stripes, even, right? But very pro-family farm and fam and small business. Yes. Are there cohorts there that you've connected with and you're feeling like a part of this tent? And I guess what's worked on that level is it things like the regenerative organic certification that that there's prospects to connect with? Uh, but what about that other political stripe stuff in rural America and certainly here? That but that value, there's overlap.

Linley 38:34

Oh, for sure. Good food is apolitical, right?

AJ 38:38

And health.

Linley 38:38

Just start talking about, you know, your grandma's tomatoes from her garden and what those tasted like, right? And it's just like we all we all want good food and we all have a right to good food. Um, so I yes, I mean, from the very beginning, uh the farmers that I visited in the pilot project up to this day, where we're at about a thousand farms, um, there we are from all of you know the any political spectrum because we share that desire to steward, truly steward our land, and that that connects us. So yeah, um, of course this has gotten political with the Trump administration. Um they've they've you know it's been very confusing because we've got RFK who's saying um, you know, he's he's actually fought the pesticide industry for a long time. Um, so there there was a lot of hope there, but it was a real mismatch because Trump does not believe in regulations. And you need regulations in order for this to work. So um I think the folks that really hoped that RFK could bring change are realizing, uh, especially we just had a Supreme Court decision last week, uh, the seven to two, you know, in favor of Bayer, that you they they are shielded from liability uh about not, you know, telling everybody that their uh Roundup and glyphosate in particular here is was harmful, but it it's it was bigger than glyphosate. It was saying that you know all of these uh companies can be shielded from um from uh legisl, you know, uh be people going after them for you know a failure to warn about uh the harm of their pesticides. So uh and there have been a number of things where you know they pulled funding from local food getting into schools and food banks that was supported uh for the first time under the Biden administration. And then in the same week they would give out a $10 billion handout to uh commodity production, you know, because of the trade wars. And it's just like, you know, we can celebrate these uh small wins, and then at the same time, it's just like here's another $10 billion for you guys, commodity producers, you know, uh chemical commodity producers. So um we talk about these things, and I I think that there's actually, you know, if you look at that seven, two, the breakdown, the two that opposed, there was a Republican and a Democrat. And the seven that supported, they were Democrats and Republicans. So um, or you know, I guess in the Supreme Court, you know, it's appointed by Democrats or Republicans. You're supposed to be neutral, but of course nobody is. So um it was really interesting to see that this wasn't like a liberal conservative divide.

AJ 41:23

Yeah.

Linley 41:23

That there are people on both sides of the aisle realizing that corporations have too much power and we need to work on antitrust. And that's what's exciting to me, is that's the common ground.

AJ 41:35

Me too, yes. So I'll never forget one of the podcasts with um Marion Nessel. Is that how you pronounce her last name?

Linley 41:43

Yeah, she's great.

AJ 41:44

She indeed was nearly at a conference over here. I have something just home-the-was nearly at um at Western Australian Regen Egg conference last year.

Linley 41:51

You know, she's in her 90s?

AJ 41:53

Is she in her 90s now?

Linley 41:55

Isn't she unbelievable? Her brain. What is she eating? Whole food.

AJ 42:01

Exhibit A. That's right. Yeah. So she said she nearly fell off her chair because Trump sounded like her in the electioneering, saying that uh America has been crushed by the industrial food complex for too long, etc., etc. But yes, it has come to this context and situation that you describe well. So are you seeing people on the ground respond in a similar way? Of like seeing, oh, yeah, this isn't partisan, there's a bigger backdrop to this stuff. If we can connect across our, you know, traditional political colours, it's the only thing we can do because even this RFK was the big hope, Maha, the big hope, and it's coming up without much. Are you seeing a shift on the ground then of like, okay, let's turn to each other, or is that just what you're trying to broker more yourselves?

Linley 42:52

Oh, people are tough. I mean, I think it's hard to admit that you were wrong, right? So um I think this was a devastating defeat, this this Supreme Court decision. Um, we're we're having, you know, the Trump administration invest in glyphosate production in the states as you know, security for our country. And, you know, decisions like that I think are make way making people wake up. Maha has been very, you'd think it would be more apolitical, but they are heavily funding Republican candidates only. So it's been very partisan. Um, I I do hope people are seeing that this isn't working, you know. Um I just I uh I think it's harder than we realize for for people to just say I was wrong. This isn't this isn't going how I wanted. Um but I yeah, I don't know what comes next. I I do hope that we can come together and and actually find a champion for us because we we do need the government to regulate um these poisons that are, you know, uh PFAS has been a big issue. Like This stuff we we need to start controlling. It's everywhere. You don't know what it what it is, you know, what amounts you're getting in the food you're eating. It's just so much that's hidden.

AJ 44:09

So um Yeah, all the water.

Linley 44:11

Yeah. I think people are waking up, but but probably more slowly than the earth needs us to, you know.

AJ 44:18

Or even we we need to ourselves in that sense. Yeah.

Linley 44:22

One and the same.

AJ 44:23

One and the same. It's so much of this maps onto Australia. From the labelling stuff, free range, uh, let alone organic, let alone regenerative. And certainly those political dynamics too. There was, I noted, uh a Maha-backed candidate that wasn't the Trump-backed candidate in some recent election. I can't remember exactly where it was, but it came up in a recent podcast as well. So there was evidence of a break, and the Maha candidate won. And it it was a hint, perhaps,

The Tightrope Of Criticising Organic

AJ 44:55

that there's just coming to realize that it's each other we need to turn to.

Linley 45:01

Do you think we should continue to call it Maha when it's so affiliated with Trump, who has been so such a failure for us?

AJ 45:08

It's a great question, isn't it?

Linley 45:10

The language and the movement behind it, you know?

AJ 45:14

Yeah.

Linley 45:14

You do hope that we can keep it going.

AJ 45:17

Yeah, well that's right. Marian was saying, she said it's real. And I've even had um Dan Kittredge out here in Australia talking about um it being a potential hopeful thing, like because it's real and because it's focused on the right thing, like our health, yeah. That maybe it is. I guess it's one of those things. We're not gonna control it anyway, hey, we're not gonna be able to stamp it out or or uh I guess it's just whether you can test or not. But I think the way you talked about PepsiCo is probably more the deal. It's reach in for the common ground that's clearly there, that could could transcend the political stripes. And perhaps is in the process of, if we look at that election result, as anything to go by. And the dawning realities, the court case.

Linley 46:03

Yeah, yeah. I I do believe people, and that that is the good thing about Maha is that it's really woken people up, I think. And you know, people that have never talked about these issues before are are are aware of them now, which is great.

AJ 46:18

Right. Yeah, and internationally even.

Linley 46:20

Yeah.

AJ 46:21

Yeah, that it's it's captured a moment, unlike any effort on a national health mandate, has probably done, which might sound surprising when you say it like that, but it has.

Linley 46:32

I just hope we can be real about it because I think the some of the claims have been over-exaggerated about how much the carbon the soil can sequester.

AJ 46:43

So this is interesting.

Linley 46:44

We we can't just keep emitting, right? And think that the soil will save us. We really do need to cut emissions. And of course, then the soil can help draw down, but we can't just keep emitting, you know, millions of years of carbon sequestration in the span of a hundred, right? The math just doesn't add up. So no matter how good the soil is at sequestering, and like I was saying, really what we're doing on our farms is cycling it. Um, and with the hope that we can get a little, you know, deeper, kind of more stable carbon sequestered. Um, but if we're good farmers, we're we're we're just cycling our carbon. We're not and you know, the the chemical farmers are emitting a lot, so we've really improved the situation. But we just we need to acknowledge that we do have to stop emitting, and that's that is hard that agriculture can actually stop being the problem, but it can't be the only solution.

AJ 47:37

Right.

Linley 47:37

So I I think sometimes we're like over exaggerating what farmers can do in terms of you know getting us out of this climate crisis. It's part of the piece of the puzzle.

AJ 47:48

Totally. Yeah, well that's it, isn't it? And and so is carbon. It's funny, I said at the another regen WA conference, uh I said uh carbon cycling, not sequestration. And that ended up getting repeated around the halls a bit. It's like because it gets away from that whole idea that it's just like plus minus and that farmers can save the world thing. Will you hurry up and do it for us? Right. But there's a board.

Linley 48:16

Even that that it's like the climate has always changed, you know? And it's like, okay, let's look at the rate of change.

AJ 48:22

Yeah.

Linley 48:23

Even in the most extreme times when, you know, the earth has been out of whack. It is it has happened over thousands, most usually hundreds of thousands of years. And we're talking about changes at that scale, you know, in the matter of decades.

AJ 48:41

Yeah. Exactly.

Linley 48:42

So evolution just will not keep up.

AJ 48:44

No. Uh including ourselves, which I think is part of what we're flandering with, but just misdiagnosing the thing. Yeah.

Linley 48:51

Well, even realizing how connected we are, our our health is so connected to the biosphere. I think that is is missing, right? So that's why we spend so much time talking to uh, you know, scient research biologists, right? And ecologists and soil scientists on the podcast. It's like we're all connected. We meant we're missing that.

AJ 49:11

Yeah, beautifully said. So in terms of broader connections, then, yeah. There's regenerative organic certification, there's regenify certification. Yeah. Cave Brown's mob. Yeah. There are probably others. Uh-huh. Is that fine? It's like let a thousand flowers bloom, or is there something beckoning for us to you you did quit join up before. Um, is there something beckoning to have us take next steps?

Linley 49:35

Yeah, Paul Hawken keeps hoping we'll think bigger. He keeps challenging us to think

Regenerative Without Chemicals Is The Point

Linley 49:40

bigger. Um in a way, I I love that uh he I I love like quoting Paul Hawken. Um, because he has a book called Blessed Unrest, which just lists, you know, the thousands of nonprofit organizations that are doing good. No one organization can do it all. And if you do, you kind of wonder if it's full of shit. You know what I mean? If they're claiming it, you know what I mean? So, you know, I think everybody's good at, you know, there there's there's a nonprofit that's really good at getting, you know, solar installed on on um, you know, southern hemisphere rooftops and um, you know, getting drinking water to people. So I think that there is a role. Uh the regenerative organic certification has been really good at uh kind of brand getting stuff on the shelf. And Real Organic Project has been really good at engaging the small farm kind of direct market. And I'm not sure that we can do it all. Um but but there are areas where we can come together in alliance. And and we actually we have a great podcast between it's a conversation between Zephyr Teach Out and Dave Chapman. And it was released recently, and she was saying, you know, there are times when you should be joining forces with the Organic Trade Association, who has been part of the problem in, you know, maintaining organic integrity, but where you need to fight for organic uh legislation or, you know, uh against this um Supreme Court case. Like there are definitely cases where you need to come together. So I think that we all need to do our important jobs in our communities, you know, think the whole think locally and then act globally. Um wait, is that what it was? Think globally, act locally. So um I'm not sure, but like we we do our work in our communities. And then um there are times when we need to come together and hold hands. And so I I guess this blessed unrest idea sits really well with me because um I see that regenerative organic certification doesn't work for everybody, and real organic isn't, you know, getting shelf space at this point. So um this kind of blessed unrest idea, I I think um, especially with how limited in funding we all are, is is the only way we can make it work. Uh and we just kind of yeah, where find where we shine and where there's a need, um, but then definitely hold hands when it's necessary.

AJ 52:05

Yeah, beautifully said. Couldn't agree more. You know, at a a recent festival, sort of motivated by groundswell in the UK called Grounded here in Australia. Okay. The recent edition ran in April, and there was a guy there from the States, a physician from the Bay Area, where a certain program started, but it's gone across the country to some degree since called Recipe for Health. And it's oh yeah, it's all about food as medicine. Have you come across that? Yes.

Linley 52:36

Yes. Um it's it's so important to see uh healthcare like move from um just trying to give you a medication, right, to cure whatever it is that's ailing you instead of going after what might be causing it in the first place. So um uh there there was that's what a lot of the money that got cut under the Trump administration was going towards um was getting local organic food into hospitals, into food banks, you know, so that it wasn't so expensive. And it was uh, I mean, so many of our small farms were expanding production and getting it into, you know, mouths that really were outside of our farmers market and CSA niche um marketplaces. So it was such an important program. We need to bring it back and it, yeah, it was cut. So I I think that this awareness, it's so easy. Like actually, it was Mary Nessel that said it. We're already subsidizing a way of producing food. It would be so easy to just pull that money and subsidize what we want, you know. So, well, I mean, so easy, but we would have to break up the power of these big multinational uh chemical companies. That's that's why antitrust is so central to these issues.

AJ 53:52

So central.

Linley 53:53

And campaign finance reform.

AJ 53:54

Well.

Linley 53:55

You know, they're they're they're just paying the politicians. So so those those are two big issues that connect everything.

AJ 54:01

Yes, it's true, isn't it? Here in Australia, some of the some of the democratic resurgence that's going on at the same time, it's uh it's the same in the States in a sense. There's so much good stuff coming up, yet these powers double and triple down as well. It's sort of how do we get there and uh and and how does it come out? Well we'll see, but there's a definitely a crack at the good stuff. And the political context is such that even the press, let's say. We've got I think we've got the least diversified press in the world, Australia. Like we're we're uh we're a standard bearer. And yet that hasn't stopped some amazing community political uh mobilisation that's resulted in parliament like actually members being elected to parliament. And it makes me wonder to what extent can we just as communities find a way anyway, like go around them, over them, however you like to sort of conceptualize it. But I do wonder that. Yeah. But of course, I also wonder in the connecting where it's sometimes um less likely. So the National Farmers Federation here is the peak farmers' body. Okay. And they did a report a few years ago on farmer health, and it was diabolical. Front road of the chemicals, obviously, but also then

Food Is Apolitical Until It Isn’t

AJ 55:10

the stress and everything else we we sort of started with.

Linley 55:13

It's an unfriendly marketplace for our success, so it creates a lot of mental health.

AJ 55:17

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So this is the peak body saying that. But all I've heard since from them is a I can't remember what the actual target was, you know, doubling output financial value in a certain time frame. And they did it. So that's considered a great success while farmers themselves go to pot. It's such an like that they themselves did the profiling on the farmers. So it feels to me like in terms of reaching in, again, it's the farmers are looking for someone to look out for them. And if they're not doing it, maybe people like me here in the city can do that. You know, maybe a a podcast can be part of it, but whatever. Just the different ways we can hold hands at times. There's an instance in Australia of how it's sort of mapping on, and in some in some ways, just like unbelievable ways, you know, it's like you guys know, and it's still not your main goal to say let's have farmers not be absolutely shot. No, our our goal is let's make them work harder and be more successful in that in those terms. Ultimately, there's this kind of there's this paradigm, isn't there? But I wonder if just connecting directly with the people can indeed transcend some of these organizational blocks.

Linley 56:33

Well, I mean the system wants them to fail. The system is designed for them to fail because then it can be more consolidated, and so then everything becomes cheaper under that consolidation. So yeah, unless we change how we like what what we are supporting. Yeah, I mean, farmers are gonna lose their farms. It's just gonna keep happening. So I yeah, the mental health um is gonna continue to be a problem uh unless we actually change the system. And you know, Austin Freerick has some some great podcasts where he's saying we we should be putting people forward uh for these positions that understand these issues, even though if it seems like we're never gonna get them elected, let's put them forward. So I I I I love it. I I love the optimism, I love the optimism you have. You know, let's start finding our champions that can really communicate these issues. Maybe they're even farmers that that you know really understand how to speak these issues. Let's put them forward, you know. Let's um, you know, I think our podcasts are really good at that. And it it feels like pie in the sky, but um like you said, you never know what we can unite around. And I there are some very inspirational, eloquent uh farmers and food systems uh thinkers that we that we should really be um yeah, nominating for positions and cabinets moving forward.

AJ 58:03

Oh, so true. And I did meet some of those people in the States too. I I'm thinking of a farmer straight off the top of my head now in Maine who who was just re-elected, even in the against the prevailing winds. He's actually an independent and got elected in for a fourth consecutive that will be his last time, I think, in in Maine. Um he was a farmer, but I met others who aren't, but who in rural America who managed to get elected on this sort of a sentiment and this sort of a let's leave that ugly politics and and yeah, corporate control behind. And the same here in Australia. So I guess am I optimistic? I I don't know. I mean, I see it all. I I don't disown the shadow either, right? That's where we started too. But I see the reality of what's being achieved when all the odds are stacked against. So where there might be a tipping point there.

Linley 58:55

Sure. Well, the pendulum can swing back the other direction just as quickly as it went awry here. So um yeah, and like like you said, the Maha movement has a lot of hope because we all across the aisle uh I think I think we're starting to experience those contamination events more and more that I talked about at the beginning. So it's becoming experiential, you know, it's not just this hypothetical concern.

AJ 59:22

Right. I agree. Yep. So you've also got a um a farm directory too, huh? So you're finding value in those sorts of things. Yeah. What do you look to next? Or indeed, are there other sort of calls to action that we haven't covered that the that the project is is pretty keen on?

Linley 59:38

Yeah. I mean, we got to figure out how to connect the farmer's goods to the eaters, and that's our big challenge. And so one idea is that, well, let's just go around the system, right? It's too hard for the local organic farmer to get shelf space in the grocery store because it's so consolidated. Um, let's just go around it completely. And so the the, you know, the internet can can do some good things in addition to spreading a lot of misinformation. It does connect us. So um the yeah, we we've got this idea, we've got this directory, a lot like a hundred or more of our thousand farms uh sell online currently. And I think more and more are switching that way. So so having an online marketplace where you can find real organic food is definitely part of our vision.

AJ 1:00:24

But finding that here too, by the way.

Linley 1:00:26

Yeah. Yeah.

AJ 1:00:27

That's how we access food here in the city.

Linley 1:00:29

Okay. And um, yeah, just building strength. We call them islands of sanity, where there's like a lot of organic farms and there are a lot of organic eaters, and you know, that's New England and um the kind of northern Midwest, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Upper Midwest area, and California. And there are so many um certified organic, real organic farms in those regions. Can we really organize to um, you know, around issues in those regions and and then gain kind of broader support from those kind of the the heart of our movement? We're kind of thinking more strategically that way. We're we're taking uh Paul Hawkins challenge to think bigger seriously. So we're definitely, I mean, we're um we we partnered with this, I don't know if you know Naturalend.

MAHA, Courts, And Corporate Power

Linley 1:01:15

They are an add-on certification to EU uh organic. And there are a lot of farmer cooperatives around the world that kind of use this kind of farmer um cooperative model to get certified and then get, you know, things like coffee and teas and bananas and all these tropical things that we can't get or grow here into the states. And so I think the small farm revolution could actually happen under the organic seal if we look at this cooperative model and try to make sure that there's integrity in it and maybe even adopt it in the US. Maybe it's time, I don't know if Australia has it, but maybe it's time for us to consider the small farms don't need uh, you know, the $2,000 fees and the you know annual inspections that we could uh get certified more cooperatively. So um, but you know, we have to make sure that we may maintain integrity through that system. So our partnership with Natural Ind is one that we're thinking bigger. Um, you know, they they have uh I think it's like 200,000 farmers and and we're at a thousand. So they've been around for 40 years. And um, you know, I think we can they've got uh standards that are very similar to ours where the whole farm has to get certified organic. You can't have mixed production. And um yeah, just additional soil health measures, all those things. So yeah, we're very much in line with them. Find like you said, finding finding partners around the world that that are doing what you're doing and then uh labeling together. So any product that's certified by Naturalin can come into the US under the real organic seal. Uh stuff like that, you know, because we're so similar. Let's just unite. And the the real organic movement is more well known in the US than Naturalind. So this is the way like we've found someone who's already doing this around the world instead of duplicating it, let's let's just create uh one seal here in the US. Yeah, two weeks. Yeah, we've got lots lots of projects. Uh we've got a big conference coming up every year where we get together uh and talk about these deep issues. So we had Mary Anesselcom and Austin uh Freek and uh who else did we talk about? Oh, yeah, Zephyr Teach Out. Um and this year we've got Tim Bowles, who's an agroecologist, and he's debating uh Michael Grunwald, who's saying we need pesticides and fertilizers for high-yielding agriculture so that we can rewild the rest of the world and and you know get rid of agricultural's huge footprint. So they're gonna have this deep debate about whether agriculture can actually be ecologically sound or not, you know. So Michael Grunwald's just saying, there's no way, you know, yields are all that matter so that we can rewild. It's gonna be a great debate. Um and and he, Michael Grunwald, was very accurate about ethanol and how harmful you know biofuel production has been to the climate. So uh there are what things that we have in common. I think it's really important to talk these things out so we we figure out a path forward, you know.

AJ 1:04:13

Yeah, debate's almost not the right word, huh?

Linley 1:04:15

Well, yeah, but like uh having yeah, a deep discussion, yeah, uh um, you know, framed as a debate, um, because yeah, that is a big difference, you know. Yeah, one side is saying we need pesticides and herbicides, we need them to be um high-yielding. Uh you know, uh it's important because these ideas I think are confusing to people. And if that that has been such a strategy for these big companies, it's like if we can just insert confusion, yeah. We don't even have to push our uh stance on it, you know. We just insert confusion and then nothing happens. It stalls, right? So uh I yeah, I think it's really important to kind of really go after these alternate points of view and see if we can, yeah, come to come to a conclusion at the other side of it.

AJ 1:05:04

Yeah, really good. Yep. That's at Churchtown Dairy, right? You held that?

Linley 1:05:08

Yes, yeah, it's a great spot for it. This beautiful almost it's all it's almost like a church, right? Their barn.

AJ 1:05:13

Totally.

Linley 1:05:14

And there really are cows in it all summer long. You know, we are we hold our conference as soon as that's like the first event after the cows um well, actually, they're still it's in September, so they're still out on the pasture. So it's the last event before they come in for the season. And uh they say the round barn, they if when there's corners, the cows go stand in the corner. But when it's round, the cows walk in a circle. And it just makes for a healthier, you know, winter for for the cattle. So anyway, it's kind of the spiritual place to just like imagine cows walking in a circle and the the sharing of ideas under this um beautiful barn. So yeah, it's it's worth seeing.

AJ 1:05:54

It so is, yeah. We we did manage to visit on our tour across the States and Oh no, I'll never forget. Forget that they sing, like actually have an event where the community sings Christmas carols to the cows in in said barn. Like it's not just about the year.

Linley 1:06:09

Is that the time of year you were there?

AJ 1:06:11

No, sadly. It was too that'd be too cold, Lindley. I couldn't survive.

Linley 1:06:18

Hey, how is the fire season? How has it been?

AJ 1:06:21

Here?

Linley 1:06:22

Well, I yeah, I suppose it's during our winter, but how was it?

AJ 1:06:25

Yeah, how was it? Yeah. Bad. Like really bad. Yep. So we had obviously the the peak bad that everyone around the world finds out about, sort of five, six years ago.

Linley 1:06:35

Yes, that's what I remember.

AJ 1:06:36

Off the charts. Yeah.

Linley 1:06:38

Like burn through town burn towns down, right? Just swept through town.

AJ 1:06:42

Back then it was, I mean, if I'm remembering correctly, 25 million acres or something. Actually, quick interlude, that was 25 million hectares, 60 million acres. Still getting my US Australian conversions all mixed up back to the farm.

Linley 1:06:58

And it wasn't just wild, it was like in populated areas.

AJ 1:07:02

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then even the cities were getting smoked out. Like they could they were playing a an international cricket match in Sydney and you could barely see the players all dressed in white on the on the field. Yeah. Which of course health implications, blah, blah, blah, schools getting shut down and etc. So, yeah, it was diabolical. So, since then, obviously that took out a lot of fuel, if you like. Uh, but since then, even still, just shock and fires in Victoria this year, um, farms wiped out. I mean, so many are starting again, thankfully, but again, it's hard enough. So, yeah, we are. I mean, it does say that again, from another front, where it's getting more visceral for more people. You know, I remember Charlie Massey talking about over here years ago when Call of the Rewarbler was making its big drop in the pond.

Linley 1:07:50

I love that buck. Yeah.

AJ 1:07:51

Yeah. That um people will come to it and we've just got to be ready for you know to support and offer what we've got as they come to it. And yeah, I think that's happening. So it's terrible and hopeful at the same time.

Linley 1:08:06

He means like we we have the knowledge for what to do when people realize that this is what they need to support. I truly believe that. That's what the Real Organic Project's all about. The these farmers know how to do this.

AJ 1:08:19

Right.

Linley 1:08:19

We know how to farm, and we're actually really high-yielding too. So yeah.

AJ 1:08:25

And even then, there are these there are these organizational models, even if they are in different states or different parts of the world, that we know how to do too. Just learn from each other. Yeah. So yeah, solutions on the shelf, he says. Don't just I mean, he did hope it had been things that come further than they have in the last eight years, I should add. But uh, but I that's that's the complexity of things, huh? But the visceral nature of we're getting hit. We're getting hit big time.

Linley 1:08:51

And it's the rainfall's just way down. Is that what's going on?

AJ 1:08:55

Yeah. And we had a forest, mass forest die-off here in WA in the south of WA, back three years ago or something. We are, yeah, again, the forces we're flirting with. You don't want to flirt with these forces.

Linley 1:09:08

Why is that hitting Australia like worse? Or or is that not true? But I imagine that it's like hitting that there first. Well, that's one of the narratives.

AJ 1:09:18

It's one of the narratives. I think it's as much my read is that it's as much because of the nature of the continent. Like, the west side is three and a half billion year old landscape. So I don't buy into the narrative it it's fragile, but it's certainly old. So if you don't beat it around the head, it was going perfectly well. There were hip-high grasses right through what we call desert now, and where stations are being managed well, knee-high grasses are coming back so far. So you see what still

Carbon Cycling Beats Magic Offsets

AJ 1:09:52

can happen. So it's sort of how we've treated it. It's sort of a baseline of being a different continent, yes. Um, but also again how it's been like 200 years of stripping it, essentially, and um, I guess new world phenomenon, thinking it would last forever and it was your dominion and all that, and uh, but we're learning, we're learning, we're getting hit. So I think it's all a bit of that, and then sure, that means there can be perfect storms like the fire, and because we're not paying attention enough to Aboriginal fire knowledge, and but where that's happening, it's showing that even in the big fires, it doesn't burn where they've been. So more people are going, well, can you come over here now, please? So it's all happening, but yes, there are definitely things that have made us particularly vulnerable. And so right now with the Super El Nino coming on, it's it's seriously nervy times, but I don't know. I think um I think when you sit where we sit, you you go, it could be that, or it could be a fire, or it could be this and that, and or or a you know, a court case. There's there's the way that plays out, or there's the way the other plays out, which which, like your farm and like that station I'm talking about in the would-be, you know, red earth outback that's green meadow for them over hundreds of thousands of acres, as they bring it back. There are ways that we can withstand if we play by the way that it works, and not the uh, and this might come back to your debate, it'd be very interesting to see how that plays out. Not by the master controller edict that we can put it in its boxes.

Linley 1:11:28

We just had this great interview with uh James Cassidy, who's a soil scientist, and he made me realize, you know, 40% of the land surface was grasses. And I imagine that's most of Australia.

AJ 1:11:40

Yeah, right.

Linley 1:11:41

And and you know, we we tilled it up. And and where there were grasses, that's where you had the mollusoles, you know, he was saying, and he's like, these are the deepest, richest soils, most carbon, highest carbon soil organic matter is on these grasslands. So let's study what created those soils and and how do we replicate that in our agriculture. And so anyway, this is we haven't released it yet. That's another good one to look forward to. Um James Cassidy. But yeah, you're Australia, like you said, it's and and that's where I am too. These semi-arid climates, you know, there's an argument to be made that we we should be producing, you know, vast majority of our crops, you know, can go to our most highly productive, you know, where it rains, you know, Midwest is where we're growing all these commodities for, you know, just bio um, you know, ethanol and biofuels and um feed for KAFOs, right? So it's just like if we just returned the grassland of grassland and and moved animals on it. Do you have a guest that that like has described this the best?

AJ 1:12:49

Um that you've interviewed? That's a good question. Well, the one that's coming to mind as you talk is the Haggerty family, which they're the like the last, well, I would say set of farms now, because they just have acquired over 30 years all the farms that have been abandoned and turned them around, and now inside one or two years they turn the next farm around from being a you know dust bowl and salinified into productive landscape again with biodiversity. They're the last farming line before you hit station country and and you know our outback. They get their average rainfall is 300 mil. So you know, what's that? 12 inches.

Linley 1:13:28

Okay, that's that's about what we get. So I can relate to that.

AJ 1:13:31

And that's average rainfall.

Linley 1:13:32

It's low. That's low. It's extreme. But I don't I don't know for Australia. Maybe that's low.

AJ 1:13:37

It's very low. They would they were told many times apparently, you should come south. And they were like, well, if everyone can do it there, if we can show you can do it here, and so they have, because it hasn't been average rainfall for some time, right? So even on less than that, they are doing cropping at scale, yeah, 60,000 acres at scale of cropping with livestock integration and producing wolves, sheep, and various grains. And it was interesting when I ran around the States and I saw all the places that rely on irrigation, but they get similar rainfall. And I'm like, wow, I know a farm that does it without the irrigation. Wow. If you're worried about surviving without your irrigation, and if you're worried about your Colorado River not having enough water in it, I've seen a podcast.

Linley 1:14:24

That was a good podcast. The Colorado River one. I loved that.

AJ 1:14:27

Yeah, right, me too. That I've seen where it can happen, and of course, then ancient cultures were doing it too. Sure, maybe not at this scale. But we again we know how to do it.

Linley 1:14:38

Yeah, boy, they're growing crops without irrigation too.

AJ 1:14:43

Correct. Such is the water holding using a lot of mulching. Oh, buried things like um worm juice in a fascinating story. I mean, it's like it's another podcast I can send you, but and they were since awarded West Australians of the year, like our our penultimate award as a country, Australian of the year is the is the ultimate. Um, so their recognition after 30, 35 years is coming on too. I I I should add, just for that social context, but they modified the big rigs that would

Alliances, Labels, And Blessed Unrest

AJ 1:15:10

spray, you know, your chemicals, and they spray worm juice mixtures and compost mixtures out of it.

Linley 1:15:18

Okay.

AJ 1:15:18

Yeah. So there are ways that they have innovated too to enable it to be cropping at scale, but you know, it's with whatever scale you're doing, they do it that way with the big rigs, but it just shows it can be done. And and and just without that input burden and the stress and all that, everything we've talked about, in it's just dry land farming, but isn't just ranching, it's actual at-scale grain production too.

Linley 1:15:48

Yeah, and then once you figure out how to do it, hopefully, because you've had someone like the Haggartys teach you and it's kind of spread, then we have to figure out okay, how do I market it? Because that can't just go into a bin and be mixed with everybody else's stuff, right? Because what you've done is is so much better, it's gonna be so much more nutritious, and you want to market that story.

AJ 1:16:12

It's still the missing link. That's precisely what happens to the product, aside from sure, the bits where we've connected across communities. So there's certain new millers and bakers in Perth that now draw direct supply. So and and even like wool um fashion folk in Italy and stuff that bring the wool across. So they're sort of famous overseas while they're still a bit marginal here. That is the next thing. It has it's been worked at for five, ten years. I've seen big hopes with potential investors just not quite work out, but potentially as it's on the cusp now, certainly in the wake of their big recognition, though the West Australians of the year last year. Um, hopefully that shifted the terrain a little bit. But you're you're dead right. It is what's needed, but in keeping with them, they're looking for a way to do it that actually shifts the thing for everybody.

Linley 1:17:01

Yes, replicate, not not scale. Yes, hundreds of. I love that that that difference.

AJ 1:17:06

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And that can potentially educate as and be retail intermediary as well, if there's a if there's a biz piece of infrastructure, for example, on the edge of the city. So they're working at it too.

Linley 1:17:18

Well, the exciting thing to leave with hope is that there are so many people that want to do this.

AJ 1:17:25

Right.

Linley 1:17:26

And in the n the 15 years that I've been at our local farmers market, I mean, it is just ballooned. We've taken over Main Street. Um, but I've seen so many farmers come and go. And it's because we're we're not figuring out the marketing piece. So I do believe we need to organize around more than just how do you do this, but how do you market it after that. So that's that's where the real organic project, I hope, can and rock, right? We can figure out how do we get these things to the to the eaters and make the allow the eaters to support this and and cut through the bullshit on the sh shelves. The greenwashing is just so rampant that the poor eaters are like, ah, you know, and they just they they um throw their hands up a lot of times. Um that that's our challenge. Yeah, so many people want to do it. How do we support it in the marketplace is the next step.

AJ 1:18:20

Exactly. And that's on us city folk too. And in fact, there's a I don't know if you've come across Rachel Ward, famous actress in Australia. She did a film called Rachel's Farm because, as a grandmother, she ends up starting becoming a farmer, a regen farmer. Oh, cool. Made a film about it. It's called Rachel's Farm if you can find it. Highly recommend it.

Linley 1:18:36

I'm gonna watch it, absolutely.

AJ 1:18:38

It's great watch. Anyway, she teamed up, and because they you know, she's been an actress and and director in films and so forth. So Sydney was also a home, as well as this what was just a place that this farm was just a place to go on weekends type thing. But now that she actually farms and lives out there. But with Sydney Connections and and knowledge, teamed up with some enterprise folk down there, and they just did a crowd equity raise of a million dollars or so, and it was successful to take next steps in doing just that on that side of the country, which is just to say that's emblematic of something that's just come through, but it is bubbling up everywhere here too. And I guess I say too, as a city dweller, that it's on us as well, huh? And and the investors and the entrepreneurs like, let's meet where these things, not just have the farmers have to find a way across the board. But let's like, if we want this food, let's meet together in between and make it work with our respective skill sets, resources, locations, yeah, and find our political champions together, right?

Linley 1:19:42

And hold them up together.

AJ 1:19:43

Right. Brilliant. What a great way to sort of climb the summit of our conversation, Lindley.

Linley 1:19:50

Yeah, I enjoyed it, Anthony.

AJ 1:19:52

Oh, thank you. I never leave without talking about music though. I'd love to know for you what piece of music might have been significant in your life, maybe even just now, something that's really sunk in deep for you.

Linley 1:20:06

Okay, this is, I mean, of course, music is very personal, but um, I have a daughter who is a swimmer and you know, she wants to go to the Olympics. She's 16. And so she has brought Florence and the machine into my life. And Florence is on tour right now, and we had to go see her, so we we went down to Phoenix, and this was the first concert I've gone to since you know I was in college. This has been forever, and it's her first concert, and she's 16, you know, as farmers in a small town, we just don't get out much. But she had this moment in her concert when, and it was, you know, towards the end when uh free, free is such a good song. So look that one up, Florence and Machine, free. But she said, Everybody put down your phones because you know, the whole time people are filming. And she just got us all together to really like kind of jump up and down and sing, and the phones were gone, and there was just oneness in that stadium. And yeah, I felt the power of no, you know, filming. It just it shifted something. It's like we're all gonna live in the now, you know, and we're not gonna film this for the future. And it and something shifted, and we just had the time of our lives during that song. So, anyway, I guess the take-home message is listen to that awesome song, but also put your phones down and live in the moment.

AJ 1:21:29

100%. And then it's a teenager that led the way. Yes.

Linley 1:21:33

Yes, yes.

AJ 1:21:35

So is she literally trying to make the next Olympics like two years' time?

Linley 1:21:39

Yeah, and she's at the stage when colleges are well, no, no, sorry. She's 16, so that it's too far out for for the next Olympics in LA. So she's looking for six years. But Brisbane, that's Brisbane. Is it? You'll be in Australia. Oh my gosh, I'll see you there. But um, I just admire her intensity so much. I have that same intensity about farming, and she's

Marketing Real Food Beyond Greenwashing

Linley 1:22:05

got it about swimming. And so it's just fun to watch. You know, it's like every day revolves around, you know, just maximum effort. And I had a college professor who actually I met my husband in this class. She was geology, and we all were just we were having too much fun. And she gave us this speech at the end. She was like, You guys, you're all getting bees and you're smart. She's like, I don't care if geology isn't your thing, but whatever it is, floor it. Just, you know, go all out, and you will have the time of your life if you can just put that intensity and, you know, into whatever your passion is. And I have remembered that speech. It brought me to tears. It brought her to tears when she was telling it. Um, and I see that in my daughter. I see that in the way I pursue farming and and, you know, anybody I talk to, you know, I see that you really care about these issues, and we gotta find each other, and we gotta find a way to, you know, ignite that passion in each other and and right? Then we can like that whole stadium, we were all in it together. Like, let's find that energy. And I feel like that happens at Church Town too, but we need to get way beyond the scale of that 300-person room, right? How do we light the fire under all of us? So uh this is just this is just very exciting. I never pieced that together with the concert. Uh, you know, we've gotta that intensity, we've gotta find it together.

AJ 1:23:27

Well, this is why I asked the question in the music.

Linley 1:23:33

And I just light the flame under all of us in a good way.

AJ 1:23:37

Totally. And I think, wow, the teachers that leave moments, huh? That may never know. Yeah. Oh, just magic. And I guess there's a metaphor for us too. You may never know what seeds you plant, and 40 years down the track they're they're sprouting. Ah, magnificent.

Linley 1:23:55

That's why we need diversity in our seeds, and that's for another podcast.

AJ 1:24:00

Oh, wonderful. So great to speak. Lindley, I'm so glad to connect. Thanks for spending the time. Thanks for doing everything you do, and uh power to your arm.

Linley 1:24:09

Great fun. Thanks, Anthony.

Listener Voicemail And Closing Thanks

AJ 1:24:11

That was Lindley Dixon, co-director of the Real Organic Project and co-host of the award-winning Real Organic Podcast. That Maha election turn up, by the way, was in the Iowa Republican governatorial primary last month. Maha had clashed with the Trump administration over its embrace of pesticides and backed the winning candidate's message in favour of regenerative farming and against large agricultural corporations. That candidate had reportedly campaigned heavily on reducing agricultural chemical use and addressing nitrate contamination in Iowa's drinking water. I've put links to the pods that went out from our Churchtown dairy visit too, with thanks to the wonderful Judy Schwartz, and to the Graned Festival podcast that features the session on food as medicine that I mentioned in this episode too. And when I let Paul Hawken know his ears may have been burning during this conversation, he shared a glimpse of the bigger effort he's currently working at, in some ways reprising Blessed Unrest, 20 years on. Stand by for more on that soon. Finally, as fate would have it, after hearing last week's episode with Cal Flyn, titled If Rewilding Is Colonized, How to Remake Wilderness, that friend and pod subscriber in Baltimore, Dana Scott, sent in a voicemail. This weird Baltimore connection keeps coming. Anyway, it's a couple of minutes, but I thought you'd like to hear it.

Dana 1:25:37

Just took you and Cal on a walk with me this morning. Got me thinking of so many parallels. I think that's what what's good about what you do is you think about a lot of the parallels in your own lives. You know, so your tiger shark story, her volcano story, reminded me of some episodes in my own life, staring down, mortality, but also the the mortality from the direction of this like greater force, this greater presence and come in a couple different places in that sense of needing to test it for see to say like what is this, what happens if I touch the stove burner. Anyway, just wanted to share that with you because it was really it was a good one. I have to check out her her books. Really enjoyed that. And I was thinking a lot, you know, as I'm listening to you guys just talk about those um sort of abandoned places

Music, Intensity, And Lighting The Fire

Dana 1:26:30

or abandoned by the by humans and reclaimed by the non-humans kind of imagining this walking around through my neighborhood with vines and you know wild things. It reminded me of I've been very connected. There's a species of bird here called the cat bird. It's pretty common because they're all over the places. I wouldn't say there's anything like super special, but I had a moment, I guess, a year or two ago where I was feeling super like feeling pretty like despondent and like it's this environment isn't it's not built for us and it's you know, it's the deficits to what we need to be doing and feeling very trapped and stuck. And then this cat bird, which I didn't know what it was at the time, but it just sort of touched down on this fence, stared into me, just kind of bobbled its head and then sort of flew on. It was a moment there, it was something. I was like, ooh, okay, I see you, you see me. And I went back and looked it up. But the thing that stuck with me was that these cat birds and it goes through all their qualities and things they do. And it said have learned to thrive in a suburban environment because of you know, just this and this quality. And I was like, ah, that's the lesson that we can survive and not just survive, but thrive if we take a moment to learn what's around us and not just fight it. Because that fighting, I think, comes from sort of a different register, but the same frequency, the same vibration pattern of colonialism at large, that there's a way things are supposed to be. And if we're not that, then we have to fight it to manage it back to what it's supposed to be. And what if this is the way it's supposed to be? We're learning a thing. I don't know what it is. I don't think we can know what it is, and we can't know until we do it. But yeah, that's what came up for me. So thanks.

AJ 1:28:35

Thanks, Dana. Wonderful early morning urban ambience in that message too. Please keep them coming, one and all. If you like what you hear, I hope you'll consider becoming a paid subscriber too, on Patreon or Substack. If you'd like some of that writing too. This episode was only possible with your support. So thanks very much, Jacaranda Hill Farm, for your three years of support on Patreon. I hope your farm's doing well too. And thank you all for listening, sharing, rating, and reviewing. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden. And at the top was Organic Reflections by Roie Shpigler, sourced from Artlist. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.