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Sustainable World Radio- Ecology and Permaculture Podcast


Sustainable World Radio creates podcasts about the natural world and brings you interviews and news about ethnobotany, herbal medicine, Permaculture, organic gardening, sustainability, ecology, and regenerative farming. Tune in to discover practical, earth-friendly, and nature-based solutions to environmental challenges; solutions that adhere to the Permaculture Ethics of Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share. 

Jul 25, 2016

 

Episode 132: Can planting lentils be a radical act? Yes, if you live in a small conservative farming town in Montana, circa 1976. That was the year David Oien moved back to his family’s farm and planted a crop of lentils. This marked the beginning of the Lentil Underground, a group of farmers who created a new way of doing business both on the farm and in their community.

It wasn’t always easy. Planting lentils in a county known for wheat created waves and they weren’t amber waves of grain. But, what disapproving, wheat-loving onlookers didn’t know, was that the short, squat lentil plant is the “Robin Hood” of the plant world. A Nitrogen fixer, it creates fertilizer and increases soil health by sequestering Nitrogen out of the atmosphere and putting it in the soil in a plant available form. This fixing of Nitrogen is a valuable service to farmers and to plant and soil life. 

In this interview with author, teacher, and lecturer Dr. Liz Carlisle, we learn what happened when a group of farmers shifted from industrial agriculture to a more ecological farming method. This transition from a “farming up” to a “farming down” model, with a goal of regenerating soil health, is the story of the Lentil Underground.  It's also a story about community, agricultural policies, and our food system.

Dr. Liz Carlisle is the author of the book Lentil Underground. Liz is a Lecturer in Food Systems at the University of California, Berkeley and in the Thinking Matters program at Stanford University. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography, from UC Berkeley, and a B.A. from Harvard University. 

You can buy lentils and other products from the farmers mentioned in this interview by visiting their company Timeless Food.