Episode 55 - Will Rolph - Two Fields - farming in Service to Life
"Carbon is the basic building blocks of life. It’s not actually a negative thing. Very rarely in a natural system is something objectively negative or positive. It plays its role. And so actually storing carbon and having carbon in your soil is incredibly important. And of course huge amounts of carbon has been lost from the soil. So there’s huge potential to store carbon in the soil. However I will say that we will get ourselves in trouble if we turn farming into a carbon storing exercise. I believe that we can store carbon in the soil and it’s really important for farming, and really important for the environment and the future. But I’m worried if we go down the route of only farming to store carbon, we lose the holistic understanding of nature and we end up back in a reductionist system where we are only thinking about carbon storage. To thrive we have to consider everything, and we have to understand the ecosystem in its entirety.”
Will Rolph works with his brother Harry, farming olives at Two Fields in Zakros. After moving to Zakros they soon discovered a beautiful olive craft passed down through generations that was under threat from a broken industrialized food system. Diving deep into regenerative farming and rebuilding land & soil, they work together with their family and community to produce small batches of olive oil.
Listen to Dan and Will discuss:
- Journey from sustainable design, craftsmanship to regenerative olive farming
- Chemical, reductionist and monoculture farming works. But only for the short term
- In regenerative farming we give more than we take
- Becoming ‘more forest, than field’
- How are we repairing our planet and building a future that’s possible
- Strength in diversity
- Farmers and customers become trapped in a system that only benefits the corporation
- The gift of mentorship and the proud nod of ‘you’ve got this’
- Land can’t give anymore than it is given
- Learning from the ancient and wild olive trees found in the mountains
- Deep connection to land and tasting the fruits of your labour
- Sharing the stories of Zakros through natural ingredients
- Joy to be found in limits and constraints
- Small is beautiful and powerful
- What we do to our soils, we do to ourselves
- Industrialisation disconnects us from valuable felt experiences
- Be an enquiring mind. Ask real questions
- Look after one another
Community and Links
Places:
Zakros
Connect:
Two Fields - https://twofieldszakros.com
Instagram - @twofieldszakros
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Host: Dan Burgess @dan__burgess
Edit: Charlie Shread
Shownotes: Vicki Turner
Music: Escape Goat by Soren Lorenson
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