In this episode Designers of Paradise host Erik van Lennep talks with Stephen and Gloria Decater of Live Power Community Farm in Covelo, CA. They have been managing the farm for 45 years and during that time helped to pioneer CSA’s, implemented an innovative agricultural agricultural easement, and been committed to being fossil fuel free, instead using animals and the sun to power the farm. They have invested time and energy into a variety of educational efforts which have bloomed students who have worked on the farm becoming teachers who bring their own students. They discuss farming and the community, the process of developing the easement, biodynamic farming, succession, our connection to earth, and more.

Some favorite quotes include:

  • Man can magnify natural processes
  • A little bit of earth in all of us
  • Being in the farm “is a moving, spiritual experience”
  • Wendell Berry’s quote that “Everyone who eats is farming”
  • the concept of “a permanent farm”
  • building a life that works for everybody in the farm organism, and
  • the original job description for a human

Links to topics mentioned:

 

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