Latest / Simmer Down / Down on the Farm

Transcript

Down on the Farm · Simmer Down

• 0:02
  Kathleen Biggins: Welcome to Simmer Down, where we take a cool-headed look at a hot topic, climate change.
• 0:08
  Kathleen Biggins: I am your host, Kathleen Biggins, the president and founder of Sea Change Conversations.
• 0:14
  Kathleen Biggins: And today we're taking a look at how climate change is impacting our farms.
• 0:20
  Kathleen Biggins: Farming has always been challenging, but climate change is just making it harder.
• 0:27
  Kathleen Biggins: We know that there is a connection between farming and climate change because farming is so dependent on the weather.
• 0:33
  Kathleen Biggins: And we know how climate change is impacting the weather and how it's making extremes more extreme and pushing us out of the boundaries that have been normal for farmers really for the last 10,000 years.
• 0:48
  Kathleen Biggins: Predictability is crucial to farmers.
• 0:53
  Kathleen Biggins: They need to plan the next season way in advance in order to get the seeds and the fertilizer that they will need for the growing season.
• 1:02
  Kathleen Biggins: In the past, they would plan based on what had worked before.
• 1:08
  Kathleen Biggins: One of the things we're hearing a lot from farmers is that it's often too wet in that spring season when they need to get the seeds in the ground and they can lose that crop.
• 1:20
  Kathleen Biggins: More concerningly, if they just put it in the ground and then a huge rain flood comes through and washes all their seed away.
• 1:28
  Kathleen Biggins: And that really sets them back.
• 1:30
  Kathleen Biggins: Even if they get the seeds in the ground and the plants start to grow, farmers still face a lot of challenges to get that food actually to market.
• 1:41
  Kathleen Biggins: One of the things that we're seeing is in the summertime, it's just getting too hot, and we're having rains that are just too strong.
• 1:49
  Kathleen Biggins: And so farmers are looking for new ways to ameliorate those conditions.
• 1:54
  Kathleen Biggins: And one of the ways they are doing that is by building tents or structures over parts of their fields.
• 2:00
  Kathleen Biggins: So when you look out, you see these domes stretching out into the horizon simply because they have to protect the plants from the rain and from the heat.
• 2:09
  Kathleen Biggins: And so you're really asking them to innovate very quickly and to hope that as they make these financial bets, they will indeed be safe bets for that farmer and for that community.
• 2:24
  Kathleen Biggins: So I live in New Jersey, which is called the Garden State, and where agriculture is one of the top industries.
• 2:33
  Kathleen Biggins: And I was curious about how farmers right here in my home state were being impacted by climate change.
• 2:41
  Kathleen Biggins: What was the real effect on their lives and on the products that I depend on and love?
• 2:47
  Gabriel Siciliano: Sweet potatoes are one of my favorite crops to grow because they're so low maintenance.
• 2:50
  Gabriel Siciliano: And not a lot of people know this, but sweet potatoes have these beautiful, beautiful purple flowers.
• 2:57
  Kathleen Biggins: This morning I got up really early.
• 2:59
  Kathleen Biggins: And that's because I wanted to drive out into the heart of farm country in central New Jersey.
• 3:05
  Kathleen Biggins: I'm sitting down at a farmer's kitchen table with Gabe Ceciliano, an independent farmer.
• 3:12
  Kathleen Biggins: Gabe, welcome to Simmer Down.
• 3:14
  Gabriel Siciliano: Thank you for having me, Kathleen.
• 3:18
  Kathleen Biggins: Gabe, tell us a little bit about your farm and your background.
• 3:22
  Gabriel Siciliano: My farm is called Abe's Acres Farm.
• 3:25
  Gabriel Siciliano: Uh that's Abe's Acres, not Gabe's Acres.
• 3:27
  Gabriel Siciliano: People get that confused all the time.
• 3:29
  Gabriel Siciliano: After my great-grandfather Abraham, who came to this country in the early 20s, uh, fleeing persecution in Ukraine with the dream of becoming a farmer, farming his own land and supporting his family.
• 3:41
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um fast forward to today, and I am the latest iteration of that dream.
• 3:46
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um I grow on about 12 acres of land on a much, much larger property.
• 3:53
  Gabriel Siciliano: We grow uh we grow mixed annual produce, uh meaning, you know, fruits and vegetables on a weekly, uh on a yearly basis.
• 4:02
  Gabriel Siciliano: We plant them again and again and again, very little perennial growth.
• 4:05
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, we are a regenerative and sustainable farm.
• 4:10
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, these words mean very specific things.
• 4:13
  Gabriel Siciliano: Regenerative farming uh is a paradigm of stewarding the land in perpetuity.
• 4:19
  Gabriel Siciliano: So it is just as fruitful for coming generations as this one, and building health, soil health, and biodiversity over time through uh good farming practice, reduced tillage, cover cropping, diversified plantings, um, and biodiversity support.
• 4:37
  Kathleen Biggins: So from where I sit, I can see row upon row of soybeans stretching out, and out in the distance, other fields that contain vegetables and fruit trees.
• 4:48
  Kathleen Biggins: Tell us a little bit more about the specific crops.
• 4:52
  Kathleen Biggins: When you say fruits, vegetables, what do you do?
• 4:54
  Gabriel Siciliano: Sure.
• 4:54
  Gabriel Siciliano: So uh I uh sell primarily direct to retail at farmers' markets in Bucks County and in Mercer County and Burlington County.
• 5:03
  Kathleen Biggins: And those who are in Pennsylvania and New York.
• 5:04
  Gabriel Siciliano: Pennsylvania and New Jersey, respectively, yes.
• 5:06
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, and uh we sell at farmers markets and we have a community-supported agriculture uh share, a CSA share, which is kind of like a subscription service for vegetables.
• 5:16
  Gabriel Siciliano: And because that's how I sell, I can't just grow two or three different things because no one retail customer is going to be buying 40 pounds of tomatoes a week.
• 5:26
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, they're gonna get some tomatoes, a bunch of carrots, a head of lettuce, maybe some kale, a cucumber.
• 5:32
  Gabriel Siciliano: So I have to grow the whole produce section in order to have a good selection at farmers' markets to keep my customers happy and coming back.
• 5:40
  Kathleen Biggins: I bet that's challenging.
• 5:42
  Gabriel Siciliano: It is quite challenging because every single one of those crops requires a different plan, different planting times, different nutrient requirements, different water requirements, uh, which is why my life is ruled by spreadsheets.
• 5:54
  Kathleen Biggins: So so one of the things that um is I think so poignant about your story is that this farm has been handed down and was originated by someone who wanted to farm, that came to this country with that dream in his heart.
• 6:09
  Kathleen Biggins: Do you think that future generations will be able to continue the tradition?
• 6:16
  Gabriel Siciliano: That is a multifaceted question.
• 6:18
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um when you say be able to, um, do you mean from a climate standpoint, from an economic standpoint, from a land access standpoint?
• 6:27
  Kathleen Biggins: So I mean in the future, as we go forward, will it become in part because of climate change?
• 6:33
  Kathleen Biggins: But I would say since we're talking about climate change, with these increased pressures, will it become at some point too difficult to farm the land and to get return from it because it's too capricious or because you can't get enough for your crops?
• 6:51
  Gabriel Siciliano: So yes and no.
• 6:52
  Gabriel Siciliano: I think it's going to become a lot more difficult for people to uh get into the business of agriculture and make a living out of it for a lot of different reasons.
• 7:02
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um the expensive inputs, by inputs I mean, you know, fertilizer costs, fuel, equipment, that kind of thing.
• 7:08
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um the uh increasing economic instability, meaning that people are spending less money on food and you know, in general, and the expensive food, which is, you know, produce, that's uh some of the more expensive stuff rather than processed foods.
• 7:21
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, and in terms of land access, um, you know, as things get built up over time.
• 7:25
  Gabriel Siciliano: Uh, so it would be more difficult for people who aren't as blessed as I am to have access to land already to even come over that hurdle.
• 7:35
  Gabriel Siciliano: That being said, I regret to say that uh because of climate change and the increasing instability of our food system, it's going to become necessary for more and more people to start growing their own food or to start thinking about really how they're going to feed themselves, their families, and their communities, um, regardless of how difficult it is.
• 7:56
  Kathleen Biggins: So explain that.
• 7:57
  Kathleen Biggins: What do you mean?
• 7:58
  Gabriel Siciliano: I think that over time um we're going to see more and more disruptions to food distribution networks and distributions of goods of all kinds in this country and all over the world, to the point where people will need to return to subsistence farming in whole or in part.
• 8:12
  Kathleen Biggins: Meaning everyone's going to be responsible for growing some amount of their own food.
• 8:16
  Gabriel Siciliano: Yeah.
• 8:16
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um and, you know, I can use a real-world example of that.
• 8:20
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, so I was privileged enough to visit Cuba while it was still possible to do so, um, which is a beautiful, beautiful country, incredibly welcoming people and an amazing time.
• 8:30
  Gabriel Siciliano: But while I was there, I was like, I want to check out some farms because I am who I am.
• 8:34
  Gabriel Siciliano: And I did.
• 8:35
  Gabriel Siciliano: And I learned a lot about how the uh Cuban people coped with the loss of imports from the Soviet Union.
• 8:43
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, and a culture immediately developed of people growing in every open space they could.
• 8:49
  Gabriel Siciliano: And these small farms all over, even in urban small farms as well, called organoponikos serving their local communities, sprung up out of necessity because there just wasn't any food coming into the country.
• 8:59
  Kathleen Biggins: So are you saying that in the United States, you think that we're gonna have that sort of food insecurity because, in part of climate change, that we will be forced to grow more of our foods ourselves.
• 9:12
  Gabriel Siciliano: Yes.
• 9:12
  Gabriel Siciliano: And I don't think we're gonna get to a point where like every single thing you eat is coming from your own backyard, but you're gonna be supplementing a lot of what you eat from your own growing.
• 9:20
  Gabriel Siciliano: I mean, like I said, while I was there, it was like, you know, oh, well, you know, why would I go to the store to buy mint?
• 9:25
  Gabriel Siciliano: I can just put it in a pot and grow it on my there's a big culture of that.
• 9:28
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, and I you're starting to see that in certain demographics in certain parts of this country, like a return to a sort of like localized food system.
• 9:36
  Gabriel Siciliano: But I I really do think that over time we're going to see that out of necessity.
• 9:40
  Kathleen Biggins: Okay, so let's probe that a little bit more.
• 9:42
  Kathleen Biggins: Sure.
• 9:43
  Kathleen Biggins: What are the disruptions?
• 9:45
  Kathleen Biggins: Because our system is working pretty amazingly right now.
• 9:47
  Kathleen Biggins: I can go to a store and get get get blueberries from Chile most of the time, and I can get lettuce, unfortunately, sometimes tainted lettuce, but still lettuce from Mexico or Louisiana.
• 9:57
  Kathleen Biggins: How do you see that it is so threatened or so fragile?
• 10:04
  Kathleen Biggins: Sure.
• 10:04
  Kathleen Biggins: When from my perspective, it looks pretty darn robust.
• 10:07
  Kathleen Biggins: So what are you saying that I'm not saying?
• 10:09
  Gabriel Siciliano: So um if you think back to the early days of the COVID pandemic, um think about how quickly when the trucks stopped running, shelves went bare.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 10:19
  Gabriel Siciliano: Right.
• 10:19
  Gabriel Siciliano: So our system is fragile in that it relies on constant flow, constant input, um, constant motion.
• 10:28
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, and constant flow, constant input, and constant motion of a lot of disparate uh components from all over the place, all over the world.
• 10:39
  Gabriel Siciliano: Now, I unfortunately think that over time we're going to see more and larger scale disruptions, possibly on the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, um, if we're ta you know, in terms of weather events, in terms of geopolitical instability, um, and that sort of thing.
• 10:56
  Kathleen Biggins: So one of the things we do hear, um, just to to build on what you're saying, is that scientists are very concerned that our breadbaskets, the world breadbaskets, could be hit by um simultaneous weather disasters.
• 11:09
  Kathleen Biggins: Sure.
• 11:10
  Kathleen Biggins: And if that were to happen, that would indeed cause food insecurity in many parts of the world.
• 11:17
  Kathleen Biggins: I guess in my mind, that is more in places I can't that can't afford food, unless in in America, at least initially.
• 11:24
  Kathleen Biggins: But but the the fear of these failures of major growing areas in a population center is very real.
• 11:31
  Kathleen Biggins: Yes.
• 11:31
  Kathleen Biggins: And people are warning about it.
• 11:32
  Kathleen Biggins: And I I think um I just haven't seen heard it presented as as dire or in the near future as your perspective.
• 11:40
  Gabriel Siciliano: Yeah, I really hope it doesn't happen.
• 11:43
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, but I, you know, my my business is one that has a lot of inherent risk.
• 11:47
  Gabriel Siciliano: So I spend a lot of my time thinking about the worst possible outcomes and planning for them.
• 11:52
  Gabriel Siciliano: So that's why my mind goes there.
• 11:54
  Gabriel Siciliano: Right.
• 11:54
  Gabriel Siciliano: So get that.
• 11:56
  Kathleen Biggins: Would you say that farmers in general are beginning to recognize the impacts of climate change on their properties, or is it still something that's not really accepted widely?
• 12:08
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, I'm gonna answer that question by saying that farmers above all else are pragmatic people.
• 12:15
  Gabriel Siciliano: You know, outside of this, outside of my own, you know, bubble of sustainable and organic and regenerative farmers, um, I know a lot of conventional guys who over the last few years have been just unable to, unable to deny the fact that the climate is changing, just based on observation.
• 12:31
  Gabriel Siciliano: You know, I've had neighbors and friends and colleagues who said, you know, wow, it's really warm now.
• 12:37
  Gabriel Siciliano: It's really warm this time of year at a time of year where I would have never expected I'd need to be harvesting pumpkins and putting them into cold storage rather than just leaving them out in the fields for a couple of weeks.
• 12:45
  Gabriel Siciliano: So maybe I'm gonna need to focus on, you know, uh, you know, keeping my walk-ins running for a little later in the year than I would have otherwise.
• 12:52
  Gabriel Siciliano: Like I said, farmers are very pragmatic people, and it is not possible to be successful in this business without making changes based on observation.
• 13:02
  Kathleen Biggins: So looking ahead, what do you foresee changing in agriculture?
• 13:07
  Kathleen Biggins: How will things become different as our weather patterns become less secure?
• 13:15
  Gabriel Siciliano: In a number of different ways.
• 13:16
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um first off, everything's gonna be more expensive, uh, both for the farmers and for the people consuming our crops.
• 13:22
  Gabriel Siciliano: Inputs on farms, so fertilizers, fuel, equipment, that sort of thing, seeds, labor, all of that's gonna get more expensive.
• 13:29
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um that's gonna translate down the pike to higher prices at the farm stand and at the grocery store for consumers, um, which means that consumers will likely be buying uh different amounts of different things as their buying patterns have to change.
• 13:41
  Gabriel Siciliano: And I'm already starting to see that at my farmers' markets, especially this year.
• 13:44
  Kathleen Biggins: What do you mean?
• 13:45
  Gabriel Siciliano: I see a lot of people spending a lot less money at my at my markets um as opposed to prior years.
• 13:50
  Gabriel Siciliano: And at first I thought it was something I was doing wrong.
• 13:52
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, but uh with the increased prices of fuel and the increased prices on basically everything else, a family that might have $40 to $50 to spend at the farmer's market in a week now probably has maybe 20 to 30.
• 14:05
  Gabriel Siciliano: And that doesn't sound like a huge difference, but multiply that out over 500 customers in a single market weekend, and you can see where the numbers go.
• 14:13
  Gabriel Siciliano: The crops that we grow themselves are probably, and at what times of year we grow those crops are going to have to change and are already changing.
• 14:20
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, it's a lot more difficult to grow greens in the summer.
• 14:23
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, so if you want a nice salad, it's probably going to be more expensive or uh more difficult to find uh as the summer is going.
• 14:29
  Kathleen Biggins: Wait, and salad is like a mainstay of summer.
• 14:32
  Kathleen Biggins: Oh, sure.
• 14:35
  Gabriel Siciliano: Well, so here's the thing it really isn't.
• 14:36
  Gabriel Siciliano: So lettuce and leafy greens really don't like growing in the summer.
• 14:40
  Gabriel Siciliano: I keep trying to educate my customers about this.
• 14:42
  Gabriel Siciliano: Summer is not a time for greens.
• 14:45
  Gabriel Siciliano: Farmers will tell you it is the hardest time of year to grow greens.
• 14:47
  Kathleen Biggins: But it's when you want to eat them.
• 14:49
  Gabriel Siciliano: I know.
• 14:49
  Gabriel Siciliano: And it's that's what I mean.
• 14:50
  Gabriel Siciliano: Like things will need to change.
• 14:52
  Gabriel Siciliano: That's there's a this is what I'm talking about, like these friction points.
• 14:55
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, people like soil scientists and plant breeders at places like Rutgers University will have to do a lot more work and are already doing very important work to grow crops that are more resilient to pests, disease, temperature fluctuations, and that sort of thing.
• 15:11
  Gabriel Siciliano: So on the back end of the RD of agriculture, people will need to start doing a lot more work and working a lot more quickly, which is complicated when you know breeding a plant with stable genetics takes multiple years to begin with, and the circumstances that you're breeding that plant for may have changed 10 years down the line by the time that crop is ready to grow and harvest.
• 15:31
  Kathleen Biggins: So by the time the design is complete, the conditions have changed, right?
• 15:36
  Gabriel Siciliano: Exactly.
• 15:36
  Gabriel Siciliano: Yes.
• 15:38
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, and basically everything I'm talking about is gonna come down to the increased unpredictability of weather patterns and that sort of thing.
• 15:46
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, I think people are also going to need to get used to shortages of different crops at times when they would be expecting them, not just lettuces and that sort of thing, but as we just saw this year, when something happens to an entire crop in an area, that uh the availability and cost of that is gonna go down and up respectively.
• 16:07
  Kathleen Biggins: You mean the lettuce like peach.
• 16:08
  Gabriel Siciliano: Well, I'm talking about like peaches and tree fruits and that sort of thing.
• 16:11
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, you know, we're we're lucky, I should say, we're lucky we have blueberries this year in New Jersey.
• 16:16
  Gabriel Siciliano: And could you imagine a New Jersey summer without blueberries?
• 16:18
  Kathleen Biggins: No, that's impossible.
• 16:19
  Gabriel Siciliano: Yeah, well, it's it was close to becoming increasingly likely.
• 16:23
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, yeah, there was probably uh I talked to the Secretary of Agriculture about this actually a few weeks after it happened, um, Ed Wengren, who does a ton of amazing work for farmers in New Jersey.
• 16:32
  Gabriel Siciliano: And he was telling me even then we already knew it was going to be a 30% we were probably gonna only get only about 30% of the harvest this year, which I which I've seen as well.
• 16:41
  Kathleen Biggins: We we've talked about some of the hardships of growing some of the old crops.
• 16:45
  Kathleen Biggins: What are some of the new crops that really hold promise for this area?
• 16:49
  Gabriel Siciliano: So um we're starting to see uh as temperatures increase, we'll see we'll be more increasingly able to grow crops that enjoy hot temperatures.
• 16:57
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, one of the crops that I'm focusing on in that regard in order to make uh my farm more resilient is fig production.
• 17:04
  Gabriel Siciliano: Figs.
• 17:04
  Gabriel Siciliano: Figs, yes.
• 17:05
  Gabriel Siciliano: Figs are delicious.
• 17:06
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um they're my favorite fruit.
• 17:08
  Gabriel Siciliano: Every single pint of figs I pick, I sell because very few people are growing figs in New Jersey right now.
• 17:14
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, but figs are a very, very, very, very frost-tender crop.
• 17:20
  Gabriel Siciliano: They love heat, they hate the cold, and they hate windy cold, especially.
• 17:24
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, as winters become more mild and summons summers become hotter, it's going to become increasingly easy and less labor intensive to grow those crops.
• 17:33
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um so, you know, we're already, for the last few years, have been propagating figs on our farm.
• 17:38
  Gabriel Siciliano: Propagation in this context, meaning like, you know, planting and and, you know, growing more and more trees.
• 17:43
  Gabriel Siciliano: And they're loving the hot summers, uh, and I'm loving the figs that we get.
• 17:47
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, and so are my customers.
• 17:49
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um and that's and that's nice because that's a that's a high value crop.
• 17:52
  Gabriel Siciliano: I mean, in terms of um, in terms of the you know, the cost per pound or the cost per unit, it's it's it's a pretty high margin.
• 17:59
  Gabriel Siciliano: So that also makes me a bit more resilient financially because now I have a bit more room to play around with crops that may or may not do so well in the heat.
• 18:08
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, because I have a crop that does do very well in the heat.
• 18:11
  Kathleen Biggins: I understand, but you cannot make a pie out of figs.
• 18:14
  Kathleen Biggins: You who says?
• 18:15
  Kathleen Biggins: Really?
• 18:16
  Kathleen Biggins: Who says pie?
• 18:17
  Gabriel Siciliano: Yeah.
• 18:17
  Gabriel Siciliano: I'm gonna shout out my friend Chelsea in Heights Town.
• 18:20
  Gabriel Siciliano: She has a business called Pie Girl.
• 18:21
  Gabriel Siciliano: It's a pie shop that's open two days a week, and both of those days she has lines around the block, and I have seen her make fig pies.
• 18:28
  Kathleen Biggins: I stand corrected.
• 18:30
  Kathleen Biggins: But I still want my blueberries.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, likewise.
• 18:38
  Kathleen Biggins: More when we return after this break.
• 18:41
  Kathleen Biggins: So talk a little bit more about your farming practices.
• 19:59
  Kathleen Biggins: How are you also protecting your soils?
• 20:01
  Kathleen Biggins: Because we know that not only is the rain an issue, but soil is also a big part of how successful a crop can be.
• 20:07
  Gabriel Siciliano: So um I would say that it's not only a big part, I'd say that soil health is paramount um in the paradigm of um of sustainable agriculture.
• 20:17
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, and we care for our soil in a number of different ways.
• 20:19
  Gabriel Siciliano: Uh, the first and foremost, and a lot, there's a lot more science about this coming, uh, you know, coming down the pike, like, you know, as the years go by, and I'm very happy to see it, is tillage practice.
• 20:30
  Gabriel Siciliano: Now, tillage is a word uh that we use to describe the mechanical disturbance of soil.
• 20:34
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um and it it's very easy to till your fields and turn them over to plant and you know, do multiple crops in a season from year to year.
• 20:42
  Gabriel Siciliano: It it it it's that's what we see the big tractors doing.
• 20:44
  Gabriel Siciliano: Yeah, that's a number.
• 20:47
  Gabriel Siciliano: That's one of the things that big tractors are doing in fields and that sort of thing.
• 20:50
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um over time, we're realizing that more tillage is actually bad for soil structure and soil health.
• 20:55
  Gabriel Siciliano: Now, soil is not just static minerals in like a little pile, it's not just dirt.
• 21:00
  Gabriel Siciliano: Soil, uh soil is one of the most complex things that exists, right?
• 21:04
  Gabriel Siciliano: In terms of in terms of our biome.
• 21:06
  Gabriel Siciliano: It's like, you know, the complex interplay of nutrients going between plants and like the physical structure of soil itself and microbes and arthropods and the physical structure of soil and the chemical structure of soil.
• 21:18
  Gabriel Siciliano: It's so complex that, you know, any soil scientist will tell you, like, yeah, we understand about like 15 to 20% of what's going on.
• 21:24
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um and the more we're realizing is we really need to stop trying to make it do what we want and start learning what it wants to do and work with that.
• 21:32
  Gabriel Siciliano: So we use what's called reduced tillage practices.
• 21:35
  Gabriel Siciliano: Now, there are farms that are fully no-till, okay?
• 21:38
  Gabriel Siciliano: That's really hard to do, especially in an area that's as diseased and pest prone as the Northeast.
• 21:43
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, but we reduce our soil tillage practices.
• 21:46
  Gabriel Siciliano: So um, if you think about inversion of soil layers, because soil is like a cake, there's like different layers to it.
• 21:52
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, the the inversion of soil layers that can happen with a rotating implement like a rototiller, right?
• 21:58
  Gabriel Siciliano: That's really destructive to soil structure.
• 22:00
  Gabriel Siciliano: So we reduce the amount of times we do that and the depth to which we do that over time.
• 22:05
  Kathleen Biggins: And does that help with the impacts of climate change?
• 22:08
  Gabriel Siciliano: Yes, I would say so.
• 22:09
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, because for a number of different reasons.
• 22:11
  Gabriel Siciliano: One, um, for water infiltration.
• 22:13
  Gabriel Siciliano: The less you till your soil, the better it is at handling like large inputs of like precipitation and water and that sort of thing.
• 22:18
  Gabriel Siciliano: Two, whenever you till soil, you're physically releasing carbon into the air, right?
• 22:23
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, and uh that's um, I mean, I I I don't think I have to explain to your discussion why that's not ideal.
• 22:30
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um so the more you till soil, the more carbon you release into the air, and the more you reduce that soil's ability to sequester carbon out of the air, um, you know, with the more so the you know, soil again, you know, living thing, you know, sequests carbon out of the air just like any other living uh, you know, living plant matter does.
• 22:48
  Kathleen Biggins: Right.
• 22:48
  Kathleen Biggins: Actually, it this was something that I was really surprised by, which is that if we could do more regenerative um agriculture across the world, it could absorb a significant portion of the excess carbon in the air.
• 23:01
  Kathleen Biggins: Correct.
• 23:02
  Gabriel Siciliano: So like the physical structure of plants is mostly carbon and nitrogen.
• 23:06
  Gabriel Siciliano: So when you're when uh when you're seeing like you know plants grow, like that's not just coming out of the soil, that's coming out of the air itself.
• 23:12
  Gabriel Siciliano: That's the carbon that's coming that from uh photosynthesis.
• 23:15
  Kathleen Biggins: Aaron Powell What would you like grocery buyers to understand better about what farmers are facing?
• 23:23
  Gabriel Siciliano: I'd like grocery buyers to understand a number of different things.
• 23:26
  Gabriel Siciliano: The first is um this is a really, really difficult job.
• 23:32
  Gabriel Siciliano: And so for every strawberry you eat, that is that's you know, someone's time, that's someone's effort, that's picked by human hands.
• 23:40
  Gabriel Siciliano: It's becoming increasingly harder for those human beings to work in increasingly, uh, increasingly adverse climactic conditions, and they're being paid less, and the farmers are being paid less, and it's um you know, there is no there is no civilization without agriculture.
• 23:59
  Gabriel Siciliano: There is no civilization without growing crops, and that's becoming much more difficult.
• 24:05
  Gabriel Siciliano: To that end, grocery buyers, I understand you're never gonna get everything from a local farm.
• 24:11
  Gabriel Siciliano: It's just not feasible in today's world.
• 24:13
  Gabriel Siciliano: But if you can put your dollars directly in the hands that are feeding you, it not only uh it not only respects where that food is coming from, but it engenders a deeper community connection.
• 24:27
  Gabriel Siciliano: It's going into the hands of someone who's feeding their families.
• 24:30
  Kathleen Biggins: So shop at farm stands.
• 24:33
  Gabriel Siciliano: Shop at farm stands as much as you can.
• 24:34
  Gabriel Siciliano: You don't have to get everything, but you know, let me put it this way I would trust any small-scale conventional grower over grocery store organic agriculture any day of the week.
• 24:46
  Kathleen Biggins: Trust meaning that the nutrients are better or something.
• 24:49
  Gabriel Siciliano: The nutrients are better, it's safer, it's better for you, and it's going to be tastier.
• 24:54
  Gabriel Siciliano: I mean, at the end of the day.
• 24:56
  Kathleen Biggins: Yeah.
• 24:56
  Kathleen Biggins: Well, that's like a win-win-win-win, right?
• 24:58
  Kathleen Biggins: Absolutely.
• 24:59
  Gabriel Siciliano: Absolutely.
• 25:01
  Kathleen Biggins: So as you look to the future and you and you think about the new tools that are coming forward, the new way of tilling, the new way of covering the crops, what gives you hope that we will be able to continue to feed a growing population nutritionally and adequately.
• 25:21
  Gabriel Siciliano: So, as much as a pessimist as I am, um, I think that things are going to be different.
• 25:26
  Gabriel Siciliano: I think that things are necessarily going to have to change and our systems will need to adapt.
• 25:30
  Gabriel Siciliano: But I have I have faith in the ability of human beings who are a lot smarter than me to uh to help develop ways to adapt to those systems.
• 25:38
  Gabriel Siciliano: And that very instability that I'm talking about that is going to, I think, disrupt large-scale networks of distribution and push us back towards more local patterns of buying and consumption is actually going to engender a stronger sense of community, comradeship, and familial connection, which is like at the fundament of human experience.
• 26:00
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um, I can tell you now, the best thing about my job is going to the farmer's market and seeing some and seeing a family come with children that I've been feeding since they were before they were born.
• 26:11
  Gabriel Siciliano: Um I've been in this business long enough that I have kids going into middle school whose mothers I were I was feeding when they were pregnant.
• 26:18
  Gabriel Siciliano: And uh getting to be a part of people's lives in that way is really, really, really fulfilling.
• 26:24
  Gabriel Siciliano: And we're going to see a lot more of those connections develop as we have to focus more on local, uh local patterns of buying and community rather than uh on national networks of distribution.
• 26:34
  Kathleen Biggins: Wow, that is gratifying.
• 26:36
  Kathleen Biggins: It is.
• 26:36
  Kathleen Biggins: That's an amazing story.
• 26:38
  Kathleen Biggins: Um, there's a saying that I remember from about a decade ago saying, if you ate today, thank a farmer.
• 26:45
  Gabriel Siciliano: Yes.
• 26:45
  Kathleen Biggins: So thank you.
• 26:46
  Kathleen Biggins: Thank you for all you do to make our food so delicious and secure.
• 26:51
  Gabriel Siciliano: It's my pleasure, and I will I'll I'll respond to that with another saying that I've heard, which is you should shake the hand that feeds you.
• 26:59
  Gabriel Siciliano: Meaning, go directly to the farm if you can.
• 27:02
  Gabriel Siciliano: Talk to the person who's growing your food, get your food directly from them.
• 27:05
  Gabriel Siciliano: Not only does it engender a better sense of community, but helps keep farms alive.
• 27:10
  Kathleen Biggins: And as you said, it's more delicious at the same time.
• 27:13
  Gabriel Siciliano: Exactly.
• 27:13
  Gabriel Siciliano: Fresher and more delicious.
• 27:17
  Kathleen Biggins: You can find out more information about climate change, how it affects you, and how you can make a difference and maintain your hope at cchangeconversations.org.
• 27:28
  Kathleen Biggins: That's the letter C-Change Conversations with an S.org.
• 27:35
  Kathleen Biggins: Perhaps you have someone in your life who is skeptical that climate change is really happening or doesn't really think that it will impact them personally, and perhaps you had a hard time bringing this topic up with them.
• 27:50
  Kathleen Biggins: Think about sharing these episodes as a way in to discuss this difficult topic.
• 27:57
  Kathleen Biggins: Finding common ground on things that climate change is impacting is one of the easiest and best ways to broach this topic.
• 28:05
  Kathleen Biggins: So please feel free to share.
• 28:08
  Kathleen Biggins: Simmer Down is produced by Hans Buto and Rebecca Fishkin.
• 28:14
  Kathleen Biggins: A special thanks to our creative director, Carrie Dijkman, and to Nicole Kernan and Margaret Koval for their support.
• 28:21
  Kathleen Biggins: We hope you listen to our other episodes and bring the climate conversation to your kitchen table.