Innovating with Soil Biology - Daniel Tyrkiel [Soil Ecology Laboratory]

We started with this, with a simple message of make good composition of your problems go away, that microbes can perform a lot of functions that currently are being performed by chemicals. It's it's a it's a good starting point. It's not a complete starting point. The challenge is very much cultural. We can't expect that suddenly the, you know, all of the all of the farmers are suddenly just going to start making compost. That's just not going to happen. They're just so busy in the day to day.

They don't even have the headspace to think about it. And so from a very, very early on, we decided, okay, we're going to actually make it into a product. We're now hitting it's economies of scale. Plus, you know, they have educated themselves enough to say, okay, we can spray or we can inject it, or we can coat this as a seed coating. And this UV coating is going to be the cheapest for the for the greatest effect.

We're going down the chain of, removing barriers to, to even starting work with biology. In this episode we return to one of my favourite topics. That microscopic life that lives in the soil. After recognising the significance of soil life for supporting the climate, Daniel Teagle set about exploring solutions that could support farmers to support and work with the biology and soil.

The desire was to create a plug and play solution, something easy and accessible that allows farmers to shift from chemicals to biology without a need for heavy learning or investment. And the outcomes from the creations from his company, Soil Ecology Laboratory, have included World First's innovative products, which are continually being developed and explored further.

It was a pleasure to chat with Daniel and learn about the mindset behind the products and his determination, which seems to have been inspired by his mentor, Doctor Elaine Ingham. I'm Helen Fisher. This is We are Carbon, and I very much share in Daniel's enthusiasm to recognise the significance of the life in soil. Learning about soil life can open our eyes to a new way of seeing the world, and help us to identify new solutions. Check the description for some resources shared by Daniel.

An additional we are Carbon episodes that can help you to dive deeper into this fascinating topic. Be sure to subscribe to keep up to date. Enjoy the conversation. Hi Daniel, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate you being here and I'm excited to learn more about your work. Could you kick us off with a quick introduction to yourself and then maybe a bit of a background story to Soil Ecology Laboratory? Sure. Thank you very much for having me, Helen.

So my name is Daniel, and I'm the director of Soil Ecology Laboratory. And, this this little lab started, because I just wanted to do something with this climate change thingamabob that's happening. That was sparked by just having a daughter 15 years ago. And, in the end, got me to, to change my career completely. My, my background is not in agriculture. It's in, procurement and engineering and, and, this is what I tell to, to every new farmer that I meet that I'm a recovering townie.

So I apologise in advance. And, the the the what we chose actually, is, is our tools. And this is biology, had to do with, with the fact that my, my entry towards agriculture started with, with with permaculture. And, you know, it's a very broad subject. And if you were to, to talk to a regular farmer about permaculture, it really makes no sense in, in a modern setting.

But through permaculture, I came across the work of Doctor Elaine Ingham and her message was very simplistic, meaning make good compost and all your problems go away. And, there's a lot of truth in that, and there's a lot of nuance to that as well. But we followed in, Elaine's footsteps, and I am privileged to say that, that, I do treat her as my personal friend. She's been very, very, supportive to, to to what we do here in support of to to my efforts.

And, and so we've been working with compost, the soil ecology laboratory, the core of the work that we've done, focuses around compost and around, specifically, how compost can grow beneficial, microbes that can be used in agriculture and horticulture in Niagara, forestry and forestry or just your regular garden. So that's, that's that's the short of the long I would say fantastic. And it's such an interesting story. I love that you decided I want to change my career.

I think that's a very empowering move. And I don't think that it's unusual for people to change perspective and change the way that they see things when they have children and think, oh, are we are we creating a world that we want to, you know, we want to leave to them?

So I think it would be interesting to, to talk about that bit a little bit on the the point of view that we don't have to come into farming in the same way that it is always been like it can feel a bit of a block and we have an issue with young entrance into farming, but, you know, learning about soil is a very interesting first step that is perhaps more available than people realise.

So maybe if you could share a few bits about that, a of why, why you chose soil and how accessible it is for people to really learn and get into different angles on on working with soil in their life.

Sure. So soil is is the largest carbon sink on the planet. Even even now, you know, with with, with a lot of degradation and, and, and land use change that has happened, especially since the Industrial Revolution. Soil still still to this day, is a is an annual global sink to the tune of three gigatons per year.

And so, you know, if you, if you take that in mind, you know, with the goal of, slowing down climate change, you know, not being too arrogant here, but, you know, with having that sort of goal in mind, you know, soil becomes a, a tool that you really don't want to ignore.

Especially that we know that the practices that we use, in very intensive agriculture settings, that's that's where where soil becomes damage to the point where in the annual practices, actually, cause the release of and that release of carbon dioxide rather than, rather than storage.

And if agriculture is what supports us and there's a big chunk of land, globally, obviously, that is dedicated to, to, to feeding us, if we had a way of using that agricultural land to, to, to store that carbon again and do it and in a sustainable manner, then we wouldn't have to worry about, the, the expansion of the population.

We wouldn't have to worry about the cost of feeding ourselves if we knew how to balance, but this molecule is basically on a global scale because this is what we're trying to do if we try to if we balance out all of the flux of the molecules that that we care about, then, then we'll be able to, to, to live as we're living right now and, and still, you know, still have the, the, the food that we need in a, in a way that, that doesn't break, break the biosphere. So the, so to speak.

And I yeah, I, I love this topic. And it's so at the heart of we are carbon that kind of is what we are. Carbon is about the carbon is plant food. So we don't have to think from that lens of limitation. And it's such to me is such a powerful message, but also a really, really important message. It threads into the work that so many people do, but it's a difficult thing to get the messaging across on and then access and actually make change.

So if we look at carbon going into the soil that that is a it's a fantastic goal. It's a fantastic aim. There's so many benefits of that for thriving. I think I, I really enjoy the word thriving rather than just going, oh, you know, we can solve the problems. Actually we can we can heal and we can thrive and we can be really well nourished by beautiful food. So there's so many things wrapped into the benefits of getting the carbon back into the soil.

But it's it's such a big conversation and it sounds in and of itself like a simple solution. You work with the biology in the nature, but actually it's a really, really difficult thing. And I'm sure that you, have a huge amount of perspective on this. The knowledge that you've learned and the work that you do to actually then take that into practice, there's a whole system that you are confronted with of barriers to, to ensure that on a large scale, farming is bringing carbon down.

So could you share, some of the barriers that you see in terms of getting the knowledge from the lab and into action, into the field? So, so, the the way, the way I see, our ability to, to, to make, to make change. So, you know, we need to start. So first of all, with the do we know how to do this? And you know, what is what is the mechanism? You know, have we explored it enough and and the answer is yes. There is enough evidence.

There's, there's been enough work, in scientific literature and there's enough, calculations of what resources are necessary physically to be able to pull this off. To answer that question positive, we can we can actually do this. The, the challenge is, is very much cultural in a sense that, there is a, a certain machine in place and that machine has been built up over decades to ensure that we have food to eat, as simple as that. And that machine is operated by a huge number of players.

I mean, if you just if you just think of, you know, the, the simple concept of a supermarket, that's what we all see, right? And a single supermarket will have dozens and dozens of stuff. Right. And we've got thousands of them across the country. And you know, that's the end of the chain. And then okay, then you need to process that food because most of it is processed.

So you ain't going to have manufacturing there, and then you're going to have, middlemen between those manufacturers and the farmers, and you're going to have, the farmers supplying the middlemen. And then you're starting to look at, okay, well, there's a system that a farmer has subscribed to to satisfy what the merchant wants. And then to satisfy the system, there's another set of, players in the back end before the farmers that enable that system to, to, to play.

It's, it's into place for all. So everybody can play it, play their parts. And so, you know, it's, it's it will be very difficult for all of these players to suddenly change their tune and, and play a completely different melody, because they would probably need to change some of the instruments. And so for us to be able to, to, to make the necessary changes, we need to, shift basically, the not just the perceptions, but the way of working of a lot of people.

And I'm talking about people not I'm not talking about some machine and system here. These are these are all people, how people actually work on a day to day basis. And, and to ensure that those, those changes don't upset the cart so much that they simply rejected because we're not in a war time situation where, you know, the the U-boats are preventing oranges from reaching Great Britain.

Therefore, we have to pay children to go and collect, dog rose, fruit to be able to, to, to make a syrup so that we have vitamin C for the population. Right. That's not the situation that we're in. Climate change is a slow process, and everybody pretty much ignores it on a day to day basis.

And so to be able to, to, to make necessary changes, we have to speak in the language that's that that's everybody's used to and the language is well, I've got this system, we're working, I've got this equipment and I've got this budget.

And so, you know, if we can, if we can look at, you know, how people work in many different or many different levels of that system and, and tweak it, you know, just a little bit not beyond a certain scope that just makes them go, yeah, no, I'm not going to even I've got my my system makes makes money. I can feed my family, I can go on a holiday. It's good. I'm fine. You don't have to come up to me. You know another way of of obviously making those necessary changes

would be to force people. And, you know, governments do that. But governments will not simply force people to do things unless unless there's enough evidence, unless there is also will from the inside of, you know, of the system. So the population or the industry to actually say to the governments, look, government, we need to change things, how we do things, and then the government might actually move something and obviously the government might be swayed.

Obviously, by the lobbyists who just want to stick with the status quo. So the number of of moving parts in this whole thing are great. And to be able to, to, to change even even one player, requires quite a lot of thinking. And, you know, approach that is human. Yeah, it's it's definitely a big, big challenge.

And yeah, really well outlined in terms of the complexity, you decided to take that human angle to, to be a human wanting to, to take a route that would benefit the system and would help with that process of drawing down carbon. So why don't you share a little more about the evolution of soil ecology? Laboratory, and how that is taking a step forward for, for the people around you?

So again, we we started with this, with a simple message of make good composition of your problems go away, that microbes can perform a lot of functions that currently are being performed by chemicals. And so, it's, it's a it's a good starting point. It's not a complete starting point. There's a lot of, nuance to that.

And so in terms of our evolution, we've, we've always the, the, you know, beyond the goals of let's talk carbon and let's, let's basically have agriculture without the side effects. And the side effects are mainly to the environment and to our own health. Obviously.

So with, you know, beyond beyond those goals, the means to achieve those goals, the, the way I've always seen this was, well, how do we how do we make sure that, that, that we utilise or is or are being is helpful to, to the people who are in this as possible. And so, you know, our very first trial was, you know, to test if the biology does anything, there's there's the the first question was, well, how do we apply this biology stuff in a physical setting? Right.

Because, you know, then we can do we can do lab experiments, you know, and we decided early on to limit the lab experiments. We do a lot of experiments, but we wanted to go out and and test, test these, these ideas in, in the field. And so our very first test, we asked a question, well, how do we how do we do this? We we can't really do any seed coating. We can't do any injecting into the soil. So we decided, okay, well, what equipment is available? Everybody's got a sprayer.

That's just an example. Okay. It's just a piece of equipment for people who are not in agriculture, in amongst the audience. It's just a piece of, equipment that, sprays out mist of, of water with some component in it. Usually it's fungicide or insecticide and in our case, it was, it was, it was biology, living biology. And everybody's got a sprayer. Okay. Well, suddenly the first hurdle is, it's not a solution.

Our biology is a suspension of particles of microbes and organic matter of a certain size. And so, you know, to be able now to accommodate, the, the, the product that we've made, we have to make changes even to the simple sprayer. And so that small change was still doable. It was a matter of buying nozzles that had slightly larger diameter, removing some filters, you know, and just making sure that that everything works together. And we tested everything and there microscope. Yeah. The idea.

So the, the evolution has always been okay. Well, how do we ensure that, that the people can, can work with the solution in the first place? And we've noticed from a very, from very early on was that, this always has been historically this working with biology thing has been relegated to a very small number of early adopter farmers these days. You might, you know, we still call them early adopter farmers, but usually just tinkerers, you know, people who like to do things on their own.

They see that, you know, we should be doing this, you know, we should be going in this direction because it's going to be cheaper for the farm or it's going to be better for better for ourselves. Something to, to to that effect. But if we were to wanted to go to, to a further market, we would need to make it in a way that they can simply use. You know, nobody's asking a farmer to produce, ammonium nitrate. Nobody's asking a farmer to produce urea, which are the basic two synthetic fertilisers.

We don't do that. Because there is a big factory, and a big factory processes a huge amount of raw materials and uses a huge amount of energy to make the products efficient. And then there's a huge distribution chain that simply delivers it to the farm. And this is equipment that the farmer can use as already been in place. The equipment is usually as old as a farmer and then they can simply use it. Right.

So we can't expect that suddenly the, you know, all of the all of the farmers are suddenly just going to start making compost. That's just not going to happen because because, you know, the farmers and especially the very large farming operations, are so, tuned to the current system that they just don't even have the head space. They're just so busy in the day to day. They don't even have the head space to think about it.

So if I was to say to, to to the farmer, okay, well, I'll teach you how to make compost. Okay. How long is that going to take? I can teach you in one day, but, you know, you're going to be practising for two years. Okay. And then what? Well, you need the equipment that scale. You need equipment for it. Okay. Well, what equipment do I need? Well, you need the turner, or you need, that kind of machine or that kind of machine. Okay, well, so that's a purchase. Okay. And then what?

Well, then you need to make an extract of it. And how do I do that? Well, you need some more purchases. Okay. And then what. You see where I'm going with this. Right. So all of these all of these steps and equipment and training, those are barriers for anybody who even wants to try this. And so from a very, very early on, we decided, okay, we're going to actually make it into a product. So we made it into a product.

It's the only product on the market anywhere in the world that, is, is made to a certain spec out of compost made to a certain spec. And then, we made it before we even I said that we made it, and then we started shipping it to farmers. And then, we say to them, this is a living product. You have to use it whether we. And then they said, okay, because the weather is coming and I can't use it, and then it's going to spoil. And I just lost my money. I don't need it. I don't need the hassle. Okay.

So we then there's lots of issues. Okay. Right. So what we did, we we had to we had to accommodate that. And we spent over a year making it shelf stable. I say shelf stable. That means that in chilled conditions we can we can store it now up to three months. And the longest we've actually gone to was a year. But the point is weather will force the farmer to move about like two weeks, three weeks, maybe up to a month. But three months is okay.

So that means that means that we've we've now we've now taken care of anybody who just wanted to try this. We've taken care of two years plus and hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of equipment of at scale. Right. If they wanted to really scale this up, even thinking about this, you know, it costs a lot of money. So if they wanted to, to, to scale up, you know, we've taken away all of that equipment. Great. So they can now try this because they can now think of the future safely.

That's and they're going to be able to wanted to use it. And then we get to, to the, to the training point and how do we apply this? Well, you can do it as a spray, but if we provide it as a, as a product, there's, there's, there's we're now hitting it's economies of scale. Plus, you know, they have educated themselves enough to say, okay, we can spray it or we can inject it, we can coat this as a seed coating. And this UV coating is going to be the cheapest for the for the greatest effect.

So now farmers are going into the seed coating. But then the farmers are finding that well I'm going to buy a maybe I'm going to buy a pan mixer and mix it in the pan, and another farmer is going to go in and say, well, I'm going to use my auger and put it into the hopper. And they're trying all these different things. And again, it's another barrier. They've they got the product now, but now they have to apply the somehow.

So so then we reached out to to, to a mobile seed coating company because a client of ours has already been working with them and they run a test. They were fine. They they did it and they did the seed coating for the for the clients, the client drill. That's drilling. Meaning? Meaning actually putting the season on the ground. And so we had a conversation with the with the seed coating company, the seed concrete coating company. Another element right in that in that puzzle. Right.

We're going down the chain of removing barriers to, to even starting work with biology. That's UV coating company says, this is our machine. We went to see the right. This is our machine. And when we try these products, these are the things that we noticed. And if we have to do these things, do these extra steps on the farm, we will not have time to do it. And it's going to make it more expensive for the farmer, and it's going to be not economical for us. And so we had to work out okay.

If we if we work out these issues, then the mobile seed seed coating company can, can actually do it and they can have a profit out of it. Meaning now there's a, an element beyond the farmer in the system, another player in the system that is actually economically, economically, meekly tied to, to using biology in a, in a way that, that benefits the farmer and themselves.

So our evolution has always been, to first of all, enable farmers to, to work with living biology and then, and then simply plug into that system which already exists without setting it, without saying we're just going to make completely new equipment, and all the farmers will have to sell the rural equipment and buy new equipment. We're just trying to see how we can tweak the system to be able to to do that.

And then beyond just the evolution of how do we enable farmers to use biology, we have to look at when what is the biology actually capable of achieving and the kind of biology that we work on. What is it capable of achieving? There is a certain limit of, there's a certain goal of, of yield, for instance. And the farmers wants to achieve that yield. And we have noticed that the biology can, can push certain things, but it cannot compete with straight brute force.

Applied to applications of of of nutrition, of synthetic nutrition. And so we start that, we have to start looking at what else is out there to, to, to be able to, to, to support the biology and support the crop. So I'm going to stop here because, you probably want to step in with some questions before I bore your audience to death. And we can move on from here. But as you can see know, we've we've started with a simple message of let's use biology.

And then we go to the point where, you know, we're interacting with a lot of different players in the, in the system. And then, you know, we started looking beyond this biology thing. Yeah, I, I really enjoyed this. It's I think when we, we start to look and you explained it so well at the beginning, there's so many different layers, so many complexities, so many steps within the system that need to change. So there are multiple solutions and the angle that you're taking.

I can see how it can apply to lots and lots and lots of farmers, because instead of them needing to re-educate themselves very deeply, you are making those very deliberate efforts to say, how do we meet you where you're at? How do we make something that you can understand that you have the capacity, the knowledge, and the equipment to just plug it into what you're already doing? And and that does sound, you have very, very practical. I think it would be lovely to hear.

So in my mind, the farm currently may be spraying from this machinery chemicals that are made in a laboratory in a, in a factory, that are made out of fossil fuels that are there easier to feed, kind of from a, chemical point of view, feed the plants or kill life in control, of of the crop that thereafter. So that might be kill the weeds or kill the pests. But it's, it's kind of like a spray of death. And what you're creating is. Right. Well, just create an alternative to that.

You do the same activity, but your spraying life and your feeding and balancing the system through the biology itself. Is that a good summary or am I coming at that from the wrong angle? Yeah, yeah, I think I think yes it is. It is spot on where we're trying to use the same equipment, we're trying to use the same equipment so that we, we observe the, the cart as little as possible. So we're trying to fit into the, the equipment, side of things and, and the budget side of things.

And as long as we can achieve the same goals as the, the, the chemicals we're achieving, maybe the, the, the, the, the, the number of applications or the, when we're actually applying certain things changes throughout the growing season. But the overall effect of a, of a good, abundant crop, that's, that's good quality that can go and be sold at, at a good price, you know, that's, that's still achieved. So, so yeah.

So in terms of, in terms of, you know, the, the just just touching on that, description that you just made that, you know, they're going to be putting out, certain things that, might be, killing the the way I see modern agriculture is that do you have a field, you have a field where, all of the crops are pretty much fed, through, through through some drip, drip feed. Sorry. And then they're being given drugs to prevent disease.

You know, that reminds me more of a of a patient in a in a hospital bed. And what we want is a is a school, a school of healthy plants, you know, so these students, these young plants, they they need good school lunches, nice and healthy school lunches, and not just drugs to make sure that they don't, you know, nobody in the school is running around with an IV in the in the in the side of their arm. Right.

So somewhere there, there became this this disconnect between how nature evolved and what we're trying to actually do with it. And the the truth is that the industry is going further in that direction, not trying to address that, but it's actually going further in that direction. If you think about, after we left the European Union, one of the celebrations was, oh, yes, we can, we can now, do directive plant breeding or targeted plant breeding, as they call it.

Nobody says that this is basically playing with genes. Right. So and in the past, you know, majority of of that has been not to the benefit of, of us who was to the benefit of the salesman of, of glyphosate, for instance. Right. Because, the the plants were more or less susceptible to, to, to, to glyphosate, which means that you could pour more of it to control the weeds. And so, you know, we're talking more about, okay, well, you know, this this plant is not very efficient.

We're going to make it more efficient through plant breeding. Let's let's make photosynthesis more efficient. And I'd say, sure. Why not? But I think we're we're still missing the trick. And I and I think still there's, the resources that are just not being utilised even within the UK. I'm not even talking worldwide. And those resources could enable us to, to, to have the same thing that we're getting now, but just without the side effects that, that we're experiencing.

It's such a powerful thing when when you look after the plant in the natural way and all of this microbiology, it's it's achieving so many of the stages that the farmers are otherwise having to pay to control. Do you have. And this is probably a really challenging question, but I'll I'll see how it goes. Do you have a resource that you would like to recommend? Doctor Elaine Ingham obviously such a wonderful guru in this space and probably well known by many of the people in the audience.

But if people are new to the idea of what soil life is doing and how it's supporting the plants, do you have a resource that that you would recommend to people to to take a look at, to learn more?

Probably, probably for the general audience, the the books by Jeff Lowe and files teeming with teeming with microbes would be a good start. So teeming with microbes is is a book. There's I think, the foreword or one of the, sort of sentences in the front of the book is actually also written by Elaine. So they're all very well connected. And Jeff did a very good job with, with summarising, you know, the, the role of, of the soul food within individual elements in that, in that. So food web.

So I think that might be a good start. And if you're nerdy, if you really want to, you know, start diving deeper, where you could literally do is go on Google Scholar and the, the paper, you know, if you're interested in the lanes, work in Doctor Ingham's work the the paper that you want to look up is the ecological monograph.

And that's from 1986. And, you know, it's, it's there's a there's a sea of literature out there, you know, and a lot of, a lot of recent papers are actually very good as well.

You know, again, if you're interested in understanding how how biology, works and, and what benefits, you know, there are of, of working with, with nature and just there's very quickly, you know, if you want to start even thinking in this direction, it's, it's worth thinking about evolution because, that's how we go to the point where, we're here now and, the, the, the really poignant, way of, of looking at this is plants, terrestrial plants.

They've been evolving for, I don't know, somewhere between 4 and 600 million years. And that's a long time. Right. But microbes had 1.5 billion years of Head Start. And so when plants started evolving, microbes already were established. And to the and so plants basically had to figure out, well, how do we how do we work with this microbial soup?

And, you know, the very early examples of that are obviously regions where you've got this algae and fungi, collaboration and from, from there, you know, it's it's it's about, further and you know, when you, when you look back in, in that, ecological, history, it's easy for us to think that the planet always looked like this. Oh, you know, we've got trees. We've cut down too many forests because forest, you know, they they've always been on the planet.

The thing is that 400 million years ago, trees were about a metre tall. And there were fungi with fruiting bodies that were ten metres tall. And there is proof of that. There was a there is a fossil found in Saudi Arabia, which which proves that there were that there were fruiting bodies of fungi the size of trees. And so there was, you know, there was obviously a switch, you know, in terms of, in terms of who's winning just because how everything evolved.

But the truth of the matter is still that, plants have to work with microbes in a natural ecosystem to be able to ultimately get the majority of the resources, including water, actually, there's this the symbiotic relationships with mycorrhizal fungi and dark separate fungi or micro mucosa. I believe it's the same thing. Means that plants actually have got lots more roots than just their own roots. And, and so they get all sorts of nutrition, but literally also water through the fungi.

And so if we start thinking in, in this way, then we have to ask ourselves, what are we doing in, in modern agricultural systems, which, forces us to put all these synthetic nutrients and, you know, stopping ourselves from getting any benefit of, of these, of these interactions of plants in the wrong way. I think it is such a fascinating topic. So I'll make sure that there's links available to those, those resources.

The book that you mentioned, but I, I love your vision there that that evolutionary path is, is so beautiful and such a such a wonderful thing to connect in with the soil of small trees and, and huge mushrooms. It's quite a vision with, with the products that you're creating for the sprayers, you're obviously making a lot of compost. Is there anything special about that? And how do you gain all of the materials to put into it and create it?

So we we've strategically located ourselves, and a green waste composting site. And the fact that green waste composting sites exist, first of all, is good news. Second of all, doesn't mean that you automatically get great biological compost. So we have to amend our processes and we in general, we follow this modified Berkeley, composting method, which is a hot composting method.

And this is something that, Ellen has been helping to, to, to popularise across, across the world, there are very many different ways of, of getting good biology and compost. It's just that this method is usually the fastest to, to, to achieve that, high density of, of microbes that we're after. There are easier methods as well. There are more convenient methods for home gardeners as well. This is just the one that, that, that we use.

And in terms of materials, we do use a lot of waste wood, because we get a lot of, wood that comes in here. But we actually, these days, for, for green materials, we usually use hay that was locally sourced. And then, the, the really interesting part of our local circular economy is that we use a lot of spent coffee grains.

And we're still surprised how little of the coffee waste that goes through cafeterias across the country is actually used in gardens, or for purposes like ours, and a lot of it still ends up in landfill. So, you know, if you've got a local cafeteria and you've got your own garden, garden or allotment, just go and ask them, leave a bucket, come and pick it up because, because they, they probably they probably actually, put it into their waste bin and, you know, it's not it's a fantastic resource.

It's, for compost, for biology actually from from the biology perspective, it's it's a fantastic resource. So, there you go. There's a £350,000 tip for you, to, to utilise. It's a fantastic tip. And yeah, it just goes to show that we, we have the materials we need because, gosh, just think of a place that doesn't serve coffee. I think that it's something that, that, that any, any city, any, community is going to have a good resource, a good supply of coffee grinds.

So yeah. Fantastic. Thank you for that. And I think if I could ask you for one final tip that you can offer to people, what I've been asking in this season of the podcast is if you can think of something to share that people can take action on today, a small step that you would recommend people to take to support regeneration in the world.

This is this is a loaded question. It's a funny one because, because it's easy to, to, to follow this, you know, like, we want to be responsible, right? We're responsible individuals. And so it's easy to, to get trapped by individuals and it's easy to get trapped in in one camp or the other. One camp is going to be I don't care, I'm just going to use my green bed for everything, or I'm going to use my black bin or whatever bin you're using, right?

Or I'm going to, take responsibility for everything. I'm going to live zero waste. I'm going to, I don't know, go vegan. I'm going to, ride the train. Right. That's because, you know, a lot of, there's a lot of information that comes our way. And, you know, it's it's easy to be to get swayed one way or the other.

It's, before I answer your question of what people can actually do, I really wanted to make this point because, it's not the first time that the industry is simply putting responsibility on us. Yes, we're the beneficiaries of this civilisation. I think we're lucky. We're privileged that we live in this world. We've got roofs of our heads. The roofs are quite strong. You know, winds don't necessarily blow them off very easily. We've got food on the table. The food is safe to eat.

We've got water that's drinking drinking water in our taps in the UK, by the way. You know it's it's it's something that apparently it's not a thing in across the world. Right. So you can drink, you know, straight from the tap. So the thing is that we're very privileged that we live in this civilisation that allows us to wanted to have these privileges.

Now, on the other hand, you can pinpoint you can name apparently 70 or 71 companies who have made the most money from pretty much climate change. And I think there's not enough action as being, there's a lot of pressure being put on these individual companies to actually do something about this. And so my, my point and my message to, to, to your listeners is that do whatever you can, but please don't take the blame, okay?

Because you were born into the system, unless you're one of those people working for certain companies. Okay. And even when you're working for these companies, you're usually a line person, you know, somewhere, you know, in the office or somewhere, you know, doing the job and you have to pay your bills and you have to feed your family. So please don't feel bad about, you know, this world and how you're living.

In the first place, the because these companies are very good at PR and if you look at our history of the 20th century, especially the the two best examples that we've got that everybody accepts these days, one, everybody accepts these days, that's tobacco that has been sold as a very safe treat. Okay. And there's nothing wrong with it. And my doctor prescribes Marlboro. Right.

But, but the one that people, for instance, are not necessarily the best, you know, informed about is plastic is single use plastic. Plastic manufacturers plastic, by the way, is a fantastic resource, is a fantastic material. It's it's a it's a human miracle of engineering. Okay. So it's not a, it's not a bad thing plastic in its own. But the thing that happened was plastic is too good for its manufacturers, for the business because it's actually it lasted a thousand years.

Right. We know that. And so what they did was, let's let's make plastic a single use item, you know, and, and that's shift actually created huge profits for the, for the plastic industry. Right. And by the way, by extension to the oil and gas industry, because that's where plastic comes from. So it created huge profits for the for the, for the plastic industry by making it a single use item.

And then, well, people are people you know, they're not necessarily we didn't evolve with plastic single single use. We evolved with paper. You know, this is this is lignin. Lignin is already has got microbes that can decompose it. So we just throw it on the side of the road and it is gone within days with plastic. We can't just throw it on the side of the road and think this the same is going to happen. It's not right. So then what did these companies do? Right?

Instead of taking responsibility for what they just did and created, you know, this whole problem of creating huge mountain of plastic, they took their profits and they said, that is your fault because you're littering. Okay? And suddenly all of the pressure went off of their backs. And so it's very important to me that we don't get trapped, you know, especially people who are, empathetic people usually leaning to the left. They're very empathetic and they're like, you know, oh my goodness.

You know, it's like Mayor Cooper, you know, it's it's all me, you know? And it's really the wrong thinking. Okay, now to answer your question. Yes, you can do stuff. You can do stuff on on many different levels. If you've got a garden, please reuse your scraps. The simplest ways to, to reuse your scraps is to dig a hole. You dig a hole, make sure that that hole actually, doesn't have any standing water so that it infiltrates, but dig a hole alongside, you know, the plant of row, row of plants.

You know, it could be just bushes or roses or something. But dig, dig and dig a hole. It might be a sort of like a, a trench and you put your your scraps in there, cover it up so that, you know, rot rodents don't have any easy access to it. And that will start to, to, to to degrade.

If you've got space for composting, start to, to learn to compost and then, you know, if, if that is a barrier, there are potentially local community projects that are already start to, to, to look at that to, to reuse your, your food scraps. And then if you want to go a bit further, you know, and maybe you still don't have a collection of your food scraps, for instance, then talk about, talk to your local council. Local councils have open days. Talk to them.

You know, the thing is that there are companies out there who rely on those food scraps to produce methane, for instance, for gas or biogas, which is a more renewable way of producing energy. Right. So, so you can talk to your councillor to and make sure that you've got this collection, because these companies really rely on these councils to make the contracts available. So you can do that. And then, you know, beyond that, you know, you would need to go into big business.

I think, you know, unless unless you've got access to, to the government. But something to your MP or something. But, it's hard for me to tell you. For instance, go and buy organic because it's usually more expensive. And so I don't I don't tell you that my vision is that we enable farmers to grow without all of these chemicals. So that's organic becomes the normal. That's that's what I want. Okay. I don't want you to be I'm going to be choosing with my wallet.

No, it doesn't work like that. Like that. Because organic food could doesn't always could cost the same to produce as conventional. That's not always. But could. Okay. It's the marketers that do it to you. It's the marketers that say, oh, this is special. You're only going to get sick, you're going to get sick, whatever, everything else. But this is better. So we're going to charge you more. Okay.

My label for Coke, I said that long ago that when you saw that the shop in Tokyo was charging two and a half times the normal price of food for his produce, he pulled it from those shelves. Because food is a human right. And, you know, we shouldn't have simply a privilege for the for the for the very rich to say I only eat organic or biodynamic, you know, it's, it's a selection, you know, it's, it's it's not the way to do it. Seriously. You know, we have to have good food.

We're not supposed to be the the tip, okay? And, you know, if you knew what I knew, then for a future conversation, what could happen, actually, in agriculture, where we become the tip. Who would understand why I'm saying that? It's not about the wallet. Thank you so much. I really appreciate such a well-rounded answer. That is absolutely what we're all about. Taking the holistic look and not kind of tickling on the surface.

And if I could, offer a tip to people from my point of view, if people are feeling so called to explore these ideas further and get excited about soil microbiology and all of the creative possibilities that are happening with Soil Ecology Lab, how do they learn more? And I'm going to send them to just go and have a little look. Thank you very much for that.

We do have a we we actually made the retail brand for products that you can simply buy a news, you can find them have soil smiths dot currently the UK. But if you're very, very, very curious, twice a year we run, courses and they're aimed for anybody from a garden scale to a farmer. And you can learn how to use a microscope, you can learn how to use how to make compost. You can even learn how to make extracts out of it. And you can even learn, was pretty advanced.

So, you know, that's beyond sort of like an all on garden thing, but, but advanced plant nutrition as well. So, that's at Sony College lab.co, the UK. You can find a lot of that there. Perfect. Thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure talking with you and learning more. And best of luck with everything. So thank you very much, Helen. Pleasure is all mine. All the best to, to your listeners and to you.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check the description for the links to learn more and engage with the work from Daniel and Soil Ecology Laboratory, where you'll find a range of resources there, including links to Daniel's products, recommended reading, and some additional wheel carbon episodes for digging deeper into this topic of soil, don't forget to subscribe to keep up to date! I'm Helen Fisher, this is we are carbon and let's keep figuring this all out together.