Knowledge, Community, Scaling: Catch up with Peter Byck

And we posted it and man, within like a week it was a million views. You don't get a million views because of anything other than people are curious, right? So something about that nutrient piece, I think that's going to be a really big piece moving forward is, is health human health? It already is. But as we get to measure it. We just want to make sure every farmer knows that soil health is an option. And then we want to make it really easy for the farmers to learn if they want to.

It's the community building. It's the making sure everyone knows the knowledge is there to build the knowledge, to share the knowledge. That's kind of the the, the stew that we're stirring up right now to try to get much bigger, much, much bigger. At the start of April, I managed to catch back up with Peter Beck for this chat, which feels well timed, not just because it was a rare pause in his ongoing schedule of travels, but because there's a lot being rolled out right now by the whole root.

So deep team to scale up the impact that the docu series has already seeded for. More background about roots so deep, you can check out my previous interview with Peter, or head to their website where you can watch the trailer and rent the series.

I'm Helen Fisher. This is We Are Carbon, and throughout season four, you'll find new weekly conversations as we keep digging deeper and explore what it means to step into regenerative actions within our own place, creating health and vitality for ourselves, our communities, and the natural world around us, and really igniting a new zest for life. Be sure to subscribe to keep up to date and check the description for more opportunities for becoming involved. Enjoy the conversation.

Peter, thank you so much for coming back and sharing with us again. It's lovely to catch up with you. Would you like to just give us a bit of a showdown of of what's going on for you at the moment?

Well, it's good to be back. I think this is my first catch up podcast interview, so thank you. We we spoke just under a year ago, and we were just about to make Roots So Deep available for streaming on our website. And then I was about to embark or continue the world tour, but it got really much about the world since last May. Last June. And, we did a UK tour in June.

Then we went down to South Africa in July, back to the UK in August for a little bit and then all over the states in Canada, for the rest of the year. And then this year, I've been to, Australia for a tour of been again around the States. I just got back from Iceland.

I've, and then I'm going around the States again, and we're actually gonna start filming the new story, next week, all based on if grazing and based on the influence of the amazing farmers and scientists that I've been able to collaborate with this whole time. So the metric that we can measure of, of our success would be our social media numbers. And we get a monthly, I'm sorry, we get a weekly report.

And so we do a total view, like how many times it's been viewed across the different channels that were on and at Carbon Cowboys is our handle. And so we just hit 118 million views over the last 18 months, 19 months. And we've got now 730,000 followers. And, we are just about to start our Patreon, account so that we can start building on that. And then from the Patreon account, we're going to have a discord room or a series of rooms.

So that farmers can really dig in and have a community to share knowledge as they do the work they're doing, as they're learning. That's amazing. It sounds fantastic and slightly like you've not had your feet on the ground in that time because, yeah, every all the eyes, all those journeys around the world, amazing that you are doing that and getting the information out there because it's so important.

And I think it's such a wonderful time to be engaging with people in communities on the ground, rather than everything being online. I think the digital technology is fabulous. We can talk today, we can be other sides of the world, but actually meeting in person and embracing that this information is really important. So yeah, get it out there. Embracing, so that's Reykjavik, which I've learned how to spell now. I was just in Iceland, today's Monday, so last week and, they're huggers, man.

They're, they're a hugging group of folks. So that was cool. You were saying embracing, right? So very much. That's. That's it, though, isn't it? It's it's taking those different cultures and bringing this and making it available. And.

Yeah, if they if they hope that sounds very, very exciting to me. And I think that the reason that I'm kind of inviting guests back in this season of the podcast, and maybe that is a bit unusual, is we've gone through, we've learned so much, there's so much information for people to digest and the guests that we've spoke to really varied.

But bringing these concepts of working with nature and bringing a vision that the future doesn't have to be all about restriction and, you know, the horrible concerning disempowering situation of climate, but actually it can be about growth and abundance and healing. And that's why I, I really want to make the feeling that we're not we're not just sort of skimming over this information. And it was history, but this is ongoing. This is a journey.

This is something that everyone can be a part of and really making it, the, the we, we take the time and we figure out, well, okay, what what can I do? I, I've learnt a little bit and what can I do in my day. And that's going to be different for everybody. So that's the theme that will be coming through in this season of the podcast is what what can our guests share with people of taking action, bringing just a little step into their day? So maybe we could start there. That would be fantastic.

Sure. But just the importance of taking action, right? I mean, that's why I've been so lucky to be focussed on this for so many years now because it it makes it makes me feel better to be an action rather than not be an action. And because I've got a really amazing job at Arizona State that allows me to do this work, really allows me to like, no question. It gives me purpose and it allows me to be collaborating with so many amazing people, farmers and scientists.

It's and and then just being on the road and meeting all the people that I've met or the people that I've met around the world, it, it it gives me purpose and it gives me a sense of, of action. And so I can imagine anyone would want that. And if you're a eater of food, but you're not a grower of food, then what you buy is a huge, huge choice and very powerful way of changing the world. Does it feel like that? But it is.

And so for folks to meet farmers, you know, to go out into the country, around their city and go meet where the food's getting grown, it's going to be a good time. And and like I in Iceland, I just met we went around to different farms, have stayed with the farm family, had dinner with another farm family, and I would try to tell you the names of the people that I met, but I would butcher their name so poorly that I'm not going to try. But we also met. This guy was growing tomatoes.

He just he had this moment when he was in 2011. I guess he was in his late 50s, early 60s, where he was in really bad health, and he just had this epiphany that he should be growing tomatoes like his dad had done. And and so he built these hoop houses, and he grows like the best tomatoes outside of Reykjavik. And, and he's just so focussed on it and it's so beautiful. Only trick was we were there before they even planted, because there's the growing season so short.

We were there and in in April, early April or what is it. No, I can remember, I can't remember what days late March, early April, something like that. And so to go there in July and August is when you get to taste everything. But just knowing how he knew and he was he was connecting with people with seeds all over the world and every, every corner. He was connecting with people. And I guess you could have done that with writing letters and stuff. You certainly could have, no question.

But the speed with which this kind of technology is enabling him to just be there, get the seeds they get, they get shipped in little wrapped hand wraps, things with these tiny seeds in there. So the way he's reaching out, getting back, building, growing all those things are amazing. In the food that I was treated with in Iceland with, with that was grown on the farms of the people I'm staying with or the people that I'm meeting, just eating food that's grown on a farm.

So there's there's a place called Sequoia Cove in Tennessee, and they bring people out and they have meals where you can you can be served food that they've grown. I'm sure that's all over the UK. I'm sure it's all over the world. But to find those things might be a little tricky, but not impossible. That that is an action people can take. And it's a it's an amazing thing to eat food grown right around you. Like when I was in Tasmania, I was given a cup of coffee.

The guy had roasted the beans and the milk was he milked the cow and someone nearby had produced the sugar and you know, and it wasn't that expensive, but it was a treat. It was a real treat. Of course. We filmed a very quick interview with him. So that'll be up sometime in the near future. I hope. It's beautiful. Just the idea. The food is a treasure and that's really what's coming through, is it's not just about, getting the quick calories in.

It's I experience the connection with the seeds come from. Who are you eating with? What is the lunch? And it's just it is it's it's something very powerful in that. And I think it's fabulous advice. And like you said, we don't think we're saving the world with the food choices that we make. But it's like, yeah, it's really important to, to, to to think actually you can.

In the big food companies are listening. Right? They're listening to the fact that they need a, a resilient supply chain. Right. And, and regenerative agriculture is offering resiliency, especially in peak floods and droughts and things like that. And in the US, when we're having droughts and floods in the same week, I mean, we're having snow storms on top of firewood warnings. It's just it's all mixed up right now.

And we have, you know, so as we've been travelling the world, we film as many of the Q&A is as possible, and people come up and talk afterwards. And we were at a Q&A in Starkville, Mississippi, at Allen Williams, who's, you know, keep keep friend and colleague and collaborator is a scientist. He's a farmer. He's, he's he's the guy. If I talk to any farmer I just send them to Allen. It's just that's that's just the way it is. And Allen was in Iceland and so, so cool to be there.

He was in Chicago the week before. We're going to Asheville, North Carolina tomorrow, so we're getting a lot of time to spend with Allen. And we did a clip with him where he's talking about, you know, tomatoes are tomatoes. Meat is not meat. Like there's a huge difference in how the food's produced and a huge difference in the nutrient density.

And that's really coming into play right now with Stefan from fleet's work building on Fred Provenza, his work at Utah State, we're really being able to measure like these chemicals that are in the plant. So they're called phytonutrients, right? And then the animal eats the plant, and then those phytonutrients are in the meat, and then we eat the meat. If you eat meat, if you just eat the plant, you get the final nutrients. And then those phytonutrients are in us.

And and so Alan did we did a little clip of a longer piece that he said, and we posted it and man within like a week it was a million views. And so that's the that's what's happening with, with, the social campaign that our teams built and people's curiosity, you don't get a million views because of anything other than people are curious. Right. And and obviously, Alan is very talented and he knows how to talk about this stuff.

But to know that that many people watched it and shared it, because you can track all those things, and then we have a lot of followers, but a lot of the people who watch that weren't even in our follower groups, they were just new people. So something about that nutrition piece really set that algorithm going. And, and, and I think that's going to be a really big piece moving forward. Is, is health human health. It already is. But as we get to measure it. Absolutely.

I think that the measurement part of that is so fascinating for people, because it's been there. And I think people to to some extent, they experience it if they go down a sort of self-healing journey. Many people intuit, recognise the power of the food that they eat to human health. But if they don't have that reason to connect with that, and they want the stats and the numbers and the figures and the proof, yeah, most of people are in that camp.

Where's the proof? And it it's kind of like, okay, well I think that that's going to be fascinating. Like that's why those numbers are so huge because it gives people something to really get their teeth stuck into. This isn't something outside of them. It's literally their bodies how their bodies function. And yeah, that's amazing. And and I've always I've noticed this when we made Carbon Nation, we were talking about clean energy.

It felt like the solar and wind and geothermal folks had to, like, prove the case when the coal and fossil fuel and all the other stuff that built us up, they never had to prove the case to why use that energy? They just it just was. And with the way food is right now, obviously foods changed quite a bit from once we added synthetic fertiliser into the mix and then bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Larger tractors, you know, cheaper, cheaper, cheaper end quotes. Right.

And the nutrient density is just going down, down, down. I think there was this thing that Alan showed in Iceland. I think it's like I think I think it said between you have to eat between 7 and 15 carrots today to get the nutrients of a carrot. In 1950. And it had all these sort of comparisons like that. How many more did you would you have to eat to get that? And the really cool thing and, and, and we talk about this, we're starting a podcast ourselves.

So maybe you could give a listen to our podcast. It's going to start, I think May 1st we're going to put the first episode up. It's called The Peter Show figure. Go figure. And, an Alan Williams book. In season one, we got 12 guests and he bookends and we were talking about how the more nutrient dense the food is, the better it tastes like nature's on our side. It's not it's not medicine. It's, you know, but it is medicine. Food is medicine, but it doesn't have to taste like medicine.

And so I just I just love that idea that it tastes better if it's got more nutrients, more health benefits. Yeah. I think it's really noticeable and perhaps more filling to like your body is, yes, satiated. Yes. We're hearing that a lot with with folks are getting well made. You know, you can get poorly made grass, finished beef. You can get really made grass, really well made grass, finished beef.

It just, you know, there's lots of learning going on right now, but you get a really good piece of grass finished beef people are getting full with, with much less meat like almost half is where they're just noticing, oh, I'm done. And that really adds to that question mark over cheap food, doesn't it? You know, we need 15 carrots or one carrot. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a very, very interesting time in that regard.

And fantastic that you've got a podcast coming because I bet people can keep on learning and, and really dive into those topics with you. Yeah, I get to learn. Yes. Yeah. That's the good part of it. Right. That very much so very much so.

So your journey around the world, you've been talking to people about the film, the, the four part documentary series, but you've been taking it to different climates. Just the conversation differ. What what kind of learnings do you bring from from those different locations? What's interesting is there's always a local context, right? And even more local than a farm. It could be that field or that part of that field. Right. But then there's these universals. Keep your animals in a herd.

Keep them tight. Let them eat about half of what's in there and then move them on and let that land rest, like in the in the regenerative grazing and the amp grazing thing. That's the game and that works everywhere. And what's amazing is, everyone thinks it won't work there. Like every farmer, not every farmer, but many farmers will say, yeah, it works there, but it won't work here. And so you hear that all over the world. Yeah. It'll work. They're not here.

And then they try it and their eyes open up and they're like, oh wow, I haven't seen that plant here in decades, or I've never seen that plant grow in my field. And I didn't plant that seed or wow, the water cycle is very different right now. I'm seeing wildlife that I haven't seen here in decades. That stream used to be perennial, because my grandfather told me it was perennial. But then when my dad went to a more chemical, conventional method and I followed, then it dried up.

And now there's water flowing in it all year long again. And those stories I hear globally, and I also hear in many places, dry or not dry, super dry, super. What they see changes very quickly doesn't mean that the changes are all done very quickly. They'll be working on it for the whole time. They're alive of improving their land. And but I see that consistent story of I couldn't believe how fast I started seeing a difference once I started. And so we were in last summer.

So it was winter in South Africa. We're in the Karoo. And, this guy James Brody was grazing cattle out in the desert. That's another thing that I'm really learning is what's a desert right now? Probably wasn't a desert 200 years ago. Yeah, right. And so we're, you know, are we just given up by calling it a desert or what are we doing about it? Right. And so James took me out to his field and it looked pretty cool, for a desert. For what? I picture the crew to look like.

Animals are out there. They look very healthy. And then he just sent me a picture last week of that same spot that we were at, and it was just lush. It's amazing. It didn't look anything like a desert. It wasn't even close to looking like a desert. It was it was phenomenal. And that's just animals. That's just moving cattle around. That's all that is now nature comes and does its thing in there that he can't control, and he's not wanting to control. He's sort of open to whatever's happening.

But the tool that he can do is move in those animals. And then I was in Tasmania. I was in dry and wet parts of Australia, then all over the US, many parts of Canada, the UK, where it's obviously a lot wetter. Sheep, cattle, yeah. It's just amazing. And, and the other thing that is really pleasing for the team is that farmers are changing from watching the film, like they're coming up to us a year later after they saw it. And like, I changed. How is it? How's your wildlife? Oh, tons more.

How are your animals? Much better. How are you doing? I love it. How are your expenses? Much cheaper work. Are you working harder? No, it's just different. Or it's less. Those are the things that are also global. It's not more work might be more enjoyable. Work might be the same amount of hours. But we hear from a lot of people it's less hours. And people think moving your animals twice a day, three times a day is less work. But that's what the farmers tell me.

So it's it's incredible because it it really brings this tension between the complexity of the natural system and the simplicity of, well, rinse and repeat. And you can take it across the globe and know that you get fast results. And there's not really a technology that does that. Technology incrementally increases. Usually we kind of, you know, really have to do a lot to get a little bit more out of it. Whereas this is like, okay, fast results, really big results, global results.

And it's just you never really get sick of talking about it. It's so uplifting and so hopeful. And I love the fact that you're reaching such enormous numbers of people and the media that you're producing is connecting to farmers and changing the way that they work. Because I remember watching the series, the you were saying, I'm not sure if we're going to be able to have an impact. I'm not sure if people are going to listen to this. I don't know how to do that.

And now you know, you're back again. He's saying they're changing and that must feel so. You must be so proud of that. I am part of an amazing team and we are all really proud of that. It it doesn't happen for scientists that like that. There. You see it in the film and episode four when they're talking about, I can't believe that these folks wanted to even talk about, you know, regenerative agriculture. But and that's when we brought Alan Williams out. Yeah. It's it's amazing.

We've gotten to a lot of people, but we need to get to so many more people, you know, farmers, farmers aren't taught by and large about soil health, and it's no criticism of the farmers at all. It's just what is. And so for us, we just want to make sure every farmer knows that soil health is an option, right? That it's an option. And then we want to make it really easy for the farmers to learn if they want to.

And so what we're doing and then finding loans for the farmers and then keep doing the research and keep telling these stories. So that's we're kind of looking at what's next. Right. And and and really scaling up like getting to a lot more farmers, a lot more farmers. And because every farmer I've met that has gone towards regenerative agriculture, every single one, when I say, would you go back to the way you used to do it before I'm done with the question? They say, no, like, not even close.

I've never met anyone who went back. Now I just got an email today of someone saying she's seeing tricky bits in the dairy industry and pasture raised and people are having a hard time. And so I want to read into that. I want to learn from what she's saying, from my experience talking to farmers, watching people. It's when you change. You want to have good teachers who've made all these mistakes. It's like you don't have to make all the same mistakes. You'll make your own mistakes, right?

But you don't have to repeat mistakes. And and having good teachers and good community in a place where you can bounce ideas quickly and get input. And so these things exist. Great teachers like Ellen Williams and Gabe Brown and Soil Health Academy, amazing teachers, farmers in different countries that I've been in all have like a WhatsApp group for them. Right? And that's great too. But imagine if that group was global.

And and so that's what we're looking to set up now is a global group of conversation as we start our Patreon campaign in a week or two and we start a discord. I don't know if it's a campaign, it's I'm just learning. It's an app that gamers use to talk to each other while they're playing games. But it's a great place to to build community so that farmers will always have someone they can ask with question to imagine. If we have farmers from all around the world in our discord group.

So when anyone's awake, someone else is awake, no matter you know. You know, because I wake up at three in the morning worrying about stuff. So that's when I have I can call my friend in London because he's eight hours later and we can chat and, and so that's it's the community building. It's the making sure everyone knows the knowledge is there to build the knowledge, to share the knowledge.

That's kind of the the, the stew that we're stirring up right now to try to get much bigger, much, much bigger. Yeah, I think that community is such an integral part of the regenerative movement, and there's so much knowledge to be shared and so much knowledge to absorb. And it's not just little things there, like life changing, mind blowing ideas. Your food can be the medicine that heals.

You will that a desert is not a fixed state of being, but it's just a part of the ill health of the soil and we can rebuild that. These are big, mind blowing concepts and people are depending on them to the their grasp of them to change their livelihoods. So yeah, absolutely. See the need for for this next phase. So I'm, I'm super keen to to to see how it goes for you and yeah the podcast as well. So you've got all these different things going on.

We'll make sure that we share them all and that there's links so that people can know. Is there anything else you'd like to highlight? It seems to have been such a flash, but but please, any any of the things that you want to bring to people's attention. Couple of things. Just as we were talking and then I forget, I wanted to say it. And then I remember, you know, nature's powerful. It's billions of years and research and development.

And so there's some but some engineers, people who are that, you know, the engineers of the world have a belief that technology is going to get us everywhere we need to go. So we just call this a natural technology. That's how we communicate with folks who need to think of it as a technology.

And then the other thing I want to say was a lot of farmers, like, I just met another farmer in in Iceland, and I know other farmers who are in ill health and came to produce their own food because they came to the conclusion that food was a part of their ill health, and they've turned their own health around by what they are growing for themselves and their families and then their communities and things like that. So that's pretty powerful statement. And I'm very poor at growing things.

I don't do a good job. I travel so much that it's hard to even keep a I don't even know how to keep a garden. I don't, but there are a lot of people who don't travel like like I do, and they could be growing more food for themselves. And I think that is a really good way to to go. I dream of having time to, to, to actually garden and things like that. That would be really cool. And watching all these people, I think it's like my brother does my brother gardens, I admire that.

I admire that a lot. My mom. But brother gardens for food, my mom and my grandmother, garden for flowers, for beauty. And so I admire all that. Just, I just, I just haven't been around enough to, to maintain one. So maybe that's next time we speak. Maybe I will have started growing something. I think that would be a fantastic update.

But definitely after you've had a little bit of time to to sit still because I, I'm not surprised you can't maintain a garden that you're journeying here, there and everywhere. But it is a really fantastic point. It is such a pleasure and a delight to grow your own food and grow your own flowers. And just, for me, it's a big part of my life is just being able to see nature right there at my feet every day.

And it's it's, Yeah, big, big additional way for people to connect, to connect with the soil and, yeah, the power of nature. My sister. Yeah. I just got to add in my sister grows. She she gardens as well. She would be very upset if I didn't mention that. So I had to say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that, get the whole family. Yeah. Shout out to them all. There you go. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. It's been super quick. It feels like it's flowing.

But I'm really excited for everything that you're doing. And thank you for coming and sharing. Thanks for having me back. I appreciate it a lot. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check the description for the links to learn more and engage with the work from Peter and Roots. So deep, and you might like to check out episode one from this season of We All Carbon, which is a special compilation featuring Peter's voice.

It's been getting fantastic feedback for packing a punch with its sound effects and clear yet inspirational message for our regenerative future. It's called time to look at it differently because carbon builds life. Find the link in the description. Also, 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.