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Ep 76  |  Daniel Zetah

Daniel Zetah: “Regenerative Agriculture and Personal Sovereignty”

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TGS76 Daniel Zetah The Great Simplification

Show Summary

On this episode, Nate is joined by Daniel Zetah, who practices regenerative agriculture on his family farm in Minnesota. Daniel shares his experiences in becoming aware of the global challenges we face and his journey back to his family farm, where he has been instrumental in naturally cultivating the land back to life again. While much of The Great Simplification covers the intricacies of the metacrisis we face, Daniel brings the perspective of someone who has stepped outside of the system and into what he calls ‘personal sovereignty’. What are the time, energy, and labor requirements of being in tune with the land in this way? Where do animals – especially cows – fit into this story? Can deep, healthy topsoil be sexy? Is Daniel creating a blueprint for what many more happy, fulfilling lives could look like in a simplified future?

About Daniel Zetah

Daniel grew up on a farm in Minnesota where he learned to fix all manner of things driven from an insatiable curiosity about how things worked. He studied economics and business at university and lived abroad for 15 years where he bought and sold classic cars, worked as a snake relocator and scatologist, and the chemical spraying auditor for Tasmania. After waking to our planetary predicament, he became a full time environmental activist, then moved to an off grid community in the mountains where he studied permaculture and built straw bale houses. He moved back to America to help steer culture in a more sane direction, where he realized as long as the majority of people are incapable of meeting most of their fundamental human needs, even committed activists are feeding the dragon they’re trying to slay. He and his wife Stephanie moved back to the family farm in Minnesota where they are growing 80% of their calories, rebuilding the local ecology, and educating and empowering people to wrest back control of their sovereignty as human beings.

Daniel and Stephanie’s Farm – www.newstoryfarm.com

In French, we have a motto that says that a simple drawing is often better than a long explanation. Jean-Marc Jancovici Carbone 4 President

That’s very understandable because with left atmosphere thinking, one of the problems is that you see everything as a series of problems that must have solutions. Iain McGilchrist Neuroscientist and Philosopher

We can’t have hundreds and hundreds of real relationships that are healthy because that requires time and effort and full attention and awareness of being in real relationship and conversation with the other human. Nate Hagens Director of ISEOF

This is the crux of the whole problem. Individual parts of nature are more valuable than the biocomplexity of nature. Thomas Crowther Founder Restor

Show Notes & Links to Learn More

00:30 – Daniel Zetah, New Story Farm, New Story Farm Resiliency School,

Supporting data on the benefits of regenerative agriculture:

From prairie to crop: Spatiotemporal dynamics of surface soil organic carbon stocks over 167 years in Illinois, U.S.A.

Prairie ecosystems and the carbon problem

Soil organic carbon (SOC) over 167 years of land use change

05:38 – Spread and idealization of American culture

17:40 – Ecologically conscious people tend to be clustered in urban areas rather than rural

20:01 – Nate’s Frankly on Reality, Probability, and Perception

27:27 – History of agrarian communities in the U.S.

28:14 – Robert Lustig + TGS Episode

28:20 – U.S. Subsidies towards agriculture

28:49 – Yellow Dent #2

29:21 – Large Scale Industrial Agriculture

30:35 – Dirt vs Soil

31:30 – Industrial Agriculture deteriorating soil quality

32:05 – Topsoil depletion over time

33:39 – Iowa once had up to 12ft of topsoil

34:05 – Average topsoil depth in Iowa

35:20 – Bison and topsoil production

36:05 – Perennial grasses and carbon storing

36:35 – The average soil carbon percentage prior to settlers was 12-15%now is is <2%

37:08 – Average soil carbon content is ~1%

37:22 – 93 million acres of corn in the U.S. every year

38:45 – Regenerative farming practices can increase .75-1% of carbon content per year

39:08 – Kim Stanley Robinson + TGS Episode

39:20 – If we could get average global carbon content in soil to 3%, we could reduce carbon ppm to 350-375

40:09 – Americans pay around 7% of take home pay on food vs rest of world

41:05 – How removing all subsidies would affect food costs

42:10 – Profitability of regenerative farms

45:40 – Less than 1% of Americans live and work on farms producing food

48:01 – Ruminants and regenerative agriculture

48:43 – Pioneer species

49:55 – Indigenous food systems

52:22 – Problem with Industrial Animal Agriculture (CAFOs)

55:30 – Cows on a regenerative farm produce a fraction of methane than those from CAFOs

56:35 – Cows sequester carbon in a regenerative farm setting

1:05:01 – Slaughterhouse working conditions

1:07:56 – Joslin Faith Kehdy + TGS Podcast

1:11:58 – Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

1:12:48 – Genesis Creation Story

1:15:45 – Hutterites 

1:16:35 – Charles Eisenstein

1:16:59 – Old Order Amish

1:19:55 – Meditation, Flow states

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