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Ep.104 The Answer is in the Food with Samantha Jewel
41 Plays6 days ago
The most powerful transformations often start with the simplest questions.
In this episode, I explore one of the most essential, yet overlooked, relationships in our lives—the one we have with food and the land it comes from.
Together with Samantha Jewel, we unpack how carbon in the soil is not just about climate—it's about connection, health, and the future of our ecosystem.
We talk about plant intelligence on a systems level—how carbon sequestration, nutrient density, and farmer consciousness all co-create the future.
And we ask the deeper questions: What if beauty wasn’t the measure of food quality? What if joy and relationship were?
Topics Covered about Conscious Food Choices and Regenerative Food Systems
➡️ The link between soil carbon, nutrient density, and plant-human co-creation.
➡️ Why the consciousness of the farmer affects the vitality of the land.
➡️ The myth of "organic" as a guarantee of health.
➡️ How the food we eat reflects our collective values and relationships.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:20 Meet Samantha Jewel
06:00 Rethinking Carbon and Soil
10:00 What Regenerative Farming Really Looks Like
15:30 Gaia
18:00 Local Food & Land-Based Intelligence
26:00 The Consciousness of Farming
34:00 Reclaiming Food as Medicine
42:00 Final Thoughts + Samantha’s Book
//My Guest//
Samantha Jewel, a soil carbon expert of some 27 years giving her the title an “OG” in the carbon space, whose insights bridge the gap between sustainable agriculture and impactful environmental practices. With a wealth of experience as the CEO of Urth.io, her company specializes in carbon aggregation and the pivotal role farmer credits play in the ESG landscape.
Resources Mentioned
🌱 Samantha’s Book: Carbon is Not a Dirty Word
🌱 What's Your Spirit Wild Plant?
🌱 Personalized mentorship with me and the Plants
Expanded Show Notes
☝🏽ReConnect with Plant Wisdom podcast Ancient and modern knowledge from biology to spirituality about the wondrous ways plants help you lead a Naturally Conscious life.
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Opening and Closing music by @Cyberinga and Poinsettia.
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Transcript
Welcome and Introduction to Themes
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. It's me, Tigreya Cardenia. This episode just took so many different turns in a great, great way.
00:00:15
Speaker
i so much enjoyed speaking with Samantha Jewell, and I'm sure you're going to enjoy it too. The conversation that we started with where, you know, kind of going in one direction ended up tumbling into a very connected, conscious so much so that when I was sitting about the episode, what I wanted to call this episode, I have like a list because we were kind of weaning, not weaning, winding through a whole series of conversations all around the idea of carbon and soil and soil quality and relationship with land and farming.
00:00:49
Speaker
And what started off as something very detailed, the like like soil and the idea, I mean, and the idea of what is carbon sequestration ended up becoming this super beautiful, expansive conversation about relationship with and and your relationship with food and how it is that true nutritiousness or nutritiousness. I don't even know if that's a word. So this is episode 104.
00:01:14
Speaker
The answer
Tigreya and Samantha's Backgrounds
00:01:15
Speaker
is in the food with Samantha Jewell. Enjoy.
00:01:20
Speaker
Welcome to Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. I'm your host, Tigria Gardenia, nature-inspired mentor, certified life coach, and the founder of the Naturally Conscious Community. For over a decade, I've been known as a world ambassador for plant advocacy, working closely with plants to share their practical wisdom to help you consciously embody the elements of life that nourish your evolution.
00:01:41
Speaker
In this podcast, I delve into ancient and modern knowledge from biology to spirituality about the wondrous ways of plants. Together, we'll explore how ecosystem thinking helps you overcome limiting beliefs, understand the true nature of relationships, and live an authentic, impactful life.
00:02:03
Speaker
o So we have had several conversations, Samantha, but that's just us. So I want to remember to do the most important thing, which is there's so much to talk about relating to you.
00:02:15
Speaker
Tell the audience who is Samantha Jewell. Okay. So my background is primarily food. My family created the first restaurant chain in Australia and nine in 1965. So I have been in food literally all my life.
00:02:29
Speaker
and raised very alternatively. So we were, even though it's a very, you know, we were doing 50,000 customers a week when I so parted ways with the business. Very big, it's like before McDonald's where I got huge recognition here in Melbourne.
00:02:42
Speaker
And I, am and my father came from, Six generations of wheat farming in Goodland, Kansas, lived through the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, his family. So I've got all these unusual connections around food. And in 99, 98, 99, when I was having my first baby, um or actually a bit earlier in that, 97 or something, i came across across the most extraordinary news of mad cow disease.
00:03:11
Speaker
And I thought, what? Why would anybody feed a cow meat? Like, that's just the craziest thing I've ever heard. And because of that, because we're feeding all these people and I was pregnant, I was doing all this, I was kind like...
00:03:23
Speaker
God, like, I better look into this. So spoke to my father at the time and he was like, well, I know that these unusual solutions come up for problems. And because he'd witnessed the industrial um age and the children of farmers being sent to you to university, learning all about agricultural chemicals and it actually causing the droughts and dust bowl,
00:03:50
Speaker
as a result of this technology that was wrong for the soil, he was very much like, yeah, go and find out what that is. And so I wrote to all of the... everything that came into the restaurant and I rang everybody I wrote everybody and I found these things like they didn't know what was in their ingredients so they'd say sugar was in it and I'd say well I've got this letter from the sugar board which was one of the ones I wrote to could you and it mentions they use a GMO in it so I discovered about GMOs and so this kind of snowballed this went on for years and they were like oh could you send me that document and gradually over time some of these the industry started to realize that there was a
00:04:28
Speaker
people were not so happy. And about the same time, i had heard in America, because I was very interested in mental health, and I'd heard that they were feeding children as young as six months old Prozac in America. I know they do crazy things in America, but this was like, what?
Carbon and Soil Health: The Connection
00:04:45
Speaker
Like a behavioral problem. You couldn't make that up.
00:04:48
Speaker
And so I was like, it's got to be food. And that's kind of why I went down this rabbit hole. i ended up in agriculture because That's what they were doing. Now, glyphosate had to be had been introduced as well at about the same time.
00:05:01
Speaker
And so it was kind of like this snowballing thing of allergies and problems in children that weren't there before. And obviously now 25 years later, to it's not quite commonplace for people to say, oh, glyphosate is so bad. It's still in everywhere.
00:05:16
Speaker
But it's not like I was at that time screaming in the wind, oh, you're a kook. So you know, that's kind of about where I started. And I have been looking for a unifying point for all those years because, you know, everyone comes up with some reason to say no to everything.
00:05:37
Speaker
and And so I, and about 2006 or 2005, actually, I was listening to a, I was so at one of the international forums for organic agriculture because they were the only ones doing any sort of protocols of monitoring paddock to plate.
00:05:52
Speaker
and somebody said about carbon and like I went what's carbon and it was like this was the unifying thing so I bought the first soil carbon and credit in its draft form that actually got the Australian government recognizing it as a trade because I used the company credit card it helped give it credibility so as that part that path began i thought this is fantastic because I was so sick of the infighting between all the different organic people, organic, permaculture, biodynamic. I mean, they're all carrying on about.
00:06:25
Speaker
I'm like, you guys all got the same thing. Why are you all arguing about how this is done? So i was I was really pleased to take this unifying element and see that, you know, whether you believed in climate or not, it was the the solution to measuring healthy soil and all the other things that come with it, water penetration,
00:06:46
Speaker
Soil health, plant health, nutrient uptake, mycorrhizal facilitation, microbes. I mean, it's just it's across the gamut. Biodiversity, no matter what you look at, it all comes down to carbon.
00:06:58
Speaker
So that became my I thought, well, this is easy. This is a plant. This is ah anyway. And ever since I've been trying to get farmers paid for it, which has not proven to be easy.
00:07:09
Speaker
People are always coming up for or the reason why they don't want to do that. Wow. Just like you said, that unifying factor. so I guess I have two different questions. One of them is a clarification. Just when you say people pay for it, you mean pay for carbon credits or for how much they're sequestering? Like, can you break that down a little bit further just to make sure we all understand? So obviously everybody knows that climate change is theoretically associated with the emission of carbon into the atmosphere and carbon in its solid form
00:07:41
Speaker
is you know co2 two parts oxygen one part of carbon and the plants take it out of the atmosphere and that's what they use to create sugars which they exchange for food and nutrients and microbes so they take it out of the atmosphere and put it into the ground they also cycle it back out in the top sort of part it is an exchange but the more penetration the more open the loam of the soil is the deeper the roots go, the more it gets taken down deep into the ground.
00:08:08
Speaker
So that credit is ah measurement of how much carbon has been taken out of the atmosphere above and beyond what's normal. So the area is doing, the average is 0.2% carbon, which is nothing, right?
00:08:25
Speaker
Or 0.001 or something crazy, which is really where our soils are at globally. this is what everyone's talking about in terms of soil degradation. If you're doing something like you're managing animals and you're doing all these different things and you're getting increased carbon, which is a proof of your ability to get the plants healthy and actually doing what they're meant to do, you can measure that.
00:08:48
Speaker
And so once you've measured that, that becomes a data stream that can be converted into a numerical number. It's 3.67 times a solid ton of carbon to be how many tons of atmospheric carbon you're taking out of the atmosphere. So if you've got one ton of carbon in the ground, you've just taken out 3.67 and you're... So anyway, yes, that was my my background with it. I had been trying to see what was going on in the food.
00:09:19
Speaker
came across carbon. Carbon credits are easily measured and then I'm trying to get them paid for those tons of carbon taken out of the ground. into the ground
Sustainable Farming Practices and Intuition
00:09:30
Speaker
by their activity. So it is a paid amount of money for doing something above and beyond what's normal.
00:09:37
Speaker
So um yeah, that's the whole point of it. And so here's a question for you. So what in your experience, so of course we can go and look it up, but in your personal experience, what is the difference? Like what is the relationship between that higher carbon sequestration and the quality of not just the quality of the soil in terms of like the soil is healthier, but literally, you know, the microbes in the soil, the plants that are in the soil, like what is that relationship
00:10:09
Speaker
Well, it's a bit like imagine, I call it the cathedrals in the soil, which was actually I recently realized was coined by Walter Jena many years ago. But it's the cathedrals in the soil. It's about imagining how could you have people over for dinner and in the pouring rain if you didn't have a house with a roof over your head.
00:10:28
Speaker
Like you you need the space. It creates the space. And from that point, you that's where everyone comes to dinner. The microbes come to dinner. The water can come and feed them. The nutrients can be translated. Everything can occur. That is because the carbon is there creating the space and the sponge for the water to be able to be absorbed, which is four to six times more water can be held with carbon in the soil.
00:10:55
Speaker
instead of running off. So there's this there's lots and lots of stats for you. Go and watch that movie I just told you about, which is online, rootsdownunder.org.
00:11:06
Speaker
There is ah video in there which actually goes into the exact numbers of gallons per you know per ton of carbon that's increased. Right.
00:11:17
Speaker
And so for increasing of the carbon in and of itself, what what happens, like, again, what is the relationship... with, for example, the plants, in other words, what is the farmer doing different that is what's creating that sequestration enhancement? Basically, it's the plant doing the work, but the plant needs to eat and the it gets its food from fertilizers, the fertilizers are the animals.
00:11:40
Speaker
So the animals move across the land, they poop, they poop in their pee, and they they basically provide food for the microbes. The microbes are microcystic, the mycorrhizal fungi, are doing this exchange using the sugars from the plant that it's creating from the CO2.
00:11:59
Speaker
The C is carbonic sugars. And they're exchanging that and there's this constant exchange, this for that, this for that. So this... this exchange of sugars and carbon is what allows plants to have nutrients in them and those plants and those nutrients which become colloidal nutrients. So you think of a rock and you break it down with microbes.
00:12:23
Speaker
They turn that into a liquid form which goes into the plant. The animal eats the plant and then we eat the animal. And whether you eat the plant or the animal, the point is that those minerals, which are the main stable nutrients, we talk about vitamins a lot and fennels and all these other sort of things, but the thing that's really essential is the minerals because the minerals are the building blocks of the DNA in your body and without them,
00:12:49
Speaker
everything kind of collapses. so it'll get water up it and it'll be become dependent on the plant will have like a taproot and get water, but you're basically using a straw instead of these fine, filamental roots which are absorbing all these micronutrients.
00:13:05
Speaker
So that carbon is a reflection of the whole system working together. Right. Now, what do you think is different between, i mean obviously we understand the benefits to the human in this whole carbon cycle and such.
00:13:20
Speaker
You were just talking about how the plants themselves also benefit when everything is working in this way. What do you think is the changing? what What is it that makes these particular farmers different? Like, why is it that these farmers, what is their relationship with their land, with the beings of their land, with, you know, everything that we're talking about that ends up creating this nutritious cycle all the way through?
00:13:44
Speaker
Yeah, look, I would say that there are lots of different ways which farmers come at it. Some come at it because they've gotten sick from the chemicals, they've had a death in the family and they just have to do something differently. Others do it because they see the birds are not there anymore and they need to create a habitat for them.
00:14:02
Speaker
but like Everyone comes at it with a different reason, but as they start to connect for whatever reason they got into it, their their heart and their mind starts to open up and they start to observe the land instead of using their mind about the science. The science has been it's kind of made us go into this silo and as they start, let's say, letting go of the science and moving more directly into interacting with the land, that's when they start to get this understanding and you know things like these more intuitive things that we're talking about, they'll all have them.
00:14:39
Speaker
The more they walk on the land, the more they have it. But they have not been allowed to experience that because we've been, what is it, 200, 300 years now that we've been trying to move away from that. And so I think this is the age of the Aquarius where we're turning around and going back towards that with the scientific data that we've collected so that we're marrying those two concepts of of understanding what it is that we're listening to and not just getting.
00:15:07
Speaker
Right. is ah Are there any farmers that stand out? I'm just so curious. Like, are there any farmers that stand up in your mind that you've had conversations with where you're like, wow, that is not the type of connection that we would have expected in like industrial agriculture?
00:15:20
Speaker
Yeah. So there's a couple of farmers that I work with in Western Australia called Diany and Hegarty. And they've got a, and because they worked with this girl called Jane Sattery and they worked on this intuitive, developing this intuitive stuff because they came from a period of time where they worked with the Aboriginals and started to be opening themselves in terms of understanding that there was more.
00:15:42
Speaker
And now they are absolutely developed that muscle, that intuitive muscle, and they test all the time. So the land might say, like they do use some chemicals. So they may put in a crop of wheat or lentils or barley or something.
00:15:57
Speaker
And the land might say, no, we don't want that in now. And so they'll have to do something else. And and they have this yin yang thing. I kind of touched on on that part of it, but they really developed it by becoming more and more confident. And when they don't listen to that, don't listen to the land talking to them, they they get bad results. And when they do, they they're getting world-class results. They've now got Stella McCartney takes the wool from their sheep and sends her executives out to Western Australia to go on the farm and see it. And and when I first went there, I was doing, is back in 2014 or 15, I was doing soil tests on them, not soil, sorry, grain tests because they doing wheat.
00:16:38
Speaker
And I was finding things in them that I, you know, from my scientific background point was going, well, that's not good. But then i later found out that actually it's the ratio that's important, the balance.
00:16:52
Speaker
So I didn't really understand the scientific balance part of it because there were such minimal, tiny amounts that were different. And wheat and all those things, we we pay for them on different metrics.
00:17:04
Speaker
So we might pay on protein or with a vegetable on weight, which might just be water. Or, you know, like we've got different metrics about what the farmer is paid for. And the payment is the most important thing because that's what keeps them alive and going. So it's difficult to have a change in that.
00:17:22
Speaker
It's got to financially make sense. So
Balancing Local and Industrial Farming
00:17:25
Speaker
a lot of it's about showing them there's a way of taking the chemicals out and that that costs that saves them money. on their bottom line and they get resilience and they get, you know, if we have a flood or a fire, they bounce back when everybody else doesn't or they don't burn or, you know, many things that there are there anecdotally.
00:17:46
Speaker
And so, yeah, I think the Hegartys are amazing. I've seen and talked to Gabe Brown in Kansas and he's known for his book, Dirt to Soil. um Look, there there are some amazing pioneers, really. And I've been on this journey for a long time now, since my first books in 2005. And I've never stopped being fascinated. And I don't farm anything.
00:18:10
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:19:42
Speaker
I can understand that. I mean, it is an amazing experience, especially because, you know, these farmers are are spending all of this time in that land, in that experience with these beings. And of course, they could look at it as just a you know, physical object to a certain extent, right? Yeah, it grows, but it's, you know, it doesn't have anything, any meaning to it. And then there are other farmers that we know that have, like you said, a more heart centric, a more um um a connection with these. I was we were just talking about down the in in the area that I live a few years ago, this couple moved in. She he is originally from this area, was born in this area, but and she is a Korean American.
00:20:28
Speaker
And they met working at at a restaurant called Noma, which is one of the like world famous restaurants for fermentation. And ah that's where they met and they got married and all these types of things as they were working with Noma.
00:20:42
Speaker
And Noma is you know very, very much about reconnection with the ingredients through this fermentation process. So this slower process of connecting in. So they move here to the middle of nowhere where we live to a certain extent.
00:20:55
Speaker
And that's exactly what they want to do. They've built this sort of farm to table, this very small farm to table restaurant. But one of the things that I love is like they're what they're doing is accentuating that relationship with those farmers. Right. They're going to the farmers and asking them.
00:21:10
Speaker
How is it that you're relating to your land and they're finding all these amazing products of this area that are based on based on those relationships and those relationships, whether it's, you know, with the animals on the land or the or the plants of the land, are like you said, turning out to be when you start to do the scientific kind of assessments.
00:21:34
Speaker
It's like oh, wait a minute. These relationships are directly related to better sequestration, you know, the quality of the food, the the nutrient density, all of these different things. I suppose the only thing that I would say, though, on that is that that is what we always hear.
00:21:50
Speaker
And the thing is, if we're going to make a change to the climate and human health and poor people having access to healthy food, it has to not just be the small farmer. It has to be the broadacre guy with like that farm I'm telling you about is 40,000 hectares.
00:22:05
Speaker
So it needs to be those big, big farms with big tractors doing big monoculture that ah have actually worked out how to work with with nature. So by rotating plants.
00:22:17
Speaker
other things through it, multi-species, plants and animals and doing many different things to get that nutrient cycle through it. Because I always say it's a bit like having a beer or a vast wine. you You know it's a neurotoxin, but if you're healthy, it'll do nothing to you.
00:22:32
Speaker
Like right you'll just handle it. But if you're not, it'll just about kill you. So you just you've got to look at the land in the same way. it can take a lot, but you you know, what are you doing and and can it be replicated on a large scale? Because
The Future of Agriculture and Regenerative Practices
00:22:46
Speaker
we do have 8 billion people and otherwise we'll just keep doing factory factory farming.
00:22:51
Speaker
Right. And I think that that's a great point. And I think that that's that's the question of the scale, right? we How do we turn this into something that is the relationship is one to many to a certain extent when you think about the farmer perspective, like the farmer one to many that are on this land and the land is huge, right?
00:23:11
Speaker
Or how do we create a different kind of model that allows us to be fed in different ways? And that that is a great question. I mean, yes, you're right for the large industrial farmer, the one that are doing it, we have to make it work because it can't just be something that we only focus on.
00:23:26
Speaker
i I do wonder sometimes about, I mean, so when I did my master's, we had a big conversation because there's an area here called one of the oldest inhabited cities in the entire world called Matera is down in the south of Italy. And one of our professors was an expert and he had he was originally from Matera and he's become an expert materials.
00:23:45
Speaker
The Madera is still a troglodyte to a certain extent city. Like, in other words, there's still the underground homes inside of the caves and they have the original caves that cave people lived in because the city has been inhabited continuously.
00:23:58
Speaker
And one of the conversations and one of the problems that was the downfall of Madera was the was the agriculture when it became. In balance to a certain extent.
00:24:09
Speaker
In other words, the relationship between the people was that there was some stuff that was grown out there. In other words, the people would leave their homes in the morning and go out to farm and stuff like that. And then there was other parts of it that were farmed, quote unquote, farmed.
00:24:24
Speaker
At home, right, the local garden that gave me this, this and this. And that ratio for a long time was very balanced. In other words, these are the things where I need large swaths of land, large amounts of animals and do the agriculture and have the relationship in that way. And instead, this is the stuff that you should be growing at home, near your home and stuff.
00:24:45
Speaker
And I wonder how much also is that we've lost that relationship. We grow nothing at home and we expect everything to be done on this level. And it's like maybe there are some things, some plants that don't want to grow in that way. And that's why we've had to move into this more artificial way of doing it. So I agree that we definitely need the large scale agriculture for many reasons.
00:25:10
Speaker
But I wonder if there's a different balance that needs to be struck in this whole thing in order to create not just a sequestration on the large farms only, but sequestration all over the place, you know, right? That our fertil that our land is fertile everywhere.
00:25:23
Speaker
There's a couple of things with that. The thing about the plant music and the and the plant stuff that you and have been speaking about in terms of reading plants is this is what the Hegetys have done on a very large scale.
00:25:35
Speaker
By listening to the plant, to the to the land, the plants have interacted with them in the way that is giving them that crop that they need and also they are giving back to it in the way. And I think it's the giving back part that is the bit that's missing because um the land can do so much more.
00:25:57
Speaker
Like we're not actually really understanding the vast, almost infinite potential of the land. And I know that sounds ridiculous it sounds very... finite the land but the more you understand the let's say the matrix like quality of the of the of the planet the more you understand it's it'll do its thing with no guidance but when we add our ability to create into it and kind of make magic within it it can do so much more and um i think that's kind of the next stage we're just moving only a little tiny tiny bit towards getting that you can't keep pushing and raping the land and we've actually got to start working with it but that next stage is still a bit of a ways off i think
00:26:50
Speaker
Okay, wait, I want your vision of that that next stage because that's, I'm so, I completely agree. I think this goes back to what some conversations that are finally starting to happen is the whole concept is not to throw the humans off the planet because, oh, the planet is fine.
00:27:05
Speaker
We co-create, we have co-created this planet for those 200,000 years that we have existed as homo sapiens. You know, we have been co-creating. And before that, all of the other, you know, species, humanoid type species that have been coming on.
00:27:20
Speaker
Our problem is that we've stopped the co-creation process at some point. It's more than that. I think that we've, we've been oblivious, we've been asleep. And so we kind of almost have, mean, if you look back historically, civilizations have come and gone based on the soil.
00:27:36
Speaker
Like every civilization has gone because they didn't look after the soil. They just took it for granted. You throw a seed in, it grows, don't have to do anything, and then they moved on. So it kind of, we we almost need to get to the brink of extinction before we recognize our the need to wake up. And it's not that the plant, the planet can't do more. It's that we have to do more in terms of our own conscious awakening.
00:28:02
Speaker
So,
Societal Pressures and Financial Sustainability
00:28:03
Speaker
I don't even like using those words because they've been bandied around so much and people talk about doing ayahuasca and I go and do ayahuasca. I'm like, well, if you lived in the forest and you had to live on the forest and listen at that acute level of understanding, I think ayahuasca would really good idea.
00:28:19
Speaker
But I go to a supermarket and, you know, I... I don't need to go and do that. And so I have no need for that tool. And in fact, it's a distraction because it's not the way I interact.
00:28:31
Speaker
So I think the concept of what we are doing, you know, you talk about this disconnection from the land. My feeling is that, you know, right now the economics are so vastly different unaffordable for a person to even have land but for most people on the planet they can't even have land let alone interact with it that way it's like right you work on a walk on a concrete path and they maybe look at it and don't you step over on the boundary even so you know I think it's um
00:29:03
Speaker
a first world dream that most of the planet, particularly when you go to countries like Asia with 1.5 billion people or something, and you try to say you should do anything.
00:29:15
Speaker
It's like, no, I think when things become overwhelmingly difficult in the paradigm that we're thinking through, it's a good time to just pause and remember that we as spiritual beings are actually the creators of the planet. We create the matrix that is this universe.
00:29:34
Speaker
And so if we want it to be differently, we start with the universe within ourselves and we get that right. So it's about expanding from yourself into the universe around you and creating it differently.
00:29:46
Speaker
So when you say, how do I see it being this way? um i think i I think the climate is the best thing we've ever had happen because it's like people are going, um my God, it's so bad. The glaciers are melting, the sea is rising, everything's dying, and they can now start to see it. It's not just someone's...
00:30:08
Speaker
calling the skies falling in chicken level if they're literally feeling it happening and it's more than just a little bit it's really getting bad and yes I don't believe in listening to doomsayers because I know that everything can turn around even if it seems like it can't so my message if there is one is that I believe in the infinite power within us all to create the universe around it in whichever way we want to, we just haven't yet woken up to what we're capable of.
00:30:42
Speaker
Yeah, and like you said, especially our institutions haven't. So where, you know, we we start to hear a grumbling and there are, as you said, some farmers, but then farmers feel, and going back to the whole land perspective, is like, I know that this is the way that that this is the way forward.
00:30:59
Speaker
And yet at the same time, I also need to survive. i need to be able to, to support this work. and i think i need that right You're not even going to say it out loud because you live very remotely and the guy next door is going to snub you at the pub and the woman won't get into the girls meetings. And you know like it's that survival being in that community.
00:31:18
Speaker
Right. Totally agree with it. So I feel it's, it's to take a leaf out of people like, um, Well, Steiner did. He didn't even tell people about biodynamics until the very end of his life because he said people were ready.
00:31:32
Speaker
And I feel that's kind of the journey. It's like a if people are ready, they'll seek you out. And if they're not, don't push it on them. Just keep working. Yeah. and It's all about these labels, which is so funny, like how much we're afraid, as you said, it labels.
00:31:47
Speaker
There was a great research study done by nahan Natasha may Myers. and she's ah She calls herself a plantthropologist. She's awesome. and you know One of the things that she discovered as she was going out, as she was interviewing sciences, is exactly what you said. The younger scientists struggled with trying to put words around or even use any kind of wording or even accept that there was things that they felt intuitively or, you know, could experience or even be connected to like, maybe the plant is communicating in the research that I'm doing. The plant is the one helping me make decisions on which way to go. And it,
00:32:26
Speaker
And the intuition is not just mind, but it's ah a co-creation, a relationship that's happening. Where older scientists that had tenure, that had years of experience, that knew nobody was going to take away everything that they had created. They didn't have a risk of losing it all because somebody misunderstood the way that they spoke.
00:32:44
Speaker
They were much more open to saying, yeah, when I'm sitting there and I'm trying to figure out what direction to take my research, sometimes I'm getting hit with something and I know that's not coming from me. Like, I know that that has to be coming from the plants.
00:32:57
Speaker
And I think that that's the same thing as what you were saying with the farmer, right? Like, you're you're not going to go talk in your community if you think you're going to get snubbed. If... Even if the others believe it and feel it themselves, but the fear that that is going to cause me to lose contracts, it's not going to play well into a larger space.
00:33:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's survival. And it's really interesting because I think this is my own experience also living um You know, I live in the in the Alps, you know, at the foothills of the Alps and really close to us. There's a few towns that are very traditional in the way that they, you know, they do their animal husbandry here. i have pasture lands in front of me where They transition from the Alps through to the Plains. And so throughout the year, I get cows and goats and sheep and all kinds of different um animals, plus the way that they even just tend to the fields.
00:33:47
Speaker
Now, if you sit down with, like you said, a beer in hand, and you have that conversation with a nice, beautiful glass of Italian wine, After a while, these folks are going to talk to you about their experiences and you realize they're not using conscious, heart, open. They're not using any of those buzzwords, right? But that is exactly what they're experiencing. And they will happily tell you about it in these very reserved terms because they've been doing it for generations, generations upon generations. Yeah.
00:34:18
Speaker
But you then try to take that and sell it, like you said, to a larger industrial system that values statistics and stuff, and they don't have the mechanisms to measure all of that.
00:34:33
Speaker
So this is why I'm going back to carbon, because this is why I focused on carbon. Because it's an emission and it's something globally we are now putting on our accounting books. If you are doing the right thing by the land with your heart, with your connection,
00:34:47
Speaker
you'll be getting more carbon in that land. And if you're getting paid for that, money talks. Right. So then you don't have to talk about how you do it. That's the one great thing about it. It doesn't really matter how you got it there if you've been doing it through the actual activity of the plants, as long as you're not going out and getting, you know, I disagree with the concept of going and getting biochar and putting it on. So you're burning plant matter to put it back on the ground. I'm like, okay, well, yes, you can do that, but we've got enough of it to get out of the atmosphere.
00:35:17
Speaker
So it's it's just, it's more about,
00:35:22
Speaker
making it accessible. And I think what you're doing with your glass of wine, this is making it accessible. Right, right, right. And I think that's a beautiful way of saying it. And that's, I think for those of us that want to see, you know, the labels that say organic and made in this way and are looking for certain types of buzzwords, it's, it's probably difficult, but like you said, and if we're going to make the transition, the transition happens, know,
00:35:50
Speaker
using unfortunately the language that currently speaks, which is the language of money, the language of certain types of statistics and numbers and stuff of this nature. And I i know we don't wanna hear that, but if we're going to eventually transition where we go back to a culture where we can talk about these things, we've gotta pass through the systems and start to break down those systems from the inside out.
00:36:11
Speaker
And the first thing is to make the farmers saltly soluble. In other words, they need to be able to survive and be able to do the wonderful things that they've been doing. Do you find that there are, me try to figure out how to how to say these words because ah it's a hard question to ask.
00:36:28
Speaker
I'd love to
Defining Healthy Produce Through Nutrient Density
00:36:29
Speaker
to hear from you. What do you think are the tools that the farmers themselves, and by tools I mean communication tools or, you know, what are the tools that they can use to get their, what they're doing, those of those that are doing the right thing,
00:36:46
Speaker
How do they get that out to a larger audience? Like what what do you think are the things that they need to learn? I know it sounds like, I know what you're asking me, but I have to say the proof is in the food.
00:37:00
Speaker
And if they're getting good nutrients in it, as we get more ability to actually scientifically read those nutrients, that nutrient density and the resilience and the quality and the durability and all those sort of things, and the actual things they produce,
00:37:16
Speaker
I kind of think that's still going to be the one, the the main way that they will communicate what they're doing. I mean, you can talk with all the things that we're talking about with the intuitives and stuff, and if someone's open to it, absolutely.
00:37:28
Speaker
But I wouldn't start there. I think you have to start in this crossover with the scientific. And ah luckily the Bionutrient Association have been working, Dan Kittredge has been working on this for a good 10 years, and they've now got labs testing stuff for farmers,
00:37:46
Speaker
that can show the nutrient density that can hopefully give them premiums. But even if it doesn't give them premiums, that's where I'm working on the carbon so that the price doesn't have to come up anymore because people are not going to pay more.
00:37:58
Speaker
They haven't paid more. They're never going to pay more. And they'd be right if they had to pay more and they couldn't get access to food. So my feeling is if you can get them paid with the carbon through the carbon market, then it's kind of a no-brainer for farmers to want to do it.
00:38:15
Speaker
Okay, then I'm going to ask a question that's a little bit different. But so in the world of flowers, pardon me for one second to just set up in the world of flowers, for example, I remember when I went to Chelsea Flower Show many years ago with the music of the plants, it was one of it was the first time the music of the plants was ever showcased in Chelsea Flower Show.
00:38:32
Speaker
And I was warned before I went. They're like, as an ah as a plant lover for loving plants as beings, you are going to hate Chelsea Flower Show. they were absolutely right in London because so much of what you see at Chelsea is forced slave labor of plants. In other words, I'm going to feed you all this stuff.
00:38:53
Speaker
you know, fertilizers and artificial stuff in order to make you look beautiful on the side. And then... Forever. Exactly, exactly. And then you're going to die right after because if you watch the last day of Chelsea Flower Show, it is gut-wrenching how much these people who purport to love plants do not love plants. They will like literally just rip them, throw them away. Thailand, the the exhibit of Thailand, literally flew in two planes worth of ah flowers throughout the course of the week because in order to have them fresh, knowing
Farmer Consciousness and Crop Quality
00:39:28
Speaker
that they were bringing in a whole ton in order to just kill them.
00:39:31
Speaker
Like they didn't have any intention to keep any of these flowers alive. So beauty, unfortunately, as we also know in the case of women, is not always something that is done healthfully.
00:39:43
Speaker
So what in the relation, like you said, the answer is in the food and you were talking about nutrient density. What do you think of the real, obviously carbon is one of the big ones, but what are the real indicators of health?
00:39:56
Speaker
Not just, I have a beautiful apple. But like, no, this was was, you know, this apple grew in a way that is healthy for the farmer, healthy for the plants. There's a relationship. And these are the indicators that show me that it's not just round and beautiful, but there's other indicators that show the real relationship and the health.
00:40:16
Speaker
That's why I'm saying the nutrient density tests that are being done. And nutrient density, and there are spectrometers that are coming up, but they need thousands of tests done. So they're not at the point where they're at the handheld level.
00:40:29
Speaker
So I am going to say that it's still a ways off, but nutrient density from a human point of view is about as close as you're going to get. But it's like it's been a bit like how beauty is going away from red lipstick to, you know, your age group wants everything natural. i mean, my son, who's 26 now, he doesn't like his girlfriend to wear makeup.
00:40:53
Speaker
And none of his friends do. So it's a change of fashion. It's a change of... um what is perceived as beauty. so Yeah, it's the ugly fruit movement where it's like it doesn't matter if the fruit is ugly. That will come down to as well, even if it's ugly, it will come down to like when they put in their mouth, it tastes amazing. Now, I would say that isn't happening. Like if I go out and eat an organic apple, it doesn't taste good.
00:41:21
Speaker
I can go conventional like let's say top-end grocer, like I've got an Italian grocer up here and everyone goes, oh, they're so expensive because, you know, they don't mind what the farmer is doing. They just want the best. And when you put it in your mouth, it's amazing.
00:41:38
Speaker
So, you know, i number of organic places that I have frequented and supported because I believe in the movement and the food's terrible. It's not just ugly, it's terrible.
00:41:49
Speaker
And, you know, I know because of what I've written in my books, I know that the insects are designed with an opposite alimantary canal. to a human, to a mammal, because they're there to eat the stuff that mammals shouldn't be eating. So if it's full of bug holes and it's it's missing nutrients, it hasn't had that relationship.
00:42:08
Speaker
There's a lot of very bad organic farmers out there. sorry Right. It's much harder to grow without chemicals. You've got to really listen to the land. it's It's a whole other level of intuitive. There are some amazing conventional farmers and amazing organic farmers.
00:42:24
Speaker
There's also terrible ones in both domains. So names and things are not what it is. We will eventually start to read our ability to feel food because we are just like cows and every other animal.
00:42:38
Speaker
We have a biofeedback, but we've used our brains to stop that. I mean, I think it's kind of fascinating. We were mentioning before we went on the bio-ayahuasca. I think it's fascinating that there's such a huge proliferation of people doing it.
00:42:51
Speaker
I mean, terrible thing to do. They taste terrible, apparently, and they do all these things. I mean, all these terrible things they have to do. I've been around a lot of ayahuasca people because they all think I would do it because I'm so into talking to the plants.
00:43:02
Speaker
And I'm like, no, I don't do anything. I'm sorry. I just talk to them. So it's just... it's just um It's that I think there is an awakening going on and people are not yet willing to be brave enough to actually just reach out with themselves.
00:43:20
Speaker
They have to go through a via. They still have to go through something else rather than just go directly. So, I mean, that's why I like this plant wave thing because it's a very unintrusive, but it's still via to get the, you know, and even I went like when I connected it to my willow tree and it started to sing to me. I was like,
00:43:39
Speaker
Hello. ah Exactly, exactly. I now just i do understand, even I. I love that. And I think that that's so true. That was something I learned when I first moved to Italy and I started to look around. I started to go out to the farmers. Of course, you know you're taught, go look for organic, but I'm in a complete agreement with you. I'm like, just because you're organic doesn't mean you have a relationship with your land either.
00:44:02
Speaker
You can be just as strong industrial architecture, i mean, architecture, agriculture in the way that we're talking. and be technically labeled organic. And here, you know, so I have people who come from other countries who might say, oh, well, is this organic? And i'm like, no, it's local. And I know the farmer and I know the relationship that the farmer has, no matter how big their farm is, but I know what they're doing. And that's more important than the label, because that's what's really going to give us that.
00:44:31
Speaker
that density of that nutrients. And and like you said, you're going to taste it. I'm going a step further and tell you that the work that we've been doing, what we've observed is it doesn't actually even matter what the farmer is doing on the farm.
Educating on Soil and Agriculture through Samantha's Book
00:44:44
Speaker
It's where is his consciousness at?
00:44:47
Speaker
So the the animals and the plants are actually servicing the human. And if the human is in a state of bliss, consciousness, and particularly if they've got a partner and they are happy, the land ah every land I've gone on to where the husband and wife are happy, the land has been happy.
00:45:06
Speaker
And that that the more they're able to beam that joy of existence into their land, it beams it back and that and it will tell them what it needs or what it doesn't.
00:45:20
Speaker
And that need is a bit like the beer we were talking about. We know it's a neurotoxin, but sometimes it's wonderful and other times it's not. So it's not about the physical reality of the universe. It's about what is bringing you as close to joy as possible. Following your bliss is a very important thing to do.
00:45:42
Speaker
I could, I mean, I think that that's, that's the perfect way of explaining it. I think that that is exactly where we need to move on all levels. And I think that it's not, like you said, it's not about the size. Sure. We want to.
00:45:55
Speaker
We want to believe that the small local farmer is doing it better than the other, but that's not it. And again, if we're going to feed the masses that today are trying to go to the supermarket, we need to get all levels of farming to reach exactly that level of what you're talking about, too for them to feel comfortable enough, secure enough, even economically secure enough.
00:46:16
Speaker
I was just going to ask you. I was about to, you just sort of preempted the next question I was going to ask, which is tell them everybody, tell us, tell us about the book. Tell us what's in the book. why is this book? Who is this book for? Tell us everything.
00:46:31
Speaker
The book is really designed for people who know nothing. Like most people that are in the regenerative agriculture space will know what I'm talking about in here, but I've tried to make it simple. I've tried to make it for the conventional farmer, the governance policymaker, that cabin tradeter the the lay person who doesn't care about anything.
00:46:54
Speaker
and I have to say, i gave this book to a farmer in the sugar industry and I had just... been doing a whole field day with this machinery that's all heavy and like the irony of what I'm doing and what the machinery thing that I was attending was about and he said he said I haven't read a book in 30 years he said I've got triplets I'll never read it and I said look I I'm told it's a four-hour read and I don't want it to be complex I'd really love your feedback So he rang me twice, once to tell me, can't believe it. I'm halfway through and it's two hours and I'm still reading it.
00:47:31
Speaker
And then the next time he rang me to say, i just want to say thank you because I didn't know I could learn any more about the land. after a lifetime as a farmer. So that was so touching for me. So I have to say it's for everybody. People think it's for the farmer, but I'm like, yeah, it's for the farmer, but it's also for you. You eat. Everybody is involved in the land and the soil, and it's not this mystical thing. It's complex. There's a lot of elements around it, but it's it's worth learning about it. It's something we should be learning about in school, really.
00:48:07
Speaker
actually you just said something beautiful which is it's something that is important we're all like connected to farmers we we all to a certain extent should have a level of understanding and of of knowledge around this whole aspect of life because it is fundamental you can't eat without it and so therefore the idea that we've passed that on to somebody else and said well i don't need to know how it works because you know i'm not the farmer and it's like eat But you eat ah and you live on this planet. Yeah, you eat, you're involved. It's all there is to it. Exactly.
Conclusion and Community Engagement
00:48:46
Speaker
Show it to us again. Okay, now I just want to let you know I'm running out of disk space so the computer getting slower and slower. This is my book. You can find it as an e-book on Amazon.
00:48:57
Speaker
So you can download it or as on my website, samjewel.com, which I believe clicks through to the publisher, which is KMD Publishing. And they you can order the hard copy.
00:49:08
Speaker
ah and And you can also get it directly from your website, right? Well, the website clicks through to the publisher and they do the printing. Oh, For the publisher. Perfect. I don't the printing. So, and um i I might get around to doing the Audible, but i it's so hard to do. I just don't think I can do it.
00:49:27
Speaker
It's four hours. It's four hours. No, it's not not for as of talking aloud. It's four hours of reading. i know. I understand. i voiced over a few books and I translated a few books. So i totally understand.
00:49:40
Speaker
and Actually, this week we have the the the week that we're recording this. I have the next discussion for the book that we're reading right now as part of the Plant Wisdom Book Club. And so you're right. It's like speaking it out loud and yeah and reading are two different things, two completely different things.
00:49:58
Speaker
and So that this has been so wonderful. Are there any last words that you want to tell the audience? No, I just think that it's a journey worth having. And you might be quietly surprised by how fascinated you become once you take the small baby steps towards it.
00:50:17
Speaker
I love it. I love it so much. Thank you so much for this conversation. i am very excited to get everyone thinking about this in a completely different way. And so thank you. Thank you for the work that you do. And let's get it out into everybody's hands.
00:50:32
Speaker
Thank you. Wow, right? Wasn't that amazing? And it is true. The answer really is in the food. Food is what is the indicator, what is being shared of the from the plants with us. And I think it's so important for us to look at it that way.
00:50:48
Speaker
You know, honestly, everything always turns out to be about relationship. We're not meant to do any of this alone. We are meant to co-create on the land, with the land, as the land.
00:51:01
Speaker
We're all beings of this. And the plants know this and they've been pushing us in that direction, right? They thrive in relationship and we thrive in relationship. It is all about relationship.
00:51:12
Speaker
And so if you are also looking to make decisions to bring more of this naturally conscious thinking game into your life, I'm going to give you two ways to do that.
00:51:23
Speaker
And they are related. One is join the Naturally Conscious Community. That is the place where we are having these conversations. It's also the place where you can support this podcast and conversations like this.
00:51:34
Speaker
Every single day, we are having the book club, the writing group, the master classes, the classes, all different ways for you to expand your knowledge and interact and co-create the vision of the future that we want to build together.
00:51:50
Speaker
And then of course, if you're looking for more personalized support, I'm always here, here for you. I love working with multi-passionate, conscious, you know, nature friendly people who want to create a whole new paradigm.
00:52:05
Speaker
And so all you have to do is just book a call. with me and we can talk about it. So everything you need is in the show notes. There is information about Samantha Jewell. There's information about me. There's information about the naturally conscious community. It's all there for you. So if you are ready to take the next step in the future, we are here to support you.
00:52:26
Speaker
And so that's it. That's it for this episode. i am so excited about what is coming in this coming year. Remember, resist the urge to hold back your emerging green brilliance.
00:52:38
Speaker
No matter how crazy things are out there, there is a path forward and together we'll find it. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. To continue these conversations, join us in the Naturally Conscious Community.
00:52:52
Speaker
your premier online ecosystem for plant reawakening and accelerated evolution and co-creation with other kin. Here, you'll find expansive discussions, interactive courses, live events, and supportive group programs like the Plant Wisdom Book Club and the Sprouts Writing and Creativity Group.
00:53:09
Speaker
Connect with like-minded individuals collaborating with plants to integrate these insights into life. Intro and outro music by Steve Shuley and Poinsettia from The Singing Life of Plants. That's it for me, Tigria Gardenia, and my plant collaborators.
00:53:23
Speaker
Until next time, remember, resist the urge to hold back your emerging green brilliance. I'm out. Bye.