Building community-based self-sufficiency and resilience through permaculture design (interview with rob avis of verge permaculture)
Rob Avis, along with his wife Michelle, are the owners and lead instructors at Verge Permaculture (@vergepermaculture), an internationally recognized and award-winning permaculture design company from Calgary, Alberta. They've taught permaculture to thousands of students, offering expertise in building science and appropriate technology as well as rainwater harvesting, agro-ecology, ecosystem engineering, soil regeneration, and wastewater treatment.
Rob and Michelle Avis also founded Adaptive Habitat, a unique and leading-edge property design and management company that leverages the couple's collective experience in engineering, project management, ecological design, and sustainable technologies.
In this podcast episode, Rob sheds light on the importance of learning about bioregionality so that we can better support the regeneration of our local ecosystems and divorce our globalized food system from its reliance on fossil fuels; why we need to rebuild community-based self-sufficiency for sustainability and not have to depend on a centralized food system, power system, water supply, and so forth; and more.
To start, get a glimpse below into the conversation between Rob and Green Dreamer Podcast's host, Kamea Chayne.
“We have to look at regeneration as the only real path forward.”
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This is a conversation on Green Dreamer with Kamea Chayne, a podcast and multimedia journal illuminating our paths towards ecological balance, intersectional sustainability, and true abundance and wellness for all. This preview has been edited for clarity. Subscribe to Green Dreamer Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or any podcast app to stay informed and updated on our latest episodes.
On the poor condition of our soils and the solutions to address this problem:
"Most farmers are not farming wheat, corn, or soy; they're farming soil. One ton of grain right now erodes close to seven tons of topsoil, which is why we have dead zones.
The situation is pretty dire—it doesn't matter which direction you look, it just doesn't look very good.
The reality is (and this is the same with heating houses) we actually know the solutions to all of these problems, but there are so many vested interests in keeping the system running the way that it currently runs that it's difficult to course-correct.
It remains to be seen whether or not if we have the collective will to turn this ship around.”
On how we can eat a truly sustainable diet:
"We actually have to stop talking about these fad diets—like Keto, Paleo, Vegetarian, and Vegan—and we have to go back to base principles and use physics to determine what our ecological diet is.
I can almost guarantee that if we choose a diet that is ecologically sustainable based on the principles of physics, it will be healthy for us as well because what's good for the planet ends up being good for the population.
Where you live on the planet will dictate what your bioregionally appropriate diet actually is.”
On the importance of regenerative agriculture:
"We have to look at regeneration as the only real path forward:
We have to deal with our soil erosion, our phosphorous cycle, and our nitrogen cycle, and we have to take fossil fuels out of the food system and return to a net-positive caloric output if we're going to have a place on this planet in the future.”
Final words of wisdom:
"We have to make the future more enticing than the status quo. We're not going to get people to change by spraying vinegar in their face; we have to make it taste better and be more fun.
If we can do that, then people will naturally gravitate towards all of this stuff.”
