Is Regenerative Farming the Future? with Neil deGrasse Tyson & Will Harris

Who else thinks farmers are just cowboy scientists after this episode? 🤠

I live in northwest Alabama and have farmed all my life, on a small scale. I live in one of the richest areas of the state, as far as farming land, and several of Alabama's largest farms are right here close to me. In fact, the largest farmer in the state leases several hundred acres that border my property. All together he farms hundreds of thousands of acres over 3 states- but the main part of his operation in Alabama- is next door to me. My dad grew up here- and back in the 50s when DDT was used on the cotton fields here in this river valley- which runs about 30-40 miles- it killed every single fish in the Buttahatchee river. It literally sterilized the river- my dad has photos of thousands of dead fish floating on the water's surface. Gar and pike up to 4-5 feet long, catfish that were between 50-100 pounds, all the way down to little minnows and tad poles, crawdads- it all died. Dad said the stench was unbelievable and lasted for over a month. The ppl were so hungry- most of the fish got eaten- this was during the depression- ppl would eat anything they could get their hands on. It took my entire life- I'm 51 now- before we got fish back and the river returned. Many ppl fought hard to make this happen- we invested many thousands of our own dollars and many, many hours of our time to drag all the timber they had pushed off into the river when clearing the fields out, to lobby both state and city governments to invest their time and money- which we finally got done. There are 3 cities along the river valley- each city kicked in 50 thousand to help us clean it up and restock it- and the State put in close to 2 million. It's beautiful again- I fish it almost every day and I'm catching a lot of quality fish. Strictly catch and release for me- but we do have limits- you can keep a few if you want to. That said- the big farm that borders my property just got permission to start pulling water from the river to irrigate. That water then returns to the river- after picking up pesticides, insecticides, fertilizers, etc. The state is staying on top of it- they send guys out every month to pull samples and test the water- and supposedly they're monitoring the river for any problems. I don't like it- but there's nothing we can do. I am going to start pulling my own samples though- randomly. And we- the ppl who helped me do all of this- are going to send it to an independent lab- and verify whether or not they're telling us the truth. If they're not- I'm going to straight to social media, newspapers, news shows, whatever exposure I can get. I'll be damned if they're going to destroy this river again.

Neil’s ability to yield the floor here was magnificent.

" A bold return to giving a damn " Love the title ! Thank you, Will Harris. Going to order it asap

My great grandmother had thirteen children which were all farmers in S. Ga. Cattle, poultry and fresh produce. I watched beginning in the early 70’s big corp disseminate their farms one by one until they could no longer afford to produce products. It was a crying shame IMO. My only hope is that people wise up one day but I wouldn’t hold my breath, not even for a second thinking this might happen. Hats off to Will for hanging in there. Great show..

This was a great listen! I love to learn about regenerative farming. I hope people start to advocate for transparent labeling of agricultural products, so that consumers do have a choice.

Great episode! Will is spot on. Thank you all for this subject coverage. My dad was a farmer, and saw the damage some of the 'best farming practices' from Cornell U. was suggesting to farmers in the 70's and 80's. He did try herbicides once, and swore never again. His dad told him 'If you feed the soil, it will feed you', and it is still good advice in my opinion.

I moved away from sterilizing soil to "happy worm & fungi land". I burried old leaves, sticks and other organic stuff in my pots - even put some Lichen covered sticks on top of the soil for the full spectrum of life. Always put some Potato in your Tomato/Pepper plant pots/their soil. They do underground things to improve the soil and happily multiply, even as guests. All cool plants love Basil as guest, too. So in one pot with living soil you can have Potato, Tomato and Basil. And they all do their thing - together.

I just want to say as a 25 year old I have never wanted to attend college. Seeing Neil be so passionate about his knowledge has been a big inspiration for me to go to college and discover the knowledge the excites me the same way! I just want to thank you Dr. Tyson for sharing your knowledge and passion with us all

This guest was about 1000000x more interesting than I expected