Futuresteading
This is a conversation about the future. About creating a culture that values tomorrow. We reckon a slower, simpler, steadier existence is the first step - one that’s healthier for humans and the planet. We call it Futuresteading. Each week we chat to community builders, ritual makers, food growers, health wizards and environmental wisdom keepers, gathering practical advice and epic solidarity - so we can all nut this thing out together. Join our nitty, gritty, honest and hopeful convo every Monday during our 16 episode seasons. Support the pod by shouting us a cuppa >>> buymeacoffee.com/futuresteading
Futuresteading
E155 Shane Simonsen - Taming the apocalypse, exploring a post industrial world & maize making people mad
Summary
The age of short termism now dominates - Todays guest however takes long termism the way we all take breakfast (those not on a fasting regime anyway) Apparently he was born this way.
In his recently released book Taming the Apocalypse he states that the only remaining sustainable resources after industrialisation runs its course will be biology & culture. To prepare for this time, Shane Simonsen has an exceptionally original approach to zero input, large scale farming & has committed his life's plan of living long enough to connect varieties of crops that have been separated by 60 million years of evolution by creating plant hybridisation at scale - his seed collection rivals Svalbard the Global Seed Vault.
His thesis so far:
-The shortcoming of science is that it wants all organisms to behave like machines.
-If we have 1000 farmers over 1000 years doing this, we would see a miracle - not a machine.
- Now is the moment for sacrificial offerings of research & time for the sake of learning for future generations
- Putting seeds in the dirt NOT a seed bank is the best path to build genetic diversity
Links You'll Love
Shane Simonsen substack
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We talked about:
- Learning to think long term
- Zero input large scale, experimental farming
- Changing career direction away from complex & fragile systems
- From hunter gatherer culture to industrial ag with nothing in between
- Culture gaps and skills gaps
- Biological systems are complicated, networked & chaotic
- Why Bunya nuts were his starting place
- Humans have the capacity to recognise the uniqueness & value of something in the eco system & support it to become an ongoing part of our food future.
- Why biology is the unexpected miracle.
- Rebuilding culture so we can accept slow, magical outcomes
- You don't need many people like Shane to create real change - seed sharing, experimentation, desire to create new things
- The defense chemicals of our food
- Why humans are really bad at imagining things that gradually change our base line
- Opting out from resource intensive lives - creeping off into the margins to exist
- Spending months of hand farming to grow $20 worth of grain
- Rebuilding trust & re-forming collectivism
- Beginning your own hybridisation program with vegetables
- Almost all the vegetable seed you buy originated in hot houses in Holland
- Australia is on the end of supply lines so it’s likely we will experience a supply shock - this might be just the wake up call to realise the vulnerable state we are in.
- Can we get our politicians to fly the permaculture flag?
- Taming elephants to hybridise them