Kiss The Ground

Kiss The Ground

2020 has delivered the most destructive wildfires on record.  And we have run out of letters in the alphabet to name the tropical storms.  Yes, the climate crisis is here and now, not a future event.  Time is not on our side to reverse the damage but don’t despair just yet.  Kiss The Ground, by Josh Tickell gives us hope by presenting the science behind regenerative agriculture and its ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reverse global warming.  Join our panelist as they discuss the “SOILUTION” and learn how we each can make better decisions and do our part to save our planet.

Panelist: 

Richard and Dohl Di Febo, Harvest Home Meats, Bangor PA. Father and son farmers raising 100% grass-fed beef using rotational grazing techniques.  Through their conservation efforts and by collaboration with the local school district and watershed association, they became the first farmers in Pennsylvania to receive the prestigious Leopold Conservation Award in 2018.

Pat McInerney has a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Delaware Valley College of Science and Agriculture and is currently retired after a thirty six year teaching career where he mostly taught Physics and Chemistry. He is very active in local environmental efforts as a member, and past chairman, of the Environmental Advisory Council and as president of the Martins/Jacoby Watershed Association. As an avid fisherman and overall outdoorsman, he sees the stream improvement projects these groups have carried out as a way of helping to protect the natural resources he so highly values, and they afford him the opportunity to repay, in some small measure, what he has gained from his love of the outdoors.

André Leu is the Author of the ‘Myths of Safe Pesticides’ and ‘Poisoning our Children’. He is the co-author with Dr Vandana Shiva of ‘Biodiversity, Agroecology, Regenerative Organic Agriculture – Sustainable Solutions for Hunger, Poverty and Climate Change’.  André is the International Director of Regeneration International. It is an organization that promotes food, farming and land use systems that regenerate and stabilize climate systems, the health of the planet and people, communities, culture and local economies, democracy and peace. He was the longest serving President of IFOAM – Organics International, the world change agent and umbrella body for the organic sector.  He was one of the original signatories of the 4 per 1000 initiative at the United Nations Climate Change meeting in Paris in December, 2015. This initiative aims to change farming from being a major CO2 emitter to becoming a major mitigator of CO2 by storing it in soil as soil organic matter. Andre has been an organic farmer since 1971. He and his wife Julia have an organic tropical fruit farm in Daintree, in Australia.

Abe Collins is a Vermont grazier, consultant, principal of Collins Grazing, cofounder of LandStream, Inc. and a founding board member of the Soil Carbon Coalition.  He has herded sheep, beef and dairy cattle. Abe has worked over his life to learn how to grow topsoil, shepherd deserts back into prairies, measure landscape function, and build practical tools and systems to equip farmers and ranchers to hire out their services as producers of ecosystem health and ecosystem services.

Tara Zrinski is a Northampton County Council member who is currently running for State House Representative in Pennsylvania’s 138th district. As a coordinator for Food & Water Watch and liaison to the Farmland Preservation Board, she has been an advocate for clean energy and sustainability within her local communities, while working as a Solar Energy Consultant for SunPulse Solar. She is also an educator and has taught Philosophy at Northampton Community College, Lehigh County Community College and Lehigh University.

Moderator:

Rhodes Yepsen, Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), Holland Township, NJ.  Rhodes is Executive Director of BPI, North America’s leading certifier of compostable products.  He has written over 20 articles about the importance of food waste diversion and the role of compostable products in the circular economy, for addressing climate change, ecosystem impacts, and regenerative agriculture.  Previously he was on the Board of the US Composting Council, and was a staff editor and writer at BioCycle magazine in Emmaus, PA.