Living Soils Symposium 2019
March 28 to 31, 2019
Marché Bonsecours – Montreal
Mtl 2019
March 28 to 31, 2019
Marché Bonsecours – Montreal
Come and introduce yourself! Grab some snacks and kombucha, discover the artistic installations and mingle with other participants.
Join us for this special opening evening, as we arrive together in one place and one purpose, from across a diverse movement.
Mohawk Elder and Faithkeeper Ka’nahsohon Deer will open the evening by welcoming us to this land and offering a traditional thanksgiving address.
Author and founder of the Center for Sustainable Medicine Didi Pershouse will describe how collaborating with soil’s natural communities (and each other!) can improve resiliency on a large scale, counteracting climate warming, flooding, drought, erosion, algae blooms, wildfires and more.
Jackie Milne, founder of the Northern Farm Training Institute, will share the inspiring story of her journey through terminal illness and how the living soil played a pivotal role in her spontaneous remission. Highlighting parallels with the patterns of ecosystem collapse around the world, she will call on us to align with Earth’s own immune systems to trigger global spontaneous remission for the planet.
The evening will also be an opportunity for us to “build the soil” of our own community. Come and share what you care about, what you hope to get out of the Symposium, what you hope to contribute, and who you’d like to meet. The conversations we have this evening will help prepare the ground for deep learning together over the next three days, leading to useful collaborations and collective action.
Then, to carry us into the rest of the Symposium with inspiration, we will enjoy a special musical performance.
Please join us!
We’ll kick off the morning with a warm welcome, setting the broad context of the regenerative movement and offering an overview of how things will work over the next three days.
Then we’ll enjoy an interactive and engaging session hosted by Finian Makepeace, co-founder of Kiss the Ground. Over the course of the Symposium, we’re going to be learning many different aspects of regenerative soil. Finian is going to make sure we feel ready and equipped to take it all in and then go out into the world as powerful soil advocates. No matter who we are and what role we play, we all can – and must – “get our hands dirty” as champions growing the regenerative movement.
Next we’ll put our new advocacy tools to the test, exploring what we already know about the many stakeholders within our movement and identifying important questions that need to be answered.
Join these soil stewards for a small group conversation around one of our campfires. Ask them anything!
Campfire 1 : Diana Rodgers
What is the ideal diet for both human health and the planet?
Campfire 2 : Louis Robert and Odette Ménard
How can productivity and protection of the environment be compatible?
Deepen your understanding of soil microbiology, compost, and how agricultural management practices influence soil carbon.
Join these soil stewards for a small group conversation around one of our campfires. Ask them anything!
Campfire 1 : B. Lorraine Smith
How to help businesses see the opportunity of being regenerative?
Campfire 2 : Jackie Milne
City or pastoral diets and the future of life on earth
If you were a frog in a pond 500 years ago, what would you know about ecology? In a whimsical fantasy, Joel takes us back to the most primal templates of nature. These are the things we all know, but have forgotten. Carbon doesn’t travel very far. Energy comes from wind, water, sun, and biomass. Every ecosystem contains lots of animals. Diversity abounds. These and several other principles are self-evident from our lily pad in the pond. Appreciating them and applying them to today’s agriculture, including their adoption at Polyface, creates an historic backdrop on which to build tomorrow’s agriculture.
Join these soil stewards for a small group conversation around one of our campfires. Ask them anything!
Campfire 1 : Marie-Élise Samson
How to store carbon in agricultural soils?
Campfire 2 : Jocelyn Michon
Large surface agriculture: Yields without tillage.
Join this soil steward for a small group conversation around the campfire. Ask him anything!
Campfire 1 : Joel Salatin
Food, farm and faith.
Campfire 2 : Open Conversations
Sign up with a theme to have a small group conversation around the campfire!
How can large surface field crop agriculture be regenerative? Learn about practices such as direct seeding, cover crops and no-till, about the challenges of such practices in the Quebec context, as well as in an organic and conventional production.
What did we gather today? You will have the opportunity to “harvest” your own experience and learnings in a variety of ways and also to help identify any important issues, questions and themes that are arising for the movement as a whole.