The End of the Year, the Beginning of an Evolution?
Dear Friends,
Three weeks of travel at the end of November and early December helped me to see evidence of the food system evolving. The first step of change is awareness.
My sense, after a week at the Intertribal Agriculture Council conference, a week with the Savory Institute team, and time immersed in conversation with entrepreneurial business owners deeply connected to the beef industry, is that many people recognize outdated structures and policies, and are ready to evolve the beef industry and food system in big ways. With attention and creativity focused on shifting industry and policy, imagine what the landscape will look like five years from now.
During my travels, I met two amazing entrepreneurial leaders and change makers. The facts they shared in our conversations and meetings stunned me. I repeated them to myself so I could remember, and jot them down when I got a free moment. I also tried to visualize the amount of biological and monetary waste that they said is created by the current system.
It was hard to even imagine.
From Cate Havstad-Casad, owner of Range Revolution, I learned that in the beef industry in the United States, more than 5 million hides are thrown away each year, and only 63 percent of the entire beef carcass is used.
Keith Nantz, the owner of Nexus Beef, sends $2 million in waste from his small beef processing plant in Northern California to Klamath Falls, Oregon landfills because mammalian tissue cannot be composted in California (Cal Recycle, Title 14).
How can a landfill be the solution?
I don’t understand. Does this mean that every rancher with a bone pile is technically breaking the law? The food system and the laws that govern it seem designed without a holistic perspective, or common sense. But there must be a story behind this policy.
Do you know more about this? Do you know why we cannot compost mammalian tissue in California?
I would love to learn more.
There is a lot of work to do on the policy front (what amazing potential there is for holistic policy creation in California), but Cate and Keith are not waiting around. They are making change happen in their industry, and the agencies related to that industry, by leading through example.
I admire their bravery, their heart, inclusivity, and intelligent approach.
They are also asking big questions of themselves, and those who they work with to create their products:
How can we do better every day?
How can we use the whole carcass?
How can we turn waste streams into revenue streams?
How can we uplift employees, communities, and the land in the process instead of extracting from, and then replacing them?
As the year ends, what deep questions are you asking? What unrealized potential do you see? What is evolving around you? If you removed outdated, irrelevant structures, what could emerge? What in your life and work need space, energy, and freedom to evolve in the New Year?
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
- Buckminster Fuller
Wishing you a wonderful year full of discovery, my friends. I am looking forward to sharing, learning, listening, and growing with you in the coming year, and beyond.
With love,
Abbey