TED - Open Source Ecology

Novella Carpenter Interview

 The Farm Institute as taught me nearly as much as I have learned in my four years of college, so I'm really excited to be returning this summer, but in a different position. TFI is expanding the age-range of their programs to teens and adults. Running programs for kids can be taxing because they don't always have their heads screwed on all the way, but with these new programs, the content is going to have to be much more extensive. From here in WI, it looks like the main focus is going to be teen programming, so it will be like teaching high school, which seems a little scary, just being 4 years removed.

I have one coworker who I'm teaming up with for the programs, and we're going to be doing some oxen training, and building a solar greenhouse onto the main office. I'd really like to plant some spring wheat, and while it's growing we could overhaul a bicycle to power a belt. The belt could be connected a thresher, or a grinder for grain processing, or it could power a sewing machine, a table saw... maybe we could adapt it into a small people powered airplane.

The point is that we could take rye or wheat or corn or quinoa or amaranth, and from the point that it reaches our humble farm, we could grow, harvest and process into flour all these grains, without any sort of petroleum intervention.  What about calling it the Grass, Roots & Grains Project?