DeepSummary
The podcast features an interview with Anthony Mint, the founder of Zero Food Print and winner of the 2020 James Beard Humanitarian of the Year award. Zero Food Print's mission is to enable consumers to contribute to climate solutions through their purchases by funding healthy soil practices on local farms and ranches. Mint emphasizes the importance of soil health and how regenerative agriculture practices like applying compost, planting cover crops, and reducing tillage can sequester carbon from the atmosphere back into the soil.
Mint discusses the Restore Colorado project, which partners with restaurants, caterers, and other businesses to fund carbon farming projects in the region through a small percentage of purchases. He explains how the grants are awarded to farmers based on modeling the carbon sequestration potential of their proposed practices. Zero Food Print aims to create a regenerative economy where various sectors can fund the shift towards sustainable agriculture.
Mint shares his motivation for becoming a climate activist after having a daughter and realizing the platform he had as a chef. He expresses optimism about the potential for collective action and funding streams to help cities and states commit to 100% regenerative agriculture, similar to renewable energy initiatives. Composting is highlighted as a crucial practice for returning organic matter to the soil and jumpstarting soil biology.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Zero Food Print's mission is to enable consumers to fund regenerative agriculture practices that sequester carbon in soil through their purchases.
- Soil health and regenerative practices like applying compost, planting cover crops, and reducing tillage are crucial for carbon sequestration and sustainable agriculture.
- The Restore Colorado project partners with restaurants, caterers, and businesses to fund carbon farming projects through a small percentage of purchases.
- Zero Food Print uses a modeling tool to estimate the carbon sequestration potential of proposed regenerative agriculture practices and award grants accordingly.
- Composting and returning organic matter to the soil is highlighted as a crucial practice for jumpstarting soil biology and sequestering carbon.
- Anthony Mint expresses optimism about the potential for collective action and funding streams to help cities and states commit to 100% regenerative agriculture, similar to renewable energy initiatives.
- Mint's motivation for becoming a climate activist stemmed from having a daughter and realizing the platform he had as a chef to drive change in the food system.
- Zero Food Print aims to create a regenerative economy where various sectors can fund the shift towards sustainable agriculture practices.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “And so, you know, we all know these kinds of programs where you improve the grid, you know, you send $5 on your utilities bill or something like that, and it adds up. Millions of people do that. Here's tens of millions of dollars or whatever. And then over time, there's a path forward, and there's a way for a city or a county or something to commit to 100% renewable energy. And so with the food system, a lot of people in the good food movement, myself included, I feel like there's a little bit of this frustration, like, why isn't this catching? Why isn't everything changing, you know?“ by Anthony Mint
- “And then basically just kind of outline a scope of work. So it could be like applying compost on ten acres or planting cover crops on ten acres or something like that. And then we use a modeling tool that was developed by Colorado State University in conjunction with the USDA's natural Resource Conservation Service called the Comet Planner. And it basically allows for, you know, a business, a farmer, a citizen, to estimate how much carbon benefit, how much carbon comes out of the atmosphere from a given project.“ by Anthony Mint
- “And so, like, all that organic matter going into landfill, it's almost like one big biodiesel spill, just like flooding emissions into the atmosphere. And we could just put them back into the soil where it would almost act like an inoculant or a probiotic and kind of like jumpstart nature and sequestration.“ by Anthony Mint
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Episode Information
Climate Changers
Ryan Flahive
8/21/21