Episode Highlights
About Rob Greenfield
Rob Greenfield is an activist and humanitarian dedicated to leading the way to a more sustainable and just world. He embarks on extreme projects to bring attention to important global issues and inspire positive change. His life is an embodiment of Gandhi’s philosophy, “Be the change you wish to see in the world."
In a time when many feel disempowered, Rob believes that our actions really do matter and that as individuals and communities we have the power to improve the world around us. He is currently traveling on the 2020 World Solutions Tour sharing solutions to our current problems, leading solution-based action days, and spreading stories of communities and people that are standing up for sustainability, truth, equality and justice. 100% of Rob’s speaking honorariums for the tour are donated to indigenous and women led grassroots organizations.
Episode Highlights:
Show Links:
Episode Highlights
About Rob Greenfield
Rob Greenfield is an activist and humanitarian dedicated to leading the way to a more sustainable and just world. He embarks on extreme projects to bring attention to important global issues and inspire positive change. His life is an embodiment of Gandhi’s philosophy, “Be the change you wish to see in the world."
In a time when many feel disempowered, Rob believes that our actions really do matter and that as individuals and communities we have the power to improve the world around us. He is currently traveling on the 2020 World Solutions Tour sharing solutions to our current problems, leading solution-based action days, and spreading stories of communities and people that are standing up for sustainability, truth, equality and justice. 100% of Rob’s speaking honorariums for the tour are donated to indigenous and women led grassroots organizations.
Episode Highlights:
Show Links:
Josh Robinson: 0:00
Welcome to the permaculture for the future podcast. I'm your host, Josh Robinson. The world is full of negative news, and the planet seems to be in an ecological crisis, and this can be downright disheartening and disenfranchising because we feel that there's nothing that each one of us can do is an individual that can make any difference. Well, I'm here to provide a different perspective. To tell a new story. Permaculture for the future Podcast is all about spreading positive and impactful stories, tips and ways that each one of us can transition into a regenerative lifestyle where we can make an ecological impact way. Talk about simple ways to make lifestyle changes as we interview authors, teachers and other folks that air collectively healing ourselves and the planet. So if you want to make an ecological impact, stick around because this podcast is for you. Welcome to Episode six of the Permaculture for the Future podcast On today's show, we have another special guest that many of you might already be familiar with, based on his social media accounts and all of those followers. But today we're joined here by Rob Greenfield. Now Rob is an activist and humanitarian dedicated to leading the way to a more sustainable and just world. He embarks on extreme projects to bring attention to important global issues and inspire positive change. His life is an embodiment of Gandhi's philosophy. Be the change you wish to see in the world. And in a time when many feel disempowered, Robb believes that our actions really do matter. And as individuals and communities, we have the power to improve the world around us. He's currently traveling on the 2020 World Solutions Tour, sharing solutions to our current problems, leading solution based action days and spreading stories of communities and people that are standing up for sustainability, truth, equality and justice. Now 100% of Rob's speaking honorariums for the tour are donated to indigenous and women lead grassroots organizations. Now, in my conversation with Rob, we're going to discuss his latest project that he just completed, which was growing and foraging 100% of his food for an entire year. Not an easy endeavor. And Rob is going to get into the details about how he did it and some of the challenges that he faced and some of the ways that he was able to work through those challenges to get to his goal of showing the community around us that even without a lot of experience, you can if we put our minds to it, accomplished many things. And without further ado, here's Rob. All right, well, welcome, Rob to the permaculture for the future podcast. I'm so excited to finally get a chance to sit and chat with you about what been happening for our listeners that maybe have never heard of. You are not familiar with the work that you do. Can you talk a little bit about some of the projects that you've been doing and just who you are?
Rob Greenfield: 3:34
Yeah, basically, I live my life in a way where I've designed it to really wake people up to shock them, to get them to self reflect on their own lives, to ask themselves, Am I living the life that I want? Are my actions in alignment of my beliefs? Am I happy? And I do this a lot of the times through sort of extreme activism campaigns, whether it's living like the average American for a month and wearing all the trash that I create to create a visual of how much garbage just one person creates biking across the United States three times on a bamboo bicycle. Just finished a year without grocery stores without restaurants, a year of growing and foraging. Literally 100% of my food also have lived in two tiny houses, one time off the grid. So these sorts of, you know, taking things to the extreme really big toe, catch people's attention to catch mainstream media's attention and get people thinking,
Josh Robinson: 4:31
Yeah, I mean, so I think I think I first met you through Jonathan Zeidman in round 2011 and at that point were you. You had a you had a business. I think there was selling key cards right for hotels.
Rob Greenfield: 4:46
Yeah, so in 2011 that is when I really started to wake up. I had just moved out to San Diego and I started to watch a lot of documentaries and read a lot of books and basically realized that almost everything that I was doing was causing destruction to the world food that I was eating, the car that I was driving in the gas that I was pumping into it the trash that I was making, the cheap crap I was buying at the store. And my business, too. At the time, you know, realized that the marketing I was selling was marketing for garbage. And so that's when I started to shift my life. And over the next few years, I just started changed my life. Thio actually live in the land of my beliefs.
Josh Robinson: 5:28
Yeah, I mean, that's something that is, you know, for a lot of people, I think the way that you've kind of gone about this and it's not necessarily working with any particular organization, but kind of just, you know, taking it upon yourself to get out there and show people that there's another way. And I do remember like your first kind of cross country bike trips. And then I've definitely been following over this last year, is you've We're diving into more food related issues and this time, really, by growing and foraging your own food for one year. So I thought we could take a little bit of time and jumped down and dive a little bit into that. So first off, like, what was it that inspired you to want to try to grow 100% of your own food and forage.
Rob Greenfield: 6:20
Yeah, well, you know, like
Josh Robinson: 6:21
in two
Rob Greenfield: 6:22
1011 I woke up majorly to the destruction of the global industrial food system, and I really realized that pretty much everything on my plate that I was consuming was consuming the planet that I loved. And I started to make changes. You know, I started toe, try to shop local buy food from the local farmers market, started the less packaged food and start to buy whole unpackaged foods and less processed junk started to try to buy organic food rather than food that sprayed with pesticides and such and also started Thio, you know, especially reduce. Stop eating the factory fund meat and dairy and eggs and such and steed a lot more fruits and vegetables. And so basically from the beginning, I had the question, though, you know, would it be possible to actually step away from all of that step away from the global industrial food system? Completely and actually, basically someone can't live off the land, never have to take a trip to the grocery store, grow and forage 100% of my food, and that's what I decided to do. And it was both a project of deep immersion in my food, too deeply understand it. I'm connected bit and then also at the same time and see if it was possible. Answer that question. Is it possible? And then at the same time, do something that would really get the conversation going and mainstream about, you know, and get people really questioning their food where it comes from, how it gets to a much the impact that it has on the world and hope that when they ask those questions, if they don't find answers, they like that, I I can empower them to change the answers by changing the way they
Josh Robinson: 8:04
eat. Hey, no, I mean, some people that have been in this kind of like realm of gardening or self sufficiency or self reliance have had notions of trying to grow their own food. And then when the reality sets in of that task, I mean, it's quite challenging to kind of step aside from all of that stuff. I mean, people have jobs that they're doing you all of these things that it takes, and it also takes a certain level of skill to be able to grow the diversity of Clark needs for our our bodies. Well, you kind of jumped into this. And what was your level of gardening experience prior to this endeavor?
Rob Greenfield: 8:48
Yeah, When I started, I had definitely done. I mean, I had a definite been passion about food for a while. I have done my permaculture designed certificate in 2016 and Guatemala, and so I had learned a lot about food. But there's a big difference between sitting in class for two weeks and learning the big picture of permaculture. And then there's a big difference of just actually planting food and being there from seed to the time you can eat it. And so, in reality, my actual experience of growing food was very little. When I was in San Diego, in my apartment, I had base one raised bed that I made in a bookshelf that I found in the alley and then in my tiny house. In 2015 I had two small four by four raised beds, so I had basically very I mean extremely little experience. I had grown some green, some tomatoes and some herbs. And so when I, you know, launched into this in Florida, I was starting from the point of researching. How much water do I give to? Ah, newly planted carrot seed. How much sunlight does Cale need? How much sunlight does my little greenhouse need? How long does it take? Once I plant something for it to sprout? I mean, I was just searching the Internet for the absolute basics when I started, and I was actually just reviewing my garden journal today, and I remember I was so lost and so overwhelmed. I started.
Josh Robinson: 10:23
Yeah. And how'd you get through it?
Rob Greenfield: 10:25
How did I get through it? Well, I you know, I had dedicated myself to it, really? As a full time think this was my project and I was dedicated to it. So I was spending a lot of time on it. So the best way that I got through it was with community. So I started really quickly to seek out Local resource is. So I went to a local gardening classes, went out with local foragers bound books written by local gardeners, went to the really gardens in my neighborhood, and just look to see what was growing there. I bought my seeds is not just possible from local seed companies and but plants from local nurseries. And that, for me was really the key. Was tapping into the knowledge that existed there in Orlando and not reinventing the wheel at all, instead asking people what grows so ridiculously well that even someone who thinks they have a black thumb I can walk away feeling like they have a green thumb. What you know has very few pests, what can handle route or lack of nutrients. And you know what most likely to succeed. That's how I that's was really like, the bulk of making sure that things would be successful.
Josh Robinson: 11:32
Yeah, but even. Okay, so I mean, there's a lot that you're looking at there one, you know, seems like working with the community and the local knowledge because you ended up doing this in Is it Orlando, Florida? Yep. I'm assuming that that's a place that you didn't have a lot of experience with the climate, and then all of those kinds of parameters that would really dictate, you know, with the gardening conditions would be like now what was it about Florida. That kind of attracted you to want to choose that as a starting point.
Rob Greenfield: 12:05
Well, a couple of things. One. There's no doubt that being in a place where you can grow food year around makes it easier for someone who's never grown any food before. I didn't have, you know, just three or 45 or six months of growing season. I had 12 months of growing season, and so this makes it a little more lenient as far as the ability to make mistakes, because I couldn't be planting your around, and so that was a really big part of it. Another part is, as I traveled through there in years past, I met people from a group called Orlando Permaculture, and I found a very much a blossoming and also grounded movement of local food growers and permaculture wrists. And so I was in the right place. I needed to be somewhere where the resource is existed and where I could easily, you know, learn and that existed there and then. Lastly, I wanted to be somewhere warm because personally, that's where I'm happiest. And so I had moved from Southern California, where I was for five years. I was actually little tired of the lack of water and being in the desert. And so Florida was, Ah, it's one of the few other places that's warm. Uh, you're around. So Florida was, you know, one of the next options
Josh Robinson: 13:22
and how much rain does or they know, getting me an average year,
Rob Greenfield: 13:25
I think. Well, so in the winter season, which is our dry season, we get about three inches of rain per month and then in the summer season are wet season. It's about 6 to 7 inches of rain, so that would probably be six times six is 36 plus three times six is 18 50 60. And, let's say about 60 inches of rain per year. When and in where I wasn't you know, of course, in San Diego is, you know, it's like, what, eight inches of rain or an inches of rain?
Josh Robinson: 13:56
Yeah. I mean, you can very anywhere from able to paint on the year and where you sit related to the coast, so you get a significant amount of rain. So imagine your gardens. If if you were kind of building organic matter and all that you wouldn't even really need to irrigate, right? So it's another advantage with Florida's
Rob Greenfield: 14:16
climate, Yes and no in order to not need to irrigate well, definitely. The longer you established the garden in Florida, the last need there is the irrigate. One of the big problems with Central Florida and much of Florida is that it was all under the ocean for at what millions of years. And so it's sand. So the yards, the yards that I was turning into gardens were basically, I don't know, maybe 90% sand with grass over the top. And because most people remove all organic matter and send it to the curb, it's not like it's built soil. So which talking about not soil basically sand. And so, of course, sand doesn't hold water. And so that is one of the big challenges is building the organic material in order to be hold water so that you don't need to irrigate. And so I still I used drip irrigation to make my life convenient because I had six different gardens in people's front yards. But no doubt a lot of what I grew was not
Josh Robinson: 15:20
needing to be irrigated
Rob Greenfield: 15:21
at all. For example that cassava or the yuca Um, you know, I didn't need to be irrigated at all.
Josh Robinson: 15:28
I'm wonderful. Okay, let's kind of actually jump down that avenue they were touching on there. You had six different gardens, and I think a lot of people that were, you know, getting into gardening or that are interested in maybe this lifestyle. One of the challenges that people often express is that they don't have access to land, Right? Maybe they live in an apartment. Maybe they live wherever and they just don't have enough space to grow food. But here you were utilizing other people's property, right to guard in this. Can you talk a little bit about that process?
Rob Greenfield: 16:01
Yeah. So I arrived in Orlando with no land of my own. In fact, I arrived. There was just a backpack of my 111 possessions. Everything that I own fitting in there, and I don't have a lot of money. I don't intend to have a lot of money. Instead, I prefer to share to exchange to barter toe, you know, work exchanges, O R. Or skill exchanges. And so what I did is I just talked to people in the neighborhood that I decided to live in, and I I asked if they'd be interested in having a front yard turned into a garden instead of just growing grass. If they'd be interested in having a whole bunch of food. And the answer was almost. I mean, it was basically to the point where I had a list of yards that wanted to be gardens longer than I could ever deal with in a short period of time. And so that's what I did. And the food was three for them to eat. They could they could eat as much as they wanted. And then after I left, you know the ideas that I would just be there for two years. Then, of course, the gardens were there so they could use him for years and years to come.
Josh Robinson: 17:05
So you found that process was very easily obtainable by just asking neighbors. If you can plant up gardens in their yard,
Rob Greenfield: 17:12
no doubt, and for me it's a little different because I'm very much a person in the public and so many people know what I'm up to. And so that makes it really easy, because I can put it out on social media and the word spreads very quickly. I'm also very outgoing, so it's very easy for me. So for a lot of people, it wouldn't necessarily be really easy. But that's where things like you know, putting it out through Craigslist or meet up or Facebook gardening groups or things like that is a way for people to be able to do this. And there's actually a website shared earth dot com or dot or get was put together by sustainable America. And that's actually a place where people can post, you know, they have a space available for someone else to use or that they're looking for space. So that's also a great resource.
Josh Robinson: 17:59
Okay, yeah, that is very helpful. Trying to dig that up and see if we can link that in the show notes. Well, no. What would you say were some of the biggest lessons that you learned while going through this whole endeavor?
Rob Greenfield: 18:13
Well, I mean one thing that comes to mind, especially with the audience of your podcast there's It's off. It's the dream of I mean, so many people in permaculture grow and forge all of their food and you know it did not have to buy anything that ship from around the world or anything practically process. And there's a lot of dreamers in the permaculture movement. I'm a dreamer myself. In many ways. That's well why I was able to do this. And I just want to say that it's really hard. I mean, there's so many aspects that we could go into over hours of talking about why it's really hard. But, you know, there's the social aspect. There is the time aspect. For many, it's the financial aspect because their time needs to be making money or paying rent and things like that. There's just the, you know, self restraint aspect. And then there's all the things we overlook. The oil, the salts, all the calories, that fat protein, all the nutrients, everything and so but all that being said, you know, 10 percent's amazing, 50% amazing, 70% amazing. And I should say that it's that last 10 or 20%. That's the hardest heart. So 80% is so much easier than 100%. If you can just buy oil and yourself and things like that, I mean, not just the one you know, one take away that that would be worth sharing, I think, with people listen in their spot cast.
Josh Robinson: 19:35
Yeah, it's not about this lofty goal of achieving 100% of your own product because that's often, you know, like you said, it's it's really challenging. It's all often unobtainable. But if we maybe work as a community and begin to kind of like share and collectively build up this ability where we can provide for our own local foods, not necessarily in our own yards and gardens but like maybe as a community of individuals coming together, that becomes a lot more obtainable. I mean, you were definitely trying to make a point and show people like, Hey, this is possible. But I mean, watching some of the stuff over the last year, I mean, you were processing your own salt from seawater, making your own oil from coconuts, right? And we're using other things as well.
Rob Greenfield: 20:28
I failed pretty much with oil for the year. I went the 1st 9 months without oil because I made coconut oil twice, but on the yielded four ounces, I really was majorly unsuccessful of the oil at the end. I ended up rendering that from dear and finally had some some cooking oil, which was a big mice change. But yes, absolutely. Community is key and it's pretty. I mean, if you think about it, I only gave myself 10 months to prepare and went from 0% to 100% without doing it as a community. You know, I was very involved with the community, and I certainly had help in so many ways. But ultimately it was I was the only one that was growing and foraging on my food. And so if I could do this alone with literally starting with front lawns with no organic matter, imagine what people could do together is community. Imagine what we can do to bring food sovereignty in our communities. And if we're sharing and one person is just got an abundance of lemons and the other person is amazing at producing perennial treaty collards, which grows so well in Southern California, and then another person maybe works with animals. I mean, through community, the time efficiency, it being so much more enjoying, enjoyable and manageable. I mean, it's truly amazing what we can do with community.
Josh Robinson: 21:54
Yeah. I mean, you can't underestimate that power and oftentimes do, like one of things I tryto tell people on get people excited about with these types of activities is sometimes when you're just doing it by yourself, it could be a little don team. But if you have, like, say, 10 people that all know nothing about what they're doing, But they all want to do it together. It just seems that much easier to d'oh. And so, you know, really relying on and fostering this connection with with our local communities. Absolutely awesome. Now, you also mentioned in there that you had taken a permaculture design course down in Guatemala. And, um how would you say that that influenced some of what you were looking at with this year of growing your own food? And do you feel like that? Uh, designed course was able to help you facilitate maybe how you looked at, you know, growing
Rob Greenfield: 22:51
your garden? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't remember the exact transition of the course and how it impacted me of of course, I was thinking permaculture before I took the course, but basically I designed my systems in a very much in a permaculture type of way. And for me, you know, one of the basic ideas is working with the earth rather than against it. And me. This is common sense. Permaculture aside, it makes sense to try to work with the Earth rather than against it. It makes sense to not destroy the land that we live on. Tau actually, rather than depleting the soil the adding soil and abundance and nutrients rather than losing our nutrients being adding so that each year it can produce more food. And it can actually do that for ideally generations to come. To me, it makes sense to grow food that doesn't need a whole bunch of pesticides and chemicals sprayed on it, but can grow freely with the sun and the water and the soil below it in the air. I mean, to me, all this stuff makes sense. I think it made sense to me bar before permaculture because I really consider this stuff basic common sense that we've gotten away from in our current industrial food system.
Josh Robinson: 24:13
Yeah, this time in our culture has enabled us to even think beyond. Just know those types of activities which are, you know, great grand parents. And before, you know, like this was just part of life, right? Yeah, I guess. To kind of wrap up here. What? What do we have next in store for? Ah, you know, your next kind of endeavors?
Rob Greenfield: 24:36
Well, I'm writing the book about it right now. I'm actually in Costa Rica at a community called ST Michael's Sustainable Community. And they actually built a little cabin out of 95% repurposed materials inspired by me. So I'm staying in the cabin. It's called the Rob Green Filter Cycled Cabin. So that's pretty cool right now. And I'm writing this book. That book will be out in December, so you can if people are interested in that they can go to Robin filled that TV slash food freedom book, and they can sign up to get a notification of when it comes out. 100% of my proceeds from the book will be donated to non profits that are working for a more sustainable in just food system. Right now, I'm gonna be traveling for the whole year, um, on what I'm calling the world solutions to, and that's talking about solutions what people could do wherever they are in the world. But they don't have to wait on governments or corporations to start making positive changes in their community when it comes to food, water, energy, waste, transportation, just life, how we can live healthier, happier, more sustainable lives. So I'm travelling for a year doing that. And then also, for this year, 100% of my speaking honorariums air being donated to, uh, grassroots nonprofits led by women and indigent, uh, business people. And so that's kind of my focus for the year. I would say right now
Josh Robinson: 26:03
sounds fault. Sounds busy,
Rob Greenfield: 26:06
busy. But oh, and of course, living the life, you know, really making sure that I'm leading by example by myself being happy and healthy and and being present in the moment and with the people that I am lifting. So I'm doing a lot of just personal work, you know, in life to make sure that I'm doing a good job there.
Josh Robinson: 26:26
Well, I appreciate it. Well, thank you, Rob. So people want to reach out to you. What would be the best way to do that? Getting through your website The Rob Greenfield Ah TV one.
Rob Greenfield: 26:37
Yeah, my website is. You can go to rob Greenfield dot org's There's so much information on there. And then right now, I post mostly on Instagram at Rob J. Greenfield and YouTube as well, just youtube dot com slash rob green field and plenty of fun and inspiring educational stuff there.
Josh Robinson: 26:57
Great. Well, thank you, Rob. And we look forward to kind of scene. What's next on this horizon? Here. And definitely look forward to that book coming out in December.
Rob Greenfield: 27:05
All right, well, looking forward, Thio? Yeah. Looking forward to it as well.
Josh Robinson: 27:10
Yeah, good luck with that. All right, Well, thank you, Rob.
Rob Greenfield: 27:14
My pleasure.
Josh Robinson: 27:17
Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Rob. And I hope that it has inspired you to get out there and make some change to do something, baby, get beyond just our comfort zones and kind of push our boundaries a little bit. I think what Rob really exemplifies is somebody who is willing to show what is possible. Now, most of us are not going to go to the extremes that Rob does in bringing awareness to the situations around us. But what we can Dio is something we can maybe grow a garden and is like Rob said, or maybe not growing, Ah, 100% of our own food because that is really challenging, especially when you're doing it alone. But what we can dio is maybe grow 10%. And if you're new to gardening, maybe you just start out with a garden, get some experience under your belt. I do something now. Keep in mind that Rob also didn't have a whole lot of gardening experience prior to just jumping into this endeavor. But he made it work, and he made it work by community by meeting people by setting intentions and getting out there and establishing his goals and in sticking. Now, as we bring this episode to a close, I want to leave with a question. I want to know from you what is holding you back from creating the regenerative future that we all want to live in. Is it lack of knowledge or just not knowing where to start all of these things that just hold us back? I want to hear from you. What is it that's holding you back from creating that regenerative future? Reach out to me. Show notes for this show can be found at Permaculture for the future dot com slash episode six And like always, if you really enjoyed the show, jump overto I tunes and please leave us a review in a rating. It really helps get our show out there. And we love to hear from people way. Want to know if this show is impacting you and how so Please take that time. Just get on there and just let everybody know what you think. Thanks. And I'll see you next week with guest Michael Whitman of Blue Sky Biochar to talk all about biochar and soils. So join me then See you soon it