Randy Jewart on Growing Food Locally

The Bridge: w/ Jared Michaels & Chris Searles

Crystal clear at the end of his career as founder/CEO of “Resolution Gardens", Randy Jewart, talks about his journey from gymnast to academic, artist to activist, and community builder to urban farmer. He shares wisdoms and truths on the rewards of "getting outside and doing some work together," reflections on the challenges of expanding the local food paradigm, and his best idea for global positive change. In Randy's 20+ years based in Austin, TX, he created numerous communities and community events connecting art, ecological literacy, local food, social justice, people in recovery, and more. Randy also shares his feelings about the wonders of a 4x4 foot garden and the breakthrough of establishing non-performance-based self-esteem. A positive energy generator and "all around Bodhisattva," Randy inspires. Jared sums this one up: "We have to become gardeners of all life."

About Randy

Randy Jewart is founder/director of Austin Green Art, founder/ceo of Resolution Gardens, and co-founder of The GIFT (Grow Inspire Feed Teach). Visit The GIFT on Facebook and Instagram.

Topics

• How to do local community solutions and how to grow food locally.
• What does the future look like if we get it right?

References

• What’s a “koan”?
• Soil mega biodiversity
• Terrence Real, New Rules for Marriage
• Re: "the turnip farmer points the way," here’s a similar haiku by Kobyashi Issa

Randy’s Bridge Solution

• Create NFTs and other digital currency incentives that reward people for virtuous acts.

Select quotes

“I’ve gravitated into food because the failing and the testing and the engagement is most rewarding and challenging and meaningful to me in a garden, because it’s a living system. So going from training in gymnastics and art and literature and academics, there’s creativity, there’s relationships, there’s complexity dealing with big issues — but all of that pales to a small, four foot by four foot garden."

"When you think of soil — a good handful of soil supposedly has more creatures than there are stars in the universe. In one 4x4 foot garden you have 1,000 lbs of soil."

“How does the opportunity to create an urban food system that’s sustainable and healthy connect to these other social challenges? You can start to pile-up a lot of potential.”

“Of course we have to use language to communicate with each other and talk about what we’re doing. But our language is so limited compared to what it is that we’re trying to describe, these living things we should be in relation with."

"Food and food production connects to this idea of core health: individual, family, and social, that also includes your mental health, your spiritual health, your economic stability. And so, can food be a surprising piece of some other kinds of programs that help people to be healthy and help the community be healthy? There’s lots of great examples."

"The last few months, I’ve been focusing on my need to care for myself."

"Do you love and honor and take care of yourself, whether you perform or not? You have a responsibility, if you want to be a healthy person, to connect with that aspect of yourself that doesn’t have to perform."

“What the turnip does is a gift. It doesn’t own a character or skills or abilities, it’s living through what it is to provide abundance. All of these living processes, they come back to this word 'love,' the feeling that you get to when you really understand it right. That should be the way we talk to each other.”

"You don't have to build a barn, you can build a little garden, or move a chicken coop. When you have that time together, there's time to talk personally and share some things."

"A healthy economy requires constant circulation — it's a living system just like our bloodstream, or the nutrient cycle of a good functioning farm or biosphere... My hope is that there's a potential technical innovation, which would be to use this computing power to create a stimulus, or a "payment" where we can value these things we know we need in a healthy society. The way I think it could work: We create a NFT that's connected to behaviors and values and actions we DO want to have happening, and we're willing to put a value on them. It could be reading a book, planting a tree, giving somebody food, it could be a million things... And tie that to economic circulation that rewards people for doing those things. And that, potentially, wouldn't have to end."

"There's a lot of money on the sidelines right now from regular people of good heart that could go into regenerative projects."

"We just call it the simpler way, or whatever, and we find ways to just let go of these systems that are so destructive and start to rebuild the kinds of things we want to see in our neighborhoods and be a part of — because of the way it makes us feel and the richness our lives get from spending that time with each other and producing healthy food and meeting new people and teaching somebody how to help. I think we can do it..."

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Thanks for listening!
Check out more episodes of The Bridge here.

Music
Thanks so much to Alice Spencer for her song, "I Wanna Be a Buddhist," our theme. Enjoy Alice's full performance of the song here.