PLANNING FOR RESILIENCE ON YOUR FARM

There’s good news: planning for climate resilience is possible for every farm. This full-day workshop offers a clear conceptualization of climate stressors, our vulnerabilities to these stressors, and how each farmer can develop his/her ability to better cope with stressors. This workshop builds on work by two pioneers of the agroecology movement, Clara Nichols and M. Altieri. It offers a clear self-assessment and planning framework that helps farmers identify their individual vulnerabilities and prioritize coping strategies for increased resilience at farm and at community level.

BARN ACADEMY: REGENERATIVE IMMERSION

Biosphere regeneration builds climate resilience. This two-day immersion offers the opportunity to broadly learn about the science of climate change, the psychology around coping with climate grief, and activist options to overcome societal paralysis. The content of the Barn Academy can also be offered as series of workshops. For more information, please visit our dedicated website.

LIFE

The 21st Century Science on Cooperation and Symbiosis

For more than a century, science framed life as a battle for survival and endless competition. But the groundbreaking work of Dr. Lynn Margulis revealed a different truth: life survives by competition, yet it thrives and innovates through cooperation and symbiosis. In this talk, we’ll explore how microbes, fungi, plants, and animals form partnerships that drive evolution, shape ecosystems, and challenge how we understand life itself. Learn why lab sciences often study organisms in competitive survival mode, while missing out on the cooperative dynamics of a thriving, bio-diverse ecosystems. From soil microbes to global ecological networks, we’ll discuss how embracing cooperation over competition offers a new way to think about sustainability, economics, and even our human identity. For me, this understanding of life still shapes my sense of purpose—and perhaps it will reshape yours, too.

SOIL HEALTH – PLANT HEALTH – HUMAN HEALTH

Soil Health – Plant Health – Human Health – Landscape Health

Modern science is revealing just how deeply interconnected life is—starting with the soil beneath our feet. In this talk, we’ll connect the dots between soil health, plant resilience, nutrient-dense food, human well-being, and planetary stability. Discover how soil microbes influence plant immunity, gut microbiomes, and even climate regulation. We’ll explore why regenerative principles must extend beyond agriculture, influencing food production, medicine, and ecosystem restoration. This talk will leave you with a new perspective on the unseen microbial worlds that sustain life—and why working with them is the key to a healthier future.

REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE

Restoring Earth by Producing Better Food

Regenerative agriculture is more than a set of farming techniques—it’s a paradigm shift in how we produce food while restoring ecosystems. In this talk, we’ll explore what regenerative agriculture is, why it works, and how it rebuilds soil, biodiversity, and resilience. Learn how healthy soils, rotational grazing, and no-till practices contribute to healthier food, carbon sequestration, and thriving rural economies. Drawing from both scientific research and hands-on experience on his regenerative farm, Thorsten makes these concepts tangible. This session is ideal for farmers, policymakers, and anyone curious about how agriculture can address today’s interconnected crises—climate change, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, nutrient overload, and human health.

KARST AND DRINKING WATER

Agriculture in ultra-vulnerable environments

Along the entire Niagara Escarpment, rural homeowners rely on private wells that draw groundwater from Karst and Fractured Bedrock aquifers. Many of these aquifers are barely covered with soil: the protective overburden layer is often two feet thin or less. With a shift in agricultural land ownership along the intensification of agricultural practices, the numerous historic severances put the drinking water of thousands of homeowners at risk.

This talk explains the threat from a confluence of three risk factors, and draws on case studies from other regions to offer paths forward. It also gives an overview of potential community actions and how to utilize the existing regulatory framework for seeking justice for homeowners, while also recognizing the rights and requirements of the agricultural sector.

Please also review my extensive blogs on this topic.

CLIMATE LANDSCAPES

How a Vibrant Biosphere Keeps Us Cooler in a Warming World

What if the key to climate resilience wasn’t just reducing emissions but restoring nature’s water cycle? This talk explores the self-regulating power of the biosphere—how forests, wetlands, and healthy soils influence rainfall, temperature, and drought resilience. Learn about the small water cycle, watershed health, and how regenerative landscapes actively cool the planet. Unlike conventional climate discussions focused on greenhouse gases and technology, this talk shifts the focus to nature’s own adaptive mechanisms. We’ll examine how farmers, conservationists, and policymakers can restore these functions to strengthen climate resilience at the landscape level.

NARRATIVE AROUND CLIMATE CHANGE

Respecting complexity or creating more confusion?

Climate Change is a complex issue. It is physically more complex, probably, than any other headline topic. Socially, it seems to mess with all of us – and confront us in our very identity. Not surprisingly, the public responds mainly psychological: Denial, false truths, polarization, and policies that give the impression of doing something, while mainly cementing the Status Quo. I studied Climate Change and Earth System Sciences in 2002 in Germany, under Hans Schellnhuber. He founded the discipline of Earth System Sciences, was instrumental in shaping the IPCC, coined terms like Tipping Points and Carbon Budget. He was later ostracized from political processes for exposing ill-designed government policies that were ineffective, and creating a sense of urgency that was uncomfortable (his successor Johan Rockström is now a public speaker).

Based on my personal experience in Climate Change work, I talk about the difficulty of seeking “truth” in a scientific field that is characterized by complexity and uncertainty, split between greenhouse gas physics and biosphere self regulation, and politically appropriated to either deny the very fact of global warming, or promote policies that are pretty useless but help calm our consciences.

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CLIMATE AND BIOSPHERE

How the biosphere self-regulates its climate

The Earth’s climate system depends on the regulating function of the biosphere. While greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced, I advocate that more attention is given to these biosphere functions: the soil sponge, vegetation and animals, and the small water cycle. Humans can regenerate the biosphere and rebuild landscape resilience to climate change. Yet, many well-intended greenhouse gas mitigation initiates have become a main driver of biosphere destruction – a horrible development. A series of talks offer a hopeful message that is much needed in today’s world, with many intervention points for communities and planners.  Please review details and topics here.

COLLABORATIVE LOCAL FOOD MARKETING

Nature thrives in collaborative mode – and so do local economies

Collaborative marketing is an exciting third path between wholesale and direct marketing. What options for collaborative marketing exist, and how can your group get started? These questions not only depend on your products and markets, but also on the skills and preferences of an emerging group.

REBUILDING FOOD SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE

Addressing value chain barriers

Food systems require scale-appropriate value chain infrastructure that supports farmers where they are at. I believe that a core task of communities and the public sector is to aid rebuilding this infrastructure and remove structural barriers to a re-emerging agriculture of the middle.  This talk offers insights and examples based on the experiences in own projects and past clients, with the goal of incentivizing a cautious and contextualized rebirth of an agriculture of the middle.