General Mills recently issued a $650k grant to Kiss the Ground and Soil Health Academy to train farmers in regenerative agricultural practices. https://www.generalmills.com/en/News/NewsReleases/Library/2019/March/Regen-Ag https://soilhealthacademy.org https://kisstheground.com https://www.facebook.com/kissthegroundCA/ https://www.youtube.com/kisstheground https://www.instagram.com/kisstheground/ https://twitter.com/finianmakepeace
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello and welcome to Carbon Removal Newsroom. I am Ross Kenyon, lead strategist with the Nori Carbon Removal Marketplace. Today I have with me Finian Makepeace. He’s the co-founder and advocacy director of Kiss the Ground. Finian, thank you for being here with me. I did your soil advocate training program for which I am grateful. I learned a lot. I think anyone listening would benefit from taking it. So thank you for what you’re doing.
Finian Makepeace: Yeah, it’s great to be here and thank you for what you’re doing. Looking forward to more collaboration with you all in the future. As we talked about the other day in, where were we? Montreal.
Ross Kenyon: Montreal, yeah. Regeneration Canada was a great conference up there about soil. Finian, what is Kiss the Ground?
Finian Makepeace: Kiss the Ground is a nonprofit, 501c3. We’re based out of Los Angeles and we started this organization just by Without any real back understanding or being in the space of any of the science of this, we were both, myself and Ryland, the other co-founder, both environmentalist, activist, community building people. And We learned about this idea. Rylan learned about it first in New Zealand, watching a panel that was saying, can human beings survive on planet Earth? And everyone said basically no at the rate we’re going. And the last guy said, yes, they’re right.
But there’s this thing we missed called soil and the fact that we can rebuild it, regenerate it. And Rylan came back very excited and seeing this new understanding. And he convinced the guy named Graham Sate to stop in L. A. on his way to San Francisco and present to us And after a four-hour presentation, with the amount of background and science that I had at that point, I just was blown away. I was in this moment of thinking to myself, if I didn’t know about this, you know, seeing myself as someone who knew, you know, 95% of what was happening with climate change, really considered myself educated around the subject of what was happening with the earth at that time.
I was like, if I didn’t know, Probably most people don’t know. And so that was kind of the basis. We went back that night and basically dedicated our lives and did a handshake deal of we will do what we can, all we can to get this awareness out to the world. At that point, there was very little media or short form communication about the subject. So that was our initial North Star was making short form digestible content for people. So even though we both didn’t have backgrounds in the media space and the folks who initially joined with us didn’t either, we knew we had to make media and awareness spreading tools like infographics and things to get this idea out there.
So that’s how Kiss the Ground was born. We didn’t know we were going to be a nonprofit. You know, met in the living room every week and lo and behold Kiss the Ground was born about a year later officially. So that’s the origin story and really the why behind it still is that same baseline spreading awareness. Now we have four programs, media programs still. We have our advocacy program that just started last year where we’re training people to be able to spread this message more easily, like you mentioned with the Soil Advocate training.
We have our farmland program, which is getting funding to farmers to transition their land. So farmers being able to have access to the best farmer training programs in the world and be able to have soil testing, including Included in that so that they can start getting on their way with becoming regenerative. We have an education program that’s mostly based around curriculum we developed for middle schoolers. We also now have a business program that’s starting on the 18th. And lastly, what did I miss? We have our Education, media, farmland, and advocacy.
So I think I mentioned all of them. Yeah, that’s it.
Ross Kenyon: You got too many things going on. Too many exciting things.
Finian Makepeace: Our mission is inspiring global regeneration, starting with the soil. That’s still the basis of what we’re doing. So yeah, it’s been a wild six years.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I hadn’t heard about that sourcing class. I imagine Ryland, he’s at Cafe Gratitude, which when I was in LA, actually, I left LA right before I met y’all. Unfortunately, if I’ve eaten at Cafe Gratitude, amazing food, always felt a little bit weird ordering, a particular way of ordering. You have to say, I am what?
Finian Makepeace: It’s an affirmation. I am joy. I am grateful. I am abundant, whatever it might be, the name of the dish. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Listeners of the podcast Reversing Climate Change might know I feel a little awkward doing that, but that’s okay. The food was worth it. So that’s great. We buried the lead a little bit here, but we’re going to pick it right back up. The news for this story is that General Mills issued a grant that you are a part of. I was wondering if you could tell our audience a little bit about what is happening there.
Finian Makepeace: Yeah, it’s really amazing. We’re super excited about it. To have it actually happen is truly wonderful. General Mills and several of their companies, Annie’s, Epic. Some of these companies have been really pushing forward and taking on this sourcing and supply of regenerative meat or dairy or what have you. We’ve been working with those groups for quite some time and helping, I think, in a kind of a in the movement, so to speak, of Raising the awareness and the attention that regenerative agriculture is getting. So, you know, for example, two years ago, our executive director and our colleague Kala Rose Ostrander presented to Andy.
And from there, they funded three carbon farm plans in the state of California. And since then, they’ve been now on a trajectory of creating many more carbon farm plans, which is basically a farm’s ability to start tracking based on changes, practices, how it’s going to be storing more carbon in the ground. So they’re using it in a lot of their dairies now that they source from. They’re moving into carbon farm plans. We’ve worked with their teams on advocacy stuff. We’ve worked in the teams on media and tools to present this information.
We’ve been associated and working with companies inside of General Mills for quite some time. And it’s been really amazing to watch as they, those younger companies, have really had a big influence on the bigger General Mills company as a whole. But this particular grant, though it went through us, we are the fiscal sponsor of Soil Health Academy, which is Gabe Brown, Alan Williams, Ray Archuleta and Dave Brandt, they’re one of the premier farmer trainer programs that we’re sending farmers to through our farmland program. But this grant was developed through the relationship of Gabe Brown with General Mills Sustainability Department.
And then they got further along with it. In the article, it’s a bit like, hey, kiss the ground, got a bunch of money and they decided to give it over here to these guys to do farmer training. It’s kind of flipped like that where we are working with all the parties in different ways. And we’ve been a part of raising up the awareness and attention that it’s all getting. And this actually went through and for Soil Health Academy and we’re the fiscal sponsor. So just to be clear on that and make sure everyone’s aware of how it actually went down.
Does that make sense?
Ross Kenyon: It does make sense. And that’s great news. Of course, many of the farmers you named are Olympian figures in their field. And getting someone like General Mills, I’m not sure to what degree you claim influence over that switch or General Mills being so regenerative and focusing so heavily on that. But that is a huge deal. And we’re seeing more and more big brands making this switch. Do you think we’ll continue to see companies making this transition?
Finian Makepeace: Well, yeah, that’s why we were so hopeful and doing our due diligence to make sure this came through successfully and helping in all ways we could is to have the Soil Health Academy, which is one of our most trusted partners in farmer training. We’ve taken their training. It’s phenomenal. These guys are dedicated to helping farmers really change their I don’t think there’s another party that’s more qualified in terms of their success rate as that group. Especially when it comes to more conventional farmers switching over to regenerative practices. So we’re really excited that’s happening.
And I think in the big scheme of it, yeah, $650,000 isn’t a lot for General Mills. But if this goes well, and why we’re so excited that it’s Soil Health Academy that’s taking this first training with their farmers on, is that this is going to show General Mills and their farmers that this is a viable option. And that’s so big. If you think about it, it’s almost this is a beta project test pilot, so to speak, for a one of the biggest, if not the biggest food company in the world.
So if we think about the impacts, the ripple, the effect that can have, if they’re seeing the economic. These are going to be profound in terms of how they can start to grow. So really exciting in terms of what the outcome of this could be and the snowball effect that it could create. So we’re very excited.
Ross Kenyon: Absolutely. And with big brands like this, even if the amount of money is small relative to how much they have in their coffers, it’s still their brand reputation going on the line here. I think the downside risk of something like this is always greater than potentially the upside, which at least for like a small project to start. So them even being willing to do this, I think is a huge deal. And hopefully it leads to a lot more and is wildly successful. And we see Big agribusiness switching over to regenerative practices.
So thank you for what you’re doing for that, Finian. I’m glad you’ve thrown your hat into the ring there and are doing all of your great programs. Where might someone find your programs and get involved with Kiss the Ground?
Finian Makepeace: Kiss the ground.com is probably the fastest way. And then we love when people join us on Facebook, facebook.com forward slash kiss the ground CA, Instagram kiss the ground. Yeah, join us. And especially for people who are new to this or getting excited about this soil advocate training, the next one starts June 18th. That’s a really great way to really get these concepts of the cutting edge information under your belt. Feel confident about it. Be able to use some of the simplified tools that we’ve created to share this message with your community, with your peers, with your business colleagues, what have you, or even present to your local audience.
So there’s lots of ways to get involved. Our new website goes up next week and people will be able to find their path. You’ll be able to click on a button and open up an ability to choose several categories and then be recommended things that are catered specifically to you and what your interests might be. So you can find how you can get most involved immediately. So we’re really excited about launching that website next week.
Ross Kenyon: So listener, please check that out. Also, the Soil Advocate Training, I’m willing to give a thumbs up to that. As a non-farmer, someone who’s read a lot of books about soil and farming and regenerative practices over the last couple of years, I got a lot out of that course and would highly recommend it.
Finian Makepeace: Thank you, Ross.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, my pleasure. My pleasure. I hope people listen to this and do it. So thank you, Finian. I appreciate your being here with us.
Finian Makepeace: All right. Thanks, Ross.
