The Ruminant: Audio Candy for Farmers, Gardeners and Food Lovers - e107: A Cynical Farmer Rebuffed

Episode Date: February 21, 2019

My guest this ep is Stefan Morales, producer of the Working Together podcast. Stefan and I both care about food and farming. I brought my passions to farming; he took his into the non-profit and government sphere. We compare notes, things get mildly awkward, and a farmer's heart grows by a couple of sizes. Or: a guy with good insights about the workings of bureaucracy offers advice for reformers about how to engage with it. Episode Sponsor: Dubois Agrinovation  

This episode is supported by Dubois Ag Renovation. For irrigation supplies, hand tools, mulch films, pest control, containers, and much more, visit Dubois Ag Renovation at duboisag.com and get free shipping on orders of $200 or more. That's d-u-b-o-i-s-a-g.com. We need to be opening up the space as a society, as a culture, to begin exploring complexity, which is something that we're actually not really that good at exploring. Like dealing with the sustainability of the agri-food sector, for instance, within British Columbia, as it's facing challenges that it faces. A lot of this stuff, it just, it really would benefit quite a bit from more people being involved in the process and the process becoming more inviting to people to bring their different

views and their different knowledges and practices to bear on that complex problem. Because I think, you know, there's really, there's really no other way around it at this point. It's kind of our endgame. We have to work together now or it's just not going to look good. I'm Jordan Marr and this is The Ruminant, a podcast about food politics and food security and the cultural and practical aspects of farming. You can find out more at theruminant.ca or email me, editor at theruminant.ca. I'm on Twitter, at Ruminant Blog, or find me on

Facebook. All right, let's do a show. Hey folks, it's Jordan. This is episode four of a five-episode batch that I'm dropping all at once. My guest today is Stefan Morales. He produces the Working Together podcast, a show that aims to amplify lessons from the front line of pragmatic social change. I don't remember exactly how Stefan and I got connected, but here's why I wanted to interview him. Both of us entered university with no background whatsoever in

agriculture. During university, both of us learned a lot about farming and food systems and got fired up about being part of the movement to address some of the negative consequences of how humans feed themselves. But from there, our paths diverged. I became a farmer and Stefan entered the non-profit and government sphere, which is exactly what I had hoped to do before veering off into farming, which is why I was really keen to ask him to describe his perspective. Because here's the thing, 10 years into my farming career, I have to admit to possessing more cynicism about the role of government and non-profits in driving real change than I once did. Things actually get mildly tense between the two of us in this conversation, though they end off well. And in the process, Stefan shares some really thoughtful

ideas about the importance of staying civically engaged, and some reforms to civic participation that he thinks would make curmudgeons like me a little less cynical. So that's what's in store. I hope you enjoyed the conversation, and I'll talk to you at the end. Hi, my name is Stefan Morales. I am the host and founder of Working Together. It's all about exploring who we humans are and how we can work together better. And I'm interested, as always, in archipelagos of a possible future the little sites and places around the world where i see a sustainable and progressive uh future on the horizon and farming is a really key space for that for me stefan morales thanks a lot for coming on the room in a podcast no problem thanks for having me i'm gonna i'm gonna ask you to start i guess my right in

assuming that you didn't have much of a farming and food background before your undergraduate degree? Is that a fair statement? Oh, totally fair. Yes, absolutely. I grew up in cities and moved around quite a bit. Yeah, but not on a farm. Okay, so that's the same for me. And my farming friends always take a chance to tell me that. What are you doing getting interested in this stuff?

Well, so I was the same way, and I'll talk a bit about that. But I think that's key. I think it's key, and it's a common starting point, is that we both entered university with, like, just no thought given over to these topics um it was so far from what i thought i was interested in or wherever i thought i'd end up so that's important it was the same for you and maybe you can just pick it up there so so kind of um in short order try and get us to how you got interested in these these topics related to food and farming? Back in 2006, I graduated from University of Victoria. And then two years later, I went and started my master's studies out at the University of Acadia in Woolfill, Nova Scotia. And kind of one of the things that I decided to myself before I went

there to do this work, because when you do a master's, you have to write a thesis and you have to kind of write this big, long document and do research and everything. So one of the things I decided was I wasn't going to write a thesis on something that wasn't that wasn't around me. That wasn't something I could actually sense, you know, with with, you know, my, my, my full sensory experience of things. I didn't want to be writing a thesis that meant I had to be only reading journal articles and only reading books and things like this and having to be glued to a computer screen. I wanted to write something that I could be kind of immersed in.

And that's really how I kind of came into the track of sustainable agriculture and you know kind of this alternative conversation around rural economy and and kind of building community capacity in the countryside and tying in with people who were doing that there so a lot of my thesis work ended up being informed quite a bit by work that I did in nonprofits that were in the food and agriculture world in Nova Scotia. Either like on the kind of policy kind of activism front or on the straight up, you know, we need to create some education programs on our community farm.

So like at a, at a high level, that's kind of how I ended up in that space. I came out of my graduate program kind of strangely enough wanting to work in government at some point. work in government at some point. I knew that I couldn't probably just jump right into that. But I knew I wanted to, at some point, work in policy, in particular, focus on, you know, kind of agroecological policy in some fashion or another. Yeah. But I didn't get there right away. There's a there's a lot of other things I did before then, but it was, it was definitely where I was pointing myself. This, this marks a good spot to just like a little, like further frame this conversation for listeners. So, so if I haven't made it clear already, I really just want to explore how ultimately we came out of university with a similar set of ambitions and that, and I am generalizing or simplifying a bit, but you kind of headed off more in a, uh, like a lot of your, your, you know, your CV now speaks to the work,

work you did at, at the kind of governmental or, or nonprofit level on, on policy type stuff. Um, whereas I ended up becoming a farmer. Yeah. So, so, well, I don't know, let's jump to like the, you finished, you finished your math, your, well, I don't know, let's jump to like the, you finished, you finished your math, your master's, you finished your thesis, which by the way, uh, I took a look at, cause you sent it to me, Stefan, clearly it, well, to me, it sounds like, um, you both would have enjoyed and could have held your own staying in academia. Um, you didn't do that. Uh, so maybe, maybe you could kind of um talk about i guess your exit from grad school and uh where you started out and how you ended up working on in in the general realm of of like food systems sure yeah yeah we, we ended up moving back to British Columbia,

uh, to Victoria, BC actually. Um, and while we were there, we started to, uh, organize within the community, um, uh, a series of skill and knowledge sharing events called the wayward school this was my my wife heather cosadetto and i and uh and for some of those events that we organized we were focusing specifically on urban agriculture topics uh and then through that time i also ended up getting involved in life cycles project society which is a non-profit in Victoria that they do a lot of urban agriculture kind of education outreach to schools, but they also had another program called the Fruit Tree Project, which was a project that I helped coordinate for one season where we essentially went and gathered gleaned fruit from trees and kind of donated some of it to food banks,

but also repurposed it for various value-added products that Lifecycles had at the time that they were using to generate income to help offset the need for grants. And I also joined the board of the Victoria Downtown Public Market Society. And their whole goal was to build the momentum and the plan to put in a permanent indoor public market in the city of Victoria. with them for almost three years as a board member and got quite involved in the food and agriculture scene in Victoria from this level where I guess, you know, I was trying to support the farming community indirectly by creating opportunities for the farming community to grow into. And I have some learnings from that whole process that then kind of catapulted me somewhat into government I ended up using a lot of the skills and everything that I learned doing those kind of jobs to then get into government and worked for government for about I guess a

little over six years in all sorts of different ministries in different kind of roles. I ended up moving into the Ministry of Agriculture, which I was very excited to do, obviously, feeling very like, oh, this is this is going to be great. I'm going to in some way or another have have an ability to, you know, plug into, into the policy mechanism of, of farming and agriculture and maybe have some sort of impact in so doing. And I was in that ministry. I'll stop you and say, like, you just described what I wanted to do, what I thought I wanted to do anyway, when I graduated, like you, you put yourself in the position that I that I at one point really hope to do so this is just really interesting to hear about so please continue yeah yeah um I

I think it was a it was a fantastic experience doing doing all of this um but I learned a heck of a lot about I guess the pragmatics of it all, right? Like, and the complexity of some of the issues that get dealt with at the level of government. So yeah, I moved into the Ministry of Agriculture. I started out there doing work for the innovation unit. I was actually a, I think I was called like an agro-innovation analyst. And I don't know if you, Jordan, or your listeners are familiar with the fantastic agro-innovations podcast, which was, I don't know. I mean, that was like that was that was my go to podcast for many, many years. Frank Aragona. Anyway, so here I was. I was now an agro innovation analyst and I was super jazzed about it.

But but I found that, you know, there there was there was this thing called the bureaucracy that is also a part of government, that is government, right? That you then have to start kind of learning about how to work within, right? And how to get stuff done within. And there's a whole different time scale around that, right? Like things are a lot slower. I had learned this already in the previous job where I was doing kind of more municipal affairs type stuff. You know, the policy cycle can take years and years to run its course. I was seeing it also at the level of supporting agricultural innovation in various universities and college campuses in BC. And, you know, seeing the good work that they were doing,

trying to do all sorts of fascinating things, like, you know, growing alfalfa in shipping containers to have year-round grass-fed beef, for instance, was one project that I wasn't involved in but was overseeing. So this was the other thing that, like, a lot of what happens in government is that you're not really, you don't really get involved in things, but you do a heck of a lot of overseeing of things and kind of, um, structuring the conditions for things if you're doing policy and stuff like that.

Okay. Well, but it's rare that you're getting your hands very messy in terms of the doing. Okay. Well, I want to come back to that point, but I just want to try and,

and this is, I think it'll be useful to focus this part of the conversation. So, um, let's really even though you you have varied experiences uh within the government can we just hone in on on this specific one with agro innovation um so like can you can you can you be specific about what it was your or your department's job to do. Yeah. And, you know, I don't,

I also don't want to dwell too much on just the, uh, the agro innovation role. Cause I learned a heck of a lot as well, working, um, uh, working with the executive, uh, within, within the ministry of agriculture and another role that I, that I had the, uh, the good fortune of having. And through that role, learned a lot about how, you know, I guess, I don't know how else to put it, but I mean, I guess just how citizens and citizen groups and nonprofits and folks such as yourself and your listeners and everybody out there who haveprofits and and folks such as yourself and your listeners and everybody out there who have a stake in an interest in agriculture how they should be working

with government um so i'll get to that but first i'll i'll tell you a little bit about kind of what we had to do in in this in this program essentially what what we were in charge of doing was there's this federal-provincial agreement in place that has a funding component. At the time, it was called Growing Forward. And this funding component, you know, you go out and you fund various different initiatives. And this grant money that I was working on with my colleagues, it had to do with funding agricultural innovations that could give BC's sector kind of the leading edge, so to speak, by developing some new process or something like this. So a lot of the work that we were doing was, you know, it's essentially contract

management work, right? So we were taking the funds that we had through this federal provincial agreement and the provinces, all the provinces in Canada were, you know, divvying up the amount of money that they had to different projects. And so that's exactly what we were doing. We were divvying these parcels of money up to different projects. You know, universities usually would apply to do them. And then we would just be monitoring the projects to make sure that they were actually making some sort of impact and that they were candidates to continue being funded. So it was very basic, right? It was very like, this is something that, you know, it's public knowledge.

This is what is being done. We're just supporting innovation that's happening in universities. So there was university professors that, you know, I was in contact with to follow up with them about, you know, you know, how their projects were going and, and this sort of thing. It was, it was, it was not as sexy as I thought it would be. But it was interesting to see it. But the idea, So the idea was interesting to see it.

But the idea, the idea is you are part of a group in the ministry that essentially managed a program to help innovators in the university sphere, but perhaps also in the in the for profit sphere, like develop their ideas. Is that the general sense of it? Yeah, generally. And okay, so can you talk about, so like at this point, like I want to acknowledge, like I have, you know, I have, like a lot of farmers, I have some cynicism about aspects of the government role

in improving food systems and agriculture not complete cynicism stefan um and because i think i think there's no way around that that that government and non-profit play an important role but i want to better understand and i think listeners do too so i just i'm really interested to hear someone who was in it talk about what felt productive about it and what felt rewarding and what made you want to bang your head against a wall and what wasn't productive about it um right can you speak to that a little bit this episode is supported by dubois agri-innovation renowned for their customer service dubois can be your one-stop shop for tools and supplies for the modern farm and market garden. Irrigation supplies, hand tools, pest control, mulch films, containers, and on and on.

Visit them at DuboisAg.com and get free shipping on orders of $200 or more. As a market gardener myself, I've benefited from their huge selection, and it's really easy to get someone on the phone to ask questions and build an order. That's D-U-B-O-I-S-A-G dot com. Thanks to Dubois for their support. Hey there, one more note while we're talking about show support. Producing this podcast is a ton of work, so if you're enjoying it, please consider supporting it. You can do so at theruminant.ca slash gift registry.

That's theruminant.ca slash gift registry. That's the ruminant.ca slash gift registry. Thanks folks. Can you talk about, so like at this point, like I want to acknowledge, like I have, you know, I have, I have like a lot of farmers, I have some cynicism about aspects of the government role in improving food systems and agriculture. Not complete cynicism, Stefan. And because I think there's no way around that government and nonprofit play an important role. But I want to better understand. And I think listeners do too.

So I just, I'm really interested to hear someone who was in it. Talk about what felt productive about it and what felt rewarding and what made you want to bang your head against a wall and what wasn't productive about it. Right. Can you speak to that a little bit? Absolutely.

Yeah. I'll, but I'll focus my, I'll focus my comments on what was productive. Because I think we all know that when you get into these bigger organizations, these more complex organizations, these very large bureaucracies, that things can slow down. And that's just kind of like an obvious fact of government. And it's also an obvious fact of large companies. They also have huge bureaucracies depending on how big they are, right?

And they also have slow moving parts. And there's little nimbleness sometimes in bureaucracy. So I think that's just kind of a given. But in terms of what was productive, like what I saw working, I think that the workers within the Ministry of Agriculture, but also within all of the ministries that I worked in, within the Ministry of Agriculture, but also within all of the ministries that I worked in. They're just incredibly inspiring and productive people who, you know, they really care about the greater public interest of British Columbians, because I was working in the provincial government, right? And they really want to see the policies and the programs that they're implementing you know make a positive impact in communities and and in sectors and a lot of times I think what happens is there's because of that bureaucratic aspect there's a lot of opaqueness to how the system works from

the outside. And it becomes really easy to kind of see it as something that isn't necessarily serving your particular interests or even your community's particular interests. But there's kind of this, I don't know how else to put it, but the way the province thinks about things, they have to think about the kind of all-encompassing field of interests around a given issue. that the citizens of our province, but the citizens of any place, some governments are elected to consider a different field of interest than another government, right? And it's just kind of, you know, I guess that's how the democratic system works in a way, right? I guess that's how the democratic system works in a way, right? If a party gets in power that's more pro-business and more X, Y, and Z,

and they have specific things on their platform about how they want to grow the agri-food sector or whatever, then when they get into power, they're going to be trying to do those specific things. They're going to try to, you know, deliver those promises that they made. And they're going to talk to people and work with people who are going to help them do that. And one of the things that one of the things that I think I learned the most after having been kind of in the nonprofit world and then in government was that the nonprofit sector and a lot of people within, I guess, what you want to call civil society, it's almost like we need to get better at being government whisperers, so to speak, on the agricultural

topic, but also on a whole field of things, right? There's certain groups and certain interests that are always going to be better at coming forward to government and, you know, making sure that their interests are known and are clearly understood. And then there's other groups of folks out there that don't, you know, for whatever reason, they're not organized enough or they're not coming forward in a kind of unified fashion or something. They're not representing a group of people behind them, so to speak. And so they're not being heard in the same way that these other groups are. And there's a responsibility on the part of government to reach out to as many people as possible but there's also the limited resources of being able to do so and so there's also a responsibility in that in that sense for i guess just average joes and folks like me and you to become more

engaged in politics and become more connected up, I guess, with the conversations that are feeding into those, those policies that are being developed and those programs that are being considered. But there's no, and there's no better time to do that, um, than right after an election or when... But, but, Stephan, you've said so much that's interesting. I could try to take us on one of a number of different tangents. You made a couple of points about the machinations of government and the importance for groups with relatively common goals to be unified. Fascinating stuff.

You obviously have insights that could be super helpful for people who want to make change within this realm however i just think it is it's telling and i will and i will give you a chance to defend yourself against this point but i i think it's telling or you i think it's telling that i asked my original question was what was productive about what you worked on and your answer started as a um defense of the intentions uh of the people who were doing it no no but just give me because give me a chance i think this is i don't think this is just by accident your very first response was the people doing it were awesome they cared and they wanted to make change and then you kind of meandered into sort of talking around all the reasons

without actually saying it that maybe not a lot happened you didn't say not a lot happened i'm just saying i'm just pointing out you didn't say that you started sort of touching on a bunch of reasons why it's very hard to make things happen. And to that, I will add to the extent that I'm, I am to the extent that I'm at least somewhat cynical about this stuff. Um, I'm not personally cynical about the people. Uh, I brush up against them a lot just because of my various, I guess, I don't know, I end up in a lot of forums and conferences and whatever. And I, I meet these people. I up in a lot of forums and conferences and whatever and I meet these people I meet I meet the non-profit people I meet the government people the vast majority of them clearly are smart people who want to make a difference but my original question I will

point out was tell me about how productive that department or group was in their goals no no no no that's just telling of my poor memory. Uh, this was, this was back in, let's see, 2013, uh, 2014 and into part of 2015 as well. So, uh, actually more, more mainly 2014 and 2015, I think. So no, there, I mean, there's lots of things that, that got done, uh, from within government. Uh there's lots of things that that got done from within government. And there's things that are getting done all the time. I mean, the the field of workers that are that are working on. I mean, they're just they're they're immense. The difficult thing is being able necessarily to talk specifically about things that are that are kind of underway or that are that are being worked on this was something that uh you know that as as like a government employee

at the time it was always hard to do because you couldn't actually really ever talk too much about your work uh because things were always on ongoing and and you you had to kind of wait until there was some sort of big announcement or an announceable or something like this. But, I mean, all you have to do is just go to the, you know, BC government news website, whatever that is. And they're always taking whatever opportunity they can to announce, you know, whatever project or program they're doing right now. they're they're doing right now uh and i i'm you know i uh i saw a lot of different interesting initiatives get off the ground uh some small some big and some contentious obviously um uh but you know it's it's at at this point i i don't really follow it anymore so I don't know necessarily what is happening in that in that but but can you policy sphere of agriculture I was in that I was in that agro

innovation position for about uh about a year so I saw I saw projects kind of happening but I wasn't in it long enough to kind of see things go from like inception all the way to completion. So, yeah, I don't know if I can provide a good answer. Okay, well, let me just ask you this. But, you know, like I will say that a heck of a lot of work is done. And I don't necessarily know if I'm comfortable with the direction you're trying to lead this conversation. If you think I'm trying to lead it, I apologize, Stefan. I'm just, I'm trying, I want to, this is how I would frame it. I'm trying to, I have a chance right now in talking to you to talk to someone who's been on that side of things.

someone who's been on that side of things and i'm i think we both know that there's cynicism about the role of government in some of these things i have some of that cynicism although i'm not completely cynical and so i'm just trying to understand from your inside perspective like i said early on in the conversation what felt good what really felt important and what what practical role governments can and do play versus what aspects of it were frustrating um does that make sense i so i apologize if if it feels like i am trying to put words in your mouth that's that's certainly not my intention here's here's the thing like from my end i have like there's a certain degree of professional integrity i guess i have to like i can't um you know i i guess i'm just wondering what what it is that you're uh looking for in terms of okay so let's start let's

go let's go here you made a joke in starting out in talking about your work in the Ministry of Ag about bureaucracy getting I don't doubt the intentions of the government itself. But a central question we're not going to get to the bottom of in this conversation, but that I'm interested in exploring in an ongoing way is whether some of the frustrations that do exist are just necessary. do exist are just necessary and while certainly bogging down the process doesn't mean that the process still isn't productive or whether the structure of government and some of the realities of government like the election cycle for example just prevent very much practical results following from these good intentions that that you know that's like a big question and i was i wasn't am hoping for you to provide some insight about that given that you ultimately ended up in the position that i i at one time really wanted to be in and ultimately took a different path. So that's kind of what where I was coming from.

Yeah, well, I mean, I guess I guess if if I could answer it kind of cheekily, that one thing that I learned from my time in government was that we cannot forget that, uh, that government is us, right? Like there's this, there's this sensibility that arises, um,

uh, that, you know, it's, it's slow. It's not getting anything done. I'm not seeing a difference in my bottom line um you know what what like it's it's totally disconnected from from what i'm engaged in and involved in right but uh you know it kind of it kind of comes back to, I think, really what a lot of us in our society have kind of lost the art of, which is politics, which is just doing politics.

Not in the big capital P politics way of parties, you know, and being involved in that kind of mechanism but in the smart kind of way of citizens coming together making sure that their you know that their interests uh you know are mutually understood and recognized uh and then like and then you know beginning to leverage that somewhat to these representatives who, you know, who occupy these positions of power, which they only occupy because we elected them to those positions, right? And sure, there's tons of distortions in the system right now. I'm not defending the system and saying that it's perfect by any means whatsoever. I think, you know, absolutely we all need to start thinking about a different form of democracy, a different form of governance that allows people in communities to be more involved and engaged in the decision making process. And on my podcast, I've talked with people specifically about

different mechanisms and processes that are currently being used to do just that. So there's answers out there. It's just that they're new and they're a little scary to us and still have to figure them out. So, you know, as far as my experience of having kind of gone through the machinery of government was, you know, my central lesson from it was that there's these windows of opportunities. Let's call it the election cycle. There's other opportunities as well where essentially the decision makers, they're really looking for engagement and involvement from citizen groups and from people who have kind of articulated their interests clearly and want to enable the government in power to accomplish the things that they want to accomplish. And those are fantastic opportunities to, you know, try to meet with the minister and try and kind of get involved at that level. And I think that there's also the other ongoing level of constituency offices, of being kind of more engaged with local representatives and things like this.

These are all really important, but they're kind of like, really important but they're kind of like you know they're kind of like they're kind of the baseline when you hold them up to these other new ways that i mentioned uh just moments ago uh that we could be coming together as communities to make decisions about the things that matter um and uh and so for, the thing that I learned was that the policy mechanisms and all of that within government, they're great to engage in, they're great to become more knowledgeable about in, but less so from kind of an armchair cynic standpoint, and more so from a, we have to roll up our sleeves and begin kind of forming coalitions with other people in my community, people that I know, to begin articulating this understanding that we share about this policy, whether it's working or not, or whether we see a new one that needs to be put in place. So that we can go and bend the ear of the representatives so that they understand that we're an organized group of people who represent X number of constituents. And so there's a political interest in them kind of listening to what it is that they

have to say. And a thing that happens in B.C. politics, I think, quite a bit is a lot of those groups were established way back in the W.A.C. Bennett era in the agricultural community. We have the fruit growers organizations and things of this nature who came together decades and decades ago, and there's still a fairly strong and significant voice in the agriculture community in this province. voice in the agriculture community in this province. And I'd like to see that same kind of strong and significant voice develop in the sustainable ag community.

Yeah, what you're saying really resonates, Stefan. Like just from various, I guess, committees or boards that I've been sitting on. First of all, I can attest that there are some, there are agricultural groups, typically industry groups in British Columbia that have been around a long time and do seem to have a lot of influence or clout with government. And then there's, for example, the organic industry,

which has been criticized in recent years for not doing what you're advocating people who want to see change need to do, which is come together and cooperate, which can be hard to do. Because any movement tends to start with a bunch of somewhat similar yet kind of disparate points of view about how things need to change. Yes, yes, absolutely. And you can't really deal with those dissimilar viewpoints unless you all get in a room together with a facilitator or a mediator, things like this. And this is really what a lot of the work that i do with working together is all about you can't really you can't really bring people together sorry you can't really begin articulating a meaningful voice unless those

interests have had the opportunity to work it out amongst themselves and and and find the kind of mutual common ground that they can then spring forth from right and this this kind of division exists all throughout our society there's I think you know I don't know like I guess I want to call it kind of like a like a Goldilocks thing or something. I don't know. But there's a lot of this, like, it's got to be just right or else I'm not going to be politically involved in this thing. That tends to happen in a lot of the community organizing that I've been in a part of, at least. And I think my sense is that that is across the board

in a lot of progressive communities and that we need to actually disagree more with each other publicly in kind of meeting spaces and begin kind of smooshing together our different viewpoints and things like this so that we can begin articulating what it is that we mutually agree on to then go forward with, you know, proposals. One vision, one voice. No, I think you're right. But unfortunately, I think it is a tough pill for a lot of people in those communities to swallow. The idea of, you know, what one person

might call compromise, which it sounds like you're advocating for in a smart way is compromise what another calls selling out or do you know what I mean? So Stefan, let's actually transition to talking about, you know, your more recent work. Uh, so maybe you could just kind of, I don't know, summarize, you talked specifically about some of your previous work. Maybe you could just kind of provide one last summary of, of your trajectory and then just take us to like work this this project that you call working together and what you're doing now sure yeah i mean i think i think a good way to bring me up to the present in all of this is to um is to kind of recognize that uh i guess the central lesson that i've that i've been learning through all of this,

these kind of varied work experiences in the nonprofit and government worlds and business worlds is the need for collaboration in just the straight up getting people together in a room, working through problems together, and doing so in a way that's informed by all of the scientific understandings that we've been gathering about ourselves over the past few decades in particular. particular, you know, that will help the outcome that comes from that conversation or from that meeting be one that a lot of the people in the room can feel comfortable standing behind, right? So working together for me has been something that I've been striving to do in all of my positions that I've had and all of my work experiences that I've had is always have a kind of very collegiate and exploratory and curious approach to group work with people.

And, you know, using tools and things like this to do so has been largely what my practice has been for many years. So although I've tended to focus on things like sustainable agriculture and also, you know, urban planning and urban politics and stuff like this. Subject areas that I'm interested in, I think an underlying red thread throughout it has been just this question about how can we work together better? You know, just basically, right? we work together better you know just basically right like there's there's got to be a better way to do this and we touched on that a little bit when we were talking about government and you know what i consider to be just the like the baseline condition uh which is accessible to us right now right which is working together better to articulate our mutual interests to then take

those forward to government in smart ways so that we can see those interests reflected in the policies and the programs that they develop that's like a baseline but then there's this whole next level which i feel as a society we need to be practicing and thinking about more given the sorts of challenges that we face in the 21st century around climate change, around, you know, the wealth gap, all of these issues that are pretty complex problems and that we need to sort out. So working together for me has been about providing the tools to people, whether me kind of directly going out and providing services to folks to help, you people, whether me kind of directly going out and providing services

to folks to help, you know, facilitate the kind of exchanges that we've been talking about where people do reach a mutual interest, or educating people in how to just collaborate better based on the science that we now kind of know about what what makes a situation for collaboration um or what makes the situation more conducive for collaboration so to speak well stephan i want to i want to i think i think we could go we could mine that quite a bit i think i'll just ultimately ask you about your podcast but but i as you were talking about that it had me wondering to what extent as you as you do this project you you have felt the need to account for uh the the kind of era of rapid changes to the media and the widespread dispersion of misinformation and stuff like like because you're talking about doing something really important which is bringing

people together and collaborating but it must compared to 10 or 20 years ago, that must be almost a lot harder to do just because, you know, it's a lot. Facts aren't facts anymore. You know, like everyone's got their facts that they're coming to the table with. Is that at all a consideration or not really so far? Oh, absolutely. I mean, my wife and I were always talking about all this stuff. You know, some people are in echo chambers uh really intense echo chambers too like where they're the kind of misinformation that they're they're working knowledge is based on is

is really out of out of whack with science and all sorts of stuff right um uh so there there's there is a need to kind of actually pull people away from screens and get them to sit down and work through things together. This is how I think we should be working through a lot of the problems that we face right now is bringing groups of people together into a room, giving them a stake in the decisions and the recommendations that are being developed, and then educating them on the pros and the cons throughout that whole process. And, you know, this whole issue around fake news and media and people being in their echo chambers, they're going to break out of those echo chambers pretty fast when they're in a room full of people who have different viewpoints, who are being told one thing by one group of experts and another thing by another group of experts,

and then having to kind of together weigh through that mess of information and knowledge to try and develop what it is that we think we should be putting forward as a recommendation or a decision for people to address this complex problem i just i see i see no other way but no a little too rose-tinted right no no amen i mean certainly as a way to to to rebuild the connection in people's minds between themselves and their government uh just to to reference something you said earlier of people kind of, you know, forgetting that their government is them.

And to build empathy for the decisions and the roles that the decisions governments have to make and the roles they play and whatnot. Super interesting stuff. And we can't talk forever. And we really need to conclude our conversation. So I'll just, I'll just finish by, uh, just, uh, asking you where people can access your podcast and the other aspects of your project. Sure. Uh, they could just go to togetherworking.com.

So just all one word togetherworking.com And that will take them to the webpage. And from there, they can look at the podcast. They can look at the blog posts and the writings and whatnot that I do there. Cool. Well, Stefan, I just want to thank you one more time for coming on the show. It's been really interesting speaking with you. Thank you so much, Jordan. been really interesting speaking with you thank you so much jordan all right so that's it folks that was episode four of a five episode batch that i'm releasing

all at once that's kind of a first for the show and the plan is one more batch of five episodes to be released in i don't know know, another six, seven weeks, something like that. I've got the ideas for those episodes. And just as soon as I get wrapped up releasing the current batch, I will start to work furiously on the next one. After that, I've got an idea for a kind of lighter summer series for the show. I'll talk more about that later. Yeah, so that's what's to come. But for now, I'll say goodbye and I'll be talking to you in the next episode, which should be dropped in like the next 24 hours. Ciao. We'll live off chestnuts, spring water and peaches We'll owe nothing to this world of thieves

And live life like it was meant to be Because why would we live in a place that don't want us? A place that is trying to bleed us dry We could be happy with life in the country With salt on our skin and the dirt on our hands I've been doing a lot of thinking Some real soul searching And here's my final resolve I don't need a big old house Or some fancy car

To keep my love going strong So we'll run right out Into the wilds and braces We'll keep close quarters With gentle faces And live next door To the birds and the bees And live life like it was meant to be

me Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do