Matt decided to get a Geoscience single-subject teaching

Matt decided to get a Geoscience single-subject teaching credential at UC Irvine, and after several years of teaching Marine Science (chemistry, biology, ecology, and other related topic concerning the world’s oceans) and ROP Environmental Horticulture (career technical education in using plants for beauty, shelter, and food) at Northwood High School (Irvine, CA), he became extremely interested in the connection between the food we eat and the negative impacts of modern agriculture on the health of the oceans (acidification, ocean warming, dead zones, etc.), so he telephoned his old Peace Corps friend Nathan.

In 1999, Matt and Bobbie Brown met Nathan McFall in a small village, Kuma-Dunyo, in Togo, West Africa. They worked with farmers, non- government organizations, and students introducing and implementing environmental awareness and education programs, soil conservation techniques, and animal husbandry.

Fred Kirschenmann, Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture talks about how being organic doesn't automatically mean you are in the camp of sustainability.

Fred Kirschenmann, Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture talks about how being organic doesn't automatically mean you are in the camp of sustainability. Greening up what you are doing isn't going far enough and move from concept of steady state to resiliency. We have been drawing upon natures reserves of stored energy (hydrocarbons) and water resources at unsustainable rates, and those finite resources are diminishing rapidly; technology alone, will not provide substitute solutions.

Fred Kirschenmann is a long-time leader in the sustainable agriculture movement, Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and a third-generation farmer (an organic farmer himself).  A record from his talk at the Organicology conference in Portland, Oregon.