A Chicken Revolution

with Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin

Many of us are able to buy quality vegetables in enough quantity to satisfy our hunger. It’s so easy we may become convinced that the world doesn’t need animal products to survive. But what about those who live in isolated places who don’t have these privileges? What about those who can’t grow a big variety of vegetables in enough quantity to have a balanced diet and keep hunger at bay? Cue the chickens. Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin makes the case in today’s episode for a poultry-centered regenerative agriculture model that has the power to shift food inequalities and cultivate health. A chicken laying eggs can make all the difference for a family on the brink of malnutrition, and quite probably bridge the gap between life and death.

Join us in this episode of Wise Traditions where Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, author and fair trade advocate, tells his own story—how chickens saved his life as a small child in Guatemala, and how he is applying this nature-centered agricultural knowledge (and knowledge of poultry, in particular) to today’s farming strategies. Learn how this chicken revolution is quietly transforming the food landscape in countries around the world.

Notes:

Highlights from the conversation include:

how until recently in the U.S., traditional farming knowledge was not appreciated in the mainstream
how and why a shift occurred around 2006-2007
how Reginaldo succeeded in applying what he knew about farming in his new landscape in Minnesota
how his engineer mindset helped him come up with a system other farmers could adopt
how his failure in trying to run a farm, at one point in time, became simply a lesson in what NOT to do
how it is not cattle who have degenerated the landscape, but people
how we can produce a lot of food in little space by raising chickens
the symbiotic relationship chickens have with their environment
how natural canopies (shrubs, trees, etc.) that lets them thrive, also cools the ground and generate biological activity
how Reginaldo sees chickens as “forest fowl” that allows them to thrive and enrich the soil and ecology where they are raised
how the term “chicken revolution” was coined
how that phrase encompasses a fight for better food, local species, farming, a healthy environment, and clean water
how farm profitability is poorly understood and it should be seen as a whole integrated system, not as a “per acre” production
that nature is the only one capable of producing
how this paradigm helps farmers see themselves as energy managers