A cleaner world could start in a rice field | Jim Whitaker and Jessica Whitaker Allen

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2023

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rice is the world's largest food source — and it's also a massive emitter of methane gas, a key contributor to climate change. Fifth-generation rice farmer Jim Whitaker and his daughter, farmer and conservationist Jessica Whitaker Allen, are working to slash rice's environmental impacts with innovative, sustainable farming practices. They share how they're keeping their family farm in Arkansas profitable while also spreading green farming practices to their neighbors — and, eventually, the rest of the world. "If you take care of the planet, it will take care of you," says Whitaker Allen.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective. I'm Elise Hugh you're listening to TED Talks Daily. Farmers feed the world and today a
0:16.6	father-daughter talk from farmer and sustainability advocate Jim Whitaker and his farmer and
0:22.3	conservationist daughter Jessica Whitaker
0:24.8	Allen. Together they take the TED countdown summit 2023 stage to call on their
0:29.9	fellow farmers and future farmers to invest in sustainable agriculture just as they do.
0:39.2	Like TED Talks, you should check out the Ted Radio Hour with NPR.
0:43.0	Stay tuned after this talk to hear a sneak peek of this week's episode.
0:47.0	I grew up on a family farm.
0:50.0	My family's been farming for 130 years in Southeast Arkansas and I'm a fifth generation
0:56.6	farmer. We raised cotton, rice, corn, and soybeans, alone with my brother Sam, our extended families, and a lot of great
1:05.6	coworkers could not do it without them. So when I was 16 years old I came home from school one day. It was my dad's birthday. My birthday
1:17.1	was three days later. I expect in some type of party event, but my dad had just went through the historic 1980 drought.
1:28.0	And when I got home that day, my mom was crying.
1:31.0	My dad was trying to console her and there's a foreclosure letter on a bar.
1:38.4	We thought we were going to lose the family farm that we had in our family for generations.
1:47.0	Luckily, we did not lose the farm, but he still struggled financially.
1:52.0	When I was 22 years old, and but he still struggled financially.
1:52.6	When I was 22 years old,
1:55.6	after a little time in the army, I decided
1:57.5	I was gonna start farming.
2:00.0	So my brother and I rented a farm.
2:02.0	My dad couldn't help us.
	...

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