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Jon Sedore joins Cormac Harkin to discuss discovering permaculture in Alberta, growing food and composting, leaving corporate work, hempcrete, the Interdependence Works Summit, local economies and building stronger connections between people and communities.
In episode 129 of The Permaculture Vine Podcast, host Cormac Harkin was joined by Jon Sedore to talk about his route from the oil and gas industry into permaculture, growing food, composting, community involvement and hempcrete.
The conversation also covered the Interdependence Works Summit that Jon is helping to organise, its five pillars, disagreement and political division, local economies, community participation, shared resources and some of the projects Jon hopes to develop after the summit.
Who’s at the Table
Jon Sedore lives in Alberta, Canada. He spent much of his working life in business, including oil and gas and logistics, before leaving his corporate job in 2022. He first became involved with permaculture in 2018 and has since spent time growing food, composting, learning about herbalism, working with community projects and building with hempcrete.
Cormac Harkin hosts The Permaculture Vine Podcast. In this conversation, he shared examples from his own gardening and composting, discussed community and political division in Northern Ireland, and talked about his planned contribution to the Interdependence Works Summit around global conversations and local action.
Discovering Permaculture
Jon’s introduction to permaculture came through his partner at the time, who had become interested in gardening and began exploring permaculture. Jon said that before this he had never gardened and had given little thought to where his food came from.
He joined her in taking a Permaculture Design Course through Verge Permaculture in Calgary. Jon described the course as changing his perspective, particularly around design, inputs and how different elements can work together.
One concept that remained particularly prominent for him was stacking functions. He described continuing to apply the idea of having something perform more than one function, including when thinking about people working together.
Growing Food and Learning About Soil
After completing the course around the beginning of 2020, Jon started growing food in Calgary. He was living in a small urban property where he created two raised beds and an in-ground bed, growing crops including tomatoes and beans.
He also joined a community garden. His growing interest in soil led him to take responsibility for its three-bin composting system, giving him more practical experience with compost and soil.
Cormac discussed his own approach to composting, including cold compost, hot compost and using material from a chicken deep-bedding system. The conversation focused on the practical process of combining different materials and producing compost for the garden.
Leaving Corporate Work
Jon left his corporate job in 2022. He explained that although the job provided good pay and benefits, he had become uncomfortable exchanging his time for work that was ultimately contributing to somebody else’s creation.
He did not leave with a plan to immediately establish a permaculture design business. Instead, he wanted practical experience.
Jon spent time WWOOFing and visiting farms to see how other people approached organic farming. He moved from Calgary to British Columbia and later Saskatchewan, where he lived beside a lake in the boreal forest and learned more about mushrooms.
He eventually returned to Alberta and settled in a small town.
Community Work at the Arboretum
After moving to Trochu, Jon became involved with the Trochu Arboretum, a long-established tree garden in the town. He joined the society and later became chair of its board.
He described trying to introduce permaculture knowledge into the way the organisation operated and bringing facilitators into the community.
The surrounding area includes conventional agriculture and ranching, and Jon discussed engaging younger people with different ideas around plants, soil and growing. Much of this work was voluntary.
Building with Hempcrete
Another major part of Jon’s recent work has been hempcrete.
Jon and his partner Kat, who is a herbalist, have spent considerable time working with hemp. He described hempcrete as using hemp hurd mixed with lime and water to produce a building material.
They have built three of their own buildings using the material, while Jon has also participated in other builds.
Jon discussed growing hemp in Alberta, where the short growing season means one crop rather than two. He said it grows well in the local conditions and described plants in his front garden reaching more than 11 feet.
The conversation also covered regulation of hemp and Jon’s interest in promoting its use as a building material. Cormac discussed the licensing requirements around growing hemp where he lives.
The Interdependence Works Summit
The conversation then moved to the Interdependence Works Summit, an online event Jon is helping to organise.
Jon explained that the idea developed partly from conversations taking place in Alberta around independence, government and the relationship between Alberta and Canada. He described seeing political discussions creating division between people and said the summit was intended to focus instead on interdependence and bringing people into conversation.
The event is organised around five pillars: sovereignty, belonging, vitality, regeneration and prosperity.
Jon described sovereignty in terms of individual rights and free will without infringing on the rights of other people. Belonging covers human and communal systems and how people work together.
Vitality introduces conversations around individual and societal health. Regeneration looks at moving beyond sustainability and discussing regenerative approaches across society, culture and agriculture.
Prosperity focuses on local economies, producers and ways of keeping more economic activity within communities.
Disagreement and Conversation
A substantial part of the discussion focused on disagreement.
Cormac and Jon discussed how political conversations can quickly become polarised. Cormac described the divisions around Northern Ireland’s constitutional position, while Jon discussed similar experiences in Canada.
Jon said he did not expect everybody involved in the summit to agree. Instead, he described disagreement as something people need to be able to engage with while continuing to listen to each other.
The conversation covered the effects Jon believes COVID had on relationships between families, friends and co-workers, and his view that people have become less comfortable discussing differences of opinion.
Cormac described his podcast in similar terms: creating conversations where people can have different perspectives without the discussion becoming an argument.
Taking Part in the Summit
Jon explained several ways people can participate in Interdependence Works.
The website includes a section called Voices, where people are being asked what interdependence means to them. Jon said these responses will be collected and used to identify recurring words and subjects.
People can also apply to speak. Jon said the event is not being organised solely around recognised names and that people who have a perspective or experience they want to share can submit information about what they would like to discuss.
The summit will contain multiple conversations around the five pillars. Some selected conversations will be available publicly, while ticket holders will have access to the wider conference, recordings and opportunities to participate in discussions and Q&A sessions.
Jon also discussed plans for an online space following the summit where people could continue networking and communicating without advertising.
Hempcrete and Local Systems After the Summit
When Cormac asked what Jon planned to work on after the summit, hempcrete remained one of his main areas of interest.
Jon also discussed developing systems for people to work together locally. He referred to ideas he has encountered through One Small Town, sociocracy, WWOOFing and Young Agrarians.
His interest is in exploring ways people within towns, churches, sports clubs and other organisations could contribute work and skills and create forms of exchange around that participation.
Jon has also been developing software and described using AI to help him create code and systems despite not previously knowing programming languages such as JavaScript.
Local Economies and Shared Resources
The discussion returned repeatedly to the relationship between individuals, local producers and larger economic systems.
Cormac discussed the difficulties regulations can create for small producers selling across different markets. Jon described similar concerns among farmers and producers in Canada, particularly where producers have limited control over how products reach markets.
They also discussed the amount of equipment individually owned within communities.
Jon used lawnmowers as a simple example, questioning why every household needs to purchase equipment that is only used occasionally. Tool libraries and shared equipment were discussed as alternatives where resources can move between people.
This connected with a broader discussion about people becoming less accustomed to asking neighbours for help or sharing resources.
Food, Dependence and Local Production
Towards the end of the conversation, Jon returned to food production.
He contrasted food grown and harvested at home with produce moving through longer commercial supply chains. He discussed questions around how long food has been stored, where it was produced and how it was grown.
The conversation also considered dependence on supermarkets and supply chains. Jon described growing food at home as one way of reducing that dependence and increasing personal food security.
Cormac and Jon connected this back to permaculture and to their respective experiences of growing food, building systems and sharing what they are doing with other people.
Closing
Episode 129 covered Jon’s progression from oil and gas into permaculture, his first experiences growing food and composting, practical learning through WWOOFing, community work in Alberta and his growing involvement with hempcrete.
The conversation then moved through the Interdependence Works Summit and its five pillars, political disagreement, community participation, local economies, shared resources, food production and Jon’s plans to continue developing hempcrete and local collaborative projects after the summit.
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