Kathy Kellogg-Johnson is a longtime supporter of Plant With Purpose and an expert in healthy soil. Her family-owned company, Kellogg Garden Organics, is celebrating its 100-year anniversary this year! For an entire century, they have been providing organic soil and products for farmers all across the country. Kathy generously spoke to us about the relationship between people, trees, and healthy soil. Check out her interview below.
Afiya Anyabwile
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Kathy Kellogg-Johnson
My name is Kathy. I’ve been married for 34 years. My grandfather founded Kellogg Garden Products in 1925. It is an organic agriculture company built on recovering organic waste from the water, cleaning and composting it, and turning it into a tremendously rich fertilizer.
When I was 22 years old, my father died suddenly. I had plans to go on to grad school, and suddenly, I needed to help at the company. I became very involved and very proud of what my parents had built. Now, 35 years later, I am still with the company. It's grown as the concept of organic gardening has grown.
Afiya Anyabwile
How did you find Plant With Purpose?
Kathy Kellogg-Johnson
In 2010, a dear friend Cathi Lundy invited me to visit Plant With Purpose Tanzania with her. My heart was just absolutely broken open in so many good ways. I saw the happiest people I'd ever met, the most eager to learn people I'd ever met. And the skill set I had accumulated over 25 years by loving soil, composting, and regenerating soil through the use of organic matter came together in this beautiful combination.
I saw the first trees being planted in Tanzania in 2010. Then I got to go back in 2018 and did not even recognize where I’d been before because of how the trees had developed. We witnessed the village’s joy and gratitude as they carried bags of oranges and lemons they had grown from planting their own trees. They had an abundance of produce to sell at the market and give as gifts. And they were convinced that, thanks to the 10 million trees they had planted around Kilimanjaro, the precipitation and humidity had created a microclimate that restored the snow.
Afiya Anyabwile
I know you've been on a couple of Vision Trips. Have you noticed any similarities or differences between farms in the U.S. and farms in our programs?
Kathy Kellogg-Johnson
In each Vision Trip, I asked “What have you learned from Plant With Purpose?” And I was stunned that in East Africa and in Oaxaca, the very same answer came. The single key learning, they said, was time.
They said that before Plant With Purpose, they didn't have any reason to get up in the morning. It didn’t matter whether they were up at noon or at ten, whether they drank all night and didn't get up at all in the day. But after joining a Purpose Group, it was important that they harvested the eggs from the chickens or harvested the plants that were growing in their backyard. Because they knew on Monday they had to sell their produce, so they could earn their shillings, so they could make their contribution to the Purpose Group on Tuesday.
Being involved in Plant With Purpose really did give them purpose.
Afiya Anyabwile
That is so powerful. Can you tell us a bit about the relationship between soil health and deforestation? Why is that something people should be interested in?
Kathy Kellogg-Johnson
There’s a symbiotic relationship between trees and the soil. The sun's energy gets converted into carbon sugars that run down the tree and out of the roots into the soil, depositing sugars in the soil for microbes to devour. And in turn, the soil microbes are feeding on the soil’s minerals and converting them into nutrients for the tree. So this beautiful symphony happens in the soil. Soil sustains trees, and trees sustain the soil.
I believe, as humans and Christians, it's upon us to work at restoring the garden of Eden. God put man in the garden to work it and take care of the Earth. I believe we're here to continue maintaining the grasses and the trees and the soil that will sustain this planet.
Afiya Anyabwile
Many people think deforestation is necessary for us to continue feeding the world. What strategies can farmers implement to care for the planet as they grow their farms?
Kathy Kellogg-Johnson
I think the method Plant With Purpose encourages–planting trees on hillsides with crops interspersed–is the best way to preserve the land for the future. For example, in Tanzania I saw multilayered and multi-tiered gardening. In other words, you can have three different crops on the same square foot of land: a banana plant that's 20ft tall, a row of peas beneath them, and rows of carrots growing underground. So wiping out whole forests in order to plant corn is an old fashioned notion. I think for the most part, a focus on multi-tiered agriculture is the way forward.
Afiya Anyabwile
And lastly, do you have any advice for readers who want to be able to make a difference but don't really know where to start?
Kathy Kellogg-Johnson
A simple way to connect with this whole topic is putting your hands in the soil. Go out there in your backyard or on your balcony, even just plop down a bag of potting soil on your small piece of turf. Plant something you like to eat. Your favorite tomato, some basil, some rosemary. Grow it, become connected to it, and have a relationship with this thing you're growing that becomes your food. You’ll see that this is how the world functions. The sun, which you couldn't pay for, helps your plants grow, and now you’re eating from it.
And in a tiny way you’ll understand the lives of subsistence farmers. What if you had to grow everything to feed your family? That work is so challenging, and it takes a very smart person to figure it all out. So plant a garden or get a pot on your balcony, grow your own food, go out and snip a flower from your garden and set it on your desk while you're working. It’ll start to connect you with the other side of the world, and with what you could do to help.
Want to hear more from Kathy? Check out her Ted-X Austin talk here.
