What happens when the hunger for yield becomes an imperial mission?

In this episode, we travel to the 18th and 19th centuries to explore two seemingly unrelated substances—gunpowder and guano. One shaped the battlefield. The other reshaped the farm. But both emerged from a growing belief that nature could be extracted, measured, and conquered.

We trace the rise of nitrogen obsession, colonial fertilizer wars, and the passing of the Guano Islands Act—all moments that reveal how food systems were drafted into the logic of empire. Poet William Blake reminds us that even rivers and soil were being claimed, chartered, and commodified. His words—drawn from The Chimney Sweeper and London—anchor this episode in the moral undercurrent of ecological-industrial harm.

This isn’t just a history of weapons or fertilizer. It’s a warning about what we begin to forget when we turn living systems into engines—and when we trade birdshit for blood.

📘 Download the Peace Resource Guide: aviskalfsbeek.com/peaceguide

📢 Share this episode using #TheGreatDisarmament

📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante

💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter

🎵 Music is by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez: The Red Kite

Javier on Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

Javier on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW?si=iFFXM2gYR2CuuGjmsfNViQ

What if we remembered the wisdom buried in the soil?

In this second episode of The Great Disfarmament – The Great Disarmament, we go back—before fertilizers, before bullets, before the conquest of land and people. We trace the quiet origins of farming and war, when both were bound by ritual, proximity, and care. We explore ancient practices of composting, communal stewardship, and restraint—methods rooted in renewal, not extraction.

We meet a voice from the Sumerian world—Shuruppak—whose 4,000-year-old instructions remind us that farming was once a moral act. And we revisit The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest ecological warnings in literature. Together, these ancient texts ask: What if agriculture had never become a tool of conquest?

This is a story of what we knew before we knew what we’d lose. A mirror held up to the beginnings of disarmament—not in politics, but in the ground itself.

📘 Download the Peace Resource Guide: aviskalfsbeek.com/peaceguide

📢 Share this episode using #TheGreatDisarmament

📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante

💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter

🎵 Music is by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez: The Red Kite

Javier on Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

Javier on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW?si=iFFXM2gYR2CuuGjmsfNViQ

What if I told you The Great Disarmament has already begun?

Not as a headline, or a treaty, or a dream—but as something quiet. Ongoing. Something you might not have noticed.

In this opening episode, we trace the overlapping histories of agriculture and war—and ask what it means to disarm a system built to dominate.

We start with a simple truth: for most of human history, farming and war were opposites. One fed. One destroyed. But in the last century, their paths began to merge—military chemicals were recast as fertilizers and pesticides, and the language of conquest entered our relationship with land.

We end with the voice of Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book Silent Spring challenged the chemical mindset reshaping our world, and offered, instead, a way of seeing nature as something we belong to, not something we conquer.

This is not a series about easy answers. It’s a listening project.

A way of seeing what was built—and what is being unbuilt.

—

📘 Download the Peace Resource Guide: aviskalfsbeek.com/peaceguide

📢 Share this episode using #TheGreatDisarmament

📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante

💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter

🎵 Music is by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez: The Red Kite

Javier on Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

Javier on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW?si=iFFXM2gYR2CuuGjmsfNViQ

Welcome to The Great Disarmament – The Great Disfarmament. Host Avis Kalfsbeek, peace storyteller, ecofiction author, leads us in this 14-part nonfiction podcast tracing how violence became embedded in agriculture, policy, and culture—and how people across history have resisted it. From soil to soul, this series blends history, science, activism, and hope.

🔹 First: The Great Disfarmament explores how agriculture became a war zone—through guano, pesticides, and genetic control—and how farmers, scientists, and elders fought back.

🔹 Next: The Great Disarmament tells how humans unlearn war. We follow voices of resistance—Gandhi, Rachel Carson, MLK Jr., Winona LaDuke, Greta Thunberg—and everyday peacebuilders shaping a new future.

This episode also grounds us with⏳ The Doomsday Clock. In 1947, atomic scientists created the Doomsday Clock—a symbol of our proximity to global catastrophe. That year, it was set at 7 minutes to midnight.

Today: 89 seconds.

But this podcast isn’t about panic. It’s about possibility.

It’s about the scientists, poets, and peace warriors who believe in a different future—and are building it now.

🎧 There will be 14 episodes. Start with Part 1: Spears & Surrender.

📘 Download the Peace Resource Guide: aviskalfsbeek.com/peaceguide

📢 Share this episode using #TheGreatDisarmament

📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante

💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter

🎵 Music is by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez: The Red Kite and Dalai Llama Riding a Bike

Javier on Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

Javier on Spotify: Listen here

On her 63rd birthday, author and peace storyteller Avis Kalfsbeek takes a break between creative seasons to reflect on what peace really means—on Earth, in words, and in action. In this intimate episode, she reads Mark Twain’s The War Prayer, a searing and ironic satire written during America’s imperial turn but withheld during Twain’s lifetime for fear it would be “not publishable.” Twain was Vice President of the Anti-Imperialist League (1901), opposing U.S. intervention in the Philippines. His peace work was fierce, critical, and clear-eyed.

“O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells… help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire… We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him who is the source of Love…” Excerpt from Mark Twain's The War Prayer

Alongside the reading, Avis shares a personal “knowing” about peace, a birthday poem, and a call to stop the killing of just about everything for profit. If you’ve ever wrestled with whether peace is possible—or wondered how satire can hold a spiritual truth—this is a quiet, powerful episode to return to.

Musical credits: “Una Mañana” by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez (full track featured at the end)

Links to Peke’s music are in the show notes.

The Great Disarmament is coming soon. Until then—peace is already here.

💌 Free Book Offer: Get Mono Mutante (Book 6 in the Pedro the Water Dog Saves the Planet series) free through September 15 when you subscribe to the email list.

Coming Soon: Bullet Poof (Book 7) — a story about friendship, defiance, and the grip of guns in our culture. Subscribe to be notified of new books: https://us8.list-manage.com/contact-form?u=82bbb5a1424db416114055532&form_id=c2c98c09e84a7880e5699d37f0685155

Get Mark Twain’s A War Prayer in the book “Europe and Other Things” available for free on Gutenberg Press: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68604

💛 Follow my Kickstarter → aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter

🎵 Music: Dalai Lama Riding a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

🎧 Bandcamp → javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

🎧 Spotify → Listen here

What happens when your granola comes with spin instead of oats? In this bonus satire bulletin from Peace Is Here, Kitty O’Compost reports on Syndown Industries’ latest inventions: Gaslit Granola™ and Syndown Syrup™.

With ads promising “freedom from inconvenient nutrition” and products boasting “pre-canceled fiber,” watchdogs warn breakfast may now contain 85% less reality than advertised. Each box comes with free Feel-Good Glasses™, rose tint only. Because in the world of Syndown, ignorance really is bliss.

But after laughs (hopefully!), author Avis Kalfsbeek takes a moment to step away from the satire and share unscripted gratitude for the end of Mono Mutante’s launch week.

Why did this series begin? Why does it continue? In a heartfelt reflection, Avis speaks about her father and brother—third- and fourth-generation farmers to whom Mono Mutante is dedicated—about her AA sponsor and the daily practice of recovery, and about the spiritual heart of this work:

If we see the God in a tomato, or in the eyes of a beautiful cow, and realize those eyes are no different from our dog’s, then peace becomes possible.

This bonus episode is both a wink and a bow: a thank-you to readers, listeners, and fellow travelers in the messy, hopeful pursuit of food justice, compassion, and joy.

📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante

💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter

🎵 Music: Dalai Lama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

🎧 Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

🎧 Spotify: Listen here

Kitty O’Compost Music: Thanks to Nicholas Panek on Pixaby

When was the last time you heard joy described as a public health threat? In today’s satirical bulletin, the Centers for Control of Happiness warn of dangerous “joy clusters” linked to Mono Mutante readings—and propose emergency bans on shared laughter in community gardens.

Then, in our excerpt from Mono Mutante, we meet Lova Saskatoon, a Canadian farmer whose battle against a GMO giant became a legal precedent for seed sovereignty. Her story—rooted in courage, resilience, and loss—is a reminder that controlling the seed supply is just another form of controlling people.

From absurd headlines to hard truths, this episode mixes comedy, conscience, and a deep respect for those who fight to keep our food free.

📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante

💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter

🎵 Music: Dalai Lama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

🎧 Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

🎧 Spotify: Listen here

Kitty O’Compost Music: Thanks to Nicholas Panek on Pixaby

In today’s War of the Worlds–style satire, the Department of Culinary Compliance issues a national security alert after “unpermitted lettuce” is detected in public school lunchrooms. We go live to the scene of a kale salad confiscation, before it can “radicalize the spinach.”

Then, it’s an excerpt from Mono Mutante—a dirt-splattered, laugh-out-loud eco-satire about food, farming, and the fight for diversity. In this scene from Chapter 20, children take the stage at a farm conference to share staggering facts about monocropping… along with plant names so vivid they could start their own rock band. Expect both groans and giggles, with a few pesticide-free punchlines for good measure.

📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante

💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter

🎵 Music: Dalai Lama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

🎧 Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

🎧 Spotify: Listen here

Kitty O’Compost Music: Thanks to Nicholas Panek on Pixaby