I first met Ryan Dale at a local cafe after he'd gotten finished with a long day at work--we were going to have a homemade dinner with a mutual friend. In talking with Ryan and a few other great people from Growing Power, I started to realize how much they really care about their work.
Ryan's expertise goes further than the fields though. We talked about renewable energy, aquaponics, hoop houses (a simple type of greenhouse)--and Joanna Newsom.
(Hear the audio piece at the bottom of the page.)
Ryan was raised in a family that grew their own food, so its a natural fit for him to be at Growing Power where he is the renewable energy coordinator, but like most workers at Growing Power he tends to wear more than one hat.
Because of his upbringing and his continuing independent research, he has a thorough understanding of the process it takes for food to make it from the farm to his dinner table.
But while conducting tours at Growing Power, he started to see that kids in Milwaukee sometimes didn't understand how their food gets to them. So when he's doing tours he tries to help them understand a small part of the natural world by letting them take part in it.
In this piece Ryan talks about reconnecting people with the food they eat and showing a school group that bees are something they can learn from, not something to be afraid of.