Some people have called Slow Money: Investing As If Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered an economics book that reads like poetry. I’m not surprised because I had the privilege of hearing author Woody Tasch expound on the content of his book and answer questions at the Bioneers Conference at the University of Colorado, Boulder, on October 16. Unlike the usual mind-numbing lecture from an esteemed economist, Tasch’s presentation was poignant, sometimes funny, but always passionate.

For the past 18 months people have been calling Tasch’s work a “movement.” Indeed it is a movement, but this is a movement about investing, not protesting. Recently when he gave his presentation in Santa Fe, it was attended by legislators, members of some of America’s wealthiest families, and many farmers.

So who is Woody Tasch, and from where on the economic landscape did he arise? He was formerly treasurer of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, and he’s an experienced venture capital investor and entrepreneur who has served on numerous for-profit and nonprofit boards. He was founding chairman of the Community Development Venture Capital Alliance, which supports venture investing in economically disadvantaged regions. Slow Money is an effort to create a new way of steering capital in support of local food systems. It is in part a reference to Slow Food, and it is also a reference to slow money as opposed to fast money—everyone is beginning to understand what that is.

In a Mother Nature Network interview with Tasch, he states:

“E.F. Schumacher said that economics is a tool not an end, but we live in a time when economics has been made an end. In order to make it a means again we have to reassert meta-economic values. So you ask what are those values? Well they aren’t that hard to articulate. 99 out of 100 people would agree to what they are: It’s like motherhood and apple pie, it is healthy communities, healthy families, a better world for future generations, ethical behavior, moral responsibility.”

According to Tasch, here’s how behind the eight ball we are: The aggregate of private foundation assets in U.S. is about $5 billion. How much is given each year is given to sustainable agriculture? One thousandth of a percent or $50 million. That is, one half of one percent of U.S. land is invested in organic farming.

“The only prayer we have of saving ourselves is a radical sea change in how we do money,” says Tasch. Clearly, Slow Money isn’t springing from traditional economics.

Is this a movement or is it an industry? Tasch says it’s a movement that includes an industry—agriculture.

According to Tasch, this is the last chance we have as a species to finish the argument Malthus started 250 years ago. “His arithmetic was wrong, but his overriding principle was correct. In other words, food security and money are inextricably connected. You have to decide what is happening on the planet, and then you have to live accordingly.”

Many people do not really comprehend the profound difference between “millions” and “trillions”.

Financially, this is where we are right now, according to Tasch: $30 trillion has been poured into stimulus globally. The total global economy is $65 trillion. $50 trillion dollars of derivatives were bought in just this decade. Or, think of it this way, says Tasch: A million seconds equals 12 days. How long is a billion seconds? 12,000 days or 32.8 years. How long is a trillion seconds? 32,800 years. That’s how much more a trillion is than a billion.

Present-day economists are constitutionally incapable of getting us out of this mess. The architects of our modern financial system have no idea what’s going on. All they’ve been trained to do is to keep growth going as fast as possible. They are incapable of producing any solutions. They are trying to apply macroeconomics to everything which is like looking at their feet through a telescope.

The very earth beneath us is depleting at a breathtaking rate. Hundreds of millions of tons of topsoil go down the Mississippi each year, and Monsanto now owns 95% of all the sugar beet seeds in the U.S. One half to one percent a year of topsoil is eroding around the planet. So, how many years can you lose this much topsoil until you have none?

According to Woody Tasch: “It’s like we have 1/8 of tank of gas and we’re driving 75.”

Mainstream media, not environmentalists, are revealing mind boggling details of how broken our economic and food systems are. For example, a recent Economist Magazine cartoon depicts a textbook of modern economic theory melting. On the August 31 cover of Time Magazine we see the caption: “The Real Cost of Cheap Food” which according to Tasch is the most stunning non-liberal account of how broken our industrial food system is.

In the words of Tasch, “As it circulates the globe with ever-accelerating speed, money is sucking oxygen out of the air, fertility out of the soil, and culture out of local communities.”

In the past, investment and philanthropy were supposed to be completely separate; slow money is about putting them back together. This is all about how people think about money and how they live accordingly. This a radical re-calibration of what it means to be an investor. We cannot “grow” our way out of the current nightmare. We must move from a mentality of “venture” capital to “nurture” capital.

The field of ecopsychology uses the term biofilia—the innate affection that human beings have for other organisms. What’s worse, asks Tasch, than living out of sync with natural systems? What does it do to us long-term?

One thing everyone can do right now is join a Community Supported Agriculture group because CSAs connect people to place and principles. Sadly, the United States is far behind Europe in the utilization of CSAs. For example, in the U.S. about 100,000 families get food from CSAs. In the city of Copenhagen, Denmark, 50,000 people in that city alone patronize CSAs.

Tasch has developed six Slow Money principles which he is asking people to sign and support. The rationale:

“To enhance food security, food safety and food access; improve nutrition and health; promote cultural, ecological and economic diversity; and accelerate the transition from an economy based on extraction and consumption to an economy based on preservation and restoration…”

The intent is to obtain one million signatures in order to begin organizing legislators and influencing public policy in the direction of applying Slow Money principles on local, state, and wider levels. Please click here to sign the principles.