So , I 've known a lot of fish in my life . 
I 've loved only two . 
That first one , it was more like a passionate affair . 
It was a beautiful fish , flavorful , textured , meaty , a best-seller on the menu . 
What a fish . 
Even better , it was farm-raised to the supposed highest standards of sustainability . 
So you could feel good about selling it . 
I was in a relationship with this beauty for several months . 
One day , the head of the company called and asked if I 'd speak at an event about the farm 's sustainability . 
" Absolutely , " I said . 
Here was a company trying to solve what 's become this unimaginable problem for our chefs . 
How do we keep fish on our menus ? 
For the past 50 years , we 've been fishing the seas like we clear-cut forests . 
It 's hard to overstate the destruction . 
90 percent of large fish , the ones we love , the tunas , the halibuts , the salmons , swordfish , they 've collapsed . 
There 's almost nothing left . 
So , for better or for worse , aquaculture , fish farming , is going to be a part of our future . 
A lot of arguments against it . 
Fish farms pollute , most of them do anyway , and they 're inefficient , take tuna . 
A major drawback . 
It 's got a feed conversion ratio of 15 to one . 
That means it takes fifteen pounds of wild fish to get you one pound of farm tuna . 
Not very sustainable . 
Doesn 't taste very good either . 
So here , finally , was a company trying to do it right . 
I wanted to support them . 
The day before the event I called the head of PR for the company . 
Let 's call him Don . 
" Don , " I said , " just to get the facts straight , you guys are famous for farming so far out to sea , you don 't pollute . " 
" That 's right , " he said . " We 're so far out , the waste from our fish gets distributed , not concentrated . " 
And then he added , " We 're basically a world unto ourselves . 
That feed conversion ratio ? 2.5 to one , " he said . 
" Best in the business . " 
2.5 to one , great . 
" 2.5 to one what ? What are you feeding ? " 
" Sustainable proteins , " he said . 
" Great , " I said . Got off the phone . 
And that night , I was lying in bed , and I thought : What the hell is a sustainable protein ? 
So the next day , just before the event , I called Don . 
I said , " Don , what are some examples of sustainable proteins ? " 
He said he didn 't know . He would ask around . 
Well , I got on the phone with a few people in the company . 
No one could give me a straight answer . 
Until finally , I got on the phone with the head biologist . 
Let 's call him Don too . 
" Don , " I said , " what are some examples of sustainable proteins ? " 
Well , he mentioned some algaes and some fish meals , and then he said chicken pellets . 
I said , " Chicken pellets ? " 
He said , " Yeah , feathers , skin , bone meal , scraps , dried and processed into feed . " 
I said , " What percentage of your feed is chicken ? " 
thinking , you know , two percent . 
" Well , it 's about 30 percent , " he said . 
I said , " Don , what 's sustainable about feeding chicken to fish ? " 
There was a long pause on the line , and he said , " there 's just too much chicken in the world . " 
I fell out of love with this fish . 
No , not because I 'm some self-righteous , goody-two shoes foodie . 
I actually am . 
No , I actually fell out of love with this fish because , I swear to God , after that conversation , the fish tasted like chicken . 
This second fish , it 's a different kind of love story . 
It 's the romantic kind , the kind where the more you get to know your fish , you love the fish . 
I first ate it at a restaurant in southern Spain . 
A journalist friend had been talking about this fish for a long time . 
She kind of set us up . 
It came to the table a bright , almost shimmering , white color . 
The chef had overcooked it . 
Like twice over . 
Amazingly , it was still delicious . 
Who can make a fish taste good after it 's been overcooked ? 
I can 't , but this guy can . 
Let 's call him Miguel . 
Actually his name is Miguel . 
And no , he didn 't cook the fish , and he 's not a chef . 
At least in the way that you and I understand it . 
He 's a biologist at Veta La Palma . 
It 's a fish farm in the southwestern corner of Spain . 
It 's at the tip of the Guadalquivir river . 
Until the 1980s , the farm was in the hands of the Argentinians . 
They raised beef cattle on what was essentially wetlands . 
They did it by draining the land . 
They built this intricate series of canals , and they pushed water off the land and out into the river . 
Well , they couldn 't make it work , not economically . 
And ecologically , it was a disaster . 
It killed like 90 percent of the birds , which , for this place , is a lot of birds . 
And so in 1982 , a Spanish company with an environmental conscience purchased the land . 
What did they do ? 
They reversed the flow of water . 
They literally flipped the switch . 
Instead of pushing water out , they used the channels to pull water back in . 
They flooded the canals . 
They created a 27,000 acre fish farm -- bass , mullet , shrimp , eel -- and in the process , Miguel , and this company , completely reversed the ecological destruction . 
The farm 's incredible . 
I mean , you 've never seen anything like this . 
You stare out at a horizon that is a million miles away , and all you see are flooded canals and this thick , rich marshland . 
I was there not long ago with Miguel . 
He 's an amazing guy , three parts Charles Darwin and one part Crocodile Dundee . 
Okay ? There we are slogging through the wetlands , and I 'm panting and sweating , got mud up to my knees , and Miguel 's calmly conducting a biology lecture . 
Here , he 's pointing out a rare Black-Shouldered Kite . 
Now , he 's mentioning the mineral needs of phytoplankton . 
And here , here he sees a grouping pattern that reminds him of the Tanzanian Giraffe . 
It turns out , Miguel spent the better part of his career in the Mikumi National Park in Africa . 
I asked him how he became such an expert on fish . 
He said , " Fish ? I didn 't know anything about fish . 
I 'm an expert in relationships . " 
And then he 's off launching into more talk about rare birds and algaes and strange aquatic plants . 
And don 't get me wrong , that was really fascinating , you know , the biotic community unplugged , kind of thing . 
It 's great , but I was in love . 
And my head was swooning over that overcooked piece of delicious fish I had the night before . 
So I interrupted him . I said , " Miguel , what makes your fish taste so good ? " 
He pointed at the algae . 
" I know , dude , the algae , the phytoplankton , the relationships , it 's amazing . 
But what are your fish eating ? 
What 's the feed conversion ratio ? " 
Well , he goes on to tell me it 's such a rich system , that the fish are eating what they 'd be eating in the wild . 
The plant biomass , the phytoplankton , the zooplankton , it 's what feeds the fish . 
The system is so healthy , it 's totally self-renewing . 
There is no feed . 
Ever heard of a farm that doesn 't feed its animals ? 
Later that day , I was driving around this property with Miguel , and I asked him , I said , " For a place that seems so natural , " unlike like any farm I 'd ever been at , " how do you measure success ? " 
At that moment , it was as if a film director called for a set change . 
And we rounded the corner and saw the most amazing sight , thousands and thousands of pink flamingos , a literal pink carpet for as far as you could see . 
" That 's success , " he said . 
" Look at their bellies , pink . 
They 're feasting . " 
Feasting ? I was totally confused . 
I said , " Miguel , aren 't they feasting on your fish ? " 
" Yes , " he said . 
" We lose 20 percent of our fish and fish eggs to birds . 
Well , last year , this property had 600,000 birds on it , more than 250 different species . 
It 's become , today , the largest and one of the most important private bird sanctuaries in all of Europe . " 
I said , " Miguel , isn 't a thriving bird population like the last thing you want on a fish farm ? " 
He shook his head , no . 
He said , " We farm extensively , not intensively . 
This is an ecological network . 
The flamingos eat the shrimp . 
The shrimp eat the phytoplankton . 
So the pinker the belly , the better the system . " 
Okay , so let 's review . 
A farm that doesn 't feed its animals , and a farm that measures its success on the health of its predators . 
A fish farm , but also a bird sanctuary . 
Oh , and by the way , those flamingos , they shouldn 't even be there in the first place . 
They brood in a town 150 miles away , where the soil conditions are better for building nests . 
Every morning , they fly 150 miles into the farm . 
And every evening , they fly 150 miles back . 
They do that because they 're able to follow the broken white line of highway A92 . 
No kidding . 
I was imagining a march of the penguins thing , so I looked at Miguel . 
I said , " Miguel , do they fly 150 miles to the farm , and then do they fly 150 miles back at night ? 
Do they do that for the children ? " 
He looked at me like I had just quoted a Whitney Houston song . 
He said , " No . They do it because the food 's better . " 
I didn 't mention the skin of my beloved fish , which was delicious , and I don 't like fish skin . 
I don 't like it seared . I don 't like it crispy . 
It 's that acrid , tar-like flavor . 
I almost never cook with it . 
Yet , when I tasted it at that restaurant in southern Spain , it tasted not at all like fish skin . 
It tasted sweet and clean like you were taking a bite of the ocean . 
I mentioned that to Miguel , and he nodded . 
He said , " The skin acts like a sponge . 
It 's the last defense before anything enters the body . 
It evolved to soak up impurities . " 
And then he added , " But our water has no impurities . " 
Okay . A farm that doesn 't feed its fish . 
A farm that measures its success by the success of its predators . 
And then I realized when he says , a farm that has no impurities , he made a big understatement , because the water that flows through that farm comes in from the Guadalquivir river . 
It 's a river that carries with it all the things that rivers tend to carry these days , chemical contaminants , pesticide runoff . 
And when it works its way through the system and leaves , the water is cleaner than when it entered . 
The system is so healthy , it purifies the water . 
So , not just a farm that doesn 't feed its animals , not just a farm that measures its success by the health of its predators , but a farm that 's literally a water purification plant , and not just for those fish , but for you and me as well . 
Because when that water leaves , it dumps out into the Atlantic . 
A drop in the ocean , I know , but I 'll take it , and so should you , because this love story , however romantic , is also instructive . 
You might say it 's a recipe for the future of good food , whether we 're talking about bass or beef cattle . 
What we need now is a radically new conception of agriculture , one in which the food actually tastes good . 
But for a lot people , that 's a bit too radical . 
We 're not realists , us foodies . 
We 're lovers . 
We love farmers ' markets . 
We love small family farms . 
We talk about local food . 
We eat organic . 
And when you suggest these are the things that will insure the future of good food , someone somewhere stands up and says , " Hey guy , I love pink flamingos , but how are you going to feed the world ? " 
How are you going to feed the world ? 
Can I be honest ? 
I don 't love that question . 
No , not because we already produce enough calories to more than feed the world . 
One billion people will go hungry today . 
One billion -- that 's more than ever before -- because of gross inequalities in distribution , not tonnage . 
No , I don 't love this question because it 's determined the logic of our food system for the last 50 years . 
Feed grain to herbivores , pesticides to monocultures , chemicals to soil , chicken to fish , and all along agribusiness has simply asked , " If we 're feeding more people more cheaply , how terrible could that be ? " 
That 's been the motivation , it 's been the justification , it 's been the business plan of American agriculture . 
We should call it what it is , a business in liquidation , a business that 's quickly eroding ecological capital that makes that very production possible . 
That 's not a business , and it isn 't agriculture . 
Our bread basket is threatened today , not because of diminishing supply , but because of diminishing resources . 
Not by the latest combine and tractor invention , but by fertile land ; not by pumps , but by fresh water ; not by chainsaws , but by forests ; and not by fishing boats and nets , but by fish in the sea . 
Want to feed the world ? 
Let 's start by asking : How are we going to feed ourselves ? 
Or better , How can we create conditions that enable every community to feed itself ? 
To do that , don 't look at the agribusiness model for the future . 
It 's really old , and it 's tired . 
It 's high on capital , chemistry , and machines , and it 's never produced anything really good to eat . 
Instead , let 's look to the ecological model . 
That 's the one that relies on two billion years of on-the-job experience . 
Look to Miguel -- farmers like Miguel . 
Farms that aren 't worlds unto themselves ; farms that restore instead of deplete ; farms that farm extensively instead of just intensively ; farmers that are not just producers , but experts in relationships . 
Because they 're the ones that are experts in flavor too . 
And if I 'm going to be really honest , they 're a better chef than I 'll ever be . 
You know , I 'm okay with that , because if that 's the future of good food , it 's going to be delicious . 
Thank you . 
