Transforming Modern Farming and Enhancing Soil Health with Sander Van Stee (Part 1)

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:00.059 --> 00:00:02.729
Hey everyone, welcome to Exploring Health Macro to Micro.

00:00:02.729 --> 00:00:04.206
I'm your host, parker Condit.

00:00:04.206 --> 00:00:07.450
In this show, I interview experts from all areas of health.

00:00:07.450 --> 00:00:15.266
This can be in areas you might expect like exercise, nutrition and mental health, while others may be topics that come from areas that you're less familiar with.

00:00:15.266 --> 00:00:19.565
Today's episode is all about farming, food supply and regenerative agriculture.

00:00:19.565 --> 00:00:26.631
These are all topics that have become very important to me over the past few months, as you can probably tell with the frequency that this topic is coming up here.

00:00:26.631 --> 00:00:28.835
To discuss that with me is Sander Van Stee.

00:00:28.835 --> 00:00:32.811
Sander is the founder of Moral Eats, a family-owned farm in Canada.

00:00:33.554 --> 00:00:45.962
So within the world of regenerative agriculture, there are many tactics and strategies that can be implemented to move from traditional farming to regenerative practices, but there's no one-size-fits size fits all approach and it's as much art as it is science.

00:00:45.962 --> 00:00:58.012
So this conversation goes into some of the struggles of making that transition, both the struggles from the farming side and then also things that are challenging on the consumer side as well, and one of the biggest ones is consumer behavior.

00:00:58.012 --> 00:01:14.052
Many people will say that they want better farming practices, healthier soil, regenerative transition, but then they don't change their buying behaviors and continue to buy what is the cheapest or the most convenient and, given the economic environment, I understand why, but it makes this a very tricky topic.

00:01:14.052 --> 00:01:20.246
So we, as consumers, cannot allow the entire weight and responsibility and the financial burden to fall on the producers.

00:01:20.246 --> 00:01:25.772
Hopefully, this conversation will shed some light on why and what we can do to help.

00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:29.450
This is a longer episode, so it's going to be split into two parts.

00:01:29.450 --> 00:01:33.090
This will be part one and part two will be released later this week.

00:01:33.090 --> 00:01:37.912
So, without further delay, please enjoy part one of my conversation with Sander Van Stee.

00:01:37.912 --> 00:01:44.603
Sander, thanks so much for being here.

00:01:44.603 --> 00:01:52.408
Just for context, most people coming to this show, or listeners coming to this show, are coming from a health perspective.

00:01:52.408 --> 00:01:55.822
Um, so I think, or they, they want to be healthy.

00:01:55.822 --> 00:02:11.094
So I think the easiest place to start is getting an understanding of regenerative agriculture which is going to be probably the main theme of this whole conversation, framed around the idea of why is that healthier than conventional agriculture or traditional farming?

00:02:11.094 --> 00:02:13.900
In that sense, yeah.

00:02:13.939 --> 00:02:35.433
So regenerative agriculture, put very simply, is simply farming in a way that emphasizes soil health over basically everything else, whereas commercial agriculture is more so focused on profitability and lowering costs, because that is the demand that most farmers are supplying.

00:02:35.433 --> 00:02:39.748
The demand from the average consumer is to have the cheapest food possible.

00:02:39.748 --> 00:02:45.431
If you're going to the grocery store, most people just buy the package of ground beef that's 10 cents cheaper than the one beside it.

00:02:45.431 --> 00:02:47.687
So that's what commercial agriculture is.

00:02:47.687 --> 00:02:48.865
They're supplying that demand.

00:02:48.865 --> 00:03:05.868
But regenerative agriculture is a little bit different and, to add a layer of complexity to that explanation, what you're really trying to manage and improve is the microbial life in the soil and what the plant can do when you have an amazing diversity of microbial life in the soil.

00:03:05.868 --> 00:03:18.127
And what the plant can do when you have an amazing diversity of microbial life in the soil is that it can actually excrete sugars in exchange for nutrients, so it can get nutrients on demand from the microbial life in the soil.

00:03:18.127 --> 00:03:27.433
It's a very beautiful system and to make this work you need the fungal life, which is usually the limiting factor in making this whole system work.

00:03:27.433 --> 00:03:35.645
But because the bacteria are quite often there maybe not as diverse as it could be in an ideal situation, but then it's not just that.

00:03:35.645 --> 00:03:48.183
You need the nematodes, which are your worms, and the arthropods, which are your insects, and you have this very complex food chain which are your insects, and you have this very complex food chain.

00:03:48.183 --> 00:04:12.502
And what happens is in commercial agriculture we use things like synthetic fertilizers, or we cause compaction with our massive equipment, or we use typical monocrops, and that lack of diversity does not stimulate the diversity of microbial life in the soil, and what we end up with is a system where the plants need fertilizers in order to grow because the microbial population is not there.

00:04:12.502 --> 00:04:23.009
So then if you don't use fertilizer, the plant doesn't grow, so you can't grow a crop, so you are required to use fertilizer in many of these situations.

00:04:23.009 --> 00:04:37.428
And even the act of using synthetic fertilizer actually creates that addiction to fertilizer itself, because if the plant is getting the nutrients that it requires from synthetic fertilizers, it no longer needs it from the microbial life.

00:04:37.428 --> 00:04:43.625
So then it doesn't excrete the sugars, and those sugars are the base food source of that whole food chain.

00:04:43.625 --> 00:04:45.279
So then that food chain collapses and always the first thing to go are the fun food source of that whole food chain.

00:04:45.279 --> 00:04:48.428
So then that food chain collapses, and always the first thing to go are the fungal life.

00:04:48.428 --> 00:04:56.271
They are the most sensitive to any sort of disturbance and that's what is the most difficult to manage in a way that is thriving.

00:04:56.271 --> 00:05:04.646
And there's one species of fungal life in particular that is critical, is a keystone species, and that is the mycorrhizal fungi.

00:05:04.646 --> 00:05:11.940
And what they do?

00:05:11.940 --> 00:05:17.725
They're basically long filamental fungus which embed in the roots of the plants and reach out into the soil and transport the sugars from the plants and the nutrients back to the plants.

00:05:17.725 --> 00:05:20.608
It's critical for making this whole system work.

00:05:21.459 --> 00:05:24.930
But basically, what happens when you're using synthetic fertilizer?

00:05:24.930 --> 00:05:25.651
The plant grows.

00:05:25.651 --> 00:05:38.711
It might not thrive in the absolute sense, it might not be reaching its full potential, but it's still a growing plant that produces a crop and gives you lots of food.

00:05:38.711 --> 00:05:48.339
But the plant is only getting the nutrients that you're adding with a synthetic fertilizer, because it no longer has that relationship with the microorganisms.

00:05:48.339 --> 00:06:00.533
It can no longer ask for all the tiny little micronutrients in the soil and you can never fertilize for every single micronutrient that you can be found in the soil.

00:06:00.879 --> 00:06:06.658
So the end result is plants that are grown that have less micronutrients.

00:06:06.658 --> 00:06:11.110
They have less nutritional value and, as a result, they're also less healthy.

00:06:11.110 --> 00:06:16.732
So you have plants that are less healthy, which could be like your fruits and your vegetables or your cereal grains.

00:06:16.732 --> 00:06:27.706
You have animals eating those plants that are now also less nutrient dense, less healthy, which are like your beef and whatever animal products you have, and it works this way all the way up the food chain to our plate.

00:06:27.706 --> 00:06:58.033
Where the food that we're eating is less nutrient dense, it is less healthy because, like and it's not just theory you can measure this, it's been measured there's um a new movement towards something called metabolomic research, which is like testing, where you're measuring all the metabolites, all of the breakdown products from metabolism, from digesting food, and if you measure those, you can compare different products.

00:06:58.072 --> 00:07:18.535
So if you look at the regeneratively raised products that are rotationally grazed, like your grass-fed, grass-finished beef, and you compare that to your grain-finished beef, not necessarily all that surprising, but there's actually less evidence of aging in the animals that are raised on just grass or grass-fed and grass-finished.

00:07:18.535 --> 00:07:32.653
There's less proteolysis, there's less oxidative stress, there's less glycation end products all signs of aging and then that translates into um the meat, the metabolites of those meats.

00:07:32.653 --> 00:07:35.910
So, like the, it translates into more nutrition.

00:07:35.910 --> 00:07:39.081
You have more like as far as the actual meat that you're eating.

00:07:39.081 --> 00:07:46.353
It has more antioxidants, it has more vitamin E, has a better fatty acid profile.

00:07:46.353 --> 00:07:56.892
There's more omega-3 fatty acids, but interestingly or in my opinion, it's more interesting is that it's also a great source of phytonutrients, or the nutrients that originate from plants.

00:07:56.892 --> 00:08:13.089
Grass-fed, grass-finished meat is actually an excellent source of these plant-derived nutrients, and there's a long list of different phytonutrients, but basically they all have antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties and they're found in large quantities.

00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:20.927
Yeah, I appreciate that initial explanation of regenerative farming and we're gonna end up diving into this a lot throughout the conversation.

00:08:20.927 --> 00:08:35.028
I would do wanna end up kind of getting more into the nitty gritty of soil health at some point and also kind of get into this other stuff of understanding, like the fungal diversity requirements within soil.

00:08:35.028 --> 00:08:36.410
How do you restore that?

00:08:36.410 --> 00:08:49.725
What happens more in depth when you start using these fertilizers and you already kind of mentioned it it's it's sort of this ongoing wheel where once you start using it then the soil is not going to be regenerating itself, so you need to keep using it.

00:08:49.725 --> 00:08:58.030
So it's sort of this vicious cycle and you see why, once we started that we had to keep going because it seems really dangerous and counterintuitive.

00:08:58.030 --> 00:09:00.883
But, like, if I'm not using this, I know I'm not going to get a crop yield.

00:09:00.883 --> 00:09:09.796
And then farming at the end of the day is still an industry, it's a business and you need yield, you need profit or you need revenue at least to keep going.

00:09:09.796 --> 00:09:22.052
So you can see logically how we ended up here and then also understanding the economic impact of we need to feed a lot of people, right, the population has been growing, growing, growing.

00:09:22.052 --> 00:09:29.514
I think it's actually declining now, but up until this point we have needed a very massive food supply.

00:09:29.514 --> 00:09:32.249
So you can see how we got here and that's fine.

00:09:32.541 --> 00:09:34.749
But now I think it's the education piece.

00:09:34.749 --> 00:09:39.750
It's informing people of the downside of kind of going against nature.

00:09:39.750 --> 00:09:48.405
For so long Not even so long in the grand scheme of things it's been like what 60, 60, some years of this type of farming, this really industrial farming.

00:09:48.405 --> 00:09:58.222
So now it's educating people to the downsides of that and what the shift has to be towards a more sustainable and a better future when it comes to agriculture.

00:09:58.222 --> 00:10:03.624
But I do want to get a better understanding for understanding your operation.

00:10:03.624 --> 00:10:11.773
So if you could describe where you are and then anything you want to give people, like size wise, like how many acres do you have?

00:10:11.773 --> 00:10:13.363
What row crops do you have?

00:10:13.363 --> 00:10:19.163
How many cows, turkeys, anything like that, just give us an idea of sort of the operation.

00:10:19.163 --> 00:10:29.610
And also love to know how many people are working there, cause I was looking up a lot of your videos and, seeing the scope of this, I'd love to know how many people are required to keep an operation like this going.

00:10:31.059 --> 00:10:33.707
Yeah, I grew up on a commercial dairy farm.

00:10:33.707 --> 00:10:45.826
That's my background and so that's where I'm coming from, and there's been generations of dairy farmers in my family on both sides of my family my mom's and my dad's side of the family.

00:10:45.826 --> 00:10:52.153
So, yeah, there's huge value in that generational knowledge.

00:10:52.153 --> 00:10:59.153
But there's also a lot of shortcomings, because you get stuck in doing things in the way that they've always been done.

00:10:59.153 --> 00:11:01.163
So it's kind of like give and take.

00:11:01.163 --> 00:11:12.572
So like going down the road that I'm going now is quite challenging because I really have to relearn things and relearning things and unlearning things is far more difficult than learning things in the first place.

00:11:12.572 --> 00:11:15.662
So it's been a real mind bend for me.

00:11:15.662 --> 00:11:19.308
But what we have is we have 700 acres in Ontario.

00:11:19.308 --> 00:11:27.505
My family immigrated to Ontario from the Netherlands and we have 700 acres today and it's not all workable.

00:11:27.505 --> 00:11:43.844
It's maybe somewhere around 600 acres workable, but most of the acres is used for feeding our dairy herd, so that's mostly corn silage and haylage, but we do do some cash cropping as well.

00:11:43.844 --> 00:11:51.014
We have your typical rotation where we have grain, corn, soy wheat and some cover cropping in there when we can.

00:11:51.014 --> 00:11:58.953
But that's basically where I came from and then the direction I'm heading is a whole different story.

00:11:59.179 --> 00:12:05.274
I'm I have that commercial agriculture background, but I'm heading towards regenerative agriculture.

00:12:05.274 --> 00:12:10.072
So I have some of the crossbreds from our dairy herd.

00:12:10.072 --> 00:12:19.630
Their bottom end of our dairy cows are being bred to beef and because they're half beef, half dairy, I can actually finish them on grass.

00:12:19.630 --> 00:12:31.943
I can raise them as grass-fed, grass-finished beef, which actually wouldn't be possible or it would be far more expensive if they were 100% dairy, because dairy cows are bred to produce milk, not to put on muscle and fat.

00:12:31.943 --> 00:12:37.322
So that beef genetics makes this whole transition much more possible for me.

00:12:37.322 --> 00:12:46.100
So I'm keeping some of those bull calves, those crossbreds they're half Angus, half Holstein and I'm raising them as grass fed, grass finished beef.

00:12:46.881 --> 00:12:58.841
And I'm doing it on a relatively small scale because the limiting factor to making this transition possible is finding that demand is actually finding the customers and selling the products.

00:12:58.841 --> 00:13:07.604
Because, like you said earlier, we're running a business and, as idealistic as I naturally am, I'm slapping their face with the reality every single day.

00:13:07.604 --> 00:13:14.238
And if I don't pay the bills, I owe an awful lot of money to our banker and if I don't meet those payments I'm going to lose the farm.

00:13:14.238 --> 00:13:18.533
So where will regenerative agriculture be if there's no profitability?

00:13:18.533 --> 00:13:21.201
There's no sustainability without profitability.

00:13:21.201 --> 00:13:25.010
So it's a challenge and it's an ongoing challenge.

00:13:25.331 --> 00:13:26.581
So I'm starting on a smaller scale.

00:13:26.581 --> 00:13:40.985
We planted some pasture and we had the grass-fed, grass-finished beef grazing that pasture and then behind those we actually have turkey following on the exact same pasture just three days behind.

00:13:40.985 --> 00:13:53.947
And that three days is ideal because around that time, that's when the fly larvae and the insects they start to hatch, that are attracted to the manure from the grass fed beef, and then the turkeys can actually eat that.

00:13:53.947 --> 00:14:01.432
They can eat those insects and they can supplement their diet, along with the pasture and the supplemental feed that we offer them.

00:14:01.432 --> 00:14:05.509
So, yeah, that's essentially where we're at.

00:14:07.139 --> 00:14:07.240
Great.

00:14:07.240 --> 00:14:13.727
So I think you're already starting to paint the picture of how these various aspects of your operations start to work together.

00:14:13.727 --> 00:14:32.332
But for anyone who's unfamiliar, can you maybe juxtapose what a I'm trying to find the right term concentrated animal feeding operation for beef, what that looks like versus the pasture, like having them sort of graze pastures as they're doing on your farm, and then how does that tie in?

00:14:32.332 --> 00:14:34.927
You already started to get into it with the turkeys that follow.

00:14:34.927 --> 00:14:37.769
I just want to be able to paint a picture for people to understand.

00:14:37.769 --> 00:14:40.701
Be like how do all these different aspects tie together?

00:14:40.701 --> 00:14:44.267
And then if you weren't grazing these animals, what would normally be happening?

00:14:44.267 --> 00:14:48.173
Probably monocropping those pastures or cash cropping those pastures.

00:14:48.173 --> 00:14:52.190
So if you can just speak to sort of how those things start to tie together, that'd be great.

00:14:53.634 --> 00:15:19.432
Yeah, so, like in general commercial agriculture, there's a real push towards specialization and efficiencies, whereas regenerative agriculture is kind of like a return to generalization, which comes with its own challenges, because you need a far larger knowledge base to make all these different industries work on your farm, all these different flows of income, which is which is great to have more flows of income because you, you're, you're more, you're safer.

00:15:19.432 --> 00:15:22.523
Basically, that way you have those more diverse sources of income.

00:15:22.523 --> 00:15:27.044
But, yeah, there's more challenges because there's that knowledge base is massive that you need to know.

00:15:27.044 --> 00:15:32.808
But so, like what you typically see as far on the beef side is very specialized.

00:15:32.808 --> 00:15:41.740
You have one farmer that does the cow calf is what it's typically called, and those farmers quite often, or usually do, have their cows out on pasture, is it?

00:15:41.740 --> 00:15:49.710
They usually have, are like a low input kind of system, and then they have a beef bowl walking amongst their cows.

00:15:49.710 --> 00:15:56.114
So they have those calves every year and they're really pushing towards having that single calf every single year from those beef cows.

00:15:56.114 --> 00:16:09.711
And then, once those calves are weaned off from their mothers, then they usually go to the next farm typically, and then on the next farm, that one, that farmer is specialized in growing these animals and they still need a lot of roughage.

00:16:09.711 --> 00:16:15.081
Quite often they're still raised on pasture actually um, not always, but they do need they still need a lot of roughage.

00:16:15.081 --> 00:16:41.750
You can't get them fat too early because you want them to build to grow that frame out as well before you add fat to it and then typically after that is that farmer then will sell these grower beef animals over to the finisher and that finisher might have them for two, three months and they're fed a heavy, heavy grain diet for the last couple of months, lots of carbohydrates and that grain diet.

00:16:41.750 --> 00:16:48.796
They have very little roughage, just enough to keep them healthy, and they put on fat in a hurry and then you're able to have these animals.

00:16:48.796 --> 00:16:53.519
They have a decent amount of frame, they put on that fat really fast and you're able to send them off.

00:16:53.519 --> 00:16:56.885
They're finished, they're ready to go at about 15, 16 months of age.

00:16:58.971 --> 00:17:17.288
And then, if you compare that to the grass-fed grass-finished, more often it is one farmer doing the whole process, not always, but typically that they are because they're smaller scale operations and it's also like I said there's there's the whole more of a holistic system typically.

00:17:17.288 --> 00:17:19.512
So you usually you have a guy.

00:17:19.512 --> 00:17:26.453
They have their own calves, they have their own own mother cows, they're raising the calves right up until finishing on just their pasture.

00:17:26.453 --> 00:17:35.410
And in order to even have a chance of fattening these animals, you have to do rotational grazing just to keep the quality of that feed higher.

00:17:35.410 --> 00:17:44.209
And that's in contrast to continual grazing, which you can get away with when you're just having the mother cows or you're just trying to grow their frame.

00:17:44.209 --> 00:17:56.449
Continual grazing is when you have a massive pasture and they have access to this pasture for months at a time and they're constantly grazing throughout this whole pasture, whereas rotational grazing is where there's daily moves.

00:17:56.449 --> 00:18:04.599
You concentrate them to a smaller area and every single day you're moving them to a fresh pasture and the pasture they leave behind gets a chance to rest and recover.

00:18:04.599 --> 00:18:12.867
You're moving into fresh pasture and the pasture they leave behind gets a chance to rest and recover, and that's critical for regenerating the soil as well, because it's in recovering that you're building the health of that soil.

00:18:12.867 --> 00:18:15.777
So that's typically what you see.

00:18:15.817 --> 00:18:28.343
And then also because the pasture is less caloric dense, it's then just uh, almost entirely grain diet of, of soy and corn and whatever other grains.

00:18:28.343 --> 00:18:30.731
It takes longer to finish them.

00:18:30.731 --> 00:18:39.713
So typically, a grass-fed, grass-finished animal is not ready to go, it's not ready to be to be slaughtered until they're 24, 25, 26 months old.

00:18:39.713 --> 00:18:41.102
So it's a.

00:18:41.102 --> 00:18:47.594
That's where quite often the extra expenses, the extra cost of production, comes from.

00:18:47.594 --> 00:18:54.931
It's the fact that these animals are so much longer, you're feeding them for more days, so that's typically why the grass-fed finished products are more expensive.

00:18:56.240 --> 00:18:58.587
Yeah, and then it depends.

00:18:58.587 --> 00:18:59.991
Everybody's doing it differently.

00:18:59.991 --> 00:19:03.707
There's not a one-size-fits fits all when it comes to regenerative agriculture.

00:19:03.707 --> 00:19:15.952
But because of that push towards generalization, you end up finding ways that these different animals and these different income sources can complement each other really, really well.

00:19:15.952 --> 00:19:24.450
And it's almost exciting just to find more and more ways that these different animals and these different aspects of a farm can complement each other.

00:19:24.539 --> 00:19:31.344
And we can learn from nature in a lot of, a lot of these ways, like if you look at the massive herds of bison that used to roam across north america.

00:19:31.344 --> 00:19:46.192
There would always be birds following in behind them, and then you and like the water buffalo it's so common to see a photo of a water buffalo with, like the egret, sitting on its shoulders they're, they're, they complement each other, because the the the like for us do turkeys.

00:19:46.192 --> 00:19:49.303
And the turkeys don't like walking through tall grass.

00:19:49.303 --> 00:20:00.993
They get stuck because the grass is taller than they are, so the beef they eat the grass shorter, so the turkeys can actually manage to graze it themselves.

00:20:00.993 --> 00:20:10.848
And then the manure left behind is a source of nutrition itself but also attracts more insects, which is an extra source of nutrition for these birds.

00:20:10.848 --> 00:20:14.411
So that's already a lot of way that they're complementing each other.

00:20:14.550 --> 00:20:15.717
But then also the turkeys.

00:20:15.717 --> 00:20:18.748
Their manure is quite unique when you compare it to cattle.

00:20:18.748 --> 00:20:25.114
The manure from poultry is much higher in nitrogen and grass thrives on nitrogen.

00:20:25.114 --> 00:20:39.964
So the nitrogen from the turkey manure boosts the growth, the fertility of this pasture, for when the beef herd comes back around and returns that same piece of pasture after it's recovered, and now they have the extra growth from that nitrogen.

00:20:40.005 --> 00:20:57.601
So then they're they're, they're benefiting from the turkeys as well, and then also the farmer benefits, because you need, like I was saying earlier, there's no sustainability, there's no future for regenerative agriculture without profitability, and when you start stacking these different enterprises you have multiple sources of income.

00:20:57.601 --> 00:21:01.626
On the same acreage of pasture the turkeys are grazing.

00:21:01.626 --> 00:21:07.165
They're grazing the exact same pasture, the exact same land, as the beef are no extra land required.

00:21:07.165 --> 00:21:09.607
So it's great that way too.

00:21:09.607 --> 00:21:17.329
And then that's also like yeah, like you can add in pork, they can complement things like cash cropping too.

00:21:17.329 --> 00:21:22.673
Like you can have cash cropping and then you can have your cover crops afterwards with animals can graze that.

00:21:22.673 --> 00:21:29.615
So cash crossing systems can complement um the animals and adding the animals back into the, into the environment.

00:21:29.655 --> 00:22:16.067
So like there's so many different ways, there's almost endless possibilities of of the way these different um uh sources of income or these different enterprises can complement each other yeah, I can imagine being creative is almost a requirement, but you probably almost get paralyzed with the amount of options, of different things that you know the land that you're in, the, the environment, um, the requirements of what you need to do from, um, like a revenue perspective, and then also like the skill and the expertise of the farmer, um, that's why you get all these different, these different options.

00:22:16.067 --> 00:22:17.070
I am curious.

00:22:17.070 --> 00:22:23.647
So you said, um the the beef will graze, then the turkeys will come in and graze behind it.

00:22:23.647 --> 00:22:29.415
How often, like what's the timeline between when the beef will come back around to that same piece of pasture?

00:22:30.260 --> 00:22:36.008
The beef will come back around, and well, it depends how much moisture you're getting, but typically around six weeks.

00:22:36.008 --> 00:22:40.592
So earlier in the season, in the spring it'll be quicker, it'll be faster turnaround.

00:22:40.592 --> 00:22:48.192
Later in the season, especially if you have dry spells, you have to slow the animals down and uh, and then it'll be longer before you return.

00:22:48.192 --> 00:22:49.800
But yeah, so that's the beef.

00:22:49.800 --> 00:23:00.529
But turkeys, um, which complement things, or so that makes things a little more complex they actually don't return to the same piece of pasture because you're trying to avoid parasites.

00:23:00.529 --> 00:23:14.101
So, um, the recommendation out there is that you basically don't return to the same pasture with turkeys for at least two years, so you give a whole year rest before you return with birds.

00:23:15.242 --> 00:23:17.145
Interesting See learning so much.

00:23:17.145 --> 00:23:29.294
One of the other things I wanted to know is you've already talked about how you're transitioning from you know what was like a commercial dairy farm to trying to go to a more regenerative place.

00:23:29.294 --> 00:23:45.228
Obviously, you can't do this overnight, like do you have a plan as to, or can you maybe describe like when you started and when you expect to be fully transitioned over, and just speak to generally the amount of time that it's going to take an operation of your size to get there?

00:23:47.311 --> 00:23:51.040
yeah, as far as what, how long it'll take, I don't really see it as a finish line.

00:23:51.040 --> 00:23:53.153
I see it as a journey that will never end.

00:23:53.153 --> 00:23:59.338
I feel like you constantly have to move towards improving your management practices, become more regenerative.

00:23:59.338 --> 00:24:02.070
I don't think it's like, on off, you're regenerative or you're not.

00:24:02.070 --> 00:24:03.213
I feel like it's.

00:24:03.213 --> 00:24:08.294
It's a direction that you're trying, it's like it's a new focus, new emphasis for your farm.

00:24:08.294 --> 00:24:12.763
So there's, there will always be, room for improvement, in my opinion.

00:24:13.289 --> 00:24:22.137
And then, as far as our operation, I'm starting the things on a smaller scale, like I mentioned, with the turkeys and the beef, and then growing.

00:24:22.137 --> 00:24:27.134
The limiting factor for me is really the size of the customer base, because our dairy farm is a decent size.

00:24:27.134 --> 00:24:33.605
We milk 180 cows and so it's a full herd of 400 animals or more.

00:24:33.605 --> 00:24:42.263
So that's a decent size operation for our area In Canada, ontario, it's well above average size.

00:24:42.263 --> 00:24:49.203
So that amount of milk it's very intimidating to try to find the customers for all those products.

00:24:49.203 --> 00:25:08.277
So, starting on a smaller scale with the beef and with the turkey, all that, the meat, it is basically a good way for me to dip my toes, learn the skills needed for marketing and finding customers and then from there, once we build up that customer base, I want to grow to the point where we keep a hundred percent of our bull calves.

00:25:08.277 --> 00:25:09.494
We don't keep all of them yet.

00:25:09.494 --> 00:25:12.699
I really, really want to to, but we don't have that customer base yet.

00:25:12.699 --> 00:25:34.294
So so that'll grow, first the, the beef, and the turkey will grow and grow, and then, once I have that foundation of of the demand for these products, these regenerative products, that'll give me more confidence to take a risk and maybe have a bit of a leap where, also now I'm going to start processing our own milk and start providing our own dairy products along that as well.

00:25:35.115 --> 00:25:43.961
And and other things like the cash cropping, though those a lot, I'm sure a lot of that would have to necessarily transition over to pasture.

00:25:43.961 --> 00:25:48.200
So a lot of that row cropping will just disappear and be used.

00:25:48.200 --> 00:25:51.910
That same acreage will be used as pasture instead for rotational grazing.

00:25:51.910 --> 00:26:04.018
So, and but I do, um intend to continue experimenting with things like row cropping and producing things like corn in a regenerative way.

00:26:04.018 --> 00:26:18.554
Um, because, yeah, like not everybody's going to eat nothing but dairy and animal products, because, like rotationally grazing, applying the the principles of regenerative agriculture to rotational grazing is so easy.

00:26:18.554 --> 00:26:20.282
It almost happens by itself by accident.

00:26:20.282 --> 00:26:27.730
As long as you're rotationally grazing, you're naturally following the five different principles of soil health, but it becomes more complex.

00:26:27.730 --> 00:26:33.355
You have to be far more intentional when you're doing row cropping and it's possible.

00:26:33.375 --> 00:26:36.838
I see a light at the end of the tunnel and a lot of that is still experimental.

00:26:36.838 --> 00:26:42.523
Very few people are doing it truly successfully, so I can't just take what somebody else is doing and just apply it to my farm.

00:26:42.523 --> 00:26:55.073
I have to really experiment with it personally and, for example, one thing that I'm working towards is something called Johnson's Sioux compost.

00:26:55.073 --> 00:27:02.701
It's a method of composting where you have zero turn, because as soon as you disturb the compost in any way, the fungus will die off.

00:27:02.701 --> 00:27:06.425
So you can't disturb it, you can't turn it to introduce that oxygen.

00:27:06.425 --> 00:27:34.017
So you put pipes in and you have these channels of oxygen where you have constant airflow and you have it sit and mature for at least a year and you have a carbon-heavy food source of this compost and at the end and then also the moisture levels is really really high you're creating the ideal environment for fungus, because that's typically the limiting factor in making this whole system work for that diversity and getting the benefits from that diversity.

00:27:34.670 --> 00:27:41.882
So I'm trying to make a real fungal dominant compost and then what I'm going to do with that is, once it's mature, I'll rinse it off.

00:27:41.882 --> 00:27:45.500
I'll wash the compost because I don't need to add necessarily organic matter.

00:27:45.500 --> 00:27:47.561
What I'm after is that microbial life.

00:27:47.561 --> 00:27:58.467
I'll rinse off, I'll collect the microbial life and then I can apply that diversity to the land to kickstart that process, to kickstart the.

00:27:58.467 --> 00:28:10.794
It's almost like a shortcut to beating that addiction to fertilizers, because what you find in the spring is you plant your cross but if you don't fertilize it you're not going to get any production, it's not going to grow.

00:28:11.275 --> 00:28:14.762
So how do you start the process towards regeneration?

00:28:14.762 --> 00:28:25.319
If you do it with rotational grazing, it takes about three years to build up that soil health and build up that diversity for things to really start humming.

00:28:25.319 --> 00:28:27.156
But you don't have three years.

00:28:27.156 --> 00:28:33.940
Every single year you're planting new crops in a row crop system but then every year you're going over there with your heavy equipment.

00:28:33.940 --> 00:28:57.807
You might have some weeds pressure or or you might, whatever things happen, and and you don't have the perfect situation every single year to build it up for that three-year period so that that adding that diversity with a compost extract, or typically what they call it is a compost tea, is a way to shortcut the whole situation.

00:28:58.571 --> 00:29:00.579
So it really is a light at the end of the tunnel.

00:29:00.579 --> 00:29:11.005
It's a way to really make a massive improvement to commercial agriculture, because it is attractive for the average farmer to do this if it's proven to work, of course.

00:29:11.005 --> 00:29:13.337
Attractive for the average farmer to do this if it's proven to work, of course.

00:29:13.337 --> 00:29:16.391
Like if it's proven to work, and there's not the same risk that I'm taking where you're doing all the experiments yourself.

00:29:16.391 --> 00:29:20.358
There's huge benefits because fertilizer is crazy expensive.

00:29:20.358 --> 00:29:25.978
Getting rid of that input cost without sacrificing yield in the meantime is very attractive.

00:29:25.978 --> 00:29:34.441
So like that is a real way to feed the world with regenerative products and and do it in a way that's cost effective so the average person can still afford it.

00:29:36.044 --> 00:29:41.797
Yeah, on our pre-call you were kind of describing that what's it called Johnson's Sioux composting.

00:29:41.797 --> 00:29:50.463
Yes, one of the things you mentioned that I'd love for you to expand on was the amount that you need, which was surprisingly little.

00:29:50.463 --> 00:29:53.874
So you said you rinse it off, you kind of create this compost tea.

00:29:53.874 --> 00:29:58.374
How much do you need for, say, one acre or one hectare, however you want to describe that?

00:29:58.513 --> 00:30:02.214
Yeah, that's the beauty of the system is it is very scalable.

00:30:02.214 --> 00:30:06.086
You only need one pound of compost per acre of farmland.

00:30:06.847 --> 00:30:07.690
Right, that's crazy.

00:30:07.971 --> 00:30:14.093
This diversity is, and what you're doing is like to to make it, to stretch it out that far is.

00:30:14.093 --> 00:30:40.743
You actually put it in while you're planting, you put in with the seed, you plant the seed, you put the extract with the seed, so like it's a perfect system where you have a no till planter, no till seed drill and you have the setup for liquid fertilizer, but instead of liquid fertilizer you put your liquid compost tea in there and then you can stretch it out to such an extreme degree where the system is very, very scalable.

00:30:42.510 --> 00:30:44.017
Great, yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up.

00:30:44.017 --> 00:30:51.123
Just kind of going over some more vocabulary within the regenerative agriculture space for people who may or may not know.

00:30:51.123 --> 00:30:54.589
More vocabulary within the regenerative agriculture space for people who may or may not know.

00:30:54.589 --> 00:31:05.807
Can you describe what tillage is and what no-till operations are, and why no-till operations are better for the environment, more beneficial anything around that realm?

00:31:06.851 --> 00:31:11.402
Yeah, tillage is basically when you're turning and moving the soil in any way.

00:31:11.402 --> 00:31:24.806
So that's usually your mobile plow flipping the earth upside down, or your cultivators that create that seed bed that really makes that fine loose soil which gives the seed a really easy place to start growing.

00:31:24.806 --> 00:31:36.400
That's tillage and it's very detrimental to that microbial diversity because, like I was saying, the fungal life is so sensitive.

00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:43.618
So as soon as you go in there with any sort of piece of tillage, even the seed drill when you're planting will have some impact on the fungal life.

00:31:43.618 --> 00:31:45.758
It's very, very sensitive.

00:31:45.758 --> 00:31:52.002
So as soon as you tillage in any way, the fungal life is gone, you're left with the bacteria.

00:31:52.002 --> 00:31:59.271
So that's basically back to the situation where typical commercial agriculture is in, where you have soils.

00:31:59.271 --> 00:32:03.082
That's just, microbially, the diversity is not there.

00:32:03.082 --> 00:32:04.435
All you really have is that bacteria.

00:32:04.435 --> 00:32:25.079
So if you want to make the regenerative management practices work and reap the benefits, not just have the cost of your cover cropping or whatever else or your new equipment, if you really want to reap the benefits, you kind of have to keep that diversity alive and you do that by following those five principles of soil.

00:32:25.079 --> 00:32:36.829
Health principles are you want to minimize disturbance of any sort, whether it be tillage, or even fertilizers or herbicides, pesticides, any sort of disturbance, compaction with large equipment.

00:32:36.829 --> 00:32:39.194
You want to avoid that as much as you possibly can.

00:32:39.194 --> 00:32:41.883
And then you also need the biodiversity.

00:32:42.570 --> 00:32:56.798
I keep talking about the diversity of the microbial life, but just diversity in general, because planting a diverse population of plants attracts diverse microbial life and then also diverse animals.

00:32:57.430 --> 00:33:03.278
Each animal has a different style of impact on the environment, so diversity of any kind is important.

00:33:03.278 --> 00:33:13.203
You need to have living roots in the soil all year round, because all those microbial life they live in association with living roots.

00:33:13.203 --> 00:33:22.318
There's no living roots, there's no base of that food chain, there's no sugars being released into the soil for the whole food chain to grow off of.

00:33:22.318 --> 00:33:23.842
So you need to have living roots.

00:33:23.842 --> 00:33:33.676
You need to have armor on the soil, which is basically plants that protect the soil from the sunlight, drying it out and heating it up and making it inhospitable for the microbial life.

00:33:33.676 --> 00:33:37.732
And the last thing you need is animal impact, which I've talked about quite a bit already.

00:33:37.732 --> 00:33:43.921
So those five principles is what you need to follow, and the beautiful thing is you follow all those principles.

00:33:43.921 --> 00:33:50.001
You follow them naturally when you're doing rotational grazing, but yeah, you have to be much more intentional with other forms of agriculture.

00:33:51.369 --> 00:33:56.696
Yeah, I appreciate you running through the five principles of soil health because you mentioned that earlier, so that was going to be a follow-up anyway.

00:33:56.696 --> 00:34:14.222
So I previously had on a guest who said something which I don't know, may or may not be obvious to people, but I grew up in rural New Jersey, where New Jersey is known as the Garden State, so most people think of New Jersey as like Newark, which is not a good representation of it.

00:34:14.222 --> 00:34:16.733
But we do have lots of gardens and farms in New Jersey.

00:34:16.733 --> 00:34:20.085
But growing up there you would see a lot of bare soil.

00:34:20.085 --> 00:34:28.063
Once the cash crops were harvested and I just thought that was normal and he said it was more in context to carbon capture.

00:34:29.331 --> 00:34:44.085
He's like this goes to the idea of cover cropping, which is when you have your cash crop and then you plant other crops in the off season to help rebalance either the nitrogen in the soil, basically whatever the cash crop extracted.

00:34:44.126 --> 00:34:46.476
You want something that's going to help restore the soil.

00:34:46.476 --> 00:34:51.918
But he was describing it as like bare soil is really really bad for that soil health.

00:34:51.918 --> 00:35:00.092
You need something to help harvest the sunlight and it was the quote harvesting sunlight, which is something I'd never heard before.

00:35:00.092 --> 00:35:04.751
As to the dirt is just going to dry out and reflect a lot of heat.

00:35:04.751 --> 00:35:15.222
But when you have these cover crops you have more leaf coverage and that can actually absorb the sunlight and capture carbon and put it into the soil to help that regenerative process.

00:35:15.222 --> 00:35:22.199
So it's just one of those things that, like I knew soil health was a thing I'd heard of cover cropping for many years.

00:35:22.199 --> 00:35:26.170
I just didn't really I never, it never clicked and I never understood why exactly.

00:35:26.170 --> 00:35:35.164
I was like I understand that maybe it's a good complementary aspect to the cash crop, but I'd never understood the idea of harvesting sunlight.

00:35:35.164 --> 00:35:41.262
The more we can plant on this earth that can harvest sunlight, the better it's going to be from a carbon perspective.

00:35:41.523 --> 00:35:41.943
Yeah, that's right.

00:35:41.943 --> 00:35:43.552
Like the harvesting of sunlight.

00:35:43.552 --> 00:36:04.990
That's basically alluding to the fact, like the photosynthesis really is the scientific method where that that is needed to sequester that carbon, you need to capture that sunlight and then, with, through photosynthesis, you create those sugars from, from co2 and sunlight, that energy, and then you're, you're that carbon that's created, those sugars.

00:36:04.990 --> 00:36:09.177
That's what fuels the, the diversity of life and all that life.

00:36:09.177 --> 00:36:21.998
Those are all carbon-based life forms and also just organic matter in general, like the root mass it's, it's allowing, like when you allow that pasture to recover you, it grows above ground but also below ground.

00:36:21.998 --> 00:36:30.702
So all of that is basically more and more carbon under the soil and in the soil and um and like it's all.

00:36:30.702 --> 00:36:37.065
It's all fueled through photosynthesis, it's fueled through the sunlight and that's when you're you're.

00:36:37.126 --> 00:36:54.289
What you're doing is basically you're using sunlight to capture greenhouse gases and then you're storing it into the soil right, and so it's not only storage but it's also beneficial for the soil for that diversity in that life, um, and then when you, when you end up tilling soil, as I've come to understand it, a lot of that, not only storage, but it's also beneficial for the soil for that diversity in that life.

00:36:54.289 --> 00:37:04.701
And then when you, when you end up tilling soil, as I've come to understand it, a lot of that carbon gets released and the layers of soil that sort of establish themselves are done in a very intelligent way, like nature doesn't work in a haphazard way.

00:37:04.701 --> 00:37:52.552
So if soil is layered in a particular way, where you're certain microbes here and certain fungi here, all of those things are very it happens very deliberately and by telling that, you basically just come up and just kind of make a mess of it all, and then we need all these external inputs to to make it work again, where regenerative is much more working in line with nature, which is another point that I feel like, from a agricultural and farming perspective, is kind of has to coincide with a cultural shift as well, where I guess, like traditional farming has just been very extractive for so long, where we just extract from the earth to get a product and then we need another external input just to be able to extract the same thing internal input just to be able to extract the same thing.

00:37:52.552 --> 00:38:03.340
And you know, it's very indicative of, like Western society, where everything is single use, where we'll just buy something, throw it out, buy another one, throw it out, where nothing really gets reused.

00:38:03.340 --> 00:38:13.996
And I think there needs to be a shift towards just a more logical way of living, not just from an agriculture standpoint, but also from just a general lifestyle perspective.

00:38:13.996 --> 00:38:20.199
But just to give people a perspective on how much, at least in the United States, these are numbers I looked up.

00:38:20.199 --> 00:38:21.483
I think they're from 2022.

00:38:22.650 --> 00:38:29.653
There's about 900 million acres of farmland in the US and only about 1.5% of that is being regeneratively farmed.

00:38:29.653 --> 00:38:31.559
So there's plenty of work to do.

00:38:31.559 --> 00:38:40.521
I guess that's maybe disappointing but also encouraging in that there's still so much right.

00:38:40.521 --> 00:39:02.565
If we were at 90% regenerative farming and the climate situation was still exactly where it is today and be like, ooh, there's not much left, that's not a very big lever to pull, but the fact that we are in this position and there's basically the entire agriculture system that can sort of be revamped in a better way to start capturing more carbon.

00:39:02.565 --> 00:39:06.114
It's encouraging, but it's going to take a lot of work to get there.

00:39:06.114 --> 00:39:16.577
The thing I wanted to ask was, I guess on a long enough timeline, the answer is yes, but do you think regenerative agriculture is possible for all farms?

00:39:18.304 --> 00:39:18.746
Absolutely.

00:39:18.746 --> 00:40:05.137
It's just more challenging and it's frustrating from the producer's perspective because things like cover cropping and no tillage those are all initiatives that have been pushed from the government and through education and stuff like that it's pushed on farmers for for quite a long time already and the results are back and, unfortunately, if you actually look at the, the research of of the benefits of things like cover cropping or no-till, they're bismal, like they're there's very, very to no return as far as organic matter increases, like it's very disappointing and like and you, these farmers, every single year they're they're buying the extra seeds, they're putting in the, the fuel cost to put it in or paying the custom worker to put that into the soil, and like you're trying to do it right by your land and be a good steward.

00:40:05.137 --> 00:40:25.757
Unfortunately, after all those investments, there's very little return, there's very little to show for it, and the reason is is because, unfortunately, you kind of have to get all the puzzle pieces together at the same time to maintain and even get or even attract that microbial diversity and maintain it from year to year to year.

00:40:25.757 --> 00:40:43.130
You have to get all these puzzle pieces in place and maintain them, which is really difficult to do in reality, which is kind of like where I was talking before, like where the compost tea can improve things dramatically when things go don't go perfect according to the plan, which things rarely do in agriculture.

00:40:43.130 --> 00:40:50.012
You can, you can kick start the whole system, the whole process again, that diversity, every single year and boost it.

00:40:50.012 --> 00:40:55.405
So like, yeah, it's very challenging but not impossible.

00:40:55.405 --> 00:41:00.648
And and I've, it's very challenging but not impossible and it's something that I'm working towards myself as well I have my own challenges.

00:41:00.668 --> 00:41:02.570
Like I don't have equipment for planting.

00:41:02.570 --> 00:41:08.032
We specialized years ago towards a dairy farm, just like your typical commercial farm.

00:41:08.032 --> 00:41:08.753
We specialize.

00:41:08.753 --> 00:41:12.815
We don't have equipment for planting and even for tillage we don't do because we do mostly no-till.

00:41:12.815 --> 00:41:21.981
So like I can't ask a custom worker to go like, hey, can you do a little test strip here where you do it this way and another test strip over here where you do it a little bit different.

00:41:21.981 --> 00:41:40.916
He's in a hurry, he's got more customers than just myself, he has to get our fields done and he's off to the next farmer to do all these little different tests that I want to experiment with, to try out these compost teas and these different ways of managing it and cover crops and whatever else.

00:41:40.916 --> 00:41:45.385
So it's not insurmountable, though.

00:41:45.385 --> 00:41:52.318
What we did is we bought a bunch of this garden equipment where we have little hand seeders and stuff like that.

00:41:52.318 --> 00:41:55.748
We own 700 acres, but a portion of that we're going to be selling.

00:41:55.748 --> 00:41:59.132
So, like, that's, that's the solution that we're moving towards.

00:41:59.432 --> 00:42:04.298
Just to get some, some data back of, like, how well does this work?

00:42:04.298 --> 00:42:06.141
How heavily can we invest in this?

00:42:06.141 --> 00:42:13.494
Like, does it make sense for us to make this massive investment into a giant no till seed drill?

00:42:13.494 --> 00:42:22.027
Or to like to really do this on a large scale on our farm, and then, like, once we get there, like just step by step, right, like you can't take too big a risk because we still have to make the payments to the bank.

00:42:22.027 --> 00:42:28.938
So, so like, uh, we take step by step and then, um, it's gonna happen.

00:42:28.958 --> 00:42:34.043
I, because, like the, the benefits of regenerative agriculture are massive for everybody.

00:42:34.043 --> 00:42:38.152
Everybody wins, basically, the animals win, the consumer wins, the farmer wins.

00:42:38.152 --> 00:42:44.572
The animals have improved welfare, the consumer has more nutrient-dense food, the farmer decreased costs.

00:42:44.572 --> 00:42:57.719
There's a crazy stat If you look at corn produced 50, 100 years ago or whatever, the yield has increased dramatically, but the profit per acre has plummeted.

00:42:57.719 --> 00:42:59.186
So, basically the farmers.

00:42:59.186 --> 00:43:06.751
They are required to get bigger and bigger and do more and more acres just to scrape by because the profitability per acre is so low.

00:43:07.012 --> 00:43:14.175
Like when they first introduced fertilizer, nitrogen, urea, like the, the increased yield that it gave you was great for the farmer.

00:43:14.175 --> 00:43:15.798
Urea or nitrogen was cheap.

00:43:15.798 --> 00:43:18.411
The increase in yield was great.

00:43:18.411 --> 00:43:32.585
Farmers made more money, but over time, the cost of the fertilizer and the herbicides and the pesticides and everything else that are required now, because you started down this road, all those inputs costs have increased to the point where it's like, yeah, you're not really making much money.

00:43:32.585 --> 00:43:37.077
It dramatically benefits the farmer as well to move towards regenerative agriculture.

00:43:37.077 --> 00:43:52.538
So I'm convinced that it's going to happen, even without people pushing it forwards, because it makes so much sense and as soon as some people start cracking that code, farmers will learn from each other and customers will appreciate those products.

00:43:52.538 --> 00:43:55.509
So it'll be clear that there's demand for it.

00:43:55.509 --> 00:43:58.992
It's just a matter of time.

00:43:58.992 --> 00:44:02.338
People need to do those experiments and run those.

00:44:02.338 --> 00:44:03.940
Then farmers need to learn from each other.

00:44:07.646 --> 00:44:08.389
I'm convinced it's going to happen.

00:44:08.389 --> 00:44:13.958
You alluded to this earlier where you were saying that everything has shifted towards specialization.

00:44:13.958 --> 00:44:19.617
It's not just in agriculture, like that's happened kind of everywhere in industry.

00:44:19.617 --> 00:44:24.945
So, and then you said it's it's almost required that you be more of a generalist in the regenerative space.

00:44:24.945 --> 00:44:47.992
And then also the requirement that at least for soil health, having having animals involved, right, that that so like if people are just monocropping or you already mentioned sort of the uh, the beef like track that happens in a regular commercial sense there's like three hops from or three different farmers involved.

00:44:47.992 --> 00:45:09.454
So I feel like at some point it's probably going to have to be like diversification amongst these big groups that are really specialized, where it's like we're going to need, we're going to need some cattle over here just to start doing anything for the soil, where it doesn't seem like it can happen independently of each other and I don't necessarily know that that's a bad thing that there's going to need to be collaboration.

00:45:09.494 --> 00:45:42.836
I think it's going to be a requirement kind of going forward collaboration is a key word because, like, one push will be towards generalization for farmers, but these huge farms that have their hands full just with their silo of of product that they're producing, collaboration will be key to to grow in the, the regenerative space in that direct for those kind of farms as well, where, like you you'll have in areas where, like, all you see is cash crop and monocrop, monocrops and stuff like that, there'll be such a demand for some animals to somebody to produce beef in that area.

00:45:42.945 --> 00:46:01.949
Because if everybody starts seeing the benefits of cover cropping and having animals graze that and what it does to the soil health, then, like at the start, if people are desperate enough, basically that beef farmer can almost feed his cows for free, like they'll be amazing for the, for the beef farmer.

00:46:01.949 --> 00:46:14.132
So, like, then it's like it'll introduce these, these collaborations, like you said, where, yeah, like where all the different farmers can benefit with from each other and, uh, now I feel like that is the direction that agriculture is going to go, that's's where the future is heading.

00:46:21.684 --> 00:46:24.251
Good, okay, so I think we've hammered that, this side of regenerative agriculture as far as like from your side of it.

00:46:24.251 --> 00:46:26.878
Essentially, I'd like to shift a little bit towards the consumer side.

00:46:26.878 --> 00:46:31.452
You've already mentioned that consumers are just going to buy the cheapest thing, right?

00:46:31.452 --> 00:46:39.336
So I'd love to hear from your perspective, as far as like finding buyers from a marketing perspective, what are your biggest hurdles?

00:46:39.336 --> 00:46:45.353
What can people be doing to help drive this in a better direction from a consumer standpoint?

00:46:45.353 --> 00:46:47.478
Just kind of understanding.

00:46:48.867 --> 00:46:53.547
I understand or hopefully we have a better understanding of how things need to shift on the industry side.

00:46:53.547 --> 00:46:55.070
What about on the consumer side?

00:46:55.070 --> 00:46:57.494
Like where, where do you think things need to happen?

00:46:57.494 --> 00:47:03.315
Where can initiatives be taken by the people who are in a position to make that move earlier?

00:47:03.315 --> 00:47:10.070
Right, obviously, food insecurity is a huge issue, at least here in America, where it's like one out of eight people are food insecure.

00:47:10.070 --> 00:47:18.954
So they're probably not the people who are going to be driving the shift towards regenerative agriculture from a consumer standpoint, but there are plenty of people here who do have money and can afford it.

00:47:18.954 --> 00:47:26.438
So I'd love to know from your perspective, like where do consumer behaviors need to change?

00:47:27.784 --> 00:47:43.762
Yeah, the beautiful thing about this change from the consumer perspective is that they have a tool that's so powerful and so simple to follow, and that is by leveraging supply and demand to create change.

00:47:43.762 --> 00:47:47.048
It is the most powerful way to create change in agriculture.

00:47:47.048 --> 00:47:53.748
It's not by posting angry comments on social media, it's not by protesting at the government gates.

00:47:53.748 --> 00:48:00.278
It's simply by using your food dollars to vote for the agriculture system that you want to see in the future.

00:48:00.278 --> 00:48:03.288
It's that simple and it's so, so powerful.

00:48:03.288 --> 00:48:16.112
Because once farmers that are producing and making, doing these or stretching out and trying to make these initiatives and create these healthier, newer products, they're rewarded for that.

00:48:16.112 --> 00:48:22.188
Well then other farmers will, will copy that, they'll learn from that, and also the farmers that started it, they'll grow.

00:48:22.188 --> 00:48:25.014
So it's like they're, they're farming like.

00:48:25.496 --> 00:48:33.465
For me, for example, it'll grow within my own operation as far as like how much of it is regenerative versus commercial.

00:48:34.309 --> 00:48:40.311
But it would also allow me to to profit and do well, to the point where I can just grow my whole farm.

00:48:40.632 --> 00:48:51.967
My whole farm can grow, and then, and then neighbors will notice that, like this, he's trying these crazy things, but he's, he seems to be doing well, so then they'll start asking questions and they'll start adopting some of these practices as well.

00:48:51.967 --> 00:48:54.512
So, like it's really it's.

00:48:54.512 --> 00:49:12.927
It's crazy how much power the consumer really truly has, whereas, instead of saying I want the cheapest thing, I don't care if it's 5 cents cheaper, I just want the cheapest thing versus I want the best thing for my health, I want the thing that's going to give me a lot of the vitality that I'm after and that'll allow me to raise my kids in a healthy way.

00:49:12.927 --> 00:49:38.547
If you start changing what you prioritize when you're grocery shopping, that is the biggest and most powerful impact that you can have on agriculture and that's what I always try to drive home to people is it is very, very powerful the impact that you can have just through supply and demand have just through supply and demand.

00:49:38.588 --> 00:49:38.989
So is that?

00:49:38.989 --> 00:49:41.498
Do you have any tips on people being able to identify, um, where their food dollars should be going?

00:49:41.498 --> 00:49:44.509
Because most people are just going to be going to a grocery store, right?

00:49:44.509 --> 00:49:47.297
Is there easy things that you can point out to be understanding?

00:49:47.297 --> 00:49:47.985
Like this is going.

00:49:48.126 --> 00:50:06.041
This is coming from a regenerative farm versus this is not yeah, unfortunately, when you go to grocery stores, um, there are things you can do, like, like, oh, the recommendation I always gave when it comes to grocery store is like you eat the whole foods, 83 of the grocery store is highly processed junk and you want to avoid those.

00:50:06.041 --> 00:50:07.405
That's not rocket science.

00:50:07.405 --> 00:50:23.472
But beyond that, um, once you, once you make that big leap to for your health, yeah, then you start acting, asking for things like organic or grass-fed, grass-finished or are processed as little as possible, like, uh, like, if you do some raw dairy or whatever, like that, that's.

00:50:23.472 --> 00:50:34.070
Those are all benefits towards your health and, and typically towards soil health as well, because they go hand in hand the health of the food and the health of the soil and the health for your own body.

00:50:34.070 --> 00:50:36.777
It all comes together.

00:50:38.005 --> 00:50:48.679
But unfortunately, there's only so far you can go in a grocery store because you're relying on labels, and labels are usually started and initiated with the best intentions.

00:50:48.985 --> 00:51:12.009
But over time, what always happens is that once you have a label, you have a list of criteria that the farmer needs to follow and within those lists of criteria there's always loopholes and you end up having food that's produced with not necessarily the goals that the initial people had in mind when they created this label, and that will always happen.

00:51:12.009 --> 00:51:19.681
So the best thing you can do when you really want regenerative food of any sort is to buy it directly from a farmer.

00:51:19.681 --> 00:51:26.175
Have a relationship with a farmer, get to know the farmer, whether it be through social media or directly by shaking his hand.

00:51:26.175 --> 00:51:33.465
That is the truest way to ensure that your products are produced in a way that you want food to be produced.

00:51:33.465 --> 00:51:35.833
That's the way you want agriculture to.

00:51:35.833 --> 00:51:48.485
To produce food in the future is by actually buying it directly from the farmer and then, like, the farmer benefits more that way too, because there's less people in the middle and so like there's less people with their hands in the pockets trying to make a little profit here and there.

00:51:50.188 --> 00:51:57.599
Is there a good website that like aggregates a lot of regenerative farms, or is it just kind of looking in your area?

00:51:57.599 --> 00:52:07.135
Obviously we're going to link to your website in the show notes and description, but is there are there any resources you can point to or any other farms you know like?

00:52:07.135 --> 00:52:12.806
I'm not sure if it's kind of pointing people to the competition, but are there any other good farms that you know of that you want to shout out?

00:52:12.967 --> 00:52:17.775
if not, no problem no, absolutely like, um, like from the consumer's perspective.

00:52:17.775 --> 00:52:21.590
There's some very easy places you can start, like the farmers markets they're.

00:52:21.590 --> 00:52:23.052
Most cities have farmers markets.

00:52:23.052 --> 00:52:24.297
That's a great place to start.

00:52:24.297 --> 00:52:32.150
You can get to know some farmers that go there and you can even ask those farmers who else they know that can produce a product that you're looking for that they don't.

00:52:32.150 --> 00:52:33.273
They mean they maybe don.

00:52:33.273 --> 00:52:33.652
Like.

00:52:33.652 --> 00:52:35.577
Farmer's market is a good place to start.

00:52:35.577 --> 00:52:36.619
It's really easy.

00:52:40.804 --> 00:52:48.219

Transforming Modern Farming and Enhancing Soil Health with Sander Van Stee (Part 1)

Listen On

Featured Episodes

Recent Episodes