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

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Parker Condit (00:00):
Hey everyone, welcome to Exploring Health
Macro to Micro.
I'm your host, parker Condit.
In this show, I interviewexperts from all areas of health
.
This can be in areas you mightexpect like exercise, nutrition
and mental health, while othersmay be topics that come from
areas that you're less familiarwith.
Today's episode is all aboutfarming, food supply and
regenerative agriculture.
These are all topics that havebecome very important to me over

(00:21):
the past few months, as you canprobably tell with the
frequency that this topic iscoming up here.
To discuss that with me isSander Van Stee.
Sander is the founder of MoralEats, a family-owned farm in
Canada.
So within the world ofregenerative agriculture, there
are many tactics and strategiesthat can be implemented to move
from traditional farming toregenerative practices, but

(00:42):
there's no one-size-fits sizefits all approach and it's as
much art as it is science.
So this conversation goes intosome of the struggles of making
that transition, both thestruggles from the farming side
and then also things that arechallenging on the consumer side
as well, and one of the biggestones is consumer behavior.
Many people will say that theywant better farming practices,
healthier soil, regenerativetransition, but then they don't

(01:04):
change their buying behaviorsand continue to buy what is the
cheapest or the most convenientand, given the economic
environment, I understand why,but it makes this a very tricky
topic.
So we, as consumers, cannotallow the entire weight and
responsibility and the financialburden to fall on the producers
.
Hopefully, this conversationwill shed some light on why and

(01:25):
what we can do to help.
This is a longer episode, soit's going to be split into two
parts.
This will be part one and parttwo will be released later this
week.
So, without further delay,please enjoy part one of my
conversation with Sander VanStee.
Sander, thanks so much forbeing here.
Just for context, most peoplecoming to this show, or

(01:49):
listeners coming to this show,are coming from a health
perspective.
Um, so I think, or they, theywant to be healthy.
So I think the easiest place tostart is getting an
understanding of regenerativeagriculture which is going to be
probably the main theme of thiswhole conversation, framed
around the idea of why is thathealthier than conventional
agriculture or traditionalfarming?

(02:11):
In that sense, yeah.

Sander Van Stee (02:13):
So regenerative agriculture, put very simply,
is simply farming in a way thatemphasizes soil health over
basically everything else,whereas commercial agriculture
is more so focused onprofitability and lowering costs
, because that is the demandthat most farmers are supplying.

(02:35):
The demand from the averageconsumer is to have the cheapest
food possible.
If you're going to the grocerystore, most people just buy the
package of ground beef that's 10cents cheaper than the one
beside it.
So that's what commercialagriculture is.
They're supplying that demand.
But regenerative agriculture isa little bit different and, to
add a layer of complexity tothat explanation, what you're

(02:56):
really trying to manage andimprove is the microbial life in
the soil and what the plant cando when you have an amazing
diversity of microbial life inthe soil.
And what the plant can do whenyou have an amazing diversity of
microbial life in the soil isthat it can actually excrete
sugars in exchange for nutrients, so it can get nutrients on
demand from the microbial lifein the soil.

(03:18):
It's a very beautiful systemand to make this work you need
the fungal life, which isusually the limiting factor in
making this whole system work.
But because the bacteria arequite often there maybe not as
diverse as it could be in anideal situation, but then it's
not just that.
You need the nematodes, whichare your worms, and the

(03:39):
arthropods, which are yourinsects, and you have this very
complex food chain which areyour insects, and you have this
very complex food chain.
And what happens is incommercial agriculture we use
things like syntheticfertilizers, or we cause
compaction with our massiveequipment, or we use typical
monocrops, and that lack ofdiversity does not stimulate the

(04:01):
diversity of microbial life inthe soil, and what we end up
with is a system where theplants need fertilizers in order
to grow because the microbialpopulation is not there.
So then if you don't usefertilizer, the plant doesn't
grow, so you can't grow a crop,so you are required to use
fertilizer in many of thesesituations.

(04:23):
And even the act of usingsynthetic fertilizer actually
creates that addiction tofertilizer itself, because if
the plant is getting thenutrients that it requires from
synthetic fertilizers, it nolonger needs it from the
microbial life.
So then it doesn't excrete thesugars, and those sugars are the
base food source of that wholefood chain.

(04:43):
So then that food chaincollapses and always the first
thing to go are the fun foodsource of that whole food chain.
So then that food chaincollapses, and always the first
thing to go are the fungal life.
They are the most sensitive toany sort of disturbance and
that's what is the mostdifficult to manage in a way
that is thriving.
And there's one species offungal life in particular that
is critical, is a keystonespecies, and that is the

(05:03):
mycorrhizal fungi.
And what they do?
They're basically longfilamental fungus which embed in
the roots of the plants andreach out into the soil and
transport the sugars from theplants and the nutrients back to
the plants.
It's critical for making thiswhole system work.
But basically, what happens whenyou're using synthetic

(05:24):
fertilizer?
The plant grows.
It might not thrive in theabsolute sense, it might not be
reaching its full potential, butit's still a growing plant that
produces a crop and gives youlots of food.
But the plant is only gettingthe nutrients that you're adding
with a synthetic fertilizer,because it no longer has that

(05:46):
relationship with themicroorganisms.
It can no longer ask for allthe tiny little micronutrients
in the soil and you can neverfertilize for every single
micronutrient that you can befound in the soil.
So the end result is plants thatare grown that have less
micronutrients.
They have less nutritionalvalue and, as a result, they're

(06:09):
also less healthy.
So you have plants that areless healthy, which could be
like your fruits and yourvegetables or your cereal grains
.
You have animals eating thoseplants that are now also less
nutrient dense, less healthy,which are like your beef and
whatever animal products youhave, and it works this way all
the way up the food chain to ourplate.
Where the food that we'reeating is less nutrient dense,

(06:30):
it is less healthy because, likeand it's not just theory you
can measure this, it's beenmeasured there's um a new
movement towards somethingcalled metabolomic research,
which is like testing, whereyou're measuring all the
metabolites, all of thebreakdown products from
metabolism, from digesting food,and if you measure those, you

(06:56):
can compare different products.
So if you look at theregeneratively raised products
that are rotationally grazed,like your grass-fed,
grass-finished beef, and youcompare that to your
grain-finished beef, notnecessarily all that surprising,
but there's actually lessevidence of aging in the animals
that are raised on just grassor grass-fed and grass-finished.

(07:18):
There's less proteolysis,there's less oxidative stress,
there's less glycation endproducts all signs of aging and
then that translates into um themeat, the metabolites of those
meats.
So, like the, it translatesinto more nutrition.
You have more like as far asthe actual meat that you're

(07:38):
eating.
It has more antioxidants, ithas more vitamin E, has a better
fatty acid profile.
There's more omega-3 fattyacids, but interestingly or in
my opinion, it's moreinteresting is that it's also a
great source of phytonutrients,or the nutrients that originate
from plants.
Grass-fed, grass-finished meatis actually an excellent source

(08:00):
of these plant-derived nutrients, and there's a long list of
different phytonutrients, butbasically they all have
antioxidants andanti-inflammatory properties and
they're found in largequantities.

Yeah, I appreciate that initial
explanation of regenerativefarming and we're gonna end up
diving into this a lotthroughout the conversation.
I would do wanna end up kind ofgetting more into the nitty
gritty of soil health at somepoint and also kind of get into
this other stuff ofunderstanding, like the fungal
diversity requirements withinsoil.

(08:35):
How do you restore that?
What happens more in depth whenyou start using these
fertilizers and you already kindof mentioned it it's it's sort
of this ongoing wheel where onceyou start using it then the
soil is not going to beregenerating itself, so you need
to keep using it.
So it's sort of this viciouscycle and you see why, once we
started that we had to keepgoing because it seems really

(08:56):
dangerous and counterintuitive.
But, like, if I'm not usingthis, I know I'm not going to
get a crop yield.
And then farming at the end ofthe day is still an industry,
it's a business and you needyield, you need profit or you
need revenue at least to keepgoing.
So you can see logically how weended up here and then also
understanding the economicimpact of we need to feed a lot

(09:18):
of people, right, the populationhas been growing, growing,
growing.
I think it's actually decliningnow, but up until this point we
have needed a very massive foodsupply.
So you can see how we got hereand that's fine.
But now I think it's theeducation piece.
It's informing people of thedownside of kind of going

(09:38):
against nature.
For so long Not even so long inthe grand scheme of things it's
been like what 60, 60, someyears of this type of farming,
this really industrial farming.
So now it's educating people tothe downsides of that and what
the shift has to be towards amore sustainable and a better
future when it comes toagriculture.
But I do want to get a betterunderstanding for understanding

(10:02):
your operation.
So if you could describe whereyou are and then anything you
want to give people, like sizewise, like how many acres do you
have?
What row crops do you have?
How many cows, turkeys,anything like that, just give us
an idea of sort of theoperation.
And also love to know how manypeople are working there, cause
I was looking up a lot of yourvideos and, seeing the scope of

(10:25):
this, I'd love to know how manypeople are required to keep an
operation like this going.

Yeah, I grew up on a commercial dairy farm.
That's my background and sothat's where I'm coming from,
and there's been generations ofdairy farmers in my family on
both sides of my family my mom'sand my dad's side of the family
.
So, yeah, there's huge value inthat generational knowledge.

(10:52):
But there's also a lot ofshortcomings, because you get
stuck in doing things in the waythat they've always been done.
So it's kind of like give andtake.
So like going down the roadthat I'm going now is quite
challenging because I reallyhave to relearn things and
relearning things and unlearningthings is far more difficult
than learning things in thefirst place.

(11:12):
So it's been a real mind bendfor me.
But what we have is we have 700acres in Ontario.
My family immigrated to Ontariofrom the Netherlands and we
have 700 acres today and it'snot all workable.
It's maybe somewhere around 600acres workable, but most of the

(11:34):
acres is used for feeding ourdairy herd, so that's mostly
corn silage and haylage, but wedo do some cash cropping as well
.
We have your typical rotationwhere we have grain, corn, soy
wheat and some cover cropping inthere when we can.
But that's basically where Icame from and then the direction

(11:56):
I'm heading is a wholedifferent story.
I'm I have that commercialagriculture background, but I'm
heading towards regenerativeagriculture.
So I have some of thecrossbreds from our dairy herd.
Their bottom end of our dairycows are being bred to beef and
because they're half beef, halfdairy, I can actually finish

(12:18):
them on grass.
I can raise them as grass-fed,grass-finished beef, which
actually wouldn't be possible orit would be far more expensive
if they were 100% dairy, becausedairy cows are bred to produce
milk, not to put on muscle andfat.
So that beef genetics makesthis whole transition much more
possible for me.
So I'm keeping some of thosebull calves, those crossbreds

(12:41):
they're half Angus, halfHolstein and I'm raising them as
grass fed, grass finished beef.
And I'm doing it on a relativelysmall scale because the
limiting factor to making thistransition possible is finding
that demand is actually findingthe customers and selling the
products.
Because, like you said earlier,we're running a business and,

(13:02):
as idealistic as I naturally am,I'm slapping their face with
the reality every single day.
And if I don't pay the bills, Iowe an awful lot of money to
our banker and if I don't meetthose payments I'm going to lose
the farm.
So where will regenerativeagriculture be if there's no
profitability?
There's no sustainabilitywithout profitability.
So it's a challenge and it's anongoing challenge.

(13:25):
So I'm starting on a smallerscale.
We planted some pasture and wehad the grass-fed,
grass-finished beef grazing thatpasture and then behind those
we actually have turkeyfollowing on the exact same
pasture just three days behind.
And that three days is idealbecause around that time, that's
when the fly larvae and theinsects they start to hatch,

(13:48):
that are attracted to the manurefrom the grass fed beef, and
then the turkeys can actuallyeat that.
They can eat those insects andthey can supplement their diet,
along with the pasture and thesupplemental feed that we offer
them.
So, yeah, that's essentiallywhere we're at.

Great.
So I think you're alreadystarting to paint the picture of
how these various aspects ofyour operations start to work
together.
But for anyone who's unfamiliar, can you maybe juxtapose what a
I'm trying to find the rightterm concentrated animal feeding
operation for beef, what thatlooks like versus the pasture,

(14:27):
like having them sort of grazepastures as they're doing on
your farm, and then how doesthat tie in?
You already started to get intoit with the turkeys that follow
.
I just want to be able to painta picture for people to
understand.
Be like how do all thesedifferent aspects tie together?
And then if you weren't grazingthese animals, what would
normally be happening?
Probably monocropping thosepastures or cash cropping those
pastures.

(14:48):
So if you can just speak tosort of how those things start
to tie together, that'd be great.

Yeah, so, like in general commercial
agriculture, there's a real pushtowards specialization and
efficiencies, whereasregenerative agriculture is kind
of like a return togeneralization, which comes with
its own challenges, because youneed a far larger knowledge
base to make all these differentindustries work on your farm,
all these different flows ofincome, which is which is great

(15:14):
to have more flows of incomebecause you, you're, you're more
, you're safer.
Basically, that way you havethose more diverse sources of
income.
But, yeah, there's morechallenges because there's that
knowledge base is massive thatyou need to know.
But so, like what you typicallysee as far on the beef side is
very specialized.
You have one farmer that doesthe cow calf is what it's

(15:35):
typically called, and thosefarmers quite often, or usually
do, have their cows out onpasture, is it?
They usually have, are like alow input kind of system, and
then they have a beef bowlwalking amongst their cows.
So they have those calves everyyear and they're really pushing
towards having that single calfevery single year from those
beef cows.

(15:56):
And then, once those calves areweaned off from their mothers,
then they usually go to the nextfarm typically, and then on the
next farm, that one, thatfarmer is specialized in growing
these animals and they stillneed a lot of roughage.
Quite often they're stillraised on pasture actually um,
not always, but they do needthey still need a lot of
roughage.
You can't get them fat tooearly because you want them to

(16:18):
build to grow that frame out aswell before you add fat to it
and then typically after that isthat farmer then will sell
these grower beef animals overto the finisher and that
finisher might have them for two, three months and they're fed a
heavy, heavy grain diet for thelast couple of months, lots of
carbohydrates and that graindiet.

(16:41):
They have very little roughage,just enough to keep them
healthy, and they put on fat ina hurry and then you're able to
have these animals.
They have a decent amount offrame, they put on that fat
really fast and you're able tosend them off.
They're finished, they're readyto go at about 15, 16 months of
age.
And then, if you compare that tothe grass-fed grass-finished,

(17:02):
more often it is one farmerdoing the whole process, not
always, but typically that theyare because they're smaller
scale operations and it's alsolike I said there's there's the
whole more of a holistic systemtypically.
So you usually you have a guy.
They have their own calves,they have their own own mother
cows, they're raising the calvesright up until finishing on

(17:25):
just their pasture.
And in order to even have achance of fattening these
animals, you have to dorotational grazing just to keep
the quality of that feed higher.
And that's in contrast tocontinual grazing, which you can
get away with when you're justhaving the mother cows or you're
just trying to grow their frame.
Continual grazing is when youhave a massive pasture and they

(17:47):
have access to this pasture formonths at a time and they're
constantly grazing throughoutthis whole pasture, whereas
rotational grazing is wherethere's daily moves.
You concentrate them to asmaller area and every single
day you're moving them to afresh pasture and the pasture
they leave behind gets a chanceto rest and recover.
You're moving into freshpasture and the pasture they
leave behind gets a chance torest and recover, and that's
critical for regenerating thesoil as well, because it's in

(18:09):
recovering that you're buildingthe health of that soil.
So that's typically what yousee.
And then also because thepasture is less caloric dense,
it's then just uh, almostentirely grain diet of, of soy
and corn and whatever othergrains.
It takes longer to finish them.

(18:30):
So typically, a grass-fed,grass-finished animal is not
ready to go, it's not ready tobe to be slaughtered until
they're 24, 25, 26 months old.
So it's a.
That's where quite often theextra expenses, the extra cost
of production, comes from.
It's the fact that theseanimals are so much longer,
you're feeding them for moredays, so that's typically why

(18:52):
the grass-fed finished productsare more expensive.
Yeah, and then it depends.
Everybody's doing itdifferently.
There's not a one-size-fitsfits all when it comes to
But because of that pushtowards generalization, you end
up finding ways that thesedifferent animals and these
different income sources cancomplement each other really,

(19:15):
really well.
And it's almost exciting justto find more and more ways that
these different animals andthese different aspects of a
farm can complement each other.
And we can learn from nature ina lot of, a lot of these ways,
like if you look at the massiveherds of bison that used to roam
across north america.
There would always be birdsfollowing in behind them, and
then you and like the waterbuffalo it's so common to see a

(19:37):
photo of a water buffalo with,like the egret, sitting on its
shoulders they're, they're, theycomplement each other, because
the the the like for us doturkeys.
And the turkeys don't likewalking through tall grass.
They get stuck because thegrass is taller than they are,
so the beef they eat the grassshorter, so the turkeys can

(19:58):
actually manage to graze itthemselves.
And then the manure left behindis a source of nutrition itself
but also attracts more insects,which is an extra source of
nutrition for these birds.
So that's already a lot of waythat they're complementing each
other.
But then also the turkeys.
Their manure is quite uniquewhen you compare it to cattle.

(20:18):
The manure from poultry is muchhigher in nitrogen and grass
thrives on nitrogen.
So the nitrogen from the turkeymanure boosts the growth, the
fertility of this pasture, forwhen the beef herd comes back
around and returns that samepiece of pasture after it's
recovered, and now they have theextra growth from that nitrogen

(20:39):
.
So then they're they're, they'rebenefiting from the turkeys as
well, and then also the farmerbenefits, because you need, like
I was saying earlier, there'sno sustainability, there's no
future for regenerativeagriculture without
profitability, and when youstart stacking these different
enterprises you have multiplesources of income.
On the same acreage of pasturethe turkeys are grazing.

(21:01):
They're grazing the exact samepasture, the exact same land, as
the beef are no extra landrequired.
So it's great that way too.
And then that's also like yeah,like you can add in pork, they
can complement things like cashcropping too.
Like you can have cash croppingand then you can have your
cover crops afterwards withanimals can graze that.

(21:22):
So cash crossing systems cancomplement um the animals and
adding the animals back into the, into the environment.

So like there's so many different ways, there's
almost endless possibilities ofof the way these different um uh
sources of income or thesedifferent enterprises can
complement each other yeah, Ican imagine being creative is
almost a requirement, but youprobably almost get paralyzed

(21:49):
with the amount of options, ofdifferent things that you know
the land that you're in, the,the environment, um, the
requirements of what you need todo from, um, like a revenue
perspective, and then also likethe skill and the expertise of

(22:12):
the farmer, um, that's why youget all these different, these
different options.
I am curious.
So you said, um the the beefwill graze, then the turkeys
will come in and graze behind it.
How often, like what's thetimeline between when the beef
will come back around to thatsame piece of pasture?

The beef will come back around, and well, it
depends how much moisture you'regetting, but typically around
six weeks.
So earlier in the season, inthe spring it'll be quicker,
it'll be faster turnaround.
Later in the season, especiallyif you have dry spells, you
have to slow the animals downand uh, and then it'll be longer
before you return.
But yeah, so that's the beef.
But turkeys, um, whichcomplement things, or so that

(22:54):
makes things a little morecomplex they actually don't
return to the same piece ofpasture because you're trying to
avoid parasites.
So, um, the recommendation outthere is that you basically
don't return to the same pasturewith turkeys for at least two
years, so you give a whole yearrest before you return with
birds.

Interesting See learning so much.
One of the other things Iwanted to know is you've already
talked about how you'retransitioning from you know what
was like a commercial dairyfarm to trying to go to a more
regenerative place.
Obviously, you can't do thisovernight, like do you have a
plan as to, or can you maybedescribe like when you started

(23:36):
and when you expect to be fullytransitioned over, and just
speak to generally the amount oftime that it's going to take an
operation of your size to getthere?

yeah, as far as what, how long it'll take, I
don't really see it as a finishline.
I see it as a journey that willnever end.
I feel like you constantly haveto move towards improving your
management practices, becomemore regenerative.
I don't think it's like, on off, you're regenerative or you're
not.
I feel like it's.
It's a direction that you'retrying, it's like it's a new
focus, new emphasis for yourfarm.

(24:08):
So there's, there will alwaysbe, room for improvement, in my
opinion.
And then, as far as ouroperation, I'm starting the
things on a smaller scale, likeI mentioned, with the turkeys
and the beef, and then growing.
The limiting factor for me isreally the size of the customer
base, because our dairy farm isa decent size.
We milk 180 cows and so it's afull herd of 400 animals or more

(24:33):
.
So that's a decent sizeoperation for our area In Canada
, ontario, it's well aboveaverage size.
So that amount of milk it'svery intimidating to try to find
the customers for all thoseproducts.
So, starting on a smaller scalewith the beef and with the
turkey, all that, the meat, itis basically a good way for me

(24:55):
to dip my toes, learn the skillsneeded for marketing and
finding customers and then fromthere, once we build up that
customer base, I want to grow tothe point where we keep a
hundred percent of our bullcalves.
We don't keep all of them yet.
I really, really want to to,but we don't have that customer
base yet.
So so that'll grow, first the,the beef, and the turkey will

(25:17):
grow and grow, and then, once Ihave that foundation of of the
demand for these products, theseregenerative products, that'll
give me more confidence to takea risk and maybe have a bit of a
leap where, also now I'm goingto start processing our own milk
and start providing our owndairy products along that as
well.
And and other things like thecash cropping, though those a

(25:39):
lot, I'm sure a lot of thatwould have to necessarily
transition over to pasture.
So a lot of that row croppingwill just disappear and be used.
That same acreage will be usedas pasture instead for
rotational grazing.
So, and but I do, um intend tocontinue experimenting with
things like row cropping andproducing things like corn in a

(26:03):
regenerative way.
Um, because, yeah, like noteverybody's going to eat nothing
but dairy and animal products,because, like rotationally
grazing, applying the theprinciples of regenerative
agriculture to rotationalgrazing is so easy.
It almost happens by itself byaccident.
As long as you're rotationallygrazing, you're naturally
following the five differentprinciples of soil health, but

(26:26):
it becomes more complex.
You have to be far moreintentional when you're doing
row cropping and it's possible.
I see a light at the end of thetunnel and a lot of that is
still experimental.
Very few people are doing ittruly successfully, so I can't
just take what somebody else isdoing and just apply it to my
farm.
I have to really experimentwith it personally and, for

(26:52):
example, one thing that I'mworking towards is something
called Johnson's Sioux compost.
It's a method of compostingwhere you have zero turn,
because as soon as you disturbthe compost in any way, the
fungus will die off.
So you can't disturb it, youcan't turn it to introduce that
oxygen.
So you put pipes in and youhave these channels of oxygen

(27:13):
where you have constant airflowand you have it sit and mature
for at least a year and you havea carbon-heavy food source of
this compost and at the end andthen also the moisture levels is
really really high you'recreating the ideal environment
for fungus, because that'stypically the limiting factor in
making this whole system workfor that diversity and getting
the benefits from that diversity.

(27:34):
So I'm trying to make a realfungal dominant compost and then
what I'm going to do with thatis, once it's mature, I'll rinse
it off.
I'll wash the compost because Idon't need to add necessarily
organic matter.
What I'm after is thatmicrobial life.
I'll rinse off, I'll collectthe microbial life and then I
can apply that diversity to theland to kickstart that process,

(27:56):
to kickstart the.
It's almost like a shortcut tobeating that addiction to
fertilizers, because what youfind in the spring is you plant
your cross but if you don'tfertilize it you're not going to
get any production, it's notgoing to grow.
So how do you start the processtowards regeneration?
If you do it with rotationalgrazing, it takes about three

(28:19):
years to build up that soilhealth and build up that
diversity for things to reallystart humming.
But you don't have three years.
Every single year you'replanting new crops in a row crop
system but then every yearyou're going over there with
your heavy equipment.
You might have some weedspressure or or you might,
whatever things happen, and andyou don't have the perfect

(28:42):
situation every single year tobuild it up for that three-year
period so that that adding thatdiversity with a compost extract
, or typically what they call itis a compost tea, is a way to
shortcut the whole situation.
So it really is a light at theend of the tunnel.
It's a way to really make amassive improvement to

(29:03):
commercial agriculture, becauseit is attractive for the average
farmer to do this if it'sproven to work, of course.
Attractive for the averagefarmer to do this if it's proven
to work, of course.
Like if it's proven to work,and there's not the same risk
that I'm taking where you'redoing all the experiments
yourself.
There's huge benefits becausefertilizer is crazy expensive.
Getting rid of that input costwithout sacrificing yield in the

(29:24):
meantime is very attractive.
So like that is a real way tofeed the world with regenerative
products and and do it in a waythat's cost effective so the
average person can still affordit.

Yeah, on our pre-call you were kind of
describing that what's it calledJohnson's Sioux composting.
Yes, one of the things youmentioned that I'd love for you
to expand on was the amount thatyou need, which was
surprisingly little.
So you said you rinse it off,you kind of create this compost
tea.
How much do you need for, say,one acre or one hectare, however

(29:57):
you want to describe that?

Yeah, that's the beauty of the system is it
is very scalable.
You only need one pound ofcompost per acre of farmland.

Right, that's crazy.

This diversity is, and what you're doing is
like to to make it, to stretchit out that far is.
You actually put it in whileyou're planting, you put in with
the seed, you plant the seed,you put the extract with the
seed, so like it's a perfectsystem where you have a no till
planter, no till seed drill andyou have the setup for liquid

(30:28):
fertilizer, but instead ofliquid fertilizer you put your
liquid compost tea in there andthen you can stretch it out to
such an extreme degree where thesystem is very, very scalable.

Great, yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up.
Just kind of going over somemore vocabulary within the
regenerative agriculture spacefor people who may or may not
know.
More vocabulary within theregenerative agriculture space
for people who may or may notknow.
Can you describe what tillageis and what no-till operations
are, and why no-till operationsare better for the environment,

(31:04):
more beneficial anything aroundthat realm?

Yeah, tillage is basically when you're turning
and moving the soil in any way.
So that's usually your mobileplow flipping the earth upside
down, or your cultivators thatcreate that seed bed that really
makes that fine loose soilwhich gives the seed a really
easy place to start growing.
That's tillage and it's verydetrimental to that microbial

(31:31):
diversity because, like I wassaying, the fungal life is so
sensitive.
So as soon as you go in therewith any sort of piece of
tillage, even the seed drillwhen you're planting will have
some impact on the fungal life.
It's very, very sensitive.
So as soon as you tillage inany way, the fungal life is gone
, you're left with the bacteria.

(31:52):
So that's basically back to thesituation where typical
commercial agriculture is in,where you have soils.
That's just, microbially, thediversity is not there.
All you really have is thatbacteria.
So if you want to make theregenerative management
practices work and reap thebenefits, not just have the cost

(32:12):
of your cover cropping orwhatever else or your new
equipment, if you really want toreap the benefits, you kind of
have to keep that diversityalive and you do that by
following those five principlesof soil.
Health principles are you wantto minimize disturbance of any

(32:33):
sort, whether it be tillage, oreven fertilizers or herbicides,
pesticides, any sort ofdisturbance, compaction with
large equipment.
You want to avoid that as muchas you possibly can.
And then you also need thebiodiversity.
I keep talking about thediversity of the microbial life,
but just diversity in general,because planting a diverse
population of plants attractsdiverse microbial life and then

(32:55):
also diverse animals.
Each animal has a differentstyle of impact on the
environment, so diversity of anykind is important.
You need to have living rootsin the soil all year round,
because all those microbial lifethey live in association with
living roots.
There's no living roots,there's no base of that food

(33:16):
chain, there's no sugars beingreleased into the soil for the
whole food chain to grow off of.
So you need to have livingroots.
You need to have armor on thesoil, which is basically plants
that protect the soil from thesunlight, drying it out and
heating it up and making itinhospitable for the microbial
life.
And the last thing you need isanimal impact, which I've talked

(33:36):
about quite a bit already.
So those five principles iswhat you need to follow, and the
beautiful thing is you followall those principles.
You follow them naturally whenyou're doing rotational grazing,
but yeah, you have to be muchmore intentional with other
forms of agriculture.

Yeah, I appreciate you running through
the five principles of soilhealth because you mentioned
that earlier, so that was goingto be a follow-up anyway.
So I previously had on a guestwho said something which I don't
know, may or may not be obviousto people, but I grew up in
rural New Jersey, where NewJersey is known as the Garden
State, so most people think ofNew Jersey as like Newark, which

(34:12):
is not a good representation ofit.
But we do have lots of gardensand farms in New Jersey.
But growing up there you wouldsee a lot of bare soil.
Once the cash crops wereharvested and I just thought
that was normal and he said itwas more in context to carbon
capture.
He's like this goes to the ideaof cover cropping, which is when

(34:33):
you have your cash crop andthen you plant other crops in
the off season to help rebalanceeither the nitrogen in the soil
, basically whatever the cashcrop extracted.
You want something that's goingto help restore the soil.
But he was describing it aslike bare soil is really really
bad for that soil health.
You need something to helpharvest the sunlight and it was

(34:57):
the quote harvesting sunlight,which is something I'd never
heard before.
As to the dirt is just going todry out and reflect a lot of
heat.
But when you have these covercrops you have more leaf
coverage and that can actuallyabsorb the sunlight and capture
carbon and put it into the soilto help that regenerative
process.
So it's just one of thosethings that, like I knew soil

(35:18):
health was a thing I'd heard ofcover cropping for many years.
I just didn't really I never,it never clicked and I never
understood why exactly.
I was like I understand thatmaybe it's a good complementary
aspect to the cash crop, but I'dnever understood the idea of
harvesting sunlight.
The more we can plant on thisearth that can harvest sunlight,

(35:39):
the better it's going to befrom a carbon perspective.

Yeah, that's right.
Like the harvesting of sunlight.
That's basically alluding tothe fact, like the
photosynthesis really is thescientific method where that
that is needed to sequester thatcarbon, you need to capture
that sunlight and then, with,through photosynthesis, you
create those sugars from, fromco2 and sunlight, that energy,

(36:01):
and then you're, you're thatcarbon that's created, those
sugars.
That's what fuels the, thediversity of life and all that
life.
Those are all carbon-based lifeforms and also just organic
matter in general, like the rootmass it's, it's allowing, like
when you allow that pasture torecover you, it grows above
ground but also below ground.

(36:21):
So all of that is basicallymore and more carbon under the
soil and in the soil and um andlike it's all.
It's all fueled throughphotosynthesis, it's fueled
through the sunlight and that'swhen you're you're.

What you're doing is basically you're using
sunlight to capture greenhousegases and then you're storing it
into the soil right, and soit's not only storage but it's
also beneficial for the soil forthat diversity in that life, um
, and then when you, when youend up tilling soil, as I've
come to understand it, a lot ofthat, not only storage, but it's
also beneficial for the soilfor that diversity in that life.
And then when you, when you endup tilling soil, as I've come

(36:57):
to understand it, a lot of thatcarbon gets released and the
layers of soil that sort ofestablish themselves are done in
a very intelligent way, likenature doesn't work in a
haphazard way.
So if soil is layered in aparticular way, where you're
certain microbes here andcertain fungi here, all of those
things are very it happens verydeliberately and by telling
that, you basically just come upand just kind of make a mess of

(37:18):
it all, and then we need allthese external inputs to to make
it work again, whereregenerative is much more
working in line with nature,which is another point that I
feel like, from a agriculturaland farming perspective, is kind
of has to coincide with acultural shift as well, where I
guess, like traditional farminghas just been very extractive

(37:40):
for so long, where we justextract from the earth to get a
product and then we need anotherexternal input just to be able
to extract the same thinginternal input just to be able
to extract the same thing.
And you know, it's veryindicative of, like Western
society, where everything issingle use, where we'll just buy
something, throw it out, buyanother one, throw it out, where

(38:02):
nothing really gets reused.
And I think there needs to be ashift towards just a more
logical way of living, not justfrom an agriculture standpoint,
but also from just a generallifestyle perspective.
But just to give people aperspective on how much, at
least in the United States,these are numbers I looked up.
I think they're from 2022.

(38:22):
There's about 900 million acresof farmland in the US and only
about 1.5% of that is beingregeneratively farmed.
So there's plenty of work to do.
I guess that's maybedisappointing but also
encouraging in that there'sstill so much right.
If we were at 90% regenerativefarming and the climate

(38:44):
situation was still exactlywhere 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 arein this position and there's
basically the entire agriculturesystem that can sort of be
revamped in a better way tostart capturing more carbon.
It's encouraging, but it'sgoing to take a lot of work to

(39:05):
get there.
The thing I wanted to ask was,I guess on a long enough
timeline, the answer is yes, butdo you think regenerative
agriculture is possible for allfarms?

Absolutely.
It's just more challenging andit's frustrating from the
producer's perspective becausethings like cover cropping and
no tillage those are allinitiatives that have been
pushed from the government andthrough education and stuff like
that it's pushed on farmers forfor quite a long time already
and the results are back and,unfortunately, if you actually

(39:38):
look at the, the research of ofthe benefits of things like
cover cropping or no-till,they're bismal, like they're
there's very, very to no returnas far as organic matter
increases, like it's verydisappointing and like and you,
these farmers, every single yearthey're they're buying the
extra seeds, they're putting inthe, the fuel cost to put it in
or paying the custom worker toput that into the soil, and like

(40:01):
you're trying to do it right byyour land and be a good steward
.
Unfortunately, after all thoseinvestments, there's very little
return, there's very little toshow for it, and the reason is
is because, unfortunately, youkind of have to get all the
puzzle pieces together at thesame time to maintain and even

(40:21):
get or even attract thatmicrobial diversity and maintain
it from year to year to year.
You have to get all thesepuzzle pieces in place and
maintain them, which is reallydifficult to do in reality,
which is kind of like where Iwas talking before, like where
the compost tea can improvethings dramatically when things
go don't go perfect according tothe plan, which things rarely

(40:42):
do in agriculture.
You can, you can kick start thewhole system, the whole process
again, that diversity, everysingle year and boost it.
So like, yeah, it's verychallenging but not impossible.
And and I've, it's verychallenging but not impossible
and it's something that I'mworking towards myself as well I
have my own challenges.
Like I don't have equipment forplanting.

(41:02):
We specialized years agotowards a dairy farm, just like
your typical commercial farm.
We specialize.
We don't have equipment forplanting and even for tillage we
don't do because we do mostlyno-till.
So like I can't ask a customworker to go like, hey, can you
do a little test strip herewhere you do it this way and
another test strip over herewhere you do it a little bit
different.
He's in a hurry, he's got morecustomers than just myself, he

(41:28):
has to get our fields done andhe's off to the next farmer to
do all these little differenttests that I want to experiment
with, to try out these compostteas and these different ways of
managing it and cover crops andwhatever else.
So it's not insurmountable,though.
What we did is we bought abunch of this garden equipment

(41:50):
where we have little handseeders and stuff like that.
We own 700 acres, but a portionof that we're going to be
selling.
So, like, that's, that's thesolution that we're moving
towards.
Just to get some, some data backof, like, how well does this
work?
How heavily can we invest inthis?
Like, does it make sense for usto make this massive investment

(42:12):
into a giant no till seed drill?
Or to like to really do this ona 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 arisk because we still have to
make the payments to the bank.
So, so like, uh, we take stepby step and then, um, it's gonna
happen.
I, because, like the, thebenefits of regenerative
agriculture are massive foreverybody.

(42:34):
Everybody wins, basically, theanimals win, the consumer wins,
the farmer wins.
The animals have improvedwelfare, the consumer has more
nutrient-dense food, the farmerdecreased costs.
There's a crazy stat If youlook at corn produced 50, 100
years ago or whatever, the yieldhas increased dramatically, but

(42:54):
the profit per acre hasplummeted.
So, basically the farmers.
They are required to get biggerand bigger and do more and more
acres just to scrape by becausethe profitability per acre is
so low.
Like when they first introducedfertilizer, nitrogen, urea, like
the, the increased yield thatit gave you was great for the
farmer.
Urea or nitrogen was cheap.

(43:15):
The increase in yield was great.
Farmers made more money, butover time, the cost of the
fertilizer and the herbicidesand the pesticides and
everything else that arerequired now, because you
started down this road, allthose inputs costs have
increased to the point whereit's like, yeah, you're not
really making much money.
It dramatically benefits thefarmer as well to move towards

(43:36):
So I'm convinced that it'sgoing to happen, even without
people pushing it forwards,because it makes so much sense
and as soon as some people startcracking that code, farmers
will learn from each other andcustomers will appreciate those
products.
So it'll be clear that there'sdemand for it.
It's just a matter of time.

(43:58):
People need to do thoseexperiments and run those.
Then farmers need to learn fromeach other.

I'm convinced it's going to happen.
You alluded to this earlierwhere you were saying that
everything has shifted towardsspecialization.
It's not just in agriculture,like that's happened kind of
everywhere in industry.
So, and then you said it's it'salmost required that you be
more of a generalist in theregenerative space.
And then also the requirementthat at least for soil health,

(44:29):
having having animals involved,right, that that so like if
people are just monocropping oryou already mentioned sort of
the uh, the beef like track thathappens in a regular commercial
sense there's like three hopsfrom or three different farmers
involved.
So I feel like at some pointit's probably going to have to

(44:49):
be like diversification amongstthese big groups that are really
specialized, where it's likewe're going to need, we're going
to need some cattle over herejust to start doing anything for
the soil, where it doesn't seemlike it can happen
independently of each other andI don't necessarily know that
that's a bad thing that there'sgoing to need to be
collaboration.

I think it's going to be a requirement kind
of going forward collaborationis a key word because, like, one
push will be towardsgeneralization for farmers, but
these huge farms that have theirhands full just with their silo
of of product that they'reproducing, collaboration will be
key to to grow in the, theregenerative space in that

(45:30):
direct for those kind of farmsas well, where, like you you'll
have in areas where, like, allyou see is cash crop and
monocrop, monocrops and stufflike that, there'll be such a
demand for some animals tosomebody to produce beef in that
area.
Because if everybody startsseeing the benefits of cover
cropping and having animalsgraze that and what it does to
the soil health, then, like atthe start, if people are

(45:51):
desperate enough, basically thatbeef farmer can almost feed his
cows for free, like they'll beamazing for the, for the beef
farmer.
So, like, then it's like it'llintroduce these, these
collaborations, like you said,where, yeah, like where all the
different farmers can benefitwith from each other and, uh,
now I feel like that is thedirection that agriculture is

(46:12):
going to go, that's's where thefuture is heading.

Good, okay, so I think we've hammered that, this
side of regenerative agricultureas far as like from your side
of it.
Essentially, I'd like to shifta little bit towards the
consumer side.
You've already mentioned thatconsumers are just going to buy
the cheapest thing, right?
So I'd love to hear from yourperspective, as far as like
finding buyers from a marketingperspective, what are your
biggest hurdles?
What can people be doing tohelp drive this in a better

(46:43):
direction from a consumerstandpoint?
Just kind of understanding.
I understand or hopefully wehave a better understanding of
how things need to shift on theindustry side.
What about on the consumer side?
Like where, where do you thinkthings need to happen?
Where can initiatives be takenby the people who are in a
position to make that moveearlier?
Right, obviously, foodinsecurity is a huge issue, at

(47:06):
least here in America, whereit's like one out of eight
people are food insecure.
So they're probably not thepeople who are going to be
driving the shift towardsregenerative agriculture from a
consumer standpoint, but thereare plenty of people here who do
have money and can afford it.
So I'd love to know from yourperspective, like where do
consumer behaviors need tochange?

Yeah, the beautiful thing about this
change from the consumerperspective is that they have a
tool that's so powerful and sosimple to follow, and that is by
leveraging supply and demand tocreate change.
It is the most powerful way tocreate change in agriculture.
It's not by posting angrycomments on social media, it's

(47:51):
not by protesting at thegovernment gates.
It's simply by using your fooddollars to vote for the
agriculture system that you wantto see in the future.
It's that simple and it's so,so powerful.
Because once farmers that areproducing and making, doing
these or stretching out andtrying to make these initiatives

(48:12):
and create these healthier,newer products, they're rewarded
for that.
Well then other farmers will,will copy that, they'll learn
from that, and also the farmersthat started it, they'll grow.
So it's like they're, they'refarming like.
For me, for example, it'll growwithin my own operation as far
as like how much of it isregenerative versus commercial.

(48:34):
But it would also allow me to toprofit and do well, to the
point where I can just grow mywhole farm.
My whole farm can grow, and then, and then neighbors will notice
that, like this, he's tryingthese crazy things, but he's, he
seems to be doing well, so thenthey'll start asking questions
and they'll start adopting someof these practices as well.
So, like it's really it's.

(48:54):
It's crazy how much power theconsumer really truly has,
whereas, instead of saying Iwant the cheapest thing, I don't
care if it's 5 cents cheaper, Ijust want the cheapest thing
versus I want the best thing formy health, I want the thing
that's going to give me a lot ofthe vitality that I'm after and
that'll allow me to raise mykids in a healthy way.
If you start changing what youprioritize when you're grocery

(49:17):
shopping, that is the biggestand most powerful impact that
you can have on agriculture andthat's what I always try to
drive home to people is it isvery, very powerful the impact
that you can have just throughsupply and demand have just

(49:37):
through supply and demand.

So is that?
Do you have any tips on peoplebeing able to identify, um,
where their food dollars shouldbe going?
Because most people are justgoing to be going to a grocery
store, right?
Is there easy things that youcan point out to be
understanding?
Like this is going.

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 gavewhen it comes to grocery store
is like you eat the whole foods,83 of the grocery store is
highly processed junk and youwant to avoid those.
That's not rocket science.
But beyond that, um, once you,once you make that big leap to

(50:12):
for your health, yeah, then youstart 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.
Those are all benefits towardsyour health and, and typically
towards soil health as well,because they go hand in hand the
health of the food and thehealth of the soil and the

(50:32):
health for your own body.
It all comes together.
But unfortunately, there's onlyso far you can go in a grocery
store because you're relying onlabels, and labels are usually
started and initiated with thebest intentions.
But over time, what alwayshappens is that once you have a
label, you have a list ofcriteria that the farmer needs

(50:55):
to follow and within those listsof criteria there's always
loopholes and you end up havingfood that's produced with not
necessarily the goals that theinitial people had in mind when
they created this label, andthat will always happen.
So the best thing you can dowhen you really want

(51:15):
regenerative food of any sort isto buy it directly from a
farmer.
Have a relationship with afarmer, get to know the farmer,
whether it be through socialmedia or directly by shaking his
hand.
That is the truest way toensure that your products are
produced in a way that you wantfood to be produced.
That's the way you wantagriculture to.
To produce food in the futureis by actually buying it

(51:38):
directly from the farmer andthen, like, the farmer benefits
more that way too, becausethere's less people in the
middle and so like there's lesspeople with their hands in the
pockets trying to make a littleprofit here and there.

Is there a good website that like aggregates a
lot of regenerative farms, or isit just kind of looking in your
area?
Obviously we're going to linkto your website in the show
notes and description, but isthere are there any resources
you can point to or any otherfarms you know like?
I'm not sure if it's kind ofpointing people to the
competition, but are there anyother good farms that you know

(52:11):
of that you want to shout out?

if not, no problem no, absolutely like, um,
like from the consumer'sperspective.
There's some very easy placesyou can start, like the farmers
markets they're.
Most cities have farmersmarkets.
That's a great place to start.
You can get to know somefarmers that go there and you
can even ask those farmers whoelse they know that can produce
a product that you're lookingfor that they don't.
They mean they maybe don.

(52:33):
Like.
Farmer's market is a good placeto start.
It's really easy.
But if you don't want to spendthe time shopping in a farmer's
market, you can use businesseslike ButcherBox or True Local is
something that is available inour area.
Nicu Farms, I think, is anotherone that started up.
They source from farmers thatare usually doing things like

(52:55):
organic or grass fed, or you canchoose, basically on their
shopping uh website what kind ofthings that you would like.
That's a good place to start,but like, this is still not
perfect, but it's a step abovethe grocery store, because now
there's only at least one stepbetween your food and the person
who produced it.
But like, ultimately, um, justdoing a quick Google search will

(53:17):
get you surprisingly far.
If you Google grass-fed meatnear me, you're likely going to
find a regenerative farmer nearyou, and then you can contact
them.
And then the same thing again.
If he doesn't produceeverything that you like, or
doesn't produce it in a way, youcan always ask him who else do
you know that produces food thisway, or also produces this
product that you don't provide?
Who else do you recommend thatdoes things in a regenerative

(53:40):
way?
So like that's uh, that's areal easy way to kind of.
You have to do a little moreresearch, you have to reach out
to these, to these farmers, butthey'd be more than happy to
explain how they produce theirfood, who else they know?
And and then, uh, and then thenalso you can search on social
media.
So you can search on instagramand tiktok or whatever social
media you like, youtube, and youcan find farms.

It's just they might not be as local to you as
if you were to do a googlesearch, but, uh, but you can get
really far that way too yeah,farmers markets are great and
one of the other things I wantto call out is, at least here in
phoenix, I'm sure, once yousort of start looking at these
things, you start getting moreplugged into that scene.
You start discovering, oh,there's actually a lot of
options that do make itconvenient, because it can be

(54:23):
annoying to be like, oh, I getmy meat and eggs from the
farmer's market, that I need togo to the grocery store to get
all the vegetables that I want,but at least here in Phoenix
there is a group that doesaggregation from a bunch of the
farms for produce and then youcan just shop bags that you want
.
You can be like I get a $25weekly bag, I get a $35 weekly
produce bag and you knowapproximately what's going to be

(54:46):
in there, and then you caneither get it delivered or you
can pick it up at the farmer'smarket, so you don't need to go
around shopping picking up allthese things.
It's a quick pickup servicethat they offer and they
aggregate these things from abunch of different farms.
So once you start looking intothese things, you start
discovering it's like there area lot of people working to make
this more accessible to themasses, not necessarily at the

(55:07):
grocery store level ofconvenience, but at least one
step closer than having to goindividually source all these
things by yourself.
But yeah, farmer's market is agreat option.
Hey, everyone, that's all fortoday's show.
I want to thank you so much forstopping by and watching,
especially if you've made it allthe way to this point.
If you'd like to be notifiedwhen new episodes are going to

(55:27):
be released, feel free tosubscribe, and make sure you hit
the bell button as well.
To learn more about today'sguest, feel free to look in the
description.
You can also visit the podcastwebsite, which is
exploringhealthpodcastcom.
That website will also belinked in the description.
As always, likes, shares,comments are a huge help to me
and to this channel and to theshow.

(55:47):
So any of that you can do Iwould really appreciate.
And again, thank you so muchfor watching.
I'll see you next time.

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