November 7, 2024 • 51 mins
Joni Kindwall-Moore welcomes Merlin Yockstick to discuss his extensive educational publishing background and innovative contributions to regenerative agriculture. Born and raised on a small family farm in Iowa, Merlin shares his transformative journey from the educational sector to spearheading regenerative initiatives across the United States. His career shift from publishing to sustainable development exemplifies a lifelong commitment to learning and adaptation, reflecting on historical agricultural practices and forward-thinking soil and community health strategies.
Key Points Discussed:
- Early Life and Career Shifts: Merlin's upbringing in Iowa, his initial career in education, and his pivot to publishing educational materials focused on state history, which later influenced his approach to regenerative agriculture.
- Innovative Educational Materials: Development of interactive, multimedia educational programs that diverged from traditional textbooks, which set a new standard across the industry.
- Return to Iowa and Sustainable Development: After successful ventures in publishing, Merlin returned to Iowa to address the challenges of modern agriculture and its impact on community health and soil degradation.
- Regenerative Agriculture Initiatives: Details of Merlin’s current projects, including statewide and national efforts to promote sustainable farming practices that enhance soil health and food quality.
Links:
Connect with Merlin Yockstick:
LinkedIn: Merlin Yockstick
Quotes:
- "We don't really retire; we transition to work on things we're passionate about." — Merlin Yockstick
- "Education is not just about filling a bucket, but lighting a fire." — Joni Kindwall-Moore
Conclusion: Merlin's work encapsulates the essence of regenerative design by integrating historical insights with innovative solutions to restore ecological and community health. His story is a testament to the power of lifelong learning and adaptation in facing global challenges.
Call to Action: Listeners are encouraged to explore regenerative agriculture more and consider how they can support sustainable practices in their communities.
*****
Regenerative by Design is hosted by Snacktivist. Snacktivist creates baking mixes and finished products that are allergy-friendly, soil, water, and carbon-focused, all while radically impacting human nutrition by transforming staple foods into something more than just empty calories. Visitsnacktivistfoods.com to learn more.
Funding for the Regenerative By Design Podcast was made possible by a grant/cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service. Its contents are solely the authors' responsibility and do not necessarily represent the official views of the USDA.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Joanna, hello, everyone. You arelistening to the regenerative by
(00:04):
design podcast where we will begetting to the root of health,
climate, economics and food. Iam your host. Joni quinwell
Moore, join me on this journeyas we explore the stories of
individuals and organizationswho are working to realign our
food system with both humanhealth and the health of our
planet. Welcome everybody. I'mso glad you're here with us
(00:24):
today on the regenerative bydesign podcast, I have a
fantastic guest today that I'vereally gotten to know over this
last year because of hisincredible story and passion for
building regenerative systems.And so if you're a listener of
our podcast, you know thatdesign thinking, and how we
actually apply design thinkingto build regenerative systems is
(00:46):
is a key and often overlookedpiece of the puzzle as we
transition the world to thismodel that aligns food and
agriculture with human healthoutcomes that are positive and
climate resiliency. So Merlinyog stick, thank you for joining
us, and I'm so happy to have youhere today.
What a delight to be here aswell. And of course, what a
(01:08):
delight to get to know you overthe past year or so that we've
been talking and dialoguing. Sothis is a real treat. And thank
you for inviting me. Yeah, yeah.
We're overdue, because Iremember the first time I really
heard your story, I thoughtwe've got to get you on the
podcast and and tell the storyso we can share it and others
(01:28):
can be inspired by your life'swork and what you're doing right
now at this point in your life.So Merlin, like I love that you
grew up in Iowa and that you arenow back in Iowa, like Iowa has
a real special place in myheart, as I've told you, because
my dad was born and raised in avery small town in rural Iowa,
Albert city, and I spent a lotof time there growing up as a
(01:51):
kid, and I just have a heart forthe people of Iowa and the
communities of Iowa, and from Anagricultural perspective, boy,
Iowa is like, literally, anincredible agricultural
powerhouse. However, a lot ofthat has been really exploited.
So tell us a little bit aboutyour upbringing and and just
(02:12):
your life story and how you cameback to be in Iowa passionate
about serving the people ofIowa.
Where do I start there? I mean,obviously, born in Iowa in the
late 40s, quite frankly. Sothat'll tell you how old I am,
and grew up in a small familyfarm. The Last of five kids went
(02:36):
to a one room country school forthe first four years of my
education, which was quiteinteresting. It's kind of like
the Little House on the Prairiestory. Well, I kind of lived it
only as a boy and with ourfamily. So I got the best, as I
(02:57):
now have realized, I got thebest that Iowa had to offer back
then, small state, a flyoverstate, as we all know. I mean,
that's the Iowa, Idaho, Ohiosyndrome that you and I are
connected to. Whatever thatstate is. Yeah, nobody knows
where they are. No, it's outthere somewhere, exactly. But
(03:21):
anyway, so I got my start on asmall family farm around third,
fourth grade, my parents decidedto sell the farm because, quite
frankly, they could not feed andtake care of five kids. You
know, just farming back then. Sothey bought a business in a
small town locally, and we movedinto a big town of almost 1000
(03:47):
people back then, but it wasstill very much. Yeah, it
definitely was culture shock inone sense, and yet it was just
kind of a natural transition towhat rural Iowa was all about,
still, everything very closelyconnected a real community, the
(04:08):
kinds of things that we're all,I think, looking for today to
get back to. So I grew up in asmall town, get an education,
got a degree at the Universityof Northern Iowa. Started out
with business because I thoughtthat's what I wanted to do, but
then realized that I reallywanted to work with kids and
(04:32):
decided to change my major,which I did as I look back now,
it was all part of the designand divine plan that I was on,
and continue to be on, I taughtone year and realized that that
was not actually for me. While Iloved working with the kids,
between the parents and theadministration, it was not so
(04:55):
much fun, so I had anopportunity to go to work for.
An educational publishingcompany, and they were selling
Iowa history materials. Iapplied for that job, was hired,
and so 1971 1972 I'm on theroad, calling on every
(05:17):
elementary school in the state,introducing them to some
supplemental curriculummaterials that we had. And while
I was making all of thosecontacts at the schools, I
realized that there was atremendous need for more
adequate materials to studyabout Iowa, Iowa history, Iowa
geography. The textbook wasabout 25 years old, and by every
(05:39):
school I called on and said,Look, your company needs to
publish a new book for it. Oursis falling apart. We need an
update. And this is our state.The kids need to know about
their state. After I heard thatabout the 100th time, I said,
Okay, maybe I need to payattention here. So I put my
creative hat on, looked at thetextbook and said, well, first
(06:01):
of all, that's not a good way toteach kids read the chapter and
answer the questions at the end,which is the way I was taught
Iowa history. Not only was itnot any fun, but it didn't
really teach kids anything otherthan to memorize facts and
concepts. And it was prettyboring because the teacher was,
you know, doing all of theteaching up front, and we had to
(06:22):
follow along as best as we can.So make a long story short, I
decided to reinvent the textbookfor the social sciences, and I
created a hands on interactivemultimedia, multi discipline
approach that I knew was thebest way to teach kids and the
best way for kids to learn.However, it did not look like a
(06:45):
book. And so every publisherthat I took it to, in fact,
including the company that I wasworking for, they said, What is
this? Yeah, no, which is, ofcourse, what we're doing here in
terms of farm food and ag, butso this will blend in later on.
(07:07):
But anyway, I had one choice,and that was to give up on my
idea or publish it on my own.Fortunately, I was married at
the time, and my wife suggestedthat I do that. So we took what
money we had saved the previousyears for my educational sales,
published this Iowa book, orthis Iowa studies program, and
(07:29):
it was very successful in Iowa.I then started taking it to
other states, and here again,make another long story short, I
spent about the next 20 yearsdesigning state studies programs
for all 50 states, the provincesof Canada. Did very, very well
and but the late 80s, I hadevery publishing company in the
(07:54):
business trying to buy mebecause we had literally led the
entire industry with thisprogram that really preceded
them the benefits of thecomputer. I didn't know that at
the time, but we were usinggraphic, you know, teaching kids
with pictures, graphs, charts,narrative, teaching them reading
(08:17):
and comprehension and criticalthinking skills and all that
kind of stuff built into oneprogram. Thus, the teachers
loved it. The kids reallylearned a lot, and it became a
standard for the entireindustry. And I ended up selling
that company in 1990 and wrote abook, and then started a couple
(08:39):
of other companies since then,and basically between 25 and the
age of 50, I built and startedthree different companies, sold
them all, and I have beenretired since, since that time,
but you've been a
busy, retired guy. I have been
anybody that retires to knowthat you don't really retire. I
(09:03):
mean, if you've got any spunk ofenergy or life in you, that's
when you really go to work. Butyou go to work on things that
you really care about and thatyou have passion for well,
and you establish that the loveof learning is every bit as
important, is the content andthe delivery. And you know, when
you're teaching kids to learn,to love, to learn, I mean,
(09:25):
that's like a mindset, you know?And I feel like your your
materials probably had thatheart in place, like was like,
learning should be fun. Learningis a lifetime endeavor, and it
never stops, not it, not whenyou get done with school, not
when you retire. Learning is alifelong endeavor. It should be
fun.
Yeah, it is. And of course,right now we're probably
(09:47):
learning way too fast to evencomprehend some of the things
that we're learning given, youknow, there's so much
information out there, and yougotta, you know, dig through
what really is important, whatis true anymore. Or in today's
world, that
can be hard.
Yeah, it can be hard, but you'reabsolutely right. I mean, I
(10:09):
think that's what life is allabout, learning even our
failures, our learningexperiences. And think most of
society is woken up to the factthat we really don't fail. We
just have a door that may getclosed on us or something
doesn't work out the way wethought it was going to work
out. But if we don't take itpersonal and stay focused on
(10:34):
what it is we thought we had orwhat we could do, then another
door will open and you look backand you say, okay, that failure
was really about a step that Ineeded to learn that I wasn't
aware of. And so now I can addthat to my, you know, resume, if
you will, and take my idea toanother step and another level,
(10:54):
absolutely
and keep your eye on the prize,like the big picture.
Yes,
that's awesome. So you know,you, you've lived in a lot of
different places through allthese adventures. I know you've
spent a lot of time in Colorado,California, but you came back to
Iowa. Like, when did that happenand what motivated you to move
(11:15):
back to Iowa?
Yeah, well, to go back to my thestory that I just told you, when
I saw that the publishingbusiness that I had started was
going to take off, my wife and Iheaded to Boulder, Colorado
immediately. I mean, truthfully,we did not want to get stuck in
Iowa. We just had bigger visionsand dreams, and we had fallen in
(11:36):
love with Colorado from theskiing, and I used to be in a
folk group, and we used to havean agent back there, so we got
booked there a lot of timesduring the spring breaks and
holiday vacations and summerbreaks. And so fell in love with
with Colorado, as so many peoplehave and do once they visit the
state. So from like 1974 to 2004I lived in Boulder and got
(12:03):
boulderized, as they say, whichthere was always this joke back
then that it was 26 milessurrounded by reality, because
that's a good Boulder, really.Yeah, Boulder really was, you
know, speaking of thinking outof the box. That's what Boulder
is about. And it really was aMecca, a lot like Portland,
(12:28):
Oregon, kind of like Austin,Texas, some places back in
Massachusetts and so forth.North Carolina, another, another
community or state with with alot of aggressive and
progressive people and thinkers.But anyway, Boulder treated me
very well, because all three ofthe businesses that I started
(12:50):
really took off there, and so Ithe night in 2004 I kind of
figured, okay, enough ofBoulder. Maybe it is time for me
to get in touch with reality orwhat was going on in the rest of
the world. And always kind ofwanted to live in in California,
so I picked up and moved toCalifornia. Initially, moved to
(13:15):
LA, and that lasted about 90days because there was nothing
in LA that I could relate to, nonature, no mountains or anything
like that, and way too muchtraffic. So I started looking
around where I wanted to live,and I decided actually to move
(13:38):
to Phoenix for a few years. Thatworked out well in the winter
time, not so much in thesummertime. And
summer, Phoenix is pretty rough.It's it's brutal,
and even more so today, as weare, you know, dealing with
global warming and so forth. Soanyway, ended up in Northern
(14:01):
California, just north of thebay, and thought that's probably
where I was gonna hang up myspurs. I had a mountain in the
backyard and an ocean in thefront yard, and that was a cool
place to live, yeah, but itreally is about that time, this
was like 2010 I was livingthere, and what took me back to
(14:24):
Iowa, this will answer yourquestion, is I got a call from a
friend of mine who actuallylived in San Diego, and he said,
You got to take a look at thiscompany or this organization
called the world, the WorldBusiness Council for Sustainable
Development. I had not heard ofthem before. When I first went
on and checked them out, Ithought, why would I want to be
(14:46):
associated with these guys?These are the bad guys. They're
all multi billion dollarcorporations. They own the
world. And then as I lookeddeeper and saw what they had
created, which was a vision. For2050 starting in 2010 a four
decade process of using businessto design, speaking of design
(15:10):
work to design a world thatcould work for everybody in
their vision, by 2050 we wouldlive in a world where there is
no waste, where there was plentyof food for everybody. Economics
worked for everybody, kind ofthis blissful world that we had
in in mind back in Boulder. AndI thought, well, maybe these
(15:32):
guys are not the bad guys afterall. So I started looking into
them further. And because I wasnot far from, from Stanford, I
found out that one of thepersons in charge of all of the
graphics that they had designedwas in Stanford, and so I
reached out to him, connectedwith him, and here again, with
(15:54):
my publishing background, whichwas based on A highly graphic
approach, we put our headstogether and decided that we
needed to develop a K 12curriculum around this world
design that the Business Councilhad put together. So we started
working on that, and at somepoint, he knew the president
(16:17):
quite well, and he got thepresident on the phone, and we
told him what we wanted to do,and the President liked the
idea. And he said, so how muchmoney do you need? And we said,
Well, we think we need about tenmillion and little relay on the
phone. But he said, Okay, guys.He said, get me a proposal. And
(16:40):
he said, I'll find you the 10million so that in then, along
at that same time, the state ofIowa had elected a new governor,
and one of the things that hewas focusing on was education
reform. When I graduated fromhigh school, and for many, many
years, Iowa was number one ineducation across the country,
(17:02):
the Iowa Test of Basic Skillswas used by every state to test
their kids. So we were thestandard, because we were number
one, and thus we got a reallyquality education with our
public education back then. Sowith all of those factors coming
(17:24):
together, I went back to Iowa,had a meeting with the
Department of Education. Turnedout that they had just hired a
new department head, ironically,from Colorado, I shared with him
my idea along with Stanford'sidea, and he loved it, and so we
(17:45):
started down that road puttingthat together. However, the
governor's commitment toeducation reform, I found out,
was really a political ploy. Hehad no interest, nor did the
legislature have any interest infunding it. So ultimately, my
(18:05):
friend from Colorado with theDepartment of Education there
resigned, went back to Colorado,and so my idea and vision of
what we could do with anenvironmental K 12 program died.
But here I was back in my homestate, and what I realized in
the times that I had beenvisiting is that it was not the
(18:28):
same state that I left after 40,nearly 50 years. So much had
changed in the state, primarilydue to the way we do
agriculture, conventional AG,had come in and taken over. You
know, the small communities weredying. In fact, many of them had
already died. Big corporateAmerica came in, took over and
(18:52):
did to what we have done. Wehave seen happen all across
rural America. And I just, youknow, could not believe my eyes.
Shortly after that time, theGovernor did launch a really
great program that I gotinvolved with called the
healthiest state initiative.Here we are, I don't know we're
(19:13):
24th or 25th in the nation atthat time, and the governor and
a few key business execs in thestate said, Hey, we need to
create a goal that I will becomenumber one in the nation. And
they set a goal of doing itwithin five years. Well, five
years later, not only did theynot go forward, they went
(19:37):
significantly backwards. And asI then was put on the healthiest
state committee for a number ofyears, and watched how they were
leading that I realized thatthey were completely missing the
boat. They was trying to fixhealthcare with healthcare. And
as you know, better thananybody, having spent many years
in the healthcare business,that's. Never going to happen.
(20:03):
So when I you know, when thelight bulb started going off, I
said the real issue is not abouthealth care. The real issue is
about the soil and the food thatwe're growing or not growing,
the health of that food, the waywe're practicing agriculture,
the quality of the water in thestate and, of course, across the
(20:25):
country and the world. And Isaid, until we fix the soil and
get healthy soil back again,we're only going to continue to
get worse and more sick andnever go forward in healthcare.
So anyway, at that point. Thisis around 2015, now, and I
realized that I cannot let go ofthis idea. One, I think I have
(20:47):
some some solutions. Andsecondly, it's like, if the you
have an idea and somebody needsto create the change for it, you
know it's like, if not me, who?Right? So I said, Okay, I guess
it's me. And while I have noclue as to how I'm gonna go
(21:08):
about this, it's like any thingyou start, you just take that
first step, and then you takethe second and you you figure it
out. We talked about that wayyou're raising your kids. Yeah,
it just unfolds.
It unfolds. You have to takeinitiative and start somewhere
and figure it out as you go.Yeah, exactly.
So. Anyway, I then about thattime, was invited to an event
(21:33):
that took place in Irvine,California. It was a global game
changing conference, and therewere 25 of us that had been
selected to participate in thatbecause we had all had global,
game changing ideas, at least,determined by the people that
put the event together. So inMay of 2015 I put my stake in
the ground and I said, Okay,here's what I'm doing. I'm
(21:55):
building a model in agriculture,soil, food, ag and health for
the rest of the country, I thinkI was the perfect place to do
it, because we're 1% of thepopulation. I learned
metaphysically that if youchange 1% of anything, it's a
matter of time before the entirething will change and get on
board or become transformed. Sothat had some meaning for me,
(22:21):
and also, given my experience inpublishing, I realized that if
my idea would work in Iowa, itwould work any place across the
country. So that's what took meback there. That's what kept me
back here. I had no intention ofmoving back because I really
love Colorado and California andthe Northwest where you live,
(22:41):
and all of those kinds ofthings. But I have been here,
and now, as you know, ourstatewide initiative here is now
a 50 state initiative, and we'retalking with you and some of
your people about that. And ofcourse, as you also know, a
(23:02):
couple of years I got connectedto the World Food Bank out in
Denver with my good friendRichard lackey, saw what he was
doing in Africa. We, we
met one of these days too. Yeah,
no, definitely have to get himon because, you know, he, he
shares the vision that you and Ido, and is really doing some
(23:26):
great things around the country.And so now we're we're helping
him focus on the US, becausewhen he and I connected about
two and a half years ago, he'stold me, he said, I want to do
the same thing here in the USthat I'm doing in Africa,
because we're having such asuccess with your generative ag
and raising people out ofpoverty, like a million and a
(23:48):
half people out of poverty ayear, with their their
television program, andeverything else that they're
doing. And so I said, Well,strategy, I think your model at
the top, along with my model atthe bottom, in the middle is
where we can probably get a lotof traction and make a lot of
change you and I probably needto talk about that, that middle,
(24:09):
because that's that's whereyou're at, and a number of
things that you're talkingabout. But anyway, we started
down this road a little over twoand a half years ago, and now
we're really starting to crankup. And as you know, little over
a year ago, we birthed the farmhero project, which is a mass
(24:31):
marketing campaign. So we couldtalk a little bit about that
when we think we
definitely, yeah, we need tohave, like, a whole session to
unpack the farm HERO program,because it is a it's a big deal,
and it's a really importantinitiative. And you know,
honestly, I love that it, it'spart of that iteration process
of you coming back to Iowaseeing that there's a major
(24:55):
disconnect between soil health,human health, and. And economics
in rural communities inparticular. And you know how we
start bringing that narrativeall together? Because we
literally can't solve this usingany reductionistic focus on one
piece of that puzzle, like italways fails when we don't look
at the whole the holism of ofthat, of that riddle. And you
(25:19):
know, so many, every ruralcommunity really is in the same
position when it comes to this.And I, I love Iowa being ground
zero for a number of reasons.Also, one that you didn't touch
on is the fact that Iowa hasincredible, you know, has had
some of the richest soil everanywhere in the world. I mean,
historically, it's unparalleledas far as perfection when it
(25:42):
comes to AG, it gets greatrainfall. It has beautiful
native soils, but as we know,those soils have been horribly
eroded, and the soil degradationin Iowa is significant. But
because of this beautifulrainfall, it has great power to
restore very, very quickly.
Yeah, no, absolutely. And ofcourse, I saw some of those
(26:05):
things again when I saw that.You know, what could possibly be
done from what it had beendegraded to? So what you just
pointed out its rich history?Yeah, the fact that, ironically,
conventional ag really got itsstart in this state. The Cradle
of it all was between Des Moinesand Coon Rapids, Iowa. Our
(26:29):
second episode of farm hero, wefilmed Liz Garst and her
partner, Darwin, telling theirstory, because Liz's history,
her grandfather, Roswell Garstworked with Henry Wallace, who
really started the first plant,new plant genetics, and helping
(26:53):
farmers increase their yieldwith hybrid seed development. So
that all got started right here,and then when synthetic
fertilizer came in, it lookedlike a really positive boom to
provide that extra fertilizer,to get that extra yield. But
now, of course, that fertilizer,along with the pesticides, the
(27:16):
herbicides, all of those othersides, which actually kills the
microbiome rather than restoreit. So it's just gone as far as
it can go, and thus the birth ofregenerative AG,
correct? I love that because,you know, I always try to be
careful to not wrong the leadersof innovation in agriculture
(27:39):
that we're responding to theneed to feed a starving world
after World War Two. I mean, itwas the global hunger epidemic
at that time was wasunbelievable, and fertilizers
and the modern Green Revolutiontype methodology offered, like a
lot of hope to people, but wedidn't understand the
externalities. We didn'tunderstand the long term
(27:59):
ramifications. Because, quitefrankly, nobody had ever done it
before. So as you said, that'swhere we're at now, like we've
we've capped out theproductivity we can get with
that model, and that is what isreally leading to this whole
regenerative transformation thatwe're seeing now, where we're
starting to understand, Okay, dowe need to keep putting stuff
(28:21):
into the soil instead? Why don'twe utilize what's already there?
Why don't we work with nature totry to really restore all those
natural buffer systems, the soilmicrobiome, and create a more
balanced and holistic model thatstill produces high yield, high
productivity agriculture, butnot at the expense of our health
(28:41):
and soil health. So it'sabsolutely a beautiful story,
the story of regeneration, forthose of us who are all like
sipping the Kool Aid, and we'realready on the wagon like I
think everybody, by and large,across the board, that I know in
this movement, is like in lovewith the story and the hope that
regenerative agriculture reallyprovides for us as we look into
(29:02):
kind of a grim long term picturefor the planet with everything
that's going on. But there'sstill this massive need for
storytelling, high qualitystorytelling, and the
humanization of what's happeningin the regenerative movement.
Um, there's definitely a hugepropensity, and I'm one of those
people like, I get reallyexcited about the science and
that the agronomics and all ofthe kind of nitty gritty detail
(29:24):
of of regenerative Ag, and thatdoesn't translate out into the
wide world of people who don'twork in this world. And what you
guys are doing at Farm hero, andI'm going to have you take a
minute to really deep dive aboutwhat farm hero is. Is it really
rehumanizes the story, it putsthe people and the story of the
people and the nature and thefood right in the center of the
(29:46):
story. And everybody can relateto that. Because, you know, food
is, is life. I mean, we all eat.It's a part, critical part of
the human experience. And to rehumanize the eating experience
through the lens of regenerativeagriculture and the lens of
healthy. Nutrient dense food isis very, very powerful, and I
feel like it's exactly what weneed. We've learned that through
(30:06):
kiss the ground and commonground, that's been a world wake
up call and other great moviesand shows that are out there,
like farmers footprint. I knowall those folks really well, and
it's been incredible. Andthere's a need to really
continue this so we can get thestory out. So I take a few
minutes, Marlon, and walk usthrough how you and Richard came
up with the concept of farmhero. And you know where you're
(30:29):
at now. What are your needs?Because I've seen, I've gotten
to see a lot of sneak peeks ofthis, and I know your crew, and
it's I'm so excited for this toget out. So let our audience
know all about it, and then letthem know what they can do to
help
where it got started. I mean,when Richard and I first started
talking, he shared with me thesuccess that they were having in
(30:51):
Africa. But truthfully, thelight bulb had not gone off in
my head that we needed to dothat immediately in the US. So I
spent about a year, year and ahalf, going to a lot of Farmer
to Farmer events. My good friendLiz Haney puts on an excellent
(31:12):
event, actually, back here inIowa, called the soil health
event. Ironically, she puts iton in Cedar Falls, which is
where I got my education degree.So it kind of takes me back home
every time I go to one of herevents. And it was actually
following her lead, and some ofthe great things that she was
(31:32):
doing with a lot of regenerativeag farmers that led me down this
path. And I went to, I don'tknow how many of her events and
when the light bulb went off inregards to farm hero, was
actually in Nebraska. I washeaded back to Iowa, and I just
(31:53):
attended one of her events, andthere was about 100 farmers
there. And for whatever reason,as I'm driving back in my own
little world with, you know, afew hours of windshield time, it
just dawned to me that goingthat direction was not moving,
not only not moving the needle,but we were never going to get
(32:16):
there. 100 farmers at a time.300 farmers at a time was not
cutting it. It's not to say thatthose events are not valuable,
because they are to the farmers.They learn something from them,
and it's good. In fact, we needa lot of those going on all over
the country, all over the stateof Iowa, but at the same time, I
(32:38):
realized that we needed to be infront of millions of people,
millions of farmers, telling ourstory, telling the regenerative
ag story, plus, we needed tobring the consumer in to this
discussion as well, becausefarmers, as we all kind of know,
they're pretty slow to change.They've been doing their farming
(32:58):
practices the way they've beendoing them because their dad did
it that way and theirgrandfather did it that way. And
so why should I change or listenand look at something new? So
anyway, we were dealing withthat, and I was literally still
in the car. Had gotten hadcrossed the Missouri River into
(33:19):
Iowa, and I called Richard up,and I said, Richard, we have got
to take our story to the massmarket. Described a little of my
experience at that event, and Isaid, it's time we do what
you've been doing in Africa,your shamba Shape Up program. We
(33:40):
need to develop a televisioncampaign and really get our
story out there. And hisresponse was, okay, let's do it.
So we birthed the idea. Yeah,exactly. So we birthed the idea
at that point together, we spenta few weeks putting a deck
together our best ideastogether, we actually called our
(34:04):
first event, farm food X, thename that I actually came up
with that we kind of liked, butafter we thought about it a
little bit, Richard came up withthe idea farm hero, our third
partner, who is our host, Laurazaspel, who came along a number
(34:25):
of weeks later, but she likedthe idea. She had a partner that
was involved in the filming andmovie business and helped us
fund our idea. So that's how thethree of us came together from
the initial conception that Icreated, the birthing that
Richard and I put together. Andhere we are, a year later, with
(34:46):
nine episodes in the bank, so tospeak, and we're ready to go
national and global. And if ourproducers
beautifully made, they'rebeautiful like they're awesome.
Quality, great. Yeah. Greatmaterials.
They really are, and that's, youknow, to a testimony to the
producer that we got connectedwith an organization called
(35:10):
AMERICAN STORIES entertainmentout of Florida. If his
projections are correct, he sayswe will be in 100 million homes
by the first quarter of nextyear through our distribution.
So that's going to make, Ibelieve, a big difference. No,
that will be a big difference,because that is a lot of ears
(35:32):
and eyes that are feasting ondelicious food and like the
story of their fellow Americansworking like good, honest work
and go, Wow, we can have ourcake and eat it too. Like we can
have great food and greatAmerican salt to the earth
livelihoods, and we can actuallybe restoring planetary health
and soil health. And, you know,climate doom and gloom isn't
(35:55):
something we're stuck with. Likethat is a powerful story.
Yeah, it is. And of course, aswe back to the the idea of
learning, the way we learn, thekey to learning is repetition.
As we all know, it's likereading a book once while you
get something out of it, butusually not very much. If you
really want to get the depth ofwhat a book has to say, You got
(36:18):
to read it about three, four orfive, maybe six times, maybe
seven, actually, I think, is themagic number. And so that is
where we have to go with theconsumer and with the farmer.
It's like we got to be hit overthe head, you know, a number of
times before we finally feel thepain or we wake up, which was my
case with the whole farm heroidea. But so that's what we
(36:44):
believe we have to offer to themarketplace and to this great
change that we we so desperatelyneed for the climate and for the
economy and for the health ofnature, people, planet, and all
of those things. So that's doesall work
together. I mean, I think thatthat is like, literally, why
regenerative AG is like, andregenerative food systems is,
(37:06):
um, you know, people hear it andthey're like, oh my gosh, this
is like, too good to be true.And the reality is is actually,
the more we learn about it, thebetter it is, the truer is, the
more things that we start to seecoming out of it that we've not
even fully comprehended orunderstood yet, and we are going
to need that constant repetitionof getting that story out there
(37:29):
and telling the story of thepeople who are doing it, so that
consumers have a way to supportthe movement. I know that that's
been a constant source offrustration with many who are
working in this regenerativemovement is, there's a lot of it
happening in the field. There'svery little happening in the
market. I mean, it's likeemerging, but there's still a
(37:49):
fundamental disconnect. Like,and then consumers suddenly get
inspired about this regenerativeAG, story, but they don't really
know how to find it. Like, Ithink if you live in a rural
area, it's a little bit easier,because you can find a
regenerative ranch orregenerative farm, but maybe if
you live in a really urban area,you go to your local store down
the street and there's nothingregenerative on the shelves, and
(38:12):
there's a lot of confusionthere. So by creating that story
and helping connect the impact,it actually allows us to
catalyze the movement, becausethen we're aligning consumer
awareness and consumer spendingwith market development, which
then puts positive pressure ongrowing the agricultural side,
(38:34):
because at the end of the day,farmers will do what the market
tells them to do. And I grew uparound farming. I grew up
working on farms. My family hada very small farm, and the
reality is, is that even themost stubborn farmers will
change if the market puts enoughpressure on it to do so, um, you
know, like, if they're like,hey, all of my neighbors are
(38:55):
growing better food and they'remore profitable. Well, there you
go. There. You know that's goingto even make the most reluctant
farmers pay attention. And we doknow that that's a lot of how it
works.
Let me just add to that. And youand I have talked about this
before, one of the reasons I'mactually quite optimistic in
(39:17):
these times, especially inregards to food systems
transformation is that we areright now in a perfect storm.
Yeah, and the perfect storm Iwill describe is right now the
farmers back in Iowa and theMidwest and all across the
country are dealing with verylow commodity prices. I mean,
(39:38):
they're dealing with 350 centcorn sub profitability
like you are not profitable withthis market exactly,
need about $4.50 to $5 I'm told,to break even with their with
their corn. When it comes to soybeans, they need 10 to $12 per
bushel and soybean. Greens arehanging around 910, corns around
(40:03):
354, so the perfect storm isthat the only thing that farmers
really have control of is theircost of inputs. Obviously, they
can't control the weather. Theycan't control the pro the
commodity prices. They can'tcontrol what the consumer wants,
but they can control what theyput into their soil and the cost
(40:27):
of it. So right now, the farmersthat are doing conventional
farming used to spending $4.50to produce a $4 bushel of corn
have to rethink their model,because they have got to cut
down on their expenses orthey're going to go out of
business. So the perfect stormis to say, Okay, Mr. Farmer,
(40:50):
what if we could show you a wayto make money with $4 corn, or
maybe even $3 corn. I just didmy own farm here on action video
out here in Iowa a couple ofweeks ago, and I filmed an Amish
farmer that is growing organiccorn, but it turns out that he
(41:11):
had about $138 of input costs,compared to $450 per acre input
costs that most other farmershave, and so at $138 and and
with what he's going to be paidsomewhere in the neighborhood of
$6 for that organic corn,because he already had a pre
(41:32):
soul. But the point I'm tryingto make is that if we could show
every conventional farmer howthey could stay under $200 per
acre with all of their inputcosts. Thus, when corn is at
three and a half or four orfive, they can make some still
make a profit and make someserious dollars, and not be
(41:54):
looking at going out of businessor having their bank call them
up and say, Look, John, we can'tlend you any more money. You
know, in fact, we want yourfarm.
Yeah, exactly. And there'sanother thing that just has
really inspired me to rethinkthe values system, you know, the
Value channel system. So, like,all the things that create a
(42:16):
revenue stream for the farm, youknow, we have, like, the price
per Bucha, Bucha per acre. Butlike, you know, can we put a
price on soil health, waterconservation, reduction of
chemicals, biodiversity? Andthere's a lot of great work out
there. Most people are aware ofcarbon credits. It's kind of
part of this developing notionaround natural cap asset
capital. But then you look atthat too, where if a farmer is
(42:39):
like, Okay, I'm rethinking mystrategy. I'm reducing the cost
of my inputs, and through thatchange in strategy, I'm actually
able to get tax credits orcheaper, you know, cheaper
interest rates on my operatingloans, because I'm actually
proving that I'm doing things onmy farm that are adding value
beyond the bushels per acreadding value to water,
(43:04):
cleanliness, ecosystem health,erosion control, which saves
taxpayers a ton of money whenthey're not having to dredge the
waterways because of all thesoil running into the waterways.
How do we track that and thinkthat about that actually as a
financial transaction that canalso benefit farmers and
incentivize them to change theirfarming methodologies in ways
(43:26):
that have a lower cost ofexternalities, like all those
externalities, and that's awhole nother conversation we can
have on another session, butwe've, I'm really excited for
farm hero, and I'm going to justtake it back to that, because I
want Our audience who'slistening today to, you know, be
on the lookout for farm hero.And what are the last few things
that you guys need to do to getthat launched out there on
(43:49):
network, like on, you know,television where people can see
it. Where are you? Where areyou? And Richard at and Laura,
Well, right
now our producer is negotiatingcontracts. In fact, we're going
to be in Las Vegas next week atthe American Film conference,
and we will be in front ofdistributors. We've got some
(44:13):
major things in the works forseason two that I'm not at
luxury to present quite yet, butwe are looking at some very,
very exciting opportunities withSeason Two that will start after
the first of the year. But hereagain, fortunately, our producer
(44:35):
has a lot of contacts. They havea station of their own, and so
through those variousdistribution channels, that's
how we will end up in those 100million homes. And of course,
with the shows and the type ofsponsors that we are looking
for, obviously farm hero typesponsors that are producing.
(45:00):
Farm hero type goods that theywant the the rest of the
marketplace to know that they'reout there. We can help promote
those products. A lot of thesmall organizations that you're
looking to help build in themiddle, which is another piece I
want to kind of tie in here, isthat when Richard and I came
together, I looked at his topdown approach, presented my
(45:23):
bottom up approach, and said, inthe middle is where we will come
together, and we'll really getthe traction. We'll create that
balance between what currentlyexists and what needs to exist.
Well, lo and behold, here we aretalking to you, and that's
exactly what you're focused on.Is that that middle part of the
(45:43):
equation that we haven't gottento or figured out yet. Certainly
our government has not figuredthat out, and unfortunately, all
of us, whether we're consumersor farmers at the bottom, I
haven't figured that out either.So that's the brilliance that
you bring to the table, and thatRichard and I are really excited
about working with you and a lotof key people that you have
(46:05):
around you. So that's kind ofwhere we're going and what we're
calling and I'm this, I'm goingto be, you're going to be the
first interview that I'mannouncing what we're calling
regenerative, AG, 2.0 because itreally is a less expensive way
to farm. It's a carbon intensivefarming program. It's a carbon
(46:27):
based program that we'relaunching, and we've got some
really incredible materials thatwe've discovered with other
agribusiness companies thatwe're connecting to that can
lower the price of input coststhat all support nature. They're
all natural, and can help buildup healthy soils in that
(46:49):
microbiome. And we're literallycalling that regen, AG, 2.0
which is a version beyond thecurrent version, even though we
haven't been able to define whatour current version is, but here
we are moving to the to the 2.0and maybe to the 3.0 version on
down the road. But I'm happy toannounce that, because if any
(47:11):
farmers are listening and wantto know more about that, they
know how they can contact you orget back with us at Farm Herod,
we'd be happy to tell them aboutthat wonderful
Yeah, and thank you. I mean,most people who follow my work
are they know I'm the queen ofthe messy middle. It's like, how
do we really remove a lot ofthat friction so that we can
(47:32):
create a smooth, holistic cyclebetween supply and demand? And
it's the messy middle that getsin the way every time. And I
really feel like there's someways that we can navigate that
way more efficiently and muchmore cost effectively. We're
just not thinking about it. Wedon't think about we don't have
the right design thinking inplace, and we've ignored a lot
(47:53):
of the tools of the 21st centurythat make us able to navigate
complex markets moreeffectively. And so we'll have
to do another session and justtotally deep dive on that down
there, down the road. And it'sreally exciting. I love how all
of this work is coming togetherto really just supercharge up
this regenerative movement andand really leave a better future
(48:15):
and a better long term historythat will be written about what
we did today, instead of justdoom and gloom and we're
throwing it all away, there area lot of great people out there
that are dedicating their livesto leaving a better future for
for, you know, futuregenerations, and for nature and
for our planet. So thank you foryour work, Merlin. And I'm
really proud to know you guys,and proud to know you. And how
(48:38):
can people reach out to you? Myguess is that people might go,
Oh my gosh, I want to help, or Ihave questions, how does
somebody get in touch with you?What's the best avenue?
The best is farmhero.com, I'vehad a website for regen Iowa. We
recently took it down becauseregen Iowa is now regen Iowa
(48:59):
global, given our 50 stateinitiative and committed to the
five continents that Richard hasbeen committed to for quite some
time. So we're going to takeIowa global, but that means we
also want to take every one ofthe other states that we work
with global as well, becauseevery state has something to
(49:21):
offer. You know, every statedoes agriculture a little bit
different. They have differentsoils, different markets, all of
that kind of stuff. So the goalis to, you know, build this 50
state initiative so that we cantell everybody's story, and of
course, everybody's most in lovewith their own state. So we want
(49:42):
this to be state centered, andnot just about Iowa or Idaho or
Ohio, although we might have tobring those three up every,
every now and then,
I think we should fly over.States have to stick together,
after all, especially when noone, when the average person
from you know wherever they are.Doesn't know the difference
between the three. It's alwaysshocking to me that there are
(50:04):
people who really don't know. Sowe have to talk about that
Merlin every time, so people canbring that up. Yes, exactly. And
then I will make sure that weput a link to the farm hero
website, and, you know, just anyother work that you've done
where people can learn more. AndI'm, I'm just super excited
about this. It's, um, it'sfantastic progress, and thanks
(50:26):
for your hard work, and thankyou for joining
Well, thank you for having me,and I look forward to our next
steps.
Beautiful. So listeners outthere, please take a minute to
share this. Share this to youreducation communities and your
friends and family who arepassionate about education,
because this is, again, thiscrossroads between, you know,
the work that's being done inthe field to change the world,
(50:48):
and how we bring in that conceptof education, deep structural
changes in educational theory,and using modern mixed media to
get the message out. So I feellike this is a great story to
share outside of just theregenerative community, and it's
very inspiring. So please take aminute to rate and review and
share. Thanks for joining this
episode of the regenerative bydesign podcast is brought to you
(51:12):
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Thank you for joining me on theregenerative by design podcast.
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(51:34):
wherever you connect with yourcommunity.
You
Joanna, hello, everyone. You arelistening to the regenerative by
(00:04):
design podcast where we will begetting to the root of health,
climate, economics and food. Iam your host. Joni quinwell
Moore, join me on this journeyas we explore the stories of
individuals and organizationswho are working to realign our
food system with both humanhealth and the health of our
planet. Welcome everybody. I'mso glad you're here with us
(00:24):
today on the regenerative bydesign podcast, I have a
fantastic guest today that I'vereally gotten to know over this
last year because of hisincredible story and passion for
building regenerative systems.And so if you're a listener of
our podcast, you know thatdesign thinking, and how we
actually apply design thinkingto build regenerative systems is
(00:46):
is a key and often overlookedpiece of the puzzle as we
transition the world to thismodel that aligns food and
agriculture with human healthoutcomes that are positive and
climate resiliency. So Merlinyog stick, thank you for joining
us, and I'm so happy to have youhere today.
What a delight to be here aswell. And of course, what a
(01:08):
delight to get to know you overthe past year or so that we've
been talking and dialoguing. Sothis is a real treat. And thank
you for inviting me. Yeah, yeah.
We're overdue, because Iremember the first time I really
heard your story, I thoughtwe've got to get you on the
podcast and and tell the storyso we can share it and others
(01:28):
can be inspired by your life'swork and what you're doing right
now at this point in your life.So Merlin, like I love that you
grew up in Iowa and that you arenow back in Iowa, like Iowa has
a real special place in myheart, as I've told you, because
my dad was born and raised in avery small town in rural Iowa,
Albert city, and I spent a lotof time there growing up as a
(01:51):
kid, and I just have a heart forthe people of Iowa and the
communities of Iowa, and from Anagricultural perspective, boy,
Iowa is like, literally, anincredible agricultural
powerhouse. However, a lot ofthat has been really exploited.
So tell us a little bit aboutyour upbringing and and just
(02:12):
your life story and how you cameback to be in Iowa passionate
about serving the people ofIowa.
Where do I start there? I mean,obviously, born in Iowa in the
late 40s, quite frankly. Sothat'll tell you how old I am,
and grew up in a small familyfarm. The Last of five kids went
(02:36):
to a one room country school forthe first four years of my
education, which was quiteinteresting. It's kind of like
the Little House on the Prairiestory. Well, I kind of lived it
only as a boy and with ourfamily. So I got the best, as I
(02:57):
now have realized, I got thebest that Iowa had to offer back
then, small state, a flyoverstate, as we all know. I mean,
that's the Iowa, Idaho, Ohiosyndrome that you and I are
connected to. Whatever thatstate is. Yeah, nobody knows
where they are. No, it's outthere somewhere, exactly. But
(03:21):
anyway, so I got my start on asmall family farm around third,
fourth grade, my parents decidedto sell the farm because, quite
frankly, they could not feed andtake care of five kids. You
know, just farming back then. Sothey bought a business in a
small town locally, and we movedinto a big town of almost 1000
(03:47):
people back then, but it wasstill very much. Yeah, it
definitely was culture shock inone sense, and yet it was just
kind of a natural transition towhat rural Iowa was all about,
still, everything very closelyconnected a real community, the
(04:08):
kinds of things that we're all,I think, looking for today to
get back to. So I grew up in asmall town, get an education,
got a degree at the Universityof Northern Iowa. Started out
with business because I thoughtthat's what I wanted to do, but
then realized that I reallywanted to work with kids and
(04:32):
decided to change my major,which I did as I look back now,
it was all part of the designand divine plan that I was on,
and continue to be on, I taughtone year and realized that that
was not actually for me. While Iloved working with the kids,
between the parents and theadministration, it was not so
(04:55):
much fun, so I had anopportunity to go to work for.
An educational publishingcompany, and they were selling
Iowa history materials. Iapplied for that job, was hired,
and so 1971 1972 I'm on theroad, calling on every
(05:17):
elementary school in the state,introducing them to some
supplemental curriculummaterials that we had. And while
I was making all of thosecontacts at the schools, I
realized that there was atremendous need for more
adequate materials to studyabout Iowa, Iowa history, Iowa
geography. The textbook wasabout 25 years old, and by every
(05:39):
school I called on and said,Look, your company needs to
publish a new book for it. Oursis falling apart. We need an
update. And this is our state.The kids need to know about
their state. After I heard thatabout the 100th time, I said,
Okay, maybe I need to payattention here. So I put my
creative hat on, looked at thetextbook and said, well, first
(06:01):
of all, that's not a good way toteach kids read the chapter and
answer the questions at the end,which is the way I was taught
Iowa history. Not only was itnot any fun, but it didn't
really teach kids anything otherthan to memorize facts and
concepts. And it was prettyboring because the teacher was,
you know, doing all of theteaching up front, and we had to
(06:22):
follow along as best as we can.So make a long story short, I
decided to reinvent the textbookfor the social sciences, and I
created a hands on interactivemultimedia, multi discipline
approach that I knew was thebest way to teach kids and the
best way for kids to learn.However, it did not look like a
(06:45):
book. And so every publisherthat I took it to, in fact,
including the company that I wasworking for, they said, What is
this? Yeah, no, which is, ofcourse, what we're doing here in
terms of farm food and ag, butso this will blend in later on.
(07:07):
But anyway, I had one choice,and that was to give up on my
idea or publish it on my own.Fortunately, I was married at
the time, and my wife suggestedthat I do that. So we took what
money we had saved the previousyears for my educational sales,
published this Iowa book, orthis Iowa studies program, and
(07:29):
it was very successful in Iowa.I then started taking it to
other states, and here again,make another long story short, I
spent about the next 20 yearsdesigning state studies programs
for all 50 states, the provincesof Canada. Did very, very well
and but the late 80s, I hadevery publishing company in the
(07:54):
business trying to buy mebecause we had literally led the
entire industry with thisprogram that really preceded
them the benefits of thecomputer. I didn't know that at
the time, but we were usinggraphic, you know, teaching kids
with pictures, graphs, charts,narrative, teaching them reading
(08:17):
and comprehension and criticalthinking skills and all that
kind of stuff built into oneprogram. Thus, the teachers
loved it. The kids reallylearned a lot, and it became a
standard for the entireindustry. And I ended up selling
that company in 1990 and wrote abook, and then started a couple
(08:39):
of other companies since then,and basically between 25 and the
age of 50, I built and startedthree different companies, sold
them all, and I have beenretired since, since that time,
but you've been a
busy, retired guy. I have been
anybody that retires to knowthat you don't really retire. I
(09:03):
mean, if you've got any spunk ofenergy or life in you, that's
when you really go to work. Butyou go to work on things that
you really care about and thatyou have passion for well,
and you establish that the loveof learning is every bit as
important, is the content andthe delivery. And you know, when
you're teaching kids to learn,to love, to learn, I mean,
(09:25):
that's like a mindset, you know?And I feel like your your
materials probably had thatheart in place, like was like,
learning should be fun. Learningis a lifetime endeavor, and it
never stops, not it, not whenyou get done with school, not
when you retire. Learning is alifelong endeavor. It should be
fun.
Yeah, it is. And of course,right now we're probably
(09:47):
learning way too fast to evencomprehend some of the things
that we're learning given, youknow, there's so much
information out there, and yougotta, you know, dig through
what really is important, whatis true anymore. Or in today's
world, that
can be hard.
Yeah, it can be hard, but you'reabsolutely right. I mean, I
(10:09):
think that's what life is allabout, learning even our
failures, our learningexperiences. And think most of
society is woken up to the factthat we really don't fail. We
just have a door that may getclosed on us or something
doesn't work out the way wethought it was going to work
out. But if we don't take itpersonal and stay focused on
(10:34):
what it is we thought we had orwhat we could do, then another
door will open and you look backand you say, okay, that failure
was really about a step that Ineeded to learn that I wasn't
aware of. And so now I can addthat to my, you know, resume, if
you will, and take my idea toanother step and another level,
(10:54):
absolutely
and keep your eye on the prize,like the big picture.
Yes,
that's awesome. So you know,you, you've lived in a lot of
different places through allthese adventures. I know you've
spent a lot of time in Colorado,California, but you came back to
Iowa. Like, when did that happenand what motivated you to move
(11:15):
back to Iowa?
Yeah, well, to go back to my thestory that I just told you, when
I saw that the publishingbusiness that I had started was
going to take off, my wife and Iheaded to Boulder, Colorado
immediately. I mean, truthfully,we did not want to get stuck in
Iowa. We just had bigger visionsand dreams, and we had fallen in
(11:36):
love with Colorado from theskiing, and I used to be in a
folk group, and we used to havean agent back there, so we got
booked there a lot of timesduring the spring breaks and
holiday vacations and summerbreaks. And so fell in love with
with Colorado, as so many peoplehave and do once they visit the
state. So from like 1974 to 2004I lived in Boulder and got
(12:03):
boulderized, as they say, whichthere was always this joke back
then that it was 26 milessurrounded by reality, because
that's a good Boulder, really.Yeah, Boulder really was, you
know, speaking of thinking outof the box. That's what Boulder
is about. And it really was aMecca, a lot like Portland,
(12:28):
Oregon, kind of like Austin,Texas, some places back in
Massachusetts and so forth.North Carolina, another, another
community or state with with alot of aggressive and
progressive people and thinkers.But anyway, Boulder treated me
very well, because all three ofthe businesses that I started
(12:50):
really took off there, and so Ithe night in 2004 I kind of
figured, okay, enough ofBoulder. Maybe it is time for me
to get in touch with reality orwhat was going on in the rest of
the world. And always kind ofwanted to live in in California,
so I picked up and moved toCalifornia. Initially, moved to
(13:15):
LA, and that lasted about 90days because there was nothing
in LA that I could relate to, nonature, no mountains or anything
like that, and way too muchtraffic. So I started looking
around where I wanted to live,and I decided actually to move
(13:38):
to Phoenix for a few years. Thatworked out well in the winter
time, not so much in thesummertime. And
summer, Phoenix is pretty rough.It's it's brutal,
and even more so today, as weare, you know, dealing with
global warming and so forth. Soanyway, ended up in Northern
(14:01):
California, just north of thebay, and thought that's probably
where I was gonna hang up myspurs. I had a mountain in the
backyard and an ocean in thefront yard, and that was a cool
place to live, yeah, but itreally is about that time, this
was like 2010 I was livingthere, and what took me back to
(14:24):
Iowa, this will answer yourquestion, is I got a call from a
friend of mine who actuallylived in San Diego, and he said,
You got to take a look at thiscompany or this organization
called the world, the WorldBusiness Council for Sustainable
Development. I had not heard ofthem before. When I first went
on and checked them out, Ithought, why would I want to be
(14:46):
associated with these guys?These are the bad guys. They're
all multi billion dollarcorporations. They own the
world. And then as I lookeddeeper and saw what they had
created, which was a vision. For2050 starting in 2010 a four
decade process of using businessto design, speaking of design
(15:10):
work to design a world thatcould work for everybody in
their vision, by 2050 we wouldlive in a world where there is
no waste, where there was plentyof food for everybody. Economics
worked for everybody, kind ofthis blissful world that we had
in in mind back in Boulder. AndI thought, well, maybe these
(15:32):
guys are not the bad guys afterall. So I started looking into
them further. And because I wasnot far from, from Stanford, I
found out that one of thepersons in charge of all of the
graphics that they had designedwas in Stanford, and so I
reached out to him, connectedwith him, and here again, with
(15:54):
my publishing background, whichwas based on A highly graphic
approach, we put our headstogether and decided that we
needed to develop a K 12curriculum around this world
design that the Business Councilhad put together. So we started
working on that, and at somepoint, he knew the president
(16:17):
quite well, and he got thepresident on the phone, and we
told him what we wanted to do,and the President liked the
idea. And he said, so how muchmoney do you need? And we said,
Well, we think we need about tenmillion and little relay on the
phone. But he said, Okay, guys.He said, get me a proposal. And
(16:40):
he said, I'll find you the 10million so that in then, along
at that same time, the state ofIowa had elected a new governor,
and one of the things that hewas focusing on was education
reform. When I graduated fromhigh school, and for many, many
years, Iowa was number one ineducation across the country,
(17:02):
the Iowa Test of Basic Skillswas used by every state to test
their kids. So we were thestandard, because we were number
one, and thus we got a reallyquality education with our
public education back then. Sowith all of those factors coming
(17:24):
together, I went back to Iowa,had a meeting with the
Department of Education. Turnedout that they had just hired a
new department head, ironically,from Colorado, I shared with him
my idea along with Stanford'sidea, and he loved it, and so we
(17:45):
started down that road puttingthat together. However, the
governor's commitment toeducation reform, I found out,
was really a political ploy. Hehad no interest, nor did the
legislature have any interest infunding it. So ultimately, my
(18:05):
friend from Colorado with theDepartment of Education there
resigned, went back to Colorado,and so my idea and vision of
what we could do with anenvironmental K 12 program died.
But here I was back in my homestate, and what I realized in
the times that I had beenvisiting is that it was not the
(18:28):
same state that I left after 40,nearly 50 years. So much had
changed in the state, primarilydue to the way we do
agriculture, conventional AG,had come in and taken over. You
know, the small communities weredying. In fact, many of them had
already died. Big corporateAmerica came in, took over and
(18:52):
did to what we have done. Wehave seen happen all across
rural America. And I just, youknow, could not believe my eyes.
Shortly after that time, theGovernor did launch a really
great program that I gotinvolved with called the
healthiest state initiative.Here we are, I don't know we're
(19:13):
24th or 25th in the nation atthat time, and the governor and
a few key business execs in thestate said, Hey, we need to
create a goal that I will becomenumber one in the nation. And
they set a goal of doing itwithin five years. Well, five
years later, not only did theynot go forward, they went
(19:37):
significantly backwards. And asI then was put on the healthiest
state committee for a number ofyears, and watched how they were
leading that I realized thatthey were completely missing the
boat. They was trying to fixhealthcare with healthcare. And
as you know, better thananybody, having spent many years
in the healthcare business,that's. Never going to happen.
(20:03):
So when I you know, when thelight bulb started going off, I
said the real issue is not abouthealth care. The real issue is
about the soil and the food thatwe're growing or not growing,
the health of that food, the waywe're practicing agriculture,
the quality of the water in thestate and, of course, across the
(20:25):
country and the world. And Isaid, until we fix the soil and
get healthy soil back again,we're only going to continue to
get worse and more sick andnever go forward in healthcare.
So anyway, at that point. Thisis around 2015, now, and I
realized that I cannot let go ofthis idea. One, I think I have
(20:47):
some some solutions. Andsecondly, it's like, if the you
have an idea and somebody needsto create the change for it, you
know it's like, if not me, who?Right? So I said, Okay, I guess
it's me. And while I have noclue as to how I'm gonna go
(21:08):
about this, it's like any thingyou start, you just take that
first step, and then you takethe second and you you figure it
out. We talked about that wayyou're raising your kids. Yeah,
it just unfolds.
It unfolds. You have to takeinitiative and start somewhere
and figure it out as you go.Yeah, exactly.
So. Anyway, I then about thattime, was invited to an event
(21:33):
that took place in Irvine,California. It was a global game
changing conference, and therewere 25 of us that had been
selected to participate in thatbecause we had all had global,
game changing ideas, at least,determined by the people that
put the event together. So inMay of 2015 I put my stake in
the ground and I said, Okay,here's what I'm doing. I'm
(21:55):
building a model in agriculture,soil, food, ag and health for
the rest of the country, I thinkI was the perfect place to do
it, because we're 1% of thepopulation. I learned
metaphysically that if youchange 1% of anything, it's a
matter of time before the entirething will change and get on
board or become transformed. Sothat had some meaning for me,
(22:21):
and also, given my experience inpublishing, I realized that if
my idea would work in Iowa, itwould work any place across the
country. So that's what took meback there. That's what kept me
back here. I had no intention ofmoving back because I really
love Colorado and California andthe Northwest where you live,
(22:41):
and all of those kinds ofthings. But I have been here,
and now, as you know, ourstatewide initiative here is now
a 50 state initiative, and we'retalking with you and some of
your people about that. And ofcourse, as you also know, a
(23:02):
couple of years I got connectedto the World Food Bank out in
Denver with my good friendRichard lackey, saw what he was
doing in Africa. We, we
met one of these days too. Yeah,
no, definitely have to get himon because, you know, he, he
shares the vision that you and Ido, and is really doing some
(23:26):
great things around the country.And so now we're we're helping
him focus on the US, becausewhen he and I connected about
two and a half years ago, he'stold me, he said, I want to do
the same thing here in the USthat I'm doing in Africa,
because we're having such asuccess with your generative ag
and raising people out ofpoverty, like a million and a
(23:48):
half people out of poverty ayear, with their their
television program, andeverything else that they're
doing. And so I said, Well,strategy, I think your model at
the top, along with my model atthe bottom, in the middle is
where we can probably get a lotof traction and make a lot of
change you and I probably needto talk about that, that middle,
(24:09):
because that's that's whereyou're at, and a number of
things that you're talkingabout. But anyway, we started
down this road a little over twoand a half years ago, and now
we're really starting to crankup. And as you know, little over
a year ago, we birthed the farmhero project, which is a mass
(24:31):
marketing campaign. So we couldtalk a little bit about that
when we think we
definitely, yeah, we need tohave, like, a whole session to
unpack the farm HERO program,because it is a it's a big deal,
and it's a really importantinitiative. And you know,
honestly, I love that it, it'spart of that iteration process
of you coming back to Iowaseeing that there's a major
(24:55):
disconnect between soil health,human health, and. And economics
in rural communities inparticular. And you know how we
start bringing that narrativeall together? Because we
literally can't solve this usingany reductionistic focus on one
piece of that puzzle, like italways fails when we don't look
at the whole the holism of ofthat, of that riddle. And you
(25:19):
know, so many, every ruralcommunity really is in the same
position when it comes to this.And I, I love Iowa being ground
zero for a number of reasons.Also, one that you didn't touch
on is the fact that Iowa hasincredible, you know, has had
some of the richest soil everanywhere in the world. I mean,
historically, it's unparalleledas far as perfection when it
(25:42):
comes to AG, it gets greatrainfall. It has beautiful
native soils, but as we know,those soils have been horribly
eroded, and the soil degradationin Iowa is significant. But
because of this beautifulrainfall, it has great power to
restore very, very quickly.
Yeah, no, absolutely. And ofcourse, I saw some of those
(26:05):
things again when I saw that.You know, what could possibly be
done from what it had beendegraded to? So what you just
pointed out its rich history?Yeah, the fact that, ironically,
conventional ag really got itsstart in this state. The Cradle
of it all was between Des Moinesand Coon Rapids, Iowa. Our
(26:29):
second episode of farm hero, wefilmed Liz Garst and her
partner, Darwin, telling theirstory, because Liz's history,
her grandfather, Roswell Garstworked with Henry Wallace, who
really started the first plant,new plant genetics, and helping
(26:53):
farmers increase their yieldwith hybrid seed development. So
that all got started right here,and then when synthetic
fertilizer came in, it lookedlike a really positive boom to
provide that extra fertilizer,to get that extra yield. But
now, of course, that fertilizer,along with the pesticides, the
(27:16):
herbicides, all of those othersides, which actually kills the
microbiome rather than restoreit. So it's just gone as far as
it can go, and thus the birth ofregenerative AG,
correct? I love that because,you know, I always try to be
careful to not wrong the leadersof innovation in agriculture
(27:39):
that we're responding to theneed to feed a starving world
after World War Two. I mean, itwas the global hunger epidemic
at that time was wasunbelievable, and fertilizers
and the modern Green Revolutiontype methodology offered, like a
lot of hope to people, but wedidn't understand the
externalities. We didn'tunderstand the long term
(27:59):
ramifications. Because, quitefrankly, nobody had ever done it
before. So as you said, that'swhere we're at now, like we've
we've capped out theproductivity we can get with
that model, and that is what isreally leading to this whole
regenerative transformation thatwe're seeing now, where we're
starting to understand, Okay, dowe need to keep putting stuff
(28:21):
into the soil instead? Why don'twe utilize what's already there?
Why don't we work with nature totry to really restore all those
natural buffer systems, the soilmicrobiome, and create a more
balanced and holistic model thatstill produces high yield, high
productivity agriculture, butnot at the expense of our health
(28:41):
and soil health. So it'sabsolutely a beautiful story,
the story of regeneration, forthose of us who are all like
sipping the Kool Aid, and we'realready on the wagon like I
think everybody, by and large,across the board, that I know in
this movement, is like in lovewith the story and the hope that
regenerative agriculture reallyprovides for us as we look into
(29:02):
kind of a grim long term picturefor the planet with everything
that's going on. But there'sstill this massive need for
storytelling, high qualitystorytelling, and the
humanization of what's happeningin the regenerative movement.
Um, there's definitely a hugepropensity, and I'm one of those
people like, I get reallyexcited about the science and
that the agronomics and all ofthe kind of nitty gritty detail
(29:24):
of of regenerative Ag, and thatdoesn't translate out into the
wide world of people who don'twork in this world. And what you
guys are doing at Farm hero, andI'm going to have you take a
minute to really deep dive aboutwhat farm hero is. Is it really
rehumanizes the story, it putsthe people and the story of the
people and the nature and thefood right in the center of the
(29:46):
story. And everybody can relateto that. Because, you know, food
is, is life. I mean, we all eat.It's a part, critical part of
the human experience. And to rehumanize the eating experience
through the lens of regenerativeagriculture and the lens of
healthy. Nutrient dense food isis very, very powerful, and I
feel like it's exactly what weneed. We've learned that through
(30:06):
kiss the ground and commonground, that's been a world wake
up call and other great moviesand shows that are out there,
like farmers footprint. I knowall those folks really well, and
it's been incredible. Andthere's a need to really
continue this so we can get thestory out. So I take a few
minutes, Marlon, and walk usthrough how you and Richard came
up with the concept of farmhero. And you know where you're
(30:29):
at now. What are your needs?Because I've seen, I've gotten
to see a lot of sneak peeks ofthis, and I know your crew, and
it's I'm so excited for this toget out. So let our audience
know all about it, and then letthem know what they can do to
help
where it got started. I mean,when Richard and I first started
talking, he shared with me thesuccess that they were having in
(30:51):
Africa. But truthfully, thelight bulb had not gone off in
my head that we needed to dothat immediately in the US. So I
spent about a year, year and ahalf, going to a lot of Farmer
to Farmer events. My good friendLiz Haney puts on an excellent
(31:12):
event, actually, back here inIowa, called the soil health
event. Ironically, she puts iton in Cedar Falls, which is
where I got my education degree.So it kind of takes me back home
every time I go to one of herevents. And it was actually
following her lead, and some ofthe great things that she was
(31:32):
doing with a lot of regenerativeag farmers that led me down this
path. And I went to, I don'tknow how many of her events and
when the light bulb went off inregards to farm hero, was
actually in Nebraska. I washeaded back to Iowa, and I just
(31:53):
attended one of her events, andthere was about 100 farmers
there. And for whatever reason,as I'm driving back in my own
little world with, you know, afew hours of windshield time, it
just dawned to me that goingthat direction was not moving,
not only not moving the needle,but we were never going to get
(32:16):
there. 100 farmers at a time.300 farmers at a time was not
cutting it. It's not to say thatthose events are not valuable,
because they are to the farmers.They learn something from them,
and it's good. In fact, we needa lot of those going on all over
the country, all over the stateof Iowa, but at the same time, I
(32:38):
realized that we needed to be infront of millions of people,
millions of farmers, telling ourstory, telling the regenerative
ag story, plus, we needed tobring the consumer in to this
discussion as well, becausefarmers, as we all kind of know,
they're pretty slow to change.They've been doing their farming
(32:58):
practices the way they've beendoing them because their dad did
it that way and theirgrandfather did it that way. And
so why should I change or listenand look at something new? So
anyway, we were dealing withthat, and I was literally still
in the car. Had gotten hadcrossed the Missouri River into
(33:19):
Iowa, and I called Richard up,and I said, Richard, we have got
to take our story to the massmarket. Described a little of my
experience at that event, and Isaid, it's time we do what
you've been doing in Africa,your shamba Shape Up program. We
(33:40):
need to develop a televisioncampaign and really get our
story out there. And hisresponse was, okay, let's do it.
So we birthed the idea. Yeah,exactly. So we birthed the idea
at that point together, we spenta few weeks putting a deck
together our best ideastogether, we actually called our
(34:04):
first event, farm food X, thename that I actually came up
with that we kind of liked, butafter we thought about it a
little bit, Richard came up withthe idea farm hero, our third
partner, who is our host, Laurazaspel, who came along a number
(34:25):
of weeks later, but she likedthe idea. She had a partner that
was involved in the filming andmovie business and helped us
fund our idea. So that's how thethree of us came together from
the initial conception that Icreated, the birthing that
Richard and I put together. Andhere we are, a year later, with
(34:46):
nine episodes in the bank, so tospeak, and we're ready to go
national and global. And if ourproducers
beautifully made, they'rebeautiful like they're awesome.
Quality, great. Yeah. Greatmaterials.
They really are, and that's, youknow, to a testimony to the
producer that we got connectedwith an organization called
(35:10):
AMERICAN STORIES entertainmentout of Florida. If his
projections are correct, he sayswe will be in 100 million homes
by the first quarter of nextyear through our distribution.
So that's going to make, Ibelieve, a big difference. No,
that will be a big difference,because that is a lot of ears
(35:32):
and eyes that are feasting ondelicious food and like the
story of their fellow Americansworking like good, honest work
and go, Wow, we can have ourcake and eat it too. Like we can
have great food and greatAmerican salt to the earth
livelihoods, and we can actuallybe restoring planetary health
and soil health. And, you know,climate doom and gloom isn't
(35:55):
something we're stuck with. Likethat is a powerful story.
Yeah, it is. And of course, aswe back to the the idea of
learning, the way we learn, thekey to learning is repetition.
As we all know, it's likereading a book once while you
get something out of it, butusually not very much. If you
really want to get the depth ofwhat a book has to say, You got
(36:18):
to read it about three, four orfive, maybe six times, maybe
seven, actually, I think, is themagic number. And so that is
where we have to go with theconsumer and with the farmer.
It's like we got to be hit overthe head, you know, a number of
times before we finally feel thepain or we wake up, which was my
case with the whole farm heroidea. But so that's what we
(36:44):
believe we have to offer to themarketplace and to this great
change that we we so desperatelyneed for the climate and for the
economy and for the health ofnature, people, planet, and all
of those things. So that's doesall work
together. I mean, I think thatthat is like, literally, why
regenerative AG is like, andregenerative food systems is,
(37:06):
um, you know, people hear it andthey're like, oh my gosh, this
is like, too good to be true.And the reality is is actually,
the more we learn about it, thebetter it is, the truer is, the
more things that we start to seecoming out of it that we've not
even fully comprehended orunderstood yet, and we are going
to need that constant repetitionof getting that story out there
(37:29):
and telling the story of thepeople who are doing it, so that
consumers have a way to supportthe movement. I know that that's
been a constant source offrustration with many who are
working in this regenerativemovement is, there's a lot of it
happening in the field. There'svery little happening in the
market. I mean, it's likeemerging, but there's still a
(37:49):
fundamental disconnect. Like,and then consumers suddenly get
inspired about this regenerativeAG, story, but they don't really
know how to find it. Like, Ithink if you live in a rural
area, it's a little bit easier,because you can find a
regenerative ranch orregenerative farm, but maybe if
you live in a really urban area,you go to your local store down
the street and there's nothingregenerative on the shelves, and
(38:12):
there's a lot of confusionthere. So by creating that story
and helping connect the impact,it actually allows us to
catalyze the movement, becausethen we're aligning consumer
awareness and consumer spendingwith market development, which
then puts positive pressure ongrowing the agricultural side,
(38:34):
because at the end of the day,farmers will do what the market
tells them to do. And I grew uparound farming. I grew up
working on farms. My family hada very small farm, and the
reality is, is that even themost stubborn farmers will
change if the market puts enoughpressure on it to do so, um, you
know, like, if they're like,hey, all of my neighbors are
(38:55):
growing better food and they'remore profitable. Well, there you
go. There. You know that's goingto even make the most reluctant
farmers pay attention. And we doknow that that's a lot of how it
works.
Let me just add to that. And youand I have talked about this
before, one of the reasons I'mactually quite optimistic in
(39:17):
these times, especially inregards to food systems
transformation is that we areright now in a perfect storm.
Yeah, and the perfect storm Iwill describe is right now the
farmers back in Iowa and theMidwest and all across the
country are dealing with verylow commodity prices. I mean,
(39:38):
they're dealing with 350 centcorn sub profitability
like you are not profitable withthis market exactly,
need about $4.50 to $5 I'm told,to break even with their with
their corn. When it comes to soybeans, they need 10 to $12 per
bushel and soybean. Greens arehanging around 910, corns around
(40:03):
354, so the perfect storm isthat the only thing that farmers
really have control of is theircost of inputs. Obviously, they
can't control the weather. Theycan't control the pro the
commodity prices. They can'tcontrol what the consumer wants,
but they can control what theyput into their soil and the cost
(40:27):
of it. So right now, the farmersthat are doing conventional
farming used to spending $4.50to produce a $4 bushel of corn
have to rethink their model,because they have got to cut
down on their expenses orthey're going to go out of
business. So the perfect stormis to say, Okay, Mr. Farmer,
(40:50):
what if we could show you a wayto make money with $4 corn, or
maybe even $3 corn. I just didmy own farm here on action video
out here in Iowa a couple ofweeks ago, and I filmed an Amish
farmer that is growing organiccorn, but it turns out that he
(41:11):
had about $138 of input costs,compared to $450 per acre input
costs that most other farmershave, and so at $138 and and
with what he's going to be paidsomewhere in the neighborhood of
$6 for that organic corn,because he already had a pre
(41:32):
soul. But the point I'm tryingto make is that if we could show
every conventional farmer howthey could stay under $200 per
acre with all of their inputcosts. Thus, when corn is at
three and a half or four orfive, they can make some still
make a profit and make someserious dollars, and not be
(41:54):
looking at going out of businessor having their bank call them
up and say, Look, John, we can'tlend you any more money. You
know, in fact, we want yourfarm.
Yeah, exactly. And there'sanother thing that just has
really inspired me to rethinkthe values system, you know, the
Value channel system. So, like,all the things that create a
(42:16):
revenue stream for the farm, youknow, we have, like, the price
per Bucha, Bucha per acre. Butlike, you know, can we put a
price on soil health, waterconservation, reduction of
chemicals, biodiversity? Andthere's a lot of great work out
there. Most people are aware ofcarbon credits. It's kind of
part of this developing notionaround natural cap asset
capital. But then you look atthat too, where if a farmer is
(42:39):
like, Okay, I'm rethinking mystrategy. I'm reducing the cost
of my inputs, and through thatchange in strategy, I'm actually
able to get tax credits orcheaper, you know, cheaper
interest rates on my operatingloans, because I'm actually
proving that I'm doing things onmy farm that are adding value
beyond the bushels per acreadding value to water,
(43:04):
cleanliness, ecosystem health,erosion control, which saves
taxpayers a ton of money whenthey're not having to dredge the
waterways because of all thesoil running into the waterways.
How do we track that and thinkthat about that actually as a
financial transaction that canalso benefit farmers and
incentivize them to change theirfarming methodologies in ways
(43:26):
that have a lower cost ofexternalities, like all those
externalities, and that's awhole nother conversation we can
have on another session, butwe've, I'm really excited for
farm hero, and I'm going to justtake it back to that, because I
want Our audience who'slistening today to, you know, be
on the lookout for farm hero.And what are the last few things
that you guys need to do to getthat launched out there on
(43:49):
network, like on, you know,television where people can see
it. Where are you? Where areyou? And Richard at and Laura,
Well, right
now our producer is negotiatingcontracts. In fact, we're going
to be in Las Vegas next week atthe American Film conference,
and we will be in front ofdistributors. We've got some
(44:13):
major things in the works forseason two that I'm not at
luxury to present quite yet, butwe are looking at some very,
very exciting opportunities withSeason Two that will start after
the first of the year. But hereagain, fortunately, our producer
(44:35):
has a lot of contacts. They havea station of their own, and so
through those variousdistribution channels, that's
how we will end up in those 100million homes. And of course,
with the shows and the type ofsponsors that we are looking
for, obviously farm hero typesponsors that are producing.
(45:00):
Farm hero type goods that theywant the the rest of the
marketplace to know that they'reout there. We can help promote
those products. A lot of thesmall organizations that you're
looking to help build in themiddle, which is another piece I
want to kind of tie in here, isthat when Richard and I came
together, I looked at his topdown approach, presented my
(45:23):
bottom up approach, and said, inthe middle is where we will come
together, and we'll really getthe traction. We'll create that
balance between what currentlyexists and what needs to exist.
Well, lo and behold, here we aretalking to you, and that's
exactly what you're focused on.Is that that middle part of the
(45:43):
equation that we haven't gottento or figured out yet. Certainly
our government has not figuredthat out, and unfortunately, all
of us, whether we're consumersor farmers at the bottom, I
haven't figured that out either.So that's the brilliance that
you bring to the table, and thatRichard and I are really excited
about working with you and a lotof key people that you have
(46:05):
around you. So that's kind ofwhere we're going and what we're
calling and I'm this, I'm goingto be, you're going to be the
first interview that I'mannouncing what we're calling
regenerative, AG, 2.0 because itreally is a less expensive way
to farm. It's a carbon intensivefarming program. It's a carbon
(46:27):
based program that we'relaunching, and we've got some
really incredible materials thatwe've discovered with other
agribusiness companies thatwe're connecting to that can
lower the price of input coststhat all support nature. They're
all natural, and can help buildup healthy soils in that
(46:49):
microbiome. And we're literallycalling that regen, AG, 2.0
which is a version beyond thecurrent version, even though we
haven't been able to define whatour current version is, but here
we are moving to the to the 2.0and maybe to the 3.0 version on
down the road. But I'm happy toannounce that, because if any
(47:11):
farmers are listening and wantto know more about that, they
know how they can contact you orget back with us at Farm Herod,
we'd be happy to tell them aboutthat wonderful
Yeah, and thank you. I mean,most people who follow my work
are they know I'm the queen ofthe messy middle. It's like, how
do we really remove a lot ofthat friction so that we can
(47:32):
create a smooth, holistic cyclebetween supply and demand? And
it's the messy middle that getsin the way every time. And I
really feel like there's someways that we can navigate that
way more efficiently and muchmore cost effectively. We're
just not thinking about it. Wedon't think about we don't have
the right design thinking inplace, and we've ignored a lot
(47:53):
of the tools of the 21st centurythat make us able to navigate
complex markets moreeffectively. And so we'll have
to do another session and justtotally deep dive on that down
there, down the road. And it'sreally exciting. I love how all
of this work is coming togetherto really just supercharge up
this regenerative movement andand really leave a better future
(48:15):
and a better long term historythat will be written about what
we did today, instead of justdoom and gloom and we're
throwing it all away, there area lot of great people out there
that are dedicating their livesto leaving a better future for
for, you know, futuregenerations, and for nature and
for our planet. So thank you foryour work, Merlin. And I'm
really proud to know you guys,and proud to know you. And how
(48:38):
can people reach out to you? Myguess is that people might go,
Oh my gosh, I want to help, or Ihave questions, how does
somebody get in touch with you?What's the best avenue?
The best is farmhero.com, I'vehad a website for regen Iowa. We
recently took it down becauseregen Iowa is now regen Iowa
(48:59):
global, given our 50 stateinitiative and committed to the
five continents that Richard hasbeen committed to for quite some
time. So we're going to takeIowa global, but that means we
also want to take every one ofthe other states that we work
with global as well, becauseevery state has something to
(49:21):
offer. You know, every statedoes agriculture a little bit
different. They have differentsoils, different markets, all of
that kind of stuff. So the goalis to, you know, build this 50
state initiative so that we cantell everybody's story, and of
course, everybody's most in lovewith their own state. So we want
(49:42):
this to be state centered, andnot just about Iowa or Idaho or
Ohio, although we might have tobring those three up every,
every now and then,
I think we should fly over.States have to stick together,
after all, especially when noone, when the average person
from you know wherever they are.Doesn't know the difference
between the three. It's alwaysshocking to me that there are
(50:04):
people who really don't know. Sowe have to talk about that
Merlin every time, so people canbring that up. Yes, exactly. And
then I will make sure that weput a link to the farm hero
website, and, you know, just anyother work that you've done
where people can learn more. AndI'm, I'm just super excited
about this. It's, um, it'sfantastic progress, and thanks
(50:26):
for your hard work, and thankyou for joining
Well, thank you for having me,and I look forward to our next
steps.
Beautiful. So listeners outthere, please take a minute to
share this. Share this to youreducation communities and your
friends and family who arepassionate about education,
because this is, again, thiscrossroads between, you know,
the work that's being done inthe field to change the world,
(50:48):
and how we bring in that conceptof education, deep structural
changes in educational theory,and using modern mixed media to
get the message out. So I feellike this is a great story to
share outside of just theregenerative community, and it's
very inspiring. So please take aminute to rate and review and
share. Thanks for joining this
episode of the regenerative bydesign podcast is brought to you
(51:12):
by snack device nation elevatingclimate smart crops and
regenerative supply chainsthrough innovative products and
transparent market development.
Thank you for joining me on theregenerative by design podcast.
Please take a moment to reviewour channel on your favorite
podcasting service and sharethis session with your friends
and colleagues via LinkedIn,Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or
(51:34):
wherever you connect with yourcommunity.
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