Jonathan Lundgren: Can Regeneration Feed the World?

Join Matt Maier for a conversation with Dr. Jonathan Lundgren — agroecologist, former USDA scientist, and founder of Blue Dasher Farm and the Ecdysis Foundation. Jonathan shares why he walked away from conventional research to pursue regeneration, what he’s learned from the Thousand Farms Initiative, and how farming with nature can restore soil, communities, and hope for the future.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome, regenerative renegades, to our podcast. Today, we have a great discussion that we're going to have with Dr. Jonathan Lundgren. Been a fan for a long time. He probably doesn't know it. I'm just one of those groupies that followed him around and watched what he was doing, especially when he first got into this space of regenerative agriculture. So I'll do the obligatory portion of the bio. Dr. Lundgren is an agroecologist, director of the Ecktis Foundation, and CEO for Blue Dasher Farm. He received his PhD in entomology from the University of Illinois in 2004 and was a top scientist with the USDA for 11 years. Lundgren's research and education programs focus us on assessing the ecological risk of pest management strategies and developing long-term solutions for regenerative food systems. The one thing I'll say about Dr. Jonathan Lundgren is he's very approachable and can make complex systems simplified. And I think that's one of his one of his unique abilities. So I'll let you talk more about yourself as we go here. But if you could give us a little background on Blue Dasher and Ecdysis and what you're doing, and then we'll have you go back to how you got there.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Blue Dasher Farm is an operating regenerative farm. We run sheep here. We have honey uh production, um, cut flowers. Uh it's a mixed farm, right? It's an integrated farm. So we uh poultry and eggs for the community, and then uh critters left and right, the orchard starting to come on now. So it's it's kind of an exciting time for us. Um and it's also the headquarters for Echodysis Foundation, which is a nonprofit research and education and demonstration initiative trying to um support the evolution of a regenerative food system.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Well, I really enjoyed in preparing, looking at your website, and there is an emphasis on being a financially viable farm um and trying to prove that model on that hit to home, because that's always a struggle on our farm, too. To what I feel like uh I'm being a fraud if we can't make the farm financially viable. So I'm constantly working on how do we get there in our regenerative system. So could you talk a little bit about your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

You know, I I get hit with that a lot. You know, um there's an imposter syndrome if your farm isn't if you have to have an off-farm income in order to make things work on and you know I just don't agree with that. I I I guess it comes back to, you know, I mean, does food fit well within a capitalistic framework? And a farm provides so many currencies that we need as humans, and economics, sure, it's gotta be there, but boy, you know, I mean, that's the whole role of families, isn't it? Is to is to be able to carve that out and and and make a go of things from an integrated regenerative standpoint. And so you know, I don't know of many, you know, conventional farms that are financially viable without federal subsidies. Uh, that's a great point. Uh I don't know that we should expect our regenerative operations to um you know I don't know that it yeah, I don't know that it has to provide every aspect of our I don't know if I'm saying that right.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Well, I I I the thought that crossed my mind when I read that that I was raised on a multi-species grass-based farm. Um there was no fancy words to it or anything. It's just that we're in small farm territory, and so it was very common. You had chickens, you had hogs, you had cattle, you had various revenue streams. Um and we managed them, but my dad worked in a factory and my mom was a seamstress, and that's how he made ends work. The the beautiful byproduct was the great food that we got to enjoy, the very nutritious food that, you know, fortunately we didn't get many maladies because we had nutrition. Um and and then I thought, geez, I guess my dad was a visionary because, you know, that what he was doing then without just by doing what he thought made sense through his observations, um, we're still trying to do. We've, of course, we've improved techniques and we've learned some things that we can do better than what we did 50 years ago on this farm and in general. But it's, you know, I I have off farm income and it helps make the farm go and exist. Um and it's a great point, you know, and I I guess it uh it makes me wonder about the the value that we put on food system nutrition. And that's a great question about is food really designed for capitalism, capitalistic free market or not? Like I always argue, I'm to be honest, I always I'm a free market guy, so I'm always like, well, let's just get all the other stuff out of the way and level the playing field and let the market decide.

unknown 6:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Um, but maybe that's not viable either. I mean, it's been a long time since we've had that.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Well, uh my fear is that it prioritizes um efficiency over quality of life. And within food, you know, I mean, we've seen this. And I've with thousand farms, I mean, we've gotten to see the food system uh in North America, right? I mean, and so we that we've gone down this road of compartmentalization geographically, you know, most of the nation's apples are produced in the Columbia River basin and Washington, and cherries are in a couple of locations. All of the world's almonds, damn near all of them, are from the Central Valley of California. Uh and and and it's like, boy, you know, I mean, there's a real value in connecting people with their food and growing food and sharing that um within your own community and taking care of your own community. And yeah, there's an opportunity for economic revenue in there, but as we start to slip down the slope of, okay, well, I mean, I gotta uh the the you know, so-and-so is is getting more efficient than I am, and they've got a bigger tractor or a bigger combine, and they can they bought up, you know, two, three more quarters, those aren't the metrics of success of a suc of a good food system.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Amen. That's so true. And we're hell-bent on that path for a long time that you just described as a Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Do you think we're figuring it out? Do you think we're figuring it out? Do you think we're getting better?

SPEAKER_00 8:01

I think we have some language and some practices that help to unify those that are toiling in isolation, and that as I think as those connections happen, uh that's great on the egg system side, but on the consumer side, I know more questions are being asked. Um, we have a consumer brand, so we get direct feedback from consumers, and it it's uh especially prevalent with younger consumers that food is more of a representation of their values than just energy. So that's encouraging that I believe the questions are being asked and sought after. Um and you know, the pandemic put that in fast forward.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Yeah. I think you're right. There's a lot of people, hundreds of thousands of people that are sitting in their cubicles dreaming of an idyllic farm life, you know, and the homesteader movement is a good evidence of this, but I don't know that they entirely understand what all that is entailed there, but um They don't.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

They don't. And ignorance is bliss in some, you know, some circumstances, because they clean I don't even understand it completely, and I do it every day. What did I get into? Why am I here? What did I do? Why, you know, when I'm covered in bugs or whatever, and I'm like sweating and wondering.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

And if you were from the IT world, I mean you had you got to go into work, you knew what to expect in that day, right? And and on a farm, that doesn't happen, does it?

SPEAKER_00 9:41

No. It's a new puzzle every day. That's the beauty of it, right? You better be ready for a new puzzle when you get out of bed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Um yeah. Do you think most people can handle that?

SPEAKER_00 9:54

I don't think we're trained for it. I think we're trained for black and white and ones and zeros, and we're not really trained to um react and solve as much as we could be to basically I kinda I'm what's going through my mind is managing a business. And I have had the thought that managing a farm, of course it's a business, but what you encounter every day really helps you to underst it it improves your skills to manage a business. And so then I get feedback internally, like, oh my god, okay, Matt's okay, flying by the seat of his pants, going fast before we really know, um, making decisions. And it's like, yeah, that's that's how you survive on a farm. You can't wait to see what happens. I mean, you there's some things you wait a long time for, and you try something, and you have to wait a long time before you get can see the results, but other things are in the moment you have to make a rather quick decision, especially with livestock, I guess is what I'm thinking about. And what you and what you think might be a perfect layup, this is gonna work no question, becomes a dismal failure quickly sometimes.

unknown 11:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

And so I don't I just don't think we're how do you train for that?

SPEAKER_01 11:24

You know, I I I feel like we're maybe two generations removed of needing a suite of life skills that we could accommodate life's weird, weird turns, right? Uh um, I mean, we have how many kids that are coming out of high school know how to cook, know how to uh uh carpentry, know, you know, uh how to, you know, if they needed to put a concrete slab in or something like that, or do a little plumbing around the house. Those skill sets that we've had for many, many years. I mean, my dad was good at it, um fix the car up a little bit. Hell, we can't even fix our cars anymore. There's more computers than anything.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

No, I was so happy the other day I drug out this whole Jeep that wasn't running and I could actually figure out how to get it running, you know, because the parts were so few. It's like, well, battery, ether, you know, keep pull to get it has a clutch so we can pull it to get it started. All those things are just I was like, oh good, back to something I understand. But you know, you're talking about Mike Rowe, you know, supply and demand of now those skills. Uh uh boy, I call a plumber. I I can't get a plunger in my toilet change for less than$400. You know, like I I'm like, what? It there's there's a real scarcity of those skills. There's a real scarcity of those skills, and I think that'll continue. So all uh all of those what we always called blue collar, you know, are uh really uh becoming we we realize how dependent we are on them, and so now we value them, and we have a scarcity of of training.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

But what those skills gave us was an ability to adapt to an ever-changing world, right? And and our lack thereof has kind of I mean, it's just like our food system, right? We've compartmentalized ourselves within our own culture at this point, so that we're craving identity, we're craving, you know, meaning in our lives, and we artificially construct things in order to make us feel that way. And and, you know, I mean, when we were tied back to an agrarian lifestyle, it was really clear, but boy, we didn't want that, didn't we? We didn't want that. We wanted we were convinced that economic uh success was was how you were how you should be valued. And um that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

What were we? Yeah, and economic success, but you know, I I I don't want to offend anybody in saying this, but I, you know, we were told a lot of things in education or wherever society. Um, and one of the things that I grew up with was well, yeah, pursue a career because you don't want to be a dumb farmer.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

And farmers said it, not people outside of farming, within farming, that was a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

They didn't always want the kids to go through the same thing they had to go through.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Right. No, you can't you don't do this. It and you're better than that, and you're smarter than that. And you're just, yeah. And it's like, oh, what's more important? What's really more important, you know, health, food system, nutrition, environment. Okay, so we need you to go back in time and tell you, tell us how you how you got here because it's a great story, and I I want to hear it again.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Um sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Uh so why hopefully you're not tired of telling the story because I'm gonna force you to do it anyway.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Um yeah, I worked for USDA for a long time, right? Um, 11 years or something like that. I was a researcher, a research scientist, um, helping farmers, right, with my science was what I was supposed to be doing. And but I mean, I think I reached a point where it was like uh, you know, being the best in in my case, entomologist, uh, because I was I was trained in insects especially, and being the best entomologist was my goal. And, you know, by a few metrics at least I did pretty well at it, and I kind of reached a point, and you start looking around and you're like, huh. Is this I mean, is this I don't know if I feel as you know. Did this fulfill me?

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Fulfilling, yeah. Is this fulfilling, yeah. And young scientist of the year, you're being very humble, young scientist, something like that, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yeah, yeah, I I was uh yeah, I got to beat the president of the White House. I was one of the top scientists in the in the country, so um so I played the game well, but then you you yeah, you start asking questions of of okay, so I can still drive from here over to Lakeville, Minnesota, where my folks lived, and uh things weren't getting better, you know. Uh climates were in chaos, rural communities are declining, people, you know, I mean, uh margins are just razor thin for farmers. Uh pests are still abundant, pollution is abundant. Uh, people are sick. You know, farmers are sick. And I'm sitting here being a researcher, and I'm supposed to be solving these problems, and that's not what my goal was as a scientist. My goal was to publish science for other scientists and get all of those accolades, right? And um, yeah, I was wrong.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

And fortunately, you got those accolades early, so you got to see what's the fruit of that, right? And how fulfilling is that? So that came early.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe I'm lucky. Um I yeah. I I don't know. I mean, I don't know that I could I could have run or started Ecdicis in Blue Dash, or if I hadn't gone through that, right? Right. Um I don't know if I I mean scientifically, politically, I had connections and things like this that could help and and I had experience and um and and good stats. And that I think gave me a a leg up when I was getting started with mythic dice. Um yeah, so I quit. Uh about 10 years ago, I quit. It was getting messy with USDA. They didn't I uh to try to make that that fulfillment, I started asking questions that I thought needed to be asked as far as pesticides and their risk to the environment as well as human health. And I also started to ask questions about well, these farmers are developing systems where they don't need pesticides. Why don't we see what's there? And um and uh yeah, so things started to fall apart with USDA. It was clear my priorities were different than theirs. And um asking too many questions. Yeah, I'm the wrong ones. Right. The wrong ones, yeah. I could be a very I could be rich right now, right? I mean, I could I if I had stayed with a USDA, I I I would have had a very comfortable life for the rest of my career if I you know go into industry or something like this, right? I mean there's that doesn't feel right. I I don't yeah, I don't know that that would give me what I wanted either. And so um I put all of that anger and um frustration and I could have let that eat me alive, right? Because it was it was extremely aggressive and nasty with USDA towards the end there. Um so I could have let that become my identity, but I chose to put that energy into something positive. And I think that's the only reason why I'm still wrong. Wow. Yeah, is I chose a different path.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah. God, that's that's interesting. We we have we have quite a few parallels, you know. I worked in conventional food and and thought that I would always do that, and then had a moment in time where I could take a break and decided what am I doing? And that was the same time I moved my family back. It's like what Is that right? Things that things that feel different here. It's only been 15, 20 years, and things feel very different, and I could continue to go on this track on conventional food, work to the top of a food company, CPG, could do that, but I'm like, cow, I don't know. I've seen that up close, and I see the what the ingredients are, and now I'm seeing what the egg system has changed to that produces it, and like I want to do something else that's gonna have an impact. And so I took all that and poured it into learning and moving. So it's it's cool. I just love that so you are an a re a regenerative renegade. Fits you perfectly.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Uh yeah, I guess. Um that is uh you know, I mean, I mean we can put doctor, we could put we could put doctor in front of it. We could have doctor regenerative renegade, you know, that that's it sounds like an Austin Powers uh villain. I uh did you did you have an aha moment like, okay. This is yeah, I've got a this is wrong. What's happening right now doesn't yeah, it was there or was it a a slow accretion for you?

SPEAKER_00 21:52

It was it was more witnessing hundreds of moments over time as I I I was very fortunate. I was we had a marketing agency so I could go in and out of these businesses in food. And so I could get, you know, really to a lot of information quickly without actually marrying myself to whichever company. And so there was a series of things that I witnessed that I didn't know one really changed my life. There were a couple bigger ones that caught my attention about how money was being spent and, you know, various forms of checkoff programs and things like that that go into marketing. Uh, there was a few, but the aha moment actually came when I was sitting in my deer stand wondering what I was gonna do next, and saw some cattle grazing, and somehow it just it came and it was supported by research as I looked into it, that there's a big, you know, big impact you can have by holistically grazing cattle. So that was familiar and it it got me launched. Um, and I I I you know, and I wouldn't uh if I wouldn't have experienced all that, there's no way I'd be doing what I am now, you know. It was that yearning for the lifestyle that I grew up with that I enjoyed very much until it came time to think about earning a living.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Right. Did your family think you're nuts?

SPEAKER_00 23:29

I I think that's universal pretty much my whole life. Um but th yes, um there's various points they thought I was nuts. The only time I wasn't nuts is when I went to college, when I happily, happily left the farm and went to college. Um that was a that was a good move. They knew that.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

They thought that that was the thing we yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Yeah. And then various decisions after that. But my mom and dad have a very deep vein of stewardship and valuing the land because they both grew up on it.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

That's huge.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

So you had asked a question, you know. That's in you.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Yes, it is. It is in that question that you asked earlier about how why does that happen? How do we get back to the land? What what happens to get us there? I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Um I think we're hungry for feeling a hole. And food production fills a lot of the holes that we've currently experienced in our lives. Um you know, technology. Well, uh, yeah, it was it was marketed to, you know, make our lives easier and all of these things, but in the interim, we lost a big part of who we are. And um, you know, I mean, I started thinking that regenerative agriculture was about no-till and cover crops and uh you know biological amendments and reducing pesticides and livestock and you know, the the buckets that we haul out.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

The easy check boxes.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Yeah, and it's not. I mean, yes, it is, but it's not. I mean, there's a lot of farms that are gonna check those boxes, but they're not gonna be regenerative. And it's gotta start on a more fundamental level of of I mean, reconnecting ourselves to family and community in the natural world. And unless we do that, you could check as many boxes as you want to, and you're never going to attain what's possible. Um but that that changing ourselves is, I think, the biggest hurdle in adoption of regenerative at this point. We had a field day um 10 days ago or something like that. And um the focus was on change. And and what are the barriers to change, especially as it pertains to, you know, maybe going regenerative or but but it extends to far beyond that. And and there's a laundry list of hurdles that farmers haul out, or you know, stakeholders in general haul out of okay, agronomics aren't there. No, that's that's BS. I mean, we've got farmers all over the country, all over the world that are doing this, right? They're figuring it out. I'm not saying it's there isn't room for improvement and there isn't a learning curve for sure, but that's life, right? And this is totally doable. Oh, okay. Well, agronomy's okay, well, then uh, you know, you can't feed the world. Uh well, yeah, you can. I've got the data on it. It's the regenerative yields are equivalent to conventional yields. Yeah, but you can't make any money going regenerative. Well, no, I got the data on that. Uh uh you're just as as you make just as much money uh or more being regenerative than you are conventional.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

So then what is especially now as markets developed. I'm sorry, keep going.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

So so what is it then? And and what one of the uh Matt Sanderson, he's a friend and uh uh scientist at Kansas State, he's like he's interviewed a whole lot of regenerative farmers, and he said, you know, I think that the biggest hurdle is is identity. And and when you change your identity and the culture around you, I mean that that's one of the scariest things that any of us ever have to do. And you and I already experienced that, right? When we were talking earlier. I yeah, I totally empathize with farmers that have to change their their definition of what a a good farmer is, and and also abandon a life that they knew how to work in.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Yeah, so they know the model, and their parents knew the model, and in some cases their parents knew the model, and that's what's got them, you know, however painful, however hard, however many challenges, that model has provided for them, and they and it's familiar and it's generational now that's been passed on. So how I just was having that conversation. How do you change that model mid-generation or anytime? But it's it's it, I and I I I've never thought uh as deeply as philosopher Dr. Lundgren is speaking on identity. It really is true. And and it gets emotionally aroused.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Wow. Yeah. So the question is, is how do we help that? And I think that if you undergo an identity change, it's a whole lot easier when you've got somebody else that's either done it or is going through it too. And so that sense of community is really there, and that support network of family has to be there. Um yeah, those are sure helps. Yeah, you have to be a a different a different kind of person if you if you accomplish that without that sense of community and family, but it's uh it's true. It's there.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

And that kind of typifies our you know, our food system. If you look at the other end of the spectrum, like we talked about, yeah, it you know, it's more like w maybe one person in the family is in the egg world and the rest go away and get real jobs, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

And and they're more disconnected from their family because they're they are in agriculture and and and community uh how do you I I I don't know there's a sense there's I'm sure there's attachment and a sense of community when you're in conventional egg, but when you're into the products you're producing that really are more suited to just being a local product, like let's just say honey or um vegetables or you know where you or where you kind of more naturally serve and feel the community, I I think that's we've we've lost that to a large degree. And we get excited when we see it. When we see it we know it. It's like we had a tour two days ago here in the farm and people were excited.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Like they were oh my gosh to be on the land and seeing the cattle and seeing the butterflies and seeing the bees and seeing all the oh it's they're just they're just in awe and why is that why why is that so awe-inspiring it's in us isn't it we need that biophilia is what it's called a love of life um I was sampling a farm down in North Carolina it was the second year we'd sampled it it was a veteran and he was using his food food production as as at least in part a way to kind of heal from certain things that he experienced and and um he was a part of a community there that was doing that and uh grew berries and muscadine grapes and things like this and uh uh fully regenerative and he um I asked him I'm like so what's it like you know when you go to the farmer's market and you sell your blueberries and he's like and he hadn't really thought about it and so it was kind of a gut reaction he's like John just feels so good to be able to share this food and to be able to tell people that it's safe for their families that there isn't a bunch of chemicals on it and stuff like that. And um yeah food does that that's what food was meant to be was something to be shared amongst us and um that doesn't mean that you can't sell it but at the same time understanding that fundamentally food is something that brings a community together. So what a great opportunity really because if we have that inside of all of us it we can tap into it you know and and we can use it to educate and learn and act um i with that head start of we're all yearning for that that connection that nutrition that you know in that community we went from that farm um and the next farm we sampled was a a pasture pork operation and it was run by this lady she's an artist and and uh she's like she raises cooney coonie pigs which are this furry New Zealand pig that doesn't root too bad it's a good grazer we raised them on our farm and um and um and she said well you know the Maori used to just let the coonies run the village and uh you know so they never had I mean the Coonies were bred to be this way and so she took away all the fences and the coonies there were 75 of them running around her yard but uh it was a magical experience right when she wanted to move the pigs she would place grain where she wanted them to be and the coonies would all go over there and that's where they'd spend the day you know and uh when I got home I took away the fences on our coonies and they wonder yeah it's I mean there's just something the the pigs are so happy and it's the biggest the biggest problem of hogs or goats or sheep or whatever fence fence fence is a problem always and and you know I mean I'm not about to take the fence off of the sheep yet but uh the the pigs I mean they're they're adapted for this for whatever reason they want to stay close and uh and you know what it said to me was just how much the farm is a reflection of the farmer and vice versa. And um I mean what we had there was a juxtaposition of contrast we had the first guy he was a veteran it was like all right tick tick tick tick tick you know I mean we're gonna get everything lined up this is going to be perfect the uh manicured and beautiful but yet he was still delivering on those regenerative outcomes and then we compare that with this lady who is like well you know let the let the pigs run free you know kind of a thing and the right brain versus the left brain personalities totally different personalities but the outcomes that they were attaining were very similar fostering biodiversity fostering farmer health and wellness um taking carbon putting it down into the ground uh reversing desertification you know all of these microwater cycles and it just screamed to me how wonderful this philosophy towards regenerative agriculture really is when it can allow such flexibility like that.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

It allows farmers just to be themselves yeah it it reminds me of a question that I received just a few days ago about well tell us basically the question was well tell us the formula that you give your producers that raise cattle for you and it kind of stopped me because I was like oh there is no formula because everyone's in a different situation everyone is a different slightly different man they're all still regenerative right you know it looks different in Oklahoma than Minnesota and it looks different in two different ranches in Oklahoma. You know it just it just does and yet they're both successful at what they're doing um in getting those outcomes.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

So yeah it's it's again it kind of goes back to what we first talked about with um the the mindset of and the ability to adapt to whatever your situation is and I guess we're I'm realizing as we speak the situation also includes your skills your personality your objectives your what success to you is right I mean that's and you get to express all that in in agriculture yeah you do um you were yeah as you were talking there I'm like uh thinking to myself yeah and as a scientist I have to put some sort of bookends on a system in order to be able to compare it right and to describe it in a way and so you know empirically I I'm forced to develop some sort of descriptor that says okay this farm is regenerative and this one isn't um and people have been trying to do this for a long time I think the organic standard kind of became that and lost its identity in the process uh a little bit um because regenerative and organic really aren't that different from each other and it gets right down to the metals. Right. Yeah but as practiced they they're you know once you throw a certification in there um but it really forces I mean if we don't describe that system in a way that's truly reflective of what's happening so so categorizing it without losing what's special about it is a really challenging thing. And um and scientists aren't very good at that because anymore um because and I yes scientists right there's there yes some scientists are good but most aren't and um and that's led us down the wrong road um it's informing global food policies that says that what's possible within a regenerative system that is not reflective of what I've seen and um and so a big part of my responsibility I feel like is making sure that I'm that I'm doing that right you know that that well explaining that yeah explaining that potential well when you early on said you have the data for this you know because I I get the pats on the head too well that's cute Matt but you you know you can't feed the world obviously you just create for your backyard but I thank God for the rigor that you have as a scientist in this space because it's things I think about but I don't take the time to do and and and measure I just see it through observation.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

You know our carrying capacity on this 10-acre field is more than it was last year and that there's more diversity or there's less or whatever's going on with it. What what help does it need? And it but it's all observation and I'm I'm uh I love data, but I'm not a scientist and I don't I don't test for data. I don't do it. And so I'm so glad that you and that there are people like you and that that and that you are doing it because it you know in your soul that this is the future that it has to be the future that we don't have a choice. It'll either be forced upon us or we'll choose to do it. You just know that when you're close to it.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

And the only way you're going to convince anybody of that is through data yeah I I I'm I believe that the data is necessary um but woefully insufficient for changing behavior at least. Maybe I mean I think that the the motivation behind Thousand Farms was that we were hearing farmers like you that were really doing it right and making things change and they were seeing a vast potential for regenerative agriculture and and so policymakers and you know billionaire philanthropists and and these sorts of folks are like you know we've heard about this but is it real? Why would we trust a farmer you know um is it just an anomaly dumb farmer is this just an anomaly on their farm and or is this something that can actually mean something and um and science can help with that. But it doesn't change farmer behavior. It might inform global food policies but it doesn't change farmer behavior. What the most important outcome of the Thousand Farms initiative is yeah the data's there but it was the relationships that we forged with the farmers.

SPEAKER_00 42:11

Can you give us an overview of Thousand Farms initiative for those listening and hadn't heard of it.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

Yeah for sure um so yeah we we have uh scientific teams that uh we've deployed from eastern South Dakota out to 1,600 farms around the U.S. um studying our nation's food system um from very conventional to very regenerative and uh I think 35 different cropping systems and 10 plus livestock systems that we've examined and replicated so far. It defenses the farmers to develop the best management practices. I don't assign them to do something right we just observe uh the farmers are the experts on farming scientists were never meant to be the experts on farming um and uh on each of these farms we're I mean these are the best studied farms like ever I think I tallied it up it's depending on how you cut the data it's either like 600 data types or 14000 data types if you want to I mean we do relative abundances of all of the different texts so that we sample on these farms bugs microbes and stuff so I mean it's it's really comprehensive we look at nutrition we look at socioeconomics of each of these operations we look at soils and water and biodiversity and and um so it's a real systems study um and now we're trying to make sense of it and um and tell the stories good it's it's slower than I'd like and it's complicated right um there's a number of people that say John I mean you said you were going to give the data away and I'm like yeah I I mean we are I can't just slap the data on a website right it's it's uh because some somebody you know is going to develop some AI algorithm that's gonna go in there and they're going to you know with an agenda and and say regenerative doesn't work we analyze the data in this way and it's like okay so uh yeah corn let's just say corn right I'm gonna study corn regenerative corn versus conventional corn okay sounds good uh you can do that with this data set um and it's gonna look like regenerative corn looks like crap right and the reason is not because regenerative car corn looks like crap it's because corn has Navajo blue corn and it also has bloody butcher in the regenerative side which aren't being raised for yield maximization. Yeah genetically that's yeah so you you really have to be connected to this data to understand what it is that's possible. And uh yeah this has been a real challenge for us and um but we're we're also getting through so some of the science is starting to roll out especially on the rangeland side um that's been really exciting for us and then the croplands paper is close I'm hoping that we're starting to hit that um but uh yeah hoping just to keep on hitting it and um we're gonna continue to um double or triple annually the amount of of peer reviewed literature on regenerative agriculture and you're over a thousand farms now right did I read that yeah 1,600 this year we hit yeah wow yeah wow still got to make it to my farm by the way on 1600 how did that not happen uh we were in Minnesota a few weeks ago yeah we'll have to figure that out I I raised my hand too late you already had in the first tranche you already had what you needed and I was too late to the game so we'll have to circle back but that's you have pastured pork by chance or pastured birds um we have some pastured laying hens yes um we had pastured pork but um my son who helps manage the farm threatened to do something else if we didn't get rid of the hogs so we're very beef centric I am now convinced that pigs should never be in groups larger than a like maybe 10 to 15 animals.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

As soon as you get above that size the pigs are stressed the land is stressed and the farmer is stressed so I was experienced all that yeah um I was out in California and uh was talking with a buddy of mine farms near Hollister and I said that and he's like that's funny John because we have wild hogs on the farm and they're in social groups with two uh sows and their and their piglets and I'm like oh that's about 10 to 15 animals isn't it he's like yeah it is I'm like why are we forcing these poor pigs into situations where they can't be pigs that is okay you've given you renewed my spirit about hogs because you know the thing is they taste so good I couldn't stop I'm like oh my gosh this pork chop this bacon whatever we made with those hogs were so delicious I would choose it over a beef steak almost any day the marbling the oh just wonderful heritage breeding hogs pastured oh most people don't even know what good pork tastes like if they're going to the grocery store they don't even know what real pork is like or eggs or chickens no good lord no definitely in pork I it's you know and I thought well this be no problem I mean it's gonna be more expensive but once they try it it'll be fine you'll spend anything on this pork and we'll make it work and it the pork industry just drives those prices down so much that retail buyers like it's like it's just cheap and bad. Yeah they need to I think all of the people that are buying their pork from the grocery stores need to go to one of those pig cafos see what that's like yep see what that's like and then try to source a heritage breed pasture raise piece of meat from a logo and see what our pigs are like yeah I can't wait I will interest uh you m you mentioned a team of scientists I'd like to hear from you through your eyes what's happening with the youth you you've got young scientists right that that want this experience what's going on there how has that changed over the last what however long you've been at this 10 50 how long have Blue Dasher existed 10 years yeah this will next year will be the 10th anniversary it's crazy huh we're still around even yeah uh there was no yeah no guarantee on that one that's for sure the odds were against us in every form yeah still are um so yeah uh we have an absolutely remarkable staff uh I don't know how lightning continues to strike in the same place uh but it does and I'm awful thankful for it um are I mean so we have I don't know five five maybe PhD level scientists several master's level people but the majority of the staff is not trained formally in science right um but by the end of their first summer they know more about our food system than most other people on earth do um because I mean how can you not I mean you're you're immersed I mean they visit 500 farms in a summer and they get their hands dirty.

SPEAKER_01 50:47

It's not just like in okay I'm gonna do an interview for your certification or whatever and then get out again. It's like no no they they're smelling the the plants they're uh the they're they're they're having insects ping off of them they're you know this is a this is a visceral experience and um yeah they come out really damn good scientists and so I started this whole thing thinking on every team I needed a doctoral level scientist to kind of lead and and triage things on the fly and stuff like that. After our first year at Thousand Farms that didn't work um what I needed was uh people that cared about what they were doing and could get shit done.

SPEAKER_00 51:37

And um and and yes we need doctoral level scientists to be able to process and interpret things and um and to contextualize it within a scientific empirical framework but but in terms of actual data collection I think that you know we took it out a different a different model and um yeah showed just what what's possible for I believe that regular people can do extraordinary things and our staff is I mean I don't know if they're regular or not sometimes we're pretty weird but they have done extraordinary things what attracts them so lightning striking in the same place more than once but there's a reason why it is what what what do you hear from any level any education what people that are coming to you either for work or for interest or internship or whatever it is what are you hearing from them? And why are they doing that? Because you are weird so you know what what brings them in?

SPEAKER_01 52:47

I don't um so I don't know that they entirely know what they're getting themselves into. Uh well I guarantee they don't know what they're getting themselves into um because nothing like us really exists anyplace else and it's really hard to articulate into words what it is that we do. I mean uh because every day is so different uh from chasing sheep on the farm to to you know developing artificial intelligence for insect identification to you know visiting farmers and having those grower interactions so it's um but they I think the reason that they come and maybe the reason that they stay is because they want to do something. I mean there's so many pamphleteers that are talking about the problems of the world but very few people are actually doing something and that's I mean that yeah we're we're laser focused on that right moving the needle.

SPEAKER_00 53:47

Mm-hmm so is that it is it part that internal yearning for both meaningful fulfillment in life and also that attachment to because it's not hard to look at your website and kind of have a cursory understanding of what you're doing because it's different. So you you you they may not know exactly what day to day looks like but they kind of know what they're getting into from a conceptual standpoint, right?

SPEAKER_01 54:17

And and I mean yeah what is yeah they don't know that you know they're going to be digging soil probes in 108 degrees in North Carolina or getting snowed on in Montana or you but um or the community that develops um because our workplace is is a really unique spot um the staff likes to be together um oftentimes after work they hang out and um and it's a little bit like somebody that's been through like an intense like a war or something like this where really there's only certain people that kind of get what you've just experienced and and so it it tends to be something that brings us closer together and I try to foster that as much as I can but a lot of it just is inherent yeah well I think it's it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

Excuse me all need community yes yeah we do we do well you've been very gracious with your time I'd like to just hear from you what you're seeing that maybe two things. One that you think is the biggest thing we should be attacking to change in our food system and two what you see that gives you hope about the future.

SPEAKER_01 56:02

Um I think everybody needs to have a chicken and a tomato plant um I think that that is going to force us to connect with our food again uh and that's a at a base level right um uh I think that that's a huge I think we need to experience food production a garden how many people had gardens uh it was in fact a federal policy that we all needed a garden a hundred years ago right this was this was normal and now it's not I mean there's ordinances against having a laying hen in the towns you know this is nuts um what gives me hope uh yeah I I mean every day I I go out on my own farm and I you know I get to see something I've never seen before and that connection I mean we half of our farm is native unbroken prairie and wetlands. Um you were able to find some Yeah yeah and then we and then we encouraged it. So um but I don't care how b bad I've of a day I've had or worse, right? Um every time I go out to that prairie I come back better. There's something healing about that, isn't there? There is um or sitting with the sheep and uh just being with that flock. There's something healing about that. Um there really is yeah I think those sorts of experiences give me hope. The farmers that are changing things this isn't this is bigger than it sounds I mean I've I've visited hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of farms that are really pushing it and showing us what's possible out there. There's just a if you had asked me ten years ago whether people would even know what regenerative agriculture was or that there'd be podcasts about it I'd have laughed at you, right? I mean look at how things have changed insane look at how it's changed. Um it I mean we it over a period of what 30 40 years we completely changed a food system towards one of industrial efficiency and commodification of this of this food system. That means in a very short period of time we can change it back.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

Yes in our lifetime it happened in our lifetime it's a I just I'm still boggled by that it's like the what I remember as youth and I I talk about it probably too much but I remember about the my youth and then moving away and then really that's when the transformation really went into high gear and so much changed so fast and then coming back and going oh this isn't the same. I expected the same I want to come back to the same and or or better. And it so yeah you're right that's we are capable of moving quickly um for sure I'm probably I know I'm very impatient in life in general um so it's well it's hard you've got to be able to see the changes that are happening too and and also your own successes.

SPEAKER_01 59:50

Um sometimes as a farmer and as a scientist I I start I have so many balls that I'm trying to keep in the air that I never take the time to just look around And say, look at all the stuff that we got done. You know? That's incredible what we've been able to get done. Instead, it's always about what's coming next. But I think it's important for us to be able to do that, doesn't it? Just to be a celebrating. Yeah. Recognizing that, yeah, that there is progress.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:22

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Amen. That's um, I'm forward thinking all the time too, and I have to stop myself. But you you brought back a beautiful image for me. You know, we were talking about hanging out with the sheep last night, end of day, long day, farm, work, you know, office farm. And I just walked out on this paddock where the cattle were grazing, and they just slowly surrounded me. The sun was sh setting, and the monarchs were flying on the red clover, and they were so calm because this weather, it's a little cooler right now. The weather was great. And it I I can't, I don't even know how to describe the healing that you mentioned and the serenity of just that interaction that I feel very fortunate to experience. And I I hope everybody through their chicken and their tomato plant can experience something similar.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:20

Yeah, that acceptance.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:23

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Jonathan, Dr. Lundgren, thank you so much for taking the time. You have a lot going on. You're making change, you're experiencing a fulfilling life. I applaud you and your efforts. We need the science. We need the data. So thank you. In your journey and what you're uh devoting your life to is admirable. And you're just an easy person to be around. So I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

Thank you very much. Appreciate you saying so. And yeah, well, we'll keep going. We'll keep going. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:10

Tudos. Tudos. Yep. Take care. All right.