Regenerative Minimum Standards for Retail Food Claims
These industry stakeholder workgroup sessions will help draf a guide for retailer buyers to use when reviewing retail food product packaging that displays regenerative claims. It is important to provide a clear decision tree based on what inputs and practices are reported by the brand.
Regenerative Minimum Standards for Retail Food Claims
Tillage and Cultivation
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Please join us for our next stakeholder session on Minimum Regenerative Standards for retail food claims. This session will focus on tillage and cultivation practices. Guest panelists are Dr. Kris Nichols, W.B Brown, and Dr. Anna Jones-Crabtree (see bios below).
As our work groups sessions unfold, we now turn to how soil is treated and conditioned. It’s imperative to know how soil disturbance is applied in the overall system for weed control, reversing compaction, increasing water infiltration, and erosion control, and how organic matter is incorporated back into the soil for conversion into plant nutrition.
This session on Tillage Practices builds on previous conversations about Soil Health and Fertility and Compost, Manure, and Cover Crops by asking what are the best practices – and worst practices – when opening up a field. Our panelists are practitioners with skills honed from decades of experimentation and learning. They also bring cautionary tales.
Today we are addressing the complex issue of Tillage Practices. To make it easier for everyone to follow the conversation, we are breaking it up into four distinct parts. At the end, we will try to put those parts all together.
First, we will consider food companies that claim to be promoting regenerative No-Till supply chains for their products, but whose methods include bioengineered seeds, synthetic nitrogen, synthetic pesticides, and monoculture planting.
Second, we will contrast conventional No-Till with look at what it takes to use organic No-Till successfully.
Third, we will discuss appropriate types of tilling within a regenerative system at different scales and how the overall outcomes can be climate positive and environmentally beneficial.
Next, we will talk about the role of cultivation practices as distinct from tillage.
Finally, we will address food, community, farm economics, and the future of regenerative systems.
Some light prep reading:
https://civileats.com/2025/05/08/why-most-no-till-agriculture-is-not-actually-regenerative/
Note on Regenerative Minimum Standards
In drafting a guide for retailer buyers to use when reviewing retail food product packaging that displays regenerative claims, it is important to provide a clear decision tree based on what inputs and practices are reported by the brand.
Our expert panelists will try to answer these questions based on their hard-won experience — and pose new questions as well. We invite you to attend and participate in this session. The session begins with about 45 minutes of wide ranging prompts discussed by the panelists and moderator.
You will then be able to ask your own questions through a moderated Q&A function. Finally, we will open up the call for public comments on the topic.
You can also submit written comments or questions any time via the Reply section on the main regenerative minimum standard program page.
All session info at https://ifoamnorthamerica.org/regenerative-minimum-standards/ New podcasts released every three weeks.
Well, good morning, everyone. We will go ahead and get started. My name is Christy Pettis. I'm the Food Standards Manager with Natural Grocers. I'm joined today by my co-hosts Alan Lewis and Elizabeth Bennett of Natural Grocers. So our work group sessions to this uh our work group session meetings focus on a dual challenge, ensuring that shoppers can trust regenerative claims and preventing brands that don't meet a minimum standard from using the term. Our goal is not to create a new seal or start a new certification. Our goal is to establish a consensus standard that retailers, brands, and producers can use to match customer expectations. Today's session will specifically address sources of fertility from both on-farm and off-farm, how they're understood, implemented, evaluated, and how they may sometimes conflict with the fundamental principles of regenerative agriculture. One of the frictions we must navigate through this process is economics. Transitioning a farm takes time, it carries financial risk. We need to determine multiple things. How do we incentivize farmers and brands during the transition period? Which practices should be stopped cold turkey? Which require a drawdown? Where do we draw the line on different methods to improve fertility to meet an informed customer expectation of the term regenerative? So please remember that this initiative is not about calling out conventional producers. It's about supporting those who are committed to a verifiable regenerative path. Also, we'd like to mention, we will likely mention tillage during this conversation, but our deep dive on that topic will be covered during our July call on July 15th. So we do have some engagement guidelines for today. Attendees should be aware that most of today's participants are well versed in the principles of regenerative agriculture. So please be mindful that questions and comments should really dig deep. Focus your comments and questions on specific points of friction with technical complexity. And we want to remind you that your participant cameras and microphones will be turned off until the panel QA starts. Our first part of our discussion should be about 45 minutes, and then we will open up the panel QA segment. During the initial panel, you can certainly use the QA button to send questions to the panel or the chat feature. You can message Elizabeth Bennett and send your questions to her as our moderator. And during our public discussion segment, you can use the Zoom raise hand feature to request to share your perspective via video and audio, which will at that point be turned on, and you will have the option to show your face and use your voice if you'd like. The Zoom chat feature will also be used for posting information throughout the call. And so please look there for any other details from our admin team. We do expect and welcome some disagreement today, which is partly why we are here. While we may manage conflict a little differently during a Zoom panel, rest assured we are collecting all perspectives. And to that end, please access the excuse me, the iPhone link, which will be posted periodically in the Zoom chat, and you can leave your detailed public comments there. So I will now hand the microphone over to Alan Lewis. He is our vice president of advocacy at Natural Grocers. He's an active member of various organizations, including iPhone North America, and he will be our host for this event. Alan, take it over.
SPEAKER_07Hey, thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Christy, for that uh good, helpful opening remarks and warm welcome. Um, also want to call out and thank the nonprofit International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement.
SPEAKER_08I think Alan is muted one more time here.
SPEAKER_01Just give him a moment.
SPEAKER_07Okay, yeah, I think uh we just muted everybody because there was some background noise, and now I'm back. Lucky for you. Um, I wanted to thank the nonprofit International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements for sponsoring this series on the iPhone North America.org website and supporting the success of these important stakeholder sessions from a third-party and uh uh long-standing 50-year-old perspective. As you listen and engage today, please stay focused on the key problems we are solving. First, we need shoppers who come across regenerative claims in the supermarket to know what those claims mean and why they should trust those products. From the opposite perspective, we need brands that do not yet meet minimum standards for regenerative practices to stop using the term and confusing shoppers until they can upgrade their ingredients. Through this cooperative initiative, we hope to facilitate a consensus standard that all food retail and institutional buying offices can use to identify products that do not qualify as regenerative. Then those grants can be asked to change their labels or provide better transparency to their customers, or better yet, upgrade their sourcing practices to earn the claim regenerative. It's actually pretty simple. Consensus standard will also empower food shoppers to challenge their favorite retailers about products they see using regenerative claims that don't quite add up. So, very short introductions to the panel, and Elizabeth is going to post links for each of them so you can do a little multitasking and dig in to the background. D'Anthony Price, agronomist, educator, and agricultural advocate, specializing in sustainable and organic farming systems on behalf of Rodale Institute. Scott Park and his family farm, over 1,800 acres in the Sacramento Valley that has similar size, crops, and yields to conventional California farms. Mike Calicrate, an old friend of mine, is an independent cattle producer using dryland crops to raise cattle, using an integrated system in northwestern Kansas with minimal groundwater and minimal rainfall. And that's why I invite him in here because he's we're going to be talking about environmental constraints on regenerative systems. Just as a general reminder, we're assuming that most of you are up to speed on regenerative farming practice. So panelists have been asked to jump to their responses without too much background explanation so we can keep things moving along. Okay, now let's get to the panel. We're gonna start with sources of on-farm fertility, compost, cover crops, um, manure. Later, we're gonna talk about off-farm sources, would have a particular set of challenges and problems. So just keep that in mind as we go through here. In our previous sessions, we found some agreement about synthetic fertilizers and pesticides use in regenerative systems, which was pretty much a hard no. A good system shouldn't need them. We didn't talk much about where added fertility comes from. So the title of this session is Compost, manure, and cover crops. I want to start with on-farm sources fertility, including livestock sources, first, as distinct from materials from outside sources. So, Scott, you have a huge amount of experience in a relatively helpful ecology in California, and you're widely recognized as an innovator in large-scale crop production, soil fertility, crop rotation, cover crops, gentler tillage methods, balanced inputs. And I personally consider what you do to be regenerative. I know you have neighbors who are kind of sort of using the same tools but still depend on a nitrogen kicker or herbicide applications, and they'd like to call themselves regenerative too. But tell us how your overall system works and why you don't need those chemical tools anymore.
SPEAKER_06Thank you. So, yeah, I've been farming for over 50 years since uh 1985. So 40 some years I've been uh in the soil health building process. Our farm is 100% regenerative organic certified. And it's important that that's clarified that it has no association with the term just regenerative. The regenerative organic certification is a completely different ball grain, uh, a lot more challenging, a lot more demanding. Um, so the just don't don't mix the two together, they're very separate. So we grow 15 different crops. Talking about inputs, uh, it's important to recognize that it's not just uh cover crops and compost um manure. Uh it fits a big deal on the crop rotation and also crop residue. So we're putting 10 to 15 tons of biomass every year into every acre. We have 28 fields spread over 12 miles. We're growing up to 15 different crops. And the crops, some of them are being grown knowingly for a loss, but the value of them on the overall soil building diverse system, both for finances and for the biodiversity in the soil and above, is why we do it, such as wheat. Wheat, wheat's always a loser, but the overall benefits when you look at the farm over five years, it it's it's worth it to do it. So that's the nuts and bolts of the farm asking why I don't use chemicals over this 40-some years, through a lot of mistakes, uh, a lot of major screw-ups, a lot of bad decisions. We still have found that that we've developed that we have a natural system that does our problem solving. So, why are you using chemicals or why are you using compost? You're doing it to solve problems, the problem of no fertility or weeds or what have you. And so our system is built on letting natural systems develop to do our problem solving. So thank you.
SPEAKER_07Thank you. That was that was really well done, really helpful. I think I'm gonna jump right to you, Mike. You operate in an extremely challenging ecology with almost no precipitation or groundwater left in the aquifer. A little bit different than um the the situation in Salinas or Sacramento Valleys. I know you undertake every possible practice to make your environment and animals healthier, while guess what? Still managing to make a profit and stay in business. Yeah, you don't actually claim regenerative status. And that's why you're here today, because you're doing everything possible, but there are certain things in certain places systems time at certain times, which just prevent uh you grabbing that brass ring that we all want to claim is the is the be all end all. So could you share your greatest hits of your regenerative tools for everybody? And um, where does reality crash the party and prevent you from meeting um aspirational regenerative standards? And um and please take some time to talk about the weight you put on farmer, worker, and community livelihood. Because when we talk about a regenerative system, we can't just talk about a field. So go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks a lot, Alan. I so I don't claim the regenerative term on my product because I don't sell into the marketplace to big retailers where a consumer is gonna see that. What I'd rather do is is talk about what I do as a as an operation to produce food and mainly beef and pork uh in a way that I think rebuilds the soil, rebuilds the community, uh, increases income at the farm and ranch gate to where we can actually do the things that are important in regenerative practices. And so I don't I don't sell through natural grocers or Walmart or Kroger or any chain type operations that that want to that want to claim the regenerative term to differentiate themselves. So I've I've found that I can't make enough money selling into the commodity market. Uh and I have 26 years ago decided to sell direct to through Ranch Foods Direct. So then the question becomes what can I do to make my operation better? Well, I have a feedlot, and and and where I got crossways with the big meat packers, they basically blackballed me. I had no choice. I either sell direct or get out of the cattle business. So I decided to sell direct. And then I'm able, I'm able then to do all the cool stuff like keep the manure on my land, stop using the performance-enhancing drugs that reduce meat quality and and start start, you know, paying living wages to people, uh, not having to externalize costs, uh, not depending on the government for subsidies and insurance and and all of those things that the commodity farmers are doing. And and one of the things about having a feedlot, we we also graze cattle in a regenerative sort of rotational basis. And if we run out of grass uh too early, if we simply go into the feedlot where they're fed a nutritious diet that keeps their plane of nutrition up to where they're gaining weight and providing us a good year-round product. So uh, in all reality, I would say that we've got a more regenerative model than almost anyone out there that's claiming it. Uh, and of course, I think the big barrier to regenerative overall is a lack of farm gate income, or in other words, the producer's share of the consumer dollar. And if you're selling through the highly financialized uh processing, retail, food service distribution system, you're gonna have a very, very difficult time achieving enough income uh to be able to do what really needs to be done.
SPEAKER_07And that's the key. If we had an open market that accepted these products instead of excluding them, we'd have a lot more regenerative farms and regenerative food. That's right. So, yeah, thanks for that. It's fascinating, and I'm glad you agreed to be here to talk about that those constraints. We'll we'll come back to that as well. So, D'Anthony Price, man, you are busy as heck. You have all this experience with smaller farms, especially in the eastern US, which in theory are easier to qualify under organic rules and easier to call regenerative. Do you sometimes encounter uncertified farms using a mishmash of fertility inputs and practices that don't look conventional but also don't appear to gel into a regenerative system? So this is the edge case, this is the tension place, or where, like Mike, people are moving towards better practices. Um but when we talk about compost and manure and cover crops and other sources of fertility, where do you see where people are succeeding and failing?
SPEAKER_05There you go. Oh, okay. I was like, where is my mic? Okay, good. Uh so yeah, Alan. Um I think that is a great a great question to ask. Um, and so on my side of things, so I see a lot of farmers uh that are in the transitional phase where where they where they are are using regenerative practices like cover cropping and crop rotation, um, but are still really lying on some synthetic um uh input. And and honestly, this is um a lot more common when when I am working with a lot more larger scale commercial uh farmers that are working to improve their soil health, um, but are just not at that point where they are fully transitioning away from conventional fertility and programs. Uh and so with that being said, I think it it is important to meet farmers where they they are at. Uh and so the goal is to support uh uh farming of systems that are improving on soil health and and and biodiversity while also decreasing the amount of not non-organic practices. Um because when you look at it, regenerative agriculture is a journey. Um and and so every farm is at a a different stage in the journey per se.
SPEAKER_07Thank you. Um, this is a trick question that all of you were warned about. I'd like you, D'Anthony, to give Mike some advice um uh uh about what's next for him. Uh from a smallholder different ecology perspective, would can you envision something that that that will happen in the future for for dryland ranching and farming?
SPEAKER_05Uh so with that question, you are asking uh well, Mike, how um how about you give me some more context on that?
SPEAKER_07Well, it it's a trick question because uh I didn't mean to flummox anybody, but you're coming from such a different perspective point of view in terms of ecology, environment, and scale. Um, and you really focus on regenerative certified or certifiable areas. Um so I'm wondering if you when you think about uh operations that aren't gonna quite make that regenerative certification, are there things that you want to ask Mike or tell Mike, like have you thought about? Again, a little bit of a quick question, but go ahead.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so to that question, I'll say, you know, the main goal is to is to work with farmers to implement more soil health and organic practices. And then once we get to that standpoint, um, if it makes sense for their business model to get them certified, then I would say go ahead and get certified. But like what Mike said, you know, that is not his market, right? Um, because his goal is to create a a living, working, and farming system that overall takes care of of itself. And then once we get to that standpoint where we are now having that the man for might to get uncertified, then I would say, okay, let's get certified. Now, with that being said, there are a lot of farmers who are who are getting uncertified as a way to tell their farming story. So as a consumer, when I see that label, I know exactly what you are doing on that farm. Now, when we when we talk about labels like organic versus uh reinvenative labels, a um a lot of consumers think that when they see that re-inventive label, they think that that farmer is using uh organic practices. And in a lot of cases, that is not true. Um, when they see that label, they they are seeing that farmers have a soil health mindset while also trying to be more uh totally fair. Versus when they see that USDA label, they know for fact that that farmer is using all organic practices. Um and so when we talk about the future of certification, we really have to talk about creating a system where we are able to storytell farmers and practices while also not um confusing the consumer.
SPEAKER_07Yeah that thanks for uh thanks for landing that so perfectly Scott I I think I'd like you to chime in about your neighborhood farms or the farms in the valley that really aren't trying but occasionally they're using regenerative practices in compost or green manure or or or um uh other practices but they really aren't aiming towards a regenerative system. They're just using and this is a segue to the off farm um inputs question but what's happening in the farmers' minds where you are where regenerative might get a price premium and there's certain lots of benefits to it but nobody's many most people are not even thinking or talking about making a move yeah your last sentence is the one that's accurate yeah in this I can only speak for Northern California um it's really clearly split organic conventional um there aren't farmers are either farming conventionally or they're farming organically and and the regenerative term and use is is different ball game i uh than than what you're having experience in the Midwest or the South or what have you the farmers are are riding pretty hard we're the the commodities or they're dealing a lot in fresh market um but yeah the regenerative doesn't have real strong wings in our area i i it's just it is what it is um they're not people that are sort of working an angle to an advantage at this time um like there's uh example is almond growers in the good days when almond prices were high they were putting a lot of compost on their trees because they had a lot of money that they could do it uh they're not doing as much now but during that time they weren't claiming regenerative so i i i can't really say that's happening here yeah it's I think it's important for everyone to realize that that that as much as we hope for momentum in a lot of places the market is preventing momentum from developing uh this is for everybody just to chime in on we're gonna do a quote from Yoda of course who said do or don't do there is no try but where does trying to be more regenerative Mike Scott's neighbors the small farms that DeAnthony works with that aren't quite uh certified yet where does that turn into a discipline improvable practice that starts to deserve the name or at least deserve proper recognition uh for better practices what uses of compost livestock cover cropping show a true commitment and ability and which do you feel are just a little bit of window dressing?
SPEAKER_05D'Anthony you want to start off on that that's yeah I will yeah so so in my view if we have farmers that are soil health focused right so so we have farmers that are growing more cover crops um and and integrating more livestock then in my view they are being very imaginative because their goal is to build that soil but also create a more living working and farming system. I think at the point where we have farmers that are still using non-organic um practices um that's where we should really draw that line of saying okay now now are you in this to transition through that journey or are or are you in this to still using these practices because then that tells you where they are at um but that also goes back to me saying you know we we always have to be farmer first. And so with that being said we need to make sure that we are meeting the farmer where they are at so for example if if I have a large scale cotton farmer in South Georgia that are well that is that is using more cover crops and using more crop rotation and practices but are still using some type of herbicide to kill weeds well my first question is do you have a plan where where the overall go goal is as you as you are increasing your soil health practices are you decreasing your non-organic practices that that's pretty succinct thank you Mike you're you're dead in the middle of this what would you like the market to uh how would you like them to see you given everything that you have accomplished and are trying to do well first of all I want Scott for a neighbor in rural America it's almost become unlivable with all of the drift and the and the pesticide all of that in the air and and it's really keeping a lot of people from living out in rural America to so so I I uh first of all I yeah I'd love to have Scott for a neighbor uh but the thing is uh to to be regenerative in my country you really need to incorporate livestock uh and and if you've got livestock now you've got a use for those cover crops and oftentimes in my area too cover crops fail because we simply don't have the moisture at the time that you plant and if you have a center pivot which there's still some a lot of irrigation where I live uh but the aquifer is declining very very rapidly we need to make a transition away from irrigation and get back to dry land practices but but I really think my journey was to just completely go to livestock.
SPEAKER_00My farm doesn't produce one thing that doesn't go through the livestock. So I've got one thing to worry about and that's selling meat. And so that that kind of narrows it down and lets me do some things that others can't do because they don't have the livestock. So but in order to have livestock on a farm today you need a market. And if you're a chicken farmer or a pig farmer you're you're industrialized fact in a factory building type of a model and if you're cattle well half of you have gone out of business and 8600 feeding operations like mine are now gone. And so you're really and where's the manure now for for our regenerative you know alternative to chemical fertilizers going to come from they're gone. The small most ideal operations are now out of business because they couldn't get market access quality safe fertile local manure is is is uh it's you're the first person who's mentioned that outright but it's a huge negative consequence to from the consolidation hey the yeah manure becomes that sorry go ahead what's that manure becomes a liability in the big operations as opposed to an asset to the smaller guys.
SPEAKER_07Right.
SPEAKER_06So notice that you and D Anthony and and actually Scott all said uh the same thing markets markets markets that's going to drive this and we have to start where the farmer are where the farmers are their situations stress leases equipment knowledge workers experience um let's let's move off to the less fun stuff which is the off-farm sources and there are so many issues to discuss about off-farm inputs such as municipal compost cow and steer manure like Mike just mentioned thank you poultry manure marine materials rated liquid manure from livestock confinements some are good and defensible and others not so much and again we're going to hear about is it a regenerative system or not because these kind of bounce between good or bad Scott what inputs do you still bring in from outside suppliers um and do you consider them safe and regenerative I assume you do but let's walk through which ones you use and why you're uh comfortable with them and how you condition them ahead of time so uh our inputs have shrunk dramatically over the years um but we are growing uh as I said 15 different crops some of them have value up to $8,000 an acre but on all the crops all that we are putting on is compost seaweed and microbes uh in fact just as an at our planting time of all the crops uh our expenses once we start planting is only $12 an acre of of seaweed and microbes and the products that we're bringing in are all organically certified um so there's I've got plenty to do my son has a farm you know and he has but anyway we have plenty to do without double checking so so we we we're dealing with companies that that we've dealt with for up to 30 30 plus years uh they all have a long track record and uh so again we have found through time that that if you use other inputs part of the farm that builds a system that does your problem solving and so there's a lot more emphasis on hedgerows crop rotation the one crop growing to help the next crop um methods such as that of a whole complete system as you were asking before like how do you tell if a farmer is really if their heart's in it are they truly doing regenerative or they're not doing regenerative to me is if you put on token compost to get some premium or money from a grant and then you do all your other practices better than not but certainly you couldn't claim anything called regenerative. So yeah I feel really good about our inputs each of the inputs has has an importance in that we've shrunk it down and I I don't question the integrity of the people that have been supplying this because they've been doing it a long time and they do it well.
SPEAKER_07Thank you. Hey Mike you're gonna be up next but I just want to caution everyone I I live in Boulder County and there's a tremendous push to collect organic matter from households lawn waste and whatnot food waste it's unusable for farmers it just sits there in huge mountains because of persistent uh herbicides and particular and pesticides that that are still allowed to be used in landscaping and in yard use and whatnot um it it's a tremendous problem across the country what to do with with municipal waste that you know garbage in garbage out now Mike you've got a special point of view here on on manure manure ain't manure and um yeah I know uh you've got this great operation you've got that wide open feedlot and and really quality feed and those animals aren't there for very long but um you also are really careful as you mentioned about pharmaceutical hormone antibiotic treatments because that ends up in manure can can we when we talk about manure in a regenerative system which comes through the organic certified rules walk us through your perception of the risk and how you manage that well I am lucky uh you know my inputs are coming through the hay and the grain and and the ingredients that I feed my livestock that ends up in the manure without all of these performance enhancing drugs and chemicals and so forth.
SPEAKER_00And so the manure I'm putting on my land is is really from the inputs that I put into my animals. And so I'm able to build soil as opposed to a closed system where if you've got land that's been degraded and needs fertility, it's hard to get it done without bringing in outside inputs as Scott mentioned with the with the compost. But one of the things that I'm concerned about is I drive from Denver to St. Francis, Kansas about uh a third of the way out to Kansas which is 180 mile drive there's this pile of biosolids on the north side of Highway 36. It is the most offensive smell and the ugliest stuff you've ever seen in your life I can't imagine someone having to haul that stuff without a gas mask and and and and I just cannot believe we're putting this on the land. And we've learned from in many places particularly in the Northeast where where people have lost their farms because they've got such heavy metal and other contaminants in those soils that they can't eat the food off of it. Even Benitucci Pharmacaro Springs had to quit growing food because of the contamination of the water supply there from for mostly the Air Force. But on the other hand we've got the big feedlots the highly concentrated feedlots that have taken the place of many of the small better operators across the country that I mean they don't hold back. They feed everything you can possibly feed to get animals to grow faster you know all of the GMO crops uh the Roundup and all of those things that go into that manure and then they all they got to do is compost it and they can sell it as organic. And and it's absolutely I I don't understand how that that works. But you know it's a powerful lobby and and they've been able to get it done. So now we have feed lots that manure has become the the biggest liability they've ever we've ever seen and they're hauling up to 200 miles to get rid of this stuff. And so you know I I just think we have to really take a look at where manure is coming from and and and you know consider that in our decisions about soil health.
SPEAKER_07Yeah thank you. Now D'Anthony let's get you unmuted um you're all about integrating livestock on regenerative organic farms. That way you're not collecting manure into big piles it actually ends up in decays in on site or it's a manageable composting process incorporated with other uh with other methods. Um talk to us about how you would view the best practices uh when the manure is coming from the livestock and all the other things the livestock are doing for for the land and the soil.
SPEAKER_05Yeah so a lot of the farmers that I work with um integrate livestock in some way and with that being said it looks different per farm. So for example yesterday I was at a nine acre farm in in Macon Georgia and a part of her her farming system is she has ducks and donkeys well well so the donkeys are a great source of pasture and management and manure uh and then also for for the ducks or uh last week you know I I was at a 12 acre farm in South Fulton and she has goats well she well she am uses goats mainly for land clearing um because we all know that goats eat everything right so um so with that being said um livestock integration is a great way to promote more biodiversity on the farm um whether it is through soil health or whether um it is through pasture management um now when we talking about off um off farm sources it's really important to know where it is coming from right so so it is very important to understand where it it is coming from how it is farmed and how it was treated because then the farmer is best able to to decide um if that is the best off farm uh input for them um another way of a lot of small scale farmers are adding more um livestock is also through uh worm farming right so so so i think we can all agree that vermium compost is a great source for tutorial amendments um and so you see so many creative ways where farmers are are able to add more biodiversity on the farm while also creating more stronger soil systems and ultimately creating more living working and farming systems um another thing that I did want to touch since um I heard it uh brought up is a closed loop system. So um a lot of my small farmers are are using closed loop systems because that is their way of creating a overall living working farming system. So for example as a farmer I I can plant cover crops for my soil but also plant cover crops for my livestock because a lot of cover crops can also be used as a feed for livestock. Well if that's the case then that livestock on on my land is able to graze my livestock of pasture management and also able to use that manure source. And so a lot of farmers that I work with their goal is to create a closed loop farming system where there are building soil adding more biodiversity but also decreasing the amount of off farm inputs that they are using because overall their main goal is how can I save a dollar right um and so one way that they they are doing that is through a closed loop farming system.
SPEAKER_06Thank you really well done appreciate that very helpful comment sure go ahead can I add one one thing on um so this discussion on compost like we've been using compost for uh almost 40 years and there's good compost and there's bad compost um but but some of this is uh one of my favorite phrases is don't let perfect be the enemy of the good yes it would be wonderful to have good compost on every acre that doesn't come from restaurants and what have you but on the other end if you look at it we are really trying to improve the way America farms we need a lot of compost compost is a really good tool to improve the soil and move it in the right direction. So can we find a common ground? For example we deal with a company called Cold Creek Compost and they've been doing it for uh I think close to 40 years and and they use some restaurant green they use some restaurant stuff they use some green waste but they also it's composted where the CN ratio is very low like everything in it has been pretty much turned down turned up eaten up by microbes you can stick your hand into the compost and it's not a cooking factory it it's it's it's done its process. And so there are impurities that got in that but if we don't take stuff from green waste or from restaurants and it's going to keep building up then what are we going to what are we going to do with it? If it's completely composted it's usable. And then touching on animals we would love we use sheep for grazing but again because we're at such a size we would need 2000 sheep to graze our acres between February and April we actually plant cover crops to we know like say a rice field that's going to be planted in May later May we have a all of this is mix and match on animals cover crops past crop coming crop and whenever we can fit The animals in we plant a cover crop to match it, to graze it, to go on. Um, but but it doesn't lend itself to we can do it on every acre and have it. We take care of our cash crop first and fit in the animals instead of having the animals and adjust our crops to the animals because we we only stay in business one year. That that's brilliant.
SPEAKER_07Doing what's possible when it's possible. Mike, I've I've thrown you a softball a couple of times, but I'm just going to challenge you. Tell us about composting animals. If you don't mind.
SPEAKER_00I'm so sorry we even have to do that, Alan. Uh I we used to have rendering. We used to have companies up and down, this really up and down between Kansas and Colorado, from the Tribune to McCook and Nebraska, uh, that would render these these dead animals, and that is all gone now. So so basically uh we went from getting free, actually, they paid you to pick up an animal to where they were charging you to pick up an animal to where now they won't pick them up at all. And so we're we're composting dead animals and our slaughter waste goes into our composting operation. But it breaks your heart to see a beautiful cattle hide go into a compost pile when it used to be worth $100 a head 20 years ago. Uh, and and so this is a real problem for small plants having to dispose of their slaughter waste and and dead animals. Uh right now in Wyoming, and for the most part, you're going into landfills and having to pay for that. But in my operation, where I have a cattle feeding operation, I've also got the Kansas Department of Health and Environment approvals for handling waste. And we, if you can consider slaughter waste or dead animals as agricultural waste, then we can get the approval to do that composting on the farm. But we also need to be careful where that compost occurs. The runoff needs to be captured properly and in a good nutrient management plan. So yeah, we we uh have to compost dead animals. In fact, our neighbors from time to time bring us an animal, uh uh, and and that turns into soil soil fertility at some point.
SPEAKER_07There's there's a number of operators, like Will Harris comes to mind trying to get the hides, the bones, the specialty organs, all of that into the market. And it's tough. But I think when all of us think about evangelizing regenerative, recycled uh agriculture, we need to deal with this issue of uh keeping this demand alive so that farmers have an incentive and and bluntly farmers can stay in business, right?
SPEAKER_02Um Alan, I do have some questions.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_02So um this is a little bit of a rewind to earlier in our conversation, but um Hans Herren did say that he appreciated D'Anthony's question comments on um regenerative being sort of a transition step toward organic. Um and he said that he feels the emphasis on regenerative in the end is part of what confuses consumers. So um when they finally start to understand what organic is, it then adds to that confusion. And he asked, should we emphasize organic agriculture and use regenerative as a step toward organic agriculture?
SPEAKER_05Yes, I think so. Um I think it is a great way to meet farmers where they are at, because a lot of farmers are not able to just well, I'll say most farmers are not able to just transition overnight. So uh whether it is because of knowledge or whether it is because of price, right? So for example, um I used to always say, I don't understand why all farmers are not planting cover crops. Well, now as a farmer, I know why, because that is another off-farm input that I have to pay for, right? Uh and I think we can all all agree here as farmers that the cost of agricultural inputs are just sky high right now. Um, and so I think vegetative agriculture can be can be viewed as a transition period for farmers to go organic, because the goal is over time, the more soil health practices that I am implementing on my farm, then the less off farm inputs, whether it is organic or non-organic, that I have to use. So the more cover crops that I am planting for my soil health, right? So whether it is for fertility or whether it is for organic matter, then over time I am not having to buy a lot of um fertilizer because my cover crop over time is is breaking down and adding that all back to the soil. Um and so I love that that viewpoint of regenerative agriculture can be a can be a way to transition more farmers to being organic and to a point where I think the end point should be farmers should be regenerative organic, meaning not only are are they using uh organic inputs, but they're also building soil. And and and I say that because unfortunately, we do have farms that are certified organic, that are using uh uh uh organic inputs, but if you go look at their soil, it's dead, right? Um, and so I think the ultimate goal is we have a farming system that is not only building soil, but also using organic practices.
SPEAKER_07So it's interesting. I occasionally learn something, right? You know, somebody sneaks something into my my head. But we typically think of conventional to organic to regenerative. And what you're saying, D'Anthony, and I and I think the questioner is is right, is that accumulation of basic good regenerative practices becomes an organic certifiable system and then becomes something even bigger through through a certified regenerative system if that's what a farmer chooses. And so sometimes we're we're we we look at this as an all or nothing or there's this hard set of steps. Does did that resonate with you, Scott?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and I I think for people that haven't been in the trenches, transitioning ground to organic, because I've like I've brought in 37 fields over the years, uh uh uh but there's a big player here, and that's the the soil, the microbes. Okay, they're not used to getting natural food, they're used to getting aqua, UN32, ammonia sulfate. So part of the transition, whether you want to be organic and you switch everything in one year to organic, one, it takes three years for certification. And two, it truly does take for me transitioning in all these fields over all over the well over many miles anyway, is the the soil's not ready. It it doesn't matter. You can pour in, you can spend money like there's no tomorrow. And if the soil microbial life is basically flat, it's it's not going to impact. So not only do you have a you're putting a bunch of money into something, you're gonna get lower yields, and you're not gonna get paid the premium, which brings in the last point of a transition is capital. You need working capital to absorb the three years as you're training the microbes that from now on you're on a different diet.
SPEAKER_07The real source of fertility is the microbes in the healthy soil, right? We talk about these proxies, but that's where the where it hits, where it really matters. Um, we're gonna do a lightning round of some simple no or no questions in a second, but um, I'm taking my host's um privileges here to say, let's talk about hog farms and hog manure. And just to cue people in, they're notorious for collecting urine and thesces in lagoons or cisterns underneath these massive barns and then eventually pumping it out to spray back onto cropland and pasture land as a so-called soil amendment. And because it could be turned into feed or forage or food crops, I just want to, if you guys have a strong feeling about whether this practice has any place in a regenerative system when that hog manure is from a conventional hog confinement with all sorts of pharmaceutical treatments plus uh genetic modification plus fetid lagoons. I mean I I'm I'm open to being told get over it, but any thoughts here?
SPEAKER_00I look at North Carolina uh hurricanes, and and why in the world are we building dog factories and floods and in high rainfall areas only to have it discharging into the rivers and and and and polluting a lot of the country, making those communities unlivable. That what's that got to do with regenerative? I mean, it we when we consider your regenerative, I think you got to talk be talking about uh a sustainable farm income in communities that are that are sustainable as well. And livable as well. And and so I just think uh the hog manure out of these highly concentrated facilities that are is, as you've just said, full of everything you can imagine going on the land, uh is is certainly not what I would view as a regenerative practice.
SPEAKER_07So to broaden that point, um even if you could defend the composition of the manure, the sources and the and the negative consequences of that kind of livestock production across humans and animals and waterways and air, the air is the worst of it. That's part of a regenerative system. We don't get to step out and say, well, but what comes out of this conventional stream is okay to use. And I think that's something we really need to pay attention to. Anyone want to follow on on that? Or did you just is that enough? Okay. I I've got some lightning round questions. This is uh not yes or no, this is no or no. Okay, who's ready? Let's start with can a regenerative system use compost made with treated municipal sewage waste? No or no?
SPEAKER_05So for USDA organic? No.
SPEAKER_07Would you in a regenerative system if you saw one of your farms taking solid sewage waste away from the city and attempting to reuse it as a source of fertility or composting with something else? I mean, any thoughts on that? Any feelings about it?
SPEAKER_00I think it's a terrible practice, and and a lot of the reason it's even being done is because farmers are so broke that that they're having, you know, they're they're they need the income. They may be getting paid something to dispose of that waste. And and then it suggests that it's going to become soil that produces our food is is pretty offensive.
SPEAKER_01I have a question. As a follow-up, my father um was is a civil engineer and ran the water reclamation plant in our city, and they did that practice where it was sold to farmers nearby. My devil's advocate question is what would be a better use for that waste product that all cities are gonna have? And maybe we don't know all of that answer, but I'm I'm curious if anybody would have a suggestion of what would be a better um suggestion to the cities of what to do with it.
SPEAKER_07I'll give you the short answer, which is toxins in, toxins out, the the technology used to treat that waste. Um, put some chlorine and they use salmonella and equal as a proxy for all the pathogens, all of the pharmaceutical residues, genetic material, uh pesticides, everything that you flush down the toilet or often that goes down the drain ends up in that sludge, or liquid biosolids. And until we fix what goes in, it's the it's one of the two things that originally organic was able to keep out biosolids and and um irradiated seeds. So um that's why it's a no or no question because in the larger system we have to fix the inputs. Right now, most of that goes into landfills. We're re-burying it for a future generation. Any uh any follow-up on that, or are we good? Next no or no question. At harvest time, or when using cover crops or interplanting, should a regenerative farmer use an herbicide to terminate the cover crop or the crop prior to harvest?
SPEAKER_05I'm gonna say no. Good answer, but tell why. Well, first and foremost, if the end goal for that farmer is to get USDA organic certified or regenerative organic certified, then that is not allowed at all. Now, if we go back to the the statement earlier of saying regenerative agriculture is a transition period, that I could possibly see a farmer using it in the beginning, but the more that they are using these practices, then no. And so I think the end the end goal is no.
SPEAKER_07And there are other methods within a regenerative system that actually are well known, well established, proven, especially with with Rodel and the rolling, all of that. So um, and and the desiccant on on food and and feed crops, uh no good comes of that. We understand the economics, but um let's do another no and no here, okay? Several companies are now selling proprietary synthetic bioengineered inoculants, proprietary GMO night microbes they claim will boost soil function function. Is there a place for this in regenerative system, Scott? Are you are you buying synthetic microbes?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, you want to take a guess on my stand on that one? Yeah, and some of this is no, you're you're you're seeking you're see you're just seeking a shortcut. All of that in our farm, I can give you a good example, is we used to put on every seed treatment possible and everything we were planting. And once we started going organic, and then we were dropping the seed treatment, and and honestly, it's like 10 years later, we went, whoa, hey, we're we're not using any seed treatment. We I mean a lot of it was totally unnecessary or is playing at the safe. But but in in time, you find that so many of these things that you're putting on is just knee-jerk, and and your system can do it itself. It's so much of a mentality of instant gratification. I want to cover my ass this year and I'll worry about next year, next year, instead of building a comfortable, healthy soil that does takes care of that. You don't need a seed treatment.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_07Since that gene editing isn't technically describable as GMO, thanks to the USDA, a lot of farmers are using those uh special proprietary microbes, not realizing that they've been gene edited. Uh, the language around that is really fuzzy. Um, I got a last one. It's not really a no or no, but I want everyone to start thinking about this. There's a company called Ancient Organics. It's selling an inoculant of naturally occurring microbes. In other words, one of the tens of millions of microbes that have been on the planet naturally for forever. They help break down glyphosate and AMPA in the soil. Now, are you open to this? Because it sounds good, but is there a feedback loop where it allows people to justify using glyphosate in the first place? Because now they can remediate it. Any first thoughts?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I think your point's good that it gives it an okay to use glycosate. And the other thing is what else is it breaking down? You know, I mean, making maybe it's impacting uh a comfortable microbial system that's running well, but now this has set it all out of balance. So the correctiveness, uh and I don't know how long glycophate lands in the la lasts in the soil. Uh just had an interesting thing happen with a neighbor of mine who was trying to plant pumpkins and they went in and checked for DDT, and it gone back 36 years before the last time DDT was put on this field, they could find it. Just as a little interesting note on chemicals.
SPEAKER_07We're about to move to Elizabeth and the QA that's stacking up. Christy, you had a particular question you wanted to ask at the end here. Did you want to just jump in and ask that question?
SPEAKER_01Or yeah. Um I'll I'll I have I have I've written several questions, but I one that I will ask that I again to play devil's advocate, part of what we're here to do is have some intentionally uncomfortable conversations, but uh geared towards solutions, geared towards trying to dig into these problems in a meaningful way to again for us as a retailer keep coming back to this setting a minimum standard of how do we in a retail buying office vet these claims and what questions do we need to be asking of vendors and products that are making them? So, one uh question I have is some regenerative systems and some certifications only really measure outcomes, not inputs or practices. Uh, how do we evaluate a farm that maybe uses CAFO manure versus a farm that has integrated animals on their cropland and uses cover crops? If they both have positive, measurable outcomes, can they both make a regenerative claim on their product? The product that would, you know, in in theory, in this example, be sold to, you know, presented to natural grocers as a product to sell.
SPEAKER_07The shopper is going to see the same claim on different products, is Christy's point. So where are we confusing people and not moving regenerative forward when there are multiple different practices but the same soil health measurement outcome? That is a tough one. I'm not answering anybody.
SPEAKER_00Well, if you're gonna talk about capos, you've got to have some further definition because anything that's combined is essentially a capo. Uh and so you know, I I'm saying that the more industrial an operation is, the the bigger they are. Uh, whether they're a you know, a factory farm like a like hogs and poultry and much of the of the bigger cattle operations, I think you've got to take a closer look at it. Uh you know, a farmer feeder that's out there feeding his crops from his own farm and putting the manure back on the soil, is the circular system I'm looking for. Uh that's what I want to see.
SPEAKER_07Is let me double down on that on Mike's behalf because he's been to his operations and a regenerative farmer, D'Anthony Scott, if you saw what Mike was doing, even though there are a I think six small feedlots, they're not crowded, they're clean, happy, healthy animals not being treated for disease because they're not diseased. That's related to Christy's question. Okay, everybody has feedlots, except feedlots are can be a really important part of a system in certain instances. Anthony, did you want to chime in on this? Sources versus soil outcomes.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so with that being said, I will bring up the regenerative organic certification and standards. Um, so a part of that process is farmers are farmers are required to have a soil organic uh distance plan. Um, and so that means that they are required to track their soil health practices and then also um view the outcomes and see how they are able to keep improving those. And then along with that comes with the Animal welfare. And so a part of getting that certification, the farmer has to have some type of um animal welfare certification that shows that not only that the that the livestocks are aren't being fed organically, but they are also being taken care of. So whether that means that they have more space or or or whether that means that they that that they have a living environment that really promotes more um safer livestock well uh welfare. I can't say that word. Welfare.
SPEAKER_07So it's not the cow, it's the how, to borrow a phrase. So I'm gonna turn this over to Elizabeth now for QA and and uh and hand raising as as needed. And I will try to be quiet unless someone asks me a question. Hopefully you don't. Uh so go ahead, Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thank you so much, Alan. Um I am just gonna say I see everyone's questions and the hand raises, and I'm trying to do them in the order they came in. So if you feel like it's taken a while, it's because we have a lot of really awesome people um submitting questions. So I'm gonna try and get through it now. Um we did have a question. Somebody says they live in SoCal, um, and there's currently a state bill for compost collection that would then be redistributed. They said this conversation is a concern because all market farms that they chat with are using Omri certified compost because it is the most cost efficient. Do the farmers on our panel think that the horse manure from uh adjacent farms is a better option for us to use to compost ourselves? Or what questions should we be asking to assess that manure?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, if they're putting raw manure on, I I I would not not support that. Um composted omri approved is the highest level. Um I'm surprised they said it's cost efficient because an omri label is a really really expensive to get. But if that's what they're doing, I I anyway, I would lean toward the omri over-the-horse manure, even if the compost is hauled a distance.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Um, next question I have is with the recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, um, Big Ag is waking up that Haberbosch is running out of natural gas and that relying on a finite volatile fossil fuel corridor for cheap nitrogen inputs is a structural death sentence for long-term profit margins. Is the organic movement ready for new agribusiness playbook to claim green ammonia as a regenerative input? And that one is from Ken McCormick.
SPEAKER_07I mean, Ken McCormick can answer that better than anybody, but I will tell you that if y'all haven't revisited the Haber Bash process and understood how ridiculously inefficient it is uh to create uh synthetic nitrogen that way, uh that's its own demise. And um the the fact that he used fossil fuels and so much energy to begin with is is just a nightmare.
SPEAKER_00I I agree with that. I don't know why we're putting an hydrous ammonia on soil to turn it into dead dirt. I mean, putting an hydrous ammonia in our in our ground beef uh with with the BPI uh uh process of making pink slime. I mean, I just see uh anhydrous ammonia go away when we look at other sources of soil fill.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Yeah. Um, next question I have is from CJ. They asked, um, they said, I'm hearing adding livestock is so critical for generative. I have yet to see any grants for adding livestock. Are any of you aware of funding resources that are available?
SPEAKER_00I'm not aware of any of those resources. Uh, but however, I would I would add if we if we would provide markets for livestock that are fair, uh easy and accessible, uh open and competitive, the the livestock would automatically come back. It's not something I don't think I don't think deserves you know grant money or or government funding. I just think all we've got to do is create fair and open and competitive markets. And we're a long way from that happen.
SPEAKER_06I support what Mike's saying. We we did a study to see you know if she if grazing's great and we bring sheep in, which sheep fit our area more than cattle or pigs and and whatever, and and it didn't even come close with our weather patterns and the management and the cost of our land and what have you. Uh so you know, you've got to look at the context of where you're farming and what you're doing to make it match, just to throw a grand in, like for us to to do sheep is like, well, no, it's just it's not it's not practical. It doesn't pencil, we can take some money for three. So yeah, it's gotta fit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And then I'm gonna move to one of our raised hands. Um, it's a guest if you would like to speak. Are you still on? Who are you calling on? It it says Steve Gaius. I know we're having a bit of a glitch. They have unmuted themselves.
SPEAKER_07Let's go to that question, the QA, and have that person chime in in a second.
SPEAKER_02We'll we'll have them come back. Um, but I I am seeing that um Nancy asked, uh, she said, I think the discussion here is interesting, but we seem to be talking about the problems and not potential solutions. What do you have for solutions for farmers and ranchers? The market is not sending any signals to farmers to become certified regenerative or even organic, except for niche markets where only those with full stomachs shop. How do we make our food system regenerative as the norm versus something only for people with money?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think that's a great question, first and foremost, that comes with that mind change of instead of how can I grow this one crop on this large amount of acreage to make money versus how can I create a a more living, working farming system where I am able to provide more locally grown uh foods to my people, right? Uh and so first and foremost, I think it takes that mind change uh and then truly understanding that the first move before even to think about certification are these practices. And so as a farmer, how can I implement more soil health and biodiversity and livestock into my system? Because once we do that, then then I see that we have a more higher uh demand for that because we have a lot more farmers doing that per se. Um, so it is really changing that that that uh mindset um back to what we had before colonization I want I want to go back to building markets.
SPEAKER_00My solution is we need more maker-owned public market type operations across the country. I think every community should be feeding themselves. We need an alternative to the industrialized, financialized distribution system that is absolutely demanding more and more from growers all the time while wanting to pay less. And I'm suggesting that we build marketplaces within communities that are owned by the makers. So you've got your butcher and your baker and your coffee roaster and your and all of those things in one place, it becomes the community hub. And this is what I want to build in Colorado Springs, in addition to what we already have, and other communities around the country need to be looking at this model to give farmers access more directly to consumers, as well as the reward back is the income improving at that farm and ranch gate to where they can do the right things.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, Mike, uh to that point, uh, the first thing I think of it is the term that I always use, which is I'm community, I'm agriculture. Um, and so in my view, that is a food system where we put the farmer in the middle and and truly use that way to build communities. So meaning everyone deserves to know where where their food comes from, who is growing it, how how it is processed, and then how it gets to to the table, but also truly showing folks that we all play a part in our food system, whether as a farmer, whether as a chef, or whether as a local business who is selling byproducts from that farmer, um, it is truly creating a more community uh focused agricultural system where we are feeding communities versus having more larger scale farms that are are feeding mass people.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. I need I would like to comment on this. Um there's a couple of things impacting this. One, like I agree with what Mike's saying. However, you also have to have the consumer willing to pay more, okay, because that is not a local production, a smaller mill putting out your costs are higher, it's going to cost more. Your food's gonna will the consumer pay more? So, from my viewpoint, the consumer is capping this whole growth because if the consumer would pay more, as Mike's saying, market would follow. Farmers, if one farmer seen another farmer making a lot of money, driving nice new trucks, new tractors, what have you, they're going, hey, I want a piece of that action. How are you doing that? And it happens. And the second thing that is capping price and making this happen is international. Okay. Our particular business, we get killed time and again from Brazil or Thailand, uh, Russia, wherever, if you go to any side of anything you're growing and it has any profit potential, international now, they have developed their systems, they have the infrastructure, and they're coming in and blowing America's socks off on price. And that's capping what if all international supplies went down and we were growing it, we would not be growing as much of just say corn and soybeans. We'd be growing them a lot more diverse amount and taking care, and the price would be up and it would make the price and farmers making money and consumers would be supporting the local community.
SPEAKER_00Scott, that is a really good point. And yesterday on NPR, uh Chloe Cervino was being interviewed uh about what's going on in the sugar industry. And what look at what we've done for the barons in the sugar industry that we haven't done for real food, healthy food producers in this country. We protect sugar, we give them special deals. I mean, they have access, direct cell phone access to the president of the last several presidents. They get their way, and international trade is 100% favors the domestic uh Florida crystals, for example. And and and they claim to have a 10,000-acre regenerative farm. Well, wait a minute, they're producing sugar, sugar that kills people, that makes people sick, that we should be eating a lot less of. Yet we have international trade law that favors these big sugar companies, and they are stacking money. And yet, a beef producer in this country, a cattle producer, is dealing with all of this stuff in coming in from Brazil and Argentina and Australia and everywhere else in the world, and they're they're creating a hamburger ground beef product that is half the cost of production of a whole animal butcher producing ground beef from domestic animals. So there's a lot we could do with around trade and and and that.
SPEAKER_07So let's ask this question, Mike. If if livestock meat is raised regeneratively from in another country, it's all it's regenerative here.
SPEAKER_00No, you cannot have anything coming into this country below the cost of production of a domestic producer without sacrificing food security. Back to you, Elizabeth. Sorry.
SPEAKER_05That's okay. I make a point or yes, please. Um so, Scott, to your point about the consumer, I agree with you wholeheartedly that we need to do more consumer uh campaigning where we are educating consumers why they why they should be buying local, why why they should know a farmer, buy from a farmer, and also go to a farmer to really see what that actually looks like. Because then we we we are educating consumers why they are doing that, right? Uh, and in order to do that, we have to do a behavior change. And so then it's like, okay, even though you have five dollars and you see this apple that is a dollar, but then you see another apple that is three dollars, but that three dollar, but that three dollar apple was grown organically and you know, all of this stuff per se, and it is also local from the apple farmer down the street. Well, then they well, then at that point, they would have already had all of the education of why it is important to buy local, and then that's where we we receive that big uh b behavior change and per se.
SPEAKER_02I am gonna move to um John Fagan. He's been very patient for me. I know he's been trying to talk for gosh, probably 30 minutes. So, John, if you can go ahead and speak, that would be great.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, uh I can't help but make a comment on this last discussion, and that's that the basic problem, I believe, is that uh can the foreign organic quote organic products are not uh being held to the same standard as local organic. And if we did that, it would put the price if if we had uniform surveillance of organic internationally and nationally, uh it would uh make the organic stuff from over overseas uh uh uh much more expensive, and it would it would just it would clean this whole thing up. At least for the organic. And um, you know, there are other problems there too. And it is cheaper for a Brazilian to produce soy than it is an American. That's all there is to it. They have systems that allow that to be the case. Um but it's all conventional, so it's not the same. But the point I wanted to I've had my hand up about is uh uh is compost uh quality and standards. There's a big problem with organic compost, and that is that at the uh time the standard was was um uh initiated, um there was this idealistic uh totally unfounded uh expectation that uh if you compost the um the conventional uh biomass, you'll restore it to an organic standard because the microbes are gonna chew up all the bad things. Does not work. Glyphosate and many, many pesticides survive composting, even very rigorous composting. So um my question is there are some people on here that are deep organic people. I saw Brian Baker on here and Jade Feldman and like that. Why don't we just uh have a campaign to get or organic compost taken care of? Because otherwise it's uh it's adding pesticides sometimes at at the levels that inhibit the growth of the crop. So um is there some way that we can address this?
SPEAKER_07Anthony, can you chime in in terms of ROA and their position on uh what remains in compost? Do they have any additional stipulations? And you need to unmute, please.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so with compost, um I'm gonna pass this question.
SPEAKER_09Okay.
SPEAKER_07I just want to know for the audience that John Fagan is one of the preeminent longtime researchers, uh, scientific researchers on this issue in Fairfield, Iowa. So when he speaks about this, it is really uh based on very intense detailed science. Scott, you're up. Sorry.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I'm just looking at at reality, on doability, on on where where are we trying to get? And and again, I I got to use my perfect and good stuff. So it's pretty well broken down. I gave the example of and just think of so you put the compost on and you put on a bunch of self-for us 10 to 15 uh um tons of biomass coming from crop residue, cover crops, some compost. And so some of it might have some residue left over from some pesticide. Um and with all the other inputs that go on, that dilution rate is like are we hung up on one part per billion? Is the growth and the use of compost, which helps so much of the soil to be built up, and we take that away because we're hung up on one part per billion. I think that's we're not getting anywhere. We're we're banging a bunch of drums that aren't accomplishing any purpose. Let's let's do what's realistic that has a chance of moving the needle, and compost is a big player on improving soil and getting us to where we want to be.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely, but it's not a part per billion. That's the problem, is that the let when you use conventional chicken manure to make your compost, you're creating something that is putting on very substantial levels of glyphosate and many other pesticides. These are not small amounts, and that's why I'm that's not true. That's not true.
SPEAKER_06I have your chicken manure coming from foster farms does not have glycephate.
SPEAKER_07All right, guys, we're talking about two different sources, which I appreciate. And the the question would be for the next session: what sort of testing or process verification are we actually doing? Scott, I love your comment. Thank you, John, as always, for taking potential risk.
SPEAKER_04One additional point on this, and that is that if if if there was pressure in this direction, farms, organic farms, would be using more of their own biomass and not going out and buying stuff and bringing it on their land, and they would have better control over the situation, and it would be much more beneficial for the integrity of organic. Thank you.
SPEAKER_06We have shrunk our intake of compost significantly over time, but it isn't a quick fix, okay? We've been at this for 40 years, and yes, we've shrunk it, but initially you might be up using five tons. Some times we used to five tons, now we're down to one to two tons, okay, or or none, depending, but it's a process, and it's not that you can just in one year, two years, you clean, and yeah, you're on your way. You've got to keep feeding the soil. Some crops we're growing, we're not. Adding biomass compost like a green waste compost is a good way to feed the system to keep the microbes going.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I appreciate all of this conversation, but we have a lot more questions. I'm going to note um we're getting close to the end of this meeting technically. And if your question is not addressed, we really strongly encourage you to go to the iPhone website, go ahead and write it down. Please feel free to come to future sessions. I see that a lot of these actually could apply to other topics when we do those deep dives. And um we really appreciate all of the uh the um interaction from everyone. But I am gonna uh move over to Brian Baker, who had asked um about what the thought process from our panelists are on the IOAS um certification. That's the International Organic Accreditation Service, which is a daughter organization of iFOM. Um and it is specifically designed to accredit certifiers, um, meaning that it is a parent cert creating baby certs a comment due to silence.
SPEAKER_06I actually don't know of it, um, but any uniformity that comes to credit credit uh getting certification, I I support. But uh there's also as long as it's context, for example, Mike's farm might be as good a farm with his intent of what he's trying to do with what he has to work with, and how does that get factored into certification? So the the context of where you are and what you're doing sometimes is really hard to fall into the uniformity of certification.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much. Um, I also saw I've lost it in my chat, um, a question on biochar for Scott Park.
SPEAKER_06So yeah, I suppose we don't use biochar because our system's running fine, but biochar is is a really good tool, but it isn't an end all in itself. And it's a little bit it isn't, yeah. I just myself reading and and I do a lot of stuff with the University of California, Davis, and and they they're finding some variants of the type of biochar in this rack. But overall, yeah, feeding biochar is one of many tools, many tools to improve your soil.
SPEAKER_02And then, Mike, did you want to add anything to that comment as well?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love biochar. Uh, we make it ourselves. We use our bones from our slaughter facility after it's composted and screened. Those bones can be turned into bone char, which are a high calcium phosphorus source of nutrients that can go into your compost. We sell it by the bag here in Colorado Springs at our stores. But I think biochar has a lot to offer. Uh, it is important, though, that you have available biomass. Well, it just so happens in the Colorado Mountains. We've got a lot of beetle kill and a lot of biomass availability. So uh I think biochar has got a tremendous potential for feeding the livestock as well. It improves room and health, but it replaces some of the things that that maintain rumen health, like Romensin and others. And I think it's got a very important place in our operation for sure.
SPEAKER_07Well, we did good right up to the end here. We're just a little bit over time. Thanks everybody for showing up. Uh, the tillage session, it is July 15th. That's a Wednesday. Um, I'll be dialing in for the organic produce conference in Monterey. And um that's gonna be pretty darn intense. One of the things we'll do on the session page is uh post a whole series of short videos showing what different types of tillage look like, all the way from subsoil ripping to gentle tickling in preparing a seed bed so people know what the whole range is and what might be appropriate for different different regenerative systems. D'Anthony likes that tickling, tickling the soil. Okay, guys. Um, I'll let the panelists give one last thought if you have it. Otherwise, we'll wrap up. Um anybody?
SPEAKER_00Well, I I might just say that I I hope we can move uh to a more just a more fair marketplace, uh, to where farmers and ranchers that are doing the right things can be rewarded uh instead of instead of the big companies uh demanding more and and while paying less. Thank you. Appreciate being on this panel.
SPEAKER_07Scott? I'm giving D'Anthony the last word.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, thanks for inviting me to be on the panel. I I think these discussions are valuable just because of what you're trying to achieve, uh, of some back and forth. And and there isn't exactly one answer to anything and understanding all the forces that are impacting the way we form. So thank you.
SPEAKER_07Thank you. Tianthany, wrap it up.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. Uh first and foremost, I want to uh thank you all for your time to allow me to come share my knowledge. Um, I think forums like this are very important because we are able to not only learn from each other uh but also share with each other. Um, here at Rodell, uh, we truly believe that when you are creating healthy soil, you are creating healthy people. And when you have healthy people, you have um an overall peaceful world. Uh and so I I truly believe that all of the work that we are doing here is overall creating a more peaceful world. So thank you so much. Beautiful. Thank you for that. Thanks, everybody. Peace out.