Realfoodology - Your Food Choices Make a Difference, Cultivating a Sustainable Food Future + Supporting Farmers | Zack Smith

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

EP. 180: As the earth beneath our feet continues to bear the burden of traditional farming, Zack Smith, a farmer with deep roots in the Iowa soil, joins me to share his compelling transformation towards regenerative agriculture. Our discussion is a tapestry woven from personal anecdotes and professional insights, detailing the journey from conventional to sustainable farming. We peel back the layers to reveal the stark reality of soil degradation, the economic strain on rural communities, and the uplifting potential of regenerative methods to not only feed our global population but also heal our land. Navigating through the complexities of the agricultural landscape, Zack and I dissect the tension that brews between large-scale operations and the nurturing regenerative model. With a focus on the 'cluster clocks' farming system, we illustrate the symbiosis of livestock and land management that could usher in a verdant future for our farms. Our conversation also spotlights the far-reaching influence of the farm bill, urging listeners to recognize the power held in their daily food choices and the collective impact these decisions have on shaping a regenerative, health-conscious agricultural policy. Topics Discussed: 00:03 - Agriculture and Rural Economies 13:34 - Soil Health and Regenerative Farming 22:41 - Save the World 25:16 - Issues with Big Ag 35:50 - Getting Out of the Big City 38:50 - Regenerative Farming and Stock Cropper 41:31 - Cluster Clucks and the Symbiotic Relationship of Animals and Soil 48:21 - Ethanol 52:20 - Inflation Reduction Act 55:41 - The Farm Bill and Crop Insurance 01:01:58 - Consumer Action to Support Farmers Check Out Zach: YouTube Instagram Facebook Thestockcropper.com Email [e-mail] Links Mentioned: Food Inc. Stock Cropper Pasture Bird Farm Cluster Cluck App Sponsored By: Veri https://www.veri.co/ $30 off with code vsm-realfoodology  Armra https://tryarmra.com/realfoodology 15% off first order with code REALFOODOLOGY Organifi www.organifi.com/realfoodology Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% Off Seed Probiotic https://seed.com/realfoodology  30% your first month with code REALFOODOLOGY Check Out Courtney: @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database Produced By: Drake Peterson Edited By: Mike Frey

On today's episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. Agriculture used to be the backbone of these rural economies. And there's so many fewer farmers right now that it just doesn't exist. And a lot of farmers don't do business necessarily in their hometown like they used to 30 or 40 years ago, where there was maybe a couple of machinery dealers and a couple of feed stores. And when I was born, there were four different places in town to sell livestock. Now we don't even have a place to hardly sell if you're an independent producer to sell livestock because it's all gone to the way of the vertical integrators. Hi, friends. Welcome back to another episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. As always,

I am your host, Courtney Swan. And today's guest is Zach Smith, and you may know him as the Stock Cropper. I had the pleasure of meeting Zach back in September when I was in Telluride for the Telluride Film Fest. I went to a panel that he and Michael Pollan were speaking on all about regenerative farming and promoting their new film, Food Inc. 2, which I don't believe is out yet. I think Zach said that it should be out in April, so definitely look out for Food Inc. 2, which I don't believe is out yet. I think Zach said that it should be out in April. So definitely look out for Food Inc. 2. If you have not seen Food Inc. 1, I highly recommend going back and checking that out. That film came out, I should have looked this up, but

it has to be at least like 15, 18, 20 years ago that it came out now. It was also a book. And it was one of the many documentaries back in that time that really lit a fire under my ass to want to make changes to our food industry and really just helped drive this passion that I have for helping others get healthier. Zach Smith's story is really cool. He grew up in a farming family. He is now a farmer himself. I'm so excited for you guys to hear this episode because we covered a lot of ground. What's very cool and unique about his story is that when he grew up, he was working as a crop advisor for big agriculture companies on the conventional side. And what inspired him to move over to a regenerative practice was seeing the effects that this conventional approach had on our soil. He is very passionate about soil

health and about regenerative farming, and he wanted to do things differently because of what he was seeing in this big agriculture model. So his story is really inspiring. We talk a little bit about regenerative farming. We talk a lot about stock cropping, which is his company, which is absolutely fascinating. We also talk a lot about from the farmer's perspective, what it looks like to change your inputs from this conventional model to a more regenerative model. I asked him, does he really think that this is scalable? Is it possible to quote unquote, feed the world from a regenerative model? We also talk about the farm bill and how it affects us as consumers, also how it affects farmers and what we can do as consumers to drive these trends and also help these farmers get the funding they need in order to grow these healthier crops. So we

cover a lot of ground. It was a absolutely fascinating episode and Zach is a wealth of knowledge in all this because he's grown up his whole life doing this. And it was very fascinating to hear from the farmer's standpoint. So I'm just so excited for you guys to listen to this episode. As always, if you could take a moment to rate and review the podcast, it means so much to me. It really helps this show grow. And I just want to say thank you for your support. I appreciate you guys a lot. Let's get into the episode. Knowing more about your metabolic health and how your body responds to specific foods is probably one of the most important things and insights that you can have into your health because our metabolic health is the foundation of our overall health. And what I'm speaking about specifically is using a CGM or a continuous

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or enter realfoodology to get 15% off your first order. That's T-R-Y-A-R-M-R-A.com slash realfoodology. Well, let's dive into it, Zach. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today. We actually met, just so the listeners know, when I was at Telluride Film Fest, because you were there supporting the film that you were in, Food Inc. 2, which is a great film. Everyone definitely go check that out. And I was so excited to see you speaking on a panel and afterwards went up to you and was like, I'd love to have you come on the podcast and talk all about regenerative farming, because this is something that you're practicing now. And you have a very unique lens, which I'm very excited to dive into, which is you came from the conventional side of things initially and saw

what it was doing to our land. And so I really want to dive into that. So anyways, thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. So let's just start at the beginning. I mean, what inspired you to get into farming in the first place? And what were you doing before you're doing what you're doing now? Yeah, so I grew up on a farm as a kid here in Northern Iowa. My farm sits, for people trying to place it, basically directly between Minneapolis and Des Moines on the Iowa-Minnesota border is where I'm located.

And I'm officially fifth generation farmer. We settled in the 1890s here. And it's kind of all, at least part of my family is ever known. And I'm the fifth and probably the last generation of my family that settled here to farm because I have two daughters and they have no I went off to... Because my dad didn't have enough acres to have room for me to come back and farm after high school. So I went to college and studied agronomy and then came out and essentially worked in what a lot of people simply would just classify as big agriculture for the last 18 years, I suppose. And I was what's called a certified crop advisor. And for the first part of my career, basically sold a lot of crop protection products,

so herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and helped farmers manage the inputs on their operation. And then I eventually became, instead of an employee, became an employer, had my own seed retail chemical fertility business. But the older that I got and how I kind of got to where I'm at now, I kind of saw the fallacy in what the result of the big ag system has had, probably primarily on the land. That's probably my biggest passion is soil. But then also secondarily, communities and what rural America has come, even compared to when I was a kid 40 years ago. I'm 44 now, but what I remember my town looking like when I was a little kid and the businesses and the people.

And as I'm sitting in my sunroom today, I look out across my neighborhood, the amount of farm acreages that aren't here anymore. And it started really getting me thinking about, is this the only way it has to be? And so definitely have come from a convention. I understand why things are the way they are. is this the only way it has to be? And so definitely have come from a convention. I understand why things are the way they are. And there's reasons and farmers in a lot of ways have been, I don't want to, trapped is the right word, but confined based off of policy. And a couple of years ago, I was brainstorming with a couple of buddies on a way to maybe break that narrative. And that's where this idea that how we met called the stock cropper kind of came about. And so a couple of years ago, I

quit my role within Big Ag and now I'm just focusing on my own farm operations. So I farm 1,200 acres of corn and soybeans in Iowa. And then I'm working on trying to develop this alternative regenerative system at the same time. That's amazing. There's so much that you just said that I want to dive into. First and foremost, so you mentioned that you were a crop advisor before. I'm curious to know what that kind of looks like, because a lot of what I talk about on this podcast is what you just said is that so many of these farmers almost feel like trapped in this system because of the policies and because of the power that big ag has on people. What did you see when you were in that role from that standpoint of like how these farmers were

almost kind of stuck in this as you were this crop advisor and how they weren't able to get out of this system? Well, I guess I should say this. I don't know if most farmers would classify themselves as feeling trapped. I think most see it as just a way of life and this is what we've always done and there's always been change and we've kind of gone with it. There are, I would say, a smaller subset that are interested in change, but those that remain, kind of the theme of the game is to just continue to get bigger. And getting bigger is how you survive in this business. And so, people are definitely aware.

But as far as the number of folks that are like me that are trying to find a creative solution out, they're out there, but it's definitely fewer than what the mainstream is. That seems to be one of the bigger issues is that there's not a lot of education around that there are better ways to do than what we're doing right now. Because I know what I know about farming, and obviously I know very little, but I just know enough from watching documentaries and talking to people like you that the way that we're doing it conventionally right now, we're completely destroying the health of the soil. And ultimately the reason why we should be concerned about this is that we're only as healthy as our soil is

because our food is only as healthy as the soil is. And then we're only as healthy as what our food is, you know, the food that we eat is. And it's becoming a main, it's becoming a really big problem. And what I see is there's this turning point right now of farmers going like you, like there's gotta be a better way. And they're coming across this regenerative farming model and then finding that it's a really big, or I want to hear, is it, does it feel like a really big uphill battle when you discover this and you think like, God, now I have to completely change all my inputs? Yeah, Noelle, it's... How do I say this? Producing things regeneratively is not that big of a challenge. I feel in just a short couple of years, what we've come up with Stock

Cropper is we truly, I i think have come up with this really creative scalable regenerative uh way to produce things much more efficiently uh in regards to being able to produce a lot which you knew you need to do to feed the world um but also something that's much more environmentally friendly and then something that builds not only soil but builds rural communities and that's really you know kind of what i'm what i'm really passionate about uh the the issue is all of the things on the back side to get it through the food system uh that is the hard part that's the biggest challenge that i face i feel like scaling up what i'm what we've built is not really that difficult. It's all the support mechanisms, the processing, the stuff that

we don't have access to anymore because of the consolidation in the meat industry. And there's only three or four major processors left in the country and that's been by design. And so those are some of the, in my opinion, at least with what I'm doing, some of the biggest limitations. And what are they? So you said like the processing, there's only like three or four. Does that mean for like conventional meat that there's only like three or four massive processors that everyone sends their cows to? Correct.

Yeah. So Smithfield, Tyson, JBS, and I'm forgetting one. Is Purdue one of the big ones? Yeah, Purdue's a big one too, correct. And what are some of the other limitations? I'm just curious and I also, just so you know, I really try to give my listener the full scope of what's happening right now because we need all,

I feel like my perspective is we need all hands on deck and I hope to inspire people in various ways, whether they're farming and ranching or they're a nutritionist or they're a doctor. I just want people to understand the full scope of what's happening and the hardships because also as a society, this is how we start to move change

because people can start creating new ways around this and how we battle it. So what is the uphill battle on the opposite side that you were saying, like outside of the processing plants? I think, you know, one of the things is, you know, food will be more expensive if it's done the way that I do it. You know, we've developed a cheap food policy for the last, you know, 40 years. And it's cheap in the sense what you buy at the grocery store. Some people may not think that these days with inflation, but still as a percentage of budgets

of what a family has to spend on food compared to 75, 80 years ago, it's substantially cheaper. But it has a cost, right? And the little bit that I followed you, you focus on a lot of what those costs are. And, you know, I see it here locally. You look at how people look in rural Iowa compared to pictures from, you know, 50, 60, 70 years ago. People were fit and in shape. They were physically active because a lot of them were farmers and there was a lot more physical work. You know, farming is not as physical as what people like to romanticize. I mean, I turn around in my climate controlled tractor and I hit a button and it steers itself back across the field automatically. So there's not a lot of calories burned in a day like that. Pressing a button. Yeah. So I think, you know, I think that's one of the challenges, too, is that getting people to understand that food is artificially cheap.

You know, there's there's things with, you know, health care expenses from an unhealthy population. We've got soil loss and degradation. We have things like the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico where we're, you know, we've got water quality issues, you know, where you're looking in states like Nebraska where the Ogallala Aquifer has got nitrate levels that are really, really concerning. These things keep, you know, coming up. And so, but there's a cost to farm differently. And that's the point I'm trying to make. And that will cause, you know, if this is really going to scale, you know, consumers will have to understand that and buy into the fact that this is more expensive, but it's better and they have to understand and believe in why those ways are better. Yeah. And, you know, I talk about this often because I want to be sensitive to people having, you know, varying budgets.

And I know times are even more tough right now with inflation, like you mentioned. I think some of this requires a reframing in our brain that we need to put our health first, you know, like we're supposed to be spending more money on our food because without our health, we have nothing. We can't show up for our jobs. We don't have energy to get out of bed. Like health should be first and foremost before we're buying nice cars, designer bags, or whatever it is. And again, I want to be sensitive to differing budgets, but I forgot the exact percentage, but we are one of the lowest on the list of countries that spend money on food. Most countries spend way more money on food than we do. And what happens on the back end is that now we're spending way more on healthcare costs than we're spending on food than we do. And what happens on the back end is that now we're spending way

more on healthcare costs than we're spending on food. So we're still spending that money. And this is also what I try to get people to understand is that you're either going to spend it upfront or you're going to spend it like fourfold later on surgeries, medications, doctor bills. And so if we can get ahead of that and be in this preventative mindset and prevent the things that are coming, I also say too, the healthier you are, the better you're going to show up for your job. You're probably going to be able to make more money

because your brain's going to be working better. So your life only improves when you put those better foods in your body. It's just about this, again, this reframe and maybe a struggle for a little bit, like trying to wrap your budget around having to spend more money on your food. Yeah, I think it's indicative though of a lot of things like we just want in society, we just want this quick fix. Just give me what feels good now. What's convenient? What can I

eat in the car? You know, we don't sit down and cook, you know, and sit down at the table anymore. Like we've just, we've convinced ourselves that this hustle and bustle and all these other things that we spend money on and we spend time on make us more efficient or more productive, but I think it is reductive. right now is how do we cover a lot of acres? How do we go fast? Well, we have lots of solutions for that, but they have all sorts of deleterious impacts on the actual soil. And so we've lost, you know, over the last hundred years, we've lost roughly, I think my stats are right here, about half of our organic matter in our soil, which is what makes soil black like in Iowa. And then actually physically about a third of our topsoil in the Midwest has disappeared since we broke the prairie with the plow. And so those are long time horizons.

And so within agriculture, a lot of people look and they'll say, well, my soil is still black. I can look out this field across the road from my house right now. It's still black or kind of black, at least in spots. And so why should I change when it might take 50 or 60 years to really... Well, eventually, we talk about feeding the world all the time in the business of agriculture, feed the world by 2050, 9 billion people, blah, blah, blah. What I'm interested in is making sure that we have soil systems that are able, healthy enough to support people not only in 2050 but what about 2060 and 2070 and have we degraded ourselves so much that you know because that's really what has

happened the more we degrade things the more we rely on uh the evolution of technological solutions from big ag to kind of cover up and be the band-Aids over the cost of what we've done to the richest soil in the world over time. And so soil health is the same thing as human health. You go for the quick, easy fix, you're going to have problems. And so it's either, like you said, invest now and do the hard things or pay the consequences later. Yeah, and this concept of feed the world is really interesting. I'm curious, did that first come from Monsanto? Because I know that was their big thing with GMOs and... Or has

that just always been kind of the narrative in the funding world? Oh, yeah. I mean, when I was in retail, I don't know if I would link... I mean, every major chemical company that I would go to their winter pump up the jam hype meetings. It'd be this club music and 20, 50, 9 billion people and we got to do it. And yeah, it's been the narrative ever since. Whenever we got focused on this 9 billion population number, that's always been something as long as I've been in and we've got to find a way to get there. But it wasn't just a Monsanto thing for sure. I saw it with all the big companies. Yeah. I was just curious because that's where I was first hearing it all.

So from that perspective and what you do now, which we're going to dive into, is this scalable really? Is this something that yes, it's going to be more expensive but is this something that we could get everyone on board and is it possible to be scalable I guess for Feed the World? Yeah, well this is how I look at it. I try to be really in reality with how these things there's too much of

idealistic optimism sometimes on where things are actually going to shake out. But I really see that this regenerative lane can make a difference and it can scale. Can it scale so that everything is that way? I don't know if that's the case. But for the consumers that are interested, I think there's a tremendous amount of growth possible for people that are concerned about this to develop a network of producers to feed that market. And so maybe that's 20, 30, 40 percent of the market. Eventually, it's not. It's nowhere close to that right now as far as at least how things are produced.

But I think there's a pathway to get there. And yes, I believe what we're going to talk about with my system is something that is truly, truly scalable. If, if we can get the support, you know, that what we need to, to get it there, but there's not, Big Ag does not have a lot of interest in supporting to a certain extent what I do because I take away the need for some of those things. For the inputs. I'm talking, and we'll get into that stuff, but I'll leave it there for now. Well, let's dive into that because that was going to be my first question. I want to compare side by side. So what do you see the issues right now in big ag that are not sustainable?

And then we'll dive into why you made these changes with the system that you do now. So what's not sustainable with big ag right now? Well, the biggest thing is the fact that it's just like every aspect of our economy. We try to be convinced all the time that bigger is constantly better. And we're at this tipping point in farming where the average age of the U.S. farmer is about, I think now 60 or 61 years old. And the amount of land that is held by people of that or controlled or managed is probably, boy, it's got to be 60% maybe or 60 to 70%. So a tremendous amount of land or land ownership by the baby boomer generation is going to transfer here in the next 10 to 15 years. And when that happens, most likely what's going to occur is a lot of people are going to get kicked to the exits. And there's going to be a lot of farmers that get substantially bigger

by several scales of magnitude. When you're farming at scale, where you're, you know, now we have farms in Iowa, for example, that 40, 50, 60,000 acres per farm at the biggest level. And we have more of those. These regenerative principles are very, very difficult to do at that type of a level. Because when you're farming at that level, you're not thinking about like making the best decisions for the farm. It's more like a factory decision. We're in sector four today, and we're going to plant 3,600 acres in sector four. Whether those farms are fit to plant or not, or it's the best management practice to be there today, we're in sector four and we need to move to sector five tomorrow. And that's,

like how I farm, that's not how I farm at all. I'm at a much smaller scale where I take the time to implement some of these practices, which take a higher degree of management, higher skilled labor, but also produce a better result. And so that's one of the biggest issues that I see is that the direction that agriculture is going right now is toward massive scaled operations, which make a lot of these things that we're trying to potentially stop or reverse very, very difficult to achieve with the way the best. I mean, I think too many times people demonize farmers because farmers simply react to the policy. And that's what I tell people all the time. The policy is the issue. And there's a lot of big money influences that control that policy. But if we want to see farming change, the policy is really where it starts. I have been a longtime supporter and lover of Organifi,

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realfoodology and use code realfoodology. Yeah, I mean, that's a great point. It's really important to pay attention to who we're voting in in Washington, you know? But I mean, it's scary because we're seeing lobbying happen all across the board. Like, it's not even party dependent. No, and it's every sector of the economy, you know, whether it's big pharma or big food

or, you know, energy or whatever, you know? Yeah, that's what's scary about it. And then also too, you mentioned that you're seeing such a change in the communities in rural America, which is really sad and upsetting to me because I see from my standpoint, what I talk about a lot is this disparity of accessibility for food for people. And I'm seeing it from a nutritionist standpoint

of just how this is really affecting people's health. And I'm curious to hear what you meant when you said, like, you see the difference in the communities of rural America. Like, that breaks my heart. Well, there's, you know, so to, well, there's a couple of different facets to that. But like, you know,

the main streets look completely different. There are still, you know, plenty of main streets that have locally owned businesses, but there's more national chains that have come in and compete things like Dollar General and Family Tree, which for a lot of communities that becomes your grocery store and it's pure garbage. Or it's like in my original hometown, we still have a small grocery store, but most people, I would say, get their groceries from the Casey's General Store gas station, and it's just complete garbage. I walk in there, and you look at the food, and then you look at the people standing in line, and it's just uh there and there's been a you know agriculture used to be the backbone of these rural economies and there's so there's so many fewer farmers right now um that it just doesn't exist and a lot of farmers don't do business necessarily in their their hometown like they used to 30 or 40 years ago where there was maybe a couple machinery dealers and a couple

feed stores and you know like when i was, there were four different places in town to sell livestock. Now we don't even have a place to hardly sell if you're an independent producer to sell livestock because it's all gone to the way of the vertical integrators. So even if you wanted to sell hogs, it's difficult to do that. They have access to a market as an independent farmer. So there's just been a whole host of things. It's not that living out here is bad. I don't know that... My brother lives in Los Angeles and I went out there for his wedding. And I don't know that I'd want to live in LA compared to here because this is still pretty a great place to be and have wide open spaces. But it's definitely changed. And I think it's going to... As what I talked about, this transformation next 10, 15 years think it's going to, you know, as what I talked about, this transformation next 10,

15 years, it's going to get substantially worse. And having a family and having a place for your kids to go to school, you may have to drive your kids 30, 40, 50 miles to find enough kids to have a school, you know, or churches or any of those, you know, things that community is, you know, based around. So. Yeah. Well, I mean, I know I just see this from like a trend standpoint online where so many people are talking about how they want to get out of the big cities. They want more land.

They want to have more access to fresh food. Like there is this, it feels like there's this kind of movement of wanting to get away from this like big corporate and trying to get back to smaller, more local like community style living. So I definitely think people are feeling the effects of that. Yeah. It's just, it's so interesting. I just wanted to ask you that because it's, it's interesting to hear your perspective

on that. And I would think too, that when you live in an area like that, where there's so much, so many farms and so much food being grown, that people would have access to farmer's markets and this like fresh grown food. But my instinct is that it's probably all getting shipped out. Yeah. I mean, we, we don't, we don't, we have a few farmers markets around here, but I mean, uh, the, it's kind of interesting. I would say this too, like the, the interest in, uh, the interest in quality food is probably less here than where, when I go to the big cities, uh, for sure. Um, of that interest. Because I think a lot of people don't see anything wrong and there's a pride about how we do things. We work hard as farmers, we raise this food and how dare anybody suggest anything different that

maybe we could do something differently. And so, yeah, I would say, you know, definitely within the rural community, there's probably a resentment toward, you know, the coastal opinions of people about how we should do things. But I, and I get that, like, nobody wants an outsider telling them how to do, but like, I'm an insider and like, I've, I understand this and I understand the science, you know, behind what we're doing, the good and the bad. The older I get, the more I care about legacy and what happens in the future for future generations. And I'm passionate about soil and I'm passionate about hopefully restoring this local community thing. I would love for people from the coast to come out here and help repopulate these areas.

If you want to get out of the concrete jungle and you can work remotely, man, especially in my neighborhood, there's some pretty affordable cost of living. I think I was talking to my brother and he was saying he was home for Thanksgiving and he was looking at a condo or something. It was like $850,,000 bucks. I mean, there was a neighbor to my homestead sold their acreage, three acres with a house and buildings on it for $140,000 here last week. Oh my God. I mean, I'm in the same position as your brother. I live in LA and I was just looking at places and I was horrified by the prices. And same thing. I grew grew up in Texas and so I keep making jokes that maybe I just need to go back home. But I mean, even Texas is getting more expensive. It's crazy.

Yeah. Joe Rogan wrecked that, I think. Yeah, he really did. He created like a whole movement to Texas. I know. It's so funny. Yeah. Okay.

So we've been like hinting at this. Let's talk about what you do. So it's called stock cropping, correct? And it's a form of regenerative farming, right? So just explain to like hinting at this. Let's talk about what you do. So it's called stock cropping, correct? Correct. And it's a form of regenerative farming, right? So just explain to people what your method is. Yeah. Yeah. So if you've never been to the Midwest or if you drive down Interstate 80 or 35, all you pretty much see on either side is either usually in Iowa, a corn field or a soybean field. And the reason that happens is that usually we have a rotation in Iowa where one year we grow corn, the next year we grow soybeans.

There are different types of crops. There's some benefits to doing that, and that's kind of the program that we've had. It's not always the way Iowa's been 60, 70, 80 years ago. Iowa was substantially more diversified. Every farm pretty much had at least one or two types of livestock, sometimes even more. Every farm would maybe have three, four, five, six different crops that were grown. The crop rotations were used more as a tool because we didn't have all the technology. And so really the system that we've created here that we call stock cropping is kind of a hybridization of those two systems, the old system and the new system, where we take a cornfield and instead of planting all corn to it

or all soybeans, what we do is we interlace row crops with annual pasture strips. So when I say strips, I mean strips that are anywhere from 10 to 30 feet wide and they alternate across the whole field. So you kind of have this, what they call strip intercropping pattern. And so we have the row crop and we grow it next to a strip of pasture. Okay. And so what the pasture allows us to do is then integrate livestock back into the middle of a corn production field. And the way that we have done that is that we have invented what we believe to be the world's first multi-species autonomous livestock mobile grazing barn, which is a mouthful, which we simply call, we call our barns cluster clucks, aptly named because we house sheep and goats,

pigs, and then chickens in a separated sequential arrangement. And our barns are powered by solar power. We've got onboard electric motors with computer systems, cell modems, GPS sensors, so that the barns self-steer themselves down these strips or advance themselves based off of an iPhone app. iPhone where we can program movement several times a day so the animals are constantly marching through these strips. And so the animals interact with the plants, they interact with the soil, they lay down their nutrient-rich manure. And the best part about it is, and I'll make the comparison here, but the manure is immediately taken back up by the the pasture plants after the barn has passed it over and it ties it up and stabilizes it so it

doesn't end up running off into the ditch or going into our tile lines which empty into the Mississippi River eventually. The beautiful part about the system is that after a year of running the animals on the strips of pasture and planting corn in between, the next year we simply take and rotate those strips. Okay. And where the animals went, now we plant corn. And where the corn was, now we plant the animals to regenerate where the corn was. And so instead of buying our nutrients from across the pond and shipping them and having all this expense. We make this

incredibly hyper-local closed-loop system, super low carbon footprint, and make it so that the farmer hopefully retains more of the value in minimizing the need for the inputs that I sold. And that's part of the, one of the cool things about this system is that when you grow corn in a schematic like this, you actually can increase production. And because corn is a tall crop, and if you grow it next to a shorter crop, I'm trying to do this on the screen so it makes sense, like a pasture, you get more sunlight on the edge rows. So if you have eight rows of corn and then pasture, the edge rows have full sunlight upside up and down the plant, and it allows for more photosynthesis to take place on there. And so we can boost corn production. To give you an example,

so on my normal corn acres this year, I grew about 230 bushels an acre. In the stock cropper system that we had hardly any inputs in at all, we grew 325 bushel an acre corn this year. Wow. The idea that regenerative systems have to be less productive, we've kind of find a way here to flip that narrative on its head. And that's the thing, like farmers, you know, it's very difficult to change farmers' minds if they're going to get less of something. And I think that's what's powerful and what we found here is that we can grow some hellacious corn and then feed that corn back to the livestock the next year. So we don't have to truck the grain all over, you know, the countryside to get it. We can take it into the farmyard, grind it up, bring it back out, feed them back to the animals and really have this perfect closed loop system.

And the animals are way happier, you know. Two, they're outside. You know, it's not free range because they still have cages, you know, or fences and pens. So because they can't go roam off and kill all the corn or you lose the ability to feed them. And so with all of this stuff, people are going to have to make concessions. You can't have your cake and eat it too with all this stuff. And so like I said, this is not free range, but this is substantially, substantially better than the way that, in my opinion, most of the meat that we consume, especially pork and chicken, is produced when animals never see soil. They're on concrete slats or never see sunshine their

entire life. Yeah. And at least these animals are getting exercise and they're moving around. And yeah, I mean, that's so cool. I was actually just talking to the founder of Pasture Bird yesterday on my podcast. I don't know if you know him. Paul Greaves. Yeah, Paul Greaves. He's amazing. And he said he has a similar setup with like a little solar powered barn or maybe it's like his chicken coop that moves around, which is such a cool concept. I'm so curious just for my brain, because I was like trying to envision this. So this barn or like cluster, what do you call it? Cluster coop that moves around? Cluster coop that moves around?

Cluster cluck. You have to say it really carefully. Cluster cluck. Okay. Yeah. Try saying that four times in a row. How fast is it going? Is it going like 24 seven that it's moving or does it move on like certain days? Yeah. So the way that we have it set up currently is that it makes three or four movements a day. And so the depth of the pens that the animal's in are anywhere between like eight to 10 feet. And so we're trying to move that width of vegetation every say three or four hours so that the ruminants that feed off of the vegetation,

the sheep and the goats, or we've done cattle in some instances as well, we wanna keep them to make sure their bellies are full, especially for the first two thirds of the day. And so we can program it to move whatever distance at whatever time we want and the barn will march itself ahead. So what we've done normally here is we've moved anywhere from 24 to 32 feet a day so that every couple hours they're constantly moving. They're never sitting in their own manure stockpiles of that stuff because we're always moving into fresh pasture with it.

Well, and now instead of using these synthetic fertilizers, you guys are actually using real healthy, rich manure to then feed the soil, which is really important. This is again, what Paul Greaves was talking about where he believes that we have really messed up in big agriculture is that we have removed the animals from the plants and they work together in this beautiful symbiotic relationship. And so putting the animals back in with the plants is what's going to create an overall like healthier ecosystem for all of us and just for the earth too. Yeah, that's exactly it. And the thing that I think is powerful about our system is we're not using just one species of livestock, we're integrating multiple because every different species has a little bit different microbiome in their gut. And when they defecate it or urinate it out, they all have unique attributes

that they go into fueling soil health. It's the same thing with plants. And so in our system, we have 10x the amount of biodiversity in a field versus just growing corn or just growing soybeans. The combination of the different species of pasture plants we're using with the different species of livestock. And that's part of the reason why we've had some, at least from a yield standpoint with corn, some really, really impressive results because I think we're substantially improving our soil at the same time. Yeah. And this is also helping with the monocrop

issue that we have right now, which is just the rows and rows. For people listening, the rows and rows of corn or the rows and rows of soybeans, that's the only thing they're growing. And I talk about a lot how horrible that is for the soil. And so now when you're adding in all these other inputs, it's really helping to build up that healthy soil again, while still making all that corn that we need to make that the farmers are wanting to make. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's correct. And part of the thing is, and this is a really controversial thing within ag right now, is I'm very concerned and skeptical about the longevity of ethanol, because ethanol is where most of my corn goes right now on my major production acres. I just am getting done today, finishing up a pollen contract corn that goes to the ethanol plant. But if policy shifts or things don't line up where that becomes more of a mainstay or

something that's going to last substantially in the future, that's a big, big problem for agriculture for big egg. Because in Iowa, I think it's six out of every 10 bushels goes to an ethanol plant. And nationally it's four out of 10. So if that market goes away, what are we going to do? And that's kind of why we thought... Because before ethanol, that's what we did. We either exported or we fed stuff back to livestock or we found other sources. And 60 or 70, 80 years ago, when farms were more sovereign, people grew their crops not to take to town,

they grew it to feed it to the livestock and you walked the value off the farm in the form of livestock. And that's really, you know, kind of stock cropper is essentially getting back to that, you know, but we're using new age technology, you know, with GPS and phone apps and all of those things to solar panels to make it work. So. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and the ethanol thing is a big issue. What do you think, like, do you have any other solution for that? Like, is there, yeah, I don't know.

Like, what are your thoughts around that? The fact that we use so much of that for ethanol, for alcohol, it's just crazy. Yeah, I don't have a solution on what we're going to do with 60% or, you know, 40% of the bushels that go to that. And that's why there is so much in Iowa right now. There's a very hot potato political issue with trying to decarbonize ethanol production by taking the CO2 out of the plants and putting it in a pipeline and shipping it to North Dakota and burying it in a Bakken oil fields deep underground. Wait, this is crazy. Oh, you're not aware of this?

No. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, this is a really, really big deal in the Midwest right now. Help me understand why. This is what I don't understand is that are they just not recognizing that if you're practicing more regeneratively and you are keeping the top soil there, the carbon's automatically going to be pulled back into the soil? Like, why are we not? Yeah. Help me understand all this. You're right to a point. Uh, but with, you know, if you, uh, you should come out to Iowa and I'll take you to, I'll take you on a tour and I'll show you. But if

you go to an ethanol plant, you know, there's a lot of CO2 emissions that come off from the operation of the plant. And so that has nothing to do with how I raise the grain, you know, because that's already done at that point. So what they're trying to do to get the carbon score low enough so that they can market ethanol into markets like California that have, you know, that are concerned about carbon intensity score. That's the big catchphrase now in ag is carbon intensity and trying to lower that. What they're going to do in order to try to get ethanol down to a much lower carbon intensity score is to basically bottle the CO2 and then put it in a pipeline which they have to build and go across farmland all across the state.

And then all the way up to North Dakota to the Bakken oil field and then inject it deep into the well and supposedly store it underground in perpetuity. This is crazy. Why are we not thinking from a long-standing standpoint here because i all i think is okay what are we going to do when we run out of storage and what are we going to do with all that that's being stored like we have no idea what the effects of that are down the line yeah i don't i don't know i mean it's uh but you know so a lot of this stuff is is come through there's it's big money that's why uh right now there's huge money in the Inflation Reduction Act through a couple of the tax credit programs that are available to. And there's some really, really big, big dollar players in Iowa trying to get this through because they can earn enormous tax credits and, you know, towards getting this completed, essentially to pump CO2 out of Iowa and then

up to the Bach. How do the farmers, the majority of farmers feel about that? Are they on board? Well, they're conflicted, right? Because we need the ethanol, but they hate the idea of eminent domain. And so that's really what's on the table right now is there's most farmers don't want the pipeline to go through. It's a huge safety issue if there's been CO2 pipelines that... Yeah, if it gets punctured. Yeah, if they've had bursts, it's incredibly toxic. And so there's a lot of farmer or landowner, I should say, concern and hold back on it right now. There were three pipelines originally, two of which in the last month have withdrawn their applications, and there's one left at this point.

So that's trying to build. Well, fingers crossed they also withdraw theirs. Well, we'll see. I mean, if they do, it's going to potentially, depending on the political winds of change around ethanol, I mean, if there's not a market for ethanol, that's going to be a substantial hit to the ag economy. Because we've evolved. When I got into the business, ethanol was just coming in, and the ag business has geared up to produce a lot more corn than what we were doing in 2005 when I got into the business. And so it'll have major implications. Environmentally, you know, perhaps it would be good, but there's, you know, there's a lot of people in the meanwhile that

live in the Midwest that would significantly be impacted by it. Yeah, that's a big concern. I want to understand this relationship a little bit more just from a farmer's standpoint, because I talk about this where, you know, we pay subsidies to farmers to grow specific crops, for example, like corn. And as a result, we have such a massive amount of it that we're now pushing it into other things. Like, for example, I tell people all the time that it's why you'll look at the back of a package and it most often says contains corn, wheat and soy, because we have so much of this crop that we're literally throwing it into everything. So how does that relationship kind of drive our food

and like what farmers grow and then how like all of a sudden, like basically what I'm trying to say is like now all of a sudden we're finding corn syrup in literally everything because we have so much of it, right? And they're still paying subsidies to farmers to grow these, right? The corn, wheat, and soy. Are those the top ones? Yes, correct. And then cotton, I believe, is the other one that is subsidized the heaviest. But corn and soy take the cake, at least here in the Midwest. And that's why we're finding all these crops in so much of our food. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, like I said before, the policy dictates what we grow. And do we need subsidies? There's a lot of farmers that say we

should get rid of them altogether. I'm not in favor of that. I think subsidies should have teeth though, and I think they should have requirements. So a year ago I put out, so the farm bill is, you know, it was supposed to be done by now. It's been extended into next year. But I really think the farm bill and crop insurance specifically could be used as vehicles for farmers to, you know, not necessarily be forced, but given the choice. So like on my, I'll just try to be brief to explain this. Crop insurance on my farm with corn and soybeans, you as the taxpayer pay about 63% of my crop insurance premium. So thank you for doing that. In paying for that portion of my premium, there is virtually nothing

for strings attached to say how I need to farm. And so my contention as a farmer is that I think you should get something for that. And I think you should expect that if public dollars are going to subsidize me, you should have the reassurance that we're going to have soil in the future and that we have clean water. And that's my responsibility in exchange for you helping me reduce the very risky practice of farming because farming is legalized gambling when you're looking at the dollars that we handle in dealing with weather and climate issues and all of those things. But that's one of the contingencies that I think from a subsidy thing that could be improved immediately is requiring more regenerative or soil health type practices

and principles to be required in order to earn the full subsidy that the public invests in farming. I agree. And I want to know your thoughts on this. I've always wondered, why are we not paying farmer subsidies to grow healthier foods as well? Yeah, this is a great question. And the thing is that farmers do not like... Farmers don't like sticks. They tend to like carrots. And there's a lot of money that gets invested in carrots federally to try to get farmers to change. But the rate of change that you see is very, very, very, very minimal. And so the thing with my idea is it would be kind of a combination of a carrot or a stick where they wouldn't have to do it. It's just that the

taxpayer isn't going to pay them as much if they choose not to do the things that potentially benefit the people that don't live on the farm. And for people listening that don't know what the farm bill is, what is a farm bill and how does that affect us? And obviously, how does it affect farmers? So the Farm Bill is something that gets debated and put into place every five years within Congress. This year was supposed to be done. It's been delayed into next year, but essentially sets the policy for a lot of things within production agriculture. But most of the Farm Bill, I think it's like, I think it's like 85% of it comes down to food assistance. So SNAP type programs.

So SNAP and a lot of the subsidy programs are all kind of tied together in one big bundle. But it's essentially, you know, food assistance programs, those policies, as well as the policies that guide what, you know, food assistance programs, those policies, as well as the policies that guide what, you know, the Department of Agriculture wants us to produce and the rules and regulations that go on around that. And so, if you're, you know, you don't like how things are and how we do things, the food bill dictates, or the, I'm sorry, not the food bill, the farm bill should probably be called the food bill. It should be the food bill. Yeah, I was like, that sounds right.

Yeah, the farm bill is the thing that needs to have the most amount of attention in policy shift to actually get change enforced. Because things like crop insurance are incredibly important. I mean, 90% of producers have crop insurance. And so it's something that touches almost every operation that's out here. Yeah. Well, and I was going to ask you, how can we get these higher quality foods more accessible to everyone? And this is literally how. It's like we need to be putting money into farmers growing other crops outside of corn, wheat, and soy. Because I would argue that that's a lot of our issue right now as far as like from an obesity standpoint,

from a disease standpoint, like a chronic disease standpoint is that we are just, we are eating so much corn, wheat, and soy that our bodies have had enough. It's in everything now. Yeah, it is. But I don't know if it's that. I think it's the ultra processed. Yes.

Well, that's what I mean. Yeah. And that's like my wife, I'm going to recommend, the little bit of digging I did on you ahead of this, she is a total foodie and would love what you do because she is very, very, very particular on what we eat as a family and very, very health conscious. And we don't eat any of the crap from the middle of the grocery store. And we grow all of our own meat. You know, here we butcher it all of ourselves.

We do it together as a family and we enjoy it throughout the whole year. So I think, you know, people getting back to promote agriculture that produces a diversity of things, you know, livestock and cropping systems together to make them as diverse as possible makes everything better, in my opinion, from top to bottom. And then people making the choice and the commitment to eat well, cook well, eat as a family, be more food literate. Those are the things that we've really failed. We've traded all that stuff in for convenience and on-the-go lifestyles and we're worse off for it. And that's what it comes down to for me. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm in full agreeance with you. It's the hyper-processed foods. I guess what I was trying to say is just making the connection that so many of these

hyper-processed foods are cheap and contain corn, wheat, and soy because we're paying subsidies for those. And I would love to see the subsidies, like you said, diversified. Yeah. And if that would happen, there would be more diverse things grown. Because like I said, farmers follow the policy. If there's one thing that people that don't understand farming, that is what you should come away from this podcast from. Yeah. Yeah. And this has been so helpful and informative, thank you. So for people listening, they're just like, oh man, like how can we get involved? How can we, anything from like the farm bill

or like encouraging farmers to grow these kinds of foods, like as the consumer, what can someone do listening? I think the biggest thing, like I said, is try to have an impact on policy. Talk to your legislators. You know, Tell them this stuff is important to you. Tell them the concerns that you have about the direction that I've kind of talked about where food is happening. If we just keep doing the same thing that we've done, it's not going to magically get better and it's on its own. There's going to be a lot, there's a ton of greenwashing right now, but the greenwashing doesn't mean anything. And I go to a lot of meetings and all the time, and I listened to a lot of these big companies and they're just looking to check a box in most of the cases. And they're not trying to do the real work on the ground that it takes. And so, you know, our congressional representatives need to hear about that, that it's important.

And we changed the policy. I think that's probably one of the biggest things. You can go and talk to farmers and tell them all you want. But if they can't make money doing it because they can't get a loan from the bank, because they can't get crop insurance to grow apricots or, you know, some other thing that isn't normally grown, it doesn't mean anything. Right. And so, you know,, farming is a business. And I think people have delusions of grandeur sometimes with not understanding that, that we just, we can't do things that feel good. We still need to make a living doing this out here.

Yeah, that's a great point that people really need to hear. Because look, at the end of the day, obviously, farmers want to grow foods that are healthy and good for us because they, like you said earlier, they take a lot of pride in the fact that they're feeding America and they should. I mean, I say this all the time too. I'm like, farmers are like the backbone of this country because without them, we don't eat, you know? And so we need to find other ways to support farmers and also have so much respect for them and hopefully change this farm bill. I think this is a really big issue right now. And this is actually not the direction I was going to take this podcast, but I love this so much because I think this is so important for

people to hear. Is there anything else before we go that you feel like that we didn't cover that's really important for people to know and hear? No, I think I'm really pleased with this conversation, how it's went. I think we've hopefully laid out some things for the audience to consider. And if you're interested in learning more about what the things that I'm working on in the system called stock cropping, we're very much in infancy. This is not something we're doing on thousands of acres. We're a small experimental operation, bootstrapping what we're doing to try to come up with a system that is scalable to produce protein in a better way that's better for the soil and rural communities.

And so check out our YouTube page. We're on Facebook and on Twitter as well. Those are the best places to follow along. And if you like what you hear, you want to ask questions to me directly, I respond to about everybody that reaches out to me. And where is that? Where can they reach out to you? So thestockcropper at gmail.com is my email. Thestockcropper.com is my website. And then if you search Stock Cropper on Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube, any of those. If you want to see what the system looks like, YouTube is the best place to go.

I've documented our system and the process over the last four years. And so if you want to see the cluster clucks move, you want to see the animals, you want to see how it's in relationship to the corn. It's hard to visualize this over a podcast a lot of the time. So YouTube is probably the best place to go to see that stuff. Yeah, that's so cool. I definitely encourage everyone listening to go check it out. Oh, and then last but not least, Go Seafood, Inc. 2. Yes. That debuts in, I believe, I think it's April is when that's due to hit, I think, some limited releases in theaters and hopefully streaming as well. Awesome. Yeah, I feel so fortunate I got to see it at Telluride Film Fest and it's great. Definitely go check it out, everyone.

And you'll see Zach in there as well. That's how we first met. Do you have a program set up where if someone's listening and they're really interested and they're already farming and they want to start doing this, that you help them kind of start it out? So right now our biggest focus is we're trying to get our cluster clucks to the point of scaled manufacturing. And so we're finishing up a couple different prototype designs and then

hopefully bringing them to market. And so that's really what makes it plausible is to have this device that can contain multiple species to really jazzercise your soil, so to say. And so that's, you know, I would say we're within a year probably of being able to do that. And so if you're interested, if you're a farmer and you're thinking this sounds like a great idea that you'd like to employ, check out the YouTube content so you can see what it's about. And then stay in contact. If you sign up on our mailing list on our website, as soon as we have barns that are available, you know, we will make people aware on that side. And one of the things, I guess I'll circle back that we didn't talk about before we wrap is one of the things that I really see with this is not just from a scaled production

standpoint of me growing food for you in the city, but one of the things with Stock Cropper that I'm really passionate about is connecting people that maybe don't grow their own food now to be able to do so. And so one of the things I've built in the last year is a very small cluster cluck. We call the cluster cluck Pico, and it is for backyard poultry. So you can have your hens or your broiler production, or you could potentially put a couple of pigs. And it's meant for instead of feeding the world, how about you just feed your family, right?

And maybe learn how to process your own chickens on a Saturday afternoon and grow your own meat and feed your own family and get them to participate. Or dare I say, build community within your cul-de-sac and have people come together and work collectively on something like that. And I think what's important about regenerative agriculture is that you need to have regenerative consumption at the same point. And so consumers really need to understand that they can be maybe part of the food. If you're really worried about the carbon footprint, a lot of people have enough land to raise stuff if you have the ordinances and things

in place. And so there's a couple of different lanes that I see us developing things for and trying to connect people closer to their own food if they're passionate about those things. Yeah. I'm so glad you brought that up because I actually have a lot of listeners that either already have chickens or want to get chickens. I have so many friends. I mean, I have a girlfriend right now that's moving to Texas because she wants a bigger yard because she wants chickens. So a lot of people are starting to talk about this and wanting to at least produce their own food or some of it. So yeah, it's cool. And one of the things about having chickens what the value of what we've developed

here is chickens can be kind of a pain to have because if you if you just free range them you let them out in your yard uh you can get a fox or a coyote you live in texas come in and wipe you out that's no fun uh if you have a chicken tractor you've got to be there to move it you know twice a day if you don't want your your lawn to get you know burned off or you want them to make sure they have and so that's really we've we the devices that we're making are trying to make it easy so that you can still go to the lake for the weekend and you can have your Cluster Cluck app and see that your birds are moving across the yard automatically in autonomous mode. And they've got fresh grass and you don't, it takes kind of some of those pain points

and they're confined. So we keep predators out. A lot of the things that make growing your own protein hard, we try to make easier. That's cool. When we get off this call, I'm going to text my friend and tell her to reach out to you because she's probably going to want that for her yard. That's cool. Yeah. Well, I just want to ask you one more question because I ask all my guests this and this is just a personal question. What are your health non-negotiables? So these are things that you do either daily, maybe weekly, just to prioritize your own health, the things that are most important

to you. What are the things that are most... I try to really minimize process crap. That's probably the biggest thing. I'm on the go all the time. I'm really, really... Like a lot of people, I'm really busy. But my wife helps me prioritize. She's a fantastic cook and makes great meals for me and my daughters. And that's been incredibly important to me and our family. And then the other thing is I like raising all of my own protein, which I do. I've been doing that for the last 12 years, knowing where it comes from and having a hand in that and then enjoying consuming that in that process throughout the entire year. I wish I could say that exercise is a daily routine for me. It's not. My wife was just telling me I need to get back on the P90X now that it's wintertime. But being a farmer, it's a fairly physical job

and I'm fairly physically active, but I could for sure do better at that. But yeah, those would be my things. I love it. That's great. Well, I just want to say thank you so much for your time. This has been a really great episode. I really enjoyed this a lot. I think my listeners are going to love it. And I just want to encourage everyone listening to go check out all of his stuff, everything he plugged. So we'll put it all in the show notes too. So thank you so much, Zach. Yeah. And I would say back to you, thanks for having me. And you'd be more than welcome anytime to come out to Iowa. And I'd love to give you a tour and show you what it's all about at any point. Or see the stock crapper system next summer. That'd be more than welcome anytime to come out to Iowa. And I'd love to give you a tour and show you what it's all about at any point.

Or see the stock crapper system next summer. That'd be great. I'm going to take you up on that for real. So I will reach out to you. I would love that. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. If you liked the episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know.

This is a Resonant Media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. The theme song is called Heaven by the amazing singer Georgie. Georgie is spelled with a J. For more amazing podcasts produced by my team, go to resonantmediagroup.com. I love you guys so much. See you next week. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider-patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.