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Empowering Farmers with Regen Media with Taylor Henry
178 Plays2 months ago
Register for the Acres USA conference coming up on December 2-5, 2024. And if you can’t make those dates or its already passed, you can purchase the event recordings as well!
Can a digital bookstore and learning community reshape the world of farming? On our latest episode Taylor Henry, owner of Acres USA, makes a compelling case. He takes us through his journey into regenerative agriculture, sparked by Acres USA's rich catalogue. Taylor shares how Acres USA is redefining what it means to learn the craft of farming, offering an education that could rival, and even surpass, the traditional university path.
We also dive into the upcoming Acres USA conference, where leaders and learners come together to inspire, innovate, and transform the future of agriculture. Taylor explains why it’s essential for farmers to see themselves as entrepreneurs and how Acres USA equips them to do just that.
In this episode, we cover:
- How Acres USA’s bookstore sparked Taylor’s journey into regenerative farming.
- The history of Acres USA and its role in pushing forward organic and regenerative ag.
- How they’re marrying archival and historical knowledge, with the latest thinking in regards to agriculture.
- Why Taylor believes the offerings of Acres USA can rival the traditional university system when it comes to learning the business of regenerative farming.
- Why farmers need to see themselves as entrepreneurs.
- What’s in store at the upcoming Acres USA conference where leaders in the field will be sharing insights and regenerative farmers can gather to learn from each other.
- Some exciting innovations that can showcase the health benefits of regeneratively grown beef.
- And much more...
Register for the Acres USA conference
More about Taylor, Acres USA, and the Acres USA Podcast:
Taylor Henry is the owner and CEO of Acres USA, which he acquired in 2023. He is also the visionary behind Henry Pastures, a regenerative farm in Wisconsin. Originally setting aside his farming dreams, Taylor’s journey began in law enforcement and later led him into entrepreneurship. Eventually, he returned to his passion by establishing Henry Pastures, a 200-acre regenerative farming operation dedicated to holistic land management and sustainable practices. Taylor also works in real estate, helping others pursue land ownership with a focus on regenerative agriculture.
Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller of You Should Have a Podcast, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Keith J. Nelson.
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Transcript
Challenges for Young Farmers
00:00:02
Speaker
I also think it's ridiculous that a young person can't just be a farmer. So how do we develop and get the information from our past with people who are actively doing it now to develop that framework for people to work off of? And then as we grow throughout the years, show the people who are doing it right now.
Introduction to 'Agrarian Futures'
00:00:31
Speaker
You are listening to Agrarian Futures, a podcast exploring a future centered around land, community, and connection to place. I'm Emma Ratcliffe. And I'm Austin Unruh. And on the show, we chat with farmers, philosophers, and entrepreneurs reimagining our relationship to the land and to each other to showcase real hope and solutions for the future.
Welcoming Fellow Podcaster Taylor
00:01:01
Speaker
Well, Taylor, thank you so much for joining us on the Hungarian Futures Podcast. I'm excited to have you on and a fellow podcaster who's very comfortable being behind the mic, but maybe more comfortable being on the other side of the mic and being in the interviewer seat. So we'll put you on the hot seat now for a little bit and grill you and get you some experience being on the interviewee side of things.
00:01:24
Speaker
Yeah, I was just thinking about that earlier today. I'm like, I actually haven't been on as an interviewee of a podcast in a long time. Well, we've just been busy doing our own podcast. And it's easy when you have guys like Gay Brown, Joel Salton, and you just ask one single question and they talk for like an hour. yeah Especially those guys who they have their their message that they want to share with the world.
Taylor's Acquisition of Acres USA
00:01:48
Speaker
Well, so now focusing in on, on you and what you're doing, I want to ask about Acres USA. ah You're the relatively new owner of Acres USA. So tell me about Acres and why should we care about Acres and what it does? Yeah. So we bought, or I bought Acres back in December. It was a two year process of trying to acquire it. It was not a small undertaking. It was the first business that I acquired.
00:02:17
Speaker
And I identified it as a really important resource because when I got into regenerative agriculture, one of the first books I read was Dirt to Soil. I think the second book I read was Restoration Agriculture by Mark Shepherd. And I realized that Mark was only 20 minutes away from me. So I used to listen. It was a winter. I consumed probably, you know, a hundred books almost that winter. That's kind of how I've done things. i I got out of.
00:02:46
Speaker
being a cop and into business by consuming a hundred business books in a squad car in the last year that I worked there. And then I did the same thing with farming. So to me, my education is based around books. And so Acres was a place that I found relatively quickly. And then I started working with Mark. Mark gave me insight. Obviously Mark's book is probably the number one seller of Acres published titles.
00:03:14
Speaker
when you look at it over, you know, the last 10 years.
Founding of Acres USA by Charles Walters
00:03:17
Speaker
And as I did my research, learning about Charles Walters, who was the founder, you know, Charles was a economist that he founded Acres USA back in 1971. So there was a few organizations like Rodale or NFO, they were all kind of working together and then they all kind of split off. And that's when Charles formed Acres USA.
00:03:41
Speaker
and we've been doing a printed monthly magazine since 1971.
Acres USA's Eco-Farming Focus
00:03:46
Speaker
The first ecoag conference was I believe in 1975 because this is our 49th annual conference this year. So I think it became really popular in the 70s and 80s. It grew subscriber bases and it was essentially disconnected from the normal agricultural publications. They took the stance of There's destruction happening with the soil, human health, and the environment. And if you're ecologically minded, farmers and soil scientists and policy experts, along with economic thinkers and philosophers of the land, that's who Charles Walters began interviewing and publishing their articles. So if you imagine, it's easy for us today to talk about regenerative agriculture.
00:04:30
Speaker
because it's kind of cool, right? like it Especially right now, you look at it, we're talking about it in the mainstream, main mainstream.
Evolution of Acres USA's Farming Philosophy
00:04:37
Speaker
But back in that day, they were the wacky people that you know weren't really looked upon very kindly.
00:04:45
Speaker
and they rose up through the chemical area. So as ah your agriculture is becoming more industrialized and using chemicals and being more of a science type trade, Acres always stood through the organic rise. So they started with all natural farming, went to organic, moved to sustainable. They carried up through all of those taglines and Acres has always formed the ecological farmer, ecological agriculture. So farming within the image of your ecosystem and being responsible with the land while always talking about profit. So how can farmers be successful, not only on the land, but then also
00:05:23
Speaker
as a business and entrepreneurs.
Influence of Albrecht Papers
00:05:25
Speaker
Probably one of the biggest things that Acres did is they got all of the Albrecht papers and we created a series of books out of that. And I think a lot of people that you see, a lot of our authors, a lot of those foundational concepts came from the Albrecht papers. So mineralizing the soil, obviously Gary Zimmer has become so well known with the biological farmer and talking about mineralization, but you know, it really comes back to the Albrecht papers. and Dr. William Albrecht, who was at the University of Missouri. I don't know how much you know about this history. No, I need a refresher here on this. And I think a lot of folks who are in this space or adjacent to this space haven't heard about him. Yeah, so the Albrecht papers, which Charles Walters rescued from essentially an historical dustbin, and we published them over several volumes, was the foundation. And Albrecht actually got ran out of the University of Missouri by the time he was ending his career as a professor.
00:06:20
Speaker
but I am nowhere near what Charles Walters was. If you listen to our latest podcast with Joel Salton, he actually breaks down into tears talking about how special Charles Walters was. We have a lot of his old talks in MP3 form and you listen to how he commanded a room and entertained people. He was truly a special person and he was a special writer. I always picture that guy must've been sitting in an office just writing pen to paper hours and hours on end.
00:06:50
Speaker
because his name is on over a dozen of our published books. And he pulled all that information out of agronomist farmers, folks who probably without him, maybe wouldn't have published their work or got their information on paper. So after Charles retired, he handed it over to his son, Fred, who continued to run the company. And then it got bought by the company that I bought it from.
00:07:15
Speaker
in the mid-2010s. And they ran it for a couple years, and that's where we stepped in and we started negotiations with them, took it over. It was based in Colorado. We moved it to Varroco, Wisconsin, which is where Organic Valley was founded. And we have a you know a really special alternative organic agriculture community. and I think it's the right place.
Taylor's Vision for Acres USA
00:07:39
Speaker
So tell me a little bit about why you decided then to acquire Acres and where you want to go with that because presumably you have the opportunity to to start up your own thing from scratch and could have gone any direction with it. But you wanted to acquire this legacy company that's been around for 50 plus years and you have an inspiration of what you want to do with that in a new direction or you're going to bring your energy to that.
00:08:06
Speaker
So tell me a little bit about where you want to go with acres. Yeah, I think it can be competitive parallel to the university system as far as educational content. If you think about you know farming and it's really a business, farmers, I think, should have the idea that they're entrepreneurs. Then can we create an educational area that can revel what the university systems are? And the easiest way to do that would be to acquire the thing that has a bunch of that information already. you know Books are obviously a really important thing because I think they're the easiest way to acquire customers in the sense that we don't have to beg people to buy a book. They're looking to educate themselves. And then we can take them from there and expand that into our print publication that always gives updated information and always has updated content that's relevant to people in the moment. But then also marrying that with
00:09:05
Speaker
online course material. So right now we created a membership site that parallels with the magazine. So you have online access to the magazine, digital access to it. But we took all of the MP3 files, which essentially most of them are recordings from previous conferences. They get dripped out throughout two years. So you sign up for the membership and you will get every month a new series of MP3 files. There's some videos in there and there's some courses that we already have that are that folks get access to. But it's that type of learning I think is what's important because you have people who want to be on the land. They don't necessarily want to go sit in a classroom forever. But being able to give them the information that, yeah, it's not necessarily welcomed in conventional university systems.
00:09:52
Speaker
We just talked to Alan Williams on a podcast and he explained his career as a professor and essentially how he got berated and made fun of. His colleagues, when he left from the university, had a betting market on him on how long until he would fail. So yeah, I think college is important in certain ways where you can create relationships and I think it's important for kids to go get out of their house and and go experience different things. But it's not really conducive to these types of ideas, at least not yet. And what I think we have is we have the archival material of people who've been talking about this for 50 years, and we're going to marry it with the new content that we create. Right now, it's almost like you're overwhelmed with how much content we have. And that's good in some ways. You know, I could see it being a problem in others, but our idea is to create, essentially you can take a pathway and we will give
00:10:46
Speaker
the content that fits that pathway throughout it. And then as people kind of figure out what they want to do, or maybe they want to target certain areas and niches, then we have more in-depth higher levels, say 201, 301 type courses and information. And what Acres provides us is the years and years and years of goodwill.
00:11:05
Speaker
along with the people in it. So instead of me just coming up and saying, here's how you do things, even though I have five years of experience without much to back it up, it's easier to take the experts, the true experts who are in the field, but the agronomists and the people who don't have the time to create this content necessarily. And we can be that arm for them.
00:11:28
Speaker
I imagine that farmers in particular do really well with audio content because you're there on the tractor, you're there moving, you're fixing fences, you're moving livestock, and you don't have time to sit down and read necessarily because you're working on a farm and you're spending a lot of time out there in the field, but you got plenty of time to listen to podcasts or MP3 recordings from this rich history of speakers over the last 50 years. Yeah, and that's how I learned. When I said I've read 100 books, you know majority, 80% of them are probably listened to.
00:11:57
Speaker
and I got to a point where I would just, I could listen to ah a book on 2x speed and you'd be able to consume a book in a day or two. And if it was really good, then I would go back and re-listen to a slower speed and pick up different things. But I was able to get through so much more information than if you were in a standardized educational system. And then you're able to go pick your way. If you're into beef cattle or raising hogs or crop production, you can pick that avenue and then find the content that matches it.
00:12:29
Speaker
So Taylor, tell me a little bit about now where you want Acres to help drive things. So there's the current state of agriculture, and I'm sure as you've gotten into it and you're having these conversations with all kinds of different speakers and authors, you're starting to get a picture of the opportunities that are out there in agriculture and some of the big things that you would like Acres to help push along. So can you tell me a little bit about what you see as the future of ag? particularly the future of regenerative ag
Regenerative Agriculture's Role
00:13:01
Speaker
and how acres can be instrumental in making that happen. Well, to me, regenerative ag is an off-ramp to the current model. And I think you talk to any farmer, it is obvious that the current model is either broken or it doesn't work for the next generation.
00:13:16
Speaker
So how do we, number one, introduce these different strategies and tactics while also giving people a profitable business idea and a way for them to make money? I mean, I think it's important that people still have the ability to work on a computer. I don't think it's the best idea to completely say I hate technology and I steer away from it because the people that I've come in contact, especially in this industry, that are having success and they have good careers, they do spend a lot of time on the computer. and I think it's an inevitable thing that we just have to accept. And it's a skill set that I think a lot of people have to get.
00:13:55
Speaker
But with that being said, I also think it's ridiculous that a young person can't just be a farmer. So how do we develop and get the information from our past with people who are actively doing it now?
00:14:09
Speaker
to develop that framework for people to work off of and show the examples of people who are doing it successfully. And then as we grow throughout the years, show the people who are doing it right now. Because I think times change to say that it's the exact same when Gabe Brown, Mark Shepard, Joel Salatin started their farm and and were able to make a living on it.
00:14:31
Speaker
as today, they'll tell you that ah it was never easy and there's always stressful times, which I think people need to realize. But it's also, I think we've changed a little bit too, where it is different. Land prices are are really high. So how do people buy land and get on it and actually start making a living on it? And that's what I'm interested in in is to find the people who are actively doing it now, having success.
00:14:56
Speaker
and incorporate the economic side of it because I think it's easy to gloss over that, especially in our industry where you know it's the frolicking through the flowers and watching the bees and the worms and the insects and hearing the birds chirp and not very many people talk about the economic side. So you have a lot of people who get into this because they're they're so passionate about it and there's a decent majority that is out of it within two or three years.
00:15:23
Speaker
So I think marrying the practices in the economic side is the most important thing. And like you experienced, people wanna be full-time farming. You get out of your career and you want to you're on the farm and that's what you wanna do full-time. And I think that's the experience of most people is that's what drives them. it's This is a passion. It's not necessarily, people don't get into farming to get rich, right? They don't get into farming because they know that this is a really solid business and I'm sure to succeed. Oftentimes the the business side of things takes a backseat to actually being out on the land because that's the driver is I think there's something
00:15:58
Speaker
inate inside of us that wants to be out on land, that wants to be outside. That doesn't want to be in a cubicle. It doesn't want to be ah sitting in front of a screen. that We want to have something concrete and measurable that we've done by the end of the day. And also we want to be in the sunshine. We want to be in the elements. We want to be working with livestock.
00:16:15
Speaker
And so that's the driver for most folks. But that economic piece, you're right, really gets left behind for most people. And having thoughtful people who can marry that agronomics, the skill set to be actually on the farm, but then also say, hey, look, let's think about this really, really thoughtfully so that you can actually you can get in the business on the farm and stay in it, because that's a real trick. A lot of folks, like you said, get into it and they they're out of it soon.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah, well, who are the best regenerative farmers? I think there's some weird correlation between engineers who leave engineering jobs and become really successful farmers. Well, if you reverse engineer that, it's like whoa well what makes an engineer a weird occupation that seems to translate well into regenerative agriculture. It's a problem solving business. You have to constantly find new problems and solve them. Well, the first big problem that people need to solve is the money thing.
00:17:09
Speaker
and And that's all it is, this is it's a problem that needs to be solved and it can't be overlooked because it is the driver of what lets you go experiment and lets you gain success and you might have to do things.
00:17:21
Speaker
that you don't necessarily want to do, but we also live in the best age to do it where you can get a job that's fully remote and you can start doing this. You know, what I'm seeing a lot of people that still buy land from us, they're moving in from the cities and they're essentially playing an arbitrage lifestyle where they have a job that came from a big city. It's well-paying and they move out to a rural area where the cost of living is a lot lot cheaper. And they essentially arbitrage those two things where I can work online, maybe I have to go travel you know three times out of a year, but I can be on the farm working, doing both of those things. That's great. So Taylor, what's something that makes you optimistic about the future of Ag? There's a lot of things to be pessimistic about, right? But what are some things that get you excited about where Ag is going or where there's pockets of movement in the right direction?
00:18:16
Speaker
I think we're seeing it. This is becoming mainstream. You can take it back to COVID where people became a little bit distrustful with the mainstream. They want to disconnect from the mainstream idea of medicine and food. I think everybody realizes that the food that we're consuming on a daily basis is not to the quality that we want. You know, we're sicker and that only helps the regenerative agriculture world. It's an unfortunate thing for sure, but it's becoming much more just in your face because now we are 40 to 50 years into where we've used these chemicals, we've moved to processed foods, and it's obvious that our society is not healthier.
00:18:57
Speaker
So to see some of these people where it's becoming mainstream and it's being talked about and it's really on top of people's minds and we're seeing people willing to pay a premium for certain qualities of food.
Opportunities for Young Farmers
00:19:09
Speaker
I see two things. I think there's a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs and business people to get into this industry. So a farmer who's on the land developing a product or a service similar to what you guys have done and helping. So there's like two different people, right?
00:19:24
Speaker
There's a people that had really successful careers and they have lots of money and they feel passionate about this and they want to put their money into the land, yeah but they have no idea about how to manage the land, farm the land.
00:19:36
Speaker
So there's the younger generation that can come in and help them with consultants or farm operators where you know we've worked with a couple organizations or groups that bought a pile of land and actually hired a staff to manage it. And they're not necessarily thinking about the money upfront, but they're savvy enough business folks that no matter what, nobody wants to see their checkbook just constantly decrease, decrease, decrease.
00:20:01
Speaker
So those people are put in and they're given challenges to make the operation profitable. And I think selling the idea that land is this asset that is similar to a savings account is the way that we can get a lot of younger people on the land to say, hey, and I've seen it. It sounds crazy. You can go pitch your idea to investors.
00:20:22
Speaker
They'll front the cash to buy the land. How do we marry that relationship to where the farmer and the operator can get a piece of the growth of that value of that asset, while also then taking advantage of what comes off the land. The person who just has that much cash and is able to put it into land they should sit back and they're going to be happy with the return as it'll outperform normal 401ks investment type things. I think that relationship is an interesting one moving forward here, but I also think that there's just unlimited amount of opportunities. You know, we look back at
00:20:57
Speaker
when Acres was started, the opportunities for people now to get into this world and not just be laughed at, but actually be taken seriously and get in front of people like in Congress and get in front of really influential type people that can change the way that the agricultural sector is, that's the thing that I don't know what's going to happen in the next 10 years. so But I feel like we're moving in the right direction as far as the way policy is going to move and the opportunities are going to come up for people.
00:21:23
Speaker
It seems that there's a lot more recognition of the real and and existential threats to agriculture and like the cracks in the the conventional system that we have today. Yeah. And it just, it comes down to problem solving. So if you can't afford land, it's not that I can't afford it. It's how can I afford it or how do I get on it? And there is avenues for that because the more that we have these out of town vacant type landowners, there's tons of opportunity there for people to get started. You might not own it, but it'd be a great way for you to get started and get the experience and then you build up your your pot of gold in until you can buy your own piece. yeah
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah, Joel Salton has this really interesting piece. I think it's in his book, Field of Farmers, where he talks about when his farm was acquired by his father and the ratio between the cost of the land and how much they were able to sell beef for, and how that ratio just grew exponentially between then, which it may have been like 50 years ago by now, and today, where you're just selling your beef for a little bit more, but it's not that much more. But let's say you're selling your beef for three times more, but the land costs 10 or 20 times more now than it did then. So the ability to cash flow the purchase of your farm through the actual business is so much harder now than it was a couple of generations ago. It's insanely more challenging, but there are opportunities. And so in that problem solving mindset is
00:22:53
Speaker
Okay, now I still need the land, but I need access to the land, right? like I don't need to own that land necessarily myself. That land might continue to be more something that people with deep pockets, they invest in because it's a secure thing. They're not expecting that they're going to make a lot of money off the land, but they want security off the land. So how can I, as a young entrepreneur,
00:23:14
Speaker
or older entrepreneur, partner with those folks who have the money. And there's a whole bunch of different ways
Creative Land Access Solutions
00:23:20
Speaker
to do that. And that's one of the things that we at Agrarian Futures like to explore is how can we get around that that land access issue by maybe by splitting that up and having some people acquire the land and other people then farm the land. Because that does seem to be the direction it has to move for many in many instances. Because folks who who have the knowledge and the skill and the energy to farm it often don't have the money to get into it. Yeah. Unless we're talking vegetables on two acres. Right. I mean, I would also challenge people. So Joel, those guys, they never had an opportunity to have an on farm where they're at their house remote job that could possibly say $100,000 salary while doing that. Like they were on their farm. They had no other choice. They could go into town and work.
00:24:05
Speaker
They wouldn't be there. They couldn't run out at lunch and do a couple chores or, or run out. They were stuck. You think about Greg Judy's background. He worked in town for 20 years. So he would go in the morning and do his chores and then in the afternoon he'd come back.
00:24:19
Speaker
in the dark and and move his cattle. I mean, it's a problem solving thing, too. But also, if you have a job, a JOB, a salary type W-2 thing, then why not invest a percentage of that instead of putting it in a 401K? I would invest it in a land. And I think people have a hard time wrapping their mind around it.
00:24:36
Speaker
where you're not asking the land to pay for itself in cash flow necessarily, you're just asking to pay your percentage. That would be the same thing that you'd put into an investment account. And then you got to make up the difference with what's happening on the land. And how we did that was, you know, through Airbnb and being creative with allowing people on the land. You know, it'd be silly for me to say that the way that we have been able to pay for this place is solely based on what we're doing on the farm. It's a percentage of it.
00:25:01
Speaker
but the other avenues, being an entrepreneur, problem solving, thinking about other ways to make money with it, that's what's driven us over the top to where we could go buy more. yeah And in the meantime, the land is gaining value. Yeah, in theory, it definitely is right now. And then you you know the guys from the 80s will tell you that it's not always the case. But I just think it, I have a hard time, like the real estate market right now is
Impact of Land Prices and Interest Rates
00:25:26
Speaker
a lot slower. We haven't had land prices increase over the last year the same way it was doing over the last two or three. But it also hasn't gone backwards. And if anything, it wouldn't be the worst thing if it went back a little bit. And you know the biggest thing and in history that's driven land prices down is extremely high interest rates. And I hope that we just went through that and it held steady. And I hope we're not going to jump way back up. But we're talking about in the 80s, guys were buying land with 13% interest rates.
00:25:53
Speaker
And they were only paying the interest. They weren't making actual payments on the loan. You know, that's where those guys are like, fuck up this generation. Like we went through it too. I don't think I've ever met anyone who bought a bunch of land that said, yeah, I had a bunch of money in my accountant. It was an easy thing. Like we didn't know what was going to happen. Yeah. But then a lot of them lost their shirts and their land.
00:26:19
Speaker
Yeah, but the ones who were able to hold on are sitting really nice right now. And that's where it comes into, you know, you can't give up the constant thing when right now we're going through and we're interviewing pretty much all of our speakers on our podcast. And the most consistent thing that any of these guys say is you can't give up. That you're going to have the disastrous thing happen. We're dealing with land.
00:26:40
Speaker
nature, stuff you have completely out of your own control. But you need to, number one, they say don't give up. And number two, they say you can't over leverage yourself financially to a point where then you have to make poor decisions. So to be flexible, which is diversity, right? Like diversity is one of the most key concepts in managing land. Well, it's also the most key concept in managing business. And to have those different revenue streams and have different areas where if I always thought about like this,
00:27:08
Speaker
If everything got shut down, I couldn't do anything here. This is the amount of money that I need to make to make these payments. I try to keep a nest egg up enough to make it one year, always.
00:27:21
Speaker
And you say, well, if something bad happens, I have 12 months to figure it out. That's sometimes easier said than done, but that's also why the money thing is a problem solving thing. It's just, you got to solve that and go out and hustle and make enough money to where you feel comfortable. Then you can take those risks. It's a mindset of taking risks too. There's not a farmer that I've talked to in this world that has had a lot of success that hasn't taken enormous risks and they bet on themselves and they bet on the sense that you're not just going to give up and that If everything crumbles, it doesn't just disappear in a second. Mark always tells me the bank isn't going to come and eat you. I'm like, easy for you to say you're 35 years in, but, um, it's true though. Like you have to have that mindset and you have to be thoughtful. Like I researched and, and thought about how banks work and how loans work and.
00:28:13
Speaker
and how money really works. And it's an important piece of all this. You know, I look at just like our cow herd is essentially a savings account that as long as we can manage it in this same way, where my costs are so little, you know, really our main costs are our hay. And if we can continue to stockpile graze and extend the grazing season longer and longer, that cost will go down. And other than that, I have a bunch of animals out there that I know are going to give me a calf every year.
00:28:40
Speaker
and they're the best savings account that I could think of. But one thing I wanted to say too, as far as the most exciting things about the future here, is have you explored um Dan Kittredge at all? Not much. No, I met him a couple of weeks ago now, but I really haven't gotten into his stuff. And I know that there's a lot of the worst stuff that he's been working on that's really coming right
Nutrient Density Testing by Dan Kittredge
00:29:03
Speaker
around the corner. But can you explain for folks who Dan Kittredge is and what he's been working on?
00:29:09
Speaker
So Dan is a really interesting guy. ah You know, he's a business entrepreneur. He operates more in the nonprofit realm, but what they have created is a unit that test, you know, Dan will say that he developed the word nutrient density. I'm not sure it's probably true, but that's a very common word now. Right. And it wasn't that common even 10, 15 years ago.
00:29:32
Speaker
He'll tell you that he developed that word from going to Acres Conferences and sitting around the table with people like Gary Zimmer. And he calls them the old heads of Acres. And what they've done is they developed this tool where right now they can take pictures of, say, a tomato. And it'll give you a nutrient density score or profile on it. So you can take a picture of a tomato at a grocery store.
00:29:57
Speaker
go to the organic section, take a picture of that, go to the conventional tomato, take a picture of that. And one of them should give you a better score. So the idea is it would be in the hands of consumers where they could actually choose the more nutrient dense food at the grocery store. I was like, whoa, that's insane. That's insane. With just a little handheld device. At some point, it's going to be an app in your phone that will be able to do it. Now, where it got even crazier is where they're hoping to develop the same type of system for meat. So if something like that comes to market and it becomes an app, which is one of the cool things with Dan because they're making it in a nonprofit, so they're, they won't be profit driven. Their goal is to just get it out to the world. But what that could do for meat is you could destroy this grass fed complex. That is such an issue to where grass fed isn't really regulated.
00:30:49
Speaker
So someone could feed grain, put them on grass in summer. There's some things that you could get certified, but when you were talking about the grocery store, and it doesn't really, you know, or direct to consumer, you know, you see it on Craigslist all the time. Someone says grass fed beef. And it's like, I know that farm. It's not, they're not grass fed. They get silage all winter. They're out on pasture in the summer. Yep. They're out on pasture, but they're eating grain or silage or whatever.
00:31:13
Speaker
It's not like organic, you where you you can't use the word organic without a certification label. But here we have
Transparency in Meat Market
00:31:20
Speaker
outcomes. We have nutrient, bio nutrient outcomes that we can test directly here.
00:31:24
Speaker
Well, and you'll be able to see the Omega-6 levels in it, which are directly correlated to, you say, a grass-fed animal would have a certain number versus a grain-fed animal. So the consumer would be able to instantly detect which one is true. You think about Walmart right now, I think last time I had looked, they were selling grass-fed ground beef for like 550 a pound. I would love to take that tool in there and take a picture of that and then take a picture of our meat and see what the difference is.
00:31:51
Speaker
In agriculture, there's a massive system, it's similar to pharma and stuff, but they're concerned about making money, and they're going to pick up the latest, greatest thing. It's what happened to organic, it's what happened to sustainable, and now it's happening to regenerative. There's rumors that Walmart, in the next three to five years, 50% of their products will have to be labeled with regenerative, and it's like, well, how are you going to label it right now? I'm sure it's going to be the most accurate regenerative, I'm sure.
00:32:18
Speaker
Yeah, but a tool like that, I think you always hear, where's this power going to come from? The power comes from the consumers. Well, they don't really have a way to, besides, you know, you make a flashy website, make a nice video and explain to them the difference. But if we can actually get a tool that tests the difference, then I think that would be enormous for the grass fed market, pork market, chicken market, because we know when you taste the difference, you know, there's a difference in there.
00:32:45
Speaker
And you know that pasture raised chickens taste much different than the grocery store's chickens, even if they claim to be pasture raised. And you know that the eggs are much different in free range chickens than they are in the free range chickens in the grocery store. So if we can actually get a metric to test that, that's where this industry could take off because then, then these giants who want to make money, they're going to have to follow the line with that. And then the people who are doing these practices, they're mature.
00:33:15
Speaker
They're 20, 30 years in. Their farms are already converted into this type of system. Those are the ones that are going to have the true premium products. That's what's going to pay off in the end. That's great. Well, I think that's a good hopeful piece to wrap us up with and something for us to look forward to that coming out and putting that information in the hands of consumers so that they can make better choices and actually buy from people who are doing the right things and raising food the way that it should be. Anything else that you want to share?
Upcoming Acres USA Conference
00:33:46
Speaker
Yeah. So we have a conference. This will be the 49th annual conference and trade show. There is going to be between 75 and a hundred exhibitors. So the leading companies in our industry that are developing and innovating products for regenerative agriculture, organic agriculture, and then along with our speaker lineup, which includes you Austin, but I think it's one of the better speaker lineups that I've seen. So I came into it saying, well, if we're going to keep doing this conference, then we might as well go after the same people that I learned from over the last five years. And we went and got them. And thankfully, these people have been extremely gracious and they want to see Acres succeed. It's going to come through in the conference. We might not have the perfect food system, but it's going to be hard to have a bad conference with this speaker lineup.
00:34:36
Speaker
you think of Gay Brown, Allen Williams, their team from Understanding Ag is doing a full two-day workshop on the front end, along with John Kemp, Mark Shepard, Austin's doing a day, Nigel Palmer. Those people all, they cover different areas. So whatever you're interested in, you could definitely fit into that.
00:34:55
Speaker
That's December 2nd and 3rd. And then the 4th and 5th is the general conference, which is all of those guys, including yourself, will be doing a presentation. They're more like the 75 minute conference talks that people are used to. You know, we have just a ridiculous lineup. So every single session, you will be able to find someone that will fit with what you're talking about. And it's based around organic regenerative with the idea that we're not exiling conventional producers, because I think That's the biggest area of growth that we have in this industry, is bringing conventional producers over into regenerative practices in some way, shape, or form. So you can find out more information about that on acresusa.com. Just go to the events and then find Ecoag. We talked about earlier our new membership that ties in with the magazine. That's eco-farming.com. We'll have links here in the show notes, too.
00:35:48
Speaker
just follow AcresUSA and you're going to find we do small workshops throughout the year. We try to get around the country in different regions and gather people with these types of ideas. And I do think that there's something to the in-person setting. I know we've moved away from that as a society a little bit after COVID. But to be in the same room of all of these guys and girls that are having success and have years of success, it's hard to beat that. The networking that can take place in that setting. I mean, just like we talked about, if someone wants to go out and get into this world, you have 75 to 100 companies sitting in that trade show room that are probably right up your alley of someone you could work with while doing farming. Because it is interesting how many of in our industry there's a lot of remote work opportunities. And I think that's purposeful in the sense that people want to be on the land while also being able to work.
00:36:39
Speaker
yeah And I think you'd mentioned earlier how if you want to go to get a college degree, you have to go to college. Like you go there and you get your college degree. And, and one of the things that there's a downside of doing all this stuff online is you don't get those interactions. You don't get those connections, but look, you can go to Acre is and you can get a lot of really high quality content. You can consume that on your own time.
00:37:00
Speaker
And then you can go to the conference. You have all that information backing you up and you're able to connect in-person with the speakers, with the people who are presenting with the businesses, but then also with your peers who are also all showing up there. So I think that's a great combination, allowing people to make those in-person connections that otherwise would be missed. Yeah. I mean, that'd be the idea of the conference that we carry. We take the folks from the conference.
00:37:24
Speaker
And then we start the digital learning in 25, where we have consistent content coming out from these same people who are speakers and presenters. So you you not only come to the conference as kind of an introductory to our world, but then we hope to be able to carry you and give you information throughout the year that's actually practical and useful. And it combines the practices with the economics. So any problems that you have, I think there's probably a solution in our archival material.
00:37:53
Speaker
And if there isn't, you can reach out and ask us and we'll go find it for you. All I'll say too, is if you're starting out, be a hustler, go out, make connections, network, but do it respectfully too, because these guys at the conference will be inundated with tons and tons of people. But that's the way you go do it. Make an impression on someone, make a connection and you never know what that's going to take to people. Yeah. Well, I'm looking forward to it. It's coming up in just from the time of recording four or five weeks. i I'm excited for getting out there.
00:38:23
Speaker
coming down the home stretch. Very good. and Well, Taylor, hey, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for for being on this show. Thank you for having me on your show. And I look forward to seeing you there at Acres. Yeah. And you can find Austin's episode with me of the Acres USA podcast too. Thanks a lot, Austin.
00:38:39
Speaker
Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexander Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Keith J. Nelson. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, and leave us a comment on your podcast app of choice. As a new podcast, it's crucial for helping us reach more people. You can visit agrarianfuturespod.com to join our email list for a heads up on upcoming episodes and bonus content.