How Three Farmers Built a Cooperative to Accelerate Regenerative Agriculture

0:00 Hey everybody, welcome to the Green Cover podcast where we have really interesting conversations with some of the top regenerative farmers and experts in the industry. Join us as we learn together how we can regenerate God's creation for future generations. You know, in the regenerative world, we often talk about the power of diversity and how when we have this diverse collection of plants or biology, we see them cooperate much more than they compete. And it's a pattern that we see repeated throughout nature and God's creation. And it's a pattern that just always blesses me when I see it. And I'm excited today because my guests today are doing that same thing, but not with their soils as much as they're doing it with their operations.

0:46 So I'm very excited to have this conversation with these farmers from Illinois. So I'm going to welcome Steve Jameson, Matt Johnson, and Brad Riskadale. And these three guys, they've been customers of ours, but they're doing some really unique things together as a cooperative working arrangement and agreement on their farms. And all three of you guys, you are what, an hour and a half, two hours kind of westish of Chicago type area. So, I want to just have each of you give a little bit of your background and then I want to jump in and explore a little bit about how you came to be doing a lot of these things together. Challenges, the rewarding parts and all of that. So, Steve, you're the first guy on my screen, so kick us off and give us a little bit of the background of yourself and your farming operation.

1:39 All righty. We have been familially farming for six generations. My children are fifth generation in our house and we have more history of regenerative farming than commercial farming if you look at it from that perspective. But when the commercial farming came through, we completely dove right into it and had been chemicals, fertilizers and deep tillage and plowing and all that kind of thing in family history. A few years back, just transitioning into the regenerative side of things, I was farming some ground that the neighbor pulled out a fence and that fence was a dam and when it would rain hard that would hold the water, but without that fence, it became a rushing gully. And Matt and his father had been doing cover crops for years. And so I blamed Matt for all of this. I started looking into the rye that they had been planting and discovering all the neat aspects of erosion control and nutrient cycling and once I started doing that research I found YouTube with a lot of your videos on it and I became hooked and it's like this is a better way and then my daughter also works for a company that takes her to Europe frequently and she has all kinds of food allergies here but not there. So then the track of human health and soil health became fully integrated to me.

3:11 And about how many years ago was that that you started you know your YouTube journey and going down this path?

3:17 Well Matt is our archivist he mentioned that I joined the group is what was it 2000 and well six years ago. Six years ago it was I joined the group and so I started seeing their operations Brad and Matt and picking up different things that were fascinating and I didn't understand and I had to do some learning on and so that's kind of where I ended up with this was about that time approximately and then couple years after that I was asked to join the corporation formally.

3:50 Okay, great. Well, Matt, we'll go to you next since you just got dragged through the mud there by Steve blaming you for a lot of these changes. So, give us a little bit of your history and background.

4:00 So, we're a little bit farther east than Steve and Brad are. Closer into Chicago. But fifth generation family farm. My parents have been on the ground where they are living right now. Been farming that for five generations. We've expanded and changed, picking up ground and changing things. In 2006 I started working for Brad. Brad has a trucking company and I started working for Brad and we had come from a conventional tillage operation back in the 80s. Switched into no till in late 80s early 90s, seeing soil health benefits there. In 2006 I started working for Brad and driving that truck. That sparked the conversations between the Riskall family and my family as to we're both small operations. How do we afford equipment? Equipment prices getting very expensive.

5:10 What do we do? And things proceeded from there.

5:22 Okay. And so, Brad, sounds like you kind of were at the center of all of this. So, give us your history and background and then also mention how your son is fitting into the scenario here as well as he's not able to join us on the call today.

5:38 Right. Correct. Yeah, Keith. I'm fifth generation family farmer right at 130 years of family ownership here this last winter. And Steven would be my sixth generation and he's active in the daily operations. He's active in a lot of the coordinating that we do as a result of working together here.

6:01 Back when I met Matt, I appreciated the way he was doing things and we were both using old combines and we kind of sat down on a napkin and said, 'You know what? I think if we had one good combine and we worked together and we treat each other's farms as though they're as important to his farm is important to me as mine is to me.' I bet with a good combine we could work together and get this done in less time. And so that's how it started and we actually made that happen.

6:35 What year would that have been when that started?

6:38 Well, this fall will be our 18th harvest together. So to give a little bit idea on that. Then along the way, 2019 I had 14 inches of rain in the month of May and June and was not able to plant 85% of my crop. But I noticed there that the soil I had not touched yet was percolating better than what I traditionally would have tilled by springtime. And that made me start thinking, okay, there's something wrong here. Tillage is creating more problems for me. How do I get around that? That led to I started strip till that year. That ran me into some cover crops. I started dabbling in some of that and started to grow since 2019. I've seen a phenomenal difference in our soils as a result. So, our family's done, you know, livestock over the years. When I first started farming, I was raising 6,000 head hogs a year. But yet our crop production is still, you know, modest. We're we average between the three of us less than a thousand acres a piece. And so, you know, there's a need to do some of this sharing in order to keep your expenses right, but yet still enjoy the technology, the productivity, and then that's grown into other things. So, that's kind of where we're at, Keith.

8:01 Yeah. So, thanks for sharing that. That I think sets us up for a really good background here of, you know, your ability to share your resources. And it started out with equipment, I assume. So it started out with a combine it sounds like. Where did it grow from there? Did you just keep the joint ownership of the combine for a while or did you quickly go into other equipment? And then are you also sharing all of the labor when it comes to running that combine and the harvest as well?

8:34 It started out with the investment in the combine and the heads and a couple grain carts to make the flow work good and to keep the combine effective when it's in the field. And then at that point in time, it was our dads, Matt's dad and my dad, who carried the corporation at that point in time. We set it up as an entity separate from our farms.

8:57 The idea being equal ownership in the assets, but paid according to the acres we use them on. So that's what helped the cash flow of the corporation. If I've got more acres and match, you know, your acres are never going to be equal. So there's been times mine's been more, his has been more. We pay according to the acre, makes the cash flow, makes the payments, makes the entity work on its own. And we ran with that for the longest time. We made some improvements on our personal operations to make the transfer of grain quicker. You know, we put in bigger bin spreaders. We bought bigger augers so that we could spend less time loading and unloading. Save ourselves a little bit of labor there. But that was the small things and we kind of operated the combine based on whose crop, whose farm, whose field is ready next or in the case of corn, whose field is ready next and the grain dryers ready to take it in to keep those grain dryers efficient and moving. So we find ourselves with more road time than we were used to on our own, but together we still got more done as a result.

10:11 At that point in time, I don't know if anybody else has ever heard, but dads aren't getting younger. And so my dad and Matt's dad would like to slow down a bit. And in our case, we've transferred my dad's ownership to me of his portion of the corporation and since then added Steve into the group. So the evolution among generations is working.

10:38 That led to, you know, in the last six years with cover crops and the new challenges sharing ideas and building on equipment for that. So I think it's probably been the last half a dozen years we've gone into air seeders and extractors and you name it, all sorts of things. So Matt, what's the geographic spread between the three operations? You know, are we talking 10 miles, 30 miles? How far apart are you guys?

11:06 35 miles from one side of the operation to the other. Brad and Steve are closer together for the most part, but Steve does have some ground over closer towards me. And so that does incur some road time. But it also gives us more opportunities to get the fields as they're fit. Now that we've transitioned, I said started off with just harvest, you do have weather conditions with that, but now as we've transitioned into doing more and more together, planting and some spraying and other things there. There's less chance that we're going to be rained out on any given day just because of a stray storm. So we have to take that into account the travel time, but there are large operations around here that are stretched out over way more miles than we are.

12:01 Yeah. So, Steve, what was it like for you to join the corporation, you know, after kind of been running for a while? And what attracted you to wanting to be part of that?

12:16 Well, I was harvesting with my daughters and wife and they were running auger carts and somewhat enjoying but not fully enjoying it. So then I hired a neighbor kid and he did not pull down the auger one harvest and he ripped down all the wires in my farmstead and then I go out with my old combine and shortly thereafter my back axle, the hub falls off because the bearing breaks. And then Matt and God's timing calls up and just says, 'We've been talking. How about joining our harvest group?' I'm thinking, you know, I need to listen. God's telling me something here. And so the fact that we've got skilled labor, the fact that we've got good intellectual discussions on different ideas and crazy things that we hear and can bounce things off, that was all stuff that was very, eventually appealing to me. But yeah, it was just that timing of that harvest was just ironic. And I had been aware of Matt and Brad's arrangement for quite some time. Matt and I go to church together. We sell crop insurance together. And so Matt and I are pretty knit tight together in that regard.

13:28 So when I first was approached to do that, I was an employee of the corporation and then they rented my tractor and auger cart and so that's kind of how we sort of started to do things and I called that when I was on probation, see if I would rip down any wires or anything in their yards. And then I apparently passed and they asked me to join the group. So, I'm the smallest of the three and so, you know, for me, it's just been a real wonderful opportunity because this is equipment that I would never ever have any hope of paying for. And so we can share the cost of that and it's been a real benefit in so many respects. But the sense of community has been really really enjoyable, too, as well as the machinery.

14:11 I'd like to throw one thing in here, too. When we sat down back 2007 and started drafting this up between my dad and Brad's dad and Brad and myself as well, we set up the corporation for liability reasons, but also one of our main goals was if it didn't work out, we wanted to be able to walk away as friends. I remember that was Brad's comment: we want to be able to walk away as friends if this doesn't work out. And so even with bringing Steve in, it's okay, first we'll do things on a custom basis, then when we know everything's going to work, then we can bring in fully going, hey, we want to be able to not walk away with hard feelings if something doesn't work out.

15:03 Yeah, and that's a great point, Matt because you know, there's been a lot of

15:09 Relationships ruined or soured because a lot of those expectations weren't put out there ahead of time. And I think it's just really important to have those things in writing, which I assume the corporation forces you to do. You know, you have your operating agreement. You probably have buy-sell agreements. You have all of those things in place so that everything's out in the open and out in front and if something were to happen, people know what their options are.

15:40 So yeah, I really like that versus just the loosey-goosey type things where it might work for a while, but then when something comes up, people are going to have different opinions of how it should be handled, which I'm assuming there's still some of those things. Do you have like yearly meetings then where you kind of go through arrangements and set rental rates and set all those sorts of things? How are you handling that on an annual basis?

16:08 Yeah, we do have. We don't have a scheduled annual meeting type of thing, but we do get together as needed and go through the spreadsheets. My dad is still handling most of those financials and going, 'Okay, here's what our costs are. Here's what we need for labor for rental of the different pieces that aren't owned by the corporation. Here's our repair costs. Let's set the charges that we apply for each acre for each process and go through those things. And then as we see a potential acquisition of a piece of equipment, then it's either phone or get together and go, hey, this is why we think we need it. Can we afford it? How do we handle this? Let's go ahead or we'll postpone that purchase till later.'

17:03 There is at times custom work too that figures into things and that also helps with some of our costs. The more acres we can get some of the machinery across, the cheaper things get too.

17:15 So you'll do custom work for other people. Okay. And is all the labor being run through the corporation and kind of prorated back out as well then? So any hours that any of us are spending running a piece of equipment and we're keeping track of that and then have an hourly rate. And that way we do have some other people that come in and help that aren't part of the corporation and can pay them out, especially like during harvest when we need more operators for grain carts and trying to do too many different things at the same time.

17:49 Yeah. Go ahead, Brad. I'd like to add to that, Keith. It's kind of interesting. We do want to keep track of labor because it's good to know our costs. It's good to know what the investment is, but among the three of us, we're really negligent on actually taking the time to just write that down because we're happy with the way it's going. There's we all get up in the morning, it's like we got a project matched today. Let's get it done. But the time I spend there doesn't really matter because I know it's balancing out.

18:24 It comes from the attitude from the background, the mindset of going forward together that makes that a minor detail. I know that's not the case for everybody and it's probably important to keep track of, but it can work out in a really good situation where it doesn't matter. The more major operations, we do a decent job of keeping track of that labor, but it comes back to that mindset of if Brad and Steve succeed, I'm going to succeed. And so whatever needs to get done, we get done. And it is more for those that aren't officially part of the corporation to make sure that they're compensated.

19:13 I like that. I mean it's a true community mindset and you know I believe that that's one of the things that sets regenerative agriculture apart from just simply soil health. You know, we all know the soil health principles—keeping the ground covered and diversity and all these things—and those are part of regenerative ag. But regenerative ag in my opinion goes way beyond just those soil health principles and part of it is regenerating relationships, regenerating community. And I really think that's what you guys are doing. I mean that's such a big part of regenerative agriculture is that you're rebuilding a lot of relationships that would have been lost. You know, Steve, you mentioned that your six generations of...

19:59 Farming history has much more regenerative than conventional. And I assume that you mean before you went conventional, everything was regenerative because you put synthetic inputs. But the other thing that they would have done is they would have done a lot more things in community, which we kind of lost, as we moved into this modern industrial agricultural model.

20:22 And I'd love to see that coming back with what you guys are doing. Unfortunately, what you guys are doing, I think, is relatively rare right now, but I'm hoping that people will be encouraged by what you guys are doing and start looking into other options that they would have locally to do some of that. And so we'll come back to maybe some advice at the end of the recording here of how you would advise people to kind of get started. But I just think that it's a great piece of regenerative agriculture that's missing in most operations.

20:58 I would fully concur because I remember when my father would talk about when he was a young young boy the threshing crews and the bailing crews and all of that, it was just like a different world for me growing up in this modern era of agriculture.

21:17 Yeah, I have a talk that I did recently. It talks about being innovative, having an innovative mindset in a status quo world. And one of the things that I think we've lost is that pioneering spirit of just being willing to try new things and push those boundaries and go out in the frontier and do things that aren't necessarily proven and are kind of scary. But I make a very strong distinction between being a pioneer and being a mountain man, because the mountain man he was out there doing it all by himself and the pioneers largely did things together as communities.

22:00 So just because you're trying new things doesn't mean you have to try them by yourself. And I think you guys are a great example of having that pioneer spirit. And I want to get into some of the new things that you've done that maybe has been encouraged through your cooperative efforts. Trying new things but not having to try it alone and being able to learn from each other. So I want to talk just a little bit more equipment wise before we move on. So Brad, you know, you guys started with the combine and grain carts you mentioned, but where has that gone? What are the holdings of the corporation now as far as some of the equipment?

22:39 Yeah, so we worked with that. Over those first 10 years or so, we traded through a few machines. We traded heads as needed. Got grain carts up to a size that could fill a semi, made the flow work well. Conventional agriculture, corn, soybeans, that was as simple as it needed to be. The changes we've done more recently have come out of what we've seen and what we've learned and how we've worked with cover crops.

23:10 And that's turned into cover crops. We dabbled in an old cedar of my own, an air cedar for a little bit. We saw some good there. So we put on our to-do list that maybe we needed a good air cedar to cover the acres. Mine was a 1980 something version. Having that on the list, having it into the budgeting that Matt talked about, we saw an opportunity to get one at a good value and snatched it.

23:40 There's a good little success story there to it. We wanted to dabble in the rye and crimping over beans and so we purchased a crimper. A crimper is not a major thing, but on my acreage I'm not sure I'd have bought a crimper. I know I wouldn't have bought an air seeder.

24:02 Seed tenders make things easier and in one of our last purchases, some are planned and some are not. And last spring, we're like, you know what? We need an extractor. We just got to have an extractor. And that was a business decision on the fly from the cab and the seat. And the next thing you know, we've got an extractor showing up two days later.

24:24 A compost extractor. Compost extractor. Yeah. So different things have happened there along the way. Most of them have been to make the regenerative move a bit easier, a bit better. You know that shared experience comes with the shared ideas and grows from that. So that gives you some idea of I think I've hit the majority of the equipment. Oh well and this year we

24:48 Rolled corn planters into it too. So we had a total of six planters among the three of us and we're going to be down to an air seeder and a 12 row corn planter precision planter. I would add to that that one of the pieces that kind of an oddball for us was the sunflower head and part of the combine unit there. But when Steve started in sunflowers and now I'm raising some sunflowers as well, the recommendation from guys that grow it was get a purpose-built head. I know I wouldn't have bought that head on my own, but that's one of the advantages of this is the ability to go out and try things like that and not have to incur that whole cost if the group is willing to do that.

25:43 I might add to that, we share all of our harvest data and we know what each other did to our farms. You know, we were involved in the operations. So having sharing that we know we know how it's penciling out. We know what the risks are and it makes it more comfortable doing it. You know it's the ideas from three farms but we don't all, well we would say sometimes we have to be the guinea pig and we take turns being the guinea pig.

26:11 So do you feel like you're learning three times as fast then?

26:15 Maybe six times as fast. Keith, I like it. I like that math. So, I've got to ask this question. So, which one of you spends the most time on big iron or other online auctions looking for stuff to suggest for the corporation to buy? So, I know who that is in our operation and it's not me, but who does that in your group?

26:42 I don't know that any of us spend a ton of time on machinery, but I would give Steve the YouTube research on the biology as the number one researcher there. And then then I think as probably going along with that is as he finds new things that need to be applied to our operations, then the recommendation comes down as to equipment as well. And that's kind of where in some ways everybody has their own specialty as to what they can focus on. We all bring different ideas and different principles to the table and respect each other's ideas and able to work with that.

27:31 It was kind of a funny thing for me when I was very new to officially to the group though we've known each other for years when I said I'd like to get a sunflower head and they're like okay and of course that was all spawned off of the YouTube videos watched probably at 3:00 in the morning and watching you talk about sunflowers and cereal grains Keith and your six minute video on that. I still watch that from time to time go boy I got to make this work yet.

28:00 Well, yes. And I will admit that I may aid in and abet some of Steve's crazy ideas as we get emailing back and forth all strange hours of the night and day. But I do want to dive into that a little bit because you know Brad, you mentioned that you're probably learning six times as fast as you would by yourself. Talk a little bit about how the corporation or you know this cooperative mindset, the cooperative agreements that you have started with equipment but now has morphed over into crops that you're growing, practices that you're using and it's really accelerated the regenerative adoption for all of you. And so I want you to just maybe each share a little bit about how you think that's really helped accelerate your advancement into regenerative agriculture.

29:05 I would throw out there, Keith, a little bit more scope to it. So my son's 28 and back invested in local agriculture. My second one's got a lot of interest there. Steve's son is in college right now and they're both very invested in the ideas and the thoughts too. So one thing that's become real valuable is a group text that no matter who needs to know it, the text goes out to everybody. And that's where we throw on ideas or we say, 'Hey, did you see that video?' Or, 'Hey, did you check this out?' So in what we're doing here with the equipment leading to kind of a mutual respect for sharing other ideas and looking out for the best interest of what's going to happen in the future. We're looking at what's there for the next generation. Some of these changes could take long enough that I may not get a whole ton of return on them or at least when I started I took that approach. But yet I got a next generation who wants to be involved in.

30:14 In what we're doing and they're seeing. Even Joseph being in college, he's seeing and understanding the changes that we're making along the way. So hopefully he gets a jump step on management as he comes back into Jameson's farm operation and make things work. And I know Steven's in that position where he's now selling cover crops. He's helping us with the technology. He's the young guy in the group that is the go-to when the John Deere is not communicating with the air sheeter. You know, he figures those kind of things out and that's real valuable, as well as getting his own feet wet on an investment in agriculture.

30:58 You got to make those things happen. You got to have the window for it. So what we did 18 years ago with equipment has put us in a great position to grab another enterprise now to help move forward in grazing cattle or selling cover crop seeds or if we were to pick up an extra, if we each picked up 500 acres next week to farm, the equipment that we've accumulated and the labor source we have and the next generation to come into play is all right there and ready to go without a second thought as to whether it'll work or not. So we're positioned to grow. We're positioned to make that next generation a little bit better off.

31:45 Yeah, I like that. And for full transparency, so your son Steven is selling cover crops. You know, we're setting him up as a green cover sales partner out there, which we're very excited about. I think there's a lot of opportunities. I know he was out at Farm Progress show with our guys out there and so we're just excited about what those opportunities could be, not only for him, for your whole operation, but also for green cover and expanding into that area. So I love the thought of how you're setting up opportunities for future generations. And Steve, you see your son Joseph, he's in college and interested in coming back. I know he does a lot of your drone work. Do you see an applicator drone in the future of the corporation?

32:38 Let me just speak briefly about regenerative agriculture and what I think his perspective is, that if we were just doing corn and beans and chemicals and what have you, he maybe would have had an interest in coming back, but I would almost say no. With the whole regenerative thing and we intercede cover crops into our corn generally speaking and we try to get a cover crop all over everywhere, just going out and walking in the fields with him and looking at all these different plants that we struggle to identify that we intentionally planted. He's just loving it and showing a great interest in this, and I think regenerative agriculture has unlocked in him an interest in this whole thing. So I definitely foresee him returning. He's currently at Bible college. So if God doesn't call him to the ministry, he'll be called back to the farm and minister in local church participation. But I don't know, repeat the question if I didn't hit it.

33:40 Well, I just know that he does a lot of your drone videos and photography with the drone, but you know, have you guys talked about incorporating a drone into your portfolio of equipment in order for applying seed, biological foliar treatments, things like that? I know they're becoming more and more popular.

34:04 Right? Well, he's actually an FAA certified drone pilot and he has his pesticide applicator license and so he's been helping a local farmer with fungicide with his drones. So he has a very strong interest in this, but that's not where his heart is in applying the chemicals aspect of things. And we have looked at getting one to apply cover crop seed perhaps on a here and there type basis, but the success of aerial seeding cover crops we have tried numerous times and it's not been perfect unless it's rye, which can grow in a billyard ball they say. So he does have a drone that does a very extensive crop analysis and he's been doing some of that and would like to do that in a commercial way down the road, too. So he just needs to be around a little bit more to develop a client base for it.

35:03 But again, you're building in opportunities for the next generation to come and not only serve.

40:30 And so in some ways you have to have fun with it because the amount of confusion we cause in neighbors was enormous. And then of course it was very popular when it was all in full bloom. We had people lining up on the roads creating problems at the county sheriff's department was even talking about. So take their picture in the sunflower field.

40:50 It was a spectacle. There was a lot of photo taking and a ton of fun, you know, the chatter behind it. And so, you could look at it as needing tough skin, but you're trying something different. And if you can make it work reasonably well or learn how to make it better the year after or two years after, as the rotations go, it all helps.

41:16 But it's brought me to a position where I am more excited about production agriculture now than I have in the last 30 years. When I was young, it's just young and new and figuring it out and horsepower and diesel fuel is kind of fun, too. But now it's the changes I'm seeing in the soil. It's more earthworms. It's you know we were corn and soybeans and now we're wheat and rye and sunflowers and sorghum and I've got cattle on pasture and haven't had a herd of cattle on a farm in goodness 40 years here. And so it's kind of you get used to the change and when you've got good teamwork behind it, the three of us, our dads, our sons that are like watching out for the greater good, but saying, 'Yeah, let's try 30 acres, 40 acres, let's try a hundred of this.' It kind of worked last year. Let's change these three things and we can do better next year. It's made production agriculture a lot more exciting.

42:32 So Brad, you talked about you have a herd of cattle. Does anybody else have livestock? Do you do any cooperative things with the livestock or how does that work?

42:42 Brad's our guinea pig. This is the first thing. Yeah, you're right, Steve. I'm the guinea pig. Actually, Stephen is the guinea pig. My son is this year. So it's been a year in planning. Last year's wheat was harvested early July and planted to a diverse mix of maybe 10 different cover crop seeds that you, Keith, and Dylan, and some of your resources were able to help us from what's happened in Nebraska to have kind of a salad, so to speak, for these cattle. Blessed by some awesome rains in July. We've got a great stand out there and just in the last 2 and 1/2 weeks, we populated that with 150 head of cattle. And we'll feed those through Thanksgiving or Christmas depending on how the cover crop holds up and take them back to market probably in a feed lot ready situation. And so that's the first significant livestock that any of the three of us have gotten into.

43:49 That goes back to even though we're all working together, we're all bouncing ideas off each other, we all have different operations. Brad is more his ground is closer into one location. Steve's is probably the most spread out. At the same time, mine is closest to the edge of suburbia, and we have a lot more housing around here and smaller fields, and that makes it harder to bring livestock in. I'm sure a few of the neighbors would not be very happy about 100 head of cattle roaming around behind their house. So, differences in operations, but yet still working together for the same goals amongst us.

44:38 And this is where some of the biology that we've been trying to either brew or extract can sort of be the cow that you can't put on some of this ground that we farm.

44:49 Yeah. So, talk a little bit more about that, Steve. Are you making your own compost and then extracting it? Are you purchasing compost and pulling extracts or how are you doing that? We have a desire down the road to actually make our own compost successfully, but as of right now, the compost that we've used has been purchased. So yeah, it's there's so much to learn about some of these processes that sometimes it's easier to just get a known product that is a good quality product and just say, 'Okay, at least if it didn't work, I know at least it wasn't how I made the compost.'

45:30 And that does kind of lead me

45:32 I wanted to kind of ask each of you, you know, what do you see coming next? You know, what are the next things that you want to try both individually or, you know, potentially with the corporation's assistance? You know, so Steve, it sounds like, you know, perhaps making your own compost would be one of those things. And again that opens up additional opportunities for someone else to come back and be a part of that type of operation or enterprise. But what else have you guys talked about or thinking about for the next two to five years?

46:13 I don't know if I can pull it off. Rick Clark has left me more times than not with my mouth hanging open saying he's no till organic. So I don't know if I will be ever there, but if I can be almost there, I'll be happy. I don't have the opportunity as of right now all the markets that he's got for all of these other crops that he can raise. No organic dairy is right next to me to take some of that stuff. But that would be one of those goals if we can pull off down the road, I'll be just thrilled over it, but more emphasizing the regenerified aspect than the organic aspect. But if I can get all my fertilizer out of the ground and with cover crops and with biology and if I can weed, feed, and till with cover crops, to me that's what I would love. And so that's still something I'm still pondering in the wee hours of the night saying, how can we pull this off?

47:15 I don't know that I have as ambitious of goals as Steve. But it's just utilizing the corporation to be able to be more efficient in my inputs and going down the path of regenerative being able to reduce input needs. I think that's one of the big things. I don't foresee necessarily huge acquisitions by the corporation in order to do anything. But I guess those would be my goals and if we can work towards that no till organic and I can see the profitability there without going through hard times, that's one of my goals is to go down this path as far as I can but still be around. I don't want to end up being forced out of business because I jump too fast. And then end up having the neighbor come in and plow it. So those are kind of my goals to proceed down this path and see what we can do.

48:35 Yeah, that's a big question. I think we've plunged into equipment pretty hard and I do like Matt says, I think we're in pretty good shape that way. My path on this, you know, starting to learn about the soils and then you get into nutrient density and the nutrient density in the seed and in the cover crop plants that we're feeding to the cattle moves us closer to getting food to people. And I'm learning more about the nutrient density that's actually carrying all the way through that meat and the cattle. And on a small scale, my boys have been selling cattle and quarter cattle in quarters and halves to customers, people's freezer beef for 20 years now. I'm wondering how we're going to get that nutrient density further in because I see a lot of value in it and I feel like a really small cog in a big world we live in here.

49:38 On a brief tangent, I was a scout master for 20 years and I saw the amount of drugs that these kids are on when we go to summer camp and things like that and I had to make sure they got their medicines at the right time and stuff like that. And I talked to my doctor. I'm like, 'What's the deal?' And he goes, 'Well, you realize when the kid comes to my office, mom wants a solution, and my solutions are in pills and medicine.' And in my little way, I think I'd like to help make that nutrient aspect better. And I'm wondering how to get and coordinate the grape grower and the person that raises nuts in California or fruits, vegetables that we can't raise here because of wintertime issues. How to get quality food here to the Midwest and how would we distribute it? I think there's a distribution system problem here. So my mind rotates around that.

50:45 The simple thing is I can put grain into cattle and sell the meat. That is kind of a no-brainer in our business structure. But what else could go with that meat to those customers who care and can't afford it and make it happen that way?

51:05 As your entity, both individually and at the corporate level as that grows, do you see potential or possibilities for joint marketing of products that have been grown regeneratively, proven to be more nutrient-dense? Do you feel like you can have some marketing leverage there between your operations as well?

51:30 I do. And I'm not sure that it's the equipment side of it that makes it happen. It could be another entity that gets into the marketing. It's another line of specialty because the corporation was really set up and designed and financially managed to keep our equipment costs at bay, not to be an income-producing entity necessarily. It's to save money on production. An entity that goes out and merchandises food takes on a different set of responsibilities and sort of things. So I very much think it could be the same families just taking a different approach to the products we raise.

52:18 I've heard some interesting podcasts talking about which way do you do this? Is it consumer-driven demand or is it the supermarket that uses a lot of psychology to move products? Where's the chicken and the egg in this discussion? It seems that there is a greater concern about health. There's a whole health thing going on right now. We had a sunflower field up near suburbia last year and the goal was to put a maze in it and then try to get people to come out to that and also use that to educate the public on regenerative agriculture and food and health. So it seems to me there's got to be a two-pronged approach to this: education of consumer and somehow getting into some of these supermarket people who are buyers. It's got to come from a couple different directions and I don't know where we fall in that but there's got to be something, maybe our slow way of trying to do it and using a maze would be a part of that puzzle.

53:31 I think like Brad was saying, we've got our corporation that is kind of the equipment side and that's gotten the three of our families working together. What proceeds from that? It might be an entirely separate corporation or entity. It might be alongside that or tucked under the one that we currently have, but it does open up possibilities as to different things that could be done in the future, both in education and marketing and everything else. I mean, we started out as a harvest group. Now we're into the planting and the biology applications and where that proceeds. It's flexible. It's not set in stone. This is all we're doing. It's you throw that box out of individual individuality of 'I have to do everything myself' and looking at Brad and Steve as competitors. No, they're not. They're friends. They're allies. They're people to work together with, to bounce ideas off of, to tell me when I'm crazy and tell me 'you're crazy, go ahead, we want to see how it works.' Once you start down that path there's so many possibilities that it would be hard to say 'here, this is where we are going to be in five years.'

55:01 Yeah, and I like the thought of, you know, because you're already doing this, it's going to be that much easier for you if you started another marketing co-op or corporation. And I want to transition this into, as we wrap up here, what have you learned in doing this that, you know, if somebody else—say there's three neighbors out there somewhere listening to this and they say 'you know what, we could do that, we have the right mindset, we have shared values, I think we could do this as well'—so I'm looking for a piece of advice from each of you to someone who's interested in setting up a similar structure corporation. What things should they do or what things should they avoid as they set this up?

55:59 So I would kick it off. There's a whole lot to it and you could talk for hours and go, but my advice would be this. After studying some mergers and acquisitions and how businesses fit together, overwhelmingly for their success is: Are the businesses managed in a somewhat similar way with a somewhat similar leadership? Is it a group type leadership or is it a

56:29 I would say two things. I would say number one is do your management styles fit among the producers that are looking at working together and I would say is there mutual respect for the individuals involved? And if there's similar management and mutual respect, I think those are the two key things. Everything else is just numbers and ideas and good hard work to make it happen.

57:03 I would say the main thing being that mindset and the reason why this has worked is that mindset that we're all in it together and do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If I'm out there looking out solely for myself, it's never going to work out. Love your neighbor as yourself.

57:30 And I think you said this earlier too, Matt, is that you know, you really treat each other's land like it's your own. You don't really differentiate between that. And I think that's exactly the point that you're making there. I'm not going to go out and plant Steve's field when it's underwater just to get it done. We're going to go out and try and do the best job on his ground. Same on Brad's. We want to see each other succeed.

58:00 Steve, how about you? This is a tough question to go third on. I'll just say make sure your partners are very selfish. No, I've been very blessed because I have developed great friendship with Brad that I didn't have prior. And Matt, of course, I've known, like I said before, and having partners who really have your interest in mind and are selfless, no, we have a wonderful group. We literally farm next to each other even though we're spread out and we're not competing. I mean, if Matt and Brad get another 500 acres and I don't, I'm thrilled for them. I am just overjoyed for them. So having an attitude of you know, you're happy for people when they do well, it's what keeps this going. If we end up becoming very resentful, jealous, envious, those kinds of things are going to just destroy everything. So you have to really understand the character of who you're getting involved with too I think.

59:07 Yeah, super important there. And really if they were to expand their acreages then that kind of dilutes the cost of that equipment out. So really you're benefiting anyway because that equipment cost gets less for you. So yeah there's wins all around on that. Love the spirit of cooperation. Love how it has led you guys down this path of not only regenerating your soils but regenerating relationships with each other and the community and just building that larger community and very excited about the next generation. So essentially, you have a third generation coming into your corporation and that's pretty cool too. So folks, thank you for listening. We hope that this has inspired you to do more things cooperatively with your neighbors, whether it's in a formal corporation like this or just lending a hand, you know, like we're called to do, to be good neighbors and to be good stewards of what God has given us. And that's not just the land and the tools that we have, but also the relationships that he puts before you. So thank you for being part of this podcast. Steve and Matt and Brad, thank you for sharing this information. And we just hope that everybody goes forth and has a great regenerative day. Thanks everybody.

1:00:33 My brother and I started Green Cover in 2009 because we understand what it's like to be a farmer starting out on the journey to improve soil health. We saw the power of plant and biological diversity on our own farm here in Nebraska. But we found that it was difficult to get the right cover crop seed mix. We also learned that there was a big learning curve in successfully implementing cover crops. That's why we built Green Cover so that farmers like you can access the highest quality cover crop seed put into the right diverse mixes along with the technical advice and the educational resources to help you successfully implement cover crops on your own operation. So contact us today and we'll help you with the right cover crop mix for your farm or ranch so you can regenerate your portion of God's creation for future generations.