Panel Discussion: The Future of Regenerative Agriculture

0:00 All right, I think we're going to go ahead and get started. Thank you to everybody who's joining. We have an awesome panel discussion planned for today. We're going to be discussing a regenerative future, what that looks like, how we can get there, and how we can get there together.

0:17 So, if this is your first time tuning in, just know that your microphone is going to be muted and your camera will be hidden so that we can focus all of our attention on the panelists for today. If you do happen to come up with some questions, go ahead and submit them in the Q&A feature down below and then at the end of our discussion today, we're going to go ahead and try to answer some of those questions.

0:36 Okay, so just a brief introduction. My name is Sophie Wctor Cass. I'm an intern here at Green Cover. My passion for regenerative agriculture has brought me back to Nebraska. For the last eight months, I have been helping to build out regenerative resources for farmers who are looking to transition to an agriculture that mimics nature more closely. So, that's kind of what we're going to discuss here today.

1:05 Um, so just a bit of my perspective and why I wanted to have this conversation with these particular people. So, honestly, since being home, it's been amazing and so inspiring to see everything that's going on in Nebraska. And I am absolutely delighted to be sharing this conversation with these individuals today. They are working on the front lines of the regenerative movement and they are working to bring hope back to their communities through regeneration.

1:37 So with that, I'm going to turn it over to our panelists today to introduce themselves. And we'll start with Laura.

1:45 Hello. So glad to be here. I'm Laura Thomas and I am the communications and partnerships manager for GC resolve and I also serve as the network coordinator for the Regenerate Nebraska network. And I myself have the wonderful opportunity of getting to grow up side by side on my grandparents farm in Nebraska. And this work being in the regenerative movement really means a lot to what I'm grounded in in that family and independent family farming. So glad to be here today.

2:24 Hey everybody, my name is Graham Christensen. I'm a fifth generation family farmer from Oakland, Nebraska. Um, so that puts us at the year we started and homesteaded our farm was 1867 and that was the year that Nebraska went from a territory to a state. As a very young man, actually a kid, I could be found riding tractors and during the American movement as some of the tractor cades were going on as we as farmers fought for a fair price. So that was a heavy influencer for me and I'm president and founder of a couple businesses. GC resolve which is environmental communication and consulting and serves as a large part of the connective tissue for the regenerate Nebraska network.

3:17 And the regenerate Nebraska network is a network of farmers, tribal communities, businesses that are supporting regenerative agriculture and organizations that are supporting that mission that have come together to look at a vision of agriculture that allows everybody a chance to be part of it, but is also more in line with working within the ecosystem and revitalizing our socioeconomic status. And I also own and run a solar company as well.

3:49 I wanted to leave you with in my introduction a little piece of history from our family that can also help paint a picture of who I am and it is a short declaration of intention from Christian Christensen who immigrated from Denmark in 1867. And I think this says a lot about the principles that our family stands on as we seek to have an independent farm. So signed the 6th day of July 1867. I, Christian Christensen, do declare an oath that is bonafide my intention to become a citizen of the United States and to renounce and observe all allegiance and fidelity to all and any foreign prince, potentate, state, and sovereignty whatever and particularly to the king of Denmark of whom I was a subject.

4:42 So those principles I think are valuable to keep in mind as we move forward in time. Maybe the king looks a little bit different these days. Maybe there are pressures that have forced the farmer into a certain direction, but I'm really excited to be transitioning our farm to regenerative agriculture because that is helping us, I think, increase the tools in our toolbox and allow us to work within the ecosystem while reviving the independent nature of our farm business.

5:20 Thank you, Graham. That was an amazing quote. Now, Artiz.

5:24 Hi there. My name is Artis Vanette. I'm the chief operating officer for Grey Snow Management Solutions. We are the Iowa tribe of Kansas, Nebraska's economic development enterprise, which oversees Iowa Farms, our regenerative agricultural enterprise which has around 2,000 acres of rowcrop, around 4,000 acres of pasture and many other diverse enterprises within agriculture such as hemp and bees and seed processing and cattle. And so it's an honor to be able to be here today. So thank you Sophie and Laura and Green Cover for having us be a part of this webinar today.

6:13 Good morning. My name is Timothy Rod. I am the chairman of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas, Nebraska. And we're located in northeast Kansas, southeast Nebraska, here where the Missouri River borders the east side of our reservation. Been in leadership since 2007. I was elected as the tribal secretary in '07, served a three-year term and then the previous chairman had become ill and he had called upon me to fulfill his seat and I in 2010 I decided to go ahead and run for the chairman position and was successful in that election and been serving ever since. I too was born and raised here in Nebraska, Fall City, Nebraska, and never left the reservation. This is home to me, and it's home to a lot of others. And the journey that we've had throughout Regenerate has created much more than just a change in the ag operation. It's the diverse markets that we're in, the different crops that we're growing and finding those ways that we can grow food for the community and for the world and that's exactly what we're set out to do in a way that's in a symbiotic relationship with mother earth instead of battling against her. So, very humbled and honored to be here, to share our story and the successes and the failures that we've had and what led us to where we're at today. Thank you.

7:58 Yeah, definitely. Thank you, Tim. So we at Green Cover, we've been working with Regenerate Nebraska and we've known folks at Iowa for a while now and they are a huge part of our network here in Nebraska who are working to further the reach of regenerative agriculture through education and networking. So that's why we love to have these conversations and love to hear these different perspectives because they're all unique and contribute so greatly. So first I wanted to identify just a couple statistics. So 91% of the land in Nebraska is used for agriculture and roughly 25% of the workforce of Nebraskans is involved in agriculture. The paradox to all of this is that a lot of people finding themselves in these rural agricultural communities are also finding themselves in food deserts. And so this is one of the things that connects the whole cycle I believe and we talked about this in so many different iterations and what I wanted to ask is what does regenerative agriculture look like to you guys and how does that connect back to the health of your communities? So whoever wants to take it can run with that question.

9:13 Yeah, I'll say for us and for myself regenerative agriculture is indigenous agriculture. It's a way of looking back to move forward and looking how our ancestors stewarded the land for thousands of years in a way that helped build up the incredible soils that we all subsist upon now. It's a way and it's an embodiment of working with the land rather than against it and seeing it as a living entity that we must support and that we build that up and we regenerate it so that after we leave the land it is better than the way it was when we came to it.

10:03 So initially in the early 2000s I started understanding a little bit more about emission issues. I thought that rising emission issues, rising greenhouse gases could be addressed and that agriculture could have a huge role and rural communities would have a huge role in dealing with those issues. And as I learned more about farming practices that prioritized the health of the soil, my mind really started to run and I got more excited to come back to the farm. Three years ago, my brother and I managed the farm and had made a commitment prior to that, but really got to accelerate things to transition to regenerative agriculture. So for us the we start with the soil but there's so much more that's involved with regenerative agriculture.

11:01 Table conversation with a bunch of farmers in 2017 and one of the farmers is actually a lady who made a statement that you know out here a lot of our culture has been taken away and it feels like you know the last thing that these larger players are coming for is the soul of our communities. And that was really sad, but we identified regenerative agriculture as this possible solution and the context is larger than just the soil because when we start with the soil and practicing care for that on our own farms, we can develop a lot more opportunities within our community and we can be able to create a connectivity that advances into good nutrition, a stronger and more equal socioeconomic status and deal with some of these environmental issues. So while it starts with the soil the context is much bigger and that context actually takes on a larger picture under a bigger regenerative lens. This means regenerating our country, state, our community and even our family and even ourselves. So that's what I like about regenerative agriculture is that it is really the foundation of this. And I think to end this piece, if we continue to ground our thought processes in those that have come before us in indigenous wisdom then we can be able to really make sure that we ground the message, this larger overall context and rebuild our rural communities.

12:48 And I'll go ahead and chime in here, too. You know, for me and in the Iowa tribe, regenerative agriculture is I mean, it means the world to me. You know, and it has because it's been about, you know, 10 years ago. I had a tribal elder, you know, he came back home to finish out his life here on the reservation. And he's always been a beekeeper and he's actually the one that got me inspired to bring the bee operation at a small scale to the Iowa tribe. And you know, when he came back home, he was looking for places where he could set his bees to where they would be really close to the pollination and the flowers and the different pollinators that are out there. And you know, at that time we had planted an alfalfa field. And I said, 'Hey, Pete, you know, let's go ahead and we'll put your hives down here next to the alfalfa field. You know, it'll help with pollination on that.' And, you know, shortly after that, you know, his bees became sick and he lost every one of his hives. And I was devastated at that point because I had a tribal elder come to me and ask, you know, for advice and help. And, you know, at that time I thought we were helping him. But what I've learned is there was a chemical in that alfalfa that was neonicotinoid. And you know, that is what killed his bees, you know. So then, you know, I started working with this tribal elder and you know, we brought two hives to our reservation and that was the very beginning of the Iowa bee farm. And you know, through watching the bees and you know, how they operated and what they did for this environment and for this world as a whole, you know, I began to wonder what exactly are we doing in agriculture today? And you know, I'll go back to high school. You know, I was in FFA. You know, I went to national land judging. I was part of that team that went down to Oklahoma and did the judging of the soils down there. And you know that was the beginning of what I see today is you know it was embedded to me at that time but I didn't know exactly what I was here and what my purpose and the service was. But what I've learned now and going back to that time frame you know the way we're farming we have to be more mindful of what we're doing on a day-to-day basis of what we're applying to the land, what types of crops that we're planting and what's all involved in that. So, you know, what I've done is through the bees, I've re-educated myself and you know, about two years later, you know, we were in our farming operation was in a spiral downward and we were financially at a loss and we just weren't making money. And you know, that goes back to running off of an old PLFA soil test. For the same eight years we ran that test and we applied those same nutrients at that time and the dollars were going out and there was very few coming back in and you know we were at the mercy of the cooperatives and you know with the inputs that we need to put on to grow these crops. But now knowing and re-educating myself and the executive committee our farm teams and also our membership you know we're finding new ways that we can farm in our area.

16:32 Operation that's more in relationship to mother earth and there's six principles that we follow and our farm team follows on a day-to-day basis and that's know your context and do not disturb. There's mother earth, the skin or the armor. We've got to protect her just like our skin as human beings. The skin is here to protect the insides of us. And that's no different in the agricultural model that we're building out today. So covers, cover crops build the surface armor. Diversity is huge. And we've always been into monocultures, corn and soybean rotation, sometimes corn on corn rotation with heavy tillage.

17:18 We've had a cow-calf operation, black Angus, that we've ran for a number of years and that was profitable but we were doing the same thing that we were doing on the crop operation with our cattle. We had just a certain amount of available acres in pasture and we would put the cattle out and let them graze throughout that whole grazing season and bring them back to the holding pen to where they would calf. We overstocked. It was more profit driven. How could we make more money? How can we bring more cattle in so we can have more calves to sell and bring those dollars back home.

18:01 I've also learned that we can create a much better model and system to grow the food that we need instead of chasing the commodity markets. I was in a conventional model for a number of years here with the tribe and I was a part of that and I had no idea the difference. It was what I was taught when I attended high school and college. I took business classes and animal science and these biological things just weren't taught during that time. I feel like us as producers and human beings have been pushed into this whole model for the commodity market. But the difference with the commodity markets is the dollars aren't there, especially with the inputs that keep rising.

18:56 When we educated ourselves, we changed our testing. Currently we're doing the Haney soil test. We have the baseline data in our operation that we started about eight or nine years ago and we are seeing an increase in soil health. How can we find ways to bring more life back to our operation through the soil? I feel like a lot of times we as producers look at what's in front of us and we tend to forget about the things that are out of sight, out of mind. I hear more producers talk about the weedy field in the beans or stuff like that. What they're not hearing is, by not spraying that extra pass this year just on our operation, we've saved $160,000 in input costs, and we're seeing the profitability go up.

19:57 With soil health at the core, we invest into the soil and the biology because that is the lifeblood of our operation. Everything has a purpose that comes into our operation. When I say we forget things that are out of sight, out of mind, it's the soil biology that's working in a symbiotic relationship to barter and give those nutrients back and forth so we can create a healthy plant, which has a healthy animal, healthy human being. So overall it's not just about profitability, it's about the environmental issues that we're facing today and our health disparities. As Native Americans, we were hunters and gatherers and the diet is a lot of the reason I believe that we're seeing these increases in diseases.

20:50 I'll give this a little analogy. What I've seen here on our operation with the tillage and the heavy synthetics, we've seen that soil health diminish and that's when we started seeing diseases increase. What do we do when diseases come in? We call them in and we spray or we treat. But what we've done now is we've created a whole different ecosystem. We have pollinator strips around all of our fields. That way it's bringing in the beneficials to take care of the pest instead of calling up and paying money to treat whatever issue there is. So it's pretty rewarding to see how far we've come in the journey.

21:38 Producers just re-educate themselves and they treat the soy biology as livestock just as they would as a cow or a chicken or whatever livestock that they have within their operation. That's I think where it starts is educating ourselves and trying to find different ways to grow different crops that create whole different markets that we can tap into.

22:01 You know, just for instance, the Wedi bean field that we have here, last year we planted these beans. They yielded 58 bushels an acre and we've got 32.40 out of those a bushel out of those beans. And this year the price for that jumped up to $38. So it goes to show you that the proof is in the results in the soil biology as that end outcome of what you have as a food product that's getting out to market.

22:32 And just so everybody knows, we didn't spray any herbicide, any fungicides, pesticides. It was no inputs whatsoever on this tofu crop, tofu bean that we had last year. And there's not very many other people that can say that they're getting $30 some dollars a bushel of beans. It's just we just got to look at things differently. This isn't anyone's fault or anything like that because I have made these choices as everybody else has in the past and I've changed my mindset. And we're making different choices today that's going to help create a whole better world with food production because we can ultimately feed the world by the number of acres that we have. We just got to work together for the greater good of all.

23:29 Yeah, go for it, Lauren. I echo what everyone is saying and I think just the joy and the hope that happens working in this area is you're seeing as Tim was saying like this regenerative is lifegiving. So it's all things that are lifegiving. And when I heard that definition many years ago, it really hit me because it does reorientate you. And as we see on the other continuum of regenerative is degenerative. And we all have our own personal stories of how degenerative systems or experiences have impacted us or our loved ones.

24:07 And so I think that's what we feel being in this movement is when you are around people that are looking at regenerative solutions, lifegiving solutions, it does show and mimic how nature is so interdependent and we're getting to be that interdependence as well. And so by realigning ourselves and our systems to nature, it's just been phenomenal to see what can be accomplished because nature itself is very abundant. It's not scarcity mindset. Mother nature is always regenerating whether we ask it to or not.

24:45 And so for humans to really get back to that and rooted in that indigenous wisdom, it just to me it means lifegiving for nutrition for the health of ourselves and our planet. And the idea of indigenous wisdom that we're looking seven generations out and that's what I really love about this movement is we're thinking seven generations down the road, not just my son who I'm very focused on, but I love that we're looking that far out into the future.

25:18 Yeah, definitely. I appreciate all those thoughts. And I really think about the human capacity for regeneration that we have such a capacity to degrade. And of course we see that all over. We see that in these miles and miles of monocrop farms. But we also have a massive capacity for healing. And that happens when we align ourselves with nature and we manage and operate very mindfully and we have the ability to add biodiversity and create ecosystems that can flourish under our management and then we can benefit from it as well in the surrounding ecosystem and our communities as well.

26:01 And I mean that's something that's so motivating about this space because I think that sentiment just reverberates throughout the communities and it's just so powerful and impactful. So I really appreciate Tim you sharing your story about the bees because that was really like a point where your mind shift really started to happen. I was curious if anybody else had any specific stories about that type of mind shift because when you're farming conventionally, you're doing what everybody else is doing. It's the thing that's the cultural norm in your community. It's what maybe your grandparents did, maybe even your great-grandparents did.

26:42 And so creating that mind shift is really, it's not only physically, financially taxing, but also socially taxing because you're going against the cultural norms of your area.

26:56 Stories or input to that note. I had outside of the climate change issue, the second thing that really I think put us into motion was after the pesticide or insecticide crop dusters came. We had a is probably my favorite dog, corn. It was a husky malamute and it went down to the creek the draw to play like it always would right after they came in and sipped on that water and staggered up to the place and dropped dead. You know, we didn't autopsy or anything so I don't know for sure but we did take that as a sign. And so some of the pesticide, primarily insecticide and fungicide and neonicotenoid elimination that we did was driven by that.

27:51 So we have eliminated the crop duster planes for quite some time to that dropped insecticides that dropped the fungicides. We haven't needed that in our non GMO corn and soy rotation to maintain yields. We haven't, you know, those were we feel after being the most part of 15 years without those two inputs that we weren't told the whole story there, which is super disappointing. But then also I had other farmer friends saying, 'Yo, don't use the neonicotenoid seed coat. I mean, you're not into the bee colony collapse obviously, but you don't need them.'

28:30 And so the next year we plant it and we plant about when you're supposed to, not too early. And you know, the seed, the corn or the bean, that plant comes right up if you plant that seed properly. And so you don't need to have a neonicotenoid seed coated seed laying in the ground in order to ensure that it doesn't get eaten by a pest. You just don't need those things. And so that was a second motivating factor. We took that as a sign and that's how we that's what helped us to look deeper at how we carefully start to work to minimize and eliminate most of our chemical inputs and we've already done the three big ones or three of the big ones.

29:14 And I can jump in. A big moment for me that just stands out is before moving or traveling away from Nebraska, I literally thought there was only conventional agriculture, monocultures with big machines and planes and that's all I thought. And then I went to grad school in Vermont. And as I was driving up to my grad school, I saw farmers with huge Clydesdale horses. And it really was that moment in time where I saw something different and it was in this reality. And that led to so much curiosity because it opened a wedge of opportunity that there are different things. And that has been one of the neatest things for me with the Regenerate Nebraska network is seeing how much, how many different practices are actually being utilized here and how many regenerative-minded farmers are out there. And so that was the moment when I saw that horses could still do some of those things. The stories of grandpa kind of came front and center. So that was just that big moment of there's more out there.

30:37 I'll share mine and it definitely shows my roots from being from Oregon and my parents being hippies. Before I got into regenerative agriculture, I was doing a lot of farming around hemp and cannabis and was working in Oregon and did something called Korean natural farming, which is a way it's really similar to regenerative agriculture in that you work with the land and you're able to make your own inputs. And you know, when I first got into that, it was kind of like, all right, this seems really cool because I was trying to figure out how do we produce a crop at a for a lot lower cost and how can I make my own inputs, right? How can we be independent as a farmer?

31:18 And so we looked into this and natural farming really showed a really beautiful path towards that. And they have something called an IMO, which is an indigenous microorganism and you're able to generate and build this from the land. And so you take your soils and then you put some dry rice onto it that's already been pre-cooked. And so it's like a digested glucose source. And so you put that into your soils and it actually is able to form a myceliated grain. And you see mushrooms starting to fruit and come towards this grain. And you see the active life that's within our soils and blow our feet and kept kind of digging into this and then started learning more and more about the soil microbiome and then looked at how that all works. And then one night, it was really late at night and we're in one of our shipping containers taking care of some management inventory and I had this like flash. I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, everything that we're learning.

32:23 About is exactly the same as the gut microbiome. Like everything that's going on within our soils is attached to ourselves as humans. And that we see, I had cancer when I was 20 and was able to use a lot of natural health alternatives to be able to help heal myself. No longer have cancer, which is awesome. But the amazing part was like, all right, I got to learn so much more about my health as a human and what my connection is to the microbiology that's all over my body and within my body and that we need to steward that to be able to have full health. And then you look at your soils and it's the exact same thing.

33:09 And so I started getting really into that and started culturing my own microbiology from the soils and then would take compost baths from the soils that we were making and putting that on my body and it cleared and completely made me 100% more healthy. I stopped getting sick. My skin was completely clear. I used our soils and our earth to heal. And that's I think that was the biggest moment for me. It was like, all right, this is the most important thing we can ever do is understand that we are exactly the same as our earth and that we need to treat it exactly the same, right, and we need to steward that health.

33:55 Wow. I have a question for Sophie real quick. With the bees and then the spiraling downward, not being profitable and losing the farm, those are ultimately key indicators that we're doing something wrong. But the number one issue in my mind is water. The water quality and quantity. Here on our reservation, we have two water wells that we've had since the 70s that we put in. And I wholeheartedly believe it's due to the anhydra ammonia that's being applied here in our reservation that is actually leeching down and we have a high nitrate issue with our water wells.

34:41 And I'm seeing these things happening in front of us and when I've re-educated myself and the whole team I can see that we can actually fix more than just creating better soils or a better operation or more money in our pocket. We can actually fix some real issues that we have not only environmentally but water quantity and quality. And like Artiz was talking with the gut microbiome, it's just the same thing that we've done on our farm fields. We put those synthetics on that is basically degrading that microbiome which is increasing the disease. Well, that's what's happening with us as humans with the diets that we have and the inputs that we're putting in is degrading that microbiome which we're seeing disease in us rising across every culture.

35:36 But water, without water, we have no life. I talk to producers here in our backyard and I tell them that we've got some big issues with our water. I've got to protect our water source for our community and future generations because without water, we have no life. That's one of the critical things other than the two that I mentioned earlier, the water and through tillage and degrading that system, we're not infiltrating water like we used to. The soil microbiome should be just like a filter. And with cover crops and through photosynthesis we can pump carbon back into the soil. By doing that we're feeding the biology. And that's one of the biggest turnarounds that I've seen. Through cover crops we can uptake a lot of these different nitrates and we can actually pump carbon back in and feed that biology to keep it healthy.

36:48 Awesome. Okay, I want to move on to our next question because time is flying. What are you doing to reclaim independence on your farm? You guys just run with that question because you have a lot to share.

37:05 I can go. I already talked about how we've been eliminating unnecessary inputs. But beyond goals of working within the ecosystem, a little bit more specific, what we're really trying to do is two things. We're really trying to further lower the input reliance but have a goal of on-farm fertility, meaning that we want our soil to be so healthy and functioning so well that we no longer have to be

42:42 Those are things all things that we've done to be able to reclaim the independence on our farm and we just find the more that we try to work within the ecosystem it seems like really the more possibilities there are to help us meet those goals.

43:05 Thanks Graham. I'll let someone else go next. Yeah, he took a lot already from probably all of us. So he didn't leave much for us to say but a lot of our, you know, what Graham just said is similar to us, you know, on farm fertility and how can we have our cash crop put in a cover to have the biomass to bring in the animals and we're bringing in cattle and chickens right now. We've got goats but for noxious weeds and stuff but we haven't got that figured out quite yet but it's a lot of it is testing and we've got the smart farm initiative that we're working on and a lot of the smart farm initiative is testing and data collection to show other producers that here's the data, proof is in the results. This can happen if we just open our minds and sit back and add new tools to our toolbox. And that's ultimately all we did is we were missing some tools. So we've got all the tools in our toolbox now and education is one of the biggest keys that has provided me the knowledge to move this whole thing forward.

44:26 Through education the Iowa tribe along with Greystone management solutions has applied for a USDA climate smart commodities grant. And we will be developing and have already developed Cerna, which is the acronym for the center of excellence in regenerative native agriculture and that will be the educational platform that we will have here within our operation because we're smack dab in the middle of the United States. We can fly producers in to Kansas City, Omaha, have them come down. They'll have the in-class work and then also the hands-on work that's with in the farming operation and through this educational platform I believe that we're going to be able to take a lot of the risk out and a lot of the input cost for this transition.

45:13 What that means is once we're funded, we're able to provide incentives for the implementation of cover crops. We can actually incentivize on the cash crops. We can actually take these producers into whole new markets that they haven't even been into. And those are the food markets instead of the commodities. And once they work on the soil health and their soil health keeps continue to get better, that nutrient dense quality food that we're able to provide will be able to be sent out to a lot of not just our community, but locally, regionally, and nationally. And we're even looking at international markets. As tribes we can work together and reestablish those trade routes to where we can grow these quality food products and other tribal producers and non-tribal producers can be a part of this. We just all got to come together and talk this out and figure out how we can feed the world in a much healthier way. Education is a lot within our operation. That's what helped me and that's what I think is going to help a lot of other people. With Cerna we're able to take those risks out and provide incentives to transition from conventional into more regenerative agricultural operations. Artiz, do you have anything else to add upon that?

46:42 Yeah, I'll just add right on top of that. A lot of what we believe to create independence for regenerative agriculture is to create an entirely new agricultural commodity system. Most farmers only produce the crops that they're producing because of the fact there's no other places for them to sell that grain. For our place where we are in Kansas, we have corn and soy and a little bit south from us we might be able to sell some wheat, but that's about it. And so for us to look at diversifying our operation and getting into these urban crops, we had to look at what do we need to do then to develop these markets independently. By doing such we were able to realize that by working directly with food manufacturers and processors we are always able to get premiums. We no longer have to sell into a commodity market. What we can do instead is work with food manufacturers who pay on a percentage or a dollar amount above the Chicago Board of Trade so that we are constantly getting these premiums that we're searching for and we're able to have it so that our food is what we grow.

47:57 Goes directly into food markets. And that's what we need to be doing. We need to be closing this farm table route that happens so that farmers no longer have to be relying upon these markets which are extremely volatile. And for us, we've worked, we're working with some chicken operations. We're working with the tofu manufacturer, you know, with these soybeans that chairman Rod's talking about, you know, that has these weeds in the fields. You know, we were asked to say, 'Hey, let's go work with this tofu manufacturer. They want to have soybeans that are raised in a regenerative way and we can do that and we so we grew them and we sell them to them. Now these would traditionally have been sold into the commodity market at let's say like $16.75, you know now what through what we're doing because the practices that we raise we are going to be selling it at $42 a bushel which is insane. This is like no, like you tell that to a farmer that's doing soybeans right now and they're going to just they're going to stop everything they're doing and they're going to want to listen and that premium is further predicated on a fact that we're saving input costs and we're saving the amount of time we have to spend in the fields. And you know I just spent the last week with Gabe Brown and he has this great saying which is I don't write checks I receive them. And I'm all about that. You know, that's claiming independence. That's us saying, 'We're going to own this market. We're going to stop writing checks to these big agricultural companies which say that we need to have herbicides. We need to have fertilizers.' You know what? We've as people across the entire world have raised foods for thousands of years without these companies support. And we can get back to that. And I think that's a lot of the work that we do now is in creating these new markets working with Cerna and create having it be a place so we can pay farmers to come and learn about regenerative agriculture. We can pay them incentives to then do those practices so that we can reduce the risk that they have on getting into that and then we can give them premiums for those commodities and give them a 100% agreement that you know what if you raise this and you produce it this way we will buy it. And that's what to me is independence is moving away from a broken system that doesn't support farmers. It supports the corporations that buy from them.

51:08 It's as I've said, you know, proof is in the results. You know, we've got the results through the baseline testing of the soil test. We have the educational platform that we're going to be releasing. And you know, it's just webinars like these and connections and different places that we've spoke at or you know, presented at. You know that's going to make a significant difference is telling the story. You know native tribes are storytellers and you know that's all I have done today is just tell our story and how we were in a broken system and how we pulled out and we're profitable now. And you know just real quick I was talking to just a producer here the other day and you know he told me he said you know these farmers around here are never going to, they don't care about the soil. All they care about is the dollar. And I said, 'Okay, that's fair enough.' You know, but in order to get that dollar, that premium dollar into a whole different food model and that product, we have to invest in the livestock within the soil biology. And until, you know, we have these incentives for producers to change, you know, they're not willing to even sit down and even talk about it because they just so focused on what all that they've been taught. And you know so I think educational programs is going to be a lot and you know through these webinars and just different meetings and different places that we've been and just sharing the story that you know we can create a whole different model on a and we can feed the world and we can feed the world with much more nutrient-dense quality food and you know once that happens you know we're going to see the health disparities decrease in some of these diseases and you know.

52:56 Like I told this producer, what good is that dollar if we have no food to eat, we have no water to drink, and we have no top soil to grow any food, you know, and that's as simple as it is without the soil and water, we're not what are we going to do with those dollars? What can we do? It's almost too late. And you know, that's why we have to act now and we've got to educate and share those stories so other people realize where we're headed is, you know, and it's not going to be fair to the next generations. And, you know, I know Laura brought up the seven generations. And, you know, that's how far that we as natives we look out. And, you know, we've got to start fixing these problems instead of just handing them off to future generations to say, 'Oh, it's you fix it.' You know, we were a part of the problem. We've got to step up. We've got to do the due diligence and figure out what is happening and why and how we can fix it because we can. I mean, we're doing it right here. So, it can happen.

54:10 So I think that when we think of regenerative we also think about building the socioeconomic status of rural. So the vision of the future includes more independent lockers and processors for all different kinds of livestock no matter what the size of the herd is. But the processing doesn't stop there. It's about agroforestry products like the hazelnut. It's about small grains and legumes. Our infrastructure is not set up but these will blanket the country as we move into a regenerative ecosystem and more equal economic based system but it's the bees it's the bee people it's the cover seed folks it's the folks that are knowledgeable in trees it's regional distribution centers it's good tech programs that help us better quantify soil health hemp as was mentioned it's grocers that are now stocking us up it's livestock experts and soil health scientists. And so this can all be unlocked right now. There is a big chance for momentum for the future generations. That's the upcoming 2023 farm bill. Regenerate America is somebody to tune in to who is following that issue and we'll be continuing to get information out on that issue. If you want to follow about how to participate in the farm bill, that farm bill must focus on an intergenerational transition of the transfer of the land, not to foreign multinationals, not to big investors, but to the next generation. And so the farm bill can unlock that and so can a lot of these other programs. And that technical and educational emphasis can be updated in the farm bill so NRCS technicians can better understand regenerative practices that respect the varying ecosystems across the nation and so that schools can be a part of the educational system that help place young people with skills into these regenerative ecosystems and also to empower community organizations whether it's an inner city group, a tribal entity or someone like Green Cover proceed to also help get information out as appropriate messengers for on the ground communities that will fit into that whole new regenerative ecosystem or economy that I just kind of laid out.

56:30 And I'll just add on to what we're all saying because it's all right on point and that if we want to get the younger generation, if we want to get generation, you know, zed and if we want to get the millennials and all of us be able to be a part of this, I think we just have to keep diversifying out of it. You know, no one wants to join a corn and rotation. It's boring. And I think young people wanted to get into something that's exciting and has some newness to it and has technology around it and software and I think you know we have we have John Deere coming out with their new see and spray. You have you know a lot of drones coming into this. We have tech coming into this. We have you know driverless tractors. So it's like there's some really amazing fun new things coming out about this. And I think the difference around regenerative agriculture and agriculture as it's seen conventionally is that it is diverse and that there's so many more areas for people to join in that you don't have to have a thousand acres or 250 acres to get into this. You can start off with a quarter of an acre. You can grow vegetables using regenerative, you know, practices and that's enough, you know, and that I don't I don't I don't I think a lot of times in a lot of these calls, we talk about how do we generate these new businesses, people want to do big things. You don't always have to go big. Sometimes it's just enough to go into your garden and instead of sewing grass, you sow.

57:55 You know, you sew a native, you know, pollinator plot or you plant some vegetables and you start looking at how you can be integrated into this because ultimately when we talk about a, we're talking about food and I think that more and more of our younger generation is into making their own foods. You know, I didn't get into making sourdough breads throughout the pandemic, but I know it was a big thing and I missed it. I'm actually like I just started on my own batch this weekend. So I'm like where was I two years ago.

58:24 But that's I think that's the new generation and I think that's what everyone's about. So thank you for and for hosting this because this is exactly the sort of platforms that we need to be able to share it with our younger generation because they're the ones who's really going to change.

58:40 Yeah, definitely. I totally agree. I wasn't a person that made sourdough, but I did do a lot of cooking and exploration with plants and things like that during the pandemic. So that was one good thing that came out of it. Laura, do you have any closing thoughts?

58:53 We are at 102, so we're two minutes over and I want to respect everybody's time. We didn't have any questions because our audience was feeling a bit shy and they've been asking questions for the last eight weeks. So I think if there's no questions, we'll just skip Q&A and then we can move into closing thoughts and then if you guys want to share URLs and places where people can learn more about your organizations, that would be awesome.

59:20 Yeah. And I would just say in closing, I love what RT said. I live in an apartment and I'm growing green cover Milpa seeds on my deck and eating nutritious food and I want everybody to realize how much fun that is and how much children learn and adults learn by getting up close and personal to seeds and seeing truly how amazing nature is on its own with very little. And yeah, and I just think this call represents a lot of hope and I do worry like everyone on this panel getting the young people engaged and and having access to land and people that were not allowed to have land have land and I do believe this amazing regenerative network is mindful of these things and I it just that's what I love about regenerative a like was said before is the minute details here we're looking at because Mother nature looks at the minute details too. And so the more we try to align ourselves with mother nature, we're we have the best chance of success with our current problems that we're facing. So that's all I have.

1:00:34 You know, Sophie, if there's just one thing that I can share real quick, I know we're running out of time, but you know, I leave this message with our team on, you know, not on a daily basis, but they hear it from me a lot. You know, as we journey down where we're headed, you know, with the different a models and the economic development and everything that we're doing here with the tribe, you know, I tell the team to, you know, we always want to strive north and as long as that needle is headed north, you know, we're doing great things, you know, and there's going to be times where we have failures and we have things that don't go as planned. And when that happens, that needle is headed northeast, northwest. But that's okay as long as we continue identify the problem. Figure out what created that and how can we move that needle back north. And I want to leave that with all the audience today is you know we can do this and you know and what I have seen throughout our operation for the last 15 years it can be done and I've seen it and I've witnessed it and it's just we've got to come together and you know it's it's a it's an upriver race and as long as we can all jump into the same boat together and we're all rowing in in rhythm we're going to make it to the end goal. It's just we've got to get more people in our boat. So you know, but just just keep in mind that you know, failures are going to happen, successes are going to happen, but focus on that needle headed direct north and we'll make it. We'll be okay.

1:02:11 And real quick, there's three eyeway words that are my favorite words. You know, and that's JAPK. And that means today is a good day. And I'm honored and humbled to be a part of this call today and think green cover GC resolve and these connections that we all have and you know we'll all we'll all make it. We're going to make it. There is hope as Laura would say there hope. So thank you.

1:02:38 Thank you everyone. Green cover. Thank you.

1:02:41 Yeah. Thank you all.

1:02:44 Thank you everyone. Thanks for joining and have a good rest of your day. This is the last episode of this series. I have so enjoyed hosting this and thank you all for tuning in. You can watch the recording on our YouTube channel and on our website. Okay, thank you all. Bye.