The New American Dream: Connecting Soil Health, Human Health, and Policy

0:00 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Green Cover Podcast. Thanks for joining us as we talk to some of the top regenerative farmers and experts across the country and learn how we can regenerate God's creation for future generations together. You know, people often talk about the American dream, and you know, everybody has their own definition of what the American dream is, but usually it involves a lot of hard work, but having the freedoms to do and to build what you want to do. And I'm really excited about our episode today because with me, our guests are going to be talking about a new American dream and the organization that they put together to help bring that off. So, welcome Kelly Ryerson and Ryland Inglehart. Welcome to the Green Cover Podcast.

0:49 Thanks. Thanks for having us.

0:52 Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to give just brief backgrounds for both of you and then I'm going to ask you to let our listeners know a little bit more about who you are. So, Kelly, you're both co-directors of this new organization called American Regeneration along with our good friend Rick Clark who helped start this, and we want to learn more about what the organization is. But we want to know who you folks are a little bit more. So, Kelly, you're kind of widely known as the glyphosate girl and you've done tons of research on the harmful effects of glyphosate and you've helped lots and lots of people understand what's going on with that. I know that you work, you know, kind of where agriculture and human health intersect with each other. So you get to work with scientists, with policy makers, with farmers. So you know, a really cool combination that you have there and I know and hopefully you'll share a little bit more. A lot of your advocacy work kind of stems out of some personal health issues that you've had yourself. So look forward to learning just a little bit more about that. And then Ryland, I met Ryland last year. We did an event at the chef's garden. Got the privilege of meeting Ryland in person there. Executive co-director of the American regeneration, but you also were one of the founders of the Kiss the Ground nonprofit, which you know came out with the Kiss the Ground and then The Common Ground has influenced millions and millions of people. The impact that those films have had is huge. So, I want you to talk a little bit about that. You grew up on a farm. You have farming background, farming roots, and you're living on a ranch in Texas now, which we'll definitely want you to talk about. You also have a lot of policy experience, work very closely with the MA with Secretary Kennedy and so excited to hear more about that as well. So, that's my little brief introductions. Kelly, why don't you give us just a little bit more? Fill in the details, the blanks. Give us the context of how you went from just being a normal person to becoming the glyphosate girl to now becoming the co-director of American Regeneration.

3:05 Are you saying it's abnormal to be glyphosate girl?

3:09 Well, you know, abnormal is a badge of honor. Wear it proudly.

3:16 That's true. So, I had my little kids. I was I had had a normal, pretty normal American diet. I wasn't great. I didn't really pay that much attention to it. Probably more healthy than average, but still was happy to have my mini Oreos at any turn. And over time I developed after I had my kids, I had a really vague disease that no doctor could figure out. I saw 18 different specialists through the Stanford and UCSF system and I mean it was like every body system. I had neuropathy, severe weakness, hair loss, rashes. Just you name it and probably I had that symptom. And so finally when doctors had layered on two anti-depressants and benzodiazepine and a steroid and gabapentin and I was getting worse, they said it must be psychological. And so I was like, I really don't think this is psychological. I don't know that I could make myself have these wounds and rashes. But I ended up going to see a psychiatrist who happened to have intake blood work and that blood work had a vitamin panel for the first time. And so they tested my vitamins and I was so extraordinarily malnourished. I mean I had scurvy. I had the beginning of beriberi disease. I had literally a B12 of 50. I mean it should be over 500. It was really bad. And so I thought well maybe...

4:41 That has something to do with it. But my GP said, 'Oh, no. Those vitamins are overrated. You know, that's probably not what's going on. That's not what's driving it.' And I was like, 'You know what? I only took biology in high school, but I know that basic nutrients are pretty important.' So I actually ended up finding a new doctor. I gave up gluten. I got really curious about gluten sensitivity and was tipped off that Roundup was sprayed on our grains before harvest in a lot of cases.

5:08 And so there were very high residues being found in our grain products and as well as legumes and a lot of different things that are sprayed with glyphosate. And I went down that deep rabbit hole, met with many scientists, farmers, organic farmers specifically in this case, and was pretty alarmed with what I found. And around that time, the glyphosate cancer trials were beginning in San Francisco where plaintiffs were claiming that glyphosate was causing their non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

5:36 And so I decided I was going to go and protest Monsanto because I was pretty mad at Monsanto by that point. And I went up to San Francisco, had a sign in hand, and ended up walking right into the courtroom because no one was there except for the lawyers. So I quit my job at the time, started a blog called the glyphosate girl, and it was supposed to be anonymous and quickly wasn't, and reported everything that I was hearing about the corruption at both Monsanto and at the EPA and all these players that were covering up the fact that it's a carcinogen.

6:08 And from there, so then I started a large multi-year anti-pesticide activism movement. Not movement really, but I joined the movement, I should say. And it was actually around the time I was meeting Ryland and got involved with Common Ground and I learned about regenerative agriculture from Rick, from Gabe and from a bunch of really preeminent farmers and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, we have a solution that feels a lot more proactive than this fight that maybe you can't win at the EPA.'

6:42 And so now that is what I do. And I went along and I worked on. I volunteered on the Kennedy campaign, and the really the beginnings of the MAHA movement before it was MAHA, but the independent movement and then have come along and I'm excited now to be working with Ryland. It's something that we're just having so much fun doing and just feeling very hopeful with our amazing team. But we can talk about American Regeneration later.

7:08 Yeah, absolutely. Well, what a great background. Thank you for all the work that you've done and thankfully you're feeling better and have gotten a lot of those issues fixed with better diet. So.

7:21 As it turns out, if you are fully eating nutrient-dense food and just a healthy diet in general, you can be a pretty healthy person.

7:29 Even though the doctors didn't let me know that you don't have to have scurvy and berry berry, it turns out you don't.

7:37 Wow. Yeah, that's great, Ryland. Tell us a little bit more about who you are and how you ended up being co-director of the American Regeneration Organization.

7:52 Yeah, slightly different path than Kelly in that I grew up sort of hippie parents back to the landers sort of homestead farm in upstate New York where twin sisters married brothers and we all lived in one household on one bank account. And you know really the vision was you know how do we live close to the earth and how do we be the best cell in the body so that we can help heal and be a solution for a lot of the degradation that we had seen or my parents had seen as sort of the societal drift of where we were going.

8:46 And so you know that led to you know we had a family business called Cafe Gratitude, which started in the Bay Area and was an organic, plant-based restaurant chain, and we opened 15 restaurants over 20 years, serving millions of organic plant-based meals. And so that really through years of serving the public and really seeing people being sick and coming to this realization that food is medicine and if we are eating healthy whole foods, clean foods, we either can be healthy and strong for a long life or seeing a lot of people that were sick and coming into our restaurants.

9:38 Through them coming into the restaurants and being part of our community, seeing them heal. And so that really led to a passion and conviction to this idea that food is medicine and how do we have the healthiest food? And you know that led to we had 15 restaurants in California between Northern and Southern California and we were sort of the tip of the spear in the organic plant-based food world and I became sort of the spokesperson and evangelist for the brand and actually that took me to New Zealand where I was speaking at a healthy living conference there and I kind of almost had like an eco arrogance of we had it figured out. We had this sustainable vegan business and we were composting our food scraps and we had all the boxes checked. And you know there I was sort of talking about our solution and at that same conference I found myself sitting in a panel discussion with a gentleman by the name of Graham Sate and basically they were talking about can human beings sustain life on planet earth.

11:04 Basically four out of the five experts said no that we're heading into the anthropocene that the degradation that human beings are causing on this planet are heading to a major decline. And then he in five minutes and a very thick accent communicated this idea of humus and regeneration and that we could balance our degradation of our planet, our climate, our water cycles, our nutrient cycles through this concept of regenerative agriculture. And specifically in the original sense, I couldn't believe that I'd never heard of carbon sequestration and that we could balance the climate through plants and trees and grasses pulling that carbon back into the soil and creating a healthy food system by doing so. And as a food entrepreneur who'd been fanatical about organic food, I couldn't believe that I didn't ever understand this concept of regenerative agriculture and this understanding of carbon sequestration.

12:19 And so as a food entrepreneur, always looking for what would be a good marketing campaign for healthy food, I was like, 'Oh my god, regenerative agriculture is a way that we can feed the planet, balance the climate, restore our water cycles, restore our nutrient density to our food, reduce the chemicals in our food system. This is the best news ever.' And so again I wasn't an expert. I was a restaurant tour who was very passionate about food is medicine evangelizing gratitude and we had a business model around this premise of when we're grateful we experience the fullness of life. We experience God. You know when we're grateful we feel filled up. And at that moment of being filled up, we become a gift versus trying to get something from the world or get something from the people around us. We become net contributors versus consumers.

13:22 And so you know this premise of regeneration really was a spiritual awakening. The way I see it was a spiritual awakening. And that became my mission. And I was like, 'Oh my god, I want the world to understand that something that I learned in 5 minutes in New Zealand, I want the world to have the same awakening.' Because it really was at the largest level of consciousness.

13:49 I saw that most people and including myself didn't have a systems thinking understanding of how life could get better in the future. You know most perceived reality is that we are degrading our health, our planet, our resources and that there's just a slow degradation until we go off the cliff. And then within the understanding of regeneration, you know, starting with land and then how that can span and cascade into all aspects of culture and society. You know, it was at the largest level a framework of hope and optimism and a practical process for healing life on the planet. And so that became my ministry, my evangelism, and that became a nonprofit, Kiss the Ground, which started in my garage in Venice Beach, California, while we were running the vegan restaurants. I was like, 'Wow, this is actually even more important than these restaurants.' This became a little nonprofit which then became a collaboration with some filmmakers in LA.

15:03 Which led to a 7-year production and collaboration in making Kiss the Ground and then Sequentially Common Ground and then there's a new film called Ground Swell coming out in June of this year, which is the third of the trilogy of that soil trilogy, and that'll be coming out on Amazon Prime.

15:25 But during COVID, sort of we went from living in California and having young kids wanting to get out of the city. I was living in Venice. We moved to a farm that my sister was running in Ventura. We were starting to create an agrihood, like a community around her farm. But life in California just became too challenging to navigate. We didn't want our kids in the schools. We didn't want to get the vaccines. We didn't want our kids to get the vaccines. And so we chose to move to Texas for freedom, for starting a new life, starting new businesses. And that was sort of the genesis of Sovereignty Ranch and also the genesis of me shifting from Kiss the Ground to American Regeneration.

16:28 I was running Kiss the Ground, but it was sort of because of the political ties of Bobby Kennedy, which turned into him collaborating and going on the Donald Trump ticket, that sort of transitioned me from being able to be affiliated with an environmental nonprofit from California. Even though I couldn't do it with Kiss the Ground, I thought, well, I have the amazing resource of trust and affiliation and support of all these amazing regenerative practitioners that I'd learned about and helped to elevate their stories in the films. How do we get those amazing leaders and practitioners to influence? Again, back to my awakening in that moment with Graham Sate, and then the film was like, okay, how do we do that right now given that we have this proximity and access to Bobby Kennedy? How do we get this idea of regenerative agriculture to become part of his platform? So I was doing that behind the scenes for quite some time, and then me and Kelly and Rick just decided, all right, let's formalize this idea and desire to close the information gap between this idea of how do we make America healthy.

17:57 For years I'd been thinking, and again a tribute to John Kemp, that health doesn't start in the hospital. It doesn't start even at the grocery store. It actually starts on the land in the soil. How did we, in this moment of focus on health and a real conviction to how do we get to the root cause of health? I saw a huge opportunity to have soil health and regenerative agriculture become part of the conversation of this platform within MAHA, and we formalized that by creating this new organization American Regeneration.

18:34 Wow, that's quite a journey that you've both been on. That's amazing. And I love how all these connections come together. I'm actually recording a podcast with Graham Sate tomorrow.

18:48 Oh, that's a miracle. I mean, that's a bonafide straight up miracle because ultimately, without him Kiss the Ground would not exist. I mean, the amount of, yeah, I mean, it's just it really is a miracle. A five-minute conversation with him on stage literally turned me on, and that has turned into, I mean, I just yeah it's.

19:10 I'm going to bring that up with him, you know, because we don't know what the compounding cascading effects of one conversation, one friendship, one relationship, one investment in another person. You don't know what that's going to turn into. So I love how all that comes together, and I want to dive into American Regeneration because it's a relatively new organization. Lots of people probably haven't heard of it, let alone know what you stand for and what all you're doing. But before I go there, I just have to make a comment here. So you know, Green Cover, we sell cover crop seed. Our number one selling cover crop is cereal rye. And so we've got Ryland and we have Kelly Ryerson. I'm just thinking, you know, if the NIL movement ever comes to regenerative agriculture, you know, we may have to get you guys to be spokespersons for selling cereal rye as a cover crop. We can work out because my surname, my.

20:19 First name is a surname of rye farmers in England, Ireland of farmers who were rye farmers, ry land. That was a surname of basically their trade like farmer or smith. And so that's, yeah, I'm a. And when people ask me what, because a lot of people haven't heard of my name and they go Ryan, I say no, Ryland. And because I usually meet people in context of food, I say the land that grows rye for rye bread is ry land. And they go, 'Oh, I get it now. I understand.' So, and then actually me and Kelly just recently had the realization. I had never cognized that her last name is Ryerson and my first name is Ryland. Like literally, it had never even connected until literally last week. We had just kind of had that conversation. So, anyways, it's cool.

21:20 Love it. Love it. I actually offered money to one of my kids, you know, so we've got my wife and I have seven kids and we got 12 grandkids now. And so my one son who works for Green Cover actually offered money if they would name one of their kids after a cover crop, you know, because there's some cool names, you know, Facelia and, you know, there would be some cool names, but I don't know. I didn't make the cut of the name there.

21:50 And speaking of which, just a fun, my uncle Scott. So I told you guys about my childhood growing up in a house where sister twin sisters married brothers. My middle name is Scott. Uncle Scott who's now 70 lives on the farm here. He plans to live and die here on the farm with us. And he's, you know, manages the pigs operation of our Sovereignty Ranch farm. But he's actually putting in right now. We have rain coming three days next week and he's putting in a green covers mix that Keith donated and contributed to Sovereignty Ranch. So we have some beautiful cover crops that will be the backdrop of the American Regeneration Conference. So we'll be able to see that beautiful glorious diverse green cover. Hopefully if this rain falls and germinates, we'll have a nice beautiful cover of backdrop for the conference. Thanks to Keith and Green Cover.

22:49 That'll be fantastic. So, let's talk a little bit about American Regeneration because, you know, starting a new entity is no small task. Involves lots of people, lots of things. So, Kelly, let's start with you. Just talk a little bit about, you know, what does American Regeneration stand for? And it's just a few years old, right? When when did you guys actually stand this thing up?

23:14 Yeah, it was around exactly the time that Bobby Kennedy took his place as HHS secretary and we saw and he's someone that we knew had at least a pretty solid understanding of regenerative agriculture and understood why if we are going to be making America healthy and have this nutrient-dense food that it really does start on the farm. And that of course probably to your listeners sounds very logical. But what Ryland and I were finding is far and wide throughout DC there is a complete lack of education and knowledge about that connection to soil and human health or soil and food health. Like that is something knowledge that I think probably we take for granted but is not mainstream. And so we'd meet, we Ryland and I started going into different congressional and senator offices and talking about these issues and by and large no one's ever heard of regenerative agriculture. They don't think that there's another alternative. They don't really know the first thing about soil, including some people that were even on the agricultural committees in Congress. I mean that and that's sort of scary when you know that the other side, the GMO lobbyists, the soybean, the farm bureau are in there all the time, which is what the staffers have actually said that they're there all the time. And so we really saw this opening not only with the different Maha Commission reports that came out last year, um there were two, both of which particularly the second had a big focus on soil health, it seemed to be non-controversial versus saying you know, let's have people exposed to less pesticides. That that raised a lot of alarms with the White House. But what didn't raise alarms in the same way was can we do something about restoring soil health. And so Ryland and I were able to, you know, really be able to share the knowledge of not only ourselves but our whole amazing advisory.

25:08 Team and bring their awards forward. And we also were able to contribute some ideas to the regenerative pilot that came out at the end of last year as well out of NRCS. And we hope that that just expands. But what we believe is not only are we up against the political forces and the special interests of the chemical lobbyists, but also just the lack of education. And so we see this opportunity and what we're hoping to do this year is to be bringing some people from the government onto local field days so that they can see real regeneration in action and see why it is so hopeful and bring all those beautiful things that Ryland was saying about it—doesn't have to be a dismal ending to humanity but rather here we are regenerating because it's such a cool thing to sell and it's so hopeful and everyone should feel happy once they go.

26:03 And so we formed this a year ago. We are really excited about some upcoming events that we're having. And yeah, so there really was a gap I think in groups that were really actively working on regenerative agriculture at the policy level, particularly the federal level. So really an opening that we were happy to fill.

26:23 Yeah. And I'll just fill in, you know, things, life is dynamic like something happens and that allows something else to happen. And simply, you know, one of the genesis moments for the organization was, you know, in the early days, we were interacting with Kennedy and when he was putting together his campaign, I was always kind of liaison trying to get, you know, regenerative practitioners on his podcast—John Kemp, Rick Clark, Gabe Brown—you know, to sort of influence him. And that led to me having some understanding and some of the people around Bobby. And when he got into position, I got a call one day from Cali Means saying—Cali Means was the person who had introduced, I know you know him because he joined for your event in Ohio—he came in, but he was like, we need in less than a week we need to set up a field day on a regenerative farm an hour from DC. And so it was kind of like the call, you know, your whole life you're waiting for—like the two secretaries Kennedy helped, HHS and Rollins. And so you know I remember you were, I think you were aware that that event was happening. It was like we were, you know, got the movement behind like, okay, Steve Gross Farm and we're going to get all these people and it's going to be. And so, you know, we got into action. We kind of set it all up and then ended up getting cancelled. But again, it's a good lesson in life, you know, we can't just like, you know, that set the precedent for—all right, that didn't happen, but we know that it's possible for something like that to happen and we know the potential for those kind of moments, right?

28:17 That moment in New Zealand for me was a complete game changer, though, you know, given this opportunity that we could potentially have, you know, somebody like Brook Rollins really, you know, deeply get, you know, the sort of soil health awakening moment of biological, you know, future for farmers and the reduction of chemical inputs and the more profitability for farmers, you know, like really having that turn-on moment. And so that was kind of the genesis moment that we were like, okay, we got called to set this up and it got cancelled, but how do we, you know, continue to build opportunities for where we can do more events like this where we can really have these settings with the best practitioners and these influential leaders that hopefully, you know, can lead to, you know, transformational change.

29:12 Just last night, we hosted an event on Sovereignty Ranch with Nathan Sheets, who's the new agricultural commissioner candidate. He basically beat the incumbent, the Republican Texas agricultural commissioner, Sid Miller, after 13 years of holding the seat. And so in November, he gets the final nomination against the Democratic nomination. But it's very likely he's going to win. But you know there's a huge opportunity in Texas to, you know, with our relationship and being able to surround Nate, who's not necessarily a regenerative agriculture practitioner but really loves the idea of it, how do we get him surrounded by some of the best leadership from in this conversation such that we can influence, you know, at the Texas level?

30:06 We're going to have a at American Regeneration, one of the cool events that we're going to have during that two-day conference is Nate's going to come in and we're going to do a town hall session where we have all these regenerative practitioners he can share about exactly what the A commissioner in Texas is responsible for and what funds and what policies he can alter and deploy and essentially use that moment to really influence inspire and give some guidance and direction towards his success and this agenda of regenerative agriculture at the state level as well as at the national level.

30:46 And that is something that we're seeing is that while it looks very frustrating right now at the federal level in terms of I don't think enough investment into regenerative agriculture and not as much enthusiasm around it as we might have hoped. It does seem like at the state level there's a lot of awakening in terms of the major movement or just healthier food movement and all that happening at the states. And so just like what Ryland's saying, our ability to bring in these practitioners and surround that information while these decisions are being made is really huge. And you have someone named Zach Lawn who is a candidate for governor of Iowa which would be amazing. He's a regenerative farmer, an enormous advocate of it. And if you start getting those conversations going in a state like Iowa and Texas, I really think that could be potentially even more impactful.

31:42 Yeah. And there's no way to overstate how important that is. And so for any of our listeners on the Green Cover podcast here, advocacy is really important. And it's not just advocating to your neighbors, but it's being willing to open your operation up for your local representatives, your state representatives, and even federal. When we do our field days, we always try to invite our state senators and our national representatives. They don't usually come because they're busy people, but if they were to and we have had the commissioner of agriculture for Nebraska has been to our field days and so you have to invite them, they're probably not going to call you up and ask to come. We all have that responsibility to be reaching out and saying 'Come in, see what we're doing. This is exciting.' Because I've always said that regenerative agriculture is the one table that everybody can come to and nobody has to go away a loser. It's not a net zero type game. Everybody can come away, even the big egg companies because they're all getting into the biological space. They've been in it. They can expand that. There's a place for them as well. And so it's just very rare to find a place where everybody can come together and have some agreement on yes, this is a good idea.

33:10 Yeah. And I'll just say, the work that American Regeneration is doing is really building trust and building connection. And I think that stems back from Kelly was sort of a pesticide critic and kind of like a staunch activist against and now has kind of swung into she's even though she's glyphosate girl, she understands that glyphosate in the current paradigm is necessary and it's not just about tearing it down. It's about how do we create these opportunities for shifting understanding, shifting awareness and incremental progress. And I was this sort of vegan fundamentalist from California environmental climate change activist and now I live in Texas on a cattle ranch and I'm focusing on advocacy. And so it really is our work is building bridges and seeing the landscape of regenerative agriculture from the private sector, from some of the best innovators in technologies and biologicals and practitioners and seeing what's happening at a policy level and seeing the opportunities for where these mergers and these partnerships and these people that can come together such that progress can be made and working in between so many different people. That's ultimately what we're doing. We're working between all these different practitioners who are oftentimes fragmented and don't have the time to understand where there might be.

39:29 You get the mother covered and you start giving diversity of coverage and you just see life return and it's so beautiful. So yeah, I'm excited to transition and talk about the American Regeneration event, especially because we just are taking on a new project in the upper section of our property, Sovereignty Ranch, a 200-acre ranch in Hill Country. And we just kicked off a project of water for every farm. Swales and basically large movement of land that will guide and slow, spread and sink water at the tops of the elevation of the property so that we can really rehydrate this landscape. And so I'm really excited to see what is possible over the next five, ten years of where we start to really listen to nature's design and support how we can. As someone said recently, this guy named Brian Hemel who's helping us do this ecosystem restoration project, being somewhat like beaver engineers where we're basically, through land, through soil and shaping the soil and then using all the brush and the trees that we're thinning out and creating all these different ways to slow, spread and sink the water. And we have Mark Shepard who's sort of one of the godfathers of understanding this principle of permaculture, farm-scale permaculture, and using the water as life because I think it's a huge deal and I don't think people really grok it that we complain about how much water is not falling from the sky, but we don't really think in many cases how do we retain and how do we store and how do we have that water, every drop be utilized on the land. And I think that's obviously a big sort of awakening that you could say in a second, but it does take some time to really understand the opportunity of how we store that water and have that water being utilized and brought to our advantage on each farm. And so really excited about that happening on the farm and getting to be able to have that be part of what we actively learn and participate in in the conference.

42:33 Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about this. The conference is called the New American Dream and it's going to be down there in Bandera, Texas, May 1st and 2nd. So coming right up. It's going to be April here, so it's coming right up. Kelly, talk a little bit about what was the vision behind doing this? You're doing it in conjunction with Acres USA, which is another great organization. What's the vision behind bringing together farmers and ranchers and homesteaders, health practitioners, policy makers? What's the vision for bringing them all together down there in Texas? We're just really excited to spread the news. And every time, particularly when I was able to attend another one of the Sovereignty Ranch events, Food is Medicine, last fall, there's definitely something extremely special that happens not only on that property but when you get these communities together that are all equally aligned from different perspectives, like either the homesteaders, the health people, the food people, and that's the nexus that we really need to be focusing on because it's the heart of healing. And what a perfect venue to do so. And so I think that the vision is also being able to incorporate this policy level in terms of raising their awareness, but also to educate the people that attend in terms of what they can be doing and what their messaging can be to overall move the regenerative movement forward as well. And for a long time, in this blend of regenerative agriculture and health, it probably isn't new to Ryland, but I think in terms of mainstream awareness, that isn't something that people have thought of until relatively recently, like I would even say over COVID, there was sort of an awakening of that connection. And so, really being able to see it firsthand and hear how that connection happens is so valuable. And I hope not only starts at American Regeneration, our event, but then it explodes out to mainstream. I'm sure Ryland has some comments too on the vision.

44:33 Yeah, I think we live in a fragmented disconnected world and I think it's been said many times that our suffering is that we feel disconnected from our hearts, from our God, from our connection to this bigger unification. And so when we bring people together in the spirit of healing, in the spirit of connection and in the spirit of this good news that regeneration is bringing people who are working at the state level of success around policy and then having someone who hasn't had any experience with that being able to understand how they could participate and be of service in that world for someone who, like Aaron Martin who's been championing this food is medicine movement, and seeing, oh my god, we're spending all this money on sick care and that could go back into upstream and supporting farmers and soil health and healing the ecosystem and leading to a healthy society. Even that kind of big scale system of reorientation, a conference inspired me 15 years ago, totally changed the trajectory of my life. So it's amazing when you have these different perspectives but similar alignment, how these connection points just can cascade into powerful transformational expansions and evolutions in this movement and collaboration.

46:24 I would say the vision is at the very local level. We're in Hill Country, Texas. There isn't a huge regenerative agriculture movement or momentum. So we're looking to create this as a hub for regenerative agriculture education inspiration. And we're having our neighbors and people very local people who were a little bit suspect of us Californians coming in. But now we have a new commissioner coming who like, whoa, maybe we go check this, see what these guys and gals are doing. And even just at the most basic level of people getting, oh wow, I could be planting a diverse cover crop mix on my land, my ground, some of the other practices that I've been doing. And we're going to have an amazing group doing a water infiltration test that's a pretty powerful tool of people seeing wow, water, you know, water everyone complains about water but people don't really get how healthy soil can be a complete game changer.

47:49 I would say it's going to be all these different perspectives but having this unique group coming together will be impactful, transformational, lead to some work happening and getting behind Nate Sheets in the state of Texas. Some of our neighbors starting to probably practice some new things, homesteaders, people who are aspiring to integrate more of a back to the land. Speaking to the new American dream, I say that the new American dream is a more connected to where our food comes from, who's growing our food, having some sovereignty, and growing some of our own food. Someone recently said for the long part of humanity what humans have always been a part of is growing and gathering food and producing and cooking and nourishing, making food and then serving it to our community and family. And that ultimately has been largely what creates the fabric of culture, connection, fulfillment. And we've mostly totally disconnected from that in this AI, digital, online world. And so I think the new American dream is getting people back outdoors connected to where their food comes from, connected to who's producing their food, how they're producing their food, and people being really committed and supporting those courageous pioneering practitioners who are going in this unlikely direction and becoming, that's part of their identity and how they relate to the world is I want to be supporting a movement of production of food that is nature-based, creation-based, and not synthetic, not artificial, not filled with toxins, not filled with chemicals.

49:53 Nothing's perfect and it's all going to be this incremental journey of progress, but how do we

50:00 Get people together and get them inspired that there is a better way. And we start taking simple, small, practical steps in that direction.

50:09 I love that concept and I think that most farmers aren't growing food anymore and they know that. Most farmers are disconnected from the food system. We're growing fuel. Maybe we're growing feed for livestock. And so there is that disconnection. And so I love helping people get reconnected to that.

50:32 Kelly, you guys, I'm looking at your page here. And I would encourage anybody who's interested in this event, go to Acres USA. You can go to American Regeneration and get there as well. You've got a stacked lineup of speakers here all the way from producers to medical doctors to policy.

50:56 Who is somebody that you're really, Kelly, who is someone you're really looking forward to hearing at this event? Well, I am perpetually excited to hear Erin Martin speak. She always brings just so much deep knowledge on that connection to health because of course that makes sense because that's the perspective that I'm coming from. But she really is doing some revolutionary things in food as medicine and getting a lot done in the state of Oklahoma and now working to do so federally as well to make it more obvious and clear that the policy decisions that you make on food are going to impact the bottom line and really decrease healthcare costs. And that's such a foundational argument that needs to be made to support even regenerative agriculture to show that this is the way forward to decreasing health care costs.

51:42 And also, having the ag commissioner there is especially exciting to me too. We should be having Rick Clark at some point coming in and it's always wonderful to hear him speak. And I'm sure I'll be there also talking about the pesticide concerns to a certain extent but also what comes after that. And it's really important too that there's been some frustration right now in the overall movement because I think so far the federal administration anyway hasn't shown the kind of commitment that we had hoped in terms of regenerative agriculture and really doubling down in funding more of those things that are non-foods.

52:25 And before this administration of course there's been this whole buildout and beginning of a buildout of a parallel system. And I think that is exciting and that's sort of what Ryland so much embraces or exhibits in what is possible, no matter what happens. Even though we are working in policy, even let's say that doesn't pan out the way you want, in the meantime we can build the proof in these communities that it is something that can be done on a large scale and show why this is something to pay us forward because a lot of times the criticism we get is this isn't practical, but we're showing every day that it is and actually growing that real food so we don't have to be dependent on importing.

53:02 One thing that Ryland and I are talking a lot about is the end and the demise of the citrus industry in Florida for example because of numerous factors, but especially the chemicals have ruined the soil. So now we're importing all the citrus into this country which is wild when we had this gift of soil in Florida and climate to have an incredible citrus industry. So bringing those things forward in terms of what opportunities are going to be really core to it, and it's very exciting.

53:36 And I'll say I'm probably most looking forward to Dr. Ben Edwards and a love cotton farmer named Mike Johnson who's also coming, him and his father who I'm also looking forward to speaking. They're maybe fifth, sixth generation farmers in Leach Texas. Father is probably 80 and he has changed his vision from a chemical intensive system to a regenerative system. And you know I met them in their cotton field probably five years ago in Lebec, and hearing Mike's father talk about how proud he is of his son making this change. And the thing that he has regret about or his sadness is that he's not going to be able to get to see the full fulfillment of what his son is going to get to create in this new vision of agriculture. And then there's so much, there's so many producers that are struggling and don't want their

54:38 Children to struggle and so there isn't an optimistic future for farming and ranching. And so to be able to have a father-son duo where they are seeing a vision forward and they're supporting that transition and being old dogs can learn new tricks and the next generation can see another vision of an agrarian life that can be successful and thriving. So I'm really excited to hear Mike Thompson and his father speak and then Dr. Ben Edwards who Mike introduced me to, who's a doctor from Leach who was a conventional MD just ticking all the boxes, really successful at sick care and had an awakening 10 years ago and now is all about his ministry, which has become nature has a beautiful design, God's design, the human body has a beautiful design of healing and we just have to support food and our bodies to heal and recover and that is the design. And he's just a total speaker at a lot of farming conferences and Mike was like I've been going to farming conferences for 20 years and literally the best speaker I ever seen was not a farmer, it was a doctor who basically his one talk changed my whole behavior of what I eat and what I do.

56:11 Really really excited and I'm also excited to see Mark Shepard speak, especially because we have this whole water for every farm project, soil project that's happening and getting to see and hear his story of that discovery and how that applies to our farm and how that applies to Texas and the lack of water and the fact that we are depleting our aquifers and no one really is cognizing at a state level of how are we recharging, how are we replenishing and I think there's some surface level understandings but I think there is some deeper and the fact that we have the agriculture commissioner there, he's learning Mark Shepard, so it's just this amazing confluence of personal and small-scale opportunity for being inspired and taking it on in our own life, but also being part of this larger movement that can happen at the state level and at the federal level.

57:11 And there's going to be people operating and supporting those different tiers of impact and again giving people a sense that they are connected to a greater calling, a greater cause, a greater presence and that presence is being brought together through this diverse group of people all working in this vision of a new American dream which is an America that as the quote that says a nation that destroys their soil destroys themselves. We have a similar quote but it says a nation that rebuilds their soil rebuilds themselves. And I think that is the new American dream is where we as a country realize that to rebuild a healthy and happy and successful, abundant country and nation, we have to start with our soil. And we're just putting our flag in the ground in Bandera, Texas, which means flag. We're planting our flag for that vision and for that mission and we get to just take little steps towards making it be so.

58:20 I love it. Sounds like you've got enough speakers there to fill a month. It's going to be an action-packed couple of days down there in Bandera, Texas. So, folks, if you're interested in attending this, my guess is it's going to sell out. My guess is that you have some limited seating for this. So you can get signed up for this. You can go to Acres USA, you can register there. You can go to American Regeneration as well and get the link to there. You can use a code. We've got a discount code. If you use green cover 10, you can get 10% off your registration. So that's nice. Thank you for providing that for our listeners. And it's going to be a great event. And I would just encourage folks to consider going to this or to something like this in the next 6 to 12 months because you have to get involved. You have to get plugged in. You have to be part of a learning network because the worst thing for any of us is to isolate ourselves and think that we're the only ones doing this, the only ones going through a lot of the challenges that we're facing. And when you go to these events, you build a sense of community, you build your network, which is a very powerful and wonderful thing. So, Kelly, thank you so much. Ryland, what a pleasure to have both of you on the Green Cover podcast. We look forward to working with you and with American Regeneration on many events here on out. So, thank you so much.

59:53 Thanks for having us. Thank you.