What's the Difference Between Soil Health and Regenerative Agriculture?

0:00 All right. Well, welcome to the Green Cover podcast where we have really interesting conversations with some of the top farmers and experts in the regenerative agriculture world. Join us as we learn together how to regenerate God's creation for future generations.

0:15 Now, we're all familiar with the principles of soil health, but don't think that those are the same principles as regenerative agriculture because they're not. And my guest today has a lot to say on that topic. I want to welcome in our friend John Kemp. John is well known by many people across the country within this regenerative world. John, welcome to our podcast.

0:36 Oh, thanks for having me on here, Keith. I've been looking forward to this conversation. My father used to tell me that an expert X means former and a spurt is a drop of water under pressure. So, never aspire to being an expert. Well, if you don't want to be the expert, you can be a farmer because we're doing both. But the great thing is even though you're a farmer and an expert, I count it a blessing to call you friend as well. And that's the great thing about this movement is it's so open and sharing with each other. So, thank you for being part of our podcast.

1:10 And I want to jump in and talk about these principles of regenerative agriculture. But before we go there, for the maybe three or four people listening that don't know who you are, go ahead and just give us a little bit of background, your what you've gone through to get to where you're at now because John is the founder and chief visionary officer for Advancing Eco Agriculture. But it's been a process getting there. So John, just tell us a little bit about your background.

1:43 Well, thanks Keith. I'm going to keep it brief because I've shared the story a hundred thousand times it feels like and people can find it lots of other places. But I grew up on a family fruit and vegetable farm and we came right to the cliff's edge of losing the farm to very intense disease and insect pressure in spite of using intense pesticide applications.

2:04 And in the middle of the hurricane, the eye of the storm was experiencing some fields that were very resistant to diseases and insects with changes in soil and changes in soil biology and realizing coming to the realization and the discovery that plants actually have the capacity to be resistant to diseases and insects if they're supported with the right microbiome and with the proper nutrition. And that then led to the founding of Advancing Eco Agriculture as a consulting company. And flash forward to today, it's a team of 80 people and working on 4 to 5 million acres across the countryside.

2:40 And I have the joy of hosting the region of agriculture podcast which has become so much fun and I've really get to enjoy the innovative conversation. Just today I interviewed someone and I learned that nematodes, not just fungi, not just bacteria, but nematodes can be pathogenic or symbiotic depending on the soil environment. And so I keep learning all this fun stuff that stretches the boundaries of what we thought we knew. And yeah, Keith, the stuff we're working on today, I'm so excited about. There's so much innovation happening around technology around AI and large language models but really around having large sets of good data which we have at AEA that there's going to be innovations in how managing microbiomes has.

3:38 Largely been an art over the last half a dozen decades and it's shifting to becoming a science because we have better management tools and we're standing at a new frontier. There is so much to discover and in some ways one of the farmers that we work with made a comment recently. I forget who to credit it to, but he said something to the effect of we need to get back to being as good a farmer as my grandfather was before the use of herbicides and pesticides and so forth.

4:10 And the good news is I think in the next decade or two, we're going to be able to greatly exceed that because while we've lost a lot of wisdom, we have a pathway to rediscovering it and also to deeply understanding the why in ways that they weren't fully able to. So it's an exciting time to be in this space.

4:31 And you guys are doing great work there. And one of the fun things, you know, Green Cover and Aea, roughly similar ages of companies, we both kind of started from very little and have grown up to managing lots and lots of people, but having really good people around us to help us do that. So it's just been fun to kind of see how the two companies have grown along somewhat parallel tracks.

4:59 Keith, I've really appreciated our shared values and the way that we show up in the world. You meet some people in life that you just resonate with, you just click with, and others that you don't. Some people you meet for a reason, some for a season, and some for a lifetime. And it's those people where you have deeply shared core values of how you show up in the world. The core values of integrity and of giving and sharing information and value with other people and I think we are actually very parallel and very similar companies in that regard and I really appreciate that.

5:41 We appreciate that, too. And I think that's a great segue into what I really want to take a dive into here on this episode of the podcast is that, you know, we often talk about the principles of soil health, you know, keep the soil covered and maximize diversity and those are pretty well known and well, maybe not as well known as we'd like them to be, but I think that most people get those and they're fairly familiar with it. But sometimes I've heard people say those are the principles of regenerative agriculture and that's not true because regenerative agriculture is much more than just soil health. So talk a little bit about what are some of the common misconceptions that you see when it comes to how people are looking at and defining regenerative agriculture.

6:30 If I remember correctly, I gave a kind of a pitch or a talk on this at one of your Regen Nexus events a couple of years ago that was completely spontaneous and off the cuff and I thought it went really well and I don't remember much of what I said back then. Well, I remember that and that's I've had it back in my mind ever since then. Yeah. And I really appreciated that and I wanted to dive a little more into that. So, well, I think the foundation I've thought about regeneration quite a lot from for us as a company and for myself as an individual and as a family, as a community like what does it really mean not just to do regenerative but to be regenerative? How do we bake that right into the DNA of the company as an organization?

7:21 Mean to have reg to regenerate entire communities? So, one of the foundational pieces, you know, I try to if possible, I try to really break things down and understand them from a kind of a first principles foundational perspective. And as I was thinking about regeneration, trying to understand what okay, first of all, if you have regeneration, if we're talking about the need to regenerate something, well, what's the opposite of a regenerative dynamic? And two pieces kind of emerged from that those questions for me.

7:55 One of them was that the foundation of regeneration is all about relationships. It's about regenerating relationships between soil microbes and plants, between livestock and the landscape, between humans in the landscape, between human organizations. It's at all levels of the chain of life, if you will. And all of those ideally should be regenerated.

8:19 So if you come from that assumption, well, you ask the question, well, what should they be regenerated from? And why? How do we know that they're not currently regenerated? What defines the point that you're coming from and that you're going to? And so I started thinking about, well, what does a degraded relationship look like?

8:42 A degraded relationship is a relationship that is extractive, that is selfish, that one party to the relationship is not contributing back equally. They are pulling out and so it's very self-serving. So it's not a symbiotic relationship. It is a very extractive relationship.

9:09 And the point that you're going to is a regenerative relationship and we have so many examples in living ecosystems of this. We have relationships that are really symbiotic, that are collaborative, that where there's this mutual exchange of organisms really supporting each other. And so I think when we look at regenerative agriculture at its most foundational level. We can talk about regenerating landscapes and being good stewards, but none of that really works on scale unless you first regenerate the capacity for stewardship.

9:51 And what I mean by that is that there is something, and there will be different numbers in different ecosystems but somewhere there is a hearts to acres ratio like to be a loving caring steward and to be closely embedded in the landscape and to have a close relationship with the landscape. There's only so much that one human can really care for. And so we need more people. I would argue we need more people in landscapes. We need more people in rural communities. We need more people to have loving nurturing relationships with farmland.

10:30 And so in order to regenerate, that's what I call the capacity for stewardship. How much capacity do we have? We don't have enough. We need more. We need more people in rural landscapes. So that aspect needs to be regenerated. How do you do that? Well, the pathway to accomplishing that is you need to regenerate the economics of agriculture and get more money flowing back into rural communities.

10:55 Right now, one of the fundamental pieces that is broken is we have this extractive relationship between farmers and both the people that they are buying from and the people that they're selling to. The farmers are being extracted from both directions. The farmers are being farmed and so if this is something that's so important, anyway the bottom line is I believe that farmers need to if we want to

11:25 Regenerate the capacity for stewardship. We need to get farmers in a position where they have this symbiotic collaborative regenerative relationship with both their input suppliers and their offtake, the people that they're selling to. And this is something very meaningful for me and it's something that I think about as a company. We are an input supplier, we are a consulting service, we do both of those things. And how do we engage in a relationship that is not extractive? So we have to be certain that we deliver more value than what we are getting in exchange. Constantly I'm asking people the question: how can we provide the most value for you? How can we support you the best?

12:08 I really like that and I've often thought about and talked about it in terms of regenerative living is giving more than what you're taking back, which is what you're saying—it's not extractive. But so many relationships are and so much of the way that we've been farming is. And so it's really encouraging to think about that and to know that there's companies out there thinking about that as well.

12:34 So do you think that in order to regenerate that profitability and to get more people back on the landscape, I mean to me the answer is we need more people growing food and less people just strictly growing commodities because no farmer is getting rich growing $360 corn. And so we need some of those acres switched over growing food that people will actually pay good money for. Do you see a trend going that direction of people switching over to growing more food? Do you think it's possible to convince current farmers to do that or is that going to have to be a new generation of farmers with the right mindset to come in and do that?

13:20 Well, you know, there is this very human tendency that we have—there are exceptions, but most people tend to find change quite painful and they tend to only change when the pain of not changing becomes greater than the perceived pain of changing. And so there are some individuals who are not like that, who are inspired and motivated by opportunity. They are inspired by their imagination and the vision that they see of what is possible. And so there is so much opportunity in agriculture today. There's such abundant opportunity. You know, I grew up on a fruit and vegetable farm and we were growing higher value crops with higher margin, higher profitability potential. And we did not have any attachment to a particular crop or to a particular ecosystem. And there were two different stages of the farm—when my brother started running it and then when my father started running it as a quasi-retirement, and he's now growing a lot of black raspberries where the crop mix of the farm changed dramatically. It changed entirely. So even in our production we would change crops from year to year based on what we saw happening in the marketplace. And so I see farmers have this idea of being locked in because of capital investments, because of infrastructure, because of lack of processing. And I try to empathize with that. I try to understand it. And at the same time I really struggle with that because I will always—I grew up in an environment where you were so fluid and so adaptable. And so I have this perspective that there's so much opportunity. I mean right now, right in the Midwest, we have an organization.

15:09 Called the Midwest Elderberry Growers Co-op. I spoke with the founder of that organization. This is now a couple year old conversation. At that moment in time, he told me that we import 160,000 acres worth of elderberries into the country, if my memory serves me correctly, and it's a crop that has a net revenue potential. He was willing to contract for thousands of acres at $4 a pound for an average yield of 4 to 5,000 lb per acre average yield. That's a $16,000 per acre revenue crop. And you think about, well, that's just 160,000 acres. How are you going to replace millions of acres of corn and soybeans with that? Well, you're not. But elderberries aren't the only crop. They're one of hundreds of crops that we import into the country that are there's tremendous revenue and profitability potential. But you don't harvest elderberries from the seat of a tractor. You have to go out there and do the work. And there's a farm in North Central Iowa that I'm good friends with. 1,000 acres of corn and soybeans, commodity crops, and 20 acres of strawberries. The 20 acres of strawberries generate more profit every year than the rest of the farm enterprise does. And we need to I think we need to adapt the mental flexibility to not have the we have to stop playing victims and pretend that we are there is this very inspiring and intimidating perspective which is that I am completely responsible. Forget weather, forget government policy, forget programs. I am 100% responsible for what happens in my life. On one hand, that's very intimidating. On the other hand, it's incredibly empowering and it gives you the wherewithal to develop a fresh perspective.

16:54 To come back to answer your question, Charles Walters said many years ago, people leave their senses as a group and they come to their senses one at a time. I no longer try to convince people to change, but I want to be there for the people who are coming to their senses. I like that. I like that. You know, this past weekend, I was looking through we had well, I guess it was we had a blizzard, so it was snowed in at home for a couple days there. And I started looking through my mom had put together these family history books of our family. And so I was looking through there and looking at these pictures of our ancestors that settled you know well they were in Illinois and then they moved here to Nebraska. But looking at those pictures and reading those stories and thinking how hard that was. I think I'm just thinking, have we almost completely lost that pioneer spirit that pioneer mindset that you know it would just you do whatever it took to make it work and you were willing to take huge risks and you know work long hours. Do you think we've lost some of that? Is that part of the reason why we don't see people willing to do the hard work of growing elderberries or some of these other things or I mean do you think that's part of it? Well, I yes I do think it is a part of it. We no longer have the appetite for risk that we used to culturally and I think there are a variety of contributing factors to that and one of them might be our community safety nets or our yeah I'm going to call it that, our community safety nets. You know, historically, you don't have to go back that far. When we used to live in a very high trust society, children could go out and play in the neighborhood. They could spend the entire day in town away from home.

18:51 Parents didn't even know where they were, they would come back from home or if something happened to them. We were completely as a society we had a high trust society. And as a part of a high trust society, that meant we looked out for each other. We cared for each other. And I've gotten to live some of this in our community here as an Amish community. And so I get a little bit of a perspective. But there was also the safety net, the community safety net of caring for each other when things went wrong, when there was a disaster, when there was a medical emergency, when there were high hospital bills. Communities used to show up for each other and support each other. And the farming community as much as any community has still preserved and kept some of that. But I would argue also a lot of that has been lost from what it was historically. And I think just culturally we've lost a lot of that high trust society safety net and being able to really depend on each other. And that means we have less of an appetite for risk because we have to establish our own personal security and we don't depend on each other for community security.

19:58 And I think so much reliance upon well the government will be there to bail us out type mindset too hasn't helped.

20:06 We were having this conversation with my oldest daughter yesterday too and she made the point that you know, cuz she's in her early 30s and they've got five kids and she says you know our generation, talking about her generation of parents raising children, are very safety conscious, you know, don't let their kids go out like people used to and ride bikes alone and walk downtown alone. So all these things are very safety conscious about. But yet so many parents will just hand their kid a phone or a laptop or a computer and trust the entire internet.

20:46 That probably has nothing to do with this conversation, but I just think it's interesting that those trust levels have changed and you're right, we no longer depend, you know, our churches aren't nearly the community that they used to be and yeah, I think that all needs to be rebuilt and regenerated as part of this. And you know, the regenerative agriculture mindset and system can help bring that back.

21:15 We need to regenerate our communities. We need to regenerate that high trust society.

21:20 And I'm trying to remember I think it was Thomas Sowell in some of his work, or I could be mistaken, was either Thomas Sowell or one of his colleagues pointed out that from a high quality governance and a high trust society perspective, the government should not be in charity work. It should not be the government should not be responsible for supporting and sustaining homeless people or people with medical challenges. That work should all be left to churches and communities because to the degree that government steps forward is the exact degree that church and community doesn't. And we have such an abundance of money available today in nonprofit organizations and so forth. Like the job would get done, the money would simply flow in a different direction, but it would flow in a direction that would engage people. It would engage the community, it becomes a community effort. And that's the reason I have so much confidence in that hypothesis being.

22:29 Correct is because I live it every day in the Amish community. We don't have health insurance. We don't take government handouts. And so we have to support each other with medical bills and so forth. And it's like every Friday night our social gatherings, every Friday night during the year there are multiple benefits. A benefit auction, a benefit dinner is a social event for us where we get together to support each other and help each other out.

23:01 And so yes, that does absolutely flow and support. We support each other. We take care of our own.

23:11 Unfortunately, well fortunately you know, the Amish community has maintained much of that. And there are other similar communities that have done that as well, but for much of us, that has been lost. And yeah, I think part of our challenge is to, you know, how can we regain that? You know, it probably will never be like it used to be. It doesn't necessarily have to be, but how can we restore and regenerate some of those key parts? And I think a lot of that just starts with being willing to reach out. You know, some of us, I know for myself, I get myself so busy, so overscheduled that I just feel like I don't have time for other people. I barely have time for my own family. And so I have scheduled myself so tight, there's no margin for other people. And that's not right. That's part of the problem.

24:03 I used to do that when I was single and my wife has taken corrective action to make sure that I don't continue doing that. So many benefits of being married. Thank God. She certainly has been the moderating influence there.

24:23 There's actually something that I've done for myself recently. I was definitely the social outlier during my teenage years and my early twenties, throughout my twenties. I was the quiet guy back in the corner that nobody really knew much about. Nobody really knew what I was up to and what I was doing. And I was perfectly okay with that. But what I realized later on in my twenties is that I hadn't really built a lot of friendships. I hadn't built many relationships that would last for a lifetime within the local community. And you know, you only get out of things what you put into them. I realized that if I wanted to establish some of those relationships, I would have to put in effort.

25:10 So one of the things that I've done and I'd like to do more similar type things is we invited a group of friends to come hang out one evening. There were I think initially there were four or five guys and families and couples and we had a great evening around a campfire. That happened three or four times and then the group kind of gradually started going in different directions except three of us. Three of us couples succeeded in forging a deep relationship like we were really connected with each other on a spiritual values perspective and a community perspective. And those have gone on. This is now two years old and the last two years we have established relationships that last for a lifetime like we can talk about anything with each other. That required effort but that has been so rewarding and so meaningful. For the three of us guys, we occasionally get together in the evening as families, but for the three of us.

29:47 Here, they were able to share labor and exchange. A family could take a month off without any problems whatsoever for the rest of the operators because everyone pitched in and contributed. And if we did more of that, how would that regenerate our communities and regenerate our relationships? That's exactly what we need more of.

30:05 Yeah, it's unfortunate, you know, because I know in our area and many areas are probably like this. Farmers will really pull together and support each other when there's a tragic accident or when somebody dies and that's great to see that level of community involvement, but why does it take a tragedy to make that happen? Why can't we do that during good times and not just the tragedies? And that is sad that that's been lost. And I think that, you know, with the regenerative mindset, we see more people open and willing to do some of those things.

30:45 Well, yeah, as you develop a renewed appreciation and relation of, you know, I talk about the Harvard study and I should go look at what it's actually called, but if you just do a search for the Harvard study on longevity, I'm sure it will come up. But there was this study, it's now been ongoing for I'm not sure the exact time period, 120, 130 years. They originally started with a graduating group of 400 young men from Harvard that ended up including four presidents if I recall correctly. Lots of famous influential people. As the study expanded, they eventually also included a group from inner city New York. Very challenged environment and they were trying to identify for this group of 400 young men at the original founding of the city what are the factors that contribute to longevity and health and a long fulfilling life. And each of these men committed to an intensive 3-hour interview every year for the rest of their life. So that initial cohort has now all passed away, but the study is ongoing.

31:52 There is one factor and only one factor that contributes to people having a very successful life and successful is not defined purely in financial terms but in their happiness their joy their fulfillment their enthusiasm with life and the things they're working on and that one factor is the quality of their relationship with their spouse and immediate family and that I mean this is some pretty fascinating science at this point is that many of the ways that we think about success in life all comes back to the quality of relationships. And that just gave me an even deeper appreciation for how important it is to cultivate relationships very consciously.

32:39 It's almost like it was designed to work that way or something.

32:45 You think it was certainly seems that way. Yeah. And maybe you know kind of on that thought or on that topic I think I read in your quality agriculture book and I wrote this quote down because I really liked it. You said more than even its economic benefits. Regenerative growing methods are vital because they return joy to our work. Farming becomes fun again when we work with natural systems instead of working against them. Can you expand on that just a little bit, you know, and how that maybe plays into, you know, what you just said there with, you know, having those relationships with, you know, your immediate family and immediate co-workers.

33:27 At some point a couple years down the

33:30 Road, as I was on this journey, I realized that there is a deep internal dissonance within most farmers. And it took me quite a few years to try to describe that and to put it into words. And what I realized over time is that farming is inherently quite a challenging profession. The reality is it's hard work, it's long hours, it's low pay. I mean there's we could easily find much more financially rewarding tasks.

34:09 So, and yet people are there is this deep desire, this heart desire to be involved in agriculture. Why is that? What is it? Where does that spring from? And we could take a scriptural perspective. I think there's a lot of merit to that perspective that this is how we were designed. We were mandated to be stewards. And so there is something deep within our soul that we have a desire to be connected to life and to living systems and that we find this deep satisfaction in watching seeds germinate from the soil in the spring and watching the joy of a newborn animal and listening to the birds sing as this being an integral part of life and living systems speaks to us at a very deep soul level.

35:02 And yet here's the interesting part and it's particularly interesting because as cultural society in the United States context, the majority of our agricultural community has a very strong Christian background. And yet having this very strong Christian background and recognizing this stewardship connection and this soul-level connection, we have somehow arrived in this spot where we've adopted a model of agriculture that is the direct antithesis of that soul-level connection where instead of fostering life, we have adopted this paradigm, a warfare-based paradigm of search and destroy. Identify a specific pest, identify a specific pathogen and figure out how you can kill it. And if the first weapon of choice is not successful, you get a bigger bomb, get a stronger pesticide. And so we have these two ways of being in the world, these two paradigms that are in inherent conflict with each other.

36:13 I remember this one particular story. We were working with a farm in Florida that was growing sweet corn for Disney. And this was such a deep part of this farm's identity and how they describe themselves. Every conversation you had with them when I walked onto the farm for the first time in the first 90 minutes, I must have heard half a dozen times how important it is for them to grow high quality healthy sweet corn for the kids at Disneyland. That mantra got repeated over and over and over. And oh, by the way, Disneyland has zero tolerance for corn earworm. So during the green seal period they're spraying with toxic insecticides every 48 hours. Like that is the ultimate expression of this internal dissonance we talk about as farmers. We've adopted this mantra that has been indoctrinated into us by agro business of feeding the world and yet we go out and spray toxins on our food that are on the crops that we're producing that are well known to have very detrimental effects if we're only willing to go look and be intellectually honest about the exercise.

37:24 And so I think one of the pieces that I see on as farmers start going down this journey, this region of agriculture journey and they start getting into a different relationship and trying to support and enhance life rather than

37:42 Figuring out what they can kill brings so much joy and soul satisfaction back into their life. Like there is no longer the same degree of internal dissonance. There is the recognition that okay, yeah, sometimes I need to use poisons. I really don't want to use them. I want to figure out a pathway out of using them in the future. They're the right tool that I have right now. But there is this recognition that I'm on a pathway to a better future. So there is this deep soul satisfaction that I am being a good steward, that I am following that stewardship mandate.

38:17 And you ask yourself the question why do we have such severe, such high suicide rates, mental health challenges. There's a lot of contributing factors. I'm not suggesting this is the only one. Economic challenges and so forth are all major contributors, but there is something very deep. I think someone who understands why can figure out or tolerate any how. And if we understand that we're on a pathway to a better future and we have that hope and that optimism, that gives us the ability to thrive and to tolerate a great deal of stress and duress. But if we don't have that, if the future is dark and bleak and we see no pathway to reconciling this desire that we have within our hearts and souls and the reality that we're faced with every day, that's a pretty hopeless picture. And what do you do when you have no hope?

39:23 You turn to desperate measures. Exactly.

39:28 Well, and I think the regenerative agriculture can bring a lot of hope. It's certainly not a silver bullet. It's certainly not without its ups and downs and barriers and obstacles and all of that, but it does bring back that joy and bring back some of that hope. And I was thinking that maybe during this podcast we might be able to get into a tangent on that, regenerating nutrient density and public health and all that. But I think that deserves its own whole episode because I know how deeply we could go into that topic. So I'm going to reserve you for another episode down the road to talk about that. But as we kind of bring this to a close, John, I want to give you the opportunity. I know that Aea is launching a really big event this fall, this September. Are you ready to talk about that at all? Do you want to give a little teaser on that?

40:35 Yeah, I don't know if I've been given permission to talk about it. So I guess I'll talk about it anyway. That's the way I usually behave and the marketing team wants to pull my hair out and theirs as well.

40:47 So the inspiration is that there's multiple sources of inspiration for this idea. As this space has developed, the soil health, the regenerative agriculture space, whatever you want to call it. If you go back in time 20 years or so, there were relatively few conferences and relatively few places to go to meet people. There was not on the plains. There was the Acres USA conference. There was Ecoarm, Moses conference, what is now Marble Seed. It was certainly a number around, but they were all relatively small. And then those grew and as they grew, they were about to fracture.

41:33 But it's not that they fracture, but there was a need for more events. And what has emerged is we now have dozens of smaller regional events which is really awesome. But what is absent yet is that within each of those many dozens of smaller regional events there are always people who are the innovators. They are the cutting edge. They are the leaders in their region in their community. And often those people desire to be connected with people who are on their wavelength who are similarly innovators in different regions. And what has not emerged yet is a national platform for people to get together.

42:22 So we've been wanting to do this for several years. There will always be other bigger priorities, but September 11th and 12th, you want to save the dates. September 11th and 12th, we are hosting a festival style event. It will be intense on a farm with demonstrations with some of an incredible lineup of presenters. This is not going to be an event that you want to miss. We expect thousands of people to show up. It's going to be an incredible couple of days.

42:55 So check in with us. We're going to have multiple sponsors like you, Keith, that we're going to be working with. The news about what will be happening, what we'll be doing will be coming from multiple places. AEA is driving it, but we're developing lots of great partnerships to help develop this event. And yeah, I fully expect this to become the premier event of the year for regenerative farmers. Like mainstream farmers, certain groups would not even dream of missing Commodity Classic. Think of this as being the regenerative version of Commodity Classic. Not in the sense that it'll be similar event, but that it will have that same you don't miss it perspective.

43:33 Yeah, so it'll be like the Woodstock of regenerative agriculture. You can feel free to share your pictures with family. You're free to use that in your marketing by the way if you want. So definitely save the dates and it's going to be held in the upper Midwest. I'm not going to reveal the location right at this point so I don't step on too many toes. But yeah, it's intended to be a national scope event with leading innovative farmers and consultants of all types from all across the country.

44:09 Well, we're very excited to be part of it. Got it on my calendar and as more details come out, I think there's going to be lots and lots of people excited about it. So John, thank you so much for taking time out of your super busy schedule to be part of our podcast and we wish you the best of luck with AEA and with all of the events and with regenerating your own community as well. So and best of luck to all of those who are listening. Go forth and regenerate your own little space that God has given you to work in. Thank you, Keith. Thanks for doing this. You bet.

44:45 My brother and I started Green Cover in 2009 because we understand what it's like to be a farmer starting out on the journey to improve soil health. We saw the power of plant and biological diversity on our own farm here in Nebraska. But we found that it was difficult to get the right cover crop seed mix. We also learned that there was a big learning curve in successfully implementing cover crops. That's why we built Green Cover so that farmers like you can access the highest quality cover crop seed put into the right diverse mixes along with the technical advice and the educational resources to help you successfully implement cover crops on your own operation. So contact us today and we'll help you with the right cover crop mix for your farm or ranch so you can regenerate your portion of God's creation for future generations.