John Kempf introduces Episode 107 of the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, featuring guest Marty Travis. The episode frames discussion around agronomy, soil and human health, and creating pathways for young farmers to access land. In his opening remarks, Marty describes returning to his family’s 160-acre farm in 1999 after his grandmother’s death, a prior career as a reproduction Shaker furniture woodworker, and a transition into farming driven by a desire to restore the land and create productive environments for nature and people.
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Hi friends, this is John and this is the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast. Welcome back to the funnest, most informative podcast about all of agriculture, where we talk about all kinds of topics related to agronomy, growing plants, human health, soil health, and this wonderful intersection of facilitating a better world and being good stewards of our planet. We're going to have a really fun conversation today. A good friend of mine, Marty Travis, who I met, I don't know exactly, probably roughly a decade ago, I spent some time at a field day on his farm where we had the most interesting mix of farmers as a group showing up to collaborate and work together that I have ever observed. So, Marty, thank you for being here. I've been so, so appreciative of the wisdom and the energy that you have brought to agriculture with your farm and being able to facilitate young farmers getting started. Because there is this constant refrain of many people who want to get into agriculture but aren't able to identify a pathway to get land access or to whatever difficulties that they encounter. And so I've really appreciated what you have been able to bring about on your own farming enterprise and with the farmer collaborative that you've developed. So tell us a little bit about your story, your journey, the scope of the work that you're doing today, and how you got to this point. Well, first, thank you, John, for the opportunity. My journey into agriculture is somewhat convoluted as many folks tend to have the same experience of being a convoluted path. Our family has 160 acre farm that's been in our family. In six more years, it'll be in our family for 200 years. And I had the opportunity to move back to our family farm in 1999 after my grandmother's passing. Prior to that, for decades I had built reproduction Shaker antique furniture. So I was a woodworker and did work for clients all over the world and loved it, had a blast. I got to meet and do work for some of the most interesting folks you could imagine. But at a point shortly after we moved back to the family farm, my wife Chris asked, what would you do if a doctor said that you're perfectly healthy but you really can't do woodwork anymore? And I said, well, I don't know, I guess we've got this cute little farm here, maybe we ought to do something with it? And the unleashing of doors flying open and windows flying open happened pretty immediately. We began trying to understand what that farm wanted to be, to seek out the energy source of that farm to create environments for nature to repopulate.
