https://www.listennotes.com/e/515087c61be14dd59db6df3dd6d1be93

There's no such thing as cheap food. Right. What we pay in the grocery stores, that's not good for us, we end up paying for in medical bills. There's the theory of, I've put all this food on the table now how much will my kids actually eat? That's a good analogy. And that's kind of the same thing in the soil test. We saying, theoretically, here's all the food that's available for the plants to eat, but what did they actually eat? And that's what SAP analysis tells us. There's also signatures in the infrared spectrum. If you remember the old 50s diners that had the neon flash light says come down here. Right. That's essentially what is happening in the. In the world of the insect's quote unquote vision. When you change those signatures, you've essentially also turned the light switch off. He had his citrus tested next to a conventional store bought citrus, sent them off to a lab, very expensive testing. His came back and just even blew his mind. His nutrient levels are like way off the charts. You've got times 4, times 8, times 3, 30 levels of different nutrients. I'll say my own controversial statement, which is in 2025, I don't think anybody should be wrestling with aphid. It's that easy to solve.

Welcome to the Market Gardener podcast, where we believe that small scale farming is changing the world. Join us for insightful conversations with people who are working to build a better future. A future with less mass production and more production by the masses. The revolution is in the field. Let's get digging. All right, everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Today we have a really, really interesting guest, a special guest that flew from far away. And I want to thank you.

This.

Thank you. About this, Kesh Johnson from Advancing Ecoculture.

Good to be here.

Yeah.

Great to be here. Yeah.

For making the trip.

Absolutely. I'm glad the weather wasn't quite as brutal as it was a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah. You were just telling me that you're back from India.

Y. Yeah, that's.

That's a far, far, far away land.

Yeah, it was some serious flying time, for sure. But really excited about what's going on there, what we're doing there. So. Yeah.

Before Chris sets the stage, because that's what he always does, we met one another at a farming conference in.

It was Germany. Germany, yeah.

At the World Organic Forum.

That's right, yeah.

And what I told my team when we were looking for a guest, I said, hey, I met this guy. He was one of the most Eloquent speakers that I've heard in a long time. Really appreciated the conference that you gave there. And then we hung out, we connected. I think we kind of became friends.

I think so.

And I'm super happy that you're in my hometown.

Yeah.

Visiting. You just went to the Vita Betrav and now we're having a dinner tonight here.

So very spoiled. Feeling very looked after. Thank you for having me. It's great.

It's great.

Yeah.

And we connected well just before you.

Just before.

We're already friends now.

Yeah.

Share some similar authors that we enjoy.

Yeah.

Interests and hobby.

Most people will know your. Your organization from John Kemp.

Yeah.

Really famous.

Advancing Eco Agriculture.

And so I think you're going to be. We're going to be asking you about that.

Okay.

For sure.

Sounds like a plan. Yeah.

So to start us off then.

Yeah, let's do it.

You've said before that the Region Ag message is a hopeful message.

Yep.

What is that message and why is it so hopeful in your mind?

Yeah, it's a lot of things compiled into a simple statement. I think it's hopeful because, number one, there's a way for farmers to be profitable in what we do. And also that there are solutions out there for making regenerative actually truly sustainable for farmers long term. And that starts with the economy of being a farmer. But also, you know, a big part of the work that we do is working on crop immunity to pests and diseases. Means that those large scale issues in mainstream agriculture are also solvable in a way that's truly regenerative and profitable at the same time. So I think that's. That's very hopeful.

Yeah. You were just, just bringing it back to India. You were just there and you were explaining to me that the reason why AGA is there is because in India the organic movement is having a hard time fighting disease pressure.

Yep.

And then you guys are there to troubleshoot some of the soil problems and see what could be done to solve these.

That's right. Yeah. The, the gift for what we do and therefore the gift for every farmer. Right. Is that when you use nutrition to create solutions for those pest disease issues, when you get that right, that also translates to the quality of the crop that you're growing and you know, now even more. We were just touching upon this before you joined the idea around nutrient density. So, you know, when you get one approach that then, you know, partakes or, or contributes towards another end result that we're really interested in too.

Yeah.

You know that that's a Two for, for the price. That's one deal.

You're fighting back disease and pests, but you're also bringing more nutrients to the crop.

Exactly.

Or for human health.

Exactly.

For animals.

Yeah, yeah. That additional energy that it has to, for its immune system, the, the additional energy there goes towards the nutrition. That's a win win.

And the only thing you have to do to solve these big fundamental human problem is soil ecology.

Yeah, I would break it down two ways. I think, you know, one of the things that we, we, we've tried sort of articulating in our agronomy is it's really important under the, with the underpinning of, of farmers being profitable that we tackle this idea that there may be a J curve economically in the, in a transitional period. In other words, saying you're guaranteed to lose money in this transitionary period. Well, if we're smart and we have the right approach that we can really begin to mitigate that as a reality. And so if I pull back to the overall AEA approach or perspective. Yes, it's absolutely building this robust microbiome. We know that the best form of nutrients from the soil for a plant is in a biologically available form where that biology does all of the work of making it plant available in that process. And it may take a bit of time to build out that microbiome. What are we going to do with the pest issues or the nutrient imbalances. And so the second piece to that is balancing the nutrition in the crop during the season. And as we continue to work on building this, this healthy biology in the soil.

So yeah, you've opened up a lot of doors for that. I would want to, you're well off on at the same time, but I'm afraid I'm going to, we're going to go to all over if I let that happen. So I want to, yeah, I want to just step back from, we'll get to talking about I guess the specifics of AEA and what you kind of bring to the table in terms of the real nitty gritty science of what you offer. But I want to just go back to that idea of the J curve and the idea of the fact that we don't have enough farmers. And this is saying, I've heard John Kemp say it's something that, you know, our company's vision and mission is the multiplication of small farms. So more farmers. Why is, what does regenerative agriculture and what you do have to do with increasing the amount of farmers and what is this J curve? Why Is the J curve such a problem? Why does it matter that these conventional farmers aren't switching over? And will that create more farm like. Yeah. Can you speak to that at all?

Yeah, let me piece a couple of pieces together with that. I think so. You know, let's put it in practical terms. If I'm a, if I'm a farmer and I learn, if you like the underpinnings of good farm practices, let's call them the, you know, even the pillars of regenerative farming. Right. I want to begin to implement them. But what every farmer hopes at least, is that in terms of overall health, whether he, of the land, whether he inherited that or he's been on it for 20, 30 years, let's say that maybe it's a plus five, you know, hopefully not zero, as opposed to the reality when you look at how degraded agricultural land is minus 25 or minus 50. And so if your agricultural land starting point, regardless of the good things you've been doing, is minus 50, and I want to transition and build these living ecosystems to start working for me as a farmer, how long does that take? Is everybody around the same starting point? You know, and what are the, what are the ways that we can expedite change and speed up that change to where, you know, we really can have a year over year experience of seeing biology work for us in the soil, you know, as opposed to just like I'm going to all of a sudden not do any more tilling, I'm going to, you know, apply. Apply compost teas and all of these things and sit back and expect the system all of a sudden to work for me.

Yeah.

And how real is that? If my starting point, for example, has been minus 50, so having data tools to substantiate. And John will say this a lot. Right. And this is true for us as a company. We need to earn the right to understand that we can reduce herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, not just sort of take this wild, shoot from the hip, cold turkey approach that all of a sudden, because I'm ethically driven or morally driven to make change, that doesn't solve everything. It doesn't solve.

It doesn't solve anything, actually.

Yeah, exactly.

It's still science.

Yeah.

Are you seeing more people transitioning or more new farmers kind of creating that transition on previously conventional land? What would you, what do you think?

I think it's a mix. Right. Because I think, I think what regenerative farm. And this is perhaps controversial because there's always going to be actors that you know, have slightly different motivations for being on the regenerative bandwagon. Right. I think what regenerative agriculture can do is it can open up the, the, the ramp or the road to more farmers being able to move to in that direction. It's less restrictive, let's say. It also, though, is giving farmers more tools in the toolbox to choose from. So even let's say if you're 90% conventional, there's still value in some of those regenerative tools that can make a very big difference to your farm. So then, you know, what makes it, that question hard to answer is they say, well, you know, is where you get into the puritanical kind of perspective. This is like, oh, if you don't have livestock on your farm, you're not regenerative or, you know, whatever. It's like, yeah, that's a different conversation. And I understand the importance of that conversation is. But I think understanding whether there's more people transitioning over from conventional, I think it's more the case of there's more awareness of what those tools are that can make a difference than ever before. And of course, new people coming into farm in farm life and with the, the ability of this podcast, let's say, you know, to give that information and the canopy leading, you know, training institute there as well, it means we're equipping people quicker with these tools that, that.

20 years ago, people just. If it wasn't like one of the most blunt thing that I've heard so many times, like, next to FQT Farm, which is the research farm that I started in 2015, it's the biggest, I would say, lettuce farmland outside of California in North America, like a lot of salad mix, a lot of lettuce is grown there, like in black soil. Black soil that is like four or five meter deep. Okay. And these guys would come and visit my farm and they would not believe me that I was growing lettuce without putting anything on it. It's just, they just like, that's not possible in their mind because for them, if they plant anything without supporting it with herbicides or with fungicides, there's no crop. It's not possible because there's no biology in the soil.

Yeah.

And they've never kind of made the switch to thinking there could be biology. And if there could be, how do I get there? And then now there's solutions like yours that are coming there, say, yeah, rotation, cover crop. But let's look at the nutrients in the soil, the minerals what can we do? Correcting. There's science behind it and it's just opening minds.

Yeah. And I think that's, that's been the important part for us to come in with a level of humility too, because most all of us have a truth that's based in an experience, whether that's a negative experience or a positive. And that's where the education piece comes in. And if we can present it in frameworks that is supported by data or create, you know, openness to different perspectives that can drive different outcomes, I think that's where we get the traction. But I think one of the biggest incentives, Right. For getting broader adoption is. Is being able to prove out profitability. Yeah. Every farm, regardless of their ethos, ultimately has to answer to the profitability of the model. That's true sustainability. Right. Before we talk about any other sustainability.

And the other farmers, they look at that.

Exactly.

This farm is as a new pickup. Oh my God. Things are going well.

That's right.

It's as simple as that sometimes.

Yeah, yeah.

Can you give us a success example of particularly seen a transition or a new farmer, but kind of out in, you know, middle America, let's say out in the big farming country where there's thousands of acres of corn, for instance, someone out there that's making that transition. And before you even answer that, could you also just very quickly say like the elevator pitch of what AEA does for farmers? Because I think we kind of say, yeah. Just so people understand what you guys do.

Yeah. The 10 cent tour, as it were, is essentially we started in 2006 primarily as an agronomy consultancy company, which is still true today. We're still primarily a consultancy company. We pioneered this use of something called SAP analysis, which is, I think some people are familiar with. It's like a blood test for the crop. And in part some of that journey then we realized that we were creating solutions. We were able to validate the reason why a farmer should do xyz. And then when they reached into their toolbox in regarding fertility, we started to see very quickly a lot of stuff wasn't working. And fast forward to today. That's one of the big reasons that we have essentially a range of nutrient products are. Nope. Predominantly NOP certified, which is for the U.S. right. That organic, certifiable, you know, program. So then we have these offerings of consultancy as a standalone or products as a standalone or a hybrid where a farmer can work with us both on the agronomy and the products.

And the products are not fertilizers.

They're predominantly. Yeah, in the sense that they are. There are generally all organic, they're nutrient inputs for sure. But they're predominantly micronutrients. That's the, the big part of our range as well as we carry a number of biological based products as well. Yeah, yeah.

So it's bringing different kind of nutrients for different reasons to balance the soil.

Yeah.

And then that creates the fertility.

Exactly right. Yeah. Yeah.

And there's a backstory to, well, to John Kemp and how that he explained, we heard him at Canopy, he gave a speech here and his backstory of being on a farm growing up, using all the pesticides and fertilizers imaginable and then really having kind of an epiphany and moving on from that. And do you know why, why did he choose the regenerative word, so to say to kind of hitch to and go forth with his podcast. The podcast is Regenerative Agriculture Podcast. Where did that come into play?

Yeah, I mean for those that know John, right, he's. He devours information, you know, certainly in, you know, not, not that too long ago he was probably reading six books a week, you know, know, not including papers. Absolute, you know, monster in terms of devouring and reading information. It was probably around 2011. And I, I think it'd be fair to say John wasn't the only person considering or starting to use the terminology. But what he really thought of was around this idea that if we're using the language, let's say, of sustainability, there's a number of things on, on farms that are practices that shouldn't be sustained. And so that, that terminology doesn't necessarily cover what we were trying to say and what we really mean by regenerative agriculture. Why he started using that term was around this, this idea that we are, we are restoring, rebuilding, regenerating soils in a way where we coined the phrase, for example, like working with nature, not against it. Right. When you can build out these ecosystems and see that they actually have a positive role to play instead of this, you know, I have to put out all these sprays and fight against nature just to grow, you know, one crop in one season and everything's against me. It's like, well, maybe there are, there are tools right in front of us that are, you know, helpful. And then we've taken that, John's taken that, that terminology, terminology further more recently to talk about the impact of how we do business, how, how we regenerate farmers capacity to steward land, you know, and the implications to the wider Community and, and that's obviously a key part of, you know, the DNA of here for you guys too.

Right.

The way it impacts the local community and so on and beyond that.

So it's top of mind for us. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Our mojo is small scale farming is changing the world, but it's changing the world because it's changing all these communities.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah. So do you have a success story out in the Midwest, perhaps?

Oh, gosh. I mean, we have a lot of. I'm sure. I mean, the team works across all the major ag areas, primarily in the domestic North America.

I would say from, from having listened to. I'm interrupting you. Yes.

No, you're good.

But it's, it's not just like farmland out of the Midwest. It's. It's mostly farmers that were doing monoculture cultures. Let's say you have an orchard.

Yep.

When you have disease in an orchard.

And you have 50 acres of the same tree.

Of the same tree, it's a big problem to solve. And from the stories that I've heard from, from you guys.

Yeah.

That's where you guys come in.

Yeah.

And solve a lot of these problems there.

Yeah. There's some very, like taking the orchard route, which is kind of my passion. My have a love for affinity for orchards. My happy place. Let's say if some large orchards out in the Pacific Northwest and a lot of orchard folks that are listening to this as well understand that, you know, for a number of those fruits, things like fire blight can be a significant disease that causes significant dieback. And then the management practice around that means that you have to send in a lot of people to prune it all out, you know, two weeks worth of pruning, you know, significantly, obviously cutting back the production of those trees. So we came in with diagnosing, you know, how we could address that through nutrition, utilizing SAP analysis and basically came up with, with a recipe to address that. And you know, we were able to not only prevent future fire blight, but also to get rid of it through, through nutrition. And the owner of the, of that particular orchard didn't believe the farm, the orchard manager, that, that there was no fire blight in the scouting trips. And they had all of these, you know, employees who were waiting to go to prune it all out. And two hours later he comes out the orchard and can find it. And so we've been able to repeat that kind of success. And so just why we ended up working on more and more of the, the thousands of acres that were we're currently working on with that particular farm still to this day.

Also I've heard that you guys were working on so like, you know, vegetables, but also all these other crops that are out there.

Yeah. If I remember the story straight, one of the. Working with cherries in Oregon, one of the breaks we were actually at the time trying to fix tomato cracking, splitting in Pennsylvania and addressing that through nutrition. And, and part of that was, you know, let's try some of that approach on this issue with bacterial canker and working on cherries, which also can potentially have cracking and splitt. And it turned out that a lot of that translated to the, to success on, on the, on the cherry orchard to where we can also, you know, mitigate bacterial canker as an issue, which I'm not aware of, according to the, the extensions and the books say that that can be resolved as an issue, certainly not through nutrition. So it's quite controversial when you come into this. And part of our big problem, though we've talked a little bit about this that I try and navigate is a lot of the big farms that we work on were under NDA. They don't want anybody, any of their neighbors to know what the secret source is. So they're not readily available from a marketing perspective to really validate what we're saying. That sounds kind of out there to the average listener or the average farmer. Right.

So I just love that you added that piece because that's reality.

Yeah.

Like in the small, small farms, like our kind of farms. Yeah. We're not really competing for markets, but bigger farms.

Yeah.

It's a different thing.

Not hiding secrets.

Yeah.

So you don't want to have your neighbor perhaps copy and paste.

That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Different challenges.

Yeah, it's interesting.

Yeah.

Let's dive into AEA then and start on SAP analysis. Why should people care about this? Because obviously most growers, especially in our space, are very familiar with soil tests. And you know, we have this, this deep seated belief that really it really is all about the soil. But you kind of bring in this SAP analysis and it's a step up, it seems, and it goes even further than just looking at the soil. So why can you explain SAP analysis and why it's really.

Yeah, I mean, it's a tool. Right. Like everything. I mean it's. There's certainly no silver bullet. Anybody in agriculture knows that there's. There's no silver bullet for, for. It's probably the closest thing we have to cheating in our, in our minds in terms of like what, what you get from the data. I think I'd put it a couple of ways. Number one, I think most growers, certainly from our experience, and maybe this is just from the large scale perspective, have seen enough soil tests in their history and also have got really good at getting good balanced soils and are still seeing a disparity in the way the crop produces or appears and the two don't line up. And I would say that that's primarily because, you know, there's a missing piece there. Right. There's the theory of I've put all this food on the table, like at dinner time in my house. Right. So we put all of these dinner plates out full of food. Now how much will my kids actually eat? Right. That's a good analogy. And that's kind of the same thing in the soil test. We saying, theoretically, here's all the food that's available for the plants to eat, eat, but what did they actually eat? And that's what SAP analysis tells us. It looks within side the cells of the plant themselves looks at, to use technical terms, the xylem and flow and material where nutrition flows physiologically through the plant. And it's measuring that and that alone. And so you really don't get the noise of whether the plant is storing, you know, nutrition that it can't utilize, like nitrate, for example, that has very little use for in most crops. And it gives you an accurate understanding of what's it excessive in and what's it deficient in. And if you can use SAP testing at what we call critical points of influence times in the season where it makes most sense to be really dialed in to the nutrition because of, for example, a shift in tomatoes going from vegetative to reproductive to fruity. Right. And so that's why we use this kind of blood test analogy to say it's dialing in. And then what, what we've been able to help farmers with, in utilizing that is in saying, well, when you typically, let's see, you have a visual problem that you see for the most part, it's too late. Right. There's very little you can do. Or let's put it another way, it's. You will also experience a significant impact on production.

It's like human health too.

Exactly.

When you're already sick, it's where you're too late to prevent it.

Yeah.

You can treat it perhaps, but you're treating, you know, your symptoms.

Yeah. This is the great parallel, the plant health, human health piece. Right. That there's so much kind of Imagery there that overlaps.

Yeah.

And so in SAP analysis we would say you get about a 10 to 14 day window of a head start of seeing something in the, in the plant zap before you see it visually, 10 to 14 days for a lot of farms, regardless of scale, is enough time to do something about it. And especially if it's a value, a high value crop, let's say, where it's worth adding additional nutrients and you, for you to still be able to realize that ROI in the market, then, then that's really great data to have.

I want to ask you if you can explain the kind of the magic of a foliar spray. And what I mean by the magic is that I think for a lot of people, because a is kind of big on foliar space and when I think of a foliar spray, I tend to think of a topical medication for, on a human and I think, oh, that's, you know, that's the weakest of medication. It's the internal stuff that's the strongest and that really makes a difference. But then I've learned from John Kemp that a foliar spray of, you know, there's all kinds and different reasons, but man, it can be powerful stuff. What's the magic sauce there?

In the same way, intravenous medicine is quicker in getting into the system than than, you know, vitamin pills that take a while to digest.

So the cream analogy is not the right analogy. Intravenous would be intravenous, probably.

Yeah. Essentially all, pretty much all plants have the ability to absorb nutrition through the leaf surfaces, through the stomata and in some cases also to some degree, even bark and branches can absorb nutrition. Here's a good example, right. Most of our soils, you know, or our crop production, we see deficiencies in calcium. Even if it's there in the soil we could go into.

Because it's not available, right?

Not available. Same would be true of iron and manganese, my wonderful Virginia red clay. Right. I have all the iron there and under the sun, but it's not available. If I want to make a calcium correction to the soil, let's say, and we should, and we should use that and we should build that into our programs. For the most part, root uptake it can be 30 plus days, let's say before. In other words, depending on the size of the, let's say we use a lot of gypsum, right? This depending on the prill size or. And whether how long it takes to break down. Let's say it takes 30 days for the Plant to take it up. If I'm at a very critical stage of production like in cell division and I have a stated deficiency in my SAP analysis, I probably miss the most important window if I need to wait another 30 days to realize that calcium uptake from the soil. So a foliar is that, that's my intravenous opportunity to, to, to adjust that calcium level along with some other, other pieces there to get the nutrition in.

I have a devil's advocate question. Not exactly devil's advocate, but if I'm thinking evolutionarily about plants, how would they get nutrition from foliar like from their leaves other than sun, if you know what I mean. Like how does it exist in nature that concept of taking in nutrition from. Do you know, is there like.

Yeah, I definitely. John would be a better one to explain all the ins and outs. But you do essentially have these stomata that are, that are open regardless. So for example, a lot of, a lot of the atmosphere is nitrogen. Right. So theoretically, if the plants can take that in and they're going to take that in through their leaves, they're, they're absorbing nitrogen, you know. Right. You know that process. And obviously that's photosynthesis involved and so all these other pieces as well. So yeah, it's, it's like, I would describe it maybe in the simplest way, which is like leaves are like the pores of our skin.

Yeah.

Right. They're good at keeping a lot of stuff out. Like if we swim in a pond, Right. We don't get saturated with water and sink to the bottom. But at the same time we can absorb a lot of things through, through our, our dermis, you know. And the same is for plants. Yeah, yeah.

So I want to address something which is this word products. And what I mean by that is that to a lot of the small scale gardening community, I think they have kind of an aversion to this idea of a product, something in a white bottle with a name and a bunch of words on it, because it feels very close in their mind to a chemical input. I think the transitioning grower and the larger scale grower is very comfortable with this probably. But how do you speak to that person that just kind of. They want to use things that are more or less raw materials. They're, they like the thought of just using a rock dust or using chicken manure, but a product with, you know, one of some of the names of the products, they're like, oh, what's that Auction, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's to me it's, it's a cultural thing. It's a way of just how people view things. But how do you. Because I think what you have to offer are amazing products.

Yeah.

But there's that kind of romantic rebel, small scale grower that's like a product. I don't want products.

Yeah.

How do you kind of talk to them? You see what I'm going.

There's a lot in there.

I know. I'm just curious because I think that's.

What happens when you hang out with small scale growers.

I think there's a lot of value though, and that they could be gaining if maybe we could break down that barrier of. Because I'm even one of these people, I, I see the way the product looks and you know, my mom just goes to like, oh, that's not what I'm into.

Yeah.

But in reality it's, there's nothing wrong with it.

No, like look, I think healthily so. Right. Like if you're, if you're investing into production of, of food for a community, regardless of house how big it is, part of your, your ethos is when you really care is you want everything to be natural. Quote, unquote.

Yeah, quote unquote.

Right. You know, and so a lot of the products that people are more comfortable with using is because they have an idea that at least it's quote unquote natural. Right. Although we could have a whole other conversation about how even, you know, some disease controlling materials, let's say, are also natural. You know, copper for example.

Right. And toxic.

And toxic. And toxic. Right. And yeah. And you can get into trouble with natural inputs like compost too and other others as well. I think interestingly enough there's a level of criticism that's right. And it also has impacted large scale producers in the sense of large scale producers get hit up unbelievably by fertilizer companies trying to sell it. Right. And the old model was that I would love to see an end to, hopefully our work even together, you know, would begin to see an end to that, which is the idea that just buy these products off me. Trust me, you don't need to know how it works. I'll figure out all of the application rates. Here's your program and I'll take my commission bonus check and.

Yeah. Not farming. Yeah. Farming is nothing more than a purchase of products applied to the ground and voila.

Yeah. And you're an operation manager.

Yeah. And you can argue, you could even argue that a soil testing is an extent essentially at this point, an extension of a sales, you know, fertilizer sales tool. Right. When you look at now the data that we get from ZAP analysis. Right. Anyway, that's perhaps a bunny trip, but.

I like that because it's kind of, it's kind of right. You know.

Yeah, yeah.

That's how the last 50 years have been.

Exactly.

All the research that's been done in agronomy.

Was. Yeah. And that's why there's such the aversion. Because people are rebelling against that. They're rebelling.

That brings it to a new.

Yeah.

And level. And I've seen some of these SAP analysis that you guys do. They're quite sophisticated.

Yeah.

And you do need to have some consulting or some high level background.

Yeah.

To understand what's going on. And through the phase of the plants, it's also changing. So it's not like this static thing recipe that you just throw into the ground. It's a.

Exactly. Yeah. No, exactly. Right. You know, so, so this idea of products, I mean, so I think for the, you know, I only want to use something natural. Right. Yeah, that, that camp. I understand it. We understand it really well and I think we're all aligned that ultimately we don't want to be putting things into the, into the ground in our crop production. That, you know, isn't. Right. Let's be, let's be really clear and you know, we have the ability to move away. We can grow at any scale without needing those. And a lot of those synthetic products, look, we already know they're very biologically suppressive. So there's a great case for being natural. But to, to address the natural camp, let's call them. Right. The. If you get into the data, I think what you'll find is that there's a gap between understanding even what natural inputs are truly able to do. Or let's put it another way. Right. A judicious use, an informed use of natural products is where we can, where we can take that conversation. And what I. We like the idea of at aea, I like, I'm really passionate about this, hence why one of the reasons why I work at AEA is, you know, can we create a timeline where you need less and less of anything? Including, let's say, AEA products.

Yeah.

Right. They serve as a purpose, you know, and depending on the goal of a farmer, maybe that's a temporary purpose. Right. We have growers that want to, for example, close the fertility loop. They want to build out a natural ecosystem where there is no need for any kind of input, whether it's control or fertility.

And that's a massive dream of many a small scale growers especially.

Exactly. And I'll say it takes a lot of work to be able to do that and it, and it won't come cheap initially, but so it needs to be a long term plan, it needs to be a long term strategy, you know, so that, that can be a goal. What's interesting in a lot of our experience with those growers that also have had that, that passion to, to close the fertility, often they get really close or close enough to it and then they, they start dreaming about. But what's genetically persistent potential from this crop? You know, now that I've got health all, all figured out, what if I could make three times the amount of yield, you know, in the same. And so then they're back into. Right. And with the cook's kitchen again with only it.

Because also I, I just wanted to say like, just because it's in a white bottle doesn't mean it's not all natural, correct? Oh no, because the, the, the components are.

Yeah.

Of, you know, so. Yeah, I mean everyone knows the naturalistic fallacy like it is a fallacy because of the fact it's can be so easily misconstrued to be synonymous with health. But it doesn't automatically mean that natural poison is a poison.

So anyway, when you look at removing some of the biggest limiting factors, even regardless of, you know, where you are, whether you're permaculture, you know, organic and so on, or even conventional, some of the biggest limiting factors are there's a reason why our product range revolves around the micronutrients. Because generally speaking, once you figure out how to stop putting out excessive nitrogen or phosphorus, potassium, the NPK cycle of life, right. Most of the other physiological things that we're going to do the most impact crop performance and crop health and crop immunity to diseases and pests are all these little tiny amounts and little applications here and there of micronutrients like cobalt or molybdenum, right. Or stuff we don't even know how to spell or, or pronounce right. But they often can be the key linchpin, as it were, to, to seeing a crop that performs okay on natural inputs that are, you know, whether it's feather meal, bone meal, whatever, all these other potential inputs as well can be the linchpin to really drive crop performance and health to the next.

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One of those aspects that you talk a lot about is photosynthetic ability.

Yep.

This is fascinating for anyone that's ever listened to John Kemp talk about it, for instance, because I think he said something that, you know, you find that a lot of growers are only at 20%.

15 to 20% in the US is about the average.

And they. What if they were at 60, you know, is the. Can you tell. Elaborate a bit on that. And like, why is that? Should a market gardener, for instance, be thinking a lot about photosynthetic ability of their plants?

Yes.

And how should they think about it?

So a couple of things, right? Increasing photosynthesis. So. Well, let me back up. One of the things that John designed I think is really helpful. It's a free resource on the website is this thing called the Plant Health Pyramid.

Want me to put it up?

Yeah, sure. We can take a look at that. So if you go to resources, grower tools. So basically what we're looking at, right, Is four stages of plant health that are broken into two categories. Passive immunity and active immunity. The most important thing around those two pieces is that the first two levels of plant health are all to do with balancing the nutritional profile of a. Of a crop. In other words, balance chemistry within the crop? The higher levels, the level three and four, are all based on having robust microbiology in the soil profile. Okay.

Do you need to have the lower levels in order to have the higher levels? Like, are they sort of prerequisites for. Or is there some you can.

I would put it this way, you can address both at the same time, right? You can be building both at the same time. It's not like I'm working my way up a level like in a in an 80s, you know, arcade game, big boss at the top, right. So photosynthesis. So what we. Well, let me back up again. So what we're doing describing here is what can a grower expect to see when they accomplish or improve these particular functions? So for example, if you scroll down to the second page on this, this, this section of photosynthesis, when we focus on increasing the plant's ability to photosynthesize more efficiently, then plants begin to develop a resistance to all airborne pathogens like Pythian, Rhizoctonia and so on. Okay. So already we know, especially in the market garden world, in the conventional agricultural world, where we try to do this thing called sterilizing the bed, hoping that we'll never see pathogens show up in us, in the soil. We've got these other ones to deal with in the, in the air, right? So we're always going to have these potential fungal spores or pathogens, etc. That can be showing up. So there's an invested reason, especially if you then don't want to use fungicides, right. To be building out the solution from within the plant, and that is by increasing its ability to photosynthesize. So that's benefit number one. Benefit number two is let's say we do move photosynthesis up to about 60%, right? 100% means we have to be a demigod and control the weather and all of this kind of, you know, sort of situation. But let's say we get it to 60%, then 60% means we have a massive shift within the plant between where it's sending sugars or exudate. So we're going to start to see a lot more going back into our soil, which means we're now creating more good biology food. We're also going to see a larger root mass, which means we're going to be able to increase the amount of energy, right. Delivered into our finished crop. We're going to see a split between the carbohydrates, we're going to see an increased yield and then finally we're going to see around five times the amount of carbon being cycled every 24 hours.

Wow.

So in terms of long term strategy and short term strategy and profitability, we have three, if not four really great reasons to focus even just on improving.

Photosynthesis and what's like a, a typical mechanism for that to occur for. Let's just say I'm a small scale grower, like, okay, I want to increase my photosynthesis, how do I do that? I mean, I realize it might.

Yeah.

Be pretty complicated, but could you give an example of at least one kind of thing that's maybe frequently done or you see often.

So anybody should be able to at least afford one SAP. Right. So we take a SAP analysis. We're going to look at the primary nutrients that are responsible for photosynthesis. So on one hand, so in chlorophyll, right. We have magnesium in the center, we have some nitrogen and then we've got iron and phosphorus and manganese also playing in a role overall in increasing photosynthesis. So getting those nutrient levels, Right. I. E. Bringing down excesses or increasing where there's deficiencies is that that nutrient based approach to increasing the ability for.

More photosynthesis and that can be both soil and foliar. Yep, foliar. Done.

Yep, exactly. Yeah. And a lot of those, like, especially for things like iron and the role that iron will play, you know, probably better as a foliar. Right. If you have oxidized iron in the soil, we know that that's, you know, going, going back to my Virginia red clay. Right. I can't access it, not because it's oxidized. Right. So if you're at the risk where you have a highly oxidized soil, an iron application is going to be potentially tricky for the crop to receive. So that's where foliars can again intravenously bypass that, that issue of it being locked up in the soil.

And I imagine they're also just quicker acting.

Exactly.

Maybe you could fix that in the soil over time, but at least in the moment you can apply for your own. It's more.

You absolutely want to fix it long term in the soil. Yeah. I mean that's again part of the profitability.

John, when he came at the canopy program, he, he really talked also about the roots playing such a big part in building that soil ecology, which is really the first time that I was kind of hearing that.

And living, living plant material in the, in the ground as opposed to. Yeah.

A substract, you know, like do you buy peat moss for your seedlings? There's no roots in it, so it's, you know, even if you fill it with all these bioactive stimulants later, it. It doesn't have the root system.

Yeah.

What, what role does the, the roots afterwards play to colonize? And can you talk about that?

Yeah, so, and, and that's a great case for working in soil. Right? I mean, yes, you can do things in, in substrate or hydroponics and all the other various systems out there. But if you really want long term profitability and want to be part of regenerating, right. That's that we've got to be working in the soil. That's number one. Number two to that question is this thing called exudates, these, these sugars or carbohydrates that are being released through the root system when there's enough energy for more and more energy to come through the roots. That's essentially in the same way we feed our goldfish with those little sprinkles. We're providing food to the biology in the soil profile. So then what we're doing is we're stimulating this symbiotic, synergistic relationship where the plant is feeding the biology and then the biology in turns is repaying the favor and paying the, the crop back by sourcing its available nutrients in a much more friendly, energy efficient way back to the crop. And we have all kinds of species out there, including these endophytic species that are actually penetrating the root system itself and driving nutrition back into the plant, into, back into the root system. So it's not even all about just stuff coming out of the root. There's these other species coming back in literally directly. As if we would tap a phone line or something like that. Yeah, yeah.

Is there any research being done on that or is it like this?

Like.

Lots.

Yeah, yeah, okay, lots. And I think even a basic search on, on YouTube and other places, you'll even see videos of that in action under a microscope. So we have a lot of data, obviously it's a huge topic and there's, you know, a gazillion, at least, species in the soil that we're still beginning to understand. But you know, from what we're learning. Right. It's such a critical role, this place of biology in the soil for, for what we want to do.

Can you tell us a bit about seed inoculants and how they can lead to the Bob Marley roots that I've seen talked about by, by John.

Yeah, that's right.

Because I think, I mean, I remember at my farm we were using a seed inoculant, you know, many, many years ago. So I guess a lot of growers are aware of this and maybe they're practicing it. But does AEA bring something special to the table in regards to that? And is there more information that we now understand about why that's so useful and can be effective? And again, I'll bring it back to the market gardener listening. Why, why should they use a Seed inoculant. Or should they?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it goes back to even perhaps arguing whether one, one should buy really high quality compost or make your own. If you're, if you're hoping to consistently provide the right biological profile in your compost. I mean, great, if you have the time, the resources, the energy to do it, but if somebody's done the work for you, then perhaps that's even better. Perhaps that makes more sense in your model from a time restraint or an economical perspective. Right. And so the same is true of seed inoculants. Right. We know over time and even early, more indigenous, you know, groups of people even here in North America knew this too in a different way that seed genetics gets starts to decline because the biology associated to that constantly, you know, saving seed and growing again begins to decline. We also know that obviously depending on the land we've inherited and the conditions we've, we started from, or where we've been able to take soil improvement, soil health improvement to some of those missing pieces may be best solved by inoculants being added in. Our approach is generally that we try to provide a broad spectrum of species, including keystone species that can have again, synergistic and symbiotic relationships with more specific species. But even the large, more conventional companies now are carrying for the most part specific strains of, of inoculant for their, their seed treatment. So it's become a very well known, you know, way of helping that early germination period and supporting seed quality, which is a whole other conversation in itself. Right. The decline of the nutrient profile of seeds in general.

So can you tell us about the temperature in the soil and the importance of that? Something that John Kemp had brought up in his presentation here that really made me think was when he spoke about just that, the temperature of the soil and how big of an impact it had and how a lot of growers just by leaving it a little bit bare on a hot day or. Yeah, or not, you know, not destroying it, but really weakening it. And I was like, oh, wow. I don't think a lot of growers are necessarily thinking that deep into that. You know, they understand soil covered. Yes, but yeah, but we also, depending on where you live, you know, here it's really wet, there's slug issues. So a lot of growers are right, you know, using more, leaving more soil bare more often because they, the trade off of what they sometimes experience when they over cover it is actually worse. Can you just expand upon that?

Yeah, I mean, so the general, the General temperature is probably somewhere around 102, 101 or 2, 104, where essentially all biology is scorched earth in the first couple of inches. So, you know, if you're hoping, depending on the kind of crop then you're growing the depth of, typically where its root systems are. If, if you're banking on, let's say, you know, 2 to 4 inches, well, you've just decimated half of that biological population, let's say, in the first two, and then you're now relying maybe on three or four, maybe also depending on the period of time and of the soil drying out its overall temperature, maybe that, that impact of temperature is already done its job down to, to killing out biology significantly at that level too. So there's a case essentially for. Yes, how, number one, how you're managing water, number two, that the overall soil temperature in the same way that we're looking at leaf surface temperature, right. To, to better understand whether there's transpiration effectively happening or whether we can increase the period of photosynthesis and all of those kinds of pieces. So temperature in general is absolutely key and especially in areas where we're seeing more variability and inconsistencies of, you know, drought extremes and temperature extremes. So that can have a huge plot. And again, if you come back to this idea that we, we're trying to build biology, you know, to, to have maximum support for the crop that's bringing us profitability, then that can be a serious issue for sure.

Are a lot of growers, though, missing out a lot on something because they're letting their soil get scorched, you think?

I think so. I think especially, especially for, you know, if we go into a broad acre context. Right. Um, you know, where that's going to be more challenging, you know, and we need to start looking at ways to, to incentivize the use of COVID crops where that can start to manage that ambient surface temperature, direct seeding into them and. Exactly. I mean, you know, let's say it gave you a 30, 40% bump. I mean, for the ROI of an inoculant, which is, you know, generally speaking, one of the cheapest, you know, inputs, albeit biological, that a farmer can make. I mean, the math is just, it makes sense. So.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's such a small quantity. Yeah, it's compared to other things.

Exactly. A little goes a long way.

Yeah, we, when we're in the market gardens, there's a lot of tools that are actually there to avoid that, you know, because, yeah, we're Flipping soil.

Yeah.

Three, four, five times.

Keeping it covered so much canopies, you.

Know, just like these insect nets just covering the bed. Like bringing it to something really different from what you guys are talking about right now. But yeah, just like covering the bed with an inset net. White. Once you're flipping the bed.

Yeah.

The beds are open for one, two weeks. Just leave it covered. And that's something that we've been teaching a lot. Like, never leave it.

Yeah.

Especially as of June. From June here to September. Like, you can feel it. Yeah, you can feel it. That if you leave it for a few weeks kind of bare, it just doesn't have the same afterwards.

Yeah, yeah. And it makes total sense. Right. You know, and production context is. I'm glad you bring that in because the context of how you grow is, is. Is super important. Yeah, yeah. And in, in that, you know, consistent perpetual bed flipping, even if we're doing two steps forward, one step back, it's. That still makes sense because that's still moving long term, the soils to a healthier and healthier thing. And it's those little pieces that we can do.

Yeah.

What does it take extra time to do that?

The nets are there. Like, you just leave them. When we look at the pyramid, there's one thing when you go at the top of it.

Yep.

That's what we heard John say at the canopy retreat that we were having here. And he said that in a way that was kind of like, this is a hundred percent sure, sure bet. And I was like sitting there, I was like, whoa, that's kind of deep, deep stuff.

Yeah.

We can, we can resolve all the world's. All the plants problem.

It's bold statement, right?

It's pretty bold.

Yeah.

And he stuck with it. And I didn't challenge him.

Yeah.

That wasn't my game. But I was just kind of like, wow.

Some people were.

Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was blown away by that.

Yeah.

And do you, do you think that that's also the case? Do you believe that?

Yeah, I think, I think it's also, when it comes down to practical. Right. It's. It's also an aspirational journey as a. As opposed to this kind of like definitive. I'm going to always, in whatever context and whatever crops, I'm going. Going to reach that.

Mm.

And so I, you know, take me for example. Right. My love for orchards. I have an orchard in Virginia. It's about year five or year six. Last three years I've been doing my own experiment regarding how, how high I Can get my orchards up on the, on the plant health pyramid. In my area, I get a lot of pressure from Japanese beetle. Very destructive. Right. Very quickly. It's the whole tree. Right. So now I, I, with the protocols and insights, with SAP analysis. I've had three years running straight now. Well, two discounting the first year where I, I, I'm immune to Japanese beetles in three years. That's pretty, that's, that's not bad, is it?

No, no.

You know, so we talk about, I think, things that just seem always out of the realm of possibility or that sounds like a, a sales term or too bold or too, you know, controversial etc, but when it comes down to the practicality, if that's my direction, unless I want to prove him wrong, that's still a great motivation. Right. Because if I take these things, you know, prove us wrong. Go for it, move, see how far you can get down the line.

Yeah.

Because, you know, three years running, it's.

It'S like, and when I hear that I wasn't, I wasn't in the camp of, oh, that's certainly not true. It's, I've just like kind of opened my mind, like, whoa.

Yeah. Could that be possible?

Could that be possible? And what if that solves a lot of our problems in the gardens? You know, like, oh my God, like we spend a lot of time scouting for disease. We spend a lot of time mitigating disease.

Yeah.

Pests are big. And you know, it just kind of opened like we've spent in market gardening so much time figuring out because we were growing 40 to 60 different crops, there's all these different strategies at different moments, at different times, a lot of complexity. And I was like, whoa, imagine if we can simplify that and then have less of that work done afterwards.

And it just kind of, Yeah. I think, you know, when you, we interact with nature in a very specific way.

Right.

In the terms of the types of crops that we're going, the types of production that we do. But so a lot of farms can, farmers have seen this where they step back and they look at, you know, let's say their, their 30 acre field of broad acre crops and around the edges of their field they've got, you know, forest and other kind of species. There's not getting any kind of the pressure.

Yeah.

You know, that they're experiencing on their crop production. And so there's also this indicator for me when I, when I see that and think about that, I'm saying like, that's also an indicator of what's Possible because something is going on, and we lose sight of this because we're so tied to the inconsistency of performance year after year. And the struggles, the very real struggles that we face as growers, where we have all of these challenges to step back and see something that's not. It's right there on our property that's not experiencing the same kind of problems. You're either going to be frustrated and even more mad about the job. Or curious. Or curious. Yeah. And that's the change in mindset. Right. That I think being open to that and being curious to say, well, so what's going on there? How do I get what I'm doing to be somewhat similar or exactly the same as what's.

I think one of the key is canopy.

Yeah.

Having the soil somewhat protected.

Yeah.

They think, you know, forest systems, that's. That's what really protects them so much.

Yeah. You've got to look after all of everything understory in the soil. Yeah. Yeah.

I want to ask something. I. I'm sure there's a listener that's thinking this right now, and they have this confusion. And I've had it before, too. It starts with the idea that a lot of people, especially in the market garden organic world, say something along the lines of, if my. I want to eat kale with insect holes in it, because if the insects like it, then it must be healthy and good for me. However, according to John Kemp and a. Yay. There's this concept that if your plant is at its absolute healthiest, an insect won't even want it. And yet it's. I. I guess what I'm saying is some people might think, yeah, but I don't get it. If it's healthy for me, why would the insect not want it? And I think it might connect to a quote from William Albrecht.

Okay. Yeah.

You see where I'm going with this? That insects are nature's garbage collectors and diseases are her cleanup crew.

Yeah.

What do you think? Like, what do you tell that person that's having this confusion?

Yeah. Oh, man.

Is Albrecht the answer? Because he kind of. In my mind, he almost answers it there. That insects are. They're. They're not. They're not you. Like, they don't need the same thing that you need nutritionally.

Yeah.

And if you imagine that the universe, by all biology, kind of has a purpose and interplay with all of each other, perhaps they do have this role of. It's the garbage that they're eating. Not the best stuff. The best stuff is Yeah, I don't.

Know where I. Yeah, I like what you. Yeah, yeah, I get it.

Yeah. And I'll start with the solution. I think the solution actually, especially for farmers who don't want holes in the stuff they're growing. Right. Just to be able to sell it. Right. The solution is, is having the ability to sell something in the market that is proven to be nutrient dense. That's still ultimately what at the heart of our consumers are, the people that purchase what we grow want. Right. And because nutrient density also correlates to that plant immunity. Again. Right. There's, there's that win win scenario. What. Maybe I'll say my own controversial statement, which is in 2025, I don't think anybody should be wrestling with aphid pressure. It's that easy to solve. So, you know, so, so let's look at it from the Plant health pyramid. Right, so level number two here, protein synthesis essentially for all of the simple digestive insects that we would see in production, for the most part. What are they feeding on? They're feeding on nitrogen and ammonia that hasn't been converted into a protein, which happens in this process of protein synthesis.

Can I just pause? Are you basically about to answer why insects won't eat the truly healthy crop and why they don't even want to? And why it's different from our digestion? Okay, Exactly.

So when we have all of those, those simple sources of nitrogen, nitrate and ammonia right in the leaf. Hasn't been converted into a protein. Sorry, yeah. Hasn't been converted into a protein that's essentially, in layman's terms, a food source for those insects. So if we expedite in the 24 hour cycle that conversion rapidly into a complex protein, we've simply taken what was a food source and made it not a food source anymore. And if you really wanted to have fun, you can do this. We've done this before. You can apply all of those nutrients that are responsible for increasing protein synthesis. When you have aphids, spider mite pressure, whatever. Exactly. Anything with that simple digestive system system while they're eating on your crop. And we've seen it time and time again, 24 hour late, 24 hours later, they're dead below your crop and they all died of indigestion.

Whoa.

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Taking something that can be converted that rapidly from a non. From a food source to a non food source. So that's one of the reasons why, I'm saying why should we be struggling with this kind of pressure now maybe economically for the crop or the life cycle, the days to maturity of that crop. Netting is, it makes the most sense. What do you think, Jay?

No, I don't think so. No, I think netting is because we just.

It's easier.

It's like, it's easier and it doesn't always work too.

That's a good point.

That's the thing, right? Aphids especially.

Yeah. It's not a hundred percent blocking a way in.

You know, there's bigger insects that would, you know, obviously can't penetrate, but aphids. But what I'm, what I'm listening, what I'm hearing now is like you have aphids and then what's the reason why they're eating the spinach plant is because the spinach is not, it has. Because I'm not, you know, I'm not good with all these chemical words, right. These, these chemistry.

Okay.

These biology words. And so the plant has extra. Of something that's not converting. And so these are coming in to eat that. Correct. And then you, if you balance that in the plant, they have nothing to eat and they, they just kind of fold away.

Yeah.

Or they wouldn't come in the first place.

Yeah, so. So one of. Yeah. On the other flip side, right. So there's also signatures in the infrared spectrum. So like nitrate, ammonia can give off a signature that is visually what the insects see. So if you remember the old 50s diners, American diners that had the neon flash light says come down here, right. That's essentially what is happening in the, in the world of the insects, quote, unquote, vision, right. From the infrared spectrum. So when again, when you change those signatures to be converted, those nitrate ammoniums to into proteins. Right. You've. You've essentially also turned the light switch off.

You're turning on the no vacancy side.

Exactly. And depending on whether you like your neighbors a lot, you know, you can move along. Nothing to see here, you know, go, go visit somebody's crop who, who they can see, you know, so.

Wow, that's fascinating.

So we see that, you know, now and then in really spectacular ways. Right. Farms, for example, going back to berries in the Pacific Northwest where spotted wing dressilla is an issue, where at one farm, using the protocol, all of his other neighbors are growing the same crop, have the same challenges. Everybody, the neighbors, crops get decimated, but they can't see this guy's crop. What. Just keep going.

What have you done at your orchard? I imagine you have the typical things like plum curcudio and whatnot that are challenges. I don't know but obviously Japanese beetle. But what have you done in particular?

Yeah, some applications that you've made like or strategies.

My biggest challenge actually with plums was hail damage, you know, that, that, that set that back quite significantly a couple of years ago.

Do you have a product for that?

There's definitely things you can do to help expedite the restoration of cells and recovery and stuff. And we've even seen that on, on vegetable crops. Stuff that's been. You look firsthand, it looks like my crops toast. And we've seen crops come back with foliars after hail damage.

There's also ways to delay the harvest, isn't there?

Yep.

And is. Could that actually if, you know. Well, I guess by the time, you know hell's coming, perhaps it's too late. But I was just imagining what if you could make the fruit less ripe so it's a bit less vulnerable perhaps to the bruising or. I don't know. Is there anything.

Well, so bruising. I would tackle more on the, on the, on the strength of the cell wall.

Wall.

Yeah.

Okay. So you know, calcium, copper, zinc, these kinds of pieces here that could strengthen the cell wall and really be. I would say even more than that. A lot of the mistakes is happening is over nitrogen use, which creates thin, weak cells. So again, another realization to get nitrogen. Right. And maybe for this audience too. I think when we talk about the wrong use of nitrogen, we just think immediately, oh, synthetics and a lot of something or high, high nitrogen levels. You can get nitrogen management wrong when you're doing next to no inputs because you don't have an understanding even of what's going on regarding the oxidized state of your soil where a lot of the nitrogen sitting in the soil is in the nitrate form. So as soon as you put a seed in the ground, there's already a high nitrate environment for that see seed. So nitrogen efficiency and nitrogen management also isn't just about the kinds of inputs that you're moving. It's understanding what's going on and what kinds of ways the crops are utilizing the nitrogen that you have available.

And that's what, that's where the SAP analysis, the plant is telling you what's going on.

Yeah. You got a test, can't guess. And trying to figure this out for growers to make sure it can be economically viable to give them the information. And this comes back to my desire to see the model change where we as agronomists or selling products that, you know, I believe have their place and are necessary. Otherwise I wouldn't be a part of a company did that where the model means I actually want to give you, if you want to know the education to understand why together we're going to make this application. This isn't like, you know, trust blindly, trust the fertilizer guy. It's like, let me give you power as a farmer to make your own decisions to the point where along the way you may not need our agronomy anymore. That's a win. There's plenty of work to do for us. Like, you know, like there's a lot of things to fix and if you've got it figured out for your farm and you're doing all of these great things, great. And we're here to celebrate you. That's. That's my vision.

Yeah.

What do you think the level of kind of knowledge and learning that comes with like a grower becoming familiar with all these terms and with this understanding of how this works and functions and perhaps with the help of. Of aea. But is there. It's probably a lot of. Of learning and it goes in through that.

Yeah. And I think it can sound daunting, especially when we start excited. Yeah.

Or excited.

Yeah, we're very excited. Again, depending on open and curious, whether, you know, suspicious or cynical and all of the gray area in. Yeah, it can be. But I think, you know, one of the reasons why we have really smart people figuring out all of the mechanics down to the minutiae detail means hopefully that if we're going to present solutions, have them do all the hard work and give you a distilled down version that actually can work practically where you don't have to be a microscope expert or you have a PhD in physiology and immunity to even begin to start to do things.

Yeah.

And I think that's why I like using this toolbox analogy of like, learn some of these tools, learn why we're here as resources. You know, this is part of why we, we love canopy. Right. And the work that you're doing with the market. Gardner Institute. Because it's all about that educational empowerment.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I don't think it's as complicated as perhaps it seems.

Can you walk us down two paths? Basically it's the paths of how someone could work with you with aea. I want to go one is kind of the more really small marker gardener, also a bit on the more romantic side, maybe has interest in creating their own fertility. They're not as interested, let's say, in going all in on products and whatnot, but you can still help them. Sure. So there's that person and then also super serious market gardener ready to dive in all the way. Do anything that you have to recommend, kind of. How do you navigate those two paths? Would you say? What would it look like for that grower to work with you?

Yeah, for us, it's a. For as a company. Right. I would say we've got to figure out how to align to what's important for you. Right. Context is king, obviously. We all know that. But also, you know, even with SAP analysis, let's say we have so many different ways to utilize that. Whether that's. We want to better understand what's going on physiologically with one specific crop or a couple of crops, or whether we're trying to understand why certain blocks on my farm perform less well than other areas, or whether I want to take my best performing blocks and then, you know, put it, push it into that genetic potential unknown, that utopia where, you know, I'm 5xing my production, you know, so there's all these different ways. So I think it depends, you know, let's agree on what you want and what you see as most valuable. Then we can either say, hey look, this sounds like, you know, putting some general recommendations together, focusing some fertility in these particular areas can make a lot of sense. And that can be a relatively low economic lift, you know, for everybody involved. And, and we can find ways from our time management perspective to make sure that's a resource available. On the other hand, for those that wanting to jump right in. Yeah, we can do, like I said at the beginning, agronomy with Products. A lot of times, you know, when it makes economic sense for the farm, we, we would do the consultancy and offset a lot of that agronomy cost with products. It saves us time to use our own products because we know dialed in application rate based on the SAP analysis that we see, etc. And then the third option is if, if you're listening and you're standing, you know, back with your arms folded with a level of cynicism, I would just say do SAP analysis for a year without talking to us. Come back at the beginning, the beginning of the next season and give us all of this data and say, what do you make of all of this? Yeah, right. And let's have a conversation and again come back. As long as we're aligning on our values and our goals and providing value, then there's a conversation to be had.

Yeah, for sure. And then there's a proof in the pudding which is. Yeah, the SAP analysis.

Yeah.

Like, you know, it might be a good time to share this with, with the audience is that we are, you know, we're going to do a collaboration between Advancing Eco Agriculture and the Market Gardener Institute to figure out what's the best practice for small scale market gardeners.

Yeah.

That are growing all these different crops, short cycle crops, repeating them.

Yeah.

Frigging figuring out what would be like perhaps. Exactly that.

Yeah. Yeah, basically.

And then the fact that, you know, you guys, if there's 500 one acre farms that calls you tomorrow, it's going to be a lot to manage also.

Yes.

You know, it's, yeah, that's always the problem with our, with our group is that we're, it's, it's our advantage. We're there, we're versatile, we're out there, but you know, we're not, we're not big.

Yeah.

And so we've been having these conversations together and then we just, I think we've signed the agreement.

That's right. Yeah, we're super excited. Yeah, no, super pumped that we're kicking this off and. Yeah, absolutely. Right, right. The, the, the resources that you've put into making these small farms work, you know, the knowledge that you guys have on what we can bring to the table, I think always. Right. If you can do it through partnerships and collaborations where you can find people that have the same DNA value system and collaborate and complement each other, that's where we get traction. We said this before, there's so much work to be done.

It's incredible.

You know, I mean, and yeah, like we would have a Hard time if all of those growers, you know, called us at the same time. So. So that. Yeah. Going into that partnership, figuring out how we can create very customized solutions for a wide range of those within the MGI network and going through the canopy.

Training courses, we have a lot of growers in our network that are going to be really stoked to participate. And what we're doing is opening trials and trying to figure out, troubleshooting some.

Yeah.

You know, some of the most pest problems, aphid probably being one of them. And then trying to map out what are the most current problems for most growers at that same time. Trying to find patterns.

Yeah.

Where there could be some, some interventions being done at that time. Just trying to. A bit like scouting, like.

Yeah.

This is the general problem around that time, you know, according to all these growers and the research that we're doing with you guys, this is what you could be doing.

Yeah.

And so I'm really excited about this partnership.

Yeah.

This is something that has been. Has renewed my interest in soil ecology. Not that it has fade away, but I was kind of turned off. But that no till movement, it got me so turned off about because everyone was talking about soil ecology just in terms of not tilling. And I was like, oh man, that's simplifying.

Yeah.

And be really being dogmatic and yeah. Not being really providing any insights in my opinion for me at least.

Yeah.

But when I, when I listened to John first time and then I started to research and dig into what you guys were doing is like, okay, yeah, this is the next level, this is the next frontier.

Yeah.

I really believe that.

Yeah. We're super excited. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It is exciting.

Yeah.

How did you get into farming?

Oh man, the, the abridged story. For the sake of time. The restaurant will open any minute.

I like this. I have a long story too. I'm sure many people do, so give it, tell it away.

So I had a background, let's say dabbling in holistic orchard management. And actually one of the key people that influenced me there at the time was the late Michael Phillips.

And we were speaking about him a lot of people.

He had a significant impact. I've been at his orchard and all of that kind of stuff. The long story short for me, like a lot of farmers, they couldn't figure out how to make that work profitability wise and job wise to be full time for income. And I had a growing family, got three boys now 14, 12 and 10 at a time. It just couldn't make it work. One of the things that happened, I went into to pay the bills, I went into SAS technology. My bills got pretty serious when our eldest son contracted what is called jia, which is an unknown origin. Juvenile arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis. The leading expert said it's most likely environmentally caused. So when my son, around the age of four, as a consequence of this, this arthritis, lost his ability to walk, we got really, really serious about controlling what we could, including the way we were, the access to food and the way food was grown and taking that back into control. So, you know, coming back into, considering the world of ag I was in, this tech job was able to pay off a lot of the significant hospital bills that my son was getting. But, you know, all of a sudden Michael's talking about AEA products and start. He'd started to work with AEA as well for the agronomy consultancy, etc. And so I started to find out about who this John Kemp guy is and what our AEA up to, who started buying some of their products. And then one day I saw a job opening that was unrelated to agronomy. But I was like, I'd love to be an agronomist on the team there. I'm just going to go for the job and get my foot in the door in the company and then maybe I can make a lateral move. And so fast forward, that's exactly essentially what happened. I didn't get the job after a long interview process that I wanted, but they actually offered me an agronomy job. And so that's where I started within the company. And a linchpin to all of that was this idea of where my son's health was at and what contributes to his autoimmune condition negatively and then positively. And then the more I learned about how we were doing things within AEA and the solutions we were providing, I wanted to take that to, yes, my farm and our, our, you know, vegetable garden, our orchard and all of this kind of thing. And then you go, well, how can I share? How can I not share this stuff? It's like somewhat like having the cure to cancer is like, who are you to keep it to yourself?

It really feels like magic.

Yeah.

It's like we're just some of the things that John has explained. I'm like, that sounds like magic. Like what did the result? Yeah, so I agree.

Yeah.

How could you not want to?

Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong, farming can be really complicated as the root causes of issues can be, you know, several factors, not just one. Thing that you're addressing. Right. So it's, it's. I don't want to give the picture that it's not hard work, but it's hard work that can also be fun with what we do. We do have fun creating these kinds of solutions. Right? Yeah. So the, the interesting thing with Michael was just before he passed, I ended up being his consultant. So I started to consult on his orchard as well. And yeah, it was. I was literally waiting on a response from him by email when I realized that, you know, something else was going on when he wasn't responding and found out he'd passed away in his.

Yeah, that was big news when that happened.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was what I loved about him as well. He was such a bridge for the permaculture community that would be very much into that. No inputs, we want to do things naturally and maybe even SAP analysis. Sounded like you were starting to align with the man. It's like something great like that. But he was a great bridge for those as well as bringing in a really user friendly way. The work we were doing together at AEA to improve his orchard, you know, and presenting that back to the wider community. So that was really great.

How long ago was that, that, that transition in your person, personal and professional life happened?

So my son. So yeah, he like four. So 10 years ago is when he got really sick. He had about six years of remission and then we find he finally started to get some breakthroughs. And I've been at AEA four years now, just coming up. So yeah, it's been a wild and wacky ride, but you know, he's doing better and my orchard's doing great. I'm proud of that. So now to work on the vegetable garden.

Come on.

I can't. I must say that before we were, we were outside chatting before we went on air and we were talking about each of our orchards and I just in passing nonchalantly mentioned Michael Phillips. Like, oh yeah, I followed the Michael Phillips book. Just like a lot of people. I thought that he might just say like, oh yeah, I've heard of that guy. And instead it's a huge part of your story.

Yeah, revolves.

Wow. I did not realize that when I brought that up, but that's fascinating.

Mr. Guy, for sure. He was, he's the car. He was a character for sure too as well. And yeah, I was finally figuring out how to do cider. He used to get quite cantankerous about why people weren't buying his apples and was like, dude, you live in the middle of nowhere. You know, it's a schlep and you can't send your apples in the mail. Let's try cider. He started building his, his cider press there.

And did you have any connection to agriculture when you were much younger or was there interest there?

No, I, originally from the uk I would say, you know what, we grew up around, you know, the world of allotments post World War II, where you had a lot of households in a large part of the country, were somewhat connected to the ground. Right. And producing your own and. Yeah, you know, I definitely like a lot of people. Even today, right ago I remember when a strawberry actually tasted like a strawberry strawberry and you know, or whatever, a cucumber tasted different back then. You know, obviously taste is such an indicator of nutrient density as, you know, for us as well. So there's, there's that long standing piece and then, you know, getting into holistic orchard management was the, the big, the big jump for me.

Do you see that word nutrient density becoming more and more of a. Do you think that has, it has marketing power?

Yeah.

Forward.

If we can substantiate it. Right. I, I think.

Weren't you guys working on something to kind of bridge those two? Yeah, because, because how, you know, how do you say that this is more nutrient dense than, than that and. Yeah, you certify that. And is that something that's still in the, in the cards?

Yeah, I mean obviously Dan's carriage has been doing a lot of work there and it's an incredibly complicated process to map out all those pieces and, and frankly, way above my pay grade.

Yeah.

But we. Perhaps more relevant is while we've had some of the best fruit scores in the states as a consequence of our work, so all fruit gets graded for quality, size, etc. And stuff. We've taken some of the orchards there from you know, general low scoring to some top two, top three, top four.

Even examples one, you, I think you mentioned the citrus one.

Yeah. And then the citrus is newer. So our good friend Herb Young, who comes back from the conventional world and research trialing world purchased not that long ago, I think four or five years ago a small. Or set up a small citrus grove in Georgia and with his clinical trialing mind started to figure out how regenerative farming could prove out, you know, different things, especially citrus industry globally now is getting really stuck with a problem called citrus screening, which is a whole nother conversation but essentially causes complete death of the tree over time. And oranges and citrus don't get past that green stage. So he was really vested, being so close to Florida in additional research to figure that out. And he started to see really great results in his research. We started also working with him utilizing SAP analysis and, and providing a products for him to really move the needle further forward. And just recently he had his last year's crop is citrus tested next to a conventional store bought citrus. Sent them off to a lab, very expensive testing. They tested the whole, whole profile. His, his came back and just even blew his mind. John recently interviewed him, but his nutrient levels are like way off the charts. You've got times 4, times 8, times 3, 30 levels of different nutrients. And so I think to your point, the future is if. How can we connect the consumer to that kind of information?

Yeah.

Because even we were, we were talking about this. Yeah, we've all seen some pretty gnarly looking organic produce that doesn't look particularly great. And we've seen some really great looking conventional produce. So then the question becomes, okay, everybody in the organic movement, we don't want toxins over our food, but how can we take it to the next level and get nutrient density and have the security or the assurance that what I'm perhaps paying even premium for, you know, can be, can be substantiated because you know, we can then start having that conversation around as food, as medicine, right?

Oh yeah, that would be the building block because it would bring the, it would kind of like open, open the curtain. Yeah. See what's going on.

Yeah, yeah.

Which as of now.

Yeah, exactly.

It's marketing.

Yeah.

And I think it's like, it's marketing. It's, it's. Yeah.

Yes.

You know, the quality for sure. But it's mostly.

Yeah.

The marketing and the labels and intuition is not enough for some because for a lot of us, we intuitively just pretty much believe it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, but for a lot of others they're like, nope, I need, I need proof.

Yeah. And obviously a lot of this can be, you know, we can all go back to our taste buds and our sense of smell from the aromatics, etc. Though there are good things, you know, kids sometimes that haven't been programmed to believe X over Y. Right. Are also great indicators to say, hey, this, this is, this is good for me.

The guys in the kitchen.

Yeah.

Unbelievable.

I believe it.

Yeah. They have this palette where they come and they taste in the garden. I show them different things. They are, they have something that is very unique and different.

Yeah.

And I would say that.

But get your molybdenum here.

It's like.

Because it's connected to flavor.

Yeah, yeah.

Nutrients density is connected to flavor. Yeah.

So exactly.

Strongly connect to that.

Yeah. It's like, I think I said this when we met in Germany, you know, there's no such thing as cheap fertilizer anymore because of the downstream costs. Right. We'll be paying for it in pesticides and fungicides, and there's no such thing as cheap food anymore.

But that was the racket.

Yeah, that was the racket.

That was the racket. Exactly how they were making tons of money and still today.

Yeah. And there's no such thing as cheap food. Right. What we pay in the grocery stores, that's not good for us, we end up paying for in medical bills. And so we've got to move to this conversation around nutrient density. And we've got to be able to reward the market and the growers producing for that. And if we can all band together from the sciences point of view to support this, this should be just normal. Yeah, right. Eventually this should just be what market prices are. There is no premium because everybody's doing it. Right. And it's just well rewarded farmers doing what they're doing. But it should be normal. There should be no other piece to compare to.

And could you imagine that?

Yeah. Like, this is. Yeah, this is. This is. This is the future we need to imagine.

Yeah.

There's going to be hurdles, but. Yeah, there's a lot of. There's a lot of us working on these issues.

Yeah. Better together.

Better together.

That's for sure.

Yeah.

What's your. Your slogan about better together and alone?

You can go fast, together, we can go far.

Yeah.

That's actually the slogan that we have at the Canopy retreat program. It's like we're building a community of a network of international people that are tight.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's a big deal.

You're part of it.

Yeah, that's right.

I have one more thing I want to touch on before Rapid Fire.

Does he know about Rapid Fire?

I know nothing.

You'll figure it out. It's just, it's. It's our segment how we close out the show. But I want to talk a bit about your traveling because you've traveled a lot in your work and therefore you've seen a lot of things that perhaps a lot of people. Again, let's. I'm really thinking about the market, Gardner, in my head, just because that's so many people listening that come from this world.

What's.

What's something you've seen. That's j. What do you see that everywhere you go you see the same thing and then the opposite. What are some things that you're like, whoa, this is super different. And was surprised me but I guess I'm trying to like, what are the things that unify all of us around the world? It doesn't matter if you go to India or here, you see a similar issue or a similar challenge or a similar thing that brings people together. Just. Yeah, I just want to hear some wisdom you've gained from these travels.

The one biggest common denominator that I think is true for me so far globally is is most people think that the products that they're using, the inputs that they're using work more than they actually do.

Interesting.

Yeah. So we did, I've seen this more. We did this recently in Mexico and I mentioned this a while ago, I think even on our podcast with with John is we did four SAP tests with one of the large tomato producers in Mexico for the US market. And after four SAP tests I went to the CEO of the company and said, so the good news is we've discovered the problem. The bad news is that none of your micronutrients are working at all. And in this kind of production, for people that maybe are less familiar with, you know, almost 365 greenhouse production is most of the nutrition, some of it's in soil, some of it's in substrate is being triggered by EC meter. So it basically pulses the fertility based on the EC and a number of other pieces there. And so there's, there's a lot of fertility going in every single day, sitting in a tank, you know, ready to go into these, into these crops. And so when you're pushing certain nutrients every day for the most part of the year, because you have almost all year round production and you think it's doing something and it turns out it's not, that's a big deal. So after that we were able, we hadn't even started with our products and we saved them 30% in their, their, their budget just for making those changes.

Yeah, primarily because the product they were using was not good or because of something else they're doing was not making it available.

Yeah. So some of the products weren't working at all. So they had to revisit that. And then that also impacted also other application rates as well and types of products being used. The speaking of the types of products globally, we're using the wrong forms of products again, mostly because it's cheap. You know, there's cal nitrate, ammonium nitrate, you know, potassium chloride instead of sulfate and stuff. And there's a place for some of those judiciously. But generally, if they're like 90% of your. Your production input, like you're getting a downstream negative more than you realize.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like everyone drinking a Red Bull.

Yeah. Yes.

Like, yeah, keep drinking it, buddy. But, yeah, it's actually not getting you where you want to go.

That's right. Check in with your heart at the end of the year.

And what have you seen that surprised you the most in any travel? I guess, you know, regarding agriculture?

And there's a. There's. It's the unsung hero thing. There's more people out there doing amazing stuff. They've never been on a podcast. Nobody knows they're not a US Celebrity. Yeah, exactly. And they've just been grinding it, and they've been doing amazing stuff even for, you know, over a decade. And that's important. And we want. We need to do a better job of, you know, just celebrating, you know, the fact that you. There's amazing people out there just doing it that haven't got the recognition or the. The exposure. Yeah. That some of us have had the privilege to get. So.

Yeah, that's an interesting point. For a lot of people, if they're stuck on that phone world, they might get it in their head that what they don't see doesn't exist.

Yeah. Yeah.

There's a lot out there, isn't there?

Yeah, there really is. Yeah.

I had. I had 15 good years under my belt before I started.

Yeah. Right.

And, you know, seven of those were on a pretty big farm, training people and doing stuff.

And.

Yeah. I think that the wisdom of farming teaches you a lot of things and you definitely need to pass it on. But, yeah, social media might not be for everyone. Yeah, it should be right for everyone.

Yeah. Yeah.

Rapid fire.

Rapid fire.

I'm gonna give you our first question, but I'm gonna give a two different versions of it. You can choose how you want to answer. So what's a book you've either read multiple times or just one that you think about, that you've thought about a lot recently that keeps coming to you. Something, I don't know, maybe a new book you've read in recent years that's always resurfacing? Or just any book you wanna.

Specifically within ag? Huh?

No necessarily.

Have to be.

No, now we're talking about you.

Wow.

Okay. What have I been rereading a lot or very impactful I mean I'm a spiritual guy, so I have a lot of kind of spiritual type, metaphysical type books in my, in my collection as well. I think that's really important.

Can you name one?

The one that's really interesting for me at the moment is called Borderlines by a guy called Daniel Boyerin and he's a Talmudic scholar that re examines the second Temple period and says basically, oh, looks like Christianity and Judaism wasn't that dissimilar in that period of time. You know, even the ideas of multiple expressions of the same one God and stuff like that. So that was pretty interesting. He just goes into this thing about how we create these cultures of heresy that sort of divide us when actually.

It'S theological history book.

Yes. Yeah, in a nutshell. So that, you know, that's, that's a really interesting one for me, especially coming back from Israel after not being there for 20 years.

And you spent time in Israel?

Yeah, lived in the Middle east for about 10 years. About a large chunk of that was in Israel.

So yeah, very interesting.

Yeah. So yeah, that, that's been a big part of nice non scientific plant books and agricultural books. And my wife always says you actually though you still need to read more fiction.

Is there an agricultural book that comes to mind too?

Oh yeah. I mean anything by Don Huber. There's some, you know, staples in ours. Plant nutrition and disease, micronutrients and plant disease. That's kind of like a staple for all our agronomy team to read.

Are these acre books or not?

You probably can get them at Acres.

Yeah, but I know Acres has a collection of books. Yeah, but yeah, it's not that specifically.

No, yeah, yeah, I never heard about that. Yeah, Arden Anderson is. And Gary Zimmer. They're really good. Go to books that kind of tie in the world of biology and chemistry. I mean that was a big part of, you know, John's founding of agriculture. AEA was like, turns out this disciplines, specialists don't do a good job of always speaking to other people outside of that. It's kind of like the echo chamber thing we talked about. And so when you get a geologist to be able to impart their knowledge and for the chemist and the biologist to hear, I mean those are the three underpinnings of agriculture right there. Right. Soil geology, chemistry and biology. So yeah, getting, getting a perspective of how all those three work together, that's kind of made up most of my agricultural books.

Yeah. What's advice you heard when you were really young, could be a teenager, childhood early twenties that you only appreciated much, much later in life you didn't appreciate it first.

I don't know so much advice as, as a sort of a practical example my parents gave me by trying to take us different places to experience different cultures and worldviews. Right.

It worked.

It worked. Yeah. Turns out you're right.

But at the time you didn't.

Oh no. I mean like so my, my dad and his, that before they both used to work for British Airways, the airlines and so we would always get these last minute work deals. He could, you know, we could go to Vienna for the day. And all I remember at the time was like I got up at stupid o' clock in the morning as a kid and the day was spent where my, my arm was practically out of its socket at the shoulder because mom was dragging us around to see all of these different things. Experience that, you know, it's, it's like even like old ruins and castles and stuff, but like now. Super appreciated they did that. And maybe somewhat apologetic for being a bit of a brat about the time now and the hard time I gave my parents, probably. But yeah, well, I mean, yeah, that worldview and because that, that all led to traveling by myself and, and seeing different places and now traveling for, for what I do.

Yeah, I know it. I know what you mean. All the places I visited as a child, I wish I could visit them again now.

Yeah.

Just because then I really didn't.

Yeah.

Appreciate. Appreciate it right the way I can now. It's like what. You were there, man, you missed it. Your little child brain. Okay, what advice do you give often to people about anything? That's very broad.

Yeah. What advice do I give people? Figure out what your top three goals are. And your top three challenges are as simple as it sounds. So many in the context of farming, so many people haven't identified for themselves what they are. They haven't posed that question to themselves.

Can you share an example of one of those for yourself in your orchard?

Yeah.

Not all, not all three, but maybe one on each side.

So one of my top limiting factors was availability of calcium, availability of iron and manganese for sure. Even though it should be theoretically all there in the soil. And then the, the one of the top goals was getting that plant health pyramid because of those pesky Japanese beetles that kept reminding me every year, like what. How badly it can suck trying to do things naturally.

So were they a problem at.

They're never a problem because they eat, they eat the leaves of the vines. We don't grow grapes yeah, yeah, we do.

Yeah.

This is grape region here.

Yeah.

And on certain flower. I know Chloe and Flora Mama definitely battled them a bit.

Yeah.

Because they were going for.

We lure them with these baits, these pheromone baits.

Yeah.

And I never really. Do I put the bait in the garden or in the neighbor's garden. I'm never quite sure.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And do I feed them to the chickens?

Yeah, yeah.

You get a lot of them.

Yeah.

What are people not talking about enough.

Being who's out there rewarding people for growing concerns Way certain ways, whether it's supply chain brands that are willing to pay more or whether it's investment opportunities, grants that are potentially available for farmers wanting to do things the right way. That's a huge conversation. Farms just don't even know that there's resources and potential funding out there for what they want to do, even in this current climate, you know. Yeah.

Or that the J curve doesn't have to be a thing.

The J curve doesn't have to be a thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What's a nature experience that sticks out in your memory from your lifetime?

Oh, man, so many. And water trails in Israel in my, you know, 20 years ago through Engetti where, you know, King David hid from Seoul, that kind of stuff there. To time spent in Ethiopia where, you know, I've seen some of the richest kids who had nothing being so content kicking around can of empty cans and playing with trash could be more content than a kid who was never happy with Xbox games, you know.

That's so incredible.

Yeah, yeah. And. And I say that because that's part of the nature. We're not separate from. From nature. We exist on the same planet and that interact in so many different ways.

So have you seen coffee growing there?

Yeah. Yeah. Have the real deal ceremony where it's thick black mud which for every coffee connoisseur doesn't always go down well. They tend to. You know, the boutique coffee bars want to, you know, finesse it and have all of these different nuances of flavors which is. Which has its place. But you know, the Ethiopians are just like, yeah, give it to me. Heavy, dark.

Yeah, it's like. Or a Turkish coffee.

Right. Is exactly heavy coffee.

What's a. A great difficult decision you've made? Like a decision that was really hard to make, but it turned out for the better in the end and put you on design better and can answer that however you want.

Yeah. I think. I think sticking to our guns to. To be flexible with the way we try to solve Ash or oldest son's health and how we were going to come alongside that and persevere on the nutrition side.

That must have been difficult.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a leap of faith.

Yeah.

And there, I mean, even now. Right. Some of the medicinal options have pretty significant downstream effects. You know, where for to get him, you know, arthritis free right now might mean later on more serious disease, a cancer or sterility or, you know. Yeah.

Yeah.

And so, you know, trying to. Trying to use the best of both worlds without ruling stuff out. We could have gone die hard all natural and never seen it got out of control and then, you know, risk permanent joint damage. So we've tried to figure out how to use the nasty stuff as quickly and as efficiently as possible and get him onto all of the other things that are going to give him continued managed health like nutrition and high doses of vitamin D is what we're doing right now as well. So. And it's just giving yourself to be. Giving yourself a level of forgiveness for getting it wrong or potentially getting it wrong, but recognizing you're trying to do it from your father heart, your mother heart of wanting the best for your kids. Yeah.

Yeah.

What's something that you're really obsessed with at the moment? Something that really. But something maybe a little bit different. Something that's not necessarily what we've talked about today.

Yeah. Something else obsessed with. Oh, man. My own personal health. Traveling so much.

Oh my God.

As front as said. Right. It's a thing.

We can talk about dinner tonight.

Yeah. If only every airport had the restaurant that was here. Yeah.

Fasting is the only way to do it.

It really is. Yeah.

And it's hard because we have nothing else to do than eat.

Yeah. Yeah. Trying to. Trying to stay in ketosis and intermittent fasting or just avoiding waiting, enduring, going hungry until you get home and you can, you know, control what goes in. Into your body again. Yeah, yeah.

And final one, it's a bit similar, but is there just something either a hobby or just a passion of yours, an interest that a lot of people maybe don't know or might even surprise them or it's just different saying we haven't spoken about.

Yeah. I had a brief spell in my. In my early 20s as a musician and.

Okay. I'm a musician too. Similar back then I played now too much.

So. Yeah. My first band out of college was with a girl called Mila Jovovich who's now a famous actress and. What? Yeah. Resident evil. Right. Yeah, yeah.

And she had a music career for.

A little bit, huh?

Was she in Fifth Element, too?

Yeah, Fifth Element, that's right.

Yeah.

Wow.

You really.

That's a story.

Fame to fame.

That's your fun fact.

Do you still remember me, Mila?

Fun fact, if you're listening.

Okay, so, yeah, there's a few guitars in my. In my basement. And yeah, that's. That's a passion of mine. Still like, nice writing and, you know, even if it's not, if it's for the audience of one. Yeah, that's a big part of who I am, too. So. Yeah.

Excellent.

Yeah. Well, that's great. Well, that's going to wrap our conversation. Thank you, kids for being here. Thank you, Chris. This week was fun.

Yeah.

Reconnect. And it's a great conversation we've had. I hope you guys are doing well. I hope you guys are liking the podcast. Send us your comment. We read them, we acknowledge them. If you think this podcast has value, please share it with your other farmer friends or with your community. These conversations are important. We want to keep having more and more of these. And if there's anything else.

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