Podcast Short #11: Building Resilient Farms with Gabe Brown

Hi friends. Welcome to the Regenerative Agriculture podcast. It is my delight to be here today with Gabe Brown. And Gabe has been having conversations with several leaders and pioneers in the regenerative agriculture space. I was hoping to have him on to have a conversation. When we look back through history, there are many moments when there were new innovations in agriculture that held a lot of promise. I'm thinking of biodynamics. I'm thinking of organic certification. You know, biodynamics is, as I understand it has a pretty significant role in parts of Australia where there's large parts of Australia that use biodynamic agriculture. And yet in the U.S. it's right on the edge of non existent. And I think that situation has evolved because the practitioners in this space have become very dogmatic and there's been a lot of internal conflict and you're right and I'm wrong and a lot of internal divisiveness and we stand on the threshold if we're not cautious of having something similar happen in the regenerative agriculture space. So, Gabe, thanks for being here. I'd love to get your thoughts on what you see emerging, the patterns that you see emerging, and how growers and farmers are interacting with each other in this space.

Thank you, John. It's great to be with you. Always enjoy coming on and having a conversation with you. Yes, I think you're absolutely right. I think we're kind of at a. I look at as an opportunity right now. We have an opportunity right now to come together and find common ground for common good. So often in agriculture we see one fraction of the industry kind of pitted against another. And I think we need to come together and realize that there's a real opportunity right now. And I think that opportunity lies around education. Farmers, ranchers, industry, government does not know what they don't know. And you mentioned biodynamics and how it is practiced to a greater extent in Australia. And having been to Australia a number of times, I've seen that. And why isn't it practiced over here? Well, it's not that it won't work over here, of course it will because the principles are the same. It's a lack of knowledge and understanding. And I often tell people, you know, I have a couple college degrees. Not that they mattered much. My son has three of them. Not that they mattered much. But never, ever once in any of the course coursework did they teach us how ecosystems function. How is the soil aggregate form? How does mycorrhizal fungi move nutrients from within that soil profile to the plant and interact with that plant to receive carbon compounds from it. It's knowledge based. So we need to understand rather than working against each other. Let's educate each other and come together for the betterment of all. And I think we're at that point where we really need to listen more. You know, one of the things, one of my favorite sayings is the more I know, the more I know I don't know. And every day that's what excites me about regenerative agriculture and agriculture in general is I'm learning every day. And I tell people Gabe Brown is not very smart. I've just been blessed to meet a lot of very smart people and I'm able to glean from them. And I think we're at that crossroads right now where we can really come together as an industry, learn from each other and move forward together.

You know, the comments that you made. I have a couple of questions that came up. I want to dig more into the education topic, but before I go there, we started this conversation around divisiveness. What would you say is the source of divisiveness or why is that so easily propagated? Where is this coming from?

And the source, quite frankly, gets back to what I said, lack of understanding. We as a human being, we tend to, well, I'm doing it right, you know, in my way is the best way. And we don't look at the bigger picture and look at there are other ways. And that's why you'd mentioned biodynamics. That may seem off the wall, quote unquote to some people, but when you really look at the principles of it, it's principles of nature and how ecosystems function. We're just so not used to that that we'd rather tighten up the sphincter and cringe rather than open up and listen and learn. So I think that's the main reason is that people just aren't willing to open up, listen and consider because it's something they haven't been exposed to before.

When you think back into history, there was a moment in time, and I'm not sure of the exact time period, but let's say somewhere in the 50s or 60s. Louis Bromfield was a very prominent spokesperson for conservation, agriculture, and depending on election outcomes, for one presidential election, he was slated to be Secretary of Agriculture. And you think back to history, like if there would have been alignment, if things had gone well in that moment in time, there could have been a movement for conservation, agriculture, where it would have become the mainstream Back in that time period, let's call it the 50s. And that didn't happen. And what happened instead is because of divisiveness, because of a lack of alignment. Just not becoming Secretary of Ag for Louis Bromfield shouldn't have been enough alone to prevent the adoption of conservation agriculture on scale. And it wasn't. But instead what happened was there this internal divisiveness and the impetus for conservation agriculture imploded and it took decades to recover and, and begin getting traction again. And I think there's the challenge or the opportunity for that to happen again here in the regenerative agriculture space, which the principles align in many ways with what they were advocating 70 years ago. But I think you mentioned the key phrase. You said that it's a lack of education, but then you went on to say it is this perspective of I'm right and you're wrong. And I think it's, it is partially a lack of knowledge, but even more so it is a function of judgment, of judging other people.

Yes, I certainly agree with that, John. I certainly agree with that. And that's frankly, you know, as you're well aware, I travel more than a little bit, get exposed to a lot of people and, and it's frustrating for me to see that how close minded, quote unquote, people are. And I'll give you an example of that. Right now there's fractions that believe we have to eliminate all chemical use. Okay. We have to get away from all the synthetics. And those who know me know that I'm outspoken. I would prefer not to use any on our ranch. We don't. Okay, but that's our choice in saying that. I'm certainly not going to condemn someone who is trying hard to reduce the amount of synthetics. It's a journey. It takes time to heal soils and get them functioning, get the nutrient flow up high enough where these plants then are resistant to disease and pests. That takes time. And I would much rather have a person going down that path, moving in the right direction than just giving up, not trying at all or saying, no, I'm not going to use any. But then they have a disaster after disaster and they're not able to stay on that farm because economically they haven't produced a crop. So we really need to take people in their context where they're at and we can't condemn them.

Yeah. It takes time to learn how to adapt what you're learning from other people to your situation. It takes time to develop your management system. And there are some who would be judgmental and critical, who say, well, people aren't moving fast enough. But, but the reality is this is not like creating software. This is something that you get one opportunity to learn per year.

That's right. And I think back how over time the five principles of soil health evolved. And it was Ray Archuleta. I give Ray Archuleta the credit for being the most outspoken and saying, no, we're missing perhaps the most important one, the principle of context. We have to add that six principle about context. We have to take people where they are, which is what you're saying, John. You know, there are four ecosystem processes occur anywhere in the world where there's land based agriculture or land based production. The thing about it is how we drive those is with those six principles, in that principle of context, we have to take that into account because it's going to be a little different everywhere you go. And I think it's so important to, as you said, not be judgmental and to take people where they're at and allow them the opportunity to move at what fits their context. You know, my context in late 90s when I finished my four years of drought and hail, my context today is much different than it was back there. Financial context has to be taken into account. You know, family dynamics have to be taken into account. We need to look at things according to each individual farmer ranch context.

When we think about, you spoke about eliminating all chemical inputs and I think one of the areas that I see a divisive language, a judgment around is not even on chemical inputs, but on replacing chemical inputs with biological inputs. What do you see happening there?

Yes, and I really think it's important and it's a good thing. What's happening now? We're having a marked increase in the use of biologics and we're learning more about biologics as we learn more about the life in the soil and, and the interactions between plants and these microorganisms were advancing at I think a very rapid pace, which is good. Now like anything else, it's, there's going to be things that are tried and maybe don't work as well as others, but anytime we can move into a more quote, unquote, natural type system that helps accelerate the natural ecosystem function, it's a good thing. And I've seen some very, very excellent successes with the use of biologics.

Thanks for saying that, Gabe. This is such an important piece because the way that I see them, these, these tools are a replacement for some of the harsher chemistry that Facilitates a faster transition. Now in the long term, a truly regenerative farm management system. In some contexts, the objective should be to remove all of those. We should be able to get to a point where we don't need any of those. But in some farming systems, if you're growing strawberries on the same soil year after year, you're probably locking yourself in to need some of those materials.

Absolutely you are. And Understanding Ag now is consulting on over 36 million acres active clients that we're consulting on. That's a lot of acres. It's pretty wide swath. We will tell each and every one of our clients that they need to do strip trials. But biologics is certainly a means to accelerate and bridge that advancement. And we're always one, you know, as humans, it's our nature. We want the future yesterday. You know, we want to accelerate things to the point in nature, 100 years is a blink of an eye, right? But to us it's, it's our lifetime and then probably some. So why not? If there's a way to jumpstart. And let's face it, John, as you know, most farms and ranches, severely degraded ecosystem very much. I mean we're not, biologically speaking, we're not functioning at a fraction of what should they should be. So why not use biologics to jumpstart that? And what we encourage our clients to do is we really are believers in strip trials on farms. We highly encourage it. Same field. Let's go at what you've been doing in the past on part of the field. Let's start a reduction on part. Want to use biologics, let's use biologics on partners. So you can see that side by side comparison, same field. And then we really need to not just look at yield, let's look at soil function, let's look at water infiltration, aggregation, the biological component of the soil over time. Let's see what happens, you know, and go that route.

In an interview with Pam Marone, she made this is a couple of years ago, but she made a very interesting point that if chemical fertilizers or actually she wasn't referring to fertilizer, she was referring to control products, pesticides and so forth. She said that if their performance and their effectiveness was held to the same standard as biological controls, they would have a much higher incidence of failure than the biologicals do that are in the marketplace today. And part of the reason for that, not the only reason but contributing factor is these cumulative year over year effects that to the point that you were just making. It's yes, we need to look at yield and economics in the short term, but also we need to look at how does this treatment that I did this year affect the crop next year and the year after that? Because these soil health benefits are cumulative. And this is the piece that we have seen frequently is we're able to get some very rapid first year responses. But the responses two, three, five years down the road are dramatically bigger than they are in the first year.

Yeah, correct. And you know, nature is always self organizing, self regulating, self healing. And that doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen in one year. It happens over time. Let me give you an example of this. I was just emailing a client last night who is in a very brittle environment, wants to put some of his cropland back to perennials and wanted to know, okay, what mix do I seed for this environment? And I said, no, you need to step back a moment and realize you first need to prime, quote, unquote, prime that soil. We need to get it biologically active. You have to get mycorrhizal fungi numbers up because those little perennial seeds are dependent on that mycorrhizal fungi in order for success of establishment. I said you have to look at that first and prepare that field biologically before you seed it back to perennials. And John, I just ask your listeners out there, how many of you have gone into an NRCS office, extension office, etcetera, and talk to them about seeding a perennial stand and have them talk to you back about priming the soil biologically and mycorrhizal fungi. I will guarantee you the answer is next to zero. Yeah, okay. Yet the government's willing to spend a lot of money on let's buy the seed and help them seed this back. But they don't do it in a way that will ensure success. Okay, we have to get those fields biologically active first.

Yeah, Priming those soils in advance seed treatments, these are all like putting mycorrhizal inoculant on the sea. These are all things that we can do that are relatively inexpensive but have huge dividends. And they just, they're foundational. They're foundational to ecosystem thinking. You know, I was thinking about this. This conversation came up again this last week. We were told of a new disease. This happens every year. Told of a new disease that is incurable. There is no treatment. And I've been told the phrase, if you can find a treatment for disease X, you'll be a millionaire. If I'VE heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times. And at this point, we have a perfect track record. We have every single disease that we have encountered, we've been able to reverse. And I've not become a millionaire from any of those. And that's because the solution, the real foundational solution, is always systemic in nature. It's not something you pour out of a single jug. And for that reason, people don't adopt it on a large scale because. Oh, you mean if I want to solve citrus greening, I have to do recover crops and I have to use these biological inoculants and these foliar sprays. I mean, it's not just one jug and then they're out.

Yep. And if I may, John, take it one step further, that doesn't only pertain to plant diseases or animal diseases. It pertains to human health also.

Exactly.

The cure for many of the diseases, if not all that we face as human beings can be found on the end of our fork.

Or not.

Yeah. Or not. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah.

Coming back to where we started this conversation, you. You spoke about education, the need for education. You know, there is this Bible quote, my people perish for lack of knowledge. But I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago that gave me something really interesting to think about. And I'd love to give credit to the person who sparked this idea, but I don't remember who it was. So my apologies. But the comment was made that when we use the term education, many people have very bad mental associations with education. They don't have good memories of school, of tests, of exams, of needing to cram information. Like most people don't read a. They refuse to pick up a book and read a book for five years after they graduate. Like some in the high 90 percentile refuse to read a book for five years after they graduate because they have all this negative association with education. People don't want to be educated. They. They may love to learn, but they don't want to be educated. How do we shift that language and that lexicon and draw people into learning, inspire them to learning?

Great question, John, and I agree. I mentioned earlier that one of the things we do when we're consulting is we more or less demand. Now, we can't demand of anybody, but we ask them to do strip trials in their fields. Those strip trials of different fertilizer rates, insecticide, seed treatments, biologics. That is education. They're learning on their own land. And what we have found Is that if you show them these things on their own land, they're the ones who are out there doing. They applied, they did whatever practice there on that particular piece of ground then. And it doesn't matter whether we're talking cropping or grazing, orchards, vegetables, row crops, doesn't matter. That. That doesn't matter at all. But you show them on their own land, they see it with their own eyes. Then you take the shovel and you dig in that soil. You show them the aggregation, you show them that interaction, you know, in the rhizosphere. You show them, you go over to a border, go over to a fence row, dig the soil there, compare that to the soil in the field or in the pasture, then they see, then they learn. To me, that's education, but it's a visual type education that is personal to them. And I think that's how you make headway.

What I love about your example is it is. It is visual, it's tactile. They're seeing it in the field, but also seeing those comparisons and seeing different results showing up, that starts prompting the question of why, why is this happening? What's going on? And once you try to understand, the moment you. Your questioning shifts to why. And you're trying to understand root causes now, you begin learning rapidly.

You're exactly right. You're exactly right. They cannot unsee what they saw. And then when they see that visually on their own land, that really opens it up. And they're going to start asking why. They're going to start. At least they should want to learn more, which 99% of them do, and they go to the next level. And you've seen it a thousand times, John, how all of a sudden the light bulb comes on and they're really like, wow, why is this happening? Teach me more. Yeah, and that's exciting.

So, Gabe, we have, obviously we have many farmers and growers listening to the podcast, but we also have many agronomists and consultants and coaches and extension agents and so forth. For those people who are working with growers and who want to support them in this transition, what advice do you have for them on how they can most effectively do that?

Another good question. First is you have to be a good listener. Their context, we get back to what we talked about earlier. Their context is different. And then what we do is when we go out to new clients and go on their property, we just try and shut up and listen and allow them. They're going to want to take and show you chances are their best field to start, you know, that they're most proud of, but then from that you can prompt. Pretty soon, as they feel more comfortable, they're going to show you their worst field. And then you can do the comparisons with the shovel between the two and show them. And then it really starts them questioning, okay, why is this? Why is this? Typically, they'll want to blame it on a soil type or something like that. And you and I both know that has very little to do with it. Some. Some, yes, but really very little. It's the management or stewardship of those particular pieces of land that have more to do with it. But you need to show them visually. But you don't do that by going there and just, hey, follow me. I'm going to show you something. No, you have to listen first because you have to build that trust. If they don't have trust in you, they're not going to follow through.

That's an outstanding closing point. You have to have trust. And I think the pathway to building trust is in addition to listening, people also have to really understand that you care deeply, you care about them, you care about what's happening in their operation.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah. Gabe, thank you. Thank you for being here, for being willing to share your wisdom, for all the incredible work that you have done and continue to do. We're really grateful to have you as a pioneer in this space. Thank you.

Well, it's a pleasure to be working with you, John. We're all in this together. It's common ground for common good. Thank you.

The team at AEA and I are dedicated to bringing this show to you because we believe that knowledge and information is the foundation of successful regenerative systems. At aea, we believe that growing better quality food and making more money from your crops is possible. And since 2006, we've worked with leading professional growers to help them do just that. At aea, we don't guess.

We test.

We analyze and we provide recommendations based on scientific data, knowledge and experience. We've developed products that are uniquely positioned to help growers make more money with regenerative agriculture. If you are a professional grower who believes in testing instead of guessing, someone who believes in a better, more regenerative way to grow, visit advancingecoag.com and contact us to see if AEA is right for you. Thank you for listening and we look forward to working with you.