Rebuilding Rural Economies with Ancient Grain and Regenerative Practices with Bob Quinn

Hi friends, this is John and this is the Regenerative Agriculture podcast where we talk about the agronomic science and cultural management practices that regenerate plant health and that regenerate soil health and ultimately that regenerates public health. I've been looking forward to having this guest join us for a while. Bob Quinn, an organic farmer from Montana who is becoming a bit more famous and should become a lot more famous soon, I hope. Bob, I've been really impressed with the work that you're doing with Kimut and all the work that you've done. I've been looking forward to having you here. So thank you for joining me.

Well, John, it's a thrill for me and a real honor, so I'm looking forward to our visit.

Bob, a month or so ago in the middle of July, we had a field day in Iowa that you contributed to because in a very significant way, even though you weren't there, you know, often when you're at an all day conference, you have a really good lunch with desserts and pie and ice cream and potatoes and beef and chicken or whatever it might be. And after an hour long lunch, you're going back into the conference and you want to take a nap because you have all that food sitting in your stomach. And I've always felt that this is a real downside and that we should specifically try to for both the presenters benefit, but also for the people who put in the time and the effort and spent the money to be there if they're there to learn. You can't really learn very well when you're half asleep. And so we spent some time trying to specifically design a menu that would make people feel good and give them energy instead of putting them to sleep. And we specifically requested that all the buns for our grass fed burgers be made with kamut flour. And we had a lot of conversations about the buns and kamut grain at the event. You know the best part, this was two day event, two lunches. I didn't see a single person take a nap either day.

Wow. Wow. Well, we know it's high energy green, but I haven't had that kind of a testimonial before. Thanks a lot, that's very interesting.

Well, it was just one piece of many, I'm sure, but it was a very important piece because I think a lot of grains do give people a sugar flush that can put them to sleep very easily.

Well, this is an ancient wheat that we have been studying for about 30 years and intensively for probably the last 15 doing a lot of laboratory research, a lot of research with medical research, hospitals, studying chronic disease. And we find there's a huge difference between what we started with these ancient grains and what we have now with modern wheat and what it does to the body and what it does to the system and giving people more energy. Athletes can notice this. And several teams in Italy, several soccer teams, I should say, are eating exclusively Kamut and their pastas and their breads and everything, rather than any modern wheat of any kind. And they find more energy and much quicker rebound after hard practices. It reduces inflammation. So even inflammation in your muscles when you're exercising hard, that is also reduced besides inflammation that are tied to chronic disease. So there's something very different and special about it. And I have an idea that most seeds that we started with that were created for us started out this way. And when we started changing them, just for the only benefit of making more money through more yields and cheaper prices for the farmer, which is a little bit of a downer, we have unintended consequences that we're just now beginning to understand and see change.

The nutritional value, we've changed the way that it interacts with our bodies. There's been lots of different changes. And of course we'd like to think that we've increased yields, but that may have come at a cost. Many people don't know your story and your background. Bob, tell us a little bit about your story as a farmer and as it relates to the story of Kamut and what brought you to the work that you're doing today. What has been your pathway?

Well, I was raised in north central Montana on a 2400 acre wheat and cattle ranch that my grandfather started in 1920. So my father was raised here, I was raised here and I raised all my kids here. This year we celebrated 100 years since my grandfather began our farm. Just after the homesteaders were going out. They had come to this part of Montana about 1916, and by 1920, many of them were going broke already. So my grandfather came in at that point after World War I, and my upbringing here was typical of the age, I guess you could say. I was, however, more interested in plants than I was in animals. So my passion was gardening and science. When I got to school, I went to the local schools in Big Sandy, which is a small town of 1,000, then it's down to 600 now, and graduated and went on to Montana State University, where I studied botany and plant pathology. I love plants and I love science. So that's how I Put them together and I just kept on going. When I finished a master's at Boseman at Montana State and went on to UC Davis and finished a PhD in plant biochemistry, I was a little disillusioned with the way university was working at that point and seemed to be more focused on getting grants than it was on cooperating with each other to advance science. And I decided to come home and join with my father in farming. And soon our whole farm became my laboratory. I was still experiments, done experiments. For 40 years we farmed here. After my father retired, I started experimenting with regenerative organic systems. We didn't call it regenerative in those days, but that's what it was. We were using legumes to build our soils. And then once every other year, and then the off years, we would grow our cash crop. So we were trying to build our soils and focus on the soils. And we started that in about 86. So we've been 34 years organic. And it's about the same time realizing that a couple years before that, realizing that 2400 acre farm when we first came back wasn't big enough to support two families, even though it supported one very nicely. I started looking for other ways that we could add value to the farm and found a cousin in California who was interested in and available to sell my grain to whole grain bakers in Southern California. We had very immediate success with that and formed a company. My end was Montana Flour and Grain. He took care of sales and customer relations, and I took care of grain procurement. And when our farm didn't produce a high enough quality, I found grain that was suitable. The second year that we were in business, they asked for organic grain. And that was my first introduction to organic. And I finally met some organic farmers and got acquainted that way. And then they wanted us to sell them stone ground flour. So I got a stone mill and put that in our cleaning plant. And we were in the stone milling business, which I didn't know anything about, but we just learned as we went and added one customer to another until it became quite successful. And then we added this ancient grain to the mix in about 19, and it took off. And we registered a trademark, which was kamut, which was an ancient word for wheat in Egyptian. Using that trademark, we marketed this grain as something that was always guaranteed the customer would always be organic, pure, never adulterated, never genetically modified or mixed with modern wheat in any way. So that was kind of the launch. And it just kind of went from there, John, into areas that I would have Never expected. Our business grew in Europe much more than in this country where they were really interested in ancient wheat. And now 75% of everything we grow goes to Italy. They make Several thousand, probably 2500 or 3000 different products there. Another 10% goes to the rest of Europe, about 10% to the US and 10% to a little bit less to Canada. So it's taken me all over the world. I've done experiments all over almost every country where wheat has grown. I've been there to experiment with this ancient wheat and see how it compares. So it's been a great experience and I've learned a lot and made lots of friends all over the world.

There are so many aspects of the Kamut story that I've heard about from other people and that I've read about in your book that I want to unwrap. So you chose the trademark, the name. What was the, what was the inspiration for trademarking rather than doing some other type of variety protection? And how has that worked out?

Well, what we saw with Spelt, for example, spelt was starting to gain popularity about the same time, but what people were doing with it was breeding it, crossing it with modern wheat so they could get higher yields. All these Asian grains don't really yield very much just compared to. Well, I shouldn't say very much. They have a lower yield potential than modern wheat that's really been bred for high inputs and high yields. And the ancient grains, or grains and seeds that have never been bred that way or selected for that don't really have that as much. And what we saw with Spelt is people were crossing with Mara wheat, but they still called it spelt. And because spelt is a generic name, it can mean almost anything. And when I saw that, I thought, well, that's not what we want. We want a mechanism to protect it and to make a guarantee to the public that it is pure and unadulterated. And that's why we chose to market and sell it under a trademark. Trademark.