(piano music)
- [Kelly] Imagine a farm
doing such creative work
that more than 2,000 people
come to visit each year
from all 50 states and
more than 20 countries
outside the U.S.
What do you think such
a farm might be doing?
Our guest, Gabe Brown, can explain.
I'm Kelly Brownell, director
of the World Food Policy Center
at Duke University and professor
of public policy at Duke.
Welcome to The Leading Voices in Food.
Gabe Brown, along with his wife, Shelly,
and son, Paul, own and
operate Brown's Ranch,
a diversified 5,000 acre farm and ranch
near Bismarck, North Dakota.
They are considered to be leaders
in the current soil health movement,
which focuses on regeneration
rather than depletion of resources.
Gabe, thanks so much for joining us.
- [Gabe] Thank you,
pleasure to be with you.
- [Kelly] So, first, can
you describe your farm?
5,000 acres is huge.
What do you grow and raise
with all those acres?
- [Gabe] Well, 5,000 acres on scale
in the current production
model in North Dakota
is not so big.
We're an average size operation here.
And we run beef cattle.
We grass finish beef.
We have a flock of sheep.
And we grass finished lambs.
We have pastured pork.
We have about 1,400 laying
hens out on pasture.
We grow some fruits and vegetables.
And then we do a fair
amount of grains also,
everything from corn, and peas,
and hard red spring wheat,
and oats, and barley, and
winter triticale, and rye.
We also do some honey.
We have some bees on our operation.
So it's a very diverse operation.
- [Kelly] It's very interesting to think
about the scope of that
and how all these pieces fit together.
I know that you've spoken about
your farm as an ecosystem.
What do you mean by this?
- [Gabe] Well, one of the
things that I see is wrong,
so to speak, with production
agriculture today,
is it has become very singular,
and by that I mean
producers, farmers, ranchers,
they only have corn, or
they have corn and soybeans,
or they only have beef cattle,
or they only have dairy cattle.
They specialize in one specific commodity,
whereas our operation,
we have over 17 different enterprises.
We have all these different cash crops,
and cover crops, and livestock,
and that allows our operation to function
more like an ecosystem.
I explain to people if you can imagine
what the Northern Great Plains look like
centuries ago with these herds of bison
moving across the plains,
and they were being moved by predators,
and there was deer, and elk, and rabbits,
and all the insects,
well, that's kind of what
it's like on our operation
in that we move our animals daily
to different pastures or
paddocks, if you will.
And it's not only one species,
like the beef cattle we're moving,
but then we have the sheep,
and we have the laying hens,
and we have broiler chickens,
and we've got the bees.
All these different enterprises
allows us our ranch to act
more like a natural ecosystem.
- [Kelly] Is it fair to
say that each piece of this
benefits from the others
in important ways?
- [Gabe] That's exactly right,
and you look at how nature functions.
In nature, it's not singular.
You can't change one thing
without it having compounding
or cascading effects,
and these compounding cascading effects
are either positive or negative.
And as you stack, so
to speak, enterprises,
it's gonna benefit the
resource as a whole,
and that's the reason we've been able
to take large amounts of
carbon out of the atmosphere
and move them into the soil,
and have soils that
are much more resilient
to these swings in
moisture and temperature.
That's how nature functions.
That's what we're trying
to mimic on our ranch.
- [Kelly] So can you explain the concept
of regenerative agriculture?
- [Gabe] So I often get
asked that question,
what is regenerative agriculture?
And I answer it this way.
One of the current buzzwords
we hear so often is sustainable.
Everyone wants to be sustainable.
But in agriculture, the
question I pose to people is,
why would we want to
sustain a degraded resource?
And if you look at our
resources and our ecosystem,
how it functions today, it is degraded.
The organic matter levels on our soils
in production agriculture,
and I don't care where
you go in North America,
around the world for that matter,
it's a mere fraction of what it once was.
Well, this has major ramifications
when it comes to the amount of rainfall
that can infiltrate into the
soil, and be held in the soil,
for when the plants need it.
So I say regenerative agriculture
is bringing the ecosystem
back into function
so it can function in a way
where it truly can sustain healthy life
in the form of plants, animals,
and then, eventually, people.
- [Kelly] Gabe, can you
give us a concrete example
of regenerative agriculture?
How you actually do this.
- [Gabe] Sure, so I give as an example
what we've been able to do on our grant.
When my wife and I purchased this ranch
from her parents in 1991,
we could only infiltrate a half of an inch
of rainfall per hour.
That's all I can
infiltrate into the soils,
and the reason it wasn't more than that
is because my father-in-law, for years,
he had tilled the soil,
which is very destructive,
destroys soil aggregates,
and it decreases water infiltration.
Well, now today, on those same soils,
we're able to infiltrate
an inch of rainfall
in nine seconds and the
second inch in 16 seconds.
So soils that were once
a half an inch an hour,
we can now infiltrate
two inches in 25 seconds.
Well, think of the ramifications of that.
Throughout much of the western U.S.
and southwestern United States,
you see a decrease in the
amount of water in the aquifers,
and water is becoming a major issue.
Well, if we're able to
infiltrate more rainfall
and then store that in the
soils via organic matter levels,
and on our operation,
on our ranch in 1991,
organic matter levels were 1.7 to 1.9%.
And I use the word organic matter.
Think of it as carbon.
Organic matter's approximately 58% carbon.
Well, historically speaking,
in our area, organic matter levels
should have been in the seven to 8% range,
but we were less than 2%.
So, in other words, 75% of
the carbon had left the soils,
and where'd it go?
Well, it's up in the atmosphere.
Well, we need to bring that
back down into the soil.
Now today, those same fields
that were were less than 2% organic matter
are now in the seven to
8% organic matter range,
and, in fact, we have a team of scientists
that are doing some major
analysis of our soils
and they found we now
have 96 tonnes of carbon
per acre stored in our soils.
Well, this is approximately four times
what they thought that
they would find here.
So when we hear about there being
too much carbon in the atmosphere,
and we need to sequester it,
so to speak, into the soils,
well, regenerative
agriculture can do that,
and the way that comes about
is through the management practices,
or, I like to call it,
the stewardship practices
that we apply on our land.
- [Kelly] Well, that is so impressive.
So why do you think people
are so fascinated by this
work and wanna learn more,
and why should the general
public hear about this?
- [Gabe] Well, what I see is, you look at,
and, for lack of a better word,
just the ills in society today.
Look at what we're seeing.
We're seeing major nitrification problems
in the Gulf of Mexico, in our Great Lakes,
in our estuaries, on the
Chesapeake, and on the West Coast.
Well, that's too much nutrients
are leaving the landscape
from production agriculture
and from industry being put
into the watersheds, okay?
If we heal, so to speak,
the farms and ranches,
if we grow cover crops, we're able to hold
those nutrients on those farms and ranches
so they don't end up in our watersheds,
and in our drinking water,
in our oceans, and river streams.
So that's one small facet.
Now you look at what's happening
from a human health aspect also,
and we have a human health
crisis in this country.
It's really occurring around the world.
I tell people the United States
spends more on health care
than any other country
in the world per capita,
yet I just saw figures yesterday.
We're now ranked the 35th
healthiest country in the world.
Well, why is that?
Well part of it's due to
our sedentary lifestyle,
but part of it is due to the lack
of nutrient density in our foods.
Well, why don't we have
nutrient density in our foods?
In order for a plant, and,
eventually, then an animal,
if that plant's consumed by an
animal, to be nutrient dense,
you have to have a healthy
functioning soil ecosystem
because that's the only way these plants
will get all these plants
secondary metabolites.
Well, how do we get a healthy soil?
It's through regenerative agriculture
and using these principles.
So, I don't care, and
then the third component
we can say is the carbon
in the atmosphere, okay?
We have way too much
carbon in the atmosphere,
not enough in our soils.
So how do we move carbon
from the atmosphere
down into the soils?
It's with living plants,
whether it be cash crops, cover crops,
but then a very, very
important piece of the puzzle
is those plants need
to be grazed by animals
because that grazing of
these plants by animals
then signals to plants to
release more red exudate
so they can start regrowing,
and they will take in more
CO2 out of the atmosphere
to pump more carbon into the soil.
So animals are crucial to this.
So I don't care which
ill you're talking about
that we're facing in society today,
regenerative agriculture,
more than anything else,
has the ability to move us
in a positive direction.
- [Kelly] So, Gabe, are you saying,
let's say you take two farms
across the road from one another
and farm A uses traditional
models, mass farming practices,
farm B uses regenerative practices,
and they both grow carrots, let's say.
Are you saying the carrots
will have more nutrients
on the regenerative farm
because the soil has been treated better?
- [Gabe] Absolutely, and there are several
organizations out there
now, and businesses,
that are moving down the
path to focus on this
and to get the hard data
to prove that that is so.
We've known it for a long time,
but more or less it's
been anecdotal evidence.
It's tough to really
be able to pay for the
research to show just that,
but now there's businesses
that are focused on it.
Last week, General Mills announced
that they're putting some major funding
into regenerative agriculture,
and it's things like that that
they're going to find out,
that we're going to produce food
that's higher nutrient density
if it's been grown on regenerative farms.
- [Kelly] And is the taste
of food affected as well?
- [Gabe] Sure it is.
It's those plants secondary metabolites.
One of the things, as you
mentioned in the opening,
we have visitors from all
over the world coming here,
and the one thing that they
say when I visit with them,
they say they can't believe how terrible
the food tastes here in the United States.
And the reason for that
is our production model.
It's such large scale,
and there's not these plants
secondary metabolites,
and it's the plant secondary metabolites,
the phenols, the alkaloids, the terpenes,
that really drive human
taste and and drive health,
whether it be health in a plant,
in an animal, or in us as human beings.
And when they come to my farm,
we generally serve a meal to visitors,
and their eyes light up,
and they say, "This is real food."
And when I'm out speaking
across the United States
to individuals and organizations,
I often make the comment
that I really think
that the vast majority of
citizens in our country
do not know what nutrient
dense food tastes like,
because if they do taste
it, they go, "Wow."
Their body will send signals
that this is good, I want more.
And we've just, because
of our production model,
and because of what
consumers have dictated,
it's all about a cheap food policy
and not about nutrient density
and truly healthy food.
They've come to accept that,
and now we have generations
that really don't know
what nutrient dense food tastes like.
- [Kelly] Gabe, you probably
just made all our listeners,
as I am, hungry for some
of that wonderful food.
It sounds really good.
(Gabe chuckling)
So let's talk about the model
that you're talking about.
Do you think it's exportable?
Can be used elsewhere in the
U.S. and around the world?
- [Gabe] The beautiful thing
about regenerative agriculture,
and I tell people this,
wherever in the world that you are,
that you grow food with soil,
regenerative agriculture can take place.
And the beauty of it is
I can pick up a phone,
and I can call friends in
Australia, and South Africa,
and Argentina, and Sweden,
and Canada, and Mexico,
anywhere around the world,
there's people practicing
regenerative agriculture.
Because regenerative agriculture
is based on five basic principles,
and, briefly, those are, number one,
we need to have armor
on the soil at all time.
The soil needs to be covered.
You can't see bare soil
because then it's prone
to wind erosion, water
erosion, evaporation.
We need diversity.
We need diversity in both
plants and animal life.
Where in nature do you find monocultures?
You don't.
Usually only where man put them.
Otherwise, nature is very, very diverse.
You need a living root in
the soil as long as possible.
In other words, a growing plant.
Look at our production model today.
Farming, farmers grow one crop,
and then the land sits idle
for the majority of the year.
That means there's no
sunlight being collected.
We're not taking carbon
out of the atmosphere,
pumping it into the soil.
And then we also need integration
of animals and insects.
So often farmers think
of insects as pests,
but they don't realize
for every insect species
that's a pest, there's
1,700 that are beneficial.
And why do we wanna spend our time
killing the one pest
when we should be proliferating
all the insect population,
and then nature, being self-organizing,
and self-healing, self-regulating,
will take care of those imbalances.
In our operation, we
haven't used a pesticide
since before the turn of the century.
There's no need to
because if you have a healthy
functioning ecosystem,
those insects will become imbalanced.
And then you need the
livestock integration
and animal integration, and
I'm talking about all forms,
everything from beef cattle,
to rabbits, and chickens,
and that's how healthy
ecosystems function.
And if you use nature's template,
this can take place anywhere in the world
where there's production
agriculture on land.
- [Kelly] Gabe, thank you so much.
This work is very inspiring,
and you've been fantastic guest,
so please know how grateful I am
for you joining us today.
- [Gabe] Thank you, it's my pleasure.
- [Kelly] Our guest has been rancher
and regenerative agriculture
leader Gabe Brown
of the Brown Ranch in North Dakota,
and thank you for listening.
If you'd like to subscribe
to The Leading Voices
in Food podcast series,
you may do so at Google Play, Stitcher,
RadioPublic, or Apple Podcasts,
or by visiting the website
of the Duke World Food Policy Center.
This is Kelly Brownell.
(piano music)
