Rethinking Soil Composition and Agriculture Practices

Gabe Brown is a clear, collected, and inspired voice for regenerative agriculture, having implemented and seen great changes on his family's ranch in North Dakota over time. In fact, Gabe's A-Horizon (topsoil) is 27 in, and the soils on surrounding farms only have 4-6 in of topsoil!

Gabe is the author of the recently published and highly-acclaimed book, Dirt To Soil, from Chelsea Green. I highly recommend reading this truly inspiring and informative book.

Speaking and teaching about the practical steps for soil regeneration and farm profitability for more than 15 years, Gabe is also a partner with Soil Health Consultants LLC, an all-star group of ag thinkers and doers engaged in challenging the status-quo of agriculture.

In this episode Gabe and I speak about:

• The time when Dr. Norman put a 4 ft long probe into the ground and the soil would collapse with only 2 ft in the probe because of tremendous pore space.
• The reception of his book and the increased adoption of regenerative agriculture he's observed.
• How to drive wholesale change in agriculture: the role of producers (most), consumers (a lot), processors (plenty) and government (not much!).
• His desire to educate consumers regarding their role as potential Regenerative Ag advocates who leverage their food purchasing power.
• The need for growers to focus on photosynthesis, carbon cycling, and support of biological systems.
• The relative value of soil testing, which test is most valuable, and what to measure.
• The idea that Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium are abundant enough in soils and the atmosphere to supply all NPK needed for crop and livestock production, and can be made available through cover cropping and biological cycling.
• Dr. Norman's research on Gabe's farm documenting soils with up to 70% pore space.
• The real potential to increase nutrient density, environmental conditions, and farm livelihood in the near-term.
• And the one thing he wishes every farmer in the country would do.

This is Gabe's second time on the show and I am pleased to welcome him back. Listen to Gabe's and my previous episode, which received great feedback, here.

Hope you Enjoy!

John

P.S. Next Tuesday, Nov 7th, I will be hosting an AEA webinar to discuss our seaweed product and why plants respond so differently to it than to other seaweeds. Sign up for the webinar here.

Support For This Show & Helping You Grow

This show is brought to you by AEA, leaders in regenerative agriculture since 2006.

If you are a large-scale grower looking to increase crop revenue and quality, email hello@advancingecoag.com or call 800-495-6603 extension 344 to be connected with a dedicated AEA crop consultant.

Related Resources

Book: Dirt To Soil, by Gabe Brown

TEDx Talk: Gabe Brown on Regeneration of Our Lands: A Producer's Perspective

Webinar: John Kempf on How Crops Benefit From Robust Soil Microbial Populations

Podcast: Eliminating the need for synthetic fertilizer with Kris Nichols

Webinar: John Kempf on Changing Agronomy With Biology

Webinar: Capturing Residue to Build Soil Organic Matter

Book: Soil, by David Montgomery

Feedback & Booking

Please send your feedback, requests for topics or guests, or booking request have a Podcast episode recorded LIVE at your event -- to production@regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com. You can email John directly at John@regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com.

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Credits

This episode was Directed by Geoffrey Shively and Nathan Harman, Edited by Nathan Harman, Produced by Nathan Harman, Jenna Sodano, Robin Kitowski, and Anna Kempf.