In this episode of Nourish by MN350, host Eli Crain talks with Matt Maier, owner/founder of Thousand Hills Lifetime Grazed, and Laura Schreiber of The Land Stewardship Project.
Matt founded Thousand Hills with the vision of rescuing the U.S. food system from collapse by implementing regenerative agriculture practices on family farms nationwide. Using practices that increase soil fertility, biodiversity, water retention, and soil carbon sequestration, Thousand Hills has a goal of converting 1,000,000 acres from extractive conventional ag practices to holistic regenerative grazing practices by 2025.
Laura is a policy organizer with The Land Stewardship Project, mobilizing around a collective vision that includes a just food and farm system, a healthy landscape, thriving small and mid-sized farms, just and prosperous communities, and a flourishing democracy. LSP is celebrating recent wins at the Capitol, including $5.35 million to get more soil-healthy farming practices onto the landscape - effectively taking soil health from non-existent to a top issue in the 2021 Minnesota legislative agenda.
This conversation with writer, producer, and host Eli Crain is redolent with information to aid farmers and eaters at all stages with how to take care of the land for better climate health.
In this episode of Nourish by MN350, host Eli Crain talks with Matt Maier, owner/founder of Thousand Hills Lifetime Grazed, and Laura Schreiber of The Land Stewardship Project.
Matt founded Thousand Hills with the vision of rescuing the U.S. food system from collapse by implementing regenerative agriculture practices on family farms nationwide. Using practices that increase soil fertility, biodiversity, water retention, and soil carbon sequestration, Thousand Hills has a goal of converting 1,000,000 acres from extractive conventional ag practices to holistic regenerative grazing practices by 2025.
Laura is a policy organizer with The Land Stewardship Project, mobilizing around a collective vision that includes a just food and farm system, a healthy landscape, thriving small and mid-sized farms, just and prosperous communities, and a flourishing democracy. LSP is celebrating recent wins at the Capitol, including $5.35 million to get more soil-healthy farming practices onto the landscape - effectively taking soil health from non-existent to a top issue in the 2021 Minnesota legislative agenda.
This conversation with writer, producer, and host Eli Crain is redolent with information to aid farmers and eaters at all stages with how to take care of the land for better climate health.
Eli Crain 01:15
Hello, and welcome to Nourish by MN350. I'm your host, Eli Crain, and we are coming to you from the original homeland of the Dakota and Anishinabe people, or what is now known as Minnesota. Today, we're talking to Matt Maier, Chief Renegade of Thousand Hills Lifetime Grazed. And later in the episode, we will be talking to Laura Schreiber, who is a local food and soil health organizer for the Land Stewardship Project here in Minnesota. And we're going to be talking today about how agricultural practices, specifically grass-fed and pasture-raised beef, can be used to rebuild soil health and create resiliency. So I'm really excited to be joined by Matt and Laura today. So I will start off with you, Matt, and just ask about your background and how you got started in this business. And what keeps you motivated?
Matt Maier 02:05
Well, hello, and thank you for having me on. Boy, my background. Well, I was born and raised on a small 120-acre multi-species farm in the 60s and 70s. And I was the only boy so I had full responsibility for the farm as my dad went to go to work at a factory every day. And then we’d reunite in the afternoon when he'd get home and decide what needed to be done yet for the day. And I can see how we struggled financially. So I had nobody to convince me to go to college or to pursue a different career. Because I could see that, from my experience, agriculture was a nice way to stay broke. So I went off and I worked in conventional food after graduating from college. And a couple of key things happened along the way. One, while I was in college, I was working my way through and I started off in landscaping in high school. And then I was always trying to get ahead so I worked my way up to working on a sod farm, which was better work and a little more pay. And then I thought, Oh if I can actually work with homeowners in nice neighborhoods on their lawns, I could get another increase in pay as I'm in college. And I actually got a job at a chemical lawn care company. But I hadn't worked with chemicals that much. We definitely did not live on our farm. everything was really natural manure for fertilizer, weed control with animals, or mowing. So this was all a new world to me. And about a few weeks into it, it was a hot and muggy day in Minnesota. And I was on my 12th lawn. And I looked around and I realized I had no idea where I was even though I was in the town where I went to high school; the town that I knew very well. But my brain fog from taking in the chemicals was so bad I had to sit down on the curb and wait for my brain to clear just to figure out how to drive back to the warehouse. Yes. And that was a moment that got my attention. So I started asking, what should I be wearing? When I'm treating these lawns, I started calling the numbers on the cans. Because the guy that owned the franchise wasn't too interested in pursuing the same knowledge that I was. Well, I learned that I should be completely covered in rubber head to toe and I was actually wearing shorts and a T-shirt. And you know, the owner said, there's no way you can go on lawns with an apron, rubber apron and hip boots and respirator and have anybody trust what we're doing. Yeah,
Eli Crain 06:14
Clue number one that maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. Yeah, right, it looks bad for businesses to stay protected from the chemicals you're spraying.
Matt Maier 06:18
Right. So I saw the sama dead, broke college student and I saw these lawns that I'm treating. And immediately after I was treating them, the family pets and the kids were running around in the lawn. And I thought I can't, I can't do this,I don't care if I have to find another job. I just can't do this. So I went on to end up developing an organic formulation of fertilizer using blood meal and bone meal and a number of formulations that I came up with and I started a business called Bio Lawn that I just thought all I need to do is get through college, and then I can get a real job. Well, that did work, I did do that. And I did advertise against the chemical companies. And I got some death threats on my answering machine. Back when they had answering machines with a little tape and um, you know, and this crazy stuff was happening that I don't even know what I'm stepping into here. I just want to get through college. So I left and worked in conventional food for 15 years. And I had built up a marketing agency that I was able to sell. And that gave me the moment to sit back and say: What do I want to do next? And the one thing that I wanted to do was work to improve the food system. And my research led me back to the single best thing that you can do is to holistically graze cattle to improve our food system. Which doesn't make sense to a lot of people. But ruminants on the land, improving the soil. And having a more nutrient-dense beef along with all the benefits that go with improving the soil. made a lot of sense to me. And I was familiar because I had raised the font of grass when I was a kid. I said, Okay, I can do this, I can do this. And turns out that 1000 Hills already existed. And I worked with the founder for a few years and ended up buying the company 100%. But that led me down this path of being 1000 Hills. Oh, I forgot one other moment that made a difference to me as I was one of those people that wanted to move their family back to the rural area that they grew up in. So I did that when they were young. And I was able to buy a lot that was near the farm that I grew up on. And when I looked around, I thought I don't even recognize these farms. I'm in central Minnesota and all the animals are gone. When I grew up everyone had cattle, everyone had a few hogs, sheep, goats, chickens, they were all gone. And all the land was rented by big operators going around and tilling the 1020 acre fields. And they till them and plant them even though it is hilly, and even though it shouldn't have been tilled until there was nothing left and then they would just move on. So all this degraded, eroded land was around and I didn't even recognize it from my youth. So that got my attention too. So I started my local community project of working with 12 landowners in reestablishing grasslands, putting animals back on the land, educating them on what this really meant from a food system and a nutrition standpoint, and from a watershed standpoint, and not using chemicals standpoint and not using petrochemical fertilizers. And the project still goes on today. But that's what got me to where I am.
Eli Crain 09:02
Yeah, isn't it interesting kind of looking back: you started with grass and you're kind of back there again, you know, after a long time apart so I mean it seems like a linear path I guess looking backward but I'm sure it didn't quite feel that way when you lived it?
Matt Maier 10:05
Not at all. It seemed random and it seemed kind of going backward sometimes but you know, what really does get me excited is when I'm on that same land. And I see how we've taken it from degraded, eroded, extracted land, to vibrant grasslands. And I wish I could say with words, how to describe when you see diverse grasslands and the bugs and the birds and the fullness of the grasses all developing before your eyes, and I begin to see this, it not only looks like how it looked when I grew up, but it actually looks better. Because our practices are better. You know, we manage the grazing better than we did when I was a kid, we rotate the rest, we introduced more diversity. So we've actually improved upon those practices. So that's fun. That's,
Eli Crain 10:17
I mean, that's the most satisfying thing you can have is like a visual transformative thing that you have in your backyard. You know, that's awesome. Yeah, I mean, talk about motivation. So I think it'd be great to talk about, um, you know, why it is odd, I guess for people to go, “oh, a solution for climate change”. And a solution for soil health is animals like, we don't necessarily have a lot of information out there. That's true about confinement, feeding, and huge weight operations and, you know, feeding, huge amounts of corn and soy that's grown over a huge swath of land straight to cows, and we know that that system doesn't work. But let's hear a little bit about why pasture-raised meat or grazing, and specifically
Matt Maier 11:05
First of all, it's our practices as humans that have led to the vilification of animals and specifically cows. So I'm actually wearing a T-shirt right now that on the back, it says, it's not the cow. It's the how. So we, you know, we have to go back to how is this great soil bank, this great topsoil that we've been living off of for hundreds of years in this country? How was that developed? Did it just appear? Or was it produced over time by millions of ruminants, rotating themselves around to where the best forage was, and trampling it and fertilizing it and eating the plants off and kick-starting the photosynthesis? That's how this great soil was built that we've been living on in this country—kind of the breadbasket of the country in the breadbasket of the world. But yeah, man, in his infinite wisdom, said, oh, wow, look at this great resource, we can extract it from this and make a living, and then the next generation makes a living, and we can feed people, but it's deteriorated. And it's deteriorating at a fast rate. So we have to look back at how it was created. And I know without a shadow of a doubt, the practices that we've implemented around our regenerative agriculture, and putting cattle in at a high density on paddocks, and rotating them through and allowing rest and managing that whole grazing by watching the weather and watching the plants and watching the watershed, that I know that we're rebuilding soil, we have the measurements, we know that we're doing it and that we have to do it if we're ever going to be able to feed ourselves and future generations. Either we're going to decide to do this, or it's going to be forced upon us in a crisis. And I'd rather decide now that we need to have enough foresight to wait before the absolute catastrophic events happen in our food security before we take action. So now, you know, more and more consumers have the ability to vote with their dollar to have the same foresight on how we're gonna feed future generations.
Eli Crain 13:23
Yeah, I think that's such an important theme that's come up throughout the whole series. And this whole season, this whole podcast is this idea of, we have the choice to kind of vote and with our dollars and make decisions that support the creation of this alternative food system. But that's why I'm so excited to talk later to Laura about, you know, we need to vote in more ways than just with our dollars. So, it's not as simple as like, if there are enough customers that this is just gonna happen. I'm sure that there are more sort of roadblocks in policy and education and even land ownership. So I'd love to talk to you a little bit about some of these things that are roadblocks to expanding, you know, your business or, you know, this type of agriculture. Is there more that consumers can do than just vote with their dollar?
Matt Maier 14:19
Well, yes, there is, you know, we need leadership on all fronts. We need leadership from our elected officials, we need leadership from producers, agriculture, we need leadership from a lot of different facets of society to see the way in this, but you know, our whole industrialized commoditization, t Our whole system of rewarding commodity corn and soy production, you can hardly fault the farmer, when everything is tilted towards producing these GMO commoditized crops that really don't have much at all to do with our food system; that really don't feed us on this land. We feed some animals, and we put some fuel in our tanks, but we are not using our land to provide nutrition for us, we're putting our soil and our gas tanks for crying out loud. And we've got incentives in place to do that—from the government. So you know, all I ask, I'm a free-market guy, all I ask is to take away the incentives to do anything, let the market speak, take away the crop insurance that you know encourages farmers to plant on land that they know damn well they're not going to get a crop out of, but they'll get the crop insurance. Take away the floors and the ceilings on the crop, just let the market speak. And there'll be enough margin for all the producers and we'll find our way to what the consumers really want. Right now we're not producing what consumers are producing what we're incentivized to produce as an agricultural society.
Eli Crain 16:05
I'm excited to talk to Laura because their soil health policy seems to be around creating incentives for, you know, rotational grazing for leaving land fallow for sequestering carbon through soil health practices, rather than, you know, sort of creating an alternative incentive system. So I'm curious to see what she has to say about that later today.
Matt Maier 16:29
So am I, but if I could just interject, you know, go to the USDA office, you can turn in one door and go to the NRCS people that do wonderful work to support regenerative agriculture, to support grazing, to support these things. And they have their EQUIP (Environmental Quality Incentives Program) Program, and they're a great resource, but you could turn and go in the other door and pursue the other USDA programs. So now we've got these competing programs. And yes, sure, I'd like on the surface to have incentives to support regenerative agriculture. Wonderful. But, are we going to get into this battle of competing incentives would be my question. And at some point, you know, how many different incentives do you need for how many different programs before you actually get the behavior that you want?
Eli Crain 17:13
Yeah. Not just two competing carrots, we need a stick and a carrot. Yes. Okay, so I would love to talk to you about what it is that you're seeing as you graze this way. And what is really happening in the soil? Why is it that we're sequestering carbon? Like, what are these benefits that you see? For the land and for people and for the animals?
Matt Maier 17:41
Right. Well, I guess it always begins with the soil. And, you know, what we're measuring is dramatic increases in organic matter with our management practices. And, conventional wisdom is: “Oh, it takes 50 years to build an inch of topsoil, and it's a very slow process". It's not true. When you have the right practices, you’re able to double, triple, quadruple organic matter in five to seven years with these practices. And then Okay, what does that mean? You know, as a consumer, what does that mean? Okay, number one, it means you're able to absorb the water into the soil. If you don't have space and organic matter, and pores in the soil, it's like flour you put in water; the soil is like flour, you put a couple of drops of water on flour and it just sits there or runs off. It does not absorb even though the flour is very soft and it seems very malleable. It does not absorb water. The same thing happens to our soil. If it's tilled over and over, and it's not allowed to develop organic matter and uses petrochemical fertilizers to beat up the biome in the soil. So number one, I think that's the easiest measure. And the most impactful result is that it is organic matter. Now, this amazing thing happens when you take a plant and you have an animal eat 30-35% of the top of that plan. Number one, that kick starts the photosynthesis process for that plant. If you go more than 40%, you start to really damage the root system. And then those roots need to be built back up. But if you stay 40% or less, that root system stays intact. And it just goes into rebuild mode, which pulls the carbon into the soil, and really helps on that whole elevated carbon. And then that helps to nourish all the plants. See water, you got carbon. And then as you rebuild that soil, you begin to get much more nutrient-rich, nutrient-dense foods. And man, you look at the data around what's happened with our food since the 50s and 60s when we introduced cheap nitrogen through petroleum. That's all in tandem. You know, depending on the fruit or the vegetable or the meat you're measuring, it's anywhere from 60 to 90% of our nutritional value is gone.
Eli Crain 20:35
And that's a lot. That's a lot. That's not a joke. Yeah. And just,
Matt Maier 20:41
You know, just think about that for a minute. So our bodies need this nutrition, but we can't get it at the levels we need through our foods. So what does that lead to? Where does that go? It leads to obesity because your body's never saturated. Its never satisfied. It needs more. So we eat more. It leads to disease, your immune system can't work the way it's supposed to because it doesn't have the tools it needs from the food that we're eating. And that is what really strikes home to me. I mean, I'm a cancer survivor. My dad's a cancer survivor. My mom's a cancer survivor. My sister's a cancer survivor. Thank God, we're survivors. But how did we get into this situation? You know, how is it that so many people are, autistic? celiac? cancer? heart disease? Why is this happening? You know, we truly are what we eat, and we're not getting what we need to really help our bodies live to their fullest.
Eli Crain 21:44
Yeah, it starts literally from the ground up. Yes, ma'am. Yeah, well, I heard on another podcast about what you had done: you were talking about the research that you had done on the amino acid profile and the lipid profile of your beef. I'd love to hear a couple of those numbers and what changes you were able to see.
Matt Maier 22:00
Yeah, well, I did pull some data together; you're requiring me to rely on my best. But what we found in general, is we measured a number of minerals and a number of amino acids. And what we found was that our beef looks much more similar to the late 50s and early 60s than today. So two to three times the level of today's conventional beef. But I thought it was interesting because of this data that I was comparing to and the decline of the nutrient density of our foods. They actually started that measurement in the 60s. And then they show the decline since then. And I was able to line up our data points against the ones from the 60s and I thought, Oh my gosh, look at how close we are. What happened around that time that started the decline. hat happened was cheap nitrogen growing cheap corn from petroleum, we figured out how to do that. And in World War II we started growing cheap corn, which then led to feedlots which is an unnatural diet for cattle who are ruminants. And so not only does the corn have less nutrients in it, but then the beef does as well because they're eating an unnatural diet. It's not good for us, and it's not good for them. And then, you know, something exciting that I learned recently from a Duke University professor, is that they've measured, in Europe, the ability for proteins from animals to carry phytonutrients from plants through to the meat. And I think it's extremely fascinating. He wants to bring those studies to the US. We're working with him on this project. And I think it's gonna be really interesting to see. Because if we can, if that is proven, that just puts a whole nother light on the difference between grass-fed and grain-fed beef.
Eli Crain 24:03
Well, it makes a lot of sense to me, at least if you have an animal that's eating a diverse diet, you're gonna have diverse nutrients, like it seems like a pretty one plus one equals two kinds of situations. Right?
Matt Maier 24:16
Yeah. I mean, what would we look like? If we ate corn every day, day in and day out? You know, some of its just common sense. You put that diet in front of us, we wouldn't look very good, we wouldn't be very healthy. You know, that diversity, diversity, diversity in the diet, for animals and for us, is going to give our bodies what we need. And that's going to lead to health, and it's going to lead to prosperity.
Eli Crain 24:43
Yeah, I think that's what drew me to working in the food system: that it's sort of all connected to like all of the major social issues that we're facing in our time from health and obesity, and cancer too, you know, issues in labor, and how do we treat the people who grow our food, and process our food? And, how do we treat animals well, and make sure that they live a life that they're supposed to live; that they're not in a confinement situation their entire lives, that's definitely something we talked about in the last episode: it’s sort of this greenwashing that there's become more awareness around organic labeling and local food, and you know, all of these things where you get a higher premium because it costs more money, a lot of times it takes more effort. And there are fewer incentives to support this type of agriculture, you know that there's a bit of greenwashing that happens. And I think that's something that happens quite a bit with grass-fed beef. And I would love to talk a little bit about that, and how you guys are different from maybe a grass-fed beef label that you find in Costco.
Matt Maier 25:46
Right, there is a ton of greenwashing that goes on with grass-fed beef. I'm still learning about it every day, I still have trouble deciphering all the labels and claims myself, but I can tell you that you have to have 100% grass-fed on the label. Pasture-raised in beef means nothing from a regulatory standpoint, that probably means nothing in the product itself. You know, free-range, pasture-raised, all those things are really questionable. If you just see grass-fed without 100% in front of it. Well, the rule is written so that we're supposed to put in the percent of lifetime diet that the animal had grass-fed, all cattle start off on grass, as calves are on their moms, and then you're on grass because that's the cheapest production method. And it works. You know you could say roughly 50-60-70-80% of a beef animal’s life is on grass, and you're supposed to put like 83% if that's what it ends up being. But you can also have the option of putting no number there, which means then you're defaulting to the lowest number, but nobody knows that. So grass-fed is like a default. If you don't want to put 83% you just put “grass-fed 100%” at least means you've met the protocol that the USDA has for grass-fed. But it could mean that the cow was still fed in a feedlot, distillers grains or other forms of fiber that qualify as forage in the USDA definition. So that's why in our brand, we put two words: “lifetime grazed” because the animals are always on the land. And there's no question about whether they're confined and fed. The diet is because the only way we can improve our soil is if we have animals on the land. And that's so important. If you can figure that out with the grass-fed beef that you're buying, where these animals actually grazed for their lifetime. That's what really matters.
Eli Crain 27:48
Yeah, it's hard out there. It's hard to know the fine print of what you're buying. And that's why, you know, I'm really glad that we get to have this platform to talk about it and hopefully help people figure out how to buy things that actually align with their values, because sometimes it's easy to go, Okay, I see the pasture-raised label on these eggs or on this beef, I think I'm making the best choice for me and what's aligned with what I want, but turns out, maybe I'm not. So yeah, it's definitely an ongoing education process. For sure.
Matt Maier 28:22
It is. And you know, my wife and I are scrutinizing different categories of foods all the time when we look at our whole diet. I mean, it's almost a full-time job.
Eli Crain
Yeah. Well, that's, yeah...
Matt Maier 28:36
I mean, I encourage people to either through e-commerce or through traditional retail, find a retailer you trust could be online, but let them do the vetting. There are good retailers, small natural food retailers, coops, and some bigger retailers, like natural grocers, who actually do the vetting for you. So that you don't have to vet every single product category that you consume. I mean, it's overwhelming. And we need all the help we can get. Of course, you know, we want to avoid glyphosate. And, for the most part, organic gets you there. But then there's a lot more intricacy to it than that. And I don't want to scare people with that, just find either that online or traditional retailer that is doing a lot of the vetting for you so you can walk in there and know, okay, you're gonna pay more. e need, in this country, to get our idea of food on a higher plane, much like the Europeans. Food is a bigger deal. Let's be okay, we’re spending a little bit more on it. Our health depends on it, or our environment depends on it. Our watershed depends on it, or our wildlife habitat depends on it. So let's just spend a little bit more on our food and spend less somewhere else that isn't as impactful.
Eli Crain 30:00
That exactly right. It is a foundational piece of our bodies, it's a foundational piece of our ecosystems, and how we should definitely be prioritizing our food as medicine and healing for the earth, too. So that is a really important thing to keep in mind when you're a consumer, you know, I think that's kind of a great place to wrap up: that this is something for people who are listening to the podcast to think about and, to find people that they trust. And if they don't have the time to do all the research themselves, there are great places that they can trust; for example, 1000 Hills. So I'll let you kind of let people know where they can find you and order from you as well and support what you're doing.
Matt Maier 30:44
Well, yeah, thank you. And, you know, I'll tell you where you can find 1000 Hills. But I also want to say that there's a lot of regenerative agriculture out there in different regions of the country. Just because it says local doesn't mean it was raised the way you want to raise it, I want you to scrutinize past local; it may or may not be but it doesn't guarantee anything from the practice standpoint. And that there are plenty of regenerative agriculture options online now, a little bit harder to find retail. So, Thousand Hills Lifetime Grazed. You can find us on a website, you can order it online, or in a lot of the coops in the country. We're also in a lot of the natural food stores because that's where we focus. That's where our values align with the values of the retailers. We're also at natural grocers—they do an excellent job of vetting. Trust me, we went through two and a half years of vetting before we were able to get into that store. And it wasn't just casual vetting. It was multiple visits. It was multiple surveys, it was multiple examinations of our third-party certifications. And that in general describes the retailers that we work with. So that's why I encourage people to trust you know, build that trust of a retailer to help yourself. But we appreciate all the support of our consumers and of our practices because together we're really trying to save our food system in this country.
Eli Crain 32:12
How many acres are you managing right now? It's not an insignificant number.
Matt Maier 32:22
Well, we work with 50 different producers across the country. My farm is one of those 50. And we have our own protocol that requires regenerative practices. And so we're managing our producers. Collectively we are managing over 500,000 acres across the country. Wow, they want to get to a million by 2025. There's a lot of food companies that now have schools out there that have kind of come on, let's say, Johnny, come lately. And we want to stay out in front and make sure that we're the first to a million acres.
Eli Crain 32:56
Well, good luck. I'm excited to see that happen. And I hope that we help in our small way here. Yeah. Good. Good. So thank you again, Matt, so much for being on the podcast today. And everyone who's listening please go check out Thousand Hills Lifetime Grazed and do your research. I that's the key here.
Matt Maier 33:19
Yes. Well, thank you for having me. It's a real pleasure to talk with you today.
Eli Crain 33:32
Hello, and welcome back to nourish. I'm your host, Eli Crain. And I just talked to Matt Maier from Thousand Hills Lifetime Grazed and we had a really interesting conversation about soil health and the connection between farmers and policy and nutrients in the soil and our bodies and kind of how this is all part of one big ecosystem that we need to be preserving and protecting. And I think a really important piece of that is not just voting with our consumer dollars, but voting, actually, and putting policy in place that supports this type of agriculture. And so I'm really excited to be joined also by Laura Schreiber from the Land Stewardship Project. She is a policy organizer on their local foods team and was also part of the campaign for soil and climate that LSP just completed. And out of that campaign came their soil health bill, which just went through both the House and the Senate. So I'm really excited to get to talk to you about all of that hard work. And yeah, let me introduce yourself and talk a little bit about LSP and your background with that.
Laura Schreiber 34:34
Awesome. Well, thanks. Yeah, so I’m Laura Schreiber, policy organizer with LSP. We're a membership-based nonprofit working with rural people, farmers, but also urban allies all across the state, and the Midwest, to really create a more just and transformative food system. I'm on our policy team. So we work more in the weeds with legislators going to the Capitol, but also like bringing our member's stories and needs there and creating policies like the soil health bill to really make a difference on the landscape for both farmers, but also consumers too. But yeah, we also have our Farm Beginnings team. So getting more people onto the land; and then our Soil Health team, as well as helping to get more farmers implementing these practices all across the Midwest.
Eli Crain 35:19
Yeah, you guys do a lot of really cool work that impacts all sorts of different aspects of the food system from beginning farmers. I know that my current boss at my job actually met the owner of the business that I work for out of Farm Beginnings. So it's connecting people in ways that they really don't always expect. But I really want to focus on your policy work, specifically around soil health. And, you know, where did the impetus for this bill come from? And what is it that the overview of the soil health bill is supposed to be contributing to?
Laura Schreiber 35:42
Yeah, absolutely. So the soil bill came out of our Soil Health and Climate Committee, which is about 15 of our members that came together. And we really wanted to work on one of our five-year strategic initiatives, like, how do we put forth a policy that will address the climate crisis that we're in. But doing so in a way that builds soils, builds communities, and invests in farmers that are doing practices that we know are good for the land. So we did a ton of listening sessions and one-to-ones in the summer of 2020.
Eli Crain 36:20
Awesome. What are listening sessions? And like one of those look like what is the one on policy geeks out here? Right?
Laura Schreiber 36:27
Yeah, so a lot of it is, you know, just talking to people to see what they need, what their pain points are on their farm, what would be helpful for them., I want to be able to try out, say, this practice of farming, but I currently can't afford it. that would be actually impactful at a policy level that we could interact with. and also, for policy, getting people all across the state. So both farmers and nonfarmers are pushing for this type of legislation. So bringing together people who are also passionate about building up our soils, having a more sustainable food system. So bringing them together, saying how do you want to fight for this? what makes you passionate about it? So both the policy side of our having these conversations, what's a tactical, actual legislation that we could do, but also engaging people who will come lobby with us and you know, talk to our legislators, and talk to their community to be like, Hey, this is something that we could have, how do we fight for this?
Eli Crain 37:27
So it sounds like you guys do a lot of work to make sure you have boots on the ground; are talking to people who are going to be impacted by policy, figuring out what it is that they need and want. Yep. And then let's just make it happen.
Laura Schreiber 37:42
Yeah, so that's kind of like, what sets LSP apart? We really are member-led, we're listening to people who make up our membership and want to be co-creating and making a new future together? So yeah, after all those listening sessions and one-to-one and talking to other states, too, and seeing what they have implemented and what's worked for them to get more farmers using soil health practices.
Eli Crain 38:10
Yeah. What are some examples of soil practices? I know I talked with Matt a little bit and we talked specifically about pasture-raised meat and grazing animals on the land and like a rotational system in order to build soil carbon and, and organic matter. But obviously, not all the farmers you guys work with are doing pasture-raised meat or even growing meat at all right? So what are some other soil health practices that you guys manage?
Laura Schreiber 38:33
Managed rotational grazing, though, is definitely like a top one there. But yeah, I also like implementing cover crops. So say you have tillage radish, or buckwheat, or a variety of different crops that you can put in so that hydric soil covers your round to at least have a living root. Yeah, on all types of soil.
Eli Crain 38:52
And that's to prevent erosion, essentially.
Laura Schreiber 38:55
Yeah. And also, like, really, deeply increased water filtration.
Eli Crain 39:03
Yes, we don't have so much runoff into our rivers. And yeah, that then washes all the way down the Mississippi.
Laura Schreiber 39:08
Yeah, well, even, like keeping your soils covered keeps the temperature at a more normal temperature. One of our farmers last week was showing how in his field he had a cover crop that had rye in it, and I think it was 15 to 20 degrees cooler than his exposed field.
Eli Crain 39:23
Yea, that makes a huge difference. We just had a crazy drought and heat wave. We had a farmer who we were going to buy strawberries from, for the company that I work for, and their entire crop just got killed. And that's not where you have crop insurance or anything, it's just that you've lost all the money, and the time and effort you put in to trying to grow this crop but, Mother Nature...
Laura Schreiber 39:52
That's another issue that we can get into. But yeah, and also like roller crimping tons of practice,—that would be the outline. It's really like actually growing a crop and then knocking it over to dry. Yeah, and then plant directly into it. And so one of our farmers planted rye, actually, and then knocked that over and planted soybeans into it. So he has great coverage, weed suppressant, all those good things. But I also want to mention that a lot of these practices that we're talking about are nothing really new or revolutionary. It came from truly like, indigenous knowledge. We're so grateful to partners who have taught us more about this and everything, and I really want to give credit where credit's due: it was the native people who were on this land and who were farming this way for a very long time, right.
Eli Crain 40:40
Like, even when I was talking with Matt, rotational grazing is based on a lot of our knowledge about how bison roamed. Yeah, that's why we have or used to have, such incredibly thick, rich soils here.
Laura Schreiber 40:52
So it's really cool to see when farmers are excited to try out these new things that they know work. Yeah, they're also, you know, on such crazy margins, so may not have the financial flexibility to try out something new. So that's also what this bill is addressing: incentivizing farmers through direct payments and grants to implement these types of practices on their farms. Because we know they work. It's just, you know, kind of getting over that hump of trying it out. So the grants and direct payments over three to five years. So helping you get through that period of learning, and transitioning because we know what works for your soils, hopefully. right?
Eli Crain 41:28
Yeah. I mean, it works on other farms. There's plenty of actual data and like the University of Minnesota has done research on this all across the country,
Laura Schreiber 41:30 I shouldn't say, hopefully.
Eii Crain 41:33 Oh, yeah. I mean, I think it's just that's the complicated thing about agriculture, though, is the soil is different. Even across Minnesota we have so many different types of soil.
Laura Schreiber 41:40
Absolutely, yeah, we have three different biomes that we're working with to like part of our bill as well as a research component. So like, you know, depending on if you're in northwest Minnesota versus southeast, like what practices are gonna work will look very different. So tracking that and being able to learn from each other or one another is huge. So definitely a part of the components of
Eli Crain 42:02
Yeah. No, that's great. So direct payment so that farmers can get through that transition period where you're probably going to have some losses. Like, it's really hard to change and learn a new practice and implement it without...
Laura 42:13
Right. Yeah, and when talking with farmers who, like on our committee, they're like, yeah, you probably want to get actually to three to five, because it's at the third-year mark when you really start to see noticeable changes. Okay, so helping people get to that point a little bit beyond, too.
Eli Crain 42:26
Yeah, that's interesting because, for organic certification, that transition period is three years. And that's when you can see differences in soil health, it takes time. Yeah, I mean, it took millennia to build up the soil, we have, it's going to take a few years to even just build like a tiny little bit of organic.
Laura Schreiber 42:45
Yeah, and it's also crazy to see just how, especially like stacking the different functions, like say you bring out cattle that are grazing, but then you do a cover crop and then you grow this cover crop, like all these different stacking functions, like, really, really grow your soils. Way more quickly, I think than some people would imagine. So it's exciting to see like, Okay, this is really working.
Eli Crain 43:06
Yeah. So there's like hope, like, yeah, make this happen if we put our dollars and our votes and our confidence behind it, right? Yeah, it's really good.
Laura Schreiber 43:16
I should say, the last two. So there's like three main components of this: So directly incentivizing farmers through grants and direct payments, the research, and then lastly, we had a statewide voluntary goal of having 100% of farmers using soil healthy practices by 2035. And another piece I just want to highlight too, is like, we've really tried to ground equity within this bill. So we had a prioritizing scale listed out in our bill like really prioritizing women, BIPOC, queer, indigenous farmers first received this funding because they have been historically left out of, you know, statewide USDA funding. So really wanted to be actively excluded. Right? Yeah. To find out how the policy was written, yeah, and also then prioritizing more small and mid-scale farming, so farmers with less acreage. So really helping them like get a hand like a foothold to receive that funding first because usually they can kind of skipped over. So yeah,
Eli Crain 44:23
Yeah. And they're really important, like we' saw with COVID, that a lot of issues in our supply chains happen because we rely on a really large scale, consolidated agriculture, that's not flexible, you know, can't really respond flexibly to big shifts.
Laura Schreiber 44:40
Well, and a lot of these farmers too, like, they are the ones who are kind of being the innovators and they're trying out these practices.
Eli Crain 44:47
But you need to have people in the mid and small scale doing this work to show like, it can be done. And people want this and this is valuable. And hey, big owners have huge acrages of land, take note and follow our lead to some extent, you know, I think that's...
Laura Schreiber 45:10
Yeah, well, I think we do have farmers also as our members who have large corn and soy operations, and they're excited about what cover crops could do for their farms. Like, they know, it's not just a small egg, as some of our members call it, - a small egg thing. So you know, it's a way that we can all regenerate our soils and protect it no matter what you're growing.
Eli Crain 45:24
Yeah, well, I think that's really cool that you guys have members kind of across the scale of agriculture in the region. And not just, sometimes I think, in this space, we tend to focus on the smaller midsize operators, or sort of exclude people who maybe are conventional agriculture, who've been working
Laura Schreiber 45:46
Right, and a lot of this too is like, yeah, you can have policies and everything. But there is a deeply social and cultural component to this, too. So that's why the work that our soil health team does going farmer-to-farmer, building those connections, seeing what they currently have on our landscape and what they might like to try, like, so many farmers rely on talking to their neighbors, see what they're trying out and how it's working for them. So you can have to incentivize things, but you also need that technical knowledge and know-how, which is part of our soil health bill too, so helping people work with our local Soil and Water Conservation Districts, there are people who have immense steps and knowledge. So getting them even more funding can be a long-term goal. So they can go out to more farmers and help them implement these types of practices.
Eli Crain 46:38
Yeah, no, that's awesome. I think what you mentioned about the social component is so important, and definitely I sometimes forget to include that in the conversation because nobody farms in isolation, nobody does any work in isolation. It's a community, like looking to your neighbors for advice to see what they're doing. And like, there can be a little bit of like pushback, and just to, to acknowledge that that's part of part and parcel policy is, is making sure that you have the social support of your of the people who you're asking to make changes, like, it's you can't ask me to make changes without getting their like leaders of that community on board.
Laura Schreiber 47:20
Yeah, right. Well, that's why one of the ways that we want to show to the legislature that, hey, there's overwhelming support for this type of Bill, this type of farming, was sending out a petition, and we had nearly 3000 signatures from across the state, and a large number of them were farmers. So like, showing their support for this, too, is a really powerful way for our legislators to be like, I am a farmer, here's something that you can do to help me out. Please invest in this. So yeah, so it's really exciting to see people come together. And we had great lobbying meetings and in-district meetings with representatives and trying to tell them like, Hey, this is something that you can do to support our community and especially rural communities as well, too.
Eli Crain 48:05
Yeah, no, that's great. So how can we help you guys like as a listener, what can we do to show our support? And yeah, update us on where the bill is at right now as of our
Laura Schreiber 48:16
So we introduced the bill, and in the February 20-2021 legislative session. And we moved through three different committees on the House side. We got introduced in the Senate, which was exciting, and through all the workouts of a legislative session. So we have A $4 million provision included in the environment bill to incentivize farmers to implement cover crops. So we kind of had a bit of, you know, compromises and everything throughout the legislative process. But so we got 4 million for cover crops. So not all the different practices that we talked about, but a very important one and kind of an entry-level state, I would say. And then a soil health cost-share program was established. So that has 1.3 5 million allocated for it. So that will help farmers with things like technical knowledge, piece of equipment sharing, research. So it's kind of a starting point. And we can see that we can grow that and get more robust funding for it in the future. But for how people can support and help, you can go to landstewardshipproject.org, where you can sign up to join our policy team emails, and we're gonna be holding events throughout the summer—we're really celebrating the farmers who are using these practices on their farms and inviting people to come to check it out. There'll be legislators there too. So we'd love to have people there. And next session and beyond we'll be fighting for more funding and more practices be included. So definitely join us in the fight to get more farmers to farm in a way that we know is beneficial for all of us.
Eli Crain 50:03
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for the work that you guys are doing and I will be sure to link all of that on our website and in the episode description so everyone can go check it out and find out if they can get involved and help as well. So thank you so much, Laura.
Laura Schreiber 50:18
Yeah, thank you.
Eli Crain 50:25
This has been Nourish by MN350. It's a production of MN350's Food Systems team. We are changing the way people think about food production, distribution, and consumption practices in the context of rapid climate change. This series was made possible by the hard work and passion of a group of dedicated volunteers. This episode was produced, written, and edited by Eli Crain with help from Barbara Norblom. Our logo was designed by Fizz design collective Our music is by Ecuador Monta. You can learn more at mn 350 action.org slash podcast. Thank you again for listening.