Dirt Rich

28: Saving Seed & Dancing Feet

Today, Zachary Paige returns to Dirt Rich for a conversation on planning ahead for seed saving! You may remember him from Episode 21 at the top of the season.

Zach farms and operates North Circle Seeds in Vergas, Minnesota. North Circle Seeds is a newly certified organic seed company and collective committed to creating an ecologically diverse, equitable, and inclusive food system. As the Minnesota weather warms and gardeners and farmers are beginning to plant, Zach has some pointers for planning your space for seed saving and some vignettes of the process behind saving seeds for arugula, tomatoes, squash, and carrots.

Tune in for some recommendations on spacing, trellising, storage, equipment (‘smashing sticks,’ anyone?), and some colorful stories on the delicious foods and new connections that Zach has made because of saved seed.

 

Read about North Circle Seeds in The Land.

 

Want to get more involved and connect with fellow growers? You can become a member of SFA! There are 10 regional chapters across Minnesota.

 

Thoughts? Comments? Ideas? Drop us a line on our Virtual Comment Box.

 

Katie Feterl, SFA Communications Director
Zachary Paige, North Circle Seeds and SFA Member/Board Delegate

The viewpoints of the speakers expressed within or outside of this episode do not necessarily reflect the goals and mission of SFA.

Dirt Rich is produced by the Sustainable Farming Association.

27: Home on the Tree-Range

Tony Wells and a few partners are years into developing a regenerative and resilient poultry production system that provides opportunities for small farm profitability, which they’ve implemented on a 40-acre farm. The model attempts to replicate a forest habitat for poultry, incorporating perennials like hazelnuts and elderberries into a silvopasture system. Not only do the birds enjoy the shade and cover from aerial predators provided by the canopy, but the hazelnuts thrive on the nitrogen-rich chicken manure and offer an additional income stream. Tony says that after 5-7 years, the hazelnuts will make up 30-50% of the farm’s revenue.

Years before Tony joined the venture, his partners Wil Crombie and Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin were working on developing the system. Regi worked with many breeds, researching which would be most suitable for their design. The breed of chicken they’ve found success with? Aptly, Freedom Rangers.

The goal is for this model to be replicated on other farm sites. “It’s really, really hard for one farm to make it on their own and market their own products…it’s always going to work better if multiple farms can work together.” That’s why developing scalable business infrastructure has been a significant part of the venture. Rather than each individual farmer taking the chickens to the processor, the team picks up birds and transports them there. They also handle all the distribution and sales under the Tree-Range Chicken brand.

What started as a curiosity around food production and nutrition—“What goes into food?”—has blossomed into new friendships and partnerships, transplanting from Minneapolis to a Faribault farm, and a new career raising “tree-range” poultry for Tony. “I haven’t yet found anything I would rather put my energy towards at this point in my life.”

 

Tony and Reginaldo were interviewed for SFA’s new Silvopasture Case Study series, which was just published in March 2021.
Find more resources on Silvopasture on SFA’s resource page.

Tony's Poultry Processing survey

 

Tony Wells, Regeneration Farms, Cannon River Chapter delegate to the SFA Board of Directors
Jared Luhman, Soil Health Lead, Sustainable Farming Association, jared@sfa-mn.org

The viewpoints of the speakers expressed within or outside of this episode do not necessarily reflect the goals and mission of SFA.

Dirt Rich is produced by the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota.

26: AMPed for Grazing!

Over the years of establishing and fine-tuning their management systems, grazing has become absolutely key in both Jared Luhman’s and Doug Voss’ cattle and dairy operations. Beyond rotational grazing, Adaptive Multi-Paddock grazing (or AMP) has improved the ecology of their farms--not to mention saved the time, energy, and expense of hauling around feed and other off-farm inputs--by modeling their grazing systems after the natural movement of wildlife across landscapes. “There’s no substitute for what comes out the back of a cow or small ruminant,” Doug jokes.

Doug hasn’t used any off-farm inputs for years, and yet his yields continue to increase. The adaptive part of AMP is quintessential: not only is a successful grazing plan going to be unique and flexible to the context of a piece of land, but to the conditions that may come to pass during the season, be it a change in rainfall or a family wedding you need a couple days to travel to.

The number of variables to consider may be daunting, but as Doug reminds us, creating an adaptive grazing plan is more of a journey than a destination. In the interview, he shares some advice for those looking to start to graze as well as those looking to improve their management, covering fencing, watering systems, rest periods, and examples from Voss Farms.

The payoff is worth it. AMP grazing has brought Doug great peace of mind and more predictable income: “I have far fewer challenges where I’m not going to be productive or profitable on an acre of ground than I’ve ever had before.” 

Whether you own a herd or land, there are a lot of good resources to help you get livestock applied appropriately to your land:

• SFA Soil Health resources
• SFA Silvopasture resources
• Technical Assistance Program for Graziers
• Nourishment by Fred Provenza 
• SFA also offers technical assistance to farmers, with priority given to SFA members.

Doug Voss, Grazing Lead, Sustainable Farming Association, doug@sfa-mn.org
Jared Luhman, Soil Health Lead, Sustainable Farming Association, jared@sfa-mn.org

The viewpoints of the speakers expressed within or outside of this episode do not necessarily reflect the goals and mission of SFA.

Dirt Rich is produced by the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota.

25: Integrative Nutrition with Sara Keough

Sara Keough MS, CNS, LDN  is an Integrative Eco-Nutritionist specializing in clinical nutrition and regenerative agriculture to restore both human and ecological health. “Eating is an agricultural act,” are words from Wendell Berry that have stuck with Keough through her career and help illustrate the nature of her work. Her goal is to teach her patients the importance of their food choices: it’s about individual health, and also about how those choices impact our ecosystems.

In a culture where discussions on diet and nutrition can often be very number-oriented or granular to the average eater, Sara’s approach stands out not only as holistic, but as tailored to the individual body (bio-individuality), exploratory, and social. She shares her knowledge and experience with nutrient dense foods, the role of animal proteins, farmers as healers, the value of eating seasonally, advice for navigating mixed messages around nutrition, and much more.

Sara Keough will be speaking at SFA’s virtual Midwest Soil Health Summit (March 9-11, 2021) on March 10. Learn more about the Midwest Soil Health Summit and register on the SFA website.

You can also keep up with Sara on Understanding Ag.  Some of her recent articles include:

• Regenerating Human Health & Building a More Resilient Food System: Calls to Action Among Farmers, Consumers, and Healthcare Practitioners
• Artificial Animals - Part 1
• Artificial Animals - Part 2: The Hidden Dangers of Processed Plant Proteins

Sara Keough, MS, CNS, LDN, Integrative Eco-Nutritionist
Katie Feterl, SFA, Communications Director

The viewpoints of the speakers expressed within or outside of this episode do not necessarily reflect the goals and mission of SFA.

Dirt Rich is produced by the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota.

24: Restoring Oak Savanna

Tyler and Stephen pick up their conversation on oak savanna from our last episode: How do we restore oak savanna? What does it take? Where have we been and what’s been missed in prior restoration attempts?

According to Stephen, “restoration is restoring the processes that maintain the desirable vegetation.” He dives into a variety of techniques used to do so including spraying, mowing, burning, baling, and grazing. Knowing what to take and what to leave is key in changing the trajectory of an ecosystem.

Stephen and Tyler also get into a popular question: do we really need fire? What is necessary to maintain the savanna once you have it where you want it? To parse out an answer to that question, Stephen walks us through historical and ecological perspectives. Considering the relationship between burning and grazing, the pair land on grazing as a primary tool and burning as a secondary tool to maintain savanna grassland; grazing reduces the necessity of burning.

The opportunity of farming and restoring oak savanna simultaneously is exciting, and Stephen looks forward to the growing cooperation between farmers and conservationists to build understanding and successful restoration work. He imagines the potential that could stem from bringing grazers back into the picture on more of the landscape, even in urban areas: a stronger local food economy, more meaningful jobs. The possibilities just might be as diverse as the ecosystem itself.

 

SFA’s Silvopasture & Agroforestry webpage: https://www.sfa-mn.org/silvopasture-agroforestry/

Silvopasture Learning Network: https://silvopasture.umn.edu/home

 

The name we were struggling to remember towards the end of the episode was Tom Barthel of Snake River Farm. Check out his work in Sherburne county with bison and other grazers here.

 

Stephen Thomforde, Stantec, Senior Ecologist

Tyler Carlson, SFA, Silvopasture & Agroforestry Project Lead

The viewpoints of the speakers expressed within or outside of this episode do not necessarily reflect the goals and mission of SFA.

Dirt Rich is produced by the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota.

This episode is supported and funded by a grant from the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR). It is part of the “Oak Savanna Restoration through Silvopasture Project” in cooperation with University of Minnesota Agricultural Extension, Center for Integrated Natural Resources and Agricultural Management (CINRAM) at the University of Minnesota, and Great River Greening.

23: Oak Savanna Origins

Stephen Thomforde, farmer, Stantec Senior Ecologist, and expert in fields of oak savanna research and restoration takes us on a deep dive into oak savannas. Throughout the episode, he describes the patterns of this ecosystem’s growth across geographical space and time, all the way back to when mammoths and mastodons walked Minnesota.

In short, a savanna is a grassland that has trees in it. Trees that have evolved with the grassland and the grazing animals. But even the history of the word originates back to aboriginal North Americans. And in his discussion with host Tyler Carlson, Stephen brings the 1,000-foot view of the ecosystem: illuminating complex details that are often left out of common narratives of oak savanna, and dropping us back in the present day. Why does the management of this landscape matter? What does it have to offer people? Find out in part one of this two-episode interview with Stephen Thomforde and Tyler Carlson.

Stephen Thomforde, Stantec, Senior Ecologist
Tyler Carlson, SFA, Silvopasture & Agroforestry Project Lead

The viewpoints of the speakers expressed within or outside of this episode do not necessarily reflect the goals and mission of SFA.

Dirt Rich is produced by the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota.

 

This episode is supported and funded by a grant from the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR). It is part of the “Oak Savanna Restoration through Silvopasture Project” in cooperation with University of Minnesota Agricultural Extension, Center for Integrated Natural Resources and Agricultural Management (CINRAM) at the University of Minnesota, and Great River Greening.

22: Matchmaking for Livestock & Land

“I think the future of farming looks more collaborative. It looks like working together, and it’s about stacking enterprises.” Meghan Filbert of Practical Farmers of Iowa (and a beginning farmer to boot) joins Dirt Rich to talk about an online tool facilitating just that. 

Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) is a nonprofit in Ames, Iowa with a mission to equip farmers to build more resilient farms and communities. They believe that farmers learn best from other farmers, so it’s no surprise that the online platform they helped create brings farmers together.

The Midwest Grazing Exchange is billed as “a matchmaking website for livestock and land.” Farmers in Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin can use the website to connect with folks looking for rural or urban land to graze their livestock on and vice versa. “It’s like Tinder for cows,” Meghan quips. 

There isn’t a lot of livestock on the land in Minnesota, so the website creates a great opportunity for beginning farmers and row crop farmers to partner and both reap the economic benefits. For host and farmer Jared Luhman, there’s definitely a draw. “Every day that my cattle are grazing is a day that I’m not feeding hay, and that day that I’m not feeding hay is saving me quite a bit of money. For me as a livestock producer, if I can find somewhere to graze my cattle on somebody else’s land for cheaper than I can feed it at my own farm, then I’m going to do it.” This matchmaking tool can also be an asset to beginning farmers in starting a custom grazing business.

In addition to the soil health benefits that come along with properly managed grazing, there’s even solid potential for an income stream for participating landowners. Meghan adds that “if you plant cover crops as a row crop producer, we know that by grazing those cover crops that is a way that you’re going to benefit economically in the short term. Within the same year...you can turn a profit and then some.” 

The Midwest Grazing Exchange website also includes other resources to help farmers make these grazing partnerships, such as templates for leases and agreements. In the episode, Meghan and Jared also have some pointers in figuring out your rate, and Meghan does a basic walkthrough on how to use the website and start finding opportunities in your area. If you’re looking to extend your grazing season, save some money, make some money, or improve your soil health with grazing--give the Midwest Grazing Exchange a gander!

Jared Luhman, SFA Soil Health Lead
Meghan Filbert, Practical Farmers of Iowa Livestock Program Manager
meghan@practicalfarmers.org (515) 232-5661

The viewpoints of the speakers expressed within or outside of this episode do not necessarily reflect the goals and mission of SFA.
 
Dirt Rich is produced by the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota.

21: Seed Saving & Collectives

As we begin a new year and a new season of Dirt Rich, we thought it would be fitting to start with seeds. Zachary Paige farms and operates North Circle Seeds in Otter Tail County, Minnesota. North Circle Seeds is newly certified organic and is committed to creating an ecologically diverse, equitable, and inclusive food system.

A deep interest in seeds and seed saving sparked for Zachary about eight years ago after working on farms and noticing that seed saving was not necessarily a part of many operations who otherwise used sustainable practices. He pursued a variety of seed saving and sustainable food production education opportunities, including a master’s degree plant breeding. After arriving in Minnesota, he found a home with fellow growers and seed savers. He also worked with the White Earth Land Recovery Project, an experience that highlighted the value of community and diversity in seed saving. To him, “the magic happens” when folks meet up, sit in a circle, and share what they’re working on and learning.

Drawing on his experiences and knowledge passed on from Native seed keepers and other Minnesota growers, he started North Circle Seeds as a company and seed collective in 2019. In our conversation, Zachary shares his passion for seed saving: the biology and genetics, the camaraderie, the curiosity and constant learning, the ecological value, and the good food that can come from it. He also offers advice for aspiring seed savers. “It’s a glass half-full kind of thing to get into.”

 

Reach out to Zachary and get involved in North Circle Seeds at

https://northcircleseeds.com.  He loves questions! And, check out the Seed Stories podcast.

 

Katie Feterl, SFA Communications Director

Zachary Paige, North Circle Seeds and SFA Member

The viewpoints of the speakers expressed within or outside of this episode do not necessarily reflect the goals and mission of SFA.

Dirt Rich is produced by the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota.

20: That's a Wrap!

After nineteen episodes, we’ve wrapped up the first season of Dirt Rich and are preparing for the next. Thank you for listening! It has truly been a joy to have and share these conversations on food and farming with you. Season two of Dirt Rich will include conversations on seed saving, silvopasture, the Midwest Grazing Exchange, and more--so stay tuned! Check your podcast feeds on January 6, 2021 for the next episode. 
 
In the meantime, if you’d like to support this ad-free series and the Sustainable Farming Association’s other programs, consider making a tax-deductible year-end gift. Every donation is honored with an annual membership to SFA.
 
SFA’s Annual Conference (to be held virtually Feb. 8-13, 2021) will be FREE for all members, making it a really great time to join. We’ve got sessions on the economics of silvopasture, agriculture in the metro, plenaries on meat processing with MN Ag Commissioner Thom Petersen and Attorney General Keith Ellison, and plenty more planned. Check out the full schedule, details, and registration on the SFA website.

We’d love to hear what you think. Please leave us a rating & review wherever you listen! You can also submit your feedback and suggestions in our virtual comment box.
 
Until next time--have a happy and safe holiday season! We’ll talk soon.
 
Katie Feterl, SFA Communications Director
Jared Luhman, SFA Soil Health Lead

The viewpoints of the speakers expressed within or outside of this episode do not necessarily reflect the goals and mission of SFA.
 
Dirt Rich is produced by the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota.

19: Family Dairies & Apprenticeships

“My hope for dairy in the future...is trying to keep these small family farms alive.”

Angie Walter runs an organic, grazing dairy farm with her family in central Minnesota. The family of four raises 100 Norwegian Red, Red Holstein, and Guernsey crosses on 370 acres. Angie is also the Central Minnesota Education Coordinator for the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship, which links current and aspiring dairy farmers to support the transfer of knowledge and skills (and sometimes even farms) to the budding generation of dairy farmers. In today’s episode, she shares her experiences in dairy, as a woman in agriculture, and with apprentices.

DGA is actually the first formal agricultural apprenticeship in the US, and there are real benefits for both masters and apprentices who participate. Masters get the value of having skilled, invested labor on their farm, and build a relationship with someone who could be a candidate for potential farm transfer. Apprentices get to develop day-to-day skills and learn from a practicing farmer who can share their past experiences and work through challenges together in real time.

The DGA program can be a hands-on, on-the-job complement to a college program, but is certainly not limited to students. An internship or apprenticeship can be valuable for those considering a career change, and DGA offers a program for veterans.

The “grazing” piece of DGA is not to be ignored. DGA believes that grazing is essential because of the health benefits to the animals, farmer, and soils. Grazing also reduces the amount of off-farm inputs, builds farm profitability, and is beneficial to water resources. The Walters concur--their family farm has been grazed since the 1980s.

Before officially working for DGA, Angie and her husband joined the program as master graziers. They consider their first apprentice a lifelong friend, and continue to keep in touch after he finished his apprenticeship. It wasn’t always smooth sailing, but they all learned from their time together--the apprentice introduced new projects to the Walter’s farm, too.

Angie didn’t grow up farming, and finds that many DGA apprentices didn’t either. Regardless, they can still find success with the skills and relationships they develop through their apprenticeships: “It’s really exciting just to see these dreams come true for people, it’s amazing to be a part of it.” This farmer-to-farmer format builds support within the farming community, not only in terms of education and networking, but also emotionally. “A lot of times we think of farming just as physically, but there’s a very big emotional piece there too. You need to have support from people around you,” she says.

Dairy has been a rewarding career for Angie: the family farm lifestyle, seeing a calf grow, and helping new dairy farmers achieve their goals. She hopes to see more women find their place in agriculture, and to see more family farms prosper in the future. “It’s really good to give back. It’s just a good feeling in knowing that we can help someone else who didn’t have the same opportunity.”

 

Katie Feterl, SFA Communications Director

Angie Walter, Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship Central Minnesota Education Coordinator, angie@sfa-mn.org

The viewpoints of the speakers expressed within or outside of this episode do not necessarily reflect the goals and mission of SFA.

Dirt Rich is produced by the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota.

 

Resources:

Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship

Angie’s Blog Archive & SFA/DGA Events

Dirt Rich: Beginning Farmer Finance episode