What IS Regenerative Agriculture? Find Out from Farmers!

If food can likely get its flavor and certainly it's nutrient density from the health of the soil, then of course consumers need to be able to understand just what makes soil healthy!

That is a process you may have heard about called Regenerative Agriculture.....

But just what IS regenerative agriculture?  What does it look like on a real farm?  And what effect could it have on your food and the planet?  

In this episode, we begin a deep dive into these topics and more by bringing you real farmers and emerging food companies on the front line!

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Episode Summary:

How does regenerative farming play out on the farm?  What kind of difference do these regenerative principles make in the food they create?  How do food brands incorporate regenerative into the ingredients they use?

And of course, can you taste the difference?

These are some of the questions we are going to be exploring over the next several weeks as we bring you interviews with farmers and emerging food brands in our online community – the Global Food & Farm network.

In this episode, I’m going to share brief clips from a few of the folks you will be learning more about in future episodes – and then, we will dive into a full interview with some of my favorite regenerative farmers – Canadians Derek and Tannis Axten.

To get us started, let’s first hear from my co-host, Dr. Jill Clapperton – a top soil scientist and plant physiologist……
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This podcast is brought to you by:

Rhizoterra - an international food security consulting firm owned by Dr. Jill Clapperton that provides expert guidance for creating healthy soils that yield tasty and nutrient-dense foods. Rhizoterra works together with producers and food companies to regenerate the biological and environmental integrity of the land.

The Global Food & Farm Community - a private, supportive, ad-free, global social network and soil health streaming service that provides information and connections to help you apply and communicate the science, practice, and outcomes of improving soil health.   Find out about upcoming events on our blog. 

AND by . . . Listeners like you who support us through Patreon at Patreon.com/TastingTerroir

Patrons receive access to our full-length interviews and selected additional materials. Patrons also have the ability to submit questions that we will answer on the podcast.

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Transcript

Sara Harper: 0:13

Hello and welcome back to our podcast, Tasting Terra War, where we are on a journey to explore the link between healthy soil and the flavor of your food. I'm your host, Sarah Harper. Last week, we took a peek into the soil microbiome, that world underground where billions of organisms work together to build health and flavor for our food. We also explored the concept of regenerative agriculture, a way of farming that restores and renews the health of the soil by working with nature instead of against her. But as you may remember, regenerative agriculture is not a checklist of practices. More than anything, it is a change in the mindset of the farmer that then leads to many other management changes on the farm. That sounds good, but what does it really mean? How does regenerative farming play out on the farm? What kind of difference do these regenerative principles make in the food they create? How do food brands incorporate regenerative into the ingredients they use? And of course, can you taste the difference? These are some of the questions that we're going to be exploring over the next several weeks as we bring you interviews with farmers and emerging food brands in our online community, the Global Food and Farm Network. These are truly amazing people that I've had the pleasure of getting to know over the past few years who are dedicated to building a healthier, tastier, whole food system. In this episode, I'm going to share brief clips from a few folks who you will be learning a lot more about in future episodes. And then we will dive into a full interview with some of my favorite regenerative farmers, canadians Derek and Tannis Axton. To get us started, let's first hear from my co host, Dr. Jill Clapperton, a top soil scientist and plant physiologist. I'm going to ask you to fill in the sentence regenerative agriculture is regenerative.

Jill Clapperton: 2:21

Agriculture is about rehabilitation, restoring. And I mean when I say restoring, I mean restoring system function. It's about aggregating, not splitting. It's about bringing people together. It's about bringing things together. It's about creating communities, thriving, vibrant communities. It's about diversity. So regenerative is diverse, has a lot of diversity in it, has functioning communities and has function like it's functioning and it's like cooking with gas. Regenerative, you put the gas to it and it is bubbling in a really productive way. It's like a magnet. Everything is coming to it and it's building from that magnetic force and things are getting stuck to it. All sorts of different things are being stuck to it, but it's growing and growing and growing in a really positive and productive way.

Sara Harper: 3:26

With Jill's great description in mind, we are starting to see the outlines of what regenerative agriculture does and perhaps why the healthier soil it creates would lead to more flavorful food. Let's continue to fill in the outline with a few more folks. Next, you're going to hear from farmer Gail fuller with Circle Seven farms in Kansas, farmer Deanna LEZINSKI and her brand of Regenerative pasta, guardian grains of North Dakota, and food company owner and Regenerative ingredient maker Jennifer Cower with around the World gourmet from Ohio. Summarize it all down. Ask you to fill in the sentence.

Gail Fuller: 4:07

Regenerative agriculture is regenerate agriculture is life.

Sara Harper: 4:15

Wow, that's good.

Gail Fuller: 4:20

I used to talk about when I started out of the conventional world and started cutting back on pesticides. And I was doing a lot of speaking at conventional conferences, and I got started being asked to speak at organic conferences because cover crops are pretty new there also. And I was shocked because I just viewed organic as awesome outside of Tillage. But I realized, sadly, that organic and conventional agriculture are basically the same. They're both systems designed to kill. Both those farmers wake up every day, what do I have to kill today? Is it a bug? Is it a weed or what? And we need to start waking up every day thinking, what do I need to grow today? Not what do I need to do? What do I need to grow?

Sara Harper: 5:07

All right, so, Deanna, in one sentence or two, regenerative agriculture is.

Deanna Lozensky: 5:15

Better food for people and animals.

Sara Harper: 5:21

This is great. Oh, no, it is.

Deanna Lozensky: 5:25

There's a million other things it does.

Sara Harper: 5:27

Right.

Deanna Lozensky: 5:27

But we are boiling it down to why it really matters. Why it really matters is because it offers better food for people and animals.

Sara Harper: 5:39

And I think the process of getting to that outcome is that you're rejuvenating the soil and that then enables you to create a better product, right?

Deanna Lozensky: 5:51

Absolutely. It all starts my T shirt says Soil will save us, and I 100% believe that. And if we can protect it, then we have a chance to do better and offer people better. We don't need more of anything, just better. And I think that regenerative agriculture checks those boxes when we're talking about minimizing tillage, minimizing soil disturbance, minimizing your use of fertilizers and reducing all of the chemicals and things like that. I think that they all check off boxes towards better food. Right. And I think that's really the goal. I mean, we get to repair the Earth, but the result is better food.

Sara Harper: 6:53

So fill in the sentence, regenerative agriculture is.

Jennifer Kocher: 6:59

Regenerative agriculture is a way of helping with climate change and global warming by no telling on our farms and keeping the Earth and all its ecosystem in place. We can have more nutrient dense foods from this. And that's what it means to me.

Sara Harper: 7:27

Tell everybody who you are and what's your businesses, what you're doing and where you're at.

Jennifer Kocher: 7:32

It's Jennifer Cower, and I'm in Eastern, Ohio.

Derek Axten: 7:37

Yeah.

Jennifer Kocher: 7:38

So here I am with a business food company. Coer Foods International is the corporate name, doing business as around the World gourmet, which is my food brand, and now also doing business as Regenerative Mills. We are a manufacturer of gluten free vegan pizza crusts. I have other recipes that I have.

Sara Harper: 8:02

That don't taste like it, I might add, because yes, that does not some of those can be a little taste challenged, if you will. And I have had the good fortune to sample them many times and can attest that they are, you really can't tell the difference. And in fact, a number of your patrons don't even know that they're that's great. And do you think it's something that consumers are looking for that they can understand?

Jennifer Kocher: 8:31

Yeah, I think that there are some consumers that definitely care about this. We've seen that they've cared a lot about organic in the past and this is just the next step of them caring. There are people that care about your bodies and you are what you eat. But the thing with the organic right now is that most of them still have to till because of weeds control. But I do believe that consumers are going to love this. They're going to love the connection with the farmer. They're going to love the fact that it's helping what they're actually able to by eating, let's say, our pizza, we actually have a tagline healthier for you and our planet and also save the planet one pizza at a time. I think they're going to feel like they're part of something bigger.

Sara Harper: 9:29

By now you're probably wondering why isn't every brand using regeneratively grown ingredients? That's a great question that you should definitely be asking your favorite brands. Don't worry, that is another topic that we will tackle in the future. But for now, let's get to our feature interview with Derek and Tannis Axton, regenerative farmers from Saskatchewan, Canada, who grow 14 crops so very well and are in the process of creating their own flour mill on the farm, which will produce baking flowers of all different kinds of grains that you can buy from them. Well, hi Derek and Hannah, how are you guys?

Tannis Axten: 10:13

We're great. We're really good. We discussed some well needed precipitation in the form of snow over the last couple of days, but we'll take it.

Sara Harper: 10:22

Good, well, let everybody know you guys are regenerative farmers have been doing it for quite a while, but let everybody know where you farm and what you grow.

Tannis Axten: 10:35

Sure. So we farm in Minton, Saskatchewan, which is, I guess south central Saskatchewan, very near the US. Border. Basically. I tell people think about where Montana and North Dakota intersect and we're just north of that line and I don't know, we're a small grains operation focusing mostly on hair, just grains and grains that we can market directly to end users and grains that we can add value to. Oh gosh, do you want me to name specifics or do you want me to name specific like this gets too.

Sara Harper: 11:16

Long or do you just have like 14 different crops? I'll help you out because I've talked to you several times, but you do a lot of with wheat in ancient grains. Right. And pulses, chickpeas, lentils, flax, a whole bunch of different interesting things that could go into what, bread or crackers or just all of those kinds of things, right?

Tannis Axten: 11:42

Yeah, exactly. Things that we can it was green that we thought that end users that would good thing you've been at it. No, I don't know how to work, but we grow pre, grow **** that nobody else grows.

Derek Axten: 12:02

Basically.

Tannis Axten: 12:05

Organic farmers. There is a lot of confusion and people do think that we're organic and we're not. But yeah, spelt is definitely a big one. We grow Golden Farm.

Sara Harper: 12:17

That's right. Spelt, amaranth. Do you grow any of that?

Tannis Axten: 12:20

No, we don't.

Sara Harper: 12:22

Mustard. Mustard seed. That's right. That's another one.

Tannis Axten: 12:27

Yellow mustard seed is a big one for us. And we supply that to burlap and barrel.

Derek Axten: 12:34

Campbellina is our other oil seeds. And then yeah, some of the ancient grains, like spelled Porsche redfice, red fives.

Sara Harper: 12:43

That was another one.

Tannis Axten: 12:49

Traditionally behold. But we were variety that was actually designed to be like a naked oat and so it can be used.

Sara Harper: 12:56

The naked oat?

Tannis Axten: 13:01

Yeah. The oats are really cool because it's actually a really high protein. Traditionally ten to twelve. And these are like 18% to 20% protein. So they fit really well, like in a snack bar or any of those kind of things. Especially with all the range around protein right now.

Sara Harper: 13:16

Yeah. And you guys are also working on you already have a food grade sea cleaning facility and you're working on a mill. So you'll be able to turn your crops into actual ingredients and products that people can consume.

Tannis Axten: 13:29

Yeah, for sure. That's where we're sitting right now. We're in my office in the attached to our facility. And this has been in operation for 18 months, which has got us in some different customers kind of actually almost all over the world now. And the next step is the flower mail is going together right now. Our crew is not here for a couple of weeks. We're waiting for some components, but we're hoping to be grinding in June. We have one confirmed flower customer. It's a pretty good sized volume for spelled flower that we're pretty excited about. And so we really want to get grinding sooner than later. And then Tannis has been talking to a whole bunch of different solar customers. We're going to be able to package, to start with in tote bags and in 20 and 50 pound bags. We put a lot of thought and a lot of time into quality and food safety. So metal detection.

Sara Harper: 14:31

All of it a lot.

Tannis Axten: 14:33

Yeah. So we really want to make sure the things that leave you are not only nutritious, but safe, high quality.

Sara Harper: 14:42

That is great. And I know you guys have been farming and doing regenerative farming for quite some time. So there's a context there. I just want people to understand that you didn't just come to this last year. It's been a long journey but you've been on it for a long time too, maybe. How far back would you say you got started on this kind of this regenerative journey?

Tannis Axten: 15:05

Well, the mindset shift happened the shift in mindset happened in the summer of 2007, the first time I met Doctor going Back, that's really easy. I know that prior to that we were commodity farmers, didn't realize there was.

Derek Axten: 15:36

Another world, the same thing year after year.

Tannis Axten: 15:39

Yeah, that was the only real metric we were trying to improve was yield. So anyway, with that first visit to back and everything, that kind of happened after that and it really is a journey and I keep telling people we still don't think we're there, I don't think we'll ever be there, I don't know where there is, but we've improved. But there's definitely a lot of room for improvement.

Sara Harper: 16:10

All right, so then that brings us up to and that's one of the important things, I think, that we wanted to do with this kind of series is to help people understand the regenerative agriculture, what it is and what it is from people who are doing it, instead of just the external marketing that often gets thrown around there. So what is your definition of regenerative agriculture?

Derek Axten: 16:31

You make it sound so easy.

Sara Harper: 16:33

No, I know it's not.

Derek Axten: 16:36

We're on a lot of boards and committees and everyone wants to be definition and we know this interview was coming. So we've spent actually hours this morning sitting around the breakfast table, even with our daughter really discussing and thinking. So I had to make a few notes because we talked and we came up with more ideas. It's funny because we're all in the same page, but we had different ideas of how we got there. But one of the things we came up with first is there's no hard and fast rules because it is a constant journey and it really comes down to the mindset and the motivation behind your actions. So we basically defined it as a philosophy of overarching principles that put soil first, that's really good, starting the soil, but impacting so much more health, happiness, community and yeah, that's kind of the heart of where our conversation went, that it isn't a thing as much as it is. It's a real philosophy in a mindset.

Sara Harper: 17:48

That'S great. And I think so often the marketplace looks for these five things to certify or these things to say you're not doing, to make sure to survey that you're not doing. And I think there are some who want to put regenerative in that same path because that's the model that everybody is used to. So in your discussion and you're thinking about this, what are the dangers of that? Even though there's a danger of being too vague, if it's a philosophy, that's great, but how do I know that you're really in it? And on the path and somebody else who claims they are maybe isn't. So there are outcomes from that philosophy that you could measure, maybe. But what's the danger of maybe the very rigid path that is more concrete but has some challenges too? Maybe.

Tannis Axten: 18:39

Well, I guess I recently quoted an article that Sarah De Laves did for RFSI. My problem with any kind of certification is simply that people will ride the minimums. That's what got us when we're in the conversation this morning was got us around talking about motivation. What is your motivation? Is it dollars and cents? And what is the motivation for these certifications so they can monetize what we're doing? Or is it to actually move our product into consumer's hands? I don't know the answer to that. But I think what is your motivation is something we didn't really consider a whole bunch before.

Derek Axten: 19:28

Yeah, I think we did in our own part. Our motivation was the soil. And that's where we started because we knew that that was the most important resource and that in the end would give us the biggest benefit. In the end. We discussed a lot about motivation because is the end for the consumer or is it for yourself? For us, it started with ourselves and then when we got excited about our product, we wanted to be able to offer it to someone and we really thought, and I think it does to a certain extent, our story sells because people, we grow it here, we clean it, we bag it, you know exactly where it came from. But we're just talking about that and there's a lot of people we find a lot of our products going into markets where people are just so impressed with the quality of the product, they don't know how it was grown. But the outcome is there. And I think it's because of the practices. But as far as measuring every little thing in between, it's very difficult.

Tannis Axten: 20:34

We found it was a really interesting conversation because probably the company that's going to be our largest customer in 2022 has no idea how we farm. They just know that they really like our greens. It was interesting to us because you've seen those blind taste tests where they tell you which one is more expensive than the other and then you want it to be better. With these guys there's no anticipation. They're not judging us for how we farm or they just know that our products are really good.

Derek Axten: 21:06

They're not seeing a label and they're like, oh, this must be good, right? Because it's labeled this they're looking at.

Sara Harper: 21:13

The actual product because that goes back to some people, I think. Question is regenerative real or does it make a real difference? But if you're doing all these things that really enhance the soil and then you have more nutrient density and more minerals are getting into the crop and then that mineral affects the taste, right? It affects the quality and affect all these things. So in theory, at least, you would have a better product, not just in some ways that you'd have to detect in a lab, but in ways that people could actually detect that would go hand in hand with them being able to have a better market.

Tannis Axten: 21:50

Yes, and we've been doing that too. We've got four or five years of data on nutrient density testing. We've been doing lifesaving MPA residue testing, and all those things have been the outcomes we want, but it really hasn't been a big driver of sales that we expected it or hoped it would be.

Sara Harper: 22:08

Yeah.

Derek Axten: 22:11

We'Ve talked about how it goes even beyond that for us. When we shifted our mindset to focus on the soil, which really involved all these regenerative practices, we've seen improvements in our soil, improvements in our plant health, grains that have high nutrient densities, which ultimately can improve people's health. But then beyond that, we've expanded on the farm and we've been able to employ more people, have more people come into our community. So by starting by trying to build our small biological communities, you can't even see it's having a huge impact on our community and our entire lives.

Tannis Axten: 22:58

Yeah, one of the things that I've been gauging is a factor of success, or an indicator of success for us. We recently had two of our employees buy homes in our community that are going to raise families in our community. That's an indicator of success.

Derek Axten: 23:16

And when we say community, we're talking about a town of 50 people or less who is a lot and young people with video or starting families. That's exactly what we need in our community so that it can survive.

Sara Harper: 23:33

Yeah, and they needed these jobs to be able to do that, to be able to stay in a lifestyle that they maybe would have liked, but without additional economic opportunity couldn't. Well, I want to ask too. So you talked a little bit about but that's your definition of regenerative. Tell people more about how it is that you practice that. And I know it's not just a set of practices, but it is also practices that matter. And so how do you using that philosophy? How does that translate into how you farm?

Derek Axten: 24:05

Well, I guess start with diversity. Years back, before we started this Mayan shift, we were, I don't know, down to about four different crops. So, I mean, diverse rotation, that includes the cover crops. In our crops, we planted pollinator strips because as you increase your plant diversity, you're increasing your biological community underneath the ground and above as far as insects and pollinators. Another one would be just the low disturbance. We've worked really hard to build good soil structure, so the last thing we want to do is disrupt it. So we try to disturb it as little as possible and keep it covered so that the soil is protected. We do control traffic farming also, which has really helped reduce compaction and once again, is less disturbance on the soil.

Tannis Axten: 25:09

Yeah, I think it disturbance in a really broad term with that, like hang compaction that all sort of fits under that same umbrella. No low disturbance seating even as far as the inputs we use, we're pretty conscious about the type of inputs we use. And we've made a big shift from back then of more synthetic base to definitely have predominantly biological base now. We still use some herbicides. We're all, to date, delivery of a sprayer that uses some really, really good tech that's going to allow us to reduce herbicide loads by probably 60% or 70%. So that's a disturbance rate. So we've invested heavily in that because we don't think we're not going to be organic, we're not going to do tillage. So we have to find that place in between where we can get our disturbance right. So that's all of those things as low as possible, but still have good outcomes, still control our leads and build our systems well.

Sara Harper: 26:13

And I think it's important to explain to people that don't really understand a lot about the tillage piece and the organic piece, and they hear you say, well, we're not going to be organic, and they don't maybe understand that that's a choice because the trade offs are ones you don't want. And so maybe share more about what you'd have to do to be organic and the trade offs that that would mean, that would be against your motto, loyal to the soil.

Tannis Axten: 26:38

Yeah. Obviously people are talking about this new soil health they call context, which I made a joke that I think Dwayne back was using context before it was cool because it was probably the first thing you taught me was to look at your native systems and use that when you're planning your cropping systems. So we live in short grass prairie, low rainfall for the 250 to 300 mills annually, including snow. So that's one month in some places. And our growing season is short, so we can't do the spring covers and the rollercomper disenabling, some guys to do the organic. Notel that just isn't an option. So that option basically for us as far as weed control leads us to tillage. And we're very chilly here. We're infrared. So I've told people lots of times that we're on the edge of where they stop breaking land for a reason. And maybe some of the stuff where farming shouldn't be under animal cultivation. But we are building soils, so we know it's possible. But, yeah, the tillage thing would be a real challenge. You've got to control your weeds somehow, and maybe one day we'll get to the point where our soil is somehow balanced and we don't grow weeds. But like I told you earlier, we're a long way from that. We've got a lot of room to.

Sara Harper: 28:05

Improve because I think it was Dwayne Beck that said, you don't see earthquakes tell. It's like an earthquake that you send through the land every year. And you don't see that in nature. Nature isn't tilling itself up in order to plant a new crop. He said it more eloquently. I can't remember.

Tannis Axten: 28:30

It's a traumatic event. It's a once in a lifetime or once in a century kind of event. I know. I've thought of it like this. If you're at home and a windstorm blows your house down, chances are you're going to stay home and deal with that and not go to work that day.

Sara Harper: 28:47

Right.

Tannis Axten: 28:47

If that keeps happening over and over again, you might just move away or maybe you'll die. Right. So I guess I think that's kind.

Sara Harper: 28:55

Of that's what the microbes are dealing with when their environment is. Yeah.

Tannis Axten: 29:03

We were talking about this this morning too, with tillage. It's one of those things that I've seen farms who have some tillage in their practices who are doing a lot better job than some no tale park. So it's kind of back to that's why it's so hard to define these things because back to your motivation and I guess your context, for lack of a better term. What else are you doing? How many practices are you using and where are you trying to get to? What are your end results? It's so hard. There are many roads to roam. I guess maybe that's.

Sara Harper: 29:45

Go ahead.

Derek Axten: 29:46

I'm just going to say I think most farmers, if not all, have well intentioned and may feel that they are doing regenerative practices. But to us, it's not just the one practice. And I'm no tail, so I'm a regenerative farmer. There's always what else can I do? Because we were no tall for a lot of years and we did see improvement our soil. But we hit a plateau, right? There's so much more that can be done. And that was one thing we talked about, is just the motivation behind it and the constant journey, not just checks done.

Sara Harper: 30:29

Right.

Tannis Axten: 30:31

It's funny because from the time I first met back in seven and he showed me how water can actually go in the soil and not run off. And then the first time I was at Gabe and he showed us the difference in management, it wasn't about labels, not until I don't know what year it was when this word started circulating more. I don't know what year it was when it started to become a popular word. I guess we realize this is what we fall into, but for us, it was never about trying to fit into a category. It was just I knew that where we live. If we don't do this, we're not going to be able to build resilience and get ourselves through some of these really dry years, really wet years. Because the one thing that's been constant has been lack of being constant. Or rain comes hard and fast and we generally get enough moisture to grow across it's. Just when does it come and how does it come and are we able to capture it? That's the driver, it's the soil. It's really awesome that now that there's sort of a market space that falls into what we do. And I think we're excited to be to participate in that. But it's funny now how guys, I want to participate in that market, so what's the minimum amount of things I have to do to participate in that market? It's a little bit of what's happened organic, right? And that's why we're so hesitant to put labels on these things, is because there's going to be people riding the minimum train. It's like, well, I'm a janitor because I do these four things, right? Because that's on the list.

Derek Axten: 32:12

Plus, that's not what it's about, right?

Sara Harper: 32:14

It's not soil because you were doing it before there was a name and you would do it even if there was no name.

Derek Axten: 32:21

That's basically years ago, Derek speaking at a conference and Jill Copperton was there and Derek talked about our farm and she got up and she said, I don't know what it's called, but someday it'll happen, maybe it'll be new, conventional. We are talking about that and we never really thought about it, but I mean, it's our human nature. We want to define and label things so that we can understand it.

Tannis Axten: 32:45

Yeah, it was not too long, the planes at that. I don't know what it's called, but the thing after the Aim symposium, I remember Jill saying that and people who weren't using the regenerative word so long ago, and there are lots of people, like, what's the motivation to improve the resource?

Derek Axten: 33:09

That being said, I like the word regenerative. It's exciting, it gives hope. And it's not just conventional. Right.

Sara Harper: 33:18

It is descriptive of what I mean. It's regenerating the soil base, the resource, and from that other things are regenerated too.

Tannis Axten: 33:29

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to watch how it develops because I mean, it's obviously it's going to develop and it's becoming a thing. And how many labels show up? I was just looking at one last night, whole 30, which is kind of a diet. I've seen Whole 30 has a label. Now you can have a Whole 30 approved product. Eventually so many labels on the packages that all labels, you won't have enough room for what it actually is.

Sara Harper: 33:58

Well, doesn't that speak too to the fact that there is such a disconnect between people and where the food is grown? And while there is a desire to know that it's hard and people are busy and they don't really want to spend that much time, and so then the label serves as a stand in for well, someone else has looked at these things and that's better than nobody looking at it. And so if people are able to actually have a direct connection, like what's? So. Exciting. What you're doing is that you're growing it and processing it in package so that eventually people can know as much as they want to know about everything that goes into it. And that's just so rare because the supply chain is so separated into each separate part and each along the way, you lose information and you lose. So I don't know if are you already in the process of having a way for consumers to follow you or brands you might work with? Kind of how do they learn about more about what you're doing and how you're continuing to evolve?

Derek Axten: 35:06

We've got website Accent Farms, dot CA, and we are on social media, Instagram.

Tannis Axten: 35:18

I'm not even sure, friends and family. We have an open door policy as well. So there are people are welcome to come and we have official field days, but we also have a lot of people that just come and show up and we always make time for people. That's the reason that we do what we do. And then we have an open door policy because folks like the Walker, Dwayne Back and Gabe Brown and Joe Sopardon and Christine Jones and all these people took time for us. We're able to share some knowledge and we were able to kind of take a little bit from everybody and put together what we have today. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm not sure. It's interesting. We're going to figure it out.

Sara Harper: 36:03

Yeah. Your website itself, do you have videos about showing what you're doing on the farm and those kind of things?

Derek Axten: 36:15

Yeah, we're working on it.

Sara Harper: 36:18

I did want to make sure and catch because you guys do some really cool stuff with composting and making teas that you actually apply to the land. So maybe tennis. Just share a little bit about that.

Tannis Axten: 36:28

Yeah.

Derek Axten: 36:28

Well, when we first started shifting the way we farm and understanding that there's all this life in the soil and realizing that we've done a lot of damage the way we've farmed in the past, we wanted to be able to restore some of that biology. So we started composting, which is really exciting because it's basically what everyone considers waste products. Manure from feedback, our grain screenings from the plants, old bales no one's using. So by composting all that and coming up with a diverse compost full of microbes, it's really exciting and it's a great way to take byproducts and make nutrients that can be available to our land. We haven't been able to make enough compost to spread across all of our acres, so we make a compost extract, which is basically just washing all the microbes out of the compost into water. And we put that down with every acre received so that it's with the seed and it puts a little bit of biology back into the soil. And with that, we add some biological foods to kind of give it a jumpstart.

Tannis Axten: 37:43

We use top analysis from previous crops to sort of build our program going forward. And it's been a pretty good fit that's back to outcome testing again. Right. So the outcomes of those crops are what helps us build things going forward and helps us make decisions.

Sara Harper: 37:59

It seems like it's kind of a mix of the philosophy and the motivation on the bigger end and then measuring outcomes to see how you're progressing instead of a checklist of practices that you do these five things. But I know you're checking the outcomes every year and comparing them against each other and so you're able to see benefit, right?

Tannis Axten: 38:21

Yeah, I think that's pretty much probably the easiest way to describe it. We own our land, so I've had this conversation before. It's probably easier for us because we know we're going to have it for the next foreseeable future unless I do something really stupid. And that gives us the ability because it's a slow growth. We're talking about metaphors, right. And it's not like with exercise, right. You don't work out once and you're not on a fortunate this takes time. If you need to see results tomorrow, this may not be for you.

Derek Axten: 38:59

Especially if you're dealing with so many variables. I mean, you can do everything perfectly and you get three years of drought and you're not going to see outcomes at the time. I think if you have the soil covered and a lot of these principles covered, you're going to mitigate a lot of the damage. But you're not going to have a bumper crop just because you follow these principles.

Sara Harper: 39:21

Right?

Tannis Axten: 39:22

Yeah. Is yield the only metric you're measuring or what are you measuring and why are you measuring?

Derek Axten: 39:29

In our current conventional system, that seems to be the met that's the first question. You go to the coffee shop. What it is, that's the big comparison and it's a big mind shift. Not quality over quantity or there's so many or how much does it cost you to grow that crop? Your yield is higher than mine, but I may have made more money. There's so many variables, but it's funny how yield is all a lot of people measure.

Sara Harper: 40:00

All right, so we've talked a lot about all of this now and coming back around, I'm going to ask you to complete the sense regenerative.

Tannis Axten: 40:06

Agriculture is well, for me, regenerative is constant improvement of soil and mindset and community and health and happiness, all of those things. And then I guess in the outcome for us, one of the big ones is resilience. And that same thing is back to resilience soil and business. All of them from the outside looking in. I guess I can go kind of a few different ways.

Derek Axten: 40:40

Yeah, and I totally agree. I guess that's where I tried to sum it all up into our little motto of loyal to the soil.

Sara Harper: 40:49

Yeah, it's a great model.

Derek Axten: 40:51

Everything we do, how does it affect the soil? And sometimes it's not maybe going to have a positive effect, but how can we have as little of a detrimental impact as possible so that we can be moving forward?

Tannis Axten: 41:05

Yeah, something that really kind of struck this winter. I took a leadership course, which in itself was an amazing experience. But one of the things we talked about because it's a lot of inward looking and a lot of self, but when we're looking at building and looking at measuring success and improvement, think about sheets of paper. Is it better or worse than same thing with the soil, it's not us. If it does good for you that's great. But for us year in and year out, with the weather challenges we face, if we can be profitable and improve the resource in the same year, that's a win. Because I think what happens sometimes is profitability comes at the cost of the resource and people don't talk about that. So at some point, I mean, I've had some really good conversations. We're working with a company called Terra Meera. They're a tech company out of Vancouver that's working on measuring solar carbon. I guess it's kind of the big thing they're working on. But we've had their teams under Wild actually this year again last week. And this Brian Smith, he's the VP of Regenerative Finance and he gets a relatively large company. But we were talking about how at some point I think on financial statements we're going to see a column for inherent soil value. I don't know what you'd call it. At least if it's going to come in the form of carbon trading or environmental credits or whatever that is, I don't know what it's going to be. It's going to be something if farmers can understand then that there is a value that they can see and that's tangible in soil, then maybe it becomes a priority.

Sara Harper: 42:43

Yeah, just helping people to understand the complexity and the trade offs. And yet there are ways that you can still bound those. Like you mentioned using pesticides, but you test for pesticide residue so you're using it in a limited way and because the soil is so healthy you don't need to use much and it's not actually on the food, the residue, you can test for that. So that's I think what's so complicated. As you said, people don't like complicated. But maybe that's something we should be more suspended with black and white.

Tannis Axten: 43:16

It's funny to be talking this morning about like let's look at this from a consumer's view. It's really easy for us to be stuck in our primary view and you should like my spell. I don't know why you don't because it's best. But from a consumer's view it is confusing and daunting. And you can see why organic has got a following because at least they're measuring something and they have a little bit of traceability in some products. So it's understandable why the regenerative is looking to do the certifications. I mean, from a consumer standpoint, I think it makes sense. It does. It's just my concern is how many certifications are we going to have and what are they going to be? The differences and the metrics that they measure, and it's just they're going to.

Sara Harper: 44:03

Can'T certify a mindset, you can't certify a philosophy. If it is that that is what it is, then that part gets lost.

Derek Axten: 44:13

My daughter said we're talking about regenerating agriculture, but the food system really needs regenerating too, and we'll see. Maybe that'll be her goal. She goes off to university this fall and is taking international food business.

Sara Harper: 44:28

Oh, wow.

Derek Axten: 44:29

Hopefully she can make those connections, because I do I feel sorry as a consumer, I couldn't imagine. I mean, we're lucky to grow a lot of the food that we eat or know people who do grow it. So it's very comforting, but yeah, you go into a store and it's a lot of choices.

Sara Harper: 44:47

Yeah. Anything else you wanted to add before we go?

Derek Axten: 44:51

I guess the only other thing we talked about was the importance of education in everything and that we're constantly trying to learn and trying to teach anything we've learned to others. Also, whether it's field days or on different boards, the more we learn, I think the better job everyone can do.

Tannis Axten: 45:11

Yeah, we really enjoy the field days that they're a lot of work and they're a bit exhausting because our year is so short in the first place. But we've talked about that. It would be really neat. We enjoy having farmer based field days, but it would be really cool to start doing consumer field days and just see how that goes and see what the reception of that is. What people think is obviously without consumers, we don't exist. So it would be neat to get their ideas and what's important to consumers, really, and what makes them want to purchase this over that or why they don't know about us or what we can do better, all of those things. I think that would be really cool to do.

Sara Harper: 45:57

Yeah, I think I would, too. That would be great. All right, well, this is great. Thank you so much for sharing your story and your perspective with us.

Derek Axten: 46:06

Thanks for thanks for having us. Yeah, you brought up a lot of good conversations, things we talk about in passing all the time, but we didn't really sit down and come up with something. It was our daughter will be excited to see this because she was wondering how all these thoughts see where we're actually going to come together.

Sara Harper: 46:25

You've been listening to Tasting Terroir, a podcast made possible by a magical collaboration between the following companies and supporters, all working together to help farmers, chefs, food companies, and consumers to build healthier soil for a healthier world. Risotherra, owned by Dr. Joe Clapperton, rhizotera is an international food security consulting company providing expert guidance for creating healthy soils that yield tasty, nutrientdense foods. Check us out@rizotera.com. That's Rhizoterra.com and the Global Food and Farm Online Community, an ad free global social network and soil health streaming service that provides information and connections that help you apply the science and practice of improving soil health. Join us@globalfoodandfarm.com and from listeners like you to support us through our Patreon account@patreon.com tastingtawar. Patrons receive access to our full length interviews and selected additional materials. Patrons will also have the opportunity to submit questions that we will answer on the podcast. Tune in next week to hear more interviews and insights with myself, Sarah Harper and Dr. Joe Clapperton, as well as the regenerative farmers, chefs and emerging food companies in the Global Food and Farm Online community and beyond. If you like our work, please give us a five star rating and share the podcast with your friends. Thanks so much for listening and for helping us get the word out about this new resource to taste the health of your food. Until next week, stay curious.

Derek Axten: 48:20

Cheers.

Sara Harper: 48:20

Keep improving and don't stop believing that better is possible when knowledge is available.