The Flavor of Your Food’s Philosophy

Your food is guided by a philosophy . . . it just may not be one that you agree with . . . or the one that you think you are supporting.

Regeneration of depleted soil doesn't come from a food company sending out an edict that the farmers in their supply chain will now add a cover crop to what they are already doing…..or even from them offering to pay for a regenerative farming course and then taking credit with consumers for expanding regenerative agriculture.

Regeneration arrives as an outcome of a restorative mindset that focuses on  “What to grow rather than what to kill," as farmer Gail Fuller puts it.

Our ability to taste terroir is linked to the health of the soil . . . and as a result, to the ways of farming that restore life in the soil……..understanding the philosophy that guides that practice is critical.  But you can't do that if you don't even know where your food comes from.  

This episode is called “The Flavor of Your Food’s Philosophy” – As you will see, if you are buying food directly from regenerative farmers, you are able to understand the holistic way of thinking that goes into what and how they make your food.  And this could be why it often tastes so much better.

But taking a piece of land from depleted and artificial to full of natural life doesn’t happen overnight……..as we will hear more about from my interview with master farmer, and member of our Global Food & Farm Community – Gail Fuller of Circle 7 Farms in Kansas

More Resources

Learn directly from our speaker on the farm at the Fuller Field School:
https://www.fullerfieldschool.com/ 

Watch the documentary by Farmer's Footprint featuring Gail Fuller:
https://farmersfootprint.us/gail-fuller/ 

Follow Circle & Farms on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100049284982883

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This podcast is brought to you by:

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.  

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.

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

Gail Fuller: 0:15

There's not a label on the shelf in the Virtue Store today that I see any merit to. Whether it's certified organic or grass finished or pre range or local or whatever, they all seem to have their issues issues. And so I just think if we're going to Certify region, I think we need to come out from a different angle. And I think for me personally, it's more about principles than it is practice.

Sara Harper: 0:43

Welcome back to our podcast tasting. Terroir, a journey exploring the link between healthy soil and the flavor and health of your food. I'm your host, Sarah Harper. That clip was from an interview I did with Farmer Gail Fuller, owner of Circle Seven Farms in Kansas. Gail has been working hard to bring life back to a depleted piece of land and in the process, bringing life back to the community that surrounds him and improving his own life as well. You'll get to hear more of my full interview with Gail and his definition of regenerative agriculture later in this episode. Last week, we began the process of understanding regenerative agriculture through the eyes of real farmers who are actually making better food by building healthier soil. We started out with an interview with tannis and derek axton of saskatchewan, canada. While I believe these interviews with farmers are interesting in and of themselves worth listening to, I wanted to take a minute to explain how I believe their knowledge can help you as a consumer. If you have found your way to this podcast, chances are you care a lot about food, either the flavor of it or the health of it or some combination of the two. But let's face it, it is hard to cut through the many often misleading marketing claims that are being made about, quote, better for you food, and in particular about regenerative agriculture. As you learn more about the core parts of making food ingredients healthier and full of unique flavor from some truly great farmers in our network, you can use what you've learned to evaluate the glossy promises made by the brands that you buy from, and you can put pressure on them to actually live up to the claims that they make. But you can only do that if you have at least a bit of the insiders knowledge so that you can see the difference between a natural food brand that ordered an unknown group of farm members in their supply chain to. Add a cover crop. The difference between that and, well, the farmers you'll get to meet on this show. As a reminder, regenerative agriculture is a farming philosophy that describes a number of soil health principles that farmers apply in different ways to help them restore depleted farmland, bringing life back to the soil, and with it often better flavor to your food. These principles include things like reducing the disturbance to the microbiome by planting crops without tillage, keeping the land protected by planting cover crops that prevent the land from blowing or washing away and adding a lot more biodiversity than is typically there on a conventional farm. For a longer discussion on this topic, please do listen to episode two in our podcast series, Making Soil Healthy. Again. This episode is called the Flavor of Your Foods philosophy. As you'll see, if you're buying food directly from regenerative farmers or brands that work directly with them, you are able to understand the holistic way of thinking that goes into what and how they make your food. And this could be why it often tastes so much better. Most food brands today know very little about the farmers who grow the main ingredients in their products, let alone what goes into the decisions they make. How are they picking the best flavors in their category if they don't even know what's possible? Truth be told, most brands don't really want to know because it has a level of complexity that they just rather not deal with. So instead, they highlight a few trendy practices or certifications that make it look like they know more than they do about their ingredients. Our ability to taste terroir, the unique place of where food is grown, is linked to the health of the soil and as a result, to the ways of farming that restore life in the soil that doesn't come from cramming in a few prescribed practices. It arrives as an outcome of a restorative mindset that focuses on, as Gail puts it, what to grow rather than what to kill. This process of regenerating the soil can affect the flavor of food because over time, healthy soil depends less, if at all, on the man made inputs of fertilizer and pesticides and is able to more fully reflect the unique nutrients and conditions of the place it is grown in. But taking a piece of land from depleted and artificial to full of natural life doesn't happen overnight, as we will hear more about from my interview with master farmer and member of our global food and farm community, Gail Fuller. From his transition away from conventional farming to his deep commitment to rebuilding rural economies, gail Fuller has a lot of wisdom and wit to share. A quick Internet search of his name brings you many great interviews and profiles of how he has shifted his thinking about life as well as farming. Check out the one done by Farmer's Footprint, for example. In addition to selling his grass fed and finished meat, gail runs several events at his farm. He represents one of the things that I have come to love about regenerative farmers they're reflective and humble nature and their understanding of just how interconnected the farmer and the community are with a life in the land. So let people know where you're farming and what you're farming, what's your farm looks like.

Gail Fuller: 6:39

Sure. The farm is located in Severe, Kansas. We are 1 hour east of Wichita, and we are on the very eastern edge of the Flint Hills. We direct market grass, finished beef and lamb, pastured pork, chicken, eggs, and we have ducks seasonally in the fall and winter. We also have a couple of small orchards hoping to market each apple, pear, apricot, plum, figs, cherries, et cetera. But Mother Nature hasn't allowed that yet.

Sara Harper: 7:16

She has a vote.

Gail Fuller: 7:19

Mother Nature, contrary to popular belief, Mother Nature has a vote. Somebody said Mother Nature bats last, and she's at that right now.

Sara Harper: 7:30

All right, well, we're talking about regenerative agriculture on this Earth Day and excited to be able to share some of the perspectives of folks that were in contact with quite a bit in Jill Clapperton's Food and Farm Network, and so would love to get somebody who's gone from conventional to regenerative and still on the journey. Love to get your definition. What is regenerative agriculture?

Gail Fuller: 7:57

Well, first of all, you are correct. Still on the journey. I've been doing this for 20 plus years, but I feel like I'm still in the first grade, so lots to learn. It's interesting because it seems to be all the rage right now. Everybody having to define, verify, certify regenerative agriculture. I was on a Facebook thread asking this question a year or so ago, and there was just tons of answers about our muscular, mycorrhizal, fungi and so biology and earthworms, but for me it's much bigger than that. I think regenerative agriculture is about first of all, it's just about regeneration in general. And I think for us in agriculture, it needs to be about regenerating our real communities. Obviously, rural America is dying, and I think it's just as important what we're regenerating, our souls and our farms, that this goes hand in hand with community regeneration. And I think something for me personally that's really come to the forefront in the last six to twelve months is also regenerating farmers. I've put a lot of focus on my farm and my soil, and I've learned that I can change a lot on my farm, but I didn't put enough focus and emphasis on me and realizing how broken I was. I deal with depression, you know, getting to be my age, the body is starting to slow down. And I spent so many years dealing, handling pesticides and toxins, and not just that, but just living in a toxic world. It's always tough, it's always stressful. And I've never done a really good job of dealing with all those stresses in my life, either environmentally or personally or whatever. So I've really put a big focus in the last year on regenerating me, and it's really come to light this winter. And I'm a long way from being fixed. I still deal with depression, I still have mental issues, I still need to get my diet completely fixed. I'm a work in progress, just like my farm. But the more I've really focused on the spiritual and the mental side of me and my farm. It's made managing my farm a lot easier because why would I want to do something to my farm that's damaging to it? It's the same as I do with me. Why would I want to do something to me that causes stress or inflammation? And it really makes it easier for me to look at my farm in a spiritual sense. It makes me realize where Mother Nature is doing just fine and I just need to leave her alone or where there's a place I can step in and maybe help alleviate some of the stress from Mother Nature and help my farm to flourish. So it's been a really change of journey for me, putting the focus on me instead of on my soil. But I think it all goes hand in hand.

Sara Harper: 11:10

Well, some of the conversations I'm having with folks in our network for this, the thing that keeps coming up, continuous journey and philosophy, that it's a philosophy, it's a mindset, it's not a checklist. And I just love for you to say more about I mean, there seems to be such a human need, a consumer need, like what is it? Where's the box? And if it's not in it? And then there are all sorts of competitive needs, both with the organic industry that has a niche and want to keep it or enhance it, and other brands that want to move into it. There is all of this focus on what it is, and yet the most the people that have done it that I am most impressed by and I've been working on this off and on for 20 years in different ways. On the policy side, the people that I'm most impressed with consistently that have outcomes that are really impressive, I'll come back to this, it's almost undefinable. It's almost like the act of defining it ruins it.

Gail Fuller: 12:12

No, I get it. I'm not opposed to verification or certification. My big concern is we tend to always come at things the way we've always come at things. There's not a label on the shelf in the grocery store today that I see any merit to. Whether it's certified organic or grass finished or free range or local or whatever, they all seem to have their issues. And so I just think if we're going to certify region, I think we need to come out from a different angle. And I think for me personally, it's more about principles than it is practices. Sure, I would love to outlaw tillage and Roundup and GMOs and pesticides and all these things, but I also understand there's processes and steps and we have to meet people in their place. I've got a really good friend that grows potatoes, and for now, he's having to do with lots of tillage. Yet his soil is fantastic because he's putting emphasis on that. So we just have to be careful setting rules for farmers or anybody. So for me, it's more about the principles. Obviously I'll follow the five principles of soil health, but I think those are great for soil health. But I think for region I follow a set of principles that's more like wellness, environmental stewardship, social justice. Those are the questions that I asked myself when I make a management decision for me personally or for the farm is how many of these boxes am I checking? Community resilience and things like that. So I want it to be bigger than that because I really want it to be inclusive to all things and understanding that I can follow the principles of soil health, but I can still damage my neighbor. That's not a good thing. I've got to be more inclusive of everybody in my neighborhood, in my community and my customers when I'm making management practices or whatever.

Sara Harper: 14:16

The other fascinating thing to me is when you learn more about what's going on in healthy soil and the amazing community that's there and the harmony that's happening and the plants talking to each other through the chemicals they put out on their roots. There is a real spiritual element to what's happening underground and what can happen maybe above ground. But we have to value it and not try to just clear it all out and put back only what we. Think should be there because we don't. Always know which thing should be.

Gail Fuller: 14:50

Yeah, absolutely. And humans have a really bad track record and especially men. We have forever been 100. And so our job, we think, is to conquer. And I think I would hope by now that some of us are learning that there is no conquering Mother Nature. We can beat her for a while. But pretty soon she's going to beat us one way or the other as we learn more and more on the scientific side of all of these things. Connecting and communicating and not just plant a plant. But plant the animal and plant insect and fungi to insect and fungi to root and all these that's like me talking to a tiger yeah. Who says all of this stuff isn't talking to me, I'm too arrogant to listen. That's kind of where I am right now as I'm trying to become a part of that ecosystem and I'm trying to do more time sitting and listening to my farm that I am talking to or talking at my farm or managing. I'm trying to let it talk to me and I'm trying to learn how to listen. And I don't know that language very well, but I certainly know a heck of a lot better than I did 20 years ago. And I think I've always been one to kind of get on farmers for not carrying the spade with them and what's your soil look like because most don't even know. But I'm kind of getting to the point now in my journey that I can look at my soil without a spade and tell you if it's healthy or not, how many insects are crawling or flying above this particular patch? How many birds are sitting there? Whatever. If you're void of life above ground, you're probably void of life below ground.

Sara Harper: 16:31

I really love the connection you've made to the mental health of the people and the farm and also the rural regeneration piece. It seems like regeneration is more than just any one thing. It's this holistic. It's like everything in the system is getting better and because one thing is getting better here than another thing, but it's not necessarily I'm going to control here's the program and I'm going to improve this by 30%. It's sort of like this improved and while that shot at 50% and that shot up, but you still can measure outcomes, you can still see improvement, you just can't always predict or shape it, maybe.

Gail Fuller: 17:11

Yeah, I think that's probably a little bit of the struggle with mandiday, is we want to set outcomes. We want you, we're going to plant corn this year, we want 300 bushel corn. And that's an outcome. And we don't think of an outcome as doubling our coil population this year, or beaver showing back up on the farm or anything outside of grain yield and dollar. But I think we've got to learn to measure our outcomes differently and certainly it's got to come back to me, am I happier this year? Am I less stressed this year? Am I sleeping well? Do. I love my life. Do I love my life when I leave the farm as much as I love it when I go to the farm? And vice versa? Because having healthy soil is doing nobody any good if the farmer still goes home and thinks about killing themselves at night or drinking themselves to sleep, if that's the case, there's still a lot of tension and stress on that farm.

Sara Harper: 18:08

So now I want to hear a little bit more about how you practice regenerative on your farm. Share with us what that looks like.

Gail Fuller: 18:15

Sure. From a farm perspective or from a me perspective?

Sara Harper: 18:19

Well, both. Because as we know, it is both.

Gail Fuller: 18:22

Sure. So, as most people know, I've relocated to a new farm a couple of years ago, so we're on a completely different journey now, back to square one with a dead soil, with a dead system. If you were on my farm, your first thought would be, oh, this is a wildlife haven. We've got a little bit of timber, we got some grassland that has a lot of diversity in it, we've got several ponds, we got a little bit of cropland. And you would just think this would just be loaded with wildlife, but it's not. We have very few squirrels, we have very few deer, we have no turkey, we have no quail, all these things. And when you put a spade in the soil, that shows up. So we're back to square one, but we know we can take all of our knowledge. Our goal is to do in five years here what we did in 20. On our old farm, with the soil and the ecosystem, we've already seen pretty good improvements in our infiltration rates. Our practices are holistic in general and that we do rotational grazing with the sheep or with all of the animals. The sheep and the cows sometimes run together, sometimes not. We rotate them anywhere from once a day to seven or eight times a day. In the wintertime we'll relax that a little bit, depending on our desire and management goals. And sometimes in the winter they'll park in a given area for one to two weeks. But anytime during the growing season we're going pretty hard and fast. The pigs get rotated too. That's been a little bit of a slower process. Pigs manage completely different than cows and sheep. And we're all still learning the pigs and I on the best way to graze pigs. So those are kind of some of the stars, the chickens. They're also a big part of the rotation. They follow the sheep and the cows in the summer. They are a big part of our insecticide program. So we use no inputs really on the farm as far as toxins, no herbicides, pesticides excuse me, no herbicides, no insecticides, no fungicides on the vegetables, fruit crops, grass, livestock, any of that. So we're organic in that aspect. I'm not saying we will never, because if we come to a point where we have to spray something or put an insecticide on a cow to save its life or to save the farm from bankruptcy for a year, then that's probably going to have to happen. We do so knowing that we make a bad move, but we do whatever we can to recover as fast as we can. For us, it's about animal impact because we're much more graziers now than we are farmers. Our crop land, we're in the process. It's just strictly cover crops right now because it's completely dead soil. There's really little chance of growing much of a yielding crop grain crop with it because there's just no cycling going on. So we're going to hit it really hard, cover crops for a couple of years, get the animal impact. And the goal for this year is to use it for winter grazing so we have some stockpile and don't have to bring hay on the farm.

Sara Harper: 21:28

Well, that's so cool. And then what about you? The personal side of regeneration?

Gail Fuller: 21:34

That becomes the more difficult part because at the end of the day I've still got payments that are too high and stresses and things like that. And weather is always a challenge. I'm a farmer. I'm trained as a farmer, so I'm trained to work 20 hours a day and all of those things. And in my old life I did a lot of that. Especially when I was the large scale 3000 acre farm. It was nothing to put in 100 or 120 hours week in the spring and the fall. That has been hard to get away from for me, because for some reason, for some really stupid reason, we let it creep into our brains. If we're awake, we have to be at work. That's just the way it's supposed to be. And I've worked really hard to be a sunrise sunset guy, and by sunset that means I'm usually in bed by dark. And I've learned to walk away.

I try to quit at five or 06: 22:30

00 now in the evening, even on the long days when I are kind of running joke anymore as we walk in the

house at 05: 22:40

00 or so and we look at each other and say, Are you done? And we'll say, no, we quit because we understand we're never done. But we're trying to find ways to make time for me personally and make time for me and Lynette also. And it's important to have both of those. And I've gotten so much better about, especially on a bad day when I'm a little grumpy or the weather's ugly or things aren't going too great, just hop on the four wheeler and go out on the farm somewhere and shut the four wheeler off and then walk away from it. Leave the phone on the four wheeler and just go out and sit down somewhere in the pasture and sit underneath the tree or sit by a pond and just let it out. Whether that's shouting in a tree or just sitting quietly and thinking or meditating and trying to get all that stress and those bad thoughts out and try to soak in the beauty of the farm, even on a bad, hot, windy, dry day, you can always find something beautiful on the farm. And it's trying to find that appreciation and that gratitude for really we're the luckiest people on earth to be farmers and we've got to get that back. Farming used to be a wonderful occupation and we've just turned it into almost like a prison. We've taken the fun out of it, we've taken the neighborliness out of it, and we've taken all of the joy out of it. We've got to find a way to get that back. And I know it's going to take a while, it's taken a while for me, but just taking those first steps of putting the focus on me and that sounds arrogant, and it's not arrogant. The focus should be on me because if I'm not healthy, there's no way my customers can be healthy.

Sara Harper: 24:27

Well, and it's what you mean by the focus. So when you're talking about people like you, that when you're working 20 hours a day, you're not a selfish personality, you wouldn't be working 20 hours a day. So there's a difference between in what you mean by focus. If you're just focusing on how do I feel right now? And that's different than how can I process this stress and how can I not let these very real stresses but tie me down? And how can I get better? Just like how can I be part of the system instead of separate from it? I feel like the weight of it all is just on me, which I'm sure I know a lot of farmers feel that.

Gail Fuller: 25:14

Yeah, I think we all feel that regardless of how we farm or what size or anything. And a lot of it comes back to financial stress. At the end of the day, we feel like we have to work 20 hours a day to make a payment. This month we get the crop in and time. And I think when we get to that point, maybe it's time to give the farm a hard look because again and working 20 hours a day in hindsight now, I think that is selfish because it's taking time away from your family, it's taking time away from yourself. And where's the joy of that?

Sara Harper: 25:48

Yeah, it's a good point. It's a different kind of selfish because at least I think of selfish differently. But yeah, I can see your point.

Gail Fuller: 25:59

No, I agree with your comment. Obviously we're not selfish. We're working 20 hours a day. But that's just the mindset that we have. But it really, I think is opposite because we probably are being selfish if we work ourselves that hard.

Sara Harper: 26:15

Well, that goes to number of regenerative farmers that I've been lucky enough to. Kind of observe and learn from. It takes a while, but they get to a point where they're able to really make more money even if they have a little less yield because their expenses go lower. And then the system is taking care of itself and it's healthier and so there's maybe a chance for higher price per whatever tone once that system gets going, that virtual cycle and just kind of keep building on it. But it seems like that really hard point is to tip when you're at that, maybe we're at that point where your land has been depleted and you've got the loans to pay and we're going to make this shift and maybe and trust that. Yeah, a lot of other people have had good experience. Trust that my expenses will come down. Especially when there's just such a it just seems so foreign to think about reduced expenses is just as good or better than yield. Yeah.

Gail Fuller: 27:16

And I think this will kind of lead us back to full circle where we started this conversation. But I think obviously that transition is dangerous. It's scary, it's extremely difficult. And I think that's where it's extremely important that you have a team. That team obviously has to include your immediate family, your spouse, kids, parents. But your bankers got to be on that team. Your grownless has to be on that team. And if they don't have the same vision, first of all, you're going to have to fire some of them or get them on your side, or your stress level, your depression levels are going to skyrocket if they aren't. And then when you do get to that other side, and obviously the whole goal is to make farms more profitable with less stress, less physical and mental stress. And when you get to that point, then the question has to become, do I need this much land? Because that's the whole goal for me of regenerating a community, is how do you regenerate a community is by having more farmers. That's what builds a rural community is having. If we double the farm population, you're now building a school in these small towns instead of consolidating schools, and you need a grocery store again, and all these things because you suddenly have more kids. So you're now not just growing kids, you're growing buildings and business and all of this. So the farmers are going to have to start asking themselves, how much land do I need? If I've increased my profitability 20%, can I cut back 20% on my acres and allow another farmer into the community? And that goes against everything that we've been brainwashed with for the last 50 to 75 years in rural America.

Sara Harper: 29:01

That's fascinating. How can people experience your farm or follow you on social media? Do you have a blog or all these kinds of things where they can learn more about your journey?

Gail Fuller: 29:13

I don't blog. I need to, but I don't. I do have Facebook. I've got a personal page. Gail Fuller. And a business page. Circle Seven by Fuller Farms. I'm on LinkedIn. I do have an Instagram account, but I'm thinking of dropping that. So those are ways. And then another way to enjoy our farm is to come see us. We have an Airbnb, we have Fields, our annual field school that Jill helped Co found eleven years ago. And we have other on farm dinners and things. So that's the best way just to come see us and hang out. And soak it all in person.

Sara Harper: 29:51

You obviously do the sales of the meat direct to consumers, but do you do catering or events or other ways that people interact with your farm? Or are you thinking about that in the future?

Gail Fuller: 30:03

Yes, we don't do catering. We do on farm dinners. I love to cook, but I would rather let a really high, big name chef come to my farm and make dinner for me and a whole bunch of my friends and just have it like that. So we do three or four of those a year. They're a lot of fun and they're always different. And it's a great way to because to me, food is the great connector. And when you attend one of our dinners and as America becomes more and more stressed, it's been amazing at these dinners because we have 40 to 50 people show up, many of them urban. Not all. Obviously there's going to be left and right and all walks of life and we sit down for an hour and a half or 2 hours and there's no fist fights and there's cheers and there are high fives and there are hugs and we just say, screw the rest of the world. We're here enjoying a meal, breaking bread together, and there's just nothing like it. So, yeah, we do that. Like all of our educational events, food is a focus. We bring chefs to our field school and cook our meals and we talk about food and we celebrate the food while we're being educated. So we always make food of focus. We are selling product in a couple of different restaurants and I think that's been a bit of a pet peeve of mine as we talk about regenerative agriculture. And obviously the big thing with most of us farmers now is nutrient density and human health. And we're trying to tie all that and you go to a so called region event and they throw out a bunch of **** food at you. And we've got to lead by example. If we're going to be talking about human health, we've got to be leading by example. And we're not perfect here. We still have to buy some stuff that's not as clean as we want, but we use all of our food that we can and then we go to our neighbors and we source as much clean food from our neighbors because that's what it's about, is making them strong too, financially and physically. But sometimes we still have to fill in some blank spots here and there with conventional food yet, but hopefully that changes soon.

Sara Harper: 32:22

Are you seeing kind of a growing interest around Kansas where you're at? I mean, you're right there in the. Middle of big AG land. But are you seeing interest in people kind of being drawn to this path that you're on?

Gail Fuller: 32:39

Yeah, patience is not my strong suit. I'm sure that's shocking to you.

Sara Harper: 32:47

Mine either.

Gail Fuller: 32:50

To me, this should have happened ten years ago, but it hasn't. But yeah, it's growing. I think the financial woes in agriculture the last few years has helped speed that up. But I've really been surprised as I talk more about quality of life and mental health. That really hits home a lot and I think that's going to be a big driver for farmers. Can just make a living, but live an easier life that's going to help sell them on this, I think. But I think obviously, sadly, at the end of the day, this is still about money, it's still about profit. We still have to make payments and I think as soon as we can get the markets in place, we can flip millions of acres. I think there's just lots of farms waiting on that market to come into play and that's something we've got to get sped up. I think the demand is there on the coast. Obviously we're seeing it, or you wouldn't have all of these companies trying to find a way to buy regenerative products. But until we get those two completely connected, it's probably going to be a little slower than I want to see it.

Sara Harper: 33:55

Well, the last thing I want to do is and we've talked about all of this and it's got on your brain, but trying to kind of summarize it all down, I'm going to have asked you to fill in the sentence regenerative agriculture is.

Gail Fuller: 34:08

Agriculture is life.

Sara Harper: 34:11

Wow. That'S good. Yeah.

Gail Fuller: 34:17

Restoring Rejuvenating Learning 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 kill? What do I need to grow that's golden?

Sara Harper: 35:10

See, this is why I do the summary at the end.

Gail Fuller: 35:12

There you go.

Sara Harper: 35:14

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. Risotera, owned by Dr. Joe Clapperton, rhizotera is an international food security consulting company providing expert guidance for creating healthy soils that yield tasty, nutrient dense 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, keep improving, and don't stop believing that better is possible when knowledge is available.