Why Regenerative vs Organic Is the Wrong Focus: Case Study: Canadian Beef Producer Craig Cameron

Have you heard about the lover’s quarrel between organic and regenerative food?  In this episode, we explore how binary battles like this contribute to the problems advocates are trying to solve and how the work of a Canadian forage-finished beef producer, Craig Cameron of Peony Farms in Alberta, can help highlight a better path.

If you haven't heard about the emerging rift between organic and regenerative farming, that's understandable.  It’s mainly an insider’s game at this point – although, you do see it spill out into various social media posts here or there about which system is better and who is the true apostate.

As regenerative agriculture becomes a more popular, and widely-used term, you will likely see more of this food fight -- so in this episode, we take some time to explore this topic and perhaps provide some insight into how to navigate it.

As Craig Cameron explains in our feature interview, outcomes should be the focus instead of the process used to get there.  After all, it is what happened that matters – not what was tried or what was or was not done.

Plus, get your latest brief soil health lesson from Dr. Jill Clapperton.  Learn about the rhizosphere and how it can help us understand the importance of embracing connectedness as a precursor to solving tough problems.

Finally, learn more about the forage-finished beef being created by Craig Cameron of Peony Farms and how this way of creating beef is bringing better, proven outcomes for us, the cows, and the surrounding environment.

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If you are looking for information and support to help further your regenerative journey, consider joining our private online network: the Global Food & Farm Community. 

Questions?  Contact Sara Harper

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Transcript

Craig Cameron: 0:13

I think that's the big thing with regenerative is realizing that humans are a part of the system and that the system is dynamic. Everything that we do or don't do is going to impact the system. And so when you realize that, then for me it makes me really curious and excited about, well, if we could tweak a little something here, how does that change the system? I think going back to our conventional and organic thing, that to me almost felt more like, okay, the system's over here, people are over here and we'll do something to the system and hope something pops out that's the right thing. Whereas there's a lot more nuance in actually being a part of the system and how you affect that by what you do.

Sara Harper: 0:56

Yeah, and I think while regenerative is still emerging, I mean, it's a term that is used by a lot of different people, meaning a lot of different things that can be kind of maybe threatening or scary to those who have an established niche market in organic. How do you maybe think about that? And you've had some experience in both systems, but how do you think that all these things can be together or distinguish themselves, but not maybe in a negative way?

Craig Cameron: 1:23

I think it all comes back to if our core value is to produce the healthiest product for the people that are consuming it, then whatever we're doing has to be going towards that outcome and we have to be able to measure that outcome. And so I think whether it's organic or conventional or what it is, if we're taking the steps and we're measuring the outcomes and we're finding ways, because every farm is going to be different too, on how they can get those outcomes. Depending on what your moisture level is, depending on what your number of growing days is, it's all going to look very different. So to have a set structure on what you can and cannot do is going to limit being able to be creative and make the pivots that you need to make to make your product be as healthy as possible for the end consumer. So I think if we take that stance that our value is going to be well, that and the environmental health, human and environmental health. If that's going to be what we're targeting, then we really have to put a bunch of that stuff to the side and play with how do we get these outcomes? Rather than what can we or can we not do?

Sara Harper: 2:38

Welcome back to our podcast Tasting Terraoir, a journey that explores the link between healthy soil and the flavor and health of your food. I'm your host, Sarah Harper. That clip was from an extraordinary rancher who you will get to know more about in this episode. Craig Cameron of pne Farms in Alberta, Canada. I think Craig does such a great job of explaining what the regenerative agriculture movement is about and sheds some needed light on the emerging binary battle that is shaping up between organic and regenerative. More about that too, later in this episode. First, let's enjoy another brief soil health lesson from Dr. Jill clapperton in this clip from one of jill's presentations, available in our Global Food and Farm Digital Library regen flicks for members of our online community, jill explains more about the area underground known as the rhizosphere, a place where all the magic happens.

Jill Clapperton: 3:44

Rhizosphere, the most biologically active part of your soil. Plants, soils, soil organisms all together, all talking to one another, all being dependent on each other. You can't have a rhizosphere without a root. You need the carbon, the root exudates from the plants to build up that microbial community, because every different plant has its own microbial community. And the plant also can change the sole structure with its root exudates, which also changes the plant community. Again, so you can see, this is a community unto itself, and everything is about keeping the plant healthy. So the rhizosphere is the soil that is attached to the roots. It includes the root, and it includes any soil that's influenced by roots. And that can be quite a ways away, because the mycorrhizal fungi will actually carry root exudates quite a distance. And we know that from some of the studies in the forest. Now, that is a different fungi. It's still, though, a mycorrhizal fungi, and the same is true in grasslands. All the plants are networked, they are all moving water, they are all moving carbon, and they're all sharing rises. Here.

Sara Harper: 5:05

As Jill explains so well, it's all connected underground. What happens to the roots of the plants affects the soil, which affects the organisms living in the soil, which affects the roots, the plants, the animals, and of course, us. This interconnectedness is everywhere, if we look for it. But we humans seem to keep wanting to break away into separate groups, not realizing perhaps that in doing so, we are bound to create or perpetuate problems instead of solving them. And this might be even more true when we break away in the name of solving a problem. A case in point is the emerging fight between proponents of organic and regenerative. If you haven't heard about this lover's quarrel, that's understandable. It's mainly an insider's game. That is at this point, although you do see it spill out into various social media posts here and there about which system is better or who's an apostate. Recently I got into a tangle on this topic myself on LinkedIn. As you can imagine, I'm a big proponent of regenerative agriculture. I love it and I love the people bringing it to life. I've seen 20 years worth of policy and standards accomplish a 10th of what a few years focus from regenerative farmers are achieving. So I feel deeply that it is short sighted and usually out of self interest that purists attack pragmatists, I fought on the front lines against purist environmentalists on the climate issue on behalf of farmers and offsets. 20 years ago, most of these purist environmentalists opposed agricultural offsets and efforts to reward farmers for storing soil carbon. In my view, groups like Natural Resources Defense Council, the sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and on and on and on were fighting against these things every step of the way. It was too hard to measure. It was a slippery slope. It wouldn't result in a true carbon cap. There were, of course, reasons, good reasons in their mind, and thank goodness for their purity now, right? We've all benefited so much from it. Thank God those offsets didn't get passed. Except of course, we haven't. And in fact, now these same organizations are touting sold carbon offsets on their websites as if they invented the idea. Now they support it when the political moment where it would have mattered has passed. Now they raise money off of it and pretend that it was their idea. As you can tell, all of this makes me pretty angry. Angry at the arrogance and the dishonesty, but most of all at the wasted opportunities that resulted out of this giant food fight that is primarily in support of ego versus outcome. This is part of why I left the policy world. I know it is still an important thing and must be engaged in, but it's not for me anymore, because it almost can't seem to help getting constantly tangled in these ego traps, in the desire to be seen as righteous over the willingness to accept reality that things happen in steps and that if you block a step forward, you are blocking the chance to ever get to a real solution. Instead, I was happy to move more deeply into working for and with farmers who were actually doing what so many of the, quote, smart people were busy trying to design better outcomes for people and the planet through the way they grow our food. But as regenerative becomes more of a popular term and food companies market around it and try to associate themselves with it, I see much of the same dishonesty and arrogance that I saw in the policy world, both from those who are misleading people about the regenerative nature of their supply chains and from those who believe themselves to be the purists protecting the organic standard or some other higher version of regenerative that others aren't living up to. Of course, this shouldn't be surprising. This is a human problem and it will show up wherever humans are working. It showed up most recently for me when I posted a clip from our last episode promoting the transparency of supply chains coming from regenerative farmers who are selling directly to the public. Some advocates for organic production challenged my post asking where were the standards for this quote regenerative food? And when they weren't satisfied with my response, they branded me with the scarlet G green washing. But as Craig explained so well, outcomes should be the focus. What happened is what matters, not what was tried or what was done or not done. If you are able to buy food that has a higher amount of nutrients in it and was made in a way that stored carbon in the ground and there's no pesticide residue on the food, all things that I have seen happen with the regenerative farmers in our network. That's the goal, right? But that's not what's being certified so often. It turns out that it's very hard to do that when you're constrained by a system that is measuring only one or two key items like did you apply any synthetic chemical, but ignoring the impact of tillage or other challenges to the system. Regenerative agriculture is so very promising precisely because it regenerates everything. And there are tests that can be done that should be done to see the proof of that. But outcomes tests are a far different thing than certification standards which tell you what was or wasn't done, but not what happened as a result. I say all of this because I believe we will be seeing more and more of this food fight between organic and regenerative. Well, in my view, it is organic feeling the need to attack regenerative, this upstart into the new world of better food. I feel truly privileged to have this platform, to have you all listening to the stories that I bring out. And I wanted to share my perspective with you as someone who's been involved in 20 years of food fights, so that perhaps you don't have to feel bad about either organic or regenerative, but instead that you can see them as both being part of our evolution toward a better food system. Maybe we have to wrestle with this tendency of ours as humans to be right or to be seen as being right before we can ever solve anything else. At least that's the experience life keeps giving me. I could spend a lot of energy attacking organic and feeling justified in doing it. As you can see, I haven't yet evolved past my anger for purists, but that would be a waste and it would be doing the very thing that makes me so frustrated with them. So at the end of the day, the only way you really will be able to know the outcomes surrounding the food you buy is if you know the people who grew it and if those people who are doing. That work of creating these beneficial outcomes share the process and the testing and procedures that went into achieving what they did. It's in buying from people like Craig Cameron who are willing to show their work. As my math teacher would say, with all that in mind, let's hear more from a producer who is on the front lines of all of this and actually doing the job of making better food for us and creating a better outcome for the planet in the process. I will just say, if you live in Canada, I think you should definitely be getting your beef from pne Farms. I think it is not just better for you, it's an investment in a better food system and in the kind of people that we want to succeed. And again, my humble opinion the whole country of Canada can be proud of what the camerons are doing. Here's my interview with Craig Cameron of peony Farms. Hi, Craig. How are you?

Craig Cameron: 13:15

Good. How are you?

Sara Harper: 13:16

Good. I'm really glad to get to take this time to go deeper into what you're doing, into this cool topic of forage finished beef, which I think is new to a lot of people was new to me before kind of working with folks like you because we've heard of grass fed beef, of course, and grain finished beef and those differences. But forage first of all, is a word that outside of farming, you may not come across very often. And second of all, in terms of beef, what it is, the difference, you may not know. So let's start off with just explaining to people kind of what is forage finished beef and how does it differ from those other two systems they might be more familiar with.

Craig Cameron: 13:57

We use the term forge finished beef. There isn't a whole lot of difference from grass finished other than we're just adding diversity of the plant species. So that's the biggest thing they're finding with the research that the more diversity in the plant species, the better for human health, more nutrient dense the meat will be. And then the diversity of plant species is also a huge benefit for our soils as well.

Sara Harper: 14:23

Yeah. Well, great. So some thought goes into then to which kind of species to plant and the effect that has on both the animal and the soil. That's all kind of part of it.

Craig Cameron: 14:33

Yeah. And then management practices to make sure that those plants are producing higher sugars, less starch, some of those key things for the forge finished animals.

Sara Harper: 14:44

So let's give people a sense of your farm and where you're at and what you're growing now.

Craig Cameron: 14:51

We have mixed farming operation, mostly beef. It's a Piedmontes cross meat product that we produce. So the Piedmontes breed brings in a tenderness gene that means that the beef is guaranteed tender every single time. We don't have to worry about having so much fat to make sure that it's tender. We can get that whether the animal is lean or fat or no matter where in that spectrum it is. And then we're raising them on a mixed sporge diet. So a mix of different plant species that then contribute to their health and the health of the final meat product for our consumers. So we're really excited about that. And then we're using regenerative production practices to also boost the nutrient density of the plants for the animals that also will contribute to the final meat product.

Sara Harper: 15:47

So the beef that you produce is this combination of the variety that you've selected in the cattle and what you feed them. Like, the combination is the magic.

Craig Cameron: 15:58

Yeah. And it's really important. We can have the diversity of plant species. But if we're in a conventional system still pounding it with nitrogen, our sugars will be less and some of the other nutrients will be a little more out of whack than if we're now taking a holistic regenerative approach. That we're kind of looking at the whole balance of the different nutrients as well to make sure we end up with the right product to feed our animals. Well.

Sara Harper: 16:24

And then you're also kind of taking on one of the things that grass fed, at least beef has been tagged with, fairly or not, that it's not tender enough that you need that fat from the grain to make it taste good. And so it seems like then the selection of this kind of cow would kind of help with that.

Craig Cameron: 16:42

Yeah. So we haven't been on it very long, but because we have that tenderness gene, we're really thinking that it's going to make a big difference on the final product on a grass forge. Finished, end of things.

Sara Harper: 16:55

And I saw on your new website that there was a customer that was raving about the fact that they could get this Piedmontees there from you. Because it's a fairly rare thing, I think. I guess.

Craig Cameron: 17:07

Yeah, very rare. So for a long time, the breed comes from Italy. Originally, for a long time, they weren't letting any genetics out of Italy. I don't know the number off the top of my head. My father in law would know that, but it's only been, whatever, so many years that it's been available in North America. In the States, there's a big Pete and montes program, but in Canada, we're one of the few readers that are doing it.

Sara Harper: 17:33

And we should say, well, you're based in Alberta, Canada, and we're kind of the major areas that you serve, like the towns or areas that could easily get to your beef.

Craig Cameron: 17:46

Yeah. So we're right in central Alberta. So we supply the Italian centers in Edmonton and Calgary, which are just a little bit north and a little bit south of us. And then messenger meats, who is our processor, also serves Red Deer, which is kind of right close to us. We're based out of lacombe, Alberta, so just north of red deer.

Sara Harper: 18:03

That's great. Do you have export plans in the future?

Craig Cameron: 18:08

We've done some exporting and with COVID and then there was some other transportation issues. We haven't been doing much of that lately, but if the opportunity came up, we would do it.

Sara Harper: 18:20

We'll talk more about selling through your website too, so we'll talk more about that toward the end of the conversation. So you're there in Alberta, Canada. And how does the farm come together? So it's your wife and her parents?

Craig Cameron: 18:33

Yeah. So Peter and Emma miram's parents have been on this farm since well, peter's been on here since he was 18. He moved from just down the road where his brother farms now, to this place. And then he was originally in pigs, and we have some land that's not usable for crops. So he was doing pigs and crop and he was like, oh, we need something to graze this grass. And that's when he started getting into the piedmontese. And then me and miriam joined about, I guess it would be like eight years ago now. We jumped on board with them and then we had an experience with our daughter that she was born with high medical needs and disabilities. And that kind of triggered our process of looking at what we were producing and how we could make it better for her. When miriam was first doing her home blends and stuff for her gtube, she was actually buying some grass finished beef from other people because we weren't producing it.

Sara Harper: 19:35

Yeah.

Craig Cameron: 19:36

And then for me, it was like, oh man, I'm producing all this beef and my daughter is not getting it because miriam thinks something else is better. So then we looked into it, found Regenerative, found that if we do this mix of plants and stuff, we'd be better off even than grass fed. And so now we're running with that and we have something we can produce for our daughter and for our family and for our customers that we're really proud of and excited about.

Sara Harper: 20:02

Yeah. And so often it seems like we need those things that come into our life that are really personal, really focus us, and give us a motivation to change is hard change of mindset, change of business practices. So that seems to have been a real motivator. And then you were on this journey, you were already, I'm sure, doing conservation, agriculture, and being a good steward. But as you started to think about how to get the best nutrition for your daughter, what about Regenerative? Did you start learning that, started to change that mindset or practice?

Craig Cameron: 20:36

Well, I think the biggest thing for me with Regenerative is people are actually testing to try and find what's going to be the best nutrient dense product for people's health. And that was a big thing for me, that there are people that are doing the testing and then saying that, yes, we can start using food as medicine if we are getting the outcomes correct. And I think that's the biggest thing for me, where Regenerative is different from conventional and organic, it's about the outcomes. Growing up, we were on a conventional farm, and then in college I was in environmental chemistry and learning about all the issues with herbicides and that type of thing. I ended up me and my dad and my brother, we transitioned our farm to organic coming out of college, and then it was pretty good, and the premiums were good and stuff, but my dad was kind of my cheerleader for that, and then he passed away in a truck accident. And then the organic standards and stuff were a little bit frustrating for me and that they weren't letting me build a better product. They were just limiting me on what I could do. And so when my dad passed away and I didn't have that cheerleader anymore, I was like, wow, it's not worth fighting with this. And so we came to farm with Peter and Emma. We were back conventional again. We just keep coming back to trying to find the best way to raise food, and this seems to be it.

Sara Harper: 22:10

Well, I think it's a really interesting point, too, that we want standards. And standards are important. definitions are important. If you don't have them, it's easy to have people kind of fool others but say they're doing something that they're not. And so that's certainly understandable why people would want standards. But the flip side that doesn't often get talked about is that standards, as I've heard from others in our community, standards can end up being like a lowest common denominator system, like you've just said, a restrictive system, because they have to test for certain points and only those points. So it can be very limiting in how you get to the outcome. So it sounds like that's kind of in your experience, too.

Craig Cameron: 22:50

Yeah, and I didn't find, like, with organic, I didn't find that we were looking at outcomes. We were always just looking, well, what's going in? Well, we should limit these things to go in, but then we're also limiting some of these other beneficial things that we could put in. But if the certifier said, well, no, we don't really want those, well, then you just can't use them. So it was just I didn't feel we were getting to a point where we could produce the best product. And so that was just a frustration for me on that when you said.

Sara Harper: 23:19

It'S about the outcomes. There are a lot of people that don't have outcomes with regenerative, but you do. You have a lot of testing that goes along with your product. So maybe share some more about the testing and so that people can know what the outcome is.

Craig Cameron: 23:33

Yeah, so when we first got into kind of the regenerative path, we were doing just the regular soil testing and feed testing that most guys would be doing. But then when we started on the regenerative path, we found, like, SAP testing, and that was the first thing that got into, well, we can actually look at how healthy the plants are in the field as they're growing, rather than just, well, the soil said this, so that's what we're assuming is happening. And so that was kind of the first jump in and then we started working with nutrition company for our cattle and they started doing liver tests on our animals to say, okay, this is where they're actually at nutritionally, and we can actually work with that rather than just guessing off of the feed tests. And so that's been huge for me in that I can actually look at it and be, okay, we're improving our plant nutrition. We can see it in the field as we're growing the crop. We're improving our animal nutrition. We can see it in the liver tests as we're doing that. And so now the next piece of the puzzle is to start testing on the finished product end. And we've sent some samples away to Bironutrient Food Association to start that process. So it'll be interesting to see how that comes back and then how it continues to improve in the future.

Sara Harper: 24:54

Well, that's right. And we interviewed Dr. stefan Van bleat in the podcast. And so you're part of that study or that survey. That's really cool. So people maybe understand the liver. Testing the liver of the animal is important because the liver is what's filtering out toxins. Is the liver a good way of kind of getting a sense of the overall health of the animal?

Craig Cameron: 25:18

Yeah. So it was kind of interesting when we first started with this nutrition company, we were having a little bit of issues with reproduction issues on our cow herd. So we were kind of trying to figure out what that was. And when they tested to deliver samples, we were borderline toxic in a lot of minerals that our previous mineral company was telling us we needed to make the but they were guessing off of the feed test too. Right, right. When you can actually measure and be like, oh, okay, we don't need all these extra inputs to make a healthy cow, then that helps the cow, that helps our pocket as well. And then the other part was they found some of the balances of minerals can indicate things like inflammation or something like that. So we were seeing some slight inflammation markers that were a little bit concerning for us that we were able to rectify fairly quickly once we knew that they were there and that we could just feed a little bit differently to improve those inflammation in the animals.

Sara Harper: 26:18

What about flavor? I know it's hard to maybe quantify or talk about the differences in flavor because of what the cow ate or the breed of the cow, but does the Pigma tease variety of anyway, the type of yeah, the genetics? Does that have a specific flavor and then does that flavor get changed or adjusted based on, obviously, what it's fed? So is there like a signature flavor that your cattle have because of this combination of things you're doing?

Craig Cameron: 26:48

Yeah, I would guess it mostly has to do with feeding, like what they're being fed. They'll probably be a little bit from the genetics. But I think the biggest thing from the genetics is that tenderness gene and then the feed kind of complements that with the flavors.

Sara Harper: 27:01

Yes. Have you been a part of any taste tests with different kinds of beef or anything like that?

Craig Cameron: 27:06

No, I haven't. Well, you have to do that interesting to see.

Sara Harper: 27:09

Yeah, absolutely. I think that'd be cool in your experience. So you've farmed kind of, well, organic and conventional, and then that's regeneratively, I'm assuming. Have you been eating your own product this whole time? Have you seen tastes change, the taste of it change, or can you remember?

Craig Cameron: 27:30

I'd say the biggest change has been from grain finished to, like, a forge finished.

Sara Harper: 27:36

Yeah.

Craig Cameron: 27:37

Definitely a big change there. I didn't notice a whole lot between conventional or organic.

Sara Harper: 27:42

Right, yeah, that makes sense. So this final step of being able to test the actual outcome of the meat, the nutrients in the meat, as I remember from talking about that with Dr. Van viet, he was saying that they've discovered even a chemical signature that would allow you to know if the cow had been fed not only grass, but multispecies grass. And so in the future, you'd be able to prove that kind of like gluten free is able to say that we've tested it. There's no gluten or tiny parts or whatever of gluten. So there could be that opportunity to let people know for sure that this has actually been a multispecies animal as opposed to just mostly one type of grass. And then maybe at the end, just a dash of something else. It seems like that would be a real advantage both for the consumer and for you. You did see a taste difference, obviously, with grain fed and grass fed or multispecies pasture forage yeah. Would you say is that a taste that people have to get used to, or is it a taste that some people just prefer is just sort of a preference thing or what do you think about that?

Craig Cameron: 28:58

I think it depends on how in tune people are with their senses and what they're because everybody kind of learns how to like certain things right. Over time. So if you've developed a taste for grain finished and you're used to that taste and you have a hard time trying other taste, then it might be a bit more of a jump. But for people that are really interested in looking at the nuances and the interesting flavors and stuff, I think they actually enjoy it because you just get different things out of it.

Sara Harper: 29:29

Right, yeah. And I remember in my conversation with Nicole Masters, and she said when she first came here and was tasting meat, it all tasted the same, like chicken and the beef, it all tasted the same because it's all finished on corn, where she grew up in New Zealand, and everything was on grass. And I thought that was really interesting, too. And then we. Think about terroir and place based and some of the things that have maybe doled our ability to taste differences in place come from the fact that no matter where they're at, they're all being fed the same thing. So you kind of obliterate the differences.

Craig Cameron: 30:05

Whereas there's not so much of a local food, local diet kind of thing that has that specific flavor anymore. You import your corn from the states or from wherever and then it all gets fed the same. Right?

Sara Harper: 30:21

Yeah. So we were talking about too the kind of evolution of working with your in laws and the path that they're doing and where do you see the operation going? You're in the process of doing this online sales so you can sell direct to consumers. First of all, what's made you want to take that on?

Craig Cameron: 30:42

I think the biggest thing is it's frustrating to see good product that you work so hard on just going to the regular market. So we've kind of been probably about 50% of our production has been going through messenger meats in the Italian centers and then the rest we end up sending to other meat programs. And so it'd be nice to be able to get those benefits all the way to the customers that can benefit from them instead of it getting mixed up with everything else going over these big plants.

Sara Harper: 31:16

The study that stefan van bleat did about the ability to then have almost like a chemical signature for your meat and in the future, people being able to know kind of like gluten free or whatever, like actual tested if this is a multi speciess based product.

Craig Cameron: 31:33

Yeah, I think that's the way of the future and I think that's why there's been so much energy into those things where people can test directly in the grocery store and stuff. I think there's a lot of energy around that because then it's not that you have to trust someone else. You can be confident that this is what they say it is because you've been able to test it. I think when it gets to that point, it'll be a great leveling field for what gets sold to consumers.

Sara Harper: 32:02

Yeah. Now, you also have been on a process to learn about how do you market what you're doing direct to the consumer, building the website and working in our group on content and how do we tell the story, how do we reach people, what's that process been like? Well, I'll just leave it at that. What's that been like?

Craig Cameron: 32:23

So I bring everything back to core values and that type of thing. I think that that's what makes the world go round, that we have to all get back to our core values before we can make good decisions. And I guess I'm not quite sure how to explain that, but that's what it comes back down to for me is core values. And one of my core values is curiosity. And so I love all this stuff of just trying different things, learning different things. It's been great for me. I really enjoy it.

Sara Harper: 32:57

That's a common theme I see over and over with regenerative that it enables you to be curious, but it also attracts people who are curious because there is maybe an extra element of work involved. But that's the kind of work that people miss. They miss that ability to kind of figure out problems and work with nature.

Craig Cameron: 33:18

And I think that's the big thing with regenerative is realizing that humans are a part of the system and that the system is dynamic. Everything that we do or don't do is going to impact the system. And so when you realize that, then for me it makes me really curious and excited about, well, if we could tweak a little something here, how does that change the system? I think going back to our conventional and organic thing, that to me almost felt more like, okay, the system's over here, people are over here and we'll do something to the system and hope something pops out that's the right thing. Whereas there's a lot more nuance in actually being a part of the system and how you affect that by what you do.

Sara Harper: 34:02

Yeah, and I think while regenerative is still emerging, I mean, it's a term that is used by a lot of different people, meaning a lot of different things that can be kind of maybe threatening or scary to those who have an established niche market in organic. How do you maybe think about that? And you've had some experience in both systems, but how do you think that all these things can be together or distinguish themselves, but not maybe in a negative way?

Craig Cameron: 34:28

I think it all comes back to if our core value is to produce the healthiest product for the people that are consuming it, then whatever we're doing has to be going towards that outcome and we have to be able to measure that outcome. I think whether it's organic or conventional or what it is, if we're taking the steps and we're measuring the outcomes and we're finding ways because every farm is going to be different too, on how they can get those outcomes. Depending on what your moisture level is, depending on what your number of growing days is, it's all going to look very different. So to have a set structure on what you can and cannot do is going to limit being able to be creative and make the pivots that you need to make to make your product be as healthy as possible for the end consumer. So I think if we take that stance that our value is going to be well, that and the environmental health, human and environmental health. If that's going to be what we're targeting, then we really have to put a bunch of that stuff to the side and play with how do we get these outcomes? Rather than what can we or can we not do?

Sara Harper: 35:41

Yeah, well that's I think what's frustrating for me working in having been in this space for a long time and I know consumers have a short attention span and they have all these things that they want that are good things. They want better health, they want better outcomes for the environment and there are a lot of people telling them, here's how, here's how. A, they're not well equipped to decipher the difference and B, they don't really have the time or interest to. So what I love about working with you all is like your farm, DeAnna's farm, the accent, you're all doing different things but you're all doing different outcomes based tests and you're willing to share those with your consumers. And so the problem of an actual outcome or something real there to look for is not a problem for you guys. The problem only comes when you try to aggregate that supply into one giant commodity, whether it's an organic commodity or a regenerative commodity or conventional commodity, because those nuances are so different. And you can't compare apples to apples from one farm to the next. And we've sold people on the fact that you can we've kind of given that impression.

Craig Cameron: 36:54

Yeah. And I think that's where the relationship between people that are purchasing and the person that's producing it, I think that's where the relationships are really important. Because for the people that would know me and know that my goal is to give them the best help possible, no matter what that looks like on the production end, then that makes a bigger difference than if someone's just saying, well, here's our standards, trust them, that that's going to make the right outcomes. Right?

Sara Harper: 37:21

Yeah. Okay, so you are already selling a lot of your meat, and you're going to start selling direct to consumers, or you already are selling direct to consumers, but you're going to do more of that online with the website. And you're also starting to do more about telling your story and this kind of thing. So people can sign up for your newsletter and our mailing list. And you're going to be producing some videos, too, about those beautiful pictures of.

Craig Cameron: 37:47

Cows eating forage yeah, you keep twisting my arms.

Sara Harper: 37:50

Yes, I'm going to make you do it. They are beautiful pictures. You got cabbing season coming up. You were just saying what is involved with that for people who don't know anything about that part of the whole process.

Craig Cameron: 38:03

Yeah, so I guess it's hard to explain for me because I've done it all my life. Like this time of year for us, it's still a little cold so it takes a lot more babysitting. We're doing less and less cabbing in February, March and more May, June, August, September on grass and that's a lot nicer. They take care of most of that themselves this time of year. We still have to keep an eye on them, check them three or four times a day and just make sure everything's going well. And we might have to pull a cow out of pen, help deliver the calf if there's problems with delivery or we might have to help a calf suck that's having trouble or something like that if we have to, but basically.

Sara Harper: 38:45

Just making sure everything's okay. And then when there's a need to intervene that you're able to do that and you stagger the birth so that you're not overwhelmed all at once.

Craig Cameron: 38:56

Well, it's actually mostly for the meat program then we have animals of different sizes all year.

Sara Harper: 39:03

Yeah. Well good. So we talked about forage finished so people have a sense of a pasture, they can kind of get that in their mind. What is going to be different about your system than just sort of a pasture out there like meadow grass and flowers? Occasionally?

Craig Cameron: 39:18

Because we're in Alberta, Canada no, for a significant part of the year currently we're taking the mixed forage crops as silage and storing it and then feeding it to the animals in the wintertime. That's for the meat animals we haven't quite tweaked. So on our cow calf, we do swath grazing and so ideally we'd be able to swap, graze all the meat animals as well through the winter, but we have to tweak what's in the blends and stuff enough to give them the right amount of energy and proteins that they still grow decent. So the swath grazing part for the mama cows, we take standing forage crops. So a bunch of different species of grasses and legumes and all sorts of different species.

Sara Harper: 40:09

You're growing a salad for the cow, right? So I can't actually make any food, but I can try to explain yeah.

Craig Cameron: 40:18

That'S a great way to explain it.

Sara Harper: 40:20

I've heard someone else say big mixed salad. Yes, exactly. So you're choosing the ingredients and the salad and that swath that's like a strip of yeah.

Craig Cameron: 40:28

So then we knock it all down so that we take basically 25ft worth of standing crop and we put it in like three or 4ft wide worth of space. It concentrates that so the cows can actually find it under the snow. Then they'll take it up and eat it in the winter.

Sara Harper: 40:47

That's cool. Is there a fermented element to this?

Craig Cameron: 40:50

On the Swiss it's more just dried out on the silage. It's a fermented.

Sara Harper: 40:55

So it's probiotic.

Craig Cameron: 40:57

Yeah. And it's kind of finicky there too on trying to get it to ferment right, so you get right outcomes there as well rather than having it just spoil and not be any good for the cattle. So kind of a process there too.

Sara Harper: 41:09

So in the swath grazing, you are both planting live crops that they're going to eat when they can and then you're also harvesting and storing fermenting that portion of it for winter and you lay that out and then they go and find it.

Craig Cameron: 41:25

Yeah. Well, we will give them a day's worth at a time. We'll move an electric fence right. And only give them a day at a time. Then they get the benefits of everything, whereas if you give them too much, then they'll pick through their favorite things first, and then by the end, it's just, do I have to eat this? They get the benefits of the diversity if they have a small portion of the time with everything rather than picking through things.

Sara Harper: 41:46

Okay, so your website is coming forward and people are going to be able to buy directly from you, I assume. People in Canada, right? Yeah. And so those lucky people in Canada that get to buy from you, so they would put in their order and then explain how the process would happen. How much could they buy, how would it come to them? All of that?

Craig Cameron: 42:09

Yeah, I guess we're still kind of working through that, like, for smaller orders. Right now, it's all through the Italian centers and messenger meats, and we've just been doing big orders, and then most of the time, then people come pick it up from the farm. But we're looking at the possibility of deliveries to big centers just to make it a little easier for people to get access to it.

Sara Harper: 42:31

And there are, I'm sure, partners that maybe emerge as they find out what you're doing, because what you're doing certainly is ahead of trend and going to be, I think, of great interest and value to both consumers and the people who sell to consumers. So that's cool that there's an opportunity to maybe have more outlets for that. But there are people that right now that buy a significant amount, like half a cower or something like that, and the different cuts and then put it in the freezer. Right?

Craig Cameron: 43:01

Yeah, half a cower. Our biggest seller is people just get, like, £50 of ground beef. People can do anything with ground beef.

Sara Harper: 43:08

That's right. That's great. Just as we wrap it up, how would you define regenerative? We've talked somewhat about that and some of the values that go into that, but it is a term that's still fluid, and I actually think that's a good thing. But we do ask a lot of people that. So how would you define regenerative agriculture?

Craig Cameron: 43:26

For me, regenerative agriculture is all about outcomes based on the values of human and environmental health. So anything that is producing a beneficial human and environmental health outcome is, to me, on the regenerative path.

Sara Harper: 43:43

And what do you think about the ability to taste health? I know that it's kind of a hard thing to prove, but you're in the middle of creating this healthier product, and product you can prove is healthier. But do you think that the overlap with understanding of taste is coming, is still emerging or I don't know. What do you think about that?

Craig Cameron: 44:04

Yeah, I haven't put much thought into how the taste of health would be. I think for a lot of people, they can feel in their body when they're being healthier, and I think that's going to be a bigger driver maybe than the taste until we get figured out what does health taste like? Right.

Sara Harper: 44:23

Yeah, that's the other thing. More nutrient dense food can also make you feel full longer on less of it. So there are all these other maybe benefits that we have to kind of help people see. That may actually be the case, but you wouldn't maybe notice it unless you were told.

Craig Cameron: 44:42

Yeah. And I think a lot of the people that are looking for this more nutrient dense healthier food are going to be the people that do feel the difference because they're looking for that change.

Sara Harper: 44:52

Right, right. And they're in tune with their body and with the differences that they feel based on different things that they eat. I think this is great. I look forward to your expansion and taking over Canada and then on to the rest of the world. I think the kind of beef that you're working on is just great and it's clearly being proven to be through the studies that are being done at places like bionutrient Food Association and others. It's just wonderful that it's available, that people can actually buy it directly from you. So thank you very much, Craig.

Craig Cameron: 45:28

Yeah, we're excited to do it, and like I said, it's good for our family and we think it's good for everybody. Then.

Sara Harper: 45:43

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, Risottera is an international food security consulting company providing expert guidance for creating healthy soils that yield tasty, nutrient dense foods. Check us out@risottera.com. That's rh Izoterra.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 at globalfood and Farm and from listeners like you who support us through our patreon account. At patreon. Comtastingterwire. 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.