Regenerative Farming

((TITLE)) REGENERATIVE FARMING
((TRT: 07:40))
((Reporter/Camera/Producer: Zdenko Novacki))
((Additional Camera: Philip Alexiou))
((Map: Flint Hill, Virginia))
((Main characters: 0 female; 1 male))
((Sub characters: 0 female; 0 male))
((Blurb: At Bean Hollow Grassfed, Mike Sands spearheads ecologically mindful farming using regenerative agriculture methods, striving to rejuvenate a degraded piece of land and create a sustainable, productive, and profitable model that challenges conventional farming norms.))
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Mike Sands
Bean Hollow Grassfed))
So this farm, this land, there's about 200 acres total. There's about 100 acres in grass. This land was purchased as raw land about 43 years ago by my wife's parents. They then retired out of agriculture about 20 years ago. My wife and I moved here to care for them. We started a new agricultural business. It's on the same land, but the business is called, Bean Hollow Grassfed.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Mike Sands
Bean Hollow Grassfed))
I've always been focused on ecological concepts in agriculture and in conservation. So, the only way I was interested in agriculture, frankly, was from a kind of systems point of view that really focused on land health, soil health, human health. And that just led me into the kind of continuum of practices that include regenerative agriculture.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Mike Sands
Bean Hollow Grassfed))
This is a very productive agriculture. This is the type of system that can feed the world. In fact, in the long run, it’s probably only way to feed the world. My focus is more local, but in terms of productivity, if you want to measure production per acre, production per animal, production per financial input, all of those metrics can be surpassed with regenerative agriculture as compared to conventional agriculture.
((NATS))
((Mike Sands
Bean Hollow Grassfed))
Organic farming is frankly a certifying term. It’s based more on what you don't do frankly. You don't use chemical fertilizers. You don't use chemical herbicides. But it's, I think, somewhat incomplete. But, I think, regenerative goes to the next step and it's really about rebuilding systems and function. It focuses more on the ultimate product, both in terms of soil health and the quality of the product, and less on the individual practices of do's and don'ts. All of my research had been in how to use livestock to build ecologically resilient, regenerative kinds of production systems that improved land health. When I retired, I did not expect to farm, but we moved here. And on this particular piece of land, it was a very degraded piece of land, and it was being leased out to a neighboring farmer and not particularly well managed. And so, it kind of got under my skin a little bit. And I kept thinking, you know, maybe there's a way to take what I've been doing research on and test myself and actually use livestock to improve the land and make a profit at the same time.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Mike Sands
Bean Hollow Grassfed))
One of the core components of the way that we're farming is based on this idea of rotating through the pastures fairly rapidly. Our goal is to maintain a great deal of diversity in the pastures. So, if you look here for instance, this is fescue. There's some orchard grass over there. There's some clover there. There's a little chicory here. There's a broadleaf called wingstem there. That's what we're looking for is that kind of diversity. But the way to have that is to move the animals through. You can see again, they've eaten the tops of this. Now we don't want to be back on this field until there's no indication of grazing. You want to see that all the grass has got their full growth and their full tips. We're separating these into smaller parcels to increase grazing pressure. So, we'll do this, separate it, and then either late tonight or tomorrow, we’ll come and pull this down and the animals will move into the next section.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Mike Sands
Bean Hollow Grassfed))
One of the major benefits of regenerative agriculture compared to conventional agriculture is, first, we're rebuilding the resource base upon which the agriculture depends, while at the same time, having a higher level of production. So, we are rebuilding the system at the same time that we’re able to pull product out of the system. So, it's inherently more productive over time. And secondly, it's much more cost effective. Financially, I have much, much lower input costs. And so, the return I get, the net return I get is much higher because my input costs are so much lower. So, I'm making money where many of my neighbors, who farm conventionally, are not making any money.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Mike Sands
Bean Hollow Grassfed))
The biggest hurdle in transitioning from conventional agriculture to regenerative agriculture is primarily a mindset. It's a new way of looking at the practices, a new way of looking at how you design your production systems, your marketing systems.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Mike Sands
Bean Hollow Grassfed))
I wouldn’t say there are any real disadvantages per se. I think it's just the transition is, for a conventional producer, can be a challenge. My advice to a farmer who's interested in changing is: one, to be open to new ideas; two, not be constrained by what their father did, or their mother did, or what their neighbors are doing. Open your mind up to change. You want to start those changes at a large enough scale to have an impact, but not at such a large scale that you're overwhelmed by the changes. So it might be, change one or two fields over to a different practice. It might be, take one herd of animals or one class of animals, and try something different, and then grow into that from there. So, it's a combination of being open to big changes, but finding the right small changes over time to test yourself and build your own capacity.
((NATS/MUSIC))