AgEmerge Podcast

100th AgEmerge Podcast Episode Today is a pinnacle for us as we host Gabe Brown, our first on-stage AgEmerge Keynote speaker and one of the influential forces that challenged our thinking about the way we farm. There’s a great conversation ahead as Monte and Gabe take a three-hour deep dive into all things regen ag. Gabe Brown is one of the pioneers of the current soil health movement which focuses on the regeneration of our resources.Along with his wife Shelly, and son Paul, Gabe owns and operates Brown's Ranch, a diversified 5,000 acre farm and ranch near Bismarck, North Dakota. The ranch consists of several thousand acres of native perennial rangeland along with perennial pastureland and cropland. Their ranch focuses on farming and ranching in nature's image. The Browns holistically integrate their grazing and no-till cropping systems, which include a wide variety of cash crops, multi-species cover crops along with all natural grass finished beef and lamb. They also raise pastured laying hens, broilers and swine. This diversity and integration has regenerated the natural resources on the ranch without the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides. Gabe authored the book, “Dirt to Soil, One Family’s Journey Into Regenerative Agriculture.” He is a partner, along with David Kleinschmidt, Shane New, Kathy Richburg, and Dr. Allen Williams, in Understanding Ag LLC. He is also an instructor for Soil Health Academy, which focuses on teaching others the power and importance of healthy functioning ecosystems. Follow Gabe's Work: Brown's Ranch website: https://brownsranch.us/ Understanding Ag website: https://understandingag.com/ Got questions you want answered?Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers.Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge podcast? Emailkim@asn.farm

Steve Statler is Senior Vice President of Marketing & ESG at Wiliot. Imagine technology the size of a postage stamp, changing the way we make, distribute and sell food and consumables. It is technology that can make our supply chain more efficient and it cut food waste. AgEmerge has purposefully focused on bringing together regenerative agriculture and emerging technologies to make regenerative farming possible anywhere and everywhere and today’s conversation explores those exciting opportunities. Steve is a leader in battery-free Bluetooth semiconductor and cloud services. With over 10 years in the industry, Steve has channeled his passion from IoT & cloud technology as a speaker, author, and host of the Mr. Beacon Podcast. https://www.wiliot.com/ Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we’d love to hear from you.

Meghan Filbert and Allysse Sorensen are both part of the US Nofence team and they’re working with growers to bring livestock back to the land. They have extensive experience in addressing barriers to grazing both perennial and annual forages. And, the more we learn about building soil health the more we know about how livestock can be a critical component in the system including not only soil benefits, but the income and community opportunities as well. Meghan started working for Nofence in the summer of 2022 after working for Practical Farmers of Iowa and cooperative extension. She spent the last decade helping farmers address barriers to grazing both perennial and annual forages. She championed virtual fence technology for years before jumping at the opportunity to spearhead the adoption of this tech by directly working for Nofence. Meghan's goats are helping to reclaim an oak savanna in central Iowa using Nofence collars. Allysse Sorensen joined Nofence in October 2022. Prior to that she was running her own goat grazing business. Managing goats off the farm on an average of six sites at a time in a 60-mile radius has a set of challenges. This led Sorensen to implement a variety of technology tools, including microchips and virtual fencing. Sorensen is also the owner of HireGoats.com, a directory of producers providing targeted grazing services. Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we’d love to hear from you. www.nofence.no

On today’s show we are sharing Monte’s vision and mission, and why our team at Ag Solutions Network and AgEmerge are so focused on bringing you information and conversations that push all the buttons, including pushing a few of yours. We don’t shy away from the difficult discussions and we constantly challenge the status quo. We believe in the direction regenerative agriculture, or whatever you want to call it today, is going and how it leads to a path of raising healthy crops, healthy livestock and healthy people living on a healthy planet and we’d like to help you get there too. So take a listen as Monte dives in to the hard questions of why and how we can help you along your regenerative journey. Ag Solutions Network brings you the address Monte delivered for our virtual AgEmerge event this past January. Monte examines the why of making changes in your farming operation. Why regenerative ag? Why are we so passionate about soil health? Simply put, sustaining is not enough. He explores what it looks like to adopt these changes, what barriers we have to overcome, what success and yes, just as important, what failures we’ve seen as we improve our farming system. And it all starts with soil health.

Dan Kittredge has been an organic farmer for more than 30 years and the founder and Executive Director of the Bionutrient Food Association (BFA), a non-profit whose mission is to “increase quality in the food supply.” Dan has become one of the leading proponents of “nutrient density,” and works to demonstrate the connections between soil health, plant health, and human health through workshops and speaking engagements across the country and globe, the annual Soil and Nutrition Conference, and an increased presence online through social media, a YouTube channel, and an upcoming online course. Today he and Monte discuss the opportunities and challenges in all these areas. Dan grew up on Many Hands Organic Farm in central Massachusetts with his parents, Julie Rawson, NOFA-MA Executive Director, and Jack Kittredge, Natural Farmer publisher. After a global career in food and seed activism where he worked with farmers across India, Russia, and Central America, Dan returned to the U.S. and launched the BFA in order to ignite a movement around food quality. Dan has become one of the leading proponents of “nutrient density,” and works to demonstrate the connections between soil health, plant health, and human health through workshops and speaking engagements across the country and globe, the annual Soil and Nutrition Conference, and an increased presence online through social media, a YouTube channel, and an upcoming online course. In 2018, Dan launched the Real Food Campaign, now the Bionutrient Institute, that, with open-source science partners Our-Sci and FarmOS, are leading the effort to identify and increase nutrition in the food supply. The Bionutrient Institute has engineered and unveiled a prototype of a hand-held consumer spectrometer, the Bionutrient Meter, designed to test nutrient density at point of purchase and bring transparency to the marketplace. Via the Bionutrient Meter, the goal is to empower consumers to choose for nutrient quality and thereby leverage economic incentives to drive full system regeneration. https://bionutrient.org/ Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we’d love to hear from you.

Welcome Pat Miletich to the podcast. Pat has spent 35 years searching for the top supplements for human health, recovery and performance but you might best know him as a former U.S. Kickboxing and UFC Welterweight Champion. I think it’s safe to say that Pat knows a thing or two about what we put in our bodies and how it affects recovery and performance. What’s really cool is Pat has come to have a deep desire to understand the soil health / human health connection. Pat understands the mechanics of the body and what works when it comes to keeping his body working in a healthy way. Today as we learn more about food and how it affects our health and physical performance. We look forward to bringing you more conversations that help us understand that human health soil health connection. Follow Pat Miletich's work: https://www.facebook.com/PatMiletichOfficial/ https://www.instagram.com/pjmiletich/?hl=en Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we’d love to hear from you.

Dr. Mahdi M. Al-Kaisi is a professor Emeritus of soil physics (soil management/environment), Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. His research focuses on the effects of crops and tillage systems, crop residue, cover crops, and nitrogen application on soil carbon dynamics, sequestration, greenhouse gas emissions, and ecosystem services. Monte and Dr. A–Kaisi discuss all the areas and so much more so let’s jump right in. Dr. Al-Kaisi studied the interaction effects of agricultural management practices and environmental factors such as, weather variability and landscape spatial variability on soil organic carbon sequestration and systems sustainability and productivity. As a result of his research, he has developed field calculators to assess soil management practices impacts, such as, tillage, crop residue, and crop rotation on soil health. He developed soil carbon index for soils in Iowa. Dr. Al-Kaisi is a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy, the Soil Science Society of America, and Soil and Water Conservation Society. Important Links: Iowa Residue Calculator: http://extension.agron.iastate.edu/soilmgmt/calcResidue.aspx Soil Erosion Calculator: https://milford.nserl.purdue.edu/wepp/strips.php Dr. Mahdi Al-Kaisi Research links: https://www.extension.iastate.edu/soilmgt/soil-and-cropping-systems

Watch and listen as farmers and researchers share their experiences about cover cropping in California. - timestamps - 00:00 - start 02:03 - Matt Angell - Madera Resource Conservation District (RCD) 19:27 - Rob Roy, Regional Agronomist 50:44 - Justin Dutra, CAS Regenerative Agronomist, PCA, CCA 01:03:03 - Silas Rossow, President of California Ag Solutions 01:33:09- Monte Bottens, Founder of California Ag Solutions, Owner of Bottens Family Farm and Ag Solutions Network 01:55:36 - Grower Panel Discussion Matt Angell will talk about how important cover crops are in a farming operation. He will talk about the RCD and how they help growers succeed. Rob Roy - Regional Agronomist: Rob will talk about soil health and its effect on water and nitrogen efficiency. Justin Dutra - Cover Cropping Systems and their effects on IPM: Justin will talk about the benefits of a cover crop system and how it affects IPM. Silas Rossow - Creating a Cover Cropping System: Silas will talk about the nuts and bolts of a successful cover crop system. Monte Bottens - The Art of Balancing: Monte will discuss how CAS can help the grower get the most of irrigation water and improve soil health from a practical farming perspective, wrapping all the important info together. Balancing yield needs, soil health, and water availability for years to come. Growers Panel Discussion: growers talk about their experience and the benefits they have seen in using cover crops on their operations.

Welcome Jerry Hatfield. Jerry is the retired Director of the USDA-ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment in Ames, Iowa and his bio illustrates his passion and knowledge for helping growers improve their agronomic systems. Much of Jerry’s focus has been on the evaluation of farming systems and their response to water and nitrogen interactions across soils and remote sensing methods to quantify field variation. A platform for his research utilizes the genetics by environment by management concept as a framework to work with producers to demonstrate how they can increase their production efficiency, increase soil health, and develop resilience to weather and climate variation as the foundation for food security. Today he and Monte dive in to those topics and many more. Jerry worked in California at the University of California-Davis from 1975-1983 as a biometeorologist working a range of different crops, joined USDA-ARS in 1983 at the Plant Stress and Water Conservation Unit in Lubbock, TX until his transfer to Ames in 1989 to develop the research program of the National Soil Tilth Laboratory (renamed the National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment in 2009). His research focused on the interactions among the components of the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum and their linkage to air, water, and soil quality. His focus has been on the evaluation of farming systems and their response to water and nitrogen interactions across soils and remote sensing methods to quantify field variation. A platform for his research utilizes the genetics x environment x management concept as a framework to work with producers to demonstrate how they can increase their production efficiency, increase soil health, and develop resilience to weather and climate variation as the foundation for food security. His outreach efforts have included participation in the National Climate Assessment as the Lead Author for agriculture for the US and on the IPCC effort on greenhouse gases and climate change. Dr. Hatfield is an accomplished author with 508 refereed publications and 18 monographs and serves as the Editor for Agroecosystems, Geosciences and Environment and Technical Editor for Agriculture and Environmental Letters and ranks in the top 2% of researchers in the world. He edited several volumes including Crop Adaptation to Climate Change and Food Security and Climate Change. His numerous awards include being inducted into the USDA-ARS Hall of Fame for his research impact the Hugh Hammond Bennett award and the Soil Science Society of America Distinguished Service Award in 2022 along with being a Fellow in the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America and serving as President of the American Society of Agronomy in 2007. He received his PhD from Iowa State University in 1975 in the area of agricultural climatology, MS in agronomy from the University of Kentucky in 1972, and a BS in agronomy from Kansas State University in 1971. Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we’d love to hear from you. View a sample of Jerry's work: https://www.ars.usda.gov/midwest-area/ames/nlae/people/jerry-hatfield/

Russ Conser is the CEO of Blue Nest Beef - an e-commerce startup bringing 100% grass-fed beef from Audubon-certified bird friendly land direct to consumer doorsteps nationwide. Theirs is a story of farmers and consumers co-creating a new and better food system that enhances the health of both people and planet. This conversation really gets us excited not only about what is currently happening but what is on the horizon for improving soil and human health. Isn’t it amazing all the pieces and people that are working together to build such a great legacy. Russ Conser is CEO of Blue Nest Beef - an e-commerce startup bringing 100% grass-fed beef from Audubon-certified bird friendly land direct to consumer doorsteps nationwide. Blue Nest Beef spotlights birds as treasurer and measure in a bigger story of farmers and consumers co-creating a new and better food system that enhances the health of both people and planet. Russ is originally a mechanical engineer who spent 30 years at Shell and is now a regenerative agriculture entrepreneur and scientist. Having spent the 1st half of that career in big oil finding and extracting dead carbon from the deep earth, he spent the 2nd half investing in scientists and innovators developing novel energy technologies ultimately leading Shell’s innovative “GameChanger” program. Russ retired from Shell in 2013 and has since been focused on the science and business of putting living carbon back into the shallow Earth by working to scale up proven regenerative agriculture practices. He is currently President of The Grassfed Exchange - a non-profit regenerative agriculture educational foundation focused on farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange. https://bluenestbeef.com/ https://www.instagram.com/bluenestbeef/ https://www.facebook.com/BlueNestBeef/ https://twitter.com/BlueNestBeef Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we’d love to hear from you.

Dan Miller is the Founder and CEO of Steward. Steward is a private lender providing regenerative farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and producers the capital they need to expand and sustain their businesses. And through Steward’s innovative online platform, qualified lenders have the opportunity to join in their mission and help fund the growth of regenerative agriculture by purchasing loan participations. Ask Dan what inspired him to create Steward, and he'll tell you about early mornings spent crabbing with his father on the Chesapeake Bay. This was the experience that rooted him to the land, but it was a meeting with a well-known chef in Dan's hometown, Washington D.C., that would plant the idea of Steward in his mind. This chef spoke of the difficulties facing the independent farmers that supplied his restaurant: the more specialized the farms were, the harder it was to get a loan. Dan felt that instead of forcing farmers to fit within a box, it should be the other way around. So he committed himself to creating a system that empowers each unique farmer to steward their land sustainably, with consumers—the people with the most to gain from sustainable farming—having the opportunity to join in their success. After graduating from the Wharton School with a B.S. and M.B.A., Dan co-founded a pioneering investment crowdfunding business called Fundrise. In 2010, it was the first and largest real estate crowdfunding platform in the United States, and has since raised more than $500 million. It's this experience, combined with a passion for agriculture, ecology, and local food that led Dan to launching Steward in 2017. https://gosteward.com/ https://www.instagram.com/steward/ https://www.facebook.com/GoSteward https://www.linkedin.com/company/go-steward/ https://twitter.com/GoSteward Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Email: kim@asn.farm

Hear from Monte Bottens, CEO of Ag Solutions Network and Bottens Family Farm, as he talks with Alex Michaels of the Ecdysis Foundation about the 1,000 Farms Initiative. To learn more about the 1,000 Farms Initiative, visit: https://www.ecdysis.bio/featured-project https://www.ecdysis.bio/_files/ugd/49b043_3048549b00a2416c9650d4d21005bcc0.pdf Ecdysis Foundation started in 2016 behind the wheel of a rental car on a cross country road trip home to South Dakota. Dr. Lundgren had just been suspended from his federal position for presenting his research on the hopes of regenerative agriculture and problems of pesticide risks to farmers and the National Academy of Sciences. Driving through the endless miles where society had traded corn and soybeans for degraded rural communities, it was clear that something was deeply wrong with how science was being applied. Something had to change. The vision that evolved became a new model of agricultural science. And the only way to implement these changes was to get out of the current scientific matrix. ​Scientists have to become farmers to increase the relevance and credibility of their research. Scientists also have become part of the farming community. Funding models have to change to remove conflicts of interest from science, and farmers needed to be intimately involved in producing scientific research. The metrics that scientists assess their success by have to be re-envisioned to incorporate outcomes that farmers care about. And scientists need to be able to communicate their science to the end users Alex earned her Bsc Biology at USD and is pursuing her Msc Wildlife and Fisheries Science at SDSU. Alex is a master's student at South Dakota State University, researching regenerative agriculture, pollinators and birds in North Dakota and southern Manitoba, Canada. She joined Ecdysis in 2019.

Dr. Allen Williams a 6th generation family farmer and founding partner of Understanding Ag, the Soil Health Academy, and Regenified. Allen and his colleagues specialize in whole farm and ranch planning based on the concept of regenerative agriculture. They’ve worked in all 50 U.S. States and with farmers in dozens of countries globally. Today we discuss not only what changes can be made in operations but also what changes we have to make internally. Allen says the very first thing we have to do is transform our minds before we can start transforming practices because if we don't understand what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, we’ll be hard pressed to see success. Allen has consulted with more than 4,000 farmers and ranchers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and 30+ other countries, on individual operations ranging from a few acres to over 2 million acres. He is a “recovering academic”, having served 15 years on the faculty at Louisiana Tech University and Mississippi State University. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in Animal Science from Clemson University and a Ph.D. in Genetics and Physiology from LSU. He has authored more than 400 scientific and popular press articles, and is an invited speaker at regional, national, and international conferences and symposia. Allen and his colleagues specialize in whole farm & ranch planning based on the concept of regenerative agriculture. They have worked in all 50 U.S. States and with farmers in dozens of countries globally. In the U.S. they are currently working across 32 million acres in regenerative transition. Allen has been featured in the Carbon Nation film series, Carbon Cowboys, on the Dr. Oz show, ABC Food Forecast News, in A Regenerative Secret, The Farmer’s Footprint film series and the Sacred Cow film series. https://understandingag.com/ https://regenified.com/ https://soilhealthacademy.org/ Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we’d love to hear from you.

Have you heard about Dr. John Tooker? Here's your chance. Dr. Tooker isa Professor and Extension Specialist in the Department of Entomology at Pennsylvania State University. Hear about his research studying relationships among plants, invertebrate herbivores, and natural enemies to understand the factors regulatingpopulations of herbivorous insects and slugs. Dr. Tooker shares how his team helpsfarmers observe what is happening in and around their fieldswhile pausing to explore all the possible factors affecting their system. In addition, the long-term goal of his research is to exploit ecological interactions for sustainable insect pest management. Follow Dr. Tooker's work: Researcher Biographyand Contact:http://ento.psu.edu/directory/jft11 John Tooker Lab: http://ento.psu.edu/research/labs/john-tooker Penn State Dept. of Entomology Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/psu_entomology Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we’d love to hear from you.

Dr. Fatma Kaplan, CEO of Pheronym, talks about her experience at the 2021 AgEmerge Summer Summit. Join us for this year's! Engage with experts in thought provoking discussion as we share years of experience, both the successes and failures, in a full transparency farm tour. But we can't be all work and no play...To wrap up the event, we'll enjoy a unique evening together in the pasture for dinner and live music at the 4th annual Concert with the Cows! https://www.agsolutionsnetwork.com/agemerge-summer-summit Cover Cropping: The Basics of Getting Started Relay Cropping: Harvesting Rye and Soybeans in the Same Year Interseeded Cover Cropping: Making it Work POWER2GRO Product Trials: Side by Side and Variable Rate Regenerative Ag in Action: Failures to Successes Livestock Integration: Stacking Enterprises Direct Marketing to Consumers: Communicating with the Public Decades of Soil Health Experience

Dr. Fatma Kaplan, CEO or Pheronym, talks about her time on the farm with the 2021 AgEmerge Summer Summit. Engage with experts in thought provoking discussion as we share years of experience, both the successes and failures, in a full transparency farm tour. But we can't be all work and no play...To wrap up the event, we'll enjoy a unique evening together in the pasture for dinner and live music at the 4th annual Concert with the Cows! Register: https://www.agsolutionsnetwork.com/agemerge-summer-summit - Cover Cropping: The Basics of Getting Started - Relay Cropping: Harvesting Rye and Soybeans in the Same Year - Interseeded Cover Cropping: Making it Work - POWER2GRO Product Trials: Side by Side and Variable Rate - Regenerative Ag in Action: Failures to Successes - Livestock Integration: Stacking Enterprises - Direct Marketing to Consumers: Communicating with the Public - Decades of Soil Health Experience

Eric Jackson and Dr. Stephan van Vliet both join the AgEmerge Podcast for Episode 088. Eric currently serves as the Board Chair of the Bionutrient Food Association, on the BoD of Victory Hemp Foods and an advisor to Homeplate Foods, Water Asset Management, Other Half Processing and The Yield Lab. He is a Strategic Advisor to the Applied Ecological Institute and he also serves on the Steering Council for the Forever Green Partnership based out of the University of Minnesota. And since we last spoke with Dr. van Vliet, he has joined the Center for Human Nutrition Studies at Utah State University, Stephan is Is a nutrition scientist with metabolomics expertise. Listen in as Eric and Stephan talk with Monte about how they are working together to explore nutrient density and food production from the soil up. Eric stated it best when he said it became apparent to him that there is a path forward if we want to create a food system that gives an opportunity for growers to participate in the value that they create through their production practices around quality. Eric currently serves as the Board Chair of the Bionutrient Food Association, on the BoD of Victory Hemp Foods and an advisor to Homeplate Foods, Water Asset Management, Other Half Processing and The Yield Lab. He is a Strategic Advisor to the Applied Ecological Institute and he also serves on the Steering Council for the Forever Green Partnership based out of the University of Minnesota. As an entrepreneur, Eric was the founding CEO of Pipeline Foods and a co-founder of Conservis, which was acquired by a joint venture established by Rabobank and TELUS Agriculture. He also co-founded CP Holdings as a member of the Chicago Climate Exchange, developing carbon sequestration projects across the Northern Plains of the USA. In the corporate world, Eric started his career with The Pillsbury Company. He then joined International Proteins Corporation and led a MBO of the group. As CEO and Board Chair of IPC, he led the sale of the company to Scoular, where he joined their BoD and was corporate SVP and General Manager until his departure in 2007. Stephan Is a nutrition scientist with metabolomics expertise in the Center for Human Nutrition Studies at Utah State University. Dr. Stephan van Vliet earned his PhD in Kinesiology as an ESPEN Fellow from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and received training at the Washington University in St Louis School of Medicine and Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. van Vliet’s research is performed at the nexus of agricultural and human health. He routinely collaborates with farmers, ecologists, and agricultural scientists to study critical linkages between agricultural production methods, the nutrient density of food, and human health. His work has been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Scientific Reports, the Journal of Nutrition, and the Journal of Physiology. Dr. van Vliet: https://stephanvanvliet.com/recent-research-projects/ https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.555426/full Bionutrient Food Association: https://bionutrient.org/ https://www.facebook.com/Bionutrient/ https://www.instagram.com/bionutrientfoodassociation/ https://www.youtube.com/bionutrient https://twitter.com/bionutrientfood https://www.linkedin.com/company/bionutrient Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we’d love to hear from you.

There are always new observations to make and new things to learn from what we did the previous year. Join us for AgEmerge Summer Summit to think outside the box and explore new solutions. Wrap up the learning with a Concert with the Cows, hosted by Grateful Graze, to see what soil health really translates to. Register here: https://bit.ly/3ONvyX9

Alan Lewis is the Vice President of Advocacy & Governmental Affairs at Natural Grocers. Alan navigates government affairs and food and agriculture policy for Natural Grocers, a Colorado based health food chain founded in 1955 with over 170 stores in 20 states. At the federal, state and local level, Alan engages on food, agriculture, nutrition, rural economic development, food safety, trade and health issues. He is active in several trade and advocacy organizations and is a fearless writer, speaker and activist. Alan shares how his personal family story plays deeply into why he is so passionate about the work he’s doing. Alan talks with Monte about how Natural Grocers is a part of a broad coalition of thousands of independent food retailers who are trying to change the food system by changing the supply chain. Join us as we explore this important topic. Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we’d love to hear from you. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdBPUfDtnD6qDMramNjM1Rg https://twitter.com/naturalgrocers https://www.pinterest.com/naturalgrocers/ https://www.instagram.com/naturalgrocers/ https://www.facebook.com/NaturalGrocers/

Erin Martin is the founder of Conscious Aging Solutions connecting others with preventative and conscious approaches to longevity. Erin is a Gerontologist, and is passionate about studying the process of aging. And her story gets even more exciting because of her life experiences and a kind of a-ha moment during a trip to a blue-zone area that enforced her desire to uncover how food plays such a significant role in our aging process. Erin is certified in Regenerative Soil Advocacy through Kiss the Ground and is passionate about soil health while and sharing that food is medicine. Erin is also the President of the Tulsa Urban Ag Coalition and the director of Oklahoma’s FreshRx Food is Medicine program. Erin Martin’s passion for helping others started at fifteen when she started working in a retirement community. Today, Erin holds a Masters degree in Gerontology from the University of Southern California, the first and #1 Gerontology school in the world. In 2017, Erin founded Conscious Aging Solutions to connect others with preventative and conscious approaches to longevity. She is certified in Regenerative Soil Advocacy through Kiss the Ground and is passionate about spreading the gospel of food is medicine and the link to soil health. Erin is the President of the Tulsa Urban Ag Coalition and the director of Oklahoma’s FreshRx Food is Medicine program. https://consciousagingsolutions.com/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiHPwXqkUcr0HR4gakqxGPQ https://www.facebook.com/consciousagingsolutions https://www.instagram.com/consciousagingsolutions/ Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we’d love to hear from you.

Welcome Clint Brauer, CEO and Founder of Greenfield Robotics. Clint has a great story. He grew up farming in south central Kansas and went to K State where he got into technology. After graduating from college and spending a decade plus in media and technology, in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, Clint decided to return to his roots in Kansas, launching MG Honor Farms on the family farmstead. Clint began adopting regenerative ag principles but was frustrated with the limitations of current tools and technology for regenerative farming and the dream of organic no-till, so he decided to launch a company where he could use his technology experience to solve the scaling issues of regenerative broadacre systems. Clint and his team are doing some exciting work and he and Monte explore that today. Clint grew up in Kansas and learned as a child how to train dairy cattle, grow vegetables and farm broadacre crops. After college, he began his career with W3-Design, an early web design agency in Los Angeles, where he managed their top clients. Clint then worked for Universal Music where he helped with the data asset management project for digital distribution of music. In 2003, Clint joined Sony and his role quickly expanded to VP of Marketing, CRM and Operations of Sony Connect, an early cutting-edge video service which blazed a path for mainstream services like Netflix and Hulu. Clint’s team created one of the first true 360 degree views of customers across ecommerce, email, offline and online campaigns and the call centers. This involved integration of early stage SaaS companies Omniture, RightNow, PostFuture, Pivotlink and an internal ecommerce system. Clint also drove the division toward SEO as a customer acquisition strategy over traditional media deals. His team then successfully launched the Sony eReader and software across North America, both online and at retail, and also worked with book publishers to substantially decrease the cost of ebook conversion. After a decade plus in media and technology, Clint returned to his roots in Kansas, launching MG Honor Farms on the family farmstead. Clint has grown and marketed over 100+ crops without chemicals outdoors, in traditional greenhouses as well as hydroponic greenhouses. Clint has also advised over 10 farms with their marketing, helping them secure distribution into 35+ grocery stores such as all Kansas City-area Whole Foods and Hy-Vee’s as well as 25+ restaurants and 4 school systems. In 2015 Clint started Canidae Farms, a regenerative farm network for Canidae Pet Foods (canidae.com/farms), which he continues to operate. In this role he is working with farms to adopt regenerative agriculture practices in return for higher margins. Canidae was acquired by L Catterton in 2018 and the program is now expanding again in 2020 with partner farms in Kansas and Nebraska. Frustrated with the limitations of current tools and technology for regenerative farming, Clint decided to launch a company to solve the scaling issues of regenerative broadacre systems. He recruited Carl Sutter and Steven Gentner, two talented engineers he met decades ago at W3-design, to co-found Greenfield Robotics. The company has been working for several years on its small, autonomous robots for weed control, and is currently in customer pilots. https://www.greenfieldrobotics.com/ https://www.facebook.com/greenfieldrobotics/ https://twitter.com/GreenfieldBots https://www.instagram.com/greenfieldrobotics/ linkedin.com/company/greenfield-robotics/ Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we’d love to hear from you.

Looking to see a wow factor? Imagine a field with 4 years of cover crops and livestock integration. Now imagine being able to plant soybeans with no disturbance. Come see for yourself: https://www.agsolutionsnetwork.com/agemerge-summer-summit #SoilHealth #CropHealth #LivestockHealth #HumanHealth Summit Speakers: Nofence with Meghan Filbert Pat Miletich and Human Health Monte Bottens, Founder, CEO ASN, Grateful Graze, AgEmerge Cameron Mills, Farmer, Mentor and Business Owner Dr. Joel Gruver, Soil Health Researcher

Dr. Fatma Kaplan is the co-founder, CEO and CSO of Pheronym. Not only is she an entrepreneur and accomplished scientist with experience in biology and chemistry, she has a passion for understanding the intricacies and behaviors of both parasitic and beneficial nematodes. Monte and Fatma explore everything from nematodes in agriculture to nematodes in space, yes space! Dr. Kaplan conducted the first agricultural biocontrol experiment in Space at the International Space Station in 2020. Dr. Kaplan has a Ph.D. in Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology and postdoctoral training in Natural Product Chemistry with a focus on isolating biologically active compounds. She discovered the first sex pheromone of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and published in Nature in 2008. Then she discovered pheromones regulate other behaviors in both parasitic and beneficial nematodes. Dr. Kaplan conducted the first agricultural biocontrol experiment in Space at the International Space Station in 2020. She has very high impact publications and her dissertation was cited in textbooks within 5 years of publication. Dr. Kaplan worked as a scientist at NASA, the National Magnetic Field Laboratory and the US Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service. Dr. Kaplan co-founded Pheronym to bring nematode pheromone technology to the market. Dr. Kaplan believes that nematode pheromone technology will provide effective, non-toxic pest control for farmers and gardeners. https://www.pheronym.com/ https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2019/starship-nematode/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022201119300503 Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we’d love to hear from you.

Why Attend AgEmerge Summer Summit? Come see soil health principles in action and at scale. Get your questions answered, and engage in thought provoking discussion as we share years of experience, both the successes and failures, in a full transparency farm tour. But we can't be all work and no play...To wrap up the event, we'll enjoy a unique evening together in the pasture for dinner and live music at the 4th annual Concert with the Cows! https://www.agsolutionsnetwork.com/agemerge-summer-summit ​ -Cover Cropping: The Basics of Getting Started -Relay Cropping: Harvesting Rye and Soybeans in the Same Year -Interseeded Cover Cropping: Making it Work -POWER2GRO Product Trials: Side by Side and Variable Rate -Regenerative Ag in Action: Failures to Successes -Livestock Integration: Stacking Enterprises -Direct Marketing to Consumers: Communicating with the Public -Decades of Soil Health Experience

Paul Greive, Pasturebird’s Co-founder and VP of Sales and Marketing, located in Temecula, California. Paul shares with us Pasturebird’s awesome story and what has driven their team to reinvent American poultry production. They’ve worked to scale the production of regenerative poultry, raising over two million chickens without antibiotics or drugs. They’ve kept their focus on the land, the animal, and the consumer all while improving the soil every year. Paul says, “we use nature as our template, and move animals to fresh pasture every day.” Listen in and Monte and Paul discuss this great American story of passion, innovation, and regeneration. Paul grew up in downtown Seattle and was a college athlete with no interest in food or agriculture. His farming journey began after contracting Lyme disease from a tick bite during Marine Corps sniper training and experiencing the joint pain, brain fog, and decreased performance common with the autoimmune condition. After returning from Iraq in 2009, he and his family started eating paleo and grew frustrated with the lack of pasture raised meat available in Southern California. In 2012, they ordered 50 chicks and raised them in the backyard as a fun project. Mimicking their mentor, Joel Salatin, they raised the birds in mobile coops on pasture, moving them every single day. The birds sold out instantly, and the business started to take shape, especially when the LA Lakers and LA Dodgers players became their first wholesale accounts. Pasturebird has continued to grow into the largest pasture raised chicken operation in the world, and they’re hyper focused 2 things: 1) making true pasture raised + nutrient dense chicken more accessible and affordable, and 2) re-integrating animals and crops in a regenerative, closed loop system. The primary means for accomplishing this is Pasturebird’s Automated Range Coop (ARC), a 6,000 bird floorless mobile coop that drives itself to fresh pasture every daily using solar power. https://www.pasturebird.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulgreive/ Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we’ll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we’d love to hear from you.