Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello everybody. Dr. Ben Edwards here. Welcome to another episode of youf're the Cure. We're continuing with Ag Month I think is what we're doing now. There's so many great, amazing guests to bring on and I've got one today. Dr. Allen Williams. What a pleasure it's going to be to have this conversation. Guys recently talked to Molly and Ryland. If you didn't hear that interview, Sovereignty Ranch, it was an amazing interview and they, they referenced Alan Williams in that interview. So go back and listen to that and on our website you can go find the podcast page, all the archive previous shows from over the years where we've got a whole agriculture section on the podcast where we've talked to a lot of other folks. But you know the reason guys that we. I'm so passionate about regenerative ag. Just like the body, the body will function like it's designed to function when you put the right inputs into it and avoid the wrong inputs. And so much of the inputs affect the microbiome, our soil, so to speak, in our gut. Trillions of bacteria in the gut and they do so many amazing things. They're your backup pharmacy. They will produce vitamins B vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin K. So many things they help break food down. 94 different strains of gut bacteria that break down gluten, but there's bacteria that break down all the other things. Oxalates and phytates and nightshades and all these things that people you know, could be reacting to and think they need to avoid. A lot of time it's because the microbiome is not diversified enough. We've destroyed our microbiome, you know, PPIs, proton pump inhibitors, those are the acid blocking drugs, destroy the microbiome. Of course antibiotics do. But I read a study, even non antibiotic drugs, I think it was 25% of all non antibiotic drugs also impact the microbiome negatively.
Stress kills a microbiome because it changes your ph. But so there's this relationship guys, and even to the point of just the education, your conventionally trained doctor and your conventionally trained farmer, there's a lot of similarities.
So there's just such an intimate relationship between our farming, farming ranching community, the products they produce and human health.
So it's a, it's a story today that although agriculture is going to be related to your health as well. And I met Dr. Allen Williams recently at, in Oxford, Mississippi at the conference there. Need your cure. Had a great time with him and his team that were there. Had a booth There I just want to read real quick and then we'll bring Dr. Williams on here, but. A sixth generation regenerative agriculture pioneer, world renowned expert in regenerative agriculture, celebrated for his groundbreaking work in soil health, grass fed beef production and adaptive grazing systems. A sixth generation family farmer, Dr. Williams brings both heritage and innovation to the field.
He is a founding partner of Understanding Ag llc, the Soil Health Academy, Regenefied LLC and Grass Fed Insights LLC and has also been affiliated with Joyce Farms. And through these ventures, Dr. Williams has impacted regenerative practices on millions of acres worldwide, consulting with more than 4,000 farmers and ranchers across the United States, Canada, Mexico, South America and beyond.
Academically, Dr. Williams earned his B.S. and Ms. In animal science from Clemson and Ph.D. work in livestock genetics from LSU and spent 15 influential years as a faculty member at Louisiana Tech University and Mississippi State University before transitioning to full time regenerative consulting and farming in 2000. And the, the bio goes on and on, but I'm just going to let Dr. Williams come on and share his own story, his own testimony and his journey out of that conventional training into where he is now. Dr. Alan Williams, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much. It is an absolute pleasure to be here and I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to talk with your audience.
You know, my story starts on the farm that I grew up on in South Carolina. My family's been there since 1840 and I represented the sixth generation. The eighth generation is actually active on the farm now. But I grew up and didn't know it at the time, you know, because when you're growing up, you never really realize exactly your situation. But, but, but it was a, it was an absolutely wonderful way to grow up at that point in time. That was the 1960s and 70s. We were a very diversified farm and that's just the way my family did things at that point in time. But we have multiple species of livestock. We had very large market gardens.
We, we also had peaches, apples, you know, those types of orchards there. We were in the Piedmont of South Carolina. So you had orchard in there.
And we also did a little bit of cropping, row cropping and we had a general store.
So we sold a lot of what we produced on the farm through our general store. And I was the benefactor growing up of being able to eat all of these wonderful foods produced right from the farm.
And we also had men and women, both wonderful cooks in my family growing up when during that time period my family was not Using, you know, all these synthetic fertilizers and chemicals and everything else.
But my, I guess, opinion and thought process and everything radically changed when I went away to college. So I graduated from Clemson University and then lsu.
And when I got to Clemson, I became enamored by my professors and by everything I was being taught and by the mantra that we have to feed the world.
And, and the only way to do that was to begin to specialize, to move towards monoculture systems both in cropping and livestock, and to begin to rely very heavily on all of these types of inputs, whether they're chemical, pharmaceutical, supplement, whatever, and about hook, line and sinker into that, okay?
And so I immersed myself in that world and believed that the direction that I was heading on all of us when within academia was heading was the right direction.
And after that, once I became a practicing professor and researcher, it took me 15 years to get it through my thick skull that the way we were doing things wasn't exactly working like we were being told.
And so gradually, over that 15 years of my academic career, I began to realize that everything we were doing wasn't making our animals healthier.
Instead, they were just becoming more and more reliant on supplements, pharmaceuticals, all of these other things, all of these inputs and the same thing with the soil and our cropping systems. Our soil was not getting better, it wasn't getting healthier again. We were relying ever increasingly on more and more inputs, chemicals, fertilizer, amendments, you name it, you know, gm, GMO seed, and on and on.
And I got to thinking back about the way I grew up on the family farm. And I got to thinking about being the sixth generation and that the fact that my family's farm had always supported not just a single family, but multiple families through all of those generations and sent kids to college and, you know, all of those types of things. And, and I got to thinking, how in the world did they do that without all of the things that I was now researching and teaching and telling people that we must have and we must use?
And so I guess I came under my own conviction, you know, and, and I slowly began to realize that what we were actually doing within our academic research was, I now call it putting a bandaid on a gushing wound.
You know, we were treating symptoms rather than the root cause of the problem.
And I was 15 years in tenured, full professor. And in the academic world, that means you sort of got it made, right? You can, you can do whatever you want. You're, you're, you, you've got all of the guarantee of the pension, the benefits, you know, know, health insurance, everything.
And so initially I said, okay, I'm going to try to change the system from within, but it didn't take me very long to discover that was not going to happen.
And, and you know, my administration wasn't going to let it happen. And, and there was no funding for the type of research I wanted to do on and on.
So then I knew I had a decision to make. I either could do another 15 years and then retire and just put up with it and accept it, or I could leave, I could resign and leave that tenure and benefits, you know, the, the, the, the comfort of all of that behind.
And at that point in time, our youngest son had just been born.
And when I told my wife what I was thinking, she thought I had lost my mind.
And what are we going to do? How are we going to support the family? You know, and we got a newborn in the house and all of this, and, and I just said it's what we're going to have to do and we'll figure it out.
And it truly, truly was a step of faith because there was nothing else to explain it, and left academia at that point, resigned, left the university. And oh, by the way, all of my colleague, my former colleagues thought I was an absolute idiot as well.
And, and, and, and now get this, okay, we were there to support the farmer and, and supposedly help the farmer make money, right? That's what a land grant university is for.
And that's what we were supposedly being paid to do. But all of my colleagues laughed and said when I told them I was going to go back to farming, well, you can't make a living farming.
And, and then when I said, well, I'm also going to do some consulting, they said, well, why would anybody pay you for advice when they can get it from the university for free?
So that, that was, yeah, so that was the encouragement I got from the university and my colleagues.
But I left.
And I honestly can say, you know, that's been 25 years ago now.
And I can honestly say that I've never regretted a day.
You know, our God has never let me go hungry and not be able to provide for my family.
And I have learned far, far more in the past 25 years than I ever learned in the nine years I spent in college and the 15 years I spent as a university professor and researcher.
And I now, as a result of that, I now call myself a recovering academic.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Wow, what a story.
It takes obviously a lot of gumption to walk away from that and just, you know, going against the grain and against the peers and of course, the financial piece of it, all of it, especially with the newborn on the way.
So to talk about those first years, I mean, did you just go right back into farming or were. Was there certain, you know, projects that you knew you were wanting to study or prove a proof of concept kind of thing that you immediately jumped right into, or how did those first years go?
[00:13:18] Speaker B: So that's a very good question. And in, in, in the 1990s, while I was still at Mississippi State University, I had begun to explore these other ways of doing things, what we now call regenerative. It wasn't called that then, but what we now refer to as regenerative.
I began to explore that and what we knew at that point in time and really dig sort of deep into it. And, and I knew that to go back into farming, I could not do it conventionally because I again, in the conventional sector, you, profits were eroding, that margins were eroding, and real equity was eroding, and debt was becoming greater and greater for the average farmer. So I knew I couldn't do that.
I would truly be dooming my family if I did.
So I knew right off the bat I had to do it very differently.
Now, to say that I knew exactly how to do it differently would be a lie.
I flew by the seat of my pants for the first few years.
Lots of trial and error.
Yeah. And there were things that I failed at, but the only attribute I had was I was doggedly persistent and I just flat out refused to give up and to let it beat me.
And the other, I guess, incentive that I had was I found out when I left the university, my former colleagues have started a betting pool, betting on when I would fail and come running back to the university for a job.
And wow, little did they know that, that that was huge incentive for me. And, and I. That that was part of why I refused to give up. I didn't want them to win that bet.
But along the way, I discovered a ton.
And in what I discovered, or rediscovered, I guess, was what you were talking about when you opened the session, when you were talking about the life in our gut, right, that. That microbiome in our gut and how it drives everything in terms of our health.
Well, I rediscovered that it's exactly the same in the soil and with farming and ranching and that it's truly. It's not the fertilizer we apply over top. It's not any of the Chemicals that we can use, the herbicides and fungicides and insecticides and so forth, amendments, pharmaceuticals, it's none of that.
It truly is going all the way back to what God created, that, that microbiome.
So just like the microbiome in the gut is the key for us and our health, that microbiome in the soil is the key for the health of our farms.
And, and I began to really study that and dig deep into that and to then just every day observe what is the result of managing to support, grow and build that soil microbiome.
And that was the key.
Yeah. And again, did I do everything perfectly? Absolutely not.
But I learned that if I was truly being the very best steward I could of the creation, that we were blessed with, that that was a radical game changer.
And everything started functioning better. The soil was healthier, the plants were healthier, the animals were healthier.
My input cost went down hugely and net profitability and productivity improved.
So that's what we've been building on ever since. And, and I, I have to say, regenerative is absolutely a journey, it's not a destination. We're always on the road of continuous improvement.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
Well, when I'm talking to folks trying to connect the dots on agriculture, the soil, the food, the mineral content in the food in particular, kind of this how I explain it and you can correct me or give more detail to, but basically, once mechanized farming came in, the plow comes in. That plow through the soil is going to disrupt the fungi in the soil. The fungi is what gives that soil the spongy chocolate cake type consistency, porous, that can hold water. And so the bacteria need that water. They need to be hydrated. The bacteria live on the water droplets, basically. And the bacteria help to break down the minerals off the rock and pebble and sand and whatever so that the plant can take the mineral up into the root, into the spinach and the apple and the carrot and we consume that. So when the plow came, that was number one. Boom. We met. We start getting the fungi disrupted, therefore the porous soil and therefore the bacteria. But, but then, so now we have a weaker plant because it's not as mineralized. So that weak plant doesn't give production. You don't get the, the as many pounds or tons or kilos or whatever of crop production. So the green revolution comes in. Ammonium nitrate, synthetic fertilizer. Boom. We get growth, we get production, increased yields, that's great. But now we have an imbalance in the mineral and the microbiome. In the soil, when you just apply ammonium nitrate alone, it creates this imbalance and overall will weaken the plant. So now the pests move in. Well, here we go. We got pesticide, herbicide, fungicide to deal with all the pests, but each. But that kills the bugs in the soil, too, the bacteria. And the bacteria is what we need to get the minerals back into the plant, into the carrot and the spinach and. And then the final nail in the coffin, glyphosate, a chelator of the mineral and an antibiotic to the bacteria in the soil. So this whole journey over the last 50, 60 years has just been mineral content of the end product. The spinach, carrot, and apple is just down, down, down, down. We're almost. We're devoid of minerals now, and we're. And so we have destroyed soil, destroyed food, and it's just a mess. And now we get a big rain and it runs off because the soil's destroyed. There's no organic matter. There's no porous, spongy, like material. And I mean, is that basically the problem?
[00:19:59] Speaker B: Yes, it is.
Yeah. And we call what you just described, the rule of compounding.
And what we have discovered is that in the real world, whether we're talking about dealing with nature like we are every day out on our farms and ranches, or whether we're talking about our own bodies, there never are any singular effects.
Everything creates and results in this whole series of compounding effects.
And those effects are never neutral. They're either positive or negative.
So we're always going one direction or the other. We're always creating positive compounding effects or negative compounding effects. And so what you just described is a whole series of negative compounding effects that were created by the way that we have come to believe we must farm.
And. And rather what we want to do is we want to reverse that, and we want to now create a series of positive compounding effects.
The good news is this, is that that abundance that we read about in. In the very first two chapters of Genesis and read about through many scriptures all the way through the Old and New Testament, that abundance that God created and was originally put there, that abundance is still there if we steward the soil properly, again the way. The way that we were intended to.
So even though we have so severely damaged the gut mic or the microbiome of the soil, there are still lots and lots of microbes there. Many of them, you know, they've gone into spore form because of what we've done. They're trying to Protect themselves going into hibernation, so to speak. But we can wake them up.
We can wake them up, the good practices. And once we wake them up, as you know, they will rapidly replicate or reproduce. And then we get this explosion of biology coming in.
And so as an example, we do a lot of biological testing of the soil.
And on conventionally farmed soils, we often encounter biological biomass of somewhere in the 600 nanograms per gram to maybe 1200 to 1500 nanograms per gram of soil.
But where we manage regeneratively, we're now seeing biological populations in the soil of instead of 600 to 1500, over 16,000 nanograms per gram of soil.
So that, that's an exponential jump and increase in the bio, the functioning biology of the soil.
The other thing that we see is far more microbial species recruited and going to work for us.
And fortunately, God placed almost this infinite amount of mineral in the soil, all types of minerals.
And when we can get the biology functioning again and create that aggregation that you were describing in the soil, that, that poor porous soil that allows plant roots to grow much deeper.
Now, because of the action of the biology and the aggregation of the soil, these plants can reach these incredible mineral stores that are still there.
They're still there.
And now we know through the phytonutrient research that we've done with Dr. Stefan Van Vliet and his team, we now know that when we do that, we get a radical increase and improvement in the phytonutrient content of the foods that we eat. So we're restoring nutrient density.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: Wow, that's amazing.
So without that, you know that story I just painted with this dead soil that doesn't have the spongy, like, consistency, so you get a runoff issue.
You have, there's no organic matter, no biology. So you're trying to, you're putting a seed in there, usually a GMO seed. You're trying to force that growth. And it will, it's amazing. These seeds will try to grow. You got to irrigate and do all the things which, that's another part of the whole rain cycle. Maybe we can talk about that later with the biology. Through the root, through the leaf, into their clouds and create the rain. But just trying to get a plant to grow in that, you've got to kind of synthetically assist it with all these, what you're calling inputs, chemicals, fertilizers, and then the pesticide, herbicide to keep the other plants and pests off of, just to try to survive this thing. But basically, and again, correct me, because I'm just familiar by talking to some farmers around here, we're at this breaking point of we've used so much chemical, so much pesticide, herbicide, fungicide.
The soil is so dead, and the wells around here, at least a lot of these wells are dry. The aquifer is drying up, the rain cycle has been so interrupted, and the soil just unholed it. The runoff, we're kind of at this point of breaking, but a farmer is kind of stuck. And of course, then we can get into the whole political, not, I mean, all the government assistance, you know, you got to have crop insurance. Well, to get crop insurance, you got to use all the inputs. You know, I don't know how all that works. Exactly, exactly. But I know there's an intermingling of basically, you can't survive without the subsidy, the crop insurance, all the things, which is not the farmers. I mean, it's a system issue. And this system is just, I'd say, a mess.
So maybe we can talk about that, a little bit of that mess, how we got there, what's the way out of that? How can a farmer practically move out of that? Because is that part of what your consulting does?
[00:26:40] Speaker B: Yes, it is. It's exactly what we do. You know, when we're working with the farmer. That is what we do, and you know, it.
We help them transition from that predicament that they're in. And it is a real predicament. They have become highly reliant on federal crop insurance, on subsidy, on incentive payments, disaster payments, all of these types of things.
And, and, but in spite of that, the vast majority of our farmers are still heavily in debt.
So they're not only reliant on all of these subsidy programs, but they're also deep in debt. So it's a double whammy.
And unfortunately, those two things keep supporting each other because the lenders, in order for the farmer to re up their loans, require that they, that they take every subsidy that they can, that they're covered under federal crop insurance. And all of this because that's the lender's way of making sure they get paid right.
And, and so it, it, again, it feeds on itself.
Believe it or not, there are a lot of farmers that want to get out of that. They feel, they do realize it's a trap, and they do realize that it's incentivizing them to bad behavior, not good behavior.
And so, or maybe we ought to say poor farming rather than regenerative farming.
But what we do is we help address all these problems. And what we are found, what we have found very clearly is there's three principal barriers for farmers transitioning from conventional to regenerative. Barrier number one is lack of awareness and education.
You can't implement what you don't know. And farmers don't just inherently know how to farm regeneratively. They do not. It must be taught.
So we solve that problem.
We teach schools, workshops, all of that, to educate them on practical implementation of regenerative principles.
The next barrier is peer pressure.
And for people that haven't grown up in agriculture, peer pressure is very, very real and it is very pervasive.
And what we often find is that if you do anything different than your neighbors or even other family members, that the peer pressure just can be enormous.
I tell people it's worse than the peer pressure that you see on the playground of a middle school. You know, it's huge. And what we do to each other is quite sad in that regard.
And because we work all over the world, we have found this to be the same no matter what country we're working in.
Almost every farmer worldwide deals with enormous peer pressure. And then the third barrier is debt. Debt.
And debt is very ironic.
If what you had been doing worked, you would not be in debt, right? I mean, that, that, that should be obvious.
So if you're deep in debt, it's not working for you. It's not.
And so if, if it's not working, what is the one thing you need to do? Change what you're doing.
But here's the irony of debt.
Debt creates fear and anxiety, and the fear becomes very pervasive.
And what a lot of farmers say, well, if I make a change and it doesn't work, then I'm bankrupt, you know, so the very debt itself becomes a snare. And oh, by the way, doesn't scripture warn us about that?
Exactly. So we, we resolve the first one by providing the education. We resolve the peer pressure by providing them with a new peer to peer and mentorship network that they can rely on. And then we resolve the third one, the debt load, by helping them, step by step, begin to get out of debt.
And now what we find is that many regenerative farmers no longer take any kind of government subsidy.
They step out of the federal crop insurance program and they get out of debt. They no longer need all of that support and all of that debt to be able to farm profitably. And therefore, that means that they are significantly more profitable, especially from a net profit per acre standpoint.
So that's, that's the huge benefits of this. And, and, and the ultimate result is that your quality of life goes up hugely.
You know, farming, agriculture is the oldest profession in the world.
It's why God placed Adam in the garden. It's what he told him to do.
Therefore, it should be among the most revered, honored and enjoyable professions in the world.
But today we have made it one of the most anxious, debt ridden, just, you know, nervous professions that there is.
And we see farmers are in the top three groups of all professions now for levels of depression and suicide.
Where, where have we come from? Where we used to be.
So we help to resolve all of that and restore quality of life enjoyment of your profession.
That's how farming should be and that's how it can be with regenerative farming and ranching.
[00:33:12] Speaker A: Hey everybody, quick break from the show. I've got something really special to share with you. I'm so excited to introduce you're the Cure, a self paced nine module online video program we've been prayerfully and passionately building here at Veritas. And this isn't just another wellness program. It's a movement of truth, transformation and hope. And I truly believe it has the power to change your life. It's designed to help you uncover the root causes of what you're facing and walk in true healing. I'll be guiding you along with other members of the Veritas team as we return to God's original design for your health. Through simple, powerful tools focused on nutrition, hydration, movement and peace, you'll gain clarity, confidence and lasting transformation. The journey is yours to take because the truth is, you are the cure. Head over to veritas wellnessmember.com to get access today. Become a Veritas wellness member now and get $100 off the program.
Guys, I'm just so excited about this. After 20 years of practicing medicine, it's boiled down into this. This is the core of what you need to truly be well. So we'll see you in the program.
That's awesome. What are some of the. If there are, I know every situation so unique. Every farm's unique, farmers are unique. Everything that climate, all the things. But are, are there some common threads, common themes on the path out of the conventional that you could share with the. Well, I know we have a lot of agriculture families listening, so share what you could on that in a more general sense.
[00:34:56] Speaker B: Begin your process of getting educated because again, that's the only way you're going to be able to Effectively and profitably implement regenerative principles and practices. And, and, and the first thing I would tell them is, you know, Our website at understanding ag.com is absolutely loaded with educational materials. We've got podcasts and webinars and case studies and articles and, and so on and so forth. So take advantage of that. We even have online courses and all of that. So take advantage of that. Secondly, you can, you can learn when we're doing, you know, live courses, workshops, schools, that type of thing. And, and they're always on a host farm or ranch that is actually doing this. So you learn by doing on farms and ranches that are doing this.
And, and so that will be their next step.
The third step is, you know, we provide individual farm and ranch consultation. We call it the hand holding phase, you know, to, so after they've gotten their education, then as they begin to implement this on their own places, you know, they're, they're going to hit some speed bumps here and there and we're still there to help guide them over that speed bump. And the key thing is helping them to not make what we call the common mistakes, to be able to prevent that.
So that's what we want to do.
And then we also work with them, as I said, to help provide that new peer to peer network and mentorship network.
We, we introduce them to other farmers and ranchers who are doing this and then we encourage them to visit with them and then to actually go and visit their ranches and their farms so that they can glean from them and learn from them.
And we take a look at their financial situation and their debt load and we begin to chip away at that and we give them very practical things that they can do beginning in year one to start reducing debt and reliance on debt.
So we, it, it's sort of like, you know, your Alcoholics Anonymous or whatever, you know, we help them with a step by step program to wean off all of the government subsidies and input reliance that is so prevalent in agriculture today and to be able to instead rely on the natural system that God put into place.
Because that system, you know, we got to think, how many thousands of years have we worked under that system. It's only much more recently in the history of mankind that we have had this reliance on synthetic fertilizers, chemicals, genetically modified seeds, and all pharmaceutical inputs and all of these other things that's much more recent in our timeline.
And, and so our ancestors did this without all of that and fed themselves and fed many others.
And I've Often thought what would it be like if even for just today I could go sit at the feet of Abraham or Moses or Jacob or David or Job, you know, any, any of our ancestors that are mentioned in, in scripture and glean and learn from them their knowledge of agriculture. They had to be far, far superior in their knowledge and ability to manage the natural resources that God gave us than we are today.
And, and I would love, obviously the only way I can do that is by opening up my Bible and, and reading, you know, about them and what it says. But boy, how I often wish I could. I could just sit at their feet.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And be incredible.
Well, I would say, I mean based off, you know, our conversations, reading your website, knowing your partner Gabe Brown, he's been on the show before, there's a lot of farmers would like to sit at yalls feet and so it's amazing what you just laid out the, all the experience and knowledge and what you're willing to share.
Would you say maybe what percentage or is it just so diverse like at the end of the process? I mean it's a journey I guess you never get to a point. But do most of these farms, regenerative farms, do they tend to end up looking more diversified like your family farm? Lots of things versus no, still kind of a mono crop, say like cotton and maybe with the COVID crop in the non cotton season, but just doing it differently and getting the soil back, you know. Or is it all the above?
[00:40:02] Speaker B: It's all of the above.
But what I will say is that the majority over time do become more diversified because they begin to see the incredible benefits of that and that hey, I can do that, I can make money doing this and, and I can create new revenue streams that benefit my soil, my ecosystem, you know, everything.
And so what they may object to early on, you know, later are no longer objections to them.
But we start, let's, let's say it's a row crop farm, let's say it is a cotton farm. And oh by the way, I was just, I did a workshop for cotton farmers just this week over in the Mississippi.
But let's say it is, it is a cotton farm. So several of the very first steps you can make are number one, we're going to look at your cash crop rotation and you certainly don't want to be doing cotton on cotton or corn on corn, you know, year after year on the same acres. So we look at it adding more diversity to the cash crop rotation that they're already doing.
And next we look at their level of tillage. So we want to begin to minimize tillage and move them towards no till.
The third is we look at their cover cropping program. Have they been cover cropping at all? And if they have, are they mostly doing a monoculture cover crop? And if so, we want to move them towards a more diverse cover cropping system and we want to make sure that cover cropping system addresses their resource concerns. So it's not just putting a cover crop in the ground.
You got to put the right cover crop in the ground and the right mix in the ground at the right time.
So all of that becomes critical. So we teach them that. And then like in this workshop I did for cotton farmers this week, I was also, we were talking about the length of time that that cover crop stays in the ground before you terminate it to plant the cash crop. That's super important.
The longer we can leave a diverse cover crop mix in the ground before we prepare for planting the next cash crop, the more benefit we're going to get out of it.
So it's those types of things that we begin to address. And then can you add livestock over top of that? Okay. And, and so if you can, and if you, if you can graze your cover crops, that adds significantly more benefit and greatly increases your pace or rate of progress in building biology and building other diversity.
The livestock shed a lot of biology. Literally billions and billions of microbes per acre are being shed by the livestock.
They supply the very best natural fertility in their manure and urine. Their hoof action on the soil breaks up crusting on the soil surface and stimulates microbial activity in the soil.
And even their saliva does the same thing. So all of those things provide huge benefit, basically provide a lot of fertility and biology to fuel the next cash crop. So then you can greatly reduce your purchased inputs for the success of that next cash crop. So again, we move them along that continuum step by step at a pace that each one is comfortable with. We don't try to implement everything at once.
And then over time, they will do exactly as I said. They will begin to diversify more on their own because they, they do start to realize the incredible benefits of that.
So often, just to give you some Examples, in year one, in year one, we can often reduce their input cost by 20% or more in the very first year.
[00:44:21] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: By year two, that's often between 30 and 40% reduction in inputs. By year three, we're, we're bumping 40 to 50%.
And then by year four, five and six, you know, we're continuing to increase and we now have farmers that are growing crops without any purchased inputs whatsoever.
So, so you can do that. And as another example, two weeks ago I was on clients operations in Montana and in just five years we have reduced and they're running a lot of center pivots, a lot of irrigation.
And you know, out in that country, water is critically important.
We have reduced the irrigation use by between 40 and 50% within five years.
That has radically changed everything while not decreasing production on those pivots. So even though they're applying 40 to 50% less water, they are not experiencing yield drag. Okay.
As a matter of fact, we, we have increased productivity on those pivots about 22%.
So that, that's an example, you know, a real life example of what can happen, what can be done, and the timeline around that, that's encouraging.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: Where does organic play into this?
And I, I mean, I think I know a little bit as far as if someone decides to go organic, there's like a three year process and, but out here anyways, the weeds, the grass in particular, and even this season out of friend, it rained quite a bit. For a little bit he couldn't get in and he's organic, he couldn't get in there to plow and the grass just totally started overwhelming. So I know farmers are scared about that part of it. So regenerative versus organic and maybe using some spot spraying in this transition, kind of. How does that look?
[00:46:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So it doesn't have to be regenerative versus organic, it can absolutely be both.
But here is what we heavily encourage.
Start with regenerative.
And here's what first, with regenerative, every tool is still in your toolbox and available to use if needed.
And but if it's a tool that has the potential to do damage, like tillage, a herbicide, a fungicide or whatever, we first ask ourselves, do we really need this or is there another way?
And if we believe we do, we use it very judiciously and with a plan to only have to use it that one time again.
And then we can implement regenerative principles and practices behind that so that we can wean ourselves off of that.
So we encourage people go regenerative first. Even if your desire is to be certified organic, start with regenerative because that is going to build the life in your soil, the aggregation in your soil and everything in the diversity that it lacks. Because you were a conventional farmer prior. Right. I mean if they're making a transition, that automatically means they were Conventional to begin with.
And if you were conventional, trying to go straight into organic, you don't have the life there. It's not there and the aggregation is not there.
And, and so you're always fighting against yourself. Even after you become certified organic, you're always fighting yourself. So start with regenerative and what will happen is you'll just pretty much automatically become organic. So it's a much easier path in, in when you try to go from conventional to certified organic right away, you're right. You got a minimum of three years. It's three to five years, depending on the situation.
But a minimum of a three year transition and you're almost guaranteed to take a significant loss during that time period.
Well, why, if you start with regenerative, you don't have to take a loss loss in the transition period, even in year one.
So often the farms that we work with, even in year one of their transition to regenerative, make more net margin per acre than they've made, than they were making before.
So start with regenerative, build the biology, build the diversity, and then you will naturally progress into organic. Far better way to do it, and you'll have far less problems once you become certified organic. Because now you have learned through your regenerative principles and practices how to handle the issues like you just described with the guy that just got taken over with weeds and that type of thing.
I would have expected that to be honest with you.
But if you start with regenerative, you now know how to handle all of those types of situations once you become organic.
[00:49:52] Speaker A: Could you talk a little bit for the consumer standpoint, for the audience?
You know, are there certifications for regenerative where people can be looking for these products, purchasing these products, how to find from that standpoint?
[00:50:08] Speaker B: Yeah, so very good question. And one of the best certifications out there is regenified.
And it is a very, very exhaustive program measuring 65 plus different data points and that even includes phytonutrient analysis.
So that's part of that process.
And so if they'll look for the regenefied seal on a food product, then then they can be assured that it is produced regeneratively and that those farms and ranches, you know, underwent, you know, exhaustive audits.
The other thing about regenerative is it allows it, it allows for the progression, the journey. You know, there is no Pete, there is no farm or ranch or piece of ground anywhere in the world today that we could call 100% regenerated.
Everything is degraded to A certain extent because of us.
And so we don't even know what a 100% regenerated soil looks like.
But we know what's better. Okay, we know what's better, probably. Like, do we really know what a 100% healthy person looks like?
I would say no, we don't.
Yeah, but you do know as a medical doctor, if they're better, right?
You can measure and monitor that.
[00:51:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:46] Speaker B: So just like our personal health is an ongoing journey, so it is with regenerative and with our farms and ranches. It's an ongoing journey. We, we know what's better and the regenefied allows for that journey and it requires the journey. So you, it's a tiered system. You can't park in a tier and just say, no, I'm happy right here, I'm going to stay here.
You must show improvement and progress to the next tier.
So that's another huge benefit to the consumer is that they know that if somebody is regenerative, they're just going to keep getting better and better. So the foods you're buying today are going to be better five years from now, 10 years from now, even more nutrient dense, even more fiber. Phyto.
Nutrient rich. Right.
And so, so that's what we want, you know, and that's the reward that we get from that.
Unfortunately, with certified organic, and I've been certified organic before myself, you either are or you aren't. And once you become certified, there's no incentive to go any further and to improve yourself anymore.
So you can be a very poor certified organic farmer or a very good certified organic farmer. And to the consumer, there's no distinction between the two.
[00:53:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
Talk a little bit about, I mean, we're kind of almost out of time. About seven, eight minutes left.
But at A Hills farm, and, and I didn't get to ask y' all at the conference the other day, but I was hearing you talking about, I think you called it a nutrient bomb, maybe a product.
Yes, but talk a little bit about that and anything else you want to from your consulting services. Just how do people find you? All the things. Things.
[00:53:50] Speaker B: Yeah. So. Well, first with Understanding Ag, they can find us through understanding ag.com so very simple, look us up.
As I said, our website's loaded with material, educational material and otherwise, and we're constantly updating that with new information, new science, new data.
At A Hills Farm is our, our personal farm.
My son, Chris Williams and his partner James Triplett operate the farm on a day to day basis. I'm on the road a lot. You know, I used to be day to day, but because of understanding ag, I'm on the road a lot. And so they're, they're the ones that, that actually do the day to day.
We are a regenerative farm. And uh, and it is a.
We are very diverse. We, we produce grass, finished beef, pastured pork, pastured lamb, pastured poultry, and that includes turkeys, brawlers, ducks, all of that, and pastured eggs.
So we have a lot of different species.
The, the land that we bought, it's just outside of Oxford, Mississippi.
But the land that we bought was very, very degraded when we bought it. It was an absolutely worn out piece of ground.
And we have been documenting the progress ever since, you know, and keeping track of that. We have now documented more than 150 different plant species that are growing on the farm. And the vast majority of those came from the latent seed bank.
And many of them are native species, and many of them are species that the Native Americans once used routinely for medicinal purposes and those types of things. So we have all of that existing on the farm.
And all of our species of livestock are moved every day to a fresh paddock so that they can enjoy all of that diversity of plant species that are growing there. And because of that, we also have a thriving wildlife population.
So we have an incredible bird population out there. A lot of beneficial insects, including a lot of wild bees and butterflies and all of that. So a lot of pollinators, and we have a lot of turkey, deer, you know, you name it all there.
[00:56:24] Speaker A: Wow, that's amazing.
So the seed bank, those dormant seeds down in the soil, the mineral bank, I'll call it. All those minerals that God put in there, it's all down in there.
It's a matter of who's walking around on top of this thing, making the decisions on stewardship.
And it's really how we see our beliefs and our understanding, our lack of knowledge. All the things on stewardship, same as in the human body. It's incredible. And the quick and rapid restoration when we start seeking the kingdom first, letting the Holy Spirit lead, letting that truth guide us in our decision making.
[00:57:09] Speaker B: That's absolutely correct.
And now we produce one of our products. We call it a nutrient bomb.
And it has organ meats in it which are the most nutrient dense food on the face of the earth.
It has, you know, regular trim that like you make hamburger out of in it.
They're 30% fat, which is, you know, absolutely needed for our bodies and our health. And we actually grind entire bone into it. So the bone and bone marrow and all of that is in it.
And so it truly is a nutrient bomb. It's absolutely incredible.
And we, I love to eat one every day. We make them breakfast, sausage, patty size and I like to eat at least one every day. They, they are unbelievably flavorful.
I don't have to add any seasoning to it whatsoever.
And, and oh, by the way, they also are wonderful for your pets. They're a nutrient bomb for your pet as well.
So, you know, take advantage of the incredible foods that God has placed here for us that are produced in this manner. And it, it, it's unbelievable what it'll do for our health and the health of our pets.
[00:58:35] Speaker A: Amen.
Well, Dr. Allen Williams, thank you so much. It's been very encouraging. I know there's a lot of farmers who've reached out to me, just stressed out like you mentioned in the top three for depression, anxiety, stress, suicide, and it's awful. Farming should be an incredible joy and it sounds like you've figured how, how to bring a piece of that back in.
So thank you for your hard work, your dedication to the truth, to God's creation and his design and the stewardship of it. Thank you for educating so many people.
So guys, I encourage you, if you know a farmer, understanding Ag.com would be a great resource to point them to and share this podcast far and wide. It'll be on all the podcast platforms. It'll be on our website, veritaswellnessmember.com you can hit resources, then podcast and our podcast page will come up. And under that drop down menu of subjects or topics you can find ag.
And you can hear a lot of great podcasts. And this is going to be right up there, one of the best we've done. And Dr. Allen Williams partner. Gabe Brown. Right, Gabe's with you at Understanding Ag, correct?
[00:59:48] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:59:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So y' all can go back and listen to that one. Okay.
Any last word before we got to shut this thing down?
[00:59:56] Speaker B: Alan, I just very much appreciate the opportunity. It's been an absolute pleasure and I greatly appreciate what you do.
It takes all of us to be able to create the awareness that we need to. So thank you for what you're doing to do that as well.
[01:00:17] Speaker A: Well, you're very welcome. All right, guys, thank you all for joining us this week. We'll be back next week with another great show. Y' all be blessed. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.
