Regeneration of our lands: a producer’s perspective | Gabe Brown | TEDxGrandForks

The United States is in crisis. The health of our soil resource has declined to such a point that it is not only negatively affecting farm and ranch profitability, but it is also having a devastating impact on everything from our water quality to our communities and even to our health. North Dakota rancher Gabe Brown walks us through a common sense solution to this crisis.

Gabe Brown is one of the pioneers of the current soil health movement that focuses on regenerating our resources.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

How fitting it is that this event,
which is titled "Roots to Wings,"

is taking place here in North Dakota,

for the motto of the state of North Dakota
is "Strength through the Soil."

And that's what I'm going
to visit with you about today,

it's about our soil resource.

Agriculture has been challenged.

How do we feed nine billion
people by the year 2050?

With today's current production
model, we can do that.

It is a model with which
one tills the soil.

It's a model of monoculture
production practices.

No matter where you go
around this great state,

there's fields of wheat, fields of corn,

fields of soybeans, and many other crops.

It's one of livestock
which are now in confinement;

whether it be poultry housed
in poultry houses,

or beef cattle in a feedlot, for example.

However, these practices
have come at a cost.

They have caused a loss of biodiversity.

Healthy native range land
has hundreds of different species

of plants, and animals, and insects.

Monocultures have but very few.

This lack of biodiversity

has led to the destruction
of our soil resource.

And that's what I'm going
to visit with you about today.

I'll share some proof with you,

and this is statistics provided
by North Dakota State University.

In Walsh County, North Dakota in 1960,
the topsoil was 34 inches deep.

In 2014, that topsoil
was only 15 inches deep -

a stunning 56 percent loss.

The organic matter level on that same soil
had gone from over 8 percent

to less than 3 percent today.

Look at the ramifications of that.

The soil on your left
was the soil that had not been tilled,

and had not seen monoculture
production practices.

That's the same soil
17 years later on the right,

after 17 years of the production model

of tillage and monocultures.

It also destroys
the pore spaces in the soil.

Those pore spaces are critical
for the life in the soil,

are critical for water infiltration,

because if we don't have soil aggregates,
we cannot infiltrate water.

I took this photo in a field less than
ten miles from where you're seated today.

That shows a half of an inch of rainfall

can no longer be infiltrated
into the soil profile.

If we can't infiltrate water,
then what happens?

We resort to things such as tile drainage.

And you're seeing this all over
the central United States today.

What happens when we put tile drainage in

and we do not have the soil aggregates
to hold our soils in place?

That soil ends up in the watershed,

and unfortunately, along with it,
goes all the nutrients

that may have been applied
to those fields.

That lack of biodiversity
also leads to lower nutrient cycling.

If we don't have
adequate nutrient cycling,

we're going to have to add
more and more synthetic fertilizers.

Those synthetic fertilizers
come at a cost -

the cost of fossil fuel usage,

and, they also spur the decline
of the soil biology.

We need to understand how soil functions.

How soil functions is due to that biology,

because the plants get
their nutrients via the biology.

High synthetic fertilizer use
also aids in the propagation of weeds.

Most weeds love nitrogen.

The more synthetic fertilizer we apply,
the more weeds we get.

If we have increased weed pressure,
what do we have to do?

Spray herbicides.

Now, unfortunately, many
of those herbicides are chelates.

What is a chelate?

A chelate binds metals.

So any of the metals such as magnesium,
manganese, iron, zinc, copper,

then become unavailable to the plants.

If the plant cannot uptake
these micronutrients,

it's more prone to disease.

Because plants cannot
ward off diseases on their own,

we need to spray fungicides.

Fungicides, then, are detrimental to what?

Soil biology.

Because plants are not healthy
enough to ward off pests,

we then need to do what?

We spray pesticides,

on the crops which are meant
for human consumption.

Because we spray pesticides,
we have a decline in what?

The very predator insects
which would take care of the pests

which we are spraying.

We also have a decline in pollinators.

You can hardly pick up
a paper or a magazine today

without reading about
the plight of our pollinators.

These pollinators are critical
in our crop production.

The current production model
is all about killing.

Whether it be weeds, a fungus, a pest,

our diversity, or our profit.

Take a look at these projections

just put out by North Dakota
State University.

They're 2016 projections for some
of the major crops in our state.

Every one of them
projects a negative return.

What impact does that have

on the quality of life
of those producing that crop?

But take it a step further:

What impact does it have on our schools?

Drive around this state of ours
and you'll see a lot of small towns

that have fewer and fewer children
attending the schools.

What effect does that have
on our businesses?

And then on our communities?

What effect does the current
production model have on our health?

Take a look at this.

The nutrient densities
of the foods that we produce

have declined anywhere
from 15 to 65 percent

in the last 50 years.

This has had many negative consequences.

The United States
spends more on healthcare

than any other developed
country in the world.

Yet look at this - we lead the world
in the incidences of ADD,

ADHD, cancer, osteoporosis,
Alzheimer's, autoimmune diseases,

and the list goes on and on.

This is not acceptable.

It cannot continue.

But the good news is there's another way,

and I'm going to share that with you.

It's nature's way.

Look at how nature functions.

In nature, there's no mechanical tillage.

Yet in our production model,
we're tilling the soil.

In nature, there's always armor
on the soil surface,

protecting that soil from wind erosion,
water erosion, evaporation.

Yet in our production model,
the fields lie bare.

Nature cycles water very efficiently.

It's able to infiltrate
into the soil profile,

then, due to the large amount
of organic matter,

it's held there, for such a time
it's needed by plants.

By destroying our soil resource,
we can no longer infiltrate the water

and store it for when it's needed.

Nature has living plant-root networks;

there's things growing at all times
throughout the growing season.

Not that way with production agriculture.

So often we hear about
the production model that we have today

as the "conventional model."

I would argue that nature's way
is the conventional model,

because it's been around for eons of time.

Think of it this way: what did
this land look like 400 years ago?

You had a lot of diversity.

There was diversity of plant species:
forbs, grasses, legumes, trees.

And then also you had a diversity
of animals and insects,

and all these worked together
to build a healthy ecosystem.

So there's five principles
that we must follow

in order to follow nature's model.

They are, number one: least amount
of mechanical disturbance possible.

On my own ranch, we have been
100 percent zero till since 1994;

we have not tilled the soil at all.

The second tenet of soil health
is armor on the soil surface;

we always have the soil covered.

That's a picture of one
of our fields following seeding.

That field is no longer prone
to wind erosion or water erosion

because we're keeping armor
on the surface.

Third tenet of soil health is diversity.

My son teaches range land management
at the local community college.

He brought his students
out to one of our paddocks.

They counted over 140 different species
of grasses, forbs, and legumes.

Why don't we have that
in production agriculture today?

On our operation,
we're trying to mimic it.

These are just some of the cash crops
that we grow on our operation.

We don't just grow one
cash crop, we grow many.

Along with that, we do not grow
cash crops as monocultures.

In the upper left there, that's oats
with three types of clover growing in it.

In the upper right is a very diverse
cool-season broadleaf mix.

The lower left, that's corn
with hairy vetch growing in it.

The lower right, that's sunflowers

with over 19 species
of covers growing with it.

A tremendous amount of diversity
feeding soil biology.

We also have orchards on our operation.

These orchards, besides
providing us with the fruit,

we're able to have livestock
grazing underneath them,

thus stacking enterprises.

We have five acres
of vegetable production,

but it's not as monocultures.

In between each of those corn rows
is rows of peas, beans, squash,

zucchini, carrots, pumpkins,
and a variety of other species

so that we get the benefit of diversity.

Fourth tenet of soil health

is leaving roots in the ground
as long as possible.

You don't have to drive very far
around this state

to see that there are monocultures growing
for only a short period of time,

and then the land lays idle.

These are just some of the cover crop
species which we planted

on our operation this past year.

We actually planted
over 70 different species.

From the time the snow
melts in the spring,

until the snow stays in early winter,
we have a variety of species growing

on our land to feed soil health.

We're optimizing solar energy collection.

Because how the system works is,
we take sunlight through photosynthesis;

it makes carbon; that carbon
is transferred down to the roots,

where it's leaked out as root exudates,
that's what all the biology feeds on.

We need that biology in order
to get the nutrients to the plant

to nourish animals and people.

For you see, if we have healthy soil,
we're going to have clean air,

clean water, healthy plants,
healthy animals, and healthy people.

We have to focus on feeding biology.

Along with this, then, we're able to feed

all of the wildlife
that's on our operation.

We also feed a myriad
of different insects.

Insects tend to get a bad rap.

We like a wide variety of insects

including all the predator insects
which take care of the pests.

We want to address our problems
through biological means

not through chemical means.

Dr Jonathan Lundgren,
one of the world's foremost entomologists,

told me this:

For every insect species that's a pest,
there's 1,700 that are beneficial.

Why in production agriculture do we aim
at just killing that pest,

when we should aim at providing habitat
for all those beneficials?

The reason producers have a pest problem
is because of a lack of diversity.

We need to think biologically.

Fifth tenet of a healthy ecosystem
is animal impact.

On our operation we run
a herd of 350 beef cows.

We also grass finish that beef
because we know it's healthier,

both for us and for the animals.

We have a flock of sheep
and raise grass-finished lamb.

We have pastured pork.

We have broilers which are out on pasture.

And we have a flock of 750 laying hens
which are also out on pasture.

We also have bees.

Those bees, besides pollinating our crop,

provide us with honey.

Here's what we've done on our operation.

When we started in 1993 on the left,
we had very shallow topsoil -

1.7 percent organic matter.

We could only infiltrate
a half of an inch of rainfall per hour.

We then went no-till.

We started to diversify
the cash crop rotation;

we noticed an improvement in soil health.

From there, we started
to add cover crops -

another improvement in soil health,
our organic matter levels rose,

our infiltration improved.

We then started integrating
all of these livestock species

on top of it -

another marked increase
in the health of our soil ecosystem.

Now in 2013, we actually
have a plot of land

which is now over
11 percent organic matter.

The same soils that in 1993

could only infiltrate
a half of an inch of rainfall per hour,

can now infiltrate
over 15 inches of rainfall per hour.

We've done this without the use
of any synthetic fertilizers,

pesticides, or fungicides.

We've done it by following
the principles of nature.

This has led to a ranch that is profitable
every year, regardless of price.

And we do this without taking part
in any government subsidies of any kind,

whether it be a crop insurance, EQIP, CSP,

or any other form of government payment.

Thus, we are not a burden to society.

The stacking of enterprises has allowed us

to produce many more
nutrient dense calories of food

at a lower cost as compared
to the current production model.

Yes, we can feed the world,

and we can do it in a way
that regenerates our resources,

thus, healing farms,
families, and communities.

Thank you.