Episode 106: The Cumulative Benefits of Regeneration with Will Harris

Regenerative Agriculture Podcast

AEA Marketing

Science, Natural Sciences, Earth Sciences

4.7 • 548 Ratings

🗓️ 22 February 2024

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Will Harris is a fourth-generation cattleman and the owner of White Oak Pastures, a holistically managed regenerative farm raising cattle, pigs, poultry, rabbits, sheep, and organic vegetables in Bluffton, Georgia.

After graduating college in 1977, Will returned to Bluffton, where he and his father continued to raise cattle using pesticides, herbicides, hormones, and antibiotics. By the mid-1990s, Will became disenchanted with the excesses of industrialized methods and decided to return to the "radically traditional" farming methods his great-grandfather once used.

Since Will has successfully implemented these changes, he has been recognized all over the world as a leader in humane grass-fed beef production and regenerative agriculture. He's also the Founder of the Center for Agricultural Resilience (CFAR) and the author of A Bold Return to Giving a Damn.

In this episode, John and Will discuss:

The evolution of the regenerative landscape
Will's journey from conventional to regenerative ranching
The consequences of narrow perspectives
Will's motivation for writing his book, A Bold Return to Giving a Damn
The economic impact of Will's operation in his local area
Investing in regenerative farming and farmland
How consumers drive change

Additional Resources
To learn more and get a copy of Will's book, visit: https://whiteoakpastures.com/pages/a-bold-return-to-giving-a-damn

To learn more about White Oak Pastures, visit: https://whiteoakpastures.com/

About John Kempf
John Kempf is the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA). A top expert in biological and regenerative farming, John founded AEA in 2006 to help fellow farmers by providing the education, tools, and strategies that will have a global effect on the food supply and those who grow it.

Through intense study and the knowledge gleaned from many industry leaders, John is building a comprehensive systems-based approach to plant nutrition – a system solidly based on the sciences of plant physiology, mineral nutrition, and soil microbiology.

Support For This Show & Helping You Grow
Since 2006, AEA has been on a mission to help growers become more resilient, efficient, and profitable with regenerative agriculture.

AEA works directly with growers to apply its unique line of liquid mineral crop nutrition products and biological inoculants. Informed by cutting-edge plant and soil data-gathering techniques, AEA's science-based programs empower farm operations to meet the crop quality markers that matter the most.

AEA has created real and lasting change on millions of acres with its products and data-driven services by working hand-in-hand with growers to produce healthier soil, stronger crops, and higher profits.

Beyond working on the ground with growers, AEA leads in regenerative agriculture media and education, producing and distributing the popular and highly-regarded Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, inspiring webinars, and other educational content that serve as go-to resources for growers worldwide.

Learn more about AEA's regenerative programs and products: https://www.advancingecoag.com

VIDEO: To learn more from John Kempf about regenerative agriculture, watch this conversation between John and three AEA grower partners about how regenerative agriculture is changing lives and conventional farming: https://youtu.be/n9U6GwbYPDk

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi friends, this is John. Welcome back to the regenerative agriculture podcast where we talk about all kinds of fun topics that are related to regenerative agriculture, to regenerating soil health, and regenerating public health, and regenerating the planet. But of course, we can't do any of that until we sweep our own doorstep and we begin taking care of ourselves and our families and our immediate communities.
0:21.8	And for this episode, I am really delighted and excited to have Will Harris join me.
0:29.4	Will and I have been trying to have this conversation for, I don't know, at least a year, maybe 18 months or more.
0:35.4	Technology has not been our friend.
0:37.8	But today, today the stars aligned
0:40.1	and everything is working.
0:41.1	So, Will, thank you for being here.
0:43.4	I've really been looking forward to this discussion
0:45.3	and just delighted to have you here
0:47.7	and to share your perspective with the world,
0:51.5	particularly now that you've become a rock star. That's a low threshold for rock star, John.
0:58.7	That's a low threshold. I do appreciate you having me on. Thank you very much.
1:03.2	I look forward to the discussion.
1:06.0	Will, as I'm really curious about your perspective of the, I'm going to use the term, the regenerative
1:13.4	agriculture landscape.
1:14.8	You know, I still remember exactly the time, the place, the day.
1:20.3	We had a meeting with a group of our team from advancing eco-agriculture, that place about
1:27.4	25 miles from where I'm sitting right now
1:29.4	on a December day in late, I think it was late 2010, or maybe it was January 2011, and we decided
1:36.5	to start using the term regenerative agriculture to try to describe what we were doing.
1:40.9	And at that point, that term was not being used popularly at all. Like it was,
1:47.0	people had talked about it in decades past, but not really recently. And now we live in a very
	...

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