Episode 107: Sustainable and Profitable Agriculture with Marty Travis

Regenerative Agriculture Podcast

AEA Marketing

Science, Natural Sciences, Earth Sciences

4.7 • 548 Ratings

🗓️ 29 February 2024

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Marty Travis, a former furniture maker turned farmer, co-owns and operates Spence Farm in Illinois with his son, Will. Spence Farm grows a wide array of heirloom and native crops, heritage animals, and a huge diversity of agricultural opportunities on the 160 acres. Marty embraced sustainable farming, catering to Chicago's restaurant community. This unique partnership led to a thriving and sustainable business prioritizing soil health, livestock, and community relationships.

The farm model evolved to support individual families in response to the Covid crisis and the closing of most restaurants during lockdowns. Leading a cooperative of farmers, the Travis family now serves numerous restaurants in Chicago and over 1,000 families, contributing to a positive shift in the food landscape in their area.

In this episode, John and Marty discuss:

The value of involving and mentoring young people in agriculture
The challenges in managing growth and growing the number of farmer-to-farmer hubs
The game-changing shift from selling per ton to per pound, enhancing profitability
The emphasis on small plots and strategic crop choices for maximum revenue
The positive impacts of increased soil biology on drought resistance, plant health, and reduced pest and disease pressure
The use and outcomes of using Advancing Eco Agriculture products

Additional Resources
To order a copy of Marty's new book, My Farmer, My Customer, visit: https://bookstore.acresusa.com/products/my-farmer-my-customer

To learn more about Spence Farms, visit: https://spence-farm.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, and this is the regenerative agriculture podcast. Welcome back to
0:05.2	the funnest, most informative podcast about all of agriculture, where we talk about all kinds of
0:11.2	topics related to agronomy, growing plants, human health, soil health, and this wonderful intersection
0:19.9	of facilitating a better world and the better taking being good stewards of our planet.
0:26.4	We're going to have a really fun conversation today, a good friend of mine, Marty Travis, who I met, I don't know exactly, probably roughly a decade ago.
0:36.9	I was spent some time at a field day on his
0:41.0	farm where we had the most interesting mix of farmers as a group showing up to collaborate
0:47.2	to work together that I have ever observed. So Marty, thank you for being here. I've been so
0:52.8	appreciative of the wisdom and the energy that you have
0:58.5	brought to agriculture with your farm and being able to facilitate young farmers getting started
1:06.2	because there is this constant refrain of many people who want to get into agriculture but aren't
1:14.9	able to identify a pathway to get land access or to whatever difficulties that they encounter.
1:23.8	And so I've really appreciated what you have been able to bring about on your own farming enterprise and with the
1:30.3	Farmer Collaborative that you've developed. So tell us a little bit about your story, your journey, the scope of the work that you're doing today and how you got to this point.
1:40.3	Well, first, thank you, John, for the opportunity.
1:46.5	My journey into agriculture is somewhat convoluted, as many folks tend to have the same experience of being a convoluted path.
2:00.6	Our family has 160-acre farm that's been in our family. In six more years,
2:10.4	it'll be in our family for 200 years. And I had the opportunity to move back to our family farm in 1999 after my grandmother's passing.
2:23.3	Prior to that, for decades, I had built reproduction shaker antique furniture.
2:31.3	So I was a woodworker and did work for clients all over the world and loved it,
2:39.8	had a blast. I got to meet and do work for some of the most interesting folks you could imagine.
2:49.0	But at a point shortly after we moved back to the family farm, my wife, Chris,
	...

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