Episode 110: Stock Cropping and Regenerative Innovation with Zack Smith

Regenerative Agriculture Podcast

AEA Marketing

Science, Natural Sciences, Earth Sciences

4.7 • 548 Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2024

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Zack Smith is a fifth-generation farmer from northern Iowa. He is the owner and operator of Smith Seed and Agronomy, LLC, and co-founder and CEO of Stock Cropper, Inc.

Zack previously worked in seed production and chemical retail as a certified crop advisor and then as a seed rep while farming on the side. He eventually became interested in soil health and started experimenting with strip-tilling and using cover crops, which marked the beginning of his shift towards regenerative agricultural. Zack recently developed a system called "stock cropping," a regenerative farming system that raises row crops in conjunction with multiple species of livestock simultaneously in the field. He and his business partners, Sheldon Stevermer and Lance Peterson, went on to develop the Cluster Cluck 5000, an autonomous, self-moving barn.

In this episode, Zack and John discuss:

The concept of stock cropping and its benefits to plant and soil health
Developing barns for mobile grazing that integrate multiple species of livestock
Implementing a rotational grazing system with frequent moves to optimize animal impact and pasture utilization
Developing high-quality pasture mixes using cool-season and warm-season species
The importance of innovation and collaboration in advancing regenerative agriculture practices

Additional Resources

To learn more about stock cropping and the Cluster Cluck 5000, visit https://thestockcropper.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 have
0:04.4	lots of fun conversations about regenerative agriculture and all the fun stuff that's related
0:09.3	to improving our ecosystem health and soil health and livestock health and ultimately, of course,
0:15.2	translates into human health. I'm really excited to be having a conversation with Zach Smith.
0:20.4	Really awesome individual that I met a year or so ago at a conference.
0:24.6	I've been following his work on social media for some time on this cool concept that they call stock cropping.
0:31.6	So Zach, thanks for being here and I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
0:35.6	Tell us a little bit about your
0:38.6	journey, your pathway, the stuff that you've been working on and what it is that you're working on today.
0:44.0	Yeah, so it's been a long journey. So I guess I'll start from the beginning. I was raised
0:49.6	just outside of a small town called Buffalo Center, Iowa. grew up on a corn and soybean family farm
0:55.7	operation. We also had Farrow to finish pork until I was about in middle school, so I did have
1:00.9	some livestock experience up to that point. I did a lot of chores as a young man. I learned
1:07.4	all about that stuff as well. I graduated high school 98, and I really loved farming.
1:13.1	I wanted to farm, but there wasn't room for me.
1:15.1	My dad only farmed about 900 acres.
1:17.2	So I went off to study agronomy at Iowa State and came out after four years and into
1:24.1	a depressed ag market and ended up doing something I didn't think I would do, which
1:29.3	was actually moved back to my hometown. And I worked for the first two years in a seed production
1:34.9	role at a small seed company. And then from there, I went on for the next 11 years, moved on
1:39.6	to a large independent chemical retail business where I became a certified crop advisor and sold a ton of
1:46.7	pesticides essentially within 150 mile radius of northern Iowa and really became good at that craft
	...

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