Episode 125: The Benefits and Challenges of Intercropping with Lana Shaw

Regenerative Agriculture Podcast

AEA Marketing

Science, Natural Sciences, Earth Sciences

4.7 • 548 Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2024

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Lana Shaw is the Research Manager at the South East Research Farm in Saskatchewan, Canada. She has been with the research farm since 2010, overseeing its transformation from a poorly funded facility into a center for innovative agricultural research. Lana holds a master's degree and has a background in government work related to agriculture.

Her work focuses on practical, applied experiments that benefit local farmers, with a particular interest in intercropping and companion cropping to improve soil health and agricultural sustainability. Lana comes from several generations of Canadian farmers, grounding her efforts in the long-term resilience and sustainability of farm communities.

In this episode, Lana and John discuss the:

Benefits and challenges of intercropping
Innovative research to discover more efficient and effective farming methods
Importance of specialty crop variety development to support farmers
Inherent complexity in agricultural systems
Adoption of new techniques and technologies by farmers

Additional Resources
To learn more about the work happening at the South East Research Farm, please visit: https://southeastresearchfarm.org/

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

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.
0:04.0	I've been looking forward to our conversation today. I'm speaking with Lena Shaw from the Southeast
0:09.0	Research Farm in, I think Saskatchewan, I'm pretty sure in Saskatchewan.
0:13.0	And one of the areas where there is so much opportunity for us to learn more is how we harvest sunlight more efficiently.
0:26.4	For many of our agricultural areas, many of our agricultural practices and cropping systems,
0:32.5	we have either periods of time or sections of soil even in the growing season that aren't photosynthesizing
0:41.0	very well.
0:41.7	And one of the concepts that I've been really intrigued by is the idea of companion cropping
0:46.3	or really cropping whatever terminology you want to call it.
0:49.5	So I've been looking forward to having this conversation to learn more about the work that
0:53.6	you are doing in all the aspects that it relates to
0:57.0	improving soil health and building soil and building productive ecosystems and productive management systems for the future.
1:04.0	So thank you for being here. Can you tell us a little bit about the scope of your work and the story of your journey of how you got here
1:11.5	and the scope of the work that you're doing today?
1:13.5	So I manage a research farm in southeast Saskatchewan.
1:17.9	So we're growing crops outdoors, rain fed agriculture, and trying to do experiments that are
1:25.6	very applied and useful to the farmers.
1:28.3	The organization is a farmer directed on profit.
1:32.3	So it's not a government organization, but we do get government contracts.
1:37.3	So I started there in 2010 and I started looking at the intercropping or companion cropping type of ideas very early on,
1:49.7	basically as soon as I started.
1:52.5	Because I always liked the idea of that.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from AEA Marketing, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of AEA Marketing and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.