Episode 85: The Opportunities That Come From Regenerative Agriculture with Steve Tucker

Regenerative Agriculture Podcast

AEA Marketing

Science, Natural Sciences, Earth Sciences

4.7 • 548 Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2023

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Steve Tucker is a western Nebraska dryland producer who has been farming for 30 years. He introduced regenerative practices into his operation over 10 years ago and values diversity in his approach. Growing upwards of 10 crops per year while integrating livestock, such as chickens, pigs, and cows. Steve also uses no-till farming practices and biological applications on his farm. Steve advocates for growers to market themselves in order to access more opportunities and advises them to look for alternate streams of income for the crops they are growing.

Steve runs Agriforce Seed with his business partner Jeff Olsen. Steve grows sunflower, hay millet, oats, yellow field peas, winter wheat, Golden German hay millet, and forage pea/oat hay blends. His ultimate goal is to build soil health by mobilizing soil microorganisms to grow better, higher quality, more nutrient-dense food.

In this episode, John and Steve discuss:

Being content with the size of the farm you operate
Making connections by marketing yourself
Selling by the pound vs selling by the bushel
Looking for sales opportunities around you to sell
Pursuing multiple streams of farm income
Identifying opportunities that come from promoting more life on the farm
Using biologicals, including AEA's BioCoat Gold
Finding the freedom of doing things on your own terms

AgriForce Seed is Nebraska's largest pulse seed producer. Agriforce provides yellow peas, chickpeas, and many other types of pulse crop seeds. Also available are hay millet seed and a large selection of cover crop seeds and forage products. To learn more, call 308-289-4853

To learn more about AEA's BioCoat Gold, please visit - https://land.advancingecoag.com/buy-biocoat-gold-now

About John Kempf
John Kempf is the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA). A top expert in the field of 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
The recognized leader in regenerative agriculture since 2006, AEA is on a mission to help growers become more resilient, efficient, and profitable.

AEA works directly with growers on the application of 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 their products and data-driven services by working hand-in-hand with growers in North America 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 around the world who thirst for actionable information about regenerative agriculture.

Learn more about AEA's regenerative programs and products.

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

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, friends. This is John and this is the regenerative agriculture podcast where we talk about fun
0:05.0	agronomy stuff and cultural management practices, farming management practices that can regenerate
0:10.0	soil health and plant health and public health and hopefully regenerate farm economics and
0:16.6	economical viability and financial viability as well. My guest for this episode is Steve Tucker, a friend of mine, a farmer from dryland,
0:26.9	Western Plains, who enjoys thinking and trying to stimulate other people to think as well.
0:34.1	So Steve, thank you for being here.
0:36.2	I've been looking forward to our conversation.
0:39.4	Well, thank you, John. It's an honor to be a part of this and greatly appreciate your friendship and
0:44.7	your mentorship and just helping me think outside the box. What box? Exactly. Get out of the box
0:53.6	and find different ways to do things.
0:57.2	Yeah.
0:58.1	So, Steve, I think for the context of our listeners, tell us a little bit about your
1:03.4	background and story, the context of your operation, what crops you're growing, what
1:08.8	scale, what type of environment, and help us understand a little bit of your journey and your pathway.
1:14.6	Okay. Well, I grew up as a son of an Air Force recruiter,
1:19.6	and we moved all over the country.
1:22.6	So the only avenue to agriculture that I had
1:26.6	was coming back to my grandfather's farm in southwest Nebraska.
1:31.3	And we were a wheat summer follow operation.
1:36.3	And I would spend hours on a tractor doing tillage and thought that was the life.
1:49.3	And it was just good to be able to spend time alone and do these things. And then you'd come back to the world and see how the world operates.
1:55.4	And that was farming for us for a long time.
	...

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