meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
How I Built This with Guy Raz

How I Built Resilience: Loren and Lisa Poncia of Stemple Creek Ranch

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.831.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 January 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Fourth generation cattle rancher Loren Poncia and his wife Lisa transformed Stemple Creek Ranch into one of the few carbon neutral livestock ranches in the United States, and have since made their ranch carbon positive, sequestering more carbon than they emit. Lisa and Loren spoke with Guy about how consumers are helping drive the sustainable farming movement, and how they doubled down on online retail after many restaurants shut down. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating turbulent times.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

0:07.0

Download the app today.

0:09.0

New Year's is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.

0:13.0

As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.

0:17.0

So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.

0:24.0

Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.

0:27.0

Hey everyone, welcome to how I built this resilience edition from NPR.

0:31.0

I'm Guy Ross, and on these episodes, we're hearing from entrepreneurs and business leaders about how they've been building resilience into their businesses during this very challenging time.

0:41.0

And today, my conversation with Lauren and Lisa Poncha, owners of Stemple Creek Ranch.

0:47.0

Stemple Creek Ranch produces beef, pork, and lamb on more than a thousand acres in Marin County, California.

0:53.0

It's one of the only carbon neutral livestock ranches in the United States.

0:58.0

Lauren is a fourth-generation rancher, and he and his wife, Lisa, transformed Stemple Creek into an organic regenerative farm 15 years ago.

1:08.0

Today, they sell their grass-fed meat to restaurants and grocery stores across the Bay Area, and also directly to consumers across the US.

1:17.0

So, my first question to Lauren was, how do you make such a carbon-intensive product like meat, carbon neutral?

1:25.0

Guy, what we try and do is what we call a dance with mother nature, so basically replicating mother nature and what she did across the Great Plains hundreds of years ago with massive herds of bison crossing the Great Plains.

1:38.0

They were regenerating the soil just naturally, so they would eat the grass in front of them, stomp on the grass below them, and poop on the grass behind them.

1:45.0

That actually regenerated the soil and grew more perennial plants.

1:49.0

And really, it's a photosynthesis business.

1:52.0

So, if we have a living plant in the ground that's capturing sunlight, it's growing, and with photosynthesis, pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere, storing it in the soil.

2:03.0

Are you able to actually measure it?

2:05.0

We think of cows, for example, as, you know, creating methane, and that contributes, of course, to carbon pollution.

2:12.0

But are you able to actually measure how you're able to sequester that carbon and offset the methane that they release?

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

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

Generated transcripts are the property of Guy Raz | Wondery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.