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I call myself the HRH, I'm the Honest Regenerative Hypocrite.

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Welcome to the 343rd installment of Ear to the Ground,

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the Land Stewardship Project's podcast on family farming, regenerative agriculture,

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community food systems, and local democracy.

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I'm Brian DeVore, editor of the Land Stewardship Letter.

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There are times when central Minnesota farmer Clifford Johnson finds himself

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planting what he calls plastic worms.

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That's what he calls the drainage tile systems he installs as part of a side

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business he runs.

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The point of burying these flexible pipes in farm fields is to help carry away

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excessive moisture

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and thus keep corn and soybeans from being drowned out. Clifford sees tiling as

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an important tool, but, the farmer maintains, it's no replacement for

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healthy soil that has active biology and good aggregate structure. Dead compacted

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soil does not manage water well, and thus calls for a band-aid solution like

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drainage tile. Clifford farms 2,000 organic crop acres and grazes cow-calf

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pairs near Paynesville with his wife Heidi and their daughter, plus his parents

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and brother. Building soil health is key to Johnson Family Farms' operation.

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They use cover cropping and rotational grazing, and have even experimented with

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cutting-edge composting systems, as well as using a roller crimper to do no-till

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organic production. Clifford says that when he installs tile on the land of

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customers that he works with, it gives him a chance to get a first-hand glimpse

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of some of the issues farmers in the region struggle with when it comes to

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their soil. Often, he says, it can be traced to not having living roots in the

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ground all year round, which results in lack of biological activity, and thus the

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kind of compaction that makes for muddy fields and a general inability to make

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the best use of moisture. At times, Clifford will talk to customers about the

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advantages of building more resilient soil via practices like cover cropping.

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But he also makes it clear that each farm is different, and what works on one

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operation may not be a good fit for another. He made that point during a

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presentation at the Land Stewardship Project's Driftless Grazing School,

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which was recently held on the Jordan and Rochelle Meyer farm in southeastern

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Minnesota. The two-day school was led by other grazers in the region and

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featured hands-on tutorials in everything from fencing and watering

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systems to monitoring soil health biology, managing finances, and developing

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grazing plans. In his presentation, Clifford emphasized the value of close,

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consistent observation and the willingness to adjust practices from year

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to year. Sometimes such adjustments mean setting back soil health temporarily in

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service of a longer-term goal of building farm resiliency from an economic

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and quality of life point of view. In fact, Clifford jokingly calls himself an

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honest regenerative hypocrite, or HRH, because of the fact that at times he's

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been forced to do tillage, thus disrupting the soil structure. But, as he

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explained in an interview we conducted at the conclusion of the first day of

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the school, it's all about context. So one of the things that you talked about

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was you also have a side business, a tiling business, and you said that it

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gives you an opportunity to get onto farms and see a lot of the issues that

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can come with year after year of monocrops and not having diversity out

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there and some of the compaction issues and maybe even when they do put in

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tiling they can still have issues. One of the things you talked about was it just

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really, people are really flummoxed by that and you're like, well you don't have

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soil life in there. Yeah, we get on these farms and you know with our sideline

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business, our business is to get rid of water for these farmers. But, you

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know, you get questions like, well what do I do about erosion on these hillsides?

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And what do I do about this even though I'm no-tilling, I'm still

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getting washing? And the thing is, you know, they go to no-till but there's not

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a living root in the system. There's nothing functioning feeding the soil

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biology. So it gives me an opportunity to, you know, show them that we're

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addressing a symptom here but it's not the problem. I'm not saying that you

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shouldn't put any tile in but it's a tool and it, you know, it should be used as a

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tool and you should try to fix, you know, your other problems, water infiltration

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and stuff like that through, you know, the cover crops and different

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management practices. And that can be a stumbling block for people that aren't

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used to it. They don't know if their equipment can handle it and how do I do

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that and how do I implement that and that's just going to be more work and

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you know, and I guess I see they need to realize they have a problem and when

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they do and they get the willingness to try to address it, they, you know, need to

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start working that way and I like to try to guide people to that if I can.

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Well one of the things you said is you see tile as kind of a plastic earthworm.

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Yeah, it's kind of an inside joke. So our friends are like, yeah, put more of the

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plastic earthworm in and you know, and it's like, yeah, if you don't have a

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living soil, it's like, well, we need to put, use a different tool to put air in

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the soil and get rid of water and you know, it's a means of doing that but

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there's other things that could help address some of that too. You talked a

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little bit about, yeah, it's one thing to maybe learn that there is a problem and

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and be aware of it but another thing to make that transition. Yeah, the

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transition can be rough, you know. The thing is, you don't, people don't know

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what to do and how to do it and the thing is, if somebody does something and

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makes a mistake or it doesn't work out, they're never gonna do that again. Just

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give up on it and I think that's some of the best ways we learn is from our

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mistakes. Why did it fail? What did I do wrong? What could have I done different?

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It all takes time. Well and a really good example is you had used roller crimping

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and correct me if I'm wrong, I think you'd used it like three years in a row

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and had a lot of success with it and then the drought came but you learned

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some hard lessons from that that whole experience. Yeah, the roller crimping was

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a blessing when it came in for us and really helped us out with a lot of

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situations and we had a lot of success with it but when we hit the drought

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years then we started having issues with that and you know, so we've had to change

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some things around and do some things different and now you get a wet year

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like this and I wish I had more roller crimp dry but actually this year it was

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been so wet. With our crimper so heavy it would just cut into the soil and it

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would have chunked it all out so it wouldn't have worked anyway so that's where I'm

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adapting again and changing to gonna try to harvest the rye crop off and the beans

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beans will come through later and I'll get what I can off of them so that's one

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thing I learned last year was after losing or the rye taking all the moisture

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and crimping the rye and killing that off there was no beans to be had and

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there was no rye to be had so that's what I told dad last year if it's going to be

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dry we're just going to leave the rye stand at least we'll get that crop off

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of it and if we do get rain later maybe we can get some beans off of it so well

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and it takes for folks who may not be familiar the roller crimping system is

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you plant your say rye cover crop the fall before and then you go in when

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you're going to plant say beans in the spring and it's this roller thing with

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a chevron pattern on it that crimps that rye and kills it and it's been real

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popular with folks who are trying to perfect that kind of no-till organic

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system which I know is something that you've looked into so because of that

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setback a little bit you you've had to kind of maybe return to some tillage

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which what you weren't really psyched about but it sounds like you're pretty

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confident that you've been building soil health over the years and you can have

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some years where maybe okay I'm doing some things I don't really like but I've

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built up enough soil health to kind of make up for that yeah well that's where

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you know trying to compost in the field and you know cycle the nutrients in the

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field and to be able to do that I mean we were doing stuff at home and checking

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stuff on the microscope and we got a lot better understanding soil biology than

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we ever had and I'm glad we did all that because we would have never understood

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what the soil needs or what it how it functions and what we can do differently

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to allow it to function everybody's like oh you got to get rid of the plow

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because it's just killing the soil and yeah using that tool the wrong way yeah

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it can really kill the soil I mean am I not harming the soil by plowing it I

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believe I am affecting some of the biology and but I feel by spring

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plowing now with a cover crop growing off you know into the fall and into the

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spring I have a living root there pretty much every day of the year except for

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maybe one or three days while we work the field but my goal is to plow it and

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plant it that same day or next day so we come in with a heavy plow tillage we

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just run over it with the heroin level it off a little bit and plant it and for

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it then if you're gonna cultivate the field everybody oh it's so rough it's

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not smooth enough I'm like why does it need to be smooth we're gonna cultivate

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it anyway and with that's gonna ridge it up so it it levels it out in that

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aspect of it so in that scenario it works and it's hard you got to make them

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decisions at the beginning of the year and in two weeks things can change and

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you're just like I wish this would have happened or wish it but that's part of

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farming yeah you're a little hard on yourself you have a nickname for

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yourself what is it yeah I call myself the HRH I'm the honest regenerative

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hypocrite so you talk about all these soil health practices but then here oh

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here's the guy all mow board plow in his field and well that's my context you

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know I don't have I can't give it a whiff of some chemical and take

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magically take care of it and there's days I scratch my head and wish I kind

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of had that tool but that's not where God's got me placed right now this is

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the path he's got me down and we're gonna keep fighting the battle and keep

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getting educated and keep meeting nice people so I mean a lot of my

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relationships have become come through events like this and you know that's

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they can go a long ways because when it comes down to it there's not a lot of

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people doing this I mean you drive across the countryside and I told my

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dad the one day I'm like boy we are in the minority aren't we but you are

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starting to see more a little bit more and more of it so it's in that's

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encouraging well you brought that the word up context so that is so key is

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that context it sounds like in the long term both from season to season as well

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oh yeah it's it constantly changes you know and that's the big thing too about

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a school like this too you know you can listen to somebody say what they're

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doing on their farm it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work on

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your farm because you need to figure out what your context is but you can learn a

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piece of a puzzle that could help you or you know whatever so and get some guy

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guidance and yeah relationships I mean I was really impressed just this day one

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with all the great questions and it's kind of a diverse people approaching

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things from a real diverse backgrounds and that kind of thing but kind of the

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common connector I think is that soil health that they're really if we can

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build that soil health and as like Rochelle Meyer talked about it's part of

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that three-legged stool for them that that really a lot of good other good

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things come out of that yep that's that is for sure we need to address all the

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aspects of our life and we need to balance it out and like your I think

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Jordan said we could have everything perfect but our family life could be

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absolutely miserable and is that where you want to be I know context is so key

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from farmer to farm so you can't have general guideline that's what has gotten

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maybe agriculture in general in general in trouble is we have these cookie

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cutter things and say it's going to work on every farm the same way but if you're

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going to give any suggestions to somebody who is looking at kind of

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heading down the regenerative path a little bit and basing things on building

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soil health what would be a couple of key steps they should start out with well

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I guess YouTube's probably the easiest place you know or a podcast or something

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somebody in the soil health world you know and just start digesting stuff and

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start learning I mean and then look for events that either LSPs putting on

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Minnesota soil health coalition SFA I mean just others all kinds of things

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around if you're willing to look into it and you can get ideas and keep digging

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and digging I mean it's an endless path to learn I mean we by far we don't

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understand at all I mean we're we're just people practicing what we're

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learning and doing and and we're learning every time we do something so I

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guess you need to be willing to accept your failures too and learn from them

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and yeah it's you know you can go to school and pay for a school education or

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you can or you can do it yourself and learn from your education on your own

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well and that's a good point in that education that failure education could be

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quite expensive but if you can keep your inputs or your kind of infrastructure

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investment in major infrastructure down and and not go whole hog into something

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that's gonna be really costly then at least you can bounce back from that and

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learn from it and not have it be a deal breaker for the bank

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you definitely need to access your risk tolerance and you need to figure out

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where it needs to be and our risk tolerance is a little high sometimes but

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you know to me a couple acres don't cut it you know it's like I want to see it on

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a farm I want to you know I want to see it happen and yeah it it can make you a

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outlier in your community but at least you're trying and every year is

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different you know and so you're like oh I should have done this so then you're

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all set up for next year and then it's like oh but this is different yet again

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and observation is so key that's the one thing I learned from today is just

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observation on every level right I mean that's the biggest thing I mean

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everybody wants a book to follow or this and that's just not the way I operate

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you know a measurement of this I mean yeah obviously if you're grazing cattle

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and you're gonna have X amount of cattle out there you need to know their forage

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consumption and you need to know that you're gonna have enough but for me to

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measure a paddock with an instrument you know an instrument and calculate that

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out the whole pasture isn't the same you know so I mean you need you take your

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best educated guess and you observe the animals and if you see your short you

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give them more sooner or you give them more for the next day and then you see

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where you go from there and then it's like oh that's okay but then also it's

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like oh we're coming up to a hill and it's thinner well maybe we should go

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another post or two further just to give them a little extra so yeah it's

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constantly observing you're planning for what you're gonna do for your next move

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but you're observing what your move you're just did and you're observing

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what the move you did before and you're constantly adjusting you know and then

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you got weather it comes in if you're gonna have a big rain event and you

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don't want them to plug a spot up too bad you might be you're gonna have to be

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ready and you might have to go move them an extra time or two you know so I mean

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it's just all things you need to do but if you want the weekend off give them

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a big paddock and take the weekend off I mean that's not gonna destroy the farm

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we all need to breathe sometime too well that's that's brings it back to context

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if called that's an important quality of life piece and it's just as important

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as maybe doing a really tight rotation or or observing certain things but is is

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if the farm farmer isn't sustainable the farm isn't sustainable and the thing is

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we aren't supposed to do things the same all the time anyway you know we're

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supposed to change up the way we graze how you know when we graze where we

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start how long we graze them how many pounds you know per acre we put on all

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that's supposed to change from year to year constantly and you know there's no

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set standard that this is how you do it

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for more on building soil health profitably see the podcast page for

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ear to the ground episode 343 at land stewardship project org if you have

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comments or suggestions about this podcast contact Brian Dvor at be Dvor

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at land stewardship project org or you can call 612-816-9342 by the way it

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helps us greatly if you can give ear to the ground a rating on whatever podcast

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platform you utilize and word of mouth is the best way to spread the news about

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our podcast if you like what you hear tell at least one person about LSP's

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ear to the ground thanks to Laura Borgendell a Western Minnesota musician

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for you to the grounds theme music and a special thank you to all of land

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stewardship projects members who make initiatives such as this podcast

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possible if you're not a member visit land stewardship project org to learn

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how you can support LSP thanks for listening