1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,720 Modity production of anything by nature is going to reward the lowest cost producer and 2 00:00:05,720 --> 00:00:08,920 reward kind of a race to the bottom, a race to zero. 3 00:00:08,920 --> 00:00:13,480 And that's what corn and soybean production is in Northern Iowa and Southern Minnesota. 4 00:00:13,480 --> 00:00:16,920 And that's not a sustainable model in the long term. 5 00:00:16,920 --> 00:00:23,420 We need to grow food that people eat and that they want to eat, not trying to push them 6 00:00:23,420 --> 00:00:38,360 into consuming something that they may not want to eat or may not be healthy for them. 7 00:00:38,360 --> 00:00:43,880 Welcome to the 363rd installment of Ear to the Ground, the Land Stewardship Project's 8 00:00:43,880 --> 00:00:49,120 podcast on family farming, regenerative agriculture, community food systems, and local democracy. 9 00:00:49,120 --> 00:00:52,480 I'm Brian DeVore, editor of the Land Stewardship Letter. 10 00:00:52,480 --> 00:00:57,840 On a recent January morning, Landon Plagge drove me out to a 200-acre field, his family 11 00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:00,160 farms in North Central Iowa. 12 00:01:00,160 --> 00:01:04,760 Like all the farm ground in this part of the state, the field was tabletop flat. 13 00:01:04,760 --> 00:01:08,880 There was little on the landscape to block the arctic-like winds that were raking the 14 00:01:08,880 --> 00:01:09,880 area. 15 00:01:09,880 --> 00:01:14,200 But Landon made clear this field differs greatly from the majority of crop land in the region. 16 00:01:14,200 --> 00:01:19,240 A closer inspection showed that it was covered with the remnants of sorghum, sudan grass, 17 00:01:19,240 --> 00:01:25,240 millet, radishes, and turnips, and the perimeter of the field was bordered by livestock fencing, 18 00:01:25,240 --> 00:01:28,840 something that's increasingly uncommon in corn-soybean country. 19 00:01:28,840 --> 00:01:33,520 It turns out beef cattle from a neighboring farm had recently grazed this cover crop mix. 20 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:38,200 While making use of a low-cost forage, the bovines had spread manure across the landscape, 21 00:01:38,200 --> 00:01:42,960 adding natural fertility to the soil, and breaking up pest and weed cycles. 22 00:01:42,960 --> 00:01:47,420 Landon reported proudly that it was their most profitable field in 2024. 23 00:01:47,420 --> 00:01:52,080 The farmer credits crop diversity for generating good income off this and the rest of the 4,000 24 00:01:52,080 --> 00:01:54,240 acres his family farms near the town of Latimer. 25 00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:58,960 And the linchpin of this diversity is oats, a small grain that used to be ubiquitous in 26 00:01:58,960 --> 00:02:02,680 the region, but that's been removed from most farmers' rotations during the past 27 00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:04,080 several decades. 28 00:02:04,080 --> 00:02:06,680 Stewardship of the soil is important to the Plagueys. 29 00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:10,080 They utilize no-till and cover cropping on all their farm ground. 30 00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:14,840 Landon, who farms with his wife Anne, as well as other family members, says establishing 31 00:02:14,840 --> 00:02:19,520 oats as part of their rotation not only fits their conservation ethic, it's also served 32 00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:23,100 as a gateway for integrating other enterprises into the operation. 33 00:02:23,100 --> 00:02:27,580 For example, the Plagueys were able to establish those cover crops for grazing because oats 34 00:02:27,580 --> 00:02:31,040 had been grown on that ground earlier in the growing season. 35 00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:35,480 Since the small grain was harvested in July, that provided a wide planting window for the 36 00:02:35,480 --> 00:02:40,000 covers, something that wouldn't exist if fall-harvested corn and soybeans were growing 37 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:41,000 there. 38 00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:44,560 Diverse cropping systems also provide flexibility when it comes to the timing of applying the 39 00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:47,480 manure the family's hog operation produces. 40 00:02:47,480 --> 00:02:52,600 But Landon isn't just bullish on oats because of their ability to diversify a farm's agronomic 41 00:02:52,600 --> 00:02:54,400 mix and build soil health. 42 00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:59,320 He's also excited by recent market trends showing that U.S. eaters are increasing their 43 00:02:59,320 --> 00:03:01,400 consumption of this healthy grain. 44 00:03:01,400 --> 00:03:04,720 Turns out the U.S. is the biggest importer of oats in the world. 45 00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:08,400 Given that we get the vast majority of that grain from places like Canada, wouldn't 46 00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:12,920 it be great if large food companies were sourcing more of their product closer to home? 47 00:03:12,920 --> 00:03:17,200 A greater reliance on more local farmers would not only diversify the landscape in a way 48 00:03:17,200 --> 00:03:22,280 that results in healthier soil and cleaner water, but could inject vitality into rural 49 00:03:22,280 --> 00:03:27,200 communities that are suffering from an economy dominated by the monocropping of commodities 50 00:03:27,200 --> 00:03:28,720 like corn and soybeans. 51 00:03:28,720 --> 00:03:33,280 Landon, who studied business administration and investment banking in college, sees lack 52 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:37,920 of a supply chain infrastructure that allows farmers to get a third crop-like oats to the 53 00:03:37,920 --> 00:03:41,680 market as the biggest barrier to diversifying the landscape. 54 00:03:41,680 --> 00:03:46,120 That's why he and Anne have launched Green Acres Milling, a venture that's establishing 55 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:49,280 an oat processing facility in Albert Lee, Minnesota. 56 00:03:49,280 --> 00:03:53,000 Seventy other farmers have bought shares in the facility, which will break ground in the 57 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:58,760 spring of 2025 and be located in an area that's easily accessible to not only oat producers 58 00:03:58,760 --> 00:04:01,760 but regional transportation infrastructure. 59 00:04:01,760 --> 00:04:06,620 When it goes online in 2026, the processing facility will be able to handle 3 million 60 00:04:06,620 --> 00:04:12,160 bushels of oats annually, which could potentially impact the crop rotation on 90,000 acres 61 00:04:12,160 --> 00:04:15,400 of farmland in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa. 62 00:04:15,400 --> 00:04:20,960 In January 2025, Landon was invited by LSP to talk about the benefits of integrating 63 00:04:20,960 --> 00:04:25,340 oats into the rotation during a special small grains workshop in Albert Lee. 64 00:04:25,340 --> 00:04:29,720 As part of a three-part series of podcasts focused on the workshop, I interviewed Landon. 65 00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:33,160 While we took shelter from the winter wind in his family's machine shed, the farmer 66 00:04:33,160 --> 00:04:38,800 described why oats make such a good fit for this area of the upper Midwest agronomically, 67 00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:41,680 environmentally and economically. 68 00:04:41,680 --> 00:04:44,600 So Landon, you just took me on a really appreciate it. 69 00:04:44,600 --> 00:04:50,260 You took me on a little tour kind of showing me how you've been integrating crops like 70 00:04:50,260 --> 00:04:55,220 oats into your rotation and kind of the role that they play in it. 71 00:04:55,220 --> 00:05:00,900 And one of the points that you made, I think, was really important was that you really were 72 00:05:00,900 --> 00:05:01,900 drawn to oats. 73 00:05:01,900 --> 00:05:06,320 It sounds like around eight years ago, you started integrating them into your rotation. 74 00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:10,400 Based a little bit on the environmental benefits, you really saw how it could help build soil 75 00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:11,400 health. 76 00:05:11,400 --> 00:05:15,080 But you realized pretty quickly, it has to make sense economically. 77 00:05:15,080 --> 00:05:21,240 And one of the pieces that you laid out was if you're looking at it on a single growing 78 00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:27,460 season basis, a single year basis, corn and soybeans still beat oats financially. 79 00:05:27,460 --> 00:05:33,360 But if you look at it over a multi-year basis, it really can pencil out to have something 80 00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:34,920 like oats in that rotation. 81 00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:41,740 Can you just go over that a little bit and talk a little bit about how that over a multi-year 82 00:05:41,740 --> 00:05:45,680 kind of as part of a system, has to be part of a system, I guess, I think was one of your 83 00:05:45,680 --> 00:05:46,680 points. 84 00:05:46,680 --> 00:05:50,360 Farmers really need to look at growing crops as a systems approach. 85 00:05:50,360 --> 00:05:56,700 Corn, soybeans, oats, the cover crops, the different crops you can grow, the sorghum 86 00:05:56,700 --> 00:06:03,440 sedans, the millets, and how they all work together in maximizing our efficiency, our 87 00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:05,760 sustainability, and our economics. 88 00:06:05,760 --> 00:06:11,160 We found that by integrating small grains like oats, we've been able to cut out the 89 00:06:11,160 --> 00:06:12,800 fungicide on our corn. 90 00:06:12,800 --> 00:06:18,400 We've been able to go to non-traded corn, eliminate insecticide, and reduce the input 91 00:06:18,400 --> 00:06:25,320 cost of growing our corn while boosting the yields by breaking the diapause of insect 92 00:06:25,320 --> 00:06:29,000 cycles, feeding different microbes on our soil. 93 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:35,000 So we've seen an economic benefit of adding the small grains when it's looked at as part 94 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:36,680 of a three-crop rotation. 95 00:06:36,680 --> 00:06:43,120 In a one-year scenario, you could run a cash flow and say, corn looks better than oats. 96 00:06:43,120 --> 00:06:49,680 But if you consider the other benefits that oats have or small grains have in your rotation, 97 00:06:49,680 --> 00:06:54,620 then all of a sudden the oats will look $100 an acre better than growing corn. 98 00:06:54,620 --> 00:06:58,800 And it spreads out your labor, it spreads out your workforce, it spreads out your machinery. 99 00:06:58,800 --> 00:07:05,520 Just makes your farm more diverse and more resilient in the future. 100 00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:10,760 And you said, I think you said you've cut in half your spending on crop insurance just 101 00:07:10,760 --> 00:07:13,200 for your corn and soybeans too as a result. 102 00:07:13,200 --> 00:07:20,360 Yeah, overall on our, over our entire operation, we've cut our crop insurance by about 47% 103 00:07:20,360 --> 00:07:22,560 our crop insurance spending per acre. 104 00:07:22,560 --> 00:07:25,720 Part of that is that we self-insure on oats. 105 00:07:25,720 --> 00:07:31,920 Part of that is that we're buying a lower guarantee on our corn and soybeans because 106 00:07:31,920 --> 00:07:38,040 our soils now have more water holding capacity, more pore space in our soils. 107 00:07:38,040 --> 00:07:43,440 And we've seen our yields increase on our corn and soybeans following oats, even in 108 00:07:43,440 --> 00:07:47,200 the challenging weather that we've had the last several years. 109 00:07:47,200 --> 00:07:50,760 When it rains, our soils soak up water. 110 00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:52,280 They don't pond as much. 111 00:07:52,280 --> 00:07:54,320 The water doesn't run off. 112 00:07:54,320 --> 00:07:57,400 And that water is stored for when it doesn't rain. 113 00:07:57,400 --> 00:08:01,640 And so we've been able to reduce our crop insurance expense significantly by having 114 00:08:01,640 --> 00:08:02,760 small grains. 115 00:08:02,760 --> 00:08:07,040 Can you take me through one of the first fields we visited was I think a 200 acre field. 116 00:08:07,040 --> 00:08:11,080 You take me a little bit and you said it was your most profitable field this year, I think. 117 00:08:11,080 --> 00:08:14,560 Can you take a little bit through the what that rotation has been like the last couple 118 00:08:14,560 --> 00:08:20,320 years and I know you've added neighbors livestock into that system and kind of how that's worked 119 00:08:20,320 --> 00:08:21,320 out? 120 00:08:21,320 --> 00:08:27,560 Right, our most profitable acres the last two years since we started reintegrating livestock 121 00:08:27,560 --> 00:08:36,960 on a larger scale into our operation has been oats followed with livestock cattle grazing 122 00:08:36,960 --> 00:08:37,960 on it. 123 00:08:37,960 --> 00:08:44,040 That's because the oats themselves may break even, but then you consider the benefits on 124 00:08:44,040 --> 00:08:45,800 the corn and soybean price. 125 00:08:45,800 --> 00:08:51,720 But we're also grazing cattle on sorghum, sedan grass, millet, radishes and turnips 126 00:08:51,720 --> 00:08:52,720 following the oats. 127 00:08:52,720 --> 00:08:55,280 And we're grazing about one head per acre. 128 00:08:55,280 --> 00:09:00,080 The cattle have averaged three pounds a day both of the last two years grazing that and 129 00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:02,040 we have them out there for about 100 days. 130 00:09:02,040 --> 00:09:07,560 So we're putting on 300 pounds of beef, rough math of a dollar fifty a pound of value, but 131 00:09:07,560 --> 00:09:15,400 let me back up on purchase price, that's $450 an acre of beef that we're doing on our operation. 132 00:09:15,400 --> 00:09:22,080 And so you add that with cattle, with the oats, we're making significantly more per 133 00:09:22,080 --> 00:09:26,640 acre with livestock reintegrated and it's better for our sustainability, better for 134 00:09:26,640 --> 00:09:27,640 our soil health. 135 00:09:27,640 --> 00:09:35,040 It really supercharges the soil quality having livestock grazing on the land and I'd rather 136 00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:39,520 make $300-$400 an acre than make 50 growing corn. 137 00:09:39,520 --> 00:09:43,440 Out of your 4,000 acres that you're farming, how many were in oats this year? 138 00:09:43,440 --> 00:09:46,880 In 2024, we farm about 4,000 acres. 139 00:09:46,880 --> 00:09:49,240 We're 100% no-till, 100% cover crop. 140 00:09:49,240 --> 00:09:52,160 We had about 600 acres in 2024. 141 00:09:52,160 --> 00:09:55,960 In 2025, we're going to have about 1,600 acres of oats. 142 00:09:55,960 --> 00:10:01,200 We're increasing our oat acres because of the economics of growing oats and having the 143 00:10:01,200 --> 00:10:02,560 three crop rotation. 144 00:10:02,560 --> 00:10:07,880 We like the environmental sustainability, but we also need to stay in business too and 145 00:10:07,880 --> 00:10:14,320 we can be more profitable by having a three crop rotation on our farm, integrating livestock, 146 00:10:14,320 --> 00:10:15,320 growing double crops. 147 00:10:15,320 --> 00:10:22,040 We're growing Caranada on acres, Camelina on some acres, hybrid rye on acres, and oats 148 00:10:22,040 --> 00:10:28,800 allow us to do all of these other crops while maintaining our corn and soybean oat rotation. 149 00:10:28,800 --> 00:10:33,760 I think that's a good example of you were talking earlier about oats can be an example, 150 00:10:33,760 --> 00:10:38,880 integrating a crop like oats into a cropping system can be a way of, instead of pushing 151 00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:43,080 farmers to do things that maybe are good for the soil, good for the environment, that type 152 00:10:43,080 --> 00:10:46,920 of thing, kind of pulling them along with the market type of thing. 153 00:10:46,920 --> 00:10:54,120 Yeah, consumer demand is really showing a shift to more sustainably produced products, 154 00:10:54,120 --> 00:10:59,040 more sustainably produced food, and they also want to know where their food is coming from 155 00:10:59,040 --> 00:11:01,320 and how it was raised. 156 00:11:01,320 --> 00:11:07,800 With a small grain such as oats, domestically sourced, domestically raised, we can provide 157 00:11:07,800 --> 00:11:15,320 what consumers want and they are willing to pay more money for that product as well. 158 00:11:15,320 --> 00:11:22,200 That pulls farmers into integrating a cover crop, reintegrating livestock, and we want 159 00:11:22,200 --> 00:11:29,840 the market to reward producers for growing these more sustainably produced products on 160 00:11:29,840 --> 00:11:36,480 their farm rather than trying to push farmers into growing a cover crop or into no-till. 161 00:11:36,480 --> 00:11:42,400 If the market rewards guys, they'll do it and it'll be a long-term scalable solution 162 00:11:42,400 --> 00:11:46,980 instead of say an incentive-based solution that may go away when the incentives disappear. 163 00:11:46,980 --> 00:11:51,280 So one of the things that I think an idea that you're kind of trying to integrate into 164 00:11:51,280 --> 00:11:57,080 this farming operation and it seems like it's very important to you is this idea of raising 165 00:11:57,080 --> 00:12:01,960 a crop that's food for people. 166 00:12:01,960 --> 00:12:07,200 That kind of idea and it's not just like, oh, that's a nice idea, but you really feel 167 00:12:07,200 --> 00:12:12,580 like that that works into the economics of helping the farmers and helping the rural 168 00:12:12,580 --> 00:12:13,900 economic development. 169 00:12:13,900 --> 00:12:18,560 You're very involved with the community and I think you own a grocery store in the area 170 00:12:18,560 --> 00:12:24,240 as well, so you saw that side of it, the retail side of it, but this idea of getting farmers 171 00:12:24,240 --> 00:12:29,820 maybe into the mindset of raising a food product rather than just a raw commodity that somebody 172 00:12:29,820 --> 00:12:33,680 else is adding value to and getting the economic benefits out of it. 173 00:12:33,680 --> 00:12:39,920 Yeah, since we've moved to a more sustainable operation, we've quadrupled in size of our 174 00:12:39,920 --> 00:12:44,720 operation and tripled the number of acres that we own on our farm. 175 00:12:44,720 --> 00:12:50,240 It's been successful for us moving to being a food producer instead of being a commodity 176 00:12:50,240 --> 00:12:51,620 producer. 177 00:12:51,620 --> 00:12:57,080 Community production of anything by nature is going to reward the lowest cost producer 178 00:12:57,080 --> 00:13:02,440 and reward kind of a race to the bottom, a race to zero, and that's what corn and soybean 179 00:13:02,440 --> 00:13:06,040 production is in Northern Iowa and Southern Minnesota. 180 00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:11,320 It's everybody competing against each other to try to be the lowest cost, highest yielding 181 00:13:11,320 --> 00:13:16,000 producer and that's not a sustainable model in the long term. 182 00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:22,720 We need to grow food that people eat and that they want to eat, not trying to push them 183 00:13:22,720 --> 00:13:27,880 into consuming something that they may not want to eat or may not be healthy for them, 184 00:13:27,880 --> 00:13:30,860 just because that's the crop that we want to grow. 185 00:13:30,860 --> 00:13:38,520 Farmers need to look at what people want to consume and grow those things and that will 186 00:13:38,520 --> 00:13:42,600 be the long term market driver that will make us be successful. 187 00:13:42,600 --> 00:13:46,680 Speaking of which, so the next you talk about side projects you got going, you got a really 188 00:13:46,680 --> 00:13:51,520 big side project going and it sounds like it was sparked a little bit by three years 189 00:13:51,520 --> 00:13:57,360 ago you and your wife going to Europe and seeing how much more oats was being raised, 190 00:13:57,360 --> 00:14:01,520 how much was being consumed, how that was much more part of the food system. 191 00:14:01,520 --> 00:14:07,400 So can you talk a little bit about this Green Acres Milling enterprise that is going to 192 00:14:07,400 --> 00:14:09,560 be going online here in the next couple years? 193 00:14:09,560 --> 00:14:16,320 Alright, so we're the founders and majority owners of a oatmeal that we're building in 194 00:14:16,320 --> 00:14:23,040 Albert Lee, Minnesota and we're owners of it as well as 70 other farmers in our area 195 00:14:23,040 --> 00:14:28,760 that have all bought in to deliver oats to because they see the economic benefits of 196 00:14:28,760 --> 00:14:32,460 growing oats and they see the sustainability benefits of growing oats. 197 00:14:32,460 --> 00:14:39,040 So we're a real team of like minded producers building a mill that would provide traceable, 198 00:14:39,040 --> 00:14:43,040 sustainably produced oat products into the marketplace. 199 00:14:43,040 --> 00:14:47,720 We're seeing consumer demand for it increasing significantly. 200 00:14:47,720 --> 00:14:51,000 Every year the US oat market demand has increased 8%. 201 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:55,600 92% of the oats consumed in the US are imported from Canada though. 202 00:14:55,600 --> 00:15:00,580 The supply chain logistics that we have with the mill located here at the southern end 203 00:15:00,580 --> 00:15:06,960 of the oat growing region allow us to pay a higher price for oats than say what's currently 204 00:15:06,960 --> 00:15:13,040 paid while also providing a fair price to brands that are purchasing the product from 205 00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:14,040 us. 206 00:15:14,040 --> 00:15:19,040 We're breaking ground here when the ground thaws in spring of 2025 should be in full 207 00:15:19,040 --> 00:15:22,560 production by July of 2026. 208 00:15:22,560 --> 00:15:26,120 Our farm, we've grown a number of oats over the last few years. 209 00:15:26,120 --> 00:15:30,760 In the last five years I've grown about 2500 acres of oats. 210 00:15:30,760 --> 00:15:36,160 They've averaged 136 bushels an acre on a yield and 40.2 on a test weight. 211 00:15:36,160 --> 00:15:40,880 So we've been able to grow high quality, high yielding, milling grade oats here in 212 00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:42,200 Northern Iowa. 213 00:15:42,200 --> 00:15:47,520 Other farmers in our group have similar results in southern Minnesota, western Minnesota, 214 00:15:47,520 --> 00:15:51,760 western Wisconsin, eastern South Dakota. 215 00:15:51,760 --> 00:15:56,320 So we've proven in our region we can grow good quality milling grade oats. 216 00:15:56,320 --> 00:16:02,040 Our facility will handle about 3 million bushels of oats a year, both conventional and organic. 217 00:16:02,040 --> 00:16:07,560 Our focus is on the conventional product via some better differentiating factors on that 218 00:16:07,560 --> 00:16:11,760 but we also can provide a traceable organic product as well. 219 00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:19,980 Rough math on it is we're going to need 30,000 acres of oats to supply product to our mill. 220 00:16:19,980 --> 00:16:25,360 And so that will actually affect the rotation on 90,000 acres of crop land here in southern 221 00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:27,200 Minnesota and Northern Iowa. 222 00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:28,760 Which sounds like a lot. 223 00:16:28,760 --> 00:16:30,780 It is a scalable change. 224 00:16:30,780 --> 00:16:34,420 It's a lot more than we're currently doing but I think it's just the tip of the iceberg 225 00:16:34,420 --> 00:16:36,040 of what we can do. 226 00:16:36,040 --> 00:16:40,100 The consumer demand that we've seen and the brand demand we've seen. 227 00:16:40,100 --> 00:16:43,160 We have our products sold through 2028. 228 00:16:43,160 --> 00:16:48,240 We've seen demand for three times as much product as we're going to produce initially 229 00:16:48,240 --> 00:16:52,520 and we are building the mill, envelope the mill, building large enough to be able to 230 00:16:52,520 --> 00:16:56,220 double capacity just by adding some more machines. 231 00:16:56,220 --> 00:17:02,360 So I anticipate in two to three years from now we'll be doubling our capacity at the 232 00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:06,880 mill which in turn will affect 180,000 acres of crop land which then you're starting to 233 00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:08,320 talk larger numbers. 234 00:17:08,320 --> 00:17:12,000 You have any rough idea what roughly how many acres of oats are being raised in this region 235 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:13,000 now? 236 00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:19,400 Currently there's about 45,000 acres of oats grown in a 120 mile radius of Albert Lee Minnesota 237 00:17:19,400 --> 00:17:22,040 which is where our mill is. 238 00:17:22,040 --> 00:17:27,560 What we're seeing is a number of growers that are participating in the project doubling, 239 00:17:27,560 --> 00:17:32,680 tripling, quadrupling the acres of oats that they will grow because of the improved market 240 00:17:32,680 --> 00:17:33,680 for the oats. 241 00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:39,480 And we're not actually really competing against the existing millers in the area. 242 00:17:39,480 --> 00:17:42,520 We're just selling into market growth. 243 00:17:42,520 --> 00:17:45,940 We don't need to take any oats away from the existing millers. 244 00:17:45,940 --> 00:17:48,860 We don't need to take any market away from the existing millers. 245 00:17:48,860 --> 00:17:50,520 We're selling into market growth. 246 00:17:50,520 --> 00:17:54,560 We're not displacing oat production from anybody else. 247 00:17:54,560 --> 00:17:58,960 There's just that much more demand for oat product in our region. 248 00:17:58,960 --> 00:18:03,720 Well and another really good point is that there's a lot of excitement about some of 249 00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:06,000 these quote unquote new alternative crops. 250 00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:11,720 I know Forever Green Initiative at U of M has been working with a lot with say, Kernza, 251 00:18:11,720 --> 00:18:14,240 Camelina, some other crops like that. 252 00:18:14,240 --> 00:18:15,960 The market isn't quite there for those. 253 00:18:15,960 --> 00:18:18,280 I mean that doesn't mean we should give up on them. 254 00:18:18,280 --> 00:18:24,720 It just, you know, there wasn't a market for soybeans earlier in the 20th century. 255 00:18:24,720 --> 00:18:30,400 But right now, you know, you've done the calculations and I've seen the numbers. 256 00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:34,520 There is a market for oats plus farmers know how to grow that. 257 00:18:34,520 --> 00:18:40,720 They maybe have gotten out of the habit of growing it, but there is that culture there 258 00:18:40,720 --> 00:18:45,340 of integrating a small grain into the corn soybean rotation. 259 00:18:45,340 --> 00:18:50,360 So that, if nothing else, can be, if we're going to diversify agriculture, boy, it's 260 00:18:50,360 --> 00:18:55,160 kind of a real reachable goal right there with integrating something like oats right 261 00:18:55,160 --> 00:18:56,160 now. 262 00:18:56,160 --> 00:19:02,400 With the different factors our U.S. domestically sourced oats have over the current oat supply, 263 00:19:02,400 --> 00:19:06,320 the market is here for oats and it's a growing market. 264 00:19:06,320 --> 00:19:10,760 Some of these other specialty crops, we have to develop the knowledge on how to grow them. 265 00:19:10,760 --> 00:19:13,560 We have to develop the infrastructure to grow them. 266 00:19:13,560 --> 00:19:17,560 But we also have to develop the market and that takes time. 267 00:19:17,560 --> 00:19:18,560 It just does. 268 00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:25,160 It's 20 acres of kernza, you know, is great, but to make scalable change, that might take 269 00:19:25,160 --> 00:19:31,480 10 years, 15 years to be a viable third crop in our rotations where the demand is here 270 00:19:31,480 --> 00:19:33,280 for oats now. 271 00:19:33,280 --> 00:19:39,140 And so we see oats as kind of a low-hanging fruit essentially to get farms into a more 272 00:19:39,140 --> 00:19:43,240 diverse sustainable rotation through crop rotation. 273 00:19:43,240 --> 00:19:47,320 And they're also kind of a gateway to some of these other crops. 274 00:19:47,320 --> 00:19:52,560 They allow other crops to be planted because oats are harvested in mid-July and that opens 275 00:19:52,560 --> 00:19:59,180 up the opportunity to have a much more viable cover crop, a much more viable second crop 276 00:19:59,180 --> 00:20:02,120 than a corn and bean rotation. 277 00:20:02,120 --> 00:20:06,480 And as farmers learn about other crops and have experience with growing, say, a small 278 00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:12,360 grain like oats, they're also more willing to try other different crops as they have 279 00:20:12,360 --> 00:20:13,360 success. 280 00:20:13,360 --> 00:20:18,000 You really strike me as somebody who's looking at this and some of the other things that 281 00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:22,680 you've been doing over the years, really look at the rural economic development, kind of 282 00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:29,240 the big picture holistic view of how is this going to benefit the community and the rural 283 00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:36,240 economy and not just, well, can we get a great market for this one commodity and make money 284 00:20:36,240 --> 00:20:37,640 while we can kind of thing. 285 00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:40,280 But that's something that sounds like you really think about quite a bit. 286 00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:44,600 Yeah, our rural communities struggle here in Northern Iowa, Southern Minnesota, and 287 00:20:44,600 --> 00:20:49,760 they struggle because our farms aren't diverse enough and our labor isn't diverse enough. 288 00:20:49,760 --> 00:20:58,320 And we're so focused on a monocrop culture that we need to move beyond that and figure 289 00:20:58,320 --> 00:21:04,480 out a way to, say, export more dollars per acre from our communities, from our towns, 290 00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:10,320 from our counties, from our states and our areas and the more dollars we can sell per 291 00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:17,920 acre, whether that's oats and cattle or the more profitability a farmer can have per acre. 292 00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:22,520 If a farmer is making $50 an acre, that's the dollars they have to spend in their communities. 293 00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:27,480 If they're making $200 an acre, that's the dollars they have to spend in their communities. 294 00:21:27,480 --> 00:21:33,360 And by farmers being more successful while also being better for the environment with 295 00:21:33,360 --> 00:21:39,560 our cover crop practices, small grains in our rotation, that in turn is better for everybody 296 00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:41,080 involved in the community. 297 00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:45,280 It's more dollars for our schools, more dollars for our hospitals, more dollars for our main 298 00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:54,080 streets and more people shopping there as there's more different things growing on our land. 299 00:21:54,080 --> 00:22:01,400 It spreads out our labor growing small grains, but it is most likely more labor per acre, 300 00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:06,400 but you're growing more dollars per acre, more money per acre coming in. 301 00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:11,280 You have to take care of the cattle on the land or the chickens or the sheep or your 302 00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:14,080 second crop or your third crop on that land. 303 00:22:14,080 --> 00:22:20,320 And so that will make our farms and our farm communities be more successful while also 304 00:22:20,320 --> 00:22:24,480 being able to compete economically and scalably. 305 00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:30,160 We have to provide good quality, low cost food for consumers. 306 00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:32,280 That's what people need to eat. 307 00:22:32,280 --> 00:22:38,440 And we can't necessarily produce food that costs four times as much just because it's 308 00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:42,240 grown in a sustainable manner and expect consumers to buy that. 309 00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:48,720 We need to appeal to every consumer out there by providing high quality, sustainably produced 310 00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:53,400 food at a price point that's very similar to what's currently out there. 311 00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:54,400 Yeah. 312 00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:57,720 And going back a little bit to the environmental, when you were talking about how many more 313 00:22:57,720 --> 00:23:02,880 acres you could scale up or how many acres, how this could change the rotation in the 314 00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:07,560 region because of the number of acres you would need to supply this facility. 315 00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:12,080 Something as simple as, it's not simple, but it's not a simple problem, but particularly 316 00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:17,240 in Southern Minnesota, the nitrate contamination issue, and I know it's an issue in Northern 317 00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:18,600 Iowa as well. 318 00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:25,020 You could, by converting that number of acres or getting that amount of oats into that rotation, 319 00:23:25,020 --> 00:23:30,440 you can reduce the amount of just something like nitrates, which is a huge issue and we're 320 00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:35,520 having a real problem trying to figure out how to prevent it from getting in there in 321 00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:38,480 the first place because once it gets into the groundwater, it's almost impossible to 322 00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:39,880 get out, that type of thing. 323 00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:40,880 Yeah. 324 00:23:40,880 --> 00:23:45,200 Oats and small grains in general, they do take less nitrogen to grow them than say corn 325 00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:50,800 does, but their root systems and the cover crop root systems, following oats with oats, 326 00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:55,000 companion to with oats, the data is out there and we have the data from some of our partners 327 00:23:55,000 --> 00:24:00,800 that it's basically, it can be up to a four-fold decrease in the amount of nitrates in drinking 328 00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:05,720 water in tiles, leaving a field of oats as compared to leaving a field of corn. 329 00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:09,360 A lot of that's due to water holding capacity. 330 00:24:09,360 --> 00:24:11,540 The water isn't leaving our farm. 331 00:24:11,540 --> 00:24:12,540 It's staying there. 332 00:24:12,540 --> 00:24:17,360 The nitrogen is staying on the farm operation where it's placed and so that's available 333 00:24:17,360 --> 00:24:18,360 for crops. 334 00:24:18,360 --> 00:24:23,460 We can use in turn as kind of a staircase effect. 335 00:24:23,460 --> 00:24:29,320 We can use less nitrogen because our soils are retaining more nitrogen. 336 00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:31,800 It's not running away. 337 00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:36,340 It really has a lot of positive effects for the environment on nitrates in the drinking 338 00:24:36,340 --> 00:24:45,760 water to erosion from the farmland to insects, beneficial insects, just different crops on 339 00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:46,760 our land as well. 340 00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:53,880 Are there one or two major barriers you see to getting more small grains or other third 341 00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:58,200 crops integrated into our corn and soybean system? 342 00:24:58,200 --> 00:25:01,680 Is there some barriers that you were like, boy, if we could figure that one out, that 343 00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:04,160 would really help us get over that hump a little bit? 344 00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:11,760 I think the biggest barrier we have to overcome is the market and middle of the supply chain 345 00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:12,760 infrastructure. 346 00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:18,880 A product like oats, the market is there, but the middle of the supply chain infrastructure 347 00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:23,280 for farmers to sell to that market isn't there. 348 00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:29,120 That's why we need projects similar to our Green Acres milling project that allow farmers 349 00:25:29,120 --> 00:25:34,080 to move farther down the supply chain, become more vertically integrated, and go beyond 350 00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:48,880 just being a commodity producer to actually producing food people eat. 351 00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:53,440 For more on building soil health profitably, diversifying agriculture, and community-based 352 00:25:53,440 --> 00:26:01,760 food systems, see the podcast page for Ear to the Ground episode 363 at landstewardshipproject.org. 353 00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:05,140 There you'll also see links to other episodes in this series. 354 00:26:05,140 --> 00:26:09,720 If you have comments or suggestions about this podcast, contact Brian DeVore at bdevorre 355 00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:17,040 at landstewardshipproject.org or you can call 612-816-9342. 356 00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:20,900 By the way, it helps us greatly if you can give Ear to the Ground a rating on whatever 357 00:26:20,900 --> 00:26:23,400 podcast platform you utilize. 358 00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:27,140 And word of mouth is the best way to spread the news about our podcast. 359 00:26:27,140 --> 00:26:32,280 If you like what you hear, tell at least one person about LSP's Ear to the Ground. 360 00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:37,520 Thanks to Laura Borgendahl, a Western Minnesota musician, for Ear to the Ground's theme music. 361 00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:41,780 And a special thank you to all of Land Stewardship Project's members, who make initiatives 362 00:26:41,780 --> 00:26:43,720 such as this podcast possible. 363 00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:49,880 If you're not a member, visit landstewardshipproject.org to learn how you can support LSP. 364 00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:58,440 Thanks for listening.