We planned on recording 12 episodes of this biophilia-focused season, but we couldn't end without talking to Jeff Tkach, the Chief Impact Officer at Rodale Institute, about the place where life begins: The Soil. As Rodale has proven, Healthy Soil equals Healthy Food, which makes Healthy People, and the healthiest soil is organic and regenerative. Not only is healthy soil important for us, it's important for the planet.
Jeff is responsible for expanding Rodale Institute's global influence to heal people and the planet by unlocking the transformational power of regenerative organic agriculture. He was in Chattahoochee Hills this November to open Rodale Institute's Southeast Organic Center - one of three research hubs being opened across the country to increase the number of organic farms and acres in production through training and education.
In this episode, we talk with Jeff about training new farmers, why J.I. Rodale hated the word "sustainable," and how Rodale is putting $2 million into the future of food.
We planned on recording 12 episodes of this biophilia-focused season, but we couldn't end without talking to Jeff Tkach, the Chief Impact Officer at Rodale Institute, about the place where life begins: The Soil. As Rodale has proven, Healthy Soil equals Healthy Food, which makes Healthy People, and the healthiest soil is organic and regenerative. Not only is healthy soil important for us, it's important for the planet.
Jeff is responsible for expanding Rodale Institute's global influence to heal people and the planet by unlocking the transformational power of regenerative organic agriculture. He was in Chattahoochee Hills this November to open Rodale Institute's Southeast Organic Center - one of three research hubs being opened across the country to increase the number of organic farms and acres in production through training and education.
In this episode, we talk with Jeff about training new farmers, why J.I. Rodale hated the word "sustainable," and how Rodale is putting $2 million into the future of food.
0 (1s):
Hey guys, it's Monica here. I wanted to tell you about a new podcast that I've started with my very good friend, Jennifer Walsh called biophilic solutions. Our last season of ceremony stories, building a biophilic movement was so popular that we decided to dedicate an entire podcast to it every other week. Jennifer and I will sit down with leaders in the growing field of biophilia. We'll talk about local and global solutions to help nurture the living social and economic systems that we all need to sustain. Future generations more often than not. Nature has the answers. You can find biophilic solutions on apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe and follow us today. So you don't miss an episode.
0 (41s):
All right, now let's get back to ceremony. Stories. Ceremony is a place where the innate connections humans have with nature and all living things is celebrated through work and play. And we're here to tell the stories of those who have been inspired by this biophilic way of life in our community and across the country. This is ceremony stories.
0 (1m 23s):
We planned on recording 12 episodes of this biophilia focus season, but we couldn't end without talking to Jeff catch the chief impact officer of Rodale Institute about the place where life begins. The soil as Rodale has proven healthy soil equals healthy food, and that makes healthy people and the healthiest soil is organic and regenerative. Not only is the healthy soil important for us. It's important for the planet. Jeff is responsible for expanding Rodale Institute's global influence to heal people in the planet by unlocking the transformational power of regenerative organic agriculture. He was here with us in Chattahoochee Hills, this November to open the Rodale institutes Southeast organic center, one of three new research hubs being opened across the country to increase the number of organic farms and acres in production, through training and education.
0 (2m 14s):
In today's episode, we talk with Jeff about training, new farmers. Why J I Rodale hated the word sustainable and how Rodale is putting over $2 million into the future of food. But first ceremony stories is brought to you by the, in it ceremony. The Inn is nestled in the rolling countryside at bucolic ceremony, where guests can walk on the 15 miles of trails through preserved forest land, the wildflower meadow, and the animal village. You can relax by the pool hot tub or in rocking chairs on the wraparound porch, play on the croquet lawn swings and in-ground trampolines connect with nature and each other all while staying in luxurious rooms on the in-ground or within the community of Seren. Be book your stay today@sarahbeaton.com.
0 (2m 55s):
Well, I want to welcome everybody back to ceremony stories today. Today we have a very, very good friend of ours, Jeff Kach from the Rodale Institute. And of course, Steve Nygren welcome. Welcome Jeff. What an honor it is to be here. Steve, thank
2 (3m 7s):
You so much. We're always excited when you come here.
3 (3m 10s):
Well, this is one I've been looking forward to for a long time.
0 (3m 12s):
Well, good. We've been wanting to get you on the podcast for a while, but you're here for a very special reason. We're actually in person today, which is very special. You are here in Atlanta, in Sarah and B. Tell us why you're here. Yeah,
3 (3m 25s):
Well, I will start by saying that I would never be here today. If it wasn't for the genius work of Steve Nygren and helping to connect the dots and making it a reality for Rodale Institute to literally have a physical campus here in the Chattahoochee Hills. So thank you, Steve. We're delighted. Yeah. So I'm here today in this week because we are having an open house at a newly established re regional resource center. We call it the Southeast organic center and it's a location that is run by the Rodale Institute about a mile and a half from where we're sitting right now. And so we're here today because our team of researchers and scientists are opening up our doors to farmers all across the state of Georgia and around the region to come and see what we're working on.
3 (4m 9s):
And we're just embarking on this, this new project. And we're all very, very excited about what we're about to do here in the Southeast.
0 (4m 16s):
Well, and we're thrilled to have you, but you did not grow up in the Institute world, the Rodale Institute, what I want to hear more about in a minute, but I want to hear about your background because you've been into health and wellness for a really long time, but originally you've worked for what most people know is Rodale publishing a lot of the magazines that Rodale sold off a couple of years ago. So tell us a little bit about how you got to be part of Rodale Institute.
3 (4m 40s):
Yeah, yeah. Thanks Monica. Yeah, it's been an interesting journey and a journey at that. My interest in health and wellness actually began in a really young age. So probably around the age of 12 or 13, I had been a very unhealthy adolescent. So most of my young childhood, I have a lot of memories of being sick and making many trips back and forth to the doctor. I had, I have two wonderful parents and they cared a lot about me and were very concerned about my health. And they did like what any good parent would do at the time and took me to a doctor, a conventional doctor, and the doctor found out that I had, I was dealing with asthma and allergies. And so the doctor began treating me with traditional modalities, medicine, treatments, and other things like that.
3 (5m 22s):
So around the age of seven to let's say 13, I just remember feeling kind of perpetually sick. And at the age of 13, I sustained a pretty bad injury, a physical injury that left me on the couch for six weeks recovering. And during that time, I remember feeling at the lowest point in my life and just feeling very sad about the state of my body. And I said, Hey, mom, do me a favor. Next time you go to the grocery store, I want you to buy me a magazine, the magazine. And I had just seen this infomercial on the TV. I said, mom, the magazine is called men's health. So she goes to the store, buys me a copy of men's health. And like any kid growing up in the late eighties, early nineties, you know, a magazine, that's all there was.
3 (6m 3s):
So you'd read it, not once, but like cover to cover like 20 times. And I, and so about a couple of days go by and I say, okay, now mom, here's a grocery list. I want you to, when you, next time you go to the grocery store, buy me all these foods. Cause this is what the magazine told me to eat. If I want to be healthy. And it was kind of like a, like a, an awakening moment for me at a very young age where I said, you know what? My health is in my control and I'm going to do everything I can to be healthy. And so starting at that age, I put myself on a diet. I recovered from the injury and that really kind of set the stage for the rest of my life. I go off to college. I studied marketing was really interested in health and wellness at the time. And as I graduated college, I thought, well, where am I going to work?
3 (6m 45s):
Where can I put together? Like this marketing degree with my passions for health and wellness. And I remember literally asking that question to a dear friend of mine. And he said, well, you should go to work at Rodale. And I said, what's Rodale. So I went out and at that time it was like around 2000, the year, 2000. So the internet was becoming a thing and I did this search on Rodale and I looked at all these products and I was like, oh my God, they're the publisher of men's health magazine and laterally that, but the company, the very company was based about 10 miles from where I grew up. So this whole time I had no idea that there was this entire story behind this product that changed my life. And so the following year I graduated from college, I apply for an entry-level job in publishing, got hired at men's health magazine, worked one one year for that brand, and then ended up spending about 16 total years moving throughout the company and working on various products.
3 (7m 38s):
But that really began my journey with Rodale.
0 (7m 40s):
Well, and that actually leads us perfectly into your ceremony story, which I always like to ask, like, how did you come into Sarah and B? And so I can sort of start us off, but I just sort of love that is that we had a reporter come from what at the time was organic magazine. And we took her around. She stayed for a couple of days and she said, you know, we should do like a show house that talks about all healthy things and organics and all this stuff. And I showed sure, let's, let's do that. And that led to me getting on the phone with you at some point, cause I think you were the publisher at the time. And, and from there I remember getting on the phone with you and I don't know, I think it was the first time we talked, you immediately told me, or maybe quickly into the conversation that you, what you really wanted to do was work for Rodale Institute.
0 (8m 29s):
And I was like, well, what's the Rodale Institute. And so you started to tell me what it is. And next thing we know here you are at the Rodale Institute, but you really came into our lives through marketing originally.
3 (8m 44s):
Yeah, most people don't realize our founder, J I Rodale, he's widely known as the pioneer of the organic food and farming movement in north America. He actually is credited for coining the term organic as it's used today in relation to agriculture and food. But he, he's a very interesting, fascinating man. His story was profound, but along his journey in this, in this journey towards understanding organic agriculture, he was so excited about his discoveries, that he started a publishing company in may of 1942. And he founded a magazine called organic gardening and farming. And so his, his original sort of way into the organic movement was by launching a physical product, a magazine. And then it was several years later as he was getting into the further he went in his journey of understanding what was fundamentally broken in agriculture.
3 (9m 33s):
The more he realized the need and the necessity for groundbreaking research to really help undergird the philosophical ideas that were coming into the fore at that time, he wanted to ground those full philosophical ideas with science. So he started the Rodale Institute in 1947. We're a nonprofit organization based in Eastern Pennsylvania. And we're 100% focused on doing the science, the research and the education around helping to advance the organic farming movement.
0 (10m 2s):
Well, and I always tell people that you guys are the longest running side-by-side trial in the world of traditional or conventional versus organic. Is that true? Or am I just making that?
3 (10m 13s):
So, so J I Rodale had a son, his, his son, Robert Rodale became the leader of the Rodale Institute in the 1970s. And he among other leaders in the food industry, they were beginning to see what was happening. They began to see trends and they saw the growth in this organic market. Health food stores were popping up. You know, there was sort of that whole back to the land movement that was taking shape. And there was just a growing interest in health and in food. And a lot of brands, a lot of national brands were beginning to co-op the word organic and Bob Rodale became concerned that organic needed to be defined and really grounded in science. He felt like it was just becoming more and more esoteric and he wanted to ground it with, with research, but also with a standard.
3 (10m 60s):
So he and other food leaders all kind of felt the same. And Bob Rodale began going back and forth to Washington DC around the mid to late seventies and asking our federal government to create a standard around this idea of organic and he and other food leaders basically got laughed out of the room when they said, you know, our, I almost imagine our government saying, yeah, great idea. But it's just an idea. Show us the science, if this organic thing is real and you want us to create federal policy around it, well, we need to prove that it's even a real thing. So Bob Rodale, I think just to prove a point goes back to Pennsylvania where Rodale's headquarters are. And in 1981, he started, what's now known as the farming systems trial.
3 (11m 42s):
And it is the longest running side-by-side comparison of organic and conventional grain crops in the world. There's no other study, that's run for 41 years and there are now several other studies have replicated it. But nine years into this whole thing that year in 1990, it was the year that our government passed the national organic production act. So it was this one piece of science that gave our government enough confidence to create legislation and policy around it. And we now, every time you go to the grocery store and you see that little organic label on food, it's because of the science that's housed at Rodale.
0 (12m 17s):
I'm the incredible, well, one of the things. So when we first started getting deep into the Rodale side of it, the Institute side, cause I also remember you coming and telling Steve and I, you know, you guys wanted, once you moved over to the Institute side because the magazines were divested and I think Hearst bought them. It actually happened after I left though. I
3 (12m 38s):
Haven't, I think it's important to note this, I think around the year 2004, I was at a pretty young age and at a pretty early in my career in publishing, I was given the honor of working on the original brand called organic gardening. It was a magazine that was the founding product inside of Rodale. And it was kind of the whole product life cycle. Like there's the growth and the maturation and the decline. Well, this product had run its course. It was about 60 years old at the time. And they needed to kind of just get it into maintenance mode. And so they asked, I was in advertising and publishing and they said, Hey, listen, you know, you're seem like an ambitious guy.
3 (13m 18s):
Do you want to give it a shot? This product is failing
1 (13m 21s):
To do is do it, do whatever you can with it.
3 (13m 23s):
You know, like we're not expecting much, but I was like, absolutely sign me up for that. So I became the publisher, I think at the age of 26 or 27. And what was interesting is about a year after I got put in this position, if you look at the date, the market data starting at around oh five oh six, that's when the market, the organic industry, the market just shot up. So we, we built a little team on this. It was kind of like the little engine that could organic gardening magazine. And one by one, I would travel across the United States and meet with CEOs and ad agencies. And we started selling forward into the magazine then Subaru and then general mills. And like all these big brands that started investing in the organic market started buying media in organic gardening again.
3 (14m 9s):
And my strategy was unique in that I knew that Rodale Inc was also tied to this nonprofit called the Institute. So what I would do is instead of going out to see clients, I would get them to come to us and I would take them one by one to the Institute and be like, this is what Rodale really does. And every time I'd go out there, I would fall more and more in love with this work. And it just became sort of burnt into me into my soul. Like I'm meant to work here someday. And it just stuck with me. It always kind of was in the back of my mind that someday maybe I'll work there and that's kind of how that happened.
0 (14m 43s):
Yeah. Cause you did go over before everything sort of got sold off. And I remember you telling me, you know, we really want to bring more research centers across the world really, you know, and I was like, well, what does that mean? You know, what are you guys planning to do with that? And so tell us a little bit about that sort of seed of idea, which was maybe three, four years. Yeah. That's exactly
3 (15m 4s):
What it was. Right. So Rodale Institute is housed on it. We have a 333 acre campus in Eastern Pennsylvania. We've been on that campus for just over 40 years and it houses over 26 research projects across all disciplines of agriculture. And it's really become a center of excellence for organic farming in the world. Every year we play hosts in a normal year anyway, to about 15 to 20,000 people that come from all over to visit and see an experience. Steve has been there and Monica and you know, what we realized was that farming in Pennsylvania is not the same as farming in California or Iowa or even Ohio or Georgia.
3 (15m 45s):
And so yes, farmers would come, scientists would come, consumers would come and learn and train and then go home and implement what they learned. But we thought to ourselves, not every most farmers don't have the luxury of getting on a plane and taking time away from their own farm and spending money to come and travel. So that coupled with the fact that region by region agriculture is different. We, we, we believe that Rodale's role in the world was to create more Rodale institutes so that we could basically take our science out into the world in places where it were most needed. And so, yeah, I think in our, some of our early meetings, Monica and Steve, I do recall sharing that. That was one of our ambitions was to launch these centers
0 (16m 25s):
Well and to bring or get more organic farming to the country. Because I think the other thing that I do recall hearing is that, you know, if there was a really robust organic research center in a state, they had more organic farming. Is
3 (16m 39s):
That correct? Yeah, that's right. So I'll give you a great example of that. So right now in Georgia, you guys have just under 200 certified organic farms, the state of Pennsylvania, where I live, we have almost 1400 certified organic farms. And our governor, governor Wolf became privy to this data a couple of years ago. He saw some numbers that showed that Pennsylvania is now the number two producer of organic food in the nation. Second, only to the state of California. Now those numbers have changed a little bit. We might've lost ranking over the last year or two, but at the time governor Wolf saw that data and he was excited. He thought, how on earth are we the second largest organic production in the, in the country? And his secretary of agriculture said, well, that's easy.
3 (17m 21s):
Governor Wolf has cause Rodale's here. And they've been here and by proximity because Rodale is kind of like a lightning rod in our state for organic farmers can come and then go home and they can do that in a day trip. And we've been doing that year after year, decade after decade. And that's been the fruit of that. And so we feel like if we can create other hubs of activity around organic chips, kind of rise with that tide,
2 (17m 46s):
Many people think of organics as being that boutique farm to, but actually you're talking about the agrarian economy and how has that been developed in Pennsylvania?
3 (17m 58s):
Yeah, we're talking about reinventing agriculture, you know, and as we're watching, you know, even in Pennsylvania, governor Wolf was looking at that data and he say, wait a minute, there's all these successful organic farms over here, like better have a healthy bottom line, but I'm bailing out conventional, mostly dairy farms in Pennsylvania with good taxpayer dollars. She's saying that's not right. And so what Rodale is trying to do is bring our science and our best practice to help create economic vitality, to create a new economy of agriculture all over the United States and all over the world. We believe that the future is organic. Our science is proving that the conventional models, conventional ways of producing food, aren't working anymore. They're just simply not working. They're not penciling out economically and biologic and biologically, they're not performing.
3 (18m 44s):
We're seeing all kinds of challenges on, on chemical, conventional driven farms.
2 (18m 49s):
And our food is not as nutritious because the soil is not as healthy. So exactly
3 (18m 54s):
Right. The, the state of soil health is in an all-time decline. Current estimate suggests that if we continue to farm the way we farm using chemical conventional approaches, we have something like 60 irritable growing seasons left before our soil is just don't give produce anymore. And
2 (19m 10s):
If we think this pandemic's bad, imagine if people are starving. Yeah. And yeah, well,
3 (19m 16s):
We saw that Steve, if you, if you look back to February, March growth, what happened? You go into the grocery stores and the shelves were bare. Why is that? Because I'll tell you why. And during world war II era there, during the years of world war II, as an example, we were growing some 45% of all produce consumed in the United States in our own backyards, 45%. Wow. Fast forward to today during the pandemic, we were at a point where this country is net importing, 17% of all the food we purchase. So what a pandemic does is it exposes for LTS, right? And I think the pandemic had exposed a massive frailty in our, in our food supply chains.
3 (19m 57s):
We became so dependent on imports when we have some of the most verdant soils in the world right here in this country. And then you compound that with our human health frailties. I mean, we've, you know, why are we S I'm not, I'm certainly not a medical expert, but it's becoming clear to me that our, the immune systems of our citizens are weakening and we're becoming more frail in our ability to handle, you know, these, these kinds of health challenges. Would
2 (20m 25s):
You see? I mean, what you're proving is when the soil is not healthy, the plants aren't healthy and that's when bugs and disease, and we're the same thing as the soil goes, we go, yeah, you have a great saying about that.
3 (20m 35s):
Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you invited that because I would be remissed to not share the mission of Rodale. J I Rodel, I did mention that he was not a fan. I may have mentioned he was not a farmer. When he started his work, he was actually a businessman and entrepreneur much like you. And he had a real interest in health. And so he thought to himself, well, if I could buy a farm and grow my own food, then that I could empower myself to be healthy. So he did, he actually came out to Pennsylvania. He actually moved his manufacturing business out of New York city into Pennsylvania set up shop because it was lower cost of living lower labor rates. And, and then thought, well, if I'm living in Pennsylvania, then I'm going to buy a farm too.
3 (21m 16s):
So I could raise my family and grow my own food while I run my business. So he buys a farm, a 60 acre dilapidated farm. And he says, okay, now I got to go learn how to farm. And he goes out and he meets with the local extension agent. Okay. There was an extension agent at our meeting this morning. And I can almost imagine how the conversation went. He said, okay, J I Rodale, you want to know how to farm? And he said, yeah, I wanna know how to farm. He said, it's really simple. You go out and you buy these things called inputs, chemical inputs. They're all the rage right now. And you bring them onto your farm and you apply them to your soil. And that's how you grow food. And he's like, oh, okay. I have a manufacturing company. I make, I make products. And I know that if I want to make the very best products, I need to bring in inputs into my factory.
3 (22m 1s):
And if I bring the higher quality of the inputs, the better outputs, and he thought, okay, if that's how farming works, then that's how farming works. But can someone please explain to me what magic happens in the soil that would take toxic synthetic pesticides and herbicides and turn that into healthy food. Can someone please explain that to me? And of course, no one could. And so that's, that was sort of like a light bulb moment for GI Rodel, where he wrote these words literally on a chalkboard. And he said that healthy soil equals healthy food, equals healthy people. And that's been our mission statement ever since. And so what he was essentially saying, I think what GI Rodale was saying in those words, and you were just alluding to it, Steve, that our job as farmers is not to produce food, which air Rodel was saying is that our job as farmers is to produce healthy people.
3 (22m 53s):
And so right now, in 2020, as our world faces this pandemic, we should be looking to our farmers as the solution to find our way out of this.
2 (23m 0s):
Yes. I mean, several people have said, you know, rural America is not where the problem is. It is where the solution is. And that's true with if we had treated our soil correctly and our grazing, we will not have a carbon problem.
3 (23m 17s):
That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I recently gave a talk at a, in back in September of the United nations does a annual global day of action. And there was a conference, a sub conference to that called the food forever conference. And it was all virtual this year. So I gave a talk and, you know, the United nations has the 17 global sustainability goals. I believe it's called SDGs. And I was reading the goals as I was writing my speech of the day, the morning prior. And I was like, wait a minute. I went one by one through all these, these goals around climate carbon, sequestration, human health, hunger, water, air, all these goals around all the biggest issues that we know of.
3 (23m 57s):
And I, I connected the dots that agriculture and soil health fixes 14 out of the 17.
2 (24m 5s):
And that, that's what, that's a big message that needs to get out. It's incredible. And, and now more and more people are messaging. I, I know you seen kiss the ground, which just tells your story. Yeah,
3 (24m 19s):
Yeah, yeah. It almost feels like this is our moment. You know, we're seeing all these, you know, and even today I was, I had the opportunity to meet with about 20 farmers from around the state of Georgia. And then shortly thereafter, we had a virtual conference this afternoon, which Monica attended and, you know, had a hundred people from around the United States that are so focused on what we're doing. That's just a microcosm of what I've been experiencing this year. This year in and of itself has accelerated the work of regenerative agriculture, unlike any other moment in recent history, we have seen such momentum for our movement. And I think it's because it's, our world is ready for it. Well, and
0 (24m 54s):
You just had a really good word there. And I don't know if you brought it up yet is regenerative. So talk a little bit about regenerative. Cause that was something also that I started, started to learn from you a few years back that regenerative is, is another level beyond organic in, in what is that
3 (25m 11s):
Glad you brought that up? Monica. So J J I Rodale our founder is widely credited for coining the term organic, which is a biological process to agriculture. As in term, instead of a chemical process, we're basically working with nature to grow up, to produce food and to create healthy soil that that word rang true for a long time. And around around the 1970s, Robert Rodale GI son, he was a world traveler and would often travel to very third world parts of the world that were struggling with agriculture. And at that time, the word sustainability was coming into Vogue and Robert Rodale thought that was, he hated that word.
3 (25m 54s):
He thought it was a really poor choice of words to describe anything worth sustaining. He thought he would look around where he'd go at these often arid, desert fide, agricultural settings in Africa and other places. And he would look around and he'd say sustainability. There's nothing here to sustain. And he thought to himself, wait a minute. If we begin to look at agriculture through the, through the lens of regeneration, if we start with improving the health of the soil, if we get our farmers in these places to think about the soil and regenerate, just regenerate the soil. Well then guess what? To your point, Steve, the nutrient uptake, the nutrient density of the food and the plants themselves flourish.
3 (26m 36s):
The people consuming that food flourish, the farmers flourish and little by little entire communities get better and better and better over time. And he said regeneration. And then he went back and that became Bob Rodale's whole platform for a long time, was this idea of regeneration. And in recent years, we've seen an entire industry begin to shift its attention. So organic is now becoming a very mainstream conversation, but like any good industry you always want to innovate, right? How do you push the bar higher? No one knows that better than you, Steve. You're always thinking beyond how can I push further? And so Rodale Institute in recent years has sat down with some leaders in the food industry and we've launched the newest, highest bar standard in food production.
3 (27m 20s):
It's called the regenerative organic certification. And it's really moving beyond just this idea of getting chemicals out of a, of a system. But it's now a regenerative ag regenerative, organic agriculture encompasses three main pillars. The first is soil health. The second is animal welfare. How are they? How are they animals in our agricultural systems being treated? And then thirdly is human wellbeing. How are the human workers in our farming systems being treated or they're being paid a fair wage? Are they biggie being given access to healthcare? And other means, so regenerative organic agriculture is a very high bar that we've set for food and farming.
2 (27m 56s):
Now, clearly you, you really do have the formula that could save planet earth and the people on it, but how are you going to save the farms and match them with young farmers? What are you doing there to yeah. Make all this in practice. Yeah.
3 (28m 14s):
Yeah. The statistics show that there are currently six times the amount of farmers over the age of 65 than there are under the age of 35. So over the next 10 years, we're going to see millions of acres of land change hands. And Rodale is very aware of that and is working very hard. So in addition to research, the second pillar of our work is farmer training and education. We at Rodale Institute house, many interns from all over the world that come in and physically live, not just at the, at our campus in Pennsylvania, but we're going to be having a steady stream of interns here in Georgia and our, at our campus in Iowa and our campus in California, as well as we're, we're moving aggressively into online farmer training, but we have to work really diligently to train the next generation of farmers.
3 (28m 57s):
But I have to tell you, I am, I am more encouraged than any than ever before, because I'm seeing so many bright young people that are highly educated. We're talking about masters and PhD level young people that are, that are choosing agriculture as their career path. And they're coming to learn and train from us and from many other great organizations that are training farmers.
2 (29m 20s):
And so once they're trained, how are you matching them with land? Cause they don't always have the money to do that.
3 (29m 26s):
Yeah, well, the reality is, is, you know, that's a whole nother area of expertise. So we're working with other partners to try to work towards that end. You know, that's probably not Rodale's role to play, but there's some other like-minded organizations like the conservation fund who are helping to match farmers with land. So, you know, Rodale doesn't do anything in isolation. We do everything in partnership. That's why we're here with you. And so we, our doors are wide open, but we, we do want to play a role in training the farmers and then work with other like-minded partner organizations to get those farmers placed
2 (29m 59s):
On land. And can you talk about their relationship with the conservation fund? Is that yeah,
3 (30m 4s):
Absolutely. So we have built a great relationships thing. Thank you for making that connection and where so conservation fund is another national organization. Their main focus is working on preserving and maintaining wild places, so farmland and other other, other public land use. But right now they're very focused on, on farmland and ranch land and getting that land not only preserved and protected in perpetuity to ensure that it's always used for agriculture, but they're also creating a new farmers fund to give young farmers access to land and capital to get their farm started. And then what Rodale is going to offer is the training and the technical assistance for Ana to make sure that those farmers are successful.
3 (30m 46s):
Long-term, it's a great program. Great.
0 (30m 50s):
Like at the end of the virtual call and webinar today on that was launching the research center, Jeff Moyer kind of dropped like a $2 million bomb at the end that I felt like, kind of was done deed. Can you tell me a little bit about that this taking from your, the institutes foundation or
3 (31m 7s):
Tell me Jeff Boyer buried the lead. I think he buried the lead.
2 (31m 12s):
I think it was the bridge, the next door, but at the end
0 (31m 16s):
He was like, oh, and by the way, we're taking two mines, $2 million from our, you know, the, the foundation or the endowment and we're setting it aside to help train and grow new farmers. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, where did, so tell me a little bit about that. Tell us a little bit about it. Cause I was like, I wanted to know more, but I was heading off
3 (31m 39s):
There's so many organizations, especially on the financial side that are bubbling to the surface right now, there is a financial institution that Rodale has developed a fantastic partnership with it's called Iroquois valley farms and they're a real estate investment trust. So it's an investment strategy started by a couple of entrepreneurs, very visionary entrepreneurs that are, that are looking at the data and they're looking out and they're seeing the growth in the end, the demand for organic food, that's grown domestically and they're seeing there's a shortfall right now. So, so the total us food economy, about 6% of all food purchased in the United States is certified organic. About 14% of all produce purchased in the United States is certified organic 80% of all households in this country bought at least one organic item in the past month.
3 (32m 27s):
Wow. With all that said, we're only producing about 1%, 1% domestically. So we're S we're net importing. There's a shortage of certified organic acreage in this country and a strong demanded pipeline for it. Consumers want it farmers aren't, aren't delivering it yet. So these guys that are core valley Iroquois valley have created a whole investment strategy. That's allowing you and I to invest in organic farmland. We can put our money, our retirement, our 401k's. We can invest into this investment portfolio and what Iroquois valley is doing is buying land, transitioning it to organic and then putting farmers on that land and Rodale is working with them to make sure that those farmers are set up for longterm success.
3 (33m 11s):
So yes, Rodale Institute, we are a nonprofit, we're a very humble nonprofit. We all have, our financials are available publicly, but we do have some small endowments that have been given over the years, very modest. And we have decided to take 2 million of those modest endowments and invest it with the Iroquois valley. So we can say that we're putting our money where our mouth
0 (33m 29s):
Is. That's a super cool, super cool idea, but clearly there's a business here. You know, if we're only built growing 1% and they were eating six to 14, depending on the product, there's a clear business here in, you know, people need to get on the bandwagon and start farming. I know that we're, we've been talking about this and we were sort of doing it, but tell us a little bit about, you know, Southeast is not the only one that you're opening right now. You also open two others, one in Iowa and one in California, just I believe this past 18 months. So, oh my God. Congratulations. So tell us a little bit about like, what are you hearing from the farmers?
0 (34m 10s):
I know you met with south Eastern ones today, but like what kind of research and needs do they have? Yeah.
3 (34m 15s):
It's well, it's a great question, Monica, because it's, it differs from region to region. The need is different. So here in the Southeast, we saw the decimation of the cotton and tobacco industries over the last decades that have left. Many of these family farms struggling and they lack markets. They lack access to capital and they lack technical assistance and research. So rodeo is here trying to solve for all four of those things. We are doing research on the ground that is good, is helping understand the needs of farmers in this region. What are their growing challenges? What are their soil health challenges and what are their pest challenges? And so we're going to set up research to help overcome those barriers. We're going to hire with funding.
3 (34m 57s):
We're going to hire consultants that can then go out onto the farms and hold the hands of those farmers through those difficult times. And then thirdly, as we're creating access to markets. So we have markets for small, medium and large scale producers. We're going to be creating local food hubs here. We're actually, we just submitted for a massive grant that would allow us to create a mobile farmer's market to go into our inner city population to take right take produce from all these wonderful farms right here in the Chattahoochee Hills, get that produce onto our refrigerator vehicles and trucks into our inner cities where there's low income, low access. Another example of market opportunity is with Emory Emory healthcare in partnership with the conservation fund Emory hospital, their hospital system has guaranteed the long-term procurement of organic produce that we can, that our farms in this community can produce.
3 (35m 48s):
They will buy it all and give these farmers long-term contracts. And then the last example I'll share, and this is consistent for all these barriers. They're not unique to the regions. They just look different in each region, but it's in every region. It's the lack of understanding and the research. It's the lack of technical assistance, access to markets and capital. And so I want to end this with this segment by saying that, you know, there's a, there's a large scale poultry producer producer in the Northeast called bell and Evans. It's a family owned business. If you purchase organic chicken at whole foods market, it likely was produced by bell and Evans, wonderful family. And they are the family of the CEO and the founder of the company has committed to only purchase us domestic organic grain to feed chickens.
3 (36m 34s):
He will not import a stitch of imported grain and as such, he challenged Cargill, which is the largest commodity producer in the world. He said, listen, I'm willing to give you a longterm contract. I, you know, I'll buy your grain. If you can create a supply chain of domestically grown, organically grown corn and soybeans and Cargill accepted the challenge. And they are going to work with Rodale Institute and our Institute and our consultants will be working with Cargill's farmers to ensure those farmers are doing it right, and doing it to the Rodale standard. And we're going to, oh, it's going to open up market opportunity for farmers down here in the Southeast. It's going to open up market opportunities for farmers in the Midwest anywhere where grain production can take place Cargill and bell and Evans are creating markets.
3 (37m 21s):
And that's just one example.
2 (37m 23s):
And another area that you're doing research is HAMP.
3 (37m 27s):
Yeah. Yes. Tell us about that. Some of the futures that you see there, right? So, you know, the hemp was actually illegal to grow in Pennsylvania for over 80 years. This, this bizarre legislation, we're not talking about the psychoactive form. We're talking about industrial hemp, which has insane amounts of applica commercial application. Essentially. Anything created anything that's created with plastic could be done with hemp. So Rodale about six years ago, right? When there was some legislation that opened up the ability for us to grow hemp for research, we were first in and we've been studying hemp at our headquarters in Pennsylvania. And we'll be doing some of that work down here too. But we think that hemp could become a major antidote for many farmers in that hemp is an incredible weed suppressant.
3 (38m 16s):
It's also very good for soil remediation. If there's ever a sort of a toxic effect in your soils, hemp does an incredible job building fertility in the soil. And it also has incredible uses. It's a very high value crop. So it could open up a lot of economic opportunities for farmers.
0 (38m 33s):
Well, and I think that the market pressures are really interesting to me as a consumer, you know, when we had our kids and sort of that, oh five oh seven time period when organic was coming up, that kind of flipped a switch to be more thoughtful about what we were purchasing. And then we moved to Sarah and Abby and we backed up to a farm and that sort of heightened it even further, right? Obviously our relationship with you, but you one as a consumer sometimes feels a little, you know, that we don't really, I don't really know if I can have an impact, right? So knowing that I can support Rodale and you guys can work with a Cargill, which is a huge, what I think of is like a more industrial, you know, manual, not manufacturer agricultural system that maybe I have a negative idea about, but that you guys are going into sort of the belly of the beast.
0 (39m 20s):
If you will, and talking to them and saying, Hey, we have a market for you. Cause they're businesses they have to under, they, you know, they, they're smart. They know that if they have a market for it, they'll shift away from the more industrial agriculture into an organic opportunity. So I'm always looking for, you know, how can I tell other people, where can we go to have purpose and make a difference? Because just myself buying organic is good, but it doesn't feel like I'm really making a difference to change the world. But I do really feel like Rodale is one of the major answers for us to really make a difference.
3 (39m 55s):
Yeah. Well, Monica, I'm really humbled by what you just shared. Most days we feel like David and Goliath, you know, it feels that way. You know, we, we are, we, we, we consider ourselves to be the voice of reason in this movement. We are not agnostic and who we work with. We will work with anyone that wants to transition acres and move in the direction of regenerative, organic agriculture, including Cargill. And you know, it's possible. We may get criticized for that. But our goal in working with Cargill, we're a nonprofit, we're not going to generate all kinds of revenue from that relationship, but we have impact. We can impact some of the largest companies in the world with our research and our best practice. And we're going to do that
0 (40m 35s):
All day now, which I love
2 (40m 37s):
And market stars, three question it, and there's more focus on Hills. Then they will start changing because the market's going to demand it. Yes, yes. And
0 (40m 47s):
I believe that when COVID hit, we did see numbers go up in organic purchases.
3 (40m 52s):
It's been this year has been one of the biggest growth years in recent history. I just saw a statistic that direct farm sales direct to consumer direct to consumer farm sales were up 420% year over year. It's incredible.
0 (41m 5s):
We've seen it here with our farm. I mean, we immediately went to like a drive-through and sort of mask and all the things, and we blew doors. People were demanding the produce.
2 (41m 14s):
So you're going to have quite a task because as there's greater awareness, the market increases, but the product production with farmers, the that's kind of take some time to ramp up. Yeah.
3 (41m 27s):
Yeah. We're, we're trying to scale the, the velocity of organic farmers coming and building up a true supply chain. It is taking time, but we are seeing the adoption and it's happening like by the day. And it's very exciting. And you
2 (41m 43s):
Know, we read the stories. Now people are reevaluating where they live and you can work remotely. And then one parent is, is leaving work because of the whole school situation. So changing farming is a great way that you can be at home and still take care of the kids and educate the kids on a whole deeper level. Many times the farm kids. Are you talking about that? Or
3 (42m 8s):
I think the national gardening association came out with some data just a few months ago that said that there were 22 million new gardens added to our backyards this year because of the pant, because of what you just described. Steve, what's been fascinating to me and I have the honor of sitting on your board of, at the biophilic Institute, what we're seeing more than any other time in recent history is just humans reconnecting with nature and getting into their own backyards and realizing that there's this amazing miracle that can happen by getting your hands and your children's hands in the soil and planting something and cooking a meal together. And I am so overjoyed to see that miracle has been accelerated because of this terrible thing.
3 (42m 53s):
That's maybe, you know, hit us, I guess, if you will, but so many good things coming out of it. And just people gardening, again, cooking again, being at home with each other in their backyards. You know, I don't know. I don't see any downside to that to you. And, and
2 (43m 7s):
Some of these people might decide to have a bigger garden, which attorney Joe farm. Right? Exactly. Exactly.
0 (43m 14s):
I'm going to leave it on that. That was a great way to end it. I thank you so much. I'm so glad we could do this in person. It's so good to see your face, even though I'm not allowed to hug.
3 (43m 22s):
It's been my honor to be here. I'm grateful to both of you and for Saram B and this whole community for embracing Rodale in the way that you've have to our, our, our, our sponsor farm, our hosts, Ross and Rebecca Williams and the connection, Steve, all the connections you've helped to make you guys have been wonderful hosts and you've, you've created a movement down here. So thank you so much.
2 (43m 45s):
Or clearly Rodale is, is, is a key answer to the agricultural part. And so we are just thrilled to support in any way and Jeff, your, your enthusiasm and the way you can articulate the issues really is going to help move, move the movement forward. So thank you for your passion and everything you're doing. Thank you guys.
0 (44m 14s):
Thank you for listening to Sam B stories, new episodes are available on Mondays. Please rate and review the podcast and visit our website to learn more about upcoming guests, episodes and everything by Ophelia at ceremony, stories.com.