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Welcome to Regenerative Reflections, a podcast produced in partnership with MU Extension.
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I'm Makayla Voris, your host from the University of Missouri's Center for Regenerative Agriculture.
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Our mission is to provide farmers with the research, resources, and connections to implement
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practices that improve soil health, crop yield, and livestock systems.
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Today I chatted with Jonathan Kemmerer, a producer part of the FIRST Farmer Cohort of
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the Climate Smart Fieldscapes Incentive Payment Program.
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This is one of eight incentive payment programs part of the Missouri Climate Resilient Crops
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and Livestock Project, or CIRCL for short.
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The CIRCL project seeks to empower farmers and producers to add or maintain regenerative
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practices on their operations.
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Jonathan spent time living in France and brought this experience to his farming operation.
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Let's hear from him now.
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I'm currently at Jonathan's farm.
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And Jonathan, so how did you get into farming at FIRST and how did you come into contact
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with the Center for Regenerative Agriculture?
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Well, I've grown up around agriculture all my life.
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My grandpa ran a pig farm and did row crops growing up and we spent a lot of time there
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when I was a kid.
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I became interested in agriculture again later in life in college.
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I lived and studied in France for a year in a pretty rural part of France and I saw all
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these, you know, small family farms that were doing really traditional stuff, really high
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quality stuff.
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I was really interested in that and later when I was working in restaurants after college,
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I went back to France to learn about wine and food, ended up working on some of those
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farms and just became really interested in the difference between making really high
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quality food versus commercial mass production sort of thing.
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And the chefs back here, they were all really excited about it, really wanted someone doing
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something like that in the area and that's kind of what gave me the motivation.
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A friend of mine that I worked with at the winery now works for the extension there and
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she's been kind of helping me with resources.
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Currently one of our biggest projects at the Center for Regenerative Agriculture is the
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Circle project and you are part of the Climate Smart Fieldscapes project.
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Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
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Sure.
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So I'll be instituting three new practices on the farm.
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So one of them is going to be planting about 350 trees or so.
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All native trees and all are going to be fruit or mass-bearing, so it's like mulberries,
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burr oaks, hazelnuts.
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So not only will those sort of help retain soil, sequester carbon, they'll also feed
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the pigs eventually.
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The second that I'm doing is with a cornfield that I grow for the pigs to forage on.
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There's an old technique called hogging down that was really prevalent in the late 1800s,
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early 1900s.
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It's doing minimum till, so instead of tilling the whole field, I'm just tilling little strips
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or rows where the corn is planted and then leaving the rest there.
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And then I think the third is that I'll be using cover crops in conjunction with that.
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So once the pigs have grazed it down, I'll plant nitrogen-fixing things and just cover
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crops for the soil.
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When you took me on a tour of your farm, you mentioned that obviously the pigs are your
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main source of income for your farm.
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What sort of pigs do you have on your farm right now and what are you hoping to do with
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them?
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So the pigs that I raise are Machon pigs.
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They're a very old breed, they're very endangered, they were nearly extinct when I started raising
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them.
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But I think they have a really incredible potential for regenerative agriculture.
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One of the two main things that are different about them that I think are really beneficial
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is that they have really large litter sizes and they can digest a lot more fiber.
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So with pigs, it's really hard to get around grain feeding with a pregnant sow.
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They need something like 18,000 or 19,000 calories a day once they're producing milk.
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And so if you're
Load full transcript
going to feed that much to a pig, you know, 10, 15 pounds, and you can
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get two or three times as many pigs out of it, that's a much more efficient use of the
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grain that you're buying.
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The other thing that makes the Machons different is that the way they were traditionally raised
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in China is that their job was to basically convert garden scraps into compost.
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So because of that, they've adapted the ability to consume significantly more fiber and not
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need as much protein as most pigs.
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And that means that they can get significantly more of their diet from pasture, as well as
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other byproducts.
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So for example, I get spent brewer's grain from a brewery, I get wheat middlings from
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a local flour mill.
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And that's able to displace a lot of the grain that I would have to buy to feed the pigs.
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And I think that they will be much more adapted to eating the fruit and the mass of trees
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as well.
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So circling back to your three practices that you're implementing, how long have you been
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in the Climate Smart Fieldscapes program?
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I believe it's been going on for about a year, right?
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Yes.
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I was accepted this winter and I just hashed out my plan with my advisor here in the last
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couple months.
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I'm Kelly Wilson, Associate Director for the Center for Regenerative Ag.
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I am jumping in on your podcast listening to share the news that we are opening our
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second year application period for Regenerative Grazing, Climate Smart Fieldscapes, and Silvopasture
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programs.
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I'm joined by our Regenerative Grazing and Silvopasture program leads, Erin Keiley.
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Erin, can you tell us about these programs?
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Thanks Kelly.
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The Regenerative Grazing program is about encouraging Missouri livestock producers to
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implement adaptive grazing and really focus on the outcomes.
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So a focus on soil health, increasing biodiversity, and carbon sequestration.
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Think of it like prescribed grazing, but next level.
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Farmers will develop a grazing plan and monitor across the grazing season.
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Using these plans can be super helpful for producers to understand pasture composition,
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recovery periods, key production dates, and this year, it's especially relevant, using
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a grazing chart can help farmers understand drought and plan for de-stocking dates well
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ahead of the market.
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The program pays $50 per acre for a one-year contract, and our farmers will also have access
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to grazing webinars, field days, and cost share on really robust soil testing through
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SHAC so they can monitor and improve their soil health.
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Thanks Erin.
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The Climate Smart Fieldscape program is tailored for small and underserved producers in Missouri.
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Farmers accepted into this program will work with technical assistance providers to develop
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an operational plan that includes using three or more Climate Smart practices over the course
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of three years.
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We are offering a flat payment of $10,000 over the course of that three-year contract.
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In this program, participants will also benefit from being part of a virtual cohort where
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you'll meet with fellow farmers and technical assistance providers every few months on a
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virtual meeting.
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You'll also be a partner in education, so lastly you do some type of demonstration activity
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like this podcast over the course of those three years.
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The last program that we wanted to just briefly mention is the Silver Pasture Program.
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Here, we are paying $250 per acre for producers to plant trees in pastures where livestock
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will graze.
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So if you are a Missouri producer interested in either general grazing, the Climate Smart
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Fieldscape Program, or silver pasture, head over to our website at cra.missouri.edu to
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learn more.
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I think the trees being able to provide cover for the pigs and feed the pigs is huge.
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I mean, pigs are naturally woodland animals, so that is a little bit more in line with
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their natural habitat.
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I know looking at the trees that I'm bringing on that are native trees, each one can be
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either food or habitat for over a hundred different insects, and that's one thing that
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I've noticed since starting my farm.
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My farm was a corn-soy rotation field, so it was bare dirt when I got it, and one of
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the things I've noticed over the last five years is that as I see more plant diversity,
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I start seeing more insect diversity, eventually more diversity of birds, and it kind of just
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goes from there.
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So I think some of these initiatives of just bringing a wider range of plant life is bringing
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more food and habitat for more other creatures.
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One is that with more cover crops, with added trees, you're going to be able to sequester
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a lot more carbon in your soil.
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That's going to help you provide more nutrients to the plants that you're growing to feed
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the animals.
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It's going to produce more nutrient-dense forage for the animals.
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Higher organic matter in the soil is also going to help you retain more moisture when
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it rains, and that will help you, for one, take in more moisture when you get a heavy
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rain event, but also allow it to retain more moisture so that when you have droughts, you're
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not suffering as much.
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And at the same time, I think the trees are a really great way of feeding the pigs, because
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they're deeper-rooted systems.
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I know out of the last five years, I would say three of them, I've had a really hard
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time establishing winter crops, just because we're not getting a lot of rain.
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I mean, last year is a great example.
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I planted my fall and winter cover crops in August, and we didn't get any significant
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rain until maybe mid-October, and that was not enough time to establish the cover crops
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before winter.
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Whereas the trees I have, like the baroques, persimmons, they're dropping in the fall and
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the winter, and they would be able to withstand that kind of drought and still produce.
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What would you say to a farmer who maybe has never done any regenerative agricultural practices
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before, and kind of wants to get into it, but doesn't know where to start?
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I think working on an operation can be a huge help.
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I would also encourage people to work on an operation that is actually a for-profit farm.
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There's just a big difference between something that actually has to function as a business
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versus something that's grant-funded or is a passion project.
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There's just different constraints on resources that I think are incredibly important to understand.
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But I think also just having experience of doing the day-to-day work is really important.
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I think people forget how much of a skill agriculture is.
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You know, I feed pigs with double the efficiency that I used to just because of figuring out
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different efficiencies.
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You know, like I said, with this kind of agriculture not being standardized, there's a ton of different
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ways that you can house pigs, transport them, load them up for the butcher.
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I mean, all of those things, they can take you 20 minutes or they can take you two hours.
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It's really only through working on an operation that you can kind of figure out those efficiencies
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that are really important.
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I would say the other thing is being a part of your local food, whatever it is.
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I think before you start a business, you need to understand what the demand is, what it
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is that people are actually looking for, what they're willing to pay for it, who's out there
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doing it already, what isn't being produced that people are interested in.
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I mean, you can't have a farm without a market of end consumers.
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And so just kind of getting a foot in the door there and knowing what you're going to
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do with your product when you sell it is huge because I've seen.
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I think that, to me, seems to be the biggest mistake that people make in this type of agriculture
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is they think that all they have to do is produce something.
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And I don't think that they allocate enough time towards actually selling it.
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I don't think they think that, well, for example, I probably spend as much time in a given week
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marketing and selling my pork as I do actually producing it.
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And I think people don't allocate that time.
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They think that all they have to do is produce it and then it moves out the door.
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So yeah, having a solid background and experience in the actual agricultural production and
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then also understanding your local marketplace and what is needed, I think are the two most
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important things.
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A big thank you to Jonathan for letting me come out to his farm and chat.
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Again, I'm Mikayla Boris, your host from the University of Missouri's Center for Regenerative
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Agriculture.
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If you have questions, comments, or any thoughts on this podcast, let us know by visiting our
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website at cra.missouri.edu and go to the podcast page.
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You can also find us on social media at MU Regen Ag.
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And also don't forget to leave us a rating wherever you're listening.
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This podcast was produced in partnership with MU Extension.
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The music you're hearing is called Back to the Woods by Jason Shaw, and we snagged it
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from the Free Music Archive.
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Watch out for another regenerative reflection, and we'll see you next time.