Improving Soil Health Through Regenerative Agriculture With Gabe Brown

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Now, I’m super honored to be welcome to buy one true pioneer in the soil health movement, Gabe Brown. Gabe along with his wife, Shelly, transformed Brown’s Ranch in North Dakota into a global model for regenerative agriculture eliminating synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, integrating cover crops, livestock and perennials and restoring biodiversity across 6,000 acres. He’s the bestselling author of Dirt To Soil, which I’ve just been listening to on Audible.

He is a partner at Understanding Ag and cofounder of the Soil Health Academy. Gabe has been featured in documentary films, advocating for soil health and regenerative farming including Kiss the Ground and Common Ground. He serves as a board member and public face of Regenified, a new third-party regenerative certification standard. He’s received countless awards from the Heinz Award for the Environment to the Environmental Stewardship Award for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. I hope you’ll all join me in welcoming Gabe Brown to the show. It’s so nice to have you here.

Thank you, Corinna. Pleasure to be with you.

A Pioneer Of Common Ground For Common Good

I feel like we’re rounding out some of our exposure from individuals who have been featured in or responsible for the films Kiss the Ground and Common Ground. You’re running that cap. Before we dive in, I’d love to hear about your experience of becoming a soil servier or even a hero in a red cape like that depicted on the movie poster for Common Ground.

They did that without my permission. That’s not me. I’m simply a rancher who saw the difference that regenerative agriculture made to our own family’s branch and I wanted to share that message worldwide.

The book that you wrote is now almost like a Bible in that industry, I think it was published in 2018. You’ve been at this for a while and would be pioneering in space. What have you found to be the biggest impact of your work so far? How are you getting that message out there? What’s working?

That’s a tough question to answer. I just want to say it’s not me alone. It’s literally thousands of others who are also in this movement. I’ve been going down this path a long time since the mid-1990s. It was when we started transitioning our own farm. As I met other people and they came to my ranch, I went to theirs, started speaking at conferences and my network group. The more people I meet, the more I learn. I tell people that one of the exciting things about regenerative agriculture to me is I learned something new every day.

The more I know, the more I know or I don’t know and that makes it exciting. We can be lifelong learners. As I became more known and started speaking to more diverse audiences literally all over the world, as your circle grows, you realize that regenerative agriculture is a conduit and can be used as a conduit. I like to call it common ground for common good. I spend the vast majority of my time either in front of a laptop talking to CEOs, board of directors who are directly in their boardrooms explaining to them about regenerative agriculture.

The first thing I do is try and find where their interests lie. Is their interest in climate change? Is it in clean water or clean air? Is it in the mental health of those farmers and ranchers out there? Is it in revitalizing rural communities or in farm profitability or in nutrient-dense food? Wherever their interest lies, regenerative agriculture is at least part and can be part of the solution.

I firmly believe that as a society, we can agree on 85% plus to the issue. We all want clean air, clean water and nutrient-dense food. Why don’t we come together and holster on those issues rather than spend our time arguing about the 10% or 15% of the things we can or don’t agree on? I just think that’s just wasted time. I like to call it common ground for common good.

It makes so much sense to me, especially as the regenerative movement and as you stated has continued to grow. When we had Josh Tickell on the show, the filmmaker behind Kiss the Ground and Common Ground. He talked a lot about the impacts that were making on farmers. The fact that we need to be focused on ensuring more profits can potentially stay in their hands because you’re talking about eight cents on the dollar for the food that we buy. That’s what a farmer’s getting in.

Getting More Farmers Aboard The Regenerative Process

Many of them are just scraping by. We don’t think necessarily about the costs of the inputs that they’re having to buy. A single plot of land could be using millions of dollars in chemicals every year and that impacts them. I was hoping that you could talk about your perspective when it comes to getting more farmers and more ranchers to come on board this regenerative process or regenerative way of doing things. Whether or not they still use some pesticides or are considering making a bigger shift.

In my journey, I was farming “conventionally” using those types of inputs. The years 1995 through 1998, we had three years of hail and a year ago drought. I found myself $1.5 million in debt and the bank wasn’t going to loan me money anymore, so I could purchase those expensive inputs. During that time period of those years of hail and drought, I started to notice a change. All of a sudden, earthworms were showing up in the soil. I wasn’t tilling the soil anymore. I had stopped using those harmful caustic fertilizers and pesticides because I couldn’t borrow money, as I said to purchase that.

I notice more songbirds showing up. I know that our pastures are becoming more productive. Our cropland was just healthy because of it. After those periods of hail and drought, I realized that I didn’t need those inputs. Why don’t I just keep farming without? It sent me down this path of learning how soils and ecosystems function. Very quickly after that, despite the fact that $1.5 million was a lot of money. We were able to dig out of that debt literally within fifteen years and beat that fruit.

Our son now, who has the ranch. This 37 year old doesn’t borrow money anymore. He operates strictly on cash. He does that because he’s highly profitable. In 2018, my wife and I turned the ranch over to him. I started along with a couple other individuals, a company called Understanding Ag, which is an education company. What I found out about my journey was that farmers cannot implement what they do not know. I have a couple of college degrees in agriculture. Nowhere in my educational process did somebody teach me how soils function.

Did they teach me about the natural nutrient cycle biology being fed by route to aid plants? You learn these things, you’re able to produce food at a much lower price point. With Understanding Ag, we’re now consulting on over 36 million acres across North America, England, and Ireland and moving into Europe. It shows you the interest. What we’re able to do is significantly increase farm profit while producing food at a lower price point and providing food that’s higher nutrient density, which brought about one of my other companies I’m involved with Regenified.

Regenified is a verification certification company that verifies the good work farmers are doing in producing food. It empowers the farmers to tell their story and to go sell a product to the consumer. It also gives consumers the confidence that, “We’re purchasing food from a farmer that is truly producing nutrient-dense food and moving down the regenerative path.”

I love the history and the story that’s deeply rooted and embedded there. It’s a bilateral movement happening within the food industry. You have those that believe that regenerative practices need to include organic, fair trade and things along these lines like the regenerative organic certification and your own, which doesn’t necessarily require that a farmer end up 100% organic by, I think there are nine stages, if I have that correct.

Five.

Why Being Organic Is Not The Absolute Solution

You go over the course of a decade or something to that effect. Farmers are using less inputs with time. They’re not tilling. They’re moving in this direction where they are building things in a more life producing capacity. There’s more life in the soil and more carbon underground. They have less erosion, better water retention in the soil and everything’s moving in a more positive direction. Some have been critical of the fact that you have not integrated organic requirements at the very end. I have dug into that a bit, but I’d love to just understand your perspective and offer you the opportunity to give a counterpoint and help people understand why organic may not always be the solution.

First, I want to be perfectly clear about this. Our own farm could be certified ROC or regenerative organic, if we so chose because we do not use those inputs. We could easily be certified if we so chose. My counterpoint to that is, organic is good but it may or may not be regenerative. Regenerative organic certification is good but it may or may not be produced in truly nutrient-dense food. What we need to use as the benchmark is, are we fully advancing the four ecosystem processes? It’s the energy cycle, the water cycle, the mineral cycle and biodiversity.

Regenified ensures that we are. Now, all farmers can take it to organic or beyond if they so choose. If they choose to be organic certified, that’s fine. They can still do that, but we’re going to require them to continually improve, which is something organic certification does not do. You can be organic by default just by not applying those things. That doesn’t mean you regenerative and that doesn’t mean you’re continually improving.

Regenified as annual verification, which means the auditors are out there every year and then you have to. You only have three years and you have to keep improving. Now, one of the things we’re focused on is, what’s the nutrient density of the food that’s being produced? We work with Dr. Stephan van Vliet from Utah State University, who uses a mass spectrometer where he can identify over 2,500 different phytonutrient combos in food. Your phenols, alkaloids and terpenes are the compounds that drive our gut microbiome and drive human health.

I honestly believe that should be used as one of the benchmarks for any of us producing food. Are we truly producing nutrient-dense food? We also have to realize getting back to your original question. Organic is good. I purchase organic if I can’t find certified regenerative food. Organic has been around for years. Yet what percentage of farms are practicing organically? In the US, it’s less than 2%, give or take a little bit. We can’t afford for that to remain. We need to focus on the other 98%. Regenified allows every farmer to start down the regenerative path.

One of the benchmarks of a good farm is its capacity to produce nutrient-dense food.

If you apply for Regenified verification, you’ve made a commitment and you have to supply a plant. Now, we’re not going to allow you to claim your product as certified Regenified. You have to meet certain tiers and then you have to move forward. I’m not so concerned about the 2% or whatever it is that are certified organic. I’m concerned about the other 98% because that’s the food that’s going into our school systems, being fed in our hospitals, our military, etc. We need to make a major difference in changing all of Ag culture. That’s the real reason we founded Regenified. It’s how to remove everybody together.

To that point too, I understand that some regenerative organic certified products still incorporate some plowing in their work, which can degrade some topsoil. Is that not correct as well?

That is, but that’s not saying that they have to eliminate all tillage. There’s some very good organic farmers out there that do incorporate an occasional tillage pass. By that, I mean maybe once every 3 to 5 years. We have to allow that because that’s their context. We want them to continue but I have a neighbor that farms organically. They till at least 5 or 6 times a year in each field. In North Dakota, we have 50 plus mile an hour winds.

The amount of topsoil that’s been eroded away after that tillage passes is just as phenomenal. The thickness of a sheet of paper is the equivalent to one ton of topsoil per aid. Think about that. I’m watching a windstorm now where there’s literally hundreds of tons of topsoil being moved up these steels that have been tilted. We just can’t have that for the sake of our children and grandchildren.

We all saw the ravages of that during the dust bowl era. Plowing was what was used. People removed trees. They didn’t have wind breaks anymore. Even farms that are not regenerative understand that they need to have things like slopes, breaks and the wind. Otherwise, they will lose so much topsoil that they’re job becomes instrumental. They can’t do it.

That’s correct, and they need to plant cover crops and capture that solar energy and feed soil biology to drive the natural nutrient cycle. I don’t want any of my conversations to be about pitting one facet of agriculture against another. It’s common ground for common good. We all need to work together and we all need to learn from each other. The organic sector can learn from the regenerative secure and the regenerative sector can certainly learn from the organic sector.

I was having an interesting conversation with some individuals who work at the lands institute and are working on a project specifically with Kernza, this super long rooted grain. It’s a perennial grain. You don’t plow it and get to this conversation about organic because I was looking for other currents of products out on the market. They are also certified organic. They brought up to me the fact that you can’t plow currents because of the fact that it is such a long rooted multi-year crop. We, therefore, need something to be able to support weed abatement.

Going fully organic is something that is truly more challenging with this particular crop. This just brings into the story the fact that it could even be something that is just unrealistic for certain crops. The abatements that we need to employ may be very strategic and limited in some cases in order to produce something that can be truly regenerative, keep our topsoil healthy and move in a more positive direction.

It’d be very easy for Kernza to be organic because there’s no reason to till it. It’s perennial. The bread that I bought in Washington State has worked with several varieties of wheat that are perennials. That is another way that you can incorporate perennials into organic systems. Anytime we get a perennial, it’s better than an annual from the standpoint you don’t have that type of disturbance.

They can have more minerals and the food to your point about nutrient density in these foods as well. You get more minerals because the roots go deeper.

Yes, without a doubt.

Breaking Down The Six Principles Of Soil Health

Now, you often speak about the five principles of soil health and you’ve touched on them a little bit through our conversation. Which principle do you feel farmers struggle with the most? How do you get over that struggle?

It’s six principles now. My book is outdated. We added the principle of context and I’m not so certain that context isn’t the most important. Context is farming and ranching within your environment. We all have different contexts. We have different environmental context, family context, social context, and financial context. We have to take those into account. The other principles just briefly are the least amount of disturbance possible. By that, we mean chemical disturbance and mechanical disturbance, the least amount possible.

We need armor on the soil. That’s the third principle. We need diversity. Nature aborts a monoculture. Where in nature do you find monocultures? They only exist where mankind has either put them or mankind’s action has caused them to occur. The fifth principle is living root in the soil as long as possible throughout the year. We need living plants capturing that solar energy moving carbon and other nutrients out of the atmosphere down to feed solar biology.

The sixth principal is animal and insect integration. Ecosystems do not function properly without animals and insects. Yet too often, we see the cow villainized. I throw this back and ask the question to those who vilify a cow. Historians will tell us there was more grazing orgores on the North American continent for European settlement that there is now. If methane and these other chemicals or gases were a problem or are a problem now. Why weren’t they having problems back then? It’s not the cow. It’s the how.

In fact, if you want to advance soil health and take massive amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere, we need more grazing animals, not fewer. Those are the six principles of soil health. Is there one that’s more important than another? No. They all are intertwined holistically and you can’t just apply, pick and choose or you’re not going to have a healthy ecosystem.

Now, I have deep roots also in vegan communities and there are some that argue that you don’t need animals on the land. I personally struggle with that concept because the excrement is a feasting ground. There’s no way to farm without using animals. You’re buying fertilizer or soil with integrated chicken poop or something. It’s in there. It’s got to have that organic matter.

It’s not just that. We need to understand how soils function and how the energy cycle works. Growing plants photosynthesize. They collect solar energy and convert it into all these other compounds. They use part of it for growth and part of it is exuded into the soil to attract biology and there’s this synergistic effect. The biology running its lifecycle supplies nutrients then to the plant. The biology consumes nutrients that that plant is exuding in the soil.

What happens when a plant is grazed? That plant then starts sloughing off more riddick sedates to attract more biology to regrow. This is well documented by science. If you remove animals from the landscape, you will decertify the landscape. It will go backwards. You have to have grazing animals for one thing, for what I just described. The other thing is what you just described, animals trample, standing material onto the soil surface, where biology then saprophytic fungi can cycle that through.

Also, that material that’s on the soil surface protects that soil from windy rose and water rose. Otherwise, it’s just going to remain standing like in a desert situation and it’ll oxidize away or compound our problems in the atmosphere. As you describe, down and you add fertility. It’s totally false. Now, if a person wants to be a vegan, that’s fine. That’s their choice, but you cannot deny the importance of animals in the ecosystem. You don’t have to meet them but they need to be there.

Vegans must not deny the importance of animals in the ecosystem. They do not have to eat them, but they need to be there.

Producing Corn With Higher Nutrient Density

Many people don’t realize that farming and regenerative way lowers input costs while improving yields over time. We’ve touched on that a bit but I wondered if you could share an example from your ranch or from clients you’ve worked with through Understanding Ag and with Regenified that have been able to move the needle and show success for those that might be skeptical.

Corn prices are, believe it or not, about the same price they were in the early 1970s. For 50 years, we still have the same corn crops per bush of corn. Yet what input cost? What have land prices, fertilizers, chemicals and fuel all done? They’ve continued to increase exponentially. So much so in the corn belt, which is the I States which are Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, etc. It’s costing anywhere between $4.50 to about $5.50 to produce a bushel of corn. That’s all costs considering land costs, equipment costs, input cost, fuel, fertilization, etc.

On our own farm in North Dakota, we’re producing bushel corn for $1.44 cents a bushel all costs in. Do we have the same yield as the I States? No, but what I care about is profit. There, it’s costing them $5. We’ll round it off to produce a bushel of corn that’s selling for $3.50. They’re losing $1.50. I’m spending $1.44 and selling it for $3.50. I’m making over $2 a bush. Who’s going to be the last one standing? To go along with your point, we often hear people say, “Regenerative agriculture cannot feed the world.”

I’ve heard it.

I use the example of corn. I produce corn and my neighbor produces corn. They use a lot of inputs. They may yield slightly higher than me for a corn yield. They’re producing it at a loss, so they’re losing money, but just go on a yield. Who’s going to feed the world? They yield a little more but that’s the only thing they produce. I grow my corn crop then I grow a cover crop. I graze that cover crop with my grass finished beef, my grass finished lamb, my pastored hogs and my laying hens. We produce honey. The bees are thriving there.

Who’s producing more food per acre? It’s not even close. I ask you who’s producing it profitably? Not even close, but then I ask you, who’s producing the food that’s higher in nutrient-density? Not even close. That’s us. I’ll ask you, who’s doing it in a way that enhances the environment’s biodiversity? Not even close. To me, it’s not a matter of, can regenerative agriculture feed the world? It’s a matter of regenerative agriculture is the only way to continue feeding the world and give the next generations an opportunity to be sustainable.

Educating Consumers And Companies About Regenerative Agriculture

The farm you just described, it reminds me of what Americans still think about as farms of the yesteryear. When I was growing up in the ‘70s, there were community farms in my neighborhood that were run a lot like this. There has been an industrialization of our food supply with food subsidies for corn and soy. In fact, that’s much of what’s produced in those areas. The only reason that corn growers and soy growers can stay profitable through subsidies is because they are producing it at a loss. How do we get the government to come along with this movement more quickly? I imagine that something that you’re working on.

It is. I often get called upon by government officials for my opinion and testimony. I believe the way we’re going to drive change. The government is pretty dysfunctional, let’s be honest about it. The political winds change. Washington changes and legislation changes. That’s why I spend the majority of my time educating and I believe we need to educate everyone. The farmers cannot implement what they do not know. We need to educate the farmers, but we need to educate the consumers.

Every consumer can make a difference with their buying dollar. Go to your local farmers markets. Get to know your farmer. Purchase from those who feel comfortable with. If you don’t go to the farmer’s market, go to your store. Go ahead and purchase that organic food. Purchase regenified certified food. What does that do? That signals brands and industries that, “There’s consumer demand for this product. Regenified had a third party do a consumer survey in 2025. That consumer survey showed that in the early 2020 to 2022, and I may be off a percent or two here. There was like 11% of consumers knew Ag regenerative was.

In the years 2023 and 2024, that grew to 23% of consumers. It also grew to 46% of consumers who understood somewhat what regenerative was and tried sinking out those products. What has that done? I’m not allowed to voice who I’m talking to at this point in time because we have non-disclosure agreements with them.

I was on call with one of the largest retailers in the world who are looking at the regenerative movement. How do they source regeneratively grown and raise crops? We got the farmer, the brand, the consumers demanding it and now drive change without legislation. To me, it’s about educating the entire supply chain and these brands are extremely interested. If you name the top ten food producers in the world, I’ll guarantee you that I’ve talked to nine of them in 2025.

Helping The Younger Generation Transition To Regenerative Farming

That’s amazing. Now, I’d like to talk about transition so that we can support that next generation. You mentioned that you’ve now handed operational leadership of Brown’s Ranch to your son and daughter-in-law. How does it feel to see this next generation take the reins?

I’m fortunate that our son, Paul, ever since he was young, has never till the field. He’s never used pesticide. He doesn’t know what that’s like. The only thing he knows is regenerative agriculture. I want to tell you a little story because it shows you just where we’re at. When our son was growing up, in high school, they had FFA or Future Farmers of America. He was very active in it. There were approximately 50 students in his class that were active in FFA. Most of them were from farms or ranches.

Now, he is the only one out of those 50 that’s actively farming. How sad is that? I don’t blame the kids. I blame the parents because they didn’t make it conducive. You talked about your upbringing and how it’s all corn and soy and they’re losing money now. Why would those children want to come back to the farm? The parents have to make it conducive. Regenerative agriculture allows that to happen. Now, the transition for my son has been relatively easy.

Parents must create a conducive environment for regenerative agriculture that encourages children to be more interested and attracted to it.

Even when he got married, my wife and I decided, “It’s time they help the farmhouse.” Moving off the farm was not easy for me but in saying that, it was time and it’s okay. It’s part of life. For a lot of people, though, it’s very difficult to transition the farm to the next generation. At Understanding Ag, we often get called upon to help with that transition. That’s why when we form the protocols for Regenified, one of the things that we require is a transition plan. That doesn’t necessarily mean your own son or daughter.

We have two children, a son and a daughter. Our son wanted to farm and our daughter doesn’t. It was pretty easy for us. We told them, if neither one of them wanted to farm, that’s okay. We’re going to ensure the transition to young people who do want to. It’s up to this generation to at least help the next generation. I’m not talking about giving it to them, but giving them the opportunity. What’s happening in agriculture now, these farms are becoming very fragmented. The parents passed away. The children who moved off the farm each inherit a part and then parcel gets sold and that parcel gets sold. Pretty soon, you just have a lot of small parcels and it’s very difficult to operate a farm ranch like that.

They end up consolidated by somebody like Cargill.

Maybe some larger land owner. That’s right.

Working With Brands To Push Regeneration

Speaking to this for a moment. I get the sense that with Regenfied and with ROC and some of these other beyond organic style certifications that are out there focusing on permaculture and different ways of growing that integrate different plants together. Not monocropping and not tilling so much and even eliminating tilling and reducing or eliminating pesticides, fungicides, herbicides to ensure that you have healthy soil and your run off isn’t bad. All the positive things that come along with this. I wonder how you see Regenified fitting in. Is it something that also becomes a consumer marker or is it more focused on the rancher specifically and the brands than on that consumer facing? Where do you see that time divided and so far as that education might concern?

We want to empower. Regenified’s goal is, how do we change our landscapes at large scale? Every farmer ranch that comes to us, we will talk to them about how they move down the regenerative path but make no mistake about it. How do we do that quickly? Influence large landscapes while benefiting the farmer rancher. We need to work with the brands. Regenified is working with the major brands in how we help them source regenified certified products. What we’re doing, we’re working with the brands.

In many cases, these brands are helping to pay for that certification and telling their farmers, “We want this certification.” Why? It’s because it’s good for the consumers. The consumers are demanding it. It’s good for the environment, helps mitigate climate change, etc. We’re working with brands. The brands then help the farmers. The farmers are getting empowered and they’re getting the benefit of producing these regenerative foods at a lower price point. The consumers are being rewarded because they’re able to buy the product. It’s a win-win-win.

In my experience, it tends to be mostly the brands that do that consumer education because they’re putting the badge on their product and explaining what it means. Not only to the retailer, but also to the consumer. It helps to amplify that message.

We have to realize too, they’re getting some out of it. We have proven that farms that use these regenerative practices are much more resilient. They don’t suffer from the weather extremes like conventional farms or ranches do. The brands are getting a consistent supply of high-quality products. Plus, they’re getting the stories to tell. Nothing is better for those brands than to tell the stories of the individual farms where that food is grown or raised.

Farms that use regenerative practices are much more resilient. They do not suffer from the weather extremes like conventional farms and ranches.

Addressing The Public Confusion On Certification Verification

As far as challenges in the future that we’re all facing, I wondered if you could talk about how Regenified fits next to perhaps USDA and large agri business companies that are increasingly talking about soil carbonate, regenerative agriculture, small climate, smart communities and making them expand. Do you see USDA involvement as something that could be an opportunity as we define what we’re generative even means? I’m thinking about organic as an example. They started to regulate the term organic. I’m wondering at what point they might get involved in something like regenerative.

The CEO of Regenified is Salar Shemirani, who is a young visionary who builds businesses and brands. When we founded Regenified and hired him as the CEO. He went to USDA and he hired a past USDA employee who worked with certification and verification. Regenified is the only regenerative approved USDA FSIS label out there. Salar had the foresight to go there first and get the approval. That more or less circumvented USDA wanting to control the narrative because Regenified is already approved by USDA, Regenified is more or less determining the narrative behind that. It was brilliant on his part to do that, quite frankly.

I did see some news from earlier 2025 or 2024 that there was a certain marketing connection between the USDA team and Regenified. I didn’t fully understand it. Perhaps, this is also connected to that piece.

Yes, that is connected. It’s the FSIS or food safety and inspection service approval.

I’ve just seen this happen a few times with FDA getting involved with companies and saying, “You can’t say organic anywhere on the packaging unless it’s certified organic.” Also, the word natural has essentially been regulated as well. They don’t want companies saying natural even in the company name if they can’t thoroughly back up that the brand is natural. That’s important too because we want the words to still carry strength. If they get co-opted by brands that are using a lot of synthetics or pesticides and things like this, then the term itself becomes diluted and almost worthless.

The certifications that would back them might also suffer the same route. It’s important to put stakes in the ground to say this is what regenerative means. I’m also seeing different companies define that term differently. Not that there’s necessarily a lot of infighting but if for instance, regenerative organic certification has to mean fair trade or you have fair practices, humane practices with your animals and, and, and, then I wonder what is the reason to be for fair trade certification? What is the reason to be certified humane or for some of these other certifications?

Also, are we going to be introducing more confusion on the part of those consumers who need to be given a little bit of bandwidth to catch up and understand what these terms mean and what’s relevant? While also thinking about the brands not wanting to over badge their products. I have a product here. This is Earth First Organic. It’s a supplement that I picked up at a trade show. They have this, “We support regenerative farms. USDA organic.”

Organic is non-GMO and more or something that they educate right on the front. Some brands will also have the non-GMO project butterfly and they might have Regenified or ROC certification. You’d have all of these badges right on the front of a product. Consumers even get a little tired of seeing all of that. I wonder if some of the consumer research that you’ve done has helped reveal anything helpful for marketers that might be thinking through this same story.

Yes, that’s a great question and I couldn’t agree with you more. For years, we mark it off Brown’s Ranch or our son now markets all of our products directly to consumers. We did that without any type of certification or verification because we didn’t want that. We believe the choice should be by the consumer getting to know who produces that food. Now, we understand that’s not always possible. Why we started Regenified is we were seeing a lot of greenwashing and what people were calling regenerative.

I’m not playing God. I’m not saying that I know exactly what it is, but I know it has to go back to the four ecosystem processes. They take place on all landscapes all over the world and it all comes back to those four processes. When we built Regenified, we built it on that. What is that farmer doing to enhance those four ecosystem processes? I believe that’s the start. From there, you can build. Our certification is simply built on the four ecosystem processes.

We are by far the most thorough verification process in the world. We collect over a hundred different data points. Way more than any other verification out there just proving what is being done on that particular farm to enhance those four ecosystem processes. You can add on top of that if you want. We’re having internal discussions that Regenified what we should add on top of that. For now, that’s what we’re doing.

I’m not going to sit here and bash any of the other verification certificates. I don’t do that. It’s consumer choice and it’s up for the consumers to decide. No doubt about it, there is going to be some confusion. I believe that in a short amount of time, you will see a few of the certification verification increases that consumers feel the most confident. We’ll let that play out and see what happens.

For certain. I’m also doing consumer research as part of my PhD program. Specifically asking questions about what consumers understand when it comes to some of the messaging that they’re faced with. What I see again and again is this realization coming to the surface and almost every conversation no matter how deeply steeped in, let’s say the organic natural world a consumer might be.

They tend to have this common sense or common ground perspective that we need to use plain language that reaches them where they are to help them understand what a given product is or does and simply relying on a certification badge doesn’t necessarily get them there. I think of fair trade as being a leading certification that’s not likely to go anywhere. Certified humane being close. Leading certification that’s not like to go anywhere.

Some of these that stand out like non-GMO projects and organic as being the top echelon and consumer awareness. That they’ve seen it enough to understand it and trust it. As we get into speaking about regenerative and making this more of a prominent discussion on products. At least for a while, even if regenerative does end up meaning more than the four ecosystem pieces that you advocate for. We will have to, at least for a bridging time, ensure that they understand all these things come together. Still to this day, people need clarification on the fact that USDA organic means a product is also non-GMO and that something that a lot of people don’t understand.

There’s just a report released that showed that the USD organic that was coming out of Mexico, which was approved then to come into the US, had toxic chemicals in it. That was just released.

I would love to see the research that you’re referring to. If you can send that to me, I will read it. Non-GMO project verified, I’m speaking to that need because some things organic certified already has to not be non-GMO because you can’t have an organic certified product that is genetically modified. At least under present certification systems, whether it’s toxic. That’s the second question. You’re saying that there was GMO in there as well?

I will guarantee you that there is. I see it happen lots because of variances that are allowed.

Corn cross Polynesian is hard to avoid, too.

That’s not what I’m talking about. That’s a whole another topic.

Why We Need More Life On Earth

It is another story that could lead us into a rabbit hole or two. Something you’ve said before you even touched on this earlier in our conversation is that we need more life on earth. This is Paul Hawken’s perspective. I think that’s his mantra like, we need to bring more life on earth. That’s his latest book, Carbon, which we’ve discussed on this show as well. What does this story mean to you, “We need more life on earth?”

What I saw in my own transition, the transition of our farm, I talked about after those four years in drought and hail, when I stopped the tillage, the pesticides and fungicide, we saw a return of life. Primarily insects, both in the soil and above the soil. What followed that was bird species because a lot of bird species feed on insects. Also, when stopping using some of these herbicides, we had mono forbes showing up on the farm. Mono forbes produce seeds. Granville are insects that eat seeds and then more birds show up. More wildlife shows up.

We had a gentleman come who is able to identify over 500 different bird species just by the sound. He documented 105 species of birds on our farm. Think about that. I travel a lot all over the world and I’ve been spending a lot of time lately in the UK and Ireland. One of the things that was very noticeable to me was the lack of insect diversity. To me, that is a benchmark because from there, you can have a lack of bird species and lack of wildlife. You’ll have less plants because if there was more plant diversity, there would be more species of birds, insects, etc.

That’s one of the things we’re documenting at Regenified. It’s what’s the diversity of plants, animals and insects on a particular farm. We need to do this. There was a study that was released a couple years ago that showed this in Germany. They literally have lost 75% of their insect population. We just can’t have that because it’s going to lead to lower nutrient-density of foods and lower biodiversity of all life forms on earth.

To me, when it comes to diversity I mean everything, the soil and microbiome. Think of this for a moment. There’s more microorganisms in a teaspoon full of healthy soil than there are people on this planet. Think about that. That’s just hard to even fathom. How many of us as humans understand that the diversity of that soil microbiome directly affects these phytonutrient compounds that feed our gut microbiome? We need to understand, this thing is all connected. It’s holistic and we all need to come together. Common ground for common good in order to not only help ourselves, our children, grandchildren and the future of this planet.

Get In Touch With Gabe

I want to direct people to read your book. Do you perhaps have another edition coming out that talks about this sixth element?

I’m working on two more books at the moment, but I’ve been working on them a while. I get a bit of a time crunch. I’m hoping they’ll come out but I need to step back from some of my other obligations so I can finish them. No set date yet, but thanks for asking.

When they do come out, I’d love to have you come back on and we can talk about the specifics of those works. I will send our audience to the websites for both Regenified and for Understanding Ag. Is there anywhere else that you would like to send them specifically so people can expand on their learning journey as it relates to what you’re doing in the regenerative agriculture space?

Thank you for asking that, but I’d rather direct them to their local farmers markets and get to know their farmers. COVID showed us that we need to source our food locally. Get to know who’s producing your food. I tell everyone to make a difference. By that, I mean make a difference in the food that you consume and you feed your family, but then I encourage you to make a difference in your local community. What’s being fed in our schools? Can’t we source that food locally? Helping the local economy and the local farmers. I would much rather see people focus their time on doing what they can to make things better in their own lives and in their communities.

I shop at my local farmers market every Saturday. It operates from May through November, so half the year at least the one that’s local for me. It’s been a joy to meet the stone fruit producers and getting my flowers even from local growers that are growing it in their backyards and other spots as well. It’s been quite an experience overall. I will say too. Many of the regenerative agricultural farms that are running do education days, where they’ll invite people onto their farms to be able to explore, learn, plant, harvest and even partake in part of it and even design mini courses that are designed for kids and school children to come with field trips.

My own kids, part of their fifth-grade year, this spring. They’re going to a science camp that is held on a regenerative farm and they’re there for something like three days, which I’m super thrilled with. Again, these are things that parents advocate for and then you have to do some fundraising around. Eventually, it can move your local communities in a very positive direction. Your impacts can be stronger.

Your connection points yet human relationship, which also speaks to your COVID years. We lacked so much of those touch points and it creates a healthier community and healthier you. Your kids get involved. They start to understand where the food comes from, which is so vital.Thank you so much for your work and for joining me. I appreciate you and everything you do.

Thank you. It’s a pleasure.

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Episode Wrap-Up And Closing Words

As always, you can find the resources that we mentioned. I will include UnderstandingAg.com, Regenified.com and also the earlier episodes where we touched on this episode, including interviews with Josh Tickell, Kelly Ryerson, John Roulac, and many others who connect to the space of regenerative agriculture. This will help deepen your understanding of where your food comes from and the world that we’re working to build together.

As a reminder, every time you subscribe to our newsletter or you subscribe on the platforms that we are out there on, we’re planting trees. I encourage you to do that as well. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with a friend. Together, we’re making a big difference. We’re reforesting our world and regenerating the soil beneath our feet. Until next time. Remember, we can care more, we can be better and we can regenerate life. Thank you.

• Gabe Brown on LinkedIn
• Brown’s Ranch
• Dirt To Soil
• Soil Health Academy
• National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
• Salar Shemirani on LinkedIn
• Carbon
• Understanding Ag
• Regenified
• Kiss the Ground
• Common Ground
• Dirt To Soil
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• Regenerative Agriculture, Soil Health and Carbon Sequestration with John Roulac, Executive Producer of Kiss the Ground – Previous Episode
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