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0:00:01 - Cal
On today's episode we have Stephanie Anderson and we discuss her journey from South Dakota to Florida and the new book she's just recently released, from the Ground Up, which features women in agriculture. I think you'll enjoy it. Okay, stephanie, we will get started with the Fast Five. What's your name? My name is Stephanie Anderson. Where did you grow up?
0:00:26 - Stephanie
I grew up on my family's cattle ranch in western South Dakota.
0:00:31 - Cal
And you recently published a book. What's the name of it?
0:00:34 - Stephanie
I did. My book is called From the Ground Up the Women Revolutionizing Regenerative Agriculture.
0:00:40 - Cal
Oh, very good, and when was it published?
0:00:42 - Stephanie
It was published in November 2024.
0:00:45 - Cal
Yeah, so not too long ago. Now, in addition to this book, you have one other book.
0:00:49 - Stephanie
I do that. One's called One Size Fits None. A Farm Girl's Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture.
0:00:55 - Cal
Oh, very good. Welcome to the Grazing Grass Podcast, the podcast dedicated to sharing the stories of grass-based livestock producers and exploring regenerative practices that improve the land, animals and our lives. I'm your host, gal Hartage, and each week we'll dive into the journeys, challenges and successes of producers like you, learning from their experiences and inspiring each other to grow and graze better. Whether you're a seasoned grazer or just getting started, this is the place for you. Attention ranchers ready to improve your land and boost your bottom line, join Noble Research Institute for its March Ranch Management courses. Business of Grazing in Edmond, oklahoma, march 4th through 6th. Learn to create detailed grazing plans, optimize profitability and make smart infrastructure investments. Noble Grazing Essentials in Huntsville, texas, march 25th through 27th. Discover how to assess carrying capacity, implement adaptive grazing strategies and develop effective pasture recovery techniques. Expert facilitators with decades of ranching knowledge will guide you through practical field and classroom training. Receive exclusive benefits. Include virtual meetings and one-on-one consultations. Space is limited. Visit nobleorg to enroll and invest in your land, livestock and legacy For 10 seconds about the farm.
We are bell grazing right now, enjoying the little bit warmer weather right now, and our accidental lambing season has started. Actually, I say that tongue-in-cheek because it's not accidental this time, it was accidental in 2024, but this time I thought it worked so well. Last year we thought we would try something. We'll find out how crazy we are. So I purchased a young ram, a Dorper cross ram lamb, and we threw him out there last fall so that our ewes we would have some ewes lamb early. Our thought pattern with that. For those ewes that had had the accidental lambing last year, they would be ready to breed. The others had just been shortly weaned, so they were likely to breed, but not real sure. And then we had our ewe lambs and our ewe lambs weren't big enough at the time. I threw that ram lamb out there and we'll see what happens. Right now I have 24 lambs on the ground. If it works, great, we'll see. What we would like to see is have a nice set of lambs this time and then we have another set in May. It's me, being a lazy farmer, thought well, I'll just put a young ram out there, we'll see what happens. Check back in a few months. I may be like this was the worst idea ever, or I may like it. I know. Last year with the accidental lambing, we lambed those out and we sold them directly off to use in May and we thought we did fairly well with them. We were happy with how they did, so we'll see how this goes.
Stay tuned For 10 seconds about the podcast. I haven't mentioned it lately but we got the grazing grass community over there on Facebook. If you want to join it, go over and join it. It has slowed down some conversation in there that I said that room, the conversations in there have slowed down a little bit right now and we'll try and get that picked back up. But Stephanie was gracious enough to give us a couple books to give away to members of the grazing grass community. So we will be doing that later this week. And let's get back to Stephanie First. Thank you, stephanie, for doing that Now. Let's go talk to Stephanie. To get started today, stephanie, let's talk about your early experiences with ranching, because you grew up in a ranch in South Dakota. What was that like and what kind of practices were used there?
0:05:16 - Stephanie
It was a really incredible upbringing. I'm so proud of the work my family does. Like I said, they're in western South Dakota, so northwestern to be exact. So they're working in a pretty dry environment and so they run beef cattle.
It's a cow-calf operation and so you know I would spend my summers doing all the things that farm kids do on a cow-calf operation. So fencing, fixing barbed wire fences, haying, did a lot of haying and raking. We, you know, raised all of our own hay for our cattle for, you know, overwintering, and they also did some crops as well. So we would grow things like wheat, we'd grow oats and we would actually bale that. So that was, you know, for hay and for our cattle as well.
Horseback riding, obviously, you know using that to gather cattle and you know being out on the land was something that we were doing all the time. So I would call my family's operation pretty conventional. They would use the more of a conventional grazing model where you know we would, maybe we would put the, you know, brand our calves in the spring, right, usually around May, sometimes it would get into June, and then we would take those out to the summer pasture and they would usually stay in the same pastures all summer long and then we'd gather them up in the fall, they might go into a fall pasture and then bring them home closer for winter. The winters are pretty rough in Western South Dakota, so the cattle have to be pretty close.
0:06:27 - Cal
Is the ranch still in the family?
0:06:29 - Stephanie
It is. I know I'm so happy that it is so. My dad and mom still operate it, and my younger brother is there as well. He does some work on the side for himself, but then he also helps my father.
0:06:40 - Cal
Oh yeah, and I have to ask, because I'm so fascinated by breeds of cattle but what kind of cattle did you all run?
0:06:48 - Stephanie
We mostly run black Angus For a while there was a little bit of red Angus in there, maybe a little bit of cross when my parents were first getting started when I was younger and kind of any cattle was welcome on the ranch, whatever they could find. But my dad's really gotten his genetics down to where he's running black Angus now and it's a really nice herd.
0:07:07 - Cal
Oh, I imagine. So, yeah, now growing up, what did you think you would do? Did you think I'm getting away from this farm work as fast as I can? It's interesting to you. What was your thought process as a kid on it doing it?
0:07:23 - Stephanie
As a kid I honestly thought that I would be a rancher, that I would be still doing that. I really did love the work and I still do. Whenever I go home, I love to help and you know I did summers, you know, after college as well, for a few years. But I guess you know what happened was that I just my writing started to take me away. And you know I did go away to college. I went to college in Sioux Falls, south Dakota, at Augustana University, and so from there I just followed this dream of writing and it led me. It did lead me away. So it's weird. I do see like a parallel self that could be there in South Dakota and being on the ranch and doing the work of like the women that I have interviewed for my book that are featured.
I see myself in them often, in the sense that I can totally see myself doing the work. So I'm not exactly sure when that changed, but probably when I was more in the college time I realized I'm probably going to not be returning to that part of the state.
0:08:18 - Cal
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, and with your writing. So did your writing, or passion for writing really start in college?
0:08:28 - Stephanie
Yeah, I was always interested in writing and English. As a high school student I was always doing creative writing things. But when I went to college and started working on an English major, I started emphasizing in creative writing and just that side of myself seems so interesting. And I also have a journalism minor. So that's how I got into agricultural journalism. For a brief period I worked as a journalist in Sioux Falls for a publication called Tri-State Neighbor. It's a really great newspaper out of Sioux Falls. They cover Northwest Iowa, Southwest Minnesota, Northeast Nebraska and then all of South Dakota, so I kind of cut my teeth in journalism through that as well.
0:09:05 - Cal
And you mentioned there English major.
0:09:07 - Stephanie
Yeah.
0:09:08 - Cal
Now I'll be perfectly honest. When I went to college, I was in animal science major and we were about as far from using proper English as possible. What drew you to the English major and what were your plans with that at the time you made that decision?
0:09:24 - Stephanie
That's a really good question. So I pursued an English major, primarily because I was so interested in writing. I was such a big reader I wasn't sure exactly what that would look like and over the years it really morphed into becoming the storyteller who can kind of be in between the people who are working on the land and the people who don't have any familiarity with farming and ranching, who don't understand what that lifestyle is like, why it's so important for our country, why it's so important for our food supply and why the people that are doing that work are so incredibly wonderful people. We need storytellers. It's kind of like in the sciences you know where the scientists are doing such great work but oftentimes the public doesn't quite understand it. So I try to use that English major, use that ability to work with story, to kind of be that bridge. That's. That's what it's become.
I don't know if I knew that at the time, but that's what it has become.
0:10:19 - Cal
Oh, yes, I think sometimes and I say I think that sometimes this way I felt coming out of high school I knew I was going to college because that was my parents' expectation. It was you're going to college and I didn't have any doubts about it. I knew I was going to college but that's probably a reflection of what they told me when I was very young. But so I knew what I was going to college. But when you think about me coming in, graduating high school from a very small high school or small community and going to college animal science I knew I wanted to do that, so it was pretty easy for me. But when I really think back to it, you know, years later, when I think back animal science I can go into the medical field.
But I tell my brothers a doctor, and I tell them all the time I could have been a doctor. I just don't like people that well. I like animals better. I know what you mean. But so medical animal science I knew I could get an MBA business. But then I was like what do you really do with a business? So I think sometimes when we have kids growing up in smaller communities I hope this is improved Sometimes they're not sure what all these different degrees really mean for them. So for you to go into English, it's good to find out where you've gone with that degree for kids today as they think about what they're wanting to do.
0:11:46 - Stephanie
Yeah, I think that conversation is so important to have with young people and I think we can bring it back to agriculture in so many ways. That's something I talk about from the ground up is that I would love to see us offer agriculture specifically agriculture that works with sustainability and works with climate, smart techniques, as a viable option for young people, just as much as we would offer things like being a doctor, being a lawyer, things like that and so kind of making that bridge connection between what a college degree or not could offer them in that field is important and yeah, I mean, I was the first in my family to go to college.
You know that journey was completely new for my family, like navigating what the academic world is like and what what you could do with a major, and everybody said, oh, you'll never. You know, you'll have to be a teacher or you'll never make any money as an English major.
And I don't know, the money part's still up in the air, but the there is definitely a path for that major. So you know, and yeah, being I it's funny, path for that major. So you know, and yeah, being it's funny, we have a very similar upbringing, I think. Very small town I mean there were 14 kids in my graduating class. You know 300 people in our town, the closest town, and yeah, I hope that the opportunities have gotten better for young people in those kinds of communities, in the sense of there are people telling them, hey, here's what you could do or here's a really great way where you can stay in your community and make a really big difference.
0:13:05 - Cal
Oh, yeah, yeah, and I have to apologize right off, I guess, compared to you, I grew up in a big city. We had 46 in my graduating class.
0:13:13 - Stephanie
Oh wow, Huge. You know, three times as big Three times you would have been from a big town.
0:13:20 - Cal
Yeah, well, actually I worked. So I grew up in Chelsea, graduated from Chelsea population 1,800-something and I worked for years in education in Bonita population about 5,000. I tell them all the time I went to the big city.
0:13:34 - Stephanie
Yep, yep. So I have to mention this because have you ever heard of something called the McFarthest spot?
0:13:43 - Cal
No, I haven't.
0:13:44 - Stephanie
Okay, well, so there's this guy. His name is Steven Von Worley and he's. He's this guy on the internet, but he had made a project, you know, a few decades back actually now, of he was trying to map the farthest that you could get from a McDonald's restaurant in the continental United States. He like mapped them all out and he found the McFarthest spot and it was about 10 miles from my parents' ranch for the longest time.
0:14:06 - Cal
I'm not joking.
0:14:07 - Stephanie
I went there and I mean it was there Since now, over the years, McDonald's have closed and opened the spot is now somewhere in Nevada. So it's no longer that. But when I was growing up, and for a while when I was in college, we were basically the McFarthest spot.
0:14:24 - Cal
It was over an hour and a half drive to McDonald's. That is definitely a claim to fame there. I'll have to look that up more. That's interesting.
0:14:33 - Stephanie
And then still is that far to McDonald's. It still is that far. It's just I don't know what changed, but or someone else is now farther, but it still is quite a drive if we really want to get to the Golden Arches, which I just think too is. You know our farmers and our ranchers. There are raising beef that often goes into the supply that will end up at a restaurant like McDonald's.
Right, but yet it's so far removed, physically and in a psychological sense, from the producers daily lives, and yet they are often conforming their management practices to those standards that are being set. You know, so far away. I just find that contrast very interesting.
0:15:12 - Cal
Yeah, that is very interesting. I want to continue a little bit more about your writing journey. You started working for an ag publication there in South Dakota tri-state area, correct?
0:15:24 - Stephanie
Yes.
0:15:25 - Cal
I did. And then what'd you do after that?
0:15:28 - Stephanie
So I worked there for a year. It was a really great job. I got to see a lot of different farms, a lot of different agricultural models and practices that I had never encountered as a West River, South Dakota kid, just growing up on a cattle ranch. So I got to see a lot.
But this was the recession era. This was 2009-, 2009-ish, 2010 and we were just kind of looking for something else to do. After you know, use our college, our college degrees, to do something new. So I ended up moving to Florida and I worked for a non-profit there for a while. I had a really great job. I worked in marketing and writing so I got to cover international aid. That's what, what the nonprofit that I worked for did.
So they sent me to places like Mozambique and Kenya, guatemala, haiti. Wow, it was a great, great job. Bolivia was probably the coolest place I went and I got to speak to a lot of different people and learn about their lives really, really tough situations but also bring their stories back and hopefully inspire people to give. So I worked there for a few years and that was great. But I also realized, you know, hey, I am giving all of my creative energy to a job and even though I love the job, it's not necessarily that energy that I. I want to have that energy manifest in a different way and storytelling in a different form.
So then I went back to school. I went and got a master's degree in creative nonfiction and I've been writing ever since, and so I've taught for a while at Florida Atlantic University as an instructor, and that was a great job. I stepped away to write this current book that I just published from the ground up, and then I was lucky to come back to the same institution as assistant professor of creative nonfiction. So a more formalized role. So that's really kind of the journey.
0:17:07 - Cal
So what I really get from your journey is you got tired of the snow and you moved where there wasn't any.
0:17:12 - Stephanie
I will say it's not bad being away from the cold weather in South Dakota that final winter. I'll never forget shoveling out the car. It was a very bad winter in 2010, the car. It was a very bad winter in 2010 and we are 2009, early 2010 and I left that spring and I was so tired of it. I will have to say I imagine.
0:17:33 - Cal
so my wife grew up in Hawaii.
0:17:37 - Stephanie
Wow.
0:17:39 - Cal
So the winter here in Northeast Oklahoma is not bad, but to her it's terrible.
0:17:43 - Stephanie
Sure.
0:17:44 - Cal
She does love the fact that there's seasons, but she could really do with winter being like one or two days. You know, we got our snow, let's go ahead and move to spring.
0:17:54 - Stephanie
Yeah, I have to say. And every time I go back to visit my family you know I often go over the holidays and it's cold- you know, we were just there for.
Thanksgiving and it was in the single digits. And I mean, we're there and I'm thinking, man, I used to just be out in this and it wasn't an issue, and now I just I don't know if it's just a function of getting older or, you know, climatized. But I have even more respect for the people who are out in that all the time, no matter what kind of job they're doing.
0:18:20 - Cal
Going on that tangent. You know, I grew up on a dairy and I dairied for years before I went back to school to go into education and I worked in education for a number of years. I'm back on the farm now. Those years when I dairied, I was out in the weather every day and a t-shirt and jeans was my attire most time. Obviously I'd put on a jacket and stuff, but I'd spend hours outside. Yeah, I started working for a school. I got so soft. I did not want to go out without being bundled up. Where's my gloves? I need I need a complete outer wardrobe to handle this now yes, I'm, I'm there.
0:18:57 - Stephanie
that that's who I am now. It's shameful, but that's who I am Right.
0:19:03 - Cal
So in that journey, as you leaned into your writing, somewhere along that journey you were introduced to regenerative practices. When was that and what caused it to capture your attention?
0:19:17 - Stephanie
So when I was getting my master's degree, part of that process is a three-year degree. You have to write a thesis, so you have to write basically a book-length manuscript and of course, the question is, what am I going to do? What's a big enough project that I can turn my attention to? And I was really ambitious. I was reading a lot of you know things like Michael Pollan at the time, elizabeth Colbert, people who were using storytelling to talk about the food system or to talk about the environment and I thought, well, I feel like I have a lot of connections in farm country. I really care about farm country. I am learning about how industrial practices are eroding our farm communities and really endangering the future of so many of our farm families, my own family included. Well, I kind of felt a personal responsibility to start to explore that, and so I wanted to. And so that project ended up becoming One Size Fits None and I wanted to start the project by helping people understand how farmers get into the conventional system and kind of get trapped in it in the first place. So I visited a vegetable farmer out here in Florida. Actually, we're big vegetable producers and if you're eating tomatoes right now they're coming from here, for example, and he was a big producer. His story really helped. I think the layperson understand all right, this is the model that we have. And then I used other producers, people like Gabe Brown, for instance, is in the book, and there's a great Buffalo rancher, phil Jardy, in South Dakota. There's another person here down in Florida. That's kind of an opposite model.
And so between these stories, this is where the regenerative practices that I was learning about researching and coming across through their stories but also through published research and talking to experts and people in the sciences and agricultural sciences were telling me about, and so I wanted to use their stories as a vehicle for presenting that kind of regenerative possibility, not just for the land but also just for farm families and seeing the success that they were having from a bottom line perspective, from an ecological health perspective, but also, you know, their communities being revitalized by their work. So that's kind of where it all came from. I just here in Florida people don't, at least where I'm working, a lot of people grew up in cities. They don't have that, you know, connection or even the knowledge to talk about it, and I felt I have it, I'm going to use it. So that's kind of where it came from it.
0:21:43 - Cal
So that's kind of where it came from. With going through that process, did that affect any?
0:21:46 - Stephanie
operations on your family's ranch. In a little bit of a way, I got my brother. He's a few years younger than me interested in it and he's yeah, which was super exciting for me.
So he's been doing some rotational grazing. He's got he's got a great setup on some acres that he's managing and he's also working in cover crops for forage purposes. He's also replanted some former cropland back to grassland, so he's doing some management on his own. He's also doing direct to consumer beef marketing, which is great for him, and so, yeah, in that sense, yes, it has been able to create a little bit of change, I think, for the next generation of my family's range.
0:22:26 - Cal
Oh, very good. Change is not easy and takes time. I know in my own context. My dad and I work together a lot and dad's practices have changed a lot.
0:22:40 - Stephanie
But like, from a practical standpoint, it's not like farmers can just be like, okay, I'm going to go regenerative and so I think people want change really quickly. But we have to be really, we have to extend a lot of patience and grace and help people make that journey on their own time.
0:23:11 - Cal
Right, yes, and I know just in our circumstance. We're talking about what calving season for dad's herd and we've talked about moving it, but that's a financial hit. Do we sell the cows? Do we buy back in? Currently at these prices, it'd be great to sell them, but we don't necessarily want to buy on this market, sure? Do we spend a decade moving them to the right season? Do we bite the bullet and lose a half year income and just move them to the right season? It it's. It's tough as we think about it. And I say the right season, each farm has their own context and owns the right season for them. So just because it may be the right season for us, right where we are, does not mean it's the right season for everyone else.
0:23:55 - Stephanie
Right, yeah, what you're saying. It seems to go to this idea that each to each environment, its own practices and its own wisdom. You know what makes sense for a ranch in a place like Western South Dakota, where our winters do last longer and we can have pretty tough blizzards all the way through April rarely in the first week of May but possible. That kind of calving season is tough. Where in your environment, I'm sure it gets warmer a lot earlier. You're able to start calving.
So, exactly, but working with that same basic principle of what's best for the animal, what's best for you as the ranger, to try to be more efficient with your efforts and just minimize loss and stress on our animals.
0:24:37 - Cal
Right. So once you got your first book out, one Size Fits None. When did your idea for your second book come, or where did the idea come from, and how did that process go?
0:24:50 - Stephanie
So, from the Ground Up really started in March 2020 when the pandemic hit and we all saw the food system, I would say, collapse pretty badly, and it was as someone who understands the hardship for producers that were, you know, had time sensitive products that they couldn't bring to market. I understood that they were trapped in a very big national and international food system that was completely inflexible and was not able to assist them in the way that they needed to. It was not able to be flexible and adaptable in the way they needed it to be. On the other side, us as consumers, we were experiencing shortages like we hadn't seen before and also, I think, realizing many people that we didn't know who our local farmers and ranchers were. We did not have the types of connections to our food that we should have, and so I was thinking is this a foreshadow, like what we were seeing in those months, especially those early months is this a foreshadow of what's going to happen the next time we have a big shock to the system?
Is this what's going to happen when we start having back to back and we already are, arguably climate driven emergencies that are being very disruptive for our producers? Is this baked in Like? Are we going to keep seeing this or can we change it? And so that's where it really started, and I was thinking about who, and as I was researching who, was trying to build that food system that could have that flexibility and resiliency, I was finding a lot of women, and so I was tracing their stories and I was finding that women were working in all kinds of environments on the land to make this happen, but they were also working in that food system, that bigger system that we saw collapse so badly. So they're working in the sciences, they're working in distribution, they're working in making our food system more regional, more local, and shortening those supply chains so that they can be quicker to adapt.
But we also have this very large web of components within the food system that also have to transition, so that rangers and farmers aren't just doing it on their own and there has the supply chain ready, they have the consumer base ready, they have the knowledge ready, they have the policy ready, they have the funding to do it. So yeah, that's where it kind of came out of was that I wanted to take a systems view of it, as we saw during the pandemic, that when we were watching that system kind of dissolve.
0:27:33 - Cal
You know we all have these COVID projects. This grazing grass podcast came out of my COVID project kind of oh yeah. Yep To share the stories and do storytelling in just a different medium than you're doing. Yeah, With your stories you focused on women and BIPOC populations.
0:27:56 - Stephanie
It's kind of just like this movement, it seems, or like. When I was doing this research, I was noticing too that the regenerative movement seems to be more inclusive and it's also more open to, you know, acknowledging the indigenous roots of regenerative agriculture and the afro-american and the way that hispanic, all of these agricultures around the world also, you know, in places like Asia, what we call regenerative today, is really drawing from that many generations of knowledge and practices even that are now.
they may look a little different today, but it's still the same basic foundation. So when I was, for example, for From the Ground Up, going out to the Cheyenne River Reservation and interviewing an indigenous producer, kelsey Scott, she was enlightening me about all of these things and same when I went to visit Carrie and Aaron Martin up in North Carolina, they were talking about how these are practices built in from their ancestors, some of which, many, many decades ago, were enslaved, and this is how they were managing land to keep it fertile and keep it healthy. No-transcript.
0:29:26 - Cal
Right, I completely agree. When we think about the grazing grass podcast, you know, I want producers on here that are running on 10 acres, producers running on thousands of acres, and all the continuum between them, as well as where they came from, what livestock they're running, continuum between them as well as where they came from, what livestock they're running, what their origins are, where they're located. So, trying to be very inclusive, to include everyone we can into this conversation, Because the goal I think and I think your goal is going to be very similar we want that person to take the next step on their regenerative journey, whatever that next step may be, and for them to do it, they have to see themselves in the story. At least that's my thought. So if they see themselves in that story, they can take that next step because they're like, oh, that person's doing it like this and I'm like that person and I can take that step.
0:30:16 - Stephanie
I think that's exactly right. I think that we are, you know, natural. People are not storytellers. We resonate with stories, we want to see how our lives connect with them, and so when we're able to see ourselves in stories, we're more likely to feel that inspiration to, you know, follow whatever we feel called to do. And you know too, I mean the data backs it up in the sense of who's that generation of farmers are. When we do the young farmer surveys, when we do the census of agriculture, it does reflect the changing demographics. So it's absolutely making sure that people's stories are represented. But also, you know, it's not sort of just like picking stories that fit so everyone can be seen. It's also just a reflection of what's happening, which is so exciting. Yeah.
0:31:04 - Cal
Do you think? You know? We see so many things that the average age of farmers are increasing and we're going to have tons of farmers retiring at some point. My grandpa is almost retired, at 98. My uncle does most of the stuff but he's still a little bit involved, so I'm not sure you would say he's fully retired at this point, but at some point he will fully retire. As we look to the next generation, what do we need to do so that we can get more people interested?
0:31:37 - Stephanie
Well, I love this question. You're right. I mean, we have a massive changing of ownership, or changing of operational ownership, within our farm communities, and so it represents, I think, an exciting opportunity to welcome young people back to the farm. Regenerative operations tend to be able to produce more per acre. They're more efficient, so more people can be on the land. So, like, for example, in the book, I talk about a brother-sister duo who are working with the family ranch or a family farm. They have rented out a huge portion of it and on the other portion it supports two families using regenerative practices farming, cropping and also or excuse me cover cropping and then also animal production, so livestock and all kinds of other enterprises and so they're able to produce more, support more families on a smaller acreage and let someone else manage that other acreage.
So I think, as we see farmland begin to change hands, we need to bolster our connections between the people who are leaving that land and people who want to be on that land, so that we can facilitate either rent to own or buying options or management options, internship sort of options as well. So we do have women working on this issue too, to connect the people who are going to manage this land maybe a smaller portion of a larger farmer ranch and be able to get more people onto it. So that will, in turn, impact our communities, hopefully spur growth within communities, revitalize some of these forgotten agricultural areas if we can get more families back to those areas. So I think this transition of farmland is exciting. We just have to make sure that we put up guardrails to keep development from coming in big business coming in people with deep pockets, big corporate operations.
So that'll be a constant challenge, so it won't be easy. But we do have young people out there who want to farm. It's the number one issue for young farmers when they're surveyed is access to land. So if we can make that access pathway smoother then we can, I think, make a regenerative movement, a regenerative transition happen a lot faster.
0:33:52 - Cal
Yeah, that access to land is so tough and it is so tough and keeping out. You know, as we think about land prices in my area, you know we've heard for years beef cows won't pay for land and while I still agree with that, there's some other ways to get it paid for and some other things you can do by looking outside the box and trying some other things as well. But yeah, that money or access is a huge issue.
0:34:22 - Stephanie
Yeah, I mean. And the financial side is interesting because regenerative again offers so much opportunity for economic stability, Like if you diversify what you're producing on that acre, you can insulate yourself from some of these market swings, you can bring in new opportunities and enterprises and it can be a little bit more exciting, to be honest, sometimes, because if we just do the same thing every year over and over, I can see how young people may not be interested in that. I can see how young people may not be interested right now in the way sometimes their parents were doing things on the ranch or on the farm because it's not terribly intellectually stimulating in some cases. And it's young people we give. We need to give more credit because they are up for the challenge, you know. So I love that idea of making the farm more complex.
0:35:12 - Cal
Yeah, that diversification stacking of enterprises makes a big difference in a lot of different ways. Stephanie, before we transition to our overgrazing section, I would like for you to give us just a little bit of a almost an elevator talk, if you will why we should get your book and read it.
0:35:33 - Stephanie
Thank you, Well, I think that this book is great for all kinds of people who are interested in the food system, interested in human health and interested in environmental stability.
So I wrote the book that in a way that would help, or I think, or try to reach an everyday person who may not be very familiar, but also be very helpful for people who are in the system. And so the book really does touch on a number of components of the food system. I think it offers a view of what we need to do on the land, or how we might adapt regenerative practices to help prepare our farmland for achieving climate, how we can help our producers stay in business in the years ahead, but also all the different ways that people can get involved with the food system, even if they're nowhere near a farm, when it comes to supply chains and research and policy, things like that. And also the book is narrative driven. It's not going to be a whole bunch of overwhelming statistics, although there's lots of facts and everything in there, but my goal is to show you real people who are out there making a difference and to show how their stories illuminate a bigger challenge, but also illuminate bigger opportunities.
0:36:47 - Cal
And just to continue on your book just a little bit. It's not just regenerative grazing. It's a lot of different regenerative practices, different types of farms, different locations.
0:36:59 - Stephanie
Correct. Yeah, it starts out with grazing. So if you're into grazing as I'm sure you are, if you're listening to this podcast, chapter one is all about that as I mentioned, at a ranch in South Dakota and there's also, as I mentioned, the family that has transitioned a row crop operation in Missouri. They did corn and beans like clockworks for decades and they have used regenerative grazing in their case, cattle and sheep as well to bring new life to that land in a very typical corn and beans area. So I tried to show regenerative grazing in multiple lights because, again, we had a one size fits none environment, I think. Because our country is so big, we have so many different environments, so I tried to give perspectives that would apply in different parts of the country.
0:37:48 - Cal
And I think with the family in Missouri, they're the ones who planted the chestnut trees as well.
0:37:54 - Stephanie
Yes, yeah, talk about bringing a new enterprise, yeah.
0:37:57 - Cal
Yeah, the silvopasture. It's a conversation we have often and I find that I find chestnuts. I've read some of them. We have not planted any. We planted a few pecan trees, so interesting. I haven't quite convinced my dad that we should try some chestnut trees. He's very much pro pecan trees but I would love to try a little bit more of that and it was very interesting seeing where they're going with that.
0:38:24 - Stephanie
Yeah, that was really, really interesting to see that. Family was just, to me, emblematic of what we can achieve when we allow our fathers and our mothers and our grandparents to be leaders on the farm but also to be partners in change. So that was exciting yeah.
0:38:47 - Cal
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In the overgrazing section we take a little bit deeper dive into some practice, and one practice that runs through much of your book is regenerative rotational grazing. So, to get started, let's just start by what's your definition of regenerative rotational grazing and I know most of my listeners they know what rotational grazing, or it's amp grazing, but there's all these different terms for it. So let's just start with so we're on the same page what's regenerative rotational grazing to you?
0:40:22 - Stephanie
in most environments it is short duration, high intensity.
So especially in a dry environment, that seems to work pretty well.
So, for example, when the producers that I interviewed for both books, who are working in an environment like Western South Dakota where they might get 13 inches of rain a year very little rainfall using that principle of short duration, high intensity means, you know, making sure that you've got very small paddocks, very you know whether those are temporary or permanent, often temporary given the size, but really clustering the cattle or, in one producer's case, his buffalo, his bison, to really disturb that land, use disturbance as a tool for regeneration and allowing that land to rest.
So you want to also have that long rest period in that dry environment to really allow the land to recover. In a place like Florida, when we're talking about regenerative, we get so much more moisture down here, so our ranchers who are using regenerative practices can still use that same principle but they can come back to that land sooner because it doesn't need as long to recover. So that's kind of in a nutshell of what we would call rotational regenerative grazing, but again, that could differ slightly in the environment in which the producer is working.
0:41:34 - Cal
Right, most of these terms we have, for it is all very similar. You know the high intensity, short duration, adequate rest period for your land forages to recover, to be ready for that next disturbance event. When you went out to these farmers doing this, was that something new to them, that they were just learning, or had they been practicing it a long time?
0:42:08 - Stephanie
In the two cases that I talked about in the book that were again from Western South Dakota.
Just to focus in on those two One producer, phil Drudy, when he was using buffalo, he transitioned over years as he learned more from people like Alan Savory. This was kind of a learning curve, beginning in a conventional mindset and moving toward more regenerative. When I looked at a producer like Kelsey Scott, for example she's a Lakota producer she was thinking back about how her ancestors would manage wild animals by setting intentional burns that would move animals to different places or draw them to land so they could come back. How they would strategically push herds of bison or elk to areas so that they could disturb, and so they were practicing land stewardship in those ways. So in that way it was not new but just a new application. So, but often, you know, people are that I've been talking to in a more broad perspective, are transitioning. You know this is this is new for them and so it does take time and it's, it's been a mind shift. Many people are raised in the tradition of pretty conventional operation and are making, or have made, that transition over time.
0:43:18 - Cal
What's been their challenge in moving that direction, or was that shared with you?
0:43:25 - Stephanie
Often infrastructure is one, so making sure that you have water where you need it, where you have fencing where you need it and getting over that curve where the land takes time to recover.
So pretty overgrazed or conventionally grazed pasture may have a lot of invasive woody species, it may not be very productive, and so it takes some time for that difference to difference to start to emerge.
So there's that as well and also just sort of changing the way you think about yourself as a rancher. I think is one too and your job. So, like you know, growing up it was sort of like we would put the cattle out into the summer pasture and we would check them once a week, make sure they had water and whatever, but like you kind of just dumped them out there and forgot them and like not forgot them, but you know you got yourself busy with making hay the window for that was closing and you know getting everything else done, harvesting the wheat, and so the cattle were sort of always on the back burner and so I think when you're working often with the more regenerative principles, you are more hands on with them, in a lot of cases with your livestock. So changing the way you think about your role as a manager too can be a barrier for someone who may not want or may not have always prioritized that or found it as important to be an active steward With Kelsey in South Dakota.
0:44:49 - Cal
are they still using some fire there to help with the providing fire as a disturbance event in addition to grazing, or are they focused just on grazing at this point?
0:44:59 - Stephanie
They're focused on grazing at this point. If they have used fire, I'm not aware of it, or it's been, maybe since our conversations with her, but I know like. So, when I saw the really interesting impact of fire when I went to Kansas and I went and visited the Kansa Prairie there, this is a really great experimental station. It's many thousands of acres and it's it's been a test site since the 70s where people have been observing the role of fire, or lack of fire, or different fire regimens, and the role of livestock, the role of bison and sort of being able to do that over the long term, and so that's yielded some really, really great perspectives about the importance of fire and so absolutely, and so I saw that there and it really changed my thinking.
0:45:49 - Cal
I have to admit, when I think about grazing and using fire as a disturbance tool, I'm not I don't want to say I'm not a fan. I don't like it for me and one of the big reasons my wife's allergic to smoke and when the ranches around me burn she'll be sick for days. It's just crazy. She's developed that allergic reaction to smoke and even if she goes somewhere that there's some residue smoke smell and she'll have a reaction to it, which is just crazy. So I'm not a fan of it. But I and also to continue on that, I see people here that burn all the time and I'm like you don't have to burn that often if you're going to burn. But I do think fire can be a useful tool with grazing and I know I went kind of off the grazing topic towards fire, but I do think they can work hand in hand.
0:46:48 - Stephanie
Yeah, and it's connected. I think there's. You know, it seems to me, because that was a completely unfamiliar tool to me that nobody, nobody even that I know really still in Western South Dakota is is doing, you know it's using fire as a management tool? If they are, it's not in my particular, you know community that I'm familiar with.
So, yeah, I and I, so I went to Kansas as part, you know, as I mentioned, and I also talked to producers when I was there and they were telling me about people that would burn often, you know, and and that and that they said you know, then there is such a thing as too much burning, as you said. So, yeah, I think it probably just depends on your environment and the way in which that's handled and sort of using knowledge to guide the fire regimen. If you're using that so that you don't go too far and it becomes almost like over grazing at that point where you really destroyed that root structure underneath by stressing the plant at the top too much yeah, I'm.
0:47:43 - Cal
I'm just where we live. We're kind of on the southern tip of the the burning in our area During the spring. You can look to the east and to the north and just see huge fires going. So much of this ranch land around us is burned off yearly. And moving back to grazing, when we look at regenerative grazing, we talked a little bit about stacking enterprises and diversification. Did you find that with the people you talked to that they were incorporating different species, or at least planning to? What was their process on that?
0:48:20 - Stephanie
Yeah, so absolutely, people were diversifying the farm that I mentioned in Missouri. They were bringing in cattle and sheep, so they've got bull and bull. They're now direct to consumer meat businesses for them, so that's been really helpful for them. They also, as you mentioned, they were bringing in things like the chestnut trees and they're also bringing in cover crops as part of their grazing plan there, which would also help heal their soil, which was really in need of recovery after decades of row crop production. It was pretty depleted and so then they're also bringing into that grazing, the reintroduction of wild grassland. So that's not. I mean both of those are enterprises in the sense that they're forage but also bringing reseeding grassland to native species. That that can also be for them an enterprise in the sense that they're going to bring honey. Production is one thing that they have planned.
So, they need. You know that they need that kind of riparian area in order to support something like that. So it works for their grazing enterprise, but also for an enterprise like honey production. So yeah, in terms of that particular operation, they were diversifying from a species sense, but also diversifying what is on their land in terms of what's actually being grazed and how they're doing that. Oh, and they also do something really interesting. They do sprouts. They are bringing in barley, for example, or different grains, and they are allowing them under wet conditions, undercover, to sprout, and these are really high and high protein, highly nutritious forage that they're able to use. Once it makes sprouts reach a certain height, they're able to use that as a supplement, especially when they're you know, they're in the winter environment this can provide another source of forage. So it's not a traditional grazing method, but it's a way to bring more nutrients back to that grazing environment through allowing the animals to process it.
0:50:22 - Cal
So they're using, they're sprouting some and feeding them back to their animals.
0:50:26 - Stephanie
Exactly.
0:50:27 - Cal
Yeah, I've seen some systems like that and, to be honest, I don't know how I feel about them. I think it's great to get that green, that forage, in front of the animal during time they can't, and I could see some applications. But also I think about the labor that's involved, and so you've got to have a high value product that'll help offset some of those costs, so. But I think it's very interesting to see what people's doing with that.
0:50:55 - Stephanie
Yeah, so I think you know in their particular operation you know they're able to sell their meat at a price point to make some of that labor worth it and they're still at a small enough scale where that one person can manage it, so that's been useful.
One really interesting thing and again, I don't think it would apply I think if you had a really large operation, something like that would work. But one cool thing about it was that they were allowing their animals to stay grass-fed all the way till the end, because those sprouts are considered a grass form of forage, which was great so that they could finish them on that, versus having to introduce grain. You still can introduce grain and still maintain the grass-fed. You know designation for a certain shorter period at the end in order to finish. But you know Jordan and Josh, the brother-sister duo that I talked to, said you know we feel for ourselves that we want to maintain that grass-fed integrity all the way, and this is kind of our way to do that and not have to introduce any grain.
0:51:56 - Cal
Yeah, they can introduce or they can increase that nutritional plane. Yes, for that finishing stage by introducing those sprouts.
0:52:04 - Stephanie
Yeah. Very interesting, as we look towards the future with your writing. What can we expect? Well, I'm sure I'll always stay involved with regenerative agriculture and that sort of transition and trying to tell the stories and kind of move that needle forward. I do think that I want to consider writing about my own personal experience growing up on my family ranch. That's kind of you, you know in the long term. I've had a lot of people ask me about it. You know and talk about you know.
Well, you know what was it like growing up at the McFarland spot or whatever you know, and and how did that look, and and what was that life like, and so I'd like to explore some of that too. I I've I have done some writing like that in the past not book lengths projects but I think that's probably my next larger project. But I know I'll always be working within the agricultural world, so I don't know exactly what that might look like, but I'll always be engaged with it, yeah.
0:53:03 - Cal
I love that idea of telling your farm's journey. I love these natural history books that share a journey and sharing insights and stuff, so I definitely would be looking forward to that book. Of course, that story is still unfolding, as all of our stories are. Now, stephanie, I have to apologize just a little bit. We were talking about the podcast before we get started and I didn't tell you about the famous four at the end, and we, you know they're famous, so all guests go through them.
So, it's just four questions and we will go ahead and start the famous four. All right, Today's famous four questions are sponsored by Manderley Farms Grazing Conference. Attention all farmers, ranchers and land enthusiasts, Join us for our unforgettable grazing conference on February 21st and 22nd 2025. At the beautiful Manderley Farms in Pikeville, Tennessee, nestled in the scenic Sasquatchie Valley, this is your chance to learn from the best in the business. Our speakers include the renowned Greg Judy, alongside the dynamic duo Greg and Debbie Brin. Expect engaging sessions, informative pastor walks and interactive question and answer sessions with our experts. Discover how to revolutionize your land management with regenerative grazing practices. Whether you're looking to enhance soil health, increase biodiversity or improve your pasture productivity, this conference is tailored for you. Don't miss this opportunity to grow your knowledge and your farm. For more details and secure your spot, visit wwwmanderleyfarmscom. That's M-A-N-D-E-R-L-E-Y, so if I need to edit it, I will. Okay.
Our first question of the famous four, what is your favorite grazing grass related book or resource? And I know you're really tempted to say right off from the ground up and when I say no, you got to pick a different one You're going to say one size fits none. I'm going to say you got to go to the third spot.
0:55:19 - Stephanie
Yes, oh well, no, that's so. So many influential writers, uh, inform my thinking. So I mean, michael Pollan is a foundational one, so you know, anything by him is important to me, but the Undivorced Dilemma is one of the ones, and it's not new anymore, but it still was one of those books that really got to me. A more modern maybe, or more recent, iteration of that is called Healing Grounds by Liz Carlisle. So she tells a lot of good stories about grazing and regenerative operations and so forth in that book and that was really influential to me as I was writing my own. So those two are probably kind of a new and an old version of what influenced me.
0:56:03 - Cal
Excellent resources. Now our next question would be a little tough in its traditional approach we take, and the second question is what's your favorite tool for the farm? But actually, let's change it up for you what's your favorite tool for writing?
0:56:19 - Stephanie
Oh, that's a good question. I would say I am always. I mean, of course, from a practical perspective, of course you need your laptop and all that stuff, but really space to think is my important, my favorite tool for writing. I mean there has to be time where you can do the reading and the reflection and the research and also just the talking to experts that you need to do, so it really your biggest tool for understanding a big issue like the food system in my experience has been the time to actually devote to thinking about it and researching.
0:56:58 - Cal
I love that answer for everything I think about my time in education, my time on the farm, time when I dairied. Having thinking space is so valuable Time to reflect and to think about what you're doing, thinking about the future. Sometimes we really neglect that and I know in education it's really neglected I feel. I feel like everyone's plate is just packed with so much and we get on on farms and we, we do the same thing. We pack so much in. You've got to stop farms. And we, we do the same thing. We pack so much in, you've got to stop. And you know, profit um, ranching for profit really says you've got to have times working in the ranch and working on the ranch, which is great. But I think there's that third space. You've got to have some thinking space, just just time that that's set aside to think about and reflect upon what's going on and process it. Because if you're always busy, always focused on something, you're not going to get that time in, and I think that's so important.
0:57:59 - Stephanie
I think you're so right.
0:58:00 - Cal
Our third question what would you tell someone just getting started? And we want to do this from two angles, since you're an author. We want to do it from someone getting started writing, but we also want to do it someone getting started in the regenerative ag space, so I'll start actually with the regenerative ag space.
0:58:20 - Stephanie
I would say as a young person, look for the resources that are out there for you, in the sense that you know there's a lot of organizations. There's even things like federal and state or institutional funding or programming. There's a lot of people who want to help you. So it will take some time to find some of those things, but there are people that are making great compilations of resources that you can find. So go out there and take advantage of that, and also realize, too, that this is the long game.
I understand that we want to see success immediately, and I would say that to writers as well. Like, if you're a young writer, you know you may not have your first book published right away, and that's okay, it's the tortoise beats the hare, right. So you know this is the long game. So I guess that would apply and I'd be a good segue to working with young people in writing, and I would just say don't let anybody tell you that you can't or shouldn't do it, because that is going to be the message that you will hear quite a lot. Um, when you tell people you want to be a writer, because it does seem, uh, pretty unrealistic, uh, you definitely need to have some sort of side job or other job that it may be not even a side, it's primary. But find a way to make it happen. If you really want to, you can. But don't let people tell you that you can't.
0:59:41 - Cal
Excellent advice there, and actually that brings another question of mine. That's not part of the famous four, but at what point did you think of yourself as an author?
0:59:54 - Stephanie
Well, I didn't think of myself as an author until I published my first book. I would and I kind of thought of myself as a. I mean, I did think of myself as a writer, but not quite a writer who was there yet oh, okay, yeah it took.
It took a while, um, even though I was writing all the way up to that point and even still. I look there are so many writers who have so much success and it's well-deserved, and you think, well, there's so much left to achieve. So I wouldn't say I fully made it, but I at least can say all right, I'm a writer.
1:00:27 - Cal
Yes, and lastly, stephanie, where can others find out more about you and where to find your books?
1:00:33 - Stephanie
Sure, you can head to my website, stephanieandersonwritingcom. So that's got all kinds of things about me on it and about the book. You can find the book at your preferred online retailers things like Amazon or Barnes and Noble things like that. I would recommend contacting your local bookstore and asking them to order it if you're interested as well to support your local business.
1:00:57 - Cal
Well, Stephanie, we appreciate you coming on and sharing with us today. Thank you.
1:01:01 - Stephanie
Thank you so much for having me. I've really enjoyed this conversation and I hope your listeners enjoy it.
1:01:07 - Cal
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Grazing Grass Podcast, where we bring you stories and insights into grass-based livestock production. If you're new here, we've got something just for you. Our new listener resource guide is packed with everything you need to get started on your listening journey with the Grazing Grass Podcast. It gives you more information about the podcast, about myself and next steps. You can grab your free copy at grazinggrasscom slash guide. Don't miss out. And hey, do you have a grazing story to share? We're always looking for passionate producers to feature on the show. Whether you're just starting out or have years of experience, your story matters. Head over to grazinggrasscom slash guest to learn more and apply to be a guest. We'd love to share your journey with our growing community of grazers Until next time keep on grazing grass.
Transcribed by https://podium.page