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(cows moo) (crickets chirping) - [Narrator] Tell me about the farmers you work with? - Well, there was this one farmer. He passed away a few years ago but he meant a lot to a lot of people. He always said that when the cow leaves the farm the people eventually leave and the community crumbles. So now we're saying let's bring them back. (upbeat country music) - [Narrator] In 1950, it was rare to see a farm without livestock. Nearly all Iowa farms had cattle, chickens, and pigs and the diversified crop and livestock farm of that era nourished families communities and the land. But by the late 70s, the number of farms with livestock had begun to shrink enough that Dick Thompson was concerned. He began doing on farm research to figure out how to fine tune and revive the diversified farm of his childhood for the farming world of the future. At the time it was being called regenerative agriculture, a simple but effective and productive farming system that relied on a diversity of livestock and a diversity of rotated crops. Most importantly, it depended upon people who knew the livestock and the land. It was called regenerative because it regenerated the soil and natural resource base that it depended upon. But also because it regenerated the families in communities that depended upon it. While today, there are actually more livestock in Iowa than ever before, but they've become concentrated onto fewer and fewer farms in fewer and fewer regions of the state. There are less than half the farms in Iowa there were in 1950 and less than half of those farms have livestock. And that's had a big impact on our people, our communities and our land. - Livestock are such a huge part of keeping that rural community thriving and humming on a daily basis. - [Narrator] As PFI's livestock program manager and a beginning livestock farmer, Meghan Filbert sees the central role livestock farmers play in their communities. - Livestock are a 365-day a year job. When you have to do something every single day of the year that means you have to be present and be on the farm and therefore be active around your community. - [Narrator] A.J. and Kellie Blair farm on A.J.'s family farm in the heart of central Iowa, near the small town of Dayton. - A.J. is on the school board. I am on our parish council at church and we're a part of this community. And so if you know, if I was working off farm, it would be harder for me to be involved with those things. And it would be harder for my husband to be involved in those things because we'd only have a limited amount of time - The joy in farming. A huge part of it is working with people. - [Narrator] Arlyn Kauffman farms in southern Iowa with his wife, kids, uncles, and cousins. They have a few cows, a layer barn, and they work closely with Arlyn's extended family to get cows on the land. - When you have livestock, you have to work with more people. And so that's more socially sustainable to have livestock because you work together more. Having cows also helps to keep people here because it takes more people to take care of livestock. And so that's good for the local community and anything we can do to help promote that is is a benefit. I heard someone a while back say that, you know, the Mennonite and Amish groups, which we're a part of, are one of the few groups that still maintains that the smallest sustainable unit of spiritual life is not the individual, but it's the group. It's the body, it's the community. And so, you know, a community is not a luxury. A community is an essential. It's how you live, it's how you work. It's how you move forward. And if you don't have it, you're going to die. It's not sustainable without that community life. And that's a truth that applies not just to spiritual communities, but to other communities as well, whether it's communities of farmers, small town communities, and so on - Another big part of livestock production is the amount of money that goes back into local communities. Because when you have livestock, you don't have a bunch of time to drive hours to the nearest metro. You go to your local hardware store and you go to your local main street to do shopping. - There's mineral buckets out. And we buy that from a local co-op. And I get groceries in town, you know, our little town of 800 people. I try to get most of my groceries there, when and if I can. We wanna make sure this community survives. - The cattle business is a huge financial catalyst in these rural Iowa counties. - [Narrator] Zak Kennedy runs Kennedy Cattle Company with his family in the rolling hills of southwest Iowa. - These dollars turn over rapidly. You know, whether it's our employees that live right up the road or down the road from here, supporting their families, we're supporting the tax base. You know, we try to buy as many things locally as possible, whether it's feed or medicine or whatever else we need, and those dollars turn over. And that allows another business owner within our community to employ people and do the same exact thing we're doing. So those things just keep churning and they feed off each other. And it really lacks in certain parts of the state. And you can see it when you drive into a town and drive up their main street and see what's going on there. And I guess the way we look at it is we wanna be a positive part of our community. So, you know, this is one way we can do it, aside from supporting the local churches and FFAs and 4-H clubs and things like that. I mean, those all go hand in hand but at the end of the day, it's the cattle feeding, or the hogs or whatever anybody's got that's churning dollars in our local communities. And I think that's very important. - [Narrator] While the loss of the production and sale of livestock has heavily impacted many of our small towns, the loss of livestock from our countryside has also had a big impact on our land and water. - When the cows leave the farm or when any livestock leave the farm, there's no need to grow hay anymore. There's no need to grow oats or other small grains. And it's very easy to then just start growing corn and soybeans solely, which are warm season crops. They're planted in April or May and they're harvested in October, meaning from November to April of every year, there's nothing growing. Whereas if we had oats or hay still on more of our land, those are cool season crops. And they're growing during that season. - I know that 10 years from now that soil in some of our areas means it's going to have lost 200 to 500 tons of top soil, that it's gonna put nutrients in our streams that you know, where I used to be able to walk down a row and shoot my limit of pheasants, I won't even see a single bird for a four mile walk. Those are indicators that our landscape is not going in the right direction. - [Narrator] As Seth Watkins, who farms near Clarinda in southwest Iowa looks to the future, he sees clean water, healthy soil and cover for wildlife as all important things that make Iowa a good place to live. - As our population grows and grows and grows, we've got to work even harder to make sure that the wild species and the health of our soil and the quality of our water continues to improve and improve and improve. And so this is the story of the farmers who are building a regenerative agriculture in Iowa with livestock on their land. They see raising livestock as an essential piece of strengthening our rural communities, revitalizing our main streets, protecting and enhancing our rich natural resources and bringing the next generation back home to do it. This is a story about new opportunities, the future, but mostly, it's about the farmers who are bringing them back. (cheerful music) So why aren't there more livestock across the Iowa's landscape today? The answers are complex, but for many farming in Iowa, the 80s were a critical juncture. The farm crisis was the result of economic and geopolitical factors beyond Iowa's borders, increased cost to production, declines in ag exports and land values and increased interest rates on loans. It all added up to serious financial trouble for millions of American farmers and ushered in thousands of farm foreclosures and bankruptcies across rural America. Iowa was the epicenter. - Before we talk about how we get livestock back on the land, let's talk about what took them off the land. Pointing fingers is a sign of a failed system but it's very important to understand exactly how your system works to see or to make change. The first exodus I saw of cows was in the 80s because cows are liquid, you know, and when the bankers needed money to pay loans from the increased interest rates, the first thing they said was sell the cows and farm the ground. - During the 80s, the early 80s was the savings and loan crisis and the farm crisis where a lot of farmers were losing their farms to the banks. - [Narrator] Bart VerEllen, who now raises sheep with his wife, Trish in southern Iowa, grew up in farm country in Michigan. - Me and my brother milked cows for our parents' landlord. And I always wanted to have my own farm. You know, I didn't so much want to maybe milk cows, but I wanted my own farm. And with that farm crisis, it kind of closed the door on that dream. - [Narrator] Wendy Johnson also grew up during the farm crisis on a farm near Charles City in Northeast Iowa where her dad raised row crops, hogs, and sheep. - I just remember, never seeing my dad. Like, I have very few memories of us hanging out together. He worked all the time, just constantly working. I give it to him. He worked his butt off, like he worked really hard for his family and he really wanted to be successful. He wanted to be a successful farmer. And I think he is. He really became what he really, well he manifested it. - [Narrator] Nick Wallace's dad was running a small farm and growing a beef herd when the 80s forced him out of farming. - I mean, interest rates went from 6% in '84 or '85 to 22% within a couple of years. And so, I mean, how are you gonna pay, how are you even gonna pay the interest you bank on 22%? It'd be like putting a credit card debt on every single piece of machinery and farm ground. - We nearly lost the farm and we lost a lot of livestock and a lot of tractors and equipment and things. And actually, we lost the house that I live in now, too. So it was definitely a pretty traumatic time in our history. - [Narrator] Martha McFarland grew up on a farm in northeast Iowa, where her dad raised cattle on land that had been in her family for over 150 years. - And it's only then later as an adult, when you start to ask questions about like what was happening. They came like this close to losing the farm. - I don't know if I really appreciated the stress or the climate at the time, but looking back, I'm sure it was palpable in the countrysides. Everybody was doing whatever they could just to survive. That was the blow that really kick-started, you know, consolidation in the market, consolidation in the farmers you know, and everybody who made it probably leveraged the land that they did have or had to sell some of it. - It's driven away some really good livestock people that we really need. And it's not right. - That kind of gave me my sense of I don't think I want a farm. - [Narrator] And so for many kids who grew up on farms and rural areas in the 1980s, the farm crisis painted a picture in their minds that a future in farming was not a promising one. So after they finished up with high school, many like Wendy left. - I wanted to see the world. Like I wanted to meet people that weren't like me. I wanted to just immerse myself and be a nobody you know, 'cause in a small town, everybody's a somebody, you know. Everybody knows what everybody's business is and everything. So I wanted to work in television and film. So I moved out to Los Angeles and started a whole new journey and became one of millions. And I loved it. It was great to be a nobody. - [Narrator] Wendy's quest to shake the dust from small town Iowa and see the world, led her to Japan, Los Angeles, San Diego and finally to Brazil. - That is the place where I really learned about food and my appreciation for food and my interest in food and what we eat and how we eat it and how we communicate and communicate with others around food. - [Narrator] For others like Martha, leaving the farm in your 20s was seen as a way to gain a new perspective on the world. - I loved the farm. Like I was never one of those kids, who's like, I'm outta here. I can't wait to go live in Florida or the big city you know, I think I've always been a country girl. So I knew that. And I can remember even just in high school feeling so connected to the land and feeling connected to the stories and the farm. I feel like I have grown up even in a family that really appreciates like seeking out the world as much as like being here in it. And that growing up in Iowa, we kind of know we're not on the coast and we know there's this other world out there. So to get a chance to explore that and to understand things that are different than what we've always known, I think it's just like an essential value that I've grown up with and that I got to live out when I was away from the farm. - At the time, like the first year I felt I'm gonna emigrate here. I'm gonna live in Brazil for the rest of my life, like this is a paradise. - [Narrator] While for both Martha and Wendy, the time away from the farm offered them a chance to learn about new people and new cultures. The gravity of family and place began to tug at them more and more over time. - I kept thinking, okay, what's gonna happen to the farm if I stay here, you know? And then I thought, okay, my parents are aging. How am I gonna see them so often? Who's gonna take care of them? - It was more than homesickness. It was just this longing to be settled again. And to kind of be back here in Iowa, I just always had this like push-pull between these different worlds. And I got a job out in Colorado, but it was teaching so I could come home in the summertime. But at the same time, my mom was diagnosed with ALS and that really became this like amazing wake-up call for me. That was really the driving force to finally feel like, nope, okay, I'm gonna make this commitment. And make this decision, so really grateful that I did. - And so having those kinds of thought processes of the future really helped me decide to leave Brazil. But I wasn't quite ready to move back to Iowa. I moved back to Los Angeles and I'm glad I did because that's where I met Johnny. - I grew up, we thought was really far from the beach and we were 10 minutes from the ocean where you could actually surf and ride waves. And I was considered an inlander. - [Narrator] In many ways, the world of Johnny Rafkin's youth looked much different than his life today, raising many different species of livestock on their northeast Iowa farm. - I grew up riding BMX bikes, skateboards playing baseball, football, things a lot of people do out here. (gentle music) - [Narrator] As Wendy grew up, like so many other farm kids, she realized the farm was much more than a job or potential career. The connection to her heritage that tugged at her was much deeper than that. It was a sense of duty and responsibility and a commitment to continuing something bigger than herself. When her grandmother passed away, Wendy realized it was time to come back home. - My grandmother was a really big influence in my life. I spent a lot of time with her, her and my grandfather as a child. I spent many times on this farm playing on that swing set that's over there. I just had a lot of memories of this place. And for some reason, I guess why it didn't come to me before, but that idea of what's gonna happen to that place, that place that's so special, you know, in my heart, just an ode to their hard work and determination and everything that they fought for and worked for their whole life, like what's gonna happen to that? It still brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. That kind of heritage would be lost. And I didn't want that to be on me, I guess. I wanted to continue that. Like I wanted to continue that, all that hard work that went into raising a family and a farm. Excuse me. So that's kind of really what, just kind of thinking about the future of the farm and what that was gonna look like was really a turning point for me. (gentle guitar music) I said, Johnny, I think I wanna move back to Iowa. And I think we can farm like on a bigger scale and we can be entrepreneurs and we can grow a lot of food and we can build a community and do you wanna come with me? - Saying that you're gonna move to Iowa living in Southern California, not going there spending six, eight months or ever living there, it was kind of a drastic thing to say to someone. I just said, you know, if I don't do it now, I'll never do it and I'll never know. So, I did it. We moved out here in August of 2010. I didn't even make it to past Christmas, and I proposed to Wendy So I said, well, I guess I'm staying now. (laughs) - [Narrator] While it was the family connection and heritage that drew Martha and Wendy back to their family farms, the journey back to the countryside was much less clear for Bart. - You know, my family didn't have money, we didn't own a farm. We didn't own any land. So, you know, I went in the service and I got out of the service and welded for, you know, I had my own business after a while and did that for a long time. But I always had in the back of my head, I wanted a farm, I wanted to ranch. I wanted to do something with animals, livestock, you know. And after a while, I was in Southern Florida. That's where I met Trish. We were running a small welding company and it was stressful, that part of Florida was growing extremely fast. It was getting, becoming a rat race. And I ended up purchasing some cows and just leasing some small pastures just as stress-relief. You know, I'd go out there and play weekend cowboy and just get away from everything and pretend I wasn't in the big city anymore. And one of my leases was right next to a zoned industrial area. You know, cement trucks driving by, cranes. But it was me and my horse and about a dozen head of Corrientes. People like myself that weren't born into a family that owns land or marries into a family, it's really hard to be able to go purchase enough land to start up an operation like this. - [Narrator] It was ultimately the convergence of livestock and care for the land that allowed Bart to have his own farm realizing his childhood dream of caring for animals. - So I joined Practical Farmers of Iowa shortly after getting here to Iowa. I already knew about this organization before we moved. And it was appealing because it was farmers helping farmers. And part of Practical Farmers was the Find A Farmer program where I could list my name and the type of land we were looking for. And about after a year, I got a phone call one evening from Shirley Waite, and she told me she had a farm over here by Blakesburg and they were looking for somebody to come over here and lease it. - [Narrator] From farmers who've always been on the land like Zak Kennedy, to those who left and felt a call back like Wendy and Martha, or those starting anew like Bart, they all saw regenerative livestock systems as a central path forward on their operations. The world of regenerative agriculture in Iowa is vast. The farms and farming systems we'll see are just a few examples. Many more farmers and the animals they raise are stories for another day. Through rotational grazing and other carefully managed grazing systems, farmers are protecting the soil, slowing and filtering the water and growing more forage on their land. Cover crops like cereal rye are a way to armor the soil in the winter and spring, clean up the water and provide enhanced and flexible grazing on row crop ground. Finally, by integrating crops and livestock in a single indivisible system, farmers use livestock to harvest and capture nutrients needed for crop growth, creating a cycle that mimics the cycles of the ecosystems that are the basis for all of farming. Rotational grazing is one tool that folds many of the facets of regenerative agriculture into a single system. - So, you know, what dad has done for years and years and years is probably what many farmers have done, which is that we had a 12-acre paddock. You figure one head of cow per acre and then you put them out for the summer and then they eat until it's pretty much gone. But I would say like, as like I started learning more and recognizing that the universe really, is moving to a system of rotational grazing, that that is just the science that's out there, now that really can help you sustain more animals on your land, and recognizing that to be financially viable, I wanted to increase our herd size. It just made sense to me that we would wanna move to a rotational grazing system. - [Narrator] Rotational grazing is nothing new. Martha's family has raised bison on their Northeast Iowa farm for years. And she like many other farmers look to the bison to understand how to design regenerative farming systems. - Thousands of years ago, bison would come hit an area really hard and then they would leave it again. And then they wouldn't come back for maybe a year or something and it would give the prairie time to rest. And so, by creating paddocks, you know someone said to me recently that we're not just choosing which paddock they should be in, but it's more about what they're not in, what we're holding back and in doing so, just giving them that chance to rest the grasses, that time to rest, to recover. And so figuring out how you can still keep enough of everything you need in reserves, I think is part of the science or part of the art of grazing where you really just have to work through and figure out what's gonna work on your land. - [Narrator] Bart and Trish also practice rotational grazing on their farm and the principle of rest, recovery and healing the land is a value of the utmost importance to Shirley as well, who owns the land they farm today. - That's what we're doing by rotating our sheep is they hit an area really hard for one day, two days, and then they're off of it for 60 to 90 days. And so that land does have the time to recover and grow more and really sink its roots down. And that's where the benefits are coming from. Rest. - It's just this spring. It was beautiful. You're driving down the road and it's like there's clover and trefoil, and it's standing this tall and it was just like, that is so cool. (laughs) - [Narrator] Shirley Waite grew up on farms and has been farming off and on her whole life. Livestock and their central role in taking care of the land has always been a part of that. - This to the right of us, which is East where the orchard is, and on over to that tree line was traditionally crop ground rotated back and forth between soybeans and corn. And then as we get a little farther, we had always kept it as pasture and hay down here next to the trees because it drops off. And to keep some of the soil and stuff from washing off. I wanted somebody who was gonna take care of the land. There were parts of the land, we had cash or share rented the crop land for several years after my late husband passed away. And it got taken care of, so, so, but some places were starting to get wash outs. And that's one of the reasons why it was important to find somebody who understood the importance of rotational grazing and would care about the land and hopefully continue to improve it. - There are about two and a half acres they're gonna move into a 2 1/2 acre paddock here. And then the idea is for them to trample and poop and pee and just stomp everything into the ground. And we're just mimicking what the large buffalo herds or antelope herds did, you know, before we got here. And that's what causes the ground you know, the forbs and the grasses to grow. And if you look around here, what I was talking about before about, it's reverting back to prairie and just look at all of these native plants that are growing here, it's just incredible. And with the high animal impact, density impact, we should see this actually fill in even more, you know so we're actually growing more forage - [Narrator] Tom and Maren Beard farm the steep slopes of the Driftless region in northeast Iowa near Tom's parents' farm. Protecting those hill slopes with perennial cover while still making a living to pay for the farm is a challenge that requires creative solutions. - We have a pretty diverse farm. We raise grass-fed lamb, grass-fed beef. We raise a few hogs every year and we have some organic crops. - And pizza. - And pizza. - We raise pizza. - Yeah. - As everyone knows farmland, isn't cheap, and it's hard for young farmers to get into it. So we've got to find a way to have that balance of the perennial cover and also being able to make a living. So the livestock for us are good in that way because our is only 80 tillable acres and the rest of the 133 is 10 acres of woods about and the rest is permanent pasture. So we're able to use a larger percentage of our farm than we could have otherwise just because we choose to use the pasture and the woodlands and the sheep helped us with that. - [Narrator] Growing more grass for more of the year is also the key to why cover crops work. Instead of the soil being bare before corn and soybean planting and after harvest, Kellie and her husband A.J. plant cover crops, primarily winter cereal rye, which allow them to keep the land covered during the winter. - We've been using cover crops for probably 10 years now and we really ramped it up in the last probably five. And so our cover crops, the way we use cover crops is they'll go in generally after our cash crop, our corn and soybeans and the majority cover crop that we use is cereal rye. So we'll plant it in the fall with our drill. We'll actually drill it into the soil. It'll overwinter and the next spring it'll grow. We will kill the cover crop before we plant that next cash crop the next year. We have a pasture that our cows and calves are at normally during the summer months. And as soon as the crop is harvested, they will come around our homestead here where we have water and cover crops And they'll graze those cover crops for as long as we can. It varies every year on how much they can eat because it depends on how much it grows. So we don't quite have a set method of it but it works really well for us. - [Narrator] As she looked to the future, adding livestock was a way for Kellie to continue a tradition of conservation while growing her family's operation. - We were having kids and we needed to find a way to increase I guess, our operation. And we really liked the idea of having cattle. We were starting to use cover crops and thinking about different ways to diversify. And the cattle really just seemed like a great way to do it. So we started adding first beef cattle into the operation then cow-calf, and along the way, we've added hay and small grains and it kind of keeps going from there. - [Narrator] Just as Kelly and A.J. connect pigs, cattle and a diversity of crops to maintain a long family tradition in central Iowa, Wilber De La Rosa, who moved to southern Minnesota with his wife a few years ago sees the connection between crops and livestock as a way to start farming in a new home that connects his heritage to the world of his future. Wilber grew up around agriculture but it looked much different than the farms in the Midwest. He knew he wanted to work with livestock and he met fellow Guatemalan native, Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin and learned of a poultry centered regenerative agriculture system he had been developing and the two struck up a mentorship. Regi had worked for decades at the nexus of farming communities and environment, and was developing a system specifically for beginning farmers. Regi developed a system that Wilber help him fine tune that he calls tree range, a play on free range in pastured poultry production systems. It involves planting perennial trees and shrubs like apples, hazelnuts, and elderberries that provide both saleable crops for the farmer and protect the chickens from the sun and predators. Arlyn Kauffman and his wife Sue have relied on livestock to establish a farm for their young family. - Well, we think that having cows, having livestock, having the laying hens is actually what allows us to be in farming. - [Narrator] By adding a free range egg layer barn to the farm, the Kauffmans added an additional revenue stream while still working on the land. And while Arlyn's operation is bigger than the small acreage farms of Wilber and Regi, it's still small by the standards of row crop agriculture. - To meet the the pasture standard for our label, we have to have just a little bit over 50 acres accessible to the hens. Right now, most of that's in alfalfa which has now cut the hens that have access to that every day. It's not as idyllic, small as what I wish it were, but it's sustainable. It allows me to be on the farm, my wife to stay at home and us to have work for our children. - [Narrator] They can also add value to corn, soybeans and small grains they raise on their own farm by grinding and mixing those crops to feed to the hens. - I didn't grow up with inheriting farm land. I bought this farm with a loan, a low interest loan from the government, but I had to make the payments. And if we had to rely on corn and soybeans, year in and year out, we just couldn't do it. - [Narrator] Perhaps the biggest reason that farmers are incorporating regenerative livestock practices are for the benefits to their own farms. These systems allow farmers to be more self-reliant, producing more of their own feed and fertilizer on their farms and reducing the amount they have to purchase. They also allow farmers to buffer themselves from the weather, protecting their soil from erosion and compaction, holding onto more water for their crops and providing more flexibility and resilience to maintain profitability during extreme weather events like droughts. Finally, trying out these new systems can only be successful by farmers sharing knowledge with each other and in doing so, strengthening their communities. - My folks have always had livestock my grandparents before that, my great grandparents before that. And it's always been pretty that's we're cattle people I guess, is a way to put it. And, you know, some people are really into certain things and, you know, we're into feeding cattle. We live it, we breathe it. We go to bed thinking about it. And we wake up in the morning thinking about it - [Narrator] Zak and his family grow most of the feed for their cattle on their farm. They use a lot of the feeds common on many Iowa farms, corn, hay, corn stalks, dried distillers grains which are a by-product of corn ethanol production. But over the past few years, a new feed stuff has found its way to the Kennedy farm, both for grazing and for mixing into the ration for the cattle and their feedlot. On their farm, cover crops have become an essential piece of passing on a sustainable and profitable cattle operation to the next generation. - This is rye silage. This was chopped right about Memorial Day, but it's really a tremendous feedstuff for backgrounding calves or feeding cows, things like that. We do include a little bit of it into our finishing diets but it's really been a nice crop to add to our mix. - It's a no brainer. The seed is not that expensive. You don't have to go overboard. And there's a lot of really interesting mixes out there but, you know, to get started just some cereal rye is fine. Cows love it. They'll eat it. They'll eat it to the ground. Math is sometimes hard, but if you really run the numbers, buying hay is expensive and if you can raise it on your own farm, you're gonna be better off every time - [Narrator] For Zak, producing on farm feed is only half of why having a farm operation that integrates crops and livestock is very important to him. - We're right in front of a best part of the business some might say. This stuff here, I would expect it to be five to six pounds of nitrogen 15 to 16 pounds of P and 15 to 16 pounds of K. So it's pretty good stuff. It's done a lot of good for us on our farms especially our more eroded, hilly kind of farms that need a little help. And this is what's really worked well for us. And this is really, if you think about this where it all ties together because this is the start of the next year's crop cycle that is also gonna be the feed that we're gonna feed to the next pen of cattle. And it it's the back end of the cattle but it's the front end of the crop. So, you know, the only commercial fertilizer we'll buy is actually just our nitrogen. This is a game changer where the livestock and the cropping and everything comes together. - [Narrator] In addition to being able to save on fertilizer, Zak sees the livestock manure as a way to improve the soil. - Well, it's homegrown, I guess it would be a way to put it which I like it ties together with our system but I feel it's a soil builder. And when you look at what you're putting out there, it's organic matter. And what that's gonna do is build your soil. It's gonna help your water retention. There's a factor that I can't put my hands on that as far as the soil biology goes that that soil is just plain healthier and you can raise pretty good crops off of ground that you don't think you should raise that good of crops. And to me, this is what's doing it for us. - [Narrator] But perhaps more important than improving the soil is protecting it from being lost in the first place. - So, because we've divorced livestock from our cropping system, we have gotten into a pattern where the soil is bare for at least half the year. And that's really where the issue comes in. That's why we're seeing erosion of our soils. There's nothing protecting that soil during our fall rains, our spring rains and over the winter, when snow melts. In a farm where you have a diversity of crops and livestock and pasture, protecting the soil and protecting the water is built into that very system. It's the heart of a diversified agriculture system. - It was pretty good dirt, but you can see as you see behind this, it's rolling dirt. So we need to try and do what we can to make sure it's not eroding. And, you know, by keeping something growing in it all the time, I think we're achieving our goals in that way. - You know, as far as conservation goes, it's really been an easy way to know that we're helping our soil and our water quality, because we have a longer rotation because of, hay, cover crops and the reduced tillage. - With all this ground cover we got, when it rains, the water isn't just running off in sheets, you know. It soaks into the ground and it gets filtered out and the water that does actually leave the farm is clear and clean and it's not full of silt and, you know, soil and chemicals. It's clean water leaving the farm and that's what we want. - [Narrator] In addition to preventing erosion and cleaning up the water leaving the farm, Kelly has seen cover crops as a way to get more field work done in wet springs and falls. - The last probably two years have been really wet years for us. And so field days, like actually being able to get out into the field and do things, whether it's harvest, plant or anything is really important to us. And with wet weather, we don't have a lot of time to get done what we need to get done. And we can do a lot of damage if it's too wet. So cover crops, we've really seen with our no-till and cover crop fields, we've seen at least a couple, if not, a few more field days than our conventional farmed fields. If you think about a rainy day and it's a mud, if your driveway is mud, as compared to walking out in your lawn on a rainy day, it's kind of like that. When you walk out into your lawn, your shoes are just wet instead of being wet and muddy. But that's kind of how we compare it to is like a lawn but it's just, it's wet, but it's durable. - [Narrator] While cover crops can be a way to improve field fitness in wet conditions, It was actually a drought that allowed Zak to see that cover crops and cattle were a way to ride out weather extremes on his farm. - For our operation, we started cover crops in the fall of 2012. If you recall, that was the worst drought since probably the 30s in this localized area. I'd planned on harvesting all my corn for corn, grain and feeding and everything was gonna be fine. And as the summer was progressing, we could see that we weren't gonna raise much corn. And so we made the decision to go ahead and chop silage. That's first corn silage that we'd ever chopped. We got a big rain come through there at the end of August that year. And I went out two days later and I could get in the field. The ground was that dry. And I drilled it and we put cereal rye, some turnips and some radishes 'cause that's the thing I'd been hearing about. That's the thing you're supposed to put out. So I did and it just exploded. The stuff was crazy. And we actually bought a pot load of bred heifers out of a drought area. And we turned them out into this and it just, we fed them until January and it just clicked with me right then that I should have been doing this a long time ago and I need to figure out how to do more of this and extract value. And I could see what it was doing for our hills and everything 'cause the next spring we planted into it, no-tilled into it green, the cattle had grazed it off to a pretty short height but the planter worked beautifully. It sealed, just everything worked and after that, I was just completely sold. - [Narrator] For many of the farmers working to build regenerative farming systems, going against the grain can be tough. Having a community to support them in their efforts is crucial for them to be able to establish these resilient systems. - I didn't wanna go along. The things that I was seeing, I didn't feel right about, like my gut didn't feel right about it. And I thought, if I'm gonna farm, I'm not just gonna continue what everyone's been doing and I'm not just gonna go along. I went to PFI field days. That really was this major intersection in my life of how I don't have to feel or be an outsider anymore. The things that Johnny and I value in farms and farming, it's not just a joke. I mean, it's real. And there's other people feeling the same way and you don't have to go along like you can be different. And there are other people doing things and thinking outside the box and thinking about, you know animal husbandry, thinking about soil, thinking about plants in different ways. It was just going to those first PFI field days and learning from others. That was so eye-opening and it helped us realize that we can do this. We can be farmers and we can farm with nature. We can get along, not go along. - When I was in the military, the entire military is based on guys who have been there before you teaching the new guys how to do their job. Practical Farmers Iowa is the same thing. It's farmers who have been there and done that, teaching other farmers or you have a particular circumstance or problem. And there's other farmers that already have been through that with you. You know what I mean? And just helping each other. When I got started, there were limited places of people I could go talk to to have, you know, 200 head of sheep. You know, having a little black backyard flock of a couple of dozen is way different than this, way different. And the management needs to be different for both. You know, you can't really expect to take, 12 sheep and just dump them out on a big paddock like this and think they will be fine. They won't be, but by the same token, you don't wanna take 800 head here and try to cram them into a little pen and think everything's gonna be okay and it's not. And I just think having people out there that are willing to share their experience and not view you as the competition, and not wanna tell you anything is really important. So anybody who ever calls me or has asked to come out on the farm tour, I'm always, yes, come on, you know or ask your questions, I'll answer them the best I can or I'll direct you to somebody I think that might be able to. And I think that's really important in our industry. You know, we talk about community all the time and that's what this is. This is community. And I know my neighbors that have been watching me work and who came out here to the field day last year I'm starting to see them starting to do some rotational grazing. And that's neat. That's neat that they've recognized that, you know, this guy over here that we thought was completely you know, bonkers and didn't know what he was doing, you know, he's on to something, 'cause he's got a lot of forage and we don't and they're starting to mimic me. So that's neat to see, you know, we're learning. And we're all in this together. We're all learning - [Narrator] While for farmers, the primary aim of regenerative farming systems is to benefit their land, families, farm businesses and the farming community. Regenerative agriculture provides a bridge between farmers and non-farmers alike. Everybody relies on clean water, healthy food and vibrant local economies and communities. And these farmers take providing those values as top priorities. - I believe in conservation, I believe in using what we have but using it in a responsible manner. That's important to me. And if we can get beneficial grazing from our livestock and the livestock in turn help regenerate the soil, it's just a win-win for the farmer. It's win-win for the economy. It's win-win for, you know, our environment. - [Narrator] In recent years, Iowa has become more and more aware of the need for more win-wins that help both farms and people living off the farm in our cities. Over the past few decades, the city of Des Moines and its drinking water management authority, Des Moines Water Works had spent millions of dollars removing contaminants from its drinking water which comes from the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers. As it looked to the future, instead of building a new multi-million dollar facility, it sought an injunction against drainage districts in three Northern Iowa counties, the source of those rivers, to prevent its most problematic and expensive contaminant nitrate from ever getting in the water in the first place. The ensuing lawsuit sparked a controversy in Iowa which many viewed as a battle between the late leader of the organization, Bill Stowe and the farmers in the river's watershed. While everyone had different views on the tactics used by the Des Moines Waterworks, the debate on water in Iowa, hit close to home for Seth Watkins. - You know, I don't know if I should talk about this or not, but I'm going to. When the Des Moines Water Works lawsuit took place, it really hit a lot of farmers with a raw nerve. They really felt like Bill Stowe and that organization was trying to go after them. But I've had some personal experiences that made me feel very differently about that and actually led me to having the good fortune of getting to know Bill and getting to call him my friend, and honestly saying I miss him very much because he was a real advocate for those of us, for all of us who drink water and was not afraid to stand up for what we needed. So in my family, my oldest son, Spencer was born with a pretty rare syndrome and it caused cognitive delays. And obviously, he's had some challenges, but at the same time, my life is very rich for getting to have Spencer in the time we've had. And I really enjoy being with him. And it also opened my eyes to the challenges that a lot of underserved communities face. But being a farmer and a rancher, since he had a syndrome, before we decided to have another child, my wife and I would go on ahead and went through genetic testing. I mean, I understand genetics. I wanted to make sure it wasn't something heritable. We were told it wasn't and we were told everything was fine. And when we became pregnant with our daughter, Tatum, we were actually really excited because we found out we thought we were gonna have twins. And I learned a lot about twinning. She had a, again because of some kind of a type of endocrine disruption, she was diagnosed with what's called monoamniotic- monochorionic twinning, which is something you really don't wanna hear. And most kids don't survive. Well, as it turned out, we lost one twin in the pregnancy, but fortunately through some brilliant medical teams, Tatum made it, but we had lots of complications when she was born. She had to have an ostomy bag, which we've repaired. She had to have a lot of surgeries to make things right. But the very first night she was born, I was in the NICU. Christie was still recovering from an emergency C-section. And I was meeting with the medical team and they were looking through our file, looking through our records. And they said, you know, Mr. Watkins, we've looked through your records. There's no reason that both your children should have seen anything like this. And they said, we just wanna know one thing. Where do you get your water from? And I heard that, and I guess I'd start with saying that you know, endocrine disruption does happen and it can happen in nature. It's just mutations happen. But there's things we use that we put on our crops and that we use in our lives that cause it and there's things we can do to keep those products out of our water. So nitrogen is a suspected disruptor. The surfactants in glyphosate is a suspected disruptor. We know that atrazine is a disruptor. I think that A, it's important that we find ways to move away from those products. But it's critical that we find ways to keep those products out of our water stream for everyone downstream. You know, I guess if I have one passion in life, it's moving forward to make sure no parents ever have to hear what I heard. You know, "Mr. Watkins, where do you get your water from?" So when we look at this and I still hear grumblings of urban-rural divide, and some of those things, I just want us to remember, there's a lot of lobbyists that are not paying attention to the fact that those of us in rural water, we're in municipalities that can't afford to treat our water. And I just want them to remember that Bill was the guy that stood up for my family when some of the other groups that said they'd represent me weren't. And for me, that's my passion. And I'll always stick to science. I'll always stick to the facts and I'll always understand the dynamics, but I'll always work hard to make sure that the water that leaves our farms is safe for all of us, because we all drink it. (upbeat music) - [Narrator] While we can all agree that clean water is an important priority for all of our communities. Understanding why nitrate ends up in the water in the first place is crucial for understanding what solutions work, for keeping it out of streams and drinking water. Much of Iowa's soil is inherently high in organic matter. And when the soil is warm and wet enough, soil microorganisms start breaking down that organic matter. One of the byproducts is nitrate. For the most part, that's a good thing. Nitrate is needed to grow plants. And so high organic matter soils are very productive which is why we grow high-yielding crops in Iowa. However, when there are no plants growing and that nitrate is produced in the soil, it leaches through the soil, flows beneath the soil through subsurface drainage and ends up in our streams, rivers and lakes. So why do we have water quality issues now whereas we didn't, 75, 100 years ago? The answer has to do with cover. In 1950, Iowa had nearly 12 million acres of hay and pasture and over 6 million acres of small grains. Today, we have a fraction of that number because both hay and small grains like oats and rye are actively growing in the early spring and late fall before and after corn and soybeans are growing, they collectively used up the nitrate being produced in the soil. But as more and more livestock left Iowa farms, oat and hay production declined. Soybean production increased and less acres had plants growing on them in the spring and the fall. There are many solutions to creating clean water in Iowa, but adding livestock back to more farms strikes straight to the heart of the issue. - Sometimes when I'd be frustrated, I'd actually talked to the older farmers, the guys that were, I mean, like they'd probably be like almost a hundred now. But they kind of had it right. They did a lot of things really well. They had the right blend of livestock and they farmed the right areas. And if they had a thin spot, you know, they'd actually concentrate their livestock there to improve it. So there were so many good farming practices that have developed over time. There were things that, you know, tillage, organophosphates some of those things that weren't as cool, obviously but we still rotated our crops. We still, you know, I remember we still we were still raising oats in this area even in the late 80s, early 90s. So I was always encouraged when I talked to those farmers about how they, you know care for the land, how they use livestock. - [Narrator] Nick Wallace, drew, not just on the production systems but the communities of the past, in his quest to rebuild those communities today, around grass and cattle. - It was a vibrant community rurally, and even in the Keystone and Belle Plaine and Van Horne and all these small towns around here, you know, the streets were filled. I mean, people shopped locally, you know we didn't have these huge box stores then. Yeah, I mean, people, the community was there. And so that's kind of where I draw my inspiration and my motivation for where we need to get back to. - [Narrator] While crop rotation that includes small grains and hay keeps more of the land covered for more of the year, some production systems put the land into grass permanently. All cows eat grass. Most cows produced for meat are fattened or finished on a diet that includes grain. Grass-finished cows eat nothing but grass and hay. It's slower to fatten cattle that way, but it results in more grass on the land. Nick Wallace has built a business on this concept. - We went in and we said we're gonna build a grass fed beef company. And we kind of did a couple of farmer's markets and we were trying to find our way and navigate what the best way to build a meat business was. We didn't really know at the time we were, I mean I was literally just trying to get one customer at a time. And as cliche as it is, that's really a great way to build a business, is one customer at a time. So we started out in 03-04 and here we are, what 17, 18 years later. And you know, we've got customers all over Iowa and Chicago and we, you know, we're still packing one box at a time for families. We're not trying to compete with the big grocery stores. We're not trying to serve everybody, but we have our niche group of people and it's growing and the movement's growing too. I mean, you're seeing a lot of small direct to, consumer marketers that you know are trying to provide food for families too. - [Narrator] Today in southern Minnesota Regi's small scale regenerative poultry system has become a way to bring communities together. - [Narrator] Outside of Decorah, Tom and Maren Beard found a different way to bring people together around their farm and their livestock. After visiting several pizza farms, farms with on-farm wood-fire pizza ovens that essentially function as outdoor restaurants, they thought their community could use a place like that. - We love producing good food and we love living here and bringing people together. And we just kind of felt like this was something Decorah really would love and would support. So we decided to go for it. When we first opened that kind of thought, I had an idea of who we might attract out for pizza. And I've been really surprised, actually, pleasantly surprised. - Everybody likes pizza. - Everybody likes pizza. I love the meat that we produce and that our farming friends produce. And it's fun to share it with people and see their reactions, you know, "Oh my gosh, this pork is so juicy. It's so good." Or, "Oh, I've never had lamb before. This is really, this is really, really good." And that's kind of maybe how we both show love through food. So yeah, we get to share that with the community, I guess by cooking pizza for them, for people. I think the world needs more of those places and we're only open for four hours a week. So chances of seeing someone out here that you're gonna know when you're from a small town are pretty high. - It's encouraging when I ride on the Wabash Trace, our little rail, trail way, our bike trail. And we go to Imogene to the Emerald Isle which I haven't been able to have the pandemic but we go there on Taco Tuesdays. And what has really encouraging is all the farmers come over and they hang out with all the bicycle riders. And we all have a great time, which tells me some of those attitudes of, you know, us and them are are going away. And we're all recognizing we're in this together. - [Narrator] These innovative farming systems and efforts to strengthen local economies and build community do face challenges. The consolidation and centralization of the meat packing industry has both made our food supply chain more susceptible to disruption, but it also makes it harder for small and mid-sized farmers to get their animal butchered and sold. The COVID-19 pandemic made that crystal clear. - I think that's a big challenge in the future. One that we need to solve because most of the food is produced packaged and sold by just a handful of companies across the United States, or even globally now. - As a farmer out here, it was a pretty scary thing when we had a barn full of cattle. We had a barn full of pigs, and we started hearing about processing plants shutting down. And when there's only a few of them and those few all shut down, it really gets you thinking about what do we do? - So when I first started the meat business, I was working with a small, medium size, probably small in today's terms, a processor up in northeast Iowa. And I could take in live animals and we could turn it all the way into really great processed, packaged meat you know, retail ready. but it seemed like every couple of years, those processing options were shrinking. It's kinda gotten to the point now where we have very few selections for the medium to small size producer that wants to turn their live animals into retail ready. - As farmers, a next step for us is really to figure out how to get more local lockers around because even right now, a year out, we've made appointments to the lockers, the local lockers, but we know that they're probably still gonna be full and they're still not ready for that. - There's not an open locker space in the state of Iowa until probably next March or April at the earliest. I think we need to look at a variety of things. And I think we need to look beyond just selling meat directly to the consumer, but to maybe have more cooperative thinking amongst producers, grocers, and think about what we can do right here. Why not? - We control our own fate. Let's put it that way. We just maybe need to get in a room together and realize that we can do it and we can control our own fate together. - We have a couple of great Iowa owned grocery stores. What would it take to build a collaborative system of finding out what their supply needs are and starting to put in smaller packing plants to meet their supply and demand curves and meet their needs with cattle that are raised right here? - [Narrator] In addition to working together to come up with market-based solutions, many farmers suggest that a reordering of priorities when it comes to agriculture subsidies could both benefit farmers and create a healthier and more resilient food supply chain. - This year, as a farmer, I feel like we've gotten more government payments than we've ever had as young farmers. And I know we'll take 'em. I'm not saying we won't take 'em. We're young farmers, we need the money, we need to pay down debt. But eventually, that gets paid back to our landowners and we rent a majority of our acres. So it really keeps land prices up. What I think we feel is that that money should go to things like lockers and food supply. You know, whether it be local you know, vegetable, farmers' markets, whatever it is that money should be put in, so maybe they can get more employees. Maybe they can have more capacity to butcher more. Maybe it's one more employee or a state inspector that they can be state inspected. I feel like that money as it does help us. It seems like it's going into a bucket that maybe is already full enough. - You know, Iowa spends a lot of money on economic development than on other things. So, I think we have a sound argument for what we're doing. - [Narrator] Iowa could be the center of regenerative agriculture in America, reinvented with the best of the past but prepared for the world of the future. We could have our entire landscape covered for the winter. We could protect our soil and water through regenerative grazing, cover crops and a new marriage of crops and livestock. These all could provide the basis for a rejuvenated rural economy and make Iowa a better place to live for our children. But it will be no small effort. And it'll take everybody. It'll take farmers, bucking the trends and trying new things like Bart and Wendy and Zak and Wilber and Martha and Arlyn. It'll take landowners committed to conservation and helping the next generation succeed like Shirley. It'll take entrepreneurs like Nick and Regi, Tom and Maren creating new businesses. And it'll take working with grocery stores, schools and other institutions. As Kellie and Seth say, our governments will have a role to play too, ensuring that public dollars are invested in the type of infrastructure and programs that truly benefit farmers and the rural and urban communities they help propel. - I guess I think back to my grandmother when she would talk about 4-H and it's about making our best better and Iowa agriculture is incredible. We have a lot to be proud of, but you know, sustainability is about continuous improvement. Success, never rests. It's about continuing to improve the things we see. Again, we all know about the 9 billion people and I just wanna make sure if we have 9 billion people, it's 9 billion people with access to clean, healthy, safe water, clean, healthy, safe productive soil. - If we're not gonna make this change, then who is? Like it is up to us, this generation to make this place a place where we want to live and where other people want to live. I think that through diversified agriculture and stacking enterprises and getting creative and using your community to help you, think about what our landscape would look like. Think about a family with small children, every quarter mile on a country road with, you know like kids running around. There'd just be life, animals, people, wildlife, all types of different crops. - You know, as we develop and get more comfortable in what we're doing, we're gonna do more and probably do some crazy things and make the neighbors talk. But I'm fine with that. You know, at the end of the day, I've got to figure out how I'm gonna pay for this farm and make it sustainable long-term so that if my kids wanna come in, that there's place for them here. Ultimately, that is my hope that I have at least one kid that comes home and, you know, whether she wants to do it or has a husband that wants to be involved, I'm open to anything there. But the way we really try to grow our businesses, so that hopefully it is something that can be passed on to a family member. And if not, then my goal is to find a young person somewhere that wants to feed cattle and farm and do this and help them out and get started. That's important in my world. - [Narrator] The solutions to building a more regenerative and resilient land are as complex as the complicated history that gave us the Iowa we have inherited today. As we've done in the past, it'll take all of us working together to figure out how to make it happen. If we do it, we can ensure that Iowa will have resilient farms and communities ready for the next generation. We could bring livestock back in a way that would leave our rural communities and main streets, our soil and water and the relationships we have with each other in better shape for our children. (uplifting music) - The future for my daughter who's almost eight years old out here on the farm. I hope she stays here as long as she wants. I want her to be able to be close with the land and be close with the animals. I want her to know that this land and farm will be here for her when she's ready for it. And I hope she does one day. I hope she sees all the hard work her mom and dad put in, and one day will appreciate it and be able to raise some good food too. (cheerful music) (mellow country music)