* [Slow guitar music plays] PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT: Hi friends, I have been on a journey of husbandry.

I went primarily to see it firsthand conditions in the drought states.

I shall never forget the fields of wheat.

So blasted by heat that they cannot be harvested.

I shall never forget field after field of corn, stunted, illness, stripped of leave for what the sun left the grasshoppers took.

PRES.

ROOSEVELT: No cracked earth, no blistering sun, no burning wind, no grasshoppers are a permanent match for the indomitable American farmers and stockmen and their wives and children.

Who have carried on through desperate days and inspired with their self reliance, their tenacity and their courage.

It was their father's task to make homes.

It is their task to keep these homes and it is our task to help them win their fight.

[Keith Berns] Soil health is very important not only for farmers but for the consumer and the general public because we all like to eat.

And I don't think any of us are going to volunteer to give that up anytime soon.

There's just example after example of civilizations, that their decline has been in large part because they've ruined their soils.

They've let their soils erode the productivity of their country has washed away into the rivers and then they're no longer able to feed themselves.

And so from a social standpoint, soil health is incredibly important in order just to sustain our ability to feed not only ourselves but to feed the world.

That's why it's really important for the continued productivity of this country not only for our generation but for future generations.

That importance then kind of leans over into what is the public perception.

And I would say right now, the public doesn't really have a good understanding of soil health.

And I could say that because I don't think a lot of farmers have a really good understanding of soil health.

Regardless of whether you're organic or conventional or no till or anything in between it all has to start with the soil.

Even farmers that went to college and took a soil science class, that's mainly all dealing with the physical and chemical properties of the soil.

Hardly ever talked about the biological component.

And that's what is really missing from a proper understanding of soil health is how important the biology is.

* [Jerry Hatfield] The soil is a living organism.

If you think about a really healthy soil, there's about 10,000 pounds of biological material below that soil surface everything from fungi to bacteria, earthworms, everything else in between.

And you total them all up and that 10,000 pounds is about the same as two African elephants.

If you imagine two elephants, it takes a lot to feed them.

So if you have that much biological activity below the soil surface, it's going to take a lot to feed those as well.

- From now until 2060, we're going to have to produce as much food as we've produced in the last 500 years.

- What we eat other than what comes out of the oceans is all derived from soil.

Soil security is equal to food security so if we want to make sure that we can feed the world's population, we're going to have to understand how do we make sure that our soil has the capability of producing these crops.

- I'm Keith Berns the President and Co-owner of Green Cover Seed here in Blade, Nebraska.

I co-own it along with my brother, Brian.

[Brian Berns] We've been farming here all of our lives and this land we intend to be able to hand down to our children and grandchildren.

And so soil health has always been something that's I guess, been important to us.

But probably only since about 2008 have we really consciously been making efforts to really drastically improve it.

[Keith Berns] The atmosphere around us is 78% nitrogen but it's unavailable to plants.

So this legume plant can't actually take nitrogen out of the atmosphere and utilize it.

But what it can do is it can host a very specific type of bacteria on its roots.

That's actually colonies of rhizobia bacteria that are able to take the atmospheric nitrogen, convert it into forms of nitrogen that a plant can use.

And they basically will then sell it or trade it to this plant in exchange for carbon.

[Brian Berns] Plants through photosynthesis produce the carbon.

[Keith Berns] So what we see going on here is a very complex economy going on within the soil where plants are using carbon as a currency to purchase goods and services from the bacteria, from the fungus and the soil, really from all of the biology.

But in this case, they're purchasing nitrogen from these bacteria in exchange for the carbon.

[Keith Berns] And that's the whole key to this soil health system.

It's really all about the carbon.

So carbonomics is a term that hopefully will get people thinking in an economic frame of mind but using carbon as the currency.

And if we could get farmers to think in terms of carbon or at least understand that carbon is even more important than nitrogen, then the only way to get carbon into the soil is to have a growing plant.

You got to have photosynthesis.

If I want more carbon, I have to have plants growing more often.

So I can't just have corn and soybeans growing from May through September.

I've got to have a cover crop growing from October through April.

And that's where I get the big extra boost of carbon into my system.

I've seen great soil health in both organic and conventional settings.

I've seen terrible soil health in both conventional and organic settings.

Really it comes down to the management practices and how the farmer is going to integrate the principles of soil health into their operation.

* [Dan Desutter] Cover crops are simply crops planted between your cash crops that aren't really planted to be harvested necessarily.

They're just there to try to put carbon back in the soil to utilize sunlight during times of year that our cash crops are not to protect the soil.

By providing a living cover to shield the soil from erosion.

Soil is a living breathing system.

Sometimes we have to feed it a little for it to feed us.

And it's like a relationship if you're in a relationship where all you do is take, take, take and you take the maximum you can at every opportunity, what are the odds of that relationship lasting very long.

[Liz Graznak] I'm very cautious and conscientious about working the soil, not working it too much, trying to put as much organic matter back into the soils through cover cropping as I can.

My philosophy is that if I take care of the soils, the soils are going to take care of the vegetables.

So I do a lot of cover cropping on the farm um, on bare ground if at all possible I have cover crops on it.

I do a lot of cover cropping, inter-planting with crops to like bring in beneficial insects.

I use a lot of mulch, as you can see all the straw that's in between the beds.

There's a lot of different components that are involved in creating and maintaining healthy soils.

[rustling] [Woman] Would you say get as many green... as possible?

[Graznak] From out here.

Are you done?

[Man] I got one left.

Next is Bok choy.

[Graznak] And we're going to do the Bok choy next and it's out in field E. Lettuce, lettuce, lettuce.

Massive heads of lettuce under there, up and here we go.

Holy moly they're so gorgeous.

[screeching of bird in background] Oh my gosh.

The heads that you would see at the grocery store are half this size.

We're going to harvest a lot of them.

This is my seventh year of farming I had a ton to learn.

I mean, I didn't know anything about farming and raising produce and soil health.

And I still feel like I still do have a ton to learn.

[lid clicks] The CSA model of farming is why I started farming and it's what made me passionate about farming.

It stands for community supported agriculture.

[radio plays] [Graznak] Hi.

How are you?

- I'm good.

[Graznak] Good.

So I have members that pay up at the beginning of the year.

They pay an upfront fee in exchange for their income to support the farm.

My guarantee is that for 24 weeks, the spring, summer and fall season that I will provide seven to nine different items in their CSA share that they get every week.

People are starting to care about and think about where their food is coming from and care about the connection between the person that's growing the food.

And the food that they're eating.

I'd look at it as a responsibility for me to try to educate my CSA members.

[Graznak to customer] Rudbeckia.

[Graznak] You have to start with the big picture before you get into the minutia of soil health.

You can't start with why it is that I plant cover crops and the goals that I'm trying to get out of cover cropping.

I have to start with this gorgeously beautiful Swiss chard that I bring to the farmer's market.

And they look at it and go, "Oh my God, how did you do that?"

I just I know that cover cropping is helping to benefit the soil but it's not something that you're going to see in a year or two.

Building soil is not something that happens quickly it takes a long time.

I mean, when you think about when the glaciers came down like hundreds and hundreds of years ago, that's why we have the soils that we have.

*[playful string music] [Graznak] We're a certified organic vegetable farm.

The whole farm is certified but I'm growing vegetables on about seven acres.

If you have a lot of land, you can take an entire field out of vegetable production and just have it in a cover crop or a couple of cover crops for the year.

And then next year plant it in vegetables.

I don't have that much land.

So, for me it's really tricky moving things around.

So I do a lot of inter-cropping.

One of the most common inter-cropping things that I do is with a fall brassica crop.

I put buckwheat in the pathways and buckwheat when it flowers brings in a parasitic wasp.

And that wasp feeds on aphids and aphids are about the biggest pest on fall brassica crops.

I'm doing a lot of sort of IPM pest control on the cash crop that I'm growing just by planting this buckwheat that's kind of in between the pathways.

*[playful string music continues] * [Larry Thompson] My dad started with five acres and we built from there.

He built up to 60 acres when he was alive and then I built it up to 120 since he passed away.

He's a great farmer for his time but in his time, the field men would come out from the canneries.

He'd say, "You need to spray this.

You need to spray this on this time."

Even if there was bugs present- you know harmful bugs present or not you had to do it.

That's totally changed now.

There are field agents out there now with corporations that really understand that there are other methods of controlling the bad bugs using good bugs, et cetera.

And so I think that's been a really major shift over the past I'd say, 20 years which is really beneficial to the consumer.

That message in my opinion has got to come from the farmers right to the general public.

And that's what we try to do at our farm stands is inform them of how we do things and why we do it.

And to let them know that the food that we provide for them is very very safe.

[Clerk] How's it going?

[Customer] Good.

How are you?

[Clerk] Good.

[Little boy] I got broccoli.

[customer] I got broccoli.

[clerk] See, what I'm saying he's his asking for Broccoli [Customer] I got some already.

[Thompson] A part of the job of a farmer that sells directly to the public is changing public perception or correcting public perception as to what farmers really do.

By and large most of farmers understand that soil health is critical to their business.

The saying that I like to use is I'm not really treating the plant I'm treating the soil.

If you treat the soil right and take care of the soil, your crops will come.

[motor humming] [Thompson] Our model is 40 different crops.

We're always rotating crops around and I only like to put crops in one patch of soil for three years.

And then I automatically rotate it out, whether it's berries, vegetables or whatever.

We plant different varieties of cover crops depending on what's going to be the succeeding crop coming up.

For instance, we raise a lot of corn and it takes a lot of nitrogen.

So in fields that are going to be going into corn the preceding year, then we go ahead and plant an Austrian pea in there which will fix its own nitrogen.

So we have a strong, good nitrogen source in the soil prior to planting and seeding the corn crop.

And we can really reduce the use of synthetic fertilizers and also just makes the soil much healthier.

Very expensive seed costs but now when you take it the full length of the year, and look at the fact that that Austrian pea is actually adding 40 to 50 pounds of nitrogen, then you got to figure out well what's that saving me in fertilizer costs?

Well, corn takes about 120 pounds per acre of nitrogen to really get it to full production and a full crop.

So I'm cutting my fertilizer bank in half.

So I'm only using half the amount of fertilizer that I normally need to use.

Then suddenly Austrian pea isn't so expensive.

There's a value in that, but there's another value in that is less time for me in the field making sure fertilizers is being applied at the appropriate time, because it's just there already.

And then in other parts of soil that like came out of corn or came out of berries where there's excess nitrogen already in the soil, we'll plant more of a cereal rye variety cover crop.

Because that's a really good absorbing and holding nitrogen in the plant during the wintertime.

And then we can- we can plow that under in the springtime before planting other crops.

I keep my farm stand open pretty much year round and keep feeding different crops into that.

And then that builds my customer base.

And more and more people come by.

[child giggles] I think we need large corporate farm to feed America, but I think we feed society with farms like mine.

[Clerk] So $5.50 please.

[bag rustles] [Clerk] All right, here you go.

[Larkin Martin] A farm is a business.

So yield matters and productivity matters.

And I fully believe in sitting up here today because I believe that soil health is crucial to productivity short and long term.

[John Wiebold] I think there's a deeply engaged set of consumers that is growing.

It's a consumer base that's growing.

And I think what they're trying to tell us as a big food company is that food isn't a zero sum game.

As I think about what I heard today, I was blown away by the amount of science.

And I know that the science has been there and the research is good but I was really impressed.

And then came this talk of how do we link the science from what we know to creating the economic models that give producers a chance to move forward with some level of confidence that has to happen.

Food alone is not going to drive this and I just use the corn crop as an example.

We grow about 15 billion bushels of corn in this country.

Five of it goes in your gas tank.

Five of it goes into cows.

Two of it goes on ships to somewhere else.

You put two of it in the grain bins I think that leaves us with one.

Food seed residual.

We're not using a billion bushels of corn to make cereal and tortillas in this country.

So if you think about who plays and who benefits from soil health, we all benefit.

*[gentle whimsical music plays] * [Miranda Duschack] We're an urban farm in the Dutchtown neighborhood of St. Louis.

We are seven miles south of the arch as the crow flies.

[Mimo Davis] We have about 70-80 varieties of cup flowers that we grow during our season.

[Duschack] We're farmer Florist.

So that means we grow the flowers here and then we design the arrangements for things like weddings, funerals, parties all that kind of stuff.

[Davis] This is really unusual to have an acre city farm in the heart of St. Louis.

We're just wanting to be good stewards of the land.

We wouldn't want to be doing anything else.

That's why we bought this property because up the street, they wanted to turn this into a parking lot.

[Duschack] When a house is approved for demolition they don't take away everything, right?

They put it into the basement, into the foundation and then they cover it up with maybe a foot of field dirt, definitely not topsoil, right?

So when we acquire these properties that had houses on them and were demolished, there's no way to tell, it's full of rubble and bricks, and the soil quality is really low.

We're just talking field dirt like Missouri clay yuckity, yuck, yuck.

[Davis] So what we do is we bring in some soil sometimes instead of trying to till in we're building up.

Soil health is really vitally important here on our urban farm.

Even though we're just on an acre, we're pretty committed to taking crops out of production um, and replenishing the land with cover crops.

So in the back what we have are the Daikon radishes, which run deep into the soil to penetrate and break up any hard pans.

[Duschack] The cover crops are also important to help prevent erosion because especially on the purchase lots, we have to buy that soil so we want to hold onto it [chuckles] as much as we can.

[Davis] We do our soil testing yearly and each year it provides us new information.

And we just tweak it a little bit more.

[Duschack] With organic farming you just kind of get in this mode of like more compost, more compost right?

Just keep adding compost and we were doing that and then our soil test would come back with really high phosphorus, right?

Which can happen from just adding tons of compost.

[Davis] It's really hard on me because I'm really tempted to add compost every fall but you know?

[Duschack] It really improved the soil.

I mean it was amazing, right?

[Davis] It was amazing.

This bed last year we had terrible problems with it.

[Duschack] So that was from the trucked in soil that we had purchased from an area company.

It was so low in nitrogen coming to us that when we added compost and we thought we'd be good to go.

The entire area failed.

That's when we had to be more proactive about how we're taking care of our soil.

* [whimsical music continues] [Davis] For me it's so important.

I mean, just think about it whenever you get someone a bouquet, the first thing they do is what?

They put their face in it, right?

I mean, they put their face in it to smell the flowers.

So if you're doing that act of love, why not go that extra step in making sure that it's the healthiest thing that they could possibly buy on the face of the earth.

People who are really into growing sustainably and holistically are passionate and that's what you should be looking for.

A farmer who's excited about what they're doing and what they're growing.

[Duschack] Remember the lessons of the dust bowl, that those images haunt us we want to keep the soil in place.

We want to take care of this earth and keep it moving after we're long gone.

* [Davis] I think people really are starting to be aware that something is wrong with our environment, with the planet, with where we're living.

And if we don't start taking care of it now, it's just not going to get any better.

[trees rustling] - One quote from Teddy Roosevelt that challenges each of us to think about our actions and the commitment to soil health now and into the future.

If in a given community unchecked popular rule means unlimited waste and destruction of the natural resources, soil, fertility, water, power, force, game, wildlife generally.

Which by right belong as much to subsequent generations as to the present generation.

Then it is sure proof that the present generation is not yet really fit for self-control.

Is not yet really fit to exercise the high and responsible privilege of a rule, which shall be both by the people and for the people.

The term for the people must always include the people unborn as well as the people now alive or the democratic ideal is not realized.

[squeal of windmill] [Bill Buckner] We're the fourth generation on this farm.

My kids and my brother's kids would be the fifth generation.

It's been in our family for well over a 100 years.

We're all very much attached to the land.

One thing we've noticed through soil testing is that over the years, our organic matter got drastically low, with less than two percent.

And so when you start reaching those particular levels, you just don't have the water holding capacity that the ground really needs to have.

And so we made the decision, really is about five, six years ago and talking with my brother, that we really needed to do something different.

We made that conscious decision to really get into cover crops and really start building this organic matter back.

First two years, we had drought and it really didn't take well for us.

Third year, we hit a home run with it and that kind of solidified in our mind that we really needed to continue with this.

We consistently see better yields with crops in that area.

And it's just really, it's a function of the dry grass with its root structure.

And if it's water holding capacity because we have had the dry years through here.

But then also we've seen just better water absorption when we do have those moments of heavy downpours.

One of the things that we're learning more and more how to do is become better observers.

Our forefathers were great observationist they had PhD's in it.

And with as fast times that we have today, we really don't take the time to notice changes in the environment.

And I think we're seeing a lot more because we're taking more time to observe what's really going on around us.

[Kristin Veum] A lot of people call the microbes sort of the black box.

It's the unknown territory and there's so little that we know.

But we understand that they're very important in soil ecology.

Most people can count up to 150 in about 30 seconds.

So if you were to sit down and try to count all the micro organisms in this tablespoon of soil without stopping and having absolutely no breaks, it would take you about six and a half years.

People know that legumes are nitrogen fixing plants but what they don't always know is that it's really the microbes that are associating with the legumes.

That are doing the nitrogen fixation.

Without the microbes, the plants aren't going to be healthy.

And so just understanding that link between the microbial community and the plant is something most people aren't aware of.

We think of the DNA of the soil, microorganisms as their genetic potential.

Because they have the potential doesn't mean that they're performing that function.

So an analogy would be just because you have a bicycle doesn't mean that you're riding it.

And it's the same thing with soil micro organisms.

They have the genetic potential through their DNA to perform a certain function.

But they may or may not be doing that and so we need to find methods that focus on what the microorganisms are actually doing in the soil.

[Bianca Moebius-Clune] We have a lot of risks in terms of our food supply.

And making sure that we manage all of that and keep it sustainably moving forward by regenerating the soils that are having issues right now is so critically important.

Every producer, every rancher, every farmer out there is ultimately a livestock grower.

Now whether you know that or you don't, you've got livestock there just microscopic and that's what keeps our system moving, producing, functioning as that vital living ecosystem to provide everything that we need as a human race in order to survive.

[Dan Desutter] Hello.

Howdy.

- I'm pleased to meet you thanks for your hospitality.

[Desutter] Oh, well my pleasure.

Anybody tell me what temperature microbes really like, where are they at their peak efficiency.

Come on agronomy majors.

We need to adjust the curriculum it sounds like, 75 degrees they're just like us.

When it gets colder or hotter, they start to slow down and get lazy and not want to work.

So, anybody tell me what the temperature is likely to be in a bare soil tillage system.

It's not uncommon to see that get up over a 100 degrees.

What happens to microbial activity at that point?

[phh] Done they are on vacation, not doing anything.

What is the temperature in that same field if we've got a rye thatch laid down.

We can gain 20 to 30 degrees and retain our moisture and eliminate evaporative of loss.

By having that mulch barrier there.

We're using these complex cover crop cocktails, mixtures of 3 to 13 different plants.

It's kind of like having a good party when you have a party do you just invite all the dudes over that you know?

Or is it funner when the girls come and maybe they bring some of their friends and maybe get some international students to come?

And all of a sudden now you've got a pretty fun party, right?

That's a lot better than you and the guys sitting around watching Monday night football I'm guessing.

Well, these cocktails are kind of the same thing.

The more things we put in there the better it gets.

Most of the problems that plague modern agriculture are really a result of a lack of diversity.

Nature abhors a monocrop.

Nowhere in nature do you see a monocrop.

We're imposing our will on nature and her response to that over time is things like resistant weeds and bugs and disease and so forth.

When we start to bring the diversity back, it's incredible how quickly a lot of these problems go away.

[Keith Berns] So our goal when we farm is we never want to see the soil unless we go looking for it.

We think this is beautiful right here.

We've got all of this straw left over from the triticaley crop that was harvested back in July.

So in addition to this great thatch of cover that we have with this triticaley residue, we planted these sunflowers in here along with the cover crop.

So this is kind of a dual purpose.

We're going to harvest the sunflowers for a cash crop.

I've got cowpeas growing in here, the Austrian winter peas, flax, we have buckwheat, we've got squash.

There's about 10 different companion cover crops growing right with the sunflowers.

And that's what's giving me additional soil benefits through the great diversity that I have.

Because I get the best of both worlds.

It's kind of like having your cake and eating it too.

I've got the cake with the sunflowers that I'm going to harvest.

But I'm eating the cake too because I've got all of the benefits of the diversity growing down underneath it.

And just from the way this field looks I think this cake is going to taste pretty good.

For the farmer who's willing to put the effort into finding the markets, making the markets or hauling to the markets.

There's huge potential in doing this type of system.

Because I guarantee you this will add 15 to 20 bushels on my corn yield next year, because of all the great diversity that I had here.

Versus just being a corn soybean rotation.

Three cash crops in two years, plus eight or 10 cover crops during the same time period really is going to help the soil health score on this particular farm here.

[Man] Really, interesting.

[Keith Berns] Well, and see look at this.

Here's part of our insect control right there look at that guy.

[Man 2] I saw a couple in the field.

[Keith Berns] Yeah.

And you know thats...

I wish I had more of the spiders because there's what's left of a grasshopper.

If I had more of those, I'd have less of this.

[Man 2] Yeah.

Yeah.

[Keith Berns] So the more spiders we can have, the better off we are, as long as they're not in my house, because my wife doesn't like them.

[little girl laughs] [Mom] That's a girl.

All right.

I think we're good.

Good Job.

That's good.

Okay.

Now there's another spoon out there.

This one will go- [Keith Berns] We have a big family, my wife and I we have seven children.

Next generation is coming.

There's a bunch of grandkids running around now.

So when we make farming decisions, we definitely think about what's this going to do for the future.

Because we want to be able to turn the land over to them in really good condition.

But at the same time you have to make money.

There's a lot of families to support through the farm and through the seed business.

So we also have to make decisions that are economically sound.

Doesn't do any good if you have the healthiest soil in the world, if you go broke doing it.

[crickets chirping] *[soft serene music plays] [Trey Hill] The living cover crop has made our soils healthier.

We didn't do this based on building soil health.

We did it on building yield so we could be become more economically viable.

Then that effect is that the soil appears healthier.

We like no-till and what that allows us to do is have a better paid fewer employees.

A better job, we're using less fuel, we're buying less equipment.

So no-till, we've always figured was kind of the answer.

That's the best way to farm.

We see the cover crop like a crop now.

So we're trying to get it nice and even and what that's doing is allowing our corn to come up nice and even so that we get the even ear sizes, so we don't get the runs and all that stuff that we used to get that were often associated with a typical no-till scenario.

And consistency is what it's all about.

That's the hard part is trying to get this field consistent.

What we were doing is spraying our fields as early as we could, we'd kill them off.

We couldn't yield with our conventionally tilled fields in high yielding environments.

Under a gravelly field, low organic matter field, the yields would be comparable, but we could never beat it with no-till.

Now that we're planting green and getting the stability in our soils.

Now we're finally starting to kind of bridge that gap of no-till versus conventional.

So I think that what we're doing is kind of combining technology, chemicals, kind of this commercial style of family farming, and then incorporating that with utilizing a lot of what the organic folks have learned over the years and what people used to do 50 years ago and kind of taking that to the next level.

[Brian Berns] So in this field, we were harvesting the corn and then running the air seeder right behind it.

So that the idea is to always have something growing.

You can still see a little bit of green in these plants.

So they were alive, just not too long ago.

I'm standing right in the middle of between what's been planted and what hasn't been planted on this side, we just harvested but we have not drilled.

And on this side we have drilled.

And you can barely tell the difference the stalks are knocked down a little bit.

But the whole idea of no-till is to leave all the residue on top.

We use an air seeder, a drill that has a single disc opener so that it does not disturb any soil.

So as you can see there's very little soil disturbance and that helps protect the soil.

It helps with water infiltration, keeping that residue on top of the ground.

You can tell really healthy soil by the insects, by worms, and then just, you want that soil to almost look like chocolate cake.

And this has got good moisture.

We've had good moisture here in the last couple weeks.

So our cover crop should come up real well.

Right here is where one of the slots from the drill is.

And you can barely tell that it's there, which is what we want to help give a little more armor to the soil.

* [guitar strums softly] [Desutter] In the last 100 years, we've oxidized over half our organic matter into the atmosphere primarily through tillage.

We've lost half of the basic building block that makes soil productive half of it's gone.

And we haven't been at this very long in the terms of the life of a soil.

I mean, in Indiana, maybe we've been tilling the soil to some degree for 200 years.

And we've been doing it intensively for the last 50.

Project what will happen if we continue that.

The good news here though, is that... there are so many win, win, wins.

Very seldom in life do we find win, win, win scenarios truly.

So when we quit tilling, when we build our organic matter, our production goes up, our costs go down.

We clean up the rivers, lakes, oceans, we keep the offsite pollution problems from happening.

I mean, all these things come together.

Those are the reasons why we want to do it.

And my goal personally is before I become part of the earth again, I would like to see our organic matters be what they were before man came along.

And I think if I'm fortunate enough to get another 15 or 20 years, I think we can do that.

We've documented now that with what we've been doing, we can add about a percent every five years.

And I think if we bring grazing into the equation and more multi-species type cocktails to graze them on and so forth, that we can improve even that.

[cow moos] [Keith Berns] Come on.

[high pitched hum] [cow moos] [Keith Berns] We're in the process of expanding our livestock operation.

We've got about 40 cows.

We hope to be up to a couple hundred within three years.

When we run cattle on the ground, it really increases the soil health much quicker than when there's no livestock involved.

The trampling effect, the biting and the chewing of the plants.

The plants react differently when they're being grazed versus when they're just being cut like with a mower.

And they'll regrow more aggressively the integration of all of the saliva and the dung and the urine.

Those all are increasing the biological activity of the soil.

And we see much faster gains in soil health when we properly integrate the livestock.

[cow moos] The holy grail of soil health has always been, can we do organic no-till?

Because that's the best of both worlds we don't have to do any tillage, but we also don't have to use any chemicals.

It's really hard to do because you're growing this cover crop, which we need to build up the soil but somehow we have to kill it.

And without chemical or without tillage then what are your options?

So the options are number one, you can use a roller crimper or you can try to smash that plant.

And to really damage that stem so that the plant goes ahead and dies.

We want to get it knocked to the ground so the sunlight can hit those young corn plants when they come up.

Or you can use cattle and either one of them, the timing is exceptionally critical.

If you're going to really get a good kill on that cover crop.

It's a completely different mindset of how you run livestock you don't just turn them out in a pasture check them once a week.

And then at the end of the summer, you round them up and you bring them home.

It's being out there every day, moving them every day.

So we have a lot of work to do on figuring out some of the infrastructure of being able to make that work well.

But we're convinced that it's the way to go.

*[peppy guitar music plays] [Barry Fisher] Managing for improved soil health probably has one of the most profound impacts on society that we've had in agriculture in a long time.

No farmer wants to lose their nutrients they don't, no farmer wants their soil to become degraded.

However, there's a huge demand on our agricultural system from the globe actually.

And there's going to continue to be a huge demand.

I've worked for the USDA now for 35 years and never have I seen among farmers, such a broad quest for knowledge as I'm seeing now.

Farmers willing to share their best kept secrets with other farmers is a very very refreshing part of this job.

* [peppy music continues] You wouldn't find that in many businesses across this country.

[Thompson] I wish that I would have is that more farmers would pay attention to their bare ground.

My steeper ground over here, my marionberry ground is a permanent cover crop in it.

We never take it out ever it stays there.

Our farm is uniquely situated on two watersheds.

We're sitting right now at the crest of my farm to the north over here hitting north is a Johnson Creek watershed, which feeds into Johnson Creek Willamette River and eventually the Columbia River.

And then to the south on the opposite side, that watershed goes into Noyer Creek.

Noyer Creek actually starts here at my farm.

And then that dumps the Clackamas River drainage.

That too is a very productive salmon and especially steelhead run up in there.

And so we have to be aware of that.

Noyer Creek again, the headwaters right here at the farm, it's under investigation right now by the EPA.

What they found is high levels of fertilizers and pesticides in it.

They now know that the problem is farther down in other areas that you don't have cover crop strategies.

Cover crop strategies that we use in the permanent cover crops in the steeper slopes over here above my farm has kept everything right here in place.

Let's be concerned about the soil, making sure it stays put as much as we can possibly because without the soil we don't have food.

There just won't be any and so we all got to be concerned about soil health, quality of it and the depth of it.

Like I said before, you don't feed the plant, you feed the soil.

Well, that's true in every aspect, whether you're a home gardener and using compost or whether you don't have a home garden, you just have a yard.

Watch how you treat your yard, make sure you don't have run off leaving your property.

That's pretty key to stop soil erosion and run off into the bays and estuaries and things like that.

So it's critical for all of us to be thinking about soil health and keeping it in place.

* [mellow string music] * [reflective piano music plays] * [Jesse Sanchez speaking Spanish] [Sanchez] We really see the good benefits that the cover crops has year after year.

We farm around 4,000 acres it's about one third of the farm we have permanent crops like almonds and pistachios.

Then another two thirds with cover crops that we grow fresh market tomatoes, fresh garlic.

Right now you see California sunny and everything but it's December.

So far, you know we don't have no rain at all.

Usually we have one or two showers but it's dry.

This area right here we are more or less like a desert.

We average about, six inches of rain every year.

And these soils that we have cover crops and everything the rain that stays in the soil.

Doesn't run out like it used to run years ago because the cover crops protect the soil.

A few years back, I got invited to go to the White House.

I got honored because the soil helped and changing- you know climate change and agriculture too... is tough to change.

But then they will see that it's beneficial and that's why you see more and more farmers using cover crops.

[Bill Buckner] I've been working in the ag industry all my life.

I've launched new products into new market segments like many of you.

But I've never been part of helping to create a whole new segment of life science that spans the complete biome from life below the ground, to the life above the ground.

The development of something of this magnitude requires leadership from all ends of the spectrum.

In order to shepherd the understanding and the acceptance of new information and technology.

This information and technology over time will completely transform the agricultural industry.

It's going to transform the entire agricultural industry.

And it's already happening as I speak.

The health of our soil and the caretakers of our soil will be the topic of national debate and the focus of concern and active consumers.

Because we know that as many continue to reawaken the public, that the answer to many of the serious issues we currently face as society, climate adaptation, safe and affordable food and clean water all begins and depends on the health of the soil.

[Hill] The farmers in Maryland are by far and away the most highly cover cropped in the country.

But most of it is because of the state cost-share program.

I think the reason Maryland has such a strong cover crop program in a lot of ways is based on the collaboration of the environmental community with the farming community.

And part of the... whole history of Harborview has to do with collaborating with the environmental community.

Not just Harborview but the farmers in the community around us.

Particularly in the Northeast portion of the state, as well as the state as a whole.

It started about 20 years ago was kind of the big when everything kind of hit the fan so to speak between farmers and environmentalists.

We had a Pfiesteria outbreak in the Chesapeake Bay and we had a huge fish kill.

[Glendening] The problem in the water clearly starts on the land.

[Hill] The science around it determined that they thought it was from the phosphorus running off the fields of the farmers.

At that point, we were kind of at an impasse, are we gonna fight?

Or are we going to come together?

When you battle you don't really tend to accomplish things.

So at that point, I think we kind of started to collaborate and the Bay Foundation said, "What can we do to help you?"

So what... how do we change?

We're doing the same thing we've done for 20 years.

We don't think there's anything wrong with it.

So what can be done?

What is there?

So then they determine that cover crops were kind of the answer.

If you do cover crops and you pull the nutrients up out of the soil in the fall, when the soil's still alive and you get most of your infiltration, you've got a little bit of excess nitrogen there.

You've got a little bit of phosphorous there.

You pull it up then you don't get it into the waterways and into the groundwater.

So it's pretty simple- you know it's pretty easy to understand.

But farmers said, "Well, we're not going to do cover crops we don't have enough money, farming's tough."

It's the early 90's, we didn't have six dollar corn.

I mean, it was tough.

We're not going to spend an extra amount of money.

So they said, "Well, what if we get cost share for it?"

Yet, the farm bureau and the environmental groups both going to the state legislature saying, "Hey, we need this."

[Glendening] We have also appropriated two million dollars emergency funds for state only program to help Maryland farmers with a winter cover crop.

Our solution is going to be on the land and it's not going to be an easy solution.

We're going to have to take decisive action.

I believe it will be expensive.

I believe it's going to take some political courage for us to require what must be done.

[Hill] Through that collaboration.

We were able to get dedicated funding, to pay us to do cover crops.

That program has been going on for 20 years.

But there's some very good groups of environmental community and there's some very good groups of the farm community that have managed to thoroughly work this thing out and actually make a difference in the water system.

[bird calling] [Dawn Bradley] We're very very proud of the farmers in this state and what they've been able to accomplish.

It's just remarkable.

One of the things that most people may not know about some of the people that work at the Maryland Department of Agriculture is we are farmers.

I, myself am a farmer.

Me and my husband Tim about 75 to a 100 acres.

I've been with the Department of Agriculture for 17 years.

And of those years, I've been with the Cover Crop program for about 11 to 12.

Our base payment for cover crop is $45 an acre.

They can plant it aerially, they can plant it using a no-till planner.

They can do a conventional where the ground is disked and then seed it.

They can also do a process where they spread seed with a spin spreader and then go in and disk behind it.

We've tried to look at all the different options that the farmer already uses so that we're not putting him at a disadvantage for how to get the cover crop planted.

We offer incentives for different species.

When we started adding the additional incentives and prioritizing certain best management practices, the program has just grown.

It's grown considerably just in the last five years.

Right now, our actual budget is over 20 million a year for the Cover Crop program.

And that comes from different sources, Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund and that sort of thing.

Because that's one of our primary goals is protecting the bay.

* [calm guitar music] [Bradley] The bay means a lot to Maryland, not just as a benefit for water quality but I mean, there's tourism, recreation, food.

One of the main things is just a quality of life.

I mean, it's amazing to live where we live to have the bay on one side of the shore and the ocean on the other.

So we're very fortunate in that respect.

[roaring of waves] [quiet hum of boat motor] [Steve Groff] It's significant for me as a farmer to realize that all around this island, there is literally water that could have ran off my farm.

[Groff] Hey!

Couple years- [Eskridge] Yeah.

[Groff] Since we saw each other.

[Eskridge] Yeah.

[Groff] I'm just curious, just wondering, we've spent, oh, the last 20 years or so.

I mean, I personally have been using cover crops and trying to keep my soil from eroding.

And trying to keep the nutrients in the land, particularly the nitrates.

So they don't get into the Chesapeake Bay and disrupt everything there.

Are you seeing any changes over the last 5, 10, 15 years?

Is it getting better, is it getting worse?

[James "Ooker" Eskridge] I believe the bay is healthier than it has been.

I can see the improvement.

[Groff] Really?

[James Eskridge] I mean, yep.

Sea grasses are increasing now this year, they're late because of the cool weather, but sea grasses are increasing.

[Groff] Okay.

[Eskridge] The blue crab population is doing well.

[Groff] Really?

[Eskridge] And so are the oysters.

The bay looks healthier than it's been in over six years.

[Groff] Wow.

Boy.

That is really encouraging.

[Eskridge] Yeah, it is.

[Groff] Because there has been a huge effort.

And I think it's well known that the Chesapeake Bay has been kind of like a pilot project for the nation.

[Eskridge] Yeah.

Right.

[Groff] And we know that everyone lives in a watershed.

[Eskridge] Yeah.

[Groff] And if we're starting to see some success here, that is definitely and a good sign that we're headed in the right direction.

[Eskridge] Yeah.

[Groff] So when it was, we'll say the worst 8 to 10 years ago, were there people getting out of the business?

[Eskridge] Yeah people were leaving the business and they just couldn't make a living at it.

I remember when we would go out oystering and... working pretty much the full- the full time period like the 2PM from sunrise to 2PM you could only catch three or four bushels of oysters.

Of course, oysters and crabs is what keeps the ball rolling here.

I mean, that's what we're about.

[Groff] It's like corn and soybeans.

[Eskridge] Yeah.

That's how we put food on the table.

That's how we put our kids through college and it takes a lot of oysters and crabs to put kids through colleges as it is.

[Groff] Yeah.

Right.

[Eskridge] So- [Groff] How many square miles is this island?

[Eskridge] Of course, it's mostly marshland but Tangier's about maybe a mile long by two and a half to three miles long.

[Groff] Okay.

Not very big.

You had mentioned there's three ridges- [Eskridge] Three ridges.

[Groff] I have to ask how high are these ridges?

[Eskridge] The highest point is probably about four feet above sea level.

[Groff] So what do you say is the rate of water in approaching the island per year at average?

[Eskridge] It varies but here we lost probably 10 feet since last fall.

And like I say, you can see how close she's getting.

We really don't have the land to give up.

[Groff] Are you optimistic about the future?

[Eskridge] I am optimistic.

Yeah.

I tell our citizens as mayor and as a collaborate of not to lose hope because if you lose hope, then all is lost.

[Groff] Right.

[Eskridge] You don't want to lose hope.

[water splashes] We were talking about protecting your soil I mean, it's just a common sense thing.

You would want to protect the top soil because it's vital to farming like our shoreline is vital to us.

[Groff] Where I'm from the Southeastern part of Pennsylvania that at least 60% of the fields have something growing in over winter.

And that I'd say years ago it was 15 to 20% maybe and that's really improved.

But the thing of it is there are parts of the country of the U.S., that's only one or two or three percent covered now.

And so I think using what we've accomplished here in the Chesapeake Bay, hopefully is going to stimulate more of this to hopefully clean up our watersheds in the future.

[Eskridge] We got to stay on top of it because of farmers like the watermen we're feeding the world.

* [Groff] Oh, we made the loop.

[Eskridge] Yep.

We made the loop.

Like I said, you'll always end up to the same place.

[Groff laughs] *