155. From the Ground Up with Stephanie Anderson
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January 29, 2025
TLDR: Explore Stephanie Anderson's journey from traditional ranching to regenerative agriculture advocacy and her book 'From the Ground Up'. Learn about inclusive practices in regenerative agriculture and the potential for sustainable farming as a viable career path.

In the latest episode of the Grazing Grass Podcast, host Galf Hardeech sits down with Stephanie Anderson, a passionate advocate for regenerative agriculture. This engaging discussion takes listeners on Stephanie’s transformative journey from her family's traditional cattle ranch in Western South Dakota to her current work in Florida, highlighting her latest book, From the Ground Up: The Women Revolutionizing Regenerative Agriculture.
Key Takeaways from the Episode
Stephanie’s Background and Early Experiences
- Growing Up on a Ranch: Stephanie shares her childhood experiences on a cattle ranch, performing typical farm tasks, and embracing the outdoor lifestyle.
- Education Path: Despite enjoying ranch work, she pursued an English major in college, leading to a successful career in writing that informs her current agricultural advocacy.
Insight into Regenerative Agriculture
- Introduction to Regenerative Practices: Stephanie discusses her shift to regenerative agriculture, motivated by seeing the detrimental effects of conventional farming practices on communities and ecosystems.
- Women in Agriculture: Central to her new book is the recognition of women's vital roles in reshaping the food system, highlighting stories of resilience and innovative practices that benefit both the environment and communities.
- Importance of Inclusivity: The episode emphasizes the critical involvement of women and BIPOC individuals in regenerative agriculture, showcasing stories from diverse producers who implement creative farming solutions.
The Broader Impact of Regenerative Practices
- Economic and Personal Benefits: Stephanie discusses how regenerative farming not only contributes to ecological stability but also provides economic resilience for farming families by diversifying income streams and improving land health.
- Real-Life Examples: The podcast features inspiring stories from producers like Gabe Brown and Kelsey Scott, who highlight successful transitions to regenerative practices that promote sustainability while also securing their livelihoods.
- Climate Resilience: Stephanie discusses the need for adaptive food systems in the face of climate change, urging a shift towards local and resilient agricultural practices that can withstand future systemic shocks.
Practical Applications for Listeners
- Encouraging Young Farmers: Stephanie advocates for making agriculture a viable career option for young people by showcasing the benefits of regenerative practices, encouraging local community investment in sustainable agriculture.
- Connecting Consumers with Farmers: The discussion points towards the disconnect between consumers and their food sources, calling for more robust local food systems where people can easily engage with local farmers.
Career Paths in Agriculture and Writing
- Pathways for Writers: Stephanie emphasizes the importance of storytelling to bridge the gap between farmers and the public, offering insights for aspiring writers about persistence and the long-term nature of building a writing career.
- Advice for Beginners: Listeners looking to enter either the writing field or regenerative agriculture are encouraged to find resources, connect with mentors, and remain committed to their passions despite challenges.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the episode with Stephanie Anderson serves as an inspiring call to action for listeners to consider the significance of regenerative agriculture in today’s food systems. Her work not only sheds light on the experiences of women in the field but also highlights practical solutions that foster resilience and sustainability in farming communities.
With an engaging mix of personal anecdotes, expert insights, and practical applications, this podcast is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of agriculture.
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On today's episode, we have Stephanie Anderson and we discuss her journey from South Dakota to Florida and the new book. She's just recently released from the ground up, which features women in agriculture. I think you'll enjoy it. Okay, Stephanie, we will get started with the fast five. What's your name? My name is Stephanie Anderson. Where did you grow up? I grew up on my family's cattle ranch in Western South Dakota.
And you recently published a book. What's the name of it? I did. My book is called From the Ground Up, The Women Revolutionizing Regenerative Agriculture. Oh, very good. And when was it published? It was published in November 2024. Yeah, so not too long ago. Now, in addition to this book, you have one other book. I do. That one's called One Size Fits None, A Farm Girl Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture. Oh, very good.
Welcome to the Grazing Grass Podcast. The podcast dedicated to sharing the stories of grass-based livestock producers and exporting regenerative practices that improve the land, animals, and our lives. I'm your host, Galf Hardeech. And each week we'll dive into the journeys, challenges, and successes of producers like you, learning from their experiences, and inspiring each other to grow and graze better. Whether you're a seasoned grazer,
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receive exclusive benefits include virtual meetings and one-on-one consultations. Spaces Limited, visit noble.org to enroll and invest in your land, livestock and legacy. For 10 seconds about the farm, we are bell grazing right now, enjoying the little bit warmer weather right now, and our accidental laming season has started.
Actually, I say that tongue in cheek because it's not accidental this time. It was accidental in 2024. But this time, I thought it worked so well last year. We thought we would try something. We'll find out how crazy we are. So I purchased a young ram, a Dorper Cross ram lamb. And we threw him out there last fall so that our use, we would have some use lamb early.
Our thought pattern with that for those use that had had the accidental lambing last year, they would be ready to breed. The others had just been shortly weaned, so they were likely to breed. They were likely to breed, but not real sure. And then we had our u-lams and our u-lams weren't big enough at the time. I threw that ram lamb out there and we'll see what happens. Right now, I have 24 lambs on the ground.
If it works great, we'll see what we would like to see is have a nice set of lambs this time. And then we have another set in May. It's me being a lazy farmer. Thought, well, I'll just put a young ram out there. We'll see what happens.
Check back in a few months. I may be like this was the worst idea ever, or I may like it. I know last year with the accident on lambing, we lamb those out and we sold them directly off the use in May. And we thought we did fairly well with them. We were happy with how they did. So we'll see how this goes. Stay tuned.
For 10 seconds about the podcast, I haven't mentioned it lately, but we got the grazing grass community over there on Facebook. If you want to join it, go over and join it. It has slowed down some conversation in there that I said that room. The conversations in there have slowed down a little bit right now. And we'll try and get that picked back up. But Stephanie was graced enough to give us a couple books to give away to members of the grazing grass community. So we will be doing that later this week.
and let's get back to Stephanie. First, thank you, Stephanie, for doing that. Now let's go talk to Stephanie. To get started today, Stephanie, let's talk about your early experiences with ranching because you grew up in a ranch in South Dakota. What was that like and what kind of practices were used there?
It was a really incredible upbringing. I'm so proud of the work my family does. Like I said, they're in Western South Dakota, so Northwestern to be exact. So they're working in a pretty dry environment. And so they run beef cattle to cow-calf operation. And so I would spend my summers doing all the things that farm kids do on a cow-calf operation. So fencing, fixing barber fences, hanging, did a lot of hanging and raking. We raised all of our own hay for our cattle for overwintering.
And they also did some crops as well. So we would grow things like wheat, we'd grow oats and we would actually bale that. So that was, you know, for hay and for for our cattle as well. Horseback riding, obviously, using that to gather cattle and, you know, being out on the land was something that we were doing all the time. So I would call my family's operation pretty conventional. They would use the more of a conventional grazing model where
You know, we would maybe we would put the, you know, brand archives in, you know, the spring, right? Usually around May. Sometimes it would get into June. And then we would take those out to the summer pasture and they would usually stay in the same pastures all summer long. And then we'd gather them up in the fall. They might go into a fall pasture and then bring them home closer for winter. The winters are pretty rough in western South Dakota. So the cattle have to be pretty close. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a range still in the family.
It is. I know. I'm so happy that it is. So my dad and mom still operate it. My younger brother is there as well. He does some work on the side for himself, but then he also helps my father. Oh, yeah. And I have to ask because I'm so fascinated by breeds of cattle, but what kind of cattle did you all run?
We mostly run Black Angus for a while. There was a little bit of Red Angus in there, maybe a little bit across. When my parents were first getting started, I was younger and any cattle was welcome on the ranch, whatever they could find. But my dad's really gotten his genetics down to where he's running Black Angus now. And it's a really nice herd. Oh, I imagine so. Yeah.
Now growing up, what did you think you would do? Did you think I'm getting away from this farm work as fast as I can? It's interesting to you. What was your thought process as a kid on it doing it?
As a kid, I honestly thought that I would be a rancher, that I would be still doing that. I really did love the work and I still do whenever I go home, I love to help. And I did summers after college as well for a few years. But I guess what happened was that my writing started to take me away. And I did go away to college. I went to college in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at Augustana University.
And so from there, I just followed this dream of writing and it led me, it did lead me away. So it's weird. I do see like a parallel self that could be there in South Dakota and being on the ranch and doing the work of like the women that I have interviewed for my book that are featured. I see myself in them often in the sense that I can totally see myself doing the work.
So I'm not exactly sure when that changed, but probably when I was, you know, more in the college time, I realized I'm probably going to not be returning to that part of the state. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And with your writing, so did your writing or passion for writing really starting college?
Yeah, I was always interested in writing and English as a high school student. I was always doing creative writing things. But when I went to college and started working on English major, I started emphasizing in creative writing. And just that side of myself seemed so interesting. And I also have a journalism minor. So that's how I got into agricultural journalism for a brief period. I worked as a journalist in Sioux Falls for a publication called Tri-State Neighbor. It's a really great newspaper out of Sioux Falls. They cover
Northwest Iowa, Southwest Minnesota, Northeast, Nebraska, and then all of South Dakota. So I, you know, kind of cut my teeth and journalers room through that as well. And you mentioned they're English major. Yeah. Now I'll be perfectly honest, but I went to college. I was in animal science major and we were about as far from using proper English as possible. What drew drew you to the English major and what were your plans with that at the time you made that decision?
Yeah, that's a really good question. So I pursued an English major primarily because I was so interested in writing. I was such a big reader. I wasn't sure exactly what that would look like. And over the years, it really morphed in
to becoming the storyteller who can kind of be in between the people who are working on the land and the people who don't have any familiarity with farming and ranching, who don't understand what that lifestyle is like, why it's so important for our country, why it's so important for our food supply, and why the people that are doing that work are so incredibly wonderful people.
We need storytellers. It's kind of like in the sciences, you know, where the scientists are doing such great work, but oftentimes the public doesn't quite understand it. So I try to use that English major, use that ability to work with story to kind of be that bridge. That's, that's what it's become. I don't know if I knew that at the time, but that's what it has become. Oh, yes. I think sometimes, and I say, I think that sometimes this way I felt coming out of high school,
I knew I was going to college because that was my parents' expectation. It was you're going to college. And I didn't have any doubts about it. I knew I was going to college, but that's probably a reflection of what they told me when I was very young. So I knew what I was going to college, but when you think about
Me coming in graduating high school from a very small high school or small community and going to college, animal science. I knew I wanted to do that. So it was pretty easy for me. But when I really think back to it, you know, years later, when I think back, animal science, I could go into the medical field. But I tell my brothers a doctor and I tell them all the time, I could have been a doctor. I just don't like people that well, like animals better. I know.
But so medical, animal science, I knew I could get an MBA, I thought business, but then I was like, what do you really do with a business? So I think sometimes when we have kids growing up in smaller communities, I hope this has improved. Sometimes they're not sure what all these different degrees really mean for them. So for you to go into English, it's good to find out where you've gone with that degree for
for kids today as they think about what they're wanting to do. Yeah, I think that conversation is so important to have with young people. And I think we can bring it back to agriculture in so many ways. That's something I talk about from the ground up is that I would love to see us offer agriculture, specifically agriculture that works with sustainability and works with climate smart techniques.
as a viable option for young people, just as much as we would offer things like being a doctor, being a lawyer, things like that. And so kind of making that bridge connection between what a college degree or not could offer them in that field is important. And yeah, I mean, I was the first in my family to go to college, you know, that journey was completely new for my family, like navigating what the academic world is like and what
what you could do with a major and everybody said, oh, you'll never, you know, you'll have to be a teacher or you'll never make any money as an English major. The money part's still up in the air, but there is definitely a path for that major. So, you know, and yeah, being funny, we have a very similar upbringing, I think, very small town. I mean, there were 14 kids in my graduating class, you know, 300 people in our town, the closest town.
Yeah, I hope that the opportunities have gotten better for young people in those kinds of communities in the sense of there are people telling them, hey, here's what you could do. Or here's a really great way where you can stay in your community and make a really big difference. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
And I have to apologize right off. I guess compared to you, I grew up in a big city. We had 46 in my graduating class. Oh, wow. Huge. You know, three times as big. Three times. You would have been from a big town. Yeah. Well, actually, I worked. So I grew up in Chelsea, graduated from Chelsea population, 1800 or something. And I worked for years in education and Bonita population about 5,000. I'd tell them all the time I went to the big city. Yeah.
Yeah. So I haven't, I just, I have to mention this because have you ever heard of something called the McFarthest spot? No, I haven't. Okay. Well, so there's this guy, his name is Stephen Von Worley and he's, he has this guy on the internet, but he made a project, you know, a few decades back actually now of he was trying to map the farthest that you could get from a McDonald's restaurant in the continental United States. He like mapped them all out. Oh, yeah. And he found the McFarthest spot.
And it was about 10 miles from my parents' ranch for the longest time. I'm not joking. I went there, and I mean, it was there. Since now, over the years, McDonald's have closed and opened. The spot is now somewhere in Nevada, so it's no longer that. But when I was growing up, and for a while when I was in college, we were basically the MacFarlane spot. It was over a half drive to McDonald's.
That is definitely a claim to fame there. I'll have to look that up more. That's interesting. And then still is that far to McDonald's. It still is that far. It's just, I don't know what changed, but or someone else is now farther, but it still is quite a drive if we really want to get to the Golden Arches, which.
I just think too, as our farmers and our ranchers there are raising beef that often goes into the supply that will end up at a restaurant like McDonald's, right? But yet it's so far removed physically and in a psychological sense from the producers' daily lives. And yet they are often conforming their management practices to those standards that are being set so far away. I just find that contrast very interesting.
Yeah, that is very interesting. I want to continue a little bit more about your writing journey. You started working for ag publication there in South Dakota, tri-state area, correct? Yes. And then what did you do after that?
So I worked there for a year. It was a really great job. I got to see a lot of different farms, a lot of different agricultural models and practices that I had never encountered as a West River South Dakota kid just growing up on a cattle ranch. So I got to see a lot. Oh, yeah.
But this was the recession era. This was 2009-ish 2010. And we were just kind of looking for something else to do after you know, use our college, our college degrees to do something new. So I ended up moving to Florida and I worked for a nonprofit there for a while. I did a really great job.
I worked in marketing and writing, so I got to cover international aid. That's what the nonprofit that I worked for. They sent me to places like Mozambique and Kenya, Guatemala, Haiti. It was a great, great job. Bolivia was probably the coolest place I went.
And I got to speak to a lot of different people and learn about their lives, really tough situations, but also bring their stories back and hopefully inspire people to give. So I worked there for a few years, and that was great. But I also realized, hey, I am giving all of my creative energy to a job. And even though I love the job, it's not necessarily that energy that I want to have that energy manifest in a different way and the storytelling in a different form.
So then I went back to school. I went and got a master's degree in creative nonfiction. And I've been writing ever since. And so I've taught for a while at Florida Atlantic University as an instructor. And that was a great job. I stepped away to write this current book that I just published from the ground up. And then I was lucky to come back to the same institution as assistant professor of creative nonfiction. So a more formalized role. So that's really kind of the journey.
So, so what I really get from your journey is you got tired of the snow and you moved where there wasn't any. I will say it's not bad being away from the cold weather in South Dakota that final winter. I'll never forget shoveling out the car. It was a very bad winter in 2010 and we are 2009 early 2010 when I left that spring and I was so tired of it. I will have to say.
I imagine so. My wife grew up in Hawaii. Wow. So the winter here in Northeast Oklahoma is not bad, but to her, it's terrible. Sure. She does love the fact that there's seasons, but she could really do with winter being like one or two days. You know, we got our snow. Let's go ahead and move to spring.
Yeah, I have to say, and every time I go back to visit my family, you know, I often go over the holidays and it's cold. You know, we were just Thanksgiving and it was in the single digits. And I mean, we're there and I'm thinking, man, I used to just be out in this and it wasn't an issue. And now I just, I don't know if it's just a function of getting older or, you know, climatized, but I have an even more respect for the people who are out in that all the time, no matter what kind of job they're doing.
going on that tangent, you know, I grew up on a dairy and I daried for years before I went back to school to go into education and I worked in education for a number of years and I'm back on the farm now. Those years when I daried, I was out in the weather every day and a t-shirt and jeans was my attire most time. Obviously, I'd put on a jacket and stuff, but I'd spend hours outside. I started working for a school
I got so soft. I did not want to go out without being bundled up. Where's my gloves? I need a complete outer wardrobe to handle this now. Yes, I'm there. That's who I am now. It's shameful, but that's who I am. Right.
So in that journey, as you leaned into your writing somewhere along that journey, you were introduced to regenerative practices. When was that and what caused it to to capture your attention? So when I was getting my master's degree, part of that process is a three year degree, you have to write a thesis. So you have to write basically a book length manuscript. And of course, the question, what am I going to do? What's a big enough project that I can turn my attention to?
And I was really ambitious. I was reading a lot of things like Michael Pollan at the time, you know, Elizabeth Colbert, people who were, you know, using storytelling to talk about the food system or to talk about the environment. And I thought, well, I feel like
I have a lot of connections in farm country. I really care about farm country. I am learning about how industrial practices are eroding our farm communities and really endangering the future of so many of our farm families. My own family included. Well, I kind of feel a personal responsibility to start to explore that. And so that project ended up becoming one size fits none.
And I wanted to start the project by helping people understand how farmers get into the conventional system and kind of get trapped in it in the first place. So I have visited a vegetable farmer out here in Florida, actually. We're big vegetable producers. And if you're eating tomatoes right now, they're coming from here, for example. So he was a big producer. And his story really helped, I think, the layperson understand, all right, this is the model that we have.
And then I used other producers, people like Gate Brown, for instances in the book, and there's a great buffalo rancher filled journey in South Dakota. And there's another person here down in Florida that's kind of an opposite model. And so between these stories, this is where the regenerative practices that I was learning about researching and coming across to their stories, but also through published research and talking to experts and people in the sciences and agricultural sciences were telling me about. And so I wanted to use their stories as a vehicle for presenting
that kind of regenerative possibility, not just for the land, but also just for farm families and seeing the success that they were having on a bot from a bottom line perspective, from a ecological health perspective, but also, you know, their communities being revitalized by their work. So that's kind of where it all all came from. I just here in Florida, people don't, at least where I'm working, a lot of people grew up in cities. They don't have that, you know, connection or even a knowledge to talk about it. And I felt I have it. I'm going to use it. So that's kind of where it came from.
with going through that process. Did that affecting the operations on your family's ranch?
In a little bit of a way, I got my brother. He's a few years younger than me interested in it. Oh, good. Yeah, which was super exciting for me. So he's been doing some rotational grazing. He's got a great setup on some acres that he's managing. And he's also working in cover crops for forage purposes. He's also replanted some former cropland back to grassland.
So he's doing some, you know, some management on his own. He's also doing direct beef to, you know, direct direct to consumer beef marketing, which is great for him. And so, yeah, in this that sense, yes, it has been able to create a little bit of change, I think, for the next generation of my family's range. Oh, very good change. Change is not easy and takes time. Yeah. I know in our, in my own context,
My dad and I work together a lot, and dad's practices have changed a lot, but it's taken me decade.
Yeah. Yeah. That's an important thing. I mean, and people don't realize that, you know, how, just how difficult it can be to change, you know, psychologically and also financially, just like from a practical standpoint, it's not like farmers can just be like, okay, I'm going to go regenerative. And so I think people want change really quickly, but we have to be really, we have to extend a lot of patience and grace and help people make that journey on their own time.
Right. Yes. And I know just in our circumstance, we're talking about what calving season for dad's herd. And we've talked about moving it. But that's a financial hit. Do we sell the cows? Do we buy back in? Currently at these prices, it'd be great to sell them, but we don't necessarily want to buy on this market. Sure. Do we spend a decade moving them to the right season? Do we bite the bullet and lose a half year income and just move them to the right season?
It's tough as we think about it. And I say the right season. Each farm has their own context and that owns the right season for them. So just because it may be the right season for us, right where we are, does not mean it's the right season for everyone else.
Right. Yeah. What you're saying, it seems to go to this idea that each to each environment, its own practices and its own wisdom, you know, what makes sense for a ranch in a place like Western South Dakota, where our winters do last longer and we can have.
Pretty tough blizzards all the way through April, rarely in the first week of May, but possible that on the calving season is tough. Where in your environment, I'm sure it gets warmer a lot earlier, you're able to start calving. So, so exactly. But, but working with that same basic principle of what's best for the animal, what's best for you as a ranger to try to be more efficient with your, with your efforts and just minimize loss and stress on the, on the animals.
Right? So once you got your first book out, one size fits none, when did your idea for your second book come or where did the idea come from and how did that process go?
So from the ground up really started in March 2020 when the pandemic hit and we all saw the food system, I would say collapse pretty badly. And it was as someone who understands the hardship for producers that were, you know, had time sensitive products that they couldn't bring to market, I understood that they were trapped in a
very big national, international food system that was completely inflexible and was not able to assist them in the way that they needed to, it was not able to be flexible and adaptable in the way they needed it to be. On the other side of us as consumers, we were experiencing shortages like we hadn't seen before. And also, I think realizing many people
that we didn't know who our local farmers and ranchers were. We did not have the types of connections to our food that we should have. And so I was thinking, is this a foreshadow? Like what we were seeing in those months, especially those early. Is this a foreshadow of what's going to happen the next time we have a big shock to the system? Is this what's going to happen when we start having back to back and we already arguably
climate-driven emergencies that are being very disruptive for our producers. Is this baked in? Are we going to keep seeing this? Or can we change it? And so that's where it really started. And I was thinking about who, and as I was researching, who was trying to build that food system that could have that flexibility and resiliency, I was finding a lot of women. And so I
was tracing their stories. And I was finding that women were working in all kinds of environments on the land to make this happen. But they were also working in that food system, that bigger system that we saw collapsed so badly. And so they're working in the sciences. They're working in distribution. They're working in making our food system more regional, more local and shortening those supply chains so that they can be quicker to adapt. They're working on policy to help branches transition. They're working on getting
Capital and regenerative financing to ranchers, so they can make that transition. So when I saw the system collapse, I wanted to look at it, not just at the land, because I find that super important actual production. But we also have this very large web of components within the food system that also have to transition so that ranchers and farmers are just doing it on their own, and there has.
the supply chain ready, they have the consumer base ready, they have the knowledge ready, they have the policy ready, they have the funding to do it. So yeah, that's where it kind of came out of us that I wanted to take a systems view of it as we saw during the pandemic that when we were watching that system kind of dissolve.
You know, we all have these COVID projects, this crazy grass podcast came out of my COVID project kinda. To share the stories and do storytelling in just a different medium than you're doing. With your stories, you focused on women and bi populations. It's like, it's kinda just like this movement, it seems.
Or like, when I was doing this research, I was noticing too that the regenerative movement seems to be more inclusive and it's also more open to, you know, acknowledging the indigenous roots of regenerative agriculture and Afro-American activism.
the way that Hispanic agriculture, all of these agriculture's around the world and places like Asia. What we call regenerative today is really drawing from that many generations of knowledge and practices even that are now, they may look a little different today, but it's still the same basic foundation. So when I was, for example, from the ground up, going out to the Shine River Reservation and interviewing an indigenous producer, Kelsey Scott,
She was enlightening me about all of these things. And same when I went to visit Carrie and Erin Martin up in North Carolina, they were talking about how these are practices built in from their ancestors, some of which many, many decades ago were enslaved. And this is how they were managing land to keep it fertile and keep it healthy.
I've shown that the movement by acknowledging that is able to just be more inclusive by default. So that was really exciting to me because we need all the brain power and person power that we could get in any movement. It's a movement that is really broad and open and is more likely to be effective at seeing.
I completely agree. When we think about the grazing grass podcast, you know, I want producers on here that are running on 10 acres, producers running on thousands of acres and all the continuum between them, as well as where they came from, what livestock they're running, what their origins are, where they're located.
So trying to get be very inclusive to include everyone we can into this conversation. Because the goal, I think, and I think your goal is going to be very similar, we want that person to take the next step on their regenerative journey, whatever that next step may be. And for them to do it, they have to see themselves in a story. At least that's my thoughts.
So if they see themselves in that story, they can take that next step because they're like, oh, that person's doing it like this. And I'm like that person. And I can take that step. I think that's exactly right. I think that we are, you know, natural people are not storytellers. We resonate with stories. We want to see how our lives connect with them. And so when we're able to see ourselves in stories, we're more likely to feel that inspiration to
you know, follow whatever we feel called to do. And, you know, to the, the, I mean, the data backs it up in the sense of who's the next generation of farmers are when we do the young farmer surveys, when we do the census of agriculture, it does reflect the changing demographics. So it's, it's absolutely making sure that people's stories are represented, but also, you know, it's not sort of just like picking stories that fit so that everyone can be seen. It's also just a reflection of what's happening, which is so exciting. Yeah.
Yeah, do you think, you know, we see so many things that the average age of farmers are increasing and we're going to have tons of farmers retiring at some point. My grandpa is almost retired at 98. My uncle does most of the stuff, but he's still a little bit involved. So I'm not sure you would say he's fully retired at this point, but at some point he will fully retire.
as we look to the next generation, what do we need to do so that we can get more people interested? Well, I love this question. You're right. I mean, we have a massive changing of ownership or changing of operational ownership within our farm communities. And so it represents, I think, an exciting opportunity to welcome young people back to the farm. Regenerative
For dinner operations tend to be able to produce more per acre. They're more efficient. So more people can be on the land. So like, for example, in the book, I talked about a brother, sister duo who are working with the family rent or a family farm. They have rented out a huge portion of it on the other portion.
It supports two families using regenerative practices farming, you know, cropping and also, or excuse me, cover cropping and then also animal production, so livestock and all kinds of other enterprises. And so they're able to produce more, support more families on a smaller acreage and let someone else manage that other acreage. So I think as we see farmers, farmland begins to change hands. We need to bolster our connections between
the people who are leading that land and people who want to be on that land so that we can facilitate either rent to own or, you know, buying options or management options, internships, sort of options as well. So we do have women working on this issue too to connect, you know, the people who are
It will get to manage this land maybe a smaller portion of a larger land or a farmer range and be able to get more people onto it. So that will, in turn, impact our communities. Hopefully, Pittsburgh growth within communities revitalize some of these forgotten agricultural areas if we can get more families back to those areas. So I think this transition of farmland is exciting. We just have to make sure that we put up guardrails to keep development from coming in.
Big business coming in, you know, people with deep pockets, big corporate operation. So that'll be a constant challenge. So it won't be easy, but we do have young people out there who want to farm. It's the number one issue for young farmers when they're surveyed is access to land. So if we can make that access pathway smoother, then we can, I think, make a regenerative movement. A very general transition happened a lot faster.
Yeah, that access to land is so tough and keeping out, you know, as we think about land prices in my area, you know, we've heard for years, beef cows won't pay for land. And while I still agree with that, there's some other ways to get it paid for and some other things you can do by looking outside the box and trying some other things as well. But yeah, that money or access is a huge issue.
Yeah, I mean, and the financial side is interesting because we're generative again, offer so much opportunity for economic stability. Like if you diversify what you're producing on that acre, you can insulate yourself from some of these market swings. You can, you can bring in new opportunities and enterprises and you know, it can be a little bit more exciting to be honest sometimes because if we just do the same thing every year over and over, I can see how young people may not be interested in that.
I can tell young people may not be interested right now in the way sometimes their parents were doing things on the rancher on the farm because it's not terribly intellectually stimulating in some cases. Young people, we need to give them more credit because they are up for the challenge. I love that idea of making the farm more complex.
Yeah, that diversification stacking of enterprises makes a big difference in a lot of different ways. Stephanie, before we transition to our overgazing section, I would like for you to give us just a little bit of a almost an elevator talk, if you will, why we should get your book and read it. Oh, thank you.
Well, I think that this book is great for all kinds of people who are interested in the food system, interested in human health and interested in environmental stability. So I wrote the book that in a way that would help, or I think, or try to reach an everyday person who may not be very familiar, but also be very helpful for people who are in the system. And so the book really does touch on a number of components of the food system. I think it
offers a view of what we need to do on the land or how we might adapt regenerative practices to help prepare our farmland for achieving climate, how we can help our producers stay in business in the years ahead, but also all the different ways that people can get involved with the food system, even if they're nowhere near a farm when it comes to supply chains and research and policy, things like that.
And also, you know, the book is narrative driven. It's not going to be a whole bunch of overwhelming statistics, all other lots of facts and everything in there. But it's my goal is to show you real people who are out there making a difference and to show how their stories illuminate a bigger challenge, but also illuminate bigger opportunities.
And just to continue on your book, just a little bit, it's not just regentive grazing. It's a lot of different regentive practices, different types of farms, different locations. Correct. Yeah, it starts out with grazing. So if you're into grazing, as I'm sure you are, if you're listening to this podcast, chapter one is all about that. As I mentioned at Ranch in South Dakota. And there's also, yeah, as I mentioned, the family that has transitioned a row crop operation in Missouri. They were, they did corn and beans.
like clockwork for decades and they have used regenerative grazing in their case cattle and sheep as well to bring new life to that land in a very typical corn and beans area. So I tried to show
regenerative grazing in multiple lights, because again, we had a onesized fits done environment, I think, because our country is so big, we have so many different environments. So I tried to give perspectives that would apply in different parts of the country.
And I think with the family in Missouri, they're the ones who planted the chestnut trees as well. Yes. Yeah. Talk about bringing you enterprise. Yeah. Yeah. The Silvo pastor, it's a conversation we have often. And I find that I find chestnuts. I've read some of them. We have not planted any. We've planted a few con trees.
So interesting. I haven't quite convinced my dad that we should try some chestnut trees. He's very much propicon trees, but I would love to try a little bit more of that and that's very interesting seeing where they're going with that. Yeah.
Yeah, that was really, really interesting to see. That family was just, to me, emblematic of what we can achieve when we allow our fathers and our mothers and our grandparents to be leaders on the farm, but also to be partners in change. So that was exciting. Yeah. Well, Stephanie, let's move to the overgrazing section sponsored by Redmond.
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In the overgrazing section, we take a little bit deeper dive into some practice, and one practice that runs through much of your book is Regentee Rotational Grazing.
So to get started, let's just start by watch your definition of regentive rotational grazing. And I know most of my listeners, they know what rotational grazing or it's AMP grazing, but there's all these different terms for it. So let's just start with, so we're on the same page. What's regentive rotational grazing to you?
In most environments, it is short duration high intensity. Especially in a dry environment that seems to work pretty well. For example, when I had the producers that I interviewed for both books who were working in an environment like Western South Dakota where they might get 13 inches of rain a year, very little rainfall. Using that principle of short duration high intensity means
you know, making sure that you've got very small paddocks, very, you know, whether those are temporary or permanent, often temporary given the size, but really clustering the cattle or in one producer's cases, Buffalo on his bison to really disturb that land, use disturbance as a tool for regeneration and then allowing that land to rest. So you want to also have that long rest period in that dry environment to really allow the land to recover in a place like Florida when we're talking about regenerative.
You can, we get so much more moisture down here. So our ranchers who are using regenerative practices can still use that same principle, but they can come back to that land sooner because it doesn't need as long to recover. So that's kind of in a nutshell of what we would call rotational regenerative grazing. But again, that could differ slightly in the environment in which the producer is working.
Right. Most of these terms we have for it is all very similar, you know, the high intensity, short duration, adequate rest period for your land, forages to recover, to be ready for that next disturbance event. When you went out to these farmers doing this, were they
Was that something new to them that they were just learning, or had they been practicing it a long time? In the two pieces that I talked a lot in the book that were, again, from Western South Dakota, just to focus on those two, one producer, Phil, when he was using Buffalo, he transitioned over years. As he learned more from people like Alan Savory, this was kind of a learning curve, beginning in a conventional mindset and moving toward more regenerative.
When I looked at a producer like Kelsey Scott, for example, she's a Lakota producer, she was thinking back about how her ancestors would manage wild animals by setting intentional burns that would move animals to different places or draw them to
land so they could come back, how they would strategically push herds of bison or elk to areas so that they could disturb. And so they were practicing land stewardship in those ways. So in that way, it was not new, but just a new application. So, but often, you know, people are that I've been talking to in a more broad perspective.
are transitioning. This is new for them and so it does take time and it's been a line shift. Many people are raised in the tradition of pretty conventional operation and are making or have made that transition over time. What's been their challenge in moving that direction or was that shared with you?
Often, infrastructure is one, so making sure that you have, you know, water where you need it, where you have fencing, where you, and a lot getting over that curve where you have the land takes time to recover. So pretty overgrained, their conventionally grazed pasture, may have a lot of invasive woody species. It may not be very productive. And so it takes some time for that, for that difference to start to emerge. So there's that as well. And also just sort of
changing the way you think about yourself as a rancher, I think is one too. And your job. So like, you know, growing up, it was sort of like we would put the cattle out into the summer pasture and we would check them once a week, make sure they had water and whatever. But like, you kind of just dumped them out there and forgot them and like, not forgot them. But you know, you that we got yourself busy with making hay, the window for that was closing and, you know, getting everything else done, harvesting the wheat. And so the counter were sort of always on the back burner.
And so I think when you're working often with the more regenerative principles, you are more hands on with them in a lot of cases with your livestock. So changing the way you think about your role as a manager too is can be a barrier for someone who may not want or may not have always prioritized that or found it as important to be an active steward. Oh.
with with Kelsey and in South Dakota, are they still using some fire there to help with the providing fires of disturbance event? And in addition to grazing, are they focused just on grazing at this point? They're focused on grazing at this point. I, if they have used fire, I'm not aware of it or it's been maybe since our conversations with her, but I know like, so when I saw the really interesting impact of fire when I went to Kansas and I went and visited the concept prairie there,
This is a really great experimental station. It's many thousands of acres and it's been a test site since the 70s where people have been observing the role of fire or lack of fire or different fire regimens and the role of livestock, the role of bison, and sort of being able to do that over the long term. And so that's yielded some really, really great perspectives about the importance of fire.
And so absolutely. And so I saw that there and it really changed my thinking.
I have to admit, when I think about grazing and using fire as a disturbance tool, I don't want to say I'm not a fan. I don't like it for me. And one of the big reasons my wife's allergic to smoke and when the ranch is around me burn, she'll be sick for days. It's just crazy she's developed that.
allergic reaction to smoke and even if she She goes somewhere that there's some residue smoke smell In she'll have a reaction to it, which is just crazy. So I'm I'm not a fan of it, but I'm in also to To continue on that I see people here that burn all the time and I'm like you don't have to burn that often if you're going to burn But I do think
Fire can be a use for tool with grazing. And I know I went kind of the grazing topic towards fire, but I do think they can work hand in hand. Yeah, and it's connected. I think there's, you know, as it seems to me, because that was a completely unfamiliar tool to me. Like nobody, nobody even that I know really still in Western South Dakota is doing, you know, it's using fire as a management tool if they are
that it's not in my particular community that I'm familiar with. So I went to Kansas as part, as I mentioned, and I also talked to producers when I was there, and they were telling me about people that would burn often. And then they said, then there is such a thing as too much burning, as you said.
So yeah, I think it probably just depends on your environment and the way in which that's handled and sort of using knowledge to guide the fire regimen if you're using that so that you don't go too far. And it becomes almost like overgrazing at that point where you really destroyed that root structure underneath by stressing the plant at the top too much.
Yeah, I'm just where we live. We're kind of on the southern tip of the the burning in our area during the springing look to the east and to the north and just see huge fires going. There's so much of this ransland around us is burned off yearly and moving back to grazing.
When we look at regenerative grazing, we talked a little bit about stacking enterprises and diversification. Did you find that with the people you talked to that they were incorporating different species or at least planning to? What was their process on that?
Yeah, so absolutely. People were diversifying the farm that I mentioned in Missouri. They were bringing in cattle and sheep. So they've got bull, and both are now direct to consumer meat businesses for them. So that's been really helpful for them. They also, as you mentioned, they were bringing in things like the chestnut trees, and they're also bringing in cover crops as part of their grazing plan there, which would also help heal their soil, which was really in need of
recovery after decades of, you know, row crop production. It was pretty depleted. And so then they're also bringing into that grazing for the very introduction of wild grasslands. So that's not right. I mean, both of those are enterprises in the sense that they're forage, but also bringing receding grassland to native species that that can also be for them in enterprise in the sense that they're going to bring honey production is one thing that they have planned. Oh, yeah. So they need, you know, that they need that kind of
riparian area in order to support something like that. So it works for their grazing enterprise, but also for an enterprise like honey production. So yeah, in terms of that particular operation, they were diversifying from a species sense, but also diversifying what is on their land in terms of what's actually being grazed and how they're doing that.
Oh, and they also do something really interesting. They do sprouts. They are bringing in things like, you know, bringing barley, for example, or, you know, different grains, and they are allowing them under wet conditions, undercover to sprout. And these are really high and high protein, high, highly nutritious forage that they're able to use once it makes sprouts reach a certain height. They're able to use that as a supplement, especially when they're, you know, they're in the winter environment. These, this can provide another source of forage.
It's not a traditional grazing method, but it's a way to bring more nutrients back to that grazing environment through, you know, a lot of animals to process it. So they're using, they're sprouting some and feeding them back to their animal. Exactly. Yeah. I've seen some systems like that. And to be honest, I don't know how I feel about them. I think it's great to get
that green, that forage in front of the animal during time they can't. And I could see some applications, but also I think about the labor that's involved. And so you've got to have a high value product that'll help offset some of those costs. But I think it's very interesting to see what people's doing with that.
Yeah, so I think in their particular operation, they're able to sell their meat at a price point to make that labor worth it. And they're still at a small enough scale where that one person can manage it. So that's been useful. One really interesting thing. And again, I don't think it would apply. I think if you had a large operation, something like that would work.
But one cool thing about it was that they were allowing their animals to stay grass fed all the way to the end because those sprouts are considered a grass, you know, which was great so that they could finish them on that versus having to introduce grain. You still can introduce grain and still maintain the grass fed designation.
for a certain shorter period at the end in order to finish. But you know, Jordan and Josh, the brother sister duo that I talked to said, you know, we feel for ourselves, we want to maintain that grass fed integrity all the way. And this is kind of our way to do that and not have to introduce any grain. Yeah, they can introduce or they can increase that nutritional plane. Yes. For that finishing stage by introducing those sprouts. Yeah. Very interesting.
As we look towards the future with your writing, what can we expect? Well, I'm sure I'll always stay involved with regenerative agriculture and that sort of transition and trying to tell the stories and kind of move that needle forward. I do think that I want to consider writing about my own personal experience growing up on my family ranch. That's kind of in the long term. I've had a lot of people ask me about it and talk about, you know,
Well, what was it like growing up at the McFar the Slat or whatever? And how did that look and what was that life like? And so I'd like to explore some of that too. I have done some writing like that in the past, not book length projects, but I think that's probably my next larger project. But I know I'll always be working within the agricultural world. So I don't know exactly what that might look like, but I'll always be engaged with it. Yeah.
I love that idea of telling your farm's journey. I love these natural history books that share a journey and sharing insights and stuff. So I definitely would be looking forward to that book. Of course, that story is still unfolding as all of our stories are. Now, Stephanie, I have to apologize just a little bit. We were talking about the podcast before we get started.
And I didn't tell you about the famous four at the end. And we, you know, they're famous. So all guests go through them. So it's just four questions. And we will go ahead and start the famous four. All right. Today's famous four questions are sponsored by mandarly farms grazing conference.
Attention all farmers, ranchers, and land enthusiasts. Join us for unforgettable grazing conference on February 21st and 22nd, 2025. At the beautiful, mandarly farms in Pikeville, Tennessee, nestled in the scenic Sasquatchi Valley. This is your chance to learn from the best in the business. Our speakers include the renowned Greg Judy alongside the dynamic duo, Greg and Debbie Brin.
Expect engaging sessions, informative pastor walks, and interactive question and answer sessions with our experts. Discover help to revolutionize your land management with regenerative grazing practices. Whether you're looking to enhance, whether you're looking to enhance soil health, increase biodiversity, or improve your pasture productivity, this conference is tailored for you.
Don't miss this opportunity to grow your knowledge and your farm. For more details and secure your spot, visit www.manderleafarms.com. That's M-A-N-D-E-R-L-E-Y. So if I need to edit it, I will. Okay.
Our first question of the famous for what is your favorite grazing grass related book or resource? And I know you're really tempted to say right off from the ground up. And when I say no, you got to pick a different one. Say one size fits none. I'm going to say you got to go to the third spot. Yes.
Oh, well, no, that's so so many influential writers and for my thinking. So, I mean, Michael Pollan is a foundational one. So, you know, anything by him is important to me, but The Omnivores Jolena is one of the ones. Oh, yeah. It's not new anymore, but it still was one of those books that really got to me. A more modern maybe or more recent iteration of that is called Healing Grounds by Liz Carlisle.
So she, she tells a lot of good stories about grazing and regenerative operations and so forth in that book. And that was really influential to me as I was writing my own. So those two are probably a kind of a new and an old version of influence for me. Excellent resources.
Now, our next questions would be a little tough in its traditional approach we take, and a second question is why it's your favorite tool for the farm. But actually, let's change it up for you. What's your favorite tool for riding? Oh, that's a good question.
I would say I'm always, I mean, of course, from a practical perspective, of course, you need your laptop and all that stuff. But really, space to think is my important, my favorite tool for writing. I mean, there has to be time where you can do the reading and the reflection and the research and also just
the talking to experts that you need to do. So it really, your biggest tool for understanding a big issue, like the food system, in my experience, has been the time to actually devote to thinking about it and researching. So. I love that answer for everything. I think about my time in education, my time on the farm, time when I dared having thinking space.
It's so valuable time to reflect and to think about what you're doing, think about the future. Sometimes we really neglect that. And I know in education, it's really neglected. I feel like everyone's plate is just packed with so much and we get on farms and we do the same thing. We pack so much in. You've got to stop and profit. Ranging for profit really says you've got to have time working in the ranch and working on the ranch.
which is great, but I think there's that third space. You've got to have some thinking space, just time that set aside to think about and reflect upon what's going on and process it, because if you're always busy, always focused on something, you're not going to get that time in, and I think that's so important. I think you're so right.
Our third question, what would you tell someone just getting started? And we want to do this from two angles. Since you're an author, we want to do it from someone getting started writing. But we also want to do it, someone getting started in the Regentive Ag space.
So I'll start with actually with the regenerative egg space. I would say as a young person, look for the resources that are out there for you in the sense that there's a lot of organizations. There's even things like federal and state or institutional funding or programming. There's a lot of people who want to help you. So it will take some time to find some of those things, but there are people
that are making great compilations of resources that you can find. So go out there and take advantage of that. And also realize, too, that this is the long game. I understand that we want to see success immediately. And I would say that to writers as well.
If you're a young writer, you may not have your first book published right away and that's okay. The tortoise beats the hair, right? So this is the long game. So I guess that would apply and I'd be a good segue to working with young people in writing. And I would just say don't let anybody tell you that you can't or shouldn't do it because that is going to be the message that you will hear quite a lot
when you tell people you want to be a writer, because it does seem pretty unrealistic. You definitely need to have some sort of side job or other job that it may be not even a side is primary, but find a way to make it happen if you really want to you can. But don't let people tell you that you can.
Oh, excellent advice there. And actually that brings another question of mine that's not part of the famous for it. But at what point did you think of yourself as a author? Well, I didn't think of myself as an author until I've published my first book. And I kind of thought of myself as a writer. I mean, I do think of myself as a writer, but not quite a writer who was there yet.
Oh, okay. Yeah. It took a while. Even though I was writing all the way up to that point. And even still, I look, there are so many writers who have so much success and it's well deserved. And you think, well, there's so much left to achieve. So I wouldn't say I fully made it, but I at least can say, all right, I'm a writer.
Yes. And lastly, Stephanie, where can others find out more about you and where to find your books? Sure. You can head to my website, Stephanie Anderson, writing.com. So that's got all kinds of things about me on it and about the book. You can find the book at your online, preferred online retailers, things like Amazon or Barnes and Noble, things like that. I would recommend contacting your local bookstore and asking them to order it if you're interested as well to support your local basis.
Well, Stephanie, we appreciate you coming on and sharing with us today. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I've really enjoyed this conversation and I hope your listeners enjoy it. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Grazing Grass Podcast where we bring new stories and insights into grass-based livestock production. If you're new here, we've got something just for you.
Our new listener resource guide is packed with everything you need to get started on your listening journey with a grazing grass podcast. Gives you more information about the podcast, about myself and next steps. You can grab your free copy at grazinggrass.com slash guide. Don't miss out.
And hey, do you have a grazing story to share? We're always looking for passionate producers to feature on the show. Whether you're just starting out or have years of experience, if your story matters, head over to grazinggrass.com slash guest to learn more and apply to the guest. We'd love to share your journey with our growing community of grazers. Until next time, keep on grazing grass.
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