Grassfed Exchange Hallway Conversations Grassfed Exchange

Please join us to listen in on a conversation between two experienced grass farmers, Dale Strickler and Chris Grotegut. The conversation will dig into the implications of using cover crops and other strategies to improve the ecological, economic and practical outcomes on your farm or ranch. You won’t want to miss it!

Grassfed Exchange has always sought to be a forum to have open conversations about tough, forward looking issues related to regenerative grassland agriculture. One of those hot topics is known simply as “30 x 30” which is short for a federal goal of “conserving at least 30% of US lands and waters by 2030.” Although the GFE community likely already widely appreciates that working lands (and especially grazing lands) can also be wisely managed to achieve conservation goals, but there is understandable concern about what the programs might entail as either opportunities or threats to the ranching community.

Like a steel post, ranching communities have been strong and resistant in managing ongoing stress, from long hours, family business dynamics, unpredictable weather, drought, fire, insect plagues, health, however now with Covid there are increasing pressures with market access, sourcing materials, health concerns. We are all feeling the stress, and even steel can reaching a breaking point.

These are not times to be battling it alone, with rural health issues escalating dramatically in the past year, whats worked in the past, isn't necessarily the best tool for an uncertain future.

How do we verify that we are meeting our ecological goals? How do we know if we are trending towards improved soil health, functioning water cycles, and biodiversity? Many of us see and feel these things intuitively and with our five senses as we walk our land, but how do we know and share our trends with confidence and strong data. And how can that data best support our management decisions? Please join Dorn Cox and Shane Hardy in discussing how they chose what to measure, how to design the data collection, and what emerging technologies exist that can give us more data, faster, and with accuracy. They will go over some of their own systems and journey in monitoring and research, but also discuss the low hanging fruit, and where one might wish to start when monitoring outcomes. Throughout the conversation, they’ll discuss the value and challenges of open source technology, and contributing to collective research and large data sets that can guide policy and bolster support for regenerative grazing and farming practices.

With years of experience, Tim Joseph of Maple Hill Creamery and Carrie Richards of Richards Grassfed Beef will be imparting wisdom around lessons learned when marketing grassfed products. This promises to be a deep-dive, jam-packed with impactful, useful information for any who are just beginning to or already marketing their own premium products. Join us in asking questions and sharing insights into their successes, challenges, and experiences. This is your opportunity to have a hallway conversation with two leaders in grassfed marketing.

The possibility of farmers to get paid for storing carbon in healthier soil has been emerging for several years, but now the subject is getting red hot.  Multiple parties and players are developing programs or policies to actually make this happen.  It’s still very early, which means a both a lot of buzz and a lot of confusion.  Come join in a conversation with a few farmers that have done their own hard homework, and one seasoned veteran of “ecosystem service” markets, to get a sense of what’s going on.  This conversation is unlikely to arrive at any firm conclusions, but will hopefully enlighten participants about the current lay of the land and where both possibilities and pitfalls may lie.