This video features Gabe Brown and his Keys To Building a Healthy Soil, filmed on Nov. 18th 2014 at the Idaho Center for Sustainable Agriculture's annual symposium.
NOTE to anyone filming speakers - If the speaker is showing slides, PLEASE spend at least 2/3rds of the time on the slides, NOT the speaker. In this presentation, viewers cannot even SEE many of the slides at all. As cute as Gabe is... we can learn more from what he is trying to show us than by looking at him. That said, THANK YOU for posting this presentation!
Am I the only one to notice that farmers need to know as much as lawyers, programmers, engineers and scientists? I listen to this kind of stuff very frequently, and despite my best efforts, starting from the ground up (no pun intended) I find that there is still an infinity to learn. There are a number of subjects that I talk about, but this is what really gets my yayas off. At the end of such a video, I feel inspired, invigorated and the world becomes a bright, shiny new place. It is the same feeling I had as a small child. Maybe that's a clue as to what I should be doing. Now, all I have to do is figure out what to do with winter.
Francis Roy You're not alone for sure. I'm a soil/ag geek too and the learning curve is EPIC! If you haven't already, I'd suggest taking a Permaculture Design course. All the techniques Gabe uses are embraced by permaculture and it will help you find a holistic way to deal with any problem and give you a framework to work from. One of the principles of PC is "The Problem Is The Solution" which turns problems to advantages. Also look into Elaine Ingham's Soil Food Web work which Gabe uses. She has a free mini course on her soilfoodweb.com site and tons of great videos on YT. Geofflawton.com is another great resource. His online permaculture course is amazing. Once you understand this stuff, you can partner with Nature instead of fighting her. She makes a great ally but a terrible foe. Winter is your friend if you can use it to your advantage!
Mr Roy, you are so correct! The list of subjects one needs to know is HUGE; Soil science, hydrology, physics, biology, entomology, botany, chemistry....light spectrum artificial and from the sun...cover crops are wonderful...but if you think they are NATURAL, what a joke. This guy just said nature has no monocrops. I disagree, what are meadows? What are forests? All of our gardens, ornamental beds, landscapes we've made, plants in pots or water ARE artificial. Human made. No till is a complete pile of compost? Grins! Are we talking about personal gardens or large corporation fields? Using no fertilizer is just sad. Sad. If we humans want to grow plants as close to nature as possible one better know the rules. Photosynthesis needs external chemicals (fertilizer NOT FOOD) or forget eating a harvest if that was the goal. We strip off topsoils (that at the very least were full of organic matter to feed the micro and macro organisms and provide super tilth) already void of proper chemicals because all of these chemicals...nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, silicon, zinc...etc. ARE IN THE LIVE BIOMASS NOT THE SOIL. I do not like these speakers, they are not talking science. They are talking wu wu wannabe gardener talk. Giving a very distorted view of gardening.
I created a thriving garden out of hard clay...just place a lot of discarded vegetables, sometimes fruits, on the land. The discards come from the local market where merchants will throw out what they cannot sell or those that are discolored, etc. Free. Zero cost, gave me good excercise daily as I lugged home some 20kg. After 12 months it is thriving with some 40 species of plants were donated, migrated in from elsewhere. Birds, bees, spiders, earthworms, geckos, snails, etc. Even an occasional monitor lizard. I live in Singapapore, hot, humid, sunny. No till, no pesticide and the plants sort themselves out and reach for the sunlight. I trim some so that they do not crowd out others. Nature is fun.
Well done! This would not be practical on large acreages, of course, yet each of us can find a way to feed the soil life on the bit of soil we have. A lot of people prefer to run waste vegetables and fruits through pigs and/or chickens first, which also works beautifully. Lawn clippings and leaves are commonly thrown away around urban and suburban areas. Permaculturists grow plants to 'chop and drop' - which is basically what Gabe Brown is doing, only he is doing it on THOUSANDS of acres each year - and using animals and/or winter to do the work of getting the plant matter, the biomass, on the ground where it protects the soil and feeds the soil food web. Keep up the good work!
Look at how many people he was speaking to, maybe 50, 60. Look at how many people watched this video. 67,000 THIS is the power of the new printing press. youtube combined with mobile devices and high speed wifi. Let's all video record, with permission, anyone who has expertise on this subject and does a great presentation, adn upload them , so that more people can learn and educate themselves and we can bring about the age of aquarius and the return of eden.
@@mellamoesroy - People don't want to deal with the mess of fruit. Or the insects and animals that are attracted to the fruit - squirrels (even though these were commonly enjoyed as food for most of our history in this country, and still are in some areas), raccoons - which are also tasty, and their furs don't create pollution, or choke the gills of sea life - and rats. Then again, maybe a few enterprising people in each neighborhood could collect the fruits - or nuts; nut trees generally make better shade trees than fruit trees do - and 'add value' by making the fruit into other products, like fruit leather, or preserves. It is time for us to start living as though we are a *part of the ecosystems of the planet, and not somehow separate*.
Brilliant! And I see no reason all these principles can not be applied to the home gardeners operations, or small farm, too. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
For Farmers out there who actually wish to replicate Gabe Brown's success, you literally have to go through a sort of therapy of deprogramming from the industrial business model and first understand how nature installs and maintains all of it's ecosystems around the globe. The same basic fundamentals and principles work universally. For example, when purchasing a pouch or bag of mycorrhizal fungi, don't expect it to be some quick fix magical dust that will poof profit that first season. You MUST gradually build up the soil health through cover cropping with plants that are truly mycorrhizal colony hosting, not with ruderal plants like Radish, Canola, Mustards, etc which ONLY thrive in a bacterial system. The soil has to be gradually built up, much the way Gabe intelligently illustrated a drug addicted must slowly be weaned off heroin. I think people often miss that very important point.
Actually Shaggy, the same basic fundamentals operate identically in all plant ecosystems and under any area of practice. If we are talking home vegetable type of gardening, then the simply cultivation and care will be fine. Many vegetables are not mycorrhizal anyway, so application of good mulches and /or manure is all you need anyway. However large urban landscapes will be maintained almost identically to large farms. No synthetic chemical inputs will ever be required or needed if you cultivate and care for the mycorrhizal fungi.
And there are lots of mycorrhizal 'products' so one can add more to a depleted soil, boost the chances of a transplant. No synthetic chemical inputs if the mycorrhizae is healthy? How so? What is 'synthetic' and what is not in terms of fertilizer or chemicals? How does one know that there is enough chemistry in the soil for plants one wants to grow?
stormy A good rule to follow is what does not exist in nature is synthetic. GMOs do not exist in nature but are made in labs so they are synthetic organisms.
My back yard is about a 1/3 acre. I.m thinking of turning the whole thing into a garden after watching this! Monsanto must not like this guy! The most important point Gabe made is that we need to work with nature not against it. It has always amazed me how much time, effort, and money we spend on having a nice green lawn. Imagine if every American yard was producing food instead of pretty green grass.
thinkertank1 Do it! I would suggest taking a Permaculture Design course first to avoid costly mistakes and create and optimized system that is way less work, less water, less pests and diseases and much higher nutrient density and yield. Also look into Elaine Ingham's Soil Food Web work which Permaculture uses. It will make your experience much more rewarding and much less work. Feed the soil and the plants will take care of themselves. She's got tons of videos on YT and a free soil food web course you can take. Cheers!
thinkertank1 In WW2 Victory Gardens in towns and cities produced 40 percent of the vegetables. Today urban gardens produce 4 to 11 time the per acre yield as factory farms.
A thought iv had many times I am in no way a farmer same as you before you turn your lawn into a garden I plan on doing something of the like my self but I need property first
We need to KNOW the rules that all other life is ruled by...we don't need to remake the rules! If we were able to all grow our own food (and there is always lots more to go around out of one garden) we would NOT need Monsanto. You do know that growing one's own food is frowned upon, right? Remember the little girl living with a poor mommy who made a garden in a next door plot of weeds? The swat team came in and literally confiscated the garden the food and caused mommy and little daughter a nightmare. Growing one's own food makes one autonomous. Not needing to go to the store, not dependent on the stores...very bad according to our 'masters'...We need to understand Nature, before we are able to work with nature. We need to understand the science, the foundations of botany, soils, biology, hydrology, chemistry...to be able to grow our own food. I have to giggle. I KNOW how to grow cool season grass crops very well. Most people do not! I know how to rent a sod cutter and take out the grass crop and what to do to grow food or any plant correctly. I know how to never need to use pesticides. Shoot, one of these days I will have to have my own dog gone site...if you want a few suggestions? Go to Stack Exchange; Gardening and Landscaping...very good service...
I would like to personally thank Gabe Brown and everyone who helped him develop this system. I am not from a farm neither is any of my family so when I decided to go to school and become a farmer it seemed more and more like it just wasn't possible to start from nothing but by using this system to build healthier soils, it might just be possible to be successful.
Thank you Gabe Brown for creating something that moms can be happy to feed their family. I learned a lot listening to this. Now I need to go out and get some dirt under a ground cover.
I am not a farmer but enjoy learning things of nature for my own entertainment. I enjoyed your entire video and have no doubt of your methods effectiveness. I hope all other farmers will follow in your footsteps.
Thank you so much for this extermely important information. This info will be incorperated into our farming operations here in central Texas. It confirms a lot of the research that we have been doing, but it also takes it too a new level. Our farm team looks forward to a visit to the Brown ranch at some point in the foreseeable future. May God continue to bless all of your hard work and your sharing of this wonderful knowledge which make so much common sense. Thanks again
So good to hear that farmers like yourself are waking up to the way of working with nature instead of fighting it. One thing I fear is that once Monsanto and AGM realize their market share is being lost, they will pay millions to propagandists who will spread all kinds of lies about it. Apparently they haven't figured out that it is more profitable in the long run to switch to no-till, so they haven't started the misinformation campaign, but I suspect they will at some point. I hope farmers will recognize this kind of corporate manipulation when it does come and the movement to switch to no till won't be side tracked. Good luck to you.
I am convinced that we must work on several fronts in order to produce the food needed for 7 billion people in a regenerative way. First, let’s start with the idea that we already produce (conservatively estimated) twice the amount of food needed to feed everyone on the planet. Production isn’t the main issue, localization and distribution is. Secondly, we need to educate consumers to make healthful choices that will regenerate their own bodies. This will shift demand, to a degree, in order to deal with the economics of our food system. Thirdly, we have to get at scale in order to regenerate the landscape on a level that will have the requisite positive impact in 2-3 generations. As several NRCS experts I am aware of point out, and something they deal with on a daily basis, we can’t preach from a soap box at American farmers and think we’re going to convince them to change their ways. We have to approach the American farmer as a partner in making needed changes in agriculture and not an enemy or obstacle. We must stop vilifying the majority of American farmers who are simply trying to earn a good living for their families, send their children to college, and save for retirement. Why must we partner with them? Scale is why. We who are permaculture enthusiasts are not going to change the actual landscape to sequester enough carbon, regenerate enough soil, and purify enough water if we’re doing it 10-20 acres at a time. Yes, many people have had a change of heart about their own personal lives this way, but this pace of change won’t ramp up to the scale we need for this planet. If so, the needed change would have already taken place because tens of thousands of people are PDC certified. This is only a part of the total equation. To get at the larger part of the equation, we must convince the owner or tenant of the broadacre landscape - the “conventional” farmer - to look through a different lens in order to view their landscapes differently. The key to gaining their attention is to demonstrate to them in real and actual examples, that they can increase their profitability by adopting a new approach to agriculture. Even operations such as Joel Salatin’s or Mark Shepard’s aren’t at enough scale to make the changes needed to reverse the negative effects. But, their operations are examples of a model that’s working to produce a good income while being largely regenerative. Rather, I’d look to the farmers that Raymond Covino and Ray Archuleta are helping to make changes to adopt polyculture no-till cover crop systems with a diverse cash crop that include animals in the matrix. Gabe Brown is a prime example of someone who is stewarding thousands of acres with such a system. He is outcompeting his neighbors in productivity and profitability while holding water in the soil, eliminating synthetic inputs, building soil, sequestering carbon all while securing a future for his family. We can make this happen, in my opinion, if we don’t lose the key audience in the dialog of regenerative agriculture - the conventional American farmer.
Dan Grubbs A resounding YES! to all you wrote above! You've got the right idea brother, we need to come alongside farmers as allies and friends and help them get out of the ChemAg stranglehold of NPK & Biocide Addiction. I'm permie too and agree about the larger scale needed. Please look into the work of Darren Doherty, Elaine Ingham, John D Lieu, Alan Savory and Geoff Lawton if you haven't already. All of them are working on large scale ecosystem and farm regeneration, quite successfully. I think we also need to bring young farmers who can't afford land, but want to farm regenratively into the mix. Our farmer population is small and aging rapidly while the young farmers can't afford land. It's the makings of either a tragedy or a win-win situation. There are a couple of organizations out there doing this already, including Salatin's operation, but it needs to happen on a bigger scale. Lets bring these young, permie educated folks into the fold as helpers and partners for the established farmers. There's one aspect of this whole "We need to feed 7 billion people" thing that most people don't get however. It's that People Are Made Of Food, and nothing else. Not straw or glass or rocks, but food, turned into flesh. So, the fact that the global population has been in exponential increase for thousands of years means that we are growing more than enough food, even for the "starving millions". They wouldn't number in the millions if there was no food. It's a longer conversation than I can write here, so please see Daniel Quinn's "Ishmael" trilogy of books, especially #2 "The Story of B" "The Population Bomb" is explained there in detail and a practical solution is offered to defuse it. If we don't address that issue, growing more food will increase the population growth rate and we'll never get off of the treadmill. Another aspect to be addressed is that the current food distribution system is on the way out. It's petroleum intensive and rests on the modern industrial platform that is going away in the near future. The future will be relocalized by necessity. So we need to think about local means of distribution as opposed to massive silos and distribution centers and fleets of big rigs hauling food 3000 miles to market. Even if we still had the cheap oil, that would be a stupid idea. Rail, horse and boat transport are going to be the most efficient, especially boat cargo due to water taking the load, but the infrastructure for them is in disrepair or nonexistent these days. Cheers!
Great information, I have clay soil and I’ve have amended it with compost and wood chips. I also have been adding microbes. Finally, my fruit trees and vegetables are taking off. The soil is so soft now I can dig with a shovel! Great video!
Finally- a farmer who understands how economical using tried and true cover crop planting can be! He's also increasing nutrition by using nature's method of fertilizing! Bravo! I hope he gets the message out worldwide of how easily we can eradicate hunger and the effects of drought on crops by improving the soil. Imagine feeding people, cattle, and chickens with one field! Wake up Agricultural Colleges!
+Susan Whalen Spot on Susan. We have a great network of friends around the world that are using the same or similar management techniques. As a former student of a land-grant university in our sate, I let them know that I did not agree with what they taught when I went to college there. Everything they taught put money in the hands of agribusiness, not the farmer.
+Paul Brown Agri business and corporate managed farming can, has, and will continue to destroy our production of nutritious food until people learn how important this really is! Bravo to Gabe for getting the word out!
Fantastic speaker, so glad I found this. I just watched another video the other day that spoke about less plants, wider apart to help with moisture and I kept thinking, this is so wrong. Looking forward to starting my fields off right.
Gabe you are brilliant sir. Respect to you, keep pushing this message, i believe by doing what you are especially the way your doing it will eventually change the world.
Great content, although editing was quite disappointing if this video was actually made by a production company. You would think that the slides should be shown when the presenter is pointing out specific portions of the slides, but far too often we were shown a side view of the presenter at those times.
23:19 - Neil Dennis actually runs up to a million pounds of livestock per acre (not a million head). Just in case this is not obvious to some listeners, Gabe meant to say 'pounds'.
Fantastic information. From a backyard garden farming to a broad acre farming, this is what we all need to learn to understand. Working with Nature = Healthy Soils. Knowledge + Action is Power. Thank you for sharing :-)
Wow, that was the most compelling and positive hour of information I have ever heard. If there were time in his administration I would petition President Obama to award this man the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I am contemplating sending this link to my Congressional delegation, and perhaps every member of the U.S. Congress. Solving Global Warming and the Healthcare Crisis, Truly here it is! This posting needs 10 million hits.
It won't do any good because forcing people to do something only makes them resentful. The best way is for successful people to lead the way and others follow out of self interest. There are more leaders every day.
Loved this talk - thank you so much Gabe Brown, it was indeed inspiring and so full of helpful ways to see what can positively happen to counter all the gloom and doom. I also wanted to say to Transcend Productions that I really, really wanted to see the image of the comparison of Gabe's farm's egg nourished by the his wholesome healthy soil vs that of a commercial egg production facility, regardless of the name it is sold under. Being a visual person, to me an image is worth 100 words and I'm sure just the yellow of the yolk from healthy soil would be startling! Perhaps you might consider attaching it to the end or insert the full photo somewhere. Thanks again! P.S. I'm thinking of having an organic Harvest Dinner in October and afterwards, sharing this film. - Bon Appétit : )
Wow. I am totally impressed by your logic. Wonder how your cover system could be incorporated into desert areas with where flood or furrow irrigation is dominant. Thanks for the great video!
The fact that Gabe Brown has neibours who are fortunate enought to have him as a neibour and Gabe is more then will to work side by side with them and yet they look the other way, and keep signing the front of the checks, that just shows that no matter the evidence people still refuse to believe there is another way to farm.
I'm having a go at growing veg in my backyard that was formally something that would be a code violation in the U.S. I've dug the soil to remove bindweed and brambles and nettles making raised beds then reading the backs of all the seed packs following the long convoluted slowing, potting on, planting. And then I thought how would nature deal with this? So my plan from now on it cultivated wildness... I want to get to a place I'm not importing soil improvers other than seeds. My food waste is so low composting is done by digging a hole next to greedy plants. I was out watering the ground with tap water and thought this can't be good for soil health, I'm pouring chlorine over my soil. So watching things like this further add to my understanding. I'm a novice but very keen to transform my small patch of land to do my bit. I'm also hoping to use it as an example of how things can be even in an urban environment.
I am so glad that I watched the Netflix documentary and learn more and more everyday. Thanks a lot for the information. The more farmers know, the more they will realize to stop using this junk product of RoundUp, which is killing our soils. God bless!
For those who want to see more, watch the documentary "Kiss The Ground". It is very well worth your time. Mr. Brown is featured in it. It is a beautifully done documentary. I also recommend "The Need To Grow" and "The Biggest Little Farm".
I was struck by your slide where you were planting into a no-till field and you were careful about even the smallest breaking of soil. How do you plant those cocktails of seeds without breaking the soil?
It is going to cut their profits and maybe drive them broke when too many people stop buying their chemicals. So they fight back by trying to undermine the movement.
@@DLinton from when their parent company, bayer, patented heroin, to when their sister company, i. g. farben made nerve gas for the death camps, to the present attempt to take over our food supply (and thus our world) using genetic engineering, toxic chemistry, and laws bought with blood money, monsanto has been poisoning us all, lying to us, and trying to stamp out natural practices
I'd love to know if when you speak of multi-species cover crops and keeping the armor on the soil at all times. Do you need to seed those acres each time or do you let those cover crops reseed themselves?
Ag bill ? I have no issue with any Ag bill.........but is the local public ready to pay the price for food ? With anything....there is reality. Most people have no idea where their food comes from. Be careful in micro-managing something that few know anything about ! That is reality that people dont know much about .
Is that cocktail planting for cover crop or harvesting? If harvesting, that must be one confusing mix to sort out. Or, is it individual rows of that cocktail assortment ?
You know you're watching too many Holistic Management videos when you watch North By Northwest, and instead of thinking "I hope that plane doesn't shoot Cary Grant" you find yourself thinking "don't think much of that farmer's soil management techniques"
Mr Brown, You speak of having living root in the ground as long as possible and letting the cover die off in the winter adding nitrogen to the soil. If one lives in an area that rarely gets below freezing, is it better to grow cover that remains alive all year round or is the die off an essential part of your process?
John c From what I've read, living root is always better when possible to sustain the mycorrhizal fungi. I look forward to Gabe or Paul addressing this better for warmer climes. Clearly, there needs to be die off at some point as well but the root system seem essential to the fungi element.
John c Hey John, I live in AZ so I'm familiar with hot, dry climates. In the desert, it's usually the heat that kills crops off instead of the cold, although we do get 1-3 hard frosts a year (28F or there about). A living root is always better for the biota as it feeds them and keeps the population growing. Every climate has different needs, and warm climates have an advantage there, as well as usually having very productive soil, lots of minerals and a longer growing season. Anything can be an advantage if used as such. "The problem is the solution" in Permaculture parlance. If you're in a tropical situation with lots of rain, and leaching, you just need to keep the carbon/nutrient cycling going by adding lots of organic matter through heavy mulching. Tropical carbon and nutrient cycles are constant and fast, so frequent replenishment is needed to build the soil. You really can't have too much mulch in a warm/hot climate. Look up Elaine Ingham's soil food web work on soil building, she's the best in the biz.
Can you share the slide show? I would really like it if you would put a link to the slide show with the video. The speaker is mighty handsome, but the subject matter is illustrated in the slides!
Good stuff. I grew up in Iowa the son of a grocer . I always wished I could have farmed. No land for a guy to have now. The commercial farmers have bought it all up. Who has 10k to spend on an acre! Maybe in my next life.
Gabe Brown was wonderful to listen to, very informative. However, the video was crap. I can listen to him and still look at the slides, felt like I missed seeing some good images.
