Healthier Farms

Phil: Talking about what's going on at the farm. There's a new study that just came out that really looks at the link between regenerative agriculture and the impact on food nutrients. What's going on with that?

Sally: Again, really interesting research here. Particularly when we are all trying to figure out ways that we can we can increase our sustainability efforts and, and deal with climate change and feed more people. But they're, they're finding out the, the study was published in the journal PeerJ and they looked at 10 farms across the country. They asked them to grow one acre, of peas, sorghum, corn, or soybeans, and then on a neighboring plot of land, they had the same crop using conventional farming methods. Now the regenerative method meant that there was, it was a, it was a, there was no till cover cropping and crop rotations for a minimum of five years. And what's so interesting is what they found was the regenerative methods made these crops more nutrient rich. 

Phil: And if we take a look, you know, for those of you that listen and watch our webcast farm food facts, we've been talking to farmers now for probably 2, 3, 4 years about the whole regenerative movement. And, you know, from a farmer or standpoint, it's better, better yields, but this is the first time we're really seeing about nutrients. And just to give you some idea, the regenerative farms on average had 34% more vitamin K 15% more vitamin E 14% more vitamin B one 17% more vitamin B two 11%, more calcium, 16%, more phosphorus, and 27% more copper in, in the case of phytochemical, phytochemicals, there was a range of between 15 and 22% more. Wow. I mean, when we talk about good health and, and good new nutrition, this, this solves a lot of issues. And also from a carbon standpoint the regenerative farmers had twice as much carbon in their top soil and three times as many in their soil health score based on U S D A's tests for soil health. So, you know, this is great news for farmers. It's great news for us as consumers. And I think we're gonna see a lot more attention on this as, as we should. 

Sally: Yes. And it's an opportunity really, to, to market these products that come out of this to consumers that are growing more and more interested in, nutrient dense foods, healthy foods that, that help with these so many chronic diseases that people are dealing with.