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Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
Mike Brasher: Everybody, welcome back to the podcast. I am going to be your host on this episode, Dr. Mike Brasher. And we were, before we started this, we were kind of counting up the number of episodes. We're at over 550 episodes now on the Ducks Unlimited podcast. And during that time, we visited with guests ranging from pretty much every corner of our Ducks Unlimited sort of family of partners, state partners, federal partners, researchers and policy experts. We've even had some folks from corporate industry joining us, but it occurred to us that we have not had a representative from perhaps the most important partner, group of partners that we have out there, that being the agriculture farmer and rancher. landscape. All of the work that we do depends closely on partnerships and the vast majority of it occurs on private lands. And so farmers and ranchers are a huge part of that. We've talked at length about how farming and ranching practices are beneficial to waterfowl in so many places. Today we have the pleasure of welcoming to the podcast three people that are going to help us look into some of the work that DU is doing with some exciting new partnerships. I have another Ducks Unlimited employee sitting down at the other end of the table and then two folks here to my left. I'm going to go around the table and let them introduce themselves to you. So, Amy, I'll start with you.
Amy Skoczlas-Cole: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for having us here, Mike. We really appreciate it. I'm Amy Skotchlis Kohl. I work for Farm Journal and at Farm Journal, I support what we call our intelligence and influence work. So folks out there might know it under the name of trust in food, which is the part of Farm Journal that has really been focused on how do we help producers figure out what makes sense for them in taking the next step in their conservation agriculture journeys. I hope many of your audience know who Farm Journal is. We've been around for about 145 years. We were founded actually in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by a farmer himself who understood that producers across the country needed information to make good decisions about their business operations. And so that is still who we are and what we're doing. We serve just about every part of agriculture. Your folks might know us by our flagship publication, Farm Journal, or from AgWeb, which is where you find us online. Ranchers would know us as Drovers, Milk, Dairy Herd, Top Producers, you name it, and we have probably been welcomed into farmers, ranchers, and growers' homes for generations. So, it is awesome to be here.
Mike Brasher: It's exciting to have you here. I'm going to go across the table here to Jimmy.
Jimmy Emmons: Yeah, glad to be here today. Thanks a lot. Jimmy Emmons. I grew up in northwest Oklahoma. A farmer and rancher still there. I've been in the regenerative world about 15 years in no-till since about 1995. So coming a long ways. Just now started on my second year here at Trust in Food. Been here a strong year now. Seems like in dog years you're probably like seven years in one year. Very fast-paced. But I really have enjoyed the opportunity to be here with Trust and Food to get us to the next level in agriculture and really understand the whole big picture of where we need to be and have great partners like Duck Unlimited here and Billy on the team as well with us to work in that climate smart arena. because part of my job coming on here was to run the $40 million Climate Smart grant that we have, also to run Trust in Beef and America's Conservation Ag Movement. So it's been a very, very fast-paced year and we're very excited to be here to tell that story as we go through today.
Mike Brasher: I apologize for making you have to take your cowboy hat off in order to put the headset on, but we appreciate you doing so. It's always great to have a cowboy hat in the studio.
Jimmy Emmons: Well, we're not on video, so that's okay. And they wouldn't have known, but you told them now, so. That's right.
Mike Brasher: I always just kind of add a little bit of color to kind of what people are, for a mental image as they're listening to this. And so next I'll go to our third guest here. Billy, go ahead and introduce yourself.
Billy Gascoigne: Thanks, Mike. Billy Gascoigne, I'm DU's Director of Agriculture and Strategic Partnerships here for the US. I've been with DU, just hit my 10-year anniversary last week, so time flies. I hail from, my dad's from Northeast Ohio, my mom's from the Sacramento Valley of California. She comes from a ranching background, production agriculture. My dad got my brother and I in the outdoors at an early age. I somewhat joked that I was sort of the tree hugger on one side, the redneck on the other, and had an identity crisis most of my life, I guess. Went on to get my degree in ag economics and still didn't know what I was going to do professionally, but this cross section between agriculture and conservation is personal and professional passion of mine and just glad I get to lean into it here at DU and ultimately my job is to help set the strategy on agriculture for the company and put partnerships together that allow us to scale our conservation opportunities on private working land specifically across the U.S.
Mike Brasher: Thanks, Billy. Thanks to all three of you for being here. Amy, I'll come back to something that you said at the beginning where you mentioned that probably some of our audience, some of our listeners have heard of Farm Journal. I guarantee you they have. Our membership, when we think about the Ducks Unlimited audience, it includes everybody from our staff, many of whom come from farming backgrounds, ranching backgrounds, some of whom are still part of farming families and ranching families. Some are actively involved in that. Certainly a lot of our members fall into that same category. A lot of our volunteers as well, the same category. So yeah, farming, ranching, and all the periodicals and publications that go along with conveying all that important information to make their operations better and more profitable are going to be, will be well known to a lot of the folks listening to this. So it's really exciting to have you all here. And when we look back at our Our past conversations about ranching and farming and waterfowl, I think the one that our membership and our audience is going to be most familiar with is a discussion about rice agriculture. When you look across ag, rice is the one that we have had the closest and longest relationship with, I think. I think that's fair to say. But what we're… it seems to me, Billy, I'm going to throw this next question to you, it seems to me that we are finding much more opportunities now, even in the farming space, and I'm kind of distinguishing farming from ranching. We've known about the values, the co-benefits of… ranch land to both the cattle operations, grasslands and wetlands, and waterfowl. What's good for cattle is good for ducks, as the saying goes. But in your role and some of the new partnerships that we're developing, some of the new programs that are available, we're finding that there are many more opportunities to do good things for waterfowl, wildlife and the broader environment on much more than just rice farming, rice agriculture, right? So, talk a little bit about that, the opportunities that we're seeing beyond our traditional core ag space and then how did that sort of lead you all to be here today?
Billy Gascoigne: Right, right. Yeah, in addition to rice, I will just add on to the beef synergies here and the fact that I always point out we share those same inputs of production, grass and water, right? I think there's still tremendous room for growth there with the industry and with partners like the team here at Farm Journal to lean even more so into our work with beef in the ranching community. But more broadly in the row crops and farming, You're exactly right, Mike. The way I describe it is for a long time, we focused directly within that wetland footprint, right? And for good reason for Waterfowl. And then over time, we started to see maybe some impacts from water quality issues, nitrate, sediment, et cetera. And the fact that just water flows downhill, we then started to institute what we would call edge of field programs to try to intercept some of those nutrients and sediments to the betterment of that wetland habitat. And now what we've seen is the opportunity to lean on our technical capacity and our ability to meet farmers with the needs that they have identified, technical and financial resources, to help improve directly practices that are happening in the field. And so, to me, it makes complete sense that if we can get ahead of that sedimentation and nitrogen runoff from maybe a field practice that might impact a downstream wetland, why wouldn't we be working at all levels of that watershed? And that's truly where Ducks Unlimited is right now, today, and where there's tremendous opportunities moving forward.
Mike Brasher: And then, in terms of how it came to be that the three of us are sitting here together in the Ducks Unlimited podcast studio, I had a meeting earlier this morning, and maybe talk about that and the nature of some of those discussions.
Billy Gascoigne: Yeah, and I'll let Jimmy and Amy talk about what's happening under the Farm Journal family, but we've been lucky enough that they've recognized our role within voluntary conservation in agriculture. And we are a prominent partner on a number of their initiatives, one called America's Conservation Ag Movement and a new one called Trust and Beef. The way I look at this is that those programs and initiatives first try to engage with the producer to figure out what it is they need to continue on their improvement journey. You know, farmers and ranchers are innovators at the end of the day. They're trying to always do better while still maintaining productivity. and their way of life. And if we can come in with resources and meet them where those needs are, then that's really where I think we can make some hay, to use the analogy. And so that's where we've sort of focused at a high level. And then today the leadership's come together. Jimmy mentioned we are now about ready to jump off the diving board and deliver a large, what is a USDA program grant across a vast geography and a number of different ag practices in which Ducks Unlimited is going to be one of the main technical delivery agents for that grant. So getting here, leadership gets to meet with each other and just not only recognize the opportunity that we have in the next three, five years in front of us, but thinking even broader about how do we How do we scale the adoption of some of these conservation practices on farm, on ranch, not just to the betterment of folks like ourselves, but truly to the betterment of the producers and their next generation?
Mike Brasher: I think that takes us to a discussion about trust in food, trust in beef with you, Amy. And so first off, tell people where they can learn more. So promote your website. I checked it out this morning and it was very, very intriguing. Some of the, what is listed there, the projects that you're working on, the, The mission, the what you're trying to achieve is really exciting. And I can relate to some of those, some of what you're trying to achieve or some of the things that we've talked about in the conservation space for a number of years and to see you're doing it. in the agricultural and ranching space and then to have us now partnering on the conservation side of it is really, really exciting. So, tell folks where they can learn more and then give us a little bit more detail on Trust in Food, Trust in Beef.
Amy Skoczlas-Cole: Sure. So, our website is trustinfood.com and trustinbeef.com because we're really good at creative names, apparently. I just want to zoom out for a second as we talk about the mission and where we share common values between a Farm Journal, Trust and Food, and a Ducks Unlimited. And that is the land that your mission and our mission is all dependent on, right? You all may have seen or talked about already that the USDA agricultural census has come out in the last week or so. And one of the things that we see across the United States is that there are very few Americans that are connected to how we produce food, fiber, and fuel. Actually, in the last census, it looks like it has dipped to below 2% of Americans that are involved in feeding, clothing, and fueling the world. And so that dip actually represents a loss of farmland and ranch land across the United States into other uses, whether that's strip malls or whether that's solar farms, we now have 142,000 less family farms in the United States than we did five years ago. And that represents about 20 million acres that have come out of production agriculture. And so when we think about the fact that what agriculture does is both feed us and fuel us and clothe us, but it also creates the habitat and the and the places in which you can see not just waterfowl, but also all of, we talked about biodiversity earlier, right? A big word for just a web of life across the ecosystem. Like we are seeing the land use in United States really be charted right now. And we see that headed in directions that are not just not great for ducks, but also not great for Americans writ large. And so, you know, I paint that to say at the end of the day, what we know to be true at Farm Journal that I think cements our relationship with ducks, Unlimited, is that American agriculture is sort of the ground upon which all conservation is going to have to be built. Those private working lands are the way in which and deciding how we manage them and how we steward them with 1.9% of Americans who get to make those decisions is really, really important. And equally, you know, those 98% of Americans who really have no idea how food's getting on their table. Also, you know, there's this huge disconnect, and that's where we come in at Trust and Food, right? So it is both, how do you help producers figure out what makes sense for their operations, for their businesses, as Billy said, for this generation and for the next generation and the future? And also, how do we help Americans more broadly understand how important these private working lands are to our country's future?
Mike Brasher: 2%. I was not expecting that number.
Amy Skoczlas-Cole: Less than now. 1.9%.
Mike Brasher: Less than. That's really scary. I take some pride, I guess, and I think, well, I know I'm able to say this, that the percentage of our audience, percentage of our Ducks Unlimited membership, our conservation supporters, that are going to be aware of the connection, where their food comes from, the importance of producing food fiber fuel from our lands that farmers and ranchers are stewards for. It's going to be higher. It's going to be a higher percentage than 2%. So, there are some of the folks that are helping in that message, helping maintain that connection, and I take some pride in that.
Amy Skoczlas-Cole: A hundred percent. And I would just say that is sort of the connectivity. The folks who are feeding and clothing us are also the folks who are conserving and stewarding that land. It is one in the same. These are not two different jobs. They are the same job. And I would say that is the centerpiece of our partnership, recognizing that that is the role that agriculture plays. It is both the steward of private working lands and the folks who are driving those economic benefits.
Mike Brasher: And so, Jimmy, being an active farmer, rancher, you still have active operations. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Talk about this from your perspective, being a steward of the land, of those resources for so many years and having some of the same observations and hearing some of that information. I mean, it's got to be… I said it's scary to me, it has to be terrifying to you. But talk about this from your perspective and then what do you, how excited do you get when you think about these new initiatives and new programs that are being put in place to try to change that trend?
Jimmy Emmons: Yeah, I mean it's alarming trend, especially as you see a large transition of land changing hands now from that older generation. of the baby boomers and a lot of the children have moved away from the farm to town and city locations. A few have stayed, but it's very alarming at the rate we're losing production land and habitat across the country to me as a producer. I'm kind of isolated from that in rural western Oklahoma. My nearest neighbor is a mile and then from there it goes to two and three miles away. So we don't see that, but I travel a lot in this job. I hate to count the nights I've been away this past year and the miles I've flown and drove. But when you fly across this country and you look out the window of the airplane every day, it's evident that the footprint of man is heavy across the United States. And, you know, everything we do on the land has an impact and we have to choose if that's negative or positive. I like to think that try to make that very positive. So it's been very challenging for me to see that trend, but it also energizes me that the opportunity and that's the reason I left the farm once again to join the Trust in Food and the Farm Journal family. is to try to change that and make that more awareness available across the board out there and to help producers understand how do we get to the next level, how do we become the ultimate steward. We as producers have always known if you take care of your animals and your land they will take care of you, but how do we get to the next step Are we truly doing all we can do? Probably not as a whole. We would like to think we are but as you really analyze your farm and ranch and see the impact that we've made and once again if you truly look at the impact we have a footprint that we have to acknowledge. And so as you look at that as a whole, the opportunities that we have through programs like Trust in Beef and America's Conservation Ag Movement and a $40 million climate smart grant that we're partnering with Ducks Unlimited on, the opportunity we have right now is the greatest that we've ever had. So we've been on Emmons Farms and Ranches. My granddad was a great soil steward. He saw when he came there in 1926 some water coming out of the hills across the fields. He started the first conservation effort to channel that and he took a walking plow with a horse and made a small area to funnel that water across to the South Canadian River. In 1934, there was a huge flood. They called it the Hammond Flood. It was 16, 17 inches and there was a lot of loss of life there. That small ditch that he started became a creek that's still evident on our farm today that's about 25 foot deep and about 35 foot wide right down through the middle of our farm. That left a astounding memory embedded in my granddad and my dad's life the rest of their time that that small footprint that they started turned into a gigantic erosion problem. So that's what I grew up in and was very proud of that and that's the reason I've worked in conservation all these years to try to try to do better. This opportunity with trust in food is just going to accelerate that as we see the investment of 3.2 billion dollars in the Commodity Smart Grant from USDA to work with landowners and apply 16 different practices on the ground belly across cattle country, across row crop country, across small operations in the southeast. and especially crops because it takes us all to be successful in feeding, fueling the entire country and other countries across that. So what an opportunity to be here and to lead that and what a great team we're putting behind that to really assist producers to understand how do we get to the next step.
Amy Skoczlas-Cole: And I think it's so important to acknowledge how forward-thinking Ducks Unlimited has been as a conservation organization. So as Billy talked about, I think, you know, the history of conservation in the United States and the history of agriculture in the United States started off in separate places. Then we had the Dust Bowl and the start of, you know, what we know as modern-day conservation agriculture. But still, a lot of conservation organizations were focused on, you know, how do we set aside land, which has its role. But recognizing that what we do on every acre, given how our private lands are shrinking, what we do on every acre, we need to get multiple uses, multiple benefits out of every acre. And so the kinds of practices that Jimmy talked about, these 16 different you know, conservation agriculture practices that we're putting on the ground through the work that we're doing, you know, benefits. Well, first, it has to benefit the farmer economically, right? It has to meet that person's long-term operational goals. And then it needs to have some market benefits. There has to be a role for it out in the world. It is also benefiting the ecosystem and all of the life that's dependent on that ecosystem as well. And so we see this enormous responsibility and opportunity to stack this kind of work on top of each other so that we are feeding the world in ways that are also helping to protect habitat, for instance.
Billy Gascoigne: Yeah, Mike, if I could, I think it's important for our listener to recognize and even our volunteers who are maybe they know our event system and they might know maybe a local wetland project that DU was part of. Our conservation efforts take many different shapes, sizes, and colors across this country. Yes, we're building giant projects, say in the Gulf Coast or giant wetland restorations down in the Mississippi hardwoods. But we do a lot of work just sort of incrementally at the farm and ranch gate to improve those management practices that impact maybe that shallow temporary wetland that's wet there. for a month out of the year when the birds are flying north or south. So we have to pay attention to all shapes and sizes of our wetlands and supporting habitats. And that's really where we come in with some unique opportunities in our ag programs. But at the end of the day, These are voluntary conservation programs. We need to have the trust of the landowner and the producers to allow us to come in, sit down at the kitchen table and talk about what we can offer to address the financial and technical hurdles that they face in making some of these changes. So that's where this unique partnership comes in and why it fits so well with our business model.
Mike Brasher: This is an awesome conversation. Appreciate all the input that we're getting here. I've been writing down notes and asking questions and as you all go along, you address one of my other questions and you've addressed a question, so it's a fabulous flow of conversation. Jimmy, I did want to come back to you, sort of as a farmer, a rancher, And talk about the challenges that today's farmers and ranchers, producers are facing. I do not come from a farming or ranching background. So correct me if any of my thoughts are kind of off base here, but it certainly seems to me that things are not getting easier in terms of the decisions that producers have to make. Input costs are challenging. Commodity prices are challenging. There are a lot of conservation programs available, a lot of funding available. But there are… a producer or any landowner that's trying to make a living off of that land has to… they have to make a lot of decisions. Their life is full of many different decisions. They're trying to make a living, right? But they're also wanting to steward that resource because what they get from it during this year and what they do to it this year also affects their ability to get from it in subsequent years. So they have to take a long-term view of the land probably more so than most Americans have to think about anything else. It's incumbent upon producers to really view the long-term value of that land and want to maintain that. And so talk about the complexity of those decisions that you have to make and then… then I think one of the things that Trust in Food, Trust in Beef is trying to do is to make some of that decision-making easier. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but talk about the complexity of some of the decisions that producers have to make.
Jimmy Emmons: Yeah, it's grown very, very complex over the last 30 years. So I put my first crop in at nine years old, and my granddad let me have a track of land. So I've been doing this quite a while. I'll be 64 this year, so that kind of tells you I've had quite a bit of experience at this. But back in those days, it was relatively easy. and my granddad and my dad talked about it. My dad passed away about 27 years ago of cancer and he said the massive change we went through because early on it was the more hours you put in the more money you made and the more acres you could cover the more money you could make. Today it's in regentive agriculture especially we're trying to plan out four or five years in front of us of where we're going to plant crops and what we're going to do. Now mother nature affects them decisions and changes them a lot but we also have to manage rising cost and I talked about this quite a bit. My granddad's largest tractor was a 20 horsepower tractor so he went from a mule and horses to that tractor. My dad then started with that tractor and went to 150 horsepower. In 1983, that 150 horsepower tractor was around $50,000. I just repaired one and the drill this year was $85,000 on one repair bill. And so we've had to do more with less and we chose on our farm to be more diversified with more crops than just one or two. and more animals than just one or two different breeds of cattle that we focused on. So there is a lot of different strategies in play. There's huge management decisions to make in input cost, you know, where you spend that dollar. Because at the end of the day, we do have to pay the bank, we do have to pay ourselves, we have to live, and we have to drive vehicles and put fuel and all that into them as well. So it has become very challenging in the last few years to manage all that. and to still think about you know what we're doing on the land and how our footprint is changing that atmosphere in that land. And so we've really went into that and trying to understand that and that's the reason that I think it's critical of what we're doing at Trust in Food to help producers understand how we can do better and how much easier it is to do this than originally thought.
Mike Brasher: And Amy, looking at your website, it appears to me that Trusted Food is more than just saying, here's another program, right? One of the things that we have encountered, even when we're partnering with… NRCS or FSA on using conservation programs to deliver some type of practice that's primarily beneficial to wildlife. It's difficult for us to sometimes gain traction from the producers in enrolling this program. We can spend a lot of time saying, yep, we'll use this program here to create these wetlands, do some grassland enhancement here. Beautiful. Looks great. Now let's roll it out there and let's just sit back and watch all the contracts and applications come in. I guarantee you there's every biologist that has worked for any conservation organization for any length of time has had an experience where they put something like that together only to get very, very few applications because we've not fully understood the challenges that producers are facing in terms of their on-farm decisions. or any other number of things that affect their ability to process. We all have limited time. I'm sure that's part of it. And so it's much more complicated than just putting a program together and putting it out there or even putting the money behind a program. It's much more complicated than that if we're going to really scale it, as we were talking about earlier. So talk about… Am I kind of on the mark there with what Trust in Food is trying to do? And if so, talk about that.
Amy Skoczlas-Cole: 100% on the mark. Jimmy walked through some of the changes that have affected his family's operation. What we can do at Farm Journal Trust in Food is sort of understand the trends and the specifics of what kind of barriers are in people's way. So you hit on a couple of them, right? Obviously, there's the financial components and the equipment challenges Time and energy, how much change can one person absorb? We have a labor shortage across rural America. And so it's time and energy in a world in which you don't have the time to spare. I live in Minnesota. Our planting season is a very short window. There's not a whole lot of room for sort of just like sitting and gazing and looking at experimentation time. When we're bringing in crops, it's an around-the-clock exercise. I mean, literally, folks don't go to bed. So one of the things that we can do at Trust in Food is because Farm Journal reaches just about every producer in the United States and because we understand what their lived experience looks like, we can help groups like Ducks Unlimited understand sort of the categories of barriers and challenges that producers face. what they look like from region to region, different in Minnesota than in Jimmy's country in Oklahoma, right? Challenges exist. We can also sort of get underneath some of this to say, what are some of the core drivers? Like, who do you trust? And how do you feel about some of the changes that have been made? So, you know, there's an awful lot of folks who are interested in producers data right now, right, how things are grown. And, and so we understand that not only are these logistical challenges and financial challenges, but also challenges of trust across the supply chain by being able to dimensionalize that. And then make very practical, actionable recommendations of how do we help a producer understand and see value in making the change? How do we help a partner organization understand how to meet that specific producer and their region with their challenges? So, that we're showing up with programs that actually meet the actual need, not what someone who was outside of that agricultural system imagined the need to be. And look, I've been in conservation agriculture for, this is my 30th year, and this is kind of new because historically it has been a lot of folks coming in with ideas of how it should be. as opposed to what it actually is. And so I'd like to think that we're really the ground truth organization, right? And when we do that, it's better for producers because they're getting solutions that would work. It's better for our partners because they're able to use their resources much more effectively.
Jimmy Emmons: And I really think, and I'm not going to speak for Amy here, but part of my role coming into this position was to have that knowledge and that background on the ground and to understand the need and how we communicate. to agriculture to help them understand, you know, these programs are designed to help you and to help the environment and help the habitat and help the soil to help the climate and the environment in the end. is the big goal, but the short-term goal is to get the practices on the ground, to really then see the benefits from them. And we talked about this in the meeting earlier today. The big picture game is the whole ecosystems and all the life that there is. I was shooting a small video a couple of years ago for a conservation district and I was out in the field where we're building resiliency in drought management and on the third take I noticed bees and insects flying by me and I said we got to reshoot this and tell a different story here to get people to look at this because there's more alive here than just this crop growing. And I think that's so important for producers and American consumers and American population and globally really to understand the big picture of the ecosystem that's there. And, you know, I think that's part of the problem is I can say I perceive how people live and work in the city, and I have my own mind set up of what that looks like. And normally that is not correct. And it's the same way when they're looking out. the window into agriculture that they see that we're destroying the landscape and we're factory farming and we're abusing everything just for a dollar and it's very easy because we sit in a big piece of equipment and we do this every day. So I think as Americans in whole we need to familiar ourself with one another's culture and life and landscape that so that we can understand that There's more to living in the city and going to work in your job than I perceive in your footprint as well as them seeing how we out on the landscape are taking care of the land that we really do care because we live there every day. Our animals have a great life and we want them to have a great life. And, you know, they may have one bad day, but they've had an entire lifespan that was wonderful. And, and, uh, you know, I think that's why we need to look at it, uh, because that's really life. We all have a great life if we choose it and we have a few bad days and then we have one really bad day.
Billy Gascoigne: Mike, I want to lean into something that, I mean, first of all, you nailed the reason, the value behind our relationship with the Farm General team here. It's that information feedback loop in which we need to make sure we're delivering programs that meet the needs of producers. I mean, at the onset, you talked about the success of our rice program. Part of that is because it has been producer-led for the last decade, in which we have a producer panel that's constantly giving us feedback on what it is they're facing day in and day out in their operations. We're trying to do that again in the beef space. But this industry is evolving so fast, the opportunities for them are changing, you know, nearly daily. And so that's the real value in this relationship is to have that feedback loop and to make sure I want our listeners to understand that Ducks Limit is never in a position where we're trying to tell a farmer how to farm or rancher how to ranch. There are principles that we believe in, but ultimately we are just trying to build partnerships and resources available to help them make decisions that we feel are best for their, they feel their best for their operation, are in line with our principles in and around conservation and stewardship, but to find those win-wins. But at the end of the day, we have to know exactly what it is they need, and then we can build a program to meet those needs. That's how it has to work to be successful.
Amy Skoczlas-Cole: I was just going to say, I just want to underscore how important it is to protect options for producers and to ensure that recognizing that just like no two human beings are exactly the same, no two operations are exactly the same either. And so, you know, having a menu of options in terms of what kinds of programs, what kinds of practices, how fast, where, when. That really is sort of the goal for all of us. And I'm just going to say again, it's kind of a different approach than others might take towards putting conservation agriculture on the ground.
Mike Brasher: So I'm having such a good time in this conversation, learning so much, but we're going to take a break right now. We're going to come back and we're going to have a few other topics to discuss. So stay with us, folks. Welcome back everyone. We are here in studio at Ducks Unlimited's National Headquarters with three guests. We're talking about the new partnership that we have with Farm General Trust in Food. We've got Jimmy, Amy and Billy here with me. We're going to pick back up and we've mentioned I think this word, a couple of words on occasion, regenerative agriculture. and maybe there's other names to go along with it, but I want to make sure we kind of define that for folks, clarify some things. So, Jimmy, I guess I'll point that out to give that question to you first. When we hear regenerative agriculture, any of the other terms that may come along with that, what do we mean?
Jimmy Emmons: Well I like the term regenerative agriculture because regenerative means that we're rejuvenating, we're rebuilding a resource instead of tearing it down. I really believe in that because even though we didn't intend to over the years that there's been wear and tear on the land that had unintended consequences. And so we're trying to rebuild that and to repair that and rejuvenate that. So I like the term regenerative because to me that says that we're trying to do more than just maintain where we're at. We're trying to rebuild, get that system alive, that whole ecosystems process kicked in again.
Mike Brasher: What would be some examples that I think might resonate with folks, some of the more obvious examples that fall under that category?
Jimmy Emmons: So on our farm, organic matter, soil organic matter was at a few tenths of a percent. We're now at three percent. What does that really mean? That means that there's more carbon in the ground, first of all. There's more water holding capacity. There's more water infiltration rates. So when we first started this 15 years ago, our water infiltration rate, and what that means is when it rains, what can go in and stay in versus running off was at a half inch per hour. We're now at 10 to 12 inches per hour.
Mike Brasher: That sounds pretty impressive. I'm not a farmer, but it sounds like that's something that's important.
Jimmy Emmons: Well, it means a lot in terms of erratic weather that we're experiencing, whiplash weather, where it's all or none. We may experience four, five, six, ten inches at a time. And everybody in agriculture always measures their rain. Somebody, well, we got five inches today. Well, did you really get it? all or did you get a half inch or an inch of that and the rest wound up in the Mississippi here by where we're at. And so that's huge and that's really good measurements that you can use to see that we're rebuilding and regenerating where we're at because most of this country up the middle section in soil organic matter was in the high single digits and up into the teens. And most of agriculture today is in that one to two percent or less. So a dramatic change in the amount of water that we can take in and the amount of water we can hold. And what does that really mean for habitat, grazing lands, production lands? It's huge. And if you want to talk about water quality, that's another hour episode that we could go on.
Mike Brasher: So, we've also heard and I hear about, I think we mentioned a couple of times on this episode, but I certainly hear a lot about it in terms of climate smart practices. Does that fall in the same category or is there some distinctions there?
Jimmy Emmons: Well, it falls in the same category and we're talking about practices. I was talking about the concept of rebuilding soil and rebuilding the environment around that. Climate smart means to me putting a practice on that will benefit you down the road in three to five years. of what the climate is doing now is more erratic. And so then practices that we can put on the ground will build that resiliency to that effect of that weather so that I have a better potential to stay in the game, to make more money, and to protect our environment and all the ecosystems and wildlife habitat around that.
Mike Brasher: So what do you say to folks that hear climate smart practice and they are kind of dismissive of that? How do you respond to that?
Jimmy Emmons: So there is a lot of agriculturists out there, farmers and ranchers like me, that don't like that term. But they will admit and I admit that the weather is changing. And who's at fault on that we could debate all day. It's probably all of us everywhere. But really what that truly means is in a changing environment. These are the weather patterns that we're seeing and different effects that we don't have control of.
Billy Gascoigne: Mike, just to add to it, what practices would qualify as climate smart, if the listener is interested in that? I mean, the principles around soil health of where you're keeping a living root in the ground, you're keeping the soil covered, those are things that actually change that microbiology in the soil to then actually sequester carbon through photosynthesis out of the atmosphere, so it has a climate benefit. But our grant is quite diverse from those practices that do increase carbon sequestration to genetics that might improve the health of a herd and reproduction rates, which then you have less cows out there that are, you know, maybe not breeding and rearing a calf. That's less methane emissions that are occurring on that operation. So there's a suite of practices, there's 16 of them. If folks are really interested, I encourage you to check out the website. But ultimately, when you hear climate smart practices, there's a climate benefit. And the reality is that agriculture has a lot of solutions up their sleeve. practices and solutions that make economic sense and just so happen also have a climate benefit and there's opportunities to lean into the interest around addressing climate and providing mitigation solutions. As well as what Jimmy was talking about those adaptations those those mitigation strategies on farm for the resilience so yeah it's a it's a win win there that we're just leaning into.
Amy Skoczlas-Cole: And I'll say aloud the thing that folks are thinking, which is, isn't this the same as conservation agriculture? And I think one of the things that we know, look, US farmers and ranchers have practiced good agronomy, good animal husbandry. When they've had the right information in front of them and the people to help them make those decisions, that is at the heart what we're talking about. So yes, some newfangled terms, as Billy points out, that actually do lean into some of what we're seeing out of consumers and investors these days and their interests. But at the core of it, the principles of how do we regenerate? How do we take care of our soil? How do we take care of our water? How do we take care of our land? How do we take care of our animals? that is at the heart of what we're talking about here, you know, in some, what is it, 2024 kind of language.
Mike Brasher: Yeah, so you're basically saying that it's incumbent upon us to look beyond just the labels, right? What is it that we're really trying to deliver with the programs, with the resources that are being made available through whatever grant it is? Focus on what's important. Labels aren't as important as the deliverables, as a healthy ecosystem, as abundant duck populations, land for farmers and ranchers and that's what we're all here about, right?
Amy Skoczlas-Cole: And yes, that is what we are all here about and we have never seen outside consumer and investor interest in how we grow food, raise animals. We've never seen that at the levels that it's at today, right? And so the thing to understand is is that there are these two forces. We've got some great science that says there are things you can do that have all of these many benefits to your operation and your community and your local ecosystem. And you have these folks who are disconnected from agriculture who are saying, but, but, but, but we want you to do it differently. And so, you know, these labels are appealing to them to say, we are meeting the values that you are asking us to meet.
Jimmy Emmons: And if people really want to know about our grant, they can go to TrustinFood.com slash grow and you'll learn all about that there. But Amy, we've also got a new technology that Farm Journal came out with in TrustinFood that helps producers where to go to get a program that best fits them.
Amy Skoczlas-Cole: Yep. So yes, so you can find out about the grant that DU and we are implementing together at trustandfood.com slash grow. But if you go to the front page of agweb.com, which is part of the Farm Journal family, you will see what we call the Climate Smart Opportunity Navigator. And that was intended to help producers find which of these 140 different programs that USDA launched, these different projects with different organizations, to find the right one to them. So it takes about, what, 30 seconds, Jimmy, right? To go in and put in your information. Where are you? What are you growing? What kind of practices might you be interested in? And then it will tell you which projects you are eligible for. It's up to you then to get in touch with that project if you choose to. But we wanted just an easy way to navigate folks again to help producers find the projects that make the best sense for them.
Mike Brasher: Billy, kind of final thoughts from Ducks Unlimited. What are the resources that we can provide that people can access? Where can they find them? I would imagine going to the Trust in Food website can be one of the best places we direct them. But final thoughts from you either on the specifics of the assistance we're providing and just the larger partnership in general.
Billy Gascoigne: Yeah, I encourage folks if you're working on an operation or you're a landowner, you have that interest to check out those opportunities. There's more opportunities now than I've ever seen before in my conservation career. And we're bringing the partnerships together that are more diverse than ever. I mean, I mentioned a genetics company and some data companies. It's sort of this holistic approach to conservation and that's exciting for folks like me. If folks are curious about the space around conservation and agriculture and how this all comes together, I mean, the exciting thing for somebody like me is that the two different fields are coming together and you even hear the term now conservation agronomist. uh that some of our university systems are now teaching and um I just that really excites me as somebody to do with my background and where I focus day in and day out for DU is that these aren't mutually exclusive fields. We need them to come together for the benefit of the grower, for the benefit of our waterfowl populations. We're constantly looking to bring on staff with those skill sets and encourage folks that have if they have that unique upbringing to to look into that field. And that just excites me, Mike, as I look to the years ahead.
Mike Brasher: We're gonna have to wrap this up. We got to get y'all out of here so you can go eat lunch. I think y'all have a few other things going on after that. But this has been a phenomenal conversation, you know. In 1986, the North American Waterfowl Management Plan sort of took a fundamental turn in recognizing, and Amy, you mentioned this earlier, that we can't conserve landscapes capable of supporting continental populations of ducks by focusing on public land alone. We have to focus on private land, which includes, very importantly, agriculture, ranching, and everything, a whole host of other options outside of that. The vast majority of wildlife habitat in North America is on privately owned land. We cannot achieve our mission without working collaboratively with all the people that that steward that land and we have to do so in a way that delivers benefits all the way around. So, this is a really exciting step in that evolution and it is an evolution. We first identify the need and then we try things and we fail in a few places and we find a few success stories but then we still encounter hurdles and this is another step along that path of trying to find ways to overcome those hurdles to accelerate the rate at which we're delivering voluntary incentive-based programs as well as the pace at which we're doing that. Super exciting partnership that we have here between Ducks Unlimited and Farm Journal, trust in food, trust in beef, and it's been a treat to have the three of you here. and to have Farm Journal, Trust in Food, Trust in Beef be the first kind of ag-based guest, I think is pretty cool. So, Jimmy Inman, Amy, Scotchless Coal, both with Farm Journal, Trust in Food, thank you all so much for being here. Billy, Billy Gascoigne, you have a challenging last name also. I do. I've mispronounced it a number of times, but thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your leadership and stewarding these new partnerships. It's a super exciting time and very exciting space for us. Thank you, Mike. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. A very special thanks to our guests on today's episode, Amy Scotchlis Cole and Jimmy Inmans of Farm Journal, Trust in Food, and Billy Gascoigne, Ducks Unlimited's Director of Agriculture and Strategic Partnerships. We appreciate all the tremendous insight they brought to this important topic. As always, we thank our producer, Chris Isaac, for the wonderful job he does with these episodes and getting them out to you. And we thank you, the listener, for your time and support and for your commitment to wetlands and waterfowl conservation and stewardship on private lands.