From Our Experts

The Unintended Consequences of Fake Meat

Allen R Williams, Ph.D., SHA Instructor & Co-FounderConsumers are currently being bombarded with commercials and ads for various forms of what I term “fake meat.” Curiously, many who are manufacturing and selling these products, as well as their supporters, prefer to call them “clean proteins.” The ads appear to be almost everywhere—on the TV, in […]

The Unintended Consequences of Poor Soil Health

By Allen R Williams, Ph.D.Understanding Ag, Partner & Consultant The Year 2019 presented numerous challenges to farmers and grazers, and consumers. Among them were significant flooding, dust storms, cyanobacteria (algal) blooms, prevent planting, glyphosate residue issues, and fake meats. Any one of these challenges is a serious enough issue to deal with, but all of […]

The Unintended Consequences of Conventional Ag

By Allen R Williams, Ph.D.Understanding Ag, Partner & Consultant Farming and food production have become hot-button issues today and can be a very confusing subject for consumers to sort out. Farming practices and food production have been linked to a number of things that consumers are concerned about including climate change, harmful runoff, animal welfare, […]

‘It Can’t Be Done Here’ and Other Regenerative Lessons from the Heart of the Dust Bowl

Michael “Storm” Casper, Understanding Ag, LLC. We farm in southeast Colorado, in the state’s semi-arid, 15-inch rainfall area. The elevation is around 4,500 feet and our relative humidity is dry most of the time. Typical dryland crop rotations include wheat, grain sorghum, summer fallow. Corn is also grown on dryland along with various other crops […]

What’s the real value of your farm’s carbon? Let’s do the math.

By Shane New and Gabe BrownUnderstanding Ag, LLC There is a lot of talk going around rural America about paying farmers and ranchers to sequester carbon. Given the current low commodity prices, more money flowing to rural America would be welcome. But, what is that carbon really worth? We decided to do the math. Oil […]

Time for change: The compelling case for regenerative agriculture

Gabe Brown, Understanding Ag, LLC You cannot pick up a farm magazine, listen to a farm radio program, or talk to an agri-business spokesperson without hearing the words “regenerative agriculture.” But what is regenerative agriculture and why is it creating such interest?Merriam-Webster dictionary defines regeneration as, “a renewal or restoration of a biological system after […]

Do Cover Crops Pay?

By Kent Solberg, Understanding Ag, LLCWe have all seen the articles and heard the claims: Cover crops have many great benefits. However, from land grant universities to rural cafes people are asking “Yeah, but do cover crops pay?” In other words, is there an immediate return on investment? You should know that what you are […]

The story of Oktibbeha County, Mississippi A Microcosm of Our Dying Farms and Rural Communities

Author: Allen Williams PhD In the first half of the 1900’s Oktibbeha County, Mississippi had more than 800 small dairy farms. The large number of dairy farms earned the county the nickname of “Little Wisconsin.” These farms were using smaller breeds, like the Jersey and Guernsey, and the herds were primarily grazing. The climate at […]

Tribute to a Grazing Hero

Allen R Williams, Ph.D. Once in every few generations someone comes along who defies all conventions and turns things on their ear. To do this, it takes a truly unique person who does not care what their neighbors think or what the world thinks. Instead, they doggedly pursue what they believe to be right. Such […]

Nature: Friend or Foe?

By: Allen R Williams, Ph.D. Without even realizing it, for well over than a century, American farmers have had the idea that nature is a beast to be tamed and contained. If we want to be good farmers and ranchers we must conquer nature and overcome her. We have invented many mechanical and chemical tools […]

Three Principles to Graze By

My consulting partners and I teach a form of grazing that we call Adaptive Grazing. Adaptive grazing, also called Flex Grazing, is first and foremost not a rigid system or even a routine. It allows the practitioner to address multiple goals and objectives, and to adjust to changing conditions. The benefits derived from adaptive grazing […]

Calving in Sync with Nature

By Paul Brown It wasn’t too long ago that February and March were our busiest and most stressful months on the ranch. Like most other ranchers in the area, it was calving season for us. For years we calved during this time of year because it was “normal.” The argument is that the calves would […]

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Where in the World is Understanding Ag?

“When I was a young kid, my grandfather had a painting of a Gaucho riding a horse at full gallop chasing down a cow in the Patagonia Steppe. The Gaucho was swinging a set of ‘boleadoras; above his head, which is the traditional tool to help them wrangle cattle. Ever since I first saw that painting, […]

Closing the Soil Health ‘Knowledge Gap:’ Lessons from the FFA Convention

We recently had the privilege of attending the National Future Farmers of America convention in Indianapolis, Indiana to represent Understanding Ag. Mingling with a sea of over 70,000 kids wearing the classic blue and gold FFA jackets with their home states emblazoned across the back is an unforgettable experience. It brought back memories of my […]

Our Broken Water Cycle and What Can We Do About It

“It’s not how much rain you get but how much rain you can keep.” As I write this in late Oct 2024, we have had no measurable rainfall for the entire month here in west-central Indiana. If you look at the August-through-October total rainfall here, we have not been this dry since 2010, and we’ve […]

A Real Solution to the Cattle Industry’s ‘Methane Problem’

The headline in The Washington Post article, published August 25, 2024, proclaimed “Scientists may have found a radical solution for making your hamburger less bad for the planet.” The article, written by Shannon Osaka and Emily Wright, examined research currently being conducted at the University of California-Davis using gene editing techniques on rumen microbes to […]

Part 2 Erosion: How Much is it Costing YOU?

In part one, I outlined some of the societal challenges linked to soil erosion and poor soil function. Now let’s take a look at some of the economic costs and benefits of addressing erosion on farms and ranches. To determine the cost of erosion, first we must assign a value to soil. In truth, topsoil […]

Part 1 Erosion: How Much is it Costing US?

Soil erosion has been one of the most persistent challenges humanity has faced since the advent of agriculture over 10,000 years ago. Loss of productive capacity of the supporting land base contributed to the collapse of numerous civilizations during that time. Poor grazing practices and tillage were the main causes of land degradation historically and […]

A Better Way to Grow Agave Leads to World’s First Certified Regenerative Tequila

Life is short so embrace change.” That’s the “distilled” philosophy Rodrigo Mestas brings to his tequila business, his regenerative agriculture management style and his outlook on life. In the acres he’s transitioned to regenerative agriculture, Mestas allows naturally occurring cover crops to emerge between the rows of the agave, and then grazes livestock- including […]

A Satellite Image Exposes the ‘Bare Facts’ About Conventional Ag

I pulled this image up on GoogleEarth yesterday. The photo below shows an area 12.5 miles wide, by 6.5 miles vertically, much of it in Rock Dell Township, Minnesota where our farm is. Hayfield is in the upper left-hand corner. The green area in the middle is along Hwy 30, and at the top is […]

From Symptoms to Solutions: Addressing the Underlying Causes of Water Quality Degradation – Part 5

In Part Four, I discussed the importance of keeping living roots in the soil and avoiding overapplication of nutrients at the wrong time. In this final post I will examine nitrogen sourcing options and how plants acquire nutrients in a healthy soil. To understand what the ‘right source’ of nitrogen is, we first need to […]

Will I Really Benefit from Grazing My Cover Crop?

God designed the world to function as a perpetual motion machine. If done right, it should always be building fertility, not extracting it. But you have to understand the principles of soil health, and the four ecosystem processes, in order to achieve that outcome. While many individuals are content with simply “growing a cover crop” […]

From Symptoms to Solutions: Addressing the Underlying Causes of Water Quality Degradation – Part 4

In Part Three, I reviewed the concept of using marginal nitrogen use efficiency and zero N check strips as tools to evaluate application rates. Now I will shift the focus to problems with overapplication, how to determine the right timing for application, and the consequences of not doing so. The fastest way to diminish the […]

From Symptoms to Solutions: Addressing the Underlying Causes of Water Quality Degradation – Part 3

In business, it all comes down to profit. In farming, profit comes down to things we can’t control like the weather and the markets, and the things we can control like our management decisions. One of those key management decisions is determining how much nitrogen to apply to our crops. In part two of this […]