Compost on a large scale: Regenerating 1000 acres: With Cory Miller and Kevin Lackey
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Published 2022-08-09
This film is a micro documentary/ ‘how to’ for any farmer looking to transition to regenerative farming. It is also for curious minds coming to soil regeneration without prior knowledge.
Spread the word, degenerating land can become regenerating land using resources we already have. If the world’s existing agricultural land was to convert to regenerative agriculture today, increasing the soil organic matter in the soil by an average of 0.5% to 1% a year, theoretically, we could sequester all the excess carbon in the atmosphere within a year *(Stat: Kiss the ground).
Call to action:
Read: ‘Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into regenerative agriculture’ by Gabe Brown, ‘Regenerative’ by Paul Hawkins.
Watch: Kiss the ground, Living Soil, The need to grow, Farmer’s footprint, The biggest little farm.
Lecture: By Dr David Johnson. Static Pile Fungal Compost Presentation
Study online: The commune courses: ‘Kiss the ground’ with Finian Makepeace and ‘Regeneration’ with Paul Hawkins
Become an advocate: Kiss the Ground. kisstheground.com/
Become a soil specialist: Soil food Web www.soilfoodweb.com/, Soil Health Academy
Transition from chemical ag to regenerative ag: Soil food Web, Soil Health Academy
Equipment Links:
The Bio 5 Extractor: soilworksllc.com/
Esch 5612 No Till Drill: www.eschdrills.com/
Agri-Inject Inc CO Pivot Injection Pumps: www.agri-inject.com/
Schaffert Manufacturing: Liquid Drill Injection System: www.schaffert.com/
Vence: Virtual Fencing vence.io/
About Cory Miller: grassvalleyfarmsmt.com/:
I grew up in the city of Missoula with a small garden where I helped my mother grow flowers. My interest in gardening waned, as I discovered sports. In high school, I volunteered to build a garden for a group home that housed disabled adults. One of the greatest moments in my life was being invited back that fall for a dinner prepared from everything we planted. I went to college to study business and simultaneously started a commercial cleaning company. I spent a lot of my time making natural cleaning products, that I could use in the business and developed an interest in chemistry and biology. Later on, I focused my efforts into Pure Air Solutions, a mold remediation company that focused on removing mold and other microbials. As I studied molds and their affect on indoor air quality, I started to see that there were far more beneficial fungi than bad fungi and that fungi held a lot of the keys to soil health and improvement. I studied with Dr. Elaine Ingham and read Dr. David Johnson. I immersed myself in learning everything that I could about soil health and how to implement these theories. I quickly learned that there was not a lot of information or tools available to someone wanting to scale 1000 acres quickly to regenerative agriculture. I made soil health our focus, developing tools to help us effectively add biology to our soil, as often as possible. Every decision we make on the farm has to answer this question, "Does this improve the overall quality quality of our soil." If it does we keep it, if it doesn't then we move on.
Cory's soil sample mentor: www.soilscopelabs.com
About Kevin Lackey:
Kevin lives by the words “Become the most interesting person you have ever met.”A trained biologist and career conservation. Who packed in his land based conservation to set out to sea on a research vessel. He’s meant to have retired but he is on to his next adventure; the microbe and cattle operations manager at Grass Valley Farm. As an extra twist, Kevin is Cory’s father in law.
About Jennifer at www.millayandmeadowlark.com/
Millay and Meadowlark Flower Farm is a labor of love. Established in 2019, our business was conceived as a means of creating meaningful and engaging work for our son, Connor who has down syndrome. We are committed to providing Connor with opportunities to maintain and learn new life skills and for him to be a vibrant contributor and member of our community. We are also committed to the use of regenerative and sustainable growing practices on our farm. We grow without the use of harsh chemicals or pesticides. We subscribe to a "grown not flown" philosophy in that we try to locally source our inputs and keep our products local too!
All Comments (21)
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This is one of the MOST IMPORTANT videos on Youtube. Hope for our future, as traditional chemical farming is a colossal disaster.
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One thing that always comes through these regenerative natural approaches is that farm animals play an important role.
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Healthier soil, healthier animals, healthier humans. Fantastic work! He mentioned at the beginning the freedom of not having the pressure from family members (and ag/chemical industry) pushing traditional farming methods
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How refreshing to hear that there are people in the US that believe in a healthy environment. Up til now, all I've heard is about over-administration of penicillin and other unhealthy live stock treatments. All the best for the future and I'm convinced you'll be successful because you have an attitude that goes beyond the "investors quarterly report". Greetings from Sweden 🇸🇪.
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I’m a techy - mech engineer - own a software company….but, there is nothing more important than the work you are doing! The fact that you are sharing your learnings is awesome!!
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I started incorporating a similar system onto our market garden soils around 10 years ago. My small cow herd is the key to our success. My tomato plants averaged 8-10 lbs per plant by the old method and they now average approximately 40 lbs of fruit per plant. This is a very inspirational video and now I'm excited and pondering ways to tweak and streamline my systems for next season.
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Staring at that prairie line produces the same feelings as looking out into the ocean or the night sky on a stary night in the country.
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I am so happy to see on a BIG scale what I have been doing on a comparatively tiny scale for almost 60 years. Now if the message can be spread and practiced world wide. I need to find something to be hopeful for my grandchildren. Thank you and keep spreading the word.
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Damned inspiring! Thanks for sharing that. I almost bought a dairy farm in New Jersey 20 years ago - the thing I remember the best was that the farmer had built an entire composting tea process to turn cow manure and wood chips into the liquid he spread on the fields which then grew the grass that fattened up his cows.... It was a beautiful system.
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This video is exactly what I needed to show my client that just purchased land and is having problems with yields. Thanks guys, you rock for taking the time!
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I've been working with small farms and following this style of farming for several years now. Happy to see it's being scaled up
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This video is showing love and care to our mother earth and every living in it! Thank you so very much! ♥️
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Loved this video. It shows that making compost "tea" and using it as a fertilizer can be converted to a large-scale operation. This knowledge will be crucial to changing from chemical fertilizers to "homemade" fertilizers across the growing spectrum. That it can be done in a year flies in the face of all the naysayers who insist it takes years to improve the soil enough to rely on it for good crop yield. It is my hope that this information and formula is dispersed to all farmers who are looking for alternatives. I hope you publish this information in every farming journal and website you can find. It is likely you would be inundated with questions and other farmers who want to visit you to see your operation up close, which could be a bit overwhelming. But you are pivotal in helping farmers find a new way forward.
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Wow. This is what I need, a living guide of how to implement regenerative ag at scale. Thank you
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I can't believe this! What a jewel!
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So far ahead our times. I would like for all farms to do this. The fact that the cattle get fed nutritious feed from his land is so important
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Fabulous melding of the old with the new. The old ways of feeding the soil with the technology to study your outcome.🌷
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My company has been manufacturing, selling, and providing professional consulting for liquid composting on a commercial scale since 1983; we're taking all that "farm" waste and liquid composting it into a bioliquid fertilizer. I am a soil and plant scientist (with a few other specialties in there too) and I can't express enough how seeing people put soil health above everything, which then provides the benefits (as with improved animal health), makes me smile and warms the heart. Early on in my horticulture education I was seeing that soil health appeared to be far more important than the "genetic" route that many professors were pushing...and it just so happened that my family business involved the manufacture and sale of equipment that conducted liquid composting in liquid waste systems or continuous inversion (in aquatic systems).
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Pure genius, apparent tremendous amount of time spent in designing this process. Love the repurposing of equipment to aid in your process. Seems to me the answer to chemical fertilizers. Once you've healed the soil, the "bugs" do the work. Thank you.
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This is without doubt one of the most significant videos I have seen on YouTube. Please follow up on this and make a full blown documentary as this information deserves much more publicity Globally. Regenerative farming and increasing soil fertility are two important directions for agriculture and ultimately for mankind. Well done and get the word out there.
