"It allows you to operate on your cattle instead of in them."

In this quote, our guest is referring to their livestock collars as tools that allow producers to zoom out from the day-to-day operations and understand their herd in a more intimate way.

Justin Wells, a former US Marine, is the US Country Manager for Halter – a New Zealand based animal tech company specializing in virtual fencing and pasture management solutions.

In his role, Justin leads Halter’s expansion into the US market, focusing on establishing market presence, building partners, and leading their sales efforts. Halter’s system utilizes solar-powered collars to enable producers to virtually fence their pastures and monitor their livestock through audio cues and data analytics.

Our conversation picks up with Justin describing his early upbringing in a small town in Michigan and what originally drew him towards the Marine Corps.

“The stress, the resources, the environment, that’s all going to come and go, but you have the capability to be successful.”

In this quote, our guest is describing his life-changing experiences with the US Army in Syria and how that gave him the confidence he needed to jump into agriculture full time.

Brice Myers is a soon-to-retire US Army 5th Group Special Forces solider turn rancher. He was recently appointed the Veteran Outreach Coordinator for an AgVets grant awarded to the state of Tennessee - Ag VOLs. In this capacity, he’s responsible for assisting veterans with educational opportunities, multi-day workshops, and helping them find resources to start their own farms or agribusinesses. On their own family farm outside Nashville, Foggy Meadows Farm, they primarily bale hay and raise feeder pigs, goats, and a variety of poultry species.

Our conversation picks up with Brice talking about a program he participated in turning his military transition called the Honor Foundation and why the venture capital space wasn’t where he wanted to be long term.

If you're interested in learning more about Tennessee AgVOLs, please reach out to Brice on LinkedIn, by email ([email protected]) or connect with them on their Facebook page.

“Consistency is a huge problem with biologicals. It works one year, it doesn’t work another year. It works over here, it doesn’t work over there.”

This quote from our guest this week is referring to the early struggles of biologicals where it was extremely difficult to consistently produce a product with a living organism as the primary benefit.

Our guest this week is Eddy Mejia – CEO for Earnest Ag – an ag biotech startup developing a variety of organic microbial products that help farmers provide plant nutrients and protect against disease. Eddy is a US Army telecommunications veteran with a background in computer engineering who managed to find his way into the niche world of microbials after meeting his co-founder at a university startup program. This type of business partnership is not uncommon in the world I frequent, where veterans find the right sources and partners and build something with a bigger purpose in mind.

Have a listen as this young man from the suburbs of Chicago with parents from the agricultural epicenter of Colombia makes his way into the world of microbial production, how their product is attempting to standout in a saturated market, the logistics of keeping a living organism alive on a seed as a coating, and how COVID turned out to be good timing for Eddy and his team.

During the interview, our guest on the podcast this week said, “farmers and ranchers are the ones that are going to have to do the change, but the ones that are going to push for change are outside agriculture.”

Our guest this week is Eric Fuchs. Eric is a US Air Force veteran and consultant with Understand Ag. In this capacity, he works specifically with all aspects of the drinking water industry with an emphasis on source water protection and the agricultural community. Eric and his wife also own a livestock operation in Missouri where they use regenerative techniques with holistic grazing and soil health practices. Eric’s earlier quote gives us some insight into how he thinks about change and where it can originate from.

Eric was one of the few who was able to purchase his own farm, while still in the Air Force, and make it work as a business over the next 20 years. Eric is a great storyteller and this episode takes listeners through how he did this, how practices and conversations have changed drastically in the last 5 years around regenerative ag, and what the future could looks like between Understanding Ag and the military veteran community.

“The only person who’s surprised is the guy who’s been here 31 years.”

This quote from our guest this week was just one of the many times during the interview he mentioned an instance where things that just seemed normal to him in his everyday job of managing cattle using adaptive grazing methods was producing results that were shocking to his colleagues and producers who have seen cattle graze this same land for decades before.

That guest is Eric Czaja. Eric is an active-duty US Army Special Forces Major serving as a full-time faculty member with the Naval Post Graduate School. Based in Camp San Louis Obispo, California, Eric is leading a ground-breaking proof of concept program with the US Army specializing in the implementation of regenerative agricultural and grazing practices aboard a military installation. The program is called Regenerative Grazing Open Air Lab, or R-GOAL for short. This proof of concept is designed to enhance soil health, improve land management, restore ecosystem functions, and increase DoD installation resiliency.

In this episode, we dive immediately into the details of this proof-of-concept program, how they’ve trained the animals, why the DoD is interested in these practices, the near-immediate benefits they’ve seen in the cattle’s grazing and behavior habits, and Eric’s plan for this program to expand and outlive him.

Enjoy!

"This is an unregulated market and you know military guys right, they like not having this overarching theme. Regulation will add value to this space, but right now, it’s an unregulated and non-voluntary market, which is different from other countries being mandated to participate."

The quote from our guest this week, James Clement, is referring to the carbon credit market. He’s honest about the wild west nature of the space right now, but also realistic about the benefits certain regulation could bring.

James is a seasoned rancher and innovative leader in agtech, currently serving as Senior Vice President of Grass and Rangeland at EarthOptics. James’s family have nearly 400 years of combined family ranging experience, including operations like Beggs Cattle Co and King Ranch. He also founded his own cattle company in Kingsville, TX called Bloody Buckles Cattle Co, a hat tip to the 28th Army Division. James is currently still in the Marine Corps reserves with more than 17 years of service.

Like most competitive brothers, James still wanted to join the Marines to follow his brother, but he enlisted in the reserves while his brother pursued the officer route through the Naval Academy. Fortunately or unfortunately, James ultimately ended up as a Marine officer, which set off one of the more interesting military careers I’ve heard of:

- Afghan deployment from 2012 - 2013

Have a listen as James and I weave our way through this fascinating military career and end up at his current position with EarthOptics. The work they’re doing with soil health monitoring and their use of a variety of different technologies to gather this data is quite differentiated in this space.

Enjoy!

I started looking into grant writing, and realized that this is kind of like being the garbage man of the industry. There's just not a lot of people that want to do it.

This quote from our guest this week, Juan Whiting, may be true in that there are not many professionals who want to take on this task, but it can be a necessary and prudent decision for an early-stage company or growers/ranchers to access capital without giving away equity.

Juan Whiting is the owner of a consultancy called Stray Acres - a grant writing consulting company that develops tailored funding strategies and grant proposals for high-impact agricultural projects around the world. Juan also serves as an agricultural specialist with the US Army Civil Affairs department as a subject matter expert. He recently authored a book titled The Holistic Funding Approach: Powerful Techniques and Strategies to Put Millions of Agricultural Grant Funding in the Right hands”.

Right after high school, Juan’s path led him into missionary work with the LDS church in Kenya. He was immediately exposed to a civil war and food insecurity. This began to cement in his mind the importance of agriculture. Following some training with the US Marine Corps and graduate schooling, Juan found his way back into Africa, this time into Rwanda, for the next 6 years working on ag impact investment projects for a foundation before returning to the states to start Stray Acres.

This episode is all about Juan’s fascinating journey into agricultural farm management in a developing country, the US Army’s modern day Monument’s Man program, the nuances of grant writing, and much more.

Enjoy!

Our guest on this episode, Jeff Jeffers, could pinpoint the exact moment he knew farming was the career for him following military service. It came after a retreat with the Farmer Veteran Coalition and in the car ride home, Jeff looked over at this soon-to-be co-founder, Steve, and said, “We’re gonna be freakin’ farmers”.

James “Jeff” Jeffers is the co-founder of a non-profit based in Dallas, TX called F.A.R.M. – Farmers Assisting Returning Military. Jeff and the team at FARM are dedicated to providing military veterans with internships, educational opportunities, and hands-in-the-dirt experience through a variety of agricultural settings.

Jeff grew up outside Indianapolis playing in the woods and eventually falling in love with the outdoors through hunting and fishing. After high school and a brief stint working in Florida, he fell victim to one of the Army’s 1990s “Be All You Can Be” television advertisements and literally signed up the next day.

This began a multi-year, multi-deployment experience in the US Army infantry starting before 9/11 and encompassing several deployments to Iraqi during the height of the fighting. After several close calls with enemy grenades and a car bomb, Jeff was medically retired with a traumatic brain injury and began the uncertain journey of building a life outside the Army.

This episode is all about that journey and Jeff’s passion today for helping veterans in agriculture. He provides some of the most practical and down-to-earth advice for military veterans looking to get involved in ag I’ve ever heard. If you’re interested in getting started in farming after the miliary, then this episode is a must listen!

"Every one of these roles throughout my career on the civilian side gave me a certain experience I needed to pursue my journey to run a business.”

Growing up in the suburbs outside St. Paul, Elmar knew early on he wanted to serve in the military. The events of 9/11 at the beginning of his college years nearly shook him off his path, but he stayed the course and finished his undergraduate degree in international business. During his Army career, he deployed twice – once to Bagdad in 2007 during the height of the surge and a second time, 11 years later, to Central Europe in a civil affairs capacity.

Elmar continues to serve in the Army today, transitioning to the Reserves in 2009 where he’s coming up on 19 years of service.

Today, Elmar is on a very intentional path towards gathering the skills necessary to manage a business at the corporate level. From an early yogurt plant manager at General Mills to his current role at Cargill in acidulent production, Elmar’s experiences across agriculture can serve as a road map for those interested in pursuing a similar career.

Have a listen as his military time continues to serve him well in his current role and some fascinating details about citric acid production!

"To me, the question of a changing climate is not a political question. But I became very aware that the people in my generation who right now have both the political and economic authority, don't have the political or economic will to make those changes. So I thought, ok, think globally, but act locally. Is there actually something that I can do?”

Our guest this week is Ken Smith - a Navy veteran and now a Savory Institute Accredited Professional Associate Educator based in Fort Worth, TX. Ken teaches holistic management practices to military veterans and civilians alike all over the country.

From humble beginning on a small sustainable farm in Arkansas, then to the Navy Academy and Vietnam followed by a long career in manufacturing. Towards the end of this chapter, Ken began to wonder if there was something he could do to change the way businesses thought about sustainability. This passion began with for-profit businesses, but Ken quickly realized he could make a more meaningful contribution to sustainability if he focused his efforts on agricultural land management. Allan Savoy’s 2013 TED Talk was the turning point for him.

Enjoy this episode as Ken and I get into our shared military experiences afloat in the vast oceans, a shockingly similar early childhood for him and my kids, and why Ken, throughout the episode, kept coming back to the phrase,

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”