I may copy the earlier Facebook posts over, but the muse has struck and I’m more inclined to look forward today. Let’s just skip those stories and jump to the coda…
An input saved is a premium earned
We’re coming off the Regenerative Food Systems Investment (RFSI) Forum in Denver last week where Susan and I participated in the farmer panel. The discussion focused on challenges faced by farmers transitioning to “regenerative” systems, and we were an example of a relatively large, multi-generational commodity operation striving for independence from the government money printers keeping this house of cards from collapsing. You can sum up the panel discussion with the usual lamentations of markets and supply/value chains. Or lack thereof. Feels like this chicken and egg thing where demand would respond if a ready supply emerged, yet farmers won’t respond and stick our collective necks out until clear demand emerges.
There's a presumption that a price premium is required to justify production of regenerative food. A couple years back, one of my regen colleagues was excited because they found a buyer for their heritage wheat to produce a “premium” whiskey. He chuckled while commenting that the whiskey sells for some outrageous amount out of his reach. I paused, then asked him – does it ever feel like we’re busting our asses to build a food system that we can’t even afford ourselves?
This led me to reexamine my own idea of a transformational food system. There's at least 2 aspects to this: 1) for this to matter, nutrient dense food (e.g. food as medicine) must be affordable to everyone, not just the BMWs in the Whole Foods parking lot, and 2) booze, unfortunately, does not contribute to #1, although I have no issue looking at malting, distilling, etc as a stepping stone to build a broader market. Granted, producing a "superior" product for a consumer base with no disposable income is a tough business model.
There’s a ton of books about soil health and regen ag out there, but Dirt To Soil seems to be the one that everyone's read. The simple fact that seems to make the regen community uncomfortable is that Gabe Brown’s whole story is built on the premise that he started managing “regeneratively” because he was flat broke and couldn’t afford inputs. Thus, the overarching characteristic of regen ag should be profitability from improved ecological function allowing for reduced inputs, not chasing premiums. Regenerative should produce food that's both better AND cheaper. While the big names like Brown and Salatin have great ecological insights, the reason you've heard of them has much more to do with their direct marketing and self-promotion. However, for people like me who have zero interest in direct marketing, I believe there’s ample reason to focus on the regen management to manage production costs on the front end.
