Over his decades of farming and ranching, Gabe Brown has noticed a troubling trend: the conventional farming techniques he used were degrading the soil and ruining crops. He shares how his family farm turned things around by adopting regenerative agricultural practices — and shows how the wider food system can use these same methods to improve food quality and revitalize the land. (Recorded at TED Countdown Dilemma Series: Food on June 6, 2024)
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@mikemyers2228
October 14, 2024 at 5:40 pm
As long as animal agriculture exists we may as well cover our eyes and pretend were human
@AngelPrissy
October 15, 2024 at 1:01 pm
There are billions of humans
@joranmerlte
October 14, 2024 at 6:04 pm
The speaker doesn’t talk about his yields. I bet these are substantially lower than the conventional system. And so, there is no economical business model in it other than the consumers spending more. But when food prices will increase, the people will get angry. So only the rich can eat this.
Also, if everything was farmed this way, I doubt the production would be high enough to sustain the current worlds population. How are we going to fix that?
@barbaravanerp4598
October 14, 2024 at 6:42 pm
I’d look deeper. He spends less per acre so a little lower yield is still a profit
@wpoitras
October 14, 2024 at 6:42 pm
You are correct. His yields/acre for crop fields is lower. But because of much reduced input costs (fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide and fungicide) his profit per acre is higher. Without government subsidies or crop insurance payouts. And often can support multiple products on the same land. So a single yield is lower, but total yield might be higher.
Also, regenerative ranchers have higher cattle stocking rates, so they can raise more cows on the same amount of pasture. And they tend to stay on the pasture longer, and need much less feed. Sure, grass-fed beef currently commands a higher premium, but if everyone did it, and there was a robust system of processing plants (which doesn’t care what kind of ranch it comes from) it wouldn’t need to be more expensive. Plus more of the money would go towards the farmer, and less towards the chemical companies (because much less chemical inputs would be needed) and CAFOs (since cows could be sent directly from a ranch to the meat packing plant instead of being sent to a feed lot)
The reason this type of agriculture would be able to feed the world is because it not only doesn’t degrade the land (like current systems do) it rehabilitates previously degraded land. So there is more land available for food.
@shanestorm8805
October 14, 2024 at 9:38 pm
He wrote a book that discusses this. It isn’t the “top” but it’s by no means below the average for the county
@darty788
October 14, 2024 at 9:38 pm
We waste a lot of food we produce, at least in the western world. Yield is important but food waste is oftentimes left out of the conversation.
How much of the yield is tossed into the trash farther down the supply chain? How much do farmers throw away because they can’t sell it?
@leelindsay5618
October 15, 2024 at 5:07 am
Actually, if you are only comparing apples to apples, his yields for say corn and soy are about average, the main difference is those same acres produce cover crop seeds which are for sale and they use those cover crops or cover crop seeds to feed the chickens, pigs and graze the cattle on the covers, and they also have beehives on the farm producing honey in cooperation with local bee keepers….. they don’t JUST produce A crop of corn on the field once a year. How many corn-soy rotation folks ALSO produce beef, pork, chicken, eggs, honey, cover crop seed, and more PER YEAR?
@ProgressiveMastermind
October 14, 2024 at 6:37 pm
Impressive performance on this so very important topic of regenerative farming!!🙏🇩🇪
@everythingaohkay
October 14, 2024 at 8:28 pm
This was an amazing lecture and watch. Thank you for featuring this!
@geoffhoppy
October 14, 2024 at 9:58 pm
A fascinating and informative presentation. I’m not a farmer but have long believed in the need to return to a form of agriculture that takes care of the soil and biodiversity. Yet whenever I have discussed with others the response is always that it would not be possible to feed the world if everyone farmed in this way. Personally, I am sure this is a ‘lie’ promulgated by Big Ag but know of no study or research that proves it to be misleading. Does anything exist that busts this position?
@denniskemnitz1381
October 15, 2024 at 10:12 am
Sure…catch the regenerative wave beginning with Gabe and quite a few more teachers. Dennis
@AngelPrissy
October 15, 2024 at 12:59 pm
Many studies and proof in action. This speaker being one of them.
@ving1389
October 14, 2024 at 10:13 pm
Thank you Gabe Brown! Truly hope your experience, shared so sincerely will help convert more minds towards regenerative farming.
@Marilou-g5t
October 17, 2024 at 3:21 am
@@ving1389 vote with your dollars
@jc1865
October 14, 2024 at 11:41 pm
Thank you. We need more people joining the movement to save our soils.
@rdapigleo
October 15, 2024 at 3:07 am
Great talk about diverse farming, well spoken from real experience.
@spinachtriangle
October 15, 2024 at 12:01 pm
So my second comment for this.
1. If this was a farmer making non-animal produce for direct human consumption all the fawning folk in the comments section would be frothing in the mouth shouting vegan and ‘how will you feed the world’
2. There will be a limit when you have the leave the land alone for a very long time, like a looooong time given the amount of animal waste that would have collected on a parcel of land. There is no way land can sustain that much waste to sustain the profits of farmers and to pay for their loads (even though they get subsidies because it is such a wasteful approach to feeding the world). So what this means is that animal agriculture through regenerative farming would need to double it’s land footprint.
3. Of course biodiversity would increase, because you have left nature do it’s thing. You cannot be so big headed that you think you need a human with all their animals to do this. Nature will rewild itself.
4. Animals are needed, however, to keep farmer families profitable and to pay for all the inputs they will keep increasing their herds, they would never keep their herds down, as that is not profitable.
5. The animal agro industry is on the decline (thank god) and they will keep coming up with new tricks and gimmicks
6. The good man who is so entrenched in animal agro (and for those who say he grows grains and cereals, he grows them to feed to animals) is never going to look for the real solutions that will work as he needs his animals, as he knows nothing else, so don’t judge him.
7. Everyone cheering him obvs love their bacon and eggs too much and will never just ask, hold on the animals are the real issue here…
There is not enough land on the Earth to grow all your beef, chicken, pigs, sheep and all their excretions that you consume in a regenerative fashion unfortunately. All it means is that more land is going to be locked in the animal agriculture hamster wheel of destruction.
@myparceltape1169
October 15, 2024 at 12:53 pm
The old English system used to be 1 year fallow, 1 year animal and 2 years crop as far as I remember.
However attempts are still being made to turn petroleum into human food.
@spinachtriangle
October 15, 2024 at 12:59 pm
@@myparceltape1169 1 year animal with a load of inputs my friend. Farmers everywhere forget to mention the additional cereal inputs, antibiotics, B12, Omega3 inputs they feed their animals to preserve their precious I am off the land BS image.
@AngelPrissy
October 15, 2024 at 1:06 pm
Nature doesn’t exist without animals.
@spinachtriangle
October 15, 2024 at 1:16 pm
@@AngelPrissy and by animals you mean those profitable to farmers for their exploitation. So just cattle, sheep, dairy cows, pigs, farmed fish, dogs, cats etc. We have a such a biodiversity crisis as all our systems care about are the animals we consume or wear or entertain ourselves with.
@AngelPrissy
October 15, 2024 at 3:05 pm
@@spinachtriangle animals include worms, bees, insects, reptiles, birds, pets, wildlife, pastured animals, and there are some even undiscovered. All sorts of living things can grow in, on, off of our souls that we don’t even realize the value. Fungus are integral. Most living animals and organisms are invisible to the naked eye.
@rorydeanschneider586
October 15, 2024 at 12:31 pm
NORTH DAKOTA WASSUP 😎
@timeenoughforart
October 15, 2024 at 12:52 pm
I’m surrounded by GMO corn. Crop dusters wake us at least once a week. I’ve watched organic, then permaculture, now regenerative agriculture play on the air waves, yet each year the farmers keep tilling and spraying and plowing and spraying and paying the bank. I’ll believe it when I see it. The heart breaking part of collapse is we knew how to fix it, it just wasn’t economical.
@andreasherzog2222
October 15, 2024 at 5:42 pm
If you are new to regenerative agriculture, here is your list of videos to watch:
1. the legendary TED-talk of Allen Savory (kinda inventor of all this)
2. several TEDx-talks of Gabe Brown and Joel Salatin
3. check out the YT-channels of Gabe, Joel and Greg Judy (the third Guru of reg ag). They have tons of howTo-videos showing how it is done in much detail. Especially if you are a (wannabe) homesteader.
@ruceblee969
October 16, 2024 at 2:56 pm
Also Dr. Allen Williams
@jefferyheppler7650
October 17, 2024 at 7:22 pm
Farmer Jesse of @notillgrowers
@kindog86
October 15, 2024 at 7:47 pm
This needs to be everywhere n fast
@maxblair1083
October 15, 2024 at 8:53 pm
“Regenerative” livestock farming is not a climate solution. The presence of ruminants on the land does not cause the soil to sequester enough carbon to make up for the emissions from the animals themselves. We should transition to plant-based food systems, freeing up 75% of farmland (Poore and Nemecek, 2018), and return as much land as possible to nature to be rewilded. Natural ecosystems always sequester more carbon than the best managed grazing systems.
@gernf.2019
October 16, 2024 at 12:38 am
I think the idea is to stop growing all that corn and beans to feed cows in barns and feed lots. The vast percentage of the methane released by ruminates is caused by feeding them this feed vs grasses that they are naturally meant to eat. If we simply put the animals back on that land and manage their grazing we get back the largest percentage of land for food production and at the same time reacquire the bio diversity we are looking for. This with well managed forests and simply rotating in vegetable and grain production eliminates the greater amount of inputs. Almost removing inputs, increasing bio diversity and production of all food types. The key sentence to his idea was; if you don’t want to eat the animals you don’t have to but by using them we create the system that allows the other foods to be grown while sequestering carbon. Something we can’t really do on mass without inputs and mass transportation from different areas of the continents.
@666bruv
October 16, 2024 at 2:55 am
Nah, cultivation and the moron approach is the most destructive activity. It’s as destructive as de-forestation as it continues to denude the soil carbon.
@maxblair1083
October 16, 2024 at 7:37 am
@@gernf.2019 I agree that growing the corn and soy to feed animals is a big part of the problem. The issue that still remains is that regeneratively managed grazing systems use much more land, so meat consumption per capita would have to go down a lot if we want to avoid chopping down all of our remaining forests to make room for grazing. Also, when animals are taken off the land to be used for meat, it disrupts the natural nutrient cycling process which holistic management says it’s trying to mimic. To your other point- transportation accounts for only a small percentage of a food’s ghg footprint; it matters much more the kind of food you’re eating rather than where it’s coming from. So even if a plant based food system did require a global shipping system (which already exists) it would still be better for the environment.
@denniskemnitz1381
October 17, 2024 at 10:29 am
I have been searching for definition of sequestration (since the word recently surfaced) within plants or soils or nutrients or id of specific chemicals. Have not found it….. What is your definition? Dennis
@thaliacrew1
October 16, 2024 at 12:19 am
Bless you, Gabe Brown. I show Kiss the Ground education video and your testimony in that movie has reached so many students from a rural background that regenerative agriculture is THE answer for modern society to draw down carbon from the atmosphere. You are a bold and brave soul, sir.
@tbbbbb123
October 16, 2024 at 12:52 am
I’m so sorry to hear about your diagnosis, Gabe. Thank you for all you do for spreading the word.
@Dingusdongus257
October 16, 2024 at 4:14 am
The government would have to intervene to break up these massive mono-crops. I’ll take a plot if they start handing out grants and eminent domain that land near military bases that china owns. 🤚Two birds, one stone.
@GlynDomingue
October 16, 2024 at 7:15 am
I’m doing this in my garden and seeing a big difference in less than 2 years. Adding compost and using compost extra and worm castings. Looks like I may be using less water to grow a crop. The plants look a lot better and have no bugs or fungus.
@Scott2510A
October 16, 2024 at 7:51 am
The prediction is uncontrolled migration is going to cause an incredible amount of urban sprawl in the most harming ways possible. Consider the need for new schools buildings, public safety buildings, prisons, hospitals, waste water treatment facilities, many more cars on the road, more fossil fuel use, more landfills etc…Millions and millions of acres and animal habitats are going to be destroyed. I am a former democrat and environmental minded person. People need to wake up before millions and millions of acres will be destroyed. And once those acres are destroyed they are gone forever.
@prophecyrat2965
October 16, 2024 at 11:06 am
Stop beating around the bush and saying “conventional farming”. Its using Industrial Machines: call it for what it is. Its a Machine.
@gfgf2417
October 16, 2024 at 1:11 pm
Think he’s referring to the chemicals that are sprayed on the crops/food/soil
@prophecyrat2965
October 16, 2024 at 11:18 am
Too bad the majority of Civilized people are, under the “Manifest Destiny” mentality. They hate nature, the love machines and the city. The Civilized mind hates the dirt, the earth, the bugs, the germs.
There will never be peace on Earth so long as Civilized minds exist.
@prophecyrat2965
October 16, 2024 at 11:19 am
The Natives always knew. Yall just had to Manifest your Mechanical technological desntiny and destory the future for all organic life.
@MegaSnail1
October 16, 2024 at 1:15 pm
We love you Gabe. Your legacy reaches far beyond your land. I continue to share your videos with whom ever will listen. Thank you
@earthsystem
October 17, 2024 at 2:36 pm
This is an honest farmer, I love this talk. My heart goes out to him, my family were Oklahoma farmers back when, befor the bankers got their land.
@farmlandlp
October 16, 2024 at 3:29 pm
Amazing talk! Fantastic job leading the way on this! We strongly believe in the power of regenerative farming at scale!
@Yermanvillalrey
October 16, 2024 at 9:40 pm
Amazing! 📚🧠🙏💚
@matthill367
October 17, 2024 at 4:51 pm
I always had some intrigue into soil. Like life just springs out of it, yet its something so overlooked. Soil is alive, just like the planet itself.
@taracmonroe
October 17, 2024 at 8:13 pm
Love this. Excellent talk. Thank you for your insight and sharing your experiences. Hope regenerative agriculture becomes the norm very soon.