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Tom Cotter has embarked on a long journey adopting no-till on his farm and then evolving it to both organic and regenerative principles side by side. The Austin, Minn., no-tiller runs 14 cash crops in rotation with cover crops and grazing on every acre.
In this No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Bio-Till Cover Crops, Cotter — a general session speaker at the 2026 National No-Tillage Conference — shares how to balance the positive and negative effect of practices for weed control, make cover crops pay, coordinate livestock grazing with crop rotations and find markets for all that’s produced.
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No-Till Farmer podcast series is brought to you by Bio Till Cover Crops.
Bio Till cover Crops, a pioneer and leader in cover crop seeds, represents a complete lineup of seeds suitable for use in diverse soil types and growing conditions. Our focus on cover crop and regenerative forage seeds sets us apart from suppliers invested in other markets. Dealers in our distribution network are committed to your success by providing local resources, education and guidance to ensure you have the correct foundation for success. With over 50 years of experience in production, processing, packaging, and shipping, you won’t find a better fit for your farm.
Full Transcript
John Dobbterstein:
Hello everyone. I'm John Dobberstein, senior editor at No-Till Farmer, and welcome to the latest edition of the No-Till Farmer Podcast. Tom Cotter has embarked on a long journey adopting no-till on his farm and then evolving it to both organic and regenerative principles side by side. The Austin, Minnesota no-tiller runs 14 cash crops in rotation with cover crops and grazing on every acre. In this episode, Cotter, a general session speaker at the 2026 National No-Tillage Conference, shares how to balance the positive and negative effects of practices for weed control, make cover crops pay, coordinate livestock grazing with crop rotations, and find markets for all that's produced.
Tom Cotter:
This is how I start every slide because God needed a caretaker, right? So what did he do? What did he do, guys? He made a farmer. Okay, I'm going to tell you a little something. I've talked to kids in schools and they do really good. Do not let them get a higher grade than you, because I grade people. So get there like AB students. You guys need to be up there. So God needed the caretaker, so he made a farmer. So in man's eyes, what are we? What are we? We're farmers. In God's eyes, what are we? We're caretakers. You got to remember that. Oh, I got that right there. So here's some info on me. You guys can read much faster than I can, but I'll tell you a little story about myself because I want you to know me personally. I coached wrestling for 18 years.
Youth, junior high, high school, all around, wherever I was needed to help kids. And we had a kid in there, Michael. Junior high stayed, he was a beast. He whipped everyone's butt and the season came to an end and said, "Michael, I'm going to go. I'll be at the high school next year with you. You ready to go? " And he's like, "Nope, I'm not going to wrestle." So why would you not want to wrestle? I don't like the head coach. I told him, Michael, you cannot let one man hold you back because if you do that as a kid, as you go on in the future, you'll always take just one man to hold you back. And that's a pretty pillful life having one man hold you back. Should take an army to hold you back. Within me being a coach and telling this kid that is like, "Well, hang on.
Am I holding myself back on my farm?" Thinking I can't do it, thinking I can't make it work. And so more times than not, the only one holding you back is yourself. You have to believe in yourself. And Michael went on to wrestling high school. He ended up in the state championship. Tell you what, that will change your life. Not that he got to the championship, but that he didn't quit. So please don't quit even when you have failures. So you saw all that. I will tell you the bottom one. My soil health journey started four feet down because my dad wanted to see me work. And that's okay because most dad farmers want to make their sons work. So going to give you a little bit information on cash crops. This is why we used to farm. Conventional to me was full tillage and chemical.
And then we transitioned to all of a sudden we're doing no-till and we're doing organic. We're doing grass finished cattle. All fields play with cover crops. It used to be hide that one field as far as ways I could. Now it's put it front and center. So as you see that, just think about the journey that I started. So this talk is going to be the true potential of soil health. It's good or bad. It's actually good and bad. And you know what? It depends on? It depends on you because you guys get to choose where your farm goes. Now let's talk about the definition of true. The adjective, accurate, correct, factual. As an adverb, it's honestly, sincerely, faithfully. You have to be faithful and sincere and truthful to yourself. How about potential? Is the adjective? Having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future.
As a noun, something that can develop or become actual. We have potential. Michael had potential. We didn't let him quit. He reached it. Make sure you reach yours. So what's the definition of soil health? Right? Everyone's seen the soil health also virtue of soil quality, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't really care. You know why? Because I'm a farmer. Or am I a caretaker? Right? I've walked across that field a million steps. And I'm supposed to ask someone, "Hey, is my soil healthy?" They haven't even been there. Take accountability for yourself and really truthfully look at your soil. This was the last time that our soil was really healthy when the buffalo roamed and they were taking care of the grasses and they moved from spot to spot. So what do we do? What do I do? I try and mimic that.
I put the cattle out on the ground and I do it soil health using my senses. I take accountability for myself. I use my senses. What are they? Site. I can see soil health, right? We all see it. It's very easy. Cottage, cheese looking, crumbly cake. How about smell? Tell you what, when I was in that trench as a kid, four feet down, my first experience was that soil smelled dead and stale. And I couldn't find a damn warm on 1,200 acres to take my kid fishing. Started doing covers and all ofs smelled just like, wow, a good cup of coffee and I drink a lot of coffee. And then I had worms and I could take my kids fishing. How about touch? Can you touch soil health? Absolutely. I can go in and grab stuff. It's just amazing. Bear soil falls right through your hands.
Healthy soil stays there. How about taste? Jonathan Lungern told us a little bit about that yesterday. Absolutely, you can taste it. One of my favorite things is go to the farmer's market and get some potatoes grown by someone locally and then go compare that to a regular potato that I buy at the store. Night and day difference. How about hearing? Can you hear soil health? Can you hear soil health? Absolutely. You know how you hear it? You hear it when worms are pulling stuff down. And you hear it when you grab a plant and you pull it out of the ground and it literally just rips. And I had the privilege of doing that about a week ago. We were all grazing and I had to get a post in the ground and there was a clump of grass there and I grabbed it and it literally ripped out.
I'm like, "It's the middle of the fricking winter and I still see that so it helps." Get excited. But is there a sixth sense? Is there more than just what we see, what we touch, what we smell? Spiritual? Yeah. God taught me that. How about instinct? My wrestling coach taught me that. Whenever I wrestled, if I had to sit there and think about what I'm doing, I got my butt whipped. But when I just let it flow and be instinctively, I could crush anyone. How about faith? Hopefully your parents taught you that. And I think most farm families are and do. How about becoming one with nature? Guess who taught me that? My cows. Absolutely. I have learned ... I mean, sorry, Ray, Gabe, all you guys, Dave, you're great, but my cows have taught me more about soil health than anyone. They taught me, stop, look, see what's really happening.
Native Indians had it. Can you? I know I can. Just ask my daughter. Because when she was going to prom and she had that date, I knew that kid was not going to be in the future, so I want to take that picture and ... Why ruin a good picture? My daughter is beautiful. I knew that.
So how has soil health affected my neighbor and me? I used to think just how did it affect me, but I'm looking around my farms. And tell you what, they got some really nice shiny tractors. But soil health has held me accountable for my actions and that's a tough one because sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. We all have this ... I don't know if I should say necessary or evil, but it truly is. We're human. We make mistakes. It's okay. So what's the true potential of our current farming practices? Good or bad, right? Conventional farming. Me. 20 years ago. Do we have any other farmers here that are conventional 20 years ago?
Yeah, you guys have come a long way. You're here. Chronic, physical, chemical, disturbance, causing wind erosion. We see it every day. Remember our senses? Boy, hard to ignore that one. And that one. And that's local. How about water erosion? This guy still does that year after year. Oh. How about that? Everyone's seeing a water infiltration, right? One of the best ways to show people, everyone, about soil health practices. But I always look at that and I think, "Oh boy, this is scary." It's telling what we're happening on our ground. And those buckets that are underneath, I love those buckets because that's my gas tank. That's my gas tank from our corn crop in August. When it's dry, I put that water in the ground. I can get it back. So what's really scary is those front buckets. That's what city people look at in politicians and go, "Oh, regulations on farmers.
Let's nail them to the wall." I do not want someone in a damn jacket and a suit tie telling me what to do on my farm. So I have to be accountable for what I do.
It's obvious what we're doing. There's a reason why there's a dead zone and they are farmers too, fishermen. Fishermen, hunters, everything. They're doing the same thing as us, just in a different field. Pretty drastic, but I'm lucky because I'm in Minnesota. We have water quality certified farm. And Alex became the first five person with all endorsements. You beat me because I was the first one with four. I just don't have irrigation. But the best part about that was my dad before he passed away in 2017, got to see that. All right, but we got no-till farming, right? We're going to save the world. No physical, but we're still high chemical disturbance. I'm sorry. It's the way it is. I point fingers by always playing by me first. Massive decline in insects. Jonathan just talked about that yesterday. It blew my mind. What about people? We have a lot more problems in our society, human race, just like we do with the insects and animals.
But guess what? I'm going to bash on no-till guys and conventional guys. I'm going to bash even more on city people because they have the third largest crop. Grass, their damn yards, but they mow down to nothing. They have zero infiltration. Before they point fingers, they need to look at themselves.
Habitat loss of everything, and we need them. Might not seem like it, but we need our animals, our insects. But organic farming's here. No chemicals. In fact, fertilizers, more diversity because I got to have a rotation, but still very high physical disturbance. Soil degradation, that field right there, it's my neighbors, and that is the wettest field there is. And every year it's literally two weeks away from that. That is the most piss poor soil health I've ever seen. And desertification is happening all around us, all around the world. Have you ever seen that, the slice of an apple? What do we have to farm on? What we have to grow our food on? By the American Farmland Trust? It's eye opening. We have all this drastic weather. I don't call it climate warming. I call it climate extremes. I still get the same rain, but I just get it all in one shot.
I get those high winds. It's official. We keep on getting warmer and warmer. Grant, I said extremes, but you know how extreme it is that I go move cattle in my cowboy hat and my boots. But you know what's even crazier? That's February 6th in Minnesota. February 6th. And what's crazy is I'm out there capitalizing on it. These climate extremes, guess what I'm doing right there? Well, I'm drinking a Model when it's damn good, but what am I doing? I'm capturing carbon. I'm building soil health. I'm taking advantage of these extremes. I shouldn't say taking advantage of it. No, I am taking advantage. I'm capturing that sun and putting it in the ground. February in Minnesota building soil health? That's crazy. Crazier than me. So humans have been farming there is for 6,000 plus a year. You can go 10,000, whatever you want. Have we lived up to our true, honest, sincere potential?
Good or bad, right? Do you really think that they built in the devil's in the middle of the desert? It was aired, but they had water. The nile was there that had eight contributories to the Nile. Now we're down to two, I believe. They did not take that water and put it in the ground. They let it run off. And they were just plowing the ground with camels. I don't know.
In the 1950s, we had victory gardens during the war. We were growing our own food. To me, that's the most powerful generation we ever had because now we've gone a different route and we all love growing corn, don't we? We sell our product. It is. It's in the form of corn syrup. It's in all those. It's in all of us. Kind of pretty drastic. Those guys could probably beat the Vikings. Maybe the Packers too. I don't know. We're the Bears. These guys aren't going to. And they're the future generations. You know what that is? I used to buy those all the time. That's an ice cream sandwich. Who likes ice cream sandwiches? Oh boy. How long do you think that thing sat on my counter? I can eat your guesses, kids. A week. A week. Not even close. A month? Not even close. Keep guessing, guys.
Oh, about four or five months. The shelf life on the box, I actually said shelf life at 365 days. And I thought, oh my gosh, I thought that was in the freezer. I didn't realize you could leave it sitting on the counter. It never dripped and never nothing. And my son, Brandon, he came home and saw it. He said, "That looks like caulk, like window caulk." And that's what I'm putting in my gut and I wonder why I have all this. So how do we truly help soil health? And every time I say truly, guys, I mean, honestly, we question everything. Everything. Everything we're saying, that's fine. Question me. Doubt me. Find out for yourself though. Because if you don't, you will fall for anything. DDT is good for me. Oops. Mistake. We're still making those same mistakes, guys. Haven't we learned anything? So me?
How do I help soil health? I use seeds. Mother nature's blueprint for light. I literally feel that that is the greatest technology ever. I don't care about AI. I don't care about computers, whatever. That seed can sit there for a hundred years. When the right conditions arise, it will grow. And it can feed me. It can feed you. It can protect us. Wow. My phone hell, if I don't unplug that, plug that in in two days, it's dead and it's worthless. So I'm a no-till guy, right? And I'm an organic guy. Never thought I was going to do either. I just fell into them. Literally fell into it because I was a conventional guy. Got into organic because the cover crops are doing such a good job of keeping the fields clean. Boom. Organic. Had to capitalize on more so health, so I jumped a no-till.
But I have to take those two and I put them together as best I can. I'm human, so I make mistakes. And that's where I get regenerative. Regenerative farming is much different. This is my first years of planting corn and dry. Love that picture. I can do regenerative no-till. I know why I call that regenerative no-till because guess what I reduced?What's the bad thing about no-till? You got to use chemical, right? But right there, I banded my chemical right off my planter. I cut my chemical in a third and put just a little bit down there. Still a necessary evil. I still got to use it, but it made a clear path. And then I can come back and I can crimp that soybeans in between. I like to plant soybeans early May. In Minnesota, I have to wait till June 17th or no, June 7th or 10th to crimp.
This way, it gives me an option to do that. But guess what? In the organic side, I can do that too. I can cut back all that bad tillage, right? Who here thinks tillage is bad? Come on. It's a no-till, man. I know you guys all think that. But I can strip till into that cover crops and come back and crimp in between the rows again in Minnesota and still get a good soybean yield because the soybeans are planted early.
Always have something growing. Man, I love that. I get to graze. I graze all my acres. That's not a lot of forage, but it does get the cows out on that field and it makes them really dang happy. I like happy. If you know me, I'm a happy guy. Regenerative farming. This is hemp. I grew CBD in Minnesota. Got out of it now, but it was amazing. This is organic ground. I had to move my rotation. I said, "Well, why do I got to move my rotation? I'm planting 4,000 plants in a six acre field. I'm growing my nitrogen. I'm growing my insecticide right there with buckwheat. I'm growing my legumes. I'm doing fighting weeds with plants. I'm growing food. That's organic too. I can't spray." Literally that sweet corn field right there. Prior years, about four years before that, I did it again because everything's got a rotation.
That field right there was all conventional. No till sweet corn. They sprayed that field at least three times. When I did something like this in organic, never once did it need to get sprayed because you can't and it never had problem. I fought insects with pollinators bringing in more insects. Regenerative farming, I grew hemp. Hemp taught me so much about inflammation of the body first. We were literally helping people get off pharmaceuticals and take the pains of their joints and my friends, my partner's dad, blood pressure pills for 30 years, started taking our CBD. Within two months, he was off that. Boom, just like that. But that plant taught me about inflammation.
Guess what we do in farming? We create a whole lot of inflammation in our bodies and our soil. Sometimes farming's just good for the soul. Get to see that. So lots of less. What do I mean by lots of less? We always want more and more and more, don't we? Right? More morons? Right? I think of as lots of less. What do you see less of right there, guys? And I'm serious, you guys are getting a degrade. So I need some shout out. Less tillage. Less tillage. What else? Less weed pressure. But there's also less chemical too. What else? Less erosion from what? Wind and rain. Wind and water, right? What else? Less tractor where absolutely less fuel usage. What's that? I didn't hear that. Yes. I like that. You're good. You should be teaching too. How about less temperature swings? I have a blanket on the ground.
You think those microbes like to get really cold in those Minnesota nights and they get cooked to heck the next day? Absolutely not. Put a nice blanket on there. What else? Less moisture loss. How do I put that into lots of less?
Less evaporated loss. Less runoff. How about less soil and plant disease? Because the more plants you have, actually the less problems you will have. Less rock picking. Yes. How about less tile drainage? I used to tile. My dad for years wanted me to go tile this one spot that was about a half mile away. It was literally the size of this corner right here. Like, dad, I'm not going to spend that much tile for one spot. And then I switched to no-till. And that spot disappeared. And then guess what I did? I switched to organic on that field. Guess what happened? Gas, guys. The last spot came back. SOB, son of a gun. I can't believe it.
John Dobbterstein:
Bio till cover crops, a pioneer and leader in cover crop seeds, represents a complete lineup of seeds suitable for use in diverse soil types and growing conditions. The focus on cover crop and regenerative forage seeds sets biotill apart from suppliers invested in other markets. Dealers in the company's distribution network are committed to your success by providing local resources, education, and guidance to ensure you have the correct foundation for success. With over 50 years of experience in production, processing, packaging, and shipping, you won't find a better fit for your farm than with bio till cover crops.
Tom Cotter:
How about less chemical in our water? Less nutrients in our water. Less monetary input? It's pretty important right now. How about less bank visits, farm loans, less stress? Because this is kind of fun doing regenerative farming, right? Less stress, less farm closures. How about less farmer suicides? This seems like a damn good thing. How about less regulations from city people? We have to be proactive. So how do I truly live up to my best potential in my farming and personal life? Because I don't split them. It's all connected, guys. I follow my heart. Absolutely. Boy, you got to have a strong heart to farm, right? I follow my environment, my climate. You saw me drinking the Modelo. I'm following what Mother Nature's giving me. How about economy? To me, this kind of farming just makes sense, right? How about instinct? I truly think that we all know what we should be doing, but we're all just too damn scared to do it.
How about ROI? Because all I ever hear from a damn pioneer guy is, "Yield is king." Bullshit. ROI is use your brain, not your ego. We all got to have the biggest yield. You sound like kids in the fricking junior high gym. How about faith? We got to have faith, right? Because every year we're taking the biggest gamble. I don't know any other ... No one else does this in the United States like we do. How about my soil health principles?
So health principles. It's that. Simple. Right? You guys can read that. We'll go through it. Shelter, clothes, feed the soil, protect it. Guess what I'm doing right there? Oh, I'm feeding the soil. That was my first hemp field the next year. I laid down so much biomass. It was literally like that thick. And I worried a little bit. I was like, "Man, I wonder what it's going to be like next year, but we'll cross that battle when we get there." You know how much there was there the next year? Nothing because my soil life devoured it and loved it and it paid me back by a good hemp harvest. But if I put that green stuff on there, I also got to think about if you're doing shelter for the soil and protecting it, you got to have high carbon nitrogen ratio stuff too because that green stuff, the microbes and soil life will eat.
So I want something that will stand out structure to hold and protect also. Because if you build a house, you have the walls, but you got to have that structure to hold it, protect it. A lot like people, right? When we have natural disasters, we shelter and we feed. That's simple. How about minimize soil disturbance? Absolutely. My first time till planning, I called up wearing DJ because I like to heckle him. I called him like 17 times. Called him a few choice words, but he talked me off the ledge and is a success
And I was able to move on by networking with good friends. But when we minimize disturbance, it's physically and it's chemically. They're both big disturbance. Now I want you guys to think about this. Energies cannot be created nor destroyed. It's just changed from one form to another. Physically, chemically, that's a lot of energy. When you take a ripper through the soil, that's what the microbes feel. Massive explosion, destruction. Shout out to no-till guys. But then I also want you to remember those same guys that built that bomb right there are the same guys making the chemicals too. It's pretty drastic and it is. That look like healthy soil? Much disturbance? No, it looks beautiful. That's Chernobyl. The worst disaster we ever thought was ever going to happen. Nothing's ever going to grow. But life grew. What did they do? They got rid of what? They got rid of people.
That chronic destruction that we do, physically, chemically, whatever. It healed itself. So that gives them a lot of hope because the soil can bounce back. How about continuous living root? That's a hard one sometimes, but it's a fun one too. For me, it was pretty simple. I have no money, so let's just grab some junk growery hose and let's build something. Put them together. Man, now I'm interceding. And I still go back to this picture. Right there, I have the soil protector with that residue and I'm planting more plants to feed, shelter, and feed. It's easy. And when I plant That stuff in there, I can put a couple pounds of red clover and other stuff. And do you really think that I'm going to get that much credit for that nitrogen? No. But I do want that soil to start learning that, hey, we don't have to fight over one mono crop every year.
We can actually work in harmony and have six, seven plants out here because when you do that, that soil starts giving back. And in my organic, look at that ground. Yes, I did some tillage there. I was a pit negative, but I still have a lot of residue covering. And actually, I have more success in organic interseeding because I have no chemical layover or residual. Have that living plant out there as much as possible. Right there. My brother-in-law, Tony, was in the tractor. I'm in the combine and it's literally like the best smelling salad I've ever had before. Who says that? The best smelling salad? I guarantee you've never said that, but we did. It was amazing. It was ready to graze. That's two days later. Who doesn't have livestock here? Okay. You don't have livestock, but what you do, you get taken ad out in the paper, local newspaper or Facebook, put up free range veacans.
They will come out. They will pay you to trek through your field. Just make sure you use a high strength electric fencer because they're not very smart. But seriously, of all the animals in the world, there's less than my fingers and my toes. They're toxic to us as far as meat. I think we should be eating meat. But in the United States and Canada alone, there's 700 plants that'll kill you dead. That's how I know the plants are made to feed the soil and the animals are made to use plants and then we take a little bit. A little bit, right? Not a lot, because that's what we do. We overtake. It needs to be a two-way street here. Plant diversity. That's my favorite. Why do I like diversity? Because in a room, a whole bunch of white people, I'm got the nicest damn tan here.
I'll guarantee it. Diversity is good. Diversity's really good. Because when my cows go out and eat ... Let's see. Who likes the steak? No, I'm not going to use steak because I could probably eat that every day, but who likes pizza? Monday? Tuesday? Wednesday? Thursday? Friday? No, no, no. You'll get sick of it really fast. You want diversity. I give my cows a smorgage board. I used to think my grass finished cattle. There was some European fancy recipe to put weight on them. No. Let them choose. Give them a smorgasbord. So diversity. What's the best looking root there, guys? The radish? So bigger is always better. Okay. We're going to move on to someone else. Who else? What's that? The one in the middle. Hey, that's going deep. That's a button weed. That's a velvet leaf. It's a tool. It's doing tillage for me. My ants are there to fix something.
We need to quit looking at them as evil and started learning what is my mother nature telling us. Livestock integration. My other favorite one. Cool thing about livestock. Well, for one, it's the hottest thing in the ag world right now is livestock, beef, sheep, hogs. Or not hogs, but goats. This gives me an opportunity to capitalize on that field, those acres that I have that usually only get used like five months out of the year. I get to use them year round. Dual incomes. We are naturally greedy guys. I want to use that asset to its full potential. So in the spring and early summer, I can graze before soybean, sweet corn, sunflowers, buckwheat, hemp. And I have organic and no-till, so they're staged totally different. I have a lot of options to graze. I don't go into my pastures until June 15th. You know how much growth I have in that pasture by then?
Amazing. They're mostly cool season grasses, but that's where I calf. I don't have to do anything for the calves. The ground does it for me. But yet, late summer when I come off the pasture, usually late September, following peas, small grains, sweet corn, sunflowers, buckwheat, corn interceded. I have warm and cool season grass that vacuums, legumes. And they're out there grazing. That's the top. That's my ranger. I'm sitting on top of that. That's my cow. Oh, I don't need ... I have a mec because there ain't no dang fly is going to stay on that back. But there's even other pictures where every picture I take is there's always birds. Guess what? I need those birds to eat those insects too. Help me. How much carbon do you think I'm putting in the ground right there? Oh, I'm pumping a lot and I love it.
So do my cows. Wintertime. I'm still grazing on peas, small grains, bale grazing, super easy. In this high tech world, variable rate technology is put the bales where I want the cows to shit. That simple. It's that easy. Warm season residue. There's cool season grasses, mostly Nebraskas. I used to think that cows only wanted green stuff. No, no. They will pick what they want when they need to. Different time of the day, different day of the month. It doesn't matter. They know. You know why? Because they have their senses way better than I do. And they're actually a lot smarter than my feed nutrition guy too. That's what it looks like in the wintertime. I can still taste so hell in the winter. I can pull those plants up. It's plyable. It's delicious. And guess what? My cows? Oh, they're happy. And you all know why?
They're out where they're supposed to be, just like the buffalo used to be. I guess they're free them playful. Moving them to a new paddock. Yeah. They're having fun. But I'll tell you, happy does mean healthy. And I can prove it to you by go to a nursing home and go look at your uncles and your aunts and hopefully not your parents. Pretty miserable. And now they're not healthy too. So contacts. Got to have that one in there, right? Because we got to use a little excuse that, oh, it doesn't work on my farm. I have to do that. Don't use that as a crutch to get out of jail free card. Make it worse. Work. Be truthful to yourself. Honest with yourself. So many times people just say, oh, I guess I have to do that tillage. Well, there's a better way, I bet, if you're truthful.
Got to use that chemical. You know there's a better way. Right there? That's one of my favorite pictures. Not because I like looking at cow butts, but I do because that's how I grade them. But I have all my soil principles there. Grounds protected. No disturbance. Living root. Diversity. Livestock integration. And look at my context. I'm making it work. And my neighbor ... Yeah. Should we talk about my neighbor? Yeah, it just doesn't work here. Got too much water, but I'm on the lower side. Your contacts is only as fake and easy as you want to make it, but be true to yourself. So increasing my potential, because man, we're doing these soil principles. I want something back. There's money there. Fee of my soil microbes, the same ones that are in my microbe and my gut. Balancing my fungi back to your different practices, different tests, right?
So what's in my soil, Rick Haney, Liz? Lance. There's a whole lot in my soil. It's a measure of the soil's net worth. What's that ground really worth? Most extract tests. Yeah, you can read that. I don't need to read that. Total nutrient digest. There's a lot of potential there. The more carbon you pump in, the more we can get back. So who's the banker? Who's holding all that valuable nutrients? The soil. It has it right there. That's the bank. What's the deposits and withdrawals? That's my farming practices, guys. That's your farming practices. You only get back what you put in, right? Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad. Positive, negatives. On my farm, here's my deposits and withdrawals. My pluses, no-till. Plant a cover. Reduce chemicals, add rotation, diversity, non- GMO trades, biologicals, livestock manure, livestock grazing, pamphlets. We can go on and on about the good things we do out of our soil.
But we have to be honest and talk about the negatives too. Every time I do a tilt pass, every time you do a chemical pass, insecticides, fungicides, synthetics, they all are hurting. So my farm and a lot of conventional farms out there are whole login negatives. Remember soil health at the beginning? Scientists want to use that, but I'm a farmer. I want simple and I want to just use my senses. Here you go. I can tell I had so bad soil health. Nowadays, there's my no-till, there's my organic plus three and plus four. That doesn't mean that's the same thing every year because you know what? Soil health is not just a dang plateau that you get to. It's an ever changing and flowing. And all I got to do is make sure that my projectory goes up. And I have hiccups. This year, as much rain as we got, my organic was pretty rough.
But I have to look at what's follow and see what I'm doing on the ground, just make sure that I'm always doing better soil health practices all the way around.
So we got this bank, we got these deposits. Who's the bank teller? The one you have to go talk to. Soil microbes. Man, treat them good. Feed them carbon. And your transactions will be much easier. Mistreat them. Now transactions, life gets harder. It's a lot like married life, right? When I piss off my life, oh boy, I paid for it for like a week. That was supposed to be funny, guys. Come on. But I build this soil health and those worms give back, the microbes get back. I can be up to 4.6 times more efficient or more nitrogen, phosphorus. Those earthworms, oh man, I love earthworms. That picture right there, me and TJ dug that up in the field and he was trying to video it and the whole time I was like, "Oh." And I'm swearing and cursing like, wow, wow. He's like, "I can't use this video now.
Thank you, Tom." But it was amazing. I didn't know so I could do that. I was used to that trench four feet down and seeing misery. So what's our true potential guys? Most people look at this picture and, "Ah, that's not real farming." Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, it is. I see it every day. It's right there in green and brown, black and white, whatever you want to say. It's there in front of us. We pretend not to see, but these signs are all around us. I drive by the light field and I see that. That's a pretty damn good sign. I was lucky enough to be a leopol and I do mean lucky because we're just trying to do good things here. I got the leopold winter this year in Minnesota and we're all shooting the video in the sunflower field and I'm in a 40 or 50 acre field in the middle of it and there's a hummingbird flying around my head.
Have you ever seen that in the ag field? No. That's a good sign. That's a really good sign. So how about the signs of financials? Farm revenue, net farm income.
24D back in 1946, right around the war time, right? Oh, right after the war, 10,000 pesticides were registered. I told you, the guy's making the bombs. They're the ones doing the chemicals. We got to be truthful with ourselves. But tell you what, we're going to have the green evolution. We're going to let technology fix us. We're going to help family farms. We're going to feed the world. Whoops. That's getting wider and wider. Life estate's going to help. It's a tool. All of these are tools. I'm okay with tools, but I don't use my nine 16 inch wrench as a hammer. I use it when it's needed and that is it. 300 horse power tractor. Man, we can destroy that ground pretty damn fast now.
Egyptian and people back in early days pulling an oxen through the ground slowly. It's not blowing it up. GMOs are going to make everything better. Yeah, not. We're still not making any better incomes guys. 500 horsepower tractor. Pretty soon AI is going to be on there too. It's a tool. I tell you what, if we can't sustain nature right now like we have for the last 150 years on my farm, how are we going to do it when we're using 10 times the energy? I don't know how we can survive. Loss of farms and communities. That's a pretty good sign. Pretty good sign right there too. I was on a co-op board for 18 years too. I remember when that magazine came out and all the farmers laughed, "Ah, they're going to be paying $10 for eggs." I'm like, "Yes." Because I want to sell $10 eggs, but they didn't want to give the consumer what they wanted.
I know what my wife and what I want for my kids. I want to give them something good. I'm lucky enough to work with Seven Sundays and Simple Mills, put out some really good products. They care about their consumer. So human health, some more signs, guys. 4%. Those guys doing the victory gardens, those boy kids. Yeah, they weren't sick. The other ones were. Autism doubled. Who has autism in the family? I do. Nephew. Man, he's awesome. But how do we sustain our country when the projectory rate is that high? We can't do it. 102 men, cancer. I guarantee you. Well, let's see. Who's had cancer in their family? Yeah. It wasn't like that long ago. And you can't tell me that it's hereditary because New England was always where the highest cancer rates are. Now it's down the Mississippi Basin. And actually, Iowa's actually right up in the top two now or is the top one?
Yeah. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. It's just not what we should be doing. One and four people have fertility issues. We spent 700 billion, and this is old, this is from like six years ago, five years ago. 700 billion on our military. Is that a lot of money? Yeah, it is. But that's nothing to what we pay for healthcare. All of us. There's a lot of money out there. Someone's making it. Someone's making that money. So what do I do? I want to teach farmers and help farmers, but I can't stop there. We need to teach consumers too. On our farm, we hold lots of field days and yes, we get one farm at a time, right, Mark? Feel pretty good about that. But man, when I can move 20 to 50 consumers in one afternoon to put their money where their health is, now I'm getting paid more from better practices.
Here's a little video.
Minnesota Soil Coalition helps me do this. Every state I'm sure has a group that will help you do these field days. Last year, what did we do? 24. What did we do, Mark? Like eight field days, nine field days on my farm. We had a lot of people. I could not do that alone. But man, these field days, Troy Daniel, the head of NRCS, he was going to come down, good friend. "Hey, what day should I come for? The farmer day or the consumer field day? "He's like, " Well, do you want to come and work like you always do? Or do you want to have fun and really learn how to change your life? "He came to the consumer one and that year was a drought and literally the minute we got done, it started raining.
There are signs all around us, guys. We have to watch them. We have to use our senses. Tell you what, that bus right there, it's not mine. It's a friend of mine's. That was one popular bus. Cannot believe how many people want to jump on a topless bus. I even make sure it's now a topless bus tour. And they're looking at me like, " What the ... "Like, no, but it's a conversation starter. You go to the bar, you go out to eat, someone asks," What the heck is that? ""Well, this is us farmers trying to show you consumers. It's a regenerative farm tour. We're just going to change your life." "So are we living up to our true potential or are you just ignoring the signs that are all around us? ""Are you believing in yourself?" Because I really think that's very important. Coach kids, coach kids are in wrestling.
We'd have to do wrestling moves 1200 repetitions. They could do it after two weeks of practice, and then they'd go out to the wrestling match and they wouldn't know what the hell they were doing until all of a sudden something clicked in their head and literally it was just like this and then they could go do it. I was just like that too. I started believing in myself.
Not learning from your mistakes is another thing. My boy was a great wrestler. Oh, man. He loved watching. I always told him, I said, "Man, I would rather watch you lose a really good match than to win an easy one." Because what did he learn when he went out and stuck a kid? "Nothing. You're playing with him. But you go up against state champ and run that guy to three to two? Oh man, you worked your butt off. You learned. This was me. Well, this is how I've felt in my farming history.
I thought I was doing something good 20 years ago. I really did think. I really did think I was helping people growing food. And I realized, man, I don't know if I'm living up to my true potential. I'm going to tell you some biggest soil health failures that ... And we could make a huge list, but I got to have mine. You don't plant something. If you don't know what a green plant is that's not a corner or soybean, just go out and plant something. We need to learn different plants. Thinking tillage chemical will solve everything. It won't. And don't become an addict.
Me? I'm an addict. If I stay away from potato chips, I'm fine, but as soon as I head grab one, I'll eat that whole dang bag. Same with our farming, our overuse of tillage, overuse of chemical. Thinking you can't make it work in your fields, because you're right. How about networking with other farmers? Man, you got to do that. It's great to come and listen to people here, but the best interaction is at that table. And if you're at a table where's only three people or two or whatever, you made the biggest mistake because you should go sit at a full table and meet everyone and see what's really going on. Make that human relation.
Cover crop termination. Man, if I'm going to grow something, I better learn how to take it out. And I'm trying to learn and I make mistakes without tillage or without chemical, but sometimes I make mistakes. Sometimes there's mother nature changes the scenario on me. Not realizing everything is connected because it is. I'll guarantee you that. How about not enough diversity? Absolutely. But I'm not just talking about farming. I'm talking about your life too. Diversity, spice of life. How about patience? Man, you got to have patience for your growing covers. 20 people. "Oh, it's not growing." "Well, you know what? Go fishing, come back. It will be greener. Trust me.
" For every action, there's a reaction. You guys get to choose if it's positive or negative. Farming life and personal life. You go to a gas station and you're rude to that clerk. Guess what? That ripple effect's going to be 10 people are going to get the same exact treatment. Make a difference. Be positive. Not listening to Mother Nature. Is she mad? No? Oh, I think she's screaming at us. I think she's very mad. So almost done. Healthy humans need what? Oxygen. Water. Food. Shelter. Wow. Rest. Wow. What do we need? Absolutely. We need love. What's a healthy soil need? What do you think, guys? Oxygen, water, food, shelter, rest. So let's show it some love. Simple as that. So are you living up to your true potential? As a farmer? Yeah. Someone is watching. So my dad was a storyteller. He always said, everybody has a storytelling.
I fought it. Well, there's my story. Thank you.
John Dobbterstein:
Well, that's a wrap for this episode of the No-Till Farmer Podcast. We want to thank Tom Cowter for his inspirational presentation about soil health and regenerative farming. We also want to thank our sponsor Biotill Cover Crops for making this program possible. A transcript of this episode in our archive of previous podcast episodes are both available at notillfarmer.com/podcasts. We're Tom and our entire staff here at No-Till Farmer. I'm John Dobberstein. Thanks for listening. Keep on no-tilling and have a great day.
