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Today we are replaying my conversation with Dr. Allen Williams.  This episode was originally recorded in 2018, but the topics are still relevant today.

Allen is a 6th generation family farmer and founding partner of Grass Fed Insights, LLC, Understanding Ag, LLC, and the Soil Health Academy. He is also the Chief Ranching Officer for Joyce Farms.

Dr. Williams earned a master’s and PhD in livestock genetics and physiology, and after spending 15 years as a tenured professor fully entrenched in conventional agriculture, Allen decided to leave academia. He realized that all the current research and methods were little more than a band-aid over the gushing wound that is our agriculture system. Dr. Williams now devotes his career to promoting a better way.

In this “recycled” episode, Dr. Williams explains the connection between soil health and livestock and debunks myths around regenerative agriculture. Listen in as we chat about: 

• Allen’s back story and what led him to his current career path
• How losing small-scale ag is devastating rural America
• The state of soil today
• Improving water holding capacity
• The history of ruminants in America
• What rewilding actually looks like
• How regenerative ag can help birds
• Regenerative ag at-scale

Resources:

Soil Health Academy

Understanding Ag 

Joyce Farms

Audubon’s Conservation Ranching Program

 

Connect with Dr. Williams:

Website: Soil Health Academy | Understanding Ag |Joyce Farms

Instagram: @joycefarms

Facebook: Soil Health Academy |Joyce Farms

Twitter: @academysoil

YouTube: Soil Health Academy 

 

Episode Credits:

Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connelly. Our producer is Emily Soape. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Patreon supporters, and listeners.

If you’re ready to take your support for a nutritious, sustainable, and equitable food system to the next level, join my Global Food Justice Alliance community on Patreon. You will have access to ad-free podcasts, exclusive videos, a discussion community, and much more. Go to sustainabledish.com/join to support my work.

Today’s podcast is sponsored by Alec’s Ice Cream, the first and only verified regenerative, organic ice cream and the best-tasting ice cream I have ever had. They are Certified Humane and use 100% A2 dairy, so even for those of you who are sensitive to dairy, you may find that Alec’s is a treat for your tastebuds and your insides. Check it out by going to sustainabledish.com/icecream and use code DIANA for 20% off your order. 

 

Quotes:

“I, for one, don’t want to sustain an already degraded resource; I want to rebuild that resource and regenerate it and renovate it.” – Allen Williams, PhD

“People who think that eating more plants and less meat is actually going to be better for our health and better for our environment are completely misguided.” – Diana Rodgers, RD

“First and foremost, animal proteins produced on thriving, biologically active soils are absolutely one of the most complete nutritional foods that man can eat, period.” – Allen Williams, PhD

 

Transcript:

Diana Rodgers, RD  0:01

Welcome to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. I’m Diana Rodgers, a real food registered dietitian, author, and sustainability advocate. I co-host this podcast with James Connelly who was a producer on my film Sacred Cow. I also founded the Global Food Justice Alliance, an initiative advocating for the inclusion of animal source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs for a more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable worldwide food system. You can check it out and join me at global food justice.org. Thanks again for listening. And now on to our show. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  0:40  

Hi, everyone, Diana here and because I’m doing so much travel for the Global Food Justice Alliance, I’ve dipped into the archive and selected some of my favorite shows for you in order to keep my content flowing on a weekly basis. If you’d like to keep up to date on the travel and advocacy work I’m doing please join my growing Patreon community. You’ll get access to a discussion community, ad-free podcasts, exclusive interviews, and you’ll be helping to spread the word about the importance of livestock to our global food system. Visit sustainabledish.com/join and thank you so much for your support.

(Alec’s Ice Cream Ad) Diana Rodgers, RD 1:20

Today’s podcast is sponsored by Alec’s Ice Cream, the first and only verified regenerative, organic ice cream and the best-tasting ice cream I have ever had. They use 100% A2 dairy so even for those of you who are sensitive to dairy, you may find that Alec’s is a treat for your tastebuds and your insides. So if you want an out-of-this-world, delicious, and creamy ice cream, that’s also earth and gut-friendly, give this stuff a try. My favorite flavor is the Matcha Chocolate Chip but they also have a bunch of other delicious options. Check it out by going to sustainabledish.com/icecream and use code DIANA for 20% off your order. That’s sustainabledish.com/icecream and you can get 20% off with my name D-I-A-N-A so check it out and now on to the show.

Diana Rodgers, RD  2:16  

Welcome back to the podcast everybody. Today I have with me, Allen Williams, a leader in the regenerative grazing movement. Welcome to the podcast, Allen. 

Allen Williams, PhD  2:25  

Well, thank you. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  2:26  

And Allen, you have a PhD in genetics and physiology. And before we get into the main meat of what I’d love to talk about in the podcast, let’s learn a little bit about how you came to where you are today. What, where, how did you grow up? And how did you develop such an interest in all of this?

Allen Williams, PhD  2:49  

You bet. So I was born and raised on the family’s farm in South Carolina. And they have been there since 1840. So I represent the sixth generation to have been born and raised there. It was, say, a wonderful childhood. Now that I look back on it. You know, we weren’t a wealthy family by any means. But we had incredible richness in terms of the environment that we lived in. And the food that I was lucky enough to partake of as a child. 90% of what we ate growing up was grown or raised right there on the farm. So I had this absolutely incredible food experience and didn’t know it. You know, if you’re in the middle of it as a child, you don’t even realize it. And Diana, I really didn’t realize just how wonderful my food experience growing up was until I went away to college. So I went to Clemson University and and still distinctly remember the very first time in the university dining hall. And I just thought, Wow, this food is awful. These people don’t know how to cook. And it took me a while to realize no, it’s far more than knowing how to cook. The food itself that they were serving wasn’t very good. And that stayed with me for quite a while. But I ended up going on to grad school and getting a master’s and PhD in genetics and physiology specifically pertaining to livestock production for farms and ranches. And so I became heavily entrenched in the commodity and conventional food sector in agricultural sector for quite a few years. And it was in that experience that I started to realize that, you know, everything that we were doing was really, I call it putting a BandAid on a gushing wound. We were – all of our research and everything that we were doing we were really only addressing the symptom and never the cause. So we were looking at livestock that we were having more and more health problems, performance problems. Our soils were steadily degrading, we were seeing more incidences in our fields, whether they were row crops or whether they were forage crops for our livestock, of disease, and, you know, particularly fungal type diseases, and pest pressure, and so forth. And so all of the research was sort of oriented, you know, towards, again, what I call these bandaid fixes for these massive problems. And it took me 15 years in of being a full-tenured professor to finally realize that we’re not addressing the root cause to any of this and farmers and ranchers are having an increasingly hard time being able to make even a decent living, and it was becoming exceedingly hard for young people to enter back into agriculture. And at the same time, our foods are becoming less nutritious, and far less flavorful. You know, the proteins I grew up on from our farm: the chicken and the beef, and the pork and the lamb. And all of that was just, you know, it was simple seasonings growing up, you didn’t need to cover it or smother it with sauces, and herbs and seasonings and spices and all of this just to have flavor. So in the year 2000, after being a full-tenured professor, I made a very difficult decision to leave the university, and I did that because I knew that we weren’t going to be able to solve the problems that we were facing through the typical university research channels. And so I left the university to try to do something far different. And that’s what we’ve been doing ever since.

Diana Rodgers, RD  7:09  

And did you have an ‘aha’ moment? Or I mean, something must have… was this… this doesn’t sound like it was a gradual change?

Allen Williams, PhD  7:18  

Well, it really was a combination of ‘aha’ moments. It wasn’t one single thing. You know, I kept having this nagging in the back of my mind, you know, through all my years in academia of why are we having to have more inputs? Why are we having to use more chemicals? Why are we having to use more antibiotic? And why are net margins for farms and ranches continuing to shrink, and rural economies being devastated? And I had to keep asking myself that question, because as a child, growing up in our community, we had thriving rural economies and again, as I related to you, the food experience was wonderful and we didn’t have all of those health issues with our cattle, with our other livestock, with our soils, with our plants. And so it was just sort of this slow realization and that nagging question at the back of my mind of why that finally drove me to make the move. But probably the thing that pushed me over the edge there was, while I was in academia, I also did quite a bit of consulting, predominantly in my specialty areas of genetics and physiology on many farms and ranches. And I started seeing a handful of farmers and ranchers who were doing things very differently. And sort of against the flow, you know, against the convention. And they were making far more money. The foodstuffs that they were producing, were far healthier and packed with minerals and antioxidants, and so forth. And the flavor profiles were what I remembered as a child and so as I experienced that, making my rounds consulting, I had to dig deeper. And I had to determine what are you guys doing differently. And when I did that, that’s what really started me down my path. And I’ve always farmed and ranch myself, you know, on the side, but since 2000, we’ve been doing that full time as well as our consulting and we have a meat company that we sell pasture proteins through and so that’s been driving force ever since is how do we bring back the flavor? How do we bring back the nutrition and how do we restore profitability to farms in our rural economies and in how do we rebuild our degraded soul? That’s what drives me every day now.

Diana Rodgers, RD  10:08  

And so many things that you’re saying about treating the symptoms with band-aids over gushing wounds is so also prevalent in our nutrition sciences and medical fields, especially when we talk about Type 2 diabetes in our modern food environment, right. Where these foods are hyper-palatable, and they’re programmed to give you diabetes. It’s just such a shame that we’re just telling people everything in moderation, when you can’t possibly moderate these foods that trigger people to overeat. So I see these connections so easily. And it’s all part of the same problem. So I’m really humbled by people that are doing this in other fields. And one thing that you mentioned that reminded me of a previous conversation you and I have had is about the loss of rural communities, the strength of rural towns, will you talk a little bit? You had mentioned so now you’re in Mississippi, right? 

Allen Williams, PhD  11:07  

Yes, that’s correct. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  11:09  

And you had mentioned to me previously about the county that you’re in and how there used to be thriving small towns because of small scale ag. And will you talk about sort of the state of your county now?

Allen Williams, PhD  11:27  

Yes, I’d be happy to. You know, just a quick story here to give the background in the first half of the 1900s Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, and that’s a Choctaw Indian word. This used to be the home of the Choctaw Nation. And Oktibbeha County, Mississippi had more than 800 operating dairies a single county, single county. And those 800 dairies supported all of those families and these were all small dairies, but yet these families existed and even thrived on the small dairies. Almost all of them had what I call small breeds, like jerseys and Guernsey’s and so forth that were able to graze effectively. So these would be today, what we call a grazing dairy, which was common back then and uncommon today. In the communities and towns surrounding all of these dairies, were absolutely, thriving bustling communities. At that point in time building and growing. There were five creameries, in the county, that all of these dairies supported, as well as all the Allied industry and all the other businesses. Well, come the 1960s and 70s, the USDA and even Land Grant University started pushing dairy farmers to totally change the way they were doing business. They, first of all, they told him that they were using the wrong breed of cow that they needed to get a much larger breed, like the whole thing that would produce a lot more milk per cow. And then they needed to instead of letting those cattle graze to obtain the nutrition, they needed to build barns that would house these cattle, and turn those pastures into row crop fields, and plant crops to harvest and then mechanically bring back to the cattle in the barns to feed them. And they were also told they needed to build and install these modern milking parlors and so forth, and all of that cost money. Unfortunately, many of these dairy farmers went down that road. And they did that. And today in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi in 2018, there are zero private dairies operating where once there were more than 800. There is one dairy in the county and ironically, it is the Mississippi State University research dairy. That, to me, that’s just almost cruelly ironic. And all of those families, you know, though many of those farms are no longer operational at all. And of course, all of those communities and towns throughout the county are completely boarded up. There’s only one thriving city in the entire county now and that’s Starkville, and that’s because it’s the home of Mississippi’s Land Grant University, and everybody has to drive in to work to earn a living. So we’ve got all of this land sitting here that people can’t make a living off of anymore. So it’s sort of a synopsis of what we’re looking at all across rural USA.

Diana Rodgers, RD  15:03  

We really are. And I spent a lot of time driving around New England. And you see all these boarded up small towns, especially in New Hampshire, Southern New Hampshire, all over Vermont, and parts of Western Massachusetts. And we also had a lot of dairies here and other agricultural industries that just aren’t here anymore. And once they leave, and people start, you know, the fallout, I think, I see it so quickly, but we can describe it. For, you know, these farming families, once you start losing a lot of… we see it here on our farm, for example, where now it’s hard to get vets now. It’s hard to find a slaughterhouse now. It’s Tractor Supply is really far away and not convenient. And just to get a part for something is a whole day of research and travel to get one part that we might need. Where when you had a lot of farms nearby, you could either call a neighbor or go to a closer store. And so the closing of small America really did have a very, very big part of why that happened is because of the loss of our small farms and all the policies that happened in the 70s.

Allen Williams, PhD  16:26  

You know, when here, here’s an even more ironic thing about that diet is the fact that just as I related the way that I grew up, and the foods that we ate, were so delicious, and nutritious. You know, so they were for these 800+ farm families in Oktibbeha County but now, what we’re seeing, and you know this very well, from your work, all of these people in these rural counties across the US, they are living in a food desert, and they have some of the greatest health problems and eat, you know, very poorly compared to those in cities and so forth. So we’re actually seeing the complete reversal of what things used to be like here in the US.

Diana Rodgers, RD  17:21  

And yes, and Mississippi in particular has some I don’t know if it’s the highest Type 2 diabetes, or one of the highest, but I know that it’s particularly at risk.

Allen Williams, PhD  17:32  

That’s correct. Diabetes, obesity, heart disease, cancer – the state of Mississippi is you know, in the top five in all of those, unfortunately.

Diana Rodgers, RD  17:43  

Yeah. And so as we as we just turn the small towns into big box stores and stop supporting local businesses, that, you know, we’re just importing processed food from who knows where, and it’s affecting both our health and the strength of our communities, right. Yeah, Wendell Berry talks about this whole lot. And it’s really, it was nice to talk to you about that as well. And to make that connection between because I think a lot of people they see small-town America, and they don’t really make that connection there to people leaving small towns and going into cities and the loss of our small town and what that means for our food systems in our culture.

Allen Williams, PhD  18:28  

Yes, and even, you know, many in the rural communities now are eating predominantly out of convenience stores.

Diana Rodgers, RD  18:40  

So let’s talk a little bit then about some of what I wanted to get into with you, which is these myths that we can’t possibly feed our growing populations on the way we used to farm and how we must have modern industrial chemical agriculture with GMO crops and all that comes with that as the only way to feed people moving forward. What do you have to say about that?

Allen Williams, PhD  19:08  

Well, the first thing that I have to say about that is said that is unequivocally not true. You know, we know from our work and from what we’ve been able to do on our own farms, and from what is being replicated on farms and ranches all across the US and, frankly, globally, that if we first were to restore what I call the foundation, the soil itself and the biology and microbiology of that soil, that many of the things that we believe we have to have, from the synthetic fertilizers to the chemicals to the excessive tillage and so forth. All of those go away when we restore the incredible resiliency and productivity of nature. So, we know now that we can be not just productive enough, but we can actually be much more highly productive. And I’m actually going to counter that argument by saying that very way of agriculture in talking about the very conventional agriculture that we’ve come to, you know, to embrace today, if we continue down that road, we will not be able to feed the world. We’re going to experience global issues relative to hunger, relative to, you know, disease in our plants and our livestock to continuously degrading soil, to continuously eroding water quality, and to rise in all types of diseases and neurological disorders in humans due to, again, the continued use of these chemicals in our environment. So my counter is that we can’t continue the way that we’re going. The very way that we’re stating, you know, must happen to feed the world is absolutely the way that we’re going to eventually starve the world.

Diana Rodgers, RD  21:24  

Yeah, will you talk a little bit more about that? Because I always lead that way as well and I don’t think people even have any idea, and maybe my listeners do? But for those who are new, or maybe not as familiar with the damages of industrial agriculture, can you just can you just briefly illustrate some… I know you can’t go into all of it in five minutes, but will you give us an idea?

Allen Williams, PhD  21:51  

Absolutely. And again, I’ll start with the soil, okay. So, what we have seen there is that we have completely eroded our soil physical, chemical and biological structure. And so what that is causing very simply, is, we have soil that is now basically a sterile media that we have to apply synthetically everything to get something to grow properly. And then of course, a sterile media cannot confirm any, or confer any immunity on to plants and animals that’s developed through exposure to bacteria and viruses and so forth. So when we create a sterile environment, we actually create opportunities for disease to become wholly rampant. Our soils themselves now have such poor aggregation meaning the gluing together of soil particles, by biotic glues produced by soil microbes, that are water infiltration rates on many farms and ranches, not just in the US, but globally are less than a half inch per hour. That means that if we have flooding impacts, or drought, it’s going to greatly exasperate that situation. So floods will be much more severe, droughts will be much more severe because we have no water holding capacity in our soils.

Diana Rodgers, RD  23:36  

And with management techniques like Holistic Management or A&P. One of the great things that cattle can do on the ground is improve the water holding capacity. And that means that rainfall is much more effective. And that’s what we need to happen. So we can use less irrigation and rely more on rainfall to actually work the way it’s supposed to work.

Allen Williams, PhD  24:04  

Yes, we have, what we’ve done is we’ve created a situation that is, once again untenable, and not sustainable. You know, we hear the word sustainable thrown around a lot, but what we’re doing is not sustainable. And by the way, I for one don’t want to sustain an already degraded resource, I want to rebuild that resource and regenerate it and renovate it. So that that’s why we work so much. That’s why we talk so much about regenerative agriculture, we’re actually rebuilding that degraded state. You know, and of course, the problem becomes if we’re damaging and destroying all of our soil biology and microbiology, that’s the beginning of the entire foodweb you know, for all of us, and for our entire ecosystems and all of these chemicals and tillage and poor grazing practices that we see being implemented for growing our crops and our livestock have contributed mightily to the degradation of the soil and the soil life. And if we do that, then that means that everything above the soil, you know, from our beneficial insects , our pollinators, birds, wildlife, livestock, and ultimately us, we all suffer. We are not getting the food and the nutrition that we need to be able to thrive.

Diana Rodgers, RD  25:34  

Yeah, and I just saw a report, I think it was yesterday about how we’re seeing 70% of species now extinct since since 1970. And someone asked me Do I think that this has to do with our modern agriculture system? And my answer is 100%. Yes, I definitely see that our modern agricultural system and people who, think that, you know, more, eating more plants and less meat is actually going to be better for our health and better for our environment are completely misguided.

(Patreon Ad) Diana Rodgers, RD  26:09  

Ready to take your support for a nutritious, sustainable and equitable food systems, the next level? Join my Global Food Justice Alliance community on Patreon and have access to ad-free podcasts, exclusive videos, and a discussion community plus so much more. Go to sustainable dish.com/join to support my work, and thank you. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  26:31  

So let’s talk a little bit about some of the work that you’ve done. You know, so and I know you’re on my page, also about the health benefits of eating meat. In fact, you’re one of the few ranchers that I’ve seen, that’s incredibly fit. Have you always been into your physical health as well? Or was that something that changed when you change paths?

Allen Williams, PhD  26:57  

Well, I have always, you know, tried to stay fit. And I was, you know, former wrestler, and all of that. And so I’ve always tried to stay fit, but what I did find, you know, through the years was that, when I was living on the commodity side of things, staying fit became much harder. And even the way that I felt, you know, changed dramatically, I didn’t feel anywhere near as good, I didn’t have as much energy, and stamina, and so forth. And, now, you know, having been able to go back to what I call really good foods, it just makes all the difference in the world. I’ll tell you this, if somebody were to put two steaks in front of me, one that was a grain fed steak, particularly if that those cattle have been finished on a lot of dried distillers grains, or what we call DDGs, the byproduct of ethanol production, and then a grass fed steak and didn’t tell me which was which and I ate both of those steaks, my body would tell me immediately, which one was which. And I mean, within a few minutes. I can immediate, my body immediately tells me whether I ate what I termed commodity food, or whether I ate what I now term regenerative food. So it’s quite amazing. If you just listen to yourself and the signals your body sending, you will know whether you’re eating good food or not.

Diana Rodgers, RD  28:39  

Yeah, and it’s just a lot of people don’t realize that what I’m trying to say and what you’re trying to say is that to fix the health of our metabolically broken population, and to fix the health of our soil, what we need is more better meat. So more regenerative agriculture. And that very much has to do with using cattle as part of the solution both for our health. I think that red meat is incredibly nutrient-dense food and really good for people, especially for people that have problems managing their blood sugars. And then of course, with regenerating the soil. And one of the interesting things that you do, Allen is work closely with the Audubon Society. Will you talk a little bit about that work?

Allen Williams, PhD  29:30  

Yeah, I’d be happy to. You know, several years ago, the Audubon Society contacted me and became interested in the adaptive stewardship grazing practices that we had developed and we’re implementing on many farms and ranches across North America. And they asked me if these grazing methods could actually help to restore bird populations and at that time, specifically ground-nesting birds like prairie chickens, and quail and so forth. So I told them absolutely that everywhere that we had implemented this, that’s one of the things that we noticed that bird populations had absolutely exploded and everywhere from ground-nesting birds, to songbirds, to migratory birds. And so together, we developed what is now called Audubon’s Conservation Ranching Program, and their bird-friendly grazing certification. And that is been a tremendous success and is continuing to grow. Farmers and ranchers are highly interested because it heart most farmers and ranchers are still ecologists and conservationists. And they love to see wildlife and diversity returning. So when we can teach them that, hey, there’s a way you can have it all. You know, you can actually farm and ranch but at the same time, you can be contributing to building the ecosystem rather than damaging the ecosystem.

Diana Rodgers, RD  31:16  

Yeah, I always get a report from my husband on the wildlife that he’s seen on the farm. And I think a lot of people don’t realize how connected farmers are with the natural environment. And we happen to be on an organic vegetable farm where we also graze animals, but we’ve got bald eagles and herons and all kinds of coyotes and deer. And we’ve seen bear here so close to Boston and it’s always so exciting to the farm crew to see the wildlife, and also the habitats that we’ve created for them, leaving parts of the farm wild and making sure that it’s also a nice place for wildlife to be. And I think it’s so great. The Audubon Society or in a lot of other conservation organizations historically, have been big advocates of leaving lands, definitely here in Massachusetts. In fact, the town I live in Carlisle, has more conservation land than, I think, per capita, or maybe per square mile than any other town in the country. And none of the land is grazed. And it’s really such a shame that there’s such this disconnect between people that want land to be natural, but yet not grazed. And that’s why I’m so excited about what you’re doing with Audubon Society.

Allen Williams, PhD  32:45  

Yeah, you know, I always tell people, let’s look at things from a historical perspective and an ecological perspective. You know, historically, everywhere that you had grasslands, prairie, savannas, and even woodland, there are grazing ruminants globally. And if man had not intervened to such an extent, they would all still – the Bison would still, and the antelope, and the elk and so forth, would still be roaming across all of North America, from coast to coast, and from south of the Arctic Circle to the Gulf Coast.

Diana Rodgers, RD  33:20  

And it was big numbers. Will you talk about that? Will you talk about what it… I don’t know, if you’ve heard some of the historical descriptions of what it looked like when the bison were moving through space?

Allen Williams, PhD  33:33  

Absolutely. You know, it’s estimated that their numbers were in the hundreds of millions across North America. And we know they had to be because of both the impact and the historical accounts. There are many historical accounts, including multiple accounts from the Lewis and Clark expedition to people like Charlie Siringo, and Kit Carson and a host of others, that recorded in their travels that they would often be stopped for a day or more at a time, waiting to continue to move forward because of a single massive herd of bison. You know, these herds were so immense that they talked about them literally blackening the plains, and you know, it would take a day or more for the entire herd to move across their path. Before that they could either continue down the trail or continue down the river that they were traveling on. We also have many accounts, very similar for massive herds of antelope and so forth. There’s accounts of people in counting herds of antelope, that it took more than a half day for a single herd of antelope to move and cross their path. So we knew historically that there were these enormous herds of wild ruminants and all of our ecosystems globally, the vast majority of them developed through, in part, the impact of grazing ruminants. And therefore, if we take that impact out of that ecosystem, we no longer have a complete intact ecosystem. We have just severely limited that ecosystem. And that’s the myth about going to an all plant-based diet if we take the animals out of that ecosystem, just growing plants in no way gives you an intact or complete ecosystem. We still lose a lot of what nature intended to be there. And here’s the other thing, there’s been the methane argument with large ruminants. And in the fact of the matter is that all ruminants because they are a ruminant, produce methane naturally through their digestive processes. So this has been occurring for eons. This is nothing new, you know, the massive herds of wildebeest and elephants and bison and elk, and antelope and so on and so forth. It exists caribou, you name it, have been burping and belching methane for millennia. And it wasn’t a problem. So we have to ask ourselves why. You know, and the answer is pretty simple. We had an intact ecosystem, with soil microbes that included things like methanotrophs that were able to absorb and take care of methane issues. So it was a non-issue. And it was a part of the natural cycle, this methane production. It’s only an issue today, because we are not properly managing the livestock that we do have. And we have destroyed so many of the wild ruminants that once existed on our prairies and plains and grasslands.

Diana Rodgers, RD  37:19  

And I wish you were with me this last week, I went to the University of Ottawa for a conference on the future of protein. And so many of the things you’re saying are points that I tried to bring up, and there were many different… it was largely academic. And so there was one panel on how do we feed the world, which I want to get back to because I interrupted you halfway through your explanation. But there was also a huge ethics panel, right. And the first panel was feeding the world. The second was on nutrition, where I tried to lay out that animals provide better nutrition for humans than plants do. And our need for protein is actually much higher than what is assumed. We had a little more discussion about the benefits of regenerative agriculture. And one of the ethics professors then said, “But why do we have to eat them?” And I responded to her, but I would love to hear your response. Because that, you know, once you convince people that it’s important for the environment, I think it’s also important for people to understand the nutritional benefits of them. But then once they understand that regenerative grazing is good for our environment can help rebuild the soils. The next question I often hear is, “Well, then why do we have to eat them?” So will you respond to that one?

Allen Williams, PhD  38:44  

I’d be happy to. And so first and foremost, animal proteins produced on thriving, biologically active soils are absolutely one of the most complete nutritional foods that man can eat, period. Period. You know, so that’s one reason. And you know, and we could go into a lot of detail on that. But a second reason is that if we do not harvest these animals in a reasonable fashion, then first of all, they’re not going to exist. They will cease to exist because farmers and ranchers and the consumers who eat food every day, are not going to pay to just simply have animals there. Just because, you know, farmers and ranchers have to make a living just like everybody else. And they can’t afford to have animals that just exist and that we don’t harvest. The third reason is that if we don’t have a reasonable and controlled harvest of these animals that we are raising to have that animal impact on our farms and ranches and our ecosystems, then they are going to significantly overpopulate and disease and plagues will start working their way through those animal populations and then pass their way on to us, by the way, and will have significant disease issues out there. And then, of course, these animal populations will completely crash as well, the ecosystem itself, you know, in the wild. You know, when mankind was more made up of more of hunter-gatherer peoples, then obviously, man was one of the predators and animal proteins were a part of their diet, always through the history of this world. But then secondly, during those time periods, when we had a lot more wild ruminants, we had plenty of predators as well. And things like wolves and coyotes, and lions, and so forth, bear and all of that, that helped to control and maintain and keep in check these animal populations. We don’t have that anymore. And, you know, many of the people honestly, Diana, that, you know, complain about having to harvest and eat animal protein – the honest truth is, when the deer come and eat their flowers and their shrubs and their manicured lawns, they get angry about that.

Diana Rodgers, RD  41:40  

And there was another response back, though, that, so there’s this group of, you know, people that believe we should just rewild everything, right? That why don’t we just, if we’re gonna bring ruminants back, then maybe just the wolves and the coyotes get to control the population, and we should stay out of it and just eat our plant-based foods.

Allen Williams, PhD  42:03  

The problem, again, is that is not honestly, that opinion shows a complete lack of knowledge and understanding of the natural world. And that’s understandable because you can’t know what you don’t know. You know, less than 2% of the US population today grow up on farms and ranches and have any experience in the natural world to speak of. And so their experience is incredibly limited. And so those comments, that’s untenable, you just simply can’t do that. And my immediate response would be to ask back to the same people who are making those comments: “Well, then, are you ready to give up your home, your suburban Lawn, your apartment, whatever it may be to turn it back to the wild? What are you willing to give up so that we can actually have a viable and thriving wild population and predators? And by the way, what happens when these predators mistake you and your pets for prey is well, how do you presume that we are to control that?”

Diana Rodgers, RD  43:22  

Yeah, that’s a good point. So and I think also the land use argument, right, that there’s just not that much arable land left. And I was looking at where the arable land is. The leftover arable land that we’re not using right now, much of that is forest. So we’d have to destroy more ecosystems and cut down trees in order to convert that to cropland. But also, in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, a lot of their land is considered cropland. But it’s really only good for growing cassava, which has its own issues. It’s a high starch, low nutrient plant that isn’t easily stored without a lot of processing into cassava flours. They don’t really have the infrastructure to do that. How are you going to irrigate it? So just because something’s cropland, it doesn’t necessarily mean we can grow soy and corn and wheat there. So there’s a lot of problems in thinking that we should just crop as much as we can and leave the rest to wild.

Allen Williams, PhD  44:26  

Well, there’s huge issues with that. And that’s what a lot of people don’t realize is that, you know, first of all, all the corn and soybean that is being grown globally, very, very little of that is directly eaten by any humans. When’s the last time that you know of someone who sat down to a bowl of field corn or a bowl of field soybeans for dinner? You don’t do that. The corn and soybeans that are being grown, are being produced for two things. They are being produced for livestock feed and for biofuels. That’s what they’re being produced for. So…

Diana Rodgers, RD  45:07  

And not really cattle feed, you know that a lot of people are blaming that on cattle, but it’s more chicken and pork than it is cattle.

Allen Williams, PhD  45:14  

That is correct. Chichen and pork and fish. How many people realize that the vast majority of fish that they eat today is not wild-caught. But these are farmed fish, and even shellfish that they’re eating, and they are fed rations, just like the chickens, just like the dairy cattle, just like the pigs and just like the beef cattle. They are fed rations. So that’s what we’re experiencing today. And in much of the land that is being grazed is not suitable for producing vegetables and fruit and nuts and legumes. And even much of the farmland that is growing corn and soybeans is not highly suitable for producing vegetables and fruits and nuts and legumes.

Diana Rodgers, RD  46:15  

So this brings me to my last question for you, Allen, which is, this sounds so nice, but how can we do this at scale? The way you’re… the grazing agriculture that you’re talking about.

Allen Williams, PhD  46:27  

Yeah, it’s actually pretty simple. You know, and I get that asked that question all the time as well. But the fact of the matter is that we currently have more than enough farmable and ranchable land, grazable land in the US to be able to finish more than 50 million head of beef cattle annually on grass alone, without ever feeding them a bite of grain and without taking away from the lands that are being used for other agricultural purposes. This just underutilized land they currently exist, agricultural land, so we could completely do away with the feedlot altogether, and raise every bit of beef that American consumers eat today on grass alone. Secondly, what we have found is that if we incorporate regenerative practices on our row crop farms and our vegetable farms and in our fruit orchards and nut orchards, where we we plant highly complex and diverse cover crops in between the cash crops, and then we incorporate livestock to eat those cover crops, we are actually creating a situation where we have much more thriving production without all of the synthetic inputs and we increase our soil biology. We increase our water filtration rates. We decrease erosion and harmful runoff. We decrease the threat of floods and droughts. And by the way, the number one issue that everybody brings up is the climate, right? The climate is actually a simple fix. Every year, in the US alone, we have hundreds of millions of acres of farmland that are bare for two thirds of the year, with nothing growing in them and just laid bare. That heats up the surface of the soil, creates enormous evaporative water loss, and causes the climate issues that we’re seeing. If we would just simply incorporate cover crops in between cash crops, and introduce livestock impact on those cover crops, every one of our climate issues would disappear.

Diana Rodgers, RD  49:03  

Well, I couldn’t agree more. And I think you say it so nicely. And I just I really appreciate your time with me today. Allen, thank you so much.

Allen Williams, PhD  49:13  

Well, you’re very welcome. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Diana Rodgers, RD  49:16  

And Allen, do you… I don’t think you have a place people can find you – a blog or anything? But if if anyone wanted to try to get in touch with you, what’s the best way to do that?

Allen Williams, PhD  49:28  

They can go to either soilhealthconsultants.com and find me or they can also go to joycefarms.com and find me there as well.

Diana Rodgers, RD  49:42  

And you consult with ranchers all over the US, Canada, Mexico, everywhere. You’ve got a very busy travel schedule and ranchers can… I do have a bunch of ranchers that listen to my podcast so they if they’re interested in your services they can reach out and and maybe have you visit their farm and help them right.

Allen Williams, PhD  50:01  

That’s correct. That’s really sort of our vision and mission is we want large scale impact in this regard. So we will be very happy to work with any farmer or rancher that is interested in for any of your other listeners, we would be very happy to provide additional supporting data and details pertaining to what we’ve discussed today.

Diana Rodgers, RD  50:26  

Yes, thank you so much for everything you do. It’s always such a pleasure to talk to you and I hope you have a great day. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  50:34  

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