¶ Introduction and Overview
On today's episode. We covered Jared's journey. A little bit on mental health, we talk about stewardship and what that means. And then we talk about Ag Steward
¶ Fast Five with Jared Sorenson
So we'll get started with the fast five. WhaT's your name?
Jared Sorenson.
What's your farm's name?
So our, our ranch is Secret Pass Livestock.
Where's your farm located?
We are in Northeastern Nevada. We're Elko County about as far from Las Vegas as you can get and still be in the same state. And just about as different from Las Vegas as you can get. So we tell people we're more like Idaho than we are like Las Vegas. People think.
Oh, yes.
People think Nevada, they think desert, cactus, dry, nothing grows. Yeah, we are, we're high desert. We're right up against the mountains, four seasons generally have snow on the ground. By this time of year, we don't this year.
Oh, wow. Yeah. And what year did you start grazing animals?
Well, long before I was born, Cal so my grandfather started out with sheep and well, from the time he was, from the time he was young. So I grew up, grew up grazing sheep and cattle.
And what species do you graze now?
So we graze primarily cattle. We have had a sheep component off and on We sold the sheep in the late 1980s, and so it's been primarily cattle. We do do at least occasionally pasture for, for other people to bring sheep in.
Oh, yeah.
Welcome to the grazing grass podcast. The podcast dedicated to sharing the stories of grass-based livestock producers, exploring regenerative practices that improve the land animals and our lives. I'm your host, Cal Hardage and each week we'll dive into the journeys, challenges, and successes of producers like you, learning from their experiences, and inspiring each other to grow, and graze better. Whether you're a seasoned grazier or just getting started. This is the place for you.
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¶ Jared's Background and Early Life
Jared, just go back. You said, you know, grazing long before you were born. Did you grow up thinking this was always where you were going to come and be settled?
Not always but from a very young age, I, I saw my siblings go to, I'm the youngest of ten and I saw
yes.
grow up, go to college, study engineering and nursing and different things one was, went to flight school, and so I kind of thought, well, man, that's what I need to do, but then around, I was around 12 years old, I saw, well, my dad and grandpa are ranchers, maybe I could be a rancher, you know, I really enjoy that.
Oh, yes.
So, so yeah, pretty much from the time I was 12 years old. I, that was my focus. That was my goal in life. That was what you know, my aspiration.
You know, I always think it's interesting. I have two siblings, and both of them, early on, were going to school for something. I was going to school, but I wanted to come home and dairy. I knew from a young age I wanted to dairy. My parents tried to talk me out of it. It didn't work so good. I went to college, then came home and dairied. I did get a degree, but I think it's interesting. Some of us just early on are geared that way thinking this is where we need to be.
Yeah, that was definitely the case for me too. And I guess we can relate. The only degree I've got is a master's degree in the school of hard knocks. I've, I've been enrolled in different colleges and you know what? I didn't even graduate from high school. I homeschooled.
Oh, yes.
When I got to be 15 years old, I decided, well, I want, I could enroll in the community college. So I started taking classes that interested me and nobody asked for a high school diploma. So I figured it wasn't important and nobody's asked me since. So
Right, yeah.
credits, but I still don't have a degree in, in anything yet.
Well, you know, nothing checks those pieces of paper out here on the farm or ranch.
Yeah. Right. Right. It's You know, experience coupled with education. I think that's, that's what we, that's what we're striving for with with our children. So my wife and I have nine kids. Family's a big deal to us and we homeschool them. You really foster that entrepreneurial spirit.
Most of them have businesses from the time they're pretty young and, and we figure that along the way they're going to learn the skills that they need and, In the real world, and we're certainly not opposed to education. Some of them gone on to college and things but it's always more in line with, Hey, what is my mission?
And is this education going to, going to help me fulfill my mission rather than just get a degree to earn money that, you know, or just get a degree that maybe you don't earn any money. And nowadays
Oh, yeah.
Walk away from school with a bunch of debt. So
yeah, I have an education degree that I went back to school and got, and I'm not using it right now, so that was money well spent.
yeah. Yeah.
¶ Transition to Cattle Ranching
So when you came home to the farm, I think a farm, I'm in Northeast Oklahoma, we call them farms, everything to us, we differentiate farm and ranch, but I know even if you were here it would be a ranch because you're dealing on a much bigger scale than most of my neighbors, but I always default to farm, it's just my area. On your, your ranch, you got, your dad got out a sheep in the late 80s, or your grandpa? Did you and then you came home, were you all just running beef cows at the time?
Yeah, so actually Right two or three years before we sold the sheep. My grandpa was in his late 80s He wanted to transition out of his interest in the commercial sheep business and he and my dad were gracious enough to help me to Get started. So at 14 years old, I became a partner with my dad
Oh, yes.
in a company that we had and And so we I think at that point we had about 3000 ewes. And then my dad and grandpa saw kind of the writing on the wall in the late 1980s, the lamb market was down, it was costing more to shear the sheep than the wool was worth, and we had some, Predation issues due to policy change on public grazing land on the forest service, which we sustained some pretty significant predation losses on the lambs.
And so, as I remember, the conversation was just on the couch one evening and dad and grandpa and I talked about it and we said, well, maybe it's time to sell the sheep and transition to cattle. I'm sure that there's a lot more to that story than I remember. You know, I was very young.
Oh, yeah.
I, I draw back on that a lot because I look at so many farmers and ranchers who are so emotionally tied to the enterprise, to the land, to whatever it was that dad and grandpa did. And I, and I get criticized, openly criticized for making the changes that I did and said, your grandpa would roll over in his grave. If he knew what you did. And I said, well, you don't know my grandpa. My grandpa was one who was willing to pivot and shift and change.
When he saw that what he was doing wasn't working anymore, he didn't ride it to the ground. And so, yeah, we did.
We pivoted from, from pretty much a hundred percent sheep when we started out some very small cattle enterprise and slowly started to replace the sheep with the cattle, and then in the late eighties, we sold the last of the sheep and a hundred percent cattle at that point and have so yeah, I, I went off Went to the community college here locally, lived at home a stint at a state college, Utah State College, majored in animal science, and then did an internship on the Deseret Ranch in Florida,
served a two year mission. Came back, went to school long enough to meet and marry my wife, and then my dad said, hey, will you stay home and help us ship the calves in the fall? After we got married and we said, yeah, and we, we never left. We never made it back to school. But we sure gotten an education along the way, Cal, like
yeah.
it's a different type of education, but it's been very, very valuable.
Yes, I'm sure. And Jared, you said a couple things in there. First off, I just want to say To say that ability to pivot based upon what's going on in the market, what's going on with your family is an amazing ability. It's a skill that not everyone has. You like, like you said, sometimes we get attached to I'm as guilty as anyone. You know, we got cow calf here. At times I think maybe we should pivot, but I really like the cow calf.
But that ability to, to pivot based upon external factors, or even internal to your family or whatever is needed, is a skill that not everyone has. So good job on that, just, you know, on your family being able to make that change. I think you mentioned there that you went to college and you did an internship in Florida. Did I hear you correctly? So what did you, tell us about that trip to Florida and what you learned because that's a, a totally different environment from what you were in.
Yeah. Yeah. That was kind of the highlight of my education up to that point. You know, everything that I'd learned in books, it was like, And this is the real world. So, worked on the Deseret Ranch, one of the largest ranches in North America. I think at that point they were running about 30, 000 head of cattle.
And so very efficiently run, a foreman and two cowboys would take care of of about 3, 000 head on a, what they called a unit, which is basically an independent ranch, part of a bigger hole. And it was rotational grazing. It was kind of my first experience with somewhat rotational at that point, not super intensive, but we did move the cattle a lot. Very different environment.
We went from a very what Savory Institute would term as a brittle environment here in the West to a very non brittle tropical environment there in Florida. Lots of water, you know, your, your, your saddle would mold in this tack shed. It was just, you were always wet, your boots never hang
so.
So it was, it was neat to be able to see the difference and, and work under a very, very competent manager, Paul Janot, who went on to. You know, work in the King Ranch Institute and the higher ups in the Deseret Ranching Organization.
I was only 18 years old and so I didn't know enough to ask him questions, but I do remember his son was my age and, you know, sitting out on the trampoline after dinner with another intern that was there and his son and, and he explained, you know, was kind of mentoring us, teaching us without us really knowing it, and gleaned some, some pretty neat things about the way he managed, the way he's. Lead. He was a, he was a really good leader.
I have a ton of respect for him and, often wish that I could go back, you know, now and learn from somebody of that caliber.
right. I'm sure you would listen so much more intently now than you did then.
Yeah, and you know, one of the biggest lessons that I learned, Cal and this isn't for everybody, this was just my own lesson, but with everything that I did stewardship is a big piece of, you know, My upbringing and, you know, even though it's backwards, our company is Ag Steward, our consulting company. That stewardship piece was important to me. But I realized that I had a different feeling inside when it was something that I knew that I was building for myself and future generations than
Oh yes,
Like I was just a cog in a wheel and. I was there for four months and I was gone and it went on and
right.
I realized that I wanted to build something for our own legacy. And kind of embrace that entrepreneurial spirit and again, that's not for everybody, but for me, that was something that was the biggest lesson that I learned there was like, I don't want to do this. I didn't really like the heat, didn't like the water moccasins and alligators and always being wet and all that stuff either. So, I learned that, like, I didn't want to ranch in that environment.
I'd rather ranch in the West, but for me, it was important. Hey, I want to do this where there is not only stewardship, but a level of ownership for me and for posterity.
Did that experience in Florida change the way you approached the ranch at home?
It did, it did in a lot of ways, you know, at that point, there was kind of a big gap between I came, when I came back from Florida and when I came back to To the ranch.
Right. Because you went on a mission in
Went on a mission and then back to school and got married and those things. And so, but I often would draw back on probably the leadership and the efficiency of being able to manage that intensively that many employees and do it profitably. And so there was a lot of, there's a lot of good lessons that I learned.
And definitely, you know, I didn't begin to understand ecology, but the other thing that we did that was kind of cool there is they got everybody together and we wrote a mission statement for the business. And you could see some of those old cowboys there, you know, they would be in that meeting, they're like cattle to move, iron here, they would grumble, they would be like, this is just a waste of time.
But it was really neat for me to see, like, This is that important that they're going to take time away from work and they're going to set everybody down and get everybody's input right statement and each unit would set their goals. And and so tons of good lessons, tons of good lessons from that.
Yeah. Yes. It sounds like it getting everyone on board and building that buy in. So you went on your mission. You got married, went back to the ranch. At that time, You were running beef cattle on the ranch?
Yeah, we had our primary enterprise was cow calf herd traditional cow calves sell the calves in the commodity market in the fall. And that was a system that worked for a long time.
Oh, yeah.
We were running on pretty extensive BLM allotment, like half a million acres. Didn't have to feed hay because we could winter out. And then kind of some, again, the rules of the game changed. The wild horse population started to grow exponentially out on that allotment. And my dad was actually serving, well, back up, my dad started, served his first mission, he and my mom, when I was like 24 years old. And they, and we stepped into the stewardship of the ranch at that point.
And things clicked along pretty good until kind of the rules of the game changed, we got to the point where we couldn't compete on the range with the wild horses and my dad said, Hey, should we sell the ranch? Should we sell this BLM allotment? And my dad was on like the fourth of their missions. He was in Mexico. And finally the fourth time, third or fourth time that he asked me that I realized that he wasn't. He wasn't going to tell me because he respected my position in management.
But he was making his idea what he saw as the right idea, my idea, and letting me come to
Oh, yeah.
And so my wife and I said, okay, dad's inspired. We need to trust him. So yeah, let's do that. So we pivoted, we sold that, along with that, we shifted from, you know, grazing year round, out on an extensive BLM allotment to custom grazing all on private land. So pretty significant change.
Oh, yes
Since then, we've, We've tried different enterprises. We're still working to find the right enterprise mix for what our resource base is right now. It's still primarily cattle, but we custom graze cow calf pairs and yearlings direct market grass fed beef and then finish cattle for others.
¶ Direct Marketing and Business Strategies
Oh, yes Now you you direct market some beef So is that some you're finished? Do you buy some in for yourself that you you finish out to direct market or how's that working with your custom grazing?
Yeah. So we will we'll, we'll buy really like to finish heiferettes if we can find.
Oh, okay,
our protocol. Those, those work really good. There are margins on those are the best. We do keep some of our own over and finish them usually around 30 months of age. And so finished on forage and and then yeah, we've sold into some branded beef programs in the past also as well as direct marketing.
On your, on that direct marketing bit, just a little bit, how long have you been doing that portion?
2016 is really when my wife kicked off our company Ruby
Oh, yeah.
Prior to that, you know, we'd sold kind of like every ranch there. People will come by, Hey, I want to buy beef. It's like, sure. We'll take an extra one when we go to the butcher. And just meet us and pick it up or whatever. But 2016 is when we, when we made it a separate business, the marketing business that buys the cattle from the ranch. And so, yeah, that's that eight, about eight years we've been more on the direct marketing business.
And you're grass finishing them?
Yep, yep, grass finishing primarily finishing during the springer spring and fall, harvesting spring and, or I mean, sorry, summer and fall and then you know, we've got some fat cattle now that are ready to go to butcher.
We can, we can get them finished and hold that finish into the winter, but we, we're experimenting with putting weight on using fermented forages had a really cool speaker on our last summit who talked about the potential of that using Fermented forages to be able to finish year round.
Oh, yes.
we're excited about that.
That'll be interesting to see how that works for you.
Yeah. Yeah. We feel like, you know, that could open up some avenues to be able to provide more of a consistent year round product. So,
Oh, yeah. And one thing on your direct to market, are you selling your, your beaves as halves and wholes, or are you selling them by cut?
We are, we are taking pre orders right now, selling them as quarters, halves and wholes. We have inventoried in the past, gone through the USDA process and sold in smaller packages down to like, 16th or an 8th,
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
and inventory that and then shipped. We, at this point, now we are just taking pre orders and then harvesting once or twice a year. And then our customers seem to understand that, you know, they're, they've got to. Kind of ration it out and then that they're they're gonna fill up their freezer again in the fall
Right. Yeah. Well, very interesting.
¶ Virtual Fencing Challenges
Jared, let's change gears just a little bit. I believe earlier this year You all put or not put in because it's kind of defeats the purpose, but you you start utilizing virtual fence
Yeah, Yeah,
how? What product did you go with and how's that going for you? What you've had about six months of use with that
Yeah, we went through we went through this summer season. We utilized vents They they had some hiccups as far as some of the colors that they sent were not optimal Something with programming and so we definitely had a huge learning curve Full transparency. We had a full on wreck Cal. We
Oh, no. Well, that happens.
It's not the virtual fencing part in, in and of itself, but you know, we don't want to paint the picture like we've got it all figured out here. We had some cattle get into some area with Larkspur. Larkspur and cattle don't mix very well and we tipped a lot of cows over. And it's tough when you're stewarding the land and you're stewarding these
Oh, yeah.
You're like, holy cow what are the financial ramifications plus what does that do to your morale? It's, it's, it was a tough. It was a tough thing for our business. It was a tough thing for our family. It's a tough thing for the families that we were grazing cattle for. Learned a lot of lessons from it. We still don't know exactly how we're going to adjust going forward because you know, this is a pretty extensive piece of country that we traditionally had run sheep on ahead of the cattle.
And we no longer have access to that tool because of things outside of our control. And so. The virtual fencing I still think has a place and probably a bigger place because we can exclude some of those areas. So I definitely, like, we, we definitely are committed to making it work. And we're also working in conjunction with Kateri on the carbon credit side to be able to show that grazing, like, we can actually sequester carbon on large acreages.
And so it's kind of pushing the envelope a little bit, but we're optimistic that, you know, we will be able to find a workable solution long term.
Oh, yeah.
but yeah, it's you know, you, you kind of, all of us at some point are going to go through that refiner's fire and kind of, you got to get tested. What are you made of? You know, do you have that resiliency to be able to keep going when things look like kind of hopeless?
I agree, and I think it's important we share those stories with people as well, because, you know, we have social media out there showing the highlight reel, and sometimes that gives people a false image of what's really going on, so.
Yeah,
Yeah. Well, I assume you're still believing the potential of it and you can get it going. And hopefully it goes better in the future.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean we've had conversations alike and with not only the virtual fence owners But internally like what what do we need to change up in our management? But the potential of the virtual fence to be able to implement rest into these large landscapes, I think, is huge. That's the one piece that we haven't been able to do. On this, like, we, through herding and time, changing up season of use, we've been able to see some improvement,
Oh,
because it's not feasible to be able to cross fence it it was really tough for us to move the cattle out of the area and not have them return. And so we couldn't provide that rest period that we
Oh, yes.
which now, that's our hope is that we can do that. Like, we, we. I don't know that we're ever going to be super intensive on this steep, rugged, rough country. And I don't know that we need to be either. Like, I, I think our marginal, we, we are very intensive on our irrigated, Meadows, like daily moves, every other day
Oh, yeah.
times a day. That's going to respond really well. These, these uplands, I'm not seeing the practicality of doing that up there yet. And maybe that's a paradigm for me, you know.
Oh, yeah.
In three to five years, maybe I'll see it differently. Like, no, this absolutely has to be done because it's going to increase our carrying capacity. We're going to accelerate regeneration on this landscape. I'm not seeing it yet. I'm not saying that, you know, there's not other people who are doing it and getting it done. Good results. But it is, you know, it's context dependent. So even on the
Oh, it is.
our management is going to adapt very much between our lowlands, our mid, you know, kind of our benches and then uplands. So,
I, I see huge potential for the virtual fencing. And I see potential in my area for it, and I'm not talking about stringing a polywire more than an eighth or a quarter of a mile. I strung one today a quarter of a mile to break some stuff up, but I'm not dealing with the area you're dealing with. Oh, right.
So I think especially like,
can't.
I hope it's never mandated by agencies. Like, I never liked that top down approach, but but if people like A. G. Smith on the Cottonwood Ranch that are doing it voluntarily I'm all for that. And if they have data to back it up and say, hey, here's our before and after pictures. Here's what we've been able to do and most importantly, you know, this is how it's translating to the profitability of the ranch. We can't leave out that component, like what we do needs to be profitable.
It's got to be regenerative, but we also have to make sure that, Hey, this family can stay here for generations to come. And so that's why you know, early adopters, I think sometimes we have to go through these learning curves and they're expensive. They're painful, they're hard, but there's also a lot to gain as we learn. And then hopefully others can learn from our experiences as well. And, you know, they don't have to repeat those same mistakes. They'll get to make their own mistakes.
I definitely try and make my fair share.
Oh yeah. We got to fail a couple of good things every year. Right?
Right. Who says it that if you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough?
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. There's a lot of, there's a lot of that that goes around. Just use failures, fertilizer and. It's, it's part of, it's part of growth, Cal.
Yeah.
¶ Stewardship and Profitable Ranching
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where we take a deeper dive. And today we're going to talk about stewardship. So just, just to get started, when we say stewardship, what does that mean to you?
Stewardship means to me I can't separate it from a biblical perspective and what, what, you know, Christ used the parable of the profitable steward. And that's the name of our podcast is the profitable steward. And it comes from that. So to some was given a certain amount of talents to others, less and less. Those who were rewarded were those who went and utilized them and grew them. And the one who was punished was the one who went and hit it.
So stewardship is taking what we've been given and helping it to grow and to expand. And in, in, in so doing we bless not only our lives, but the lives of others around us. profitable from a business standpoint is part of stewardship. Like that is important. We need, if we're going to provide for our families, if we're going to provide for other families and buy goods and sell goods, we better do it at a profit. And I know that's probably a little outside the context, but not really.
I mean, if, If the one who was given five talents returned ten, he was profitable in that sense of the word. Talents were a denomination of money at that point. So he was profitable monetarily, plus he was a profitable steward, meaning that he utilized what he'd been given and grew it.
You know, if, and and I know you know this and, and it gets brought up a lot, but if you're not profitable, where's your ranch going to be in a few years? It's probably not gonna be you doing it then
Yeah. Yeah. And that I'd love to hear, turn it back on you. What is your, what is your definition of profitability?
profitability. Well, for, for me it's sustainability because if I'm not profitable, I can't keep the farm going long term, and I think it's very important. I think when we look at profitability on the farm, and if we're just talking profitability, talking numbers, that we make sure we get everything included in there, and we value our time. I feel like, in my opinion, so often when people talk about profitability, they're value, they're undervaluing their time.
And, and your time can go in a lot of different directions, and you can get into opportunity cost, and I don't really get into that because that gets out there a little bit, but you've got to value your time, and you've got to be able to, to, at the end of the day, have money for your family, and if you don't, you're not profitable, and that, to me, feeds in that stewardship, taking care of stuff for the future as well, I think, Well, that doesn't affect the bo I mean, it can affect the bottom
line, but I want, I want this land in better shape than it was when I was here. I want to leave something better. So, that doesn't really play into the numbers on a spreadsheet, but it is very important to me.
Yeah. Yeah. That's that's something we're, we're, struggling with quantifying and coming up with an across the board way to be able to measure profit because you know, I'm a student of ranching for profit. I'm
Oh, yes.
the Savory Institute our CFO, Todd Churchill does enterprise accounting. And so we certainly, we know about accounting for opportunity cost. We know about looking at each component or profit center or enterprise within the business. But we also, I believe we also have to look at things that are harder to quantify when we're looking at profit Cal, we need to look at quality of life. Like, are we,
¶ Addressing Stress and Relationships in Agriculture
oh,
doing Are we stressed? How is our
Yeah.
How are our relationships? They're harder to quantify, but they're just as important. And you know,
they are.
in agriculture, like, um, you probably heard the statistic that, you know, the suicide rate amongst, in the agriculture industry is the highest amongst all industries.
Yes.
Why is that? And how can we, how can we mitigate that?
¶ Ecological and Financial Health in Farming
So we count for our well being, our quality of life, And then also, I think we have to look at the, we have to look at the ecology and we have to say, are we building soil organic matter over time? Are we truly regenerative, meaning that we're increasing our capacity over time, our carrying capacity of the land thus increasing our infiltration rate? thus decreasing bare soil, thus being able to run more livestock on the same number of acres.
And that should translate to more profit, not always does it,
Right, but,
pieces, but that's the idea, right? We increase that carrying capacity. Without increasing overhead costs or not exponentially increasing them so that that margin grows. How do we do that?
¶ The Role of Financial Institutions in Supporting Regenerative Practices
At some point, Cal, man, I hope that we have financial institutions that not only look at your balance sheet, but they look at your ecological score, something like
Oh, yes.
like the Savory Institute does, you know, we're, we're certified regenerative with Savory Institute. We have a track record that our trend is going up because we score higher on these key areas that they measure. So far, we can't necessarily monetize that, and I'm not saying about monetizing it, I guess we're selling carbon credits and things like that. But what if, maybe this is in the weeds, maybe you'll edit this out, but we'll just go here for just a second.
What if, what if the interest rate that you were offered was not only contingent upon your credit score and your ability to repay and all those things are important, right?
Right.
but what, what if you were rewarded for having a good ecological health score?
Oh, yeah.
Because what is that doing to your community if you are affecting the watershed,
Right.
are increasing the wildlife density and diversity on the land that you steward, if you are affecting the small water cycle on your property, is that not a benefit to the community?
Oh, yeah, it is. Yeah.
And I'd never want government to mandate that this happens. I don't like that approach, but if if individuals were to say, Hey, this is important to us. And our money, our pooled money is going to go to this farmer rancher because we value what he's doing and we're willing to offer it to him at a lower rate than another rancher who is using a degenerative model. Then to me, I'm all for that. That's free market.
Oh
somebody saying, this is what I value. And I'm going to pay and I'm going to get paid for it. So I don't know. Was that too much in the weeds?
you know, I, I, I think that's very interesting. You know, my mind immediately becomes how do you, you've got to be able to objectively qualify this and and, and that gets difficult at times. Of course, you mentioned Contari Carbon. They're doing some things to do it the Savory Institute with the Certified Regenerative. There's, there's some ways that that's starting to happen.
Yep. Regenified. Others, John Kemp has his own
Oh yeah.
There's lots of ways. Yeah. How do we, how do we do that? So when we look at a business, yeah, the numbers people generally don't come to AgSteward and say, hey, I need help ecologically. There's lots of stuff that can go out there. Those are kind of the lagging indicators. The leading indicators are dang, we're going to make it through this year
¶ The Importance of Mental Health in Agriculture
Oh yeah.
or they've heard me share my story of depression and going through that and they're like, Thank you for being vulnerable. I've been there too, and I didn't know who to turn to. Those are the things, when they come to us, and you know, those other, the, as important as soil health and ecology and grazing practices are, like, a lot of times, we just say, hey, let's stop the bleeding in your business and make sure you're taken care of. Let's work on you.
Let's work on you and then when you get straight, you're going to have more capacity to be able to steward those things that that you have stewardship over, but doggone it. If we don't get this fixed, what does the rest of it matter? Right?
You know, just use that analogy of the airplane going down. You've got to put on your own oxygen mask first before you can help someone else. So you've got to get yourself in order before you can make the difference you really want to make. Oh, yeah. Oh,
And those those things gathered They are a little bit harder to quantify. They're a little bit harder to, they're maybe not as as sexy to talk about, but let me tell you, those are, those are the things that when it comes to, like, a ranch falling apart, certainly foreclosure is a big one.
But the things that, that are underlying, those probably aren't going to come out necessarily in a survey if you're going to ask people, but almost always, if you drill down, there's going to be something that's below the surface that is eating to the things that are above the surface that are measured either in profitability or mental health, emotional health, relationships, things like that.
So. I think it's important to really take that holistic view and be willing to ask those tough questions and, and drill down a little bit instead of just, instead of just saying, know, let's work on your gross margins. Those are the easy things to fix.
When you think about those gross margins, that's what someone's first willing to maybe let down their guard and talk about first, though.
Yep.
So that's your way in, yeah.
Absolutely. So that's why we, you know, we talked about in this, you were on one of our events this last year and, you know, we talked about soil health, profitability, legacy,
yeah.
But I'm always bringing in outside perspectives about relationship and physical health, mental health those those components as well. Cause they're just as important.
Oh, they are, and, you know, mental health is discussed a lot more than it used to be, but it's still probably not at the point it needs to be.
Yeah. It's still kind of taboo for our industry.
Right, yeah.
hopefully you've, you know, Hopefully through some of the work that we're doing and others that, you know, we can, people know that there is help out there. There absolutely, there absolutely is. And probably the only thing I need to say on that subject is that I have, I've never seen anybody who has in the depths of depression, who doesn't have somebody within their circle of influence who can help them.
Like you always, God's never going to, God's never going to put us on an island, put us on the end of our rope. He's always going to have somebody.
Oh yeah.
Whether or not that person recognizes it that's the question. So, we all know, we all know the suicide rates and things, and they're just statistics until it's. You know, somebody that's in your circle of influence
Right.
when you learn to recognize those indicators and you can intervene and be that lifeline for somebody else. That's you know, that's important because, yeah, that's, I, I, I firmly believe that, that no matter what we're going through, there's going to be somebody there. I've seen it with my own experience.
I've seen it in the experience of others that there's, there's somebody there that's going to reach out and help us or somebody that hopefully we have the capacity to reach out to and the humility to.
Right. And I, to go on that, I, I think it's important. Sometimes, you know, we, we're, we're getting told to reach out to someone. And sometimes as humans, we want to resist that urge. But there's usually a different reason in there. And I know different times in my life when I've questioned a path or something, someone's reached out and I'm like, Oh, you know, I'm. I'm going in the right direction or this is what I need to do. So we have to be willing to listen to see our part in that.
Yep. Yep. We do. And that takes a dose of humility and, you know, kind of swallowing that pride. But if we want to change it, that's really what it's about.
Very true.
¶ Holistic Management and Mentorship
You mentioned earlier about the Savory Institute and holistic management. When did you get interested in that and follow the pattern? Follow the path to more holistic management?
Yeah. It really, really started, I guess, in the early two thousands, I attended a ranching for profit school and spring of 2003, I was invited by a friend. I, I didn't really know what I was getting into. But I went, attended and just kind of ate it up and. Because of that experience, I was introduced to Bud Williams. I'm very blessed to be indirectly mentored by him and Eunice.
Met Wally Olson and Gerald Fry and Alan Nation and just some of the greats who some of them are no longer with us anymore.
Oh, yes.
In fact, all three of those people are gone, right? Bud Williams, Gerald Fry, and Alan Nation. And so I, I counted A true blessing that I was able to get started when I did when they were still alive and we'll, we're still teaching. So it, it expanded my mind to see like, okay, there's there's a way that Dan and grandpa did things and largely it was focused on stewardship and it was good management. Like they, I think they were good range managers. They were definitely good livestock managers.
They were good leaders. And they were doing the best that they could with the knowledge that they had. And then what I've tried to do is add to that. I've certainly failed a lot in the process along the way between the learning and the application. But we've been able to see some, some pretty cool results, you know, as we've increased our carrying capacity, we've re we're restoring watersheds, we're seeing beavers move back in to the landscape where they haven't been in 50 years.
Thank you very much.
Yes.
it's, it is, it is neat to see that the land is responding. Our fields are now more diverse. Earthworms are moving back into our irrigated pastures and even into our uplands in the springtime. You can kick over cow pies and see, you know, handfuls of earthworms in there. So it's been a process, I guess. It wasn't like, Oh dang, I just went to this class and got it all figured out. It would be learn. And what I found was that leveraging the power of coaching and mentoring is really important.
I'm a student of history and studying the founding fathers and there's two things that they had in common amongst the founders of the United States. And that was they all had good mentors. And they were all part of communities of like minded people. They had their own mastermind.
yes.
Franklin called it La Junta, his little mastermind group. And so, I realized, man, if that was important for them, that should be important for me. We become the sum of our closest associates.
Oh, we do?
So if we want to change our outcomes and we need to be around people who are not talking about problems or talking about opportunities and solutions. So let's see, I guess. Really embraced the Savory Institute in like 2020, when we started learning about land to market and getting this certification of being regenerative, and part of that was going through their 10 day training, which I did with Spencer Smith and the White Buffalo Hub. In California. Now, now we're associated.
I'm a certified educator with the hub out of Northern California,
yes.
Abby and Andrea and those guys are awesome. Like, they're been a great sponsor to us of what we do on the ranch and then with our coaching company, Ag Steward. And so I highly recommend that. And we're, what we're trying to do is just not recreate the wheel necessarily, like, You know, and, and also not plagiarize and use what they're doing, but we're saying, here's the framework and here's how we're applying it on our landscape.
And here's how we're helping others to apply it in their context and in their landscape with their holistic goals. They call it in their holistic framework or holistic context, meaning what we call vision mission values in Ag Steward.
Oh yes.
And that application is going to look. Probably very different, right, where, where you're at and where I'm at because the context is different and we're different. And so we take all those things into account. And so certainly it's been an evolutionary process over the last What is it? 22 years? And I, every, every day I realize, you know, what I know grows, but my circle of ignorance also grows proportionately. There's so much more that I don't know.
Right. The more the more you learn, the less you know.
Yeah, and that's a true principle and it's, it's just, you just kind of have to embrace that. That, yeah, that's can, a life, lifelong learning is, is really important when you quit learning. You know, that's that's never good as part of atrophy. Don't continue to cultivate your mind and utilize that muscle.
Yes. It, you mentioned AG Stewart there.
¶ Introduction to AgSteward and Its Mission
And you, describe what all you all do through Ag Stewart.
Yeah, so AgSteward is an education and a coaching company for Farmers and ranchers. Our goal is to help family owned farmers and ranchers to become highly profitable, regenerate the land that they steward, and create viable businesses that last for generations. We started in 2017 Well, I actually, you know, started coaching and mentoring and having interns from the time that we took over management of the ranch in the early 2000s.
Oh, yes.
So 2020, let's see, 2022 is when we really, so 2022 is when we kicked off Ag Steward. We did a virtual summit with multiple speakers and then we rolled out, Hey, we, you know, this is what our mission is. And our product and services to be able to work with families one on one to be able to
Oh, yeah.
identify their blind spots, recognize their opportunities, get clear on where their vision is, and create a path to be able to get there, which includes profitability, quality of life, land regeneration, proper stewardship along the way. And then in 2023, we. Or 2024, we ramped things up and we started doing quarterly summits and twice a month expert interviews, webinars that are repurposed on a, on our podcast channel as profitable as the Profitable Steward Podcast.
So that's, that's really the mission of Ag Steward is to be able to connect. going back to what the founders found, and it existed long before that, but the coach, the mentor, the community, and then a level of accountability coupled with the education. And so we, there's so much education out there on social media, classes, YouTube, it's all out there. What we're trying to do is help guide people through that and say, okay, where you're at right now. Okay. Here's the experts.
Here's the people that you need to be able to get to your goal. So you don't get lost because, you know, my journey has been 20 years and I've certainly had some great coaches and mentors, but very few of them knew the principles of coaching to ask why and drill down and to
Oh, yes.
let's get to know yourself first. And then we can better guide you on this path. So instead, and it's never going to look like a straight line, Cal, but instead of going here and here and here and be very disjointed, we can say, okay, here's a more direct path to be able to get to your goal. The likelihood of success is going to increase along the way.
¶ Virtual Summits and Community Building
With the, the virtual summits that you all, you're doing quarterly now, how is that going, and just give kind of an overview for our listeners if they're not familiar with it.
Yeah, that's been very well received. We've had attendees from across most of the United States Canada, Central South America, and then other continents Australia, South Africa. It's neat to see that this message of regeneration is resonating with people across the world.
Oh, yes.
And we've been very blessed, like the people, including yourself, who've been, who've recognized that, Hey, you know, there's this, there's this guy that's trying to do this and we're going to support him. And hopefully it goes back to you as well, like we're able to connect, we're able to share,
Right.
I'm not going to ever run the grazing grass podcast. Your message is unique, it's different, it's yours. My message is unique and different, but there's some complementary things that can happen there.
And so, That's my goal is that as guest speakers come on, they, the listeners can say, Hey, this is the piece that I need and kind of what our guarantee is, is that if you show up and you're attentive and you participate, you will know the next step that you need to take on your regenerative journey.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
And a lot of times that might be working with somebody. Sometimes it's working with Ag Stewart as we serve as your guide on that process. Sometimes it's more like, Hey, my weak link is really on the production side. Okay. You know, I've got to dial in why my yields have gone down when I switched to regenerative practices. And so it might be working with one of our colleagues that's able to dive deep and say, hey, you know, here's, here's what happened when you pull off a synthetic fertilizers.
And here's what we can do to be able to get you back into production and profitability quickly so that you can supply. So, yeah, I appreciate you asking. That's been it's been very rewarding to see that it's received within our community, Cal. And so, we have another one January 21st and 22nd of a pretty awesome lineup of speakers. think it will be the same URL legacy. agstewart. co. We usually try to stick to that same
Oh
across the board. We have twice a month events that come out. If you just search for Ag Stewart on social media, you can usually find those with expert speakers. Generally, there's a regenerative agriculture flair. Sometimes they're relationship experts. Sometimes they're very much geared upon entrepreneurship, and don't know the difference between a heifer and a steer. And I think that's valuable too, because they can look at our
I do. Yeah. Yeah, I agree.
helpful feedback. So,
Yeah, I, I think those virtual summits are a great way to listen to a lot of different people and to find out information and they're priced very reasonably
yep, ours is free.
So you don't have too, too many excuses to
Yeah, people, you know, we, we offer it for free. We do value people's time. And so we realize, okay, your investment of time is your payment to get started here. And then from there, you know, you can look at what we do at paid events. Um, and to one on one coaching. The other thing that we're just rolling out here also, Cal, is a, is a membership area.
Oh, yes.
Which is a group opportunity to be able to learn because not everybody's ready for the time and the investment to work with us one on one. It's the same content. It's just going to be um, of our time. It's going to be more, you do it on yourself and we're going to be uh, provide on the sidelines guidance. Whereas if you're coaching with us one on one, I mean, we're kind of in the game with you
Oh, yes.
uh, we're player. So, um, you can, that out next week. Um, is going to come out, but our initial inauguration uh, webinar is, is tentatively scheduled. Well, we have a hard schedule of December 17th, 17th, 18th, whatever the Wednesday is,
Oh, yeah.
link in there, depending on when it comes out. But the idea is, is, um. 3rd, we're going to be talking about what it looks like to work in our membership area, helping you take that next step in that area, plus providing tons of value when you show up live to that um, And again, my guarantee is, is that we're going to help you identify what your next step is. Can we do that in 60 minutes?
Well, if we can't, then I'm going to open it up and I'm going to say, jump on a one on one call with me or one of our coaches.
Oh,
we'll do, and we'll do a deep dive, like, how can we help you? Because we want to be sure that, you know, we're actually providing value to you. So that's the first and third, and then the second and fourth is when we have a guest speaker come on, and those are happening every month. So four, four different classes, they're all free, and that's a good way to be able to kind of check out what we do, see if it's a good fit.
Very good. We'll, we'll put a link to that in our show notes.
¶ Famous Four Questions and Closing Remarks
And Jared, it's time for our Famous Four Questions, same four questions we ask of all of our guests.
Today's famous four questions are sponsored by Manderly farms grazing conference. Attention, all farmers, ranchers, and land enthusiast. Join us for owned forgettable grazing conference on February 21st and 22nd, 2025. At the beautiful Manderley farms in Pikeville, Tennessee nestled in the scenic Sequatchie valley. This is your chance to learn from the best in the business. Our speakers include the renowned, Greg Judy, alongside the dynamic duo, Greg and Debbie Brann.
Expect engaging sessions, informative pasture walks and interactive question and answer sessions with our experts. Discover help to revolutionize your land management with regenerative grazing practices. Whether you're looking to enhance whether you're looking to enhance soil health, increase, biodiversity, or improve your pasture productivity. This conference is tailored for you. Don't miss this opportunity to grow your knowledge and your farm. For more details and secure your spot.
Visit www.manderlyfarms.com. That's Elm. A N D E R L E Y. See you in the Sequatchie valley.
And our first question, What is your favorite grazing grass related book or resource?
Great question, Cal. I don't know if I can boil it down to just one. I'll tell you the, maybe the top three things that have helped me. They're not necessarily in order of importance here. My experience working with and seeing Nicole Masters that opened my eyes that, hey, there's a whole world that uh, microbial life that's beneath our feet.
And there's a lot of other people that talk about that now, but for me, she was kind of the one that opened that window and helped me to see that we're not only livestock managers of the livestock above ground, but our, our underground herd. Um,, so integrity soils um,, great resource, highly. Uh,, highly. them, encourage folks to be able to go and check out what Nicole Masters does and her team. Um, second the Savory Institute.
Um, Alan, Alan Savory's books are kind of hard to get through, but you know, if you're brand new to it, check out his TED Talk. It's um, you know, it is world famous of being able to disseminate that information. In a way that resonates with people, whether they're in agriculture or not. Um, so plug into, plug into the Savory Institute. And then the sec or the third, the third thing that I've seen um, would have to say stockmanship is a big component to to proper.
Um, I was blessed to learn and certainly I'm not an expert in it, but um, paradigm shifting, working with folks like Bud Williams um, Steve Cody, and some of their, some of their students um, my boys have been to Richard and Tina's school um, certainly Wally Olson and others who uh, Don Notto, um, she's been to our ranch and been able to help us uh, Bob Kinford has kind of his own flair, uh, Josh and Gwen uh, have been Um, those are some of the, some of the really good practitioners that I know
personally that are able to help a person to implement that because I've seen when you um, implement. A more intensive grazing strategy and the cattle aren't adapted. It can be very stressful to the cattle and to the people. And so I imperative that you learn proper stockmanship skills, being able to get the, the principle is the cattle at the right place at the right time for the right reason, with the right behavior.
And if you can do that, that's, you're going to have success in your grazing practices.
Yeah. Excellent resources there, Jared. Our second question, what's your favorite tool for the ranch?
tool? Oh man, again, you're asking me, so my mind goes to different things. I'm, I'm not a, I'm not a super techie guy when it comes to the ranch. Um, but like practical tools like pasture map
Oh,
has been a great tool. A great tool for us to be able to put um, a grazing plan together, and then also to be able to share uh, with people that come in as contract labor. Like, when you tell them to go fix a fence, we know that they're not going to go fix the neighbor's fence. If you say, hey, go fix cow hollow. They can put it on their map and they can see when they cross the boundary into the neighbors.
And so, you know, when you're operating on a large scale to to us, that's been really valuable to to be able to have um, more of a tactical tool. Um, you know, we are more old school. We, we utilize horses a lot. Um, and so we, we try to foster that. My boys like to rope. So being able to pasture doctor. And having that component to the stockmanship and to the herd management um, and being able to foster that culture. That's also pretty important to our operation and kind of a lost.
Not, not a dying art, but, you know, it is uh, as we utilize drones and virtual fencing and ATVs and UTVs and all that stuff um, it's kind that's a component that we don't want to see go obsolete.
Right, yeah. Thirdly, what would you tell someone just getting started?
don't give up. Um, you know, there's going to be a lot of naysayers out there that say you can't do it. That this dream is impossible. Um, Secondly, I would say go find somebody who can be a mentor to you and who is successful in the area that you want to learn about. And um, if you need to pay them um, because that is going to be the very best return on your money, the very best investment that you can make is to be able to pay somebody who is willing to take it seriously.
And say, Hey, you know, you might have to teach him what being a coach was. When I asked Wally Olson to coach me, he was very gracious. Um, his payment was that I do the work. He said, go read the one minute manager. The next week I came back, I'd listened to it and I could report back. I listened to it. And so it, it, might look very different than like signing up for a coaching program. It's just saying, Hey, you know, something, I want to know what, you know, will you help me to learn?
And people are gracious and they're going to do that. And I've been so blessed to be able to have those people in my life. And so, yeah, coach, a mentor, pretty critical piece.
Yeah. Very good advice. And lastly, Jared, where can others find out more about you?
Yeah, so social media is probably the best place. Um, Facebook our biggest presence. If you just look for Ag Steward uh, we were running some and things to the, to the events that we do. Um, we have different URLs for events at some point. Hopefully very soon we're going to have one centralized place that we can send people where they can get to it. Um, but agsteward. co um, but there's always a, there's always a separate landing page to that.
So I would say search it on Facebook um, look for it and the Profitable Steward podcast. Um, And then the profitable Ag Steward on uh, our YouTube channel, which is, I think, even better than our podcast channel, because you get to see 90 percent of the people who are on our podcast. They do it presentation style.
Oh, yeah.
They're going to have slides and pictures and things that they can share. Um, and this picture picture speaks a thousand words. So. You know, if it's an hour long podcast, you're going to get so much more information um, pulling it up on YouTube and uh, and so that's, yeah, the profitable ag steward. Just look for our podcast playlist on there. Um, and we can throw in your show notes also.
Yeah. We'll, we'll put those links in our show notes for, for everyone.
Yeah. Yep.
Jared, appreciate you coming on and sharing with us today.
Hey, I appreciate what you're doing. This, this is an important work. We can't do it alone. It's neat to see that this community is growing and we certainly welcome people into this community and into the Ag Steward family. And if regeneration, regenerative agriculture is new to you, I would say, you know, dispel, we hope to dispel the myth that it's just some kind of a fad, that it's some marketing ploy. Like this is It's more than just a label.
It's more than just a term like live the regenerative lifestyle
yes. Yeah.
and along the way um, the be great. So, uh, it's, it's an to be a part of this community.
Well, thank you, Jared.