Latest / Conservation Stories / Why Noble Exists: Soil, Stewardship, and Staying on the Land

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Why Noble Exists: Soil, Stewardship, and Staying on the Land · Conservation Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:07
  Speaker B: Hello, friends. Welcome back again to another episode of Conservation Stories. I'm Tillery Timmons Sims. As you know, probably by now. And Conservation Stories is supported and funded by the Sand Hill Area Research Association. And we appreciate all of the times that you have tuned in. Listen. And I believe that we have released 80 podcasts, and that's pretty amazing. Consistently so, pretty much almost every week. And so I. I keep. We keep getting just more and more and better and better guests. And today we have Hugh Alejo from the Noble Research Institute, which is a very noble institution, but I don't think that's why you have your.
• 0:57
  Speaker A: No. And it. And it is Al. Joe, Just as simple as it is.
• 1:01
  Speaker B: No, it's not.
• 1:03
  Speaker A: It is.
• 1:04
  Speaker B: It is not.
• 1:05
  Speaker A: It is Al. Jo. And what. But I. But I answer by about anything. You know, I'm so sorry.
• 1:14
  Speaker B: I. I am. I will just have to tell you that I have a friend that's Italian who moved from Chicago to Texas, and. And her maiden name was De Julio, and everyone called her De Julio.
• 1:27
  Speaker A: I'll be.
• 1:28
  Speaker B: And so I just did the same thing to you. I just made your. So what. What nationality is Aljo?
• 1:36
  Speaker A: Well, the name itself, the A, L, J, O, E, a L, G, O, E, a L, G, E, O were all the same surname at one time in Europe.
• 1:46
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 1:47
  Speaker A: And the story is, as I understand it, is that probably a L, G, E, O was the original spelling. It was either Moorish or Spanish back at the end of the Roman Empire.
• 2:01
  Speaker B: So C. Spanish people wanted to live.
• 2:03
  Speaker A: They had to get out of the country. So they moved into the area of France and Germany, which were where my relatives came from, the Alsace region, then moved, of course, up through. Somehow they ended up in. In Ireland and. Yeah. And when they came over from the Old World into the New World, all depending on how they wanted to spell it, but a L, J, O, E, a L, G, O, E, and A L, G, E, O.
• 2:32
  Speaker B: But it really was originally a Spanish.
• 2:35
  Speaker A: Probably a Spanish surname.
• 2:37
  Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. So we have a town here called Lamisa.
• 2:41
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 2:42
  Speaker B: So it's probably one of those kind of things.
• 2:44
  Speaker A: Yes, ma'. Am.
• 2:45
  Speaker B: So interesting. Well, that is a lot easier to say, so I would have never guessed it was Al Jim. So Rabbit Trail. Yes, thank you for correcting me. So, okay, so tell us, Hugh, a little bit about your background. You and I have met Lacey at several different things, and you guys have been on panels together and stuff, and we have found a lot of camaraderie.
• 3:10
  Speaker A: Yes, ma'. Am.
• 3:11
  Speaker B: With you. And have appreciated your wisdom. And helping us as not just individually, but as an organization. You've been a good friend.
• 3:21
  Speaker A: Thank you.
• 3:22
  Speaker B: And we appreciate your time. So give us a little a bit about Hugh first, and then we're going to move into Noble.
• 3:29
  Speaker A: Well, I was raised in Texas. Raised out in Roscoe. Texas is where I grew up.
• 3:35
  Speaker B: Roscoe.
• 3:36
  Speaker A: Roscoe, yeah. Nolan County. And realized early in my life I wasn't gonna be a plowboy all my life. Okay. I wasn't a cotton farmer. I liked the ranching side. My granddad, when we were little bitty, you know, he always said, now, Hugh, when you go to school at Texas A and M and get a degree in agriculture like your uncles did, well, you know, it was set, you know. You know, I didn't know that anybody went anywhere else but Texas A and M for the longest time. But, no, I ended up going to Texas A and M, getting my first degree in animal science, another one in range science. I had an uncle that ranched over in East Texas, and that's what I really love to do. Had another uncle that actually was the manager of the JA ranch for about three years, but spent most of his career in the ranch trust area. For first, the Richburg. Walt Richburg is my uncle. And anyway, all that to be said is that I really like the ranching side of things a whole lot better than the farming side. And right out of college, after my master's degree, I had the opportunity to go to work for an international businessman. He had a property just east of College Station. Said he would like for someone to come in that was a little older than his kids that were about to start at Texas A and M and would like to build a ranch in his retirement day. So that's what we did. We started off with 150 Brahmin cows. When I left, we had about 1400 head of breeding females. Oh, wow. 3000 acres. So we grew it. He had the land, but he had a lot of. At least out until I got there. But we built it over about 5, 6 years and held it pretty steady at that point.
• 5:25
  Speaker B: What a great opportunity.
• 5:27
  Speaker A: It was so much learned. That's arena. And then came here. And so my master's is really in rain science, grazing management in particular. And it was a great opportunity to kind of learn to put the whole together, the business side, the ranching side, the cattle side, into one experience.
• 5:48
  Speaker B: That's like building an airplane in the air.
• 5:51
  Speaker A: Well, it sort of was. But, you know, the nice thing is Mr. Bush Horn, he. He was the. He was the owner, Mr. Bushorn, he would. He would say, now realize. He goes, Mr. Aljo, he goes, we want to be very aggressive because I have the money to back it up. So if anything went wrong, you know, he had the parachute. He had the parachute. And that.
• 6:14
  Speaker B: That's what I mean. Like, this is very unique opportunity.
• 6:18
  Speaker A: It really was. We tried. As long as we were aggressive, he wasn't as concerned. But we made all decisions together. We spent a lot of time. You know, he'd spend about 180 days a year here in the US in the spring and in the fall is when he spent most of his time. But we did a lot of time of walking and talking and planning, looking at the books, looking at the information and. And just better understand what we were doing. But he always told me, so if there was a better opportunity that came along, he says, you're going to get. You're going to get offers. He says, but promise me you won't accept an offer until you and I have discussed it, because I will be honest with you. And so I got the opportunity. I've applied here at Noble. You know, it seemed like it would be a wonderful thing to come up here as a pastor and range consultant and just see what I could do knowing that, you know, he probably had a better future. Once I learned a little bit more about the Noble foundation, which is what it was at the time I applied, was. Had the opportunity to come here. So I brought the opportunity to Mr. Bush and I said, this is what I've. You know, this is what I have an opportunity to go do. So he was studied on it, and he came back to me and he says, Mr. Aljo, I could pay you more money. I could pay. I could. I want to keep you. He says, but that would be a disservice to you and your family. What you really need to be doing is you need to go to Noble. It'll provide you more opportunity, more growth. And he was correct. So I came up here, and I've been here at Noble research institute for 30 years. Came here as a pasture and range consultant, became one of the managers over the consulting teams, then manager over all the consulting teams, and now I'm the director over the ranches that we have here, as well as outreach and partnership opportunities here.
• 8:08
  Speaker B: That is definitely 30 years.
• 8:11
  Speaker A: Yes, ma'.
• 8:12
  Speaker B: Am. Wow. I mean, not. You've had two. You basically have had two jobs.
• 8:17
  Speaker A: I've had two jobs. 10 years on the ranch and then 30 years here. Yes.
• 8:20
  Speaker B: Wow. My goodness. So is the man that you mentioned that owned the ranch. Is he still living?
• 8:27
  Speaker A: No, ma'.
• 8:27
  Speaker B: Am.
• 8:27
  Speaker A: He passed away here about. Probably about 10 years ago. Yeah, I went over and visited him over in Germany, you know, when. When we knew. Knew he was beginning to ill and went over and had a wonderful visit and reminisced over the good days and, and came back here and continued on. But his family, I still talk with his. With his wife, she's a widow, of course, and the daughter, we still stay in communication. Yeah, they sold the ranch, you know, back after I left.
• 8:57
  Speaker B: Oh, okay. Okay. Wow, that's so. That's. That's a really interesting. Well, I'd never been around Brahma cattle until I was in Tall Texas Ag Leadership Program and spent some time over there with Dr. Jim Zarkovich. And do you know Dr. Jim?
• 9:19
  Speaker A: I just know of him. I know who he is.
• 9:21
  Speaker B: Amazing face to face. Just man, he's wonderful. He's wonderful. But he has. That's. That's kind of cattle he raises. And we saw, I did see some. We went to ST Genetics where they're doing some, you know, breeding there for low water. A low water cow.
• 9:38
  Speaker A: Okay, okay.
• 9:39
  Speaker B: Low water, low methane. And they have actually, I think done a pretty good job of doing that. It's a pretty amazing place ST Genetics is.
• 9:48
  Speaker A: So I'd have to go see that. I have not had the opportunity.
• 9:52
  Speaker B: Yeah, that you. You really would probably enjoy that a lot. So the Noble Research Institute, it was Noble foundation when you first moved there. What is it? Okay, why is it?
• 10:06
  Speaker A: That's probably a better question. Why do we exist? Well, right. You know, we're. We were started back in 1945 by an old, old man by the name of Lloyd Noble, who'd been successful in. In a lot of his endeavors. You know, he was a businessman technically, and he partnered up with people that were very knowledgeable in the early days of oil exploration. Noble offshore drilling.
• 10:31
  Speaker B: Oh, okay.
• 10:32
  Speaker A: Horizontal drilling. They were some of the early pioneers into some of that technology. And so the Lloyd Noble, who was our founder was very interested in the people and the land itself. He was kind of a history buff on the side. Loved to visit museums and visit lands. But being an early pioneer of aviation back in, you know, the 30s, back when he first got started, and he would see for the bird's eye from a bird's eye view, just all the taking place across a lot of the countryside of Oklahoma and other parts of the world on land. Ever had spoken to the plow he experienced, the dust bowl grew, you know, he lived.
• 11:14
  Speaker B: Oh, sure.
• 11:16
  Speaker A: And he had a passion. He says, you know, all these people that working, that are working for me on my, in my company, the majority of them come all farms and ranches. And the only reason why they're working for me is they can't make a living on the land itself. He says, and they truly understand the value of a day's wage for a day's work. And he said, they're the best workers I've got. And he says I want to be able to give back to the land. Because in essence, his family had had a hardware store here in 1900 or at the turn of the 1900s. And when the, you know, when there was a lot of cotton in this part of the country and then land played out and then the drought started hitting, people couldn't pay their bills and they had come to the store credit and you know.
• 12:01
  Speaker B: Right.
• 12:02
  Speaker A: Got to the point where they couldn't return it. So they just turned in their, their note to their, to their land. So they were, you know, land rich and cash poor and then oil region.
• 12:11
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 12:12
  Speaker A: As the success that he had had, he wanted him to give back. So in 1945, he started a little soul testing, just a little soil testing office here in Ardmore, Oklahoma in conjunction with Oklahoma State University. And that was the beginning and recommendations and people do these little contests where they'd apply fertilizer to their gardens. Saw, lo and behold, you've got these great results. And then people wanted to know what would you recommend on my pastures or my fields. And in the early 50s, we had a consultation program that had an agronomist, an ag economist and then an animal scientist.
• 12:53
  Speaker B: So you're almost like extension working with. Because it, because, because you're working with the land grant university.
• 13:01
  Speaker A: We were at the time. And then when we began to, to really build larger than just kind of a little extension office, then we from OSU still work and, and you work nicely together. We, you know, played nice.
• 13:15
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 13:15
  Speaker A: But we wanted to, we, we were one of the original integrated resource management entities.
• 13:21
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 13:22
  Speaker A: That's where a lot of the, the concept had started was here at Noble.
• 13:25
  Speaker B: So, so for people that are listening, I've heard this term, you know, before and unfamiliar, but other people may not be. So what exactly does that mean?
• 13:34
  Speaker A: Well, an integrated resource management means that you've got specialists in each of these different areas and you work collectively to help a producer for an outcome that they've described. And so you, you, you know, you weigh the pros and the cons of the different alternatives that you might have. And then the producer can decide the direction he wants. But we have to work together. I'm, you know, my background is grazing and pasture and range management. Yes. I've got another degree in animal science. But you, but you would pair someone like me with someone that has multiple degrees in animal science with someone has multiple degrees in ag economics. I know. Let's work out the best, most profitable solution relative to the producers own resources that he's working with.
• 14:23
  Speaker B: Fabulous. So, so you guys. So during the. So I'm trying to. So it was really in the 50s. That's really when they were there. Was there the drought was in Oklahoma too, in the 50s?
• 14:37
  Speaker A: Yes, ma'. Am. Yeah. You know, the 30s was droughty. 50s was droughty. And then the 70s you see the little cycles that occur. Those cycles were relatively consistent till the more recent years. You know, if you go back and look at the study of the weather patterns. But they're in the 50s. That was also the time when we were getting started with our research effort. You know, you had a lot of guys that during this drought they couldn't make any money on wheat. And we were just beginning to breed wheat that could be more tolerant of acid soils. But we were still early. You know, wheat has a, has a, has a narrow window of ph that it's optimal and then after that it's difficult. Lime was hard to come by even back then. So we started a breeding program for use cereal rye called Elbon Rye was our first release. E L B O N. Which if you turn it backwards it's N O B L E. And it's still the most widely used rye across the United States. But we could plant that on these, these wore out soils and it would grow very well because it tolerates an acid soil much better. And cattle were worth more than wheat. You know, they were people would we. One of our first research efforts was, was not only to develop that rye but then to use it into a program where you take these weaned calves and put them out on this winter pasture cereal rye and then graze them. So that was the beginning of what we know today. Between us and Oklahoma State University. We started the winter pasture stocker cattle program that we know in the southern Great Plains. So that's where we started and really began to build our reputation. It was off of the work that was related to those type efforts to change a lot of our farm country into cattle country all of a sudden.
• 16:39
  Speaker B: Yeah. Kind of, kind of sounds familiar.
• 16:43
  Speaker A: Yes ma'. Am.
• 16:44
  Speaker B: Kind of sounds like something that might be happening now.
• 16:49
  Speaker A: You know, we don't. We can't bet on the. The fall rainfall like we used to.
• 16:53
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 16:55
  Speaker A: At the time kept people on the land and it. And it made a lot of farmers productive again and gave them hope for the future. So yeah, you know, we were pleased to be a part of it and then we continued to grow. You know, our consultation efforts were not only to where we had you know, Steven agronomist. We kind of broke that out into a. To an agronomist and a pasture and range person. We also added wildlife and fisheries because wildlife became economically important there in the 80s and then into the 90s. And then we have had a few pecan specialists because down here along the river.
• 17:39
  Speaker B: Oh yeah, Red river pecans.
• 17:41
  Speaker A: So those were our areas of expertise and we grew from one team to two teams to three teams. And when they built the fourth team that's when I got invited to be to. To join Noble. So back in.
• 17:53
  Speaker B: Oh my goodness we.
• 17:55
  Speaker A: We had four consulting teams were was conducting some continuing to do plant breeding but we'd also added a plant research effort to better understand you know the. The physiology of the plants. How do we, you know, how can we you know. You know even got into genetically modified organisms for a little bit just to. Just to understand how do you. How can you turn some of the genes on and off in order to have a more resilient plant against drought or disease or. It was an interesting time but all that kind of wound down here about 2017 when we set off on the new direction where we are today.
• 18:38
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 18:39
  Speaker A: Which is today we are. Our focus is centered around what we call this is our term regenerative ranching. Which all it really is is just grazing land stewardship or improve soil health and business success. You know, ranch business success. We just try to keep it simple. You know our mission always that almost word for word. But that's. That's exactly what we want to do is we want to help keep people on the land the ranch industry make this change. If you, if you look up. If people want to look up a ranch worthy. It's a new new little YouTube okay YouTube series that's.
• 19:26
  Speaker B: We'll put a link. We'll put a link in the notes.
• 19:28
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Jeff. Jeff Goodwin down at Texas A and M. Him and his program has started that ranches ranchers and talking a little bit about some of the successes and what we'd consider the. The regenerative ranching industry and they've included us on episode five some of our ranch people. And then on 10, our, our president CEO talks a little bit more about the history of Noble and why we're doing what we're doing today. But in 2019, our current President became president. He really wanted to. I say he. He did kind of. You can kind of back that out. Back in 2019, when Steve became president, he sat down with the board and the board said, look, you know, for years, Noble has just centered around that southern Great Plains, just that area around 100 mile, the counties that touch 100 mile radius, east and west, north and south. And so that's where we spent most of our time. The board said, in this day and time, what would it take to be a national organization that could have real impact? So they put together a committee of national ag leaders that included the likes of Jason Roundtree of Michigan State, Burt Tiger that retired from the Deseret Ranch, Tom Field at the University of Nebraska, Jason Lusk, who's, you know, there now at Oklahoma State University. You know, and sir, I mean, there was eight or nine members that were on this team. And with the charge, go back and review everything that Lloyd Noble had written about rebuilding, rejuvenating the soil, rejuvenating the businesses for the producer, and look at our resources, look what our strengths are, and then go back to that book, good to Great by Jim Collins. And in there it says, you need, you know, find that the bhag, you know, your big, hairy, audacious goal, and that one thing that you can be best in the world at. And what they asked is, we don't want to be best in the world, just best in the United States. What can we be the best at? And they came back with that thought, is that grazing land, soil health and ranch profitability is where you need to hang your hat. And then as a result, that's where we have focused all our efforts. We retrained our people, we outsourced all our breeding and research and really began to hone in what does regenerative ranching? What does grazing land, soil health and business profitability mean to us at Noble? To be able to share that with producers across the country through education. And how do we have research that would support the work that we're doing and then have demonstration ranches that basically demonstrate the work that we're doing? You actually have the show and tell here on our own ranches. So that's where we are today.
• 22:43
  Speaker B: That is. That is really an amazing story. I just sitting here, I'm thinking in my mind, okay, I need to look up this, this, this, and this. What. What do you think prompted the board to do. To. To do this? Like, because I. I don't know. I. I think about the entity that I'm, you know, Sarah, that we, Lacy and I, or have been managing and think, man, it's, you know, sometimes it's hard to narrow in on. You see all of these needs and different avenues where you could help meet these needs. But then you're like, okay, you have the finger in all these things, but you're really. Are you really making a big impact? I mean, what can. What can I spend my time on that will make the largest impact?
• 23:32
  Speaker A: Yes, well, that's a good question. And how it sort of came about was that back in 2017, we became an ag research organization. You know, it's very similar legislation that you would have for a medical research organization.
• 23:49
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 23:50
  Speaker A: What it did is separated our endowment from our operating entities, and in doing so, now as a, you know, the 501C3, we can now accept donations and in kind. Money is a lot easier as it goes toward our operations. It's like a medical research organization. In fact, our president, CEO was our attorney at the time who drafted that legislation. He understands it really well. So now we can do that. And that's why they wanted to have greater impact. So part of that impact, just like you would do an assessment. So they assessed where we were getting the biggest bang for their money that they were investing into our operations.
• 24:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, we're making the biggest difference.
• 24:37
  Speaker A: Yes, ma'. Am. So we were spending millions in science development, plant breeding. And when they had the analysis come back, it was making, you know, as best they could, come up with hundreds of thousands of dollars return for millions of dollars investment per year. Right country. Not just the noble, you know, noble. We were.
• 24:59
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 24:59
  Speaker A: Yeah, we were just looking at.
• 25:01
  Speaker B: Right.
• 25:02
  Speaker A: What's.
• 25:02
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 25:03
  Speaker A: And where they felt like they were big, getting the biggest return was their producer activities, their producer efforts. So what is that one thing we could do to impact producers? And what we did when we decided to make this change in direction is we set up all the scientists we had, because we had quite a few of them. They had really good programs, they were world renowned, they were well known. So we put them into universities or plant breeding programs somewhere across the United States to where they could be successful. So we took about 18 months to make sure that we could place them well within these different entities so they can continue to do what they were basically to do and do it even better. Because now you're with like people we reigned ourselves in went from about 400 employees down to about 150 over that period of time.
• 26:03
  Speaker B: I had 400 employees.
• 26:05
  Speaker A: We had 400 employees. Most of them are research, research lab type people. And what we went back to is to what do we really need? But first we need to be well trained in what we want to be in this whole, what I call holistic we, which is kind of my background. Understanding holistic resource management. And this regenerative ranching, what does it want to include? So we, we did an assessment as to, you know, what are the trainings that were available to where whoever was going to remain with us, whether they were going to be advisors or consultants, were they going to work, whether they're working on the ranches or conducting research, we wanted to go through the best of training as complete as we could in a shorter period of time if we could. So the board agreed with our president. Let's spend about a year, just really do it, conducting training amongst ourselves. And during that period of time, we were going to change our ranch operations where I was involved, to where we were going to remove all the chemicals and the fertilizer, a lot of the inputs and get back to where we were working more with nature and on inputs so that we could reduce our cost and then learn to manage, you know, more effectively to enhance our gross margins.
• 27:29
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 27:30
  Speaker A: So that's where we all started. We all went through understanding ag training here. We had brought them into our company, went through holistic resource management or savory training with the savory Institute. Everybody went through the entire training. We had ranching for profit. Come here to the to no and do it. Do a short training. And then we sent everybody to a ranching for profit school. So we invested a lot of money on our own personal education.
• 27:58
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 27:59
  Speaker A: And we've continued to provide that training to others. And then we begin to build our own curriculum focused on grazing land, soil health, grazing management, and then ranch profitability. Where do we need to start? So that's where our courses are and our education is built through in an instructionally designed program. And that's what we call our noble learning program. And instructional design was something new to me. You know, most of us that's been around as long as I have, we've learned to go to these programs. You know, you listen to someone talk for 45 minutes, we pull out the little tidbits that are meaningful to us and we can take that home and work with it. But for most people that aren't in Our world that we operate within, you know, you go about 10, 15 minutes and it begins to get lost. You know, we begin. Our minds wander.
• 29:00
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's true. Yeah.
• 29:02
  Speaker A: You know, we all still kind of do that. But what we've. What are. Through an instructional design training that we've done, we brought in instructional designers that knew very little about agriculture, pairing up the subject matter experts in these areas. Now we're going to take people on what we call a learning journey to where you have 10 to 15 maybe 20 minute segments where you're covering the concept in a group setting. Because we'll have these courses where people are sitting with a group at different tables. Now we're going to talk about it within the group to be sure that we understood what was being taught. How do you put it into perspective that is meaningful to everyone at the table? And then we spend time. What does it mean to you for your operation? Reflect on your operation.
• 29:47
  Speaker B: So these are in person?
• 29:49
  Speaker A: These are in person courses? Yes, ma'. Am.
• 29:51
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 29:53
  Speaker A: So that's how we, we go about. And we've got it designed and then we try to keep it within two to three days because most of us
• 29:59
  Speaker B: don't have the time.
• 30:00
  Speaker A: We don't have the time. Kind of a limited attention span, if you're talking.
• 30:05
  Speaker B: Right. I know. ID'd right here.
• 30:09
  Speaker A: So that's the way we designed it. So our courses are two to three days long and we have people that come here we are, we have more courses that are across the United States. We try to find partners. That's part of my job now as we try to find partners that want us to bring our education to their area, to their producers. Because in reality, we're not going to have subject matter experts all across the country.
• 30:33
  Speaker B: Right.
• 30:34
  Speaker A: But what we'll have is really good facilitators to facilitate the conversation. Facilitators for the education programs aren't sitting there telling you what you need to do or how to do it. What they're doing is bringing the principals together. And that's what we teach is principles. And we let the people there that are the subject matter experts in that area and just the producers go through this group think exercise as to is the practices as they align through our soil health principles, for example, or we call our ranch profitability essentials, our grazing principles, you know, making sure all this sort of fits together. We can guide the conversation as as far facilitators that let the group kind of determine what that would really look like as far as practices.
• 31:27
  Speaker B: Right, right. Because so Much of it is. And I think that's something that people, I mean at first when people start talking about regenerative, I remember all that I hear would be like, well, it works fine if you live where Gay Brown limbs, but if you don't live where Gay Brown lives, if you live over in the desert, it doesn't work. You know. And then he really began to emphasize it's placed, it's place, it's location based.
• 31:48
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 31:49
  Speaker B: You have to take you, you, you gotta have to take these general ideas and figure out how they fit in your region area specifically.
• 31:59
  Speaker A: And that's what it is. If you look at the solo principles, it was understanding Ag that truly put the fifth, the sixth principle in their context. You really need to know your context. And we all, we know what that means. But part of what that really should mean is do we not only do we understand what is there today? What's the history of your property or the land that you're trying? What was there back when it was first settled?
• 32:31
  Speaker B: Right.
• 32:32
  Speaker A: Most people aren't sure what that might have looked like, really be certain. But there are historic accounts that give you an indication of what they would like look like. It's kind of nice to know. Same thing, your weather, your climate. Most people know kind of about what it is, the averages. But you understand the variation because that's where you manage within the variation. Yes, Cycle, same thing. You know, you got to understand the variations. Where are you? How do you need to leverage yourself? Trainings this education is to do is to help bring those concepts together and talk through that to where the producers, instead of focusing on that one thing that they really want, which, you know, in the beef cattle industry, it's their cow herd. You know, everybody loves their cattle. And then all of a sudden they start getting names and they can't get sold. They think are better than all the other cows you do. You know, we have these, these mindsets, these biases that we create for ourselves that actually limit.
• 33:31
  Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. No, absolutely. I mean confirmation bias. You know, you decide what you want to. What you want to be true and then you find ways to confirm that truth.
• 33:41
  Speaker A: You bet. So that's what, that's what we're doing. You know, we, we're hopefully changing the mindsets.
• 33:48
  Speaker B: Right.
• 33:48
  Speaker A: Producers to be more open and not be locked into. Let's find that easy button. Okay. You know, all these best management practices that we've been taught for, you know, for, for eons, you know, when a lot of those best management practices were created, we had A different set of economics within our ag industry. Fertilizer was really, really cheap when we started,
• 34:12
  Speaker B: right.
• 34:13
  Speaker A: Feed was relatively cheap. Now feed today is relatively cheap compared to what it has been. But inputs are not. No, we've become more dependent on chemicals and you know, operate. How did we operate before, before all this? Generative ideas and concepts aren't, you know, they're not new. You know, we're just trying to re, you know, bring them forward and then hopefully leverage the understanding that we've gained over the years to know when to use some of these tools because they're still tools. We're not saying don't use them, but be sure that you understand the bend, the true benefit that you're going to achieve by doing it. Don't do it just because it's a best management practice for your area.
• 35:01
  Speaker B: Well, you know, a lot what I think is really interesting about the idea that you guys, how you're doing this, how you're going about this, which is this peer to peer, you know, performers around the table figuring it out. And what I think, I think about Patagonia that did a survey of, you know, what prevents farmers from implementing different practices. And number one on their survey was social pressure and number two was economics. So those two things, I do think they kind of go neck and neck, you know what I mean? I think in some years one will trump the other, but that helps to maybe alleviate some of that. What will my neighbor think? Kinda?
• 35:50
  Speaker A: Well, I think it does. What we've seen is that the producer that can explain why he's doing it is a lot more comfortable than one that's not interesting because if you're going to go against the grain, you need to understand why you're going against the grain. And if you can point back to in many cases that this is a lot more cost effective for me because I understand what my costs are. Because most ranchers, believe it or not, do not understand the costs or the returns. They talk about revenues but they can't tell you the margins because they have never evaluated the enterprise. That's why we ranching for profit model because very simple, kind of the back of a napkin type math to where you apply cost per enterprise to direct to the revenues. And then of course, you know, if your inventory changes, be able to factor that into it to actually come up with a gross product and just look at that enterprise and the overheads completely as you begin to have that initial evaluation.
• 36:55
  Speaker B: Right.
• 36:55
  Speaker A: If he can't pass that test, you know, if it's not profitable at that level, you know, why bother bringing in the question about overheads? Because there's nothing being contributed to it to be able to say, I'm profitable enough in my enterprises that I'm operating. I know what my return to overheads. You return to land and labor, which is the majority of the overhead cost.
• 37:21
  Speaker B: Wow. I guess as I think through what it would look like here to transition and I think about how many acres are we going to. How can it be profitable? Say if you're a farmer and you grow and you're on 3,000 acres and you say, okay, I'm going to convert back a third of that. Like, are you gonna make any money on a thousand acres of cattle? I'm. How are we gonna do that? How's this, how's this gonna work out?
• 37:50
  Speaker A: Well, and in your situation where you have a lot of cropland in your part of the country, it's a little different than we are in this part of the, part of the United States or where we're focusing on grazing land, because those are typically marginal croplands at best, and most of the grazing land that's out there should, should not be in farm or cropland production to begin with.
• 38:15
  Speaker B: Right. Well, and I'm, I mean, we've got so much. First of all, if you could graze crp. Oh, dumbest. Yes, dumbest, dumbest law on the books.
• 38:29
  Speaker A: Yes. If you can't graze it, you know, and I understand why they first put that in there, but they didn't give you any, any, any wiggle room in order to, to make that adjustment because at some point it needs to be grazed.
• 38:41
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 38:42
  Speaker A: You know, you don't want to graze it out. There needs to be some limitations. But to me, it's the same thing as when people, people have, have put landed crp. They need to be able to grace it. But on the other hand, I think that if they're going to take it out of crp, then they need to pay back what was given to them to plant it to begin with. That would keep a lot of that land from being converted back to farmland.
• 39:09
  Speaker B: That's an interesting idea because that is one of the things I've wondered about is like, so if you invest and you know how you say you have a project here where you're saying we're going to invest and help, you know, you convert, I don't know, you know, a thousand acres to, to native grasses and will help you, you know, maybe purchase cattle or will not help you with like some no fencing type. You Know, things like that. And then what happens when the price of cotton is over a dollar?
• 39:43
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 39:44
  Speaker B: And then, you know.
• 39:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, that, that's that. So there lies sort of the, the problems that we see.
• 39:51
  Speaker B: Right.
• 39:51
  Speaker A: Some of the farm bill outcomes that we have that are sort of linked to us. There could be some improvements. Hopefully we'll make some improvements over time. We have to operate with what we have. And that's part of what we, you know, we want to focus on here with our education is, you know, we got to make do with what we have, have a vision to the future of what we were. We want to be.
• 40:15
  Speaker B: Right. Right. Yeah. And I, I think this, you know, for, for me, I keep thinking like a resilience keeps coming to my mind, like, how can we, if, if we're more diverse, if our income is coming from more places and not just one source, then we have a little more resilience, wiggle room, you know, but if we're just, if, if we're completely relying on one, you know, insurance check, you know, what happens if we now have another flip at the administration and things change again and you know what I mean? So, which, I mean, I just, I think that could happen any four years.
• 41:01
  Speaker A: You know, sort of has been happening that way about every four years. Yes, ma'. Am. And you know, you start, you know, it all goes back to, you know, the 70s when Earl Butts says, you know, you know, get big or get out. Everybody began to farm at a big scale and become really good at farming one or two products. The problem is, is that when you do that, you don't have the diversity that farmers had. Farmers and ranchers had prior to that time. Crop wasn't doing real well. Something else might, but, you know, you didn't have these big boom and bust cycles that we see today. So inherently there are some problems with, you know, within that system. But our whole ag commodity markets are set up centered around that whole program. Our bills, our insurance programs, you know, all that is set up to support that.
• 41:58
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 41:58
  Speaker A: Food, cheap fiber, you know.
• 42:01
  Speaker B: Right, right.
• 42:03
  Speaker A: It's not helping the resiliency of the land nor the resiliency of the business.
• 42:09
  Speaker B: Oh, exactly. And I mean, actually, well, the podcast will be released. Before this podcast, we actually were talking about the history of the American agricultural movement. And yeah, super interesting. They actually have a reunion here in Lick every January.
• 42:24
  Speaker A: I see.
• 42:25
  Speaker B: And so I got to go was a couple weekends ago and it was so interesting. My dad was part of that. But what you're talking about now is actually part of the conversation that we had about, you know, Secretary Butts and his encouraging people to grow Fence row, defense row. Although the guy said he couldn't find where. Anywhere where that he couldn't find an actual original source where that. Where he said that he's like, I couldn't find an actual quote. So now I'm like super curious about the other word.
• 43:01
  Speaker A: Get out that quote.
• 43:02
  Speaker B: Yeah. Or fence row. To fence row.
• 43:04
  Speaker A: Okay. Finch row. I haven't seen that one, but I have seen the one that said get out. Yeah, yeah, that one's out there somewhere.
• 43:11
  Speaker B: Right. Well, and that's. That's what happened. That's exactly what happened. And that's. And that's where the position that we're in. I feel like definitely the policies that we have in place for Agriculture have driven the decisions that have had to be made in order to keep farming.
• 43:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And I'm pretty excited right now, though, that we have the focus back on, I call it the regenerative Agriculture efforts. Secretary Rollins and then, of course, Secretary Kennedy. You got those. We just inverted the food pyramid, which I'm delighted to hear.
• 43:57
  Speaker B: Right, right.
• 43:59
  Speaker A: There's just a lot of positives that if you're into agriculture, I think that we need to be paying attention to. You know.
• 44:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, there's. I think you're right. I mean, I think this is an opportunity to. And if we can figure out how to. There's the, A lot of the money that was. That IRA money was shift. I mean, I, I thought they were going to just take all that money out and get rid of it, but. But they've left it there for conservation. And so I think that's 37 billion that's there. But I read an article today about the lack of workforce to implement that. But what I wonder is if they're wanting to shift towards more contracting with organizations like Noble to. To run some of this rather than it running out straight out of the NRCS office.
• 44:49
  Speaker A: Well, you know, I think that's all yet to be determined.
• 44:52
  Speaker B: Right.
• 44:53
  Speaker A: Where I think some of us are hoping. And I think that's what we're seeing, what we're seeing put in place already. You know, they had this big retirement that, you know, a lot of the people that have the best understanding for. I know, talk about whole farm planning and, you know, that grant pilot project they just released. The people that really have a great understanding or the best understanding in order to do that type of assessments are, you know, they retired.
• 45:25
  Speaker B: They took retirement. Yes.
• 45:27
  Speaker A: And so, yeah, this technical assistance going to come from. Yeah, I think there's opportunities for like in the grazing world, you know, the national grazing lands coalition, U.S. other entities that are out there, whatever their strengths are, try to leverage those within the. Yeah, they tend to operate, but it'll be yet to be seen. I don't, I mean, I think they're going to be some higher. I don't think they're going to hire all that they need. They would rather work in.
• 45:54
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And I think. And you know, because what I, I have some kids that are working for the federal government, one contract and one straight through the federal. To the, through the federal government. And that's where I learned. Okay. Two thirds of all the people that work for federal government work through the federal government. For the federal government through a contract entity.
• 46:15
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 46:16
  Speaker B: And so even when we have a government shut down, it is important to remember that 2/3 of all government employees are still working.
• 46:23
  Speaker A: Correct.
• 46:24
  Speaker B: So, but I do think it would be very beneficial to, especially if you had even a little bit of competition, that these, that these organizations are like competing for customers almost. You know what I'm saying? Like to say, hey, you can pick this organization, you can pick this organization. And then you have, you know, more reason to keep innovating, to keep, you know, pushing things forward and making ideas and things happen and for attracting more people to participate. So I think if that is what is happening, I'm 100% well, I think
• 47:02
  Speaker A: it'll make it more competitive because instead of going out there and just trying to negotiate a deal on the side where you've got a basically very little accountability and you can, you can, you can ask for an arm and a leg for, for doing little to nothing, which we see in a lot of other areas that they're.
• 47:20
  Speaker B: Yes to.
• 47:20
  Speaker A: The corporate correcting I think we get into is you got a lot more exposure, a little more accountability, and now, you know, you're being measured against outcomes and the winners.
• 47:29
  Speaker B: Yes, yes.
• 47:31
  Speaker A: Be the producer when it's all said.
• 47:33
  Speaker B: Yes, yes, results. Yes. I, so I've in, I have a, I've met. I would say she is a friend of mine. She is credited for ending the global AIDS epidemic.
• 47:48
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 47:49
  Speaker B: And basically what happened was that President Bush said, give me all this money back from all these organizations. And he's like, here, you take it and fix it. And it was outcome based. And so you have outcomes. Here's the money. But we're not just going to hand over all the money and see no outcomes.
• 48:10
  Speaker A: No, that's right. And this administration in Particular is more interested or appears to be more interested in outcomes than giving money away.
• 48:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I think it's. I. I think that's a great thing that, you know, I would love to see because then you. Then you also have the ability to say, yeah, you are rude to our customers and you work for us. You should not be rude to your customers.
• 48:36
  Speaker A: That's right.
• 48:39
  Speaker B: Or you should not have an entity specific. Spend $50,000 and hours and hours of labor on easements and then refuse to approve easements.
• 48:48
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 48:50
  Speaker B: You know, so. Yeah, it's. I think that there's. There's a lot of good that can come out of that.
• 48:58
  Speaker A: Yes, ma', am.
• 49:00
  Speaker B: I do. This has been a great conversation, which not. Does not surprise me at all.
• 49:05
  Speaker A: Well, thank you. Thank you. I've enjoyed it. It's been fun. I. We get to talk a little bit about what I know a little bit about, which.
• 49:13
  Speaker B: You know a lot about it.
• 49:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's.
• 49:15
  Speaker B: You know a lot about it. And now I'm all like, okay, so I just took the beef course at Tech. I mean, I'm sorry. Oh, my God, please forgive me. I. It's at a. M. Yeah. Sorry for everyone who is now just completely. I say I didn't go to college so that I could remain neutral.
• 49:40
  Speaker A: If we're doing a really good job, it doesn't matter where the education comes.
• 49:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Well, I took the course, and it's not the Beef 101 course, but it's the. Anyway, it was the meat. Judging meat. I butchered a cow and I loved every minute of it. It was fabulous. Learned so much stuff. So much stuff. And so now I want to come to Noble and take your classes.
• 50:04
  Speaker A: We invite you to come join us. We'd love to have you.
• 50:07
  Speaker B: It'd be great.
• 50:08
  Speaker A: Just beginning to get our courses up on the. Up on our website. You know, we try to be at least a quarter ahead, so we don't have that many here in the first quarter. You know, get into the grazing part of it.
• 50:19
  Speaker B: It's.
• 50:19
  Speaker A: We have a lot of field exercises. We want to be out there when we've got something growing and it's a little more comfortable than it might be during the wintertime or the summer. Yeah. So look on our website, www.noble.org.
• 50:33
  Speaker B: okay.
• 50:34
  Speaker A: Find a course. There's a little button up there on the right side of it.
• 50:37
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 50:37
  Speaker A: And it'll take you to anything from our land essentials to grazing essentials, business of grazing profitability essentials, market Smart Grazing. And then we've just released Orchard Essentials. There's a few that'll be online, too. That.
• 50:55
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 50:56
  Speaker A: It better suits people. Some of those. We'll see More of those.
• 50:59
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 51:00
  Speaker A: Come up as we get more of those on in a format.
• 51:03
  Speaker B: Okay. Well, we'll put all that, as always, in the show notes so that people have easy access to it. And thank you so much, Hugh, for giving us your time.
• 51:12
  Speaker A: Well, Tillery, it's been fun. It's always fun to visit with you and, and, you know, hopefully, please enjoy it. Listeners will enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed visiting.
• 51:22
  Speaker B: Yes. And we will be rescheduling the NASA Acres tour that was supposed to happen in the fall. So we will be coming. It sounds like maybe we might be looking at August, September of next year. We don't know for sure, but we'll be making some of those decisions soon. Ish. So we will bring those folks to you. I enjoyed it, Hugh. Thanks.
• 51:43
  Speaker A: All right. Well, you have a great time.
• 51:45
  Speaker B: You too. And thanks, friends, for joining us again for this conversation with Hugh and this episode of Conservation Stories. I hope that you will take a minute to look over the Noble Research Institute's website and see if some of that information will be helpful to you. I'm sure that if you're looking, if you've always farmed and you're looking at having to diversify into cows, even though you've never wanted to ranch opposite of what he wanted, it will probably be of good information and help to you. So I look forward to having you all join us again next time on another episode of Conservation Stories.