#regenerativeag Archives - AGD Consulting

Vets In Ag Podcast

#14 Jon Jackson (USA) - STAG Vets Inc

00:00 / 00:44:29

We only grow in our discomfort

This from our guest this week – Jon Jackson – US Army veteran and Executive Director at STAG Vets Inc – as he described one of their central and differentiated themes. STAG Vets is non-profit organization focusing on acute veterans crisis care using sustainable food production and agriculture as the methodology by which to support veterans struggling with PTSD and other issues. Comfort Farms, named in honor of US Army Ranger Captain Kyle Comfort (KIA May 8th, 2020), is located in central Georgia.

This conversation with Jon solidified for me the manner in which many veterans tell you about their experiences – through story. In the first 15 minutes, we’d been through several stories from his time as a necropsy technician to how seeing research animals dissected on an autopsy table opened his eyes to sacrifice as a sense of service, which is what originally drew him to the military.

What Jon is doing at Comfort Farms is different in the sense that it forces the veteran to look for meaning in their surrounding – in this case agriculture – and to be personally ready to work for themselves through their issues.

Have a listen to find out what Jon is doing and his unique take on behavioral therapy within agriculture

Vets In Ag Podcast

#13 Dawn Breitkreutz (USAF) - Stoney Creek Farms

00:00 / 00:46:17

We don’t need to learn new things, we need to learn old things.

This from our guest for this episode – Dawn Breitkreutz with Stoney Creek Farms – as she describes how we should approach the adoption of regenerative practices. These are essential old practices, she describes, that were used by our parents and grandparents to farm. We don’t need to necessarily learn new methodologies or technologies, but rather we need to become familiar again with the practices of our past.

Dawn is a US Air Force Veteran and Co-Founder of Stoney Creek Farms along with her husband Grant. Along Minnesota River near Redwood Falls, Minnesota, Dawn and Grant have converted a conventional crop and cow/calf operation into a multi-enterprise regenerative family business over the last 20 years.
As an analytical person by nature, Dawn began questioning modern-day practices on their own row crops acres – why are we doing things this how, why do we have to add this chemical product, etc. It was this inquiring nature and a degradation in their farm and livestock operations that caused both her and Grant to stop and think about how they were farming.

Dawn’s gradual and self-motivated approach to change sets a path, I think, that can be followed in a very practical way. It doesn’t have to happen over night nor does it need to be a full reversal right away – change begets change and in this case, small victories gave them the confidence to continue and even start to being veterans into their operation.

I’ll bring you into the conversation as Dawn and I discuss a documentary titled Farmer’s Footprint which centered around Dawn and Grant’s farm as an example of how regenerative practices highlight farming as a complete system and how the student, Dawn, eventually became the teacher.