Graham Oberly - A Regenerative Farming Model (Oaks and Sprouts)

[00:00:00] Adam: Hello. Welcome to another episode of Green Champions.

[00:00:12] Dominique: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people, making real environmental change in the work that they do.

I'm here with Adam, Social Enterprise extraordinaire. 

[00:00:20] Adam: And I'm so glad to be here alongside Dominique, the sustainability expert. We bring you guests who saw the potential for impact in their job or community and did something about it.

[00:00:28] Dominique: From entrepreneurs to artists, farmers, to activists, this podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant some new ideas.

[00:00:38] Adam: Today, Dominique and I are joined by Graham Oberly. Graham is the co-owner of a family farm called Oaks and Sprouts alongside his wife, Tony. Their farm utilizes regenerative practices to grow produce, make cottage goods, and pastured meat.

Last time we got to hear about Graham's journey growing up, going through Boy Scouts, being part of the OSU Sustainability program and how he landed up on a farm.

So today we're gonna talk about sustainability from the lens of regenerative farming. Graham, welcome back.

[00:01:04] Graham: Thanks for having me back.

[00:01:05] Adam: Can you just remind our listeners a little bit, how did you find yourself in a position of owning a farm? 

[00:01:10] Graham: Our farm over in Urbana, Ohio used to be owned by my late aunt and uncle. When I was working as a sustainability coordinator, my aunt's health was on the decline, and so we put in place a succession plan for my wife and I to take over the farm using sustainability practices that I had learned about when I was a sustainability coordinator for Ohio State, focused primarily on putting carbon back into the soil, along with other, regenerative style practices.

[00:01:37] Adam: What is regenerative farming?

[00:01:39] Graham: Regenerative farming makes the economy, the people, and the land better than it was before.

For people who are new to the topic, is this like a longstanding farming practice? Is this new? So farming can be seen many ways by many people. And for a long time folks just said, "Oh, farmers care about the land 'cause they're on the land." It's not necessarily true. There're good farmers, bad farmers, good farming companies, bad farming companies for plants, animals, and everything else. 

And regenerative agriculture came about in the past, I don't know exactly, but I would say 10 to 15 years. 

Organic style farming has been around for many decades now. Organic farming is around carbon in the soil and using natural style art type ingredients and methods. But organic farming alone does not always bring the land and the people back to a better system than it was before. Sometimes it's the status quo. Sometimes organic farming can be bad for the land depending on the methods used. Just 'cause you're not using a manmade chemical, doesn't mean you're treating the land well. 

And so regenerative farming came about ' cause there were people that saw the current farming ecosystem and said, "Let's make this even better. We need this land and the people and the local economies to all keep going for hundreds of years rather than being worn out after a decade or few decades."

[00:03:02] Dominique: And you mentioned being really focused on that carbon aspect. Why is that a piece that stands out to you?

[00:03:07] Graham: I've always, been focused on climate action, and a lot of farms are very carbon intensive. A lot of folks will say, "Oh, you shouldn't eat meat because a lot of current big livestock agriculture has a very poor carbon footprint". Lots of land use from corn , soy, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) ,the manure from those is not managed in a way that the carbon goes back into the soil.

If you go to the grocery store or restaurant, you're probably and it's not your fault personally, getting food that's produced in a way that's not good for the local ecosystem. So we wanna be able to grow food that's not doing any of that. 

[00:03:45] Adam: What's it like being a farmer? I mean, this is like a big career change and like for somebody like me who's never thought about farming, like what's it actually like? 

[00:03:55] Graham: I think the very first thing is that I didn't realize how many people were not connected to their food. I did grow up in the country. I grew up growing vegetables with my parents. We had our neighbors growing beef cattle beside us, and so from my whole life, I've been at least aware and mildly involved, even if it's just personally I can say all groups of people are very disconnected from the food system right now. And we need to bring education through things like this podcast, people coming to farms, people learning about where their food is from. 

Right now ,we have a big focus for our farm on marketing ourselves as local 'cause that's something people identify with where we are at versus regenerative or organic or natural, which don't necessarily resonate with people where we live. But one of the biggest things that I've noticed of becoming a farmer is the disconnection of people and their food.

[00:04:47] Dominique: what's helped you connect? And you mentioned like some things we could be doing, podcast listening, going to visit, but can you think of like a few milestones in your journey that have been helping you to see the connection before I'm guessing purchasing land.

[00:04:58] Graham: To get connected to our food, my wife and I were buying local food when we lived in Columbus and trying to learn about the farms that that was coming from. At the same time, I was involved in sustainable food purchasing and I realized how challenging it was. And trying to think of it from just like a normal consumer. Some of us are eco nerds and trying to learn as much as possible, but the way I think about most of how I market our farm is that I want the regular person who has a job, life, family, events, whatever, they also need to be able to learn about their food in a quick, efficient, and accurate way. 

[00:05:36] Dominique: Do you have any tips for someone listening that is that person that is listening to this and hearing you but don't know how to be more connected?

[00:05:46] Graham: One step to get connected to your food or a couple would be: first, don't get food guilt. We all need to eat healthy as best as our own budget allows, and then from there we can try and learn about where that food is coming from and then try to identify local or sustainable sources beyond that. And for us so far, one of our methods has been being available at the farmer's market and being transparent when people ask us our methods. We have farm tours and things like that too. 

But just one step at a time is what I've told people. Don't try to learn the whole food system overnight. It's just . one farm for your peppers or squash or your meat or eggs or one thing. Learn about that. Try and make sure whatever your sources are you're using are valid. 'cause there's a lot on the internet nowadays that's just advertising and start there.

[00:06:36] Dominique: Do you like when somebody comes up to the farmer's market when you are there as a vendor and asks you some questions?

[00:06:42] Graham: I like when people ask me questions. We get a mix of people asking questions at our farmer's market. Some folks are very curious about our methods because they want to eat healthy, they wanna support local, they wanna support a farm that's doing good things for the environment. And then we get people that are a little overzealous about one specific topic. And they saw something online or whatever, YouTube, and they think, "if my food has this one thing, I'm not gonna buy it."

[00:07:09] Dominique: They'll do that kind of thing and then cut us off.

[00:07:12] Graham: What are examples of some questions that are nice to ask? If somebody is thinking about going to their farmer's market locally and being more educated or more engagedOne thing that lot of market gardeners appreciate when people want to buy seasonally. We're in Ohio, we're dictated by the four seasons , and when people try and plan out their year around their vegetables that are local, we get a lot of folks that'll say, "Hey, do you have tomatoes?" but it'll be May or it'll be midsummer and they'll ask for a fall crop. And so when people are trying to learn what is the local environment able to produce this time of year, and then they'll ask, "Oh, how do I cook with that if they've never used it before?" We'll try and give 'em some easy tips.

[00:07:50] Dominique: Your farm is called Oaks and Sprouts. Is there some meaning behind your name?

[00:07:53] Graham: Our farm name has a handful of meanings. But we are the young sprouts on our farm. My family has been on the land since 1930s, and so there's the oaks. We have a lot of family history farming there. Vegetables, meat grain crops on the land through direct up the chain to my grandparents, but also relatives that are on neighboring land that we learned from still. And then Tony and I are bringing in new different ideas on how to farm as well.

[00:08:22] Adam: I'm curious, you mentioned a little bit of showing up at farmer's markets as a way of distributing your food. 

How else do people find out about sustainable food and what are the avenues of business that you use to sell the food that you grow? 

[00:08:34] Graham: We also sell to a lot of restaurants and we have sometimes sold to Yellowbird Food Shed, which is a conglomerate CSA, and both of those we interact with the restaurants and then we'll post on social media about those sales. And that way people can know and then they can support that restaurant. And then some of those places that we sell to, post about the farms and producers that they buy from as well.

[00:09:00] Adam: if somebody's listening and they haven't heard of a CSA, what is that and how does that work?

[00:09:04] Graham: Yeah. CSA is Community Supported Agriculture and typically, a single farm or what I said, a conglomerate CSA, like Yellowbird will provide a box of food from their farm or the conglomerate farms every week to the people who are part of the program. Usually, you'll be a part of a program for a few months or a whole year, and every single week you get a box of food. If it's a vegetable farm, you get vegetables or and in more types of farms, you get meat, dairy, et cetera. And so you get what you get in the box usually. 

And it's a good way of supporting farms ' cause you prepay and then if the farm has a great year, you benefit. And if the farm has a challenging year like this year's drought, then the farm is supported through that community.

[00:09:49] Dominique: I'm curious to give the listeners kinda like a tour of your farm.

If you can walk us through, like walking around, what are all the things that you have on the land and what are all the things that you're actively growing or how does it change season by season?

[00:10:01] Graham: So our farm is in Urbana, Ohio, and we have light rolling hills on our farm. We have some woodlands that comes from both sides surrounds us. Mild residential area around us, along with lots of other farms, which are mostly corn and soybeans currently.

Our farm has three sections to it, We have the market garden, which is where all of our vegetables, herbs, microgreens are all grown there. We have a very, very small orchard, which has apples, peaches. plums and pears. And then we have the pasture which historically was a cattle pasture and we are restoring it actively now to be more cattle pasture for beef cattle. And we're redesigning it so that we can rotate cattle across the land.

[00:10:46] Dominique: Can you call out a few swaps you've made for regenerative practices that maybe a traditional farm would do differently?

[00:10:52] Graham: The section of our farm, which is used for our market garden, used to be a corn and soybean field. Most corn and soybeans in the Midwest, they either till and or use some kind of weed killer. A few people use flame weeding and so they annually till it, burn it, spray it and then plant soy or corn. And then after that, it sits fallow or maybe a light cover crop for the other six months of the year. 

We have our market garden on that space. We lightly till it for things like this fall, we planted about 600 feet of garlic. We till the land for the garlic. We also till when we are planting a new section of field and that will allow us to smooth out the land. If we add any soil amendments, we can make sure those are evenly distributed. Otherwise we don't do a lot of tilling. Right now we are in what can be called plastic culture. We use landscape fabric for our vegetable area, which allows water to permeate and sit in the soil. It holds some moisture better, so like this year during the drought, that plastic helped. 

[00:11:59] Dominique: Is that like a oaks and sprouts innovation? 

[00:12:01] Graham: No, there are a lot of farms right now using plastic in many ways. The plastic we're using I call it, called it landscape fabric. It's kind of like a tarp, it's a woven material and it lasts for several years. We have some actually from my aunt and uncle in the greenhouse. If I had to guess, it's probably 15 years old and still going versus some farms use single use plastic for weed control. 

And you mentioned in our last episode about just like what you used to think about farmers and farming before you started seeing yourself in the role is like one biggest surprise that you've had and all these things you're trying and having to see how they work and this practices you're implementing that are unique. Was there a surprise?

Well, and I don't wanna sound boastful but I think a lot of farms that exist in the US right now are very simplified. People grow one or two crops or one or two animals, and they have very simple systems where it's just rinse and repeat from what the industry says to do.

Corn, soybeans it's hard work still not to discredit that, but we're setting up a market garden with 50 to a hundred crops at a time. Similar with our animal system. Right now we have three types of livestock on the farm. We're setting up a very complex system, so we have to do a lot of critical thinking about how all the pieces play together, and I like that. That's one of the reasons I didn't want to be a farmer, is that I thought it would be boring if I was just sitting in a tractor all day.

[00:13:22] Adam: Is it boring?

[00:13:22] Graham: Not with our system,

[00:13:25] Adam: You mentioned a bit about bringing in this carbon capture into the farm and the plans that you have for that. What does that look like? And, how are you testing that?

[00:13:33] Graham: So for carbon capture for our market garden, the main method that we're so far doing is trying to till as little as possible. Many vegetable farms rely on really, really heavy tillage several times a year, or some farms manage all their wheats with tillage which is why we've switched to that fabric.

[00:13:51] Adam: How does that impact carbon?

[00:13:53] Graham: So when you till, you're mixing the soil and you're kicking some of it into the air, and then you're destroying the ecosystem within the soil and that will release carbon as well. And then also when you till and loosen the soil, some of it can be washed away into the water system.

And then with our livestock, our goal is to rotate the livestock across the pasture in a way that impacts the ground and the land. And then when the animals are on the land, they're eating the grass and other plants, they're pooping everywhere. And then if you rotate them, you move them somewhere else, then that land rests. Then all that grass that was eaten, it knows, "Oh, I need to keep growing and I need to be stronger."

So put deeper roots in the ground and that will pull carbon from the air and then at the same time, all that manure is down on the ground fertilizing versus on our farm, there's been a few years without any animals on the land and all of that land is quite stagnant right now. It's used up its available nutrients at the top where the roots are and the plants aren't fully stagnant.

But some areas we haven't mowed ever and the grass is, shin high. There's not much life to it, and by moving the animals across the land. They're eating and that manure's going down, fertilizing. It's creating a cycle where the plants are forced to grow, forced to grow stronger. They're given the nutrients they need, and at the same time we're creating human food with the animals. So we're creating two things benefiting each other.

Traditionally in the US animal agriculture, you just open grazed the pasture and that was the system there before us. It's what people could afford and you just let the animals go wherever you want and they would pick their favorite spots.

Whether it's the animal social structure or whatever, then they don't go anywhere else. So some spots get overgrazed, some places don't get grazed down, and then they would get overgrown. Right now in the US we have lots of invasive plants, and so if land is not managed either through mowing or chemicals or animals, you get lots of invasive plants as well. 

 you showed us just a little bit about like how you manage all your tasks. I think it's also cool to think about like new age farmers and being more interested in using more tools.

[00:16:02] Dominique: can you share about just like what it's like being like a young farmer? Right.

[00:16:04] Graham: Yeah. I love project management and I love technology, and then I also hate micromanaging people, so I like to give people a task and then make sure they have the tools to get done. Right now, we're using a an app called ClickUp for project management. And so I will have an assignment, a task on ClickUp, I assign it to someone, and if it's their first time, I'll show them in person how to do it, or if they need more training, keep showing them how to do it in person. 

But then after that, they'll get assigned and then I expect them to do the task, notate it online. If need be, we'll talk about it in person. If not, I double check it. They'll mark it as completed. I'll mark it as approved and we'll keep moving on. 

So it allows us to create a more regular system as well. We've created a lot of SOPs, Standard Operating Procedures.

Once things get added to the to-do lists, the checklists on ClickUp, it can stay there every time we duplicate the task. If we need to, we can add pictures. Here's what it should look like when it's done. Here's the checklist of things. If you are harvesting this crop, here's the tools you need. Here's where to store it. Here's how to package it. 

[00:17:10] Dominique: We've been playing with the software for a few years. This was our first year going all out with the employees assigning them all of the vegetable tasks and overall, they have reacted quite well to it. I imagine you presenting that on a room of traditional farmers, more stereotypical, you know? Yeah, and I just imagine them being surprised, 

[00:17:31] Graham: Even among millennial farmers, I've gotten shock from people that are like, "Oh, you are not using a whiteboard to manage your tasks?", and I'm like, "No."

[00:17:41] Adam: Should never use a whiteboard to manage your desk. task.

[00:17:44] Graham: They can just pull it up. We have an employee computer if they don't wanna use their phone, and most of our employees just use their phone. They pull it up, they knock it out, they upload pictures, checklist things, and keep moving on.

[00:17:56] Adam: This has been really fun. It has been fun having you on and like diving into regenerative farming, but also having a picture of like what your farm looks like and what makes it different from a traditional farm. So I really appreciate diving into that today. 

[00:18:07] Graham: Yeah, we're trying to create a farming system that is replicatable and is human friendly. A lot of farming right now is very tough. A lot of farmers we know that are small farms. People do it because of passion, which is not wrong, but it's not sustainable for them. And we need to replace most of the food system right now. So we need to identify practices that can be replicated not just on a couple acres of vegetables, but tens of thousands of acres for vegetables, for animals and everything else.

[00:18:36] Dominique: On that note of food system need change, if you were to think of the change that you think needs to happen what would it take?

[00:18:42] Graham: Right now , there are a lot of food subsidies that go to corn and soybeans, and we should either create equal subsidies for vegetables and livestock or eliminate them all and allow the free market to play out or some combination of all that. 

But the government is involved in our food system, like it or not, and I think we should have focus on local regenerative food as what is getting the food dollars. Growing food's expensive. Almost everything we're eating is subsidized, whether it's the fuel, the actual farming, and farming is only going to get more expensive, whether it's bringing food in from international places or locally, and so to keep food at prices that consumers can afford, I think the government should be involved one way or another and somehow benefit the actual local and regenerative farms.

We're involved in the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association and they have a policy wing of their organization. We try to support them. I try and rely on their education and then contribute to them as we can. But that's the best way for us to be involved is having advocates at the local government and federal government level.

[00:19:52] Dominique: I appreciate how much you shared about what it's like from the farmer's point of view and hearing what you think is important.

But also I appreciate you taking moments today to talk about what consumers can do and the average food shopper. And I also appreciate how kind you are that it's like baby steps.

[00:20:07] Graham: It's a giant system, and turning it all over overnight would wreck our economy. So it's gotta be slow, thoughtful and consistent steps.

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[00:20:16] Dominique: What is it like navigating climate change as a farmer?

[00:20:19] Graham: 2024 was a great year to be an example of climate change on farms, Ohio experienced record droughts throughout most of the state. I think there were a couple spots tip top north that did not experience severe drought. But June onward, on our farm was a drought. And I think even through the end of October was some level of drought on our farm. And so for us, we had extreme heat in April. I think in the nineties and then in June we had that week and a half of temperatures all over 90 degrees.

And then from June on, we had the drought periods we had I think like an inch or two of rain over like three months. Our farm is lucky to be over top of a great water source, but irrigation is not the same for soil as natural rain and we have a small farm. We only have four to six part-time employees at a time. I work full-time for the farm and my wife Tony works as she can for the farm in addition to her full-time job.

So this year when we have a full plate for our business, growing the vegetables, taking care of the animals and then we had several things happening at once. We had the heat, the drought, and we also had an issue with several different pests, deer, and insects.

All of those happening in the same period of time. We didn't have enough systems and staffing and place yet to properly react and or know how to react. 

[00:22:00] Dominique: And no one no one's preparing you for this. There's no guidebook.

[00:22:02] Graham: The US government says it takes 10 years of being a beginning farmer. And so we're in year four now, so we have six more years that the government says we're still in the beginning stages. 

We've worked quite hard on getting a commercial style irrigation system set up. So that every crop can be watered. This year for our setup, we had about 20 hours a day. 

June through August, there was irrigation running for our vegetables, whether it was one or several systems at a time. We have about 22 zones of irrigation set up for our market garden, and as we continue to expand.

That'll keep getting more complex, obviously. So we're trying to switch over to more wifi based irrigation. Right now, just our greenhouse is wifi based, the rest is on just little programmable timers. So we're trying to scale up that'll, that'll allow us to react more rapidly. And then trying to take data so that we know. Both by data points and by feel of the land. I can pretty well walk over the land and just by how much the soil gives tell you if it needs to be watered.

[00:23:15] Dominique: That's impressive.

[00:23:16] Graham: It's still a work in progress 'cause some crops are easier to know than others on how much water they need. 'cause we did over water at least two rows of tomatoes as well. So it's a balance.

[00:23:29] Adam: That's gotta be really hard. Just one, building up that knowledge of like, here's what the land needs, here's what these crop needs. And dealing with really diverse weather conditions where it's not, how it's been for the last hundred years.

[00:23:41] Dominique: I was gonna say, "yeah, like the unprecedented changes"

[00:23:44] Graham: Right. And now where we live, everyone out there acknowledged that it was a weird year for weather where we live there aren't a lot of folks talking about climate change still. And they're like, "Wow, it's been hot this year. It's been dry." But they don't, they don't use the climate change phrase. 

And then we're a business. So if we were growing those tomatoes that we killed, we paid someone, we bought the seeds, bought the potting soil, we grew them, paid someone to plant them, paid someone to transplant them, tend them, and then you lose all that. 

So it's quite challenging financially for farms that are dealing with drought or other conditions like the insects that I mentioned earlier, because we've had two winters without a really long, hard period of below freezing temperatures, we have a lot more insect pressure on our farm. 

Every week we sprayed certified organic chemicals for insect control. But those chemicals are challenged even in normal scenarios. 

and I'm worried if we don't get a really cold winter this year, I'm not sure what to do yet about next year, I need to quiz some more experienced farmers.

[00:24:54] Adam: That's really complex and especially when you don't know how things are gonna continue to change.

[00:24:58] Graham: And then the deer I mentioned, we have deer on our farm all year, every year for the four years we've farmed. But this year we had the drought, which means the creeks were empty, the grass was brown on the farm, and the deer saw green vegetables, little pools of water. So they decided to take advantage of our vegetables as well. Once that started happening and they decimated about a third of our crops in a week. Not over a long period of time. We got a deer fence built, an electric deer fence, and we haven't used it yet, but we do have a deer nuisance permit to permanently eliminate them. If we want to grow vegetables.

[00:25:43] Dominique: That's tough because now they know that's their So yeah. Can't undo that knowledge.

[00:25:48] Graham: I think that's an important little side topic of this whole farming story 'cause there's a lot of people in the sustainability space who think that vegetables don't require sacrifice of life and meat does. But one cow is one organism. When I till the land for our garlic, it kills thousands of little organisms, probably dozens or hundreds of small creatures like rodents. And then when we spray chemicals that are certified organic, that's as good as it gets.

We're killing tens of thousands of bugs. We do that at night, so we don't kill the honeybees or the native pollinators, but any food we consume requires sacrifice of life, and I think that's a frustrating part of the food system right now is that people have made one food evil and one not. When all food requires sacrifice of life, and it's about how do we manage that as best we can.

[00:26:48] Dominique: Yeah, I appreciate that. Like more holistic view to all of it and practical take. Yeah that's what I I really feel like that really isn't said very much. And that makes a lot of sense.

[00:26:58] Graham: And then there's the other piece of that, which is about nutrient availability to people based on what they can afford. Some people don't have a lot of income right now or ever, and they need to afford what'll provide nourishment to their family.

And we've villainized

just working class people. 

[00:27:16] Dominique: Yeah. I feel like more often than not the world of sustainability or like just thinking about longevity of anything is like, nothing can be fully evil that doesn't, that doesn't help anyone.

[00:27:25] Graham: No.

[00:27:26] Adam: Have to find that balance, which lifts up everybody in tandem. Like you can't leave a group behind. 

[00:27:31] Dominique: Yeah, and I think the unfortunate thing is that no one wants to hear, think critically. Just seek to understand, ask good questions, care more deeply. But when you look for a quick rule for something, that's when it gets really dicey. 

[00:27:44] Adam: Yeah, and Graham, I'm glad that we've got your mind at the forefront of figuring these things out and developing new practices that other people can use in the future.

[00:27:53] Dominique: We need more farmers like you. 

To leave us on a positive note from that, what's the most fulfilling thing that you get to do? What's a really good day?

[00:27:59] Graham: I like a day where we have a few employees on the farm. I've worked with them. They get to harvest and plant and then I'll get to work with our animals and then at the end of it all, I usually take a little loop, look at everything, sit down with a little snack and just soak it all in.

' cause a lot of times the time you finish, it's pitch black and life just goes by before you get to observe it.

[00:28:20] Dominique: I'm glad you get some of those moments. I'm sure it's not every day, but.

[00:28:22] Graham: Embrace the ones you get. 

[00:28:23] Dominique: Yeah, Thanks Graham.

[00:28:25] Adam: it's good advice for everybody, whether you're sitting here listening to this podcast 

[00:28:28] Dominique: Yeah. You don't have to own a farm to maybe need a little more of that.

[00:28:31] Adam: I love that. One. thanks for being on today. How do people find out about Oaks and Sprouts?

[00:28:35] Graham: Oaks and Sprouts is on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and we have a website and Instagram or Facebook. If you message me with any questions, happy to chat with you. And give us a follow.

[00:28:45] Adam: And it's oaks and is spelled out. So Oaks and Sprouts?

And your website? 

[00:28:51] Graham: oaksandsprouts.com 

[00:28:52] Adam: Fantastic.

[00:28:53] Dominique: Awesome. Thanks Graham.

[00:28:54] Graham: Thank you.

[00:28:55] Adam: As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We are here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against climate change. 

[00:29:05] Dominique: You can find our episodes at thegreenchampions.com. If you wanna stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform. If you have questions about climate change or sustainability, reach us on our website, thegreenchampions.com. Our music is by Zane Dwe ik. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Green Champions. We'll be digging into our sustainability success story just like Graham's in our next episode. 

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