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It's About Time

written by

Dustin Schnabel

posted on

December 19, 2020

In one form or another, we are asked the question a lot – “I want to buy my family’s food directly from farmers, what would a family budget look like?”.  There are so many variables at play, it is nearly impossible to come up with an appropriate answer.  It is a lot like asking – “how much is a car?”.  Do you want the car to have heated leather seats, or are you fine with warming them up with your rear-end?  Will your automobile auto-correct your driving if you veer into another lane, or are you willing to put down your phone and pay attention to the road? 

How much we spend on food follows much of the same thought process. Am I going to put in the work, or will I pay for convenience?   I can easily thaw out a package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and whip up an easy dinner.  If your family wishes to make the transition into ZOE Farms that way, plan on paying $13 per pound for that convenience for ONE MEAL.  On the other hand, if you wish to extract maximum value from a WHOLE CHICKEN, then follow along. 

A chicken has two breasts, two breast tenders, two wings, two legs, two thighs and a back that they are all attached to.  If our chickens average five pounds and we sell them for $4.29 per pound, you get all that for about twenty-two bucks. Here is what that one whole chicken does for us:  a family of four, full-size appetites. 

Meal 1 – fajitas stir fry using breasts and tenders
Meal 2 – grilled legs and thighs with wings
Meal 3 – chicken veggie soup using the back and neck as a base stock

For twenty-two dollars, we fed our family three times. Compare this to thirteen dollars for one meal and it is easy to demonstrate the cost of convenience.  If I want to text message while driving, I should probably pay for the technology to keep me safe.  If I put my phone down and watch the road around me, I don’t need that safety feature on my car. If I want to do the work in the kitchen, then I spend the time to save the money. 

Saving a ton of time, a family can hit the drive-thru to pickup four chicken sammies, four fries and four toxic sugar-fiz drinks (That should be the lawful name of them :-)  for about twenty two bucks. On the flip-side, a family leaving our farm with a twenty-two dollar chicken will go home, cut it up and stretch it into three meals.

In both situations, nearly the same money is being spent. The difference is choosing how to spend TIME.  If the line-ups at the chicken sandwich joints are any indication – there is plenty of MONEY available in food budgets. Similarly, our rapidly increasing group of farm patrons tells me that there is a growing number of folks dedicated to giving their families the most important resource they have when it comes to food – the TIME to prepare it.

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Driving Deeper: Regenerative Farming Below the Soil

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Regenerative Farming Starts Underground People often ask what I’m most passionate about when it comes to farming. The answer surprises them. It’s not cattle genetics. It’s not the business. It’s not even livestock management I love all of these aspects of what we do, but my deepest passion is soil food web biology. Because that’s where regenerative farming actually begins. It's the foundation from which everything else is built.  If the biology in the soil is broken, nothing above ground will truly thrive. You can put animals on pasture, rotate them beautifully, and use all the right buzzwords—but if the living system underground isn’t functioning properly, the whole thing is mostly optics. Real regenerative agriculture starts with the biological economy inside the soil. This only exists in healthy, well managed land. Microbes are eating, or being eaten. When this cycle is functioning well, the plant's ability to create more energy from photosynthesis put on turbo-charge!  The Soil Economy The easiest way to understand soil biology is through economics. Think of soil like a functioning marketplace. Plants are the primary investors. Through photosynthesis, they convert sunlight into sugars. A large portion of those sugars—sometimes 20–40% of what the plant produces—is released into the soil through the roots. Those sugars are the currency of the soil economy. They feed bacteria and fungi living around the roots. In return, those microbes perform services the plant cannot do alone. They mine nutrients from minerals, break down organic matter, and transport nutrients and water through microscopic fungal networks. But the economy doesn’t stop there. Protozoa and beneficial nematodes graze on those microbes. When they consume bacteria and fungi, they release nutrients—especially nitrogen—in plant-available forms right where the plant needs them - when the plant needs them. This constant cycle of investment, trade, and consumption is what scientists call the soil food web. And when that biological economy is functioning well, plants gain access to a much broader spectrum of nutrients than they could ever pull from soil on their own. The Difference Between Slogans and Proof There’s a lot of talk about regenerative farming right now. Pasture photos. Buzzwords. Marketing slogans. But real regenerative agriculture requires something more. Measurement. On our farm, we don’t just put cattle and chickens out on pasture and assume everything is working the way it should. We monitor the biology underground. That means taking soil samples and putting them under a microscope to look directly at the organisms that drive the soil food web—bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and other microscopic life. It’s the difference between guessing and knowing. When you can actually see the biological community in the soil, you can tell whether the ecosystem is functioning or whether something is missing. That crosses the line from marketing language into hard biological evidence. Bulk DNA Analysis has been performed on the biological extracts we are applying to our land. This is hard proof confirmation that we are effectively inoculating our soils with tens of thousands of different species of microbes Healing Relationships with Land and Animals Our farm’s mission is simple: “As farmers, we seek to heal our relationships with land and animals. We share this healing with our patrons through the food it produces.” That healing begins with this soil food web economy. When the soil food web is functioning properly, nutrients cycle efficiently. Plants grow stronger. Pastures become more resilient to drought and stress. Animals grazing those pastures receive a more complete nutritional profile from the plants they consume. The result is healthier animals and more resilient land. And the food produced from that system? That’s the byproduct. That's why "we share this healing with our patrons through the food it produces" is the second part of our mission.  When soil biology improves, nutrient density often follows because the plants—and the animals eating those plants—are operating within a healthier biological system. This is a soil sample under a microscope at 400X. The long strand is a fungal strand known as hypha. The bacteria are smaller, round, somewhat translucent. We actually review samples of our soil to be sure the correct micro organisms are present in the right ratios to ensure the soil food web is functioning properly.  Raising the Bar on Regenerative Farming The word “regenerative” is being thrown around a lot these days. Sometimes it’s used meaningfully. Oftentimes,  it’s used as a slogan. I’m committed to something deeper. For regenerative agriculture to mean anything, it has to be grounded in biological function, not just good intentions. That’s why this year I’ve made a decision that reflects where our priorities truly are. I've set in motion a plan to reinvest the majority of profits this season into a comprehensive soil improvement program spanning more than 400 acres of land under our management. This includes detailed biological soil analysis, targeted strategies to strengthen the soil food web, and management practices designed to support the long-term health of the entire ecosystem. When the biological economy underground is functioning well, everything above ground explodes with productivity and resilience. The Foundation of Everything We Produce At the end of the day, regenerative farming isn’t defined by labels. It’s defined by whether the land is actually getting healthier. 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