An article series examining dynamic socio-environmental relationships in the Chesapeake Bay watershed
Rob Schnabel, Restoration Scientist at Chesapeake Bay Foundation, has had his datebook full for the past 21 years converting small farms to regenerative operations as well as planting acres of trees and building living shorelines. He is a leader in transitioning small farms that have used industrial methods to regenerative farming practices. In doing so, he hopes to shift the public perception of agriculture from being one of the leading causes of environmental illness to a solution for such problems. It’s part of a collective effort to create a healthier Chesapeake Bay environment.
What is regenerative agriculture? Regenerative agriculture describes the full-scope of holistic farming systems that, among other benefits, improve water and air quality, enhance ecosystem biodiversity, produce nutrient-dense food, and store carbon to help mitigate the effects of climate change. These practices are not to be confused with organic agriculture, which focuses solely on clean food. For the inside look on the regenerative farm movement, we talked to Schnabel, Darlene Goehringer of Pop’s Old Place farm, and Sarah Campbell of New Roots Farm.
As we interviewed Schnabel on the subject, his passion is evident as his eyes shine, and he becomes animated. “I want to see the next generation of farmers follow regenerative principles: grow diverse vegetables and raise multi species, which are direct-marketed to consumers.” The five specific principles recognized by the Natural Resources Conservation Service of regenerative agriculture are defined as: keep the soil covered (that may mean growing cover crops); minimize soil disturbance (with what farmers call no-till practices); maximize crop diversity; maintain living roots in the ground year-round; and maximize livestock diversity.
These days Schnabel is well known within the Bay region’s farming industry, but he didn’t start with such plentiful contacts. When he first started with CBF, he would have to, actually, knock on doors. These days, he has such good relationships within the many county soil conservation districts that he needs staff to help him provide information and resources to those knocking on his door. He also meets farmers, scientists, and advocates at conferences, such as the Future Harvest Conference (with up to 500 farmers), which is a great way to interact and educate.
In fact, we’re already quite familiar with regenerative agriculture as Schnabel explains. “While the term may be new, the process has been going on since the Renaissance, but we lost touch with the history. It’s now based on research and practices done, historically, by minorities. Native Americans, for example, practiced planting diversity through the ‘3 Sisters’ of corn, beans (legumes as a nitrogen fixer), and squash, which protect/armor the soil. Black researcher George Washington Carver employed crop rotation and the planting of peanuts (another legume), which restored soils in the South after decades of growing cotton had depleted the dirt. Minorities have been farming regeneratively for some time.”
For Schnabel, growing his contacts and educating the public are key to encouraging interest among the next generation of farmers. “Basically, I meet with farmers and learn their needs,” Schnabel says. “There’s a new kind of farmer, a young generation, that wants to get back to working the land and directly market goods to consumers. They don’t have heavy equipment, funding for seed planting and harvesting, or a massive infrastructure. They’re really looking to convert corn and tobacco fields back to diverse permanent cover pastures, which is pretty low-tech. They need help with enrolling in programs that help pay for that, and then they do rotational grazing.”
Why would a farmer make the extra effort for regenerative farming? “Regenerative farming should actually be more profitable in the long run for the farmer,” Schnabel explains. “They’re going to be building soil—making it healthier, which means they will reduce their input costs for things like chemical fertilizer, herbicides, and fungicides. While at the same time, consumers are starting to demand more nourishing food—more nutrient dense food. Regenerative farming actually doubles some nutrients, studies show. The regenerative farms also have more soil organic matter and that is critical for regulating water—making sure it’s not too wet or too dry. It’s basically recreating the sponge of the soil with the correct amount of water and organic matter, bringing carbon from the atmosphere back into soil.”
Lets visit a couple local farms practicing regenerative agriculture
Pop’s Old Place
Photography courtesy Stirling Photography
Hurlock, Maryland
From the main road and just a stone’s throw from Easton, we first spot the old wooden barn adorned with a painting of the American flag and then the proudly displayed “Pop’s Old Place” sign, as well as the Maryland Century Farm designation. Traveling the dirt lane, a farm-cozy, board-and-batten, one-room store comes into view. The farm products, including Randall Heritage beef, Mulefoot pork, Katahdin lamb, eggs, honey, and farm-made sourdough breads, are sold directly to customers from this store.
Farm team, Darlene Goehringer and her husband Arthur Wilson, took over Pop’s Old Place 22 years ago from her parents with the goal of producing nutritious food for the community while focusing on soil health, protecting animal welfare, and practicing environmental stewardship. They knew it was the “right thing to do”—to take care of the land and improve the soil. Little did they foresee the climate benefits or realize they were working all within the scope of regenerative farming.
In 1909 Goehringer’s grandparents, second generation immigrants from Germany, bought these 70 acres. The land was farmed with commodity crops for 80 years until Darlene and Arthur took over with the plan to raise livestock—carefully-researched heritage breeds that would thrive on pasture in the Eastern Shore’s climate.
Along the way, they acquired a total of three sheepdogs while working steadily to convert the land from grain tillage (originally corn and soybeans) to nutritious pasture—a multispecies grass mix of clover, alfalfa, and buckwheat. Their cows, sheep, and hens forage the pasture, while the Mulefoot hogs also forage the surrounding woodlands.
As Goehringer leads a farm tour, she states,“Animal welfare is extremely important to us and we are continuously adjusting our agriculture practices for better health of the animals, the soil, and the consumer.” They plant trees for shade, native perennial flowers for pollination, no-till summer annuals for parasite control, and cultivate carefully groomed, fenced pastures for cow and sheep grazing. Goehringer declares, “The motivating factor for me to start farming was to provide my family with nutritious and delicious food, and then I worked back from that. I love animals, I love working with the animals, and I want them to live in an environment where they seem satisfied and content.”
She continues, “[Regenerative agriculture] is beneficial to all aspects of the farm. When we’re grazing animals and there’s more forage, there’s more matter in the soil, which in turn, holds more water. With bare dirt there’s a lot of evaporation and that contributes to drought conditions. The goal is for soil to always be covered.”
Photography courtesy Stirling Photography
Trees, perennial pastures, native bushes, and flowers store more carbon. Bare ground releases carbon and soil blows away. Once it’s bare, the structure of the soil is destroyed. “Pasture grazing, storing carbon, and regenerative agriculture are all pieces of the same puzzle,” Goehringer explains. “Pastures are constantly taking carbon in and storing it in their roots under the soil just as the trees on your property are storing more carbon. Our objective is to never till—especially to a depth that would release it. My goal was not to sequester carbon but focus on building healthy soil—sequestered carbon became an added benefit!”
The bounty of Pop’s Old Place can be found only at their farm store. Goehringer is proud of their farming practices and animal care with hopes that by having visitors to the farm, consumers can decide who and what farming practices they want to support with their spending. For that education, tours are given the first Sunday of each month from March until December with notification on the farm’s website.
New Roots Farm
Photography courtesy Sarah Campbell and Chelsea Kruse
West River, Maryland
Traveling along Muddy Creek Road, one suddenly is attracted to the large, weathered barn hugging the curve in the road, along with the sign, “New Roots Farm, Store Open Today.” Drive a bit further, turn up an incline, and there sits a charming rustic-style farm building with a yellow door beckoning. As we entered, Sarah Campbell sat behind a small counter happily knitting away. Multitalented, Campbell says knitting with her own yarn gives her a sense of peace in her busy life. But her photography of her farm and animals is not to be missed, as her Instagram account attests.
Campbell was studying agriculture at UC Davis when her mother asked if they should sell the 400-acre farm or if Sarah would want to take over the farming. Take over she did, with the goal to raise animals while practicing regenerative agriculture. Campbell says, “I always loved animals, my mom is a veterinarian, and I grew up around them, so becoming a livestock farmer was a natural fit for me.”
The land Sarah now farms used to be acres of tobacco and is technically classified as “highly erodible land.” During college she studied labor and environmental issues, which spurred her interest in sustainable agriculture as a, possibly, more equitable solution for the land, the people who work it, and the animals. She studied food systems and community development in graduate school, which furthered her interest in local and regional foods.
“When we are talking about regenerative agriculture, we mean managing the land in a way that promotes soil health and puts more nutrients back into it than we take,” Campbell explains. “We raise cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens. The farm produces grass-finished beef, grass-fed lamb, fiber flock sheep, Berkshire Tamworth hogs, and pasture-raised chicken using intensive rotational grazing practices. We raise a variety of breeds at the farm and specialize in breeding livestock that thrive on pasture.” Being a young progressive farmer, Campbell has come up with some forward-thinking ideas. She became a member-arm of The Maryland Lamb Coop, which is a collective of women-owned and -operated sheep farms producing meat and fiber products using regenerative and sustainable grazing practices.
Campbell explains what it means to create healthy pastures that store carbon. “I’ve seen this farm transform since I started farming it in 2014, and it has been and continues to be an amazing journey. Managing healthy pastures has many benefits. You can use healthy pastures to sequester carbon as they hold more water; they prevent erosion and runoff into the Bay. Having healthy pastures means you always have some sort of ground cover, even after grazing, and in winter. Our pastures are very thick and lush—we don’t mow them, and the intensive grazing methods allow us to raise more animals in less space. They also provide habitat for birds and wildlife. On the farm we have lots of monarch butterflies, bald eagles, indigo buntings, red tailed hawks, herons, foxes, and rabbits. It brings me a lot of joy to witness all the critters the farming operation coexists with and to see the pastures improve every year.”
Photography courtesy Sarah Campbell and Chelsea Kruse
Campbell tells us it is very expensive to start a farm in Anne Arundel County with the high cost of land. Thus, she rents land to other farmers starting their own regenerative journey. “I’m very blessed to have access to farmland, and more of it than my operation currently requires. It is more important to me to give the next generation access to farmland. I’m very happy that we are renting land to Floating Lotus because I know they will be amazing stewards of the land while growing lots of delicious food.”
Adam and Joceyne Cottrell own Floating Lotus Farmstead, a small-scale, first-generation produce farm whose focus is healthy soil. They know that feeding the biology in the ground, in turn, feeds their plants. “We promote soil health by not disturbing the earth, furthermore by keeping the soil covered by way of plants, cover crops, and layers of compost,” the Cottrells state. “We use chemical free, regenerative ‘biomimic’ practices to grow all our produce and a locally-sourced, certified organic mushroom compost. After annual soil tests, we amend our soil according to the needs of each crop using certified organic amendments.” Adam sells their harvest at Anne Arundel County Farmers’ Market, and he will passionately chat with you about the health of his soil and produce—proof that regenerative agriculture is regenerating interest among both farmers and consumers!
