Test. Measure. Adapt.
The Sweet Science of Sustainability.
In his quest for efficiency, Jordan Carlson analyzes every step of his production process. What practices create a return on investment (ROI) for the family farm in Custer County, Nebraska? Where is he overspending? Where should he invest? Is the extra effort worth it?
“Obviously, yield matters, but profit per acre should be more important,” he says. “Most farms operate like a factory — product goes in, product goes out. We want to loop back as many things as we can.”
When Carlson returned to the family farm in 2008, he set out to expand on his father’s no-till practice. Ultimately, he says, they wanted to put carbon in their soil. His father, Keith, had gone to no-till in the late 1990s. Keith’s goal was to save labor and moisture on the farm, which receives about 20 inches of rain annually. Father and son came to understand just how much impact the practice also had on the health of their soil.
They decided to take the next step and diversify their crop mix. They added cover crops to their rotation and saw fertilizer rates and herbicide applications drop.
“You also see them by what you’re not having to buy to put into the system. I don’t have a fairy tale idea that we’re going to never buy anything, but there’s a lot of things we can do to cut that back.”
The Carlson’s constantly research different practices and applications to improve efficiencies and reduce their impact on the environment. In many ways, they manage their farm like an ecosystem.
"By using a cover crop, I’m bringing more energy into the system from the sunlight that I capture by having something growing more days of the year. Those things start to have an effect, and you see them in the soil."
Carlson does biomass samples of cover crops. He’ll combine that with a Haney soil test, which measures the amount of nutrients available to soil microbes and evaluates other soil health indicators. He even looks at his soil under a microscope to gauge microbial diversity and trends. All this data lets him analyze where to invest his input dollars.
For the past decade, they have been doing block trials on every field to analyze various fertilizer rates. This has led to a reduction in their rates of synthetic nitrogen, the elimination of synthetic phosphorus and a shift to more compost and manure products. Today, most of their crops do not receive synthetic fertilizer, with the exception of corn.
One of their trials, which involved roller-crimping their hairy vetch cover crop, showed they could significantly cut nitrogen with little impact on yield.
“We cut 90 out of 170 units of N and maintained, within three bushels, our historical yield,” he says.
The Carlson’s have continued to build diversity into their operation. Today, they grow popcorn, white corn, cereal rye, hairy vetch, oats, barley, buckwheat and spring peas. These are rotated with a diverse mix of cover crops. They’ve also added a cattle herd.
“Our rotation is pretty complicated,” Carlson says. “Our original goal was to find an alternative crop we could harvest in July so we could plant cover crop mixes. The challenge has been finding those crops that we can actually sell.”
Market development for these niche crops, Carlson says, will be key to expanding regenerative agriculture.
"If there were markets for other crops, it would be a lot easier tomake the sales pitch for sustainable practices. We need people and corporations to quit focusing on programs that incentivize one practice. Those are good, but if we want scaled change to happen, farmers need to be paid for what they are producing. That would give them an opportunity to make their own decisions."
For the Carlson’s, a relationship with Walmart grew to include a market for their popcorn. A few years ago, Walmart wanted to source sustainable beef from a nearby feedlot. The company needed feed from farmers who used sustainable practices and diverse crop rotations. Carlson made the connection, and the business relationship has grown. Walmart now sells the family’s popcorn in its stores.
Sold under Walmart’s Great Value brand, the two-pound bags of popcorn feature a QR code linked to a video showing how the Carlson’s grow the crop.
“I’ve been really impressed with the Walmart team,” Carlson says. “With our popcorn product, for example, they wanted to have a regenerative product. But they’re not getting a lot of credit for it or even claiming it on the label. They just know the practices are the right thing to support.”
In conversations with Walmart representatives, Carlson stresses that these types of win-win relationships will encourage other farmers to adopt regenerative practices. “If farmers are wondering why the heck they are doing this extra work, this shows it actually matters to Walmart, and it should matter to their customers, too,” he says.
After more than a decade of experience with regenerative practices, Carlson is the first to admit breaking away from traditional ways takes more time and effort. “There’s been a few times my family has sat down and said these practices are making our work harder — not easier,” he recalls. “We asked, ‘Should we be doing this?’ We’ve tried a lot and had to learn the hard way. What we’re learning is that, in general, it is worth the effort. It is definitely more work. But it’s been really rewarding.”
For more on how we and our customer-owners support a more sustainable agriculture industry, read our 2024 Sustainability Report.
