One of the greatest tradeoffs humanity has had to make is between the ability to feed its ever-growing population and the need to protect the planet that sustains that very ability. Regenerative agriculture offers a way to do both by emulating the workings of natural ecosystems to bring back soil health, which ultimately impacts the health of humans who consume its plant and animal products. Taylor Collins dives deeper into this topic on the show with Carrie Miller. Taylor is an entrepreneur, former triathlete, bike racer, the Cofounder of EPIC Provisions, and co-owner of Roam Ranch in Fredericksburg, Texas. With his wife, Katie, he invests in reclaiming unproductive and degraded land and turn it into a sustainable paradise. He believes regenerative agriculture is an economical and eco-friendlier alternative to the destructive and degrading practices that dominate world agriculture. Tune in to this episode for more.

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Reclaiming Earth And Human Health Through Regenerative Agriculture With Taylor Collins

I have a special guest for you. He’s a graduate from Texas State University. He’s an entrepreneur, former triathlete, bike racer, Cofounder of the world’s first grass-fed meat, fruit and nut bar, EPIC Provisions, along with his beautiful wife, Katie. He’s the Co-Owner of Roam Ranch. He’s a bright young man who’s way beyond his years. I want to give him a big Texas welcome to the show, Taylor Collins.

Thank you, Carrie.

You’re welcome. I was searching on the web one day and after watching a YouTube, Rich Roll and Dr. Zach Bush, I landed on the Farmer’s Footprint. There you were along with your wife and your little girl. As one of the Farmer’s participants in an extremely important topic that we’re going to cover and that is regenerative agriculture. For our audience, can you explain what that is and what was your inspiration to follow the path?

When you think about agriculture, when you think about farming and ranching, there are a couple of different ways to break that down and the impact it has on our environment and on our food that we consume. We have this conventional industrialized model. When you think about agriculture, that’s what most people default to. With animal-based livestock, it’s a confined feedlot setting. It’s the use of antibiotics and hormones. Equally as destructive, you can look at how plants are grown and that’s a monoculture row crop plant-based operation that’s dependent on chemical inputs, herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers. It doesn’t exist without chemical inputs.

That’s destructive. It is taking out the nutrient density of our food and that conventional system is degenerative. We can all agree on that. It’s causing more harm than it is doing good on the planet and for consumers and for animals. You have another model, it’s another tier, and we call that a sustainable ranch or sustainable farm, sustainable agriculture. When you break that down, you’re basically saying let’s maintain homeostasis or status quo. If I told you that all of our soil has been depleted globally in an FAO report, which is the Food and Agriculture Organization. It’s a division of the United Nations say that we have about 50 years of food production left at this run rate with how we’re mismanaging land and our natural resources, you’d say, “Why would we ever want to sustain that?”

You even look at nutrient density wherein two generations, our grandparents’ generation,