Gabe Brown shows us a map of his farm. Drawing by Jennifer Hershey. Follow her work on Instagram at deeofo.
If you want to make small changes, change how you do things. If you want to make major changes, change how you SEE things.
Don Campbell (as quoted by Gabe Brown in his book Dirt to Soil)
When I began long-distance bike touring six years ago I was enthralled by the sense of freedom it offered; I learned how to carry very little to meet essential needs, I relished the sensuality of riding as fast as I dared down a hill with the wind to my back, I experienced deep satisfaction in conquering long uphill slopes, even while riding directly into a headwind. Those very simple experiences - the rush of freedom, the pride of accomplishment - made touring on a bicycle worthwhile. Beauty, however, was a generalized experience. Mountains, lakes, rivers, clouds, rain and rainbows caught my eye, while most small things went unnoticed. A small town boy turned long ago into a city slicker, I was a “big picture” observer. If it was dramatic, I was likely to appreciate it. Most small things went unnoticed, and my curiosity was limited. I was content to not know the particulars of a landscape or what was growing in a field unless I could recognize what I was looking at without much effort. Yet, my experiential palette broadened as I continued to cycle, and my observations began to sharpen. So did my curiosity.
Horses in a field near Lake Oahu (the Missouri River) north of Mobridge, SD. Photo by Michael Chase.
At about the same time, Jenny Hershey started joining me on biking adventures, and it wasn’t long before we began to recognize how many different things we each see in the same landscapes. Jenny - as a visual artist - is drawn to detail, and her observations fueled my curiosity even more. I began to appreciate that no matter where I am, there is more to observe in any landscape than I can ever fully digest. I am not discouraged by that perception; rather it is an incentive to stay with it, to see (and potentially understand) all I possibly can before that day arrives when I am no longer able to lift my leg over a bike seat. And there is continual progress; I see and learn more every day. My skill as an observer is growing. I think Jenny would say the same about herself.
The Missouri River from Standing Rock Reservation. We cycled the entire length of the Reservation on Highway 1806 and were deeply impressed with the beauty of the environment. At one point near Fort Yates, a woman waved Jenny over to point out the Sitting Bull Sacred Horses on a hill. An omen of good luck for those who see them, these wild horses are regarded as descendants of Sitting Bull’s horses. Photo by Michael Chase.
Climate change is both the biggest conundrum humans have ever faced, and simultaneously the ultimate challenge to our observational capacities. It is the result of millions and millions of small things that humans do. Most of those things can be seen in small measure by observant people, yet many human actions are at a scale beyond that which is perceptible to individuals. One housing development becomes many and hundreds of acres are lost to food cultivation, an oil derrick becomes thousands strewn across a vast region, a tanker truck becomes hundreds of miles of pipelines, a bare field in the wind becomes tons of lost topsoil, an application of synthetic fertilizer on crops becomes ruined waterways and destroyed municipal water systems, an application of pesticide on crops kills insect pests and simultaneously their beneficial predators - including the honeybees the same crops rely on for pollination.
Wind erosion on a conventionally tilled field in South Dakota. Photo by Michael Chase.
Small things become big things. All these things happen right in front of us, day after day after day, and many of us fail to notice them or their consequences until it’s too late. Some people do notice, however. Proverbial canaries in a coal mine, some are well known and in the news a lot, such as climate scientists Michael Mann or Katherine Heyhoe, or environmental activists Greta Thunberg, Bill McKibbon or the Standing Rock Water Protectors.
An inflow into Lake Oahe just south of the Cannonball River in South Dakota, where the Standing Rock protests of 2016 took place. Water Protectors have tried to protect groundwater sources from the probability of pollution, which in turn protects soil that nurtures healthy plants that feed bees and other pollinating insects. Although they were successful in getting the Obama administration to cancel the DAPL pipeline, Trump immediately approved it. Oil now flows under Lake Oahe and the pristine nature of this region is still under threat, yet, there is hope among Standing Rock residents that the Biden Administration will reverse Trump’s action and halt the flow of oil. Photo by Michael Chase.
Others don’t seek attention but attract it anyway by virtue of what they do, or how they see. John Miller is one of those people, as is Gabe Brown. While these two men (who are the primary subjects of this blog post) may be unlikely allies, they share a deep concern for the future, a love for the land, and a deep faith in nature as the greatest role model and teacher for agricultural practices.
We met Mylene, the town historian of Enderlin, North Dakota, about 70 miles west of Fargo, the day before we got to Gackle. She greeted us in her bright green pant suit and shared with us the history of why this town was more diverse (in its European ancestry) than most other North Dakota towns. This says something about diversity in North Dakota, since the 2010 census indicates Enderlin is 98.6% White, 2.4% Hispanic, 0.2% African American, 0.8% Native American, 0.1% Asian, and 0.2% from two or more races. When asked, she said the population was exactly 884 - unless someone she didn’t know about had died the night before. Drawing by Jennifer Hershey. Follow her work on Instagram at deeofo.
This post is a story of our interactions with these remarkable people as we cycled west from St Cloud, MN, to Bismarck, ND, down the Missouri River (aka, Lake Oahe) to Pierre, SD, and back east to St Cloud, MN, in May 2021.
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Gackle, ND, is the only stop along the 110 miles between Enderlin and Napoleon, ND, on the Adventure Cycling Association “Northern Tier” route through North Dakota. Although Gackle has a bar and a Tasteefreeze, there are no motels. However, we weren’t worried. We had learned from the ACA map there is a wonderful place for cyclists to stay called the Honey Hub. Located in the back of a split-level ranch house that sits empty for 9 months each year, the makeshift bedroom and bathroom also features a hot plate and refrigerator stuffed with drinks. The guestbook revealed no one had stayed there since late summer of 2020 (apparently, only the most intrepid of touring fanatics biked the iconic Northern Tier during the pandemic).
Jenny and I were greeted in the front yard of the Honey Hub by John Miller, the father of Jason Miller. Jason owns the house (and now, with a partner, the Miller Honey Farm) but lives in California most of the time. John is the colorful protagonist of The Beekeepers Lament by Hanna Nordhaus. We had no idea who we were talking to as we unpacked our gear, although it didn’t take us long to figure out John Miller is an unusual man. There were clues all around us: a stack of Hanna’s books for sale, a large display of honeystinger cycling treats and other forms of honey swag. “It is called the Honey Hub after all,” I told myself.
Miller Honey Farm created a winter home for their bees in a climate-controlled warehouse lit with infrared lighting that helps keep the bees dormant. Drawing by Jennifer Hershey. Follow her work on Instagram at deeofo.
I grabbed a copy of The Beekeepers Lament before we ambled over to the nearby Tasteefreeze for dinner, and read the book out loud to Jenny while we waited for some astonishingly good cod sandwiches. Our education was rapid, and we were transfixed. Turns out we had a complete misconception about how modern commercial beekeeping works. (It’s funny how something that seems so obvious after the fact, isn’t so obvious beforehand.)
As we thought, most beekeepers own just a few hives, and typically raise bees as a hobby. Some make extra money by selling honey, pollen, and beeswax. Commercial beekeepers, on the other hand, are responsible for thousands of hives and millions of bees. These colonies produce large amounts of honey and related products for profit, and are the primary means of large-scale agricultural pollination. Commercial beekeepers are distinct to the developed world; globally only about 5% of beekeepers run commercial operations, mainly in northern latitudes and Australia where industrial agriculture flourishes, and where (sadly) very few bees remain in the wild. Beekeepers elsewhere keep a much small number of hives in countries where farms are smaller and more diverse. That said, commercial beekeepers are responsible for as much as 60% of the world’s honey crop. Interestingly, the production, importing and packing of honey generates 22,000 jobs in the US, about half the amount of the total jobs created by the US coal industry.
Extra beehive pallets line the wall in the Miller Honey winter storage facility in Gackle, ND. Photo by Michael Chase.
As we had expected, the Miller Honey Farm sells the honey their bees make. They normally ship their honey to a major supplier in Lancaster, PA. But honey and beeswax-related products aren’t their most important activities. Like the 1200 other commercial beekeepers across the United States, John (now in charge of the Modesto pollination region) and Miller Honey Farm essentially “rents” their bees out to different growers over the season for pollination services. And also like many other US beekeepers, their year begins in the almond groves of the California Central Valley.
Every year in January and February the world’s greatest pollination event takes place in the valley. Over 2 million hives from around the US are put on flatbeds (at least 2,600 truckloads of those bees come from outside California) to pollinate more than 1 million acres of almond orchards. That includes Miller Honey Farm hives. Before John retired and took a back seat in the company he owned, he used to transport his hives from Newcastle, California, where he once owned a ranch. Now the farm winters their entire colony in their climate-controlled warehouse in Gackle over 1500 miles from California’s Central Valley.
Barrels for transporting honey line a wall at the Miller Honey plant in Gackle, ND. Photo by Michael Chase.
John’s hives stay in the California almond orchards until the growers no longer need them - usually mid to late March, when he takes them away to pollinate another crop. Pollination is a critical part of growing almonds, so removing hives too early can result in reduced yields. Keeping them too long can delay Miller Honey’s commitments to other growers, resulting in risks for honey bees to find alternative food sources when the almond bloom is over - or worse yet - subjecting the bees to pesticides when the almond growers start spraying. Some beekeepers believe that pesticides are responsible for Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), while others blame an invasive mite known as Varroa destructor. We got the impression that John Miller is agnostic about the subject of CCD as a persistent issue. …He once told Hanna Nordhaus the primary reason for massive bee collapse is PPM (piss poor management) by beekeepers.
Miller Honey bees placed in a field near Napoleon, ND. Photo by Michael Chase.
That may be true for some. But while modern industrial agriculture is the hand that feeds him, John is not the greatest fan. He works closely with the Honeybee Health Coalition, and is on the Board of Bee Informed. More than once he mentioned to us that regenerative agricultural practices would considerably help his bees. He even gave us bumper stickers that say: Farmers Feed Bees. For bees, greater diversity in available plant life makes for healthier bees and richer honey. Monoculture - a primary feature of modern conventional industrial agriculture - is a definite buzzkill for bees and their honey. Pun intended.
John Miller and Jenny Hershey in the Miller Honey winter bee storage facility in Gecko, ND. The light is infrared and won’t disturb resting bees. Photo by Michael Chase.
Besides, trucking bees around is no fun. I can’t imagine a beekeeper who wouldn’t be excited by placing bees in an environment so plant-rich he or she would never need to move them. The payoff would be considerable. One could even say that bees feed farmers.
As Hanna Nordhaus writes in The Beekeepers Lament: Farmers depend on honey bees to pollinate ninety different fruits and vegetables, from almonds to lettuce to cranberries to blueberries to canola—nearly $15 billion worth of crops a year. Although wind and wild insects pollinate some plants on a small scale, only bees promise the levels of production needed to meet the needs of the nation’s grocery shoppers. Like every aspect of American agriculture, beekeeping has, by necessity, joined the global economy of scale. Bees are pollination machines, and many of America’s farmers need them just as much as they need their tractors, threshers, and combines. For problems with water, labor, pest control, and soil quality, there are irrigation systems, big machines, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers. Today the biggest factor limiting the amount of produce grown is, for many crops, the number of bees available.
We saw this placard outside of Pierre, SD, at the Oahe Downstream State Recreation Area. Photo by Michael Chase.
Indeed, more pollinators (in the form of bees) are required if ever greater yields are the goal - especially if the type of agriculture practiced is fundamentally antithetical to the well-being of bees. And that is the conventional agricultural model. An unrelenting focus on yields has been the primary driver of industrial agriculture for decades, without regard to the health of the resources required to produce it. What if the predominant paradigm were to shift from chasing ever-higher yields to profits based on lower inputs based on increased soil health? Might we have happier farmers, cleaner water, richer soil, healthier consumers, less carbon in our atmosphere, and an abundance of bees? That, in essence, is the primary focus of regenerative agriculture.
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We organized this entire biking trip around a visit to Gabe Brown’s farm near Bismarck, ND. Our curiosity about regenerative agriculture had been heightened by our last bike trip through the Carolinas and our subsequent blog post on land trusts, where we learned about the potential importance of carbon sequestration through land use practices. So the opportunity to meet a successful farmer who is recognized as a leading practitioner of regenerative agriculture was a big lure. We weren’t disappointed. Nonetheless, much that happens on a biking adventure is based on serendipity, and our encounters with both John Miller and Gabe Brown were about as serendipitous as could be. Before we met him, we didn’t know John Miller existed, and although we intended to visit Gabe Brown’s Ranch, we really didn’t expect we’d get to meet the man himself. I don’t know if being able to spend precious time with each of these men was intervention by the gods or simply good luck. Gabe Brown told us he thinks people make their own luck; whatever the case, things definitely worked out for us.
The entrance to Gabe Brown’s Ranch, about 11 miles northeast of downtown Bismarck. Photo by Jenny Hershey.
As we rode up the long gravel driveway to the Brown Ranch, it looked empty. I wasn’t surprised. It was mid-May after all, and I expected every available hand to be out in the fields. Yet, I had made a bet with Jenny that someone would be there, selling many of the remarkable products Gabe and his son had figured out how to direct market over the years, and describes so well in his book Dirt to Soil. Obviously, I was naive about how the Brown Ranch markets its products. Roadside stands are not common on the plains, and it’s much easier to market through the internet. Gabe Brown’s outlet is called Nourished by Nature.
Gabe Brown’s farm looking west. Notice the perennial grassland and the size of the herd. Photo by Michael Chase
We arrived at a small ranch home, next to a barn and an equipment shed, and a few more buildings I didn’t recognize. In the distance near the shed, we saw a man get into a small off-road vehicle, and start driving toward us. Gabe Brown is a bit of a rock star because of his formidable presence in the movie Kiss the Ground (watchable on Netflix), and his ubiquitous presence on YouTube. We recognized him immediately. He was the only person around; we couldn’t believe our luck. Gabe seemed equally surprised. His first comment when he got close enough was, “That’s a first - I’ve never seen anyone arrive here on a bicycle before, much less a couple of older folks!” He was easygoing, but we were worried he might be really busy, so we quickly explained to him why we were there, and said we’d be happy looking around on our own. He replied, “I have a few minutes, so why not get out of the wind?” We went into a small building on the opposite side of the road - which, it turns out, is where Gabe Brown holds “soil health” seminars.
Perennial rangeland on Gabe Brown’s farm. Gabe is very thoughtful about where and how long he pastures his cattle so he can optimize the nutrient density and carbon content of his soil. Photo by Jenny Hershey.
Our conversation was quick and to the point. Gabe was a panelist on a Zoom call in about 20 minutes, so we covered a lot of territory quickly. My biggest takeaway was that while Gabe thinks the potential for sequestering carbon in soil through the use of cover crops, no-till seeding, and effective grazing of ruminating animals (his most profitable products), the science is still not clear on how to effectively measure the storage capacity of carbon from the atmosphere into soil. What is clear is that there are many other benefits of regenerative farming. As Gabe explains on his website: Our belief is that if we have healthy soil it will provide for clean air, clean water, healthy plants, healthy animals, and healthy people. Our soils are much more resilient than they once were. They now harbor billions of life forms that in fact “feed the food” we raise. Soils that are biologically active produce foods that are higher in vitamin and mineral content and when we eat these foods, these vitamins and minerals are passed on to us. These soils are also able to store more carbon and water which has a positive impact on the environment.
After a short while, Gabe handed over the keys to his off-road vehicle (apparently he thought if we were crazy enough to bike to his farm, we could certainly be able to drive his Polaris) and sent us off to see his pasturing chickens and his son’s iconic eggmobiles (described in Gabe’s book), where the Browns raise eggs and chickens, and integrate both into their soil development and management routine.
Chickens grazing in a section of field on Gabe’s land. When all the chickens are laying there is no need for fencing; the eggmobiles (where the chickens go to lay their eggs) are simply moved to another part of the field. The chickens don’t need to be fed, eggs are collected and sold, and the soil is naturally fertilized. Photo by Jenny Hershey.
A half hour later, he returned in a truck. Although Gabe had another Zoom call in an hour (we later learned it was with a major American retailer who is interested in supporting regenerative farmers by marketing their products), he wanted to show us more of his farm. We spent the next hour touring his remarkably beautiful perennial pastures and checking on his cows with him. We shared his delight as we saw some of the 11 new calves that had been born overnight. It was a wonderful way to spend an hour.
As a concept, regenerative agriculture aims to be more all-encompassing than or other types of agricultural practices, including organic. A recent article in Sustainable America lists five main principles that regenerative farmers agree upon: improving soil health, increasing biodiversity, aiding in carbon sequestration, incorporating humane treatment of livestock and farmworkers, and improving the overall larger ecosystem as a whole. These practices include:
Incorporating crop rotation and cover cropping
Increasing plant and crop diversity
Practicing minimal or no-till seeding to prevent erosion and increase soil health
Integrating managed grazing and pasturing of animals
One of the biggest potential benefits of regenerative agriculture is that it can help combat climate change. The hope is that regenerative agriculture’s strong focus on soil health and reduced tilling efforts will lead to more carbon being sequestered into healthy soil instead of being released into the atmosphere. However, many experts in addition to Gabe Brown agree: the science isn’t quite there to support the claims yet. Yet, whether regenerative agriculture ends up being a scientifically proven way to fight climate change or not, its methods still offer many benefits to the ecosystem, producers and consumers.
Gabe Brown relaxes on his no-till planter after explaining how it plants seed with minimal disruption to soil. Drawing by Jennifer Hershey. Follow her work on Instagram at deeofo.
Gabe Brown agrees, and it’s hard to imagine John Miller would disagree. The people at Understanding Ag, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (the NRCS is part of the USDA), and the Soil Health Academy also agree, as well as many more organizations that advocate for sustainable practices in modern agriculture. But the most stunning approval right now is bipartisan support coming from the federal government through the Growing Climate Solutions Act. This proposed legislation was reintroduced this April in the U.S. Senate by a large bipartisan group of senators, led by members of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Senators who are sponsoring the bill include 17 Democrats and 17 Republicans.
The bipartisanship toward this bill is almost stunning in our divided politics, and its potential should not be underestimated. In addition, more than 60 agriculture groups and many environmental organizations back the bill (but not all; some have a bad taste in their mouths because of previous problems with other voluntary carbon markets). As it is currently written, this bill will create a certification program at USDA to provide technical assistance for farmers and forest owners to enroll in a carbon-credit market. The USDA will provide guidelines to farmers on how to qualify for carbon-credit programs, and the carbon-credit program will then become "USDA certified." The legislation comes as an array of companies have started enrolling farmers in carbon sequestration programs to quantify and pay for farming practices that minimize tillage and increase organic matter in the soil.
Clearly, we have a lot more to learn about how to most effectively incentivize the agricultural sector to manage soil better, and policymakers must get this right. Yet, there is no time to waste and the potential for doing good is enormous. Let’s not forget: If you want to make small changes, change how you do things. If you want to make major changes, change how you SEE things.
In closing, I would like to add that Resources for the Future is one of my favorite go-to organizations for current information on large-scale climate solutions. Here’s what they have to say about carbon sequestration and storage in the land. Time will tell what we can accomplish. In the meantime, keep noticing the small stuff. It adds up.
Walter, a retired railroad engineer, is the Enderlin, ND, Friendly Tavern’’s Wheel of Fortune champion. Drawing by Jennifer Hershey. Follow her work on Instagram at deeofo.
Stay vigilant! Thanks for reading. More to come. Follow our next biking trip this July (while places are still under consideration, land use and carbon sequestration will be likely subjects).
All material, unless credited or otherwise noted, are copyrighted property of the blog post author.
Jenny Hershey took this photo in South Dakota, and she really wanted me to add it to this post because she likes it so much. I do too.