EPISODE · Jun 1, 2020 · 1H 9M
Why Soil Health Became a Buzzword Instead of a Practice
from Growing the Future · host Jocelyn Velestuk, Dan Aberhart
Dan and Jocelyn talk about the big picture in farming Jocelyn's thoughts about soil health as a buzzword The importance of a family farSoil health has become a phrase that gets said far more often than it gets measured. Jocelyn Velestuk works on both sides of that gap. She is an agronomy consultant, a cattle and grain farmer co-managing a family operation, president of the Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association, and a director on the Sask Wheat Development Commission. Her argument is that most of what a farm tries to correct downstream starts with something it has never actually looked at closely, and that the conversation between a producer and their agronomist is where that either gets found or gets missed. What's Inside - Why an averaged sample across a whole field can hide the exact thing you needed to see - The move from environmental consulting into agronomy, and what that background changes about how she reads a field - Why she believes an agronomist's job is to coach the decision rather than sell the input - What a decade of changed practice did to soil on an operation that had visibly eroded - Why fertility moves year over year, and what a single season's test can and cannot tell you - The reason she took a seat on provincial boards, and what she thinks the industry gets wrong about talking to the people who eat what it growsm and sustainable ag - Conversations Jocelyn has with farmers to advise on the future of their farms - Will Millennials start to care about where their food comes from down to the soil?Connect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Subscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.
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Jocelyn Velestuk is an agronomy consultant, a cattle and grain farmer, president of the Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association, and a director on the Sask Wheat Development Commission. She joins Dan to make the case that soil health stopped being a practice and became a phrase, and that the gap between the two is where most farms lose ground they did not know they were losing. She walks through how she actually reads a field, from sampling decisions through to the conversation where a producer sees the economics of their own soil, and why she thinks that conversation can make or break a farm. Producers walk away with a clearer sense of what to ask their own agronomist and why averaging a field is the fastest way to learn nothing.
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Why Soil Health Became a Buzzword Instead of a Practice
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