AJ Boyce - How One Man Supports Underserved Farmers

[00:00:10] Adam: Hello. Welcome to Green Champions.

[00:00:12] Dominique: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people, making real environmental change in the work that they do. I'm here with Adam, our social enterprise extraordinaire.

[00:00:20] Adam: And I'm so glad to be here alongside Dominique, our sustainability expert. We bring you guests who saw the potential for impact in their job work community, and did something about it.

[00:00:29] Dominique: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists, this podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant new ideas.

[00:00:38] Adam: Today, Dominique and I are joined by AJ Boyce. AJ is an agriculture conservation practitioner with the Nature Conservancy, where he works at the intersection of environmental sustainability and social justice. His work focuses on naturalizing industrial and agricultural development, creating green solutions that reduce carbon emissions and improve public health, especially in BIPOC communities.

Last time we got to hear about AJ's path growing up, digging around in the soil, making gardens, all the way up into working with people to get them into nature to help discover policy. And we're excited to have you back on today as we discuss your efforts to advance conservation strategies that are both environmentally effective and socially inclusive. So, AJ, welcome back.

[00:01:19] AJ: Thank you for having me. It's been so long.

[00:01:22] Dominique: You missed us?

[00:01:24] Adam: Been ages, man.

[00:01:25] Dominique: AJ, first tell us about The Nature Conservancy and what listeners should know about the organization. 

[00:01:30] AJ: The Nature Conservancy is the largest environmental nonprofit in the world, active in over 72 states and territories, countries and territories rather. And a lot of our work relies on the beautiful work of our partners. So we work in collaboration with a lot of other nonprofits, universities, and other organizations to further conservation of natural areas and also to advance the environmental stewardship methods used on those preserves.

[00:01:58] Adam: How long have you been there and can you remind us how you got connected to them? 

[00:02:01] AJ: I've worked in Nature Conservancy for over three years and I found my way to agricultural conservation after history in horticulture and urban agriculture.

[00:02:12] Dominique: So as an agriculture conservation practitioner at the Nature Conservancy, what does your day-to-day work look like? 

[00:02:19] AJ: It looks like talking to, be it, I mean, lately it's been farmers calling me at 7:00 AM to talk about cover crops. But oftentimes it's working on either project management for some type of conservation practice or trying to develop capacity so that way we can either increase technical assistance or the actual implementation of some type of regenerative agricultural method.

[00:02:46] Adam: Can you walk us through what a project actually looks like?

[00:02:48] AJ: One project that we were working on that I was super excited about, but recently due to funding changes has been on pause that possibly canceled, was trying to advance the adoption of agroforestry practices. And those are things that just put trees onto agricultural landscapes and that can look a multitude of different ways. And what we were doing was providing the financial and the technical assistance to farmers who are interested in trying what we call in North America, an innovative technique.

However, it's been something that's been practice for millennia around the world, and it's just now being reintroduce on a more industrialized scale.

And that can be through helping people with the site design, try to talk about the crop selection, the way that things are laid out, and then also trying to supply them with alternative funding methods in case the one that we have does not fit all their needs, or if they aren't eligible for that at all. So, yeah, a lot of our projects were focused on financial and technical assistance to get people where they want to be. 

[00:03:45] Dominique: What kind of factors are considered in determining, for example, what crops makes the most sense? 

[00:03:53] AJ: Yeah. I would say that every farm is different. And so it depends on if this is going to be someone who focuses on annual crops or perennial crops, which are as crops that stay within the ground and don't need to be replanted every year. And the combination of things that they want to do with those.

But the most basic things, you're looking at your site, so like what soil type do you have? How much light availability do you have? Do you have access to water? How close are you to the water table? Are you in a place that's susceptible for flooding? What crops do I need for my operation?

If I'm, let's say, growing things for livestock, then I wanna make sure that these are things that are palatable for livestock. It won't be poisonous. And that it's also low enough that they can either reach it on the tree or shrub or that it drops, so that way they can eat it.

But it really just depends upon each operation, so it gets very, very individualized.

[00:04:46] Dominique: We actually had a farmer on the podcast, so that was really fun to hear, it's Oaks and Sprouts farm. Graham Oberly. 

[00:04:53] AJ: And Tonni, yeah, yeah, 

[00:04:56] Dominique: I love them. 

[00:04:56] AJ: Mm-hmm. 

[00:04:58] Dominique: And Graham talked a lot about being a millennial farmer and like what it's been like to be in this space as like a newer age farmer. So his episode's really great. I encourage listeners to go find it, but I was curious to ask you like, I think I naively think about farmers as just like knowing everything, like being kind of a land whisperer, knowing what things they need. What are the things that farmers are confident in and is their bread and butter versus things they seek expertise about? 

[00:05:23] AJ: I think that we have a perception of farmers as being like rooting tootin pulling yourself foot by your bootstraps, knowing everything. And to a degree, for some people, that is their reality. But I'd say most farmers are focused on, how can I make sure that we are profitable and we keep this farm for at least one more year? How can I make sure that we are in a position where I can pass this down to my children if they even want to continue farming? So it's really a lot of just anxiety and fear.

Especially when it comes to the instability that we have with our climate, the instability that we have with federal funding, it's a very, very uncertain job and career path. And so people oftentimes stick by what they've been taught, what they know, perhaps what their forefathers did, and trying to change that, any of the way that they approach farming can be very, very daunting.

And so doing something that, let's say for urban farmer that has a lot less acres, they can just like make changes like that because they're testing things out on a smaller scale. However, a lot of our larger row crop farmers farming thousands of acres, if they just try to change one crop, try to introduce one new seed, that might change everything that produces a loss of, of major economic loss for them that puts them under for the year.

So a lot of times when they're calling is trying to figure out can they be eligible for some type of reimbursement for trying new agricultural methods, right? For being more conservation focused.

Can we provide you with some type of money to help fund this so that way you're not doing it all on your own? And then also, can I connect you with someone or some other type of resource that has experience doing this?

A large part of farming is making sure that you have peer mentors. Farmers learn best from other farmers. They want to know what other farmers are doing. And sometimes it can be hard because we have this competitive industry where I don't want other people to know how much yield I'm producing or how much, you know, money I'm making.

[00:07:24] Dominique: A little gatekeeping happening in the farming community. 

[00:07:26] AJ: Exactly. And then everybody just ends up kind of, sort of getting, setting themselves behind. And so we like to focus a lot on peer mentoring models so that way we have farmers who are willing to talk about the challenges and the successes and just be a nice community advocate and environmental advocate. So that way they can speak with others to try to give them more of that technical assistance and that more like day-to-day, like this is how you should be planting your things. This is how you should be maintaining it. And we might not be those experts, but we might know who to connect you with, who can provide you what you need.

[00:07:58] Dominique: How strong and inclusive is that community right now? Is that a lot of the work you have to do, building the community or are you instead getting to just join communities that exist and are, are strong? 

[00:08:09] AJ: So we have early adopters and those are the people who are more willing to do things. And those people will actively seek out others and actively seek out communal spaces. And yeah, a large part of my job is trying to become a part of that space. I don't want to be a leader in the space or take over the space, but how can I learn more?

And then connecting those resources to those middle adopters. And those are those people that might be thinking about trying to be more sustainable or regenerative, but they have those same economic fears and they need a little bit of support.

[00:08:42] Adam: And so that's trying to figure out, "Okay, well what is the incentive?" What matters to you and then what farming practices can we implement to get you to that point? What are some of these like cutting edge things that people are trying?

[00:08:53] AJ: You would not believe the simplicity of cutting edge. 

[00:09:01] Dominique: I remember Graham talking about he was like, people just use a whiteboard for their management of other tasks. He came on the podcast and shared about using a task management app. And that was like big news, which I like all the praise to Graham and, Tonni and their team. I think that is amazing. But it is in a stark contrast, the amount of tools that are under the belt of the average small business. 

[00:09:25] AJ: Exactly. Yeah. It's trying to get people to think about, yeah, like the farm as a business, and trying to think about, all right, how much am I spending on inputs? That's what we call like fertilizers and other things that you're adding into it. Versus if I were to do things in a more regenerative way, where I don't have the same amount of inputs, then would I be saving money? Like would perhaps taking some acres that produced a very, very low yield out of my operation, would that save me money even though I'm not producing a crop there because I'm not wasting money putting inputs into this area where I'm not actually seeing the results?

So sometimes just doing less could do more. And that is something harder for people to 'cause they're like, I want to utilize every single inch. And I get it, but it's not always in your best interest. And then when it comes to the methods that we use, it depends on the scale. But when you have smaller growers, they will do a lot of really cool things like having cover crops, which is just something that keeps a living root in your soil year round to reduce soil erosion and increase nutrient uptake so you have less nutrient leeching into public waterways. 

 so like employing a cover crop on like a, you know, a three acre under operation isn't that big a lift, however, yeah, for someone who's doing 2000 acres, that's a major, major tax for them because they're like, all right, how do I fit this into my crop rotation cycle? Like, well, do I do this like after tilling, before tilling? How am I going to kill this cover crop? And then like, how much money am I gonna need to kill that cover crop?

And so there are some operations that are extremely, extremely biodiverse and have a lot of ecological function because they're looking at the ecosystem and like it has layers, it has strata. And then you have other people who are looking at it as just a, "I need to put these fertilizers into this crop to produce this much of a crop yield so that way I have enough money where I can pay back my loan at the end of the year." 

[00:11:26] Adam: It sounds like the scale of the farm plays a big role in that as well.

Yeah.

[00:11:30] Dominique: What are some examples of those crops? if I'm driving around and see a farm, how can I spot a cover crop?

[00:11:35] AJ: So if you see like fields of clover, that's a really, really popular one because clover fixes nitrogen. It's in the legume family. Also we have like the red, which like crimson clover, or you have like purple things like hairy vetch. Anything that is like a radish or a turnip where it has like a big leafy sprout, but like a nice deep tuber that increases water and air porosity within the soil, those are gonna be your cover crops.

And the simplest answer is the time of year. I'd say anything that you see growing between October to April is likely a cover crop because that's not when any other crops are being grown, unless it's like winter wheat, which could also be a cover crop. But let's not get too deep into the weeds there. 

[00:12:17] Dominique: That's a good pun. 

[00:12:19] Adam: Winter is a good plant?

[00:12:21] AJ: Pun.

[00:12:22] Dominique: Not getting in the weeds. It's a dad joke. You should like that one.

I'm curious, you mentioned at the beginning just that farmers are calling you at 6:00 AM. Like what is happening in the phone call?

[00:12:32] AJ: They're usually looking for that technological help. And so like when they're trying to sign up for any type of, let's say one of our programs is called Farmers for Soil Health, and it's a cover crop reimbursement program. Well, that enrollment happens online and not a lot of people are used to online technologies, especially when the average farmer is the age of 65. 

If they don't have that, they're never gonna be able to like, to get paid for the practices that they're doing.

[00:12:58] Dominique: Well you also talked about advocating for, I think like underserved performing practices, but you're also very passionate and work a lot with underserved farmers.

Can you talk about that?

[00:13:08] AJ: Yeah. So an underserved farmer, it's a very, very vague United States Department of Agriculture definition, which just means anyone who historically has not been prioritized. So essentially, if you're just not a white male, then you're an underserved farmer. And the way that current crop insurance and farm subsidies are set up, I'd say that most of us are underserved farmers regardless of that. My work falls within BIPOC, which is just Black, Indigenous People Of Color communities.

And trying to connect these different communities to the same amount of resources that typically go towards that larger white male majority, right?

And so it might be even trying to connect them to different funding sources that are more localized that they aren't even aware of. But I think of myself as an access advocate and resource Robinhood. So I'm just trying to figure out how can I get you the money or the skills that you need?

And that's how a lot of my support with the underserved communities, especially within agriculture works. So even like for instance, a few weeks ago I was asked to present about the BIPOC farmer initiatives happening within Dayton, Ohio, So I invited four BIPOC farmers who did a panel with me so I didn't have to do much of the speaking 'cause they're doing the awesome work. Then I'm like, "Great. Now plug yourselves, plug your businesses, plug the markets that you go to, plug the different resources in your neighborhood that need support within these communities that don't normally support you, but recognize that you're awesome and that they need to be throwing resources your way." So yeah, giving them a center stage, giving them some light, trying to like highlight them and then also give them the resources that they need as best as I can.

[00:14:42] Adam: Basically like giving them a mic and then connecting 'em to people so that they understand, "Hey, here's how we can support you. "

[00:14:47] AJ: Yeah. 

[00:14:48] Dominique: What are some misconceptions when it comes to conservation work in marginalized communities? And how are you working to shift that narrative? 

[00:14:54] AJ: Oftentimes

[00:14:56] Dominique: people don't think that the interest is there, but it's like the interest is there, they just might be coming to this from a different lens than what others are used to. But there are definitely people organizing within that community to make sure that they have access to food and having access to food gets into your entire foodscape. And that gets into your local conservation community 'cause like, where is this food coming from? Like, and so it's still very, very much so tied to a large room of conservation, you just need to be willing to put in the work to figure out how can we connect it. And how do you view your role in shifting that narrative? 

[00:15:28] AJ: I say really simple things and people act like I'm saying something crazy. That's pretty much it.

[00:15:38] Adam: so you bring common sense to the table and people are like, "Oh, wow."

[00:15:41] AJ: I guess so. 

[00:15:43] Adam: I never thought of that.

[00:15:44] AJ: But like, like one thing that people have a hard time doing is like trying to make sure that, yeah, everyone has a seat at the table when things are initially being planned. And I'm like, we can't really go about making initiatives to impact communities that don't know we're trying to impact them. And so trying to have more listening sessions, trying to be more of a friend to the community, showing up to different events, and just being someone that just shows up without having to ask anything or expect anything of others is simple, but it takes time and effort that people have not been putting into place.

I'm like really good at making cold calls and just showing up and just saying hi and being like, "I don't have anything to give you right now, and I expect nothing of you, but how can we collaborate in the future?"

[00:16:29] Adam: Got it. Do you have a story of a time where, where you did some of that work and there was a tangible outcome that you measured?

[00:16:35] AJ: So, we were focusing on this agroforestry initiative, so planting trees within agricultural landscapes, and I was trying to figure out how to connect this farming method, which tends to focus on smaller, really biodynamic, really intensively managed pharma systems and how to connect that to the larger agricultural environment within the state. And so I knew that there were a few partners in the state that were also interested in agroforestry.

And so I just invited us all together to host a virtual webinar. We talked about what resources and funding sources existed to support Ohioans in the state. 

And then there was enough interest from that and just also from making those like those connections to those other organizations that then this year in March, we had the first ever in-person Ohio Agroforestry Summit.

And so that brought over a hundred people from across the state and even from a few other states to talk about agroforestry in Ohio when that had never been done before. And all just came from like the simple virtual meeting where I was like, hopefully some people show up. And we had like 50 people show up to that. Then for it to lead into an actual in-person summit and now I'm working on another grant to then further that into like these 

 these different peer mentoring models, which we talked about earlier, so that way we can have more agroforestry practitioners mentoring other interested agroforestry practitioners so that way they don't have to talk to me. 

[00:17:54] Dominique: What's like the value and power of agroforestry. Like why is it important? 

[00:17:58] AJ: I'd say agroforestry is super important because it is not applicable everywhere. You can't apply agroforestry to every single landscape. However, it can be applied to a large multitude of landscapes. And I think it's awesome because it brings trees back into the landscape, perennial crops back into the landscape, and that way you have long-term ecosystem benefits. So instead of having to plant crops every year that bear food, you can just have crops that stay there every year. You just have to focus on managing, like the pruning of it, managing your harvesting methods as these things grow. It also can close the loop within an agricultural system.

A lot of agriculture is like very open loop in that you put things into the land such as like your fertilizers, and then you take a crop and then you what goes back into it more fertilizers, which isn't good for the environment. Whereas With agroforestry it's a lot more of incorporating things that, let's say you have like extra foliage or things like that, or extra crops that drop down, you can just leave those there. Or you can also like introduce livestock onto your landscape, which is called silvopasture. And when you introduce livestock, that closes that loop because they're eating the food, they're dropping manure, they're spreading that along the field, they're trembling into the field.

And so you have less of a need for external inputs in these synthetic fertilizers that most of the time are coming from very, very far away. also reduces your need to constantly put money into that just makes you a lot more sustainable. And the beauty of it is that it is very, very diverse and individualized. So you can implement these methods however you need to fit your operation. 

[00:19:36] Dominique: So is it safe to say agroforestry aids in soil health and biodiversity for among other ways that is helping to benefit the economic standing of a farmer. But it's there to really aid in the longevity of like the nature and the area and the farm itself 

[00:19:54] AJ: Exactly. Yep.

[00:19:55] Dominique: The work that you're doing to open the door for agroforestry is very interesting. How new is that concept? Like, why is there a need for advocacy? Did it go away at some point or was it never really a practice? 

[00:20:06] AJ: So agroforestry was practiced a lot by Native Americans pre-colonial times. However, A lot of people didn't have an easy time recognizing it as being an agricultural method 'cause they were very used to like pretty clean rows and things mowed and stuff like that.

As we murdered the people in the land upon which those people were living, then it became a less prevalent practice, and then we did more of the installation of those traditional row crop methods that led to the Dust Bowl, right? And then we started to have all of these different initiatives done by the United States Department of Agriculture to reduce the occurrence of another Dust Bowl. However, a lot of the practices that they implemented was the introduction of invasive species that we are now battling. Like you could get paid to plant crops that you will now today get paid to remove,

It's like "We know what's best" and it's like, "But you don't." And that we've seen time and time again that we do not know what's best for the environment because we're not listening to the people who have been living here historically. And even without them, we're not listening to the land itself. What was your question?

[00:21:09] Dominique: I was having you unpack why agroforestry requires advocacy and like why we lost it or never had it. But it seems to be a character flaw in the development of our agriculture system which we can point to a variety of things.

[00:21:26] Adam: But that's very interesting. And the world of agriculture as a practice is riddled with flaws and we know that. So I appreciate you sharing like one key way we can understand there's a different way to do things.

[00:21:38] AJ: And I would say agroforestry is now practiced on 1.7% of US farmland. And that is an astonishingly low amount considering how much farmland we have, and especially how much is at risk for severe environment and climate change so hopefully it continues to grow in applicable areas. 

[00:21:58] Adam: Well, something great about being such a small percentage is like you can double your percentage, very easily and hopefully a tenfold. 

[00:22:05] AJ: You're applying for grants, "We doubled it. It is still less than 4%, but we doubled it."

[00:22:11] Adam: Speaking of that, what gives you hope when it comes to the future of conservation? 

[00:22:15] AJ: One thing that gives me hope is the idea of integrating people back into the landscapes. And so we have this idea of working woods and working forest, these are areas upon which humans live, people live and then they also use those environmental resources in a very sustainable way to benefit their local economies. I'm all about, I think the future is increased localization. It won't happen like unanimously, but I think increased localization is gonna be vital for the perseverance of humanity.

And so when you have like things like working woods, you have local forestry happening, you have local agricultural production happening. And then that can lead to local carpentry skills, it just develops the economy and develops the skills of everyone in such a dynamic way let's think about how we could be a lot more village minded when it comes to our economic like use, right?

 So I think seeing people come back to at least like how are we interacting with our immediate environments to sustain ourselves, sustain our the environment itself I guess that's the closest thing I have to hope. 

[00:23:17] Dominique: What's one mindset shift that you hope listeners take away from hearing you're episode? 

[00:23:24] AJ: I hope that everyone recognizes their ability to consider themselves a conservationist or an environmental advocate. Whether that be going out there and doing stuff, getting your hands on the ground yourself, or just talking about it, supporting it, sharing stories that you hear about it. anyone can be a conservationist, anyone can care about the environment. It just depends upon what capacity you have at the moment and what access you have to supporting it.

[00:23:55] Dominique: And I'll plug that anybody who hasn't listened to your previous episode about how you got outside and how you continue to get outside and the ways that, like you've shown up and learned a lot about the environment and that has ricocheted into all the other things you've done. So the listener also is like seeking more ways to feel connected to nature, I think AJ's other episode is a good place to start.

[00:24:14] Adam: So for people who are listening, where can they go online to find out more about the work that you're doing in the Nature Conservancy? 

[00:24:20] AJ: Yeah, so they can go just Google The Nature Conservancy Ohio Agriculture, and that'll take you to our page there. And from there they can sign up for the newsletter, which I also make. And then they can also submit things and like events and ideas or just things that they might want to hear about from us as well. 

[00:24:36] Dominique: Thank you so much for chatting with us. You talked a lot about the ways that you promote new ways of farming, but also just like advocating for underserved farming practices and underserved farmers and the ways that you have become a really great resource for so many people out there that are supporting our food system and need support themselves.

So I appreciate you walking us through some of that and like pulling the curtain back on how that stuff really works and what's really going on, and the problems that are very much still needing to be solved. Thanks, AJ. 

[00:25:11] AJ: Thank you.

[00:25:12] Dominique: As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We're here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career, or interests, you can really contribute in the fight against climate change. 

[00:25:23] Adam: You can find our episodes at thegreenchampions.com. If you want to stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform. If you have questions about climate change or sustainability, you can reach us on our website at thegreenchampions.com. Our music is by Zayn Dweik. Thanks for listening to Green Champions. We'll dig into another sustainability success story in our next episode.