The Peter Byck Show

Regenerative grazers share an innovative mindset, but their specific solutions depend on their unique land, climate, and goals.

In this episode, Peter interviews Daniel and Jenna Magalsky, creators of the Tire Winder fencing system.

After returning to Daniel’s family farm in eastern Montana, the couple sought a profitable, resilient approach suited for dryland farming.

Dealing with thin soils, scarce water, weeds, and a fraction of the acreage of neighboring farms, they chose regenerative goat grazing. That decision is successfully restoring soil health and ground cover.

However, manually moving miles of temporary fencing each day was too time-consuming alongside their other farm duties.

To solve this, they invented the Tire Winder, an ATV attachment that enables faster fence moves across greater distances, allowing them to improve both their land and surrounding properties.
"When you stand on healthy soil, there's a universe beneath your feet."

During a tour of regenerative grazers in South Africa, we met with inspiring farmers and ranchers working with nature to heal their soils and feed their communities. Farmers like today's guest: Angus McIntosh. 

Angus had a promising career as a stockbroker with Goldman Sachs in London that he left behind to take up farming and raise his family back home in South Africa. 

In 2008, he discovered regenerative agriculture when he read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma" by Michael Pollan and learned about the work Joel Salatin was doing over at Polyface Farms. 

He never looked back.

Now, Angus manages  “Farmer Angus” - 650 hectares , or over 1,600 acres for us Americans - dedicated to regenerative agriculture producing regenerative cattle, chickens, eggs, pigs, cured meat, carbon credits, and wine.

We discuss what drove Angus to return to South Africa, the successes and challenges he’s faced over almost two decades of work on the farm, his concerns with industrialized vegan foods, and the bright future he sees as more and more farmers all across the world focus on soil health.
"When you stand on healthy soil, there's a universe beneath your feet."

We're often asked if regenerative agriculture can work outside of the wet and warm Southeastern United States. The short answer is, it works all across the globe. During a tour of Australia, Peter had the honor of meeting regenerative ranchers restoring their soils in seriously dry conditions including our guest today, the one and only Terry McCosker - an Australian ranching teacher with decades of experience helping Ozzie graziers learn to work with nature. 

Over the decades, Terry has faced government persecution and professional isolation as he fought to educate Australian ranchers about the power of soil health, and the potential high intensity grazing has to transform landscapes and lives. Terry's story starts as a young boy on a dairy farm in Queensland, where he experienced how painfully entwined local farming can be with international trade. 

He'll share how his life led from working as a biologist and airplane pilot to a grazer and finally, to a leading voice in the Australian regenerative movement. Along the way, we'll learn about how regenerative agriculture arrived in Australia, the challenges he faced spreading the message over the decades, new breakthroughs in our understanding of the relationship between microbial life and living roots that feed the plants that feed the animals that feed us, and how AMP grazing fits into his world.
"When you stand on healthy soil, there's a universe beneath your feet."

Watch "camp AMP" - https://youtu.be/g8g6iwmjSLU

Watch the carbon cowboys films - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9sL-T7FNhj1Qpo2ewfDV8rnex7dbKegU

Stars of the eleventh carbon cowboys short film “camp AMP” have been hard at work the past year in their efforts to bring regenerative grazing practices to millions of acres of land surrounding our military bases. 

Watch the latest “drop in” episode of The Peter Byck Show now on Youtube to learn what they’ve been up to the past year, the impact of our film “camp AMP” on their efforts, and the important work they do with veterans leaving the service who are interested in transitioning to regenerative agriculture!

"When you stand on healthy soil, there's a universe beneath your feet."

A year ago, we started The Peter Byck Show with Roots So Deep scientist, educator, and force of nature Dr. Allen Williams. In his first episode, Dr. Williams discussed the limitations of current agricultural research, the incredible impact working with nature can have, and what growing food on healthy soils means for our quality of life.

In this week's episode, we continue the conversation by asking: How do we take things to the next level? 

During the conversation, Dr. Williams discusses the potential power of the Farm Bill, how crop insurance holds farmers back, the need for serious education, how working with nature supports national security, and the impact of mono-crops on a farmer's bottomline.
We hope you enjoy this episode! Next month we go international!
"When you stand on healthy soil, there's a universe beneath your feet."