Bobby Gill of the Savory Institute & Trent Hendricks of REP Provisions sit down with Chris Meyer of Meybest Procurement to discuss regenerative agriculture, solar grazing, ecological outcome verification (EOV) and how REP Provisions is solving a problem for people living a keto, paleo or low-carb lifestyle. As you can see it's a full slate of interesting topics that you are going to want to listen to.
Excerpts:
Bobby Gill: "We have 5 billion hectares of grasslands globally, which represents one third of the earth's terrestrial surface. Some estimates say that up to 70% of those grasslands are turning into desert because essentially these symbiotic relationships between grazing animals and the land have been dishonored over the years.
For Millennia, animals would graze in tightly bunched herds because of the predators that existed and they would move regularly across the grasslands with their hoof action, stimulating & fertilizing the soil with their urine and dung. Then they would move along and not return back to that same area of grass until the grass has had fully regrown. At the Savory Institute, we teach people how to honor those ancestral migratory patterns and to get that type of behavior out of the animals so that the grassland can regenerate health. You look at how we're managing our lands and what our food system looks like, and it's a very broken system."
Trent Hendricks: "One of the projects we're working on is with solar fields. Renewable solar energy is growing in popularity and yet managing the soil under the solar panels is problematic. Some progressive solar companies are trying to find solutions that are more ecologically sensitive rather than mechanical harvesting or chemical prevention. We are taking sheep from solar site to solar site to manage the vegetation underneath the solar panels. So we're harvesting sunlight in multiple ways; one with panels, one with photosynthesis, and creating delicious grass fed lamb in the process. That project is very interesting and it's a bit of a learning curve, but we're impacting a lot of acres and I'm hopefully doing our bit to make the world a better place."
Trent Hendricks: "REP Provisions would not exist if it wasn't for the Savory Institute. Ryan, one of the founders and myself met at a Savory Institute event. Eric, another one of our partners, has a Savory ranch in Mounds, Oklahoma. We all became friends and realize we have this shared vision and that's what brought us together. And we're like, okay, we all are regenerative ranchers and by the way, also happen to all be in a Paleo or Keto lifestyle. And we're like, how do we combine our interests together and do something good?
I travel a lot and I'm like, man, I can't hardly keep up with my Keto Diet when I'm on the road. There's nothing to eat. I'm sick and tired of cobb salads. What do I do? And so long story short, REP Provisions was birthed from that background. And we're like, well, let's create products. So, the production methods are within the Savory vision. We want to eat and live a Paleo and Keto lifestyle and we want to be able to take it with us in our active lives. We have a huge innovation pipeline, a lot of exciting collaborations coming forward with different proteins and different places in the grocery area to find our products. Our launch program is around meat sticks and nut butters that do not require refrigeration and are highly portable. They hit the macros necessary to maintain a good Keto lifestyle."
Bobby Gill: "The way that the grass fed beef that I eat on a daily basis is raised, doesn't just affect me, but it also affects the planet. It affects other economies and other people, as well as wildlife. All of these things are tied back to how we manage our land. I vote with my dollar three times a day for the foods that I care about. It would be a shame if I'm out here looking for grass fed beef, looking into things that are healthy for myself if I wasn't also supporting a healthy planet."
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