“If you have a decline in yield as a result of a transition to regenerative ag, it is not a result of regenerative ag, it is the result of poor agronomic management. Accepting a yield loss is a choice. Don’t say it’s a result of regenerative ag because it’s not, and I will die on this hill.”

It is a strong start to this Farmers Helping Farmers special episode with John Kempf – a true visionary in regenerative agriculture.

VicNoTill board member Angus Ingram catches up with John as he launches his new agronomic AI tool, Field Lark. It is an honour and a privilege that John chose our podcast as the first public recording about this tool.

VicNoTill members have already started testing and using Field Lark and believe this has the potential to be very powerful in assisting with information interpretation and decision making. It is a lightning-fast fact checker and a valuable sounding board. However, to our minds, AI will never replace a farmer's experience or their intuition – that ability to detect when something isn't quite right.

In this episode we also cover:

• Building an ‘on ramp’ for biological nutrition, whilst also building an ‘off ramp’ for chemistry- focused nutrition.

• The easy-to-achieve return on investments that nutritional and biological seed treatments offer, and the superior nutrient uptake efficiency that foliar applications provide.

• Non-linear agronomy - when you begin combining all these smaller variations to your inputs, you can see a compounding effect in the outcome. He calls it the ‘one plus one equals three’ scenario.

• A specific example relating to Australian conditions and how we can ensure that our crops and pastures have enough in the tank as we plant into cooling soils.

VicNoTill has long admired John’s vision and ambition, and he provides some great, relatable analogies for Australian farmers in this episode. Enjoy!

• Test Field Lark here.