RIDGEWAY, Minn. — Every day on his farm, Luke Bergler sees the connection between healthy soil, healthy grass, healthy animals and healthy people.
And he sees life—lots of life.
When he pushes a shovel into the soft, well-aggregated soil on his 240-acre farm near Ridgeway, Minnesota, Bergler sees more earthworms than he ever thought imaginable. The two ponds that were once filled with runoff water are now nearly dry, even though precipitation has been plentiful. Those near-empty ponds are an indication of well-functioning soil that soaks up precipitation at an incredible rate and provides production resiliency throughout the growing season.
Dragonflies, monarch butterflies, birds and whitetail deer abound in astounding numbers.
Thanks to his 24-48-hour paddock rotations, his 50-pair cow-calf herd grazes lush, diverse grasses, cover crops and innerseeded corn stubble, beginning in early May and into January. Getting the nutrition and “medicine” they need from healthy grass, Bergler no longer uses dewormer or the panoply of prophylactic vaccinations prescribed in conventional confined animal operations. The pregnancy rate of his herd is an astounding 99 percent.
“I’ve had one open cow in the last five years,” he said.
Never applying more than 100 pounds of nitrogen per acre to his corn acres, Bergler harvests 230 bushel-per-acre corn behind a seven-way grain mix with peas and flax.
“I’ll admit that I can’t do it across every acre,” he said, “but there’s enough signs of hope that it’s coming.”
Of all of the regenerative farming benefits experienced since he began making the transition from conventional to regenerative agriculture seven years ago, there’s one benefit that’s especially meaningful to the 42-year-old Bergler.
“Now, I’m always home in my warm house sitting at the table for dinner every evening,” he said.
Before his regenerative transition, Bergler would come home from his work off the farm as a custom home builder and face the time-consuming chores associated with feeding cattle daily, spending hours baling hay, mixing feed, and hauling manure, all of which left little time for the “luxury” of family time.
“I used to feed 200 plus days a year,” he said. “Each day it would take about two hours of time. Now we feed less than 130-140 days a year and it only takes me 20-30 minutes. I used to haul 80-100 loads of manure each year and now I’m down to seven. All of those little things add up to an improved quality of life.”
Today, his entire family is involved in the farming operation. Bergler’s wife, Holly, manages the farm’s non-confined, non-GMO-fed hog operation. His three daughters, 16-year-old Willa, 13-year-old Malia and nine-year-old Emery, manage 30-plus laying hens, collect and sell eggs to about 20 customers, a constituency consisting mainly their schoolteachers. The profits from the poultry operation, less the cost of feed, reside with the three sisters. Along with caring for and having the chore responsibilities of their horses which are often used to rotate the cow herd.
Bergler said the list of regenerative benefits grows by the day.
“It doesn’t mean we don’t have we have setbacks, challenges or financial issues,” he said. “After all, we are American farmers. But when you abide by the principles, believe in the system and pay attention, it’s remarkable what can happen. There are so many things working now that it just blows my mind.”
Despite his success, Bergler said more than one person has told him, “You’ll go broke doing what you’re doing.”
“But we’re still here,” he said. “Granted, you have to be willing to expect some outcomes you were not expecting, but the cows are such a more useful tool than I would have ever imagined, and I’ve had cattle since I was 12.”
Like many of his contemporaries, when Bergler began his regenerative journey, he sought insight from Understanding Ag’s Gabe Brown and attended a Soil Health Academy.
“When I attended the SHA, the instructors talked a lot about how regenerative farming can improve one’s quality of life, but I’m not sure I understood what that meant at the time,” he said. “I wholeheartedly understand that now. Farming for me has become fun again. It’s not just a job.”
–Ron Nichols, Understanding Ag, LLC
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