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“To be able to help protect our natural resources while looking at the farmer's bottom line, trying to get farmers as much money in their pockets for doing good practices is a really exciting opportunity.”
— Olivia Caillouet, Soil Health Program Manager, University of Missouri’s Center for Regenerative Agriculture
For this episode of the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast, brought to you by Sound Agriculture, we hear from Olivia Caillouet. She’s the soil health program manager at the University of Missouri’s Center for Regenerative Agriculture and she’s here to discuss some of the newest and most exciting cover crop related projects she’s been working on as of late.
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Full Transcript
Mackane Vogel:Welcome to the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast, brought to you by Sound Agriculture. I'm Mackane Vogel, Associate Editor of Cover Crop Strategies. In today's episode, we hear from Olivia Caillouet. She's the Soil Health Program Manager at the University of Missouri's Center for Regenerative Agriculture, and she's here to discuss some of the newest and most exciting cover crop related projects she's been working on as of late.
All right, it's my pleasure to welcome onto the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast, Olivia Caillouet, she is the Soil Health Program Manager for University of Missouri's Center for Regenerative Agriculture. So, Olivia, thanks for joining today. I want to start this out how we start all of these podcasts, which is just asking you to tell the audience your ag origin story. So what was the beginning of your experience with agriculture?
Olivia Caillouet:Thanks, McCain. It's great to be on. Let me first start by saying I'm a big fan of the podcast, so it's an honor to be here. Thinking about my ag origin story, it definitely is interesting because I grew up in an urban environment, Little Rock, Arkansas. My great-grandparents were actually subsistence farmers, and so I grew up gardening with my grandmother when I was young, always loved planting flowers in the backyard, and it really sparked for me when I was in middle school. Next to the middle school in Downtown Little Rock, we had an urban garden, and my 6th grade science teacher would take our class out to the garden, and got to pick strawberries and see chickens. So it really started in that urban environment, and it's just grown from there.
Mackane Vogel:That's so cool. So then I guess fast-forward a little bit and... I guess did you always know that you would have a profession related to that, or when did you get into agriculture professionally?
Olivia Caillouet:Yeah, great question. I actually did not envision a career in agriculture, and was so fortunate to have found it. I was in my senior year in high school, and my dad put together a list of degrees at the University of Arkansas he thought I might be interested in, everything from apparel merchandising, to biology, to teaching, and on that list was horticulture, and I didn't know what it was. I knew I didn't really want to work in an office all the time, and started looking into horticulture, and was fortunate enough to actually stick with the first degree I chose. Four years later, I graduated with my degree in horticulture, had internships at botanical gardens, and on farms, and then it just led me on this path that's been incredibly fulfilling.
Mackane Vogel:What was one of the first projects you got to work on in school that was like a wow moment for you of, "Oh, this is what I'm supposed to be doing," or, "This is really interesting?"
Olivia Caillouet:It was more in undergrad. So, at the University of Arkansas our horticulture department was very active outside of the classroom. We had a community garden on campus that we would get together and have potlucks and do work days together, and so that really sparked a lot of interest and passion for me, was the community around food and agriculture.
Mackane Vogel:Awesome. Well, yeah, I love just hearing everyone's stories. It's always interesting how people find their way into agriculture. Everyone sort of has a different roadmap to get here, so love starting with that question. For some context for the audience, we ran into each other at the National No-Tillage Conference in Louisville last week. What did you think of the program, and I guess, were there any standout speakers for you, or any moments that stood out?
Olivia Caillouet:It was a phenomenal conference, and ever since I got back from Louisville I've been telling everybody, "If you have a chance to go to the National No-Till Conference, don't have enough great things to say about it." It was actually my first time to attend, and learned a lot, met a lot of great farmers, and I think that is what stands out for me. Coming from a university setting, I really love any opportunity to sit down and talk with farmers, and hearing what they're doing on their operation as a for-profit business, and really making those connections between the research and the on-ground day-to-day implementation. So, a couple of things that really stood out to me is the eagerness and innovations that farmers are willing to try. A lot of interest in technology, like the use of drones. That was really great. And another area that I'm really excited to dive deeper into is livestock integration. Mac Kincaid out of Missouri gave a really engaging talk, and a lot of questions from row croppers interested in integrating livestock, but then actually, how do I make it happen? What is stocking density? Those types of questions.
Mackane Vogel:Yeah, I agree with you. I think my favorite part about the conference every year is having... I think Mac and Kincaid's a great example of someone that we got to see on the big stage in the main ballroom in front of the whole audience, but then he gives also a classroom, and that gives people an opportunity to maybe ask some more detailed questions and really break down for them, how is this going to look on my operation? And then time and time again we always hear feedback about how, no matter how strong the program is, people really just love connecting in the hallways, and making new connections during the breaks and stuff like that. I know I always find a couple new leads for stories and podcasts, and speakers for our upcoming National Cover Crop Summit, too. So even as someone who is helping put on the event, it's always really beneficial for me, too, so I'm glad you enjoyed it.
All right, so let's get into some of the stuff that you've been working on. I know you're involved with the Farmers for Soil Health program. Let's start there and just tell us your role with that program, and what's new with it. I know we've covered it on the show in the past, but give us kind an update of what's going on there.
Olivia Caillouet:Absolutely. So, for those who may not have heard about it, Farmers for Soil Health is a cover crop cost-share project. It's funded by USDA as one of their Climate-Smart Commodity projects. And one of the interesting things about Farmers for Soil health is, it has a rather large footprint offering cost-share from the Dakotas, spanning over to the East Coast. And we are about to wrap up our second year of enrollment, which ends February 28th, 2025. So if you've planted covers and you're not enrolled in a cost-share opportunity, you are still eligible to enroll those fall 2024 planted covers. And then starting March 1st, we will open another year of enrollment looking to fall 2025 planted covers. And it's been going really well. We're fine-tuning the enrollment and verification process to make sure payments go out more smoothly this coming year, and really just working with farmers to figure out what's working best for them, and how to continue to make the integration of cover crops an easier process for especially those who are doing it for the first time.
Mackane Vogel:Yeah, that's fantastic. A really good program. You mentioned all the way to the East Coast. How many states are you guys spanning at this point?
Olivia Caillouet:We have a 20-state footprint, and I can't say enough great things about our state partners. In each state, we have local partners that are working with farmers because, as you know, cover crops work differently in the Dakotas than they do in North Carolina, and so having that state support is a really critical component to this project that makes it work.
Mackane Vogel:I'm curious, so I think a lot of these programs, some of the feedback that I've heard from different farmers about these types of programs is, "Oh, it's too complicated," or, "I don't have time to sit in front of the computer and figure out what all I have to do to get the credit I need." Can you talk about the simplicity of this program, and what's appealing from a farmer's standpoint about just the ease of getting involved with it?
Olivia Caillouet:I definitely feel that, McCain, and farmers, they don't necessarily love the paperwork aspect of it, and I resonate with that. With tax season upon us, I feel that, and we're working every year to try to make that enrollment process and the verification process more streamlined, having demo videos to help enrollees understand exactly how to go through the process. I will say, the enrollment is very easy. I feel like you could get through the enrollment very quickly, and of course the verification, uploading seed receipts, or photos of the cover crops, that does take time on the back end, the USDA Farm Service Agency documents, but we have resources that are a checklist to know exactly what you need on the website, and once again, we are really thankful for our state partners to be able to work with enrollees on a one-on-one basis through that process.
Mackane Vogel:Awesome. Yeah, that's all good stuff. I want to shift gears, too. I know another project you're working on that I'm interested in hearing about, the Women Landowners Leading Regeneration. Tell us a little bit about that.
Olivia Caillouet:This is a new project that we have funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to work on. I am working alongside Dr. Kelly Wilson, who this is actually her brainchild, building on amazing work by the Women Food and Ag Network, implementing women caring for the land principles. And so, this project, Women Landowners Leading Regeneration, has really two components. The first being, we are going to train women conservation professionals to implement these practices, women caring for the land, to help women landowners engage in conservation practices. About 25% of US farmland is owned by women. A lot of it is rented, so we're focusing specifically on non-operator women landowners who are renting out their land. And then that second component is going to be directly supporting our women landowners hosting trainings in Missouri, Kansas and Iowa to bring together women landowners to idea-share, build network and continue to empower them to implement conservation practices on their land.
Mackane Vogel:Yeah, and I guess from a specific standpoint, are we talking cover crops, no-till, all of it? Or I guess talk a little bit more specifically about some of the regenerative ag principles that are going to be involved.
Olivia Caillouet:Cover crops' definitely a strong component of it, and the exciting part about this project is we are getting to pull in those other synergistic practices, no-till and reduced-till, riparian buffers, and we are going to be offering resources to the conservation professionals, as well as women landowners to find funding for those diverse conservation practices.
Mackane Vogel:And so, this is a pretty new project started this year. I guess what's the timeline look like, and if somebody was wanting to get involved in it, what does that look like?
Olivia Caillouet:Great question. We are actually still waiting on final approval from National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to get going on setting our timeline, and as soon as that information becomes available, we're going to put it on the University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Ag website. Under our projects tab, you can find the Women Landowners Leading Regeneration page, and for now until we have a better idea for the timeline on those trainings, there's an interest survey where individuals can fill that out, and we will keep everyone informed as we get more information.
Mackane Vogel:Sounds good. Yeah, we'll be sure to give some updates on our channels as well as those become available.
We'll come back to the episode in a moment, but first, I'd like to thank our sponsor Sound Agriculture for supporting today's podcast. Did you know you can build a water and nutrient superhighway in your soil? You just need the maximum acre solution from Sound Agriculture, the easiest way to maximize your crops' access to nutrients all season long. First, SOURCE turns your soil into a nutrient factory, then BLUEPRINT builds the delivery network by expanding the crops' reach beyond the roots. For the maximum acre solution that provides bigger, healthier crops, SOURCE it with BLUEPRINT. Talk to your dealer or visit sound.ag. And now, let's get back to the discussion with Olivia Caillouet.
Another project that you're working on, the online certification course that you were telling me about, I think Fundamentals of Cover Crops. Let's hear some more about that.
Olivia Caillouet:Yes, that's right. The Center for Regenerative Ag recently launched a 11-module certification course called Fundamentals of Cover Crops, and it's building on work by the Walden Family Foundation and Midwest Cover Crop Council, in addition to Midwest SARE to develop 11 PowerPoint presentations on cover crop topics. We've taken those modules and put them into this course that anyone interested can register for for $25. You work through it at your own pace, and it's meant to be an introduction beginner-friendly course on cover crops that goes through everything from the benefits to soil health, through the whole process of establishment, practices, termination techniques, planting cash crops, following covers, and then looking at economics, livestock integration. Really just a catch-all course on cover crops, and I will add, all NRCS or Soil and Water Conservation district employees are eligible for a 100%-off promo code. And you can email me and I'll provide you with that promo code to allow you access to the course.
Mackane Vogel:Awesome. Yeah, we'll include your email maybe in the body copy text for the podcast here so that people can reach out to you.
Let's talk a little more generally just about the season ahead. I know it's already January. It'll be planting season before we know it. I mean, I know it's always hard to tell, but what's the season going to look like for Missouri? Is it going to be a dry year, a wet year? No idea yet?
Olivia Caillouet:It's hard for me to say. A tidbit that's useful, I'm actually located in Virginia. I work remotely for the Center for Generative Ag out of the University of Missouri, so I don't know exactly the growing conditions for Missouri, but given a lot of the snow that the Midwest has been receiving, I'm hopeful that it's going to be a relatively moist spring, just hopefully not too wet.
Mackane Vogel:Yeah, I know most people are probably counting on that. It's always hard to predict. I know this year in the Midwest, it's been mild in the sense of snow so far, but pretty cold, so we'll see how that all pans out. I guess dry, wet, either way. Let's talk about how cover crops can be useful in either of those situations, retaining moisture during a drought, that sort of thing. What are some tips maybe for making sure you get the most out of covers in those situations?
Olivia Caillouet:I think this is fascinating to think about the benefits that cover crops can provide in both of those extremes. And I actually just got off a cover crop brown bag discussion this morning, and one of the topics got brought up was, how can we see and quantify the benefits of cover crops? It's very evident the cost of buying the seed and implementing the practice and managing it, but when we're looking at the return on investment, how can that be quantified? And one of the topics that one of the farmers brought up was, their water infiltration, being able to infiltrate an inch to four inches of rain, and they look over at their neighbor's field and they have ponding. And so, being able to visually see the power of cover crops and vice versa, he was like, "When I know it's going to be dry, I'm very glad to have retained every bit that I was able to soak up." And so, that's very exciting to hear the on-farm stories of how cover crops are paying for themselves.
Mackane Vogel:Yeah, I think you nailed it. I mean, that question of, how do we quantify what we're getting out of our cover crops? It seems like that's been the million-dollar question for a while, and it's one of those things that, it's not black and white enough where we're really ever going to be able to say, "This is exactly how you do it," but it is fascinating to stay with that question year after year and see what kind of new research comes out, and how people are trying to get the most out of their covers.
I want to go back to the beginning of the conversation. We were talking about Mac Kincaid and what he was talking about with some livestock and grazing. It seems, from what I've seen, that more farmers that I'm talking to are really trying to break into the world of livestock and grazing, and I've often heard it talked about as the most elusive part of that holy grail of soil health because some people just either don't have access to it, or don't have all the experience with it. From your experience, what have you seen, just the benefits of including livestock in an operation with cover crops? Why do you think maybe it's something that farmers should really consider?
Olivia Caillouet:Great question, and I actually don't have a livestock background, so it's been really fun for me to get to learn more of the terminology, and observe farmers who are able to integrate, and two things come to mind. Of course, we hear about the importance of the livestock integration as far as the manure and the saliva, and how it stimulates soil biology, but what I really lean on is the return on investment. We know that farming is a business, and to be able to continue to do it, you have to make a profit, and that's what interests me a lot, is knowing that we have these soil benefits. Also knowing that there can be really good return on investment, and knowing the benefits of crop diversification. So I think that's a really exciting path forward as far as making livestock integration more commonplace.
Mackane Vogel:Yeah, absolutely. I'm also excited to learn more about grazing and more about livestock as we continue into the rest of 2025. You also mentioned drones becoming more of a buzzword and things that people are looking into, and I'm always curious about new technology in ag. Have you seen anything recently that's caught your eye just in terms of new and exciting technology in the world of ag?
Olivia Caillouet:We are actually working on a video right now. It's in production looking at a farmer out of Iowa who mounted an air seeder to their combine, and we were able to go out this past fall and visit with him and get a nice video representation of that equipment. And so, I think that's a cool, exciting use of technology that can get around some labor issues, some time constraints. He's a football coach, and that's really important for him to be able to spend time with his family. So looking at how he can seed cover crops while harvesting is a really exciting use of technology.
Mackane Vogel:Yeah, I'm always fascinated by some of the innovative things farmers can come up with just to save a little more time, or like you said, add to that ROI. It's all about efficiency for these folks, and it's impressive some of the things they're able to come up with. I know last year we had somebody on the show that had made a DIY roller crimper, too, so always fascinated by some of the equipment quirks and things like that. I guess to wrap up, Olivia, I'd love to hear just from your perspective, what's the most rewarding part about your role with University of Missouri, and what do you look forward to on a day-to-day basis, and then also just from a larger perspective?
Olivia Caillouet:Yeah, great question, and that is something I reflect on, is what motivates me. I'm not a farmer myself, but I have worked on farms, and I know the challenges that our farmers face as far as weather and slim profit margins. And so, that is what really inspires me on a day-to-day basis is, I get to live in this space working for the Center for Regenerative Ag, getting to promote conservation and regenerative ag practices that are rebuilding our soils and providing habitat for wildlife. I'm huge nature enthusiast, love being outside, and so to be able to help protect our natural resources while looking at the farmer bottom line, trying to get farmers as much money in their pockets for doing good practices is a really exciting opportunity, and I'm very thankful to be able to wake up each day and work on a variety of projects that get to span different agricultural practices.
Mackane Vogel:Absolutely. Well, is there anything else you want to talk about that we haven't covered yet today?
Olivia Caillouet:I think you covered it, and I look forward to continuing to be an avid listener of the podcast.
Mackane Vogel:Appreciate that. Well, we'll be sure to keep the audience updated with any updates from any of the programs you discussed as they continue, but for now, that'll do it for this episode of the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast. Thanks for joining us, Olivia.
Olivia Caillouet:Thanks, McCain.
Mackane Vogel:That's it for this episode of the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast. Thanks to today's guest, Olivia Caillouet, and thanks to our sponsor Sound Agriculture for helping to make this podcast possible. A transcript of this episode and our archive of previous podcast episodes are both available at covercropstrategies.com/podcasts. From our entire staff here at Cover Crop Strategies, I'm Mackane Vogel. Thanks for listening, and have a great day.
