A few months ago, Canadian no-tiller Blake Vince gave a presentation at the Pennsylvania No-Till Alliance’s 20th Anniversary Meeting. And while the topic of his presentation was about conserving farm land with cover crops and the importance of bio diversity, there’s an anecdote that Blake told the audience about the future of no-till and cover crops that has stuck with me. Take a listen.

“This is another gentleman, Rolf Derpsch from Paraguay, a longtime extension officer helping farmers adopt no-till practices and methodologies and I was on one of the longest no-till farms in Paraguay, the beans were up to about my rib cage and I got down, pulled the beans apart and I started filming and narrating a little video and when I got up, Rolf has tears in his eyes and says ‘that was beautiful.” And to this day I don’t really know what I said. And I said Rolf, I’ve gotten to meet guys like Dave Brandt, Carlos Crovetto, Dwayne Beck and yourself. What happens when all of this human intellect is no longer with us — all of this legacy of experiential learning is gone?

And he looked at me with tears streaming down his cheeks and he said ‘that’s why you’re here. That’s why you are here.’”

Some good motivational words from Blake Vince and from No-Till Legend Rolf Derpsch on why it’s so important to keep practicing no-till and keep planting cover crops and continue to share that knowledge with your neighbors and peers.