 My brother and I farm northwest of Mitchell, South Dakota. We've been partners since the early 80s. We raise soybeans and corn and some wheat. We were alarmed at the rate that organic matter has been decreasing since they broke the native sod. Once you realize that 50% of the organic matter has disappeared in literally 100 years and we know that organic matter without it you raise no crop. So really that kind of got us interested knowing that it was imperative to start increasing organic matter levels in the soil. We can't continue on the same path. We have to start focusing a lot more on soil health and soil health, you know, isn't just one thing. It's like a system to approach. I mean for us it's combining no-till crop rotation, cover crops and then planting like native grass species in our sensitive areas, in our wetlands, in our salinity areas and along our watersheds to try to make our land not only profitable but sustainable for the future and to be able to tell the consumer we're out here producing a crop in a sustainable environmentally friendly way. I think one of the big benefits that people don't think about is, I mean, is water management, you know, in our part of the world let's say you have a corn crop and it quits using water pretty much about October 1st and then you plant soybeans, you know, in the middle of May and they really don't use very much moisture until almost the end of June. And that's one of the downfalls of our crops is we have a lot of moisture in the spring and our crops don't use a lot so we have to find a way to store that moisture and cover crops are an excellent way to do them. We've made a real push to involve our landowners on the land that we rent and lease to get involved and to understand what we're doing and why we're doing it and show them that ultimately they probably benefit more than anyone does. One of the things that we've done in terms of educating our landowners is in the water quality area. We are upstream from Lake Mitchell and we have a one mile of Fire Steel Creek running through our property and ten years ago we worked in conjunction with the NRCS, the Game Fish and Parks, Jim River Development Corporation and actually the City of Mitchell to establish a mile long 350 acre riparian buffer to help keep runoff from going into the Fire Steel and ultimately end up in the lake and it just kind of ties into the whole package that we put together in terms of soil health, water quality. When coming down to the bee pollinators we're in the bee program and so you know we just want to educate non-farmers on what we're doing to make the soil as well as the water and keep the bees alive and the things that we do that are kind of going the extra mile. Working with these guys is kind of the same process I do with all my other landowners. We spend a lot of time with the conservation planning process which has nine steps of planning. We're trying to identify resource concerns and identify different conservation practices that will benefit their land and operation and the resources on the land. It's eye-opening to see someone that committed for this long period of time to make No-Till successful in this area and to try to better themselves with just not only No-Till but to interject the various crop rotations and the cover crops into the cropping systems. The fun part of it is there's so many passionate people involved with the NRCS, with the SDSU extension, with Dakota Lakes Research Farm and the Soil Health Coalition. There's all kinds of support and it's just nice talking with these other people who have the same passion that can help you. I mean it's just been really fun and this isn't all just about profitability, it's doing what's the right thing for the future.