“I appreciate the opportunity to showcase our Regenerative Ag journey as a member of The Climate Positive Leaders Program. The goal on our 7th generation Iowa farm is to build long term economic resilience and environmental sustainability and we are scaling that with our work at Continuum Ag. Via improved soil health we can enhance family farm profitability so that rural schools, churches, communities, and the ag industry as a whole will flourish.”Mitchell Hora represents the 7th generation on their Washington County, Iowa family farm where they use no-till to raise corn, soybeans, cereal rye for cover crop seed, sweet corn, and two heirloom varieties of corn for direct human consumption. The operation has diversified its crop rotation, experimented with more than 25 species of cover crops, and uses relay-cropping to grow their own cover crop seed. To document soil health, Mitchell uses the Haney Soil Health test (weekly replicated testing for the last six years), real-time soil and weather sensors, aerial imagery, and the latest precision ag tools. As a result of their regenerative farming practices, the farm has reduced total synthetic fertilizer by more than 50 percent and pesticides by up to 75 percent.
In addition, Mitchell has formed a soil health data intelligence company that builds on the family farm’s legacy and is on a mission to help 1 million farmers profit from improving their soil health. The business tool spans a farmer network of 42 states and 20 countries, impacting on-farm practices on 850,000 acres, connecting customers and driving agronomic intelligence back to the farm. Through his podcast, webinars and farm tours, Mitchell is actively advancing regenerative agriculture practices while strengthening relationships across the ag industry.
