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LARS
Small Scale Organic Farmer
Neighbor of Wild Rose Dairy Feedlot
"If you think about how much income has come out of the American soil in the last 200 years, people having the notion that maybe you do the opposite for a while is a healthy notion."
Lars talks about how he went from working on Wall Street to farming in rural Wisconsin.
Before moving to a farm in Southwestern Wisconsin, Lars Bergan worked as a financial analyst in New York City, a researcher for the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., and a Fulbright Scholar in Kingston, Jamaica. He and his wife and two sons live a few miles from Wild Rose Dairy, a feedlot or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO). In 2017 and 2019, Wild Rose caused manure spills that contaminated nearby streams, killing at least 2,000 fish. To fund the necessary infrastructure updates, the dairy is doubling their cows. Lars now works in the organic recycling industry promoting carbon sequestration and soil regeneration.
"Poor people don’t need beauty - that’s a huge theory about architecture that came into our country. And that’s why all the public schools look like prisons and all the prisons look like public schools."
Lars discusses the importance of beauty in farming and the world in general.
"The soil has twice the carbon in it of the air and twice what the oceans have. The soil is the whole thing... the beans that were keeping the carbon in the soil by the way of resources from fungi and bacteria to the roots of all the “weeds” that were in there... as soon as they stop doing it, the carbon just naturally leaves."
Lars explains the significance of carbon sequestration.
"In our new house, I put in a system where I can dose the water with peroxide… because there is some possibility that those people could damage the water for all of us. 100% at this point of our dreams and hopes reside in that farm so we can’t leave."
Lars discusses the logistics of industrial dairy farming.
"It’s a really cautionary tale about this notion that better regulation is the cure to our climate problem because there’s one person whose whole job is to write CAFO permits, not deny CAFO permits. You’ve given that person 100% of the authority for a state of 5 million people … and he’s never going to have to have a personal interaction with the people that are being affected."
Lars explores the best ways to create positive environmental change and his relationship with his neighbor, the Wild Rose Dairy.
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