Rick Clark speaks to Canadian farmers about no-till, organic farming

With pictures of radishes and turnips growing in his corn fields, Rick Clark spoke passionately about how he's found success with organic farming and regenerative principles on his 7,000 acre farm in Indiana, USA.

"Most of our neighbours grow corn and soybeans," he said. "We grow 9 cover crops, sheep and cattle, plus we rotate a regen crop with a warm and cool season cocktail."

Rick Clark holds the mic while in a panel session during the 2025 MFGA conference.

The headline speaker at the MFGA's 2025 annual regen conference, Clark is a passionate man who believes that we should be farming healthy food to feed the world and that came across loud and clear on the stage where he showed a room full of 275 Canadian farmers and ranchers how he farms certified organic, no-till. Clark is famous in the farming world for being in the documentary, Common Ground, which shows the effects of modern chemical farming and how we can reverse it with regenerative practices.

The event is organized by the Manitoba Forage and Grass Association (MFGA) and it was a huge success with Clark and several Canadian farmers taking the stage and showing their lessons and successes on their farms.

Clark spoke about the five main regenerative principles (minimize disturbance, maximize diversity, living roots in the soil as long as possible, soil armour, livestock on the land) but he added two more of his own (context and commitment - see later in this article), and he also emphasized soil testing throughout his talk. Clark showed how he tested a rye crop at 12 inches high and then at 18 inches high, only four days apart, and then at 28 inches.

“I am a data junkie,” he said. “Sometimes I wake up at 3 am with ideas and thinking about my farm and looking over test results."

Throughout his talk, he repeatedly told farmers to get Haney tests and regular soil tests done several times in the year in order to measure the changes happening during the crop season, and on cattle pastures as well. He advised to test a pasture before being grazed and after to see the difference each year.

“You need to know what is happening in your soil," he said. "What changes are happening? How can you know if you don't test?"

His next advice was to stop or reduce using chemical inputs, as they acidify the soil. In order to restore the pH balance of your soil, you have to stop or drastically reduce the acidic chemical fertilizer. But it doesn't happen overnight. He talked about the 11 years of organic farming they've done and he noted that on the organic land, they are now seeing too much fungal activity and now they have trees growing on their crop land.

“It’s taken us years to get here. It’s a process. We’ve taken our farm so far to the fungal now that we have trees growing in our fields. So we’ve gone a little too far, but that’s what these tests will show you,” he said, referring to the Haney test.

Clark had the crowd chuckling from time to time with stories from his farm, including ways that he experiments with crop rotations.

“I've heard people say that you cannot plant corn into cereal rye - that is bupkis.” said Clark in his southern accent, eliciting a laugh from the crowd. His point being that you don't have to listen to what you're told is possible or not possible.

Corn seeded into cereal rye on Clark's farm in 2025.

He spoke with authority about the importance of living roots in the soil, giving an example of crops that he uses to grow as long into winter as possible. Pushing into the “shoulder seasons" as much as he could. He said that back on his farm as of that date, Nov. 12, 2025, he still had green and growing cover crops that would be terminated by either winter temperatures or in the spring with a roller crimper.

Although most of the people in the crowd were likely very familiar with the soil principles, Clark still gave his thoughts about each one. Emphasizing that leaving the soil exposed to the sun will kill the biological activity in the soil. He gave an example of a hot summer day, 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) for soil exposed to the hot sun, it will absorb that heat and get upwards of 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 degrees Celsius).

“That will kill your microbes," he said. “But if you cover that soil with a thick layer of litter and biomass, it will stay cool, as low as 70 degrees (Fahrenheit, 21 degrees Celsius)."

He added that this is not a perfect shield from any weather conditions but rather, the best possible protection you can have instead of letting the soils cook under the hot summer sun.

“We have had, in the last 3 years, severe dry and hot weather, 6 to 7 weeks of intense hot weather. It’s not a total protection from any weather," he warned.

When speaking about livestock integration, he encouraged the farmers to collaborate with neighbours to get cattle onto their crop land. Although he didn't give any specific details about it, Clark encouraged the farmers to "work it out" in order to see the benefits of manure and grazing directly on crop fields. Clark has his own cattle and sheep herd which he grazes on his crop land.

He asked if there was any farmers in the room that had been no-till for over 30 years and a few hands went up.

“Go find those farmers and talk to them," he said. “They can teach you how to do it."

Clark spoke about how each farm will look a little different when finding what works. He talked about context and commitment as two additional main principles for regenerative farming. A big part of regenerative farming is that it looks so different from what is considered "normal". Like Clark mentioned, he is surrounded by farms that grow only corn and soybeans, where he is in stark contrast with 9 different cover crops and seeding his corn into those cover crops.

“Don’t waste time on arguing about being right or wrong, just do what works. And stick with it," he said. “Don't worry about what other people think. Do what is right for your farm."

And he was honest that it's not all sunshine and roses. He admitted that it's really hard to farm the way they do.

“The way we are farming is extremely hard,” he said. “Do we have fields that do a big ol' belly flopper? Oh yeah, but we also have fields that come out shining. It works out."

In many of his interviews that he does, Clark talks about how when they started reducing chemicals on their farm, he found the best return on investment (ROI) was when they hit 70-75% reduction of fertilizer. At the conference, he said that with that reduction of inputs, combined with no-till they found they still grew the same yields on their crops but with significantly less expenses in fertilizers and seed treatments and such.

“That was the sweet spot for ROI," he said.

But they went fully certified organic for maximum health and to avoid being around chemicals on their farm in their daily life. 

"Those jugs of chemicals have the death symbol on them," he said. "I don't want that around my family and it's a shameful thing that our world expects farmers to work and live with all these dangerous chemicals."

The crowd was rapt as Clark explained, in his no nonsense style of presenting, that he was saving millions in costs by eliminating inputs.

“It’s not all smoke and mirrors about why I don’t apply synthetic fertilizer,” he said, showing slides of his plant tests.  “Right now our farm is saving $2.7 million in input costs.”

Clark talked about his change in beliefs shifting from yield to health. He said he no longer looks at farming as a yield game, instead he views it as a soil health, and human health game. But while he spoke passionately about the importance of growing healthy food and the moral decision he made for going organic, he added some grace for farmers who are just starting.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, it’s not a failure to not get every acre in regen,” he said.

In the end, he challenged the Canadian farmers that regenerative farming will not be easy or without discomfort.

“Change should make you feel uncomfortable," he said, ending with an emphasis that nothing comes without risk. “If you're not uncomfortable, you're not really changing."