Preserving Watersheds and Beyond with Salmon Safe
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we sit down with Dan Kent, Director and Co-Founder of Salmon Safe, and Micheal Devany, owner of Lightning River Ranch. Listen as we discuss how Salmon Safe works with Farms and businesses in the Pacific Northwest to ensure sustainable land management practices for salmon and other fish to thrive in the Pacific Northwest watersheds and beyond.
Salmon Safe is an ecolabel organization that provides certification and accreditation programs that Farms and local businesses can gain to protect water quality, maintain watershed health, and restore habitat.
Lightning River Ranch is a Salmon Safe certified Farm located in Twisp, WA, that supports their community by providing high-quality and nutritious meat using sustainable and ecosystem-friendly practices. They are a Salmon Safe certified Farm business.
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Rory Loughran: Welcome to the Direct Farm Podcast. I'm Rory, your host for today's episode. We've got a great conversation for you today with Salmon Safe and Lightning River Ranch.
Salmon Safe is an organization dedicated to transforming land management practices, so salmon and other fish can thrive in West Coast watersheds and beyond. Lightning River Ranch located in Washington State is one of hundreds of Farms certified by Salmon Safe.
I'm delighted to welcome Dan Kent, the director and co-founder of Salmon Safe, as well as Mike Devany, the owner of Lightning River Ranch. So, welcome Mike and Dan. Thanks so much for joining me today.
Dan Kent: Thanks Rory. [00:01:00] On the Salmon safe side, excited to join you and Mike on the Direct Farm Podcast.
Micheal Devany: Rory, awesome to be here today and I look forward to talking more about Salmon Safe and how we can spread it into the other Farms in the area.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely. Well, so maybe to start out, Dan for Farmers who may have never heard of Salmon Safe before, could you kind of give us an overview and talk about how the organization got started and a little bit about where you're kind of at today, what you've accomplished?
Dan Kent: Sure. Yeah, Salmon Safe is a bit different than other agricultural certification programs that your listeners may know, and that we were founded by an environmental organization, a river and native fish conservation nonprofit called Pacific Rivers. And this was the late nineties, the time of the Spotted Owl in Oregon.
And there was a lot of conflict around logging and other natural resource management. So the idea behind Salmon Safe was to develop a market base, meaning non-regulatory incentive for growers to protect water [00:02:00] quality and habitat and biodiversity. And that was the original premise of Salmon Safe and we're still implementing that vision today.
So that's been our approach for little over 20 years, and it's been compelling in the marketplace. We've now worked at over 900 Farms and urban sites up and down the west coast.
Rory Loughran: That's really awesome to hear that you guys, I mean, certainly a lot of progress over those 20 years. What are some of the problems that these watersheds are facing today that Salmon Safe is trying to correct or help support?
Dan Kent: Well, we all hear about the decline of salmon and we hear about dams, we hear about sea lions and clear cuts, and increasingly about accelerating climate impacts and all of that, how that effects fish populations. But Salmon Safe is most fundamentally about protecting water quality by reducing non-point source pollution, meaning pollution that doesn't come from a pipe, but rather runs off from Farm fields, city streets, and suburban [00:03:00] lawns.
And here in Oregon, that contaminated runoff represents around 80% of the pollution in the Willamette River. For example, or up to our north in Puget Sound, 80% is non-point source pollution. So that's really Salmon Safe's focus.
Rory Loughran: Wow. That's incredible. So, and you kind of hinted that earlier, you know, working with Farms and other organizations. What other kind of companies or organizations are getting certified by Salmon Safe? Who else are you guys working with in your marketplace?
Dan Kent: We got our start working with agriculture. Started out in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, largely working with vineyards and organic Farms. But we're now working with a range of other land management activities and really anything you can imagine in terms of land management ranging from city park systems to large scale urban development, even to airports.
But in all cases with that same focus on assessing a site's impact in its watershed and [00:04:00] some high profile projects, just to drop a few names some examples over the years would include the Nike World Headquarters campus outside of Portland, or recent project, largest project to date for Salmon Safe, 30,000 acre King County Park and Natural Area system in the Seattle area would be another example of a high profile Salmon Safe project. University of Washington main campus would be another.
So range of different kinds of land management, but again, always with an eye towards what are the impacts in the watershed? How can we protect water quality? How can we promote biodiversity conservation?
Rory Loughran: That's really cool to hear cuz I think especially, it totally makes sense to me that Farmers in Agriculture was one of the first groups that kind of started doing the certification with you just because those are people that are always paying attention to that environment around them and how they can positively affect that, because at the end of the day that makes their land better too.
But it's really [00:05:00] cool to hear that universities and private companies are getting on board with that as well and taking those steps.
Dan Kent: Well and Rory, if I could just add, we find that it's really powerful to be able to talk to Farmers and tell them that we're working with urban institutions on these same issues. Because I think Farmers oftentimes feel like the finger is pointed at agriculture, when really it's all of us that need to be focused on watershed health and reducing our impacts in the watershed.
Rory Loughran: Certainly. Yeah, definitely. That's a great point. Now Mike, as I mentioned, you're the owner and operator of Lightning River Ranch. Could you share us a little bit about your Farm and its history and what you raised there?
Micheal Devany: Absolutely. So, our ranch is located on the Twisp River, which is up in the Methow Valley. And it's at the top of the range of salmon in Washington State. It's in eastern Washington, so salmon have to migrate all the way up the Columbia River. Transit through nine different dams, and then come up to Methow River and then up [00:06:00] the Twisp River.
So we're really at the headwaters of where salmon originate. We took over the ranch in 2011 and some of the immediate things we did were focused on making the ranch viable again, as well as making it, more sustainable and part of the ecosystem up in the Methow Valley. The biggest challenges up in the Methow Valley and for salmon in general, and on the eastern side of the mountains are water quality, water quantity, and the water temperature.
So we are really focused on that. Since then we've worked hard to develop the ranch into a working enterprise. We raise cattle, which we sell direct to consumer and we also raise bees and sell the honey from that. And we look forward to more opportunities to improve our sustainability and using both regenerative agriculture on the land but also working with different organizations to improve those three main points I made about the water quality, temperature, and quantity in Twisp River, because [00:07:00] that's really what's gonna make a difference for salmon in the headwaters, which is where, you know, everything starts. They gotta start there before we can start seeing some our recovery.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, and it's remarkable. I was looking up your Farm and thinking, you know, how far you are from the ocean and even just from the Puget Sound, but just to see how far of a journey that is for salmon is, it's always incredible when you kind of just look back and think about it.
I was curious too, Mike, what was kind of your inspiration for getting into the Farming and deciding to take that over and then also doing it in the way that you have using sustainable and regenerative practices?
Micheal Devany: Oh, great question Rory. Where do we start? Let's start with my interest. I'm a veteran and I'm also in the Farmer Veteran Coalition. I'm the president of the Washington Chapter. And we work with veterans to get them interested in agriculture. And I got involved with them because I wanted to be outside and be part of something and be part of growing food.
Partly for our family health, but also because, you know, I've spent a lot of time both at [00:08:00] sea and in offices and really wanted to be back on the land. So that was my interest in getting into farming. In the case of why is salmon important to me and why is Salmon Safe important to our ranch?
I'm also on the boards of Long Live the Kings and Cascade Fisheries. And in those, both those groups, we are working to restore salmon runs throughout the Pacific Northwest so that the future generations have the opportunity to marvel and consume these magnificent fish that do make that journey of, you know, several thousand miles.
Not only to get to see, but to get back so they can spawn. So I've been really focused on getting the ranch to the point where we can be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
Rory Loughran: Definitely. That's really great. Well, so I kind of wanna open this question up to both of you, but maybe Mike to start. The certification process. What was that kind of like from your perspective? And then Dan, I want to hear it from kind of Salmon Safe's side as well, but Mike, what was that process of getting certified at [00:09:00] Salmon Safe like?
Micheal Devany: So, I'll have to tell you that we got our certification done right at the beginning of Covid. So it was interesting. Salmon Safe worked really hard to try to make things work even when we were in the Covid environment at the beginning. I think that, you know, starting at the beginning, the clearly established guidelines and rules that Salmon Safe has set forward in terms of their expectations on what they wanna see and then what they require in terms of the type of practices, what you're using on your Farm, how you manage your Farm, things like that. So, starting with that, I'd already met many of these because, I only did this in what, that's 2020.
I've been working on getting the ranch more sustainable for the previous eight years. So I'd already been focused on getting off the river. I used to have a direct diversion off the river, getting my water for irrigation directly off the river, which oftentimes you would have salmon actually entrained in the irrigation ditches. So we shifted over to a well with the help of Trout Unlimited and a natural resource conservation [00:10:00] service.
And so we'd already gone to an irrigation method that was much more sustainable for salmon. It wasn't impacting it, and also reduced our water consumption. We went from I would say we got down to about a third of our previous water consumption. But we severely or seriously reduced our water consumption. We had several projects with Methow Salmon Restoration Fund and the Yakama and Colville Nations to fence out our livestock to keep them out of the river. So that was the water quality making sure that we weren't disturbing the river, and then also restoring the riparian habitat, planting trees and getting shade back on the rivers to reduce the water temperature in that area.
So I'd already done a lot of these things and that I think that made us an ideal candidate for going Salmon Safe and going through the certification process. So, we'd already done much of it. I guess to answer your question, the bottom line is, it actually was fairly simple because we had already, we'd already instituted many of the practices that they had already required as part of the certification.
There was probably a few [00:11:00] things that we've done additionally as to meet the Salmon Safe requirements and those largely have to deal with, how do you deal with making sure that your orchard is you're treating for pests and your orchard, things like that. The re any use of chemicals, which we don't but making sure that we could document where we're at.
So the certification piece, once we submitted our certification package, Dan and company made arrangements with one of the local conservation districts, Okanogan Conservation District, and they had somebody come out and walk the grounds with us and see our practices. They took videos and got 'em all submitted to Salmon Safe and we were fully certified within, I think it was, what, six months there, Dan?
Dan Kent: Yeah. Yeah exactly.
Micheal Devany: Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty quick and it's, I think it was because we were already living the ethos of Salmon Safe, so it made it fairly simple. We were the first, as far as I know, the first Farm in Okanogan that has become Salmon Safe. So I'm [00:12:00] hoping that we serve as a prototype or a pilot for other Farmers interested in becoming Salmon Safe in the Okanogan and the headwaters of the Columbia River.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, I certainly hope so too. That's really cool that you were kind of already doing all these practices. You just kind of had to reach out and be able to get that certification. That's really cool.
Dan, from the Salmon Safe side of things, how would you kind of explain, if you were talking to somebody that might be interested in getting that Salmon Safe certification, what would you explain that process as to them?
Dan Kent: Yeah, sure. First of all, just to add more to Mike's comment. Lightning River Ranch really is, I think a flagship site for Salmon Safe. And as we expand geographically, and particularly now in north central Washington and the headwaters of Columbia River tributaries, we're really looking for those environmentally innovative growers that we can show success stories and then look to shift more conventional growers in the same direction. That's really been our strategy across geographic expansion and also [00:13:00] expansion into other crops and grazing. We've assessed grazing operations going back to the beginning of Salmon Safe, but it hasn't been a focus for us, and so we are learning a lot from operations like Mike's.
And it's good to hear that those early pandemic adjustments in the Salmon Safe assessment process weren't too cumbersome that Mike's assessment was sort of a hybrid of in person with the local conservation district and Salmon Safe staff and our independent assessor. But pandemic aside, Salmon Safe certification similar to an organic inspection if your listeners know that process. You know there's an independent expert assessor on the ground visiting the Farm.
Typically, it's a few hours can be a full day depending on the complexity of the Farm, scale of the Farm, number of crops. Running through peer reviewed Salmon Safe certification standards that Mike referenced, those are biologically based, and [00:14:00] this really is, I guess, another point of differentiation between Salmon Safe and other Farm certification initiatives.
Salmon Safe certification standards are based on the biological needs of Pacific salmon, versus a definition of sustainability or some other metric which allows us to be very objective in terms of setting the bar for certification.
One place that the Salmon Safe certification process is different than an organic assessment would be, Salmon Safe is whole Farm certification. Meaning that we work from a watershed perspective, we're working from a landscape perspective. We seek to transition entire Farms to Salmon Safe practices rather than certify a single crop, for example, in a larger operation. And one other point to make on the certification front, there are a lot of certification programs in the marketplace that growers can choose from, and different markets are looking for [00:15:00] different certification messages.
So that can lead to a lot of fatigue in the grower community. And we recognize that. And one of our strategies over the last probably 10 years in particular, has been to integrate Salmon Safe with other certification programs, overlay Salmon Safe standards. We've done that with the National Organic Program.
Salmon Safe standards are embedded in the Biodynamic US Demeter Standard now fully includes Salmon Safe. So biodynamic growers on the west coast are salmon safe. We've done that with the wine industries leading certification program in the Pacific Northwest. Working now with Food Alliance, we've worked with GLOBALG.A.P.
We offer Salmon Safe as an ecological overlay to GLOBALG.A.P.'s more food safety focused program. So lots of pathways to get to Salmon Safe certification. The case of Lightning River Ranch, Mike went straight to the source and worked through Salmon Safe.
Rory Loughran: That's really cool to hear though, that you are [00:16:00] working with those other certifiers, cuz I know there are, like you said, there's so many different certifications out there in the marketplace and for the Farmer, you know, they might genuinely be interested in getting that certification, but it's one more thing that they have to do all the paperwork for or have people out to the Farm to look at everything.
And so it is a lot of steps in that process. So it's really great to hear that you guys are working with these other organizations to combine those. And then Mike, I was curious I know you kind of talked about this excitement and desire to run your farm sustainably.
Where did the interest or what was your reasoning for wanting to pursue Salmon Safe, specifically that certification had you kind of made some of these adjustments at your Farm and then decided and found out about the certification and then decided to pursue that?
Micheal Devany: Yeah, actually, that's a pretty accurate assessment. I'd already been pursuing this because I'm really dedicated to making a difference for salmon in the Pacific Northwest. I grew up being able to go fishing off of Neah Bay in the late seventies and eighties and that's what we had in the freezer for the winter.
Salmon was part of the culture that we all grew up with. When I lived in Issaquah as [00:17:00] a kid, we used to see the annual salmon homecoming and the salmon would come up the streams. A lot of that doesn't happen anymore because we've reached the state where salmon have reached such a low point in terms of return that they are becoming less a part of the culture than we would hope.
So, I mentioned that I'm with Long Live the Kings and also Cascade Fisheries. And I'm involved in those things because those are things that I'm passionate about making a difference for salmon and for the people of the Pacific Northwest that either have relied upon salmon for a living such as the Nations that's part of their recreational livelihood they grew up with, or just the fact that salmon are part of what we like to appreciate here in the Pacific Northwest.
Rory Loughran: Oh, certainly. Yeah. I'm actually from the mouth of the Columbia River down in a smaller town in Oregon and it's completely salmon and fishing is part of the culture. I don't know if there's a restaurant in town that you can walk into without some, like a black and white photo of the catch of salmon from way back when.
So it is really cool to hear that's kind of part of your reasoning for [00:18:00] wanting to keep them around.
Micheal Devany: Absolutely.
Rory Loughran: How did you find out about Salmon Safe? I was curious.
Micheal Devany: Actually that, so that was probably a little bit accidental. I did notice on Barn2Door they had noted a Salmon Safe certification and I'd seen it reference other places, but I really didn't know anything about it. And so, I reached out to Dan and company and got educated and spent some time in that understanding what it meant to be Salmon Safe.
I'm really hopeful that, you know, as we get more places Salmon Safe certified, that people will put their attention on taking care of the water that the salmon rely upon to thrive and come back and spawn in. So, partly accidental, but after that it was a lot of research and just looking at what was going on and talking to the folks at Salmon Safe.
Rory Loughran: Dan you talked about, and we talked about kind of, being able to tie in this certification with others, trying to make that easier for Farms and other businesses to be able to get this certification. What are some of the primary challenges that Farms specifically maybe [00:19:00] have to becoming Salmon Safe certified.
What are some of those roadblocks?
Dan Kent: Every once in a while we come across an operation like Lightning River Ranch that is super innovative and basically meet Salmon Safe standards right out of the gate. But more often we have Farms that commit to conditions as we call them, or corrective action items under an organic system.
But anyway Farms take on these conditions basically continuous improvement recommendations in order to fully achieve Salmon Safe certification. And those vary based on the Farm, of course, but they can range from further use of cover crops to control erosion. Other examples would be planting riparian buffers, irrigation efficiency improvements, or even crop selection. Salmon Safe increasingly is focused on climate resiliency, of course, and so we're looking at water management very carefully. Source of water being used, efficiency in terms of application, [00:20:00] and even the crops being grown and how appropriate they are as the climate changes with respect to water demand.
And then a big one for us in terms of changes required, pesticides known to be harmful to fish. We're focusing in a lot on water quality protection, pesticide use, fertilizers used. Salmon Safe maintains what we call a high hazard list of pesticides, and we developed this years ago with NOAA Fisheries, Northwest Fishery Science Center, taking the science around pesticides that are known to be harmful to salmonids and the aquatic food chain.
And those pesticides are restricted for use by Salmon Safe growers. So typically many times during the certification process, we're asking growers to phase out the use of those pesticides.
Rory Loughran: What is that process like for Salmon Safe as Farmers are making these changes? Is Salmon Safe kind of hands on or help them through tho those processes of making these changes?[00:21:00]
Dan Kent: Well, Salmon Safe doesn't offer growers technical assistance in meeting those certification requirements, but we do work with local partners and Mike mentioned Okanogan Conservation District. That would be a great example of one of our local partners. We've really worked to develop a network of these place based partners up and down the west coast where we're working. Organizations that have the ability to guide restoration actions or water quality improvements, water management improvements. And that's essential in terms of growers meeting Salmon Safe requirements. We also work, I should mention play based partners like in Western Washington around Puget Sound.
Long time partnership, almost 20 years with a Seattle based organization called Stewardship Partners in Oregon. We work a lot through watershed councils. Starting to partner in Idaho with a number of place based conservation organizations, Upper Snake River, for example. We work with friends of the Teton River and [00:22:00] Henry's Fork Foundation. Partner with the Nature Conservancy in Idaho.
So it's really a coalition of organizations all focused in on working collaboratively with Farmers.
Rory Loughran: That's really cool to hear. And Mike, my follow up question was gonna be, you know, what was your process making these changes? But as we've discussed, you kind of already had a lot of these things implemented beforehand. I was still curious though, I know sometimes when farmers start hearing about the changes they would have to make to meet a certification, it becomes another thing that they're adding to the laundry list of things that they have to do at the Farm already. But it sounds like as you were going through these changes, you kind of leaned on the help and support of other organizations, like some of these partners that Dan has mentioned.
Could you maybe talk about that and speak to, you know, this isn't necessarily always a process that you have to go about alone.
Micheal Devany: Yeah, absolutely. And starting off, before I was Salmon Safe certified I didn't have to go alone. I mentioned Trout Unlimited, Methow Salmon Restoration Fund, Natural Resource Conservation Service. [00:23:00] They all jumped in and wanted to help. There's obviously reasons that they have a mandate to do that or they have a, you know, they exist in order to improve salmon habitat and improve water quality.
But they jumped in and helped me when I was just trying to figure things out. I wouldn't have been as far along in the process on my ranch without the help of those different agencies and organizations to get there. I like the way that Dan talked about how it takes all of these partners to get you there and for us, Salmon Safe was just a logical next step, cuz we were already mostly there.
There were a probably a few other smaller changes that we had to make are planning for the future, largely around what Dan talked about taking care of pests on your Farm. Things like in orchards.
How do you change your practices or start a new practice in order to remain Salmon Safe certified, and still make sure that you can get your crops in safely and not have them all eaten up?
Rory Loughran: Yeah. No, that's great. And so then as a follow up I guess to that [00:24:00] then, you get your Salmon Safe certification Mike, and you've been selling direct to consumer with Barn2Door since 2020, but it sounds like even before then you were selling direct to consumer.
How have you kind of incorporated this Salmon Safe certification into your branding? Is this something you, is that you want to share with your customers and that you do share with them?
Micheal Devany: Yeah, absolutely. I wanna share, but I think that there's still a lot more education to be done about Salmon Safe, both on Barn2Door, and obviously making it, more of a locally known certification. The part that most of my customers love about what we do at our ranch is, you know, the regenerative farming that we do to restore the soil health and restore water quality and really make it part of a sustainable ecosystem within the Methow Valley.
And that's really what jazzes my customers, besides the fact that the meat is frigging delicious. So, that's what really gets them buying our meat and buying our honey is they really wanna be part of that long term solution for the Methow Valley and be part of a [00:25:00] sustainable solution.
My hopes for this podcast and for other similar efforts is that Salmon Safe does become just as well known as when people talk about regenerative agriculture or organic or any of the other certifications, that they recognize how important a Salmon Safe certification is in the Pacific Northwest and what it means for our community.
Rory Loughran: No, definitely. I was curious too with your customers. I think something we see across the board is more and more interest in supporting a Farm or even just in the US as a whole, companies that are using sustainable practices are making a positive impact on the Earth and on their communities and their environment.
For those that maybe aren't approaching your company from that angle, aren't coming to you to buy beef for that, is there any kind of explanation there or do you ever kind of have to share that with folks when they're coming to, to buy meat from you?
Micheal Devany: That's a great question, Rory. So I think that a majority of my customers probably do come because they are interested in the regenerative and [00:26:00] the environmental difference that we're making from an agricultural perspective. So there are a lot of them are already aware of that and a lot of them wanna come out and visit the Farm.
Unfortunately we're at a point where we can't do visits right now due to a fire we had, but that's another story. But I hope to, you know, one day offer the opportunity for people to come out and walk the land and understand what it's like to be on a Farm where you can be productive, you can produce a really high quality product and you can still be part of a sustainable component of the ecosystem in your community. I think that's the biggest thing is helping people understand that the customers who aren't as interested in those aspects, we certainly point them out on our website.
But I think that we occupy a niche that is generating interest from that community that already has that as one of their goals in supporting sustainable farming. And I'd say they're buying it just because they like the quality of the meat. They like that where it comes from. They know the [00:27:00] Rancher. They know that I treat my animals humanely and that I do a great job at it. So I think that's the piece that really sells those folks on lightning River Ranch meat.
Rory Loughran: No, yeah that's certainly something I've heard before. Sometimes it is like the product that hooks people. And sometimes it's a ribeye steak or bacon from pasture raised hogs and that really gets people into your circle, and then you start to teach them about the differences your Farm is making for your land in the environment.
Dan, I was curious, as we've kind of talked about with Mike, but gaining a Salmon Safe certification, that's a really great branding opportunity and allows companies and Farms and businesses to kind of easily showcase their values by being aligned with that Salmon Safe logo.
What are some of the ways you've seen Farms and other businesses kind of share that certification and align that with their brand?
Dan Kent: Well, you know, Mike mentioned the need for further consumer awareness and one of our challenges at Salmon Safe going all the way back to the very beginning has been branding in building that consumer brand. And it's [00:28:00] particularly tough for commodity crops, less so for operations like Lightning River Ranch where the name of the Farm is on the product.
But, thinking about wheat or dairy or livestock more broadly. It's tough to maintain that chain of custody for a certified crop coming from a particular Farm. So that has been one of our challenges. But at the same time, we learned, going all the way back to the beginning of Salmon Safe that the brand really resonates with consumers.
And during the time we were really focusing in on vineyard certification and working a lot with wineries, we were doing month long retail campaigns in supermarkets and specialty wine shops and natural food store chains, like Whole Foods. And we would see during a month long campaign, we would say like 15 to 20% increase in sales of those certified wines during the campaign. So we know that consumers respond to it when they see it, and we've focused so early on doing a lot of [00:29:00] retail promotion, but that's tough to sustain as a small nonprofit. So more recently we've really focused on getting the logo, the Salmon Safe brand out on packaging.
And I can tell you Salmon Safe logo has appeared on any product you can imagine from cut flowers to bison meat. Anything. Right now, in fact, it's a fresh hop season. I don't know, Rory, if you and Mike are beer drinkers, but it's fresh hop season in the Pacific Northwest. 80% of US hops come from a couple of salmon watersheds in the Willamette Valley in Yakima.
And we're doing a lot of work with certification of hops and transitioning barley growers to certified malt. And Salmon Safe brand is all over Northwest craft beers. And that's been a place we've really focused. We're seeing a lot of consumer response. We're seeing brewers committed to carrying the message in the marketplace.
So that's really, you know, that's how we're working is finding those partners and [00:30:00] finding ways to leverage some of these natural partnerships to build the marketplace presence. But again, it's tough.
Rory Loughran: And like you've talked about though, it certainly is a win-win. Cuz having the Salmon Safe logo on your products can be the reason that somebody makes that purchase or buys that beer. I loved that example that you just gave, cuz I saw that on your guys' website and I think one of the breweries had put like tags of Salmon Safe approved or Salmon Safe certified on all their beers. I was like, that's awesome!
Dan Kent: Exactly, Rory. We've done campaigns in grocery stores. One early campaign was with Deschutes Brewing out of Bend. It was, drink like a fish. Salmon need clean water, so do you." And we had hang tags and bottleneckers and posters and consumers respond in a huge way to that kind of information if it can be fun and informative at the same time.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. That's really great. I love that. I don't know if you guys have t-shirts of that, but that should be definitely be a thing.
Dan Kent: Yeah, I think we should do a t-shirt.
Rory Loughran: Are there any other kind of [00:31:00] advantages to, there's these obvious ones that we've been talking about in terms of one, just the benefit you're, and the impact you're having on the land, the salmon, the watershed itself as well as now this kind of added branding opportunity for somebody that signs up.
Are there any other kind of maybe personal advantages that kind of come along with being certified as Salmon Safe?
Dan Kent: Yeah, a great question. It really depends on the operation and the crop. For a handful of crops, like, we've been talking wine grapes and hops and malt, there can be a price premium for Salmon Safe certification. That isn't typical across most of the crops that we certify. When we were first getting started with Salmon Safe and building the program, back then organic certification delivered like a 40% price premium in the marketplace. And we thought if Salmon Safe can deliver 20%, wouldn't that be a great success? And over the years we've learned that price premium is very elusive in the marketplace. But we find that the benefit that we can deliver in a big way is market access. [00:32:00] Getting Farms in front of new buyers, improving relationships with existing buyers.
One transformation we've seen in the marketplace over 20 years has been big institutional buyers, whether they're food companies, retailers, whoever they are really interested in third party verification of sustainability and we're seeing that across the board. And just to give you an example of how that plays out, we are working with a wheat grower in the Palouse who is transitioning to certified barley for malt for breweries and then came back to us and wanted to certify another parcel in the Palouse, cuz they had a baby food company interested in Salmon Safe certified wheat for as an input to baby food. So, just an example of that market access benefit.
Rory Loughran: No, that's a really great point too, because I know a lot of our Farms at Barn2Door they are looking to get into wholesale or working with wholesale accounts, whether that be grocery stores or restaurants. And so [00:33:00] being able to have that branding, that logo of Salmon Safe certified to kind of communicate that quality is a really great way to kind of elevate yourself above maybe some of your competitors.
Mike, I was kind of also curious what, so you've now had this Salmon Safe certification for a few years now. What is maintaining your Salmon Safe certification like? How does that process go as you keep that going year over year?
Micheal Devany: Let's see. So I haven't actually had to do the recertification yet. I think that's coming up here next year. But, you know, as far as our operations go, we have a continuous improvement mindset where we're always trying to find ways to be more efficient and more sustainable. So I don't think that part will be really onerous because we are continually making those changes.
We need to stay Salmon Safe certified. When we do bring on new enterprises, like we planted an orchard last year, we did have to go through and figure out, okay well, how are we going to get this orchard to be successful and remain within the Salmon Safe [00:34:00] protocols? Whether it's from pesticide or what kind of amendments we might give to the soil.
Fortunately Salmon Safe's done a great job at pointing out, these are the things that you can do and there are lots of alternatives. It just has required a little more research to figure out what are the alternatives that will keep us Salmon Safe certified as we start our orchard and then how are we gonna run it?
So more to be seen when we do our recertification here next year, but I'm fairly confident that it's not gonna be a really high bar to transgress just because we're already almost there.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Well, and judging from how it sounds like your first certification went, it doesn't sound like you'll have too many issues. Dan I was curious if you could maybe speak to that. What is that re-certification process like?
Dan Kent: Salmon Safe is a three year certification cycle. So we're on the ground with an independent assessor every three years, and then we're doing an annual verification of any conditions to the certification. So there's an annual check in every three years on the ground.
Rory Loughran: Okay. Very cool. [00:35:00] Dan, so kind of looking ahead, Salmon Safe has grown a lot over the last few years. But how are you guys looking to kind of continue to grow this outside of maybe just the Pacific Northwest?
Dan Kent: In terms of Salmon Safe's work on the ground, our mission is really the range of Pacific salmon on the west coast, and we're doing a lot of work in British Columbia. We partner with a group up there called Fraser Basin Council. We're working with Farms and vineyards across BC. We've been invited by a conservation group in Alaska to extend Farm certification in Alaska.
California's been a challenge for us. We've done some work in California, but still trying to find ways to be able to support growers in California, particularly Northern California and really deliver value. But thinking beyond the west coast, beyond the Pacific Northwest, We know that Salmon Safe's core principles can be applied in any watershed where there are willing landowners like Mike and a concern for water quality and habitat in our standards.
Basically a [00:36:00] distillation of the Salmon Safe standards, which salmon is in the name. But really Salmon Safe standards at their essence are about watershed health. The standards have been applied as far a field as a production brewery on the big island of Hawaii applying Salmon Safe development standards. Farm standards have been applied in sugar cane in Okanawa to protect coral reefs.
So we know that standards can be applied globally. And so we're really thinking about what that means and how we can support this market based approach.
Rory Loughran: That's really cool to hear that you guys have places so far away, have been able to implement these as well. I didn't know that. That's really awesome.
Dan Kent: Yeah. Earlier today I mentioned, Rory and Mike, as we were getting started that earlier today, Salmon Safe was presenting a webinar for Seattle area developers and large scale contractors, and one of the contractors, it's a global company, one of the biggest global contractors was sharing in that webinar that they are [00:37:00] applying as part of their Salmon Safe commitment in Western Washington, they've committed to zero sediment runoff in construction. And they're now applying those practices that they've pioneered to meet that commitment nationwide. So just an example of even if we're focused in the Pacific Northwest, the influence we're having is much broader.
Rory Loughran: That kind of makes me curious for if there's a Farm that's is hearing this and they're, maybe they're over in Ohio or on the east coast or down the south. If they wanted the Salmon Safe certification, could they get it? If not, what could they do to kind of align their Farm with the practices that you guys are sharing?
Dan Kent: Well, I would say, first thing to do would be to reach out to their local watershed organization, Conservation Organization might be the local chapter of to you. I think that would be the first step and tell 'em to give us a call. We'll think about how we might be able to work with them.
I mean, this is actually top secret, so anyone listening to this has to keep this under their hat cuz [00:38:00] our board of directors has not signed off on this, but, we're gearing up to roll out a new Trout Safe initiative and we've been working in Idaho, I think I mentioned, working in Upper Snake River tributaries, the very edge of the Columbia Basin, Western Montana, Western Wyoming just assessed a Farm in Wyoming.
But we're thinking about expanding trout safe in the Northern Rockies, and eventually Trout Safe could go much further even. So we're definitely thinking about how this approach can be scaled up significantly.
Rory Loughran: That's really cool to hear. Yeah. There's certainly a lot of opportunity there. And then, like you said to go across the country as well. Outside of certifying Farmers and as you've talked about breweries and vineyards, what other kind of work is Salmon Safe up to?
Dan Kent: Well that's really most of it. We're focused on agricultural practices, focused on urban development. One new initiative at Salmon Safe, we're focusing in on car tires and I don't know how many listeners have been tracking [00:39:00] emerging science. It's been really groundbreaking science coming out of University of Washington and Washington State University and Noah Fisheries.
For the last 20 years, we've known that when there are big storms in urban areas and a lot of storm water runoff coming off city streets into streams, that fish are dying, especially coho salmon, and they call it pre spawn mortality. Scientists have been working for 20 years to figure out what is the smoking gun, what is it in this urban runoff that's killing fish, and the lots of theories around petroleum and pesticides and a lot of other ideas.
And finally, this groundbreaking research came out about 18 months ago that indicates that it's a chemical compound in tires called 6PPDQ, that is as tires disintegrate on the road at the particles, this chemical 6PPD going into streams and highly toxic to coho salmon [00:40:00] especially, but other salmon, other aquatic life.
anyway, Salmon Safe is working to develop, upgrade, strengthen our urban standards to address how can we mitigate for 6PPD in roads and bridges and airports? Tires are a global industry, but again, looking at how we can find ways in the Pacific Northwest to lead the way to cleaner rivers.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. No, that's very cool to hear that even kind of on the cutting edge of that research and figuring out that the source of that problem that you guys are invested in and working with those other partners.
I guess to kind of wrap things up a little bit here, Mike what's ahead for Lightning River Ranch? What do you kind of have going on in the year ahead?
Micheal Devany: Oh, we got some exciting changes coming up. We're continuing to grow our market in order to market our beef, but some of the things we've got going on the ranch are, I talked about continuous improvement. Increasingly improving our water efficiency. [00:41:00] Increasingly working on our forest health, which can provide a source of sediment, but it also provides a source of a way to purify water is before it gets to the river.
But I think the biggest project we have coming out is we're working with Methow Salmon Restoration Fund to work on a side channel. We have a small side channel off the river that's on our property and there's a cold water seat that goes into that side channel.
And MSRF is going to come in, I think next year they'll start, and basically improve that area a little bit so juvenile salmon have better access to it. So they have some cold water refuge, you know, when it gets hot like it did this summer. They have a cold water spot that they can go hide out and stay cool cuz temperature is a big deal for salmon and trout.
And then it also provides a little refuge from when we have the big storm runoffs and things like that is places that salmon can effectively hide and hang out until things settle down. So we're really excited to see how that can make a difference for the Twisp River [00:42:00] drainage and improve habitat and improve survivability of salmon.
So that's our big excitement coming up in the year
Rory Loughran: That's really cool, Mike, just to, I mean, we've been talking about it this whole time, but how many different projects you have, either that you've finished already or that you have going on all aligned here with Salmon Safe and their ethos is really awesome.
Dan on the Salmon Safe side of things, what do you guys kind of have planned for the year ahead? What are you hoping to accomplish?
Dan Kent: On the Salmon Safe side, I'm happy to report that Salmon Safe has just been awarded a big grant, largest grant to date via EPA. It's a water quality grant through the Columbia River Restoration Act. And so our big goal for the next year is really scaling up our work in the Columbia Basin, particularly the interior Columbia Basin, 72 million acres, whole lot of Farms.
It's a lot of land, a lot of stream tributaries. So we're really looking to expand this work in a big way. That's our goal. And we feel [00:43:00] like the concept has been tested, It's been proven. We've got these flagship operators like Mike out there as success stories. So now really just looking to hopefully continue shifting the market.
Rory Loughran: Definitely. That's really great to hear. I'm excited to hear how that goes for you guys. I certainly hope that this podcast can be a way for other Farmers and folks in agriculture to hear about this certification and consider it as an option and I'm really excited. I hope we get to check in again maybe in a year's time or something and hear how all that work around the Columbia River Basin is going.
Thank you both so much for joining me on the podcast today.
Dan Kent: Thanks so much Rory, really pleasure and thanks Mike.
Micheal Devany: Yeah, thanks Rory. This has been great and I really appreciate Barn2Door putting these on and highlighting the things that we can do to help our environment.
Rory Loughran: Of course. Yeah, we're excited about it.
I want to extend my thanks to Mike and Dan for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Here at Barn2Door we're humbled to support thousands of Farms across the country, including Farms like Lightning River Ranch. For more information on [00:44:00] Salmon Safe, visit salmonsafe.org and then to find more information on Lightning River Ranch, you can check out their Website at lightningrr.com.
To learn more about Barn2Door, including access to numerous free resources and best practices for your Farm, you can go to barn2door.com/resources.
Thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you next week.