Regenerative Agriculture Podcast

David Stelzer is the founder of Azure Standard, a company born from a 1970s family health crisis that inspired a switch to organic farming. When a major processor dropped their organic grain for conventional wheat in the 1980s, David began delivering his own crops directly to co-ops in a pickup truck. This grew into a massive independent distribution network that now manages roughly 12,000 SKUs, connecting growers directly to consumers. In the field of regenerative agriculture, David focuses on vertical integration to bypass the expensive and often unethical mainstream middleman. By managing the farming, processing, and distribution in-house, he is able to pay farmers higher premiums while keeping food affordable for families. On his 5,000-acre farm, he proves that regenerative systems can match conventional yields while producing nutritionally superior food. In this episode, John and David discuss: David's childhood recovery from a life-threatening respiratory illness after his parents transitioned the fam