Doug Casey's Take [ep.#166] Joel Salatin: All of a Sudden, Even Billionaires Want to Farm

all right good morning everybody we have a special treat for you today we have the legendary joel saladin with us uh joel is a described as a christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer he's certainly probably the most uh well-known advocate for um good kind of farming and um anyway it's a real pleasure to have you here today joel so thank you for joining us thank you it's just my delight and privilege to to be with you you're you're you're heroes for me well you know both matt and i on farms here in uruguay i mean i'm i'm involved in a very big operation in um in argentina but here on uruguay we each have a few hundred acres and uh i'm having a hard time making a profit on it even though it's good land so there's a secret to it uh how do you want to sum up what you do in in the area of farming well i i would say uh doug you may not know that my dad was a was an accountant he was a tax accountant he wasn't a cpa but he he was a you know uh he was a tax he was a bookkeeper accountant set up books for people and and uh had a degree in uh you know uh business management actually um we you know we had a farm in venezuela south america for he was there for 12 years and then we got caught in the junta of pedestal menace in 1959 and lost everything it got all taken over and we we eventually had to flee the country uh for our lives and lost everything started over here in uh in virginia uh but but he he always had this thing that that commodity commodity agriculture requires scale and low margins and homogeneity and so as a small farmer we couldn't compete because we could never make enough pounds bushels widgets whatever uh to compete in in the commodity game because we couldn't we couldn't uh spread our overheads across enough you know uh items so early on he appreciated the value of of direct marketing of actually having a branded um you know whether whether you're direct marketing or marketing into a more upscale situation but where the market rewards differentiation and and and we start wearing the other hats you know the the kind of the four hats of the food system are producer processor marketer and distributor those are kind of the four hats and and so the more the more dollars we can load into those middleman hats i mean how many times have you heard well the middleman makes all the money right well if that's where it is then i want to be the middleman you know so so i i want to be the processor the marketer the distributor and and and that that wearing all those other hats takes me out of of that the the highest risk component of agriculture which is the production end that's what's subject to you know weather price pestilence and disease you know the the four horsemen of the apocalypse and and and that's what all the farmers stand around and complain about all day is weather price pestilence and disease and so if we as a farmer if we can if we can capture some of those dollars in processing marketing and distribution those don't get eaten by grasshoppers the the phone lines don't get fungus on them the the tires don't you know don't don't uh whatever uh you know break when the wind comes through and so we begin insulating the farm from those vagaries of production agriculture which are um you know weather price pestilence and disease so that's kind of been our you know our platform and um and it has it has worked marvelously okay well that makes a lot of sense because even though commodity prices i'm talking wheat corn and soybeans are uh up a lot in the last year fertilizer prices have tripled which is more than messed up a lot and uh i guess with farmers having to buy uh 500 000 tractors that they can't fix themselves anymore and so forth uh i mean what's going to happen to all these great monoculture farms where thousands and thousands of acres are planted in the same identical corn or soybean or what have you it seems unsustainable to use a overly popular word to me right right you're exactly right well uh yeah they they are unsustainable um they certainly are not regenerative and and they have a lot of you know externalized problems like you know a dead zone the size of rhode island and the gulf of mexico i mean that's a direct result of this kind of agriculture so yeah so if we can go on from the beginning of the discussion say so how do we how do we insulate ourselves from the fragility of of a system that that that disrespects if you will the basic tenets of nature which is diversity complex relationships uh you know these these these complex interconnections between the animals and the plants and the different kind of plants i mean uh you know we're told that the the native prairie whether it's you know the pompas of argentina or the prairie of the of the us uh that these native prairies had as many as 200 different species of plants per acre i mean that was that was common and um and you know all those plants occupy a different soil zone a different air zone they they use different things they they concentrate different minerals and enzymes and different things so so what we've done at our farm is we have looked across that that that natural template if you will say well well how does nature work i mean i mean it should give us all pause to realize that 500 years ago north america produced more nutrition than it does today now it wasn't eaten by people uh i mean certainly there were people here but it but you know there were there were two million wolves that that ate 20 pounds of meat a day there were 200 million beavers who ate more uh vegetables because they're herbivores they ate more vegetables than than all the people in north america today so you know ottoman sat under a tree in 1820 and recorded that he couldn't see the sun for three days for the flock of passenger pigeons that flew over and blocked out the sun for three days i mean the these this this was production at such a massive scale we can scarcely um you know imagine it today and so we look at this say well how does nature work and we realize that nature uh that the the foundation of nature is solar driven so the sun through photosynthesis grows plants and those plants then uh uh you know bring biomass that then can either be eaten by an animal or uh and decomposed that way or it can decompose just you know leaves rot on the soil surface it just decomposed by microorganisms and so so the the the driver of soil uh soil development is carbon is biomass production and it's in situ it's not driven by you know 10 10 10 chemical fertilizer brought in from you know uh some laboratory in the middle east and so so this is a an amazing liberating thing it's very liberating to think wow you mean you mean just with the sun we can actually grow soil here yes and so one of the first big investments we made was a was a chipper a wood chipper so we could go in the woods take down you know crooked and diseased and junk trees and weed the woods in north america all of our forests are too crowded they're like they're like they're like uh you know uh green beans that haven't been thinned or or you know carrots and radishes that haven't been thin we believe that we need more forest and fewer trees and and if all the trees being currently burned in these massive fires if they were actually chipped for composting and biomass regeneration not only would we have incredible fertility in our soils but we wouldn't have a fire danger the insurance companies could charge a lot less premiums for for fire you know and and we and we would employ thousands of people viscerally massaging our ecological womb into the abundance that it wants to give us i love that you say that way i wonder if um i wonder one of the other parts of i know a big part of what you do that differentiates not just wearing all four hats in the food production uh cycle like the marketer and distributor etc but also that you know you don't use all these inputs that are common in in the industrial agriculture we have today and i wonder with you know with all of those prices going up all those inputs going up so much and food prices on store shelves going up so much are i wonder if that makes your products more competitive today than they were two years ago wow you uh you just hit bingo uh this this is this has been an amazing thing that we've we have never seen in our lifetime so so a month ago a lady was in the farm store looking at the you know our meat counter and she kind of makes this little explanation wow you know i went over and said you know what you know what's what do you see says well you got you got sirloin steak for nine dollars she said at costco it's 16 a pound and i said whoa are you serious because i don't go to costco you know so so uh are you serious and anyway we got the sleuthing on it and and and here matt you've hit the nail on the head here what we've what we've got is for the first time in my lifetime uh is that we have that we have a new um a new economic recognition of the fragility of this of this very um [Music] of the industrial chemical food system and so like i said on our farm you know we we pretty much run it on on solar you know solar power through plants leaves and composting so we don't buy ammonium nitrate we don't buy phosphorus we don't buy potassium there are microbes in the soil microbes in the soil when the soil is healthy that actually create those minerals in situ i mean there are there are free microbes that pull nitrogen out of the atmosphere you don't need you know petroleum-based faber bosch whatever you know we um uh we don't need that kind of thing if we have a a very healthy soil and so um so what's happened uh i'll tell you back in uh what was it two it's been about 10 years ago when you know when uh fuel prices really spiked real high remember and and we had all these peak oil things we're running out of oil we're not you know we're all gonna go into the dark ages and um and and so at the time i saw this report that the average farmer spends fifty percent of their expenses is on uh energy fifty percent and i and i saw that report i said well that just that just doesn't sound right so i did an audit of our own uh spending and remember i put in both of our delivery trucks we have we have delivery delivered to the city you know uh they're almost on the road every day uh so i put all that in and our fuel bill was only five percent of our costs and suddenly it dawned on me wow diesel could go to 12 a gallon now you know i don't like don't i'm not i'm not bucking for high fuel prices okay but it was extremely uh encouraging and affirming to realize that if fuel went through the roof we would be the last guy standing and there's a little bit of whatever uh confirmation in knowing you'd be the last guy standing because you hope by the time you're the last guy standing somebody's smarter than you figured out you know how to not be the last guy standing and so that was a very affirming thing so what we're seeing right now is is a new vulnerability in the supply chain dependent global dependent you know single whatever single product dependent chemical dependent we're seeing a a a though those chickens are coming home to roost and and what's amazing what's really cool is that for the first time in my lifetime um uh the the great big outfits are are having trouble competing with those of us who are smaller now you know we're look we're not a backyard operation we're you know we're a four million dollar you know farm business with 25 people so you know we're not a backyard operation but we're way smaller than cargill tyson you know ibp uh you know and these big outfits and so what's happened is that that suddenly with coveted and uh and litigation and employees suing your employers because well they didn't give me enough time off i was sick and they you know blah blah blah every human every hr department uh and ceo wakes up every morning wondering oh no you know who's going to sue me today because you know i didn't give them the right protective equipment or quarantine procedure or whatever who's going to call osha you know and report me for you know not taking care and and in our small business we don't have anything we have a loyal a loyal uh uh savvy team dedicated to the cause i don't wake up in the morning wonder oh no who's gonna you know who's gonna turn on me but if you're a ceo of a thousand employee place you wake up every morning with that so what we have are these great big uh aircraft carrier businesses that have always been efficient so and quote uh uh and we've got all these these uh shoals and rocks in disturbing waters and the vote those of us running little speedboats our little speedboats we can navigate all these disturbances and we're actually finding uh a price equivalency if not if not uh price you know uh uh medium on price yeah yeah yeah better pricing uh in the marketplace for the first time in in my lifetimes there's just a lot of things here jockeying uh in in the space and it's just it's just an amazing time to to be into space well it doesn't sound like if there's no go ahead matt i was gonna say it seems like if there's one thing that would finally you know and i think people have been waking up to this whole uh regenerative ag stuff you've been preaching about for decades and showing people how to do and being a great mentor and model for people but i think that people if there's one thing that really wake people up about it it's food scarcity and high priced food and yet a huge economic opportunity in small regenerative ag like if that makes sense economically you know you have to assume lots of capital could flood that way and that'd be great for everybody yes it would and uh and so the other thing that's happened you know kind of while all this has been happening we've also had a an uh on unprecedented uh development in the in efficiency logistics of distribution uh so you know um ten years ago there was no way for example that i could compete with uh with with a supermarket to get a product to somebody in new york city for example or uh there was no way i could compete with that you know i'm uh i'm 250 miles away from new york city um and and and the the bricks and mortar interface was the you know that was the the low-cost uh model but what's happened now is that that bricks and mortar interface has gone up up up up up in in cost the cost of a cashier the cost of making sure the the back bathroom alley light is you know is lighted uh the the ice and snow are scraped off the front you know um uh walkway so nobody you know injures themselves so so the cost of of maintaining a personal retail bricks and mortar interface has escalated while the cost of distribution ups fedex you know these uh all these outfits has has dropped precipitously uh i mean i read that ups has software now that when that when the driver gets in his truck in the morning he plugs all the addresses in the software and the software routes him so that he never has to make a right-hand turn and that alone saved ups something like 30 of their of their fuel bill and so suddenly for the first time in again in my lifetime we actually have a competitive price play point uh between doorstep delivery versus the supermarket and so here right when the food chain the the great big industrial food chain is straining under exactly global supply chain issues uh litigation uh coveted mandates as it straining under that we have the door has been kicked wide open for people like us to ship doorstep nationwide to any apartment any place in the city and so farmers like me who live on a dirt road who don't live you know near a near a population center can actually access at a competitive price the uh you know the retail bricks and mortar uh outfit and the big industrial complex so so um you know it's it uh it's an inversion you know it's almost an inversion of of the things that i've had to defend all my life i've defended it you know or you're higher priced or you're an elitist or you know uh you know how can we do and i've had to defend all this suddenly now i'm playing offense you know i'm playing offense and it's really uh it's fun to have the ball on offense once in a while yeah joel i have to say when i when i think of elitist i don't think of you that's just doesn't come to mind but but your biggest stumbling block i suspect would not be the market or the economics of this thing but there must be a lot of regulatory hurdles that you have to jump over because you're not part of big farms or this type of thing why do they make your life very miserable will you they don't want you to slay and pack your own chickens and how does it work yeah well it's a it's a labyrinth to be sure and you are exactly right doug when i do media interviews which i do a lot of them and they ask me what keeps you up at night my my my standard answer is that i missed some license compliance i didn't dot a form i didn't cross a tee i didn't pay a five dollar you know whatever thing and so suddenly i'm gonna have a bureaucracy uh swarming over me that is absolutely uh the biggest hurdle and it is the it is the biggest impediment for farms like us being able to compete with the big industrial systems because doug the um the the the all of the food safety i'll just make a pretty blanket statement here all of the food safety regulations which were started by sincere-minded people who thought the government could you know protect them and give them security all of those food safety regulations are size prejudicial that they're easier to comply with if you're big than if you're small and so this is the single biggest impediment to market price competitiveness is the prejudicial nature of these of these uh regulations for example for example um if in order to sell let's say charcuterie okay i want to do charcuterie well if in order to sell it i need a a five thousand dollar sophisticated uh thermometer that that the regulators say you know in order to sell in order for us to put a usda stamp on your charcuterie here's the here's the infrastructure you have to have and one of them is say a five thousand dollar you know thermometer well that's nothing if you're making tractor trailer loads of it down at uh you know at cargill but if i'm making it in five gallon buckets for you know for my neighborhood and community that that that prices me out of the market and so so the the food safety regulations by and large are not regulations of empirical of empirical standard you know you can have so much salmonella you can have so many parts per million of this or that or the other they they are standards of infrastructure and paperwork um and so you know what's interesting is that the united kingdom up up in the last time i was in britain which was you know pre-covered um i was in a i was doing a conference and one of the other speakers was from the british food you know food inspection service and his whole presentation was how in the uk they are using artificial intelligence and infrared photography to photograph carcasses because see all of the like manure and contaminants all emit a different frequency in the infrared spectrum so you can you can actually take infrared uh photographs and like campylobacter will show up you know as a spot or or listeria right and and so um what they're doing is is just taking the inspectors out of the plant and putting in you know high definition uh uh ai pho photography with ai uh intelligence back in a central place that if something if if a certain whatever uh um light pattern shows up if a certain color pattern shows up then you know it flags it and that carcass gets you know pulled they look at it a little more and and uh that's that's empirical we have that ability i i talked to one of our inspectors about that and i said you know can't can we have an r2d2 you know an r2d2 that we swab and and and put the sample in and make this a scientific empirical test he said absolutely that would work and then he stopped a minute he said oh but then i'd be out of a job and so so what we've got is is this huge the entire food safety inspection service is a glorified jobs program uh that has no actual merit in keeping food safe it's just uh it's just a big jobs program and and and a bunch of paperwork and so so you know we uh you know i wrote a book um several years ago everything i want to do is illegal uh and and it it documents these these fights and battles we've had with the regulators over the years to uh you know to try to do what we do at one point they tried to shut us down and we actually submitted our chickens to a you know to a lab a culture test for uh bacteria and our chicken with no chlorine now no chlorine at all and and the the supermarket birds had you know 40 chlorine baths on them um ours with no chlorine averaged 136 uh colony forming units per milliliter to the second permutation and i've already told you more than i understand but that's how they measure it and the supermarket birds with the usda label on it and 40 chlorine baths measured 3 600 cfu per milliliter we were 25 times cleaner not 25 25 times cleaner than what was in the store and yet they were trying to tell us uh that because we were open to the air and uh you know and and birds could fly through and it wasn't you know uh sanitized with you know uh uh you know chlorine and antimicrobials that you know that our chicken was inherently you know um what unsafe and and uh and so we know we know how to uh you know how to run circles actually around the standards that the government sets but but but the standards don't recognize in empirical uh uh qualitative um objective testing it's all about do you have this piece of furniture do you have this equipment and uh do you have this you know this protocol i just finished with one story i had a friend has a small slaughterhouse out in minneapolis and um and so one of the things you have to do is is um is monitor the temperature in your your uh like your you know your refrigerator where the carcasses are hanging and like every you know every three hours somebody has to go and actually physically check the temperature and then you've got a little you know a little uh check sheet hanging on the door you check you know the two o'clock check the five o'clock check the eight o'clock check right okay well they hired this new person or there was some glitch and and and whoever was supposed to check the two o'clock failed to check the box the inspector saw it and he immediately taped and condemned two hundred thousand dollars worth of beef hanging in the in the locker because that thing now now when they came back at the next at the next check the temperature was exactly right so the temperature it wasn't reasonable to think that oh oh suddenly something happened you know here in this in this three hour check the decent temperature actually went up and then came back down i mean that's not reasonable and and so that's the kind of shenanigans that go on you know in in you know in small facilities uh with these you know with these uh inspectors and and so i'm a big believer that at the end of the day the entire inspection system simply it provides an unnecessary hurdle to small outfits and it provides it provides cover to big outfits when there's a problem [Music] what does the ceo say as soon as he has his press conference he walks up to the microphone and say we have complied with all usda requirements and so suddenly they are not liable now for anything because all their boxes are checked so it gives cover it gives cover to sloppiness and negligence and it and it impedes access to the people who really have the innovative answers you know at a at a smaller at a smaller scale so you have you know you have two you have two um two things so i'm a big believer i think you would agree with this at the end of the day if we didn't have any inspection whatsoever that then every business would be liable and responsible for its own protocols its own techniques and and i call this uberizing this is uberizing the food system this is where we need to go you know who would have guessed 20 years ago 30 years ago that people would get in cars with no special inspection standards with people that they don't even know and say you know take me to the hilton right um you know who would have guessed that but the but without any without any government control no unions no nothing you know uh no inspect well the reason it worked is because uber has real-time real-time closed loop monitoring if i don't like the driver i tell them i don't like the driver he doesn't get any more business if the driver doesn't like me because i'm a you know a bad customer then i get black ball and nobody will pick me up so th this this this this circle of uberization is fabulous and and actually brings back the the historic village uh village understanding when the the butcher the baker and the candlestick maker were embedded at at village scale within the village everybody knew who the who the artisans were and who the charlatans were you know the scuttlebutt word got around and so you better you know you'd better be on your toes to maintain business and so the internet internet and uberization possibility has democratized has re-villagized has reviligized the capacity to create real-time uh monitoring of the integrity of the butcher baker and candlestick maker obviously at a much larger scale than than the village but that's that's the cool part of the internet that it has democratized that that uh you know that monitoring loop that's a totally totally accurate analysis of what's going on joel i mean that's perfect but i'm wondering notwithstanding that uh do you find that uh the powers that be are reacting and it's getting they're getting worse even while a lot of things like you pointed out are actually getting better i mean what what what's the trend uh from that point of view yeah well uh um the the the truth is that it is getting it is getting worse i mean as you know um crumbling crumbling civilizations uh are as they become more whatever uh uh vapid you know they become more impotent all right crumbling civilizations uh what they tend to do is grasp at more laws more regulations because that's all they can do they can't manufacture anything they can't actually you know do anything and so so what the politicians grasp for to maintain power is just let's heap some more laws down and so in the big picture yes it is getting worse and um but what's happening is as it gets worse there is a grassroots uh a very vibrant grassroots movement now uh of circumvention and so uh so a a fellow and i a a fellow libertarian and i ha three years ago started uh the rogue food conference in america the it's the rfc rogue food conference we're having our fourth or fifth one here in florida uh next month actually and uh and and our mantra is circumvention not compliance there comes a time dug as you know when tyranny becomes so strong so um so strang strangling that it actually becomes more efficacious to figure out a way to circumvent it than to try to comply and that's exactly where we are so we have now a flourishing a guerrilla guerrilla marketing undercurrent now of very smart people that are figuring out ways to do food transfer and i'm not saying selling i'm saying food transfer without being in commerce in commerce is the legal term that the government uses look you know i can milk a cow i can give the milk to a neighbor that's no problem i can butcher a cow in the back i can butcher a pig make sausage and give it to a neighbor they can feed it to their kids it's all good but as soon as you have it in commerce as soon as money changes hands that suddenly becomes uh a hazardous substance now now you know what's interesting is that in the drug war and i know this is one of your favorite uh uh one of your favorite topics in the drug war not only can you not sell methamphetamine but you can't even make it and you can't use it yourself you know if i have a meth lab and i say look i'm having a meth lab and i'm just doing this to myself i want to i want to slowly destroy myself and none of your business let me destroy myself um you can't even do that okay so so in the drug war the the um the prohibition is on both buyer and seller but in food the prohibition is only on selling it's not on i'm sorry yeah the prohibition is only on selling it's not on buying so if i if i'm a mom and i want raw milk or i want you know backyard charcuterie or i want a you know sausage from my neighbor hog killing all right or or quiche you know quiche from the neighbors you know chicken eggs all right if if i want to buy that it's perfectly legal for me to to buy it to feed it to my children and you know and use it um the prohibition is only on selling so if it really were a hazardous substance if if a backyard chicken really were hazardous if if a homemade quiche really were hazardous if homemade baloney were actually hazardous wouldn't you think the prohibition would not be just on buying but also on selling uh you shouldn't even be able to make it and consume it yourself you know uh but but that's the great hypocrisy of the food the food hazardous the hazardous food uh uh whatever philosophy relative to the hazardous drug philosophy and and and that's the great hypocrisy and so we now have pmas that's short for personal membership associations pmas so these are modeled after the uh after a a country club a a golf agreement those are non-public things and and and nobody can just walk in there and play golf at a at a membership country club and so so we've got smart attorneys who are taking uh that that template and applying it to the food so that you are now a member and and and the money that transfers is not a sale it's a it's an interest or a dividend on your investment and and so it it's it's it's wonderful stuff we have a lady in north carolina that started a a food church you joined the church and you get this stuff we've got a guy in um you know in in louisville kentucky he actually has a storefront a members-only storefront the state keeps trying to close them down and close them out and they can't because because what people do is they invest and then when they go and they and they take product out the customers it's simply a debit on their on their investment and so they invest in like 200 blocks and and they just keep a running tab and um and when the you know when the investment runs out you invest in excuse me invest another two hundred dollars and and so there are there are multiple ways there's a guy in uh in portland oregon um and what he does is when he sells like a a lamb for example he has an agreement with the buyer that the the buyer gets the meat and he gets the guts and so he he butchers right there on his front porch literally the state keeps trying to close him down but there's no law that says i can't butcher my own lamb and so he butchers his own lamb well to get the guts he's got to butcher it and the customer takes the meat and he gets the guts and so there's there's all sorts of really clever uh things going on uh uh because yeah because the the um you know the the burdensome regulation has become so burdensome that it's now people are willing to to step up and take a libertarian risk you know and say hey let's you know let's contrive a different a different procedure it's very exciting this conference is next month you said it's the rogue food conference just in case people want to find out more about it where do they they can just google rogue food road food conference it'll pop right up all right well we we certainly encourage that sort of behavior so i hope we can help sell some tickets for it good good well i hope so yeah so what do you think go ahead doug no it's it's just here i am i've got a thousand very productive acres uh with a mile of riverfront and a big pond and fields and forests and all this type of thing and because of my lack of hands-on knowledge have lots of theoretical knowledge about this type of thing but not hands-on knowledge right i can't i can't turn a profit on this even though i have good counsel from uh you know the local vet and the local cowboys and all this type of thing with everything else i'm doing i can't put it all together i can't make it happen what am i going to do joel what do you think the solution would be well forget about this down here in uruguay what if somebody has five acres of or 10 acres i don't know what the minimum that you might want to work with is well what do you do to um change it and make it more like what you're doing make it productive profitable right right uh well so so i actually do a lot of consulting uh now all of a sudden uh it has really just blossomed here after covet i used i used to travel the world speaking at conferences and now it seems like all i'm doing is going out and helping all these newbies these urban refugees that are buying what i call their country club agrarian bunker [Laughter] you know uh i mean generally they they think the wheels are going to fall in fact doug you would you would uh matt you would appreciate that in the last what four or five months um i've been contacted by by four four billionaires not millionaires billionaires who are are concerned the wheels are going to fall off and they say look you know um uh i need i need a safe haven i need i need a place and uh that's that's just i mean that's never happened to me you know and uh and so so here so here we are so what do i do so there's a very uh a specific pathway here um first of all you need a mission you need a vision a one sentence mission say what what do we want to do with this place what what happens typically a doug on a place like yours is is you almost have i don't want to say too many counselors because i like counselors but but you've got all these ideas you know coming into your head and it's hard to you've got paralysis of choice you know and and so um these couple guys they want to do this with that 500 acres and these couple guys they want to do this with that you know and and there's not one you know one overall comprehensive land landscape design plan and so that's right so the first thing that i do and a lot of times these interests are competing obviously if one guy wants more grass for the cows he's got to compete with the guy that wants to plant the other crop guy that likes crops and wants to plant that's exactly that's exactly what i had to confront last yes that's right go ahead okay so so at some point so what i do on these places i sit down with the team and and i try to to um to come to an agreement on like a one sentence uh vision or mission what do we want this place to be what what do we want this niche of you know of god's creation to to be once you get that kind of clear what destination here's the problem if you don't know where you're going you can go anywhere it doesn't matter but but if if you know where you're going then a um you have efficiency of you know you know where to turn on and where to turn off and as you know lots of times it's it it defines a business as much to what it says no to as what it says yes to and so you've got to know what to say no to because there's lots of lots of options out there and so uh that gets everybody pointed in the same direction and and the people who don't want to go on that journey they leave you know you don't have to fire them they leave because they i don't like where this is going so they leave this so it becomes a self-vetting kind of situation and then and then the people who who who are on it and it attracts people who want to go in that direction and so then you start honing down your personnel another thing that we do on our farm is that we don't pay any hourly wages everything is either salary or performance based so rather than paying somebody you know 20 bucks an hour to take care of a herd of cows we pay them uh a per diem to caretake that herd of cows that that means they've got to be efficient and they've got to think and it's all in their ball game like like we you know we we produce i don't know a couple hundred three hundred dozen eggs a day and most of those eggs are done by uh by independent contractors who've come up through our system as apprentices they're now running these farms that we rent so we now lease about 15 properties in the area we're running you know over 2 000 acres um and and they're on these other places and we don't pay them by the hour we pay them so much a dozen per saleable egg uh so so if they get a dollar a dozen per saleable egg suddenly guess what if they don't keep the fox out of the chickens they get no eggs they get no paycheck uh if if the eggs get dirty and they have to spend more time washing them to get them clean so we can sell them that's their time not my time and so everything is performance based or salary with clear you know clear project expectations and that keeps us out of the employer tension of did that guy screw up enough to fire or talk to or you know we we have all this angst when we've got these people working for us you know is he really paying for himself is he spending too much time with the water cooler is he incompetent uh does he not follow instructions uh you know we've got all this how bad does it have to be before i have the conversation you know and and we've done we've done this you know now for for a long long time decades and the neat thing is so we have a memorandum of understanding with these uh with with our with our people memorandum of understanding so using time and motion time and motion studies we we create a value to every job that's done what's the value of of starting a group of chicks what's the value of of of caretaking a group of pigs what's the value of gutting a chicken and you you actually have a um [Music] an opportunity spread sheet where people i'm gonna do uh one batch of turkeys five thousand broilers i'll do two egg mobiles and keep a herd of cows and so our personnel our staff actually builds their compensation package on off of this opportunity sheet so we're not sitting here giving jobs we're actually just creating a a germination tray that if you're bright-eyed bushy-tailed entrepreneurial and savvy you'll you'll step up and you'll you'll make a you'll make a way to make a go of it from the opportunity sheet what's interesting is that over the years we've had some young people that that you know that want to stay and and and work with us be on our team so you know we make out the they they create this mou at the end of the year they say oh my goodness this doesn't work i can't make any money is this just ridiculous okay so so they leave the next year another one takes that same mou same memorandum of understanding same everything same compensation package at the end of the year they say my goodness i didn't know you could make so much money farm and this is the greatest thing that ever happened you know and and they're excited what's the difference the difference is that one had get up and go and one didn't and so they sort themselves out we don't have to do the sorting they sort themselves out these kinds of arrangements attract attract confident um you know confident savvy people and and and the people who just want to put in time and and you know uh kind of you know come to work and to come to work and turn off the brain those kind of people they can't make it work uh because it's all based on on time and motion benchmarks with a compensation plan that's based on the time and motion study so that way we can have numerous enterprises going on that are almost not completely but almost autonomous you know because all of our team members are sharing risk i don't want to work with somebody where i take all the risk and they don't if a fox kills all the chickens i don't want to be the only one that that takes the heat you know losing the chickens i want them to take some heat and so so we want shared risk takers and so you make your mission statement you get your this is where we're going to go you you you you create um performance-based compensation for the team so that so that you are not liable for you know uh um whatever well the risk and reward is shared yeah or the risk of reward and and the risk of failure is shared and and and once you get that then then uh from there then you develop your ecological your ecological things you know um how are we going to regenerate soil it's going to be carbonated how do we get carbon uh then then you start talking about infrastructure design um you know those additional elements as you move on to you know to a market you're making an excellent case for a farmer if he's a good farmer being an actual renaissance man you have to know a lot about a lot of different things and you have to be able to not only think things but do things so no i mean farming is a very underrated occupation and i wonder whether the farmers that have these you know giant monocultures in the midwest and so forth uh whether it's the whole process is becoming uh degraded as it's become industrialized really i mean your your formula for a farm is totally different from the way big farming is evolving i mean it's contradictory actually it's totally con it's totally controversial in fact in fact uh not very often but once in a while um somebody makes a mistake and i end up speaking at a you know at a more conventional farm conference and every time i do you know and i show my pictures of of chickens with cows and and pigs making compost so we don't have to use you know uh uh tools pigs pigs you know aerate and turn the compost uh when people see this their first the conventional mind they all think oh no he must be full of disease with all these different kinds of animals and plants and all this diversity it must be full of disease and in fact the opposite is true they they're living in this this very sterile mechanistic world view and i'm living in an extremely um biological spontaneous microbially active uh world view and and when you look at natural uh i mean look at the serengeti in africa the serengeti in africa it's not just one animal it i mean why do we want to watch the serengeti in africa it's it's it's tons of different animals lots of different kinds of trees different plants different kinds of things and so so this this diversity pattern is is critical so on our farm we have over the years we've built ponds uh we do irrigation we can you know reduce reduce flooding uh we can grow grass in the in a drought we can we've we've corrugated off you know tree zones so there's lots of uh wildlife corridors to feed the carnivorous you know the carnivorous predators so they don't attack the chickens i mean the whole thing is about trying to build this this this very functional uh functional ecosystem and and so so doug what we really need to do you just you just need to pay me a bunch of money to come down and show you how to do this you see you should do that no uh no it it it really uh you're right um it is it is uh it is simple but it's extremely elegant and and for some reason we humans i think you'll agree with this we humans like to complicate things i mean talk to the average harvard economist you know i mean they they they just complicate things and um and really the elegance is in the simplicity of it yeah you know joel i wonder though you know because all the people that have you know that you know i grew up i'm an iowa boy so i grew up around you know this sort of monoculture uh you know a lot lots of corn lots of soybeans um and you know everyone no one wanted anything to do with it everyone wanted to get as far away from it as possible um you know you just hear the farmers complain about it all the time their kids would leave and go to chicago or anywhere but there and um you know and then that lots of farmers that i knew of like committed suicide even because this is so difficult with a you know it's so something so deeply unsatisfying about that industrial ag for the practitioner as well i think you know something that's so unappealing about it where doug says like what you're describing when you're farmers it's the farm of a renaissance man i mean it's so much you're so much more connected with it it's so much more it's dynamic and interesting and i wonder have half the problem with farming and people's satisfaction with their life even relates to that in some way you know that they're that their jobs are basically mechanistic yeah well you're exact you're exactly right in fact i think the least the the recent statistic uh 80 of americans hate their jobs i mean that that's that's profound and of course in farming in farming in the next uh 15 that's one five 15 years half of all america's agriculture equity is going to change hands because the average farmer is now 60 years old and uh and and so this has never happened in peace time in any civilization no civilization has ever had that large and dramatic a transfer of agrarian equity so that's land equipment buildings uh no civilization has ever had that large a transfer of agrarian equity in that short a period in history the only time it's happened is in conquest you know the the huns came in and take over rome or whatever but but it was incompetent i'm not saying we're getting ready to go into conquest what i am i mean we may but but what what i am suggesting is that we are in a very unprecedented unprecedented time of agrarian equity transfer and so the question is yeah and doug asked you know what is going to happen to these you know i don't know i mean i mean bill gates certainly can't buy it all uh he's bought he's bought you know a quarter of a million acres which you know is a lot of land but uh but there's a lot of land out there and so we're seeing we're seeing just um uh you know massive opportunities uh info unprecedented actually opportunities in farmland in in rural areas to actually rent and lease one of my mentors next to my dad my greatest mentor was alan nation he was founder of the stockton grass farmer when he passed away they asked me to be the editor so we were we were very very close i'm the editor now of the magazine and um and one of the things that he uh said was that america is moving toward a more european system where land ownership is defensive is a defensive financial position and land management is a as a financial offensive position and that's exactly what we're seeing here we you know we are not wealthy people we don't have swiss bank accounts we have not been uh you know investors what we have learned is how to make money on farmland that that is something we have learned and and we also know how to make um how to make unproductive farmland very productive to to make it abund to build soil uh and build abundance in and so as a result we are now working with we've in the last two years we've helped five five people from the urban you know that have made money in the urban sector who think the wheels are going to fall off we've helped them purchase farm properties you know couple hundred acres here 150 there 250 here is here within you know 30 minutes of us that we manage they don't live there yet but but they can buy it and hold it as a financial defensive posture and we can manage it as an offensive financial posture and upgrade it and they can feel comfortable knowing it's being managed and upgraded and taken care of not raped and exploited and there's a place there that if the wheels fall off and they can get there we will have this very uh vibrant stable community of people who know how to grow things build things and fix things proximate so that we have a better chance of being hope and help when civilization becomes hopeless and helpless ultimately we are trying to move not toward a not we're not running from a position of fear we are actually building from a from an embrace of faith that these systems are resilient that they do provide stability and if we can continue investing in in this in this path that whether things get better whether they get worse or whatever happens we will have a better um you know a better chance of riding out you know whatever's coming down the over the years joel how many roughly would you guess how many young people have come and done interns internships or apprenticeships or whatever you call them on your property yeah so we yeah so we we've had um we've had about uh 160 or so less than fewer than 200 in in the in the 28 years we've been doing this um and and many of them many of them have gone on to launch their own independent farms many of them on land they do not own they hook up so uh it's gotten so acute our daughter-in-law actually um sherry uh started oh goodness six or seven years ago a global website a matchmaking service uh it's it's eat it's uh well it's uh it's eager farmer dot com all one word eager farmer all lower case and this is a global matchmaking service for people who are looking for for younger partners and younger partners looking for someone you know who's either either once a partner or aging out or whatever what what happens as you all know is often generally the children inherit the farm property but often the children don't want to farm it they're they inherit it when they're when they're 50 you know mom and dad now died the kids are 50 they left when they were in their 20s and but but but they don't want to lose it you know that they grew up here they they they built they built dams in the creek here they built you know forts in the trees here and they don't want to lose it and so there is a there is a a plethora of of need right now um as as as either farmers age out or middle-aged children inherit there's a there's a plethora of need for young people probably as big today as it was you know in the original little house on the prairie days okay uh the original opening of the west um uh there's probably as big an opportunity now for young people who know how to we had a we had an apprentice who left here he was from upstate new york up in the ithaca ithaca syracuse area he went home and just let it be known that he was there and available and within 30 days one month he had three land owners contact him uh that had a a total of 1 000 acres of prime farmland in northern new york that's good land to come and manage their farms for free just just do it for free and and then they would get land use tax the problem is they got to get land use taxation for being agricultural well you've got to be doing you can't just let land sit and have it an agricultural use taxation so so um i mean we now three of the properties that we lease we lease for one dollar a year um because the landowner saves thousands of dollars in taxes they don't have to worry about it and and they know they have a safe place to get to and it continues to get better and better every year and so um you know alan nation used to say um he used to tell me if you know how to make a place beautiful and profitable you will never lack for land and and i think i think he's exactly right and so we have these young people leaving some of them or even we've even had we've even had a couple of them uh start farming on uh like conservation easement land like you know out in california where everything's either you know publicly owned or fallen into the ocean and and he and these guys have started you know operations so one of the beauties of our infrastructure here at our farm is we've developed all this mobile infrastructure so when it's mobile and modular so so you know we we have we have enough capacity right now to to house uh 15 000 chickens for example but they're not in one big house they're in 200 little field modules and what that means is that you can you can get in uh on a shoestring without debt and you can let retained earnings finance your expansion debt free with mobile infrastructure so if your agreement or your arrangement goes south you just load everything up on a trailer and and move it you carry your farm so we're big believers that the farm is a completely separate business than land ownership land ownership is one business farming is a completely separate business and when we can divorce those it suddenly makes an opportunity for the land owner to more clearly you know uh see what's going on and it makes an opportunity for the land manager to um to have autonomy and and and capacity to to be an entrepreneur on that on that land base i love it that makes you know that makes all the sense in the world now looking at it from the other side of the equation suppose you're a 16 year old 18 year old kid and you'd like to learn everything that you can about farming well obviously that's a lifetime's work but uh how could could somebody apprentice themselves with you and how long would it take him after being apprenticed with you let's say to uh be reasonably competent so he could go out and do this himself and he yeah yes it's absolutely a fair question doug so so almost 30 years ago we began a formal apprenticeship program and then that morphed into the apprenticeship and stewardship program we don't call them interns uh so so what we have right now uh our stewards are a five-month program may 1 to september 30. uh that we call that the the polyface boot camp uh and we call them stewards and and that's all about that's all about discovering is this a life for me i mean you know a lot of kids spend a lot of money on on on college education and then 10 years down the road they're not even working in the place of their you know their degree they're they're doing something else and uh and so we want people to be able to come first of all and find out is this a vocation that i like uh without you know without losing thirty thousand dollars in the process and so so it's a five month introductory boot camp then at the mid point if you want to stay for the one year apprenticeship then you apply for that and then out of that group we take apprentices and so so the apprentices that we have for this year are the first level managers of the new group of stewards that are coming in may 1. you know they say you know you don't actually learn something until you teach it and so that is a confirmation for the apprentices uh to actually build their confidence level and to actually answer the questions find out what questions they don't know so they can accelerate their learning curve that second you know that kind of sac and turn of the wheel if you will uh that second season and and leave and what by the time they get through the apprenticeship uh they are absolutely ready to to take on the world they they can go anywhere and i mean obviously the good ones um and we generally only keep good ones we've made we've made a few mistakes okay we're like anybody we've made some mistakes but by and large by and large if you've been here 17 months the stewardship and then the apprenticeship if you've been here 17 months you you are ready to go uh you know take on the world and um in other words you're going to have a a grip on what to do with pigs cows chickens yes green crops the whole thing you'll have a grip on those things yeah now we we are we are not crop farmers so we don't grow corn and soybeans and things like that um but but the the overall principles of soil development um carb you know a carbon economy as opposed to a chemical fertilizer economy an institute carbon economy how to obviously our young people that leave they're not they wouldn't be uh necessarily ready to take on a vegetable operation we grow vegetables for ourselves but we don't do it for sale we we are actively right now just we're actively right now looking for someone who will come we've we've had this twice one of the downsides of young people is they are transitory you know they get married they have babies you know that uh there are things going on so so so we've had this twice in the past uh where where a young person comes and builds a horticultural enterprise on our land base so we basically we we have people who have built who have built their own enterprises like like one guy um one guy wanted to tap the um you know tap off all the sugar maple trees so that's his that's one of his little we we want side hustles we love side hustles if you've got something that you think we've had leather you know people that make leather we've got a cosmetics you know that makes uh um you know natural you know lip balm and hand cream and stuff um so you know we we want people to um you know to develop their own we had one apprentice um two years ago that wanted to stay so what do you want to do she said i want to take daniel's rabbits to the next level our son has raised rabbits since he was about eight we're big believers in in child entrepreneurism there's a magic time between eight and about eleven uh where a child is old enough to understand money but not old enough to be uh whatever peer dependent yet and and so so we are big believers in child entrepreneurship anyway he started with his rabbits when he was eight and uh he's now you know 40. um and and and lydia said i really love the rabbits i want to take him to another level and so that's her enterprise she's taking those rabbits and she as her own uh we we get a royalty uh just a royal you know a little a little you know percentage but it's basically her outfit and she has quadrupled that rabbit thing and making you know thousands of dollars uh with this rabbit thing so we want to allow people if they see a complimentary enterprise we're not beginning to fill this thing up doug we right now you know we we have 25 salaries off the place and we could easily have a hundred salaries if we actually you know filled it up with everything that's possible we have a sawmill so one guy uh is is uh running the sawmill and that's kind of his baby um and so so what what i think i think the main thing that these young yes they they leave very capable of running livestock that that that's our you know pastured livestock that's our specialty but bigger than that they leave with a can-do spirit that that they they're not victimized they don't feel entitled for anything they they know they have to make their way and uh and nothing's going to be given they have to go out there and and slog it and get it and um i i i can't tell you how valuable that is you know that in life is to to come to life as a young person realizing that um that my success is me it's not it's not a grant it's not a government agent it's not you know a federal a law ruling it's it's me i've got to do it and that can do spirit just just you know conveys with all of our young people i love it that's so fantastic i think that uh you know people should be paying you should have a joel salad in university and be churning out kids by the thousands a year and the world would be a better place and those uh the kids would be better off for it than these silly educations are getting now yeah you want to have a podcast joel don't you or we're not i i have a a podcast with dr cena mccullough called beyond labels and it's it's quite comprehensive it's obviously beyond food labels but it's it's beyond it's beyond just labels of you don't pigeonhole me don't pigeonhole you don't pigeonhole issues um just you know beyond labels and um and you know people people love labels you know uh we we just we just but but labels become very limiting we see the label and oh that's all there is to know and uh so yeah i do this podcast with cena mccullough and um it's called beyond labels yes excellent well and and you've written a lot of books and we're going to list them but nobody can read everything what are the what are your two or three kind of favorite books sure sure so so if if you're actually if if this discussion has stimulated uh man i'd like to like to find out about that my the two are my my early one you can farm you can farm the entrepreneur's guide to start and succeed in a farming enterprise and then it's sequel which i wrote 20 years later uh is your successful farm business and that's everything we learned in the 20 years between the first one and the second one uh so it's like it's like farming 101 and farming you know 201. um so those are the two for somebody that that is if this has really intrigued you um that would that would uh be a foundation um if you're if you're interested in you know what's what's the overall whatever you know philosophy of this thing i call my soul book is the sheer ecstasy of being a lunatic farmer uh that's my favorite one because when somebody says oh come on farming's farming cows are cows pigs are pigs no no no um here here's the difference and so i i call that kind of the the philosophical underpinning book of what we do uh the sheer ecstasy of being a lunatic farmer and then if you're just interested in in the topic you know it's just a kind of a oh you know it piques your interest from a cultural uh social issue standpoint then uh the last one i'll mention is folks this ain't normal folks this ain't normal and that's the one i read i wrote for a broad cultural um what's what's wrong with us as a culture from you know kids don't do chores anymore to uh to government overreach in inspection food safety regulations uh to you know chemicals versus carbon i mean it it's just it's just very broad written for you know for the broader culture to understand the the basic issues so those are the four that i would i've written 15 and those are the four that i would recommend you know and kind of their niches and thanks and thanks for asking absolutely absolutely um i i have just one more question for you and it's a little bit uh it has to do with the the cancel culture stuff that exists today and everywhere and i know you have been uh targeted for that for these people before and just i just like to hear your thoughts on it all well i'm a big believer in john stuart mills um marketplace of ideas and and i can't imagine anything that could be more uh damaging than to to cut yourself off from ideas um you know when peter bain wrote the urban permaculture handbook um the whole book is worth it for this one statement he made in there he said in times of epochal change the most important freedom to preserve is the freedom to share ideas and i think that is just profound uh you know listen um i don't care what side of the politics you're on or where you live everybody don't you agree we are in a time of epochal change it's almost like it's almost like like we're approaching uh a kind of a darkened window and we don't know what's on the other side i mean you know doug i'm a i'm an absolute i'm a cult i'm a cult follower of your you know your postings and in fact many times i print them off take them out and read them to our whole staff out in the you know we have we have dinner the whole 25 of us uh convened for supper you know um we have an on-farm chef and uh we have these you know communal every weekday uh monday through friday during during the summer not during the winter during the summer when the when the stewards are here and uh and you know we all of us aren't we we're all struggling with with what's on the other side of this i mean my dad you know again my dad was an accountant and a libertarian you know i grew up on uh foundation of economic education you know fee and all that stuff i grew up on that in school you know and um and you know i still got his some of his books there behind me from back in the 1970s uh rough and you know the coming economic collapse and all this stuff you know and these were all predicting that things were gonna you know whatever collapse in the 1980s and uh and of course you know that didn't happen and and so um we we all believe uh that that the balance sheet will be eventually balanced i i think we all believe the the big question is well when when and what will it look like and um and we just we just don't know and just about the time you think it can't get worse uh you know here i am in virginia and suddenly you know we we we threw out all the democrats and put in all republicans we're already not you know nobody's got to wear a mask anymore and and you know it and i'm i'm not i'm a libertarian i'm not a republican or anything but uh i call it between the the repub the publicans and the centers but but anyway um the point the point is that things things can change and um and you know can can it be arrested before the apocalypse or do you have to have an apocalypse in order for it you know i don't know it's it's an amazing thing but yeah but this canceled but i think we all agree we're in we're in a time of of real you know uh epochal change and and if there's one thing we've got to preserve it's the preservation of all ideas to come to the table and so for example i believe i believe that the social media you know facebook google all them that they should not be able to cancel anything they got a free ride they got a free ride from congress from from uh from liability as non-publishers in exchange they need to allow anything i mean anything and and uh yes how to make a bomb i mean i mean i don't care okay anything that that's the that's what you get in exchange for not being liable for content you can't have it both ways you can't you can't have a cart blanche to be to be considered a public utility listen if i call down to the utility company and say um hook me up with telephone service they don't ask me what my politics are what my skin color are you know what my religion is they just say send us a check we'll hook you up right and so these these big social media companies were congress essentially carved out utility status for them yes we are gonna we are gonna agree you're not liable you're not publishers you are you are you a utility and and what's happened is that they have uh abused they they have they have on their own volition um canceled things that they don't like you know so you've got the war against joe rogan on spotify and all that stuff you know i've been on the joe rogan show twice i've seen you on it yeah yeah yeah i mean he's just bringing he what is wrong what could possibly be wrong with a platform where everybody gets to speak you know that that's one reason i i won't vote for democrats and republicans that they they both they both say they want to be inclusive but they all move heaven and hell to make sure the libertarian socialist greenies and and constitutionalists don't don't have a a a podium at their debates you know on the local level gubernatorial presidential whatever and i'm saying if the libertarians are that crazy we'll give them an audience so everybody can know how crazy they are you know if if if the greenies are that crazy give them a podium so everybody can see how crazy they are um let's let it come straight from the horse's mouth and really have some you know some some jockeying for ideas so i'm i'm i'm an absolute um uh you know open forum the the more open forum the better and this cancel thing this this you know you offend me so i'm going to shut you down um it doesn't get us anywhere except except the um except except a deprivation a deprivation in our own lives of access to ideas and and that's probably a more hazardous substance than any other substance is the deprivation of ideas well how do you handle though when they when you're a target of it because you know i'm i'm low profile no one knows me knowing it's after me doug has not really been targeted yet but it's guaranteed to happen at some point um i mean how do you even handle it when these things come your way yeah well um it's a it's a real tension uh you know so so so i have this tension i mean doug is a bit of an iconoclast and and and his business his business doesn't depend um on on on a a a ubiquitous a ubiquitous um buyer platform whereas i'm in the food business okay i'm in the food business which everybody's interested in everybody buys and in fact in fact because i'm in the green food you know environmental food business i mean that's uh that um you know 60 of our customers are liberal democrats okay and and so and so here we are you know i mean uh what uh in in 10 days i'm flying out to california to speak at the california libertarian party uh convention and then in uh in april i'm going down to louisiana to speak at the louisiana libertarian party convention i don't know what you know some of the libertarians have discovered me you know and i'm excited about it it's it's a it's a wonderful bridge uh because i think the libertarians have been weak on on um on ecological uh ecological nurturing um i think the libertarians generally have been of a more you know manipulative dominated uh you know if you if you can invent it if you can do it then do it and um and and i'm i'm not i'm not there so so i bring a i bring a a more uh whatever gentle stewardship nurturing message to i think the libertarian community and i i i think i think libertarians would have a lot more um uh social political equity um if if they if they said yes ultimate freedom is abundance and abundance comes from um from ecological stewardship uh i mean that that's a natural that's a natural thing and uh and actually you know tyranny comes from scarcity and scarcity comes from exploitation you know a conclusive door mentality and so i i think i think we libertarians could you know could garner some you know some some political favors if you will um uh you know by uh uh by doing that so so uh our our problem here in a retail business is that we we have to be very careful how we present ourselves to the public because more than half of our customers are like i said you know very liberal liberal democrats it's like it's like the tension of our lives is that you know um um [Music] the people we align with more you know politically you know conservative um they're all they're all lined up down at chick-fil-a getting uh you know factory chicken and the people who we we don't align with politically and socially and spiritually uh are all voting for abortion teachers unions [Laughter] and and the the one thing they all seem to agree on is we all need to go bomb russia now and so that there's another you know uh there's there's another deal so so um anyway it you know it is a tension and what we have learned i will tell you what we have learned is that when somebody accuses us of being a racist or white supremacist or whatever um we do not engage them in debate that that's been our mistake from from the mistakes that we have made have all been made as a result of thinking that these are reasonable people right who who you who you can have you have a civil discussion with they are not they they are bent on vengeance and prejudice and um and and i mean you know when we were going through our bloodbath you know back two years ago and we were getting we were getting calls on the phone of we're gonna come and shoot your cows and burn your burn your barns down you know we we had to call the sheriff to you know start tapping the phone and i mean it was it was bad it was really bad and these people they don't want to build they don't want to build a better world they don't want to build something better uh they've just got a you know a a flying ointment a bee in their saddle and uh worse than that and all they want to do is destroy they don't want to build anything and so uh so anyway um that's where we are and um uh you know we've we've kind of punched through that that blood bath two years ago and uh we're sailing well and and and getting more and more interest in what we're doing and as things as things become more dysfunctional in society uh we just we just stay stay on course you know stay on mission our mission is to develop economically ecologically and emotionally enhancing agricultural prototypes and facilitate their duplications throughout the world that's our one sentence mission statement and as long as we as long as we stay right on that course uh then the one the ones who appreciate it will salute and the ones who don't can't fight because we won't fight them that's right i love it i that's what i was thinking when i was studying that whole uh event what i looked at it just seems like oh when i it looked to me that the one mistake you made in the whole thing is you assumed yeah your attacker had good faith right yeah and you're just such a good faith person you know it's like oh it's so terrible but anyway i'm not true karma comes around though doesn't it that whole situation it worked out yeah and and you do you reap what you sow too you do reap what you sow yeah and uh and and that's that's a real truth i mean the guy that actually launched all those attacks um uh is now no longer farming his crew uh has accused him of miss mal and nonficents and worse an animal abused and he's he's out of business and i don't know where he is he's gone but he's disappeared and so yeah i i think you're right you're exactly right we can get distracted so easily we we want to defend ourselves we we're you know but but um but these folks are not interested in in a conversation they're just not so so we just we just ignore them we just ignore them and and go on our go on our way smart doug any last questions you have for joel before we let him go i know he's got to get back to those chickens he was slaughtering before he came in well what am i going to say uh joel i don't know if you're aware of the fact that i sold out of the people's republic of aspen and uh have transplanted for the northern summer to the northern neck of virginia on the chesapeake bay so maybe this summer we can get together and have dinner and continue this conversation in person i'd like that oh i would love for you to come out my goodness our our team our team would just um they would be all over you uh we we have uh people from around well we used to have from around the world now it's a little bit less but um because of our position in this movement you know we have you know celebrity type people come through routinely and uh and when they do you know we have supper i ask them to i i call it uh sing for your supper and we'll have i'll have them talk to the you know the the crew for you know 15 minutes and you will not find a more uh bright-eyed excited enthusiastic you know group of young people in the world every ceo who comes here they're here for about 10 minutes they pull me aside to say where do you get these people you know and and and um and we we do only take about 10 of our applicants so it is a you know it is a tough you know a tough thing to get in but um but there are great young people and to be i'll tell you what doug to be my age you're a little older than i am but but to be my age and surrounded by this youthful can-do enthusiasm it brings me to tears the average farmer you know they're 60 65 now 70 and and they're they're alone their kids are gone they're they're they're trying to get it back on that tractor that combine they're in there there's you know and it's lonely and and for me to be surrounded by this youthful uh enthusiasm and excitement every day uh i can't tell you what it does for you know for your outlook your spirit uh it's just it's just fantastic well i'm going to plan my life around it so uh good stuff i'm not good my gosh it's fantastic joel this has been absolutely spectacular talking to i really enjoyed it and uh yeah we really appreciate things like this i really really sincerely appreciate uh having you the legend on the podcast means a lot to us and uh i see i got this when i stopped by your farm in september of last year so we're going to go to pollyfacefarms.com yeah i saw that good good for you yes sir that's wonderful thank you all it is it has been an honor and a privilege i've been looking forward to this i do a lot of guest podcasts and this one is special um i just can't tell you how much i appreciate your insights your wisdom in this space and i follow you i i follow you just like a like a disciple so uh let let's get through this together and um and uh kudos on everything that you're doing bless you thank you you're the man really appreciate it thank you

Channel: Doug Casey's Take

Views: 80,162

Keywords: joel salatin, dougcasey, doug casey's take, doug caseys take, doug casey, doug casey interview, libertarian, joel salatin polyface farm, cancel culture, regenerative agriculture, farming, homesteading, joel salatin joe rogan, joel salatin youtube channel, investing, homesteading channels, doug casey take, homesteading for beginners, joel salatin polyface farm video, Joel salatin yotube channel

Id: 86-fRhYFJRs

Length: 89min 53sec (5393 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 04 2022