Small American Farmers in Serious Crisis: The Back Story

welcome everyone we're here with another fascinating interview with Joel sutin and uh if you haven't read his books uh you need to they're awesome there's a situation that uh we want to talk about right now so welcome Joel um can you tell us a little bit about the situation that's happening uh with small farmers right now in the relationship to selling food yeah thank you Dr Eric and thank you for having me on it's a real pleasure and an honor to be with you you know when you walk into a Walmart or a supermarket it's easy to assume that well good grief you know the Cornucopia is here I can have anything I want and the fact is that all the food in a supermarket is carefully um U sanctioned if you will or licensed by a Labyrinth of government regulations not just food regulations but zoning regulations and and all sorts of things uh that that make it very difficult for especially small farmers uh to come in I I I remember one uh one time I had a bunch of vice presidents from I think it was Sam's Club either Sam's Club or Costco the nine nine vice presidents were on a kind of a a nature tour around the East Coast they'd come from from uh Arkansas where their headquarters is and we were one we were one of their stops they were gonna spend the day out on the Chesapeake Bay and things and and uh I gave him a farm tour we're we're having lunch in the in the sales building there and and uh they asked me well they were totally impressed they got it they they got you know ecological farming they got earthworms I mean they you know they it all resonated uh Animal Welfare those SS of things and uh I they asked mewell how do we get your stuff into you know a Costco or a Walmart or whatever and um I said well the first thing you have to do is allow a truck smaller than a tractor trailer to back up to your loading dock Dr Eric end of discussion and that was it wow they could not they could not even go anywhere so that's not government regulations that's just that's just you know the system the system is um it is is conceived and continues to evolve to protect the powerful interests that are there and I'm not going to suggest it's a conspiracy I'm not even sure that a lot of these people know know the impact of their policies like not letting a a one-ton truck back up to the dock um I I I mean I could I could tell by these folks expression they the thought never occurred to them oh well a small farmer would have trouble coming in a tractor trailer I don't think it ever crossed their mind you know it's it's a different world and so so you I don't like to use the word conspiracy or evil intent I think a lot of this stuff just happens because people aren't thinking about it and um and and it just is what it is but the the fact is that there are many things if you start thinking about huh wonder wonder what it' be like to have a truly artisanal craft cheese for example uh made by a local farmer with unpasturized milk uh what would it be like to have a a homemade uh pepperoni balone Sherie uh made by an artisanal pork producer that the pigs ran outside ate grass and acorns and uh and and you know this this person uh made these real specialty you know Polish sausage and and things but but that none none of that exists um in fact in Virginia right now in Virginia right now there is not if if if as a small farmer if I want to make and sell a hot dog I mean a good hot dog not you know not scrapings off the floor somewhere but a good um all meat hot dog with no no fillers No Junk in it just you know beef and pork and that's it yeah there is not a place in Virginia that c that can make a legal hot dog that I can sell unbelievable incredible for me to sell a hot dog I have to ship um you know boned boneless product up to Pennsylvania and pay a large facility there to you know to make our hot dogs and then ship them back to ourselves wow wow and and and then of course that makes the price of the food a little bit higher so then then you get accused of being an oh you're a food elitist look at your prices well yeah when I have to yeah yeah I just you know I want to support a local farmer a small farmer that's doing it right because that's the type of food I want to eat but it's it's becoming very difficult to get that food and I can see why the all the regulations and the support for the bigger industry so it's making it harder and harder um one of the things that you're doing is you're having a conference uh with a bunch of farmers that are very creative right um can you tell us a little bit about that solution yeah so so uh the Rogue food conference was started about four years ago and uh John Moody and I kind of started it I'd been wanting to do this for years but I needed a I needed an an e a manager sidekick I'm a Visionary okay I'm a dreamer I'm out here in la la land uh and I need a stage manager you know uh I can conceive the theme and the story but I you know I'm not the guy to actually run the stage and uh so John Moody came along he said yeah I I'll do that and so we launched the first one in the spring of 2020 literally one week before the lockdown started and um and the theme is circumvention not compliance what happens Dr Eric is that when when regulations become so onerous that they prohibit competition coming to the table to the marketplace table there comes a time when it's it's actually more efficient to figure out a a circumventive way you know um an end run than it is to try to run up through the Middle with and and agree to comply with everything and so so we start looking around the country say where are the people that have figured out how to do this how to make an end run and lo and behold there are a bunch of them I mean wow not not myriads by any means but there's enough to actually create a nasset movement so this will be our what seventh or eighth uh roog food conference it's going to be here in Virginia at at at we're going to be hosting it at our farm and um and and we'll be showcasing people and what we've been doing is showcasing ideas and people so let me give you a couple of examples one is a lady in North Carolina that has started a 501c3 food Church you join her church you get the food and your your and her um whatever her her protection is freedom of religion wow it it it's my it's my religion that I'm to take care of my body it actually doesn't belong to me it belongs to God and it's not supposed to have junk and so in order for it to not get junk I in other words it's it's part of the whole you know the whole religious uh experience okay so that that's one example and the state North Carolina has tried to shut her down and shut her down uh she's had as many as six six food police cars food police police yeah par parked outside her um her Warehouse there and they can't touch her she said you know you have no jurisdiction here this is you know freedom fre of religion and and so so far she's she's winning that that argument um there's a guy in uh in Florida who uh has gone under the pet food regulation so about about eight nine years ago he was raided for selling unlicensed dairy products so he was milk and cows and selling ice cream and kefir and yogurt and milk and butter uh completely unlicensed but his customers were thrilled the stuff was unbelievably good and they felt better and you know people wanted it and so he was selling it well he got he got bust as they say he got busted and so as a result working with the farm to Consumer Legal defense fund which is a group of attorneys that kind of like The Homeschool legal defense Association they got the Florida uh whatever Bure bureaucracy to craft pet food licenses that you could license any food for $25 and register it as as a pet food I love it and so he he licenses milk and kefir and yogurt $25 a piece as a pet food and now sells food not fit not for human consumption Eric within within within one year of that new you know kind of new policy going into effect 12 raw full-time raw milk dairies sprang up in Florida and I was down there about two years later doing some some kind of Lo local foodie uh foodie talks in Gainesville Tallahassee Orlando some of the big cities and it was interesting these young you know Generation Z 30y old you know Urban Foodies said hey we know where the good stuff is the good stuff is the pet food and and that had completely permeated the local food movement uh so you know that's that's another one that's great the lady in uh Minnesota that went under the fish bait code so she she was taking cheese she was taking cheese in actually she was in Wisconsin taking cheese in the Minneapolis Farmers Market and she got busted for you know unlicensed cheese and so she called the state said Is there a law is there some rule about fish bait there a lot of fishing up in Wisconsin Minnesota all the Great Lakes uh what what regulations they have well not really any just U as long as it's edible and so now she sells fish bait Colby fish bait cheddar fishbait Swiss and nobody touches her oh my gosh there there's um there's there's the private membership Association that's a real hot item and at this conference we're actually going to have a public debate uh there are there are Defenders and detractors of the private membership Association which is assembly which is essentially uh I I join a private members it was developed in the 1960s in the Deep South by country clubs to not comply with the Civil Rights Act this is this is not public uh and so this is a private club and we can do whatever we want and and of course these were powerful you know powerful interests definitely Prejudiced and and uh but they created a president of a legal entity that is not a public thing it's in other words one of the one of the phrases that we hear is we got to protect the public interest you know food safety a public interest public interest but what about what about the private interest what about the interest of the private right what what if I don't want the public to to to agree that the what if I don't want public food or or food that passes public mustard right uh and and I want private food so that's a big one here's another one this is one that's just that's just come out through our movement and I don't know that anybody's really doing this but I think it's got some legs for somebody that's creative so with the internet now you know you can take all sorts of courses you can learn how to sew and cook and fly an airplane and you know whatever um make all sorts of things so there all these courses well there are people now where you can take for example a Butchery course and you pay $200 or $300 and part of the the um the textbook the whatever the tools of the course is you get 100 pounds of meat or 50 pounds of meat and so my customers just sign up they pay for a course and part of the course materials are free meat that is so creative yeah so so the whole principle here just to cut to the chase where the government gets involved is in Commerce that Freight in Commerce well the courts have determined um specific things of what what does it mean when there's a sale what does a what does incomer mean and so a lot of this um uh you know creativity is surrounding a legal way to transact a to transact a trade that does not come under the the purview of Commerce because you know you can give away all the stuff I've described you can give it away you just can't sell it in fact you can even buy it it's not illegal to buy it it's only illegal to sell it fascinating fascinating so so that's what we're doing and and it's gaining legs there are people now that are that are hybridizing and I'll take a piece of this and a piece of that and and putting their own creativity and so every every we're doing two of these a year the next one's here the one in the fall is going to be in Dallas Texas I think the next one's going to be in Florida uh we just did one in the Pacific Northwest up in Battleground Washington and um so we're moving it around the country and every time we have more and more people that are being successful at thwarting the bureaucracy that keeps you know small producers from being able to access the market so if you wanted to let's say for example sell pot pies from your farm would you run into a couple barriers oh man uh we we tried this actually about U about four years ago we we had a summer Chef who who so in the summer when we have our stewards we have a summer Chef who cooks for us so our whole Farm crew there's about 25 to 27 of us can all eat you know as a as a family um together communally and and it's a night wonderful way to end the day and so um so she wanted to stay the problem is it's only five months it's May one to September 30 and well what am I going to do the rest of the seven months and she said I know what we'll do let's let's make pot pies and this gal this young lady was a a graduate of The Culinary Institute of America at Hy Park New York she she I mean she she actually had a a credential she was diploma and so so I have always wanted to make pot pies chicken pot pie beef pot pie I love pot pie you know and all the permutation shepherd's pie uh you know all all those kinds of things pot pie um and and our customers are always asking for that you know uh we'd love to get pot pies so let's make some so she started down this pathway and um of course the first thing the first thing she they told her she needed was a commercial kitchen well we have a a pretty nice commercial kitchen here at the farm it's not licensed the problem was it has to have a licensed bath room now this thing is only 100 yards from our house if she wants to go to the bathroom she can run to our house and use the bathroom but no a commercial kitchen has to have an attached bathroom I said well can it be a composting toilet no it has to be waterbased porcelain you know the whole nine yards well what if I'm happy with a no no no no no it doesn't matter and so suddenly a little trial balloon suddenly costs $40,000 of of licensed lagoons and you know bathroom facilities just to try a pot pie so I I got to asking them I said now wait a minute food trucks I could go to Charlottesville and there's a couple food trucks over there at the UVA campus selling meat pies they sell them all the time in Australia out of food trucks food truck is making meat pies they don't have a bathroom the inspector said no and that's a loophole we'd like to close and we're trying to figure out how to do it I said wait a minute are you telling me that if I put this kitchen we have right here if I put it on a Chassy on a chassis with wheels then I wouldn't need a bathroom he said absolutely that's exactly correct but then the problem is then the problem is you can't sell them off site so if it's a food Tri truck you can't make food in there and sell it on offsite you can only sell it from the food truck so so so we went around and around I I could go into more detail but you you get you get the picture here uh this all just to sell a a meat pie you know I think what's happening is the the vilification of the the foods that have the lowest margins um like meat products things like that especially I mean if you take I looked up how much it costs to buy some corn the dent corn it's about it's it's $298 per metric ton you can you can actually create over 6,000 boxes of corn flakes from that which comes out to roughly about uh a 7,000 per margin on corn but for these other products that you have to grow oh my gosh it's like um I mean like incredibly hard so the barriers to entry so I am all about supporting the person who's doing it right small farmers what about is there something somewhere a person can go to um maybe find uh a network or a a kind of a a place where they could find a to find a place to get food locally is there already like maybe a database or something you have on your site or somewhere that someone could find like that we take everyone and consolidate them into one place so we could find out where we could support these uh these small farmers yeah well I mean there there are there are shopping sites I mean um uh I don't know if I have one right here uh I don't I can't put my hands on but anyway uh Weston A price foundation Weston A price foundation has the smart smart shoppers guide that's a wonderful one uh they call it the shop the shop her round the world you know instead of the shop her round the shop her around the world um they have that and um you know there are some others but the main thing is you you you just you just start sleuthing I mean this is an entire the local food scene is a is a kind of a subculture yeah it's a it's a subculture kind of a tribal subculture just like um any other tribal subculture and you know you're not GNA find it if you're just perched on your couch watching Netflix and the NFL football game with a with a a paps Blue Ribbon beer in your hand ain't gonna happen okay you know the the the most frustrating thing in the whole you know authentic Integrity food movement as you know it's really hard to get people to change their routine diet is one of the most whatever fundamental routines we have you know I like this kind of food I like this kind of food and and so if you're going to change uh it's gonna it's going to take a real Act of the will an act of conviction uh to you know to make a change and so you have to decide I'm going to participate I'm going to you know I'm going to um make a change and so that doesn't happen you know Fair fairies don't don't drop all that into your lap so you have to sleuth it out and every area has its you know has its good Farmers I mean farmers markets a good place to to start um uh you know talk talk to friends um you know go see if there's if there's some um like a boottique a boutique Market in your area selling local stuff go in and uh buy from them see who's doing it and then look them up see where they are see how far they are and and you can start patronizing them it's really quite a close fraternity I mean if somebody ask me like we you know we don't grow all of our own food uh we get our we get our apples we we get about 10 bushels of apples a year from an organic Orchard up about an hour and a half away from us Front Royal and um we get we get those apples in and spend a couple days you know um making applesauce Teresa cans I don't know what 80 90 quarts and that's our that's our year supply of applesauce you know if somebody ask me where do I get apples I'll tell them you know uh go there and get them and so there's there's an entire uh Network you know under the radar it's not at Walmart it's not at Costco it's not at you know uh B Piggly Wiggly or or you know any of the any of the regular outfits uh you're going to have to go you know under the under the um the Orthodoxy and and find it out but it's it's very it's very much there and trust me it's worth the hunt yeah it's worth the hunt yeah even like I think you're probably are you familiar with carnivore snacks that company uhhuh so they they recently kind of the they shut them down I think they got reopened uh but uh they shut them down because of their their their dehydrating process they took these little shavings of uh carnivore meat and they' just put salt and meat on it and they said oh yeah you can't do that so they just shut them down but they kind of re reopened they had to change this and that but um I I think uh they'll probably be contacting you or even coming to this event because I think this is really awesome what you're doing because you're you're organizing uh creative people to gather together share these Creative Solutions that there's always a solution so more people can do it I think that's brilliant and there's so many and I know in Virginia I'm in Virginia there's so many uh homesteaders and people getting into this I think that uh um I'm going to definitely put the date and the the location the site down in the description but I think when is it going to be next next month uh it's it's actually yes next month but we're but we're very close to next month now right it's it's um it's May May 18th I think is I'm right on that may uh yeah May 18th um so it's April 26 today so it's GNA be May May 18th yeah May 18th it's coming up is is so it's coming up and of course you know on that day we'll have two we'll have a wonderful Uh Wood wood fir fired um sausage and egg breakfast for folks on the morning for breakfast and then we'll have a wonderful probably chicken barbecue for lunch um directly from our farm and uh I mean it's worth coming just for the food but but the fellowship listen you know it's um especially for for farmers and for you know non-farmers looking for this kind of food if you're a city person uh sometimes you'll have a friend that would like to do this and they're stuck and and you need to be the Catalyst say hey I went to this thing and there's there's there's Solutions here you don't have to spend a half a million dollars building this infrastructure let's think about a creative way here to you know to to to Market so that we don't have to you know go through all that because there are there are thousands of wannabe entrepreneurs out here in the food space ready to to you know to serve our neighbors but but we're prud we're prohibited from doing so because of these extremely high and onerous uh license barriers yeah that's I'm I'm going to try to make it myself because I think the uhu the the key to our health is this this food this real food and so that's just kind of what I want to keep supporting simply because you go to the grocery store it's even hard to find food um nowadays so you have to really hunt and pick to find real good food but uh this is a this is great um I'm going to put your um information down below for those of you watching definitely if you can come and if you can't come I think there's also you're going to keep you're going to put it on digital format too you have a digital version of that as well right it will it'll be out I mean it's not it's not a it's not going to be streamed but it'll be Ed edited and it'll be out you know later on later on yeah and if I'm you know make one shame Shameless selfish plug yeah if if you have somebody listening and they're they're okay you know what I need to do this I need to make this happen in my life I need to quit buying you know Tyson chicken or or organic chicken that's really just in a in a factory confinement house I want chickens that actually get bugs run around into fresh air and sunshine and actually eat GRE Green Grass and aren't just you know able to look out and see green grass um um we we ship Nationwide and um and as far as I know uh what we can tell what we do is legal but you know I wrote a book everything everything I want to do is illegal right and and so so um and we're pretty high-profile so we we try to stay within but but we push you know we we push the limits um I mean it could be that you know that we're supposed to get a permit to have this Gathering well we've never ask for a permit and we just you know go on and do it don't ask don't tell it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission and so we just go on and and so um so you know even if if if you're a non-farmer uh it would do you well to come and a see what Farmers go through trying to get good food to you and B learn some of the things that if you if you want to encourage your local farmer who's struggling in this space uh you know you could have some options and say you know here's here's a group because when you as you know when you don't when you don't um cotton we'll say cotton to the Orthodoxy it's lonely it's lonely and and uh so we need the camaraderie and the fellowship and the encouragement that comes from finding other needs that haven't bowed absolutely absolutely this is our our food at stake so um very important so I'll put the information down below hopefully everyone could make or not everyone of course those who are interested come by and uh thank you uh Joel for being on here and supporting this and putting this on I think this is an awesome High purpose activity great thank you thank you for giving me the platform and uh I look forward to our next Rendevous awesome

Channel: Dr. Eric Berg DC

Views: 217,241

Keywords: joel salatin, joel salatin interview, farming, joel salatin farm, farm like a lunatic, homestead, homesteading, dr berg interview joel salatin, rogue food conference, regenerative farming, clean eggs, joel salatin blog, dr berg and joel salatin, farming tips, farming problem, farmers, dr eric berg, eric berg, dr berg, berg

Id: RpOpgq727tk

Length: 30min 25sec (1825 seconds)

Published: Thu May 09 2024