00:00
Let's just start with, what's the state of the family, the small family farm at this current time, even with COVID when there was a big flux of people coming from suburbia and urban areas back to the land because they were saying, we've got some issues with our food system.
00:16
Are people making that small family farm turn around? Are we turning around the family farms or where are we at with those, you think? You know, I think there's a, you know, there's a kind of a recipe to make these work.
00:35
I think for sure that the small family farm is as viable today as it's ever been. Now, land prices and input prices have changed the ratio from what you buy to what you sell has changed, but our access to market has also changed.
00:53
With shipping, with logistics, with, you know, transportation, distribution logistics, those kinds of things. And I would just say cultural awareness. The whole thing that's driving the Homestead Tsunami of, you know, people thinking through, you know, I really, I think maybe some things are gonna go down.
01:17
Well, if things are gonna go down, there's one thing you don't wanna be, and that's sick. You don't wanna be the one in the back bedroom saying, hey, would you guys carry me out, you know, while you head for the hills?
01:30
And so that's sparking a brand new awareness of wellness and the basic, which is being driven now by a dramatic mistrust of everything Orthodox. And so, you know, we're seeing a new interest in acupuncture and better food and herbal, you know, your own herbal kit and those kinds of things.
01:54
So I think that there is, it's this plus and minus. The minus is that the ratio of inputs price to X outputs has changed dramatically, but the societal interest and the logistics of getting it to the customer have changed dramatically as well on the other side.
02:18
So it may be a wash, it may be a wash, but I certainly don't see anything as being worse than it was before. Yeah, even with inflation happening right now, it's been huge because obviously profit margins and farming of any type is very, very slim and inflation has not helped, but it's that concept of not feeding the world, but feeding our community, feeding our local community.
02:44
It's like when people combat against me, it's like, well, you can't feed the world doing that. I'm not trying to feed the world, I'm just trying to supply local folks. Actually, the world can feed itself.
02:55
Never in human history have we thrown away. 40 percent of our human edible food is thrown away. We've never we've done landfills that get covered up and never seen again at least not for another couple hundred years.
03:07
We've never done that uh in human civilization and so you know nobody goes hungry in the world because there's not enough food. They go hungry because there's some warlord that won't let the red truck red cross truck pass or you know some socio-economic geopolitical situation right that's affecting flow of flow of foods.
03:28
So nobody's you know having trouble with that and so as small farmers yes forgetting about the global picture and concentrating on our neighbors and what do they need and focusing our attention there creates those you know those niches of service and opportunity that I think we've missed for a long time.
03:55
I mean farmers have always said man how do I get my stuff to market and here we have people moving into the country by the boatload it's a new urban urban to rural exodus for sure so here the market's coming to us well don't complain about them all these all these new people coming in here no no no embrace them you know and and have them out to your farm and create relationships with them and realize hey market's coming to me this is great yeah yeah one two points I want to make on that the first one was um my farm butts up against a subdivision which I've hated since we've had the place because I just always think of an eyesore and whatever this year I couldn't push my water to the top of the hill where I wanted to do a better job grazing I asked one of my subdivision neighbors hey can I trade water for meat he said absolutely ran a hose across the yard wow and was able to get water to the top of the hill and graze my cattle for two weeks up there there you are yeah but the second point I wanted to make John Kemp was a presenter and he just gave a really really fascinating presentation.
05:00
Sure did. One of the things that he was talking about was this concept of not being so individualized and nature is really about collaboration, not competition, though in maybe a challenged system, it is more competitive.
05:14
But I kinda like that in terms of small farmers again. It's like, let's all collaborate once again. Maybe you don't have a trailer to move livestock, but I do. That's right. Maybe I need help putting up a new chicken coop and you've got that skill set, just like we did 70 years ago.
05:30
It's not making new. The new 401K, if you will, the new investment strategy, I say is cultivating relationships with people who know how to grow things, fix things and build things. None of us is expert in everything.
05:51
We're not. And I mean, usually people that are really good animals and plants aren't very good mechanics. And people that are good mechanics aren't really good with horticulture and that sort of thing.
06:01
And many farmers are not good marketers because they're not good talkers. And so where you do cultivate a collaborative arrangement so that if you're making compost, you don't have to have the tractor.
06:22
You have a friend and a neighbor that has one. We did that for years here before we made enough money to buy our own machine. But we got a neighbor with a front end loader and I'd pay him a little and give him a Thanksgiving turkey and get all my compost moved and hauled.
06:39
And then he didn't have a manure spreader. So I'd go down and I would spread his and we worked together. I mean, farmers have done this forever. And we just need to, I think, be more creative about those opportunities to actually, you know, build those complimentary alliances.
06:57
Yeah, I love that concept of it's all about relationships. It's between not just farmers ourselves, but it's between farmer and the livestock or the livestock and the cattle, the plants. It's all about relationship.
07:08
And I think we really lost sight about that. You know, growing up in the 90s as a kid, it was all about you can do anything you wanna do. You don't need anyone else's help. You've got everything you need.
07:19
And now that I'm in my 30s, I'm like, I really don't wanna do it like that. No, no. It's more fun to do it in the community than it is by yourself. That's right. And in fact, that is a big lie. There's a couple of big lies.
07:32
One is that you can do anything you wanna do. No, you can't. You can't do anything you wanna do. I could, if I wanted to play, you know, basketball in the NBA, I could want it as much as possible. I ain't gonna play basketball in the NBA, you know.
07:46
So that's one. Another one is Fields of Dreams. If you build it, they will come. No, they won't. you've got to get out and you've got a message and you've got to you know get get out there and bring them in.
08:04
Build your own tribe. Yeah exactly build your own tribe and cultivate that so you know those are those are things that and again that's never been easier I mean when we started if I want to communicate with customers I had to send a snail mail letter right you know now you know a simple email and we can do an email blast and free and get to everybody at once so there's a lot of cool stuff that is actually facility I love it when when things that are designed for globalization are co-opted by localization to facilitate what we can do with our neighbors and that's a lot of what I see is being you know possible now.
08:42
Yeah I love that. That creative piece of making some of these concepts that have done ill in the world and kind of morphing them to do good. Absolutely. Joel, thanks for your time. It's lunchtime. I know you're hungry, and you need to eat some of this beautiful chicken you've raised, and thanks for your time today.
