Joel Salatin #1456

0:00This podcast is supported by your Southern California Kia dealers. Living in Southern California, your SUV needs to do a little bit of everything. From the daily commute to weekends at the beach, road trips to Palm Springs and family adventures in Big Bear. That's why having the right SUV matters. Kia has an SUV built to fit just about every lifestyle, with traditional gas, hybrid, and all electric models. Across the lineup, you'll find sophisticated design, rugged capability, generous cargo space, available seating for up to seven, and on select models, driving range of more than 600 miles. One model that really stands out is the all-new 2027 Kia Celto's. It's a small SUV with big SUV capability, featuring class leading interior space, unavailable turbocharged engine, and available multi-terrain all-wheel drive. Whether you're navigating city streets or heading out for a weekend in the mountains or along the coast, it's ready for wherever life takes you. Whatever your lifestyle, Kia has an SUV designed to fit your needs.

1:00Learn more at Kia.com or visit your Southern California Kia dealer. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Hi, I'm Sean Evans from Hot Ones, and I want to tell you about YouTube Premium. It has offline downloads, so you can watch without Wi-Fi, background play, so you can lock your phone, and it still plays, baby. Oh, and it is completely ad-free. Yes, I said it, ad-free. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Trial eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. What's up everybody? I just want to let people know, provide a quick update that all of my conversations go on substack, both video and audio, ad-free early. So if you like what I'm doing, want to support my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber, and you can listen early and ad-free. Also, I'm beginning some requests about, can you still listen on Apple, Spotify, and other platforms? Once you become a paid subscriber on substack, it'll provide you an RSS feed.

2:02You can then take that feed, take that link, and then listen to it on all those platforms as well. Ad-free. So I appreciate all your support, and you know, thank you very much. On this episode of Coffee to Mike, Joel Salaton, co-owner of PolyFace Farms, and best selling author, comes on the podcast to discuss the decline and be hurting. Water crisis in the Southwest, rising prices in diesel, door to door logistics, home setting, and much more. Please subscribe, like, and share this podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, the mic is on, I welcome Joel Salaton. Joel, thank you so much for doing this. Great to meet you, and there's a lot to talk about, and I listened to your conversation with David Lind last week.

3:02Great conversation, I encourage people to go back and watch. So much going on right now, let me just start off if you don't mind. You have to do a brief introduction of yourself, and what's the top of your mind right now? So I'm a farmer and an author and a speaker in Virginia, Shenandoah Valley, our family, co-owns, PolyFace Farm here. We're in Pasteur, Livestock, and we've been here since 1961 without using no chemicals, and you know, having a Pasteur Livestock as opposed to, you know, feed lots and, you know, concentrated animal feeding operations. We direct market, we ship nationwide, if you want, you know, good food, you can get it from us, it'll come to your doorstep, and Shenandoah's plug there. But that's what we do, there's no vaccines, no pharmaceuticals, no drugs. Any granary feed is genetically modified organism free.

4:02So our family came in 1961, and we've been here ever since. So, you know, what's on the top of my mind right now? Oh, that's a great clam, and there's so many ways to go with this. I guess the most critical thing on my mind right now is the damage that subsidies do in the farm and food sector, just generally speaking. I mean, we're just off of Mike, as you know, you know, the president, he wanted to get the price of beef down, and so, well, first, let's go back. Soybean farmers, so they put it on the tariffs, China retaliated with the tariffs last year by saying, we're not going to buy any more US soybeans. Well, that they buy over a quarter of the US crop.

5:02And so that dropped soybeans into the doldrums. So last year, farmers lost $100 an acre on soybeans. So this early this spring, Trump says, oh, I'll give you $12 billion to help you through the hard time. So he did that to the soybean farmers, and then beef prices stayed high. So he says, well, let me help the beef prices. So he took the tariff off and subsidized 300,000 metric tons of lean ground product from Argentina, from his buddy, Millay. And so that came in. Well, then that made all the ranchers and farmers livid because suddenly their beef prices dropped and where they were making a profit. Now they're not making a profit. So Trump wanted to shore up his base of cattle farmers and ranchers. So, all right, so let me dump some money towards you guys. So he did his executive order last week.

6:04And it was all about how he was going to make it easier to build a processing plant and have access to markets and things. And so what's on my mind is just watching all of this whipsawing. You know, he did an executive order making glyphosate, glyphosate, round up herbicide. The first branded product in the US to ever receive national security status. And as if our culture is going to collapse if we don't get glyphosate. And that was a result of China as well. So I'm just seeing the power of market manipulation from the federal level and how it consistently and continually creates unintended consequences.

7:09And so I'm a big fan of my hobby. I love my hobby. I'm a big fan of my hobby. But my problem there is almost everybody that came into my hobby is a post-democrat. Well, Democrats tend to think government has all the solutions. And so now that my hobby people are in, they're saying, well, instead of putting money in this bucket, we got a different bucket over this, put money in this bucket. And I'm saying, we don't need a bucket. Just get away. Let the market work where it will. If you soy beans farmers weren't getting $12 billion, maybe they'd have to scratch their head and say, huh. Maybe I shouldn't grow soy beans. Maybe I ought to grow apples or apricots or, hey, maybe I should grow cows. We need cows. And it would make changes. What's the quickest way to make sure a person makes stupid decisions? The quickest way to ensure that somebody makes stupid decisions is to eliminate the consequences of bad decisions.

8:13And that's exactly what's happening with all these quote-unquote safety nets in agriculture, whether it's a bailout to the soybean farmers, transition money to organics, grants, subsidies, whatever it is, all these things make people, you know, tend to create the chance for people to make stupid decisions and not live with the consequences. Yeah, you know, it, it, so let me, let me start off with, you know, first thing that highlights, highlights some of the things you said and go, let's see if we can go a little bit deeper because, you know, what were your thoughts when you heard that executive order about the processing? And it appeared on the top level to me and I'm not a farmer, obviously, that the perception was that was going to remove layers, remove some red tape to allow farmers to process their own meat and beef and it will lead to cheaper prices for the consumer. Am I correct? Is that what they were trying to portray?

9:17Thank you. That's what they were trying to portray. But if you notice throughout the order, it says within federal law, within, within the confines of federal law, well, federal law does not allow you to process beef on your farm and sell it without, you know, without a $3 million inspected facility. So it's, it's smoking mirrors, Mike. It doesn't, it doesn't do anything to actually move the needle. What it'll do is, for example, it, it, it offers money for, for example, flotter house expansion. Well, guess who's going to get that? Tyson's going to get that. And, and, and so, you know, like importing all that, all that meat from Argentina, that's not going to drop grocery store prices. That meat is going to go to the four big processors, JBS, Tyson, Cargill, and National Beef. They've been hemorrhaging for the last two years, Tyson last year lost half a billion dollars in its beef packing outfit.

10:24They've just closed two plants that were able to do 8,000 head a year in order to consolidate operations and keep three other plants fully functional. And so the industry, they've been hemorrhaging here for, you know, for a couple of years. You really think that they're going to take this, this windfall of low cost of goods product and say, Ha, good. We're going to pass that on to the consumer. No way. They're going to say, oh, finally, we get to, we get to make a little bit of money on something. It's not going to pass on to the consumer. All it's going to do is bail out the great big processors that have had a hard time getting beef lately. And so, you know, this whole issue has been a long time coming. There's a lot of reasons why the beef hurt as the lowest it's been in 75 years. We can drill down to that. But the truth is that all of this manipulation simply, simply, it doesn't accomplish what they think it will.

11:24And it actually clouds the issue going forward. Do you think they know that Joel, before issuing an order like that and making a public statement? I, I, I have no idea. You know, I'm not a conspiracist. I think a lot is done that's just ignorance or negligence. There's no, there's no saying that says, never attribute to conspiracy. What can better be explained by stupidity? Or, you know, by shared stupidity and or shared ignorance. And, and I think, I mean, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to that. But, you know, JBS, listen, look, JBS, which is one of the big four, they were the largest contributor to Trump's inauguration.

12:25You really think that JBS is not sitting at the table, watching what's written, watching what's allowed and that they're going to voluntarily give up market share. There's no way that's going to happen. And so that's why all of these statements at the end of it within federal law, within federal law. Well, the federal law doesn't allow you to butcher a beef in your, in your backyard. You know, that's what, when he, when he first came out with the first thing, says, I'm going to let farmers, you know, butcher their, butcher their animals and for their own use. Well, you can already butcher your animals for your own use. You just can't sell it. And so then he admitted it, but, but all the amendments were within federal law, within federal law. And he's not amending federal law. So, so I think it's, I think it's primarily, you know, smoking beer mirrors to curry favor with, with his base, which is rural. Trump's base is definitely rural. And it's, he's trying to curry favor with his base and, and, and that's all it is.

13:31The, is, is, is the rule base, are they buying it? I actually don't know the answer to that question. I mean, obviously some people are. Some people are all excited. But when you, you know, when you get, and listen, listen. Even if it was perfect, it's an executive order. It's an executive order. Even if it didn't have the constraints of federal law on it, it's an executive order. Who is going to build a slaughterhouse? Who's going to jump into this on the strength of an executive order that can be reversed in two years? I mean, it's just, it's, it's silly. This is not going to have an effect. What has an effect is something like Congressman Thomas Massey's prime act that would allow, that would actually be a legislative answer, where, where you'd have a congressional answer and say, okay, now if a state wants to allow a custom butcher in the state to, excuse me.

14:39To, to sell meat by the cut in it from a custom slaughterhouse, we're going to like, excuse me. We're going to let you, you want to do that. So, so the prime act, Massey's prime act, would actually do something legislatively that would be very, very difficult to reverse. An executive order does not, does anybody really think that, that a business person is going to plunk down a $2 million investment to jump into a business that's only legal as long as Trump is in office? That's just, that's just silly. Nobody's going to do that. When did it change that you weren't able to process your own beef and sell it? And what was the justification for that? Well, of course, the, the big change came in 1908, after Uptans and Claire wrote the jungle in 1906, and at that time, seven meat companies controlled half of America's meat supply.

15:43Swift, armor, there were, there were seven of them. Seven controlled half of America's meat supply. When Uptans and Claire wrote the jungle and exposed the corruption and the filth in Chicago meat slaughter facilities, Americans dropped half of their buying from those seven big companies. Those seven big companies were going to go bankrupt because people just fled, left them and went back to their local butcher. It was the biggest, it was the biggest exodus of consumers from big food to local food in American history. Well, these, these seven big ones, they went to Teddy Roosevelt and they said, oh man, we're in trouble. We need federal protection. We need, we need a stamp that says, you know, you're safe, you're trustworthy to curry favor with the American consumer to get our buyers back. There's a better way to buy blinds, shades, shutters and drapery. And it's called three day blinds.

16:43Three day blinds is the leading manufacturer of custom blinds, shades, shutters and drapery. And we've been doing this for over 45 years. So we really know our stuff. Here's what makes us different. A professional design consulting comes right to your home with tons of samples. Helps you pick the right style, takes precise measurements and even handles the installation. No guesswork, no DIY disasters. Whether you want more privacy, better light control or to upgrade your home with motorized or smart blinds, three day blinds has thousands of options to fit any style or budget. So for a free, no charge, no obligation consultation, head to three day blinds.com slash podcast for our buy one get one 50% off deal. That's the number three, d.a.y blinds.com slash podcast. Do you hear that? That's sound right. That means that summer is officially here. It means that grown adults just sprint into the street for a frozen dessert shaped like a cartoon. But this summer, mid mobile has a better tree. Every plan, including unlimited, is $15 a month. And unlike ice cream, it won't drip down your wrist or look nothing like the picture.

17:49Does anyone have any cash? Give it a try at midmobile.com slash switch. A front payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required, $15 for month equivalent to taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow and network is busy. See terms. Well, Teddy Roosevelt should have looked at him and said, hey, you guys made your bed now lie in it. You know, just you're going to have to figure it out. But instead he gave them the federal, the food safety inspection service, FSIS in the as part of the US DA. And we got federal inspection for meat. So that was the big, that was the big entrance of the federal government into, inspect, into meat inspection. Fast forward to 1960, 1968. And you have the Safe Food Act. And that put the final caboch on kind of local, I remember because I was a, I was 68, I was 11 years old. I remember my dad going with a group of farmers to Richmond begging them to not pass this legislation.

19:00But it was passed throughout the country. It was it was federal. And and it, within, within a year of passage, it eliminated. I don't know, over half two thirds of all the local little slaughterhouses in America, because, because compliance with the law became too expensive. See, all of these inspection requirements are, are size prejudicial. It's easier to comply if you're big than if you're small. And so, you know, my wife, Theresa and I, we co-own a small federal, inspect this slaughterhouse. Here she said, no valley. It costs us $650 to do what Tyson does for 150. Because we have the same hassle plans, the same compliance, the same licenses, the same testing that's done. We do 50 B for a week. Tyson does 5,000 in a day in a single plan. And so, the overheads, when you, when you can't spread them out over as many pounds, you know, it's a, it's very price, price discriminatory.

20:05Why do you think the system is so cater to bigger, bigger entities, the big guys, rather than the small independence? So, this was, this was a natural progression. Remember, who, who asked for the system in the first place? It was the seven big players that at that time controlled half, today we've got four controlling 85%. So, it was a natural progression. What happens is, this is the thing people have to understand. People, when the big companies asked for federal protection, they got, you know, regulations and those regulations gradually insulated people from their food system. So, suddenly, so, so what you had was these companies got bigger and bigger. They put up razor wire, they put up guard towers. Well, what happens when people can't see something, when there's, when there's ignorance of an economic sector? What do people ask for?

21:17They ask for government intervention to give them security to look over the fence and say, hey, I can't go over there, but I want, I want a bully government big enough to go over there and check things out to make sure it's okay because I can't go over there. Well, what happened? What happened was the bully government went to bed with the industry. People didn't want them to go to bed together. They wanted to check them out. But what happened is they went to bed together. And so, this is, you know, crony capitalism. It's agency capture. That's RFK, Jr's term. But revolving door is another one. But that's what happened. And so, over time, what, what developed was increasing, increasing ignorance on the part of the consumer, increasing separation, segregation between the processor and the eater. And increased paranoia. So that today, I can birth a calf, raise a calf on my farm. But if a neighbor, literally, a neighbor, maybe we go to church together, even.

22:24A neighbor wants to come over and get a rib-eye steak. I have to take that steer, that beef, and ship it outside the county to a slaughterhouse, under inspection, bring it back so that I can sell my neighbor a rib-eye steak or a chicken pot pie or an egg-key, name your, name your thing. And what's happened is that we have gradually shackled our food system with these onerous regulations that make it prohibitive for a small operator to access the market. When Bernie Sanders runs around the country saying, we've got to stop the oligarchy. You've got to stop oligarchy. He's exactly right. But his answer is always, well, we've got to have a federal trade commission sue these guys. You know, break them up. The answer to breaking up the oligarchy is simply market competition. Unleash me on the market, and we'll bring down the oligarchy in a day.

23:31But if I have to have a $500,000 facility to make a chicken pot pie to sell to a neighbor, that's a prohibitive entry. That's a prohibitive entry to be able to get in. And that's why we don't have a viable food system. That's why local food tends to be so expensive. It's because to be legal, you've got to jump through these industrial hoops that, by the way, are not about food safety. I can feel the pushback. If you'll say, oh, he just wants people to get dirty food, doesn't care about food safety. No, no, no, listen, everything in our culture that you can ingest that's hazardous, potentially hazardous, prescription drugs, cocaine, methamphetamine, whatever, the prohibitions are equal across seller, buyer, user, and gift.

24:34You can't sell it. You can't buy it. You can't give it away. You can't use it. And you certainly can't give it to your kids. But in food, the prohibition is only on the seller. You can buy it. You can give it away. You can use it, eat it. And you can even give it to your kids. You just can't sell it. So clearly, this is not about food safety. It's about market access. And that's why my latest book, which just came out literally this week, the title is Food Emancipation Unshackling America's Sustinates. And it's an explanation of this argument to deal with our food security, our instability, farmers low income for farmers, high prices for food, all of these things, the oligarchy, safety, all of these things can be handled with freedom rather than government overreach.

25:43You had said earlier in relation to beef hurting, how it's been, you've seen a steady decline. How, why is that? Well, there's several reasons. I'll just tick off several of them for you. One is that our cattle farmers have been overgrazing for a long time. So our pasture lands are deteriorating. They deteriorated over time. So they're simply not as productive. That's number one. Number two, we have an aging cattle farmer. The average cattle farmer is now 65 years old. So they're getting out of the business. The cost of land, the cost of entry, a lot of young people, and frankly the profitability has been extremely low. And so a lot of young people aren't coming in. And so you don't have a replacement like you do in other places where people retire and are young people coming in.

26:43So we have a successful glitch. And then most recently we just had this huge drought in the southern tier of the US, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas in 2021, 2022, 2021, 2021, and a lot of cattle were liquidated from that southern tier. So there was no food, there was no rain and no food, so they got liquidated. Well, the cattle cycle is a long cycle. It's not like chickens. You know, chickens, you can have a chicken. You can have a chicken hatch today and lay an egg and hatch another chicken in six months. Cows, you know, a heifer drops. In a year you can breed her. In another year she has a calf. And in two years you can have some meat. They have a four year cycle on beef that you only have a six month cycle on chicken. So the recuperation time is a whole lot longer on cattle than it is on chickens.

27:55For example, the next thing that happened then was this screw worm out of Mexico. So they closed the Mexican border. That shut off a million imports from the 12 gates of ports of entry from Mexico. So shutting off that million head created, you know, insult to injury. And so now where we are is that as the price has come into a place where farmers can make an income, make a profit. Now we are starting to save heifers to increase the cow numbers. We are going to have more baby calves which is pulling those heifers out of the slaughter market which is continually exacerbating the slaughter animals. As we normally, you slaughter both females and males. But if you start saving females back to have calves, then that exacerbates the shortage.

28:58And the final thing I'll say is this is not this is not directly about the shortage, but it is, you know, right now from everything that I can see the business analysis. This is the first time that an item, a product has increased this much in price without a mass exodus of consumers. Well, you know, you'd think that when beef went up this much people would stop buying it. What's driving people to buy it even when it's this expensive? Well, the keto carnivore, these, these, these diet protein and you've got RFK Jr. inverting the food, the dietary food guidelines, the food pyramid and taking, you know, cocoa puffs and, and count chocolate cereal off the bottom and, and putting, you know, animal protein on the bottom. And so, so there are all of these things are kind of colluding into a, into a perfect storm and, and, you know, it's going to, it's going to take a little bit of time to move out of it.

30:06Would you, would you also attribute the suburban suburbanization if that's the right word from saying correctly, also to the decline in, in hurting and beef hurting just with more of the suburbs and the ugly shopping centers and track homes. Yeah, no, we're just conversion of farmland to residential or commercial. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, some, but it, it's not as much as you think. It's, yeah, there are acreages going to that, but it's not as significant as you might think. It's much more significant is the deterioration of America's pasture lands through over grazing. That's so much bigger, you know, when you look at how much biomass are re-losing, you know, how much actual bio, potential biomass re-losing, it's actually more that than it is, you know, conversion of farmland to something else. Now, now these, these data centers are significant as well as solar farms.

31:10I would say that right now, probably data centers and solar farms might be a bigger issue than, you know, than the actual urbanization of land. But I don't have the numbers right onto my fingertips here, but we could listen if the, if, if, if cattle farmers would actually practice good ecological management, the kind of management that's done. The, well, that we do here, we move our cows every day to a new, a new paddock so the grass can get tall before the cows come in again and let it go through its blaze of growth cycle. This is the way prairies were handled with the wolves and the bison before the Europeans were here. You know, it's important to realize there was more food produced in North America 500 years ago than there is today. This podcast is supported by your Southern California Kia dealers around Southern California. It's easy to spend plenty of time behind the wheel.

32:11Whether you're commuting from OC or heading to Santa Barbara for the weekend, going farther between fuel stops is something everyone can appreciate. That's exactly what Kia's hybrid lineup is built for. Kia offers five hybrid models that combine turbocharged power with hybrid efficiency with some delivering more than 600 miles of driving range on a single tank. One model that really stands out is the all new 2027 Kia Tell You Ride Hybrid. It offers seating for up to seven passengers, the confidence and capability of a three row SUV, and a turbocharged hybrid powertrain that delivers impressive efficiency for fewer stops at the gas station. It's ready for weekday errands, weekend getaways and everything in between. If a hybrid fits the way you drive, Kia has a model designed to fit your needs. Learn more at Kia.com or visit your Southern California Kia dealer. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile with your summer price forecast. Now, unfortunately, we're seeing rising costs across the country with possibility that big wireless hates you 100%.

33:16Now, over here at Mint Mobile, we're seeing sunny skies and dropping prices every plan to just $15 a month. Give it a try at MintMobile.com slash switch up from payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan to remotely greater than 50 gigabytes may slow and network is busy. See terms today. And that is not that production was not primarily because there were no cities. That production was because there was an ecological synergistic and symbiosis symbiotic relational complexity that actually made one plus one equals three. Farmers could do that today and we've done that at our place here. We produce three times the county average in our grazing lands and building soil and encouraging water all at the same time. So, you know, the beauty is that you don't have to sacrifice the ecology to be economic. You can do ecology and economy at the same time.

34:25But it does require you to do things differently. You can't just turn the cows out in the field and say, bye bye, I'll see you in the fall. It takes a daily type management cycle. But yeah, we can absolutely produce all the beef we wanted. And then you've got all the BLM land and the Forest Service land out west that has all sorts of regulations that heat farmers from being able to do the kinds of ecological things that we ought to be able to do to actually stimulate prairie and pasture production. So, there's a lot of parts to this pie. Yeah, you know, you bring up a point about the west because I was talking to somebody on here a few months ago, maybe even longer. And you know, in Arizona and other states, I mean, the water issue, water is the big issue here. And one of the things that was brought up in the conversation was the agriculture versus the development. And eventually that will come down to some legal battle. And I went on, I said, well, I would think that real estate development would win because they have the financial resources to just keep going and going and going.

35:38How relevant do you know, I mean, is farming in Arizona or say Nevada or I mean, I know we have farms in southern Arizona. But and you know, the lettuce capital, the world, but you know, how sustainable would it, how sustainable is it to have a farm here? Oh, that's that that's a great question. And I would say that in general irrigated lettuce in Yuma is not sustainable. I'll just go ahead and play that on the table. I was at a zeroscaping speaking at a zeroscaping conference in Arizona several years ago. And one of the other speakers was was from Las Vegas, Nevada, which is another dry area, of course. And this speaker worked in the Las Vegas city government. And she had been pushing a pencil on the value of a gallon of water growing ahead of lettuce versus a gallon of water in a jacuzzi.

36:41In a casino, you know, hotel room. And I'll never forget it. I'll never forget it. The value of that gallon of water growing ahead of lettuce was, I don't know, 20 cents. You know, it was just it was just meager. And the gallon of water in the casino hot tub was $150. And I was sitting there, you know, listening and and and it just struck me. Now, which do you think is going to win? You know, this is not a contest. If we've got government being counters saying the waters worth $150 in this use and 20 cents in this use, which do you think is going to win? It's always going to be the hot tub. And so, so the secret, I mean, the key to the American food system is for it to be integrated and not segregated. That's that's our single biggest issue right now. You know, we grow the lettuce in you know, you can grow lettuce anywhere in the country. But, but because we don't have a way to capture externalized costs, the cost of water, the cost of soil deterioration.

37:54Since we don't have a way to to determine those costs, they don't show up on the balance sheet. And one of the biggest problems in our culture as you know, creative as we are, we're very creative. But we have not figured out a way to capture the relative cost of environmental degradation on one side of a balance sheet versus healing on the other side. If I go out here and dump poison in the river out here, the cost of cleanup is positive, gross domestic product. Oh, look at the labor, look at the trucks, look at the fuel. You know, it's a, it's a positive, it goes on positive, gross domestic product. We just added, you know, $100,000 today, gross domestic product by cleaning up a poison spill. No, it ought to be a negative. It ought to come off of gross domestic product. And I would argue that a culture that hasn't figured out how to actually, how to actually capture the cost and the value of, of resource, resource liability versus resource asset is eventually going to rape its resource.

39:07And I use that word on purpose, rape its resource into nakedness and, you know, and we're going to be, we're going to be very sorry for it. What do you see the outlook then for the Southwest and say the next 10 years in relation to your field? Well, if, if water, if water continues to be an issue, and of course, we know it is the Colorado River, Lake Mead, Lake Powell, I mean, we're seeing this tremendous degradation. The Oglala aquifer, Oglala aquifer is dropping what 18 inches a year it has been for 50 years. Supposedly in the next 30 years at current depletion rates, it'll be unpumpable. So, so, you know, there's no Chinese saying, Mike. Old Chinese saying it says, if you keep going the way you're going, you're going to end up where you're headed. And, and, and, and I, it says a rocket science, Joel, right? Like this is a rocket science. Yeah, this seems so obvious. Now, you know, the big million dollar question is, well, how long does it take?

40:14Does it take 10 years, 20 years, 30 years? You know, we don't know. We don't know what the length of time is. But, but I can tell you that if you continue to deplete the aquifer and deplete the water and deplete the soil, you're, you're heading toward desertification, you know, desertifying the landscape. And, and, and this one, we won't be the first culture to do it. I mean, think about historically Libya. Think about Libya. You know, they're up there. It's at, from the top of Africa, Libya during the height of the Roman Empire, they were the number one supplier to the Colosseum of baboons, baboons for all the, you know, the entertainment at the Colosseum. Well, where do baboons come from? Baboons don't live in the desert. They live in a jungle. So at that time, Libya was a jungle. Well, you can't find a tree of square mile in Libya today. It's a, it's a desert. This was all man created, Israel, you know, the Turks put a tax on trees. And so the Ottoman Empire, they killed, they, they cut all the trees in Israel. And, you know, there's, there's millions of acres of, of zero trees.

41:22The Rajputan Desert in India, you know, we, we found these huge lime, lime, um, floors that held all the grain. That was, those were grain production regions. Homer, Homer, Ilia, and the Odyssey, Homer walked across the North of Africa. And he said, I never left the shade of a tree. Today, that's the Sahara Desert. You know, we've watched this. This didn't start with Monsanto. It didn't start with the Fed. It didn't start with, you know, the, the world economic forum. It started a long time ago. What's different today is our, our ability and our mechanical and cheap energy ability to, to impact it way, way faster. And so we can, we can, we can, we can head the wrong way faster and get to, you know, a destructive place faster than, you know, then, then a civilization has ever been able to do before. So yeah, I mean, you just have to look at this at the signals and realize, you know, we just can't, we just can't keep doing what we're doing. It's a, it's a, it's a non-starter.

42:32Yeah, I use the term, everything was fine until it's not fine anymore. And yeah, I tell people, I mean, Joel, you wouldn't believe it. We're in my immediate area, how much construction is going on? I was talking to a city, I was on, I run every morning and this morning coming back, I was having to come across an employee for the city of Phoenix, who's in charge of like land development. And he was, we were talking about just all the, all the projects. And he even said to me, he goes, I'm thinking about leaving. I'm like, yeah, I, and you know, it's, it's, it's, this was not supposed to become a tech hub. The city was not supposed to become, it's a desert. There's no water. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I agree with you. But, but very few people have, have a long horizon. Most, most people have about a, about a one year horizon, you know, in their, in their, in their future planning. Why do you think that is, Joel? Well, because we're, we love convenience. We love today. We live for today. We live for, you know, pleasure.

43:41And so we have a, we have a pretty, you know, a pretty dramatic greed, selfishness, whatever, to, to, you know, the, the Bible calls it the less of the flesh, the less of the eyes in the prime of life. You know, we're, that's just, that's just our makeup, which is why, which is why having a, a, a, a, a, a, a pilgrimage attitude, a, a, a divine spirit is the antidote to that. Let's just do today what, what makes us rich and, and makes it easy to live for today. Living, living for tomorrow, living for tomorrow is inconvenient. It's very inconvenient. So last question, I'm going to ask you about the Southwest. If somebody came to you today, Joel, and said, I got this opportunity for you in Yuma, you know, get y'all set up. What would you say to that? No way. People ask me all the time. I mean, there is, Mike, I'm sure you're aware. There is a homestead tsunami going on in our country. There are thousands of people living, leaving urban, urban areas and buying, you know, country, country acreage. It might be one acre. It might be 10 acres, 50, but it's, it's something in the, it's, it's a homestead movement. And, and there are now, you know, massive homestead conferences all over the country to teach people how to, you know, plant garden.

45:09And make compost and got a chicken. I don't know. They just be your neighbor, Joel. I don't know. They just live next to you and build a good relationship rather than do all that. That's fine. Listen, Mike, my, my new, the new 401k plan. I don't know if you've heard of it. This is my, my new 401k plan is either knowing how or living near someone who knows how to grow things, fix things and build things. That's the new 401k plan. Grow, grow things, fix things and build things. But anyway, so, so people are always asking me, you know, hey, you know, where should I go? Where would you go if you were? And I have two places I would not go. One is to the desert. And the other is to the coast, to the beach, the hurricane alley. I don't want hurricanes and I don't want desert. Everything else is perfectly fine. Yeah, you're, you're, you're echoing the way I feel people people, because I've talked about moving back to Ohio where I'm from. And people are like, why would you leave? Why would you leave? I'm like, really? I need, I mean, water. And they're like, oh, yeah, that's a good point. I'm like, yeah, yeah, you're not thinking about this.

46:18Like, now if I was 80 years old or 85, yeah, maybe that wouldn't factor in my decision as much. I do think in the long, I mean, there will be people that will live here and they'll just tax you to death. But I think you're going to have a lot of empty buildings. I think you're going to have a lot of streets that are going to be used. Because this isn't sustainable. No, it's just not you can't, you can't be going the way you're going. I was just in Ohio this last weekend. Did a conference up in Woodsfield, Woodsfield, Ohio. It was up, it's about two hours south of Pittsburgh, two hours north of Charleston on the, on the Eastern Eastern side of the state. But yeah, and they've had it was green. I mean, green, they probably have more grass in an acre than Arizona has it in a hundred acres. You know, I mean, and they just getting rain. In fact, it, it rained while I was there. You know, they said, we've gotten rain every day for 25 days. You know, but it's just green and lush. So yeah, I do think, I do think that they're, they're just, they're just has to be an eventual balance.

47:31Balancing out, I mean, look, look at, look at the pre-European civilizations that lived in the four corners area. You know, I mean, there were a lot of Native American tribes in those, in fact, in fact, in, in what a 1400, 1300. This is what archaeologists tell me at least that the buildings that those Native Americans in kind of the four corners area of the US, that those buildings at that time were the tallest buildings in the world. And, and then, you know, most people now think they, they cut all the trees and gradually made it drier and drier. And when it got dry enough, there was no water and those societies collapsed. And they didn't, they didn't have jets that they could exit out of there in a hurry. So, you know, a lot of them probably didn't make it or they, they moved, you know, to totally different areas. But it's hard for us to appreciate the, the population that was in a lot of these areas, you know, back at that time. And, and then, you know, then the dry came in and, and then it, and then it started to heal. You know, and then the bison came in.

48:45The grass came and then it started to heal. And, you know, you have, you have an ecological and a societal evolution. But it's, it's a long, you know, it's a, it's a 500 year cycle, you know, it's a, it's a long cycle. Would you say that we're, and we're, and our, and our country is just at the 250 year mark, you know, we're, we're kids. Would you say that, you know, based on what we talked about with Arizona and Nevada without applied to states like Texas and, I mean, I would think New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Idaho. Why homing be part of that too? Absolutely. Yeah. What about the decodus? Yeah. Well, in fact, in fact, we now know that there were more people living in Kansas and Nebraska. In 1400. Want to know you're on the best path to the right car? Start at CarMax where every car is CarMax certified and backed by a 10 day money back guarantee at a price that's upfront from the start. Visit CarMax.com for details.

49:49Want to drive? CarMax. It's fall in Jeep country and during the driving to fall sales event get a great deal on four by fours that refuse to be contained like Jeep Wrangler, confidence built into every drive with the most awarded SUV ever, Jeep Grand Cherokee, and freedom that can't be denied with the open air freedom and Jeep gladiator. After 85 years, it's no surprise that Jeep became America's SUV brand get a great deal during the Jeep driving to fall sales event. Jeep is one more awards over its lifetime than any other SUV brand, even the Jeep Grill or Registered Trademarks of FCA US LLC. Then live there today. Now, I'm picking Kansas and Nebraska because they're pretty rural. Okay, but just think about that a minute that that now we're, you know, we're discovering that in that time. And remember remember the amount of water. Look, you're in the dry. Let's just talk about water for a minute. The principle of water is to stop it, spread it, and soak it. Stop it, spread it, soak it. Look, you live in Yuma. I'm sure you're familiar with the arroyo.

50:57I'm in Phoenix, not Yuma Phoenix. Okay, all right, but you're in a dry area. And if you drive up the interstate every whatever a couple miles, there's a dry, a dry ditch and a rollo. I think they call them under the interstate. Well, about 10 times a year, that thing is full of water. Correct? I mean, you know, it's full of water. So the problem is not that there's low rainfall. The problem is that we're not holding the water where it lands. So even in a, let's take a, you know what the rainfall is in your areas. What six inches a year or no idea. I try to look at an uproar while you're talking. Okay, well, in the, in the, the normal global water runoff surface runoff is one third of all rain drops, one third of all rain drops.

52:11So the problem is not how much water you get. It's how much you keep. Did you find it? I'm looking, I'm then trying to look. I'll give you just seven, seven, it says just in a quick search, about seven to eight inches of rain falls annually. All right, seven inches. All right, let's, let's be conservative and call it six, six inches, one third of six is two inches. How much is two inches of water on an acre? Two inches of water on an acre is 60,000 gallons. All right. In other words, four inches is going in, but two inches is running off. It's running down all those, you know, those, those arollos, 60,000 gallons per acre. So let's say that you've got a, let's say that you've got a, you know, you get bound up in zeros here, but if it's, if it's 60,000 gallons an acre and you've got a thousand acres, that would be 60,000,000 gallons of water on a thousand acres runs off.

53:22If you could hold that, as permaculture says, high on the landscape, can we make these rain drops stay longer where they fall instead of running off? If you could hold that up there, suddenly you'd have an extra 60,000,000 gallons of water for thousand acres. How do you get it to hold? Three ways. Number one is vegetation. So how do you get vegetation where it's so dry? You get it the way the pison did it. You get it with animal impact and, and then, and then taking the animals away, you get it with, with fast animal impact to exercise, break up the cap and then move them off and, and it'll go away. And I've been in Arizona. I've seen places that that are like an oasis compared to their neighbors that are doing, you know, high density. What we call what I call mob stocking or river solar conversion, the magnified carbon sequestration fertilization. All right. So, so you get vegetation. That's number one. Number two would be ponds.

54:26So, you know, you can build ponds and we built 20 ponds here on our place over the years. And every time we make some money, we build another pond. You can never have too many ponds. North America was 10% water. 500 years ago today were less than 4% water. We had beavers. Beavers dammed up all these things and they slowed the water down and spread it and gave it time to infiltrate. All right. So ponds and, and the third thing, of course, was bison wallows. The bison wallows. There were millions of them. And they were the size of like a backyard swimming pool. They weren't that big, but they would catch all this runoff this water. And it would pour in there. And then it would gradually evaporate, but, but that stopped it, spread it, slowed it, let it sink in. And so those same principles, the vegetative cover, ponds and, and, and, and catchments hold that water. And if that were done on a massive scale in Arizona, it would look like an oasis.

55:31But think about all of our water policy in America, all of our water policy is about drainage. How fast can we get rid of it? How can we duct it and get it out of here? It's all about drainage. That's not the way to hydrate a landscape. You don't want drainage. You want it to stay. You want those rain drops to stay as long as they can where they fall. So, you know, that's, that's the way to move Arizona forward. Ultimately, until, unless and until we have a whole different hydrology policy, we will continue to see Arizona dry out. That's my cue to leave. So, one other thing I want to, I want to ask you about, because we've talked about farming. We've talked about the farm, you know, the farm landscape, the water landscape. Oh, what more thing on that? So, what are your thoughts on seeing the homestead, you know, the demand for homesteading? Well, homestead, I mean, the demand for homesteading is wonderful because that suddenly, that suddenly puts, puts a tremendous amount of human, you know, human positive human intervention onto the landscape.

56:49I mean, I go another, another little direction here for you. Wilderness is not good land care. The radical environmentalist agenda is all about getting rid of people, get rid of people, turn it back to wilderness. Well, biblically wilderness was always about punishment. If you don't follow me, I'm going to turn you into wilderness and the brambles and the, you know, it's going to, the whole idea of stewardship and caretaking is, it takes people. And so the homestead movement is so exciting because finally, we're actually getting people on the land. The amount of abandoned land, barren land, wilderness land is astounding, astounding. There was a study done by Cornell, Cornell in the New York and they did a study on, they took every urban area in the United States and said, how far out would you have to go to be able to supply all the caloric requirements for that, for that urban center?

58:11And every single city in the U.S., they found it could be supplied within like 50 miles, except for New York City. New York City had to go out like 75. But every other city in the U.S. was only out about, you know, somewhere between 30 and 50 miles. A lot of more, only 20. And so, and so when you start, so then they said, well, how much land has been abandoned in New York? And then the last, you know, 40 years, they found in just, just New York state alone, it was something like 4 million acres of farmland had been abandoned. And you can drive up their Syracuse, Ithaca, land is cheap, taxes are high, but land is really, really cheap. It's great land. We're talking about, you know, 45 inches of rainfall a year, good, good land, very productive. And it's all going back to woods, it's all going back to trees, it's all been abandoned. The U.S. has so much abandoned land, it's unbelievable.

59:13We have way more abandoned land than we do land being used for urban, you know, a convert into urban use. So, so the homestead movement is wonderful because it is bringing, it is bringing caretakers and stewards back out on the land to interact with it and, you know, build compost piles and, you know, do gardens and do create more production, more productivity. Then it would happen if it were just left to itself. Plus, I love the idea of, when I hear about somebody, you know, taking advantage of say the cottage law, which I don't know if that's in every state, but, you know, making say sourdough out of their kitchen, selling it at farmers markets, or they bought farmland and then turned, there's a woman I follow in Ohio, and I'm hoping to get a chance to go there next time I'm back, back there, is, you know, she's got a bakery, she's got a kitchen on her land that you can come back to. And I love seeing that and because to me, people, they want solutions so they can go back to their lattes and their yoga mats and they think this is all going to go away and I, and they don't like the solutions that, you know, are offered, but the reality of it is you can do a lot in your own little environment. And when I see people like that, I'm like, okay, these people are taking it on themselves to be less reliant on the system.

1:00:40Yes, that's correct, that's exactly right. And the phrase that I hear all the time that people use is, I just want to disentangle, I just want to disentangle from the system. Well, how do you disentangle from the system? Well, you, you know, you grow something yourself or you befriend somebody who does grow things and you build a, you know, a relational collaboration here with your sustenance, with your energy. You get to where you can cut some firewood, you get to where you can drink out of a spring if you need to, you catch the water off your roof. So you get your roof run off into a sister and, and, you know, you spend less time on screens and you, you know, you actually do things that are self reliant. Yeah, that's, that's all part of this whole message. One thing I want to ask you about, which I, you know, I was not aware of, I heard it in your interview with David, the door to door logistics is a, is a cheaper, is a less, is a more cost effective way than, and help me out here what you were trying to say, because I'm, I'm butchering it, but that was a cost effective way rather than having it shipped in from, so she coming from your farm to say, my door is more cost effective than from,

1:02:06well, that, that, that, then you, then you going to the supermarket to buy it. That, that was, that was the comparison. It was comparing, it was comparing door to door, door to door, distribution of logistics, the efficiency of it now with, you know, UPS, Amazon Prime FedEx, that door to door logistics now has become so efficient, that it is actually more efficient than you getting in your company. Then you getting in your car and driving down to the supermarket, waiting at the traffic light to turn left and going in and buying, you know, your food at the supermarket and then coming out, waiting at the stop light to go home. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, did a study on carbon footprints several years ago, and they, they, they, they compared a couple of things. One was farmers markets compared to supermarkets and they found that supermarkets were a little bit, a little bit smaller carbon footprint, because even though they were shipping it a lot more distance, they were carrying a lot more.

1:03:16And the average farmer's market person was only taking, you know, like 50 pounds of stuff and driving 40 miles. Whereas Johnny Green Giant takes 40,000 pounds of stuff and drives 1500 miles, but, you know, at least is 40,000, you do the, you do the math. And it comes out the other one that they did was was this door to door logistics and what they found was that there's a tremendous amount of efficiency in those door to door to logistics because they are so much more efficient than you getting in your car sitting in traffic, waiting to turn left and coming back out, getting only a bag or two of stuff. That's the idea. And, and the beauty is that a UPS truck, for example, can haul a whole truckload of stuff, dropping at doorsteps, and that actual distribution carbon footprint is less.

1:04:16The, the, now how will, you know, the continuing increase of diesel play a part in all the play a part or play a role? Yeah, that's, that's a great question. Great question. I don't have a definitive answer, but I can tell you that that's that if it, if it has competed already at fuel costs, which is what I'm describing, you know, carbon, carbon footprint, if it's already competitive, then I can't imagine what increasing fuel prices will simply make it more competitive. I mean, I would think that if it's if it's competitive at three, it'll be competitive at four, competitive at five, and as fuel prices go up, the efficiencies, the efficiencies of logistical doorstep delivery will continue to, you know, to compare well to the alternative. I mean, there's a lot of people now, Mike, that are actually questioning, are we actually going to see a demise of the supermarket concept?

1:05:17I mean, the supermarket's only been here since 1946. That's not a very long time. We've only, we're only 80 years into this, you know, this, this distribution experiment. And the cost of bricks and mortar interface, you know, insurance, making sure the light bulb is on in aisle 22 where the bathrooms are, stocking shelves that are appealing to public. I mean, these Amazon Prime warehouses, these Amazon Prime warehouses, there are no people, and it's even in the dark, you know, and the shelves are stacked 50 feet high with robots to go pick and pack. And I mean, and it's in the dark, and we don't have to worry about anybody skinning their shin on stripping on the sidewalk or, you know, anything. And so there are things other than just carbon footprint, it's insurance, it's litigation, it's liability risk, all those things. And then, and then what's one of the coolest things that you can, that I can do for you?

1:06:18This podcast is supported by your Southern California Kia dealers. It's hard not to notice how many electric vehicles are on the 405, 101, and 10 freeways these days. Better technology, convenient charging, and longer driving range are making the switch to electric more practical than ever. Kia offers three all electric models that combine performance, technology, and capability. With compatible DC fast chargers, they can charge to 80% in less than 30 minutes, making it easier to get back on the road. One model that really stands out is the 2026 Kia EV9. It's an all electric SUV with three rows of seating, over 300 miles of all electric driving range, and the capability and technology you'd expect from a modern SUV. Whether it's your daily commute to Burbank or a weekend drive to Ohio, the EV9 is built to fit the way you live. If you're ready to make the move to electric, Kia has an EV designed to fit your needs. Learn more at Kia.com or visit your Southern California Kia dealer.

1:07:22Cancon, the world's largest fully suppressed range day is coming to Las Vegas, October 23rd and 24th at the Boulder City Rifle and Pistol Club. Come shoot all day for just $50. Get your tickets now at canconevent.com. Just use myself. What's one of the things if you buy a chicken for me, for example, even if I ship it to you in Arizona, you have a connection that you don't have at Walmart. Walmart, you don't know where that chicken came from, you don't know who grew it, you don't know anything about it. But here we are, you know, 2,000 miles apart, we can talk on the phone, we can email, you can vicariously visit. When you come to Ohio, you can run down here and take a visit to the farm. Actually, see the chickens in the field. We don't have any no-trust passing signs. Everybody's welcome 24, 7,365. The one thing that I can do, that a farm like ours can do, that Walmart can't, is give you a relational connection to your food.

1:08:31Think about the desire, the trajectory of supermarkets to get rid of people. I mean, there's no cashier anymore. You got to cash yourself out. Then I don't want to, you know, interact with anybody. And in a time when Americans are desperate for trust, what's the number one thing Americans want right now that they can't find? Trust, COVID-cured is of that, you know, where, who do I trust, where do I trust? And so you have all this big business, and they're trying to get rid of people, so you and I have to trust a machine. We have to trust AI. We have to trust a cash register. We have to trust, you know, some robots somewhere. And so the ability to actually know your farmer, know your food, have a connection, have a relationship with arguably the most intimate thing we do, which is, you know, ingest food and make it a flex of our flesh and bone of our bones, to be able to have a relationship with that is something that the industry simply cannot do.

1:09:35But it is the, it is the yearning of the heart of the natural person. The humanist of a person is a desire to have that kind of connection and relationship. You know, we talked about consequences earlier as well. And one last thing I want to ask you in relation to what's going on in the Middle East, you know, the longer this goes on, what are the consequences for your industry in terms of and impacting me for me to be able to go to, you know, order from you or just get food. And I'm sure in terms of fertilizer, you know, which impacts processing, so on and so forth. Yeah, so, so the long, the long term consequence is that everything that becomes fragile in this kind of, or let's just, where this kind of aberration exposes the fragility of a system, the opposite will gradually become adopted.

1:10:47For example, our farm, we buy no fertilizer. We make compost. Now, we do use some diesel to chip, chip tree branches to make carbon to make the compost. But, but that's completely different than being dependent on Vladimir Putin, you know, for our, for our fertilizer. And so, and let's take diesel fuel, for example, the average farm in America, roughly just short of half of the time. And so, in fact, the average farm is short of half of their expenses are for fuel. On our farm, only 5% of our expenses are for fuel. So, diesel could go to 10, 12 bucks a gallon and we still be okay. Now, I don't want to go there. I don't like that. But, but my point is that resilience, what happens when you have this kind of, you know, shake up. In the world, globally geopolitically all that is that you start realizing that the most critical thing is not efficiency. It is resiliency.

1:11:58We have to quit thinking about being efficient and start thinking about being effective. And so, and so, that is where things will head as we develop. And it will continue to be instead of those irrigated acres growing lettuce in Yuma. Those irrigated acres will start growing a much wider variety of things. So, Yuma doesn't export its lettuce and import its backberries, for example. And so, so what happens is you start circling the wagons in a geopolitical area, in a geographical area. So, that much more variety gets produced, you know, close. And that's the way you actually build in resiliency in the ecosystem. What is your 10 year outlook for farming as a, from the United States perspective?

1:13:02The one thing I don't do, Mike, is prophesy. Let's play Clujole. Let's play Clujole for a second. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I, I would like to think that the homestead movement continues to escalate. But I, I do think that we're in for some very, very disturbing times. If we can't get a handle on this water, and we can't get a handle on, on the whole, you know, disease issue, avian influenza, screw worm, whatever it is, we've got to start having, we started, we've got to start dealing with health, which starts with having happy animals, not just fast growing piles of protoplasmic structure. And that means we have to start asking, how do we make happy pigs, happy chickens, happy cows, this happy animals don't get sick. And, and so all of these things, the, the threads, the trajectory threads of livestock disease, water, crop, crop diseases, input costs, labor, interest, fuel.

1:14:18Yeah, you can just name them down. All of those things are negative toward agriculture. And so I, I don't know what the final two by four is up beside the head of a farmer says, uh, maybe I need to do something different here. I don't know what that final two by four is, but at some point, at some point that two by four hits, and the farmer says, huh, I think I better, I better do something different. Maybe that, maybe that old lunatic farmer in Virginia is onto something, you know, and, and, you know, you start, you start getting a little bit of interest in, in agriculture. I mean, right now, the only thing a farmer can think about is, well, if I didn't make money with soy beans, I need a federal bailout so I can go to soy beans again. I mean, just, just stuck in a, you know, stuck in a complete rut. And, and, and I don't know what it will finally take to move it out, but I do think I do think Mike, you can correct me, you might have a different opinion, but I do think the American taxpayer is growing weary of bailing out farmers all the time.

1:15:24And, and is really looking for an answer that less farmers actually be profitable, have a succession plan, a transition plan to the next generation, and actually be a, a true natural resource catalyst. You know, after 9-1-1, the first responders, you know, got put on a platform, and that's great. They deserved it. It was wonderful. All right. Well, today we've got a new set of first responders that needs to be, that needs to be honored. And that is the farmers and ranchers who manage and control the lion's share of our, of our nation's soil, air, water, immuno, immunofunction and species diversity. Nature Conservancy can't buy it all. Sierra Club can't buy it all. National Parks can't make it all. Okay. And I think we already know there are not a big fan of National Parks.

1:16:30But what we need to do is have, is have individual farmers understand, I am a part of a system. The system doesn't revolve around me. And that my first obligation is as a, as a first responder to the needs of my resource base. And if I put my attention there, first, probably other things will happen in due course. Yeah. I, I, I think, you know, I think people are, I think they're just so weary of the government now. Yeah, yeah. Just bailouts in general. And I never really thought about it specifically to farmers, but I, but, but with that, I also think, you know, people, because of the lack of trust, they want to know where their food comes from. They want to, I mean, I, I've thought to myself, I'm going to move to a more rural area. Because I want to know where my food comes from because you know what, I don't want, I want to be less reliant on the systems. Right. Yeah, who, who trust, who trust Tyson? You know, who trust Cargill? You know, who trust these, nobody trust these guys. We don't trust them at all. And so, and so that's the exciting part of this is that the lack of trust in the chemical industrial complex is creating new opportunities in wiggle room.

1:17:54And fortunately, we have a logistical distribution system coming on just at the right time to enable folks who live on a dirt road at the end of a bunch of, you know, potholes like we do. And so, if you can, if you can get on a distribution vehicle, the world is your oyster. And, and, and so, you know, every, every crisis creates its own opportunity. And so though that's the crisis opportunity that I see right now in our food system. I mean, this beef that comes from Argentina, where does this come from? I mean, do you know anything about any of this stuff? Like any idea what they do down there? Well, well, they use a lot of things that are illegal in the US, you know, drugs and, and hormones and things. That's one thing. But we're at realize that this beef is going to be, you know, you know, you know, they haven't even called it beef. It's called lean lean ground trimmings, lean ground trimmings. They haven't even called it beef. Now, I think it is beef. But, but, but the fact that it's called lean ground trimmings.

1:19:01Oh, trimmings lean ground trimmings. Sounds like that's what we want in our ravioli tonight. Do you, do you, you know, as long as you've been doing this, you know, you've seen your fair shares of up and down times. And you talked about this with David as well, that, you know, the period was a suicide hotlines for farmers, right? Right, right. Do you see now we're out? Is it, they have the potential to be worse? Is it already at that level? Or where is it at in comparison in your, you know, what you've seen? Yeah, well, two things. One is that in the early 2000s, when this happened, there were way, way more farmers than are today. You know, double, double the number of farmers. So we just don't have, we don't have the numbers to be a dramatic, even if it's the same ratio, the numbers aren't as dramatic as they were in early 2000s. That's number one. Number two is, yes, in 2025, there were twice as many farm bankruptcies as there were in 2024. That line, Mike is just going extremely, it's going up fast.

1:20:14It's going up fast. And, and, and 2026 doesn't look any better. Last year it was a soybean farmers that took a bath. This year, they're saying it's going to be the corn farmers that take a bath. And so, if we continue to see this, this, you know, accelerating line of bankruptcies, yes, we're going to see the emotional, the emotional and psychological mental fallout of this dramatically in our, in our rural communities. And I can tell you right now, you know, being in the farm community, knowing farmers and stuff, they're, they're depressed, you know, as a group, they're, they're very depressed. They're discouraged, discouraged and depressed. And, and so I'm here to encourage them that ultimately nobody's going to bail you out, except you. And you got to have, you got to have some climate change, climate change between your ears. That's what the climate change has to happen. And as my son says, you know, what we don't need money, we don't need more resources.

1:21:19What we have is, is constipation of imagination. And, and, and, and our problem is that, that farmers have been so, have become so addicted to subsidies, so addicted to government programs, so addicted to, to land grant university, professorial, you know, pronouncements and, and flyers that they simply, they simply don't think for themselves. And that's a, that's a tragedy. And I'm not trying to be condescending. I'm not trying to say farmers are stupid. I'm just saying that as a class, as a class of people, we're, we're being manipulated, we're being had. And, and we're not thinking for ourselves. And that's what, that's what, that's why I write books and do podcasts and speak and travel is because I want people to realize you don't, you don't have to, you don't have to go down this road. You can change your destiny, but you're going to, you have to listen to somebody different, you have to read something different, and you're going to have to think differently. But if you're willing to do that, I've never seen a more exciting time to be a farmer than right now.

1:22:30Do you ever ask yourself, you know, how important it is for you to, you know, come on shows and talk about this and get the message out because, you know, speaking with you now for, I'd like to ask you a question. What's your favorite food for, high Ryan Reynolds here for a Mint Mobile? Are you looking for a beach read this summer? May I suggest your big wireless bill? It's got suspense, mystery is slightly flat, emotional arc and a shocking twist where you realize you've been overpaying the entire time. Fortunately though, Mint story is better. Every plan $15 a month, even unlimited. That's it. Happy ending, zero tiers. Give it a try at MintMobile.com slash switch. Up from payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required $15 for month equivalent taxes and fees extra. It's a very important time only for the 50 gigabytes to be slow when it works busy. See terms.

1:23:38Distance restrictions and a fee may apply. You know, almost 75 minutes. This is very valuable information for people that I don't think they're aware of. So. No, you're right. You're right. Well, you know, we all tend to live in our silo, right? I mean, we tend to live in a bubble and almost nobody lives in a bubble as coistered as farmers. You know, farming is a lonely thing. I mean, you're out there, you know, in your own head, on your own tractor, nobody else is around. So it's one of the loneliest of all occupations. I mean, any other vocation, I mean, even electrical plumbing, welding, whatever, you know, there's usually three or four guys, right? You know, and you're, you're bantering, you're making jokes and stuff and you're going on, but a farmer, you know, you're just out there in your head. And so it's very, very easy to just come to a, come to a mental dead end, you know, when it's only you and nobody else. That's true.

1:24:46Which is, which is why I think, you know, the need is great and why, you know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to buck up the troops here. Well, I think the, you know, I, I don't have the optimism on the, on the grander scale with this is all heading, but, but the silver lining in it, I think, this is just my theory. What do I know? The old one's listening me right now is you Joel, so I don't know anything. But, but, you know, I think that I think the silver lining in it is people are going to be forced to have a relationship with their food and it's going to become more localized. And I think farmers will benefit from that tremendously. So I don't know how long it'll take, but, yes. You know, if you, if I had to met you 10 years, I wouldn't even know what to talk to you about 10 years ago. Right. But I think that, you know, people, you have to, they will be forced to be more aware. Yes. And, and I think, and I think that you're industry will benefit from that. Yes. I couldn't agree more. So, so, so, so what you have when you have any kind of, you know, big, whatever shake up like this, you have winners and losers.

1:25:49You have winners and losers. And so who are the winners going to be? The winners are going to be people who don't buy fertilizer and they direct market and they control the retail price. They don't, they're not into the commodity business. They're, they're actually, you know, they have a, they can look their, you know, they look their customer in the eye and they can get retail price. You know, those are going to be the winners. The losers are going to be the great big industrial, you know, industrial chemical complex that can't afford the inputs and, and are competing, mic competing every day with Africa, South America. And those, those continents have massive, massive amounts of very cheap land, very cheap labor. And, and American farmers with all of our, you know, business regulations and costs and, and, and stuff.

1:26:54You, you, you just can't compete at that, at that global, at that global price. You just can't. I mean, look, China, China has a has a goal. Their objective is that they stop importing. I think almost everything is food, food related virtually by 2030. China's objective is we're not going to import anything. Well, you know, with, with a quarter of the, of the US soybean crop going to China. If you're a soybean farmer, what's that going to do to the American price? The world, the world doesn't need what I'm producing. It just doesn't need it. So what am I going to do? Am I going to continue to lobby for bailouts? Am I going to maybe plant some grass and raise cows? Where could people find you, Joel? Polyface farms, P-O-L-Y-F-A-C-E, polyfacefarms.com. And I don't have a social media presence myself personally, but everything's through the, through the farm brand.

1:28:05And, you know, I've written 18 books. They're, they're there. My speaking schedule where I'm traveling and going and, and all is there as well as swag. You can, you know, you can get a, you can get a t-shirt that says compost, the bureaucrats. You know, there's all sorts of stuff and food. You can, you can certainly get food there as well. So it's, it's a very broad website, but polyfacefarms.com is where you can find you. What do you think of this as selfishly for myself? What do you, what do you think of Ohio as a place to, to move to, to live? Oh, wonderful. Oh, Ohio is great. It's, that's up right right up there in the top. I mean, my top 10 areas are basically, basically the middle of the country. So think, think, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Arkansas, Missouri. Pennsylvania part of that? Yeah, yeah, probably Western Pennsylvania more than Eastern. Yeah, make a line up through there and go to Western Pennsylvania. And, you know, upstate New York, land up there is cheap, cheap, cheap taxes are horrendous.

1:29:21Where we are, land is more expensive, but taxes are nothing. So, you know, you kind of, it's kind of 61, half and dozen the other. But yeah, the, the, the extremes, the extremes, you know, Florida, that's extreme. And North Dakota is extreme, you know, from a weather and just, you know, standpoint. So, you know, there's, there's a reason why people, you know, gravitate to. Some of these other areas and, and, and the states that I mentioned tend to be. Red and not blue. And I don't want to get a big partisan discussion, but, but if you want to thrive, if you want to thrive, you want to be in a red area than a blue area, if you want to thrive. If you want the government to leave you alone, you want to go to a red area, not a blue area. Yeah, I was it last year. I was up at Lake Huron or not, or port, or I'm sorry, Port Clinton on Lake Erie. And right outside of Sandusky and nice, nice little pocket right there. Right on the lake.

1:30:32Lake Erie is huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. Might not be a bad place to live. No, no, I'd sell it in a great place to live. Yeah. Joel, thank you so much for doing this. I look forward to continuing to follow you along. And, you know, I'd love to have you, love to have you back on as events unfold. Okay, thank you, Mike. It's been a great time to be with you. Thank you. Mike Trap. The crispy chicken cron-trap slider is back at Taco Bell. The slider sized cron-trap with nuggets inside you love the first time, now with the spicy kick you're going to love this time. Hidden Valley Diablo Ranch. Or you could order some crispy all-white meat nuggets on their own. Pretty sure you love those anytime, every time. Okay, all of the times. The crispy chicken cron-trap slider. A brand new classic is back, only at Taco Bell. I'm participating you as Taco Bell locations for limited time and while supplies last. The difference between a HELOC and an HEI is more than spelling. A HELOC means monthly payments. A splotero HEI doesn't. A HELOC has strict requirements. A splotero HEI only requires a 500 minimum credit score with no income requirement.

1:31:42Visit SPL ITRO.com today and access your home's equity. Fall is here and no matter which tags you have in your pocket, vortex has you covered. Hunt your way and trust that your gear is up to the test when it matters most. Every vortex product is covered by our VIP warranty. No red tape, no receipt, no hassle covered for life, no matter what. Make sure you're ready for fall. Vortex has you covered with gear that's up to the test when it matters most, no matter how you hunt. And covered with a VIP warranty. Grab your vortex optics, apparel, and everything else you need at sheels.com. Until now the data your AI depends on has been trapped behind ever increasing cloud fees. Wasabi created a cloud storage and is redefining cloud storage for the AI era, delivering simple, predictable cloud storage for AI, analytics, media and more. Your data is free to move. Fast to access and ready while your AI needs it. Hidden fees add up fast as AI workloads grow. Wasabi's flat pricing eliminates all of it. One rate, no surprises. Learn more and try now for free head wasabi.com.

1:32:42Wasabi, the AI storage cloud. proud partner of the iHeart Podcast Network.