Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 912 ｜ How Small Farms Are Saving America ｜ Guest： John Klar

00:00:00.580 The agricultural industry is under attack, especially local farms.

00:00:07.600 Why does this matter?

00:00:08.620 What kind of impact is this going to have, not just on our country, but on the world?

00:00:13.000 And how can conservatives fight back against this attack by preserving and supporting local agriculture?

00:00:22.320 Today's guest, John Klar, just wrote a book called Small Farm Republic.

00:00:26.700 Why conservatives must embrace local agriculture, reject climate alarmism, and lead an environmental revival.

00:00:36.300 It's really for the sake of not just the survival of our generation, but our children and our children's children.

00:00:42.620 And he makes the case that we're actually called by God to do this.

00:00:45.520 Very, very interesting and unique conversation that I know you guys are going to get a lot out of.

00:00:50.760 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:00:53.480 Go to GoodRanchers.com.

00:00:54.640 Use code Allie at checkout. 1.00

00:00:55.700 That's GoodRanchers.com.

00:00:56.960 Code Allie. 1.00

00:01:07.140 John, thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

00:01:10.400 First, could you just tell everyone who you are and what you do?

00:01:14.340 My name is John Klar.

00:01:15.980 I'm a former tax attorney.

00:01:17.780 I still remain admitted to the bar, but mostly I farm and I write here in Vermont.

00:01:23.980 And as you know, I've got a book out about local agriculture and how conservatives can help support an environmental movement by supporting local farms without buying into the whole climate alarmism garbage.

00:01:39.020 Right.

00:01:39.660 It's called Small Farm Republic, why conservatives must embrace local agriculture, reject climate alarmism, and lead an environmental revival.

00:01:49.880 This seems like the perfect time for this book for a couple of reasons.

00:01:54.020 I've noticed, as you've probably noticed, over the past couple of years since the start of COVID, there has been a move, it seems like, at least among the people that I follow on social media, to start, at the very least, gardening and growing some of their own produce.

00:02:08.920 They realize the need for reliance on local farmers with all the supply chain issues that we've had over the past couple of years.

00:02:17.380 It's kind of just made people realize, okay, maybe I should be more self-sufficient than I was previously.

00:02:24.460 And then also what we're seeing globally with the attack on farming, the attack on livestock that we're seeing in places like the Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland.

00:02:35.820 And so that's part of why this book interests me right now.

00:02:41.080 But tell us why you decided to write it right now.

00:02:45.500 Well, actually, I've been working on it for several years.

00:02:48.160 I didn't plan to be a farmer, as the book relates how I ended up in it as a lawyer.

00:02:53.200 I became very sickened with Lyme disease, which, by the way, also led to my faith journey.

00:02:58.300 So I think I'm better off as a faithful farmer than a faithless attorney.

00:03:04.580 The reason I felt this book is so important, and you're right on point with both of your points.

00:03:10.460 During COVID, we saw the fragility of our food system, our medical system, our entire economy.

00:03:16.060 And many people here in Vermont, you know, a lot of people have moved to Vermont.

00:03:19.100 The cost of farmland is roughly doubled.

00:03:22.080 It's making it hard for young people to get into it.

00:03:25.420 And then, again, as you say, more and more people are seeing globally.

00:03:28.520 There seems to be some kind of push to get rid of all the cows to save us.

00:03:32.000 So what's really going on there?

00:03:34.100 And that, of course, has developed since the book came out.

00:03:37.200 But also we have people in the middle.

00:03:38.740 There are a lot of people, as you say, trying to garden or get back to land or create more food security.

00:03:43.100 Many people in cities really realize now that they cannot do that.

00:03:47.460 And the antidote is to not see it as an urban versus rural divide.

00:03:51.500 That's what's been developing in America for 100 years.

00:03:53.820 It's time to recognize that people in the city need rural farmers.

00:03:57.420 And we rural farmers want people in the city to buy our food.

00:04:00.200 And we want the city to go to for cosmopolitan or cultural.

00:04:04.360 There's sort of an exchange there.

00:04:05.900 But over time, we have been destroying our local farms in a short-term push for profit.

00:04:12.560 We have lost food quality, human health.

00:04:14.840 And something that should be very important to conservatives, and part of the point of my book is even though I'm speaking to conservatives, this is an issue that should bring people together in this culture divide.

00:04:25.900 On the left, they're trying to weaponize food.

00:04:27.960 They're saying it's all about equity.

00:04:29.600 They're saying it's all about cows.

00:04:31.060 And then climate change comes in.

00:04:32.620 In the end, people need to eat.

00:04:34.500 And there should be no controversy over supporting local food production.

00:04:39.340 And I'm not an extremist where I say we should have only organic, and I support conventional farming as well.

00:04:44.860 But the more we start outsourcing our food production, processing, inspection, and distribution to places like China, the more we are becoming dangerously dependent, and I would say unbiblically dependent, on a modern American techno-mysticism instead of the plan God gave us to raise our own food, which starts in Genesis chapter 3.

00:05:06.840 It's the curse of eating the apple.

00:05:08.480 You will work by the sweat of your brow, and thorns shall pierce your flesh.

00:05:12.760 And now we think that we've cheated God's plan for us to be close to the earth and our microbiomes, but we've actually got a much worse situation than labor on our hands.

00:05:22.740 We're giving ourselves cancer, and we're giving our children lower sperm counts, and perhaps transgenderism itself is caused by endocrine-disrupting chemicals. 0.99

00:05:31.940 And this is where conservatives and liberals should be able to come together on the chemical pollution and not focus everything on the controversial issue of carbon, while we don't seem to care about the other chemicals.

00:05:43.500 So that's sort of the summary of why I think it's a poignant book right now.

00:05:47.940 Yes.

00:05:48.340 Wow.

00:05:48.720 You mentioned so much in there, and one word that really caught my attention that you just said was techno-mysticism.

00:05:54.220 And then you talked about the theological implications of buying into that kind of techno-mysticism.

00:05:58.820 Can you explain what you mean a little bit more by that?

00:06:02.840 Sure.

00:06:03.340 Good question.

00:06:04.120 I take the term I want to credit to the writer Wendell Berry from Kentucky, who I quote some of.

00:06:08.320 Yes, I've read Wendell Berry.

00:06:09.860 Yes.

00:06:11.120 And actually, if you look at my substack, you'll see I write about how we are in the midst of a new religion called woke theocracy.

00:06:17.300 And it's a theocracy because it's being implemented at all levels of our government, and it's a violation of the Establishment Clause, and it meets all the attributes of a religion, according to many authors and Supreme Court and other court decisions.

00:06:31.220 So what we're witnessing is a time when people have so much faith in their new religion that they're casting aside basic principles.

00:06:39.880 They will throw away their food supplies and disrupt their food supplies in the name of equity, for instance.

00:06:45.000 They will destroy the economy in trying to elevate ideological principles above basic money supply and other principles.

00:06:52.080 And ultimately, it is a religion.

00:06:54.960 Now, whether one is a Christian or not, the Bible is very clear about food, because as I recently gave a message about this, we have this sort of covenant in the garden that we will be gardeners.

00:07:07.920 Right.

00:07:08.160 And now we're flipping light switches and getting our food delivered to us, plastic wrapped, replete with all the chemicals, not only in the food, but the phthalates and the PFAs and the BPAs and all of these other things we're finding have saturated our food.

00:07:21.480 And but the end of the Bible and revelation has some pretty strong words about the third rider of the apocalypse on a black horse, starvation and famine with with scales in their hands, because it implies that there will be food inflation, as we're seeing now, and food scarcity.

00:07:42.360 And that's something else I read about with my tax background.

00:07:45.420 If we look at inflation, we can see why food is already inflating at a much higher rate than the underlying inflation rates and why it will continue to as fossil fuels and fertilizers increase.

00:07:56.800 This is a crisis unfolding. And while the liberals are trying to terrify us with their religion about on scientifically, you know, it's proven climate change about guns, about women's rights being taken away.

00:08:08.780 And the real threat might be the most close to our homes, which is our microbiomes, literally feeding our stomachs and our children and our grandchildren.

00:08:17.480 So when you it literally is a new religion that is turning everything that is good and calling it evil and all that is evil is being called good. 0.63

00:08:27.020 And so that's why I've mentioned technomysticism has led us out of the garden and into a much more dangerous predicament.

00:08:33.860 So what is your response to those who say, to the so-called scientists who say, well, local farming is bad for the climate, it's bad for the environment.

00:08:55.120 In Ireland, there was this terrible story of apparently killing livestock there.

00:09:02.420 And we've seen that actually throughout the world, throughout Europe.

00:09:07.740 Ireland's agricultural sector accounts for 37.5 percent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions and faces stringent cuts to meet climate targets.

00:09:15.640 Irish farmers could be forced to cull cattle to meet climate goals.

00:09:19.280 So this is something that's happening in several places because of apparently the emissions of the cows.

00:09:26.400 What do you say to this, to those who say, well, we're just trying to save the world and save the environment by culling this cattle and clamping down on local farming?

00:09:35.140 I would say Romans 8.28, that what they mean for ill, we can use for good.

00:09:43.080 This is a great opportunity for us as Americans of wherever your faith or political or other background is to see exactly what a big lie this is.

00:09:53.800 It is not true that local farming is more disruptive to the environment.

00:09:57.700 In fact, they use CAFOs or confinement feed operations to label all cows evil.

00:10:01.820 But as I document in my book, using the other books of people much more intelligent and trained in these areas than I am, who study soil, who study cows, it's pretty clear that there's something else going on here.

00:10:14.280 This isn't about saving the planet at all.

00:10:16.440 You said in a recent interview that you like Fourth of July because you like fireworks.

00:10:20.800 Well, I don't want to take your fireworks away.

00:10:22.600 But if we really wanted to save the planet, wouldn't fireworks be one of the first things to go?

00:10:27.740 Maybe lawnmowers, maybe golfing or skiing or other things that consume fossil fuels and deface the environment without producing food at all.

00:10:37.120 But yet we're going after cows.

00:10:38.760 In Ireland, it's particularly striking.

00:10:40.840 Holland is the other place.

00:10:42.520 Ireland's particularly striking because a lot of that milk and dairy production and meat production is grass fed.

00:10:47.420 And there's a huge difference between taking a cow and sticking it in a in a prison like factory and and then bringing its food to it and then bringing its manure elsewhere.

00:10:57.100 And then the food you bring is made with grains, which are destroying the planet in their production.

00:11:03.420 All right.

00:11:03.680 GMOs, chemicals, glyphosate, et cetera.

00:11:06.700 And all the fossil fuels to boot.

00:11:08.140 If you just put a 20 or 30 percent of our cows or 94 and a half million cows in the country back into rotational grazing the way God intended, the way we broke it with industrial technomysticism, you would sequester more carbon than in about 10 years than we've ever generated in the entire industrial revolution.

00:11:27.720 Solar panels don't do that.

00:11:29.360 EV cars don't do that.

00:11:30.960 And industrial farming doesn't do that.

00:11:33.240 And we have the science and we need to rebuild our soils because we're losing soils tremendously.

00:11:37.500 Nobody talks about the soil erosion and you don't replace soils with spray on chemicals from, you know, DuPont and Monsanto.

00:11:44.880 You use manure and you let the cows spread it for you.

00:11:48.500 You have healthier meat.

00:11:49.740 You have healthier animals.

00:11:51.480 You have an economy that's local.

00:11:54.100 Everybody who's bashing cows are all pushing for a giant globalist solution.

00:11:59.780 And as Wendell Berry points out, you don't feed the world.

00:12:03.140 You feed the local.

00:12:04.420 And that's how you feed the world.

00:12:05.540 And you don't save the world from pollution, even if global warming were being caused at the rates they say, which it clearly isn't.

00:12:12.900 But even if you don't you don't solve the problem at a global global level, individual responsibility and my decision to cut back on how much I pollute or how many flat screen TVs I own or what I eat for food.

00:12:26.940 These are how we make the differences.

00:12:28.520 And we actually see that when when government tries to instill its moral code, its its new climate morality, its new animal morality, it's a cornucopia of causes.

00:12:40.940 When they try to apply it to people against our wills, people rebel.

00:12:43.980 And when they try to impose water restrictions, for instance, in California during droughts, water use went up because it's the tragedy of the commons.

00:12:51.300 People are tend to be resistant and oppositional.

00:12:53.840 If you help people understand why it's in their self-interest, like I'm trying to do in this book, conservatives have a tremendous amount of self-interest in their local food supply.

00:13:02.160 And they should figure that out and see that for personal health and for food security.

00:13:05.820 Tell us what exactly we can do.

00:13:21.760 So we are to embrace local agriculture, reject climate alarmism.

00:13:25.940 I think most conservatives had that.

00:13:28.240 We understand that.

00:13:29.800 Lead an environmental revival.

00:13:31.560 And you're talking about regenerative farming.

00:13:33.840 Most people, even, you know, people in the suburbs, maybe are a little bit closer to farming life than people really in the, you know, thick of urban life.

00:13:42.700 But they don't really know what that means.

00:13:45.080 You know, they're thankful to go to their local farmer's market and maybe they're picking up raw milk, which you're not allowed to talk about, or they're picking up their organic eggs from their local farmer.

00:13:55.980 But beyond that, they don't really know what goes into it and they don't know how to participate in helping their local farm.

00:14:03.200 So what does that look like?

00:14:05.520 Well, that's a really good question.

00:14:07.620 And I don't flatter, by the way, that's simple.

00:14:09.400 That's a really good question because that's the core of the book and why anybody would read it or why I should write it.

00:14:14.480 There are several levels to answer.

00:14:17.180 First of all, people need to be informed like anything else before you can have an opinion to vote upon.

00:14:22.640 And people in the city are still voting on the farm bill through their elected reps.

00:14:26.160 They're still influencing the legislation that impacts their food supply.

00:14:30.420 So the idea that you are disconnected from your farmer is actually an idea of the adversary who lures you into thinking somehow the farmer is your adversary.

00:14:40.440 As Wendell Berry observes, for decades we have lamented the loss of the family farm, and yet we keep losing them.

00:14:47.660 Why is that?

00:14:48.620 And the answer is that for decades we've had policies in our government, and this is where I want to avoid the yawn,

00:14:54.640 but we have subsidized monocultures and industrial farming at the expense of small farms.

00:15:00.180 This has not been a free market agrarianism.

00:15:02.760 This has been a non-free market where large corporate actors, as we see with pharmaceutical companies and many other companies who go down a list,

00:15:11.980 gain access to our government to enforce and enact regulations that favor their business model and sacrifice the small little guy. 0.96

00:15:21.160 And for decades our government even said to farmers, get big or get out.

00:15:25.140 And now they're saying, look, you're polluting because you're too big, now get out.

00:15:27.880 Now, Vermont had 29,000 dairy farms at the beginning of the Great Depression, and now we have about 550, I believe, at last count,

00:15:35.860 most of which are consolidated, they're larger because that was the only way to be profitable.

00:15:39.860 So, in answer to your question, what people in this city would also benefit from.

00:15:44.160 By the way, they can buy directly from CSAs, they can buy more and more products out there.

00:15:49.180 It's hard to rely on some of the labeling, so I recommend the book Beyond Labels by Joel Salatin and Sina McCullough,

00:15:56.120 which will really help people make informed decisions and avoid those who are toxifying them and their children.

00:16:03.160 But also, what about supporting two main policy areas?

00:16:06.580 One is, let's pare back over time, not immediately, not like Sri Lanka, 0.89

00:16:10.820 let's pare back the billions of dollars that we give to fund toxic, destructive industrial agricultural practices, 0.98

00:16:18.800 particularly corn, soy and wheat subsidies.

00:16:21.380 And let's divert some of that money to support small farms and the young people who do want to move in the country 1.00

00:16:26.400 and raise local food and sell to other young people who want to move to the country

00:16:30.360 and work on their laptops and make a lot of money online and then buy that local food.

00:16:34.800 There's an emerging economic growth here to revitalize rural America.

00:16:39.400 But the other big thing to do that would be so easy to do this

00:16:42.420 would be to reduce the tightening regulatory structures, particularly at the federal level,

00:16:47.060 but also at the state level, which have made it more and more costly, even prohibitively costly

00:16:51.860 for young, small or small scale farmers to get into the business.

00:16:56.180 And they want to keep us battling over small versus large or organic over conventional.

00:17:00.600 But, you know, conventional food grown here in Vermont might be less toxic to the ecosystem

00:17:05.540 than organic food that was grown and shipped, let's say, from Brazil or Chile or China.

00:17:11.520 Even if I could trust that labeling, it's more complex than that.

00:17:16.480 But so we have to come together and not allow this these false divisions, including over race.

00:17:21.600 You know, I've written about this.

00:17:22.820 You know, we all need food and we all need to come together.

00:17:25.240 And the soil doesn't care what color you are.

00:17:27.360 The cow doesn't care what color you are. 1.00

00:17:29.440 And in the end, starvation doesn't care what color you are.

00:17:32.480 So everybody has a stake in it.

00:17:35.220 So the first thing is to get educated.

00:17:36.420 The second thing is to pare back federal subsidies of toxic food production that's destroying the planet

00:17:41.540 and our animals and our health.

00:17:43.500 And the third is to reduce the regulations for small producers.

00:17:47.560 We realized during COVID that we don't have enough processing facilities right here in Vermont.

00:17:51.820 And we have more local processing in Vermont than a lot of other states.

00:17:54.780 Many states are in a crisis and they had to kill animals.

00:17:57.760 And our entire system came to a halt of meat processing.

00:18:00.820 And we increased our beef imports from Brazil 57 percent in one year because and our farmers got dumped on

00:18:08.700 and our consumers saw inflation and the food processes that are the middle between the farmers

00:18:14.220 and the consumers are milking it just like they've milked the milk market.

00:18:19.540 That's the answer.

00:18:20.500 A farmer to consumer alliance is what we need.

00:18:24.380 And that's why people should not feel powerless and turn away and just keep eating the toxic food

00:18:30.760 that corporate America is feeding them.

00:18:33.560 Yeah.

00:18:33.860 And I would love for you to talk a little bit more about that personally.

00:18:37.040 You mentioned that you had Lyme's disease and that's kind of what led you to or you have it.

00:18:42.360 And that's what led you to being a farmer in Vermont.

00:18:46.420 Are you are you from Vermont originally?

00:18:49.920 I'm an odd animal.

00:18:51.160 I'm like we see much as people move around the country.

00:18:54.360 If you're born in Vermont, then you're you're condemned for being a nativist.

00:18:59.480 But you're only allowed to call yourself a Vermonter if you're born here.

00:19:02.440 I was conceived in Vermont and born in Connecticut.

00:19:06.400 So I'm a I'm a Vermonter by birth and a flatlander.

00:19:10.420 They call us out of staters by by or by birth and a Vermonter by conception.

00:19:14.660 So I guess it depends on one like what life when life begins.

00:19:17.680 In my case, I am seventh generation Vermonter right here on the land I'm sitting on.

00:19:24.560 I've been on, you know, I'm renting here, but we own land still that's been in our family

00:19:28.280 for seven generations.

00:19:29.280 And I have many family members here.

00:19:30.740 And yet I've lived in the UK.

00:19:32.600 I've lived around the country.

00:19:34.100 I've lived in Connecticut.

00:19:35.920 And so the Lyme disease was a gift in a way because my life was I was working 80 hours a

00:19:41.060 week and I was really stressed out.

00:19:42.860 And so when I got really sick, I decided I needed to be more physically active.

00:19:47.360 And so I moved to Vermont where I was originally sort of thought, you know, it's always been

00:19:52.320 sort of my home.

00:19:53.340 So if I can do it, anybody can do it, by the way.

00:19:56.120 And that's part of the message of the book.

00:19:57.440 A lot of people are jumping off the cliff to raise their own food or to live in a rural

00:20:01.940 area.

00:20:02.600 And I can't really claim some kind of virtue that I did.

00:20:05.420 So it was the consequence of my illness.

00:20:07.380 God was in it.

00:20:08.360 Romans 8, 28 again.

00:20:09.300 And then I was on antibiotics or on and off for about 12 years.

00:20:13.700 So I may have killed the Lyme and I have some residual illness.

00:20:17.040 But in my case, I didn't get diagnosed for years.

00:20:20.160 So it was really quite crippling.

00:20:22.420 So that's why healthy food, avoiding alcohol, aspartame and other food additives, these became

00:20:28.540 imperative for me, whereas before I could abuse my my temple.

00:20:32.380 And so I went from sort of becoming a, you know, a self-destructive workaholic to have

00:20:36.960 to change my whole lifestyle to be more in tune with, once again, what God's plan is

00:20:41.660 for good health.

00:20:54.620 And tell me a little bit about this PETA cease and desist that you received.

00:21:02.100 Well, I don't know.

00:21:05.340 Are you are you afraid to talk about it?

00:21:07.220 You might get sued by PETA.

00:21:08.880 You've already proven to me you're kind of a feisty one.

00:21:11.360 So I think you're taking it on both horns.

00:21:13.660 So in answer to that, I was in another interview where I commented that the climate warriors,

00:21:20.080 including the so-called animal rights activists, are not standing up to protect the cows in Holland

00:21:25.880 and Ireland.

00:21:27.960 As you mentioned, John Kerry recently said this is coming to America when they have to

00:21:32.080 close farms.

00:21:33.020 They're saying cows are the solution, not the problem.

00:21:36.620 So what are they really doing?

00:21:38.720 And so when I made a comment in an interview that PETA and others, they don't point this

00:21:44.240 out, but they actually are calling to kill the cows.

00:21:46.560 If you're going to take 200,000 cows out of Ireland, you could let them die of old age 0.51

00:21:51.540 or you can send them to the to the abattoir to be slaughtered.

00:21:55.540 But you're certainly not going to put them out to grass.

00:21:58.300 And it's expensive, you know, to feed these animals.

00:22:00.780 I have 16 cows.

00:22:02.820 They eat a lot.

00:22:03.780 OK.

00:22:04.520 And so the whole idea that you're going to get rid of animals in the name of saving them

00:22:09.580 is completely convoluted.

00:22:10.860 And so now PETA, then a couple of days ago, sent me a letter from their lawyers saying

00:22:15.760 that they were going to sue me for defamation if I said this, because, you know, PETA never

00:22:21.280 says we're going to kill the animals.

00:22:22.600 No, they don't.

00:22:23.340 But they do, because by their omission and same with the climate people, and they're not

00:22:28.820 talking about where these animals are to go.

00:22:30.520 And implicit in this is a very interesting question for, you know, theologically or philosophically

00:22:35.720 is what animals, what rights animals have, if any, and in the name of universal rights,

00:22:42.160 is it beneficial to basically kill all the cows and all the sheep and all the pigs to 0.84

00:22:48.060 eat that? 0.97

00:22:48.660 And we're supposed to eat soy formula or fake meat.

00:22:52.280 Is it really helping the animals if we eliminate their life?

00:22:55.920 We want to take care of them better, not eliminate them entirely.

00:22:59.400 So that's why PETA has come after me. 0.83

00:23:01.080 So I put out a substack demonstrating PETA's extremism and how ridiculous they are and some

00:23:07.360 of their policies and some of the horrible things they say about farmers and other people. 0.93

00:23:12.760 They say drinking milk is a white supremacist drink because it just shows that's exactly 0.81

00:23:17.320 how white supremacists act and it's so oppressive.

00:23:20.300 They're just totally off the rails and they can't seem to figure out whether they're climate

00:23:24.320 warriors or social justice equity warriors or animal rights warriors, because like so many

00:23:29.940 of these organizations, they've just gone off from their original mission into wokeness

00:23:33.600 and all of those different moral prerogatives come into play.

00:23:38.640 And so they sort of lose their foundation.

00:23:40.820 So I actually invite the controversy so we can talk about the cows.

00:23:44.280 I raise cows.

00:23:45.100 My cows are grass fed.

00:23:46.140 I take good care of my cows.

00:23:47.480 I'm not a cow killer.

00:23:49.040 PETA is the cow killer.

00:23:50.640 PETA wants to get rid of all cows because they're so evil and they want people to eat soy.

00:23:54.760 Well, soy is going to be grown with GMOs.

00:23:57.300 It's going to be saturated in glyphosate.

00:23:59.520 It's going to till up the planet.

00:24:00.540 It's going to release carbon.

00:24:01.860 It's going to burn fossil fuels. 0.99

00:24:03.520 It's going to burn all kinds of fertilizer. 0.52

00:24:05.800 The number one urea, our top fertilizer, nitrogen, is made from natural gas.

00:24:11.020 Natural gas is methane.

00:24:13.680 So you're going to get rid of the cow burps so you can use more methane from the chemical

00:24:18.300 companies instead.

00:24:19.360 And you're going to lose the manure in the process, which rebuilds soils, helps with water

00:24:23.380 retention.

00:24:23.940 We're in a water crisis.

00:24:24.880 So PETA, if they want to lock horns with me, truth is a defense.

00:24:29.880 PETA, I wrote to them and said, well, what do you want to do with the cows that I said

00:24:34.320 you are calling to exterminate?

00:24:35.940 They are.

00:24:36.340 Bill Gates has said we only need 150 cows to feed the world because we can then use their

00:24:41.340 DNA to use soy and other plants to replicate in a vat their animal flesh.

00:24:47.060 Well, what that leads to is more costs, more pollution and more control of our food supply.

00:24:50.960 So PETA says, this is according to Fox, that they are against the killing of the 200,000

00:25:11.280 cows. 0.90

00:25:11.900 They call it ridiculous. 0.99

00:25:13.480 They said that these are government kill squads. 0.98

00:25:15.700 They won't help.

00:25:16.240 They say that they advocate for diet change to help climate change, not for killing cows.

00:25:21.400 But what you're arguing is that they essentially are.

00:25:25.680 By saying we shouldn't be eating anything from cows, we shouldn't be getting our dairy from

00:25:30.380 cows.

00:25:31.420 You know, we shouldn't be getting our meat from cows.

00:25:34.680 That that is going to eliminate the need for cows, and then that would lead to the termination

00:25:41.340 of these cows' lives.

00:25:43.380 So what you're trying to argue is that PETA doesn't realize or doesn't admit that what

00:25:47.240 they're advocating for will actually lead to the execution of all of these cows, right?

00:25:53.960 Well, and it's pretty obvious to you and your viewers that that's the case because their

00:25:58.120 position is completely illogical.

00:25:59.860 And as I outline in my recent, my second to last substack article, they take the same

00:26:07.920 posture with bees.

00:26:09.120 They say they take the same posture with elephants.

00:26:11.460 Elephants should be killed rather than held in a zoo, they say.

00:26:15.300 No animal should be used by any human for food, for clothing, for anything.

00:26:19.320 Well, where do the animals go?

00:26:20.640 In the case of bees, they've asked for people to boycott honey because of the mistreatment of

00:26:25.060 bees.

00:26:25.400 And yet the honey industry is where most of the money is raised to figure out what's going

00:26:30.640 wrong with the bees and to help the health of the bees. 0.72

00:26:32.960 We have crops that are dependent on bees. 0.93

00:26:34.980 How are they going to eat their plants without their bees? 1.00

00:26:37.360 So but where do they think the bees will go if they are not used to produce the honey,

00:26:42.820 the profits of which is being used for research to help bees?

00:26:46.200 I mean, it's simply sort of back to what I was saying about the wokeism, that it disconnects

00:26:49.540 completely from the common sense in pursuit of these goals that, you know, you can't

00:26:55.680 allow.

00:26:56.260 PETA says on its website that every animal has a right to basically self-determination and

00:27:00.660 lead a free life.

00:27:02.080 Well, who's going to feed them?

00:27:03.700 You know, cows, they need to be milked or they die or and they need to be fed huge amounts

00:27:08.480 of food.

00:27:08.880 And they have been domesticated for tens of thousands of years.

00:27:11.320 So it is an impossibility.

00:27:13.900 Pretty much you could phase the cows out through all, but then they're gone.

00:27:17.940 So in the name of protecting animals from slaughter or other things which can be done in very humane

00:27:23.500 ways to afford them a meaningful life, farmers are stewards.

00:27:28.600 Good farmers really do care about our animals in ways that nobody else can really understand

00:27:33.980 when you buy it chopped up in a store.

00:27:35.720 So I think that PETA sounds more like those those they're very distant from the reality

00:27:41.320 that and I had not read that quote, by the way, and that's a nice way to try to thread

00:27:45.380 the needle, but it doesn't work.

00:27:46.580 If you get rid of 200,000 cows, you're going to be by one means or another, by hook or by

00:27:52.400 crook, you're calling for getting rid of all animal industry for all animals.

00:27:59.000 And that's very clear from their websites.

00:28:01.380 So I'm advocating actually I'm kind of on PETA's side in a way I'm advocating for I totally

00:28:07.280 agree to reduce animal cruelty.

00:28:08.980 My whole battle here in Vermont for on farm slaughter traditions has been to preserve the 0.80

00:28:14.080 best life possible for an animal.

00:28:15.880 I consider it part of my faith to be reverential and steward that animal who dies that I might

00:28:22.740 live.

00:28:23.420 That's the balance in the middle.

00:28:25.320 And if PETA were really advocating for animals, then they would be as as you say, they are at

00:28:30.740 the forefront of defending these cows.

00:28:32.680 And then I'll praise them if they do that.

00:28:34.880 But ultimately, if their goal is to get rid of all cows, you see how it's kind of they're

00:28:39.120 talking out of both sides of their mouth.

00:28:40.580 It doesn't make sense at all.

00:28:41.700 Right.

00:28:43.140 I think a lot of people really see the need for relying on our farmers.

00:28:48.140 A lot of my sponsors on this show or a few of my sponsors on this show are about localization

00:28:54.060 and relying on local food sources.

00:28:56.880 And I'm very thankful.

00:28:57.920 I'm very thankful that conservatives that we've kind of started talking about this, that we've

00:29:02.100 opened our eyes to this.

00:29:03.320 But a lot of people just don't know how to do it or what this means.

00:29:07.660 And that's why you wrote this book.

00:29:09.240 And I'm very thankful for that.

00:29:10.420 And it's amazing just to hear how God used something that was meant for evil, that was

00:29:14.140 meant for harm, like a terrible disease, and then led you to be a farmer and then led you

00:29:18.600 to also spread the message about the importance of local farming.

00:29:23.180 And I'm very thankful for that.

00:29:24.560 So if you could just tell everyone again the title of your book, where they can get your

00:29:29.700 book, when it came out, all that good stuff.

00:29:31.340 Can I plug my book?

00:29:34.800 It's got a pretty cover, too.

00:29:36.360 Yeah, of course.

00:29:37.100 Joel Salatin, a fellow Christian and a libertarian, wrote the foreword.

00:29:42.420 Joel and I don't agree on all issues, but we agree on the importance of farming.

00:29:47.960 It's available at Amazon.

00:29:50.220 It's available through my website, and also smallfarmrepublic.com.

00:29:55.760 And my substack is also called Small Farm Republic.

00:29:58.420 I'm happy to keep writing about current events as they come up.

00:30:02.020 And I'm sure we're going to see more about cows.

00:30:04.160 And I ask people to pay attention to cows and the whole cow dialogue.

00:30:07.940 What's being said about cows and what is the truth about cows?

00:30:10.760 And you'll learn a lot about what's going on with the climate globalist warriors.

00:30:16.000 Well, John, thank you so much.

00:30:17.120 I really appreciate you breaking this all down and taking the time to come on.

00:30:21.740 Thank you so much for having me.

00:30:23.240 It's been an honor and a pleasure.

00:30:24.500 God bless you.

00:30:25.040 All right.

00:30:29.740 I hope you all enjoyed that conversation.

00:30:31.760 We will be back here tomorrow discussing all the things.

00:30:34.500 There are so many things that we have to discuss that we missed last week during Thanksgiving

00:30:38.720 week.

00:30:39.240 But before we leave, I do want to tell you all about the Cyber Monday deal that's going

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00:30:56.680 Like they already mess with conservative podcasts and their reach.

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00:31:46.860 This is a great gift to yourself.

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00:31:51.760 what the censors do. 0.95

00:31:53.080 Also, just a reminder, we've got a merch, great Christmas gift.

00:31:58.600 You go to AllieMerch.com.

00:32:01.540 I think there's still a sale going on.

00:32:03.580 Check the description of this episode.

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00:32:11.400 AllieMerch.com for all kinds of really cute merch. 1.00

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00:32:19.640 That's all we've got for today.

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00:32:28.480 AllieMerch.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 27, 2023

Ep 912 ｜ How Small Farms Are Saving America ｜ Guest： John Klar

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