The Art of Manliness - Episode #47： Saving The Family Farm With Forrest Pritchard

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00:00:53.920 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:58.300 Well, I don't know about you guys, but every now and then, I have this dream or fantasy

00:01:03.740 that of going out to Vermont, buying some land, and becoming a yeoman farmer.

00:01:11.100 You know, to me, that just sounds really cool.

00:01:14.020 But if I'm honest with myself, that's never going to happen.

00:01:17.440 But today's guest actually did that.

00:01:21.060 His name is Forrest Pritchard.

00:01:22.300 He's the owner of Smith Meadows Farm, located in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

00:01:28.360 This is an eighth-generation family farm.

00:01:31.180 This farmer's been in his family for eight generations.

00:01:34.860 And he just came out with a book called Gaining Ground.

00:01:39.100 And it's basically his story of how he saved the family farm.

00:01:42.080 Because before he took it over, it was in pretty bad shape and on the verge of being sold.

00:01:47.020 And he decided to change directions in his life and become a farmer.

00:01:52.400 So today, we're going to talk about his story.

00:01:54.320 We're going to talk a bit about his book, Gaining Ground.

00:01:56.640 So listen in.

00:01:59.600 Well, Forrest, welcome to the show.

00:02:02.420 Hey, thanks, Brett.

00:02:03.460 I'm honored to have anything to do with the art of manliness.

00:02:07.980 Thanks for inviting me.

00:02:09.080 Well, you're very welcome.

00:02:09.860 You're a farmer, which is a manly profession, goes back thousands of years.

00:02:15.100 So it's very appropriate that you're on the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:02:19.160 Let's talk a little about your history before we get into kind of what your book's about.

00:02:25.620 Your farm that you run is Smith Meadows.

00:02:28.780 This is a seventh-generation farm, right?

00:02:30.900 It's been in your family for seven generations, a long time.

00:02:33.440 And you grew up on this farm, working on it with your grandfather and your dad, to an extent.

00:02:41.900 When you were a kid, was farming something you saw yourself doing, like when you were in high school?

00:02:46.780 Like, yeah, I want to be a farmer.

00:02:48.020 Were you ready to get out of town and head to the big city?

00:02:52.600 What I wanted to do more than anything when I was a kid was just be a superhero.

00:02:56.100 You know, I wanted to be Spider-Man and the devil, and I thought my cousin Peter was the luckiest guy on the planet because he had the first name like Peter Parker.

00:03:06.520 Oh, nice.

00:03:06.940 And I was stuck with this crummy name, Forrest, which didn't serve me until Forrest Gump came along about 30 years later or whatever.

00:03:16.300 But no, I mean, you know, I think, you know, in the book I mentioned at one point, like I was playing Star Wars as a kid.

00:03:23.900 And, you know, everybody in our generation and, you know, now more generations are going to play Star Wars and Indiana Jones and A-Team and all these iconic shows of our childhood.

00:03:36.060 But I don't think it was any accident, you know, like Luke Skywalker.

00:03:39.980 You know, George Lucas wrote that character as a farm kid, you know.

00:03:44.240 You know, farm kids are dreamers.

00:03:47.100 And farming can be like a, you know, pretty confining feel where dreams can sometimes, you know, be squelched or made to fit inside a box.

00:04:00.320 So, you know, I was lucky as a kid.

00:04:03.460 I wasn't made to do farm chores.

00:04:05.500 I wasn't like, you know, now you're five, get out and make some hay kind of thing.

00:04:10.400 You better be driving this tractor by now.

00:04:12.300 I was given a chance to be a kid.

00:04:16.260 And that's not to say, like, you know, I didn't participate and I didn't grow up on the farm and I wasn't out there all the time because I was, you know, the barefoot, huckleberry fin kind of kid, you know, running around the fields.

00:04:31.100 But I was also allowed to, like, have a childhood, you know, have an ability to kind of have fun as a kid.

00:04:38.820 So, I mean, I think probably more than anything, kind of being given that freedom by my elders to be respectful of that childhood period and value it led me to want to farm.

00:04:51.820 Because then I was able to not feel, like, miserable, not feel encumbered by a bunch of chores.

00:04:56.880 And I didn't have that Luke Skywalker feeling where it's like, you know, Luke, go clean the moisture evaporators.

00:05:01.920 Oh, you know, I want to go play with my friend kind of thing.

00:05:05.760 All right.

00:05:06.460 Yeah.

00:05:06.640 So, yeah, you wanted to be a superhero.

00:05:08.780 So, like, yeah, farming really wasn't, it wasn't pushed on you, right, I guess.

00:05:12.540 Right.

00:05:13.440 But when did you decide, like, farming is what you wanted to do?

00:05:17.660 I mean, that's a big decision because a lot of people who are listening don't know, like, farming is an expensive job.

00:05:26.540 There's a lot of expenses that go along with the profession.

00:05:29.780 Right.

00:05:30.320 So how did you decide to, you know, make that leap?

00:05:32.400 I mean, was it, did you feel called to it or was there some moment where you're like, yeah, this is what I have to do?

00:05:37.960 I think it was definitely a bit of both.

00:05:40.080 There's an undeniable sense of stewardship that's just kind of handed down.

00:05:46.300 And you don't have to spend long being around a farm.

00:05:50.840 You know, you and I were talking earlier about your feelings, like, when you go to visit Vermont, for example.

00:05:55.340 Like, there's just something when you step into these small farm towns and this era of sustainability and seasonality that just resonates.

00:06:08.300 It's hard not to feel that resonate.

00:06:11.480 I mean, unless you spent your whole life in Las Vegas or something.

00:06:14.780 I don't know where you'd have to live.

00:06:17.300 Apologies to lifetime residents of Las Vegas.

00:06:19.340 I just blew it.

00:06:19.900 But, I mean, the other side of all that is, is when you've got this kind of, like, cultural resonance on one side, but then you're, like, you're 19, you're 20 years old, and you're thinking, you know, what are you going to do with your life?

00:06:37.500 Are you going to be an English major?

00:06:38.540 Are you going to go to law school?

00:06:40.260 You know, are you going to drop out and flip hamburgers?

00:06:42.460 And you're driving down the road, and you see farms, literally, that you grew up seeing all your life, or you visited when you were a 4-H-er, or you went over to your friend's place and played in his barnyard, and they're being bulldozed straight down to the ground, okay?

00:07:00.460 And I'm talking, like, you know, the late 80s, early 90s in the Shandoah Valley.

00:07:05.420 Farms were not being saved then.

00:07:08.980 Farms were being pushed out for housing development.

00:07:11.280 And that's just a really tangible, kind of visceral thing that just hits you in the gut.

00:07:17.480 You know, you're driving to town in one direction, and by the time you run your errands and you come back, the barn that you've seen there for your whole life is gone.

00:07:27.860 It's just like there's dirt and there's bulldozers there.

00:07:30.980 So, you know, it doesn't take a huge stretch of the imagination to say, look, you know, could that be our place?

00:07:38.140 You know, we're not doing so well.

00:07:39.300 You know, I hear my parents grumbling over the bills, and Grandpa's gone, and, you know, he was the last person to be farming.

00:07:46.860 You know, what kind of creative person do you have to be to say, like, you know, the writing might be on the wall if we don't do something?

00:07:56.060 Yeah, that was interesting you were talking about how just, like, bulldozing land, right?

00:08:01.260 And, like, putting development on there, like, shopping.

00:08:04.120 Like, yeah, it's like, it's a sense of place, right?

00:08:06.120 Like, you feel connected to the land.

00:08:09.120 Right.

00:08:09.480 Even here in Tulsa, like, just in the past, you know, few years I've lived here, there's been a lot of development.

00:08:14.740 And you, like, see it go up, and, like, I don't know, yeah, you feel like a part of you is missing.

00:08:19.260 You know, because you see this, like, beautiful land that was once there, not there anymore.

00:08:23.600 Exactly.

00:08:24.340 I mean, there's something about it that's just, it kind of makes you say, like, like, how?

00:08:29.260 Like, what?

00:08:30.220 You know, like, okay, but it doesn't feel like a really good okay sometimes.

00:08:35.880 Sometimes it's, like, really?

00:08:38.240 You know, like, that's what's, like, that's what's happening to that farm.

00:08:41.280 Like, it's turning into, like, a, you know, another subway, you know, $5 foot long kind of thing.

00:08:48.160 Okay, well, here we go, and there's going to be a parking lot, and, you know.

00:08:51.560 But, you know, at a certain point, like, how many battles, how many battles can we pick, and how many battles can we win?

00:08:58.880 And you have to say, like, look, I've got this family farm.

00:09:02.920 I can't say family farms everywhere, but I can give a try on my own land.

00:09:08.020 And that's kind of like, you know, when I was 20, 21, that's pretty much, like, what I was feeling.

00:09:12.740 Yeah, so 20, 21, so were you done with college, or were you still in college at this time?

00:09:17.660 Yeah, I was still in college when I was struggling with some of this stuff.

00:09:20.460 I ended up being, I ended up battling in geology because I went to a liberal arts school, and they didn't have, like, an ag, you know, an ag or environmental track.

00:09:31.560 So geology started to resonate with me in soil studies, and, yeah, that's definitely where my interest started to go about that time.

00:09:39.700 All right. So you mentioned that, you mentioned a word when you were talking about the type of farming you do, you do sustainable farming.

00:09:46.880 For our readers who aren't familiar with it, can you just briefly describe the difference between sustainable farming, what you do, and typical industrial farming that goes on?

00:09:56.880 Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, I'd be happy to.

00:09:59.400 And just to, you know, kind of throw out, like, a Webster's definition of sustainable farming, you know, the word sustainable means, you know, not to repeat the only word in its definition, but it sustains.

00:10:12.100 It sustains itself. It's like it's kind of a self-perpetuating mechanism.

00:10:15.860 And for farming, that is, you know, it's commonly associated with, you know, organics and local and non-use of chemicals and things like that.

00:10:28.320 But sustainable isn't just about production methods. It's about finances and the economics of things, too.

00:10:33.920 You know, the overarching theme of sustainability is to not only grow things, you know, in a way that nature provides a sustainability, but the economics are sound, they're plausible, and they're repeatable.

00:10:50.740 So getting back to your question, like, basically what we do is we do have an organic model where we don't use any commercial fertilizers.

00:10:59.920 We use no fertilizers, we use no antibiotics, we use no hormones, and we market our food locally to customers that really care about this stuff, that care about, you know, where their animals race humanely.

00:11:13.580 Is this money that they're spending going back to green space?

00:11:17.860 Is the dollars going to be reinvested in the local hardware store, in the local feed store, in the United States area?

00:11:24.000 And, you know, I want to back up one second and say, like, I've got no bone to pick with the other side, with conventional agriculture.

00:11:33.520 You know, nothing in my book is about, like, you know, this side's right and the other side's wrong.

00:11:39.960 Basically, what we do is we offer people an alternative.

00:11:42.500 So what the alternative, you know, growing up that I saw to what I do now is how most of our food is still raised in this country.

00:11:52.680 I mean, 97% and onward of the food that, you know, you'll get at McDonald's or you'll get at Safeway or Walmart or wherever you shop is raised with chemical usage, confinement, feedlot practices, grain that's animals that are strictly grain fed,

00:12:14.020 and then fed antibiotics as a byproduct of grain feeding, food that has been literally trucked thousands of miles, you know, with a plume of diesel smoke behind it.

00:12:29.720 And, you know, a little bit of that might seem like kind of ivory tower and, you know, kind of, oh, well, you know, there's an organic farmer up on his soapbox kind of thing.

00:12:40.300 And, like, I get that, like, you know, when we're disconnected from our food, it's hard to say, like, you know, is organic really better or is conventional really better?

00:12:49.420 Well, you know, I'm not trying to persuade anybody, like, to eat organic or to eat however they want.

00:12:55.840 But when you stood on your family's front porch on a failing farm and you've been raising corn and soybeans conventionally, which I did about 15 years ago,

00:13:09.360 and you get handed a check for 18 bucks, okay, like, your whole harvest gets turned over and you get basically a $20 bill for a year's worth of work.

00:13:20.800 But, man, you know, that's going to cause anybody to rethink things.

00:13:24.740 And that's exactly what happened to me.

00:13:27.800 That persuaded itself.

00:13:32.080 It did not require no additional persuasion.

00:13:34.120 Yeah, yeah.

00:13:35.160 So talk about a little bit of some, I mean, let's back up here.

00:13:38.560 So you guys primarily raise livestock, right?

00:13:41.120 Is that your kind of the main?

00:13:42.240 That's right.

00:13:42.660 Okay.

00:13:43.180 Yeah.

00:13:43.340 And, I mean, what are some of the benefits of the meat or the product or the, I don't know what you call it, of doing it sustainably?

00:13:52.460 I mean, what are some of the differences between, like, cows who are grass-fed between a cow who's corn-fed?

00:13:58.020 Of course, yeah.

00:13:58.960 And I should back up a second because you just kind of sort of answered my question for me.

00:14:03.260 I said we raise livestock.

00:14:04.620 What we really do is we raise grass on our farm.

00:14:06.900 We are a pasture farm, and, like, you know, why am I going to put, like, you know, big asterisk, neon light, you know, over top of this?

00:14:15.860 It's because everything that we do on our farm goes back to sustainability.

00:14:20.920 And, like, you know, if people out there listening, you know, just think about your lawn, for example, or the park, you know, the park that's in your neighborhood.

00:14:30.740 There's grass in the park, okay?

00:14:32.420 Like, how does the grass grow?

00:14:34.040 Let's just break it down real quick.

00:14:35.200 We've got sunshine, we've got rain, and we've got soil fertility, okay?

00:14:40.160 Now, we can go out and, you know, put some Scott's Miracle-Gro on stuff, okay?

00:14:44.320 But, like, how many, you know, $20, $50 bags of Scott's Miracle-Gro can we sustain, okay?

00:14:49.520 So then it gets back to, like, issues of sustainability.

00:14:52.580 And what we've got is a built-in natural system where we take free sunshine and we take free rain,

00:14:59.360 and we couple that with natural soil fertility that's just, like, you know, available to us.

00:15:05.720 And that's really challenging how we can argue that that's not a self-sustaining system.

00:15:11.380 I mean, that's the circle of life in a nutshell right there.

00:15:15.320 Yeah, so it's something that could go on forever, right?

00:15:19.520 Exactly.

00:15:20.440 Exactly.

00:15:20.900 That's my whole point.

00:15:22.140 So, you know, some of this is, like, some bigger picture thinking to get down to, like, what ends up on your plate

00:15:27.300 when you shop at a farmer's market, when you take home, like, a, you know, grass-fed ribeye steak or something.

00:15:32.260 Okay, yes, that's delicious, and, like, you've got to talk to the farmer and, you know, everything.

00:15:37.640 Everybody feels, like, you know, warm and fuzzy for a minute.

00:15:40.480 But we can, like, really go backwards and, like, trace this and say, you know, what is the root of sustainability here?

00:15:46.540 Pun intended.

00:15:47.320 Because the root, you know, is these roots down in the soil.

00:15:51.720 So we're going to take a grass-fed animal and a grass-fed production model,

00:15:57.200 and we're going to compare that with a grain-fed model.

00:15:59.500 And the contrast is very stark.

00:16:04.960 And not, you know, not to be like Debbie Downer or anything, but, you know, I'm not interested, like I said.

00:16:11.100 Yeah, exactly.

00:16:12.080 You know, I don't want to be like that.

00:16:13.280 But, I mean, you know, far more eloquent people have spoken about this,

00:16:19.020 and the Internet has got, you know, 10 million and one images of animals in confinement.

00:16:24.940 And all you have to do is test this with your nose, okay?

00:16:28.860 Have you ever been driving down an interstate highway, and all of a sudden, you know, you're listening to the radio,

00:16:34.600 and everything's great, and you just catch a whiff of something, and you're like, oh, you know, what is that smell?

00:16:40.720 There's a big, yeah, like one in Amarillo, right outside of Amarillo, Texas,

00:16:44.500 whenever we'd go to Albuquerque to see my grandpa, it was the worst-smelling thing.

00:16:48.900 It was like you had to hold your breath for five minutes.

00:16:51.540 There's something wrong with that, Brett, okay?

00:16:55.460 Like, I want your listeners to, like, think about that for a second.

00:16:58.300 Like, why, you know, why when we smell something, like, rotten in our refrigerator or, like, you know,

00:17:03.480 something dead, do we, like, recoil, like, on, like, kind of on a, you know, a molecular level?

00:17:10.720 You know, we have, you know, we've been just kind of, for generations, been taught, like, you know,

00:17:17.060 that bad, this good, you know, on a kind of caveman speak, you know, like, don't eat, eat this.

00:17:23.280 You know, and so, you know, when we actually have to drive down the highway for, like, five miles

00:17:28.700 with the windows rolled up and the air conditioner on full blast because it smells so bad,

00:17:32.960 just imagine if you're one of those animals or, you know, or one of those people working in that feedlot

00:17:37.800 where there's 10,000, 1,000 animals standing in their own excrement and being fed grain

00:17:43.900 that has been trucked, you know, from, you know, North Dakota down to, you know, Texas,

00:17:50.800 you know, and that, that trail of stuff and, and there's, you know, there's no sustainability

00:17:56.580 when animals are, have been, they've evolved to eat grass, there's no explanation for giving

00:18:05.200 them a monoculture diet of just pure corn and, quite frankly, their digestive system rebels

00:18:11.860 against it, which is why antibiotic use is, is almost mandatory in a confinement system.

00:18:17.360 So, I'm going to step off my soapbox for a minute, catch my breath.

00:18:21.260 No, yeah, yeah, no, well, it makes sense. I mean, yeah, it's just, it's, it is unsustainable,

00:18:24.540 I guess, right? Like, it's just, it doesn't make any sense. So, here you, you feed them this grain

00:18:28.100 that, like, their body's not, I guess, really designed for. So, as a consequence, you have to

00:18:33.060 give them more antibiotics, which probably isn't good for the person eating it, you know,

00:18:37.240 like, I don't want to, I don't know. Precisely. You know, I think there's actually,

00:18:41.780 really, getting this back to, like, the manliness thing, I think I've read studies about

00:18:45.280 how the hormones in some grain-fed beef can affect testosterone levels.

00:18:50.880 Of course. See, soy is loaded with estrogen. Yeah.

00:18:54.760 Okay. And, you know, what, what's the coincidence when we've got a bunch of 10-year-old boys

00:18:59.320 running around and, and we, we kind of say to myself, my God, does that kid need a bra? 0.99

00:19:04.440 Well, I mean, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm not joking. I mean, you know, you don't, you don't

00:19:09.840 have to, like, be, you know, you know, left-wing and, and organic lovey, lovey-dovey to be like,

00:19:15.740 you know, what, what's going on with, with some of these kids? Um, so, you know, there's this,

00:19:21.360 there's a direct consequence between what we're putting in our, putting in our food, uh, in our,

00:19:26.660 and fueling ourselves with, okay? And if we're going to fuel ourselves with things that come from

00:19:31.660 natural soil, like our ancestors ate, and this is where like the whole paleo. Yeah. And, you know,

00:19:35.920 eat like, eat like a dinosaur and, and, and all this stuff. Um, you know, it, it resonates.

00:19:42.020 Yeah. For sure. One of the things that stuck out to me the most, or not the most, but what I thought

00:19:47.500 was really interesting, you started raising hogs or pigs. And I found fascinating that, um, the way

00:19:53.440 you guys do it, like there's a system that you guys do. Right. Um, and what I found interesting is

00:19:59.180 that, you know, usually we think of pigs, like, oh, they just like wallow in their own filth 0.56

00:20:02.720 and like, they enjoy being, but you found that like the pigs actually, they go to a place to like 0.97

00:20:07.520 do their business and then they come back somewhere else. And like, it actually like raising pigs

00:20:12.520 isn't very stinky. It actually smells kind of sweet if you do it right. Exactly. Yeah. Our pigs smell

00:20:17.720 like maple syrup. Um, I thought it was just like, kind of like this, like sensory clue I can,

00:20:22.700 I can attribute it to. That was the most bizarre. Cause like that is so counterintuitive. Cause I think of,

00:20:27.020 oh, you raise a pig and she's like sitting in its slop and it's just nasty. Why would you want 1.00

00:20:31.800 to eat that? Even though I love bacon? Um, yeah, well, I mean, if we, if we give a pig,

00:20:37.940 no choice, but to sit in its own slop, that's where it's going to sit, you know? Um, but you know,

00:20:43.140 do we, do we, um, do we have the courage and the wisdom to say like, okay, let's give this pig

00:20:49.840 some, uh, different choices and be able to have like the patience, you know, to, you talk about

00:20:56.980 like some positive, positive male attributes, you know, wisdom, courage, and patience, you know,

00:21:02.380 that's a pretty good platform right there. And to, and to go back and say like, look, let's watch

00:21:07.320 this pig. Let it, let it express itself. Is there some way that we can reach an intersection 0.98

00:21:13.300 of the pig being able to like express its pigness? Okay. And us being as farmers to be able to say

00:21:20.580 like, look, we can raise this animal sensibly at the same time, you know, and that's a, that's

00:21:24.940 going to be a win-win. That's going to be a pig. That's probably going to grow more quickly. Um, 1.00

00:21:30.280 it's going to put out a much more flavorful meat by, by being able to like, you know, eat the minerals

00:21:35.680 out of the soil and mineralize its body, which we cannot do by the way, but just eating corn

00:21:40.560 all day long and living in its own filth. And it's going to create a sustainable story

00:21:45.260 for people to come out, like visit local farms, see this, smell with their own nose, nothing.

00:21:52.460 They're just going to smell fresh air, which is what you expect to smell when you go to a farm.

00:21:57.380 People go out to the country to smell fresh air. They don't go out there to smell a hog extra. 0.78

00:22:01.700 Yeah. Okay. Um, and you know, all this, all this stuff just gets back to like, what can be

00:22:07.280 sustainable? Now don't, don't get me wrong. Um, the, the truly sustainable animals I feel on our

00:22:13.040 farm are a grass fed cattle and our grass fed sheep, because those are animals that are out

00:22:17.500 there, you know, eating clover, eating diverse grasses. And that's a closed loop of sustainability.

00:22:24.020 Um, our pigs and our chickens are omnivores. So we do give them some pre-choice grain as a component

00:22:29.460 of their diet. Um, but that all goes back into a circle of, okay, we're producing some product

00:22:36.120 and their manure, which is able to be naturally distributed across the pasture because we rotate

00:22:41.080 the pigs across pasture very intensively from a management standpoint, goes back to doing

00:22:47.280 what? Fertilizing the grass for the cattle, for the sheep, you know? So that's just kind

00:22:53.700 of how we just economic, being economical in every aspect. Yeah. I mean, you know, we can go

00:22:59.700 out with tractors and, and get chemical fertilizers and, and ring up big bills for ourselves. Um,

00:23:05.980 and, and by the way, you know, fill up our tractor with fuel and repair it when it breaks down and

00:23:09.880 put it in a barn for 11 months out of the year when it's not being used. Or, you know,

00:23:14.340 I could run a bunch of pigs out there. They look beautiful. They smell great. They taste fabulous 0.91

00:23:19.140 when you put them on your plate. It's a humane way to treat our animals. Um, you know, whether

00:23:24.320 you're vegetarian or, or you're an omnivore, um, far more humane than the way most animals are raised.

00:23:30.080 And at the end of the day, their manure doesn't even have to be cleaned up. It just goes around

00:23:34.100 to the pasture and it fertilizes the grass. It's awesome. So it's the circle of life. It's a

00:23:40.580 beautiful thing. Yeah. I mean, what can I say? I didn't invent it. I'm just participating.

00:23:45.580 We're going to take a quick break for you, words from our sponsors. If you've made a goal for

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00:24:25.460 online great books.com code AOM at checkout to save 25% off your first three months. And now back

00:24:31.200 to the show. All right. So you decided, uh, to get into farming, you're going to go the sustainable

00:24:35.400 route. Um, but this wasn't an overnight success, right? This, this, it was rough going in the

00:24:41.000 beginning. What were the biggest obstacles at the very beginning of your journey to become a

00:24:47.300 sustainable farmer? Oh man, that, that one's, I don't even have to think about that one. It was

00:24:53.260 a negative peer pressure, like, you know, all the voices and, you know, I get, I think I put that

00:25:00.220 right at the end of chapter one in the book. It's like, you know, this is what all the voices were

00:25:04.540 trying to tell me when I get that check for 18 bucks, you know, like you can't do it. Just like,

00:25:09.100 get it. God, why, you know, okay. You've had a few months to like, you know, dick around on the

00:25:14.120 farm. Now get yourself a haircut and, and, and, and a polo shirt and go get a job, you know? Um, 0.97

00:25:20.540 and, and that wasn't just all my friends who a generation before would have been young farmers

00:25:26.320 and we're now, you know, put on khaki pants and finding jobs in Washington, DC, which is about an

00:25:31.800 hour from our farm. That was other farmers. Okay. Saying that, I mean, they weren't, you know,

00:25:37.560 they were discouraging because for all, all through the 1960s, the seventies, the eighties commodity

00:25:44.120 prices were just going down, down, down. You know, I'm not making this up. You can pull up,

00:25:48.240 you know, umpteen different charts on this where commodity prices diverge from the cost of living.

00:25:53.940 Okay. It's just like a big, you know, greater than symbol, uh, commodity prices kind of flatlined

00:25:59.600 and trickled down in one direction and the cost of living went up and the gap in between as that,

00:26:05.000 as that V shaped diagram, uh, keeps growing over the years. Um, the gap in between becomes

00:26:11.620 insurmountable to bridge. Okay. And, and by 1996, when I was standing on a, you know, standing there

00:26:18.760 looking over our farm and thinking about becoming a farmer, um, the gap was just about as wide as

00:26:25.420 it had ever been. So, uh, you know, needless to say that I could not find many farmers in my area

00:26:31.280 that were like, you know, let's sign, sign you up, pal, you know, let's get, get you a straw hat

00:26:35.540 mobile and get you started. You know, they were like, you know, do anything but farm.

00:26:40.940 Yeah. So, yeah. And I guess too, um, I think you're talking about commodity prices, I guess

00:26:45.180 that a lot of that has to do with subsidies, right? Farm subsidies. And that, that's part

00:26:49.040 of the problem. Uh, a lot of farms that used to grow diverse, you know, products, produce

00:26:56.280 animals, because that wasn't where the money was at. They started diverting all that land and

00:27:01.520 resource to like soy. Of course. Soy, corn, bean. Yeah. Exactly. And so, yeah, I guess

00:27:08.160 that's, that's like, that was the way you were supposed to do it. So when, I guess when

00:27:10.740 you came along and said, Hey, yeah, I want to like feed my cows grass and I want to, I

00:27:15.980 got an orchard. I want to try doing some stuff there. People were kind of like, I guess a

00:27:19.460 lot of the farmers like, uh, what plant are you from, son? Or Brett, Brett, I literally

00:27:24.340 got laughed at at one point. Okay. And I write about it a little bit and you know, it's still

00:27:29.260 like one of those things that, uh, you know, makes the hair stand up on the back of your

00:27:32.480 neck from like, you know, kind of the indignity of it. You know, I still, I still like have

00:27:36.480 take umbrage, you know, it's like, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm serving at this party and you

00:27:43.160 know, I'm a, I'm working as a caterer to like pay in, I'm not as a caterer, as a server

00:27:48.780 for a catering company, um, to help pay my bills while I try to farm. You know, this is

00:27:53.740 like my night job. I'm serving like cucumber sandwiches to people. I'm at this party and I'm telling

00:27:58.780 these farmers, you know, in a, in a, in a, you know, 30 second little break, like what

00:28:02.120 I'm up to. And, uh, you know, they literally, after I get done telling them that I'm going

00:28:06.840 to sell grass fed beef and take it to farmer's market. And, uh, you know, we're going to get

00:28:11.220 like local customers. They turned to each other and made eye contact. It's like one of those

00:28:15.540 moments where you're like, they just couldn't help but laugh. You know, it's like, who's going

00:28:19.360 to laugh first? And it's like burst into laughter. And you know, I must've turned red from

00:28:23.880 the tips of my ears down to my toes, you know? So, so what kept you going? I mean,

00:28:28.700 through all those, I mean, like from the book, he sent it, it took a while for you to like

00:28:32.840 even start making a profit and the profits you made were very small, like 18 bucks.

00:28:37.720 Right. Um, I mean, what kept you going through all the negativity and I mean, the, I mean,

00:28:44.820 just like the, the lack of results. I mean, what kept you going?

00:28:48.240 Right. Um, you know, if, if we think about farming, uh, you know, farming and writing

00:28:54.500 both are, are not really notorious for, uh, being great, um, careers from a financial

00:29:00.920 standpoint. Okay. There's reason why people go to law school and medical school and all

00:29:05.600 these things. Um, so I, I had help from my, both my parents, um, they realized that they

00:29:12.860 could not farm. Okay. Again, keep in mind, this is the late seventies, early eighties when,

00:29:17.020 you know, you know, stock market was, was doing very well and the economy was going

00:29:20.340 strong and all this stuff, but commodity prices were just in the toilet. So both my

00:29:24.840 parents, they were not farmers. They both had off farm jobs in, in Washington, DC and

00:29:30.600 another local big town. So when I came along, like there was no logical way for me to say

00:29:38.540 like, I'm going to make a living here until I had enough time to like either figure it

00:29:44.700 out or fail trying, like fail nobly. Okay. Like you gave it a hell of a go, you know,

00:29:51.080 it's been four years and you know, it's not working out kind of thing. So, you know, I'm,

00:29:55.500 I'm just constantly grateful for my parents and, um, to like, believe in me, you know,

00:30:01.040 and, and what greater, what greater honor can, can anybody have been like, you know, your

00:30:05.920 dad who's working a desk job in DC be like, look, son, like, I don't really think it's going

00:30:13.400 to work out. Um, I don't, I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, but like, I love

00:30:17.780 you, man, you know, and we're, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to stick

00:30:21.780 behind you as long as, as long as you keep going. Um, and you know, in a lot of ways,

00:30:26.940 this, this book was, was kind of a, uh, written in gratitude to, to that spirit. Um, it's just

00:30:32.960 a spirit of something bigger than yourself, you know, and that's the best way I can describe

00:30:38.700 farming. It's like a commitment to a, to a faith, a faith and, and, uh, and spirituality

00:30:44.740 that's just bigger than, than any of us.

00:30:47.240 I love that. I love that so much. Makes me want to be farmer right now. Um, so you're,

00:30:51.660 you're a big success now, right? Um, you got a book, uh, the farm is, is thriving. I mean,

00:30:56.940 it's like, it's like a, it's like a, you have multiple streams of revenue coming in. I mean,

00:31:00.900 it's like a little corporation almost, right? Um, what was the tipping point, uh, for you?

00:31:07.280 Was there a particular moment or were there moments where you're like, man, yeah, this

00:31:10.300 is working. I can make this a success.

00:31:13.220 The moment was when I got interviewed by Art of Manliness for a podcast. It's living history,

00:31:19.780 folks. Oh man. Like, uh, you know, um, the, the easiest way I can, I can answer that is like,

00:31:29.000 you know, it was like an overnight success after, for 15 years, you know, it's like, okay, this

00:31:34.320 guy, this guy, this guy's a, this guy's a success, right? Overnight. Uh,

00:31:37.260 um, just overnight over and over and over again. Like the, the biggest thing I can attribute any

00:31:42.400 of this to is like my customers believing me. Okay. Like, you know, in the acknowledgements,

00:31:47.920 I'd say, thank you. That's the last thing I say to my customers and none, like nothing I could have

00:31:53.900 done could have happened if my customers didn't say like, look, there's this 25 year old guy.

00:31:59.800 He's on the back of pickup truck. He's wearing a bandana and a, you know, a t-shirt with no sleeves

00:32:05.180 on it. Like, like who in their right mind would buy like frozen ground beef on a street corner

00:32:11.540 from like a human that looked like me. Okay. Like if they didn't have like a greater mission

00:32:17.960 about what they were about, like, what did they value, you know? And my customers just bring me

00:32:23.500 their values. And that's like, you know, about humane raising of animals about like, you know,

00:32:28.860 organic growing practices. It's about, um, like, you know, they really want to support like small

00:32:36.780 family farms that are just like with transparent growing practices, you know, they value the fact

00:32:42.060 that they can get in their car and drive out to my farm and just like go to walk around and open

00:32:47.100 the barn doors. And they're not going to see like bags of chemicals that like I'm keeping,

00:32:50.640 like in the back of the shed, you know what I mean? Uh, so yeah, it's, you know, it, it all,

00:32:56.780 it basically all comes down to, you know, people believing you and, and after a while, if you get

00:33:02.140 enough people believing in you, then, uh, yeah, you start to rock and roll a little bit.

00:33:07.180 Um, so what's typical, what's the typical day on your, on the farm? Like for you, I mean,

00:33:10.960 is it like really like what you read about in those books or like you grew up watching an old

00:33:15.580 movies where you wake up at four o'clock in the morning? I mean, is that what it's like?

00:33:19.480 I mean, what kind of walks through your day? Sure. Um, yeah, I'm not exactly sure what a

00:33:25.100 typical day really is after, after 17 days, 17 years of farming. Um, there is some routine

00:33:31.200 in it. We do, we attend seven farmers markets in Washington, DC every weekend. That doesn't

00:33:37.060 mean like from May through October, that's year round. Okay. Um, we, we have a year round

00:33:41.960 food platform in the form of livestock, you know, livestock, it's got their seasonality to it.

00:33:46.580 Don't get me wrong. Like we only raise our chickens, for example, in the summertime when

00:33:49.880 the grass is out, our, our, our meat chickens, I should say, but everything else, even our land

00:33:54.300 hens, you know, um, I I've got dozens of pictures of chickens out in the snow year after year after

00:33:59.940 year. So, um, like what's a typical day, but if, if aside from our weekends where we attend

00:34:08.040 farmers markets, um, Monday through Friday is going to be like, just, just absolutely fraught with

00:34:14.520 variability. It could be anything from, you know, putting up a new fence to taking a chainsaw

00:34:20.660 out to a tree that just fell on the new fence. You know, it can be, uh, changing the oil in our

00:34:26.300 truck, uh, as preventative, uh, you know, in our, in our 13 year old farm truck to finding out that

00:34:32.600 because we didn't change the oil, like the head gasket went on it, you know, now we got to get the

00:34:36.600 truck to the shop. Um, you know, this morning I, um, worked a bunch of sheep, trimmed hooves,

00:34:44.280 checked the parasites, um, fixed a flat tire on a livestock trailer and, uh, picked up my farm

00:34:51.900 hand for lunch because his truck was out of commission and like ran him over, uh, to where

00:34:56.700 he lives. Um, you know, that's, that might not sound very like romantic. Um, but that's like my

00:35:02.260 typical day, man, working with livestock, checking on pastures, making sure stuff isn't broken

00:35:07.680 and fixing it. Well, you sound like you had a much manlier morning than I did. Like I went to the

00:35:12.780 post office and I went to office depot and I bought some envelopes. So that's not very manly. I need to,

00:35:22.340 you make me feel inadequate. Well, you know, that's a not, not intentional for sure. I like,

00:35:30.380 I like, I love a good envelope, man. Yeah. Who doesn't? Um, all right. So

00:35:35.980 people who are listening to this podcast and they're like, man, I want to eat a pig that smells

00:35:41.880 like maple syrup. Um, or I want a cow, like I want to support this sort of sustainable farming. I want

00:35:47.740 to reap the benefits of this. What can these people who are listening, these guys who are listening,

00:35:51.860 what can they do to support sustainable farming? Right. The, the best answer I can give to that,

00:35:59.400 like the easiest answer is, and, and, and it's easier than ever, frankly, um, is, is know your

00:36:07.060 farmer. Okay. Know your farmer. Like anybody that's out there listening right now, um, tell me

00:36:13.380 who your farmer is. Like who pops to mind. I want to, and I want to face in a name. Okay. Like who's

00:36:18.140 your doctor. Okay. Does it, you know, um, who works in your office, you know, who's your kid's soccer

00:36:23.440 coach, you know, like, why do we know all these names and faces? Like, but we don't know who our

00:36:29.700 farmer is. Okay. Or our farmers plural. So the easiest thing to do is go know your farmer. Where

00:36:35.280 do you find a farmer? You find them at farmer's markets. Okay. You find them through CSA through,

00:36:40.760 which is an acronym for community, pardon me, community supported agriculture or community

00:36:47.020 subscription agriculture. Um, you can find them through buying clubs where someone in your

00:36:52.300 neighborhood's like, Hey, I know like you're too busy to like go out and find your farmer.

00:36:56.580 But like, I know this person, um, I've been out to their farm. I'm going to like pull a bunch of

00:37:01.480 food. Cause I've got like a 20 cubic foot chest freezer, you know, and, and, and a big, a big

00:37:06.640 refrigerator in my garage that I'm not using. And we're going to have like a drop-off, um, for this

00:37:11.500 farmer. So you can go to a farm, like say, I want to buy a cow, right? Like if you wanted

00:37:16.940 to, yeah, yeah, sure. And that's like a fourth option. Yeah. And like my greater point is

00:37:21.120 like, there are myriad options and like, I'm not like blowing smoke. Like these are real

00:37:25.120 things. Okay. Like farmer's markets, there's like, you know, it's one in a, in an economy

00:37:30.120 for the last 10 years where all you hear about is like how bad the economy is. Like, you know,

00:37:34.360 both the bums out of office, they're gridlocked. They can't get the economy going. Well, guess 1.00

00:37:38.100 what? Like farmer's markets in the past 10 years have gone from like something like 500

00:37:43.000 nationally to like, like seven or 8,000.

00:37:46.240 Wow. Okay. And that's growth. Like any, any industry would be incredibly envious of.

00:37:52.300 And this isn't like, you know, let's make some more widgets in Hong Kong. Okay. We need

00:37:57.400 more action figures because Star Wars has a new movie out kind of thing. These are like

00:38:01.360 family farms that are just like strapping it up saying like, look, customers are really

00:38:06.800 finally give a damn about the food arising. Now we're going to take it to farmer's market.

00:38:11.860 And what we as customers have to do is say like, yes, thank you. We're going to show

00:38:17.460 up. We're going to buy this food. We're going to, you know, create a relationship with this

00:38:22.440 farmer and get to know, you know, not just one farmer, like, you know, a whole market

00:38:25.860 full of people and like get behind this stuff.

00:38:28.920 That's awesome. So just, yeah, get out, just find a farmer and put them in your Rolodex

00:38:33.900 or your iPhone. I guess people don't use Rolodex anymore. So yeah. Awesome. All right.

00:38:40.380 So there's probably some guys who are listening to this like me who are, I'm talking to you.

00:38:44.480 I'm like, man, I want to become a farmer. I'm not sure that's doable right now, but there's

00:38:49.220 a young guy who's like, you're, you know, he's 20. He was the age that you were when you

00:38:53.260 decided I want to become a farmer. Any advice that you can, um, give these guys who are considering

00:38:59.620 this career? And in fact, I think you're, you're actually writing a guest post for us

00:39:02.780 about. Right. Exactly. So yeah. The cliff notes version, I guess.

00:39:08.780 Yeah. Um, and I've touched on a bunch of these, a bunch of these subjects, um, within the podcast,

00:39:14.760 but yeah, like the kind of like the cliff cliff notes version of, you know, like, you know,

00:39:19.140 the top, you know, top 10 rules of like starting your own farm. Number one has to be stay out of

00:39:25.300 debt. Okay. Like what is it about our culture that wants to take shortcuts on everything? Okay. We

00:39:33.320 want to like get to the finish line first. We want to win the video game first. You know, we want to

00:39:38.020 have like the most likes on Facebook. Okay. You know, slow food, local food, organic farming has nothing

00:39:46.740 to do with shortcuts. It's like the anti-shortcut. Okay. Um, and what we do as a culture is we feel

00:39:53.920 like, look, I really want that $600,000 house and man, I need it now. You know, I need with a

00:39:58.780 swimming pool and I need it within like, you know, for under a 40 minute commute to my house because

00:40:04.220 I don't want to live in the city, but you know, I really want to have this house. So we finance it

00:40:08.220 with debt. And then guess what happens in 2008, in 2009? Okay. The chick, you know, to borrow a farm

00:40:14.780 analogy, the chickens came home to roost. Okay. And we all got in trouble. And this happens over

00:40:19.320 and over again with, in farming, because there is so much variability with the weather, with prices,

00:40:28.220 with our own personal energy levels, with unexpected, you know, calamities, uh, health

00:40:35.080 problems. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And you can't have any of these things

00:40:39.780 and farm successfully. Like you, you can only farm when everything's successfully,

00:40:45.340 when everything's going right. So we have to assume that lots of things are going to go wrong,

00:40:50.360 which is where I get down further in the post and I say, expect to fail and accept failure,

00:40:54.820 like value failure. Okay. Um, but you know, knowing that we're going to fail, like stay out of debt.

00:41:02.520 Okay. Um, and that's the best way I can say, like, just grow slowly and, and buy what you can

00:41:09.900 afford. You know, if you can only afford to rent, you know, five acres and you've got a farm,

00:41:16.220 then there's nothing small about five acres, man. You can grow a lot of vegetables and a lot,

00:41:22.720 you know, you could raise a whole flock of free raised land hens on five acres and make money on it.

00:41:27.180 You know, I challenge anybody to go out and raise five acres of tomatoes and, uh, and tell me that's

00:41:32.920 not a job. That's a small farm. Okay. Yeah, for sure. Um, so how is this whole experience,

00:41:40.200 how long has it been like 15 years in the making about, how has this 15 year experience of saving

00:41:46.360 the family farm, um, becoming a sustainable farming, how has it made you a better man?

00:41:51.440 Um, well, that's a, that's a pretty challenging question. I, I, I think, I think the best way,

00:42:02.580 um, the best way I can answer that is to say like, um, it made me a willing father. Okay. And that's

00:42:10.680 going to sound a little weird for the first thing to say, but I've got an eight year old son. Okay. And

00:42:16.300 the farm has been in my family for seven generations now. And, you know, it doesn't really matter if

00:42:22.360 it's been in my family for one generation or, or, or 10 generations. It's just, that's the way it's

00:42:27.720 been. And for seven generations or six generations before me, somebody had to say yes. Okay. Somebody

00:42:36.180 had to say like, you know, I'm not taking that job in town. I'm not going to run for politics or

00:42:41.920 whatever, you know, or, you know, fill in the blank. I'm going to be a farmer. And when I came

00:42:49.360 along, I had to be that person. Like a farm isn't a farm without a farmer. Okay. A farm is just a

00:42:56.680 piece of land. It's a, it's a park. It's a, it's a woods that you drive by on the highway. It's a

00:43:01.180 protected, you know, piece of land that was bought by some billion dollar endowment. Okay. A farm has to

00:43:07.600 have a farmer. And if I'm going to be able to pass anything on, like if I'm going to be,

00:43:14.800 you know, fulfilled as a man, um, then I have to have a son or a daughter to come along behind me

00:43:23.660 and say like, yeah, dad, like, this is cool. You know, uh, what you're doing, what you're doing

00:43:31.180 works. And like, I want to do it too. Like, you know, the kid in the back of the crowd, like pick me,

00:43:36.420 pick me, I want to be on your kickball. You know, that, that kind of excitement. That's,

00:43:40.440 that's the way it's got to be. So like, you know, I didn't, when I was 20 years old,

00:43:44.580 I wasn't thinking about any of this stuff. Um, I was, you know, thinking about pizzas and going,

00:43:49.620 going to watch a movie and, and, and, you know, waking up with enough energy the next day to,

00:43:53.440 to farm for, you know, 10 or 12 hours. But then you do this for a year after year after year

00:43:58.820 and your, your, your priorities and your goals just begin to shift. And when you entered,

00:44:04.620 you know, when you bring another human life into the farm, it just really completes,

00:44:09.420 completes the picture for, uh, you know, as another component of what sustainability really

00:44:14.600 means.

00:44:15.320 Yeah. So it's, I mean, it's kind of inspired you to like start, you know,

00:44:19.140 inspire you to like start leaving a legacy, right? Like you want to be able to pass this

00:44:23.020 down to your children, your grandchildren.

00:44:25.100 Yeah. That's, I think that's really well put. Um, word legacy is like a very poetic

00:44:29.960 kind of encapsulation of exactly what I was talking about. And, you know, and there's

00:44:35.140 plenty of legacies out there that, uh, you know, that we, we were going for like that

00:44:39.820 brass ring and we're, we're, you know, we're going for the golden parachute, whatever.

00:44:44.180 And, uh, at the end of the day, we, we might look back on and be like, what did I really

00:44:47.920 accomplish? You know, but if I can look back on and say like, look, we saved our family

00:44:52.540 farm and, and I've got a kid that like wants to take it over from me, like a family

00:44:57.560 business. Oh man, that's cool. You know, that's awesome. So last question, uh, Forrest,

00:45:04.140 I know you probably got to get back out and shear some sheep or whatever you do.

00:45:07.940 I'm on the way to butcher right after this.

00:45:09.320 Yeah. Um, are there any like life lessons that an average guy, say a guy is not going

00:45:14.380 to be a farmer, but are there any life lessons that a man could take from the life of a farmer

00:45:19.160 that can help them become a better man?

00:45:20.820 Yeah. Um, I mean, let's think about being kids for a minute. Um, what, like, what are

00:45:29.860 the songs that we're taught when we're, we're in kindergarten? We, we, you know, we learned

00:45:34.420 about old McDonald and like all his, all the sound, you know, all the different animals

00:45:38.080 on his farm. We, you know, we were given like a, uh, you know, play set for, for a barn

00:45:43.500 with a farmer and it's, you know, a donkey and a cow and all this stuff. And, um, like,

00:45:48.320 like why, you know, after we're all so removed from being on farms ourselves, like, why do

00:45:55.740 we still value as a culture, like the idea of a farmer, you know, there's gotta be something

00:46:01.960 there. You know, we don't, we don't give our kids like, you know, uh, a cubicle to play

00:46:06.640 with. Okay. We don't give them like a little guy sitting behind a desk with like, you know,

00:46:10.980 uh, a computer. Okay. Hey, you know, happy birthday. Play with this. Like, we don't do

00:46:17.540 that. Like, like, why don't we do that? So like, you know, even if you don't want to

00:46:21.380 get into farming, like we just have a cultural resonance that says like, look, we, there's

00:46:27.440 certain things we value about farming. Like we can take these things away and make ourselves

00:46:32.400 better. And like, what are those things, man? I hate to say it, but they're, it's like,

00:46:38.340 it's poetry. Okay. You know, I, I know we, we're not supposed to read poetry. Like, you

00:46:42.960 know, Robert Frost, uh, and everybody aside who, you know, Robert Frost being a famous

00:46:47.400 farmer himself and Wendell Berry for that matter. Um, but like it's issues of faith. It's issues

00:46:53.840 of, of dedication. It's selflessness. You know, it is the desire and the willingness to

00:47:00.780 wake up for 50 years in a row and say, I'm going to put on my boots this morning and I'm

00:47:07.100 going to go out and, and, and, and fix a broken down fence. I'm going to go help pull a calf

00:47:13.120 out of a cow that's straining and it's going to take me all morning. You know, I'm going

00:47:16.840 to go out in the rain this afternoon and, you know, take care of my chickens that are otherwise

00:47:23.300 going to be out there getting, getting pneumonia. If like, I don't take action right now and

00:47:28.020 like wash, rinse and repeat for 50 years. And then what do you get at the end? Do you get

00:47:32.380 like severance package? Do you get like benefits, you know, when you retire? No, of course you don't.

00:47:39.600 Um, so what kind of person does that pay? I don't know. For some reason, our culture continues to

00:47:46.520 value it. And, uh, and, uh, I can't say I disagree. That's good stuff. I'm ready to like get my

00:47:54.080 pitchfork and overalls. Well, go for it, man. By my farm. Well, Forrest, this has been a fascinating

00:48:00.480 discussion. Um, I, all you're listening, I highly recommend go, go out and get his book. Um, it's

00:48:06.700 just, it's an interesting read. Um, so Forrest, thank you very much. My pleasure, Brett. I appreciate

00:48:12.060 the opportunity. Our guest today was Forrest Pritchard. Forrest is the author of the book

00:48:17.500 Gaining Ground. And you can find that on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

00:48:25.300 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,

00:48:30.400 make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And if you guys

00:48:34.920 could do me a favor, if you enjoy the, this podcast, this free podcast, uh, you can go to iTunes

00:48:40.420 and give it a rating and a review that would help me out a lot. Help us, um, help other people find

00:48:47.120 the podcast. So if you knew that, I'd really appreciate it. So until next time, this is

00:48:51.080 Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - April 04, 2014

Episode #47： Saving The Family Farm With Forrest Pritchard

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