The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 539. The Best Argument Against Veganism ｜ Joel Salatin

00:00:00.000 We hear a lot of noise about how cows are contributing to global warming,

00:00:04.940 which is an idea that's really struck me as rather specious right from the beginning.

00:00:08.580 If you want to talk atmospheric carbon, all it would take is all of our farmland

00:00:13.140 to change 1% in organic matter. We call this mob-stocking, herbivorous, solar conversion,

00:00:20.200 lignified carbon sequestration, fertilization. We spend as much time marketing as we do the

00:00:25.860 entire farm production. Really what you are is a communicator and a network builder. Well,

00:00:31.320 why do I need to be fluent in my communication? Why do I need to write? Why do I need to learn to

00:00:36.960 speak? The people who communicate lead their professions. Become a storyteller. Storytellers

00:00:42.960 are what changed the world. Yeah, right.

00:00:55.860 So, I've been very skeptical about these ideas stemming from the WEF globalist types that

00:01:07.140 there's something pathological about the agricultural sector and the dawning concern as well or the

00:01:15.280 building concern about the notion that pasture animals like cattle, for example, are bad for

00:01:22.380 the planet. That just seems to me to be absurd on the face of it. I'd have to see a lot of

00:01:27.440 data, so to speak, before I would regard that as credible. And I'm also interested in

00:01:36.120 meat-based diets, for example, because they seem to be very health-promoting and highly nutritious.

00:01:44.020 And so, one of the things that I've wanted to do for a long time is to spend some time investigating

00:01:49.460 the landscape of so-called regenerative farming. And I found someone to talk to, and there's

00:01:54.660 other people who I could talk to as well, named Joel Salatin. And Joel has written a number of

00:01:59.240 interesting books, and this will give you a sense of him right off the bat. The latest one was

00:02:04.680 Homestead Tsunami, which is a description of, well, the dawning interest in homesteading as a

00:02:11.840 potential choice of life, let's say. He's also written, Everything I Want to Do is Illegal,

00:02:19.740 which I love as a title. You Can Farm, which is partly what we discussed, and Pastured Poultry

00:02:28.380 Profits, which is a book that documents a particular form of agrarian lifestyle as a solution to the

00:02:36.540 economic problems that young people might be facing. So, it's a pathway to a profitable, sustainable,

00:02:42.900 and socially useful economic future. And so, we spent a fair bit of time talking about all of these

00:02:49.420 things to do today. And so, if you're interested in that, then this is the podcast for you.

00:02:56.080 Well, Mr. Salatin, why don't you start just by telling everybody what you do? Let's start from the

00:03:00.900 beginning. Sure. So, we farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, which is in the western part of

00:03:08.220 the state, known historically as the breadbasket of the Confederacy during the Civil War, where Cyrus

00:03:15.020 McCormick invented the reaper. And that part of the Industrial Revolution really took place in 1837.

00:03:23.280 And so, we farmed there full-time with a pastured livestock operation that doesn't use vaccines,

00:03:34.720 hormones, chemical fertilizers. My mom and dad bought the original core property in 1961. So, I was four

00:03:43.680 years old. And we came there, and it was a gullied rock pile, cheap land. And dad asked

00:03:53.880 agriculture experts, how do I make a living on this small farm?

00:03:59.260 Small being how? What's the size?

00:04:01.260 So, at that time, it was about 100 acres open and 450 in woodland. So, it was very much a forest. It

00:04:08.940 goes up along, you know, one of those Appalachian Mountains there. And then, you know, the nice,

00:04:14.760 the bottom land is out, you know, from the base. And so, 100 acres of, you know, decent usable land

00:04:22.160 that was, one of the gullies we measured was 16 feet deep, 16 feet from the top to the bottom. That's

00:04:28.360 a deep gully. But there were just, you know, the hillsides were just gullies like that, like

00:04:32.820 corrugated roofing from back, from erosion, back in, you know, plowing in the day. And large areas,

00:04:42.200 a quarter acre that were just solid rock, five to eight feet of topsoil had washed off over the

00:04:48.320 years of tillage. And there was no vegetation. I remember as a child being able to walk the whole

00:04:55.240 farm and never setting foot on a piece of vegetation. It was that barren. It was very,

00:05:00.640 very poor, but it was, but it was cheap. And, and so that's. And worth every penny by the sounds of

00:05:06.280 it. Well, so, so, you know, dad, dad says, well, how do I make a living on this farm? And it was,

00:05:13.620 you know, buy chemical fertilizer, plant corn, borrow money, build silos, you know, graze the woods.

00:05:19.960 And my grandfather, his dad had been a charter subscriber to Rodale's Organic Gardening and

00:05:25.980 Farming Magazine when it first came out in 1945. And so he always, he always aspired to be a farmer,

00:05:32.760 but never got there. Um, my dad was an accountant, mom was a school teacher. And so he, he saw the,

00:05:41.440 the chemical approach as a, as a, as a rat race. Yeah. Because you're always trying to outrun the,

00:05:49.940 it's like a drug addiction. You're trying to outrun the, the adaptation of, you know, the, the, the,

00:05:56.800 the chemicals, they cannibalize in the soil. There's a lot of things that happen there. And so

00:06:01.900 you're trying, you're trying to chase that. You're, you're hoping that human creativity will keep you

00:06:05.820 one step ahead of, of, of biological adaptation. Right. Well, you're also an interdependent web with

00:06:12.000 all of the manufacturers that's dependent on as well. Right. And they're, they're cutting your,

00:06:18.060 they're nibbling away at your profit margin, which of course they have to do as well to survive.

00:06:23.480 Sure. But right. Okay. So your dad and your mom, your dad was an accountant and your mom was a

00:06:29.780 school teacher. Okay. So they don't know anything about farming.

00:06:33.600 Yeah, they do. We actually, dad was, so dad flew in the Navy in World War II and, uh, on GI Bill,

00:06:40.660 went to Indiana university, got his degree in economics. He met mom there. And then he had a

00:06:45.800 dream of farming. His dad never farmed full-time, but he wanted to farm. Well, how do, you know,

00:06:50.440 I'm a Midwestern boy, no money, no land. How do I farm? And at that time, this was, this was 1940s.

00:06:57.380 And he saw, you know, um, uh, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, there, there was a lot of socialism going on

00:07:04.640 in, in America there, World War II-ish. And, um, he said, you know, I'm going to go to a developing

00:07:13.540 country. You know, it's a, it's a really free market, small government, you know, we can do

00:07:17.580 what we want. So he got on with Texas oil company as a bilingual accountant to Venezuela. And in seven

00:07:23.820 years was able to save enough money to buy a thousand acre farm in the highlands of Venezuela.

00:07:27.660 We started raising thousand acres, thousand acres, started raising chickens. And because our chickens

00:07:33.360 were so clean immediately, he took over the local, the local chicken, right? You know how those Latin 1.00

00:07:38.860 American, all the farmers come in with their wares and, and the middlemen, you know, this

00:07:43.000 is, this is 1950s. And, um, and so he quickly took over the chicken market because the indigenous 1.00

00:07:50.280 chickens had a, they had snot, they had a nasal, they were running in open sewers and things

00:07:56.280 like that. And, uh, of course all the farmers accused us of witchcraft and voodoo and that.

00:08:03.860 And so when there was a, I thought witchcraft generally means sick chickens, not healthy

00:08:08.040 ones. Well, well, uh, it's amazing what you can come up with when you're, you know, when

00:08:13.420 you're looking for a excuse. So, um, so then in 1959, there was the, uh, the junta of, uh,

00:08:19.720 Pettis Jimenez there. And when, when you have anarchy like that, uh, it allows scores to

00:08:26.020 be settled. Yeah, absolutely. It wouldn't be otherwise settled under normal times. And so this

00:08:30.740 gave, uh, a way for people to, um, you know, to develop their, their, um, well, to run us

00:08:40.060 out, if you will. Yeah. And basically the machine guns came in the front door. We went out the

00:08:43.360 back door and we spent another eight months. Dad met with every minister, you know, the

00:08:48.440 secretary of interior, agriculture, treasury, trying to get protection. And nobody would,

00:08:55.700 it was all bribe. You know, how much you pay me, or they were scared they'd be assassinated.

00:09:00.240 And so the only thing to do was to, dad was there 12 years, loved the culture, loved the

00:09:05.280 country and, and, and loved the language, loved the people. But we couldn't, we couldn't, we

00:09:10.880 couldn't stay with no protection like that. So we came back to the States, uh, Easter Sunday,

00:09:16.800 1961. Now were you, when were you born? So I was born in 1957. So were you ever in

00:09:22.740 Venezuela? Yeah. Yeah. You were there too. Do you have any memories of it at all? Toward the

00:09:27.080 end? Yes. Yes. Um, there's a big difference between being three years old and four years

00:09:31.760 old. Yeah. And so I don't remember the farm, but I remember, uh, Caracas. Of course, I

00:09:37.340 spoke Spanish, you know, as well as English. And, um, and, and I remember some of that trauma

00:09:42.980 at the end, like dad turning the car around and running away from gorillas and, you know, 0.99

00:09:47.480 things like that. Right, right. Um, and so there was, there was some trauma there.

00:09:51.060 So that was your encounter with socialism. Yes. Yes. Fun, fun, fun. Yes. And then your

00:09:56.080 family moved to the States and bought this. We came back to the States and, and dad was

00:10:00.200 39, lost everything. And I remember when I hit 39 thinking, if I lost it all, would I

00:10:07.020 start over? And he went way up in my, in my, you know, my respect and honor at that point.

00:10:13.380 And, um, and so we did. The reason that we didn't go back to the Midwest where both he and

00:10:18.980 mom were from and had family was because he was still hoping to go back to Venezuela.

00:10:23.240 He was hoping that when things settled, you know, um, we'd, we'd get a call from the

00:10:29.000 ambassador. And by being that close to DC, you know, we could, we could run up there

00:10:34.960 in hours, sign paperwork and be back to the farm in Venezuela. I see. That was his, that

00:10:40.560 was his. So this was an interim plan. This was an interim plan and it ended up not being

00:10:45.100 an interim plan. He bought a hundred acres that were open and 450 woodland. So, um,

00:10:51.840 let's, let's let everybody listening and watching know about farm size. So compared to traditional

00:10:59.240 farms, let's say of the 1920s and compared to modern farms, how does the farm that your

00:11:05.080 father purchased, how does it, um, how does it, how is it configured in terms of size of

00:11:10.880 comparative size? It would be an average size farm for, for that area. You know, um, 150

00:11:17.240 acres of, of open land, you know, usable land with, you know, with a wood lot. Um, compared

00:11:22.840 to most farms, it had a much bigger wood lot, you know, being 450 acres. That's a, that's

00:11:27.660 a lot of wood. Any commercial utility in the wood? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. This is Appalachian

00:11:31.620 hardwoods. This is oak and black walnut and poplar. And yeah, it's, there's some, there's some

00:11:36.340 good timber there. It, it had been timbered though. It had been all timbered. So it was

00:11:41.880 primarily, you know, newer growth. It wasn't large, you know, it wasn't large trees. And,

00:11:47.860 um, so there was really not much value there. There was some, but not a lot of value.

00:11:52.860 And how much of the land you talked about the gullies and the rock and the fact there

00:11:56.980 was very little vegetation, how much of the hundred open acres was damaged in that way?

00:12:01.580 You're, you implied that all of it, all of it was, all of it was poor. Um, some of it

00:12:07.960 was, was poorer than others. It wasn't all rock for sure. You know, the, the shale lies

00:12:14.040 in a, it lies like this in, in the ground. And so, you know, you can, you can go down three

00:12:20.000 feet here and then here you're on rock and then three feet here and you're on, you know,

00:12:23.680 it's, it's layers. It, it, it kind of lays in there like that. So, um, so, you know,

00:12:29.160 that's the way that that's the way the land was, but, uh, dad was a, dad was a, he was

00:12:36.080 such a visionary. And, um, so, so when, when we realized that the, the advice from the,

00:12:46.160 the system is not acceptable. Um, and why did he think that exactly? Like, I mean, lots

00:12:53.000 of people do take that route and some people make it profitable. And so why did your father,

00:12:57.660 why had he decide what was the alternative route precisely? And why did he decide to

00:13:02.700 take that, especially back then? Right. Well, A, we didn't, he had a tremendous

00:13:07.380 conservation ethic and these gullies he knew. Oh, I see. We, we, we didn't, we couldn't

00:13:11.760 plant corn. I mean, there wasn't enough. That's why we had gullies, you know? Right,

00:13:15.860 right. So we could see that it had been mismanaged. Right. Oh yeah. Yeah. We, we, you could

00:13:20.940 tell that it had been very mismanaged. So we, we started a very aggressive tree planting

00:13:25.160 campaign. We planted about 60 acres in trees over those first 10 years. So we actually

00:13:31.540 shrunk some of the open land. Uh, and we, you know, we put, we put brush down in the gullies

00:13:38.260 and, and, um, and then we start, and he started experimenting.

00:13:42.340 That was to stabilize the soil against erosion?

00:13:44.720 To, to stop, at least stop the erosion. And, um, and one of my most poignant childhood memories

00:13:51.880 was one Sunday, he said, let's, let's take, I met this, I met this guy. I want to go see

00:13:56.960 him. So we got in the car on a Sunday afternoon, took this drive. And I don't remember what the

00:14:02.460 guy, I don't remember whether he had sheep or chickens or pigs or whatever he had. All

00:14:07.600 I remember was coming home. I was what, maybe six or seven. I remember coming home and dad

00:14:12.420 just literally levitating as he drove the car. This guy had portable animal shelters and dad

00:14:21.100 had never seen anything like that before. And it clicked in his head. Wow. Portable animal

00:14:25.960 shelters. Suddenly I don't have to build stationary. I don't have to build a barn. I can build mobile

00:14:31.460 infrastructure. And because he'd already gotten onto this, this moving animals around. Some

00:14:37.140 Andre Voizini was a Frenchman who, who wrote, uh, grass productivity, kind of still the Bible of,

00:14:42.960 of rotational or controlled grazing. And where, where you mimic native, native, um, choreography

00:14:50.660 where animals, the animals migrate, the animals migrate, they move around. Right. And, and so,

00:14:55.980 you know, we don't have wolves, um, and they won't let us do fire very much. Uh, and so,

00:15:01.800 but we do have electric fence. Electric fence was just coming in. This is the early sixties.

00:15:05.600 And so dad actually invented a portable electric fencing system to where we could start moving

00:15:10.480 the cows around. And, um, and, and, you know, we moved them, whatever, once every 10 days or so

00:15:16.900 and gradually got better and better and better until by the, you know, by the time I was a teenager,

00:15:22.960 we were moving them, you know, every three or four days. Then when I was in college,

00:15:26.480 I put in our basic permanent grid so we could move them every day. And that, that was a quantum leap

00:15:32.420 that, that, that moved us. When we started moving them every day, everything started to kick in.

00:15:38.580 Okay. So walk us through that. So, so on, on a, a typical farm would have a fenced off area

00:15:45.780 and the cattle will graze there. And the problem with that is they'll graze the,

00:15:51.300 the vegetation right down to the ground and then that's not good. Right. Right. And so hypothetically,

00:15:57.400 if you could imagine a huge circle, you could rotate them around the circle at some speed and

00:16:02.760 they, and they wouldn't be able to graze at some of it and that would grow in behind them. That's

00:16:07.320 right. Then their waste products would also fertilize the land and the grass would stabilize,

00:16:13.240 be stabilized against erosion. Yeah. Right. And so, okay. So now you said you'd experimented with 10

00:16:19.360 days and then four and then one. And gradually got it down to where. Okay. So how do you,

00:16:23.400 how do you build the electric fences and how do you, how do they move? Yeah. So, so the thing you

00:16:28.840 have to understand from a, from an ecology standpoint is if we had a graph and we, and we

00:16:34.800 charted the way grass, the way vegetation grows, it grows in a sigmoid curve. It, it, you know, it's,

00:16:40.360 it's just like a person. Now they start small, little baby, you know, and then they hit teenage years

00:16:45.340 and, you know, they grow real fast and then they quit growing and eventually go into senescence.

00:16:50.060 So I call this diaper grass, teenage grass, and nursing home grass. Okay. Just to help. And so

00:16:56.380 if you, if you want to accumulate the most biomass possible, you want to let it go through that blaze

00:17:03.820 of growth. So the whole idea of controlled grazing is to hit it at the second break point, not this

00:17:10.200 break point, not this point down here when it's long enough to graze, but it hasn't gone through this,

00:17:15.220 this teenage growth spurt. So that's what the, that's what the electric fence becomes then a,

00:17:21.500 a steering wheel, an accelerator and a brake on the, on the four-legged sauerkraut pruner to be able to

00:17:28.920 steer them around the landscape to catch this second growth point all the time. And suddenly what happens

00:17:36.960 is by letting the grass go through there, you get a completely different energy flow because now the

00:17:43.740 grass is always at energy equilibrium. It's not. What do you mean by energy equilibrium? What I mean is

00:17:48.120 when the, when the, when the forage gets pruned or grazed, I use the word pruning because grazing is now,

00:17:54.660 that's a bad word. Okay. So, so pruning. All right. When it gets pruned, if it gets pruned too frequently,

00:18:00.540 you actually weaken the plant. And so by, by only allowing, by controlling when the pruner can prune

00:18:11.160 strategically, you, you allow that plant to actually accumulate energy and vibrancy and flourish,

00:18:20.560 just like pruning a vineyard or, you know, an apple tree or anything else. And so, for example,

00:18:26.120 in our area, the average grass... Right. So the optimal amount of grazing in a grassland is not

00:18:31.560 zero. Yes. No. So, so rather than grazing, you know, 20 times this long, we're grazing six times

00:18:40.180 this long, for example. And, and so in our county, for example, the average cow days per acre. So a cow

00:18:48.800 day is what one cow will eat in a day. All right. That's a cow day. And in our county, the average is 80

00:18:55.300 cow days per acre. So an acre will support 80 cows for one day a year or one cow for 80 days a year.

00:19:02.620 We're averaging almost 400. And we started with gullies and rocks and never planted a... 400.

00:19:09.660 So five times the efficiency. Yeah. Right. Because you're allowing them to graze...

00:19:13.900 Because we're allowing that forage... Why doesn't everybody do that?

00:19:18.820 If there's five times the efficiency gain, it seems self-evident. Because, because they,

00:19:22.800 they, they think it's too hard to move cows. Yeah. Well, it's fair enough. They're big and

00:19:28.260 they think it's too hard to move cows. Well, we're, I mean, we have a thousand heads, so we're not

00:19:32.940 a backyard operation by any means. But, but most people, because it's new. Yeah. It's, it's just

00:19:40.600 different. It's new. It's not what, it's not what grandpa did. Yeah. Yeah. And you got to realize

00:19:44.580 that, you know, with America's average farmer being 60 years old. Right. The, the, the average

00:19:50.680 farmer is still in grandpa's paradigm. Right. When land was cheap, fuel was cheap, you know,

00:19:58.620 and it is still in this 1950s paradigm. You know, when we talk about... The average farmer is 60.

00:20:04.400 Is 60 years old, which means in the next 15 years, half of all America's agriculture equity

00:20:10.860 is going to change hands. Land, land, buildings, and machinery. So that means there's a time for

00:20:14.800 potential transformation there. Exactly. Yeah. Or catastrophic failure. Yes. Yes. And that level

00:20:20.720 of agrarian equity transfer has never happened that fast in any civilization in history, except in

00:20:28.200 conquest. You know, the Huns come on and run over Rome or whatever. Now, I'm not saying we're getting

00:20:33.100 ready to have conquest. I am suggesting that we're in a guinea pig time here if we can pull this off at

00:20:39.580 piece and have this level of transfer. So obviously the question is, well, who, who, who, who's going

00:20:46.080 to control this land in 15 years? Is it BlackRock? Is it Bill Gates? Is it to Chinese? Is it, you know, 0.99

00:20:52.140 what is it? And, uh, that's why I'm a bit on a, on a tear to try to, to try to, uh, germinate young

00:20:59.380 farmers. So to speak. Yeah. Yeah. Young farmers to jump on this because I think we're in an

00:21:07.320 unprecedented time of opportunity in farming because so much is going to become available.

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00:22:27.020 and a healthier you. Okay, so now you have this land. It's all full of gullies. It's not doing very well.

00:22:35.800 You start planting trees to rehabilitate it. What do you do about the gullies? How do you get grassland

00:22:41.680 to grow? How do you introduce the cows? And then tell me more about the electric fencing and how you

00:22:46.860 learn to move them, move the cattle. Yeah, so some of the gullies were on gentle land, you know,

00:22:54.080 pasture land. And those, we actually built, dug ponds, built ponds in low ground and hauled the silt.

00:23:03.340 All that silt that had accumulated down in the valley, we hauled it up and actually literally

00:23:10.020 filled in those ditches, you know, with taking the silt that had washed down. A lot of the real steep...

00:23:18.440 Now, you built ponds where you took the silt out of? Yes, yes. So now...

00:23:23.640 So the erosion had washed the soil and you found where that had washed it.

00:23:27.900 And we actually found 100-year-old fence posts buried 10 feet under silt.

00:23:35.560 Hmm. Okay. And you trucked that?

00:23:37.360 Yes, yes. And what, trucks and what, front-end loaders?

00:23:41.300 Yeah, yeah. A track loader, you know, and a couple dump trucks. And I mean, you're just

00:23:46.920 running it, whatever, you know, 200 yards. I mean, it's close. Boom, boom, boom. And so...

00:23:52.080 You're flattening everything back out. So we're filling in those gullies.

00:23:56.600 Are you filling it in with... Do you fill it in with filler first and then topsoil?

00:24:01.640 Or what... You just fill it in with the material you're digging to build a pond.

00:24:06.560 I see. Okay. So you're just digging out...

00:24:08.120 Okay. So it's relatively straightforward if you have the machinery.

00:24:10.820 Yeah, yeah. That's right.

00:24:11.500 And you had enough capital for the machinery.

00:24:13.220 Well, we hired to excavate.

00:24:16.020 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:16.900 Yeah. But that wasn't done early. That was done much, much later. You know, we just started

00:24:23.760 moving animals around and...

00:24:26.220 On the land you had.

00:24:27.480 And the choreography of moving them around itself was a tremendous healer. And I watched over my

00:24:36.300 lifetime, these, you know, big quarter acre saucers of bare rock, just like a scab on your hand,

00:24:44.660 you know, it heals from the outside in. Doesn't heal from the inside out. It heals from the outside

00:24:48.640 in. You know, it gets smaller and smaller and finally that last little, you know, and you pull

00:24:52.400 it off in your new skin. That's exactly the way the soil was on these barren places. Every year,

00:24:58.300 you know, 18 inches, the soil would come up on the edge. 18 inches, 18 inches till eventually

00:25:03.520 the rocks were not there today. And so why did it come back exactly?

00:25:08.780 Because vegetation, decompose, if you can get enough decomposing vegetation, that builds

00:25:15.800 soil.

00:25:16.240 Right, right.

00:25:17.020 That's how you build soil.

00:25:18.020 So blow up, like the dead leaves blow along the edges and collect.

00:25:21.120 And so by letting the grass grow to this second point where we're getting this, you know,

00:25:26.640 Boyzine called it the blaze of growth period all the time, we were getting more root structure

00:25:32.900 water, more biomass, more manure from the animals themselves.

00:25:38.840 So the plants will colonize the rocks, essentially.

00:25:41.160 The plants, absolutely. And so today, all those areas that when I was a kid, you know,

00:25:46.720 it was bare rock, today has, you know, 16 inches of soil on it.

00:25:50.260 Okay, now I wanted to ask you specifically about that too, because we hear a lot of noise about

00:25:55.700 how cows are contributing to global warming, which, you know, is an idea that's really struck

00:26:01.080 me as rather specious right from the beginning. Because like, the buffalo did that too?

00:26:05.920 Like, I see, so huge herds of grazing animals are bad for the planet. That strikes me as highly

00:26:11.980 unlikely. So, and I know they talk about methane, but, you know, people talk about a lot of things.

00:26:17.520 Now, you said that you regenerated the ground with the cattle and with the careful management

00:26:25.380 of grass. And now you're producing, say, a foot of topsoil on top of this rock. I presume that's

00:26:31.920 also a carbon sink.

00:26:33.400 Yes. Oh, absolutely.

00:26:34.640 Right. Because plants take in carbon because they're like made out of carbon.

00:26:38.340 Right. And in fact, when we look at that, in 1961, the first soil test that we took,

00:26:44.680 we averaged about 1% organic matter. Organic matter is a kissing cousin to carbon.

00:26:50.300 Organic matter is, is something is, is. Right. Because carbon is life-based. Life-based.

00:26:55.860 Life is carbon-based. Yeah. Right, right, right. And so, so organic matter is something that was

00:27:00.840 living at one time and now it's in a, it's in some state of decomposition in soil. It's what gives

00:27:06.940 soil its porosity, its bounce, its, you know, it, it, it, it's. It's what's, it's what segregates it

00:27:13.200 from sand or dust. Yes, yes, yes. Or even clay. Right, right, right. And so, so 1%. Today, we're a

00:27:22.940 little over 8%. So, all it would take, I mean, if you want to talk climate, you know, atmospheric

00:27:32.020 carbon, all it would take is all of our farmland to change 1% in organic matter and we would return

00:27:41.000 to pre-1960 atmospheric carbon levels. Yeah, well, one of the things that's really struck me as

00:27:47.540 incomprehensible about the carbon debate is, so I know, for example, that over the last 30 years,

00:27:54.700 something like that, the planet has greened quite radically, especially in semi-arid areas. And that

00:28:02.960 seems to be a consequence of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, some of which is arguably human-made,

00:28:09.960 but the net consequence of that, it's so interesting to see, is immense green. It's

00:28:15.880 something like 20% of the Earth's area, which is like, that's a lot. And the fact that it's in

00:28:21.580 semi-arid areas means that exactly the desert-like areas that we're supposed to expand according to

00:28:28.020 the climate doomsayers have actually shrunk. And then, and I've been thinking that through,

00:28:34.320 again, more recently, I talked to Patrick Moore, for example, and he was one of the founders of

00:28:39.680 Greenpeace, and Moore has produced these, he's not the only one, but he's produced these graphs of

00:28:44.200 carbon dioxide levels across like 500 million years instead of 250. And we're definitely at a

00:28:51.260 carbon dioxide low. And so, if we tap it up even a little bit, it makes a big difference. But that's

00:28:56.500 all to say that plants like carbon dioxide a lot. And then when there's more of it, they grow and

00:29:04.360 sequester it. And they do that rapidly. And so, and then I read a paper here recently that indicated

00:29:09.380 that the typical climate model underestimates the rapidity at which plants utilize carbon dioxide by

00:29:16.360 30%, which is like a fairly large margin of error. And so, it just seems to me to be self-evident that

00:29:22.620 if we set the preconditions, plants would mop up any excess carbon dioxide in like no time flat.

00:29:29.240 And so, you're saying that if we improved even our grazing habits so that grass was allowed to

00:29:36.280 grow longer before it was grazed on, you don't need much of a percentage in how effective the

00:29:41.660 plants sequester carbon to take whatever excess carbon is.

00:29:46.380 That's exactly right. And as pastures, as perennials, and of course, you know, a lot of

00:29:51.480 North America was a perennial, it was a prairie, okay? That's a perennial prairie as opposed to an

00:29:56.220 annual, which is corn, soybeans, and crops. Okay, annual crops. Okay. In a healthy perennial...

00:30:02.980 Yes, you don't have to plant perennials. They just grow year after year.

00:30:05.940 That's right. That's right. So, in a perennial prairie situation, pasture situation,

00:30:11.520 if it's healthy, there's enough methanotrophic bacteria. This is a special kind of freestanding

00:30:17.920 bacteria, methanotrophic bacteria. And like its name suggests, it's there to pull down methane.

00:30:24.480 I mean, there's enough there to metabolize into the soil bank the methane released from

00:30:32.720 1,000 cows per acre. Well, you're never going to have 1,000 cows per acre. So...

00:30:38.620 So, where do these ideas come from then, given... Because we here follow the science all the

00:30:44.260 time, but then if you look into the science, first of all, there's plenty, there's a plethora

00:30:48.880 of opinions. Yeah. Right. At minimum. Yeah. And so, and just now and then, you know, when you're

00:30:54.420 looking at data, you kind of have to stand back and use your head a bit. And you start from maybe

00:30:59.380 the presumption that any idea that large grazing herds are bad for the planet is to be regarded

00:31:04.680 with extreme skepticism to begin with. Because large grazing herds are exactly the sorts of things

00:31:10.620 that the environmental types worship when they're happening naturally in Africa. So,

00:31:15.700 you can't have it both ways. That's right. And so, I've just always thought the idea that

00:31:21.020 pastured animals, properly pastured, being bad for the planet somehow, and that's as bad as

00:31:27.980 equating factory farming with regenerative farming, for example. Right.

00:31:31.700 They're not the same thing at all. No. Okay. So, your experience on the farm was that carefully

00:31:36.680 managed grazing herds regenerated soil that, well, not even soil. They actually made rocky areas

00:31:45.620 into soil that could then be, well, first of all, carbon sink, if you care about such things,

00:31:51.380 but also productive grazing land. Yes. Yes. And a big part of the trick there is to manage the grass

00:31:56.140 properly and to move the cattle. Yeah. Okay. And then we began adding the other species. So,

00:32:03.000 you've got the cattle. And so, we look around. So, Jordan, a lot of what developed here was

00:32:08.720 in the mid-60s, dad looked around and he said, well, 10-10-10 chemical fertilizer doesn't build soil.

00:32:17.500 All right. What does build soil? What makes regeneration happen? And it's very simple. You know,

00:32:24.960 there is no animal-less ecology. So, you got to have animals. Well, what about these animals? Well,

00:32:30.380 they move. Well, if they move, then we have to give them shelter, water, and control. And so,

00:32:38.580 all of our innovations that we're now, you know, famous for grew out of not, you know, we didn't sit

00:32:47.820 around in a focus group saying, how can we innovate? You know, it was strictly, how does nature work?

00:32:54.760 So, how do we mimic that on a domestic scale? That was all. We don't have- 0.87

00:32:58.180 Right. So, you're basically mimicking migration.

00:33:01.100 Mimicking the choreography. We call this mob-stalking herbivorous solar conversion, 0.54

00:33:08.220 lignified carbon sequestration, fertilization. I knew you would enjoy that.

00:33:12.800 Yeah. Say that again. 0.89

00:33:13.920 And that's quite nice. I did practice that in front of a year.

00:33:15.620 Okay. Let's hear it again.

00:33:17.960 Mob-stalking herbivorous solar conversion, lignified carbon sequestration.

00:33:22.780 Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Okay. Well, that sounds plenty scientific.

00:33:25.400 Yeah. Plenty scientific. Yeah. Yeah.

00:33:27.100 So, then we say, well, how does this maintain sanitation? You got all this manure and stuff.

00:33:35.940 And, well, birds. Birds follow herbivores. So, we built eggmobiles for laying chickens,

00:33:42.580 and they follow the cow herd. The chickens scratch through the cow pies, eat out the fly larva,

00:33:47.520 scratch the cow patties into the ground, stimulating the fertility, eating the grasshoppers and crickets

00:33:52.640 that compete with the cows for the vegetation. And instead of where most farmers would shoot...

00:33:58.380 So, the chickens chase the cows. Are they moved, too?

00:34:01.200 Yes. Yes. So, they're in eggmobiles. That's what we call them, eggmobiles.

00:34:04.600 Okay. So, the chickens follow the cattle, and you move the chickens as well.

00:34:09.740 Yeah. So, you know, like the egret on the rhino's nose. I mean, look at any herd, wildebeest in nature,

00:34:14.500 and you'll see these flocks of birds following, and they're the sanitizers with the herbivores.

00:34:19.620 So, instead of shooting the cows up with parasiticides and grubicides and things like that,

00:34:25.480 we just collect $100,000 worth of eggs as a byproduct of the pasture sanitation program

00:34:31.240 and the fertility program. So, this then allows...

00:34:34.100 So, why sanitation exactly? Delve into that a bit more, because while the cows are manuring the land

00:34:40.640 as they graze, and the sanitation problem, it doesn't decompose rapidly enough without the birds?

00:34:46.760 Like, what exact role do the birds play?

00:34:49.100 Well, I mean, there are dung beetles, but the sanitation is that the manure is what carries

00:34:55.380 the cattle parasites. That's where the parasites live and propagate to reinfect the cows when they 0.89

00:35:04.600 come back through.

00:35:05.340 I see.

00:35:05.740 So, when the cows scatter them, the sun, and now not having enough of a pie to procreate in,

00:35:14.480 to live in, then they don't live for another day.

00:35:18.480 Okay. So, you move the cattle for two reasons then, actually. One is to allow the grass to

00:35:22.840 maximize in terms of density, but also to allow the land to clean so that when the cows come back,

00:35:29.900 they're eating grass rather than their own waste products.

00:35:32.580 That's right.

00:35:32.940 And the chickens help with that, and then you collect the eggs. Okay. So, now the problem comes

00:35:37.400 down to, essentially, how do you move the cattle, right? That's...

00:35:40.520 Okay. Yeah. So, we move the cows every day around four o'clock. We like the afternoon move best

00:35:49.500 for a number of reasons, but it's electric fence. One strand of electric fence. Cows are very smart.

00:35:55.560 They don't want to get shocked. And so, we just go out and open a cross fence. So, imagine a ladder

00:36:03.940 with rungs. And so, our permanent wires, our permanent fence is the stringers on the outside.

00:36:12.000 Our portables are the rungs on the inside. And we can expand and contract those based on how big the

00:36:18.980 herd is, how much grass there is, you know, all sorts of factors as to how much we're going to get.

00:36:24.980 So, let's get an idea of the... So, let's say we have a field and you want to move the cows.

00:36:30.960 What do you have that's permanent that's fencing, exactly?

00:36:34.500 Well, the edges. The edges. The edges define, like, between the field and the forest or the

00:36:40.040 field and a creek, field and a pond, all right? So, you...

00:36:43.620 Okay. So, that's permanently fenced off.

00:36:45.240 That's permanent. Okay.

00:36:46.060 And then you simply run, you know, you had a little reel, okay, with a polywire on it. And you run

00:36:51.720 that across from side to side. And that gives...

00:36:55.600 That demarcates an area.

00:36:56.780 Remarcates an area. And you're simply giving those cows a segment of that, you know, we call 0.75

00:37:04.360 it a paddock every day. And the beauty is that in no time, the cows respond to you coming. I mean,

00:37:14.800 think about your dog or your cat. When you bang the dish, they come running. They know what that is.

00:37:21.600 Well, the cows, when we go out to move them roughly, you know, we try to do it as close to

00:37:27.520 four as possible. You know, if you got called every day at four o'clock for a bowl of ice cream,

00:37:33.640 about 345, you know, your tail would wag and your ears would wiggle too. And so, the cows are ready

00:37:39.920 and we go out and we just call them, come on, cows! And they just come running through. We close

00:37:45.160 behind them.

00:37:45.620 Why? Why do they... Because they know the food will be better?

00:37:48.480 Because they're... Because, yes! Because they've got a new salad bar.

00:37:51.040 Okay. So, they've learned that.

00:37:51.740 They've got a new salad bar.

00:37:52.920 They've learned that. And then...

00:37:53.660 It doesn't take them long to learn that. They learn that very, very quickly. And so,

00:37:57.600 they just... So, you don't have to herd them. You know, you don't have to...

00:37:59.720 Now, they're advantaged to doing it at the same time every day because you establish a habit

00:38:03.120 in the cows. Animals love routine. Animals love routine.

00:38:05.480 So do people, as it turns out.

00:38:06.820 Yes.

00:38:07.020 Yes.

00:38:07.180 Even though they think they don't.

00:38:08.960 Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no. We are creatures of routine. So, that's... So, the moving them...

00:38:15.620 But you have to understand...

00:38:17.860 So, why do you need defenses in all of them?

00:38:21.360 During this holy season, I'd like us to take a moment to think about something amazing.

00:38:25.300 You. Psalms tells us that God carefully knit you together in your mother's womb. He saw

00:38:29.840 who you were meant to be before you even existed. At Preborn Ministries, they believe each person

00:38:34.240 is made in God's image and that all life is sacred and eternal. Maybe not all pregnancies 1.00

00:38:38.920 are planned, but that's okay. Whether they're planned or not, all life has incredible value.

00:38:43.140 And God has a purpose for everyone. Each day, they're here.

00:38:46.400 Today, I invite you to thank God for the gift of life and to remember the babies still in

00:38:50.300 their mother's womb. Their lives matter, too. Last year alone, Preborn's network of clinics

00:38:54.360 helped save over 67,000 babies from abortion. Your tax-deductible donation of $28 sponsors

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00:39:05.240 To donate, just dial pound 250 and say, baby. Or visit preborn.com slash Jordan today.

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00:39:15.760 Thank you for supporting this life-saving work.

00:39:20.560 Why do you need the fences at all? I mean, it stops them from going back.

00:39:25.220 It stops them from going into tomorrow's dinner. Basically, we're giving them one day's plate of

00:39:33.920 menu every day. One plate full. If somebody came and gave you five plate fulls of food for five days,

00:39:44.920 you'd probably just pick out the good stuff and leave the stuff you didn't want, and you'd be a

00:39:49.860 lot more... Right. So they have enough.

00:39:51.700 So they have enough. And they actually change their behavior to eat more aggressively and with less

00:40:01.020 prejudice on the liver and onions, if you will. And so this actually is healthy for the cows to

00:40:11.700 actually increase their palatability index to eat things that they wouldn't. So they'll eat thistles

00:40:18.340 and they'll eat all sorts of, you know, things that are actually good for them that they wouldn't eat.

00:40:23.620 If they had more choice.

00:40:24.660 If they had a lot, if they had all the choice.

00:40:26.860 So how did you figure out what to plant as well? I mean...

00:40:29.700 Well, we never planted anything.

00:40:31.320 Oh, so this is...

00:40:32.280 Oh.

00:40:32.600 This is natural seed bank. Whatever's there grows. And so...

00:40:37.700 Oh, okay.

00:40:38.240 So the management affects the type of vegetation you have.

00:40:42.880 Okay. So... So how did that get started then? I mean, because we were talking about the gullies

00:40:50.140 and the rocks.

00:40:50.520 Because there's a seed bank.

00:40:52.300 Already in nature.

00:40:53.460 There's a seed bank in nature. It comes in on bird wings, deer hide, possums waddle across. The ability

00:41:01.560 of nature to spread seeds is almost incomprehensible.

00:41:05.980 Right, right, right.

00:41:06.680 It's almost incomprehensible.

00:41:07.500 Well, all the plants that weren't good at that don't exist. Right, right. So that's crucial.

00:41:12.800 So the seed bank is here.

00:41:15.060 So the seeds will come all by themselves.

00:41:16.900 So the key is for us to create a habitat that will allow as many different kinds of plants

00:41:27.240 to flourish as possible. And so that's what revegetated these fields.

00:41:34.020 And why as many different kinds of plants as possible?

00:41:37.280 Because each one of them creates a different enzyme, a different...

00:41:43.900 Makes it more resilient to it.

00:41:45.120 Some have spreader roots, some have tap roots, some like sun, some like shade.

00:41:50.900 So they take advantage of all the available sun and resources if you have a diversity of plants.

00:41:54.740 And not only that, but the research being done by the Bionutrient Food Association right now,

00:42:02.900 they're two years into this beef study. It's being done at the University of Utah, the lab.

00:42:11.120 And they're measuring 150 different nutrients in beef and what makes one have more than the other.

00:42:23.860 You know, what makes beef different nutritively?

00:42:27.840 And interestingly, there's no difference in organic.

00:42:32.000 There's no difference in breed.

00:42:34.460 No difference in age.

00:42:36.400 The only metric that makes a big difference in the amount of riboflavin, the amount of, you know,

00:42:45.820 niacin, whatever, you know, 150 nutrients.

00:42:48.400 The only thing that makes a big difference is how many different types of plants did the animal eat?

00:42:56.280 Right, right. So that means...

00:42:57.520 Oh, so that's so cool because that means that you can...

00:43:00.200 So the diversity...

00:43:01.420 Right. So you can maximize for biodiversity at the plant level.

00:43:05.840 Yes.

00:43:06.100 And that means that you have a mix of plants that can take advantage of different kinds of soil and different growing conditions.

00:43:12.420 Yes.

00:43:12.720 And your pasture is resilient because there's multiple species.

00:43:16.500 And so some will grow better in dry years and some will grow better in wet years and cold versus warm.

00:43:23.700 And so your plants are resilient.

00:43:27.060 And then the animals, because they have a varied diet, can derive from that variation

00:43:31.160 the balance of nutrients that will make them grow best and be healthy.

00:43:35.820 And that makes them more...

00:43:37.400 That gives them a higher nutritional value.

00:43:39.140 That's correct.

00:43:39.560 So that's a good deal.

00:43:40.480 And you don't have to plant.

00:43:41.860 Okay, well...

00:43:42.340 That's correct.

00:43:42.660 Let's go back to the planting idea just for a minute.

00:43:44.740 I mean, are there ways that you could augment the productive quality of your pasturing by doing some planting?

00:43:54.320 Or is it just better to leave it natural?

00:43:57.720 Jury's out on that.

00:43:58.860 I mean, there are certainly people who have planted things in their fields.

00:44:03.760 In general, if I'm going to convert, for example, a cornfield into pasture, I'm going to plant.

00:44:09.800 I don't have time.

00:44:11.640 Time to wait.

00:44:12.280 I don't have time to wait.

00:44:13.300 You know, in 20 years, yes, it'll be a pasture, but I don't want to wait 20 years.

00:44:16.820 Right.

00:44:17.040 So in that case, I would certainly plant.

00:44:18.900 You would plant what?

00:44:20.440 Alfalfa maybe?

00:44:21.220 What do you plant?

00:44:21.800 No, I would plant a cocktail.

00:44:24.380 Are you okay?

00:44:24.880 Two clovers, three grasses, some plantain, some, you know, some pork.

00:44:30.800 You'd just sprinkle that together?

00:44:32.180 Yeah, yeah.

00:44:32.840 I see.

00:44:33.240 So you'd make an artificial, diverse pasture.

00:44:35.000 An artificial cocktail.

00:44:36.540 Yeah, yeah.

00:44:37.040 Okay.

00:44:37.320 And then it'll gradually diversify, you know, over time.

00:44:43.520 Okay.

00:44:43.720 How does the dollar return on your cattle, say, compare to what you could make while using the

00:44:51.440 land for other purposes?

00:44:52.400 If you had a monoculture, for example, if you planted corn, I'm very curious about the economics

00:44:58.620 of this because farming is famously a very low margin, high labor enterprise, very difficult

00:45:04.960 enterprise.

00:45:05.740 And so there's a variety of things you can do with land.

00:45:08.540 And obviously, many people plant massive monocultures and they use chemicals and they use chemical

00:45:14.260 herbicides.

00:45:15.040 And I'm not a priori critiquing that.

00:45:18.540 You decided to go with cattle and chickens.

00:45:21.780 And what else do you raise?

00:45:23.100 More than that, we went two things.

00:45:26.880 One, we went multi-species.

00:45:29.100 So we have cows, chickens, both meat and eggs, pigs, lamb, rabbit, duck.

00:45:41.080 So multi-species.

00:45:42.180 Okay, okay.

00:45:43.320 That's for the ponds, the ducks, I presume?

00:45:46.040 Yeah.

00:45:47.080 I mean, well, it's for eggs and meat.

00:45:49.120 Um, uh, that, that's a, that's a, that's a small, we won't do a lot of those.

00:45:55.060 Our main, our main is beef, pork, and chicken.

00:45:57.540 I mean, that's our main, that's our main thing.

00:45:59.780 Rabbit, duck, lamb, those are all kind of peripheral things.

00:46:03.320 But, um, but the other part of this is that we elected to direct market.

00:46:09.740 Yeah.

00:46:10.300 Okay.

00:46:10.700 So remember, dad was an accountant and he understood very early on that as a small farm,

00:46:15.160 farm, the commodity margin, the commodity business, the whole goal is to become the least cost

00:46:23.520 producer.

00:46:24.520 Yeah.

00:46:25.020 At, at high scale.

00:46:26.220 At high scale.

00:46:26.840 Yeah, yeah.

00:46:27.320 Right.

00:46:27.480 Okay.

00:46:27.780 Right.

00:46:28.400 And, and as a small farm, he understood we can't compete at that.

00:46:32.380 So I'm sure you've heard farmers say, well, the middleman makes all the money.

00:46:36.380 Yeah, of course.

00:46:36.920 Well, that's typical for many, many, many enterprises.

00:46:39.600 Exactly.

00:46:40.340 So, so he realized, well, in order for us to compete, to actually make a living on this

00:46:46.100 small farm, we, we need to become a middleman.

00:46:49.320 Yeah.

00:46:49.540 We need to own that.

00:46:50.860 So basically the retail dollar is divided into producer, processor, marketer, distributor.

00:46:57.700 Those four basic.

00:46:58.900 Say that again. 0.71

00:46:59.720 Producer.

00:47:00.160 Producer.

00:47:00.560 Farmer.

00:47:01.060 Processor.

00:47:01.700 Processor.

00:47:02.240 Marketer.

00:47:03.080 And distributor.

00:47:03.900 Right.

00:47:04.100 The marketer is the one who lets everybody know that the products exist, which is very

00:47:07.840 important.

00:47:08.180 Yes.

00:47:08.300 And then the last one.

00:47:09.580 Is distributor.

00:47:10.700 Right.

00:47:11.120 So, so it's got to, it's got to get to the, the retail interface somehow.

00:47:14.820 Okay.

00:47:15.040 So, so the retail dollars divided those four ways in different commodities.

00:47:19.440 There are different, you know, rate percentages in each of those four categories, but.

00:47:23.820 And tremendous competition between them.

00:47:25.780 Yes.

00:47:26.300 Tremendous competition.

00:47:28.460 The farmer, the, the, there's only one part of that that is subject to what I call the

00:47:35.660 Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

00:47:37.400 Right.

00:47:37.500 Right.

00:47:37.680 Which is weather, price, pestilence, and disease.

00:47:40.560 Right.

00:47:41.300 That's production.

00:47:42.360 Right.

00:47:42.580 So he takes all the risks in the natural world.

00:47:44.140 He takes all the risks.

00:47:45.300 Yeah.

00:47:45.820 Yeah.

00:47:46.160 Whereas, you know, when the grasshoppers come, they don't eat the tires on your delivery

00:47:49.480 vehicle.

00:47:50.060 When the drought comes, it doesn't eliminate your Wi-Fi connection to your customers.

00:47:53.680 So, so these other three, the three, the processing, marketing, and distribution are relatively immune

00:47:59.720 for weather, price, pestilence, and disease.

00:48:01.860 But they're also not dependent on any single farmer.

00:48:05.080 That's right.

00:48:05.800 That's right.

00:48:06.340 So their risk is distributed.

00:48:07.680 That's right.

00:48:08.420 Right.

00:48:08.700 So we began, um, when we, when we, uh, headed into this, we established a direct marketing

00:48:18.620 persona, uh, eventually became our brand, Polyface, P-O-L-Y-F-A-C, Polyface Farm, Farm

00:48:25.260 of Many Faces.

00:48:26.440 Um, that became our brand.

00:48:28.360 And we, we now sell to restaurants, institutions, boutique groceries.

00:48:33.900 We ship, we ship nationwide.

00:48:36.260 We have a farm store.

00:48:37.780 We direct, direct sell into about 35 drop points in the urban sector around, uh, Northern

00:48:43.600 Virginia, DC, um, Richmond, Virginia Beach, Williamsburg.

00:48:47.980 And those are, those drop, tell me about those.

00:48:51.500 Are there urban drop points?

00:48:53.100 Farmer's markets or?

00:48:54.300 No, no, we, we're not involved in any farmer's markets.

00:48:57.000 Oh, you're not.

00:48:57.440 And I'm not opposed to farmer's markets.

00:48:59.140 Yeah.

00:48:59.360 But I just don't think in general, they're not a very efficient interface.

00:49:03.900 Because they're primarily social circles.

00:49:06.620 Yeah.

00:49:06.840 They're primarily social clubs.

00:49:08.020 Relatively low volume, I would presume, too.

00:49:10.040 Low, low, yeah, yeah, because.

00:49:11.180 So they're like a boutique product.

00:49:12.580 Exactly, yeah, because most of the people who go are there to show their support of local

00:49:18.020 food and, and assuage their guilt from taking their, yeah.

00:49:20.980 Yeah, and have a nice day at the farmer's market.

00:49:22.520 And have a nice day.

00:49:22.820 Yeah, fair enough.

00:49:23.340 And show off their newly clothed little poodle dog, you know, that they had done.

00:49:26.380 Right, right, right.

00:49:26.720 And so they can only buy a little baby food jar with a pink ribbon on it of kimchi or,

00:49:31.460 Yeah.

00:49:31.760 Or some, you know, special thing.

00:49:33.300 They're not buying bushels of green beans or bushels of apples or, or, or things.

00:49:37.620 And so we just found farmer's markets a very inefficient retail interface.

00:49:41.580 How do you build your customer network?

00:49:43.620 So that, that's work, man.

00:49:45.600 Yeah, it is, it is.

00:49:46.840 We spend as much time marketing as we do the entire farm production.

00:49:51.760 Yeah, well, marketing, marketing's such a funny enterprise because people, first of all,

00:49:56.200 it's not even named very well, it's not even named very well because what you're doing when

00:50:00.320 you're a marketer, really what you are is a communicator and a network builder.

00:50:05.480 And, you know, people say things like, well, if you build a better mousetrap, the world

00:50:09.820 will beat a path to your door.

00:50:11.480 And that's a lie.

00:50:12.680 You're absolutely right.

00:50:14.240 It's not true because first of all, it isn't obvious they want a better mousetrap and they're

00:50:18.800 pretty set in their mousetrap habits. 0.94

00:50:21.360 And plus they don't know your damn mousetrap exists and they actually don't care. 0.97

00:50:26.140 And so, you know, one of the things that shocked me when I started making consumer products, 0.99

00:50:31.420 which was like 30 years ago, was, see, because I thought I'd invented this process with my

00:50:38.160 colleagues that help people identify and hire more effective employers, employees.

00:50:44.000 And the first error I made was thinking that large companies actually cared about that,

00:50:49.500 which they don't at all, which is quite a shock.

00:50:53.040 They say they do, but they actually don't when it comes down to it.

00:50:55.780 But then, but more than that, I also realized that if you have something new, that's actually

00:51:01.900 a risk and not an advantage because most people are so risk averse, they won't try anything

00:51:08.280 new.

00:51:08.600 They want to know that many other people are using this and haven't died because of it. 0.99

00:51:14.240 And then no one knows your damn product exists. 0.96

00:51:18.180 And so I would say for the average enterprise, you tell me what you think about this with regard 0.99

00:51:22.800 to your enterprise, the product is 5% of the problem and communication about the product

00:51:29.220 is 90% of the problem.

00:51:32.200 I know that leaves 5% for noise, but like, it's exactly the opposite of what most people

00:51:36.720 would think.

00:51:37.520 Marketing is communication and it really matters.

00:51:40.520 So you guys figured that out.

00:51:42.140 Messaging, messaging is everything.

00:51:44.700 So, and the messaging always has to be in terms of the possible buyer.

00:51:51.980 Right.

00:51:52.240 In other words, it's not about you.

00:51:54.320 No, not at all.

00:51:54.980 It's about their need, describing their need.

00:51:58.320 What's their problem?

00:51:59.000 What's their need?

00:51:59.680 What can I fix for you?

00:52:01.100 Yeah, absolutely.

00:52:02.000 And, and, and, and that's a hard thing when, when I'm not like my normal consumer.

00:52:08.500 Right.

00:52:09.020 Definitely.

00:52:09.200 I have a big garden.

00:52:10.140 I have, I walk out the back door.

00:52:11.900 I've got eggs.

00:52:12.560 I've got cows.

00:52:13.260 I've got, you know.

00:52:14.220 So you don't even exist in the landscape where the problem.

00:52:16.980 Exactly.

00:52:17.380 So, so, so for me, for me, I almost have to get into some sort of a, you know, a yin position

00:52:23.300 or something to, to, to, to, to, okay.

00:52:25.880 How do I think when I don't have these things?

00:52:29.820 How do I think, how do I think like my consumer, like my customer thinks?

00:52:32.120 Yeah, yeah.

00:52:32.200 Very difficult, yeah.

00:52:33.200 Very, very difficult.

00:52:34.320 But when you can get into that position, you can absolutely message it.

00:52:39.560 Okay.

00:52:39.720 Well, tell me how you guys did that.

00:52:41.340 That's, and I'd like to know more about the details of your network.

00:52:44.440 You, you talked about many inroads for sales.

00:52:48.400 So, so, so remember when we started when, so I came back to the farm full-time September

00:52:53.740 24, 1982.

00:52:55.840 Okay.

00:52:56.400 1982.

00:52:57.100 I, I left, I was a, I was a reporter, an investigative reporter at the local newspaper for two and

00:53:03.640 a half years after college.

00:53:05.400 So, you know, so here, here, now I'm wanting to come back to the farm full-time and now I'm

00:53:09.240 working in the, in the, in town, you know, trying to, how do I come back to the farm full-time?

00:53:14.500 Teresa and I got married.

00:53:15.740 We remodeled the, the attic of the old farmhouse.

00:53:19.120 We didn't call it the attic.

00:53:20.460 We called it our penthouse.

00:53:22.020 And, and we lived on, on, we drove a $50 car, lived on $300 a month.

00:53:29.800 And within two years, we were able to save enough that we could, that we could live for

00:53:33.740 one year without an income.

00:53:34.980 And so September 24, 1982, I walked out of the office.

00:53:40.500 I didn't think we'd make it.

00:53:42.380 Why the hell was your wife on board with this? 1.00

00:53:44.860 Like, why did she think?

00:53:45.640 Because I married the greatest gal in the world, man.

00:53:48.460 I mean, she is, she is the ultimate home economist.

00:53:51.920 She cans 800 quarts of stuff a summer.

00:53:54.440 She can sew clothes, make. 1.00

00:53:56.960 I see.

00:53:57.240 I see.

00:53:57.540 She was interested in doing all of that.

00:53:59.260 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:54:00.080 She, yeah, she, um, yeah.

00:54:02.300 I mean, she, she thought I was pretty sharp.

00:54:04.680 Now, so, but you were working as, you were, you were working as a reporter and she was

00:54:09.020 working as what?

00:54:10.400 Uh, well, we had, we had Daniel.

00:54:12.340 So she, um, she worked at a, at a fabric store for a little bit, clerking, but Daniel came

00:54:18.520 very early.

00:54:19.140 And so she stayed at home and I'm working at the newspaper.

00:54:22.600 Okay.

00:54:22.860 But both of you wanted to go have a farm life.

00:54:25.180 Oh, yeah.

00:54:25.680 Oh, yeah.

00:54:25.980 Why did she want that?

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00:55:25.320 I mean, did she come from a farming background?

00:55:29.760 She wanted to be with me.

00:55:30.780 Okay.

00:55:31.180 Oh, well, fair enough.

00:55:31.860 I mean, is that fair enough?

00:55:32.600 But did she come back?

00:55:33.980 Yeah, but still.

00:55:35.280 She grew up on a farm.

00:55:36.500 Okay.

00:55:36.820 Okay.

00:55:37.120 So she had some familiarity with that.

00:55:38.820 Yeah.

00:55:39.180 Yeah.

00:55:39.380 Okay.

00:55:39.680 And she had bought into the idea that you had put forward.

00:55:42.700 Absolutely.

00:55:43.060 And she was enthusiastic about it.

00:55:44.280 Because that's important.

00:55:45.200 Yeah.

00:55:45.340 I mean, you want your wife to be seriously on board with this.

00:55:49.060 This is hard work.

00:55:50.340 The single biggest reason farms fail is contradictory visions of husband and wife.

00:55:59.620 Well, that's probably the biggest reason is marriage fails, all things considered.

00:56:02.820 Right, right, right.

00:56:03.000 But I can see it being particularly acute with a project like this because it's all consuming.

00:56:07.600 You don't go to work every day.

00:56:09.980 You know, you're with each other.

00:56:11.880 And so, yeah, those—

00:56:13.960 And you've got the four horsemen of the apocalypse nipping at your heels all the time.

00:56:17.360 Yes, yes, exactly.

00:56:18.360 Right, right.

00:56:18.740 So I came back to the farm full-time.

00:56:23.220 Now I'm there.

00:56:23.500 82, right.

00:56:24.420 In 82.

00:56:25.720 And it took us three years, Jordan, until I say we could exhale.

00:56:32.360 I think we're going to make it.

00:56:33.520 It took us three years.

00:56:34.420 Yeah.

00:56:34.820 But that little—

00:56:35.760 Well, that's not too bad to start a new business.

00:56:37.360 No, that's right, that's right.

00:56:38.580 A lot of new businesses fail, and the first part of it, when you're not making any money

00:56:42.840 and you've got no network, boy, what do they say?

00:56:45.280 Getting from zero to one, that's very hard.

00:56:47.720 That's right.

00:56:48.200 One to two is still hard.

00:56:49.840 Two to three is getting a little better.

00:56:51.280 Yeah, but 10 to 11 is a lot easier.

00:56:53.900 Yeah, right, right, right.

00:56:55.100 So what I did at that time, fortunately, I was blessed with and have been blessed with a

00:57:03.380 bit of a gift of gab communication.

00:57:06.320 I'm an extrovert.

00:57:07.360 And in high school, college, I was in—I did interscholastic, intercollegiate debate.

00:57:13.240 I've got a room full of debate trophies.

00:57:14.800 And did theater, drama, plays, public speaking, all that.

00:57:19.320 I didn't do the athletic thing.

00:57:22.180 I was not—I was a late bloomer.

00:57:25.680 The best thing that ever happened to me was getting cut from the seventh-grade basketball

00:57:29.060 team.

00:57:29.620 My mother was a health and phys ed teacher, so she was extremely athletic. 0.77

00:57:33.180 My older brother was very athletic.

00:57:34.560 And here I come along.

00:57:36.100 Well, you know, I've got to be athletic, right?

00:57:37.600 In order, you know, you've got to join the family brand, after all.

00:57:41.000 And so I'm a pudgy, you know, 14-year-old, you know, late bloomer, and I get cut from the

00:57:48.800 seventh-grade baseball team.

00:57:50.260 I get cut from the eighth-grade basketball team.

00:57:52.160 In other words, I don't make the teams.

00:57:53.520 Not I'm on the team and get cut.

00:57:55.400 I mean, I didn't even make the tryouts, okay?

00:57:57.600 I didn't make—and I remember, like, yesterday in eighth grade, looking and not seeing my name

00:58:03.980 on that roster and making a mental decision, okay, athletics is done.

00:58:11.120 I'm a great communicator.

00:58:13.020 You know, I win spelling bees.

00:58:14.600 I win, you know, whatever, you know, speaking contests.

00:58:17.500 I'm going to put all my attention on that.

00:58:19.780 So I tell kids, I say, you be thankful for what you fail at early, because that helps you

00:58:25.080 determine your path in life.

00:58:28.920 Well, there's another issue there that you're highlighting that's extremely relevant with

00:58:33.060 regard to our discussion of marketing.

00:58:34.940 It's like, one of the things that people don't understand, and this might be more true of

00:58:39.680 people who, like, let's say, have an interest in practical matters like trades or even engineering.

00:58:44.660 It's like, well, why do I need to be fluent in my communication?

00:58:50.180 Why do I need to write?

00:58:51.340 Why do I need to learn to speak?

00:58:52.640 It's like, well, if 75% of your business problem is communication, and it certainly is,

00:58:59.700 right?

00:58:59.980 What are you selling?

00:59:00.800 What do you have to offer?

00:59:01.640 Or how do you talk to people so you find out what they need?

00:59:04.140 For your employees.

00:59:05.240 That's right.

00:59:05.980 How do you negotiate?

00:59:07.060 How do you make contracts?

00:59:08.200 All of that.

00:59:08.760 It's like, there isn't anything more worthwhile than you can learn to do than how to get command

00:59:14.360 of the language.

00:59:15.480 And that's so interesting in your situation, because you might think, well, that might be

00:59:19.880 true except for farming.

00:59:21.420 Now, I know you shouldn't think that, but it's just not true.

00:59:24.700 No.

00:59:24.980 Because communication is so crucial.

00:59:26.860 Well, the people who communicate lead their professions.

00:59:30.740 Right.

00:59:31.280 Across the board.

00:59:32.000 Right, right, right.

00:59:32.800 Exactly.

00:59:33.320 That's a great tool.

00:59:34.160 And I have moms come up to me with their little, you know, 10-year-old in tow.

00:59:37.360 My son wants to be a farmer or daughter.

00:59:39.560 Yeah.

00:59:39.720 He wants to be a farmer.

00:59:40.540 What would you suggest to them?

00:59:41.920 I say, find your local amateur theater group.

00:59:46.100 Enroll them.

00:59:46.600 Right, right, right, right.

00:59:48.220 Right.

00:59:48.400 Get them.

00:59:48.800 Get them.

00:59:49.420 So counterintuitive.

00:59:50.580 Yes, and they look at me like, yeah.

00:59:52.500 Yeah.

00:59:52.680 I say, become a storyteller.

00:59:54.540 Yeah.

00:59:54.840 Become a storyteller.

00:59:56.000 Storytellers are what changed the world.

00:59:57.560 Yeah, right.

00:59:58.060 That's exactly right.

00:59:59.080 And so, obviously, 82, this is before computers, before, you know, internet, any of this stuff.

01:00:06.400 And so, we basically did a three-prong approach.

01:00:08.580 I put together a slide program, you know, the old Kodak carousel, you know, a slide projector.

01:00:16.280 And at that time, every city had a very vibrant kind of, you know, Rotary Club, Ruritan, Kiwanis, Toastmasters, Elks, Moose, right, all these.

01:00:30.120 And they do, you know, weekly or monthly dinner meetings.

01:00:33.220 And they're always looking for an interesting program.

01:00:35.260 And so, I put together a carousel program, how we can heal the planet with pasture-based livestock.

01:00:42.660 And it was the beginning of this.

01:00:44.200 This was, when did you do this?

01:00:45.800 In 82.

01:00:46.700 Oh, yeah.

01:00:47.160 So, okay.

01:00:47.800 So, this was just the beginning, you know, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, were just beginning to, once in a while, put in a tidbit about cow burps.

01:00:56.640 And, you know, there was just the beginning of this kind of demonization of livestock.

01:01:01.060 And so, anyway, I put this together.

01:01:05.440 And at the end, I would say, now, if you'd like to participate in this, I'll be glad to add your name to our customer list.

01:01:12.660 You'll get a newsletter and, you know, order blank.

01:01:15.520 And, you know, we can, and each one of those would yield, you know, two, three, four people, you know.

01:01:21.280 So, that was one thing I did.

01:01:22.600 The second thing.

01:01:23.260 Okay.

01:01:23.400 And so, that's, that's also something that we shouldn't skip over lightly.

01:01:26.780 So, I think the most valuable, I have millions of social media followers, and I don't know how many, 20 million, some lots.

01:01:35.360 Right, right.

01:01:35.900 The most valuable of all the things we own are our mailing lists.

01:01:41.860 And I think, I don't know what my mailing list has on it, 350,000 people, something like that, which is a pretty small fraction of the total social media network.

01:01:50.680 But it's by far, like, if we're trying to advertise for tickets for a lecture.

01:01:55.760 That's hard.

01:01:56.360 You're going out there and you're collecting individual people who are interesting.

01:02:01.160 Like, how many people interested in what you're doing?

01:02:03.540 How many people like that did you need before you were successful?

01:02:08.800 How many did you have to collect?

01:02:10.220 Fortunately, at that time, you know, we, with our low expenses and all that, we didn't need more than, goodness, 100 families, 100, 200 families.

01:02:20.640 Right, okay, okay.

01:02:21.060 So, that's really worth knowing.

01:02:22.760 So, you put together this slide presentation.

01:02:25.640 And you collected 150 avid customers.

01:02:28.960 Yes, yes, yes.

01:02:30.100 And if you've got 100 people that are spending $1,000 a year with you, that's significant.

01:02:36.200 Right, right.

01:02:36.880 And so, that's…

01:02:37.660 Especially if they're loyal and they had also talked to other people.

01:02:40.560 Yes, yes.

01:02:40.740 Because word of mouth really matters.

01:02:42.140 Okay, so, the next thing we did was, when somebody would call us and say, hey, you know, I heard about you, I want your stuff, you're tempted to say, oh, good, good, well, what do you want?

01:02:52.940 You want five chickens and three T-bone steaks?

01:02:56.320 My first question was, where did you hear about us?

01:02:59.520 Before I, where did you hear about us?

01:03:01.280 Oh, I had dinner over at, you know, Mary Jane's.

01:03:03.980 Yeah.

01:03:04.180 And so, then I'd go to the customer box and I'd put a post-it note at Mary Jane's to remind me the next time Mary Jane came out and picked up something, Mary Jane, thank you.

01:03:13.820 I'd just hug her, slobber all over her, say, thank you for spreading the word.

01:03:18.200 Yeah.

01:03:18.420 And tell you what, go over and take a dozen eggs home with you for free.

01:03:24.460 Absolutely, absolutely.

01:03:25.460 People are starved for appreciation.

01:03:28.400 They're starved for love.

01:03:29.520 They're starved for appreciation.

01:03:31.300 They will jump off a cliff for you.

01:03:32.920 So, you just said something, like with both those, that's unbelievably worth noting.

01:03:37.100 Because one of the things you can do in your family, well, even for yourself, to promote positive change that's unbelievably effective.

01:03:45.420 I'll give you an example of this.

01:03:46.660 So, there's a famous psychologist, B.F. Skinner.

01:03:49.960 And B.F. Skinner was the father of reinforcement learning theory.

01:03:54.500 And that's a big deal.

01:03:56.420 These large language models, these new AI systems, they're trained with reinforcement theory.

01:04:01.600 So, like this was a major deal.

01:04:03.420 And B.F. Skinner was a master of this.

01:04:05.200 And he could, he, in World War II, he trained pigeons to guide missiles by pecking on photographs as they were flying across the sky.

01:04:15.540 Right?

01:04:15.820 So, Skinner could train animals to do anything.

01:04:17.640 Now, he noted that you could use threat and punishment to shape an animal's behavior, but the best thing to use was targeted reward.

01:04:25.880 And so, what he would do is he'd, his animals were hungry because they had to be motivated to work for food pellets.

01:04:32.160 And so, he'd have a hungry animal.

01:04:35.240 Maybe you're trying, so imagine there's a rat in a cage and there's a little ladder.

01:04:39.660 And you want the rat to go up on the ladder and then walk across and go down the other side.

01:04:44.720 It's a pretty complicated behavior.

01:04:45.860 So, here's how Skinner would do it. 0.98

01:04:48.120 He would just watch that rat.

01:04:49.820 And as soon as it got near, as soon as it made a move near the ladder, he'd give it a food pellet.

01:04:54.740 Then it would start hanging around the ladder.

01:04:56.780 And when it was hanging around close to the bottom of the ladder, now and then it would put a paw up and he'd give it a food pellet.

01:05:02.280 And then now the rat was doing this quite a bit.

01:05:04.460 And then now and then it would do this food pellet.

01:05:07.080 And so, but the key issue was that he was observing.

01:05:11.900 And then when he got an increment of behavior in the direction he wanted, he signified that.

01:05:18.560 Well, that's what you're doing with your customers is you're paying very careful attention.

01:05:23.040 And then one of your customers does something that you'd really like them to do more of.

01:05:27.260 You notice, you tell them, you reward them for it.

01:05:32.220 And then now the other thing you said that was very cool was that people are dying for this.

01:05:36.920 It's like if you watch people, you'll see that they kind of do, they do some tentative good things kind of secretly.

01:05:46.420 It's like they're hoping that someone will notice, but generally people don't.

01:05:49.840 And so they'll do something good that's a little bit extra.

01:05:52.340 They'll do this with their boss or with their wife. 0.54

01:05:54.360 And generally people are kind of opaque to that.

01:05:57.340 But if you notice that, you say, ha, with kids, you see this.

01:06:02.220 With kids, you see, like, I see that you spent a little extra time, like, putting away your Legos today.

01:06:07.280 And, like, you moved all those Legos from there to there.

01:06:10.040 And that was really good.

01:06:11.760 I'd like to see more of that.

01:06:13.000 The kid is just like, if you can catch them in the act, oh, man, they're so happy about that.

01:06:17.900 Yeah, that's right.

01:06:18.260 And so that's, so now you've got your hundred people who are on your side and you're watching them very carefully.

01:06:23.260 And if they do, if they put in a good word for you, which they don't have to do, by the way, you want to say, we saw that, we appreciate it.

01:06:31.560 Here's a little gift.

01:06:32.480 Thank you very much.

01:06:33.600 That's all.

01:06:34.140 You don't have to say, please keep doing it.

01:06:36.220 That's right.

01:06:36.800 That gets that exchange going, right?

01:06:38.880 And those person-to-person, like, one of the things we're very careful on tour, for example, I mean, I see thousands of people.

01:06:45.840 My staff know this particularly.

01:06:48.880 The rule for my staff is do not ever annoy any of the people who are interested in coming up to me or being at the shows.

01:06:57.900 Wow, that's critical.

01:06:58.780 Yeah, yeah, because if you annoy one person, they will tell a thousand people.

01:07:04.440 If you annoy a hundred people, enough so they start talking about it, you're done.

01:07:09.400 Your business is done.

01:07:10.440 I don't really care the scale.

01:07:11.880 Stephen Covey in The Seven Habits of How to Effective People talks about emotional equity.

01:07:16.540 And he says, it takes roughly ten positives, ten praises to take one criticism.

01:07:26.540 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:07:27.820 That's probably an underestimate.

01:07:29.820 Well, and also people remember the negative.

01:07:32.600 Oh, we're hardwired to remember.

01:07:34.280 Nobody comes back from town and says, honey, I hit five go lights.

01:07:37.840 We hit stop lights.

01:07:38.720 We never call them go lights.

01:07:40.020 Yeah, right.

01:07:40.360 Even though they let us go, we never think about them letting us go.

01:07:44.520 We think about them making us stop.

01:07:46.260 Yes, yes.

01:07:46.820 So I did the slide program, kind of what I call infotainment.

01:07:53.940 Yeah, and the story.

01:07:54.860 The story is so important because you have an interesting story to tell.

01:07:57.300 Exactly, the story.

01:07:57.980 Exactly, the story.

01:07:59.180 And people, listen, people still love to feel like they're a part of a great cause, of a great thing.

01:08:08.000 And so the whole theme here is you can participate in healing the planet, making vegetation,

01:08:15.700 building soil, clean water, clean air.

01:08:18.520 You can participate with what you eat.

01:08:21.540 Here's how you do it.

01:08:22.660 And so people love, they're drawn, they're attracted to this what?

01:08:26.380 You know, all of our little bags at the farm store, our little slogan is healing the planet or healing the land one bite at a time.

01:08:35.700 And we're trying to connect what you're eating to the landscape.

01:08:40.080 And you're actually doing it.

01:08:41.540 And we're actually doing it.

01:08:42.640 All right.

01:08:43.260 So important detail as well.

01:08:45.260 Yeah.

01:08:45.700 Yeah.

01:08:46.000 The thing I love most is when people come to visit the farm, we have a 24-7, 365 open-door policy.

01:08:52.540 Anyone can come from anywhere in the world to see anything, anytime, anywhere unannounced.

01:08:57.100 That's our dedication to transparency.

01:08:59.780 And we love to hear people come and say, wow, it was better than I imagined.

01:09:03.920 Yeah, that's good.

01:09:05.660 That's good stuff.

01:09:06.700 Yeah.

01:09:06.960 So we did that.

01:09:08.560 And then the other thing we did was that when somebody was interested, we gave them a sample.

01:09:17.100 Samples work.

01:09:17.960 If you've got a good product or you've got good content, samples work.

01:09:22.960 And so we'd tease them with a sample.

01:09:24.960 You know, give them a chicken.

01:09:26.280 Give them a dozen eggs. 0.98

01:09:27.100 Give them a T-bone steak. 0.62

01:09:28.180 Give them a pound of ground beef or, you know, a pound of bacon or something.

01:09:32.400 And because for the very reason that you said earlier, nobody's looking for something new.

01:09:40.620 Nobody goes down the shampoo aisle and says, you know, I've been a head and shoulders guy all my life.

01:09:47.380 But today, for some reason, I've got a hankering for something else.

01:09:51.260 Pantene Pro-V, you know.

01:09:53.140 Nobody does that.

01:09:54.560 You don't want the decision cost even.

01:09:56.500 No.

01:09:57.040 No.

01:09:57.800 Or the risk.

01:09:58.640 Nobody wants to make a decision.

01:09:59.360 Well, the incremental benefit is basically zero.

01:10:01.940 The risk that you, first of all, it's difficult.

01:10:05.740 You know, there's a whole consumer literature on this, hey?

01:10:07.740 So imagine, you might think that if you went into a shop, and here's your options.

01:10:12.940 You have 200 shampoos to pick from, or four. 0.83

01:10:15.840 Yeah.

01:10:16.380 Okay.

01:10:16.860 Or one.

01:10:17.720 Okay.

01:10:18.100 People don't like one because there's no choice.

01:10:20.780 Yeah.

01:10:21.480 But they don't like 200 either.

01:10:23.400 And part of the reason for that is, imagine there's the best one in 200.

01:10:27.760 Okay.

01:10:27.960 What's your chance you're going to pick that?

01:10:29.640 You're going to pick the best one.

01:10:30.420 One in 200.

01:10:31.060 Yeah, it's called paralysis of choice.

01:10:33.120 Exactly, exactly.

01:10:33.940 Paralysis of choice.

01:10:34.360 And so maybe you want four.

01:10:36.060 Yeah.

01:10:36.260 Yeah, yeah.

01:10:36.780 Something like that.

01:10:37.540 Yeah, that's exactly right.

01:10:38.740 So we'd give a sample so that they could try something new with no risk.

01:10:44.940 Right.

01:10:45.200 And what we found was, a lot of times, people are naturally, intuitively prejudiced to a gift

01:10:54.300 more than they are something that they bought.

01:10:56.580 Because when you buy something, you have buyer's remorse.

01:10:59.320 When somebody gives you something, there's no remorse.

01:11:02.500 And so you have this feel-good thing.

01:11:04.800 Even if they're equal, the one you were given, you tend to have more positive emotion for than what you had to buy.

01:11:14.160 And so I'm not saying our stuff wasn't as good.

01:11:16.600 I'm just saying-

01:11:17.080 Right, but you are saying if it was equally good, that would be good enough.

01:11:20.240 You tap into, yeah, you tap into these emotional things.

01:11:23.440 So that was kind of our three-pronged approach early on to kind of start and build a patron base.

01:11:31.780 In fact, we don't call them customers.

01:11:33.100 We call them patrons.

01:11:33.920 We call them patron saints.

01:11:35.200 And we address them as patron saints.

01:11:38.320 This is all about-

01:11:39.800 A customer is often someone whose eyes you want to pull wool over.

01:11:44.060 Whereas if you have patrons, let's say, you know, then you treat them properly.

01:11:50.540 You treat them hospitably, and you're damn happy they exist.

01:11:53.860 And you want them to know that, and you remember it.

01:11:57.380 Yes, and we call this relationship-

01:12:00.960 Preborn's network of clinics are on the front lines, nationwide, on standby for women deciding between the life of their babies.

01:12:07.260 Preborn seeks these women out to help them choose life, not just for their babies, but for themselves. 0.71

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01:12:27.660 A single heartbeat can echo across generations.

01:12:30.320 Marketing.

01:12:31.220 Yeah.

01:12:31.560 We're really marketing a relationship because they're not buying it because it's a label.

01:12:35.800 They're buying it because they trust us.

01:12:38.500 Yeah, because they trust us, and now with food choice and labeling confusion and what is a cage-free, natural, all this stuff, what is all this stuff, we've now presented ourselves as our patron's food coach.

01:12:57.800 You don't ever have to be confused again.

01:12:59.720 Just buy it from us, and you'll know it's the best, and it doesn't matter.

01:13:02.500 Right, so that's another example of you identifying the problem that people have.

01:13:06.940 Yeah, so the problem is—

01:13:08.520 Because every mom is scared to death, am I buying the best for my kid?

01:13:11.880 Yeah, of course.

01:13:12.020 Am I buying the best for my kid?

01:13:13.400 So I just come in straight away and say, you never have to be concerned about that at all.

01:13:18.640 Right, right.

01:13:18.860 I'll solve that.

01:13:19.620 Right, right.

01:13:19.920 Get it from us, and you never have to worry about that again.

01:13:21.920 Right, so here's some—we're hospitable.

01:13:24.700 Here's some evidence.

01:13:25.720 Yeah.

01:13:25.940 You can trust us.

01:13:26.860 Try our product.

01:13:27.620 You'll see it's high quality.

01:13:28.760 Yeah.

01:13:29.080 Now, because you can trust us, there's a whole bunch of problems you don't have.

01:13:32.820 That's right.

01:13:33.220 Right, so you can solve them all in one fell swoop.

01:13:36.400 Yeah, that's right.

01:13:37.180 Yeah, well, and you said earlier, and this is very useful for everybody who's watching

01:13:40.420 and listening to know, it's like, well, how do you sell effectively? 0.99

01:13:43.920 Well, you know, the crooked used car salesman approach to that is sell junk to idiots and 1.00

01:13:50.800 laugh at them when you pull the wool over their eyes, and that'll work once. 1.00

01:13:54.280 Right.

01:13:54.620 Right, but you make an enemy.

01:13:56.200 And if you do that 50 times, and they tell 1,000 people, you have 50,000 enemies, and

01:14:01.040 you're done.

01:14:02.160 And so, what you want to do instead is tell people the truth and develop that relationship,

01:14:07.940 right?

01:14:08.260 Yeah.

01:14:08.840 And you also pointed out that you want to tell stories to people so that they're interested

01:14:15.340 in what you're doing and so they can come along in an adventure, but you also want to

01:14:19.320 listen to them so you know what their problem is.

01:14:23.500 And so, that's a really good way of thinking about sales is when you go out to sell, you're

01:14:28.460 actually seeing if you can establish a partnership, and you can't establish a partnership if you

01:14:33.940 have nothing to offer.

01:14:35.340 And you have nothing to offer unless the solution you have matches the person's problem.

01:14:41.920 Right, so you go and say, the first thing you want to know from someone new is, well,

01:14:46.540 what's your problem?

01:14:47.620 Yeah, what do you need?

01:14:48.660 Yeah.

01:14:48.900 What are you looking for?

01:14:49.640 What are you looking for?

01:14:50.280 And if the answer has nothing to do with what you're selling, you should find someone else to

01:14:54.960 talk to.

01:14:55.300 You might be able to say, well, I know some people who could help you with that, but they're

01:14:58.340 actually not someone you should partner with because your offering and their problem don't

01:15:03.580 match.

01:15:04.140 And then if you force that by convincing them or lying to them even, then, well, they're

01:15:09.800 not satisfied because you didn't solve their problem.

01:15:12.040 Plus, they're annoyed at you.

01:15:13.620 Plus, even worse, if you do have a partnership with them, they're going to bend you towards

01:15:18.940 their problem.

01:15:19.800 And that's definitely not something you want.

01:15:23.740 So you've got to think of the first sales approach as an investigation.

01:15:29.360 Well, you also have to think about it as persuasion that people don't move too far too fast.

01:15:38.180 People move incrementally.

01:15:39.500 Yeah.

01:15:39.980 So one of the things that we deal with all the time is on a scale of, say, one to ten, one being your food

01:15:48.840 comes from the gas station.

01:15:50.240 Yeah.

01:15:50.500 And let's say we're a ten, okay?

01:15:55.200 You irritate somebody if you try to move them from a one to a ten.

01:15:59.060 Yeah.

01:16:00.060 That's because you're criticizing everything that you do.

01:16:02.340 That's right.

01:16:02.760 That's right.

01:16:03.420 But if we can move them, if as a result of a discussion, a friendly discussion, a non-aggressive

01:16:11.680 discussion, we can move them from a one to a two, well, they're on their way.

01:16:15.280 Yeah.

01:16:15.400 And they might not buy from us, but now instead of buying from the gas station, they're going

01:16:20.400 to the, whatever, organic section of the supermarket or something, okay?

01:16:24.000 And you gradually move them up.

01:16:26.240 And so too many times in persuasion, people try to move people too fast.

01:16:31.240 Yeah.

01:16:31.680 And people resist being moved too fast.

01:16:35.540 Definitely.

01:16:36.020 And that's why you have to start with a question that moves you to common ground quickly if

01:16:45.580 you're going to make progress.

01:16:47.760 Because if you move too fast, then you lose them.

01:16:51.260 Yeah.

01:16:51.520 And now there's no discussion.

01:16:53.440 Yeah.

01:16:53.600 Well, they can't see a way to bridge the gap.

01:16:55.520 Right.

01:16:56.040 Plus, you're criticizing their whole lifestyle.

01:16:58.220 Right.

01:16:58.400 So in marketing, one of the things that we teach and promote through our team is,

01:17:06.020 no sale is an end to itself.

01:17:09.920 Every sale is a springboard for the next sale.

01:17:12.780 Right.

01:17:13.060 Of course.

01:17:13.520 You cannot stay in business finding new customers.

01:17:16.920 Yeah.

01:17:17.240 The only way you stay in business is to please the customers you have.

01:17:22.440 Yeah.

01:17:22.820 Enough that they buzz and tell people about it and bring them back to you.

01:17:26.340 And that's a long-term relationship.

01:17:27.760 That's akin to a friendship relationship.

01:17:29.760 Right.

01:17:30.020 You don't want to play with someone once.

01:17:31.440 Which is why you don't want to irritate somebody at your lectures or your presentation.

01:17:36.160 Yeah, because they're already in the camp.

01:17:38.020 Yeah.

01:17:38.240 Right?

01:17:38.460 They're the last people you want to irritate.

01:17:40.200 Exactly.

01:17:40.760 Exactly.

01:17:41.320 Yeah, yeah.

01:17:41.780 They've done all the work coming to you.

01:17:43.740 Yeah, you need to do backflips to make them happy and meet their youth.

01:17:47.940 All right.

01:17:48.160 Well, look, this has gone by very rapidly.

01:17:50.360 So let me do two things.

01:17:51.520 I'm going to tell everybody what we're going to do on the Daily Wire side.

01:17:55.200 It's something I would have liked to have done on the YouTube side here too.

01:17:58.560 I would like to talk to you a little bit about how people can, I would like to talk about

01:18:04.920 the practical steps that people could take if they're interested in knowing more about

01:18:10.600 this just conceptually or as a lifestyle, right?

01:18:14.360 So let's do that on the Daily Wire side.

01:18:16.360 I want to recapitulate what we've discussed and then give you an opportunity to add anything

01:18:20.740 that you might want to this broader audience while you have the opportunity.

01:18:24.660 So you talked about the fact that, and there's so many things we could have touched on still,

01:18:29.860 that there is an agricultural enterprise, which is roughly termed now something approximating

01:18:37.160 regenerative farming, which requires the use of multiple species and a particular approach

01:18:44.220 to pasture management.

01:18:46.780 The pasture management is a diverse, natural landscape, multiple plants that's grazed upon

01:18:54.640 by herbivores that move like they do when they're migrating, that you mimic artificially.

01:19:00.860 You use multiple species to fill in the ecological niches.

01:19:05.480 You use birds to track the herbivores, the cows, and to sanitize the ground that they've grazed

01:19:14.160 on.

01:19:14.700 You rotate the cattle around your, through use of paddocks around your land.

01:19:20.760 You maximize the amount of product that your grasslands are producing so that that's hyper-efficient.

01:19:27.460 You regenerate the soil so it gets thicker.

01:19:30.140 That sequesters carbon.

01:19:31.700 You produce high-quality meat, and you can do that profitably while you're pursuing a lifestyle

01:19:38.980 that's enjoyable and serving a dedicated and committed customer base.

01:19:44.800 That's about that, eh?

01:19:46.660 Anything else?

01:19:47.740 That's pretty good.

01:19:48.800 It is pretty good.

01:19:49.640 It is pretty good.

01:19:50.500 It is pretty good.

01:19:51.380 And it's a good deal for everybody.

01:19:53.160 And so...

01:19:53.580 It is.

01:19:54.100 Yeah.

01:19:54.420 And so you're still an enthusiastic advocate of this after 40 years as well.

01:19:58.440 Yes, indeed.

01:19:59.180 Yeah, yeah.

01:19:59.580 Why?

01:20:00.160 Why is that?

01:20:01.300 I'll tell you something.

01:20:02.320 Most farmers my age, and I'm almost 70, most farmers my age are lonelier than they've ever

01:20:10.000 been in their life.

01:20:11.100 Their kids are gone.

01:20:12.300 And they've had enough.

01:20:13.220 The kids are gone.

01:20:14.500 It's Matilda and I by ourselves.

01:20:16.700 Yeah.

01:20:17.140 And boy, I can't get up and down off that tractor as well as I used to, you know, that

01:20:22.140 sort of thing.

01:20:22.620 And for me, Jordan, creating this model, this farm that, yes, the multi-speciation makes 0.69

01:20:34.520 it different every day.

01:20:36.600 You know, you're different animals, different things.

01:20:38.440 The diversity of ecology, you know, we've built 20 ponds.

01:20:41.900 So there's ducks and there's wood ducks and there's deer and there's bear and there's

01:20:46.820 wildlife and pollinators.

01:20:48.800 And so there's just, there's just vibrant life and earthworms.

01:20:52.740 And, and so you have all of that, you have that aesthetic and aromatic, sensual beauty

01:20:59.760 and attractiveness.

01:21:01.740 And then you add the component of, of the social element, the people, our customers.

01:21:07.360 In other words, we're not just out here hauling grain to a Cargill grain bin.

01:21:12.080 You have a social community.

01:21:13.420 Every day there are people at the farm saying, I so thank you for what you do.

01:21:17.720 You're, you're just, our family depends on you.

01:21:21.300 Thank you.

01:21:22.180 You know, from our day one, our kids grow up, you know, with our customers, pinching them

01:21:26.480 on the cheek saying, we just think your parents are the coolest in the world.

01:21:30.580 And thank you for, for being a part of this.

01:21:32.920 And so here I am, you know, 22 of us now basically earn a full-time living from the farm.

01:21:38.560 And, and, and I'm surrounded now by this, these twenties and thirties year old, you know,

01:21:44.860 the oldest ones are in their early forties now, but, but these team and these young people

01:21:49.280 that are just, just can't wait to do what I've done.

01:21:53.920 And every day they, they, they think I'm cool, you know, and they want to do this.

01:22:00.760 And so, I mean, I just, I just break down in tears when I, when I, I, you know, explain

01:22:08.580 the blessing and the gratitude that I have, that at this stage in my life, I'm surrounded

01:22:14.120 by this youthful enthusiasm.

01:22:17.060 Yeah.

01:22:17.940 Yeah.

01:22:18.260 Yeah.

01:22:18.540 I understand.

01:22:19.480 I understand.

01:22:19.840 To, to, to appreciate what I've spent a lifetime carving out and they will now take it to

01:22:26.880 new heights that I never dreamed.

01:22:28.620 Yeah.

01:22:28.880 Well, and we didn't, there's so many things that are advantageous to this that we didn't

01:22:32.140 even discuss too, because the approach that you're taking, if that was duplicated at a

01:22:36.900 larger scale also makes for a much healthier, healthier livestock with a much higher quality

01:22:42.160 life and much more resilient farms and more decentralized food production and less reliance

01:22:47.740 on chemicals and, and both fertilizers and pesticides and, um, and pharmaceuticals and

01:22:54.440 pharmaceuticals and farm, well, right.

01:22:55.700 And, and, and no antibiotic overutilization, which, you know, which is a very major thing.

01:23:01.140 Yeah.

01:23:01.240 Yeah.

01:23:01.420 Yeah.

01:23:01.540 Yeah.

01:23:01.740 And regeneration of the soil and carbon sequestration and yeah, yeah.

01:23:06.020 So, so, you know, we hear all this nonsense at high levels among the globalists about the

01:23:11.380 fact that agriculture is a net pollutant and that we have to radically cut back, for example,

01:23:17.240 on our meat consumption, which is something that's like, oh, I see.

01:23:20.560 So everybody's going to have a little brain because they eat nothing but plants.

01:23:23.600 Right. 1.00

01:23:23.880 That's your damn theory. 1.00

01:23:24.820 Right. 0.99

01:23:25.300 And so, you, you know, you hear about these rejections.

01:23:28.100 Well, if we're all, if we're all eating beans, that might solve the gas problem.

01:23:31.060 Yeah.

01:23:31.260 Well, that's also, well, I, apparently Bill Gates has a solution to that.

01:23:35.440 It's pharmaceutical as well.

01:23:36.500 Yeah.

01:23:36.620 Yeah.

01:23:36.840 Some, uh, some, uh, Bovira or something.

01:23:39.400 Yeah.

01:23:39.460 Yeah.

01:23:39.880 Yeah.

01:23:40.100 Yes.

01:23:40.620 Exactly.

01:23:41.200 Exactly.

01:23:41.760 There's a put in the cart before the horse.

01:23:43.520 And so it's very optimistic to hear about such approaches because they seem to be producing

01:23:49.720 a variety of social goods simultaneously and as in a truly resilient and sustainable way.

01:23:55.080 So, well, thank you very much, sir, for coming to talk to us today and we'll turn to the Daily

01:24:00.100 Wire side.

01:24:00.700 And I think we'll go more into the nuts and bolts of this, maybe talk a little bit more

01:24:04.440 about the issues of resilience and sustainability as well.

01:24:08.060 But if you're looking for a practical guide to how this sort of lifestyle might be, well,

01:24:12.800 at least participated in, but possibly pursued, then join us on the Daily Wire side.

01:24:18.420 And thank you very much to the film crew here.

01:24:20.580 Where are we today?

01:24:21.820 Evanston?

01:24:23.240 Evansville.

01:24:23.800 Sorry.

01:24:24.380 Story to everybody in Evansville.

01:24:26.160 Evansville, Indiana.

01:24:28.040 Yeah.

01:24:28.340 Yeah.

01:24:28.600 And so I had a show here last night and so, uh, it's a lovely place and we've been happy

01:24:33.180 to be here and it was very good to meet you, sir.

01:24:35.260 It was wonderful.

01:24:35.980 Thanks very much for the conversation.

01:24:37.320 Thanks to all of you on the YouTube side and join us over on the Daily Wire side for

01:24:42.740 a continuation of this conversation.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - April 17, 2025

539. The Best Argument Against Veganism ｜ Joel Salatin

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