Small American Farmers in Serious Crisis: The Back Story
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welcome everyone we’re here with another fascinating interview with Joel sutin and uh if you haven’t read his books uh you need to they’re awesome there’s a situation that uh we want to talk about right now so welcome Joel um can you tell us a little bit about the situation that’s happening uh with small farmers right now in the relationship to selling food yeah thank you Dr Eric and thank you for having me on it’s a real pleasure and an honor to be with you you know when you walk into a Walmart or a supermarket it’s easy to assume that well good grief you know the Cornucopia is here I can have anything I want and the fact is that all the food in a supermarket is carefully um U sanctioned if you will or licensed by a Labyrinth of government regulations not just food regulations but zoning regulations and and all sorts of things uh that that make it very difficult for especially small farmers uh to come in I I I remember one uh one time I had a bunch of vice presidents from I think it was Sam’s Club either Sam’s Club or Costco the nine nine vice presidents were on a kind of a a nature tour around the East Coast they’d come from from uh Arkansas where their headquarters is and we were one we were one of their stops they were gonna spend the day out on the Chesapeake Bay and things and and uh I gave him a farm tour we’re we’re having lunch in the in the sales building there and and uh they asked me well they were totally impressed they got it they they got you know ecological farming they got earthworms I mean they you know they it all resonated uh Animal Welfare those SS of things and uh I they asked mewell how do we get your stuff into you know a Costco or a Walmart or whatever and um I said well the first thing you have to do is allow a truck smaller than a tractor trailer to back up to your loading dock Dr Eric end of discussion and that was it wow they could not they could not even go anywhere so that’s not government regulations that’s just that’s just you know the system the system is um it is is conceived and continues to evolve to protect the powerful interests that are there and I’m not going to suggest it’s a conspiracy I’m not even sure that a lot of these people know know the impact of their policies like not letting a a one-ton truck back up to the dock um I I I mean I could I could tell by these folks expression they the thought never occurred to them oh well a small farmer would have trouble coming in a tractor trailer I don’t think it ever crossed their mind you know it’s it’s a different world and so so you I don’t like to use the word conspiracy or evil intent I think a lot of this stuff just happens because people aren’t thinking about it and um and and it just is what it is but the the fact is that there are many things if you start thinking about huh wonder wonder what it’ be like to have a truly artisanal craft cheese for example uh made by a local farmer with unpasturized milk uh what would it be like to have a a homemade uh pepperoni balone Sherie uh made by an artisanal pork producer that the pigs ran outside ate grass and acorns and uh and and you know this this person uh made these real specialty you know Polish sausage and and things but but that none none of that exists um in fact in Virginia right now in Virginia right now there is not if if if as a small farmer if I want to make and sell a hot dog I mean a good hot dog not you know not scrapings off the floor somewhere but a good um all meat hot dog with no no fillers No Junk in it just you know beef and pork and that’s it yeah there is not a place in Virginia that c that can make a legal hot dog that I can sell unbelievable incredible for me to sell a hot dog I have to ship um you know boned boneless product up to Pennsylvania and pay a large facility there to you know to make our hot dogs and then ship them back to ourselves wow wow and and and then of course that makes the price of the food a little bit higher so then then you get accused of being an oh you’re a food elitist look at your prices well yeah when I have to yeah yeah I just you know I want to support a local farmer a small farmer that’s doing it right because that’s the type of food I want to eat but it’s it’s becoming very difficult to get that food and I can see why the all the regulations and the support for the bigger industry so it’s making it harder and harder um one of the things that you’re doing is you’re having a conference uh with a bunch of farmers that are very creative right um can you tell us a little bit about that solution yeah so so uh the Rogue food conference was started about four years ago and uh John Moody and I kind of started it I’d been wanting to do this for years but I needed a I needed an an e a manager sidekick I’m a Visionary okay I’m a dreamer I’m out here in la la land uh and I need a stage manager you know uh I can conceive the theme and the story but I you know I’m not the guy to actually run the stage and uh so John Moody came along he said yeah I I’ll do that and so we launched the first one in the spring of 2020 literally one week before the lockdown started and um and the theme is circumvention not compliance what happens Dr Eric is that when when regulations become so onerous that they prohibit competition coming to the table to the marketplace table there comes a time when it’s it’s actually more efficient to figure out a a circumventive way you know um an end run than it is to try to run up through the Middle with and and agree to comply with everything and so so we start looking around the country say where are the people that have figured out how to do this how to make an end run and lo and behold there are a bunch of them I mean wow not not myriads by any means but there’s enough to actually create a nasset movement so this will be our what seventh or eighth uh roog food conference it’s going to be here in Virginia at at at we’re going to be hosting it at our farm and um and and we’ll be showcasing people and what we’ve been doing is showcasing ideas and people so let me give you a couple of examples one is a lady in North Carolina that has started a 501c3 food Church you join her church you get the food and your your and her um whatever her her protection is freedom of religion wow it it it’s my it’s my religion that I’m to take care of my body it actually doesn’t belong to me it belongs to God and it’s not supposed to have junk and so in order for it to not get junk I in other words it’s it’s part of the whole you know the whole religious uh experience okay so that that’s one example and the state North Carolina has tried to shut her down and shut her down uh she’s had as many as six six food police cars food police police yeah par parked outside her um her Warehouse there and they can’t touch her she said you know you have no jurisdiction here this is you know freedom fre of religion and and so so far she’s she’s winning that that argument um there’s a guy in uh in Florida who uh has gone under the pet food regulation so about about eight nine years ago he was raided for selling unlicensed dairy products so he was milk and cows and selling ice cream and kefir and yogurt and milk and butter uh completely unlicensed but his customers were thrilled the stuff was unbelievably good and they felt better and you know people wanted it and so he was selling it well he got he got bust as they say he got busted and so as a result working with the farm to Consumer Legal defense fund which is a group of attorneys that kind of like The Homeschool legal defense Association they got the Florida uh whatever Bure bureaucracy to craft pet food licenses that you could license any food for 25 a piece as a pet food and now sells food not fit not for human consumption