0:02

this is the Swamp Yankee Podcast

0:04

where we inform New Englanders and everyone

0:06

else on the how and why of local

0:08

food production. We are your host

0:10

Dylan Head farmer at Daigle

0:12

Farm, and Sam, the host

0:15

of the Illegitimate Scholar Podcast

0:17

and former Yuppy. I'm Dylan

0:19

and I started Daigle Farm years ago to

0:21

share the knowledge and experiences of simply

0:23

growing food with my local community.

0:26

I started this podcast for the same reasons.

0:28

I started the farm and I'm Sam, and I'm

0:30

on this journey with Dylan and all of you because I

0:32

believe in Dylan's vision and I'm concerned

0:34

by industrial food production and its consequences

0:37

for our culture. We are here to discuss

0:39

the problems and intricacies with modern agriculture

0:41

that Dylan encounters running a full-time farm

0:44

and the issues our periodic guests in the local

0:46

food industry face. Less than 2%

0:48

of people today work in farming when just

0:51

a few generations ago, 90% of Americans

0:53

lived on. We think that's a problem,

0:55

and if you do too, join us weekly to become

0:57

an informed and active member of your local food

1:00

community. So 2023,

1:02

making a couple of changes to the farm.

1:05

Uh, as you know, Sam,

1:07

we grow a ton of chicken. Is

1:10

the farm becoming transgender? The no

1:14

You said it's changing. It is changing. What are

1:16

the farm's pronouns? Um, I just wanna be respectful.

1:19

How does, uh,

1:22

a business have a pronoun?

1:25

Corporations are people, my friend. That's

1:29

true In the eyes of the law. Actually. An corpor

1:31

Are people, they, so corporations are people, can't

1:33

they have a gender, a sex? Oh,

1:35

I suppose they could. Who are

1:37

you to say what the, what the farm identifies

1:39

as, I'm gonna say that the farm identifies as a woman

1:42

because Sure. The farm is a,

1:44

you know, providing. food

1:47

that this, wait, this wasn't a, this was a Mother

1:49

Earth thing, not a misogyny thing. Holy

1:52

that sounded bad. I

1:55

have to leave this in the episode. Okay. Because

1:57

it's good, but Jesus Christ. Um,

2:00

okay. You start now So

2:03

a lot of changes. It's not that we

2:05

are moving. The

2:08

processing of our poultry to

2:10

the farm. So normally

2:12

that's the only part that we outsource.

2:14

We pay a U S D A certified

2:17

slaughterhouse to process all of our meat

2:19

or like our meat chickens. And

2:21

uh, it's a heck of an expense.

2:24

It's really like, I

2:26

mean, I'll, I'll put real figures

2:28

out there cuz it doesn't matter. So what we pay

2:30

to, to take a whole bird to

2:33

a facility and just have it butchered and process

2:35

like not even processed, just butchered and

2:37

packaged as a whole chicken, it

2:39

adds $5 and 50 cents

2:41

to each chicken in cost.

2:43

That's what they charge. And you're doing

2:45

like, a hundred chickens. Well, we're doing 200

2:48

a batch two, two to two

2:50

to 350. Um, our

2:52

schedule that I put together is kind of,

2:55

uh, hard to explain, but

2:57

some batches are larger than others given the time of

2:59

year and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But so

3:02

let's just say 200. So if I took

3:04

200 to that slaughterhouse at five 50,

3:06

that's, uh, $1,050

3:08

roughly, or literally

3:11

that I'd have to pay just to literally

3:14

get 'em back, to have somebody process

3:16

them and give 'em back to me. And that's

3:18

because, uh, that

3:20

facility, which I think they all

3:23

run like this, but I'm not, don't quote me, they

3:25

have to pay the salary of

3:27

the U S D A inspector. So

3:30

the farm that has that inspector on site

3:32

has to pay their,

3:36

you know, their on payroll, right.

3:38

But the government sets their wages. Yeah.

3:41

Right. You see how that works job, right? Right.

3:43

So it's like, um, and normally

3:45

it's upwards of 80 to a hundred thousand dollars

3:48

is what these people make. Okay. Yeah. The government

3:50

is a jobs program for the morons that created

3:52

it. That's beautiful. Yeah.

3:55

Yeah. And, and, and, and that's what I attribute these,

3:57

these crazy prices to, you know, a lot

3:59

of time and, and I don't

4:01

know. So it's up 75 cents

4:04

from last year was what they're charging 75

4:06

cents more. And yeah, it doesn't seem

4:08

like much, but inflation is only a 5%.

4:10

What do you mean they're up? Well, 75 cents.

4:12

Well, that's what I'm saying. Like I think what they're doing

4:14

is, I don't want to do it price they butcher

4:17

and grow hundreds

4:19

of thousands, I'm guessing hundreds of thousands

4:21

of their own chicken. Oh, okay. Right, right. And they

4:23

do this as a service for other farms,

4:26

uh, which allows us to sell it in a, in a,

4:28

in a, but I mean, if they're paying a U S

4:30

D A inspector, then if. You

4:33

know, they scale it better if they, yeah,

4:35

if they do more chickens. As long as they're not

4:38

having to scale up in operating time or something.

4:40

Right. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense to do

4:42

other people's. Yeah. And their bread and butter isn't

4:44

in their own product. It's not in performing

4:46

a service for other farms. Right. They make

4:48

all their money doing their own business.

4:51

Like this is an addition, but I mean this, yeah,

4:53

this pads it right pretty well. Pretty

4:55

well if they're not increased, like they already

4:57

have to pay the, the X salary

4:59

of the Yeah. U S D A inspector, you might

5:01

as well keep it running as much as possible and And they

5:03

also have like 15 to 25

5:05

people in the back on the processing

5:07

line as well. Oh yeah.

5:10

Yeah. So they have to fill out that. Yeah.

5:12

Yeah. There's a lot going on. But they went

5:14

up a lot this year and I

5:16

just started thinking, and I started crunching the numbers

5:18

and just, I wonder if they paid their employees

5:21

more. I wonder if they increased the pay of their. Because

5:24

I kind of doubt it. I don't wanna attack this specific place, but

5:26

most places didn't. Well, it's in Rhode Island,

5:28

so I don't know if their minimum wage

5:30

went up or something like that. They assume these people aren't getting

5:32

paid minimum wage. Maybe. I shouldn't assume that, but

5:35

these probably pro they, they probably are. Really?

5:37

Yeah. Because that seems like kind of a skilled position.

5:39

Well, there's probably some ranking,

5:42

uh, in the, in the line. Like there's

5:44

probably people that have been there for a while and have

5:47

like higher paid positions. I mean, that's how it always

5:49

has been on farms I've worked on Yeah. People

5:51

that stay on always get kind of a bonus

5:53

and a raise Yeah. Just for staying on

5:55

because it's hard to find that kind of labor.

5:57

Yeah. Like literally. Seriously. And I

5:59

worked on a plant farm that is like,

6:02

yeah, I would, that sucks. I would really not

6:04

want to do that, but I

6:06

don't either. But this is, this

6:08

is just a good thing to do for the, the

6:11

lifeblood of the business. And, uh, so,

6:13

so let's just break it down, right. What a

6:15

good thing to do, you're saying is to slaughter them

6:17

yourself is to do 'em ourselves on the farm. And

6:19

we're legally allowed to do it if

6:21

we stand under a certain amount. and

6:24

um, you know, we have to

6:26

sell directly to the online consumer, which

6:28

means we can't sell to chefs or, you know,

6:30

any kind of restaurant, no food trucks, anything like that.

6:33

No grocery stores. And

6:35

I used to think that was a big limiting factor,

6:38

but it really isn't because we already

6:40

don't have those customers. Mm. But

6:43

you were probably thinking that you would get them At the time

6:45

We've had 'em come in and out. Yeah. We've

6:47

sold to some restaurants that have gone under,

6:50

we've sold, you know, we've sold to, uh,

6:52

other place, um, like local catering

6:54

companies that when it's

6:56

required they will get local food. If somebody

6:58

requests local chicken, they'll get

7:00

local chicken. You know what I mean? Just to be clear though, they didn't

7:02

go under cuz of your chicken. Yeah. No, no,

7:05

no, no, no, no. They went under for embezzlement. Cool.

7:08

Totally different story. It's a good story. Unrelated

7:11

to the chicken, unrelated, did you put anything in the chicken

7:13

that promoted embezzling behavior? Nope.

7:15

Okay. Nope. Fantastic. Just clear the air there.

7:18

Yeah. The chicken's fantastic. No, the, the

7:20

chicken's delicious and does pretty affordable.

7:23

If you were to compare my competitors to what, you

7:25

know, fresh pasture raised chickens, I'm

7:28

kind of at the lower end of the cost spectrum, but

7:30

that's neither here nor there. So with

7:33

the processing, um,

7:36

we're, we're trying to do a thousand. Birds

7:38

this season. Okay. Yeah. So

7:40

let's just say for numbers sake,

7:43

we do 'em all whole,

7:46

okay. That's, you

7:49

know, $5 and 50 cents

7:51

a bird. That's, uh, almost seven grand,

7:53

isn't it? Seven $7,500.

7:56

I don't do math. Yeah, it's, no,

7:58

it's, yeah. No, it's a thou, it's 5,000.

8:01

And then how a th it's 5,500. My bad.

8:04

But we also do

8:06

roundup. Yeah, just roundup. It's actually a million,

8:08

but no, so we also do cut up

8:10

chickens, which they charge a ridiculous

8:13

amount more for, uh, and they hit

8:15

you with the packaging, which is ridiculous, but I get

8:17

it ish. Like I

8:19

said, I think it's their, I don't want to do this anymore thing.

8:21

And this is how they're slowly weaning themselves off of

8:23

helping the community in this way. Well, and

8:25

that's fine. Yeah. That's what they gotta do. I

8:28

get it. They probably, Are

8:30

at capacity of what they're capable of doing. Absolutely.

8:32

So they can raise the price and then certain people will drop off,

8:34

others won't, and then they're just making more. I hate

8:37

to be one of those people, but, you

8:40

know, let's, let's call

8:42

it, if we butchered half of 'em

8:45

every time at the part out

8:47

price, it's $8 a bird

8:50

to part out a chicken. Yeah. Plus

8:52

$3 for the packaging per

8:55

item that they package. So

8:58

if I get a hundred packages, they're gonna charge

9:00

me $300 just for the plastic

9:02

it's in. Yeah. You understand? So,

9:05

so how much would one bird cost that

9:07

it's $11 to package and part

9:09

out? One bird? No, it's, it's five, uh, it's,

9:11

uh, $8 to, to cut it

9:13

up. Mm-hmm. and, uh, and debone

9:15

the breasts. And then they package

9:17

it How they,

9:20

how like the market standard, like six

9:22

drumsticks, six wings, two breasts.

9:24

Oh, four thighs. Yeah. But by

9:26

doing that, They're like, well, this is

9:29

what you're gonna pay in packaging. So on one chicken,

9:31

that's two breasts, so that's $3 in packaging.

9:34

Then you got like two thighs. So let's say

9:36

it's a dollar 50, cuz you get two thighs on a chicken,

9:38

you know, like it adds up just in the packaging.

9:40

So, and it doesn't

9:43

cost that much packaging doesn't cost that much if I

9:45

bought it and did it myself, so obviously Yeah.

9:47

Um, but whatever, so

9:50

we're looking to save anywhere between $5,500

9:53

and $10,000 just from

9:55

moving the processing to the farm.

10:00

D. And does that include the cost

10:02

of butchering the chickens and everything? Yeah, the

10:04

cost of the labor. And that's, that's what I would effectively

10:06

be paying throughout the season for

10:10

this job to be, be performed

10:12

by a government inspected facility.

10:14

Yeah. But then minus mm-hmm. the cost

10:16

that you will still incur, incur

10:18

from doing it ourselves. So, let's

10:21

just say it probably doesn't include your own labor, but you're

10:23

driving out there and waiting there and Yeah, so

10:26

I, I did count in the time that it takes to

10:28

go to this town and, you know,

10:30

and it's 45 minutes away. Yeah. There

10:32

and back. We're looking at an hour and a half plus.

10:34

And then a lot of times you gotta

10:37

sit there and freaking wait.

10:39

They make you wait cuz they do their chickens

10:41

first and then they take on their customers

10:44

like me. Right. So it's like, I usually

10:46

try to get there for seven, but you're still

10:48

in line. It's ridiculous. And so

10:52

I chalked it up to six hours a month

10:54

that that place takes out of my life.

10:56

Mm-hmm. Okay. Drive and wait and whatever, whatever. Processing

11:00

200 chickens every other.

11:03

is only gonna take me maybe

11:05

four to six hours. Okay. So

11:07

the hours are almost a wash. But

11:10

if I have three guys,

11:13

which I already got guys lined up to help. Great.

11:15

I'm, thank you for not asking me cuz I was not

11:17

gonna No dude, I couldn't. Yeah, I couldn't. No,

11:20

no. And it's weird, haven't asked anybody, you

11:22

know, it's a weird job to be like, Hey, you want to come kill some

11:24

chickens? But, um, and

11:26

they're doing it for cash and I'm sure

11:28

some of 'em will wanna barter for chicken meat,

11:31

which is a good deal. It's fresh as can

11:33

be. Right. And you get to dig a hole and

11:35

it's not a whole day operation, you know? So,

11:37

uh, I'm thinking we'll probably

11:39

take four to six hours between start

11:42

to finish and that's packaging included. And

11:46

I mean, this will

11:48

also allow us to offer specials

11:51

on chicken because there's a lot more wiggle

11:53

room and, and we

11:55

never get to put chicken on sale. And I know what that sounds

11:57

like. Why, why would you want to lose money

11:59

or, or give money away? But

12:02

the fact of the matter is, is people are enticed

12:04

by those kinds of things, you know, in sales.

12:06

Like, and it doesn't even

12:08

matter if it's a really great deal or not. 5%

12:11

is still 5% less than they're gonna pay.

12:13

You know what I'm saying? So a lot of times

12:15

we'll get people that are not regulars that see

12:17

a deal and they'll be like, oh, can I get

12:19

something this week? And yeah, I mean, you could probably raise your prices

12:22

10% and then mark it down 10%.

12:24

Right? And people would like, it's a psychological thing. It's a psychological

12:26

thing. Super dumb. It's super dumb. Like companies like

12:28

JCPenney, they just, is

12:31

never not a sale. Right? I don't know how they legally

12:33

do that. Cause I thought there were laws about it, but like

12:35

how, what's a law? What's

12:37

a law? So

12:45

anyway, um, and

12:48

I've done it before. We butcher all of our turkeys every

12:50

Thanksgiving on the farm. So I'm not unfamiliar

12:53

with this process. Um,

12:56

and. What, what

12:59

we're trying to move towards is, like what we

13:01

do right now is we, we have a flock

13:03

and we process the flock and we put it in the freezer and

13:05

we sell it, you know, um, as we can,

13:08

as it's ordered. What I'd like to do

13:10

is now that we're gonna be able to process on the farm

13:13

and not be dependent or beholden to another

13:15

company to give us our product, um,

13:18

I want to try to like lower the price a little bit and

13:20

get more people enticed to bulk buying chicken.

13:22

I would like to be able to say on processing

13:24

day, most of the chickens we we're

13:27

processing we're, are leaving, you know,

13:29

they're going right to the consumer's freezer. We're

13:31

not even holding on to 'em, you know, and people

13:33

will get a better deal for showing up on

13:35

the day of, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And,

13:38

and I, I know some farms do this model. I know

13:40

it works. Um, you

13:42

know, and that's the savings. All you gotta do is show

13:44

up and take, you know, five or 10 chickens

13:47

and now you're saving money and, and

13:49

still getting a premium product. You know what I'm saying?

13:52

Um, but, so

13:54

yeah, five 50 on average, a bird that takes

13:56

our cost way below.

13:59

You know what it was. I know it doesn't sound

14:01

like a lot, but No, I mean, if, when

14:04

you're talking about scales of like a hundred and you're talking about

14:06

doing it monthly, it really, really does add up. Yeah,

14:08

yeah, yeah. And it, you know, these are just for the

14:10

season and who knows, we might do a little bit

14:12

more than a thousand here or there. Um,

14:15

and I have a, one

14:17

of my buddies, his, his dad is like

14:19

a, a professional

14:22

butcher, but he's like retired.

14:25

Um, so I'm hoping to get him on board

14:27

to help us with this endeavor. Obviously he knows

14:29

what he's doing and he would be my guy to

14:31

cut up and part out chicken, you

14:33

know, because the biggest thing you, you

14:35

lose when you do it. is, you're not

14:37

gonna spend the time to cut it up. It takes so much

14:39

time. You gotta have really good knowledge how to

14:41

move that knife, cut up a bird into parts.

14:43

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, no, I'm sure. So

14:46

like I was saying, I It's gotta be a scale. Yeah,

14:48

yeah. And not that I haven't parted

14:50

out a chicken, but like we're talking a

14:53

thousand plus chickens over the season,

14:56

but at least a hundred at a time. So

14:58

I'm hoping that this guy is the ace in the hole

15:00

and he can be doing that while

15:03

we're also, like the rest of us are just processing

15:05

birds. He could be parting birds out. Right. Okay.

15:07

So we'll still be able to offer all

15:09

the same cuts, bonus, breasts,

15:11

bone and breasts, legs, um,

15:13

wings, all that stuff. Um,

15:16

and it doesn't have to be U S D A because

15:18

the small Farm Act allows us to do X

15:21

amount. I believe it's a thousand. don't

15:23

quote me on that. Every state has different regulations,

15:26

but I believe Connecticut is a thousand birds and

15:29

um, a thousand birds a year. Yeah. Yeah.

15:31

So it limits your growth because they gotta have

15:33

that thumb on you. Right. But, uh,

15:36

you know, there's also gotta keep the little guy down. You

15:38

gotta keep the little guy down. And there's also no

15:40

chicken police though. You

15:42

see what I'm saying? Like Yeah. I mean, I think we should limit how

15:44

we discuss this. I'm fine with it. Okay.

15:47

I'm totally good with it. Okay. I used to work

15:49

pretty closely with the Department of Ag in Connecticut when we

15:51

had the certified hatchery, so I

15:53

understand how it works. Right. And uh,

15:56

and also I'm not a pathogen farmer and they know

15:58

that like my stuff is up to code.

16:00

Yeah. As far as birds are not

16:02

dying while Yeah. Factory for are

16:04

dying. Yeah. Right. I mean, if you know how the factory farms

16:07

work Yeah. Which I think a lot of people are pretty

16:09

informed about that. Mm-hmm. then you shouldn't be surprised

16:12

Yeah. That they're dying like that. Mm-hmm. Um,

16:14

you know, I, I think at the, at the root

16:16

of this, what I'm really hearing, um,

16:20

is that it's a lot, that there's

16:22

so many, there's so many barriers for a

16:24

small farm to actually get started. Mm-hmm. you

16:27

know, there's so much, you need

16:29

so much startup capital at a time

16:31

when, you know, nobody keeps

16:33

startup capital. Like nobody keeps money.

16:36

Like the, the average American is in debt, so

16:38

nobody has any money and you need

16:41

money to, to, to

16:43

do these things. You need to have money

16:45

to build the facilities to even get to the

16:47

point where you could possibly do this. Mm-hmm. and

16:49

there's, there's culturally. is,

16:51

this is completely discouraged in our society.

16:54

Oh yeah. Yeah. Because the safe option

16:56

is just to, I mean, and not

16:59

there's anything wrong with getting a normal job and working,

17:01

um, but like that is the safe option

17:03

that that's the standard option, right. Of like

17:05

going to work a job to get a salary

17:08

from someone else that's guaranteed. Yeah. Essentially

17:11

guaranteed. Yeah. Until you're fired or

17:13

the company goes under, um, like so

17:15

you'll be making money up until the point

17:17

that the company goes bankrupt. Right. Whereas,

17:19

you know, if you're the owner of that company, you just

17:22

yeah. Right. Another way we

17:24

could look at this is, I didn't even think of this, but like,

17:27

um, that butcher cost

17:29

would be roughly 10%

17:32

of what I'm hoping to, you know, achieve in

17:34

revenue this season. So

17:36

if you broke it out that way, you'd be like,

17:38

wow, I'm not gonna give up 10%.

17:40

You know what I mean? Cuz it's a cost,

17:43

so it's gonna cut right into the revenue, obviously it's

17:45

gonna cut into everything so, Isn't

17:48

it more than 10% though? Or,

17:50

or you're talking about 10% of your entire revenue.

17:53

Entire, entire, entire, yeah. Like Jesus Christ

17:55

through the po. Because it's more than 10%

17:57

of the cost of those chickens. Right.

18:00

Because it's, oh yeah, it's a lot. It's,

18:02

unless you're doing a hundred thousand dollars on chicken, cuz

18:04

you're talking about, no, no, I'm not doing a hundred thousand dollars.

18:06

But that's what I'm saying. Obviously you're not doing a hundred thousand

18:08

dollars on chicken. Right? Right. But if you did the figures,

18:11

we're hoping to do roughly 25

18:14

to 30,000 on chicken. Right.

18:17

In revenue. We're not talking gross

18:19

profits, we're just talking Right. Revenue on

18:21

this one stream. But that saves

18:24

25, it's actually saves 25%

18:26

of what I sell a chicken for by

18:28

doing it myself. That's incredible.

18:30

I sell a chicken for 20 bucks, it saves $5 and

18:32

50 cents. Yeah. Yeah.

18:34

Yeah. That's awesome. You know what I'm saying? Like, and like

18:37

you said, it allows you to, but yeah, I mean, can you scale

18:39

up at that point? I mean, you're limited by the law, you're

18:41

limited technically. Yeah. You know,

18:43

um, but. You

18:47

know, and you can always do,

18:50

if you can, you get to a thousand

18:53

and. More birds. You get, you

18:55

just do 'em at the U S D A facility. Right. If you need

18:57

to go. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not ruining out this place.

18:59

Yeah. It's my last ditch effort

19:02

option. You know, if you, if you can't get the help

19:04

and you need to go there. Right, right. And maybe at some point

19:06

you have someone working for you who can drive over there for

19:08

you and their are times not as valve. I've seen guys

19:10

there, hang on, working for other farms that just

19:13

do that when I'm there waiting in line, you

19:15

know, and, uh, it just sucks.

19:17

The operation is, is just not,

19:19

it's just not friendly, you know? Yeah. And it's

19:21

not like they're, they're, they're really nice people,

19:24

but the way everything flows is just like,

19:26

you're obviously not a priority. They don't actually

19:28

need us. Sounds like the team. We actually need them.

19:31

Yeah. Sounds like the dmv, it sounds

19:33

like any government run thing, right? Yeah, exactly.

19:35

Anything the government's got their, anything. Anything that they

19:37

kind of don't have that big of an incentive.

19:39

Like these people do have an incentive to serve you.

19:41

Yeah. But they know that you need them. Yeah.

19:44

Well, we're in the same business. Yeah. We're selling

19:46

chicken to the general public. Well, they

19:48

sell, they're in a different business because they're

19:50

better than you. Well, cause they're a big boy. Are

19:53

they? They grow in a building. I grow on pasture. So

19:55

better is a, is a perspective thing. No,

19:57

no. I know they might have more revenue, they

19:59

might have more infrastructure. They might

20:01

have, you know, better all of that, but they

20:04

don't have a better product. They grow

20:06

it. Just like the big guys when I said They're better than

20:08

you. Yeah. I'm talking from, from their perspective.

20:10

They're better than Oh sure. That Sure. At their own

20:12

standards. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you know, if

20:14

you go buy money, they got the. Yeah.

20:17

And that's how our society decides what's better, I

20:19

think. Unfortunately. And that's why we still support

20:21

Tyson and Purdue. Right. You know, you

20:23

know, remember that scene in the Big Short where,

20:26

um, it's a great movie. Great movie. Mm-hmm. My

20:28

favorite movie. Really? Oh yeah. My number one favorite

20:30

movie. Okay. But there's a scene in there where, uh,

20:33

mark Bomb. Mm-hmm. the, uh, the angry

20:36

one. well, some of them are angry,

20:38

but the, the most characteristically

20:40

angry. He was in a meeting with, um,

20:43

the, uh, Asian dude that was,

20:45

um, playing the,

20:48

the guy who was making millions,

20:50

he was making like a million dollars

20:53

a month. Mm-hmm. or whatever. Mm-hmm. um, doing,

20:56

uh, What the was he

20:58

doing? He was the guy, he meets him at dinner and

21:00

he is describing his business to him. He is basically taking

21:03

kickbacks and, um, for

21:05

the, for the mortgages? Yeah. He's taking

21:07

a bunch of money and it's obviously a corrupt system,

21:09

but technically, like his, his fund

21:11

is in Long Island and Right. He's like,

21:13

doesn't work for them, but like, works for them.

21:16

Sure. And um, and then this guy

21:18

goes to Mark, he's like, um,

21:20

I, um, you despise me, don't

21:22

you? Or something like that. And Mark Baum,

21:24

um, he says

21:27

something to him and the guy says, he's like, well,

21:29

why don't you tell me how much.

21:31

You're worth, and I'll tell you how much I'm worth.

21:34

Mm-hmm. And Mark's like, oh, you're despicable. And

21:36

the guy's like, he's like, well, I

21:38

have more. So I guess that means that

21:40

society values me greatly. Mm-hmm.

21:42

So it's like at at the certain

21:44

level in, in our society. Yeah. What

21:47

is valued, like I,

21:49

if there's one overarching theme of how society

21:52

values something as a whole, and not society

21:54

as like any individual or group of individuals,

21:56

but the entire group of individuals in

21:58

the overarching culture, what

22:01

is the value of that? Is the dollar

22:03

and whoever has the most of those dollars

22:05

is being valued by society the

22:08

most. Even

22:10

if it's someone like Jeffrey Epstein, even

22:13

if, even if it's someone like Jeffrey Epstein

22:15

up until it isn't of course, right. Up

22:17

until you're thrown away by people

22:19

with more dollars than you and

22:22

they kill you in a, in a cell or

22:26

you hang yourself in a cell. Sorry. Sorry. Leave

22:34

Maybe we cut the Epstein thing. Yeah,

22:37

we'll cut the Epstein We'll

22:39

cut the Epstein thing. I

22:42

love it. I know you do. I know you do.

22:44

I love it. We'll cut the Epstein thing. So yeah,

22:46

man, it's, uh, it's, well these are the things we'll

22:48

leave on on the Patreon. Yeah, there you go. Um,

22:53

so where we were talking about,

22:55

um, It's kinda

22:57

like a stranglehold, you know, uhhuh limits your

22:59

growth, all that. But you

23:02

know, to be clear, the the,

23:04

the stranglehold is the, the,

23:06

the ceiling on the amount of chickens. Right.

23:08

Is the stranglehold on what the government says

23:11

is a safe number to not have any kind

23:13

of pathogens. Right. That's

23:15

their view of it. And that number was, I assume,

23:17

informed by like bigger

23:20

chicken lobbyists who are trying to limit Oh yeah.

23:22

Like of course. But they create a reason for

23:24

it. They, yeah. It's fear. It's always fear-based

23:26

in, in the agricultural world, it's fear-based. What

23:29

if, you know, you got mad cow? What if

23:31

you got even influenza? Because

23:33

that type of stuff works. So of course it does.

23:35

The lobbyists come out and they, they push

23:37

the fear-based thing to,

23:40

uh, to get people to, to listen and to,

23:42

to sell those laws to the public, even though that's

23:44

really not the, the real reason why those laws are

23:46

in place. Mm-hmm. It's why there's

23:48

so many issues with farmers. Yeah. It's

23:51

a weird world, man. You know, I recently

23:53

heard Rogan, they were talking about, um, some

23:55

of the happiest professions, like the people that

23:57

are the happiest or whatever. Apparently

24:00

farming farmers is number one here

24:02

in America are some of the happiest people.

24:05

Hmm. And I was like, Hmm, are you happy? Absolutely.

24:09

Me too. I'm not a farmer, but I'm happy.

24:11

But you are. But I, I'm pretty

24:13

sure worldwide farmers

24:15

have the highest suicide rate in the profession

24:18

as far as profession goes. I've heard stuff like

24:20

that. Yeah. Yeah. But that has a lot to do

24:22

with lobbyists. Big

24:24

chicken, big, big corn, you know

24:26

what I mean? These big industries Right.

24:28

That control the laws. And,

24:30

and once you, there's

24:33

a lot of countries today where their

24:35

indigenous farming industries are, are essentially

24:38

being destroyed by factory farming. Absolutely. What was happening

24:40

in the United States in the late

24:42

19th century, early 20th century. Mm-hmm. when

24:44

it probably was a very ti bad time to be a farm. I

24:47

think it's probably stabilized here and it hasn't there.

24:49

Yeah, but you were saying once,

24:51

you were, once you, oh,

24:53

a lot of times once these farmers decide to go with

24:56

these companies seeds or

24:58

they're patented genetic, uh,

25:00

you know, they're only kind of behold they are beholden

25:02

to what those will sell for. Mm-hmm. and

25:05

if they can even sell 'em. And then a lot

25:07

of times if, if that whole industry

25:09

takes hold in a mar in an area, you know,

25:11

like I hate to use it. I'm

25:13

not even gonna say their name, but everybody knows big seed company

25:16

and, uh, but like they

25:20

get into an area and then once it's widely accepted, the

25:22

guys that are growing Heritage grains that

25:25

are not their genetic trademarked, actually

25:27

they're not even trademarked. They're patented

25:30

genetics. They're patented plants.

25:32

Yeah. Which is ridiculous. They can't sell their,

25:34

their heritage stuff. The guys that have. you

25:37

know, the same type of mustard seed's.

25:39

A big one in India, we'll use, for example,

25:42

because this company went in with their genetic mu mustard

25:44

seed. And it actually,

25:47

the government did some great things. I don't want

25:49

to, I don't really know all of what happened.

25:52

I was listening to this book on, uh, on

25:54

Audible the other day about the whole, uh,

25:56

GMO industry and India

25:58

and like Nigeria all over the world.

26:01

Mm-hmm. but India's, uh, those are two big places

26:03

for farming. Yeah. Really big. Yeah.

26:05

Um, and in India they grow a lot of mustard,

26:08

uh, seed mustard oil was huge.

26:10

Um, so of course this company came

26:12

up with their own patented variety

26:14

of it, and it was like, almost,

26:17

I, I wanna say, by the

26:19

Indian government. Hmm. Yeah, because

26:21

it like eroded an

26:23

entire culture because like they worship

26:25

this plant basically, like the mustard seed

26:27

is used in everything. Right. Mustard oil is

26:30

used in almost everything over there. Yeah. You

26:32

know, this was in a specific state in India. Yeah.

26:34

It wa they called 'em states there. Right. I don't even think it

26:36

was one area. I think it was like, cuz

26:39

it's so culturally infused. Oh, like a

26:41

lot of Indian? Yes, yes. I thought you meant in like

26:43

one area. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. So

26:45

the Indian government made like regulations

26:47

about it and I, I don't think it. is

26:49

thriving there. I don't think they're, they have a thriving

26:52

seed business. That's as far as mustard seed goes.

26:55

I think people are, are kind of paying attention to

26:57

like the erosion of culture that occurs

26:59

from like Yeah. The standardization

27:02

of a lot of things in like multinational corporations.

27:04

I think people are noticing that and that's why we're

27:07

here doing what we are doing. Yeah. Literally

27:09

both of us. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

27:11

Well, our culture, our food culture's eroded

27:13

anyway. In America. It's entirely ero. That's

27:15

what I focus on. That's what we're talking about.

27:17

You know, like getting to understand

27:20

the people behind your food and not the corporations.

27:23

You know, the Tyson nuggets of the world. Corporations

27:26

are people, my friend by law

27:28

standards. Yeah. Yes. But you

27:30

know, that's a tricky

27:33

slippery slope still

27:35

is, right? Yeah. I'm gonna eat

27:38

some of these apples. Yeah. How's that make you feel?

27:40

I by all means, let's

27:42

eat these apples. Are

27:45

these honey crisp again? always honey

27:47

crisp, bro. Mm-hmm. what's your, what's

27:49

your second If, uh, if Honey Crisp is not available?

27:52

Um, I kill myself.

27:55

Wow. That's a stretch because

27:58

that means you don't get any apples ever. They're

28:01

cruel. Mm-hmm. Hmm hmm.

28:12

So basically we're trying to check a little on intermission cause I'm gonna cut

28:14

this part, obviously. Yeah. I

28:16

mean from the, the,

28:20

from the podcast Patreon, what,

28:23

what'd you say about Patreon earlier? Oh,

28:25

like, like the, any, the longer

28:28

uncut episodes will be put on the put

28:30

behind a paywall. Mm.

28:32

But, um, this, this part is gonna be

28:35

cut from the regular episode. Like, I'm gonna cut this

28:37

part mediary apples, I'm

28:39

gonna plant some apples this year.

28:41

You are gonna plant some apples. Uhhuh Fantastic.

28:45

It seems like a low payout. Mm.

28:49

You gotta get closer to Mike. Mm

28:53

apples. So

28:59

I read at one point, and this

29:01

is a variety dependent, but a standard

29:03

apple tree, full maturity can

29:05

produce anywhere to like 100 to 300 pounds

29:07

of fruit. You

29:10

know, and obviously like any kind of crop,

29:12

it's a numbers game. But

29:15

think about that apple

29:17

sulfur. I was selling apples on my menu

29:19

for $4 a pound. Fresh

29:22

local apples delivered to your house. So

29:26

you know, if one tree could yield $500 in

29:28

a season, a

29:30

low end, well that's

29:32

pretty good. It's not bad. Yeah, you got

29:35

500 trees, you

29:37

got a lot of money, but you

29:39

got a lot of apples. No.

29:42

Hmm. And

29:46

it may be more, you know, variety dependent

29:52

because you pay more for the honey crisp, don't you? Yeah.

29:55

Yeah. And this is a patented plant. Is

29:58

it really? University of Michigan? You,

30:01

yes, sir. Good

30:03

for them. They get a royalty every time. You

30:05

know, somebody buys a, a honey crisp apple

30:08

no matter where, if it's an apple form

30:10

or tree. Wow. Yep.

30:12

That's really cool. I thought that was

30:14

cool too. I mean, what the hell? Might

30:16

as well, but is it a GM O plant? Uhhuh.

30:19

Damn dude. Hmm. Damn.

30:22

That sucks. I didn't know that. Hmm.

30:27

We're GMOs, man. Yeah,

30:29

but they're not GEs. Oh,

30:32

oh. So it's, it's used. Okay. It's hard

30:34

to say that GMO

30:37

is bad because technically.

30:41

we're all genetically modified. It's the

30:43

process in which the modification happens

30:46

is what is important, because you

30:48

could have two apples that

30:50

hybridize and that's genetically

30:52

modifying an organism, literally.

30:55

Okay. Here's the thing though, but the g

30:57

e o, that's why there are, I understand

30:59

why differences, that's why there's differences.

31:02

But what they do with what

31:04

GMO means, the, the definition that I'm

31:06

using now, but I, I know what you're doing with ge o

31:08

genetically engineered when it's created in a lab, but

31:10

for me, yes. Obviously, like

31:12

domesticated plants are genetically modified. Mm-hmm. but

31:15

GMOs is a term that refers to ones

31:17

that are changed in a lab, not

31:20

technically, not technic. What do you

31:22

mean not technically? Well, if you read, like, if

31:25

you read, uh, it's common on ships,

31:27

it'll say g e o and

31:29

g m o. What do you mean common on. Bags

31:32

of chips. It says like, yeah,

31:34

okay. Product is, that's the term that the government is the, I'm

31:37

just letting you know, I'm, I'm telling you

31:39

that like the def Yes. What I, but what

31:41

I'm talking about is g e o. Mm-hmm. G

31:44

e o because g e o, if

31:46

that's what you wanna call it, whatever, but whatever that is,

31:48

when it's changed in a lab, dude, they take,

31:50

like, when you do it naturally

31:52

with, with domestication, and you're able to

31:54

change like the genetic structure of the plant

31:57

just by selectively breeding

31:59

mm-hmm. what, what occurs is

32:01

like a natural process. Mm-hmm. But

32:04

when they do genetically engineering organisms,

32:06

they put like like

32:09

soybean oil into like

32:11

a, a, into like corn

32:14

and like, it doesn't make any sense. It's stuff that would

32:16

never occur, ever. And then they have,

32:19

they have, what's his name? That signs douche

32:21

bag bill. They

32:23

have him, they have him out there trying to sell

32:25

people on GMOs, walking around a farmer's

32:27

market with a bunch of dumb white people who don't know what they're

32:29

talking about. No offense cuz we are

32:32

those dumb white people. Definitely, definitely. But

32:34

they, he goes there and he's like, he's like

32:36

schooling idiots who don't know what they're talking about,

32:38

who are at least trying to

32:40

buy the right food by going to the farmer's

32:42

market. And he's like using his douche

32:45

bag degree and his like 10 minutes

32:48

of Googling to to

32:50

explain to these people why no GMOs

32:53

are good and okay. And then he is trying to tell people

32:55

that he is not paid off by the ag

32:57

industry. Here's how, which he might not

32:59

be. I don't know. Oh, well, who knows is

33:01

a good chance. You never, you never know. I guess

33:04

everybody gets, everybody's doing something

33:06

for something, you know? Mm-hmm. So,

33:08

um, but how they've,

33:11

how they've kind of spun the GMO thing

33:14

and, and why obviously selective breeding

33:16

is genetically modifying. Right. But

33:19

they like to say like, well, you know, they breed

33:22

things. Selectively

33:24

for their drought tolerance or

33:27

the amount of powdery

33:29

mildew that they can handle. You know,

33:31

like a lot of times, do you know what powdery

33:33

mildew is? Yeah. Okay, so

33:35

it's pretty common on plants. Wait, uh,

33:37

you should say what powdery mildew is for the podcast

33:39

powder. Powdery mildew is

33:42

like a fungus that grows on the foliage of

33:44

plants usually because the conditions are too

33:46

wet and it it up and, and it really just

33:48

kills everything. It's white and it just kills it. Yeah. And

33:50

it spreads. Mm-hmm. It's not great.

33:52

Not good? No. Not good. No. It gets on

33:54

a lot of plants. Yeah. A lot of leafy plants.

33:58

Yeah. Yeah.

34:01

We have it. We've had it, but

34:04

um, it's like

34:06

really kind of rare for us to

34:09

get powdery mild. I'm trying to think. We

34:13

don't usually have that problem, but

34:15

I've seen it present on a lot of different plants. Right.

34:19

And, and what's the genetic modification? Um,

34:21

a lot of vegetable plants you get now are

34:23

grown to be powdery, mildew resistant.

34:26

But is that selective breeding that Yeah.

34:28

Made it that way? These are vegetable crops like

34:30

cucumbers and eggplant

34:33

and eggplant. Actually eggplant

34:35

is pretty susceptible to powdery mildew. That's

34:37

what I saw it on last in Aine.

34:40

Very good man. Yeah.

34:45

I had no words. That was pretty good. I wish we still

34:47

called it that. Yeah. Isn't that the French word? I

34:49

think so. Yeah. I think it's called that in a lot of other places.

34:51

Or maybe Italian. I don't know, man. I

34:53

don't know either. I don't know. I think it's a better name. Yeah,

34:56

that's like an abattoir. I beir.

34:59

Appoi. Appoi. It's the slaughterhouse.

35:02

Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, I don't know that word. Yeah,

35:05

but I, I know it's a lot nicer Repoire repertoire.

35:07

That's the rep repertoire. Yep. An a. Aoi

35:11

aoi. Aoi. My mouth has never

35:13

made that sound before. You just did a separate

35:15

times? Yeah. Wow. You're French

35:17

ba cool. What other words? French

35:20

bastard, Did you look like

35:22

the guy who was like shooting a

35:24

crossbo down at the English soldiers who

35:26

were assaulting French castles

35:28

in, in the hundred Years War? That's what you look

35:31

like. You look French as i, I

35:33

could be that guy. Ha wee

35:35

wee. I will shoot you with my crossbo.

35:37

You stupid English man. But I mostly

35:39

hail from England. Uh,

35:46

I didn't realize that. Yeah.

35:49

Seamus, get the fertilizer. We

35:52

got a turncoat. Okay.

35:56

Okay, cool. So we learned something new today.

35:58

Mm. There might be no episode three. Mm.

36:01

I'm just. Yeah. I

36:03

love that. Oh, oh, I get it. Cuz you're gonna, you're gonna kill

36:05

me cuz I have British blood. No, I just

36:07

meant quit like a little bitch. Oh. But

36:09

that's obviously, I'm not gonna, what's the line for, what's

36:12

the lime? Yeah, the

36:14

fertilizer. Oh yeah, my bad. I jumped

36:17

right to lime. The fertili fertilizer is what?

36:19

Um, the IRA used to make car bombs

36:21

and the troubles. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah.

36:23

Uh, yeah. That was a joke about a,

36:25

uh, you know, just carnage of

36:28

innocent people dying. That's what that was.

36:31

It's been about 50 years. I think we can have fun with

36:33

it now. just a terrible

36:35

situation, you know, that

36:38

reminds me. Terrible situation. Did

36:40

you, did we talk about that movie?

36:42

Uh, all quiet

36:44

on the Western front. We didn't talk about it too

36:46

much. Mm. Talk about it a little bit on the phone.

36:48

It's eye-opening. Sad. I'm sure it is.

36:50

It's like gut-wrenching. It's kind of crazy

36:53

how, you know, stuff like that comes out

36:55

and people are still like unironically marching

36:57

towards war. Yeah. no

36:59

thought thinking that like the reason

37:01

that they have is legit this time.

37:06

You know, why

37:08

even, why even

37:10

take back? Like

37:13

are we fighting over land? Are we fighting

37:15

over principles? I just don't get it.

37:17

You know what I mean? This is what we're gonna do. We're gonna take

37:19

our, uh, farm podcast towards analyzing

37:22

the, the war in Ukraine. Is that what's happening right now?

37:26

No. it's

37:28

not a good idea. No, it's not a good idea. We'll

37:33

do this. The

37:37

meat birds that we just got

37:39

in yesterday mm-hmm.

37:42

are our first batch of 200. Um,

37:46

they're Cornish chicken. Hailing

37:49

from Corner Shingling and

37:52

a Cornwall brother, whatever. You're

37:54

the English one here, motherfucker. Yeah. Shows

37:56

how much I know. Yeah. Well, Cornwall is one of

37:58

the Celtic nations, so Oh

38:00

yeah. It's one of those places where those dirty

38:03

Anglo sacks am bastards came in and took

38:05

over the land from my ancestors. Well,

38:08

they got a great chicken breed. I'm sure they do.

38:10

It's a big one too. Yeah. They got some weird going on

38:13

in Cornwall. I want to go eventually. What's

38:15

weird about Cornwall, they have just because

38:17

it's a Celtic Nation mm-hmm. Um, it's

38:19

like, it's really distinct from the rest of

38:21

England culturally. And they have a bunch of like weird festivals

38:23

that are like super old. I, I, unfortunately,

38:25

I don't remember a specific one off the top of my head, but

38:28

yeah, Cornwall is a, is a weird place. Interesting,

38:30

cool, weird place that I would like to visit. Well,

38:34

our, our, this is industry standard,

38:36

this breed, and it's actually an,

38:38

an English chicken, Cornish, whatever.

38:41

Mm-hmm. crossed with an American breed

38:43

called a Rock, a Plymouth Rock. It's

38:45

one of the first, uh, It's

38:47

one of the oldest breeds in America. Actually. This

38:49

is one of the most Anglo conversations I've

38:51

ever been a part of in my life. Wow. Yeah.

38:54

Livestock is pretty Ang chicken. Yeah.

38:57

And a Plymouth Rock chicken. They

38:59

got together and they feed the world.

39:02

God damn. They got together

39:04

and they feed the world.

39:06

Did they feed the world in Bangladesh

39:08

in 1944 when Winston Churchill

39:10

diverted resources away from Bangladesh

39:12

to feed his soldiers fighting a

39:14

World War II and 5 million people

39:16

died? No,

39:20

because people were not reliant on

39:22

grocery stores back then. So

39:26

grocery stores stops the famine. Well,

39:29

grocery stores helped, like,

39:32

uh, what's the word I'm looking for? Not mobilize,

39:34

but, uh, facilitate logistically.

39:37

Facilitate logistically. Spread

39:39

of food. Yeah. The distribution of food. The excess of food.

39:41

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are some positives to the food

39:43

system that we have. Yeah. Because 150

39:46

years ago, like there was essentially no fat

39:48

people. Right. Like, because,

39:50

you know, famine was still a problem a

39:52

few hundred years ago. Well, famine's a problem now. Right?

39:55

Right. Famine's a problem now, but when famine

39:57

happens now Mm. It's because

39:59

of political issues, not because of an actual

40:01

lack of food. Well, there's complete excess

40:04

of calories today, which was never true

40:06

150 years ago. Mm. And

40:08

way back. Yeah. There's a total

40:10

excess of calories. Mm-hmm. Okay. Like, and you

40:12

can just demonstrate That's true. Yeah. And I'm

40:14

saying like in the world as a whole, obviously

40:16

there are different individual

40:19

places where there's problem with food. But like,

40:22

remember that thing with Elon Musk where

40:24

some, like somebody

40:27

told Elon Musk like, you

40:29

have enough money to feed the entire world, but you wanna buy

40:31

Twitter and number one. Oh yeah. Twitter

40:33

is an asset and buying. food

40:36

for everybody is not an asset. Right. Not

40:38

that like, obviously buying

40:40

food for people is a good thing, but it's not really the same thing.

40:42

Right. Because he, like, he got loaned

40:44

money to buy Twitter because Twitter makes more

40:46

money. Cause it's an asset. Right. It's different from a liability

40:49

which is getting rid of money. Um, but

40:52

somebody told Elon Musk that

40:55

like, or Elon Musk

40:57

said if it, somebody

41:00

said that $8 million could, 8

41:02

billion, $8 billion could

41:04

feed all of the hungry people in the world

41:06

in one year. Mm-hmm. And, um,

41:09

wasn't unicef, was it? I

41:11

don't know. It was some guy that maybe worked at unicef.

41:14

Okay. Cuz it wasn't an organization attached to it.

41:16

Right. There was probably some people that Yes.

41:18

Right, right, right. The 8 million number or 8 billion

41:20

number. Mm-hmm. And then Elon Musk said,

41:23

somebody give me a plan. That

41:25

feeds the world with $8 billion. That

41:27

works. Mm-hmm. and I will do it. And

41:29

some guy came back with a, like

41:32

basically post-it note plan about how

41:34

he would divert the money. Mm. But like,

41:36

and other people were, were like showing that

41:38

off as like a way that

41:40

he, they were like, wow, look, he gave him,

41:43

he gave Elon Musk the plan, and Elon

41:45

Musk still said no. But the point is that that $8

41:47

billion would not have fed

41:50

the entire world. No. The guy who posted

41:52

it didn't even say that it would. Mm-hmm. He just

41:54

said, I read the whole thing. The guy says like,

41:56

here's how $8 billion could go towards feeding

41:58

needy people. Mm-hmm. And he's right. Mm-hmm. But

42:01

the problem with feeding the world is not.

42:04

that there's actually not enough food. The problem

42:06

with feeding the world is the distribution element

42:08

of it. Right. It's the logistical side of it. Yeah. Like

42:11

you can feed everybody. In the United States,

42:13

sometimes people don't get food because of distribution

42:15

issues. Mm-hmm. there's enough food for everybody. Absolutely.

42:18

There's stock supermarkets across the entire country.

42:20

Some people don't have enough food. If

42:22

the system works optimally, those people

42:25

are able to get food stamps. Mm-hmm. and they're able to get

42:27

these welfare systems that we have in place that

42:29

I personally agree with. Mm-hmm. for,

42:31

for like the baseline level so that people

42:34

are not starving Yeah. In the

42:36

richest country in the history of the world. Right. That's

42:38

a, that's a baseline thing that we should have, right? Yeah.

42:41

Um, so,

42:43

but there's sometimes problems with distribution

42:46

of those resources. Mm-hmm. and those are kinks

42:48

in the system. Yeah. But those aren't

42:50

an issue of, like people, I don't think people

42:52

are really starving to death in the US unless there's

42:54

something psychologically happening or somebody is.

42:57

Like taking cap, like capturing

43:00

them and like, you know, well that's, that's why we do

43:02

what we do because we, they're, when

43:04

I started there, I saw

43:07

a problem with the distribution

43:09

of local food in and of the

43:11

fact that it just wasn't happening. If you want

43:13

a local food, you had to go to the farm or you had to

43:15

go to the farmer's market. Yeah, okay.

43:17

That's why we do home delivery, literally.

43:20

Yeah. Because I would talk to farmers

43:22

that would go to these markets and sell a nothing.

43:25

Yeah, nothing. So you wasted

43:27

four hours, sold nothing.

43:30

Now you lost money. Who's doing

43:32

that? Yeah. Why would you subject

43:34

yourself to that

43:36

kind of abuse as a business owner? As

43:38

a, as a farmer? As a human. Like

43:41

there's better ways and then sometimes they're throwing

43:43

this stuff away, you know, depending on

43:45

what it is. Of course that's an extreme case,

43:47

but so whatever. So

43:50

I always thought it that if you didn't sell

43:52

it, you're kind of outta luck. because

43:54

if you don't have storage, like you're not gonna store

43:57

boxes of lettuce if you don't have a free fridge.

43:59

Big enough. Yeah. So you're cutting that day

44:01

to go to the market and then

44:03

nobody bought it. So

44:06

you're either eating it all, you're composting

44:08

it, you're giving it to your animals, or you're throwing it out. Yeah.

44:11

And it, it just, to

44:13

me, it seemed like a very common thing. And

44:15

I never, we don't do markets now. I never relied

44:17

on a market. I've, I've done

44:20

like one or two in my day

44:22

and they always suck.

44:25

I just, you know,

44:28

it's hard to read. Maybe I haven't been to good ones,

44:31

but I also feel like I

44:33

don't have the same goals

44:36

and views as the other vendors at a lot

44:38

of these markets. Um, because

44:41

the pricing is just astronomical.

44:45

a lot of times. Well, of course they're pricing it really high

44:47

because they're not selling anything, if that's what

44:49

you're telling me. Well, okay. Unless they are

44:52

the, the, the one here in town and

44:54

not you're in Mansfield. Right.

44:57

I, I would prefer to not have

44:59

the town I'm in on the thing. All right.

45:02

Well, I was gonna say Coventry, whatever. Just bleep

45:04

it out. The Coventry market, huge.

45:06

Basra huge. They have food trucks,

45:08

they have events like musicians.

45:11

They're huge, but the prices

45:13

are astronomical at these vendor booths.

45:16

Like they're just too high, but

45:18

they know they can get the money. You see, I've

45:20

met some farmers that bank on

45:22

those markets, and then they come to these shitty ones that

45:24

I'm at, and they're bragging

45:26

about the money they were making at the, at the

45:29

bosler market or whatever, and it's.

45:32

you sound like an asshole because I'm looking

45:34

at your prices right now and they're too much money. And

45:36

I can't even imagine if you, you know what I mean? Like,

45:39

but if people are buying it, dude, I get it. I

45:41

get it. You get it. You always have this attitude

45:43

that, which I'm not saying it's like an attitude.

45:46

I know what you mean. You have this attitude where like,

45:50

like in so many things, you're, you're

45:52

so entrepreneurial and like business minded,

45:54

but then with the pricing of things, you

45:56

have such a, like a, such

45:58

a concentration. And again, this, I'm not saying this is

46:01

a negative thing Mm. But such a concentration

46:03

on the food

46:06

being like almost sacred

46:08

to a certain extent. So that the, and the pricing

46:10

should reflect that rather than

46:12

it being an actual regular,

46:14

like any sort of product that

46:16

the price is decided by the market. Mm-hmm. which

46:19

is the same reason why your eggs. Compared

46:21

to the market priced so low right now. Well, I'm happy

46:24

with my margin. Exactly. You know, and that's

46:26

right. Which is a different attitude than most people have. That

46:28

is a different attitude. And I understand that to

46:30

do good by the business is

46:32

to sometimes capitalize on vulnerable people.

46:35

Unfortunately, that's what we're seeing

46:37

with the egg crisis, which we I talked

46:39

about last time. Yeah. But, you

46:42

know, we're in food, to

46:44

me, food is ethical. Okay.

46:46

Like there's an ethical reason why I

46:49

raise food that has to reflect

46:51

in how we get it to people, in

46:53

my opinion. And I don't think it's ethical

46:56

to price gouge because the market says you can.

46:58

And I don't think it's ethical to, to

47:02

just act like food

47:06

is just a widget. Yeah. You

47:08

know? Definitely a hundred percent.

47:10

I love what you're saying, but I, I'm gonna nitpick on

47:12

one thing. Yeah. Like, um,

47:15

when, like, if the price of the, of

47:17

the product like increases mm-hmm.

47:20

I don't, it's not price gouging.

47:23

Uh, well, I maybe it is. It's

47:25

a, it's an ethical thing. We're in food. That's

47:27

what I'm saying. I mean, but the thing is that like price

47:30

gouging, I think would be like, you know,

47:32

cornering the entire supply and

47:34

then like, and then stocking up the price, like buying

47:37

it from other people. It's to like, well, the

47:39

control the pricing in, in a way,

47:41

in their minds, the supply is

47:44

cornered. It's, it's,

47:46

it's, right. But they didn't do that on purpose. They're responding

47:48

to larger market actions. Well, that's what

47:50

I'm saying. Well, they're responding to what they're being told they, and

47:52

market actions, you know, but it's, it,

47:55

it becomes reality when the grocery stores

47:57

increase its prices as well. And then

47:59

like you sell out of eggs every week. Yeah.

48:02

And what that means is that you could

48:04

increase your prices, and that's not price gouging

48:06

that's responding to the market. You

48:09

know, because it, look, if the price of eggs

48:11

dropped to $2 mm-hmm. and

48:14

you suddenly weren't

48:16

selling half as half of

48:18

your eggs. You know, then

48:21

you would be yeah. So you're,

48:23

you're, you're in this situation

48:26

and I get it. Like I totally respect it. I'm not even

48:28

telling you to change, I'm just No, I get it. Just saying like, this

48:30

is how I'm viewing it. Like, you're

48:32

in a situation where if the

48:34

price goes up, you gain nothing. If

48:37

the price goes down, you lose. So

48:39

you're in a, you're in a, you're

48:41

in a neutral lose situation, which

48:44

is okay. Like it's, that's the optics of it for

48:46

sure. Well, it's one perspective.

48:48

It's what it looks like. You know what I'm saying?

48:51

You, like, you're saying, if I, if I, if if price

48:53

of eggs went down, I wouldn't sell eggs. In

48:55

fact of the matter is, it's a commodity. I've

48:57

never had a problem moving eggs. I've actually never

48:59

sat on eggs. Right. But the price of eggs

49:01

hasn't dropped. In the years that you've been doing

49:04

this. Last year, you could get a dozen eggs for 99.

49:07

and I've always been Yeah. In the $3 range.

49:10

Now we're eggs, four bugs, eggs, eggs. Right.

49:12

But that's where the quality comes from. No nutrition in them. No nutrition.

49:14

Well, there's nutrition, but not the same. Yours.

49:16

Right? Yeah. Not as much nutrition. Right. Really

49:18

like you can see in the color of one of your eggs

49:20

compared to a grocery store egg. The difference. Yeah.

49:23

When you break up open the yolk. Dude,

49:25

you know what, I had a, a conversation recently,

49:28

um, with a new customer and uh,

49:32

and, uh, they, they

49:34

live in a nice area and,

49:36

um, they had saw, they had

49:38

met us at a market a couple years

49:40

ago, uh, that we did at a, at a nursery.

49:43

See, that's a reason to do markets though. Wait.

49:46

And Oh, oh, it's

49:48

not an, uh, oh. But it's like another, like, what's

49:51

going on? And so I got,

49:53

I got an email. He, all he ordered was, uh,

49:56

couple of egg, a four dozen egg, five dozen eggs

49:58

and some, uh, chicken organs, whatever. So

50:00

I drop off the eggs, whatever. The next morning I

50:03

get an email with a picture. Of

50:05

my eggs cracked in a bowl and some other eggs

50:07

cracked in a bowl. And they said, Hey, um,

50:10

I got these other eggs at a local co-op

50:13

and they're so much, uh, more

50:15

yellow or more orange or whatever

50:17

than your eggs. And I look at the picture, I'm like, okay. Yeah.

50:20

And he's like, can you explain

50:22

to me why your pasture raised

50:25

chicken eggs are not the same color as these

50:27

pasture raised chicken eggs? So

50:31

this sounds like an accusation. This is

50:33

this the way you, it comes off as an accusation. Okay. Okay.

50:35

And, and that's how I read it. At first, I'm like, who

50:38

the what? I don't get

50:40

this, this is, I don't get this question.

50:42

I don't have this problem. Your farm's also open.

50:44

You can see the chicken, you can see my chickens. Like,

50:47

okay, like everybody knows they're faster race. Like I

50:49

just, I'm just like, okay. All right. Whatever. I'm

50:52

like, what? I was, it might not have been an accusation.

50:55

Well, and so I wasn't gonna respond to it.

50:57

I wasn't gonna respond to it. And I was just like,

51:00

okay, I'm gonna sit on it. So

51:02

I started thinking, and I'm like, all the research I've ever done,

51:04

you know, the color of the yoke actually

51:07

is dependent on the pigments and the food that the chicken

51:09

is eating. Whether that, whether that's grass,

51:12

some kind of vegetation, a, a

51:14

dye in the grain because conventional feed

51:17

is dyed to be brown. Uh,

51:19

for whatever reason our,

51:22

I get locally grown and locally milked

51:24

feed it's yellow like corn, you know, it's

51:26

not brown. It doesn't look anything like bag

51:28

feed at the store. Um, so there's

51:30

dyes in that. There's preservatives in that, and

51:32

the chicken eats eats it. So,

51:35

you know, there's so many factors that go

51:37

into that question and I'm like,

51:39

I don't really want to take the time to

51:41

explain this to a guy who's

51:43

more than likely never gonna buy again.

51:46

And if he does, it, it

51:48

might only just be eggs, so, right. He

51:51

bought eggs and scraps and scraps,

51:53

like probably for his dog. Right. A lot of people buy organ

51:55

meat for their dogs, whatever, right. Or fish

51:58

churn chumming the waters or whatever. Hey, yeah.

52:00

Whatever you're gonna do. I dunno, you're not gonna make

52:02

chicken tartar with 'em, right? Sure.

52:04

Whatever you wanna do. Unless you're really that weird,

52:07

Hey, everyone's got a taste. So,

52:10

so I, I stewed on it and I'm, and I was like,

52:12

okay, whatever. I'm just gonna respond to this guy

52:14

in the most elegant, like, here's

52:16

just the science behind it and

52:19

this is how I can explain the difference in color.

52:21

So basically what I told him, I was like, well, my

52:23

eggs are from New England, which

52:26

given the time of year pasture is minimal,

52:29

okay? So we feed our

52:31

microgreen flats, we feed

52:33

garden scraps, and we feed kitchen

52:36

scraps to our chickens this time of year to supplement the

52:38

nutrition, you know, to give them that, that they're

52:40

not getting off of grass, cuz there's no grass

52:42

in February, Connecticut. So

52:45

New England. Anywhere. So

52:48

I explained that to 'em and I was like, I can't

52:50

vouch where your co-op is getting them

52:52

from, but wherever

52:54

it is, it might have

52:57

vegetation, meaning

52:59

they're not from New England, so they're not local,

53:01

even though it's at a co-op doesn't make it so

53:03

Right. And uh, especially

53:06

if they're organic pasture rate, they're not from

53:08

the area promise, I promise. Oh, right,

53:10

right, right. I promise they're not from eastern Connecticut. They're not from eastern

53:12

Connecticut. They're not from, there's not a lot of England by and large at all. Organic.

53:14

Yeah. So, um, so,

53:18

and I explained it like that and I was like, you know, listen,

53:20

we use local grain that's milked fresh with

53:22

no dye. I don't know what they're feeding

53:24

their chickens, but that's what I would say. There's

53:26

dye in whatever the chicken's eating,

53:29

so it doesn't implicate them for giving 'em

53:31

bad feed. It doesn't implicate them for using

53:33

pasture. I said, whatever the chicken's eating has

53:36

the pigment, which is dying, the color of the oak.

53:39

That's the science behind it. That's all I could tell you.

53:42

And his response was actually really good. but

53:45

this was a guy I wasn't gonna respond to. I wasn't gonna give

53:47

the time of day to Yeah. Because I'm like, dude,

53:50

I don't have time to explain to you why a egg

53:52

looks different than another egg

53:55

at, at an, in another level. You know, it's possible.

53:57

I don't know if this guy still buys from you, but it's possible this was

53:59

his first order two weeks ago. Oh, okay.

54:01

So, like for me,

54:03

if, if I was buying from a local

54:05

farm or local anything, and

54:08

like I asked somebody a question and they

54:10

responded, yeah, that would make me

54:12

wanna buy more absolutely. Yeah. And he was

54:14

like, thanks for your response. You know, and,

54:16

and, and he was, he was pretty courteous.

54:18

Do I think I'll get another order? I don't know.

54:21

Nice guy. I don't know. It took him 18

54:23

months to put his first order in and he ordered

54:26

eggs and he ordered eggs and then he had

54:28

questions about the eggs. And I'm like, okay,

54:31

this is just, this is just part of your life as a business

54:34

person. You're like, you gotta do this yeah,

54:36

yeah. You gotta do this um, yeah.

54:39

You know, and I gotta message the other day from somebody, do

54:41

you sell your eggs to the public? And

54:44

I'm like, as opposed

54:47

to what? you

54:49

know, I still haven't responded because I wanted

54:51

to, it's actually a, a buddy's relative

54:53

and I just wanted to make sure they were related and

54:56

now I will respond because I'm like, people, people might

54:58

listen to the podcast. Yeah. I don't care. And,

55:00

uh, I just wanted to make sure that this was somebody

55:03

who had a connection to me because like, it's

55:05

a strange question for me. We don't usually get that

55:08

question. We're not that big where we're

55:10

selling just to grocery stores. We

55:12

are, we do have plenty of wholesale accounts for eggs, but

55:14

that's not the point, you know? So

55:16

now I know it's been confirmed, I'll respond

55:18

to this person, but sometimes we get questions like

55:20

that and it's like, I'm not

55:23

exactly sure what this person's looking for. Or they'll

55:25

ask a question that they can get the answer

55:27

to in five seconds. You

55:30

know what I mean? So

55:32

without asking me and waiting on Messenger

55:34

for, until I respond, yeah. You know,

55:37

just Google it. Some of these things just give it a Google.

55:39

I do. like the personal

55:42

relationship that you do end up growing

55:44

with a lot of people, you know, and

55:47

that's really how you keep the support going. Yeah.

55:49

But um, I know I respond

55:52

to every single YouTube comment. Every

55:54

single Do you Twitter thing? Yeah. I respond to

55:56

everything. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I don't

55:58

get that many comments. I won't respond on

56:00

the Facebook. I'll, I'll like everybody's

56:02

comment so they know like we're seeing it. I'll

56:05

like their comment. Yeah. Some I'll respond to if it's a

56:07

question. Yeah. I mean, I actually, I shouldn't say I respond to everybody.

56:09

Yeah. Like somebody's just saying something very basic.

56:11

Cause I, yeah. Like, oh,

56:14

I love this. Or Good job. No,

56:16

no. Like, okay, thank you. But I'll like every single one

56:18

of them at least. Right, right. Unless

56:20

someone's accusing me of being a fascist

56:22

or something, or a commi, I do that all the time.

56:24

Both. Yeah, I accuse

56:26

you of that every time I see you. Do you? No. Hmm.

56:29

In my head, Okay.

56:32

But yeah man. So we've recorded about an hour.

56:34

Groovy. Probably gonna cut this down to

56:37

35, 40, 45 minutes. Yeah. Depending on

56:39

what I think should be cut. Yeah. Um,

56:41

and obviously you have input on that. Let me know,

56:43

and I don't know if this is worth throwing in there, but,

56:45

uh, we are considering doing a,

56:49

uh, like a class on the farm this

56:51

spring about learning how to grow your

56:53

own pasture raised poultry. Yeah. How we

56:55

do it, how we build our coops

56:58

and how we make it work. And

57:00

I think, cuz we had somebody reach out today that

57:02

was like, Hey, I'd like to get some meat birds. And then they had

57:04

a plethora of questions about raising

57:07

meat chickens. And I'm like, again, You

57:11

know, you sit down and you take the 15 minutes

57:13

to explain everything. You're gonna forget

57:15

stuff. Yeah. You're not gonna, you're

57:17

not, you know, and everybody does something their own

57:19

way. So it's like, let's talk about this off air.

57:21

Yeah. I think this is a cool, yeah. Yeah.

57:23

Un unless you want to announce it and you want to,

57:25

th this would be called a, uh, awareness

57:28

plug. Ooh. An awareness

57:30

plug. There's like, call to actions, which is

57:32

like you're saying, like, here's what you do, which

57:34

we should probably do a call to action right

57:36

now. So what we're gonna record now, so this

57:38

is post-production stuff. So, um,

57:42

uh, an awareness plug is when there's something

57:44

that you want your audience or your

57:46

customer base to be aware of. Yeah. So

57:48

it's anything that's like, it's a very vague thing.

57:50

It's something like, Hey, we're gonna be considering a class for,

57:52

for doing this. What you're saying, that's an awareness

57:54

plug. If you want to do an awareness plug

57:56

on that, we'll do that. Okay. What we

57:58

can also do is a call to action, and that's more than

58:01

an awareness plug because it's like, there's a specific

58:03

thing we're already doing, and this is what I want

58:06

to do now. So if, for example, you wanted

58:08

to say something like, Hey, if you like this podcast,

58:11

um, you want to, you know, you

58:13

want to what, whatever

58:15

you want people to do. So if you want people

58:17

to, um, if you

58:19

want people to, to buy from your farm, be

58:21

like, or, or send us a message to

58:24

buy in the, in, in Eastern Connecticut.

58:26

Um, call to action

58:29

could be like having

58:32

somebody like, uh, comment

58:34

on the, the Facebook page, interact

58:36

with us in some way. Mm-hmm. Um, we should probably create

58:39

a community that has to do with the

58:41

farm we don't have or with, uh,

58:43

the page. With the podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not

58:45

like, cuz you have your Facebook page, but with,

58:48

we should have like a, probably

58:50

a Facebook group based on your clientele.

58:52

Uhhuh um, probably a Facebook group

58:54

that is for is

58:56

the free community. For the podcast. For

58:58

the podcast. And then that will be a place to push people

59:01

into the, uh, the. into the

59:03

paid, yeah, yeah, yeah. The paid community. Gotcha.

59:06

So whatever, do your awareness

59:08

plug mm-hmm. and do your call to action and

59:10

then these will be clips that'll edit where they need to go. So

59:13

we are, okay. Yeah. So

59:15

we are considering doing a class at the farm

59:17

this spring, and it's gonna be all about how

59:20

to raise your own backyard pasture,

59:22

poultry, uh, how we do it

59:24

at Deel farm and, and how truly

59:27

easy it is to raise a year's worth of meat for

59:29

yourself and your family.

59:33

Yep. That was awesome. That was fantastic.

59:35

That was actually like, that sounded polished,

59:37

that had elements of it that I didn't realize we're gonna

59:39

be in there. Awesome. like,

59:42

no, cuz here was, this

59:45

is what I'm saying. Didn't know it was gonna be in there. Awesome.

59:48

the perfect thing that you just said that's

59:50

funny was like, um, was not only

59:52

are you growing chickens, you broke it down

59:54

to, um, sorry,

59:57

I'm waiting for a delivery. Um, what'd you getting delivered?

59:59

Uh, trucks. What? Adderall.

1:00:01

Oh, That gets delivered to me. I thought you said trucks

1:00:03

Drug work. Yeah. Um, hot Wheels collection.

1:00:06

You said like how

1:00:08

to grow a year's worth of food

1:00:10

for your family. Like

1:00:13

that's a very specific goal. That's

1:00:15

a perfect way to put it. Um,

1:00:18

so, yeah. And is, is there any call to action

1:00:21

you want to do? Um, that

1:00:24

would be like, actually do a, do a call. Say we're

1:00:26

gonna make a Facebook page and do a call to

1:00:28

action for it. Like

1:00:30

to go to the Facebook page. Uh, join the

1:00:32

Facebook group for the wan, like

1:00:34

join the free Facebook group, um,

1:00:37

to discuss the podcast and ask questions.

1:00:43

So join our, I don't wanna

1:00:45

say free. Should

1:00:47

we say free? Yeah. You don't have to join our

1:00:49

Facebook group. Yeah. Join our Facebook group, um,

1:00:52

and join the, join our Facebook group.

1:00:54

Join Become part of the Swamp Yankee podcast. Swamp

1:00:57

Yankee community. Yeah. Yeah. Swamp. Community.

1:00:59

So like on Facebook, join our Facebook

1:01:02

group and become part

1:01:04

of the Swamp Yankee community where

1:01:06

we discuss in detail every

1:01:08

part of our podcast. Fantastic.

1:01:11

Okay. Um,

1:01:14

sweet. And this is gonna be our second episode. Yeah.

1:01:18

And,