Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #77: Don't Be Duped: NEW USDA Organic Regulations & What If Joel Was Secretary of Agriculture?

Transcript

Episode #77: Don't Be Duped: NEW USDA Organic Regulations & What If Joel Was Secretary of Agriculture? · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: 80%, you ready for this?
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: 80% of all organic grain used in the United States is imported.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: 80%.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: We only grow 20% of it here.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now, now think about, I mean, we you know, we are the grain producing capital of the world, okay?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I mean, I don't want to go down we shouldn't be, but but we we can, all right?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: We've got these rich, rich Midwestern soils, the Ogallala aquifer and and and uh pivot irrigation systems.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so you know, we so we produce a lot of this.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there is no reason for us to be importing that organic grain.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: But realize, so 80% of it is being imported, and 50% of that is coming through Istanbul Turkey.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, everybody.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another podcast of Beyond Labels with yours truly, Joel Salatin, the farmer, and our favorite researcher, Dr.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sina McCullough.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome everyone.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode, we're gonna be dealing uh with a couple of new uh pronouncement on organic standards by the USDA, and then we're gonna have fun ending it with kind of one of our fa a fun listener question uh in regards to this.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: So Cena has some um, you know, some information on a couple of late uh new regulations on the organic standards, and um so Cena, uh bring us up to date on that.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about it.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Great, thanks, Joel.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so just this month in January, there have been two um announcements.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Both of these announcements are part of the new USDA's food systems transformation initiative.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so transforming our food.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the first one is the USDA has announced a move to what they're saying is crack down on organic fraud and um increase consumer confidence in the USDA organic label.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: They are acknowledging that there are loopholes in the label and that there is fraud and that it has persisted.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So they cite a couple examples in the federal register.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I'll put a link to it.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can look up this um this new regulation yourself.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the federal register.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: They have cited a couple of examples.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: One is um the Justice Department just announced this month indictments of individuals who have alleged to have masterminded a multi-million dollar scheme to export non-organic soybeans from Eastern Europe to be sold into the United States as organic.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: They were able to charge 50% more for the quote unquote organic grain versus if it was properly labeled as conventional.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's, and it's not just organic fraud coming from other nations being imported into the United States, there's local fraud as well.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just this week, um, two, well, this week as of when we recorded this podcast, two Minnesota farmers were charged in connection with an alleged plan to sell more than$46 million in chemically treated crops.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: They were going to pass them off as organic.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: This was between 2014 and 2021.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: In another case, um they in in Iowa, there were um, there's a prosecution in 2019.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: The defendants sold about um millions of non-organic or non-organic grain over seven years, um, claiming that it was organically grown in Nebraska and Missouri.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Four individuals were actually sentenced to prison in that case.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: So they've admitted that there's fraud, and now they have these new regulations.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And basically, what it's gonna do is that the USDA is saying that this is the biggest update to organic regulations since the 1990s.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: They are going to um require that food that is imported from other countries um must be certified USDA organic.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that food coming from other countries can't be certified by their own, you know, um certification agencies.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: It has to be USDA organic certified.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, also the USDA organic certification is gonna be required for more parts of the business that are in the critical links in the supply chain.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, like maybe traders or brokers, so they're also gonna be have to be certified USDA organic.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this one, this one really um kind of shocked me.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: They said that on the non-retail containers, right, that are carrying the organic products, so non-retail containers, they have to be labeled organic.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, why aren't they already labeled as organic?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like no wonder, no wonder there's so so it's not just that there's like the fraud in the organic label, it's not just that people are trying to be deceptive, right?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's like complete incompetence along the line.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: You should at least label that it is organic to differentiate it.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that we have to have a Congress, so these came about, these regulations came about because Congress passed the um Organic Foods Production Act in 1990.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: It has taken 12 years um for them to even start, to even start putting forward new regulations.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right now we're in 2023, we finally got these new regulations, and it's basic common sense like label the container.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: We have to pay our tax dollars to have the government tell the people label the container.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like well, uh what most what most people don't realize uh in in America is that uh almost um depending on who you you know who who data, what data source you look at, 80%.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: You ready for this?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: 80% of all organic grain used in the United States is imported.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: 80%.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: We only grow 20% of it here.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Now think about, I mean, we you know, we are the grain producing capital of the world, okay?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I mean, I don't want to go down we shouldn't be, but but we we can, all right.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: We've got these rich, rich Midwestern soils, the Ogallala aquifer and and and uh pivot irrigation systems.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so you know, we so we produce a lot of this.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there is no reason for us to be importing that organic grain, but realize so 80% of it is being imported, and 50% of that is coming through Istanbul, Turkey.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's where it all comes to.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's the port.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: It all comes through Istanbul.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: And notice um your first indictment here, this multi-million dollar uh notice you said Eastern Europe, and that's through Istanbul.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh almost all of that is coming from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, um all the all the stand, all those stand countries um from Eastern Europe.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yes, uh many of us have known about this for a long, long time.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the the issue is that there are big players, there's politics involved.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is not a this is not an empirical thing.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and Cena, I don't know whether you know this, but um one of the single largest organic certified organic producers in the country, Mark McAfee in California, whose dairy, whose raw raw milk dairy literally supplies California.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: He has 850 cows.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's a it's a big operation.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: He's a he's a major player not only in California organics, but nationally.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he you know, he goes he he's the the front guy for hearings.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: He okay, I'm I'm trying to, for those that don't know Mark McAfee, uh organic pastures, I mean, he is he's a big name in the in the whole movement.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he has writ uh uh let his organic certification go uh and has now renamed his farm from organic pastures to raw farm, raw milk, raw farm, uh, because on his in his on-farm laboratory, so you know he's a big operation and can afford it.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's got a very sophisticated on-farm laboratory, mainly for you know for checking his raw milk for you know for contamination and things like that.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: But he was using it to check feed, and what he found was that there was all sorts of pesticides, GMOs, all sorts of things coming in on his organic feed.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: So he said, here I'm paying millions of dollars.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I mean, he is basically a pastured operation, but he also supplements with feed his cows.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: He's not a not a all-grass dairy operation at all.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but but anyway, so he he he he buys buys fees and he's finding all this stuff in there.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: So he said, Why should I pay millions of dollars for this special feed that's that's um you know that's contaminated?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: So he's now gone with uh GMO, you know, uh GMO free certified, and uh and has dropped his uh organic completely.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um that's exact that that's essentially what we have here at Polyface, and um he's much happier with it, and he's not having to pay that exorbitant uh uh you know price premium for the certification.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it it's the license.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's what makes that value is that is that license.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: And as long as every is the perception is that that license means something, you can get a pretty hefty premium.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: All of this is is a part of the kind of uh mismanagement and shenanigans and politics going on behind the scenes in a mega, mega million dollar um you know, uh outfits.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the the USDA has um a financial incentive, right, to keep to keep consumer confidence high in its USDA organic label.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And now, one consequence I think it's that's gonna transpire from their new regulation is it's very possible that the cost of organic food will start to rise, right?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're requiring um the USDA organic certification for not only imports, but also some of the other businesses in the supply in the organic supply chain, like the brokers and the traders, that cost is going to trickle down probably to the consumer, right?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: The the company's probably not gonna take the hit for how expensive it is to be USDA organic certified.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the concerns is that this will likely drive up cost.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And here's my here's my big concern with this is that we know, you and I know, Joel, that um this is not gonna solve the problem, right?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is not gonna solve the fact that there's still organic loopholes and the fraud is still gonna still gonna occur.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let me tell you one thing, one additional thing that's in this new regulation.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And again, you can look at all the new regulations yourself, but one of them says this require certified agents to conduct unannounced inspections of at least 5% of the operations that they certify.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this was already a requirement.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope people are listening thinking, wait a minute, five percent they're only gonna inspect five percent like out of all of the different farms, right?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's no wonder that we have fraud.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when when they come in and inspect them, it's largely a paper audit as well.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think you you and I are not under the delusion here that this this new huge, it's like it's like 80 pages or something.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: This new regulation, it's not gonna fix the problem.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: But what is happening is the veil is going back down over people's eyes.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: I have had so many people email me in the last week saying, oh, we won a victory for our side.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: The the government has now, you know, tightened up the regulations.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: We knew this was gonna happen.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And some of them emailed it to me as almost like an aha in your face.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: The government, you know, did finally did something to, you know, to secure the organic label.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I looked at the new regulations and I'm thinking, okay, these are not gonna work.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then the big part problem is people are now walking away thinking the problem's solved, right?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're taking the their eyes off of this issue.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're we're turning a blind eye.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're we're saying the government, the government created this problem.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, look, the government just fixed the problem.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: So now we can just go on our very way.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'll let you jump in a second.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Let me get in the second one.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing that they announced, I saw this on the very next day.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: The USDA um built out regional networks for the transition to organic partnership program.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: So they've announced that um partnership organizations that farmers can reach out to to help them transition to organic, uh, where existing organic farmers can serve as paid mentors.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this is also part of the organic transition initiative.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um, what it what they quoted here in their release press release was this part of the USDA's food system transformation effort to support local and regional food systems, expand access to markets to um and to more producers, and to increase the affordable food supply for more Americans while promoting climate smart agriculture.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And what they're providing is mentoring, financial assistance, and crop insurance assistance.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: So once again, people emailed me, hey, a huge win.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now we have this federally funded program to expand organic farms, right?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just sitting here thinking, oh no, they're all falling for it, right?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: They're all falling for this trap.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what we're gonna have is more farmers that are beholden to the government, right?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as they accept the money, you know, and Joel, you can, you know, back me up or disagree with me on this part if you want, but when they accept that money, they are beholden to the government.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: There are requirements that the government sets forward in order, you know, to remain to maintain getting that money from the government.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, as we just saw, um, some of these requirements um are gonna cost more money, like in certifying more of your people in the supply chain, um, and they're not gonna solve the problem.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that a lot of people have been duped, Joel.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, oh absolutely, Cena.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think the I think the thing for people to understand is that the the organic certification, uh, organic certification business is primarily uh it's a paper tiger.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a paper, it's a paper trail.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and it's it's a non-check thing.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, uh they're not they're not going out to farm A in let's take the farmer in Uzbekistan, okay?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uzbekistan, we're gonna be organic.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: They're not going out to that farm and pulling some of the wheat or rye or barley or whatever uh that that's being produced and and analyzing it.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: All they're doing is they're asking the farmer to fill out paperwork.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the farmer fills out paperwork.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: See that this this is my from a from an argument standpoint, this is my problem with the system from day one.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: The system, follow me on this.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: The system assumes that we can't trust farmers, so we're gonna we're gonna create a government agency to certify the farmers, okay?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because we can't trust farmers, but the entire certification program depends on farmers to accurately fill out paperwork of methodology that passes the certification program.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and so there's nothing, there's nothing inherently in the system that puts teeth in it.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a paper tiger.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's just more paper, um, and more bureaucrats and more people in the system to uh you know to shuffle uh to to to check boxes.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and that that never that never actually works, as you know.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: It never actually works.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: It just it just uh becomes it becomes uh uh gum, you know, gum in the system.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, on our that's one of the reasons on our farm, we don't use any imported grain.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we use GMO free from local producers.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: We've had to go uh some years as far away as um as Pennsylvania.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh one time we had a really significant drought here in the Shenandoah Valley and it was short, and so we had to go as we had to go out of state.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: But that's the farthest.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's the farthest we've had to go.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we talk about regional food systems and transparency, you know, the the the fraud and the um uh whatever, the scamming in the system is never going to be solved by adding more paper, more boxes to check, and more bureaucrats.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's it's systemic in the system to be political, manipulative, negligent, and and uh, well, they say mismal or non-feasance.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's you know, it's it's not a it's not a thing that will work.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and ultimately, ultimately, nobody is going out to the farm to pull a sample of the product, submit it to an analysis, and say, does this have stuff in it?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody's doing that.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's all up to the farmer, up to the farmer to check boxes on a on a form, send it into a bureaucrat who will look at it and put a stamp on it, approved, you know, da da da.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh so the fact that we're we're going to actually send, we're not gonna trust the Uzbekistanis anymore to certify themselves, you know.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: I I I was uh I was involved in a nonprofit once that was that was doing a bunch of uh sustainable ag transitional stuff with China.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was a philanthropic organization, and they had their their Chinese counterparts and their a the American uh NGO, the philanthropy that was funneling money to the sustainable ag transition team in China.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I met uh I was with them and doing presentations uh to try to to to help the Chinese and the American group, you know, uh whatever uh get together.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it was hilarious at one point over the two days of discussions that the Americans didn't trust the Chinese organic certifiers at all, and the Chinese quickly, I mean, it was tense, it was tense.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: The Chinese quickly countered.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we don't trust you Americans at all.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: You let fraud and crack and you know, uh scam and stuff go into your organic certifications.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Our people are honest in China.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: You Americans are liars.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: The Americans look at the Chinese.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: No, you guys are liars, our people are honest.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is the kind of stuff that goes on, you know, and um and and it's real.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like there's some wonderful, um, you know, uh benevolent divine overseer of this thing.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's a bunch of it's a bunch of groveling, snobbling, uh, greedy, selfish.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um anyway, I'll I'll quit with my adjectives, but but it it it it's a bunch of self-serving interest handling with with billions of dollars at stake.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Billions of dollars.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, a lot of people can put their hand in a cookie jar when there's when there's that kind of money involved in in it.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: So no, it's it's just it's a paper tiger, a bunch more paper to shove around, and it actually still doesn't um empirically, doesn't empirically test anything in a lab.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: So not only does it not work, but it perpet perpetuates the illusion that the food has integrity, right?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And as you said, as you said, the the worst thing about this is the worst outcome of this is that it lulls people into a false sense of of faith uh in a system that that will not and cannot have integrity.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a perfect time for this listener's question.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I love this question.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: This comes from Alan M.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: He emails a question for Joel.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I have a theoretical Question for Joel that may help us focus on some action items that we could bring to our local officials.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Joel, if Thomas Massey were elected president and you were appointed to be secretary of agriculture, what would your agenda be?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: What would be your first action steps, knowing that you had a supportive administration behind you all the way?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: I love this question.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: I do too.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And for those who don't know Thomas Massey, I just had a nice, uh, nice phone conversation with him actually Sunday afternoon, seen a couple days ago.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and um a lot of people don't realize that he was he was the uh the main orchestration behind the the 20 rebel congressmen that that pushed uh Kevin McCarthy to make a bunch of uh concessions.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and massey is smart enough to stay out of the limelight.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: So he he pulled strings behind.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: But the as a result of his feeding the the messaging, the demands, and the things into that process, he now has several really uh uh high uh subcommittee appointments as patron.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh he said, he said, stay tuned.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna I'm gonna see if I can't use this newfound, you know, um platform to actually um get some you know get some hearings with you know where where you go head to head with uh the CEO of Tyson, for example, uh in front of so we'll we'll we'll see where that goes.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah, Thomas Massey is uh, you know, when I when I when I grow up, I want to be like Thomas Massey.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so yeah, so the scenario is interesting.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: So what would I what would I do as Secretary of Agriculture?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Many people have asked me that over the years, and uh so so I have a really standard answer, and that is the first thing I would do is create is is um I I don't know if this could be done by executive order.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: They do a lot by executive order, so maybe we could just do this by executive order.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um a food emancipation proclamation, a food emancipation proclamation.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm using strong language, and I'm using strong language for a purpose because right now America's food system is enslaved by a um by a a marketplace uh police force um that denies us that denies producer and consumer transactional access to work with each other outside of the government's purview.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if there is one thing, if there is one thing that would break the back of the food um, you know, food giants in the country, so so this has both positive and negative.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I don't want to be against Cargill and Tyson and whatever, um, as much as I want to be for entrepreneurial, you know, local food systems.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, you it's a positive and negative on a battery.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: You you've got the negative and you got the positive.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: So so um as much so I I I want to I want to defund and take the uh the the oligarchic monopolistic uh capabilities off of the you know the federal uh off of off of the uh food system, the quickest way to do that is simply truly releasing into the marketplace the pent up the pent-up desire of thousands and thousands of farmers to literally service their neighborhoods.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: Let me give you a quick story.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say Pete Pete and Joe are neighbors.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Pete and Joe are neighbors.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Pete's got a Pete's got he's got a little bigger uh um piece of land, you know, he owns an acre there, and he's always wanted to raise a couple pigs, and so he raises a couple pigs.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you never want to raise one pig, they're so social.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: You always want to raise two pigs, all right.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: But he does his family only needs one pig, all right.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So he raises two so the pigs can be socialized and enjoy being pigs together.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And uh his neighbor Joe um doesn't have a uh a yard, he's got a really small house and a small lot, but he and Pete are friends.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Joe comes over and he, you know, he feeds the pigs when Pete has to work late and go on vacation.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, Joe really enjoys this.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so they do guys, you know, they're friends, and so they decide we're gonna we're gonna um wait till a nice cool day in uh November, late November, and we're gonna we're gonna butcher these right here.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: We don't need to take them anywhere.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: We just we're just gonna butcher them right here, like people have done for for throughout history.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: And Joe says, hey, good, you know, I'll I'll come and help.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and uh I'd like to I'd like to buy the other hog.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well the problem is that it's illegal for Pete.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's illegal for Pete to process that hog.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: If Joe wants to buy sausage and and pork chops from that hog, Joe can't Pete is a criminal if he sells it to him, because in the U.S.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: you cannot sell pork chops unless the pork chops went through a licensed government facility.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's where we are in our food system.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I call that enslavement.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: I call that enslaving the food system to a bureaucratic uh um, and I'll use the word, plantation owner that says you can't leave this plantation.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: You can buy this food, this food, this food, and this food, but no, you can't buy this food, this food, this food.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh actually, you can buy it, you just can't sell it.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so you can give it away.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and and so, you know, isn't it interesting that that all this food uh can be given away and used, but as soon as a dollar change uh as soon as a dollar exchanges hands, now it's a hazardous substance.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, that that it's interesting that if I if I pay for it, now it's a hazardous substance, which which shows the lie of the whole system, the lie of the whole system.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so, um, so actually, you know, there there are initiatives around the country uh as this as as food.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: If there's one thing we could do about food security, stability, and shortage and safety, it is to free the marketplace for the thousands of entrepreneurial smallholders that want to access people at their church, their neighbors, their civic clubs with you know with alternative food.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing I would do as Secretary of Agriculture is uh issue a food emancipation proclamation, which would say that every American has the right to purchase the food of their choice from the source of their choice in a voluntary transaction.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, I um I don't want to say I cho I choose I choose to buy this food and you have to sell it to me.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, you can't do that.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: It has to be a mutually voluntary transaction, but basically it would it would put into the um into the into uh whatever a legal uh right um the right of me to to opt out of government food.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I could now wander off the government plantation and get food from somewhere else.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that to me is the ultimate it's the ultimate protection of our food system, it's the ultimate um uh freedom for us to choose the provenance, the fuel, if you will, for our own microbiome, which it has to be one of the most intimate decisions that we can ever make.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: I love that even the word choices.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you would definitely need a friendly president and friend friendly Congress to push that through.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm seeing visions of a massy Joel ticket in the future.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's that you you would love this.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I've I've been uh promoting this, preaching this food emancipation proclamation forever.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because I I do think the word emancipation does actually capture and evoke uh where the food system is.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the hardest thing, Cena, in in moving this idea forward is people go in the supermarket and say, What do you mean we don't have food choice?
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Look at all the choice we got here.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I got I can get you know oranges and apples and and and chicken and you know, hot pockets and lunchables and Cheerios, and I got all sorts of choice.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: But as you know and I know, that is an extremely carefully licensed and permitted type of food, and there is an entire world out here, a a subterranean world in the food scape of the country that that is either sold on the black market, on the hush-hush.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: We meet in parking lots and transfer it from my trunk to your trunk, you know, don't tell anybody, don't ask, don't tell.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and and then we have Amos Miller, you know, rated.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: We have people rated by SWAT teams, and and we um so there is a there is a huge you know under observation uh community out here that is is absolutely ready to meet our communities with good food.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and you know, until until we as a as a culture recognize food freedom, um, and here's another one, you know, I I I would like to see people as interested and concerned about food choice as they are gun choice or abortion choice, or and and and I'm not an abortion, don't get me wrong, but but uh what I'm saying is this is a we we live in a culture of choice.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: I want to choose my sex, I want to choose my you know what happens to my baby, I want to choose and on on the left and on the right, we have I want to choose to own guns, we have a constitutional right for that, and and we're using constitutional rights for all sorts of of choice, both good and ill.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: But as a culture, we are completely blind to the fact that we don't have choice in our food, and that's what we have to fix first and foremost.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the beauty of this is it wouldn't it wouldn't require a dollar, it wouldn't require an agency.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that this is something that that could be done without an additional tax, an additional piece of paper, an additional license, additional anything.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: All I'm saying is if you want to come to my farm, smell around, look around, ask around, and you and I want to transact a food interaction, we should be able to do it without the government being involved.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's I find it remarkable that we're even having to have these conversations that we already don't have that freedom.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: That seems to be a God-given right.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm convinced that the founders thought that was a God-given right, and which is why it's not spelled out specifically in the Constitution, you know.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I think this is a great topic.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: I want to dive into this more on a future podcast.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a little bit of hope here because I think that as people are getting sicker, and particularly as their kids are getting sick, I think they are waking up to the fact that a large part of this is from the food supply.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: And once, you know, we get this platform where we're explaining what's really in the food and and how that actually connects with these sicknesses specifically, they are looking for these alternative or what we call these rogue, right, food sources.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: They know they will they will learn that they are healthier and that those foods can't actually heal their bodies versus most of them that are in the grocery store that make them sicker.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I do have some hope that, you know, that that we can turn the ship around, basically.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: So let's let's keep working on this and um, you know, uh in future podcasts, let's lay it all out there, explain it in detail, and try to get some more people on our boat to turn this ship around, right?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds that sounds great.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good, it's a good uh good agenda.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, that there are the loopholes, you know, pet food, there are all sorts of things that are being they're being pushed.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: And what what's pushing all this is this this incredible uh uh desire of people to opt out and farmers to opt in.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we have we have we have both parties, we're ready, we're ready to to work together, but we've got this this heavy bureaucracy hanging over our heads in the you know, in that transaction.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: So great.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I we appreciate the question.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're really glad for it, and yeah, I hope we do dive into it in the future.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and I'll leave you on this note.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: So next time you're chatting with your buddy Massey, maybe mention the idea of Massey Joel ticket.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's not enough money in that.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you as always for joining us.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we look forward to seeing you next week.