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Episode #81: The Skinny on Hydroponics & How to Win The Fight for “Organics" · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: They're confusing growing in a greenhouse with growing hydroponically.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: Some hydroponic production is outside.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of many, many acres of hydroponic production out in a field growing like blueberries.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: And uh there is there is organic production in the soil in a greenhouse.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's common in Europe, and it's what I do.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: Many, many New England farms also have a so we I just want when we talk about like uh bugs, if they have less bugs, it's because they got screens on the windows.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's not, it's nothing to do with with a better nutrition system.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: They do recycle their water and then they have to get rid of it, and that's a different story about what happens with it then.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're gonna grow in a desert, I would say hydroponics are a good idea.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: If you're gonna grow on Mars, because I had some kids from Dartmouth come and they were designing the food uh system for a space station on Mars.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: And they said, we looked at trying to do it with the soil and it's literally toxic.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: So hydro was the only way.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: I said, uh that makes sense.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: They said, Do you think there are any drawbacks?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Well, how many years are you planning to eat it?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if it's 10 years, I think you, yeah, you might have some serious health problems coming.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: If it's a year or two, yeah, it's all you can do.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: So we can't say that hydroponic never makes sense in any situation, but it's not optimal for a nutritional perspective.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not one of the lies, Joel, that they tell is that, oh, it's so energy efficient.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's just made up not true.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: I grow in a greenhouse, and yes, I'm energy efficient, but I'm not low carbon compared to growing in the field.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: So they they're just making up some stuff here, okay?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, everybody.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another podcast from Beyond Labels with Joel Salatin, yours truly, and our favorite researcher, Dr.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Today's topic stems from is a refinement or a further um elaboration on one that we mentioned back about three or four months ago uh regarding the Ninth Circuit's opinion after being sued by numerous uh farmer and organic advocacy group plaintiffs regarding USDA's certifying soilless, also known as hydroponic uh production systems.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: When Senator Patrick Leahy initially introduced the uh organic certification, the organic uh act many, many years ago, the act is literally um uh permeated with the word soil.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't explicitly say you have to use soil, but the entire keystone of the law was that organics must improve soil.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what's happened uh uh over the years as the as the uh different markets and organics has increased and become more industrial, um, there have been hydroponic or soilless systems now certified by the USDA, and many organic farmers, true blue, true blue organic farmers, feel betrayed by this uh this certification, this certifying of a system that doesn't even have soil in it at all.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's a there's a tremendous tension within the industry.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so the suit um uh basically said the USDA can continue to certify soil as systems.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't take a real strong position that it's it's that it's illegal or that that it actually is acceptable.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: It just kind of took a mambi-pambi approach and said, uh, USDA can continue doing what they're ever, what, what they're going to do.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, C and I Cena and I decided that there is no better person to bring in to uh help us come up to date with where this is than the founder and director of the Real Organic Project, which is a a second-tier SEAL.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: So to introduce him and bring him on, Dave Chapman, uh turn it over to Cena to make the introduction and bring on Dave.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Joel.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we are thrilled to have Dave with us today.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Dave Chapman runs Long Wind Farm in Vermont.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: He is the co-executive director of the Real Organic Project.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's a founding member of the Vermont Organic Farmers.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: He has been active in the movement to keep the soil inorganic.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: He is proud to be a current member of the policy committee of the Organic Farmers Association.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: He also served on the USDA Hydroponic Task Force.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: He served in a farmer position.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Dave, for being on the program with us.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Cena.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Joel.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's a pleasure to be here.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: So so, Dave, one of the one of the uh big you know issues surrounding this is as you know, I mean, it's it's kind of funny to have our podcast title is Beyond Labels.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: So if you know anything about Cena and I, you know, we come from a fairly libertarian background, uh, Adam Smith's Invisible Hand of the Marketplace, you know, those kinds of places.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so um uh, as you know, you and I have had numerous discussions about uh the Real Organic Project.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Could you just tell us a little bit about why you thought it was necessary to start the Real Organic Project?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and then we'll we'll talk about some of the nuances here regarding this really uh what I see as an official kind of an official recognition uh to erode the org the the government certified organic label, uh if I may be bold enough to say that.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh so so so kind of tell us what led you to move where you are and um and then we'll go from there.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, Joel.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: Got a big train going by.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I I got involved with this after years of being totally apolitical.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: I was just a farmer and I farmed and I raised my kids.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: And like most farmers, I didn't have the time for this.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: I honestly didn't know what the government structure was like.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't really know the difference between the NOP and the OTA and the you know OCA and all of those initials.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: They're all there, and I would get these things in the mail, but I didn't really even have time to read them.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: But what I did notice is when all of a sudden hydroponic tomatoes started to get certified in the marketplace, and there were a lot of them, and they were beautiful, and they were very inexpensive, and they didn't taste any good.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: But I saw them and I was suddenly competing with them, and I'm like, what is this?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: These are hydroponic.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't we agree back in 2010 that that was not possible to call hydroponic production organic?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: And we did agree that.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: That was the one time I got a little bit involved with the with the federal apparatus of the National Organic Standards Board, and I wrote a letter.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's a big deal for me.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote a letter, and and you know, and that board decided overwhelmingly, there was one dissenting vote that hydroponic could not be called organic.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and then here we were, two, three years later.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: It was getting certified on scale in the marketplace, and I was like, what is going on?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I worked for uh till the end of 2017 on reform.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: I became uh involved in actually going to government meetings and writing a lot of letters and petitions and things that were not part of my personal heritage.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: I I was not a political person.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: And and we failed, and we failed.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: And in the process, I discovered there were a lot of other program uh problems with the National Organic Program because in Vermont there weren't any problems, honestly.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: There were no hydroponics, there were no confinement livestock operations being certified.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't know anything about grain fraud.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought I had been I had been very opposed to the USDA getting involved because they'd always hated us.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: And and and I I thought this isn't a good thing, but I I had decided I was wrong.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: I thought, you know, this is working out pretty well.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: Organic is really growing in the marketplace.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Clearly, the government support creating this infrastructure is very helpful.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and then I left Vermont.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: I started to look at the rest of the country, and I thought, oh, this isn't working so well after all.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so after we lost a big decision of the National Organic Standards Board, basically saying, no, no, let's just keep certifying hydro.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, was that it?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: That was in 2017.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: That was in 2017 in Jacksonville, Florida.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: And after that, I came back and a lot of farmers were there.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: We were having farmer rallies, and there was you know a lot of work to create reform, and there were a lot of big stories in the Washington Post and the New York Times and and Morning Edition.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: This was getting covered, and we lost, and it was pretty dismaying, and everybody was sort of crushed.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: And we came back.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: I came back to Vermont and we had a gathering because a bunch of about nine farmers went down to that meeting.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: There were about 60 farmers from around the country came to that meeting, and we had a very impromptu gathering at the national at the NOFA headquarters, and we said, What are we gonna do?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Are we going to just live with this and say organic is now a very degraded label, but we're gonna farm the way we believe, or are we gonna change it?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna we're gonna create another add-on label or standalone label.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the absolute consensus that we were gonna do something, and the group was divided between whether we should create an add-on label saying we we're gonna get certified organic, and then we're gonna say we're gonna make a real organic label, or are we gonna do a standalone and say we don't care about any of that USDA certification, we're gonna stand alone.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: And the group was divided, and over meetings in the coming months, we decided to make it an add-on label, which might be a controversial decision, especially with you.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm looking forward to the conversation.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, especially now, right, Joel?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's actually how this pod this episode was born, because in that previous podcast that Joel and I recorded, where we basically updated people on this Ninth Circuit decision, one of my solutions to the problem was look for the real organic project seal.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, especially when you're in the grocery store, grocery store, pick find that seal and buy those products because you know those are not hydroponically grown.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then Joel brought up that point.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, um, I like what they're doing, but you have to first become USDA organic certified in order to then qualify for the real organic project seal.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then our question was, well, now that there is this loophole, you know, still in the organic label, and it seems like we lost that battle, at least for now, that that loophole is staying, the integrity of the label has eroded.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's eroded greatly, right, as a big advocate for soil-based foods.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so we thought, wait a minute, isn't this degrading the integrity now of the real organic project seal?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Can they separate themselves from the USDA organic requirement that they've set for their label?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I will turn, and Joel and I think right, we're both in agreement with that.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll turn it back over to you, Dave.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a it's a great question, Zena.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: So Joel is not certified organic, so he can't get real organic certification.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Same with Elliot Cullen and my good friend.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: And okay, these are two of the most respected organic farmers in America.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: So the first question is well, can you be organic and not be certified organic?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: And the answer is of course, of course, right?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: And if you are certified organic, does it mean you're organic?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: No, it does not.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: We know that.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: These big hydro producers, they're not organic.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: So the the the National Organic Program's got a serious problem with their logo and with their brand.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I will say I've been certified organic since before there was a USDA back in Vermont Organic Farmers.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: I got certified organic with our own little state thing that we set our own standards.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: And when the USDA came, they took over all those state things and said, now these are the standards.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: I've been certified with them since day one.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: But I've never used their logo on anything I sold.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: I do use the term organic, and I'm allowed to.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have to fight about it because I am certified with them, but I don't use their logo because I don't have a great respect for it.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Now, should we create a standalone?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, uh, you you guys probably know some people with deeper pockets than me.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: So if you can get me$10 million a year, we will do that.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: We will start a standalone label.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: But short of that 10 million, you know, it's a serious thing to say we're not going to be an add-on, we're going to be a standalone.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things it does is it declares war on all the certifiers in America, many of whom are very good.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: And most of the farms who are certified are real organic.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: They're, you know, it's not their fault that the USDA program is back failing.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: And they're, they've got a whole marketing system based on being able to use that label to get onto a store shelf.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: So it seemed to me that the thing to do is to say, you know what, we're going to create a label that people can trust, and we're going to use the work that we all did building up that organic, that organic seal.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: We did that.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: We did that.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: That wasn't some advertising effort.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: That was a bunch of organic farmers created that that uh reputation.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I agree that we can't let it go.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: We can't let it go because then organic, the word is going to come to mean nothing.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be the new natural, right?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be unfortunately the new regenerative.
• 14:40
  unknown: Yeah.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: When you say we can't let it go, what do you what does that mean?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: We can't let it go.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: It means that for me personally, I decided I was going to plant my flag on this hill and I'm going to fight for what the word organic means.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I understand that I can't stop some goon from saying what he or she thinks it means, but I can say what it means to me.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: And and I use the term real organic to represent that, which I would say is in alignment with most of the three million organic farmers in the world.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's in alignment with the European standards, it's in alignment with most of what this word means, and it's in alignment with the federal law.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the best we can do.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh, and for our for our listeners, uh, Dave, I think uh some of them um are not they don't live in this space as much as you and I do.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's important for them to realize that uh that the United States is the correct me if I'm wrong, is the only country in the world that certifies soilless uh produce systems.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um no other country in the world certifies.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we are we are an outlier.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we are very much an outlier in this.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, you know, we also brought McDonald's to the world.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: We brought Hot Pockets, we we brought Velveeta cheese.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the U.S.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: has brought some uh some pretty amazing things to the world, and now we're bringing to the world this notion that you can grow uh food uh uh with without the uh the the majestic complexities of soil.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and and and that is uh the the the the argument Dave is is that uh soilless systems are more uh they they use less water, uh they're more efficient, they have fewer bugs, you have more control.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um what am I missing?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they confused a couple things there.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're confusing growing in a greenhouse with growing hydroponically.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Some hydroponic production is outside.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of many, many acres of hydroponic production out in a field growing like blueberries.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: And uh there is there is organic production in the soil in a greenhouse.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's common in Europe, and it's what I do.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: Many, many New England farms also have a so we I just want when we talk about like uh bugs, if they have less bugs, it's because they got screens on the windows.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's not it's nothing to do with with a better nutrition system.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: They do recycle their water and then they have to get rid of it, and that's a different story about what happens with it then.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're gonna grow in a desert, I would say hydroponics are a good idea if you're gonna grow on Mars.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because I had some kids from Dartmouth come and they were designing the food uh system for a space station on Mars.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: And they said, We looked at trying to do it with the soil, and it's literally toxic.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: So hydro was the only way.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: I said, uh that makes sense.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: They said, Do you think there are any drawbacks?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Well, how many years are you planning to eat it?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if it's 10 years, I think you, yeah, you might have some serious health problems coming.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: If it's a year or two, yeah, it's all you can do.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: So we can't say that hydroponic never makes sense in any situation, but it's not optimal for a nutritional perspective.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not one of the lies, Joel, that they tell is that, oh, it's so energy efficient.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's just made up not true.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: I grow in a greenhouse, and yes, I'm energy efficient, but I'm not low carbon compared to growing in the field.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: So they they're just making up some stuff here, okay?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: But but but uh but your but your hoop but your greenhouse or your hoop house, your greenhouse also um is able to displace uh shipped tomatoes from Florida and California to Vermont in the wintertime.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: So in the big picture, uh I would suggest that you are in a in a better uh uh energy usage state by uh uh supplementing a little bit of heat in in you know uh in proximate in your locale with a greenhouse in Vermont than you are trucking them in with a you know with a tractor trailer.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, then you go to the next the next thing.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, well the the best then is to is to um eat the tomato, uh uh grow the tomatoes in the summer uh when they're in season and can and freeze and dehydrate and fruit lather and freeze dry and and none of the tomatoes comes in in the wintertime at all.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and that's the continuum we've kind of established in beyond labels.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you kind of have uh in fact it with in this podcast, I think Cena, um correct me if I'm wrong, um, I think I quipped at one point, well, what we want is for people not to even go to the supermarket, you know, uh buy tomatoes that don't even have a label, you know, in in the in the in the true sense of the word.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh, you know, so so we have that we have that continuum.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um and and so in that in that vein, um that also begs the question then, if in order if in order to get to a real organic uh uh uh authenticity going through the eroded, uh it's almost like um well you gotta you know you gotta patronize the devil to get to God, you know.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I hear you, Joel.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: I hear you, Joel.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: So if if if there was no real organic project at this point, I would drop organic certification.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that is true, but there is, and so I I feel pretty good about it.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: I I hear what you're saying about your system where like the person really knows the farmer and they're coming and getting their food, and that is, of course, ideal and and and the ultimate.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: But I think we have a truly complex food system, and a lot of people aren't going to be able to do that.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: We have to grow that system, we have to grow local, truly decentralized production.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I feed people in New England.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I don't just feed people in my town, I probably probably feed about 10,000 people their weekly tomatoes.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I I will say, I don't believe that they have a lower carbon footprint than shipping them in from Florida, uh, but I do believe that it's much, much better food than what gets shipped in from anywhere.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: It just is, and you can taste it and it's obvious.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I haven't figured out the jury's not in on that one yet, to me.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we need to find better ways to do it wherever we are with a lower carbon footprint.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: But growing good food is not easy.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: Some of it is going to go into markets, some of it is going to go into stores.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: The day might come where we're back to a more truly decentralized food system where everyone's buying from a small grower who is literally within five miles of them.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: But God, what is what are we now?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: 80% of our population lives in an in an urban area.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, so we're gonna have to come up with some systems that that work.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: To feed those 80%.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's there's a homestead tsunami going on, and a lot of those folks are coming, uh, getting an acre, an acre or a big lot in the country.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um just just as a as a as a nuance of this, where is the real organic project on aquaponics?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: So so just so our listeners are with me here, hydroponics is soyless growing, uh, usually with with you know with some sort of uh you know a biofert uh you know uh an IV tube, if you will, uh into the plant roots.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Aquaponics is um is where you use fish uh in a in a concentrated form to create the manure, the fertilizer, uh and fish are cold-blooded, so you don't have a lot of the pathogenicity that you have with with warm-blooded feees and urine and manure and things like that.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so um so aquaponics is a kind of a permutation of hydro.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Where's the real organic project on aquaponics?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: I have a lot of questions about that.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: People people are constantly, well, you know, um, are you even opposed to uh and now of course we have aeroponics?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Aeroponics is the other you get these aeroponic kits that you can put on your porch so you can grow herbs and tomatoes with air.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we've talked about hydroponics.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Take me to aeroponics and aquaponics.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh aquaponics is halfway to aeroponics in terms of not being economically viable, and aeroponics are complete fantasy.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's a Ponzi scheme at the moment.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: At the moment, you know, if you want to if you want to make money in aquaponics, you sell your shares to someone else at a higher price.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: And uh is any of it organic?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: Does it mean it's evil?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: No, organic is not the definition of everything that is good and holy in the world.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: Organic is the definition of an agriculture based on a really complex and and living soil.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: And uh obviously those things are not that.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: You might decide that that aquaponics is is you know your heart's desire and and good.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I knew one of the guys on the on the on the hydroponic task force, the USDA task force, he was an aquaponics guy, nice guy.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: They were all nice guys, right?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: Being nice doesn't make you right, but he was a nice guy and and smart.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: He was a smart guy too.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, you know, this is all kind of silly because we aquaponic people don't need to be certified organic.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: People love to buy our stuff, so he wasn't even quite sure what he was doing there.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't he didn't need it, and because people were intrigued, and it it it's uh it's probably true if you're doing aeroponics on a local level, people will be intrigued.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I I think that we shouldn't confuse making moral judgments about this.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: We're talking about different kinds of agriculture and and what do people want, you know.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: What do they want?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: Now, there are reasons why you should want organ real organic.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think they're good compelling reasons for health and for uh the environment, that that uh the climate, all of that stuff that you should want real organic.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: But someone might disagree with me.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: There are plenty of people who do, and that's okay.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: We don't need to fight about let's just not lie, let's not fight about what organic is.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: Call it something else.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: If it's something else, well, uh, I think yeah, I I think what we're seeing in IR is uh we're we're pretty consumed with uh consumed, I think is a good word, uh, with with what is what is the best quality, what's the most helpful, what's the most helpful for us?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's what's the most helpful to eat.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and and and these aeroponic, hydroponic, aquaponic systems uh simply do not deliver the nutrition that soil grown systems.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: I have one more permutation to run by you.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was in a I was in an aquapon aquaponics outfit out in California, and um, and they were using it was it was actually a school, some, some, uh, there were some pretty pretty uh they were running a uh a kind of aquaponic greenhouse outfit in conjunction with the biology classes and science classes, a wonderful, you know, you can study a lot of stuff, you know, in in that kind of system.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and and they were using uh they were using pebbles, pebbles as a medium.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: And when when I when I put my hand down into those pebbles uh that the plants were in, it was crawling with worms in that in that medium.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a it was a nutrient, it was kind of a swamp.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't it wasn't and there was a lot of humus in there, you know.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean the worms were just full in there.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, so so there's yet another nuance, you know.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: So how does real organic was would real organic consider that a soil system or not?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: That kind of a it's a it's a gray swampy area.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: So of course, if you if you did that long enough, you would have soil.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that's how soil is made.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: But but uh it's interesting.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the things that we've done is just for the purpose of definition, we followed the European definition, it's their law, which is that organic must be grown in the soil, which means in the topsoil, with no barriers between the topsoil and the subsoil and the bedrock.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: Very simple.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason they do that, it's an interesting question.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what if I made a big box of soil?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Could I grow in that?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: Would that be organic?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think it could be.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: The problem with with allowing that is, you know, Joel, immediately people start to gain the system and they go, Well, we're growing in a container, we're adding a little bit of fish, and then we're adding a little more fish, then we're adding some hydrolyzed soy protein, and the next thing you know, they got a hydroponic system.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: So we said, Well, you know what?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: We're just going to get rid of the barrier on the bottom.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: You still might do that, and indeed, one major blueberry company, Berry Company, said that's exactly what we do.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: We grow in sand out in the field and we just fertigate it.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: What's the difference?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that was their understanding of organic.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: They honestly didn't see the difference.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: I don't see the difference either, because the point is you're not supposed to be getting your fertility from fertigation, you're supposed to be getting your fertility from the life in the soil, and uh that's not what they were doing because that was not where they made money.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in the whole, in the whole um uh whatever uh organic, uh just well, just use regenerative, sustainable, whatever, uh um ecological uh movement.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: There's a as you know, there is a tremendous uh interest right now, and a lot of practitioners moving to what you can call them uh bugs in a jug, but this uh biofert home concocted uh uh foliars.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's everything from you know blue algae to Neptune's harvest to you know all those sorts of things.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Foliar um is a real organic project opposed to foliar feeding like that as well.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think the project has any opinion about it as long as it's it's something that would be approved as a as an input.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: But I will say for myself, Joel, I've tried a lot of that stuff, I'm sure you have too over the years.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: And you know what I saw?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing, and that's because if you get the soil right, you it's all there.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: You don't need to add it.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I tell people, I tell people, you know, we yeah, we've done tons of these experiments.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: People are always bringing us this stuff, you know, hoping that I'll endorse it and then they're gonna have sales and all this.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I say, I'll tell you the only thing that consistently over time, every year, does the job is compost.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's the one thing that that that no matter where you are, always improves the soil and makes and makes healthy, abundant crops is compost.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and we've tried everything from paramagnetics to biodynamics to to bugs in a jug to algae to uh everything else.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: And and don't forget playing music to them.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: I've done that too, right?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: I've done it all too.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh nothing, nothing beats compost.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's just the proven, I mean, that's the that's the carbon, that's the true carbon economy.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: The true carbon economy is compost.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of this, a lot of this uh uh workaround that the industry is is uh um is is playing in is essentially uh a a circumvention of the basic carbon economy, which is what nature runs on.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: And when I you say compost, I say, and I'm sure you agree, I would add green manure to that, you know, that you don't have to take the plant and compost it, you can just chop it up and put it in, and it will be the the same goodness.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: But as if you don't have that, you don't have an organic system.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: If you do have that, you don't need all that other stuff.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's all for in case you don't have that.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: So how so how many farms are are certified through the Real Organic Project right now?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's over a thousand.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's about a thousand fifty.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have your own uh staff of of certifying agents that go travel and look and see?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: We do.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: We have about six people who just travel all summer.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: They're some hardworking people, and uh, but they do have a wonderful job because they get to go and visit all these organic farms all across the country and visit with the farmers and talk and learn.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a very hard-working group, but it you know, if you're if you're a with a normal certifier, USDA certifier, it's a little bit like having the the marshal show up when they they come and they, you know, they're kind of suspicious, that's their job.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, we're blessed because they've already done that, and we're there to like look and say, well, let's look at your soil health, show me your crops.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I've talked to people, they said, Well, their certifier didn't even want to see the fields, they just wanted to see the records, and we're we're not doing the records, that's been done, God bless.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: We're there to look at the fields and to look in the farmers' eyes and to go, yeah, you you qualify for everything that we can see.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, back when back when uh certification first came in back uh back in the goodness, in the late 80s or early 90s, uh, and and you know, Virginia Virginia, you know, we had a we we were doing some to use, you know, you each state had its own couple agents, uh, well, they were nonprofits, you know.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they were the sustainable ag group in Virginia was the biological farmers association.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, every state had these things.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I I I remember well that um that I I was opposed to it from the because I'm I'm not a certification guy.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but but um I said, you know what, if we're gonna certify something, what we should certify is the rack of magazines and the bookshelf in the in the farm.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh just walk in the farm, take a look at the magazine rack and the bookshelf, and that'll tell you all you need to know, you know, because at the end of the day, it really is uh um an attitudinal worldview buy-in, um, more than a bunch of boxes to check.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: Probably worth looking in the refrigerator too, Joel.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's I expect that's true too.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Is that is that organic food in there?
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: If you see a bunch of Coca-Cola in there, you might ask it might be a problem.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I can tell you wanting to jump in here.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: What's on what's what I've been chomping at the bit.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've been waiting because obviously Joel gets so excited about these topics, and I love hearing about it, but I can never get a word in.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like so this is I get excited too.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I love it.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: So let me bring in from the consumer perspective.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've heard the farmer's perspective, which I love.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let me address something from the consumer's perspective.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: So um, to say at the onset of this, um, I am opposed to all of those other systems that you mentioned, you know, the hydroponics, aquaponics, all of them.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: And one main reason why I'm opposed uh is from the health perspective and trying to protect the microbiome.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm sure you probably know, we have already lost a great diversity of our microbiome in the human body.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Some are even estimating we've lost maybe up to 45% of the different types of microbes in our gastrointestinal tract.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that tracks with disease formation.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm all about preserving the integrity and building a robust microbiome.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's um there's no humility in science these days, right?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I say that as a Western-trained scientist, all right.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's no humility in it, and that we have this reductionist thinking where we think that we can mimic a growing condition that's that's just as good as the soil, or or how this is they say better than the soil, when we don't know, you know, you say we're growing in the topsoil, but you don't know how that plant is in is interacting with all the all the layers of the soil beneath it, all the microbes.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: We only know they're estimating about 10% of what microbes are there even in the soil.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, how could we possibly mimic that condition and produce something better than what God has actually given us?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I am just fundamentally opposed to it.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let me say that at the outset.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, with that bias in mind, um, one of my big concerns about the USDA and the courts allowing hydroponics to be certified as organic is that it is, in my opinion, going to outcompete in the grocery store the real organic farmers, right?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: The real organic farmers aren't gonna be able to compete with that dishonest marketplace, right?
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: That fraudulent, in my opinion, marketplace.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna lose um choices, right?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: People like me who want real organic, we're gonna go into the grocery store and we're gonna lose our ability to choose real organic food because correct me if I'm wrong, it's cheaper for them to make hydroponic, hydroponically grown foods, correct?
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it is.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so how long it's also cheaper for them to make keif produced milk, keifo produce pork, kaifo produced eggs.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's cheaper.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's why they do it to make more money.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: And if they can tag an organic seal on it, they make even more money.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I think it's so important for, I mean, I'm so grateful for people like you to come on our platform, because I think this pushback is going to have to come from the consumer, right?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're gonna have to educate the consumer so that they're aware that when they go into the grocery store and if they're looking for organic, they can't just trust that USDA organic label, right?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: They've got to pair it with something like the real organic project seal so they know what they're buying and supporting with their dollars is actually truly organic so that we can, as consumers, support those farmers and help them to grow their shares in the marketplace.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: So um, having said that, as a consumer, when I'm walking into the you know, typical grocery store, like a mainstream grocery store, do you have any idea of roughly the percentage of hydroponically grown produce um that would currently exist in that micro market in that market space?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: It it depends on the crop, uh Cena, but um for tomatoes, the majority.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: For peppers, right now, the majority.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um for blueberries, a significant percentage.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: It will soon be the majority.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: But there there still are you know thousands of acres of soil grown blueberries, but but that's changing.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: All the new production coming out of South America, I think it's all hydroponic now in Central America.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it basil, yeah, it's getting to be probably the majority.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, lettuce greens is is in in flux, but it will soon be the majority.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, it's it's going to be that just as it is with eggs, the majority come from CAFOs, right?
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: The vast majority of eggs.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: Milk, it's probably a slight majority, is coming from KAFOs.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: And here's the painful thing.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: As you say, we're losing our choices because the good people who are doing it right are getting driven out of the marketplace because it's being they're being told, hey, these people are making our organic milk cheaper than you.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: You got to make it cheaper or go out of business.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: And they're going, we can't make it any cheaper.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, unless we can identify, which is of course what what Joel has been so good at, Joel is one of the great marketers in American agriculture, honestly, in identifying, no, this is a superior product, and you're gonna need to pay for it because it it's worth more.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, is there if someone walks into the grocery store and say they don't see the real organic project seal anywhere, is there another way that they can tell, like distinguish between what's been hydroponically grown or not?
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because I tell you, I have accidentally picked up organically labeled produce and it did not say hydroponically grown or anything about that on the label.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then I called, I watched one of your summits that you had online, and so I called that company and you know, had to go back to the distributor and everything and found out it in fact was hydroponically grown.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, how can people find out?
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: It gets worse than that, Cena.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: So the two biggest hydroponic, so-called organic producers in the world, if you go to their website or write them a letter, they will say, No, we don't produce anything hydroponically.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so what they've done is redefine the word.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: They'll say, Well, if pressed, they'll say, Well, we grow in containers, they're growing hydroponically.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: And any hydroponic producer in the world who wasn't part of some shell game would say, of course it's hydroponic.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, there is a lot of greenwashing that's going on in the world.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there's one thing I want to say, and that is it's very easy to make make the problem here be Tom Vilsack in the USDA.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: But the truth is they are a symptom of the problem.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: And the same thing happens with anything that is successful.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: The moment that regeneratives started to be a successful term, and people were excited about oh my God, welcome to Singenta and Bear Monsanto as the two biggest regenerative companies in agriculture.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's insane how quickly that happened.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: And there was no government invention, although now USDA is giving those companies millions and millions of dollars for climate smart agriculture.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, what we have to do is realize that we're in a fight and we're going to be in a fight.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not how did this happen?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's inevitable that it happened because there is money involved, and we, the people, actually were looking for and still are looking for an alternative to that chemical industrial food production system.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: We're looking for better food, we're looking for it to be grown by human beings.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: We'd like it if somebody knew the name of their cow instead of just, you know, number 9,257.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we can have that, but we're gonna have to fight like hell for it.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's not gonna be given to us.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: How do we win that fight?
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is it through educating the consumer and supporting like the real organic project saying go buy foods with that seal?
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do we actually win this?
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: We we we have to educate ourselves.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know, the consumer is is us.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: I I go out and buy food like everybody, and I grow food.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm an eater.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, I think it's got to be farmer led because the farmers know about it, and poor eaters, they really don't.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's not their fault.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: I have to go to my sister and say, tell me about this child welfare thing, because that's what she does for a living.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: And she tells me, No, no, that's not right.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: This is right.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: I go to somebody else and say, tell me about fair trade.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: I don't understand it.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: And she tells me, so farmers need to lead the way, and nutritionists need to lead the way, but we need to have an educated population.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: We can't just talk about it, we need to have action, and of course, farmers do have action.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_02: We are actually growing food.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the question is how do we, in a hostile environment, and it is hostile to a farmer, the the marketplace is is hostile.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: So, how do we in fact come together and create enough awareness that we start to hit a tipping point and things change?
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that you're doing it, we're doing it.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: There are a lot of good people in this world who are understand that this is very important to us and that we need to have some action.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: So we just have to keep talking.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's it's One, it's one at a time from the bottom up.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's never from the top down, it's from the bottom up.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: All these things are the bottom up.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, what Weston A price, they asked him, you know, Weston A.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: Price was on his deathbed.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: He said, So what what's your advice to us?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, You teach, you teach, you teach, and you teach.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so, so that's that's that's that's part of that's part of the ministry.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Dave, uh, seeing is there anything else?
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're about out of time here.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I Dave, one one last quick thing.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: In um right on par with this in terms of helping to talk about it and educate people.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: Dave, do you want to tell us about your upcoming event?
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, sure.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: Very quickly, we're doing a conference out in California on January 17th.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's at EcoFarm, and it's a pre-conference and it's a one-day thing.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: We got uh 13 people, I think nine of them are farmers.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: They're coming from all over the country, from Florida and Ireland, Vermont, and California.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's going to be an incredible discussion of the very things that we've been talking about.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it can be live streamed.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: So if you go to the Real Organic Project website, realorganicproject.org, and you can easily find a way to get to the Ecofarm thing and find out more about it.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: And we'll have another virtual symposium coming in the end of February, which is this amazing uh uh compilation of 50 interviews.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: I interview a lot of people, and we put them together in a in two fairly condensed discussions.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: And this year we'll be about regenerative.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like the question is is organic regenerative and is regenerative organic?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a lot of confusion about this one, serious confusion.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: And we're at a crossroads and we need to talk about it.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's the same kind of confusion that uh that is spawned by when people say, uh, well, we're not really hydroponic, we're we're container grown.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um I would I would just tell Cena, Cena, I can tell you, I can tell our listeners, our consumers, and again, I'm a consumer too.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: I buy, but you can go to a website, you know.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe what we need is actually uh a seminar on how to use a website.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the deal, Dave.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I know that farmers like us who who are trying to um deconfuse people, on our websites, we put entirely different kinds of pictures on our websites than people like organic driscals put on.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to be able to look at a website and be able to discern are these guys trying to pull something or is this the true blue thing?
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um and so so if you if you pull up a website and it's got a picture of a bunch of pots out in a field with a bunch of tubes in them, that's hydroponics.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_02: They can call it, but you won't find that picture on Driscoll's website, Joel.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: There'll be a nice picture of the blueberry plants with some kind of soft focus from the waist down.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: So what we what we need is uh drone, we need we need uh unadulterated drone footage.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: We need to get some of that.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: Dave, listen, thank you so much for being on.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: What a what a pleasure to spend time with you.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for your for your uh tireless efforts in this and your heart and your spirit in it.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we just we just congratulate you and thank you and and really appreciate you being on.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, everyone.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you both.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being with us on another uh podcast from Beyond Labels with Cena and I.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: We'll look forward to seeing you again next week.