Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #242: Joel Salatin on the Looming Food Price Spike

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Episode #242: Joel Salatin on the Looming Food Price Spike · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's absolutely a fool's errand to think that we can chemical energy our way out of this.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Half of global food production depends on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer that's mainly produced in the Middle East.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_03: Farmers need to quit being victims and start taking the raise of their own destiny.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_03: Hi, everybody.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to another Beyond Labels podcast with um I would be Joel Salatin, that would be me.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I'm always trying to figure out how to make these things clever and not just do them cut and dried every time, you know.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: And uh our favorite researcher, Dr.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: Cena McCullough.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um a lot's happening, you know, the war in Iran and the and the uh increase in the cost of uh fertilizer if you're if you've watched the news and if you're if you're buying food, um you're watching food prices go up, and if you're watching the news, fertilizer prices are going through the roof.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um and a lot of people don't realize the connection between energy prices and fertilizer.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: Uh what's the what's the link there?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: And so um we're gonna we're gonna drill down on that a little bit here, I think, here today, and try to bring you what's actually happening and perhaps some good um uh alternative views, which you could expect from us, um, alternative views about the whole fertilizer concept.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: So um, so Sina, have you seen what have you seen in this space?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I've been seeing how um there's been fertilizer and energy shortages and uh resulting from the war.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is becoming a very, very hot topic.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um and there's so gas prices have been increasing.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's um, you know, they're talking about the Strait of Hormuz and how about a third of the global fertilizer moves through the passage, um, and half of global food production depends on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer that's mainly produced in the Middle East.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, what's what I've been seeing is that countries are prioritizing their domestic supply of fertilizer.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Russia, for example, in March, they stopped um exporting ammonium nitrate for about one month, um, you know, amid this global supply crunch.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: About 40% of the world's supply comes out of Russia.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a very big deal that they've stopped exporting for a month.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: China in March has also restricted fertilizer exports.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: They shipped uh$13 billion worth of fertilizer just last year.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: They're one of the largest fertilizer exporters.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we're seeing countries kind of locking down to protect their own food supply.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this is planting time, right?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like for a lot of farmers as well.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: So they're feeling the pinch.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're having so the higher fuel prices translate into higher food prices, and higher fertilizer price fertilizer prices translate into higher food prices as well.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wanted you to kind of walk us through how does that actually happen, that if you have a higher fuel price and higher fertilizer price, that both end up in a higher food price.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: So the people could understand, and then there's some nuances that I want to get to as well, um, including how farmers are starting to shift what they grow.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: So if you've never heard most people have heard of a phrase called the Green Revolution.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: And the Green Revolution, uh, you know, variously attributed to anywhere from you know the 1940s to the 19 uh 70.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: And um, you know, Faber, uh two scientists, uh Faber and Bosch, uh developed a system in early the early 1900s to create nitrogen out of the air.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: You know, a lot of people don't realize that the air, the atmosphere above us, has more nitrogen in it than oxygen.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: And and and the the number one um determinant uh of plant growth is nitrogen.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: And um, so you know, plants so it when you talk about NPK, nitrogen, potassium, uh, and uh phosphorus, those were the three major nutrients that were identified by the um Austrian biochemist uh Justus von Liebig back in 1837, using his vacuum tubes to determine that all life is simply a rearrangement of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, nitrogen being the king, the king of those three.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: And that has continues to dominate our chemical agriculture psyche uh today.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: Now, interestingly, there are a lot of ways that plants can get nitrogen.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: Uh there are, I'll I'll just give you one that that fascinates me the most.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: There's a bacteria called Azotobacter.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: A Z-O-T Azotoba C T E R or something.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: Azotobacter.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's it's a free, it's it's a it's a free living, it's not hooked up to anything.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's a free living bacteria in the soil, and it can reach out into the uh atmosphere from the soil and pull in a hundred pounds of nitrogen per acre per year.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: Now, to put that in perspective, a you know, a corn crop, you know, a 200 bushel an acre corn crop uh probably requires something in the neighborhood of 250 pounds of nitrogen per acre.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just ballparking it here, but but stay with me on the story.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: So 100 pounds of nitrogen per acre is a huge amount.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: But here's the catch Azotobacter bacteria goes dormant at less than 4% organic matter.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_03: It goes dormant, and probably um 95% of America's soils are now below four percent organic matter.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna stop you just like you do for me, for all of us who are not well versed.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Can you explain to the typical listener what is organic matter?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, where are you gonna find what is it?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you find it?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: How why are we lacking it?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: Great.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: Organic matter is decompose.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um this is a layman's term, not a scientific term, but organic matter is decomposing material that was living at one time.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_03: So when plants rot, when you know, when things decompose in the soil, that develops organic matter.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_03: And the feedstock for the decomposition, the feedstock for that decomposition is something that's already been living.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: An animal, a plant, you know, I mean, could be grass, it could be tree, it could be anything, but something that was living.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: So that's where organic matter, I mean, think of a compost pile.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_03: You know, what uh organic matter is what gives soil um um sponginess.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: All right, it it's it's the it's it's the sponginess of the soil.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: But it also represents the entire all the living parts of the soil.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_03: So there's there's active and inactive organic matter, there's legacy organic matter, uh old, you know, old uh material, that's it's always black.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: What gives what makes soil black is organic matter, all right?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: And and um, and then you have the active horizon as well.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to get too far into that.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: What I want to get to is the fact that in most areas of the U.S.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: virgin soils, we're talking pre-European, were somewhere between 8 and 10% organic matter.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: That's what that's what the Europeans found when they came here.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_03: Now, it varies whether the soil is is more clay, loam, or sandy.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: There are you know apparent differences in the soil into how much organic matter it can handle.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_03: But in general, in general, the American soils were somewhere around eight to ten percent organic matter pre-European.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_03: Today, they average less than two percent.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: Many soils are less than one percent.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: And so and and so those of us on the biological, you know, those of us who've drunk the biological farming Kool-Aid, uh, what we're all about is trying to not um whatever, apply, apply nitrogen, which takes uh or artificial nitrogen, which takes a tremendous amount of petroleum to make.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: It takes it takes a huge amount of energy to be able to extract nitrogen from the atmosphere.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and so it's extremely energy intensive and takes a lot of, I mean, you can use you can use uh any number of oil uh of of resources.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_03: Normally it's uh liquid liquid petroleum is the the most common one, natural gas.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but when you when you do that, you are simply um um offering a supplement to something that nature has a way of doing when when the biology is right.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so farmers like me, what we we don't buy ammonia, and that's what you'll see in all the news reports.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: Ammonia, I mean, here's here's a Wall Street Journal article from yesterday.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um CF Industries holdings in uh Illinois, it's in a Northbrook, Illinois company.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, one of the year's hottest stocks rising 76% to a record high.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it consumes huge volumes of natural gas to produce nitrogen fertilizer.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: Investors are begging that CF, the company, can raise prices for its fertilizers to match those of global competitors, which must offset higher natural gas prices while its own input costs remain relatively stable.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: And this is see, this is just what you were saying.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: We are um countries are are um are trying to upgrade their domestic production because of the whole energy, you know, the Gulf of Hormuz and the energy price increases.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: So um, so you know, this is this is a perfect example.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_03: So if we if we um if we actually get the soil biology up, so on our own farm in 1961, when our family came, we averaged one percent organic matter.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: The last soil samples we've pulled a couple years ago, we averaged 8.2% organic matter.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: Now that took 60 years to get there, and we could have done it a lot faster if we knew, if we knew in the 1960s what we know today.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, we've learned a lot too.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: But but but my point is that you can you can increase organic matter to uh to reactivate the azotobacter bacteria so that they will kick in and bring down a hundred pounds of nitrogen, you know, per day.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um you can you know you can also get it through legumes, you know, um clovers.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: All all legumes are have the little rhizome nodules, you know, that that uh bring uh that that bring nitrogen in.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um so there are there are other mechan, and of course, animal manure is the number one way, uh, but most animal manure in our country is not utilized.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm on a I'm on a thread back and forth, back and forth with a with a NRCS agent in Pennsylvania, and um, and uh she's telling me that in Pennsylvania they have so many uh chicken houses that there is not enough land in Pennsylvania to spread the chicken manure on without it being toxic.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: Oh wow because there's just too uh because um you know you you if if you put on the soil, the vegetation can only metabolize so much nitrogen.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: If you put on too much, it's either going to vaporize and stink, which we all know what that smells like, or it's gonna leach into the groundwater and create nitrate contamination in groundwater, which is you know an indicator in blue baby syndrome and uh sudden infant death syndrome, those kinds of things.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um so so you know it's a it's a delicate balance.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: And the beauty is when your soil is high in organic matter, uh, it becomes very, very resilient.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: It can absorb more nitrogen, it can grow more vegetation, it becomes you know more resilient.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_03: And and so, you know, what's fascinating to me in this in the whole discussion is that everybody's uh trying to figure out how to deal with the with the you know artificial the chemical nitrogen approach, and and I haven't seen anybody in certainly not in mainstream media discussing well, how do we how do we wean ourselves from this energy-intensive uh nitrogen?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: You know, asking that.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: But but that that's why the fertilizer and energy to to duplicate, bottom line, Cena, to duplicate what nature would like to do in a biologically balanced soil takes a lot of energy.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and and so that's why the two are in a are are linked so closely, because chemical fertilizers are petroleum-based and petroleum hogs in use.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_03: And that's why those two are so closely linked.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and your explanation makes perfect sense.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Another headline that's going around that farmers um in America are starting to switch from growing corn to growing soybeans because the soybeans take require less input of the fertilizer because, like you said, they could fix nitrogen through their symbiotic relationships, yeah, because they're a lagoon.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a perfect explanation for that as well.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: So uh you know that that's that's crazy because America, the US only uses half of the soybeans that we grow.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: So so here we are switching from corn, which 40% goes to ethanol.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: It it's it's not even uh fuel or feed, it goes to ethanol.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I guess you could say feeding cars, uh, but you know, it it's fuel, 40% of it.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: And then on soybeans, 50%, half of soybeans, um, go to export, and and we're competing with you know Brazil, Argentina, uh, you know, uh now Africa.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um and and you know, American farmers, um we we we can't compete with these countries where the you know where the annual income is is ten thousand dollars a year, you know, uh a good income as opposed to you know what we need to live on in our expensive country.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it's absolutely a fool's errand to um to think that we can chemical energy our way out of this.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it it and and I think that this uh the war um and the energy costs show the fragile underbelly of a chemical-based um food system, which is what we have.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and both of those things, right?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like so um the whole problem with now we don't have enough fertilizer, so we're having to try to make some fertilizer.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, like you just talked about, um not having the organic soil, enough organic soil, and even a farmers switch from this corn to the soy, um, and the price of gas itself going up, all of this is leading toward and will probably continue to lead toward higher food prices, correct?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: Well, uh uh if unless they can um, you know, unless farmers are willing to take less and less.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the one of the problems here, the reason it's so impactful on farmers, you know, D.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: Howard Doan wrote about this in his uh iconic 1950s book, um uh Vertical Diversification, which is right here on the bookshelf behind me.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and and and he talked about he talked about why is the farmer the one that suffers most in these kinds of situations?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's because if you think about a whip, um the the the the snap comes way out there on the end, and the farmer is out on the end of that whip.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: In other words, you've you've got things controlling it, um you know, the economy, uh you know, big food, um, you know, equipment dealers, you know, tax policy, those kind of things, you know, wage policy.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_03: And and and the farmer at the end of that whip is the one who can who can cheat the most.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_03: He can cheat the most because he can uh, for example, fail to keep his soil fertile.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: He can fail to even keep his soil at home, he can defer, and and I'm watching these uh these stories come along, you know, how farmers are adapting to this new uh thing, you know, and they're all well, we're just not gonna, we're not gonna upgrade our equipment, and we're just trying to make do, and and it, it's all it's all just trying to hang on and and defer expense.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: You can you can you know defer painting the barn this year, you can defer um you know replacing the tractor this year.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so, so and and in fact, you can defer paying yourself.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: You can take a town job so you can afford to live on the farm, not lose the farm, but the town job pays your expenses so you can work for free or work for nothing, which a lot of farmers do.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: And so, so there are a lot of ways to fudge out there at the farmer end, but as you move from the away from the farm gate, it becomes more and more difficult to fudge.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the the the train that's carrying the the corn uh to the feed mill, that train, they can't, they can't refuse to pay their engineer.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_03: They can't refuse to lubricate the wheels on their train cars, they can't refuse to maintain the track.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_03: They can't refuse that they can't uh uh well, we'll just not buy insurance this year.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_03: Uh you know, they they have certain um there's certain things they've got to do.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_03: And then you come on up the food system, you know, um the shelf has to stay empty, the cashier has to be in front of the store, you got to keep your insurance page, you got to keep the, you know, the um the the luminous the luminous sign in the front that says Kroger's, you got to keep the lights on in there.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_03: And and and as you move closer and closer to the retail end of it, it it becomes harder and harder to cheat.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: The farmer can cheat, but as you move up that chain, it's harder to cheat.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: the system.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's why that's why uh when these things develop like this, the um the farmers often the one that takes it on the chin.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: Which is why farmers need to quit being victims and start taking the raids of their own destiny.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_03: Instead of um sending delegations to DC to get 12 billion dollar bailouts, which they succeed in doing almost every year, instead, how about um getting on your knees, keep and and and uh and growing something else, you know, planting something else and and just doing something else.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: And of course right now, as you know, um we have an incredible shortage of beef in this country.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: Beef prices are through the roof.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: Last week at our sale barn, week old baby calves, see you know I mean we're talking about a one week old little baby calf selling for$1,700.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_03: Oh wow$1,700.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_03: You know I remember when we were milking a couple cows and we'd raise little bottle calves and I'd go buy these little you know they're they're called they're they're called day old.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: Now they're normally not just day old they're normally more like you know five to to 10 days old but anyway baby calves um I I could get all I wanted for um you know 35 40 bucks 50 bucks if you paid a hundred it was highway robbery um and these things are bringing and and they're fragile you know um you know there's probably a 20% mortality.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: I mean they're you know they're little orphans uh so you try to keep them alive but you know it's like trying to keep a baby you know a baby squirrel alive a baby rabbit you know that you happen to run over the nest with a lawnmower you know and there's one living and you try to save it you know those is that from personal experience because that's never happened I would have never thought of that example that never happened to me oh oh listen we well you know we mow a lot of hay too and you know and so you you know you you yeah you hit things you know it just it just it is but but but but anyway um you know the the here we've got this this huge need for beef in this country and uh but and it just shows again we deal with this all the time on this program it shows again the um uh the inability of the system to think alternatively you know it's it's what I'm doing is the most important thing in the world and I've I've done it all my life and I've got to continue doing it and the government has to make sure that I can continue to do it.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: You know that's that's the idea.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_03: But there's you know there's a there's a business axiom one of my favorite business axioms is what got you here won't get you there.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: What got you here won't get you there.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_03: Because things change you know context change things change and so you know um these farmers I I've thought about you know writing an article on uh why are farmers why are farmers so much in war with the food system why don't you produce what the food system wants right now the food system wants beef so go back to a perennial prairie polyculture and and and go to beef and the cows will drop the nitrogen themselves in their own manure manure is always high in nitrogen and you um and you kill a bunch of birds with one stone and you you spread everything out across the landscape like it's supposed to be um so yeah so the energy the energy the the energy fertilizer and food um I mean uh in the last quarter I just saw in the last quarter Tyson Foods just in the last quarter lost five hundred million dollars in its uh beef sector one quarter five hundred million dollars that's a lot of loss in one quarter okay how long do you think they're gonna keep that up not very long and so um so here we are dumping billions of dollars into crops that we don't need while over here we're um we're seeing beef cattle prices go through the roof because nobody nobody's raising beef it it's it's just it again it just shows how whenever the government intervenes in a in a sector it um it causes problems yeah no with the fertilizer is that a just in time product so do most industrial farms not store fertilizer they usually like buy it just like in the weeks before planting or whatnot so are we are we somewhat seeing a just in time fragility again um there's two options so some farmers maybe I should say three some contract in advance at a certain price okay so they're they're they're watching they're watching the futures they're watching the market fluctuations and when it dips where they think you know it might not dip any more than that I'm gonna I'm gonna buy you know my next year's fertilizer lock it lock in a contract price okay um so so the fertilizer is not on their farm but it's contracted for okay now obviously the fertilizer company that's selling it they're hope they're hoping that that farmer made a wrong decision and is gonna is going to drop some more you know and not going to go up you know by next year when when they're going in uh the other option is farmers do store fertilizer they do pre-buy and they store it now one of the things that's happening I just saw this article yesterday I have never read this before but it was an amazing analysis and what it said it it was a it was an article about a farmer um out in Kansas who decided I'm not gonna I'm not gonna plant anything this year.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well why because he was one I don't know whether he had it on his farm or he had just forward contracted is but anyway he he had his fertilizer for the year it's gone up so much he's gonna make more money selling the fertilizer to other farmers than he would if he used it and planted crops with it.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: Wow so so that's a you know that's a new angle a new business model yeah it's an it's a new it's a crazy business model uh but but anyway uh that that was that was his thinking and that that's um that's pretty I've never I've never seen that before and the third option is just in time the third option is we're gonna wait and see wait and see wait and see and uh and then we'll then we'll see where we go usually though usually though fertilizer does go up in the spring when everybody's buying it and so if you can get it pre and store it on your farm get it you know but of course storage is expensive storing ammonia you know having uh a big ammonia storage tanks is very very expensive most people don't do it i mean they're like they're like massive propane tanks so you know you're talking big bucks and so most farmers don't I mean they they store their corn they store their soybeans they've got you know the round uh uh uh steel steel buildings to store that in but most farmers don't store fertilizer they only you know forward contract it or or or they just in time and buy it on the spot market as they need it okay yeah part one of those options it's almost like playing the stock market right try to play oh yeah yeah every year every year and you're yeah and and you're in this you're in this uh uh poker you know poker game uh trying to trying to beat the odds because because remember the farmer is not I mean not he's juggling not only the fertilizer cost he's juggling his own um diesel cost so for example let's say let's say a farm um stores uh uh just say they've got um 10 000 gallons of diesel stored on farm you know these these big farms with these great big you know uh 400 horsepower tractors that are you know that are uh covering 10 000 acres um you know those kind of farm those kind of tractors i mean they'll they'll burn goodness you know they'll they'll burn a hundred gallons 100 gallons of diesel a day all right so you know a big outfit like that that's running you know half a dozen of those tractors you know they can they can burn through seven to hundred to a thousand gallons of diesel fuel in a day so it's not it's not that uncommon to see ten thousand gallons of diesel stored all right well if they bought this diesel for three dollars a gallon and I see it now it's like five twenty a gallon they can take that ten thousand dollars that that ten thousand gallons and that they bought for thirty thousand dollars sell it for fifty two thousand dollars they don't even have to crank up their tractor go out there and sit on they don't have to do anything buy any seed i mean la last year the average um the average soybean farmer lost a hundred dollars an acre on soybeans you know that and that that's what's crazy that the corn farmers actually made money last year soybean farmers didn't they lost a hundred dollars per acre and that's what the farmers are going to now well let's plant soybeans the world already has too many soybeans that's why they lost their shirts last year had to beg for 12 billion dollar bailout and and and and instead of doing anything uh whatever unusual alternative uh well let's all go plant soybeans yeah the world's already got too much soybeans let's plant some more you know so what are you gonna ask for a 20 billion dollar bailout 30 billion dollar bailout i mean it it it's it's pretty crazy actually it sounds like insanity yeah yeah it it yeah it it is it yeah it is it it is insanity gosh and just i mean do i'm just theorizing here but depending on how many farmers switch over from corn to soybeans right you can you could imagine like we've talked in this program before of how many products in the grocery store contain corn derivatives right I mean even just look at high fructose corn syrup so depending on how many of these farmers shift over to soybean you could have an increase in even the processed food prices simply because people are producing less of the corn now you know I mean I mean and that for somebody who eats a diet buying processed foods well our listeners don't buy that stuff oh no our listeners don't buy that not at all all the stuff that we're talking about here is for those people them those people over there you know that uh that that that buy that stuff but Joel we don't label people like you're labeling other like other yeah yeah well you know um you know it it does bring up such a fascinating point in that as that develops the systems that aren't dependent on all that energy start to start to shine start to actually um shine just like just like in the spring of 2020 um for about three months our ribeye steaks were cheaper than at Costco I mean that that that's crazy that's crazy but we didn't raise our prices we didn't ride the thing up you know in in uh spring a year ago when egg you know all the avian flu and they killed how many millions of chickens and egg prices spiked our eggs were cheaper than in the store we didn't ride it up because we're not we're not susceptible to those kinds of of um you know uh cultural socio political you know uh machinations and and so so we become more and more resilient so these these folks that you know like us that have been you know pushed to the to the Cinderella ashes all of our life uh we get invited to the ball when you know when the energy prices go up and sickness goes up and all that uh suddenly we come out you know looking a lot better which is which is of course the whole point of the price at the conventional supermarket cash register is not the honest price it is a it is it is a a cheating price that does not accept the kind of vulnerabilities that we're talking about right here.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah because to your point it's not just the lack of fertilizer like right fertilizer shortage that can cause the prices to go up but it's also the price of gas going up itself will cause the price of the foods and the grocery stores, the ones that have to be transported to different locations, it will cause those prices to go up.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if I'm hearing you right, you're saying that if you're buying from your local farmer who's not using a fertilizer input, who's doing you know like what you do, more like making your own and compost and whatnot, and is not having to transport the food to a store like you're going to the farm to get it, you may actually as a consumer be able to get a lower price than what you can find in the grocery store because that farmer the local farmer is not incurring those costs is that correct?
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah and we we we've talked about you know how do you how do you um you know drop your food costs you know especially if you're buying if you're buying the good stuff and um and the way you drop it is buying directly from a farm whether you're going to the farm or having it shipped to your doorstep it's actually you know it's actually um competitive now and um and then buying in you know buying in bulk you know so you you buy volume and you know we give discounts on volume buying unprocessed raw so you buy a whole chicken not boneless skinless breast you you buy you know you buy actual um you know unprocessed uh stuff uh forget the convenience food convenience food costs a lot of money all right and so you make your own convenience and you can cook stuff in advance you can you know so you but but buying uh completely unprocessed is critical and then I say the fourth thing is buy what other people tend to not buy uh in other words you know um I mean our our favorite is pork backbone you know pork backbone is cheap and it's got pieces of tenderloin in it and um you know and it is a wonderful it's got all that you know you know collagen around the bone and everything it is a wonderful I mean it's it's one of our favorite things here is pork back it's cheap while we always have it because nobody buys it but it's cheap cheap cheap um because we have a low price on it and um and and so buy you know chuck roast on beef you know stuff that's that's less desirable get a you know um um get get a whole a whole chicken um chuck roast on a beef uh pork backbone on a or or um or uh uh ham roast on a on a pig uh those are things those are slow movers in vegetables you're looking for you know imagine going up to a farmer and saying you know with apples and saying uh I'll take I'll take two bushels of seconds I mean that's what we do we you know we have a couple apple trees here we don't have enough to for all that we our whole crew and everything so I went up to an orchard um we go to this orchard all the time and and I just go and um and I want to get you know I get like 10 bushels and they just bring a whole big one of these big 30 bushel deals out you know and they let me pick through you know I pick through and um they're they're they're technically you know um run of the orchard apples but it's it's financially better for them to sell me 10 bushels than it is to have them pay labor and sort them and get their premium price for the number one the number one apples I'm sitting there they're not paying me at all so I'm I'm paying above blemish but way below premium are you with me because and and and they let me they let me pick through them you know and I I do this um that that's just the way we shop you know it's who needs a store you know you you just you know you shop and and and then and then what do we do?
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_03: Well we bring them home and um and then over the next you know couple of weeks you know Teresa she'll cook uh she'll she'll can you know 14 quarts a day or so and you know enough that she feels comfortable and and uh occasionally you know somebody else I help her or somebody else helps her but um you know just you just peck away at it and in 10 or 12 days you've canned a hundred quarts of applesauce and that's her applesauce you know for the year and you've gotten it for you know you've gotten a hundred quarts for um you know a hundred bucks you know a dollar a quart and it's no added sugar it's I mean it's you know it's good stuff that's that's how you reduce this and so so I think I think the the discussion is yes I hope we're making people aware that energy and fertilizer in the chemical approach are are closely linked as energy goes fertilizer goes and then either farmers are not going to grow anything or they're gonna have to get a higher farm gate price and that's gonna and that's gonna start the ball rolling to higher food prices.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it highlights as well another way in which our food supply is dependent upon other countries.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not just glyphosate like now we're dependent on this nitrogen synthetic nitrogen but we're dependent on other countries as well so it I mean no and and that's a national security problem right of just not being able to grow your own food like not having enough glyphosate whatever it's really not being able to grow your own food.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like you're saying that the root cause they need to be reevaluating this and figuring out how can we become food and like truly food independent here.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you know I was going to add so another thing I'm doing right now and I wanted to ask you what you think about this is in anticipation of food prices continuing to increase we've been stocking up even more on the items that we do buy at the grocery store.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: And even like if I'm buying there's some produce for example that I can't buy in my area.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm buying that up and I'm um things that don't store very well I'm going ahead and cooking them myself and then freezing them you know already having the frozen meals prepared just to try to you know hedge off some of that um you know like inflation if you will do you see this um this becoming a more of a like an issue for weeks for months like do you think I'm over preparing by the fact that I'm trying to buy stuff now so that I don't have to endure the cost next month I think you know Dave Ramsey the uh the economic guru talks about having a a six month emergency um you know financial emergency fund you know for for uh something that comes up uh for peace of mind.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think people ought to have a six month emergency food supply.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm I'm not talking about this prepper stuff, you know, that you uh buy in in uh in you know NASA wrapped space age mylar.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um I I'm talking about actually a freezer, uh canned foods uh freezer freeze-dried dehydrated um you know there is yes buying in buying in bulk and packaging preparing processing um yourself to get your six month supply and then you just rotate through it you know and you and then when you use it up you just rotate through it keep your dates on the jars keep your dates on the packages and you just rotate through it I mean you know it's a it's a bit of a pump to prime if you've never done it or started but once you start I mean that's just the way we live here you know I mean we it it it it becomes second nature you just don't even you don't even think about it because it's just it's just the way we live we you know when when harvest is in you you pick everything you can pick and you you like an ant you know you store it down in your hole and you you know and you wait for wait for good times again and you know that's just that's just the way you just the way you do it and and and you can do a lot yourself and in your community and and I'll just make a pitch here as a farmer let me tell you I run into so many small farmers new farmers homesteaders that if they could just increase their income by ten fifteen thousand dollars that they could be there full time they wouldn't have to commute to town to a job and so I think one of the neatest things that a a non-farm family can do to um to help the culture is to patronize a couple of these small farms and be the enabler to be part of that to be part of that income that enables them to actually be a full time and not have to do the town commute.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_03: I think there are a few things that can be that could be more noble noble than a um than a a uh you know a a an actual plan to say I'm gonna be part of a farmer's success.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: And what a win-win because you're getting better food at the same time that you're helping somebody realize their own dream.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know I mean that that's a beautiful thing you know um you know one thing so this is just on an aside I when I was studying this process of how they take methane you know natural gas and turn it into ammonia to make this a synthetic fertilizer for the industrial crops I ran across something that I thought hmm I wonder if Joel knows this.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to see if I could stump Joel.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: So did you know that the fizz in the soda like the carbonation in the soda actually comes from that same pipe where they make the industrial fertilizer did you know that no I didn't know that.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes so wow so yeah so in that process where they're creating um they turn that methane into ammonia it actually produces a lot of carbon dioxide a lot of CO2 it's a waste product in their reaction so instead of just letting it float off into the atmosphere the the fertilizer plants actually capture it and then they sell that captured carbon to the food and um beverage industry.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: So then I was so when you drink um a carbonated beverage you could actually be literally swallowing the exhaust of a fertilizer plant.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: So um I looked into what's the percentage of carbon dioxide in these fizzy beverages that come from the ammonia production.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: So about it's an estimated that about 20 to 30 percent of what's on the market comes from this ammonia fertilizer process and the roughly you know 40 50 somewhere around there percent comes from ethanol production.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: So one coming from you know largely the corn and one coming from this actual synthetic fertilizer production making ammonia so isn't that crazy like it's coming from this natural gas source.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_03: Well the industry the industry's figured out how to how to make you know pennies off of every little stream they can they can uh get a hold of and and so you know that that's one of them that's for sure that's yeah yeah I mean I mean the the the carbon dioxide in the fizzy um you know is um again carbon dioxide is what's given off by us that plants are take in plants take in carbon dioxide and and what they do is they split the oxygen so they put the carbon into plant material carbon is is um you know cellulytic structure and then they exhale the oxygen we breathe in the oxygen and exhale the carbon dioxide i mean it's a it's a wonderful it's a wonderful thing it is and my example also ties in here with our fertilizer story because it's showing you another um intimacy or another complexity of the food supply because if you remember like in recent years there was like a soda shortage or and like a beer drought and so what happened was when natural gas prices spiked fertilizer plants you know shut down or stopped producing as much to save money and then so when the fertilizer plants stopped the CO2 supply vanished and the beverage industry would run dry.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that tells you how dependent the entire food system is like even the bubbles in your drink are dependent uh in part on this natural gas pipeline I mean right things that you would never think of that they're also it's such a complex web like to understand and to realize you shift one thing you you shift this whole cascade of things so the prices are intimately tied together.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's a whole I remember uh I don't know what was it 12 15 years ago when um when energy spiked high and um I was reading articles that the average farm spends half of its expenditures on fuel half its expenditures on fuel.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_03: I remember seeing that saying man that just doesn't seem possible so I did a I pulled out our farm records and ran it for us and I put in even our two delivery trucks and everything um and our percentage was five percent oh wow and and so it I really went to I really slept like a rock that night because I realized diesel could go to 10 bucks a gallon now you know I wouldn't like it any more than anybody else but I realized at least we would be the last guy standing and you hope if you're the last guy standing by the time you're the last guy standing somebody smarter than you has figured out how to not be the last guy standing you know that's that's that's the that's the idea but yeah I I I think the average person um you know just doesn't realize how how this this um once you start down a an unnatural an unnatural paradigm the beauty of the biological paradigm is every step in that direction it becomes easier and easier and easier when you start down the anti-nature paradigm every step becomes harder and harder and harder it's almost like the slippery slope it's you know like the sunk fallacy caught the sunk cost fallacy right when you then you're in it so deep and I'm wondering that must be some of the mindset of these farmers like you're trying to motivate them to shift but there is that well I'm learning it so deep I already have all this equipment like and this is what I know how to do I mean it's hard as humans to change the course and I'm 60 years old you know learn something new I mean the average farmer is 60 years old so you know when you get 60 you you start you start not wanting to do new things because new things new things um don't always work out real well and when you're 60 you don't have enough energy to pick yourself up when you fail yeah yeah and uh you know when you're when you're 20 you don't mind sitting there all day throwing something up against the wall to see what sticks uh when you're 60 you don't want to sit there throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks you know you just go on you just want to go on with your with your trajectory so uh question question for our for our group here um how do you how do you fertilize your your garden let's just let's just leave it with gardens for now um what inputs what what how do you fertilize your garden it can be anything from foliars to leaves to to um uh you know 10 10 10 um but just share with everybody how do you how do you fertilize your garden what you know what are your what what do you do I think that'd be an interesting interesting um question yeah maybe we'll get some great ideas yeah yeah absolutely yeah it's probably mainly going to involve uh using carbon some sort of some source of carbon but uh we'll we'll see we'll throw it out and see how do you fertilize hey everybody thank you again for um investing your time with us we are honored to have you if you like this uh material please send it to a friend tell them to tell them to get on the stick and uh and uh join us and we'll look forward to visiting with you again next week