Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #260: New Hampshire’s Food Freedom Showdown

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Episode #260: New Hampshire’s Food Freedom Showdown · Beyond Labels Premium

0:00
SPEAKER_00: They are trying to save the small family farmer.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's the opposite of what the governor is saying.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Like she's saying she's trying to save the small farmer and not put them in, you know, illegal harm's way.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, there will be no small farmers to save if you drive them out of business.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: If the legislature overrides the governor's veto, this is going to be tip of the spear for food freedom in this country.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: It it'll be it'll be fun to watch.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: Hello, everyone.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another Beyond Labels podcast with your hosts, Joel Salatin, the farmer.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: That would be me, and Dr.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough, our favorite research scientist.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: Today we're going to talk a little bit about this New Hampshire bill, which has been um truly earth-shattering in a states' rights food freedom um movement that is definitely gaining gaining steam around the the country.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: I think I think as things uh move more um we've got two things going on.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: As things move more partisan and as we arrogate more and more to the federal government the um the the backlash from especially red states, not blue states, against federal interventive um uh meddling is becoming more and more strong.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: Uh some states are actually stepping into that.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: And one is New Hampshire, where if you're familiar at all with the background of the New Hampshire state project, which was a which has been an ongoing um now for what uh 10 years at least, uh, where they're trying to libertarians are actually moving to New Hampshire to try to get enough, uh, it's a small state, and to get enough uh uh political power to actually create a somewhat libertarian um environment in one state, uh the New Hampshire Project.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: It's been quite a it's been quite a thing, and and uh of course, you know, their their uh their slogan is uh live free or die.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: And um that's a that's a pretty good slogan.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: So they have now taken on this um idea that we should be able to um transact uh food commerce neighbor to neighbor without asking a bureaucrat's permission.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: And so uh a bill has gone in, HB 396, that does exactly that.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: The pushback from the federal is dramatic.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: And um and essentially the legislature in New Hampshire has told the federal regulators um take a hike, and uh as is common, the federal regulators have um pushed back.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: And uh uh what this bill did, it um it essentially allowed the unregulated sale of meat and poultry to to anyone, uh including restaurants.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: And that is that uh uh if you know if you're not in this space, you can you can you can yawn and say ho hum, but I can tell you this is as as almost as powerful, and I don't want to get too far off the off the path here, this is probably as uh dramatic in our day, in our day uh today as almost uh secession was in 1860.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: Because it essentially tells the federal government um uh get out of our business.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: And so, Cena, um, you've been wa I I've been watching this closely, you've been watching this closely.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: Uh this this the governor has now vetoed it, and the legislature is trying to override the governor's veto, and that's where we are today.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: By the time this podcast comes out, that action may or may not have been taken, but it's a it's a an incredibly hot item.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: We could talk about the whys and where we are, but um I've talked enough.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh give us your give us your sense of you know where things are.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was surprised to see the veto.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, it passed the House and the Senate, and it was very disappointing to have it vetoed.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: Now, um I'll say just to catch people up, the bill would allow farmers, um, if I'm reading this correctly, to sell up to three cattle, five swine, and ten sheep or goat per month without an official um inspection, right?
5:19
SPEAKER_00: Correct me if I'm wrong, Joel.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: So there is a there is a numerical there is a numerical cap on it, yes.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: Yes, and it would require mandatory labeling, indicating that the meat was exempt from inspection, but it also included strict storage temperature requirements and mandatory testing for E.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: coli and salmonella.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh so it's so they I thought the legislators did a good job of you know adding in some safety features, uh, knowing that that would probably be a pushback.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, but regardless, the governor vetoed it.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: And her veto, she said, was because the bill directly violates the federal food safety standards, specifically the federal meat inspection act of 1906.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: So she basically is saying, well, I had to veto this, um, or I would be allowing something that's illegal.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And that would put farmers uh in an unacceptable legal liability position.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: So basically the argument is that any farmer that's choosing to utilize this state exemption would be fully aware that the state law would not protect them from federal enforcement, inspection audits, or even USDA criminal penalties.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: So this has kind of been uh shaped as, oh, well, we're trying to save the farmer from this potential legal liability.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: So and and the the ag commissioner uh of New Hampshire came out strongly opposing the bill, saying that his department lacks the staffing needed to implement the required safety and training.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he refused to endorse this noncompliance with the federal law.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: So, once again, we don't have enough money.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: We need more money from government in order to do our job, and we're really just trying to protect the farmer.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh when protect the farmer, that's a that's an amazing phrase to use this.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: When when pr when um I would say how about protecting the farmer from protecting the farmer from the stranglehold that the oligarchy, to use Bernie Sanders' term, uh, that the oligarchy has on the on meat and poultry.
7:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a that's something that farmers have not been protected of.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, it it's interesting for the governor to cite 1906 because the the real uh fingers of this uh of the federal intervention at this level didn't really come until 1968 uh with the wholesome foods act.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: And so there were there was a lot of um, I mean, I mean in our county we had we had goodness almost a dozen uh small-scale you know slaughterhouses on farms where you know a farmer that enjoyed, you know, enjoyed butchering um animals.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like uh it's like a farmer that enjoys mechanics, you know.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean, different different people have different, you know, strengths and and and things.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh some farmers don't want to butcher anything.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: Other farmers really enjoy it, and they actually farm so they can butcher things.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it's kind of like some people hunt, some people don't.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh some people make jello, some people don't.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: So uh so um the the the fact is that we had all of these small neighborhood um, you know, uh I don't even call it call them slaughterhouses.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean they were they were basically you know a front-end loader and a and a and a clean stainless steel table and a walk-in cooler, you know, and and this was done um just like neighborhoods had had um uh grist mills.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, our county had had a a grain mill every five miles on every river uh had a you know every five miles, there was a there was some sort of a flour mill back in the day.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: Um we had canneries, we had all of these things, this infrastructure, and uh, you know, to to create a truly local food system.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: And and once the 1968 um Wholesome Food Act came into being, uh, these were largely uh eliminated as the federal, as the federal government took over control.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: That was that was a federal uh uh act.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: And so within a year, all of these local little uh on-farm uh you know fabrication and and slaughter outfits were out of business uh and and illegal.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: And so what New Hampshire's trying to do, they're trying to claw that, they're trying to claw that back, but it flies directly in the face.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: You're right, Cena, and and the governor's right.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: It flies directly in the face of the federal, um, you know, the federal law.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: So what we're seeing here is a is a true um state-federal showdown.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: So because my reading of the 1906 law is that the government inspectors were required in every like meatpacking house.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, and I wrote a section about this in my first book about how I think that's unconstitutional.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: It's an overreach of the federal government, because the federal government um is in based on the commerce clause, you know, can regulate commerce exchange between the states, but not within the state.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: So I think the whole thing's a constitutional overreach anyway.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: But regardless, the way that the federal government um designed the law and interprets the law is that they can have these federal inspectors and that it they have to be there.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: It has to have this federal government agency or government inspector in these meat packing houses.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what this governor is citing.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: Is that and and and and Cena, the the size of the packing house is um is not is not considered, you know, uh whether it's a 5,000 beef a day or a five beef a month, uh, it it's the same, it's the same thing.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: And so uh so as a result, the level of stipulations and and the thing is for our listeners to understand, these stipulations are not stipulations of actual uh merit.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: In in other words, in other words, I'll give you an example.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: A um a federal inspected slaughterhouse is required to have a sixteen foot high um rail so that if a so that when you slaughter a beef, you can pick it up sixteen feet high.
12:57
SPEAKER_01: Uh that's to accommodate the largest carcass uh imaginable.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: You know, like a like a big uh oh like a big cull dairy cow or something, you know, that's a 1800 pound, 2,000 pound animal.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: But plenty of animals, we've done it, that can be field dressed.
13:19
SPEAKER_01: What's called field dressing, where the animal never touches the ground, and you simply skin it and leave it on the hide.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: Um and and then you pick it up with a front end loader, you know, of a tractor, and um it doesn't touch the ground.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: It, you know, it's perfectly fine, especially if it's a you know a smaller, a smaller carcass, which most of us who are doing grass finishing allow.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: What I'm getting at is that the New Hampshire law, this HB 396, as written, as as you pointed out, it requires some testing, it requires uh uh temperature control, and um and and it's and it's limited in numbers.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: What this tried to do was um preemptively deal with the uh with the food safety, the the possible food safety pushback uh uh uh preemptively.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: But it doesn't require any real infrastructure, except that except that the temperature has to be uh correct.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: And so where I'm going with this is that the state law actually created a performance-based standard.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: The federal law is not performance-based.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: It's it's primarily infrastructure based.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: Um how high is your kill floor?
15:03
SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, where does your where does your wastewater go?
15:09
SPEAKER_01: Um you have to have an office for the inspector?
15:17
SPEAKER_01: You have to have a separate bathroom.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: The the inspector can't go to the bathroom where your employees go.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh these are all major, major infrastructure requirements that don't have anything to do with actual food safety performance.
15:34
SPEAKER_01: And so this law, I mean, I'm I'm trying to be, I'm, I'm trying to appreciate the the philosophical point here, and to give our give our listeners ammunition when they're describing this, and they run into somebody that says, oh, well, New Hampshire's going off the rails.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: You know, they're they're um they don't care about food safety, they're trying to kill their people.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is this is the this is the backlash, right?
15:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is this is how they uh this is how the the um the opposition uh talks.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: But what we have to understand is that New Hampshire has stripped out with this with this law, New Hampshire has stripped out the infrastructure requirements and instead focused on the food safety components and said, if you adhere to these food safety components, we don't need to describe how much concrete, stainless steel, and and and and uh uh uh breaker boxes um are around the facility or bathrooms.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: We we don't need to describe all that if you can actually meet and so so it's uh it's truly a um philosophically it is a and and geopolitically it's truly a um uh the the the new what New Hampshire has done, they have called out, they have called out the non-food safety performance elements of the federal stipulations and and said here's what's necessary for food safety, let's do that.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: And how and and if you can meet food safety, who cares how many tons of concrete and how many uh square feet of of uh stainless steel there is?
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it sounds like they've made it a real world applicable, like they've they've made it practical.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: They they've made yes, they've created a path for the everyday farmer to be able to potentially not lose their farm or go out of business.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: Because it's my understanding that there's only four USDA inspected slaughterhouses in all of New Hampshire, four slaughterhouses, and wait times could be 18 to 24 months.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: And small farmers are often squeezed out during like the peak fall demand time.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: So they're having to schedule out some of these.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: I saw an interview with someone, they're having to schedule out slaughter time, sometimes even before they get the cow.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, and so it's another reason why they're being squeezed out.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: And what are you gonna do if you put all this money and raise the cow?
18:31
SPEAKER_00: And then you can't get into the slaughterhouse, so you can't sell the meat, or you made an appointment and you get bumped because they're overbooked, or you know, overscheduled.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna do with that meat?
18:43
SPEAKER_00: So there, in my opinion, I I like this bill because, well, for one, it's a state's rights issue, but two, because they are trying to save the small family farmer.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's the opposite of what the governor is saying.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Like she's saying she's trying to save the small farmer and not put them in, you know, a legal harm's way.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Well, there will be no small farmers to save if you drive them out of business.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you drive them out of business by making it so difficult for them to get to the retail market.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: And and I think I think this is the this is the other part of that whole economic argument is that the um the the retail value is so um is so much higher than the farm gate value, than the commodity value of stuff, that for in a small farm, in the commodity business, you're operating at at uh at low margins and high volume.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: So in the in the commodity business, it's all about how much can we produce uh and be and be the lowest cost producer in the world.
20:04
SPEAKER_01: It's always a a chase to the floor of the market.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: Whereas for a small farm, in a small, and this is this is one of the things that dad figured out.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we moved here in 1961.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: He figured this out virtually day one.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he he was uh he was an accountant, and he said, he said, the money, the money for food is in the processing, marketing, and distribution.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: It's not in production.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: And so when you're a small farm and you can produce thousands, then you can you can run along with you know just a very, very low margin.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: But if you're a small farm and you want to make a living, you need to tap into the processing, distribution, and marketing, those notorious middleman hats.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: You need to step into those and wear those in order to do several things.
21:05
SPEAKER_01: One is to increase your margin, and one is to simply be able to employ yourself full time.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: Um, a lot of people think, oh, you know, if I just, if I just grow it and it's better beef, everybody will buy it.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: You know, uh nothing could have been nothing could have been further from the truth than Kevin Costner's, you know, if you build it, they will come.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: Uh no, they won't come.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: You have to, you have to go out and uh and and and entice them to come and tell your story and marketing.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: It's never that easy.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I can tell you on our farm, you know, we have we have almost as many people engaged in in um in in in we spend as much time on marketing, distribution, and processing as we do on the production end.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: But guess what that does?
21:58
SPEAKER_01: That allows us To tap into the retail dollar.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: And so we don't have to chase our tail and try to figure out how to get better.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: All we have to do is figure out how to serve how to serve people better, not grow more stuff.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: And um and that's the that's the that's the pathway in for the small farmer today.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: And Joel, is it true that say a small farmer needs to go to one of these four USDA inspected slaughterhouses that exist in New Hampshire versus slaughtering on their own farm?
22:36
SPEAKER_00: It's going to cost the small farmer more money, right?
22:39
SPEAKER_00: To go through that USDA inspected slaughterhouse.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: And so they're going to have to pass that cost on to the consumer.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: So if this bill were to go through, is it true that then potentially that the price of the beef, for example, for the consumer buying from one of these small farmers can go down.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: So it's actually a benefit to consumers.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: Is that true?
23:02
unknown: Is that true?
23:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, it um it can be.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: It can be.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: Just real, just uh the there's there's a couple nuances here.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, one is that the slaughterhouse is very efficient.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: And so they they can do things, uh, they can do things faster.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: I I remember well one year, uh, the second year we were here, uh, Teresa and I were on a farm full time.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: Man, we were struggling.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we we had to watch we had to watch every penny.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: It was um it was tight, and I didn't want to go back off farm to work.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: And so that that second year we were here uh watching our our nest egg, you know, go to uh dwindle, we decided, well, we we'll we'll um we had we had sold six six beef, six deers, and um, so we'll we'll butcher them here on the farm and we'll take them over to a little custom outfit and have it have them fabricated.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: So we can certainly kill them and skin them here and and you know and drive them over to the and we can save that cost.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: Dad and I, dad and I um we we used a uh a tree in the backyard and a block and tackle that we could you know pull them up to do it.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: And we did two a day.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: So two of us, two a day, and we still had to drive them over there because we didn't have we didn't have walk-in cooler, we didn't have bandsaws, meat grinders, you know, all the other the the basic the basic equipment it requires to fabricate uh a carcass.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: Now, you know, we we do venison, we do stuff, but but you know, not not at this kind of scale or at this kind of um product integrity.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can't just you can't just start whacking.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: Uh if somebody wants T-bone steaks, they want them to look like a T-bone steak.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: They don't want to look like something that you, you know, cut with a hatchet.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: And so uh so anyway, we we did this.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: So it took us three days to do six.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: Well, the next year we had a few more pennies in our pocket, and we said, well, let's um let let's take them over and have these other guys do it.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: And we took them over and Cena, two guys did what we did in a half a day, they did it in 15 minutes.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: Oh because they had good equipment, they had a good place to work, they and and they were very, very skilled.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: So, so I wouldn't, I I'm not sure that it would drop the price, but here's what it would do, Cena.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: It would allow a person who wants to like right now, we pay, we pay uh, what, six hundred dollars to have a beef animal uh slaughtered and fabricated and put in packages.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
25:57
SPEAKER_01: 600 bucks.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes more.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it depends on how heavy it is.
26:03
SPEAKER_01: If it's heavier, it's more.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's just, for sake of discussion, say um it's about a dollar, it ends up being about a dollar fifty a pound uh of what you when you when you buy the meat, a dollar fifty a pound of that is is strictly in processing.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: Now, just think if the farmer could get that.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, let's forget talking about can the farmer do it cheaper?
26:36
SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously you don't have to transport it anywhere, but now you got to have a walk-in cooler, uh, the cost of walk-in cooler versus transport.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the the there are nuances here, but but but the but the one the one that's incontrovertible is that if the farmer did it on farm, the farmer would get all that processing.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: So if you do, if you do 20 a year, if you do 20 a year, instead of paying six to seven hundred dollars per animal to somebody else to do it, suddenly the farmer gets$12,000 to$14,000 for doing these 20 head.
27:13
SPEAKER_01: Well,$12,000 to$14,000 on a very small farm can be the difference between being full-time and having to commute to the city every day, you know, to have a town job to keep your farm hobby up and running.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's the big change.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: It allows you, it allows you to keep that value on the farm, and now suddenly a small farm generates enough income in order to stay in business.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's there's three ways to increase profitability.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: One is to reduce expenses, the second is to increase your price, and the third is to increase turnover.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: And that's the commodity approach.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: All right, you know, we're raising 100,000 chickens, let's raise 200,000.
28:00
SPEAKER_01: We're raising, you know, um uh 1,000 bushels of apples, let's raise 5,000 bushels of apples.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: That's the commodity approach.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: And and it works, but it puts you on a it puts you on a treadmill where you are having to uh chase chase production, chase land, you know, other things all the time.
28:23
SPEAKER_01: Whereas if you can if you can own your processing, marketing, and distribution dollars, if you can own those dollars and not just get income from production, suddenly even a small farm can generate enough volume to actually employ someone full time.
28:48
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's the breakthrough.
28:51
SPEAKER_01: That's the breakthrough that a bill like this is trying to create.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: It's not about saving consumers money, it's about creating a pathway of economic survival for small farmers to stay in business so that land doesn't either get gobbled up by development or gobbled up by Bill Gates or BlackRock or Vanguard or the Chinese if it's next to a uh you know to a military base.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, uh or or for that matter, just gobbled up by a wealthy person that just wants to be able to say, I have a farm.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, a lot of land is being purchased by people who just, you know, I mean, the American DNA, um, one of the differences you know America is from basically any other country in the world is that you can actually buy and own land.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, you you can't do that in most parts of the world.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, this is a this is a um in Americans' DNA.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: And so when people get money, they they invest in property a lot of times just just to have a a haven, a safe haven, a a quiet place, you know, their own private, you know, we call it a land yacht, um you know, that they can that that they can come and and um and and and rest and and thrive.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: And so there's a lot of there's a lot of rural property that's being bought by you know wealthy interests that's that's actually not in production.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's um it's just a it's just a recreation place.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: And you know, I I don't like that.
30:35
SPEAKER_01: I I don't I don't think that's illegal or wrong or anything.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: What I'm desperate for is how do we make financial viability for small farmers to be able to keep them on the land and generate enough income to buy the neighbor's farm when he dies, uh, so it doesn't go to Bill Gates, Black Rock, and Vanguard.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: And this bill does seem to help with that.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: But it it also, so I'm trying to get to the point of it's not just a bill to help farmers.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Like when you help farmers, you help the consumer.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: So maybe you don't help them with lower prices, but by keeping the farmer, the small farmers in business, you help the consumer by increasing the amount of choice that's available on the market.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: Yes, that that's for sure.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: You increase the choice and and I would submit that you also reduce the chance of um of contamination, of uh all sorts of things because um because as soon as you go to a you know a commercial slaughterhouse situation, your animals are being commingled with other animals of you know dubious extraction, and they're being handled by people who didn't raise those animals and don't have a, you know, and I'm not trying to demean or or condescend here, but um I'm sorry, uh those guys, it it's hard to get those guys to have the same element of care that the farmer who raised the animal is gonna have, you know, to to not not mention, Cena, the um the adrenaline uh and the the um cortisol that's secreted by the animal.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: You know, here he's been raised on this nice quiet uh pastoral place for you know all of its life.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: And then one day before slaughter, it gets shoved in a box on wheels and run down the road with strange sights, smells, and and and um and noises, put in a uh a barn with other uh animals, and um and by that time it's pretty jittery.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: And you know, uh Temple Grandin says that uh if your animal has not seen, has not been off the farm one month before you go to the slaughterhouse uh to have the animal processed, um you should once a week put him put it in a in a in a trailer, run it around the block, unload it, and give it a, you know, some nice clover hay or something, you know, some sort of treat, so that so that the animal begins associating that trailer with something good so they don't stand there and get all adrenaline and and and cortisol saturated before they get to the slaughterhouse.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: Fortunately, at our farm, uh all of our animals, because we rent properties, uh, they go on and off of trailers, goodness, you know, 20 times, you know, during their during their lifetime.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: And so all of them uh uh assume that, oh, a trailer ride, we're going to a new farm, new grass, new, you know, so they that they have a they have a very uh positive anticipatory um thought process when they jump on that trailer.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: And and so that that's one that's one of our advantages here on our farm, that our animals do see the inside of a trailer routinely as they as the as we move them from farm to farm.
34:07
SPEAKER_01: So on the last day, uh there's no, you know, there's no um apprehension about stepping into that uh and going down the road of the slaughterhouse.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: But small farms are not like that.
34:20
SPEAKER_01: You know, they're they're they're generally you know raised and kept on the same place for a long, long time.
34:27
SPEAKER_01: For for their whole, for their for their whole life.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, stress is a huge component and can actually change the texture of the meat, in fact, uh, you know, that the human eats.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, we got to your point about uh it may even be less safe to have, you know, anytime we consolidate and concentrate the food, there's an increased safety risk, in my opinion.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, even you just think about the sheer number of animals that are going through one of those four USDA inspected slaughterhouses.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: You're increasing the likelihood that if there's a contaminant, it's going to spread and affect more people.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, previously on this podcast, we talked about the cyclospora outbreak in the lettuce.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: And I know this is produce and it's not meat, but this is an example.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, I just looked before we got on air, and just since July, there's been, okay, the cyclospora outbreak in the iceberg lettuce affecting 15 states.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: It all came from this one farm, right?
35:31
SPEAKER_00: Affected 15 states.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: Two people have died.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: There's an E.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: coli outbreak on frozen blueberries.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, and because our food supply is so um centralized and consolidated, that E.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: coli outbreak on those frozen blueberries affected eight states.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: There's the salmonella outbreak on the eggshells affected 17 states.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: And then there's salmonella on jalapeno peppers that has affected 27 states.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: So these are real-time examples, cases going on now affecting people.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: Some have died because we have this centralized food supply and just a handful of farms producing the majority of these foods.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: So, again, increased safety risk issues when you consolidate and decreased resiliency in our food supply, right?
36:23
SPEAKER_00: Like we saw uh during COVID, there's shortages.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: If you diversify and allow these farmers to actually slaughter and sell the meat directly, you have built in more resiliency into your food supply.
36:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, uh uh I I've I've made, I've referred to this more than once in books that I've written now uh about the study that was done uh for us years ago, where um they took uh some of our chickens and they bought some from the store.
36:57
SPEAKER_01: We sent it, we sent them to a lab to have it cultured for bacteria counts, call colony formal units of bacteria.
37:05
SPEAKER_01: And um and per milliliter, I you know, Cena, you'd understand all the all the little minutiae of measurements behind it.
37:15
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, bottom line is that the ones in the store that were federal inspected and dredged through as many as 40 chlorine baths to antimicrobials averaged 3,600 colony forming units of bacteria for the measurement.
37:35
SPEAKER_01: And ours, which had not had any antimicrobials, no chlorine, no antimicrobials whatsoever, ours cultured in the same lab at the same time 133 CFU colony forming units.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: So if you do the math, that is a 25 times, or said another way, 2,500% difference between ours and the ones in the store.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh interestingly, Pete Kennedy, who is you know truly the the guru of um uh he's he's the attorney who has uh worked with Pharmacancy Legal Defense Fund as well as Weston A.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: Price Foundation, he watches this very, very closely.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: And he has under uh FOIA, um Freedom of Information Act, he has um gotten a listing of every single um foodborne pathogen, whatever, recall, contaminant, you know, problem in custom slaughterhouses.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: Now, custom slaughterhouses are not USDA inspected.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: They are not inspected at all.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: They well, they they are they are inspected, but they're they're very much very much more similar to what this New Hampshire law asks for.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: They're they're inspected for temperature, um, and and and and that's about it.
39:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if there's any E.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: coli what are they inspected at the state level or the federal level?
39:05
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, at the state level.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: At the state level, um, but there is no inspector on site.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: When we say under inspection, that means there's actually a breathing, talking, federal inspector on site.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
39:24
SPEAKER_01: But custom slaughterhouses, they they are still under, they're still regulated, but there is no inspector on site.
39:33
SPEAKER_01: There's nobody sniffing, poking, and looking at every carcass that comes through.
39:38
SPEAKER_01: Um and and so they are regulated much, much more similarly to what this New Hampshire law would require for uh you know for this um slaughter, uh but without without uh numerical numerical caps like this New Hampshire law requires.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: All right.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: So under FOIA, he's asked for all of the documentation for all of the pathogen and and and you know foodborne problems in custom slaughterhouses nationwide.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: These Cena came into being as a result of the 1968 food um uh whole wholesome food act, 1968.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: That that's when these were really um whatever uh codified and separated as a you know as an entity nationwide.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: So six sixty-eight to twenty twenty-six is um uh almost sixty years.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: I think I'm right on that.
40:59
SPEAKER_01: Uh my math.
41:01
SPEAKER_01: Almost sixty years, fifty-eight years.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: And if I asked you of all the you know, millions of animals that have gone through these slaughterhouses, how many you know, uh foodborne, I mean you just listed all four since whatever June.
41:20
SPEAKER_01: Um and and these are major, multi-state things.
41:24
SPEAKER_01: So so I'm I'm asking how many single incidents and single people uh have been have been a problem in these custom slaughterhouses in 58 years.
41:39
SPEAKER_01: Most people would say, I don't know, you know, I'm gonna say zero thousand.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you you'd think a thousand, you'd think something.
41:47
SPEAKER_01: You know what the number is?
41:48
SPEAKER_01: Zero.
41:50
SPEAKER_01: Zero.
41:51
SPEAKER_01: Zero.
41:51
SPEAKER_01: Zero, Selena.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean, not ten, not five, not a hundred, zero, not one.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: And this this speaks to your point about there is when you're small, it's just easier to be clean.
42:09
SPEAKER_01: That's just all there is to it.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: When you're small, it's just easier to be clean.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: And and it's easier to keep your you know, your kitchen clean, fixing 10 meals a day.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: If you suddenly started fixing 200 meals a day in your kitchen, that's when there'd be green beans on the floor, there'd be, you know, um, whatever, you know, slop uh on the cupboard, you'd be sliding in, you know, uh onion peels, whatever.
42:37
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, it's just it's just easier to keep clean when you're small.
42:43
SPEAKER_01: That's just a fact.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: Joel, it reminds me of it's it was so much easier to keep my house clean before I had three kids and a husband.
42:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: Now it's like constant entropy all around me.
42:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we we say sometimes we're in the we're in the deep, we're in the deep litter business around here, you know.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: Yes, um, everybody dragging dragging stuff in.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: But zero, so yeah, zero incidents.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: Zero, zero.
43:14
SPEAKER_01: And so so the track, the fact is that the track record, so, so here's the deal.
43:24
SPEAKER_01: The governor's action, the veto, here's what's interesting about this, Cena, is that the governor's veto is is a it's a legal shenanigan.
43:39
SPEAKER_01: Um she's saying, I want to protect the farmer from a federal bureaucrat coming in against the farmer.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: And um and so so this this shows.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Why Congressman Thomas Massey's Prime Act would be such a huge deal.
44:09
SPEAKER_01: People think, oh, it's not that big a deal.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: No, it's a huge deal.
44:12
SPEAKER_01: It would allow for the first time since 1968 for a ribeye steak to be sold that is not permitted, that is not inspected by a federal bureaucrat.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, not one, not one outbreak, not one incident, not one anything.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: Why?
44:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, because these guys, both the farmer, the slaughterhouse, the abattoir, and the consumer, all three have completely um noble self-interests to protect, and no government agency, paperwork, or bureaucrat to lean back on and say, Well, we complied.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: That that that that's where this is.
45:13
SPEAKER_01: And so feels like they have more accountability.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but well, absolutely.
45:18
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't want to give somebody bad meat.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: And the slaughterhouse, the, you know, the custom house, they don't want to give somebody bad stuff.
45:26
SPEAKER_01: Um back when back when we used a custom facility years and years ago when we first started.
45:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, if if something was not good, you know, that that um that shoulder on that pig, it's not quite right.
45:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, we're gonna we're gonna take it off.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, they made those decisions because they know what stuff's supposed to look like, smell like.
45:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, on our uh we you know, we butcher a lot of chickens here.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh we have the PL 949, and again, the PL 9492 uh to allow you to do 20,000 chickens.
46:04
SPEAKER_01: There hasn't been a single issue with that either since that that also went in in 1968.
46:10
SPEAKER_01: So we got 58 years of two threads of non-inspected, and their track record spins circles around the concentrated, consolidated, centralized federal inspection system.
46:27
SPEAKER_01: From a safety standard, a spin circles around the federal inspected system.
46:32
SPEAKER_01: And so to me, um clearly, this this veto has nothing to do with food safety.
46:42
SPEAKER_01: It has nothing to do with uh with with you know with farm viability or even farm liability.
46:50
SPEAKER_01: It's strictly, it's it's strictly and only a bowing, a kowtowing to the federal bureaucracy.
47:05
SPEAKER_01: That's what it is.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: But why?
47:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, is she cowtowelling to just big ag like there's you know special interest there?
47:16
SPEAKER_00: Or do you think she just doesn't know about the food safety record?
47:20
SPEAKER_01: No.
47:21
SPEAKER_01: It's because in the past, the federal has come in.
47:25
SPEAKER_01: They did it, I'm trying to think the other state.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: Was it Vermont?
47:27
SPEAKER_01: I think maybe it was Vermont that they came in and did something similar.
47:32
SPEAKER_01: And the and the federal came in and said, if you do this, um, we will shut down our federal inspection in the state, and you won't be able to sell one pound of hamburger outside the state.
47:45
SPEAKER_01: And so that's that's the clout.
47:47
SPEAKER_01: That's the clout.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: And I am calm, I I would put, I'm not a betting man, but I would put money on the fact that that threat has already been made to the governor and the governor buckled, just like the governor of, I think it was Vermont, uh, buckled back, you know, back uh when they tried to do this uh before.
48:08
SPEAKER_01: And so um, so you know, this is a this is such an interesting constitutional question.
48:21
SPEAKER_01: Um the the people in New Hampshire, they're not asking to sell to sell their meat.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: They're not they're they're not demanding that we'd be able to do this and sell it to people in Massachusetts.
48:34
SPEAKER_01: They're simply saying in New Hampshire, we would like to be able to buy, we would like to be able to sell.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: It's not illegal to buy it, it's illegal to sell it.
48:45
SPEAKER_01: We would like to be able to sell, to engage in a food transaction in New Hampshire.
48:52
SPEAKER_01: We're not asking to export it.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: We're not asking to send it across the state line, just within the state of New Hampshire.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: We're asking to be able to engage in this kind of transaction without federal, without federal oversight, without federal permission.
49:09
SPEAKER_01: That's all they're asking.
49:11
SPEAKER_01: And so it doesn't actually, it doesn't actually jeopardize, I mean, even to take, to take the federal, the federal uh position uh with the benefit of the doubt, which is very, very hard for me to do.
49:27
SPEAKER_01: But um, but even if we gave them all the benefit of the doubt, this doesn't jeopardize anybody outside of New Hampshire.
49:35
SPEAKER_01: And and if somebody in New Hampshire doesn't want to participate in an uninspected product, they can get the inspected product.
49:43
SPEAKER_01: There's still four slaughterhouses operating.
49:46
SPEAKER_01: So you you can get it.
49:48
SPEAKER_01: There's no, there's no, there's no compelling of anything.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: The only compelling here is on the part of the government that compels a farmer to have to enter the industrial centralized consolidated system in order to sell a ribeye steak to a neighbor at church.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: That's that's the compelling.
50:13
SPEAKER_01: So we'll see where this goes.
50:16
SPEAKER_01: It's a it's certainly an interesting, an interesting thing.
50:19
SPEAKER_01: And if the if the legislature overrides the governor's veto, this is going to be um, this is going to be tip of the spear for for food freedom in this country.
50:35
SPEAKER_01: It it'll be it'll be fun to watch.
50:37
SPEAKER_01: And I of course, you know, I hope the legislature does override the governor's veto and um and let's let's have a showdown.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to see what happens.
50:49
SPEAKER_00: Like it's about time that states are stepping up.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: Like let's let's let's pass legislation that actually does help the farmer and benefits the consumer.
51:01
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
51:02
SPEAKER_01: Yep, that's right.
51:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, we're about out of time, Cena.
51:05
SPEAKER_01: So so uh I'll I'll post I'll pose the question uh the question of the day.
51:10
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh here's my um um my question.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: That is would you trust a neighbor farmer more than a federal inspected slaughterhouse for your ribeye steak?
51:30
SPEAKER_01: There's the question.
51:33
SPEAKER_01: And I'll bet we'll have some good answers.
51:41
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: For for me, it depends on uh which neighbor farmer.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I mean, look, you're gonna look if if you're gonna if you're gonna make that kind of decision, uh, you're gonna do some sleuthing and some vetting.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: And you and and and you're going to go, Cena.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: I can't stand it.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna go beyond labels.
52:06
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna go beyond labels.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: Love it.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody, thanks for being with us on another Beyond Labels podcast.
52:13
SPEAKER_01: We appreciate uh you being with us, and we'll look forward to visiting with you again next week.