Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #130: Why You Should Care About the European Farmers Revolt: Joel's Perspective

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Episode #130: Why You Should Care About the European Farmers Revolt: Joel's Perspective · Beyond Labels Premium

0:00
SPEAKER_00: If you've been watching the news, you know that there are there is just a a burgeoning protest uh from farmers in Europe.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: What's the big deal?
0:08
SPEAKER_00: And as we know, lots of times, things that happen in Europe in five years they happen in the U.S.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the reasons I think it's really important to look at this uh right now.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm watching with great interest these these revolts from the farmers.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: And as we are wont to do here at Beyond Labels, I think that I want to present to you maybe a little different perspective than some of the things that you're getting.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: Hi, everybody.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Beyond Labels.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: Cena McKella, and we're here with Joel Salatin, our favorite farmer, and he is going to be reporting today on the farmer revolts that are going on in Europe.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: I can't wait.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Cena.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is really near and dear to my heart because uh pre-COVID, I spent a lot of time in Europe.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in 20 the year 2020, I think I had five uh five trips to Europe canceled, um, you know, with with all the COVID stuff.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: And um and so I I've been to the Netherlands, I don't know, six times, uh Germany multiple times, UK many times, Spain, Portugal, uh uh Sweden, Norway, um anyway, Austria.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Um I've I've had the privilege of of and of course when I go, I don't go to the Eiffel Tower and I don't go, you know, to the Louvre.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't go to these, I'm with farmers, you know, I'm with farmers and and enjoy them.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: And and so um I'm watching with great interest these um these revolts in um in in Europe uh from the farmers.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: And so as as we are wont to do here at Beyond Labels, uh, I think that I want to present to you maybe a little different perspective than some of the things that you're getting.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: And um and just last week I was in Uruguay uh with a with a Belgium uh an outfit from Belgium.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: So I bent their ear about you know what's really going on.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: So um I feel like I have some whatever, some some street cred in this space to you know to to talk about this since I have so many uh farmer friends over there.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: In fact, this summer uh I've got an I'm I'm planning a trip.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing seminars in uh Vienna, Austria, in uh May and in uh Budapest, Hungary.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh so I'm looking forward to that.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: And then in the fall, I'll be going back to um to uh uh Switzerland, uh doing one there, and probably one in either Spain or Portugal again, uh pig piggybacking on that trip.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: So uh looking forward to getting back to Europe.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: I haven't been there now for for whatever, three or four years, and very much looking forward to getting back, especially with what's going on there.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: If if you've been watching the news, you know that there are there is just a a um a burgeoning protest uh from farmers in Europe.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so what's the what's the big deal?
3:15
SPEAKER_00: And as we know, lots of times things that happen in Europe in five years they happen in the U.S.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the reasons I think it's really important to look at this uh right now.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna quote um the Spanish Spain's agriculture minister, his name is Louis Punas, and um he he really put this succinctly, I think.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: He said that um the bottom line is that farmers feel disrespected and underappreciated.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want this to be a farmer whining thing because I'm gonna have plenty of stuff to say about bad farmers, but I think it's important to realize that um that this is not just an economic thing.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: And any and it's not just a revolt against you know Brussels.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh it it is it is a much broader thing.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons it's being um it's broad enough, I view this as the tip of a revolution of the working class against the governing elite.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Farmers happen to be on the bottom rung of the working class, all right.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And and I mean, you know, in in the in um uh uh you know it farming in Europe is only 1.4 percent of the European Union gross domestic product.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh but but it is 60 billion dollars of direct subsidies from the EU.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: The average EU farmer, 50% of their income.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm gonna give you some stuff that I think will shock you.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: 50% of the farmers in the European Union, 50% of their income comes as a direct subsidy payment from Brussels, part of this$60 billion.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: So what has happened since World War II is that the European farmer has become a dependent.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: He's become a dependent, he or she, I don't want to be sexist here, has become a dependent on EU largesse.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I know when I've traveled throughout Europe, the EU, and I'm looking at these little 50-acre farms, and they've got$2 million worth of big equipment sitting there.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying, how do these little 50-acre farms afford$2 million worth of equipment?
6:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've got a way bigger farm than 50 acres, and we don't have$2 million worth of equipment.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: How does this happen?
6:07
SPEAKER_00: And how it happens is imagine this, imagine this.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Farmers get paid$1,000 per acre per year just for owning farmland.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: So if you have a 50-acre farm, you're getting$50,000 a year just for owning farmland.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Now, folks, that that that changes lots of things.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: It changes the way a farmer views uh you know, views the business, it changes the way the culture views farming.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: And so and and man, does it make the price of farmland go up?
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Think about how much that makes the price of farmland go up.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And so in for 60 years, the common goal in the UE for agriculture has been number one, we want bigger farms because they're more efficient.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: And number two, we want common standards.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Common standards.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: In other words, everybody's T-bone steak is the same, everybody's gallon of milk is the same, everybody's cheddar cheese is the same.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: The we would call this uh whatever food regulations here in the US.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: Um the the demands of the farmers are consistent across the EU.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: And here they are.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: There's five of them, five basic demands, and they are consistent throughout the EU.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: Number one, less bureaucracy.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: Number two, fairer prices.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: Number three, revise the European Green Deal.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: Number four, safeguard the common agriculture policy subsidies.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: These are called CAP, CAP.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: The CAP subsidies are what I've just described, the$60 billion of direct subsidy coming from uh from Brussels.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: And then number five is stronger protection against non-EU competition.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: And if you've watched just lately the demonstrations on the Polish border between the Polish farmers who are EU members, um, the EU has relaxed, has has made huge concessions to Ukraine so that Ukrainian grain can flow into the EU without the kind of you know standard regulations that EU farmers have, and they're undercutting the EU uh uh crops.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: So so these are the five things less bureaucracy, fairer prices, um, revise the European Green Deal, safeguard the cap subsidies, and a stronger protection against the non-EU competition.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the the commonality among these.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me give you a couple of real, real uh personal stories from my um traipsing through Europe with the farmers.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna concentrate on the Netherlands because that's where all this started.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: The reason all this started in the Netherlands is because the Netherlands is the the is the tip of this whole uh movement.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm with I'm with a young couple, they've got a dairy, 100 cows, they're milking 100 cows.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: I said, how many acres do you have?
9:32
SPEAKER_00: 10.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: 10 acres.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: Now, folks, you you cannot have a hundred cows on 10 acres.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: I'll pull my calculator out here and do some and do some real time.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: So each of those cows is dropping about 60 pounds of manure and urine out her back end every day.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: 60 pounds times 100 cows is 6,000 pounds um divided by 10 acres is 600 pounds per acre times 365 days in a year.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: You ready for this number?
10:11
SPEAKER_00: 219,000 pounds per acre.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: 219.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: So where does it go?
10:20
SPEAKER_00: And and and and they're not that unusual.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so where does it go?
10:24
SPEAKER_00: You know where it goes?
10:25
SPEAKER_00: It goes into the canals.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say the water.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: It's got to go in the waterway.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And the Netherlands, of course, they're they're at sea level, right?
10:33
SPEAKER_00: Or some of it's below sea level.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: So it goes into these canals.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: The Netherlands right now is generating four times the nitrogen average of any other country in the EU.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Four times the nitrogen average.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: What does that nitrogen do?
10:51
SPEAKER_00: It stimulates vegetative growth.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: So plants, you know, willow trees, everything.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, that clogs the canals.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, then you've got a huge expense in declogging all this vegetation that's trying to use up all the nitrogen in the canals.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but when I was there, the whole countryside smells like a toilet because of all the manure in these canals.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the cities, it doesn't.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: City, you know, it it's cleaner and you don't have that.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: But in the countryside, it's it smells like manure.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: And listen, nobody, nobody loves Netherlands.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh this is not about not loving Netherlands, okay?
11:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm just trying to explain, I'm just trying to explain why the Netherlands was the flash point for the greenhouse gas, the climate change.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Now, we can debate climate change till the cows come home.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: And I I don't want to just sit here and get down that rabbit hole of whether you know uh the climate change is right or wrong or indifferent.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: But what I'm saying is there is a reason why the Netherlands was the flash point of this whole movement because it had these problems.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: In fact, when I was there, when I was there, they had a government program.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: You ready for this?
12:07
SPEAKER_00: So, where's all this, what did I say, 219,000 pounds per acre?
12:11
SPEAKER_00: Where's it go?
12:12
SPEAKER_00: So the government had a program to dehydrate this manure.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: You imagine the cost of that?
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Dehydrate the manure and put it back in the ships that carried the grain from Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: So Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina are the four basic suppliers of the Netherlands.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: You've heard Netherlands is the second largest, you know, tiny country and it supplies all this food.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: It supplies all that food because it has container loads of grain coming from Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay all the time coming into the country.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: That that small country can't begin to produce the kind of food it does, except with this steady stream of feed stocks coming in.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, those feed stocks go into animals, the animals make poop, the poop goes into the canals, and now we've got a stinky place with all this clogged canals.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: And and the other thing that happens is that as the farmers begin to try to grow their own uh their own feed, um they they they plow, they till their fields, that injects oxygen into what was once at one time kind of a peat moss, uh, you know, a big swampy peat moss.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, half of the rivers, half of the rivers in Europe drain through the Netherlands.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: If you look at a map, essentially um almost, not not all, but almost all the great big rivers in Europe drain out through the Netherlands.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: So before the Zyder Z and all the drainage of those areas and um and the dikes, those were those were massive deltas, deltas of peat, biomass, and swamp.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, they've drained the water.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: Now the farmers start plowing, that injects oxygen.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: The oxygen um volatilizes the organic matter in the soil and it begins to subside.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: We have sub subsidence uh or you know, um subsist subsistence in there.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: And and and as the fields subside, you know, in the Netherlands, good night, uh uh and eight inch, eight inches can be the difference between you can get the tractor on the field or it turns into a swamp.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: And so when I was there, when I was there, I'm just gonna uh share this very, very personal thing.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: I said I have a room full of farmers there, and I'm showing them how we do compost here.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, we've got a chipper and we do compost and da-da-da-da.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we don't buy fertilizer.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, um I told them not, you know, I I'm sorry that you know, I'm I'm concerned that you know this kind of system might be more costly here because you don't have the the biomass that we do.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: And they all started laughing.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: And I said, What are you laughing about?
15:05
SPEAKER_00: And he said, biomass, we've got mountains of biomass just sitting there that nobody's using.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: I said, Why?
15:12
SPEAKER_00: Because all the poop in the canals grows willow trees that we have to yank out and make these massive piles of biomass.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: I said, We can get all the biomass we want for free.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, I can't do that.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: They said, Well, we can.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, what you got to do is get out there and use this biomass and compost instead of chemical fertilizer and and and throw your poop in the canals and and reintroduce the organic matter in these subsiding fields so that you reintroduce all this this uh soft um stuff.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: And um, and it was it was it was really fun because because the tillage oxidizes oxidizes the biomass.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: So they're throwing the the feces, right?
16:01
SPEAKER_01: They're getting the putting the feces into the canals, yeah, and then that's growing the vegetation, including these trees.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then uh so they have all this biomass in the trees that they're not actually reapplying to the farm.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: Right.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: But you're saying so they could take you take the feces, right, and make compost out of that instead of dumping it into the canals, but they won't have the biomass, right?
16:22
SPEAKER_01: Because they're not going to be creating that for throwing the feces into the canal.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Oh, but but but but they would they they would um as an ecological balance sheet, yes, uh it would balance out.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh it might not balance out immediately, but it'll balance out over time, okay?
16:42
SPEAKER_00: And and so um, so I mean the so the canals grow a lot of biomass just in and of themselves, because it's a water-based, you know, system and and and it and they're just there.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Um so they they can grow a lot of that in in themselves and grow plenty to handle uh what they're doing.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, now you can't you can't have a hundred dairy cows on 10 acres, okay?
17:06
SPEAKER_00: And but but so this this has fed, here's my point.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: This has fed the um the the the planners, you know, the the the people that are in the government that are planning out the future, they're looking at this and saying, we we can't have this.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: This is completely un unhavable.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: It's it's not ecological, it's unhavable.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: And so so um they're trying to create policies that will stop a hundred dairy cows on a 10-acre place.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, what happens is, as you know, when you have central planning, is it it doesn't it's not fair, you know, it it doesn't it doesn't come out fairly across the landscape.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: And so it it it didn't it tends to use a a sledgehammer rather than you know uh tweezers, okay, to to kind of you know handpick the problems.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: Um and and so so just what I'm getting at is uh well let's go let's go to Spain, all right.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you go through Spain, you go the the the Dehesa, you know, uh all that region.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the overgrazing in Spain is saying, well, you know, it's getting hotter and hotter.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's because it's because they devegetated everything.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: The you know, the the deep, the deep grasses that used to be there uh in Sevilla and those uh areas where they did the iberico pork, you know, and the um that there's there's no grass left because they've overgrazed.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh Germany and Austria, let me go there, okay.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Germany and Austria love those areas, okay?
18:50
SPEAKER_00: But here's the problem.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that Germany and Austria are all about precision.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: And the biggest problem I have and have had every time I go to Germany and Austria is nobody can believe that animals can be handled precisely.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: So you don't see any animals grazing in Germany and Austria.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: They're all in buildings.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: They're all in buildings.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: The Netherlands, you don't see animals grazing, they're all in buildings.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: Why?
19:21
SPEAKER_00: Because they want to use equipment to cut the crops, even grass, and bring it in.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: And boy, did they have some of the most amazing, cool, you know, forage chopper uh technology and machines and all this stuff.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, but but everything is housed.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Animals are not allowed in the fields because nobody believes it can.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they are Germans and Austrians, after all, you know, precision.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, you know, Germans lead the world in precision, right?
19:54
SPEAKER_00: And and so uh and so those farmers, the biggest problem I have there is the farmers will not let their cows go outside because the cow eating a blade of grass is not as precise as a mower mowing that blade of grass.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: And so everything is inside, all the feed, all the grass, everything is brought to them.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what?
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Then you've got these mountains of manure.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna do with the mountains of manure?
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay, if you don't compost it, now you've got all these mountains of manure sitting there, supposedly making greenhouse gases and all this, and and and uh and not being utilized uh correctly.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: And so what do they do with it in Germany?
20:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, do they dump it in the water like in the Netherlands?
20:45
SPEAKER_00: No, they they they they use it, they spread it on the fields, but it's not composted.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: So, so it's it's extremely volatile and leachable.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: Right?
20:58
SPEAKER_00: So if you compost it, a there's no smell, b, it's very stable because the the nitrogen, the potassium, the phosphorus, these these highly volatile and soluble nutrients get locked up in the dead bodies of the microbes that decomposed it.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: So you can spread it on spread on a sunny day, it doesn't vaporize, spread on a rainy day, and it doesn't leach.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay, compost stabilizes nutrients.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: But but if if if manure in this case is not stable, it's highly um, you know, it moves.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can't you can't you can't hang on to it.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: And so so um in all of these areas, they are they are using uh chemical fertilizers because they're not handling their waste products well, and then that fuel.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Fuels that fuels a backlash, just like in the U.S., I mean, a big one right now is Proposition 12 in California that just outlawed uh pork in California that was grown from a pig that was birthed in a farrowing crate.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: All right.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: And of course, Farm Bureau Federation, Iowa, you know, they're an up in arms about this and trying to get federal relief to make it illegal, make California unable to do this because it's affecting the farmers in Iowa.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: And and and the the fact is that if pigs, if farmers had never put pigs in gestation crates, there would not be an animal welfare consumer backlash about the pigs.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: This is not just government beating down farmers.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, farmers are they're trying to get us all to believe that.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: And so I I get some of this.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Now, as with all backlashes, though, the pendulum never swings and stops in the middle.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: It always overcorrects.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what's happening in the EU.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: The EU has overcorrected.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: It's hard for us in the U.S., you know.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: I I rail against our regulatory climate, but it's important to realize that we have way fewer regulations than a lot of other places in the world.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: For example, in Spain, in Spain, you cannot allow a chicken to touch wood.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: So everything involved with chickens has to be steel, has to be metal.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, that means, you know, if you want to build an egg mobile or you want to be on a portable chicken shelter or whatever, it all has to be metal, even though wood is way easier and cheaper and actually more ecologically friendly, has a smaller ecological footprint.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: They do that because they say that metal doesn't uh provide a housing house for mites.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, in New Zealand.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: Now I know New Zealand is not EU, but I'm just giving you another example.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: So in New Zealand, I've been there numerous times.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: In New Zealand, you cannot house a chicken in a structure that is not mouse-proof.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: So, how do you have an eggmobile with chickens?
24:52
SPEAKER_00: It's not mouse-proof.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: How do you have chickens on pasture?
24:56
SPEAKER_00: You can't, it's not mouse-proof.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: And so New Zealand deals with this with this issue.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: These are the kinds of things that other countries deal with, uh, you know, and and why um and why things are developing in these other countries, you know, uh, like they are.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: And so um, I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll just kind of wrap it up here.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: Um the the regulatory climate, for example, in um I think it's in Austria, I was there, I was there in Austria.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: The EU uh requires every single egg to be candled and and stamped um with a little ink stamp.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, that sounds, oh, it's not too bad, but a small farmer, you that's a lot of handwork to actually put an ink stamp on every single egg.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: And so what does that do?
25:54
SPEAKER_00: That makes it more and more difficult for small farmers to compete in the marketplace.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, in Austria, um a farmer, a farm less than I think it's about two and a half acres, doesn't get any of these subsidies from the EU.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: So a two and a half acre farm, if you're in if you're in produce or something really intensive, like intensive blackberries or strawberries or things like that, a two and a half acre farm can be a very viable operation.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: But they've deemed that a that a farm at two and a half acres doesn't even qualify as a farm.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: And so it doesn't get in any of this stuff.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: So these are the kinds of things that have made in in the last um since 2005.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: So that's what 19, 19 years, 18, 19 years now.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: The EU has lost one-third of its farms since 2005.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Since 2005, the EU has lost one-third of its farms and realize that they're under the same problem we have in the US that the farmer is getting old.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: And old farmers don't like change.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the older you get, the older you get, the less you like change, right?
27:08
SPEAKER_00: And so, and so you've got all these old codgers that have have now grown up, some of them second generation, in this highly, highly subsidized, you know, preferential thing.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly, between, you know, uh um the the the green, you know, the green agenda, the rising, the and the the EU is trying to funnel money to Ukraine to fight Russia, and you've got you know Germany spending three times as much as they used to spend for Russian, Russian uh natural gas.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: They're spending way more.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: Listen, in the Netherlands, hey, I went to a this just occurred to me, Cena.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: I uh in another one of the things I went to one of the one of the times I was in the Netherlands, they took me to one of these 25, 25-acre um greenhouses.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: So it's a 25-acre farm.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: The whole thing is a greenhouse.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: And you basically you you know, you shower in, you shower out.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: It's a complete, you know, sterile environment.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: And um, and they were and and these big greenhouses, you can actually see them from space.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, you can see them from the moon, these great big 25-acre lit up, lit up greenhouses.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: And they they do hydroponic tomatoes in these things and primarily sell them to China, okay?
28:30
SPEAKER_00: But it's a way for the Netherlands to export water, um because hydroponic tomatoes have 30% more water than soil-grown tomatoes.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: So they've got way too much water, and so they can send their water to the Chinese, and it's a way for the Netherlands to, you know, to get rid of some of their water.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, to make the tomato plants grow better, they want more carbon dioxide.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: This is funny.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: Carbon dioxide.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: So what do they do?
28:56
SPEAKER_00: So they've got they've got cogeneration plants, these are electrical cogeneration plants.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh, massive.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: When I went into the engine room, I mean they had they had three massive, like, you know, 500 horsepower uh diesel engines running on um running on natural gas, not diesel, natural gas.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: And the exhaust, and and was it was it to generate electricity in order to make no the gener the electricity was just a byproduct.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, they used it, but the the reason that the farms have these massive cogeneration plants is to take the exhaust and send it in tubes that come up at the tomato plants.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: So the tomato plants get the tomato plants will get this.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: It's like it's like a human.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, we put little oxygen things under our noses, you know.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: If you're you know you have a problem, okay.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, well, it's like a little CO2 thing under the nose of a tomato plant.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: So the tomato plant grows way faster.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: And but the problem is now in the Netherlands, they've pumped so much of this natural gas out of their out of their natural uh whatever uh cavities in the earth that they're having little earthquakes because houses are crumbling and collapsing because they've taken all the all the natural gas out.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: And so here's this here's this entire system built on a resource at a point in time.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: Now suddenly there's no natural gas.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: They were getting it from Russia, now they can't get it from Russia.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: So the whole thing starts to starts to break down and collapse.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: And so these farmers are pressured, they're stressed, you know, and and um and and the EU is trying to fund you know ammunition to the Ukraine.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: So, well, where can we cut?
30:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you were if you were an EU parliamentary minister and you're saying, where can we cut some costs?
30:49
SPEAKER_00: Where can we cut some costs?
30:52
SPEAKER_00: Farmers are the smallest voting block, they're only 1.6% of the entire EU, you know, uh gross domestic product, but they account for almost 50% of the EU budget.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: What would you cut?
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: See, and and and so here we are.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: And so the the tragedy, I'll cut to the uh, I'll finish this up.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: The tragedy of the whole thing for me is all these wonderful, big-hearted, I mean, my heart just I I get into tears.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: I I understand the heartbreak of these farmers, but the biggest heartbreak is they refuse.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: They refused to think about pasturing animals instead of putting in in buildings.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: They refuse to think about composting instead of Putin's chemical fertilizer.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: They they refuse to think about multi-speciation uh rather than um uh you know monospeciation with you know monocultures with their crops.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: They refuse all of this, all of this um ecological, whatever, uh, ecological information, you know, that we have.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: And instead, they take dump truck loads of tires and they're burning them in the streets of of of Paris and and you know, and and and they're carting their manure into you know the parliament and dropping the manure on the parking lot.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: And um, and you know, I I won't even let somebody buy any of my manure.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: That's how precious it is.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm talking about my cow manure, not you know, my but you know, I I I won't even let somebody buy this stuff.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: That's how precious it is.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: And um, and these farmers are just dumping it on parliament steps to you know express their outrage of what's going on.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: And so my heart for me, for me, the emotional part is I I'm I feel sorry for these older farmers that have devoted their life to doing what they were told, and now the people who have been telling them who they've been following all their lives are starting to pull the plug on them, and these guys don't have the whatever the life force left in them to say, yeah, we can uh we can do better.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: We don't we don't need these guys at Brussels, we don't need these subsidies, we can do better and and we can make it work.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: And and that for me, that's the trade.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: It's a tragedy of innovation, it's a tragedy of accepting um uh a better way.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: And um, and I'm looking forward to I'll be I'll be in Vienna in May, I'll be in uh Hungary in May, and uh I'm looking forward to uh interacting, learning from them and and um and and explaining to them that there is that that I think that there's a way out, there's a better way, uh and they can they can tell Brussels to go take a hike.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: If they if they want to really be an innovative, they can actually do that.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: And but but I can tell you the EU the EU uh regulations and requirements, as much as we see a U and I, as much as we rail on U.S.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: food police, the EU um is is twice as bad as it is here in in the states.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: And so I will be telling them and and and examining with them some um some avenues of circumventing some of these regulations.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh I remember very well I was in, it was in um, I think it was in Spain.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: It was in Spain, it was either there or Germany, and um and this farmer was um was talking about they had to wash the eggs.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: And I'm trying to remember now all the particulars of this, but it it was something about they they couldn't let they couldn't let the eggs get wet.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: Um and and yet they had to wash them all.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: But but there was there was some little technicality, and and I I was able to you know help him see a loophole.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, I never thought of that.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: But the the fact is these farmers aren't thinking they're not thinking uh um libertarian like like like we do.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh Americans, Cena, you can say what you want about this country, but we have we have individualistic liberty in our DNA.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: We do.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: And when the government starts to push hard, man, we just push right back.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: And but but in the EU, um, they're way more docile, they're way more compliant than we are here.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: And so I'll be I'll be trying to generate some rebels uh when I go over and uh and but they won't be rebels that take that that take manure to parliament.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: They'll be rebels who who get good food to their neighbors and and and circumvent the system.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking forward to it.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: And uh that that's kind of my take on.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry I've gone on so long without you know a break here, but that's kind of my take on it, and um and I'm looking forward to to being there.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be a beacon of hope for all of them.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: And you know, and you're gonna actually help us over here in the States by helping them.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: So we have just a couple minutes uh in those couple minutes to wrap up.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: Um, I would love for you to kind of distill down for us if if you could, some lessons that we can learn in America from uh these farmers, that their demonstration and and what what your take is on there.
36:55
SPEAKER_01: So not only lessons for farmers in America, but lessons for, I think it's important for the consumers, right, to understand so that we can help farmers here by moving the market with our own food choices.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: So if you can just give us some takeaway lessons for us.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, the the the first one for me is the first one for me is when the government says, I have a subsidy here to help you run the other direction.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: That that's the first one because they always come with strings attached and and and they they over time they affect you even even without you being aware of it, and create a dependency, a dependency mentality uh, you know, that's subtle, that you just don't even realize what's happening.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: So so so number one, um, you know, uh uh run like the dickens when the government says, I've got money for you.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: Um number two is to um to cultivate uh both farmer and buyer to cultivate um direct interaction, as as close an interaction as you can, reduce, reduce the middle, the middle people.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: Um Europe, I can tell you, Europe does not have they do not have the robust local food movement that we have in the U.S.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: They do not have it.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so these farmers are highly dependent on the big ag food system.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: Now, do they have some?
38:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they have some, but it is not nearly as robusted as it as it is here in the U.S.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: And so um having the the shortest chain of custody on your food um uh is a is a way to create um not only integrity in the system and accountability, but it also keeps the big guys, it it reduces the consolidation in the system.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: And the consolidation is what these guys are struggling with now because things have become so consolidated and so centralized that that the average farmer can't can't see his way out.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you, as I as I when I see these TV reports and I'm looking at these you know tractor cades and stuff, I'm looking to just say, we don't have any farmers, we don't have any tractors that size.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: Our farm has several tractors, nothing's nearly as big as these as these tractors I'm seeing, you know, uh these farmers have.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: And so um so the centralization is a real problem.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: And um, and I I would say the third thing is simply the food regs.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the food regs have just as these countries when Poland, um when Poland entered the EU, it it since has virtually destroyed their entire Polish sausage, their entire, you know, indigenous Polish sausage network.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh because these all these little cottage industries, um, and artisans and craft sausage makers, and I mean Polish sausage, right?
40:09
SPEAKER_00: That's you know, that's world famous.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, they all basically went out of business uh because they couldn't, they couldn't adhere to all the infrastructure, stainless steel, you know, wattage of light bulbs, concrete, you know, all the things that were required by the EU to make sausage.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: And so it basically just died.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: And then what happens is then the farmers consolidate, they go to the great big operations who then sell to the supermarkets, and it destroys the you know, the communal uh uh food system.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: So those would kind of be my three uh big takeaways of of the European problem.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: Wow, I love this, right?
40:47
SPEAKER_01: Because it's different than what we're getting in the news, and it's kind of easy to just get duped by what the news media and the higher-ups want you to see.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: So I personally really appreciate your take on this and you can like the insider scoop on this one, because all these issues are much more complicated than how they're presented to us, you know.
41:08
SPEAKER_01: And you know, the media knows it's that you know, 10 second sound bite, boom, and then you're off to the next story.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: So I really appreciate you digging into this.
41:17
SPEAKER_01: And um, I hope you keep us updated, uh, especially when you travel out there and let us know what kind of progress you're able to make and creating these freedom lovers out there.
41:29
SPEAKER_01: I look forward to it.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
41:32
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Joel, for bringing this topic to our attention.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, listeners, for joining us this week.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: And we look forward to another episode with you next week.