Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #51: The Inflation Bill: Are Farmers & Our Food Supply in Jeopardy?

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Episode #51: The Inflation Bill: Are Farmers & Our Food Supply in Jeopardy? · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be using that biomass, not landfilling it, not burning it, not throwing it away.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: We need to use it on our fields to rebuild this spongy the spongy underlings that kept the fields from sinking all these you know all this time.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's not an easy, but trust me, that kind of solution, a biomass, build up the organic matter solution will never will never cross the mind of these uh of these uh um bean counters, these bureaucratic bean counters uh that are trying to do climate change.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um all they can see is the cow burps, the cow farts, and we got to get rid of the cow.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: They can't get beyond how did we have so many millions of pounds of megafauna for millennia on the planet, and we didn't have these problems.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: They can't get beyond that.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so it becomes a very narrow, a very narrow, uh focused kind of policy that then you know creates all sorts of issues.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a hard one, but in general, I think you and I can really agree.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: In general, giving the government more power, more data, and more control is not the way to answer problems, period.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's beyond labels.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody, welcome to Beyond Labels.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Stina McCullough here with farmer Joel Salatin.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And today we have a kind of a different episode for you.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now that we're behind this paywall, I want to get um Joel on record talking about some of these more conspiracy theory thoughts, or what some call conspiracy theory thoughts, um, that I'm finding some evidence to support, actually.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a lot to talk about today.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about the Inflation Reduction Act and how this is going to potentially affect farmers and affect our food supply.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, in essence, uh affect everybody who lives in the United States and beyond.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we have a lot of points to cover.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, what I'm gonna do is just jump right in and um kind of go back and forth, you know, in the conversation with Joel about this and get his input as a farmer.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so in case you haven't heard the Inflation Reduction Act, it did pass.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's now um law, it was signed by the president.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Democrats are claiming that this bill is designed to help um with climate change, right?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's actually around, it's like$369 billion in green um energy subsidies for climate change and energy change energy policies.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: The bill's been hailed as the greatest US investment to date addressing climate change.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So our biggest climate change um bill.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: And um, the Democrats are also saying that this bill is going to make wealthy people, quote, pay their fair share.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the Congressional Budget Office has just recently come out and published a report saying that this new law is going to have a negligible impact on inflation at best.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: So even though it's called Inflation Reduction Act, this non-bartis, nonpartisan group of the CBO is saying it will not help with inflation.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it'll probably actually make it worse, Joel, because the government's going to be spending a ton of money here.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, it's going to increase taxes for middle class and small businesses by$20 billion.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it's actually a tax on the middle class and small businesses.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but what I want to jump into first is the agricultural component of this bill.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so um there's a lot of reports coming out, a lot of talk about what people are saying.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go through those point by point and also tell you what I found in the bill and have Joel chime in from the farmer's perspective because I want to know should we be concerned, right?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: People on the right in particular are basically saying that this is gonna be really bad for the farmers, really bad for our food supply, it's gonna result in more food shortages.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to get your perspective, Joel, as we go through this in terms of how worried should we be, if at all.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: So to start it off, the new law provides$20 billion for agriculture conservation.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's about$20 billion in additional funding toward the existing farm bill conservation programs.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what um what the summary had said quote, provides financial and technical assistance to private landowners to voluntarily implement conservation practices on agriculture land.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Program funds would be um diverted to climate change-related goals.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the first problem I have with this is that the center, just like the Center for Food Safety has come out opposed to this bill, um, which, as you know, they're much more left-leaning than we are.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: So they came out opposed to this bill.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And they're saying that, um, and I agree with this, the law is uh is allocating potentially billions more of our taxpayer dollars to subsidize more cultivation of the genetically modified crops.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's not actually addressing climate change, it's actually propping up industrial agriculture, which um, as they cited, a lot of scientific studies are showing that it's the industrial agriculture that's responsible for at least a third of all these greenhouse gas emissions.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And this bill only invests about 10% of the total agricultural funding to what they're calling climate smart agriculture.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it's basically just propping up this farm bill even more, like dumping tons of money into it, which, as you know, in large part um subsidizes the production of genetically modified crops, which means more pesticides um sprayed on our land, which is gonna cause more problems with climate change.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, uh Cena, I think I think it's important for everybody that's listening to understand the the kind of the code phrases that these kind of things use.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, when when you and I think green, uh we when we think green, we think um compost, we think um pastured pastured livestock as opposed to factory farming.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um we think local food systems rather than you know uh um global uh you know shipping globally.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we think really viscerally and practically about these things.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: You have to understand that the the powers that be that develop these uh these you know legislative agendas are coming from a uh from a a Bill Gates paradigm a Bill Gates paradigm, which is that in general um animals are bad, plants are good, and so uh so when you get a um an active climate change policy agenda, it is it is prejudiced toward a plant-based diet and the elimination of an animal-based diet.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and so um as the subsidies and the funding and the and the actual um you know the actual practices, the actual practices that get funded, as those come out of this, um, and and they go through this this kind of um measuring, this this measuring uh uh um sieve, they get sifted through this measuring device of climate change.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: It won't it won't be for uh for livestock, you know, uh exactly.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be for things like uh figuring out how to make a better tasting impossible burger.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be it'll be that sort of thing uh that will get the funding because it's a it's a plant-based, it's a plant-based deal.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and exactly what you're saying, um the Center for Food Safety brought this up too, which I agree with.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: That basically, you know how these bills work, right?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: The when they write the bill, we've talked about this before, they don't give the exact directive.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're not like, okay, we're gonna give you$20 billion to the USDA, and this is exactly what we want you to do.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: And here are the regulations you're gonna follow, here are the guidelines, we're gonna craft it for you.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: They basically hand the government, the um, that agency, like the USDA,$20 billion, and they will often say um, you know, to be rewritten um and fulfilled by the secretary of agriculture, right?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what the Center for Food Safety is saying, that basically the USDA has given like a$20 billion blank check to Secretary Vilsack, and he wants to promote this climate smart agriculture, right?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: He is an avid, an avid supporter of GMOs.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And to your point, so Vils, I don't know if you know this, I just found this out.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Vilsac recently um founded an international initiative.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's called the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, can you guess who any of the funders are?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I expect one of the first ones is Bill Gates.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: How could you ever guess it?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: So Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bayer, and Singenta, right?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: So they are funding this initiative that VilSAC has founded himself.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: They've raised$8 billion so far to fund this climate smart agriculture.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he has gone on record, Vilsack has gone on record saying that the primary funding is going to be for climate smart agriculture in cutting-edge areas of agrich, such as nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, robots, and artificial intelligence with significant investment in drones and sensors, right?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because these are the things we need on our farms, right, to help with climate change and produce more food.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, for you know, Cena, for I don't know, I suppose for probably 10 years uh here at our farm, you know, well, just because of where I am in the, you know, in the in the movement, uh, I've been getting contacted by people who do robots and drones and and and data, you know, uh farm data accumulation.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and and you know, sincere-minded, uh, good-hearted people saying, you know, we've got this, uh, we've got this prototype developed.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, tell us how you'd use it on your farm, you know.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and for the life of me, I haven't been able to figure out how to use any of this stuff.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: I I I don't I don't get how it would be beneficial to me.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't I don't see any uh reason for it.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but but you know, um mainline industrial agriculture is gaga over that kind of technology.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for example, for example, they want they want to they want to send a drone over, for example, that takes a that takes a uh an infrared picture of your field to determine uh where the fertil fertile and infertile parts of the field are so that they can apply um fertilizer.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: So this would be a climate smart agenda, right?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of just blanketing the field with X number of pounds of fertile of chemical fertilizer per square yard, they can actually they can actually meter as they roll over a hill and go down a hill and go around whatever, uh they can actually um uh the flow of fertilizer will change literally by the foot based on this infrared image of where the potassium, the phosphorus, the nitrogen is needed so that you can so that you can micro apply uh the chemical fertilizer to the right square foot, not this square foot, that square foot.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: That square foot's okay.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: This one needs a little more, and and you can and and this this is this is what the you know the scientists are gaga about.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, for the first time we can my you know, on our farm, we just we just put on the compost, you know, we and we run the animals across and and we and we watch the vegetation, we watch the you know the plants, and and uh you know, if it we know that if if a certain kind of plant grows, well then that means we've got plenty of this, and and we watch earthworm castings, and if we got earthworm, you know, basically we're feeding earthworms, and if if the earthworms are happy, everything is happy.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to micromanage every square foot.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: We just know that if that if if a field doesn't have a lot of earthworms in it, well, we're not we're not giving, we're not feeding enough carbon to that field.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh so for 10 years, as this technology is developed, um you know, the these companies have called me wanting me to, you know, kind of explain to them how we could use this, and then I'll be the whatever, I'll be the you know, the facilitator into the sustainable ag community, you know, because here's how we use.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't we don't need it.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: I can't I can't figure out how we need it, you know.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's just um it's unnecessary.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so here we are with we've uh here we are, what we've done is we've created all these problems in agriculture, we've created all these problems, and now we're we're we're subsidizing a solution to a problem that we created.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and some people would say, and this I wanted to get your take on this too.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: So this is going more toward, you know, what some would call a conspiracy theory.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Some people would say that um, yeah, you know, they're they're they're well intentioned by trying to um to advance the technology in agriculture, right?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: So they would probably look to you and say, your your methods are antiquated, Joel, right?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: You need to make quote unquote progress and get with the program and get more um technologically advanced, right?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's where the future is going.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so they would say these devices are going to help um like make life easier for farmers, help grow crops, help raise um healthier animals, because now they're trying to create drones that can actually fly over and detect the health of an animal, right, from the sky.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so but the other side of that is somebody could also see this as a way, if somebody wanted to, to track farmers, right?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: To start tracking what's happening on these farms and um even go so far as to eventually implementing um ESG scores for the farmers.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, for instance, we know that to get the funding, uh, like in the Farm Bill, for instance, and in the associated programs with the farm bill, there's something called compliance that you have to meet.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a document, I have it right here, conservation compliance and U.S.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: farm policy.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there are um you do have to be compliant in order to receive the funds from the government.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um sometimes the compliant, if you're non-compliant, you can actually be fined or have to give back the funding.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's even, let me read this from the document itself.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: It says um conservation compliance affects most USDA benefits administered by the Farm Service Agency and the National Natural Resources Conservation Service.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: These benefits include commodity support payments, disaster payments, farm loans, and conservation payments, just to name a few.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: If a producer is found to be in violation of conservation compliance, then a number of penalties could be enforced.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: These penalties range from temporary exemptions that allow the producer time to correct the violation to a determination that the producer is ineligible for any U.S.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: farm payments and must pay back current and prior years benefits.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um in the farm bill from 2014, it added that federal crop insurance subsidies could also be lost if you are noncompliant.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: So there's this whole document called compliance document.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And here under crop insurance, it says the majority of changes made by the 2015 rule are in response to the 2014 Farm Bill's addition of federal crop insurance subsidies to the list of program benefits that could be lost if a producer were found to be out of compliance with conservation requirements.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this was, they even talk about how this was a highly contentious area.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: It was a very controversial issue that they said.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but they're saying that um this is the this is the conclusion.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Most producers prefer voluntary financial incentive programs to policies such as conservation compliance, which discourages the deregulation of private lands by restricting access to other federal benefits.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: So they're saying that um people don't like these conservation compliance regulations, right?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that it's discouraging deregulation of private lands.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you have to meet what I'm saying is you have to meet certain requirements in order to, in order to get the the money and in order to keep the money with the threat that you may have to pay back all the money that they actually gave you.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so as one one person, somebody, some people are trying to start to make the argument that um this is a grab on farms, and this is a grab to try to control farmers in how they can farm, right?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Which crops can they grow, which land do they have to let lay fallow, um, which is in the farm bill, actually, um, what they can use, if what kind of fertilizer they can use, uh, what they can actually feed their livestock.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so you can see if there is that case, right?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: If they can start controlling that, how are they going to regulate that?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is it just going to be voluntary, like you're admitting that you're you know not violating any of these things?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or are they going to be able to eventually regulate it by sensors and by drones and by the um by the 87,000 new IRS enforcement agents that they've hired, which has now over doubled the size of the IRS.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, now the IRS is larger than the Pentagon, the FBI, the State Department, and the border control all combined.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's larger than all of those enforcement agents.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And these 87,000 new IRS agents are um in this bill, they are being hired for quote unquote enforcement.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: So enforcement of what?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then we know that a lot of these departments are arming themselves, right?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: They're becoming armed.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they are.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and so, you know, you hear a figure like that 87,000 uh IRS enforcement agents, and it's you know, you hear the a big number like that, and it's kind of you know out there in the universe with 87,000.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: So just for fun, I I I I divided 87,000 by 50 states, and then I divided that by assuming 100 counties in every state, which most states don't quite have 100.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and if you do that, it comes out to about, think about this, Cena, comes out to about 20 IRS enforcement agents per county in the US.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: 20 IRS enforcement.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, now obviously they're not gonna be scattered around the country, all right.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: So don't don't read more, but but I think it's important for us to understand there are probably counties that don't even have 20, uh, 20 accountants, you know, 20 private accountants doing private accounting practice.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and so there's gonna be an average of 20 IRS enforcement agents for ever for for every county of the U.S.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's mind-boggling.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Think about your county, what 20 full-time IRS agents could do in your county, uh, you know, as a as an enforcement agency.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it it it's it's huge.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh what you're what you're dealing with here, Cena, as you've gone down through these provisions in the act, is that um it's the principle that when you when you hold your hand out to the government or you sign up for the government program, um you become beholden to an entire mentality.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: It you know, it's like um uh I just a Wall Street Journal just a couple weeks ago had a great big article about a Boston company.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: company that is um that is doing um what's called maybe you've heard about this renewable natural gas wow wouldn't it be cool to have renewable natural gas well what it is is is great big confinement dairies that um that that send all their manure into a big lagoon and then they cover the lagoon with a with a big bladder and bleed off the gas from the from the lagoon and that is renewable natural gas and that Sina to come full circle satisfies the whole goal here is that that is the new darling of esg ESG investment because because it is it is renewable natural gas now think about it Sina in order in order for a lagoon to occur you've got to have a confinement dairy for confinement dairy you've got to keep the cows uh uh confined never let them see the light of day um uh bring all the feet all the feed to them which is going to be not a polyculture of pasture it's gonna be a monoculture of corn and soybean silage basically uh a monoculture of grains probably gmo and and so so as you head down that so here you have a you have a a a an environmental disaster a nutritional disaster in the milk and the butter and everything that's produced from from a cow like that a cow that's that's so uh abused she only lasts about four or five years instead of uh what she should last for you know 12 to 13 years and and so you know uh um so you have that you have this atrocious production thing on on uh uh on on on the on the model and then right out here at the very end you you you put a bladder on the exhaust pipe and call it ESG you know that's that's the kind and believe me these companies these companies will be sucking up these billions of dollars of subsidies because that's the kind of thing that will be subsidized by these programs uh because that satisfies the climate you know uh uh the the the climate mentality the climate agenda and uh what it so so it does it doesn't fundamentally change uh production it doesn't fundamentally change anything uh what it does give is is subsidies for band-aids on the sores we've created out the back end so rather than actually fixing the wound changing the changing the disease um it's it's trying to uh deal with the with the externalized problems that that disease causes and then saying well we dealt with the externalized cause that our model caused so now we're ESG and we're climate friendly because we put a bladder over the lagoon.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it's uh it's it's insane it's it's insane.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: It is insane and that's my problem with this is that um like you and I are not against helping to solve climate change, right?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like no we both are like this is this is we are concerned about this and was you know it's a reason why you practice regenerative agriculture and take all the care that you do in with the land and the animals and the plants you know um the problem is when you have these massive bills and you have government stepping in and they're basically it's a money pinata now and and they're just handing it out there's always these types of workarounds, these types of loopholes.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of having these um huge industrial farms which are part of the problem instead of having them change their ways and start becoming regenerative you know farms, they're basically like you said giving them a band-aid.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just giving them an out and a pat on the back.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: So they could be like, oh look at our ESG score invest in us, you know what I mean?
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because because we got this great government approved ESG score for some little workaround band-aid that we did that didn't even address the problem.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And my my concern is it's gonna be the small farmers this is the small farmers that are going to get hit hard with this and and let me let me just say why and and real quick let me say when people started saying okay this this farm of this bill that just got passed um the Inflation Reduction Act is is going to lead to ESG scores.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: So what I found in the bill is on page 683 there is a section called greenhouse gas corporate reporting and this is what it says in general in addition to amounts otherwise available there is appropriated to the administrator of the environmental protection agency for fiscal year 2022 out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated$5 million to remain available for the EPA to support enhanced standardization and transparency of corporate climate action commitments and plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know about you but this sounds like ESG, right?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: So it sounds like the EPA has now been given permission by Congress and money to basically implement ESG scored a scoring system.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so my concern again is for the farmers and I'll tell you why because we're seeing um farmers let's like in Europe for instance this summer protesting.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you know just to get everybody up to speed if you didn't know July 5th we had the Dutch farmers protest over 40,000 farmers took to the streets to protest climate related regulations that the Dutch ruling coalition actually conceded would force up to 30% of farmers out of business.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: So the farmers pushed back and protested and when what the government said in a statement that they made when they when they're announcing the new emissions target they said quote the honest message is that not all farmers can continue their business.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: All right the regulations are asking that um policies cut livestock related emissions by 50% by 2030.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like I said it's estimated it's going to put about a third of their ranchers out of business.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: So the farmers took to the streets and protested the next day German farmers joined the protests.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: They blocked the roads to the Netherlands the farmers were protesting allegedly against amendments introduced by the German parliament to increase reliance on renewable energy by 100% by 2025, which would also curb biogas production.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: We already know that Sri Lanka's economy they had collapsed after there was a ban on chemical fertilizer and then July 7th the day after the Germans uh German farmers took to the streets farmers in Poland and Italy were marching through the streets also demonstrating against what they were calling destructive government policies and allegedly one of the Italian farmers said this we are not slaves.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: We are farmers we cannot make ends meet right so now what's happened though Joel is that it seems as though people have not rallied behind the farmers right people are afraid people we already had food shortages uh the the the media government you know these big ag groups have been able to change the narrative so that people are now um are pushing back on the farmers the farmers are getting a bad rap right they're being labeled as um extremists in some conditions so my so I have some questions for you number one is do you know any of these farmers that are in Europe?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Have you been in contact with any of them there?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what's actually happening on the ground?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know from all these reports it seems like they're pushing back specifically against government imposed climate change initiatives like what we just passed here in the US and do you think this might happen to to farmers to small farmers here in the US where pretty much they're going to get pushed out of um out of the business they're gonna have maybe have to close their farm because they can't keep up with these um government uh regulations uh well there's a lot to unpack there and uh we don't have a lot of time uh let me just say that I've been in Europe uh at least pre-COVID I've been in Europe many many times I've been to net to the Netherlands uh probably you know six to ten times I don't know exactly how many times but many times I know I know many many farmers over there and I know that the um the the European model is is extremely different than the US model as far as uh subsidies and um I I mean uh in in your in the EU um many farmers get a thousand dollars a year per acre just to just to own farmland uh so so the farmers there have had it very very cushy um ever since world war two since world war and and of course you know because of the devastation of world war two europe has a very keen sense of we've got to be able to feed ourselves and um more than the US the US doesn't have any mentality like that us doesn't care if you know if if all our food is imported uh but but in Europe they do they and and they have a very deep sense that um we we need to feed ourselves and so after world war two uh and the EU a lot of these policies developed to ensure that farmers would would stay in uh would stay in business and so the the economics of farming there are extremely different than here now I can't speak for you know for Italy uh as much but I can tell you I've been in I've been in the Netherlands many many times and uh the truth is that in the Netherlands um there is a you know the the Dutch East Indies you know uh uh long time ago um you know the Netherlands ruled the world in um in in trade that they had a huge navy i'm I'm going back you know four or five hundred years uh I mean I stayed in a hotel in um uh there that was uh that was built in like 1500 um and it was right on the coast there where the where all the pirates all the pirate ships came in you know after they raided everybody it it's quite a it's quite a legacy and so um so where I'm going with this is that the Netherlands um controls a tremendous amount of trade with other countries and now for several years they've actually had so much confined livestock almost all the livestock in the Netherlands is confinement it's not on pasture it's all confinement even small farms it's all confinement i mean small farms with you know 100 cows for example uh it's still confinement pigs are all confined uh poultry everything's you don't see anything on pasture uh everything's confined and uh and and there's so much manure that they actually dehydrate it and put it in the ships that return to Paraguay and Uruguay uh that bring grain to the Netherlands and so uh so the Netherlands is a net is a massive net importer of of South American grain uh along these old um old ancient shipping routes you know from the back in the 15 and 1600s um and and they come there and then they export their manure out of the country because there's so much manure that they they can't they can't handle it all.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: So uh again you know um uh I I I I uh look you know I I'm for the farmers but I'm not I'm not for farmers generically see you know that there there's good farming and bad farming and and to just say I'm for the farmers um I've seen some really good farmers and some really horrible farmers and so I I have a real problem uh just just generically saying I'm for farmers because when you do that then you're for you're for you know Bayer Corporation you're for Singenta you're for Bill and Melinda Gates you know it it's a it's it's hard to tease out and of course the news media they tend to you know broad brush everything and it's it it's all kind of homogenized and so it is hard for us to tease that kind of thing out the farmers that I've worked with obviously in the Netherlands are really great farmers they're putting their animals on pasture they're not overloading the environment with manure uh it's a it's a totally different it's a different thing and of course I've I've been with numerous of them that want to do better and and are are trying to figure out how do I how do I do better?
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and there's a lot of that as well and um and so the bottom line for me is that uh that again just like here policies policies have artificially intervened in the marketplace and this goes with our with our our libertarian bent here that that that just like here policies have intervened in the marketplace and skewed and created created weird and odd things um and and I'll give you an example of one of the one of the last times I was in the Netherlands uh I was talking to a farmer he he's having trouble with subsidence subsidence Sina is is when they when they uh take ground that had a lot of peat um you know because Netherlands a lot of it's below sea level and so a lot of this was boggy ground that they've drained and so you have this this high peat uh this real real high kind of peat uh um amount in the in the ground well when you start plowing that and tilling it it burns out the organic matter it burns out that peat and things start to to to to uh to subside uh the land starts to actually drop well in the Netherlands you know um a a two foot even a 12 inch drop in a field can suddenly put it into a swamp as opposed to dry enough to put cows on or chickens on or or or or apple trees on okay and so what happens is as they've gone out and they've plowed everything to go to confinement because uh because they want to confine everything they have reduced the organic matter and these fields are sinking they're sinking down and becoming too wet so I'm telling these guys well what you got to do is you got to get organic matter build the organic matter up and and I just I just uh my my naivety I just uh equipped to this group of farmers in the in the that I was working with I said well you know that's a tough one here because you probably can't get you know organic matter very easily well it turns out that in the Netherlands wood chips from all the canals they have to clean all those canals all the time and so the willows and the sprouts and the stuff that that in that um that clog the canals um every jurisdiction has a canal clean out committee that's responsible for keeping the canals cleaned out so that they don't so they don't run out over the lands the landscape and they generate so much biomass so much biomass in these canals that anyone can have however many tons they want for free for free they'll bring it to you and dump it and I'm looking at these farmers and say what you mean you mean biomass is cheaper for you than for me and they all laughed I laughed and and it was this you know aha moment well goodness we need to be using that biomass not landfilling it not burning it not throwing it away we need to use it on our fields to rebuild this this spongy the the spongy underlings that kept the fields from sinking all these you know all this time and so it you know it it's it's not an easy but trust me that kind of solution a biomass build up the organic matter solution will never will never cross the mind of these uh of these uh um bean counters these bureaucratic bean counters uh that are trying to do climate change um all they can see is the cow burps the cow farts and we got to get rid of the cow they that they they can't get beyond um how did we have so many millions of pounds of mega fauna for millennia on the planet and we didn't have these problems and they they can't they can't get beyond that and so uh so you know it it becomes a very narrow a very narrow uh focused kind of policy that then you know creates all sorts of issues it's it it it's a hard one but in general um I I think you and I can really agree in general giving the government more power more data and more control is not the way to answer problems period and that's beyond labels yeah that should be our tagline right there yeah yeah yeah yeah no I think that's great and I know we're I know we're about time but let me if we can just go a little over because I want two questions for you that I think um someone listening to this um episode may be interested in your perception from as a farmer okay the first question I have is um and thank you for for explaining the difference there in Europe versus here in America most of us are not privy to that information so that that makes a lot more sense now.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: So because when you look at these stories about oh farmers protesting farmers protesting you know um without the farmers um and then like you know concern about food shortages like a third of the ranchers are gonna go out of the business and whatnot.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you naturally think okay our government just passed some kind of climate friendly bill too is that going to happen here in Europe in America and what is your feeling is something is that going to have is something similar going to happen here in America as let's say as we know this bill promotes more um farm subsidies and whatnot things under the farm bill more more programs more agricultural programs if farmers um even you know family-owned farms if they start taking this government money are they going to find themselves trapped in a system where they will have to do this compliance they may end up getting an ESG score right and have to be in some ways controlled the farm management controlled by the government and the government can then possibly put them out of business if they're not in compliance do you see a such a path in which that may happen here in the US yeah yeah um I I think if there's one thing we've learned from COVID, I mean if you go back Cena to the um to the dry run of a of a global pandemic that the World Economic Forum did in Davos um uh I I probably most of our listeners are up on that you know and remember when they did that that that um that kind of role play that what if you know just what it was done in like in like late 2019 if I recall uh and and and then there have been there have been uh outfits who have actually taken the verbiage from that uh role play exercise that went over like a couple of days and then to the actual news reports that happened what a year later here's my point my point is if there's one thing we've learned from covet it is this when when when very very powerful interests say something we better take it seriously they're not just blowing smoke and so you know when when the World Economic Forum said uh let's let's prepare for a global pandemic in the in late 2019 people said oh that's that's silly what are they out there just you know uh playing around well within within uh uh within six months we were right in the midst of it what they had just role played that was supposedly some you know futuristic what if and so now when when President Biden and other powerful people say prepare for famine prepare for wood food shortages we now know if we're smart they're not just blowing smoke they act they actually know something.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and what all they know, I don't know.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: But uh or they're gonna cause something, yeah, or or or or cause something.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now now you're being conspiracy, but um but but yeah, you're you're right.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when that comes down, because here's the thing they they want to be known as prophets, they want to be known that they prophesied they they're they're seers, they can look into the future and see what's going on, and then everybody will bow to them because wow, what they said actually happened.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is part of that whole power, uh, um you know, uh almost uh godlike mentality that these very powerful interests want to have.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh and so we better take it seriously.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yes, you are exactly right.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm not sure that the shortages are going to come from that.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think they're gonna come more more from things like the Colorado River driving up, uh drying up and Lake Mead going dry, and um and just just the the the the incredible um uh you know dryness that's occurring over you know much of the much of the far west, which actually you know creates a lot of the grain that goes into the the um you know the factory houses.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: So um I don't I don't know what's coming down the pike.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: I do know this, that uh that you have a lot better chance of having food security if you have a relationship with your farmer and a direct link in the food chain than if all than all if all your foods coming from Walmart.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, that's for sure.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's uh motivation enough to start finding your local farmers and uh uh and creating a relationship, right?
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: To make sure that you have food security for yourself and your family.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, and then let's wrap up with this one last question for you um pertaining to this.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um this is in relation to the 87,000 new IRS enforcement agents.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm curious, um, you know, you've been a farmer for you know your whole life.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: Have you had federal agents ever come to your farm, like for inspection um purposes or whatnot?
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if not, do you think that's now going to change now that we have these new uh this whole swarm of IRS enforcement agents?
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, of course, the IRS is uh tends to be uh concentrated in in tax issues.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I don't think these IRS agents are gonna come to to inspect my compost pile.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the the it's all gonna be it's all gonna be bean counting stuff, you know, through through tax uh things.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: But they but they will look at the kind of activities you're engaged in.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um and and that will be an issue.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um we uh you know all the all the the bureaucratic run-ins that we've had primarily have been through the food safety, you know, the food safety uh uh arm branches or whatever arms uh of the of the government.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: But at a local level?
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh no, uh state and federal.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: State and federal.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, not not local.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: There there really is no local, there's almost no local uh food, food safety anything except, you know, health department, maybe a little bit, but but not not a big deal there.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um but but but I do I do think that there will be uh sure certainly increasing um monitoring.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why I tell people don't go down and ask for a grant from the NRCS.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: Don't go down all these easements that farmers have gotten, uh there's a lot of indication that those are going to end up in the public domain.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that a farmer can't, he's taking this easement to protect his creek or river or pond, and suddenly now he can't exclude uh canoeists and picnickers from coming on his land and using it.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, you know, they might see something and then and then you get report.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so uh um yeah, I I just I just I haven't been harassed by this, but I've done a lot in my farm life to not participate in any of these programs.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you you you can't imagine, Cena, the naivety of people who who think somehow that that extended hand from the government can can doesn't come with with um with negative consequences.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it always has strings attached.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: It has strings attached.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: And those strings, I think what you're uncovering here as you go down through here uh is that those strings are generally not very um not very conducive to a lot of the innovative, creative, ecological, truly practical, ecological things that that need to be done for climate change.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: You and I are both, you know, I want to put I want to put the the atmospheric carbon in the soil.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: Our problem is we've we've been we've been bleeding it out of the soil, you know, all this time.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: We need to put it in the soil, and we can.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's it's not it's not terribly difficult, but um, but it's not going to be done with you know with bladders over confinement dairies in Vermont.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that that's not that's not gonna be the answer.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and so uh so you can be sure that the true answers are not going to be seen uh uh by the scientists who have a uh by the scientists at the USDA or EPA or whatever it is, uh or the IRS, um who are who are are creating the actual implementation, as you said, of of uh, well, what does climate change actually look like on a farm?
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, what it looks like is is uh uh vegetation, organic matter, and uh, and it certainly doesn't look like bladders and confinement farms and monocultures.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like it looks like something um more akin to what we see in nature, the templates of nature, which is diversification, uh uh plant and animal movement, a lot of vegetation, and uh and a carbon cycling in situ.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's that's where we need to go, but none of that, none of that shows up on the radar of these programs.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's so unfortunate.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: As you were listening to that, I was just thinking, man, wouldn't it be great if they let Joel write the bills?
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: But then I thought Joel would never do that.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, just go out and show them how to do it and do it.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's right, that's right.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh thank thank you for bringing this to our attention, Cena.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: We've gone a little long here, but uh it it is it is a profound topic, and I hope that this encourages folks to A, start growing something yourself, B, uh get in your kitchen, start getting acquainted with food, C, uh get your get your food chain, uh, get your food chain links um you know uh solid.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that that's what all of us can do.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't take a law, it doesn't take an agency, it doesn't take a grant, it just takes us uh uh going beyond the labels of insecurity, beyond the labels of uh ESG, beyond all those, and um and and taking the reins of our own, you know, our own food security and um and moving forward with it.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you everybody for joining us on another Beyond Labels podcast.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to your friends about us.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh we're we are totally dependent on your uh encouragement in the broadcast and trust that it's helpful for you.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: See you next time.