The Meat Mafia Podcast

Part 1
===

[00:00:00] Cody, welcome to the Meat Mafia Podcast, man. Pumped to have you on. Hey, great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So we've been going back and forth for a little while now and, um, we're just really excited to get you on because you have such a great thing going with the grassroots co op, educating people more on just like where their food is coming from, the importance of quality food and really just like in general, like what's happening with the food system.

So, Love what you guys are doing. And I think a great place to start would just kind of be with your background, how you got into the grassroots co op and what got you involved with farming in the first place. Sure. Yeah. Well, great question. Um, so my wife and I are both first generation farmers, so we didn't come into this as farmers.

Um, and about, uh, in 2007, we, uh, we got inspired by some of the work that, uh, Joel Salatin was doing, a farmer out in Virginia, and, uh, had read the Omnivore's Dilemma and saw, and we were looking for a way to, to make a living here in our rural part of Arkansas, which is where we live and, and farm now. Um, and we were wanting to do something that felt impactful and meaningful to us.

And so, um, we cared about things like climate change and animal welfare and trying to contribute to our rural economy. And so we got inspired by a few really awesome farmers out there that are sort of leading the way. and start, tried to follow in their footsteps. And so, you know, we started a diversified livestock farm in 2007, and sort of bootstrapped that up over a couple of years doing our own direct marketing to, to restaurants and individuals locally through buying clubs and farmers markets and those kind of things.

And, um, and pretty quickly started to see that, gosh, there's some huge hurdles in trying to get a Farm off the ground, especially if you're a first generation farmer, but just period, you know, it's just difficult for, uh, farmers to operate outside of the commodity system. And, you know, and we were [00:01:00] committed to going direct to the customer because we wanted that relationship.

We thought that was important to us being able to actually. Pencil out a living doing this. Uh, and, but as we tried to do that, we had a lot of support from customers, but we had some really difficult challenges on the processing and aggregation side of things. Uh, you know, we, we had to drive. It felt like we were always on the road, taking animals to get them harvested, going to pick them up.

We were driving three or four hours away. And so we just started to really bump into the hurdles that come along with. Getting a farm business off the ground and, uh, started to see just how broken our food system was and the gaps that existed. And so, um, that led us to eventually, uh, you know, we became part of a community with some other farmers and started to see, well, look, we're all experiencing these same problems.

Are there some ways for us to work together and try to solve those problems? And so that's what led to about 10 years ago. Actually, this month will be 10 years old. The co op will be, uh, we formed grassroots farmers co op and established that. As a, uh, basically a business that would help do the marketing sales aspect for the farmers and develop the supply chain that would connect the so go out and find those customers, and then they were interested in the product and then develop the supply chain that would connect.

The farmer and the consumer so that the product could get the animals to get from the farm to the customer's plate. And so, uh, we'd started that in 2014 and, um, you know, have been, uh, been on that road ever since. So. Wow. What an awesome journey and congrats on the success with getting the co op together, like 10 years of running a co op.

I'm sure you've learned a ton. Yeah. Yes. I tell people I've learned most things the hard way twice. So yeah.

I'd love to hear a little bit more about the transition from going from, you [00:02:00] know, what you were doing before to becoming a first generation rancher and just kind of some of those emotions and feelings as you're getting started. Cause I'm sure. You know, you're drinking out of a fire hose trying to figure out everything going.

So I'd love to hear a little bit more context around that. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, you know, we, when we got going with our farm, we were, I mean, I didn't know anything about, I mean, I grew up in rural Arkansas. We had like a hobby garden and that kind of thing, but never, uh, raising livestock. And so, and I actually, my background, I have a, uh, a degree in physics and I'm a math person, you know, so I didn't like, I didn't It was, uh, it was definitely new territory for me.

My wife had more of a background of kind of homesteading and was, and her family was a bit more, uh, I guess agrarian, you know, than mine. And, um, so it was definitely a lot of, uh, you know, Like a lot, a lot of hard lessons and also a lot of amazing mentorship. I mean, there's just, we were, you know, whenever I have a farmer reached or someone who's interested in getting into farming, reach out to me.

You know, I say, go find mentors, go find people that you can spend some time on their farm, make sure you like doing it, uh, find people that can help you figure out how to do this stuff. And so, uh, there's a lot of great resources now, more now than there were when we got started. But, uh, it was, uh, it was definitely, um, A wild time.

And really, I think what kept giving us like. Like we would, uh, the, the consumer side, that connection to the customer and the desire from the customer side of things for the product is really what, when we had hard times of trying to figure out, well, gosh, uh, we can't find a processing plant or, you know, we've, um, you know, we got to.

You know, at one point, we actually owned zero land when we started, so we were leasing land, uh, and pretty quickly outgrew that. We had to move 30 miles away to a new farm, and that was a huge deal. And, uh, and so it was very exciting, very, like, A very, really [00:03:00] wild ride. And, uh, certainly that, that encouragement from the, the customers that were so dedicated to us was really one of the core things that kept us really excited and motivated to, to keep moving forward.

how did you feel like your, your customers were connecting with you guys? Was it on the food quality side of things was on the environmental aspects? Like why were your customers initially coming to you guys? Well, I would say initially it was just, uh, they were, they, they wanted a connection to their farmer.

And I think that sort of goes. Like at the core of that is they want to trust and know the people that are raising their food. They want to trust where that comes from and they want to support, uh, they wanted to support, uh, farmers in their backyard. And, and so, um, you know, and I would say that like, as we've grown, especially with the co op, um, we, you know, we're, we're selling nationally now at the time we were selling just, uh, within, you know, 150 miles of our farm.

Uh, and at this stage, The customers that we get are really health motivated. Um, and you know, it's, it's health and trust and where the food's coming from. And then, you know, a lot of customers often have had some sort of health challenge coming into it, sort of like a moment where it's like they have sort of a wake up where it's like, gosh, I got to change what I'm putting into my body because, uh, that's one way I can help ensure that I stay as healthy as possible.

And so, or my family, you know, I'm going to feed my family, good food that I can trust. And then, and then on top of that. You know, there's things like, well, we def, they care about farmers making a decent living. They care about the environmental benefits of the kind of farming that we do. They care about the animal welfare side.

But in those early days, it was really, um, you know, it was very, it was just very, um, there were folks who would, You know, we would meet face to face at the farmer's market. And so it was just a really, uh, they [00:04:00] almost, a lot of them became friends for, you know, uh, and, and customers that we still have today.

So, wow. Yeah. You mentioned earlier the competition against conventional food and just what's happening in the more industrialized parts of the food system. And I'd love to just get your take on what that actually looks like from someone who's, you know, Bootstrapping a farm bootstrapping a co op trying to get this, uh, small more decentralized farm farming operation off the ground.

What does that competition actually look and feel like? Yeah. Um, well, you know, I would say that. It's um, I mean, we really, you know, we feel like we offer such a different product than the commodity conventional market that it's not really the competition. It's more of just like, I worry about the country depending on a food system that's so centralized and, uh, so focused on, uh, you know, maximizing the profit for the Come the, like the executives of the company and the shareholders over the company, over considering things like, uh, the environment, the health of the, of the country, um, the, uh, resilience of our food system as we saw in COVID.

I mean, it's, it's been brought up a lot, you know, when, uh, when that system really broke down during COVID, I mean, there was one processing plant up in, I think it was maybe South Dakota, North Dakota area, uh, that was processing, like Five to 10 percent of all the hogs and that plant shut down. They couldn't, you know, that was a absolute nightmare for the farmers, for the food system, for the employees there.

And so, uh, we have such a centralized food system that it's, uh, that's focused on maximizing profit at the expense of everything else that it's, um, you know, there's. There's just, uh, it's, it's very scary to me and, uh, it's something that I think is, uh, you know, you see less and less farmers. [00:05:00] Across the country, I mean, I think it, uh, you know, we're down to a place where we have a little less than 2 percent of the population is farming at this stage.

And the average age of a farmer is about 60 years old. Uh, we're going to need more farmers and I think, I think it was less than maybe 10 percent or the farmers are, are. You know, 35 or under so very few young, very few folks getting into this, uh, we've got to find a way to attract a new generation of farmers and it's not going to be through conventional ag because that's a model that's just, um, you know, you don't, uh, uh, it's hard to make it pencil out.

It's, you got to get really big if you want to compete and, um, it's just not a very fulfilling lifestyle for a lot of folks. So, uh, so yeah, there's a, there's a lot of reasons for concern there from my standpoint, and it's something that, uh, you know, we're very motivated. You know, when you think about, you know, the, the land across our country, I think it's like 40 to 45 of the land is farmland across the country.

And Um, you know, to put like, I think the national park is about like, there's about 3 percent of the, of the land across the countries and national parks. So, you know, farmers are caretakers of our land and we need to, you know, we need those good stewards out there. And, uh, and so it's really important that we, uh, support a system that's not just trying to extract maximum profitability at the expense of everything else.

So how much of the problems with the existing system are rooted in. Because you're a first generation rancher or farmer coming from kind of the outside looking in. So you're able to actually like circumvent the education process that a lot of farmers go through. Which to me feels a lot more like ingraining these farmers and preparing them to just be a part of the conventional system.

So, I'm encouraged by people like yourself and, you know, some other people that we've had on the [00:06:00] show who have come in from an outsider's perspective and brought this fresh innovation into farming and are so passionate about changing the food system. But I do see this dichotomy between the system that is failing right now.

Is just self perpetuating. So like, can we get enough people aware of the fact that we kind of need outsiders and people who are like doing other things right now to start contributing. Yeah, yeah, that's a really great point. And I think that, I mean, certainly the, the agricultural policy across the country does sort of push us towards big ag.

You know, it's heavily subsidized. Um, and, uh, you know, there's a push that direction. I think that the thing that inspires me the most is the power that consumers have to vote with their fork, uh, able to drive change in the food system. So I think that's, you know, ultimately the thing that's going to drive all the change here is going to be.

Moving this direction and so, um, you know, I think that's where I look for the real, you know, because if, if farmers have a market for this product, like, it's not easy to make a transition. If you're doing one type of farming, say, you're raising chickens and chicken houses, and you're going to move to a pasture poultry system.

That's not all that's not easy. And you likely have a lot of debt. involved in the, uh, you know, the conventional poultry system and, you know, making that transition is very, very difficult to do, but if there's a consumer demand for it. People will find a way to make that transition and when I go going back to that point around a new generation of farmers when they're over the next 10 to 15 years, they're going to need a lot more farmers that come in to the picture here and so hopefully a lot more of those farmers are thinking outside the box and there's.

You know, systems they can plug into or opportunities they can plug into that will, um, you know, be more in line with the regenerative agriculture system. And, uh, it's been kind of 1 of our goals with the co op. We [00:07:00] work with about 50 farms at this stage, and, you know, we've, we've wanted to build a system where we could go out and help.

educate consumers, connect those, those, uh, consumers to, to farmers that are raising livestock in a regenerative way, and then make it easy for those farmers to get their product to those customers. And so that's ultimately what grassroots does every day is we go out and we we're educating customers. We are supporting farmers, helping develop the infrastructure that's needed to help, uh, you know, get the animals processed or, uh, get the, you know, the product from the farm to the processor and, uh, and even, you know, training the farmers, helping the farmers get access to, uh, the infrastructure and resources they need to be able to grow and expand their farms.

So, you know, I think there's, um, you know, we've, we've taken the approach of, you know, uh, a collaborative approach where. Farmers working together can help sort of tackle some of these bigger, more gnarly food system issues than just one individual farm trying to go it alone. So, what do you think the points are on the education side that.

are most important for the consumer to understand, like when you guys think about education, what are you guys really trying to drive home with your message? Yeah. Yeah. So I think, uh, one of the, there's a couple of things that immediately come to mind. One is the nutrient density, you know, just, uh, you know, we've had our meat tested, you know, the, Uh, in different ways, and I think there's a lot of interesting, uh, technology coming out, uh, that's going to help make that easier for consumers to digest and understand, but just the quality of the meat and the nutrient density of the meat being produced on a farm like the farms that are part of grassroots is just, uh, uh, so much higher and better.

So the nutrient density side is one message that we really focus on, uh, the, uh, You know, the, um, the lack of use of antibiotics and, you know, [00:08:00] um, you know, bleach in the, in the water to soak the chickens in. So just being really transparent about, you know, Hey, here's how the industrial food system does it.

We're doing some things differently. Here's what they are. So really educating customers around, um, how we're taking very mindful steps to keep the product as, uh, clean and chemical free as possible. Um, and then talking about the eating experience. Connecting them to the farmer story. So they, uh, I mean, people, you know, the, uh, out of all the labels and certifications out there, the thing that trumps everything is being able to know your farmer.

And, and so, you know, we, we encourage. Customers everywhere to just whenever possible go direct to the farm, you know, go direct to the farmer that's going to have the biggest impact out of anything you can do, you will learn a lot, you'll develop a relationship that could last forever. And, and it's a, you know, it'll have a really meaningful impact on that farmer.

And that's really what we're trying to do we're owned by farmers, and we're connecting. You know, those farmers directly to customers. And then we educate on the environmental side. So things like, uh, um, how our practices improve the organic matter in the soil and how that helps sequester more carbon, how that helps retain more, um, more water.

Um, and so for instance, for every one percentage point of organic matter that you increase, uh, in an acre of soil, that Acre of soil can hold an additional 20, 000 gallons of water when it rains. And so, um, you know, as we are facing more and more climate change issues, um, you know, it's getting drier and drier across the country.

Uh, it's, uh, that kind of thing is really important to helping us create a more resilient food system. So, you know, it's really just trying to tackle all those things around animal welfare. health benefits, um, the, uh, environmental benefits, and then also the, the impact that we're having on these rural communities.

[00:09:00] Yeah. I love that you finished on the impact on rural communities because it's something that I personally feel pretty strongly about, especially with some of the things I've been reading lately around kind of like mental health and how, um, the farming community is actually like three and a half times more likely to die from suicide than the general population.

And that's just one small anecdote of, you know, how burdensome, um, the system has made it to become a farmer, um, from carrying a ton of debt to doing work that is competing against multinational companies where the consumers have grown so distant from the food system that they don't know the difference between really high quality food and what they're getting versus, you know, something they can pick up at the grocery store.

So. I'd love for you to talk about that, you know, you know, rural revival, so to speak. Do you see that happening? Yes. And I think that's, uh, you know, if I were to sort of distill Like, I, there's a lot of things about this lifestyle and the work that we do. That's very meaningful to me, but probably one of the things that's the most meaningful is the, uh, the rural economic impact, the rural revival that you mentioned.

I, that's something that I grew up in rural Arkansas. Um, you know, we live in one of the poorest parts of the country. You know, we live in a County that's got, um, I think, you know, the median incomes, like, 25, 000 or something like that. So it's just, it's very, very difficult to make a living here. Uh, and you know, in many ways, rural America tends to get left behind, you know, it doesn't have it's a, and so, and this kind of farming is actually one of, you know, the, the few ways that I can see to really create meaningful, deep economic impact in these rural communities.

And, um, and you know, the, so, you know, for instance, you know, we have, uh, Being part of a co op, first of all, you already have a little bit of a community you wouldn't [00:10:00] have otherwise. You know, it's, it's, it's lonely being a farmer because you're usually isolated and not having a community to support you is, uh, is really difficult.

And, um, and trying to go at it alone is really, really hard on farmers. And so it's really, you know, one thing I strongly advocate for is farmers, you know, Farmers creating peer groups of some kind because you need to be able to talk to people because you're right suicide rates are really high. There's a lot of risk in this business, and it's, it's fragile for an individual farm out there.

And, you know, and so when we Between, you know, the farms that we support and, you know, we actually have, um, we have, uh, a partnership and a processing business that has, I think, about 170 employees. Um, and, you know, we help that processing business. We're in partnership with them, launched a poultry processing business.

So there's just several businesses that have developed around the You know, the co op here in a way that's driving and they've or have grown because of it. And that's driving meaningful impact in one of the poorest parts of the country. And, you know, we have some farmers in, um, Down in Mississippi that produce some pigs for us.

You know, that's again, you know, it's Arkansas, Mississippi are always sort of jockeying for the poorest in the, the bottom of the list when it comes to, you know, economic opportunities in this country. And, uh, and so it's something that I'm definitely really proud of. And I think it's, uh, um, It's, it's really important that we find ways to help create opportunities for these rural communities.

And I think this is one that, um, has a lot of legs and, and, uh, it's a story that we are very proud of here at Grassroots. Yeah. Yeah. I, I really commend you and all the other farmers and co ops who are really like, Swimming upstream, it feels like, and I'm sure you [00:11:00] have experienced that 1st, obviously, have experienced that 1st hand, but just the, the level of impact that reinvesting in smaller communities can have and.

Not not outsourcing certain things to multinational companies, or, you know, the centralized system that really almost acts as a value in terms of just sucking out a lot of resources from. Talent that could be working on the farms or. Whether it's money that would be circulating through those smaller economies.

There's so many things that are moving away from this, these rural communities. So seeing small communities come together and be able to actually support each other, I think after COVID, that's one of the biggest takeaways that I have is that we are meant to be, we are designed to live in smaller, closer knit communities and food is obviously a very critical part of the health and wellbeing of those small communities.

So it just, it gives me so much hope and encourage and encourages me to That there are people out there like yourself who are, you know, fighting the good fight and really just like put, you know, putting their passion and purpose on the line every single day. Yeah. No, I appreciate you saying that. And it's something that's definitely, we take that part real seriously and, um, you know, there's, uh, um, you know, it's.

You don't find a lot of young folks that want to live in rural America anymore. Uh, and that's because there's not opportunities. And so, you know, we're finding that, you know, we're, like, I'm seeing farmers across the country who live in rural, rural areas that are able to attract, if they're doing something innovative, like we are, they're able to attract people.

younger folks or keep talent in a community that, uh, you know, you have this sort of concept of the rural brain drain where everybody just moves to the coast and the cities, you know, and, um, and so it's, uh, and, you know, a lot of our customer base, frankly, is on the coast at this stage. And, um, you know, one of the things I love the most is, uh, seeing these customers on the [00:12:00] by this kind of meat.

Then in the money is coming back to these really rural communities in the middle of the country. And I think that's, uh, to me, I know we've got a lot of division in this country, especially between the urban and the rural and, uh, in a small way. I think this is, I love the idea of this, like this connection between these, uh, the rural communities that we're working in and these more urban communities that are, that are buying their customers buying this product and being able to have those customers.

Those farmers connect and support each other in ways that are really powerful. So yeah, big cities aren't going anywhere, but it is, it's great seeing this, um, this raising of the awareness around where your food is coming from.