This is Matt Matern, Unite and Heal America on KABC 790. And my guests today are Joel Salatin and Greg Wendt. Welcome, gentlemen to the show.

Thank you. It's great to be with you.

Thank you very much.

Joel, wanted to start with you. And if you could tell us a little bit about your background in regenerative agriculture.

So our family came here to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia in 1961. I was just, I was just four years old. And dad was an accountant. Mom was a school teacher. And we had we, we had lost a farm and Venezuela, South America, Dad had been there 12 years, mom 10 We lost it in a in a junta in a in a coup thing, lost everything and got back to the US. And dad was still wanting to go back when things settled down after the junta, but that never happened.

But that's why we settled in the Shenandoah Valley was to be within a day's drive of DC so that we could get back to the embassy and get there if things settled down. So we settled here on this farm it was a gully rock pile, arguably the armpit of the community and set about to try to heal heal this land. And so of course, Dad sought counsel from experts and they all said, you know, plant corn build silos, borrow more money, put in a feedlot use chemicals by fertilizers.

And my grandfather, his dad had been as charter subscriber to Rodale, Organic Gardening and Farming Magazine in like 1948. And always had a great big compost pile and a big, you know, organic garden and everything. And so Dad, Dad had that, you know, that that worldview from him? And Dad said, No, this is, you know, the chemical approach is not right. And so we set about trying to figure out how do you how do you heal the way nature heals.

And so we kind of saw some, some templates in nature, some patterns, we began using them with, you know, moving animals around using perennials, you know, composting, carbon economy, all those kinds of things. And today, we employ about 25 of us on the farm. And we service about 8,000 families, we ship nationwide, we serve as I don't know, what 40 restaurants, we didn't aspire to, that it just developed with, with great product.

And, and arguably, we went from the kind of the armpit of the community into, you know, an extremely abundant, productive place. So the beauty, the great part of the story is land, soil can be built, land can be healed, scarcity can turn to abundance. That is a fact. And I've been able to, to embrace that and participate in it in my life.

So how have you kind of spread this message to other people? And how have you seen this spread throughout the United States? And how can we encourage greater support by the government to support farmers that are doing the type of farming that that you're doing?

Yeah, thanks for the question. I think. I mean, well, I mean, I've written 15 books I speak well, before COVID, I spoke all over the world, I haven't been haven't been off the US now for a couple of years. And may never, you know, may never leave. But anyway, the the point is that I've certainly done a lot in whatever evangelizing for this for this thing.

But you have to realize, even though I've spoken to, you know, 1000s and 1000s of people, the orthodoxy has control of millions of people. And, and, and so it when people say, Well, why don't we just, you know, move forward with this. And obviously, it works. It's beautiful, it's abundant. It heals build soil, why don't we just move forward with it?

Well, the answer is that if this became widely embraced, it would invert the entire power, position, prestige and profits of the entire food and farming and fiber sector. And that's a really big ship to turn around. It just, it's just a big aircraft carrier.

So when you say the “fiber sector,” what are you referring to cotton and things like that?

Yeah, and wool and lumber forestry.

So, so all of these industries are affected by Big Ag and, and the use of chemicals to to farm our land and and of course, they get huge amounts of government subsidies because all the government programs pay people to to use that type of fertilizer and pesticides to to grow their crops. Right?

Yes. You know, if you want to talk about collusion that's a that's a true collusion story. And and so what we've got now is a kind of an unholy alliance a, an incestuous relationship between the between the regulatory and the government, the government agencies, and what I call the agriculture industrial complex. We have a military industrial complex, we also have an agricultural industrial complex. And those two are very much you know, in collusion, it's quite a fraternity.

Anybody that's familiar with the most familiar with the people at the head of the agencies, you see these revolving doors, you know, we're people in the industry go into the government, and then they come back out into the industry, and then they go back in and, and, you know, there's this this known as revolving door. And so there's a, you know, there's a, there's a mentality within the culture, that a if if we had food and farm from places like ours, A, we couldn't produce enough and half the world would starve. That's the first idea.

Well, why don't why don't we start with that? Why don't we start with that one and say, is that false? And what's the evidence to back it up that we could farm the way you're farming and do it to feed the planet?

It certainly is. It certainly is false. And, and, you know, every day we're seeing the non chemical approach, I'm just gonna use non chemical there's, there's a whole lot of I mean, if you if you just look at gardening, for example, there's, you know, there's back to Eden, there's John Jevons, biointensive there's, you know, JM 40 a, you know, in Quebec, there's Eliot Coleman, there's singing frogs farm in Petaluma.

I mean, everybody has their little, so I'll just call it nonchemical just to make it simple, you can use whatever word you want, but the the the productive capacity per square yard now in a non chemical approach, absolutely. overtops it overruns what can be done with a chemical approach, especially because most of us doing this or into diversity, were so so that we don't just use mono crop or mono species.

We're growing, you know, we're growing low plants under trees or, or low plants under under vines under trees, you get this kind of permaculture stacking concept of, of multiple things. I mean, in our farm, we grow we grow chickens and meat, chickens, egg, chickens, turkeys, and cows, all in the same field. In a ballet almost, you know, and this is nature's template, you know, nature had bison, elk, deer, passenger pigeons, prairie chickens, turkeys, and pheasants.

All, you know, all going across the landscape. And so it's that it's that symbiotic, symbiotic synergy with multi speciation that's relationally complex that creates this, you know, this incredible, incredible abundance?

And what about what about the productivity per acre? And what kind of productivity per acre say is a farm like yours getting versus a chemical farm?

Yeah, well, right. Right now, you know, we're averaging on on pasture for example, we're averaging over four times the county average. So, so, the the abundance the the productivity is through the roof, the fact the fact is, that the the, the infrastructure necessary to metabolize What Sir Albert Howard brought to the world in 1943. With with scientific aerobic composting quote, you know, the world was kind of distracted in 1943 was something else going on?

And, and in post World War Two, we had these huge stockpiles of ammonium nitrate and potassium and phosphorus that were all used to making bombs. And so, so when Sir Albert Howard said let's build a carbon economy and run our farms on carbon and compost, we didn't yet have chippers. We didn't have front end loaders. We didn't have water lines and, and the, the infrastructure to be able to compete with a little bag of 10,10, 10 leftover leftover bombs from World II.

And so I'm kind of gentle on you know, on our gray grandparents and you know if you'd lost a couple sons in the in the war and and you're on the farm and you spent your life shoveling, shoveling shoveling, the temptation to not have to shovel anymore for fertility would be very, very strong. But by the 1950s, late 50s, early 60s, we started having PTO shafts you know, a plastic water pipe so we could deliver water cheaply and easily started having front end loaders.

And then the little four wheel drive tractors came in chains on we didn't have chainsaws in World War Two chainsaws didn't really come into 1957. So so so from a carbon economy standpoint, we didn't have the infrastructure. Meanwhile, the chemical approach started to dominate the land grant universities It dominated the paradigm.

And so here we are now, with with with the the non chemical approach and the infrastructure support mechanism around the non chemical approach has finally caught up and surpassed the chemical approach. But the chemical approach dominates the policies, the protocols, and the educational centers of our culture, indeed, Wall Street and the investment, portions of our culture. So that here we are on the periphery, we've already run ahead of them in the actual production and land regeneration race. Society is lagging behind.

You're listening at KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, Unite and Heal America, and our guest Joel Salatin is telling us a lot about regenerative agriculture. We'll be right back in a break to talk with Joel and Greg, about how this technology can change the future.

You’re listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host, and we're just talking with Joel Salatin regarding regenerative agriculture. And Greg Wendt, and Joel, you're kind of in the middle of your answer when I when we went to break and I wanted to give you an opportunity to finish your answer before we move on.

Sure. We were talking about abundance? And can we feed the world and so we were talking about infrastructure, how the lack of infrastructure on a new idea like compost. And so I just like to explain to people that if we had had a Manhattan Project for compost, not only would we have fed the world, we would have done it without three legged salamanders in fertile frogs, and the dead zone the size of Rhode Island in the Gulf of Mexico.

And just to let people know, what we're talking about, and why that occurred is because of the pesticides and the chemical farming that has been done over the last in particular 50 to 75 years. And it kind of trying to pivot to where the path forward is. What What progress Do you see on the local state level national level, international level as to fostering these ideas and really having a breakthrough to supporting our farmers to farm in this way on a on a massive scale?

And is it is it feasible? And what's kind of the time horizon for that? Because we're we're certainly destroying the soil at a at a rapid pace. And if we don't kind of turning the ship around quickly, they're pretty devastating consequences, correct?

Well, yes, there sure are. And one of our problems is that as a as a culture, we don't have a way to capture the cost of resource of resource equity deprivation. Wendell Berry writes about this in, in in his material talking about what's wrong with us creates more gross domestic product than what's right with us. If I go out here and pollute the river, the cost of the cleanup is a positive GDP because you got to hire people bring in equipment, spin petroleum to get there, you know, bah bah, bah, bah, bah.

And so you know, if we have to if we have to build a jail, that's positive GDP, we have to have a new juvenile delinquency center that's positive GDP. And so we don't have a we don't have a way to capture the negative the liabilities of our national resource balance sheet. I mean, I think that's that that kind of is a is a way to look at it, but where's the progress being made? And you know, I I've thought a lot about this here lately. And as as a direct market farmer, you know, we're we're producing and we're directly selling to customers.

It may be that COVID is, is the biggest thing, the biggest catalyst for this possible and let me explain this. You've seen what's happened to the price of food. In fact, in the last 12 months, most beef has gone up like like 40%. There are shortages at the supermarket. We know about supply chain issues. sawmills can't, you know, can't operate. And so as a business person, I'm looking at this as a small business person, I'm looking at this realizing that a lot of this this scarcity issue is caused because COVID New litigious, you know, litigious environment.

And that is creating inefficiencies at scale. You know, we've been heard we, you know, economies of scale, you got to get big, you got to get bigger Get out, you know, we've heard that and heard that in, especially in agriculture for a long, long time. Well, what happens when you have we start having something like COVID, is that the, the internal precautions, you know, was quarantines and people out and people sick, blah, blah, blah, they they inordinately affect very, very large organizations, very large, complex organizations.

So those of us who have very small, less complex organizations, you know, I don't wake up in the morning wonder, wondering who's on my team that's going to turn me into OSHA for not quarantining properly or sue me because I didn't give them proper, you know, mask protection. I don't live in that world. So we have this little speedboat, you know, there's a, there's a business book that says it's not the big that eats a small, it's the it's the fast that eat the slow.

And what I'm seeing now for the first time in my life is almost a a capping, a capping of big, the it has become cumbersome and laborious in this new work environment. And those of us that are operating a little speedboat instead of an aircraft carrier, can navigate the disturbances along the shoals. And, and so at our farm now, where we've always been priced higher than a supermarket, we're actually price lower than our same products that are regular, you know, stuff at Costco.

That's never happened before. Why? Because we we are running on solar energy, a carbon economy, we're not buying potassium, we're not buying phosphorus. We're not buying ammonium nitrate. And so we have a lot of resilience built in that that that is overcoming the fragility of the big chemically dependent global dependent food systems. It's a very exciting time.

Well, that's great to see, do we see our governments helping farmers like yourself out and encouraging this kind of behavior to, you know, have our land kind of go back to being farmed in a natural way so that we don't destroy and deplete the soil?

I don't see much positive coming out of the government. And that's not a partisan partisan statement. I didn't see it coming out of the previous administration, either. I just think the, especially at the federal level, it's been so co opted by Tyson and Cargill, and JBS South America. And, you know, the big, the big PAC, I mean, it's in that interesting that in 1906, when Upton Sinclair wrote the jungle, and Teddy Roosevelt swore to break up the monopolies of the big seven, that controlled 50% of the US meat market.

So So in 1906, seven companies controlled 50% of the US market that was considered monopolistic today, three, three, control, you know, whatever, 70%. And that's considered free market, you know, we live in we live in a crazy time.

That is, you know, certainly our antitrust laws have gotten so weak that, you know, Google controls 85% of the search, and nobody's nobody's seeking to kind of break that up. But that's a topic for another conversation.

But I guess, pivoting to the finance issues, and Greg, you know, what are the things that you're seeing in terms of how we're financing farms and agriculture that might shift the world I know it, cop 26 the finance people are starting to weigh in and saying, Hey, we're just not going to finance the polluting industries. Are we seeing that Greg in the farming area?

We're seeing a little bit of that, but I think there's always room for more, especially in the direction that Joel and you are talking about. I mean, one of the things that you said Joel, that really hit home for me was, you know, the reference of the industrial complex, and look at the way industry is designed especially in the last 50 to 75 yours. It's and the way that the markets in the way that the stock market currently with publicly traded companies having to answer to quarterly reports and quarterly profits.

And that's that short termism prioritizing monetary gain over qualitative growth and qualitative value is missing the value that that Joe was talking about. And the opportunity that Joe was talking about with resilience. So this is a paradigm shift that Joe was talking about. That is fundamental. And if you look at this is neither a partisan statement either this, that the very incentives between government, government regulators corporate interest, what we have a, a, a capital market, short term incentive structure that incorporates for a little bit profit oriented short term activity to then drive the way that the entire system works to overlook and see, see very little of the value that Joel is creating, because it's not able to be captured by this global money, money Casino.

So the question now look, looking deeper is what do we do to restore real prosperity to communities, real value to current generations and future generations? How do we actually change the paradigm to recognize that what we've been blind to? Those are the questions that we haven't yet really addressed effectively on a global level. And the discussion around cop was finally getting the financial people in the last 10 years to the table to look at the environmental question and the question of climate change, mainly because of the not so much the opportunity that addressing climate change, but addressing the loss and the risk that might happen or is happening due to climate disasters.

So that that is what is shifting the banking sector and the insurance sector and the Wall Street sector to see how the suit disruption that climate change is causing, can shift our paradigm but I don't think we're going deep enough to actually look at the real causes and the paradigm problems, and also the opportunities that can be brought about by the adopting the kind of thinking that Joel is, you know, espousing because it's, it looks at real value and real, tangible, sustainable growth and actual prosperity. So I think that's really what we can touch on in the next conversation.

Well, I think that that is that is true that essentially, Wall Street doesn't value, say the long term loss of a farmer's soil. They're looking at the short term crop that is in the ground, and did it get to market this season? And they don't really care about well, is that that crop going to destroy the soil for the next go round? Or in 10? Or 20 years? Is that farm going to be sus tainable and profitable and even usable? And that's, that's the problem with the short term thinking.

So we really need to shift that dynamic. And hopefully, we'll see changes on the finance front because they're, they're essentially bankrupting the people that they're lending to in the long term. So you're listening to KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host of Unite and Heal America. Talking to Joel Salatin and Greg Wendt, we'll be back in just one minute.

You're listening to Unite and Heal America on KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host and back with Joel Salatin and Greg Wendt talking about regenerative agriculture and finance and how those two intersect. Greg, you've written a bit about this. Tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you to kind of green finance.

Thank you so much. I grew up here in Southern California surfing, you know, hiking, whatever and got into college biochemistry, math, computer science, economics, sustainable development, and 88 was the idea of sustainable development was generated in a term in this report that the United Nations came up with where the idea of sustainable development and in 1989 I participated in the conference, where I was a participant in this to create a report called as citizens response to sustainable development.

And this went to the Earth Summit, this report that I helped create, and it helped me see the possibility where most of our institutions are born out of the idea that nature is out there somewhere and society is over there for the social, you know, social sociology and anthropology departments. But economy is over here in the business school, but if you look at reality Earth's systems are life support systems include society, and society includes the economy.

So they're nested systems. So the idea that my economic activity affects the biosphere and the biosphere informs my economic activity is a paradigm shift in our economy. And then how do we then make that work today? Well, we have finance, we have what we call responsible investing, which is my discipline, where we help investors look at the effects that their investments make, and the benefits their investments can come up, bring about, and then look at managing portfolios in the traditional fashion, but looking through the lens of which investments are going to benefit the future generations. That's the essence of what Responsible Investment Management is about.

But you have to look at the larger sphere looking at economic development what what the Commerce Department or the Economic Development Officer, the Chamber of Commerce in your town we'll we'll look at is how do we look at creating a system for all the businesses that want to better the world to work better together? Well, those two disciplines of economic development and finance don't work well together, especially for places where like farms like Joe's can be really brought about and can be enhanced, they're better economic and finance activity.

So to look at the kinds of things on not only on a farm level, or a pastor level, but a bio regional level around every every farm around Washington, DC, or New York City, or Atlanta, or New York, or LA, all of those could be looked at as as a system and then looking at the economic system as a whole. And then financing the benefits of that system for better future generations. And current prosperity. One of the greatest things I learned from Joel, I've known you for years, but I didn't know how prosperous and abundant your farm is, and how profitable that is, compared to conventional farming.

If we can actually translate every small farm in our regions, we're buying for farmer markets to produce four times as many, many goods and, and, and foods that would actually help transform the economy and enable the soil and health of the people because there's less chemicals in our bodies and less chemicals in the soil. So that's an example of that, that 4x is something that investors would want to be part of if we can find good investments. And that's the kind of work that we've been doing for years. And I'll finish my comments with a movement that started about 12 years ago with our friend Woody Tasch, his book called Slow Money.

And the tagline says it all investing as if food farms and fertility mattered in, you know, soil fertility. So adding those dimensions of the kinds of thing that Joel was talking about, and farming quality and soil health, those things actually provide for long term value that investors want. But then we have to measure and represent and communicate that and actually articulate which farming practices are going to enhance that long term economic value. And then investing that, in other words, you cannot invest in it unless you can see it, and you can't see it, unless you can imagine it.

So if you can imagine it and see it, measure it, then you can invest in it. And that's the kind of movement that has to be brought about from the from the White House and the Congress all the way down to the local office that that Joel may be interacting with respect to government agencies or government support. But these dimensions that I'm touching on, obviously, each one of those hot topics could be a whole segment in itself. So I think you get the point. And if there's anything I can elucidate on, I'm sure, Julia, for sure.

One, one follow up question I had for you, Greg is is, hat are you seeing in terms of flows of capital into sustainable development? And what can our listeners do to kind of find ways to invest in sustainable development?

Well, if you go to the where most investors and most people who have savings in the retirement plan at the office in the 401K, or their IRA accounts, or whatever they might have in their savings, there are a handful of choices available that that represent these values in you today, the term is called ESG, environment, social and governance.

So look at the beyond just the profitability in a monetary sense, you're looking at the way that an investment affects the environment around the investment in the company or the bond, or in the way that the governance of the enterprise are we including all the voices, are we including women and minorities and and people of color and indigenous voices and perspectives to help the enterprise improve. And does this enterprise actually affect the society around it? And if we look at those dimensions, that's not part of the traditional economic equation. But there are many investments that incorporate these values. And that's called originally when I got into this field in 1991.

We call that Sri socially responsible investing, but it's evolved to what is called ESG Eat. But many of the investments are limited to major corporations on the stock market. And just by investing in a company because it's it, the analysts look that the environmental track record of the social track record doesn't necessarily change and encourage behavior, we have to change the way that these these valuable activities are measured. And that is more in the private market and private investments and making loans to farms like Joe's, or making investments in startups that are innovating climate change adaptation, or soil health technologies, or all kinds of things like that.

And in the last 15 years, we've been seeing that that movement grow of private investments that are somewhere between philanthropy and venture capital, where we're directing capital to enterprises that are creating the world changing solutions, but also very profitable and their returns. And that quality is actually being turned more toward regenerative agriculture, to look at the technology systems, like Joel's indicating these innovations in in in less harmful or beneficial soil or water saving or diversity of crops or, you know, soil regeneration or better farming practices for animals. All those things in the regenerative agriculture category are a growing segment of investment.

And also plant basis is somewhat a growing investment as well, to reduce the impact of factory farming, but the kind of farming that Joel is doing is actually benefiting the plants and animals. So there's a marriage between plant and also animal agriculture that really should be an underpinning of our future. And there's many different vehicles now beginning to form, there's not enough in other words, there's not enough regenerative agriculture farm investments for us to put the pension of California in that direction.

That's the challenge that we faced is the pension of California is almost a trillion dollars. And we need to turn that money toward these kinds of practices. But that's where we need to change the piping of Finance to be able to enable a farm that needs maybe $100,000 to get money from the the investors in their region.

So those are some of the dimensions of policy reform, economic analysis, economic tools for evaluating the value of farms, like Joe's and investing them with instruments like real estate investment trusts, or private equity investments, or private loans, and enabling local investors to be able to participate in those investments are some of the work that we've been doing for years.

Well, that's, that's great work and appreciate what you're doing there, Greg, because it's, it's so important to get money in the hands of people who are doing the good work. And Joel, kind of pivoting back to you in terms of how do you see this? Whereas the people who are listening to the program, or many of them live in an urban area? How can they participate in supporting regenerative agriculture and being a part of the solution here?

Yeah, so that's such a great question, because it does seem overwhelming. And I get that. So I kind of have a very quickly a three minute or three minute, a three, three bullet points. One is to realize that you vote three times a day. So you know, I encourage people when you when you look at the plate of food before you look through the plate and look at the farm behind that food, is that farm one is that the kind of farm that is that is making the world a better place for your children and your grandchildren. So just kind of squint your eyes, look through the potatoes, look through the you know, the whatever it is, green beans, and try to visualize the farm and the farmer, you know, behind that say is that what I want to support.

So that's one the next one is grow something yourself, I mean, it could be something as simple as a, you know, as a as a worm, a worm bed under your sink to take your kitchen scraps, it could be, you know, a patio mounted PVC pipe with pockets to grow fresh herbs, but just appreciate the mystery and majesty of life, viscerally in your life and just, and just the, the marvel of it. And then the third one is to just to build a relationship with a farm for many people, that relationship might only be a website, you know, and, and studying websites is a skill that you can develop yourself.

But But ideally, you know, take some of that entertainment, recreation money, go visit a farm and and let your kids touch their food, and they will build memories. And we now know that that actually helps them to digest better when they have a memory of their food when they sit down to eat it.

Well, those are great ideas, Joel, and so we're going to be right back with everybody in just one minute. You're listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790, and talking about regenerative agriculture, and we'll be back in just one minute.

You're listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host. And we've got Joel Salatin and Greg Wendt, talking about regenerative agriculture, and the finance sector that supports it, or doesn't support it, and how we can maybe shift that going forward.

And Joel, we were just talking about before the break, things that people can do that would help locally. And I know that there are restaurants here in my area, that source from local farmers and get all their produce from local farmers. So I think it's important to support restaurants that that are doing that kind of thing. And as you were saying, farmers markets and the like.

And I know there are certain grocery stores that support local farmers, and we should be talking to our grocers at probably about bringing in local produce and produce. It's organic and produce it's made, it's made and farmed in a sustainable way. What other types of things? Can you talk about that? You know, the citizens can get involved in and help support this revolution in a good way?

Yeah, Matt, I mean, you've given us you've given us a nice, whatever list of options there. You know, there's Farmers Markets and Community Supported Agriculture, which is kind of a subscription kind of service where you actually invest in a farm and then you share in the, in the produce of it for the season.

There's, there's, tell us a little bit more about that, because I think that's fascinating. And I think a lot of us might be interested in that. That idea.

Sure, well, the whole the whole idea of subscriptions. is a is a is a big deal. I mean, you know, in, in internet marketing now what everybody's trying to get subscribers to subscribe to their podcast to subscribe to whatever a curriculum right, you know, video curriculums, I mean, so subscription is a big deal because it creates repetitive cash flow, you know, you get this automatic, you know, check once a month, whatever. So, Community Supported Agriculture is A is a subset of the broader subscription base, there are numerous kinds of outfits.

Now, for example, we're collaborating with a, with a an unorthodox kind of an alternative doctor, a physician, who, who is trying to introduce his constituency base. He does a podcast, all right. And he's trying to introduce his people to good food. So he's got he's working with with an herb an herbalist to offer an herb line, he just started offering our, our meats and poultry to his people. And so these are folks who, who are buying pre, you know, assorted assortments of things, you know, maybe somebody doesn't want any pork, all they want is chicken.

So you make, you know, some some subscription type boxes. And people can purchase those you know, on a on a regular basis, you know, the day of subscriptions. Listen, I knew that this happened when my daughter in law, so, you know, I'm an old geezer now. And, and I found that my daughter in law and son for their family, they're on an automatic dial for toilet paper from that, every month, a certain amount of toilet paper ends up on their doorstep.

You know, I'm saying what, you don't get toilet paper from the grocery store, you just you just click and it shows up, you know, and they don't even order it anymore, you know, it just comes and so, so that kind of, of marketing continuity is like the Holy Grail now right of, of marketing and so with with the internet, with, with with shipping capacity, distribution capacity software now that actually integrates real easily local farms and or regenerative farms.

You know, that that has come really possible in a lot of permutations to actually just just subscribe to your food, you know, and and, and you don't have to go shopping and think about it and it arrives and is there and so there's there's a lot of efficiency, actually, efficiency of action, and just subscribing to a to a service that you know you need all the time. Are you going to eat next week? Probably.

Okay, so you just subscribe to the service? Are you going to, you know, are you going to get your oil changed? You know, next month?

Well, yeah, so you just subscribe to the service. And so there's there's a lot of fluidity innovation and opportunity in this ragged edge of what I call non bricks and mortar retail interface. This, again, this contactless, contactless retail has opened up an amazing opportunity.

For those of us who don't live near a city that we live very rural, you know, how do we access the city without without spending an arm and a leg on fuel to get there? Well, you know, the FedEx trucks come in anyway, the UPS trucks come in anyway, well, he's coming out, and he can come out and go learn, he comes out at the end of his run, and we load his truck up with stuff that goes to, you know, Atlanta.

And, and now you're loaded both, you know, both ways. I mean, these are efficiencies that in this in this ragged edge of the lunatic fringe of innovation, is, is really developing is developing rap is developing so rapidly, that those of us that are direct marketing from our regenerative farms into this space, the innovation is coming almost faster than we can metabolize, you know, and keep up with the, you know, with the, with the options, it's, it's a very exciting time.

So there, there seems like there's a lot of growth, so maybe that will draw the other farmers into doing regenerative agriculture, because they'll see the profits in in doing this type of work, and that they can charge consumers a bit of a premium because they're getting better food, I would imagine.

Yeah, well, you know, it's, you hit the nail on the head there, ultimately, all of us can, can, you know, express our angst about, you know, the way things are, but ultimately, the way things are, is the way things as the way people want them to be. And if people want something different, you just have to start changing.

So maybe in August, instead, when when the when the tomato season is almost done, instead of going on the Caribbean cruise, you stay home and you buy end of Season tomatoes from from from the farmers that are getting ready to throw them all away, because everybody's tired of tomatoes. Well, you know, you get all those tomatoes and spend the weekend at home making ketchup and tomato sauce and salsa, and you can't it and now you have food storage for next year.

And you've just you've just quit feeding the complex, you know, you've just withdrawn that that money, and you have created a new financial economic stream. It didn't take a 401k It didn't take, you were able to reroute to reroute. And when you when you realize the average family is spending, you know, whatever, four or $5,000 a year on food, and you start rerouting even 10% of that the consequences are major the the margins, the margins in the food industry are so tiny, that if we if we just say we are if our side, if what we're describing here, if it just took 10% it would completely revolutionize the entire food system, it doesn't take much because the margins are so tiny.

Well, I know that we're seeing here in LA that grocery stores that are catering to people who want organic food, non GMO food are expanding at a very rapid pace, because consumers are out there willing to pay premium prices for for good food. And I think that hopefully that's drawing more manufacturers and more suppliers into the chains.

Because there's there's got to be more demand for it and more restaurants are, are serving up that type of food. And I would imagine sending the signals out into the marketplace go organic, because there's there's profit to be made. It's going on everywhere. And I think one of the things that Joey were talking about LA there is there's quite a few CSAs Community Supported Agriculture subscription groups you can join.

And there's a website that I know about called Local harvest that has a list of all of them. It's a local harvest.org. And also there's a film about Joel and there's also a number of films about regenerative agriculture that you can find on the web and you know, in the streaming services will tell us about the films that Joel is a part of because I love to see it and I'm sure the listeners would like to check it out as well.

Well, Joel, you're in Kiss the Ground, right you’re in that movie as well.

You know, I'm not sure I'm in that one. But of course, the big one was that was Food Inc. That was that was, you know, that was the big one. And, you know, it was up for for some sort of a award as documentary and we're the good guy.

We're the good guy in Food Inc. But about the same time a documentary came out titled fresh. We've been in Armageddon, American Meat, American farmer. I mean, I don't know we'd been in I don't know, what a dozen dwelling places was there a film called Polyface is about your basis, there was an entire documentary done on us called Polyfaces that was done by a crew out of Australia.

And, and so tell us a little bit about that one, as we wrap up.

Well, you know, these, this couple wanted to they wanted to get this message out to the world. And so they, they came, they spent actually, over a period of time of three years, they came three times and film for a week at a time, three different years to get the documentary made, and it's, it's, it's pretty comprehensive, has wonderful video work in it. But yeah, you can immerse yourself in this and learn and get the skill of vetting and discerning the best food and the best farmers in the world and patronize them.

Well, that's, that's a great message for all of us to hear. And it's been wonderful having you both on the program, Joel Salatin and Greg Wendt, doing great work out in the community helping regenerative agriculture and financing this type of work, which is absolutely essential to our survival as a species. So, kudos to both of you.

You're listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host and I look forward to having I'll be back in next week.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation contact 844 MLG for you, that's 844 MLG for you or 84465449688446544968.