C (5:54)

I'll go first. And just to give some context, Kiss the Ground not only was a film, it was a nonprofit starred in California. I ran it for many years. And then when Bobby Kennedy put out his first campaign video, I've told this story, I was sitting on the toilet late at night having a good poop. As Dr. Derek was saying, I was having my third poop of the day. And because I'm a healthy, I'm a healthy guy. And I found myself weeping tear just weeping down my face because I could tell what I'm good at is spotting authenticity and spotting heart and something that is true. And I had met Bobby Kennedy personally. Someone had put us together for a dinner party some years before that. So I'd known about him. I had been inspired by his leadership through the pandemic and him writing the real Anthony Fauci and just being a champion for free speech and for the corruption and. And so I got a call that next day after I put up that video of me on the toilet crying, saying, a psychic once told me that my life or my job in life is to point at things and build movements behind those things. And I'm pointing at Bobby Kennedy for president. And I got two Calls that next day, one from the CEO of my company and one from a brand partnership that was funding our nonprofit, saying, you got to take that down. You can't say that. And so I understood at the time the reason why as a nonprofit, you're getting money that's not taxed, so you have to be politically not supportive. So I understood. I stuffed it and I took the video down, and I went underground for a year in my support for Bobby Kennedy, which then led to me actually being at a panel in Austin at Aubrey Marcus's place called the American Wellness Summit, where it was a fundraiser for Bobby Kennedy. And we all sat in a sweat lodge. And in that sweat lodge, I had this whisper on my heart, which was that people who I succeeded, I've succeeded in my life because I had good champions behind me. I had people who believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. And that there we were in this circle around this. This guy who was up for a big challenge and stepping into a huge sacrifice and who didn't really need to do what he was doing, and he was choosing to do so. And I just raised my hand and say. I said, I'm going to champion this man's success. And I invited everybody to step into that. And that following day, I resigned from the nonprofit that I'd been running and raising money for and had been my whole identity. I said, all right, I'm going to step down from the board, and I'm going to resign as an employee, and I'm going to let go of that, because I feel like this is actually, in this moment, there's a bigger opportunity for service and transformation than my own little, or not necessarily that little, but my thing kissed the ground, and so I did that. And there was a whole rocky road about that process of leaving, but I definitely went all in on Maha and got behind Bobby Kennedy, which then was getting behind Donald Trump, which for me, as a lifelong liberal Democrat living in California and been somebody who had run a nonprofit through the years of COVID and diversity, equity, inclusion, and I had been sort of slandered as a straight white man running an organization, and I need to be this whole. And I was just kind of. I had been totally mobbed by that narrative. And, you know, it was just. It was for me, a slow willingness to continue to tell the truth. And the more I was able to tell the truth, the more free and the more I felt better about my life. And so that's a long context to the question, which was, what are you disappointed in no, I know that, but really, I knew that government is. We can't. We're not going to count on things to change from the government. So hence my life has been, how do I be the change and role model and collaborate with Molly and do this here and be very tactical in the world of regenerative agriculture and walking the talk and being grateful for the hand that I've been dealt and if I can influence a larger ripple, then awesome. And again, I had the blessing of knowing Bobby Kennedy for the last seven years and being able to be an advisor and plug the whole regenerative world into his ecosystem and supporting him in that way. But I knew supporting him and getting into politics would be a continuum of disappointments, just because politics is gonna be a continuum of disappointments. And on some level, it's like forgiveness is like preloading forgiveness, preloading disappointment and then being grateful for that. The cat is already out of the bag, like, okay, we're going to be disappointed. There's going to be lots of things like, it should have gone better, different, na na, na na. But the reality is there's things that are happening and conversations that are happening around this country and around the world that already are a chasm of forward momentum for what the alternative was coming at the governmental level. So that's where I'll stop. Because I've been taking a lot of the air out of the room.

B (12:25)

I would say I have less faith in government than my brother, so my expectations were even less. So in many ways, things have exceeded my expectations of things shifting the conversations that are coming out about vaccines and all of that. But the two main things that are disappointments is that I don't see that the Republican Party as a whole understands that Maha is not like, it's not like all these yoga moms, crunchy granola, non vax yoga moms are like die hard Republicans. That coalition has Republicans in power. And it seems that it's kind of being pushed off to the side and not being fully understood in the whole Republican Party would be one thing. And then the other thing is Doge, I think did a lot of good. But coming in and like ripping out Grant's Dax is in the room, lost a bunch of money that was. He invested all this money to build this mill to get nutrient dense fresh grain milled to food to kids. Like, win, win, win, win all around. And Doge is like, took it away. And now he's like, wait, what do you mean? And so I think that there was a lot of good that was in bad bills from the previous people that was very in aligned with Maha that got pulled. And so those would be my two things. I think that we just pulled the rug out of a lot of programs that were maybe helping inside of bigger gross bills that were just earmarked grossness. But I think that we should have been more tactile in how we, I mean tactical and how we pulled those. And then yeah, I think that Maha does have to understand. I mean the Republican Party has to understand as a whole. I don't think that the Maha moms are like full on Republicans yet. And so we want to take care of them if we want it to continue this way.

A (14:13)

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C (17:48)

Yeah, the one other thing it was reflected when we did the event at the Heritage Foundation. Joel Saladin said thanks to Heritage foundation because he's been mostly disappointed with how the conservatives have not cared for God's green earth. And so thank you for bringing this conversation to the table here at that place. And then I think the way that that's being reflected in conflict right now, is there's a lot of conservative states that are all about Maha getting the sugary snacks and soda out of the food, the supplemental Nutrition programs, which are great. But those same states are totally on board for the pesticide liability shield. And so the vaccine issue was the radicalizing and the issue that's brought a lot of cohesion within Maha Maga. And everyone's clear about the playbook of what happened with the vaccine liability shield in 1984, or many people are in this movement. And now, if we just now input the pesticide liability shield as the example of the crony capitalism that Bobby Kennedy talked about, where it's not free market capitalism, it's literally the government making this special arrangement to where big companies who are selling products can't be held accountable for their products, then that's a big, big egg on the face of this moment. So I think that will be a big, crumbling stumbling block if that happens on this administration's watch.

A (19:38)

And I worry that it'll be detrimental to the Maha movement because that, to me, is the thing that I'm the most concerned about. And the reason I asked you all this question is because I think from all of the Maha supporters, we're hearing a lot of conversations in public about all the wins that we're having. And I'm one of those people. I'm very excited. I've been waiting for 20 years just for anyone in our government to just ignore what we're going through right now. I mean, we've just been ignored, completely ignored, until this administration. So for that alone is already a win to me. But I also don't. I think that the people that are hating on this movement just think that we're just going along with everything and we're happy with everything that's going on. And so I wanted to bring more into the conversation about the things that we also want to change and so that we all can come together and be louder against all the things that we really believe need to be changed, like, for example, the glyphosate liability or the pesticide liability shield, and the EPA.

B (20:32)

Is rolling back other pepicides that we've been made illegal for a long time, and now they're like, bringing them back. So, yeah, I don't think that's what anybody thought when they were rallying for maha.

A (20:43)

I'm very upset about that too, especially because Lee Zeldin in the beginning was saying that he's very concerned about PFAS and that he wanted to address them. And now we're reading that they're rolling back regulations on PFAs. I don't understand what's going on with that. And we may never find out, but.

C (20:59)

Yeah, yeah. And then I think, to be fair, I mean, for me, I can just speak. I was the guy who was gonna put that up on the wall. So clearly I was all in on the Kool Aid, on Bobby Kennedy.

A (21:13)

I'm for it.

C (21:16)

He's just one guy in a big matrix swamp. And so the idea that we can expect agriculture to be reformed, which is not even something he's overseeing in management on, is over. We have too many expectations. And of course I want that. That's my area of interest. That's what I've been championing to be changed. But we also, that's. And again, I was in D.C. and I was at a soil Health roundtable with Bobby Kennedy and Secretary Rollins, and it was some industry people and then a few regenerative farmers. And Bobby says, as he said a bunch of times, Brooke Rollins is the best Secretary of Ag this country has ever had. And I literally called him that night and said, are you kissing her ass by saying that or are you to tell me like, really? I'm so sincere, like, what's going on? And he said, no, she actually is curious. And you know, what he explained to me is similar to the vaccine issue. Most people for a long time have thought the absolute bedrock of health for this country and around the world. For public health, we need that vaccine schedule. And that's an impermeable surface of, you know, narrative. And that's every most smart people were. And so where she stands is most of the information and most of the smart people who are talking to her and vying for her attention and putting money and influence, they believe in the green revolution and the industrial agricultural complex, as, you know, the superlative truth that there isn't another option. And, you know, I like to say, you know, Will Harris, Gabe Brown, Alan Williams, you know, these other champion regenerative practitioners, you know, in the scheme of things, they're a thimble compared to the ocean. That is this narrative and this strength of what is, you know, the way to feed the world. But again, on the other side of it, she was sent Bob Quinn's book. She read the whole thing, texted him out of the blue, invited him to the White Houses. Brooke Rollins had had a long two hour conversation with him and was very curious, interested and passionate. So again, am I a buoyant optimist? Absolutely. But what I can do is I can continue to say how do we put these layups of appetizers, entrees of regenerative opportunities to have her believe and become a believer in this idea. And I'm thrilled that, you know that A.J. richards got to go meet with Brooke and have a couple hour meeting and brought a bunch of other ranchers from the west to talk about what were some solutions that they saw and what was needed. And it sounded like he went skeptical and he left going, I think she maybe is the best sanitarian. Not that. So again, she's open. She's open, yeah.

A (24:30)

Which is. We can't say that for all of the ones before her. So something that I'm really struggling with. And I know y' all are both in the same camp as me. We all met when we were living in la. I was very far left, liberal, voted liberal my whole life up until this last election. And I've been trying to get this message out to so many people because I'm trying to figure out how we can bridge the ground between Americans because. Because my message has been exactly the same for 20 years. I created this whole brand around real food, real foodology. And I came up with that 14 years ago when I was super far left voting as a liberal and have always said, we need to get back to eating real food. My message is still exactly the same today. And how can we help everyone understand that we are all Americans and it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on, you're still being poisoned by your food system. And how can we all come together and realize that we have a common enemy in the corporations that are poisoning us? It's not our fellow Americans. It's not about being left or being right. And I jumped on this Maha bandwagon because of everything that Bobby Kennedy stands for. I've been following him for, in his work for 10 years. I know about him with his background of litigating against Monsanto. Like, I'm very passionate about glyphosate and all the chemical inputs that we're spraying. And I knew that I was gonna get hit with pushback just because of obvious reasons with what Maha has, with Maha aligning themselves with Trump. But what I've really been having a hard time getting out is how can we all come together? How can we help our fellow Americans really understand that this is about so much bigger than this stupid infighting?

B (26:19)

I don't know. I write about it a lot because I think it's the most important conversation that should be having right now. My mom's Twin sister worked at a natural food co op when I was a tiny baby. I've been in the real food space my entire life, and it has largely been dominated by the left. And now it seems like with Maha emerging, the left is screaming like, no, no, no. It's totalitarianism to take red dye 40 out of the cereal. Like, what? We have an opportunity to be a coalition and a soft landing for farmers to make the transition, and we literally have the power to do that because arguably, the left has been passionate about healthy food for a long time, and now the right is passionate about healthy food. But it seems like the left is all of a sudden being like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Trump said we should eat healthy. I'm gonna go eat McChicken Nuggets or whatever.

A (27:15)

Or, I'm gonna take Tylenol while I'm pregnant.

B (27:17)

I'll take Tylenol while I'm pregnant. It's crazy. So I just keep reminding us that if you're getting information, whether it be from your news, from your Instagram feed, from your whatever, and it's trying to divide us, then be critical thinking what you're seeing, because we all are being poisoned. There is no. It doesn't care if you're black, if you're white, if you're trans, if you're gay, if you're old, or if you're young. We are all, all being poisoned. And I don't know, it's the most thing I talk about nonstop is how do we remind us that we are all reflections of God? We are all here. And there's no like, they don't. There's no discrimination. We're all being poisoned the same. And I think that the underlying problem is that the green movement, environmentalism, made us have a mind virus that thinks we don't belong here. We're a plague, a scourge, a problem on the planet. And underneath it all, it's like, well, it's okay if we get poisoned and our children can't have children because we're the problem. And that is what I think is the underlying messaging in the last 20 years of the environmental movement. Underneath. Nobody said it out loud, but I think that's what they've taught us. I think they talk about children having anxiety about the environment. We've taught people that we don't belong here. And so I don't know the answer to exactly, but I think we need to remind people every opportunity we have the mic that we belong here, we're the keystone species, and we get to be the change. Government's not coming to save us. Nobody's coming to save us. It's each of us, every moment of every day and stop othering each other. We're all here doing the best we can with the information that we have.

A (29:07)

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What I was going to say is this is one of the things that I love so much about regenerative farming is that it reminds you that everything was built in this perfect design to all work together in this beautiful ecosystem. We're the stewards of the land, but the animals work so beautifully. And there's this whole ecosystem that nature designed or God designed perfectly. And when we work with nature, we get all the of these beautiful benefits out of it like healthy food and gorgeous luscious land and the animals are actually being taken care of and can live out beautiful lives on pastures.

C (35:47)

Yeah. I'll say it like this. I produced a film called Common Ground and our soil, the land that we stand on, the land that we eat serves everyone. It doesn't serve the left or the right. And healing our soil, healing our food is something that is an unmes with able, universal thing that people can get behind.

A (36:20)

Yeah.

C (36:21)

And so I think, yeah, we continue to share, declare, be examples of this solution and that this healing is a healing for all of us and for the benefit of all of us and that it is part of, you know, and again we hear lots of people say this, but we all, we mostly agree on 80% of everything. So. And I think the challenge is in the realm of communications and marketing and social media. The conflict is always the thing that is the thing that sells or goes viral and spreads. And so the challenge is even people who are wanting to be positive messengers can get lured into making the divisive or the make wrong communication because it oftentimes becomes the thing that amplifies the message. And so it's like I'm going to be a good person when I get famous. I'm just going to do lots of lousy things to get famous and then I'm going to be a good person once I get to being like having a platform. So I think we get to just continue to messages of love and unity and togetherness and not get tempted by the opportunity to be divisive, to be othering. Even when it does feel like a spiritual battle.

A (38:11)

It does. I think all of us, everyone listening, we need to all be better about having more open lines of communication with people, especially people that may not totally disagree with us and approach the conversations of love instead of, you know, I mean I'm, I do this too somewhere we get really defensive or you know, want to attack. And what I have found is when I lead with love and I go into these conversations with more curiosity and asking questions and trying to understand where they're coming from, we can usually find common ground and that's what we need to all be doing more of. I think because we've all been siloed so much into our social media and we're not connecting and talking anymore about these things. Molly, I want to ask you a question. You and I were talking about this yesterday and I was really intrigued to hear because I feel like you have some really good solutions to this. One of the things that Maha is working on right now that is a little bit controversial and I'm very for is reforming the SNAP program. Because what's happening right now is they're allowing, I think it's 10% of the income for SNAP is going directly to soda companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi. And we have an obesity and diabetes crisis in this country. A lot of it is in lower income families that are on welfare and snap. And so I'm very much in support of putting more money towards real food and the SNAP program. And you were telling me some solutions that you had around what your thoughts are on that.

B (39:37)

Yeah, so I wrote a plan for this app. Basically what I think is that if we made there be a base number of ingredients that anything could have that you could buy on snap. So let's say it's eight to 10 ingredients. Five ingredients. I'd want to go like five, but that's really aggressive. But then all the companies would reformulate their bread, their food, their everything, and take out a lot of the ingredients because they would be able to not be able to get that revenue. It's a huge amount of revenue. But then also what would happen is in these places that we consider to be food deserts, they would bring in more whole foods because you couldn't buy a Twinkies, you couldn't buy the chips, you couldn't buy the this because it needed to have less ingredients. And people will say, well, you shouldn't be controlling what people eat and blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm not wanting to control what anybody's eating. It's a grant. If I want to get a hoop house grant from the nrcs, I have to follow certain things. And then for me to get that hoop house, there has to be a hoop house at the end. SNAP is a nutrition grant from the government printed money that our children's children are still going to be paying the interest on. And so the outcome should be nutrition. And so what I think is it really needs to go down to very few ingredients in processed foods and then double payout. So if you just get eggs, milk, meat and vegetables, whole grains in their whole form, you get like one and a half times or two times for that. And at the farmer's market you get double. And there's already 15 states doing double at the farmer's market. So you can go with your SNAP credit card. You go to the farmer's market, you swipe your card and you get $100 off your card and they give you $200 of market cash, which is like monopoly money. And then the farmers bring that in and they ca for cash at the end of the market from the market, you know, whoever's taking care of that at the market. So I like that, I don't like government subsidies as a whole, but we have to understand that SNAP is the largest subsidy in the farm bill. And so if we're going to have that exist, then we should find ways that that money finds its way back to farmers because it's in the farm bill. It should not just support the deficiency of calories in low income areas, but it should also support the success of farmers in all areas. And so that would be my design. And then that would also take small towns like this is a food desert where we live here, or if you're in the inner cities, all those small stores would bring in more single ingredient things because then they would get the customers buying it. But if a customer can't buy the junk, they wouldn't have the junk on themselves or not as much. And so that would be my solution. You, it's controversial because you're saying you're controlling people. You're not, you're just. I can't buy a horse with NRCS's money for a greenhouse because greenhouse is the outcome that NRCS wants. I can't buy a cow with it, I can't buy anything else. So I think if the outcome is nutrition, then the, the guardrails for the grant should include only foods that cause nutrition.

A (42:44)

Well, and let's not forget, nobody's saying that they can't buy junk food. We're just saying if you want to buy it, buy it with your own money. If you're getting money from the government, like you said said it's literally in the name nutrition Nutritional supplemental program. So why are we not feeding them nutritious foods? The whole point was to get them healthier.

C (43:01)

And that was where the whole program started with the farm bill was that some huge percent of our country was post World War II was unfit for battle, unfit for being a soldier because there was famine and there wasn't enough nutrition. And that's where that supplemental nutrition came from. And again, we did a good job at providing a lot of calories. But now those calories have led to us being fat, sick and nearly dead.

B (43:34)

But now it's almost, it's more in the other direction. Now we have just as many or more people that are not fit to go into the military. Not that someone I'm encouraging people to go to the military. But I'm just saying because of obesity, diabetes and chronic disease, diseases in our young people. So we've swung from famine to obesity. And so we need to swing back in the middle. I think that of course we need there to be a net. And we live in this country, there can be a net, but it can't be a Twinkies and cookies and soda net. It has to be a net that actually is causing the outcome that the grant is designed to do. And I think it also should tie back into farmers because it's part of the farm bill.

C (44:13)

And it seems like that's, that's a viable option because there is a whole, there's a thrust. The next sort of big Maha announcement I, I understand is going to be a redefinition of what is the food pyramid, what is the diet, dietary recommendations. And it seems like that would make sense if there's dietary recommendations for nutrition and health then. And what the government people's taxes is paying to supplement nutrition would only be supplementing nutrition. That actually is something that's going to deliver nutrition outcomes of health.

A (44:50)

Well, exactly. Because right now the way that the nutrition guidelines work is they were majority written by big food, by food industry and so they were serving the purpose of selling more ultra processed food. So when we redefine what the dietary guidelines look like and what it actually looks like like to eat a healthy diet, that's all going to change. And then also too I was going to point out that a lot of what is supplementing SNAP right now are big food corporations that lobby to get their ability for people to buy their foods on snap. And so if we could flip that, we could also help. Another thing that I wanted to ask both of you all about is what's happening right now with the loss of all these family farms across the country. And what a great way that we could also solve that SNAP solution by putting money back into the farmer's hands that are actually growing our food.

B (45:37)

Yeah, I've been quoting 140,000 farms in the last 10 years. And Meryl west, is that her name? What's the Farm Freedom alliance lady? She correct ness. She corrected me at the Heritage foundation roundtable. She's like, I just want to correct Mrs. Engelhardt that it's one 170,000 farms in eight years. And then she qualified that by saying it's one in 15 farms is lost in the last eight years, which is a full on agrarian collapse that's happening. And so if we want Small, medium sized farms, family farms, to exist, something has to shift. I'm not saying like the government has to shift it, I'm saying we have to shift it. But like you're saying, this can be a suppression support for this and I know it can work because I have a family friend that I own a part of their land and they are doing $12,000 a week to low income people. They have to have nine different vegetables and they're doing hundreds of boxes. But it's like free for them to. Not free, but they're free to choose what the vegetables and fruit are. And it totally changed the game for them. And they were going to lose their land because the loan is in my name and it's a five year arm and the ARM farm is coming up in, in April. But because of this program they were able to save up $650,000 and they're going to be able to put that down. And even with their lower income that they have coming in, they'll be able to get a loan for that. And so they're not going to lose their farm. And so these programs can help if deployed in such a way that actually support farmers. But during COVID there was a lot of these programs deployed and big warehouses that are just like a consolidator were getting these big grants to do all these food boxes for people. And then small farms were not getting them at all. And I just want to say one more thing about snap. I went through two and a half years to go through the process in California to be able to take food stamps in my farm store for my CSA boxes. And while everybody screamed about food deserts and all this stuff and mothers with no calls cars, I'm delivering certified regenerative organic food to every neighborhood of Los Angeles. I have vans, I have refrigerator vans. When I finally got approved after so much headache, the first week we go to launch it, I say okay, well how do they pay with their card on the website? Oh no, they have to come to the farm. What do you mean they have to come to the farm? The person in the food desert that you're concerned that they don't have any access to food needs to drive 55 minutes outside of Los Angeles to pick up their food. And they were like, yeah, I have to come to the store. And they gave me this, some kind of credit card processing machine from the hundred years ago and was like, that's what you get. And I was like, I don't understand. You can buy Jack in the box with your SNAP online How come? And they said you have to have a volume for them to have it be worth it. You have to have a volume of more than $5 million a year. So they won't even let. Even if you go through all the hoops, two and a half years to be able to take to get access to that and give those families access to nutrition, food, they have to come to you. This system is just like not designed to support the farmers or to support health.

A (49:00)

Is that a California thing or is that a federal thing?

B (49:02)

I have no idea. I've never, I didn't come to Texas and try to take snap for sure. I was over it.

C (49:08)

Yeah, yeah. The thing I'm thinking about is there's. Because the Republicans are all about the, in the farm bill, 80% of the farm bill goes to SNAP, 20% goes to farm subsidies. And it's always this barter between the Democrats and the Republicans. We'll let you hold your SNAP dollars and you let us hold our subsidies. And that's what I've heard. That's why it kind of always goes through. But, and there's obviously from the conservative Republican side, they're always wanting to scale down the SNAP dollars. But this idea that Molly brings up of, I think there's 44 million people who are consuming food, getting calories, nutrients from the SNAP program. I mean, if that was, that went down to a five ingredient minimum of or, you know, 10 ingredient, that would drive a huge, huge demand for a different supply chain, a different food system. And that would obviously drive farmers. And, you know, it would. I mean, again, it's hard to predict how ripples affect obviously really great ideas oftentimes have a combined complete shit show of experience in the ripple effect. But from what I'm seeing in this moment, that could be a very, very powerful framework for how SNAP dollars could drive a different purchase and a different supply chain. If there was these sort of small, more, less processed food, you know, in that purchasing power.

A (51:03)

Yeah.

B (51:03)

But it wouldn't just drive health in people that are on snap because it's going to change how food companies are going to formulate in foods because they want to be having access to that money. So it's going to formulate everything differently. So it creates health across everybody. But I just want to say, just from what's happening in Texas with the no soda, no sugar, candy thing, I have a girlfriend that's a buyer for H E B. She says they're already rearranging the stores, even though it hasn't come yet, and putting Soda deeper into the aisles. They're doing no end caps of soda. They're only putting stuff that is able to be bought with the snap on the end cap. So no candy, no. No cookies and no soda end caps. So even they are like, oh, well, we don't want to put that on an end cap if 20% of our customers can't buy it. And so that being said, I think it would shift everything. The cascade effect of that would be health in many different areas.

A (52:00)

Yeah, well, and this is a great example. So I kind of live in the middle of, you know, I spent the last 20 years building real Foodology, really trying to build a movement with the people. Because the way that I saw it, because, you know, when I started Real Foodology, I was watching, I remember voting for Obama, thinking that he was going to do something, something about GMOs. And we had to fight tooth and nail just to get the smallest little label on there. And so I started seeing, okay, so we're not going to really change anything in the government. So we the people need to start demanding better of our food system. And Will Harris was talking about this yesterday, actually, that it really does have to come from the ground up. And I kind of live in the middle now because after I've seen what is possible when we get somebody like Bobby in there. Now, granted. Well, talk to me in four years and let's see what actually really happened. But I think this is a great example of how if we can get the right people in there that are writing the right policies that are actually protecting our farms and helping us with bettering our health, I think it's really cool. But my question, when it comes to what's happening right now, we're hearing all these horrible stats about these family farms. I am incredibly concerned about this. What can everyone in this room and everyone listening do as an individual to help turn this around?

B (53:16)

You have to buy from family farms. Everybody. I've heard people say it to A.J. i've heard people say it to me a hundred times. Like, what can we, besides buying from farmers, what can we do to support, like, literally just buy from farmers. Like, go to, from the farm, Go to White Oak Pastures, go to Sovereignty Ranch, go to Oatman's Flats. Buy from the farmers that are doing the practices that you believe in. How much of your money can you be getting from the small farm diet, the medium sized farm diet, the regenerative farm diet? Like, forget about, like what Brian was, was saying, forget about keto and vegan and this and that, like, if we can go with the highest quality food from the closest location or the highest quality production, like that's what you want to go with. And so I don't care about if anybody's like, keto or, or whatever your diet is, get whole foods from places that you trust, but that involves giving up a little bit of your convenience. And we're so addicted to our comfort. Like, we're just so into it. And so, you know how many people said this weekend to me, like, this is so much work. Why would you do it? Most things that are worth doing are a lot of work.

A (54:29)

Yeah.

B (54:30)

And so saving our small farms, saving rural America. I mean, look at Will as an example. Look at him changing the way he did his practices. Look at what's happened now. He's bought a bunch of the houses and other people have bought houses. The houses are getting fixed up. The whole neighborhood, the whole place is getting fixed up. Because not just regenerating the soil, but regenerating the community. And so we have to support. If we want cool stuff to exist where we live, we have to support it. And it has a ripple effect when true, true capitalism is like nature. If something is good for the community and it gets supported, it grows up. And if it's bad for the community, the community doesn't support it and it collapses. But we don't have true capitalism. We have Amazon prime with free shipping, and everybody just goes with free shipping because it's free shipping. And everybody hates Amazon, but they love free shipping more than they hate Amazon. And so we have to be our word. Like, be who you say that you are. I told Dusty, I think she's already gone. She's not in here. But I said like, thank you for putting your money where your mouth is. She invested a little bit of money in this ranch. She orders every Tuesday. She, she's dedicated and she posts on Instagram about it and then she comes and she tells other people about it. Like, that's just one thing. But if everybody does that, everybody supports each individual farmer where they are. That is all that we can do. Like, sure, call your senator, call your whatever, when some, the pesticide liability shareholder do that. But the everyday action is small farm diet, medium farm diet, regenerative farm diet. That's what, that's what you want to be spending your money on. What percentage of my farm food can I get from somebody that I know?

A (56:22)

And don't discount the importance of talking to everyone you know about this. You know, if your kids are in school, talk to all the parents at the school have friends over and cook them an amazing meal and talk about the farm that you got it from. Like it all, we all play a role in this, and we can make a difference in our own little communities. And it may not feel like much, but, you know, if you can get five friends together that are all ordering from Molly's farm, it will make a huge difference, you know, and so I. I just want to encourage people to. To not forget to. Also, you can have a ripple effect in your community before. I mean, I have a ton more questions I'm gonna have to bring you guys back on, but does anyone have any questions that you'd want Molly or Rylan to answer? You two have done such a good job of making yourself known, and people love to support who they know. And so as farmers and filmmakers, you've done an amazing job of creating community that allow people to even know who you are. And then AJ's business of like, oh, for the farmers who don't have the time to go out and make the reels and become more known, that's a solution. So I'm curious if there are any other ways that you have learned, just in the way that you've lived your life, to allow yourself to be more seen and more known in otherwise jobs that could have you be here all the time and not be as known and I guess cross pollinate across other kinds of groups of people.

B (57:45)

We're a good combination. I don't like going out. I don't really like being social. So he goes out into the world and pollinates the conversations, and I stay here and hold it down. And so we have. We're blessed that we both have different skill sets and different personalities. And he loves connecting. Like, I'm not super great at, like, connecting. When I first meet people, sometimes I come across as cold. He calls it cold fish face. He's like, I'm bringing this person. They're important. Don't give them cold fish face. So that I'm not as. People don't always connect with me or connect with my heart as easily as they do with Ryland. And so we're lucky that he can go out in the world and be the social butterfly and connect people. And that is his skill set. And it's extraordinary. And he, you know, look at the people that were in the room this weekend. You know, everything from people that have access to billions of dollar hedge funds to, like, someone with a 1.3 acre homestead, to the, you know, different farmers in different, all different sizes and then podcasters and then policymakers. You know, that's he's the one who has all these different strings that he can connect. And so I'm grateful that that's his skill set. And my skill set is building things in real life, like, not real life in that way, like brick and mortar. Pulling something out of my mind, an idea, and pulling it out into existence. Even if I have to use like duct tape and dental floss to make it happen, I will push it to the end. And so that's my skillset. And so the combination of us is actually necessary. And we both bring something that's totally unique to the table, and that's the blessing of the partnership that we have.

C (59:36)

Yeah, I agree. And just. Yeah, I would say that I had a mantra. My answer is yes. And my message is love. And just being really. Everywhere I go, I try to make a difference, contribute, leave a positive ripple effect, which then welcomes me back anytime I want to go back where I've been. But it also allows me to ask for favors and support when I need it, because when I'm present, I'm somewhere. I'm always trying to make it better than I found it so that I can then in the future, at some point, ask for support, knowing that I will need it at some point. We know that we probably don't trust the government to fix everything, Right? Which is why it kind of starts with us. So you alluded to the SNAP program kind of being a big motivator for some of those large companies to change their practices. Is that a large enough motivator to get, you know, your, your multi billion dollar corporations on board or are there other things?

B (60:45)

It's a huge motivator.

A (60:47)

Yeah.

B (60:47)

So Callie Memes has talked about this a lot, but the soda companies actually paid the NAACP to say that taking soda out of SNAP was racist. And they got NAACP to lobby for soda in SNAP as racial equity, which is crazy. So the level of lobbying that's going to keep people's products in the program is huge. So if they got cut out of the program immediately, they would be formulating stuff that could go in those supply chains and continue to grab that money. It's a huge amount of money. 80% of the farm bill goes to that. So you would think 80% of the farmers farm bill would go to farmers and 20% to food stamps. It's the other way around. And so it's a massive amount of money. And the food companies would have to shift, and then they would shift all their cereal or the majority of their cereal to have these ones that would be compliant. And so for me, I hate regulations, but in this case, it's not a regulation, it's a grant from the government. So therefore, the outcome of the grant should match what the grant is saying it's doing. Just like we as farmers have to. We're going to do a riparian zone. We can't buy calves if we're going to, you know, there is grants and we should have the outcome match that.

A (62:18)

Yeah, I was just looking up because I have some stats from a post that I did a while back. And soda is the number one commodity purchase with food stamps. More money is spent on soda, candy, snacks, ice cream and desserts than on fruits, vegetables, eggs, beans and rice combined. So it's a massive market for big food companies. And like she was saying, they lobby in order to have that food share.

C (62:40)

Well, that's encouraging. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that.

A (62:43)

Yeah, we're working on it.

C (62:46)

Yeah. And this may sound ironic and maybe foolish, but McDonald's. I said this earlier. McDonald's just put a fund of $200 million towards regenerative ranching. And there's lots of reasons why they could do that, lots of greenwashing. But as far as a cultural arc of where the system, we know that the system, the Titanic, takes a lot to move, that is encouraging that just that aspirational direction of what is considered the crummiest version of food in America is aiming towards this higher ideal of food production. And obviously there's a lot to work out such that that's legitimate and impactful. But again, in the realm of a life of trying to take little steps, that to me shows that a thousand little chips have led to a directional shift that is, it is moving the masses.

B (64:04)

And I just want to say, like, when you're out there and you're talking to people, I don't think that people understand, like in the general public that we have. The cow stocking rate in the United States is as low as it was in 41 right now. So we have the lowest amount of cows that we've had in a very, very long time. The Screwworm is just minutes away down the road, basically. And we are a full net importer of food. We don't grow enough food for ourselves. And we are in a very, very precarious position. And you guys may go to the grocery store and feel very safe. But I'm going to let you know that right now there is millions of farms freaking out because not one single order of soybeans has been put in from China. Not one order. And they buy 60% of all the soybeans in the world. So even if we get all of the rest of the market and we're not because the other BRICS nations are also not buying from us, where are we going to sell all these soybeans? We've already put it in every single product that we can put it into and where. And then what happens to these farmers that have leveraged whatever haven't paid. They pay their mortgage once a year when they get their soybean crop and we don't have a market for it. Like, we're in a very precarious position. We don't have enough cows. We're importing everything. We're exporting corn and soy all around the world. We're going to be in a situation where we're just eating corn and soy that we can't sell anywhere else. And if some like, and I'm not trying to be like fearful, like there's a legitimate agrarian collapse happening and it seems to me that the average person seems not concerned at about our cattle stocking rates, about farm's ability to profit, any of it. It seems like herb is like. I mean people have even posted like, what are you so worried about? Everything you need is at the grocery store.

A (65:54)

Wow.

B (65:55)

And so we are very disconnected as a culture and we're in a very precarious position right now. And farmers are. Very many farmers are on the edge of losing their farms and ranches. And I just think that we need we not in a fear way. Fear is not going to help us. But in a. I am responsible. I am a cell in the body of the whole. And how can I support that whole.

C (66:23)

If you, if you could speak directly to secretary Rawlins, what are like just a few general guidelines that you would ask or you would, you know, recommend to how we get to a more sustainable place with our food supply.

B (66:42)

I don't really believe on putting more big subsidy boxes on top of more big subsidy boxes on top of more big subsidy boxes. But if I was to move around subsidies that were already there, I think we need to let people that are transitioning and doing other things still have crop insurance. I think the crop insurance whole thing probably needs to be redone. It has people stuck. I'll give you an example. I have a farmer next door to me in California. I didn't see her harvest avocados for the last. I don't know how many years? And there's a certain amount of years she can claim insurance and not. And she only claims harvest avocados the year that she has to before she can't claim insurance again. So literally it's a scam. Like she's buying this insurance. AJ was telling me about another thing where you buy like drought insurance. You have one cow with a brand and then there's all these ways that this drought, that this insurance is being used. So I think there is money that could be moved around. But one of the main things I would say is that we need more grazing ground. We need more young people to have access to places to graze cows. So one of my. We definitely shouldn't take away BLM land. But in states like Texas where there is no BLM land, I think opening up rich people's land, giving them a subsidy that's greater than just a wildlife exemption, so it's valuable enough for them to let someone graze their land. There's tons of private land that we could be grazing cows on in the state of Texas. That's all under wildlife exemption. And to get a wildlife exemption, you just need to put GMO corn in a corn feeder and put water out. And now you're exempt and you get the same exact tax benefit as if you're grazing cow. The, the tax benefit that I get from moving my cows every single day and what I want to wada is exactly the same as the person putting GMO corn from the gas station in a spinner thing and throwing it out every once a day and filling a trough for the deer. Same same. And so I think that there should be a greater benefit to having edible cows or other bovine that are edible on your land. Would be one thing that I think that she should look at. And there's so much in the system that's broken that I, I'm not smart enough to do her job. The truth is like I'm not smart enough to do her job. And I don't think that I should. But I do think a financial product similar to what we do for veterans, like where it's like 0 down or a low percent down and 1 2% interest. Low interest. If we had a getting into land program, a financial product similar to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and first time buyers, we do it for military, we do it for first time buyers. But when you want to buy land, you need to put 30% down so people can't get onto land. Farmers are aging out. And so how. And then the kids that don't want to farm the land is expensive. They're selling it. So how do we get people to get onto land? We can't get people to come up with a million dollars, two million dollars to put 30% down. And so we need a lower interest rate. Like if you're doing this going to stock more cattle, you're going to feed your community, blah blah blah. Have a special financial program that would be a like a similar to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or what we do for military. Those would be my two things that and keep it making sure that the BLM land we can bring up the stocking rates if we're doing regenerative practices. Right now the stocking rates are based on old kind of style of grazing. But if you're moving your cattle every day or moving your cattle very regularly, you should be able to bring up a higher stock density so that you can have a better herd impact and we can bring up our overall cattle numbers. That would be what I would start with.

C (70:34)

Yeah. The two things that come up in addition to what she just shared, I'm always asking advisors of mine what are the levers of change and Gabe Brown's version of regenerative transition through the regenefied certification program. Not necessarily that certification but the framework of transition of there's conservation dollars for farmers to implement soil health practices but it's just paying farmers to potentially do no till or putting cover crops but there's no outcomes. So there's a lot of people that do something. They apply, they get some money and they don't necessarily have the educational context and they maybe put a little bit of COVID crop on the field, they put the rest in their pocket and then there's not the ecological benefit, they don't actually see the benefit and in turn it's wasted money inside of Whereas his estimation is that 15% of growers who are going to conservation programs, many of them fall out of those programs because they're not seeing the benefits. Whereas farmers who are utilizing his services 85, 90% who come into their program are succeeding in the implementation. So improving the technical training at the nrcs. Right now the technical training at the NRCS has been influenced by the chemical agriculture apparatus. So their influence, their education, their conviction, their support for growers seems to not necessarily have people succeeding and continuing to get better. So improving that technical training and and then the stimulation and the funding for conservation programs or regenerative agricultural programs having there be an attachment to you get more money if you're showing that there's an outcome that is being delivered on for, you know, for that, for those dollars that have been given to, to apply those practices.

A (72:51)

I think we're out of time anyway, so we'll have to wrap up here. But thank you guys both so much. And I just both want to say, or I want to say to both of you, thank you so much for all the work that you're doing. Thank you for bringing this community of people together. Thank you for being loud. Thank you for telling the truth, both of you. It's more needed than ever. And when you get up here and you tell the truth, you also give everybody else permission to do the same. And it has a ripple effect on our society. And I just want to say that you're doing amazing work and you're inspiring so many people. Thank you.

B (73:20)

Thank you all for coming.

A (73:24)

Foreign thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology Podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com see you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first. If you struggle with bloating, gas constipation, digestive issues, yeast overgrowth, well, you may already know about Digest this. It's the podcast hosted by me, Bethany Cameron, also known as Little Sipper on Instagram. I dove into gut health, nutrition, the food industry, and drawing from my own experience, I break down what's good, what's bad, and what's the best for your gut, your skin, and so much more. I even offer gut friendly recipes. New episodes every Monday and Wednesday. Produced by Wellness Loud.