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The New Food Pyramid: How Your Farm Can Leverage New Dietary Trends
390 Plays1 month ago
Janelle and Phil dive into the new "upside-down" food pyramid and the massive opportunity it creates for independent Farmers to meet the growing demand for real, local protein. Learn how to leverage the "Make America Healthy Again" movement to build trust and demand with your community.
For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers.
00:00:20
Speaker
This podcast is hosted by Barn to Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person. Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer podcast.
00:00:42
Speaker
Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast.
Barn2Door's Mission and Impact
00:00:44
Speaker
I'm Janelle Mayako, CEO of Barn2Door, and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners are aware, Barn2Door has built software for independent farmers all across the country. We help farmers remove the middleman so they can set their own prices and maximize profit. We help them sell under their own brand and build a loyal base of local customers. Thousands of farmers in all 50 states are using Barn2Door to successfully run their business. Nothing makes us happier than helping farmers make more money, ditch the office work, and look like a pro. It's what we think about and work towards all day, every day at Barentador.
Meet Phil from Farm Advisory Network
00:01:14
Speaker
In today's conversation, we'll be talking to Phil of Hopewell Farm in Georgia. He's actually part of our Farm Advisory Network, and we've worked together for years. It's so great to have you back. Thank you. It's great to be back.
00:01:27
Speaker
We picked a juicy topic. I'm like, I want to talk to Phil about the new food period. It's important for us to talk about changes in the larger context in which everybody does farming and eating and everything in between. And there's some real movements happening that are going to impact farmers, eaters, and everyone else. So it'll be really exciting to talk through some of the changes. And I was thinking about today's podcast and I was thinking, well, I suspect because farmers are so darn busy, many of them probably aren't even aware Right. And so it's neat that this is occurring, but it's also good to keep talking about these things to hopefully bring awareness out there when there's, you know, a multitude of new sources and information to keep pushing the envelope on what's happening in the greater context, what people are thinking about, and then just getting someone like yourself, who's a seasoned, impressive farmer, to wax poetic, perhaps, or if nothing else. Right. But really, it's good to dive into key topics such as this. Okay, here we go. I'm going to read just like little excerpts. I found an article that sort of gave little bullet coins, if you will. And then we can talk about each of the little pieces because I just, I'm super excited to get your feedback.
New Dietary Guidelines Discussion
00:02:34
Speaker
So the new guidelines issued Wednesday earns people to cook more meals at home, avoid packaged food like chips, cookies, and candy, and eat protein at every meal. They echo the prior advice that fruits, vegetables, whole grains, culture, is secret, and nuts form the basis of a healthy diet, but they also endorse foods like red meat, full fat dairy, healthy fats, while taking a hard line against highly processed foods, added sugar, refined carbohydrates like white bread. I know you read about the new food pyramid, so what does this mean to you? Is this exciting? What are your biggest takeaways?
00:03:07
Speaker
I think that this is great. You know, and obviously i sell red meat as well as white meat and I sell tallow and I sell vegetables and I don't sell any highly processed packaged food. So I think it's great. I mean, there's many reasons we farmers do what we do. And one of them is like, i really want to provide food which is suitable for human thriving. And some people are going to support the food pyramid and then some people look for things to be wrong with it. Like, well, we shouldn't have dried meat or whatever. But at the end of the day... We can all agree, unless we're getting paid by General Mills, that highly processed foods are terrible and they're not good for anybody. And it's funny, since I've gone on this farming journey, which has led me to learn so much more about food, there are many things I look at as not just, oh, you shouldn't have so much of this, but I look at it as what I think it is, which is poison. I mean, they're toxic for your body. I don't want anyone's feelings. You might be listening to this drinking a Diet Mountain Dew right now, but if you are, put it down, throw it away. So yeah, I thought it was great. I really did. I will say i am a farmer, right? I'm not a nutritionist, but as a farmer, you're doing a lot of, let's call it science and looking at the natural world. And I feel that humans, we can thrive on a variety of diets, right? There are people groups that they live above the Arctic Circle. They don't even know what fruit is. They're eating meat. There are people, they live closer the tropics and they're going to be eating more fruit and things all the time. Humans can eat a variety of diets. But they all must be whole foods. This stuff we've invented in a lab is not good for anybody.
00:04:44
Speaker
And the health outcomes in our country are a testament to that. So I think that it's great. I love the new food pyramid. Good. Yeah, real food. Absolutely. It's interesting because the other thing I was noticing when reading up on this was it was created in 1980 and I was cracking up because you know how Instagram, et cetera, has all your algorithms. So what I get fed in my feed is very, you know, food related and everything else, but I get these memes and reels, et cetera,
00:05:09
Speaker
That show pictures of, you know, people in the 1960s, 1970s who don't necessarily even have a healthy lifestyle. They smoke, they drink, didn't exercise, nothing. And they're all thin and tan and it's always on a beach when they show those memes, right?
00:05:24
Speaker
And ah it cracks you up, but you're like, yeah, if you see pictures in the 60s, 70s of folks walking through the city of New York or walking anywhere... other than the fact that they're all dressed so much better, but that's a different topic for another day. They are all slender and healthy in appearance, if you will. And it's interesting, ah RFK was saying specifically, it's like the corporation sort of hijacked the food pyramid, if you will.
00:05:47
Speaker
But 1980, like, look at the last 46 years then and that we're talking about, and the health in America is alarming and astonishing. It makes me so frustrated, and it's such a disservice to all the eaters across the country. When they go to the grocery store and, you know, in my opinion, 95% of it's not food. To your point, it's sad and infuriating that it is so much poison and chemicals and altered genetics and the seed oils and the syrups. and I mean, you and I could go on and on.
00:06:16
Speaker
But it's sad because I don't feel like the American people deserve this. And I feel like the food pyramid definitely contributed to it. And I'm excited for hopefully some of the education and conversation at the national level to begin. And every single farmer everywhere who's talking about it, thank you, like yourself, to help people understand that health. isn't all the concoctions in a lab or all the things that barely resemble real food that the health comes from. know, I could all talk about it comes from the soil, but it just comes from real, real, real, real food. And I feel like this food pyramid is starting to acknowledge that and moving formidably in the right direction.
00:06:56
Speaker
You know, most people, it's not like they're looking to the federal government as their source of advice on
Influence of US Dietary Guidelines
00:07:03
Speaker
what they're going to eat. But the food pyramid is really important. And that is what then drives the WIC program. It's what will drive school lunches. So, you know, folks who really need help in getting their daily nourishment or kids at school, this will hopefully help drive you know better options for them.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah. You know what? I love that you said that because this was great information for me and I wasn't aware, but it says the U.S. dietary guidelines are updated every five years and they serve, to your point, as a basis for federal nutrition and food assistance programs, including school lunches. And then the next part of that is they shape what food companies make, which is another topic. But it is really neat. And this is the biggest shift since 1980 in the food pyramid itself, that it will impact school lunches, WIC programs, et cetera. I actually, as a young new mother, was on WIC. This was a long time ago. So when that was true, and I was so grateful for WIC during those years where we were just trying to get our life and marriage and family and jobs and everything off the ground, we were on WIC for a number of years. And I was so grateful standing at the store getting typically milk, cheese, peanut butter, cereal. I can literally see them going on the conveyor belt in front of my eyes. But I think, and tell me if I'm wrong, but today's version of that has started to include things like soda and some different things like that.
00:08:24
Speaker
Oh, Yeah. and And I'm no WIC expert, but yes, I mean, so does on there. There's all sorts of very bad things that you could get, which the government policy all ties together. I look at it like, hey, you know, there are things are driven by money and there are people who give money to campaigns and whatever from these big food companies. And we get things passed where that would help what these food companies are. Also, like we just pushed all this production of subsidized, genetically modified and herbicide and pesticide drenched corn. So like we got to do something with it. So, hey, let's put high fructose corn syrup and everything and let's put ethanol in our gas. And now I have to get special gas to go in my chainsaw or ah it'll clog up the carburetor.
00:09:11
Speaker
So, yeah, all this stuff matters. And
Regenerative Agriculture and Politics
00:09:13
Speaker
I definitely think I really am pretty anti-political overall because I have a mission in life to run this farm and raise my family. And so I try not to ingest information that I can't act upon that's outside of my control. But I certainly appreciate when any federal regime is talking about regenerative ag and healthier food and getting away from processed foods.
00:09:35
Speaker
I think that's great. So I wouldn't care which party was doing it. I think it's really positive and I'm glad. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think you're always going to have a combination of forward movement and things to watch out for in terms of looking around a corner at any given time. But glad that there's hopefully some increasing awareness. I saw, I think it was Will Harris on LinkedIn. I spend time on LinkedIn looking for folks that might be a good shit for our company. But he was commenting on the food pyramid and including a huge shout out to Beef Tallow. He was like, Beef Tallow made the list, which is crazy.
00:10:09
Speaker
It is. But hey, it's a great cooking source. And I recommend we produce tallow and lard here. And I recommend both to people. I'm going to give a Will Harris shout out. If you're listening and you obviously, if you are, you care about sustainable agriculture and food. Will Harris's Farm White Oak Pastures created a nonprofit, CIFAR, the Center for Agricultural Resilience. And I go and help facilitate some of the workshops and check out CIFAR, C-F-A-R. And there's some great things that we Talk about these things. And there are folks from the government who will come and learn about sustainable food systems there. It's really cool. Really cool. That's really incredible. How far is your farm from White Oak?
00:10:51
Speaker
A little under four hours. Okay, yeah, in the great state of Georgia. So again, folks, if you want to look that up, make sure to add Georgia to that search. Yeah, there's just great things occurring. One of the things I noticed, and I'm sure you did too, because you definitely have a marketing eye and a business eye, but I immediately noticed the upside down pyramid. that their way to frame it was literally to put the prior pyramid on its head and flip it upside down. And from a marketing lens, that's genius. From a business lens, it just indicates disruption, which I really do appreciate. And again, many of the same things on there, but with a whole different amount recommended per items, right? And then just promoting real food. I think that was one of the things I grabbed from that article as well. It was a Wall Street Journal article, by the way, in case people are wondering. But it was this Make America Healthy Again.
00:11:43
Speaker
it says, because last year there was a lot of focus on childhood vaccines, and he was pushing on, we've all been talking about food dyes has become something that was focused on. And there's starting to be more and more of a conversation about addressing chemical ingredients, ultra-processed food, sugar, seed oils, et cetera. What I'm curious about is now, you know, you can't focus on all things all at once, but it seems to me that This is increasingly a focus and conversation, which I think is, again, good for all if it's about real food and hopefully increasing local food and food purchased directly from farmers. But I think the drop of mic was his message is eat real food. In a nutshell, it's eat real food. And for every American, you know, again, like you're saying, regardless of political party, but I think. If you look around, you know that health is a crisis compared to decades ago. And I'm glad that there's a conversation about how to address that in a meaningful way and just eat real food.
00:12:39
Speaker
What a unifier, speaking of like whatever party it's from. I mean, if anyone disagrees with Eat real food. You gotta wonder why are you disagreeing with that? I mean, what a unifying thing. Hey, you might feel one thing about this teach issue, you about another issue, but we all want what's best for our own health and our kids. And eating real food, no way you could deny that that is a crucial part of it. You just gave me a good idea for some farm merch. We might make some upside down food pyramid Hopewell Farm shirts.
00:13:07
Speaker
There you go. And I do think from a business perspective for all of us out there who are working hard to grow direct-to-consumer farm businesses, I've been telling people and I've just felt myself like what a great time because every day there are more people who watch a documentary, read a book or an article or talk to a friend and want a local, hopefully regenerately raised, you know, that's what I do anyway. They want that more natural local food. And so it's just a marketing thing of I need to be able to make them aware that I exist and to once they see I exist and click on a button to make it as smooth of a process as possible to purchase from me and get my product. So the great thing is that they're there every day. There's more of them and I just need to get in front of them. And this will exacerbate that. And this will speed that up that, you know, hey, our federal guidelines, what's like that?
00:13:57
Speaker
That was one of my questions for you, too, is what impact do you think this will have on farmers? And I actually wanted to get your opinion or perspective on the different kinds of farmers, because we certainly have some farmers that have, you know, in this country, we have farmers where, you know, the big egg and the corn, soy, wheat, factory farming, I guess, commodity or big egg farming, whatever you want to call it, hurt. typically, historically, have had subsidies from the government, etc. And then that's, you know, some of their waste product is why we ended up with seed oils and corn oils and vegetable oils, etc.
00:14:30
Speaker
And I'm curious what you think this new guidelines in the next probably couple of years, right? Really, it's not going to be overnight, but what impact that might have on quote unquote, big ag and some of those commodity crops, do you think the subsidies will be as big or as prevalent? And then second question, back of question is,
00:14:49
Speaker
What will that mean for farmers like you? And by the way, there's a couple hundred thousand of farmers like you across the country who are selling directly into their local communities and growing things in a very different way than Big Ag. It's not a monoprop mentality. It's very much diversified crops or proteins and Typically, and I mean this in the best way from a stereotype perspective, but with responsible farming in mind in terms of caring for the animals, working with the soil, working for the health of their communities. And so, I mean, that's clearly my whole passion in life is helping farmers like you be successful. And it's such a privilege to do that. But what do you think will be the difference for both groups of farmers sort of near term and then maybe even as the years progress? Yeah.
00:15:30
Speaker
Great question. And by the way, thank you for your life's work of helping farmers like me, Janelle. I appreciate it very much. I think it's a wonderful opportunity for, I'll start with farms like mine. It's a wonderful opportunity because just more and more potential customers. I mean, aside from the food pyramid, they did announce that there's going to be, I think, like $900 million dollars allocated through existing programs like the EQIP program. is a USDA through that and NRCS, Natural Resource Conservation Service. that There will be, like I've gotten EQIP grants before. EQIP grants can help you do a number of things, fence out creeks, put in water sources. If you don't know what EQIP is, you got a farm, look up EQIP, go to your local NRCS office, which is kind of like a branch of the USDA. So there will be EQIP grants are for specific things. And there is going to be now this money allocated through EQIP for regenerative farms and kind of more at a general level of like, hey, I want to start doing rotational grazing or I want to do this or that. So you have a good opportunity if you're out there. And again, we got lots of great local farmers. They might not exactly be doing regenerative ag, but like call your EQIP, call your and NRCS office. And if you're doing regenerative ag, tell them, and be like, hey, I heard there's more loan dollars for this or grant dollars for this. They would like you to be the first one. It's cool for them. They want to do more of these grants. Get yourself in line. Don't wait because the applications are only once a year, so you don't want to miss it. Go take advantage of those opportunities. i think that there will be more dollars that go towards helping farms like ours. I think that there is an ever-increasing market to sell into, which, hey, it's still on us. We got to go take advantage of it. Nothing's going to come to us. We still need to go and do the hard work, but you should have a confidence and an additional fuel for your perseverance, knowing that if I go do the work, if I go do these things that Ryan, and my account manager, is advising I do, you know, that I learned in the marketing, grassroots marketing workshop, there will be fruit because there are other forces that are improving my audience.
00:17:39
Speaker
Well, I need to give a reverse shout out. Phil is one of the farmers that actually teaches our grassroots marketing academy. And so for farmers that are using Barn to Door to run their business and promote their brand and sell locally, we also provide a litany of resources, including amazing grassroots and marketing classes by Phil and some of our other farmers. But I want to stop here really quick and then we'll circle back and I want to ask about what you think is going to happen, if anything, with the ag or commodity and subsidies, et cetera. Yeah. But you've said a few times here where the demand, which by the way, is already great, but is increasing even more, if you can believe that, for local food that's transparent from a farmer they
Growing Demand for Local Food
00:18:17
Speaker
can trust. I especially talk to a lot of moms and they're like, if I can just know what's going into the body of my children, I mean, you know, mother bears everywhere unite, right? I love that.
00:18:25
Speaker
But there's such demand for it. But you're saying, hey, folks, we have to get in front of them. We need to make sure we're capturing that demand. You can't just be like, all right, great, and do nothing.
00:18:35
Speaker
You can't just farm and then when your stuff's ready to sell, expect it to move. If you want to do it that way, you're going to give it to somebody else and they're going to take a big part of profit. And so if you want to be selling direct, maximizing your profit, owning your customer relationship, growing your own brand and brand loyalty for those recurring sales, can you please, just from your grassroots marketing or you've said a few things, give three big bullets to farmers listening, like how they can ASAP get in front of this growing, amazing demand and make it as easy as possible for them to find you, buy from you, get the food. What does that look like if I'm like, yes, I want to capture demand. I'm a farmer. Tell me how.
00:19:11
Speaker
all right, Great. Well, first of all, I would say I enjoy the business and marketing piece very much, but sometimes it wears me out. There are many people who do not enjoy it at all. And you know what? If that is the case, you have one of two options. One, perhaps there is somebody else in your family or something who would be great at it, Split up those responsibilities. I feel like so often and I see, you know, a husband is doing more the operations and the wife's doing the marketing fulfillment or vice versa. So like can somebody else do it? Maybe it's not going to be your thing. That's fine. As long as somebody's doing it. Number two, if you don't have somebody else to do it, you're just going to have to be like, I'm going to work 30 minutes a day. We're 10 minutes a day on it, but you must make yourself do it. I will never forget. I was at this regenerative ag workshop at White Oak Pastures right when I was getting started. And there was all these farmers kind of like me, similar size. And I looked around the room and I thought, we're all so excited about the production We're so excited about, well, we're going to do things in an organic manner and we're going to move our cows every day. And we're all excited about this. But some of us are going to be able to sell a $30 chicken and some won't. And you know what? If you don't do that, you don't get to go move the cows unless you're just already rich and you decide you don't care about being rich anymore and you're going to farm it all the way. So you got to do it then to go ahead and get your name out. Look, if you're a Barn to Door customer, you already have a great website. But if you're not, go get you a website and Barn to Door will do that for you. And I love the Barn to Door approach in that. Yes, we're going to get you ah a great, good looking website. We're going to build your store first because that's the most important thing, because, again, you have to have somewhere for people to go. go.
00:20:51
Speaker
So get your site, get a social media presence and tell everybody that you can about it. I mean, there's a lot of digital tools and we do social media and do this and that. And that's you should. at the end of the day, I also just talk to a lot of people. When I'm in town, people call me Farmer Phil and they see me on Instagram, but I'm just talking to them. I'm inviting them to my farm. I'm telling everybody I know. I see they have kids. I'm like a Bring your kiddos out for our next farm tour. We'd love to have you. I have to market my farm. I have to let people know about the opportunity. So you need to do it or somebody needs to do it.
00:21:24
Speaker
Get your name out there with your website, your social media, and just you personally. And it never stops. You have to keep doing it. And then the making it easy for them. You really need to put yourself in their shoes. And the people at Barnador, I mean, I'm not doing this as a Barnador commercial because I happen to be on your podcast. i'd tell people this anyway, like ask for their help. It was so hard for me at first to understand how does it need to look, get their advice on how to put yourself in the customer's shoes and make it so it's easy for them. What are maybe the top 10 things, top 20 things your customers are going to want and pin those at the top. Make it so visible. Make it where they click on your site. I mean, it's just easy to buy from you. And so be strategic. ja Think about it. Ask your friends and family to go look at it and see what would be easier. And then how can it be easy to get it to them? I'm a big fan of delivery. Figure out the way to get it to their house. So anyway, do the marketing, number one. Don't worry about being excellent at it. First of all, just do it.
00:22:28
Speaker
Oh my goodness, your three points are amazing. I just got done outlining a presentation I'm giving at a farm conference later this month, and I'm super excited. It's in North Carolina. It's for women and new farmers. But I get to give a presentation, and it's literally on digital marketing. I'm going to break six marketing myths, and the first one is that farmers think they just need a website. That's actually a myth because... Having a website doesn't mean all of a sudden you're going to get a bunch of sales. It is a visual piece of your brand, but it is not even one that people engage with necessarily. They go to your website to learn more, but if they've gone there to learn more and they can't click and make a purchase right then when they're exploring who you are, It's like making a reservation or for a restaurant. It's in one hand part of your head and out the other, and then you're to the next thing. We used to always say websites are billboards to nowhere if there's not a store, right? You need to have the ability right away in that moment to catch that potential sale from a potential buyer. And so having a website, it's interesting because whole session is literally about you you can't just put up a visual experience and call it good. Marketing is an ongoing thing to maintain and potentially grow or backflow customers. And even ugly is good. Like you can just set up automated order reminders. You can set up automatic capture of emails, which is literally synonymous with your customer list. And to your point, setting up your store properly to make sure that you're maximizing your profit on the store experience. There's a lot that goes into it. But interestingly enough, marketing for marketing's sake is potentially a very big waste of time and money.
00:23:58
Speaker
The reason you do marketing is for sales. Tell me if I'm wrong. But the whole point of marketing is to capture sales and then build loyalty and customers for recurring sales. And the loyal customers buy consistently and more. So to your point, we always say like you have to actually slow down to speed up. So if you want your marketing time and effort and money to be worth it, First, fix the fact that you need to have your online store set up. All roads lead to Rome, whether you're in social media, newsletter, everything should point to your store. It should be beautiful. And then once you have the experience of the store shopping, the store set up, and to your point, your third point, which is make it easy to get the food. So nearby local delivery or pickup, right? Right.
00:24:38
Speaker
And once you've made the whole buyer experience hassle-free and easy, now you can start marketing because now your time will be worth it. And for every farmer that doesn't love marketing, you can spend 10 minutes wisely versus three hours poorly if your store is easy and it's easy to get your fruit, literally. So you have to set up the buyer experience correctly first for your marketing time and money to be worth it. It's really important for folks to appreciate that marketing for marketing's sake ah can be a huge waste of time and money.
00:25:07
Speaker
I have, I'll tell you, I mean, I have had experience where I didn't do a good enough job like hitting my inventory or whatever. And then I've had people go to my site and I just missed out because I didn't do that groundwork. So definitely start there be like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to throw fuel on the fire of getting people to my site exclusively so that they will buy. So make that as smooth as possible.
00:25:33
Speaker
Think through. There's many things you could do. i mean, my customers can have a very similar experience, the same ease, like going to Amazon and buying something. So that's available to me. Like you said, do that first. And then once you do the marketing for that explicit purpose of sending them there, again, you may not want to do it. I actually like writing. I love communicating, but I have a good friend of mine.
00:25:58
Speaker
He writes copy and he writes emails for a living and I deliver one of our boxes to his house every week and he writes my weekly email of fun farm stories. Oh my goodness. That is awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. Just think about people out there. There is probably some mom or something and that they're really good at the social media marketing and they want the healthiest food for their kids. And you could barter getting them food and they do your social media. If that's not your thing, look, man, find somebody. You could even send that out to your existing customer list. We're looking for social media help. but We would barter for farm products. Anybody know about that?
00:26:34
Speaker
Oh my goodness. When I was a young mom, I would have jumped on that 100% and so authentic too, because you're just in the middle of feeding food to your family. And often, you know, like I was a stay-at-home mom for years, which was just the biggest delight, but I was getting into the weeds, so to speak, about everything going into my child's body and everything else. Yeah. And I would have killed for anything part-time to be helpful and to use my brain at the same time. Right. So... That actually reminds because we have a number of our farmers who do just that. They barter or they use a lot of often moms. It's wonderful because it gives them an opportunity to maybe not have something full time, but also keep the brain going, if you will. You and I were talking before the whole podcast started about people helping you with admin.
00:27:16
Speaker
And Phil impresses me that way because he has some folks helping, but he's like, yeah, get just what you're saying. Get customers to barter with food or whatever. Find somebody super part time is just passionate about what you're doing. And if that's an outcome of this podcast, maybe I'll find some help like that to fill you will inspire me.
00:27:31
Speaker
Yes. Well, it's important. I mean, golly, in business and small business and starting your stuff out like there's so many hats you have to wear. It just what it is. And I mean, used to be, I used to have off-farm job and I'm doing it. I'm moving all the animals and doing that stuff before work. And then I'm going to work and I'm delivering a steak and eggs myself in between stuff with work. And as you... grow, you have to offload some things, but then also in order to grow, you have to get help. I mean, golly, I guess I could go and learn how to use, I don't know, WordPress and make a site and attach an online store. I could do that, you know, but I don't want to. And there's people who are great at it already. So I need to leverage that to be effective. And what is it that I need to be doing? And we had a team meeting the week before last with our farm and like really talked about the different roles. And one of my main roles, I want to own the role of salesperson. And I I have a gal. She's part time does marketing stuff with us. But it's like I'm calling people and texting people to have them at our team buildings. I'm going and setting up to go speak at these big subdivisions to go and talk about what we do. And that's what I want to do. I like it. And you don't have to be like me and like it. You might only want to milk cows. So just find somebody like me likes milk.
00:28:56
Speaker
Make sure that the marketing is getting tended to, even if it's not you. I appreciate that. Again, to take advantage of so much demand. Well, let's circle back to the big egg piece in the food pyramid, which is, do you think it will impact? I mean, I guess it necessarily will if these policies or changes are updated or recommendations, I should say, are updated every five years. They really do have a triple down impact on how government spending occurs and even how private business food companies respond, right? I think
00:29:27
Speaker
It will be so interesting to watch it unfold. Do you have any insights on that piece? Yeah, I don't know what'll happen. I mean, farms like ours, you know, you mentioned there's a bunch We're still quite a tiny piece of the pie, which, again, it should be very heartening to...
00:29:44
Speaker
All of my brothers and sisters out there doing this, there's just so much market share to be taken. But yeah, i mean, the big ag and food is such a big money business. You would think they would figure out ways to keep things rocking at the same level. So I don't know. I will say we do farm tours and stuff, and obviously I'm into what I do when we talk about this, that I do think that big ag and big food is bad and that it is providing bad things and it's bad ecologically. It's bad for human health. it's bad for workers. Nobody started out wanting to do that. The way I look at it, Big Ag had the principles of we want more calories faster for less money. Well, those are noble ideals. Let's feed more people and make it affordable for everyone to get a chicken. So those are good. If those are your only principles, more calories faster, or cheaper, then in the pursuit of those ideals, you can degrade the environment and stuff. So I don't look at these people as bad or evil. It's just a system that is not good. I went to the University of Georgia, go dog. You know, our ag program is all about big ag. You know, that's just what folks are being told. So anyway, I don't know what impact it had. But I will also say back to my overall life philosophy of trying to focus on things that I can control. Whatever happens to them, I don't know. But I'm going to push my darndest to go take advantage of the growing body of people whose eyes are opened to local, healthy, real food. And I want to serve them with all I got.
00:31:10
Speaker
Well, and I agree. I think the good news here is it should absolutely be great for business, right? It should be encouraging to farmers like yourself all over the country. Again, there's a couple hundred thousand of them. And so that's a lot of opportunity and plenty of mouths, by the way. Look around you, right? Everybody eats every day. And they've been recommended to eat more proteins and healthy fats and fruit, vegetables, eggs, which is really exciting. Also, you know, golly, farming, it can certainly be a lot of work. It can be stressful. You're in a hurry. And just because we're running regenerative ag, but farms providing whole foods doesn't mean that's what we're always eating. So I would encourage you, my fellow farmers out there to follow that. I mean, hey, I feel so good just eating fruits and meats and eggs and stuff from my farm. It makes me feel great. I pretty much try to just eat meat and veggies and legumes for the most part. But while we were starting the recording, this lovely lady, Cleo, came in and dropped off 10 loaves of organic, locally whole milled sourdough that we offer to our customers because it's awesome. And when I have bread, I have that.
00:32:18
Speaker
But man, hey, let's eat the right way or ourselves because I tell you what, if I'm out there talking about how healthy my food is and how this way you need to be eating, you'd like me to look like somebody that you might want to get some health advice from.
00:32:31
Speaker
Oh, that's an interesting dimension. i appreciate that. I'm so thankful. I mean, I have gotten healthier from having a farm. I've got a farm store of amazing food right down the hill from my house. What a blessing.
00:32:43
Speaker
Yeah, I appreciate that. And I actually love what you said about bagel. I know lots of folks who run multi-generational farms that are considered in that bucket of commodity or large farming.
00:32:55
Speaker
Great folks. and just salt of the earth. But I think to your point, what started out, and this is true of everything, you know this from business, what started out as good intentions, and I feel like a lot of things do start out as good intentions, but yeah and you don't always know what that's going to look like from a trickle down effect. And probably the one guarantee is there will be good and bad that come from decisions because by nature of making a decision or focusing on priorities, there are other priorities and things that are not being focused on. And for Big Egg, whose incentives were, to your point, calories and cheap and fast to grow and bring to market, what ended up suffering in that was nutrition and care of the soil and health for humans.
00:33:38
Speaker
Definitely not an intention, but definitely an outcome that we're now seeing. And so I think... that hopefully all of our friends in agriculture across the board will be encouraged and incentivized to move more towards nutrition, care for the soil, diversified crops, and really, truly the health of humans and people that are eating it, because that needs to change just for the health of folks and making sure that people can live life to the fullest.
00:34:04
Speaker
Definitely. And I love that perspective and share it. of I'm the opposite of industrial ag, but I want to be a partner with any and all farmers. if I'm not fighting these guys. I'm doing my thing. And maybe that will help inspire them or empower some of them to convert their monocrop operation into something which I think is better.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah. And ideally, there's conversations being happened too. And I know you're really good at having great relationships with everyone in that capacity. When we onboard new employees at Barn to Door, everybody here watches Food Inc. This last cohort that we had, I think it was six or seven new hires this month, none of them had seen Food Inc. It's important. It's good information. And again, we're not faulting anybody. We're just saying the incentives and priorities led down a path and folks are good at efficiencies and, you know, look what happened. So it's need to be part of some course correction there and bringing back the priorities of human health, animal health, soil health. And i think that's exciting. And I think the food pyramid turned on its head is reflecting folks' interests, not just from the top down, but from the bottoms up. Everybody's saying, hey, health needs to change. This isn't okay.
00:35:10
Speaker
And it's important. It is important. I've got five little kiddos up the house and don't want them to get diabetes, doggone it. I want them to vibrant, healthy lives. Yeah. and full of energy too, right? Amen. Well, hey, thank you so much for getting on today's podcast and chatting about the food pyramid and other things too, just in terms of helping farmers take advantage of in a good way, figure out how to get in front of buyers today that are waking up, that are increasingly... concerned Gen Z in particular they're very very excited about healthy eating and buying from farmers and influencing people all around them too so I just it's an exciting time to be building a local food culture so thank you so much Farmer Phil I get to say that just like your community it does when you show up downtown I love that so thank you for all that you are doing and thank you for your time today and any last words to part with before I sign us off
00:36:05
Speaker
Well, I would say, again, be encouraged out there, folks. The market's getting better and better. Go do your part. Feeling good that your opportunity to succeed is increasing. I'd say, you know, I hope you have a great time speaking at that farm conference in North Carolina and tell those folks.
Social Media Connection
00:36:21
Speaker
I mean, if it's women on farms and newer farmers, which the USDA designates as 10 years in farming or less, you get some advantages with those EQIP grants that I talked about. So go check out the grants to folks.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah, we'll write a blog summary of this as well. Phil, as a follow-up, so that anybody who's listening today and wondering, oh, what are the things that he mentioned I need to go look up? We'll make sure to include those in the blog. And then Phil, what is your Instagram handle so folks listening might be able to follow you?
00:36:49
Speaker
HopewellFarmsGA. I want to say thanks, Phil, for joining us today. Go check out Phil's farm handle at Hopewell Farms GA. Again, like I said, we'll write up a blog summary post so folks don't miss any details on this. At Barnes & Noble, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country and delighted to offer services and tools to farmers access more customers, increase sales, and save time for their business. If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and want to simplify your business management, pass off some of that automation to us, check out barnsador.com backslash learn more.
00:37:23
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.
00:37:38
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn to Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.
00:37:55
Speaker
For free farm resources or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barntodore.com backslash resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.