- Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here. Thanks for listening to another episode of Hey Human Podcast. This is episode 391, and my guest is Will Harris of White Oak Pastures. Will is a fourth generation cattleman farmer who tends the same land that his great-grandfather settled in 1866, although Will was trained in industrial farming methods as his father had been post World War ii.
Will was seeing the damage being done by pesticides, herbicides, hormones, and antibiotics, and made a huge shift to become a leader in humane animal husbandry and environmental sustainability.
Knowing the importance of working in healthy partnership with the land, we had a fascinating conversation about sustainable farming and cattle raising methods, the difference between dirt and soil, the rural community impact of family farming, and what it means to leave behind something better than you find it for generations to come. I've really enjoyed this conversation.
He's a fascinating man, and he really cares about what he's doing, and he cares about what people put in their bodies, and he caress about the land and understands what an honor it is to till that soil and, and raise animals and, and crops. And he, uh, he gets it, you know, check out. Hey, human podcast for links and to learn more about my guests in the show, check out Susan ruth.com.
To learn more about me and my other artistic endeavors, please follow Susan Ruth and hey, human podcast on social media. Find my albums on Spotify, apple Music, Amazon music, or wherever you get your music rate review and subscribe to, Hey, human podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, thank you for listening. Be well, be kind, plant seeds and be love. Here we go. Will Harris, welcome to Hey, human. - Thank you for having me. Susan, - You're in Georgia, - Lofton, Georgia.
- I learned about you through my friend Do who sent me a video of you being interviewed for a news program, and I, I'm so interested in this field, so I'm, I really appreciate you being here. Let's just jump in. You are a several generation, fourth generation farmer cattle person, or - Do you, - Do you consider yourself a farmer or a cattle man? How does, is there a delineation or is it the same thing? Yeah, - I, I, I really don't make that distinction.
I am a farmer and, um, I previous, well, I guess I'm, I guess I'm a farmer. Previously I was exclusively a cattleman. Today we raise a lot of different species, but I draw no real distinction between the two. I am the fourth generation of my family on this farm. My great-grandfather came here in 1866 and, uh, farm the land followed by his son. My grandfather followed by his son, my dad followed by me.
And, uh, I am being followed by two daughters and their spouses, and those two daughters have five children. So that would be the sixth generation on the farm. And I guess the, uh, what, what interests me most and what I was, uh, previously telling you is that the first two generations of my family, my great-grandfather and grandfather farmed the land in a way that would've been good for the land, good for the community, good for the animals.
There was a lot of, uh, uh, it was not a a, a technical industry. It was more of a way of life and very, very historical kind of approach to producing food. My dad took over the farm after World War ii. He was born in 1920. He was, uh, after World War ii. He took over the farm and he changed it. And, and I'm glad he did because agriculture was changing, and had he not, we probably wouldn't have had a farm anymore.
- It was my understanding that the government after World War II actually sent farmers to college to learn a specific kind of farming, this new industrial way of doing things. - There, there was a lot of that, and that, that was heavily contributory. And also the, the young men that, uh, quit plowing the mule and went to Europe to operate tanks, you know, were, uh, changed. Their, their approach was changed. We could talk about it all day long.
And the other thing that that happened, this is kind of along those lines, is so many of the tools of the war effort were converted into agricultural inputs. For instance, munitions plants became fertilizer, fertilizer factories. They, they, uh, the ni the nitrate, uh, component of the fertilizer of the bombs could be converted to make plant food out of, you know, ammoniated fertilizer was invented like in 1870 something, but it was so expensive. Very few people used it.
But post World War ii, it became very cheap because the infrastructure for all the explosives manufacturing had been built. So you started making cheap product. So, you know, the guys that were, uh, had plowed mules learned how to operate tanks, and when they came home, they wanted tractors. So yeah, we can talk a lot. You know, the, uh, the first pesticides were actually came from nerve gas chemistry from the war .
So just a, a lot of things that went into the war hel were converted, and course Europe was starving. There was a big market for food. It was kind of a sweet spot in agriculture and, uh, uh, well, a sweet spot to go wrong maybe. But still, it was, it was a rife for change.
And my dad was part of that, and he was part of the leadership, and he became a monocultural cattleman instead of raising a lot of different species, like my great-grandfather and grandfather had, and like I do today, he became a specialist in raising cattle for the industrial market. And, and he was good at it and made money doing it, and took a lot of pride in the fact that he was a specialist.
And he and I, I get that, I understand it, but he ran the farm that way successfully with his whole career. And I never, as a child, I never wanted to do anything except come back and run the farm The way my dad did that was, that was, i, I, I never liked direction. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and I did it. Uh, he insisted I go to college. He, he did. My dad did not want me to come back and run the farm.
He thought that his friends who left the farm and got paying jobs in the city were financially better off than he was. In retrospect, I don't think that's true. I think he probably as assimilated more wealth than them. They had more liquidity than he did. Anyway, I, I, I wasn't interested in that. I wanted to run the farm. I went to college because he made me, but I majored in animal, uh, science, which is contrary to what he wanted me to do.
Uh, I mentioned to you earlier that, uh, about the time I got to the University of Georgia, they changed the name from animal husbandry to animal science. And it was more than just a name change. Animal husbandry was with this, the teaching, very cyclical production model. Animal science is a very linear production model, and it's truly what we were doing. You know, we were raising calves for the industrial feedlot market. You know, we had a lot of mama cows. We had a lot of baby calves.
We shipped them to the West Midwest to feed - At that point. Was the only thing that the farm was doing was then cattle, or were you also growing crop? - No, we, uh, we raised some feed for the cattle, but it was a cattle farm. And it was, again, it was financially successful. We weren't rich people, but we had no debt and money made every year. Uh, I ran the farm that way when I took it over and, and I went back and looked.
I act, I, I had to go back to, to look, but I actually made money every year. I never lost money when I was managing the farm industrially in the mid nineties. I, uh, became disillusioned with that and changed the way I run the farm, started changing it, and, and quit making, uh, I to make as much money. And actually had some losing years during the transition of moving from the model of the industrial cattle farm, monocultural cattle farm, to what we do now, white oak pasture.
- And as you mentioned before, the, the industrial cattle farm includes things like the antibiotics. And can you talk a little bit about that, what that means? - Yeah. We use all the tools in running a monoculture, just 1, 1 1 crop. In this case, cattle, you use a lot of technical tools, uh, hormone implants, subtherapeutic antibiotics, to grow the grain, to feed them, use a lot of chemical fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, a lot of tillage. And, and it, it worked for us.
It was financially rewarding, but there were huge unintended consequences that I eventually became aware of, but was not for a long time. And, but in the mid nineties, I, I started to become aware of those consequences and, and then, and the first thing that that occurred to me was the animal welfare. Uh, I, I would've told you that my animal welfare is above reproach by God.
And I thought it was, but, but it really was not, you know, I, I believed at that time, I believed growing up, I think my dad believed, I've been taught in university, if you keep the animals well fed, watered in a comfortable temperature range and don't inflict pain and suffering, you're good to go. That's good animal welfare, but it's not. It's, uh, you know, the, they're also, the, another component is instinctive behavior.
And, you know, cows were born to roam and graze hogs were born to root and wallow chickens were born to scratch and peck. And in the industrial confinement model that, that we embraced, they, they, they weren't free to do that. And that, that's, that is not good animal animal welfare. That is a 24 southern stressor on the, on the animals. So I, that was, I started to, uh, I only had cattle at that time. Today, we've got a lot of species by the time I only cattle. So I started grazing them.
Instead of feeding them out of a trough, I ceased to use all the, uh, pesticides and pharmaceuticals. And I, I didn't make as much money, but my animal welfare was better. And it was, there was a lot better about it. It was better on the land. Uh, and as I was assimilating the things I needed to do differently with animal welfare, uh, it occurred to me that my, uh, um, treatment of the land was also bad.
We used a lot of chemical fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, a lot of tillage, and, and just, it wasn't good. I, I can remember going out in the field I had and taking, getting a handful of soil dirt I didn't have of dirt, actually, and going to the edge of the woods right beside it, and getting a handful of soil and looking at the difference. And, you know, the difference is this had been tilled and pesticides and chemical fertilizer.
And this was a, a, a living mineral, uh, medium full of micro microbial lives and just didn't look like, came from two different planets and wanted it all to look like the woods. So I started managing the land differently. And yeah, I went from making money to not making money, making anymore making, because that, that, that transition is very, very hard, you know, to, but we lived through it, and it got better, and we became profitable again.
And we've had some ups and downs, but we, uh, it, it was, it was the thing to do. - What do you think the moment, the true moment was of that aha to go, wait a minute, this isn't what I want. Was it something you noticed about the animals, or was it just an overall feeling that something was off even though you were making all this money? - Yeah, it was, it was, it was more feeling. Some was off. The animals looked good. Now, today, they look a lot different.
You know, they, the truth is that those animals that I was feeding were unnaturally obese creatures that would, that would never occur in nature. But they looked good to me. 'cause that's what I was looking for. And actually, if you go back in Fort Worth, Texas, there's a, a hotel hosted cattle shows from the late 18 hundreds, and it's got a picture of the grand champion, uh, steer from every year. And it's just, it's really interesting to watch the evolution of how those animals have changed.
Phenotypically, you've gone from being, uh, you know, short, thick, muscular animals to tall, slender corn converting animals. You know, one was designed to convert forage, the other one had been bred to convert corn cattle, sheep and goats are ruminants. Do you know what that is? No. Uh, cattle ruminants have a, uh, they don't have acid in their stomach. pH in their stomach is neutral, zero.
And we, non ruminants people have an acidic, uh, uh, intentional acidic component that is meant to break the food down. So it's, it's complete, the way it's broken down is completely different. And, uh, it's just the ruminants are not meant to eat grain. When that happens, it causes a lot of problems and a lot of, a lot of digestive problems. It makes, it's, uh, it makes them incredibly obese.
You know, when, uh, when I was raising, uh, cattle and corn, I don't have these figures in front of me, but in, uh, what, probably 20 months, I could have an animal weigh in 1300 pounds with probably three quarters of an inch of back fat. And that, that was an unnaturally obese creature that would never occur in nature. I mean, it's like a, a, a guy that's six feet tall and weighs four and 50 pounds, you know, it's just unnaturally obese. And, and, and, and that, and that's what I did.
I mean, I, I, I was in that business. Uh, and I'll say this, the, uh, I think, I think Wikipedia tells us that the, uh, uh, life expectancy a cow is like 24 years natural life expectancy. Those cattle I was feeding into obesity, they wouldn't have lived to be four or five years old. You know, they, when you eat those feed like cattle, you're eating a creature that is dying of all the diseases of obesity and sedentary lifestyle that kills most of us anyway.
So today, my cattle, if I didn't swallow at two years age of age, or two, three, whatever it is, they would live a, a normal life expectancy at 20 something years old. So it's a, there's a lot wrong with what we do. - I've had grass fed beef versus non grass fed. And I have to say, the grass fed beef tastes incredible in comparison through this night and day to me. - Well, I'm, I'm glad you felt that way. Uh, and, and I wouldn't never tell anyone to have that expectation.
I'm glad you, I'm glad you had that, that, that, uh, experience. But what I tell people is it is very different. You know, the, uh, grain, grain feeding that causes this unnaturally obese creature is very soft. It, it, it, it, it's soft. It's tender. We use the word tender soft. So, and people have that expectation because that's what they've had. You know, you go to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse and it's just, you know, it's an expensive steak, and it's just incredibly tender.
And then people like it, and that's fine. I don't dislike it. I've been eating, I've eaten a lot of finished grain, finished beef in my life, and it was good to me. Now I've eaten a lot of grass fed beef, and it's good to me, but it's different now. If you, if you're, if it's just, if you're eating just for the dining experience, eat the one you like the best, it's no problem.
If you want to, uh, do something that's good for the animal, the environment, the rural economy, probably climate change, da, you know, then, you know, you might wanna think a little bit more about it. But it's, I, I really don't spend much time blast feeding green finished beef. I - Mean, I mean, I'll eat it still. I eat it all the time too.
When I go to restaurants, I, I don't think there's a whole lot of re I mean, the higher end ones say grass fed, but I'm just saying that I can definitely tell the difference. Yeah. It tastes better. To me, at least it tastes better to, - To a lot of people it does. But there are people that it doesn't. And, you know, and I, I get it. You know, when I, when I tell, I'll tell you this, when I, you know, I majored in agriculture, science, not in marketing.
And when I did my first website, or had someone do put together my first website in the very early two thousands, I, I had them put everything in there that I'd have heard that was good about grass fed beef. And I realized that, you know, I need to talk about what I know about, and what I know about is the impact on the land, the impact on the animal animal, the impact on the rural community.
And I, I, I had to go back through years later and get them to take everything out there that I've had to put, that had to do with health, nutrition, culinary. I have some beliefs about those things, but I'm an expert on the land, the animal, and the community. And I, I just won't talk about the things that, that I can, I can, well, I can win the argument. - Sure, that makes sense.
What, as you started to make the shift and that you hung in there is admirable, considering you saw that it was going to be financially not stable for a while. How did you start to see the changes in the land? Firstly, and then I'd like to talk about the rural community, because I do think that's an important aspect.
- Well, the, uh, yeah, let's talk about it individually mean the, the land, the, what happened with the land is my land went from one half of 1% organic matter, one half of 1% to 5% organic matter. It took 20 years to do it, but that's a 10 x increase in organic model. And organic model is really important. It's the life of the soil, and it's the water holding capacity of the soil.
And I don't think one's any more important than the other one, but we can graphically talk about the water or 1% organic matter in the soil of absorbable one inch rain event, that's 27,000 gallons of water on an acco land. So mine is 5% organic model. It'll absorb a five inch rain event, and we get five inch rain events. And I've got, if you go on my website, why oak pasture.com, there's some videos of the water coming off my farm and my neighbor's farm. And it's incredible.
It's just, it's just really incredible to me. We could talk a lot about it, but that would be a, a real difference that, that's documentable actually, that's also on my website, a, uh, scientific work done. It's called an LCA Lifecycle Assessment done by an environmental engineering group from Minneapolis, I think I called Quantas. And, uh, a customer of mine had some concern.
I mean, a corporate customer bought wholesale about some of the claims that that had been made about grass fed beef and, and, and you know, what it does for the land. And they actually paid 80 something thousand dollars to have that, uh, LCA study, uh, scientific study done. It was, it was a big deal. A lot of people came down here and spent a lot of time. We had to do bunch of stuff.
But what it showed is that my cattle operation actually, uh, sequesters three and a half pounds of carbon for every pound of beef we harvest. You know, it's not, you know, how you hear cattle destroying the earth, you know, well, industrial cattle may be destroying the earth. What we're doing here is improving it, as a matter of fact, uh, impossible burger.
So, and I'm not, I'm not here to, to to, to say bad things about the impossible bird, but this is just too good to not tell just, you know, they talk a lot about their environmental impact, and that's fine. It's, it's probably better than industrial cattle production probably is. But they actually hired Qantas, the same engineering firm, to do a lifecycle assessment on their operation to com to see what it was doing.
And it showed that they actually emit three and a half pounds of carbon for every pound of impossible burn. We sequester three and a three and a half. I mean, it's, that's incredible you, that you can't make that up. And it, it is on my, it's on my website. But what that means is if you wanna have a zero footprint, every pound of impossible burger you eat, you gotta eat a pound of mine to break even - . That's so interesting.
You know, speaking of the land, a friend of mine in Tennessee has a, it's, it's not a, a farm, as in, she, she doesn't grow things other than she just lets nature run wild on this farm. And I remember when I went to visit and I was walking around, I was really nervous because bugs love me. I get bit like crazy by bugs, and I'm walking around and, you know, you're seeing creatures all over the place, birds and little things running around the tall grass. I didn't get a single bug bite.
And I said to her later in the afternoon that I was marveling at this. I couldn't believe I'd spent all day out in fields and not a single bite by anything. And she said, oh, no, the nature land takes care of itself. There's plenty of things out there eating the bugs. And, and there's, you know, the bats and the possums and the this and the that. If you just let it be what it is, it'll take care of you. And I thought, wow, that's really, that's a profound statement.
- She is exactly right. Your friend is a, a very wise woman. And, uh, uh, one of the ancient Greeks, I don't know which one, one of the ancient Greeks said, for every pestilence that nature sends, she sends the cure. And that's true. I mean, that's the way it works. I mean, there's harmony there, and if, if some pestilence inflates there, there's something to keep it in check that will inflate with it. And it is, it works beautifully.
And it's exactly what we've done wrong with modern, uh, technical, uh, industrial farming. And we put out pesticides to kill stu pe sides. That means kill, right? Homicide, pesticide, insecticide, and the ide herbicide side, we, we were out to kill things when I was an industrial farmer. I went into my pastures every single day with the intent of finding something to kill.
I was looking for something that was causing a problem, and I was really good about knowing how to kill it, what to use to kill it. And what I didn't understand is, and I took a lot of pride in that. I, I thought I was, I thought that's something I was good at, that I wanted to be good at. But the truth is, when I used that technical product that, that pesticide to kill something, it killed exactly what I wanted to kill. And, and that threw nature out of balance.
So something else would skyrocket. So tomorrow I needed another pesticide to, and the next day I needed another pe. And it's, it's never ending. So you, you know, your friend is right. Nature. I'm not saying you won't be able to get bit by an insect in a national environment. You will, but you shouldn't get your butt eat up by insect in a natural environment thing, you know, thing. There's a, uh, there, there should be a balance, a naturally occurring balance going on.
- Let's talk about rural community. - Okay, that's my, that's one of my three favorite subjects. - I was talking to a friend this morning that, uh, that you and I were gonna have this conversation, and I, I told her how excited I was for it, and I, I said that my frustration about, um, that I think the family farm or the, the farmer's market, farmers, you know, that all come together. The food just, it ta firstly, it tastes different. It's, you taste like the real food in grocery stores.
Food doesn't taste real anymore. Uh, to me at least.
I, I think, and I'm, I'm ignorant to a lot of this stuff I'm, I'm trying to learn, but I think that it seems to me we have done this country such a disservice by not supporting or making it maybe more expensive or harder for farmers who take the kind of, um, the, the kind of choices that you've made, that it's almost like they get, um, not that they don't get the same financial benefits, they don't get the help, and, uh, that there, there needs to be better support to do it the way that nature
expects it to be done. Does that make sense? - I mean, the, the economic, the economic side of it is, is a little different. I mean, it's part of the rule development. We'll talk about it separately. So we'll still talk about the, uh, so post-World War ii, everything has been done to make food cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. Cheap food is just like, it's like almost like biblical. It's just everything needs to be cheap.
And we've done, uh, many different levels, a lot to take cost out of food production, but we didn't necessarily, we, in many cases, we didn't take the cost out food production, we moved the cost to somewhere else. You know, there's a dead zone. The Gulf, the Gulf of Mexico is 80, 70 something miles that way.
It was a dead zone in, in, in there, as big as Massachusetts used to be a great oystering ground, and now it's a dead zone, and it's dead because the pesticides and fertilizer ran off these farms into the Chattahoochee River, into the Gulf of Mexico and, and, and, and kill the big area. And, you know, that, I don't know what it would cost to get that life back in the sea, but I know that the farmers and the pesticide companies and fertilized companies aren't gonna pay it. We're going to pay it.
You know, there's how many species of plants and animals and insects have been driven into extinction by the use of pesticides, fertilizer. And that has a cost. And I don't know if, uh, a certain healing bird's worth as a species is worth a million dollars or a hundred million dollars, but there's a cost to losing that life for - Bats and bees. They've been dying off because of pesticides, and we need bats and bees.
- So they, we can talk all day long about, uh, costs that chemical fertilizers and pesticides have incurred that farmers don't cover. The pesticide company doesn't cover the grain company, the food company. It's just cast out there and we all cover it. And when you consider that added, uh, cost to the food, I don't know if it if it's as cheap as we think it is or not.
So we can talk about that a long time, uh, to talk about the town, the other, I told you that the three things that are important to me is the land, the animals in the rural community. So I'm sitting in the old courthouse in Bluffton, Georgia right now. It's right in the middle of my farm. And Bluffton was a purely agricultural town, always has been a purely agricultural town. I know how to faction, know how to railroad, know how to mill factory, uh, farm a farm town, not a factory town.
I, I misspoke. So when we industrialized my dad's generation, my generation industrialized and centralized agriculture, the town became a ghost town. You know, it had, uh, I don't think it ever had over four oh and something people, but it would've been the trade center for several thousand people, because that was the era of 40 acres on a mule. And each farm had a family. It would've been 6, 8, 10 people.
So if that was, this was a trade zone, uh, post World War ii, this town has shrunk and shrunk and shrunk till it had, uh, about a hundred people and really mostly old people, poor people. Uh, I'm in, I'm in Clay County, Georgia, and Clay County, Georgia in 2020 was the poorest county in the United States of America. And we have really, uh, put a lot into bringing the town back. I've got a, I've got 170 employees on the farm, and they make well above the county average.
I'm not proud of what my people make. It's not that much, but it's well above the county average. And today, Bluffton is a very nice little town, and it's a nice little town because we changed agriculture, it became more local. I think that the, uh, I think that the statistic is that the farmer, uh, gets about 15 cents of the food dollar here. I get a hundred cents of the food dollar if I sell it direct to consumers. And we sell a lot direct to consumers online.
Well, I don't, I don't, this is not a super profitable farm. I don't keep that a hundred cents. And my payroll is a hundred thousand dollars every Friday. And that money circulates in Bluffton, Georgia. And it's just been really economically beneficial for the farm. It's one of the thing, it, it, it, it, it was not an intention.
You know, I, I was focused on the land and the animals, but when I changed the way I raise animals on the land, we started hiring a lot of people and a lot of really great, talented, passionate people. And the town came back. They needed, they needed a place to eat and sleep and play. And we provided it today. We got, you know, a store, we got a RV park, we got several, you know, uh, food producing entities here in town. Several, a lot. There's a lot going on here, and I'm very proud of that.
- Do you, uh, firstly, that's so wonderful. I think that that is the big disconnect, of course. And the, the folks that, as you said, make the pesticides, make these chemicals, they're the same folks that are selling the, the, they're all owned by the same top dog stuff. So the people that are selling the pro the product are making the stuff that's poisoning the product. They're on both sides. But you can't serve two masters. We know this, and they, they certainly do.
But I think the more that, uh, we society understands what's going on behind the curtain, super important, and to know that it does work, because I think a lot of rhetoric out there is saying, the things that you do don't work. Right. That's, that's the, the common commentary running across the United States, you know, oh, no, industrial farming, that's the only way to fly. It's very important. And, and it's the, it gets the job done. It keeps things cheap.
But I mean, directly from you, you're experiencing it. I think that's why these conversations are so important. - Yeah. And there's a thing called greenwashing that that's going on, you know, really big way in this country. And that's big national companies that produce food products, talking about them in a way that emulates what we do, But not really. I mean, but the consumer is just hopelessly, you know, the consumers are hopelessly busy and confused and in a hurry.
And if, if, if a name brand company is boldly telling them this is fine, the tendency is to believe it. You know, a good example of that is, uh, in two, I think it was 2015, uh, they changed the rule on, uh, labeling imported beef. Uh, prior to that, uh, a cow had to be born, raised, and slaughtered in the United States to be marked product of the USA. They changed the rules so that if value was added in this country, it was a product of the USA.
So today, a huge percent, I bet it's 90%, although I don't have the access to those figures, but a huge percentage of the grass fed beef that's marketed in this country was born, raised and slaughtered in Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay, or 20 other countries. But the consumer never, never has any idea. It says product of the USA legally. So that's greenwashing, - That's terrifying, but not surprising. That doesn't surprise me at all. Yeah. - It, it appalls me, you know? Yeah.
- Do you think it's possible to see a future where every town has a farmer that, or a few farmers that are sustaining and creating an environment where the people around there are being fed and well t taking care of and creating a situation like what you've done there? - I, I don't know. That's what I thought. I mean, that's what I thought I was working towards. Uh, I love the concept of local food. Uh, you know, I, I ship product to 48 states.
I don't want to, I mean, I, I, I need to, I, I gotta sell 20. I built them. We do our own slaughter processing here. I spent a lot of money. I've got to sell $25 million worth of product a year to make my stuff work. And I can't sell $25 million in Bluffton or in Georgia, or in Georgia, in Florida now. And I have to stretch out, but I don't want to, I want there to be more market penetration for this kind of product, and I want more customers to be able to buy it more locally.
But I don't know if that's gonna happen or not. Uh, it, for a long time it looked like we were headed in that direction, but it doesn't, I don't know. Now, I don't know. I, I sold Whole Foods Market and Public Supermarket, the first pound of American grass fed beef that they marketed as American Grass Fed Beef, which is in the early two thousands. And they just bought all I could produce. I mean, it was, I had some really good years, uh, in that, in that marketing situation.
Uh, and it, and I, I, I, I needed to sell that amount of stuff, but I, I was not trying to grow the company up into a big national company. That was never a goal of mine. Still is not. But, uh, and I thought that, well, this is gonna be good. We'll, you know, people wanna buy more and more and more and more farm, start doing what we're doing, scout all over the country, and it'll be, we'll be going in the right direction.
But it hadn't worked out that way, you know, it just really, and I don't, I don't know. I have a, I've had a lot of, uh, through the years of friends Qantas that, uh, can tried to convert from Industrial Farm into this and, and couldn't do it. I couldn't have done it either. My timing just was so fortunate, you know, I, I didn't, if I tried to do today what I did in the early two thousands, it would not work. - Mm. That's depressing. - Well, and, and government's not going to fix it.
Big grocery is not going to fix it. Big food is not going to fix it. Indu land grant, universities are not going to fix it. I, I can tell you, dozens of people that are not going to entities are not going to fix it. - Right. In fact, not only that, but they'll actively work against it being fixed because it doesn't serve them. And it's a huge, - Actually, actually, that's a good point, . Yeah. - Yeah. I mean, that's really the bottom line, right?
- If it gets fixed, it's going to be because consumers fix it. And, and I worry about that because, you know, there are, if it gets fixed, it's gonna be because consumers fix it. Now, here's the problem. There are a lot of pool people in this country, and my food costs more, it costs more because I actually pay my own costs. I don't throw it out there for society to cover. And there are a lot of people that can't afford to buy food that is produced the way I produce it.
And I'm aware of that, and I don't have an answer for that. You know, it's, it is, but I think the first step is for those who can afford it, to afford it. - Yeah. I mean, the irony of that too though, is how much are people spending on their cancer treatments or their, their obesity treatments or whatever it is, is that it's steering us right in the face.
Yes. Healthy nature made the way the land intended food is gonna cost more, but it's gonna be cheaper still than all the healthcare problems that are happening because of things like Roundup or, you know, whatever it is, the pesticides or the, the climate or the whatever, whatever problems that are arising because of this industrial food complex. - I, I do, I do agree with you on that, but we still have the fact that there are people that can't afford it today. - Of - Course. And I,
and I, I, I don't have the solution for that. I wish I did. - Yeah. Are you, do you have programs where you're trying to educate the, the country at large, would you say, I mean, I know you come on these shows, you get interviewed and that that helps. Uh, but do you have things where farmers can reach out to you and say, Hey, I wanna do this, but I don't really know how - We actually, uh, well, that the answer, yes, but that's not my priority.
My priority is to make this business work. And it's hard. Yeah. But I, the answer, yes. I did two years ago form a 5 0 1 C3 called cfar Center for Agricultural Resilience and, um, 5 0 1 C3. And we bring people, we, we take donations for that. And we bring people, we spend that money to educate people that want to, to learn how to do it. And we, it's not big, but we do, we do have that. We also have an intern program, and it is, uh, and it's just not big enough. It's about, about all I can do.
We, we, uh, we take six, uh, interns per quarter, four times a year. I think we took seven last time, but six or seven. But we get 20 something applications, you know, and I just can't, I can't train 'em all. This is a, this is a farm, it's not a school, you know? Yeah, I get that. We gotta make, we, we have to make our living here.
- Yeah. - And I told you, I, I, you know, I didn't have any debt and I didn't, but you know, I, I bought land and built processing plants and a restaurant, a store, and we, we've added a lot of things to make this business work and that in, and that involved debt. And we, you know, we, we pay our debts, but, you know, there's no, there's no, uh, big income stream to, to devote to those things. - Correct. Yeah. I get that.
I have friends who are homesteading and building community rural, growing partnerships amongst themselves, and they seem to be sustainable. They seem to be growing. And I have hope that people are getting more into the idea of being self-sufficient or growing things on their, uh, properties and making, instead of having a big yard full of grass, they make it an edible garden or things like that.
Or communities that have, um, chunks of the block that are devoted to growing something for the community at large. So that gives me hope. But again, I think that there is a tendency that you said earlier that, you know, the, the, you wanna see these results and people are so used to getting something so quickly and that using the industrial way produces things rapidly, and that we fall into that habit and that that will maybe be the trap door that gets us in the end.
- I, I hope so. I mean, I don't know. I, I don't know how this is going to work out. You know, I used to have ideas on what was going to happen and things didn't go the way I thought they would. Uh, I'm pretty sure we're going to be okay at White Oak pastures. We're not going to prosper, but we'll be okay. But, uh, I'm, I'm, I, I used to be a real recruiter.
If somebody came to see me and said, you know, they inherited 50 acres of land from their aunt and didn't know what to do with it, and think, I said, you ought to, you know, and I tell 'em what I thought they ought to do, you know? And, and, and now I don't do that much anymore because I, you know, I, I, I urge some people to do things on the land that didn't work out for them. They, they weren't able to market it for enough money to, to make it work.
So it's, uh, I just dunno what's gonna happen with this deal. - Do you want your grand babies to, to be farmers? - I want them to have the opportunity to farm if they want to. You know, I don't, uh, I don't have any desire. I, I have one daughter that didn't, didn't come back to farm, know she, she's a educator like a mama and, and a sign. That's great. So I don't have any expectation for them, but I do want to create the opportunity if they, if one or more of them want to.
- Well, I, I'm appreciative of you. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad that you're doing what you do. I think it's important, and I think getting your story out is important. - Well, we, you know, I, I gotta say we're having a lot of fun. I mean, I, you know, we're not making a lot of money, but we're having a lot of fun. And I really enjoy what I do here. I see my children and grandchildren every day and, uh, uh, you know, they'll know be rich, but they feel I don't really love, be hungry.
And it, it's, I think it's, uh, it's a good life. It's good, it's a good life. - I think the more humans wake up to the idea that wealth isn't really about a pocketbook, but about what is around you as far as family, and again, having food in your belly, things like that, maybe things will change. I don't know. But I'm glad that White Oak Pastures is out there. - Well, I am too. And I appreciate you showing, uh, interest in what we do here. Thank you very much for that.
- And anyone listening, white oak pastures.com, if you wanna go check out what Will does and, and his farm, and, uh, there's a lot of information on the website. - Did they, did they tell you? We, we wrote a book. We wrote a book or released last October. It's called a Bold Return to Giving a Down, - A Bold Return, - A Bold Return to Giving A Down - .
I love it. A Bold Return to Giving a Damn - Viking Penguin Random House and, and just been, it is just released, released this fall, and it's doing, doing pretty good. But it, if anybody does wanna know more about what we do, then that would be a, a great opportunity. And it, and it, it's not just about white oak pastures, it's about the effort to move food production from this very industrial linear model to something that's more cyclical and covers its own costs. - Is your daddy still with us?
- He's not, no. My dad's been gone a long time. - What do you think he would say about what you've done there? - You know, I, I know what he'd say about what I've done. He'd raise hell about it. He, uh, he would not, he didn't want me to come back and farm to start with, and he would really, so my dad, I told you, born in 1920, he was a child of the depression and debt was not okay with him. And he worked hard farms paid for, you know, I I I borrowed money.
I, I we spent $7 million building processing plants and distribution arms. So, you know, that not much I've done would've been okay with him for the last 20 years. - , I don't know. I think maybe we're, you know, I believe that once people pass on, they'll still keep a close eye. And I think he'd be proud. - Well, I mean, uh, I feel like when I, when I, when I die and go to hell and meet him again, , we'll see. - . Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate your time.
I really, I think it's so important to talk to people like you because I do think there are people out there trying to do what you're doing and hearing from somebody that has made it work, even though you say, you know, thing, it's maybe not as hugely successful or financial, but you made it a great point. That it's supporting the community.
And if we could just get out of our own way and realize that the community, if we start at the community and then everything will eventually fall into place, it's, it doesn't have to be huge. Start with your neighbor, you know? - Yeah. I mean, I agree with everything you say, and I just, I just, how it's gonna look.
I just, I don't, I think about it all the time and, and it is, I used to think I knew what was happening and I, I thought I saw the direction and the path, and I think, I think I was right. But then the, the, the, these big multinational corporations are so powerful and they, they are so influential and they, they change the way people think and they change the way that people are moving things. And you know, I just, I just don't know.
I, I'm, I'm pretty sure that the industrial model that's feeding us now is going to end badly, but I don't, I don't know what's gonna look like. - It won't be able to sustain itself, you mean. - Yeah. I mean, I think, I think we're, I think we're having, uh, too many species going to extinction. I think we are changing the weather. I think we're, uh, polluting everything.
I think we, we, I'm, I'm, I'm convinced we'll run out of fossil fuel, and I don't mean tomorrow, but the path is where it's, and I can come up with a lot of other things that are, are horrible that I think can happen. And, and the things that we can do, you know, pop human population, this, you know, we didn't get into that, but, you know, the earth has a carrying capacity. - I agree. - And I don't know what it is. And I don't know if we're halfway there or got twice as many as we should have.
I don't know that, but I know that you can't just keep increasing the population, uh, infinitely. And it'd be okay that, that, that that's not gonna work. - Not when you treat the host the way we treat our host. Definitely. That, that's something I talk about a lot actually, is that perhaps this planet could sustain all these people, but not without the partnership of the people to her.
It, they, we have, we're in, so many of us are not in partnership with the land or with the mother, if you, if you will. And she eventually, she's gonna just spit us all off. This is . This is the only, that's the only thing left because well, - There, let's, let's be clear. The earth will be okay. That's - What I'm saying. She'll spend - The earth - Will be - Okay. Yeah. She'll, we'll, we'll catch, but the earth will be okay. Exactly. - The viruses will kick up more notches.
We're gonna keep losing animals. The weather's gonna be intolerable, you know, the elderly and the young and the infirm will die off. And it's, there's, because we don't work together ever, it's so frustrating. - Uh, you know, I I, I didn't get into this, but when I, I was born in 1954 and I came up that there was wilderness on the planet. I didn't get to go to any of it, but, you know, the, you know, Canada, parts of Canada and parts of the Amazon and Africa, there was wilderness.
And they're just about in any wilderness anymore. I mean that you may find a spot that's, but not really. And I think we're doing exactly the same thing to rural. I think that probably not in my lifetime, but probably in your lifetime, there won't be any rural anymore. It'll be city and the rest of it. And yeah, I think that's just, Lord. I think that lords everybody's quality of life.
- I agree with you. I've driven across this country and it's a beautiful country, and I've driven across it by myself. It's probably seven or eight times. And every time I do it, I go in a different direction. 'cause I wanna see my country. And it is sad to see driving through these little towns, how many are impoverished within an inch of their life, or just absolutely shut down. - Oh, it, it, rural impoverishment is just incredible. And I don't see why people don't see it.
But we don't, I mean, people don't, people don't. Well, what, what, uh, so I looked at your website just briefly. I didn't spend much time on it. What, what do you do? I mean, this, these podcasts is that I do game, - Do I do the podcast, but it's ad free, so I don't take money for it. People sometimes donate, but it's, it's an ad free. So, so no money from that. I spend money on it. And then I, I'm a painter, an abstract painter, and I sell paintings here and there.
Uh, I have written songs for people like Reba McIntyre and Lone Star, but in an era where places like Spotify and big music business has basically taken money away from songwriters, you don't really get any money from that either. Uh, and then I just made my first short film that's gonna be coming out probably in March mm-Hmm. And I'm doing, doing that kind of stuff. So I live in the world of storytelling. Yeah. It's a, I'm not, I don't have a lot of money.
I, as you put it, you know, my, I am poor on paper, but I have a rich life. - Alright, well, I'm, uh, I'm very grateful to you for giving me the opportunity to be with you today. - I'm so honored that you, that you took the time. I know you're a busy guy and I really appreciate it. And thank you for the work you do. - Well, thank you for the work you do. - It's really lovely to meet you. Take care. And I will get the word out about white oak pastures. You,
- You, you are charming person. Thank you very much. - Thank you for listening everybody. Bye bye-Bye bye-Bye. Reach review and subscribe to Hey, human podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks. Bye.