Small American Farmers in Serious Crisis: The Back Story

Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast

Dr. Eric Berg

Health & Fitness

4.6 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 May 2024

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Please join me in welcoming Joel Salatin! Joel explains how all food is carefully sanctioned. With so many government, food, and zoning regulations, it’s very difficult for small farmers to enter the market.

To solve this problem, Joel started the Rogue Food Conference with John Moody in the spring of 2020 with the theme “Circumvention, Not Compliance.” When laws inhibit competition with larger producers, it’s more efficient to circumvent rather than comply with the rigorous regulations.

The upcoming Rogue Food Conference will be held at Joel’s farm, Polyface Farms, in Virginia. It showcases the unique ideas that people use to get their products to the masses. Many small farmers favor the private membership association model, which will be debated at the conference!

Another creative way that people are able to sell their food or products is by selling them as a component of a course. Some farmers might sell a butchering course online for $300 that also comes with 50 pounds of meat.

There are two Rogue Food Conferences each year. This year, it’ll be held in Virginia in the spring and Dallas in the fall.

Farmers’ markets are a great place to find local farmers and healthier food that’s not produced by large corporations. Look for boutiques or privately owned food stores and ask if you’re looking for a specific food, even if they aren’t selling it. Farmers know other farmers!

The key to our health is REAL food, so looking for great farmers is worth the hunt.

LINK TO THE UPCOMING EVENT: https://roguefoodconference.com/ EVENT DATE: MAY 18, 2024 Check out Joel’s YouTube Channel: / @farmlikealunatic

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome everyone. We're here with another fascinating interview with Joel Soliton and if you haven't read his books you need to they're awesome.
0:12.0	There's a situation that we want to talk about right now. So welcome
0:18.5	Joel. Can you tell us a little bit about the situation that's happening with small farmers right now in the
0:24.4	relationship to selling food.
0:29.1	Yeah, thank you, Dr. Eric and thank you for having me on. It's a real pleasure and an honor to be with you.
0:35.2	You know, when you walk into a Walmart or a supermarket,
0:39.9	it's easy to assume that, well, good grief, you know, the cornucopia is here.
0:44.6	I can have anything I want.
0:46.4	And the fact is that all the food in a supermarket is carefully sanctioned, if you will, or licensed by a labyrinth of government regulations, not just food regulations, but zoning regulations and all
1:08.7	sorts of things that make it very difficult for especially small farmers to come in.
1:20.5	I remember one time I had a bunch of Vice Presidents from, I think it was Sam's Club,
1:28.0	either Sam's Club or Costco. The nine Vice Presidents were on a kind of a nature tour around the East Coast.
1:36.4	They'd come from from Arkansas where their headquarters is.
1:40.9	And we were one of their stops. They were going to spend the day out on the Chesapeake Bay and things.
1:46.0	And I gave them a farm tour. We're all we're having lunch in the in the sales building there and they asked me, they were totally impressed they got it they got you know
1:55.8	ecological farming they got earthworms I mean they you know they it all resonated
2:02.4	animal welfare of those courts of things.
2:05.0	And they asked me, well, how do we get your stuff
2:08.8	into, you know, a Costco or a Walmart or whatever.
2:13.0	And I said, well, the first thing you have to do
2:15.6	is allow a truck smaller than a tractor trailer
2:18.7	to back up to your loading dock.
	...

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