The Punk Rock Farmer - Part 1

Today I'm talking with Jonathan Lawler at The Punk Rock Farmer. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00
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00:26
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00:56
You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Jonathan Lawler,  also known as the punk rock farmer in Indiana. I think you're in Indiana, yes? Yes, that's correct.  All right. Welcome, Jonathan. How are you? I'm good. How did you fare with the weather in Indiana last night?  It was a little bit rough. We're kind of used to it.

01:25
My farm's been hit by a tornado. I don't know twice. I lost a packing shed to a tornado a few years ago. Weirdly enough, last night, you know, we thought we were kind of ahead of the storm. So we decided to run to Walmart together. Well, which was weird. We usually don't go to Walmart as a family. my wife wanted to stop at another place up to town. So she came with us.

01:56
And  she actually came in because she said it was getting so bad. And as we were in there, the Walmart basically shut down and made everybody go back to their like, uh, receiving and storage area where it's designated as a storm shelter.  Well, I'm glad you're safe because I saw that there were bad storms in Indiana last night and I was like, Oh no, I think the guy I'm talking to today is in Indiana crap.  So glad you're good. Glad your family is safe.

02:26
Um, so tell me about yourself and tell me how come you're called The Punk Rock Farmer.  So  I actually didn't come up with that name.  Um, I didn't like the name when people started calling me that,  uh, you know, because when you get a label put on you, that's as wide as something representing an entire subculture in a music scene,  it's kinda, you know,

02:54
You feel like there's a lot of pressure there. You might not align with everything that that subculture represents.  But  I was  so we were working.  We were doing urban farm projects in Indianapolis  and a wonderful organization  known as the Flannery House  had been trying to put in an urban farm for like four years. They were working with a university and the university had them on like their ninth

03:24
feasibility study  and the executive director was getting super frustrated and I was actually providing produce to this  this community center  and he took me out to where he wanted to do it and he said you know what is the feasibility of doing this because you know we we keep having you know  the university we're working with says we got to make sure we're doing this this and this and I said do you have soil Sam?

03:53
And he's like, yeah, I said, okay, well, let's look at them. I looked at the soil samples and I'm like, well, we can put a plow on the ground  and, you know, start planting. I mean, I don't, you know, the spring, I don't know  what their holdup is.  And he said, okay, you know,  I'm all for that. So we actually put in a two acre urban farm there and they have a center for children.

04:22
that  the center has a  after school, it's for after school for their working parents. And they have a lot of young kids there.  And Brandon, the executive director told me, he said, make sure, if you can,  bring a cool tractor or, so I was like, I can bring two tractors.  That way we get it done twice as fast  and the kids can see them. So we brought two,  one good size utility tractor than a smaller utility tractor.

04:53
The kids had just never seen anything like that. And of course we used two big  F-350 farm trucks to pull those up there. I was wearing jeans, boots,  but I had a Misfits shirt on and my hair was really long and tattoos. And so the kids all started calling me the punk rock farmer.  You know, they're like, he's a punk rock farmer. And  a reporter heard it.

05:20
You know, reporter that was actually covering us doing that.  And funny enough, that  actual project made it to the, she was a reporter with USA Today.  And I believe it was 2017. It was on the cover of USA Today during Thanksgiving weekend.  That we,  what we were doing there.

05:46
Some other people heard about it. So a young woman actually created a Facebook fan page called the punk rock farmer.  She was a volunteer at our farm. She was constantly, you know, she did a lot of stuff for us and I liked it. I thought it was cool. You know, I still kind of cringed a little bit at being called the punk rock farmer.  I was also running the largest  nonprofit farm in the United States at the time.

06:15
that because that's what we did in urban farms. We we injected community centers, food banks, food pantries,  you know,  assisted living homes that were income based with fresh produce and protein. So.  As the executive director of that nonprofit, there were a lot of things I couldn't say because of the politics around nonprofit and the politics around, you know, working with the city.

06:44
But I realized, you know, cause she came to me, she said, this has like 8,000 followers now. You should probably, you guys should probably take it over.  And I kind of realized, well, I can say things as the punk rock farmer that I can't say as the executive director of Brandywine Creek Farms. So I took it over and  from there, it just kind of,  it kind of took off.  grew on you as things do, they get planted.

07:12
I mean, it grew not just social media wise, but our earned media, the opportunities that we got. mean, we, we, we, since then we've worked with, of course we've been on RFD TV,  CMT, country music television, but then we actually had the opportunity to work with Mike Rowe.  Uh, we've had the opportunity to work with Disney,  um, Tyson foods,  uh, Culver's restaurants named us the one of their.

07:40
There are farmers making an impact.  So yeah, we've had a lot of great opportunities with it.  So  do you think that that because the kids named you the punk rock farmer, it just brought more attention and that's how this all kind of got so big?  I do. I mean, I think people expect, you know,  when I go and speak publicly or wherever, I think  I think people are like, what, what are we going to get? You know,

08:10
Are you going to set the stage on fire? You know,  people expect their expectations versus what I am.  think  our local Farm Bureau  person summed it up best. He said, you know, because  I'm starting to work with my state Farm Bureau a little bit and he said, you know, we're a big ship. We're old. Takes a while for us to

08:39
to turn.  And he goes, I think a lot of people like in that farm bureau space, not just, and I don't mean specifically farm bureau, but the kind of that culture. He said, you know,  it's, taking a little bit of time for them to get used to your brashness. And he goes in and he goes in all fairness to your honesty, which is kind of not good, but you're very honest about how you see things. And that's the reason why I think a lot of our membership.

09:09
likes you, but some people, you know, in our leadership are a little bit like, Oh man, he just came out and said that, you know, which I do. mean, I'm not, I, I, I've been known to, to say exactly how I feel. Um, especially I, if I think that, uh, you know, a farmer, any farmer is being taken advantage of or is getting the short end of the stick. I feel like that's who I I'm trying to stick up for the most is other farmers.

09:38
And I think that's great. think you should keep doing that.  So  did you grow up farming or or did you get into farming later or what? What's your story?  It's kind of funny.  We I grew up on a farm until I was on a farm until I was 11.  My grandparents actually had a truck farm and my dad actually  farmed as well and just helped supply them. And we always had like.

10:07
I don't want to call it hobby farm because it was bigger than that, but my dad worked a full-time job in trucking. He actually owned a trucking company. so he spent, the farm was almost a place for, think for him to get relaxation is what I'd call it.  Uh, you know,  I'll tell people I've worked in two industries heavily. That's agriculture  and logistics or transportation.

10:36
both of which can be extremely high stressed.  you know, I think for my dad being able to help his parents  and, you know, us being able to grow up that way  was great. Funny enough,  my dad's trucking company grew enough to where it was kind of time to move closer to Indianapolis, which is where his trucking company was. We did, and so I went from being out in the country

11:05
to a suburb  of Indianapolis and  it wasn't great, it wasn't fun.  I made sure I went to my grandparents farm as much as I could. But also my dad kinda kept our rural roots going,  know, hunting and fishing and that kinda thing, even though we were there so he could be close.

11:32
And as I grew up, I didn't know if I was going to, if I wanted to go into agriculture  or if I wanted to go into the logistics side of our,  of our family, because we had people doing both. And I chose logistics. And I, at some point, me and my wife and my wife, just so you know, she actually, she's like the quintessential farmer's daughter. She grew up on a massive farm in.

12:01
Mary in Ohio,  at one time her dad was farming 9,000 acres and his family anyway.  so she grew up in that and she  and I both thought, you know, we want to get our kids back on a farm. So we actually  started farming again,  but with no home out in the country. were looking for, we had some land, we weren't.

12:29
particularly fond about building on it or, uh, or utilizing it was just where we went to the farm.  And, um, we started looking for a place and we found a, uh, old horse farm that,  uh, that's actually, it was a race horse farm. Uh, and it was beautiful. It had everything that I felt like we wanted it have the appropriate acreage for us to go, go to scale up  in our produce production. So that's what we did.

13:00
We purchased it and that was in 2012. So I went back to full-time farming in 2012. Okay. So that, leads me to another question. Are you,  do you consider yourself a, a crop farmer or are you a farm to market farmer or what? I am a vegetable producer that sells to a local market and intermediate market, meaning brokers.

13:29
And I also do direct to grocery sales. Okay. All right. So you're not just growing  one crop. You're not just growing corn and that's it for the year. Okay. Good.  Cause I know people do that and that's fine. Cause people need row crops, but I also know it's really hard on the earth to do it that way.  So. Yeah. I grow, our main crop  is.

13:59
It switches back and forth depending on the year, but it's typically either tomatoes, fresh market tomatoes or melons. or the other. Love both.

14:13
But I have had, I had one year, we got a giant,  we had a jalapeno contract that was really good. we, our primary crop that year was jalapenos.  And then after that,  we also got a bell pepper contract. And it was  actually  through a broker, which it's the first time I had ever gotten a contract through a broker.  And he wanted,

14:42
He wanted the red and the yellow bell peppers as well as he wanted a supply of green bell peppers. So Mm-hmm Okay, so that I actually do have a really weird question about that we grow yellow and red sweet peppers here  and  When we when we grow them they start out green  And then as they ripen they turn yellow or orange or red. So how do you manage to time that?

15:11
for a broker  so people get what they're buying. So we do a heavy nitrogen feed and then a heavy,  I don't know the exact numbers, actually my middle son is the one who does that.  I mean could get close on those numbers but it's just to really get the fruit to pop and then as soon as they've  gotten to a size that we feel like

15:41
Um, especially with the varieties we grow up that we feel like they're, they're, they're ready. We'll pick them.  The worst part about it is if you wait too long, you know, they've ordered green bell peppers, but you're giving them bell peppers that are blushing  and,  know, they, they don't, mean, I've never had anything rejected because they were blushing, but at the same time, by the time, you know, if they come and pick it up from the farm or we actually deliver it.

16:09
this particular companies in Indianapolis, we deliver it and then who knows where it's going from there. might be going to Cincinnati, might be going to Louisville, might be going to Chicago. Depending on how long it fits in their storage,  which is not long, usually it might be a day or two before those bell peppers are shipped out.  They can blush quite a bit. they almost, I've never actually,  I heard of it, but I've never seen it with my bell peppers. I've never seen a full

16:40
like a green bell pepper after it's been picked turned completely red.  I've never seen one turn completely yellow. I was just curious because my husband will bring in the peppers that are supposed to be red in at the end of September when we have to pick them or they're going to get frosted. Right. I'm in Minnesota and they'll have like red spots on them, but they're not red yet. And it doesn't matter. They still taste good.

17:09
They're lovely. yeah. mean, and the thing about a green bell pepper is a lot of people don't know it has more vitamin C in it than orange does. like, I know that the orange people have better lobbyists because you know, everybody's like eating an orange if you have a cold. Well, actually eat a green bell pepper, you'll get a lot more vitamin C. Yeah. And I, I don't love oranges, but I don't love oranges to the point where I want to eat one a day. Whereas I would eat, I would eat

17:38
sweet peppers in everything.  They add something to every recipe.  It's definitely one of my favorite. It's one of my, I'm very picky. I grow things that I would never eat myself. I mean, I'm terrible.  I was like a health food ambassador for when I was doing a lot of  our hunger stuff and telling people to eat stuff that I personally  would never, like I won't eat zucchini.  I won't eat an onion.

18:07
I don't eat broccoli. don't eat anything like that. And it's not because I have anything against them. I just don't like how they taste. just don't.  I don't like the taste of my kale is one of those things that I think is one of the grossest plants on the planet, but we grow it. I mean, we grow a lot of kale.  So do we, and I don't eat it.  It's one of the few leafy greens I cannot eat. I just hate the texture of it. Yeah, it's, it's definitely not a

18:37
I don't know what it is, you know, and people are like, well, you collard greens. Well, I eat collard greens after they've been prepared as collard greens. don't eat them. You know, I don't know if you've ever tasted a collard green raw, but it is quite different than when it's been like cooked the way, at least the way I grew up eating. Aren't collard greens like rough on your tongue if they're just picked out of the garden and washed off? Yeah, it's like it was designed not to be.

19:07
You gotta you gotta boil them and like my wife, she's so she's from northern Ohio.  But like where I'm like a lot of my family's from the south. So I mean, collard greens are  usually cooked for the number one. They're cooked either bacon or  or even a hog jaw or something. And then they're cooked for hours.  And there's vinegar added to them. There's all kinds of stuff or.

19:36
pieces of bacon.  And I think it's almost like you're disguising  the collard green itself in order to be able to eat it. Yep, that makes sense.  Yeah, I don't do collard greens either, so we're of a like mind there.  So we've talked for like 18 minutes and I would love to know what it is that you're, what you're trying to do  with your

20:03
You're a fairly new found notoriety as the punk rock farmer for ag. Well, so we because I've had. So because I've had so much earned media, which is something that people on social media don't typically get, I actually got the earned media first and I cultivated those relationships. So an understanding media, I mean, I got.

20:31
In 2016, I started getting stuck in front of cameras to the point that one of the benefactors that  actually wanted us to become a nonprofit farm,  um, came to me and said, Hey, we need to get you some coaching. So, mean, there's a lot of reporters that want to talk to you. So  I got some PR coaching there and then I just kind of took it  and put my own style to it  of.

21:00
You know, how do I, how do I motivate people?  Um, how do I get them to, to, how do, how do I,  make calls to action for agriculture? I can tell you it's a rough road. Agriculture is very much set in its ways.  just is.  and somebody like me, even though I probably share the same values,  uh,  I,  I live the same lifestyle. I just happened to be, you know, bit a little funny because,  know,

21:29
I did  as a young person,  I was drawn to that punk  and both heavy metal scene kind of thing and that's what I liked. And so I put my style of that on everything.

21:47
Now I feel like this is something that can make the average person. I hope the average person they can go, well, he's not, he's not from a big advocacy organization representing, you know, the 1 % of the big corporations and he actually, you know, is looking out for the farmers. hopefully like, when I tell people, Hey, this is okay. And this isn't okay that they could take.

22:15
confidence in it that I'm not trained to You know, I'm not trying to get clout. I'm not trying to do anything other than look out for the farm

22:25
So we actually started a media company, a media and marketing company,  and we're a little bit different. So we concentrate heavily on animal enterprise and livestock. Well, I we do anything ag, but we concentrate on them. We've done crisis management. We've actually done crisis management for a zoo. A zoo was being attacked by animal rights activists, and we came in and helped them navigate the media. We helped them.

22:53
navigate the actual activists that were flying drones at their place that were, you know,  going on to social media and trying to trash them.  That's where I found the most fulfillment.  And I'm naturally a storyteller. You know, if you ever read my writings, was actually,  I did that April Fool's thing. I wrote like three or four years ago, actually, but I  saw that.

23:23
And I actually had a gentleman that runs another marketing company.  Um, he,  he said that he's like shared it around his,  uh, around his office.  And I was just like, that's, that's great. mean, that you guys think that that's very, very cool. And he was just like, he goes, I feel like you're like the gene shepherd of agriculture.

23:51
You can get people,  you're very descriptive in how you write or describe things. And sometimes like, well, I mean,  there's worse people to be compared to, I guess.  So.

24:07
My whole point purpose now is I want to tell Ag's story, but I don't want to tell it to farmers. I want to tell it to everybody else. And I feel like 99 % of the things that we see today are echo chamber things. mean, if I attend a conference, you know,

24:33
people sit around and talk about these issues and they all kind of pat themselves on the back. And I'm like, you realize the average person thinks that we're trying to poison them. The average person does not believe you that you treat your animals well.  They just don't.  And it's getting more, it's getting worse. Every day it's getting, or I see it, it's getting worse. So.

24:59
That's what we decided to do. That's been, that's been kind of a rough one. Uh, we, we've shot one documentary  around animal enterprise and that was  unbelievably hard to get done. Uh, number one, because it is kind of a odd industry, that industry that we, it was a dog breeding industry actually.  And so you have, it's the weirdest thing. You don't have this in there.

25:26
In this industry, you have like really, really, really good players, people that actually give a rip about dog welfare and want things to be the best. And then you have these really unethical bad players that at the end of the day, all they care about is making money. The problem is, is that these really bad players are the ones in control of the industry. Yeah. And that's just the way it is. Um, I mean, you, you have a.

25:55
without naming the university, there's a professor that's doing a thing with dogs and they are supposedly an ethics professor as well. And the unethical actions of just this professor is unbelievable. The bullying that takes place in this industry is unbelievable. And a lot of these folks are members of the plane community, whether it be Amish or Mennonite.

26:25
And they, they folks,  folks that are kind of top of it,  use people within that industry to bully the bad, to bully the good players. There are Amish people right now. Nobody believes me. I've been in their kennels. There are Amish people in this country that are breeding dogs and doing it better than anyone else. And their story will never be told because there are so many bad players also in that.

26:55
in the playing community and the bad players get a pass. They really do. And so when we went to release our documentary, all this kind of stuff came to light. I'm just going, holy cow. Now we have to reshoot the, or well, we don't have to reshoot the entire documentary. We had to reshoot parts of it. had so that we could still tell the truth. And, but  at the end of the day, it was made to help.

27:21
the good players in the industry. And I had so many people pushing back saying, well, we did a documentary like this two years ago. We don't need another one. Why does there need to be a documentary? I was like, well, because your opposition, which would be the ASPCA and the Humane Society and PETA, they're releasing 10 to 15 of these things a year. And they're well produced, they're well done, and they're changing minds.

27:49
And so you're allowing them to tell your story. And I see that, and where I see that, as I see that nag too, nobody in ag, like when, like I'll go to somebody and I'll pitch something. I'll be like, this story needs to be told. And they're like, but why? We did this, you know, two years ago. I'm just like, do you not understand that these NGOs,

28:15
This is how they're winning. You guys are sitting around scratching your heads going, how are they doing this? Well, they're doing it through social media and they're doing it through  these emotional  films, this emotional story telling. I said, and here we are, we have the best advantage because we can also tell an emotional story, but it has the truth behind it.  And that's why I guess I approach it different.

28:44
Like when I do something, when we do one of our films, very, it's very gritty. It's very real life. And it's very emotional. And that's what we want because emotion is what calls people to action. You know, uh,

29:01
And that has been one of the more frustrating parts in working with folks in HANAG.  I have  had multiple speaking engagements where, you know, somebody really likes what I say or talk about  and they book me and then somebody higher up than them will be like,  eh, that guy, he's a little bit,  he's too controversial.  Which is weird because I don't consider myself controversial at all.

29:27
haven't heard anything terribly out there from you yet and you've been talking to me for almost half an hour so I don't know what the problem is. Yep, thank you. If you like this podcast you would probably love Amy Fagan's Grounded in Maine podcast.  You can find her on  all the platforms  and I think her website is groundedinmaine.com.