The Punk Rock Farmer - Part 2

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
Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year?  Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months.  So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com  Lang calendar.

00:26
because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.

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. That doesn't work here. mean, I said number one, said, when you have 12,000 tomato plants planted per acre, the pheromones that we're releasing to the hawk moths and the gypsy moths, everything that wants to come a beat on these, that's going out. Huge, huge signals.

01:26
And I said, we try to use, I mean,  I do integrated pest management where I try to incorporate insect predators and,  I encourage hawks here.  love the fact that I have hawks. My wife doesn't like it because of her chickens, but I like having hawks here because mice are such a problem for us as produce farmers. They are just the bane of our existence.

01:54
we're getting ready to install 27 miles of drip irrigation just here at this location. And when we install that, the mice in the middle of summer when it's dry will actually chew on that drip irrigation. To get to the water. To get to the water. so,  you know,  I've always told people, like, I'll have guys who work for me and they'll see a snake and they'll go to kill it. said, that's fine. But you kill a snake, you got to do his job for two weeks for free.

02:22
You know, because he's eaten the things I don't want him. We have bees and we're able to educate people. They're like, well, how can you use chemicals  and have bees? Well, because number one, the stuff I'm using, bees aren't chewing on the plants.  And these insects have to chew on the plants in order to ingest it. Number two,  we also spray in accordance with how the bees

02:52
Whether they're, you know, we don't like to, we really don't like to spray plants late in the evening, but, uh, we will, we won't spray before a big bloom, like a big bloom of watermelons. We don't spray. mean, there's, there's things that we actively do that there's nuanced conversations that we can have with the people that are all or nothing. When it comes to there's people that are like, no chemicals all the way. That's the way we should do it. And then there's people like, absolutely don't use chemicals. And I see myself as.

03:22
I'm the dude in the middle saying if I don't have to spray, I'm not going to. But at the same time, don't take the tool tools away from me that I need to help feed people.  And that's that's  that's  that's a hard part for me sometimes  is  what people tell me now.  The funny part about those those ladies that came, they were awesome.  They were like you guys, you know, she said she wanted to know how we  manage rabbits. And I said, Well, we throw lead at him.

03:51
1300 feet per second. Us too. Yes. And I could tell it took her a second to understand what I was saying. And I was like, all these, all these cute German shepherds that are your best friends right now that are, are, you know, circling you for, for their next pet. These guys also do it. They see a rabbit, they kill it, you know, and that's kind of, kind of how we've trained them to be. And they're like, yeah, we,

04:18
But I'm like, you guys are also in urban environments. So discharging a firearm would probably be frowned upon. you  know, the things that you can do, I mean, I didn't really have an answer for him because I've always been able to manage pests the way we saw fit. Yeah.

04:40
Yeah, I'm going to jump in for a second.  I think that what  everybody needs  regarding  these stories you're telling is number one,  listening. Number two, critical thinking. And number three, understanding what you heard and realizing that  it doesn't have to be  one way or another. It can be a blend of a bunch of things. Correct. I mean, I've always said in my mind,

05:07
I've always said that the, the pinnacle of agriculture at some point is we're going to take the best of conventional and the best of organic. And we're going to be able to, to kind of merge them together, which I already kind of do on my farm. There's organic products.  I, I,  I, I, some of the truth telling that I, that I think has gotten me in trouble before is I was an organic farm. We were conventional. I switched to organic. I switched back.

05:37
And so there were certain crops I just I could not grow them well organically.  Not without  a  huge reduction in yield as well as a lot of loss. Other crops though, especially now with the organic inputs that are out there. I don't know why an organic tomato cost more. Than a conventionally grown tomato.  I don't know why an organically grown bell pepper.

06:07
cost more because the only difference in the growing methods, at least from what I can tell is the inputs and the inputs really aren't that much more expensive anymore, especially when you're buying them. If you're growing at scale, that you know, you're you're you're buying them in bulk. So the cost isn't really that much more. I think that like the Corteva product, I think it's $30 more a pint if it's organic.

06:37
But that pint mind you is 700 bucks conventional,  but it makes a lot of product. I mean it makes a ton of product. So  yeah,  I see a lot of things in food that that I'm super critical of that nobody wants to talk about.  You know we could be growing organically or people can be growing organically. They have the tools now to to  to.  Really?

07:06
Be able to compete with it, compete with a conventional farmer. But if I go to a farmer's market, I still see $7 pound tomatoes  and people  say, there's $7 a pound because you know, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. They have a checklist of things. Well, no, there's $7 a pound because you can't take advantage of economy of scale. That's why.

07:35
And I don't have a problem with that. buy those seven dollar tomatoes sometimes just see what they taste like or if they grow a variety that I don't.  I'm happy to pay that to the farmer. Where I get up where I have a problem is is when farmers markets are utilized as things that can address food access, especially if we're talking about affordable food access here in Indianapolis, they put a farmers market in the city's largest food desert.

08:04
And I went to it  and they had number one, had stuff that nobody wanted.  Um, you know, the, the, it was the kale or the, you know, these, these different, you know, the varieties weren't great. And  what they did have that the community looked at was  not affordable to them. They, they, you know, they did that. The tomatoes were  not one vendor was selling them for less than $5.

08:34
They were all organic. The requirement of this particular market and this deal that they had made with this, with the center they were doing it with was that everything had to be organic and everything. And I remember I was speaking to the person that had put it together  and she was basically, I was there, we had some of the kids there and she's like, the very fact that none of you have tasted.

09:05
and organic strawberry picked  right from the field is just, I just can't believe it. You guys have no idea what you're missing out on. And that's why this is important. And I just, wanted to like, just get in her face and be like, listen, you know, these kids, they're going to school with no food. They didn't eat breakfast. They're, they're, they're on the lunch programs.  And on top of that,

09:34
They have no idea  where to go to get those organic strawberries that you're talking about pick straight from the field. They're lucky if they get a conventional strawberry from plant city, Florida, let alone what you're talking about. And your strawberries are very expensive. They're out of their price range. Even their snap dollars that they're all given to spend there. Just do not go very far when the prices of the food is so expensive. And we kind of looked at that.

10:02
We started doing farmers markets just to address food insecurity. And we had this lofty goal of, well, if we're going into an area where there's a poverty level, everybody's on SNAP, everybody's on this or that, we're just going to provide, we're subsidized basically by our private funders. So we're going to just give the food away for free. You know, we hear something crazy. Nobody take it. Really?

10:30
Nobody, they all insisted on purchasing it. So we made the tomatoes a dollar a pound. And when we made them a dollar a pound, they loaded up  on them. They, know, cucumbers, you know, our cucumbers were a quarter or you, or you could get, you could get five for a dollar, you know? And,  and so, I mean, we had, we had, you know, especially a lot of grandmothers.

10:59
a lot of African American grandmothers that were saying they're going to show their granddaughters how to make pickles.  And what surprised me was as, you know, some people go out and look for pickling cucumbers. My grandmother never used pickling cucumbers. She always used a different type of cucumber.  never  I I always preferred those over the pickling ones.  And I think so today. But.

11:26
I realized then that it was also about dignity that they could, they could buy this fresh produce. They could go home, make a meal for their family and be able to say, look what I got for you. you know, not every farm can do that. And that, wasn't an expectation, but that's why when people say small local only small local only like, okay, fine. But how do we feed people?

11:56
You know,  the demographic that you're thinking of in your mind of that suburban soccer mom or suburban baseball dad that will come and drop a hundred bucks at your farmer's market without blinking an eye. That is only a percentage of what the American public is. The  folks in the urban areas and even rural areas that are living at the poverty line. There needs to be a place for them. Number one, to participate.

12:27
And that means being able to buy. They should be able to buy it. But participate in such a way that.

12:35
they can afford it and it doesn't like, doesn't like rock their bank account or they don't feel guilty.  I  had the pleasure of being at a dinner with Joel Salatin  and  Joel Salatin said, I don't want the single mom living in a food desert to be my client. That's low hanging fruit. That's what he said, it low hanging fruit. And I just thought, wow.

13:04
Any respect that I had for that dude went out the window when he said that because as a farmer, my job's to. My civil  service is to make sure that my community is fed. That's my job.  And.  The greed and there's nothing wrong with somebody making money. You should be able to. Sustainability is also financial. But to kind of throw my clients.

13:32
under the bus as if they're not important or they shouldn't be what somebody is striving to have as clientele, that just rubbed me the wrong way. And I was just like, okay, well, I'm going to try to do even more now. I outproduced his farm big time. Granted, he's only meat. I'm 99 % produce, but pound for pound, we

14:01
What I do  is,  is I care more about making sure that people have this access.  Um, and if I want, if I wanted the money, I could have, I even as running the nonprofit, I could have just,  I know so many nonprofit leaders that,  know, they're rolling in cash. You know, they take these gigantic grants and they use them for everything other than the service that they're supposed to provide.

14:30
10 % of it  is used for the service and everything else goes over. We actually got to where we were providing  one pound of food and that pound would, a serving,  to where it had the servings of three vegetables and protein for  almost  right at a dollar.  Now we were non-profit, so what I always tell people is you can't, because we were non-profit, we're subsidized by private.

15:00
Private entities we actually never took any taxpayer dollars.  Subsidized by. By private entities we were able to do that.  So now that I've kind of closed my nonprofit we we we've we've you know we've got with the board and we said we don't want to do this anymore.  We feel like there's other ways to be more impactful.

15:28
I can still, can't get close to that number, but I can still get to where it's affordable and my farm makes money.  You know, and that's because then that's how I feel. Everybody has a different path.  I do get a little bit hung up and that's what I'll call it. know, niche growers,  the pasture raise folks, those folks, the holistic farmers. When they,

15:57
go as far  as saying things like,  isn't,  know,  if you're not buying this chicken, or if you're not buying this beef, or if it's not grass fed, or whatever it might be, you know,  it's almost a form of food bullying. And I don't like it, you know, because I know plenty of holistic growers,  holistic producers, they don't do that. They're like, this is what I have.

16:27
This is what I, this is what I produce. If you want it, I have it. And they are providing such a valuable service for, for those folks that seek out that type of food. It's just when I,  when I see some farms and I just, there's one, I just talked about this. There's a farm on Facebook I used to follow. I had to stop following them because they're, they're number one, crashing farmers like me, you know, that, that, that, that's.

16:57
here and over there, I can see that a lot. But they were trashing anyone who was making a decision based on the price  of the food. again, that's because I've worked in this, I've worked in this sector  of the hunger. I know  the sacrifices people make on food.  We're not  talking about people that are sitting on welfare at home. We're talking about

17:26
People that some of them have two jobs and they're still in the poverty level.  mean,  it's just a very odd thing or there's a mental health issue.  Um, lot of, a lot of addiction issues that, that lead to hunger. But we always used our food as kind of a bridge to say, Hey, we can help you with if it's the mental health thing or it's the addiction thing, we can help you. You know, here's the, here's the bridge that we're building the food come across.

17:57
And then with other people, was just about things. Healthy eating was not affordable to them.  And,  uh, you know, I, I met him,  uh, uh, a mother who we actually owned a grocery store in Indianapolis that our farm provided stuff for and multiple other farms did.  And,  uh, she was, she could not afford the organic eggs that were in the store.  And.

18:26
There were some, couple other things, cause we offer both organic and conventional. And I told her the conventional stuff actually, I showed her the stuff that we were talking about. And she had three boxes of Annie's organic macaroni and cheese in her cart. And I was like, do you really think because that says organic on it, that processed cheese junk, whatever it is, is better than a conventional tomato?

18:54
or a salad that you can make for your kids  or  that conventional watermelon that your kids would absolutely love. Do you think that's better?  And she said, I don't know.  said,  I kind of went through, she asked me a lot of questions about how we farm and I was able to answer. She loaded her cart up with my produce,  which I was happy about.  those are the nuanced conversations.

19:23
And I do, I see that right now. I see a lot of barbs being thrown from like the holistic grower side of, you know, cattle that never, that never, uh, never are on pasture. I don't know. I mean, I raised cattle for market. I've never had them a hundred percent on a feedlot. They're two thirds of their life was spent on my pastures. And then, you know, when they go to finish, that's somebody else doing it, but

19:52
That's where they're going. I don't know that. I don't know.

20:01
why that's happening right now, why it's such a push  to trash every type of farming operation without actually knowing how it works.  I do think it's not understanding the complexities of the American food system that, you know, I don't believe that a whole list, if we went back to a holistic method, like say how Salatin is maybe telling us to grow or these other people are telling us to grow.

20:31
I don't see that being able to feed our population. just don't know how it could. Not without like every fourth person having to go back to an agrarian lifestyle. And I also don't see the American public wanting to do that. I don't think it would be a bad thing. just don't see them wanting to do it.

20:56
Yeah, I mean, it's work. It's hard work. It's good work. I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump in real quick cause we're coming up on like 55 minutes now.  You are a storyteller. I love that. I love everything that you're doing and keep doing it.  But I think that part of the reason that people are so quick to jump on each other, whether it's  egg  or I don't know anything right now is right now people are so stressed.

21:24
And so worried and so  unsure of what tomorrow looks like that everyone is kind of on edge and it's coming out sideways. Now, I don't know how long you've been seeing this behavior that you're talking about. I I'll be honest. I think you're right because you know, Joel Salatin and folks like him have been around for a long time.  Um, it becoming mainstream in the sense of and again,

21:55
Joel Salatin is one of those guys that I love that he gets people interested in agriculture. I just don't love how people will hang on to a sound bite, he said, and think that that's the gospel truth.  Or that what he just said will apply across the board, because it just doesn't. But  I think what you're saying is absolutely right, because it's just been recently where I've seen so many...

22:24
And again, I've seen in the past where farmers like me or a skilled farmer will throw barbs at a small farm  or a conventional farmer will throw barbs at the organic folks.

22:39
But the amount  of people just saying, know,  if it's not grass fed, if it's not pasture raised, if it's not X, Y, and Z, if it's not organic, if it's not, you know, it's It's bad. bad.  And that is to me probably what you're saying.  think, you know, a lot of these small farm operations, operate from

23:09
Market to market.  It's, you know, almost like a paycheck to paycheck kind of thing. So I'm sure it's stressful. And if they can try to convince somebody to buy their product, you know, because they're worried about the economy or worried about whatever. And also, I mean, the political climate, everybody needs a bandwagon chip on right now. I mean, that's that's  something I see. You know, I'm not a fan of RFK. I'm not.

23:35
You know,  and I'm in very red Indiana  and you say you're not a fan of RFK, then they're like, well, you must be like a Pico liberal. And I'm just like,  I have very cruel values, but I also understand what RFK  is and what he has done to farmers in the past.  And,  you know, that doesn't mean that I disagree with everything, you know, that he says, but there are some things that I just, I'm not.

24:06
It's kind of a weird thing that people will take what their political party, somebody from a political party is saying about agriculture and then the accountant that lives in the suburbs all of a sudden becomes an ag expert and is going to tell me what I'm doing wrong because he just happens to be in line with that party. That's not quite how that's supposed to work. Right. You know, I mean,

24:33
So yeah, but you're absolutely right. think it's just everybody is so uncertain of everything. Yeah,  it puts people on edge. And that's why I think it's better than ever right now is if you have  like these holistic farms and then like conventional farmers kind of locking arms, because ag's a big tent and there's room for everybody. Everybody has a place at the table. If we did that, it would just be such a better

25:03
a better outcome, understanding that, you know, I'm not going to grow all the tomatoes for the city of Indianapolis, even though I grow a lot of tomatoes, you know, I'm not going,  you and, and, and same thing for this pasture raise operation over here. They're not going to be able to grow  all the pasture raise stuff that somebody needs, but if it's marketed correctly, they'll do well. This farm over here will do well. And if everybody's kind of working together  and

25:32
And we're a unified front. It'll, it'll bring the Americans public's trust back to  agriculture  and it'll make us all stronger for it.  A, a rising tide raises all ships, so to speak. use that phrase all the time, Jonathan. Yes, it does.  Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna wrap this up because I try to keep my podcast to half an hour, but this one I'm just going to put on the show notes. It's a long one guys, but it's worth it.  Um,

26:01
Thank you so much for your time and thank you for ending on that note because  if we all just take a collective breath, step back, look at what we're doing and maybe try to build community around us,  things could be better. Oh, absolutely. So thank you so much for your time. appreciate it. Perfectly. I was I'm glad you had me on.  Oh, I'm glad you could be here. Have a great day. Yep.

26:26
Thank you.