Protecting rural communities with better food systems

0:00Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the Mahalo Down I'm Jeff Lauterbach. And we're just off of Labor Day and midterms coming up in November and a lot in the news about all things related to beef and cattle herd size. And we're going to get into topics like that with my guest here today Joe Maxwell, a Farm Action Fund, but Joe first we'll dive right into it. Last week an icon in literature and agriculture died after I think he was 92 I believe, a window berry and I've, it's interesting because I've interviewed a lot of high profile figures in regenerative agriculture like like Joel Salatin, Will Harris people like that.

1:03And but a lot of people that I don't mean to leave anyone out because there are plenty of them. And one thing they all have in common is window berry, they all attribute window berry to having tremendous impact on him. And I'll let you dive into that. And before you get talking I should have done this from the beginning. Welcome back to the show. Yeah, well thank you very much Jeff. It's great to be back on the show and you raised just a really kind of an emotional topic as many of us with the passing of window berry reflecting on the movement, our work, but mostly on what it is to take a stand, right? To sometimes maybe be the only one speaking out. And how brilliantly he did that throughout his career with literature as well as action.

2:05And it is really the foundation of a lot of the work that we do here. And our rule independence initiative is broader than just the farmer. It also has the impact on our rural communities. And personally, it was always great. I, my brother and I farmed and sometimes you would feel like the lone person. But then you had window and kind of gave you that sense that you weren't alone. And that's what his work meant to me personally. Well, for those listeners who didn't hear you run the show six or eight weeks ago, tell us a little bit about your background in farming and how you came to this point with farm action fun.

3:05Yeah, well, I'm a fourth generation family farmer, independent farmer. Farm with my brother. We have a farm in Missouri. I grew up on that farm. My earliest recollections was actually working the farm at a very young age. Maybe I wasn't working so much, but I was out there with my dad. And so it's kind of, it is where my roots are, a farm that's over 100 years in the family. As I tell folks a lot of time, you know, when I'm sitting there, leaning on a fence post after working in the sheep or something, you know, I can visualize working with my dad. I can hear my grandpa giving advice on animal husbandry and just how to how to farm. So that also have been blessed. I've been an elected official. I have a degree in ag economics and law, which I have put both the lived experience on the farm,

4:07which I still farm and those tools that I academic tools to work in the movement for farm action fund. I would like to add one thing, you know, when I was young and I don't tell this story very often, but it was in the 80s and the farm crisis was going on, Jeff. And I knew something was wrong and wanted to do something about it. And so I walked into a congressman's campaign office and he had been working hard for our kind of agriculture and was getting the heck beat out of him. And I said, what can I do to help? Well, they had me stuffed back in the days where you stuffed envelopes and send emails. And I stuffed envelopes. And after a while, a couple of days, they asked me to do something else. And before I knew it, I learned I had some skills and understanding of campaigns. And I began to also engage in the election process to try to get folks elected

5:08that stood up for rural communities, the rural way alive, family farmers, independent farmers. And but that's how I got my start in politics was one day I got had enough and thought I ought to do something. And even if it was just stuffing envelopes. And we're going to talk further about that later in the show, but back to back to Wendell Berry, what you said about your memories of your grandfather and your father and being a little kid grown up on the farm. My background isn't in farming. I grew up in a suburban neighborhood. And I really just started getting into the whole what I would call the pro maha movement and understanding the importance of the difference between regenerative and conventional agriculture and the importance of that. And knowing where your food source from and knowing how it's raised. And it's interesting that Wendell Berry, he wrote his books along decades ago. I mean, he's written some books over the last

6:10decade, but a lot of his books that are classics, you know, go back for years regarding agriculture because he also obviously wrote poems and essays and novels, not related to agriculture. But his agricultural books seem to be more relevant than ever. What are your thoughts about that? Well, yeah, well, absolutely. I don't know. I think they were extremely relevant then. And unfortunately, it's taking decades for us to get to this point where they become extremely relevant. There's enough folks that are understanding that what our current food system is, is not good for the farm, for our soil, for our water. And it's not good for those who eat. And so, as I said, sometimes when I was younger, knowing that Wendell was out there kind of gave you hope that

7:17she wasn't alone, I always felt that when I grew up, I was trained by the generations before me, my dad, my mom, my grandma, my grandpa, you know, that we're just stewards of that which we've been given. And that kind of falls in line with what Wendell wanted to express. And that, you know, we were here to be the caretakers and then, you know, to make it a good place for the next generation. And as industrial ag began to push in, that thought became, folks would actually actively work to discredit that kind of thought. If you wanted to talk about raising livestock, you know, the schools changed their animal husbandry programs to animal science. The National Port producers

8:21counseled the National, back then the beef folks, NCBAs, you know, wanted us to quit being animal producers. They didn't want me to be a hog farmer anymore. They wanted me to be a port producer. I mean, just you were just inundated with this concept of industrialization of agriculture from your universities to the trade organizations that hosted the dinners, you know, in the winter time and springtime to get you to rethink what your role was as its relationship with the land, with the animals, and also with your consumer. And so Wendell's thoughts, you know, gave a lot of us who felt differently and pushed back against that, since that there was another side to that.

9:23What are your challenges now as an independent farmer that you didn't have back when, when your grandpa was farming, when your dad was farming, and then when you started becoming more active in the farm, and when you were in your 20s or so, how has it changed versus today? I mean, how is it compared to today? I always kind of benchmarked my farm even though I was a little fellow running around with dad and, you know, carry, dad would break down the rations into a gallon bucket, so I could carry it and say the five gallon heat carried, and then I grew up to the three gallon bucket, and then finally the five gallon bucket. So, but I kind of benchmarked that when I did a short stint in the army, and when I got out was kind of what I consider, okay, so I'm on the farm now as an adult, if you will. And there were four companies in the meat business that were the

10:24big four, and they controlled 36% of the cattle market. Today, the big four control 85%. The biggest change that has occurred since the late 70s and early 80s is the heavy consolidation on both sides of the farmer, on the input side and on the selling side, on the output side, and we just don't have markets. And as the markets dried up and the power went into the hands of a few corporations, whether that was your seed company or whether that was your cattle buyer, or hog buyer, whatever it might be, corn, soybean, the farmer slowly got squeezed. Today, we're losing 63 farmers a day are going off the farm. That's the biggest factor. And then I know the average age of the farmer is what, 60 or around 60?

11:31Yeah, yes. I think that one, I think that is a stat. I think behind that stat is, is that issue of concentration. I mean, with that concentration and the loss of an opportunity to make a fair living on the farm, the next generation says, I just can't do it. There's oftentimes dads that say, you need to go do something else. I'm going to make it, but there's nothing here. There's no livelihood. And why is that? That's because hand full of companies dictate the price of farmers going to get. They're gouging the farmer. I mean, look at the study. The corn growers did.

12:33It's about 60 percent difference in cost of seeds in the United States that it is in Brazil. These companies are just grading the coffers of the farmers and gouging the consumer to grocery store. The age is there because of this heavy concentration. At the same time, it's not just the concentration. It's that you got to farm their industrial model. It's that these other models don't have a place. They want to make sure that it is their model. Their industrial model heavily laden with chemicals because that's what they make money on. They want to trap you into that as a farmer. They want to trap you into their supply chain. And so it's their model. They control the market. Do it their way or get out. And it's just a challenge for the next generation to find a place that

13:37makes sense down on the farm. How has the in the news right now, especially over the last few weeks, it's been all about cattle herd size and beef imports. And let's talk about the beef imports. I know that President Trump, he had an executive order bringing in the beef from I believe it was Argentina and Brazil. What are your thoughts about that? Because I know that's a very controversial topic and there's very opinions on it. And first of all, on the executive order itself, I know farm action and farm action fund. I've read the articles that I believe Angela Huffman on the farm action site, which those articles are very insightful. I encourage people to read.

14:38But what are your thoughts about that? First off, the executive order and just the whole concept of beef imports. Well, first, I think it's important that all the listeners understand that the president has taken aggressive action to increase the imports with the two executive orders. So it's not that we haven't been having import of beef in the United States. But what the president has done, he said, oh, beef prices at the grocery store are too high. I'm going to resolve that by opening up the floodgates and allowing more beef to flow into the United States. So it's an addition. He first granted Argentina quadrupled the amount of imports

15:41that can come in from Argentina, telling a reporter on Air Force One that that reporter didn't understand because they were taking up for American cattle producers didn't understand that the people in Argentina were struggling to survive and that he liked the president of Argentina. He seemed to fail to understand that America's farmers and ranchers are struggling to survive as well and his actions would only cripple them further. So that was a quadrupling there. We've seen 80,000 metric tons coming in. Again, this is an addition. Then here recently the president made an announcement and followed up with an executive, followed up with a proclamation that that an additional 300,000 metric tons would be allowed to be brought into the United States from unknown sources. He claims that those have already started but he's not going to tell us what

16:46country it's coming from. So there's about 2,204 pounds I think in a metric ton. So you can do the math on 380,000 more metric tons to see how much beef that is. Jeff, the final point I want to make is that this is not spread out over a year. The president plans on bringing that beef in over a 90 day or three month period from a couple of weeks ago to the midterms trying to break the beef prices. So it's a lot of beef flowing in. It's about a 50% increase on a monthly average of beef that we have been importing to dump it. That's why I use that word dump it into our markets in an effort to bring back beef prices. But it's not working out. What happens is that it pushes down cattle prices, the farmer and rancher, but because four companies control 85% of

17:52all the beef in the United States, two of them are Brazilian and we suspect that a lot of this beef will be coming in from Brazil, JBS, who met with the president, Josie Batista, that these companies are pocket the difference. They'll take the tariffs off. It'll come in. They'll make the money. The consumers won't see a lower price and farmers are at risk being paid less. And we're going to continue this conversation. When we come back from our first break, talking to Joe Maxwell, Farm Action Fund, you're listening to the mahalo down on America Out Loud Network and we'll be back in a few moments. You wouldn't go a day without brushing your teeth or washing your hands. What about washing your nose? I mean, your nose does filter the air you breathe. Air loaded with bacteria, viruses and irritants. Make nasal hygiene part of your routine with clear. No messy bottles to fill, no drowning sensation. Clear is a natural drug-free saline with the added benefit

18:54of xylitol, which blocks bacterial and viral adhesion. Available in stores and online at clear.com. That is x-le-a-r.com. If you'll ingrained your mentally foggy, recharge with Wellness Company combines methylene blue and uralithin A to support mitochondrial health, boost energy and enhance cognitive function. Visit twc.health-outloud and use code out loud for 20% of your first order. Now is our time, my fellow Americans, America Out Loud.News, Liberty and Justice for All. Welcome back to the mahalo down. I'm Jeff Lauterback and continuing the conversation with Joe

19:55Maxwell of Farm Action Fund. And Joe, before we went to break, we were talking about the the whole topic on the the beef imports and how your thoughts on how it's impacting and will impact ranchers and consumers. You were talking about how it doesn't necessarily have the intended the intent isn't producing the consequences that are desired, I guess, is a simple way of putting it. Yeah, the one thing I think another important part, especially for this audience, you know, is just where is this beef coming from. President says he's going to get it at the 300,000 metric tons and a 25% discount. Well, the global supply today is down. In other words,

20:58there's less beef in the in the world than there was a year ago. And I've been saying of what country in the right it's a seller's market, what country in their right mind would discount a short supply commodity to sell it to the United States unless they couldn't sell it anywhere else. So it's not just a story, I think, about putting pressure on the farmer and not helping the consumer because a handful of companies control the markets and set the prices to the consumer, supply demand doesn't work for the farmer or the consumer in beef because of the 85% control afford by four companies. But the other question is just where's this stuff coming from and what is it? And we need to really be asking questions of the president. He didn't disclose where the first brown came from. He did for Argentina. But Jeff, you have to understand China has rejected, just recently rejected Argentina beef because it is carrying an antibiotic residue in it that an

22:06antibiotic that's not even supposed to be used in livestock production. It's banned in even Argentina and China and the United States, Canada and many other countries. And suddenly we have 80,000, I'm not saying it's the same beef, but we need to be asking questions and it need to be inspected. The EU just rejected Brazilian beef, closed its ports to Brazilian beef because it has antibiotic traces in it. And yet we're getting discounted beef into the United States. We just need to be asking questions. So there's not only the price that the president probably won't see the results he's hoping for because of concentration, but there's also at what risk is the consumer for the president's actions you know, going to have. And as a whole, what do you think it's important to know where your beef and all your is just like any any crop or any livestock. It's important to know where

23:14it comes from, how it's raised. And I know that the whole education is important for what is organic, what is regenerative, what is conventional. Those are good topics to talk about. And I mean, we have that topic or that conversation when we go to the grocery store here in the United States from American beef and then we're obviously now confronted with this beef we're talking about from Argentina, Brazil or whatever other countries. What are your thoughts about that as far as the the importance? I guess it reinforces the importance of knowing where your meat comes from and how it's raised. Yes, and president has taken a couple of actions that you know, I'm hopeful that is at least a start. The one he's started investigation on the meat packers, the beef meat

24:14packers as well as retail grocery to see if they're gouging the consumer. I'm hopeful they'll carry through with that. In his first term, as Trump won administration, they started investigation and went nowhere. So hopefully they'll do something. The second thing that relates to your question is the president did make an announcement of certain actions to help build back the herd, where at 75 year low on the number of cattle in the United States. And he made an announcement, one of which is he says he supports mandatory country of origin labeling. Now we would hope that he would have announced he supports Senator Thunes by partisan bill the American beef labeling act. And Congressman Hagueman has a similar one in the house, but the farm bill is still in the Senate, so you know, but he didn't. But know that in America, in the United States, you can't

25:17find you can't be assured that the beef you're buying is raised, born, raised, slaughtered process in the United States because the United States, while the shirt you have on the shirt I have on or any clothes anybody has on tells you where it's made, the meat, the beef and pork in your meat case, there's no law that says it has to be labeled and most of it is not. So it's a huge concern and we need to pass mandatory country of origin labeling, Senator Thunes, the leader, Republican leader of the US Senate has a bill. He got every Democrat on the Ag Committee to vote for it. We need to pass that so the consumer, especially with this kind of meat coming in, foreign beef, lower standards, not sure where it's coming from, President's not telling us where it's coming from. I can't wait to at least know if we can pick up a pack of hamburger and that it came from a US cattle producer and was processed right here and one of the plants, many of which

26:19UFCW skilled trained labor workers work in and safe health standards. But that's the place to start is to get that bill passed. Get it passed now. It's more important than ever. And what's interesting or even more interesting in my opinion is it's not only knowing where your what country it comes from but like you go to the grocery store and you pick up a pound of hamburger, I never really knew this until I started writing about it, about more about farming is what bits of literally hundreds or thousands of cattle or cows inside that beef. So you don't know how those cows were, what they were fed, whether they had injections, you don't know the conditions they were raised in that that's alarming to me and that really

27:24has awakened me on wanting to get meat locally from people or farmers I know. Absolutely. Well, a couple of thoughts on it. You know, the US has rigid standards. Sometimes as farmers will push back because we think it's over regulation. But the fact is when it comes to the health and safety, we need those rigorous standards. One, not only because we want our consumers need healthy foods, those that we're feeding as farmers, but two, to have trust in the system, right? We don't want consumers to quit Biden B because they're scared of it. So, you know, we really need to have mandatory country of origin labeling so they can be assured that it comes from the higher quality, higher standard production that America's cattleman, cattle producers have. I think that one key issue for us,

28:26I'd like to say you mentioned buying from the local farmer. Many of us work together for about a decade through the Biden administration, Obama administration, Trump won, trying to get it so that when a company voluntarily used product of the USA, those words on a package that it was product, it was beef, a born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the United States. That's a voluntary deal. Company can use it. Before what was happening was it could come in from Brazil or Argentina, be re-wrapped and marked product of the USA and was very deceiving. We did get, finally got that through under the Biden administration and the Trump administration has endorsed it and it's out marketing it. So, I know a lot of people can't know their farmer. We're strongly encouraging you to do that. We had mentioned Will Harris coming on, when

29:31he's coming on this line, white oak pastures, there's online purchasing. But one thing we can do is look for the product of USA. Not every company uses it. A demand that it be used. It's at least a good start or a fair start to make sure you have healthy, safe food produced here in the United States, higher quality, higher standards, skilled workforce bringing it to your table. I know you have the Royal Independence Initiative that we'll talk about. It's interesting because I was down in, it was last year in Ben Simmons of Nature's Gourmet and he has a USDA processing facility there and I think it's, can't remember the city or town, he's in rural Mississippi. But they were talking about, and another farmer down there I was talking to about the food deserts down there because Mississippi's such a rural state, so many tiny communities.

30:37And a lot of the people all they do is get their meat and produce from dollar general. You don't know where really that meat comes from and you don't know the quality of the produce in the meat and so I know they have an effort down there to try to get meat. Let people know where the meat comes from and to expand their customer base down there. How do you think the food desert? How impactful do you think that is on beef that might not be so good when people have to rely on I don't mean to pick on dollar general but that's a dollar general everywhere. And how does that relate to what you're trying to do to with the rural independence? I think that first,

31:41I think there's been a lot of, I know there's been a lot of discussions on urban areas that are food deserts. You raise a very important issue. Rural areas have just, you would think this is insane, right? I mean here you are with agriculture all the way around you and you have a food desert. That is telling the current industrial model. We don't produce food for our neighbors anymore. As a matter of fact, the majority of farm subsidies, all the bailout money that you hear about, goes to a handful of industrial farmers, about 90% of all that money goes to handful, which is a handful, about 90% goes to 10%. To raise feed and fuel crops, mostly soybeans and corn are the biggest

32:44receivers of that money. And it doesn't feed the neighbors in the neighborhood. And then we have cotton, peanuts, rice, wheat and sugar. We don't have programs that encourage local processing of meat raised in the area or we don't have programs that help reestablish the production of cattle or independent family farmers raising hogs in the neighborhoods anymore and processing them locally. We don't raise our food. We don't raise our fruits and our vegetables for goodness sakes. 35% of our vegetables are being imported into this country and over 60% of our fruit. And I'm not talking about bananas. I'm talking about stuff we can raise here in the United States. In the wintertime, our off season, as they call it, for tomatoes.

33:45The second largest country that we bring into tomatoes from is Canada. Now, that's a surprise. It looks at the surprise to me at least. Yeah, because we don't, our programs, our government programs, are an industrial model. The majority of that money goes to feed and fuel crops, not to feed us. And then you raise the issue of the desert, food desert there in Mississippi. Absolutely. And it's a shame. It's not only where did the meat come from in that case because we don't have mandatory country of origin labeling and we encourage the president to support Senator Thunes, American Beef Labeling Act as I indicated. So we can know then the dollar general would have to tell us where the heck it came from. At least you would know. But it's also ultra-process type foods, right? We're not going to get the fresh whole foods into those stores. It's not in their

34:50supply chain. It's not in their makeup. And so these folks are just denied access all across rural America to healthy foods. Dollar General happens to be a company that figured out a model that worked well in a town of 300 or 700 people. And they're kind of that model. And they have a supply chain that stretches across the country and it doesn't anticipate having fresh local foods in that supply chain. I know Ben Simmons told me that he's born and raised in Mississippi and that on that farm. And he was telling me when he was a little, I think he's, if I remember correctly, he's in his 60s. And when he was a little kid grown up and as a young adult even farms used to line both sides of the road for miles. And that's a very rural area. I mean, you have towns. When you

35:54into a town, it's 200 or 300 people. And now he said for a while now, those fields are sitting empty and like he's one of the few farms in that area. And you know, I know obesity is Mississippi. I think as one of the top states for obesity and chronic disease. And I know that's being addressed by RFK Jr. and HHS. But the food deserts, that just, and it goes back to what we were talking about before, like when Wendell Berry kind of cautioned everyone about this. And now we're facing that more stringent than ever. But I noticed it's almost time for our next break. So we'll get back to talking further about this when we get back for our final segment. You're listening

36:54to the Mahalow down on America out loud network. Are you tired of struggling with low energy? We get it. That's why we created organic energy juice. In just one minute, you'll have clean, natural energy all day and never struggle with low energy again. And it tastes amazing. And there's no toxic chemicals or stimulants that make you crash. You shouldn't have to struggle with low energy and with organic energy juice. You won't. If you're struggling with low energy, then buying organic energy juice is the right decision. With our double your money back guarantee, there is zero risk to try it. Go to chemicalfreebody.com, forward slash out loud for an exclusive discount. That's chemicalfreebody.com forward slash out loud. Welcome back to the Mahalow down on America out loud network. Jeff Lauder back here with Joe Maxwell, a farm action fund. And Joe, I think we were one of our conversations. I was telling you, you know, I wasn't raised on a farm. I was raised in suburbs and it wasn't until the last few years

37:57that I've really gotten interested not only with my riding, but with knowing where my food comes from and how it's raised. And then understanding what's going on with the applied to the independent farmer. And I think there's more. It seems like there's a lot of work to do, but I think one encouraging point is that this is being talked about all the problems with chemicals and agriculture the inputs, the cost of inputs the farmers have and then discussing where food comes from and how it's raised. And the list goes on and on. And at least it's being talked about now. I didn't know what you what you thought about that as far as like have you seen that change? Yeah, it's kind of like what I said about the timeliness of windows, literature and

39:00thought process. There has been an awakening in the United States around these issues. It's come from, and my assessment, it's come from various points. There's been work like hours and many other organizations lifting it up, raising awareness. It's a lot of it's been because the other system is falling apart. We were following all of the recalls just recently. People are being inundated on a weekly basis with food being recalled and warnings, health risks and possible death around their food supply. And that begins to get people concerned and asking questions. It's been because of the maha movement. Clearly we've never had a movement that started raising these issues at the level, political level that has been raised and has

40:01really now brought it into the political circle, which is extremely important. So things have changed. Unfortunately, it's because things have gotten worse that there's more awareness in my belief. And we need to take action. And we can. There's things we can do about it. We've been talking about the problem. Know that I have never been more hopeful in my years as a farmer or an advocate that we can have meaningful change. And with our current production, agriculture production system, and with our food processing and being able to lift up healthy, safe food to Americans to eat affordable food. And you talk about meaningful change. What can listeners do to make improvements in their own lives, but also get involved? Because a lot of people feel helpless,

41:04a lot of people feel politically homeless now. And they don't feel like they could make a change, like they don't care that anyone in Washington, or they don't feel that anyone in Washington cares about them. And they, but I guess locally, and we've had that topic on here, locals, where it's at, you know, you can make an impact locally. And also through advocacy groups. And I know I strongly encourage people to look at the farm action and farm action fund sites to get involved. How can people make change like at the local level and to do something that not feel so helpless? I think one, do the best to buy healthy foods local. Now, when I say do your best,

42:04I'm not one of those folks in our organization aren't about, we're going to move the ball by, you know, voting with our dollars. Because one, as we mentioned in the food deserts, there's not really a place to go. But where you can, we need to eat healthy and feed our kids as healthy a food as we can find. Our opinion and our assessment is that locally, need to engage and support your local farmers markets. City councils, your rural communities to start investing in public type markets. Farmers are looking for a market, right? We talked about the concentration. There's not an infrastructure right now, or them to bring anything into the local community. Everything is global. All the supply chains, all the transportation, where you sell it,

43:05what you do with it is a global supply chain. I mean, look at tailor farms that you know, it's been suggested and been under investigation for bringing us a parasite in, controls, you know, about 60% of all the cut salad mixes in the United States. At least if you go into grocery store, stop buying, you know, buy as local as you can and don't buy from the globalist as best you can. It doesn't always have to be a farmer's market. Work with your city council, start talking about what can be done on a local basis for local markets so the farmers can begin to move their produce and their goods directly to their community. Second, at the state level, there's a lot the states can do. We have to stop a bill called Save Our Bacon, which would strip states of the and local communities of the ability to have us say and how food is produced and how animals are treated and would cut away a market for all of us farmers that are independent farmers. 27

44:09percent of us are in compliance and for prop 12 in California, but this bill would take that market away. So work with your local state. They have power to help move the talk to your local state rep, state senators about investing and looking at a state working with the local community to build out public access, public markets, and then gives a market opportunity for the farmer is clean, healthy food to the consumer. Also, I think, you know, I know folks and you said this Jeff and folks say, well, it's just so broken Washington DC, I can't make a difference. Absolutely you can. It's an election year. It's an election year. We have to change Washington DC. There are a handful of champions. It's not everyone in West DC. There are a handful of champions that are working with us.

45:11A congresswoman Luna took on a bear and stripped out the majority parties, the Republican parties language that would have gave an immunity shield to bears down in Florida. We've got mentioned congresswoman Haggerman pushing for mandatory country of origin labeling as on the ballot for US Senate. We've got candidates in Iowa pushing it back against Congresswoman Henson trying to take away all states rights and production. There are champions of Senator Booker in the Senate. There's champions that are working, but the fact is they can't do it alone and the overwhelming majority of Democrats and Republicans are for an industrial model globalization of our agriculture and food systems. We need to strip the party identity. It's not about Democrats or Republicans. Both of them have brought us to this horrible state of affairs that we see in our food system and farming systems. We need to start voting for people that will support the rebuilding,

46:18the reshaping of local and regional food systems that can provide healthy food for consumers and markets for the farmers and ranchers. Is that part of what you do as an organization educate people about who these people are, who these candidates are, who these elected officials are that have a positive impact in those areas? Yes, that is farm action funds. We do two things. We strongly are tied and believe strongly and you mentioned farm action, angel of huffman, the brilliance of their research team and policy development. But our job is to put legs under those policies and to get into Washington Fair, who the folks are that will stand against the power of the corporations, against the Joe sleep betistas who can drop $5 million

47:18into the Presidents inaugural committee fund, stand up against Bayer, Monsanto, a multi-billion-dollar global company. Who are those people? Get the policies at least in the hopper and then support them at the ballot box and find new candidates, other candidates out there to take on those who have been the champion on the other side for the Bayers for a big port, big beef and take them on. I've never been more hopeful and I've been living the down side of the American independent farmer and animal husbandry and stewardship mentality and agriculture and watching the rise of the industrialization of agriculture where you're no longer a hog farmer, you're a pork producer. All my life and so I've lived this and I'm telling you it's never been a better time. Hats off to Maha, hats off to all the the the the regressives out there that have been working for

48:25safe food and healthy food. We've got to come together. If we could come together, we're a powerhouse at the ballot box and we can make a difference and we've got to start electing champions on our side. Yeah, it's frustrating to when there's a purpose, obviously addressing chronic disease and knowing where your food comes from and how it's raised and helping educate people, helping farmers transition from conventional to regenerative and all those topics and it's frustrating when part of some politics get in the way because we have such us versus them mindset and I mean, personally, I'm I consider myself what I call a conservative independent. I respect people like like Thomas Massey, I have great respect for someone like that who who sticks to what he believes in and is not beholden to a man or to industry and I like

49:33I mean, you mentioned Cory Booker, he's a prime example. If I sat down with Cory Booker as a not a journalist but a everyday American and had a conversation with him, I probably wouldn't agree with a lot of what he stands for but he, Shelley Pingerees, another one I interviewed Susan organic farmer. Yeah, yeah, she is and I spent time on the island there in Maine and talking about her her pro-Maha what she's doing and I just I agree with you who hardly it we need to strip partisan labels to and I RFK junior I think is doing a good job of he's doing what he can to talk about that to to unify to for a purpose of addressing these issues because because there are Democrats and Republicans as you mentioned, you know, they're responsible

50:39for the condition we're in but also they're at least a handful of Democrats and Republicans alike who are who are really vocal and taking action. You mentioned Congresswoman Luna, she's been a real champion. She's really stood out and and it's good to see that's why I like having these conversations with you and letting people know about what farm action and farm action fund is all about because you're right up there with with Maha action which is a great organization as far as like educating people and getting people involved because people do and I think we're going to find it in November people are disillusioned and they a lot of people aren't going to vote because they just don't feel like they're represented by either party they're politically homeless and and I just think I think you can make more of an impact or you can make a lot of

51:41an impact as an everyday American getting involved in in advocacy. I don't know your your thoughts are about that as far as like it is important who your elected officials are but it's also important to get involved in advocacy. Well I think one absolutely don't be afraid to politely push back against the normal narratives in your community be educated. Join some of these organizations are out there and then be willing to just speak softly but firmly about the truth. Get people to start thinking getting your neighbors to start thinking the first thing you know this industrial model and this heavy concentration is stripping all of us of our ability to make a living. It's it's not just about whether we can have this kind of

52:49food or that kind of food. It's also about whether we're even going to be able to thrive as individuals. I mean the tax base and we've launched the rural independence initiative. I mean as the farmers leave so do the schools. We've losing our rural hospitals. I travel over 50 miles to get to an emergency room. I mean you know it's it's about these issues are about our very existence and that's true in the urban suburban areas it's not just a rule issue but we have to if we have to focus on that to me is the most important thing. Can we have a wage that respects the work and respects our contribution to the prosperity of America? Can the economic system of the United States do that for everybody? If we could we can resolve

53:53a lot of these issues on affordability. Right now people are hustling two jobs just to try to put food on the table up. School teachers working waiting I know this personally waiting tables so they can have enough money to buy school supplies for their kids because we're seeing the tax base a road. We give away our communities give away abatements to the big box stores or to the to AI or to what the data says or whatever comes to town and their people can't even afford food. We have to not identify we can't let our party loyalty strip us of the ability to work together to at least resolve these issues. There's plenty of things we can argue about. There always will be that we differ on but surely we can come together to say that the economy America belongs to the people the economy should to

54:55our folks ought to be paid a wage that respects them where they can afford a home and buy affordable food at the grocery store and it ought to provide us an agricultural production system that delivers to the consumers a healthy safe food and not and and and erode these food deserts where that's in urban America or in rural America and if we don't do that they're the people in control the billionaires and the monopolistic companies that control our food system. The Batista family out of Brazil controls up but they're going to continue to they'll make sure we stay divided that's what they'll do they'll they'll throw things out there that make us want to run our party identity so they can keep doing this to us. So let's over the next you know I say over the next few elections can we just let those differences set on the sidelines and can we focus

56:01on this together we've talked about bipartisanship we we've endorsed cross-party at at at the rule independence initiative we don't even put up when we do the press releases whether they're democratic public because it's irrelevant we need to elect people that will stand up against this power in Washington DC there are those that are they need help we need to help them get more colleagues that support what they're doing. We're running out of time oh that's okay I'll be having you back because these are great conversations before we wrap up working people find more information about farm action fund. Yes go to farmactionfund.us click on the little tab above it says initiative right there on the homepage it'll say our founding purpose learn who we are what we're doing and and if you like it join us.

57:07Well I appreciate you Joe Maxwell farm action fund for being on the show and we're out of time but thanks for listening to the maha lowdown on america out loud network and i'm Jeff Arbat that's the maha lowdown