0:02

I've always been drawn to farmers.

0:04

My first book, New York Eats,

0:06

had an entire chapter on the

0:09

Union Square Green Market and

0:11

the farmers that sell there.

0:13

I have written countless stories

0:15

and devoted many podcast episodes

0:17

to the trials and tribulations

0:19

of farmers all over the

0:21

world. Farmers work insane hours

0:24

and are totally dependent on

0:26

this very fickle thing known

0:28

as the weather. And even

0:30

in a good year, most

0:32

farmers don't make what a summer

0:34

associate makes on Wall Street. When

0:36

the terrific documentary Food and Country

0:38

came out last year, we had

0:40

Ruth Reissel on Special Sauce to

0:42

talk about the film as a

0:44

whole and the farmers that are

0:46

actually the stars of the movie.

0:48

One of those stars is Will

0:50

Harris of White Oak Pastures. in Bluffton,

0:52

Georgia. I saw my land

0:55

go from a dead mineral

0:57

medium to an organic medium

0:59

that's teeming with life. The

1:01

Harris family has been raising

1:03

animals on the same land

1:05

for more than 150 years

1:07

now. Given the various extraordinary

1:10

challenges farmers are going to

1:12

be facing in the coming

1:14

years, I thought it would

1:16

be great to have will

1:18

on special sauce to tell

1:20

us his story. and the

1:22

story of his farm, and what

1:24

the future might hold. I'm a

1:26

one-trick pony, and this is my

1:29

trick. This is what I do,

1:31

this is what I focus on,

1:33

this is what makes me happy. It

1:35

has my undivided attention, and

1:37

it deserves it, and it

1:39

rewards me for it. I'm

1:41

at Levine, founder of serious

1:43

eats, and this is special

1:45

sauce. We'll be back in

1:47

just a moment. This

1:56

episode is brought to you by Progressive

1:58

Insurance. Do you have... Find yourself playing

2:01

the budgeting game? Well, with

2:03

the name-your-price tool from Progressive,

2:05

you can find options that

2:07

fit your budget and potentially

2:09

lower your bills. Try it

2:11

at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance

2:14

Company and affiliates. Price and

2:16

coverage match limited by state

2:18

law. Not available in all

2:20

states. Like you've had me,

2:22

it's a pleasure to be

2:24

here. So tell us a

2:26

little bit about the history

2:28

of White Oaks Farm and

2:31

your family's role in that

2:33

history. I'd be delighted to.

2:35

So my great-grandfather, James Edward

2:37

Harris, founded White Oak Pastures

2:39

in 1866, and he ran

2:41

it all his life, followed

2:43

by his son, my grandfather,

2:45

followed by his son, my

2:47

dad, followed by me. And

2:50

I'm being followed by two

2:52

adult daughters and their spouses.

2:54

And they've got five babies

2:56

now here on the farm,

2:58

although the babies haven't contributed

3:00

yet. We have high hopes.

3:02

If there's anything that I

3:04

could interest you in about

3:07

the farm is the fact

3:09

that the way it's evolved.

3:11

The first two generations of

3:13

my great-grandfather and grandfather raised

3:15

a lot of different livestock.

3:17

Swaltered them here on the

3:19

farm. and sold the meat

3:21

in the little town of

3:23

Bluffton. That's where I'm sitting

3:26

now, two miles from the

3:28

farm. And then they did

3:30

that six days a week.

3:32

Every day, every day before

3:34

day, except Sunday, they would

3:36

get up before dawn and

3:38

their employees, and they would

3:40

slaughter something. It might be

3:43

two or three hogs, it

3:45

might be a bunch of

3:47

chickens, but something. The employee

3:49

would load it on a

3:51

meal-drawn wagon, bring it up

3:53

to Bluffton and salad. That

3:55

was before internal combustion engines,

3:57

before refrigeration. for USDA inspection.

4:00

So it was a very

4:02

primitive, kind of a way

4:04

of feeding the community, but

4:06

my family fed the community.

4:08

Bob Dad was born in

4:10

1920, so post-World War II,

4:12

he took over the farm,

4:14

1945. He changed the farm.

4:16

He made the changes of

4:19

other farmers, made post-war, industrialized,

4:21

commoditized, and centralized. He became

4:23

a monoculture of only cattle.

4:25

He was not vertically integrated,

4:27

he was just part of

4:29

the system. He provided calves

4:31

that were shipped to the

4:33

Midwest to be fattened, pretty

4:36

much the weights done today,

4:38

and it was quite a

4:40

sweeping change. You've been a

4:42

long-time champion of regenerative farming,

4:44

which is not what your

4:46

dad was doing, but that's

4:48

where you have steered white

4:50

oak pastures, too. So tell

4:52

us about regenerative farming. It

4:55

is the direction I chose

4:57

to go in. I mentioned

4:59

earlier I graduated from University

5:01

of Georgia with a degree

5:03

in animal science and I

5:05

came home and ran the

5:07

farm very industrially as my

5:09

dad did as a monocultural

5:12

cattle operation. And I was

5:14

very happy doing it for

5:16

a long time and it

5:18

was profitable. I made a

5:20

little money every year. I

5:22

went back and looked. We

5:24

never had a year of

5:26

losses. I had a change

5:29

of heart 20 years into

5:31

it. Several things happened that

5:33

caused me to want to

5:35

raise animals differently. And of

5:37

course you hear a lot

5:39

today about sustainable farming, regenerative

5:41

farming, organic farming, but back

5:43

then it was not talked

5:45

about that much. So I

5:48

was kind of making it

5:50

up as I went. But

5:52

I changed the farm through

5:54

what we do today, which

5:56

is very different from what

5:58

my dad and I did

6:00

from the post-World War II

6:02

up until the mid- 90s,

6:05

about 50 years of industrial

6:07

management. And so regenerative farming

6:09

is principally all about the

6:11

stewardship of the land, is

6:13

it not? It is from

6:15

a broader version. It would

6:17

be the animals, the land,

6:19

and the community, but the

6:21

land is where the focus

6:24

lies. You said something on

6:26

our YouTube video that I

6:28

saw, which is there are

6:30

a hundred thousand beating hearts

6:32

on this land. That's obviously

6:34

not all people's hearts. Correct.

6:36

If it was about a

6:38

hundred and seventy people's hearts

6:41

and the rest of it

6:43

are livestock and wildlife and

6:45

it was part of the

6:47

system, the ecology, the ecosystem

6:49

that exists here. The way

6:51

I raised cattle prior to

6:53

deciding to change in the

6:55

mid-90s, I thought was very

6:58

humane. I've kept the animals

7:00

well fed, well watered, and

7:02

comfortable texture range, and I

7:04

thought that was great. I

7:06

did not intentionally inflict pain

7:08

or suffering on them. But

7:10

I realized that I was

7:12

not giving them the opportunity

7:14

to express instinctive behavior. You

7:17

know, cows were meant to

7:19

roam and graze, pigs, root

7:21

and walla. chicken scratch and

7:23

peck and when they're deprived

7:25

of that, it's just not

7:27

good on the welfare. So

7:29

I accommodated that. I ceased

7:31

to operate a confinement fee

7:34

light. Also, I was aware

7:36

that my dad and I

7:38

had degraded this land horribly.

7:40

I could look at the

7:42

land and the soil and

7:44

in the forest, 30 feet

7:46

away, look at the forest,

7:48

land in my fields, and

7:50

it was completely different. and

7:53

once a dead moon or

7:55

medium the other one's teeming

7:57

with life and I wanted

7:59

teeming with life as in

8:01

that that required giving up

8:03

chemical fertilizes pesticide that's tillage,

8:05

those kinds of things. And

8:07

then I realized that the

8:10

town I live in was

8:12

actually coming back to life.

8:14

In the process of doing

8:16

those things, I moved from

8:18

having three or four minimum

8:20

wage employees to having a

8:22

hundred plus employees that made

8:24

significantly more money. And the

8:27

town came back. So I

8:29

was just a win-win. I've

8:31

been reading and watching a

8:33

lot of stuff about your

8:35

farm. You decided to put

8:37

your own meat processing facility

8:39

on the farm. How do

8:41

you make it work financially?

8:43

Building a small meat processing

8:46

plant on the farm, which

8:48

is what I did, is

8:50

very difficult to manage financially.

8:52

You simply can't compete. on

8:54

a cost basis with the

8:56

big industrial meat plant. At

8:58

our little slaughter plant, we

9:00

can slaughter about 25 head

9:03

of cattle per day. A

9:05

big industrial plant will slaughter

9:07

several thousand head per hour.

9:09

Wow. So the efficiencies are

9:11

just incredible. Now

9:13

there's some downsides to that.

9:15

The, I don't know, welfare

9:18

I think is not as

9:20

good. The work or the

9:23

way workers are treated may

9:25

not be as good. There

9:27

are probably a lot of

9:30

things we could pick apart

9:32

in that. But from a

9:35

pure efficiency perspective, it's just

9:37

better. We justify what we

9:39

do and my customers support

9:42

me in that. There are

9:44

things other than just efficiency

9:47

that matter. You borrowed $7.5

9:49

million to build this processing

9:52

plant. This is a little

9:54

different in that. It's not

9:56

just crop financing, you're actually

9:59

building a physical asset. And

10:01

I was blessed that I

10:04

had inherited a paid-for. So

10:06

I had collateral to leverage

10:08

a loan. And we ultimately

10:11

did borrow about $7.5 million,

10:13

and that built the processing

10:16

plant in the water fulfillment

10:18

system and the other things

10:20

that we needed to make

10:23

it work. Coming up, what

10:25

the business of running white

10:28

oak pastures and the story

10:30

of Will Harris's land can

10:32

teach us about the future

10:35

of farming. More special sauce

10:37

after this quick break. And

10:40

the whole idea of a

10:42

farmer middle class is interesting

10:44

to me because the bottom

10:47

has fallen out of the

10:49

farmer middle class. And yet

10:52

you are succeeding with providing

10:54

not only 170 good jobs

10:57

or however many you've provided,

10:59

but you're paying above the

11:01

minimum wage. It seems like

11:04

it's a community endeavor in

11:06

a way that I don't

11:09

think people realize some farms

11:11

can prosper that way. Farm

11:13

economics is very difficult, very

11:16

difficult to understand, and I

11:18

can tell you why, but

11:21

we have ignored the differences

11:23

in farm economics and industrial

11:25

economics, and just gone with

11:28

the industrial model, and it

11:30

doesn't fitness very well. So

11:33

there are not many. non-depreciating

11:35

assets. There's land, there's precious

11:37

metals. There's gems, maybe art,

11:40

I don't know anything about

11:42

art, but let's just talk

11:45

about land, precious metals, and

11:47

gems. They last forever. They're

11:49

non-depreciating assets. Right. Virtually any

11:52

other asset depreciates, whether it's

11:54

a vehicle or building or

11:57

whatever it is, it depreciates.

11:59

So in the historical agricultural

12:01

model, a farming family would...

12:04

somehow acquire land, non-depreciating asset,

12:06

and they would operate within

12:09

the cycles of nature to

12:11

get an yield an abundance

12:14

from that land and monetize

12:16

it. And that was the

12:18

living, and it just kept

12:21

in perpetuity. And we did

12:23

a lot to change that.

12:26

Probably one of them crazy

12:28

changes is that in the

12:30

old world. The estate was

12:33

left to the eldest son.

12:35

And it's a lot wrong

12:38

with that. The eldest son,

12:40

that's certainly not fair. But

12:42

not dividing that non-depreciating asset

12:45

was important. We've reached a

12:47

model where when the old

12:50

man or woman dies, they

12:52

leave the place equally split

12:54

among the seven children. And

12:57

it's not enough for any

12:59

of them to farm. That's

13:02

quite a change. I inherited

13:04

a thousand acres of land

13:06

from my dad, granddad, great-granddad,

13:09

and I bought about a

13:11

thousand acres of land. And

13:14

when I go to the

13:16

bank to borrow the money

13:18

to buy that thousand acres

13:21

of land, I did it

13:23

a piece at the time,

13:26

and they would set it

13:28

up to be paid for

13:31

in 15 or 20 years.

13:33

Well, it lasts forever. You

13:35

buy a truck or car,

13:38

you set it up to

13:40

be paid for in seven

13:43

years, and it's worn out,

13:45

and you start over. So

13:47

there's just a lot of,

13:50

uh... the sacrifices that have

13:52

been made in moving the

13:55

agricultural economic system into this

13:57

more industrial linear economic system.

13:59

And one of the the

14:02

results of that is that

14:04

the farmer middle class has

14:07

been decimated, right? Because now

14:09

all we have we seem

14:11

to have is we have

14:14

farms like yours which are

14:16

obviously incredibly important and impressive.

14:19

And then we have the

14:21

big agribusiness farms that depend

14:23

on price supports and all

14:26

that. And then we have

14:28

the rest of the 99%

14:31

of the farmers, right? Each

14:33

year they're living and dying

14:35

by the weather and by

14:38

the bank's reaction to if

14:40

there are... glitches or hitches

14:43

in any given growing season

14:45

or when you're raising animals

14:48

or whatever and then you're

14:50

screwed right so that's why

14:52

the farmer middle class has

14:55

been hollowed out. Well I

14:57

live in southwest Georgia and

15:00

that the the crops that

15:02

that farmers can commercial farmers

15:04

farm here corn, cotton, cotton

15:07

and peanuts, very industrial corn,

15:09

cotton and peanut farming. And

15:12

the market conditions are such

15:14

that my friends and neighbors

15:16

and relatives will lose money

15:18

on probably all three of

15:21

those crops this year in

15:23

2025. And they lost money

15:25

in 2024. Now they're able

15:27

to keep farming because the

15:29

government payments are such that

15:31

they keep it propped up.

15:33

These guys, they're my friends

15:35

and neighbors and relatives, and

15:38

we are of very different

15:40

philosophies in our treatment of

15:42

the land, the animals and

15:44

the... But these are good

15:46

people. My friends and neighbors

15:48

and relatives who are commercial,

15:50

industrial, corn, cotton, peanut farmers

15:52

are wonderful people who have

15:55

been victimized by the system

15:57

and are not faring well

15:59

financially at all these days.

16:01

And do you think that

16:03

one of the reasons you

16:05

were able to borrow $7.5

16:07

million to build your processing

16:09

plant was because you actually

16:12

did own the land? And

16:14

there are a lot of

16:16

farmers who don't own their

16:18

own land. And right, you

16:20

have said that if you

16:22

didn't own your own land,

16:24

you wouldn't have been able

16:26

to borrow that $7.5 million.

16:29

Is that correct? That is

16:31

absolutely correct. Chloral base lending.

16:33

The bikers that I borrowed

16:35

the money from knew that

16:37

the land had a value

16:39

of X, so they would

16:41

loan me 70% of that

16:43

X, and I could do

16:46

anything I wanted to with

16:48

it. Finance has changed a

16:50

lot since I borrowed that

16:52

money, but we put the

16:54

collateral at risk. It did

16:56

wind up being a profitable

16:58

venture for me, and it

17:00

allowed me to continue to

17:03

expand and buy more land.

17:05

So you have 176 employees

17:07

and you raise hogs, cows,

17:09

you raise chickens as well,

17:11

right? And sort of describe

17:13

a typical day both for

17:15

you and for somebody who,

17:17

one of those 176 employees.

17:20

So life is changed here

17:22

for the way might... Dad,

17:24

Granddad, great-granddad ran it and

17:26

the way I ran it

17:28

for the first 20 years,

17:30

it was me, I was

17:32

the sole decision maker on

17:34

the farm and three or

17:37

four minimum wage kind of

17:39

laborers that did what I

17:41

said to do, performed the

17:43

tasks, and it worked well.

17:45

And as I said, we

17:47

were profitable. We didn't make

17:49

a lot of money, but

17:51

we were consistently profitable under

17:54

that system. When I started

17:56

changing the way I farm,

17:58

I started adding other businesses

18:00

here, we mentioned the slaughter

18:02

plant. It's a red meat

18:04

salt plant, then later a

18:06

poultry slaughter plant, then later

18:08

a store, later a restaurant,

18:11

later lodging, on and on

18:13

a number of different businesses

18:15

that we have here. And

18:17

at that point, the management

18:19

of it became overwhelming for

18:21

me. I couldn't be the

18:23

sole decision maker anymore. So

18:25

we evolved it. And today

18:28

there are seven on the

18:30

farm, I own the business,

18:32

but there are seven directors,

18:34

me, a couple of daughters,

18:36

a couple of in-laws, a

18:38

couple of non-family members, maybe

18:40

one or two more. Those

18:42

seven people, directors, can manage

18:45

21 managers, who manage the

18:47

other 140, whatever's left employees.

18:49

We each have businesses that

18:51

we're in charge of. My

18:53

son-in-law runs the farm. A

18:55

non-family mumble runs the processing

18:57

plants. A daughter runs the

18:59

customer-facing store, lodging, employee housing,

19:02

those kind of things. And

19:04

so on and so on.

19:06

It's a lot better job

19:08

for me. I spend about

19:10

a third of my time

19:12

in the field on the

19:14

farm. looking at the land

19:17

and the livestock to make

19:19

decisions. About a third of

19:21

my time in the office,

19:23

after an email, and having

19:25

meetings, and about a third

19:27

of my time with visitors

19:29

here that are important to

19:31

our business to show them

19:34

what we do. So let's

19:36

talk about the proposed budget

19:38

cuts to programs that have

19:40

helped farmers since the pandemic

19:42

and even before that. In

19:44

December, the Agriculture Department announced

19:46

another tranche of $1.1 billion

19:48

in funding for the programs,

19:51

the Local Food Purchase Assistance

19:53

Cooperative Agreement, and the Local

19:55

Foods for Schools Program, but

19:57

the Trump administration notified recipients

19:59

recently that I decided to

20:01

terminate both. Do those kinds

20:03

of things affect you or

20:05

the other farmers around you?

20:08

They really affect the commodity

20:10

farmers. They're very dependent upon

20:12

them as I pointed out

20:14

earlier. The crops they grow

20:16

would not in most years

20:18

would not be profitable without

20:20

the government payments. We get

20:22

government payments. I know it's

20:25

a small percentage of what

20:27

we do get them. who

20:29

are in the regenerative mindset

20:31

like us and they won't

20:33

take government payments. They're more

20:35

noble than I am. I

20:37

will take them unapologetically. If

20:39

I were king, there wouldn't

20:42

be many if any government

20:44

payments. But they won't let

20:46

me be king. So I

20:48

choose to compete. This particular.

20:50

thing that's happened. It comes

20:52

at a very unfortunate time

20:54

for us. We applied for

20:56

and we accepted for a

20:59

program that the Department of

21:01

Energy was offering to build

21:03

what's called a cattle trucker.

21:05

It's a solar energy array

21:07

that's tall enough for cattle

21:09

to graze under. We want

21:11

to put one in to

21:13

power our processing plants. It's

21:16

$2.6 million. And we applied

21:18

for this grant and we

21:20

won, we prevailed a million

21:22

dollars. So it would only

21:24

cost me 1.6 after I

21:26

get my grant. But now

21:28

the grant is frozen, so

21:30

I don't know whether that's

21:33

going to happen or not.

21:35

And if it doesn't, we

21:37

just won't be able to

21:39

do the solar rate. It'll

21:41

be okay. It'll be okay.

21:43

We'll continue to buy electricity.

21:45

Right. of solar voltage arrays

21:47

with our sheet. The arrays

21:50

are not ours. They belong

21:52

to an energy company called

21:54

Silicon Ranch. If they pay

21:56

us to maintain the vegetation

21:58

under the powers, and we

22:00

do that by grazing it

22:02

with sheep. One of the

22:04

things that I think of

22:07

when I think of your

22:09

land and how you deal

22:11

with it is that those

22:13

kinds of things, they're just

22:15

really, really hard to deal

22:17

with. And farmers are used

22:19

to that, I guess, because

22:21

even the ones that, you

22:24

know, enable... to get from

22:26

year X to year X

22:28

plus one, it's not like

22:30

they're making a lot of

22:32

money, right, in a good

22:34

year, right? They're making enough

22:36

money to sustain a pretty

22:38

modest lifestyle, is that correct?

22:41

Well, yes, the return on

22:43

investment is low in agriculture,

22:45

and I'm okay with that.

22:47

You know, I have friends

22:49

who are MBAs and CPAs

22:51

and CEOs and all those

22:53

other letters that they use

22:55

and I'm pretty open about

22:58

my finances. I don't mind

23:00

talking about it. I don't

23:02

want to show them what

23:04

we're doing. And the response

23:06

is almost always, why would

23:08

you do that? Why would

23:10

you put at risk that

23:12

level of equity? for that

23:15

lower return and the answer

23:17

is it's what we do

23:19

and I don't feel particularly

23:21

noble in doing it I

23:23

don't feel like I'm doing

23:25

anyone any favors it's the

23:27

way it works yeah and

23:29

in modern businessman and finances

23:32

are so focused on the

23:34

monthly report the quarterly report

23:36

the annual report the annual

23:38

report the annual report That

23:40

it causes a very short-term

23:42

perspective on the business in

23:44

the business I mean we

23:46

talk about generational return and

23:49

me and my directors meet

23:51

in this little office once

23:53

a week on Wednesday and

23:55

we talk about opportunities. The

23:57

first thing we talk about

23:59

is my payroll is a

24:01

hundred thousand dollars a week

24:03

52 weeks a year. First

24:06

thing we talk about is

24:08

have we got enough money

24:10

to make payroll? Yes or

24:12

no? And if it's no

24:14

then that's what the meetings

24:16

about. That's what we're going

24:18

to get it. If it's

24:20

yes, then we talk about

24:23

opportunities to move forward. And

24:25

when we do, we talk

24:27

about generational opportunities. It's not,

24:29

yeah, let's do that. We

24:31

can get our money back

24:33

in a year or two

24:35

or three, it's, yeah, let's

24:37

do that. It'll be the

24:40

right thing to do for

24:42

our children and grandchildren. One

24:44

of the things I learned

24:46

in business school, and I

24:48

warned that many things, but

24:50

was the ratio between risk

24:52

and reward. But the way

24:55

they define it, the way

24:57

most business people define that

24:59

is what's the risk in

25:01

the business and the reward

25:03

is always monetary. And it

25:05

seems to me that what

25:07

you're talking about now is

25:09

that the rewards are not

25:12

just monetary. And therefore the

25:14

relationship between risk and reward

25:16

for you is... Probably quite

25:18

different from the way most

25:20

people regard their small businesses

25:22

or even big businesses, right?

25:24

I think that's right. When

25:26

I was growing up, all

25:29

I ever wanted to do

25:31

was run this farm. My

25:33

dad ran it and I

25:35

wanted to run it and

25:37

my dad did not want

25:39

me to come back and

25:41

run the farm. He wanted

25:43

me to do something else,

25:46

but that's what I wanted

25:48

to do and I prevailed

25:50

in that. I had three

25:52

dollars, no sons. And my

25:54

daughters were not raised the

25:56

way I was raised, I

25:58

had a great childhood, but

26:00

they weren't raised with the

26:03

farm being a huge part.

26:05

of who they were. They

26:07

were at dancing lessons and

26:09

voice lessons and basketball and

26:11

swimming and all those other

26:13

things that kids in the

26:15

80s did. And I had

26:17

reached the point that I

26:20

decided they probably would not

26:22

come back here. Yeah. And

26:24

that was okay. When I

26:26

started changing the way I

26:28

farm, it was not, I

26:30

was not doing that to

26:32

accommodate future generations. I was

26:34

doing what I wanted to

26:37

do. And in fact, maybe,

26:39

maybe selfishly. Yeah. But what

26:41

it did is it opened

26:43

the door for two of

26:45

my three dollars to come

26:47

back. They wanted to come

26:49

back. That's pretty great. It's

26:51

really great. And I'll say

26:54

this. Similarly. I told you

26:56

that the three areas of

26:58

interest for me, passion for

27:00

me, the land, the animals

27:02

in the community. And at

27:04

first it was just the

27:06

animals in the land. The

27:08

community was, this little town,

27:11

Bluffton, Georgia, was dying when

27:13

I was born, and it

27:15

continued to die as I

27:17

grew and developed. And I

27:19

never thought I could do

27:21

anything to save it. And

27:23

so I wasn't trying. But

27:25

when I went from three

27:28

minimum wage employees to $100,000

27:30

a week payroll, people needed

27:32

a place to live and

27:34

a place to shop and

27:36

a place to eat. So

27:38

I bought 20 houses and

27:40

I built the restaurant and

27:42

I built the store, we

27:45

finished the store. The town

27:47

came back. Bluffton has gone

27:49

from being literally, quite literally,

27:51

a ghost town to being

27:53

a very nice little community.

27:55

People come in on it.

27:57

People come here and stay

27:59

and they say, what a

28:02

nice little town. you have

28:04

here. Wow. And I think

28:06

there's a lesson to be

28:08

learned by, you know, rural

28:10

America is impoverished. Unless they've

28:12

got something going other than

28:14

agriculture, it is impoverished. Now,

28:16

you know, sometimes you've got

28:19

tourism and some other things

28:21

going. And

28:23

the centralization of food production

28:25

is what impoverished these little

28:27

rural towns. And when we,

28:29

Whiteland Pastures and Bluffton, stepped

28:32

away from the industrial model,

28:34

the town came back. And

28:36

that can be done again

28:38

and again and again. And

28:40

it wasn't done by a

28:42

Bill Gates type person. It

28:44

wasn't done by our planning

28:46

committee. It was done by

28:48

our planning committee. It was

28:50

done by our planning committee.

28:53

It was done by our

28:55

planning committee. It was done

28:57

by our planning committee. a

28:59

C student from the University

29:01

of Georgia with, you know,

29:03

very little funding. The funds

29:05

I had were meager compared

29:07

to these other. Right. It

29:09

doesn't take a lot of

29:11

money. It doesn't take a

29:14

lot of intellectual horsepower. What

29:16

it takes is understanding the

29:18

problem, not that I understood

29:20

it, but it's through saying

29:22

deputy, we found the solution

29:24

to the problem. Yeah. I

29:26

tell you what I add,

29:28

I invite you to come

29:30

see me. Let me show

29:32

you what we do. I'm

29:35

very proud of it. And

29:37

we have a lot of

29:39

great people here. We have

29:41

people here from all over

29:43

the country, actually all over

29:45

the world. I've got interns

29:47

here right now from one

29:49

from France and one from

29:51

Germany. Wow. And very few

29:53

of my employees speak the

29:56

way I speak. And very

29:58

few of them come from

30:00

the farm. Most of them

30:02

are non. non-souther, non-rural, non-agricultural,

30:04

but they're smart, sophisticated people

30:06

that have chosen this lifestyle.

30:08

Yeah. And you're the biggest,

30:10

at this point, you must

30:12

be the biggest employee in

30:14

town. The biggest employer in

30:17

the county. Yes. You said

30:19

something on an interview I

30:21

read about that you are

30:23

paid to do what you

30:25

were born to do or

30:27

what's what's the line that

30:29

you have said in the

30:31

past? Paid for what I

30:33

was made for. I tell

30:35

you I don't believe you've

30:38

ever interviewed anybody who's any

30:40

happier than me. blessed and

30:42

I do, I'm 70 years

30:44

old and I work, seven,

30:46

work, as in quote, seven

30:48

days a week, but I

30:50

seldom do anything I don't

30:52

want to do. You've said

30:54

that one of the reasons

30:56

you feel lucky is that

30:59

your hobby, your vocation and

31:01

your legacy are all wrapped

31:03

into one thing, which is

31:05

the farm, right? Talk a

31:07

little bit about that. Yeah,

31:09

I'm a one-trick pony, and

31:11

this is my trick. This

31:13

is what I do. This

31:15

is what I focus on.

31:17

This is what makes me

31:20

happy. It has my undivided

31:22

attention, and it deserves it,

31:24

and it rewards me far.

31:26

Are you showing the way

31:28

for other people to do

31:30

this, to do what you're

31:32

doing, and can they do

31:34

it without borrowing money? That's

31:36

a great question. I formed

31:38

a non-profit, a 501c3, I

31:41

think it was the right

31:43

letters and numbers, and we

31:45

have an executive director who's

31:47

a skilled training person, and

31:49

we do two things. One

31:51

is we have an internship

31:53

program. We bring in six

31:55

interns four times a year,

31:57

and they work. It's very

31:59

structured, they work a wheat

32:02

with pigs, a wheat with

32:04

chickens, a wheat with cattle,

32:06

the garden, right, right, three,

32:08

when they're... Two-year interns aren't

32:10

on the same crew at

32:12

the same time. We keep

32:14

them individually. Then we also

32:16

have sessions here, educational sessions,

32:18

the non-profits call CIFAR, Center

32:20

for Agricultural Resilience, and they

32:23

put on programs 12, 15

32:25

times a year, and it'll

32:27

be pig production or cattle

32:29

production or vegetable production or

32:31

vegetable production or whatever the

32:33

demand is. and that'll be

32:35

attended by 25 or 30

32:37

paying attendance. That's what we're

32:39

doing to try to help

32:41

spread the word. Now the

32:44

question you asked that deserves

32:46

some attention is whether or

32:48

not this kind of agriculture

32:50

is spread more widely across

32:52

the country is going to

32:54

fall upon the shoulders of

32:56

the consumer. It's not going

32:58

to happen in Washington DC.

33:00

The money is too strong

33:02

to remain with the commodity

33:05

industrialized kinds of products. And

33:07

the farmless lobby is insane,

33:09

right? It's like they spend

33:11

billions of dollars probably at

33:13

this point or certainly millions,

33:15

but... Yeah, it will not

33:17

happen in DC. Just take

33:19

my word for it. It's

33:21

not going to happen there.

33:23

It's not going to happen

33:26

at the land-grant universities because

33:28

they get their money from

33:30

big ag, big food, the

33:32

government. We've seen it, right?

33:34

We're seeing it right now.

33:36

Yeah. It's not going to

33:38

come from the county extension.

33:40

It's not going to come.

33:42

I can say I can

33:44

spend the day telling you

33:47

where it's not going to

33:49

come from. If it happens,

33:51

it's going to be consumer-driven,

33:53

period. And nobody wants to

33:55

hear that. because the likelihood

33:57

of it happening is not

33:59

great and nobody wants to

34:01

assume this responsibility, but the

34:03

fact is, if concerned... consumers

34:05

are happy to spend their

34:08

money buying industrial food, commodity

34:10

food, this kind of agriculture

34:12

won't make it. And let's

34:14

talk about this just meant,

34:16

from a cost perspective, the

34:18

food I raise costs more

34:20

than industrial food. It costs

34:22

the consumer more, and sadly

34:24

it always will. They

34:28

would say it's because they're

34:30

industrial food people would say

34:32

it's because they're more efficient.

34:35

I would state that very

34:37

differently. I would say that

34:39

industrial food is cheaper than

34:42

authentic food because industrial food

34:44

throws cost off to others

34:46

to bear. You know, there's

34:48

a dead zone in the

34:51

Gulf of Mexico that's as

34:53

big as Massachusetts. There

34:56

used to be a thriving

34:58

or string round, but the

35:00

chemical fertilizer and pesticides that

35:02

were sprayed on cropland fields

35:05

here went down Spring Creek

35:07

to the Chattahoocchio River to

35:09

the Gulf of Mexico and

35:11

did damage. And the pesticide

35:14

companies and fertilizer companies are

35:16

not going to pay for

35:18

that damage. We're going to

35:21

all pay for it. You

35:24

know, endangered species, there are

35:26

countless plants and animals and

35:28

microbes that are extinct or

35:30

near extinct because of the

35:32

use of industrial farming because

35:34

we farm industrially. Yeah. And

35:36

I think that every species

35:38

in an ecosystem has a

35:40

role and a value. We

35:43

may not recognize it. We

35:45

don't honeybees pollinate for a

35:47

while. We know a lot

35:49

of stuff, but I think

35:51

that every single species plant

35:53

and island like that exists

35:55

in an ecosystem makes a

35:57

contribution to that ecosystem. And

36:00

when we drive it into

36:02

extinction, it changes

36:04

the ecosystem. So I

36:06

can go on and on about

36:08

costs that industrial food production

36:11

brings forth to society

36:13

that they don't cover. But

36:15

they won't talk about how cheap

36:17

their food is. Yeah, so you're saying

36:19

that, and I've always said this,

36:22

that people who can afford to

36:24

pay more for their food should.

36:26

The question is, and this

36:29

is a much harder

36:31

question I understand, is

36:33

what about the people who

36:35

can't afford to pay more

36:37

for their food who

36:39

are sort of forced

36:41

into the industrial agricultural complex,

36:44

right? Like is there any

36:46

hope for those people? I

36:49

don't mean that there to

36:51

blame, but what I'm saying

36:53

is the situation. No, I understand

36:56

your dilemma and fully,

36:58

I feel it, I feel it.

37:01

I want everybody to manage land

37:03

in a way similar to the

37:05

way we manage it and all

37:08

everybody that eats to support those

37:10

people that are doing that. But

37:12

I don't want anybody to

37:15

go to bed hungry ever.

37:17

If we change the way we

37:19

farm and the price food goes

37:21

up by X percent. more people

37:23

going to go to bed hungry

37:25

and I don't want that. I

37:28

can't solve that problem. I would

37:30

not want us to immediately

37:32

go to what we do here. I

37:34

would not want that. Yeah. Because

37:37

I don't want the repercussions from

37:39

it. Yeah. I have changed my

37:41

opinion on what that looks like

37:44

a number of different times and

37:46

I went from just doing what

37:48

I wanted to do which is

37:51

far differently. I am what they

37:53

call an early elevator

37:56

who is helping change

37:58

the world. food is produced

38:01

and believe in that for

38:03

a while and then kind

38:05

of falling out of love

38:07

with that and saying you

38:09

know that's not what I

38:11

am what they call a

38:13

niche producer and through all

38:15

those renditions of how I

38:18

perceive what we're doing it's

38:20

been okay and the fact

38:22

is that today why don't

38:24

We don't want to grow.

38:26

We've discussed it as a

38:28

family, as a board, as

38:30

a company, as a farm.

38:32

Growth is not what we're

38:34

after. Got it. You're after

38:36

sustainability and all kinds of

38:39

sustainability, right? The planet, the

38:41

animals, the people. We are

38:43

and what we're doing is

38:45

highly replicatable. But it's not

38:47

highly scalable. We sold about

38:49

$30 million worth of product

38:51

last year. If we increased

38:53

that by 20%, we'd have

38:55

to hire a CEO. And

38:57

we don't want to hire

39:00

a CEO. If we hired

39:02

a CEO, we would be

39:04

immediately at odds, because he

39:06

would be trying to maximize

39:08

the economic return for the

39:10

quarter report, to increase his

39:12

bonus, and we're trying to

39:14

focus on the next generation.

39:16

And what I wish is

39:18

that there was a white

39:21

oak pastures in every county,

39:23

at least every state in

39:25

the union, you can sell

39:27

that $30 million worth of

39:29

product that we sold last

39:31

year. We had to ship

39:33

product to 48 states. And

39:35

that's okay. That's right. But

39:37

I don't want to. Because

39:39

when I shipped product to

39:42

48 states. I'm depriving 48

39:44

other farms of the opportunity

39:46

to sell in their state.

39:48

Right, right. And that's not

39:50

what I want to do.

39:52

Well, Will Harris, thank you

39:54

so much for sharing your

39:56

special. saw us with us.

39:58

You know, I wrote a

40:00

book. It's called The Bull

40:03

Returned to Giving the Bound.

40:05

You know, I didn't intend

40:07

to write a book. I

40:09

was approached by representatives of

40:11

penguin, random house, Viking, and

40:13

they proposed I write a

40:15

book, said they'd buy it.

40:17

And they called me, and

40:19

I told them I couldn't

40:21

do it. And they kind

40:24

of wouldn't take no for

40:26

an answer. And ultimately, they

40:28

hired a young woman to...

40:30

to write the book. She

40:32

came in a little bit

40:34

of time and we had

40:36

a one to three hour

40:38

phone call every Friday and

40:40

I think she did a

40:42

really good. If the book's

40:45

good, it's because she did

40:47

it good. What's a call,

40:49

Will? A bold return to

40:51

giving her down. I love

40:53

it. All right, well, well,

40:55

it's been such a pleasure.

40:57

Keep doing what you're doing.

40:59

Series-eaters can support the extraordinary

41:01

work done. on White Oaks

41:03

Pasture Farm by logging on

41:06

to White Oak Pastures.com and

41:08

buying some of its terrific

41:10

meat. People should not only

41:12

log on to White Oaks

41:14

Pasture.com and buy some meat,

41:16

they ought to buy Will's

41:18

book. Look at you that,

41:20

man. Special Sauce is produced

41:22

by Jocelyn Gonzales, Perry Gregory,

41:24

and Pedro Rufayón Rosado of

41:27

PRX Productions. You can find

41:29

the entire Treasure Trove episodes

41:31

at the Special Sauce Podcast.com

41:33

and find me at Sirius

41:35

Eater Red on Instagram. So

41:37

long, Sirius Eaters, see you

41:39

next time.