Ending Hunger & Poverty While Caring For The Earth with Pierre Ferrari

Pierre Ferrari is the President and CEO of Heifer International, an organization on a mission to end hunger and poverty by supporting and investing alongside local farmers and their communities. He has worked or held board roles at Coca-Cola, Ben & Jerry's and the Small Enterprise Assistance Fund, and he has a Master’s degree in economics from Cambridge and an MBA from Harvard. Pierre's 40 years of business experience are being put into his passion for social issues at Heifer. You can find his recent opinion pieces in TIME magazine with Chef Tom Coliccio about the fixes we need to food system, and in Fast Company on ethical meat standards. Pierre and his wife Kim have been fans of Serenbe for years and recently made the move full time.

Serenbe Stories is a podcast about making an impact, building a better life, and the extraordinary power of nature and community. Follow Serenbe on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Transcript

0 (1s):
Hey guys, it's Monica here. I wanted to tell you about a new podcast that I've started with my very good friend, Jennifer Walsh called biophilic solutions. Our last season of ceremony stories, building a biophilic movement was so popular that we decided to dedicate an entire podcast to it every other week. Jennifer and I will sit down with leaders in the growing field of biophilia. We'll talk about local and global solutions to help nurture their living social and economic systems that we all need to sustain future generations more often than not. Nature has the answers. You can find biophilic solutions on apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe and follow us today. So you don't miss an episode.

0 (41s):
All right, now let's get back to ceremony stories.

1 (45s):
Our guest

0 (46s):
Today is Pierre Ferrari. Who's the president and CEO of heifer international, an organization on a mission to end hunger and poverty by supporting and investing alongside local farmers and their communities. Peers, 40 years of business experience are now being put into his passion for social issues that heifer, you can find his recent opinion pieces in time magazine with chef Tom Colicchio, where he talks about the fixes we need to make to our food system. And in a recent fast company article, he discusses ethical meat standards. Pierre and his wife, Kim have been fans of ceremony for years, and we're delighted that they've recently made the move here full time.

2 (1m 26s):
Just enjoy the sights. The trees listen for the animals. That is what I recommend. That's why you know, my, my house. I literally can trip over my fence name in the forest, which is one of the reasons I bought. We bought this house and just love the forest.

0 (1m 48s):
Well, Pierre, welcome to Sarah B stories. We thank you for making the time for us today. How are you?

2 (1m 53s):
I'm very well, thank you for inviting me, Steve here as well. Of course.

0 (2m 5s):
I know, even though we're all here in therapy, B we're all on zoom still soon. We'll all have vaccines.

2 (2m 12s):
Yeah. I've got vaccine, not vaccinated.

0 (2m 15s):
Well, and I think Steve, you have your first one. Yes. Fulton county just started 55 plus this week. So I'm close, close.

2 (2m 24s):
So believe it or not. The reason I got vaccinated is that heifer all have for employees, a guarantee considered to be necessary or essential workers, because we're involved with farming about that. Incredible. So whether it's the cows payable or it's actually the farmers, we qualify,

0 (2m 48s):
We have an organic farm here. I wonder if I could, cause I do marketing and my essential. We

2 (2m 53s):
Can argue that.

0 (2m 58s):
So PR one of the first things we've been asking everybody is how did you discover Seren B and H how'd you find your way here to be our neighbor?

2 (3m 6s):
Yeah, it's a, it's actually a long story short. My wife was Kimberly was an advertising executive and she had her boss and mentor came here. And I think Steve, I think they sold you the farm, right? That's

3 (3m 28s):
Right. Well, it was Dick Henderson. The farm. Yeah. And then the partner Drake, his wife was a real estate agent and she's the one who showed it to us, small world, small world,

2 (3m 45s):
You know, Kimberly talks about her relationship with Dick Henderson and the work that they did together. And then the fact that they came down here and they looked at the farm when really it was pretty well, what, what's the right word at the time? It was basic. It was historic. There we go. That's a good word. This is 1991

3 (4m 3s):
For those listening in yeah.

2 (4m 5s):
1991. And Henderson decided to sell that and move to another place I think on the coast somewhere. But anyway, that's how it all started. That's how we got acquainted. And then when I married Kimberly much later in 2003, she said, well, let's go to Sarah and have a look what's going on. And she told me the story. And so it was a long walk to actually ultimately we bought a format, we sold a format cause I really didn't want to build anything. I just don't think that. I think, I don't know if I'm married to the students probably would, but I don't know. But anyway, so we ended up buying this house, which we absolutely loved.

2 (4m 46s):
We love the community and that's how I got acquainted. Very root of therapy.

3 (4m 55s):
People have various paths. You have one of the longest paths I originally.

2 (5m 4s):
Yeah. So I was born. Believe it or not in the central African country of, at the time, the Belgian Congo. And then it became Zaire. Now is the democratic Republic of Congo. Anyway, through a variety of changes was, have to do with independence and military Marion, insurgencies and everything else. My father and my parents actually decided that we needed to be educated somewhere other than Africa. And we w where my sister and I were both sent to England. This is another long story I won't bore you with to get educated. And that's where I went to basically middle school, high school and university, but I I'm not, I I've got a British passport, but I don't feel British for obvious reasons.

2 (5m 52s):
So I decided to make, you know, seek, seek better, better opportunities in the United States was an immigrant. So I landed off the plane. And 1974 went to Harvard business school, got myself an MBA and then got hired by the Coca-Cola company to Atlanta. Okay. So what kind of work were you doing at the time? My first job was in the mergers and acquisition department, which I like plenty. Well, but one of the strategies that the board of directors followed that the M and a department say recommended a series of acquisitions, which we did.

2 (6m 34s):
And then they turned around and said, well, you made all the forecast. Now we're going to give you a responsibility for meeting those forecasts, go run the businesses. Oh yeah, exactly. Oh no. So suddenly these spreadsheets that we would just, you know, we spent a lot of time on these things before Excel worksheets, you know, became the reality of our lives. Anyway, I ended up doing that. So I ended up in marketing from MNA worked marketing, which of course is what Coca-Cola does. But I spent 20 years of the marketing and marketing of Coca-Cola. I had various jobs and ended up back here in Atlanta in 90, 1990.

2 (7m 18s):
And I've, I've not left. So,

0 (7m 21s):
So you were here for the Olympics. It was an exciting time.

2 (7m 25s):
It's very much an exciting time. And my association with Coca-Cola actually, it gave me a tremendous access, which was nice.

0 (7m 33s):
And you and Steve had not crossed paths at that time.

2 (7m 36s):
Oh no, no. It's really my wife's crossing paths with Steve. And then I think when we came down, began to look around and you know, 15, 14, I think Steve, at that point, we though we had a cup of coffee together, you know, reminisce a little bit and hang out,

3 (7m 58s):
Being in Atlanta all those years and the Coca Cola, the city, I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of cross paths, but

2 (8m 7s):
Yeah. And the peasant restaurants, I remember that the one on fishery right down there, we used to go there quite frequently. We

3 (8m 14s):
Were in the neighborhood dining room for Coca Cola in those days. You're where

2 (8m 17s):
You were, especially for dinner, you know, quick dinner, we went over to page two and go to school. It was a present, present and have a scallopini or whatever. I forget the dishes that we had. You probably remember the menu I'm trying to remember. And we actually lived in Dansville park, which of course is round the corner. Yep.

0 (8m 39s):
That's right. How did you go from Coca Cola to your current role at heifer? Was that a direct line

2 (8m 47s):
Or no, it was not a direct line. I left Coke in 95 and I decided that I to do something more, more interesting in a way than just pedaling a lot of Combinator, soft drinks. And so I ended up with a group of friends slash investors and we built eventually a little venture capital firm whose objection or his objective was to invest in distress communities, try and build businesses and wealth and jobs. And so I did that for many years actually. So we, I invested primarily I does have some side investment, but primarily in five companies, three went bankrupt and two went very well.

2 (9m 33s):
So

0 (9m 35s):
That's a pretty decent statistics.

2 (9m 37s):
Yeah. Yeah. I think it was okay. And the investors, the investors were really not in this to make money. So ultimately we gave all the profit that we generated back into the communities in various ways. I don't know if you ever heard of Guayaki you have a motto, have you ever heard of that? So that's one of the companies we invested in and, and it's been very successful. Wow. And all of the profits out of that have gone back into buying land in Argentina to reforest and reek and rework the forest so that they could grow biodynamic. You have a mock date. So that's the kind of work that I was doing. And then I was doing okay, and then this a good friend of mine, an executive search executive in Atlanta, call me not even call me.

2 (10m 29s):
I met somewhere. We met, we met at Oglethorpe university was an Oglethorpe university meeting. And she came up running up to me and said, there's a job for you. You need to take that job. Well, I said, well, I don't know. Can I take it will. They said, well, you need to interview. And it was a half a job. And I sort of dug around and looked around and got some data. And I said, you know, I think there's something really interesting to be done there. And so I applied Kim and I were actually in France at the time when the application went through, did it all online, it felt like a precursor to what we're doing now. Anyway, it was all online. I got interviewed, I was in Marsay and we were interviewed online, my video and everything else.

2 (11m 13s):
Anyway, I ended up, I ended up getting the job and I really have loved this job. This has been a great job. Yeah. So tell

0 (11m 19s):
Us for those who don't know about heifer. I had been aware of it through my mother-in-law, who that was her Christmas gift choice every year, every year. That's what she wanted and still does. But tell the listeners a little bit about heifer international and why you decided to work there.

2 (11m 40s):
Yeah. So we're a development organization. We work mostly overseas. Although we do work a little bit in the U S and it's actually linked to the work that we're doing here that has Seremban. We have a 1200 acre ranch. We are a regenerative farming community in, in, in Perryville Arkansas. And we do mostly livestock, but we do some vegetable. We do cattle for chickens, and we're a savory hub, which I think, you know, by save right here as well. So we, we, we practice very know biophilic practices in our ranch and, and Steve, if you went to the half a ranch, I think it did recognize everything that you do here.

2 (12m 28s):
The farm as well. We're not organic certification for organic is in our opinion too, too onerous. Well, you're probably

3 (12m 37s):
Organic. You're just not certified

2 (12m 40s):
Exactly what I totally organic and non GMO, et cetera. I call it the totally politically correct approach to farming without the label. Now we do, we're linked up to a whole system. We grow, we have a farmers in a co-op we're part of the co-op. We have processing plants called Cypress valley. So we knew our own processing. We pay off, we pay our labor living wage. We are very, we take, we really take care of our labor. And then, and this, all that links in to an e-commerce operation called grassroots.

2 (13m 20s):
Co-op also, so all of it is very community oriented and all of the, all of the value is captured by the community in one way or the other. And so if you want to buy some high quality beef or pork or chicken or sausage or something, go to grassroots co-op so that particularly enterprise is what we're heifer is doing in the United States. We're working with actually the Indians in terms of processing that beef. And we're now working with the African-American community in Mississippi to develop a supply of pork. And so far, the early rate is very good. Now, overseas, we work with small holder farmers, probably the poorest of the poor.

2 (14m 4s):
Most farmers we work with are farming. Not because they want to be farmers, but simply that's the only way they can survive is by growing their own food. And what we do is work with them, organize, mobilize the farmers in a variety of ways into co-ops and value chains. There is no there's no money in being a producer. All of them. I mean, if you take coffee or you take those, so you take dairy producing the actual role commodity that makes the whole value chain work. It's not where the money is. The money is generally at the other side of the value chain, which is retail or some kind of processing and distribution.

2 (14m 44s):
So we, we, we work with the communities through mobilization and we mobilize large numbers of farmers, you know, hundreds of thousands farmers so that they can actually engage in the value chain, but not just as producers, but also as processes and distributors. And in some cases, the communities will actually get into retail as well. In Ecuador, the farmers, we work with a vegetable, mostly vegetable and food farmers who work there have decided to open up their own restaurants and their own retail operations, because that's where the money is, but we teach them all that. We show them where the money is and we provide capital.

2 (15m 27s):
We provide training, not necessarily by providing, I don't mean that we necessarily give it to them, but we mobilize it. We organize it. We provide guarantees if necessary. So it's a whole system approach to making sure the farmers can escape poverty. So our north star is what we call living income for the farmers. And we've got a pretty substantial protocol on how to calculate that what is living income for a farmer in Ecuador on the, or small Senegal or whatever. And so the goal of the project always is how do we get you there? How do we get you to a living income, which is basically a life of dignity?

2 (16m 8s):
So that's the work that we do. And we work with livestock, happens to be most countries it's that I don't know of a country where we operate, where livestock is not a single most profitable way of making a living as a farmer. So we work with, you know, dairy, goats, chickens, and snails, and also some of that, whatever it is. I mean, like for example, in Ghana, a particular type of snail is, is very profitable for the farmers, but they have, they have to be trained on how to do it, right. Protect, make sure the snails are healthy and make sure that they're safe to eat, et cetera, et cetera.

2 (16m 51s):
So you gave us a specie. I think generally we know somebody in the organization and it's not a race

0 (16m 58s):
Doing something with it. Well, and, and I think your, the one line that, that really struck me is the goal or objective ending hunger and poverty while caring for the earth. I thought that was beautiful.

2 (17m 11s):
So caring for the earth, we use what we call climate smart agriculture. That's the approach and regenerative farming is one of those approaches, of course, by using livestock, especially the waste from livestock into, you know, back into the ground. You know, I always say we, we operate with working with farmers, we operate with sort of three mineral miracles. And I don't mean that in a, in a religious sense, but what is the, the miracle of photosynthesis, the actual conversion of sunlight, you know, with chlorophyll into either food that can be eaten or food by humans or food that can be eaten by animals.

2 (17m 56s):
And that's the second miracle, which is enteric digestion, which is what cows, you know, ruin a digest, the wish, what cows and horses and goats and sheep and everything else. That's another amazing miracle of biology that it converts inedible food for us into edible, you know, meat and milk, et cetera. So that's, and then the third miracle is the miracle of reproduction, right? These animals reproduce. And that is not to be underestimated because that's actually one of the major sources of profit for farmers of livestock. Right? So those three combinations, the three combinations, of course, unquotes miracles makes it possible to actually take these farmers out of poverty, especially if the product of those activities is marketed all the way down to almost retail.

2 (18m 49s):
Yeah. Well,

0 (18m 50s):
And I know Steve and I talk about, you know, the ecosystem. And so you're saying sort of it's system design. And so when we have our farmers here, that's just the beginning to your point. I thought that was interesting to hear that the producer, the producing isn't really making the money, you need the whole ecosystem in order to make the money. And I had never really heard or thought about that until Steve sort of brought that into my,

2 (19m 15s):
Yeah. So if you do the analysis of any value chain, you think about the farm here and the CSA, right? The CSA, because they sell directly to us is the pro is that profitable activity and the farmer's market, everything else. But if they were to sell to a wholesaler, they would not make money. Or they would be very hard to make money on, especially at the scale at which they operate. He can only make money if you're operating at 200 acres, the economic sizes, but it's much bigger than what we've got here. So by going to CSA and Mancha and farmer's market, everything else, you know, I'm moving, you're capturing the value close to the final sales to consumers.

2 (19m 55s):
That's where the money is. It's not, it's not following the line. It just, isn't just, there is, I don't know of any crop except marijuana where the producer makes money. That's interesting. There isn't one. Well,

0 (20m 12s):
And, and, and, and is it the hemp or is it the marrow? Is it the going by drugs?

2 (20m 21s):
There was a product, there was a product for a time that you could actually make money as a producer. And it was a, an oil, a seed that produced an oil that was used in fracking. So I was in Rajasthan, India, right. And we were working on a goat project over there. And then we came across this village and all the homes were new. The roofs were new, you know, that we, we stopped and there was water. Wells had been dug. I said, what the hell is going on here? Well, they were producing the seed that was being sold at incredibly high price because of fracking going on in Pennsylvania. And so there was selling at a very high price, which didn't last long because ultimately the natural product got substituted by something since yeah.

2 (21m 9s):
The marketplace is so important, whether that's the

0 (21m 13s):
Consumer or the restaurants or the chefs you talk a lot about. So, so it's interesting, like your agriculture time started with the VC. It sounds like with the land in our arena, but has been through, you know, kind of thread to today. And, and one of the things that I was really fascinated with is you just put out an opinion piece or an article with chef Tom Colicchio in January. Will you, will you talk to us a little bit about it? It was really wonderful talking about how we need the political will to make a lot of changes in the food system.

2 (21m 46s):
Yeah. So, you know, the American food, it's a long subject. Yeah. The, the, the American food system has been dominated and incentive to become increasingly monopolized. Right. And that's at the production level, is that the processing level, the transportation level, you know, there isn't a place where the American food system is not functioning, essentially. What is one of the economies called rent seeking behavior, which is oligopoly mystic or capital or, or monopolistic behavior. And we've created that.

2 (22m 26s):
And I'll also say, I will also say that the American food system is feeding 335 million people every day, you know, three meals a day. So it's not as if it's in CA it's not an incompetent system, it's actually incredibly efficient system, but it does not allow for the kind of work that we do here at Sarah B, which is more biophilic and interested in the quality of the soil and quality of life and elimination of, you know, of, of elimination, of all sorts of toxic chemicals reported to our land, into our streams. That's the, what is what is called by economists externalities.

2 (23m 9s):
So this, this oligopolistic behavior, and that's, I think that came up in the, in the, in the, in the conversation I had with Tom, you know, you've got this massive system that feeds us, but the externalities of that system are extremely damaging and toxic. So how do we find a middle ways that we need to feed trans 35 million people plus many others outside the United States, and yet regenerate our soil, protect our land, protect our forest, protect our people. You know, I mean the use of glass to fate around up and in all of too much agriculture is just, I mean, the consequences of building up.

2 (23m 52s):
Yes, they

0 (23m 52s):
Are. And we're hearing more and more about them when we have, well, he's not new, right. Vilsack is for his second term. And I know he's done good work with farmers, underserved farmers in the past, but do we think that this is an initiative of the Biden and administration, and Vilsack not to get too political, but I do think like we, the people can put pressure on our representatives to focus on different things.

2 (24m 20s):
So, you know, the approach has got to be, I mean, if you, if you sit down with the major company, whether it be Tyson or Cargill or BDS, and some other companies, you know, they will go back and say, well, we, we understand the problems that are being caused, but how do we produce food at the scale that's needed? So for example, the processing of beef of cattle into one of our favorite foods is steak. How do we manage that in a way that's humane for the animals, you know, protecting of the, of the soil, et cetera, et cetera, there are ways to do it, but it takes investment takes time.

2 (25m 5s):
And it takes convincing a large number of farmers and ranchers and everything else that regenerative farming and soil management is actually a better way to go than what they're doing. So it's both policy issues. And also, you know, convincing people who are well farmers, that's what that's, what are the things that we're doing in Arkansas was showing how you could manage cattle in a soil enhancement soil recreating manner. There's a whole, there's a whole movement. Again, the savory Institute is one approach that we are utilizing and actually are taking over to Africa, both in Senegal, in Nigeria, that the soil there.

2 (25m 51s):
So this could be done at scale. I'm not talking about 200 heads of cattle. I'm talking about tens of thousands of heads of cattle. It's the problem. When you think about scale, it becomes quite different, becomes quite a complicated because one just managing 10,000 heads of cattle or 50,000 heads of cattle becomes different than having a lunch. We do a couple of dogs round up, literally round up our cattle and putting them to the next fast ship. So it can be done. It can be done, but it takes political agreement.

2 (26m 31s):
The passion of laws that allow us to organize and mobilize the farmers in such a way that it can be done. And of course the farmers themselves are better believe that doing, doing farming this way is acceptable and actually will be productive. So it's, it's difficult work to say the least. And we've, we've got a project that we had a project actually in Senegal with 80,000 or 80,000 hectares. That's a 60, 180,000 acres. And with tens of thousands of cattle from the local community and the soil, there is completely empty of nutrients.

2 (27m 12s):
It's been exploited for so many years. So we were starting to use the cattle to actually replenish the solar regenerate, the soil and their waste is what needs to be done. I see. Do you,

0 (27m 27s):
Did you see good traction after the piece came out in time magazine?

2 (27m 32s):
Yes. Yeah. I think we've got a lot of people, not just individuals, but institutions, people who say we really would like to understand this more and how can, for example, we had some ranches coming in from Colorado and calling us from Colorado and say they had heard of some of this, but somehow to have a famous chef, like Tom Colicchio actually come in, you know, it just provides, you know, and I, and here's the thinking right from a financial point of view says, you know, I, they say, I'm, I'm perhaps willing to do this, but will Tom link me to some buyers who will buy this kind of stuff?

2 (28m 14s):
You know, as Steve knows, you know, the world goes round and the demand for either guests through your restaurants or people who buy real estate and survey, it all is driven by people who are committed to the values you've got and are prepared to put money down to buy it. If it doesn't happen, it's just talk

3 (28m 37s):
That's right. But, you know, I, I think it thinks things aren't changing. I think, you know, organic foods, local foods are improving, but one of the real issues is our distribution system. And I read somewhere that 50% of the price of anything on our shelves is for the petroleum to get it to that plate. It's just quite idea. If you have regional agriculture, then 50% can go directly to the producer or the people closer. Then, then this whole chain of distribution. And we think this pandemic is awful and it was, but our whole food system is just as fragile if we don't return to a more regional system, both for our health, so that we're eating things that are in season, but also this whole issue of, of distribution and where it's coming from.

2 (29m 38s):
Yeah, no, I think local local is important. And again, I think we've just got to show and as you know, you know, kind of farming and Georgia is actually way behind the national average. Okay. So the, the opportunities are to actually grow that. And I mean, it all begins out. It goes back to demand, XIV people be aware of the health benefits of what you just said about buying local, buying organic, organic, or, you know, minimal use of chemicals, et cetera, so that they are eating healthier.

2 (30m 18s):
You know, the problem with health, the health message is that it's not immediate unlike a pill, you know, and I'm just, I was talking to the guy that runs our grassroots operation, our e-commerce. And I said, you know, the messaging that we have for, for grassroots needs is terrific. And we show, for example, we show how industrial chicken is actually dipped into chlorine to clean it up before it's sold and that kind of stuff. So that, that message is that you're eating chlorinated chicken. Hopefully people will say, you know, that gut something immediate is what turns American zone.

2 (31m 1s):
You know, I don't know it's the same marketing problem

3 (31m 4s):
Once they're exposed. I mean, if they're starting to bring organic or fresh local, you look at the color difference, they start tasting off shore. And I think that's why it's really good.

2 (31m 17s):
There's no doubt about it. You know, you know, I, I'm going to tell grassroots again, grassroots pork, okay. The texture of the pork is so much better than the industrial different there's no comparison, but who does it take? You know, who does a comparison taste off only wines of sophisticated do that

3 (31m 42s):
With Rodale now, starting to operate in Georgia with their research center, they have real goals to really change Georgia. They do,

2 (31m 58s):
You know, I've, I've actually been off to join the board over there, the advisory board, and I have accepted a lot of the conversation is going to be about demand. Who's going to buy this

3 (32m 9s):
We're on the edge of this urban center, a million people it's just to expose them to them to figure out the distribution. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not that old. Yeah.

0 (32m 22s):
Well, another thing that I think has come up during COVID is, you know, the food insecurity, not only obviously the, the fragility of the system and sort of the distribution that we saw, but really the food insecurity that came up, like, you know, really seeing these long lines, food banks and so many children. I think the article mentioned something like 14 million children in households with food insecurity. And you had a quote in the article that said, and again, I'll, I, I don't mean to be flippant, but it only takes 25 billion to end hunger in the U S and I use that number as a comparison to what we spend on other things, the military, do you and Tom have ideas or, or, you know, to sort of push in that direction as well, or,

2 (33m 13s):
Yeah, I th I think we're, we're part of a group that's going to, you know, we've just, we've got a lobby. That's basically, that's what we gotta do. And that's, we gotta, you know, and I think to actually lobby, I don't know, I don't, I, I know of a few reps and senators who are willing to say, we spend too much on the military. It's starting to come out again and people will say, wow, this military budget is greater than, you know, all of the other countries, military spending, right. Combined my fault. Do we really need that much money? And, you know, was it the <inaudible>, you know, is $1 trillion has been spent on it. It's not working well, surely anyway, I think that the current, the current passage of the COVID bill includes a lot of money for, for children.

2 (34m 1s):
And if, hopefully they'll, they'll they'll and half of them, I think, I think the forecast and poverty and hunger for half the kids in the United States, which is great. Also somebody said, well, what about the other half? And I thought to myself, yeah, I still have work to do

0 (34m 18s):
Well. And the other thing that I think you guys are working on is sort of the back to regenerative is that the soil health. Right? And so when I actually talked to Jeff at Rodale the other day, and he was saying that they have a new, I don't know if it's a hundred percent out, but they've been doing a new trial where they actually were denuding the soil. They were, they were trying to strip the soil, or they actually were just planting in a traditional agricultural mode with the glyphosate and the chemicals. And, you know, even just after, I think it was two years, the nutrient health of the vegetables coming out of the soil were a hundred times less

2 (34m 55s):
Full of minerals. No, yeah, no, it's the soil that we use basically for agriculture is chemical and the quality, the quality of the food that comes out of it is just substantially inferior, potentially inferior. But, you know, people prefer to go to whole foods and go to the nutrient section

3 (35m 17s):
By vitamins boxes on all these issues, because it's, so I know the country's moving in a different direction

2 (35m 30s):
And they're all moving in different directions.

0 (35m 32s):
It's good to have these conversations. And if we can always, always joke that we sort of slip in a little bit of awareness about these larger issues into the, sort of the beauty and lifestyle of ceremony, but awareness of the benefits is the first step in order to create consumer demand.

2 (35m 50s):
Yeah. Yeah. I think the pressure with Rodale working in Georgia around organic farming, you know, as farmers get involved that local communities are going to know about it and then maybe have to convert more and more people to organic or quality local produce. So it's actually not just demand is actually the supply can have an effect on demand. And I think that lots of people, one of the things that's gotta be, we've gotta find Steve is the production of high quality foods that we find a way to keep the costs down. And I, you know, we don't want to end up with 2000 or 20,000 acre farms, or how do we keep that cost so people can afford to buy high quality local foods.

2 (36m 37s):
So that's, that's significant.

3 (36m 39s):
One thing is we need to restore the agrarian economy right now. Pharmacist's a boutique farm where the farm itself has to do all those things. We need a system and develop jobs for other people to be the packagers and to where we, we utilize a hundred percent of what's being produced. So imagine if we had someone coming in and buying all the second small, the, all the pieces that get chopped, all, all the vegetables that don't meet, the beauty line that our, our, our consumers now seem to want. And those can be put into suits and lasagna is, and all kinds of second level of products and our existing farmer can't do that coming in extending so that they're actually selling.

3 (37m 32s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

2 (37m 35s):
Again, restaurants, I think is a good place to go to as well. They chop up a lot

3 (37m 38s):
Know. Absolutely. But there's still, the distribution system is all selling the restaurants, all the perfect.

2 (37m 49s):
So again, back to demand, you know, Tom Colicchio and of a lot of other chefs are saying, you've got to utilize the whole farm, right? Essentially, it's your point? And it's growing. I mean, in New York, the whole New York area is actually a thriving center of this kind of thinking and work and production. And, you know, it's hard to find I haven't been to New York in a while, but I remember, I remember years ago now that in most restaurants that I have been to in, in, in New York or farm to table or claim to be as farm to table as they can be, you know, that's huge in terms of the number of people that died in New York and, and people ask themselves the questions, you know, farm to table and they named the farm.

2 (38m 34s):
And, you know, it's, it's incredible what is happening

3 (38m 39s):
Awesome forward with our universities. And I know Emory is committed, but the supply isn't there to meet commitments. So,

2 (38m 51s):
So I'll tell you, I actually try to sell this is years ago, so maybe not be relevant today, but at Emory university, I actually met with the procurement people, you know, the rest of food people, and yes, they were committed to buy local, but they were also committed to a low price because they have a budget, right? Those, those students don't have much money and they have a, you know, the whole, I dunno how the whole system works anymore, but it will complicated. So they would, it was, it was tough to sell them because they wanted that tomatoes to be at, you know, 2 cents a pound or whatever the price was. So it was the reality. The reality was it was both the clash of economics and values.

3 (39m 34s):
Well, we have to come up to find out what it is because, you know, we w we subsidize our soybean in our corn markets, and it isn't the end buyer that's paying the full price. Now the end buyer on, on fruits and vegetables is paying the full price. So we've been looking at those systems

2 (39m 55s):
And I think that's what builds tech could actually have an impact. Of course, he understands this very well. And shifting was the subsidies away from the commodities towards what's healthier and local. Everything else is something he could actually have an impact on.

3 (40m 13s):
And, and in a world, a lot of the other can't even in different columns, maybe, but at the end of the day, we have a more balanced budget.

2 (40m 21s):
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think with Biden, we've got community, it's a bit of a surprise. I mean, we've got a transformational president on our hat, you know, somebody who's willing to make some really tough choices that will benefit us all as opposed to benefiting the rich

3 (40m 38s):
And I, when I was working with the department of community affairs and dealing with some of those folks in Georgia and, and came upon some, some papers that, you know, in 1940, our prisons will require the girl, their own flu. Most, most of these slaughterhouses this, because it's th th they're buildings that can't be repurposed necessarily. And so unless they, a lot of times they still exist in their store rooms. And then there's other research that working in, in, in dirt is one of the greatest things to, to calmer aggression down. So imagine what a program we could do in our prisons that certainly has disappeared over these last seven years.

3 (41m 23s):
Yeah.

2 (41m 24s):
Well, in high school, you know, there's, I'm trying to think of the name of the, the other, the other chef. And in Oakland, the woman, what's her name, this waters waters has this a one acre program with high schools for exactly that purpose. Right. And

3 (41m 43s):
That's a big program too, in Georgia and the Turner foundation or the, the captain planet foundation is doing a lot with the, as well as the children nature network.

0 (41m 56s):
Yeah. There's a lot of good happening out there. And I think it's always trying to figure out how we can continue to help as an individual or as a group to sort of come together and put pressure to, to sort of demand these changes on the larger level, as well as support the farmers on the local

2 (42m 15s):
Level. Yeah. So I think one of the first steps everyone is listening to this shirt, make sure that they buy organic. They show they buy from local farmers. That's a key cause these folks can't continue unless there's revenue coming into the farm, you know, to pay for all the inputs and the work that they do. So that's, that's one obvious choice. And I, I would not assume that, you know, I think all of us have the habit of going over to Kroger and buying stuff that comes in from Peru, you know? Yeah.

0 (42m 48s):
Well, I think when I first understood that the soil health to the vegetable health, you know, or to the, to the people health, and I really started to understand that with Rodale and the soil, just seeing what organic soil looks like versus conventional soil really made a huge change. And we were already pretty good. I think having kids made us more aware, but that made us really seek out organic and, or, you know, we just didn't buy if we couldn't find it. And, and, you know, we're lucky that like, you know, Costco and Walmart and people are buying or, you know, providing organic, it, it is more available these days. It isn't just have to be at whole foods.

2 (43m 30s):
Yeah, no, that's true. It is changing. It has changed a lot. So, you know, they'll set Phil sec has got a key component to that and then will be, we'll be lobbying him, especially on the local farm level to actually provide the right subsidies so that, you know, shift the subsidies away from the lodge corporate entities into local farm local activities. And, and I think he's willing to do that. I mean, I, it, the political environment talk about, you know, the big stick and the big money come from the big corporations, right. I mean, it's just not beat about the Bush. That's the way it's come.

2 (44m 10s):
But I think that's why I was thinking about it. I think by is a transformational president, is that he's willing to give all that up and says, I don't want to listen to you because you're actually harming the environment and you're harming people and you're harming also animals. And the process by which they treat animals is just horrendous, both in terms of growing and processing them.

0 (44m 33s):
Yeah. And I think that even movies like kiss the ground that had come out recently is helpful. So, you know, you can't discount the, the celebrity behind a particular topic to raise awareness, especially when they have all of the wonderful data points to support it. But back to haver, is there a way that we can support you? Like what, what would be the best way for us? I mean, obviously money is always away, but, but like the Christmas gift, you know, that, that I, that we gave, tell us a little bit about some of the best ways to give and support the hepatitis. Yeah.

2 (45m 13s):
So we have a catalog, which a lot of other nonprofits have as well. And in that catalog, you've got all sorts of gifts, ideas, you know, but mostly oriented towards livestock. That's what we do. And so I'm not saying that if you buy goats out of the catalog, that necessarily a goat will go to a farmer, we will use it in a way that will promote the livelihood of farmers somewhere. So that's one way to do it. The, you know, there's, I'm not going to get into the economics of nonprofit, which is pretty okay. But most nonprofits in the United States depend on the amazing generosity of Americans, donors, and November late November and December.

2 (45m 58s):
So I keep telling my staff, I said, you know what? It's like being in the, in the champagne business, which if you don't have a great new year's Eve, you had a terrible year. And I said, I really don't like that. I used to be in an unwind liquor business actually, when I was with Coca-Cola. And I said, that's a terrible way to run a business. You know, what you want is steady monthly goods, quality supply demand, so that you've got a steady cash flow. So if you're in the champagne business, you don't have that. You have a little peak and try and wedding time, and then you have this huge sale month in December. Okay. So we've got monthly donut program and that's not specifically oriented towards particular animal, but it can be oriented to a project.

2 (46m 43s):
If you go to our website, you can get a description of the project you can give to a project, or you can say, you know what? I trust these people. I think they'll use the money. Right. But it helps us a lot to have a continuous monthly donation that not have to be big, you know, $10, $20, whatever it is, but that I tell you that my chief financial officer would kiss me right now. Well, we'll put a

0 (47m 7s):
Link specifically to the catalog and with that wonderful idea. And I'm actually on the website right now, and there is a fabulous, I dunno, what, what with maybe a llama. I might take that photo and put it up too. It's a beautiful lawn.

2 (47m 21s):
Just to wonderful vodka is a wonderful, they're interesting animals to say the least. Yeah. Well, yeah. One

0 (47m 28s):
Of the last things we like to ask, share with us, what you might tell somebody who doesn't know about CNB or they're maybe coming down for the day, what would be sort of your advice to them or,

2 (47m 41s):
Oh, yes. I absolutely have my, my elevator speech. Oh, wonderful. I didn't know. You're going to ask that question, but I have my, my recommendation to them and said, okay, it's a beautiful, pristine area. You know, you've got the stables, you've got the farm, you've got the end. I said, but the power of ceremony is to go into the forest and what the Japanese call forest bathing, all right. Just be in the forest. And so I would encourage, and I'm going to do that personally on a, on a, on a personal basis to have to have a HOA actually put in more benches in the forest.

2 (48m 21s):
People can go sit and just be with a forest, you know, and literally just enjoy the, the sides. The trees listen for the animals. That is what I recommend. That's why, you know, my, my house, I literally can trip over my fence name in the forest, which is one of the reasons I bought. We bought this house and just love the forest. My dog loves the forest and I will probably be confessed that I let my dog is delicious. Don't tell the HOA. I know, I know my dog loves it. So I know, I know. Well,

0 (49m 2s):
Thank you so much. We super appreciate your time. I could sit and talk to you for hours. I think we have some great ideas and work to do together. All of us, but

2 (49m 13s):
Been a pleasure being with you. Thank you. I look forward to all the work on several fronts. I plan, I plan to be carried out of my house feet first. So that's it. That's right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. We'll look into it.

1 (49m 37s):
All right. Good. Thanks a lot. Ciao. Bye bye.

0 (49m 46s):
Thank you for listening to Sarah stories. New episodes are available on Mondays. Please follow us and leave us a five star review and visit our website to learn more about guests episodes and everything. ceremony@serumbstories.com. This episode is supported by the, in it Seren. Be nestled in the rolling countryside of the bucolic community of ceremony, where guests can walk on the 15 miles of private trails through preserved forest land, the wildflower meadow, and the animal village, relax at the pool hot tub or in rocking chairs on wraparound porch. Play on the croquet lawn, grab a canoe and jump on the in-ground trampoline connects with nature and each other all while staying in a luxurious space at the end at ceremony.

0 (50m 27s):
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