Food Sovereignty & Building Community Resilience with Natalie Ashker Seevers

In this episode, I interview Natalie Ashker Seevers, Executive Director of TN Local Food, and discuss her mission to make high quality food more widely accessible.

Unlocking the Secrets of Sustainable Agriculture: Journey From Conventional to Regenerative Growing Practices

🌱 Unearth the critical differences between conventional and regenerative agriculture, revealing the path to a more sustainable food system.

Main Topics Explored:

Embracing Regenerative Agriculture: Diving into the core tenets of regenerative farming, focusing on practices that enhance soil health, biodiversity, and natural fertilization.

Challenging Conventional Agriculture Myths: Questioning the notion of "conventional" farming and shedding light on the historical roots of regenerative practices among indigenous communities.

Navigating Transition Challenges: Unveiling the complexities that farmers face when transitioning from conventional to regenerative methods, including economic and resource hurdles.

Questioning Corporate Influence: Examining the impact of agribusiness corporations on shaping farming practices and the agricultural landscape.

Defining Food Sovereignty: Grasping the concept of food sovereignty, where communities reclaim control over their food systems and promote sustainable, localized production.

Reconnecting with Nature: Discussing the disconnection between modern urban life and nature, causing people to be unaware of their role in environmental stewardship.

Unpacking Industrial Impacts: Delving into the consequences of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and their effects on ecosystems, health, and local communities.

Fostering Community Awareness: Highlighting the need for educating and collaborating among farmers, consumers, and communities to foster positive change in agriculture.

Building a Sustainable Future: Engaging in the larger conversation about transitioning toward a more regenerative, community-based food system that works with the environment instead of against it.

Embark on this enlightening exploration of agricultural practices, sustainability, and the transformative potential of reconnecting with the land.

Links:
- Therasage Infrared Products Use code "SOVEREIGN" for 10% off your purchase!
- LivePristine structured water filtration systems
- Perfect Multi-Organs Powder, Nature's Multivitamin
- DefenderShield EMF-blocking gear
- My favorite blue light blocking glasses

Social Media:
- YouTube
- Instagram

Transcript

0:09

All right. Welcome to the In Search of Sovereignty podcast. So today's guest is Natalie Ash Ker Sievers, her mom, fellow Yogi host and co-producer of the Agrarian Trust Podcast, which is called Groundswell if you want. What was it called again? Commons Groundswell. Commons groundswell, if you want to check that out. And executive director of Tennessee Local Food, which is an organization local to Tennessee that focuses on educating consumers about regenerative farming practices as well as increasing access to local food, as the name suggests. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Natalie. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here. Yeah, of course. Also, it's fun to talk to somebody with the same name as you. I have to. I have to say, I always love it. I always love it. So there's so much that I want to talk about today food sovereignty, regenerative agriculture, and local economies. I feel like are such vast, rich topics that really each deserve their own deep dive. But I'd like to start off by having you introduce yourself, you know, Who are you? What do you do? How did you come into this space and what are you passionate about? Yeah, thanks. So I am a mom. I have a toddler. I am a very avid gardener. I have a big garden and love preserving food and growing food for my family. I like you mentioned, work for Tennessee Local Food, and I'm super passionate about that work of building a more robust and resilient local food system for middle Tennessee and beyond, because we all have to build this regional web if we want to have a sustainable food system. And yeah, I came to the work, you know, I was working in the film industry as a freelancer and in Nashville, and then I started volunteering at a CSA. It was just poppin, who some people know as the Barefoot Farmer. He had a CSA. I was able to volunteer in exchange for free vegetables, and that was great. And then I ended up taking over as the CSA manager. And then people were asking me all these questions about why do we not have this this year or why is this like this? Or what do I do with all this squash? And so I wasn't able to answer all the people's questions. So I started visiting the farm often. And then I was convinced, you know, you should just move here. So I moved there. It didn't take much convincing. My friend was working on the farm and she she nudged me anyway, moved to the farm, basically lived in a tent for a year and worked on a farm. And it was the most amazing year of my life. I learned so much about food and soil and, you know, and then just what it was like to just be immersed in nature and to be living on the land. And it was such a blessing. And after that year was over, I didn't want to I didn't want to go back to the city. And so I, I moved down the road and I've been living out in this rural county north about an hour and a half northwest of Nashville for going on eight years. And yeah, managed Jeff's CSA for five years. And then I worked for another farm nearby called Katie four Farms and manage their CSA for a couple of seasons and then yeah, and then since last year, last year I took this job with Tennessee Local Food. And we I guess what are we going to go into stuff about? Should I talk about Tennessee like food or are we going to try? Yeah, you can if you want to give a, you know, a summary real quick and then I want to ask some questions about it later. Yeah. So this is a conference that was founded also by Jeff Coppin in 2010 and had been maintained by volunteers for over a decade. And then last year I was hired as the first ever staff person and we became a nonprofit and have expanded our our offerings to include additional education and networking opportunities throughout the year. So sort of expanding on the work that our annual summit does and it's been so much fun. And yeah, I'm just passionate about this world of food and growing food and being in community with people that want to build this resilient food community. Yeah, it is a noble goal to pursue, I believe, because I mean, I think when I moved to Tennessee because I'm also local for my listeners, I don't know if I've ever mentioned that before, but I'm also local to the Nashville area. I was not really aware of any anything like like CSAs or even I mean, even really farmer's markets. I used to go to the farmer's market as a kid with my mom, but it was like, you know, randomly, just for fun, not really as a source of like, you know, our little like our weekly grocery is or anything like that. So but when I moved here is when I actually found the Caney Fork Farm CSA, which is so funny. We were talking about that before we started recording that. I actually have a CSA box through them and have totally seen your name and emails before from then back when you used to work there. But I mean, I initially kind of like I was like, Well, I want a source of local vegetables. And I found that. And then like I got obsessed at that point with the idea of like CSA and local agriculture for and just like that, it went, I went down such a rabbit hole learning about like the nutrient density of food and soil health and like all of this stuff. And it's just it just leads to I have this strong conviction as well as you of like really wanting to hammer home the importance of like local food communities and resilience. I think it's so important to create that on a local level because I think that you really can't you really can't have true, you know, like decentralized resilience without that, without a local food network. So I think it's it's really important. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And we're in a very special place here in Tennessee because we have so much fertile farmland and we have such a long growing season. So we can really produce a lot of food here and yeah, there's so much opportunity for us here. Yeah, I saw on the Tennessee Local Food website actually there was like a banner that said Tennessee once fed itself and it can again. And I love that. I love that idea so much. I think that that's like we totally the state itself and probably a lot of states honestly if they focused a lot more on the local agriculture aspect could feed the state completely without even needing a lot of national brand supplementation. I think. Yeah. And you know, it's an interesting I love the slogan too. And that was that was, I guess, coined by Jeff Poppin, our founder. But, you know, he would always say that and it's a great slogan. But the truth is also that Nashville has always relied on relationships with like a regional network. And I've looked at old farming books and seen truckloads of, you know, watermelons or different things coming in from different states surrounding us. And so, you know, we as an organization have really, you know, we love that slogan, but we've also really leaned into the understanding that we have to be building a network and we have to be building relationships. And, you know, there are Nashville has exploded. I can't even believe I don't even know how many billion people live there. I think in 2000, 15 or 16, it was like five or 6 billion, it's probably doubled. So like that's a lot of people. So, you know, we really do need to rely on a larger network. And, you know, of course, different parts of of our southeast region, you know, base. But there's things that grow better here. There are things that grow better, slow, harder. Right. You know, Chicago's I was like building that that relationship and building those networks, I think, is is important. But yeah, and then also it's like 40% of Tennessee's land is in agricultural production. It's just that it's not being used to grow food for us. It's not being used to grow, divert a diversified operation. You know, it's like monoculture are growing, growing commodity crops that are maybe being used to produce food. So not saying that they're not all producing food, I think a lot of it goes to be livestock feed, feed animals that maybe do feed people, but a lot of it is like corn and it ends up, you know, being the main ingredients and super processed foods that ultimately is making people sick. Right. So it's it's a very interesting thing. It's not that we have to reinvent the wheel here, but we could do some restructuring with the way that we're utilizing our resources. And right now, anyway, really allocation of resources, definitely. No, I completely agree. I think that that's like actually a really great segway into one of the questions that I had, which was, you know, for the audience sake, defining what the differences are between conventional agriculture and regenerative agriculture. Yeah, it's a really good question. So I mean, regenerative agriculture, to be honest, there's not really clear definitions like of regenerative agriculture. There's lots of different definitions, and not everyone agrees on what it is. But I would say that the main principles are regenerative agriculture is utilizing practices that make the soil better than it was before. So it's using, you know, practices like cover cropping, always having some, you know, not having bare ground chain crop rotation. So growing different things, incorporating livestock into your rotation so that the the land is being fertilized naturally, not with chemicals. Right. You know what else you know, it's really focusing on soil health and and improving the health of the soil and then entering the water and all the different parts, biodiversity growing, the diversity of crops, those on the land. So you know, that those are sort of some of the principles, I would say. And then, you know, conventional agriculture, it's funny that we call it conventional agriculture because conventional evokes the sense of it's what people used to do or have always done, whereas regenerative agriculture is just a way that indigenous people have grown food forever. And that's very important because regenerative agriculture has been branded to be this new thing that white men invented. And it it's not that, it's not that at all. It's just the way it's just the practices that, you know, native people have been using for ever. Right. And it's kind of been rebranded into this things. And I think it's especially important that people understand that and that conventional farming, you know, we call it that, but it's not really conventional. And I would say it's more like artificial things for sure, supply on a lot of inputs and tends to be, you know, big amount monoculture. So kind of growing the same commodity crop and not saying that commodities are bad, you know, but like when they're grown in a way that is totally depleting the soil and contaminating the land and the water and, you know, that's when it's problematic. And then also not, you know, growing a rotation of of other things. So, you know, conventional agriculture is like the thing that you see when you're driving down the road and you pretty much always see a big field of corn or see you're going to see a big field of corn or soybeans. Right. You know, I think it used to be more tobacco. Still see a lot of tobacco, but definitely less now. Yeah. Does that answer? Yeah, Yeah, definitely. I think regenerative agriculture is just a rediscovery of the practices that, like our ancestors have always used and indigenous people have always used. Like you mentioned, it's really like it's really the the way to grow and cultivate in tandem with nature rather than working against it and trying to constantly like force nature out. Right, which I think conventional agriculture, a lot of the time is, is trying to do that, where it is trying to create a sterile environment in which to grow just one thing for acres and acres and acres. And in order, you know obviously weed you don't see that naturally, even if you see like a field of grass, for example. It's not just one type of grass that grows. There's a there's an an under layer of red clover. And then there's a whole bunch of different types of of pulses and a bunch of different legumes. And also, you know, like two types of grasses and things too. And it's like when you see a giant field of just corn or soybeans or tobacco, that's not the way that anything grows naturally. And so you have to try really hard to keep it that way, right? Which is how we ended up inventing things like glyphosate and other types of pesticides and herbicides and basically anything that tries to keep the field as sterile as possible so that they can grow, you know, acres and acres of corn or soybeans or whatever it is. And it's it's just a lot of people have you know, it's also obviously how we got genetically modified crops as well in order to try and make strains of corn that will will thrive in that environment, thrive or grow in that environment just so that they can, you know, obviously put corn into everything, like you mentioned, tons of processed foods and things like that. Also like, you know, fuel and other types of corn goes into all kinds of stuff. But it's like conventional agriculture. It has really only been around, like you said, conventional isn't really the right term for it. It's kind of a a sneaky misnomer. That's designed to make you think that that's like the right way to do farming. But it's only been around for like 7000 years, maybe maybe a little bit more than that, but pretty much since the Industrial Revolution. And that's that's kind of, you know, that's like within the within the span of human history, that's like a flash in the pan. You know, it's a tiny span of time. And the entire rest of our history before that has been with what's now being called more regenerative growing practices. Some people also refer to it as like permaculture. And there's other kinds of like names for those like types of growing practices depending on like the scale that you're operating at. Right. But really, I think regenerative agriculture is just recognizing a return to the land management practices that indigenous peoples always did before us to maintain and cause ecosystems to flourish so that we can continue to exist in harmony as opposed to working as an adversary against it. So that's what I would say as far as my, you know, my bead on what regenerative agriculture really represents. Yeah, no, that's great. I think all that, all that is is on. And, you know, I think that the other thing I'll add is that the conventional I think it's really important that especially like we as an organization, we aren't trying to vilify farmers practicing conventional agriculture. Right. Most farmers most farmers are practicing conventional agriculture and they are just participating in the system that has been set up for them. Right. This is what they've learned. This is what this is what you do. And in fact, this is what is incentivized, right? This is what this is what like this is what is incentivized and this is what they know that they can sell. Or if they have a crop failure, they can it's insured. Right. And they can you know, it's like so it's really a reflection of the broken system that we're in and that we're all trying to operate in. And and so some farmers are, you know, saying that there is this other thing and the truth is there is a there's a transition. So when a farmer wants to transition from, say, conventional to organic practices or something like that, you know, it's not it's not going to be an immediate moneymaker for them. And in fact, it's going to be a hard transition and it's going to take time. And so that's kind of, again, just this describing this situation that we're in, that's like it's not so black and white. It's not so easy to just switch. Right. Become a you know, I mean, you can, but you've really got to have resources and, you know, and again, just the system is set up to incentivize farmers to grow those crops in those ways, using those inputs and and I think that in the long run, it is there are different studies and there are things that show that like it is economic, it is economically viable. But the truth is, like these other practices, they are more labor intensive. You know, most farmers that are practicing on a smaller scale. So I was at small scale farmers, so a lot of farmers that are using regenerative practices are, are small farmers. Right. And and that's also just a reflection of the system because currently, you know, just like our our food system is controlled by just a few agribusiness corporations. You know, it's the same in the farming sphere, too, You know, it's just like a few companies control most of it. And so the small farmers that are holding out and in fact, like years ago, farmers were really incentivized to get big or get out. That was like that was really pushed. So, yeah, it's just it's interesting being in this moment in time and having to just operate under the circumstances that have been imposed, you know, right. So anyway, it's complex. It's very complex. Yeah. I mean, when you're operating in a system where, you know, like let's take corn as an example, where you're like you said, you are incentivized to go big or go home in terms of like how much you're growing, because obviously the more corn you can produce, the more money you can make off of that. But like if your growing corn in that way, you can pretty much only buy corn seeds from like one or two, like mega corporations, right? I'm thinking like Monsanto, for example, genetically modified corn that allows you to grow so much of it that you can do things like spray it. So in order to get the biggest crop right and so you can only buy seeds from that one kind of corporation. It's obviously the seed prices is artificially low on purpose so that you can buy those seeds from that corporation so that it's cheaper to get seeds from them to plant that crop than it is to, for example, plant heirloom corn varieties. And then when you're growing that variety of corn, you have to have glyphosate or some other pesticide or herbicide in order to spray, in order to make sure that you can, you know, insure against crop failures and then in order to grow that variety so that it actually gets like big and juicy and looks good, you're having to use tons of synthetic fertilizers, right? So you are a lot of farmers are they're stuck in this system of like they can only get their inputs from certain people, but they need those inputs in order to grow the crop, in order to make the money that they you know, there's very small profit margins a lot of the time. So I understand. And so it's sort of this like vicious cycle that you get stuck in and you're you're absolutely going to lose money, like right off the bat if you switch from that system into a more regenerative or organic growing practice. I knew somebody they switched to being a like a purely regenerative farm, incorporating growing practices and also compost and chickens and rotational grazing for their cows. I think they had a few pigs as well, and they had a nice big chunk of land that had been inherited like, you know, generationally from her family, which was really cool. But they said it took them about five years to get to the point where they had could actually finally break even on the farm and were fully self-sustaining at that point where they had closed the loop and they had a, you know, a fully sustainable ecosystem. But it took, you know, five years of them, you know, basically working away in order to get it to that point. And for them, they don't have it didn't have a lot of expenses because they already owned the land and luckily had a, you know, a lot of connections in the local like farm community there. And also they were providing all of their own food for themselves because they had, you know, a source of meat and a source of vegetables and everything. But if you don't have that or if you're like a traditional farmer and you're switching into that space, there's definite going to be like a gap for probably a while before you can ever reach profitability. And so I was having a conversation with someone recently about glyphosate actually, and how you can say it. You know, two things can be true at once. Farmers in the conventional model need glyphosate. I'm using that as kind of a catch all for any sort of like, you know, herbicide pesticide usage. But they, they need those sprays in order to make a profit off of their crops. That can be true. At the same time as saying that glyphosate and conventional farming is, is harmful overall to ecosystems and to health. Right. So like, both of those things can be true, but like we were just talking about, the issue is like how do you how do you shift the conversation to create incentives around moving to that regenerative model in a way that doesn't just like completely crater all farmers and their productivity and their profitability? Yeah, totally. And I mean, I will just say in response to your describing the conventional farmer and the, you know, only a few places they think buy seeds got to get the seeds from is inputs from this place and you've got to have all these things. You know the other part about all that is that at the end of the day, if he has a crop failure, if this farmer has a crop failure for whatever reason, he has crop insurance on it. So these crops are insured. So even if he if if he doesn't get to sell anything at all, he is still going to get paid for that crop. Right. This is the vicious cycle. Right. And I can tell you where I live, farmers all around me, they are literally farming for the insurance money. Mm hmm. Okay. Well, I found this out recently. I was like, Oh, wow. Okay, But, you know, it sort of ties into one of the other kind of like questions that I had also wanted to ask about, which was this idea of like food sovereignty, which I've heard this this term before. And I feel like that's a relatively recent kind of term as well. But I wanted to, you know, define what food sovereignty means and why. The idea of food sovereignty is important. Yeah, food sovereignty is very important. Food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is a system in which communities have control over their food system and have the ability to grow and access the foods that they want and need to have. I think that food sovereignty challenges this sort of corporate regime that is currently controlling our food system. Just a handful of corporations or companies controlling the whole food system. Food sovereignty is the opposite of that. The sovereignty is like we as a community has the ability and the resources and the access to all that we need to grow and and then access that food. So, yeah, food sovereignty. And you mentioned talking about again, that conventional farmer and relying upon those specific seeds. I mean, seeds, sovereignty. This is also really a huge important piece of the puzzle too, is is having that ability to save seed. I mean, it's crazy that like all of these seeds that these farmers are using, they can't be saved. You know, it's is such a red flag. You know, you think about, like abusive relationships and you're like, man, and you can't even save that seed. And then you have to rely on them to rely on all of these inputs. I mean, yeah, farming is expensive, but especially when you don't have the agency to, you know, do this practice, you know, practice this tradition. All right. Saving seeds. That is so much more than just saving the seed. I mean, it's it's your ability to grow food. It is your ability to preserve culture, right? You know, it is like it's such a huge piece. And yeah, these seeds that, you know, that does require you to buy them every year. I mean so yeah, seed sovereignty, I think falls in there. But yeah, for sure. I don't know for, for non-farm people who are listening. I don't know if I remember when I first learned that actually was when my sister was planting a garden for the first time and was telling me she was like, Did you know that most of the conventional, you know, crops are designed like genetically modified in such a way that you they you cannot save and replant the seeds of the seeds are sterile. And I was like, why like Agro? The first time I heard that, I was like, wow, Like you said, if that's not a red flag, that that you are being entrapped in a system that's designed to keep you trapped. I don't know what is you know, I mean, it's saving seeds is it's also the only way to ensure that the biodiversity in that particular area is is like genetically appropriate for that ecosystem as well. You know, planting as a seed from Italy or whatever here, within a few generations, that seed will have adapted to be correct for this ecosystem. You know, you can't do that when you're constantly basically just planting new seeds every year from whatever however they're being produced. I'm not actually sure at the like you know, corporate level, but if you're like, you know, redoing that every single year, you're missing that enrichment of the environment in a lot of ways. And that's also just, you know, like you said, another way that they another way that they get stuck in this system and and with the you know, the insurance thing that you mentioned before, I feel like that right. There is a great illustration of, you know, you could not have a more thorough incentive to keep people growing in that model, even when it's so, you know, sterile and so separated from the traditional farming model. And you have to imagine that there are some people who are multigenerational farmers that were probably taught differently than that, who are kind of like stuck in this model now. And it's it's it's really anyway, it just it really illustrates that there's a clear incentive there that it's not by it's not by accident. You know, a lot of a lot of you know, I've heard people ask before like, you know, well, why why is glyphosate used if it's harmful for your gut health? Why is why are these you know, genetically modified plants used if they're not as bioavailable for you or easy to digest as heirloom varieties are, For example? I mean it all. It's because it's not because farmers don't realize that. And it's not because they don't understand that that's, you know, that that might be a better model for the ecosystem, but it's because this whole system has been set up in order to incentivize them to not do that, to literally do the opposite of what, you know now, what we're now calling regenerative agriculture is. Right. Yeah. And, you know, it's a very it's a very nuance thing. I mean, talking about food and agriculture, it's so complex. There's so many layers, there's so much to it and there's so many dynamics. And, you know, talking about that farmer that is spraying their big monoculture crop of corn, you know, there's a lot of misinformation, there's a lot of education that isn't the say you know, it's it's not like to us, like to me and you, it seems very obvious that these chemicals are going to have an effect on not only the land and our water, but also our bodies. Right. That's to me, that's very obvious. But that isn't the case for most people. And there's a very big disconnect between the well, sure, just the chemicals and things like that. But we could also bring this around to the industrial confined animal feeding operations CFOs, the acronym k fo cf0, which is basically how most livestock is, you know, raised and in the in this country. So I'll tell you a quick story about how the Tennessee Local Food Summit was founded just poppin in 2000. It was actually before 2010, but just poppin organic biodynamic farmer. You know, for decades in rural Tennessee has this farm feeding like he was like one of the first if not the first CSA in Nashville, you know, growing organically and biodynamic since the seventies. Most here in Tennessee. And his neighbor decides to put an industrial chicken house. Five I kid you not 500 feet from his back door. Oh, my gosh, 500 feet. Now, this is also uphill and upwind from his again, not only his house, but also his gardens. It was like he had gardens right there. Yeah, organic gardens, feeding Nashville, whatever. And then his neighbors going to put these chicken houses right here. And of course, he didn't try to fight it built a lot of community engagement around fighting this chicken house. And and then maybe fighting isn't the right word because, you know, you're never going to win like that. It's never going to whatever. But trying to educate the community about why this isn't good and that disconnect that not just that farmer had, but like most people, most of the community, no idea that how this chicken house is actually going to impact them. Right. And, you know, no idea that this chicken house is going to have all those antibiotics and all these other things that are they're giving these chickens all of the manure. You know, this this chicken house is going to have fans. And we're talking about a big industrial building that has like thousands of chickens on it in little confined spaces. Right? Totally like pitch black oak and then all all that that's going to produce all the ammonia and then the nitrates and all the other things that are going to the feather meal and all the like little particles, particle things that are going to go out of that fan and just be dispersed into our air. Okay? And then the way that that's going to impact our water and then all that comes out of that impacting our water and and we're talking a lot of people in rural Tennessee are getting their water from Springs and then wells and things. So this is a big deal. And and in fact, I'll also add that, you know, so that was over a decade ago now there was a little cave, a beautiful cave, right. Kind of. So just houses here and then 500 ish, you know, I don't know how many see that was up, but up on a big hill, there's the chicken house right above and but more like level with this house. There was this cave, really cool cave. And actually he would stores potatoes there. This is a school. Yeah. So he saw all those potatoes down there. And after that chicken house was built, I'm not sure how many years it took, but eventually the runoff from that like, caused the cave to collapse. The cave is no longer there. Oh, it's there, but it's like it's caved in. Yeah, for lack of a better word there. It's caved in the Camp David. So you know this and think about how that impact impacts that ecosystem and all the, you know, the biodiversity that was there and is no longer there. And so that was that was what really started just inspired, Jeff, to start this conference was, hey, you know, how can we how can we combat this? And it's through education and consumers need the opportunity to be educated and farmers need the opportunity to be educated and to learn about other ways. What are other opportunities and avenues that we can be growing food? And so that was how the conference was founded. And I'm just going to I will wrap this story up. Fast forward, earlier this year, I learned that my neighbor is going to put the exact same kind of chicken house in the same the same company and everything. It's a wow. It's like it's a it's not Tyson but it's a company owned by TYSON. Yeah. And this is going to be a thousand feet from my house and my organic garden now. And so, yeah, so we can talk about, you know, you know, talk going back to what I was started this on was that disconnect. Yeah. And you know my neighbor here is a lovely person. I really like my neighbor and he's been a fabulous neighbor. And so when we all found out that they were going to do this, we couldn't believe it. Yeah. No, How can you not see the impact? And when I had an initial conversation about this with him, you know, oh, no, there's it's not going to affect the water. It's not going to affect the water. Is not going to affect the air. No, no, no. It's totally contained. It's totally contained. You know, I mean, I'm sure that there's some truth to some things that he's saying, but like, talk about the propaganda. Yeah. That people are fed and believing that that there is no connection. Right. And that is, you know, talk about indigenous ways of being in the world that we have to be listening to and we have to be like, please teach us, because those are basic principles that people forever have utilized. Is this understanding that everything is connected and everything is related, right? And here we are today, and the majority of people truly believe that that that our that what we do on the land doesn't impact the land. It doesn't impact the water. It doesn't impact our health. And that is crazy. It is crazy. I completely agree. I mean, I think that goes back to sort of just as a general idea of how disconnected people are from from nature throughout like most of our day to day existence and like a lot of people live in, they live in cities or metropolitan areas or suburbs or areas that are most people are completely separated from any process related to how they get their food. You know, and I mean, it's you see, like I saw a clip of some kid the other day who, you know, I'm sure has good intentions as far as like, you know, sustainability and and wanting to be aware of his impact. But he said, you know, like, yeah, get rid of farmers. Farmers are they're having a bad impact on on the environment. And I'm like I mean yes, that's true. That statement is not necessarily false, but at the same time, like somebody has to grow your food, you know, I mean, somebody has to because you're not growing your own food and somebody is going to have to grow it for you. And it's just like this complete disconnection of like understanding, like how ecosystems work in general and the fact that we are not separate from our environment, we're part of the environment like we are the environment, you know, And so we have a and we're a very intelligent component of the environment. So we have a duty and an obligation to responsibly manage our impact on the environment because we have the capacity to have such an outsized effect on the environment around us and on water tables and on the air quality and all these things that it's like chicken houses are a great example because it's like you would never find a thousand birds or more thousands of birds in such a close, confined space, naturally, anywhere in the wild, right? You would never find that. And so 20 chickens that are going to be next to me, I'm not going to be able to stay here. I mean, I have asthma. I have a toddler. I'm not going to, you know. Yeah, you know, but and we don't own this land. It's different for us. We just rent this land. I mean, we can't afford to buy land, but this was kind of our only hope, you know, like, yeah, maybe we can work out a deal with our amazing landlords who we love are 70 now, and they are now going to have to spend their last day. This is their family farm. I mean, they've lived here since actually the seventies. They moved here with their with the parents but like, you know yeah that, that this connection is just and that and then like what that does to your neighbor. And so it's like, yes, there is this impact that we have on land, but also this impact that we have on our neighbor. Right. And that what I do actually does impact them. Right. And it's like, yeah, we've got to return to understanding that we are all in it together. And, you know, and that's just it's funny. I mean, I feel like we're in this time where there's so much like anti-capitalist momentum and there's like so much going on right now in terms of people being like, this system is broken. We are at the end of this system and what system are we going to create? And, you know, these have to be sort of the principles that we are building on is like community. And we we affect each other and we impact each other and. Right. Yeah, Yeah. I think a large part that is also coming from the fact that so many people, we don't live in communities anymore the way that we used to and most people do not. I mean, like outside of maybe your immediate family, a lot of people I think are living out outside of communities or in our own little family units, but not experiencing any sort of local, you know, in person communities. And it's this is a totally different tangent that's worth exploring at some point that I won't go too far down this rabbit hole. But I think that social media has a large part to play in that because it it is it is pretending to be a community. And I don't that's not to say that, like you can't have meaningful connections with people through social media. Like I met somebody actually local to this area who's like one of my closest friends now, you know, through Instagram when I first moved down here because I didn't know anybody and like, that's great. But but it's it is creating this impression that you're part of a community when you're not actually part of a community that's having any sort of impact locally. You know, it makes you think that that you're doing things that are, you know, you know, like activism, for example, makes you think that you're completing things and making a difference. But in reality, like, you just you just sent a tweet and then you went back to whatever you were doing, you know, And it's kind of a sinister, you know, I think like in in a lot of ways intentional way to to kind of stop people from actually making a real meaningful impact in real in-person communities. And I think that when you're not living in a community oriented space with other people and you actually know who your neighbors are, you don't have any accountability for wanting to be responsible towards towards them. And that with the actions that you have, you know, if your neighbor is faceless to you, you don't care about them and you don't care about what you do, potentially having an impact on them. So, I mean, it it is I think it goes back to this whole idea of why, you know, why community oriented and local food is so important because, you know, you think about what's the model of community and what's the model of family. It's like sharing meals together and sharing things like, you know, gardening and tasks and and like outdoor activities together. And so when we're creating an environment where, like, it's not it's literally unhealthy to be outdoors, you know, where we are continuing to facilitate that lack of community structure, it's really just a vicious cycle. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I understand. I mean, I think about how fortunate I am right now in the situation. You know, you know, just talking about this chicken house deal that we are navigating and, you know, talk about community. I mean, right now our water comes gushing out of a rock down like right below our house. It gets pumped up to our house and then it gets pumped to my neighbor's house and then it gets pumped to my other neighbor's house, who are my landlords and my friends. And so this is like this one. Spring is feeding three households, right? You know, And so then you think about then this other neighbor that wants it for the second house like this is going to impact our water. And that's not just, you know, that's three of our households just right here. And I'm not even talking about my other neighbors who have wells and things like right down the road. But like, you know, so yeah, this this community thing. And I think that that's there's a parallel with that to something that you mentioned just a little while ago, which was that people living in cities do have a larger disconnection with their food because it's not really in the growing of it, seeing it growing, it's not as much in their face, although there's lots of thriving urban farming communities around the country. But, you know, but people don't realize, okay, and it's it's such a it is such a vicious thing because there's this food that is produced at this subsidized cost that is not good for not good for us and not good for the environment. And it's mostly in marginalized communities. I mean, those communities are there are communities that do not have these farmers markets that we're talking about. And this is a very important piece that, you know, yeah, local food is great. We need to be promoting local food. We need to be promoting CSA and supporting small farmers and farmer's markets. But we do have to there has to be a change in the way that we're doing it because it isn't working right now. Right now it is really only serving certain communities. And so talking about like, you know, those there are communities where the only food that they have access to is that processed food that is not good for you. Cheap food subsidized, it's totally artificially priced right. And and it's like that's food that that's like all that there are people that they have access to or can afford for many different reasons and and then like that wall like this is all that I have access to or can do but then that wall of like what is even the deal with this food Like where did this food even come from? I mean, that chicken probably came from around the corner, like this big old facility here that is impacting my rural community, right? Like this rural, urban. I'm so I'm so interested in this and learning about and like learning more about this, but this like rural urban relationship and how they impact other and you know, talk about like you don't see it, so you don't know or you don't think about it, but like what people do in cities, it really impacts what happens out here. And what we do out here really impacts people in cities because the food's grown out here and then it's shipped out there and it's impacting people's health. Right. You know, and then there's like this demand and there's this vicious cycle of, well, we need more. And so then we're going to produce it and contaminate the environment. And this rural community, I mean, it is a very weird thing. And yeah, anyway, rural community, I did not grow up in a rural community, so the last eight years I have just really learned a lot and yeah, and it's, it's a desolate it is a desolate place. I mean, rural Tennessee, there's there's not a lot to do. There's not a lot to do. I'll say that there's not a lot of industry here. Yeah, that's for sure. That's for sure. I mean which I think in some ways can be a good thing because it means you don't get a lot of like industrial pollutants and runoff and that front like from those types of problems, you know, like I came from North Carolina where, you know, there's this this famous story of the that the forever chemicals with this specific variety. It's called Gen X that like is literally causing cancer and all kinds of diseases like document like they don't there's there's no denial that it's caused by this particular chemical all along the coast in this one particular area of around like Wilmington in North Carolina where people actually have to like protect themselves against their water sources because of how polluted it is. And some of that is because of the huge hog farms that they have. They're just like across the countryside. And also because and I think specifically with the Gen X, I can't remember who the manufacturer was, but there was like a like a chemical manufacturing or a plant that used chemicals in its manufacturing process. It was just dumping into the river basin there for like years without any without any like, you know, recourse without like they weren't telling their public, like nobody knew about it. And it was just making people sick. And it's just I mean, that's again, just the the impact on ecosystems. Everything is downstream, literally and figuratively, I guess. And it's really Yeah, but that's anyway, that's just an example of kind of like the more that's not even agriculture related, that's a more like industrial presence. And so it's really Yeah, so that is an interesting point that you bring up because you know, when I learned about this chicken house is going to be coming here, I started learning a lot about it, like reading a lot, trying to get educated on the situation. And it is interesting that that this is identified as agricultural and agricultural activity. Like when you think of farming, do you think of a big, big building with no windows stuffed with 10,000 chickens? I mean, there's going to be two buildings here, each with two 10,000 chickens, which is actually I've learned a smaller amount. Okay, let's get small. Okay. So imagine a bigger like more average sized one, maybe as 20 or 30,000 chickens in it. And they're like in little confined cages. Would you call that agriculture? And it's funny because, you know, I was talking to somebody at the Tennessee Department of AG and he referred to it as like vertical poultry operations or something. I was like, Do you mean chicken farming? Like is that like? So the fact that we even that these are agriculturally zoned activities in Tennessee, these CFOs only have to be, I believe, 200 feet from the property line. Well, 200 feet from the property line. So that's crazy. I mean, these are industrial activities. These are not agricultural activities. They are, you know, imposters of agricultural, of agriculture. So it's fine, you know, whatever people want to do that. But like in my mind, they should be held to the same, you know, restrictions and and guidelines that industrial activities are held to. Yeah. So there's a lot that can be done. I would say like on a policy level. Yeah. To make, Yeah. Just to incentivize good practices and to challenge the ones that are harmful to our environment, to our health, right. I mean even just calling it like vertical chicken management or whatever it was that you said that, that's just, that's just a sneaky way to try and make it sound like it's something other than what it is, you know? And that's kind of another point, too. Like people just don't. I would wager if you went into a grocery store and you asked if you interviewed people like, do you know where this chicken came from or not even like literally where, But do you know how this chicken was produced? A lot of people probably aren't aware that you have like 10,000 birds in an hour or more, apparently in like a relatively small building for that many animals in these tiny little spaces that like that's what they're talking about when you get when you buy a chicken from a grocery store, like most people probably are not aware of that. And so, of course, they wouldn't understand necessarily why it's worth it to invest for people who can for people who have the financial ability to why it's worth it to invest in organic and regenerative farmers because it's so different from those conventional farming practices, mostly just because they're completely unaware of what the differences even are, you know, which kind of it comes back to what it sounds like. The mission of Tennessee local food is, which is in part to educate, you know, both consumers and farmers on, you know, like how to make that change and to be aware of what the differences are, which is another question that I wanted to ask, which was, you know, that you guys do educational workshops on, you know, sustainable business and production practices for farmers. So what are some of the main like obstacles that, you know, you guys see for farmers for switching to the organic and regenerative outside of the ones we've already talked about? And how are you guys helping to kind of like alleviate those obstacles? Yeah, So I would say that right now we're really focused on supporting farmers that want to practice regenerative, sustainable methods of farming. We aren't really heavily in the space of that transitioning to organic from conventional. That's a huge undertaking. I would I would say that that is in a longer term goal for us to build out programing that really supports those farmers that want to make that transition. Right now the farmers that we really are more focused on are, I would say, young and beginning farmers who want to get into farming and or farmers who have who are already practicing sustainable or want to be practicing kind of regenerative, using regenerative methods and supporting them. And I would say that the biggest barriers to those farmers are access to land, number one. Number one, access to capital. You know, unless you came from a family with farmland like, man, good luck. And that's why I like it's cool that there is so much momentum around urban agriculture right now and and people getting creative with different ways to grow and how to do sort of more intensified gardens on a small scale, like on just an acre or a few acres or something like that. I would say most of the people that we are that are kind of coming to our events and coming to our conference to learn are probably farming on less than ten acres. Yeah. So access to land is is I would say is like the biggest barrier. And, and if you want to learn more about the biggest barriers for young farmers, the National Young Farmers Coalition, they put out like a survey every five years and they just I think it was last year they put out their survey and survey results and yeah, they they've got a lot of great information about this. Like if you're interested in getting into farming, check out that survey and you can really kind of get hit to some of the the things that are the biggest challenges. Of course, those challenges are intensified for bipoc farmers, even more so because, you know, white people tend to have more access to jet land that's in their family, even though we know that that land was probably originally taken from Native people. So like I would say, that's a huge piece. And then, yeah, access to capital and just funding. And you know, education is is definitely a big thing. That is obviously our main thing. Education and networking opportunities. But supporting small farmers with like this year at our conference, we're going to have a workshop on how to write a farm business plan that's just like one on one. You got to have a business plan and then there's tons of money out there like federal money that is available through like course, share programs where you might have to pay half the amount. But then, like the Department of Agriculture will pay the other half for things like infrastructure or, you know, equipment for like water systems and fencing. And there's so much there's a lot of money out there. So we also try to do a lot of education around connecting farmers to what sort of funding is available for them. And usually you just have to have a farm business plan and then like, you know, probably like a farm or like kind of those basic things, like a lot of the boring stuff like to sell to bigger. I say boring, but it isn't boring. But like the stuff in the field is more fun and like, we definitely always do have education around like more technical farming stuff, whether that's like livestock farming or vegetable growing, seed saving, things like that. We always have that kind of stuff. But then also trying to support farmers in their marketing and business plans because that's like it's the financial viability piece that makes it so hard to be a farmer. So like we really want to support farmers in that way. We also set up a a farm and a farmer farmer relief fund to support farmers who have experienced like damage to their infrastructure or something like that. We this kind of came out of some big windstorms earlier this year and all these farms totally their two high tunnels were all just decimated. And so we set up this really fun and raised $20,000 and distribute all that out to the farmers, which felt really good and like it was meeting a need. So, you know, we're here to just support our small farmers. Yeah. And then I would say for the consumer, yeah, just we host kind of more general events on like what is it, what is sustainable agriculture and, you know, how can we as a community feed ourselves, stuff like that. And then just connecting consumers to ways that they can access good food, Right. Which is very important. And like bringing awareness to just bringing more awareness and encouraging involvement through community events. And do you guys have any volunteer coordination and things like that? Yeah, yeah, we definitely have volunteer needs. I would say if anyone is interested in volunteering with us, if you live in the middle Tennessee area, yeah, just send me an email. Tennessee local food at gmail.com. And yeah, we do. We definitely utilize the help of volunteers for our events like our annual conference. We always have a good number of volunteers who kind of help us in exchange for a ticket. And then we do like a big fundraising event once a year. So kind of volunteer support for that. Those are really our main volunteer needs, but we're always looking for people that have specific skill sets that are maybe like more behind the scenes. Mm hmm. You know, stuff. So I always just love to hear from people that are interested in and getting involved. Yeah, most definitely. I think, you know, from my personal experiences, it's a totally different world and so it is difficult to know where to start, especially if you are a young person that's interested in farming and you don't know anything about it. And knowing where to begin is kind of difficult. So that's I can imagine that's a really valuable resource for them to have. Yeah, thanks. We really know we try to listen to what the needs are and show up. Yes. As those become very clear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I have a few questions that I want to ask for our like wrap up here. One of those is basically given the context of the conversation that we've had thus far, you know, as kind of a really driving it home, like why is community based sustainable regenerative, organic, local agriculture so important? I would say it's important, but building resiliency in our food system is going to be critical for the changes. I mean, we we are experiencing all kinds of unbelievable, unprecedented things going on. I mean, from climate to just like, you know, it's going on this pandemic, you know, I mean, so building out systems that can withstand all of the environmental and other changes that are that are happening constantly, I mean, the world, to me, it constantly feels like it's getting crazier. And so I think that, you know, yeah, there's never been a more important time for it. And then also we talked about sovereignty and like, you know, if we want to have any say over what we eat, you know, if want to have any diversity in your diet, if you want to have any, you know, to be able to pass that cultural wisdom down to the next generation. I mean, there are foods that I grow that are so meaningful to me. And, you know, I know that, like, it's so important that we've got to be saving these seeds. I've got to be telling these stories to my son, you know? And so I think like, yeah, it's important for so many different reasons, but but mostly just to build resiliency so that we can still be eating good real food when the next disaster strikes. And and and most people realize during the pandemic that, you know, it was small farmers who were showing up, right? I mean, you went to the grocery store. There was nothing on the shelves. But small farmers were feeding people like never before. So we need more young farmers. We need more people to be growing food. The average age of the farmer in the United States is like their late fifties, right? So we are experiencing this moment where there is a mass transition happening of like farmers and also land changing hands. And we didn't even talk about like, I just want to just throw this out really, really quickly. You know, we talked about all the reasons that I would say industrial agriculture is is negatively impacting our, you know, our health and the health of communities and the food that is growing and also the land, but also the farm workers. Yeah. You know, and the people that are actually growing this food, you know, it's it's farm workers. And so these are people that are on the front lines out there in the fields walking through all these chemicals. So like for the health of our collective of society, I mean, we have to change what we're doing. Right. And and I think also just trying to bridge that gap of that disconnect that we talked about earlier between people in their food and just like growing one tomato plant. Yeah. If you live in an apartment just, having some herbs in a windowsill, you know, that's practicing food sovereignty, like just having your hand in some dirt. I mean, you know, there's lots of ways people farm, but, you know, I'm in the soil. But yeah, so I think it's it's it's critical because we have some big powers that are really running running our food system right now. Yeah. It's not working for everybody. And in fact, a lot of people don't even have access to any clean food. Right, right now. Yeah. And I feel like the biggest way that you as a consumer, can I tell people this all the time that the most impactful thing that you can do is to just opt out of that system, stop contributing to it, stop buying. You know, if you again, if you have the means and the access and you have the the financial freedom to be able to make that choice, like make the choice not to continue to contribute to the big conventional systems that are ruining things in so many ways that we already talked about. You know, you are you are actually bearing some responsibility for the health effects of the people who are working in the fields, like you mentioned, like you you it's your obligation and your responsibility to not subject those people to that, you know, that environment that they're in. I mean, of course, they have a job. So, I mean, you want them to continue to be employed and to still have a job, but ideally you want to be voting with your dollar in the sense that you are indicating what you value. And if you are buying conventionally grown and produced products, you are indicating that that's what you value and you're telling the market that that's what you want more of. You know when that's not what we want more of. You know, we want less of that ideally. And so make that switch. That's one of the most impactful things that you can do it. Plus like growing food and like it is one of the most fundamental human activities we can do. We're meant to forage, we're meant to grow, we're meant to take care of animals, you know, in terms of like that, that feeling deep in your soul of like contentment plus the actual literal, like hormone release of things like serotonin. When you have your hands in the dirt, you know, it is hugely impactful and beneficial. And so encouraging people to just, like, start small, like, like you said, grow tomato on your balcony. If you can grow some basil in your windowsill, you know, And if you have room for a little bit of dirt, then get your hands in the dirt and grow things that are, you know, a little bit more intensive than tomatoes. But it's really important to, I think, encourage everybody to at least like Deputy go in those waters. And, you know, for the for the topic of sovereignty, which is what this whole podcast is all about in search of sovereignty, is this like you cannot be a sovereign individual if you are depending upon such a monolithic industry for all of your, you know, everything that you need for your all of your food, for, you know, your clothes, for everything, you know, whatever you want to talk about that like the more ways that you can reclaim that sovereignty back into your life and then distribute that to your community, the more ways that you can, you know, continue to help, you know, propagate that that message of of sovereignty and help the individuals around you become more sovereign as well. So I think it's really important. Food is really important. I think it's I think I would just add one thing to that. So something I learned as a CSA manager for seven years, I learned all I learned a lot of things, but I learned a lot about reasons that CSA didn't work for people, reasons that, like local food didn't work for people. You know, a lot of it, you know, comes down to like price. It comes down to your time, it comes down to your cooking skills and knowledge and preservation knowledge. It comes down to a lot of things. Your access to like, you know, a compost pile, you know, otherwise you end up with some food waste and then you feel guilty and. Right. Yeah, there's a lot of different things. But I would also just add that there are like find a way to plug in to like drop out of this system and plug in to this other system in a way that works for you. And you don't have to become a CSA member if that doesn't work for you, right? You don't have to grow food if you don't want to. Some people don't like to grow food. Some people are like, I don't want to put my hands in the dirt. You know what? That's fine. That's why we have farmers, right? So find a farmer that you love. Build a relationship with a farmer. If you can't afford clean food, search around. See if you can find a farmer that will do some kind of trade with you, right? I mean, that's what that's how I got into it was I, I volunteered at a CSA and I, I would volunteer it for a couple of hours once a week, and I'd get a whole basket of organic produce. I mean, so get creative and build relationships with people growing food. If you're not into growing food or you are into growing food, awesome. Do it and share it with your neighbors. Yeah, I mean, this is fine. What works for you and how you can plug in. Yes, very, very important. Which leads into my next question of, you know, for people who are interested in and inspired by this conversation, both in Tennessee and elsewhere, who want to get more involved in their local food communities, what would you tell them for what actions they can take, like where they should start? Yeah, I would say it kind of like just kind of repeating what I said. I mean, I would say if you're into growing food, like start a garden. If you're not into if you're not interested in growing food, start looking into farms that are near you and read about their practices and call the farm. I mean, that's true. The time of year, you know you might if you want to have a conversation with a farmer and you want to be like just Chatty Cathy, maybe call them in the wintertime, okay. And try to build a relationship or go to a farmer's market and just go to all the different booths and just talk to the farmers and see which one you like as a person that you want to support that farmer. You want to invest in that that farmer's livelihood, and also know that sometimes it is more expensive to buy local. But that is because small farmers using regenerative, it is very labor intensive. It is so labor intensive, so know that it might be a little bit more expensive, but there's a lot of opportunities for buying in bulk in which you could save a lot of money. So, you know, you can just learn from your farmer. They're going to be your best teacher. And and I would say, yes, CSAs are an awesome way to support farmers because you're paying either upfront or in installments. And that allows the farmer to know that they can count on you and that you've paid upfront. And most costs for farmers are going to happen at the beginning of the season, like in the winter, in the spring, when they are buying seeds and they're buying, you know, anything that tools that they need for the year, like that's when most of their expenses are going to happen. So if you can pay in the winter or the spring, it's going to really help them out typically. I mean, you know, based on what they're sharing with you. But if you don't like, don't do a CSA. Okay. And by the way, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. I'm not sure if I said that, but that's such a great to support farmers. But it's not the model some farmers just like to sell in bulk, you know, and you can you can buy stuff in bulk. And if you're into preserving and you know, there's a lot of really there's so much stuff on the Internet about how you can do it, but, you know, blanching and freezing, you don't have to get into canning if that's too much for you. Although I love it. I mean, I just think it's a little bit I think it's fun. But yeah, it's also fermenting you know, there's so many creative, fun ways that you can you can utilize food. Yeah. Just start start looking for farmers near you and, and build a relationship and Yeah. And if you live in middle Tennessee, please look us up. If you're interested in talking more with me, I'd love to chat, kind of see local food at gmail.com. Come to our conference. You can subscribe to our newsletter where we have so much information going out about upcoming events and ways that you can plug in and get involved and information about our partners and cool things that they're doing. And then yeah, if you have the means to donate. We are a nonprofit and we really appreciate any donations you can donate to our general fund that supports our conference and other educational activities. And then we also have a farm infrastructure, or it's a farmer relief fund. We started as an infrastructure relief fund, but now it's just a farmer fund meant to support farmers going through any sort of, yeah, infrastructure problems or, you know, we had a farmer in our area recently that experienced a lot of herbicide drift and like on their organic, it kind of like contaminated a lot of their organic crops and they had a crop loss. And you know, farming is a gamble. And so just know that like farmers are not farming for the money. They are farming because they want to be stewards of the land. Not always, but I would say small regenerative farming, once they're small regenerative farmers are, they're doing it out of the passion in their heart, not kind of money. Support them. Right. One other thing that I would add to that that I just thought of as well as is community gardening as well. Yeah, that's a big one. If you if you are looking in your local communities that you want to garden or you want to provide food for yourself, but you don't have the space to do it, community gardens are a good place to start as well. Thank you so much for saying that. That's so important, and especially if you're living in a city I know in Nashville there's such an awesome community gardens community. There's there's like they've formed a coalition and they're like learning how to collectively leverage their resources and they're really working together. And so, yeah, find it, find a community garden and plug in there and build community. I mean, being around people that are interested in these topics, it will just do wonders for your health and wellbeing. Just being around people that care about food and growing food. And I know that there's one near me where they have an opportunity to if you don't have a plot in the garden, like if you don't want to grow your own or manage your own plot, that you can just volunteer in the general plot and then you get produce in return. So yeah, absolutely. That's yeah, definitely sounds like a place to start as well. So you mentioned that, so your website it's ten local food dot com or is a dot org. It is T and local food dot org dot org. Okay. And you guys have a newsletter and you have various events coming up. So you also have an Instagram, right? Yeah. And local food. Yeah. And local food. On Instagram, we have a Facebook. I think it's Tennessee local food. You should probably know that. Yeah, we have an Instagram, we have a Facebook, we have a Twitter. We do not have a Tik tok. Sorry. Yeah, I don't know. Facebook. The Facebook is HTML food. Yeah, We've got a great newsletter. We don't send out a lot of emails like crazy, but just when we have great stuff to share. So please subscribe to that and yeah and reach out if you are interested in partnering or collaborating in some form. Cool. And then is there anything specific like coming or what you're working on right now that you'd like to tell the audience about our blog real quick? Yeah, yes, we have some super exciting events coming up. The first thing that is next up is we have our annual fundraising dinner that's happening on August 12th in Nashville at a place called Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory. So it is an observatory with this insanely gigantic epic telescope night last year we could see Jupiter, so I'm pretty sure it was. I'm so sorry it was Saturn, and I got that wrong planet. It was definitely Saturn. Yeah, we could see the rings. It was so cool. So that's our annual fundraising dinner. And there'll be music, a silent auction, a great local dinner, and, yeah, staring up at the stars through the telescope and all those funds raised will cover our conference expenses and help us cover those those costs. And then we have cool event happening on Facebook Live on August 23rd, which is yeah, it's a Facebook Live with an organization called Stewards Unlimited. And this is all about funding opportunities through grants that are available where they are, how you apply, what are the deadlines, and do you even qualify? And so that Facebook is with the founder of Stewards Unlimited and that'll be super interesting, especially if you are a small farmer interested in funding opportunities. We have another event happening August 31st with Patagonia and a look at can sustainable agriculture feed us? This is going to happen at Patagonia. Nashville, and we're going to have some different experts, some of which are farmers, talking about the challenges and possibilities that exist for farmers in our region and the important role that sustainable agriculture plays in building up that resilient local food system. That'll be really cool. And then almost done, then we have a super, super exciting event happening on August 1st called Growing Community Resilience, and this is with Legendary Seeds neighbor Ira Wallace and amazing, inspiring farmer Pam Darling, who are traveling from Virginia to come do this workshop. It's going to happen at the Nashville Food Project, and it's going to be like a it's going to be like a four hour event. They're both going to do a presentation. It's very much on like building community resilience through seed saving. And yeah, this, this it's all about food sovereignty and learning how to grow food for community and work together in community to do that. So that's going to be awesome. And then the last event is our annual summit that is happening the first weekend of December. And this is our annual our big pinnacle event of the year. It's going to be an awesome conference happening in Lebanon, Tennessee. I know they say Lebanon here as Lebanon, but Lebanon at Lebanon. Yeah, anyway, happening at Cumberland University. And it's going to be an amazing Yeah, just jam packed awesome program talking about these issues of food sovereignty, food access and education for farmers and supporting small farmers also. Sorry, that was a long list. We have a lot of events coming up now. That's great. I hope that some of my local listeners will, you know, want to go attend because I definitely like a couple of those I definitely want to go to. So I'm going to look into it more for sure. I'd love to see you there. I would love to meet you in person. I hope they make it. Yeah, me too. I will. I'll let you know which ones I'm going to go to. We can meet up for sure. Cool. Well, Natalie, thank you so much for coming on the show. Had a great time talking to you today, and I can't wait for everybody this episode. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. right. Well, thanks for listening, Everybody signing off.