Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Mike Howard talking ....
Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Episode 49: Joe Schirmer: The Stakes Are Higher Than You Think: The Mission to Transform Our Food Systems
What does a competitive surfer from Santa Cruz's Midtown have to do with revolutionizing our food systems? Everything, as it turns out.
In this riveting conversation, Joe Schirmer—owner of Dirty Girl Farms and lifelong Santa Cruz local—takes us on his remarkable journey from riding waves to cultivating some of the region's most sought-after organic produce. But this isn't just a career change story; it's a window into how our food systems shape everything from personal health to community resilience.
Joe reveals why he chose to dive into organic farming precisely when conventional agriculture was abandoning Santa Cruz County—a decision that seemed counterintuitive but proved visionary. With natural storyteller's flair, he unpacks how Santa Cruz became the unexpected birthplace of the organic certification movement that would eventually transform global agriculture. "This is a movement that started in Santa Cruz," Joe explains, "which is amazing... these rules and regs were written right here and now, globally, these rules and regs started here."
The conversation moves seamlessly between nostalgic surfing tales to urgent discussions about food security, agricultural economics, and the hidden forces shaping what ends up on our plates. Joe offers practical wisdom for navigating farmers markets, understanding seasonal eating, and making healthier food choices without breaking the bank. He challenges listeners to reconsider how we think about value in our food system: "To me, a dollar on ultra-processed food is a dollar wasted."
Beyond the practical aspects of farming and food, this episode touches on something deeper—how reconnecting with our local food systems might just be the antidote to the disconnection and hopelessness many feel about our collective future. Joe's perspective as both a farmer and a father offers a refreshing optimism grounded in practical action and community connection.
Ready to transform how you think about your food and its journey to your plate? Listen now, and you'll never look at your local farmers market the same way again.
All right, welcome to the Unpacked in Santa Cruz podcast. Yeah, that's right, that's a name change. I have run into the precarious elements of Instagram and realized that the term naked does not work. It doesn't like the algorithm. But this show is brought to you by Santa Cruz Vibes Magazine and also by the Duick Brothers Engineering they do underground engineering For those of you who know what that is, that is some concrete work that's important and also by Pointside Beach Shack.
Speaker 1:It's a great space for events of 50 people or less and I really welcome you to use any of the sponsors. But today I get the real, distinct privilege of sitting with a longtime friend. We haven't sat in front of each other for a while. We've had a little bit more in common now that I've joined the tribe of jujitsu folks and I've been invited to his backyard on Sundays, but thank God, that's a wife's day for me right now because I think he's got a group full of killers over there. But I do have this privilege of sitting with someone who's actually pretty important to a very important part of the economy here in agriculture, and I'm sitting in front of Joe Shermer, the owner operator of Dirty Girl Farms, and Joe welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, mike. Yeah, good to be here with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know, just for all of you listeners, joe and I go way back. I think we met each other when we were both 15 or so in the surf world, and Joe's a pretty known surfer in our age group, but he took this real distinct path into something way back then. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself who are you, where'd you go to school, all that kind of stuff and we'll start jumping into the conversation from there. Awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my name is Joe Shermer and I grew up here in Santa Cruz in the midtown, which has been so fun because the river mouth has been blowing up and so it's so fun to see all these kids come over and like East side, west side, midtown and it's like mostly all real playful. But uh, yeah, grew up, um, right by the river mouth, a block away, and went to Galt school, b40, harbor high school. All my kids are going to be going to Harbor High School, my 16 year old's there now, so that's super fun. And um, and then, uh, grew up surfing and I'm, I think, how old are you? You're 50, wait, you're 57. No 56, 55. You're 55. Yeah, so I'm 53. Yeah, cause I knew you were a couple of years older than me when you graduated in 87, 87.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're young for my year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, that's right. That's right. You're the same year as Timmy. Yeah, as my sister, my older sister, yeah, yeah, so you're like, and so wait for where I met you. You probably don't remember exactly, but I remember when I met you, so I got a story. So, um, sam Reed, invitational, okay, wsl, I mean WSA, wsa, wsa. They had a contest at the Rivermouth and so that's where I surfed every day and like Pleasure Point and the Lane were just exotic.
Speaker 1:Was that the giant day?
Speaker 2:No, it wasn't giant, it was, I remember, a good sandbar. Yeah, okay, and so there was a sandbar on the inside of the river, on the left it was like black. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah and I think it was the day before the comp and you were sponsored by oneon already, were you? I? Think I was uh just riding for going back going yeah, yeah, yeah, and so you were probably 15 and I was probably 13. That's how I imagined it. Yeah, you were older, arrow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, arrow back then. Okay, yeah, arrow victory. Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:The glamour suit days. Yeah, so anyway, there's a left on the inside of the river, which doesn't happen very often, right, right, but it was. And so for Goofy Fo foots, we're both goofy foots. We should disclose that, right, yes, um, and, and you were there, an older kid, and you were kind of like hopping, slash, kind of pumping, and this is glass on fin days, right, and I remember just you going and I could see like your fins coming out and I was like oh, I was like so, like oh, this is some dude from like I don't know where this guy's from isn't gnarly, probably riding an arrow, like whatever.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh, you know, kind of intimidated, but when you're a kid you just love that stuff, right. And then you paddle back out and and I was like hello, you know. And you're like, hey, how are you? What's your, you know, and you were like super friendly and you were, you know, super kind, friendly and just instantly, like you know, we were part of the same tribe. Yeah, you know, super kind, friendly and just instantly, like you know, we were part of the same tribe. Yeah, you know what I mean and I always remember that about you, because it's not always that way.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Right, it's not always that way.
Speaker 1:No, and you were. You were super nice to a younger kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, so I, I always remember that about you.
Speaker 1:Um, anyway, that's when that's, that's that's funny because I, I, you know, I, I, I feel like it's a piece of my imagination at this point because it's been so long since I've seen that portion. And for those of you who wouldn't understand, there was actually a wave in the river. Yeah, you know like it was. It was coming up the point there there was a little tunnel, there's all this stuff going on and, and like being a 14 year old goofy footer which I remember that I was I was on that yellow or on the blue rail board that I got from tim ward rad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at the time, you know it was, you know bob, his first board they shaped for me didn't work. I grabbed one of tim's board. It was a little five, four and, uh, I totally remember that now. But but I, you know that that whole season, because I had just moved from living at the river mouth, also that summer, so, like it was, it was all magic moments because there was a bar at castle beach that summer that I served every freaking day, not crazy little rip wave.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it happened like right when high tide was done, low tide you know, going low and and and like I just don't see those waves anymore the way that they kind of used to do that. Yeah, so yeah, I think. Thank you for reminding me about that. I'm like was that actually real?
Speaker 2:like yeah, or is that just?
Speaker 1:some you know fantasy world.
Speaker 2:I remember we we called that way blacks too, yeah, but now it doesn't have a name because it doesn't really. I've been on a stand-up paddleboard, you know, in the last like couple decades. On the inside no one sees you there and it's like a foam ball and trying novelty wave. But um it, it was a wave, especially when you're a grommet.
Speaker 1:When you're a grommet, some of those marginal waves are like, really fun yeah, you don't know, it's because the river is running under you hilarious but but thank you for, uh, for sharing that. Yeah, um, so you, you again. Harbor high grad. Um, the reason why it's a thing is harbor high was relatively new high school at the time that you went to it and it was kind of this catch-all for kids that didn't quite. It was a Midtown catch.
Speaker 2:You didn't have to go to Santa Cruz High or SLV or Soquel and the Harbor crew at Harbor High School was the Midtown boys and it was a thing, yeah, back then, yeah, you know, like like midtown kind of hosted all the bullshit that went on, yeah, on both sides of the corners of santa cruz, yeah, so you know, it is a thing still, as you can tell people it is, but I I just like it when we just keep it real playful, you know, and it's fun to see the kids pick it up in midtown, you know, whatever, because the one thing about being you know from the Midtown is in the surf world, 360 days of the year there's no waves, so you surf everywhere else and then you get like five magical days and then everybody comes there and hangs out and it's like a huge reunion. So it's really cool and it's always been like just the funnest time to hang on the railing and on the beach and see everybody. I've been seeing all these.
Speaker 2:I've been meeting a lot of the younger generation that I just don't even know at all. I wouldn't really. I don't surf a ton on the east side and the west side much. So the younger kids coming up I end up not knowing, except for sporadically. So it's really it's really so cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know that whole new young crew. You know it's, you know it's really generating and it really reminds me of when we grew up. You know that there's this decade long age spread with full crews at every age bracket, right Like it was. It was all divided by by what section you were in. So you had the men in hoodies division, you had the boys division, you know juniors to men and, and you know the masters and like your crew was whoever you had to compete against. Yeah, at, you know, at at the contest, you know, and that it's weird, cause I still think that way you know because?
Speaker 1:because you know I think about when. You know Pete and Rhodey and I all went to the North shore for the first season of that stuff. You know. You know I view Pete as my peer but but Rhodey not, even though he's only two years younger than me. You know it's he. He's still a kid at 53, you know, as you are still kind of a kid to me.
Speaker 1:You know it's no longer true those, those divisive or the way that things were divided, but that's how it was, like you were competing with guys within two years of your age group. You know, as, as you went through it and it's weird how it shaped, how I thought about everything as I paddle out. You know who I treat. You know, I think, a little bit kinder, as always, everybody younger than me who I'm peer to peer with. And then you know, obviously, the guys that have always been older than me. You know there's a little bit of majesty, you know, because they were surviving something different. You know as, as we were going through the rounds during that time and I don't know if that felt the same for you or still feels the same, but it really does have these hard lines, even intergenerational.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I miss those WSA days. You know, doc Scott, roasting hot dogs, yeah, and like look, kneeboard, longboard, longboard women, girls, masters, seniors. You know, once they moved to nssa at the tail end of when I competed, it really went down to like, you know, mostly male surfers. And once you aged out of high school you're kind of kind of maybe you have a year or two and it's done, you know, and and having the full tribe, wsa had the full tribe, yeah, you know what I mean. And then you could have like I remember being 14 and like signing up for longboard.
Speaker 2:I didn't ride a longboard but I wanted another heat. So I like borrowed some terrible, like just really old school longboard and went out there with frosty. I still have this picture of me when I'm 14 and I'm about to go out to super low tide pleasure point and I'm talking to frosting. It's like giant, yeah, and uh, it's pretty, pretty epic. You know everybody was everybody's on the beach there, you know. So I really I really liked those old days. It's more like what kind of I think what they're trying to do now with the um yeah, well, yeah, and there's a lot of good rumoring going on.
Speaker 1:You know I'm at least aware of one lifeguard system that's moving towards actually trying to attempt to create a real club for kids. Yeah, you know that's year round. You know there's just conversation going on that I think would do a lot to validate what is already here. You know that we do have these kids who come with parents. Finally, you know that that there's this atmosphere of beach culture that's finally emerged and you know we really weren't a beach culture, we were surf culture, that happened to be at the beach and but there's this thing, this dynamic, that's happening and and I'm Kim Clary, if you're listening, I'm hoping to pull you, to pull you on next that started with the core that was really aimed for the kids and just capturing anybody who wanted to be there and try to be a good citizen and you also serve.
Speaker 1:What happens in Australia is so much different than what happens here and they've embraced that. What happens in Australia is so much different than what happens here and they've embraced that. You know you can be a lifeguard your whole life in Australia and actually make a living and buy a house and do the things, and I, you know, at least in my house, with conversations that I have from my two, you know guards that are in my house like there's a thing that might be generating. You know, of course the surf industry is collapsing right now. But here we are, you know, maybe, maybe, for once, you know, really, since I think the sixties and seventies, you know, which was just more organic at that time in Southern California, where you had these, these things that behave that way, but they were never really put into the structure of of the way the world works, and maybe this is the opportunity, you know, 50 years later, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's nice to integrate. I think when we were kids you know just free range surf kids you know a lot of dadless kids and a lot of like no rules kind of thing, a lot of party and a lot of trouble. Now we're a little more groomed and we look after our kids way more and and we're integrating the rest of the town. It's not just like the surfers and then everybody else and you know, I mean there was, I feel like there was a little more of a. I don't know, I don't know if I'd go as far as saying bigotry, but maybe a little bit. You know people that don't surf.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Versus like part of the. It's in the such an integral part of our community. The surfing and being near the surf, being on the beach, walking our dog along West cliff, east cliff you know it's such a huge part of who we are and what we do here. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I again. I've shared this story a bunch of times. But I remember, over COVID, where, um, bunch of times. But I remember over COVID where, um, I was out of the point and you know, nobody was going to rock for you at the time. There'd be like two or three people that would watch the sunset, maybe at the most, but over COVID, this band pulls up and sets up and from that time you know, going to rock for you. Now is the thing, and and and. Every night you'll see 30 plus people that come to park watch the sunset. You know they're all having their beverages and just enjoying this place and and it was funny because I was so angry when it happened, you know like you can't get a parking place to surf, that's my spot, whatever else, but but I?
Speaker 1:I?
Speaker 1:it took about six months to realize what I've been missing my whole life that there's this magic Right and just being present riding your bike somewhere, you know, before work, after work, you know whatever, or before dinner, after dinner, and just experiencing everything we have to offer, like every day. And so that's a weird learning curve to go through and it took some guy I thought was a jackass, you know playing music to, to get everybody there. But now they're there. It's like do I love this or hate this? You know, is it just my ego that's in the way of what's really beautiful about this place? And I quickly realized it was just my ego and you know it's wonderful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everybody wants a part of it, especially when they see what you have in surf culture. You know, it's the whole gidget era right. As soon as the people, the masses, saw what people had at the beach, they all wanted it and of course it became for sale, you know. But it's the same thing. As you know, I went down to the river mouth. My 11 year old daughter was surfing, mr t's and I was on the cliff and kind of go this way, go that way. You know, I'm watching, trying to get a pick, and and there was like maybe 20 to 30 people on the point, you know, the other side of the rail on the point and they're all taking pictures and so, and you know, they're there for the sunset and the boardwalks right there, the river's right there, it's absolutely beautiful. You see the wharf and I'm just like, oh, this is just where I go, I watch, watch my kids surf, you know and then you forget it.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, this is. I need to take a picture with, with this sunset, because it was absolutely lit up and gorgeous.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I, I, I, on the personal side, I kind of got a glimpse of that. You know, once I started taking my kids to the boardwalk and we did family pictures down there one time, which is totally illegal, People don't do that, but we did it and, realizing the history of the moment, you know that when we went to what was it 10-cent night or?
Speaker 2:25-cent night, quarter night.
Speaker 1:You know, back in the day, you know which was just all hell breaking loose for us?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was crazy we're down there partying and doing all sorts of mischievous things on the beach. But, um, you know, as my kids grew up, you know that was a family tradition. You always take pictures every night that you went, you know, but it was every. Every tuesday night we went and did this thing that we did as kids alone, but we made it a family thing and realizing that the boardwalk's a piece of our family and that my kids will then take their kids to go do this thing, but, like as you're explaining, like we were never looking we were looking at the ways we're always looking out Like like when you're a surfer, you're never looking at the terrain.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right Right, you never looked the other way. No, no, I'm just looking at the terrain. Yeah, right right, you never look the other way.
Speaker 1:No, no, you're just looking at the water like do I want to go? Out or not go out and what's the right time to go out, and you know how much that shapes how you view a community, and all this time there's been all this beauty here that we just haven't recognized. But yet clearly a lot of people are moving here because of all of it, not not because of the thing that we see, and it's very strange, like awakening in my 50s, to go man, this place is really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it could be a challenge to be a very welcoming host for a lot of people. You know I've long kind of meditated on that one. I've always felt like especially being growing up like on Seabright Beach basically, or Castle Beach we always call it Castle Beach, whatever like in on seabright beach basically, or castle beach, we always call it castle beach, whatever else calls it seabright, but you know it was a bunch of beach homes.
Speaker 2:Everybody came for the summer, everyone's from fresno, bakersfield, whatever, you know. There was a few kids living in the neighborhood, but so I was always accustomed to, you know, people coming and everybody's coming from san jose, you know, and this whole valley go home kind of thing, and and of course we flared up and we, we, we might've said that a little bit, but it was also like we were hosting people. We were on the beach all day, every day, meeting people from all over, you know, and finding that there's there's nice people from everywhere there's. You know, localism is small minded bigotry.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And, um, I think I kind of caught onto that at an early age, even though it's definitely part of the culture, you know. So it's it's and and and. Nowadays I hear people complaining, I mean, the toughest thing is just affording to live here, right, and how how people stay. You know we've all cut some deals somewhere, had some you know family house or family job or or figured something out Cause so many people that you know have to move out of here because of, because of the expense, and it's, it's, it's hard to not have resentment for people that have more money and that are moving in, but, um, I mean, it's hard for some people.
Speaker 1:I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't have that, I don't know why, but I hear it, I hear it all the time and the rest of us. That's one of the things we've loved about you, joe, is that you're just not mean-spirited. Thank God you're not mean-spirited. Yeah, there's a little bit of histrionics going through my head, mostly because all my kids are Gen Z. And there's a real break of histrionics going through my head mostly because, you know, all my kids are Gen Z and you know there's a real break point with my youngest one and that's when everything changed, because my two oldest ones I had to raise in the way of the Jedi.
Speaker 1:Like it was fucking rough and I don't know how else to put it. You know there were guys doing things to kids still when they were out, like, and not cool things at all, and they're big names, like, like, make no mistake. Like these guys are assholes. And you know I'll never forget the first time I took, you know, my middle son, aiden, to the Harbor and it was just us out, man, I wore it from our friends, just wore it, you know.
Speaker 1:You know, sure enough, four years later, the big fight went down because, with my younger son, you know, that was the age group where we as parents started mostly having kids, which was five years behind the curve, right, right, yeah, yeah, you know and like, but then it went down, like the thing went down. You know there's industry guys and all that kind of stuff, like, right, hey, if you ever want to surfboard again, you know like all the heavy came out from that side of things, you know, and it, and it was like I, I look at the nature of the harbor like the nature of mavericks. You know the harbor represents itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, it doesn't, doesn't need regulators, right, like the jacks will regulate absolutely yeah and uh, you know, it's one of those unique spots where a lot of money's made when it's going. So that's the added pressure that comes from the industry is that there are guys that have to get photos in magazines for them to get their sponsorship dollars. So there's ways that need to be accounted for. You know that, that you know, in my estimation kind of belong to those guys a little bit. But this attitude of like, hey, you don't get to touch it, yeah, it was nice to see the dads flare up and hold it down.
Speaker 1:You know and again, these are good friends of ours that I got held down with, which was hard to watch but's like, dude, like you know, you don't threaten a 13 year old getting barrels by himself at the harbor, especially not with me, right? You know? Which was the conversation I had to have was like hey, are we doing this? Yeah, like seriously. Yeah, well, you know, it's too too early, howard, like hmm that's an interesting kind of fact going on in your head, right, right, and you're the only only person in the conversation yeah you know I can take all kinds of insults and people dropping in on me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, surfing I like I'm all right. Yeah, mess with my kids. It's hard to keep me down. You know what I mean. Like I oh did that was you know it's? Oh, no, that was just my kid's friend. They're playing around but like it's easy to kind of get flared up on protective of your kids, I mean that's a, that's a real. That's a real thing that happens out.
Speaker 2:There is dads yeah you know need to kind of chill. It's the same same in sports, same in sports. You know, we, my kids, are all over the sport world right and there's some parents that are just terrible just terrible. There's a lot of parents, yes, and they're so annoying to go to like sports, and there's their kids playing, learning how to win and lose yeah and it's you're just nervous and everything and so much on the line.
Speaker 2:we're probably more nervous than the kids, you know, because they're out there playing right and and, uh, some of the parents just can't control themselves and they just act terribly. And when it comes to surfing, well, surfing is like the wild west dude Once you leave the beach, it's like the regulation leaves, right. I mean, there's all kinds of um, just unmarked rules and regs, and people are able to do things that you're not going to be able to do when you're on land, and so that's why jujitsu is able to do when you're on land, and so that's why jujitsu is good right.
Speaker 1:It keeps you calm. It keeps you calm. You get that out every day. You know what you can and can't do, to who you can and can't do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know like yeah, like that fight world, you know, which has been fairly well labored, you know, conversationally with me, with the groups that I have you know of of you know I got more interviews coming on that side, but but the point of that is that jujitsu did more to regulate me than anything has. You know that. That, that initial pop of like, what'd you just say? You know that that like, but you had to hold it down when we were kids, Right? Yeah, like someone popped off at you man. Yeah, you got to escalate it up to the spot. Yeah, it was a threat to your spot on the pecking order.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:And the pecking orders are so different everywhere. Yeah, and that's what's, you know. I think it makes Santa Cruz very unique, you know, much like Hawaii on the North Shore, you know.
Speaker 2:Velsi land was untouchable 20 years ago.
Speaker 1:Now it's never served there. Now it's a family spot. Like it's weird, you know. But things change by pecking orders. If they're set, and we have set pecking orders like almost at every spot, you know whether it's plush, point the hook.
Speaker 1:You know, on this side of town, santa Mo's, that thing started reestablishing again when, when, when it's going and got a little bit weird in the last two seasons. You know, because of the cameras that are showing up. You know secrets has got that thing going always will. You know it lives in the harbor mavs lexicon a little bit. Uh, you know. But like you get to the lane and that pecking order changes at the drop of a hat, you know like it depends on what drug dealer paddled out and all of a sudden there's a whole new hierarchy and you know the. You know when I lived on the West side that was so weird, you know it was like oh man, that guy living in his truck, like he's he's holding it down. Yeah, you know, you don't mess with those groups and you know it's a heavy parking lot Every 10 minute changes.
Speaker 1:It's not about surfing, it's a lot about other variables just going on that that you're just not entirely aware of. And uh, you know I couldn't quite settle in. You know I felt safer at Stockton than I did anywhere else, which is like the last place you should feel safe, given given the side of town that I'm from. It was like at least I know what's happening here and it doesn't change every five minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, when your time's up, you leave. I think it helps getting older, though, too, because, like I don't have expectations on myself now that I have to serve really good. Yeah see, I haven't grown up yet. Yeah, no so it still hurts.
Speaker 2:It hurts, but I accept that my ego is going to be bruised. Yes, right, and the more I kind of. Okay, I can take an L, I can take an L here and it's an overall win. I got to get salty. I mean, I got to get in that water we all do, and you figure out how to do that right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm trying to get hungry for it again. I haven't surfed since January and I've been both injured and sick, you know, at various times when this good swell has been here, so I've just been kind of MIA, but I was finally feeling my legs again, like in December. I'm like, okay, I'm kind of back a little bit, but I went out to Santa Mo's with my kids from Little League, right, you know it was. You know it's not a team party, just a group of dads that all play together coach, and it was just magic. And you know, I'm out in this little knee-high thing showing these two kids that want to understand how Santa Mo's works, yeah, how to judge the rips, right, you know all these little things where there's a window for two turns, and you know, and they're smart kids, you know they figured it out really quick. You know we're sitting in, you know knee deep water.
Speaker 1:You know at the top, at low tide and like man, I forgot, this was fun you know, just being super selective and I have a little piece of wisdom that I can give to these kids where they can go somewhere. Nobody else is going to be surfing. You know, and sure enough, you know, you know one of the uh which, uh, yeah, josh Mitchell, was out. You know, and, and, like you know, none of the kids would come see him. You know he's so quiet and you know one of his brothers was there and his kid plays in little league and you know, just sitting with those kids and like like look that guy right, there is probably one of the best five surfers that's ever come out of santa cruz and I'll never forget that heat where some guy just paddled around him. You know, but he, but he was on on on the, on the way to. You know he's in the final and he just doesn't like that and that was like the last contest he was out.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, like here you go, Look local, local boy surfing the spot that he knows and he's just so nice.
Speaker 2:But we're all such meanies, yeah, that it just kind of broke him Well, or just that wasn't what attracted him to surfing. Yeah, I mean, he's just Josh Mitchell, naturally, like just the best style, like such a cool, like um, I don't know, we used to call santa mo's like burnt side. It's like part east side, part midtown. Yeah, you know, and that that crew of the mitchells and you know, and he just has a unique style and especially when it came to surfing, um the mo with the bowl, I mean he just it was he just really pleasing to the eye, right Like just like you want to watch him serve, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could never figure out.
Speaker 2:Like Tom Curran meets. I don't something from Santa.
Speaker 1:Cruz Meets Dane Reynolds a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so extraordinary, yeah, but his barrel riding precision, I saw him catch, you know, probably. You know not double overhead but considerably sized closeout. You know, at the Mo and it's like almost two decades ago, actually 15 years ago Drops in, gets barreled, gets a three-second barrel, you know, but somehow highlines it gets another barrel barrel. Like he went all the way down like yeah, I would have made the drop yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:No, that's neat. When there's someone that's just like really um fits into a certain surf spot, that's really kind of quirky and they just have it dialed. Yeah, you know, the local guy, every spot has that guy, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, and and and, again you. I didn't even see where he was. He was in the middle of the beach like down.
Speaker 2:And he saw something. He saw something.
Speaker 1:He was like oh, I was wondering who was up there. Oh, I saw you do a turn on that wave Howie, like on a wave storm. But he was watching all of us. He goes. Oh, it looked like you were having fun with the kids. I'm like I didn't even see you out. Where were you? But that magic of belonging was captured again yesterday just sitting on the beach for three hours with friends and talking baseball.
Speaker 2:Kids will teach you, you relearn, how to have fun in stuff that you take for granted right, like boogie boarding with my kids when they were little Like come on dad, get on the boogie board. And they're like I'm like, wait what I'm going to boogie board.
Speaker 1:And boogie board. I'm like, oh my God, this is awesome you didn't have the rule.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I forgot. I forgot how fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had this horrible rule when I grew up and the kids could only get wetsuits if they rode two waves on their short board first. Then they could boogie board. But, like you know, I thought that I was somehow holding something down. Right, right, right.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know. No, you can't boogie board. You can't boogie board.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you're not going to get waves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but all their friends were doing it and I was the dick dad, right, right. You know who's like sitting in this other echelon of things and you know throwing rocks at grumpy guys.
Speaker 2:Well, it's funny because look as parents, it's got to be one of the most normal thing that humans do is their parents right? And you think like, oh, I got this, you have your first kid, that's your experiment. We don't know what we're doing. I mean, maybe the moms I mean not to generalize, but maybe the moms kind of have a good idea of what they're doing with that plan but the dads were thinking like, oh, I'm going to do this, we're going to do this, we're pushing our kids too early for all this kind of stuff, trying to turn them into baby warriors or whatever. And so, yeah, like nearly drowned my kids when they're way too young in the ocean and learned.
Speaker 2:Totally scared my oldest yeah, and by the time pearl runs around, because I had two boys and pearl is 11 now then I just chilled out, yeah, and let her make sure she sees what's fun and you get down to their level and see all this stuff. That's fun to do, you know, and it's not just you know we're gonna go surf. Well, maybe you paddle out for like 10 minutes and you're there for three hours on the beach doing other kinds of stuff, digging for sand crabs and playing around and just swimming in the water, right, yeah, I mean, that was, I don't do that on my own no, that was, that was our hosting venture.
Speaker 1:Right, a wetsuit, boards of choice and a shovel. Yeah, and that's the beach.
Speaker 1:You know if you can't figure out what to do with these things, then I don't know what to tell you. You lack imagination, you know, but but uh, you know. And again, the beach culture thing that I think now is normative. You know, like all these parents on the beach kind of doing all the things, it really wasn't till my last kid growing up to where that really got traction, you know where, where you had, you know, in our case at Capitola, you had groups of parents that just went and hung out in the afternoons after, you know, grade school and just went and brought the things, dropped them off and and the kids got to be children rather than having to be surf stars to fit the function of Santa Cruz. And so that break where my youngest son he's almost 25, that hard break from what was to what is now though I don't think it's defined yet I really love how it's changed.
Speaker 1:You know, I love that Just seeing all the parents showing up to events now, the inter-school surf league stuff, you know all those things has really brought a dynamic of parents, you know, not attempting to raise the Lord of the Flies anymore, you know, it's more involved and, and you know, seeing dads who don't know how to surf. Really running, running. The surf club portion of these junior high is like that's awesome. Yeah, you know a guy who's got no ego in it. He just wants to be there for the kids. Yeah, it's normal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a normal thing, it's a normal sport. Yeah, for us now, which is really so cool. Yeah, you don't. Yeah, it's. It's not everybody has this illusion that they're gonna be the pro surfer in the mag. Yeah, right, it's like it's a great activity. Now for my kids, it's like I don't care whether they compete or do anything like that, but it's just a great thing to have in your quiver of activities that you do in life, when you travel and you go to the beach and you can surf and all of a sudden, you meet all these people you know and you're able to explore landscapes because you know about surfing, you know, which is so much more important than when I'm a kid I was. You know, I mean, print magazines were such a trip for us, right, I mean, they don't. Kids now don't have that same thing because they're scrolling the whole time, you know, and uh, just how, how built up this illusion was of pro surfing, right? And uh, there were, there were a couple spots oh, it's coming out of costa mesa.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know like it's not even on the coast. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, like that's where the industry hub was, and yeah but now it's like it's like little league.
Speaker 2:You know you get a whole bunch of kids. Get them kids just learning, just do it. You know, be a part of these kids, because on land where they're all a bunch of kids and then you know they're all at different levels when they go out and compete or get in the heat or say they don't even compete, they're just going to be around part in in the club aspect of their uh, in their schooled surf team. It's really really cool. Yeah, it's the fun. It's the fun part of it, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's, you know, make making what was once called extreme sports not so extreme. You know the mountain biking, like all the stuff. You know you can be a kid who's a three sport kid and actually kind of have a team and what is individual sports before you know that, where you're just kind of on your own having to get sponsors, all this stuff? No, there's a group of you that are doing this thing together. You do all the things together.
Speaker 1:You know, maybe pick up another sport, you know that's a team sport also, but there's a team culture that has generated somehow and it's been generated, you know, through these other more extreme seeming sports but I don't really view them that way and you can get equally injured in a water pool, water polo pool, as you can out surfing, if not more injured. So you know it's not as though like it's so extreme anymore, but it's just really normal and nice to see, you know it melding together a little bit for our kids and not having to be this thing. Oh, this is what I do, this is my whole identity is tied up in this silly thing that you eventually have to grow out of in some way. Or whatever the attitudes are, you can keep doing the thing, but the ego prospect it just yeah, no, it's fun.
Speaker 2:Surfing is fun and we got to remember that easy. I got my oldest wrestles, charlie. He surfs too, but but, uh, he wrestles. And then, uh, calvin, who's 13, is really into surfing right now. That's his sport. He just wants to surf and and, and I always say, you know, being involved now in both those sports is is wrestling, is the hardest sport, it's the hardest sport, it's harder than jujitsu. You know, I see these kids I'm like, oh, that's not what I did, no, no no, and.
Speaker 2:But surfing's the best, it's the funnest. I mean, it's the. You know it can be stressful if you want to put yourself in that situation. That's an option, you know, if you want to be a stressful competitor. But it's also just. You just get to go surf. You can call it a sport, you can call it activity, you call it a spiritual path, whatever you want. But I think it's just it's got to be the most fun. Yeah, right, I mean I think you know, yeah, but we're biased, we're surfers.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, it's more recovery oriented. Yes, yeah. Well, you know I always say I want to die at Cowell's. Yeah, in my 90s, hopefully as old as I can, you know, but I want to, you know, as we're slowly devolving into kooks, yeah, yeah, from our peak of athletic prowess and surfing. You know we slowly, you know you can't maintain what we had, you know, but we can still get that feeling and be a part of it. You know, still climb a ladder a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know and and you know, doc passed this last week.
Speaker 1:Oh, he did, let's, let's, let's talk a little bit about Doc you know, because you know, at least for me you know, when I think about the genesis of me. You know getting oriented towards this thing called competitive. You know surfing and who doc was to me like, just right in the back of that Peugeot all up and down the coast, you know, or you know there was always two Groms in the back. You know laying on backpacks and trying to get comfortable the whole time, but almost the best seat in the house. You know, I mean I, I know the one-on-one freeway backwards, right, I'm used to not staring out the windshield but out the back window. So, having grown up, seeing California backwards in a way was one of the highlights in my memories back then. You know that there's just this tribe of guys. You know there's always seven of us in the car. You know head to another invitational down in Southern California, wherever that was, and and Doc's presence.
Speaker 1:You know, to your point earlier, the hot dogs, like you knew you were going to eat at that contest. Yep, like you didn't Right, Like there, there, I mean, it wasn't the case for me. You know I always had a couple of bucks in my pocket. But there there the case for me. You know I always had a couple bucks in my pocket. But yeah, there are a lot of kids that grew up on pleasure point that did not know where their next meal was coming from. Yeah, but they knew at the contest if they could get in, yeah, they were gonna eat also.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, like and that's that's kind of weird, there was donuts in the morning and and hot dogs in the afternoon, you know.
Speaker 2:So there was at least two meals covered you know, every girl got a donut, two hot dogs. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, that's what I look back. I really like I said that ws8 days were so cool because it was the full tribe, all ages, everything you know. Paddleboard there's paddleboard, you know, they have a paddle race. And, doc, I was lucky because when I was I think I think I was in seventh grade my knees started getting real funky Always good slaughters, which is a standard thing that happens to the bottom of your below your kneecap when you're growing. Because I was just growing so quick and my normal doctor wasn't. He didn't know what was going on, you know. And then my mom took me to doc and he became my general doctor you know, oh, he was in capitol when he was yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 2:So we started seeing doc and doc knew exactly oh, that's always good slaughters, that's. Let me look at your ears, let me. He knew exactly like my body. He knew the little surf guy body. Yeah, you know, because he was, he knew it. Yeah, that's his whole world, you know. And he ended up being just like an awesome doctor for me, you know, not just like the surf comp guy, but um, and he, he was just so cool, what a, what a great presence. Right, like you know, his kids are grown up. He's still there, he's still nurturing, you know, coming, all the comps. He, what grandmasters division, right, there'd be like a couple of them out there and like later on he'd still syrup.
Speaker 2:I always think, whenever I'm my neck hurts, I think a doc had the helmet and he had a cork and he'd rest his head on his board and like I wish I had doc's helmet with that cork right now to rest my neck. It's like so smart. He was really innovative, you know, like when he he made the earplug and then he also, in his design schematic, had like a little ski hood right that you're supposed to sleep with it, because that's when the surf ear develops is. You know, what he had said is when you sleep and I sleep on my right side predominantly, so my left ear closes right, so you're in the. Is that why that happened? That's what he said then. Yeah, and I believe it, you know yeah, just keeping it warm.
Speaker 2:And I sleep with a hoodie to this day, do you? Yeah, I mean, if it's really warm, no, but cold.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, my ears were so chapped by the time I was 14. I had to wear earplugs. Yeah, yeah, the rest of my life. Yeah, yep, same. Have you got them chiseled? No, no me neither. I'm going to be able to avoid it.
Speaker 2:I know it's amazing. I don't know how. I never have, but since I was a little kid they were closed. But, knock on wood, I don't get ear infections. I mean, that's the big thing If your ears, you're prone to ear infection because of it. Yeah, I got a lot of ear infections, you know I don't get bad cauliflower ear, yeah, either by playing half guard, which is unique, yeah, as, as you know, you know those of us who are on the mat.
Speaker 1:So you're pretty big, you could probably keep people off you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know my game sucks, joe. Yeah, right, I don't believe you. You know, I can stall guys I bet, I bet you're tough dude, come on, I just stall people out and sit on them Sounds good.
Speaker 1:Stay in the competitor route, not the killer route, yeah, so hey, I want to shift gears a little bit to help the audience know a little bit about who you are. You are, in fact, dirty Girl Farms, and so why don't you describe for the audience about what you do for a living and what you committed yourself to from a very early age?
Speaker 2:Yeah, right. So yeah, I, I mean I was really into surf comps. Um, I I, my claim to fame is I got, I got, uh, invited to the first two pro juniors in the U?
Speaker 2:S cause they had them in Australia. So that's cool, that's that's all I care about now. So, and then, you know, so you know, pretty extreme, real surfer went to San Diego State first year in college. That's when we had huge I was 90 huge budget cuts. Came back live with my dad and then I ended up going to Cabrillo and I discovered this amazing group of people. They were people that don't surf. You know, you've heard of them. You've heard of them. You've heard of them, right, yeah, yeah, and, and so I hear I'm at college. There's all these young people doing all this other stuff. That's, all of a sudden, all this other stuff became very interesting to me, right, and? And so I think you know it's that age.
Speaker 2:You're, you're, you know your world opens up, you start learning, you start reading, you start getting exposed to all. You know I was, I ended up finishing up at UCSC and I just had, you know, just amazing professors that were super inspiring and they were talking about. You know, I mean, when you're young, I was so apolitical as a kid. And then, once you start thinking about the world, everything around you, problems of the world, solutions, where's my place in it? You know, I just started studying and studying and studying the world, you know, as much as I could to try to figure things out right, I wanted to get a hold on how things worked in the world and what was going on and and what I saw as problems and and how I could, what I could do. You know, I didn't really think about money. Now I'm thinking, god dang it, damn it, I could, what I could do. You know, I didn't really think about money. Now I'm thinking, god dang it, I could have got any career, you know. But but I, I just it always pointed towards farming and agriculture.
Speaker 2:When we talk, when you know, I was really into environmental studies Um, if you talk about any social problems, political problems, I mean, the foundation of societies is food. You have to feed yourself, you know. You feed clothes, house yourself. You know how do you, how do societies work? So food was always in the discussion. I was always writing about it, reading about it. People came in and talks, you know, and and, but, but yet I was so separate from it. And of course, even you know Santa Cruz, you go up the coast and you see Brussels sprout fields and you're like that's nothing I wanted to. That doesn't look appealing to me at all.
Speaker 2:Right, growing up, and then I I became exposed to a bunch of mostly young people that were involved in small scale organic farming, right, and, of course, being in Santa Cruz is a birthplace of CCUF, california certified organic farming. This is now usda. Certified organic is the now label that everybody needs to use, and all those rules and regs were written right here in santa cruz and now, globally, these rules and regs started here. So this, this is a movement that started in santa cruz, which is amazing years ago, this is the hippie dropout era, right, where these people knew intuitively, because we didn't have the science. Maybe Rachel Carson maybe had a little bit of the science, you know, she was trying to link things together, you know, but it was highly intuitive that there was something going wrong with agriculture and we were seeing it Right. And now we have studies, we have science, we can. You know, it's not just a hippie conspiracy, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:And so I, as I got, as I got exposed to these people that were, you know, especially there's young people that worked on farms, these cool farms, and had the sense of community and food and purpose, and then in the winter they take off and they travel and they travel all these and go to India, go to this place, go to that place.
Speaker 2:And I was exposed to this one guy, michael Abelman, who had this amazing farm down in Santa Barbara, goleta. He, um, he wrote a book 10,000 miles around the good earth. He took photograph, beautiful photographs, and it was a picture of his off season trips. And it's basically all food production all throughout the world. And you see all these tribes, all these, just different way we do it, compared to the industrialization of agriculture where you just have, you know, hundreds and hundreds or thousands of acres of monocrop and using, you know um, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, all these things that are actually damaging, you know. So just the contrast of um, of learning how we are, you know the, the growing proportion of agriculture in in our county, in our state, in our country, in our world, isn't being industrialized and what the negative effects of that are you know so can I just interject a little histrionics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, prospect here you were choosing to do this as agriculture was actually leaving the county, both monterey and santa cruz. Yeah, that the prospect of, um, you know, having desert areas begin to produce foods that were normally grown regionally and during a season was interjected into agriculture, which you know for, at least I know for the growers that I knew was a really big problem financially, like like the efficiency models and all those things that you know were now in play to what was, you know, the the. You know like this, this is like the most important region for produce in the world and you know watching them go through the pain, you know, and it was big pain, you know, even for the big names of having to move to the desert and all this kind of thing how counterintuitive organics was at that time. You know, to land that was just sitting it wasn't fallow, it was just sitting is the dynamic that's going on in the economy. Also, you know that. That. You know you brought up the Brussels sprout farms that are no longer growing. They've kind of come back a little bit of the growing patterns, you know. I know that Castorville was kind of sitting like there were areas that again were producing food, all of a sudden weren't doing the things that they used to do, and it was in middle of that. The risk that you guys take I you know, I know you don't aren't going to say it that way I want to let the audience know, like the level of risk that joe is involving himself in at this point granted he was younger, but like it was a high risk prospect this idea of what if?
Speaker 1:What if we get those lands back and grow it the right way, you know, as we're hitting in this new phase of macroeconomics affecting the food that we eat, you know, and the efficiency models that were in play to keep food costs down, all that stuff. This is that moment, like it's important. People, I'm sitting in front of somebody. He represents something that's bigger than him, so I don't want to overstate who he is, but, at the same time, the importance of the choice. You guys could never understand the level of impact this has on Joe's life when he chooses this moment. Like it's really fucking important what Joe is talking about right here. So I just want to interject that so you don't breeze past this with your eardrums as though you getting organic things at the store is normal. It's not normal like yeah, thank you, it was fucking heavy. I love that, that's yeah, well, well put.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, it's, it's crazy. Um, you know, there's a lot of ways to look at it. Um, I I like to try to bridge and bring people in, so I could easily describe the problem we have in agriculture as late stage capitalism. Yeah, you know, I mean you imagine, like all the seed companies, right, slowly getting bought up, bought up, bought up, bought up. All of a sudden you have monsanto, all of a sudden you have seminus, all of you have. Bayer is the biggest seed company in the world. It's also the biggest petrochemical company that supplies fertilizers, pesticides, everything to agriculture.
Speaker 1:You know bayer, aspirin, right I mean it's crazy so if you're wondering what ukraine's about, oh geez, anyways, keep going yeah, damn so, um, so, yeah and and uh.
Speaker 2:You know, we do have just about the most amazing as ideal of a growing climate as anywhere in the world here and we don't realize that, except that food is. Plants are similar to people. We like being here, this is comfortable, it doesn't get too hot, doesn't get too cold, it's really nice. That's how plants are. So we really are the. You know, our region is kind of more the salad bowl and the strawberry bowl of America, but we are increasingly continuing, even as organics grow. We still are increasing to import a lot of our food and we saw during COVID. You know, food shortages. We take for granted that our supply chains are going to be there right, and when it's broken, people start the shelves, start emptying quick. You know so a lot.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of reasons to for me to be doing what I'm doing. There's, you know you talk about the three. You know parts of sustainability. It's economic, social and environmental right, economic. It's very important to support local, not just because you want to be. You support localism, which is can be small-minded bigotry, right. This is very different than support local because you want to support your, your economy. You know your local economy. You want to um, have a certain amount of food security near you. You, you know, the more we build on this farmland, the less farmland we have and maybe everything's going good, it's no problem. But I really do think that in the long-term planning it's very important to think about food production not just as the dollars on a piece of paper, but as part of the foundation of our society. You know we need to eat, we need to be growing food for ourselves, we need to. For example, the Central Valley. You know problem right now with water. Biggest problem is big companies coming in buying all this land that has water rights that other people don't. They're basically mining the water, growing almonds and exporting everything. So we're basically turning one of the most amazing fertile valleys in the world into this crazy capitalistic export. Why and it's totally, what's left behind is terrible, from salmon to economies, to everything. So there's economics, environmental. It's economics, environmental.
Speaker 2:It's easy to get into the idea that you know you put in pesticides, you put in things that are harmful to people on their food. I mean, that's kind of simple, right, that's easy, but it's very complicated. It's very, very complicated. The county ag, every county in the US, regulates pesticides and what you can put on, when you can put it on, what you can do, what's allowable, what's not allowable. I would love it if santa cruz county not necessarily everybody was certified organic, but that the what makes up organic rules and regs. We do that because we can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we don't need to grow toxic produce and export and that's essentially what we do most of it. We we're most of the toxic food that we grow. We're exporting it toxic. When I say toxic, I don't just mean you're going to eat conventional strawberries and you're going to die. No, I you know the threat to the consumer is minute compared to the people that live around the farms, the schools that are around the farms, the field workers, the people that come in and out of the. They're acutely exposed to all of these pesticides. A lot of things especially you start talking about, like hormone levels and endocrine and all all the science of the body and how the body works, and all these like inhibitors, the, what they do to the pests and what they do over time to people. We, you know the. The science is just coming in so intuitively. There's something wrong there and there's a lot of people like ringing the bell, but you know it's a conspiracy, until we can really kind of prove it. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:Well it's. I mean, there there's, there's a common sense, objective view I think we can all take, and you know I, I don't want to hammer on weight per se, let's just call it inflammation, yeah, but let's just, things aren't right right, our children aren't right. There are things going on and what is the thing that everybody does? They eat, and food has changed in the last 30 years. You know that I've seen, including in some organics, which I'm not. You know all that fond of all the ways that that, for the namesake of you know something. You know all that fond of all the ways that that, for the namesake of you know something. You know someone being vegan. Now, all of a sudden, they could put all these compounds into something to make it taste like it's not. You know it.
Speaker 1:Like these conversations become complex and I want to frame it up just a little bit like what we're talking about, you know, cause I've referred to this this older guy that owns a piece of land above that Bass Lake, but he's, he's primarily a cattle farmer and and they were in forestry before, but they used to manage the forest, that were around us and and you know, the feds took them over and that's good. You know I don't want to downplay the role of national parks and all that kind of thing, but land management is a whole other prospect and let's just say the national foresting agencies don't do a good job managing those lands. There's a lot of fires now. We're all afraid of global warming per se, but it's forest management that's the primary culprit, no matter what the globe is doing, that contributes to the fires. But this guy's family got into cattle afterwards. He has a big farm in oklahoma, you know, but he's providing food and a lot of food, some of it for very, very good restaurants.
Speaker 1:And I see these cows that walk by my cabin and where they live. They live 5 000 feet above sea level people. They are in the mountains eating what in essence is kind of a problem for the forest. You know that it's part of their family's land management style for their region to have the cattle eating fresh food in that region and they're not organic. They don't go for any certification. They live in this grade scale of quality. You know which is which is. It's easier to see in beef than it is in what you're doing. But these economies of scale of quality also can represent, you know, some of what you're talking about in beef. It's an easy thing to talk about, but you know this idea that that certification is the only moniker, right? Well, the industrialists also hijack these things too. What comes off as organic is not necessarily organic the way that you think that it is when you're ingesting it, and that's complicated and the consumer doesn't really know. You know what it is they're eating and I, you know, I had a conversation with you know someone in the front over at Pointside Meats, you know which is Freedom Meat Locker, and she was giving us a lecture about cows.
Speaker 1:You know how it has to be grass fed and all that kind of stuff. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you don't really understand cows and you don't really understand what you're saying. But okay, we're talking, you know. But I'm trying to express this lady. You know, what Freedom Meat Locker does is picks the best cows they can and stay affordable. And yes, are they. You know, not, not, no, they're not grass fed.
Speaker 1:But you do realize there are good cows and bad cows in all of these situations, you know. And how the cow is consuming is important. How the cow is treated is an entirely different prospect. You know, that's where a lot of the toxic behavior that even we have as a society happens. You know, when you get to these big, large-scale ranches, you know, as it pertains to beef man, it's nasty, it's nasty, it's nuts. But getting a lecture from a 90 year old, the first thing he asked me is where do you buy your beef? Do you buy? Do you buy it from anywhere close to you? And thank God I had the right answer. You know now. Now it's conventionally grown beef but it's different. You know, because the guy is treating his cattle very, very well. You know, and so you know the consumer doesn't know about these details, and that's.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm using cattle as a means to try to, you know, incorporate this into our conversation a little bit. You know, but, like you know the thing that you're talking about, which I think is very important, you know that our children you're talking about, which I think is very important you know that our children aren't healthy. There's something going on. The first thing is food. You know, like, what is it that is going into our bellies and how do we scale that? Like, what does it mean? When you walk through a grocery store, you know the bottom line is the outside aisles are generally the safe space, and so you know to your origin story. You know, when I'm sitting across from someone that made the outside aisles important again, you know in this thing, and so you know in your heart of hearts you know what was it that you were trying to tackle on. You know, on top of the macro side, because I think who you are as a person and deciding to solve the problem, you could which up against these economies of scale, you know. You know I look like the Pichot brothers. They've done a really good job of, you know, jump at the shark, so to speak. You know that that deal with Costco that they got, really got them legs but and they were in trouble too. You know in in in their origin of trying to make this thing bigger. You know for you.
Speaker 1:You know, as, as you were doing these early grows I, you know we talked in 2000 about you growing at my place there in the South beach. I had five acres, I had water. I couldn't quite understand. You're like hey, if I can get the spot next to you, that's seven acres. We can do a thing If I can get above 10 acres, right, you know what did it mean for you. Like when we talk about scaling, you know, you inform me at the time. Hey, you know. You know, california and the feds are like giving us adequate space to actually grow and function in this economy and that was the barrier for us. You know, I'm thinking, gosh, you're just on the other side of crest, you're only a mile over there, but like, moving a mile is a problem, yeah, yeah, and you're small yeah, yeah, right, yeah, yeah, economy scale is everything, especially when you're small.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, yeah, economy scale is everything, especially when you're trying to. The actual work that is involved in farming is kind of crazy and at a certain point you need to mechanize. You know what, um, I've always said is I try to mimic, like the french intensive, where you're doing everything by hand. You're adding a lot of compost, you're essentially building the soil, the soil's organic matter, if you're. If you're building organic matter in the soil of course there's different kinds, but just to generalize then you're improving the soil. If you're just planting and taking and you're adding liquid water soluble fertilizers, you're actually going to be depleting your soil. You're going to be depleting the organic matter in your soil. So so building soil is is kind of the goal in what I do and and you need to have a certain amount of mechanization in that model.
Speaker 2:You know, and at what acreage does it become economically viable to do? You know, and every crop is going to be different, and what we do, we grow like 40 different things, all kinds of real crop, veggies, do you know? And every crop is going to be different, and what we do, we grow like 40 different things, all kinds of real crop, veggies, you know, tomatoes and strawberries as well, and so we need to be able to make beds with tractors, we need to be able to cultivate with tractors, you know. So, yeah, you need to have a certain amount of space and then you need to have a certain amount of tractors and equipment and stuff. And if, if it's a small space, you can't afford $300,000 worth of equipment to plant five acres, it'd be a killer.
Speaker 2:Five acres, and and that'd be my dream is to be a wealthy guy with a smaller acreage and just go crazy. Right, but that's not what. What I get to do. I get to, you know, really, uh, borrow a lot of money, invest every year, cross my fingers, you know, it's kind of like throwing you know a handful of pennies on the ground and hoping that I can pick them all up and there's a dollar.
Speaker 1:Okay, so when we talk from 2000,. How many acres did you have then 2000?
Speaker 2:Um, I probably pretty close. I might've been around 30. So right now I think I have 42 acres on four different sites, okay, and so we do a bit of tractor moving, we're back in the selva, we're on alta. Now nice, yeah, nice, nice yeah, 15 acres up there. Um, so yeah, that was when I was on springview, right I think.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah and you know, nationally we're hitting this apex moment of a lot of bullshit, but you know, removing ourselves from that, getting back to local economies, when we don't elect the right officials. And I was very, very close to the most important elected official in Santa Cruz County and I was explaining to her like the problem on my street. You know you had three zoning laws. You had residential ag, you had commercial ag. You know of which I was one of. Then you have residential and this is kind of how the whole county is in these areas and this is kind of how the whole county is in these areas.
Speaker 1:I was amazed because this is the person that makes. She held the gavel at how little she knew about what she was voting on. No-transcript before Coffman and Broad comes to kick your ass because they always do. They got a million dollar burn rate on attorney's fees and you're never going to stop them if they decide they're coming, and folks not just in Santa Cruz County, but you're all listening around the world.
Speaker 1:It is important that we understand what our local legislation is doing to harm the well-being of the community that you're in, because there are only so many people like Joe who they have to make a living at what they do at least. And I know you enough to know that it could have been different for you economically. But that personal choice that you made I know you enough to know that it could have been different for you economically but that personal choice that you made, you know, not just to be here but establish something here that can help the world out, like it's a big fucking deal. Yeah, like I was so excited when I'm like, okay, I'm just going to ask him, you know. But you know, like this is a big deal. Like Like local economies are way more important in a way, than macro economies. Yeah, especially when you don't understand them.
Speaker 2:It's hard, it's it and it's complicated, it's really. All these things are really complicated and we tend to live in a in a world right now, where you want to flip through and find an easy answer to something that sounds really cool, you know. But, yeah, I definitely, you know. Know, my dad is a general contractor. He still works. My mom is a retired teacher. So, that being said, comfortable middle class, yeah, um, I definitely climbed down the ladder, yeah, at a young age, to be a farmer.
Speaker 2:You know, my grandfather, who grew up on a farm in kansas, warned me about he's like no, don't do it. I like you don't know what I'm, you know I'm, I'm 20, I'm 20, 21. I'm, I'm deciding the career I'm going to have. I'm 53 now, you know. So I'm going to decide the career that I'm going to have for the rest of my life, probably unless I change careers.
Speaker 2:At this point, you know, and you know, when I was young, I was stoked. I wanted to live on farms, I wanted to live in a tent, I wanted to eat my food on on a fire, on a fire pit. You know, I wanted to live, simply, I. I didn't have the thoughts of, you know, possessions and 401ks and things that I wish I had a sense of, you know, like now, but um, you know, young and idealistic, but like I was. That fed me, that really fed me, feeling that I was doing something. You know, like what I was going to spend my time doing was meaningful to me and I actually really enjoyed the. I look at it now and I think in our era there's so many undiagnosed ADHD kids, especially in the surfing world, you know and and now it's all jujitsu.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now they're jujitsu, surf whatever and that's how you deal and I think what I, you know, especially being stuck in college and having to force myself to do all this reading and writing and everything you know, it was painful for me. Um, I got into, you know, working in a garden and a farm and I'm like, yes, I was just like the sense of belonging, like planting things, watching them grow, harvesting, selling to people, people being appreciative, loving good food, just the whole thing like made so much sense to me.
Speaker 1:So let's talk a little bit about Dirty Girl and kind of like, when it got traction, you know, was it farmers markets that did it? Was it you? You know aligning with, like dennis kinch and like, like, like, what was the thing that got you to to that apex moment where you know I, you know I, I can tell through the conversation, you know I, I don't ask you financial questions so much, but but you're still working and you're working hard, you're working hard. So it's pretty obvious to me, as someone who also has to work hard, what's going on. But it's clearly turned into a passion project, in a way that you're willing to dedicate your life to it. What was the tipping point for you? You know cause, cause, again, I know the show. It's enough to kind of know when they got to a spot where it's not like it's comfortable, but at least you know you're not going to starve to death.
Speaker 2:Well, look, I think that looking at that farming now and the cost of living that everybody's experiencing being a farmer is the same thing. It might be worse. I think it's worse, but I don't know Cause I'm in the throes of it. I don't know everybody else what they're doing, you know, but I see a lot of people doing a lot better than I'm doing, right, and I think that I somehow have this magical luck about me that the peak probably the peak profitability of dirty girl produce was right about when I had my first kid Okay, and that's right. When we were able to buy a house in santa cruz okay, you know what I mean which was right before the market crash. And I mean it's uncanny, it's crazy, if I track everything and think, like now, I couldn't do that.
Speaker 2:You know, now I have a lot. I have non-profits, I have people that want to buy me a farm, you know, but um, like, buy property because I don't own, uh, me a farm. You know, but um, like, buy property because I don't own a farm property. I just, you know, I, I own my house in in in Santa Cruz, um, but um, yeah, I think, uh, right now it's much harder to do it than it was 15 and 20 years ago. You know, and I think it's from everything, from the price of labor, which has tripled, to the price of land, everything that goes into farming, diesel tractors, vehicles, maintenance I mean going to get my box truck, I have like three diesel box trucks and just the servicing on them and the repairs and maintenance is unbelievable, unbelievable compared to years ago. So so I think, in a lot of ways, um, unless I and I'm always searching, I'm not giving up, but I'm always searching, um for ways to tweak the knobs on the business and make it work better.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, I really do feel like there was a time where it was perfect, where, um, I kind of got into farming and there weren't as many farms, there weren't as many farmers, markets, there weren't, um, it wasn't as expensive. You know, and I think I I had a vision to save money to buy a farm ever since I was, you know, 20, so I saved, save every year, I'd that savings would go into the farm and it crossed my fingers and it came back, came back, and that was my goal. And then my wife was pregnant with our first kid and she's like we're buying a house and I'm like what, I never even thought about buying a house in Santa Cruz, what I just wouldn't buy a farm. And so we just, you know, drain that fun. We bought a house.
Speaker 2:House, you know, and it's best decision ever because everything all your money's, yeah it's the only appreciable asset I have I think everything else is just um goes down in value, but um let's yeah, let me let me say one thing that keeps hitting uh, hitting um that I remember uh
Speaker 2:about organics, the idea of organic, this isn't. I think this is a really important point, and this is a really important point, and this is a point that I share with everybody all the time. You know, as consumers, when we look at organic food, what is organic? What does that mean? Well, and why am I certified organic? Yeah, I totally believe and see that people can, um, do a good job farming without being certified organic, right, um. What they have to do, though, is they have to explain to people how they farm. Yeah, right, you have to, and it's complicated, it's very complicated. Everything just like, try and start breaking down grass-fed beef. Oh man, yeah, I know a lot of people do that. It's awesome the difference between grass-fed beef and harris ranch. Yeah, all the methane coming out of the burping and farting cows is very toxic. It's very bad.
Speaker 1:Let alone what it does to the rivers, yeah.
Speaker 2:And if you're, and you're, yeah, I imagine these cows up in Bass Lake trimming out all the bear clover and everything you know, right, you know.
Speaker 2:So what organics is is this organics is regulated. It's the only word within the food world that actually has a line drawn in the sand. Okay, right, this is organic. There's a. You can look at a the booklet of USDA certified organic what is allowed and what's not allowed, what. What do you need to do in order to do that? And you're not organic. You're not certified organic until you do all the paperwork. I do a booklet every year of all of my records, everything.
Speaker 2:It's a lot more complicated than you think. It's not just like putting seeds in the ground and growing. I mean, we spend money on additives, we have spray rigs. It's a war of microbiology is the way that I think about either in the soil and above the soil, and so there's um. There's just really a lot to it, and and what organics is is it is um a certification process, right, that you can say I'm organic.
Speaker 2:You can't say I'm I'm organic unless you are certified organic, right? If you say you're organic, I mean it's actually illegal to say you're organic in this country and to not be certified organic, right? So there's a line drawn and we can look at things that and every year it's a battle. Right, I'm part of this new certification called real organic. It's there. There's a whole bunch of people that are on the organic side, that want to pull it further over towards the organic side and not allow certain things that are being allowed in in large-scale organic farms. Right, right, because you can do a lot of things. You can get by with a lot of things, um, and still be organic so can we disseminate a little bit here?
Speaker 1:yeah, because what I was trying to make the point about earlier was that there are products that get called organic right, but there's a difference between food that is grown that is organic right. You know that, like like this this is critical, you know, because when I talk about you know, industry, titans, hijacking a term this is my point is that there are a lot of things that you know what you have to do to grow your food that is, that are single items, right, like these are things that that have a certification process is very different than, you know, someone manufacturing something that is then using that term, maybe not with the same uh uh certification.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, depends what we're talking about, because a lot of times organic is.
Speaker 1:It's the one word, okay yeah, it is that's illegal to know yeah, it's the legal thing and um products as well.
Speaker 2:If you're putting chapstick on it's organic, then it's organic, it's certified organic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you'll see a usda it's. It used to be ccof they when they transferred nationally. It's now USDA, okay, you know. So what was I going to say? A big natural, natural, no spray, what else? They use bio, anything.
Speaker 2:There's always catchphrases that are trying to prop up something grass-fed, what's certified? There's no certified grass-fed, yeah, yeah, there isn't. So you say grass-fed, okay, grass-fed. You buy grass-fed beef. Well, it was grass-fed and then it was finished on soy. Was it finished on gmo soy? Was it finished on wheat? Was it finished on corn? Or how long was just grass fed for? Like you know, first two months of its life.
Speaker 2:I know there's no certification, there's not a certification process, and so regenerative ag is in, the new big one. It's regenerative. People have really attached to regenerative, which is fine, but the problem I have with that is everybody's trying to go over to to use the word regenerative and there's no certification for that. There's no. Like, what is regenerative? You ask 10 different people, you're gonna get 10 different answers, and you're going to talk to consumers about it who aren't deep down involved in the nitty-gritty of all this production and you're not going to have a very good understanding, and so that's the one thing that I do like about organic, even though I don't agree with everything that's allowed in organics.
Speaker 2:But every year, you know, there's a big fight in the rules and people are trying to push it both ways. Boom, boom, boom. All these everything's being broken down, all. There's always new soil amendments coming up, there's new things to put in a spray rig, there's new seeds, there's new everything. And we're all looking. There's a lot of big movement to say anything that's hydroponic is not organic. There's a huge, huge amount of people in the organic world saying they don't want hydroponic. It's got to be in soil if it's going to be organic, right. So I don't really love hydroponic, but I don't really. That's not my deal. I don't really. I don't care to fight anybody that's doing organic. I mean, I got bigger fish to fry than dealing with people that are trying to, you know, geek out on hydroponics. I think it's kind of cool. I understand why people like it.
Speaker 2:It's not my deal mineralizing water right yeah, but I mean just trying to get everything in water and, yeah, whatever it's, it's not, it's not my deal, but there is a. I'm just saying there's a big fight back and forth on this sort of thing. So so we do. It's kind of, you know, in a way like a democracy, where you do have a chance to try and, um, push the needle one way or another, and we do, at the end of the year, every year, have this rule book for what is organic. So, love it or leave it, it's there. Everything else are just adjectives, right. There's nothing solid about anything other than organic.
Speaker 2:When we talk about food, which's very, very complicated, you know, when you talk about, like, ultra processed foods. What's an ultra processed food? I don't know, but it sounds terrible, right, and we know that we eat a lot of them, and you almost can't help but eat a lot of ultra processed foods because there's so much of it out there and in our system, where the dollar speaks louder than any kind of ideology, um, it spreads, it's profitable businesses, push it, the you know the big businesses buys a little up, up, up, up up, and all of a sudden, you know, you ultra processed foods making some money. Yeah, right, yeah, and it tastes good and you're being tricked. And if you don't understand what all that stuff is, ah, whatever, don't read the label. Yeah, you just eat it and you're like I'm happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so you know not to not negating what you're saying, more just for the purpose of this conversation. It's money, water, you know, like, like it's, it's very hard to disseminate. You know, is this good for me when you're walking through a grocery store? Sure, you know. And good for me when you're walking through a grocery store? Sure, you know. And I love how you've very clearly like this USDA certification.
Speaker 1:It's very important, you know, and that the government is now regulating in this way. That's a good thing. You know that there is actually a benchmark for what it means to put this moniker on whatever food that that is. You know that doesn't necessarily say anything to the health or well-being of whether the product you're consuming is the right thing for you to eat, but it is making a statement that, look, we're not doing these things that would normally hurt you because you're consuming them. And if you're consuming them every day, yeah, I guess relatively safe. But take a look around you. The world looks a whole lot different 50 years later from when we grew up, when they weren't using the best shit back then either. But people sure look different now than they did when we grew up. You know, and and not as a judgment against anybody, but like something's clearly happened to our food and it's industry that's done that and you know to the names you named, you know you might you might want to take a look.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well if what these guys are doing to the economy like, like it is what it is yeah, so the money that we do put in as the us, we subsidize agriculture.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, the the majority of the money that, um, that we subsidize is for production that ends up being these ultra processed foods. I'm not, I mean, I don't statistically, I don't know where we lie in that right, but we do benefit the people that are lobbying for this stuff, right? So it's not like, oh well, the farmers are getting paid to grow organic brown rice at a cheap price for us to consume. You know, a lot of it is, you know, like everything we make out of corn. It's unbelievable, I mean it's.
Speaker 1:I'm very aware of the central value. Yeah, yeah, all the corn rows that just show up one year because ethanol or whatever else, yeah, we're not eating ears of corn.
Speaker 2:We're not grinding corn tortillas with the stuff we're making from ethanol to every kind of food preservative out there, yeah, and so, unfortunately, we're funding. We're not funding brown rice and veggie meals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:Which would be a nice. Wouldn't that be a nice a base? You know you don't have to stick with just brown rice and veggies, but if we just every Twinkie was brown rice and veggies, kind of thing, yeah, um, we would all be much more healthy. But unfortunately, because uh, it's like McDonald's is so cheap, because we have funded everything that they do, right From the meat to all the grains, all the ultra processed, all the gnarly stuff that's in there. They're getting a good deal on all that stuff because it's subsidized. Because it's subsidized, we're not getting a good deal at the farmer's market because those farmers get paid to grow at a cheaper price. But the but those commodity, those commodity farmers do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's let's talk about pricing here, cause this, this is one of the things that, uh, with inflation, with what has happened, you know, over the course since COVID, what's been interesting to watch from the outside? I don't, I don't know the answer to this question. That's why, that's why I'm asking you. It seems like prices have become closer than they've ever been, like like it was a very big deal to pick up a peach that costs 75 cents five years ago from you at a farmer's market or whatever, right, as opposed to the 25 cent peach that was sitting at the grocery store. Well, now, now they're a dollar kind of everywhere.
Speaker 1:And because my wife and I go live out to Farmer's Market, it's our little Sunday date- and such great energy that goes on there, just kind of being in that space, just the process of buying a loan and know $15 that we spend. But the quality of the food is so dynamic. Now you know like there's there's very few really good produce houses here, the way they used to be when we grew up, like you'd go to Albertsons and get a good apple or something way back in the day, and now that that's actually a pretty hard thing to get. You know the lettuces really hide a lot of flavors so you're not going to really know the difference unless you're real picky about that. But when it comes to fruit it's the easiest spot to go.
Speaker 2:that's good, right right, right High sugar yeah.
Speaker 1:Because the flavor profiles are just different. Has that inflation? Clearly it's harmed you on on that end. Has that increased value in some way, though, to to these markets like do you find people reaching for your produce more because the variation maybe wasn't as much as it was, because it's all expensive now?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, no doubt Everything's expensive, food's expensive, but I will say this and I've always said this from when I started farming is that knowledge is power, and if you want to blindly go through life and buy random things and not educate yourself about food and how to cook, you can spend a lot of money. Yeah, you know, if you really want to save money, if your goal is to save money like what's your goal you should be trying to save money on food, right? You should also be trying to eat healthy. Also be trying to eat healthy. To me, a dollar on ultra processed food is a dollar wasted, yeah, yeah. So where's that? Where's all the sugar drinks you drink? Or I mean everything? There's just so much garbage out there. So, to really be mindful about what you eat and educate yourself, if you shop at the farmer's market, this is what you do you start in day one and you're like where's the peaches? And the farmer says dude, it's December, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You think?
Speaker 2:this is chili or what. Learn your seasons, learn your seasonality of food. Eat what's in season. Why? Because if price is your goal, then when it's seasonal, everything's less expensive off season. That's why you know there's so many tomatoes being grown in Baja and Southern Mexico and everything and and and apples grown in Chile. Right, because they hit the US winter market. Yeah, it's out of season. Right, it's out of season. You know what happened to our begonia festival? Yeah, it's gone. They grow those in South America now. Yeah, you know we don't grow them anymore here.
Speaker 2:So if you know how to cook everything that's going to be at the farmer's market and you know you can follow all these veggies and fruits around the season, then you are going to have the power to make many more dishes. You, you know how to make each one of these things. So you like it. Because people like I don't like broccoli. Well, you probably never eaten broccoli the way my wife makes broccoli. It's freaking good and my kids grind it. You know what I mean. So you mean. So there's probably some really flavorless.
Speaker 2:Conventional broccoli tastes like garbage. They boil the crap out of it and put hollandaise sauce on. I don't know what people do, you know just something awful right, it doesn't taste good. You should enjoy broccoli, but you don't have to. There's a lot of choices. So I think the more you know, the more you know there's a lot of choices. So I think the more you know, the more you know um, where and when to buy stuff, how to buy stuff, shop later at the market for the deals, shop at this vendor, not that vendor. You know there's a lot that, the more you know the um and that just takes, you know, going around the sun and and kind of claiming your routine, because, as you know, when you go to farmer's markets, your routine, it's your ritual. You like to get your cup of coffee. You like to go get your bread here. You like to get this from this person, not from that person, not from. You know, you try, I've already tried over there, but I'm done. I like to go over here.
Speaker 2:You know when, the more you learn how to like what is that stuff over there? What's bok choy? How do people eat bok choy? Well, look it up. It's so easy to look up how to, how to cook stuff. You know, find stuff that you like, eat seasonally and I guarantee you the cost will be better. Yeah, you know, and and also I'm in santa cruz you have to swim through good produce to find bad produce. To be honest, like we live right behind whole foods and I look at their, I walk through. I don't, I don't buy a lot of produce there, but I walk through and I know that they are saturated. I can tell by their store that they're in a town that is saturated with good produce. Yeah, you know, and it's hard, it's hard to compete. I don't. I think a lot of you know they sell produce there, but they don't sell a lot of produce there because there's so much good, fresh produce in this town from the markets and and other you know, new leaves here.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's like yeah, yeah, it's part of the culture. It's an easy jump to to go to the farmer's market from whole foods, right, right, we? We let go of that once we started showing up to the market. Yeah, yeah, like, like it's it's gone, yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, eating low on the food chain, um, getting to know your grains I mean, that's one thing that I really dove into deep when I was a college student is um francie moore lape diet for a small planet. Um, she goes over all the grains, um all their protein content, um how to? And I'm like, at least I never heard of this stuff. We didn't eat that stuff, you know? And and learning what you like. Try things, figure out how.
Speaker 2:I mean there's cultures all over the world. They all have different microclimates and grow different things. This may be the same. Everybody grows tomatoes, but everybody grows a different tomato because it's the one that grows well in their area, that has actually been bred over generations to grow there. So, try all these different things. See what you like, make dishes you like, but learn whole grains. Yeah, you know whole grains are amazing and we have um. Get a rice cooker. Yeah, if you get a rice cooker and you get really good organic brown rice. I mean, costco has a great bag of brown rice. You know um whole foods, that's a little bit of brown rice. Whole Foods has a little bit of brown rice.
Speaker 2:But it makes a difference when you eat it. And you eat good brown rice, it's good food and it's a good base for a meal. I'm not saying eat brown rice and veggies every meal or whatever, but if you just have that around, you have a rice cooker that'll change your whole game. And I'm just talking about dollars, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, to make a big pot of rice and to use an electric rice cooker so that you just dump the stuff in there, you'll walk away and you come back later and it's on and you have nice, warm, perfectly cooked rice. Doing it on the stove top is that kind of a can be a hassle for a lot of people and it's something that I think people uh, end up steering away like once in a while. You know they've got a simmer, you know. I think if you can, if you can dial in, that you can really dial in. Um, just a really kind of great base for eating healthily and saving money.
Speaker 1:yeah yeah, you know, because I, you know, on my personal path, I got long COVID and it really changed the dynamic of my body. It was rough. So I'm sitting more keto side of things. I really have eliminated a lot of grains from my diet, mostly because I can't find good ones. That's been the primary problem. But rice is a safety net for me. I do eat a lot of rice now but, you know, paying attention to your body and how it feels, I didn't realize I never felt good after I ate.
Speaker 1:My whole life I haven't felt good. You know, and and you know when I was so sick with COVID for you know the couple of years that I was and everything that happened. You know going to this diet that seems so extreme, you know where, where. You know for me it worked. You know, you know, getting on the red meat side, staying in a safe zone, get a temperature for feeling good, I'd never felt good before. You know, like, like I'm telling you people like you have to feel good first to know what it feels like. But you have to examine what your body type is.
Speaker 1:But you know I'm eating red meat, my cholesterol is going all the way down, my blood pressure is down, I'm like what the hell? What kind of lie have we been living in? You know, all this time, and like it freaked me out a little bit. You know because you're seeing the ghost in the machine a little bit. This is a weird matrix of industry that I've been a part of and again, I'm not recommending my diet choice to anybody. But once I started feeling good, then I was I was no longer going to buy produce that I didn't trust, that I didn't know the farmer anymore, and it's not that everybody has the privilege that I live in. But, to your point, it was cheaper, like it's way cheaper, to eat the food that I'm eating. That's way more expensive than I would have spent in the grocery store. But guess where I'm not eating now? I'm not eating out.
Speaker 1:That's how that works, because I feel good when I'm done eating and whatever I eat is enough. Because I feel good, because I know when my body is operating right. I know it feels bad when it comes into my system. You know. This is, I think, the point you're trying to make in the middle of all this that, yeah, is my grocery bill more expensive? Yes, but my overall bill is not, and that's the truth of the matter. But you have to feel good first, to know what it is that is going in and out of your system. Yeah, you know, and what's affecting you, what way.
Speaker 2:And taking the time for yourself, yeah, to really feel that I think eating healthily is not just about what you're eating, but also what you're not eating. It's both right. So stop eating the garbage and start eating stuff that's good. And body awareness everybody's different, you know, and that's one thing that's kind of fun being doing. What I do selling organic veggies is that I've seen everybody's diet like all these every, you know, vegan, vegetarian, carnivore, whatever.
Speaker 2:People often eat veggies. People often come to me with all the different kind of you know, conscious eating. You know they're they're trying to, and everybody's on a different part of their path when it comes to food and food awareness, right, and their body awareness. And so you know why people, why people come to my stall and buy my produce. It's all different and where they are along their past path is all different. But I feel like a lot of people come to the farmer's market because they're at some level of of growing their awareness about food and their body. And you know people want to be healthy, people want to eat well, people want to eat delicious things, people, you know there's a lot of different reasons and, uh, it's usually you're throwing some, some veggies in there, you know. So it's cool because I can see, even in my house, you know, I have a 11 year old vegetarian and then my 16 year old wrestler is like protein. You know he's like full in the full you you're gonna hurt yourself eating vegetarian.
Speaker 2:You know you need some red meat, you know, and they're, and they're both right in my opinion. I see them both being right and they're both super healthy. You know, and I love that my 16 year old's like grilling all these proteins. I'm like let's go bro.
Speaker 1:I have full spectrum in my house like I'm a tip to tail.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, yeah, and the same with pearl vegan, yeah, vegetarian ish with a little bit of fish, you know yeah my daughter's into. Like I want to eat veggie stuff, I'm let's go man I love brown rice and broccoli yeah, let's.
Speaker 2:Do you want tofu? Let's start playing around with tofu and make it taste good so you enjoy it and and you want to eat it. You know not just like I have to not eat chicken and I have to substitute that with tofu and you're just having like some plain tofu or something you know and you you know what a bummer that would be, but you make it delicious and it's awesome. So it's a, it's a cool, um, that my kids are into my middle kids in the middle on that but the different journeys that people are on with food my middle kids in the middle on that but the different journeys that people are on with food, you know, I think the more more you know, the more you learn. The more you put time in, I think the better you know, the better off you are and that, hopefully, that, like like what you say, you start realizing like I quit drinking beer I was never a big beer drinker, but I would, you know, from here to here, every once in a while and stuff, and then and then you know 13 years of jiu-jitsu, all the inflammation in my joints.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really, uh, recently went down kind of a wormhole of trying to figure out how do you get rid of this inflammation? Maybe I can't, you know, and so I'm just trying everything and, man, I drop beer and I'll tell you, uh, I mean, that's a serious inflammation, drinking, you know, and and I'm like I said, I've never been a heavy drinker or anything, but every once in a while and I, man, as soon as I stopped, wow, I'm like I do not crave, like I miss the friends that I would gather and hang, you know, with, but I don't miss putting alcohol in my body. I don't, I don't crave it at all, because I now associate it just like eating good food. I want to be healthy. I'm going to feel like you said. You know, I like that. I want to get back to that feeling of my body feeling good, you know, and I know that, oh, you drink a beer and you're like I'm kind of relaxed and then the next day you're like you're crippled.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it just helps you along your way, yeah, yeah well, um, as we close out here, we've almost gone two hours today. It's fun, uh, you know what drives you. You know like what? What? What is it that when you wake up in the morning, you're just like, yeah, this is it today's today. You know what's the thing that that gets you out there still grinding. It's a big grind. What you do, yeah, uh, what's the thing that really is sitting in your motivation path right now?
Speaker 2:it's my kids yeah, yeah, got three of them 16, 13, 11, um. I don't desire that any of them be farmers, but I want them to know about it. You know, and they already do. I mean, they've grown up around it and I think that's really important. But I just I'm really focused on what I can do to support them and turn them into good people, you know, help them along their path of becoming amazing people. They already are. But you know, I just want to be a supportive dad and play that role.
Speaker 2:It's it's the best, funnest thing to me, and I'm glad I'm at a point now with my business, with farming, that I don't have to be the guy on the tractor every day. You know we're out in the field every day. I'm much more of a manager and so I get a. I get to go to wrestling matches and surf comps and basketball games and, you know, hang out with my kids a lot. I mean, I think that's that's um. That's the biggest motivation to do what I'm doing. And a good metaphor for why I'm a farmer is you know, let's go seven generations. That's how we should be planning. You know what's it going to be like here in Santa Cruz in seven generations, and let's act today as though that's the plan and that's what we're working towards right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know I really I cannot say this enough to people the level of hopelessness that we are passing on to our children by all the messaging. You know whether. You know I like to believe I'm environmentalist and that I do the right things and I'm there for people. But, like the caustic the world's going to end thing, when we really have no control, dismisses the real conversation, which is what you just listened to that there's an economy. That is really the thing in play. You know, and put away the nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1:Stop thinking you can do anything about Russia and Ukraine or China or whatever else, but focus on the economy of scale of the future. What will it mean for our kids to inherit the planet when they do Controlling the things you can? We had this very simple thing because there is going to be a future in some way. We had this very simple thing because there is going to be a future in some way. And if we're all distracted and not doing the right thing while we can, we're missing the point. You know, because the point is the same thing. You know I tell my kids all the time you're doing a great job, you're actually going to fix the bullshit. You know, because you've been watching us in the middle of the bullshit and you're not having, you're talking to yourselves.
Speaker 1:I can tell about what a bunch of bullshit we've involved ourselves in calling an economy, but the reality is like there's right choices that that can be made. Now, you know, I don't know, it seems like for you too, it's like just preparing your kids for those right choices, you know, when they appear as as the veil, I think is kind of being pulled down on all of it. You know, you, you, you know we can go Democrat, republican here toe to toe, like they've all been lying about whatever they're lying about, and it's been because of money. And as a liberal Democrat, you know, I, I I'm punching my fellow Democrats in the face more than punching Trump in the face, cause, whatever you know, that guy is who he is. But you know we need to change. You know like it's up to us and it's really nice to hear that you sound hopeful.
Speaker 2:That's good. That's good for you to tell me that I sound hopeful, because, yes, I get down to yeah, I mean, I get pretty, um, pessimistic but um, but yeah, I think that, um, I would love to pass the torch of trying to do this farm thing to to next people and and luckily I've been able to bring people in and as they are on their journey to do this, you know, that's kind of cool. I think that's my ultimate goal, other than, you know, not to necessarily have a farm that exists in perpetuity. You know, it's like to spread it, like I'm just a drop in the bucket of people trying to do this kind of stuff and so, but the more there are, the more influence and the more exposure.
Speaker 2:If you're not exposed to this stuff, then you don't know about it. You know, and, and it's really kind of, it's a, it's a worthy endeavor to be more conscious about your food and and to try to make better the world we live in. Yeah, you don't. You know it's, to a certain point, right, we still got to go out and get our waves, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, you know, we do live, we got, you got to have some self care in there for sure. Go get beat up, otherwise it doesn't work. Yeah Well, go get beat up.
Speaker 2:Hope not.
Speaker 1:I do nothing but get beat up, joe. That's, that's, that's why I'm getting so good, as you just let it, but I only fight my friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I don't fight. Hopefully they're all friends, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, joe, uh, really thanks so much for coming on the show. Um, you know I I hope you can see how much I love you. Yeah, it's been great to have you in my life over the course of years. But but thank you, for I think it's an important conversation. I want to talk to you We'll talk water wars next time, yes and how ventures and big corporations have moved into California and they were just going for water people. The swap is happening right now, yep and uh. Anyways, joe, thanks for coming on the show Awesome.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me All right. Good to be here, buddy.
Speaker 1:Anyways uh.