The Global Stewardship Podcast

Saving Heirloom Grains with Greg Johnsman

• Hannah • Episode 2

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Greg Johnsman is the founder of Marsh Hen Mill in Edisto, South Carolina! Persevering through hurricanes and seed saving struggles, he and his team of growers across the Low Country are preserving heirloom crops that many Southerners and Appalachians cherish. Marsh Hen Mill

Notes from the podcast:

Hannah references the WWOOF program where she hosts volunteers from.

I would love it if you could just imagine with me for a second. Imagine that you've been handed a little bit of seed, the little bit that remains of an heirloom crop that's headed towards extinction, and you decide to go for it and take a leap of faith and plant almost all of it. That's literally what our guest today has done on multiple occasions. Actually, I would say that they do that year after year, season after season. My guest today is Greg Johns man, and I'm so beyond excited and honored to have him on the podcast today. He's the brain behind a company called Marsh Hand Mill, which is actually based out of South Carolina here, just like mine in the United States, and I'm familiar with their products. I've been a big fan for a while, but after this podcast and after now visiting them at their operation, I am a full-fledged big fan marsh and mill lover, and I think that this podcast will convince you as well. They're doing some really incredible things to preserve heirloom crops my favorite are, obviously they're grits, If you don't know what grits are or if you think you don't like them, you have not been to the real south and you definitely haven't tried my grits. So this is your open invitation to come to our farm. You can volunteer as a wooer and I will make you the best grits of your life. but even if you don't love grits, this is still the podcast for you. Because they grow so many other things. I'll just start listing off examples. First of all, Carolina Gold Rice, Charleston Gold Rice, they grow this beautiful unicorn corn meal where I can make pink and purple delicious cornbread that have just a really unique, rich flavor. Same with Sea Island Blue. They have sea island blue grits. So really, really dark, delicious blue grits. And also cornmeal for that too. Guinea, flint grits, Jimmy Red grits. These heirloom grits that they've preserved that literally almost faded out of existence. Polenta, sea Island, red Peas, They're right now trying to restore their stash of Carolina conch peas, which I absolutely love and miss. And because so many of their crops are unique, they're having to be super flexible and adapt to the circumstances. Create new kinds of machinery. Or in one case, I was on their operation and saw that they have machines literally from Japan with writing in Japanese that they can't actually read, but they've had to figure them out because this is the only machine that works for their rice in the whole world. And the mills that they use like to make your grits and to make your corn meal are from the seventies. The reason I bring up the older equipment is because what they're doing is super unique, and I've actually never experienced or seen anybody else in the world doing what they're doing to preserve these crops. I absolutely love hearing Greg's heart behind why they keep doing this and why they want to keep preserving these foods. So let's just jump right in. Welcome to the Global Stewardship Podcast.

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Can you help set the scene for listeners so they can better imagine what your farm looks like? You're right outside of the beautiful historic Charleston downtown, but you're on a barrier island. A lot of people may not even know what that is. They might think beaches and oats when they think of the east coast, but can you kind of share more about what your fields look like and give them an idea so they can picture it? Yeah, that's a really interesting question. So to kind of start there, I didn't grow up on the coast of South Carolina. I was raised in the upstate of South Carolina. And, when, Uh, my flaw was alive, he was a very large commercial tomato farmer. And I got an aspect of farming that's so different than anything I'd ever seen before. You know, he showed me on the coastal region is one thing. Being on a barrier island is the next, what, what a barrier island is, is just that it's a physical barrier. It's, it's the islands on the outside. So to paint the picture is it was a family farm and it's we are really a processor and I'm a network of knowledge to groups of farmers that grow for us now. Explaining the coastal region is we started growing everything. And as the progression of relationships with chefs and getting entrusted with seed we had three hurricanes back to back. That knocked us out almost completely.

Wow. Yeah, that adds just a whole other element to all that you have to work with in farming.

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The thing about it is, is when I was growing heirloom, vegetables, a lot of tomatoes and other stuff, you have such a short window and then you have to worry about the berry islands with the storms and all. So what's magical is there's a frost barrier the Sea Islands have, the water temperature creates the ability to grow stuff in a season. Back in the day when, when vegetables were kind of king around here, there was this magical six week window, well, it, it shrunk with so many things, just change the temperature. People developed, frost barrier, and, and early onset plants. So that market window closed. With grains we can process and sell year round. There's a lot of tricks with humidity and keeping in storage. But grains gave me the ability to sell something year round and keep a customer base going instead of a six week window. But the Barrier Islands created the blessing of, I don't have competition for these open pollinated crops. But then the downside is the storms knocked us out. So what I ended up doing over time is a network of people that have come forward to me when they needed to extend their family farm, but already had the equipment and stuff and, um, cotton farmers, peanut farmers, all different. And now we're able to help other farms kind of move forward in what we're doing. The Berry Islands have such a beauty to it, but it has just as many problems. And it's being developed because of the beautiful coastline. So to farm in this region is getting harder and harder. To do. So we rely on leases and families that have property that they want to continue to keep ag status and keep it from being developed, you know, so it's kind of hidden little places that people don't get to see that I get a chance to see.

that's pretty incredible. First of all, just what a great business model to be able to support these other farmers and help them extend their seasons while also bringing more food security to these specialty crops that you grow. That is just so genius and so cool. And I also think it's just so special that you have this opportunity to experience these parts of the low country that still remain. Honestly, it's so hard to come by. You know, farmland is vanishing by the day in that area, and listeners certainly may not understand, but it's selling for millions, and so it's truly really special to be able to see you continue this legacy of growers in the precious low country of the United States. Are all of the farmers that you partner with, are they all mostly located in that same general area?

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So it's pretty exciting We're getting a nice little pocket just inland enough, but still close to proximity that I can get a lot of stuff what ended up happening is once you convince one farmer he's introduced me to other farmers and last year as an example, we had to harvest corn extremely quick because the storm was coming. So he called another farmer. That farmer brought a very new piece of equipment that what we would've done with our old combine would've taken a week. He got done in less than a day. But with that said, that farmer was a big hay, uh, grower and, uh, armyworms last year literally decimated his whole crop. So the reason I tell you that story is now that farmer's more willing to kinda maybe switch some acreage over to us. So right as we work with farmers and people help us and we help them, it kind of grows the story. Uh, I've got a fresh pea grower up there that's in his rotation. Growing a lot of our peas and stuff, so our peas and rye and other crops fixate nitrogen. So over the years, a lot of what we grew was not for harvest, it was to help the soil. So also we can help amend some of the soils for these, different farmers, but in return, give them a reward of some financial money because we had the ability to sell some of the crops. I more recently have taken on two partners, and their, their focus is to me, which is very hard for me to do. Is, Greg, you need to do what you need to do. Let the one brothers is kind of overseeing the sales. The other brother is overseeing the day-to-day operations and it's helping out that I can kind of work with these farmers and special projects. So we're all trying to find our place, work together. It's, it's not a, a true handshake agreement, but I do everything I can to make sure that we can all work together and we have hard years and, we talked earlier about a storm coming through last night, you know, this is mm-hmm. We have an experimental seed, um, bed in, which is very a big project right now for me, helping save Carolina Gold Rice, but. We had eight inches of rain on it and we're concerned if that one field's gonna come up or if we're gonna have to replant it again. I mean, yeah, you don't have these conversations. You don't talk about the pitfalls. It's a trust level and trying to find who is like-minded.

Just a side note for the listeners, this was added in later. Something exciting that I saw is that the field of Carolina Gold Rice that Greg is talking about here actually did Sprout and so they didn't have to replant it. That's super key, and as we'll go through this conversation, you'll start to realize like how truly difficult it is for. Them to plant these crops year after year with all of these risks, knowing that they're some of the only people in the world who still grow these heirloom varieties. And so that was super exciting for me to scroll and see that picture pull up on my feed.

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And when you're dealing with food, it's different than just growing a commercial, um, grain crop. And I'll tell you, the people, the families that we work with, what they have to do, it's so much extra work what I mean is you have to clean all the equipment. You can't just harvest one crop to the next, you know, to mix up the seed. So it's a lot of extra work. So if we can start with. A family that sees the vision, that over time people start watching and are intrigued and then others might come along. And that's how we kind of grow. Yeah. That's beautiful. I didn't even realize that you guys were expanding into that kind of network. It's sounds like, farmers are able to diversify, which is always huge. But then for them also to find the, the passion slowly that, that you have for this is really pretty amazing. It seems like super mutually beneficial. It is. Years ago there was a very interesting study done in kind of the western, uh, Asheville area of North Carolina and. It really has made me rethink a lot of things. So, as a young man, I focused on the processing side my flaw, owned all the equipment. And if you don't have a benefit like that in farming, it's so hard to get into because the equipment alone is so expensive. When you get into acreage, I mean, combines aren't a couple dollars, you know, they're hundreds of thousands of dollars. And when you go into rice, you might have to have tracks and you have to have all this stuff, a different, a stripper header, all these different pieces to make it work. But what I'm getting at is they found in North Carolina that the farms there had knowledge, the people, the equipment, but they didn't have the market. So they worked really hard in sectors to say, okay. These resources have the ability, you know, with the land to, to have, a cell barn for cows. So the state or other entities came in and then that region was repopulated with farmers learning a new part of farming, but then they had an ability to market their product. Well, they thought about the same thing on the coastal of South Carolina. There was such an interest with young farmers. And the young farmers had no equipment, no experience and no land, but they just had the initiative that they wanted to grow. By knowing that model, I want to incentivize and help as many young farmers, but it's very difficult, you know, because they don't have the, they don't have the extra benefits of the knowledge, the land or the equipment. So to get these families back in a new direction, knowing that really helps me out as much as helps them out. Of course, we wanna see new people start growing and we got some young ones that are doing small plots and hopefully they can grow into something. But you know, you gotta kind of entrust your day to day with people that can continue the business and then we hope others will come into it. So that model outta Asheville area really help me kind of see how we can help people, how we can grow effectively, and how we can work together and be realistic about it. It's not to get rid of anybody's dreams and passions, it's just you gotta figure out ways to partner and, and make sure, you know, we do lose crops and we, and that's the other reason of picking up multiple farms, is if one farm loses a crop, which is detrimental to them. We gotta, we gotta keep our customer base going on the product. So we try to figure out a way to spread out, you know, the problem and whatnot. That's super fascinating and you've been talking kind of about all of the equipment and I actually, I pulled everybody online and asked like, did you realize that rice was grown in the United States? And so many people said no. Like over 50% of everybody said no. And these are, these are farmers. I have a farming audience. And for people who are small scale farmers or vegetable farmers, cattle farmers, to not realize that rice is grown in the US was so mind blowing. It kind of led me to, to wonder if, if you guys are using the same equipment as people, in the Arkansas, Mississippi, Delta area and kind of how that's looked for you and, and your group of farmers, there is a lot of similarities to Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas. I was just in Louisiana because we're working very highly with lsus. It's the Rice Institute that research, the rotation in Arkansas, uh, soybeans is their rotation on rice ground. You can't continue to plant rice ground over and over and over. Right. You can't monocrop. And in seed of rice, there's something called Redding of rice. It's a, a weed seed and it's in the soil and you have to rotate. But if you have over a very small threshold, it's no good. So. Mm-hmm. What happened in Arkansas is soybeans got no money. They lost their shirts, so the main grower, had to close shop. um, created some of the seed shortages. So we've had to struggle to find who's gonna help us next and how we're gonna work together in these aspects. But rice, you know, rice is the largest grain crop in the world. And yes, people don't think of Texas and other places, but there is. Very large. And we rely on those states to grow the seed out. And we're not seed farmers and we're trying to now figure out how to grow seed. Seed and rice is really over my knowledge and I'm trying to learn as fast as I can. Corn, I select, I walk out in the field just like men and women before me. I mean, I'll give you an example. Neil's paymaster Mr. Neil, it's his last name. And you would go to a fair, and this is way back. They, you'd show off with the quality of corn or how much it could produce bushel wise, now there's still contests, but it's all hybrids and stuff. But people would hand select land raised varieties. They would pick the attributes, the traits they wanted. And that seemed really simple. And that's where you get, prolifics and pay masters and all this idea of. Getting more for your money when people name their corn, rice is not that way. Rice is, we have to keep the genetic strain of these heirloom varieties going. So there it gets complex, but there's breeder seed, there's foundation seed, there's certification seed, and all that is making sure there's no offshoots of any kind that isn't in the actual gene pool. And then keeping that strain alive and pure. And that's a very difficult thing. So with, with a project I'm working on right now in 2025 on Carolina Gold Rice seed, we're looking at 2029 before we're, it's not that we're safe, it's just we're in the right stream as a group of farmers and it's a very difficult thing it's just people don't know the regions and what's going on and, the other exciting thing for your listeners to consider and think about is, I've got friends in Maryland and all that are raising rice, and some of it is not flooded, you know, flooded. Is this, um, elusive thought that rice only grows in water. Flooding, is for two purposes. Uh, one is to keep weed pressure down. It kills all the weeds other than the rice. And the second is at certain rice crops and at certain times they're flooded so that the birds and wildlife will not peck the seeds out of the ground to keep the rice growing. But that's the purpose of flooding. But I say that because Maryland and other places are doing SRI Highland Rice, where they're not flooding rice at all. They're cultivating, they're doing other things that are growing highland rice. So rice can grow in all different habitats and there's so many different varietals of rice too to consider. Wow, that's so fascinating. With rice being grown in different parts of the us you know, I'm, I really value what you guys are doing. I want you to be so successful because I eat your grains weekly. I just am obsessed with Marsha and Mill and I have kind of had the concern, and maybe you can ease my concern or not, but that, with other rice growers, especially these growers in other parts of the south that are, exporting large quantities out of the US and you know, like you said, it, it can't be monocrop, but maybe they don't have as strict growing standards as you do'cause they don't have such a specialty crop. Does that in any way compromise your crop or put you guys in what you're doing in danger? I understand what you're saying and I have really got a chance to meet a lot of rice growers and these men and women blow me away with years and generations in the seed business of keeping their land so beautiful for large production. Um, we're totally different. They look at us in all, we look at them mm-hmm. How can I explain that to you as this is, you know, you go in, um, the Delta region that are big into rice, it's, it's a totally different market. They have a program called a check program. They give a small amount of money per acre back to seed companies and to institutions to help develop. Newer varietals that are disease resistant to grow these large acres. It's a different scale than what we're doing, but they have the research. And even though we're not directly involved in that research, I need that help in that research to keep these old crops going. you know, I, some listers might be against kind of these large, um, growers, but we absolutely need'em. I was blessed. I met a gentleman in Louisiana, I think he said he's the third generation. They're, their ground probably isn't making as much money as what he'd like to see, but because they're set up so well for seed growing, they really can't change what they're doing. And he's like, how can you sell your rice at that cost? And it, in my eyes, it's laughable. It's like, do you know all the problems of Carolina Gold? First of all, it's so tall. Second of all, it lodges and breaks. When it breaks, you lose the crop. The yields are so low. It's so terrible compared to what they're growing and stuff. But why do we do it? I'm a flavor seeker and he's like, man, I'd like to be a flavor seeker. But where we live, we don't have the story of Carolina Gold. We don't have the market of Carolina Gold. And, and truthfully, there's only so many acres I can grow, uh, because it's such a small, All the growers of Carolina Gold could fit into one small, uh, field in these big fields. But we have different markets and we have different things. I can't, I can't provide this for everybody, but so, rice is such an interesting crop. But. The rice kitchen, which listeners need it here is the rice kitchen's such a beautiful thing in the south. And what the rice kitchen is, is the rice doesn't love high nitrogen corn loves high nitrogen. There's bottom grounds I can't plant on. There's peas that creates nitrogen. It's this biodynamic farm that we can grow all this, but you can't do that everywhere. Daylight sensitivity, all this stuff changes what you can and can't do. So we're blessed in this sector to help protect and hold hands with people before, but not everybody can do that. So I always wanna tell the listener, and it's important that in these rights, good and bad things I don't think we're gonna lose everything, but it's important for us to keep these farmers going and using the resources of everything we can and getting as much knowledge we're trying to find a way in, in our small market to keep things going. And to, to, to have a time to talk to you today helps you know that people kind of know the craziness. I've lost so much. But I've gained, so many people that we want to continue to work with. kind of where I was going with that was like, it is incredible. The technology that they have is just mind blowing and, certainly helps with things like adapting new varieties that are more powerful against different pests and diseases and everything. but like recently we've seen, especially in, for example, like cotton production farmers that no longer use those genetically modified crops or. Banana production, people are not able to cultivate the historic heirloom banana varieties anymore because the large scale production has gotten, they've had to use that technology to a certain point. And so it's made it really hard for the heirloom varieties to be resistant. And so I was just wondering if maybe in this part of the states, maybe you are enough geographically secluded that maybe you don't see any of that crossover, but was just wondering if that's something, or if you've had any experiences with trying to preserve a perfect corn seed and having any kind of cross pollination or anything because you guys do have a really unique product on the market. Yeah, I mean all that is true. All of it can happen. And with our mistakes. Continue. You take risks, but you also try to fix. Carolina Gold has taught us as a group, we had a couple people tell us, don't put all your eggs in one basket. And we did. And that perfect storm has created us that we're in business, but we don't have any extra to grow the business. But what we try to do with corn and all this stuff, um, is with my growers, we talk all the time about this and they get just as nervous. Mm-hmm. Actually, we get a lot more nervous than this conversation about this idea. So we're constantly thinking, okay, look, we need 50 acres of this corn. Let's plant 70. Okay. And then on top of that 70, what are we gonna have in reserves? We have stuff in the coolers. I do a lot of fun stuff. So weevils got outta control in South America. They used to use, phosphate gas. Phosphate gas just takes the oxygen out of a known area so you can keep weevil and everything off so you're not putting chemical on pure seed. Well, they actually got so accustomed to that, that they created a CO2 environment. And so we're doing those practices. We're not using chemicals. We're taking oxygen out to make sure that we can keep, germinations higher for longer period of times on some of the seed crop. We've got little hidden things. I'm constantly learning humidities temperatures storing. So my aspect to the farmers is that's the promise that I'm doing for them. I'm constantly working on stuff behind the scenes that no one's seeing and a lot of, it's kind of my little secrets in the aspect of that's how we can keep some of the seed alive. You know, we do have a network if we really mess up, but that network's gonna give us a handful of seed and we would not be in a production at all for any length of time. When I started with Jimmy Red, I got one of the three original ears from Ted shooting who had the seed crop. Sean Brock had some more, and we took a year when we both felt, we finally figured it out, and then we worked together to bring it back. But we had to keep enough in storage through that process. And so, oh, I'm sure yes, it's, it's scary and we can lose the crop at some times, but we do our best to have a reserve, um, to make sure that we can continue It's not perfect and, we're Las Vegas in the dirt. We throw all our money in the dirt and we hope and pray. So yeah, I, I'm not a gambler, but I know Jesus Christ. And, and, and I don't believe in luck because if you know who Jesus is, there's no such thing as luck. Mm-hmm. But my flaw when he was alive taught me what a vision is. And a vision is to see what you believe will be the crop before you start planting what it's gonna look like at the end. And then you kind of use all the variables to see if you can get it to that. So, the idea is, is to try to control as many variables and try to plan ahead. So that's the talks between all of us is to make sure we can do something to keep it going forward. Because as they commit, they don't have the option to wait five y years on more seed to grow out. You know, that I put that time in, I need their help to continue it. So we put in an extra acres, we put it in different fields. We might lose one, but if one farmer has lost something, another farmer is willing to give some seed and that can hurt them financially. But in the group, we're all kinda understanding that it benefits us all if we can all work together. And that's a hard thing. It sounds so simple, but farmers in general do not help in the aspect of give information. If you finally get the variety that's making you money or a window to sell, it's hard to give it to someone else. But yeah, we're all collectively trying to work together to betterment and, and make sure that we all can make a living. I, I love that. And I'm really happy to hear that you guys are building kind of like a succession plan to make sure that other farmers are in on this.'Cause it is something that, you need teamwork to keep this going. Listeners probably are not familiar you know, most of your crops are rare, but this is a special one that I would love to highlight. Can you tell us the story of that grain that you brought back from New Extinction? The Jimmy Red. Jimmy Red. Yeah. So Jimmy Red's kind of interesting story of any of'em. I literally started, early two thousands, I was already selling a bunch of vegetables to chefs and I was just getting into doing my own grits and cornmeal, and I kept hearing about, Jimmy Red and Jimmy Red, the name as a joke. So down here on the coast, there's John's Island and there's James Island, and there was always a joke that there was Jim Island. So that's where Jimmy Red's name originated from. So I've heard stories on corns and you try to see if they're local or not. Well, when you plant them. You find out very quickly daylight sensitivity, how the stalk is all this stuff, if it was a southern crop. And Jimmy Red, when I first got some seeds, started checking the boxes of, yes, it was a southern crop where originated, I can't tell exactly, this rare red corn and it doesn't normally transfer to the color when you're milling. But it was a hooch corn. A moonshine corn. I don't see as much of that, on the coastal region as I did in the upstate, in the mountains of kind of make and shine there. There's people here, but it wasn't as prevalent. So it intrigued me, but where the story gets very interesting is this. I say to my father in-law, he's wide open in a commercial, uh, vegetable business. I said, really want to try to find someone this Jimmy Red Corn? And I said, they keep naming this guy named Ted Truing. And he said, Ted Truing. He said, he sits in the row behind us or in front of us in church. And I said, nah, I can't be, it can't be the same guy. So literally in church, no way in in church. I said, are you the TED tuning that grows Jimmy Red? And he said, well, yes, Greg. And, and then the next day, his wife and him drove out to Edo and put a, put a ear, you know, I didn't even know they were coming. And they, they put a full cob of corn in my hand. Wow. And I was blown away with the gesture of the time he spent, he was trying desperately, uh, as a seedsman, not as, not as a miller. He never even milled the corn. He just saw it as this beauty. And it was beauty, to look at and, sean Brock was a very prominent chef in town. I was working very hand in hand with him on different, uh, vegetable crops and he had it as well from Ted. And we started talking and I was getting more into milling and, I said, well, Ted brought me some corn and I'm gonna mill some. And so we started playing the next couple years. And the, the nuttiness I've never seen, it's, it's not the color, the, the, the nuttiness, the oil content I've never seen in another corn. Well, the milling. Side finding the beauty in it and milling separated us and then one year, four or five, somewhere in there years in I finally felt it was time to make it a commercial crop that I wanted to put it on the market. So I went to Sean Brock in particular. I said, I got enough seed, but I need a lot. And I said, I need everything you got. And he laughed in his laugh that he has a very famous laugh. I, said, I need it. And he looked at me, he said, I understand. Let's do it. So he kept a little bit in reserves, but we took a very big hard risk that year. Wow. And we planted a very large crop, able to put seed back in for seed selection, but also able to finally make it where we could go into a milling cycle to bring it on a larger scale. There's so much more to it, but there's a lot of friendship fellowship in there and there's a lot of problems. Jimmy Red, I've seen ears set for your listeners to understand. I'm talking about where the ears sets on the stalk. I've seen ears set at six, seven feet tall, eight feet tall, and the stalks could be 12 feet plus tall. So we've lost full crops, doing it on a small scale is one thing, but doing it on on a big scale is a lot different. can you explain, uh, where the corn is set and what that means to you for people who don't grow corn? So, when I think modern corns, people get sweet corns, you cannot mill. Sweet corns were developed in the late forties, early fifties, as a modern corn for the sweet taste. Dead corns. Flint corns are, there's flour corns, there's all different families corns, but Dent and Flint are, and Jimmy Red's and the Dent family. It dents in when it dries down, but on a stalk of corn, an ear is, you know, where you pull the shuck back and, and that's where the ears produced. We let it naturally dry down in the field. They actually hang kind of upside down as they dry, and we need the moisture out before we use a combine. But interesting harvesting corn that tall has so many problems with equipment. Equipment is not set up to harvest stuff with that much stalk matter down here in the deep size. You get morning glory and other stuff in that crop. It'll choke your combine down. So it's hard to keep a, a crop that tall and big, clean winds, uh, tornadoes, hurricanes, we've seen it all. Yeah, I'm sure. so it genetically original strains of corn. I'm talking, we've got a flint corn outta Cuban, early 15 hundreds. But where you see the pollination on the top of the stalk, you'll see original genes come out in there in these early varieties.'cause you'll actually see kernels of corn develop up there, which is not what you'll see on modern strains. But old heirloom strains is an easy, quick way to kind of see how old it is. And you know, Jimmy Red somewhere in the late 18 hundreds, but there's so many varietals. We work with our strong suits, kind late 18 hundreds on these varieties and stuff, and. It's not to be taken lightly. And it's, it's an amazing thing that we can bring it into the market to have with you and other people. You know, when you have a handful of seed raccoons and all can decimate it in one night, you know? Wow. So it's, it's, it's such a hard thing. We're, we're past that point that we have enough, but you lose some every year. So when you're in a handful of seed, it gets hard to maintain a crop like that. But it's pretty exciting. And so many people have worked so hard through the process. There's distillers, there's different strains, the parent crop from my understanding is called Appalachian Red. And outta Appalachian red came Jimmy Red and Bloody Butcher. So those strains have kind of changed to how people selected in that varietal ours has a yellow undertone, the yellow undertone, and the oils and sugars create this beautiful bloody butcher kind of has like a stained glass wind of all different reds. Jimmy Red just has a solid red, but there's occasional yellow kernel. I'm talking like in a hundred years there'll be one yellow kernel. What's so cool about that is to tell you how you look at genetics and stuff. Old corns is I or, or out those yellow kernels. And I was like, cool, I'm gonna make my own varietal of corn. Call it Jimmy Yellow. Well, when we planted a five acre field after saving the seed over years, it threw back to red. So it genetically threw back to the, so the yellow went back to the red. So you kinda look at all different oddities and see what's available and what you can and can't do. Yeah. That is so incredible. I have tried all of your products at least on the market, and I find that even amongst, you know, quote unquote similar ones, like we have customers come in and they'll say, oh, well I'm not that familiar with grits. Like, just tell me which one to get. I'm like, well, what do you like? They all have such unique notes and flavors and depth, you know, these are not just the same, these aren't the same grits. It's uh, they have such an authenticity and taste of place that I feel like much of our food in America in the world really is becoming less and less tasty in that way. And I think that's so unique about you guys. well that's, that, that's the thrust. You do eat with your eyes that it needs to be a pleasant color. I dabbled so many years in heirloom vegetables and I spent every winter laying in bed reading seed catalogs and dreaming of growing stuff. And then you grow out your first purple okra, you grow out your first purple pole beans, and then the first thing you do is you cook it and it goes this nasty army green. And it's like all the beauty of your eyes is gone. There's, there's techniques of pickling that you can try to keep it or eat it raw. But what I'm saying is between the chefs saying, please come in and eat dinner. And I was like, I don't have time. I gotta work. But they're like, no, you need to come in. What they weren't asking me as a favor, they were trying to show me why they want it picked a certain way or what it needs to text or what it visually needs to look like. And those men and women have taught me so much and I try to listen and use that network it's families and people I trust and we, we'll, we'll grow out a, uh, corn. And then I send samples out and then I'm like, is this it? Is this something you would ever use? And they're like, well, we already like this. I'm like, I know that, but would you ever use this for another dish? Hmm. And, we get feedback back and then we decide, you know, is it something we can do? We're constantly on the hunt. Um, Selina flower is really on my mind right now because, selina flower is getting such a negative thing with glyphosate, and I want to see if we can help that long term. And that's gonna be a huge network. I want a risotto. Rice, there's such a need for a good risotto, rice, and the stickiness is important. And, and looking at varietals that could help us. So. I'm constantly thinking of flavor and constantly listening to people. And then how does it help us? So does that help the network of farmers? Did I just find a crop that can help somebody else in the network? Um, no. Yes. And the flavors fit in there. And I don't know if we'll ever find another varietal of corn to add to the repertoire, but the idea is just a flavor. You know, blue is very earthy and floral pink. The unicorn is really creamy, soft, and that's flavor. It's amazing type. And then, you know, Jimmy Red's nutty, there's, there's different corns. Guinea, flint I love. It's a dark horse. It's, it's just, um, it's this robust, it's toothy, it's real St. Stove top stuffing. And, and, and so you give those notes to who we work with, and then they find a way to make a dish and then they surprise me so, flavor is so important to me and, and it's the only reason that people wanna buy these crops. I mean, glass Gem, one of the most beautiful corns in the whole world. It was developed for the beauty, but from a milling standpoint, it was one of the most disgusting corns because it was bred for beauty, but the flavor is not there at all. So I, grow varieties like that, and I love varieties like that, but it doesn't help me at all. Right. So would you say that flavor is your, ultimate goal? I've been wondering, why specifically is it important to you to preserve these heirloom varieties, would you say flavor? I think a younger man would've said absolutely to make the sale. But I'll tell you, the Miller that taught me, Mr. Brock, his daddy was a minister. The only reason that they milled was to get in the front door so they could spread God's word. And for me, the older I get and the more mistakes and the people I meet, I don't have any other, I've lost so much and I have no other reason to be here, but to try to give some glory for what we're supposed to be doing and, and bringing these families together as growers is that it's our fellowship. It's, it's all that. So for me, my whole point of finding flavor for finding this is not only to keep the business moving ahead, that we can help the next person, but it's that we can gather and feel blessed for what we've been given. And that's, that's the story that I want to tell. And my new business partners feel that way too. And it's so exciting to have somebody help make those decisions, that we can continue to grow, in his image. And, um, it might not be for everybody, but I, I question anybody crazy enough to go down his venture and not have a faith. If you don't have a faith, ain't no way you can farm. My, my father-in-law left me with a story the day I wanted to be, per se, a farmer and have my own business. And he said, son, are you prepared to get on your knees and thank God for a total loss? And I said, no, sir. And he said, then you're not ready to be a farmer. And I've told the story a million times and I still hear it myself, and I'm still not prepared for a total loss. And his point is, he had a, hailstorm, knocked him out in less than a day, his com commercial crop. And he is able to realize that God had something else he wanted him to do. That is the strongest man I know. And anybody that knew him would, would say the same. I'm not that strong. I have my faults, my weaknesses, and I just, I try to rely on a lot of people to help me through those situations. But those stories, I'm hoping it's shaping me to be a better man and a better person that we can kind of be the conservation and kind of find our way. But flavor's important, but the network, the blessings is the most important to me. Yeah. I've definitely seen, with especially your, your crops in the south, the way that it just brings people together in a really unique way. It's definitely the heritage piece and the tradition, but, it just, it like reminds people of that there's something, there's just more depth to life, and I think that's really beautiful. But it's also this legacy, like we are called to, biblically to leave an inheritance. And I feel like this is just an incredible inheritance to leave and to work towards, preserving. I agree. I agree. And, Mr. Brock had three boys. They valued him, they helped anything he needed, and they were the fourth generation. And they took me in as a, the fourth brother and let me be part of it. And you don't know who is gonna pass on the knowledge to, so it doesn't need to be hid in that aspect. It's how you can work together. So that's, that's what the Brocks taught me. The sons, you know, it means so much that they were willing to listen, to let me be part of it and continue to, and they gave me the compliment that, it's hard, it's emotional that. I'm completing what their dad wanted to do, you know, and they're so proud of it because of it. So it means a lot to me, to be blessed. Um, and so many of us, including me, forget our blessings. We're so caught up in the rat race every day that we forget, um, just what we have, you know? Yeah, definitely. But you've been in the soil, in the, in, you know, in the dirt and, everything seems you got control under it, and it's, it's crazy how fast everything can turn away from you. Yeah. It is a very humbling occupation. Absolutely. You realize how little is actually in your control. I, I'll tell you, I'll tell you one that the listeners need to hear. In my arrogance and my pompous attitude, the first hurricane. Up until then, nobody, nobody. I, I was too strong-willed as a young man, and I was an arrogant little. I thought I knew everything and nobody could tell me anything, and I, I didn't have a loss. But I'll tell you, when that hurricane hit, we were fortunate enough, we lost, you know, I don't know, 60, 70, 80% of all our crops, but I still could go forward. My fall loss still had a business. So I always was arrogant in the aspect of I knew I had something else I could do. Well that was taken from me later when his farm kind of closed. But what I'm getting at is, what I was blown away with was people I don't even know to this day that were calling me on that first hurricane. How can we help you? Wow. Yeah. What do you need? Is your equipment okay? I had people that knew I had a mill, didn't even know me, and they're like, I know somebody that has a meal. Do we need to send something to you to keep you going? It is the most humbling experience. And I still was too arrogant to accept all the help. And now I just thank every single person that's willing to do it because yeah, it takes, it takes everybody in this situation. And I would love, I would love to be arrogant and put myself in the spotlight, but I represent so many people and so many families that count on a decision that I make. And it's more important now to, I'm a loud mouth, I'm a talker and I need to be honest with them and, tell them the concerns and how we need to move forward so I can kind of represent everybody. And, and that's the blessing now is trying to understand that, my thoughts and dreams and so many people, I think the confidence got the cockiness in it was that people said, you can't make a living doing that. And, and I took that and ran with it and, and that was great at first, but it, it pushed some people away and hurt some people. So. It's a matter of, you know, there's a lot of people are proud of what I've done, but I just want your listeners to understand, I am just one pawn in this big, you know, cog, I, I sit on a lot of information from a lot of men and women that have passed on milling, but I still lack a lot of information. You know, growing seed out for rice has taught me how little I know and to be, to be arrogant and say, I understand, I don't, and, and I'm trying desperately to just what do I need to do? How can I help? I understand this. I don't get this. And how, how can we all work together better for the common good? The most exciting thing is my seed grower lives on Mila Island where his family was in rice growing for generations, and his son just graduated college and he's looking at how he can get the farm back up and going in a new direction with a new generation. So it's so cool that we can kind of put all these. Things together again and begin this process and a friendship and a fellowship over time. that's amazing. And of course, you know, I've been to these islands so I can picture it and see it coming back to life in my mind. And I'm definitely gonna have to share photos and videos along with this podcast so others can kind of see that beauty. You know, every farmer obviously has barriers and, things that are subject to happen with weather and everything, but you do have some unique barriers that other farmers don't. I mean, even with the complexity of seed saving or, there's fewer and fewer people now who know how to even restore your stone ground mills, you mentioned, your faith. you know, this, this could be a really weighty, stressful thing. How do you stay sane? Like where do you go to stay sane in all of the things that are subject to happen? It's, um, it's family. And family isn't just what God put together as blood. It's, it's all the people. I have lost a lot recently and what I've learned is, is that you have to have the voice to ask for help. Nobody actually knows if you need help from depression, anxiety, stress, or what if you're not willing to voice. But on the same aspect, I had a great friend, I was going through such a hard time, and um, and the friend says to me, he said, Hey, uh, are you gonna come visit me? And I said, I have absolutely no time. And this is important, I, I'll never forget this day. He said, if you continue to not make time for your friends, you'll not have friends. He was always willing to listen to me, but I wasn't willing to listen to him. And, and he had just as many issues and problems in his life as I did. So it's stopping to realize first to ask for help and then be able to also realize that they took their time. You need to give that time too. It's just beginning to learn. For me, I was a provider for my two boys. My dad did the same thing and there was nothing wrong with that. He was a great provider, but I'm learning to be a father for the first time and my boys are 11 and 15 and, um, you can't get that time back. And for me, I always wanted them to have everything, but I might not have always been present. And now. I, include'em in everything and try to make sure that they understand why I'm doing this and how can I do something for them and not overlook it. And I'm not perfect in that area by any stretch of imagination. There are men and women that knock me over the head and remind me, you're going down that path again. You know, you need to make sure and spend time with your boys. So it's not just for me anymore, you know? So, um, yeah, definitely that knowledge when I travel somewhere, I bring back and it helps us all. So it's, it's, um, different responsibilities. But learning to be humble isn't easy. And, um, for farmers especially That's right. Unique breed of people. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yes, yes. I, I'll tell you another funny one. One of my mentors s Limehouse, great farmer. He, he's like a father to me. He very early in my career, working with restaurants. He said, would you quit waiting? Would you walk in the front door and proudly take through? He said, you're, you're literally growing the best damn produce in low country kid. You are. He said, everybody knows it. Why are you going in the back door? He said, and I said, well, you're not supposed to. He said, I don't care what you're supposed to do, act like a farmer and show it off and. It was interesting that the chefs responded, and it's not that you do it all the time, but the chefs were excited to show people that they were supporting local. The chefs were excited to have that conversation. But I own a percentage in a couple restaurants and I have a lot of respect being in the industry of, what a chef is doing. And my business partner is a chef and he is taught me so much, uh, great friend. But to have that relationship and to understand. But s ade began me to understand that, you know, there is a little bit of notoriety that's needed, that they need as much as we do for all the time you put in. I find that this is a very common theme and thread for many farmers that I meet around the world. And some of us, we just get so like hyper fixated on our crop and what we're doing and stewarding the land that, socialization kind of goes out the window. Uh, but it's so crucial, especially for people who are more public facing like you. It's so crucial and it's so important for, especially people like you who are trying to preserve something really special and important to do that legwork that a lot of farmers, they would just much rather sit on the farm and look at their plants and keep things going and, and that's what I'm so excited. Some of my growers are exactly that way, that painting. the one I'm working with with Rice, he literally said, I can't create the market that you've created. I can't do that. Yeah. I can't create, I can't do that. So I'll let you do what you're good at. Let me do what I'm good at. that's kind of what we're trying to build up here in Rock Hill. We have a cooperative farm, so we have actually several farm businesses on this one property. And, trying to have a, that different mindset working together and a lot of farmers, it, it, it takes farmers sometimes a little bit of mental work to even consider working together in that way, but it's just so, it can be so mutually beneficial if people go for it, I would love to ask you a final question we haven't talked much about your childhood in, in your journey to get to this point in general. But, I think it would be really cool to hear what ha what, what is still the same, you were exposed to milling as a young boy. So much has changed and obviously you've grown so much on this journey and, the rice industry, the corn industry, everything is just so different than maybe when you were younger. But what, what kind of things are the same, like when you go out in the fields, out in nature, what is still the same and those kind of foundations. It's funny. I don't think anything's changed. I'm working backwards, not forwards. I'm trying to recreate what people already did. Yeah, nice. So it's, it's, for me, it's holding hands of the generation before and getting their knowledge and figuring out what we can do altogether. There's nothing that you can't plagiarize. Everything's already done, but been, been done before. So all I'm doing is helping retell the stories that people didn't get a chance to tell. Mm-hmm. That's beautiful. You are equipping farmers to grow these crops. Do you have somebody who is younger, who is just on fire for this and super passionate about kind of learning underneath you, and is there anybody that you're mentoring with the just wealth of knowledge that you have in that brain? I think the right person will come along when, when, when it's ready. We, we, we, we give as much knowledge to people as we can. I can't take anything with me. I'm a hoarder, I'm a collector, and you realize you can't take it all. So the right people will come forward. It was done before, you know, Mr. Brock, third generation Miller, his kids accepted me in and let me continue on. I don't know what the end game is, but I know I need to represent everybody and continue moving forward and the right person will present themselves. Yeah. That will make it clear. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Well, I am. so impressed with what you guys are doing and I love all of your products just so delicious. And they're so important to me. My family is from the south. And so to me it's like you are doing the work of preserving my heritage for me. And so, you know, it's just super impactful. I know that you hear that all the time, but it really is super incredible and it's something special that nobody else in the world is doing. So I feel really honored that you came on today to chat and, I'm super excited for other people to hear your story. I really appreciate the time and I always tell everybody I can't do this without your help. So I really appreciate you giving this ability and time to talk because. Without it, people won't have a chance. And this is what helps us. Mm-hmm restore the ability for people to trust us and buy things. And it supports so many and that's what I want everybody to understand is, it does support a lot and, and it's not getting any easier. we need as much help to move forward as possible.

Another huge thanks to Greg for doing what he's doing to preserve these heirloom crops. And thank you guys for listening all the way to the end. That matters a lot in this big wide world of podcasting. I'm really, really excited for next Tuesday because my guest will actually be one of my favorite people in the world, and she has lots of really great insights for us. So I'll see you next Tuesday.