Christina Woerner McInnis on Agriculture, Accountability, and Alabama Values

On this episode of The People’s Voice, Blair Castro and Thomas Jenkins sit down with Christina Woerner McInnis, a fifth-generation Baldwin County farmer, business owner, and candidate for Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries.

Raised in one of the state’s most established farming families and founder of AgriTech Corp, Christina brings both generational roots and modern innovation to the table. From protecting farmland and strengthening Alabama’s food supply to expanding opportunities for farmers and agribusiness, we talk directly about what she wants to change—and how she plans to do it.  

👉 Learn more: https://mcinnisforalabama.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, welcome to WFEZ TV, the People's Voice Podcast. I'm Blair Castro with Thomas Jenkins. And today we have a very special guest that I'm really excited about, Christina Warner McInnes, who's running for Commissioner of Agriculture here in the state of Alabama. Thank you to be here. Thank you. So we have, we've been actually highlighting farms here locally all over the county and some beyond. We have an interest now. We do a little mini documentaries on different ag issues and talking to a lot of farmers. So there's just a wide variety of issues and things that I'm sure we could ask about. But I think for the viewers, can you do a little synopsis of what your role as commissioner would do? Like what is the purpose of the ag commissioner?

SPEAKER_02 0:41

It's interesting because although it says ag commissioners, it's ag and industry. Okay. And so this office touches every Alabamian every day. The gas pumps, the grocery store, the public school cafeteria. I think the key is really to educate everyone on how this role, this office touches everyone, and farmers too, of course. It's critically important for farmers. So talking about that, every Alabamian is touched. But when you look at agriculture, which you spoke of, it is Alabama's number one industry. It is a 77.3 billion with a beat, billion dollar economic opportunity here for Alabama. And it's one out of 10 jobs.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

How do we keep it that way in Alabama?

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Okay, so here's what I've been taught. Okay. So as a business person, you look at your financial statement and you say, okay, where is your golden goose? Okay. Well, agricultures are golden goose. You have to protect it and you have to fight for it. And I, you know, I'm that I've been kind of nicknamed the smart girl with the five-point plan. I have had a five-point plan. I've been running on it for over a year. And let's talk about it. Let's talk about the farm bill. Number one, point one farm bill. So when I met with Secretary Brooke Rollins, she's the current National Ag Secretary over USCA. And she said, with every tough decision, I asked myself, is this good for the U.S. farm or is this good for our children? Okay. And why is that? 80% of the farm bill is SNAP. 80% of it. We have to put more farm back in the farm bill. And in doing so, do it where we take care of the most needy of our state and our children and our families in a way that they get healthier. And also we do it where the Alabama farmers are also participating in this process because right now the number one commodity is energy drinks and soda. So we're going to have to put the farm bill, more farm back in the farm bill. Number two, we really have to continue to stop China. Okay. Whenever you allow foreign companies or foreign countries to own your companies, to own your land, you suddenly realize that the hand that feeds you controls you. Okay. Absolutely. So we have four companies that process 85% of our meat. Two or four. One's China. One out of four hogs here in the United States is owned by China. They own 400,000 acres of our land. They're taking intellectual property out of projects we have. Continue to push back on China. Three, support the young farmers. So I have four children and I talk about this all the time. If we can't put that next generation into the field profitably and successfully with a path of sustainability, again, we'll go back to eating from the foreign hand. Okay. And then point four, how do we get this? So okay, we live in an area of tourism here. You understand it, right? They come down 29 and a half million visitors. They go down to the beach, they open their wallet, and they say, Here's my money, and they do it with a smile. And we have great school systems, great fire department, police department. But what happens is they come in the state and they go down the roads as fast as they can to get to the beach. We have to make them sticky. We have to say, hey, look, you can go to a pumpkin patch at Tate Farms, you can go to the Coleman Strawberry Festival, you can go to Bruton to Blueberry Pick, and here are the farmers markets that you can attend. Because when we allow and drive tourism, agritourism into these areas, for every dollar that is spent in that community, 60 cents will stay there. I mean, I just watched it. Look here, Piggly Wiggly. Who is the sponsor of the Loch Sleeve Strawberry Festival? I do not know. Piggly Wiggly. You want to know why? They literally will open their back door, buy from the local farmer, and then they'll in turn support our strawberry festival. Because you gotta think about it. It's a whole system that we have to protect and fight for, and we need to continue to do that. So agritourism is the fourth point. And then fifth point is the voluntary grant portal. We have to help people with, like right now, I'm even watching it with the Iran and everything that's going on. That affects fertilizer prices. Yes. Who uses fertilizer? Farmers. Farmers. Okay. So as you're watching that, how as these programs come out, you've got to be able to work, you know, at the speed of light to say, okay, how do we get these farmers with this program to this funding? And we keep it and we fight for it here in Alabama because we're going to need it, because this is our number one industry, and we rely upon fertilizer to sustain our agriculture. So you're it's it's about being purposeful and with a plan. And so I'm going to utilize this five-point plan to make sure that we keep things here in Alabama, fight for it, and we keep agriculture front and center.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

So diving into the five-point plan, I'm gonna go to the first one you mentioned, or number four. Let's go to agritourism. That's something that I hadn't really thought about a lot until lately when we started kind of interviewing farmers going out to farms. And there, you know, is a I don't know if you've sure you've been to Vets to Cowboys out there in Grand Bay. I love Jeremy and Heather. They're wonderful. They are really on it for training first generation farmers, which is like super, super rare, and also agritourism part. So people want to do photo shoots out there, people want to know. So I was thinking, you know, we have visitalabamabeaches.com. We have this big push for the beach tourism. Is there anything like that? Like visitalabamafarms.com or like a government-based website where we can kind of plug in your location and see all over the state, like what kind of stuff we could do. You're exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

So I've actually visited a farm, Jeremy and Heather. And by the way, those longhorns, like the horns go like way out, but they are the most calm and just therapeutic cows. So, what you would do is then put them into agritourism so that as the tourists come in, and we're locals, you know, that just want to go do a field trip to a farm, you would have them in the sweet ground, Alabama experience, and they would be able to go out there and do the various things. And I want to point out one very important thing that Sto Cowboys does. When you're looking at farm and agriculture and you're looking at veterans, those are some of the two highest suicide rates right now. Okay. So what they are doing and how we can support them and put them in and encourage more people to drive business and awareness to what they're doing is critically important to so many other things besides just revenue, mental health. I mean, it what they're doing, people should be looking at all over across the nation. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

So, in terms of we were talking about number five, which was the portal. I think that's a great idea. I was looking, we've been talking, I've we've always kind of wanted to eventually, you know, move to the country. We can't even own a chicken in the city of Gulf or City Limits. So there's a lot of restrictions here when it comes to where I'm I'm from Pensacola and you know, I had a little homestead one acre thing going on. I had all kinds of poultry, goat, you know, different things. I come here and it's very restrictive. You can't do anything in Gulf Shores. Um it's a you know, you can give and take when it comes to moving into a nice little area like this. Um, but I was looking into grant portals and like how to get land for the first time, like how to get like the government financing. And there was a ton of resources out there that I didn't even know existed. So, how do you think it's even possible for younger people, I guess like under 40 or around 40, to get involved in something like that and be able to get our own little slice of land before it's all bought up by foreign entities?

SPEAKER_02 8:23

So, you know, it's interesting that you bring out 0.5 because I thought when I started this, that was the most valuable thing because I know how much money is out there. Okay. And I thought, oh, but is anyone really gonna care? You know, but we really, it's really critically important. So what we have to do is find the programs are there. So what we'll do is you'll profile are you a convenience store? Are you a first generation? Are you even a school? Are you a church? Tell us a little about what you're trying to accomplish. And then what you're gonna find is you have federal, state, but you also have private grants. So for instance, you have schools that want to do a greenhouse ag program. It starts that whole agriculture into the school system. I I I've seen private companies offer greenhouses for school for education. So we want to be the point of reference to say, tell us about you and how can we link you with revenue. And I'll be honest with you, Blake. What I'm gonna do at the end of the year, I'm gonna say I connected X amount of families or businesses, and we brought X amount of dollars to this state because that's an economic engine. And by the way, this is the seed that will cause you to grow a sustainable program because we want a multiplier. So let's say you we were able to connect you with this headhunter. So we're gonna call our this person a headhunter, okay? The headhunter is gonna go find it. It's very normal to keep a five to 10% on the green. So let's say we're able to locate$100,000 for you. There's a five to 10% that will go to the headhunter, okay? And then you get to keep that$95,000, you know, to$90,000. And then we'll help you close out the program and create a sustainable way that on the other side of it, you're saying, I was able to turn this into a six-time multiple. That's the key too.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

I think that's definitely much needed and something that people don't even know where to start. I mean, I'm one of the people don't even know where to start, but the more I learn about it, I'm kind of perplexed why it hasn't been done before. Right. Right. It's a very fragmented, it's a very fragmented process.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

And if you've ever gone through a grant, it feels like you're looking at a foreign language. When you open the document, it's like 70 pages long. You got to do all this. And here's the funny thing. You always have somebody that are like, oh, I can't do it. You want to know why? Because it's so intimidating and confusing. They're afraid if they answer the question wrong that they're going to go to jail for it, you know, simply because they just simply didn't understand it. You know?

SPEAKER_01 10:42

I did a lot of grants for the county and the city where I was from in Pensacola. And I've never actually thought about individual ones. I always think about it as like, what can we get for this governmental group, you know? But it's insane. There's so much stuff. And the Vets Cowboys people also brought that to my attention. And I was like, you know, this is quite doable if you could streamline it and organize it in a way that was pretty effective. And I like that you're talking about measurable outcomes. So instead of just having this plan, like there has to be a tangible way to say, you know, exactly like you said, you connected this to this, and this much dollars came in, because especially with agritourism, too. Like if you don't quantify that in dollars, there's no real way to track it. So I like that you have a plan to kind of track that.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Well, and I think we can all agree right now, out there, you hear a lot of problems. Things are bad. Okay. And things are when you're addressing right now agriculture, and you have, I mean, I just had somebody tell me the frost that affected the peaches. Uh Macintosh was on fire. We're in a drought. Okay. And then you have China's tariffs and the soybean market. And then you have Russia, Ukraine affecting in you know, inputs. And then now we have Iran. What we have to do is we know there's problems there. Okay. And they're they're hard. We have to step up and say, here's the solution. Okay, we have to provide a solution. I can't step into this role and just say, things are bad, things are rough, we're not going to do anything about it, and I'm going to be the best ad commissioner. No, we have to come with a plan. We have to make this measurable ways that we can say, here's what we can do for Alabama, and this is how we're going to move forward.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

What can communities do to protect their viable agricultural land? It's so sad. We were interviewing a farmer in Alberta and he was talking about how just really nice topsoil gets paved over for subdivisions. And how do we control that and keep from losing viable farmland?

SPEAKER_02 12:41

So here's here's one thing you also need to kind of you got to go back a couple generations. So, like my great-great, they would buy land and farm, and their land would be their retirement. They knew that if I needed additional resources with health care or something, we would sell the land and help provide. You have to be able to protect property rights too for these farmers and their families. What I would like to see is an incentive program. And I see it in Colorado and other states where you provide an incentive program for them to turn it into another, I wouldn't use the word forever while, but I do know that exists. But you provide them an incentive to hold on to it. Okay. But yet they're able to farm it still. And so if we can provide an option, and you know, everyone in Alabama, we don't like overreach of government. We don't like that. Okay. So what we have to do is we have to create a natural desire and market this in a way where people want to belong to these programs. So what we have to do is make this where, yes, you you fall on shortcomings, which we know happens. You're able to sell your land, you're able, that's your property right. But in the same context, how what incentives can we do to hold on to these family businesses? I have been to farm after farm after farm, and they've looked at me and said, next generation's not here. They're not here.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

So the overreach thing was going to be my next question because we hear a lot about government overreach. So what would you kind of loosen so there wouldn't be so much overreach? And then what would you kind of like to see tighten? Because it really can be a double-edged sword depending on what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Yeah, so I you're right. It's a double-edged sword on that discussion. And I'll be honest with you, this is probably one of the toughest questions you're probably going to give me today is government overreach. Because I work in, because I work nationwide, I see Florida, California, Texas, New York. And when I tell you that Alabama, we're in a good place, we're in a good place. We're in a really and we need to protect that. When I work in other different states, it is a state law to do this. I mean, it it is so I mean, you buy a Starbucks coffee and you're told 10 times you're in California, you're gonna get cancer. You know? What we have to do when it comes, I I want to protect the way we're doing that. When it comes, I don't want to stay the same, but in this case, I want to give a good balance where farmers we know are environmental stewards because they care about the next generation. They care about the land. Okay. You're always gonna have a bad apple out there. Okay. What we have to do is just keep that balance in a way where we put up the barriers so that everyone can do business without having to make a law about it. And I'm telling you this, other states, I'm telling you, they make a law about everything. I mean, right now I I have a Colorado farm. They got no snow this year. Wow. And you know what? When that snow melts, it goes to the farmers to grow their crops. And so the farmers aren't gonna have water. And so guess what happens? Water restrictions come in. And then the farmers are dealing with salinity of their water when they're pulling it. And they're being told what to do. And then homeowners are getting when you can, you know, water your lawn. Right now, Alabama is in a good place when it comes to government overreach. Let's protect it and keep everybody kind of doing the right thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Does Colorado have a rain catchment uh prohibition?

SPEAKER_02 16:09

No, Colorado has all kinds of water restrictions. It's uh I was just out there and they're supporting native grasses and uh and they do hard zirkscape, so they try to put as much in, and then suddenly you're living in a desert.

SPEAKER_03 16:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

So I am from the faraway land of Florida, French Cola, Florida. And Florida is very good at branding, I think, their crops, like Florida oranges. What are this? Do you want Florida? Yeah, Alabama doing something like that. Like, can we put grown in Alabama and emphasize what things we are actually making here that will go nationally? So great that you bring that up.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Actually, tomorrow I will be with Florida's Act Commissioner. Oh, cool. So we farm in Florida. I have two farms in Florida. So I will be over there and I will take off my Commissioner Vag. And for two days, I'm going to meet with Commissioner Vag of Florida, and then I'm going to Lowe's Corporate. I'm flying to Mooresville because I work with Lowe's. Sweetground, Alabama is the Freshman Florida. Here's what we need to do, Blair. Have you listened to the radio lately here around here? Not really. So on the radio, you hear, oh, this is brought to you by Freshman Florida. We need to be offering more people co-op marketing opportunities that this is sweetground, Alabama. So, like in your restaurants and you see a menu, I mean I would like to know if those strawberries were sweet ground Alabama. And, you know, even now the USDA two days ago declared um seafood under the USDA. I've got to go look at it. It's like farming of the sea or something. So the more we can pull into this sweet ground Alabama experience, brand it, offer people incentives to say, hey, look, talk about this. We can do co-op marketing dollars. What what can we do and make it more like Florida? But Fresh and Florida does a great job.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

What crops in Alabama do we have that are unique to the level of quality? Like Florida says they have the best oranges. What would Alabama's crops be?

SPEAKER_02 18:13

So I'm gonna go back to the golden goose. Okay, you're looking at your financial statement. So number one's timber. Okay. And we're doing a good job there. But my favorite is poultry, which is number two. So we're number two, and that's our number two, but yet we're number two in the nation. Sometimes we flip back and forth, two and three. Okay, so what we need to do, and I go back to point number one, I have been advocating tirelessly on this campaign trail. Sarah Huggabee Sanders, uh, the governor of Arkansas, she said, Hey, look, y'all can have those energy drinks and sodas off snap. I want my Arkansas rotisserie chicken on snap because that's good for my farmers and that's good for my families. Okay. Alabama should do the same thing. You know, we're really good at, but my son won't let me call it poultry. He says, Mama, that's chicken. And by the way, he makes fun of me too. It's not hogs, it's pigs. So what we need to be doing is saying, okay, look, we have so many families who are going out of business from like lineage of poultry farming. How can we protect that? 15% of the Alabama population is on staff. 15%. And instead of buying margarita mixes and energy drinks, let's let's take that off as an option. Let's give them the Alabama rotisserie chicken as an option. It is ready to eat. It is sitting at Walmart at$5.98. It is a lost leader. It feeds a family of four two meals. It's lean protein. We need to be getting creative and saying, let's put common sense back into the nonsense. I mean, I I can't I don't know how you can sit behind somebody buying energy drinks and thinking that's good for kids and families. It's not. We should be feeding them. I mean, my family, we we raised my husband and I, we raise our four kids on rotisserie, Alabama rotisserie chicken. I sent them to college learning how. So that's what I that's how I live. And that's how we should be shaping our policy to do what's best for Alabama families and farmers.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

What do you think about the beef shortages that's kind of happened all over? Is there anything we can do here as a state to sort of do our part to decrease that in any way?

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Go buy some cows. Um, okay, so I did. I went and bought more cows. Um, okay. So in this area especially, I encourage you to go to Coastal Farmer and Fisherman's Market. And I encourage you to buy from Lily and Cattle. Um, it's the Bardle family. And you should be purposeful with your dollar because we know where that meat comes from. It was raised locally, and it was raised by a good family that took care of it uh to serve that to your platter. So, what can we do? Buy more local beef and unfortunately increase your head. If you go to the pasture out there, you can put a cow out.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

So we talked about that with some of the farmers here locally too, and they were like, you know what, it's not the easy way. Sometimes it's the longer way, it's a little harder, it's a little more time consuming, but in the end, it makes a huge difference in the quality of life. So, my idea for someone out there that wants to take it and do it, please do. Maybe you guys can take it and do it. It's not a government idea, it's a private company, but I think we need for people that don't like to go to stores, say we want to do farm like Uber Eats DoorDash type for farm for groceries. Like instead of the Walmart delivery, you're doing, like you said, the farmer's market or going to Bartle Farm or going to get like your delivery. Um, I just think it'd be cool to see some sort of delivery service for more healthy food than what's at Walmart.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

And speaking of that, so we're all watching what RFK's doing right now with Maha. Yes. Okay. He flipped the pyramid and he's saying, it's very basic, eat real food. Okay. So my Family, all of us, all of us included, we're eating almost 60 to 70 percent ultra-processed foods. Okay. Right. We have raging diabetes, all kinds of physical issues that are going on. And we are the most domesticated nation, and we are the sickest.

unknown 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Did you see the crazy purple-haired lady screaming her RFK the other day over raw milk?

SPEAKER_02 22:23

No. No, that's a good one. But I believe it.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Yeah. I believe it. That uh I can't remember her name, Deloria or something like that. She's from uh the Northeast somewhere that uh she's like in her 80s and has the short purple hair and the thick goggle glasses. Yeah, what was she saying? That raw milk is bad and we shouldn't touch it. It shouldn't be part of any health protocol. And she was like screaming at the top of her lungs about it.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

I mean, confession, I I was raised off milk directly from the cow in the background.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

I wish I was.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

And Souven, we got our age from Sue Ven in Alberta. So I I've been raised off of farm products and eat real food. I can tell you, uh it's how I was raised. It is how I challenge my kids. Do my kids know Chick-fil-A? Yes. Okay, yes. I'm not gonna act like we don't live a normal life. But when it comes down to it, grilled chicken, roasted vegetables, fruits, lay those out there. Food is medicine for your family, for your health. Okay. And our generation, me specifically, I'm gonna talk about the 45. I don't know how y'all are old y'all are, you don't have to tell me. I am that 45-year-old, and I can't tell you how many GI cancers are raging in my generation. Okay. And the reason is I believe it's because of what we're eating. And I appreciate right now that RFK is stepping up and saying, I'm challenging what we're putting in our bodies. Okay. And I can't talk about vaccines, I'm not a doctor, but I can talk about this from a farmer's perspective. Food is medicine, and I can tell you after raising four kids, I can tell you when I've given them a process, you know, those little airbrush cupcakes with a cute little elmo ring that everybody has. Okay, I I've done those, I bought those. I can tell you when my kid has had one of those versus a red piece of meat steak. Okay. You know the difference. You you can measure their activity afterwards. What we feed our kids and our families is critically, critically important right now. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

So, what do you think about hemp as a crop and as a profitable type product? Because I feel like in the state of Alabama, we could be doing a lot more with that, but I'm learning your opinion on that.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

So, this is this is the one discussion. So it's funny because many people have miscommunicated this conversation with me about I've had it a hundred times. So I'm glad this is on camera so you can go back and capture this. Ten years ago, when hemp came out, my dad was one of the first hemp licenses. Okay. So any farmer, well, let me say this, any Warner farmer loves a good experiment. Okay. So it was like, oh, there's a there's a crop we can grow. I'm gonna grow. So we went through the whole process. All the gut, and now you're gonna talk about government regulations?

SPEAKER_03 25:20

Oh, I bet.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Yep, has the government regulations, okay? And he grew hemp. And at the time, first crop, there was nowhere to process it. It was very fragmented, and and so he ended up discing it in in between as a cover crop. And he told me he said, Christina, that was the most nutritious cover crop in between my cycle of sod that we've ever seen. And he said it built my soil organic matter, it provided nutrients without fertilizer inputs, and he said it turned the soil on fire, which is a good thing, by the way, it comes from farmers. And he said, But you know why I can't do it again? I don't think I've ever been ever reached. Yeah, it was too much. And so now I've had all these people on Facebook, oh she's in We did one crop, we disc it in, it was a cover crop. But what I want to tell you about hemp is keep in mind about this don't throw the baby out with the with the water. Now what it's called, throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yeah. There are studies right now with hemp on breast cancer. There are studies right now with hemp removing heavy metal toxicities out of soil. And when you have a crop that can do an amazing cover crop of nutrients with less inputs as we're facing high cost, don't make it so impossible that we can't do good research to understand what's there. Let's look at it. So I agree with you right now when it comes to hemp. And by the way, the Declaration of Independence is written on hemp. You all heard that, right? I didn't know that. That's interesting. So when it comes to farmers, we love experimenting with things and looking at things. So make sure that we're utilizing plant science when it comes to that.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Sure. It blows my mind that just a day or two ago they fast-tracked psychedelics, but we're still at a standstill when it comes to cannabis and hemp products.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

I saw that. This is was it yesterday morning? Was it that Trump is trying to loosen all that? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Joe Rogan right behind him as he signed the executive order.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

I I didn't get well, I didn't have my earphones on, but I was walking and I saw it on Fox News and so I couldn't hear it. But when it when you're looking at plant science, I mean, you know, agriculture, I mean, what what's there? You know, what's the research? What's the science? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

I'm uh pro less regulation when it comes to growing things like hemp or whatever, everything else. I just look at other states, and I feel like Alabama is missing out on potential economic impact with that. Um, so that's just my opinion. I know people might agree.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

I think I think other I think Tennessee is really leaning into doing research on him, from what I gather. And again, let me say this. Someone told me they're doing breast cancer research with him. Okay. This is what I've been told. I I don't have any kind of scientific documentation. But when you're looking at a generation where one out of 20, my grandmother of breast cancer, my mom's generation, one out of eight, my generation one out of four. If there's something that we can be looking at to help us on research that involves hemp and breast cancer, I I mean, I want the best talent to look at that. Yeah, absolutely. Because talk about economic, that's also help, that's saving lives.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

So one thing we kind of didn't delve into too much was your resume and your background. Um, so feel free to fill people in on a lot of what your day job entails because it's a lot and it's very, I think you have perfect experience for this job, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

So my family kicked off this year with 120 years of farming. I am born and raised in Alberta. I am a Ballwan County girl, and I have married my husband, Timothy McKinnis. Today we have been married 23 years, and we have four children. And it's critically important to me that um I really devote public service of my talents and skill sets to protecting our number one industry and giving back as a public servant to Alabama and the nation and the world. You know, when it looks at it, you gotta think about Alabama, what we do here really resonates worldwide. And I um I'm a large, I would say somewhat large at this point, but we came from nothing in Alberta. And now we have farms in Florida. We work in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and we work in Colorado. And farming built us. Farming built me. It's it's I was raised on the back of a tractor, and I look forward to getting back. I work nationwide. I'm gonna go take a step off the campaign trail. I'm flying up to Mooresville, North Carolina, Carolina to be with Lowe's. I work under their brand, Stay Green. I also work under Site One's Liska. And so I'll be training their team about ag technology software. And I just want to reiterate I am flying to Lowe's Corporate to train their team for a software that was built in Alberta, Alabama. Okay. So what we do here matters. So critically important. This is what we do great. So let's protect it, let's harness it, let's lean in and let's do this great because this matters to the next generation. It matters, and I and I'm gonna say this. I might have to hurt some feelings every once in a while. That that Starbucks, macchiato, da da da da. You know what? That's a lot of sugar. Let's go eat some Alberta sweet potatoes.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

We were talking um the other day to farmers who mentioned that there was a shortage in a lot of those things. That was one of the like core crops there at one point. And you know, he was very lamenting and very sad about how some of that has decreased. And then I was reading other things that there's like a huge overpopulation of rice, like an overcrop of rice, and it was going bad because it like they couldn't sell it. Um so I was wondering if you knew anything about like what what we've kind of I don't know, what are the good crops that like grow right now? I know you're not like out there necessarily like dealing with that, but I'm just kind of interested in it.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

So when it comes to great prices right now, we can all agree cattle's great. I mean, the cattle prices are really great. Um, I I told my husband when I took campaign trail, I said, no cows. Mm-hmm. He laughed because you know I have cows. He they keep like every time I go out to the pasture, either one's having a cab or we get so cattle right now is a great crop. But I'm gonna tell you something. I've got my dad right now down in Florida, and on Wednesday he's meeting with a scientist. Florida, kind of looking at other states of uh going back to I I have I worked nationwide. Florida has a whole specialty crop program and they harness what the global demand is. Okay. Vanilla bean, our global demand, and we don't produce it commercially here in the United States. And so Florida has leaned into that crop. Well, I told my dad, I was like, I need you to bring me back. I want the Madagascar brand, I want to begin propagating it in my greenhouse. So we really need to look into some things that you may not think about, but we don't source here domestically. And I would like to see us getting a little bit more creative on that to say, okay, so we we know the standard ray crops and cattle's good, but if we're producing soybeans and trying to cut us off, like we're gonna have to, but how can we still be farmers? Okay. What can we continue to do? So we're gonna have to get creative. And if that means you and I sit down and have a conversation about vanilla bean, we're gonna have a conversation about vanilla beans, we're gonna have a conversation about cattle, we're gonna have a conversation about um especially peanuts that are coming out. Um, you should see Hudson Alpha. Have you ever looked into Hudson Alpha? Okay. So Hudson Alpha looks at agriculture literally from the whole ecosystem of it, from start to finish, all the way to the customer. They developed a peanut, and by the end of it found Mars, which is a chocolate brand, is the customer. So, what we really need to do is have that mentality of how do we create something where we know we have a customer. And that's what we really need to be embracing. And you may not think into it, but I'm probably gonna be one of the best vanilla bean growers you've ever seen. Well, we finally think this.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

I was looking at uh hops the other day trying to figure out, you know, because that's apparently a$20,000 an acre crop. Wow. Really?

SPEAKER_02 33:42

I mean, that's it goes back to it. How do you get you've got the land costs, you've got the infocs, how can you get creative with the land you have and what can you produce?

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Right, because it goes straight up so you could maximize your square footage. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

My daughter is highly allergic to all of that kind of stuff. I want to be able to do all that.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

I was uh on GPT, like diversifying my like farm in my mind that I don't own, and just like figuring out like, oh, we can do this, this, this. And in the end, you know, I have like two plants on the back porch. And I'm like, one day they got a little too much water to have blood in there. But it's uh it's nice to think about that. And you were talking about incentive programs. So I do think, you know, exactly like you said, private property rights. People are gonna sell their farm for millions of dollars and profit instead of sitting there struggling to work it every year. I get that, and they have the right to do that. But we as a society, I sort of feel like have some responsibility to save us from being taken over by foreign nations. So it's hard because I, you know, I hope incentive programs work. We kind of joked around that we think it should be a draft for agriculture, an agricultural draft, and force people to farm.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

And having more consumers being purposeful with their dollar to say, hey, look, I'm gonna go on Saturday to coastal fishermen and farmers market because I know that that's supporting my local farmers. And by the way, they they get a higher profit margin when you do that too. So that's money in their pockets. And then if you drive agritourism, I mean, I taught to take farms, and in six six weeks they see 70,000 visitors. Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Are there other grocery store chains besides Piggly Wiggly local to us that are as supportive of local farms with uh the products they carry?

SPEAKER_02 35:29

I have heard that we don't have Whole Foods here, but I've heard Whole Foods is trying trying to find a program that bridges that difficulty. But I met with um K C of Pigley Wiggly, and I said that's probably one of the biggest struggles I see from farmers, more North Alabama, not here, that they wish they really could negotiate more with grocery stores directly rather than distribution and corporate America and this, that, and the other. He's like, we can. You know, we can. So again, going back to it, you know, be purposeful with where you shop, be purposeful with what you shop for and know where these products are coming from. And again, you gotta think about this. I had my dad tell me this perspective one time. He goes, that mango right there, that was raised in China. The water source is probably laced with heavy metal toxicity, but you're not gonna know that. Whereas this one was raised in a Latin American country, we knew they were environmental stewards and it's incredibly healthy because we don't really produce mangoes here that much. You know, it's not really our one of our crops. And he said, you need to be purposeful with the country of origin when you don't produce something. So let's say we have to move outside, we have to buy from other countries, be purposeful with what countries we buy from and why.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

I was looking into certain uh fruits sometimes, and we don't even have not to complain about Gulf Shore, but we don't have in this particular area like any Asian markets for like certain things. You have to drive quite a bit, or usually to Pensacola, to get some of these more exotic type fruits or just get them online. But I think things like that, like you said, like really paying attention to country of origin and your office, I guess, would handle pesticides well, and like um what they've been sprayed with, what they've been grown from. Um, what are some things on the pesticide kind of regulations that you'd like to see changed if you were there?

SPEAKER_02 37:14

So here's what I want to see changed when it comes to that side of life. USCA Broad Rollins just released a$700 million grant and it's called Regenerative Ag. RFK put in additional, it's a one billion dollar opportunity for the nation. It is built around building soil health so that you have to use less inputs. So we understand when it comes to a global security issue that these inputs exist over here. Like you've got fertilizer, you've got insecticide, pesticides. Okay, do I like them? Who who who likes additional expenses? Additional no one, no one. But you know, it's a necessity, okay, to maintain global security. When I asked how many Alabama farmers were producing were participating, and I don't know if it's because you use the word regenerative, but when you build soil health and you produce you don't have you produce an amazing product using less inputs, and it has lesser stress from the insects and other different things, it gives a bridge to say, here's how you've always done it, but there's a different way. We're gonna provide you the economic opportunity to begin walking in that direction. Let's take this one step at a time. For farmers, they don't like you to rip a band-aid, and they want to do, and so what I want to see is us leaning into this program of the$1 billion reach charity bag and saying, Okay, look, I get it. You don't want to rip the band-aid. Let's take one step at a time. Let's take you through this path and get you where you're here. And then you can turn around and say, Okay, I got here. We changed things, we're now doing it differently.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

That's a good idea. Um, what on this campaign trail? You've been campaigning now for I guess a long while. Over a year, yeah. What's been your favorite thing? And have you been anywhere in the state that's kind of new to you where you were like, I didn't even know this existed? Like, what kind of sticks out?

SPEAKER_02 39:21

So the northeast part of Alabama, even on July 4th, is almost has a cool nip in the air. It's it's a wonderful wonderful Hinneger, Alabama. I spent Hinneger um on July 4th. Very nice, very nice. I will say this Huntsville is dynamic. Coleman is dynamic. I have enjoyed that a lot. My favorite, favorite, favorite thing is if you can throw me out into a farm tour and I get to go out there. But it's meeting the people out there who are just, we want something different. We were ready for change. Can you help us? And you're looking at people in the eyes who've had a fifth generation poultry business or something, and they're like, Christina, we need help. Can you really help us? And they also want to know that the relationships matter. Okay, so I work, like I said, I worked nationally with Lowe's. So this girl from Alberta, Alabama, raised on a back of a tractor. I'll be with corporate Lowe's. Um, just a couple days ago, I was with the president of the United States, the vice president, Secretary Brooke Rollins. And I think so many families want to know that Alabama has a voice federally at the nation to say this is important to us. We I represent and understand exactly what's going on from the fields of Alberta, Alabama, all the way to the nation. And having that portfolio to say, hey, look, who would who can we call to help us out? And they take our call because they take us seriously.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

What are, aside from that, which I think you know kind of distinguishes you, what are some other reasons that you believe that you particularly are the best candidate for this job over the other candidates?

SPEAKER_02 41:09

I mean, so my husband tells me all the time I'm not funny enough because I'm actually very humorous, but I always feel like I'm uh interviewing for a multi-billion dollar CEO. Um, so I laugh and say, it's because I'm the only girl, you know. No, I I Alabama has never gotten behind a female ag commissioner ever. And there have there has been one that has run. Okay. It is time for us to. I have, I am not bought and paid for. I'm not a career politician, I'm not the establishment. I am an outsider coming in and saying, agriculture built me. It is my success story. And I want to make it a success for Alabama and protect it. And yes, I just happen to be a girl doing it.

SPEAKER_01 41:55

Well, I think it's pretty awesome. And I think that future generations, I'm sure your kids, I think you said your kids were studying different things too. Uh they'll have like a different track, which I thought was cool. Um, we really need to set that example for number one, you know, sort of not too young, but like sort of young people and young people to kind of get in there and get involved and to care. And that's kind of been our biggest problem. We started this podcast. It's been our struggle. Like, I think millennials down, like generations kind of struggle to care a lot about what's going in our bodies, about what's going on in the government, about what's going on outside of our four walls. And it's nice to see people finally, I think, starting to care a little more. No, you're right, Blair.

SPEAKER_02 42:37

I appreciate this because you starting this, making the awareness out there, it is so critically important to show up to vote. I mean, that's the most important thing. I I see over and over and over again. I'm not gonna vote. I'm not gonna vote. I don't worry about it, I'm not gonna vote. We had people die for our right to vote. And if we want to change and if we want to represent Alabama, we gotta show up on May 19th. We gotta cast our ballot.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Now I do ask that you cast Christina Warner McKinnon's for Commissioner Bag and Industries, but show up and vote and tell everybody where they can find out more about you online or how to contact you.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Okay, I ask four things all the time. Okay, four things. Number one, I ask for your vote May 19th, Christina Warner McInnes, Commissioner Bag and Industries. Two, I ask that you like the Facebook page. It's so funny. And I have four kids. And if I wear something, my daughter George is gonna tell me, Mama, you wore that outfit too many times. If I ate all the strawberries before she got home from finals, she she don't want to tell me she's gonna go to Facebook and tell Facebook like the Facebook page. Number three, spread the word. What I love, love, love about Alabama as you're watching all this outside money come in, all these lobbyists, the packs, the this, this, that, and the other. Grassroots, word of mouth, Alabama still works. Spread the word. Go to church. Tell them a church. Go to Sunday school. Go to a uh PTA meeting. Say, I'm at Christina, vote Christina. And then fourth, I ask that you make a financial contribution. Five dollars scares my competitors because that's a vote. It's a vote. You're behind Christina Warner McKinnon. So you can find out more at McKinnon's for Alabama.com and my Facebook, I think it's McKinnon's for AL on my Facebook page. So follow the Facebook page and enjoy all the wonderful businesses that I visit and understand why this role, this office for Commissioner Magan Industries, touches every Alabamian every day and matters. This is a national security issue. It is a very difficult job, and I'm ready to go work for Alabama. And thank you, Blair. I appreciate the time today.

SPEAKER_03 44:55

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.