What Do We Know About Our Food?
Liz Reflects on Conversations About Agriculture
SEASON 1 | EPISODE 9
Recently on Being Different, Liz engaged in conversations about the state of American agriculture and our role in it: How much do we know? What can we expect for the future? What can we do now?
Liz was joined by Andrew Garfield and Art Whaley to discuss what has changed in farming and how farmers are at the mercy of nature - and the economy. In this episode, Liz was joined by Anthony Palmer, producer of Being Different, and shares her experiences farming at home and encourages listeners to slow down, get outside, and go visit a farm or a garden.
What’s up next? We want to hear from you! Email liz@lizdurham.com to let us know what you want to discuss on Being Different.
This episode is sponsored by Henderson Farms.
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Being Different with Liz Durham is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production
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Liz 0:00
Thank you guys for joining us today we want to thank our special sponsor today, Henderson farms for supporting this episode.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of being different. Today I am joined by Anthony Palmer, he's my friend, but he is also my producer. So he keeps all this stuff rolling. And it's way more interesting if you don't have to listen to only me. Thank you for being here. Yeah, thanks
Unknown Speaker 0:33
for having me on.
Liz 0:34
What we're going to do today is we're just going to kind of wrap up the last segment that we did, which was learning more about agriculture and how it works in our nation. And then we're going to kind of introduce the next topic that we're going to talk about. So Anthony is going to ask me some questions. I'm going to get his input on stuff. And then if you guys have any follow up, just let me know. And we can tackle it later.
Anthony Palmer 0:54
Yeah, so I think one of the things that is been so cool about this new show that you've done is kind of this concept of breaking stuff up into different topic, blocks, categories and whatnot. So I was really excited that you were going to do this one on ag and I was really the both episodes you did great. And I think there was a lot of kind of behind the scenes information that was given out on it, that definitely isn't what I think is super public facing all the time. So I think that was really cool of you to do and to bring out and one thing that I was wondering, you know, all the listeners definitely heard through these conversations, your your background, your experience in kind of the Ag side of things. But what were some of your favorite parts of these conversations are some of the things that really were memorable to you from these last couple of conversations.
Liz 1:49
Um, this is a weird one. But I remember vividly when I started on the Ag campus at UT. I was like, these people speak a different language, they would come in and they were talking about their stocker cattle and this and that, and I felt like an idiot because I was like, I have no clue what they're saying. And so when Andrew got on and started speaking that way, I knew what he was saying, because I had had to learn to speak that language. But I was like, Oh my gosh, like having flashbacks to not knowing it. And so it is a whole nother world. And I don't think that you understand it unless you've grown up in it, or you've had a job in it or something like that. So for me, I was like, oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Just like how how different it all is, it is a totally different language.
Anthony Palmer 2:35
What was really funny to me about that episode with Andrew is, you know, so like we met, starting your last podcast, and when you were definitely like in the, in the mortgage lending and business world, and all of a sudden, I'm like listening to this episode with you. It's like, Liz has gone country off. Like,
Liz 2:56
it's kind of funny, because like, I feel like throughout my life, like my dad was in sales my whole life. And he always told me you have to talk to people in the language that they speak. Yeah. And so when I was doing loans, if I had some old country man on there, I'd be like, Wow, I said, y'all a lot during that conversation. But if I had some businessman, I found it very professional. So it's just learning to speak those different languages. But it's scary. If you don't know the language that someone is speaking, you're gonna be speaking plain English. And you don't have a clue what they're saying.
Anthony Palmer 3:26
One of the things that I thought was amazing was when you and art were talking, and you guys started going back and forth about the number of people in the agriculture industry from the 40s. I think it was kind of your bent was like the initial benchmark to where we are today. Yeah. And you think about just the amount of people that used to hold not just the the power and the ability to do that work. But that understanding of that skill set that being able to have that talk, right to talk that way. And it's crazy how to think how small that population truly is now. And it is it's a different language.
Liz 4:06
That was one of the most surprising things to me, because even when I was in ag, we talked about how you know, all these operations were scaling up and to survive, you had to be big, but I don't ever remember them telling us like the raw numbers. And so the fact that it was like an 1870, half of Americans were in agriculture. And then now it's 1.3%. Right? That's mind blowing to me. And so it's, in a way cool art said it was cool. To me. It's scary, because I'm like, I feel like it's an important thing for people to know at least have a general understanding of how to produce food.
Anthony Palmer 4:48
Yeah, for sure. And I think what I heard him saying which I thought was was a really interesting perspective on it was thinking about how efficient Oh yes 1.3% of our population is that they are able to make Yes, you amount of food that they do.
Liz 5:01
And the technology has come so far. It is incredible. It's crazy.
Anthony Palmer 5:06
Have you watched Clarkson's Farm Show on Amazon Prime? I don't think so. Alright, so it's Jeremy Clarkson, who used to host the show Top Gear, like the original Top Gear. And it's He's hilarious. He's a quite if you don't know who he is, he's like a car journal, or an automobile journalist, enthusiast, all this kind of stuff. But he's just funny, like, straight up hilarious. So he, at some point through his, you know, time, he has bought this farm in England. And they started doing this documentary about the farm that they bought, and they started kind of turning it into a working farm. And he decided he wanted to learn and do the work on the first seat. It's only on season two, the show is but the first season was kind of him getting his feet wet and getting his estrus kit Yes, doing it and have like moving through deciding to buy sheep and then it but if you buy sheep, you have to do this. And if you're gonna grow this type of crop, then you have to do this. And it just is really astonishing show that's got this comedy tint to it, this documentary tint to it, but then also just this, like, it's a, you get so sucked into this farming community and this idea behind it, you know, and what was really funny was the second season, he decided to get cows and start raising, you know, beef. And that was like, intersecting with you having these conversations. So it was just really funny. Like, for me, as somebody who doesn't know anything about it, like hearing it on all these different fronts during this time.
Liz 6:36
And it's funny, because like, I went to school for agriculture, and I can tell you, I came out of school didn't have a clue how to raise anything, like I knew the numbers, and I knew the business side of things. I mean, it was an economics degree. But now that I'm actually like, learning things gardening, and with the chickens and everything, like it is a huge learning curve. It's a big monetary investment, any of it that you're going to do. And then you're at the mercy of like nature, you can just have a bad crop and not get anything you know. And so it's like, it can be really defeating. And that's why to me, I think it's more alarming that not that many people know, is because if you are going to take the time and the money to actually do these things, you need somebody to mentor you. Like if you're on Google, it's just like, you know, good luck to you. Because I even have realized, like, you know, Google told me that my chickens would be producing eggs at 18 weeks. And then after talking to Andrew and three other people, they were like, No, they won't, they'll be producing eggs at six months, like what the heck. And so then I was like, thanks a lot, Google, I was about to eat the chickens. Cost me some chicken. So it's just stuff like that. Like you need to be able to talk to these people that know what they're talking about. Because a lot of it like, you can read a textbook, but so much of it is just instinctual and experience when you have the experience.
Anthony Palmer 7:57
And there's so much knowledge that just comes with with that experience. And it really is hard to find a book, or a blog or whatever to read, right can be all encompassing of like, this is where you live, right? This is all the information that you need.
Liz 8:13
Exactly. And like even with me, I was thinking like, why was Google so off on the chickens? I was like, Well, did it account for maybe I bought mine in the middle of winter, and there wasn't the 12 hours of daylight every single day. I've been raising them because maybe it was thinking I bought them in the middle of summer, you know? And so it's like, wow, if I could have just talked to somebody about that, what a cut
Anthony Palmer 8:32
over over the holiday.
Liz 8:34
Exactly. So it's ag kit is like one of the most rewarding things. But I think it's also one of the most challenging things as well, just because there are so many different factors that go into it. And so until you start doing it and just have years of experience, it's going to be hard.
Anthony Palmer 8:49
Well, and the clip that we put at the top of of arts episode where he was talking about how, you know, farmers are super heroes, but beyond that, just how smart they are. Yes, you know, and and in your guys chat. I've lived in Tennessee, basically my whole life. And granted, I understand how diverse of a state it is geographically at times, but when you heard this guy who lives in this world, so we basically have like three different farming zones more or less in our state. You start thinking about it, you're like, oh, man, that's like, Yeah, but just the normal kind of just average citizen, I don't think would look at the state and think of
Liz 9:27
it that way. Yeah. Because the you know, in West Tennessee, you can see people growing cotton. Have you ever seen cotton grown in East Tennessee? No, you have not. And so it's just like a whole different place. But if you don't know anything about it, you don't know anything about
Anthony Palmer 9:41
it. Yeah, that was super interesting. I really thought that was cool. Those parts of that were really cool. Yeah. What do you feel like was something through these conversations? And maybe we've answered this already, but that you hope that listeners really picked up on be it through the whole block of the conversations or through each episode individually. Really,
Liz 10:00
I hope that as parents, that they will realize that agriculture is just not, it's not just food that comes from a grocery store, there are so many things that can be taught to not only our kids, but to us through agriculture, and just nature in general. And so I hope that if they don't know anything about it, they will take some initiative to go find somebody who has a garden or come to my house and look at the chicken, you know, that kind of stuff and just try to learn more about it, but also in the process. Slow down, just get their kids outside. Yeah, that's my biggest thing. Obviously, if you can learn about how to produce food, great, but it's not something that you're going to learn in six weeks, you know, that's a, that's a huge undertaking. But I think if you can just see like the value that comes from it, and appreciating all the work that people put into it and the knowledge that they have, I think it's really good.
Anthony Palmer 10:57
You know, I was thinking when you guys were talking about four H and FFA, and just pros and cons for all that the last couple of years, we've done a CSA through the nourish Knoxville farmers market that happens on a market square, and what's the CSA crop share agreement. So you there are certain farmers that will do it. So we have this one farmer that we just really fell in love with and his produce, and everything was great. And we paid him a flat fee at the beginning of the year. And then every week, you went down and you just got your allotment. So it wasn't picking out your vegetables and stuff. It was just this is what they were growing. And this is what was in season and this is what you got. So it made you have to, like cook with stuff that you may not normally have bought, right, you know, and it made you think and everything. But what was really cool was the relationship that you got to form with this farmer and taking the kids down to the farmers market on Saturdays and just walking through and looking at like, this guy, zucchini and squash looks very different from this person, zucchini and squash, you know, this person that has seven different varieties of tomatoes, and this person has 30 different varieties of tomatoes, you know, and that, that in and of itself was a really in continues to be a very cool way, I think, to get out in that with your kids to understand the farmers around us, you know, and really be able to like, immerse yourself in it without maybe doing it in your own backyard. Right, you know,
Liz 12:25
yeah. I mean, a lot of people don't have the space or the time, but you can I think that you could take a couple hours on a Saturday to a farm or something like that. Like, I remember as a kid, my mom took us to like strawberry picking and stuff like that. And I was like, Oh, well, strawberries growing plants on the ground. I thought they were on trees. Yeah, right. Yeah, for sure. Like that, you know? But how else will your kids learn about it? You know, um, there's not any, from the research I've done. There's not any good like, kid shows that really teach you about it or anything like that. So I feel like as a parent, you just gotta be proactive and get out there in it. Yeah, the farmers market is a great place to start. And if you can just build a relationship with a farmer, they want to teach you
Anthony Palmer 13:08
well. And that that's what I say is it's amazing to me, for as busy as the markets are on Wednesdays, or Saturdays or Tuesday or Thursday, or whatever. It may be like, some of the nicest humans, yes. Are these farmers at these booths? And it's, it's them, they're the people out in the fields, growing the stuff, picking it and then come in and selling it at market. Yeah. And there's so kind and they just are very generous with their time with kids and talking about explaining things. And it's a really cool, it's a really cool opportunity. And really cool way to like, kind of see some of that stuff. It is what was something that most either most surprised you or that you were super kind of taken aback by that you heard these guys talking about,
Liz 13:45
um, the amount of people that are producing our food. Now, that was the first thing 1.3% I agree, that's staggering. Also the amount of food that we're importing and exporting staggering to me, because like, I don't think it's easy for someone to conceptualize a billion dollars. But when you start talking about hundreds of billions of dollars, it's just like lala land to me, I can conceptualize a million dollars because I did loans for million dollar houses and stuff like that, but like a billion dollars is just like I can't fathom it. And so when you realize that, that much of our food is being imported and exported, it's just a global scale.
Anthony Palmer 14:28
Yeah. And I think to kind of like tack back to the farmers market conversation, you know, there's so much merit in eating organic products and, and nothing to be taken away from it. And I understand there's arguments on both sides of that, whatever. But really, that eating locally thing is a huge piece that I feel like it's way overlooked when you think about the impact and the cost of like our food going all over the place. Yeah, right. You know, and like, eating seasonally, right, because you eat locally and I mean, it's hard to do especially When you have kids and your kid the fruit that they like, is strawberries. Well, on a year round, yeah, we're gonna have to have strawberries here. I'm not saying it has to be in this extreme. But I do think it's an it really is an interesting concept when you when you stop and think this banana that I'm buying at the grocery store, that is one of 1000s of banana sitting in here came from way before Halloween.
Liz 15:28
Nowhere near us. Yeah, that's crazy. And then for me also, like, if you get into the nutritional side of things, you don't look at this on the economic side at all. But eating locally is actually like very good for you. I mean, think about it. Like, if you eat local grown honey, yeah, harvested honey, it helps with your allergies. Well, you know, I was talking to my hairdresser the other day, he is a wealth of knowledge with farming, but I was telling him, I kind of want this as me getting like real crazy, but I kind of want to get my own goats to have for milk. And I was talking to him about like, what his opinion was on fresh raw milk. Because you know, a lot of people used to get sick if their milk wasn't pasteurized and homogenized. And so that's why they started doing it. But when you do that, you break down the milk product where it loses a lot of its nutritional value, right. And so he said, It's fine if you have your own goats, but they have to be your own goats, because your body has to be used to your local bacteria in order to process it and break it down. If you get raw milk from down the street, it could have totally different bacteria. And if you get sick from it, you get sick, like you're going to the hospital. And so but if it's your local goats and you, they're right there in your backyard, and your body is used to that bacteria and can break it down, it's fine. That's really interesting. And it's healthy, it's healthier, because it hasn't been heated up to these levels and broken apart. And so I was like, huh, and so it's, you know, you see a lot of kids that, um, they have all these allergies, and intolerances and stuff like that. But if you eat your foods, you know, locally grown, if you grow them yourself, a lot of those go away like Amish kids raised almost all of their own food. Those kids don't have any health issues like normal kids do. Yeah. But they're raising it all themselves. And so I think that we give up a lot of things for convenience. Clearly, it takes a lot of time money to raise your own stuff like nobody's going to do that. But there is something to be said for doing.
Anthony Palmer 17:26
Well, I mean, even just zooming out from there and looking at you know, I think you start talking about I guess it wasn't on your it was on another show the other day that somebody was talking about The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan and some of the stuff he's written and you get into the whole GMO thing. Look at what we've done to crops to make them easier to farm. Yeah, more convenient, more convenient, but but mass produce, there's massive side effects of that. To that, you know, that we're not talking on an economic scale, here, we're talking on an individual, right, you know, health standard with this. And that, that would be your actually a whole thing to point out for you to dive into.
Liz 18:09
Not ag 2.0. But we're gonna do another section that's just on nutrition, actually, because ag nutrition and Ag Economics are two totally separate subjects. And a lot of farmers know a lot about nutrition, but that's not typically what they study, they usually study how to produce the foods most effective, you know, cost efficient ways. And so I want to dive into the nutrition side, too, because I think that there's a lot of, we're just now starting to see some of the long term effects of GMOs and the herbicides and pesticides that are used and all of that. And there's some that we don't even have the data on yet because they're so new. We don't even know what the long term effects are. Right, you know, and so, but the ones that there's I mean, there's a lot of studies now with like glyphosate, which is Roundup, that's bad shit. Oh, yeah. And there is a lot of problems Yeah,
Anthony Palmer 18:58
Monsanto and all of them are there's there's bad things coming along on that front for
Liz 19:05
I know but I mean, everybody we consume it all the time. Everybody does it pretty
Anthony Palmer 19:09
much any corn that you any corn product that you eat, that's not like any food products. Well, this is true. But yeah, especially especially things like corn. But yeah, it's it is frightening how much of that is system,
Liz 19:22
people have such differing opinions on like the organic versus non organic and GMO versus non GMO and I want to talk to people that are on both sides of the fence of that because I think there are valid points on both sides and I think we need to know about that. Absolutely. are trying to feed our families.
Anthony Palmer 19:36
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. I think that I'm excited for the nutrition side for that. I think that'll be great. So kind of last question to wrap up the Ag side and then we'll start talking about what's next what is it through your through this homesteading process? Air quotes that you guys are doing at your house. What is it that you're hoping that your kids will gain from it that you guys As a family, we'll gain from it like what's, what's the goal on that front?
Liz 20:04
I told Luke the other day, I was like, honestly, this sounds crazy. I don't even care if the chickens ever produce eggs or not, because it's already given us so much more time together outside. Yeah. It's worth the money that we've spent on it. I hope that my kids learn how to take care of things besides themselves. And that there are things in this world that are going to depend on them, like animals, or one day, they might have kids or things like that. They need your time and attention, whether you want to give it to them or not sure. So I want them to learn those skills. But I also want them to be able to say, Okay, here's a topic that I'm interested in, I don't know anything about it, I'm not scared of it, I'm gonna figure out how to do it. And if I fail, I fail. And then we'll try again and see if next season we can get it to be better. Or if our chicks die, we'll get new chicks again and start over. So I want them to learn that and then I just want them to have an appreciation for God's creation. Even if you don't believe in God, I think you should have an appreciation for nature and like our planet. And so I want my kids to be like, this is incredible that I can put a seed in the ground and something can grow from it and watching that process happen. And it's slow. It's not instant gratification. Like you have to go out there and water it, you have to pull the weeds all these things. I think that those are like lessons that you're never going to learn on TV watching TV or YouTube videos. Like you just have to get out there and do it. And that's my goal with doing all this stuff. And I'm not calling it home setting because I think people just keep for branding shit. Been around for all of history. It's gardening.
Anthony Palmer 21:43
Right. You know, but I do think like, I very much remember with Andersen. Early on, we just planted like a couple of strawberry plants. One you know, late spring, early summer, just I went to may have bought like one of the even like the strawberry pots, right where you can shove a whole bunch of plants into it. And it was this for a kid that does not like to eat fruit. It was so cool sitting outside and pulling the first couple of strawberries off that with her and eating them. And it was like it was just a neat experience. Right? Like, it's a memory that I have stored away will always have stored away and again, like not that my kids are the best about eating vegetables. But you know we do we'll do a lot of like tomatoes and zucchini and cucumbers and some lettuce and stuff in the summer and just go and peppers and just throw it out and let them pick it. Yeah, like they just think it's so cool right now or sending them out like sending Andersen out with some scissors and being like, hey, I need some basil and I need some rosemary, can you go find the basil and rosemary and bring it in? identify with it? Yeah, like it's just a cool, it's a really cool experience.
Liz 22:46
It teaches you I think like one thing I really like about the farmers that I've worked with is they're proud because that shouldn't have been proud of the fruits of your labor, like what they're doing is difficult. And it's time consuming. And so it's like, I've put a lot of time and effort into this. I'm proud. And it's really cool.
Anthony Palmer 23:02
And kind of on that appreciation front like that is one thing that I always really love about the farmers market too, is like having that conversation with the kids and like, make sure to say thanks to these guys for like growing our food. You know,
Liz 23:16
we wouldn't eat without the CNN. People are important. Yeah, it's pretty. They're not just dumb rednecks, which is kind of what I think people assume sometimes, because maybe they don't speak with sharp the language. We're used to chirping but these people are smart. And they work their butts off.
Anthony Palmer 23:34
Yeah, it's it's on another level. Yeah, have smart. So that kind of wraps up the first the first pass at the at the Ag side of things. But coming up for your next block, talk a little bit about what's what the topic is and about the guests that you've got coming on.
Liz 23:52
Yeah, so the next one, we kind of just fell into it. Um, I interviewed wil Edwards first. And we kind of started the interview talking about like the school board and how education works. But it more turned into a conversation about special needs for children and how, you know, that's handled in our state, specifically, I guess. And so that's what this topic blog is going to be about a special needs. And with Will we talk about specifically ages three to 21, and how the school system handles that. And then we're going to talk to Michael Collins, who is the CFO of Sertoma. And he's going to talk to us about what they do for once a child has aged out of the school system as adults, like what resources do they have, what help do they have? And then we're going to talk to a few more people after that. So mainly just learning more about if you have special needs, like here's some resources, here's some support but if you don't, you need to know about this stuff because your kids are going to be around it you're going to be around and we need to support and love these people. So that's the next topic.
Anthony Palmer 24:52
Well, I'm excited for it. I've the I've already listened to the will AdWords conversation and it was incredible. So a big thanks to all for coming in and having a conversation with you, and just being very real. And yes, it says more honest and open in that conversation. But I'm excited for that next block. Tell everyone a little bit longer term planning here, like maybe tease out a couple of the other topics that we're playing around with doing some stuff on.
Liz 25:20
Yeah. So after that, we're gonna do the nutrition topics, actually, which should be pretty interesting. We're also going to do a topic, I guess, here's a surprise, I'm pregnant. I don't know if people know this or not. Maybe number three is on the way. So we're going to talk about pregnancy and delivery and that whole process and just some things that have been eye opening for me through having kids. So we're gonna talk to some doctors and different things like that, and midwives. And then we're going to talk about education. So we're gonna get some different viewpoints on education, like private school, homeschooling, public school, get all of those. What's so
Anthony Palmer 25:54
cool about your show. And what you're wanting to do with this lives is you're exploring different areas, things that you're passionate about things that you want to learn more about things that maybe are uncomfortable sometimes for people to dive into and talk about. And we're bringing on people with all different views and experiences in the subject. So as we continue to build out our our topics for the rest of the year, we would definitely love to hear from your listeners, we received a ton of feedback on the last couple episodes. And we'd love to hear more about other topics folks might be interested in hearing or Yeah, guess who they think might be a good fit to come on and talk about certain topics?
Liz 26:31
Absolutely. Actually, my friend Lee and told me, I thought this was a great idea. She was like, You need to talk about how parents are so crazy in sports now and how it's like overtaking these kids lives and famous lives. And I was like, God, my kids aren't even that age yet. But that's a great idea. And so if even if you've, you know, random stuff like that, let me know, because my kids aren't there, but they will be there. So I'd love to talk about these kinds of things.
Anthony Palmer 26:53
Yeah, absolutely. So and as always, folks can shoot you a DM with that information, or they can head over to the website, send request in that way, but we would, we would love to love to hear what you all want to hear Liz talking about all the episodes.
Liz 27:09
Yes, we would. And if you guys have time, if you will rate and review us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to them. I know it's annoying, but it does help the show. So we really appreciate it and you can check us out at Liz durham.com And we'll see you next time. Being different with Liz Durham is a palm tree pod CO production it's produced and edited by Anthony Palmer. Thanks to Emily miles for digital support. The content for this episode is created by me Liz Durham.