WEBVTT 00:00:00.949 --> 00:00:06.077 Today is August 4th 2015. My name is Christine Navarro M interviewing for 00:00:06.110 --> 00:00:10.927 the Arizona State University Dinner 2040 archive. I'm interviewing Mr 00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:16.546 Barba Clinton at his home in period of Arizona. Keep trying to say Texas. 00:00:16.579 --> 00:00:20.416 Um, good morning. Hi, how are you? Good. How are you, sir? Good. Excellent 00:00:20.449 --> 00:00:24.776 , good. Could you tell me a little bit about, um kind of your background 00:00:24.809 --> 00:00:31.296 and, and how you came to this point? Well, that's a fairly long story. But 00:00:31.329 --> 00:00:36.945 , uh I guess it all started my fascination with growing, started when I 00:00:36.978 --> 00:00:41.515 was probably three or four years old and my grandmother took some squash 00:00:41.548 --> 00:00:46.347 seeds and put them between two wet paper towels on a plate. Uh, and we 00:00:46.380 --> 00:00:51.347 kept them moist for four or five or six days. And I was just fascinated 00:00:51.380 --> 00:00:55.826 when they germinated and started sprouting and growing roots and growing 00:00:55.859 --> 00:01:02.156 coal Eden type leaves. And that really started my love and curiosity about 00:01:02.189 --> 00:01:09.117 growing, born and raised in Tucson, went to school uh at the University of 00:01:09.150 --> 00:01:14.036 Arizona and, and got a degree in pharmacy. And when I was going to school 00:01:14.069 --> 00:01:20.897 , I had a lot of part time jobs one of them was working for the USDA and 00:01:20.930 --> 00:01:27.587 the B research laboratory down there uh where I spent several, two or 00:01:27.620 --> 00:01:29.915 three years 00:01:29.948 --> 00:01:37.415 being a information gatherer, a grunt basically uh to the phd researchers 00:01:37.448 --> 00:01:41.665 at doing scientific research projects on honey bees and fell in love with 00:01:41.698 --> 00:01:45.197 the honey bee at that point in time and have had bees pretty much ever 00:01:45.230 --> 00:01:52.837 since um that experience. And then also another part-time job was to work 00:01:52.870 --> 00:01:59.915 in a greenhouse in the pharmacognosy laboratory, which pharmacognosy is 00:01:59.948 --> 00:02:07.117 the study of, of plants and drugs derived from plants that pretty much is 00:02:07.150 --> 00:02:12.916 almost a dead science now because everything is synthesized, everything is 00:02:12.949 --> 00:02:18.957 manipulated in the laboratory. And there are very, very few drugs that are 00:02:18.990 --> 00:02:22.696 where we grow plants and we extract drugs out of them. They're all 00:02:22.729 --> 00:02:28.106 synthesized now. So I don't think they even teach that in pharmacy school 00:02:28.139 --> 00:02:33.786 today. I see no evidence of it, but it's an interesting science and it's 00:02:33.819 --> 00:02:37.725 very interesting from the perspective that that's where our modern 00:02:37.758 --> 00:02:44.467 medicines all originated was from plants. Um After that, I went to work um 00:02:44.500 --> 00:02:49.906 uh uh doing continuing education uh for the University of Arizona College 00:02:49.939 --> 00:02:53.186 of Pharmacy for a year, traveled the state and did a lot of continuing 00:02:53.219 --> 00:02:58.487 education programs for pharmacists. Then took a job uh at Saint Joseph's 00:02:58.520 --> 00:03:04.957 Hospital in Phoenix Arizona and was there about 20 years before I started 00:03:04.990 --> 00:03:09.987 doing all kinds of other crazy things. Um medical electronics and medical 00:03:10.020 --> 00:03:14.636 supply businesses and that type of thing. But all through this, we had 00:03:14.669 --> 00:03:20.156 property, our first home was on two acres. The next one was on 10 and now 00:03:20.189 --> 00:03:27.797 we're on 25 and we farm a total of 93 acres, all certified organic. So 00:03:27.830 --> 00:03:33.346 through all that, we have always been growing, we've always been, 00:03:33.379 --> 00:03:39.055 our first venture was an internet marketing in the very early days. And we 00:03:39.088 --> 00:03:45.305 sold honey dates and citrus online. And actually before it was even online 00:03:45.338 --> 00:03:50.186 , it was by printed catalog and we would ship all over the country via UPS 00:03:50.219 --> 00:03:54.616 those things that we could ship. Uh that really started it. And that was 00:03:54.649 --> 00:04:00.686 about 30 some odd years ago, uh that we actually started a business which 00:04:00.719 --> 00:04:08.517 , which we called mclendon Select uh at that time. And um it's evolved to 00:04:08.550 --> 00:04:16.550 where now it's a, um I would call it a medium size family business. My son 00:04:17.329 --> 00:04:21.166 is involved, of course, my wife is involved, my daughter-in-law, my 00:04:21.199 --> 00:04:25.906 grandson and we have about 20 other employees at this point in time. So 00:04:25.939 --> 00:04:29.166 I'm gonna go back just a little bit for the jobs that you had during 00:04:29.199 --> 00:04:36.536 college and ask you how those jobs kind of help form, um or help fuel that 00:04:36.569 --> 00:04:43.116 passion with gardening and growing. Well, going to going to pharmacy 00:04:43.149 --> 00:04:47.757 school. Um of course, we had a lot of, a lot of biology, a lot of 00:04:47.790 --> 00:04:54.877 chemistry. Um It was very science based and I discovered that while I was 00:04:54.910 --> 00:04:59.627 doing all this growing. Um And especially after I got out of college, that 00:04:59.660 --> 00:05:04.606 I could use that knowledge to help me grow food. I've never been into 00:05:04.639 --> 00:05:10.575 landscaping. I've never been into um uh planting something for beauty. Uh 00:05:10.608 --> 00:05:13.336 I've always been into planting something that would give us something to 00:05:13.369 --> 00:05:18.575 eat. So instead of planting a, a mesquite tree, I'd rather plant a citrus 00:05:18.608 --> 00:05:24.976 tree and learned our first plantings of fruit trees were citrus trees. Uh 00:05:25.009 --> 00:05:30.055 10 citrus trees back in about 1970 00:05:30.088 --> 00:05:36.166 those trees are still alive and still producing today. Um So let me, let 00:05:36.199 --> 00:05:39.536 me go a little bit further back as well. Tell me about, you mentioned your 00:05:39.569 --> 00:05:43.245 grandmother and the seeds that she grew was, did she have a garden when 00:05:43.278 --> 00:05:46.205 she was young? Did you, would you remember working in that garden with her 00:05:46.238 --> 00:05:51.187 ? She always had a garden, always grew, um always grew a few little things 00:05:51.220 --> 00:05:57.296 , whatever she could in the, in the hard desert soil. And uh I can still 00:05:57.329 --> 00:06:05.276 remember digging for her and finding Kichi and hard underpant and uh using 00:06:05.309 --> 00:06:08.276 a pick and a shovel. And I can still remember doing that, but she always 00:06:08.309 --> 00:06:15.526 had uh things growing. Um She was a nurse and she worked for a private uh 00:06:15.559 --> 00:06:19.895 like a private duty nurse and worked for a very wealthy lady who actually 00:06:19.928 --> 00:06:24.757 lived at Saint Mary's Hospital in Tucson. She was a permanent resident um 00:06:24.790 --> 00:06:30.096 , her name was Sadie Danzinger. And from the Dancing or Oil Company of the 00:06:30.129 --> 00:06:38.129 , uh, uh, the 1st 50 years of the, of like for about 1930 to 1940. And she 00:06:38.278 --> 00:06:41.877 , there was a very wealthy family and this lady was sick all the time. And 00:06:41.910 --> 00:06:45.846 so she lives at the hospital. But, but my grandmother always had a big 00:06:45.879 --> 00:06:52.967 garden for her outside of the hospital. And, uh, she would take this lady 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:58.366 Sadie and, uh, take her out and, and she would be working with the, the 00:06:58.399 --> 00:07:02.736 garden and the flowers. It was mostly flowers that she liked. And that was 00:07:02.769 --> 00:07:07.856 her whole pleasure in life at that point in time was gardening and flowers 00:07:07.889 --> 00:07:13.366 that she grew on the hospital grounds. And what is it? Do you think that 00:07:13.399 --> 00:07:21.399 that on to you? Um, just the, the, the miracle of life, the absolute 00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:30.616 fascination with taking a seed and nurturing that seed until it grows into 00:07:30.649 --> 00:07:34.995 something that produces something to eat. Um, I've always been a good 00:07:35.028 --> 00:07:40.515 eater. I've always loved great food. Um, I guess in the early days before 00:07:40.548 --> 00:07:44.437 I really got into this business, you could call me a foodie. We used to go 00:07:44.470 --> 00:07:49.947 to, um, uh, we used to go to California a lot, which was really the center 00:07:49.980 --> 00:07:55.947 of the universe then and probably still is for uh, new food concepts and 00:07:55.980 --> 00:08:01.026 food and especially great restaurants, great chefs, uh went to the masters 00:08:01.059 --> 00:08:04.226 of food and my wife and I went to the masters of food and wine, like 10 00:08:04.259 --> 00:08:08.387 years in a row and, uh, where they brought great chefs in from all over 00:08:08.420 --> 00:08:13.106 the world, um, and cooked dishes from all over the world. And it was, uh, 00:08:13.139 --> 00:08:17.236 it's always been, food's always been very important to me. So when you tie 00:08:17.269 --> 00:08:22.676 that magic of the germinating seed into producing something that's so much 00:08:22.709 --> 00:08:28.137 better than you can get in a grocery store out of a can or a jar or a 00:08:28.170 --> 00:08:33.096 bottle or out of the freezer. Um That's always just been a fascination to 00:08:33.129 --> 00:08:38.765 me. So I in this business, we've always strived to be able to be the best 00:08:38.798 --> 00:08:43.936 we can be, but we've never been happy um with uh where we are, we're 00:08:43.969 --> 00:08:49.015 always trying to do it better. And my son Sean, who joined me in the 00:08:49.048 --> 00:08:53.307 business about six years ago, uh takes that to even a further level than I 00:08:53.340 --> 00:09:00.265 do. Um He's a perfectionist and he, he sometimes drives me crazy doing 00:09:00.298 --> 00:09:06.086 that, but he's a perfectionist. And so he is very much into quality and 00:09:06.119 --> 00:09:10.057 improving what we do. We're always trying new varieties of vegetables. 00:09:10.090 --> 00:09:14.467 We're always looking for something that can grow in this harsh climate and 00:09:14.500 --> 00:09:21.167 produce good product. Um Our work is never done. We're never satisfied and 00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:25.667 we're never uh just gonna be status quo. So let's talk a little bit about 00:09:25.700 --> 00:09:31.787 your transition into um making the P and select um the pre um certified 00:09:31.820 --> 00:09:37.686 organic and how you, you left pharmacy and started um working on this ben 00:09:37.719 --> 00:09:44.057 probably, um the start of this business that goes back to my wife Marsha. 00:09:44.090 --> 00:09:49.025 We always had a garden from our first home on two acres. We always had a 00:09:49.058 --> 00:09:54.746 big garden and we always grew everything that we could grow. Um, sometimes 00:09:54.779 --> 00:09:59.417 with success and sometimes with failure, um, we still have failure for 00:09:59.450 --> 00:10:05.326 sure. Um It's, it's a difficult, difficult job. It's the most challenging 00:10:05.359 --> 00:10:11.047 job I've ever had uh to be able to do what we do in given climate and 00:10:11.080 --> 00:10:18.336 mother nature and everything else. Um And uh 00:10:18.369 --> 00:10:24.096 I've lost track of where I was going with. This, started the business. So 00:10:24.129 --> 00:10:30.677 as we had these gardens, um I started taking food that we grew to work and 00:10:30.710 --> 00:10:35.956 I had a company, then I left the hospital, had a company called uh uh PC I 00:10:35.989 --> 00:10:43.076 Medical and we had it when I sold that company, we had about 60 employees. 00:10:43.109 --> 00:10:48.015 And so I would take vegetables that we couldn't use because we were 00:10:48.048 --> 00:10:52.326 growing too many and I would take them to work and give them to the 00:10:52.359 --> 00:10:56.385 employees and employees just loved it because several days a week, there'd 00:10:56.418 --> 00:11:00.917 be a, I would be out of a shelf and I would put all kinds of things on 00:11:00.950 --> 00:11:07.265 that shelf and they could just help themselves to it. Um Then we moved, um 00:11:07.298 --> 00:11:11.025 we, the, the, we started getting rid of. We had, in the early days we had 00:11:11.058 --> 00:11:16.456 horses and we had cattle and we got rid of those. Um, there's no more 00:11:16.489 --> 00:11:24.489 livestock on the place and, uh, expanded our growing areas continually and 00:11:25.690 --> 00:11:31.316 we growing way more than what I could give away. So, my wife one day went 00:11:31.349 --> 00:11:35.866 to, um, a, a very old shopping center in central Phoenix called Town and 00:11:35.899 --> 00:11:40.677 Country. Uh, it's located at 20th Street in Kel back. And they've had, 00:11:40.710 --> 00:11:44.297 they did have a farmer's market, the farmer's markets now closed, but they 00:11:44.330 --> 00:11:50.547 did have a farmer's market that was 20 or 25 years old then with a lot of 00:11:50.580 --> 00:11:55.177 history behind it and a lot of, of small farmers that would go and sell 00:11:55.210 --> 00:11:59.275 their, their products there. So she went and talked to them and she told 00:11:59.308 --> 00:12:01.967 me that she was going to do that and she said, you've got to, we've got to 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:05.467 do something with all this and it's a shame to waste it. So she drove and 00:12:05.500 --> 00:12:10.417 talked to the management and said that I would be there the next week with 00:12:10.450 --> 00:12:14.917 a table and we started out with a table of citrus, um, set up a table of 00:12:14.950 --> 00:12:18.885 citrus and we had two chairs that we would sit behind and people would 00:12:18.918 --> 00:12:23.746 come by and they would buy our citrus and, and, um, so that's where really 00:12:23.779 --> 00:12:30.907 our farmer's market part of the food cycle began. Then we had some 00:12:30.940 --> 00:12:38.895 restaurants chefs that came by uh that shopped at farmer's market and they 00:12:38.928 --> 00:12:44.236 started looking at our produce and our fruit and saying this is really 00:12:44.269 --> 00:12:50.936 nice stuff. Um I would like to use that in my restaurant. So there's two 00:12:50.969 --> 00:12:55.326 chefs, one in particular uh that really started it. And his name is Chris 00:12:55.359 --> 00:13:02.167 Bianco and Chris Bianco has four restaurants now and is very well known. 00:13:02.200 --> 00:13:06.596 He's a James Beard award-winning chef, uh very well known in this area. 00:13:06.629 --> 00:13:11.385 He has Pizzeria Bianco, which was his first pane Bianco, his second 00:13:11.418 --> 00:13:19.287 Italian restaurant. And he also has a restaurant in Tucson called Pizzeria 00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:27.320 Bianco in Tucson. And he is like the pioneer of using local food, locally 00:13:29.940 --> 00:13:37.940 produced food, whether it be poultry or dairy or meat or vegetables or 00:13:39.109 --> 00:13:45.625 fruit. He, I would have to say that probably 95% of everything he uses is 00:13:45.658 --> 00:13:52.157 locally produced. So he has like been, I don't know if you know who Alice 00:13:52.190 --> 00:13:56.967 Waters is or not, but you'll hear that name as you get into this Alice 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:01.706 Waters is really the mother of this kind of movement, the local food 00:14:01.739 --> 00:14:07.765 movement. And she started up in Berkeley, California and she's written a 00:14:07.798 --> 00:14:14.186 book, um and she has a restaurant there and she's anyone in the local food 00:14:14.219 --> 00:14:19.537 movement uh knows who Alice Waters is, but he would be kind of the Alice 00:14:19.570 --> 00:14:25.717 Waters of, of Phoenix. And why was it important for him to use local food 00:14:25.750 --> 00:14:33.750 in, in his restaurant. Um, number one, he just really believed that using 00:14:34.658 --> 00:14:41.726 local products would support the economy, would give him fresher products 00:14:41.759 --> 00:14:46.616 more flavorful products that he could cook better food with local food, 00:14:46.649 --> 00:14:52.787 local ingredients and has stuck to that ever since. So it's just a total 00:14:52.820 --> 00:15:00.196 commitment from his end product that goes on the plate to supporting the 00:15:00.229 --> 00:15:07.686 local economy with his dollars. And he's been very important to this, this 00:15:07.719 --> 00:15:12.356 movement, But he came to our farmer's market and then I grew to two tables 00:15:12.389 --> 00:15:17.895 and then three tables. And when we started out, I would sit in a chair and 00:15:17.928 --> 00:15:22.265 wait for someone to come buy something. And our current markets, we are 00:15:22.298 --> 00:15:28.467 the largest farmer's market vendor. Um I would have to say probably larger 00:15:28.500 --> 00:15:32.265 than any, any single vendor in California, but certainly the largest in 00:15:32.298 --> 00:15:37.456 Arizona um to the degree that we now have when we set up a market, we have 00:15:37.489 --> 00:15:39.686 eight cashiers 00:15:39.719 --> 00:15:44.907 and lines four and five deep behind every cashier, sometimes 10 and 20 00:15:44.940 --> 00:15:51.287 deep in old town, Scottsdale and there's eight cashiers kind of, you can 00:15:51.320 --> 00:15:54.135 go to the grocery, a big grocery store today and you might not find eight. 00:15:54.168 --> 00:15:57.586 You probably won't find eight cashiers that are even open, but usually 00:15:57.619 --> 00:16:02.037 two or three. But we run eight cashiers full steam ahead for about five or 00:16:02.070 --> 00:16:06.265 six hours during one of our markets. And we've grown from sitting in a 00:16:06.298 --> 00:16:12.047 chair to that, that level. Let's talk about that growth and the kind of 00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:19.096 the pains and the, and the joys of growing that, that large. Um, 00:16:19.129 --> 00:16:25.885 there's always been joy behind it because I, at, at my age I wouldn't do 00:16:25.918 --> 00:16:30.586 it if I didn't really enjoy it. But on the other hand I told you it was 00:16:30.619 --> 00:16:34.635 the most challenging thing I've ever done. And I'm still challenged by it 00:16:34.668 --> 00:16:37.645 on a daily basis. 00:16:37.678 --> 00:16:45.678 And the, the pains are many from insects to hot weather to cold weather 00:16:46.428 --> 00:16:52.157 too that can freeze here. We've had 14 degree days. It froze all the 00:16:52.190 --> 00:16:55.976 citrus trees and all the fruit on them. It happens about every five or six 00:16:56.009 --> 00:17:02.496 years and we've had days that everything just fries in the heat when it's 00:17:02.529 --> 00:17:08.776 116 or 17 degrees or whatever. So those are the challenges, weeds, 00:17:08.809 --> 00:17:14.717 challenge bugs, uh, the environment in general, um, that just put us to 00:17:14.750 --> 00:17:19.246 the test every day of the week. And we're always trying to learn something 00:17:19.279 --> 00:17:27.206 more to improve what we do and to assure the health and vigor of the 00:17:27.239 --> 00:17:32.276 plants that we manage and plant. So, tell me you have your, um, a 00:17:32.309 --> 00:17:38.436 certified organic farm, correct? Can you tell me about that process and 00:17:38.469 --> 00:17:42.196 why that was important to you? 00:17:42.229 --> 00:17:48.436 About 2000 and 00:17:48.469 --> 00:17:55.637 about the year 2000. Um, I could look around and see as I looked at the 00:17:55.670 --> 00:17:58.535 whole food, 00:17:58.568 --> 00:18:03.717 the whole, how do I say the whole food industry at least in the local area 00:18:03.750 --> 00:18:08.706 here of Phoenix, which is really all I have ever known about and about 00:18:08.739 --> 00:18:14.967 people and what they were eating, what they were buying, what they wanted 00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:21.266 to. Um, what, what, what they were interested in. Um, I started looking at 00:18:21.299 --> 00:18:29.256 the health outcomes of eating, um, organic versus eating conventionally 00:18:29.289 --> 00:18:35.545 grown that all has pesticide residues on it among other chemicals coming 00:18:35.578 --> 00:18:39.686 from the fertilizer that they fed it with to the sprays they put on it for 00:18:39.719 --> 00:18:46.107 pesticides, et cetera. And also looking at the cancer rates that seem to 00:18:46.140 --> 00:18:48.545 be increasing 00:18:48.578 --> 00:18:56.578 among our community. And is that gonna interfere with you? 00:19:00.799 --> 00:19:07.196 Testing? 123? Is that ok? Ok. Ok. I told him because he won't be there 00:19:07.229 --> 00:19:15.016 very long. So I looked at the health benefits of eating healthy and 00:19:15.049 --> 00:19:21.166 realizing that I myself and our family had not been eating as healthy as 00:19:21.199 --> 00:19:26.565 we could have. Uh, in our young years, we always ate good food. Marsha is 00:19:26.598 --> 00:19:31.147 an excellent cook and having gardens and produce all the time. We always, 00:19:31.180 --> 00:19:36.506 I'm sure we ate more healthy than the average family, but not to the 00:19:36.539 --> 00:19:44.176 degree that we eat today healthy. And um, I looked at that whole thing and 00:19:44.209 --> 00:19:52.209 said I need to convert this farm to organic and there's typically that 00:19:52.618 --> 00:19:55.406 takes three years 00:19:55.439 --> 00:19:58.706 because you have to start farming it organically for three years in a 00:19:58.739 --> 00:20:05.897 transitional period. And you have to, um, uh, go through that weight and 00:20:05.930 --> 00:20:10.335 you have to register the, the ground in the transitional period and then 00:20:10.368 --> 00:20:14.055 they come and inspect you et cetera, et cetera. But it took me five years 00:20:14.088 --> 00:20:20.295 because um I was busy and it was a learning process. There was no one 00:20:20.328 --> 00:20:25.266 there to help me today. There's lots of tools to help young farmers uh to 00:20:25.299 --> 00:20:30.535 get certified. We didn't have that. And I had to read the National Organic 00:20:30.568 --> 00:20:37.016 Act, I had to ask a million questions of other growers. Um and spent a lot 00:20:37.049 --> 00:20:41.706 of time in California talking to growers, et cetera. So I finally figured 00:20:41.739 --> 00:20:44.906 out exactly what I need to do. So it took me five years to get certified 00:20:44.939 --> 00:20:48.926 instead of three. So we became certified in about 2005 toward the end of 00:20:48.959 --> 00:20:56.959 2005. And so now we've been over 10 years certified and um we now have 00:20:57.689 --> 00:21:00.897 about 00:21:00.930 --> 00:21:05.147 three years ago, four years ago, we entered into agreement an agreement 00:21:05.180 --> 00:21:10.045 with the Cancer treatment Centers of America at Litchfield Road and I 10, 00:21:10.078 --> 00:21:18.078 um who uh it's a, it's a ultramodern hospital. And um that whole story 00:21:18.529 --> 00:21:22.026 started when the chef called me and wanted to buy organic produce. And I 00:21:22.059 --> 00:21:25.045 told him I wasn't taking any new customers and I told him no, several 00:21:25.078 --> 00:21:28.486 times. And finally, finally, he said, I'm not gonna give up, would you 00:21:28.519 --> 00:21:32.295 come out here? And I'd like to show you what we do here in this hospital 00:21:32.328 --> 00:21:36.456 and of course, me being spending a good part of my life in a very big 00:21:36.489 --> 00:21:42.597 hospital. Um when it came to food, I wanted to get out of there to eat 00:21:42.630 --> 00:21:45.776 lunch. I didn't want to eat lunch in the hospital. So I did everything I 00:21:45.809 --> 00:21:49.766 could to avoid eating in the hospital. So here I've got a chef asking me, 00:21:49.799 --> 00:21:54.397 you know, sell your produce to me so we can feed it to our patients and 00:21:54.430 --> 00:21:59.847 our employees. And I'm going um II, I couldn't connect with that, couldn't 00:21:59.880 --> 00:22:04.226 connect with that concept. Finally, I went out there, took a tour and I 00:22:04.259 --> 00:22:08.835 was so impressed with what they do and with the people and, and how they 00:22:08.868 --> 00:22:12.956 treat their patients and their, their treatment regimens and how they 00:22:12.989 --> 00:22:18.906 approach their treatment from every facet, from holistic to chiropractic 00:22:18.939 --> 00:22:26.939 to naturopathic, to chemotherapy, to surgery, to radiation, every mode 00:22:28.818 --> 00:22:34.776 modality that they can use, they use to treat and try to win the fight 00:22:34.809 --> 00:22:39.467 against cancer. I was so impressed with that and the people that I took 00:22:39.500 --> 00:22:43.877 them on as a customer and I personally started delivering to them and then 00:22:43.910 --> 00:22:49.055 noticing that there was farming all around that hospital and I started 00:22:49.088 --> 00:22:53.127 asking a question. Well, apparently the hospital bought like 200 acres and 00:22:53.160 --> 00:22:58.065 they took 25 and built the hospital and then they leased the other 175 00:22:58.098 --> 00:23:03.575 acres to conventional farmer farmers that were growing just conventional 00:23:03.608 --> 00:23:10.097 crops like alfalfa and cotton and, and uh uh wheat, that kind of thing. So 00:23:10.130 --> 00:23:16.467 one day, the chef who is a CIA train chef with an Italian background, uh 00:23:16.500 --> 00:23:22.137 we were talking and we both kind of cooked up the idea that what if we, 00:23:22.170 --> 00:23:27.196 what if I leased some ground and I started growing uh organic produce 00:23:27.229 --> 00:23:31.835 there uh And they would have access to it and they could go out and 00:23:31.868 --> 00:23:36.117 harvest whatever they want and take it into the kitchen and prepare it 00:23:36.150 --> 00:23:41.847 that day and feed the patients uh wholesome organic food that's grown 00:23:41.880 --> 00:23:48.585 right in the right behind the hospital. And we, we uh presented that uh 00:23:48.618 --> 00:23:55.055 Frank um Frank Caputo is his name, the CIA trained chef who's head of 00:23:55.088 --> 00:23:58.946 their culinary program. He presented at the Board of directors and uh 00:23:58.979 --> 00:24:05.559 board of directors says, uh we'd be interested in that uh get us some cost. 00:24:05.670 --> 00:24:07.670 So I went to work and I designed a dream irrigation system with a big 00:24:12.489 --> 00:24:17.756 multimillion gallon lagoon of a big pump so that I could drip, irrigate 00:24:17.789 --> 00:24:24.117 everything to save water. And uh I had the, the land had been abused by 00:24:24.150 --> 00:24:30.266 tenant farmers for decades uh in very, very poor condition. Uh We had to 00:24:30.299 --> 00:24:35.986 laser level, it had to bring in all kinds of fill to make it level, um did 00:24:36.019 --> 00:24:40.016 a lot of work. And so then we put the pencil to this thing and it was um 00:24:40.049 --> 00:24:44.476 quite frankly, it was pretty close to a million dollars. And I said, well 00:24:44.509 --> 00:24:47.736 , that's, there goes that dream. 00:24:47.769 --> 00:24:52.055 Um, that's really nice, but there's no way they're ever gonna approve a 00:24:52.088 --> 00:24:58.526 million dollars. No way. And they took it to the National Board of 00:24:58.559 --> 00:25:02.535 Directors and 00:25:02.568 --> 00:25:07.686 unbelievably they approved it and they spent that money and they got it 00:25:07.719 --> 00:25:13.075 ready for us to farm. Uh, we did a lot of the work, not a lot of it. We 00:25:13.108 --> 00:25:17.246 did some of the work ourselves. We did all of the piping and plumbing and 00:25:17.279 --> 00:25:23.597 everything to get the water all over the place. And so now we farm uh uh 00:25:23.630 --> 00:25:31.630 68 6, 63 acres and it's all certified now, 6365 somewhere in there. So the 00:25:33.368 --> 00:25:37.397 1st 25 that we farm, we had to go through a three year wait period. So it 00:25:37.430 --> 00:25:42.127 was transitional, but we farmed it just as if it was organic and we sold 00:25:42.160 --> 00:25:47.315 it as transitional. Uh The hospital used it and it was very nice product 00:25:47.348 --> 00:25:51.107 and it was working out well. And I started looking at another 40 acres 00:25:51.140 --> 00:25:57.776 that hadn't had any water to it or farm for at least 15 years. Um And we, 00:25:57.809 --> 00:26:01.397 um I came up with the idea that I could figure out how to get water to it 00:26:01.430 --> 00:26:05.847 from the system that they'd already built. I could pipe water down to it. 00:26:05.880 --> 00:26:13.880 And uh I, we put that through as an idea and leased, we now lease that 40 00:26:15.348 --> 00:26:20.746 acres. So we now got a total of about 65 acres out there. Uh That's all, 00:26:20.779 --> 00:26:26.818 now all certified that 40 acres went organic within just a few months. 00:26:27.900 --> 00:26:29.900 There's a, there's, this is a picture. Here's the hospital here. 00:26:33.630 --> 00:26:37.377 Sure. Go ahead. 00:26:37.410 --> 00:26:40.805 You want to get on top of it though? 00:26:40.838 --> 00:26:44.746 No, no, you don't want that. I want us. 00:26:44.779 --> 00:26:51.367 Ok. Oh, you do you mind being in the pictures? Do you mind being here? 00:26:51.400 --> 00:26:58.847 That would be perfect. Grab it. 00:26:58.880 --> 00:27:01.867 Ok. Thank you. 00:27:01.900 --> 00:27:09.900 Anyway, this is the 25 acres here. This is in wheat right here. This is 00:27:10.189 --> 00:27:15.226 the 25 acres. This is a lagoon and the pumping station and then this is 00:27:15.259 --> 00:27:22.956 the 40 acres here that um we recently started farming and because it 00:27:22.989 --> 00:27:27.305 hadn't been farmed for 15 years, it could be certified organic right away 00:27:27.338 --> 00:27:32.166 because there had been no chemicals. No, all the weed control was done by 00:27:32.199 --> 00:27:37.956 mechanical means disc in the weeds and stuff. So this you can see where we 00:27:37.989 --> 00:27:41.746 have all these different vegetables planted. Uh This is just before we 00:27:41.779 --> 00:27:46.325 planted spring corn, they were just Sean Sean does all the tractor work 00:27:46.358 --> 00:27:51.127 here. Now, this is pretty much vacant and we're planting up here and this 00:27:51.160 --> 00:27:54.535 is the hospital. This is the back door to the hospital. The kitchen staff 00:27:54.568 --> 00:27:59.746 comes out here, harvest in the morning, takes it back washes it and 00:27:59.779 --> 00:28:07.779 literally it's going from farm to plates um within hours and they feed, 00:28:07.959 --> 00:28:15.055 they also buy organic poultry, organic meat. They buy 90 plus percent of 00:28:15.088 --> 00:28:18.967 everything that they serve is organic because food is one of their 00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:21.597 treatment modalities. 00:28:21.630 --> 00:28:25.196 So, food and the quality of that food and the healthiness of that food is 00:28:25.229 --> 00:28:28.815 very important to them because there's a lot of evidence that a lot of 00:28:28.848 --> 00:28:32.877 these chemicals that we're exposed to and we live in a sea of chemicals, 00:28:32.910 --> 00:28:37.647 we can't avoid it, but a lot of those chemicals are now being tied to 00:28:37.680 --> 00:28:42.535 different forms of cancer. Um, some of it is anecdotal. Some of it is 00:28:42.568 --> 00:28:49.565 scientific and um, but it was enough to impress me in 2000 that I needed 00:28:49.598 --> 00:28:54.217 to make this change. And so this whole thing has evolved to where now it 00:28:54.250 --> 00:28:57.887 is really a pretty big operation 00:28:57.920 --> 00:29:03.516 and all dedicated to clean wholesome fresh local food. Did you ever 00:29:03.549 --> 00:29:08.285 envision that this would be possible or feasible or even happen? I did 00:29:08.318 --> 00:29:14.276 when I, when I started delivering and this was all this was vacant here. 00:29:14.309 --> 00:29:19.516 This was in weed at the time and I would drive in here come I 10. This is 00:29:19.549 --> 00:29:23.305 I 10 here. I would drive down Litchfield Road and take the delivery truck 00:29:23.338 --> 00:29:26.897 and back into their dock and I couldn't help but go through and, and look 00:29:26.930 --> 00:29:32.256 as I drove up and down here at all this agricultural ground. Meantime, we 00:29:32.289 --> 00:29:36.805 were running out of room 25 acres here, most of its citrus and I'm trying 00:29:36.838 --> 00:29:43.045 to grow vegetables and I didn't have enough room. So it's like uh it was 00:29:43.078 --> 00:29:50.065 like a perfect, the, the perfect relationship. Um It's probably an example 00:29:50.098 --> 00:29:56.996 of, of a true symbiotic relationship where 00:29:57.029 --> 00:30:03.406 we benefit and they benefit all parties are benefiting plus the community. 00:30:03.439 --> 00:30:08.996 And there is really no downside or no negative to this at all. Even from 00:30:09.029 --> 00:30:13.795 a property tax perspective, this 40 acres was vacant in its zone 00:30:13.828 --> 00:30:18.887 commercial and they were paying $85,000 a year in property taxes, which 00:30:18.920 --> 00:30:26.766 are now $4000 a year because it's now in agriculture. So everybody wins in 00:30:26.799 --> 00:30:29.656 this, in this relationship and it's been, it's been a wonderful 00:30:29.689 --> 00:30:34.246 relationship. Now, how do you determine what crops are grown and how, how 00:30:34.279 --> 00:30:40.147 does that get made? Well, um my son and I make all those determinations. I 00:30:40.180 --> 00:30:45.795 also have a young lady who has a degree in horticulture and uh uh her name 00:30:45.828 --> 00:30:52.936 is Laura. Um She manages all the seed, manages all the records and we look 00:30:52.969 --> 00:30:57.565 at what we've done in the past for years as to timing whole thing about 00:30:57.598 --> 00:31:02.156 growing in the desert is all about timing when you plant and you can plant 00:31:02.189 --> 00:31:05.916 certain things at the wrong time of the year. And most people of backyard 00:31:05.949 --> 00:31:09.717 gardens don't have a clue. They're trying to plant winter stuff in the 00:31:09.750 --> 00:31:14.877 summer and summer stuff in the winter and they fail. So the key thing here 00:31:14.910 --> 00:31:18.815 is, when do you make that commitment and that investment? And when do you 00:31:18.848 --> 00:31:25.825 plant? And uh the three of us make those decisions. So, right now, we are 00:31:25.858 --> 00:31:31.387 still planting summer things today out there. Um He's got, my son's got a 00:31:31.420 --> 00:31:34.936 crew of about seven or eight people out there today and he's planting 00:31:34.969 --> 00:31:40.666 cucumbers and squash and okra which will mature. Um When we start our 00:31:40.699 --> 00:31:44.627 farmers markets the first week of October, uh, we'll start harvesting the 00:31:44.660 --> 00:31:48.647 things that he's planting today. So you've got to be 60 to 90 to 100 and 00:31:48.680 --> 00:31:54.906 20 days ahead of this thing in your planning, which can be tricky. But two 00:31:54.939 --> 00:31:58.575 years of experience, we kind of know when we need to do that and we go 00:31:58.608 --> 00:32:02.436 back to the previous year's records and say, oh, this didn't work. Uh, we 00:32:02.469 --> 00:32:06.315 messed up on that one and, uh, but this did work. We try to go with the 00:32:06.348 --> 00:32:10.627 things that work. What is it like for these employees at this hospital to 00:32:10.660 --> 00:32:15.085 come out, harvest their, the food and go, I mean, what is that experience 00:32:15.118 --> 00:32:19.666 in watching that that need to come out in their chef uniforms? And they've 00:32:19.699 --> 00:32:23.956 got their bins and their knives and their cutters and whatever they need. 00:32:23.989 --> 00:32:28.147 And, and, uh, they have their own little, uh, John Deere Gator that they 00:32:28.180 --> 00:32:31.805 drive, uh, with a little bed in the back of it and they pile all the stuff 00:32:31.838 --> 00:32:36.467 on there and immediately take it in, there's a wash station, uh located uh 00:32:36.500 --> 00:32:40.226 to the rear here that they wash all the soil off before it goes in the 00:32:40.259 --> 00:32:44.666 kitchen and then they further clean it and prep it uh in the kitchen. And 00:32:44.699 --> 00:32:48.397 , uh, they enjoy that. Uh, they don't enjoy it so much in these hot summer 00:32:48.430 --> 00:32:51.887 months and they try to do it early in the morning. But, you know, it's, it 00:32:51.920 --> 00:32:56.887 , it's a tough job. Harvesting is a big part of this job and we have some 00:32:56.920 --> 00:33:01.706 very dedicated people that make it happen. Um But it's not an easy job at 00:33:01.739 --> 00:33:09.739 all. And what, why is it beneficial for you to expand um into the 40 into 00:33:09.890 --> 00:33:14.647 the other additional 40 acres? What did you see as a potential potential 00:33:14.680 --> 00:33:20.736 to go ahead and stop it for a second? So, can you tell me a little bit 00:33:20.769 --> 00:33:27.377 about, I asked you about the crops and tell me um a little bit about what 00:33:27.410 --> 00:33:31.916 the business that is behind farming, especially organic and what that is 00:33:31.949 --> 00:33:36.217 the business that's, our business is divided into two sections, farmers 00:33:36.250 --> 00:33:43.496 market, which we basically do three very large farmers markets. Um We do 00:33:43.529 --> 00:33:48.496 uh a market called Uptown at Central and Bethany uh on Saturdays year 00:33:48.529 --> 00:33:54.756 round, uh on Wednesdays, that same market uh starts in October and goes 00:33:54.789 --> 00:33:59.986 through the end of June. Uh Then we do old town Scottsdale, 00:34:00.019 --> 00:34:04.035 old town, Scottsdale is the very, our largest market and it starts up 00:34:04.068 --> 00:34:10.976 usually the third week of October and goes into mid May. Uh That's about 00:34:11.009 --> 00:34:13.727 half of our business. 00:34:13.760 --> 00:34:18.445 The other half of our business are restaurants. So that all started when 00:34:18.478 --> 00:34:22.717 one chef Chris Bianco came and looked at her stuff and then another chef, 00:34:22.750 --> 00:34:29.686 her name is Krier, uh uh Christa Robertson from Rancho Pino who is a real 00:34:29.719 --> 00:34:37.719 champion also of, of local food. Um and we've never advertised, we have no 00:34:38.048 --> 00:34:42.785 sales people but it's just word of mouth. And so one chef talks to another 00:34:42.818 --> 00:34:46.164 chef and they say, where do you, where do you get this from? And a lot of 00:34:46.197 --> 00:34:49.745 chefs will eat in other restaurants to see what's going on and where does 00:34:49.778 --> 00:34:54.807 this come from? And our business has grown to where we now do more than 70 00:34:54.840 --> 00:35:02.840 restaurants. Uh We have one in Winslow, Arizona, five in Flagstaff, 00:35:03.329 --> 00:35:08.155 four in Sedona, five in Sedona, 00:35:08.188 --> 00:35:15.517 45 in Tucson. And the balance of that 70 which would be probably 6055 or 00:35:15.550 --> 00:35:20.526 60 are in the Phoenix Scottsdale area. And so we have, we have four 00:35:20.559 --> 00:35:27.967 delivery trucks, refrigerator delivery trucks that, um deliver. We pick it 00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:33.086 immediately goes into a coal truck, bring it if it's at this farm at the 00:35:33.119 --> 00:35:36.807 Hope we call this Hope Springs farm at the cancer treatment Center of 00:35:36.840 --> 00:35:40.796 America Hope Springs Farm. So we take a refrigerated truck out there and 00:35:40.829 --> 00:35:44.276 every bin that we harvest goes into that cold truck right away. We're kind 00:35:44.309 --> 00:35:49.365 of cold freaks because I see an awful lot of small farmers that carried 00:35:49.398 --> 00:35:54.727 around in pickup trucks or vans or cars or whatever unrefrigerated and it 00:35:54.760 --> 00:35:58.396 just ruins. They can be the, have the best produce in the whole world. 00:35:58.429 --> 00:36:02.925 They're going to it. So we have very large, uh, walk in cooling 00:36:02.958 --> 00:36:07.276 facilities here. So it goes into a refrigerated truck. It comes here, it's 00:36:07.309 --> 00:36:12.345 washed and packed in an ultra clean room called our Processing room and um 00:36:12.378 --> 00:36:16.896 , then packaged back into the coolers and it goes delivered on a 00:36:16.929 --> 00:36:21.307 refrigerator truck to our customers. And that's part of the reasons why 00:36:21.340 --> 00:36:26.436 we've been so successful is because typically our produce and our fruit is 00:36:26.469 --> 00:36:30.626 way better than what the produce companies sell them. Did you ever imagine 00:36:30.659 --> 00:36:34.816 ? I mean, I don't know if people realize what it takes to get from the 00:36:34.849 --> 00:36:39.566 farm to the table. I mean, did you did the business skills that you're 00:36:39.599 --> 00:36:45.186 using? I mean, did you, well, the business skills that, that I'm using are 00:36:45.219 --> 00:36:47.885 business skills that I developed over a whole lifetime of being in 00:36:47.918 --> 00:36:52.537 different, several different businesses, not only just being a pharmacist 00:36:52.570 --> 00:36:57.227 and running. I left Saint Joe's as a Director of pharmacy in 85 but then I 00:36:57.260 --> 00:37:01.037 had several successful businesses and I will tell you I had a two or three 00:37:01.070 --> 00:37:06.936 that were not successful. Um And uh so my life has not been full of 00:37:06.969 --> 00:37:11.445 success. Uh I've had unsuccessful businesses also. But I've learned from 00:37:11.478 --> 00:37:14.736 those. So the business skills that I've learned through a lifetime of 00:37:14.769 --> 00:37:19.856 doing a lot of different things we use here on a daily basis. And, and the 00:37:19.889 --> 00:37:25.816 main thing, our main motto is that our customers are the most important 00:37:25.849 --> 00:37:30.227 thing to us, whether it be farmers markets or chef customers. Um Our 00:37:30.260 --> 00:37:38.260 quality is never good enough and our um are commitment to doing things 00:37:41.320 --> 00:37:46.256 better and more efficiently. And, and in that case, my son has taken over 00:37:46.289 --> 00:37:51.046 and this is a very high tech business behind all the dirt and the tractors. 00:37:51.079 --> 00:37:55.486 Uh He has two tractors. I can't even drive because there's, there's so 00:37:55.519 --> 00:38:00.385 much technology in them GPS sub inch accuracy. He can point it in a 00:38:00.418 --> 00:38:04.376 direction and a mile later, it'll be within less than an inch of straight 00:38:04.409 --> 00:38:11.126 where it started. And the cabs of his tractors look like, look like a 00:38:11.159 --> 00:38:17.626 cockpit of a 747. Um II I can drive, I can move them from point A to point 00:38:17.659 --> 00:38:22.287 B but I can't, I can't do anything with them anymore. And so, and then we 00:38:22.320 --> 00:38:28.566 have, uh we've been featured uh if you go to the Apple uh website and you 00:38:28.599 --> 00:38:33.566 , you, there's a place on that website where you can see client profiles. 00:38:33.599 --> 00:38:38.416 Uh Apple did a well, it took them four days to film it but did a story on 00:38:38.449 --> 00:38:46.449 how we use their technology in our business. And So um you, you name the 00:38:46.889 --> 00:38:52.566 technology Sean has, has developed that and all the software for the 00:38:52.599 --> 00:38:59.276 business has been done just for us, for our business. Um Everything from 00:38:59.309 --> 00:39:04.695 label printing to scanning, barcode scanning has now been introduced. Um 00:39:04.728 --> 00:39:09.376 It just, there's a lot of technology behind our success, but it still goes 00:39:09.409 --> 00:39:13.566 back to one thing and that's the soil and the soil is the most important 00:39:13.599 --> 00:39:18.195 thing in this business and taking care of that soil. So when we took over 00:39:18.228 --> 00:39:22.345 this ground, which had been totally neglected for decades, it has been a 00:39:22.378 --> 00:39:28.066 continual building that soil process and will never be done. But I look at 00:39:28.099 --> 00:39:33.017 the soils on this farm and some of the first ones that I started with that 00:39:33.050 --> 00:39:41.050 are now 20 years of adding organic matter and compost and things like hums 00:39:43.250 --> 00:39:50.155 and natural chicken type manure fertilizers and all natural things. These 00:39:50.188 --> 00:39:54.146 soils are like light years better than what we started. I can, you can 00:39:54.179 --> 00:39:58.247 just see it, you can see what's growing in it. We have the best soils here 00:39:58.280 --> 00:40:03.256 and we're working on the soils out there to improve them, but it all goes 00:40:03.289 --> 00:40:07.006 back to the soil. That's where everything starts. And so if we take care 00:40:07.039 --> 00:40:12.356 of that soil, we just plant seed and add water. I'm sure it's not that 00:40:12.389 --> 00:40:17.997 simple but not, not quite but, but literally, we don't try to uh we don't 00:40:18.030 --> 00:40:26.030 try to uh uh correct deficiencies in the soil after the plant germinates, 00:40:26.840 --> 00:40:31.695 we tried to do everything in that soil preplant before. So how do you 00:40:31.728 --> 00:40:39.537 convince um you mentioned the local food movement and how do you show 00:40:39.570 --> 00:40:44.376 other farmers that growing wheat or growing those types of crops? Um While 00:40:44.409 --> 00:40:48.175 they get subsidies is may be important to them, there's other 00:40:48.208 --> 00:40:52.517 opportunities to grow organic. How do you, I mean, that's a hard argument. 00:40:52.550 --> 00:40:59.456 Uh It is, but it's an argument that um we, I don't try to do that. They 00:40:59.489 --> 00:41:02.166 are most of them so set in their ways that they're not going to give that 00:41:02.199 --> 00:41:05.456 up and they have no interest in what we're doing. They look at us as kind 00:41:05.489 --> 00:41:11.586 of like like an aberration. Um just kind of something going off to the 00:41:11.619 --> 00:41:16.865 side, but they don't see what is happening with the food revolution. They 00:41:16.898 --> 00:41:21.557 don't see uh because they don't interface direct with the consumer. They 00:41:21.590 --> 00:41:27.497 sell to a broker who sells to a wholesaler who sells to somebody else. 00:41:27.530 --> 00:41:32.666 They don't have the direct contact with their customers that we do. We've 00:41:32.699 --> 00:41:38.026 got, I, I do the farmers markets, I talk to the people myself and that's 00:41:38.059 --> 00:41:41.445 really important to our success. That's why they're the biggest farmers' 00:41:41.478 --> 00:41:47.606 markets that there are um I in this area because they have come to trust 00:41:47.639 --> 00:41:51.796 us. They want, they ask questions, they all have gardens, they ask me 00:41:51.829 --> 00:41:58.537 questions. I'm happy to help them. And um uh it's that that custom 00:41:58.570 --> 00:42:02.615 interface plus the interface we have with the chefs that we talk to them. 00:42:02.648 --> 00:42:06.365 Most of our chefs we talk to them at least weekly. And if we don't talk 00:42:06.398 --> 00:42:10.267 to them, we're emailing and communicating. But we have a very close 00:42:10.300 --> 00:42:14.675 relationship with the, with the in person that's using that product. And 00:42:14.708 --> 00:42:21.086 your big farmers don't have that. They, they never see who uses that flour 00:42:21.119 --> 00:42:27.316 made from that wheat. Um They never see the, the customer buying the milk 00:42:27.349 --> 00:42:31.026 that they grew the hay for the cows for that kind of thing. They're far 00:42:31.059 --> 00:42:37.155 removed from that. And whereas we're front line with that. And so I'm not 00:42:37.188 --> 00:42:43.026 sure they're really fully aware of this tremendous. Um uh What would I, 00:42:43.059 --> 00:42:47.365 what I call it a tremendous uh revolution in food where people want to 00:42:47.398 --> 00:42:50.206 know where their food comes from. They want it clean, they want it healthy 00:42:50.239 --> 00:42:56.126 , they want organic, they want local, want all those things. And um that 00:42:56.159 --> 00:43:02.146 is that market is exploding, increasing every day. And that's been 00:43:02.179 --> 00:43:08.006 responsible for our growth from starting with just a small area on a 25 00:43:08.039 --> 00:43:15.486 acre farm to where we're now at 90 almost 100 acres of organic growing. 00:43:15.519 --> 00:43:21.186 And, and uh I see that and I talk to people every day and I understand 00:43:21.219 --> 00:43:27.217 that uh but it's really getting important to them and yet there's a huge 00:43:27.250 --> 00:43:31.945 part of the population that is still not important to that. You see at the 00:43:31.978 --> 00:43:39.026 fast food places, uh at drive ins, uh, at 456 and seven o'clock at night. 00:43:39.059 --> 00:43:43.467 And they're stopping at mcdonald's and taking food home to their families 00:43:43.500 --> 00:43:48.686 or whatever, fast food. I'm not gonna pick on mcdonald's but any of the 00:43:48.719 --> 00:43:52.977 fast food places they're lined up and they're buying family meals, you 00:43:53.010 --> 00:43:59.967 know, at KFC, et cetera, et cetera. And so there's huge potential for 00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:06.517 education, a huge potential for growth uh in this marketplace of what we 00:44:06.550 --> 00:44:11.717 call healthy food. And it's being fought by the big ag, big chemical 00:44:11.750 --> 00:44:17.046 companies in a very big way. Uh The House of Representatives, even after 00:44:17.079 --> 00:44:22.865 hundreds of thousands of calls pass the Dark Act, it hasn't gone to 00:44:22.898 --> 00:44:27.287 Congress or to Senate yet. Senates working on their own version. But uh 00:44:27.320 --> 00:44:32.126 the food industry spent over $50 million lobbying to get this passed. And 00:44:32.159 --> 00:44:37.827 basically they want to keep any, any individual state from requiring GMO 00:44:37.860 --> 00:44:39.967 labeling. 00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:43.856 So there are a couple of states, Vermont, New Hampshire, I think 00:44:43.889 --> 00:44:48.336 California tried it and big ag came in there with millions and the voters 00:44:48.369 --> 00:44:53.885 did not approve it because it would be a real problem for them. If they 00:44:53.918 --> 00:45:00.925 had to tell people everything that was GMO, people would even increasingly 00:45:00.958 --> 00:45:04.296 turn away from that 00:45:04.329 --> 00:45:12.146 even though. And I will say this, that um there's a lot of anecdotal 00:45:12.179 --> 00:45:19.646 evidence that GMO may be harmful. There's no hard scientific evidence at 00:45:19.679 --> 00:45:25.865 this point in time. But over the long term, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 00:45:25.898 --> 00:45:30.655 we don't know what this modification of these genes is going to do to us 00:45:30.688 --> 00:45:35.345 when we consume. We just don't know that. And so me from a very strong 00:45:35.378 --> 00:45:40.497 drug background in my lifetime, I've seen 00:45:40.530 --> 00:45:45.316 dozens of drugs that were approved by the FDA as being safe and effective. 00:45:45.349 --> 00:45:50.477 And five years later or 10 years later, they're pulled off the market, 00:45:50.510 --> 00:45:57.385 Thalidomide and, and birth defects. There's a whole list of drugs that 00:45:57.418 --> 00:46:00.845 were approved as thought to be safe. And then we found out that they're 00:46:00.878 --> 00:46:05.896 not and then they got removed from the market. So I use that as an analogy 00:46:05.929 --> 00:46:08.827 to GMO. 00:46:08.860 --> 00:46:12.287 There are a lot of, there's a lot of misinformation on the internet about 00:46:12.320 --> 00:46:16.445 GMO, about everything and a lot of people they think if they see it on the 00:46:16.478 --> 00:46:20.385 internet or someone writes it that it's the truth. And I come from a real 00:46:20.418 --> 00:46:25.615 strong science background and you gotta prove it to me. Uh I'm, I'm an 00:46:25.648 --> 00:46:29.646 organic grower. We don't do anything GMO. I'm against GMO because I 00:46:29.679 --> 00:46:34.376 frankly don't know what the long term effects of eating that food are 00:46:34.409 --> 00:46:38.296 going to be. Can you tell me a little bit about this revolution? Do you 00:46:38.329 --> 00:46:41.967 call it the food revolution? How you've seen it change and evolve over 00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:45.756 time since? Well, we, what we see is there's, there's a lot more local 00:46:45.789 --> 00:46:51.615 food being produced. Um There's a lot more small growers coming into this 00:46:51.648 --> 00:46:59.077 market to supply it. Um The demand right now is pretty much greater than 00:46:59.110 --> 00:47:04.436 the supply. Um And I think that that's gonna continue and I think that 00:47:04.469 --> 00:47:10.376 will spawn more and more people entering the production of local clean 00:47:10.409 --> 00:47:17.635 food, uh which is really a good thing and um it's come a long way, people 00:47:17.668 --> 00:47:23.135 underestimate this rapidity or the speed of its growth right now, they 00:47:23.168 --> 00:47:28.307 don't fully understand what's happening and how fast it's happening. And I 00:47:28.340 --> 00:47:32.827 think they're starting to understand that big ag and big chemical don't 00:47:32.860 --> 00:47:37.586 want any part of it because it's going to hurt their sales and, and then 00:47:37.619 --> 00:47:43.186 there's companies like Monsanto that feel that they can control the food 00:47:43.219 --> 00:47:48.095 supply of the world. They literally can be the most powerful company in 00:47:48.128 --> 00:47:53.666 the world and that's what they're trying to do. It's pretty simple. So can 00:47:53.699 --> 00:47:56.287 you tell me a little bit also, let's talk a little bit about the policy 00:47:56.320 --> 00:48:01.666 aspect. And do you get involved in that or do you in the, in the policy 00:48:01.699 --> 00:48:04.986 aspect of food policy, you mentioned like the government regulations and 00:48:05.019 --> 00:48:09.037 everything. Do you think there needs to be more, less regulation in the 00:48:09.070 --> 00:48:12.327 industry itself? 00:48:12.360 --> 00:48:20.360 Um I think that from uh health and, and food safety, uh we need more. Um 00:48:23.128 --> 00:48:27.486 There's always outbreaks of this outbreaks of that and those can be 00:48:27.519 --> 00:48:31.577 prevented um from 00:48:31.610 --> 00:48:37.727 putting in regulations that, that remove people's right. Of choice like 00:48:37.760 --> 00:48:41.486 GMO, labeling. I think people should have the, be able to make, have 00:48:41.519 --> 00:48:45.227 enough information to make the choice. I'm not telling them they shouldn't 00:48:45.260 --> 00:48:49.776 eat GMO. I'm not telling them they should, I'm saying they should be able 00:48:49.809 --> 00:48:53.885 to make their own decision and we do not give them the tools to do that. 00:48:53.918 --> 00:48:59.046 With one exception. If they buy organic, certified, organic, they are 00:48:59.079 --> 00:49:05.997 assured there's no GMO. OK. So that's one way to go about it, no matter 00:49:06.030 --> 00:49:09.997 what kind of laws they want to pass, they can get around that by saying 00:49:10.030 --> 00:49:13.945 I'm only going to buy organic, but that's hard to do for everything. You 00:49:13.978 --> 00:49:19.747 can't be 100% organic maybe someday. And there are a lot of people say 00:49:19.780 --> 00:49:22.467 that we could never produce enough to feed the planet that way, but 00:49:22.500 --> 00:49:27.356 there's a lot of evidence coming forth now that we can feed, feed the 00:49:27.389 --> 00:49:31.497 people of this earth and do it without all the chemicals and without all 00:49:31.530 --> 00:49:37.506 the genetic modified organisms. So tell me what, um, aspect do you enjoy 00:49:37.539 --> 00:49:41.896 most about farming and, and the interaction with the people. What is your 00:49:41.929 --> 00:49:48.526 , the favorite part of, of what you do? Um, 00:49:48.559 --> 00:49:55.296 I guess I kind of enjoy all of it. Uh I really, I really enjoy, you know, 00:49:55.329 --> 00:49:57.436 uh, managing 00:49:57.469 --> 00:50:03.206 the plants once they, once they germinate. Um, I really enjoy being 00:50:03.239 --> 00:50:08.646 involved in that management and everything from, from watering to 00:50:08.679 --> 00:50:13.327 determining when it's time to harvest when it's time to do it in, put it 00:50:13.360 --> 00:50:17.727 back into the ground, the compost. I enjoy that, but I enjoy the people. 00:50:17.760 --> 00:50:22.345 Uh, it's the people, our customers, whether they be chefs or, or uh 00:50:22.378 --> 00:50:26.206 farmers market customers. I've always enjoyed the farmer's market and the 00:50:26.239 --> 00:50:32.856 customers because I'm out there talking to them answering questions and um 00:50:32.889 --> 00:50:38.506 we even have chefs, excuse me, chefs come to our market and they do chef 00:50:38.539 --> 00:50:42.336 demos and they tell people how to cook things because it's unbelievable 00:50:42.369 --> 00:50:46.986 how many people don't know how to cook. And more and more people are 00:50:47.019 --> 00:50:51.095 wanting to learn that art of cooking instead of just throwing something in 00:50:51.128 --> 00:50:56.936 the microwave or some pre pre bought food, whatever uh and cooking from 00:50:56.969 --> 00:51:01.425 scratch more and more people want to do that. So we've, we pay chefs to 00:51:01.458 --> 00:51:06.767 come and, and, and there's an educational process and then I invariably 00:51:06.800 --> 00:51:10.756 get asked questions and I always just tell them what my wife does because 00:51:10.789 --> 00:51:16.287 she's, she's, she's as good as most of the chefs. Um As far as what, how 00:51:16.320 --> 00:51:21.155 she cooks and the quality. So I just learned from her how to do a few 00:51:21.188 --> 00:51:25.856 things, ask her questions all the time. And then I just um repeat that to 00:51:25.889 --> 00:51:29.727 them and they're very appreciative of that and more and more I see them 00:51:29.760 --> 00:51:33.155 doing their own gardening at home and planting a few things at home more 00:51:33.188 --> 00:51:38.316 than happy to help them with that. Why is it important in today's society 00:51:38.349 --> 00:51:44.445 to sit down at a table and have a meal? A good well cooked meal? 00:51:44.478 --> 00:51:50.586 Um, I, I think it's, it's really important for the family 00:51:50.619 --> 00:51:58.619 to get together at dinner time and talk and not text, uh, to not have a 00:51:58.989 --> 00:52:03.986 cell phone around during dinner. Uh, and you see this all the time, you 00:52:04.019 --> 00:52:09.365 can go into any restaurant today and you'll see a nice young couple that 00:52:09.398 --> 00:52:12.695 should be communicating and they've, they're both sitting there with their 00:52:12.728 --> 00:52:17.356 cell phones like this and they're, they'll eat and, and this and there's 00:52:17.389 --> 00:52:21.566 there, we're losing our ability to communicate with each other through all 00:52:21.599 --> 00:52:25.086 this wonderful technology. Technology is wonderful, but there's times to 00:52:25.119 --> 00:52:29.526 put it down, there's times to say we're not going to do that. So, from a 00:52:29.559 --> 00:52:34.747 family perspective, that's one time when you sit down to eat dinner or 00:52:34.780 --> 00:52:38.666 breakfast, not so much lunch, but dinner especially, that's one time when 00:52:38.699 --> 00:52:44.635 the family can all come together and share great food and share 00:52:44.668 --> 00:52:48.767 conversation and communicate with each other like human beings instead of 00:52:48.800 --> 00:52:52.827 a bunch of Androids. 00:52:52.860 --> 00:52:57.416 So I'm just gonna ask you a little bit about um kind of the futuristic 00:52:57.449 --> 00:53:01.776 movement that you see. Um in Phoenix, we need to stop. Do I need to move 00:53:01.809 --> 00:53:06.155 in there for a few minutes? No, you're all right. I like five more minutes. 00:53:06.188 --> 00:53:11.836 Ok. Um Talk a little bit about um what you see what you envision in, by 00:53:11.869 --> 00:53:14.217 the year 2040 00:53:14.250 --> 00:53:20.307 in, in your farm itself and in the movement itself in the organic movement 00:53:20.340 --> 00:53:25.405 in 2040 in 2040 I won't be here. Uh Chances are very strong, I won't be 00:53:25.438 --> 00:53:29.526 here. The odds are very high. I will not be here. Uh But my son will be 00:53:29.559 --> 00:53:34.506 here and his family will be here and who knows where that will lead 00:53:34.539 --> 00:53:38.345 because it's very clear that he will continue this. He loves doing what 00:53:38.378 --> 00:53:46.378 he's doing. Um And it's very clear that this will continue. Um So I, I see 00:53:47.159 --> 00:53:54.256 a lot more uh food being grown locally. If you look at this valley when I 00:53:54.289 --> 00:54:01.396 first came here. Um And there was less than a million people in 1968 00:54:01.429 --> 00:54:04.776 there's less than a million people here and not that that's a small number. 00:54:04.809 --> 00:54:07.506 But everywhere you went, it was agriculture. This whole valley was 00:54:07.539 --> 00:54:12.416 beautiful, wonderful ground, agriculture and we built houses all over it. 00:54:12.449 --> 00:54:18.267 So now the only ground left pretty much is not the best ground. Um We shot 00:54:18.300 --> 00:54:22.276 ourselves in the foot, but that ground can be rehabilitated, that ground 00:54:22.309 --> 00:54:26.756 can be brought up to the way we're bringing up all of our ground and can 00:54:26.789 --> 00:54:34.506 be productive again. So I see um I see continued growth of local food 00:54:34.539 --> 00:54:42.539 producers. Um Someday there may be um a a central hub where they could 00:54:44.659 --> 00:54:51.436 bring all of their products and they could be sold. Um And, and instead of 00:54:51.469 --> 00:54:55.756 having we, we, we, we'll definitely have probably farmers market in every 00:54:55.789 --> 00:55:01.977 corner that's happening now. But there still needs to be some kind of a 00:55:02.010 --> 00:55:05.345 central hub where everything could get consolidated and then redistributed 00:55:05.378 --> 00:55:10.267 , but it's very expensive to do that. Hopefully, someday there will be 00:55:10.300 --> 00:55:15.376 money to do that in into uh into some kind of a more efficient 00:55:15.409 --> 00:55:19.845 distribution system. 00:55:19.878 --> 00:55:26.916 One more question, why is that distribution important to the farmers? 00:55:26.949 --> 00:55:34.949 Um Because if you can consolidate, instead of having 10 farmers with, with 00:55:38.458 --> 00:55:43.186 multiple trucks going all over, if you can consolidate that into an 00:55:43.219 --> 00:55:48.876 already existing uh food distribution system efficiently and not lose its 00:55:48.909 --> 00:55:53.517 identity and not lose the fact that, you know, I'm not trying to convert 00:55:53.550 --> 00:55:59.986 it into a commercial produce, but it's, it's the efficiency of the system 00:56:00.019 --> 00:56:06.506 is low at this point in time. Uh For instance, uh and it would take, it 00:56:06.539 --> 00:56:10.606 would take a tremendous amount of work money and co-operation. But for 00:56:10.639 --> 00:56:16.486 instance, uh we maybe have four or five small farmers like us that are 00:56:16.519 --> 00:56:20.876 delivering to the same restaurants every day? Ok. So does it make sense to 00:56:20.909 --> 00:56:24.405 have four or five trucks go to that same restaurant or does it make sense 00:56:24.438 --> 00:56:28.747 to have one truck with products from four or five farms? Go to that 00:56:28.780 --> 00:56:30.865 restaurant? 00:56:30.898 --> 00:56:35.247 Any final closing thoughts? Anything I did not ask that you would like to 00:56:35.280 --> 00:56:39.586 make mention you haven't got enough time. Ok. 00:56:39.619 --> 00:56:44.977 And I talk a lot and, and I get, I get distracted as to where I'm going. 00:56:45.010 --> 00:56:51.289 But, but, you know, if you, after you digest all of this, if you want.