Today is August 7th 2015. My name is Christi Navarro Male interviewing
for the A for Arizona State University dinner 2040 project interviewing Mr
JD Hill. Good morning. Good morning. How are you today? Good. How are you
? I'm good, thanks. I just like to talk a little bit about kind of your
background and how um where you grew up and um about your family. Ok. I
grew up in uh a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Saint Michael and I was
raised uh middle class family, typical suburbia um housing development.
Um How did you first? Um Do you have early f food memories or early
memories with gardening or any early memories that kind of brought you to
this direction that you've taken? My parents do a little gardening like
they might plant some flowers, some geraniums, stuff like that. Uh But my
dad always cooked so he made dinner every single night and he was always
using fresh ingredients and uh making a full dinner meal. So I, I had a
little bit of exposure to food growing up. But uh I really kind of found
my own path in college. Ok. So let's talk about eating dinner together and
why that was important for your family, uh, brought us to the table
together every single night. So we could talk about, you know, what
happened that day and my parents could, uh, you know, stay in touch with
their kids and, and know, you know what's going on, what kind of issues
they're dealing with and talk about things that are important. Do you
remember helping your dad cook with him? No, he was kind of king in the
kitchen. Uh, you know, get away of cooking
any favorite dishes that he served that you returned. I always liked this
bow tie pasta that he would make.
Hey, don't have spaghetti was the one I one I asked earlier. So it seems
to be kind of the Italian dish and everything. So, tell me a little bit
about why in college and why that turned around. And, um, in college I met
, uh, a student. He was, uh, an ex army ranger, um, older, I think he was
like 35 years old and he, we became friends, we met in philosophy class
and he really put an impression on me. He exposed me to a lot of new
things. I just moved here. I was 19 years old freshman just out of high
school, lived with my parents my whole life in a nice suburbia area. So he
really exposed me to a lot of new things and things. I had never thought
of and thing, you know. So he was really into food. He uh was a, um, a
physical trainer and very spiritual and in touch with his diet. So kind of
inspired me to get more uh information and knowledge about what's going on
in food and think about my food. Actually, I was really big into zebra
cakes. Um, growing up, so at, at school lunch, you had the A la carte line
and then the hot lunch line and I'd always go to the A la carte line and I
get a zebra cake, pretzel cheese and a Gatorade every single day. And then
I would crash hard right after lunch in the next class. So I really didn't
have any kind of thoughts or, you know, I really didn't think about what
food was and the relationship it had with my body until I met him and he
really kind of opened me up to it all or some kind of, can you give me
some highlights that are things that he shared with you? Would that kind
of change? Turn, turned you to this new direction. He just would talk
about the importance of a balanced diet. So getting all your, your
vitamins that you need, getting the protein that you need, getting the
carbohydrates that you need kind of uh mathematical more about it like,
hey, you know, you need to be eating this much of this, you need to be
eating that much of that because he was really into physical training and
, you know, gaining muscle mass and stuff like that. So, that's how I
first started to get into food was just, you know, him telling me, you
know, you gotta be eating this much of this, that much of that where I had
never thought about any of those things. But did you start to slowly
change your diet? Yeah. So when I started working out with him freshman
year, uh, I'd go to the gym with him five days a week and he kind of just
trained me for free, just being friends and then we'd go back to his place.
He'd make shakes, he'd make a meal, you know. So I started, uh,
definitely changing my diet. I was still really heavy into hungry Howie's
and, uh, all other kinds of great food around here. But, uh, slowly over,
uh, five years at a su and, uh, continuing my friendship with him, it
evolved and got, you know, deeper and deeper and more serious about what I
was putting into my body. And how did the, I mean, was it a gradual change
? Was it a quick change? I mean, it was gradual. I definitely saw results
, um, much healthier than I was in high school. Um, I looked healthier. I
felt healthier. I had more energy. Um, so that was all really good
reinforcing things. Um, so tell me a little bit about, um, your bus, the
name of your business and kind of its mission and its goals. Uh The name
is Recycled City LLC and our mission is to build a circular economy in the
local food system. So we want to take food back to food. So 40% of all the
food waste or 40% of all the food that's grown in the country goes to a
landfill. And um that's a lot of food and we're destroying our soils to
grow that food. So I kind of think of it as we're, you know, kind of
extracting soil from the earth and then shipping it to the landfill. And
uh local organic agriculture has become very popular over the last 15
years. And I think it's gonna keep growing in popularity and more people
are gonna continue to support local and organic food. And if we want that
, that depends on the soil. So we can't have a system where we send 40% of
all the food waste to the or 40% of all the food to the, to the landfill
or incinerator that's not gonna work out. So, um I wanted to do something
about that and change it. And uh I went to the school sustainability and
got a business sustainability degree um along with a finance degree from
WP Carey school business and I got a certificate in small business
entrepreneurship. Um So that kind of all those things, all my education in
college kind of culminated together the finance, the sustainability, the
entrepreneurship. And I came up with this idea after seeing a lot of other
similar start ups and other metropolitan cities across the country um to
get people to be activists in their local food system. So what we've done
so far is we have 250 residential customers that we service on a weekly or
a biweekly basis and 30 businesses, the more majority of them are
restaurants. Some are food trucks, some are cafe, uh corporate cafeterias
, some are offices. A couple are schools
and we launched a local food guide just recently on our website. So now
anybody can go there. And if they want to be an activist in their local
food system and they want the places that are generating the most amount
of food waste to start recycling that food waste into a resource.
Um They can go to our local food guide and find out all the restaurants,
the locally made vendor producers, uh coffee shops that are doing are
practicing this and are strictly building farmland. So we're not a typical
compost company where we're gonna collect compost and transform it into
compost and then sell it. We are strictly building farmland. So 100% of
our collection goes to building farmland because that's the most important
thing. It's not too important to build golf courses. You know, highway
plantings are nice. I don't know how resilient they're gonna make our
cities but farmland is the key to the future. We all eat food. That's what
sustains us. Our farmland is going in the opposite direction that it needs
to. And there's a resource we could use to really benefit that farmland or
even build farm new farmland in urban settings, vertical gardening with
that resource we're just sending to the landfill. So we, we take that and
you know, hopefully build uh farmland in a, in a, in a sustainable local
circular food system. Let's talk a little bit about your business
background. Um How has that been instrumental in helping your business um
move forward? Um I think it's been very important.
I mean, you're, you're coming from almost two different areas, a very
corporate mindset and then the sustainability. So how do you think your
business um accommodates both? Well, I'm always thinking about growth and
that's essential for a for profit business. You want to grow, kind of
almost by any means possible. Um So I'm always thinking about that because
that's what's going on. Fuel, our success is growing and increasing
revenues. And um but we also have to think about the social aspect of the
business. So that's why we're and environmental side. So there's three
pillars of sustainability, there's economic, social, environmental, and
we're building a business that's hitting on all three because that's what
a su taught me to do.
Um So, yeah, we're, we're thinking about all three, all the time and I
think over the next 5 to 10 years since now, it sustainability is kind of
being put in everybody's education, even in elementary schools. Now
they're starting to do these programs. Um We're gonna get rewarded for our
business practices. So it'll end up being a, a responsible thing, but
it'll also drive uh revenues and market shares and customer loyalty
because we're doing the right things, you know, in all three areas. So how
did you get started with this idea? I mean, this is kind of, this is a
very different, unique idea for this area. Um I was watching a lot of uh
well, in my sustainability uh course work I focused on food. So I did all
my research projects on food. Um and that really opened me up to the fact
that agriculture is the number one issue. Uh If we want to address climate
change, agriculture admits 50% of all the greenhouse gas emissions, all
the transportation in the in the world, trucks, fleet vehicles, uh
commuter cars, 18% of all the greenhouse gas emissions. Um And then you
got that whole food aspect that we live off of food. So agriculture is uh
and after going through sustainability course work, uh in my opinion,
agriculture is the number one issue and the facts seem to point that out
as well. Um So thinking about that, it's like, all right, you know, I want
to make a difference in sustainability. Um looks like agriculture is a
huge opportunity to, to do something. And um soil is gonna kind of be the
foundation for uh our future in sustainable ecological organic farming.
Local farming soil is gonna be the foundation of it. So how do we, you
know, make sure we're gonna have enough farmland and so good soil to
support that kind of future. So, and uh right currently, we're sending a
40% of all the food to the landfill. So right away, that's a great place
to start is by not letting that stuff get to the landfill and covering it
and transforming it into a resource that we can use to make our city more
resilient or regenerate farmland or, or build new farmland or supply uh
aquaponics or greenhouse uh growing
vertical gardening with compost that they're gonna need to grow the, the
crops and, and new urban environments. And what are some of the challenges
that you've encountered as you in your business? Um capital? So uh capital
is definitely a huge challenge raising capital. That's something that um
is very, very important.
So capital has been a challenge. Um
Besides capital, human, it's kind of just capital issues. So it's there.
You got financial capital and you got human capital. Those are the two
biggest challenges for a start up business of that um that we've started
recycled city. That's the two main challenges. Tell me about the human
capital challenges. Um So without financial capital it's difficult to get
the human capital in. So this is, um, a sort of thing that, you know, we
either have to raise financial capital or we have to find people that are
very, very skilled, but they're also very passionate and knowledgeable
about the sustainable local food system. So, finding those people in all
those circumstances, it's difficult. Right. And having volunteer I'm
guessing is a challenge as well. Right. Yeah. So we don't have any
volunteers. Um We're a for profit business. So we, we uh have three owners
, three co-owner of the business and then we have a couple of contract
workers
and you have to do you have to maintain, I mean, pick up all of the
explain to me what your business does. Now give me the details of that. So
we provide a residential and a commercial service uh for the residential
service. We drop off a five gallon pickle bucket with an airtight lid and
a liner inside the bin. And then we give you a small lunch bag like a
paper lunch bag. You'd send your kid to school with, with Bok. And Bo
Kashi is a compost accelerant slash odor preventer. And it's made out of
spent grain that we get from local breweries. So this bok already made
beer and now we're using it to prevent odor and accelerate the compost
process. Um So we drop off the, the bin, the lid, uh the Bo Kashi and then
the resident, be it at a single family home condominium apartment. They'll
add their food waste and paper towels and other compostable materials into
the bin and set it outside on their service day. And then we come by and
make an exchange. They get a sanitized bin every single week, new clean
bin, uh new liner, another bag of the Boka. And uh the cycle kind of
repeats itself week to week and we bring all the compost to a local farm
and then transform the materials actually into compost. And then the
resident decides what happens to the compost. It's either gonna go back to
them for their gardening or it's gonna stay at the uh nonprofit local farm
that we work with and be used to support them. They have seven acres, uh a
couple acres of orchard and then a new 20 acre property in South Phoenix
in a, in a USDA food desert. And they have a bunch of missions on uh
getting food into families that need it and food accessibility and
the social equity issues. So let's talk a little bit about the farm that
you're a partner with. Can you name the farm? And can you explain what
those kind of what the vision or what this farm does and how it helps with
food justice? So the farm is the orchard Community learning center. It's
in South Phoenix off of Baseline Road and Ninth Avenue and it was started
by a man named John Juan and he was a principal in the school district for
21 years at Valley View elementary school and he started the Orchard
Community Learning Center um a few years ago, less I think, less than five
years ago. Um And what they do is they hold like camps and activities for
kids and they teach them science, technology, engineering, math, and
agriculture. Um And then they also have a market where you can go and you
can actually use your food stamps to purchase vegetables. So their mission
, the orchard Community Learning Center's mission is to get food into the
families that need it, make it accessible. So they don't have income
hurdles to access to healthy food and then to teach the future generations
about, you know, the systems that make this possible. Why do you think
it's important to teach the future generations about the food? I mean,
good food and things that healthy food because they're gonna be the
decision. Uh These people are gonna be the decision makers in the future.
So impacting them at a young, young age is gonna have a much higher
probability of them making different lifestyle choices as they go forward.
And how does it feel for you to be part of this? Feels great, you know,
and this is exactly what I want to be doing. Um I, I see a lot of
interconnections with uh food and uh health and just circumstantial issues.
So I think we can really utilize a resource that we're sending to the
landfill to kind of fuel, you know, this whole regeneration of agriculture
and community. And let's talk a little bit about this movement, the in the
local organic uh movement that's happening in Phoenix. Kind of, can you
tell me a little bit about it? And um how have you seen a change? Yeah. So
I started going to the Phoenix Public Farmers Market in 2006, 2007. Uh I
don't know when it started, but um when I noticed when that one started
over the last like 10 years, a lot of farmers markets have started around
here, there's a lot more of them. So people are looking for it. And um
when I just go into like the big box retailers, even like Safeway fries,
uh Costco,
there's a lot more um organic, even locally sourced products at these
stores. So um there's a, I see a lot of momentum and, and there's
definitely been a lot of growth in it. So do you see um how will this help
this movement help your business? It's, it's the, it's the key ingredient
to the business. Um That's the demand that we're living off of is the
people that wanna see a local sustainable organic food system um without
the growth and in that uh in that industry, we want to, we want to have a
business. So what is your hope that uh by 2040 how your business will
change and evolve? What do you think that will, will be look like? So we
wanna be uh managing uh waste for municipalities, businesses and
transforming it either through anaerobic digestion into energy and then
into a compost product or straight into farmland. Um When you, when you
start to do a lot of composting, um it's sometimes difficult to find
enough farmers to utilize all that compost for farming. So what we wanna
do is build a very, very large farming operation that we can uh use the
compost for and then sell back to restaurants, wholesalers, institutional
buyers um and kind of control and have a part in a lot of different parts
of the food system. So kind of where if you think of a circle, um we want
to be at the end of the cycle where the waste is used to go to the
landfill. And we want to transform that into resources, be it via energy
and compost and then use the compost for farming and be able to sell that
produce back into the compost collection market that we're building. Uh
The biggest hurdle in farming is uh not growing the stuff, it's
distributing it and selling it. Uh There's a ton of waste and just produce
that isn't sold or purchased once it is bought by Safeway and then it gets
to the shelf, it's not sold. Um And then a lot of smaller farmers that
sell directly to consumer, they're gonna have a lot of waste too. You know
, they'll have an acre of lettuce in the field and they'll sell half acre
because that's all the farmers market purchased. So by building a compost
collection, uh list of customers, that's our, that's our customer list for
selling the produce. So we envision um and we just launched the
residential version of this. When we pick up your compost bucket at your
house, we're gonna drop off a box of vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers
from uh the orchard Community Learning Center where the compost is used to
grow that stuff. So that's the start of that, that full circle and, and
what I'm talking about and by, by 2040 so that'd be in, in 25 years. You
know, we think we want to scale that up, go into other markets and really
be uh a major player uh nationally, if not internationally in uh creating
these circular systems in food. What is the role of education in teaching
people how to do this or how to be open to your idea? How do you, how do
you convince people to? Well, if everybody could go through the
sustainability program that I went through, I think that would do it. And
if they can, how do you, how do you make them open their eyes to what's
happening in the community itself? Well, um I think it's through uh direct
engagement either social media or distributing um information, either on
our, even our website or in physical form that they can, they can read on
their own time and, and start to educate themselves and we can provide the
resources for them to self educate. I think that's very, very important
and it's going to be a key to our success is um helping, is educating
people on what the importance and why we're doing what we're doing and why
would you tell them you're doing what you're doing? What would you tell
them because it's the most important uh this. So I, I would say that, what
was the question if you had, if you had a potential customer sitting here
, if I'm a potential customer, how would you convince me that I should
participate? I should hire you to have one of your bins come in. Do you
want there to be a local organic food system or do you want agriculture to
get more genetically and chemically driven? And if you want it to be more
local and organic, then you need to start recycling all your food waste
and not just into compost but into farmland. So then we can have that
local farmland to sustain local populations. And we're not trucking or
transporting food from far distances and there's a ton of different uh
negative consequences to that be it. You know, nutrition goes down in the
food. There's a lot more fossil fuels and pollution So by building local
farmland, you're gonna give the dream that you wanna see a chance. Whereas
if you just keep throwing this into the garbage, the person next door is
gonna keep doing that too. You know, you gotta be that local activist if
you want to see that happen. Well,
you have convinced me. Can you explain to me why uh kind of the full
circle and your role in this full circle that you've mentioned, kind of a
full circle. Can you tell me a little bit about your role in that and how
that's important to the food sustainability? Uh Could you ask the question
one more time? Sure. Sure. Um And it's probably not, I'm not phrasing it
correctly. So you have a part in this full circle of food sustainability.
Can you explain your role in that? Yeah, our role in the in the full
circle is right at the end of uh recovering the compostable materials
before it goes to the landfill and then transforming that into new soil
and fertilizer compost and then you um using that compost product in
farming and then far uh selling the the produce either to wholesalers,
institutional buyers, direct to consumer, direct to business. And then uh
but uh so that's, that's where we see our ourselves fitting in. So that's
a huge part of the, the circle. So we're going to be, we want to be
involved in a big part of it. So, and how did you go decide to go to the
residential um sector first? Uh So we did residential first because uh we
were bootstrapping it and uh to pick up commercial waste is uh a lot more
capital intensive. You need a bigger truck, you need bigger land, you need
more equipment, more water. Um Just the demand, the resource demands are a
lot higher. So I started it by doing it for free for like 10 people. And I
did it for a couple of months and I just started doing that because I saw
that businesses in other metropolitan cities had started, I think the
first one was uh in 2010
and uh over on the east coast. And uh so I started doing it for free and I
was like, all right, you know, I think this is gonna work. So we started
charging our customers our residential customers and we built a website
and social media page and uh filed the licensing with the Arizona
Corporation Commission and kind of just started going for it and, you know
, doing farmers markets, signing people up and
we offer a 14 day free trial. So it's no risk for anybody to sign up. You
can just uh sign up for the 14 day free trial. We drop a bin off and we
make two pickups and then you decide if you wanna, if this is something
you want to do. So it's really easy for somebody to at least give it a try.
What's the reaction from some of your long term customers? Uh They,
they're making this difference. Everybody's super excited about what
they're doing. And uh it's really, it's really rewarding to see, you know
, other people just coming together and kind of seeing the same vision and
then getting more people involved. Um For the first, I'd say, like year,
I'd say our customers were a little hesitant to start referring other
people. So our referral side of the business was really, really low. But
over the last few months, I've seen a big change in that and we're getting
um a lot of because we have a free trial page on our website and there's a
referred by section and now I'm seeing a lot more, you know, Jenna or, you
know, names of, of our customers. So they're, there's, they're getting
more confidence in our, in our business. And the big uh thing that we got
to do is the education part there is we have to uh further educate our
customers on how to speak about this because that's really what's gonna
start driving is making, turning all of our, our compost customers into
sales people because we, we're all in this together. You know, we, this is
a, this is a very good thing to be, to be working towards. So our
customers believe in what we're doing. So now we just got to educate them
on how to do it at first, they, I don't think they really knew how, like I
, you probably would have had to go to the school of sustainability to, to
sell this thing. Um But now after six months to a year of watching our
Facebook posts and, and maybe meeting me at a farmer's market or something
like that, people are, are, are getting it and, and learning how to talk
about it. Why do you think that interaction is so important? Um with your
customers of that one on one? And that level of trust? I hear trust is a
big key in this or in the organic movement. Yep, that's what trust is a
huge thing. Um And it's really important for uh our customers to meet us
in person because uh for my feedback, they, they really see how genuine
that we are about this and uh how much passion we have for this so that,
you know, gives them a lot more incentive to um support it. Are they
surprised by the amount of waste that they have just the one family
themselves? Um Some are, I think, I think a lot of people have sort of had
their head around around it. Um because we, we eat food every single day
and uh you know, we're, we're always cutting watermelons up or making a
tomato pasta and every single day, all of us, you know, have that
experience of throwing the food into the garbage and a lot of people are,
do I know I felt like this, uh, before I even started doing composting,
you know, when you throw it into the trash, you're like, hm. You know,
like, it doesn't make sense, but I don't know what else to do.
That's very true for all of us. Right.
And so talk to me a little bit about the composting and how long it takes
, kind of how long that procedure takes. It takes uh, 4 to 6 months the
way we do it. So we do hot composting in windrows, active windows. So we
turn them twice a week, we water them, they get up to over 100 and 30
degrees for 15 days. Um, turn it five times and then we soil analysis it
and food safety test it. Ok. Can you tell me a little bit about, um, your
, do you have any concerns over the industry's power within the food
system? Yeah, I have concerns. Um, my, my biggest concern, I would say
like at the top of the, the food system, my biggest concern for the top of
the food system is, uh, like the organic certification board, um, at a
national level and that's kind of works the same as our political system
where money wins. So there's a, I have a lot of concerns about that and uh
about the, the, what would you say the quality of organic food or the, the
ethical this or I I don't think I'm thinking of the right word, but
basically what I'm saying is, is it really organic? It has that USDA
organic label on it. But what pesticides, what chemicals are being
approved for organic uh production? And that's decided by this board, um,
at the USDA Organic Certification Board and, you know, just like
everything else, certain people are gonna get into those positions, um,
through the same means as politics really works and, and the way I see it
, so that's a huge concern and, but it's a huge opportunity too because we
can, we can recycled city can use that as an educating tool for the
customers. So we're not tied to USDA organic certification in any single
way. So by educating our con our customers on the difference between
organic produce and then produce that we grow, we could, you know, use
that, you know, will concern
um in our favor and by, you know, educating the customer about, hey, you
know, there's, there's still pesticides in organic production, you know,
there's still mono crops, you know, we're still destroying a lot of soil.
I I hear the, the, the thread of soil being the kind of the, the
foundation and that's the important factor is what I keep hearing from you.
How do you teach people because I always think about the food, but they
never think about the soil. And how do you, how do you educate people
about the importance of soil. And so I think you gotta talk about how the
plants that you eat grow and what, what feels their growth and that,
that's the interconnections that are happening in the soil. Um Plants feed
themselves through the sun and the, and the soil and water. So if you have
AAA week,
part of th those ingredients, like you take the sun out, not gonna have,
you know, you take water out, it's not gonna, it's not gonna work, you
take soil out, you're gonna need a lot of genetics and, and chemicals. So
um having healthy, biologically active soil is gonna be the key factor in
whether we have a, a successful local uh organic food system. So let's
talk about the food system itself. Um What do you, what is the current
food system impact on the environment as you see it? Well, the current
agricultural system uh produces over 50% of the greenhouse gas emissions.
So it's the largest industry emitter of greenhouse gasses.
So what was the question again? That's OK. How do you see the impact on
the environment from the current food systems? The current impact on the
environment? So they are, they're eroding soil and they're emitting a lot
of greenhouse gasses. Um And then we're also taking uh valuable ecosystems
out of play like rain forests and turning it into soybeans, corn and
cattle grazing. Um and those ecosystem services are extremely valuable. So
agriculture is the current agricultural system is definitely having a
negative impact. Um You can look at, you can just kind of just keep going
down the list. There's over 400 dead zones and globally dead zones are
where uh rivers go into the ocean. And rivers carry a lot of runoff from
agricultural fields and that runoff contains phosphorus, nitrogen
pesticides. And once it hits the ocean comes down the creeks into the
rivers, out into the oceans, it, it creates no, it sucks all the oxygen
out of it and big algae blooms and it kills all the, the marine life in
the, in the oceans. And there's a, just a bunch of examples, negative
examples like that, that air culture is kind of driving. Um So there's a
huge opportunity to really reimagine how we do agriculture.
And what um what do you think pol policy wise needs to be in place in
order to reimagine how to do agriculture, what changes need to be done um
at the top. Um with the farm bill, um we can, there's a lot of incentives
for uh growing food for animals. So that would be one place to start. Uh
They use all the water. There's a really uh tough drought on the West
coast right now. Um A lot of that water is used to grow alfalfa and food
for animals. Um And that's all incentivized from the top. So that could,
that could definitely change and then at a more local level uh,
municipalities can start to open up land that is just sitting fallow,
maybe fallow for 20 years. Like the new 20 acre property, the orchard's
moving on to, it's just been a vacant property for 20 years. Um So
municipalities can play a part in uh developing policy to encourage uh
composting, encourage local farming. Um
ok, so let's talk. Um, kind of your final thoughts on. We kinda, I asked
you about where you'd want the business to be in 2040. Where would you
want kind of the whole local organic movement to be by 2040? I totally
different than it is. Now, tell me, uh it's, it's gonna be,
it's gonna be less dark. And what I mean by that is me as a consumer when
I go to, let's say whole foods and I wanna buy an organic apple. I still
really don't know what organic is. I mean, I, I might know the big three
in organics like you can't irradiate the food, you can't use sewage sludge
to grow it and it can't be a genetically modified organism. But beyond
that, I don't know what pesticides were used. I don't know. Um you know
how the soil was taken care of. So, in 2040 I would like to see uh a
system where the consumer understands
much more, there's a lot more light to what organic really is and what
local food really is and especially what natural food is because anything
can be a natural food product. Can you explain to me what, what
constituted an organic food? Yeah. Uh So the USDA Organic Certification
has three. They called the big three and it's um no genetically engineered
organisms. Uh can't be your own sewage sludge and then it uh cannot be
irradiated before it gets to market. So, besides those big threes, um it
gets into kind of like rules and regs uh more details like if they have a
list of approved um chemicals for organic and that is decided by, by that
organic certification board. So unless if you're gonna do a lot of
research and make a lot of phone calls and most, most moms and dads are
probably not gonna do that.
Can you, is there a difference between certified organic and organic?
There is um cert, so certified organic is through the, the USDA and then
they have, it's like 100% certified organic and then they have like not,
uh they'll either, it'll either say 100% certified organic and then if it
just says organic, that means 95%.
And uh I don't know what that other 5% can be honestly. Um And then
organic just means over 70%. So you got organic, that means over 70% of
the product is organic and then certified organic is 95. And then uh if it
says 100% certified organic, I mean, that means 100%. Do you think the
local consumers know the difference? No, you had, I learned all this and
sustainability course work. So, absolutely not.
And especially at farmers market, is there, is there any regulation in
farmers' markets that happen? Um I think it's self regulation more so at,
at farmers markets.
So do you have any final closing thoughts on kind of the whole food system
in, in Arizona itself? Um We're probably gonna have to use less water to,
to do what we're doing and uh we can save a lot of water by transitioning
from animal agriculture into
uh you call it human agriculture, you know, growing for humans.
Do you think that's gonna be easy to do? Yeah, I think, I think it, it's
gonna be AAA combination of, you know, natural forces, environmental
forces, uh policy. I think uh a lot of people in very powerful positions,
understand what's going on and they know that we need to do something
about this to, you know, kind of sustain our planet for future generations.
So I think there's gonna be a lot of uh policy things coming in. Uh you
know, the world economic system, I think it's gonna go through a huge
change over the next 1010 years with global globalization and currencies.
And um what eco so right now, ecosystem services are not really valued. I
think the whole idea of like natural capitalism is, is gonna be a huge
part of our new economic system. And so we, we're gonna have a lot of
things coming together that are really gonna propel this. Um, though, I'd
, I'd say the only thing that could get in the way of it is just, uh,
money and greed from a very, very small amount of people. So, so I don't
see that as a huge, uh, thing. I, I think like in the end, um, that is, I
don't think that's gonna be a big deal. I think there's so many, there are
so many people where I, I don't think just a, a few people are gonna be
able to stop it. Ok? Any final closing thoughts, anything I missed or that
I didn't ask or didn't bring up? I don't think so. So tell me one last
question as an a su graduate of the sustainability program, why would you
recommend more people need to go through that program itself? I think it
really puts you in touch with what's happening on our planet right now and
without that kind of education, you just, you, you may not know or care or
just be conscious of it, you know, kind of think about it in your, in your
daily life because I think there's a whole thing in sustainability
education where it's like lifestyles or technology really, what's gonna
save us and I think it's all lifestyle and we can use technology in any
way we want good for bad, you know. But it's really the lifestyle choices
that people make that are, is gonna make the big difference. How did it
make a difference in your life? Um By my li my lifestyle choice choices
changed um throughout college and that has had a very positive impact on
my health and my energy levels and my ability to think clearly. So, and
then I've really lowered my ecological footprint by being conscious of
these things. So that's, you know, I'm setting a good example and I've
definitely had a good influences on my parents and my brother and people
close around me and then hopefully, you know, they also, it just kind of
keeps waving out and, and making bigger impacts on more people.
Yeah. Ok. Thank you very much. Thank you.