Government Overreach in Independent Farm Operations
In this week’s episode, Barn2Door and Peter of Bartlett Farms (ND), discuss various instances the government regulations have impacted independent Farm sales, and examples of how Farms can take control of their operations. See how Peter has expanded access to his raw milk and beef.
For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources
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Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.
Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.
James Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm James, the Chief Operating Officer at Barn2Door, and your host for today's episode.
As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers, who are cutting out the middleman and taking control of their own business, selling under their own brand. In today's conversation, we're gonna be [00:01:00] getting into the topic of government overreach in the farming industry, specifically as it relates to small, independent farmers.
Today I am happy to welcome back Peter of Bartlett Farms in North Dakota. Peter is a part of our farm advisor network and has worked with us for five years, and since becoming an advisor has shared many tips on maintaining a dairy operation, pricing and branding your products to make a profit and grow a local customer base.
I'm excited to welcome Peter back to talk all about government overreach, especially in the dairy industry. Boy, that's a big one. Peter, great to see you again.
Peter Bartlett: It's great to be here. Glad to share some of our experience.
James Maiocco: Well, before we dive in to talk further on the topic, let's hear a little bit more about your journey specifically as a farmer for those who may not have heard about the Bartlett Farms' journey.
Why don't you take us back a little bit? How did it get started?
Peter Bartlett: Yeah, so we started on the homestead track before it was trending and popular. So, my dad is a visionary. He had been a professor at [00:02:00] North Dakota State College and he realized early on as we were being homeschooled that he wanted something outside of this mainstream for his kids to interact with, 'cause there was a lot of ideological shifts going on and kind of this move toward, you know, all these other aspects that weren't healthy for our family. And so, he began studying agrarian philosophy and agrarian ways of life. And we finally decided on a parcel of land in a rural county in our state, and purchased that in 2004. Basically sold everything and moved and started from scratch. So, we had a bare piece of land with no well, no house, nothing. We poured our energy and resources into starting that foundation, and mainly began growing food for ourselves, and some neighbors and friends really pitched in to help us learn those things.
It was more of a dream and an idea to begin with. And then the [00:03:00] practical things came along. And I was always more of an animal guy and I knew that I liked working with animals. So, we got goats right away, and that was kind of my area of responsibility. So, I milked the goats, we raised gardens, we raised a few chickens, and then read Joel Salatin's books on You Can Farm.
And that inspired us to say, Hey, there's a lot of potential in the agricultural space to sell healthier options for food that people don't have to rely on the mainstream food chain to depend on big agriculture to source their food. So, we started from a very small size. And that was over 20 years ago now, and we've been doing grass fed beef, pastured poultry, started the raw dairy in 2009 and that was kind of an extension of my interest in livestock.
My dad helped work with me to establish what has become a cow share operation, or what started as a cow share operation, and now is a [00:04:00] thriving direct market, home delivery, dairy. And you know, the only dairy in our neck of the woods that is still operationing, or operational, because of government shifts in regulation and price fixing and all these areas. So, we're thankful to be in an independent, direct to consumer relationship, and not just at the whims of the markets. You know, whether that's the dairy industry where farmers can't afford to stay in business if they don't have hundreds of cows.
But, as a 15 cow raw milk dairy, we've been able to be sustainable and profitable, and we're excited for all that we can serve in our community. And now it's cool. It's kind of funny to see, you know, from back 20 years ago, it was sort of a rogue idea that you were a conspiracy theorist and doing something to prepare for a pie in the sky reality.
Now, you know, 28 years later we see it, it's actually very wise to have roots in agriculture and to be able to support [00:05:00] a community, without relying on commercial feed and all these other areas.
James Maiocco: It's such a great story. I always love to hear it again, Peter. So, thanks for sharing the background and for our listeners.
I mean, it's amazing. Like you said, your father wasn't just, you know, an early homesteader before it was cool, he was a pioneer, right? He was out doing kind of what people thought of.
Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm.
James Maiocco: You know, a hundred, 200 years ago, going out and buying raw land, and, in his case, in one of the harshest climates in the United States.
Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm.
James Maiocco: And, and to be able to thrive and build a business, you guys have been very blessed, but I also know it's been a lot of work, so, well done. Let's dive in, 'cause you guys are doing a lot of great products. They have, again, like you said, not only feed a local community, but there's a lot of hands and fingers that are in those different industries that all have different impacts on what you're doing.
So, let's start with some of the regulatory environment, what you have seen and observed, especially as it pertains to raw milk. Let's start with that. That's probably one of the most highly contested areas, you know, the Dairy Mafia as it's often referred [00:06:00] to. Share with the folks who may not be familiar, like, first off, why is there such a stigma around raw milk and why has it been so singled out, do you perceive, from a regulatory standpoint?
Peter Bartlett: Yeah, so the history of milk and milk regulation has gone back, you know, since the Industrial revolution, pretty much. In around 1900, after World War II, there was a big chemical industry that rose up after the war effort. And there was the question of how would we utilize some of these chemicals?
So, at the turn of the 1900s, with factories becoming more prevalent, there was a need for the workforce to congregate around cities, and a major shift took place in agriculture from, you know, small family farms spread out around the country to more centralized production occurring in larger metropolitan areas like Chicago and New York.
And, all of these areas that I think [00:07:00] had a lack of understanding about food safety and cleanliness. Louis Pasteur, around the 1900s, discovered pasteurization as a tool to preserve, you know, the wine industry for shipping purposes. And as dairies and the industrial revolution changed the way farms were producing food, the idea of pasteurizing dirty milk to make dirty milk drinkable came to be a thing. So, there was something known as the milk problem, so back in those days, there wasn't a big awareness about sanitation and cleanliness and disease was rampant. Tuberculosis, many infant mortalities, many deaths during childbirth.
All of these things came as a result of people not understanding why disease and other things spread. Doctors weren't washing their hands famously in the maternity wards. The idea of [00:08:00] using pasteurization to keep dirty milk from killing people was why it began to gain traction and it became mandated as law to prevent as many illnesses from drinking dirty milk. At the same time, there was a medical milk commission that established standards for milk to be used as a therapy, and they would source milk from small family farms in the countryside that were primarily grass-based doing a high quality job of keeping the milk safe and cold, and then bringing that into those areas where they would treat patients.
Famously, there was the founder of Mayo Clinic, used milk as a diet for cleansing and revitalizing patients from all kinds of different illnesses. So, there was this development of two kinds of milk and the price difference between certified medical milk and cheap commercially produced pasteurized milk was [00:09:00] significant and you began to have an integration of dairy industry influence in government regulation, and that shifted the policy on the government side to mandate pasteurization because they could show that less people got sick from pasteurized milk, but it didn't require the dairy to improve its production of the milk, for cleanliness.
James Maiocco: I was gonna say, Peter, I think two other things you mentioned there too, that relate to that one was, the population of cities at that time was booming, like you said, as people migrated to cities after the 1900s. It always reminds me of Upton Sinclair's, The Jungle, right?
Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm.
James Maiocco: You know, he wrote about all the meat markets in Chicago where you have millions of people living. And of course the second aspect of that is that there just wasn't refrigeration, right?
Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm.
James Maiocco: You know, the majority of Americans didn't even have a refrigerator in their home until the sixties, right? So, we're talking 60 years later. And so, no surprise in these high population dense areas, right? Where there's no refrigeration, there's [00:10:00] not the cleanliness that no surprise, you know, people got sick, right?
And so, you can see where there's, I think some, probably some good intentions initially, around like, Hey, look, we need to figure out a way to serve these populations. But, you know, fast forward to where we are today, all those things are solved now, right? We've got cleanliness resolved. We've got refrigeration everywhere, even on our truck.
Right? So, it's really interesting to see how that's evolved. Now, back to you were saying, once these things were put in place, you said they started to gain some momentum then around making this kind of a national standard. Or did that start at the state level first?
Peter Bartlett: I believe pasteurization began to be mandated on the state level. I think Michigan was the first state to require pasteurization of all milk, and then eventually the pasteurized milk ordinance was passed as a national standard. And that has been binding on, I believe all the states. There's been various state laws that have exempted certain types of producers from that.
And if you look on the website of the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense, they have a [00:11:00] map that shows where raw milk is available and where it's completely unavailable, based on the differences between each state's laws.
James Maiocco: Yeah, it varies dramatically.
Peter Bartlett: It does.
James Maiocco: I know the state of Florida, you have to buy it as pet milk.
Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm.
James Maiocco: Here in Tennessee, I have to be a member of a herd share in order to acquire the benefits of raw milk. Whereas, on the West Coast, not uncommon, I mean, you could actually buy raw milk even at Whole Foods. Right? At the market. So yeah, it's a real patchwork, varies pretty dramatically by state. Well, how have you been able to be successful with that, you know, and navigating that kind of patchwork of regulatory environment and how has that evolved here in North Dakota?
Peter Bartlett: Yeah. Let me kind of give you how we started and where things were at with North Dakota's regulations.
So, back when we started in 2009, there was basically the pasteurized milk ordinance applied to North Dakota. Milk was required to be pasteurized to be sold, but there was no law specifically addressing raw milk sales direct to consumer. So, by default, it was not legal to sell it to another [00:12:00] person. We copied the model of people that we had known in the blogging world from Virginia that had a cow share contract that was created by the Farm to Consumer legal defense association. And we used that to implement a cow share agreement in our state where it was basically a big gray area.
So, we just said, well, if we have an agreement that's signed between owners and the farm, then the milk that they're receiving is not a retail sale, and it obviously would be protected under other contract laws in our state. In 2011, we got a letter in the mail on a Wednesday, stating that the following day on Thursday, a bill was going to be heard by the North Dakota legislature to ban cow sharing. And, we were one of two primary dairies publicly advertising that it was available, you know, through the cow share program, and the inspectors [00:13:00] for the dairies were unhappy that someone was getting past their oversight and working around their regulation. And so, that hearing was the committee room was filled with customers, basically. So, we put out the word to our customer base. I think we had over 50 families show up, basically on about 12 hours notice. And the room was full of moms with baby carriers and concerned dads, and that really sent a signal to the department and to the legislators that there is a growing awareness and demand and a need for raw milk to be available. That started a series of hearings and committee things and we were basically the only ones involved. Another dairy that was kind of in the mix backed out 'cause they didn't want to offend 'cause they were selling to the creamery and that was an issue for the inspectors, but we were independent, so we were pushing on a basis of a belief that the government should be limited [00:14:00] in their jurisdiction to issues that are, you know, of concern to public safety.
And obviously, if someone is signing an agreement between a farm and a consumer that they obviously are entering into a relationship that they are well aware of the dangers of poorly produced milk, and they're doing this voluntarily. So, we stood up for zero government oversight, zero regulation on cow share, and through the process, the state legislature not only said that the department could not even register and regulate or inspect the cow share dairy, they also put restrictions in place. So that local health department jurisdictions could not add additional rules to regulate cow share transactions. So that.
James Maiocco: Well, that's a turnaround.
Peter Bartlett: Yes. Yeah.
James Maiocco: What an unexpected turn. Well done. Geez. It goes to show you like the power of bringing, again, real constituents forward to have a conversation and see like the benefits that Raw Milk can offer. It's [00:15:00] wonderful that you guys were able to persuade them to actually protect you, even further, and provide some additional protections in place.
Well done.
Peter Bartlett: It was very intense for a few weeks there because we had multiple times where it went to the floor for a vote and it was just a camel's nose under the tent saying, just register your farm so we know who's doing it. And then we would have somebody go to the sergeant at arms and say, Hey, put this handout on all the legislators desks and tell them to pull it back to committee and then it would go back to committee.
And then, at the end, the Senate had basically come to us, and I was only, I think 15 at the time, and basically my brothers and I, we were, you know, homeschooled and we had made polo shirts with a brand on 'em, and we were like the representatives for raw milk. And they asked us what would we want, and so we said just repeal everything and don't say anything.
But they said, well, if we do that, there could still be restrictions added. So, they put clauses in place to protect us in addition to what we were asking for.
James Maiocco: It's absolutely [00:16:00] wonderful. I wish every state had these types of protection for raw milk producers. You know, it's unfortunate that that's not the case, that it's so inconsistent, 'cause you would think, you know, and again, not taking any political position here, it's just the fact that consenting adults should be able to make decisions about what they put in their body.
Peter Bartlett: Yep.
James Maiocco: I think what's good news right now with what's going on currently with HHS and with RFK.
Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm.
James Maiocco: It's just really great to see that they're actually trying to come back to a little bit of more autonomy.
Peter Bartlett: Yeah.
James Maiocco: And I want people to be able to make their own decisions. 'Cause you know, the greatest irony to me in all this is that for thousands of years, what did we drink?
Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm.
James Maiocco: Raw milk.
Peter Bartlett: Yes.
James Maiocco: No problem.
And so, I don't know why and it's been put out the pasture in so many words.
Peter Bartlett: Yeah. I think that in general, government is generally trying to do something to help people, but in doing so, it ends up hurting the free exchange of needs and services.
So, I would say overreach, in general, hurts consumers. [00:17:00] And you know, I would say that as a free market capitalist, I would look at the invisible hand of Providence directing the markets is only able to properly function when there isn't an overburden of regulation to prevent that.
So I would say, you know, something that has been characteristic of even my dad and how we've been raised to view government's authority is not absolute. I think that during COVID, a lot of people woke up to the fact that what the CDC says has to be tested by prudence and you know, judgment. And that applies to multiple areas too.
So, we would agree with Joel Salatin, who basically says there's always a way to do what's right to serve consumers, and you just have to be courageous and do something. And if it's not legal, there's some way that you can still do it. Whether that's using a cow share, so if raw milk sales are illegal, [00:18:00] there's usually a way to do a herd share agreement.
Or if, in the case of, I think we'll get into this in a little bit about the beef slaughter regulations and all that, contract butchering, you know, there's certain things you can do that they're not circumventing the law. They're using different parts of the law, to make it possible to actually serve real customers and do the right thing, even if the government seems to be in the way.
James Maiocco: Yeah, and I think to your point, we have to assume the government's trying to come from a good place. You know, and again, it started from a place where, again, we had high degree of population, a lot of spoilage. I mean, my dad used to deliver ice as a kid. He's born in 37, tells me stories about that.
But now with modern refrigeration, with all the cleanliness that we have, even in big cities, it's very easy. I still drink raw milk 'cause I am lactose intolerant. So, raw milk's perfect for me. The health benefits of it are fantastic. Right? And again, people are gonna dispute that 'cause there's all kinds of people on both sides of the aisle.
But let consenting adults make their own decisions, ultimately. Right? You mentioned beef, so let's shift our topics there, [00:19:00] 'cause you guys started out as a beef operation, 'cause beef has been treated very differently than milk. You know, it's interesting, milk has such a patchwork state by state and seems to have a strong dairy mafia by whatever group of dairies, you know, at the commercial sector control that state and that state lobby. Beef tends to be much more regional and national in terms of scope.
Right? So, when you guys got started in beef, what was the regulatory environment at that time versus kind of, have you seen it evolve for your guys' business?
Peter Bartlett: I would say, yeah, so we started grass fed beef a little after the dairy. I think that chickens were our first more of the meat enterprise, maybe pork, and then beef came a little bit later.
But, in general, the butcher shops are the ones who feel the weight of the regulation. And especially during 2020 when Covid was out there, the butcher scheduling window was, you know, 12 to 18 months. You'd have to wait if you didn't have a slot scheduled in advance, you'd have to [00:20:00] wait almost a whole year to get an animal butchered.
And we realized early on that we couldn't wait for that. So, we were in communication with the Farm-to-Consumer Legal D efense on what are the options out there for farmers. And obviously, you know, covid is not a thing anymore and there has been an explosion in number of butcher shops available now.
But, during that time we created a contract where we would send it to a consumer on DocuSign, basically have them sign off and then anyone involved in the processing of the cow for another person would sign off. So, I would essentially buy a couple pounds of beef out of this animal and I'm butchering my own animal, shared with a number of others, and that was all signed and we've butchered a number of animals that way during that time where the, uh, processors were not able to, to get our animals in.
James Maiocco: Were you guys field dressing? Field dressing the animals, the whole thing? They're right on, [00:21:00] right on farm, huh?
Peter Bartlett: Yep. We would shoot the animal and then take 'em with the tractor.
Cut it down.
James Maiocco: Well done. Geez.
Peter Bartlett: Set up in the shop in a semi trailer.
James Maiocco: A lot of work. I was about to say it's one thing to butcher a deer or, or a chicken. I've done chicken butchering. That's quite easy. But, a cow is a whole nother story. I mean, that's a big animal. You're talking 1200 pounds or more.
Peter Bartlett: Yeah. Yep. We learned about how to make the sirloin, you know, cut the porterhouse steak and how that affects whether you get Tenderloin and New York strip, or you know, all these various things. We had a few books that we got from I think Acres, USA and those served us well.
But, that was probably our biggest experience with, you know, on our side dealing with that kind of regulation where the butcher couldn't get to it. In general, we know a lot of butchers because we've tried various ones around the state and they deal with that same level of overreach in areas like USDA inspection.
So, in North Dakota, and I think around the country, you're allowed [00:22:00] to sell a beef to have it butchered at a custom exempt plant if the animal has been transferred to another person prior to the slaughter. So, the meat will come back saying not for sale, you know, all the packages, and you're not allowed to retail sell it after that.
If you want to ship your meat and sell it after it's been butchered, you have to have what's called USDA inspected meat, and that means a U-S-D-A representative is on site while the animal is being butchered. So, one example of the problem that we had would be, we brought pigs to a local butcher and we asked for it to be USDA inspected, and then we get a call two weeks later saying, your meat's ready. But we couldn't do it U-S-D-A inspected because the representative couldn't come that day. So, it's not USDA inspected, here's your meat anyway. It's butchered the same, but you're not allowed to sell it. So, that leaves [00:23:00] us in a bind because the consumer just wants the meat.
You know, these are animals that.
James Maiocco: Yep.
Peter Bartlett: Are raised on pasture. They're perfectly healthy, they're butchered to the same standards. Everything is the same. It's just that the government fell through and couldn't give us the stamp that we would've paid for. And that puts a monkey wrench in our production plan.
James Maiocco: What you're hitting on here is a really difficult challenge, right? Which is, by nature, the USDA's effectively constraining access, simply by the availability and the number of inspectors. And I know just given our position at Barn2Door, working with, again, thousands of farms across every state, there are many, many farms and ranches who literally have come together, and I know in a few states where they've even built, assembled their own processing facility and it's ready to go. They've got their own, it's state inspected, it's ready to go, but the USDA will not assign an inspector to them. So, even despite all their investment and all the effort to come together, the USDA will not give them an inspector.
And so, it's challenging, right? [00:24:00] Because, now all of a sudden, even the constraint for being able to sell into the wholesale markets or sell across state lines is being constrained by a lack of government either endorsement or, in this case, a lack of government availability.
Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm.
James Maiocco: Of an inspector.
Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm.
James Maiocco: Right.
Peter Bartlett: Yeah.
James Maiocco: And I think the Farm to Consumer Defense Fund, they do a pretty good job also of just raising a flag. It's like, well, why do you need an inspector on site?
Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm.
James Maiocco: A hundred percent of the time to begin with. Right? I mean, have you ever asked that question or thought about that?
Peter Bartlett: Yes. Yeah. And I've heard too the, the story of, I believe the term they used was the land grant universities, and this model of agriculture was that you would have an extension of the government, you know, overseeing the operations and it was intended to protect the small producer and the community from, you know, corporate competition.
But, what it's ended up doing, is it's hurt the small guys and so, I think representative Thomas Massey has introduced legislation, I don't know what the status is. It's called the Prime Act, that was [00:25:00] supposed to repeal some of that to allow more freedom for butchers to, you know, either farmers to butcher their own meat or there to be less restrictions.
So, we would look at it as a case where, you know, well in good intentions, you know, have a shelf life and you can't just leave things where they were. We really need to repeal old legislation and get back to more freedom like it should be, and trust consumers to make decisions that they can easily make.
You know, meat is not something that is going to give, you know, masses of people sickness, everybody knows you need to cook your meat. I guess if there was going to be a problem with allowing people more freedom, the biggest person to suffer would be the major food corporations.
So, I think that the meat industry has more to gain by keeping small farmers out of the market than not, so.
James Maiocco: You hit the nail on the head, this goes right into our next topic, which is this [00:26:00] kinda one size fits all approach, right? Which is like should the processors, you know, who are supporting all the very large distributors and large retailers, et cetera, all the restaurateurs, et cetera.
You know, should those people who are processing 80% of our meat in this country, should those same standards apply to somebody who's just, again, a small producer like yourself. And it seems to be really interesting that there's this push for a one size fits all to say, Hey, look, you know, we need to make sure everyone's safe.
And so we're gonna take all these extreme measures. Doesn't matter if you're producing a million pounds of beef, even if you're only producing 10,000 pounds.
Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm.
James Maiocco: Even one cow.
Peter Bartlett: Yeah.
James Maiocco: A thousand pounds of beef, you're still gonna be held to the same standard.
Peter Bartlett: Yep.
James Maiocco: I mean, it seems like the compliance cost there is just super disproportionate.
Peter Bartlett: It is.
James Maiocco: Right? I'm not aware of any other industry that does something like that.
Peter Bartlett: Yes. I think that is true. The cost of creating, a federally inspected butcher plant is in the millions, you know, if you're going to do a something to scale, you know, even on the [00:27:00] milk side, it was always a matter of get big or get out as regulation was passed on or passed down.
And I know in our county there used to be 60 plus dairies, just in our, you know, a few hundred square miles. And that was because every farmstead had a few cows. They would milk the cows by hand, send the cream to the local creamery to be shipped off to make butter or, sell the milk locally.
And as regulations were put in place where you had to have, you know, certain concrete, certain, you know, washable milk house walls, and even restroom facilities and all these things, they began to be standardized. Then, it was a matter of you had to have more animals milking in order to cover those costs.
And now, even today, just last week, I learned that the one last dairy that was in about a hundred miles from us that had been in going for decades, just closed. And so, we were getting calls from [00:28:00] Hispanic workers looking for dairy work because they were losing their employer and wanting to transition to some other, you know, dairy industry.
But, our state just doesn't have the ability to support that many dairies because the requirements are there. We bought a few cows from a dairy that closed and they were making about, I think they said $18, a hundred weight on milk, and it was costing them roughly $20 a hundred weight. So, if you think of it, $18 for a hundred pounds of milk, a gallon of milk is about 8.6 pounds.
So if you're making just a couple dollars a gallon and you're gonna have to have a thousand cows, you know, minimum to make enough economy of scale to support that and keep going. We hear things about these mega dairies milking even 18,000 cows, and then Walmart creating their own creameries to reduce the cost even further.
And a lot of that goes back to some of the [00:29:00] price fixes that government has put in place. And the idea was that they want every school child to be able to have, you know, milk for their health, for good, strong bones or whatever it is. That's an honorable goal, but when the government starts to fix the price, the farmers that are producing it, like us, as a small scale farmer, you can't produce milk.
With the government being involved in fixing the price with the intention to make milk affordable for every child in America, what they've done is they've created an artificial price that puts farmers outta business. And if you look at, you know, we always think it's sad when a multi-generational family farm goes outta business.
You know, the main reason they do is because they're not getting the real value from the price, you know, that they're paid. They're trapped in a price system that favors scale over the true cost of a locally [00:30:00] produced product. So, if somebody was going to pay a farm like ours, we charge $25 a gallon.
If we look at a consumer, the value of the milk that they're receiving that is raw, unprocessed, tested, produced in a clean way, delivered directly to their door, in their geographical area. The benefit to the consumer is that their kids have less allergies, less asthma. The relationship of the farm and the community boosts the local economy.
So, now we're paying local people to work for us. Local businesses are benefited because we're doing business with the local general stores. And we're keeping that money locally. And the true cost of cheap milk is farms going outta business. So, government overreach has affected many, many areas of the economy. And if we want to get back to, you know, a stable exchange of goods and services, [00:31:00] we need to make sure that that farm and the consumer have a direct relationship. That the consumer is educated, the farmer is producing high quality products. And I think that Barn2Door plays a part in enabling farmers to bridge the gap to their community so that we can have more percent of the food dollar rather than going through, you know, the conventional route with a co-op and a creamery and a conglomeration that eventually gets owned by six or seven major food corporations.
James Maiocco: Yeah, it's amazing the USDA's own data supports your statements, right? I think they say the farmer earns on average eight to 15 cents on the dollar for every food dollar spent. And, so, you know, where's the other 92 cents going, it's not going to the farmer, that's for sure. Right? It's just getting eaten up by everybody in the middle. And, to your point, that's I think one of our biggest ambitions here at Barn2Door, is to be able to work with farmers like yourself and enable farmers across the [00:32:00] entire country to be able to support direct business relationships, not just to consumers, but to wholesale buyers as well. 'cause many restaurants, many grocers, they would love to buy directly from the source as well. Right? And get fresher food. Right? Things that haven't been sitting in a warehouse for 14 days. And that really truly support local economies, as you said.
What are your thoughts when you think about all this in terms of the threats that independent Farms face, you know, you've been successful in being able to navigate these regulations in your market, and I'm, again, really applaud the work that you guys have done, both, not just working with a farm to consumer legal defense fund, but also working with your state legislator to raise awareness and provide these types of protection.
But what if you're a farmer in a state where, you know, they're a little bit more on the other side where they're a bit more outcast or they're prohibited from doing certain things, or they're not even allowed to advertise the availability of raw milk, you know? What would be your recommendations to farmers in those scenarios?
Peter Bartlett: I would say there's always a way to do the right thing. Whether that's creating a [00:33:00] contract that allows you to sell a share of the cow and provide that raw milk. I've even seen Joel Salatin and John Moody, have hosted what they call the Rogue Food Conference, and they talk about in their various forms of membership associations or constitutional buyers clubs, basically ways that the legal structure allows you to go around the retail buying restrictions. So, when it comes to, you know, one example, I believe somebody had created a 5 0 1 C3 religious organization that if you were a part of it, you were not considered the general public. And as such, you were allowed to exchange, you know, products like raw milk and other things in, you know, basically a church setting.
So, if you were doing something as a part of that organization, the government technically is not allowed to regulate it because [00:34:00] it's not a retail exchange of goods and services.
James Maiocco: We have several of those farms, believe it or not. We have several of those farms that have, they have done this and I think it's a fantastic avenue.
And they oftentimes will set up a private store.
Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm.
James Maiocco: That is not publicly visible to anyone either. Right? So they can still conduct business, but with the membership of their church. Right?
Peter Bartlett: Sure. Yeah.
James Maiocco: And me. Candidly, I would argue in many ways, especially myself as a very strong Christian, that like there is a stewardship principle that to me it is very biblically based, that I am trying to do the right thing and eating food as it's so intended by God, right?
Peter Bartlett: Yes.
James Maiocco: And so I think there's a very strong basis for many of these farmers who also probably have strong faith to be able to take that approach. But, many, many farmers may not. Right? And so, like you said, you probably have to figure out what works best for your farm, as to how to navigate some of these avenues.
Peter Bartlett: Yeah, and I think too, kind of like you said there, there's a parallel with the homeschooling movement in the eighties. Homeschooling was practically illegal and [00:35:00] it was those who had a religious conviction that God wanted them to raise their children and not the state that those people were willing to put themselves on the line to pave the way for what we now have today.
And homeschooling is like one of the most obvious choices if you want a quality education that families can choose. So, I think that by standing on the principle that government is there to do good, but they're not an end all in themselves. We can confidently do things that serve our community. So, if we know that kids are healthier when they have access to fresh, raw dairy products, and the government stands in the way, it's not wrong to look for ways to serve those kids in a way that, you know, ideally doesn't violate your local codes. But if it pushes the boundary, you know, we're not afraid to talk to regulators and enforcement officers [00:36:00] because ultimately they also feel bad that the law is where it's at. So, like most recently, you know, thinking of certain things that one time we had a Weston Price association chapter meeting in a public library. And my wife and I are chapter leaders for the Western Price Association, and we got a letter from the state saying that we were advertising on Facebook a public event in a public library where we were giving away cream for people to make butter.
And that was not allowed because it was a government building, and it was, you know, at risk to the public and it's just, it's not right. And we were just not fazed by it because who's gonna stand in court and argue that you were giving away cream to somebody in a public setting and nobody got sick, nobody reported it.
It just happened to be somebody with too much time on their hands scrolling Facebook, seeing our farm advertising this [00:37:00] event. It's kind of ridiculous. But because we've been willing to rely on resources like the Farm to consumer legal defense to have our back, various things like when the Cow Share legislation passed in North Dakota, it says Raw milk could be available through the Cow Share Program.
And then in the, in the language it says, and you may not resell raw milk products in a cow share arrangement. And the lawyers at Farm to Consumer helped clarify to us that the maximum interpretation of the law would be that because it mentions raw milk products, it implies that raw milk products could be obtained in a herd share agreement.
And so, they would say, we would have permission to make yogurt and butter and, you know, cream and things and offer that to our herd share or cow share members. And so, we did that and we used Barn2Door and you know, put it out there. And then we get letters from the state saying, you're violating the code because it says raw milk and it doesn't say [00:38:00] raw milk products.
So, you're in violation of the statutes. So, you have farmer lawyers saying it's interpreted this way and you have regulators saying it's interpreted this way. So we ended up, you know, putting it under the private settings on the store. Thankfully, this spring the legislature in North Dakota passed a law that clarifies products are now allowed to be sold retail.
So, with the momentum that we gained from the cow share legislation, we were able to pass between the last two sessions, the ability for us to sell directly to consumers as a retail transaction, raw milk, and now as of this year, raw milk products. And that includes, you know, chocolate milk and yogurt and ice cream and all these things.
So, don't be afraid to push the boundary and do what's right and. Like Joel Salatin would say, ask forgiveness rather than permission of the government.
James Maiocco: Yep. Spot on. And I think you said it really [00:39:00] well early on when you said good intentions have a shelf life, so don't be afraid to push the boundaries. Well, hey, I wanna extend my thank you to you, Peter, and to Bartlett Farms for all the great work that you guys are doing.
And thank you for joining us on this week's episode. You can check more out of Peter and Bartlett Farms on the Instagram @NDBartlettFarms. So that's at the letter N, the letter D Bartlett, and that's with two T's, Farms. Here at Barn2Door we're humbled to serve thousands of farms across the country like Bartlett Farms, and we're delighted to offer services and tools to help independent farmers build a great business direct to consumer. If you're an independent farmer is looking to get started or transitioning, or have questions, you can go to Barn2Door.com/Learn-More. Thank you for joining today's podcast, and we look forward to joining you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.
Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, [00:40:00] we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.
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