The New Food Pyramid: How Your Farm Can Leverage New Dietary Trends
Janelle and Phil dive into the new "upside-down" food pyramid and the massive opportunity it creates for independent Farmers to meet the growing demand for real, local protein. Learn how to leverage the "Make America Healthy Again" movement to build trust and demand with your community.
For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources
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[00:00:00] 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 Podcasts.
Janelle Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Janelle Maiocco, CEO of Barn2Door, and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners are aware, Barn2Door has built software for independent farmers all across the country. We help farmers remove the middleman so they can set their own prices and maximize profit.
We help 'em sell under their own brand and [00:01:00] build a loyal base of local customers. Thousands of farmers in all 50 states are using Barn2Door to successfully run their business. Nothing makes us happier than helping farmers make more money, ditch the office work and look like a pro. It's what we think about and work towards all day, every day at Barn2Door. In today's conversation, we'll be talking to Phil of Hopewell Farm. In Georgia. He's actually part of our farm advisory network. and we've worked together for years. It's so great to have you back.
Phil Bonelli: Thank you. It's great to be back.
Janelle Maiocco: We picked a juicy topic. I'm like, I wanna talk to Phil about the new food pyramid. It's important for us to talk about changes in the larger context in which everybody does farming and eating and everything in between.
and there's some real movements happening that are going to impact farmers, eaters and everyone else. So it'll be really exciting to talk through some of the changes. And I was thinking about today's podcast and I was thinking, well, I suspect because farmers are so darn busy. Many of them probably aren't even aware, right?
And so it's neat that this is occurring, but it's also good to keep talking about these [00:02:00] things, to hopefully bring awareness out there when there's, you know, a multitude of new sources and information, to keep pushing the envelope on, what's happening in the greater context, what people are thinking about. then just get someone like yourself who's a seasoned, impressive farmer, to wax poetic, perhaps? Or if nothing else, right! But really it's good to dive into key topics such as this. Okay, here we go. I'm gonna read just like little excerpts. I found an article that sort of gave little bullet points, if you will.
and then we can talk about each of the little pieces. 'cause I just, I'm super excited to get your feedback. So, the new guidelines issued Wednesday, urge people to cook more meals at home, avoid packaged food like chips, cookies, and candy. And eat protein at every meal.
They echo the prior advice that fruits, vegetables, whole grains, poultry, seafood, and nuts form the basis of a healthy diet. But they also endorsed foods like red meat, full fat, dairy, healthy fats, while taking a hard line against highly processed foods, added sugar refined [00:03:00] carbohydrates like white bread.
I know you read about the new food pyramid, so what does this mean to you? Is this exciting? What are your biggest takeaways?
Phil Bonelli: I think that this is great, you know, and obviously I sell red meat as well as white meat and I sell tallow and I sell vegetables and I don't sell any highly processed packaged food.
So I think it's great. I mean, there's many reasons farmers do what we do, and one of them is like, I really want to provide food. Which is suitable for human thriving. And, some people are gonna support the food pyramid and then some people look for things to be wrong with it.
Like, well, we shouldn't have red meat or whatever. But at the end of the day, we can all agree. Unless we're getting paid by General Mills, highly processed foods are terrible and they're not good for anybody. And it's funny, since I've gone on this, farming journey, which has led me to learn so much more about food, there are many things I look at as not just, oh, you shouldn't have so much of this, but I look at it as what I think it is, which is poison.
I mean they're [00:04:00] toxic for your body. I don't wanna hurt anyone's feelings. You might be listening to this drinking a diet Mountain Dew right now, but if you are, put it down, throw it away. So, yeah, I thought it was great. I really did. I will say I am a farmer, right?
I'm not a nutritionist, but as a farmer, you're doing a lot of, let's call it science and looking at the natural world, and I feel that humans, we can thrive on a variety of diets, right? There are groups of people that they live above the Arctic Circle who don't even know what fruit is.
They're eating meat. There are people who live closer to the tropics and they're gonna be eating more fruit and things all the time. Humans can eat a variety of diets, but they all must be whole foods. This stuff we've invented in a lab is not good for anybody.
The health outcomes in our country are a testament to that. So I think that it's great. I love the new food pyramid.
Janelle Maiocco: Good. Yeah. Real food. Absolutely. It's interesting because the other thing I was noticing when reading up on this was. It was created in 1980 and I was cracking up [00:05:00] because you know how Instagram, et cetera, has all your algorithms.
So what I get fed in my feed is very, you know, food related and everything else. But I get these, memes and reels, et cetera, that show pictures of, you know, people in the 1960s, 1970s who. Don't necessarily even have a healthy lifestyle. They smoke, they drink, didn't exercise, nothing.
And they're all thin and tan, and it's always on a beach when they show those memes. Right. And I, it cracks you up, but you're like, yeah, if you see. Pictures in the sixties, seventies of folks walking through the city of New York or walking anywhere. other than the fact they're all dressed so much better, but that's a different topic for another day.
they are all, slender and healthy in appearance, if you will. And it's interesting RFK was saying specifically, it's like the corporation sort of, hijacked the food pyramid, if you will, but 1980, like look at the last 46 years then that we're talking about and the health in America is alarming and astonishing.
It makes me so frustrated. and it's such a disservice to all the eaters across the [00:06:00] country when they go to the grocery store and you know, in my opinion, 95% of it's not food. to your point. It's sad and infuriating that it is so much poison and chemicals and altered genetics and the seed oils and the syrups and the, I mean, you and I could go on and on.
But it's sad because I don't feel like the American people deserve this and I feel like the food pyramid definitely contributed to it. and I'm excited for hopefully some of the education and conversation at the national level to begin. And every single farmer everywhere who's talking about it, thank you. Like yourself to help people understand that health isn't all the concoctions in a lab. or all the things that barely resemble real food, that the health comes from you know, I could all talk about it. It comes from the soil, but it just comes from real, real, real, real food.
And I feel like this food pyramid is starting to acknowledge that and moving fundamentally in the right direction.
Phil Bonelli: You know, most people, it's not like they're looking [00:07:00] to the federal government as their source of. Advice on what they're going to eat. But the food pyramid is really important and that is what then drives the WIC program.
It's what will drive school lunches. So you know, folks who really need help, in getting their daily nourishment or kids at school. This will hopefully help drive. Better options for them.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. You know what? I love that you said that because this was great information for me. and I wasn't aware, but it says the US dietary guidelines are updated every five years, and they serve, to your point, as a basis for federal nutrition and food assistance programs, including school lunches.
And then the next part of that is they shape what food companies make, which is another topic. But it is really neat, and this is the biggest shift since 1980, in the food pyramid itself, that it will impact. School lunches, WIC programs, et cetera. I actually, as a young new mother, was on WIC.
This was a long time ago, so when that was true, I was so grateful for WIC during [00:08:00] those years where we were just trying to get our life and marriage and family and jobs and everything off the ground. We were on WIC for a number of years and I was so grateful standing at the store, getting typically milk, cheese, peanut butter, cereal.
I can literally see them going on the conveyor belt in front of my eyes. But I think, and tell me if I'm wrong, but today's version of that has started to include things like soda, and some different things like that.
Phil Bonelli: Oh yeah. And I'm no WIC expert, but yes, I mean, soda's on there, there's all sorts of very bad things that you could get.
Which the government policy all ties together. So I look at it like, hey, you know, there are things that are driven by money and there are people who give money to campaigns and whatever from these big food companies and we get things passed where. That would help what these food companies are also like.
We just pushed all this production of subsidized, genetically modified and herbicide and pesticide, drenched corn. So like we gotta do something with it. [00:09:00] So, hey, let's put high fructose corn syrup and everything and let's put ethanol in our gas and now I have to get special gas to go on my chainsaw.
Or it'll, it'll clog up the carburetor. So, yeah, all this stuff matters and I definitely think I really am pretty anti-political overall because I have a mission in life, to run this farm and raise my family. And so I try not to ingest information that I can't act upon that's outside of my control.
but I certainly appreciate when any federal regime is talking about regenerative ag and healthier food and getting away from processed foods. I think that's great. So I wouldn't care which party was doing it. I think it's really positive. and I'm glad.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I appreciate that. I think.
you're always gonna have a combination of, forward moving and things to watch out for in terms of looking around a corner at any given time. but glad that there's hopefully some increasing awareness. I saw, I think it was Will Harris on LinkedIn. I spent time on LinkedIn looking for folks that might be a good fit for our company.
He was [00:10:00] commenting on the food pyramid and including a huge shout out to beef tallow. He was like, beef Tallow made the list, which is crazy.
Phil Bonelli: It is. But hey, it's a great cooking source and I recommend we produce tallow and lard here, and I recommend both to people. I'm gonna give a, will Harris shout out if you're listening and you obviously if you are, you care about sustainable agriculture and food.
Will Harris' Farm White Oak Pastures create a nonprofit, CFAR, the Center for Agricultural Resilience. and I go and help facilitate some of the workshops and check out CFAR. C-F-A-R. And there's some great things that we talk about these things. And, there are folks from the government who will come and learn about sustainable food systems there. It's really cool. Really cool.
Janelle Maiocco: That's really incredible. How far is your farm from, white Oak?
Phil Bonelli: A little under four hours.
Janelle Maiocco: Okay. Yeah. In the great state of Georgia. So again, folks, if you wanna look that up, make sure to add Georgia to that [00:11:00] search. Yeah. There's just great things occuring..
One of the things I noticed, and I'm sure you did too, 'cause you definitely have a marketing eye and a business eye, but I immediately noticed the upside down pyramid that their way to frame it was literally to put the prior pyramid on its head and flip it upside down. And from a marketing lens, that's genius.
From a business lens, it just indicates disruption, which I really do appreciate. And again, many of the same things are there, but with a whole different amount recommended per item. Right? And then just promoting real food. I think that was one of the things I grabbed from that article as well.
It was a Wall Street Journal article by the way, in case people are wondering, but, this, make America healthy again, it says because last year there was a lot of focus on, childhoods, vaccines, and he was pushing on, we've all been talking about food dies, has become, something that was focused on, and there's starting to be more and more of a conversation about, addressing chemical ingredients, ultra processed foods, sugar [00:12:00] seed oils, et cetera.
What I am curious about is now, you know, you can't focus on all things all at once, but it seems to me that this is increasingly a focus, and conversation, which I think is again, good for all if it's about real food and hopefully, increasing local food and food purchased directly from farmers. but I think the drop the mic was his message is eat real food.
In a nutshell, it's eat real food. And for every American, you know, again, like you're saying, regardless of political party, but I think if you look around, you know that health is a crisis compared to decades ago, and I'm glad that there's a conversation about how to address that in a meaningful way and just eat real food.
Phil Bonelli: Yeah. What a unifier. Speaking of whatever party it's from, I mean if anyone disagrees with eat real food, you gotta wonder why are you disagreeing with that? I mean, what a unifying thing. Hey, you might feel one thing about this issue, you about another issue, but we all what?
What's best for our own health and our kids and eating real food. No way you could deny that. That [00:13:00] is a crucial part of it. You just gave me a good idea for some farm merch. We might make some upside down food pyramid Hopewell Farms shirts.
Janelle Maiocco: There you go.
Phil Bonelli: And I do think from a business perspective, for all of us out there who are working hard to grow our direct to consumer farm businesses, I've been telling people and I've just felt myself like, what a great time. Because every day there are more people who watch a documentary, read a book, or an article, or talk to a friend and want a local, Hopefully Regeneratively raised, you know, that's what I do anyway, they want that more natural local food, and so it's just a marketing thing of I need to be able to make them aware that I exist and to, once they see I exist, and click on a button to make it as smooth of a process as possible to purchase from me and get my product.
So the great thing is that they're there every day. There's more of them. And I just need to get in front of them and this will exacerbate that, and this will speed that up that, you know, hey, our federal guidelines reflect that.
Janelle Maiocco: One of my questions for you [00:14:00] too is what impact do you think this will have on farmers?
And I actually wanted to get your opinion or perspective on the different kinds of farmers. 'cause we certainly have some farmers that have, you know, in this country we have farmers where you know, the Big Ag and the corn, soy, wheat factory farming, I guess commodity or Big Ag farming, whatever you wanna call it.
who typically historically have had subsidies from the government, et cetera. And then that's, you know, some of their waste product is why we ended up with seed oils and corn oils and vegetable oils, et cetera. I'm curious what you think this new guidelines in the next probably couple years, right?
Really it's not gonna be overnight, but what impact that might have on quote unquote big Ag and some of those commodity crops. Do you think the subsidies will be as big or as prevalent? And then second, question, backup question is, what will that mean for farmers like you?
And by the way, there's a couple hundred thousand of farmers like you across the country who are. selling directly into their local communities and growing things in a very different way than big ag, [00:15:00] it's not a monocrop mentality. It's very much diversified crops or proteins.
And typically, and I mean this in the best way from a stereotype perspective, but with responsible farming in mind in terms of caring for the animals, working with the soil, working for the health of their communities, and so that's clearly my whole passion in life is helping farmers like you be successful.
and it's such a privilege to do that, but what do you think will be the difference for both groups of farmers, sort of near term and then maybe even as the years progress?
Phil Bonelli: Great question. And by the way, thank you for your life's work of helping farmers like me, Janelle. I appreciate it very much.
I think it's a wonderful opportunity for, I'll start with farms like mine. It's a wonderful opportunity 'cause just more and more potential customers. I mean aside from the food pyramid, they did announce that there's gonna be, I think like $900 million allocated through existing programs.
Like the EQIP program is a U-S-D-A through that NRCS Natural Resource [00:16:00] Conservation Service there will be, like I've gotten EQIP grants before. EQIP grants can help you do a number of things, fence out creeks, put in water sources, if you don't know what EQIP is, you’ve got a farm? Look up EQIP.
Go to your local NRCS office, which is kind of like a branch of the USDA. So there will be EQIP grants for specific things and there's going to be now this money allocated through EQIP for. Regenerative farms and kind of more at a general level of like, Hey, I wanna start doing rotational grazing, or I wanna do this or that.
So you have a good opportunity if you're out there, and again, we got lots of great local farmers. They might not exactly be doing regenerative ag, but, like, call your EQIP, call your NRCS office and if you're doing regenerative ag, tell them and be like, Hey, I heard there's more loan dollars for this, or grant dollars for this.
They would like you to be the first one. It's cool for them. They want to do more of these grants. Get yourself in line. Don't [00:17:00] wait 'cause the applications are only once a year, so you don't wanna miss it. Go take advantage of those opportunities. So I think that there will be more dollars that go towards helping farms like ours.
I think that there is an ever increasing market to sell into, which, hey, it's still on us. We gotta go take advantage of Nothing's gonna come to us. We still need to go and do the hard work, but you should have a confidence and an additional fuel for your perseverance, knowing that if I go do the work, if I go do these things that Ryan, my account managers advising I do, you know, that I learned in the marketing, grassroots marketing workshop, there will be fruit because there are other forces that are improving my audience.
Janelle Maiocco: Well, I need to give a reverse shout out. Phil is one of the farmers that actually teaches our grassroots marketing academy. and so for farmers that are using Barn2Door to run their business, and promote their brand and sell locally, we also provide a litany of resources including amazing grassroots and marketing classes, by Phil and some of our other farmers.
But [00:18:00] I wanna stop here really quick and we'll circle back. And I wanna ask about what you think is gonna happen, if anything, with Big Ag or commodities and subsidies, et cetera. But you've said a few times here where the demand, which by the way, is already great, but is increasing even more.
If you can believe that for local food that's transparent from a farmer they can trust, I especially talk to a lot of moms and they're like, if I can just know what's going into the body of my children, I mean, you know, mother Bears everywhere, unite. Right? I love that.
but there's such demand for it. But you are, you are saying, Hey folks, we have to get in front of them. We need to make sure we're capturing that demand. You can't just be like, alright, great, and do nothing. You can't just farm. And then when your stuff's ready to sell, expect it to move. If you wanna do it that way, you're gonna give it to somebody else and they're gonna take a big part of the profit. And so if you wanna be selling direct, maximizing your profit, owning your customer relationships, growing your own brand and brand loyalty for those recurring sales. Can you please, just from your grassroots marketing, or you've said a few things? Give three big bullets to farmers listening, like how they can [00:19:00] ASAP get in front of this growing amazing demand.
and make it as easy as possible for them to find, you buy from, you get the food. What does that look like? If I'm like, yes, I wanna capture demand, I'm a farmer, tell me how.
Phil Bonelli: All right, great. Well, first of all, I would say I enjoy the business and marketing piece very much, but sometimes it wears me out.
There are many people who do not enjoy it at all, and you know what? If that is the case, you have one of two options. One, perhaps there is somebody else in your family or something who would be great at it, split up those responsibilities. I feel like so often I see you know, a husband is doing more the operations and the wife's doing the marketing fulfillment or vice versa.
So like, can somebody else do it? Maybe it's not gonna be your thing. That's fine, as long as somebody's doing it. Number two, if you don't have somebody else to do it. You're just gonna have to be like, I'm gonna work 30 minutes a day or 10 minutes a day on it. But you must make yourself do it.
I will never forget I was at this regenerative ag [00:20:00] workshop at White Oak Pastures right when I was getting started, and there were all these farmers kind of like me, similar size, and I looked around the room and I thought, we're all so excited. About the production we're so excited about, well, we're gonna do things in organic manner and we're gonna move our cows every day.
And we're all excited about this, but some of us are gonna be able to sell a $30 chicken and some won't. And you know what? If you don't do that, you don't get to go move the cows unless you're just already rich and you decide you don't care about being rich anymore and you're gonna farm it all the way.
So you gotta do it. Then. two, go ahead and get your name out. Look, if you're a Barn2Door you already have a great website, but if you're not, go get you a website and Barn2Door will do that for you. And I love the Barn2Door approach in that yes, we're gonna get you a great, good looking website, but we're gonna build your store first. 'cause that's the most important thing. ' cause again, you have to have somewhere for people to go.
So get your site, get a social media presence and tell everybody that you can about it. I mean, there's a lot of digital tools and we do [00:21:00] social media and we do this and that, and that's you should, but at the end of the day, I also just talk to a lot of people when I am in town.
People call me Farmer Phil. and they see me on Instagram, but I'm just talking to them. I'm inviting them to my farm. I'm telling everybody I know. I see they have kids. I'm like, bring your kiddos out for our next farm tour. We'd love to have you. I have to market my farm.
I have to let people know about the opportunity. so you need to do it or somebody needs to do it. Get your name out there with your website, your social media, and just you personally, and it never stops. You have to keep doing it and then making it easy for them. You really need to put yourself in their shoes and the people at Barn2Door, I mean, I'm not doing this as a Barn2Door commercial because I happen to be on your podcast.
I tell people this anyway, like, ask for their help. It was so hard for me at first to understand how does it need to look. Get their advice on how to put yourself in the customer's shoes and make it so it's easy for them. What are maybe the top 10 things, [00:22:00] top 20 things your customers are gonna want, and pin those at the top, make it so visible, make it where they click on your site.
I mean, it's just easy to buy from you. And so be strategic. Think about it. Ask your friends and family to go look at it and see what would be easier, and then how can it be easy to get it to them? I'm a big fan of delivery. Figure out the way to get it to their house.
So anyway. Do the marketing. Number one, don't worry about being excellent at it. First of all, just do it.
Janelle Maiocco: Oh my goodness, your three points are amazing. I just got done outlining a presentation I'm giving at a farm conference later this month, and I'm super excited. It's in North Carolina.
It's for women and new farmers. But I get to give a presentation and it's literally on digital marketing. I'm going to break six marketing myths, and the first one is that farmers think they just need a website. That's actually a myth because having a website doesn't mean all of a sudden you're gonna get a bunch of sales.
It is a visual piece of your brand, but it's not even one that people [00:23:00] engage with necessarily. They go to your website to learn more, but if they've gone there to learn more and they can't click and make a purchase, right? Then when they're exploring who you are, it's like making a reservation or for a restaurant it's in one part of your head and out the other, and then you're onto the next thing.
We used to always say a website's a billboard to nowhere if there's not a store, right? you need to have the ability right away in that moment to catch that potential sale from a potential buyer. and so having a website, it's interesting because whole session is literally about you can't just put up a visual experience and call it good.
Marketing is an ongoing thing to maintain and potentially grow or backfill customers. and even ugly is good. Like you can just set up automated order reminders. You can set up automatic capture of emails, which is literally synonymous with your customer list.
and to your point, setting up your store properly to make sure that you're maximizing your profit on the store experience. There's a lot that goes into it. But interestingly enough, marketing for marketing's sake is. Potentially a very big waste of time and money.
The reason you do marketing is for [00:24:00] sales. Tell me if I'm wrong, but the whole point of marketing is to capture sales and then build loyalty and customers for recurring sales and the loyal customers by consistently and more. So to your point. We always say you have to actually slow down to speed up.
So if you want your marketing time and effort and money to be worth it first, fix the fact that you need to have your online store set up. All roads lead to Rome, whether you're in social media, a newsletter, everything should point to your store. It should be beautiful.
And then once you have the experience of the store shopping, the store set up, and to your point, your third point, which is make it easy to get the food so nearby, local delivery or pickup, right? And once you've made the whole buyer experience hassle-free and easy, now you can start marketing because now your time will be worth it.
And for every farmer that doesn't love marketing you can spend 10 minutes wisely versus three hours poorly. If your store's easy and it's easy to get your food literally. So you have to set up the buyer experience correctly first for your marketing time and money [00:25:00] to be worth it.
It's really important for folks to appreciate that marketing for marketing's sake can be a huge waste of time and money.
Phil Bonelli: I have, I'll tell you, I mean, I have had experience where I didn't do a good enough job, like updating my inventory or whatever and then I've had people go to my site and I just. Missed out because I didn't do that groundwork. So definitely start there. Be like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw fuel on the fire of getting people to my site exclusively so that they will buy.
So make that as smooth as possible. Think through. There's many things you could do. I mean, my customers. Can have a very similar experience, the same ease like going to Amazon and buying something. So that's available to me. Like you said, do that first and then once you do the marketing for that explicit purpose of sending them there.
Again, you may not wanna do it. I actually like writing, I love communicating. But I have a good friend of mine, he writes copy and he [00:26:00] writes emails for a living and I deliver one of our boxes to his house every week. And he writes my weekly email of fun farm stories.
Janelle Maiocco: Oh my goodness. That is awesome.
Phil Bonelli: Yeah, just think about people out there. There is probably some mom or something and that they're really good at social media marketing and they want the healthiest food for their kids and you could barter getting them food and they do your social media. If that's not your thing, look man, find somebody.
You could even send that out to your existing customer list. We're looking for social media help. We would barter for farm products. Anybody know about that?
Janelle Maiocco: Oh my goodness. When I was a young mom, I would've jumped on that a hundred percent. and so, authentic too, because you're just in the middle of feeding food to your family.
And, often you know, like I was a stay-at-home mom for years, which was just the biggest delight. But I was getting into the weeds, so to speak, about everything going into my child's body and everything else. Yeah, and I would've killed for anything part-time. to be helpful and to use my brain at the same time.
Right. So that [00:27:00] actually reminds me 'cause we have a number of our farmers who do just that. They barter or they use a lot of often moms. it's wonderful 'cause it gives them an opportunity, to maybe not have something full-time, but also, keep the brain going if you will. You and I were talking before the whole podcast started about people helping you with admin. and Phil impresses me that way 'cause he has some folks helping, but he's like, yeah, get just what you're saying. Get customers barter with food or find somebody super part-time who's just passionate about what you're doing.
And if that's an outcome of this podcast maybe I'll find some help like that too. Phil, you will have inspired me.
Phil Bonelli: Yes. Well, it's important. I mean, golly, in business and small business and starting your stuff out, like there's so many hats you have to wear. It just is what it is. And I mean, I used to be, I used to have an off-farm job and I'm doing it.
I'm moving all the animals and doing that stuff before work, and then I'm going to work and I'm delivering a steak and eggs myself in between stuff with work. As you grow, you have to offload some things, but then [00:28:00] also in order to grow, you have to get help. I mean, golly, I guess I could go and learn how to use, I don't know, WordPress and make a site and attach an online store.
I could do that, you know, but I don't want to. And there's people. Who are great at it already. So I need to leverage that to be effective and what is it that I need to be doing. And we had a team meeting, the week before last with our farm and like really talked about the different roles and one of my main roles, I wanna own the role of salesperson.
And I have a gal she's part-time. Does marketing stuff with us, but it's like. I'm calling people and texting people to have them at our team buildings. I'm going and setting up to go speak at these big subdivisions to go and talk about what we do, and that's what I wanna do. I like it and you don't have to be like me and like it, you might only wanna milk cows, so just find somebody like me who likes milk.
Janelle Maiocco: Make sure that the marketing is getting tended to, even if it's [00:29:00] not you. I appreciate that. Again, to take advantage of so much demand.
Well, let's circle back to, the Big Ag piece in the food pyramid, which is, do you think it will impact I mean, I guess it necessarily will, If these policies or changes, are updated or recommendations I should say are updated every five years, they really do have a trickle down impact on how government spending occurs and even how private. Business food companies respond. Right. I think it will be so interesting to watch it unfold.
Do you have any insights on that piece?
Phil Bonelli: Yeah, I don't know what'll happen. I mean, farms like ours. You know, you mentioned there's a bunch of 'em. We're still quite a tiny piece of the pie, which again, should be very heartening too. All of my brothers and sisters out there doing this.
There's just so much market share to be taken. But, yeah, I mean the Big Ag in food is such a big money business. You'd think they figure out ways to keep things rocking at the same level. So, I don't know. I [00:30:00] will say we do farm tours and stuff, and obviously I'm into what I do and we talk about this that I do think that Big Ag and big food is bad and that it is providing bad things and it's bad ecologically, it's bad for human health, it's bad for workers.
Nobody started out wanting to do that. The way I look at it, Big Ag had the principles of, we want more calories faster for less money.
Well, those are noble ideals. Let's feed more people and make it affordable for everyone to get a chicken. So those are good, if those are your only principles, more calories, faster, cheaper, then. In the pursuit of those ideals, you can degrade the environment and stuff.
So, don't look at these people as bad or evil. It's just a system that is not good. I went to the University of Georgia Go Dogs. You know, our ag program is all about, Ag. you know, that's just what. Folks are being told. So anyway, I don't know what impact it has. But I will also say back to my overall life philosophy of trying to focus on things that I can control.
Whatever happens to them, I don't know, but [00:31:00] I'm gonna push my darnedest to go take advantage of the growing body of people whose eyes are open to local, healthy, real food, and I want to serve them with all I got.
Janelle Maiocco: Well, and I agree. I think the good news here is it should absolutely be great for business, right?
It should be encouraging to farmers like yourself all over the country. Again, there's a couple hundred thousand of them. and so that's a lot of opportunity and plenty of mouths by the way. Look around you, right? Everybody eats every day. And they've been recommended to eat more proteins and healthy fats and fruit, vegetables, eggs, which is really exciting.
Phil Bonelli: Also you know, golly farming, it can certainly be a lot of work. It can be stressful, you're in a hurry, and, just because we're running regenerative ag, but farms providing whole foods doesn't mean that's what we're always eating. So I would encourage you, my fellow farmers out there to follow that.
I mean, hey, I feel so good just eating fruits and meats and eggs and stuff from my farm. It makes me feel [00:32:00] great. I pretty much try to just eat meat and veggies and legumes for the most part. But, while we were starting the recording, this lovely lady, Cleo, came in and dropped off 10 loaves of organic, locally whole milled sourdough that we offer to our customers because it's awesome.
And when I have bread I have that. But man, hey, let's eat the right way ourselves. ' cause I tell you what, if I'm out there talking about how healthy my food is and how this is what you need to be eating. You'd like me to look like somebody that you might want to get some health advice from.
Janelle Maiocco: Oh, that's an interesting dimension. I appreciate that.
Phil Bonelli: I'm so thankful. I mean, I have gotten healthier from having the farm. I've got a farm store of amazing food right down the hill from my house. What a blessing.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I appreciate that. And I actually love what you said about big, I, I know lots of folks who run multi-generational farms that are considered in that bucket of commodity, or large farming, great folks, and just salt of the earth.
but I think to your point, what [00:33:00] started out, and this is true of everything, you know, this from business, what started out as good intentions. and I feel like a lot of things do, start out as good intentions, but, and you don't always know what that's gonna look like from a trickle down effect.
And probably the one guarantee is there will be good and bad that come from decisions because by nature of making a decision or focusing on prior. There are other priorities and things that are not being focused on. And for Big Ag whose incentives were to your point calories and cheap, and fast to grow and bring to market, what ended up suffering in that was nutrition and care of the soil and health for humans.
Definitely not an intention, but definitely an outcome that we're now seeing. And so. I think that hopefully all of our friends in agriculture across the board will be, encouraged and incentivized to move more towards nutrition care for the soil diversified crops, and really truly the health of humans and people that are eating it because that needs to [00:34:00] change just for the health of folks and making sure that.
People can live life to the fullest.
Phil Bonelli: Definitely. And I love that perspective and share it of I'm the opposite of industrial Ag but I want to be a partner with any and all farmers. I'm not fighting these guys. I'm doing my thing.
And maybe that will help inspire them or empower some of them to convert their monocrop operation into something which I think is better.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. And ideally there's conversations being happened too, and I know you're really good at having great relationships with everyone. In that capacity. When we onboard new employees at Barn2Door, everybody here watches Food Inc. this last cohort that we had, I think it was six or seven new hires this month, none of 'em had seen Food Inc. it's important. It's good information.
And again, we're not faulting anybody. We're just saying the incentives and priorities led down a path. And, folks are good at efficiency and, you know, look at what happened. So. It's neat to be part of, uh, some course correction there and bringing back the priorities of human health, animal health, soil health.
And I think that's exciting and I [00:35:00] think the food pyramid turned on its head, is reflecting folks interest, not just from the top down, but from the bottom up. Everybody's saying, Hey, health needs to change. This isn't okay.
Phil Bonelli: Mm-hmm. And it's important. It is important. I've got five little kiddos up at the house and I don't want them to get diabetes dug on it.
I want them to have vibrant, healthy lives.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, And full of energy too. Right? Ugh. Amen. Well, hey, thank you so much for getting on today's podcast and chatting about the food pyramid and other things too. Just in terms of how having, farmers take advantage of, in a good way, figure out how to get in front of buyers today that are waking up that are increasingly concerned.
Gen Z in particular, they're very. very excited about healthy eating and buying from farmers, and influencing people all around them too. So I just, it's an exciting time, to be building a local food culture. So thank you so much Farmer, Phil. I get to say that just like your community, it does when you show up downtown.
I love that. so thank you for all that you are [00:36:00] doing and thank you for your time today. And any last words to part with before I, uh, sign us off?
Phil Bonelli: Well, I would say, again, be encouraged out there folks the market's getting better and better. Go do your part feeling good that your opportunity to succeed is increasing. And I'd say, Janelle, I hope you have a great time speaking at that farm conference in North Carolina and tell those folks, I mean, if it's women owned farms and newer farmers, which the USDA designates as 10 years in farming or less, you get some, advantages with those EQIP grants that I talked about.
So go check out the grants too, folks.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. We'll write a blog summary of this as well, Phil, as a follow up, so that anybody who's listening today and wondering, oh, what are the things that he mentioned, I need to go look up, we'll make sure to include those in the blog.
And then, Phil, what is your Instagram handle so folks listening might be able to follow you?
Phil Bonelli: HopewellFarmsGa.
Janelle Maiocco: I wanna say thanks Phil, for joining us today. Go check out Phil's farm handle at HopewellFarmsGa. Again, like I said, we'll write up a blog summary [00:37:00] post so folks don't miss any details on this. At Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country, and delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers access more customers, increase sales and save time for their business.
If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and wanna simplify your business management. Pass off some of that automation to us. Check out Barn2Door.com/learnmore. Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.
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