Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Joel Salatin says we're too old to farm. In his influential book, you can Farm, Joel describes people of our age as really being too old to get started on this journey. That was a challenge that we accepted.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: After 25 years of rich, being in the air Force as a fighter pilot and then a strategy officer in the Pentagon, we decided to hang up the uniform and put on some farm boots and some coveralls and start a farm.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Welcome to the Duster Mud podcast. This is episode 51. And I'm rich.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: And I'm Shelley. We consider our farm a first generation regenerative farm, where we farm things like beef and pork and lamb and chicken, and we have a couple of dairy cows. So according to Joel Salaton, you're old.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: I am, yes. He segmented off.
He really talked about folks 45 and older as being just too old to get started on this farming journey. And he really encourages people of our age to, if you really want to do this, invest in the younger generation and find a partner that's in their 20s, maybe a single person in their twenty s, to get started on the farming journey.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: That kind of brings us to a question or a comment, really, that we got from one of our viewers. And the comment was very along the same lines as what Joel points out about our age and being a first generation farm. And the quote that really brought it to our attention was, the key to being first generation is having future generations to carry on your legacy. And that is a really good point. Yeah.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: And it really falls right in line with Joel's definition of a successful farm being multiple generations. I believe Joel refers to three generations being able to live off of the farm, off of the profits of the farm, and really made Tom's comment to us about the multiple generations needing to be on the farm to consider yourself really a first generation farm. It all sort of played into our mind and back to what Joel was talking about with being a successful farm, and really just made us start thinking.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: Well, for the record, we do have generation beneath us. We have actually multiple generations. We have five daughters, and they are currently, most of them are following in our footsteps as a generational legacy in the United States Air Force. So that's cool. And then some of them have children as well. So there are grandchildren involved in the family. So there are multiple generations available biologically?
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: So we kind of have that covered. And a couple do actually live here on the farm with us and are learning and are currently participating in the farm itself.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Yeah, really, I think where we want to take the conversation is we believe that you can be successful in farming, even starting a little bit older.
We got started when I was 48, and we certainly did not consider ourselves old in doing the research to get started in all of this. Obviously, Joel Salatin is regenerative farming guru. Right. So we really were consuming what Joel was talking about. And one of the things that he does talk about is the average age of farmers in the United states of America. And according to the 2022 agricultural census, the average age of the farmer in the US is 58.1 years old.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: Average.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Average age. And they have an average of 23.4 years of experience in farming.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: The average age of the beginning farmer, 47.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: That's interesting. Well, look at us being average.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: Yeah, basically. Yeah. We were 48, 48.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: Right. At.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: We're right. At average, 62% of farmers work off the farm right now, and 9% of farmers are veterans.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Of that 9% that are veterans, their average age is 68.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: So we're bringing down the average there.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. Okay.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: So just some interesting numbers. And as Joel is talking about the farming and the average age of farming, really, the thing that he's highlighting is that our farmers are getting old and the next generation really isn't stepping into farming, and lots of reasons for that, and he talks about it in multiple different books, but just that it's becoming an older generation that's doing this with not a whole lot of hope for it to continue.
As each census comes out, the age continues to get older and older, and.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: Farming is what grows us our food.
The fact that the farmers are getting older and no one is replacing them, to me, that becomes a bit of a crisis.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: A food crisis in the making, when you don't have the generations coming behind that have the will want to and knowledge to grow food.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: And we've talked about in the past, the number of farms is decreasing significantly.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Also by the thousands.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: So the opportunity to pass on a farm to a new generation is declining as well, because the farms just don't exist.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Right. Yeah, that's true.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: So, as Joel talks about the age and the challenges that you face with increased age or being older or being old, as Joel puts it, he's really focusing on stamina, on the mental stamina that it takes to do farming, on the physical stamina that it takes to do farming. And one of the things that he highlights is you don't recover, even from emotional setbacks, as easily when you're older and physically.
One of his points is that we don't want to come home worn out, tired every day as we get older.
You and I took that statement in this book. I mean, I've got it. We've got stuff highlighted in it.
But I don't think that Joel could have said anything better to encourage us to actually do this than, you're too old.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: You're right.
What most people. What you probably don't know about us is we're quite competitive and a bit stubborn and hard headed. And whenever he said, you're too old to do this, we said, hide and watch. And so what we took from that was not just the, you're up in age on this, and you're kind of behind the curve as far as building something that can last. But we also understood that we got to hurry. We can't just say, well, someday we want to get cows, and someday we need to put some new fence in, and someday down the road. No, we have to do everything right now, and we have to hurry about it. So we set out to do that to make up time.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: Yeah. One of the ways that we made up time was we bought property that the land was already cleared. There were pastures, there were fences, and there were waterers.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: Yes. There was enough infrastructure here to be able to do the thing that we were setting out to do, because we knew that in order to get that infrastructure put in, number one, finances. And number two, time was essential in all of this. And so we started building our farm before we started building our house, because we wanted to get that thing going, to get those animals growing, to get them reproducing, and getting to that point where we wanted to be with meat production, we have to go now.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: We had cows, sheep, pigs, and birds and guardian dogs all on the property before we even moved the first piece of dirt to build a house.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: Another thing that we chose to do in it was make sure that nothing was leveraged.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:09:54] Speaker B: Meaning the land, the house, the barns, the infrastructure is not leveraged against anything else. The land is owned. Everything is paid for. So if our kids generationally, if they do want to come in and say, I want to do it, too, they're not up against a huge burden of debt, which can be a huge barrier to entry as far as generationally passing on a farm to the people beneath you, we wanted to ensure that this land that can produce things can go to them and not back to the bank in the event that something faults.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: And that's another one of the things that Joel highlights as being very important is maintaining a debt free farm.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Right. So that has been our goal. Now, you said a lot of people do have town jobs, and one of our advantages is we kind of have a town job in that your 25 years in the air force allowed us to retire with a retirement income, and so that would be our town job income that often people have. But it's giving us time to get that business up and running and going, because it does take several years to get a business into the black any, right.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: And that's a great segue into what we believe is success for our business, for our farm. And while Joel describes it as a number of generations being able to be sustained by the business, we really see it as the business is operating in the black and there is an opportunity available should the generations want to come in that they can then have this as a business also.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: But we certainly don't want to expect or have. Like, the definition of success for us is not dependent on whether or not the generation behind us comes in to do the farming for us, the farm can be a success even if they choose that they want to do something else with their life.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: Right? Absolutely.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: One of the things, when it comes to our story that really sat with us, sat well with us from Joel's book. From this one, you can farm is, it doesn't matter your socioeconomic status, your age, or your current living conditions, if you have a yearning in your soul to grow things and minister healthy food to people, to live an agrarian life with your children and grandchildren playing around your feet, then an opportunity exists for you.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: And we highlighted that years ago.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: Interesting. Well, then what we're doing is a successful venture, then. Yeah, I believe we've achieved that for sure.
Another part of the success for us is to grow what you said about ministering good food to people. We love growing and having good food available, not just for ourselves, our friends, and our family, but for our local community here. It absolutely makes our hearts well up with all of the good things. Whenever we can say, I have grass fed lamb for you, or non GMO pork or whatever, the thing is, and we know it's good, clean food that was raised right and people want it. And for us to be able to give it is just, it fulfills all of the checks, all of the boxes.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: Another thing that Joel talks about in the book is, as a farmer, you're actually in the people business. And we didn't realize that initially until.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: We thought we were going to come out here and just play with animals and get away from the city, really. We knew we wanted a business, but.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: We didn't really realize how much of being in the people business it is. And it was honestly a surprise to us how it made us feel when people would come back after selling them something at the farmers market, when they would come back the following week and talk about how amazing it was. That is just really cool. That feeling is really neat that you have provided something essential to someone.
Food is life giving. It's essential. And, you know, it was good. And they also appreciate how good it was. So that's really cool. And another definite determination of success for us. For us. Even if you might not fit the exact definition of what Joel talks about as being the perfect age to start a farm.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: Or homestead.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: Or a homestead. You can do this.
Yeah. It's hard.
It is hard work. And we are tired. We are tired, and there are emotional setbacks.
But just because we're over the age of 45 doesn't mean that we can't get over an emotional setback.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't accept that.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: Right. And you don't have to accept that either.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: No. There's a lot of things that Joel talks about in his book that are really awesome and those things that aren't. Look at them as a challenge.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: As a. Oh, so he doesn't think we're physically fit enough to do this.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: Okay, watch.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: And he makes very good points. And his points, in my opinion, are true. They're correct. We just have to come at them with some sort of ammo and understanding that I am older, I'm 51 years old, and I'm a female. What am I going to do in order to be able to keep up? What am I going to do to be able to keep my body to where it can do the things that I want it to do? How can I stay healthy? How can I stay strong, make sure I get enough rest, make sure I'm eating properly? All of those types of things go into whether the banking part of it is just one small thing or keeping a business in the black is one small thing. But if we don't have the energy and we don't have the strength and stamina to do it, that is a problem. But we can mitigate that problem.
We can take care of our bodies in such a way that our bodies.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: Will keep going well.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: That's one of the key things about our ketogenic lifestyle, is that we just have more energy.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
This lamp behind me says we feel 30.
We do.
There are often times when we can outperform the 30 year olds.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: Today we talked about it. The question posed of how old would you be if you didn't know your birthday?
[00:17:11] Speaker B: Toby Keith lyric to his last song.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: And we both said mid thirty s.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: Thirty s to early 30s.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm like, I don't know. Early to mid 30s is how I feel right now.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Obviously, reality is different, but the fact that our bodies do withstand the things that we ask of them is working. It's working.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: And it can work for you, too.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: Absolutely.
Yeah.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: One of the aspects that the farming lifestyle brings is freedom.
We have the freedom of not. We have the freedom of knowing exactly where our food is coming from.
We have the freedom to get up every single day and do the things that we choose to do.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: And with that freedom, there's security also, that we have food.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: There's a freedom from any kind of food fears.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: And we bring security to others around us because there is a lot more food in this local community being generated by local farmers. And so these people around us who we're getting to know, it brings them security as well, knowing that there is a very close supply of.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: If you've been dreaming about farming, we were dreaming about farming when we were living in Washington, D. C. We would watch our favorite farming channels, and we would sit there and we would be farming wannabes. We wanted to farm so bad we could taste it. He would come home and we would sit in front of the television and watch YouTube and just dream and think up the things that we were going to do. And we didn't care what our age was, guys. We really didn't. And if you're sitting there and you're dreaming and you have the means to be able to get you a little bit of dirt underneath you, and you can start growing some of your own food and a little bit for someone else and do that thing, I 100% would encourage you to do the thing that you want to do.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. It definitely is a dream come true. It is hard work, but this is truly a dream come true for us. I want to say thanks to Tom for the comment and know, sparking our brains along this line of thinking, and that was really cool. And we know that you've got tons of experience, and I appreciate you commenting back to us a lot and really sharing your experience with the community that's building right now. We're really interested in your definition of success on your homestead or farm or farmstead. Or if you're like us, you're instead not really a farm solely and not a homestead solely.
I'd love to know. We'd love to know what your definition of success is and how you're doing in reaching that definition.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: We thank you guys for your support on this channel. It is growing. If you're new here, we are so happy that you're here. We are growing a tribe of like minded people who really just want to know more about food and freedom and farming, whether it is running sheep or whether it is making keto bread and all of the things in between. We appreciate you so much, and thank you guys for hanging out with us again. And until next time, bye.
