Regenerative Farming Scam or Cure with Will Harris. Will Harris is a fourth-generation cattleman, who tends the same land his great-grandfather settled in 1866. Will graduated in 1976 and returned to Bluffton where he and his father continued to raise cattle using pesticides, herbicides, hormones, and antibiotics. They also fed their herd a high-carbohydrate diet of corn and soy. Will became disenchanted with the excesses of these industrialized methods. In 1995, Will made the audacious decision to return to the farming methods his great-grandfather had used 130 years before.
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About the host:
Bert Martinez is a successful entrepreneur and best-selling author. Bert is fascinated by business, marketing, and entrepreneurship. One of Bert’s favorite hobbies is to transform the complicated into simple-to-understand lessons so you can apply them to your business and life. Bert is also obsessed with exploring the mindset of the high achievers so you can follow their secrets and strategies.
Bert Martinez:
White oak pastures is is an anomaly. Right? It’s contrary to what the industrial farmers want you to do or the farming industrial farming wants you to do. And so now you’ve set yourself apart as this organic farm. It seems like things have gotten in reverse because, really, what you’re doing is what we should what all the farmers should be doing, but I guess we’ve gotten away from that completely.
Will Harris:
We have, and there are some reasons for the situation you described is accurate, and there’s some reasons for it. And I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but, the fact is there are a lot of mega corporations making a lot of money feeding the the earth feeding the people of the earth. And what I do changes that whole dynamic, and it doesn’t lend itself to really large corporate venues. It it’s I mean, we’re probably about as big as we need to be. We probably but there should be a lot more of us. Yes. If there will be or not because it’s very difficult. The economics is is very different from what you learn in college.
It’s you know, the economically, we do business on a monthly report, a quarterly report, an annual report, and we measure the return for those very brief time periods. What we do here is very long term. It’s very generational. And when you start trying to apply modern economics to it, it it just doesn’t look very good. Right. I’m perfectly fine with it, but it doesn’t look very good. Investors wouldn’t want any part of it.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. I could see that. And so why don’t you walk us through a little bit about your history? Because I read your profile, and here you are. You are a 4th generation cattleman. You went to school in, University of Georgia School of Agriculture. You were trained in the industrial farming method, as your father was, and then you you decided to change all that. So tell us a little bit about your story and what motivated you to make that change.
Will Harris:
Well, I was and and by the way, everything you said is accurate. And I was 20 years into it before I decided to make the change. I operated the farm as as an industrial modern industrial, monocultural cattle operation for 20 years before I I changed my mind. My so my as you pour it out, my great grand grandfather started this farm in 1866, followed by his son. And they ran it as a food system because that’s that’s the way it worked. They had, they were blessed. They had a a nice sized farm and employees, and then the farm was 2 miles from the little town of Bluffton, Georgia. And every day, they would, 6 days a week, they would slaughter something, a cow or some hogs or some chickens or whatever, and load it on a, mules rolling wagon and bring it to Bluffton and sell it.
You understand? This is before refrigeration and before USDA inspection. So it it it was, by definition, a very local food system. And it it worked, and they operated it for a couple of generations. My dad took over the farm in post World War 2, 1945. And that’s when things really changed, and my dad was a very progressive, aggressive guy. And he changed with it. And it became a fairly large monocultural cattle operation. And my dad ran it that way all in his life.
And he I think he enjoyed the fact that he was a specialist. You know, he went from being, his dad, a generalist, raising a lot of different species to dad being a specialist. He was good at it. All I ever wanted to do was do what my dad did, run it as a net run this farm as an industrial, you know, bottle closer cattle operation. I went to University of Georgia, majored in animal science, came home and did. I ran it as a a very monocultural industrial cattle operation for 20 years and were and and made money every year. We were profitable. But I did decide to make the change in the mid nineties and did so and, had some rough years as a result of that. But now I’m very glad I did.
Bert Martinez:
And what was the difference? I mean, I know that in the industrial system, they use hormone implants. They use, they feed their cows primarily unnatural things like grain. And I don’t understand I guess their hormones make them bigger and the grain makes them fatter, but they also feed them things like soy. I was reading that on your website that they feed these animals soy, which seems so unnatural and unhealthy for to feed an animal something that it’s not meant for them. Right?
Will Harris:
Well, the the entire cattle feeding industry is unnatural. You know, cattle are are meant to eat forage. They’re not meant to eat grain. Mono mono c cattle have a ruminants. They have 4 sections to their stomach. Right. Sheep as do, goats, as do some other species. They can break down salons, and they are meant to graze.
And they’re not meant to eat a grain diet. In fact, grain diets don’t, don’t digest well for them. They gain a lot of weight. They become unnaturally obese creatures, but it they don’t digest it well. And that’s why people use our and hormones and some therapeutic antibiotics to make all that work. And it does work. It puts weight on cattle very cheaply. It turns them into naturally obese creatures that you would not find in any sort of natural setting, And the meat is soft, and we like tender meat.
So it has a it has a place. You know? So and then I occupy this that place for 20 years, but I chose not to do it anymore. And and, you know, I’m really not individually critical of people who raise cattle the way I used to. I don’t think it’s what we should be doing, and it’s not what I do. But I don’t put myself in the position of being judgmental on what what other people do.
Bert Martinez:
Right. So what got you to make that change? Because, again, it’s generational. You went to school. You learned how to do this. So what got you to change?
Will Harris:
I think, maybe this isn’t very flattering, but I think that because I was such an extreme person, I saw the the fallacies of that system. You know, I was if the if the label instruction said to give the animal 2 cc’s per 100 pounds of body weight, I probably start out at 3 and maybe go to 4 cc. And if the label rate said put out a pint of the pesticide per acre. I might put a fork. So, I was not more, insightful for the others. I was just sort of an abuser. And as a result, I saw the negative unintended consequences of the system I was part of, it it caused me to not like it as well. I saw the unintended consequences, and I I wanted to move away from them.
And I did. And, to be to to be honest further, it it was harder than I thought. I I thought I don’t like doing that. I don’t like doing it anymore. Right. But economically, it was more difficult than I, had budgeted if I had a budget.
Bert Martinez:
And I did. And, to be to to be honest further, it it was harder than I thought. I I thought I don’t like doing that. I don’t like doing it anymore. Right. But economically, it was more difficult than I, had budgeted if I had a budget.
Will Harris:
It certainly applied to me.
Bert Martinez:
Alright. And I wanna back up a little bit because something you said just kinda hit my thought there, my mind. So these industrial cows that are fed all this junk, for lack of better terms, hormones, antibiotics, grain, they’re fatter and their meat is more tender?
Will Harris:
Yes. Yes.
It it would be. You know, if you were, you know, if you were a lion or a tiger or a bear, and there were a couple of guys that you were thinking about eating, And one of them was, 6 feet tall and weighed a 180 pounds. They could do a bunch of sit ups and push ups. And the other one was 6 feet tall and weighed £350. Which one you think would be the most tender to eat?
Bert Martinez:
I imagine the the fatty guy. Yeah.
Will Harris:
And that’s what we’re talking about here. You’re talking about eating a creature that is, unnaturally obese that would never occur in nature. You couldn’t get a cow that fat on grass.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. That makes sense. That makes and and what really boggles my mind is you’re telling me that between the hormones, the antibiotics, the pesticides, the grain, that’s cheaper than grass fed. And it doesn’t it doesn’t make sense. It almost sounds like it’d be more expensive.
Will Harris:
Well, let me explain. You you’re right. Let me but let me explain it to you. So in the in that system, a lot of cost in the in the grain fed beef system, Many, many calls are spun off the outside vendors. The the guy raising the cow and the guy buying the steak aren’t covering those costs. You know, we, the organic model on my farm is now 5%. When I was farming industrially, it was 1 half of 1%. We had, oxidized by the organic amount in our soil, which meant that it would only absorb a half an inch of rain, whereas today, it will absorb a 5 inch rain.
So that’s you know, those costs are cast aside. You know, there’s a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. This is big as the state of Massachusetts, and it occurred from look it up. It occurred from the pesticides and chemical fertilizers washing down the Mississippi River that that destroyed that, what what had previously been a great fishery. Now the cost of that fishery was probably billion of dollars, the loss to feeding the planet. But the farmers that put the fertilizers and pesticides out won’t pay that. And the grain company won’t pay that. And the company that fed the cow won’t pay that.
It’s spun off. We can talk about many, many, many costs that reduce the price of food at the checkout counter, but the cost is there. It’s just that it’s not being recognized by the perpetrator.
But that is a cost that is a cost of modern farming. And that and that cost partially went to offset the prep the price you pay at the checkout.
Bert Martinez:
Alright. Here’s something that surprised me. So when you started going down this road and going to this organic type of farming, you went to Zimbabwe. You went to this place called the Savory Institute. Talk about this.
Will Harris:
So when I started transitioning my farm in the mid nineties, you know, I was not the only guy in the country doing it. I didn’t know any of the rest of them. I now know a few of them, but I was figuring it out myself. And, I by the early 2000, I thought I had gotten really good at it. And by that time, we had formed a nonprofit called the American Grass Fed Association, and I was the president of it. K. And we had a, an annual meeting in Denver and had a speaker, our guest speaker, keynote speaker was a guy named Alan Savory from Zimbabwe. And Alan was up to to speak, and, and I was not particularly listening to him because I probably thought at the time, I knew more about how to do this than anybody on the planet.
Now I did not I didn’t, but I thought I did. And Allan was speaking, and I was listening to him, and he knew a lot of stuff I didn’t know, and I was very impressed. And and, actually wound up, going spending 3 weeks on his farm in Zimbabwe to take my holistic training. He came back and was one of the first savory hubs in this country. And, and I feel I owe a lot to Alan and the things I’ve learned from him thinking he is. Alan is still living. He’s in his mightiest.
Bert Martinez:
Wow. That’s incredible. I first of all, it just blows me away that you didn’t go to another organic farmer here in America. You went all the way to Africa to get your training. That to me tells me that you were a 100% committed. You were all in. You’re gonna go to Africa and spend 3 weeks there learning how to do this new type of farming.
Will Harris:
You know, I was a man on a mission, and, you know, I would rather not have gone to Zimbabwe for that, but that was where you had to go to get it. I mean, there there wasn’t anybody in this country at that time that was at that level.
Bert Martinez:
Alright. So now that you’ve been doing this for the organic farming, you’ve been doing that for how long now?
Will Harris:
About 30 years.
Bert Martinez:
Okay. So you’ve been doing it for 30 years. And so when I bite into a a grass fed piece of beef, what is the difference? What should I be experiencing that I wouldn’t experience with industrial beef?
Will Harris:
Well, so when I when I talk about the attributes of grass fed beef, I typically don’t talk about the things that are so subjective or so easy to argue, like flavor, taste, those those kind of thing. You know, who’s to say what tastes better than what else? What I talk about is from a animal welfare perspective.
You know, my animals are far, more compassionately humble than industrial, industrially raised cattle or hogs or sheep or goats or poultry. And the example I use is, if I, I mean, we slaughter cattle at about 2 years old, maybe a little older than that. And if I, had a a cow that I was going to slaughter tomorrow, and I said I’m going to give it a a presidential pardon, just let it to continue to live here, the island would live to be 20 something years old because that’s the lock and spec to see if a cow. Alright. If I had a feedlot and I used to have a feedlot and I was feeding animals in confinement a very high carbohydrate grain diet, and I decided to give them a presidential pardon and keep them in the envy, feedlot. They wouldn’t live very long.
They would they would die of all the health issues that happen from obesity, inactivity, and eating a bad diet, an unhealthy diet. Right. So from a, animal welfare, that’s where it is. From an environmental perspective, which is where it’s most clear, I just told you that the organic matter on my farm is 5%. It’ll absorb a 5 inch rainfall. Previously, it was a half a percent. It would only absorb a half inch rainfall. That’s incredible.
And, you know, and to take take that step further, I think I read somewhere recently, you know, I was just looking at it, that
Half the species of of plants and animals and microbes known to man, half of them are in some level of danger of extinction. Now I think that one of the most heinous acts humanity creates is driving species, any species, into extinction.
I believe that every species in an ecosystem, not that naturally occurs in an ecosystem, it’s there for a reason. Somehow, but we can see it and recognize. We can talk about that all day long. The symbiotic relationships that occur between, what we’re talking, cattle and dung beetles and plants and microbes and symbiosis. But I believe that every species that’s naturally occurring in an ecosystem has a role to play.
And when we drive it into extinction by using pesticides or whatever, then I think that’s a crime against nature. The we can talk about a little funny, but we we what we were talking about is the the benefits of me moving this program. And the the last one I’ll throw out is the economic benefits. I am sitting right now in the middle of the town of Bluffton, Georgia. Bluffton was a thriving little farm town until, World War 2, and it had become a ghost town. 15 or 20 years ago, I started buying houses and storefronts and vacant lots, And we bought a lot of them. I don’t know if I need it exactly.
But today, we’ve got a 170 employees that make well over the county average, and this is a nice little town again. So what I’m telling you is that centralized, industrialized, commoditized agriculture impoverishes rural America, and the sort of farming we do here in riches, and I think that that we’re well on our way to losing you know, this is getting far out there, but, you know, I I was born in 1954. And as a child, as a kid growing up, I long to experience the wilderness. K. The the the Yukon or the Amazon or, you know, what whatever. You know, today, 2024, there’s not much wilderness left.
And so in my lifetime, in my 70 years, we pretty much destroyed the wilderness. And I think that in another lifetime, I won’t see it, we’ll destroy rural. There won’t be any rural.
The little rural towns will be impoverished or moved into some something other than a an agrarian economy. You know, we’ll make food in whatever kind of factory we make food in. And I think that we did humanity a great disservice when we annihilated wilderness. And I think we will do humanity an equally horrendous service if we annihilate rural.
Bert Martinez:
Well and to your point, the last, what, I wanna say at least 5 years, it might be a decade now, but at least the last 4 or 5 years, we have several companies that are experimenting with laboratory grown meat.
Will Harris:
Well, I mean, it’s it’s not just experimenting. They’re marketing it.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. They’re marketing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the the experiment’s over. They’re now doing it. You’re right. Now they’re marketing it and selling it.
Will Harris:
They have attracted billions of stockholder dollars and Right. Impossible meats. And there’s a bunch of them out there. Yeah. And They’re not doing very well right now, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t, and it doesn’t mean that manufactured food but I just read recently that there’s a huge, vegetable farm going in here in Georgia. It doesn’t use sunlight. It doesn’t use soil.
Hyponically grown under artificial lights. So we’re growing vegetables without soil or sunlight.
Bert Martinez:
Right. And for them to have any kind of nutrients, you know they’re gonna add more chemicals. They’re gonna add something to those plants because they get certain nutritional value from getting from being in the soil and in the sun.
Will Harris:
Well, that is it. You’re like I think it’s like, you know, we don’t like germs. We don’t like microbes if you don’t want a sterile gut.
You know, I’m of the impression I’ve been told this before that, Scientists can take seawater and analyze it and break it down and know exactly what’s in it. But then if they try to build that seawater back, it won’t support life. Defense risk.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. It it’s just amazing with our rush. You know, sometimes it’s propelled by greed, but in our rush to do what we do, I think some people never stop to ask why are we doing this. You know, every day grocery stores throw away tons of food that are going bad in in which makes total sense. But at the same time, we have parts of America. We have citizens here that don’t have enough to eat. And it seems to me that if you’re a grocery store and you know that, hey, every day we’re gonna throw away a certain amount of food, Couldn’t we donate some of that? Instead of throwing it away on the day it expires, maybe a day or 2 before it expires, we could get into the hands of people. And they keep talking about this artificial food is gonna help feed the starving people, but yet we already have the solution to feed people who don’t have enough money.
But back to your point, that doesn’t create shareholder value. So it’s not being done.
Something simple is isn’t getting accomplished because there’s no money in it.
Will Harris:
Well, the earth has a carrying capacity, And I don’t know what it is. And when I bring that up, what I hear is, but I mean,
We’re wasting so much of the food that we’re producing now that we must not be anywhere near the carrying capacity. But, see, I don’t I don’t think that’s right. I think that the the copious quantities of food that we’re producing now are done, in many cases, through such onerous, destructive production practices that we’re really not we’re really not making as much we’re not producing much food as we think we are. We are, but we’re doing it on credit. I mean, what if we ran out of oil? I mean, then how much how how much food are we gonna have then? We don’t make food out of oil, but a lot of oil goes into production food.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Let let me ask you this, because something that caught my attention, on your website white oak pastures White oak pastures is a zero waste farm. What does that mean?
Will Harris:
So, we own our own USDA inspected red meat slaughter plant. I mean, USDA inspected poultry slaughter plant. And in the process of slaughtering animals, we generate about 9 tons a day of what’s called packing plant waste. Very unattractive material. It is the the gut feel, the bones that are not marketable, heads. You know, it is just not pretty. But we we compost that here on the farm.
We we incorporate that 9 tons of packing plant waste 5 days a week with a carbaceous material. That’s a very nitrogenous material. Many scraps. And we, incorporate it with a very herbaceous material using the peanut shells or wood chips or whatever we have and compost it. We have aggressively compost it. We stir it. We got people hired to do that. And, it takes about 6 weeks of, we we check the temperatures every day to be sure it’s composting properly properly, oxygenated.
When it’s composted, we let it sit for a year. That allows it to become more fungal, less bacterial, which is better for the land. Then we apply it on the land, and it is incredible. It’s like it’s like magic. Micro magic.
Bert Martinez:
That’s incredible. So from start to finish, it takes about a year, and then you use it as fertilizer at that point?
Will Harris:
Correct. 5 days a week, we, add nitrogenous material to meat scraps. And, we we we, mix it every day to be sure it comes up to temperature. Heat records on it. Then we spread it. We wouldn’t let it sit for a year. You don’t have to, but it it’s it’s better fertilized if it sits for a year. More, fungal.
Bert Martinez:
Gotcha. Alright. Let me ask you this because, again, I you kinda mentioned that the industrial type of farming is is what you called a monoculture, farm. And, really, White Oak Pastures is a multicultural type farm. Right? I mean, you guys have multiple things growing simultaneously.
Will Harris:
You know, one of the, I think the one of the worst things that we’ve done in modern farming is to create these huge monocultures. You know? Monocultures don’t exist in nature. Nature aborts a monoculture. If you think of any ecosystem you know of, whether it’s mountain, desert, valley, plateau, polar, There’s a a lot of different plants and animals and microbes living in symbiotic relationships with each other. No two ecosystems exactly the same, but they all involve plants and animals and microbes in symbiotic relationships with each other. And, that we have gone and it’s very cyclical. And post World War 2, we have changed that to make it very linear. So we raise, you know, cows in the cow pasture, corn in the corn field, soybeans in the soybean field, wheat in the wheat field.
And we and and if something is growing well, it’s not the crop, we kill it. We use a side. You know side means kill, homicide.
Insecticide, nematicide, fungicide. So that’s that’s what we do. When I was when I was an industrial cattle farmer, every single day of my life, I went to the pasture and looked for something to kill literally, actively. I looked for a an insect or a microbe or another plant species or or something to kill. And I would I could find it. I’m good at that.
And I would find a side. I knew what side to put on it. And what I didn’t realize is when I killed that what I perceived to be a pest that day, The pesticide was very efficacious. It would kill it well, but it’d kill some other stuff too. Sure. Sure. And there would be another reaction to that, so I have to pull out another one. And it was highly efficacious, but you kill some other stuff so I have to put out another one.
And it’s a cycle chain. It just goes on and on and on forever. And big companies make a tremendous amount of money selling those sides. The farmers spend a lot of money buying and applying those sides. And they always have unintended consequences that adversely affects the land or the animal or the people on the land or or whatever. So, you know, what we do now is very, very different, and it’s and it’s not all sweetness and light. You know, our return on investment is not something I lift up with pride. But I’ll tell you this.
You know, I’m the 4th generation on this farm, and 2 of my 3 daughters came back to the farm with their spouses. And they wouldn’t have if I farmed the way I did when they were growing up. And they’ve got 5 babies that could come back to the farm. And I’m not saying the farm’s gonna go 10 generations, aren’t they? They that’s not the way it happens. Right. But it’s gone 5 and probably will go 6.
Bert Martinez:
And and the fact that your grandkids are are hanging out with you and your kids came back, I mean, that to me is a win. It’s priceless.
Will Harris:
But, you know, the way we run our business, it’s a real failure if a generation doesn’t come back because we make I mentioned this earlier. We make investments in land and herds and and infrastructure that that don’t pay that don’t pay back based on Florida or the annual report. They’re long term investments. So what when we make investments here, they’ll they’ll truly generation. And we know they’re not gonna they’re not gonna pay for themselves in the next x months or x years. It’s gonna take x generations.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. That’s incredible. And that’s you know, having that long term mindset is what you need and then when you’re trying to accomplish any big goal. So I think that’s that says a lot.
Will Harris:
I think I think it’s a lot of what’s wrong, what we’re doing today. You know? I, you know, I took business courses when I was at University of Georgia in the seventies. I mean, a long time ago, but some things hadn’t changed. And, you know, it was all about return on investment. And when you go to the bank to borrow money, you know, it’s a 5 year amortization or 20 year if you’re swaying it, maybe 20 years. But in in almost no there’s almost no consideration for generational people.
Bert Martinez:
Right. Yeah. It’s strictly a numbers what they’re looking at. And so the I wanted to ask you this. So back when you were doing the industrial farming, to get a cow from calf to slaughter, how long would it take, and how what would it cost you versus today?
Will Harris:
Time wise, you’re talking about well under 2 years industrially and well over 2 years when we do it today. You know, cost. They change so much. You know, the the actual cost of raising that cow to 12 or £1400 over 18 month period of time, would be significantly less than what it takes today. And I you know, you’re talking about 20 years ago. You you you’re asking me time, use some money, and I you know, I’m a farmer. You know? But, it it what we do here is the food I produce is more expensive than industrially produced food. I’m sorry about that, but I’m unapologetic about it.
I mean, I hate it. I wish I’d say my food is better, it’s better for the environment, and it’s cheaper. You will go higher on mine in your head.
Bert Martinez:
Man, that would be awesome.
Will Harris:
Yeah. But, but the other fact is it, is probably healthier, probably cost more, certainly better for the environment, certainly better for the the welfare of the animal. We slaughter the animal, man. Make no mistakes and apologize if we slaughter the animal. But the animal will live a much better life than it would have otherwise. I can and on the attributes, less polluting.
Bert Martinez:
I mean, I I had family members who still run a dairy farm. And I remember he took me this this family friend family member, I’m sorry, took me and walked me through the dairy farm. And, he was the father, and so I was friends with with his son, and he gave me the tour. And, after walking through that dairy farm, I stopped consuming dairy altogether. It was just, you know, he start you know, he’s talking about, all the different hormones and and the pus and this and that and and how these animals are milked every day. And because they’re milked every day, sometimes blood and all the stuff gets in the milk and it has to be burned off and blah blah blah. And, they’re fed the same way as as, in in that industrial method. And, and then they have no no roaming. There’s no grazing. There’s no roaming. There it’s you wouldn’t wanna live the way these cows are being treated.
Will Harris:
Well, and that’s what so we hadn’t talked about is the animal welfare component. You know, I tell them that
Cows were born to roam and graze. Pigs were born to root and wallow. Chickens were born to scratch and peck. But in the industrial model, that does not happen. You’re not in the confinement model, which is where industrial food is produced. Those instinctive behaviors are not available.
And it’s like it’s like you took your your kid and said, I’m gonna keep you in a closet, but the closet’s gonna be 72 degrees. I’m gonna leave the light on. I’m gonna leave a mattress in there for you, and you’ll never get run over by a truck. And, you know, the bully will never beat you up and whatever else. But but that’s not you know, the the kid can’t express instinctive behavior. Right. In the industrial, animal production model, they can’t express instinctive behavior.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. That’s incredible. And, you know and, again, it’s like, a lot of things in life. I’m sure that this industrial model at one point served a really great purpose, and I guess you can argue that it still does because we do have millions of people that are eating and need to be fed and all that other stuff. But it seems like if we would have, you know, if we would if we go back to the organic model like you guys do there, then, yeah, our food cost is gonna go up.
But at the same time, our environment is safer. The meat is healthier. It just seems like when when you look at some of this marketing that goes on today where they they talk about, hey. If you buy our beef or our chickens, we promise you no no, antibiotics and they and they’ve been grass fed and this and blah blah blah. And people seem to be willing to pay the extra dollars for the better option.
Will Harris:
Well, that a conundrum. You know, I’m a I don’t blaspheme industrial farming. I’m opposed to it. I don’t I used to do it, and I quit. I went through a lot of a lot of trouble, a lot of experience to not do it anymore. But I don’t I’m not really critical of those that do it now because there’s still hungry people on the planet. And, admittedly, the way I produce food cost more. And all those hungry people, I want them to have something to eat.
I wish they had something to eat that was raised the way we raise it. But if they can’t get back, I want them to have something. So I try not to be too judge little about exactly who does what. I don’t know that. I don’t know what I wanna do. I don’t know that from the perspective of my animals, my land, my family, my community, my customers, we’re better off for me doing this the way I do it.
Bert Martinez:
Right. And and, ultimately, that’s that’s the most important thing is that you could look in the mirror and say, I am proud of what I’m doing. And and, ultimately, that’s what it is. So when you made the switch real quick, Will, when you started switching from industrial to organic, regenerative type farming, were there any governmental issues that that tried to stop you or anything like that that might have might have caused you to slow down or roadblock you?
Will Harris:
It would be overstated to say roadblock, but there are difficulties there. Processing was was hard. You know, the to to market meat, it’s got to be slower than the USDA inspected plant. And there simply aren’t many in this country available to farmers like me. They’re, you know, they’re they’re the huge ones that the big meat companies own, but there just aren’t a lot available. So I, well, I had to borrow 1,000,000 of dollars to build processing, which was very frightening. Yeah. But not a you know, there are no I don’t there there are no rules against doing what I did.
No. It’s not the the deck is not, stacked in my favor. The big multinational food companies have a lot of sway with the regulations and how they’re written and how they had mother But, you know, anyone can do it. It just takes, a little money and a lot of termination.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. It sounds like it takes a lot of money. If you’re talking about 1,000,000 of dollars and you’re trying to build, the slaughter facilities and and yeah. Yeah.
Will Harris:
It did. I hope everybody doesn’t have to do that. You know, I’m a very early innovator in this field, and I simply had nowhere to get my animals slaughtered. I just didn’t. Right. I either had to do it or not do it or not do it. So I did it. To today, there’s a little more capacity, and, hopefully, there’ll be more going in. I I hope that I hope that fall every farmer does not do what we did in terms of being a complete vertically integrated outfit. We we we do our own salon. We do our own or if, order fulfillment or online. We do all those things, mister Carl. We went into it 30 years ago when it was either do it yourself or it’s not gonna get done.
Bert Martinez:
Right. And real quick, I wanna do a shout out here. So people, if they wanna order online or check out your your facility or your team, they can simply go to whiteoakpastures.com. And, they can find out all about you plus, order online. And I think that, that’s incredible that, here you are in Bluffton, Georgia, and you’re shipping all over the world or at least all over America. That’s just an incredible thing that, that, we’re we’re able to do that now.
Will Harris:
Well and and I’ll also invite them along with that is to come to see us. We’ve, we built a store, a general store, a restaurant, and lodging. And, we’ve got a number of things going on here. We start we, we founded a, a 501c3 nonprofit called CIFAR, Center For Agricultural branch. And and we we have sessions to train farmers on how we, you know, how we do what we do.
Bert Martinez:
Right. Man, that’s that is that’s incredible that you’re now teaching people. So okay. So before you made the switch to, to this organic regenerative type farming, When you were doing the industrial farming, where did you get your animals slaughtered at at that point? Did you just put them in a big train box and ship them?
Will Harris:
No. There were there were a small number of very small, slaughter plants around here that would do it for me. And they, they, they literally would sell me their excess capacity. It wasn’t enough for me to make a living on it. It it, we were so lucky. Oh, we were just incredibly lucky. And we started this, in the in the late nineties.
I was ready to ready to get product and sale by the early 2000, And that’s when grass fed beef first came on the the scene. Right. We’re just so lucky. I didn’t see that coming. It just showed up. And, we would, I would take my own most of these local locally owned, very small, smaller plants, and and I got new all the owners. And I’d say, how many can I bring this week? They say, 3. I said, I need to bring 10.
She said, 3. And then I could not run my business on the, amount of slaughter they have available to me. And so we, went out on the limb. I never I was blessed. I inherited a nice paid for farm, and I never borrowed any money. And I went to the bank and borrowed a lot of money and built a packing plant. It was just very fortunate again with the timing. You know? Well, I tell you, I’m a shamelessly plug this, but, I wrote a book, and I’m, it’s called . And it’s, it’s got that history in it. I probably if anybody’s interested, I would would offer that up.
Bert Martinez:
Okay. Alright. And and is is it available at, your website, or is it also available on Amazon?
A bold return to giving a damn. That’s an excellent title. I love it. Well, Will, it’s been an amazing pleasure to have you on the show, and I am excited, for you and your family that you guys are changing the world. At least in the in your corner of the world, you’re making an impact. You put people to work. You revitalize a town. You changed, your farm.
And, you know, that that’s an incredible thing. And I’m just blown away that you did it you did this and, basically, contrary to what everybody else was doing. So that just takes a lot of courage. You mentioned the billion of dollars that you borrowed. That takes courage. It’s incredible. So thank you for stopping by. Congratulations for what’s going on there at, at your farm.
Will Harris:
I think a lot of what you’re mistaken for courage is an naivety, but I’ll take it.
Bert Martinez:
Well, what what’s the old saying? Ignorance is bliss. Right? A lot of the a lot of the things that we do is because we’re naïve. We don’t know any better, and that and that works.
Will Harris:
And I lead a blissful life.
Bert Martinez:
Well, thank you so much for stopping by. It’s been it’s been a blast getting to know you.
Will Harris:
Thank you for having us, Bert. I really enjoyed it. Thank you very much.
