Joe Rogan Experience #1478 - Joel Salatin

1. 0:01 – 1:43

   Pandemic stress test: local food thrives while industrial supply chains crack

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:01

      Good to see you again, sir.

   2. JSJoel Salatin0:03

      Good to be here-

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:03

      Thanks.

   4. JSJoel Salatin0:04

      ... thanks for coming back, man. I really appreciate it. This is a perfect time to talk to someone like you about, uh, our food. Um, we're in a very strange crisis now, and you just keep hearing time and time again in the news, uh, how much ranchers and farmers and people are really suffering right now. And how much folks who don't have anything to do with that are now forcing... They're, they're being forced to understand the, the importance of the food supply chain and ranchers and farmers, and all the stuff that we've taken for granted for quite a long time now. Well, they sure have, and what's interesting about it is the juxtaposition between the... I'll just call it the industrial, the, the more, you know, uh, commercial industrial food sector, versus the sector that I'm in, which is a, um, a, a local-centric, you know, uh, uh, direct, direct sale branded product, you know, directly from the farm. Uh, the pandemic is the best marketing strategy we've ever seen.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:01

      (laughs)

   6. JSJoel Salatin1:01

      We're having, we're having the best season we've ever had, and, um, a- a- a- and, and, and the same thing was with farmers around the country as I talked to them. Uh, everyone that's like us, that, that, that did not go into the supermarket system basically-

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:15

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JSJoel Salatin1:16

      ... that, that's selling in their community, in their, in their region, regionally, uh, directly off the farm, having the best, best year we've ever had. It is the, it is the, um, it's the industrial, uh, mega-system that's cracking. And so for the first time, we're hearing talk of, "Well, maybe, maybe we need to add, uh, resiliency to efficiency." (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:43

      Hmm.

2. 1:43 – 2:38

   Processing bottlenecks: why meat plants became outbreak hotspots

   1. JSJoel Salatin1:43

      And so, um, so yeah. The, the, the system that's cracking, there's plenty of food. I mean, there's plenty of food on farms being r- produced. Uh, but of course as you know, milk is being dumped. Pigs are being euthanized. The problem is not at the farm level. The problem is in the chain of custody between the farmer and the consumer, and primarily in the, in the, uh, the large-scale processing, uh, situation.

   2. JRJoe Rogan2:10

      Yeah, these large meat processing places, uh, they, they've, they've been hit hard by the coronavirus.

   3. JSJoel Salatin2:16

      Th- they have been. I mean, if you think about it right now, Joe, probably, uh, in, in the, um, in the United States, the only places right now where every day thousands of people, um, come together in crowded conditions are these big meat processing plants. I mean, the offices are closed. The theaters are closed. (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan2:38

      Mm-hmm.

3. 2:38 – 7:19

   Small abattoir vs. mega plant: craftsmanship, safety, and contamination risk

   1. JSJoel Salatin2:38

      The convention centers are closed. Uh, a- and so the only place where people are coming shoulder to shoulder, thousands every day, are in these mega processing facilities. Uh, Therese and I, my wife, actually co-own a very small, um, abattoir, a slaughterhouse, uh, community slaughterhouse. We have 20 employees. And, um, and the, the differences, th- the difference in the vulnerability, in, in the exposure and risk factor between our little 20-person facility where we do, you know, maybe, um, 50 to 70 beeves a week, 100 hogs, versus these mega-plants that have, you know-

   2. JRJoe Rogan3:18

      When you say beeves? What, what-

   3. JSJoel Salatin3:20

      Beeves, like beef.

   4. JRJoe Rogan3:21

      What is that?

   5. JSJoel Salatin3:21

      Beef. Um-

   6. JRJoe Rogan3:22

      Oh, beeves.

   7. JSJoel Salatin3:23

      Yeah. Well-

   8. JRJoe Rogan3:23

      Oh, I thought you said beeves. I was like, "What is it?"

   9. JSJoel Salatin3:25

      There's no such word, there's no such word as beeves. It's beeves, B-E-E-V-E-S.

   10. JRJoe Rogan3:29

       Oh, okay.

   11. JSJoel Salatin3:30

       (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan3:30

       That is what you're saying. Okay.

   13. JSJoel Salatin3:32

       Yeah, beeves. Um-

   14. JRJoe Rogan3:33

       Beeves. Have you heard that before, Jamie? (laughs) No. Okay.

   15. JSJoel Salatin3:35

       S- so the plural of beef is not beeves. It's beeves.

   16. JRJoe Rogan3:39

       Oh, all right.

   17. JSJoel Salatin3:39

       Interesting, right? Uh-

   18. JRJoe Rogan3:41

       I always thought that beef was just-

   19. JSJoel Salatin3:42

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan3:42

       ... the meat. I never thought... I, I would have assumed you would say cows.

   21. JSJoel Salatin3:47

       Well, uh, as a farmer, cows are, are females who have had calves.

   22. JRJoe Rogan3:53

       Right.

   23. JSJoel Salatin3:53

       So it's a very... As opposed to steers-

   24. JRJoe Rogan3:55

       Oh, steers. Right.

   25. JSJoel Salatin3:55

       ... who would be cal- or bulls, which would be intact males.

   26. JRJoe Rogan3:58

       Mm-hmm. Right.

   27. JSJoel Salatin3:58

       Steers are non-intact. So as a farmer, all this nomenclature is real, you know... It's, uh-

   28. JRJoe Rogan4:04

       Yes. Normal for you.

   29. JSJoel Salatin4:04

       It, it, it's real... Like, like a theologian teases out, you know, Presbyterians and Methodists and, and, uh, we just say, "Well, they're Protestants." (laughs) So, so, um, so... You know-

   30. JRJoe Rogan4:17

       So you own a small place.
4. 7:19 – 8:26

   Density as a design flaw: decentralizing processing for resilience

   1. JSJoel Salatin7:19

      ... you know? So, you know, for sure, um, we don't know a lot about this virus. For, I mean, we're learning every day and, you know, you gotta kinda take a little bit, a grain of salt too. Um, but one of the things we're certainly learning is that there's an advantage, th- that there is a density factor, a people density factor.

   2. JRJoe Rogan7:40

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JSJoel Salatin7:40

      Like, an urban rural, uh, you know, uh, uh, spreading out, the whole social distancing, spreading out thing, is, is, is, um, seems to be a valuable thing. And so if we take that into the food system, wouldn't it be an amazing thing if instead of having 150 to 200 mega processing facilities doing 98% of the nation's meat, uh, if instead that were 200,000 small scale, community based, ecologically nested facilities, ch- ch- ch- ch- you know, all around the countryside, that would be an incredibly, uh, resilient system.

5. 8:26 – 11:10

   Regenerative farming ethos: letting animals express their ‘pigness’ and ‘chickenness’

   1. JRJoe Rogan8:26

      Well, it sounds like a much better system. Like, as you, you were talking before about your relationship with your customers, it's a direct to farm. I mean, that's really ideal, right? Cut out the middle person. There's, you cut out the confusion of whether or not the animals are ethically raised or ethically slaughtered, like, what are the conditions they're living under? I mean, you're, uh, Polyface Farms, right? It's got-

   2. JSJoel Salatin8:46

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan8:47

      That, that whole video that you have, that ex- that I've seen, that explains-

   4. JSJoel Salatin8:51

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan8:51

      ... the way you do regenerative farming and you let these animals live the way these animals are supposed to live. They're not confined to cages, they're roaming around, they're eating natural foods. And y- you get a better product, you get a healthier product, and you get a better relationship with both the animals and the people that you sell this, this food to.

   6. JSJoel Salatin9:10

      Well, sure. A- and, and ultimately what we're looking for is a habitat that allows, uh, you know, each life form, whether it's a plant or an animal, to fully express, w- we call it, you know, expressing the pigness of the pig-

   7. JRJoe Rogan9:23

      Right.

   8. JSJoel Salatin9:23

      ... or the chickenness of the chicken. You could say the tomatleness of the tomato, you know? Uh, and, and creating a habitat that allows that life, um, that life to express its, you know, i- i- its, its, uh, what, phenotypical and physiological distinctiveness. Um, i- in humans, we would call this self-affirmation, you know?

   9. JRJoe Rogan9:43

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JSJoel Salatin9:44

       The, the, the, the Tomness of Tom, the Joeness of Joe, right? Uh, i- i- it's that a- affirmation. And, um, a- and one of the things that we're seeing, uh, as a result, as we move into the, kind of the social consequences of this whole, uh, uh, uh, pandemic, is a, um, is, is, uh, well, there's, there's a new phrase called, um, the Screen New Deal, where everything is going to AI, we're gonna, you know, we're, we're, we're dehumanizing. And so at a very time when people need to be personally affirmed, they're being denied their, (laughs) y- you know, their, their, their social humanity, uh-

   11. JRJoe Rogan10:24

       Yeah.

   12. JSJoel Salatin10:24

       ... element. I mean, y- you can't even see whether a person's smiling or frowning.

   13. JRJoe Rogan10:28

       Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's the worst part about this, other than the, the tragedies.

   14. JSJoel Salatin10:33

       Yes.

   15. JRJoe Rogan10:33

       The, the worst part about this-

   16. JSJoel Salatin10:34

       Yes.

   17. JRJoe Rogan10:35

       ... is that, like, people aren't getting hugged, people are scared-

   18. JSJoel Salatin10:37

       Right.

   19. JRJoe Rogan10:37

       ... to shake hands. Everyone's separated from everybody. It's just very strange.

   20. JSJoel Salatin10:42

       It is. It is. A- and, and, uh, you know, our, our, our personal energy that we get from each other, uh, you know, I've, uh, like you, I'm sure, I, I've done numerous Zoom things la- l- lately, more (laughs) than ever. Zoom conferences, Zoom phone conferences, different things. And, uh, there's just not the energy. There's just-

   21. JRJoe Rogan11:05

       No.

   22. JSJoel Salatin11:05

       ... there's just not, you just don't get the energy that you get when you're-

   23. JRJoe Rogan11:09

       Right in front of each other.

   24. JSJoel Salatin11:10

       ... yeah, absolutely.

6. 11:10 – 16:54

   Pause for COVID test, then immunity: microbiome, exposure, and fear as a health cost

   1. JRJoe Rogan11:10

      I feel the same way about podcasts and, you know, Jamie, I screwed up.

   2. JSJoel Salatin11:13

      (clears throat)

   3. JRJoe Rogan11:13

      I forgot the nurse. Yeah, it's fine. We started early. Yeah, you wanna-

   4. JSJoel Salatin11:16

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan11:16

      ... we can pause and stop it. Can we? I mean, yeah, yeah, we can. It's, yeah.

   6. JSJoel Salatin11:18

      Okay.

   7. JRJoe Rogan11:19

      We're gonna, we, we have, we wanna give you a coronavirus test.

   8. JSJoel Salatin11:22

      Okay.

   9. JRJoe Rogan11:22

      You down with that?

   10. JSJoel Salatin11:23

       That's fine.

   11. JRJoe Rogan11:23

       All right, we'll pause right here. Okay. So we, uh, did your little test and, uh, found out you have not had it. You didn't fight it off.

   12. JSJoel Salatin11:31

       Bummer. (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan11:31

       But the doctor did explain to us that there is primary immune system and there's secondary immune system. Your primary immune system most likely, if you've been in contact with it, and his has, you know, his, he's, uh, the doctor's been around many, many people that have had it. But, uh, your primary immune system, if you're healthy, he was saying fights it off. Your secondary immune system is if you have had it, the infection, and your body has developed those antibodies as your second line of defense. So most likely, your first line of defense, since you have been in contact with people that have had it, your first line of defense beat it.

   14. JSJoel Salatin12:03

       Well, that's cool.

   15. JRJoe Rogan12:04

       Yeah.

   16. JSJoel Salatin12:04

       Well, I, I, I work on it. (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan12:07

       Yeah, we were talking about that.

   18. JSJoel Salatin12:08

       (laughs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan12:08

       And I said, "Please save this."

   20. JSJoel Salatin12:11

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan12:11

       Because it's so crazy. You, you drink... Explain what you do-

   22. JSJoel Salatin12:15

       Yes, so, yes.

   23. JRJoe Rogan12:16

       ... to strengthen your immune system.

   24. JSJoel Salatin12:17

       So, you know, and this whole thing, like you, I've been, I've been screaming, "Let's talk about the immune system." You know?

   25. JRJoe Rogan12:23

       Yes.

   26. JSJoel Salatin12:23

       So, so, um, I, I literally, I literally have not been, um, sick a day basically in 20 years. I mean, not the flu, not a cold, not... I mean, just nothing. Um, and, and I'm 60, 63. So, um, I'm not saying that arrogantly or proudly. I'm saying it gratefully that, uh, that I, I think there are things that we can do to really build up our immune system. One of the things that I do (laughs) that kind of makes all my staff laugh is that I routinely bend down with the cows and drink the, drink water out of the cow tank. Um, I don't drink it when it's pond water, although I've drunk pond water. But when it's-

   27. JRJoe Rogan13:02

       (laughs)

   28. JSJoel Salatin13:02

       ... you know, when it's, when it's like well water, you know, when it's fairly clean water, I get down. Of course, you know, the cows are dripping saliva and stuff in it, you know, and I just drink right out of it just like a cow. And I, I'm serious, you know, I believe that that, that... What? It, it, it builds your microbiome, you know? I want all those bugs, all that diversity. We, we live in the most amazing microscopic soup. I mean, it's, it's just... It's a soup. If you could take an electromagnetic photograph of, of, of the air, um, of, of where we are, I mean, the very... I mean, our skin is exuding stuff. Um, y- you know, our, our noses, our, our, our clothes, everything, we're... It would, it would look like a, uh... It would look like the, uh, the cloud over Pigpen in the Peanuts comic strip, you know?

   29. JRJoe Rogan13:58

       (laughs)

   30. JSJoel Salatin13:58

       I mean, that's literally what we're living in. And, and, and, uh, all of this life, all of, you know, bacter- viruses, bacteria, um, um, microorganisms, all of this life is, is literally having, uh, a conversation. "Hey, uh, you know, I'd like to hook onto you in a symbiotic relationship." "Hey, man, I'm a parasite. I'm gonna take you down," you know? (laughs)
7. 16:54 – 21:37

   Population health reality: obesity, diet, and the missing public message on immune strength

   1. JRJoe Rogan16:54

      I think one of the things that you said, though, when you said most of us that are healthy, I think that's not really true. I think most of us are not healthy.

   2. JSJoel Salatin17:02

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan17:02

      And I think that's one of the things we're finding out from this crisis.

   4. JSJoel Salatin17:05

      Yes.

   5. JRJoe Rogan17:06

      Is that when you talk about protecting vulnerable people, there's a lot of us that are vulnerable. Maybe not you or me.

   6. JSJoel Salatin17:13

      Right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan17:13

      But a large number of people that are overweight, that eat poor food, and that don't take care of themselves.

   8. JSJoel Salatin17:19

      Yes.

   9. JRJoe Rogan17:19

      And those people are particularly vulnerable. And so they're right to be afraid, but they're wrong to think that this... The only way to solve this is to make sure that you stay away from everybody. The way to solve this is to stop eating shit and become a healthy person. It's-

   10. JSJoel Salatin17:37

       Right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan17:37

       While you're alive, there's always a... There's a moment, a chance to be healthier while you're alive. If you're alive- (laughs) ... and you're not terribly ill and dying, then you could start drinking water, stop drinking soda, stop eating chips, start eating fruits and vegetables, start eating lean meats, healthy foods. Not even lean meats. Eat, eat a good rib eye steak.

   12. JSJoel Salatin17:58

       Pastured-

   13. JRJoe Rogan17:59

       Yeah.

   14. JSJoel Salatin17:59

       ... pastured meats.

   15. JRJoe Rogan18:00

       Yeah.

   16. JSJoel Salatin18:00

       Pastured meats.

   17. JRJoe Rogan18:00

       Eat food.

   18. JSJoel Salatin18:01

       But yeah, you're right. Well, uh, you know-... whenever I watch a newscast and watch the, you know, the daily, uh, like, you know, coronavirus briefing-

   19. JRJoe Rogan18:09

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JSJoel Salatin18:09

       ... from the White House, right? And you've got all these experts standing around, and they're... And, and everybody's standing there waiting for this magic, um, vaccine.

   21. JRJoe Rogan18:17

       Right.

   22. JSJoel Salatin18:17

       And, (clears throat) of course, you know, the CDC gets, uh, $4.6 billion a year selling vaccines. They have, whatever, 20, uh, patent vaccines. Um, and, and so really, the CDC is, is a very vested interest in trying to develop a vaccine. There, there's, there's a lot of money in sickness. Yeah, there's a lot of money in sickness. And so, so, you know, we didn't get this, this, uh, coronavirus because of a lack of vaccine. (laughs) We got this coronavirus because something in this, in this beautiful life bath that I described was out of whack. Uh, that's, that... Now, you know, we can, we can start discussing where it possibly came from. I think right now that's conjecture. Uh, I mean, I think we, we do know that it came out of Wuhan, but, but, you know-

   23. JRJoe Rogan19:11

       Right.

   24. JSJoel Salatin19:11

       ... just how we... I mean, we're not sure. But, but the fact is, that there was an imbalance in life. And just like in your... in, in our lifetime, Joe, we've learned, uh, to say words that when I was a child, did you ever hear the term, you know, salmonella, E. coli, Campylobacter, um, uh, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, uh, uh, food allergy even? I mean, how many kids in elementary school did you know that had food allergies?

   25. JRJoe Rogan19:38

       None.

   26. JSJoel Salatin19:38

       None.

   27. JRJoe Rogan19:39

       Yeah.

   28. JSJoel Salatin19:39

       Nobody. You, you, you have a birthday party? Mom isn't having to email... We didn't have email back then, but Mom isn't calling all the other mothers saying, "Well now, what can your child eat and what can, what can your little Mary have?" And, you know, "Oh, pea-... Oh, we better not have any peanuts." And I mean, that didn't exist. A- and what's happened... The way I look at this is that, that humanity, that we, as collective humanity, we've essentially taken this, this beautiful benevolent Earth, this benevolent, (sighs) uh, sustainer, partner, m- mentor, uh, uh, abundant provider, and taken it, taken this partner to the boxing ring. (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan20:25

       Hmm.

   30. JSJoel Salatin20:25

       And, and instead of caressing this abundant, wonderful partner provider, we've pummeled it and pummeled it. We've, we've, we've pulled the water out of its aquifers. We've, we've destroyed its soil. We've, we've put a dead zone the size of the, uh, Rhode Island in the Gulf of Mexico. We've, uh, we've used antibiotics in animals and made MRSA and C. diff and superbugs. And, and, and so nature has been gently, gently begging for, for relief as we've essentially, you know, put our fuck- uh, put our foot on her neck, right?
8. 21:37 – 24:49

   Factory farms as pathogen incubators: unnatural confinement and disease pressure

   1. JRJoe Rogan21:37

      Yeah. And I think a, a real parallel is when you were talking about th- these large-scale meat processing plants are a, a perfect sort of Petri dish for viruses to grow, so are factory farms, so are these farms where you're stuffing pigs next to each other. You're doing all this unnatural stuff, right? It's unnatural for people to be stuffed into a warehouse right next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, working all day. It's unnatural for them to be stuffed in these homes, shoulder to shoulder, bad food and, and all the things that you would need to keep your body healthy and strong. The same can be said about these factory farm situ- situations. One thing that I- I find so attractive about the way you run your farm is that there's no weirdness in watching these animals during the day. They, they seem like animals just doing normal stuff. If you see a chicken wandering around just pecking at the grass, looks normal. See a chicken in a cage-

   2. JSJoel Salatin22:31

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan22:31

      ... getting fed out of, of a little cup or something, it does- it looks all kinds of fucked up, right?

   4. JSJoel Salatin22:36

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan22:36

      It doesn't feel right.

   6. JSJoel Salatin22:38

      No, no.

   7. JRJoe Rogan22:38

      Right? Right?

   8. JSJoel Salatin22:38

      That's, that's why we, you know, we, um, we have the phrase, uh, respecting the pigness of the pig-

   9. JRJoe Rogan22:43

      Yes.

   10. JSJoel Salatin22:43

       ... and the chickeness of the chicken.

   11. JRJoe Rogan22:45

       And we know that these-

   12. JSJoel Salatin22:46

       (clears throat)

   13. JRJoe Rogan22:46

       ... diseases are all coming from these place... I mean, there's a, a ton of agricultural diseases, you know, that are based from these factory farm-

   14. JSJoel Salatin22:53

       Yes.

   15. JRJoe Rogan22:53

       ... situations where these animals live in these really horrific conditions and then the bacteria jump and-

   16. JSJoel Salatin22:59

       Look, I mean, they're, they're, they're e- Look, if you ate in your toilet every-

   17. JRJoe Rogan23:03

       (laughs)

   18. JSJoel Salatin23:03

       ... you know, would you like to eat your toilet every day?

   19. JRJoe Rogan23:05

       Good point. (laughs) Right, exactly.

   20. JSJoel Salatin23:06

       Uh, that's, that's how they eat. You're... They're breathing in their fecal particulate matter, which is, um, you know, uh, uh, putting lesions in their, uh, tender respiratory membranes, uh, uh, making, making, uh, lesions there. Uh, a- and, and so wh- when you have those kinds of conditions... And, and they're not getting exercise, they're not getting fresh air. And so, uh, I mean, the, the, they're not getting salad, they're not getting any vitamin D from the sunshine. (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan23:34

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JSJoel Salatin23:34

       Uh, and, uh, and so what happens is you get an extremely concentrated host, host facility for pathogenicity.

   23. JRJoe Rogan23:45

       Hmm.

   24. JSJoel Salatin23:45

       Tha- that's what happens. You get a very concentrated host facility because there's always a host, they're close to each other, the pathogen doesn't have to say, "Wow, boy, I, I wonder if I can make it that, you know, that half mile over to another..." No, no, they're, you know, they're always right there and so you're right, it- it's like, it's like an incubator. And so, you know, if, if we wanted to sit down... Look, if we wanted to sit down and say-... let, let's say we had a James Bond, uh, conspiracist, you know, uh, and said, "We're gonna form a committee and, uh, and make a pathogen-friendly farm." (laughs) You know-

   25. JRJoe Rogan24:19

       (laughs)

   26. JSJoel Salatin24:19

       ... the ol- the old, uh, James Bond nemesis, right? And so we form a committee to say, "How can we make a pathogen-friendly farm?" Well, we would have only one species. We'd crowd it up. We'd take out the oxygen, the, the fresh air, the sunshine. We'd give it, we'd, we'd give it a, a minimal, a minimalistic diet. Uh, what I've just described is modern, efficient, industrial factory farming. Y- you couldn't design a better system, uh, uh, for, for, uh, conductivity of pathogenicity.

9. 24:49 – 30:27

   Can regenerative methods feed big cities? Processing, labor needs, and realistic tradeoffs

   1. JRJoe Rogan24:49

      Now, here's the big question. Is it possible to feed all of Los Angeles using your methods? Can you, can you feed-

   2. JSJoel Salatin24:59

      (clears throat)

   3. JRJoe Rogan24:59

      ... big urban areas-

   4. JSJoel Salatin25:00

      Sure.

   5. JRJoe Rogan25:00

      ... using these regenerative methods?

   6. JSJoel Salatin25:02

      Sure. Absolutely. So, uh, so, so two things to realize is the, the bottleneck in the food system right now, the reason the supermarket is low on meat is not because there aren't animals in the field. It's because of the pro- the processing is the bott- it's not the trucking. It's not the production. It's not even the, it's not even the store shelf. It's, it's the processing. So it's the processing that's the bottleneck. And so, uh, so, so my vision is that (clears throat) so, so, so we ... so two questions. First of all, let's deal with the production. Uh, with the production, absolutely if we, if we spread out the production, i- i- if we, if we did, for example, you know, uh, i- i- if we took all the confinement chicken houses and put those chickens on pasture, no problem. Okay? It doesn't take any more land to grow the feed for a chicken on pasture than it does in a confinement house.

   7. JRJoe Rogan26:01

      Don't you get a lot more loss, though, due to r- raptors and things along those lines?

   8. JSJoel Salatin26:05

      No.

   9. JRJoe Rogan26:06

      Coyotes.

   10. JSJoel Salatin26:06

       No, no. We, we put 'em, we put 'em in, uh, in little, uh, protected shelters. Uh, then we move 'em every day across the pasture. Well, yeah, you, you can get losses from, from raptors, but we use guard geese, there are guard dogs, guard llamas. There's all sorts of guard animals. There's, there's really cool, uh ... and there's, and there's a lot of, uh, research being done to jam the radar of, you know, eagles and stuff. There are, I mean, uh ...

   11. JRJoe Rogan26:30

       Really?

   12. JSJoel Salatin26:31

       Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan26:32

       They jam the rad- I didn't even know they had radar.

   14. JSJoel Salatin26:35

       (laughs) Well, that's figurative. Uh-

   15. JRJoe Rogan26:37

       Right, what are they using when they, when they, when an eagle ... it's just not just ... their vision's insanely good, right?

   16. JSJoel Salatin26:41

       Yeah. It, it-

   17. JRJoe Rogan26:42

       Eagles in particular.

   18. JSJoel Salatin26:43

       It, it really is. It really is. And so, for example (clears throat) , I know one guy that's, uh, he's, uh, it, it's not, it's not ready to sell yet, but he claims to have had great success, um, putting reflective, uh, Coke can bottoms on, like, a traffic cone, hanging it out with his chickens and that splays the sun rays all out and messes up the eyesight of the, of the eagles and the hawks. They, they can't zero in.

   19. JRJoe Rogan27:16

       Really?

   20. JSJoel Salatin27:17

       Yeah. In, in fact, this was exactly, um, one of the defensive measures the US Navy used, and still uses, for incoming missiles, that they, they, they have a cannon that blows out pieces of, um, aluminum foil, basically, and it ... like, graffiti, aluminum foil graffiti out into the air, and it jams the, whatever, the, you know, the, the honing devices of a, of a missile.

   21. JRJoe Rogan27:41

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JSJoel Salatin27:42

       (smacks lips) The, the hawks are the same way. What I'm getting at is that there, there are ... we don't lose very much. We protect them, uh, greatly. There are a lot of things that you can do to, you know, to mitigate that kind of, of pressure. But, but the fact is, the industry loses tons of birds too, in a flood, in a heatwave, in a whatever, you know? And, uh, and so the idea that these birds in this big confinement house are actually protected from malady is, is simply not, is simply not true.

   23. JRJoe Rogan28:19

       T- then they're gonna be ... much more of them are gonna get sick and-

   24. JSJoel Salatin28:23

       Sure. Sure.

   25. JRJoe Rogan28:23

       ... yeah, it's in-

   26. JSJoel Salatin28:24

       Sure. Sure.

   27. JRJoe Rogan28:24

       They might have losses in that way.

   28. JSJoel Salatin28:27

       Sure. Sure. So, so can we produce, can we produce the food this way? Absolutely. Now, one of the things that it would require is many more people on farms. So, you know, I've thought a lot about, um, o- obviously as unemployment has skyrocketed through this. (smacks lips) Right now, sitting here, it's hard for us to imagine what it'll take to bring, you know, f- to fill football stadiums again, to f- (laughs) you know-

   29. JRJoe Rogan28:56

       Mm-hmm.

   30. JSJoel Salatin28:56

       ... to fill Caribbean cruises, to fill theaters, um, you know, uh, music venues, you know, um, whatever, boxing matches. I mean, it, uh ... right now, it- it's hard to conceive what it'll take. People are so terrified. It's hard to appreciate how much of this is gonna come back, the hospitality industry and all that. So, so, so what's gonna happen? So, so where are the jobs? W- what are people gonna do? And, and I would suggest that one of the things that, that people can do is that we can have a lot of these smaller plants and we have a way more people actually growing food, participating in food production personally. Is food gonna be more expensive? Maybe so. But you get to be healthy, and we have a healthy planet, and what's that worth? And-
10. 30:27 – 43:36

    Hidden costs and regulatory barriers: externalities, paperwork, and the PRIME Act

    1. JRJoe Rogan30:27

       And it also ... Would it be fair to say that food prices might go to where they should be? Like a- a cheeseburger really shouldn't be 99 cents.

    2. JSJoel Salatin30:35

       No, no. A- absolutely. Uh, the, the ... As, as you're very familiar with the argument of the externalized cost.

    3. JRJoe Rogan30:41

       Yeah.

    4. JSJoel Salatin30:41

       They don't, they don't get captured. What's, what's the cost, you know ... Right now, 50% of the cases of diarrhea in the US are caused by, uh, foodborne, you know, bacteria. Well, what's a, what's a case of diarrhea worth? You know, I mean, if we start-

    5. JRJoe Rogan30:53

       Right.

    6. JSJoel Salatin30:53

       (laughs) If you, if you start ... (laughs)

    7. JRJoe Rogan30:54

       Yeah. That's a good point. Very good point.

    8. JSJoel Salatin30:56

       If you start putting dollars on these externalized costs, you know, a r- ... The, the dead zone in the, in the Gulf of Mexico, the fact that we have, you know, squ- ... Uh, uh, uh, hundreds of square miles that don't grow shrimp anymore.

    9. JRJoe Rogan31:08

       Mm-hmm.

    10. JSJoel Salatin31:08

        You know, because it's, it's toxic from the runoff from the Mississippi, uh, from, from chemical farming. So there's, there's a lot of these externalized costs. And not only that, but if this actually became norma- ... Uh, the, the, whatever, the new way, the new orthodoxy, uh, there would be definitely economies of scale that we don't have right now. Um, I mean, I'll just give you one example that probably nobody would think of. So we play, we pay workman's compensation at our farm. So how do you determine the exposure level, the risk factor of a poultry worker? I mean, think about if, if you have a Tyson chicken farm and you hire a, a, a, a, an employee to be in the chicken house, think about his workman's comp risk. I mean, there's fecal particulate all day long that he's breathing. Uh, you've got augers, chains, feed bins, electrical connections, dust. I mean, it's, it's a very ... Um, it's a high-risk situation. For us, a poultry worker goes (laughs) out in the field and moves some, moves some chickens in a field. There's no fecal particulate, there's no dust, there's no, uh, you know, uh, uh, uh, it ... There's no augers, there's no, um, uh, whatever, spinning fans, uh, vent shafts. You know, there's none of this. A- and so, so part of the cost, the reason that our chicken is more expensive than what's in the store, is not only externalized cost, but it is, it is unrecognized, unrecognized savings that we offer that can't be captured in a, a square peg in a round hole.

    11. JRJoe Rogan32:57

        Mm. I see what you're saying. Yeah. The l- the overall big picture of health for you, health for the food. How much is that worth? Yeah.

    12. JSJoel Salatin33:06

        Right.

    13. JRJoe Rogan33:06

        That's interesting that we're not really taking into consideration these secondary costs that come about from doing it the wrong way.

    14. JSJoel Salatin33:12

        Yeah.

    15. JRJoe Rogan33:13

        Yeah.

    16. JSJoel Salatin33:13

        We're not. We're not. Uh, I mean, there's, there's a lot of those ... (sighs) Uh, you, you can ... Much of, much of our increased cost has nothing to do with actual production cost. It's, it's the non-scalable regulatory overheads. Uh, a- and, and this, and this, of course, is why we don't have more community small-scale abattoirs around the country. Uh, is not because there's not a demand for them, it's because the, the, the paperwork, the HACCP plans, hazardous analysis critical control point plans, and the paperwork to be able to launch a business like this require the ... are so high that the, the ... both time and money are so high that it's very difficult to launch a small business.

    17. JRJoe Rogan34:08

        Mm.

    18. JSJoel Salatin34:09

        You know, 'cause you can't spread the overhead, uh, of capitalization over-

    19. JRJoe Rogan34:13

        Is there a solution to that?

    20. JSJoel Salatin34:14

        ... uh, uh, uh, nothing.

    21. JRJoe Rogan34:14

        Is it ...

    22. JSJoel Salatin34:16

        Well, uh, there's a, there are a couple solutions. Uh, certainly one, one that's, um, that's being championed right now by Congressman Thomas Massie called the PRIME Act. He's had it in for five years, and, uh, amazingly, it's kind of just floundered for five years. All of a sudden, in the last two months, he's got 18 new co-sponsors-

    23. JRJoe Rogan34:35

        Mm.

    24. JSJoel Salatin34:35

        ... because of this. And what the PRIME Act would do, it would allow, it would allow uninspected custom-processed meat in state to be sold by the piece. That's not legal right now. Right now, the only way that you can sell a T-bone ... If you want to buy a T-bone steak from me, the only way for you to get it is for me to go to a federal-inspected slaughterhouse, get the animal processed, packaged under inspection, and put in for you. Custom houses are where if you want to buy a half a beef, a quarter beef, all right, and it goes in with your name on that quarter and they're custom processing it for me, yeah, then, you know, then I can buy it. And what, what Congressman Massie is saying with the PRIME Act is, why should we discriminate and only allow people to tap into the lower cost and lower, lower, uh, uh, overheads of the custom processing facility to only those people who can afford to buy a quarter of beef at a time? That's, that's very poverty discriminatory. Let's open that up so that people can buy it by the piece. We're not gonna ship it interstate, we're not gonna sell it at Walmart, okay? There's ... But if you and I, as neighbors (laughs) , want to do business together as ... uh, and I'm using a powerful phrasing here, as consenting adults, if we want to exercise freedom of joy, uh, of choice, and participate in a consensual relationship of commerce, why should that be a bureaucrat's-... uh, uh, business between, you know, between two consenting neighbors.

    25. JRJoe Rogan36:19

        Right. So what you're saying is, is long- but is the, the regulatory process in place to make sure that people are using the proper sanitation methods, making sure that the animals are healthy, making sure that all these things are in place so that unscrupulous characters don't take advantage of the system and then screw over the consumer and then the consumer gets sick? Like, this is, like, best case scenario for the regulation, right? That it's there to protect us.

    26. JSJoel Salatin36:45

        Well, that's, that's the, um, that's the assumption, yes.

    27. JRJoe Rogan36:48

        Mm-hmm.

    28. JSJoel Salatin36:49

        Um, and, and I would simply ask, uh, that at some point when you have a very close, transparent relationship, one-on-one, you don't, you don't have, you know, truckers and warehouses and big slaughterhouses and, and, and, you know, supermarkets, blah, blah, blah in between us. There is, there is a, a lot of protection in that relational transaction that beats all the paperwork you can amass on the industrial scale. We, we recognize scale in a lot of things in life. For example, in Virginia where I'm from, if you wanna open a... If you wanna do daycare, let's say you wanna do a, a work at home deal, you know, you wanna do a side gig and, and, and keep children, you can keep up to three in your home without subjecting yourself to the licensing and compliance of daycare regulations. Because they know if all you're gonna do is keep three in your homes, those parents, you're gonna have a close relationship with them. It's, it's... This is not a, this is not a daycare center, all right?

    29. JRJoe Rogan37:53

        Right.

    30. JSJoel Salatin37:53

        All right? The same thing is true with eldercare. Uh, my wife's grandmother spent her last year in a lady's home who is allowed to keep three people as eldercare. She was an RN. She wanted to not have to go to the hospital every day, and started a side gig in her home. She cooked for them, she took care of them, three of them in her home.
11. 43:36 – 1:19:01

    Land-use myths: factory farms hide their land footprint; integration beats segregation

    1. JRJoe Rogan43:36

       Is it... O- o- what... Is it a land issue, though? Like if you wanted a... Like the, the factory farms that I've seen in videos, where they have these pigs-

    2. JSJoel Salatin43:44

       Mm-hmm.

    3. JRJoe Rogan43:44

       ... they're stuffed next to each other-

    4. JSJoel Salatin43:46

       Right.

    5. JRJoe Rogan43:46

       ... in this large warehouse, and the same with the chickens.

    6. JSJoel Salatin43:48

       Right.

    7. JRJoe Rogan43:48

       How much space would you need to have the same amount of chickens and the same amount of pigs-

    8. JSJoel Salatin43:53

       Right.

    9. JRJoe Rogan43:53

       ... you know, if you let them free-range?

    10. JSJoel Salatin43:55

        All right. Here's, here's my point. What you don't see in those videos is you don't see the hundreds of acres growing corn and soybeans (smacks lips) to feed them in that house. The industry wants you to think that this is some sort of a, a... you know, a, a... an island, you know, where, where, "Boy, look, we're cranking this out of this house." They're not showing you the tractor trailers bringing in the grain, bringing in the f- and hauling out the manure and the square miles of, of fields to spread the manure, okay? They're not showing you how dependent that is on this massive land base. And so, so on... in the pastured model, the decentralized pastured model, instead of having 15,000 ch- I mean, our farm, we're, we're gonna raise like 45,000 chickens this summer. We're not, we're not backyard, by any means. But guess what? Those are in 200 75-bird shelters that are moved every day across pastures. It doesn't take one more acre to produce the feed or handle the manure whether the chicken is outside or inside. The difference is, when you come and see our operation, you see all the land.

    11. JRJoe Rogan45:08

        Mm-hmm.

    12. JSJoel Salatin45:09

        When you see the, the factory farm, you don't see any of the land.

    13. JRJoe Rogan45:13

        But isn't it possible that these factory farms are set up where the farms where the animals are raised are completely separate, it's a separate business from the farms where the soybeans and the corn are raised-

    14. JSJoel Salatin45:24

        Oh, yeah. Well, ours is too.

    15. JRJoe Rogan45:25

        ... and it's not on the same property?

    16. JSJoel Salatin45:26

        No, it's... Ours is too.

    17. JRJoe Rogan45:26

        Right.

    18. JSJoel Salatin45:27

        We, we, we buy, we buy our grain from neighbors. Absolutely. We, we-

    19. JRJoe Rogan45:29

        Right. But if they had to grow these animals and grow that food, would they have enough land to do everything together in the same farm?

    20. JSJoel Salatin45:38

        But there's no need to do it on the same farm. I'm a big believer in mutual, mutual interdependence.

    21. JRJoe Rogan45:43

        Mm-hmm.

    22. JSJoel Salatin45:44

        Uh, not complete independence. We don't have any intention to grow our own grain. We, we don't have the soils for it, we don't have the equipment for it, we don't have the skillset for it. So we buy from neighbors who do GMO-free, non-genetically modified, GMO-free grain, uh, and, and we give them more than they would on a commodity, on a commodity scale. Um, and so they love us because we're giving them more per bushel and they have a nice secure buyer and they're local, they're close. Uh, you know, we're not getting it from, you know, uh, foreign countries and it's all close. So what happens is, in, in the kind of this, uh, situation I'm describing, instead of having a fundamentally segregated food system, you have a fundamentally integrated food system.

    23. JRJoe Rogan46:30

        I see what you're saying. So you have a-

    24. JSJoel Salatin46:32

        That's, that's what happens.

    25. JRJoe Rogan46:32

        ... strong relationship-

    26. JSJoel Salatin46:33

        Yeah.

    27. JRJoe Rogan46:33

        ... with the people growing that grain.

    28. JSJoel Salatin46:34

        So, so for example, I mean, you started the discussion with, "Can Los Angel- you know, is there enough land to feed Los Angeles?" You know, the, the... uh, and, and we, and we could discuss whether there's... whether Los Angeles should be as big as it is. I mean, that, that's a valid discussion, but-

    29. JRJoe Rogan46:46

        It's a very valid discussion.

    30. JSJoel Salatin46:47

        But, but, but l- l- uh, we, we can go there, but first let me just say that if California, for example, did not export, I don't know what the percentage is, but it's huge, you know, almonds, uh, uh, all over the world. If California's centered on feeding California, there's absolutely enough here to feed California. Okay? I mean, Iowa, Iowa imports 90%. Iowa is probably the most fertile place in the world and they only eat... Only, only 10% of the food consumed in Iowa is grown in Iowa and processed in Iowa.
12. 1:19:01 – 1:23:17

    Soil, water, and carbon: composting, forestry ‘fertilizer factories,’ and wildfire prevention

    1. JSJoel Salatin1:19:01

       They don't make their money on gas. But anyway, um, so, so one of the things that, that we're, uh, key on because, uh, our fertility program is carbon. Okay? That's what feeds the soil, carbon. Right? Not 10-10-10 chemical fertilizer. Carbon. And so, at our-

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:19:18

       Do you use fertilizers at all?

    3. JSJoel Salatin1:19:20

       No. No, we don't.

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:19:21

       That's amazing.

    5. JSJoel Salatin1:19:21

       We don't.

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:19:22

       So just manure and-

    7. JSJoel Salatin1:19:24

       But-

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:19:24

       ... natural fertilizers.

    9. JSJoel Salatin1:19:25

       But we have a big industrial chipper. You'd love this machine. (laughs) I mean, it's the ultimate, you know, boy toy. You know, it, it's, it's a 120 horsepower diesel engine that can, that can chip 19-inch... You can take a 40-foot tree and just huck it in there, and it just (imitates machine noise) , you know, it just chips that-

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:19:47

        I've seen those online.

    11. JSJoel Salatin1:19:48

        All right. Well, I mean, they're, they're like the ult-, they're, they're the coolest machines. All right.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:19:51

        That scares the shit out of me.

    13. JSJoel Salatin1:19:52

        S- all right. So, so, but, but that's, that, that-

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:19:54

        Remember Fargo?

    15. JSJoel Salatin1:19:55

        (laughs) That, that's our fertilizer factory.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:19:58

        Oh.

    17. JSJoel Salatin1:19:58

        Th- that, that, okay, so carbon... So, so we integrate forest with open land, and, and we integrate the carbon, uh, from the forest. So we cut junk trees, dead trees, crooked trees, weak trees, and thin the forest, and that enables the good trees, the healthy trees, to grow more vigorously, better, reduces fire, uh, potential because you're, you know, you're thinning it out, taking out all the dead stuff. And that then becomes our carbon base for bedding the animals, for, you know, and for all the composting that we do. And we do, you know, mountains and mountains of compost. Where I'm going with this is, when we talk about costs, right now, how much is our country spending fighting wildfires? And how much are we losing fighting all these fi- and, I mean, we're in California. Right? I mean, look at the, the devastation that fires have caused. Imagine, imagine if those... if we had thousands of people with chippers thinning the forest, turning them into almost park-like, like they were before the Europeans came. The Native Americans kept them going with, you know, with fire, but there were, there was mega fauna here. Mega fauna. And so we graze through, we convert a lot of it into, you know, silvopasture, widely spaced trees that are growing unimpeded, uh, with, with grazing animals underneath so that there's no fire damage, there's no buildup of fuel. And suddenly, we're producing our own food and we're eliminating the danger of wildfire with technology called chainsaws and chippers. And that carbon becomes the fertility for the vineyards and the, and the, the agricultural lands. It feeds the soil, so now we have earthworms instead of hard soil. We don't have erosion because our organic matter is up. On our farm, using these principles, we've gone in... we've gone from 1% organic matter to over 8% organic matter in the soil, and every 1% holds another 20,000 gallons of water per acre.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:22:21

        Whoa.

    19. JSJoel Salatin1:22:21

        So, so, if we... (laughs) So if we... so, uh, in, in our 60 years of being there in Neshano at polyphase, um, we have gone from 1% to eight- over to 8%. Let's just say that's seven clicks. Seven times 20 is 140,000 gallons of water per acre now that we can hold that we couldn't hold before. And it's because of the grazing, the perennials, and the composting that's building up the organic matter in the soil. That could be done in California. When you start talking about holding water, it's not just about how much rainfall are we getting, it's how much are we actually holding in, in the sponge-

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:23:05

        Right.

    21. JSJoel Salatin1:23:06

        ... uh, to reduce, you know, flooding and runoff and things like that.

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:23:08

        So it sounds like your method could keep from, uh, b- the situation they find with some farms of eroding topsoil where they-

    23. JSJoel Salatin1:23:15

        Right.

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:23:16

        ... have to s- constantly supplement.

    25. JSJoel Salatin1:23:17

        Right.

13. 1:23:17 – 1:46:30

    Rethinking corn/monocrops: food waste, circular systems, and urban chickens

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:23:17

       But how would you... how do you grow enough corn? Like, if you wanna have, like, those monocrop agricultural fields-

    2. JSJoel Salatin1:23:24

       Mm-hmm.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:23:24

       ... where you see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of acres of corn, just corn, or just soybeans, or just alfalfa, whatever it is. Like, if you wanna do those monocrop things, you... how are you going to re-fertilize the soil in the same manner with that large a scale?

    4. JSJoel Salatin1:23:40

       You don't have them. You don't have them.

Episode duration: 2:09:16