Joe Rogan Experience #1893 - Will Harris

1. 0:00 – 0:06

   Intro

   1. WHWill Harris0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

2. 0:06 – 2:59

   From a rushed TV segment to a long-form conversation (and the Bill Gates farmland prompt)

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music plays) All right, we're up and running. So you are actually the second Will Harris I've had on the show. I should just tell you. My friend Will Harris is a documentary filmmaker. He does, uh, MMA films, does films about UFC fighters.

   2. WHWill Harris0:23

      Hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:24

      And, uh, he's been on recently. So people see the name Will Harris, so like, we have to make a distinction.

   4. WHWill Harris0:28

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:28

      There are more than one, and you're the different one. You're the farmer.

   6. WHWill Harris0:31

      Well, may- maybe next time I'll be your friend too.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:35

      (laughs) Well, uh, I first saw you on television doing one of those very quick interviews where there was, um ... you know, it was a, they were, they were t- talking about all these issues that you like to discuss, but they only gave you a couple of minutes.

   8. WHWill Harris0:48

      Right.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:48

      And it was really hard, 'cause you, you have a relaxed way of talking, but you were very interesting. And I was watching, so I was like, "This is a stupid format." Like, "What ... I wanna hear what this guy has to say. He's obviously has a lot more to say." So, that's why we're having this conversation.

   10. WHWill Harris1:02

       Well, thank you for that. That, that ...

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:04

       Thank you.

   12. WHWill Harris1:04

       That's, that, uh, event you're talking about was Fox, uh, N- News.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:10

       Yeah.

   14. WHWill Harris1:10

       A guy named Stuart Varney invited me to be on, and he kicked my ass pretty good.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:18

       (laughs)

   16. WHWill Harris1:18

       And I, I, I, I accept culpability in it. You know, I, I don't watch TV much, and I, I've never watched Fox News.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:26

       Never?

   18. WHWill Harris1:27

       No. And I should've ... I mean, I should've prepared myself, but I didn't. You know, I, I, I took it at his word. I got an email from this Stuart Varney saying he wanted me to be on a segment, five minutes, explaining why I didn't think it was good for, uh, Bill Gates to own so much farmland. So, I said, "Well, that's good." You know, I mean, I, I have definite opinions, folded opinions on that, and I wanna share 'em. So, uh, I, I sat down and wrote up a, a four-minute explanation of, of, of facts of why I thought that's not good. And I thought I was gonna get to go through my stuff. And, uh, he asked the question, and I started explaining it. And I'm profoundly Southern. You know, I, I, I speak slowly. And I was doing what I thought he wanted me to do and said, "But why, why?" You know?

   19. JRJoe Rogan2:26

       (laughs) Everything on those shows is just, "You gotta get to the point. Get to the point. Get to the point." Th- it fevers people.

   20. WHWill Harris2:34

       If we, if we-

   21. JRJoe Rogan2:34

       Okay.

   22. WHWill Harris2:34

       If we'd been in the cow pasture, I'd have pinched his fucking head off.

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:38

       (laughs)

   24. WHWill Harris2:38

       (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:38

       Well, unfortunately, that's his job. He's got producers in his ear. Like, I guarantee you, they're telling him to move things along quicker. It's like-

   26. WHWill Harris2:45

       It's a shitty job.

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:46

       It's, it's unfortunate, but it's a terrible way to disseminate information. And, uh, could we just like ... let's start it from the beginning, like, who you are. Um, tell, tell us every- everybody about your farm and how everything's run, 'cause it's very interesting.

3. 2:59 – 6:43

   What White Oak Pastures is: a multi-species, vertically integrated regenerative farm

   1. WHWill Harris2:59

      Good. So, I'm Will Harris. Uh, I'm the fourth generation of my family to own and manage White Oak Pastures. Uh, I have, uh, two daughters and two in-laws who are there with me today, helping run the farm. And we have s- I have seven grandchildren, so the sixth generation has owned the farm. Own- uh, that's been in my family since 1866.

   2. JRJoe Rogan3:24

      Wow.

   3. WHWill Harris3:25

      So my great-grandfather, James Edward Harris, came there in 1866 and, uh, established the farm and ran it all his life, followed by his son, Will Carter Harris, my granddad, followed by his son, Will Bill Harris, my dad, followed by me. And now, I, again, I've got two more generations i- in the offing. Uh ... you know, I, I think the thing I enjoy most, a- a- and, and tell you about the farm. So the farm is, uh, th- that farm is 3,200 acres. We do some other grazing. But that farm is 3,200 acres. We pasture raise five different poultry species, chickens, turkeys, geese, guineas, and ducks, and we hand butcher 'em on the farm in a USDA-inspected processing plant I built. We pasture raise five red meat species, cows, hogs, sheep, goats, rabbits, and hand butcher them at a separate USDA-inspected facility that I built. Uh, we raise pastured eggs, organic vegetables, honey, and a bunch of other little ancillary, uh, businesses that go from the organism that is White Oak Pastures. And so, very different from what I did prior to 25 years ago.

   4. JRJoe Rogan4:49

      What did you do prior to 25, 25 years ago?

   5. WHWill Harris4:53

      So, prior to the mid-'90s, uh, I ran it as my father had, as a very linear, monocultural cattle operation, the, the factory farm model.

   6. JRJoe Rogan5:08

      Mm. And what made you make a shift to the way you're doing it now? Would you call the way you're doing it now regenerative agriculture? That's how you'd describe it?

   7. WHWill Harris5:16

      Yeah, I would. You know, it, it was just a matter of days before big a- b- big food takes, you know, that, uh, description away from us.

   8. JRJoe Rogan5:25

      Hmm.

   9. WHWill Harris5:25

      But, you know, y- it was sustainable, it's been organic, now it's regenerative, and next it'll be resilient. But it, it is a kinder, gentler agriculture.

   10. JRJoe Rogan5:36

       And it's an agriculture where everything works in symbiosis. Is that a safe thing to say? That, that-

   11. WHWill Harris5:43

       It's a gr- it's a great thing to say. Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan5:44

       The chickens grazing, the manure that the cows lay, everything goes back together.

   13. WHWill Harris5:49

       Exactly. The, y- it's, it's, it's ... w- we call it biomimicry, the emulation of nature. You know, it's a very imperfect emulation, but it's better and better, and it, it serves to restart the cycles of nature.... which we broke through industrial farming, and, and make our living off the, the abundance that comes from properly operating cycles of nature.

   14. JRJoe Rogan6:24

       And did you go out on your own to learn this? If your father was a mono-crop agriculture guy, and you, you, you developed the farm in this way, obviously it must've taken a lot of planning. So, how did you decide to make that shift and what was the motivation?

   15. WHWill Harris6:41

       Okay. I, I'll give you the motivation first.

   16. JRJoe Rogan6:43

       Okay.

4. 6:43 – 7:23

   Why he left the industrial model: unintended consequences and animal welfare beyond ‘basic care’

   1. WHWill Harris6:43

      Yeah. I was, uh ... So let me ... I ... Uh, I operated the farm very industrially, as my father did, for the first 20 years. I graduated from the University of Georgia College of Agriculture with a degree in animal science, not animal husbandry. And I operated the farm, uh, very industriously. By industriously, I mean I used a lot of technology. You know, we, we misapplied technology. We, uh, horn ... Grew, uh, some therapeutic antibiotics, uh, 4s, uh, hormone implants.

   2. JRJoe Rogan7:16

      Hormone implants?

   3. WHWill Harris7:17

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan7:18

      How does that work?

   5. WHWill Harris7:20

      Uh, you know, from an en- endocrine point of view, you gotta talk to somebody else.

   6. JRJoe Rogan7:23

      Oh, okay.

5. 7:23 – 19:20

   Feedlots vs grass-fed reality: obesity, health, and what ‘tenderness’ really means

   1. WHWill Harris7:23

      But, but, but the way it works is, uh, you can buy hormone implants for cattle, and you actually give lo- uh, little pellets that you put in the skin behind their ear.

   2. JRJoe Rogan7:36

      Hmm.

   3. WHWill Harris7:36

      And it causes them to grow faster. And we, uh-

   4. JRJoe Rogan7:40

      Wow. Is that commonly used?

   5. WHWill Harris7:42

      Yeah. Oh, yeah. In the industrial model, it's very, very commonly used. It's a multi-million or billion-dollar industry.

   6. JRJoe Rogan7:49

      Wow. So they give the cows extra hormones so the cows get larger, and they try to feed them quicker, and they're feeding them mostly grain to get them fat.

   7. WHWill Harris7:58

      Correct. Which is a, a very unnatural feed stuff for a ruminant animal.

   8. JRJoe Rogan8:03

      Yeah. Uh, that's a fascinating thing, isn't it? Because so many people like grain-fed steaks. They like that real fatty ... They ... And that if you give them a grass-fed steak, it's almost like, "Hmm, this is interesting. Tastes different." Like, they're not accustomed to it. It's a little chewier.

   9. WHWill Harris8:18

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan8:18

       It's a little different.

   11. WHWill Harris8:20

       It, it, it is. And, and, you know, we, we never market our product by saying, "This is the most tender steak you've ever put in your mouth."

   12. JRJoe Rogan8:29

       Right.

   13. WHWill Harris8:30

       I hear, I hear, I hear grass-fed pr- producers say that and I wince, because they're setting an expectation we can't get to.

   14. JRJoe Rogan8:37

       Well, it's also, we have to look at the reality of why that animal is so chewy, or it's so easy to chew. It's 'cause it's got no, like, the, the body is unhealthy. It's got ... It's like it's ... There's so much fat in the system that the body is marbled with fat. Like, if that was a human being and you saw it like that, that person would be sick. Like, if you look at one of those cows, it's, like, completely infused with fat. If that was your body, you'd be like, "Wow, I might need to get my stuff together 'cause this is not good. This is not a good look."

   15. WHWill Harris9:06

       A feedlot cow is an unnaturally obese creature-

   16. JRJoe Rogan9:09

       Yeah.

   17. WHWill Harris9:09

       ... that would never occur in nature.

   18. JRJoe Rogan9:11

       Never?

   19. WHWill Harris9:12

       Never.

   20. JRJoe Rogan9:12

       Never?

   21. WHWill Harris9:12

       And, you know, I'd so, uh, uh, uh, uh, a bull or heifer that I slaughter would be two years old. Uh, it would weigh, live weight, 1,100 pounds. It would have, uh, two- or three-tenths inch of back fat. And if I gave it, if I g- the ... If I gave that animal a p- a, a presidential pardon and said, "We're not going to slaughter you," at two years age, they would live to be, uh, 20-something years old probably. That's the normal life expectancy of a cow. Contrast that to a feedlot animal that would, that would, that would, uh, yield prime or choice. They would be probably 16 to 18 months of age, not two years. They would probably weigh 13, 1,400 pounds, not 1,100. They would have three-quarters of an inch of back fat. And while I have not done this, I would be willing to bet you that if you left that animal in the feedlot, gave it that same presidential pardon, it wouldn't live much over another year or so. It's, you're, you're-

   22. JRJoe Rogan10:25

       Really?

   23. WHWill Harris10:25

       You're eating an unnaturally obese creature that would never occur in nature and is, is slowly dying of the same diseases of sedentary lifestyle and obesity that kill most of us.

   24. JRJoe Rogan10:40

       So, you're saying that a cow that's g- ... Uh, with a grain-fed diet, before they slaughter it, they just let it live, it would only live a year or so longer than that?

   25. WHWill Harris10:48

       And, you know, I don't have ... Yeah, I ... That's my bet. You know, when, uh, when the ... During the pandemic panic, when the, uh, packing plants were closed down, they were euthanizing chickens and hogs particularly, because they couldn't, they couldn't slaughter them, so they euthanized them. Now, I own my own packing plant, and we never shut down. That's, that's a sign of resilience. But if I had, I wouldn't have euthanized anything. They'd been fine. They would've kept eating, but they'd been fine.

   26. JRJoe Rogan11:23

       And you would've gone right back to the natural cycle two years later if you had to shut down for that long?

   27. WHWill Harris11:28

       Yeah. I mean, uh, you know, we would've just, just kept accumulating animals in the, in the pasture, like, until I could open my packing plant back up.

   28. JRJoe Rogan11:35

       Now, why did they have to euthanize the animals? 'Cause they didn't have the resources or because the animals weren't doing well? Like, wha- what, why ... Euthanize, to me, when I hear euthanize, I think something's wrong. Like, you gotta, you gotta put them down because they're sick or there's no room for them or ... Why are they doing that?

   29. WHWill Harris11:50

       You know, obviously it's because, uh, you know, those are confinement animals that live in very expensive confinement facilities, and they, they had nowhere to go with them, and ...

   30. JRJoe Rogan12:05

       Pf. That's hard to deal with. That's just hard to imagine that life becomes, uh, that invaluable that you could just decide to euthanize them all. No one's, no one's gonna buy them. We're just gonna kill them all.
6. 19:20 – 28:35

   The big three soil harms: tillage, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides (and WWII’s legacy)

   1. WHWill Harris19:20

      So let's talk about the- the land side 'cause it's a little easier. So, uh, I- I would say the three of the most damaging things we do to our soil, our land, is cultivation, the, uh, uh, use of chemical fertilizers, and- and the use of pesticides. Uh, you know, uh, a- a- a- and most of this misused technology came from the, uh, war effort, from the second World War. Uh, I don't think agriculture changed much from the time the first person domesticated the first animal or put the first seed in the ground until post World War II. And I'll give you some examples. Ammoniated fertilizer, the chemical fertilizer, uh, was invented, I think, in Germany in the 1880s or something. But- but farmers didn't use it because it was very expensive. Uh, after the w- uh, when- when- after the war, so much money had been spent on the munitions factories, the- the technology to build those factories and make munitions that somebody figured out that, "Wow, we can make ammoniated fertilizer cheap enough to sell it." And they literally, companies, multinational companies, literally put salesmen out in the field to Bluffton, Georgia. I- I heard my dad tell stories about that. And sa- and to sell ammoniated fertilizer to the farmers. Well, ammoniated fertilizer is- is like steroids in your body. You- you put it on the land and immediately you've got this very visual growth and productivity boost.

   2. JRJoe Rogan21:20

      What is in ammoniated fertilizer that's different from regular fertilizer?

   3. WHWill Harris21:24

      Well, prior to that, it was- it was organic fertilizer.

   4. JRJoe Rogan21:27

      Manure, things like compost?

   5. WHWill Harris21:30

      It was, uh, it was compost, mostly guano, uh, bat-

   6. JRJoe Rogan21:32

      Guano, bat- yeah, bat poop.

   7. WHWill Harris21:34

      ... bat shit, bird- bird manure.

   8. JRJoe Rogan21:36

      Yeah, uh, we read once that people used to have wars over bat shit. That bat shit was so valuable that people would fight for bat shit.

   9. WHWill Harris21:44

      G- g- good point. So-

   10. JRJoe Rogan21:46

       That's where bat shit crazy comes from, apparently.

   11. WHWill Harris21:48

       The, uh, um ... It was the most, uh, efficient way to import nutrients into crop land was this guano.

   12. JRJoe Rogan22:01

       Mm. Mm.

   13. WHWill Harris22:01

       All right, so but until- until World War II. Ammoniated fertilizer is chemically produced fertilizer.

   14. JRJoe Rogan22:08

       And what is exactly in it?

   15. WHWill Harris22:10

       Uh, well, could be a lot of things. But in this case, we're talking about ammonium nitrate.

   16. JRJoe Rogan22:14

       Okay.

   17. WHWill Harris22:15

       Or urea, or maybe anhydrous ammonia.

   18. JRJoe Rogan22:18

       So it's in super large doses that would normally not exist in compost or manure or any things like that?

   19. WHWill Harris22:24

       So- so ammonium nitrate I think is 33 and a half percent nitrogen. Urea, I'm pretty sure, is 44% nitrogen. And, you know, the- the best compost or, uh, guano that you could find would be way under 10% nitrogen.

   20. JRJoe Rogan22:45

       Hm.

   21. WHWill Harris22:46

       It- it's- it's just like steroids, right?

   22. JRJoe Rogan22:48

       Got it. So super charged, uh, volumes of nitrogen.

   23. WHWill Harris22:51

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan22:51

       And it makes things grow quickly.

   25. WHWill Harris22:53

       In fact, sin- since we're into this, I'll tell you this, a- a- a brief story. So my- my dad told me that in ... He was born in 1920. So 1946 he'd been 26 years old and taking over the farm. He told me that in 1946 after the war, uh, a- a salesman came to Bluffton, our little town, and had a fish fry or barbecue or whatever it took to bring the farmers in. He had two 200 pound bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer that had been made in munitions factories. And they gave every farmer, uh, uh, like a five or ten pound bag to- to take home. And the ask was go home, put this out on your grass, your pasture. Wet it, put water on it, and don't look at it for about three days then come back. And my dad did that. And when he came back where they'd put the ammonium nitrate, you know, it was a foot taller and five shades greener-

   26. JRJoe Rogan23:56

       Wow.

   27. WHWill Harris23:56

       ... than the rest of it. And he said, "Damn, I want the whole farm to look like that."

   28. JRJoe Rogan24:02

       (laughs)

   29. WHWill Harris24:03

       And from 1946 to probably 1996, 50 years, that'd be 50 years, either my dad or I put ammoniated fertilizer on every acre of land we had every single year. Now, the benefit was so obvious. You could see it. You- you- you could see it at 30 miles an hour just looking out the window.... what you couldn't see is that that ammoniated fertilizer oxidized the carbon in the ground, the organic matter in the, in the soil. Oxidized it, right? Chemically. It killed the microbes in the soil. Not sterilized them, but it, it was bad for the microbes. Uh, it had some other negative, uh, chemical impacts, but you couldn't see 'em. I mean, you couldn't-

   30. JRJoe Rogan24:57

       Hmm.
7. 28:35 – 36:49

   Glyphosate temptation and invasive species: choosing biological controls over ‘cides’

   1. JRJoe Rogan28:35

      It's a hell of a deal. The, um... We've talked about, um, Roundup many times on the podcast, about how many people on... When you test their blood, you find Roundup in it. It's some crazy number. What is it, like, 80%, right? Very high. Very high number of people test positive f- for glyphosate, which is very disturbing, because people want to pretend that that's not having any effects on people. You don't even know. And then they were talking about the numbers, th- th- the minuscule amounts of glyphosate. "It's no big deal." And my thought was like, "Why are you making apologies for that, first of all? You're saying it's no big deal. You don't know if it's not a big deal. And second of all, you're only talking about some people have low amounts. Like, what's the overall average that people have, and what's the high end? At the high end, should be, you'd be warning the people that have a high level of glyphosate, 'cause they ingest it every day? Like, when is it... At what levels is it toxic, and is this really well-understood? It doesn't s- it seems like it's understood that it's not good for you.

   2. WHWill Harris29:35

      L- let me bring that home for you-

   3. JRJoe Rogan29:36

      Please do.

   4. WHWill Harris29:36

      ... from a practitioner's perspective. So I've used an incredible amount of glyphosate in my life. Roundup glyphosate.

   5. JRJoe Rogan29:44

      When was that stuff invented?

   6. WHWill Harris29:45

      Uh, you know, that was a new product, fairly new product, when I was getting out of Georgia in the '70s. So... And, and, and I started using it right out of college and used it until the mid-'90s, maybe late '90s. I, I don't, I don't really know. L- maybe. You know, I g- I quit these things gradually. I don't know what day I quit that. But, uh, you know, I tell people that there are days I would kill a man for a load of am- ammonium nitrate fertilizer 'cause it's just so good.

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:18

      (laughs)

   8. WHWill Harris30:19

      And similarly, I have a new non-native invasive plant on my farm. New to me. It's called tropical soda apple. It's from the Caribbean.They speculate it came up here in bird droppings.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:34

      Oh, wow.

   10. WHWill Harris30:35

       And it's, it's r- it's, it's related to the tomato, but it's very invasive. And, uh-

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:40

       Is it edible?

   12. WHWill Harris30:41

       Uh, not by you and I. I mean, I've tasted it, it's not good. But it's a nightshade.

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:47

       Okay.

   14. WHWill Harris30:47

       But, but, but birds, cows, hogs, sheep, goats, coyotes, everything, eats those little berries. But it's not, it's not a good plant, because it, it, it literally dominates the landscape. So, uh, I'm, I'm battling it right now on my farm. And I'm using... I, I, I've got a, something I'm excited about now, but I've been using, uh, organic, uh, apple cider vinegar and soap to fight it. And it's not very efficacious spraying it, it's not very efficacious at all. I mean, it, it, it eventually, if you keep spraying it, you'll kill it. But it takes a lot. You know, I could give it a breath of Roundup and it would die. But I don't want to use Roundup for the reasons you stated.

   15. JRJoe Rogan31:41

       Yeah.

   16. WHWill Harris31:41

       You know, I, I, you know, I, my, my employees, my family, my animals would be out there, the ones doing it.

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:47

       Yeah.

   18. WHWill Harris31:49

       So, uh, uh, I, I've resisted the incredible temptation, like I'd, I'd kill a man for a gallon of Roundup.

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:56

       (laughs)

   20. WHWill Harris31:57

       But, uh-

   21. JRJoe Rogan31:59

       Is there any other way?

   22. WHWill Harris32:00

       Well-

   23. JRJoe Rogan32:01

       Could you grit it off and do it by hand?

   24. WHWill Harris32:03

       I'm glad you asked. So, one of the ancient Greeks said, "For every pestilence that nature sends, she sends the cure." And I absolutely subscribe to that. That's part of the balance, the cycle, the symbiosis you mentioned earlier.

   25. JRJoe Rogan32:18

       Right.

   26. WHWill Harris32:19

       So, uh-

   27. JRJoe Rogan32:20

       Is there a bug that eats them?

   28. WHWill Harris32:21

       Yeah, there you go.

   29. JRJoe Rogan32:22

       Oh.

   30. WHWill Harris32:22

       So there's a, there's a, uh, a professor at the, uh, University of Florida who has brought in a beetle from Paraguay. And she assures me that it, it eats nothing but tropical soda apple. So I have bought... Or no actually, she gave 'em to me. Uh, I offered to buy. So she sent me some beetles and I've turned them loose, because I-
8. 36:49 – 42:41

   Can regenerative farming feed big cities? Carrying capacity, inputs, and what we’ll run out of first

   1. JRJoe Rogan36:49

      The big question about, um, regenerative farming for most people is, is this scalable to what w- what our current reality is as far as urban life? You know, we've talked about this a bunch of times, but living in cities, you're, you've got, in Los Angeles is a good example. I think there's something like 18 million people living in the Los Angeles area. But no one's growing food, so everything has to be shipped into there. Everything. And it's a very unnatural state for people. When we want to be able to just pull into a Jack in the Box and get a cheeseburger, w- what does it require, like how much meat is required to fill, to feed 18 million people that don't farm? That's so many people that aren't farming, so many people that aren't growing any food. So it's gotta be grown in these other places. But could you have a farm that's a regenerative farm, that's so large and supplies so much food that you could feed people the way they're living right now, but do it completely naturally? Or do we need a certain amount of factory farming in order for people to live like that today?

   2. WHWill Harris37:53

      Okay. I, I think I got a-

   3. JRJoe Rogan37:55

      Okay.

   4. WHWill Harris37:55

      I think I got an answer for you.

   5. JRJoe Rogan37:56

      Okay.

   6. WHWill Harris37:58

      So, I, I'm not going down this road, but the first thing I could probably do is argue we shouldn't have 18 million people living-

   7. JRJoe Rogan38:04

      It's a good argument.

   8. WHWill Harris38:05

      But let's not even have that one.

   9. JRJoe Rogan38:06

      Right.

   10. WHWill Harris38:07

       Let's just let that, just sit that-

   11. JRJoe Rogan38:07

       We can have that one later.

   12. WHWill Harris38:08

       And if it... They're here, you know what I'm saying?

   13. JRJoe Rogan38:10

       Yeah. Right.

   14. WHWill Harris38:11

       All right.

   15. JRJoe Rogan38:12

       I'd like to hear your thoughts on why it's bad though.

   16. WHWill Harris38:14

       I can give it to you. So let's, let's answer this question first.

   17. JRJoe Rogan38:16

       Okay.

   18. WHWill Harris38:17

       So, one thing that's a l- a little bit unusual about me personally is that most of the people in this regenerative space don't look like me. They're not good old boys that farmed in- in- in-

   19. JRJoe Rogan38:35

       Right.

   20. WHWill Harris38:35

       ... industrially and went commanding. They are-

   21. JRJoe Rogan38:37

       Right.

   22. WHWill Harris38:38

       You know, they got degrees from-

   23. JRJoe Rogan38:39

       Hipsters.

   24. WHWill Harris38:40

       Hipsters, yeah. They're hipsters.

   25. JRJoe Rogan38:41

       (laughs)

   26. WHWill Harris38:43

       I, I probably ain't a hipster.

   27. JRJoe Rogan38:44

       (laughs)

   28. WHWill Harris38:45

       But uh, I am one of the good old boys. And I still live in a community that there is nothing but industrial farming. Zero.

   29. JRJoe Rogan38:53

       And you're the only farm that lives the way yours is?

   30. WHWill Harris38:55

       Y- in my-
9. 42:41 – 1:01:10

   The economics: higher direct costs vs massive externalized costs

   1. JRJoe Rogan42:41

      Okay. And so when you do this, how much ...If you decided you wanted to go back to the factory farming system, how much more money would it cost and how much more money would you get out of it? Is it more financially beneficial to do it the way you're doing it, or more financially beneficial to a... in, in a scale, like the size of the scale that you're using right now? 'Cause it seems like it would cost a lot of money to get all that stuff to feed these cows, to make them fat real quick, and all the money for the hormones and all the money for all these other things, where you just let them roam around and eat grass, but you don't get as much weight out of them. So like, what's the tipping point?

   2. WHWill Harris43:15

      So make, make no mistake, of all these inputs that, that the industrial model brings in, all of them are brought in to take cost out of production. You spend money for the input-

   3. JRJoe Rogan43:29

      Right.

   4. WHWill Harris43:29

      ... but, but ultimately it takes cost out of production.

   5. JRJoe Rogan43:31

      But like what are the... What's the percentage? Like how much of a percentage are you losing by doing it your way?

   6. WHWill Harris43:36

      That is so, uh, situational, and, and let me give you an example.

   7. JRJoe Rogan43:40

      Okay.

   8. WHWill Harris43:40

      It's a great question, but I can't give you a short answer for it.

   9. JRJoe Rogan43:42

      Okay.

   10. WHWill Harris43:43

       So, so, uh, I would tell you that in the case of my grass-fed beef, it, it... my cost of production is probably 30% higher-

   11. JRJoe Rogan43:57

       Hmm.

   12. WHWill Harris43:57

       ... than the industrial model.

   13. JRJoe Rogan43:59

       Wow.

   14. WHWill Harris43:59

       And you could argue... we could argue if you told me 20 or 35, I would... I, I... you know, 'cause I don't know, it's situational.

   15. JRJoe Rogan44:09

       Right.

   16. WHWill Harris44:09

       But, but that, that's not in the range. That's not gonna be too far off.

   17. JRJoe Rogan44:12

       Hmm.

   18. WHWill Harris44:13

       Now let's, let's step over to poultry. My cost for raising a chicken, a four-pound dressed chicken in Bluffton, Georgia and putting him in a bag is like $4.50 or 60 cents a pound.

   19. JRJoe Rogan44:30

       Hmm.

   20. WHWill Harris44:31

       You know, I see chicken on sale for a dollar and 10 cents a pound. So my cost of production for poultry is hundreds of percent higher. And that's because the chicken lent itself to industrialization more handily than the cow did. We took more cost out of production.

   21. JRJoe Rogan44:49

       Hmm.

   22. WHWill Harris44:50

       So, yeah. So, you know... when you say, "How much higher is it?" That's like how long is a string, you know?

   23. JRJoe Rogan44:56

       Right.

   24. WHWill Harris44:56

       But, but, but it's higher. My cost of production is higher. When you as a consumer ask me as a farmer to give up all the tools that reductionist science gave to take cost out of production, you add cost back to production.

   25. JRJoe Rogan45:14

       Hmm.

   26. WHWill Harris45:14

       Now, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna amend that. I stand by it, but I'm gonna amend it and say direct cost.

   27. JRJoe Rogan45:20

       Direct cost, because-

   28. WHWill Harris45:21

       Direct cost.

   29. JRJoe Rogan45:21

       ... long term, you're destroying the soil.

   30. WHWill Harris45:24

       The externalized cost, like-
10. 1:01:10 – 1:07:08

    Complex vs complicated systems: Savory Institute and restoring nature’s cycles

    1. WHWill Harris1:01:10

       All right. So, uh, have you ever heard of Savory Institute?

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:01:14

       No, I have not.

    3. WHWill Harris1:01:15

       All right. Y'all, y'all look at it. Uh-

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:01:17

       Savory Institute.

    5. WHWill Harris1:01:18

       Uh, it's not like... Yes. It's not like, it's not like savory food. It's a guy named Allan Savory. He's a farmer from Zimbabwe who is touted as being the father of regenerative land management, s- pasture and range management. And Savory International is a, uh, uh, group that is devoted to that. And my farm is a Savory hub. I actually went to Zimbabwe and took my training under Allan Savory some years ago in regenerative land management.

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:01:51

       And this is after years and years of industrial farming?

    7. WHWill Harris1:01:54

       Yeah.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:01:54

       You still needed to, like, take courses? Like, what did you need to learn there?

    9. WHWill Harris1:01:58

       How to completely rethink about it.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:02:00

        Mm-hmm.

    11. WHWill Harris1:02:01

        So, uh, and we can talk more about that, but what, but the main thing, point I want to make is in, in the Savory thought process, uh, we talk about, uh, the difference in a, in a complex system and a complicated system. So, this, this microphone thing we're working on here is a very complicated system. And this, uh, computer this young man is working on over here is a very complicated system. And to me what that means is, there's a lot of shit going on to make it work. And when one component quits working, it don't work no more.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:02:45

        Mm-hmm.

    13. WHWill Harris1:02:46

        And reductionist science works great on those very linear, complicated systems. A factory is kind of the ultimate complicated system, very linear and very, uh, lends itself to scale, which lends itself to efficiency. Uh, so a- and that is the model that my dad's generation, and later my generation, applied to agriculture. All right, let's talk about agriculture. My farm, like your body, is a very complex living system. There's a lot going on in both of them to make it work. But if one component quits, everything kind of morphs, and it keeps working. Right? So in that, in that scenario, uh, it doesn't lend itself to reductive science as well because of the unintended consequences, that, that, that, that morphing we're talking about. Living systems are complex systems. Reductive science easily becomes misapplied to those systems because it has those unintended consequences that are not easily recognizable. We talked about some of them.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:04:10

        Right.

    15. WHWill Harris1:04:10

        You take, not you, somebody taking steroids or me using fertilizer and pesticides on my land. Reductive science applied to a, a living system, living systems are very cyclical. They're not super scalable, they are super replicable. You can have more of them. So this is finally getting back to your question about feeding LA.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:04:36

        Yeah.

    17. WHWill Harris1:04:37

        All right. So we have, uh, for the last 80 years been feeding bigger and bigger and bigger cities using the factory model, applying that reductive science to a living system. And it had unintended consequences. Well, some of us think we probably ought not do that so much anymore. And if we do, then we need to move towards treating that cyclical biome, your body or farm, in a manner that, that is favorable to the cycles of nature. Because those cycles of nature are essential and they must all work together to have your body working good or my farm working good.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:05:28

        Mm-hmm.

    19. WHWill Harris1:05:29

        So let's, let's talk about the cycles of nature just a minute. And first, let me tell you that, that industrial farming breaks the cycles of nature. It, uh, you know, uh, no species has ever done that before, but it breaks the cycles. You know, we're the, you and I are the ape that learned to eat meat. And when we learned to eat meat, we became less ape-ish and ultimately this tech- we became the first species to really get good at technology. So, we applied the technology to the, this system, this, this, this cyclical system, and broke the cycles of nature. Now, the cycles of nature to me are the water cycle, the carbon cycle, the mineral cycle, the microbial cycle, energy cycle. There's probably a lot more that we don't recognize. And when we broke the cycles of nature using those industrial tools, we ceased to produce that abundance. That one plus one is three, that symbiosis, you mentioned symbiosis earlier.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:06:35

        Mm-hmm.

    21. WHWill Harris1:06:37

        So that's... Wh- what, what's important to us in, in my space is that we restart these cycles of nature. And there's a, and there's a... You know, you don't use reductive science, you use exper- experiential wisdom. It's like the opposite of... Or not opposite, but the other side of reductionist science. And we're able to restart the cycles of nature. That's what I've done on my farm. And-So the, the ...

11. 1:07:08 – 1:11:12

    The runoff video: clear water vs muddy fertilizer-laced erosion (and downstream oyster collapse)

    1. WHWill Harris1:07:08

       Could you please show that water, uh, video for me, please? This is one cycle of nature. But I wanna talk a little bit about-

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:07:15

       Okay.

    3. WHWill Harris1:07:15

       ... how they all tie together.

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:07:17

       And is this your farm?

    5. WHWill Harris1:07:18

       It is my farm.

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:07:19

       Okay.

    7. WHWill Harris1:07:20

       Well, it's, it's my farm and the neighbors.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:07:21

       Okay.

    9. WHWill Harris1:07:21

       That's coming off of my farm. And that's coming off a neighbor's farm. You see that?

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:07:27

        Oh, boy. So your farm, the water runoff is clear. All right, so here- Their farm, the water runoff is a very muddy, dark brown. ... we're looking at a pretty, pretty good rainy day here in white oak, Georgia at White Oak Pastures. That's crazy. And what we're seeing is there's a, uh-

    11. WHWill Harris1:07:40

        And there's a lot of reason for that.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:07:42

        ... pivot of corn across the road here.

    13. WHWill Harris1:07:43

        May- make sense to show them, if you don't mind.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:07:46

        What's up? What's up?

    15. WHWill Harris1:07:47

        So, so, uh, that, that water co- that's my neighbor.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:07:51

        Right.

    17. WHWill Harris1:07:51

        That's, uh, across the road from White Oak Pastures.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:07:53

        Mm-hmm.

    19. WHWill Harris1:07:54

        And they're, they're good, they're good people. They're fine people. They, they're my relatives. They're good people. But they farm their land very conventionally, or someone does.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:08:05

        So what is in that water that's causing it to be that color?

    21. WHWill Harris1:08:08

        Well, the ... There's no good news, but the good news is, is, is subsoil. The topsoil is gone. Topsoil is, is ...

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:08:16

        Because of the way they've been running their farm-

    23. WHWill Harris1:08:18

        Yeah.

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:08:18

        ... the topsoil's gone. So that's all subsoil-

    25. WHWill Harris1:08:20

        Yeah, that's subsoil. Yeah, but, but on top, see, that was corn. And it's not unusual to put several hundred pounds of chemical fertilizer per acre on corn. So that, that, a lot of that several hundred pounds of chemical fertilizer is in that water as well.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:08:35

        Oh, Jesus.

    27. WHWill Harris1:08:35

        It's also very common to u- in fact, ubiquitous, to use, uh, herbicide, insecticides, some fungicides, and then all, all, all that. So that, that, those cides are in that water, too.

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:08:50

        And there's no consequences to that stuff going in the water?

    29. WHWill Harris1:08:54

        I mean-

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:08:54

        No financial consequences? You don't get in trouble for that?
12. 1:11:12 – 1:14:12

    Building soil organic matter with animal impact—and why others don’t copy it

    1. WHWill Harris1:11:12

       All right, let me explain that to you. So, on, on the ... That's the water cycle. Now, the carbon cycle, right? All these cycles work together. So, uh, because of the way we've managed my land for the last 25 years, my organic matter in my soil is 5%. You can look on my website, uh, whiteoakpastures.com, under the Land Stewardship tab, and there is a LCA, life cycle assessment, that was done on my farm. It'll show that, that over the last 20 years, the organic matter on my farm has gone from a half percent to 5%. And, and every bit of that carbon came from greenhouse gases that were put through my ruminant animals and back out. More about that in a minute. But the reason for the water is, uh, 1% organic ... A- a- an acre of rain on a acre ... A inch of rain on a acre of land is about 27,000 gallons of water. If it rains one inch on a acre, that's 27,000 gallons of water. 1% organic matter will absorb a one-inch rain event. Because my land's over 5% organic matter, I can absorb a five-inch rain event-

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:12:34

       Hmm.

    3. WHWill Harris1:12:34

       ... if it comes slowly. Not in 30 minutes, but if it comes slowly. The land that you saw of my neighbors would be about a half percent organic matter. So it can-

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:12:45

       A half a percent.

    5. WHWill Harris1:12:46

       Yeah. That's what mine used to be. That's a function of industrial farming.

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:12:50

       And how did you turn it around?

    7. WHWill Harris1:12:52

       Animal impact. Period. Animal impact.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:12:56

       And did you ... And this is what you learned from the savory method?

    9. WHWill Harris1:13:01

       Correct.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:13:01

        And so, like, how long did it take for you to do that? It seems like y-

    11. WHWill Harris1:13:05

        T- 20 years.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:13:06

        ... 20 years for it to be s- where it's at now?

    13. WHWill Harris1:13:09

        Correct.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:13:10

        And it's a slow gl- gradual process of improvement?

    15. WHWill Harris1:13:13

        It is.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:13:14

        Wow. So you gotta be very committed to that, because it's costing you money. It's like your 30, 30 plus... or somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% less, uh, productive in terms of-

    17. WHWill Harris1:13:23

        Yeah.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:13:24

        And then on top of that, this is a long-term investment to take this industrialized property and turn it into what it is now.

    19. WHWill Harris1:13:31

        Yeah.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:13:31

        Wow.

    21. WHWill Harris1:13:32

        Which harkens back to your question about why I don't want neighbors.

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:13:35

        Of course.

    23. WHWill Harris1:13:35

        That-

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:13:35

        It's too much work.

    25. WHWill Harris1:13:36

        There's the answer.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:13:37

        Yeah. There's the answer.

    27. WHWill Harris1:13:38

        And it's, and experience and risk.

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:13:39

        And you have to be ideologically committed to, to doing it that way-

    29. WHWill Harris1:13:43

        You do.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:13:43

        ... to justify doing it.
13. 1:14:12 – 1:23:26

    Government, USDA, and big ag influence: Farm Bill realities and the bald eagle indemnity fight

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:14:12

       Do you think it's possible that i- especially when you're talking about, like, your neighbor, who's only got 200 acres and, you know, they're probably very productive with those 200 acres doing it that way, as opposed to doing it the way you're doing it, w- how many of these, without that sort of long-term, 20-year investment, is there a way that the government can incentivize turning farms over that would be ultimately beneficial to everybody? Is there a way that... 'Cause there is some sort of government incentivizing. There's subsidizing, right? For certain crops.

    2. WHWill Harris1:14:49

       Yeah.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:14:49

       That they started doing during the war, right? Because they wanted to make sure that they had, uh, a surplus of certain grains and food and things like that. That's how it all started, correct?

    4. WHWill Harris1:14:59

       Y- supply management, yes, correct.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:15:00

       Is there a way to do that to turn farms into more self-sustaining, the way yours is?

    6. WHWill Harris1:15:06

       Well, that, that question assumes the government wants to do that. And-

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:15:12

       Well, if the government wants, uh, the environment ultimately to be healthy, that seems like the only way. You just... (laughs) They should someone should send 'em that video of your river, 'cause-

    8. WHWill Harris1:15:20

       So-

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:15:20

       ... that's crazy.

    10. WHWill Harris1:15:21

        So let m- let me, let me explain how the Farm... The Farm Bill is an incredible farm program, farm bill, right? It's an incredible cost to the government. But let me tell you how it's written.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:15:33

        Okay.

    12. WHWill Harris1:15:34

        Big ag and big food decide what they want, and then they hire lobbyists, and those guys go to Washington and write the program, or get the program written through aides, congressional aides or senate aides. And then it's, it's p- passed that... So, so if big ag and big food don't want to change, it's not, it's not gonna happen through the government. To exacerbate that, now, this is... You know, I don't want to get sued by anybody, so I'm just going to tell you what I believe.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:16:15

        Okay.

    14. WHWill Harris1:16:16

        Uh, you know, y- in the case of USDA, those bureaucrats, for the most part, I'm sure it's not all, but many of those bureaucrats that, that become very senior in USDA, po- and I'm sure it's Defense Department too, post-retirement, they get really great jobs with big ag and big food.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:16:39

        Mm-hmm.

    16. WHWill Harris1:16:40

        And I think that there's a, and I can give you some examples actually, but I think there's a culture of catering to, uh, big ag and big food because of the rewards that beco- come post-retirement. You know, we, uh... I'll give you an example. So we had a, uh, an issue, uh, when I first started raising poultry outside in the pasture. Uh, we had a predation problem by bald eagles. Uh, it was kind of a, it was kind of a good sign in a pervert way, because we, we didn't have bald eagles. They were outside my ecosystem. We put poultry on the ground, we had bald eagles. And when the bald eagles first came back to my ecosystem, they were pre- predating on my birds and just hammering me economically. Now, we finally figured out how to prevent it operationally. But for a couple of years there, 2015, 2016, uh, we had huge economic losses because of eagle predation of my pastured poultry.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:17:52

        Wow. Like how many, how many chickens got killed?

    18. WHWill Harris1:17:54

        Dozens. Dozens per d- they, they weren't, they weren't killing 'em eating. They were just killing 'em and having fun.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:18:00

        Really?

    20. WHWill Harris1:18:01

        Yeah. It was just... It was bad. That was-

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:18:02

        Dozens a day?

    22. WHWill Harris1:18:04

        Yes. Now we did figure-

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:18:06

        They were just having fun?

    24. WHWill Harris1:18:07

        Yeah. They're-

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:18:08

        Were they eating any of 'em?

    26. WHWill Harris1:18:09

        Oh, yeah. They were eating some of 'em.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:18:11

        And, but some of 'em they were just killing for a goof?

    28. WHWill Harris1:18:12

        Yeah.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:18:13

        Wow.

    30. WHWill Harris1:18:13

        So, so, so n- now you're-
14. 1:23:26 – 1:35:01

    Animals, vegan narratives, and carbon: regenerative livestock as a climate mitigator

    1. WHWill Harris1:23:26

       Can we, can we talk a minute about-

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:23:27

       Sure.

    3. WHWill Harris1:23:27

       ... about this animal thing?

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:23:29

       Yeah.

    5. WHWill Harris1:23:29

       All right. So, so... And, and, and, and the relationship people have with animals?

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:23:33

       Yeah.

    7. WHWill Harris1:23:34

       (inhales deeply) All right, so you know, you know what I do for a living. I produce animals-

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:23:38

       Mm-hmm.

    9. WHWill Harris1:23:39

       ... and I slaughter them, and I sell the, the meat. (clears throat) And, uh, despite that, when somebody tells me that they are a vegetarian or vegan, I have full respect for that. I mean, that is a lifestyle choice that everybody gets to make. You know, you can choose your-

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:24:00

        Mm-hmm.

    11. WHWill Harris1:24:00

        ... your, uh, sexual, uh, orient- or whatever you, whatever you like. You can choose your religion. You can choose what you want to eat. That's, that's the individuals to choose. And, and I would go to war to defend, uh, a person who said that they... they're a vegetarian or ve- vegan because they couldn't bear the idea of eating a live animal that did... I get it. That's fine.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:24:27

        Right.

    13. WHWill Harris1:24:30

        If you tell me it's because they- it's yucky, the mouth feel, I respect it. That's fine. But I'm not going to let you tell me that you won't eat animals because they're destroying the Earth when they're raised like I'm raising them.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:24:45

        Right.

    15. WHWill Harris1:24:45

        I, I will not let you bring that junk science on me.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:24:49

        And that is junk science.

    17. WHWill Harris1:24:50

        It's fucking junk science. Let me get back to you. So I just told you that my farm... I showed you that my farm has 5% organic model. You, you could see the f- you couldn't see the 5%, but you could see what...

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:25:04

        See the difference in the water, for sure.

    19. WHWill Harris1:25:05

        Yeah. You know where all that... A- a- and an acre slice of soil weighs about two million pounds. That's... You can Google it.If I went from a half percent to over 5%, that's 5% of two million pounds. That, I think it's 100,000 pounds of carbon.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:25:26

        Mm-hmm.

    21. WHWill Harris1:25:27

        You get it?

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:25:28

        Yeah.

    23. WHWill Harris1:25:28

        Per acre. I didn't put any carbon out there. Every bit of that carbon, that 100,000 pounds per acre on 3,200 acres used to be greenhouse gas. That plant, through the magic of photosynthesis, breathed in that carbon and other gases, the carbon dioxide and other gases, and turned it into fat and protein and carbohydrate that is the plant. Some of it above the ground, some of it below the ground in roots. My cows or h- or sheep or goats ate that plant, and some of that carbon went to make beef or pork or l- beef or lamb or goat. Some of it went out as manure. Some of it was put up as flatulence or, or burping or whatever, whatever. And a lot of it went into the root in the ground. It was sequestered there for, for a time. When that plant grows, it's... A plant, a growing plant is like a p- a pump. It's pulling carbon from the air, putting some of it under the ground. The animal bites it off. Those roots start to slough off till it regrows. So it's literally just like a pump pumping carbon around. So not only is ruminant livestock not destroying the earth, it is a serious mitigator of climate change.

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:27:06

        As long as it's done your way.

    25. WHWill Harris1:27:08

        Bingo. Bingo.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:27:10

        Right.

    27. WHWill Harris1:27:10

        Not, not, not animals being hauled corn in a feed lot.

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:27:13

        Right.

    29. WHWill Harris1:27:13

        No, no, no, no, no. No, I'm not feeding it.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:27:14

        Okay. So-

Episode duration: 2:26:48