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Michael is a farmer, presenter, inventor and blogger who lives to help farmers apply business principles and practical, proven solutions to grow their businesses and simplify their lives. He has managed large certified organic farms and businesses, consulted with industry experts, and spoken at dozens of conferences.
Transcript:
Hi, I’m Betsy Pake. I’m a reinvention strategist and NLP coach, author and speaker. But really, I feel like I just work with people all over the country to help them be happier. And to help them have a little bit more ease in their life. Today, I hope to do the same for you. Thanks for listening. Now let’s go live. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the show. I’m here today with my friend, Michael Kilpatrick. Hey, Michael, how are you? I’m doing good yourself. I am awesome. I’m really excited that you’re here for a different reason, then most people listening with no. And it’s,
well, why don’t we? Why don’t
you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do. And then we can really get into it. And then it will all come together and make sense.
Yeah, so my background is my brother and I started a farm when we were 15 and 16. We are parents, we moved out to the country around 2000, the year 2000. We want to kind of escape the city. There’s seven of us kids. So when you kind of needed some space to roam. And so my brother and I started this farm, we really had no idea where we’re doing but with really good mentorship, and just really a lot of hard work. And looking at the business side of farming, we grew the business quite rapidly to you know, a large vegetable farm, which meant and we managed about 500 acres, and had about 20 employees. So it was a large operation. And so obviously, that journey, taught us an awful lot about farming a lot about business, a lot about marketing. And then 2013 I actually actually 2012 I was privileged to intern at polyface farm in Virginia, where I met my wife, I kind of had a real life crisis, I was 25 and been running the farm for you know, 10 years wasn’t quite sure what was next. And so decided to take a summer off and intern. And it was kind of crazy to step away from a business like that. But it survived. And I survived. And anyway, the next year I got married. And then in 2015, my wife and I had a child and decided that you know the full time farm up in New York, it was a long way from her family. And so we decided to relocate to Ohio, where we are now. And at that point, we’re also like, you know, we farm for a while we keep watching farms go out of business one after another, you know, all the farms that we were going to farmers markets with you know, they’d be one that come up out, start for a couple years and then go out of business. And so we started watching and we started really researching why they were going out of business. And so now our phase of my life is really devoted to helping firms be successful helping them build their asis profitable, sustainable business system on their farm. And so last year, we started a consulting company, and it’s taken off, it has really taken off.
So it’s so fascinating to me. And you know, the reason I was so excited to have you on is, you know, I grew up in Vermont, my dad was a dairy farmer. Uh huh. We didn’t live on the farm when I was growing up, but he grew up on the farm. And then you know, he sold it, maybe I was like in third grade. So farming has always been like something we talked about something that was part of our life. And a lot of my friends, families farmed, also. And so I find this actually really fascinating. I want to go all the way back, because I really don’t understand. So how do you just decide to start a farm? Because that seems like something that you’d get, you know, it would be something that would be passed down? Not something? Yeah, you would say like, that seems like a good idea at 15.
Yeah, so our dad when we were we used to live back in Westfield, right South Springfield, Massachusetts, and we had like three quarters of an acre. And our dad really wanted a way to connect with us boys. Because he worked You know, he was a furnace and worked a lot of hours. So he decided to the garden with us. And so I always loved outdoor stuff. I’ve always loved growing things. So you know, I’ve always been an entrepreneur from very young, you know, when we were eight, we were caught selling clay balls, which we were mining from one neighbor’s yard. And we were making these balls out of clay and hardening them in the sun. And then we sold them to the other neighbors. And they were you know, they’re I don’t know, they’re kind of like currency in our neighborhood. They turn into being currency. Yeah. But um, so yeah, we haven’t very, you know, entrepreneur at all from a very young age. And so when we the gardening background, and I kind of was reading about, you know, farming and stuff like that. And so it was really Joel solitons article in the Smithsonian art. Magazine. Gosh, I forget what year that really got me turned on to oh my gosh, you can actually do farming and make a living at it. Because before that, I’d always thought farming was great. My grandfather was a farmer up in Maine, but I always been told, it’s very hard to make money. You just doesn’t work.
Well. Yeah. And it’s a hard life, right? I mean, you work every single day. There’s no days off.
Yes, yeah, most farms. There isn’t especially as a dairy farmer. I mean, dairy farm is incredibly tough and my business partner is ABS actually dairy farmer down in Virginia. And that’s, you know, I just I couldn’t do it. But um, yeah, so we started Yeah.
Okay, so Okay, so let me just make sure I got so far. So you guys, your father was not a farmer, but he used to the gardening to connect with you guys. And there’s seven of you kids. So where are you in that lineup? Are you one of the oldest?
Yeah, so I’m second in line. I have an older brother, who I think is a year and a half older or two years older than I am.
Okay. And were they all interested in farming or when there’s only like a few of you?
Yeah. So no, I mean, all of them got roped in at one point or another. That’s what I’m wondering is it roped in? All right, yeah. So my, my, my younger brother, Jonathan actually is he really loves the animal side of things. And he actually spent 18 months at polyface. You know, interning and then apprenticing. And so now he manages farms for a living. So yeah, he’s the other guy who, but my older brother is now a paramedic. My younger brother Samuel, who obviously worked for me for a while. he’s a he’s in Christian ministry down in Texas. And then I’ve got you know, Hannah, who actually worked for me for a number of years. She’s kind of, she’s taken a few business classes, but she’s not quite sure what her next direction is. So she’s just still I think, like, 2122. So, yeah, I mean, we all were part of it. And one just roped in, as I said, and, you know, I, it was, I think, a good experience for them obviously, done the work hard. But that’s not obviously all life is. But you know, I have a ton of fond memories of working with them. As you know, we were growing up on the farm.
So then the first farm that you all had together was in Ohio.
That was in upstate New York. That was in Greenville, New York, right? Yep. Granville. Yeah. And my we only picked that town because my dad had a job, you know, five minutes away across the border in Vermont. So we had no idea what we were doing. We bought the wrong piece of land we bought, you know, we were buying a Yeah, yo.
Adventure where you learn a ton of stuff really, as a young person to figure Yes, all of this worked.
Yeah, I’ve made every mistake in the book, usually twice. Yeah.
Okay. So. Okay, so then you grow up a little bit, you end up going to intern at this farm in Virginia. Tell me what that is. And how did you find that? Because some people that are listening might not be into farm. Yeah. But finding the internship or the mentorship like that? Yeah, piece of anybody’s journey. So how did that come about?
Yeah, so actually, there’s several steps of our mentorship. So 2006, approximately, is when the farm kind of got off the ground. 2007 2008 is where we meant met our vegetable mentors, which were Paul and Sandy Arnold, which were in Argyle, New York. So they were about 30 minutes south of us. And they really mentored us in the vegetable side and really gave us you know, the business foundation to get our that business up and running. So the farm was, you know, fully staffed and actually running very smoothly when I took the quarterlife crisis in 2012. So, you know, at that point, we’re probably, you know, 450 to 500,000 in sales. So, you know, we had 20 employees, you know, the middle management and everything. So, I took it because I knew, eventually I would be going into the education space that was just kind of my dream is like, Look, the I can be a farmer, but I also want to educate because there’s so many farmers that are failing and struggling, and I want to be able, and I knew polyface with a reputation, he had a lot to teach me, but also had a lot of connections around the world. And so that if I was looking for educated education, that would really help me solidify, where I should be focusing and what I should be doing. Right.
Okay. Yeah, so you found eat so if someone’s listening, like you found like, the, the, the hub to go if you wanted to learn more is polyface. Is that? I mean, is it? Is it a like, Is it just a huge farm? Or is it like, yes,
so because it’s sad? Yeah. So tech, yeah. Yeah. polyface is owned and run by Joel Salatin. And so he was in food Inc. He was in Omnivore’s Dilemma. So he’s a major figure in the farming world. So yeah, he travels all over the world speaking. And has written probably at Gosh, I think 10 or 12 books. So yeah.
I just said, Can I intern or did they have that program? All right.
Yeah, they have an incredibly rigorous program. Usually they get around 220 250 applicants a year. And so you first have to make your way through a paper, the process of like interview, and then you go for if you’re lucky and get slipped through that level. You go for an on farm Checkout, and that’s like two or three days and they They bring like 40 to 50 people on farm to try them out. And then you out of that get selected down to usually eight to 10 per year.
So this is a big huge deal that you even got picked to go.
Yeah, they say the Rick the application process is more rigorous, rigorous, and numbers than, you know, the yellow Harvard.
Yeah, yeah. And so your wife also did that process. And she was picked. Is that right? Is that?
Yeah. Yeah, we did not know each other before that. And we didn’t even like, when we met, you know, that spring that, that June, when we both arrived for the summer to work. And, you know, we, we, you know, I think but we didn’t really understand I have my personality is very intense. And she’s a lot more laid back. So she didn’t really get me for the first couple months. But you know, by the fall, we were kind of like, Oh, this this actually might work out. So you know, after after that, that that later that fall, we actually started dating.
Okay, all right. Cool. So that’s cool. Because you had like this common theme in your life, which was the farming that kind of brought you together?
Absolutely. Yeah.
So now Okay, so now it’s all coming together for me. I’m getting it. So Alright, so then you both get married, and you decide you’re going to relocate to Ohio?
Yes. Yeah. So it was the one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life was to, you know, make the decision to shut that farm down. I mean, we had, you know, a lot of employees, we had incredible customer base. And it was a really beautiful, really great operation. So that was something that was tough, too, for me to work through and
closed it and you didn’t just like sell it to somebody else or have someone take it over.
Yeah, so we so this is another thing that really made me think and focus on the the education is we basically said, Alright, we’re gonna we’re gonna stop this farming, but this is great collection of land, a great collection of equipment and a great collection of customers. You know, it’s a business. Yeah. So, two of my great guys, I said, hey, look, they didn’t want to purchase the business. But they were they wanted to, you know, take over. So I rented them my equipment, and we told our customers look, we’re shutting down, but these guys are taking over an aspect of it. And gave them you know, basically gave them you know, they had everything my my customer lists my wholesale list, they had their pick of the employee crew, and they ran that business into the ground in 18 months.
Oh, no way. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Because you’ve grown this, you love this thing. You’ve trusted it to somebody else, but they don’t know how to run it. And so did that help kind of ignite this? Like, I have to help farmers?
Yes. How to run the farms. Yeah. And they had? Yeah, and it’s they, they Yeah, so it’s interesting, because they had like, even our SAP manuals and everything. So they had just followed the process. Yeah, they could have made it work. But what it is, is in farming in anything, it’s just not one skill. So if you know how to make screws, you can’t have a screw business. If you you know, decide to be a doctor, you can’t just have a doctor practice, there’s so many other things on farms, and any business that you have to learn and manage to, to have a successful business. And you also it’s the difference between, you know, doctors who make little bit of money, they’re usually working for somebody else out of practice compared to a doctor who, you know, is doing well, and they own a practice, because there’s all those other skills in there, that and so when I thought, you know, we just watched those that that, you know, there was a cycle, a vicious cycle, that they just they just tore them right down until they went out of business. Um, so it’s, it was it was it was it was sad on one aspect too, but it was all started us thing really started us, you know, starting to a little bit poke at what is this that’s making people successful? And what’s making people fail at farming?
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, so Okay, so now, so did you figure it out? Did you figure out like, what’s the link? And what is it the same thing with everybody?
Yeah, so it’s not the same thing with everything. But what we’ve kind of looked at, and one of the other huge focuses of my life has been, you know, I did not go to college, I took two classes and realized I can read the book, you know. And so I, you know, usually read between 50 and 60 books a year, and really focus on you know, business and what makes businesses tick. And what it comes down to is, we’ve actually distill that now, we hope we’re constantly evolving this, but I’ve been working with a friend of mine who actually does business stuff, we kind of brought it down to a five part framework, which we call the ripened formula. All right, so the first one says, are for routine and so that’s more locking yourself into growing yourself and knowing how you function as a person. So there’s personal development stuff, you have to be able to manage like your time, like your thought process, like your mindset to be to be a business owner, right? You have to get up and be able to get out there and get work done and make decisions and stuff. So that to me is the first part of the routine you have to go through. The second part is the invent. And that’s what we call it invent your business, what that means is, every single business farming business is a little bit different. You can’t go out, you know, just exactly copy somebody else. And it’s going to work. So you’ve got to be constantly evolving your business, constantly inventing how you the direction of your company’s going. And so that’s, you know, running the numbers do in a business plan, you know, figuring out how many staff you want to have. And then the third part, and so everyone gets this wrong, they usually put the third part first is the producer mastery. And so this is where you’re focused on actually learning how to grow your crops, or actually learn how to, you know, put seeds in the ground. And you know, let’s say, raise chickens. That’s the actually producer mastery. And the other aspect about that is a lot of people struggle through not knowing what they don’t know, in that area. And then also not understanding what success looks like. So I’ve been the farms, which are a disaster. And you know, I could never work there. And I know, they’re not making any money, and they clearly aren’t. But they think that’s what normal is, and they think that’s what they should be. So they’re content there. But unless you get outside of your shell and go see what success looks like, you’re not going to understand that. Oh, my gosh, a farm can look like x. And that’s something to strive for.
Yeah. You know, that’s, that is so true. Because in our mindset, right, is that like, farming is hard. Yeah. Right. And, and and if somebody’s listening, I think these, the things you’ve talked about so far, could go for any entrepreneur for any business?
Will? Absolutely, yeah. And I think I guess what we’re saying with this, our framework is, farming is just like another business. Obviously, there’s some massive, incredible hardships, because you’re dealing with Mother Nature and the weather dealing with, you know, a very skewed political food movement, which is not skewed toward the low salt farmer. Mm hmm. So, but it can go for any business. So, you know, I think that’s why, you know, and I know, in our business right now, their consulting business, I’m about 20%, of where we want to be, just be when we started a year ago, and now there’s only one there’s only me. So it’s, it’s a it’s, it’s, I’m, I struggle every single day. And I know this is not like I want it, but it’s gonna be better, right? Yes. Because
you’re following a process, right? So yes, and I can see this even as you’re talking, and I want to get to the E and the end and the ripened formula. But like, I can see even as you’re talking like I I look back on my entrepreneurial journey over the past year and a half of this part of I had another business and sold it and now I’m here. But that same thing, I thought the producer, that’s where I thought I got to get good at this good at this good at this. And then when I finally stopped and go, No, I got to get really good at like the routine, the marketing the like, all of that stuff, then it’s that’s when it started to click.
Yes, no, absolutely.
So what’s the Give me the E M love it?
Yes, the E is the engine. So that’s the moving parts that make your farm run smoothly. So so many farms get to where they’re producing a lot of product, but then you know, they are so frazzled, and everything is going all over the place. And they just can’t manage it. And we had a farm that went out of business near us that they went out of business because they couldn’t, they couldn’t handle the stress. And they want it they were like, do we continue farming? Or do we have kids and they want to have kids in their life, and I don’t blame them, they just they knew that if the kid or kids came, it would just create a whole nother level of stress they could just not manage, right. And so we want to teach people how to be able to farm and have your family and just have the life you know, when you come home at five o’clock every night, take time off. So the engine contains learning, you’re figuring out systems and standard operating procedures, which slps you know, Selena, learning your bottlenecks, cleaning those up, and then hiring and training the right team. So, you know, obviously, if you’re a solopreneur, you can only do so much. But when you start having to be able to hire people, you can leverage them to grow your business, and it’s exponential from there. So, you know, obviously we talk with our growers about All right, so when you’re harvesting, you have to give a you know, $40 an hour base price, you have to harvest least $40 an hour product to make it profitable. So if you’re paying, you know, someone $15 an hour, now you have a $25 profit right there. So that’s kind of we talked about with our farmer people about you know, leveraging those people that are helping you in the business to grow your business. Yeah, and it was, yeah, there’s all sorts of opportunities on all levels there for people to do but the last one, so we move on from the engine to the end, which is the needs of your customers. So this is the marketing side. So this is understanding where your customers need this is understanding how to reach them. Understand that Their avatar, and then how to connect with them, whether it be through, you know, the social media aspects or you know, through the marketing process which you’re building your farm around.
Yes, yeah. I really love that. And it’s really taking a look at farming as a business. Yes. And which do you think that’s a shift for farmers? Like when? Yeah, so they’re not thinking of it that way. How are they thinking about farming? Like lifestyle? Like?
Yeah, so there’s a couple ways. So a lot of people started in the homesteading, they bought some land, they moved out to the country, they raised a couple goats, they said, but oh my gosh, this is now expensive, we wanna start making money at this. And so then they start trying to make money at this. But if they don’t get the right resources, and don’t put it together as business, they’re just going to, you know, be churning just keep dumping money into this normally. Another way they’re looking at it is the organic movement and sustainable movement, which, you know, a lot of the farmers we work with, they’re in that movement, yeah, came out of the hippie movement, which was the whole, you know, free love, and let’s just give everything to everybody. But the problem is with that, is that’s not running it as a business and so frequently, that those aspects, they just they just, they didn’t feel like they needed to make money or wanted to make money. You know, food should be a basic right. But I understand where they’re coming from by also understand that you have to live. And they also understand the main prenat premise of being sustainable, is first being sustainable financially so that you can continue to farm for years to come.
Yeah, I see this when with entrepreneurs all the time. Like where you feel like the thing you have is so like, how do you exchange money for that? And I always tell people I’m working with is that it’s an exchange of love. Right? Yeah. So you’re loving them by giving them the food, and they can love you back by giving you the money? And that’s a fair trade.
Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Now as a consultant to it’s, it’s because our rates are a lot steeper than I ever thought we would ever be at. But just I realized, a couple of reasons why they’re high is obviously our demand is so great, we have to keep them higher, I wouldn’t have a life at all right? Because we’re already bookings eight weeks out right now. And that’s gonna, that’s going to go up here, probably, you know, a couple weeks, because I’m trying to take on some of these other projects, I just have to cut down on the consulting time. But, too, we found that the more you pay for something, the more you value it. So yeah, if I was in someone, like I found someone online that for $15, you can hire them to consult for your farm an hour. And if I was paying $15 an hour, I probably really wouldn’t listen to it.
Right. And I put a lot of stock into it. Because I’d be like, if you’re that cheap, you probably don’t really know a lot. Otherwise, you’d be more
expensive. Yeah, yes. So I mean, we are expensive. But I think, you know, when we come in and work with a client, we always over deliver. And we always give them extra time, we always give them extra resources. And we always try to have be there when the follow up. Just give them as much information as possible in the follow up.
So tell me what you have. So give everybody your website.
Yeah, yeah. So it’s in the field. consultants.com.
Okay. And then if they go there, they they can hire you for for as a consultant, but also you’ve got another thing you’re cooking up, right?
Yeah, yes, we got a couple things. So we first started doing some mini courses. So we actually teach people how to take a washing machine and turn into a salad spinner. And we have over 150 people that have bought our course on that and are enrolled and are doing that, because, yeah, it’s the fastest way to dry your salad and the quickest. And it’s just such a great process.
And so this is something like you’d need if you were a vegetable farmer.
Absolutely. Yep. Yes.
I’m thinking like, if you’re not the duggars, you might not need like that much. But like I get it from a business perspective. Okay. Yeah,
yes. Yeah. Yeah. So this will take us like, seven to 10 pounds of salad mix at a time and dry it within 90 seconds. That’s so cool. Okay. Yeah. So we, we ended up putting a course together about it. And we’ve actually done a couple workshops about it now. And we actually ship finished machines across the country in the Canada. So it’s a it’s a it’s a direction we never thought would take off. But it really has, you know, taken off. Yeah. Because
it’s a need, right?
Yeah, absolutely. It’s a huge need. So we do that. But right now, we’re working on something we call small farm university or small farm you. And so, you know, we just finished talking about how expensive consulting is, because it’s one on one, you know, there’s a lot of my time and you know, I’m on the phone frequently at night when I should be hanging out my family. But the problem with you know, farms are working all day and so they want to salting that night. So we have to get him frustrated and having to drop some clients. I you know, I said you know what, we’ve got to change how we do this. So the premise with the small farm University is that we build out a membership site that has courses on all the questions that we keep getting as consultants. So you know, a lot of the stuff we get is alright, how do I get to start making money on my farm, alright, so there’s a process for that. First, you have to look at your What your crops are, what you’re actually getting per square foot, you know, what your, what you can sell what your market wants, just the whole process there. They’ll come to us and say, what how do I build the right greenhouse? And so there’s a whole process there. Okay, so you know, what crops you know, where are you in the country, you know, what manufacturers are nearby, that kind of stuff. So we’re creating those courses. And then we’ll also take in all the resources that we use on our farm. And I’m collecting as I travel the country, because that’s my go to new location, I’ll be like, okay, so I’m working with the farmers say, Where do you get x from when you get y from and so then I’ll take that information. And that will go in the membership site as well. So we’re creating basically a farm network. So a farmer, you say, All right, I’m gonna start a farm x location. And so they can immediately go in there and say, Oh, these places for supplies are all local. This is where people getting compost. This is where people are getting, you know, pots. This is where people are, you know, this is the best farmers markets in that area. So we’re creating really a support network, a crop for farmers in the US and abroad to because we’re, we already know we’ll have some some foreign may people join the site. And we’re building it around this framework, this ripen framework, because there’s those things are what people need to focus on. So
so far, so somebody if they’re thinking like, I really want to start a business, and I’ve always loved to garden, or do whatever they could actually join, could they join your membership site and start from scratch? Like, like, investigate how to really do this and start to build a business?
Yes, yeah. This will be more on the business side. So obviously, we’ll have things on how to use certain tools and how to do that sort of stuff. Yeah, our our company also, you know, of course, in there will be links to other resources. Like one of the other big projects that I’m on is the never sink farm project. So this is a farm in the Hudson Valley, which is one of the highest grossing acre farms in the US. They do about 350,000 on 1.5 acres of production. And that a lot Is that a lot? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, most corn farmers are, you know, yeah, it’s, or even vegetable farmers are making you know, 20 to 30,000 per acre.
Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that is highly efficient. He only works four days a week on the farm. And I’m just, you know, he’s Yeah, he’s just, he’s, he’s dialed it in and you speak computer programmer. And when you ever computer programmer, you really figure out your systems, because you have. And so he has basically taken that knowledge and transferred it to building a farm. And it’s just incredible. So we’re, we’re almost all the way done with that course. And that’s going to be a signature online, it’s not going to be cheap. But if someone really wants to learn how to farm that way, then that will be you know, obviously won’t be in the membership. But that will be something that, you know, we can reference, and people can buy In addition, and they can have access to that information as well.
Right, right. And cheap is really relative like I, you know, I say when I talk to people like I, you know, I can get you from here to here, in way less time than it would have taken you. So how much is that saving you? Which is really what you’re doing? Yeah.
So yeah, this course, I mean, we’re gonna be like, 1200 dollars, I think on the price for this course. But that price can sit Can you can make that back bucket. Yeah, that’s nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz our farm is, you know, a farm, the build out a farm with the necessary infrastructure, you need to start making a living is probably $100,000. Right. And with that horse, you can shave off $20,000. And the beauty of this course is is all about doing things more efficiently. So it’s about saving your time. And this time is the one resource that we all have a finite amount of rice, right. And that’s the number one thing that farmers struggle with is just working way too many hours, I was consulting with a company up in the northeast, doing very large greens operations, so 30 acres of you know, cut greens, and they were spending 100 hours per week working on their farm. And that’s just completely unsustainable. There’s absolutely no way that you know, you can keep that up for without being burnt out. Yeah. So that’s kind of what we’re focused on here is, you know, helping people figure out those systems, from the business side to the marketing side to the farming side, that lien up their operation, reduce the number of hours they’re working, and give them the life they want to enjoy.
I love that. So if someone’s listening, and they’re not a farmer, but how can they support small farms? Like what can we do as regular old?
Yeah, yeah. That is a great question. So the biggest thing is to connect with your local food community. So through that, may that be through a farmers market or CSA or you know, your local farm stand? that’s just that’s the best way just meet your local farmer and say, hey, how can we support you? Yeah, what’s the best way for us to get involved? Yeah. Yeah. And there’s all sorts of the US is as great small farms all around the US. I mean, we’re starting to see even inroads into you know, the deeper south and even the Florida where, you know, originally this the local food movement started in the northeast and the West coast but now it’s moved all over the country, even to little tiny towns in Nebraska. So we were out at the little tiny town called Madrid, Nebraska working a couple weeks ago. Yeah, I mean, it’s cool standing there. And it’s corn as far as the eye can see. And an ethanol plant. Yeah, this little tiny farm there. And they’re, they’re looking to change their their local community too. So
it’s really cool. You know, I live outside Atlanta, and we have a lot of really great local farmers markets. And they’re really fun. And you can get, you know, everything from wild flowers to grass fed beef, you know, all kinds of stuff. So, it is always fun to go and check out and see what everybody has, you know, we have hours on Thursday night, and it’s sort of the thing, you know, we go to the bank, get our cash. We go to go to get our stuff for the week. And yeah, and it’s always fun, and you always feel a little bit better, right, like you’re eating a little bit healthier. You’re getting stuff right from the source that hasn’t been sitting on a truck for a week, you know? Yes. All that just you feel healthier?
Yep. Yeah, it’s a really interesting looking at the shelf life and the nutritional value of local food, compared to the stuff that is sitting, you know, a solid week to 10 days on a truck coming from the west coast or from Mexico or now from China. And Holland. Yes. So, yeah. Yeah, again, that personal connection is just and it’s a lot safer to because the food safety is really starting to become a larger thing.
Yeah, I love this. Thank you so much, Michael, for being on this was fascinating. And I loved to hear your story. And really your passion for helping small farmers. I think it’s really awesome. And I hope everybody that listens, kind of gives a search, you know, jump on the internet and give a search and try to find where you can connect with local small farmers and support them.
Yeah, no, thanks so much, Betsy, for having me on. I really appreciate it. And it’s, yeah, it’s a passion for me. And because I’ve been offered several jobs in industry, and I was actually, for a year and a half was working in industry. And I had the opportunity to really climb rapidly there. But I was like, You know what, this isn’t for me, I need to be back, you know, sharing my knowledge with farmers because, you know, there’s, that’s it’s been under developed and under appreciated for so long. And there’s, there’s a way to do it. And as we we in our farm, it was very successful and very fluid. And we could take our vacations when we needed to just to get our life back. So
yeah,
yeah, you did such a great thing that you’re doing and how cool I really love that you stayed true to the vision of what you wanted for you. That’s huge. So that’s always my message to everybody on the show, too.
Well, thank you.
Thanks for being on. I appreciate it, and I loved getting to talk to you.
Alright, thanks so much.
Thanks for spending some time with me today. Remember, you can find me inside my facebook group at SS lB community.com. That stands for start small live big community.com. And as always, here’s a little message from my husband.
That’s it.
