AJ Richards: Upholding a Legacy of Resilient Ranching and Navigating Food System Challenges

What if your family's legacy was defined by generations of resilience and a steadfast commitment to ranching? Join us on Chef Sense as we welcome AJ Richards, a fifth-generation rancher from St. George, Utah, who opens up about his family’s homesteading roots and their ongoing battles with the Bureau of Land Management.  AJ Shares with us his new venture of creating a food purchasing platform to connect consumers to the local and regional farmers of their area. 
We dive deep into the complexities and corruption within our food systems, from the interplay between big food and big pharma to the critical issues surrounding imported beef and market manipulation. Learn about the efforts of R-CALF USA in advocating for independent cattle producers and the significant role of consumer empowerment in supporting regional farms. This episode uncovers the multifaceted challenges facing the American beef industry and emphasizes the importance of understanding where our food comes from to make informed and impactful choices.

Thank you AJ Richards and team!
https://fromthefarm.io/
https://www.r-calfusa.com/

Thank you to our listeners!!

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We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host, guest or the management. All right reserved under Chef Sense Podcast and Chef Massey, LLC.

Transcript

Chef James: 0:14

Hey everyone, welcome to Chef Sense. I'm your host, chef Massey. Okay, so today on the podcast. Aj Richards, thanks so much for being on.

AJ Richards: 0:22

Yeah, james, thanks for asking man. I was super excited to get the email and invitation.

Chef James: 0:27

Yeah, and you do cover a lot of initiatives and what you're working on. Can we start at the beginning just about, like AJ Richards, how? Because I think sometimes the upbringing and nurturing grows into the passion. So would you mind sharing that?

AJ Richards: 0:40

Yeah, for sure, and that's definitely the situation in my case. I grew up in a small town. At least when I was growing up was a small town called St George, utah. It's just outside of Zion National Park. For anybody that's kind of more familiar with the national parks in Utah, oh cool, my family homesteaded 60 miles south of there on the Arizona Strip. Oh, so, north side of the Grand Canyon, okay, and we call it. You know, it's known as Bundyville to some. Okay, my family are the Bundy Ranchers. Some people will know that name, others won't, but if you do a Google search of Bundy Ranchers, you'll find plenty of information on them. Oh cool, Okay, they are known for taking on the federal government in 2014 and then 2016,.

AJ Richards: 1:34

Fighting for the rights of basically grazing rights. They settled that in 1916 when they made that available for homesteading and homesteading. Now people think of it as buy a piece of land and grow some food. You know, be, be, be, self-sustaining. That's similar to what it what used to be, but back in the day it was. Here's a piece of ground in an uninhabitable area. Good luck If you want to go and stake your flag there and put a fence up.

AJ Richards: 2:03

You can homestead it Right, right, and then look if you want to go and stake your flag there and put a fence up, you can homestead it right, right, right, and then you have to be self-sufficient because the grocery store is not a backup land, because it doesn't exist. Yeah, so that was old school homesteading, but my family did that in 1916. And so growing up, my family are five generations of ranchers. I'm the city slicker cousin, I say because I didn't grow up on a ranch myself.

AJ Richards: 2:29

I just got to do the cattle drives and the brandings as often as I could as a kid and have multiple topics, but the primary topics that I remember as a kid were around the control of the Bureau of Land Management, otherwise known as the BLM the original BLM, okay, and they regulate how land is managed, like public lands, uh, like the like, um, public lands.

AJ Richards: 3:07

So they they're, uh, they're like the park service, they're like like the national forest service, um, but they're their own entity, they're under the department of the interior. So I would grow up hearing these family meetings about these water rights being reduced or taken away and these grazing rights being threatened. And you know there's a special beetle they have found and so now you're not allowed to do this on your ranch anymore to protect the beetle, which. That beetle ended up wiping out millions of trees and causing some major forest fires in the West because of, you know, those policies to protect those beetles. So, yeah, growing up that's what it was like, and so I had a really strong introduction into the importance of agriculture and its relationship in our life and it certainly has shaped me to be who I am.

Chef James: 3:56

Yeah, that's amazing Hearing all that.

Chef James: 3:59

Coming from a farming family myself, you know Northern California and my uncle was ag commissioner of Siskiyou County up there and you know another uncle worked in the ag, another ag well, unfortunately, ag chem company so there was a lot of like involvement, not just with our farm but as they, you know, kind of went along. And it's funny how it's interesting how these things you know, when you're, when you're raised around special people like that, it just kind of resonates into you and into the fibers of who you are. So that's where I think, looking at your story and the journey you've been through, and also to say thank you is being a veteran, a real warrior of our and to also the men and women that have done that service. So I absolutely wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for all of you. So I was taking a quick second there. But you know, looking at all of this, what you're developing, can you talk about like the beef initiatives and the challenges that you ran to, that kind of fostered, where you had worked on your platform for that software?

AJ Richards: 5:05

Yeah. So I think, like many people, covid changed the trajectory of lots of our lives. Yeah, some good, some bad, you know. And so I was selling beef for my family's ranch. You know, because I'm the city slicker cousin, I didn't inherit a ranch, I didn't. I didn't know how to get into it. Really, I spent my whole life with the, the, the dream of one day being a rancher and having a ranch. And I found myself doing all these little different jobs just to try to make enough money to be a rancher. My last business in Phoenix, arizona, went through a bankruptcy and it moved me back home to St George, utah, and I kind of realized, like man, I'm trying to do all of these things to get into ag and it's not working out. So what if I just go get into agriculture? And so I was in a transition period of my life. So I called my cousin and I said, hey, can I sell beef for your ranch? And he said yes, and so we started working together. His his ranch is called um anchor brand ranch. He's got a really great YouTube channel. Shows a lot of what it's like to live the day in the life on a ranch in the desert of Nevada. So, anyway, started doing that with him towards the end of 2019.

AJ Richards: 6:21

Well then COVID hit and so what would happen is he would raise the animal, deliver it to the slaughterhouse and then I would pick up the finished meat and go and distribute it. So I was handling the sales and marketing and distribution on that side. We started running into the problem after COVID hit that we could not get slaughter. There was no availability. We would call, and previously we would call, and they could get us in, like the next week or the next two weeks. After COVID hit we would call and they're like we can get you in an 18 months. Like holy crap, a year and a half. I got customers that are getting a monthly order of beef and you're telling me I can't get processing for a year and a half. Like business is over.

AJ Richards: 6:59

So what I did is we, or what would happen is, my cousin would then schedule processing for any slaughterhouse that had any room for us and they would deliver it there, and then I'd go find it, you know, go pick it up. And that led to a whole other host of issues. The cutting was the way they would cut, the meat was different, the wrapping was different, the labeling was even different, and so inconsistencies in the brand started to become a problem. And there are so little margins in selling meat anyway that, um, and a lot of people think the farm, you know, because meat's expensive when you buy it direct. They think that they're, they're. Sometimes people think that they're making hand over fist. They're not. They're actually finally just viable. The other way they're not viable and they're working off farm jobs just to pay for the hobby. You know what I mean.

Chef James: 7:50

Right yeah.

AJ Richards: 7:51

And that's why, you know, frankly, that's why we're down to less than 700,000 ranchers in the entire United States. So it was a nightmare. Eventually I had to stop it and shut it down. And then I was. I mean, I was doing whatever I could to make extra money for the family. My wife was holding down the primary, she was the primary breadwinner and I was trying to figure out what the heck I'm supposed to be doing. And I was driving for Instacart.

AJ Richards: 8:16

I was you know, working a part-time working, a job with some friends of mine doing concrete during, you know, during 2020, just whatever I could do, and I think I was driving for Instacart. I'm doing a delivery. St George has surrounding areas where there's livestock, you know, and I'm hearing the news talk about empty store shelves, like there's no food because the supply chain broke. And I mean I can go into details on that if you want, but the supply chain broke and so I'm like geez, I see cattle standing all over in the fields. There is food, we just have a broken supply chain.

Chef James: 8:53

Okay, wow.

AJ Richards: 8:54

We've become so reliant on everything being done for us and convenience.

AJ Richards: 9:00

All I got to do is go to the grocery store, because the grocery store has a buyer that goes and finds the wholesaler that, then that wholesaler goes to the big packer, the big packer is going to the feedlot, who's then going to the auction.

AJ Richards: 9:15

Like all of these steps that have been done for us, that we don't have to put much thought how we eat, and that reared its ugly head in 2020, okay, and so I'm like what if there was a software that existed, that was, that was like airbnb, that would connect the consumer directly with the producer, and that software just did the did its thing, and then the people that were behind the scenes just stayed out of the way and let the consumer go right to the producer, and the producer makes the majority of the revenue, so that they stay viable, so that they pass that on to their next generation, which is great, yeah, and, frankly, so that more people who want to go into growing food have a platform they can sell it. Um, and so that's kind of how the idea was born. I'll be, you know, I'll just be completely frank. This is I'm. I am not this smart, this is an idea that was born of God.

AJ Richards: 10:17

He put that thought in my head and it was my job to just go and put you know, one foot in front of the other. Despite all of my weaknesses, despite all of my self doubts that I'm the right person to even take this on, I just had faith and kept going and and um. You know, it's been four years this month of, oh wow.

Chef James: 10:36

Okay, so a lot of pre-work, I mean that's so. This is like a direct ship situation, am I?

AJ Richards: 10:43

This is like yes, but it's like think of it like Airbnb. Yeah, when you rent an Airbnb, typically it's the owner of the home that's rented that house or room or whatever that looks like. You know, I just went to Austin and we stayed in Airbnb that the homeowner lived there. They just vacated while we were there for a few days.

Chef James: 11:01

Oh, okay.

AJ Richards: 11:02

Yeah, right, and there are some situations like that, and so think of it like that. But now, if I'm the producer, if I'm a farmer and I'm close to you, you can open up our website and, on a map, see who's around you growing and raising food that will sell right to you Now. Our slogan is shake the hand that feeds you.

AJ Richards: 11:23

So now you can get to know me personally, and if there's ever a supply chain disruption, you know where your food came from. So as long as I'm still growing and raising food because you're supporting me, it doesn't matter what's happening at the grocery store. You go right to the source.

Chef James: 11:42

Right, and that's amazing. Well, and here because you know, being in New England, or especially in the Berkshires, when COVID hit us, and that's interesting, you said that because a lot of our local farms here we've got about, I mean it's pre-COVID but it's, you know, 475 farms in this region alone, almost 60,000 acres. So you can see it's like small to mid and it's like, but seeing those farms take off during that burst a lot of the farm stands blew up. I mean we've had a couple of farms that were like erupted to the point they ended up going into a storefront. Wow, I mean it's amazing, it was just so great.

Chef James: 12:26

You know, and I think we had that expendable some people had that more of an expendable income than ever. So you know you're able to buy into and bypass. You know and say, okay, we've got supply chain issues. I'm going to my local farm now and you're obviously getting something so much better but with so much behind it. Anyways, in that story it tells but that was interesting. You know, there is a bit of a drop-off. That's occurred for a number of them too since COVID and things have kind of slipped back to attempting to be normal.

AJ Richards: 13:00

So yeah, humans have the tendency to take the path of least resistance, right, right. And so when you say a little bit more of expendable income, if you're referring to some of those stimulus checks, yes, exactly Correct.

AJ Richards: 13:15

You know that, that. What what I think is important is that consumers understand that the food supply chain exists because we created that, and what I mean by that is is stores do what sales data tells them. Yeah, and so when we buy the junk, they make more junk. Right, because that's that's what we're telling them that we want, and their job as a or as a corporation, as a business, their primary job and fiduciary responsibility is to grow revenue. So they're not going to do higher quality proteins and naturally growing food if the sales data says you should give up more shelf space for bullshit processed food.

AJ Richards: 14:03

Now, when we talk about the cost side of things, we as human beings also like convenience and habit. We like to feed our habits, and so you know there are long-term consequences of buying cheap food that will actually cost you more down the road than the immediate savings you're doing. Now. Well, why would people? Some people will say, well, what if you just don't have the money? That's, that could be true, and in many cases, I believe it probably is true for some people. So what I'm about to say if the shoe fits, then wear it it. If it doesn't, then you don't need to right if your reason for not buying high uh, not buying high quality nutrient dense food is the cost.

AJ Richards: 14:52

I'm going to invite you to look at your other expenses. Sure are you buying cigarettes, alcohol, yeah, you know, cannabis. Are you going out a lot, are you what? What are the other habits that your expenses are going towards, that you're choosing that could otherwise be put towards high quality, nutrient dense food? And then that leads into the next part of that discussion, which a good friend of mine, rc Carter. He owns Carter Country Meats. It's a regenerative ranch in Tensleep, wyoming. He says what's the value of a good idea?

AJ Richards: 15:33

and so his point of that is, if you think about how our body works when we, when we feed our, our, our gut with high uh, highly nutrient dense food, the microbiology, our micro gut biome, is actually, uh, known to be our first brain. So what we feed our stomach feeds the rest of our brain so that we then interact or react in the world based off of what our gut is doing. So if I I am feeling dull or dim just in terms of my neurons firing and my perception of the world, it's probably because of what I'm feeding myself. And if you're stuck in an impoverished position, are you feeding your gut biome in a way that will fuel positive and powerful thoughts that could then possibly pull you out of the situation you're in?

Chef James: 16:31

Right.

AJ Richards: 16:32

Or are you perpetuating that by continuing to eat junk because it's cheap?

Chef James: 16:37

Ultra processed, yeah, ultra processed.

AJ Richards: 16:40

Yeah right.

Chef James: 16:41

Yeah, okay.

AJ Richards: 16:42

And so that I can keep paying for my other habits. Yeah, right, and yeah, okay, and so that I can keep paying for my other habits. So, yes, when you buy like it's, it's changing the concept around what food is worth, and that's why rc is working on this idea that he's going to label his meat. You know how people will label grass-fed and finished or corn right but instead he's looking at labeling it with the nutrient density as well as the selling point. It's amazing, wow OK.

Chef James: 17:10

Yeah, well, that's so interesting and you know, going into that and the complex ag system and the industrial food system that we've built today. You know, in the States, when you're talking about like what we produce I mean even talking to Dr Marion Nessel, who is just, she has the book Food Politics and you know her studies showed her over the many years was that we actually produce twice as many calories than what a man or woman nutritionally needs, and so these large companies are pushing and selling and also going after, you know, the family unit or the children in the school system. It's really, it's really amazing. It's kind of like you know, as you're going into what you're sharing, that this, this is a very large machine that has many different connecting points of power.

AJ Richards: 18:04

Oh yeah, oh yeah. And the average consumer has no idea about how that interacts.

Chef James: 18:11

No.

AJ Richards: 18:13

I think that well, first of all, we know that big food and big pharma are directly connected through their investors, through the people that invest and have a stake pun intended, a stake in the game of both sides. Well, when you can make people chronically ill through poor diet and you have statins and other medications that you can then prescribe them because they're chronically ill, it's a self-perpetuating loop of revenue.

AJ Richards: 18:46

So, what would the incentive ever be of going in a direction that would reduce the need for highly processed foods that make them a ton of money because they're selling an addiction? That's what they're doing. It's a legal addiction. Of course, a lot of other addictions are becoming legalized, but then they're also selling the cure right, right, the medication.

Chef James: 19:12

It's unbelievable. Well, you know talking about that. When you look at like even Latin American countries you know, for example, like Mexico, actually delving into their food system because their healthcare system is linked to the government. This isn't so. It's like, oh, let's make a little change off that. Where you know a lot, of a lot of Latin America, I mean, there's many indigenous, rooted people and some of these food systems that they had there with the ultra processed, the governments were like, wait a minute, there's. The end result here is we're going to have to pay more for this. So they're actually now going in and trying to develop systems where they can educate the children and people you know in their communities, even by, you know, numbering or putting, you know, I don't know kid-friendly like pictures or stamps on these ultra-processed foods so that people can recognize it.

AJ Richards: 20:09

But here we're, like you know, yeah Well, I mean, when you start peeling back the layers of this, you start realizing that we don't live in a free country and our government does not care about us. I mean, you go to other countries and you look at a package of cigarettes. Have you ever seen another country in the package of cigarettes? No, I haven't. They have actual pictures of throat and mouth cancer and gum disease on the package by law so that when you grab that, you're like I'm knowingly consuming something that could create that.

AJ Richards: 20:45

And so like to your point too about other countries, like banning our food. Mexico has now banned, I think they've banned, but the conversation is banning our corn exports.

AJ Richards: 20:58

Oh, my goodness specifically because of glyphosate okay, right so, like you said, they're because their health care is attached to their government and that their one's foot in the bill. They're like, well geez, how do we reduce the cost of this medical bill? Well, we've got to make people healthier. And one thing we know about glyphosate and the corn grown and the gmo process to make glyphosate resistant corn is not good for our people, so we're not going to allow it right, yeah, and I don't.

Chef James: 21:30

I yeah, and I wish that that would, you know, slowly change here.

Chef James: 21:34

I mean, the only thing I can say is some of these you know.

Chef James: 21:37

And another point I wanted to, you know, kind of bring up in that system is and I'm sure you've heard of it, but you know it's it was very intriguing for me as a chef, being a part of that system, seeing how the GPOs, these group purchasing organizations, are put together in a way where it is a software and it tracks and it goes through.

Chef James: 22:04

But you have, for example, myself, if I'm under an umbrella of a certain cross US or global hospitality management firm, if I stay in my compliance percentage of 80% or higher. Typically you want to be higher than that of using that specific broad line distributor at an 80 or 90% or higher plus a manufacturer rebate. So if one of those big groups I get a list of those it's an additional kickback. I mean you know it helps your food costs. I mean it goes to, you know, the corporate office and obviously those deals are signed there. But I think it's, you know it goes into not just the, you know, food and beverage hospitality side but health care and our school systems that are linked into some of these, some of these things that are just feeding off, let alone, the consumer.

AJ Richards: 22:58

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

Chef James: 23:01

But when you look at other examples from abroad where you know they are using, you know, regional farms and they've worked these relationships out. You know let alone I've gone into it too before but like even the seconds you know that are left on a farm that you know aren't, because we're so picky in the grocery store too right, it's got to be a perfect bell pepper.

Chef James: 23:22

So why, does that zucchini have a scratch mark on it? There's something wrong, you know, so it's. You know, we've done this thing where I think we've allowed ourselves to be conditioned to, and also because we put a lot of trust and value in our own politicians and country. I mean this, this monster, has been going on for a long time. You know, and you know, I think you doing what you're doing, um, um, building a network like that. I think it's amazing, you know, and and so like. Right now, when you're doing this, you're in specific areas, but the goal is to go nationwide, right To all regions. Like, are you cutting it up on a map in like four sections? Or I mean that's silly, but you know what I mean. But are you?

AJ Richards: 24:05

Yeah, no, no we. If you go to fromthefarmio right now, you'll see that most of our farms and ranches are on the Rocky Mountain West, because it's where I live. I've got relationships there from a lifetime.

Chef James: 24:18

Well, you've got to start somewhere.

AJ Richards: 24:20

I mean yeah, but we've got. We've now just have a new seller that signed up in Nebraska. We've got somebody who I'm really excited that saw the vision White Oaks Pastures. They're in Bluffton, georgia, and so they're on the platform and Will and Jenny Harris are just incredible people and we're having conversations all the time people popping up that are going to be on the map from all across the nation selling food direct. So, yeah, the goal is so our rollout strategy over time is get whoever we can. It's kind of scattered throughout the country right now.

AJ Richards: 24:58

My first goal is that you'll be able to order from somebody who's within at least two day ground shipping. Okay, sure, that's that's the first goal. Then get, then get enough producers on there. It's in within one day ground shipping and then, ultimately, the long-term vision is that we vision is that farmers and ranchers all across the nation, in every town across the nation, are on the platform so that, no matter where you're at, you can pull it up and meet the person locally who's selling direct.

AJ Richards: 25:27

That was the kind of the awareness that led me to. This is that because I'm the city slicker cousin and I lived in Phoenix, arizona, for 12 years, I knew how to speak urban and I also understood the disconnect between urban and rural and I also know how producers in the rural environments kind of think and operate and what they think of people in the urban side and the lack of communication, the urban side and the lack of communication. And so my vision was we've got to create something that gives them the opportunity to meet each other at on a, in a designated meeting location, so that we can start to recognize that we rely on one another.

Chef James: 26:06

Okay.

AJ Richards: 26:06

The consumers in the urban environments rely on producers to grow and raise their food.

Chef James: 26:12

Yep.

AJ Richards: 26:13

The producers rely on the consumers to buy the food that they're growing and raising.

Chef James: 26:19

Okay.

AJ Richards: 26:19

And if we can cut out all the middlemen and have people do business direct, I as a consumer can ask the producer that any questions that matter to me. Maybe I love corn and grain finished beef. Is this beef on corn and grain? How long is it on corn and grain? Is it genetically love corn and grain finished beef? Is this beef on corn and grain? How long is it on corn and grain? Is it genetically modified corn and grain.

Chef James: 26:37

Going into some of the software and so let's say I, you know, click beef tenderloin or something. So when I click on it it'll tell me the pack size, the description, so kind of like what you're explaining. That will be part of the description, you think, or?

AJ Richards: 26:51

yeah, yeah, so, okay, so, um, I mean, I could almost do a share screen and show you exactly what it looks like. But, um, yeah, but the producers have descriptions on there of what they're offering with those particular packages and what comes with it okay, yeah, nice, all right so some.

AJ Richards: 27:08

Some will sell all a cart, meaning you can load your cart with individual cuts of of meat that you're interested in. Some will sell all a cart, meaning you can load your cart with individual cuts of meat that you're interested in. Some will sell packages like here's an eighth of a cow. You're going to get the exact portion of an eighth of a cow, and so you're going to get a variety, but it's right from our ranch and our farm.

Chef James: 27:25

Oh, that's great. That's a lot of fun.

AJ Richards: 27:28

Yeah, I mean okay Wow.

Chef James: 27:30

All right, you had also done on your podcast, didn't you interview. It was the book. Is it Barron's?

AJ Richards: 27:35

Yeah, yeah, I've got it right here.

Chef James: 27:37

I found that kind of going back to the big machine, but you know, educating listeners too on that. That's an amazing book. I need to read it, but it's kind of like breaking it down. But there's multiple Barron's in that right.

AJ Richards: 27:51

The categories yeah, he, um, austin Frerich, this was his first book. It's called Barons, Money, power and the Corruption of American's Food Industry. So he, uh, I'll tell you, I'll just open up to like the chapter. So he, what he did was he looked at different, um, uh, barons, you know, leaders in industry, moguls, and then followed them and how they got into power. Because anytime you have a baron or a mogul that controls a significant portion of any industry, it destroys competition and it's not a good thing, right? Yeah, because monopoly-wise, right.

AJ Richards: 28:29

Yeah, it's what the Rockefellers did, right? Yeah, it's what the rockefellers did. It's what, um, you know, uh, um, think and grow rich with the author. Uh, geez, it's one of my favorite books and I can't even think about it, but, um, I have to write. Okay, carnegie the name is carnegie. Oh yes, carnegie, of course, right, yeah and so clear back then and the during the industrial revolution, what they did was bring together a group of experts to dominate the steel manufacturing industry right, which they did it.

AJ Richards: 28:59

Yeah, yeah, they did it well, and then not only did they do it, they got enough power that then they created. They're the ones who created the food, uh, the the education system, because they needed to educate. I, I'm sorry, they needed to only educate you enough to work in a factory.

Chef James: 29:17

Oh yeah.

AJ Richards: 29:17

Their factories because they became the barons and they were growing so much they needed laborers. Henry Ford needed laborers on the auto line, and so I can't remember. But there was somebody that was quoted in that Rockefeller organization or network that said that was quoted in that rockefeller organization or network that said we don't need you to learn to be an educator or a poet or a thinker, we don't need those, we have plenty. In other words, me and my aristocrat friends, we've got that part handled. We just need you all to be the laborers. And so he so like in his book hog baron. So the hog industry, which is primarily Smithfield, which is all China now, yeah, they bought that.

Chef James: 29:57

Yeah, I was like whoa what.

AJ Richards: 29:58

Yep, now he's speaking of a specific hog baron, that's not part of that, but still was able to dominate Grain, coffee, dairy berry slaughter which is the big four packers and grocery. So those are the. He followed different leaders that dominated those particular you know, groceries, of course, walmart, the Walton family, sam Walton. So yeah, that's the. That's. Barron's is a phenomenal book that really kind of highlights what we're seeing. And so right now, for the listeners who don't know, in the beef industry specifically, four corporations control 85% of the beef industry, 85. That's dangerous, yeah it is.

AJ Richards: 30:44

And so that's JBS. They're Brazilian-owned. Morfrig they bought out National Beef recently oh really Wow. They bought out National Beef recently oh really Wow. And Morphig is Brazilian owned. Then you've got Cargill, which is an American owned company by an American family. They talk about Cargill, the Cargill family, here. Cargill's in a ton of hot water for doing things that are unethical, especially out in the jungles of South America where they're just destroying the rainforest to grow soybeans and all this kind of stuff for their feed operation. And then Tyson. Tyson is a multinational conglomerate, which probably means it's owned mostly by China who knows? But those are the four companies that control 85% of the market. That's why, when the beef packing houses closed because of COVID sickness, it caused major disruption across the nation because we've become so centralized.

Chef James: 31:41

Right, right. And I've noticed too that some of these big, these corporate, these complex manufacturers, they've actually used COVID as an opportunity to like cut back on their inventory that they offered.

AJ Richards: 31:56

Yeah they're gonna stream the pricing.

Chef James: 31:58

Yeah and didn't right, so that I found that was very interesting. Can you discuss the that whole usda thing? I think that was, was it march 12th or 11th that?

AJ Richards: 32:08

uh, the ban that went on with that man, there's a lot of stuff going on the foreign meat ban on how yeah.

AJ Richards: 32:17

So there's two, two major things that happened recently. One, they were trying to pass the approval to import beef from paraguay. Um, about 20, 25 years ago, paraguay was importing beef, but they had an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, which is the scariest disease in terms of impact on herds that we could ever have, and so they shut them down because of that. And recently they tried to approve, 25 years later, that they could start importing beef from Paraguay again. And there's a few issues with that, one being that they haven't gotten rid of put-in-bouth disease in their country for one. Two, why are we importing more beef, furthering the issues that plague our producers, which is price fixing and fluctuating of the market? Now, I believe we need imported beef right now because we do currently have a food system that, if we didn't have imported beef, we don't have enough. In the United States, we are at 1950s cattle numbers with 2024 population, so we have to have imported beef just to live, but we should not be bringing in beef from places that have issues related to them.

Chef James: 33:35

Right.

AJ Richards: 33:36

And then the mislabeling right, yeah, and so the second thing is so that got shut down and no longer allowing Paraguayan beef to come in. There was enough pressure, enough attention. The next thing was what is known as MCOOL, and that acronym stands for Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling, which was already a law. They just were not enforcing it, because Canada and Mexico complained of basically not being fair.

Chef James: 34:02

Somebody's not playing nice in the sandbox.

AJ Richards: 34:04

Yeah. And so they threw a fit like that's not fair, you're not allowing us to be a part of a fair market, and it was attached to other trade agreements, so it's not as simple as we all make it out to be. But I listen, I'm an American first person. That's just who I am. Do I think that if, if you look at the world from space, are there borders that you can see from space around the globe? No, there are not. I think in a perfect world, god meant us all to be together, but also we live in a world where our cultures are so different that we have to have borders to protect ourselves, and also we need to protect our American farmers and ranchers first and make sure they are the ones that we have a priority over. And that recently was changed. So it's a little weak in the way they've done it. You know it's a political move. So like they didn't just outright say mandatory country of origin, like no matter where it comes from, you have to label it where it comes from.

Chef James: 35:04

Okay.

AJ Richards: 35:04

All they said was it's voluntary. Pork beef from Brazil or Canada or Mexico. I can no longer, because up until well, even right now, until 2026, if it says USA on it, if it has a USA sticker, most likely is not from the USA. That was the problem. If I had beef in Brazil and I killed it in Brazil and shipped it over in reefers on a super tanker and then further processed it in the United States, I could put a USA sticker on it and now you, the consumer at the store, think it's a product of the USA. What was changed was in 2026, they can't put USA on it, but they don't have to put anything, so it's voluntary, which I think is weak. I think it should the law should state that if it's whatever country it's from, there should be a sticker on there that says Brazil, uruguay, paraguay, canada.

Chef James: 36:05

Mexico, whatever.

AJ Richards: 36:08

So the customer knows, so that you can choose, and what they're doing is trying to hide that from you.

Chef James: 36:14

So in your advice and I'm just this is just throwing something out there. In what you've seen, is there like a percentage or numbers where you know we were here with our ranchers and you know producing and slaughter our beef here, but because of the big four and where we're at today, we've seen this percentage drop. I mean we've lost a lot of them, right?

AJ Richards: 36:39

The numbers. Yeah, oh yeah. The numbers I can tell you is that in 1980, that's when Reagan changed the antitrust laws that allowed this company to gobble up this company and then this company got you know that so now they could buy out and consolidate. So Reagan changed that in 1980. That allowed that to happen. In 1980, the big four there was more than four of them and they had different names back then. Jbs was not around in 1980. They only controlled 25% of the market and now it's 85. Now I don't know the number of farms and ranches that were around then, but what I can tell you now is that we have less than 2% of our entire American population growing and raising food in the country. So less than 2% of our population is growing food for the other 98%. If the worst case scenario happened where imports stopped, what do you think that means?

Chef James: 37:41

Famine, it's total famine.

AJ Richards: 37:44

Let me show you this book, this other book, and you probably saw me talk about it it's Red Famine. Red Famine talks about communist collectivization of farms during Stalin's reign. Started with Lenin, then went into Stalin and because they became centralized, they estimate that nobody knows because they hit it, but 4 million people starved to death. Famine from 1932 to 1933.

Chef James: 38:09

Wow.

AJ Richards: 38:09

The book is just so eye-opening because, when you look at what is happening in our country specifically related to the food supply chain, there are policies being put in place, decisions being put in place, like this whole fake issue with the carbon, with global warming. That's all fake. And I think it's fake to control our food because, if I can say, your cows are the problem and just like in Irelandireland I think it was they want to kill 200 000 head of cows. Yeah, so if I can, I'm going to kill your cows, but don't worry, james, I've got a proprietary blend of ingredients to make a, a food out of the factory that gives you all the nutrients you need. Just trust me, it's going to be good for you and our carbon footprint is lower, which also is bullshit.

AJ Richards: 38:58

But now I think it's related to what's called intellect, what I what. I don't call it anything, it's just what it is intellectual food property. Because if it's my ingredients, if it's my formula, you don't have a choice but to buy it for me, just like, like in the pharmaceutical industry, if I outlaw all the natural medicines growing of the earth and I have the proprietary ingredient. For you know if cannabis can help with muscle aches, but I'm not allowed to smoke cannabis. I can only buy ibuprofen.

Chef James: 39:29

Yeah, right, yeah.

AJ Richards: 39:31

I can't make ibuprofen, so my only choice is to buy it from the pharmaceutical company that makes ibuprofen Right. Right, as you know, just as an.

Chef James: 39:39

As an example, what do you think about like, with all this going on and throwing in this whole lab grown meat thing Like the I call it the Petri dish to table? Yeah.

AJ Richards: 39:49

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's just, it's more, it's just more of what I just described intellectual food property.

Chef James: 39:57

Okay, okay.

AJ Richards: 39:59

And they're going to vilify natural food that's been on this planet for tens of thousands of years. For thousands of years, right Since the dawn of man, we've eaten meat. Now, that's wrong and not healthy for us or the planet. So here's the alternative, which is, you know, petri, dish food.

Chef James: 40:18

Yeah, right, right, and I mean it's getting sort of shut down to a certain extent, isn't it?

AJ Richards: 40:26

I mean definitely Italy. But Well, yeah, and this is what I want people to hear Like, this is a very concerning and daunting fight. The more I get into it, the more I see the actors behind the scenes that most people aren't, that I wasn't aware of prior to COVID, the more I'm concerned, and I also have hope and faith in miracles, because look what we did and when I say we, us, the consumers, look what we did to Beyond Meat. We destroyed that company. Nobody, we, the, the, the con. You've heard the term voting with your dollar man. That is. That is absolutely legitimate. And if you look at what's happening with companies like Beyond Meat, they can shout and yell all they want and pay for all these marketing ads and all these different things.

AJ Richards: 41:16

Right right if we just choose to spend our money somewhere else, it don't matter what they say, it goes nowhere and eventually they flop.

Chef James: 41:24

And so right and you know it's just so much better to keep the money at home and in your community when you buy food local.

AJ Richards: 41:31

I read, I read somewhere that when you buy local food, 70 percent of that money stays local.

Chef James: 41:37

Which is huge, it's a must. I mean, they're your neighbor.

AJ Richards: 41:42

If you look at what Will Harris did at White Oaks Pastures in Bluffton, georgia, that town was a ghost town. A ghost town because agriculture got destroyed and Atlanta was three hours away. Everybody moved into the city and left town because they couldn't afford it, because people weren't buying food from their local producers anymore. They changed that entire town. 80% of the people in town now work at White Oaks Pastures.

Chef James: 42:07

That's awesome and it's a thriving bustling community now because of local food, local food.

Chef James: 42:13

Yeah, yeah, and that's you know, it's very interesting too because, like even here, we have some, you know, pretty amazing people that are working on putting things together. It's they have a hard time of, they get bottlenecked, whether it be transportation or slaughterhouse opportunity, and then you know, like you said before, they're spending money. You know on that which it's a cost, and these things add up and then it goes to the consumer and and then you know, like you said before, they're spending money, you know on that which it's a cost, and these things add up and then it goes to the consumer and and prices go up and and it's a challenge, you know, and I think, working from different organizations here that are coming together to try to, you know, figure out how they can put this thing together. They've been working really hard on that. So you know, it would be great, it would be great to see that come to fruition and they're building it and working hard, so it's pretty cool.

Chef James: 43:06

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, you know I was looking at the RCAF USA for some of us over here. Can you kind of explain? You know them a little bit and I know that you you're a huge supporter of them and they're amazing too.

AJ Richards: 43:17

Yeah, I am and I'm glad you asked. So our CAF there there's a. My observation is all of the legacy groups I'll say companies or nonprofits groups that have been around for decades We've now seen them become compromised. They've been bought and paid for by special interests, whether it's lobbyists or corporations doing business directly with them through sponsorships or whatever. So they've been compromised.

AJ Richards: 43:48

Rcaf was stood up in response to that happening in the cattle industry. There's an organization and I won't throw them under the bus enough so I won't call them out by name but there's an organization and I won't I throw them under the bus enough so I won't call them out by name but there's an organization that is that legacy organization and they're compromised. And here's why I say that so plainly. Look at the industry. Is it better or worse than when you started advocating? If it's worse, meaning worse prices, lower numbers in cattle producers, all of these issues that everybody's facing? If it's worse, why You're not doing your job? Then why aren't you doing your job? The cattle industry would be thriving. The other industries that were supporting the other enterprises, like lamb and pork and chicken, they would all be thriving, but none of those agencies did their job.

AJ Richards: 44:47

Right and so yeah, so RCAF recognized this, and so they are taking a stand for the independent cattle producer.

Chef James: 44:55

And, by the way, cattle is the last.

AJ Richards: 44:58

They're the last bastion of freedom in terms of industry that we have left in our country. Pork industry is destroyed, the chicken industry is destroyed and the lamb industry 75% of the lamb sold in the United States is imported. Yes, so our calf is the ones who go to war in Washington to fight these battles legally, like the M-Cool, like RFID ear tags for cows that can track every movement, which is a whole nother you know. Yeah, I saw that too. That's what I'm saying when I said earlier, like if you pull back the layers and you start looking at the corruption, it's scary and the average person doesn't know this. I think that the best thing our country could benefit from is if every single consumer decided they were going to learn about their food, which I don't think is too much to ask, because human beings need three things food, shelter and safety, and food being number one. I put water in with that. So anybody that's going to harp on me for it, get off your high horse, but we have this excuse. I'm too busy worrying about my own industry or my own job or my own hobbies or whatever. None of the rest of your life matters without food. None of it Throughout history.

AJ Richards: 46:13

There's evidence when you read a book like this and you wonder why people felt no sorrow when their own father starved and died, laying in front of them. I mean, there's examples of kids saying to hell with them, I'm hungry. Dad literally just starved to death in front of them and they don't care. A position where you have no remorse because you are so hungry that it doesn't register in the brain the way it does now. And that's just one example.

AJ Richards: 46:44

Viktor Frankl wrote a book called Man's Search for Meaning. Viktor Frankl was a Jewish prisoner in the concentration camps and then became a psychologist. And when people said why didn't you guys stand up against your captors? There were thousands of you prisoners and only you know a dozen or so guards and he said his answer was when you are truly starving to death, you don't think about anything else other than your next meal, including shoveling your neighbor's ashes out of a kiln. Now, those aren't his words exactly, but that's what he's saying. So every human being in the united states should be invested in knowing personally their, where their food supply comes from and what it does to their body right so rfids is one of these other things.

AJ Richards: 47:29

it's it's tags for the cows here, because, like I said, ranchers are the last bastion of freedom, meaning nobody controls them, not by and large. They have taxes and insurance and grazing fees and water rights. They're always battling. That's a level of control, but truly nobody controls them. They don't have crop farmers subsidies. Ranchers don't have subsidies covering their crops if they don't get purchased Right. Ranchers don't have subsidies covering their crops if they don't get purchased right. They either get their cattle sold or they don't. There's no cup, there's no government organization, which is a good thing, because those subsidies end up becoming like welfare, where you then follow the rules of the people paying you because you've now built your operation around the demands and requirements of receiving these subsidies.

AJ Richards: 48:15

So rfid tracking of your cow's ears. You know they put a tag in the ear and now they can see every movement it makes, where you're putting it, where it's going, how it was transferred. The danger of that is now somebody has direct knowledge and access to every single animal across the nation and they shouldn't have that level of control. I'm a private individual. I should be able to raise my cattle without you looking over my shoulder, yeah, so RFID chips is one that RCAF is fighting against. I learned about the Sustains Act through RCAF. The Sustains Act would give private entities the ability to do direct, open business with federal organizations. So let me break that down for you. If I'm JBS and you're USDA, I can say hey, usda, here's a billion dollars to sponsor you. You will not make any decisions that would affect me because I sponsored you.

Chef James: 49:18

Yeah, yeah, payoff.

AJ Richards: 49:20

Guess what? Jbs the CEOs went to prison because they bribed 1,800 Brazilian federal officials, including their president, and went to jail for that. They're basically the mafia. Now our government is trying to pass a law that would say they can go ahead and openly sponsor and fund federal organizations. That's more scary to me than any other regulation we're fighting.

Chef James: 49:47

Wow, okay, well, hopefully that doesn't go through.

AJ Richards: 49:51

I agree.

Chef James: 49:52

Good grief.

AJ Richards: 49:52

Okay, brief, okay, that's that's kind of like part of my mission. A big part of the mission is that when we, when we create a place like from the farm, where people come to trust the food and trust the message about their food and these kinds of things are happening, yeah, we now have the ability to say hey, james, just so you know, your state is trying to like oregon. Your state is trying to put policy in place that's going to shut down all of our dairy producers on a small scale because they're requiring them to meet the same level of regulation as the large operations. You should go and vote that down if we have millions of buyers on a platform where they're they can trust the message and then act on it like like everything going on in europe with the farmers and with the farmers.

Chef James: 50:38

Yeah, that's a mess yeah.

AJ Richards: 50:40

If they were stood shoulder to shoulder with all of the consumers of that country, it'd be over Right. They would run their government out of office and replace them with people that gave a shit about their food. Wow, the farmers and ranchers over there. They don't have ranchers, but the farmers over there are doing it themselves. I get messages all the time on my social media. When are the farmers and ranchers in America going to stand up and I'm like that's bullshit when are you, the consumers, going to stand up for your food security and food freedom and keep our farmers and ranchers in the field growing food for us so that we don't have to have a disruption? All of those tractors, all of those farms that are not plowing and tilling fields right now. They're not producing food, right, when does that show up as a problem? So it should be the citizens who rely on the producers going to war for them so they can stay in the fields and keep growing our food.

Chef James: 51:31

Right, yeah, no, that's a great point, okay, wow. Well, this has been awesome. I really appreciate your time and all the work that you're doing In the sense of connecting with you or this software. This program is connected through via website, right? Not an app.

AJ Richards: 51:49

It's not an app, it's a web form, so the website is fromthefarmio. Okay, it has been designed to be an app someday, but app development is more tedious and more expensive, so we might just keep it a web-based platform. Um, I did learn a way that you can actually save it on your phone as if it's an app, which is pretty oh cool, that's great yeah, you can do that with any website, apparently.

AJ Richards: 52:11

so, um, uh, yeah, so it's web go to. So a lot of people are like I can't find it in the app store. You're right, my fault, cause I keep calling it an app and then people go look. Well, yeah.

Chef James: 52:21

I mean, we're so conditioned by you know apps and things. Yeah, well, hopefully we'll get there at some point, cause it sure sounds like it will, cause you're rolling, you have your podcast, right.

AJ Richards: 52:37

We have our podcast. It was Feed the People. Now it's our next episode that will be coming out, so you can still go find Feed the People on Spotify and all those places we're rebranding. It'll be called From the Farm. And so that the next episode will record in the next week or so and then be released. We just released our last one with Austin Frerich from Barron's.

AJ Richards: 52:58

Oh, very cool yeah so we just released that yesterday and then you can, like I said, from the farmio, my Instagram is a period J underscore Richards. On Instagram, there's some nefarious things happening in terms of a shadow, banning and silencing that are definitely happening there. So I'm also on X, and on X it's just my name, aj Richards.

Chef James: 53:19

Okay, yeah, you notice, the more we talk about this stuff, the more of those nice little messages come through. Totally the other fan mail.

AJ Richards: 53:30

Yeah, I'm like, oh wow, I didn't realize food was so political, but I mean, it's really not. It's like it's, whoever is in it's, who is ever donating or spending money as a sponsor on those platforms, can control it. So I have found, if I do any videos or posting targeting you know, fake meat or lab grown meat or something like that, I kind of get a little bit of a silence going on.

Chef James: 53:54

So yeah, all right, well cool. Well, it was, it was awesome. Aj, thank you for your time. All right, well, cool. Well, it was, it was awesome, aj, thank you for your time and maybe we can do this again sometime. Get an update.

AJ Richards: 54:02

Yeah, it'd be great, all right.

Chef James: 54:05

All right, thank you, take care.

AJ Richards: 54:06

You too.

Chef James: 54:07

Yeah, all right, everyone, that is a wrap. Also the Instagram Chef Massey. Let's keep it simple. Chefmasseycom, have a good one. Bye for now.