Kent Boucher (00:00.078) before the end of the school year. Every teacher in the state got $1,000 to not quit. Molly Pickering (00:00.91) Really? You're you're gonna take a little more than that? Nicolas Lirio (00:06.978) Just to not quit. my gosh. I'll actually have you scoot closer to me, Kent. Just for camera's sake. Our good friend the camera. Could I just have you say a thing or two? Say whatever you want. Molly Pickering (00:19.416) Hi, my name is Molly Pickering. Nicolas Lirio (00:21.57) Wow, that was beautiful. All right. Housekeeping time. First, the microphone. This won't be close enough. You'll really want to it in and you can move it. That's totally OK. Just don't touch because that is a this is a touch screen on the top and you might mute yourself and it has happened. But if you just you can manhandle that part however you would like for the cord. Perspective is great. So if you have facts, say facts, but if you have perspective. Molly Pickering (00:33.55) time. Molly Pickering (00:43.574) Okay, got it. Nicolas Lirio (00:50.646) You know, we love people say, you know, in my opinion or, know, and to whatever level you're comfortable with, we're not here to gotcha. OK, so if you want something pulled out, we can do that. No problem. You know, if you say something that you feel might not be correct or that you wish. Yeah, we'll have you do an intro. Okay. And that is your name, your title. And this is the Prairie Farm podcast. So mine would be Hello, this is Nicholas Lyreth, Hoxie Native Seeds. And this is the Prairie Farm podcast, something like that. We'll do that in a little bit. And then we just want to have fun and ruin lives in a good way. Kent Boucher (01:37.55) Challenge the status quo. Nicolas Lirio (01:39.948) Kent was adamant that we have a... which is probably good, but he's adamant today that we had a script. Kent Boucher (01:50.796) I like logical flow of Nicolas Lirio (01:54.51) Ken and I listened to exact opposite podcast. And yesterday he was like, we are on the way to a podcast. And he was like, or he was like falling asleep. Well, I'll put on a podcast for you that's about Mark Twain. We're going to go interview someone about Mark Twain. And it's my favorite podcast. think it's the best. Literally, I think it is the highest quality podcast in the world. Founders. Molly Pickering (02:16.462) founders. Somebody else told me about this. Okay, now I'm gonna have to listen. I've got two recommendations. Nicolas Lirio (02:21.902) So he reads biographies of famous and influential people, usually business owners, the they're interesting stories. The power comes when you've listened to 20, 50, 100 of the episodes and you see the like common through line. Well, today, Ken was like, dude, your pockets are so boring. So we're very, yeah, we're very different. Molly Pickering (02:42.222) I'm laughing at this. Molly Pickering (02:46.152) Okay, what's yours, Kent? Kent Boucher (02:48.042) My favorite podcast, I've actually, I really like stuff by the New York Times. So there's a show called Interesting Times on there that I And then I really like the Meat Eater podcast. Molly Pickering (03:03.982) The Meat Eater podcast. Okay, we're gonna have to listen. Kent Boucher (03:06.677) And then Nicolas Lirio (03:07.64) Cannibalism. Molly Pickering (03:08.686) I our channels. Kent Boucher (03:10.042) Well, sometimes there's cannibalism stuff on there. It's like natural history and outdoors and stuff. then I like anything by, well, not anything, but a few shows from Christianity Today magazine. I feel like they got a pretty balanced take on. that from? No, Tru's podcast is not from that. Nicolas Lirio (03:32.493) the truce. Nicolas Lirio (03:36.45) That one's very good. But that's how I do like that one. Kent Boucher (03:38.798) I learned with that podcast. I do like truce podcasts too, I guess. Nicolas Lirio (03:41.902) What are you listening to? Molly Pickering (03:43.362) Have you ever heard of the armchair expert podcast with Dax Shepard? it's really good. Mostly I'm mostly like on every they do the interview like so well celebrities on Monday and then on Wednesday they do like an expert in their field. Those are the ones I really like because they're super interesting people just like a deep dive on people. Kent Boucher (03:49.006) I've heard that name. Nicolas Lirio (04:08.684) I like that mix. I like the celebrity like staying relevant and then the like actually being useful for your brain with the expert. Molly Pickering (04:18.732) Yeah, and then on Fridays, they'll do like a crowd source where they have a topic like, I don't know, like nursing stories, and then they get people to submit their craziest stories as a nurse. they so just people submit stories and talk to them and interview them. I don't know. It's fun because they don't. It's not like a regular interview. They actually like try to get to know the person and their backstory. Even the experts, they're like, how did you know come to this field? It's just really interesting. I think I like, I haven't heard Founders, but the thing I like about that podcast is I think he is one of the best interviewers I've ever heard. feel like that's a real skill to have. Nicolas Lirio (04:58.028) Yeah. Kent Boucher (05:00.364) I'll listen to an episode of it. I'm always looking for a new podcast. Nicolas Lirio (05:04.982) Yeah, I mean, I feel like you just can't even say his name without being controversial. But like Rogan, I remember being in college and my friends being like, there's this guy does. Yeah, well, and he changed culture and how we listen to podcasts in long form and what we wanted for sure. But I've noticed that maybe it's just because there's so many podcasts were kind of over the sit down for four hours for the most part. I think we're moving more towards the. Molly Pickering (05:14.424) He's still in the general interview. Nicolas Lirio (05:32.696) give me an hour and ask eight really good questions and get them answered. And, but I also think there's something kind of about that as well. They'll like, just give me the headlines, give me the cream of the crop, give me the important stuff. And there is something about like churning learning information in a deep and intimate way, whether you learn it by experience or through lots of conversation, you know, that, that kind of thing that one is good for just the action activity of doing it is good for us, I think. But Also, it sticks with us better. I mean, we forget so much of the podcasts we listen to. And at this point, feel like podcasts is just noise. Molly Pickering (06:04.943) So. Molly Pickering (06:12.27) But I am glad that they have a long form and like we are not in like the Twitter mode anymore. So it does feel like there's a really nice space for podcasts. Nicolas Lirio (06:20.418) That's all right. Well, I might keep up. So I might keep some of that in. That was fun. But let's go ahead and do. Let's go. I'm sorry, I'm sorry that, you know, we're interviewing all the gubernatorial candidates in Iowa. And yeah, it has been super fun. But with them, you got to be like really careful to be like, hey, just so you know, I'm turning on the mics. I'm to edit all this out. But you know, got to. Kent Boucher (06:20.654) Yeah, that's a point. Molly Pickering (06:26.741) Re-rolling? Kent Boucher (06:28.79) Yeah, you didn't tell us. Messing with my mic. Kent Boucher (06:46.766) Like, well yeah, you could sink their biggest objective of their life. Nicolas Lirio (06:50.67) Well, yeah, or just totally rude even if even if I did edit it very carefully and make sure it was all good like totally ruined trust with them Yeah, I don't I don't want to do that. I not that I would have Their ear but I want some of the experts in Iowa specifically that we've talked to about water quality to have their ear so I've seen my role is like like love this person get along with this person show this person that you're trustworthy and maybe they'll listen to my one recommendation of a water quality Kent Boucher (07:19.822) Hmm Nicolas Lirio (07:20.269) Hmm? Molly Pickering (07:21.334) I think it's a great philosophy. Nicolas Lirio (07:23.702) All right, so whenever you're ready, we'll do the intro. What you're gonna do is you're gonna look at that camera. You're gonna give a beat, so just wait half a second. And then you'll give your name, title, and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast. Molly Pickering (07:35.342) Okay. Hi, this is Molly Pickering, Policy Director for Illinois Stewardship Alliance. Now I'm going to do it again. Hi, this is Molly Pickering, Policy Director for Illinois Stewardship Alliance, and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast. Nicolas Lirio (07:42.434) That's what many times you want. Kent Boucher (07:52.194) Perfect. Nicolas Lirio (07:53.294) Nailed it. Yeah, that was that was literally perfect. You ready? Yeah. All We're to have a bunch of fun. We're going to get you out of here in an hour and seven minutes. And then we'll have a great podcast. Well, I a question for you. And for context, our listeners have heard us talk about this a bunch. But do you think food should cost more? Molly Pickering (08:08.27) It's okay. Molly Pickering (08:23.954) that is a great question. No, I don't think it should cost more. think that, I mean, Americans do spend probably less on food than any other nation in the world. Sure. Yeah. But I, I don't think it should cost more. I think we have the capacity to grow enough food to feed everybody. What we have is, currently what we have is a problem of distribution and, you know, economics of people having Nicolas Lirio (08:35.511) civilization ever. Molly Pickering (08:53.72) being able to have a lot of food and not being able to get it where we need it to. But we also have a problem of not growing the right types of food to feed people. We can grow everything we need here. In Illinois, we import 95 % of the food we eat. We are exporting. have the best farmland in the world. We can grow all the food we need, but we don't because the economics and the regular Kent Boucher (09:11.15) That's a stagger. Nicolas Lirio (09:11.679) State of Illinois. Molly Pickering (09:23.666) regulatory systems, the policies are not set up to support actual food production. If we subsidized food production the way that we subsidize commodity corn grain production, I think that we could grow food for everybody and still have it be affordable. Nicolas Lirio (09:39.805) that is interesting. Including this subsidy. Kent Boucher (09:42.254) Yeah, that's a that's a great take because because what one of things? We mentioned often is is in order to get more You know nutritious high quality food to people we need to be willing to to support the small producers that are doing that and therefore that's gonna cost more money, but I like how you kind of flip that on it's like no we have the we have the Resources available to be able to just produce good food at scale that it shouldn't have to cost more. Molly Pickering (10:14.446) Yeah, absolutely. I don't think it should. Nicolas Lirio (10:16.982) I want to bring up an example because this is the elephant in the room when you talk about it, right? And and so we know some of the economics behind it, but we're not that's not our full job like yours. And I we know we have a friend named Jill Bebout. We love Jill Bebout. Jill Bebout runs a farm and does a CSA, has very high quality blue gate farms. Yep. And they are certified certified naturally. Kent Boucher (10:38.255) farms. Nicolas Lirio (10:43.832) grown as I believe the title, which is a step above organic. Right. And love what she's doing. Her food is more expensive than I would get it at Walmart. The produce. Sure. My personal take is we should be willing to pay that price with it. And I know Jill enough to know that she's not just like rolling in cash and taking advantage of her customers. She works way harder than most anybody else I know. And just to make a decent, just to make a normal living wage, she charges more than, and, and my thought was, well, if you multiply that, if everybody was doing that, which I wish, you know, more communities were going to their, their, farmers markets to get their groceries and their food or doing CSAs, wouldn't we have to be willing to pay more out of our pocket? Now, if I'm totally wrong and my thinking, I would love for you to correct me on. Molly Pickering (11:41.086) Yeah, well, what I want to say about this. We can't buy our way out of a broken food system. Like it's we should try everybody who can afford to buy local and sustainable. They should. But that's not going to fix the underlying problems. The food system that we have is a direct result of policy. It's policies that that are built to over time that have been built to. promote and support consolidation, corporate control, and it's not set up to support small farms. The scales are tipped against small farmers, whether it's through regulations like going to a farmer's market and having all these health department regulations that are not really set up for farmers, or whether at the even the larger scale, take it all the way to the top, it's farmers competing against corporate control and monopolies in the food system. We have a giant monopoly problem in our food system. We should buy local as much as we can, but that's not gonna solve it. We have to change the underlying policies that are rooting in these systems in place and making it impossible for people to actually, for farmers to thrive and for people to afford local food. So I think, yes, you should try if you can because consumer demand is real and that's important and we need more people to care about and support those farmers while we have them. But at the same time, people have to be using their voices together collectively. to challenge the status quo, to challenge corporate control, to help lawmakers understand the problem functionally. A lot of lawmakers don't even understand the issues that farmers are facing. So we can use our voices collectively, then we can change those policies to better support the types of farming that we want to see. And if we can do that, then that is going to make it so that farmers can thrive and people still can afford the food that is going to be nourishing them and keeps money local. comes from local farms. Nicolas Lirio (13:39.48) What are some of those policies? Molly Pickering (13:41.76) Well, so there's a variety. there's on the state on the on the federal level this year, our organization is our biggest campaign is around sort of trying to tackle corporate control and monopoly power. So there are there right now we're mostly focusing on the meat industry and we're focusing on a couple of federal bills that would be trying to either break up monopoly power or try to tip the shale. tip the scales back towards leveling the playing field for small farms and small meat processors. On the state level, so one of the big things that we're working on this year is for local food infrastructure grant program. We used to have all kinds of local food infrastructure to help like canneries, mills, food hubs, processing. stuff has been gutted from grocery stores that our rural communities have been gutted of that type of infrastructure because of consolidation. We don't see that stuff hardly anymore. Every, you know, every community used to have a grocery store. Every community used to have like a cannery or a processing facility, or at least they regionally that used to exist. A lot of that stuff doesn't exist here anymore. So if you're a local food farmer and you're, you know, you're growing for farmers markets, you want to sell farm to school or scale up into grocery stores. There's literally no place where you can, you know, take your food to get processed to then be how like a school would want it, right? Schools don't necessarily have capacity to take on a bunch of fresh food. They need it sort of already minimally processed or aggregated, right? So if you're a small farmer, you can't meet the demand of the Chicago public school system, which is, you know, so much food daily or even even even rural school, you know, a very small farm has a trouble meeting that demand. But if you can aggregate that food with other small farms, then that makes it more possible to be able to feed your local school system. But that's type of aggregation, processing, distribution. Those pieces of infrastructure no longer exist here in Illinois. So we're working on a grant program to try to support that type of infrastructure. The other thing is like farmers alone can't support that, you know, Molly Pickering (15:59.032) They can't take the risk to buy this hundreds of thousand dollars of equipment that they need for this infrastructure. You know, taking on a whole creation of a processing facility is sometimes millions of dollars. So if we can help farmers work collectively to figure out how to rebuild some of that infrastructure on their farms and their communities, then we can also then increase the scale of local food production here in Illinois to meet the demand. So that's one example. Land access is a big issue that we're tackling right now. We have a, you know, a generation of farmers that's going to be retiring. And how do we get that land to make sure that small farmers have access to land and it doesn't go to corporations or the highest bidder? know, how do we incentivize that land to go back to small and sustainable farmers? Let's see, we're working on trying to think of the other ones. Pesticide drift is a big problem here in Illinois, especially for small farms and apiaries. And yeah, right, you probably are as a native seed company. you know, we have to figure out a solution where commodity agriculture can exist beside these small farmers and both of them can thrive. But, you know, one should not overlook the other or be considered more important. Nicolas Lirio (17:06.869) Very familiar with Molly Pickering (17:25.793) than the other just because they're a larger scale. Both of them have livelihoods that they need to defend. So how do we create regulations that also make it possible for the small farmer to thrive? Because right now those pesticide drift regulations are set up to support commodity agriculture, not small scale agriculture. Nicolas Lirio (17:45.806) Do you, so you guys are, your team is spending time specifically with meat, meet the packing plants, right? The big four that do 85 to 90 % of all meat packing and right. Good luck even getting into Walmart or any other store. But why did you pick that monopoly? industry? Is it just, this is the one we feel like we can do something about now or was there something strategic about it? Molly Pickering (18:13.132) Yeah, couple things. So how we work is we work directly with farmers. go, our organization, go, we have a couple organizers on staff. Their role is to go talk to farmers, build deep relationships with farmers, understand those issues and bring farmers back together to collectively decide what we work on. So our like staff doesn't decide what we work on, farmers directly decide what we work on. Nicolas Lirio (18:37.774) They said meat like, and actually our coworker Judd said, make sure you ask her this. He has sheep. He is not allowed to bring them to a local meat processor and then sell it. Kent Boucher (18:50.786) Right. You can't take it Nicolas Lirio (18:53.646) He had even though it gets processed at a USDA approved, you know meatpacking plant he has to sell it as a live animal to the meat processing plant they package it up and then he can buy it back to sell it or he a customer could buy it from him as a live animal and then he would deliver it to the meatpacking plant and then the customer would come and get it but that eliminates most of the profit for the farmer, especially with sheep. Why is that? Molly Pickering (19:27.712) Well, you're so this is going to get into probably over my head as far as we have a staff person who works specifically on meat policy. So I'm not sure I'm going to be able to policy. I know the livestock farmers. So he knows all the Yeah. And his, yeah, his, his job is to basically understand and all the meat regulators, regulations, livestock regulations. that issue I. Nicolas Lirio (19:43.682) Okay, alright, yeah. Molly Pickering (19:55.798) If you're selling on a USDA certified meat processing plant, my understanding is you should be able to take it to the farmers market. The problem is that when you are selling at or taking your meat to or your livestock to a processor that's not USDA certified, and that's where the issue becomes, because that's when you can't sell it. You have to sell it, you have to sell directly to your. your buyer, right? And they have to come pick it up from the locker or you can't sell it directly to the farmer's market. You can't cut it into pieces. It's if you're using like a custom exempt processor. there's and that's one of the things I think that the, you know, folks and farmers are trying to tackle is like if these custom exempt processors or the state inspected processors are functionally, you know, the same, meaning the same qualifications as a I say same inspections as a USDA processor. Why is this meat not allowed to be sold in the same way? And if we can sort of change some of those regulations keeping food safety in mind But that would that would I think help a lot of farmers. Yeah Nicolas Lirio (21:08.942) Are you worried you'd throw out the baby with the bath water on that? My wife worked at Chipotle for a long time. So when we started a coffee shop, she was adamant about food safety because Chipotle had that big debacle and now they're awesome about it. And so she was trained very rigidly. I am, I am when I work, I at the coffee shop, I am, I follow all of the rules, Ken, every single one. Kent Boucher (21:32.011) I mean, every time I go there, health inspector's there and he's... no. Nicolas Lirio (21:38.228) But, but my wife's more stringent on it and, and are we worried that we would actually run into health safety issues if we just start normalizing non USDA approved? I don't know. And I'm not hinting that we would. you, don't Molly Pickering (21:55.298) mean, that's a big debate. I see that debate playing out on all kinds of Facebook pages that are talking about these things right now. We got people talking about that. My personal opinion is that as long as it's labeled correctly and people understand and are made aware of the risks, then people should be able to choose how much risk they're willing to assume. So I don't want anyone telling me that I can't, for example, have raw milk because that should be my choice. I'm an informed consumer. I understand the risk. But the problem is that the folks on the other side of this debate will say that we don't have informed consumers. Well, I think that's our job to make sure to build the policies to make sure that consumers are informed and understand the risks and things are labeled properly and there is consumer knowledge. And then people can make their own choices, but I don't sort of, I don't like the idea of someone saying this, you're, you as an adult can't make an informed decision about your own health. Nicolas Lirio (23:02.95) When powers of be have to help others make safe decisions, they have two options, more control or better education and more control is easier. Molly Pickering (23:14.006) Yeah, so yeah, that's an astute observation. Kent Boucher (23:17.152) I like how you said earlier that the way we see conventional agriculture now is has been shaped because of the ag subsidies that have been in place for quite a while now. honestly, I think the first ag subsidies, did they start showing up with part of the New Deal and setting up of our, you know, our county NRCS offices and soil and water commissions and things like that? think I want to say some of the those were some of the first subsidies and those have obviously ballooned into the whole lot bigger and more different examples of that with direct payment subsidies, which is going on right now. Farmers that grow a conventional crop can apply for right now. Yep, and there was just another one that went out like back in July, I believe, and there was another one before that. Molly Pickering (24:06.146) the bridge assistance. Kent Boucher (24:14.958) 2021 maybe that went out. And so there's that form, there's a subsidized crop insurance. Molly Pickering (24:22.018) That only goes to the large scale commodity farmers. If you're a local specialty crop grower, small scale farmer, you're not getting those bridge assistance payments. So it's another example of a policy that again is set up to, you know, entrench commodity agriculture. Kent Boucher (24:36.974) Yeah, had. And you can see, you can see when when those payments go out, if you're like following it, you see a flurry of things, right? Might be. I just saw a new combine on a low boy semi trailer going down just north of it should be pure. I'm from Illinois, originally, but they call it pure. Nicolas Lirio (25:01.166) It's got like 20 people in it. Molly Pickering (25:03.565) Okay. Kent Boucher (25:03.918) I saw a new red combine strapped down. But the other thing you see is a flurry of a field tile going in. And those things go hand in hand with large scale commodity agriculture. And so it's the proof for what you said. What kinds of subsidies do you think would be most helpful if that money was repurposed or even made available? Now, thankfully, What was it, $700 million recently was allotted for alternative crop and small farms that went up through USDA like maybe a couple months ago, I we covered it on Coffee Time. But what do you think would be most helpful to... Molly Pickering (25:56.632) Small-scale farmers. Small-scale farmers. Yeah, well like I said earlier, there's a severe lack of infrastructure. suspect that Illinois is not the only state that is dealing with that. So if there's a way to subsidize infrastructure in Illinois, we are asking for the state to, you know, help provide grant funding. If you could have some sort of thing, you know, nationally like that, that would be great. Kent Boucher (26:15.96) The nice thing about grants is you're applying for it, so you're kind of proving that you have a proof of concept in mind. You have a targeted thing you want to spend the Molly Pickering (26:26.626) Yeah, absolutely. Or revolving loan program, too, would also sort of be low interest loan programs specifically for that. I think grant programs have their place. The one downfall is not not everybody is going to get a grant. Right. That's sort of limited. So if you can come up with a low interest loan program, that might be another way to also get some of that infrastructure back. There used to be a program here in Illinois that was operated for a couple of years. It was with federal funding and it was called the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program. So every state I think could apply for this federal funding to use it. And in Illinois, how it worked is basically a food bank was essentially given extra money to buy food from local farmers. wasn't only food banks, there was other. Kent Boucher (27:16.782) Yeah. Cools too, wasn't it? Molly Pickering (27:21.26) schools. Yeah and it worked differently in different states so it sort of depended on how the state structured it. But essentially there was funding to buy food for a fair market value from local farms. So not just like the commodity agriculture value but like the actual fair market value that a farmer at a farmer's market selling their food would need to make. And that program was great here in Illinois. It really helped a lot of farmers. It really helped fight food insecurity. It was helping farmers invest in their farms and scale up production and then that funding was federally cut this past year. So if there was there's an effort right now to get that funding back in the farm bill, but that would be a great program. I think that would help sort of support local farms. It's not a direct, you know, it's not a subsidy, but it is like any time you're using policy or using federal funding to support one thing or another. It's kind of a subsidy. So. Kent Boucher (28:15.502) Yeah, you're using money to help with the heavy lifting, whether that's a lower interest loan, which that applies to big ag right now. There's things like that. There are some things that help small farms, like first time farmer land loans. Usually you can, I have a friend who did a, I think they call it a 545.50 to buy land. This was through USDA, you had to. first of all, prove that you had a farming experience of some kind, which is pretty loose. And then you had to come up with a 5 % down payment, and then the federal government would, I guess, loan you 45 % of the remaining cash needed to buy the land at a 1 % interest rate. Molly Pickering (28:53.409) application. Kent Boucher (29:12.994) and then you had to go to a bank or something to get the remaining 50 % funded. So, you know, there are some things, but yeah, I think people hear that word subsidy, well, even CRP is a subsidized program, and people view it as like such a dirty word, but no, there are good ways that it can be applied that are more equitable to any grower. Molly Pickering (29:35.278) We just need to subsidize the type of system we want to see. And I also, I want to be clear that I am not against commodity agriculture. My family is all commodity agriculture farmers. They're corn and soybean farmers. And there's a place for commodity agriculture to exist. But it also, there needs to be a place for local food production to exist. And they need to be able to coexist alongside each other. And right now we don't have that. We have a system that only prioritizes commodity agriculture. Nicolas Lirio (30:02.284) The some man who was I maybe it was Judd I was saying I think I was here but we were talking through commodity agriculture and he was we were saying that it's not very often that the lower effort thing in an industry also ends up being the thing that makes you the most money. Usually the higher effort things make you the most money but We were so desperate to get on a global scale of production of corn and beans, subsidized so hard that all of sudden corn and beans became the highest profit item and coincidentally with Roundup, the easiest to produce. And dollars in comfort, very hard addiction to break. Molly Pickering (30:48.704) Yeah, it's definitely, you know, you don't see a lot. It's part of the challenge, right? Carmers, they're in this system and there it's hard to get out of the system when you are, you know, everything is set up to say this is the way you should do it. This is the easiest way to do it. This is the safest way to do it. Nobody wants to, you know, risk their, you know, farm or risk their livelihoods taking on a new adventure in, you know, growing apples or something else. Kent Boucher (31:18.074) What do you think that transition, because I think it's easy, especially if you listen to somebody such as yourself who's done a lot of thinking and work on this, you can get the vision, right? And I've been able to get that vision from even, you know, like Jill Bebout and other guests that we've had through the years, Megan McKay, who want to support a different way of doing agriculture. But where it's hard to see is the transition because both our states are so, I mean, dominated is an understatement term. I mean, almost complete would be like probably a better term, complete. are completely large scale commodity agriculture is the surface area of our states. And... Molly Pickering (31:55.789) Mm-hmm. Kent Boucher (32:14.414) What, and then also the other part of it that makes it so hard for me to envision the transition from, because we already transitioned once, we transitioned from a small, maybe sustainable, it was more sustainable I think, regenerative probably not, because heavy tillage was such a part of it, animal husbandry processes with runoff was, I mean, where's the closest creek, let's get the hog lock to run. You know, that kind of thing. There was some bad like practices that went along with that and we can't gloss over those. But we transitioned from that model to where we are today in a relatively short amount of time, but it's hard to imagine the transition reversing itself. And even though we know it needs to. Do you have any idea like, Molly Pickering (32:45.614) Yeah. Molly Pickering (32:49.486) practices. Kent Boucher (33:11.608) just from a nuts and bolts kind of standpoint, how you envision over the next, I mean, it took about 50 years to go from what I was describing to what we have today. Really, when we were growing up as kids, we were seeing that, you my grandparents were the last of that old. Molly Pickering (33:31.035) Yeah, before glyphosate rolled out and it wound up. Kent Boucher (33:34.51) And then it was that wholesale change over to confine, know, the CAFOs and all that. So is there a way that when you work on this every day that you maybe have that dream in your mind or a way that you see the transition starting to happen where we have more small farms pop up that are growing food in a sustainable way and a regenerative way? Molly Pickering (33:42.178) validation. Kent Boucher (34:03.586) Maybe not perfectly, but just better. Molly Pickering (34:06.318) Yeah. I think that it won't change unless people come together and people, it's going to be very hard to change. The industry is dominated, like I said, by monopolies. have lots of power. And the only way to challenge that power, like our organization or just organizations in general, even in Iowa, there's, know, practical Farmers of Iowa, there's Iowa Food Systems Coalition, Iowa Farmers Union. You guys are doing great over there. You got a lot of great organizations. But nothing will, you we will never have enough money to challenge corporate interests. The only way we can challenge that power is by building people power. People have to work together collectively and their voices collectively to demand change. And that's the only way. Kent Boucher (34:39.433) Great need. Molly Pickering (34:59.628) way it's gonna change. So it's gonna take a lot of organizing power. We gotta organize people together. And it's hard because people also have to collectively decide on solutions, right? And that's challenging, having people democratically decide on what is the best answer to move forward. But if you can do that, then you're gonna come up with something great. And that's gonna take time and it's gonna take a lot of organizing ability. It's gonna take a lot of people working together. that's the future I see. And that's how I see things changing. Kent Boucher (35:31.374) I love that answer because that is such a more wholesome, I mean, yeah, it's more challenging, but it's so much more wholesome than, yeah, that's what the money says. But like if people truly decide we collectively love our neighbor, we want better for them, we wanna work together, I mean, that's what a CSA is, community supported agriculture. Molly Pickering (35:52.558) Yeah, it can't be farmers alone. It has to be farmers and eaters, know, people who care about food and we all do because we all need it. We all have to work together for change. can't just rely on farmers to make this change. They're not there's not enough numbers there. They can't do it alone. all everybody who eats has to care where their food system where their food comes from and has to use their voice. Kent Boucher (36:17.078) So, and that's where education is so important because people need to understand what good food is and what good food does for them. And I think that's probably, I mean, well, what you guys are doing here, that's a huge, and what we do with this podcast, it's a huge part of that education piece where there is something better to aspire to. Molly Pickering (36:36.684) Absolutely. Nicolas Lirio (36:37.592) So, I mean, you've kind of alluded to it as well, but we talk a lot about voting with your dollar and where do you spend. And now imagine if every like 90 % of someone in a of people in a town in the summer got most of their vegetables or most of their produce locally. That would be responded to by very large companies. But in order for that, humans have to cook at home. mean, we, we, we screamed that sugar, we screamed that cigarettes are bad for you from the rooftop and by golly, there's still a bunch of people. Molly Pickering (37:22.719) Sure. Kent Boucher (37:23.086) I'm always interested in talking with somebody who smokes. Nicolas Lirio (37:26.766) He's got a big soft spot in his heart for people that smoke. Kent Boucher (37:29.804) I mean lot of my relations smoke cigarettes. it's like, man, you have survived. Dare, you have survived. the cowboy, you can't sing worth a heck with a big hole in your neck guy. And they're still out there ripping cigs. mean, it's just, that person's got some stick to it. Nicolas Lirio (37:46.808) feel about people who drink energy drinks and you know, on the reg and on a on a physiological level, we love our comfort. I mean, it's it's it's in our DNA to go for path of least resistance, right? conserve your energy. So we love easier, cheaper calories. We're we're we're genuinely addicted to them, not just on an individual level, which I'm the chief among them in terms of Addicted to to food and but not just on an individual level on a cultural societal level and Mark Twain said I have I think he said I rarely ever Met an insane person but in groups of people it is a necessity and so like Kent Boucher (38:33.464) Careful, we just interviewed a Twain expert yesterday. He said a lot of his quotes that are attributed to him. Nicolas Lirio (38:37.774) That's fair. That's true. Yeah. They're fake. What do we do about that? Yeah, because you can't force anyone to do any Molly Pickering (38:48.206) 100%. And I don't think we're advocating to go back to a time when, you know, people had to cook every meal from scratch at home. That's and you know, women stayed at home and did all the cooking and cleaning and men went to work like we're not. That's and that's the only really like we have a convenience society right now. Like we're not advocating to go back to a different time. What I think we're advocating for is how do we make it so local food is also convenient and maybe can we shift a little bit towards some more, you know, scratch cooking too. So like, can there be both? Right. So I don't think we want to be both. I think there can. I don't want to. I don't want to go back to the 1950s. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (39:34.038) Well, I totally agree with you. just don't. People don't cook. We've we've it used to be in our budget to to like buy firewood. It's not anybody's societal budget to buy firewood. And if you think about your time budget used to be in your time budget as a family, whether it was the woman or not, which I agree with you, I don't think the woman should just be stuck at home cooking. But whoever it is in the family that cooks, was in our family's time budget to cook. It's not anymore. It's in our time budget. to go to volleyball tournaments. And so how do you pull that back? I'm asking from our point of view, because we're just trying to help people with change and I don't even know how to instigate it. I have no idea. Molly Pickering (40:17.89) Yeah, so it's, I mean, it's challenging. That's definitely something that we hear from people all the time is like, we don't have time to cook. We don't have a lot of, there's been a lot of knowledge lost as well in growing food, preserving food, cooking food. So those are, those are real challenges. But again, I don't think we're trying to go back to a time where people had to do all the cooking from scratch. I think we need to change the policy so that local fresh food can be more convenient. You still have to, know, you're still, there will still always be an educational component. There will still always be a need for people to try to learn more about the, you know, healthier food, ways to cook. There's still going to be some need to do that, but I think you can do that kind of education and also change policies to make people make it, So like right now you go to the grocery store and a bag of Doritos is gonna cost less than a pint of strawberries, right? So you're gonna take that option because it's more convenient and it tastes great. And you have to cut up strawberries and you have to clean them and they're more expensive. So we need to make it so that we can make the strawberries compete, right? Nicolas Lirio (41:38.158) But and and so I don't want you to feel like I'm fighting you on this because I totally agree with you But let's say five let's say Doritos are four dollars and strawberries are five dollars and then we say hey actually we need to really be doing more Local strawberries and so there's not a monopoly. Was it Driscoll? Driscoll has that monopoly. Are they I mean they're making a ton of profit but If we started going to more localized strawberries would they get more expensive? Molly Pickering (42:08.238) They would, but again, we can change those policies to make sure that monopolies aren't controlling the food system and that we are subsidizing the type of food system that we want to see. Nicolas Lirio (42:18.764) Yeah, I mean, because Doritos are subsidized. they are. mean, so we're going to subsidize Doritos. We should for sure be subsidized strawberries. I'm with you on that. Molly Pickering (42:26.606) Totally, and with this type of food system that we have right now, what we are doing is we're externalizing all the costs, we're subsidizing these cheap food, you know, we've got cheap food, we've made it, that's great, so more people can afford it, but we're externalizing all those costs onto the environment, onto labor, onto people's health, right? So cheap food isn't cheap when you think about the long-term effects of the system that we've created. Nicolas Lirio (42:55.662) I want to run on something that Ken and I have been worried about and frankly don't necessarily have have an answer for, but we're just kind of in the beginnings of thinking about it. So let's go back to grants and the native seed industry. There are some very large companies that are buying other smaller native seed companies and and coincidentally, and we work with these companies. And they're great people, the people we with. But coincidentally, they line up with the companies that are really good at writing grants, getting grant. Sure. So nothing wrong with grants. I'm I'm really glad grant money is flowing in the native seed industry because we were on the brink of just losing the ecosystem totally. How that is one example of a way that people can assume or collect resources or power. And there are entities in the world that are better at. collecting resources and power, no matter what industry they're in. So how do you, let's say we totally reset and let's bears dismantled or it's illegal to sell, know, the monopolies are gone and there's tons of packing houses and there's more places to buy food than just Walmart. I assume you've read Austin Frerichs. Molly Pickering (44:13.056) It's on my reading list. I gave it to my dad for Christmas, but I haven't read it myself. Nicolas Lirio (44:17.888) It is really good. We interviewed Austin. He was awesome. He's from Iowa. dude. Kent Boucher (44:21.942) Has your dad read it? Molly Pickering (44:23.23) Yeah, he liked it. Really? Yeah. that's cool. Yeah, so that was good because I wasn't sure how you, it's a commodity, you know, armor. I wasn't sure how he was going to take it, but yeah. Nicolas Lirio (44:31.022) That's well, think farmers are squeezed right now. So they're more sympathetic to the idea that maybe this isn't quite, you know, this isn't anyway. How let's say all that was reset. You could snap fingers, make it happen. And we have this wonderful ag system that's sustainable and regenerative. How do you make sure because power consolidates just a law of mankind. How do you make sure that we don't end up with monopolies, regenerative monopolies, but monopolies all the same in 40 or 50 years from Molly Pickering (45:01.166) You know, I'm not sure I have a great answer for that question. I'm not sure I've thought ahead enough about that, but my god Nicolas Lirio (45:08.908) I know we're all just fighting to get to the regenerative. Molly Pickering (45:11.144) Yeah my gut reaction is that when we set up the laws for this great new system and the policies for this great new system there has to be checks and balances on power so I mean we have that right now it's just not enforced we have anti-monopoly law right there's supposed to be a check on this but it's Nicolas Lirio (45:32.078) It's just their lobbyists are so good that it's not being enforced. Molly Pickering (45:35.126) I that is the big problem, yeah. Nicolas Lirio (45:37.342) Interesting interesting. There was a guy and he's really public about this. So I'm going to Kent Boucher (45:42.574) Well, and if you've been rewarded before or after you've been in office by those entities, the last thing you're interested in doing is blowing a whistle on them. Nicolas Lirio (45:51.818) Well, behind the scenes, you see how much power they have. Yeah. And I think I think it would scare us if we heard some of the conversations behind closed doors. Molly Pickering (46:00.006) I agree. So I mean we have to change ag policy, but there's also some sort of like functional Democratic policy that has to be changed to in order to get the society that we want so whether it's you know putting caps on Lob or politicians being able to go become a lobbyist later or you know those sorts of things also will help grit the society Nicolas Lirio (46:22.222) Are you a term limit fan? I'm a big term limit fan. Kent Boucher (46:25.07) I have the best term limit solution. Am I humble? You should only be able to hold office up until, I mean you don't get crazy with the dynamic, don't break it down to ethnicity and stuff like that, but if you're a man, what is the life expectancy for a man in the United States of America? That's as long as you're allowed to serve. Nicolas Lirio (46:30.101) Tell us. Everybody listen. Kent Boucher (46:53.723) And what is the life expectancy for a female? That is as long as you're like, yeah, it's not. It's like 74 and 76. Nicolas Lirio (46:57.326) Wait, but that'd still be like 80 years. Molly Pickering (47:02.424) So you're allowed to Nicolas Lirio (47:03.342) 74 years Kent Boucher (47:05.486) I mean Sure, there's people that do that already right you're probably not gonna get started though till you're in your 30s or 40s and and the point is if you are Creating a better if you're creating a better America People's life expectancy is going to increase the average life expectancy now people who have everything Nicolas Lirio (47:25.9) I'll take that but divide it by eight. Molly Pickering (47:29.802) Yeah, Kent Boucher (47:31.544) But then you're that I think at some point you start getting a diminishing return on just on having newness and not holding onto like wisdom. Nicolas Lirio (47:45.406) That's fair. I think you're a brilliant person. I definitely think you're right because that's no different than what it is today Nobody could serve 70 years. No Kent Boucher (47:52.546) No, So you're saying someone's gonna start serving when they're a little, like when they're born? Your career is still gonna be limited to like a, if you're a career politician, you're probably only 30. Because there's people that are serving well into their 90s. Nicolas Lirio (48:02.03) That's what I'm saying. How does that change from what they're Nicolas Lirio (48:08.398) Oh, oh, okay. I thought you meant you could serve 74 years. No, could serve up to Kent Boucher (48:18.314) Up to the age, once you're 74 years old, you can't, if that's all the better you've done, or if it goes down, now you're motivated to make it a better place because who holds down the life? My grandparents have a good life. They're well into their 80s. There's a lot of people in this country that don't have a good life. And that's the whole point of our conversation is we're trying to get it better for everybody, not just for the top 10 % of our citizens. We want all of our population to be healthy, happy, thriving, right? And so if you wanna get that number up, you gotta stop having people overdosing on meth at 58. You gotta stop having people with malnourishment issues from the cradle till they die at four years old. You would be motivated to make it a better place to live because then you can hold on to your power line. Nicolas Lirio (49:04.748) do mouth at right Nicolas Lirio (49:13.954) Charlie Munger says, you want to see the future of any company or organization, look at the incentives. I think that is brilliant. Definitely disagree with it, though. I think that's still too long. I'm sorry, brother. Molly Pickering (49:23.756) i think it's in the right direction though Kent Boucher (49:25.55) Well then what's your cutoff? My other cutoff, because you have to have a number somewhere then, right? So my other number would be you could live past the last age for social security, or not live, you could serve past the last age for social security for like maybe one or two years, right? Because that's when most people are active in their communities. While they're still working professionally, while they're still interacting professionally, you understand. Nicolas Lirio (49:26.734) I have no- Kent Boucher (49:54.082) what the average American is concerned about. You're 92 years old, you don't know what a 36 year old dad of four is concerned about. That was the Great Depression for you. Nicolas Lirio (49:56.322) I was thinking Nicolas Lirio (50:05.838) Yeah, I was thinking, and if you have an idea, I want to hear yours, but 20, 24 years, because that's a generation. You can serve a full generation that you got to be out of there. You know what I mean? I've, I shook grassless hand once upon a time at a church. Seemed like a really nice guy, but by golly, he's been there a long time. Accumulate a lot. Kent Boucher (50:24.43) There is valuable experience that spans multiple generations that you would not. Nicolas Lirio (50:31.426) Yeah, I'm okay lapsing on the experience because they're going to still have those people in their ear. Like the experience isn't just poofing away from our society. Kent Boucher (50:40.598) I don't Nicolas Lirio (50:42.601) What do you got? Molly Pickering (50:43.828) I sort of am with you, Nick. I like term limits, but I think they should be long because you get that experience and you have sort of the breadth of time that you need to create change. It's really hard to create change in four years. Yeah, definitely. So a long term limit. Nicolas Lirio (51:02.272) I think I, some people say two term limits. do think that is, I think that's a little unreasonable. I would take two term limits over no term limits. But I do think two is Kent Boucher (51:14.954) I I think I'd want more than two. Because like Molly's saying, it's so hard to, it's turning a battleship. And if you have a country that's now vying to make their big changes within eight years, can you imagine how much that pendulum would swing in all the rest of our lives? Right Right, trying to make their mark, right? Nicolas Lirio (51:31.352) Well, but right now the establishment is locked. Kent Boucher (51:35.758) I mean, it would be so much harder too. Nicolas Lirio (51:38.094) Yeah, that would be good! No, no, no, no, no, no, Kent Boucher (51:41.066) I don't mean more difficult. mean, lobbying would be much more extreme because they have such a narrow window of time to get what they want. Nicolas Lirio (51:50.271) I just think with time you can consolidate power and it's just generally better to... I do think two is too short. I'm just saying I would rather have two terms than unlimited terms. Kent Boucher (51:55.01) But there is a sweet spot. Molly Pickering (52:02.062) These are the types of policy discussions that we not necessarily about term limits But like that our members are having all the time like what are the solutions to these problems? And you know, how do we come up with agree with these types of solutions and then move something forward? It's just interesting to see you guys Nicolas Lirio (52:19.342) My spent collectively tens of thousands, of of hours thinking and writing and debating about this stuff. And they didn't come up with term limits. That like blows my mind. They came up with checks and balances and all this other weird niche stuff that is like not partly relevant today. Kent Boucher (52:34.754) The only thing I don't like about having that hard drop off that can't be improved on, like there's no incentive. The only incentive is to get what I want as fast as I can get it. Kent Boucher (52:50.942) I like having an open-ended. What if you did both? You're in control of your own destiny. Make it better here for all of us, then you can keep your spot. Nicolas Lirio (52:58.702) I also wonder if there shouldn't be rewards for performance. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's what I'm saying with you is like, but not not making that the strict anyway, we're really sorry. really do. I've enjoyed that a lot. So, so with, with regenerative ag, I mean, we're Kent and I are seeing hints of it already. That's why we ask is the monopoly. just, it's human nature. just forms up. And so Kent Boucher (53:02.488) That's exactly what I just said. Kent Boucher (53:11.01) HIL- Kent Boucher (53:26.83) So you can end up reverse engineering something, right? You can recreate, man, if we really did this right, we could set up all these truck routes. We could bump these people to the front of the line because they followed all of our policies on how to make this more efficient. And you just start rewarding people, manipulating the system again and getting bigger and bigger. I don't think that, I think eventually it just devolves back into the most simplified model. Two crops. Molly Pickering (54:01.496) Well, I think you just have to have that's why it's so important to have a functioning democracy where people feel like their voices are heard. I don't think we have that right now. People are apathetic. They are angry like they are angry about federal policy, especially. And they don't feel like their voices matter. They don't feel like they can make a difference. But if you can change that, if you can bring people together and say, you can make a difference, let's work together. Let us show you how. and you teach people sort of how to navigate the political process. I mean, there's the how the bill becomes a law that we all listen to in the schoolhouse rock. you. if you can sort of go through those steps and show them where they can make a difference, then people, I've seen it, people become excited about being involved. They want to make good policies. They want to talk to their lawmakers. So we need at more people to do that, to hold our democracy accountable and to hold our policies accountable. And right now we're not holding policymakers accountable. We're not holding, we're not enforcing the laws that we have on our books and people that mostly because people have sort of as powers consolidated, people have become more and more apathetic and they don't feel like they can make a difference. So. Nicolas Lirio (55:23.512) Do you think, which one of you thinks the chicken and the egg there? Molly Pickering (55:27.406) You know, that's a great question. I don't know. think I'd like to think that I guess in order for my like the vision to play out, I have to think that people sort of let things slide. Right. People became less involved and as they became less involved, then power consolidated. And if people stayed involved. and stayed vigilant and were really active in democracy, then that power wouldn't consolidate the way it does. Nicolas Lirio (56:01.396) Interesting. I have thought about writing a book called It's Not the Government's Fault. It's yours. Now I'm telling you wrong. But but and I jokingly put on Facebook once it was a joke. People were very upset that it should be illegal to vote federally if you don't show up to most of your local elections. Because if because that affects you more directly, more quickly, you know, and Molly Pickering (56:10.606) I can't remember what was. Molly Pickering (56:25.4) interesting. Nicolas Lirio (56:31.346) it allows, it helps you be more connected to the human side of it. They're like, I know that human running for it. And then when, when the president is curious, what's going on in Iowa, they call the governor. When the governor is curious about what's going around the local, they, they call our mayor. Well, I have the chance to talk to my mayor and tell my mayor, I don't have the chance to meet the governor and shake their hand and tell them what's really important to me. You know, and I think that it could trickle up in that direction. Not that that's what you were saying, but I, I feel similarly that we felt, you take your eye off a devil for one second. know what I mean? And so is it the devil's fault? Definitely. Is it also your fault for knowing he was a devil and taking his eye off of him for one second? Kind of. Molly Pickering (57:17.014) Yeah, for sure. Nicolas Lirio (57:18.998) Man, well, we want to shift because we really like your organization, really like what you're doing. So we wanted to give an opportunity for you guys to talk about, what are big successes that you have had that you would like other places to replicate if they could? Molly Pickering (57:32.158) okay. Well, I would say our organization's pretty old, but really we have only shifted to focusing highly on policy in the last five years. we were doing a little bit of it. So it started off as a policy organizing organization and it was really around strip coal mining. So it was bringing people together to protect their land and resources from strip coal mining in the south. And so that's how it started. Nicolas Lirio (57:44.238) What were you doing before that? Kent Boucher (58:01.122) So how long ago was that? Molly Pickering (58:02.35) That was in 1974. Wow. Yeah. then so the original founders were actually responsible for passing some like really key federal legislation that protected people from protected land from strip coal mining. Sorry about that. So then it's sort of the organization took a shift to be more about just rural issues in general. And then that sort of shifted into local food and sustainable agriculture. But there were some times in the past where it wasn't the most functional. All nonprofit organizations sometimes go through periods of struggle. so for a while, they were doing some direct local food programming instead of sort shifted away from policy and were running farmers markets, trying to do value chain coordination, interesting. Yeah, connecting farmers directly to restaurants and to businesses. And then we're doing some conservation technical assistance for farmers. And so we sort of had shifted at one point sort of away from policy. We're still doing a little bit of policy, you know, but it was like one of three things that we were doing. And then in the last five years, we really shifted back towards focusing just mostly on policy and leadership development with farmers. Nicolas Lirio (59:22.702) Why? what, how did you become metacognizant of, know, that something needed to change? Molly Pickering (59:29.314) Well, well, we first of all, we saw how big of a difference it made when and this is actually sort of personally for me, too. I started out as the outreach coordinator here, so I was going around interviewing farmers, telling their stories, running like a Buy Fresh Buy Local program to try to like essentially a campaign to get people to buy local. And at the same time, I was also doing sort of the communications for our policy work. And so I had not I didn't have a policy background. I told you earlier I was a Spanish teacher, so I didn't come from policy. But I saw that when we passed a law, I saw the difference that it made immediately. Wow. Like you could say this was going to you know, this changed people's lives overnight versus if we it didn't matter. It didn't seem to matter how much market. Well, no, when I was doing that, when I was doing. Kent Boucher (01:00:22.126) You're a teacher you could observe that is that what you're saying? Molly Pickering (01:00:27.598) the policy and the marketing for Illinois Search Up Alliance. So I was doing a lot of marketing and it didn't felt like it didn't matter how much I marketed. I could market, I could promote, you know, buying local as much as I wanted and did the best job ever on doing that. But it wouldn't wasn't moving the needle for farmers. But when we passed a law, I could see like, this made a difference for people immediately. So that was a real mindset shift for me. But then the real thing is we hired a new executive director. Five, no, it's getting close to like 10 years now. I said five years, but man, time is flying. It's closer to 10 years. So we hired. Exactly. So we hired a new executive director. She came with. Nicolas Lirio (01:01:09.484) years for five years. Molly Pickering (01:01:15.854) organizing a community organizing background and so she really helped us move towards policy and so shout out to our executive director Liz Stelk. Nicolas Lirio (01:01:26.99) That's super cool. with, and you guys realize, okay, legislation on food is the direction that we want to go. Molly Pickering (01:01:36.366) Well, was more about legislation for farmers, right? So it was more about bringing farmers together and solving the problems for farmers. So in terms of wins for Illinois, think one of our biggest policies that we've passed is around cottage food. So this is a real example of how just regulations are not set up to support small scale farming and food businesses. Are you familiar with cottage food? Nicolas Lirio (01:01:41.762) Which happens to Nicolas Lirio (01:02:04.863) Yeah, the cottage food license means you can make it in your house, right? Molly Pickering (01:02:09.09) Yes, essentially. So that was before the cottage food law existed in Illinois. People couldn't make food in their home kitchen. They had to go to a commercial kitchen and a commercial kitchen. One, they're sort of hard to find. Two, they are super expensive. We're talking about like ten thousand dollar minimum investment if you're going to buy one. And that's a minimum. Most of them are like hundreds of thousands of dollars. And. And the problem was, people had to, in order to start a food business, they had to invest their life savings on a really big risk, right? And with the cottage food law, that allowed them to not do that. They could start it in their home kitchen. Nicolas Lirio (01:02:53.806) So Illinois's cottage food law is from you guys. Molly Pickering (01:02:58.092) Yes, it's from us. congrats. Yeah. And we've been doing different iterations to try to improve that cottage food law gradually for the last 10 years as well. So every couple of years we revisit it, tweak it, make it a little bit better for folks. But now I think I, in my personal opinion, I think we have one of the strongest cottage food laws in the nation. Nicolas Lirio (01:03:18.062) What do think of IOS? Okay. It's well during COVID it was really lenient. They would basically like, they were like, send us a video of your kitchen. And they were just look, making sure there was no mice in the, in the photo or the video. I was like, that was it. And you have to have a separate room for storage that doesn't have your own. But those are really the only, you know, the obvious things like smooth services or whatever. But my, we have friends who, Molly Pickering (01:03:19.958) I don't know what I was in Nicolas Lirio (01:03:45.838) Two different families. The wife stays home, but she's like, well, I want to do something. And the cottage food law allows her to contribute to the family's finance, not in a small way. It's like well over $10,000 for both of them here. Molly Pickering (01:03:58.998) We hear that a lot from a lot of moms, moms who have kids with disabilities or moms that, yeah, you know, for sure that's, or they're just like, they need to stay home because they can't, for whatever reason, they need to stay home with their children or it's not financially, you know, better for them to go out and get a job than to stay home with their children because. Childcare is crazy expensive, right? So we find that a lot of moms staying home with their children, like this has been a huge game changer for them and for their families. But also for farmers here in Illinois, it was really important that the cottage food law here not just be around like baked goods. So our law differs, I think, from a lot of other cottage food laws and that we do pickles, fermented foods, salsas. Things that a lot of other states don't allow because they say it's not their sort of higher risk foods, our farmers are able to do that because we put a lot of food safety regulations into the cottage food law and now allows people to do a lot more things and really supports more farmers as well. Nicolas Lirio (01:05:05.566) That is actually a huge huge deal. Congratulations. Yeah, that was a cool thing Did you what's up with so raw milk in Iowa? Well, it was at three years ago was passed legalized What about here in Illinois? I heard you talking about that Molly Pickering (01:05:08.867) Yeah. Molly Pickering (01:05:18.454) Yeah, so raw milk is legal, but you have to buy it from the farm. you can't they can't go to a farmer can't sell it at a grocery store or pick up or drop off location. Nicolas Lirio (01:05:29.282) Yeah, we wanted to have raw milk at the coffee shop to like steam raw milk and that would be fun. But no, that is a no no. Molly Pickering (01:05:36.564) yeah that's a big no no for sure Nicolas Lirio (01:05:39.166) That's good. Because my my counter argument, which I don't know if it's good or not, my counter argument would be that if you know your farmer, you're the farmer is much more likely to be accountable to like healthier and safe, right? As opposed to if they just dropped it off at high V and then left, you know. Molly Pickering (01:05:52.75) 100 % Molly Pickering (01:05:58.946) Well, that's why they have that's exactly why it is that way. It's a smaller footprint of risk rate. And as you scale, is the thing that I always think we should be working on. Kent Boucher (01:06:09.742) was the sickness that was associated with unpasteurized milk? Nicolas Lirio (01:06:15.31) I don't know, but I'm Molly Pickering (01:06:16.63) I thought it was just E. coli, but I could be wrong. Kent Boucher (01:06:18.646) I think it was a like that might be the agent that caught it, but there was like a name for it. It's like, I can't remember what it was. It was a pretty. Nicolas Lirio (01:06:26.734) I'm googling it. Sorry, but keep going. Molly Pickering (01:06:27.598) Yeah, well, it's as you as you scale up production and you're going to, know, you're reaching more people, then you should have more regulations, right? Small, smaller scale. You have less impact. You have less. You're going to have less impact on people. You know, economy, the environment, less regulations as you scale up. You should have more regulations. That's not what we have right now in most of our system. It's we have a regulations are just set up for like the highest. Nicolas Lirio (01:07:00.558) And so if you can't high jump 15 feet, you can't get over the bar. You have to have a billion dollars. Well, then all of sudden only one company's left. Oh yeah. That's a great point. Uh, most commonly associated with pathogens like campylobacter, E. Coli and listeria. Molly Pickering (01:07:17.398) Listeria, that's one. So raw milk at your coffee shop. think if we could craft a policy that where it was really transparent and people knew that they were getting raw milk and they could make that decision. Nicolas Lirio (01:07:20.398) Beautiful. Nicolas Lirio (01:07:35.168) Or like a label on the cup of who the farmer that it came from or like pulled that bridge. Molly Pickering (01:07:39.434) Again, people can make their own decision about their own risk. Kent Boucher (01:07:42.263) with you. Nicolas Lirio (01:07:43.807) I will not sue you for the E. coli Kent Boucher (01:07:45.998) Well, you'd probably have to, I mean, because those are bacteria, you'd probably have to also get more regular inspections from... Well, it's twice a week for you guys. Nicolas Lirio (01:07:53.87) Because right now it's over three years. Kent Boucher (01:08:01.14) So special man. Nicolas Lirio (01:08:03.382) I'm kidding. Kent Boucher (01:08:05.838) Smire is very clean police. I just love giving you that. Don't say incriminating things. Nicolas Lirio (01:08:09.869) below we live in the apartment Nicolas Lirio (01:08:15.342) Actually, you've been in there so it's clean. Despite how Kent paints me, I'm pretty picky about my living space being clean. My truck's just, it's just my truck. man. here's a question for you. My wife and I were talking about this because we grew up in different households that did this differently. Do you do your dishes right after you eat? Do you do your dishes before you eat or do you do dishes when they pile up? Kent Boucher (01:08:42.73) Saturday Nicolas Lirio (01:08:51.298) I would take that deal every day if I could. But I can't. Molly Pickering (01:08:57.139) I cook half the time and then do this. Kent Boucher (01:08:59.027) Kaelin hates it when the dishes pile up. It's like multiple times a day in our house. Nicolas Lirio (01:09:01.428) yeah. Well yeah, you guys got like kids and all sorts of stuff. Molly Pickering (01:09:06.476) We try to unload the dishwasher together in the morning. So we have a system. We load it up at night. We run it. We unload it in the morning and then try to get most of the stuff back in the dishwasher again in the evening. Nicolas Lirio (01:09:19.214) My wife, her family was right after the dishes were done. I grew up when the sinks are full. But my wife doesn't before she she does all the dishes. She cleans everything and then sits down to cold food. I like, babe, let's just sit down. She hasn't been doing that as much recently. I don't know. Molly Pickering (01:09:28.6) to eat. Molly Pickering (01:09:35.854) You Molly Pickering (01:09:41.39) clean up a little as you go. I try not to leave him with like 50 pots, right? I try to do a little bit as I go here and there. Nicolas Lirio (01:09:48.945) Yeah, I don't clean up as I go. I cook and it's like, you know, man. All right. Well, we promise we get you out of here at a certain time, but we do have one more question that we'd like to follow. You spend a lot of time thinking about change. If you could snap your fingers and change one thing about the world and you can hyper localize it, you can make it as broad as you want. You do whatever you want. Molly Pickering (01:09:54.39) No difference. Molly Pickering (01:10:06.35) Mm-hmm. Kent Boucher (01:10:14.382) And it doesn't have to be within your realm of work. It could be totally off topic. Molly Pickering (01:10:20.266) God. Yeah. That's a really hard question. So I'm to give it more thought. But here's my gut reaction. I think that right now the like sort of the mantra of agriculture is we have to feed the world. I want us to feed our communities. Like if I could snap it, I would feed our communities. Kent Boucher (01:10:46.062) I love that. That is great. Nicolas Lirio (01:10:48.232) answer and it may help. Kent Boucher (01:10:51.02) If you're your communities, you're gonna feed the world. Or the world's gonna be fed. That's a better way of saying it. Molly Pickering (01:10:52.928) Absolutely. Nicolas Lirio (01:10:56.974) I also think that jumps in with like where the United States has gone the last 30, 40 years instead of just like involved in your community and voting at your local election and hang out. We're like screaming at people on Facebook across the world trying to solve problems in other countries that are hard. We could just hang out in our communities. All right. Well, Molly Pickering (01:11:14.229) Exactly. Molly Pickering (01:11:19.26) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (01:11:21.59) We really, really appreciate you hanging out with us. If they were trying to find more about what you do or your organization, what would they check out? Molly Pickering (01:11:28.778) www.ilstewards.org Nicolas Lirio (01:11:32.238) Awesome. Well, just like Molly does, she thinks about this a long time and man, she thinks about has great thoughts you for all of us to have change, you have to do the same because conservation happens just one mind at a time. Molly Pickering (01:11:47.458) This was so much fun. Thank you so much. Kent Boucher (01:11:49.878) joining us. Nicolas Lirio (01:11:50.69) You were awesome.