Paid To Not Farm

And other great government "solutions" to problems. 😒

 Key topics:

✔️Always look for the money trail. The French say, "Cherchez la femme." Well I say, "Chercher l'argent."
✔️Looking at the AAA and how it helped industrial agriculture tells you a lot about how the system actually works.
✔️Replace the traditional family farm with giant behemoths and put industrial corn in everything. Cheap, quick food = most people are now overweight or obese and on pharmaceuticals. Chercher l'argent!
✔️Is the food system as rigged as the broader economy? 🤔

Links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RwIWGkMxrE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_Adjustment_Act

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/29/usda-farmers-conservation-program-507028

https://theconversation.com/industrial-corn-farming-is-ruining-our-health-and-polluting-our-watersheds-39721

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbc2MeaU_Xo

https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259

Links where I can be found: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2023/01/30/updates-housekeeping/

Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/

Transcript

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Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here's your host, Sara Causey. Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. In today's episode, I want to talk about that time when the government paid farmers not to farm, as well as what the hell is going on with our food supply? What's going on with public health? And why these things are important? Should it be a statement of the obvious yet, as I've said before, it seems that some people would rather watch mindless videos on tick tock and go into the world of celebrity and royal gossip. Rather than thinking about everyday important decisions that impact their lives. I debated about how to start this episode, what to say, what felt like it was maybe walking in the danger zone. I've noticed a trend in recent times within the emergency preparedness community. And I want to be very clear in saying that I'm not calling anybody out, I'm not talking about any one particular person, or any one particular set of circumstances. And I'm not trying to be judgmental towards anybody. I'm trying to report this as a statement of fact, and then turn it around like the old fashioned Rubik's Cube, let's look at this from some different angles and think about why it's happening. But noticed people within the emergency preparedness community falling ill, and reporting health problems. And when I say health problems, I'm talking about standard American western world diseases. And as I've heard this news repeatedly, from various people in different parts of the country with different situations, the light bulb that has always gone off above my head, and this is just my opinion, I could be wrong. As I always say, I'm not a doctor or a nurse, I don't give you advice of any kind. The light bulb that goes off over my head is, okay, standard American western world disease, probably caused by standard American western world diet. I think about the number of times that I have seen people whether it's true emergency preppers people that want to have that two to three weeks of food put back on the shelf, just in case they get snowed in, just in case the grid went down just in case we had another two weeks to flatten the curve at some point. Or we're talking about flat out hoarders, people who really are not part of the preparedness community, per se. They'll hoard anything, junk, garbage, et cetera. They have the tendency to stockpile what I would call junk food, because that's what's cheap and readily available. And I think about the times that I've seen people posting photos or making videos on social media, and saying, look at what we got today, hey, we had a grocery haul, hey, we had a Walmart stock up. And here are all the things that we got we clipped coupons. And let's go ahead and put extreme couponers into this category as well. We clipped coupons. We hit an awesome sale, we got all of this stuff. And then they show you a picture of what they bought. And it's like, Man, that is not good for you at all. And as I've said before, and we'll say again, I understand what that situation is like I have lived it. Please believe me. I talked on the air not that long ago about the time when I was waiting to get paid and the only thing left in the house was off brand Lucky Charms like magic leprechaun man cereal, and some skim milk. So I had that for Thursday night's dinner. And then I got up and had that for Friday morning's breakfast because that was the option. I understand. When you are working poor when you're scraping by paycheck to paycheck. You're not going and getting flog raw. And it always hits my ear funny. Whenever you hear some stuck up prat saying, Oh, I would never eat spam. I would never eat cornflakes. I would never I would never I've never. And what that tells me Is that person has never been hungry. That person has never been struggling. They've never they've never known the struggle. Because if you've had some struggle meals, you know, damn, well what I'm talking about, yeah, you're gonna eat Bologna, you're gonna eat spam, you're gonna eat cornflakes, you're gonna eat magic leprechaun man off brand cereal, because that's what you've got. That's what you can afford. And that's what you've got. period, you will eat the spam, you will eat the cereal, you will eat whatever the ramen noodles, the hotdogs, the Bologna, the PB and J sandwiches if that is the option, because that's what you can afford. If you're hungry enough you're going to eat. I want to also be clear in saying that those items are not health food items. And I think we all know that. I think we're aware that going and getting fast food or eating like a sugary kid cereal is probably not the greatest choice in the world. And so when I see whatever preppers order is extreme couponers hoarding these western world sugar and salt laden foods. And then saying, Well, I just got diagnosed with and then insert a standard western world disease here. It's just frankly not a surprise. And I have to wonder out loud, how much of a service or a disservice are we doing? If the items that we are stockpiling are ticking time bombs if you're eating because that's supposedly the theory anyway, behind some degree of prepping or extreme couponing, you're going to rotate your pantry so that you're not stockpiling things that you're not going to eat. So presumably, if someone goes and gets a boatload of Top Ramen, or they go and get a truckload of Spaghettios and Chef Boyardee, presumably they're eating that. And then look at what happens. I don't know the full story, obviously. And as I say, it's just my opinion. And I could be wrong. I'm not a medical professional. Just sort of sitting here connecting the dots and thinking like, Well, I mean, if that's the stuff that you're eating on a regular basis, like is it completely a surprise that this is happening? But yet, here we go a catch 22 of what can you afford? Especially in inflation? 2008 2009 was bad enough. I've talked about that. Plenty of times. If you had a job you held on to it, you lick to the corporate boots, because you did not want to get turned out with the unemployed masses. And it was just taking everything. Gas was expensive. You were always in peril. Poverty was everywhere. The food banks were running out of food. I mean, if you had to eat magic leprechaun man, and that was it. That's all you're gonna have for dinner. That was it. That was reality. So here's the paradox, right? Here's the food that's available that you can afford. It's unhealthy as hell, but you're gonna have to choose between eating unhealthy crap or starving. So what's it going to be? Well, of course, you're gonna make the unhealthy choice because you're, you're hungry. At some point, those biological instincts kick in, which is my point about the stuck up brats who act like oh, I would just never eat that. Yeah, you would. If you were hungry enough, you damn sure would. Not saying it's the healthiest choice that's out there, but it beats the hell out of starving. I know that. I want to read a passage before I move on to talk about the bigger picture here and how the strings are potentially being pulled. I want to read a passage from Gary Taubes book why we get fat and what to do about it. It was let's see the edition that I have came from the good old library. Shout out to checking out the books in the time of inflation. Sometimes that is quite necessary. I have a hardback first edition from 2011. So if we go to page 22 of this hardback version we find so why were they fat years of starvation are supposed to take weight off, not put it on or leave it on as the case may be. And if the government rations were simply excessive making the famines a thing of the past, then why would the Pima get fat on the abundant rations and not on the abundant food they'd had prior to the famines? Perhaps the answer lies in the type of food being consumed a question of quality rather than quantity. This is what Russell was suggesting when he wrote that certain articles of their food appear to be markedly flesh producing. hrdlicka also thought that the Pima should Be thin considering the precarious state of their existence. And so he said the role played by food in the production of obesity among the Indians is apparently indirect all button to say obviously, this is some insensitive language we would say Native American or indigenous people now. This left him leaning toward physical inactivity as the cause or at least relative physical inactivity. In other words, the Pima might have been more active than we are today considering the rigors of pre industrial agriculture, but they were sedentary in comparison with what they used to be. This is what heard you heard liszka I'm trying. I actually can't understand some Croatian, but sometimes when it's when I'm reading something in Latin that I would rather read in Cyrillic, it's a challenge hrdlicka called the change from their past active life to the present state, have not a little indolence. But then he couldn't explain why the women were typically the fat ones. Even though these women did virtually all the hard labor in the villages harvesting the crops, grinding the grain even carrying the heavy burdens when the pack animals were unavailable. hrdlicka was also troubled by another local tribe, the Pueblo, who had been of sedentary habits since ancient times, but weren't fat. So maybe the culprit was the type of food the Pima were already eating everything that enters into the dietary of the white man. As her herd Lich cus says, this might have been the key. The Pima diet in 1900 had characteristics very similar to the diets many of us are eating a century later, but not in quantity and quality. As it turns out, half a dozen trading posts had opened on the Pima reservation in 1850. From these as the anthropologist Henry Dobbins had noted, the Pima bought sugar, coffee and canned goods to replace traditional foodstuffs last ever since whites had settled in their territory. Moreover, the great bulk of the government rations distributed to the reservations was white flour, as well as a significant amount of sugar, at least significant for the Pima of a century ago. These were quite likely the critical factors. I'm going to scroll down, scroll down, look down a little bit. If the Pima were the sole example of a population that was both very poor and beset by obesity, we could write them off as an exception to the rule. The single eyewitness whose testimony disagrees with copious others, but there were, as I said numerous such populations, numerous witnesses to the presence of high levels of obesity and extremely poor populations. The Pima were the flag bearers and a parade of witnesses whose testimony never gets heard, and who demonstrate that it's possible to become fat when you're poor, hardworking and even underfed. Let's examine what they have to say and then we'll move on. Now I'm going to turn the page a little bit because hrdlicka describes the Sioux of South Dakota on the crow Creek reservation, living in shacks unfit for occupancy, often four to eight members per room. Many had no plumbing and no running water. 40% of the children lived in homes without any kind of toilets 15 families with 32 children among them, we lived chiefly on bread and coffee. This was poverty almost beyond our imagination today. Yet their obesity rates were not much different from what we have today in the midst of our epidemic 40% of the adult women on the reservation, more than a quarter of the men and 10% of the children according to the University of Chicago report would be termed distinctly fat. It could be argued that maybe their reservation life of what heard Lich Cook had called not a little indolence was causing their obesity. But the researchers noted then another pertinent fact about the SU 1/5 of the adult children, and a quarter of the men and a quarter of the children were extremely thin. The diets on the reservation, much of which once again came from government rations were deficient in calories, as well as protein and essential vitamins and minerals. The impact of these dietary deficiencies was hard to miss. Although no counts were taken. Even a casual observer could not fail to note the great prevalence of decayed teeth of bowlegs of sore eyes and blindness among these families. This combination of obesity and malnutrition or undernutrition, existing in the same populations is something that authorities talk talk about today, as though it were a new phenomenon but it's not. And then he goes on to list further examples. 1951 Naples, Italy 1954 The Pima 1959 Charleston, South Carolina 1960 South Africa 1961 the South Pacific and the early 1960s. The West Indies also Chile, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, etc. Where there's a correlation between people being malnourished their quote over Wait are obese, but they're not getting proper nutrition. And they're also living in poverty. I'm sure you can figure out why I'm talking about this. This is the catch 22 that we so often find ourselves in as your ability to purchase and or grow good, nutritious, healthy foods declines. What are you left with? Junk, you're left with junk. Even if you're not going through a fast food drive thru, or you're not ordering pizza every night or drinking a lot of soda pops. These other things on the shelf that have a health halo around them typically aren't. I heard Gary Taubes on an interview talking about the diabetes aisle. Going down the breakfast, I'll have all of these different sugary cereals and oatmeals that had been spiked with sugar and granola bars that were spiked with sugar and just seeing like diabetes everywhere. That's what you're left with. So unfortunately, some of the people whose goals are noble, and they want to stock their pantry, they want to have things there either to provide for themselves or to maybe give to family members. In case that happens because I think it will, I think as we go further into this economic downturn, it may very well be that aunt and uncle such and so and a cousin you haven't heard from in years show up or call you on the phone and want to know if you can help them out. And it may be that the best that you can do is hand them half a dozen cans of Spaghettios, or a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter that may be the best that you can do financially to help them out and to keep them from starvation. I'm not telling you that any of these choices are right. I'm telling you that in my opinion, in the same way that the broader system itself is rigged. So is the food system. I watched a great documentary, I will drop a link to it. I think it was on real stories. And I believe the documentary itself was made in 2017. And it's called how corporations are ruining our health. And they go through a variety of topics. They have commentary about the industrial food system itself, where we go from this bucolic image of the family farm, probably something that would have been more in alignment with what my great grandparents and certainly the great great and great great great grandparents would have experienced this bucolic family farm where everything happens on the farm, the meat, the eggs, your butter is homemade your cheese, maybe homemade. Your Vegetables and fruits are coming from there as well how this idea of the family farm gets subverted by the state. Then it segues into food for war production, World War Two in that case, convenience food, everybody's going into the workforce, people are not staying at home. And back at that time. It was women. Typically it was the man of the house that held the job outside the house. And it was the woman of the house that stayed at home raised the children cooked the food and made food related decisions for the household. Well as women went into the workforce, then it became about convenience. We, hey, we're working outside the home now too. We don't want to stand over a stove all day and stress out about food we need things that we can make quickly, easily efficiently. And they also talk about some of the backlash to that people starting restaurants that were focused more on local in season fresh items. The ubiquity now that we see a farmer's markets, community gardens, teaching kids about like edible school yards or having edible gardens on site at schools. So I feel like there's sort of a mix of the positive and the negative in that documentary. But it definitely gets you to thinking about how industrialization changed the face of the food system, as well as the interference that we see from the state. So let's go back in time, because one of the things that they mentioned in this documentary is the triple A or the Agricultural Adjustment Act. Let's read about what that was. We'll just go over Wikipedia. The Triple A was a United States federal law of the New Deal era designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land. The money for these subsidies was generated through an exclusive tax on companies which processed foreign products. The Act created a new agency, the Agricultural Adjustment administration also called triple A, an agency of the US Department of Agriculture to oversee the distribution of the subsidies. The agriculture marketing Act, which established the federal farm board in 1929, was seen as an important precursor to this act. The triple A, along with other New Deal programs represented the federal government's first substantial effort to address economic welfare in the United States. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933, the US was in the midst of the Great Depression, farmers faced the most severe economic situation and lowest agricultural prices since the 1890s, overproduction and a shrinking international market had driven down agricultural prices. Soon after his inauguration Roosevelt called the 100 days Congress into session to address the crumbling economy. From this Congress came the triple A to replace the federal farm board. The Roosevelt administration was tasked with decreasing agricultural surpluses, wheat, cotton field, corn, hogs, rice, tobacco, and milk and its products were designated as basic commodities in the original legislation. subsequent amendments in 34 and 35 expanded the list of basic commodities to include rice, flax, barley, grain sorghum, cattle, peanuts, sugar beets, sugarcane and potatoes. The administration targeted these commodities for the following reasons, changes in the prices of these commodities had a strong effect on the prices of other important commodities. These commodities were already running a surplus at the time, these items were required some amount, these items each required some amount of processing before they could be consumed by humans and quote. So there goes the stuff that doesn't require processing before it's consumed by humans being able to just go out and pick something right off the tree or right off the vine and be be able to eat it, maybe rinse it off or dusted off on your shirt first. And other than that, it's good to go process. They require some kind of processing. That is not a coincidence. And you will find out if you choose to watch that documentary from real stories, you'll find out more about this idea that paying the farmers not to farm really gave industrial agriculture, big ag, if you will, followed by big food and big beverage, gave them the opportunity to slide right and we get the good old fashioned family farmer out of the way so that we can slide in and take their place because people have to eat they have to eat. So the idea of the family farmer not being able to fulfill that need anymore. Well guess what? Here comes the all razzle dazzle here comes a corporate solution, here comes a government solution, and then everything gets totally effing worse. For one thing, corn starts going in every thing. I think it was the 1970s where we start to see high fructose corn syrup, replacing sugar as like the new big thing. I'll drop a link to this article from the conversation.com and it's titled industrial corn farming is ruining our health and polluting our watersheds. last summer's Lake Erie toxic algae outbreak shut down the water supply for almost half a million people in Toledo in the surrounding suburbs. Bottled water ran out in stores across the area and residents fled the city in search of clean water and option not available to Lake Erie is diverse and fascinating array of wildlife. The resulting call for action focused on setting toxin standards and reducing discharges of the fertilizer phosphorus, the primary driver of the toxic algae to Lake Erie. This is this is consistent with calls for action. From the Ohio Lake Erie phosphorus taskforce the International Joint Commission the region's governors and the recently renewed Canada us Great Lakes Water Quality agreement. This is a rational and appropriate response. However, the devil is in the details of how to accomplish it and truly addressing a problem of this scale requires cutting back on industrial corn farming, which means re examining our agricultural food and energy policies and quote, well, you think that's going to happen? This was published on April 6 of 2015. Do you think that industrial corn farming industrial soybean farming Do you think that's going to go anywhere? I don't. Not at all. Here we go history repeating. I'm also going to scoot over to politico.com a program that pays farmers not to farm isn't saving the planet. In the byline we read a decade's old program that pays farmers to leave land fallow is being heralded by the Biden administration as a climate solution. But environmentalists don't see it that way. And this was published on August 29 of 2021. President Joe Biden wants to combat climate change by paying more farmers not to farm but he's already finding it's hard to make that work his Ag department is far behind its goal for enrolling new land in one program that has that goal, with participation being the lowest it's been in more than three decades and quote, yeah, here we go again. So what will that yield? What will be the outcome of that if you're able to pay farmers not to farm whoever's left, whoever still hanging on I guess if you're able to get rid of them, what do you think's going to happen? Do you think that's going to abate climate change? No. Do you think that's really the point behind it? I don't. When you control the food supply, you really control the world? I mean, think about it. You do. People are not going to starve. This is one of my arguments about our to the idea that people will just sit it out at home making no money, people living paycheck to paycheck and swimming and personal debt. They will sit it out at the house and they will just say Dammit, I'm not going back. I will sit out here and I will starve. I will let my kids starve before I go back to the office. No, they won't. No, they won't. There's an old saying that at any point in time, we're only nine meals away from anarchy. If that's true, and you think about whoever's holding the food supply, it's a hell of a lot of power. There's another great video that it's worth your time to watch on food lies on YouTube titled How the sick care system cons the world for trillions with Callie means part of the peak human podcast. Kelly means has been making the rounds. I first saw him I think on Russell Brand's channel. He's a self confessed big food Big Pharma Insider. And he does a great job in this podcast episode of talking about the food system and the beverage system. And then how all of that feeds into Big Pharma. In the show notes, just so you get a highlight reel here, the show notes we find is the growth of the healthcare industry correlated with better outcomes. Humans and domesticated animals are the only creatures struggling with systematic obesity, depression and metabolic dysfunction. The average American today goes through 17 different medical specialists throughout their life. Most forms of cancer aren't unlucky. They're very preventable. Food alongside other metabolic habits are causing not just a health epidemic in the US, but economic and political turmoil as well. The American Diabetes Association said that as long as you take your drugs if you're a type two diabetic, you can eat whatever you want. All been in and say I have seen that play out with family members, I have flat out seen that and wondered where in the hell is that coming from? Like, who would tell a diabetic? Yes, you can eat pies and cakes and cookies, you just take more and more medication to compensate for it. Like who does that? So it was very revealing to me to finally get an answer to that question. Ultra processed food is made up of highly processed grains, sugar and seed oils, all button again and say, Here we go. You pay farmers not to farm you get the little guy the hell out of the way. You get rid of that bucolic beautiful image of the family farm with everything being healthy and nutritious. And you start industrial AG, you start big ag, you start planting the hell out of soybeans and corn, and you put them in freaking everything along with a crapload of sugar and salt, get the food as addictive as possible. And then also make it cheap, subsidize it and make it cheap. But see, it's not cheap. Think about the stores. I'm not going to name any names. But we all know who I'm talking about. Think about the stores that have low prices. But then you find out that they also tell their employees to file for food stamps and welfare benefits, which we're paying for. So then the low price really isn't so low. What's the same thing with food? What you're not paying up front, when you buy that item and then put it in your body, you pay for it later. Just part of what I'm seeing play out. Unfortunately, in the preparedness community, hearing more and more people come forward and say I have this disease. I have that condition. I'm dealing with this problem. And now I need meds every day. I mean, it's scary. It's just not surprising. Especially when you connect all of these dots as Kelly means does very well. In this episode. The USDA recommends up to 10% of our diet to be added sugar nudging us into funding our destruction. Is there any way right now without waiting for policy change to use our current health benefits to buy root cause habits? Again, I will drop a link to this it's very much worth watching as is the real story documentary. Sad but not surprising. Even in the wake of pollution, ruining our health polluting the watersheds, having this toxic algae outbreak to the point where the water is not safe people have Leave to find other places to go for drinking water and water to Bay then nobody cares about that. No, it's all about what's good for these huge behemoths. Get rid of the traditional family farm put the giant behemoths and the industrial corn in charge. They're the ones that need to be driving the steering wheel driving the car. cheap, quick, cheap, easily accessible everywhere. Ignore the fact that most people are now either overweight or obese and on pharmaceuticals. In that situation, you have to follow the money trail, and you have to ask yourself who is benefiting from this? We know that the hyper elites have a history of in gorging themselves stealing money from other people. Think about what Gordon Gekko said, Money is not lost or made. It's simply transferred from one perception to another. Well, they do a hell of a lot of transferring from your perception to their perception. And we saw this statistics even from Oxfam. They presented that information at the freaking WEF, to the hyper elites. Kind of insanity is that. Look at how rich all of you bastards got during the pandemic. To the root of the rich bastards, it's it's crazy. The onus is on you. I talked in last week's podcast episode about hacking yourself not in doing anything crazy, dangerous. Cult like listening to gurus, fad diets, anything like that. But knowing thyself is binge eating Spaghettios or ramen noodles The best way to survive an economic downturn? I don't know. The only way to answer that question for yourself is to look at your budget and make that decision because every single person listening is going to have a different budget and a different set of health concerns. I did what I had to do through the Great Recession. That's for damn sure. Microwave burritos, Hot Pockets, generic cereal, skim milk, because it was always cheaper. There's basically no taste to it. It's almost better to put water on there than that crap. But I did what I had to do. Peanut butter, I ate plenty of that. Oatmeal. I remember eating like the instant oatmeal that you can get on the cheap. I think it's still fairly cheap in the stores, relatively speaking. whatever I could find that I could afford, whatever was on sale. And no, I didn't fall over dead. I didn't. I made I made it through. That's why I'm telling you you have to look at your own budget and your own health concerns. Everybody is going to have a different set of responsibilities and priorities. I will say that knowing that information in advance and being able to plan ahead, will the climate screw us again this year, I don't know I haven't even planted a single plant yet. Because I am waiting for some weather to pass. We're about to get flood rains. So the last thing that I want to do is go out and plant a bunch of seeds that will get washed out by the rain. And then I want to see are we going to go back into another immediate hot as hell drought. What's what's about to happen? I don't want to waste plants and seeds. Can you grow garden? Are you able to can or freeze or preserve things that are coming from your own property? Are you able to buy seeds from someplace reputable where they're using heirloom plants? Non GMO, you feel like there's some level of trust in what you're planting and then what you're ingesting. Maybe not, maybe not. I planted I had every intention, I got a pressure canner I was ready to go. And I can like three jars of summer squash? Well, if we had to survive on that we would be screwed. So I'm not telling you not to go to the store and buy anything not to prep. I think as a bare minimum, it's a smart idea to have that two to three weeks of emergency food just in case. Because we live in an uncertain times. We don't know what's about to happen from one freaking day to the next. We don't know am I telling you to go buy as much junk food as possible? Is that a license to buy? Super processed junk food loaded with sugar? That's a decision that you have to make for yourself. It's almost like going into a video game or a simulation like how can I go and find canned goods that are as healthy as possible? Where I'm going to feel good about ingesting this later. I'm going to feel like it's even if it's not the healthiest choice in the world, it's at least not completely diabolic hole. Unfortunately, I think when you shove out the family farmer, and you bring in corporate America with its great corporate ideas and its relentless pursuit of profits above everything else it's the consumer who loses. It's just like my analogy of the low prices except haha they're not because they're relying on taxpayer subsidies. cheap food at the end of the day is really actually not cheap. Stay safe, stay sane. Please stay healthy. And I will see you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a quick second to subscribe to this podcast and share it with your friends. We'll see you next time.