All language subtitles for FoodAndCountry2023720pAMZNWEB-DLDDP51H264-BYNDRSDH[_22531]

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to stay at home in the state of California.

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stay-safe order for all Michiganders.

- [man] For all Ohioans.
- [man] Across Maryland.

- [man] All Delawareans.
- [man] The entire state of Louisiana.

[man] For the state of Illinois.

[man] These can be
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All of us are safer at home.

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[Ruth] Hi, Alice. How are you?

[Alice] Oh, Ruth.

I mean, I keep thinking, it can't
get any harder, and then it does.

[Ruth] I know, I know. It's
such a frightening time.

[Alice] It is, it's horrible.

[heavy sigh]

[Ruth] So, Alice, I am
working on this documentary

about the pandemic and what it's
going to do to the food system.

I really can't send cameras
to anyone or, you know...

- [Alice] That's right.
- This is what we're stuck with.

[Alice] Yeah.

[Ruth] Um, I think that...

this is a disaster moment
for the food system.

I would be surprised if more
than half of the restaurants

were able to reopen
at the end of this.

And, you know, I think the
farmers are just planting

as if someday we're
going back to normal.

And it's not going
to be the same.

[Alice] No, it's not.

The farmers may not sell
all the food that they have.

And they may or may not find
somebody else to take it.

I mean, we really need to
rethink everything now,

I think, from the ground up.

[siren wailing]

COVID was the wake-up call.

The moment we couldn't ignore.

Our broken food
system was exposed.

The abundance that we as Americans
are used to could just go away.

It could all end.

I've been writing about
food for 50 years,

trying to get Americans
to care more about it.

[man] Ruth Reichl, the revered restaurant
critic for the New York Times...

[man] Ruth Reichl,
Gourmet magazine editor...

How we eat as a
nation is important.

I mean, I think it's important to our
children, I think it's important to the future.

And I think food is not
just something you eat,

it's political and social...

Food is elemental
to our survival,

but we take food and the people
behind it completely for granted.

First I started talking to the
independent restaurateurs I knew,

and then I reached out to
independent farmers and ranchers.

Welcome to Bluffton.

Welcome to Spencertown.
Can you hear me?

- Yeah.
- Oh, good, hi.

- Hi.
- Good morning, ma'am, how are you?

Can you take me through
this whole pandemic process?

[woman] I was running numbers, and I'm
like, I have to do something different.

My workers demanded
answers that I didn't have.

The CEO of Tyson said the
American food system Is breaking.

Yeah... he's right.

[man] A lot of people are on the ropes,
and things haven't been good anyway.

[man 2] These folks
are part of our family,

and we're going to put them
on the unemployment line.

[man 3] The chance of us
as farmers surviving just,

you know, goes down every day.

Inexpensive food, at some
point of the food chain,

someone is getting abused.

[woman] There's only
one way out of that.

It's changing the systems
that caused us to be

so lacking in resiliency
when the pandemic struck.

[woman] They're all struggling, experimenting,
doing whatever it took to survive.

Not that a paycheck is everything, but
it's like, you know, what is your worth?

What's your value?

[Ruth] With so many
of them in crisis,

I wanted to connect with
those people directly.

- Hey.
- Hi, Ruth.

[Ruth] How are you?

So, what's it like in Chinatown?

I mean, are you surrounded by
restaurants that are closing?

Yeah, that's the saddest
part about this neighborhood,

is, there's an eerie quietness
in this neighborhood.

A lot of empty store fronts,
a lot of closed restaurants.

Chinatown was the
first to be affected.

People are scared to
come to Chinatown.

Whether that's, you know,
stereotypes or prejudices.

Just making fun of the
virus in Chinese names

is depleting the stature of what
this neighborhood had built.

But the hardest thing about this
pandemic is that each business

has been having to handle
this puzzle on their own.

[Ruth] I mean, it was
particularly bad timing for you,

because you were just
opening a restaurant.

[woman] Yeah.

I was already in survival mode, but
that week leading up to the pandemic,

I was going from one to two locations,
and I was really stretched thin.

Obviously, I'm not paying rent.

Hopefully my landlords
won't kick me out.

But I'm the primary
breadwinner of my family.

All of a sudden, I'm like, how
do I take care of my own family

and then take care of
all of these people?

And I just felt like I
had failed everybody.

[woman] You can ask me
questions while I do my hair.

[man] Okay. So you just talked about
the restaurant, how you pivoted.

[Minh] I hate the word "pivot"!

I called my landlord and I said,

"Hey, I just want you to know that
maybe we can't pay our rent next month."

"Can you please make
sure everything's okay?"

And he's like, "It's not."

"My 80-year-old parents
rely on this income."

- Yeah.
- [Minh] What the heck do you do?

And I'm like, there's no way I'm
going to do what everyone's doing

and not pay their
rent, if I can.

And, because he's an immigrant.

It's not them versus us.

It's not the... maybe the
banks a little bit, but...

Maybe the banks a
little bit, yeah.

You know, if this is the foreseeable
future, will you be okay?

[Minh] Uh... I don't
think Porridge & Puffs

is going to look like what it
was, and I don't expect it to.

This is day one, minute
one, brand-new business.

- Take care, enjoy cooking.
- Thank you.

[Ruth] I don't think
you sent me a Venmo.

[vendor] No, I did, you must've
been on, I just sent it.

[Ruth] Oh, okay.

When I was growing up,

most people just didn't
pay much attention to food.

Today, food is as important as art
and books and movies and music.

It is a huge part
of popular culture.

People often ask me today if I think
there's too much emphasis on food.

And you know what?

My answer is no.
There was too little.

[narrator] You've heard
of the art of cooking.

Well, here's an artist at work.

[Ruth] When I was growing up,

it was probably the only
time in human history

where people willfully
chose not to pay attention

to where their food came from,

how they were eating, what
it meant to their bodies.

The consequences
have been horrendous.

I didn't mean to be
unkind to mother,

but she did spend an awful
lot of time in that kitchen.

Frankly, I had better
things to do with my time.

[Ruth] Back in the '50s, advertising
began to sell us the idea

that cooking should be
quick and convenient.

[announcer] Just reach for a can, 3
minutes to heat, and it's ready to eat.

You'll be dancing with joy when you
serve Brown Beauty Spanish Rice.

[Ruth] If there were health consequences,
nobody was thinking about it.

Efficiency was everything.

But in the 1960s on
public television,

Julia Child came along
and began teaching

a fairly small, rebellious audience
how to cook like the French.

[Julia] Cutting down this way and
cutting across, do practice this method.

It does take a little practice, takes
you about a week or so to learn.

[Ruth] It was a direct response to the
idea that American food was terrible.

I mean, everybody talked
about, "Oh, America,

the land of hamburgers and hot
dogs, the land of fast food."

And Julia Child comes along and says,
"No, Americans can cook great food."

"They just have to
learn the technique."

And then you have Alice
Waters come along,

and there's a revolution
against that revolution,

which is, you cannot make great food
if you don't have great ingredients.

I mean, Alice says,
"Garbage in, garbage out."

You want great food in America, it's not about
technique, it's about the quality of the food.

Just a second, I'm going to move over
here so I can lean back on the couch.

I'm going to make you jealous.

Oh, oh, my God. You...
I am very jealous.

There is not a... The
best I can do is rhubarb.

Are you thinking of
reopening at some point?

[Alice] Well, the restaurant's
just not big enough.

God, it makes me so sad.

- I mean, we have bathrooms that are big as the closet.
- [Ruth] That's true.

[Alice] I mean, the tables
are very close together.

We've been making farm
boxes, because, for me,

the big, big issue is keeping
all of our purveyors alive.

[Brandon] When all of these
restaurants start to close,

it will close other parts of
other industries, as well.

Our order this week for produce
was the smallest it's ever been.

Those are relationships that I have
with farms that are over ten years,

and it sucks to not be
able to support them.

[Ruth] It's so bleak.

[man] You don't walk
away from a farm.

You can't put farms on furlough.

It's kind of like
a relationship.

You can't just ignore them
for two months or three months

and then walk back in and
expect to be greeted fondly.

[Ruth] The very first farmers I called
were Lee and Bob Jones at Chef's Garden,

because I know that

almost their entire business
is selling to restaurants,

so this had to be
brutal for them.

So, what have the last few
weeks been like for you?

You know, we're underwater. We
lost a lot of money in March.

Home delivery, I think, is a good
move, but we're starting from zero.

[Bob] How are we
going to handle this?

What decisions are
we going to make

to protect our team physically,
emotionally, financially...

You haven't had to throw
anything out, have you?

We're planting
literally every day,

and so those products, right
after the restaurants closed down,

that product just kept
coming and coming and coming.

You know, there was definitely
a period there where there was

a lot of dumping.

But if we're going down, we're
going to go down fighting.

[Ruth] I began thinking about
what might be happening out there

to the small,
independent ranchers,

the ones who supply meat to our
restaurants and supermarkets.

And then I came across
a rancher from Kansas.

He was all over social media,

talking about the challenges
that were facing his community.

You know, the state
of the cattle business

has turned into more than just
a cattle business problem.

It's turned into a United
States economics problem.

Good morning,
ma'am, how are you?

I'm very well, thank you. If
you could tell me the story

of COVID for you,
it would be great.

Okay. Uh...

We're starting to
back the cattle up.

You've seen on TV, I'm
sure, and everywhere,

of disposing of milk and hogs.

And we're probably not far
from that in the cattle part.

You have this huge
discrepancy now.

You've got record beef prices.

So the consumer's paying twice
what they were 60 days ago,

and you have a packer that's making a
billion dollars a week processing cattle,

while all the producers
are going broke.

[Ruth] It sounds like
the Big Four packers,

the meat processors,
have too much control?

Exactly. The
packers got so big,

and the monopolization of
processing plants so common,

that if you take
two of them offline,

all of a sudden we
have a meat shortage,

when there's no
shortage of food here.

We could feed a small country
right now with what we're wasting.

- [Ruth] Absolutely.
- [Steve] But our system is so specialized

that any kink and
we're in trouble.

I think that will
eventually bite us.

The majority of mass
agriculture in the United States

is all about how cheaply
can you produce it.

And that's what's gotten
us to where we are.

Other countries can't
spend per capita what we do

on entertainment and
vehicles and housing,

because they're
spending it on food.

- Right.
- You know.

For the last 50 years we've
thrown agriculture under the bus

as the bargaining tool for
everything America thought

the other countries
ought to be doing.

[melodic piano music]

[Ruth] Coming out
of World War II,

there was a very conscious decision
on the part of the American government

to make food political.

They had a huge stockpile of
ammunition left over from World War II.

They decide to convert
it into fertilizer.

There is a deep encouragement to replace
the animals on the farm with machines.

There's privileging of
efficiency, the factory model,

and there is a whole notion that
one way we can fight communism

is by having the cheapest and
most abundant food on earth.

We had an arms race
and a farms race.

You plan to outstrip us,

particularly in the
production of consumer goods?

Nixon actually had
what were called

the "kitchen cabinet
conversations" with Khrushchev.

He took him through
supermarkets,

and this notion is, "Look at
what we have in this country."

Nixon's secretary of
agriculture, Earl Butz,

actually said to the farmers,
"Get big or get out."

We're going to make
this industry pay.

P-R-O-F-I-T.

He encouraged them to
take out huge loans

to buy combines and
expensive equipment.

And they did.

Then, in the early '80s,
the overproduction of food,

combined with enormous farm
debt and high interest rates,

caused farmer after farmer across
the middle of America to go bankrupt.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Bless us, O Lord,
and these our gifts,

which we are about to receive from thy
bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

[Ruth] Oh, there you are.

Oh. Hi! Hi!

[Angela] I don't do
much video conferencing,

and I usually choose not to do the video, because
I'm just kind of shy, I guess, I don't know.

No, I totally get that.

So, tell me what COVID
has been like for you.

The markets took a hit,
but they're crappy anyway.

So, you know, it's
just one more thing.

[Ruth] So, what do you grow?

[Angela] Well, we
grow corn and beans.

And, in 2013, we put
wheat into our rotation.

And we've done Sudan
for forage for cattle,

because we just know we have to get an
income source other than corn and soybeans.

Because it doesn't pay.

Farming economics for the last
eight years has been stressful.

We're at cost of
production or less.

We're buying land,
we're buying equipment.

It's a half a million
dollars, almost,

for some of these
combines and tractors.

We've got bills up to here. I
mean, we are highly leveraged.

So we're transitioning
acres into organic.

[Ruth] But you'll
get more for organic.

Yes, but the hard part is
that 36 months of transition.

It's a nightmare.

[Ruth] Right, yeah,
36 months of no money.

[Angela] Right, and
tell your banker that.

We go every year to the
bank to renew our ag loan.

And it's only from beginning
of the year to the end.

And it's like, there's no,
there's no flow in between years,

where soil health needs that.

Transition to
organic needs that.

So, do you have animals as well?

- Just kids.
- [laughing]

Agricultural economics
is totally upside-down.

So, the majority of farmers in the United
States go to the bank every winter,

and they borrow operating capital so
that they can buy seed and fertilizer

and all of the inputs that
they'll need to grow their crops.

They farm all year and hope they can
make enough at the end of the year

to pay that note back and hope
that the lending institution

will do it again next year.

Over, and over,
and over, and over.

And in our history, that's
exactly what happened to us.

It was Economics
101 in the '80s.

We lost the family farm in '83.

I mean, everything,
it was an auction,

and everything right down
to my mom's car and our home

were auctioned off
in a foreclosure.

And it was survival mode.

Unfortunately right now feels
eerily, eerily like that.

It's a stupid business.
Nobody else does that.

I mean, go to any financial
advisor and say, "All right,

I'm going to risk $8
million this year,

and I'm going to work 100 hours
a week for a $50,000 return."

I mean, they're going to
tell you you're an idiot.

I mean, the more I
report this documentary,

the more I feel that
the finances of farmers

are at the crux of so much of
what's going on in this country.

The degree of risk that these
folks take on is staggering.

Like, we get...

You know, we're talking about forgiving
student loan debt, right, as a way of like,

you know, recognizing that the economy
has been stacked against people

who've graduated in the
past couple of years,

and that it's a real
drag on economic growth.

Oh, my God, you know how
much farm debt's out there?

Those folks are part of
a food production system.

They deserve to be able to make a
living doing what they're doing.

That's a choice.

We made a conscious decision to
favor agribusiness interests,

as opposed to investing in the
people that were on the land.

If you ask how many farmers are actually
able to make a living just from farming?

It's almost no
one. Almost no one.

If, if you're generous, it would
be about seven percent of farmers.

You just have to
think about that.

You know, what economic
sector would sustain

with only seven percent of them
being able to make positive revenue?

[sustained keyboard chords]

[light percussion plays]

[music tempo of keyboards,
drums, and guitar picks up]

[distorted guitar kicks in]

- How are you?
- How we doing, Chef?

- Good to see you.
- I'll show you...

- [woman] Hey, Marcus.
- [Marcus] How are you, dear?

You can tell, quickly,
what business is in Harlem,

but not of Harlem, right?

I'll show you the difference.

If you're in Harlem, it's just
boarded up with plywood, right?

If you're of Harlem,
there's art on your gate.

So, in and of.

- [man 1] Ready to go.
- [man 2] How you doing, Chef?

- [Marcus] What's up man, what's going on?
- [man 2] That's the chef.

You have restaurants all
over the world, right?

"Had" is the key
word there. [laughs]

[Marcus] It took me 25
years to build this.

It took ten days to
break it all down.

When people said, Ruth,
everybody's left New York City,

I find it almost disrespectful.

People have not left.

[Marcus] Do you
need another mask?

[man] Yeah, I could
use another one.

[Marcus] There are
deli workers, nurses,

homeless people, people
with mental illnesses.

And on top of that, every day,
Harlem gets busloads of homeless,

or people that are incarcerated, and
just get dropped off on 125th street.

I mean, it's, it's horrendous.

Do you want some food?

- I got some.
- You got some, good.

[Ruth] One of the things
that I'm looking at is,

in 1920, 19% of the farms
in America were Black-owned.

Now it's like one percent.

- Wow. Do you know this amazing woman, Karen Washington?
- No.

She's fierce. You'll love her.

[Karen] Ten to one.

And if they don't come,
it's donated to La Finca.

All right. Let's make sure
everybody got their order.

[worker] One red
Russian kale six-pack.

- [Karen] Uh-huh.
- You got the parsley?

- [Karen] Yes.
- Chives?

[Karen] Yes. This
will do good in shade.

Enjoy, and take us some
pictures and send them to us.

When I moved to the Bronx, I had a huge
backyard, and I decided, you know what?

Let me try and grow some food.

I started with green
peppers and tomatoes,

and it was the tomato that
changed my world completely.

Because prior to that, tomatoes were
always pink, they were never red.

They tasted like cardboard.

And so when I grew this
tomato, first of all,

I was mesmerized that
it grew on a vine.

That it was red? What?

And when I picked it and I bit
into it, it just rocked my world.

The taste was so intense,
so sweet, and I was hooked.

COVID hit communities
of color so hard,

because of the preexisting
diet-related diseases that we've had.

The high incidence of hypertension,
type 2 diabetes, obesity.

I've been on this journey, getting
politicians and people to understand

the importance of growing food,
and why it's so important,

especially in low-income neighborhoods
and neighborhoods of color, to do so.

When you talk about food desert, you're
not getting the underlying problem

when it comes to race and
economics and demographics.

And when you talk about food
apartheid, people start to listen.

It's important that we look at our food
system to see who's growing the food.

Who are the farm workers,
who are the farmers?

Because out of 57,000
farmers in New York state,

only 139 are Black.

- Oh, my God.
- You tell me, you tell me what I'm fighting for.

And so we can't talk about a
sustainable, equitable food system,

if we're not in it.

In the early 1900s,

there were more Black farms
than there were white farms.

96% of land-owning
farmers are white.

And they control 97% of land.

So you essentially have a system
that is structurally racist

because of the way that

the federal
government intervened

to first of all
appropriate that land

and then distribute it.

[Eric] The vast majority of
African American farmland lost

has been in the 20th century.

It's happened since 1950, right?

So this is not ancient history,
this is current history.

This is very real
to people who were

on the land.

They're still
alive, those people.

I mean...

we have never had the reckoning
within our country that we need.

And we certainly haven't
had it within agriculture.

[woman] As part of the New
Deal, everybody got the right

to the minimum wage for the first time,
except for groups of Black workers.

Farm workers, domestic workers, and
tipped restaurant workers who were told

you get a zero dollar wage, as long as
tips bring you to the full minimum wage.

And we went from zero in
1938 to $2.13 81 years later.

Prior to the pandemic,
the restaurant industry

was the second-largest and absolute
fastest-growing sector of the US economy.

But it was also the absolute
lowest-paying employer.

Every year, the seven lowest-paying jobs
would be in the restaurant industry,

and the eighth-lowest
would be farm workers.

- [horns honking] - So, part of
what you're seeing in the protests

is a lot of unemployed
service workers out there.

I mean, George Floyd himself was
an unemployed restaurant worker,

and there are

a ton of our people

fighting for their lives.

It is about police brutality,
and it's about so much more.

After emancipation, employers first demanded
the right to hire newly freed slaves

and not pay them anything
and have them live entirely

on this new notion that had just come
from Europe at the time called a tip.

And it really was slavery that
mutated this idea of tipping,

not as a bonus or an extra on top of
a wage, but rather the wage itself.

Because there was a desire to hire
Black people, in particular Black women,

actually, at the time, not pay them
anything, and have them live on tips.

But I think the
surprising thing is,

we are seeing dramatic
new willingness

of lots and lots of independent restaurants
to totally change their business models.

[acoustic guitar playing]

[woman] I get my affinity for fighting
against any kind of injustice from my mom.

When we were made fun of in school, she
would, like, teach folks about Arab culture.

And she always made sure that anyone
who came through our household was fed.

My grandmother was the same way.

And I started to see the
virtue of Arab hospitality.

[Ruth] You are trying
to use this time

to figure out another way.

[Reem] Yes. Exactly.

It was really scary.

Our sales plummeted,

and lack of tips was a
huge blow to my workers

when we stopped our
restaurant operations.

My employees formed a
collective to, like,

demand answers from management, but also,
I think, to take care of each other.

So I was like, how do I
take care of my workers

so that they're better off from this
whole debacle than they were before?

And the only answer to
me was worker ownership.

[Ruth] I'm fascinated and
admiring of your efforts

to share the ownership of your
business with your employees.

Living your principles in your
work life is really difficult.

I mean, as I told you,

I've sort of come
out of this movement

and sort of watched
it happen in the '70s.

[guitar strumming]

In 1973, we put everything
we owned, including our cat,

into a big green van and
drove out to Berkeley.

You know, it was all these
counterculture people.

And after the Vietnam War
movement, we started looking

for the next cause, because we
felt like we'd made an impact.

And so, what do we see?

We see that American food
is becoming industrialized.

It wasn't really new.

But what we were seeing now
were the environmental costs

and the exploitation of
labor and agriculture.

People started protesting.

Everyone I knew was reading
Diet for a Small Planet.

And there was this new consciousness
about limited resources.

I started cooking at a restaurant
collective called The Swallow.

I was writing occasional

little pieces for New West...

where to go to get ice
cream and things like that.

And one of my editors said, "Have you ever
thought about being a restaurant critic?"

And I looked at him and
said, "Don't be ridiculous."

"I don't even have
a credit card."

"What do you mean, be
a restaurant critic?"

And he said, "Just
give it a try."

I went home to my commune and said to
everyone, "We're going out to eat."

So, for the next six years
at New West magazine,

I just wrote short stories with the
review kind of threaded through it.

And then the LA Times called me and said,
"We want you to be our restaurant critic."

And I was like, Oh, maybe
this is my real life.

[melodic piano]

I first met Alice in 1973.

I thought she was the most
glamorous, exciting creature.

I lived in a commune in
a broken-down old house.

We were kind of scruffy, and
Alice always felt, to me,

like, kind of, I guess,
the person I wanted to be.

And then we did become friends.

The way we've always worked
has been collaboratively.

For 50 years, we've
been buying directly

from the farmer and the rancher,

giving the farmer all the money.

No middleman.

Because when we
said to Bob Cannard,

"We're buying everything you do,

you'll have all the money that
we would give to a wholesaler,"

it was that that
really changed us.

Because we followed
his cycle, not ours.

And once we got in his rhythm,
we've never looked back.

And he brought all the values
right through the kitchen door.

To think that that
biodiversity is out there,

it's just waiting for us.

[Ruth] You grew up in
Newfoundland, right?

- Yeah.
- How'd you end up in New Haven?

Uh, I chased a girl.

[laughing]

So, how did you come up with
the notion of doing kelp?

[Bren] What we did
was ask the ocean,

what does it make sense to grow?

And when you ask the ocean
what to grow, the ocean says,

"Grow things that won't swim
away and you don't have to feed."

As soon as you make that
shift, you listen to the ocean,

it becomes really pretty simple and you've
got a lot of different crops you can grow.

So kelp is the ultimate specialty
boutique food right now, right?

And we're repurposing
our crops to non-food.

The bioplastics for N95 masks.

- Oh, yeah.
- Made out of seaweed.

But that's the sort of "don't
let a crisis go to waste," right?

I believe in polyculture because
that allows for resilience.

That quadrant farm, where
we're harvesting food,

we're harvesting byproducts, so
things that are not food-grade.

We're harvesting data, and we're
harvesting carbon and nitrogen.

And all of those
are different crops.

You have a crop fail, you've
got many, many different things

you can sell year-round, right?

- [pulley whirs] - I'm
going to move a little bit.

Dad's last operating note at
the bank was 24% interest.

And then, he was starting
to see that it was taking

greater and greater amounts of inputs
to produce less and less outputs.

So, at the same time he was
getting his economic lesson,

he was getting this agronomic
lesson in soil health.

40 years later, we understand that model of
economics, and we don't want any part of it.

We're a 12-month operation, so we've been
able to cash flow without an operating note,

just because that we're
selling 12 months of the year.

We met this guy by the name

of Jean Louis Palladin,

who said, basically,

"I yearn for the
produce of Europe,

because your produce here
tastes like nothing!"

And he said, "There are enough
of us chefs that will support you

if you do this the right way,
because it will taste good."

We are indebted to him forever,

for hurting our
feelings so badly.

He's one of the ones
we all really miss.

Absolutely. But he
started a revolution.

What we didn't understand was,

as we researched how do we grow
really great-tasting vegetables,

we had no idea that we were bringing
nutrition along for the ride.

And the medical community
is taking note of our work

and the work of many, many
other regenerative farms,

who are growing healthy crops

and raising the body's ability
to defend itself from disease.

I often wonder what our
country would look like

had we made a different
choice in 1948.

What if we had decided we were going
to have the most nutritious food?

From 1940 to 2000, we've lost
40% of the nutritive value

of the food we grow
in this country.

Now, we have the highest per
capita spending of healthcare

of any industrialized
nation in the world,

because we have the
lowest per capita spending

on food of any industrialized
nation in the world.

The big picture is that what
this system has been generating

has been sanctioning the
concentration of wealth

in the very few large monopolies

and sanctioning the
production of junk food,

which happens to be very
profitable for the food industry

but horrible for the health
of the entire population.

[Ruth] After World War II, chain
restaurants began to proliferate.

Everybody loved
them, but they used

inexpensive labor and
low-quality ingredients

that came straight out of the
industrialized farming system.

These fast-food corporations
made huge profits

offering cheap food, and they
became symbols of American culture.

We exported them
all over the world.

COVID revealed the fragility
of independent restaurants.

One in five look
likely to close,

and I worry that the chain restaurants
are going to gobble up the real estate.

[Minh] The workload
seems already better.

What do you guys think?

[worker] I feel like...

It feels like it's the same.

[Minh] They had all sacrificed and been in
quarantine, never got out of quarantine.

And then we had to compete
with places opening.

I talked to my team, I said, like, "This
isn't working, we're not going to survive."

And that's the first
time I felt that, ever.

You know, I think I've
been in the system so long

where I just have to be
like, you have to be humble.

You have to just work twice as
hard and charge half as much,

because you're a woman
and you're an immigrant.

And they're just like, "Oh, my God,
we've all worked in fine dining."

"You would charge
$40 for this."

"And we need to, because
you're not being fair to us."

"You expect us to
work all the stations,

do all the things, and
then you charge $13?"

"Like, come on," and I think
it's a culture where people

really don't want to
pay a lot for food.

But I don't know that you can have your
standards and try and do cheap food.

I mean...

I mean, because you're using
really high-quality ingredients.

Your food is very
labor intensive.

Should I just become a
fine dining restaurant?

I mean, this is...
I mean, this is...

I think you have the
answers for me, Ruth.

Uh...

Maybe you should, um...
and then the question is,

are people going to go to
fine dining restaurants?

I mean, a lot of the fine
dining chefs I'm speaking to

are saying, "I don't think I'm going
to reopen as a fine dining restaurant."

I mean, it just doesn't seem to make
sense in this particular moment.

[Nick] You can't really
be defensive right now,

and you can't wait for
the cavalry to come.

You have to scale it to a point

where it's like you're feeding
an army for it to work out.

I started going like, "Hey, what are
we going to do for Thanksgiving?"

We paid up and bought a
couple thousand turkeys.

I mean, how many pounds of stuffing
are you going to make, Grant?

- Uh, five thousand.
- [Ruth] Are you serious?

Five thousand
pounds of stuffing?

I mean, I think thinking the way
you do is frightening to people.

You're taking a lot of risks.

I disagree. So there's like...

There's risk and then
there's being risky.

So, I guess you're taking
risk, but risk is like,

you used it in a pejorative
way, right, like risk is bad.

[Ruth] No, I'm, I'm not.

I mean, I think
what I'm learning

in all this reporting
I'm doing is,

I'm starting to understand risk.

I mean, farmers, more
than anybody, I mean,

for their whole lives
it's about managing risk.

[Nick] That's why they're
so great to deal with.

- Because they understand it intuitively.
- [Grant] Yeah.

[Nick] So, right after this,
I've actually got a phone call

with a really
forward-thinking farm.

White Oak Pastures,
it's in Georgia.

They're a carbon-negative farm.

I called them last
week with no reason.

Like, I made up a reason to call
them, because I was in a bad mood.

And I was just like, "I need to talk
to somebody positive right now."

Completely the cultural
opposite of where we live,

and yet, like, I'm
like, why is someone

not making a documentary
about these people?

[cattle lowing]

[acoustic guitar strumming]

[cattle lowing and snorting]

[hooves clopping]

I mean, I'd like to get those
south, catch them in the triangle.

And then shoot them down,
maybe to Bermuda Bend.

I'll check with Tyler to make sure their
fencing ain't going to be in the way.

I wanted to talk to you about,
what got you on this path,

and whether it's possible
for other people.

You know, 25 years ago, I didn't say,
"The food system is not resilient,

I think I'll work on
making it resilient."

That did not happen.

I am the fourth
generation of my family

to raise animals on this
farm in Bluffton, Georgia.

And my father started the
process of industrializing,

commoditizing, and
centralizing this farm.

I farmed that way for 20 years.

In the mid-'90s,

I found that I had
become disillusioned

with the excesses of
that farming system.

So I started just very
gradually moving away from it.

For me, the first
canary in the coal mine

was animal welfare.

Really, it's incumbent
upon me, as the herdsman,

to give the animals the opportunity
to express instinctive behavior.

And you can't do that in
the confinement model.

These cattle out here, walking and
grazing is instinctive behavior.

Those chickens right there, scratching
and pecking is instinctive behavior.

Those hogs in that swamp over
there that's rooting and wallowing,

that's instinctive behavior.

Over a 20-year period, the
organic matter in our soil

has gone from about half
a percent to five percent.

And by the way, all that carbon came from
greenhouse gasses that used to be up there,

that got, through photosynthesis and
microbial activity and animal activity,

got marooned in the soil.

I saw my land go from
a dead mineral medium

to an organic medium
that's teeming with life.

Everything is tied
to everything else.

I don't think of this
farm as a factory.

I think of it as an organism.

[Steve] We're at a turning point in
this business, as far as I'm concerned.

It is a broken pricing system.

Call where you do business

and ask them to call the
senators and representatives.

Sign that petition, stand up for your
rights. We are bringing attention to it.

[Ruth] So, if there is one
thing you could explain

to the American consumer about
your business, what would it be?

I would like the American
consumer to understand that

the person that does all the
work and has all the investment

is doing it literally for nothing, and
the middlemen are getting all the money.

The system's so monopolized.

This packer takes these yards,

and this packer takes
this area of this state.

And nobody else comes
in and messes with them.

I mean, how would it
work, in your dream world?

I would like them to break up the
Big Four, like we did in 1917.

I would like to start with the two
that are majority foreign-owned.

I want government to police
a level playing field.

Then let us fight it out on the economies
of scale and efficiency among ourselves,

and let the best people
win and stay in business.

That's America.

[Eric] Perhaps the
most important person

for the continued sustainability and
viability of American agriculture

and the welfare of
the American farmer

is not the Secretary of
Agriculture, but is in fact

who is in the Department of Justice
and their antitrust regulatory unit.

That person is going to matter a lot as to
whether or not we get an ever more concentrated,

more consolidated food system,

or start paying farmers more fairly
for the products that they produce.

[Steve] I would like to have smaller
beef plants every 300, 400 miles.

If one went down, it would be two, three
percent of the daily slaughter, not 15%.

I would like producers to
own those packing plants.

I think that would be better for
states and communities and producers.

[cattle lowing]

[Ruth] Do you still have to depend
on the big packing companies?

Well, ultimately
I made the choice

to build slaughterhouses
on my farm,

which at that time
was unheard of.

I was blessed, I had equity, I was
left the farm, I was not hand-to-mouth.

So I could lose money
for a while, and I did.

And now I have about
$7.2 million invested

in further processing
infrastructure.

You know, the front
side of my card says,

"land steward and herdsman."

It don't say "meat processor,"
cuz I don't like that part.

It don't say "marketer,"
cuz I don't like that part.

So... but I'm all those things.

[Ruth] How big do you envision
White Oak Pastures becoming?

[Will] What we do here
is not highly scalable.

But it's highly replicatable.

There could and should be one or
two or three White Oak Pastures

in every agricultural
county in this country.

It's an amazing
thing that you do,

where you train people
to farm the way you do.

[Bren] So I believe in scale, but it's not scale
through size, it's scale through replication.

[Ruth] What made
you start GreenWave?

[Bren] I was doing
well with kelp,

and so GreenWave was the way to
just create this organization,

which is built on sharing, on
building knowledge networks.

Our backs are against the
wall, we have to innovate.

We've got a program
called Project GreenWave,

where we hire inner-city kids to
package, cook, process all of our food.

They learn about 3D farming,
they learn about sustainability.

I was getting pressured to become,
like, the kelp king, right?

And everybody was like,
"franchise your model,"

and, like, all these sharks
from Wall Street were coming

and telling me that there
was huge opportunities.

And, I mean, what's
my metric to success?

It's having 10,000 climate
resilient farmers on the ocean.

Like, that'll make me die happy.

It started out, this little
kind of tiny, you know,

we're training eight,
ten farmers a year,

southern New England, really small,
so that's what it was going to be.

And then 8,000 people signed up
for farmer training on the website.

When people think regenerative ocean farming,
hopefully this would be their starting place.

[Ruth] It's really interesting,
because every restaurant in America

is complaining that
they can't get workers,

because people just don't
want to do bad jobs anymore.

[Bren] I mean, God forbid we
gave people a taste of agency

and beauty.

Right? Whoops!

Like, wow, that's
really too bad.

[Ruth] There are a lot of
people who are questioning,

do they want to go back to
things the way they used to be,

and you're offering
an alternative.

And it's so funny, people from all
over the industry are emailing me,

like all of a sudden I've become like
an expert on co-ops, and I'm not.

You know, I'm just
learning. [laughs]

I have to figure it out, so that
other people can follow suit.

But people are interested.

Food is a gateway for
learning about so many things,

from culture to the way that
communities have survived,

to the way that we
build community.

And it really wasn't just about
feeding myself, I learned.

It was about feeding others.

It was like in feeding
others that I felt satiated.

Restaurants are more
than just restaurants.

We are these third spaces that
are just more than a transaction.

I love restaurants, I hope
they continue to exist.

But I feel like a lot more people have
to reimagine what hospitality looks like.

The, like, true
meaning of the word.

[Ruth] My parents
didn't care about food,

but they loved restaurants.

We went out to eat a lot.

My father was German, and he
was 26 when he came to America.

We lived near Luchow's,

and we went to Luchow's at least
once a week when I was growing up.

And I saw with that that it
was how my father went home.

My father's office was above one
of those little French restaurants

in New York called the Dubonnet.

And we had a waiter,
Max, who was our waiter,

and my parents were always in
a good mood when we went there.

Max would take me
into the kitchen

and get me to learn
what spices tasted like.

And that was just a place that I
loved and felt really happy in.

And my mother was enchanted with
Restaurant Associates' Joe Baum.

Joe Baum was the great maestro of
American restaurants in the '50s and '60s.

I mean, he invented the
Four Seasons restaurant,

the Twelve Caesars,
La Fonda del Sol.

He redid the Rainbow Room. I mean,
he did these restaurants as drama.

Joe Baum is the one who brought
the large peppermill to the table,

and also is responsible
for, "Hi, my name is..."

He was a showman, and my
mother loved his restaurants.

And we couldn't afford to go to
places like the Four Seasons,

but we would go
and have a drink,

and then we would go to the Automat
or something for dinner afterwards.

So I thought of restaurants as
places that connected you to home,

places where people were happy,

and places that gave you a chance
to be someone else for a while.

I mean, I watched my mother walk into
the Four Seasons, and she was just...

you know, she was a rich
woman for a little while.

The funny thing is,

when I got to the New York
Times as a restaurant critic,

my job was actually to eat at
many of these expensive places.

I wanted to keep my
identity a secret,

so I invented various
personalities.

[Tom] This is not the real
Ruth that we're seeing.

No, I actually do not
have carrot-red hair.

When you go to restaurants as
a critic, are you disguised?

- Yes, but... - All the time?
- Not all the time.

When I first got to New
York, I went to Le Cirque.

And everybody went there, all the
ex-presidents went there, it was a big scene.

I wrote one review as
the restaurant critic

of the New York Times,
and what happens,

and I wrote another
review as Ms. Nobody.

He had had four stars.
I took a star away.

I said, "The food was very good, but
you cannot treat people that way."

There's still this
voice inside me saying,

"Yeah, but all you're really doing is
telling rich people where to go eat."

And, um, if I had thought

that was all I had done with my
life, it would make me very sad.

[crow cawing]

[birds singing]

[Angela] When my
husband's dad was farming,

they did the oats and the
wheats and the pearl millets.

And we just got away from it.

And using chemistry to take
care of our weed problems.

So, I'm guessing that you were
the one who wanted to go organic.

[laughing]

Yes, it makes all the
sense in the world.

It's just, it's very scary,
because we don't farm like that.

Well, you were
ahead of your time.

[Angela] I don't know
if my family thought so.

- I got a list.
- A list?

I do.

Okay, so last year,

the field that had the
greatest contribution margin

was the organic.

The field that had one of the
lowest yields was the organic.

So it's not all about yield.

My husband and I struggle a
lot, because he's a numbers man,

and it's all about yield, and how
much money you're going to make.

Whereas like, well, maybe if you got
your soils in a little better condition,

you would get that
yield that you want.

[Kerry] It was bad, I can tell.

It didn't tank.

It wasn't perfect.

Okay, next thing.

[Angela] It takes time,

and that's a huge
problem with farmers,

that they want everything
in that one-season window,

and it doesn't work that
way with soil health.

The only thing I was wanting
to bring up was goals.

Because I don't think we're all on the
same page in that, and I think it'll help.

It's a tough road. We've had
a lot of heated discussions.

We would not be organic if
I hadn't done it myself.

I planted the field.

I mean, I made sure
it got in that year.

You know, it's their name that gets
run through the mud if things go bad.

It's not the wives,
it's the guy.

They can't separate themselves, where
we can go hide in our kitchen. [laughs]

[Ruth laughs]

[contemplative music playing]

This is a family business,
but it's not just our family.

You know, we have 120 families
that I'm responsible for.

And we have an amazing
crew of seasonal staff,

many whom have been with
us for over 25 years.

And I have been keenly aware

of attempts at immigration
reform over the past 30 years.

H-2A is a visa program
we use here on the farm,

and it is the only
legal avenue we have

for seasonal agricultural
workers in the United States.

Americans will not do this work.

We're either going
to have foreign folks

and allow them to come in
and do this type of work,

or we'll round up all
11 million undocumented,

we'll send them all back,
we'll seal up the border,

and then we will
import all of our food,

from where the wage
is $6 to $8 a day.

And then we compete
with that here.

That model doesn't work.

Society has to make
some of these choices.

Are we willing to pay more for quality
food that we know is grown right,

and socially
responsible, or not?

So, what's important?
Make a choice.

[reporter] Families lined up to get fresh farm
food outside of the Maplewood YMCA yesterday.

It's all part of a
program through the USDA.

And the hope is to ease the
pandemic's burden on families,

and getting farmers'
produce where it's needed.

[Bob] The USDA Farm to
Families Program right now

is providing an unbelievable
help on cash flow.

If we had not gotten those contracts, we
would have had to furlough more people.

This is buying time to allow
the restaurants to come back.

We're waiting to see if we get
a renewal on the new program.

I can't imagine you won't.

[Bob] Until I have that contract
in my hand, I'm not sleeping well.

So if you don't get the contract,
will you have to furlough people?

Yes.

[Ruth] You're on
hiatus for a bit.

We're not opening, you know,
the doors to our place,

you know, we don't
have an outdoor space.

But I actually have something
really exciting to share.

We're looking at an outdoor venue to
do a pop-up. Come on and follow me.

Once they're in here, there'll be someone here
to give them their amuse and their cocktails.

Remind them not to
mingle with other people.

So that's our dining room.

You guys follow me, this is
where we're going to meet.

I do want to be more grown-up
than Porridge & Puffs.

I do want it to be a tiny
little bit more formal.

But we have to be warm.

Never, ever, ever be aloof.

I love fine dining, but my biggest
complaint is, it's always so sterile.

We can be cerebral and smart
and warm at the same time.

[Ruth] Let me ask you
a practical question.

[Karen] Sure, yes.

[Ruth] How do you get more farms

by Black people
in New York state?

Okay, easy question.

I tell people, give
us three things.

Give us the opportunity to farm,

give us the land to farm,

give us the capital
and resources to farm.

Where I farm now, the Chester
Agricultural Center, perfect example.

My farm, Rise & Root Farm,
we have three acres of land.

We grow food, we have farm
tours, we have school groups.

People from the city come
up to see four women...

two are women of color, two are
white, three of us are LGBTQ women.

And so we run the gamut of
what America looks like.

I run a low-income farmer's
market in the Bronx.

We're going into our 19th year.

And it took a long
time, first of all,

to build trust with the
people in my neighborhood,

because in a low-income
neighborhood,

there is the soup kitchens
and food pantries,

the fast food, the processed
food, the junk food.

Then I had to educate that I'm
the farmer, I grew the food,

and I have to pay bills, and
I have to feed my family,

and I have to buy the seeds.

And so there's a cost
and value of food.

Because no one talks
to them about that.

[Lee] I mean, the costs
are going to be huge

if we plant the product and the
restaurants aren't ramped up.

It's a matter of trying
to time... you know?

Well, we're going to
plant as if they are open,

and if they're not open, we're
going to take it on the chin.

Last time we spoke, you were
waiting to hear whether or not

you were going to get back into
the Farmer to Families Program.

- Mm-hm.
- Did you?

- No.
- You're kidding.

[Bob] No.

USDA came in and said, "the only box offer
that we'll take is a combination box."

Sysco got 32 states. Yeah, all
the small guys got shut out.

The fresh produce that they're
getting in the boxes that I saw

were a bag of apples
and a bag of potatoes.

They were getting fresh, leafy
greens from us. So we're out.

But this is supposed to
be bailing farmers out.

I mean, it's not supposed
to be bailing Sysco out.

- [Bob] Right.
- Things are driving me crazy, I'm taking them off.

[Bob] You know, we were really
counting on that contract,

to do what the program
really intended.

Farm to Families
Food Box Program.

Help the farm, help
those families...

and then they changed it.

In this last round
of food boxes,

if you do not include the
letter from Donald Trump

and the White House in the
box, you don't get paid.

- No.
- [Bob] The letter has to be included in the box.

It's a disaster.

[Lee] We were counting on that,
so we planted up for that.

We have to make a decision as to
how much to leave in the field.

We cannot spend the dollars, because we
don't have them right now, to harvest that

and store it and
then throw it away.

We have several million people in New York
City alone that are going to bed hungry.

And here we are just a handful of hours down
the road, with the product in the field.

120 families here

that we don't know how we
can keep on the payroll.

We're not smart enough as a society to
work together to connect those dots.

I don't know what to say.

We're trying every
way we know how, Ruth.

The chefs are in trouble.

It's a ripple-down effect,
and it's a struggle.

You can't do it all.

You can't.

Uh... this is, this
is a societal problem.

You know, this is, this
is all of our failure.

All of us.

When we were in our twenties
and we all moved to California,

you know, the idea was, we
would follow our passions.

You know, you only
go through life once.

We weren't going to be
beholden to corporate America.

Um, you could live really
on nothing in those days.

We all bought that house
together, that group of us.

I mean, Doug and my share
of the rent was $45 a month.

We raised half our own food,

and, you know, there were

15 people for dinner every
night and we split the cost.

- Yeah.
- It was really cheap.

And I don't think you
can do that anymore.

We're so spoiled.

We're used to
everything, all the time.

That's the thing
that's missing, is...

Oh, God, I didn't leave the
beans on the fire, did I?

Did you? [laughing]

- [Alice] Yes...
- [Ruth laughs]

Can I ask a really stupid
question? Are you a good cook?

- Yeah, I am a good cook.
- [laughing]

I'm not a great cook, I'm not a
trained, you know, I'm not a "chef."

But I have, I started... So
like, the cover of my first book,

Tender at the Bone, is a
picture of me cooking at 7.

I've always loved to cook.

[Bren] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ruth] It's what
I do, you know,

when I am sad, or in trouble.

- I go into the kitchen.
- [Bren] Yeah, yeah.

[Ruth] It's my best place.

I feel like I've sort of spent my
whole life working up to this project.

- Really?
- Yeah, yeah.

It also makes me feel
like a terrible failure,

that we didn't fix this.

We were talking about
the concentration

in the food industry
in the early '70s.

And we just let it
happen, you know?

This wave came over us,

and we got sidetracked by
"deliciousness," you know.

You know, a whole group of us who
started out with the politics of food,

and then became cooks,
and opened restaurants,

and let this really
egregious thing take hold.

And we should have
been fighting it.

We should have been
fighting it tooth and nail,

the moment we saw it
coming over the horizon.

And we just let it happen.

And I feel, you know, culpable
and devastated by that.

What is the weather
supposed to be Sunday?

- I mean, Saturday...
- Just cold.

Just cold, but, I mean,
hopefully it won't be iced over.

[Ruth] What do you guys
do this time of year?

[Angela] Well, we've
been hauling bales.

So there's a lot of cattle
feeders around here.

They'll use it for
bedding for cattle.

So the guys have
been busy with that.

I did some hauling yesterday,

and then just kind of
getting ready for taxes,

because I'm so behind. [laughs]

And then, all the seed people, the chemical
people, they come knocking at your door.

To get the biggest discounts, you have to buy
the inputs in October, November, December,

and we won't be using
them until April or later.

But you have to put that money out up
front so you can get that big discount.

That seems so unfair.

Yeah.

[Ruth] How are things
going with your husband?

[Angela] Well, working with
Kerry's been challenging,

but also rewarding.

I mean, when we do disagree,

we, uh, disagree
respectfully most of the time

and try to keep it, you
know, it's about the farm.

It's not personal between us.

And it's about a practice.

But it is getting better.

And it does help that
the boys are older now

and they're in the conversation.

[Ruth] My husband has been in
the hospital, so I've been...

- What happened?
- [Ruth] Um...

He got very dehydrated and
then his kidneys failed.

- Oh, no. Is that...
- He's home.

He came home yesterday,
but I'm not...

uh, totally on top
of things right now.

Is that going to be something
long-term that affects...

No, but it was really bad.

I mean, we didn't
realize how sick he was

until, you know,
it was really bad.

Were you able to go in
the hospital with him?

- No.
- Yeah, wow.

And, I mean, I want
to tell you, you know,

it's given me a
whole new perspective

on when they talk about these
COVID patients dying alone.

- Yeah.
- the hospital for almost a week.

They are so stressed,
they are so overworked.

I never once talked to a doctor.

- I mean...
- Wow.

And the nurses were really
lovely, but, you know,

they would call me when they
could to give me information.

And Michael was
terrified, alone.

Uh... It was horrible.

Really horrible.

You do not want to get sick in
the middle of a COVID crisis.

Yeah, yeah.

[Ruth] So, are most of
your people still with you,

or have you had to
furlough a lot of people?

[Lee] We went from 167 to,

we're right about 95 right now.

I really hold myself
hugely responsible

for the financial
mess that we're in,

because I didn't create
enough of a diverse business,

not focused on just one
revenue stream of restaurants.

Just... I got
blindsided by it.

Coronavirus, it's
a horrible thing.

You know, through this,
you have to maintain hope.

And we're going to find
new ways to do business.

It's going to be the new normal, and
we have to figure out what that is.

[Steve] How are you?

I'm pretty good, how are you?

I'm good, I think. It's
a little bit nasty here.

We got a bunch of ice and
snow, wet last night, so...

How much COVID is there
around you? Still really low?

Oh, you know, we'd be low as far as,
just because the population's so low.

But honestly I think
our percentages here

are probably higher than
yours where you live.

Probably because everybody here
just bored on with total disregard.

[Ruth] So, are you seeing any effect
of the election on your business?

[clicks tongue]

Uh...

I would probably say no.

I mean, the, the
effect it's having is,

is most cattle people are very
conservative and very to the right.

So, they're in a
poor mood about it.

[laughing]

I think the Democrats have a
big burden in rural America.

[Steve] Well, and I'm going
to say this quite honestly,

ag does not necessarily flourish
under Republican administration.

Our lifestyle and
beliefs out here

is what makes everybody to be
so conservative, and regulation.

But quite honestly, ag probably is better
off under Democratic administrations,

if you look back over history.

[Ruth] One of the
things that you bring up

is this rural/urban divide...

- Yep.
- And your fear

that rural America is basically
going to be pushed off the map.

[Steve] These little towns, you know, the
town I live by, 6,500 people, it's all ag.

You know, those 50- to
100-head cowherd guys,

they get their stuff
repaired in town,

and they buy their pickups in
town, and they eat in town, and...

I mean, they support all
the local businesses.

You get to where you
have 800 to 1,000 cows,

you don't have to buy your
mineral from the local mill,

you can order it by a semi-load
from somewhere like Kansas City.

You can get your
medicine direct,

and you don't have to go
through a local retailer.

I mean, these towns are about
to dry up and blow away anyway,

with just the migration
that ag has already took.

The kids out here, about all get
an excellent secondary education.

And then they have the
work ethic and the morals

that the companies
in the cities want.

And so, they pay them way more than
what they could stay here and make.

It's just a steady flow of
pushing everybody into city.

[Ruth] You said you
thought that next year,

10% of the cow/calf people around
you would be out of business.

Do you still think that?

[Steve] Yeah.

[wind buffeting]

You know, there's a day
of reckoning coming.

[Will] Bluffton peaked
in population in 1900.

When I was growing up in the
'60s, Bluffton was still a town.

You know, it still
had stores, and...

but under the industrial
commodity scenario,

it atrophied and atrophied.

When it hit its bottom, which
was probably 10 or 15 years ago,

the town became
economically irrelevant.

But when we hired 100
and something young,

educated, passionate people
here and paid them well,

they needed a place

to eat and sleep
and shop and play.

And so we built it.

Now we've got 176 employees.

We're the largest private
employer in the county.

Our average employee makes
way above the county average,

in one of the poorest counties, in one
of the poorest states in the nation.

And what resulted is a
really nice community.

You know, it's still tiny,
but it's gone from ghost town,

literally, to
destination, in a decade.

So, I'm very proud of that.

[Ruth] So I hear you've been doing something
with a solar power company now, too?

Some friends of mine owned a
very large farm, near my farm,

and they sold it to a
renewable energy company.

I was not very happy about that,

because they take
really good farmland,

and they use Roundup,
and erosion is horrible.

It becomes a moonscape.

We populated that solar field with about
2,000 sheep for vegetative control.

And later on we added a few thousand
chickens, a few hundred ducks.

- [laughs]
- Yeah.

It has been a wonderful success.

Everybody wins.

They actually pay us
the same amount of money

they would pay a company
to spray and mow and trim,

and we're building organic matter in
their soil, and preventing erosion.

It's created new jobs and produces some
really good lamb for our customers to eat.

I mean, everybody wins.

This was farmed-to-death
row crop land.

Now, perennials are coming.

So that is Bermuda grass,

which is a great
warm-season perennial grass.

That's evidence that life's
coming back to the land.

Hi, Zuzu.

You want to say
hi to Auntie Ruth?

- Hi.
- [Zuzu] Bye-bye, Auntie Ruth.

[laughter]

- Bye-bye.
- [laughter]

[Reem] Our landlords
won't give us any relief.

They won't work with us, they
haven't negotiated with us.

I mean, one option is to stay.

Second option is to
break the lease early.

And then the third option is to fold both
of our locations together, in the Mission.

[Ruth] Have you discussed
this with your staff?

- We're doing it today, actually, having the big meeting, yeah.
- Really?

[acousting guitar strumming]

[Reem] It's a good
sort of stepping stone,

before worker ownership
even comes into play,

as I figure out how to,
like, involve the collective

in whatever decisions that I'm making
as an owner, about this transition.

[worker] If we decided to go
work at the Mission temporarily,

we would have to go
roll in at like three,

four in the morning before,
before y'all open up.

[in Spanish]

[contemplative music playing]

[Reem] I'm going to go to
the landlords and tell them,

"You're going to give us
relief, or we walk away."

If they say, "You know what,
we'll give you relief,"

then I'll bring it back
here and we consider it.

If they say no, which I think
they are, unfortunately, we move.

[minimalistic piano]

We know that that's
going to be our goal,

is to make sure that our
workers stay in Oakland.

I haven't cut my
teeth in the industry

as much as some of the people
that work for me, you know?

So there's a lot of
wisdom and skill there.

[worker] Hot pita, hot pita!

[Reem] Luis is, like,
from a third generation

of bakers from the Yucatán.

It's, like, in his blood.

Like, I learn so much from him every
day. I mean, I learn from them.

Luis is like, it's about
our change of mentality.

We have to think like
employees and like bosses.

[Minh] I'm really OCD,
you guys. [laughs]

This makes me so batty.

So, you've opened your
new place. How is it?

It's great and it's horrible.

I think...

uh, I'm just going to say it.

The food is like an A-minus.

The service is a
C-minus, maybe a D.

Ooh.

I think I'm at 20% of
where I want to be.

So, there's a lot of
room for improvement.

And I think I broke
my back-of-house team.

We were there until 2:30 a.m.

I don't lose my shit,
usually, and I lost my shit.

- They were mad.
- That sounds brutal.

- And I just, like...
- And God knows there are a lot

of out-of-work front-of-house
people at the moment.

But none of them want to work.
I literally called 100 people.

They don't want to work, Ruth.

And especially the way
that I want to set up,

where I want to take, I want
to pay the front of the house

and back of house
equally, you know.

I set a price, I said everyone
across the board in service,

no matter if you're the
porter or the dishwasher,

you get $20 an hour, because
it's so fucking hard.

But servers will not work
for $20 to $25 an hour.

Whereas my back-of-the-house
team will break their backs

and don't think they're
doing enough for that amount.

- [Ruth] Right.
- [Minh] I think there's financial literacy

that needs to happen
in our industry.

And that financial literacy
needs to be taught to everyone

who's working, as
well as to diners.

[reporter] Well, more senators
are calling for a hearing

to review legislative proposals to
improve the meat-packing industry.

In his weekly call with
reporters just yesterday,

Senator Chuck Grassley
called for a hearing as well.

[woman] I call this hearing

of the US Senate Committee on Agriculture,
Nutrition, and Forestry to order.

We're going to focus specifically
on our cattle markets today.

[Senator Booker] You know, COVID really
showed how fragile our food system is.

Consumers were paying higher prices for meat,
while ranchers were paid less for their cattle.

But the big, consolidated companies
really made record profits.

- [Ruth] I've been watching the hearings.
- [Steve] Uh-huh.

So, how did we actually get to the
point that there are these hearings?

Well, I don't want
to take a lot...

I mean, I...

Me and three or four or five
others being relentless,

I think, finally got enough
people starting to pay attention.

I mean, I have flown and met with
countless senators and legislators.

We've drove people nuts, man.

Good for you.

I'm getting hundreds of calls

from beef cattle
producers that are saying,

"Cindy, what is wrong
with this market?"

Ultimately, aren't these people
putting themselves out of business?

I mean, if nobody's going
to raise cattle anymore,

the packers are ultimately
out of business too.

But they're going towards
total vertical integration.

They know that the biggest,
most efficient, elite producers

will get bigger as the
smaller ones go out.

And when you get to where there's five
producers where there was 100, they will unify.

And they will charge
what beef's worth,

and then the American consumer
will be paying a lot more for food.

We have to address this
issue of lack of competition

and the fact that
there is an oligopoly

and that price setting and
market power's being misused

in a way that disadvantages
the very people

that are out there trying to
make a living on the land.

If those senators and
representatives are smart,

you don't want this country's
food supply in limited hands.

[acoustic guitar strumming]

[Ruth] Have you gotten
the first vaccination yet?

[Alice] Yes.

I got it last week.

Didn't you feel like... a
kind of lightness from that?

Well, it was very
strange, actually, Ruth,

because I got
enormously depressed.

I woke up in the morning
the next morning,

and I, I just said,

"We're never going to address climate
change, and I might as well just...

give up," and started crying,

and I was crying
off and on all day.

It frightened me.

I mean, this COVID time has been an
interesting time for a lot of people,

'cause a lot of people have, like,
have never had time to think before.

And, you know, I go for
a walk every morning,

but I have never looked deeply

and stopped along the
way, the way I do now.

That I am seeing, you know,

almost the plants grow
from day to day...

[laughing] ...the blossoms
on the fruit trees already.

And I, it's...

the closer look that I'm having.

[melodic piano]

You know, I love spring.

It's one of the advantages
of farming for a living.

You get a do-over every year.

There are opportunities that
have been created due to COVID.

Pre-COVID, we grew a wide
variety of vegetables

and we sold them
directly to restaurants.

Now, we grow a wide
variety of vegetables,

we sell them to restaurants,
to home consumers,

to institutions and hospitals

that are now starting to understand
the whole concept of food as medicine.

In 1983, I came home from
Ohio State my freshman year.

That house was the
house that was sold,

and Dad's farm was at that barn,
and it was full of equipment,

and it took two
days to sell it all.

We bought that back.

And my son is moving
in there, and his wife.

And it's kind of a full circle.

He is just coming back into the
business, as is my daughter.

Lee's son works in the business.

So we're very excited to be
having the next generation

come back into the business.

- [Angela] I can tell you some good news, if you want.
- [Ruth] Yeah.

So we just found out yesterday that
Knuth Farms is certified organic now.

- Oh, fantastic!
- Yeah, so...

[Ruth] Congratulations,
that's amazing.

So, what does it actually mean for your
farm that you've now been certified organic?

[Angela] Right now,
it is the dollar sign.

Instead of $3.30 corn,

we're hoping to get
$6 to $7 a bushel.

So take that times 30,000 bushels,
and that's a lot of money.

I like the direction with the
organic and regenerative movement,

where it's coming around
back to soil health.

I think that's really rewarding.

The boys are interested
in seeing this unfold,

because they're saying
things and I'm going,

"Ooh, you wouldn't have
said that about a year ago."

It's nice when it's a family
business, most of the time.

And I think down the road, they'll
definitely want to work together.

So, we think they're
pretty level-headed,

and, uh... and we value
their opinion right now.

I mean, because, we are at that
stage where we're getting up there,

and they're the future, so this is neat,
because we get to hand it off to them.

We have something
to hand off to them.

[Ruth] One of the problems
in American agriculture

is that the average age of
the American farmer is 64.

And we're losing young people in
this business at a terrific rate.

- Being 65, I can understand that.
- [Ruth chuckles]

There are plenty of young people who
would love to come back to the farm.

Farming is a wonderful
life, lifestyle, livelihood.

All kind of good
things about it.

And I, I scold
people when they say,

"Oh, farming is a hard
life." No, it's not.

Have you ever seen a roofer?
Now, that's hard-ass work.

You see the guys
putting roofs on houses?

Don't tell me how hard farmers
work, when I see a roofer working.

Well, welcome to
White Oak Pastures.

My name is Jodi,
and I'm a member

of the fifth
generation on the farm.

My great great grandfather,
he raised multi-species,

slaughtered his own
animals on the farm,

sold them locally to the
people here in Bluffton.

And it's very similar
to our model today.

We joke now, saying, we farm more
like our great great grandfather did

than when my grandfather was
alive and operating the farm.

All right, so we've got the Easter
campaign starting this weekend.

We've got a little bit of trim that Buck's
going to try to run for ground lamb,

and then some merguez, and... are
you going to run some more chorizo?

We're going to run 200
pounds of each batch.

Good deal. Uh...

[Will] Jenni is
my middle daughter

and she has always
been my shadow.

We have been inseparable
since she got potty trained.

And I am just
fiercely proud of her.

That works both ways.

It's so great to have a
kid who's your shadow.

It's great to have a
dad that's a mentor.

[Will] I've always told my
daughters that my goal is

to have the opportunity for them to come
back, but not the obligation to come back.

[Ruth] Jenni, did you always know that you
wanted to come back and work on the farm?

[Jenni] I did not.

So, growing up gay and closeted,

I really had made peace
with the fact that

I would have to choose

professional happiness
or personal happiness,

and those two couldn't
possibly coincide.

And it didn't work that
way, I get to have both.

It sounds kind of like a
fairy tale, to be honest.

It does, it does. I think
dad and I both agree,

we get to live in
our own fairy tales.

They're very different, but
they're, they're fairy tales.

So, Will, what's
your fairy tale?

You know, I'm living it.

To have...

I'm a little emotional.

Me too.

Something in the air.

I don't know. [clears throat]

You know, uh, I love what I do.

That's an understatement.

You know, it's my hobby,

my vocation, my avocation,

my legacy and
heritage, every day.

[sustained piano chords]

[piano chords]

[piano chords]

[Reem] We've been 14
months in the pandemic.

We have learned some things,

collectively, what business
works and what doesn't, right?

A year later, we're much clearer
that we need to leave Fruitvale.

We have a chance to build our own
bakery here in downtown Oakland.

I want you all to see, could
this be the new home of Reem's?

A business model that would
be profitable for everybody.

[in Spanish]

Racks and racks and racks of dough
and pastry shaping happening.

- I'd say excited.
- Excited, worried?

- Emotional.
- Emotional.

You know, across the board,
people were really responsive

and gave us really
excellent reviews.

Because I personally know
what I need to work on,

you know, I know
the wonky things.

I'm at 40% of
where I want to be.

I feel like we're on
training wheels a little bit.

How could it not be? You're a brand-new
restaurant in the middle of a pandemic.

You know, with a new
restaurant like yours,

where you're doing
really experimental food,

and really food of your heart,

you're going to have
to find your customers,

and you can't assume
that everybody who comes

is going to love it, because
they're not, they're just not.

And you can't take it to heart.

[Minh] Yeah.

Thanks, Ruth.

Yeah.

[Ruth] When I was a child,
I was attracted to food

because I saw that it
brought people together.

But it was when I began looking at
cooks that I really fell in love.

Because it seemed to me it was
impossible to make great food

if you didn't have
a generous soul.

Independent farmers and ranchers
are also a special breed.

They understand and care about food
in a way that nobody else does.

I have never connected so personally
with the people I was interviewing.

The isolation of COVID did
something really unexpected.

It sparked deeper relationships,

deeper understanding.

The people I met this
year give me hope.

They're independent of
the industrialized model,

which frees them to take risks.

Their collective vision

may hold the key
to our well-being.

I've always believed that
food is social and political,

but it's so much more than that.

It shows us our values.

How we grow and make our food

tells us who we are as a nation,

and more importantly, who
we are as human beings.

I would love to
meet you in person.

- That would be great. We'll have to one of these days.
- Yeah.

[Steve] My son'll be
riding in that world a lot,

so if he gets up in the
New York rodeo or whatever

and we get over there,
I'll probably look you up.

Oh, please. Please.

I'm really proud to call
you here from Glasgow.

You are the 2021 winner
of the Food Planet Prize.

Oh, my... are you kidding?

The decision has been made by
the Curt Bergfors Foundation,

believe it or not, to
double up on the prize.

So you're not winner of
just one million US dollars,

you are now the winner of
two million US dollars,

the largest prize for
sustainability in the world.

Congratulations, Bren, and
the whole GreenWave team.

So this is confidential because
they want to keep it confidential,

but they're naming the
restaurant of the year.

- Whoa!
- Whoa! Isn't that cool?

And then everyone around me is like,
"Wait, can we just take a moment

to not react to it as,
like, another, you know,

you having to react to a
pivot, and just enjoy it?"

And I'm like, "Yeah,
but oh, my God!"

The food that we eat,
the tools that we use,

the methods of agriculture
were started by your ancestors.

And every time someone says,

"Get down and dirty
and go into a garden,"

you go into that
garden with pride.

- [applause]
- Thank you so much.

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