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In this episode, I welcome back to the show, Will Harris, fourth-generation farmer, and owner of White Oak Pastures. You can listen to our first episode here. 

In 1995, Will made the bold decision to stop using industrialized farming methods at White Oak Pastures and instead return his operation to the traditional farming techniques used by his forefathers.

Today, White Oak Pastures operates as a living ecosystem that is holistically managed and proudly zero-waste – all while employing 155+ people and helping to revitalize the small town of Bluffton, GA.  

Listen in as Will and I discuss the big plans for our upcoming event October 21-24, 2021.  We also chat about: 

• The office at White Oak Pastures and the interesting construction of his driveway
• How Spider Lilies indicate the changing of the seasons
• The size and scope of White Oak Pastures
• What is raised at White Oak Pastures
• The unique lodging at White Oak Pastures
• How the end of small and medium-sized farms have changed rural America
• How Will’s family is involved in their family-owned farm
• Center for Agricultural Resilience (CFAR)

Resources:

• Savory Hubs
• Gabe Brown
• Jason Rowntree
• Ranching for Profit
• Regenerative Farming and Nutrition workshop October 21-24
• Sacred Cow
• Jules Horn – Website & Podcast with Jules 
• Samantha Garwin 

Connect with Will:

Website: White Oak Pastures

Instagram: @whiteoakpastures

LinkedIn: Will Harris

Facebook: @whiteoakpastures

Twitter: @whiteoakpasture

YouTube: White Oak Pastures Farms

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Episode Credits:

Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers, Lauren Manning, and James Connelly. Our producer is Meg Chatham, and our editor is Emily Soape. And of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Patreon supporters, and listeners.

This episode is sponsored by FOND Bone Broth, one of my favorite “better broth” companies. Their broths and elixirs are not only well-sourced, but they are delicious. Visit their website here and enter the code SUSTAINABLEDISH for 20% off your first order.

Transcript:

Diana Rodgers, RD  0:00  

Welcome back to the podcast everyone I wanted to invite Will Harris, my good friend, back on. I did a podcast with him a while ago. I don’t even remember how long ago that might have been. But I had the pleasure of actually visiting White Oak Pastures this past year and got to see it in person and I wanted to have Will on because while I wanted to just say hello to Will and have everyone who might not have heard that podcast meet him, but also to let everyone know that I’m going to be doing an event with Will in October and there’s still an opportunity to sign up. And so we’re going to be talking about that, about a new education program that Will, a center really that Will has started. Will, I was just so impressed with White Oak Pastures. I mean, it really blew my mind. I’m awestruck by how amazing it is. So you’re talking to us from your office. Is this the same office that I saw you in that used to be the courthouse? Is that correct?

Will Harris  1:00  

It is the one-room courthouse built in the early  1800s. I’m literally sitting on the judge’s bench because that’s the only place in the room you get a solo seat. So welcome back to Bluffton today.

Diana Rodgers, RD  1:13  

Thank you so much and it’s no better fitting place for you to be and as I remember the walkway up to your office was lined in in cattle bones. Is that correct?

Will Harris  1:24  

So the road to hell is paved with good intentions and the driveway to my door is paved with cow rib bones that we made broth out of and they’re a soil amendment in the yard here and matter of fact, this is my business card.

Diana Rodgers, RD  1:44  

You know thank you. Now you’re publicizing your phone number and private email to everybody who’s

Will Harris  1:51  

This is all over the website. Anybody that wants to call me, feel free to do so.

Diana Rodgers, RD  1:57  

Well, you know, it’s so funny because you gave me one and you gave one to Anson, my son, and I actually have it just beyond my arm’s reach. And I was about to grab it. I was just looking at it yesterday actually. So cool that you have bone business cards. 

Will Harris  2:13  

Yeah, well, if you put business cards in your shirt pocket in Georgia in the summertime, they become business blotters instead of business cards. Because when you put that in your pocket, people take a picture of it. They don’t want to keep it.

Diana Rodgers, RD  2:27  

Well, I’m so honored to have my very own. So what’s the temperature down in Bluffton today?

Will Harris  2:34  

You know, it’s not that bad, it’s like 85 which is pretty good for us. And the temperature, the humidity is just a little over 100, not just a little bit over 100. It is nice. It’s actually… So we have these flowers called, we call them Spider Lilies but they’re called Hurricane Lilies. Do you know what they look like? They’re a bulb that just jumps up and blooms. And I just saw my first ones yesterday. And when I see Spider Lilies or Hurricane Lilies and I know it’s just about time to plant cool-season grazing. It’s the first real marker of the changing of the seasons. We’re about to start overseeding cool-season grazing in our perennial pastures.

Diana Rodgers, RD  3:23  

So how much acreage do you have right now at White Oak Pastures? And how much of that is dedicated to the cattle? How many… Give us a sense of the size of your farm because I… Ranch? Farm? I guess in on the east coast we kind of call them farms.

Will Harris  3:38  

I’m cool with pastures or farm or ranch. Okay, the home farm here is 3200 acres and is divided up into 120 30 ish acre paddocks from 15 to 30-acre paddocks. And that’s where most of our farming occurs. The other is a solar 14,125-acre solar voltaic array, utility size array. And we also graze it with our sheep and poultry. On this farm we have… They’re only five miles apart and it’s all here. 3200 acres, where I’m… which is our home farm. We raise cows, hogs, sheep, goats and rabbits, chickens, turkeys, guineas, and ducks. Organic vegetables and honey and a few tree nuts and just a little bit of fruit. And to plant more and more fruit or something I will do more of as time goes on. And this is where we have our USDA inspected red meat slaughter plant and poultry slaughter plant on this farm and I mean you might remember that Bluffton has a 102 person village is in the middle of a farm and the farm is in the middle of the village. Right now I’m literally in the middle of my farm.

Diana Rodgers, RD  5:08  

Yes. And you’ve got a general store and a restaurant there and a beautiful general store. I forgot to wear my earrings today my leather earrings that I love so much that I got there. The food is incredible. And then you have also taken over the church that was there, which is now your new education center. Is that correct?

Will Harris  5:29  

That’s correct. It was our administrative offices. since you’ve been here we built so I say office buildings, so red iron buildings will lend itself in the office. It is an office building. That freed the church up to be the education center. We’re very excited about that. We’ve also built an RV park since you’ve been here

Diana Rodgers, RD  5:51  

Oh, cool. Are you going to be I know you have cabins that people can come stay in? Are you going to be doing like any kind of Airstream-type Airbnb-type things or is it right now for people to park their own RVs?

Will Harris  6:05  

Right now people park their own and plan B, if that doesn’t work, is we’ll put tiny houses on for employees.  We have we have a housing issue with so many of our employees moved here from somewhere else to be here. And they don’t want a 85-year-old Victorian house. They want a clean climate control tiny house type thing. So we’ll look into some of those.

Diana Rodgers, RD  6:40  

And I mentioned when I came down it was during COVID. I had pulled my son Anson, who’s 17 out of school, because he’s not really a zoom learning type of a kid and we brought him down there. And you had some quite unique accommodations for him right above the horse barn.

Will Harris  6:58  

Yeah. I’ve got a… above a horse barn we put two little loft rooms, apartments and composting toilets. In some of them, there is an outdoor shower. And this is pretty cowboy. It’s just pretty rustic. You know, I don’t have a single… we got 12 cabins, and some employee housing, I don’t have any thing I wouldn’t live in myself. You know, my acid test is if I if I if I wouldn’t live in it, then I got to do some work on it. Am I gonna put somebody else in it if I wouldn’t live there? We’ve got 180 employees in a town with 100 people. So that’s where the the lodging is an issue. And we find that we can attract in this work environment with so many urban people, less than happy with their work lives and personal lives and health. We were able to attract people from all over the country to work here. And I love working with those kind of people. These are younger. Now, these aren’t kids. These are you know, in the 30s for the most part, probably people who’ve been pretty successful in some career, to the point they don’t, it’s not all about the money anymore. And they come here and work. And now you know, they’re not gonna be here for a couple of years. And that’s fine. I come from the generation where you go to work with a fortune 500 company, you work for them for 35 years, and they’re pitching you out. That’s not the way this deal works. And I like this better than that. This is a this is a much, much better way of building employee relationships.

Diana Rodgers, RD  10:06  

Yeah, right, you’ve really transformed this town and we’ve seen just the complete annihilation of rural America due to the consolidation of farming into these big businesses. And I don’t think people fully appreciate how the loss of small and medium-size farms, in particular, business overall, but farms in particular has really decimated small-town America. And you know, for those people who came from small towns and maybe go back home to visit family, they’re almost all now you know, the main streets are boarded up. The only place to go shopping is maybe at the big box store that’s 30, 40, 50 minutes away Walmart or Best Buy or whatever. And we’ve lost small towns because of the loss of small and medium-scale farms. And you are, not only is White Oak Pastures, an amazing model of regenerative farming with the rotation, holistic management that you’re doing. You’re a Savory hub. There’s so much to learn there so I’m excited to learn more about what you’re going to be doing with this education center but number one, economically saving this small town in the middle of the it’s the poorest county in Georgia. Is that correct? 

Will Harris  11:24  

Wikipedia says that Clay County is the poorest county in the United States of America based on household not per capita but households. I don’t know how that calculation is done but it’s adequately poor, I can assure you. It interests me too. And you know happened in retrospect, I had no idea what… none of us knew what was happening. And we didn’t even know our town was drying up until it was well underway. And by the time we figured it out nobody we didn’t think we could do anything about it. But what in retrospect what happened is centralized industrial farming rendered rural America irrelevant, financially irrelevant. They just wasn’t needed anymore. And when it when it’s my when it becomes irrelevant, it wastes away. And a couple of things we think we’re good at it is animal welfare, regenerative land management, and this rural community to build. Those are the three things that I feel, the only three things I really feel qualified to speak on and that I’m not getting outside that comfort zone. And the first two were very very intentional. We, I had been a professional cattlemen all my life, sone of one, son of one, son of one. And in my degree from Georgia in animal science College of Agriculture and I really felt very comfortable with what I was doing. And I came to not like it so I made some very conscious decisions that I don’t want to do this anymore and I studied how to do it differently and made changes to do it differently. And some worked some didn’t. And one’s that didn’t work I rethought them and still rethinking some of them. The economic impact on the town was unintentional. I never would have dreamt that we could have made an impact on the town that had been drying up for 40 years. And didn’t intend to do. But, you know, when we brought all these young, passionate educated ,energetic people here they needed a place to eat and sleep and drink, and play, and live, and shop. So we provided it and suddenly we got a really nice little town. It’s fun to live in.  Not just for me. I think people will tell you that. And it’s still tiny. I’m fine with that. This isn’t a contest but the quality of life is very good here and it just very unintentional. Just, I still can’t believe it. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  14:07  

Yeah, it really does have a big family feel and the kids you have working in the store are so sweet. I mean you really get this coming from the northeast it’s it’s really refreshing to be comforted in the way that your staff does. I mean it’s really way beyond just a farm. It’s it’s a whole experience. And let’s chat quickly too about Jenni, your daughter. She has made a huge contribution and I work with her a lot on on organizing this this group that she started the tanning piece of it, right? That’s a that’s across the street from your store. 

Will Harris  14:45  

Yeah, so I’ve got three daughters. Two, of whom came back to the farm to work with us. And both of them both of their spouses. Jen is gay she and her wife, Amber and Jody and her husband, John, are all in management here. And I should say that I still sometimes refer to this as a family-run business. And I shouldn’t do that, because it’s family-owned. We’ve got non-family members who are very senior. In fact, I got non-family members I paid more than I pay my daughters and their spouses. And by the way, all of then are making more than I do. So, it’s not family-run. It’s family-owned. But anyway, yes, both my daughters came back, both of them brought their spouses and both of then made incredible contributions to… They all run businesses within the organism that is White Oak Pastures.

Diana Rodgers, RD  15:45  

Yeah, that’s a nice way to put it organism because it really is you have so many different things underneath the umbrella of White Oak. I’m just so excited to bring folks down. Let’s talk quickly, though. So you started this education center? Who is it targeted at? And what are the primary goals of this?

Will Harris  16:03  

Good question. So it’s called CFAR (see-far) Center For Agricultural Resilience. And I started it because I’ve been delighted at how many people are interested in learning about regenerative agriculture. Regenerative agriculture, it’s just really caught traction. It’s not mainstream, I don’t think it’s mainstream, but it’s really caught traction. And I’ve been pleased at how many people are stepping up and teaching regenerative land management. And I did not feel in any way compelled to be part of that education. Because there are people doing it, you know, my friend, Gabe Brown, and our friend,  Jason Rowntree, The Savory Institute. And I can just go on and on about it. People who are doing a great job teaching regenerative land management. I didn’t feel… I didn’t want to put my time and effort and energy into that. But then I went to a few courses that were great. And I started feeling the need to get involved because the courses I went to were doing a great job teaching regenerative land management, but they weren’t teaching step two and three and four. And the truth is a farmer or rancher can embrace and become good at regenerative land management, and still go broke doing it. Because when a producer moves from the industrial model to this model, they internalize a lot of the expenses that big ag handles for us. We raise heck about the fact that USDA says that the farmer gets 15 cents of the consumer dollar. And I’m the first to think that’s wrong. It is wrong, that’s too much. But we have forgotten the fact that big ag does provide a lot of services for farmers. They charge too much for it and they do consumers a disservice. I can go on and on about the negatives but they provide a service. And of that 85… In my case, when I sell something to the consumer I get 100 cents of the dollar but I also write checks for $100,000 in Bluffton, Georgia every Friday for payroll. And I also maintain a lot of things. You know, in the industrial model, the farmer harvests his crop and picks up the phone and says I have a load of blank, come get it. And that could be hogs, corn, wheat, tomatoes, and big ag will come and get it and mail you a check. It is so easy.

Diana Rodgers, RD  16:26  

And not only that, I don’t mean to cut you off but it blew my mind when we were driving around we saw when I was driving around with you last December, I believe it was. There were fields full of I think it was cotton that was being left on harvested so that the farmer could then claim it was a loss to get the crop insurance because the price had dropped too far low. That’s when the cotton that we were looking at?

Will Harris  19:08  

Your right. Yes that was a separate deal. When there are what we call crop insurance farmers. Which was a very… I consider it a very fraudulent thing to do. That’s a little different. What we’re talking about now,

Diana Rodgers, RD  19:21  

Only in that it’s the whole system is just so broken. The whole industrial agriculture system is so broken and these guys are using up land that could be regeneratively managed and I don’t think a lot of people know that that’s a possibility. If you just don’t harvest it, you can claim a loss and still get paid.

Will Harris  19:41  

We started CFAR because consumers don’t buy cows and hogs and sheep. They buy beef and pork and chicken and poultry and lamb. And we don’t farm where consumers consume. We farm in rural Georgia and rural Arkansas, and rural Missouri. Consumers consume in those high-income zip codes, probably where you’re broadcasting from right now.

Diana Rodgers, RD  20:10  

Definitely. Yeah.

Will Harris  20:12  

So we do a little bit of regenerative land management training. And mostly we take off from how to run the farm. How to… It’s more… it’s not a how-to farm manual, it’s how to think about resilient agriculture. And the target is farmers, but also thought leaders. We have the CEO of the huge solar energy company was at our last one. Lobby environmental attorneys, see the land planners, congressional aides for people in the ag community, some of those representatives in the ag committee. We start Monday at lunch go through Friday at lunch. It’s a packed week.

Diana Rodgers, RD  20:55  

That’s really great. Yeah, one of the things that impressed me when I was learning about the organization Ranching for Profit was they’re really talking to farmers about how to save the farm. And by the way, you can be sustainable while doing it. And that was just a totally different approach than some of the other organizations that lead with be a great environmental farmer. And maybe you’ll make money. And you have to be financially successful if you’re going to save your farm. And I hope that it also is, you know, as somebody who comes from both worlds as a consumer, but also as a producer, I really appreciate the energy of you know, helping the farmers save their land and leave something to their kids that looks a lot more like a sustainable lifestyle where you don’t work every single day all day long and lead a miserable life. Because that’s that’s the reality of most farmers in the US.

Will Harris  21:51  

It’s got… I mean, you’re right. You have to produce a monetizable product that produces a comfortable living situation. And you know, it’s certainly not all about the money and return on investment. But it’s got to be cashflow positive.  You can’t hemorrhage. And so often we build this beautiful system that hemorrhages.

Diana Rodgers, RD  22:14  

Right. And unfortunately, I see that a lot in people with ideal, like visions about what their farm is going to be like. Or these, you know, overly endowed nonprofits that look like farms, but aren’t actually operating like farms, but yet they’re undercutting farmers at markets and other things with their underpriced items. Anyhow, so let’s talk about this event that we’re doing. It’s October 21 through the 24th. And folks can come down. We’re going to eat all the meals on the farm, we’ll probably be drinking some wine, I’m assuming Will, knowing you,

Will Harris  22:49  

I feel like that might happen. okay. At about 6 o’clock every afternoon I expect.

Diana Rodgers, RD  22:57  

And we’ll be doing a screening of Sacred Cow. Folks are going to tour the farm mostly in the mornings with you. And then in the afternoons, they’ll be working with me doing more classroom stuff on nutrition. I’ll be giving them a personalized nutrition program, and also talking about how to arm themselves and understand the sciences and the arguments behind water use, land use. And you’re going to be showing them in real life what a slaughterhouse looks like, what the cattle look like, what the pork operation looks like. I mean, this is a this can be really life-changing for folks.

Will Harris  23:34  

Well, I hope so. We’re very excited about having you here and having these people down. We do think that… We certainly, we don’t have it all right, we’ve been working on for 25 years, and we’ve come a long way. But it’s not all right. I don’t think there’s any way you can go and see this many species with this much vertical integration. And that’s what we are excited about showing people.

Diana Rodgers, RD  24:00  

It’s really great. And your hospitality, again, is top-notch, so welcoming and warm. And then we’re gonna have Jules Horn, who is a new friend of mine. He’ll be doing I mean, he really just wanted to kind of come along and I said, Okay, well why don’t you come do this breathing and movement sessions because he has training in that and I thought that’d be such a nice thing to add on. And then also one of my very best friends Samantha Garwin, who sas a trained butcher, she was the CEO Fleischer’s in New York City for the longest time, will be opening her own butcher shop pretty soon in the Boston area. And she also was just dying to see White Oak Pastures and say hello. And so we’re going to have her do a half hog demonstration of how it’s broken down. Which is always so interesting. If folks haven’t ever seen that before, to really watch it get broken into the cuts.

Will Harris  24:52  

We’re very excited about all that’s a pack card.

Diana Rodgers, RD  24:57  

It is.

Will Harris  24:58  

For those of you that I hope will come and worry about mobility we got a what we call a  safari truck that’s got a flat bed on the back with benches. And we’ll drive through the pastures so you can get out and walk and do whatever you want to do. But it’ll be very comfortable. We’re making it very comfortable for you as well.

Diana Rodgers, RD  25:19  

Right and I talked to Jules too. These are not going to be CrossFit workouts these are going to be just overall mobility for just having a healthy body type things stretches and stuff like that. And his breathing techniques are just so great at automatically just lowering the stress in your body within minutes. Really, really fun. So so there’s limited spaces for folks to be able to stay on the farm which I highly recommend you do if you’re going to come all the way down here. There are cabins to be had but there’s not a lot of them. If they have an RV I guess you know that’s an option too is to just attend and stay in their own RV. And if you can’t make it this time, I highly encourage you to try White Oak Pastures meats so you can go to White Oak Pastures dot com and just order some of their meat and give it a try. You can also learn more about the workshop I think it’s under experiences and then you tab down to two workshops and this is the regenerative farming and nutrition workshop that will be in late October which will be a beautiful time. Any alligators? I kept asking where the alligators were I don’t know why I was so obsessed. I have this like weird fear of alligators Are there any in October?

Will Harris  26:33  

October is one of my 12 favorite months. And I know the alligators will go in in October. We do we do have a lot of gaters out here but then I guessing a Boston girl might have a little concern over alligators. I can see that.

Diana Rodgers, RD  26:49  

I go to Montana and worry about bears and I go to Georgia and worry about alligators.

Will Harris  26:53  

When I go to Boston and I’m worried about everything else.

Diana Rodgers, RD  26:57  

Will what else can we let folks know before I have to let you go?

Will Harris  27:01  

Just I really look forward to meeting y’all down here on our turf. I think we’ve got some things that you’ll find interesting and educational and delighted of all this talent that Diana alone provides and she’s bringing a team with her. So it’s a little overwhelming. Looking forward to it.

Diana Rodgers, RD  27:23  

I’m looking forward to it too. I’m so excited. And hopefully, that’s just the beginning of many that we do. So great. So everyone rush out sign up now to get to reserve your spot and thank you so much. Thanks for your time today Will, have a great day.