About the Episode:
Bunny talks to the women of “Discover Ag.”
Links:
Discover Ag on Instagram
Discover Ag podcast
Elevate Ag on Instagram
Find Natalie on Instagram
Find Tara on Instagram
Elevate Ag
Bunny’s website
Buy Bunny’s book on Amazon
I Love New Mexico Instagram
I Love New Mexico Facebook
Original Music by: Kene Terry
Featuring:
Tara Vander Dussen & Natalie Kovarik
Tara is a New Mexico native, 5th generation dairy farmer, an environmental scientist, and mom of two girls. Daniel, her husband, manages all day-to-day on his family dairy farm while Tara has her own career as an environmental consultant, speaker, online agriculture advocate and podcaster. Tara began sharing her story online through her platform, New Mexico Milkmaid, because she found that people often had misconceptions about farmers and modern farming,
and she wanted to set the record straight about dairy farm life and on-farm sustainability. She now has a community of more than 73,000 followers. And she has had the opportunity to speak
at national and global conferences about dairy sustainability including at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Committee on World Food Security and the Forbes AgTech
Summit. Tara is also the Co-Founder of Elevate Ag, an online course to provide farmers and ranchers with the tools they need to successfully share their Ag story and grow their businesses,
and the Co-Founder of Discover Ag, a docuseries and podcast of being agriculture to people in a new way.
Episode Transcript
Bunny: (00:00)
Hi there. I’m Bunny Terry, and you’re listening to the I Love New Mexico podcast. Whether you’re a native new Mexican who’s lived here for your entire life, or you’re just considering a visit, this episode is for you. Join us as we share a lot of New Mexico stories, talk about all things New Mexico, and include topics like what’s magical here, where are you ought to visit, what’s happening, and the things you absolutely cannot miss in the land of Enchantment. We’re excited that you’re here and we can’t wait to show you what an amazing place New Mexico is, because let’s face it, I love New Mexico.
Bunny: (00:50)
So one of the coolest things about running the I Love New Mexico blog podcast is that, um, I have guests who then introduced me to other guests, who then introduced me to other guests. And, and that’s the way, that’s, that’s what New Mexico is. It’s a really small community of, um, people who know one another. I wrote, you know, in my book, I, about my own journey, I wrote that, you know, I never go any, you know, I can’t go to the state fair without running into three of my cousins and, and a couple of friends from college. And this feels like the same thing. I interviewed Blair Pollster, uh, couple of weeks ago, and she said, wait a second, wait a second. Here’s this long list. She gave me this long list of people I needed to speak to, and the two of you were at the top of the list. And when we began this process, um, Natalie, who is not living in New Mexico right now, said, wait a second. I think, you know, since this is all about New Mexico, um, maybe I shouldn’t be on the podcast. And I said, no, because you are doing amazing things for rural women all over the southwest. And, um, you know, we have Tara who lives in Clovis and who is a native New Mexican, but Natalie, you’re part of that team. So I just feel like it’s, it’s so important that, that I get to talk to both of you. And, um, before we begin our conversation, I just want to let people know who you are, um, Natalie Kava. So Natalie is the co-host of the popular podcast, discover Ag. And I have to tell you guys, I just spent the last 12 hours listening to a lot of your podcast, which was way cool. And you’re also the co-founder of Elevate Ag, which is an online course and community providing producers, ag producers with the tools that they need to successfully advocate. And you and your husband live in central Nebraska, and, um, you own and operate a Cow Cal operation. And you also, you have, do you have three boys? Okay. And, um, you, I went to your website and I was, I was fascinated by the fact that you are, you’re not only helping, uh, you’re not only a partner in running that operation, but you’re also, um, telling stories. Um, you’re also running masterminds about, um, how to elevate ag and western life. And, and then you have an apparel line. I thought, wow, how does, when do you sleep? And then I , I looked at Taras, um, bio, and Tara is a New Mexico native. You’re a fifth generation dairy farmer, um, and environmental scientist. Oh, and I forgot to tell you guys, Natalie’s also a pharmacist, right? Um, and, and, um, Tara is the mom of two girls, and she and her husband Daniel, um, ha, own a dairy in Curry County, right? And you, Tara, you started sharing your story online through your platform that’s called New Mexico Milk Made, um, because you discovered that people always all have misconceptions about farmers and modern farming.
Bunny: (04:11)
So, um, there’s so much to unwrap here, but what I wanted to say, first of all is that, um, we don’t, we don’t just, this isn’t just, um, new Mexico’s stories. This, this podcast is for people who are making a big difference in New Mexico and the Southwest. So, um, here’s, here’s what I wanna know is, um, your heart, both of your hearts are obviously rooted in, um, rural life and, and the farming and dairy and, and cattle production, um, arenas. But tell me where, when did you decide that it’s time for you to do something about that and, and create a public forum? Why is that important and when did you do it?
Tara: (05:00)
So, I’ll go first. This is Tara here. I started sharing a New Mexico milk made about six years ago. And it was really when my daughter was kind of like, I had just had my daughter and I was just like online a lot looking at information about motherhood, you know, child raising, like how to feed your kids. And I saw so much misinformation around agriculture and specifically around dairy, dairy’s impact on the environment. There was a lot of people who were saying they’re not gonna feed their kids milk because they heard something or saw something online. And that was really frustrating to me. And so that was kind of my like, start to start sharing online, build a platform, and just start kind of combating misinformation.
Bunny: (05:39)
And what about you, Natalie?
Natalie: (05:41)
So, as you mentioned, I am actually a pharmacist.And I grew up in agriculture, but for a large portion, you know, after college I wasn’t living on the family ranch anymore, and I never really envisioned, honestly, coming back to it. Um, when I, I met and married my husband, I moved to Nebraska and ended up on a ranch again. And that’s kind of when I guess I started sharing. I had created a direct to consumer beef business with another childhood friend. Um, I’ve since stepped away from that, but that was really my first exposure to, you know, sharing farm and ranch online. Um, and realizing that there was kind of a need for it. There was an interest in it. Um, kind of, I guess, recognizing that not everyone grew up the way I did. I feel like when you are raised in agriculture, especially in, you know, agriculture and smaller communities, like I was in Montana and here in Nebraska, it’s kind of what every, you know, my, my banker runs cows. Our dentist has a little cow. And so I just forget that not everyone sees agriculture and that exposure to sharing our life online and the reception to it, kind of like you mentioned in the intro, you know, drove me to continue sharing, but, you know, also help other people share too.
Bunny: (06:49)
Well, I think it’s so important. I alluded to this in my email yesterday. I grew up on a farm. My family, um, came to New Mexico and started farming, um, in the early 20th century. And I, and, and yet I live in a very progressive New Mexico, um, community. And the things I hear people say about ag production and about, um, you know, sustainability and about, um, greenhouse gases, uh, attributed to agriculture makes it, it sort of makes my blood boil. So I can’t even imagine what it would be like if, if I were in your industry now. I mean, I’m not, but you’re right. There’s so much misinformation and, I tried really hard when I was researching and when I was listening to your podcast. And of course I also wanna give, get at some point in this short 30 to 40 minutes to what you’re also doing to help other entrepreneur entrepreneurs.
Bunny: (07:55)
But when I was listening now, so I’m showing now that Natalie isn’t recording, but Natalie, you’ll record in the aggregate, so don’t worry, let’s don’t get out in and out again, cuz we’ll still get you, you’ll record on my end. So don’t worry about that. But when I was listening to, um, the pieces, um, and you’re, you talk about such important topics. You talk about food security, you talk about the elitism that is tied to, um, that’s tied to how people talk about where they get their food and what they eat. And I want everyone to subscribe to your podcast immediately because the information is so important. Um, and well,
Natalie: (08:45)
Thank
Tara: (08:45)
You
Bunny: (08:46)
. Well, and, and, and tell me about the responses that you’re getting. I, I wanna know how, what people are hearing and what they’re processing and, and how important what you’re doing is to your listeners.
Tara: (09:00)
Yeah, so our podcast is, um, discover Ag Podcast, and it is really, um, we kind of went through a rebrand. It was Elevate Ag and now it’s discover ag. It went discover ag. We’re really give bringing, entertaining, relevant content around food and ag news information that we feel like people need to know. And we’re bringing it to you from like our perspective as, you know, two producers in the industry. Um, and we really hope that we’re reaching outside of agriculture. I think with ag, a lot of times we reach within and our goal at this podcast was really to go beyond ag, make it really entertaining and captivating. Um, and so that’s, um, the response has been really well, like, we’re seeing obviously, you know, we get to see our like, download numbers and different things on the back end and, um, we’re getting more, more subscribers, more downloads. And then the feedback we get, we combined our podcast with Instagram, so Instagram makes it, you know, podcasting is kind of one sided like that you don’t always hear back from people. Whereas on the Instagram side of things, we get to see what news pieces people are really like connecting to what they have to say about ’em. And, um, it’s just fascinating after one of our episodes releases to get into the Instagram, uh, side of it and see what people’s comments are, what they think and, um, what they’re sharing about it. Well,
Bunny: (10:15)
I’m curious to know if there’s anything that has become a really hot, controversial topic after you talked about it. I mean, did you, have you gotten any pushback? What, what have folks been the most, um, what have they voiced the most maybe dissenting opinions about? Do you get that?
Tara: (10:33)
So I think one of our, I feel like one of our hotter topic ones was kind of where we discussed, um, grass fed versus grained beef. And we discussed it from, um, an impact on the environment and a nutrition side of things. And it really, we were kind of nervous about that one. Like we were expecting some pushback and actually a lot of the comments were really positive that we did a good job highlighting both sides of this conversation and not necessarily picking a side. It was just kind of laying out the facts of both and what is positive or negative, the pros and cons of both. And I think one of the things with our podcast that Natalie and I always remind our audience of is we are actually very pro food choice. Pick whichever foods you want, but understand why you’re choosing what you’re choosing and just understand the facts behind it. And so I was really excited to see the positive comments from that episode that from grain-fed cattle ranchers, grass fed cattle ranchers, you know, people that have feed lots, people that are, you know, do a combination of pasture feed lots, um, that they were like, you know, these are the facts kind of laid out in letting, you know, consumers make the decisions for themselves, which beef they prefer and what works for their lifestyle.
Bunny: (11:43)
So one of the podcasts I just, I listened to at the end was the one where you were talking about, um, other countries, New Zealand and, um, Ireland who are, who are either imposing sanction, well imposing taxes in New Zealand and, um, and reducing or proposing a reduction by a million. The number of, um, I didn’t, I I didn’t know if it was cow calf pairs or dairy, I didn’t know just, just the number of cattle in Ireland. And those are both countries where a huge portion of their economy is cattle based. Correct. And so there wasn’t this balance in the news, which frequently happens about how, um, talking about, talking about, um, sustainability on this side and talking about economics that they, they don’t quite meet those, those concepts don’t seem to meet. It’s, it seems like common sense to me. But, um, I loved what you brought, what, what you brought to your listeners and it sounded so common sense. And yet that’s not what year in the news. It’s just the cows gotta go, right,
Natalie: (12:57)
. Yes. Um, I mean, as you mentioned money back, you know, a few statements ago, or Tara did, I guess we rebranded. And so when we really started this podcast, I don’t think we were aware of kind of the need actually to kind of drive conversation and narrative and highlight these things. Um, and then we kind of fell into it and now we realize, you know, how important it is to kind of shed light on some of these topics that maybe aren’t getting covered or maybe you’re getting, you know, presented one way to the, you know, the, the mass public. Um, or just to have, you know, um, I think it’s important just to have a consumer or producer’s voice on it. Um, you know, like we said, we’re coming from the aspect of being in production agriculture. And so yeah, I think it’s been fun to kind of fall into that.
Natalie: (13:47)
Like, oh, here’s something that no one’s talking about, or here’s something that everyone’s talking about, but, you know, farmers and ranches haven’t been able to put a voice to how they feel about it. And so it’s been really fun to kind of shape our podcast to, to, to, to do that now. Um, as compared to kind of where we started, which is, it’s funny to look at how much we’ve kind of changed and grown in just the, you know, we haven’t even done it a year, but we’re, um, we’re, we’re trying to make it better every single day.
Bunny: (14:14)
I, I have to tell you one, I i, I mean, as I was listening, I wrote down the thing, the high points, but I loved the part where Tara said, um, wait a second, here’s this list of cruelty free milk production. I’m not even gonna tell it. You tell, tell, tell what your points were, Tara.
Tara: (14:32)
He has, so, you know, one of the things like with milks, a lot of times, like vegans will have their alternative milks that they offer as cruelty free. And I was on a website, and we had kind of talked about this briefly on the podcast, that, um, they were ranking milks and they had cashew milk as number four and factory farming, I’m using air quotes, um, milk as like the last, like the worst. And if you get into the production of cashews, it’s very terrible. It, it’s a very heavy subject. So like forewarned, if you google that, um, there, there’s a juice release from the cashew that like mutates the hands of the workers. The working conditions are awful. Um, very little pay. Like it is just a terrible condition. And so to think like my family farm that I live on was ranked as the most harmful, horrible, like cruelty milk when, you know, these, these women and these workers in these other countries were suffering so much for cashy milk is just, that’s not getting covered. Nobody’s talking about that. And that was what we really wanted to bring to the podcast, bring to these conversations, whether on the podcast or even on our Instagram pages of like looking at, you know, the bigger picture, like shedding lights on all the areas instead of just what people are picking and choosing to like, highlight and what kind of like fits their narrative.
Bunny: (15:51)
Well, I think the cool thing you’re doing, and and you said this in one of your podcasts, you said, we keep using the word conversations, but, but it seems to me that that’s, that’s what’s gonna save all of us, is if we learn to tell one another’s stories and if we learn to have real conversations instead of pointing fingers. And, um, you know, I have a lot of friends who will say that they’ve chosen to no longer eat beef because of, of greenhouse gases. I’m like, well, except, um, there’s a whole different side. What, what’s, what do you tell people who use that argument? I know it’s not as simple as a five minute answer, but what should I
Natalie: (16:34)
No, I mean, there are statistics and stats. We, you know, we could rattle off about how low, you know, greenhouse gas emissions is from the agriculture industry compared to, you know, other industries, electricity, indu, you know, automotive. Um, but I think what we try and do, and we do share that on the podcast, you know, we’ll get into specific facts and numbers, um, but I think what we really try and do is like stepping back to a bigger picture is like letting people know that when it comes to agriculture and these conversations about environment, what’s better and what’s right and what we should be choosing and what we shouldn’t be choosing. It’s everyone besides us, we try not to makes it so very black and white. They make it like, this is right, this is wrong, here’s what you choose and here’s why. And we really try to show that like, um, yes, maybe cattle or, you know, we do have a greenhouse gas emission, we’re not denying it, but if we take it a level deeper and really look at the nuances of agriculture, here’s what cattle do that’s really beneficial and here’s, you know, a full life cycle.
Natalie: (17:32)
And here’s other things to think about when it comes to choosing your food besides the one, besides looking at, you know, the 2.5% or whatever percentage it is that the greenhouse gas or 11% total of agriculture comes to. It’s like people get fixated on this, you know, very concrete thing. And we really try and like bring it, peel back onion layers and bring in other things to consider about so that people can just make a well informed choice by themself that’s really built on a whole multitude of factors instead of just one thing that can sometimes get repeated over and over and over again in all sorts of other conversations.
Bunny: (18:07)
Well, it’s like you did a podcast with Jack Bobba and I, am I saying that correctly? He, yeah. What, what an amazing guy, first of all, but, but he said at this point in time, people care more about what they eat and known less about where it comes from than ever before. I thought that was a, a, a really profound statement because people don’t know where their food comes from.
Tara: (18:32)
Yeah. Jack Bobo is such an amazing follow, I highly recommend it. Um, at that episode following him, I, he’s on, uh, LinkedIn and Twitter. Um, but yeah, he is a big one too on like that, um, 60% of what we need to do to improve, like agriculture we’re already doing. We just have to keep doing it. And so if we just get a little bit better, like we’re gonna get there, um, he has a quote that is, uh, things are not bad and getting worse. They’re good and getting better. We just want it to be faster. Um, and so I I I agree with a lot of the things he says that, um, it’s just, it’s, it’s not all as simple as people like, and I think the very root of our podcast and all, and really the, the root of like, why we are doing anything we’re doing, as you mentioned, we use the word conversations a lot and it’s really opening up conversations with the hands of feed us. That’s like our like tagline of being able to give a farmer’s, ranchers a little bit of a voice in this conversation, open up the dialogue and uh, really talk about these tough topics and, and go a level deeper, not just surface level.
Bunny: (19:40)
Well, I love that you’re doing that and I, I’m, I’m, I’m just, I’m proud to know you. I’m proud that I’m, I’m excited that you’re here to talk about it. I, um, you also are doing amazing things for, um, especially female entrepreneurs and in, in the ag sector. Um, and, and it’s, okay, so I’m not in the ag sector, but I wanna, I wanna come to one of your masterminds, talk about what you’re doing there, because at the very beginning of, I, I am a marketing coach, but I do it at, at a really tiny level. You guys are doing this on a, on a large scale. Talk about how you’re helping other people who are in the ag sector.
Natalie: (20:26)
Well, as Tara mentioned, you know, we both started sharing online quite a few years ago when there weren’t as many accounts. You know, it’s, it’s so great to see how how many people have stepped up to the plate to share about agriculture. Um, when we were sharing it, there just weren’t as many. And so, you know, as people started to join the platform and, um, connect with other people, people who are doing it and, you know, look for guidance and help, um, we just found a lot of people kind of coming to us and saying like, Hey, how did you do this? Or How do you know? How did, how did you get into speaking? How did you do brand partnerships? How, how do you deal with, you know, sharing everything of your life online versus not? And all of these questions that you can’t really like Google, um, and you can’t really ask your friend or your sister or your parent or your spouse because they’re not sharing online either.
Natalie: (21:12)
And so it was really kind of this niche, this niche community I guess that, you know, you really had to be sharing to answer these questions, and you eventually get to a point where you can only answer so many inboxes and have so many one-on-one conversations. And I think that is winter, and I kind of, I had created an in person retreat before that, but, um, Tara and I came together at the, um, the beginning of last year, 20 20 21, and created that our Elevate Ag, which is our online course and community and has a Facebook group. And, um, that’s originally what our podcast started out around. Um, but we created that because we just want, you know, I know it’s a cliche saying, but a rising tide lifts all ships. And the more people we could get, you know, sharing about agriculture, um, you know, the rural lifestyle and western industry, you know, the better.
Natalie: (21:59)
Um, and we just, I think we noticed tar goes to a lot of conferences and I think there’s this narrative in agriculture like, go share your story, go share it. And then that’s kind of all they tell us as farmers and ranchers is like, you have a story to share, share it, but we’re not entirely sure what that means or how to do it. And so I think we felt like, you know, we had some tools and advice and, um, to fill in that space for people, and so we just decided to kind of do it.
Bunny: (22:25)
How’s the response?
Tara: (22:28)
Uh, it’s been really great. We’ve launched our course three times so far this year. Um, lots of amazing students. It’s been incredible to see their journeys. Uh, my favorite testimony from that course is, uh, rancher who was doing direct to consumer beef sales, and they were really struggling to sell prior to taking the course and then post course they were completely sold out, and it was just amazing. Like, her story, like literally brought tears to my eyes because they were really struggling on their farm, and this changed like their farm and ranch structure. They were able to, you know, just have more opportunity, um, more sales, obviously more incoming generated. Um, and so just to be able to be like the tiniest piece of that and just give some information, you know, our information to people like Natalie and I have always said, we don’t wanna be gatekeepers If we figure something out, we want to be able to share it with our community, have other people succeed in this space. Um, both of us have made this our full time job in the last year, like social sharing. Um, and so we’ve learned a lot. We’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way. We’ve learned a lot of great lessons. And, um, so just being able to kind of like pass that information along has been extremely rewarding and it’s just amazing to follow our, our students journeys and, and see what all they accomplish.
Bunny: (23:41)
Um, one of the coolest things, because I’ve been a big fan for years, was when I was listening and you guys did Simon Sinek books together. Um, talk about that. Are you teaching your students? Are you teaching your followers about that now?
Natalie: (23:57)
Yeah, our first module, um, in our online course is actually, so it has a little bit of personal development along with like tactical, you know, tips and tricks and information you can, you know, bring to your social channels. But we do think it’s, you know, if you’ve ever read that book, you’ll know, and you, it sounds like you have a marketing background, and so I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of conversations, you know, and narratives driven around that. But it is really important to understand why you’re doing something. Um, and so that is actually what our first module is really devoted to is helping people understand, okay, why do you wanna get online and share What exactly are you sharing? Why are you sharing that? And so, yeah, we have an entire module or a lesson, excuse me, entire lesson within a module titled your Ag Y. And it’s really kind of, you know, talks a little bit about what Simon teaches in the book and recommends the book. And, um, yeah, I think it’s a really important piece of foundation to have if you’re gonna successfully share online.
Bunny: (24:48)
Oh, I think it’s, I mean, I think it’s essential to business. I mean, if you don’t know, um, why you’re getting up in the morning and, and why you’re doing what you’re doing, I I don’t know how you can be successful in any way. Um, I don’t know. So, so it’s start with why and
Tara: (25:07)
Start with why, and then find your why.
Bunny: (25:09)
Find your why. Yes. I always forget that one. Yes.
Tara: (25:12)
That was Natalie. We had both already read Start With Why, or I have, I don’t know if Natalie has, and then we both have been working through Find Your Why, um, and I think it’s something, you know, interesting to revisit, especially as we rebranded with Discover Ag, um, our podcast. It was like important while we’re really rooted in our, our personal wise and even our like together. Um, it was just interesting to kind of explore the why of Discover and, uh, what we wanted to bring to people.
Bunny: (25:37)
Yeah, I I mean, I think it’s essential because you, you’re not gonna know what your message is unless you know why, why you’re telling this story. Um, talk to me also about this. I know Tara, you do a lot of speaking, you do that all over the country. What’s, what’s that about? Did you just, is that your great love
Tara: (25:56)
That Yes, public speaking as of come, I found out is my great love. I love it so much. I, um, did a keynote right in beginning of 2020 and was like, oh my gosh, I love this. This is what I wanna do. As we know now, shortly after that, like the entire world changed and there was no public speaking anywhere, um, or conferences anywhere. And so it was an interesting time to get into speaking in like the midst of a global pandemic, but it really allowed me to kind of hone my craft and like really figure out what I wanted to say, figure out my messaging. I took a lot of virtual events and then obviously now in the last year, plus been getting back into speaking, um, again, like in real life . And that has been amazing. And then a part of Discover ag that is new to us is Natalie and I have actually been traveling to these conferences together and we’ve been recording, uh, episodes of our podcast live at conferences.
Tara: (26:53)
So there is like, if you go to somebody’s conferences, you leave like so on fire, so filled with information just like ready to take on like the ag world, you know, you have so much great information to share. And so we just really wanted to bring that information to our audiences and have them be a piece of these conferences. Not everyone can travel to, you know, last week we were in Phoenix, the week before we were in Denver, we’ve been all over the place in Iowa, and you can’t do that. Like, that’s not possible for everyone. And so being able to record a podcast live there has just been allowed us to really bring the highlights to our audiences of what we’re learning, what the new research is, what the conversations, what are people talking about. Um, and I think we both just really found a love for that as well.
Bunny: (27:35)
So, so what I noticed, what I like about this podcast and about what you’re doing on Instagram is that it is not all statistics. It’s not all, you know, um, I, you know, it’s not all that Colorado River may dry up in the next 10 to 15 years, but it’s also, um, we are real people and we have lives and this is what’s happening on the farm. And here’s my favorite recent recipe. I I think this is really well rounded life coverage. I, it’s, um, I I think I I I love the format that you’re using and the, and the way that you’re doing it. I’m, I’m interested to hear, um, I’m Natalie, what do you think is next? What’s, what’s gonna happen going forward?
Natalie: (28:23)
Well, you know, Tara’s great love is public speaking, but I think we’ve found both, um, a really high love for podcasting that we did not expect to. And so we are really, you know, the past couple years we have, you know, spent time on other social platforms. Instagram’s kind of my main one. Tara spends a lot of time on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram as well. And, um, I think you’re gonna see us hitting, you know, moving the podcasting up to our number one and focusing a lot of time and energy in that and seeing, you know, how far we can really take these conversations. Um, and just, you know, pouring our, our heart and soul into that, which we’re really excited about. We also are in the beginning stages of shooting a documentary that pairs with the, that we’re really excited about. So we, we shot our pilot episode and, um, we’re working on, you know, getting our pitch deck and, um, having that edited and, and hoping, you know, to create this well-rounded, you know, visual experience that, you know, pairs with, um, what we’re doing on the podcasting platform as well.
Bunny: (29:21)
That’s so exciting because it seems to me that this is ripe for, um, a, a, a documentary series, you know? Yeah. Um, sort of like connected or, um, I’m, I’m thinking of about 20 different ones that I can’t remember the names, but, um, wow, this is important work. Aren’t you excited,
Tara: (29:42)
, we are so excited about the docu-series. As you said, it would be Siri style. We would be your host and we’d be kind of discovering ag with you as kind of like the vision of it. So, um, our pilot, you know, we went to a cotton farmer, um, and just immersed ourselves in his operation and his family and his history. Um, his grandfather, we interviewed with his grandfather who had been a cotton farmer in California his entire life. Um, and so we’d love to just continue going to different farms across the country and just immersing ourselves in their culture and their way of life and how they’re raising our food, producing our food. Uh, so we are super excited about this. It’s, there’s a big things coming in, uh, 2023.
Bunny: (30:25)
Nice. Well, will you come back to talk about it when it’s happening, ?
Tara: (30:30)
Absolutely. We, we definitely come and do like green chili or something in New Mexico, you know, one of our like heritage, um, we like what we’re known for here in New Mexico, so yes, we will have to come back to New Mexico film and then come back on the podcast.
Bunny: (30:46)
That’s so fun. You know, we just had 5 0 5 Southwestern on, on the podcast a couple of weeks ago, the company that, that does mass production of green chili products. And I had somebody on Instagram who said, Ugh, why is their name 5 0 5 Southwestern? They must not be a real New Mexico product. I was like, are you crazy? These guys have farms all over the Hatch Valley and they’re employing hundreds of people, I think, I think in New Mexico they’re employing like 1200 people. Um, but, and, and that’s a question I wanted to ask you real quickly. What, what is the economic impact of agriculture in both of the states where you are? I mean, do you know, do you have the numbers right off the bat?
Tara: (31:33)
I don’t have the numbers right off the bat. I know. Um, in New Mexico, um, for ag largest cash crop is dairy, and then I think it’s followed by beef. Um, so it’s obviously a huge impact here in Curry County, we have the world’s largest cheese plant that always surprises people. People do not expect that. So I mean, you’re talking about massive, like the cheese we produce here in Curry County, you know, ends up being your cheese in Walmart and craft, and it literally gets shipped across the country, across the globe. Uh, and so, you know, you, you just don’t always think about ag on that, like global, you know, economic scale. Um, but it truly is, and it, it’s amazing that, you know, a state like New Mexico, um, a small state gets to be like such a big player in, um, the world of agriculture
Bunny: (32:17)
Plus, I just gotta say it’s a great way to raise your kids . What do you think about that? It is, and it’s a lot of hard work. You know, my husband and I both talk about it all the time. We’re all like, wow, wouldn’t it have been a cool if like 10, I sell a lot of ranches and he’ll say, you know, if I was 40 years old, I’d buy this place. And I’m like, oh my God, but it would kill us. But it’s, that is, that’s really hard work, but what a great way to make a living.
Tara: (32:46)
Absolutely. I think it’s, um, it’s so cliche, but you know, it’s not just a job, it’s a way of life. You know, we, Natalie and I both live right on our farm and ranch, um, and so you’re just, you know, it’s all consuming. It’s your life, it’s just your, every day you wake up and you walk outside the door and you’re on either your farm or your ranch. Um, and that’s just such a unique way to live, to raise your kids to just, uh, I don’t know, be a part of, like right now I can hear my husband downstairs, he just came home for lunch from the dairy farm, and, uh, not many people have that where, you know, you get to just be with your spouse, be with your family, work together. Um, it’s one of the beautiful things about agriculture.
Natalie: (33:24)
I always joke that agriculture’s the ultimate bring your kid to work day every day. it is, which is has the pros associated it and the cons associated with it. So just depending on the day, sometimes we love it and sometimes we’re like, what are we doing? ,
Tara: (33:38)
.
Bunny: (33:39)
Wow. Well, well, I’m gonna keep listening. I can’t wait to hear what you do next. And will you come back? Can we talk about this more in depth?
Tara: (33:47)
Absolutely. Thank you.
Bunny: (33:49)
This was so, so, so much for being here. And we’re gonna put up a hundred links. I want people to go and download your how to make money online. I, I want I want you to grow your, um, mailing list with that. That’s a great piece. I love it. Love. Thank you. Good work. Yeah, really good work. Yeah. Thank you for being here.
Natalie: (34:06)
Thank you.