Ep 16: John Roulac on Regenerative Agriculture

Welcome to the Rewild Gear Podcast. Modern life, society, and responsibilities have domesticated us, but now it's time to rediscover your adventurous side. Whether that's camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, or just spending time in the great outdoors, this is the podcast for you. Join us as we get back to the wilderness and rewild. Welcome to the Rewild Gear Podcast. Welcome to the Wild Gear Podcast. I'm your host, Seth Spears, and I'm here today with John Rulac. John is a hemp innovator, serial entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, writer, and champion of regenerative agriculture, which is what we're going to be talking about today. As the founder of the organic superfoods brand Nativa, he has sourced and formulated close to $1 billion in retail sales of organic superfoods over the past 20 years. John is an executive producer of the regenerative agriculture film Kiss the Ground, which was narrated by Woody Harrelson and featured on Netflix, and a great documentary, I might add. He is an investor, supporter, and advisor to various companies and organizations in the better-for-you and the planet sector, which is something that we all need more of. Over his career, John has founded 6 nonprofit organizations, including Great Plains Regeneration and GMO Inside. His passionate hemp advocacy brought him to sue the US Drug Enforcement Agency, and this long legal battle culminated in a historic 2004 federal court victory to keep hemp foods legal. He is a pioneer of the modern home composting movement and has authored 4 books on hemp and composting. John, welcome to the show. So happy to have you here today.

Thanks for inviting me, Seth. Good to be here.

Totally. Well, I really want to dig in today on your story and about what you're doing as far as conservation and regenerative agriculture and all of that. That's something that we're super passionate about and really think that that's so needed today, as, as you think so too. Otherwise, you wouldn't be involved in all the work that you're doing. But I'd like to dig into your story first. How did you get to where you are today? Just give us a little bit of background about, you know, how you got started and how you got into this.

Yeah, yeah, thanks. Well, I think we all know that the environment that we grow up in impacts, you know, humans, impacts animals. And I had a very unusual background where I was born and raised in Southern California, like 8, 9 miles from downtown LA in the 19— you know, grew up in the '60s. It was very, very smoggy, hard to breathe. You'd go play outside for 2, 3 hours, you'd come back home and your lungs would be in pain because of so much smog. And then at the same time, I would, because I was very lucky, my parents decided to buy like remote islands up against Canada and Washington State, and then also off of Vancouver Island. So I'd spend a couple months on places that had no running water, no electricity, beautiful nature, and spending time around big, you know, beautiful trees and the tide pools. And then 10 months a year in, you know, a more polluted environment. So that back and forth really impacted me. And then when I was around 20, some unidentified truck driver dumped nuclear waste 9 miles from my house.

Oh.

And that was kind of like the little thing that set me off. Like, how could that happen? So I became an environmentalist and saying, you know, why are these corporations destroying our planet and doing, you know, pollution and all these things? Because it was easy to blame corporations. And then after a year or two, I was like, huh, what are the products I'm buying? Am I driving a car? What are the things that— how am I contributing? So then I looked at like, well, okay, how do we live in a more ecological way? That was 40 years ago in the 1980s, and here we are in 2021. A lot of good things have happened, but also we've accelerated the destruction of biodiversity. Climate change is getting more intense, losing a lot of our topsoil. And so there's real opportunity for people to look at like, how are we gonna create the next couple decades? So that's a little about me. And then also I was very interested in entrepreneurship. I had 4 businesses by the time I was 14.

Wow.

And including 2 food businesses. Picking blackberries, selling door-to-door, and also a crab business, catching crabs and selling them to tourists, you know, the boat docks and stuff. So that's a little of how I've gotten here.

Got it. So nature and the environment, that's always been really important to you from a very young age.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And for some reason, I started reading the Wall Street Journal every day, you know, as a young young man at 14. My dad did. You know, by the time I was 25, I was like, why am I reading the Wall Street Journal every day? This is kind of strange. You know, like, I'm an environmentalist. These corporations are, you know, look what they're all doing. But then, you know, as you know, I founded Nativa and—

Yeah.

Understanding how corporations work is very important because business is so impactful. And so, so I was able to kind of blend my interest in the environment and nature And health. Health is a very important thing for me. I love to play basketball and I still play basketball at my age, which not a lot of people play basketball at 62. I'm out there running the court and throwing people down on the ground, you know, if I'm wrestling for the ball still. So, you know.

There you go. John, what's your definition of an environmentalist? Wow.

I could spend a long time on that. Sadly, today— I'll tell you what it isn't. Sadly, today the modern environmental movement has been defanged. What a lot of people don't understand, but back in the 1980s, corporations realized there was this thing called the environmental movement. Essentially, they just captured— so the largest environmental organizations today are funded primarily by people who made a lot of the money on Wall Street and/or old-line, you know, foundations. And they basically say oil and gas is bad, solar and wind is good, full stop. That is our— that's the environmental program for America. That's what the Sierra Club, that's what 350.org, that's what a lot of these groups, that's what they send out in their newsletters, that's what they do in their blogs. And they never seem to get to like, oh, maybe we need to protect nature. Maybe we need to restore nature. Maybe regenerative agriculture can be part of it. Maybe we need to listen to indigenous cultures and their traditions of taking care. They don't even see themselves— nature, they don't even call it nature. There's just earth and we're part of it. And to spray pesticides and using toxic chemicals It's like, why? Of course, we know reasons why, you know, now because it's, it's, it's part of industrial agriculture. But so, so environment, yeah, money, and, and also people just think it's the way it is. You know, one thing I've learned more and more, we're creatures of habit.

Yes.

It's like, you notice how like there might be a beautiful mountain and you go, you hike this trail and you, and there's other trails, but you just like, you really enjoy that trail and you go there, maybe you go to the other one and it's like, I've noticed just no matter who we are, we tend to get that comfort, get in that comfort zone. So, you know, and maybe a way— what definition of environmentalist is to point out some uncomfortable truths.

Mm-hmm.

And how do we live in a more balanced way to not destroy the planet? So, yeah, but there's a lot of small NGOs that are working, but they don't necessarily get the funding.

How would you differentiate between, say, an environmental organization and a conservation organization, or the difference in understanding between those 2 terms?

Right. Conservation organizations, and they'll look to, you know, protect large areas of ecosystems. And so they may purchase it or they may do land, you know, like development rights or things. And, and that's, and that's really changing too, though. Interestingly, the Audubon Society is now promoting the, the beneficial uses of holistic grazing with cows.

Hmm.

To restore land. So in the past, you see, the challenge is, as Europe, as, as us Europeans that arrived in America, and, you know, 300 years ago, 200 years ago, 100 years ago, depending on when we arrived, we looked at nature as this untamed, um, um, you know, it was just like, and there was these heathens, you know, indigenous people that were living there and they weren't doing anything. And so, so the, some of the, the, the, the formation of the, of the conservation group says, well, we're just going to buy this land and we're going to set it aside. We're not going to do anything with it.

But that's not how—

that's not how indigenous cultures— so indigenous cultures were using fire, they were sculpting, they were doing different things. And so just putting— like, if you go to Africa today, if you go to like the parks and see, this is an example, and this is taught, this is what environmentalists and a lot of conservation groups— if you go to the parks in Africa and they put fences around it, And they're not necessarily working with nature, it becomes a brittle system. So back when there was more, you know, like in North America, there was more buffalo. The buffalo constantly were moving, you know, through— because of the threat of people, of hunters, of wolves, et cetera. And so you need that constant moving and that shaping also with fire. So we need to get beyond this, that man is the problem. More is man, you know, it's not necessarily even management, but like we've been bad, poor managers. We can be better managers. But of course, indigenous people would think like managers is like, you know, that's a European construct too. But we need to learn, you know, we are all connected. So you can see this is not like a black or white.

Yeah, I'm finding that a lot of things in life are like that. You know, we kind of grow up with this tradition or this construct of there is good and bad or right and wrong or black and white. But there's so many elements of gray within that, in that it really depends on the perspective that you're coming from and so many different avenues there. And it seems like that is throughout life, whether that's in business or in nature or so many different things.

Yeah, yeah. One of the things I try to work on is beginner's mind, is to keep that. Because what I— I'm just looking like my environmental career and business career of 40 years, what I thought was true 20 years ago, I was adamant about. And then it was just like, wow. But I'm open to like, I want to be open to learning and hearing. And that's really important so we can evolve. And as we get more information and be able to set aside our ego And our attachments to, quote, being right.

Yeah, 100% there. And it seems like a lot of the environmental and conservation organizations that are around, they get so attached into a very linear way of thinking that, OK, this is how we do it, and we're only going to focus on this thing. But it's like, they're so focused on this one avenue of thinking and what their, what their objective is that they lose sight of the bigger picture at times, and how we holistically, we all have to work together and have a symbiotic relationship, not man versus nature, not nature versus man, but it's all of us together because, you know, we're all part of this greater ecosystem on the planet.

Exactly. Yeah. But we've been, we've, I like to say, you know, we grow up in a society where we walk into a square room and you sit at a square desk. and you're giving it, you're giving a piece of information, a tablet, a book, you know, a square book or a rectangular book, and you're given the truth.

Yeah, that's a really interesting perspective.

Very linear. And really, you know, like, there's 2 ways to think about education. One is the student is a cup. And the master and the smart person, the older person pours the information into the cup. And so then the cup is full and has the student is now is learning, or is the student like a candle? And the purpose of the teacher is to light that candle. And then the student has that opportunity to shine in its own or her own unique way.

Yeah, that's a very unique perspective on it. That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

John, tell me about the Great Plains Regeneration Initiative. How did that get started?

Yeah, thanks for asking about the Great Plains Regeneration. So last fall, as the Kiss the Ground film, which I had the idea to do the film in 2013 and met the filmmakers, Josh and Rebecca, and of course knew some of the folks from Kiss the Ground, the NGO, and really was how do we tell the story about regenerative agriculture? Fast forward, you know, 7 years later, the film was just coming out. And I thought, well, now this film is really going to have some really great impact on educating people. And it's on Netflix and we have almost 10 million people downloading the trailer. So lots of people seeing the film. So given that regenerative agriculture, thinking back last fall, was going to have kind of its more people would be aware of it and would be wanting to learn more about it. So I said, well, what can I do? How can I contribute? And what's next? So I thought, I was talking to some folks, including Jess and Ned and Gail Fuller, who live in Kansas. What about if we put the tip of the spear of regenerative agriculture right in the middle of the country, of the US?

Mm-hmm.

And then we just— so we decided to come up with the word Great Plains, the name Great Plains Regeneration. And the Great Plains goes all the way from Texas to Canada, but our initial focus is kind of Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and then kind of expanding out from there. So the idea is, is that there's a lot of economic, environmental, social, geological reasons why it's so important. There's lots and lots of farms and ranches. There's areas where it's very dry. There's areas where it gets lots of rainfall. There's some areas where there's row crops, there's some areas where there's grasslands, there's lots of, you know, confined animal feedlots. You know, there's, there's lots of, of, of concern about watersheds. There's indigenous tribes, you know, you know, there's, there's areas where they had great injustices like the, the, you know, the Tulsa, Oklahoma, you know, Black Wall Street, you know, destruction and killing in 1921. You know, so there's a lot to work with there. So, that's what came up and it's essentially a group that works with large and small stakeholders around how we can advance regenerative agriculture. For example, this morning I was talking to a team from one of the largest agriculture companies in North America. And, they, like all of us personally, realize that we have a very short window. That, that the opportunity to create an agricultural system, an economic system, a social movement around soil health makes so much sense. It makes sense for the farmer. It makes sense for the, for the large corporations that any food company, small or large, just like you want to, you want a continuous supply chain. Do you think these big, these big corporations, do you think, you don't think they understand that in 10 or 15 years that they're not going to be able to just order up, you know, 1,000 elevators of particular crops because of how we're growing our food? They know. We're losing 1 to 2% of winged insects a year.

Wow.

We have a recent scientific report came out last month that climate change and biodiversity, it's not one or the other. They're tied at the hip. They're both very important. But again, the environmental organizations, You know, the COP, you know, the conventions on climate change, you know, the climate advisors, the, you know, and, you know, all these groups, they've just been focusing on climate change and not biodiversity. It's so dysfunctional that at COP21, the, you know, the Paris Accord, soils and oceans were banned from the discussions. They were written off. You couldn't even discuss it.

Wow.

They only want to talk about smokestacks. And, you know, there's, there's this, there's this joke, you know, like the G7 right now, they're having a meeting and they're, you know, they're people flying on private jets and they're burning and they're watching, you know, jets in the sky burning all sorts of things like, you know, kind of like some sort of sky war exercise. And yet they want to blame the cows. And that's a whole other discussion we could come, come back to on, on the issue around cows and ultra-processed factory meat. And how that ties into a long, long-time campaign around sugar and carbs is bad, meat is, you know, I mean, sugar and carbs, don't pay attention to that and blame meat. But back to Great Plains Regeneration. So we've been doing like Farmer Friday Zoom calls. We have, we're part of, one of our members is the Fuller Field School. So we have events there. We're having a fundraiser in Lawrence, Kansas, August 21st. People can come to and learn about this. We're working with the watershed organization, Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams. And we kind of bring where the farmers and ranchers are. And, you know, so we— and then we're also working on market development as well. How do farmers get more value out of the crops that they're growing? So we're looking at grains and wheat and Things like that and encouraging holistic grazing of animals and cover crops and mimicking nature. And, and, uh, yeah, so it's fun, fun stuff, uh, and, and a lot of opportunity there.

So I'd love to dig into this a little bit more. Um, there's a lot of, a lot of paths we can go down here right now. Um, so one of the things, one of the big arguments that you hear as far as just environmentalism, um, goes as far as carbon sequestering. You know, and one of the reasons they say that cows are bad because of all the carbon that they're putting, putting out the methane and everything. However, bison are very, very similar to cattle. And there was anywhere between 30 and 60 million, maybe as many as 80 million bison that were roaming North America before we pretty much wiped them out. And so the amount of methane and carbon that they were off-putting for millennia was unprecedented. So I don't totally buy that argument when it comes to climate change and things like that. So do you, would you like to weigh in?

Yes. Yes. You know, first off, the buffalo are 2 to 3 times the size of a lot of the cows. Also remember methane is only, it only has that, uh, it's, it basically goes away after 12 years. So it's just cycling, you know, so if you have 100 million cows, you know, there's no more methane, you know, this year than there was, you know, 8 years ago, et cetera. The number one contributor of methane is You know, fracking and natural gas, which they're replacing. You know, look, if we were really, you know, anti-methane, we wouldn't be replacing coal with all this natural gas. You know, we would be doing other things. You know, remember, very— there's very little effort in rice. Like, you don't hear anybody wanting to ban rice or, you know, rice emits way more methane than cows.

Oh, really?

Yeah. So And, uh, we can also grow rice in a different way, SRI rice that doesn't. So the, the, the, the thing that's much worse and that you'll notice is never in the conversation is, is the, is the NOx. And NOx, what is that? And exactly, like here, you know, you consider yourself someone who is, you know, very interested in agriculture and food and And most people don't even know it's it's nitric oxide, and it's released from chemical fertilizer plants. It's 380 times more impactful than CO2. 380 times.

Wow.

But if you read an article in the New York Times, Bloomberg, The Guardian, Sierra Club, 350.org, NRDC. Maybe not NRCC. They just they actually do, but EDF, a lot of these groups. NRDC now just did some good work on regenerative ag actually, but they never mentioned this word. Same way with WRI World Resource Institute because and the fastest growing greenhouse gas in the world today NOx nitric oxides and it's very bad and and regenerative agriculture. can reduce or eliminate. Matter of fact, I was speaking to one of, one of the farmers we— that, uh, that I know that's in eastern Colorado. He grows about 4,500 acres of wheat, so pretty large-sized farmer. He's conventional, not certified organic. This year he won't use one drop of synthetic fertilizer, which is what— is what you— you— they basically frack natural gas to make synthetic fertilizers. And it also pollutes the ocean. It's, you know, and, and the way he's doing that is integrating cattle.

Hmm.

So, I like to say the future of plant-based is animal-based. So, where we're going to produce all of these row crops, whether it's from corn or peas or soy or canola, you know, for, you know, for plant-based, you know, foods, Is the farmers themselves are integrating cattle. So they, so they say, because the cattle can replace the chemical fertilizers. But you see, there is a social and economic and control of the large, very large, powerful organizations such as the Gates Foundation, such as Monsanto, such as Bayer. such as the World Economic Forum Foundation, such as the World Resource Institute, and such as the Sierra Club. And some of them, like the Sierra Club, doesn't even— they don't even really know they're inside the game.

Hmm.

They just know that they shouldn't— that they don't really talk too much about, about, you know, the cows are kind of bad because, you know, they overgraze. It's not, you know, like cows can definitely overgraze and a lot of— and they can do damage that way. But when you move them and mimic like the bison herds and, you know, More and more ranchers are starting to do that, and that's why the National Audubon Society is is working with ranchers too. And they actually get more. You get more habitat. You get more bird life when they do that because you the cows are only there for a period of time. The grass grows, and then they leave, and then they come back. They eat some more of the grass. So you have a deeper root system, and it holds more water and more carbon. But this the way that this and I've really been learning about this more, and this is. This connection between the anti-meat and the, and the chemical, you know, industrial complex is, is, it's such a brilliant strategy. It's such a brilliant strategy that it gets me effing depressed sometimes of how good it is and how hard it is to combat.

Yeah.

So it started back when it wasn't— it started as a trend When it wasn't even conceived of by the people now who are who are working in it. So in the 1960s and '50s and '70s, people are going Americans are getting and you know Americans there's heart disease and in the '70s people are getting overweight. Who do we blame? Is it sugar eating lots of sugar? Is it all the empty carbs and the junk food? No saturated fat. And the cigarette scientists, the same people did the cigarettes. They said, oh, let's do studies and we'll blame meat and butter and let's sell margarine. So they, they, they were able to capitalize in a business and sell margarine. They got everybody eating margarine, trans fat margarine, no less. And everybody was eating. Luckily my parents said, ah, my mom's, no, I'm not gonna get margarine. You know, my uncle was a doctor. He got the margarine. Their family got the margarine, you know? But not me. So, so then, so they got along that going. And then, then the vegetarians started picking up, oh, meat is bad. And that didn't really matter in the '90s. You know, some people, if you don't, you know, there's nothing wrong with being a— I was a vegetarian for 15 years. Nothing wrong with being a vegetarian. But then, then they, then they started to go, wow, not only is, not only is meat maybe not healthy for you, they're saying, but we should get rid of cows altogether. We should get rid of all of animal agriculture. And then Monsanto and Bayer, basically the forebears of the companies that, that made the chemicals and, and sprayed, you know, uh, in Auschwitz and killed 6 million Jews, the companies that made those chemicals that declared war on nature in the 1940s to now not spray chemicals on people, on On people. Now we would spray it on nature and kill bugs. So they shifted over. There's a book called War on Bugs. That's a great— that would be a great person, Will. He's one of my mentors to interview. So they took that, but now they go, oh, we can now split the whole— we can take the whole good food movement and we can split it in half and we can Have them fight against each other. So I have friends of mine who are very good friends of mine that now don't like me. I am evil. I am bad. I am talking about biodiversity and how cows are better than chemical plants, and they're convinced that cows are the enemy. That they have a they see that see essentially the vegan vegetarian movement hates cows. They think they're the problem. They have a hatred towards them. Now, they'll say no, but you know what would happen to all the cows if no one was taking care of them? They would all just die. I mean, it's like—

They'd starve to death.

And I get, you know, gosh, you know, the idea that you don't have to take a knife and kill an animal. Like, that seems like on a surface, like, if we could just not do that, wouldn't that be better? Like, I get the psychological and the, you know, like, I get that. But we have evolved on this planet through the interaction between animals and humans. And essentially, the animals— if we get rid of animals, we have to replace them with the fertility. And the fertility, when you don't have animals, just like that wheat farmer, his fertility was petrochemicals and destroying the environment, destroying the oceans. So he's bringing cattle back and now he doesn't have to use those chemicals. And it's safer for people, it's more nutrient dense. So it's a hard, you know, it's like the cows, they may have, they have like, you know, 2 years, really good years, and then 1 bad day, you know? And so it's a brilliant strategy by dividing up this plant, you know, vegans, And there's billionaire vegans and they're funding organizations. There's a group called GFI, Good Food Institute. Their annual budget is $18 million a year.

Wow.

And they basically putting out false information. And the chemical companies realize if they can just blame the cows, they can keep— they can just keep growing GMO corn, get rid of the cow. They don't need the middleman anymore. They just take GMO corn and they send it to industrial factories where they put in these vats and they take genetically modified yeast and bacteria. And then they, and then they just create these fake food and it's very unhealthy for you. You know, people haven't even, they haven't even like, like really done any really, and they're just starting to do analysis on, you know, what it eats when you eat an Impossible Burger or Beyond Meat, you know, eating it now and then is, you know, it's, you know, it's nothing, you know, okay. You want to do that? You know, it's just like you have a bag of potato chips, right? We're not going to die. You know, we didn't, nobody needs to be perfect. Right. So, but it's an interesting time. And if you look, if you look back 10 years ago and you looked at where the discussion was and you look 5 years ago and you look at today at, at the anti-meat and the, the anti-cow and this pro-plant-based, it's at a very rapid clip. And There's a potential that Gates and Monsanto and the vegans will win. And they are now looking to ban meats, ban cows, and make it restrictive so ranchers can't grow any— can't grow, you know, raise cows. You know, they're looking to ban meat on menus. They're gaining momentum because they have a whole army of people who are true believers, and they have the billionaires that are backing them. that are going all making money in the bank, like Bill Gates and Monsanto. It's— and, and, and, and, you know, Wall Street now is endorsing plant-based. But so it's a— it's very interesting, very interesting times. Um, and, uh, you know, there's some, some links that I'll— some recent articles, uh, and podcasts that I'd like for you to check out, and we can share so people can listen to this. And It's easy when you dive down into it, you go, wow, this is rather— this is rather Orwellian.

Yeah. As we, as we get into that, it seems like, you know, there's a saying about strange bedfellows, right? And how you have these big multinational corporations, say Monsanto, that are— and you have like people who tie into an ideology, whether that's being a vegetarian or vegan. And primarily the reason that they want to do that, vegan more so than vegetarian, I think, is for the planet, you know, for environmental reasons or because they love animals or things like that, as opposed to vegetarian, which to me, I think most of them, it's for health reasons. So I want to make that distinction there. And, you know, I'm generalizing, but, but as a whole, I think that's probably a good analysis of the difference between the two. So what's interesting to me is that you have this whole community and philosophy of vegans who meat is bad. You got to protect the animals. It's so inhumane to kill them and eat them, even though nature and animals are eating each other all the time and it's part of the life cycle. But then And then they want everything plant-based, but in order to grow that many plants and everything, you do have to spray, you know, you do Roundup Ready seeds and everything and all of that. And all of the runoff from, from what they're spraying is going into our waterways and everything. And it's totally terrible for the environment and for our health. So it's, it seems to me like there's this disconnect that a lot of people are missing. Do you have any thoughts on why that is or why those correlations are not put together?

Well, it's almost like the vegan movement has become a religion.

Mm-hmm.

And I was there, you know, 10, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, I was a vegetarian. You know, I wasn't necessarily strict vegan, but, and, you know, I said, you know, eating meat was bad, you know, and, you know, and, you know, we could, you know, like we can grow more crops and we have to feed a lot more people. But What we need to do though is we need to reduce, we need to stop the confined animal feedlots and we need to convert the croplands that we're growing for the feed the cows. And, and we need to return that back to pastureland. Because that work, we can sequester the carbon and we're, we think we can, we can depend on Regular amounts of rainfall and the right amount of heat, and and we're we're realizing that any country that relies on that for their food system—that's you notice how all those civilizations died died out like like look at 1200 you know like and there was there was no no hint of them you know five years later crop failures etc. So if we could convert the Great Plains, much of it back to grasslands, still growing some crops, but in where we're growing the crops, the cattle are involved, you know, that then if it's very dry or we don't have the right weather to grow a bunch of crops that year, at least there's going to be food being produced and the land is going to be regenerating. So, and you can actually, we actually need more cows in the land, not less. And a lot of, a lot of these holistic grazing can increase the amount of cows per, per, you know, per hectare of land by 1, 2, 3, 4 times versus, you know, you know, multiple times, uh, by, by restoring the grassland. And it's a, it's a little complex for people to understand. So that's, that's one of the things, but back to your question, I feel in today's society that there's a real disconnect. We have a very, you know, families move all over the country. There's not a real great, like, you know, philosophy about how to create a better world. It's kind of dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest, you know, a lot of discrimination, racial discrimination, a lot of wounding, you know, a lot of— there's just— we're a challenged society. And you know, and we all try to do the best we can, right, in this, in this society. But, you know, when you start to wake up, like, as a, as a, as a European, you look at the racist systems that we've created and, you know, like, it's just so wrong, you know. And, and, you know, that weighs on people. And I think people are trying to find their tribe, trying to find their, their— who are they connected to. And so we get into these, like, Oh, I'm an ex-political party. We rally around that. Or like, oh no, I'm, you know, like, I'm an artist and I get together, you know, or like, you know, when I was a young kid, I was into like my 20-some, we were punk into the punk rock movement, you know? And so we would get together and that was our unifying theme. And if anybody came and started talking about like disco or heavy metal, it was like, you know, Oh, like, forget it, you know. So the vegans have created their own, like, their own kind of connection, their own community. So like vegans, a lot of their friends are— they, they look for vegans. Where are their vegans? So those are their new family, you know. If their family eats meat, they don't like them as much, you know, sometimes. Or they— so they— so it's— so they've so wrapped up into their identity. So to— so Basically, when I share that chemicals, not cows, are what's killing the planet, it's triggering for them. It's actually— it's like talking to a— it's actually talking to like a white person, you know, who denies racism. And you start saying, do you understand, you know, like what this means, like driving while Black? You know, like you get a chance, you're going to get pulled over. We have no idea when we're white, right? But when you're— if you're Black driving, like, you know, it's a very tough situation. For them in the wrong communities, right? But but you tell that to some people that it's really triggering. So vegans get triggered by things that don't fit their thing, and and the vegan myths that they believe is that cows are bad, that chemicals um um uh are are a necessary evil if we can get rid of if we can have less you know like if we can go to get rid of eating meat. It's okay to have chemicals, and and that and that eating meat causes heart disease and cancer, and it's very bad for you. And the other thing I find is some people who are vegans, they ate a really really bad diet, like they are eating junk food. So they gave up all that junk food and and went to a went to a more you know diet with more you know vegetables and grains and. fruits and nuts and didn't eat all the trans fats, they got healthier, right? Because they were just eating such a bad diet. But, you know, if they would have incorporated better quality meat, they would have had similar results. But in their mind, it was— they got rid of the meat. That was what the bad thing was.

Because there's a huge difference between eating a burger at, say, McDonald's as opposed to getting meat from your local butcher, which is grass-fed and, you know, the Humanely raised and all of that, just as far as the quality and the taste.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

So something else there when it comes to— it sounds like what you're talking about is tribalism. And I think that goes back to our tribal roots. You know, even though we've evolved and we have the internet and cross-continental travel and all of this, at our core, we're still a tribal people. Because if we got out of the tribe or were kicked out, we would die because we needed the community. And so it seems like in some aspect everyone is searching for to find You know, their people, their group, their tribe to belong. And so we can now kind of create that on our own. And it doesn't matter if it's local where we are, where we live geographically. It could be, you know, on the other side of the world or the country or wherever, just because of the internet and how much smaller everything has gotten because of that. But then that also breeds division and conflict. And because everyone's looking for something to belong to, and then in order to belong, there's people that don't belong or you're, you know, forcing them not to. So it seems like that can lead into kind of the divisiveness that we're seeing in a lot of cultures and societies.

Yeah. It's important for us to remember our humanity and have compassion, even with people we don't agree with. Though some of my friends say, John, you're getting rather intense on that Facebook wall, you know. But when I see That 75% of our winged insects, you know, from moths and butterflies and bees have disappeared since the 1970s, you know, around the world.

That's scary.

When I was in my— and, you know, when I used to first drive my car, I would go up and down, you know, Central California through agricultural areas. And my windshield will be full of bugs. Just do the bug test. And the bugs are not there now when I drive. So we're now losing 1 to 2% a year.

Wow.

1% a year, which means by 2030 or 2035, we will reach what I call like the end or peak nature where bugs And insects, and guess what eats insects is birds. So essentially, by within one to two decades, there'll be virtually at our current rate, there'll be virtually no insects, no birds, and no plankton in the ocean because the ocean is we've lost over 50% of all the plankton in the ocean. It's the majority of the oxygen, and we're losing 1% of plankton every day. I mean, every every year, we've lost 98% of Pacific sardines. Since 2007, only like 14 years ago. 98%, not, not, not, not 50%, 98%. And they're the basis for feeding for the whales and everything either, either, you know, eats sardines or eats what sardines eat, you know? Right. And, uh, um, uh, so it's, we are at the precipice Mm-hmm. And so I sometimes have— I get frustrated when, when people are confronted with that statistics and they, and they still say, I think Impossible Burger is better than a cow than eating 100% grass-fed cow. And they're convinced of it. And, and essentially, I created a graphic in one of my articles, which you may read, Make America Rivers Blue Again.

Yeah, great article.

That basically a 100% pasture, you know, from beef burger is really plant-based because everything that's feeding that cow is essentially grass, which is plants. And it's powered by sunlight. It's sunlight-powered plants. And the cow eats it, converts it into protein, and we eat that protein. Whereas the Impossible Burger is a chemical burger. It's essentially taking plants that are grown such as GMO soy using chemicals and other chemicals, and then it's processed with chemicals. It's extracted like every GMO seed sold in America is dipped in neonicotinoids. Neonicotinoids is an insecticide That's multiple times more toxic than glyphosate. And it then expresses itself. It's done to protect the seed from planting. And it's very hard to even buy seeds for farmers that's not dipped in neonics. And it's the leading killer of bees because it expresses itself through every cell in the plant.

Wow.

And then the dew in the morning on the corn tassels The the bees will drink that water and absorb that neonic, and then they're dying. So the very basis of the impossible burger is killing life. So vegans want to ingest the very basis of destroying the planet, and that's what's triggering for them. And and what they say is like a lot of them will say, oh. I never eat Impossible Burger. I just want organic. But that's like a white person going, I don't hate Black people, but I live in a system that appoints politicians that, you know, that discriminates against people of color that don't look like me. So I'm okay. You know, I'm not a racist. You know, oh, but, you know, but then you can't get a loan. You know, because you're because the color of your skin, or you can't get a job, or you're discriminated against when you when you go to something. You know, and you know, I'm I'm really also trying to work on myself personally to help people of color more because I feel like I I I was was it you know was blessed to to grow up in a family that didn't you know had access to food, had you know had access to art and learning and. And so, like, I'm working on a project in St. Louis right now where we're going to build a basketball court in a very poor area where they've— like, I found out that the parks closed 3 of the basketball courts in North St. Louis. So, but there's really this disconnect in the vegan community that, like, I ask people, how many vegans or vegetarians have reached out that are well-known influencers or investors have reached out and wrote articles saying Impossible Burger is not good? This is we shouldn't be. We should be doing certified organic, or we should be doing you know they don't do that. They they so they think it's good. That's great. Well, it's better than meat. So so like you can say, oh yeah, well, I'm I'm I'm I'm the organic vegan. You know, I don't believe in all that, but your movement is. Yeah. You know, so you can see the challenges that we're facing, and they just increasing. I mean. They actually, the United Nations is putting out documents saying the Impossible Burger is good. The person who led the climate negotiations in Paris now is on the board of directors of Impossible Burger.

Wow. John, so, you know, we talked a lot about the problems. And I think as a society, we're becoming a lot more aware of that. Where's the solution? Because a lot of these, a lot of these problems and the issues here, they're coming from the top down because there's monetary incentives. You know, we're talking about huge multinational corporations that are very much monetarily incentivized and some of them are publicly traded. So in a sense, you know, we're all incentivized for them to grow, especially if they're in our 401 or, you know, within our mutual funds or whatever, or have invested that way. So we're all kind of tied into that. But how do you make those change on a micro level? Because something like this kind of has to start grassroots and work its way up because I don't think it's going to start from the top down because currently they're There does not seem to be enough financial incentive for that to happen, or maybe there is and I'm just missing it.

Yeah, it's a combination. There are things are starting, you know, um, uh, you know, companies are looking to make some changes, but, but also as individuals. And as more individuals make that change, that's a signal to the marketplace. But it's, it's a bunch of different things, you know. I mean, the simplest thing we could do is just grow a little food. You know, like if you have a balcony, you can grow basil.

Mm-hmm.

You can grow, you know, cilantro. You can grow parsley. Just grow a few little things. If you have some more land, plant a couple fruit trees. So start right at your house. Compost. Don't throw your banana peels in the trash. Like, I'd ask everyone who's listening to this podcast, how many of you, of your banana peels and avocado pits are going into the landfill? And if they are, you're not— you— do we feed the earthworms or not? That's a big thing. Do we feed the earthworms or not?

Yeah.

So the food that you buy, is that going to feed earthworms? Is it, is it grown in a more regenerative organic matter? You know, Impossible Burger is not feeding the, you know, the earthworms. You know, 100%, you know, buying, you know, organic. If you're a vegan, you know, buying organic mung beans or garbanzo beans or whatever. That's a way that you can do that. So, starting in your home, being healthy. One thing I recommend is doing the plank. I'm a big fan of the plank. And that's— I literally, from a stressed-out CEO that looked around and said, God, I'm I've never in my life been overweight. I'm like, I'm, you know, I had payroll of 120 people, you know, great people on my team, you know. And so, I started doing the plank. That really is a great way and it's helped me be a better athlete and be in better shape just doing it for 15, 20 seconds a day. So, focusing on your health, you know, and your family and your friends. Just doing that alone and show by example. Don't necessarily need to preach, you know, uh, you know, you and I were, you know, we're communicator, educator, leaders. So, but you know, what are you doing in your own life? That's really important. Um, and, uh, then how can you help your community? Can you, could your school, could you, if you have kids, could your school, could they, could they do a fruit tree orchard? Could they do a garden there?

Yeah, that's, that's great information as far as just on the very much the micro level, um, and individually, what about, increasing that at scale? So when we're talking about regenerative agriculture or composting, because I feel like those kind of tie in together, and, you know, I've had a compost bin and had that like in our garden outside for years and years. And so I think there's a huge potential there where people could do it and maybe even like a community compost or something like that. Have you given any thought to that, or are there any initiatives surrounding things in that nature?

In the 1990s, that's what I— that was called the compost man.

Ah.

So I set up home composting programs all over the United States. I did 2. I drove the state of Florida twice up and down. I know you're down in that and near the Florida area.

Yeah.

And I wrote a book called Backyard Composting. You can buy it. You can buy it on Amazon used.

Cool.

Backyard Composting, Your Complete Guide to Recycling Yard Clippings. Smaller-scale composting you can do at your home, and, and they have larger-scale composting, you know, like some farms compost. So, so there's definitely opportunity there. It's, it's not as easy to do mid-scale because, because of some rules and regulations. Unfortunately, it's, it's, it's easier to spray farm chemicals than to get a permit to do a compost facility. So we'll figure that, you know. The other thing is, If you have a 401 or, or you invest, you know, you know, can you, can you shift that to make sure Monsanto's not in your, you know, or, or, or, or, you know, pharmaceutical companies are not in your 401? Can, can you become a— can you connect with a local farmer? You know, could you, could you loan them $500? Could you, you know, like farmers need, they need help. It's not very profitable farming unless it's a large scale. So how can you help your local farmer? Um, Can you go into the supermarket or natural food store and write a note and ask them to bring in more of the foods that you like? Go to a farmer's market instead of just a supermarket. There's so many farmer's markets. And maybe you can learn. Take your kids into nature. You know, go spend some time and go onto a farm. Walk around, spend more time in nature, and, you know, realize that it's a— that what we do impacts the world. You know, we're— each one of us are one out of, what, 7 billion? You know?

Mm-hmm.

If we could get 500,000 people who are really hardcore focused on regenerative ag in the next 5 years, That would change the country. Right now, I think we have maybe 50,000. Yeah, but that's better than we had five years ago. We didn't have that. We maybe only had 500 or 1,000, and now we have 50,000. So we just need to keep you know, and soil health, and it brings together Trump country, blue and red state. A lot of the farmers and ranchers, you know, are are. have different political views different than mine, but we come together around soil health and around better food. And then, the funny thing is I find that we actually have more in common than Fox News.

Funny how that happens, huh?

They would tell me. It's like I had all these— I'll tell you a story. I had all these ranchers and we were talking about the importance of leadership and one of them said, yeah, He said, you know, women, they can sometimes be better ranch managers than all the men. And I was like, this is great. And we were at a restaurant that was a Latino, you know, had the restaurant there. And he came and talked a little about his struggles. And, you know, he'd taken some of— we made a regenerative pizza from some of the local grain that we'd grown. You know, a month, 2 months later, you know, a month later, this guy's having a hunting event. You know, and he brings out this guy and he's made a whole mole, you know, a natural, you know, you know, catering. So, you know, and so, you know, we just need to, we just need to show up and do the best we can and, you know, make, make a better, better world, right? I mean, that's, that's what, that's what you're trying to do. And a lot of people are and we're not perfect. You know, we just do what we can.

That's the goal. You mentioned farmers markets a couple of minutes ago and something that I'm seeing in a lot of farmers markets Markets where we're seeing— and traditionally, I think that farmers markets kind of sprang up supporting like your local farmers and smaller agriculture and a lot of organic or, you know, better than organic. But what I'm seeing now is when you start talking to them, there's a lot of greenwashing going on where, you know, okay, it's local, it's a small endeavor, but they're still spraying, you know, they're putting pesticides on things, you know, Roundup and whatnot and everything else. So I think you got to be careful there too, because anytime a movement gains traction and popularity, it'll be co-opted by people that just want to hop on the bandwagon for monetary purposes, but not for the greater reason for doing it.

Yeah. Not all food at farmers markets is grown organically or in a regenerative way. So you want to ask questions, you know, you know, but sometimes You'll have farmers that maybe use some chemicals, but they're using less than let's say that there are at your local Publix or Safeway or Kroger. Sure. You know, so you just want to ask questions and, and, and, you know, do the best you can there.

Got it. One other thing regarding composting. Have you seen the— there was a Kickstarter campaign recently by the Pella Cases, the Pella, their compostable cell phone cases. I actually have one on my phone right now. But they just did a Kickstarter to create home composting units that I think they're launching this fall. And so it's like a small unit that sits on your counter and you put all your scraps and compost and everything in and it compacts it down and it's supposed to increase the speed in which it actually creates compost and put on your soil or fertilizer or whatnot.

I haven't, I haven't seen that, but that sounds great. I mean, The simple thing with composting, you can easily, you can just dig a hole if you don't have raccoons, which I have raccoons where I live. But if you don't have raccoons or those kind of burrowing animals, you can just dig a hole in your backyard, have a pile of leaves, throw the compostables, you know, material, organic matter, and then put some leaves over it. And then next time come out and do that. And then— You know, after a year it's filled up and then you could plant something right there because it'll grow very well.

Yeah, that's a good point. John, what is the biggest life lesson that nature and the outdoors has taught you over the years?

That's a great question. I just think I get so much enjoyment from nature. Like, I can spend literally minutes, you know, can go by just looking at bees on flowers or watching hummingbirds. So, you know, that, that, that I feel connected when I, you know, when I'm around nature and, and I feel at peace and I feel the beauty. And that's, that's, that's to me is, is what I love about nature.

Yeah. Do you have a favorite outdoor activity that you like to pursue?

My favorite activity is, is walking. different places in nature and, and, and then swimming, swimming in lakes.

Yeah, that's great.

How about you?

Anything in the great outdoors, hunting, backpacking, camping. Those are all some of my favorites. Yeah, just enjoy getting in those wild spaces away from people as much as possible, spending time with family and friends there. And that is one of the missions of our company is to help people to spend more time in nature, in the wild, and get away from technology so that we can decompress. And, you know, it's better for our circadian rhythm and just better for relationships and everything in general.

Yeah, definitely. 2 other things I encourage, and I haven't done this though in about a month, so I should be doing this, but is turn off your phone at least once a week for at least half a day.

Digital detox.

Yeah, digital detox. Really important. Definitely. I encourage— how often do you do the digital detox?

Yeah, what is that? Right now, uh, it's kind of an impossibility within a growth phase of our company.

Yeah, yeah. And with kids and stuff. Yeah. But if you can do it, it's, it's, it's, it's really nice to do it, even if you can do it for 2 hours or 4 hours.

That's gonna happen in August. Um, we're doing a, uh, a backcountry backpacking trip, and there's gonna be no cell phone reception anyway, so, uh, no internet. No phone calls, no texts, no Instagram.

Also, one thing I wanted to mention, I'm working on agroforestry programs where we combine trees and tree crops mimicking nature. I have projects in Guatemala and also in Malawi in East Africa. And, we're taking areas where it's low productivity and within 1 to 2 years producing lots of Lots of crops. And so it's a project that I, that I work with.

Oh, great.

And, and I'm really excited about that. And we're going to really expand that out. One's called Contour Lines Corp. People can find out about it. You know, they have a good YouTube page. And the other one is Permaculture Paradise Institute. Okay. And so we can grow so much food. It's a great tool in regenerative agriculture.

Yeah, definitely. We'll link to that in the show notes. John, what brands or companies do you think are doing a really good job of pushing forward this conservation and environmental initiatives like we've been talking about?

There's, there's all sorts of different companies. There's one in pastured meat called Force of Nature that's really communicating the regenerative message. Dr. Bronner's, they've recently come out with a fair trade vegan chocolate bar. They have great projects. You know, the company I founded, Nativa, you know, we work a lot around, you know, some of those projects. And then companies even that are maybe not doing it at the level we wanted to do, but like General Mills is committed to 1 million acres and they're teaching— they're spending millions of dollars to have people teach their farmers how to do a better job.

Wow.

You know, and there's even companies like Cargill that says that they want 10 million acres by 2030 to use more regenerative practices. And, you could argue, well, they're going to do this or that, or this is what they're doing bad, or this is what they're doing good. They're a giant corporation. But, these are some of the things that are going on. I'm trying to think of what other— there's all sorts of different— there's a a new cracker company that's really focused on it. It's not coming to me, their name. There's a company called 12 Tides that I really like. That's a kelp seaweed company, and it's made out— and the bag is made from compostable packaging. Really delicious snacks, 12 Tides. And yeah, there's, you know, the companies that are doing certified organic, that's definitely helpful. You know, there's, there's, there's different companies. There's a company that I'm an investor in called Cook's Venture that's, that's transforming the chicken industry. There's Tonka Bar. That's a Native-owned company that's transforming, you know, how to, how to make meat snack bars.

Got it.

I'm sure there'll be a few. There's a few more just not coming off, you know.

Yeah, exactly. No, that's, that's a good start.

Yeah.

John, is there a book or books that have had a major impact on your life that kind of shaped the way you— your outlook?

Yeah, several books. I know this sounds funny, but The Art of War. Sun Tzu. It's a Chinese— Sun Tzu. Mists of Avalon was very impactful. And The Way of the Wyrd, W-Y-R-D.

Hmm. Yeah, I have to check those out.

And then Paul Hawken, Ecology of Commerce. So those are 2 business strategy and then 2 Celtic mythology. That's my grandfather came from Wales at age 8. So I have the Celtic roots and The Way of the Wyrd and Mists of Avalon really kind of paint a picture of what life was like, you know, before we became modern human beings back thousands of years ago that are culturally relevant for people such such as myself from Western Europe.

Yeah, great. Do you have a favorite podcast that you enjoy listening to regularly?

I wouldn't say a favorite one. Yeah, I try, you know, I kind of skip around different ones. How about you?

I go back and forth. One that I'm really enjoying listening to right now is Daniel Vitalis' Wild Fed Podcast. Are you familiar with that one?

I have. I think I have. I don't know if I've— maybe I've listened to one of them. Yeah. But I'm going to— maybe we'll link a couple of— there's a couple podcasts we can link on this, right? When you put up my interview, right?

Yeah, totally. Happy to put it in the show notes. That'd be great. Excellent. John, what is one piece of closing advice that you give to our audience?

Focus on love more than hate. Don't focus on hate.

That's good advice.

And no matter how much you disagree with someone or how bad you think they are, Hate, we don't have time for hate. May dislike, but not hate. I think that's really important. And that ties in also to our own healing. Yeah. 'Cause it's hard to heal. It's hard to become a better person if we're focused on hate.

That's good advice. Jon, where can people learn more about you online and all of the fun projects that you're involved with and, you know, very much needed projects?

Yeah, you can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. Those are my 3 platforms. And then johnrulak.com as well.

Okay. And what about the other projects you're involved with? Want to give a plug for any of those?

Great Plains Regen, .com. There's the Conservation or Contour Lines Corp. there in Guatemala, Permaculture Paradise. I mean, there's a bunch of different programs and projects, but those are, those are some of them. nativa.com, the company that I founded, I'm no longer CEO, but still they're doing great work out there. And yeah, and then, and then Soil for Climate is also a good, a good resource to learn about regenerative agriculture as well, and Kiss the Ground.

Sure.

KissTheGroundMovie.com and KissTheGround.org, the nonprofit.

Great. Well, I'll be sure to include these in the show notes so our audience can check these out and learn more and hopefully get involved with some of these conservation efforts to help protect our planet and our world and become better people all around.

Excellent. Well, thank you again for having me on. And And wishing you have a great summer and adventures with your new enterprise.

Indeed. Thanks, John.

All right.

Take care.

Thanks for listening to the Rewild Gear Podcast. You can check out the show notes for today's episode at rewildgearpodcast.com. If you're ready to spend more time in the wild, our line of high-quality, minimalistic Ballistic Outdoor Gear can help you do just that. Check us out at rewildgear.com.