5 Reasons Why I Grow Food

So there's a lot of change going on in the world right now in agriculture and people's health, or at least it looks like there's about to be a lot of change. I'm referring to stuff going on in the news in the new administration in America that looks like local agriculture is going to start having a lot more interest in revolution, hopefully. So that's why I wanted to make this video explaining to you my five reasons why I grow food. And for those of you that don't know me, my name is Zach Buckle. I own this one-third of an acre vegetable farm in Cody, Wyoming, where we have so far sold $78,000 worth of vegetables on one-third of an acre and we harvest year-round. So we'll be selling quite a bit more by the end of the year. And this channel is geared towards teaching people how to grow food from a farmer's perspective, because there's a lot of channels out there about gardening, but I'm a vegetable farmer, so my perspective is growing high yields in a small space because that's the only way that I get paid. And so far, almost all my videos have been about methods, how to grow food, how I do it, that you could still use in your backyard. But I've never explained my why. And I just want to, because I think it will be powerful to people who are looking for motivation to grow their own food. Because I've been interested in this for a long time and I've never really explained it on my YouTube channel. So by the end of this video, you're going to know my five reasons why I grow food, and hopefully it will inspire you to grow some of your own, whether you want to just grow a small garden, start a homestead, or even start a small vegetable farm like mine. So my original reason for getting into growing food and farming goes back to my origin story, if you will, with this whole vegetable farming thing. I'm from Chicago, Illinois, originally, or the suburbs of Chicago. I grew up in Woodstock, Illinois. For any of you watching that knows where that is. So I grew up in the suburbs. I lived in Chicago for a couple of years after college. And after college, I really was lost. Honestly, I think most of my friends were lost. They just didn't really admit it. So I wasn't alone, but I was just not willing to go down the path of working a nine to five and do something that I didn't see any value outside of just getting a paycheck. And I have no judgment to people that do that. In a lot of ways, I'm curious what my life would have been like if I went down that road, but I didn't. So here I am. But I was really interested in doing something that actually mattered above and beyond just a paycheck. It actually made the world a better place. And I stumbled upon vegetable farming while I was living in Chicago. I actually visited a couple of vegetable farms on the south side. And I didn't know anything about growing vegetables at the time. This was back in 2013, 14, something like that. And I visited two farms. I believe one of them was named Iron Street Farm. If you're out there watching, kudos to you guys because you inspired me in a lot of ways. And I can't remember the name of the other one, but they were literally growing vegetables just like this on the south side in parking lots. They were growing vegetables just with homemade compost that they made from restaurant waste and planting spinach for the fall, winter, just like I've got right behind me. And what I was most inspired by was not only just the growing part of it, but the way that it motivated people in the community to work on the farm. And we're talking about the south side of Chicago, which if you know anything about Chicago is a really rough place. South side is where all the crime and murder happens and the west side. And it's because there's nothing to do, basically. It's just a lot of people who are living on welfare and it's heavy gang territory. And based on my experience living there, the reason for that is there's nothing economically for them to do. And what I saw this do is it was helping kids who would have been dealing drugs otherwise have something to do with their lives and have a purpose. And it was also selling vegetables to the community. And that's what really inspired me to go down this path much more intensely. I was actually interested in it since college, interested in farming and vegetable growing in general in college. But that experience is what really started me down this path. So I knew I didn't want to live in Chicago forever. And I was interested in vegetable farming. So my plan was I was working at some nonprofits while I was there. But I knew I didn't want to live there forever. So I was looking into vegetable agricultural jobs in California. And none of that really panned out. But my family has had this property here in Cody, Wyoming for almost 20 years now and basically was slowly moving out here. And they sent me a PBS video of a farm that's right across the street. I'm not going to mention the name because I don't want to get them in trouble, but they're very close friends of mine. And long story short, I saw the PBS video of this farm that's literally two miles away from my current location. And I ended up talking to the farmer and ended up working there that summer. And I just absolutely fell in love with the whole thing. And I'd never been around it before that intensely. His farm is absolutely beautiful, black, Illinois soil in Wyoming, which has no soil like that. You know, his soil is a foot deep of black, beautiful carbon. And I worked there and actually ended up running his farm for about a month, like a week after, like very shortly after starting working there, he had to go out of town for about a month. And we ended up having to run the farm for him while he was gone. I hope he doesn't mind me telling that a little bit, but I learned a lot about running a farm right there, trial by fire. And we got it all done. And this was during September, which if you work on a vegetable farm is a pretty important month. That's where a lot of the money is made. All the harvesting and selling happens in September. And I loved it. It was so much fun. I like chaos and I don't, I can't really sit still very well. So I enjoy fast paced work like that. And it was just so much fun for me. I have very fond memories of those, like three months I was working there. Cause it really wasn't a very long time, but I ended up working there a long story short. I worked there for a while, worked with my dad's guns business for a while, but I really have always wanted to be an entrepreneur and start my own business. So I, what I ended up doing was, uh, I started the company farm table West, which is the same name as his YouTube channel. Cause I use it for everything. I'm just kind of lazy with names. So I use that name farm table West for all sorts of things. And, uh, I started reselling his vegetables and other farms, vegetables to restaurants, retail customers. And I tried to sell it to a big concessionary in Yellowstone national park, which is close to where we are long story short, that didn't work out either. The money in that is really bad. There's not a lot of margin in reselling locally grown vegetables. Um, and it's just, there's not enough market here to make it worth it. I think at a place like Chicago, it might work, but you need to have lots of vegetables and lots of customers to make that work. So anyway, that didn't work out. Um, and then, uh, my real passion the whole time, it was always growing. Um, I didn't start growing because I thought that there was too many growers and the problem was to solve this local food problem was, uh, farmers markets were not good enough for them to sell out. And it's still kind of true. So farmers markets are still pretty much the best way to sell these, this vegetable, these vegetables. But, um, I thought that starting a website, which my website farmtablewest.com is actually an online farmers market. You could buy all this stuff. Um, I thought that was going to solve the problem because it gives people 24, seven access to buy this stuff. And then you just deliver it. But it turns out that's also really hard to, uh, to execute. You know, the idea is nice, but it's really hard and I'm still working on it. Um, so I started that business. Didn't really go out to anything. And then 2020 happened and, uh, I wanted to start actually seriously growing, um, because I could tell the demand was so high during that year. Um, the demand for this was so high. Um, there's plenty of room for more growers and I definitely still believe that now, now that I've actually been growing for four years on this property. Um, and, uh, that's what started me, my actual, on actually growing for other people. I was growing a little bit those first couple of years of Farm Table West, but I wasn't doing it seriously as a business. And it's a lot easier to make a business work by, you know, growing your own, uh, because you keep a lot more of the profit. Although there's still a lot of difficulties, which I'm going to explain in a video later this year, but that's what started me and how I got into this. Um, and it's kept me motivated enough to keep going at this point. So that's my origin story on why, um, I saw how it impacts community around the business. And it's not just purely about making money because believe me, there's not a lot of money in making money in farming. It's just eventually years down the line, there might be a six figure income for you, but it's, it's not going to be a millionaire kind of job doing this. You have to love it. And luckily I do. I mean, I have a huge passion for it. I love growing. I love food. I'm a huge foodie. Um, so it's just heaven for me in a lot of ways. So in my opinion, all of the greenery that you see around me is the healthiest nutrition I can feed my body within 500 miles of here. And that's a bold statement, but when you start to look into nutrition and how it depreciates the older the food is, and I'm really talking about vegetables, but when you start to look into that, it really does make a big difference. And I find it hard to put this concept into words because I don't think the science is really there yet to explain it. But all I can tell you is I know I feel like a different person when I am eating this food on a regular basis than I am when I'm eating big, uh, you know, enchiladas or lasagna or, uh, very heavy food. That's got no life in it. That's dead. Um, again, I'm, this, this is very hard to put into words, uh, or dried food, all of the stuff that you see in the grocery stores that actually makes them money that is, has seed oils in it and all that fun stuff. So your chips, your, your cereals, all that kind of stuff. When I eat this, as opposed to that, I feel like a different person in a much better person. I feel like I can accomplish more. And I believe that whether you grow it yourself, whether you buy it at a farmer's market, that consuming this food on a regular basis makes you into a human being that has a greater chance to reach their higher potential. Now, reaching your higher potential has a lot more to do, a lot more to it than just eating healthy. Don't get me wrong. Uh, there's a lot more to it, but I know that I feel much better when I eat this food. And my customers tell me that all the time. I will have people text me to the point where it's actually annoying. I get so many messages saying this is the best carrot I've ever tasted or something like that. And of course I love to hear that. And so there is obviously a lot of scientific health benefits to all of this. Uh, if you look into the nutrition of you just eating fruits and vegetables, but I think there's a whole nother dimension above what you see on a nutrition label on, uh, packaging at the store. There's a level above that that comes from this freshness. Freshness is something that I don't think is very well scientifically understood. The, the, the only thing I've seen out there that really illustrates this is this thing called the, there is a, I believe it's called a Kirlian test. Anybody who knows what I'm talking about, please, uh, correct me in the comments. I think it's a Kirlian light test or something. Uh, it starts with a K and you can take a photo of a vegetable that was grown organically and it's very fresh and one that's basically from the store. And you can see the light coming off of it from the organic one is twice or three times as much as the one from the store. That's the best illustration I've ever seen. And then the other way I've seen this point illustrated is if you look at people who are raw vegan, which I am not a raw vegan, I don't want to be raw vegan and I'm not a vegan at all. I'm, I eat meat and eggs, but nothing against anybody that does raw vegan, vegan, vegetarian. I don't really care. You know, I'm not a person that's going to tell you how to eat ever, even though that's, I'm sort of hinting at how I think you should eat in this video, but I'm not going to tell you how to eat. I'm just telling you what I like and what I believe in. But the raw vegans, if you watch them and they literally, all they eat is this is vegetables, fresh, no cooking at all. Their life force is just oozing. Whenever they talk, they are just on cloud nine all the time. There is an energy level that you don't see in the average American or even me. Um, and, uh, the way they talk about it, it makes a lot of sense to me. But again, there's not a lot of science to back up what I'm saying, but I just know intuitively that it's true. When you eat this kind of food, there is a difference in your potential, I believe. So I want to be a part of sharing that with other people and most importantly, teaching it to other people, because I think that's how I could have a much bigger impact, um, than just growing it and selling it. Uh, but you know, growing it and selling it has definitely helped me get good at doing it. Um, because it is not easy, but that's a big reason why, you know, we spend a lot of money on health insurances in this country. And the way I look at that is that is only existing because of big pharma and seed oils and all the crap that's in our food that we eat on a normal basis. You know, in, in America, how many foods are allowed in America that are banned everywhere else in the country? I think it's like 2,800 or something. I saw something recently. Don't quote me on that, but it's a lot. And, um, there's a way around that and it's this, you know, there is plenty of food on this property to feed a couple hundred people. Okay. Um, and yeah, I'm not saying that you should stop eating rice and dried food and stuff. I'm definitely going to be eating that, but like just incorporating more of this into your diet is going to change your health like so fast. And the price of the stuff I sell is far higher than the store. Although that's changing a lot right now, the store is actually almost the same in a lot of ways, but that's if you buy from a farmer, but if you grow it yourself, the price is virtually free. You just have to have the skill. So it's not like this is unavailable to people. It is available. It just requires a cultural change. We need people to basically take it a lot more seriously. And that's part of the reason why I have this YouTube channel is I want to get more people interested and give them the tools to be successful growing their own food. Because I just, I know from experience and my customer's experience that this changes humans in a very positive way that pills from the pharmacy do not. I'm not a nutritionist. I am not a doctor. I can't give you real strong health advice in any way, shape or form, but I just know that there's a lot of truth to what I'm saying. Um, and I know it from experience and I know it from my customer's experience. This is not health insurance. This is health assurance. You will be healthier if you eat this kind of food on a regular basis. That is my opinion. It is not a fact, but I believe you will be healthier if you eat this food on a regular basis. It might surprise you to know or learn that a huge portion of the vegetables that you get at the grocery store is still harvested by hand. So when you buy, you know, a bunch of cilantro, there still was probably somebody that harvested that by hand. You know, uh, a lot of vegetables are still harvested by hand by somebody who is walking a field eight hours a day in a position like this harvesting stuff we do here all the time, but we don't do it for that long. And stuff like salad mix, lettuce, that's still harvested by hand mostly. Um, because if you use a machine, you're going to lose out on huge amount of yield. Um, I don't know the stats on absolutely everything you buy at the store, but I know a large portion of it is still harvested by hand by most likely migrant labor. And I think that's a very vulnerable system. The labor that does that is usually not an American. Um, and I have huge respect for the people that do that. I'm not saying I'm anti-immigrant or anything like that. What I am saying is, uh, if that labor force goes away in any way, shape or form, all of that food becomes a lot more vulnerable. I see this, even on the scale that I'm at, when I don't have labor, this farm is screwed. I cannot run this farm by myself. I must have help or else I'm going to end up in the hospital. And the same thing applies to the big guys in California and Florida. If they don't have that labor force, that food's not getting out of the ground. They probably have some tricks up their sleeve to bump it up a little bit with tractors, with some things, but that will not work with everything. Um, so there's a lot of vulnerability in our food system. And it's not just about the labor force. The logistics are brutal. Uh, in where I live, we're in the mountains basically. And so in the wintertime, all that there's tons of times in the winter where if there's too much snow, the trucks can't come and there won't be food at the stores. And we've already seen little glimpses of this. You know, there was a trucker strike in Canada a couple of years ago, and that affected the food supply pretty intensely. I've, I think some of my subscribers know what I'm talking about. Um, you know, I didn't see a lot of that happen in America yet. Uh, but it is vulnerable. And if, if those, if our access to all of that food just dramatically goes away, you know, uh, gas prices explode or something, you know, maybe the food is still accessible, but it's so much more expensive just because the cost to get it to you just triples. Um, you're in trouble. And if you do value fresh vegetables, you're really in trouble. So I want to be an example of a way to get around that. Um, I just, I do think our food system is vulnerable. And if something like that happens, where that food supply goes away, farms like me are going to sell out in 30 seconds, we're going to sell out instantly. I saw it in 2020, you know, the, the, the demand for this will just go through the roof. And then basically we'll be able to sell out no problem at probably a pretty decent price. But then that leaves a, you know, I said earlier that this farm could probably feed a couple hundred people. Well, I live in a town of 10,000, a couple hundred, 10,000, see the problem there. So there is a vulnerability in our food system. And so part of the reason I'm doing this is to be a part in changing that. And ultimately, I think my biggest part in that is not actually the vegetables that I sell, because again, at the end of the day, I'm going to feed a couple hundred people, but teaching people like you, how to grow is how I can have a much bigger impact. And that's why I'm doing this because I have to learn methods to make this business work. I have to learn and execute food production methods that will produce a really high yield in a small space or else my business doesn't work. So that same concept, when applied to your backyard, will put a lot more food on your table than just putting a couple of seeds in some raised beds. So that's a big reason why I'm growing food is to be an example to you that it's possible. I'm going to remind you that I am growing in Cody, Wyoming. We are a zone 4B slash 5A. I really think it's more of a 4B. That's all splitting hairs, but we have an average of 120 frost-free days a year to grow. And many years, it's more like 100 or 90. That is the shortest on average growing season in the U.S. Canada is different, although a lot of Canada is much longer growing season than me. On the coasts, it's much warmer. And so we have a really tough growing season. And I want to be an example to people basically saying, if I can do it, you can do it. Because most of the people watching are probably living in a more forgiving climate than me. There's a lot to say about the south and humidity that I don't know, and I can't speak on that. So I want to be real clear. I'm not an expert on growing in the south. It might as well be Mars to me. But in terms of Northern America, so we're talking basically zone 6 to zone 4, maybe even zone 3. I think what I'm demonstrating here is going to be pretty useful to you. And a lot of Canada, I think this would be useful. And I want to demonstrate to people that if I can do it in our climate, which is insanely cold, you can as well. And that makes a much more resilient, decentralized food system more realistic, because there's just not that many people doing what I do in a cold climate. There are the guys I've learned from like NeverSink Farm. He's the biggest inspiration to me in this, because the farm I have is basically a model of his. They're doing incredible stuff in New York, which is actually pretty similar climate to here. But honestly, there's just not that many others out there. So I want to be another one to teach people in a mountain climate. And I would like to inspire you watching to grow some in your backyard, because a lot of what I do doesn't need a fancy greenhouse at all. I just have those to make my business run easier. But if I could do it, you can do it. We have 120 days. We get negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit every winter, and I still harvest fresh through the winter. May not be a lot in January, but it's still something. And that alone is super valuable, is the winter stuff. But I want to be an example in a very tough climate that will inspire people in warmer climates to do a lot more. I want to live in a world where every community has its own individual food culture based on the food that is grown in that region. And there is a French word for this that I'm going to butcher the pronunciation, but it's called terroir. I can't pronounce French, as you can tell. But the idea is each region in France, I think they use it for wine. The actual term is usually based on wine, but they use it kind of interchangeably with agriculture, has its own flavor based on the soil that that food was grown in. And knowing what I know now about growing food is this concept is absolutely accurate and true. Even with beef, all sorts of food tastes different based on the soil that it came from. And I don't just want to live in a world with this just because that's what I like. I mean, I think that's great, but I want this to exist because I think it makes our society more free-thinking and it develops a culture that's not just a homogenized big culture like we live in now, at least in my opinion. You know, there's culture difference obviously between like cities and rural culture, but I think that the diversity in culture is changing slowly but surely into this big blob of boring stuff. You know, if you look at how Walmart kind of runs the show everywhere across the country and in terms of like box stores, and I'm a person that does still shop at Walmart, you know, don't get me wrong, but I just want to see more individual cultural flair and agriculture has the potential to make that happen. And I don't mean just small farms like this, but even people growing in their backyards. There's a potential for, I think, a really bright future in America if there was this culture I'm talking about where there was a lot more people growing, producing food. If you look at like France is the best example I could think of off the top of my head. I've barely been to France. I was there for a couple days, but you know, in places like that or in like India, there is this farm-to-table concept is just part of the culture. It's not really like a thing, whereas in America it's this big agenda. You know, like my business name is Farm Table West. I want to live in a world where we don't even have to have the word Farm Table West exist to get the point across. I just want this to be second nature and a part of the culture because, again, I just think it makes us as human beings better. We need small communities to have more pride in something that they produce. And now I'm going to sound like a hippie, which I am definitely not a hippie, but I have hippie tendencies. I don't know how else to say it, I guess, because I love to be connected with nature. And this work connects me with nature in a way I never was before. And I think that that's really valuable in today's day and age, you know. And I can just see it based on how many people ask me if they could just work on the farm for free because they just want to be connected with nature, basically. People want to be around plants and outside in a beautiful environment. I feel better when I'm working outside. I feel better when I'm around plants. There is something that changes in me when I have my hands in the soil. There is a lot of people talking about that. That's grounding. And there's something going on with the energy of the earth and humans directly connecting to it that actually impacts your health. There's documentaries out there about earthing and grounding that you can watch. But I mean, I'm earthing on grounding all the time, you know, not necessarily through my feet, but my hands are in the soil all the time. And I think that's why so many people want to work here also, just because you can have that experience. And if you're just somebody who's sitting at a desk all day, it's nearly impossible to be connected with nature. I think humans are supposed to be connected with nature a lot more than they are, you know. And how many opportunities do you have to work in an environment like that? You know, you could go hiking and stuff. That's great. I do that all the time, you know. I'm a nature person, so I like that. But I do think we would treat our natural resources differently if we were more connected to nature. And that's going to make me sound like a hippie. And believe me, I'm not. But I do believe that there's a lot to that, especially the grounding thing. You know, I don't think humans were meant to just be wearing rubber soles and in a cubicle all day. And this, whether you're growing in your backyard or you have a farm like this, or you work on a farm like this, or you have a homestead, just having that interaction with your food production is so educational, especially for kids, you know. Kids really love this stuff. They love learning where their food comes from. And it comes from nature. All of your food comes from nature, whether it is that cereal in the box, or it's this parsley right here, you know. It comes from nature, so we should have an understanding of that. And having that little bit of connection with the ground when you are harvesting or growing or putting a plant in the ground gives you the tangible experience of that more than reading in a book or something, you know. There's a reason why schools are constantly asking me to have field trips here and stuff, you know, because kids want that tangible experience. It's so much more powerful than just me going to a classroom and talking about this crap, you know. Your food comes from nature, and there's a lot of value into you being connected to that. So I'm off my soapbox now. I wanted to get that out there, but if you found any value from this video or any of my other videos on this channel, and it does motivate you to throw a seed into the ground, I have a free backyard farm launch pad at the link in the description below where I walk you through in a PDF format how to set up a no-dig version of this farm in your backyard in four easy steps. And I, full disclosure, do sell a gardening course that teaches you everything you need to know from seed to harvest on growing food in your backyard. That can be found by getting on that email list at the description. But I really hope the number one outcome of you watching this video is just inspiration to actually grow your own food and just go down the rabbit hole of learning because it is a real big rabbit hole. I think I can help in a lot of ways, but there's a lot of other people out there that can help you too. You know, that is how I learned. Now, I've been doing this now basically for six years. I've been farming full-time for four years and most of what I started out with was just YouTube videos like this. And I eventually took a paid farm class which was absolutely game-changer, never-sink farm course. But I've learned a lot of other things outside of that. You know, there's so much information on the internet. What my little corner of the internet is just basically how to do it in a really cold climate and how to get as much production in a small space as possible. But there's a whole lot more out there, you know, because if you're watching this in New Zealand or something, most of what I say is probably going to be irrelevant. You know, climate matters a lot with this stuff. It matters a lot. I have no idea what the climate in New Zealand is like. But the bottom line is just start the learning process and start doing it. You know, watching YouTube videos is great but you should really start doing it. That's what I want this whole YouTube channel to be about is you to start growing some kind of food. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed that one. A little different than my normal videos but I'll see you in the next one.