Restorative Farms: Community Supported Agriculture in South Dallas

George pays a visit to Restorative Farms where he meets with co-founder Brad Boa. He tours the farm and learns how this Community Farm is working to address the issues of food access by growing food and creating jobs for the community. Later, co-founder Owen Lynch joins George online and tells the origin story of Restorative Farms. 

In South Dallas where a population of people has to leave their community to get access to healthy food, Restorative Farms works to support systematically underdeveloped communities. The farm's focus is on food sustainability but is also creating a network of local farmers who are working their land in an environmentally responsible manner. The farm provides job opportunities and fresh food, ingrains a pride of ownership, and fosters collaboration. 

This episode is the fourth in the new series “More than Food for Thought: Community-Based Solutions to Hunger in South Dallas."

Watch the video, here.

George (00:42):

Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and public life. I'm George Mason, your host, and I'm here today at Restorative Farms in South Dallas with the co-founder of Restorative Farms, Brad Boa. Brad, welcome to Good God. Thank you for having us,

Brad (01:00):

one Of the co-founders. Yes.

George (01:01):

So, yes. Well, that would be co-founders, right? So, yes. And we'll be talking also with Owen Lynch, another of the co-founders. Yeah. And, and he'll be talking more, I think, generally philosophically about the farms. But here we are present in, uh, the, the place where you're doing this work. Right. And we're in South Dallas. We are, we are right next to the Hatcher, uh, dart station. Correct. And so, uh, in fact, dart had a role in this whole project in itself with the land. Right .

Brad (01:33):

They Indeed they did. They had, um, about four-tenths of an acre of land that was being unused, which they leased to us to, um, turn it from an empty lot into what we consider a vibrant plot now, growing food and jobs for the community.

George (01:48):

So you mentioned jobs. We'll talk about food in a moment because of a, a lot of what we're, uh, up to here in this project together that we're talking about in this series. Good God. More than Food for Thought is that there actually is food that, that we're working on, but, uh, at the same time, another more than food for thought is jobs. And you are an employer here?

Brad (02:11):

We are. We have five, uh, employees right now working <wonderfu>.> In various, various capacities around their farm and distribution.

George (02:19):

And what I understand also is a lot of what you purchase for the farm comes from Dallas, uh, from South Dallas,

Brad (02:26):

Uh, pretty much, yeah. Pretty almost, uh, everything we do purchase comes from a South Dallas origin.

George (02:32):

So this is an urban agriculture project that you have initiated ?

Brad (02:36):

Correct. Yes

George (02:37):

And how does that, uh, I think when people hear urban agriculture, it almost seems like an oxymoron, doesn't it? It's like farming takes place in rural settings and in urban settings, we simply import this from rural settings, and yet here we are in the middle of South Dallas. Talk to us a little bit about this idea of urban agriculture and how it is necessary to fit into, uh, the, the needs of an urban environment.

Brad (03:04):

Well, urban ag, um, as the name applies, is agriculture in the city setting. And one thinks initially growing food and, and we are doing that ` um, we're growing organic nutrient-dense food, but we're in the middle of a community that is, um, has a tsunami of diabetes and other health problems. Um, as many Americans, you know, 50% of Americans have chronic disease. um, impacted with what the, um, in this community, a burden with decades of, um, what we might call being underserved, um, has, you know, much higher rates of those things. So, uh, we're growing healthy food. We're hopefully creating a catalyst to change people's diets. Um, but it's more than that. We look at the spreadsheet, we look at how much we've produced. We, we create jobs, so we look at it as an employer creating, um, employment opportunities and career opportunities, and hopefully creating a template so we can duplicate this over and over again. But there's so many off the spreadsheet benefits of an urban farm. I think in this community, you've seen over the three years we've been here, um, growing that the, the crime rate has dropped, property values have, um, gone up. Um, I think you see a greater pride of ownership . And something that I think, uh, you know, city planners might call community cohesiveness. People working together and getting to know each other. um, and, and that's hard to put metrics on, but it's, it's very significant.

George (04:27):

We talk a lot about sustainable communities. How, how does what you're describing fit into this idea of sustainable community?

Brad (04:37):

Well, part of our metric for success is to make this be sustainable, not just an environmental standpoint. We're growing using regenerative agricultural principles, which, um, replenish the soil and, and creates very healthy soil and healthy plants. But we also want to create, um, a self-sustainable economic model. So our, we hit that point, this farm will be able to pay for itself by the produce it produces and sells.

George (05:03):

Okay. and that produce that it produces and sells. Where does the produce go? Where will you sell it? In other words, there, we know that there are some enterprises like this that sell their food and it goes out of the community. Is is this a place where you are actually going back into the community or are the profits from the sales coming back into the community? Which way does that work?

Brad (05:29):

Well, all, all the profits come back in basically sustain employment, um, and to build this and allow us to, um, expand what we're doing. Right. Um, we sell it primarily through what's called a C S A community support agriculture. where, for lack of a better words, um, outside family members buy a portion of the harvest , um, and pay what might be considered a retail price for very high quality produce. But that helps subsidize CSA packages that we can sell at a highly discounted rate for community members. And then they're doing it, we're creating jobs. So the money's we're just creating that loop financially.

George (06:05):

Wonderful. Alright. Brad, why do we have covers over this?

Brad (06:09):

We are solarizing this, I see this was, I call our fourth set piece, which was the apprentice farm. That, you know, the objective is each one of our apprentice farmers, would control one or two rows of these. Um, be able to grow what they want. Um, and we would buy it from them for the CSA. So between the pandemic and weather and other issues, we've, um, really haven't been able to get this fully going. So, what's happened, various weeds have come in, so now we're solarizing it, this will kill, uh, leave it on for a couple months, kill any weeds in it. Um, and get ready for new planting and,

OweGeorgen (06:49):

Alright So, What do we call this?

Brad (06:50):

These are high tunnels.

George (06:52):

Okay.

Brad (06:53):

Um, they allow a number of different things, you know, control the weather to some degree. We can start earlier in the season. Um, and grow longer in the season as well. So it gives us two, three or four weeks more growing period.

George (07:06):

And what are you growing here?

Brad (07:08):

Um, right now, nothing, we've gone through the harvest. Oh, okay. You know, we're getting ready for the next , um, growing season and a month or two, we have seedlings started already, but it was tomato and kale and peppers and um, collard greens and rhubarb and a lot of different things. So

George (07:22):

When people talk about, uh, community gardens and, uh, a lot of the sort of amateur farming, you might say. Right, right. Um, lettuce is one of the big things. Right. 'cause you can produce a lot of it. Right. But you and I have had this conversation about lettuce <laugh> that it really, for whatever good it, it does, it, it, it doesn't actually end up being profitable from a nutritional standpoint and for changing, uh, people's health.

Brad (07:51):

Yeah. I guess that's arguable depending on who you are. But lettuce is 94, 96% water So, um, when, when you're giving someone lettuce, you are giving 'em food, but I'm not sure you could call that feeding a community. Um, I don't think you could survive eating lettuce. You need, you know, more nutrient dense um, and diverse produce in your diet. Um, lettuce can be profitable. So for us, when we grow it, um, like at GrowZilla, it's a profit, um, profitable product that creates jobs for somebody.

George (08:20):

So t his is in- ground growing. It is. Right. And this is traditional growing, uh, and it's a part of the larger plan,

Brad (08:30):

Well, let me differentiate. Traditional growing with what we call regenerative. Regenerative agriculture is a new buzzword on Madison Avenue. Traditional growing is what we've been doing for 7,000 years, plowing the ground, recent years, putting all sorts of synthetic, um, inputs, chemicals for, for fertilizer, pesticides , herbicides. And, and we found out that, that even though it drives the price of food down and creates huge, uh, volumes of food, that food is often nutrient, um, lacking in nutrients I see. And is making us sick. Regenerative agriculture is going back to something, um, that's more natural. So the soil is soil, but in effect, it is a whole food web system with different types of mi biomes and fungis. And so what we're doing here is regenerative agriculture. Everything is growing organically. Um, there are no synthetic, um, inputs. Um, you can be assured that you're not getting chemicals. , and, and I would venture to say that, um, a a stick of, you know, a a piece of carrot growing here compared to commercially grown carrot would have multiples of different minerals and nutrients in it.

George (09:36):

Wonderful.

Brad (09:37):

They may look the same. Of course, what you see with traditional agriculture, much of that's been bred for long shelf life for durability, quick growth um, certain sizes So it fits a certain way not for what's in it.

George (09:50):

So you have a healthy soil here. Uh, but we have an unhealthy climate that's happening now, uh, with warming and, uh, extreme temperatures. And here we are in the middle of the summer. Right. And, uh, it's gonna be 106 degrees today that's going to have a dampening effect upon, uh, your regenerative, uh, plan of, of growing food in ground. So there's a new concept that you're working with. Tell us about that.

Brad (10:22):

Well, people notice vertical agriculture, vertical farming, um, hydroponics, aquaponics is, um, a, a, a buzzword that people hear all the time. It's kind of that umbrella that con con, you know, goes over everything grown in a controlled environment, whether it's vertical farming, hydroponics, greenhouses. So we want to have a foot in that. The future will not be all controlled-environment agriculture. There will be a mix between some sort of in ground growing, which will change, um, and regenerative ag techniques will allow that soil to be more resilient and be, um, um, more durable during the hot weather. And I would say we're aspiring to have every year or so is getting healthier and healthier. So it, it's, we, we never reached that plateau where we say we're there yet, but we wanna have that toehold in controlled environment agriculture. So we bought a double wide container farm, um, in 2020 and started growing at the beginning of 2021 to grow produce, but also to grow jobs and training opportunities. So essentially it's a plant factory almost every Tuesday you can expect to have 316 heads of greens Unbelievable. Coming out of it.

George (11:33):

Every Tuesday. Every Tuesday. Right. Remarkable. So that's why the language you're using is Growzilla, right?

Brad (11:39):

Well, it's a 15 ton growing machine. Yeah. So it, it's a beast. Yeah.

George (11:42):

Wonderful. Wonderful. Now one more piece of all of this are the grow boxes. Can you show us some of those?

Brad (11:48):

Yeah. These are, um, the grow boxes. These are several years old um, many people use raised boxes or raised gardens to garden when the pandemic hit. Um, a lot of our produce, or at least taking our produce to market was impacted by the pandemic.. So we created another vehicle to create jobs, which is a 32 by 26 inch grow box that we sell, um, for, I think it's $135, includes the, the two layers of the grow box components that arrive, knocked down six cubic feet of a mixed growing medium that is highly curated and a selection of seedlings that are growing here. So with the grow boxes, we were able to, um, create incremental income for our employees as well as maybe create, I call it a starter drugs for growing your own food. We found many people who bought a grow box, start growing, buy another, and now are really expanding So, um, it is that, and for everything that we sell at what you might call retail price, it subsidizes low cost boxes that we can sell for the community.

George (12:55):

Okay. So if, if people want to help in this challenge of how we can create better food access for South Dallas, one of the ways they can do that is to buy grow boxes from you.

Brad (13:10):

Correct.Yeah.

George (13:11):

Which on, on the one hand, uh, is going back into jobs of people who are making them and producing them and getting them to you. It is also creating then for them a kind of participation in this on a healthier basis and , and an awareness, but then it also creates the opportunity for you to put these grow boxes on a lower cost basis into the most needy Correct. Right. Parts of the community.

Brad (13:37):

Right. Right. Fantastic. We kind of call it an evangelist for what we're doing. Okay. So, um,

George (13:43):

love that language.

Brad (13:43):

Oftentimes we're daunted by the, this the task ahead of us. Right. But you may know there's this guy named Jesus <laugh>, you know, and he talked to two people and then eventually had 12 people working with him. So Yeah. We we're, we're on that kind of mission. We think we, every one of these grow boxes and evangelists for what we're doing for better food system, better diet, and for a better Dallas.

George (14:04):

Well, we would all love for the outcome of this to be as successful as Jesus' work was. Of course. But I think we should also recognize that Jesus had opposition and obviously it led to a cross. And the political powers were largely behind that because he was upsetting the status quo in the Roman Empire. And I, I'm wondering, how are you facing similar kinds of obstacles from the status quo? Who's, where's the pushback coming? Where are the obstacles that we have to overcome, whether intentionally or unintentionally in bureaucracies and in ways that we've, uh, become accustomed to operating?

Brad (14:50):

Right. I'm not sure pushback would be the the right word. There are obstacles. Yeah. It took us nine months to get a water meter put in <laugh>. Um, and I think we're probably, um, not a typical example of a average community member navigating the bureaucracy and the rules and the regulations and the cost of getting something like that. So to, to make this mission grow, we could have much better regulations within the city. Of course, everybody will applaud, um, what urban ag does, but it takes a lot of work to, to lower some of those barriers and make it an easier ramp up for people to do that. So it takes, uh, it's gonna take policy, uh, you know, change.

George (15:29):

Terrific. Well, Brad Bower, thank you so much. No, thank you for having us at Restorative Farms. Appreciate it. Yep. Thank you.

George (15:34):

And now it's my pleasure to welcome Owen Lynch to the program as we're talking about this restorative farms enterprise in South Dallas. Owen is also one of the co-founders, Owen teaches at SMU in communications and organizational communications, uh, is also a senior research fellow at the Hunt Institute. Uh, and, uh, he is, uh, going to give us something of, I think, the origin story in the big picture of what restorative farms is about. Owen, welcome to Good God,

Owen (16:07):

Thank you. Oh, and I'm happy to, I'm happy to share today.

George (16:11):

Terrific. So Owen, uh, one of the things we've been talking about is that South Dallas in particular is suffering from a lack of access, lack to good, healthy, nutritious food. Restorative farms was created by you and several of your co-founders to begin to address systemically a long-term solution to access to healthy food. But why is it necessary to begin with, why is South Dallas in this particular position?

Owen (16:49):

Well, I think, um, I think it, we have to talk about it as a, a tale of two different deserts. Okay. So let me, let me address the, the first, the first desert, which people call a food desert. I'm not a particular fan of that name, but I'll use it because people are familiar with it. Um, but what that is, is an area in town, an urban area that doesn't have access to fresh, healthy food. And people who live in that community do not have access to fresh, healthy food. They have to leave their community to go get vegetables or go get healthy food. Um, and so food ways develop over time, which is our habits of how we eat, um, by what food is locally available, uh, and what, uh, also food doesn't spoil in that transport or the burden of time it takes to go to the grocery store, which is about a three hour, uh, round trip using public transport.

Owen (17:38):

So we talk about that. We have a whole swath of Dallas, um, particularly in the south area that doesn't ha Southern Dallas, that doesn't have access to healthy fresh food and hasn't had it, uh, for over 20, 30 years. Why is that? If you take a map of neighborhoods that were redlined Yes. And you take a USDA food map, put it on top of Dallas, put it on top of a map in Atlanta, put on top of Louisiana, put top of New Orleans, put on top of Houston, you'll find that the correlation between red zone neighborhoods and food desert neighborhoods is incredibly high. And so is the correlation of insulin used to diabetes and food habits that are related to chronic health. So is the crime recidivism rate. Uh, and so particularly looking at neighborhoods, for example, like South Dallas Fair Park, 75215 and 75210, we see a neighborhood that is a vibrant community, but many of the people who have been able to get jobs have had to leave that community, um, to provide, to get the infrastructure that many of us take for granted. Those who remain are living in a community that have very few businesses. Um, and that comes from a long history of not being able to get loans for businesses in that community, not being able to use your mortgage to move your, um, yourself forward because of the redlining laws.

George (18:59):

Let's stop right there because I think, uh, we, you've mentioned redlining and not everyone will understand immediately what you mean by that.

Owen (19:07):

Okay. Sorry. That's redlining is, Was a, was a, a designation of credit that places that could use their house to either get a mortgage for a home or use a property to get, um, in investment for a business. Certain communities were designed to say, you know, these are not, these are risky investments. And so they were not allowed to access the banks. They defined those neighborhoods by the amount of minorities who live within them, particularly African Americans, shutting them off from the vehicle that people use to propel themselves in the upper middle class and build businesses within their community. They then designed these neighborhoods, um, and they built highways around them and then used the highways as a marker to say that a, a natural barrier where banks can be north of, I, uh, I 30 for example. There's, uh, 65 banks, I believe north of 65, that service, and there's only three or four that service south of I 30. Right. So they used the highway system that was developed around the redline district as now still the, the barriers for investment into communities. This has a long-term systemic effect.

George (20:14):

This is why we are talking about food access as a social justice issue. Correct. Not just as a matter of philanthropic interest where we can, uh, see to helping people who have not somehow helped themselves, but that structurally the infrastructure was specifically designed to create these areas of impoverishment, uh, that has led to all the consequences for families and personal health and social welfare, uh, that we are seeing today. Yeah. The federal government is behind this. Uh, and the long-term consequences of policy, public policy have led to this not just personal responsibility. So this is, this is part of the reason that we're talking about now needing to change policy and to create solutions on the ground, right?

Owen (21:18):

Correct. And let's go back one step, just talk about food. We look at our faith traditions that many of our faith traditions center around food, we look at communities come together, it usually has a food component. We think about family life and we talk about how food is an essential part of a healthy family. And food becomes like medicine. Right. Right. So food on a basic level is a human need. Right. So divorcing of, of everything else we just talked about on a big level, access to fresh, healthy food, everyone deserves that opportunity. Right? Right. On a simple, simple, simple frame. On the other frame, let's talk about the food system that developed not independent of the other redline system desert. We talked that people call the food desert. We talked about, we have an incredibly efficient food system designed post World War II that that's based on large industrial farms. And most of the food that they produce goes to CAFOs, which is where they feed meat. These are incredibly efficient. They all around the country now around the world, the average plate travels 1,500 miles that you eat every, every day. Right. Wow. That food is brought in from all over the world and all over the country, grown in massive farms that specialize in one or two products. 'cause specialization equals efficiency, equals profitability. Right. This specialization of our farming Right. Has depleted the soil of its microbial health and it's, it's collapsing. It is drinking the water from Lake Mead where 90% of our vegetables come from in the winter. Wow. Um, and it is at a point where its efficiencies of, of one line delivery just in time. Were put on display during covid of how fragile our food system is, not just feeding South Dallas feeding all of Dallas. Right. Dallas is one of the least resilient cities in the country in terms of food security. Um, and so, 'cause we bring it in from all over the world, particularly from Mexico, our fresh vegetables. So what does this mean? We have a whole, most of our food is bought into warehousing, ironically, in South Dallas and then distributed into the North Dallas markets. It doesn't go the other way. Only through food programs and other programs does that food and healthy food enter into these communities. What happens is food becomes more expensive, as we already know. It is. The system becomes more unreliable. It starts to break down because of monocropping. It's gonna become even more scarce in the city of Dallas as a whole and the region as well as particularly in areas that are already bereft of healthy, fresh food.

Owen (23:48):

So this is coming, and we all know it's coming and the, the U S D A know it's coming and people, academics, just like climate change have been, are recognizing this as a potential threat. We don't currently are not just like with climate change, we, we are not addressing it. Okay. So what we have these two needs with this, we need a more resilient food system for Dallas as a whole, particularly in South Dallas. Right. Where they're reliant upon the excess from that system. Um, and then we, we have this system of a whole area of our, our town is underdevelo ped, systematically under vested, uh, and is at least access to healthy fresh food, incredibly high dependency on food pro on, on di on the food clinics with diabetes and other problems that are related to chronic health issues with food. How can we solve both of these two with one stone? Right. In other words, can we leverage the land, the use of labor, the need for labor, the desire in the community for wellbeing, and use that to, to actually create a more resilient Dallas, not just in South Dallas growing, but creating a network of local farmers in the rural country too, that work through South Dallas.

George (25:02):

Supportive is, is a double meaning in this sense. You're restoring access to food on the one hand, but you're also restoring the, the soil itself.

Owen (25:12):

Correct.

George (25:14):

Rejuvenating the nature of your farming.

Owen (25:16):

We're, we're, we're growing medicinal level product. In other words, totally rejuvenated soil rejuvenated processes, crop rotation to ensure this happens. Microgrowing in hydroponic, all these growing styles of the future. Some of them are ancient by the way. Um, we're bringing 'em back. Um, basically to create a much healthier product that is local. When you kill a vegetable by cutting it off a plant, it starts to die. And, but it's, if you get it and it's three weeks old, but it's been packaged to look good, it's lost almost all of its nutritional value. Wow. So one of the things that like, you know, um, you know, Colonel West says that social justice is love Right. When it's being practiced in the community. And I think that the idea of restorative, it comes from the concept of restorative justice, right. Where, and we had one of our co-founders was formerly incarcerated. Wrongfully has just been, um, has just had his, um, uh, just had his conviction overturned and has now, um, received, received recognition that he was put in prison for 25 years for crime they know he did not commit. He grew up and learned how to be a farmer when he was younger, and then worked as a farmer in prison in a horticulture's degree. Part of the reason we formed Restorative 'cause he wanted to help his community.

George (26:31):

Nice. Um,

Owen (26:32):

And he, and, and, and part of that need where we, we want to build restorative also means healing. It also means hope. Right. So how do we heal the community and provide, most of our workers are formerly incarcerated. Learning to grow in the soil and feed their community members with healthy, fresh vegetables. That's one part of restorative soil. Making it rejuvenative, making the the plants healthier. That's restorative. Making the community around it. When restorative farms built on a, a neighborhood that was formally, um, a a an old broken down, um, nightclub that was a plague for crime in the community. We got that taken down with the help of the city and we're now growing vegetables for the community on it, uh, turning a corner that was dangerous into a, a, a, a community access point. So there's ways that we, and then one of the things I think that people miss when we talk about restorative farms is we're, we're providing seedlings for over 14 different growers in the community. We're training community members how to grow. We provide grow boxes that people go online and buy, and they could have a grow box in their own home. But the other thing we're doing is we're linking with farmers in the, in, in the countryside around the urban areas, the suburban areas outside of us, and we're contracting product from them. Instead of going to a farmer's market, which is extremely expensive for them and has a lot of risk, we're buying three to 400 units from them a week. And so we're building a network of rural farmers because they're herding too. They also don't fit into the big farm plan. Ultimately we're, we would love to have a food hub that would bring these products in, aggregate them, provide food by medicine, provide food for prescription. Um, and what we're really saying is that the, the, the current South Dallas social justice issues, those are systemic in nature and have been built over long periods of time.

Owen (28:27):

The food lack of access is part, is part of that story. Um, but a, a systemic problem requires a systemic solution, not just a community garden. There's nothing wrong with community garden, but a community garden needs an expert to guide it. It needs pro someone who can tell them what type of fertilizer to use, when to use it. They need proper seedlings to make them healthy. So you can't just throw something in and hope it works. Right. You have to build the infrastructure for long-term growth. And ultimately, part of my job as a action researcher is to work with a community who helped divine this solution. Right. This is a participatory process that we developed this pro this solution, help get it into place and then walk away when it's standing by itself. Right. Um, and when I got tenure at S MU, part of my realization was, and I'm a person of faith, this isn't a faith-based project in that, um, you know, it's, it's not something we do explicitly as an act of our faith, but it's something we do internally. All of us driven by our own motivations. My own is part of my faith story. So for me, as someone who, um, really believes in that, uh, to, to try to live my life as much as I can in my own faith tradition, that it's by the service and works that you do, that you show love and that shows a reflection of your faith. And so when I got tenure, I went to church and I remember saying, this is an incredible gift that I've been given a platform of security. What can I do with this? I can keep publishing papers and books, which I do , right. Or I can take that knowledge and base and enact change that I believe I'm being, I I can use my talents and platform to help enact. Right. And the next day, one of my graduate students walked in and said, Dr. Lynch, have you ever heard of a food desert? And I said, no. And I said, what is that? And they explained it to me, um, and said, some people like to call it food apartheid. Some people like to. And I said, well, I'm not really concerned about what it's called. What's the problem? Uh, and we drove down a mile from where I lived and it was a different Dallas. Um, which getting tenure I hadn't had a chance to explore. 'cause I was in my office now. I had a real chance to start using my community research skills and opportunities to help if I can in this process. And it was a long journey of where, how I got to food solutions largely. 'cause I was asked what works. And my initial response was very little. Um, because if without the systemic support, urban farms and urban gardens have to do other things to make money to support themselves, they become agritourism. They can become, you know, they can do sell tours. Um, they can do t-shirts, but they're not being, they're not being supportive or donation, but they're not being supported by their product. But ultimately it's product and food that we need. 'cause that's what nourishes souls.

George (31:24):

You've given us a great picture of, uh, of, of how, uh, this is more than food for thought and the connection that Good God likes to make between God or faith and the common good. So thank you for sharing with us. Thank you for contributing to this series and we'll continue to be engaged with you. I know that our, uh, listening and watching community wants to figure out ways to connect and they can go to Restorative Farms, uh, online and see ways that they can contribute as well. And we will continue to communicate, uh, different ways people can interact with this. But, uh, making a contribution to solve this problem is, is part of the goal for all of us. So thank you for joining us.

Owen (32:10):

Thank you.I , I think connecting is the right word. Connecting with the large audience, connecting with each other, the connection that we have with our food and the connecting food to our environment. These things are all interconnected. And so I appreciate being able to connect to you.

George (32:23):

Thank you.

Owen (32:24):

Thank You.