In this episode of Return to Nature, Melissa interviews Will Harris, the owner of White Oak Pastures, a holistically managed regenerative ranch and farm in Bluffton, Georgia.

Will is a fourth-generation cattleman, who tends the same land that his great-grandfather settled in 1866. Born and raised at White Oak Pastures, Will left home to attend the University of Georgia's School of Agriculture, where he was trained in the industrial farming methods that had taken hold after World War II. Will graduated in 1976 and returned to Bluffton, where he and his father continued to raise cattle using pesticides, herbicides, hormones, and antibiotics. They also fed their herd a high-carbohydrate diet of corn and soy.

These tools did a fantastic job of taking the cost out of the system, but in the mid-1990s, Will became disenchanted with the excesses of these industrialized methods. In 1995, Will made the audacious decision to return to the farming methods his great-grandfather had used 130 years before. Since Will has successfully implemented these changes, he has been recognized all over the world as a leader in humane animal husbandry and environmental sustainability.

Will is the immediate past President of the Board of Directors of Georgia Organics. He is the Beef Director of the American Grassfed Association and was selected 2011 Business Person of the year for Georgia by the Small Business Administration. He is also the author of A Bold Return to Giving A Damn, a memoir-meets-manifesto on betting the farm on a better future for our food, animals, land, local communities and our planet.

Will Shares:

• How his great grandfather and grandfather ran the farm and how his father transitioned to industrial practices
• How he was raised and educated to believe that there was nothing wrong with industrial farming practices
• His observation of the quality of his farm’s dirt versus the untouched soil in the woods
• The reason his daughters have chosen to come back to the farm and work at White Oak Pastures
• The unintended consequences of industrial agriculture and taking cost out of production
• How transferring from industrial to regenerative is a long term process
• The importance of allowing animals to express their instinctive behaviors
• The resiliency of regenerative agriculture versus the efficiency of industrial agriculture
• How label regulations can affect farmer’s profitability
• The pandemic’s role in their creation of White Oak Pasture’s new distribution avenue: online orders
• The right amount of growth for a regenerative farming operation to make sure short term profitability is not the main focus, but rather generational profitability
• White Oak Pasture’s non-profit, which helps educate people on their regenerative practices
• How the government could be instrumental in making a national shift to regenerative agriculture
• Why the shift to regenerative will most likely happen outside of the existing industrial model

You can connect with Will through White Oak Pastures:

Website: www.whiteoakpastures.com

Instagram: @whiteoakpastures

Facebook: @whiteoakpastures

Intro/Outro music by Ken Belcher

Sound Mixing by Andrew Pals

In this episode of Return to Nature, Melissa interviews Cole Mannix, the president and co-founder of Old Salt Co-op. As fifth generation of the Mannix family, his love for people, ranching, and land stewardship is deep rooted in Montana. Though his schooling and professional life have taken him many places beyond the ranch, his heart remains devoted to the cause of bringing people together around a love for life and all of its beautiful diversity.

He founded the Old Salt Festival, a food & music celebration of Montana land stewardship hosted on the Mannix Family Ranch in Helmville, MT, bringing together wood-fired cooking, Americana musicians, Montana ranchers, and Western makers to celebrate in high Montana style.

Cole Shares:

• The deep history the Mannix Family shares with their Ranch in Helmville, Montana
• How his time away from the ranch got him interested in the distribution side of the operation
• How the Salt of the Earth Rancher’s Cooperative was started and why it evolved
• The problem with food labels
• The issues with policy change when it comes to agriculture
• How the Old Salt Co-op came to be
• The necessity of making an entirely new system versus just trying to change production of meat
• The importance of broadening our idea of success and wealth
• Why and how producers should have ownership in distribution avenues
• The fallacy of failure when it comes to regenerative ranching and truly healing the soil
• Having an organic mindset even when you have to rely on conventional methods
• How familiarity with the process can build trust for a product
• How labels and certifications can be true but not meaningful

You can connect with Cole through Old Salt:

Website: www.oldsaltco-op.com

Instagram: @oldsaltcoop

Instagram: @oldsaltfestival

Intro/Outro music by Ken Belcher

In this episode of Return to Nature, Melissa interviews eco fashion designer and filmmaker Jeff Garner. He and his sustainable label Prophetik are on a path of transformation, leading the evolution of fashion and changing our perception of luxury by creating sustainable, plant-based fashion.

Born in the Civil War town of Franklin, Tennessee, and raised on a horse farm, Garner grew with a connectedness to nature and a peaceful understanding of the world. His ultimate vision is to bring awareness to the toxins found in commercial synthetic fashion and the health implications to the human body to allow everyone the power of choice.

His documentary, Let Them Be Naked, exposes the hidden dangers of toxic chemicals found in everyday clothing and reveals the devastating health impacts of these unregulated substances, shedding light on their role in chronic diseases such as cancer. The film advocates for a radical reimagining of garment production, highlighting how the choices we make as consumers affect both our health and the planet.

Jeff Shares:

• How he got his start in fashion dressing his musician friends for their bands
• The importance of practical education through learning on the job
• The dichotomy of growing up wearing handmade clothing with natural materials versus the synthetic materials he had to work with in his early career interning for mainstream fashion brands
• How natural fibers used to be the norm and his mission to convert us back to that so price points go down
• How synthetic fibers are made to look and feel like natural fibers
• The factors playing in to why more people aren’t buying natural, from economic to educational
• The policy change necessary to regulate the fashion industry and make materials more transparent
• The lack of accountability for fashion conglomerates versus small designers actually creating their clothing
• How fashion conglomerates can start phasing in non-toxic, natural clothing without sacrificing the rest of their inventory
• The hidden products used on what would otherwise be organic clothing
• How the end clothing products need to be tested before reaching consumers
• A participatory model of fashion where people buy undyed clothing and dye it naturally, throughout the years changing its color to reinvigorate it
• The best way to get rid of plastic-based clothing
• The component of consumer education that is needed to bridge the gap between what is seen as a quality product versus natural
• The issues with certifications supposedly regulating materials and manufacturing processes

You can connect with Jeff through Prophetik and Let Them Be Naked:

Website: www.prophetik.com

Website: www.letthembenaked.com

Instagram: @prophetik

Instagram: @letthembenaked

Facebook: @prophetik

Sound Mix by Andrew Pals

Intro/Outro by Ken Belcher