In the second part of our conversation, we delve into the realities of localizing our food systems.
Guests:
Trevor Vaughn
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-vaughn-2165a661/
Hunter Buffington
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunter-buffington-co/
Hosts:
Alejandro Juárez Crawford
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/alejandro-juarez-crawford
Miriam Plavin-Masterman
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/miriam-plavin-masterman
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Episode Introduction
Hunter Buffington and Trevor Vaughn discuss the economic implications of sustainable practices and how innovative approaches can reshape agriculture. They share inspiring stories of communities embracing local solutions, emphasizing the importance of reconnecting with the land and creating resilient food systems.
As mentioned in the first part, our guests have renamed their startup to Hiphi, reflecting their mission to expand beyond the High Plains- utilizing nature’s golden ratios to globally rebalance ecosystems. Their website is forthcoming, but you can find them at Hiphi.earth.
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Resources
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For more podcast stories from What If Instead? Podcast with Alejandro Juárez Crawford and Miriam Plavin-Masterman, visit: https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/alejandro-juarez-crawford and https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/miriam-plavin-masterman
A System Where Local Is the Norm – and We Pay What It Really Costs To Drive Something Hundreds of Miles | A conversation with Trevor Vaughn and Hunter Buffington | What If Instead? Podcast with Alejandro Juárez Crawford and Miriam Plavin-Masterman
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (00:01)
Welcome to part two of our double episode with Hunter Buffington and Trevor Vaughn. If you haven't heard part one, don't miss their discussion of what's distorting our agricultural system. In the episode, the echo chamber makes us stagnant. Now in part two, where local is the norm, we explore what it would take to bring sanity back to our food system and create sustainable, resilient communities along.
Let's pick up where we left off.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (00:32)
So you started our conversation with how you're connecting these voices. Will you tell this story? I'm a farmer now, right? And how do the incentives change so it becomes possible for me to find local customers, to grow what I want to grow, to not have my crops defoliated by agent orangist cousins?
to be able to feed my family, to be able to take care of the land, to be able to handle manure properly. How does this look? Tell us a story, both of you, would you? How does it work?
Hunter Buffington (01:10)
Yeah. And Trevor, I'm go to turn this back to you about the decisions your f about their land right no
Most of the farmers that I work with, shockingly, are regenerative agriculture enthusiasts. They're really practicing this already. At the same time, I have a lot of farmers that come to me and they say, well, I want to do this. What is the cost? Right? How long is it going to take? What are the risks that I'm taking? Remember, I said farmers are not risk averse, they wouldn't be farmers. And it usually takes three years. The problem, and this is why I have such job security, is that the federal government does things like says, claim it smart.
grants. We're going to pay millions of dollars, right? We're going to emphasize disenfranchised BIPOC participation, right? The regulators say, okay, great. How do we sell carbon credits? We're going to measure carbon in the soil and we're going to then use that to tell the farmers how much it's worth. Okay, so there's those, we'll just break it into those three camps. Problem is the federal government's not a farmer, right?
So they say, we need you to start with the baseline and then show that you've added and you've made permanent these credits. Okay, so that's nice. And then the regulators say, okay, well, it's our job to enforce those measurements. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna measure organic carbon in the soil with a 24 inch core soil sample. I don't know about Texas, but it's almost impossible to get a 24 inch core soil sample in Colorado.
And the comet system, this is not anything that your listeners need to know, just that it's a software system designed by the USDA to incorporate this data, doesn't have hemp as a crop option. Hemp can't be the only one. Right. OK. So then the other thing they say is, do your farmers have a baseline? My regenerative practitioners have been doing this for decades. Right. So they go, well, no. And so USDA says, well,
you have to stop regenerative farming for three years to set a baseline. And then you can actually play in the carbon market. Now, I wish I really wish I was. And the worst part is that the regulators in the middle, they know, right? And the legislators at the top, who's talking to them? The people who won those climate smart grants are the big guys, BASF, right? The big guys.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (03:25)
You've got to be kidding me.
Trevor Vaughn (03:43)
Mar -Gil.
Hunter Buffington (03:44)
Cargill. And even in some of those proposals, they acknowledge that they were going to pass the costs on to their customers even after they won this grant. So there's a huge problem in that paradigm shift.
And then you have the farmers like Trevor's family who are thinking about that seven generations forward, seven generations back, they're managing the farm, but now they're having to make decisions. And with this kind of just kind of lock on opening these margins, it's incredibly challenging. So Trevor, and I think Trevor, some of the conversations you've had with me about what are some of the other ways we can keep this land in the family and keep it farming is intriguing.
Trevor Vaughn (04:26)
Yeah. Yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (04:27)
Yeah, we gotta hear that from you now, Trevor. Just for a moment though, it's crazy listening to what you just said, Hunter, because Mim and I are publishing a book next summer called One Size Fits None. And it's all about what we're calling unresponsive systems. We've never mentioned the book on this podcast, but as I listen to you, I have this strange emotion that you and I talk about, Mim, or part of me is the writer who's like, my gosh.
Trevor Vaughn (04:31)
Yeah, hap - yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (04:57)
This is such a great case study for the book. We're right. And then the other part of me is like, my goodness. I really, really don't, yeah.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (05:04)
It's so much worse than we thought.
Trevor Vaughn (05:10)
So, you know, I'll make it clear, you know, my mom and my aunt inherited this land from my grandfather DeVerell. DeVerell inherited this land from his father and mother and from there it starts with Monroe Brown Sawyer. And .B. Sawyer was a Texas ranger. He was a rancher and he became a
prolific grower. He had 13 kids and 13 ,000 acres. And he was able to buy this land for a dollar an acre. He bought this land for a dollar an acre because the United States was dead set on getting it sold because it was the last pacified place in the United States. My Monroe Brown Sawyer was a Texas Ranger that drove out
the last band of the Comanches, the most remote band of the Comanches, the Qualheats, I believe was the name pronounced. And that band getting to Oklahoma opened up this area. And so I've been listening to Sacred Economics recently on Audible and that some people view land ownership as a crime. And it -
And you can really go back to crimes in terms of like, look at a great fortune and behind it is a great crime. And I forgot who said that, but it is not me. So here we are, fast forward to today, land rich, money poor, absentee landowners. My mom and my aunt, they don't know how to farm. DeVille, he didn't farm.
He would play the game. He was a football coach. You know what I mean? He would invest a quarter into the seeds. He would invest a quarter into the cost of the inputs, whether fertilizer, you know, herbicides, pestles, whatever. And he'd get a quarter of what it made. And he played the game. You know, my mom and my aunt didn't want to play the game. Money, it's not worth playing the game anymore because the game's gotten so bad. You know, they are making a 3 % ROI off of this money by doing a cash lease to these farmers.
It's not enough. And so now my mom is having health issues. And so last month in May, my mom and my aunt sold 400 acres of this legacy land. And you get back to the question of who are we serving? I have been passionately going about trying to find ways to serve the farmer, to disrupt this industry in order to serve the microbiome. And I forgot to serve my family.
more. You know what I mean? Like this is a two thing. A lot of these farmers that farm these thousands of acres, they might have 640 acres of old family land that they still farm, but a majority of the land that they farm is not theirs. It's somebody that lives in Dallas. And so, you know, what do I envision? There is a 334 acre site is one of the plots.
that my mom is open to me buying off of her, getting people involved to do regenerative ag that really care about proving a new model. She's open to bringing that in if she's able to sell it for board better than what she's asking for. And I want to do that for her because what I envision is that, you know, John Kempf of Advancing Eco Agriculture, you know, is, and a lot of these,
small farmers that he's interviewed and stuff are proving out that you can make more on two acres of land that could be your backyard and your front yard. You can make more on that than farming a thousand acres of cotton conventionally. And so that that's a hundred X disruption. And so in order to create to go to the old model that has failed us, that has driven.
farmers to death and to death is the go big or go home model. That's the old butts, Earl Butts, what was his name? Is that right? I'm getting that right, Hunter. The old, something like that, the old model of go big or go home. And there is a new model emerging here based off of old techniques and good old fashioned manure composting and other new breakthrough, you know, technologies that are kind of simple stuff like the paper plot pot planter, where all of a sudden you can plant.
Hunter Buffington (09:41)
I think it is, yeah, I'll look it up.
Trevor Vaughn (10:02)
you know, 200 head of lettuce in an hour and a half or two hours. So the profitability of these small farmers is on a whole other scale. So for me, I want to look and say, what is this small but mighty, this resilient and profitable market gardening community look like? And could it exist as a living model in the mouth of the lion of Monsanto?
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (10:29)
Yeah.
Yeah, what does it look like? That's where I want to get to. In the most, it's you're there. You've purchased that land from your mom and you're doing it. I have to say that the two of you have made these issues real in a way that I deeply appreciate. Going back seven generations isn't just a line when you talk about the Comanche, right?
Trevor Vaughn (10:32)
and so yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (11:01)
You know Trevor my grandfather grew up in El Paso and always said we were Yaki, right? And so I I feel that not as something in the history books But you made me feel it like a reality and then you're also taking us in this reality of thinking forward what you talked about Hunter is what would it mean to create that system where the economics made sense for the farmer and
and it makes sense for not having to drive things thousands of miles. And what you said, Trevor, about doing it small, but actually being able to feed your family while nurturing the earth. Can you break down for us in the smallest little story how this could look if we could make this, turn this world right side up?
Hunter Buffington (11:46)
Trevor, do you want me to start? I mean, I have an actual example. So, and I am often quiet about my own indigenous background because it's not something that I want to be at the forefront of the conversations when we're having, you know, when we're trying to broaden it. But it's been an incredible experience to reconnect with.
bands in smaller groups and then larger nations that are trying to understand how to harvest the potential of carbon, right? The potential of these systems, the opportunities for rural economic development. That's real on a lot of these tribal lands that are very isolated and generally not nice, right? They're moved from really nice farming lands to less...
well producing areas, right? But one of the amazing successes that really makes a circularity argument that is real is that in a reservation area, so we'll say 300 square miles, okay, just for.
for comparison sake. You have folks that are invested in the agriculture system who are planting and harvesting crops, right? From that planting and harvesting crops, then you are trying to address the food desert situation which exists in many of these tribal areas. So that's the first thing is that we need to make sure that they have their own water rights. You guys, it's crazy how much water flows right past them that they can't actually access.
So the first thing is to make sure that not only do they have the land, which, and I'm gonna say something that maybe is controversial enough that it warrants its own conversation, but if we actually looked at the amount of stored carbon that's on tribal lands, it is a game changer for the nations. Massive opportunity there. But then if we say out of this 300 square miles, we take 30 miles, right? 30 square miles, and we turn that into agriculture land.
Then we develop or we get rid of the food desert. We also drive processing jobs. Then there's food jobs coming from...
storage, right, preparation of those foods. And then on top of that, you have the waste stream. So we start to look at what can come off of this waste stream. And you have things that should go right back into biochar production. So that helps the land. It's another carbon storage area, prevents things from going to the landfill. You can also begin to silage material for livestock production, right? Again, inserting the manure into the system, right? And then meat or animal byproducts for that.
tribal community, milk is very common, goats, right? Then on top of that, you say, okay, what are the crops that we're producing? If we're going to do something that is like cotton or hemp that has downstream product opportunities, then you just created an opportunity for at least raw ingredient manufacturing that can happen in one or two facilities in that 300 square miles. So then the farmers, the produce, right, is going that hundred miles, but then
it goes right back to the stores, the manufacturing for that material. One fantastic example that I have is a tribal group that has been growing hemp and they also do decortication right there on tribal lands. What they discovered was that it...
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (15:27)
Can you tell everyone what that is?
Hunter Buffington (15:30)
Yeah, and I'm trying to look up the band name, but they historically are rug makers. So they were very interested in hemp as a fiber. So that's what their motivation was. Then they discovered that there was also other opportunities for green production in that system. So they grow for green and fiber. Then they would take in that fiber, process it towards the rug making skills that they needed.
And then they began to capture all the dust that comes off the decortication machine. So they'd already started to develop this economy with the food supply and with the manufacturing. And then they took this waste dust and they realized that they could use it to injection mold plastics right there.
to then make the traditional weaving tools that they need out of what is a bio plastic. So they could remove plastic from their system, which was incredibly culturally relevant for them, right? Like making everything internally was also made right there on the tribal lands. And so it helps to show kind of a completion of that circular system that also then embraces and commoditizes culture.
It's unfortunate that I have to even say those words, but we're in a world now where if we don't commoditize culture, it literally has no value.
And it just makes my skin crawl that I'm saying this because one of the things that a paradigm change needs to happen, we don't pay farmers, we don't pay teachers. They're the foundation of our world. And so the value proposition is incredibly important. And that's what we're trying to really show. And they were able to make that happen all the way through. That's why it's one of my favorite examples.
because it was outside of the box. I mean, I'll share with you, a lot of folks are still trying to figure out at the big corporate production level, how to make 3D filament, right? And injection molded plastics from hemp. And this band was able to do it right there with their own.
materials, right? It wasn't that difficult. So in my opinion, that's what happens when we really deploy seven generations forward and seven generations back. You learn from what you knew before. And if nobody told you you couldn't do it, right? Why would you not be able to? And then serving by maintaining, you know, kind of that new plastic idea of those tools into what is a very traditional.
culturally relevant and important to them material that they can then sell and commoditize to folks that want a piece of that or want to stop buying and get a memento, right, as they're on their road trip that summer. I don't care. For me, if we're sharing culture and we're creating a value proposition because we want to know where it came from, that's wonderful. I think that's how we get there.
Trevor Vaughn (18:41)
That was so beautiful. That was so beautifully said. Thank you.
Hunter Buffington (18:45)
And I'll share a link. I just, I want to check with them and make sure that it's okay for me to do that before I go public with it. So it's a great story, but out of respect, I want to make sure that they know and it's their story to tell. So it's appropriate for me to make sure that they're connected and ready to do that.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (19:06)
You'll be able to find that link listeners below the pod.
This is a great moment here because between Marion Plavin -Masterman and Trevor Vaughan, it's the first time I've ever heard all three of us just quiet for a moment in a conversation.
If nobody tells you, you couldn't do it, you said Hunter. Trevor, can we go back to you and this may end up being a double episode, but we can't stop here. Trevor, what does the story look like for you on your few hundred acres? We just heard this incredible story from Hunter. If nobody tells you you can't do it, what will you do?
Trevor Vaughn (19:53)
Yeah, I mean, I see like, tell you what I the the hope of like what it would in my mind kind of look look like or be like is that, you know, where people live, there are vibrant, beautiful gardens, and there are vibrant, beautiful orchards. And there are a
incredibly biodiverse mix of annuals and perennials of native species and of high value land race developed fruits and vegetables and seeds and grains and that those Processing, you know that local market I I I rode my bike to it and I was able to put my
10 pounds of tomatoes right there in their hands. And it took me four minutes to bike there. That for me is the idea of real food sovereignty and resilience. This thing of like, we have no need to sell 100 miles. That's a long way. We're making good money right here at the local market. I don't have to...
drive to go get food. My food is in my backyard and also some of the best food in the region is right here. I can walk to it.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (21:30)
Trevor, is that a possible world? I think a lot about... Yeah, tell us. How does... We're so far from it right now. Show us how it's possible.
Trevor Vaughn (21:34)
I do. I mean, I mean, I, yeah. Yeah, I mean, for me, so we'll get to kind of a materials potential for our land. You know, where we're at is where a majority of the Portland cement, the caliche, the calcium bicarbonate, that is one of the main ingredients for Portland cement is sourced.
This area is very rich. It's the subsoil, it's nature, cement. Good luck trying to get through it. But what you can do is you can take that material and you can make roads with it. You can make compressed earth building blocks with it. You can add biochar and hemp. I have photos of this from my friend Steve Groon that you can do that. I believe the lower Sioux.
are starting to work with compressed earth blocks and hemp Crete and and Proving these potentials, but for me, it's like hey, we got this caliche. Let's make Hemp caliche earth blocks. Let's not turn this into Portland cement which contributes to 78 % of global greenhouse gas emissions You know, let's make rainwater harvesting orchard walls that have thermal mass that create shade that we are able to build as beautiful demonstrations and and
create these beautiful truffle inoculated nut trees on and stuff like that and be like, hey, this farmer's making a good amount of money. I mean, off the truffles alone. What does it?
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (23:15)
That makes it sound more like a possible world, just people are making good money.
Trevor Vaughn (23:17)
Yeah, people are like, well, I mean, they still have guns in this part of Texas, but it's really just to defend the truffle orchards. For me, that you've got the ability to build farms, walls, homes with compressed earth block, caliche natural building systems. If there's solar panels sitting out there, gathering energy, guess what? Put a caliche gutter under it, and now you've got rainwater harvesting.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (23:24)
Hehehehe
Trevor Vaughn (23:47)
on a massive scale. That thing's coming off of a very awesome surface to collect rainwater. Also, we need to filter that rainwater to get the PFOS and to get the Dicamba and to get the herbicides out of it. Well, what do you do? Well, you have Biochar that you can use as a perfect natural filtration system for clean water.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (24:06)
Trevor for people who don't know, you've already talked about dicamba, that's the Agent Orange cousin. PFAS, forever chemicals, break it down and can you talk us through all those terms you just used, biochar, give us a quickie on it.
Trevor Vaughn (24:19)
Yeah, absolutely. So the biochar is coming from the paralysis of the waste systems that are being grown, the cotton stalks or the corn stovers, you know, and that is being, you know, processed, you know, right there locally along with next to your, your, your cotton gin. That's also able to have a little mushroom growing facility. That's just a
Hunter Buffington (24:40)
And you could power your cotton gin off the heat from the pyrolysis. I wanted to add that. Keep going. Keep going, Trevor. Keep going.
Trevor Vaughn (24:44)
That's right. Yep. Yep. You're powering it from the organic Rankine cycle that is going from that heat source. You have an invasive species of mesquite. Well, guess what? That mesquite has the same BTUs as coal. That's a lot of heat. That's a lot of power. So the problem is the solution. We talk about what are the obstacles here. I've got Ganesh right up by my door. And I, you know, I.
See Ganesha on my way. The presenter is also the removal of the obstacle. The problem in permaculture, as Bill Mollison says, the problem is the solution. So let's stop fighting this and let's really go into the solution space. So those locally sourced ancient raw materials are now able to be repurposed.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (25:19)
Mmm.
Trevor Vaughn (25:42)
in our 2 .0 brains of how to make these systems better and work again. The Chinese were famous for putting outhouses along their Silk Road because they were like, please, shit here. Look at this is a beautiful, look how beautiful this outhouse is. Shit here. We need your shit. We want it.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (26:01)
And you know, this is no crazier than a week back a few days ago at the Tesla 2024 shareholder meeting. We heard about an automaton that's your companion and can be at your house babysitting and teaching your kids. If that's a world that's being imagined right now, why not the one that you are?
What if instead this?
Trevor Vaughn (26:36)
What if daycare was young kids going out into vineyards and gathering blackberries with their mama and a crew of mamas and brothers, and what if those mamas got paid for that? Or how about this? How about childcare service was just free in this country? How about that? How about we live with our families? Yeah. Yeah, so I...
Hunter Buffington (26:57)
Where do we live with our family, right? Yeah.
Trevor Vaughn (27:05)
For me, I think there's, you know, 200 years ago in Texas was this very unique time. It was the dawning of the age of the impresario, which is a fancy word for entrepreneur.
The Spanish didn't know how to reign in Texas. They didn't have the name for Texas then. They didn't know what to do with it.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (27:28)
Trevor, we gotta do workshops in the impresarios mindset. There's all this entrepreneur, we gotta go full board.
Trevor Vaughn (27:32)
Yeah, yeah. No, and so I feel like, you know, we're at time is a flat circle here, y 'all. We're running a circular systems. You know, why not re -engage a new age of empresarioship? And I want to drive this home. Texas is the number one state in the nation for losing farmland. We're losing it faster than anybody else to urban sprawl, to development. You know, in the country, there are many crises where...
we're in the polycrisis here, but one of the main ones is we don't have enough housing. And the other one is, you know, for farmers and the new farmers trying to get into this is access to land. So what if we solve two birds, one stone? What if we were able to build beautiful L E E D platinum homes and communities that were based off of
You know, we aren't going to lose this land to urban sprawl. We're going to get more small farmers out to this land because they are the keystone species to heal the broken microbiome of what we've done during this green revolution. So, you know, we, so that's my hope and prayer. You know, let's prove that model everywhere. but in, in West Texas, where we have land in the mouth of, of the lion of Monsanto, there are still unique pot potentials.
Hunter Buffington (28:42)
Yes.
Trevor Vaughn (28:56)
to show them something they've never seen before and to give them something to talk about. And also to be like, I want to live there. So the age of extraction hopefully is dead and dying, but the age of attraction, let's get back to that. And I don't think we can create that new world with all of those bells and whistles of the circular system without
Hunter Buffington (29:17)
Yes.
Trevor Vaughn (29:26)
A lot of creatives, a lot of people that really are coming from a heart centered place and not an extractive consumption place. And we need to do that by getting back onto the land and also, you know, having our families be our neighbors again and getting to have diverse areas. I would like those people that are running those 10 pounds of tomatoes on their bike, you know, four minute bike ride down to the shop. I want that.
that to be a really diverse set of kids and moms. I want that to be Mescalero Apache kids and moms and the Quahee Comanches. I want that to be black folks from the Houston area that have been, like I want, or migrants from Ghana, from Mexico, from Venezuela. We have a migrant crisis here and we have a labor shortage here as well. What's going on? You know, like what?
Why? You know, honestly, we need, I live in Brooklyn. I live in the city. I see kids with, I see small children selling candy and Skittles and bad processed sugar on the subway every day with their moms. And it's like, we, these are the people that like, they created corn. These people, they created the tomato.
Hunter Buffington (30:25)
Connect dots, right? Just connect dots.
Trevor Vaughn (30:55)
You know, it's like...
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (30:56)
Talk about the entrepreneurial mindset. I mean, if you've walked from Guadalupe to the
You got more grit than anybody I know. That's what everything is built on.
Trevor Vaughn (31:07)
Yeah. And you came from a broken farming system, you know, to get here and you're a climate refugee. How can we, you know, instead of having stiff upper lip, you know, shitty homeowners associations, what if we had farm owners associations that were a part of really creating this new model? I just, I'm sick of St. Augustine grass. You know, I don't want to see it anymore. I want to see prickly pear. I want to see
Blackberries, I want to see you know lettuce and tomatoes, you know, and I want to see happy healthy, you know kids and moms and communities picking those things. I mean America people, you know, John Vaughan 10th Vaughan ago Welshman swam out into the harbor from Wales and was either gonna drown or they picked him up, you know, and thank God they picked him up and so
Hunter Buffington (31:44)
communities. Let's get back to the community. Yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (32:03)
That's it.
Trevor Vaughn (32:04)
There were big reasons for people to leave where they came from to come to this land. And it was the land that brought them here. They heard about thick prairie land, you know, and it was the buffalo and the Native Americans that were doing controlled burns every seven years. We just discovered these things. We knew like that we can bio -mimic this stuff. These solutions are here and they're being proven. So anyhow, yeah.
Where do we go next? Where do we go next?
Hunter Buffington (32:34)
I just want to say the thing that you said that you ended with is so poignant for me. And when I was filling out the questionnaire, you know, I came at this just a couple of days ago.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (32:36)
Yeah.
Hunter Buffington (32:48)
before and I didn't have a lot of time to do research and I was like, my goodness, this is such an amazing topic. Like how do I whittle it down to one thing? But Trevor, you just said it. And that is that I really believe the solutions are already here. And I also believe that humans are in a place to not just be the problem, but to be the solution, to utilize this information. And I honestly think that we forgot.
how to utilize each other's knowledge, how to appreciate information or skill set. I'm not a farmer. I'm just gonna throw it out there. I was gonna show you my plant, but it's not right. I just know that I'm very dependent on other people to grow things. That's not my skill set. And that's true for all of you out there. And if anybody wants to...
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (33:29)
Hahaha!
Yeah.
Trevor Vaughn (33:36)
God bless the green thumbs. God bless the green thumbs.
Hunter Buffington (33:44)
help my plans, I'll take it. But the point that I'm trying to make is, and I mentioned this before in our value chain, like our system is really broken in what we put the most emphasis in the economic value. Teachers are getting paid the least, right? And yet they're responsible for an entire generation. When we think about healthcare, which in the United States, that's a whole other podcast, right? Because it's not really about healthcare, but...
We are putting our nurses and our other health care providers in an impossible situation. They don't have time to actually get to know their patients or to give them wellness care, right? And what we do is we are continuing to prioritize the symptoms. We don't sit next to strangers and have conversations anymore. We don't share food from other cultures in a way that's meaningful.
And just that idea of isolating ourselves and only talking to people that think exactly like us, in my opinion, is why we've become stagnant. It's why we've allowed these systems to take over our world because that's all we know and that's what our neighbor knows. And so that's what we talk about. And most people, Trevor, have never been anywhere where there is even a subway if they're farmers. I'm just going to put that out there. So bringing together.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (34:40)
Thank you.
Wait, then what do they take to get downtown? No, that's just...
Hunter Buffington (35:11)
that they're, well, I mean, they're trunks, right? They're very large trunks. Yeah.
Trevor Vaughn (35:14)
They're big old, they're big old drugs.
Hunter Buffington (35:18)
Yeah. And mind you, I grew up pushing cows in Wyoming, so I appreciate a good big truck. Let me just tell you. But that there's a huge disconnection between a rural experience and an urban experience. And what Trevor's talking about is an opportunity to bring that together, to really understand how sharing resources, skill sets can change the value proposition. No more is it going to be, you know, I don't, I can't afford for someone else to watch my children.
Instead, it's going to be, I give a day of my time to watch everyone's children. And then it's a collective bargaining chip. And that four mile bike ride, right? Think of all of the mental and health benefits that come from being on your bicycle, just changing how we experience the world and how we experience each other. I think.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (36:09)
Wait, so it's not healthy to cut that lawn that Trevor was talking about on a riding mower? Because I thought, you know, sometimes it's like the size of the gut correlates with the size of the lawn. I mean, that's not good for you.
Hunter Buffington (36:20)
there's so many things that I could unpack there and make clips about, but I will say at least there's electric lawnmowers. And the only thing that makes that okay is if people plug them in during the day. So can I just make a shameless observation? Is that okay with you guys? So electric cars, I'm sure that you would probably think that I would be a huge fan of electric cars, right? That would be the assumption. However,
Trevor Vaughn (36:22)
Yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (36:39)
Shamelessness is in, yeah.
Hunter Buffington (36:47)
Everybody plugs them in when? When do people plug in their electric cars? Overnight. So guess what they're doing. They're literally using the coal power plant down the street. And no one told them. I'm quite confident that if you went to the people who made an investment in electric car and you told them that if they're plugging it in at night, they're literally supporting the coal industry, they would probably change when they plug it in.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (36:51)
overnight.
Mr. Bovington, Trevor Vaughan, speak a truth here as we bring this to a close. Or tell us a lie, either way.
Trevor Vaughn (37:27)
Yeah. You know, we were talking about, we were playing in the mic check time with lyrics and stuff. And, you know, in the end, the love you get is the love you give. And we have not, we've given a lot of love to our phones these days. And you're right, Hunter, we don't have conversations with strangers anymore. We don't open the possibility for a stranger to change our lives in a way to have a, you know,
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (37:30)
but lie well. Yeah.
Trevor Vaughn (37:56)
to walk a mile in their shoes, to break bread with them, to value.
to value what they're saying, even if what they're saying is something you really disagree with or something that you've never, that you are opposed to. I just, yeah, there have been a lot of beautiful kernels that have come out of this, what if instead. And so Stanislavski was great Russian theater master. When I read his book, when I was a young artist, I...
The beauty of it was that it all starts with the magic what if. And that's I think what drew Hunter in to jump on this podcast with me in such short notice was I desperately need to spend time with people that can really go into this magical framework and to help further manifest this change we want to be.
Hunter Buffington (39:01)
Amen. And again, if no one tells you, you can't.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (39:05)
Yes, we can. We can. I had people from places that I didn't even know about making a meal from each of their cultures here in the woods, New York state, just in April. And you know how you knew we were breaking bread together? Because we started making fun of each other. And you know, my good friend Tomas Mora wanted to make tortilla española. And then...
who's on an episode of this podcast, gave him such a hard time about eggs being for breakfast that he ended up switching dishes. And you might think, no, that was a total disrespect to his culture, but what's better than tortillae espagnola? But in fact, we were getting down, we were learning to laugh with each other because we'd broken bread together. I wanna say Hunter Bovington and Trevor Vaughan that...
You too broke my heart today, but you also stirred it with a sense of what's possible, which still belongs to us. Thank you so much.
Hunter Buffington (40:16)
Thanks for letting us have this conversation and taking us in directions that surprised me and also gave me some hope. Like, if these are the conversations that we're willing to have, then I still think we can change the world. We just have to figure out how to bring everybody with us. So, thanks.