A Candid Conversation About Farming.

In this interview with my brother-in-law Sean and his wife Elisa, we talk about my decision to become a farmer.

GUESTS: Sean and Elisa

Podcast Page: www.farm365podcast.libsyn.com
Facebook: facebook.com/groups/Farm365podcast
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT by Lauren
Thanks to my lovely wife for transcribing this episode.

INTRO MUSIC

Diego (Host): Hello and welcome to the very first episode of the Farm365 podcast! A podcast about what it’s really like to start your own small family farm and grow your business one day at a time, like we’re doing, and it’s crazy! But we are very excited to bring you the podcast and even more excited that you’re here listening. I hope to be able share our journey with those considering a career in farming and also be a reliable source of encouragement and support for beginning and established farmers. With that said - I’m your host Diego and this is episode 1 of The Farm365 Podcast.

Diego: As of today, I have been farming for a little over 7 months, and before that I had zero experience in farming. I did not come from a farming background whatsoever. I was sitting behind a desk, nowhere near any dirt or mud. I was receiving a steady salary with full health benefits, a pension plan for when I retired, I didn’t have to watch for the weather, I didn’t have to wake up at 5AM, or carry a flashlight at night, and I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this or not, but do know how uncomfortable it is to tell your family you’re going to leave your job, sell your house and move out of state to pursue a crazy dream? Well, just imagine if that dream is to become a farmer. In the beginning, it's all about convincing people that you're serious because they will not believe you at first, but then once they believe you, did you ever wonder what was really going through their head? Well, I did so I asked:

Sean: We were happy, like, great, family is moving -- you weren’t happy?

Elisa: No. But you go ahead.

Sean: I was happy. I mean, because you were moving close. It was all selfish happiness. So like, “Yes! They’re moving close! Even if it fails, who cares! They’ll be down here, you know?

Diego: You just heard a clip from a conversation I had with my brother in-law Sean and his wife Elisa when I asked them to share their thoughts about my decision to become a farmer. Sean was excited that the family was finally moving down south out of the northeast, and Elisa not so much Here is why.

Elisa: Well, my strategy was to remain as ignorant as I possibly could, and not ask any questions because I was fairly certain that any answer you could give would just make me more upset.

Sean: You wanted your blood pressure low?

Elisa: Yeah, I wanted to keep my blood pressure low, and continue to, you know, respect you as a human being. So I just -- I didn’t know any of the details. I just thought, “This is craziness.” You know, I liked the idea in the sense that you guys are young. If you want to do this, do it. What are you going to have to lose, you know? If you want to do it, give it a try. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out, and you’ll have learned from it and you’ll certainly have stories to tell and there’s no harm done.

Diego: So if completely changing my life to become a farmer wasn’t such a bad idea, in what aspect was it craziness? We’ll get feedback from Sean and Elisa on that, but first, let’s take a quick break to hear from our awesome sponsors.

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Diego: Now let’s get back to the conversation, and hear Sean and Elisa’s concerns about farming.

Elisa: It’s too hard for a small farmer to make any kind of living because of the large farm industry. That’s what I thought.

Sean: Yeah.

Elisa: And still do think. You’re in a position where you have to be able to produce a certain amount of income to pay for your needs that your family has, and if you can do that, that would be ideal.

Sean: Statistically speaking, it’s slim. It’s slim chance of success, just based on what we know, but at the same time I was excited. I was like, “You know, they’re living the dream.” It seems foolish, but God loves to do foolish things with sold out, faithful people, you know? And put “foolish” in quotations, of course.

Diego: And can I just add that I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to make this huge change… It was something that my wife Lauren and I have talked about for years, and all their concerns were questions that we asked ourselves. We even made a pros and cons char, which I’ll share on a later episode. Farming is pretty challenging, especially when you’re brand new at it, but the aspect of being a business owner, that is an entire different giant to face. And Lauren and I have been working very hard on the marketing side of our business and we’re glad that people are starting to take notice.

Elisa: I’ve been very impressed with the unity that you and Lauren have. Your marriage doesn’t seem to be the worse because of it, so that’s nice. But also your personal -- just your energy and your creativity and your -- just I’m like, “When does this dude have time to make videos and write blogs and take pictures and do, you know, do all of the stuff that you’re doing?” Which I think is a necessary part of the marketing aspect of the farming, which, you know, you can have the best product in the world, but unless anyone is going to buy it, then you might -- you know, it’s not going to happen.

Sean: Farming 2016. Yeah.

Elisa: Yeah. So I think it’s all been very good, but I’ve been very impressed with your just limitless just production of the visible side of what you’re doing, you know?

Diego: The answer is, my day consists of 24h hours just like everybody else's and there have been a lot of early mornings and late nights. It still doesn't feel like I’m doing enough. I often think about the life I got away from, the rat race, the 9-5, but it somehow still feels the same, except it’s happening on the inside. I’m starting to figure out that this is all part of owning your own business. And as a beginning farmer and entrepreneur, I am interested in learning more about what other folks are doing and the tools they are using to expand and grow their farms.

So our future episodes will focus on a wide variety of topics including marketing your farm in your local community. We will hear the advice and stories from established farmers on how they got started and continued to successfully grow their business.

Up next we're going to have scenes from our upcoming episode of the farm365 podcast.

Thank you for listening to this episode, and if you’ve enjoyed today’s podcast and would like to hear more episodes, please leave an honest feedback on iTunes and share it with others. This will greatly help the success of this podcast.

On the next episode of the Farm365 podcast, I decided to interview my old boss. Yes, the person that I had tot walk into his office and tell him that I was leaving the position to pursue my dream of becoming a farmer. This is the first time we spoke since I left, and this is what he had to say about my decision.

Preview of the next episode:

Dr. Salvatore: I thought you were nuts. I thought you were crazy. I said, “You know, what are you going to do? You’re going to eat chicken for the rest of your life? You’re going to sell chickens? I mean, what kind of lifestyle is that?” So I really thought you’d be back within a month saying, “Give me my job back.” That’s what I thought you were going to say.

This episode uses music and sounds from Freesound by user by juskiddink, Envato Marketplace and Dan-O at DanoSongs.com