- Funding for Working Capital is provided by the Friends of KTW, the Raven C and Marguerite Gibson Foundation.

And go Topeka.

Welcome to Working Capital.

Today we are out at a wonderful spot and I think you can hear the crowd behind me laughing, but we are at Good Shepherd Turkey Farm and we are here with Frank Reese and Frank Lifelong passion a little bit here.

So I can't wait to hear about this.

How long have you guys been raising turkeys here?

- I've been raising turkeys on this particular farm for 36 years here on this farm.

I've been raising them all my life, so I've been, you know, I'm fourth generation and so they've always been part of my life.

They've always been here - And farming is such a huge part of the state.

Speaking about fourth generation, that's fourth generations in Kansas farming, - Fourth generation Kansas farmer.

Yeah, we were farmers back east before that.

I mean, you know, if you go back five generations, we were either in Illinois or Ohio and even farther back were in Pennsylvania.

And so I've come from a long lineage of farmers - And like most Kansans to begin with.

You were farming cattle, you had the turkeys also, but what has led you to more focusing towards the turkeys and, and, and, and poultry?

- Well, when my dad and I were farmed together, then we had cattle and, and that type of thing.

When my dad died then, you know, I just, you know, and he lived to be 90 something and he helped me up until then.

But then we started getting rid of the cattle and everything and I just focused on the turkeys.

The turkeys have always been my main love and my main mission in life.

And so just 'cause I'm getting old and, and I'm trying to help some of the next generation learn how to do this.

So, so now I've basically just focusing on turkeys and that's become a really full-time job.

- So let's talk about the passion in that.

'cause there's a huge difference between the taste even of what you're doing here compared to, to what most of us used to now going to the store, getting big butterball turkeys, which cooks properly, that they're still great.

But there's something to say with the genetics and what you're trying to keep alive in the species.

So speak a little bit about what the mission here is.

- Okay.

My, my, my main mission is, is trying to save genetics and trying to save biodiversity, biodiversity and having different breeds, different varieties of actual animals is completely gone out of our industrial production today.

Turkey production today and poultry in general and in some of the other things we're even beginning to get there.

They've become one huge monoculture.

They're all the same genetic animal.

There's absolutely no difference.

So I'm trying to save genetic diversity, but my main love is trying to save these birds from going extinct.

There's very few of 'em left.

I mean, the amount of turkeys that I raise every year from market and working even with my other farmers, one industrial farm does in a coffee break, you know?

Yeah.

- So, yeah.

- But - But also with those industrial farms, like you say with the, the smaller genetics, as all of us have heard of bird flu and all these other, other viruses that can go through the populations of birds in these big industrialized farms that could sweep through and kill off a lot more than say, keeping the genetics diversified where maybe one breed is a little more, - Well there is some thought that, you know, they, I've worked with Virginia Tech and they have done some work on that very issue where they got turkeys from me and they got turkeys from the industry and actually did different lab tests to see what percentage of my turkeys survived when they deliberately gave them a disease.

And how many of the industrial turkeys.

And with the industrial turkeys, it was almost a hundred percent loss.

- Yeah.

- Where my turkeys maybe 50% survived.

Some of the diseases they exposed them to 80% survived.

So there is some truth in that They were testing the, the immune system and how quickly the, the body responded to that particular outbreak of whatever it is now, my turkeys can get bird flu.

- Yeah, yeah.

You - Know?

Yeah.

But the difference we have today from the past, there's always been diseases.

Bird flu has been around since the time of the dinosaurs, but it is mutated now partially because of confinement farming.

But the, the thing in the past, if there was an outbreak, it was local.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Now because of our farming system, which has become international and one genetic and one company and everything is trucked or flown or shipped around the world, not only were we shipping the products, but we're also shipping disease.

Yeah.

So in the old days when you to buy your Turkey, it was locally grown located.

And if there was a disease outbreak, it maybe only affected four or five counties or a particular region.

Now, because of the system and because we transport everything, the, the little turkeys may be hatched in Nebraska, but they're shipped to Minnesota or they BB hatched in California and sent to Pennsylvania.

They're also shipping whatever issues is out there.

The, the truckers carrying it's on the tires.

It's, it's, it's on everything.

- So with more of industrialization, 'cause we've seen in the past couple decades big companies coming in, buying up small farms and making in, in a lot of states, huge farming operations.

Is there a place, even in Kansas, I don't wanna give you too much competition, but around the nation for Turkey farmers, for poultry farmers on smaller scales to fill in also just, just to keep genetics alive, but in case something decimate the food stocks in these, in these larger facilities?

- No, not anymore.

- Not anymore.

It's - Gone.

I, you know, I've met a lot of the people, you know, the big national lobbyists in Washington, the people that promote turkeys from is the National Turkey Federation.

- Yeah.

- And the National Turkey Federation.

They're wonderful people.

I've known, I've been a member.

I actually went to Washington.

They invited me to come and talk to them.

And basically what I did was I just told them their own story.

Yeah.

You know, this is where you came from.

Yeah.

This is what everybody started with.

But as everything in there, I mean their job, which is fine, that's what they're there for, is to promote Turkey production and they're to promote the big companies.

- Yeah.

- The problem is we're down to just two companies left in the world that control all genetics hybrid outta Canada and Nicholas Farms, which is their headquarters originally was in California, but they also are in Virginia now.

And I've met a lot of those heads of those two companies too, and corresponded with them.

They control all the genetics now from 99.9% of all the turkeys being sold.

So even if you are tur, you know the number one Turkey state's, Minnesota.

And so all of those people are still raising either hybrid or Nicholas.

Everybody's raising the same genetics.

We have one single group that controls everything for the world.

They're also, if they're raising turkeys in Italy or Germany or Russia or China or wherever, still the same company, still the same birds.

- Are they, they're speaking with you, but are, are they really looking into maybe diversifying their genetics?

Are, are they, - They, - You know, they can't at this point.

Is it - Too far lost?

They understand and part of the reason why they've contacted me is they're aware of some of their issues that they have with their genetics and health issues and the bird's ability to walk and everything that this applies to chickens and all of this stuff.

They really can't change their, they can't see a way around it because they can get a a 40 pound Turkey in 19 weeks.

- Yeah.

- They can get a 20 pound Turkey in 12 weeks.

- Yeah.

- I could feed my turkeys for 10 years and they wouldn't weigh 40 pounds.

- Yeah.

And at this point too, it's hard for 'em to switch because on that big of operation, really they're seeing it from the number side.

- It's all a nickel and dime.

So they're - Seeing, they're seeing line items as opposed to - Yeah.

- The real world.

So they, they can't have blips otherwise there's layoffs, there's all sorts of stuff in their system that would affect - That side.

Well then you have to understand how they make their money.

You know, those turkeys that people buy at Thanksgiving are basically a tiny part of their market.

And they, they, they learned that they had to do that back in the seventies and eighties when as at, to back up a little bit as they changed the genetics and began to engineer these turkeys that grow at these rapid rates.

And a lot of people think it's because of antibiotics and gross hormones and all that.

And it's not, they're genetic animals.

I could bring them here, raise 'em like I do mine, feed 'em my feed, which is antibiotic free and all that kind of stuff.

And they would still grow at that rate because they've been genetically engineered to do so.

So they literally caused the, the industry had to come up with something.

'cause now all of a sudden they could produce massive amounts of Turkey meat in a very rapid way all year round and had no market.

So they quickly had to come up with stuff.

Swanson was the first one that came up with their very first frozen dinner was a Turkey dinner.

He got whatever it was, I think 20 tons of Turkey meat and had, didn't know what to do with it.

And so they came up with that.

But since then, now we've got Turkey sausage and Turkey.

Turkey ground, Turkey and Turkey, bacon, Turkey, Boone and Turkey.

Bacon and subway and fast food and everything.

And that is what saved the Turkey industry because there's so much more money to be made in fast food and in pre-packaged, - Pre-cooked - Prepackaged already to eat food.

- Yeah.

- What that is by far the majority of, of their money.

And this has allowed them to continue and to grow.

In fact, some of the big, like liberty foods up in Minnesota, their number one issue in their plants is produce value added products.

In fact, when I met in Washington, some of the heads of liberty foods, they're very nice people.

He told me, he says, if you don't find a value added, you won't survive.

And you know, you've got to provide something more than just the whole Turkey.

And so that, that's part of, that's what I've, we, I've had to compete with in raising these old type turkeys that are far less efficient.

- Yeah.

- Grow half the speed feed conversion is much worse.

Everything.

But the only thing is, is there that has saved me is there are people who do care.

There are people who when they eat an industrial Turkey and eat one of mine, they won't even eat the industrial Turkey.

You know, they're willing to pay more to make up for what it costs me to, to produce these.

The other part of it is, is the industrial turkey's a dead end animal.

In other words, it has been genetically designed to be killed.

- Yeah.

- It cannot reproduce itself.

- Oh, okay.

- All industrial turkeys must be artificially inseminated when you, when you produce an animal that's that big, that fat that large, when George Nicholas's, I consider the grandfather of the industrial Turkey, when they did that work back in California in the early sixties, they for shortened the legs and for shortened the breast breast bone, the keel bone that holds that.

And they found when they did, they got these huge breasted turkeys.

Well that then made that animal incapable of naturally mating.

The tom could no longer mount the hand to breeder because he was too short leg and had this huge breast.

- So it's not necessarily like making a mule.

This is, they just physically, - They physically cannot - Do that anymore.

- No.

And so along with that, they started, wait, what I mean if you wanna get into it, they started trying to find ways of artificial inseminating poultry back in the twenties.

And it failed.

But by the time we got into the fifties and the sixties, about the same time scientists began to work on this.

Because also what happened post World War II farming and what you were raising, whether it be corn, soy, turkeys, cattle hogs and everything, left the farm and went to the Glen Grant universities.

Now when the land grant universities were telling farmers what you're gonna raise, but along with that, it happened with turkeys as well.

And so they had to perfect artificial inseminating because as they increased the speed of growth and size of the Turkey, they started seeing less and less natural fertility.

So they happened to perfect that.

About the same time as Jordan Nicholas was making what became the broad rested Butterball Turkey.

- Yeah.

- And so they had to do that as well.

So now when those turkeys that you buy, they're completely dependent upon man for their very existence.

If they stopped artificially inseminating turkeys, there would be no turkeys in the grocery store.

So they're completely manmade animal that I call, you know, people talk, - They're - Not hybrids.

- Yeah.

- You know, hybrid is a crossing of two species.

We have hybrid corn and, and you know, hybrid soy and you know, all this kind of stuff.

And that's because they've taken a gene for some else and spliced it into it.

- Would this be con, I mean, so would this be more of along the GMO, like when we talk about crops and all, - Well genetically modified organisms.

'cause some people get upset that, I use the word the modern of the industrial Turkey is engineered.

- Yeah.

- It's not a GMO.

- Okay.

- They did not, - They didn't mess with genetics.

They most, they - Didn't put a rice gene or mouse gene.

- Yeah.

They just were selectively choosing.

- Yeah.

Genetic engineering is an old term that goes back to about 1917.

Okay.

And some of the, those guys back then began to see, they were specifically working with dairy cattle and they were, they saw the cow no longer was this living creature, but it became a machine.

And how can we tweak that machine to get it to produce whatever it is, whether it be more milk, more meat, more beef.

So you approach that animal and you began to select characteristics that would cause that to happen.

It's much easier to explain probably in the broiler chicken than it is in the Turkey.

But the broiler chicken, this happened, it, before they did it to the Turkey, they actually selected certain, what I call mutations deformities.

Whether it be forms of, it's a, it's a form of dwarfism is what it is where you have a nor a normal sized torso before shortened limbs.

And so if the broiler, modern broiler chicken, modern Turkey has very short legs, very short wings.

So it's a form of dwarfism.

Along with that dwarfism comes a form of hyperthyroidism.

And that hyperthyroidism causes plump the plum up animal to plump up.

Yeah.

And what happens is, is first it comes on this hyperthyroidism that causes the animal to grow at this rapid rate produces tremendous amounts of thero and, and insulin.

Eventually the animal goes into diabetes and then becomes fat.

- It's time for a short break.

- Okay.

- When we get back, we're gonna keep talking Turkey with Frank Reese from Good Shepherd Turkey Farm.

Stick around.

You're watching Working Capital To catch up on previous episodes of Working Capital, scan the QR code with your phone or go to www.watch.kw.org.

Welcome back.

Okay.

Frank, we've heard a little bit about the industrial side of things.

You've kind of gave us the background.

How can you still be here then?

I mean, you're doing fantastic for these breeds.

How do you still turn a little bit of a profit to keep this alive?

- Okay, back in 2001, I heard from Marion Burrows of the New York Times.

And they were looking for the best tasting Turkey in America.

And prior to that, I've been a life member of the American Poultry Association, which is the oldest agricultural organization in America.

And then I also then years ago, became a member of the, the, the American Livestock Conservancy out of North Carolina, which was founded back in the seventies to try to save Indus, I mean to save heritage, what they call heritage, livestock and poultry, because we're losing them at such a rapid rate.

I mean, worldwide we're losing one animal, farm animal or poultry a month.

- Oh wow.

- And so, anyway, Arian burs contacted them because she had heard about them and heard about these heritage turkeys.

And they said, well, you gotta call Frank Reese.

So Marian called me and I processed three of my turkeys of bourbon red and Gansett the bronze and shipped them to New York for them.

And that Thanksgiving, my Turkey was on the cover of the New York Times.

And you know, not only did my Turkey win, it won everything.

And the other, I mean, nothing else even placed.

Well as a result of that, a gentleman by the name Patrick Martins, who was the head of Slow Foods for the whole United States that was in New York, contacted me.

He said, we wanna help.

And so prior to that I was, you know, raising these turkeys that I had for all my life.

Selling puls and raising, selling a few turkeys to neighbors and so on for Thanksgiving.

And small processing plant down in McPherson.

Processed 400 turkeys for me.

And they sold well, they did really well.

And then that got lots of other attention.

I started hearing from other people.

Martha Stewart contacted me and I was on Earth Show.

And then LA Paper, a bunch of 'em contacted me to talk about it.

And that began to grow.

And then Patrick decided to leave Slow Foods and he started Heritage Foods USA, so for the last almost 25 years, heritage Foods.

And it was a tremendous learning process, not only for me, but for them because we are outside of the entire, the, the regular industry production system.

So the whole interest structure that supports farmers is completely absent for us.

And so it took some really key people.

Patrick really encouraged me and said, you know, I said, Patrick, we have to be USDA, we have to follow all the federal rules, state laws, everything.

And I said, to grow, we're gonna have to find a plant somewhere that can process my turkeys.

So I just started calling everybody, you know, if you, you can't do this and not be willing to hear the word no.

- Yeah.

- And I called the Butterball plant in Missouri and they were very nice.

And you know, what has happened is almost all the meat processing plants now, especially in poultry, almost a hundred percent are controlled by the corporations.

- Okay.

- You know, whether it be Cargill or Tyson or Pilgrim Pride or Purdue, they own everything from top to bottom.

Yeah.

They own the feed mill, they own the trucks, they own the processing plant, they own everything.

The, their incubators or hatcheries, everything.

So they, they can't allow that.

But anyway, they told me they think there's still one plant in Ohio that will still do the old type turkeys.

And they're called whitewater processing plant owned by the cops family.

And I called them, they said, yeah, we'll do it.

So now for the last 25 years, they have processed my turkeys and we've gotten just a really, I wouldn't, this wouldn't have happened without them.

- Yeah.

- So it took Heritage Foods in New York and it took cops up in Harrison, Ohio or this wouldn't have happened.

You have to have that whole system.

You need to be able to make it - Happen.

You need a like-minded team.

- Yeah.

- No matter how spread out it's - And people that are willing to do that.

- Where do you see this going?

Is there someone else you're mentoring or is this, - I've been working for the last 10 years with Jed Greenberg.

- Okay.

- He came here about 10 years ago and said, you know, I'm, I want to know what you're doing.

I want to help and all, all that.

And so it's a long story.

But as a result of that, he was a young man and, and I could see he has, which not everybody has.

And periodically you run into those people, Hey, you have what you call ha he had the eye, he was able to see what I see.

I've run into another gentleman in Ohio that I'm starting to work with Tom.

And so those are important people.

But anyway, - Keeps the hope alive.

- He happens to be Jewish, very conservative Jewish.

Grew, grew up in Israel.

And so I went back to New York with him.

We visited the head of the Kosher in Brooklyn and in, and also in Manhattan.

The head of the whole thing that certifies everything kosher in the world.

Really fun.

It was very interesting to talk to all those rabbis.

But anyway, what I'm trying to get to, him and his wife now have started a farm in New Jersey.

They're raising my chickens and my turkeys.

In fact, they've taken over my, my chicken production for standard bread or heritage chickens and are doing very well there.

The market for a lot of this is back east or on the West coast.

And you know, all these years we've, we've raised everything here, but everything gets shipped to New York.

Yeah.

And so now it's there.

And he's doing very well.

And again, he's just now starting to get started with turkeys.

And so him and his wife now have their farm every weekend.

They invite Jewish families to come to the farm and to experience it and to visit and to learn.

And so that's beginning to grow.

And this year, for the first year, they're going to produce large quantities of kosher standard bread or heritage turkeys, which they're very excited about.

Great.

Partially because I didn't realize some went and talked to the rabbis.

Part of the kosher law is the animal cannot be deformed.

- Yep.

- And they're beginning to realize, they see the industrial Turkey and chicken as a deformed animal, as not a healthy - Animal.

Yeah.

- They want to go back.

And so they wanted me to prove to them what their ancestors ate Kosher.

- Yeah.

- Back in New York, back in the turn of the century.

So I was able to show them photographs.

- Wow.

- You know, I have a huge collection of books of kosher shops in New York at the turn of the century and hanging there was bronze turkeys and bared rock chickens.

So anyway, that's, that's been very, that's been fun for me.

'cause I care a lot about the history of things.

And so hopefully that's part of the future.

You know, - It, it's nice to see a farmer who would, who is also a steward.

I mean, you're kind of a farming scientist, which is kind of prevalent, I think in Kansas, even from like the Land Institute.

There's people who are trying to get to the past to make the future better.

- Yep.

- So really the name of your farm says it all to me, Frank, you are a really good shepherd of, of these animals.

The genetics, the history of it, and really trying to help all of humanity really going forward, keeping this alive and knowing where food really should be.

As you know, everyone keeps going industrialized.

So Frank, it's, it's been fantastic.

We could spend so much time here.

But in case you wanna see more, you always can check out a past episode of Sunflower Journeys.

The link is below, I think it's from 2010.

It was one of our other producers, one of his favorite segments.

So Frank, thank you again.

We appreciate you being on Working Capital and we hope you've enjoyed today's show.

And stick around for the next episode.

You've been watching.

Working - Capital Funding - For Working Capital is provided by the Friends of KTW, the Raven C and Marguerite Gibson Foundation.

And go Topeka.