NY Farm Workers Excluded from Vaccine Priority Despite Federal Guidelines

Christina Kohler Returns [00:00:00] I, I don't have free range eggs, but I will gladly tell you where to find them if that's what you prefer to buy. But if you wanna buy our eggs, I can tell you a list of stores locally, or if you're looking, I get a, we get a lot of calls for quail eggs, like that's one thing that's monthly. Someone's calling for quail or duck eggs. That really changed throughout COVID, and I think people are just becoming more aware of where their food comes from and those processes. I'm Christina Hudson Kohler, an egg processing manager living in Syracuse, New York, and you are listening to the Vance Crow podcast. Welcome

Vance Crowe [00:00:38] Back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Well, today we're revisiting some of the old Coronavirus podcasts that I used to do with a level of urgency, my good friend and a member of the Articulate Ventures network, Christina Hudson Kohler, who came on during coronavirus to talk about how there weren't workers, there were a ton of pressure. They didn't have enough cartons to be able to produce eggs and get them into the city during the pandemic. She is back to talk about some of the big problems that are going on with New York State farming, which is that all of these essential workers, people that we were begging to go to work, we were waving flags in their honor saying how important they were. Well, when it comes time to allocate the vaccines, she's saying they've been told again and again that they're going to prioritize farm workers and they have not. So Christina and I go through a description of this and what's going on and why this is such a big deal. And then, because Christina is so much fun to talk with, we talk about her views on why it is that young people have such a kind of luxury beliefs about the way our food is produced. We, we have a pretty good conversation about decorating eggs for Easter, and I get to tell about the way that I think they should be boiled. And we have a really good conversation. And I'm so glad that Christina is a part of the network. She's one of the people that makes that place a rich and interesting place to dive deep on ideas, to explore things to practice, to talk about things you're proud of.

Vance Crowe [00:02:10] One of the things that I'm working about in the network and that members get access to first is I am actually finally, after many years putting together a negotiations class online. I am taking years and years of experience and knowledge and training. And I am putting together a class that is somewhere in that spot between really general theoretical knowledge and those really tight, specific skills that people use when they're trying to, to become a negotiator that oftentimes feel out of place, disjointed, or even manipulative. So I wanna be right in the middle in between those spots where I'm teaching you about how to think about what it is that you want, how to understand and get somebody else to talk about what they want so that you can give it to them. And they're more than happy then to give you what you need and want. And I talk about how to deal with impasses and problems. People in the network are a part of my beta tester group. So they get to actually see me working out some of these ideas. Ideas that you can't find in any books and aren't done in any sorts of classes. These are original works and combined with theoretical knowledge that I learned in school. And so if you wanna be a part of the group that tests this information, then I would love for you to join avn. And if you'd like to be a person that just takes the class when it's produced, then you should go to my website, Vance Crowe dot com slash podcast and sign up for the newsletter where you'll be informed about classes that are coming out.

Vance Crowe [00:03:42] I'm producing more and more every day about how to be a better communicator and we'd love to have you. So feel free to join the Articulate Ventures Network by going to Network dot Articulate Ventures. And if you'd like to just learn about the class, go to Vance Crowe dot com slash podcast to learn more. Alright, we're gonna go on to the interview with my good friend Christina Hudson Kohler. Christina Hudson. Kohler, welcome back to the podcast.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:04:09] Hi Vance, thanks for having me on today to talk about this. A really important issue.

Vance Crowe [00:04:14] Yeah. So you and I had had you on the podcast when Coronavirus was in full effect, and in a lot of ways, for many people, coronavirus has become, you know, something they've adapted to something they've kind of gotten along with. And you were telling me the other day about this is not true in agriculture, specifically in New York. There are big problems. And I remember when you were telling me this, I was kinda like, how big of a deal could it be? And you were like, no, Vance, this is really serious. So once you explained it to me, I was like, well, let's get her on the podcast and let's talk about it. So what is going on in the state of New York with farmers?

Christina Kohler Returns [00:04:49] So farmers and farm workers are not being prioritized to have access to the vaccine. So currently we're in the one B list of those who are able to receive the vaccine. And on the federal list, farm workers are on that essential one B list in the state of New York. Farm workers are not on that one B list. That means that, you know, it's a job that's done 365 days a year, 24 7, as much as your listeners who are involved with ag, they know this. But it's starting to cause an issue for morale for those employees who have been showing up regularly as an essential employee. You know, they're doing the best that they can with PPE and you know, sanitation, you know, we obviously are held to a high standard regardless because we're working with food, but there's only, you know, so much mask wearing, washing of hands, social distancing that farm workers can do before it just gets aggravating that other people have access. And you've been told you're essential and you have to show up. And you have friends who are working from home remotely who are in healthcare, you know, not interacting with the public, and they've already received the vaccine because they're in healthcare.

Vance Crowe [00:06:16] Yeah, it's been astounding to me because when all of this was going on with Coronavirus and I was doing these episodes sometimes two or three times a day, one of the things that became abundantly clear to everyone is we need to keep the people in our food system going, we need to make sure whatever it takes to keep the pork plants up, to keep people going in and milking cows, in your case with eggs. But all of that requires people to show up and do the work. And those people didn't get the option that other people did to, to, like you were saying, work from home. And so why, what is going on? Why in the world of all the people that New York state could vaccinate were these not at the very top of the list?

Christina Kohler Returns [00:06:57] So when the original, like the rough draft list came out, we were told that New York Farm Bureau, that farm workers will be on the one B list. And we rolled it out in our daily coronavirus email to all of our members. And you know, people were excited. Obviously it's a choice. Like, I'm not going to tell you you need to get it or not. Like I want that to be my employee's choice, but I want them to have that option. And then when the official list was announced, their farm workers weren't on that list. And which started a big stir because here, you know, we've funded, you know, or provided food to nourish New York, the food banks milk drives, giveaways to keep, you know, food on the shelf in the grocery store while doing what's best to keep our employees safe. And at first it was like, okay, in two weeks you'll be added onto the list. So this was like around January 11th, it's now March 17th, and more people have been added to those lists of who's eligible. And each time farm workers have not been added. And you know, we've been in touch with our county executive here, I've lobbied at the state level and the federal level, and our senate majority leader, Andrea Stewart Cousins, when I brought up this issue of farm workers and vaccines, she said, you're already receiving them.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:08:32] Why? Why are you bringing this up to me? And I said, that's where you're misinformed because we're not receiving them, we're not eligible. And there's a list of issues that are going to come up when we are eligible that we need to be discussing. And

Vance Crowe [00:08:51] Like what, what are the issues about that?

Christina Kohler Returns [00:08:53] So one of the unique, and I don't think it's unique just to New York, but I'm not sure that people are aware of, is half of our farm workers, 25,000 farm workers, are migrant farm workers. So seasonally we have access to, in some industries, the H two a program like for apples, you know, fruits, vegetables, but that's not an option available to like the dairy farmers or egg farmers. So we have two 25,000 farm workers who are migrant workers that have either language barriers, they might live in housing that is shared, shared living spaces, or they're relying on pooled transportation because they don't have personal access to, to transportation. So with the vaccines needing to be refrigerated, like we don't have like a mobile unit that could come out and go to farms and reach these rural areas in addition to just, you know, even if you were able to sign up, we have rural broadband issues here in New York where that's been highlighted throughout the process, but it's really been amplified. So their their ability to sign up to receive the vaccine. And so they, they are really just a vulnerable population that that will be missed even if we follow like the guidelines just because of who they are.

Vance Crowe [00:10:29] Yeah, it's an interesting thing, right? And I, when the vaccines were all coming out, I, I was like, oh, I wonder how they'll prioritize this. And then what you find out is people can go get the, they get in order and then at the end of the day, if they have leftover vaccines, then they've gotta use those that day. 'cause whichever ones have been taken out of the fridge. So for the people that are highly networked, highly mobile and and able to get to places, they don't have to worry about their employers or having enough money or having the cars to get around. There's a big population of people that get to fast track and jump ahead, but you don't think about, well, what happens if you don't go get the people that are not highly networked, that aren't mobile, and these are the people that we asked to go face danger when we had no idea what was going on with Coronavirus when we literally were watching videos of dead bodies being left in the streets. We were like, it's so important that you come in and work so that people get fed in the cities. And now to say, well, you know, we're just gonna wait on getting them access. It feels like yeah, it's spitting on the very thing that we asked them to be honorable about in the first place.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:11:38] Yeah. And, and they want it, they, you know, they're, they've asked like, oh, are we eligible? You know, and it's disheartening to have said like in January, like, oh, we're gonna be on the next list. And then you let them down. And like, you wanna have that level of trust and open line of communication with your employees and you don't wanna like give them false hope, like, I've been able to get the, the first dose because I'm overweight, but that's not an option for everyone. And you know, so anything to get the word out is,

Vance Crowe [00:12:17] Yeah. So how did you become the person that became the spokesperson for this? I know you've been doing radio interviews, you've been getting out and doing this. How, how in the world did you become the, the face of trying to get the vaccines for workers?

Christina Kohler Returns [00:12:30] So through my role as the young farmer and rancher chair for New York Farm Bureau, I've had like connections and networking. Actually the first podcast that I did with you kind of put me on a trajectory that my name was a little bit more like, not that I wasn't known prior, but like, just like statewide and then also as second year as chair, you're just building upon those relationships that you've built, you know, naturally throughout, you know, since I was in college, even before that I was actively involved in Farm Bureau. But it just, it's, it's an important issue. You know, we've had the labor issue here in New York with the 60 hour threshold, and they would like to reduce that to 40 hours.

Vance Crowe [00:13:18] Well just slow that down. Tell, tell me all about that.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:13:21] So prior to COVID starting, we had a new set of labor laws here in New York. Prior to that 60 hour threshold, if you were in ag and you worked 80 hours a week, you were just paid your regular, your regular wage, whatever you agreed to at the time of your hiring or your last, you know, raise or whatnot. And so they, they made a decision, they being the legislative body, that they were going to change it to 60 hours. And then they created a wage labor board made up of three people to just to figure out how they were going to proceed next. So if it was gonna be like a natural step down, if we were gonna go from 60 to 40, hold it 60, I mean hold it 60 is, is what we would like as, as you know, farmers Farm Bureau.

Vance Crowe [00:14:25] And so does this mean that they can only work 60 hours or after 60 hours, it changes their, their wage rate.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:14:32] So after 60 hours, it's time and a half. If you work on your day of rest, your designated day of rest, regardless if you're at 60 hours or not, it's time and a half. So say, you know, it rained and you couldn't do what you were supposed to do that day, be it harvest or, you know, fertilize something, so you had to do it the next day. And that hap so say that was happening on Saturday, it rained, but Sunday is your designated day of rest. Say you had 38 hours for that week and you're working on your day off, it's time and a half regardless if you're at 60 or not. So now you're not only are you juggling schedules of the 60 hour threshold because we have small margins and commodities, but now if you're asking someone to come in, even though they want to work, like they could say, I know it's my day of rest, but I I would like to work and have the hours. It, it's still time and a half on a, on their designated day off.

Vance Crowe [00:15:37] And as a business, if you end up spending too much on labor that you don't make money on, on the profit of the sale of the things that you're trying to put out there, eggs in your case, then all of a sudden nobody works. Right. Because then you're not a profitable business.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:15:51] Right. And I think sometimes people look at farms and they see land, they see infrastructure and they see equipment and they think farmers are rich. And I even find that in other areas of ag with my new role on the Syracuse Onaga Food Systems Alliance Advisory Board working with Syracuse University students, urban agriculture, community gardens, you know, when I'm sitting in these discussions, having these conversations, you know, I've heard you make money when you send your eggs out of the area to New York City and that's why you don't keep them locally. And normally when I, when we move eggs to New York City, it's because we have a surplus. We don't have the room to store them on site to hold them till maybe the market goes up a little bit. And the, because eggs have a nice shelf life, so we move them to the city at a loss. And so to be at these tables and be able to, to, to share that part of the story that it's, it's not always, you know, sunshine and rainbows and it, there are days where it's, it's a, you know, you don't want to send your eggs for 40 cents a dozen in New York City, but at least you have the cooler space. You know, that's a last resort. I mean, the market right now is high or higher, so, but it's sad that it takes a pandemic to have food prices that are, are, you know, fair for the consumer, fair for the farmer and, you know, so that we can, you know, keep our operation running.

Vance Crowe [00:17:32] It's really interesting to me, and I think you know about the interview I did with a guy named Rob Henderson, who was the one that pointed out this concept of, of luxury beliefs, right? So if you're sitting at a university, you're at the top of the world, right? You're at the, in the wealthiest country in the nation, you've got access to a, any information that you would want, you can go connect with anybody that you want, that they're able to hold beliefs about how the world works. And and that may not be accurate, and in the past, maybe that didn't matter, but those are the people that are then informing, they're voting, they're pushing their ideologies or their way of thinking into the world, and suddenly you then have somebody come along and say, we're gonna change the free market and we're gonna decide on things like wages not realizing that if you can't pay somebody, if for working over 60 hours, if it becomes now 50% more expensive, it's not like you can turn around and just find more labor and go hire more people. You're, you're now turning people down that want those hours and you're like also like looking around and saying, well, there's already a shortage of workers and this is like, what are we supposed to do here?

Christina Kohler Returns [00:18:45] Yeah. And that's, that's what's happening. And you, you know, you see more consolidation of farms, like even families just, you know, taking their dairies. And it might be for families that operate a larger operation to share resources and you know, employees, tractors to, to make that happen. And I think when you step back and say like, oh, I, I'm studying food at a university, that's, that's a real luxury to be discussing how it's grown, how it's processed, how it's, how it ends up on your table and where you might not have even spent a day on a farm in your life. And, you know, everyone needs to eat food insecurity is real, but I would gladly offer anyone the opportunity to work a full day on a farm.

Vance Crowe [00:19:48] Yeah. I mean, one of the, the philosophical ideas called hues, guillotine is one of these things that I wish I had known when I was in college because I am certain that I had a ton of luxury beliefs about the way the world ought to be. So hues, guillotine describes the idea of is versus ought. It's one thing that for you to be able to use like science or observations to discover what is true, but what is true doesn't tell us anything about the way things ought to be. So, and when you're in college, I think that what we, instead of teaching many people about the hard sciences, what is true? What do we know to be factual instead, a lot of young people are going to school and they're being taught a lot of oughts about the way the world ought to look and ought to work. And without actually having a functional knowledge of what is is you're completely divorced from, from reality. And you can go around and, and if you are operating in that world, you are a danger to everyone around you because your oughts are received wisdom. Somebody else, IM imparted that on you

Christina Kohler Returns [00:20:56] And I think you see that in the cage-free versus caged discussion in animal humane and

Vance Crowe [00:21:06] Talk about that. So what

Christina Kohler Returns [00:21:07] Is

Vance Crowe [00:21:08] Actually cage free to explain that to, for people that don't know it very well.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:21:13] So we have, you know, chickens and cages, we have chickens and enriched cages, we have free range chickens, and then we have, we have cage free chickens and it can be confusing to the consumer what that means. So like on our farm we have cages and we have enriched cages, and those enriched cages just mean they have more room to move around and cage free means they're still in a barn, sometimes hundreds of thousands of chickens in, in one barn. And then we have free

Vance Crowe [00:21:53] Do you mean that literally hundreds of thousands of chickens in one barn?

Christina Kohler Returns [00:21:57] Yeah, I mean that literally, yeah. Wow, okay. Like if you look into like some of the, the, the cage free operations in the US in Arizona and around the country, yeah, they've, they've got millions of birds on site with multiple barns and they are still in barns. It's, it's not like, you know, free range is what you would think of like out on pasture, you know, in the grass hanging out maybe with some guardian dogs protecting them. And I have a favorite free range farm I like to follow out in California. Wise Acres. She has a egg ven machine. I think she's totally rad Tiffany, and, but it's a lot of hands-on work. But she's able to like sell her eggs, I think in the egg vending machine for like $8 a dozen. And she posts her her flock on Instagram and you can see them move around and she's got all different kinds, but, you know, not, you know, that's a, a love and a, you know, a time, you know, hand collecting. She has a couple thousand, but you know, we only have 250,000 and I say only very lightly because most people, like when I'm having conversations at like local food conversations, like we're too large to be considered local or I guess that's like the best way to put it. Like if someone, if I said, oh, you know, I I, you know, we have eggs, I'd love to to sell them at your store.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:23:33] And they hear, they ask, you know, how many chicken do you have? And you say 250,000. And it's like w wa wa you know, like, and in the grand scheme of things, our, you know, our friends to the west here in New York, they have over a million birds. Our friends to the north, they've got 2 million. There's only a couple of small farms of our size in New York out in Albany and then down in Sullivan County. And you know, we've started working with like the Amish and Mennonite communities who have free range chickens, but access to like egg cartons and packaging is too expensive for them. And so if they buy through a larger supplier, it helps, you know, even with their costs. And so you start to create these networks.

Vance Crowe [00:24:23] And so when people think about things like free range eggs, what do you think they're imagining relative to the way that it actually is?

Christina Kohler Returns [00:24:33] So I think they're thinking that like they're out year round and they're, I don't know, scratching in the dirt, but what they don't realize is that they're eating bugs and different things and you know, if we crack open egg, it might have like a worm in it or different, different things that you're not used to seeing in your store bought conventional eggs. And that's one thing where like we've sent people down the road to a roadside stand and they call up and say, I went there, but you know, there was something in my egg or different things. But you know, they don't have, they're not candling their eggs, they're not using a blood detector or those different things that you would have from an operation that's USDA inspected.

Vance Crowe [00:25:25] So one of the things that's been really interesting to me as you and I have gotten to know each other is that you went down the path of being an environmental science person. You had studied that in school and I think most people, when they imagine somebody in environmental science, you must have been an outlier to come from a farm with 250,000 chickens laying eggs.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:25:47] Oh yeah, that was definitely like on campus at first I would, I would kind of stay quiet about like my agricultural background because I had a lot of, you know, classmates that were either vegans or vegetarians. And at that time I didn't know how to have like positive, you know, just conversations to like understand their standpoint and for them to hear my standpoint. And then I, I definitely remember like it was my junior year and someone said something and I, my hand went straight up and the whole class was shocked because as at a small environmental school, you know, that was the same size as my high school that I went to, you know, then that includes like from freshman year to PhD students. So I had been with a small core group of people for years and, and they didn't know I had an ag background and I was able, we were talking, i, it was about chicken manure and we were talking about manure storage, you know, CAFOs and different things like that. And, and I was able to actually say like, this is why we are environmentally friendly, this is why we care about the land, this is why we care about clean water. Our, our animals need clean water just like you and I need clean water. You know, you don't wanna drink dirty water. I don't want them drinking dirty water. Yeah. We have a wastewater treatment plant on site where we treat all of our egg wash water.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:27:22] We could have had a lagoon and then let those things settle out and then the water off the top would be, you know, let out eventually. But we didn't want a lagoon. Those are stinky, they're not, you know, they don't make good neighbors and you know, a lot of people say, not in my backyard. So we have a wastewater treatment plant that allows us to clean the water. We could use it to like wash our trucks or different things if we wanted to like reduce, reuse, recycle. So with my ag background meeting, my environmental background, you know, and, and you've talked about it before too, like with sustainability, you know, like it's a, a fun word, but like what does it actually mean? Like if you're just checking a box or writing a plan? And I think that it'll, with the regulations and the things that we, we deal with on a regular basis, it's just harder to ke like now we have regenerative ag and all these different things and we're all trying to do the same thing, feed the world. And I think that if we all understood each other a little bit more instead of trying to divide each other or say like, my product's better, like I, I don't have free range eggs, but I will gladly tell you where to find them if that's what you prefer to buy. But if you wanna buy our eggs, I can tell you a list of stores locally or if you're looking, I get a, we get a lot of calls for quail eggs.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:28:58] Like that's one thing that's monthly. Someone's calling for quail or duck eggs. That really changed throughout COVID. And I think people are just becoming more aware of where their food comes from and those processes. But it's, it's just, I don't know, like I, I wanna be part of the conversation and, and sometimes it's, it's knowing when to step up and sometimes it's knowing when to shut up. But I, I think that we'll have to be better advocates for ourselves going forward. We can't just sit back and let someone else say, this is how it's done. Because if they're not hearing the correct information on how it's done, your story will be told negatively.

Vance Crowe [00:29:43] Yeah. And like, I think that one of the reasons that, you know, a young person in college can be so caught up in the aughts is those are the easiest stories to understand, right? They're the easiest one for somebody to come along and say, this is the way you think reality is. But I'm gonna show you where the conflict of that reality actually runs into some other challenge. And let, let me show you how dark it is. And by you knowing and believing this other thing, you're a part of a special group, you're a part of a, a group of people that holds a special truth. So take that truth and move it out into the world. And the, the challenge that ag runs into is if you are the traditional and the mainstream, your conflict stories are things you have already overcome, right? There were times when eggs weren't candled or there were times when they, you didn't know how to wash things or you didn't have certain protocols that you as a farmer implement now because you just didn't know, or you just weren't doing things on the scale that they're at. But those stories are really hard to make compelling to a young person that thinks the way that I'll make the biggest difference in the world. The way that I'll transcend my luxury position is that I'll fight for some future, but they, they genuinely don't know what's going on in in the wider world. They're just trying their best to advocate for something they believe that's bigger than themselves.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:31:10] Yeah. And so, like I could produce eggs, but I need a market and a customer that's willing to pay top dollar for, for those added costs behind the scenes. Like we could do it, we could build the barns, we could hire the extra employees and, and you know, but at the grocery store, when you're making that choice between a dozen exits, $4, maybe even $8 or a dollar 50, which dozen will you ult ultimately buy at the end of the day?

Vance Crowe [00:31:52] Yeah, and I mean, like, I run into a problem because I know what stories are sticky, right? Like I know just from practice, just from being around it. So my wife and I, when I was telling her about free range eggs one time, I remember citing that, you know, they're open to predator birds that can fly around and you've got these chickens that have been bred for many, many years, they're totally defenseless and now they're being hauled off by eagles that are coming down. And so to my wife, she's like, oh my god, I don't wanna support, you know, chickens that are being hauled off by eagles. Like, this is terrible, right? So now she wants to buy the cheaper eggs, but then if I actually like take a step back and say, well, there are benefits and there are reasons to doing this and there are reasons for doing that, but that's not the way our human mind works. The way we work is we need a story that gives meaning to the decisions that we're making. And I i it, I find your quest to be able to explain things to legislatures and, and like always calling people up and working with these different groups to be one that I am really interested in helping out with because you have a tall hill to climb because unless you wanna shoot at the other side, it is very difficult to make sticky stories.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:33:07] And we've actually found a unique ally throughout this whole process and in building relationships with urban legislators. And that's what the live markets down in New York City, there's some legislation to ban those live markets. And there are so many different,

Vance Crowe [00:33:25] Wait, what are live markets? Like, there are places where you can bring your chickens and just be like hanging out with them.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:33:29] So yeah, you would, you would be able to go buy like a live chicken, a live animal and, and you, you would butcher it yourself maybe for your religious practices or different things, your cultural background. And so having access to these live markets is a real big deal down in, in New York City. And so these urban legislators are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't do this. And it's like, now you understand our side, like they're calling New York Farm Bureau and saying like, how can I help my, my constituents with this issue? And so now, you know, we're building those relationships and we'll say, we'll help you with the live markets, but you've gotta help us with labor or, or cage free or you know, get the word out that farm workers are essential and they need these COVID vaccines. So they're starting to understand a little bit more of how or where their food comes from and it's an opportunity and so to keep nurturing these relationships.

Vance Crowe [00:34:42] Yeah, and it's a weird thing, right? Like in our culture, I remember one time a farmer up in either South Dakota or Minnesota saying there's this huge Muslim population around St. Paul Minneapolis and around the springtime they have a tradition of slaughtering a goat. Well, like they've gotta go find a place that is willing to raise goats for them and then be able to slaughter it and handle all the nras and the blood and doing it in their, in their own halal way. And that like you find two different, completely different theologies, right? Christians and Muslims bonding together over, we need to be able to have the freedom to do this. We need to be able to have the markets where we can come in and share. And it's funny because those are two groups of somewhere people that are separated by entire religions, but it's the anywhere people, the people that are living in the city that say, well, you know, safety first, or Oh, you know, you shouldn't have these traditions and therefore we shouldn't have it. And so it, it does make for strange bedfellows.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:35:46] Yeah, yeah, definitely. And, but it's great to be able to have these conversations that, you know, helps everyone with their, their, you know, the same goals. And

Vance Crowe [00:36:01] So Easter is coming up, which as when I was a a boy as the middle child of seven, that would be the time that we would buy at a minimum nine dozen eggs and, and paint all of them and get them ready. What are things about egg painting or the preparation for this holiday that, that you as an egg producer know about but other people wouldn't know?

Christina Kohler Returns [00:36:23] Well, there's so many different ways that, you know, you can decorate them, obviously. Like you can boil them and then use vinegar and food coloring. Some people, you know, they give their kids stickers and you know, markers and they might draw on them. You can use shaving cream and food coloring and you roll the egg and it creates these nice like cool swirled patterns. There's just different, like there's so many different ways that you can, and, and also like if you have eggs that are different colors, so like a brown egg, when you dye it with food coloring, the, the, the colors will, will come out a little bit different obviously than a white egg. Or if you're using like a, you know, green eggs 'cause eggs, chicken eggs can be all these different colors. And so when you start playing with the dyes, it's a lot of fun to see like what you can create. And my mom, you know, we didn't obviously didn't have plastic Easter eggs, but we always hosted Easter and my mom would tape quarters to the outside of them. So like an egg was worth a quarter. And so you could, you could make some significant mo money coming to Aunt Patsy's house on Easter.

Vance Crowe [00:37:36] So I, I love hard boiling and soft boiling eggs and I have like gone to the, the widest edges of the internet trying to find the perfect way to boil eggs. Do you have a special way that you do it so that they come out perfectly every time?

Christina Kohler Returns [00:37:52] You know, I, I love to watch those videos too myself, but like the best trick that I've found is that you, you throw like a, I think it's like a teaspoon of baking soda in with a water and when you take them out, the shells come off a lot easier. That's like the, one of the trips. But an egg that is a little bit older will also peel better. So like this is where the Julian date and understanding what the julian date is on your egg car. And like today's 0 7, 6 70 sixth day of the year. So if I were going to hard boil some eggs, I'd be looking for some eggs that, that were at least two weeks old because with the, the air bubbles inside the egg in the shell, like that membrane, as it gets a little older that the, the air, it'll become a little more porous. And so that's why like when you have a really fresh egg, it does not peel that well.

Vance Crowe [00:38:57] So my trick with, with hard boiling eggs is I actually just put like a, like a quarter of an inch of water in the bottom and then I put the eggs in or I I turn that up and get it so that it's boiling and then I put 'em in there for six and a half minutes and then I take it off and then I pull all the eggs out and I plunge 'em in cold water,

Christina Kohler Returns [00:39:17] Cold

Vance Crowe [00:39:17] Water. And so that, that way they both stop boiling. It's like the exact right temperature for like soft boiled, medium boiled eggs and then they peel much better. So this is like, this is my tried and true method. I, I probably eat, I eat an absurd amount of eggs and that started when I was in the Peace Corps. And one of the things that I realized about eggs is that in the US we refrigerate them because we wash them. But like eggs last a really, really long time if they haven't been washed.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:39:50] Yeah, they do, you can leave 'em on the, your countertop. Like they, they do that in Europe, obviously other areas of, of the world, but Americans like their eggs nice and clean and they don't wanna see any manure or egg yolk on them or even like imperfectly shaped eggs, you know, you get that nice perfect egg that's because someone's graded them and candle them and, and pulled out all those little odd oddball looking ones. But like occasionally you'll find one that looks like a golf ball or just like other textural things or like, it almost looks like it has a pi like a pimple on it 'cause it's like a, a rage, like I don't know how to s

Vance Crowe [00:40:35] So what was the Julian date you were talking about there? I never, I don't know anything at all about that.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:40:40] Okay. So on the side of your egg carton, there's a best if used by date there's a juliann date. So obviously like January 1st is 0 0 1, December 31st. If it's not a leap year is 3 6 5. And if it's a leap year, the last date of the year is 3 6 6. So by looking at that juliann date, you can figure out when your eggs were processed and they have to be processed within 36 hours of being laid. They have to be refrigerated by that point. You have up until that, so like you can farm pack 'em, so like you can get 'em refrigerated and wash 'em at a later date. But, so yeah, so on our farm we run 'em online so that means whatever, you know, we, we, we didn't have a great day processing yesterday, so we did more eggs yesterday. So today we ran really well. We only stopped once and had, we were down for one minute, so we got out early today and that's just how it works. But yeah, we, you have to have 'em washed and refrigerated. So that Julian date, today's 0 7 6, so tomorrow will be the 77th day of the year. And then obviously

Vance Crowe [00:42:01] Do you always know that just off the top of your head just from the work that you do?

Christina Kohler Returns [00:42:04] Yeah, like I've always thought about getting a, a tattoo like with our plant code on it and the my birthdate, but is a Julian date is 0 5 2. But it's just kind of one of those weird quirky things where it wouldn't really mean anything to anyone else, but it would mean something to me.

Vance Crowe [00:42:25] So you've been a member of the Articulate Ventures network and one of the things that you've talked about in there quite persuasively is about management and about like how to get people to cooperate and you know, you just mentioned a little bit ago about the line stopping. So talk a little bit about the management, how your farm right now manages workers and what you've learned over time about getting people to work together in this place where one little mistake means cracked eggs everywhere.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:42:53] Yeah, so I've been on the family farm now for the past seven years and prior to that, like I had helped write training manuals at my alarm monitoring job in data entry. And I had helped train people at the golf course to, to work in the hut where we, you know, grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and sold beverages. And you're like, how does that translate to what you do on a daily basis? Well obviously my team of 10 in the egg processing room, I have like 10 spots on the average day that I need someone in each of those spots. And over time I've thought like, how can I look outside the box to fill those spots? And so right now I have a really fantastic team and three of those employees are retired workers who still, you know, want to socialize and do something a couple days a week. And they have become real assets to our company. We love having them there on the days that they're there, but they also bring a wealth of knowledge from the backgrounds that they've worked in. So if it's coming from the postal service for 33 years and you are running at the beer factory, Budweiser, you know, I'm able to say, Hey, when, when dates are on the beer cans or the beer boxes, what would you do? Like, 'cause obviously there are days when I, you know, the eggs don't get the dates on the carton and that's a real problem because we have to take them all out and ham stamp them by hand and that takes time.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:44:30] And so having that ability to pick someone else's brain on, you know, like how things were done, where you worked, 'cause it, it's translate translates to what I'm doing. And then there was things that I, we've learned by trial and error, but like preventative maintenance, making sure that the machine is clean, well-oiled, you know, it, it has its sweet spot. Like if you're running at the machine at 205 cases an hour or 215, like it'll, it'll like just run well, but like anything like above that or if even if you slow it down too slow, like things start to mal like malfunction, it just has the speed that it likes to run at. So those are some things that I've learned. You learn what motivates people. Like everyone has a different reason for showing up to work. Some people just want that paycheck. Some people wanna learn skills so that as an entry level job, they can learn those skills and then go on to work somewhere else. And one of my favorite stories is I had a guy who worked for me when I first started and he, he left to take another job and throughout COVID he, he came back and he knocked on the door and he said, Hey Christina, I'm doing construction now and I have a, I own a food truck and I need eggs for my breakfast sandwiches. And so I thought of what better place to come than straight to the farm. And you know, we, we typically don't do, you know, store or like on farm pickups, but to have like Kelvin walk through the door and, and bring a friend with 'em and say, this is where I started, this is where I, my, this is my first real job and I learned how to show up and then now look at me.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:46:12] And that is like, like that, like you can see it on my face right now. Like it just brings me joy. Like it's exciting to see people grow and develop and then, you know, it, it's a, most of the time it's a part-time egg packaging job. So obviously if you need a full-time job, like I would love to be able to write you that re recommendation letter or you know, send you off to college or even when you're done with a semester have you back. And so like that's one thing that I have right now. I've got some high schoolers that can cover breaks for when like my full-time employees wanna spend time either with their kids or, or travel. If it's over a school break, I've got a list of four high schoolers I can pick from now or my college student that can come in on a Thursday because she doesn't have class on Thursdays and she'll be there every Saturday. And so you start, but then as soon as the semester ends she wants to come back, you know, and work. And so I've learned that like, oh that's great, you know, you can go take your summer landscaping job and get all the hours in the world. And I know that when the snow starts to fall in Syracuse that you're gonna be walk, you know, calling me up and saying, you know, I'm able to start this date. So you kind of start doing these swaps and at first you know that that really stressed my dad out. And now with our efficiency being up and we have this real like team environment and, and things are running well, he's like, wow, you're really onto something. And so

Vance Crowe [00:47:42] Yeah, your enthusiasm about making your workplace someplace that people want to be is definitely contagious in the network. And you can see that, you know, my father-in-laws is fond of saying like, the, the measure of a man is how, how much do people wanna work for him? Like how much do people wanna come back and money will only take you so far. So your ability to capture whatever it is that motivates them and make them feel excited that that to have anybody ever come back, ever after they've worked for you to say, this is where I started, seems to me to be the mark of, of, of excellence, right? The mark of doing something right and being on a path upwards.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:48:23] Yeah. And I definitely learned, like there's definitely, you know, I had days that I wasn't, you know, that smiley, bubbly like, you know, constructive boss, you know, but I've learned from that and as I've taken on other leadership roles, it's helped me grow as a person or like even just spending time in the network, like work, you know, doing the work to take it to the next level. And then I hopefully will be accepted into lead New York here in the fall at Cornell University and like it's similar program to what Caleb's, you know, he got pushed back for COVID, but it's just a leadership course for two years.

Vance Crowe [00:49:02] So as we wrap up, I'm gonna put you on the spot, but I feel like I can do it because you are one of the most active members of the Articulate Ventures network. You've like pushed me to make things better, to do things in different and unique ways. What is your best pitch for why people should join a VN What have you gotten out of it and and why do you think it's a worthwhile thing to spend time on?

Christina Kohler Returns [00:49:24] This is the one question I was hoping you were going to ask me today that we would like get to. So I think that if, if you care about the community that you live in and that you want to be a better somewhere person, person A VN is a place to to, to make that happen because we're working on so many things, not just like public speaking or communications, like with our monthly shared experiences, you know, like learning not to hit the snooze button or becoming better writers. It's, or even having game night like now there's, there's a string of us that are communicating on Snapchat, sharing like our operations or our day to day, you know, like Nicholas with Go Post. So like we're learning more about popcorn and it's just like in a time where community was lacking or you didn't have access to like the typical friendships that you would've had, like a VN really has become something like way bigger than like what, like I had anticipated when I first signed up, you know, 'cause I was involved with the book clubs and you know, I, I still enjoy those book clubs, but like, it's like build your own adventure. Like you can make it, like your participation can be as like gung gung-ho as you want, or you can just read posts and you know, kind of like work on things in the background. Like you don't have to be that person that's involves, you know, seven days a week, but if you wanna check in once a week, you're still able to keep up with the content or do things at your own pace or chime in when, when you want to.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:51:07] And I think that there's a room for anyone, you know, even with movie nights like that, that Sunday night once a month, like with the same people. It's, it's been a lot of fun. And they're not just one type of movie. We're all over the map. So.

Vance Crowe [00:51:23] Well, I mean this makes my heart sing to to hear you describe this being like, if you wanna be a somewhere person, this is, this is a really great place to learn the skills that lets you build your community. Man, that, that is, that's music to my ears. Well, Christina Hudson Kohler, this was a blast talking to you. I'm sorry that we had to come on under kind of tense circumstances. If people wanted to help you make a difference with getting vaccines to, to the workers that showed up every day, making sure that people throughout the state of New York had food, what could they do?

Christina Kohler Returns [00:51:59] They could go online to our New York Farm Bureau website and under our e lobbying you could just write a letter and it's just a couple, you know, quick type it in and hit send and the legislators of, of New York will hear your voice and you do, you do not need to be a member of New York Farm Bureau to do that. E lobbying is open to anyone.

Vance Crowe [00:52:20] Well wonderful, thank you so much and I will, I'll see you in the speaking gym in just a little while.

Christina Kohler Returns [00:52:26] Great. Thanks.