I had a semi-interesting visitor late last week, a fellow from Whole Foods Market interested in range fed livestock produced by smaller local growers. You may recall some kerfuffle about that a couple of years ago when activist journalists were beating up on John Mackey, the CEO, for his reliance on industrial growers - organic or not - to fill his supply chain. This is presumably a result of that.

We did a short pasture walk show and tell. Mike, my chicken egg buddy, was there too since we have been talking about some deal where I use his chickens to do multi-species grazing. I've done it in the past but have no interest in marketing those products. This way we could both benefit: he gets the meat and eggs and I get bug control by some of the world's best bug hunters - chickens. There may some asymmetry in that deal that can be resolved by sharing some of his increase.

The Whole Foods fellow had actually come to see Mike, and stopped by here due to rumors about the crazy grass farmer up the hill who really did have great products, which have recently been selling like mad at farmer's markets in three cities, and were a sensation at the local Apple Festival where an enterprising couple were selling grass fed sliders (small burgers) made from the same brand.

I don't meet the public, as I explained to the Whole Foods fellow, because I scare people or put them to sleep with all of my passionately geeky talk. That's no way to move product, I claimed, but he disagreed. He said that his customers wanted nothing more than to meet the wild men of the mountains who actually walked the talk, and talked passionately about it.

Perhaps I've been wrong. Perhaps my rough appearance and manner would be judged by a different standard by those who were already sold on the broad concepts since they expect such producers to have dung on their boots and contrarian ideas grounded in less than commonly commercial processes, derived from natural systems knowledge.

Still, it's stressful for me to go public. I get the heebie-jeebies in crowds due to all of the psychic noise and lose about 30 IQ points in the din, and another 30 if the prospective customer is a doe eyed female. At that point I'm probably incoherent if I can speak at all. It takes huge effort and energy to get a grip and function at a sufficiently capable level, which drains me in quite a short amount of time. After 2 hours of that I'd need a nap to recover.

I don't know if anything will come of it, but it would be a hoot to have my beef sold at a semi-local Whole Foods Market. After all these years it may be that the stuff that I do is finally becoming acceptable to a larger public.

Though I stress science - test the soil and forage to see if it really is good, and send the product to the lab and test it to see if it truly is highly nutritious - the production narrative may be the most marketable part. The scientific credibility may be the back story, rather than the other way around. To sell me you have to show me the facts, but to sell others it may be that what is required is an entertaining story.

And, all I have to do is act naturally.