My guest Rodney Braga is the President and CEO of Braga Fresh Family Farms. For three generations, the Braga Farms has been at the forefront of the fresh produce industry, growing, packing, and shipping the highest quality fresh vegetables all over the world. Rodney's visionary leadership, which is centered on people and their well-being, the health of the soil, building strong and sustainable communities, and empowering women, is a source of inspiration. Through his commitment to these values, he has not only transformed his own operations but has also set an example for others in the industry to follow. Please enjoy my inspirational conversation with Rodney.
My guest Rodney Braga is the President and CEO of Braga Fresh Family Farms. For three generations, the Braga Farms has been at the forefront of the fresh produce industry, growing, packing, and shipping the highest quality fresh vegetables all over the world. Rodney's visionary leadership, which is centered on people and their well-being, the health of the soil, building strong and sustainable communities, and empowering women, is a source of inspiration. Through his commitment to these values, he has not only transformed his own operations but has also set an example for others in the industry to follow.
Braga Family Farms website - www.bragafresh.com
This episode is sponsored by UnitedAg, one of the largest association health plans to offer healthcare to the agriculture industry of California and Arizona.
Kirti Mutatkar, President and CEO of UnitedAg. Reach me at kmutatkar@unitedag.org, www.linkedin.com/in/kirtimutatkar
UnitedAg's website - www.unitedag.org
Episode Contributors - Rodney Braga, Paul LeCrone, and Kirti Mutatkar
The episode is also sponsored by
Brent Eastman Insurance Services Inc. - https://brenteastman.com/
Blue Shield of California - https://www.blueshieldca.com/
Elite Medical - https://www.elitecorpmed.com/
Gallagher - https://www.ajg.com/
SAIN Medical - https://sainmedical.com/
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. This is Kirti Mutatkar, president and CEO at UnitedAg. Today I actually feel so honored and so fulfilled that I'm serving [00:00:10] an industry that has leaders like Rodney Braga. Rodney Braga is the owner of Braga Family Farms and he spoke at a conference just a few [00:00:20] weeks ago at Disneyland. What he had to say at the conference about women empowerment, about building communities, about just leading Braga [00:00:30] family farms in a very different way, was actually beyond inspirational. Morning, [00:00:40] Rodney. How are you?
Rodney Braga : [00:00:42] Well, I'm fantastic, Kirti. Thank you for asking.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:00:45] The reason I wanted to meet with you and the reason I wanted to chat with you is because [00:00:50] I run a women ag Academy. So I lead it for United AG. And every time we talk about who is your any female leader [00:01:00] that people look up to or any anybody that they feel is somebody they would emulate or copy, right? Your name comes up. So that's [00:01:10] really that was very interesting. The first time that happened, I was looking for a female name and here comes Rodney Braga. So I'm like, Who is Rodney Braga? And when Laura [00:01:20] talks about Laura is one of our women leaders, and when she talks about you, it is. I can see why because you have been you [00:01:30] the way you've empowered people at your at Braga firms that talks that that's speaks volumes. And I'm so excited to talk to you today.
Rodney Braga : [00:01:39] Well [00:01:40] that's that's very gracious for you to say. And certainly, you know, Laura has been with us for, gosh, I'd say 20 years. She's probably going to tell me it's 25 or 30. I'm not really sure, um, forever [00:01:50] and really has helped us build our business. And we kind of started out together not really knowing what we were doing, just a farmer. And then once we started getting into more business lines, [00:02:00] we kind of learned together ever since then. So she was with us when we were probably 50 employees, and now I don't know that she tells me maybe 1800 team members. Right, Right. So [00:02:10] and been here the whole time. Yeah.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:02:12] So, Rodney, where does that start from? So when you think when I look at the history of where Braga from comes from and your history, [00:02:20] where does that different way of leading come from? Is that based on the way you were raised? Is that based?
Rodney Braga : [00:02:26] I think so. I think we were. You know, we're a family operation. [00:02:30] And as you've gotten larger, it's hard to keep that family operation. So we still are. But you have to bring in corporate levels of, you know, measuring things. [00:02:40] And it just has to happen. But trying to keep that the the idea that we really are still just a family operation. I mean, my my brothers here, I've got two cousins and an uncle. It started with [00:02:50] my grandfather, Sebastian and my grandmother, Josephine Braga, and they started here and we're in their old house, actually, as our office, we've expanded it. But right here, the house that.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:02:59] We are in right now.
Rodney Braga : [00:02:59] Yeah, exactly. [00:03:00] Yeah. This was their, their home. Right. And, and they were started the farming here in 1928. So we're going to be this is 95 years and so.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:03:08] This is where we it all started. Yeah. Right here, [00:03:10] right now. Okay.
Rodney Braga : [00:03:11] Yeah. And and now we farm. This is the home ranch, but we farm, you know, 10,000 acres in the Salinas Valley and then down in Imperial Valley and [00:03:20] some in Yuma. So we're, you know, we're a couple states now. And then we've expanded into processing facilities and a grower shipper. But I started off on the farm [00:03:30] with my grandfather and my dad, and we were and they taught me to do all the stuff that the that the team members were doing, right? So when [00:03:40] ten, 12 years old, I'm moving sprinkler pipe with them, I'm driving tractor, you get a good appreciation for the hard work that it takes. Certainly. And [00:03:50] I think my grandfather and my dad used to tell me that, you know, really all we were was the ground, the soil and the people that are helping us farm it because we can't do it by [00:04:00] ourselves. Right? So it's really those two things. It's you have to have the people and you've got to have the soil and the water and that's it. Right. And it's a long term plan. And you're a farmer, [00:04:10] right? You know, I'll tell people that we have we're using water wells that my grandfather put in in the 1930s. And and [00:04:20] and then we have we have people here, uh, one gentleman who's been here for a little over 50 years, right? Yeah.
Rodney Braga : [00:04:28] And we have tons of a few 40s, [00:04:30] tons of 30s, more than you can even count. And I think it really is just, you know, you, you treat people with respect, we're going to treat you like a human person. [00:04:40] Yeah. And but then we need a hard day's work and then that then those people that we have, you know, they emulate what you do. They see that you end up [00:04:50] attracting those type of people. You know, if someone comes here and they're not a great people person or can't get along, I'm not making a decision. But the people that are hiring [00:05:00] them, it's you know, they're going to find a new position for them or a way that they're going to work. All the success now, really in the last, you know, gosh, I'd say 20 years for all [00:05:10] the wonderful team members we have, goes to the people that are in these positions because I'm like, I'm I'm hiring very few people. You know, in the last ten years, I've probably [00:05:20] maybe hired five people. Right. You know, directly. Right. It's all happening with with everyone else. Right.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:05:26] But you're setting that example, right? Yeah.
Rodney Braga : [00:05:29] And you know, and [00:05:30] I think, you know, we we talked a little bit earlier and I said, you know, look, I don't think we're doing anything different, but I realize. You know, thinking about it, I'm like, I guess what we are doing different is that we [00:05:40] really are just trying to fill the position with the best person, right? And we really, you know, really don't care what you look like or, you [00:05:50] know, if you sound like. No, exactly. We just, you know, can you do the job? And that's really it. And maybe that's maybe that's something that's very basic to farming. Right? Because you just the jobs [00:06:00] got to get done, right? It doesn't matter about anything else. Right.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:06:02] That's so interesting. This is your my 13th or 14th podcast interview. This has [00:06:10] been the theme across everyone, right? The people, people, people that comes first, which is I, I don't think that it speaks of any other [00:06:20] industry. And the interesting part is when you talk to somebody else like, let's say where I am at or whatever, that's that's not how people think agriculture is, but [00:06:30] it is driven by the people in the soil.
Rodney Braga : [00:06:33] And investing in those people. So, you know, and you talked about Laura earlier, has been with us for so long doing such a fantastic job. She runs [00:06:40] all of our human resources, really. She's the, you know, the chief operation officer for people. Right.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:06:46] She's a chief people person.
Rodney Braga : [00:06:47] Exactly. And and, [00:06:50] you know, and I say we kind of grew up in this position together, you know, me and her and and God, we've made so many mistakes right way back when and we learned from them. It's really the only way you can learn. And [00:07:00] we still make we still make some not as big and not as many. Right. And now we'll she'll even kid me. She's like, Well, we got this going on. You know what's going to happen if we don't do this? I'm like, Yeah, it's going to come out bad. [00:07:10] She's like, But you know, what do you want to do? Right? You know what I mean? Right, Right. But you kind of she's been doing it. She knows the outcomes before they're going to come and she knows what's going on. But probably the last thing probably [00:07:20] about ten years ago is that we realized that we weren't training our team enough, especially the foreman's and supervisors, right. Part of 15 years ago now, [00:07:30] and and investing in them in that way. And it paid off in, you know, health and worker's comp things and in other problems [00:07:40] because I think it probably occurs in other industries, but especially in ours, you take the person that was the best broccoli harvester or whatever, and when you're looking [00:07:50] for you need a new foreman that he or she becomes the four person, right or right. Well, some people can know how to just instinctively handle [00:08:00] a group of people, but it's very rare. And then those folks do a really good job and then they stay with us for 20 and 30 years. Right. And we're not [00:08:10] having the changeover in management, but we're always investing in them. Right. And sending them to any you know, every year we're sending them off to all new classes, right. Whenever we have a chance. [00:08:20] And that probably is something that it's hard for companies, I think, to measure the what you get out of it. But for us, it's been pretty easy because we're like, you [00:08:30] know, these folks are just doing a bang up job now, right?
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:08:33] Yeah. Because when you treat people that way, it's not it's not work anymore. Right? Like I was telling you earlier, when [00:08:40] people think of retiring or whatever, I feel this is I love what I do and it's like vacation every day and why would I do that? And that's the same [00:08:50] rings true for people, other people working. Because if you treat them well and it becomes a part of the family, then it's not [00:09:00] you give 1,000%, right? That that then it becomes a no brainer. You're not abusing the system or you're like, Oh, what's the least possible I can do in getaway that doesn't even cross somebody's [00:09:10] mind 100%?
Rodney Braga : [00:09:12] And then what we'll see is that if you're a new supervisor and you come to us, you see how they go about their job and how serious [00:09:20] they take everything and what they do. And if you're either going to do that, you know, we don't really ever have to terminate that many people, right? They come [00:09:30] in, they see the deal. Usually by now we're hiring people that other people are recommending on our team. And so they come in with that attitude. But it's sort of like they see what it needs [00:09:40] to take place and they just sort of do that and they see hopefully I think they see that, you know, in our whether it be our chief operating officer who you would expect that [00:09:50] that she was. Colby Pereira has been with us for a year and a half wonderful young lady. You'd expect autonomy at at that position. But a lot of our other positions, whether it be, [00:10:00] you know, our safety, our human resource positions, are farming people. I give them a wide area of responsibility. They really come to me with very little. [00:10:10] They're really just coming to me now and saying, we had this issue and this is how we resolved it. They're never really even asking my opinion anymore because I told them quite a while ago, I said, I'm so far removed from the day [00:10:20] to day that I'm just going to give you wrong advice. Right. I'm I'm going to know.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:10:25] More than you. Right?
Rodney Braga : [00:10:26] 100%. Like, you know, like so, you know, you know, kurdy might have been working for us for [00:10:30] 20 years and ten years ago, I used to interact with her quite a bit and, and now it's like that's the. I don't know what you guys know now. I don't even know where they are most of the time. [00:10:40] Like, they're just. They're running like they. They they understand. They're almost like running part. Running the business with me. You know, we're spread out with farming districts with 800 miles. And so a [00:10:50] lot of times I'll call one of them and they're down in Arizona or something and handling an issue. Right. And it's a Saturday or whatever. Right. And they're just they're [00:11:00] just self-starters and movers, which is.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:11:02] Interesting that you say that it feels easy when somebody's listening to this and saying, Oh yeah, [00:11:10] of course you, you do this. But that's very, very hard to find employees like that because that takes a different kind of an individual to be that, [00:11:20] to take it to that extreme of saying, okay, I'm owning this. This is I'm accountable for this entrepreneurial. Really? Yeah. Because I don't I don't need a roar to tell me. Right. [00:11:30] What to do, what not to do. I this is me. My you have that self passion to do it. So that actually going back to the way [00:11:40] you lead and the way you have set an example, I think has a lot to do with that. And I'm pretty sure Laura with her team and when they're hiring, they are [00:11:50] doing something really right to get the right people in because that's very hard. A lot of companies struggle with that.
Rodney Braga : [00:11:57] You know, as we've grown, we've we've at some point a few years [00:12:00] ago, we took over a facility which had a probably 125 people working there. And we took it over and we saw, you know, the difference that [00:12:10] our training made with other training. Good, good folks. And I'd say after four years, you know, probably half of them are there. The other ones, just like [00:12:20] I don't think we terminated a single person that just decided that maybe this wasn't the fit for them. It makes you feel good to see, you know, And I came in when we took that over, I did [00:12:30] very little, right. This was kind of a major operation. We bought a facility and we bought their business. You know, whether it was, you know, so h.r. Safety, occupational safety, [00:12:40] finance operations. Really just just grabbed it. Right.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:12:44] So where do you is that, uh, does that come from your grandfather? Does that where [00:12:50] does that come from? Because that, that's a that, you know, training is like I you don't learn that at school.
Rodney Braga : [00:12:56] And I, I think I think, you know, working here my whole life in a way they [00:13:00] gave me, you know, as a as a young kid a lot of responsibility and and a lot to test out and a little bit of a rope to to make mistakes. Right. And [00:13:10] that was okay. You're going to make mistakes. I always tell people, look, I mean, I've made more mistakes than anybody that that that works with us. Right? Because I've been here for so long and I've made some really [00:13:20] bad ones. Right. Business decisions. So you're going to make mistakes. You're going to learn from it. Don't make the second one. Same one twice. Correct. Um, and I don't know, maybe it's a little bit of, uh, a little laziness [00:13:30] of me, right? It's like, hey, so, you know, like in the comments, like, what do you think about this? I'm like, well, listen, I'm like, what do I have you here for, right? Like, you're going to figure it out. And they do. And I think [00:13:40] and they end up being like, wow, you know, I can do these things. I'll make mistakes. And Rod's not going to say, what the heck he's going to say, okay, we all make we [00:13:50] do these things. So they they get that it's a learning ability. Yeah. And so just the other day, you know, one of our, uh, my chief operating officer asked me, How are you doing? I said, I'm doing fantastic. [00:14:00] She says, Yeah, we got, you know, how are you doing? She says, Well, you know, you know, about there's different things going on. I said, Actually, I'm fantastic. I ain't really got any problems.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:14:10] That's [00:14:10] good.
Rodney Braga : [00:14:12] You know? And quite honestly, it's just kind of a mindset as you get older, right? Um, you know, honestly, we probably did have, you know, like the, the markets [00:14:20] are down, costs are up. There's a whole bunch of, like, real issues, right? But at the end of the day, you know, it's like, look, you know, we're going to be all right. You know what I mean? I've [00:14:30] got my the little kid. I got the little family trying to raise them. You know, everyone's got this kind of stuff. We've been here for 95 years. We've been through a heck of a lot worse than a little bit of inflation. [00:14:40] Right, right, right. Uh, you know, gosh, now we can say we've been through a pandemic, Right? Right. But, you know, we've been through, uh, World War Two. You know, [00:14:50] obviously we've been through the Great Depression right here, you know, I mean, uh, and somehow we're here, right? And we're just going to keep pushing forward. A [00:15:00] lot of us like to say, hey, we're in California. You [00:15:10] know, a tough business in California, right? Monterey County is probably the toughest county to farm in in California. Is the stuff of state in the country regulations. You know, [00:15:20] all these deals. Look at the other side, the barriers to entry. There's nobody coming and deciding they want to start farming. In California. We know what we're doing. We have the land, we have the water, and we have the people. [00:15:30]
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:15:30] It's the perspective, right? You're so right. I mean, I've been doing a lot of thinking, too. I guess it all comes to us when we are the crossing the 50 and get [00:15:40] a little introspective and think through think through things. We had a tough time last year, too. We ended the year really in a it was a very good [00:15:50] way. But during the as we're going through it, as the investments and the things were inflation investments and all the things that you mentioned, I felt some of the things, [00:16:00] even the mistakes that were made, the relationships got stronger, some internal relationships. Somebody realized, oh, this is what it is. It was a learning thing, right? [00:16:10] You look back and you think, Yeah, it was tough. It was hard. Maybe there were 3 a.m. like those get up in the morning and like you're stressed. But then at the end of the day, [00:16:20] it's all good. That's a win, right? I mean, the things will be up and the things will be down. No, Absolutely right. Yeah.
Rodney Braga : [00:16:26] 100%. Yeah. We're we've got probably seven different [00:16:30] businesses all under our family of companies, sales offices here and in different places. So there's a there's a lot going on. And so I kind of float between what's [00:16:40] the kind of going, you know, what needs who needs me the most right now? And like I said, I really just they kind of bounce things off of me, right? And they come up with the solutions. It's been said many times [00:16:50] before, you know, somebody asks you, your CEO of a company, even a family company, so what's your real job? And so and I'm stealing this from somebody. It's really it's just really three things. And [00:17:00] it's, you know, I've got to, you know, find, retain, recruit and retain top people. Right? I've got to maintain on a balance sheet [00:17:10] with a company that's profitable profitable income statement and a balance sheet so that we have you know, we have financing there for us. And and the third one, I don't remember what the heck it was, but [00:17:20] it was just like and then just let people do their work. Right? Those are really that's my deal, my thing.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:17:25] I was thinking about this. What what's my role? I feel it's building connections is [00:17:30] what I'm boiling it down to where I think that's a little like I was telling you earlier, as we are technologically going in different directions as [00:17:40] people are talking about these chat and stuff like that, I kind of feel so especially COVID, I think talk taught us that being that having a connection, [00:17:50] being kind of the human aspect of it. That's that's what I've been thinking about. It's like, you know.
Rodney Braga : [00:17:57] We, we learned a lot through, you know, through COVID. We were, you know, we had [00:18:00] to have everybody go home and work remotely. So the technology, we were able to scramble, sort of get it done. And then we you know, we learned from that that there were team members that were there was probably [00:18:10] a small amount that were more productive working at home. But on the people side of it, you know, we saw pretty quickly that, you know, people I think, need to [00:18:20] get into the office because there's the social aspect, there's the team, and they could probably get the job done.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:18:26] It's like the connection you need.
Rodney Braga : [00:18:27] Yeah. And I and I think it's, you know, like me, I [00:18:30] would go insane, right? I mean, my, you know, if I was home all the time, right. The kids and everything. My wife, she. Right.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:18:38] She'd be like, Can you please go to work today?
Rodney Braga : [00:18:39] Oh, [00:18:40] 100%. 100%. And so but, you know, just the interaction, I think when you get to work, there's so much of that built up with with folks at every level in our [00:18:50] company that's a positive that you don't want to get away from. And I think the health aspect of it. Right, right. There's just something about, you know, getting up, getting dressed, getting out of the [00:19:00] house, going to see folks at work and having these little conversations and talking to somebody maybe about the kids and the problems you're having at [00:19:10] school with the teacher or something. Right. If we're all locked away at home. Yeah. The mental health is not going to be very good, I don't think at all. And then and then the health. You know, physical health is [00:19:20] going to deteriorate as well. Some of the technology we like to keep was that, you know, so sometimes we have we now we have a lot of meetings on our teams deal where we're all in the same office. [00:19:30] But that part still works better because instead of rounding everybody up for this 10:00 thing and by the time they wander in and somebody's on the phone and then somebody gets pulled away, it's like, boom, you [00:19:40] turn your computer on at ten and by ten, 12, we're done. When? Before it was 1030. And people are, you know, it's like and they just so those things have worked out really well.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:19:49] So going into [00:19:50] you talked about soil and you talked about people and there is a perception out there, right, when you think agriculture, especially when I talk to somebody, I'm like, oh, agriculture there. [00:20:00] There you go. People roll their eyes. And but we are the stewards of earth and stewards of the land because. Was like you said, nobody's going to come [00:20:10] in to California and farm or I mean, there's no right because. But you have to take care of this because if you are you've done this, your grandparents, you have your kids coming in behind [00:20:20] you. Right.
Rodney Braga : [00:20:20] You know, farmers were the original environmentalists. Right? Because everything is the soil for us. And if we don't maintain it, then we [00:20:30] don't have nothing. Right. And so, you know, we're sitting here in a little conference room. We have and you're looking at a picture of our home ranch behind me. And this is where my grandfather came in 1928. And [00:20:40] the soil today is in better condition than it was when he got here in 1928. You know, and now we're using way less water. We're using less pesticides and fertilizers. [00:20:50] Really, for us, I was taught by my grandfather and my dad, you know, growing up here in the 1970s as a young boy, I was ten years old and 76. And and. [00:21:00] They never used the word organic then or sustainable, which are huge. But that's how we always farmed. It's just the way we farmed. It was a way of.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:21:08] Doing things for.
Rodney Braga : [00:21:08] The soil, you know, [00:21:10] you tried to use as least as you could. So when we transitioned into the organic, you know, a lot of the things that just means you're not using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, but also you have to take care of the soil. You need cover [00:21:20] crops, you need rotation. It becomes more important when you don't have the fertilizer that you can put on and the pesticides that you can do conventionally. Right. So you have to have this really healthy soil. [00:21:30] And that's what we had been doing all along. Right? So that really helped us. And now we're moving on to the New Deal is regenerative, which is we're sort of low tillage [00:21:40] on the on the ground, but it means you need more cover crop. It means you're going to how you're going to use the water more wisely. And so we're always kind of pushing, pushing [00:21:50] the envelope to see where we're going to be. And that's another thing that I've told on the farming team. And look, we're trying things and we've got to try things that we believe are going to fail, you [00:22:00] know, because as everyone's been farming good farmland in the United States for 100 to 200 years, right? There's nothing new, really. So it's just going back and finding [00:22:10] the things that didn't work ten years ago or 20 years ago. But why?
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:22:19] So the regenerative [00:22:20] farming, the drip irrigation, all that was there before. But you're just kind of kind of putting it together. Innovative.
Rodney Braga : [00:22:28] Different. And I'll show you that. So this, this minimum [00:22:30] till which is, you know, for us, you know, our fuel costs are so, so, so large. Right? We had tried this minimum till in the 80s, which [00:22:40] really meant, you know, you see those huge John Deere tractors with the big tracks and these things will burn like, you know, 20, 30 gallons of diesel an hour. You started using these deals that would only [00:22:50] go like six inches deep, eight inches deep, and you reclaim the beds. But what we found was you didn't break up the soil down below and pretty soon you had more water runoff. So you're not saving water [00:23:00] and the crops wouldn't grow. The change that we've been tinkering with now it seems to be working is we're keeping the beds. But in the center of the bed, we're planting like a rye [00:23:10] grass. And these rye grass will make a root system that's eight feet deep if you leave it there perennially. Okay. And that is airing out the soil for you. So we go [00:23:20] in and we and we lightly till where the rows are maybe eight, ten inches. And then we've got in the center, we've got about 40in of a of a basically [00:23:30] a grass growing that we keep mowing down, but we're not and we don't disturb that and it goes down. And then if you know in the farming you've got the furrows or the tractor drives. [00:23:40] Right. We've started planting like a clover, so it doesn't get very large, but it makes a root system, you know. So we'll sprinkle, sprinkle crops out of the ground and use the drip after [00:23:50] we have no water runoff out of these fields. Oh, that's interesting. And now so, you know, I'm I'm, you know, thinking this is you can't do this. I was, you know, without doing these things, it never worked. I knew it before. It [00:24:00] didn't work. And so I go out and I stick my little lettuce knife in the ground and it just sinks into the ground because this this root system underneath. Right.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:24:09] So is that something [00:24:10] that you found?
Rodney Braga : [00:24:11] So this is something that we've just found in the last couple of years. So we've dedicated about 100 acres to this now to testing it out and and are and are working it this way. So we've got a piece [00:24:20] that like it's four years we've been doing this and we actually you know maybe we cheated a little bit. We took the the toughest piece of dirt we had, not the best piece. And I said, Well, here's the toughest piece, [00:24:30] right? Let's see if we can start here. And it's actually doing better than the way we were farming it before.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:24:36] Because you're using a less carbon, right? I mean the diesel and [00:24:40] stuff, right? Because your, your ground gets done.
Rodney Braga : [00:24:43] So you're using less and now you're, you're capturing it and keeping it in the soil. Soil. Right.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:24:49] So the carbon is kept [00:24:50] in the soil and the environment is okay, right? Because you don't have the diesel running. Are you dedicating some section of your resources to like innovations [00:25:00] like this?
Rodney Braga : [00:25:01] Right. So we're yes. So we're always looking at whether it's on the farming side, the harvesting side. You know, we are having just like everybody else, it's like, can [00:25:10] we can we take more labor hours out of the crop? Right. And that you know, so there's there's a lot of technology coming in that is in all [00:25:20] of AG which is kind of taking taking the people out. We just don't because we just don't have the people. Right. Right. It's just there's just not. Not around. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. You [00:25:30] could pay $50 an hour and we just you can't fill. Yeah, there's just they're not there. Yeah. Um, so you know, I do worry that, you know, we can't take all the people out because somebody, [00:25:40] you know, we still have a lot of people in the world, so. But that'll never happen, Right? But, um, we're so labor intensive in ag, especially in row crops like we do. [00:25:50] We never laid anybody off. It was just those crews were starting to get into their being 60 years old and there was no young folks coming into the business.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:25:58] So the, uh, so how [00:26:00] does this happen? So when you find something innovative that works, right? So you're leading the charge in that. Do you educate the other people working [00:26:10] in that and they adapt. Yeah.
Rodney Braga : [00:26:11] So that, so we've, uh, you know, so I think we take a lot of pride in things that we do here. And we've got a couple of young folks that are kind of leading [00:26:20] this charge and, and they really are becoming quite expert in some of these new ideas. But we're I guess maybe it might be open [00:26:30] source is what somebody in the tech might call it. Yeah, we're not keeping anything to ourselves because we've had we just a couple of weeks ago had I think there was about 50 different farming organizations [00:26:40] out here and we're kind of showing them what we were doing. And we had different government agencies out here from from California and the federal government looking at what we're doing [00:26:50] from all different agencies. And really, I think showing them all the because so far, you know, I talked about the kind of successes we've had, but there's been 20 failures, right? It's been way more [00:27:00] failures, but it's showing them the failures really is saying like, look, we're going to fail a lot.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:27:05] As you were talking through this and talking about the innovative things, and you [00:27:10] look at other industries and you're thinking, I know, isn't your one of your initiatives to be carbon free by 2025? Right. So.
Rodney Braga : [00:27:18] Did I get that correct? So yeah, [00:27:20] so that was, I think probably ten years ago we said 20, 25 and that's we're not going to make it. But so somebody said causing a dent. So we had to put a number on it because if we just said if we said 2050, [00:27:30] yeah, we would have started working on it in like 2040, 20. Right. So I said, look, we're going to we're going to set this kind of goal to.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:27:39] Make the urgency. [00:27:40]
Rodney Braga : [00:27:40] And and so we so I'm saying we're not going to be there. My young folks that are running the deal said, you know, we're not as far away as you think. Actually, what's interesting here is in California, we don't get so we're cutting [00:27:50] down on like water, which is our electricity. Right. Um, which is great. But but there's so much renewable energy in California that we're not really getting credit for that [00:28:00] as you would, right? So I'm like, Well, wait a minute. I'm cutting my electricity use in half. They're like, Yeah, but half the electricity in California is renewable, so you're only getting a 25% credit. I'm like, Well, wait a minute, now you're stacking the deck, right? [00:28:10] That's true.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:28:13] That's true. That's true. It's so fulfilling that, uh, agriculture are the true environmentalist. Actually, [00:28:20] we are.
Rodney Braga : [00:28:21] And because you have to maintain your soil, like I said, now our soil is, is, is in excellent shape. The thing is, can we keep it in such excellent shape [00:28:30] without doing that deep tillage that we would do every fall that I was ingrained into me, you got to do this deep tillage because that's what keeps the soil loose and and you got to we [00:28:40] do a lot. We've always done cover crops you're tilling you're growing this to just only purpose is to till it back into the ground so you maintain the soil and you and you always check on [00:28:50] it. But the other part of it is whether it's being carbon neutral, you know, saving water, which is all good for the environment, it's good to the bottom line. You know, I can remember, gosh, back when I was [00:29:00] in college and a lot of people, all farmers, all you guys, you know, you waste water. I'm like, yeah, well, our you know, we we pump our own water. And back then our electric bill is like $200,000 [00:29:10] a month. We don't like to drop an ounce more than we need. Right? Right. Or like, oh, that doesn't really. I didn't really think of it that way. It's like, what do you. You can't think that we're some sort of [00:29:20] evil business people, yet we just want to throw money away, Right? We're not going to do that. Right. Same thing with, like, you know, trying to save diesel now it's just so expensive. Right? Right. And then trying to save man [00:29:30] hours is not only the the cost, but you just simply don't have the folks, right? Correct. And and a lot of our a lot of our folks are [00:29:40] a lot of our tractor drivers are gosh, they've been here for a long time. Right. And and when they retire, there's not a there's not a whole bunch of them to come back. [00:29:50] So you're you have limited resources whether it be human and water, of course in California. Right. You've got to figure out how to keep doing what you're doing with with I think less.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:29:59] Yeah. It's always [00:30:00] when you talk to somebody else is that, oh, you're wasting water, right? And then I talk about our cancer cases have gone up big time and our claims cost and somebody said, oh, [00:30:10] is that because you guys are in agriculture and you use chemicals? Is that why it's higher in agriculture? So it's always that perception, right? You're fighting because [00:30:20] it's like you the drought. Oh yeah, because it's your industry, right? That's using up the water. I'm like, okay, yeah, we're.
Rodney Braga : [00:30:28] Probably we're using [00:30:30] on, on say, our home ranch here from when we, you know, from 95 years ago. We're using 80% less water to grow twice the crops. [00:30:40] Right. Just with evolving technologies. Right. Right.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:30:43] And everything that we like you said, the pesticide, all the chemicals, everything is [00:30:50] a very thoughtful process that goes into it. This is how you cut the claims cost by eating the California grown produce, because that's the best produce out there. [00:31:00]
Rodney Braga : [00:31:00] Absolutely. It's, you know, trying to get my nine and ten year old to eat all of it is.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:31:07] You should take them around and do that.
Rodney Braga : [00:31:08] But they as my as [00:31:10] my nine year old would tell me, she learned in school that, you know, your taste buds change every two weeks, she told me. Or ten days. Right. And I'm like, what did you get this? And I heard something on the radio talking about it, too. [00:31:20] Like, you get a whole new set of taste buds. Like, you know, like, Oh, I.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:31:22] Didn't know that every two.
Rodney Braga : [00:31:23] Weeks, every two weeks or something. But I, you know, but she's equating it to like, that's why she used to like this. And now she doesn't like this. Right. Okay. [00:31:30] Because. Because mom is always saying. But you. You used to eat the heck out of this. Yeah, well, you know.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:31:35] That was two weeks ago. It was two weeks ago.
Rodney Braga : [00:31:37] So now I'm completely different.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:31:39] Right. So [00:31:40] anything I missed, Rodney, anything you think for people who are listening we should talk about.
Rodney Braga : [00:31:46] We've certainly have a lot of a lot of females in high [00:31:50] positions. Right. Uh, from sales, chief operating officer, CFO in all of our C line positions really is. I want to tell people that like, you know, [00:32:00] I wasn't looking to do that. It was really just I think we do need to take credit as an organization, but not me, is that we're looking for the best person. And it [00:32:10] just and that's how it fell, right? And and each time they look and we're just looking for that the best person for the job and. To be a female. Right? And [00:32:20] we're just always looking for bright people that want to push a little bit and want to feel good about what they're doing. Know that they have a real place here, you know, [00:32:30] and that we're growing. We're a growing company. Some of our little marketing is that, you know, just growing, right? We like to say we're growing crops, we're growing companies, we're [00:32:40] growing families, communities, people, so many of our folks, they're all involved in, whether it be the, you know, the four H Club or [00:32:50] their kid's soccer. You know, you start realizing that you have all these people that are so busy doing a great job for you, but whatever little town in this valley that we are that they live in, they're [00:33:00] also the busiest ones that we have. And the ones that do the best job are also super busy when they're out of here. Right. Because they're working with the kids sports deal. They're working for the Rotary, they're working [00:33:10] for different charitable organizations. And that's probably one of the things we take the most pride in is like not only what they're doing here at work, but they're really involved in the communities that we're involved in.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:33:19] Yeah, [00:33:20] you're building the community here. Yeah.
Rodney Braga : [00:33:22] What what we need is what our team members need. They need more affordable housing. So we try to get involved in our communities to get more affordable [00:33:30] housing. They need better health. We and we need that for them. Right? Right. We need to try to find ways and get that done.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:33:37] Great, Great. One of the things that we were our chief [00:33:40] medical officer, Dr. Rosemary Qu, she was talking about it in her presentation was The social determinants of health is a big [00:33:50] thing lately in the any any anywhere you go, any conference everybody's talking about that. But that is an agriculture right. The housing the way you are building the community, [00:34:00] providing all that resource, that's your social determinants of health because that's what makes you a healthy person where you have the option of a better house, housing [00:34:10] or even community. The way those the the people that you just describe must have been the other healthiest people out there because they're doing something well.
Rodney Braga : [00:34:19] They're they're [00:34:20] very active. Their kids are active fulfilling life. Um, you know, that's what we'll try to, to look in and make sure that like in a solid where we are. Gonzales That, [00:34:30] you know the YMCA and stuff you know those programs for the for the kids. Right? What we're proud of, I think, is this amazing team members that we have that, you [00:34:40] know, look, I mean, I could probably be gone for 2 or 3 months. Everything's going to be fine. They run the business and very entrepreneurial folks that we have take a lot of pride [00:34:50] in it. You know, a lot of folks have been here for so long that, you know, they they think of it as part of their company. And it is because they were here and they built it. One [00:35:00] thing I understand quickly was [00:35:10] the health of your team members is, you know, we need them to show up to work. Right. But how are they, you know, but how is their mental health? People are going to have [00:35:20] ups and downs and it's going to have these issues. And trying to you know, when COVID broke out, we tried to put up regular communications with folks saying, hey, you know, you're stuck at home. Um, you [00:35:30] know, maybe your husband or wife is working because you're an essential person. Maybe both of you are. So you get to go out and work. But the hard part is, is when you got home [00:35:40] at 5:00 at night, you try to go to grocery store. There's no there was nothing there. Right. Because everything was being taken off the shelves. So, hey, reach out to your supervisors and foreman's. And [00:35:50] if you need something, you know, we'll find we'll go get it for you, right? I mean, we'll go to the grocery store if you're and if you're if somebody's sick, I mean, let us know. Right. [00:36:00] Right. Um, and that's it's like it's really easy, right?
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:36:04] See, that is. I know you think it's easy and it comes natural to you, but that's not [00:36:10] across the board. Uh, it's a employer. Employees at Braga Farms are fortunate to have that because that I haven't seen that across the board because [00:36:20] employers, especially from mental health, when the things like you said during COVID, it was crazy, right? Not a lot of employers did this [00:36:30] for their employees. So kudos to, you know.
Rodney Braga : [00:36:32] Well, and it it was a little bit of me and it was a lot of our team and said, you know, they and they just they just really took it and ran with it. Right. They [00:36:40] were like, hey, we're going to do this. We were a lot of our this is our team members. It was not me. They were literally buying, you know, huge, like £50 sacks of beans. And [00:36:50] then they would bring our management in and we were bagging them into smaller amounts and handing them out right to the folks. [00:37:00] And and really, because they weren't they couldn't find them in the stores. And then another one of our team members got involved with with the government at USDA. [00:37:10] And they had they were doing deals where we were we were donating vegetables there and then getting it. And then they were getting it to the communities. Remember, they were passing out in the [00:37:20] communities. And so one of our team members said, well, you know, like we've got the refrigeration, we've got the refrigeration trailers, so we can help facilitate [00:37:30] that. And so where they were doing it at the different cities, right? But remember, a lot of our team members out in the field, both of them were working maybe not for us, but they're working [00:37:40] in a processing plant for us and somebody in a field or somebody, a tractor driver for us and somebody else is working for another company. And so it was like they were handing out all this help, you know. Ten, [00:37:50] 12 Well, these people sure work, right? So we started doing it like before work and after work here. I smiled and liked it when I heard about it, but I had zero input in making [00:38:00] it happen and it just they were getting it done.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:38:03] I think in the very small way. United AG is what? That's what I say. Let's set an example and you are [00:38:10] setting it in a very big way. I'm glad I came in here today because it's just listening to you to have employers like you, it just feels so [00:38:20] empowering. It's so well, that's.
Rodney Braga : [00:38:21] That's very gracious for you to say. And I would I would just say that, you know, we're the lucky ones, right? So if I didn't have this incredible team, hadn't built this [00:38:30] stuff, I would be working a heck of a lot harder than I personally have to to not even do an eighth of a job that they're getting done. For me, it really is something when you're when you're building something, you're [00:38:40] building building a company, you're building the kind of, uh, an idea of how you, how it should run. We've been so lucky with our folks that they, you know, they run it really well and they take a lot [00:38:50] of pride in it.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:38:51] It's interesting when you were talking about that reminded me of a story I tell about building cathedrals, because when in the past, people, when they [00:39:00] build the cathedral, it was a community thing, right? You engaged everybody in the community to build this cathedral. You employed people. Then that became like if floods or whatever [00:39:10] happened, that became like your safe place to go. So it was the cathedral. The concept was you're building that for the community, getting people excited. [00:39:20] So so I always so a couple of years ago when I was in Spain, I had seen Gaudi's Cathedral out there, La Sagrada. It reminded me kind of connected to United [00:39:30] for some reason at that point. And as you're talking right now, that's what it reminds me of. The ranch out here is your the cathedral in Soledad.
Rodney Braga : [00:39:38] I mean, we certainly [00:39:40] think of it that way. It's been a pleasure. It's been fun to sit down and talk with you about this. And I and I kind of like it because it'll be it's sort of history now that that other of our team members can listen [00:39:50] to what we talked about and long time from now and see that, you know, there was some thought put into it. And a lot of what we did just kind of happened. You know, we kind of got [00:40:00] like Laura can tell you, you know, we kind.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:40:02] Of and you do your day to day stuff. You don't think it's exactly that.
Rodney Braga : [00:40:06] But a lot of times we. Were just like, Gosh, I can't believe we just did this. I can't believe [00:40:10] that this just happened. Yeah. And now, you know, it's like it's it's amazing. It's like, you know, it's kind of like a, well, a well maintained watch or something, right? You're [00:40:20] always going to have stuff going on, but you're going to tackle it, right? And, uh, so we're, we're, we're excited, I guess, about the next 95 years.
Speaker3: [00:40:28] Nice, Nice. That's.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:40:29] That's [00:40:30] awesome. Because we don't step back and say, what did we do right? You're going to the next. Going to the next. Yeah, we're always.
Rodney Braga : [00:40:36] We're always changing. Always changing. You have to continue and change [00:40:40] and move forward or you're just going to be left behind. Yeah. Thank you so much. It's been a it's been a pleasure chatting with you. Yep.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:40:45] Thank you. Thank you for the time.