In this episode, I spoke with Jayson Welter, our General Counsel at United Ag, about our advocacy efforts for agricultural communities, particularly in healthcare. We discussed key challenges like hospital closures and improving access to mental health services through platforms like Teladoc. Jayson explained how the Affordable Care Act brought mental health parity, ensuring equal costs for mental and physical healthcare. We also touched on the empathy and care that agricultural employers have for their workers, and how improving healthcare coverage boosts productivity. Our advocacy isn't just about making requests—it's about building relationships, educating policymakers, and showing the real challenges faced in rural healthcare and agriculture. I encourage anyone, even outside of agriculture, to get involved. Whether it’s locally or joining us in Sacramento, every effort makes a difference. Agriculture touches all of us, and together we can do even more to support the communities that feed our nation.
In this episode, I spoke with Jayson Welter, our General Counsel at United Ag, about our advocacy efforts for agricultural communities, particularly in healthcare. We discussed key challenges like hospital closures and improving access to mental health services through platforms like Teladoc. Jayson explained how the Affordable Care Act brought mental health parity, ensuring equal costs for mental and physical healthcare.
We also touched on the empathy and care that agricultural employers have for their workers, and how improving healthcare coverage boosts productivity. Our advocacy isn't just about making requests—it's about building relationships, educating policymakers, and showing the real challenges faced in rural healthcare and agriculture.
I encourage anyone, even outside of agriculture, to get involved. Whether it’s locally or joining us in Sacramento, every effort makes a difference. Agriculture touches all of us, and together we can do even more to support the communities that feed our nation.
Jayson Welter - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayson-welter-7b049290/
UnitedAg Advocacy - https://www.unitedag.org/advocacy/
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 website - www.unitedag.org
Episode Contributors - Jayson Welter, Kirti Mutatkar, Dave Visaya, Rhianna Macias
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/
MDI Network - https://www.mdinetworx.com/about-us
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:00:04] Today, I'm super, super excited. We just got done with our advocacy committee meeting and I'm going to change it up a little bit. So usually I have a guest, I have a member or a service rep or somebody else in our industry who comes and speaks at this podcast. But as I was thinking through some of the discussions that we've had in our advocacy committee, and I thought I would invite our general counsel at United AG to be my guest. So, Jayson, welcome to This is Ag.
Jayson Welter: [00:00:33] Thank you. Happy to be here.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:00:40] So you want to talk a little bit, give your background a little bit on why a general counsel at United AG is doing advocacy.
Jayson Welter: [00:00:49] Well, my background has been in healthcare, and while I'm an attorney, the only kind of law I've ever been a part of is healthcare law. I've worked in healthcare my entire life. Before I went to law school, I was in healthcare operations and started out working on Medicaid programs and moved into insurance. And I've worked in TPAs and insurance companies, and I found a home at United AG because I'm really passionate about the people that we serve.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:01:20] And it's good to have somebody like you who understands healthcare. But correct me if I'm wrong, but you've done a little bit of advocacy in some of the previous roles you've had. Right?
Jayson Welter: [00:01:31] I have. I worked for a health department for a number of years that had a federally qualified health center. So I've done advocacy for providers on the healthcare side in D.C., and then I worked for a health insurance company that was developed with federal funding. And so we had a very close relationship in D.C., as well as in the state that we were licensed in. So we've always worked to foster relationships both at the state level and the federal level related to health care.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:02:00] And I remember when you first came in. Now it's almost three and a half years ago that you were introduced to United AG. And when you first came in, I remember your excitement. So we had actually started, we took a tour of some of our member companies and we walked around and you seemed from day one, passionate about agriculture. So where does that come from?
Jayson Welter: [00:02:24] I was because very quickly I recognized a few things about agriculture. One was I was very impressed with the technology and the efficiency in what I saw in agriculture operations. Number one. Number two, it's hard to find a harder working population than those who go to work in agriculture every day. And number three, it makes me very proud to be providing health care to those who I see working in the fields, and then I go shopping with my family. And if they don't have health care and they can't go to work every day and I go to the store, I don't eat. So, you know, I look at it as I am helping provide health care to the people that feed my family, and there's nothing closer to me than my family, are more important to me than my family. And so if I'm doing that for me, I'm also doing that for all the other families out there. And so our food sources are very important. And so it all goes back to those people who are working in the field and how hard they work and what they need to get the job done.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:03:35] Right. It seems so fulfilling, right? When we go on these tours and we see those people and you feel this becomes something bigger than just work for us because you are providing, like you said, we take care of the health of the people who take care of our health, right, by providing the best food out there in the nation.
Jayson Welter: [00:03:54] It is. You want to make sure that you are a resource for them, and you want to make sure that all of their needs are met when it comes to health care and even down to, you know, the compliance issues that the employers go through. We want to make sure that the employers and the employees in agriculture, they have enough to worry about, you know, they have to worry if it's going to rain or not. And they have all these environmental concerns that they have to deal with that are unknowns for them. Well, let's make sure that worrying about health care is not on their concern list and that they're taken care of and they always have a resource.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:04:28] Right. So when you think if somebody is thinking of United AG, we are a health plan for agriculture, right? So somebody might wonder, why is your general counsel doing advocacy. Why should United AG be doing advocacy work?
Jayson Welter: [00:04:43] Well, with all the things that we have going on in our health plan, I can understand that question. But with who we serve. We really need to help represent them and with us focusing on agriculture. Every voice that agriculture can get is a valuable voice. There's just not enough people out there educating and dispelling the rumors of what agriculture means or what agriculture is. So any additional voice that agriculture can have is important. Number one. Number two, why me is I think I've done this kind of work before. I understand the processes, I understand the frustrations. I understand the value of relationships in this business. And you have to understand the process to be efficient in doing advocacy. And so, you know, healthcare can be a bridge to help agriculture, oddly enough. You know, and healthcare is really complicated, right? And our elected officials, when they get sent to Sacramento, may or may not have a background in healthcare. They may not understand that when they have a question about Medi-Cal, how to answer that question. So first and foremost, when I go to Sacramento, I want our elected officials to know that we are a resource for them when they have a question about healthcare. Call us. Right. That's what we're there for. We're there to help you make good decisions. And you can't make good decisions if you're not educated on the issues. So that's the first thing is we want them to understand about healthcare.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:06:25] So when we go into Sacramento, right. So they see somebody like you come in and agriculture is represented by different associations. But the difference that United AG offers is you're coming in and you're talking about health care. And sometimes when I used to go in I used to see this look of like they're a little bit surprised. I'm like, what? Who are you and why are you representing agriculture? And they get to hear United AG story. And it's like a really an eye opener for them. So have you had any experience with that?
Jayson Welter: [00:06:57] A lot actually. I get that look. I get that reaction a lot. And the issues that we come in talking about, one is you do healthcare for just agriculture. That's interesting. And, you know, agriculture and the communities that we serve in general are underserved, right? You know, a number of communities really struggle with providing access to healthcare. And again, I don't think that message is heard enough in Sacramento. And unless there is an assembly member or a senator who is from those districts, you know, they don't understand the challenges of geography and healthcare. Right? And if a hospital, you know, for example, Madera Hospital, right. If Madera Hospital isn't there, which it's now not, and hopefully it will be coming back, you know, but without that hospital, people have to drive hours to a hospital and we have our health centers. We try and help by providing health centers and areas where there's no access to health care or not enough access to health care. You know, we try and supplement that from a primary care standpoint, but United Ag can't start building hospitals, right? So we have to ensure that our community hospitals not only survive, but thrive to serve our agricultural communities.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:08:20] So part of what you're saying is we are, through this advocacy efforts, increasing access to care, right, in these underserved communities where our membership is.
Jayson Welter: [00:08:30] Very much so. Yeah, yeah. It's, uh, you know, last year, it's a long process to see the fruits of your labor. And there's a lot of similarities between health care and agriculture, actually, when we talk about these things, there's a lot of misconceptions about healthcare. There's a lot of misconceptions about agriculture. But specifically on that issue last year, we became aware through our members that Madera Hospital was struggling and was going to close. And that very quickly became an issue that we wanted to educate in Sacramento on. And so there was a bill that was drafted, and we very quickly became very supportive of it. And we're trying to get to the right people so that it could move through the process and get approved. And ultimately it did lead to a distressed hospital loan program that is now currently in the process of providing funding to 16 hospitals. One of them, Madera Hospital, which is getting $57 million. Yeah, we're hoping that it opens by the end of the year. I haven't seen any updates recently, but that was the projection. The projection was to open end of this year, hopefully early 2025 again. But that's where you can see the fruits of your conversations. And again, it's Madera, but it's when you look at the list of the 16 hospitals you see, most of them are rural communities. There's a few urban hospitals, but for the most part it's Watsonville, it's Sonoma, it's Kaweah, Delta, and of course Madera. So a lot of these areas, the hospitals were really struggling to survive. And again, it's the education that we do. We hope that someday we can get to the root issues and the root causes.
Jayson Welter: [00:10:23] And, you know, these hospitals are struggling mainly because of Medi-Cal rates. There are so many people in those communities that rely on Medi-Cal for their health coverage. And there's such a low percentage that have commercial coverage like United AG or other commercial coverage. And, you know, you mentioned people having that look of question of why we're advocating on an issue. And this one, especially when I first started advocating for a bill this year about improving Medi-Cal rates for these hospitals to solve the long term problem. The question was, well, why does United AG care about what Medi-Cal rates are? Or don't you guys pay commercial rates, right? I said, well, yeah, we do. But the problem is we are such a small percentage of the payers at that hospital. The number one payer at that hospital is Medi-Cal, number two is Medicare. Number three is, you know, then it goes down to the other commercial payers like us. And while we pay really good rates to these hospitals, they cannot survive. They can't make up the difference of what Medi-Cal pays versus what we pay on all of these patients, and they lose money on every single Medi-Cal patient that they see. And so they can't make that up. And then they lose money and then eventually they close. So again, it goes it all goes back to that education of helping them understand how is a hospital funded. Right. And what is the root cause of the problem of these hospitals that are failing? It's not bad management. It's not overutilization. It's none of those things. It all just comes down to simple dollars and cents of understanding the root cause.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:12:09] You know, as you were talking through this, Jayson, this connects so much to who we are as United AG because think about it. Right? So we always anytime we make decisions within United AG, we are not looking to get a win for ourselves. We're looking to see how does this help a member. How does this help the community. So what you are doing from an advocacy standpoint with these hospitals, we don't care if United AG might be a lower kind of cost from utilization in the hospital, but what we are concerned about is what does that how does that impact the community. And let's get back to the community. So our thinking is the way we apply to advocacy and everything else. That's what I hear you say.
Jayson Welter: [00:12:55] Oh, 100%. Yeah. You know, United AG is about serving the agricultural communities, right? So, you know, yes, we focus on health care, but there's a number of other ways that we really try and help them from a support standpoint. Again, it's healthcare related. But mental health, if we go to our rural communities, the number of mental health care providers in those communities, it's hard to find. So we can't go hire and open mental health clinics and all of these rural communities. But what we can do is try and educate them on the virtual resources that we can provide. Right. We can give them the Teladoc services and Spring Health. And so we've given them multiple avenues to access mental health when they don't have it in their community, and we can't build it for them. We can't go recruit mental health therapists, but we can partner with people who can bring the service to them where they are so that they can access it.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:13:56] When you talk about mental health, yesterday, a question was asked of you by one of the board members on mental health parity, and you really explained it very well in layman's term, because from a legal compliance standpoint, you know it, you understand it, but you want to just from understanding how that impacts mental health. And that'll be interesting. I know it's a little bit off topic, but can you explain that.
Jayson Welter: [00:14:21] So it's a bit of a history lesson actually because before the ACA, you know, the enforcement of mental health or the idea of mental health parity did not have a lot of it wasn't front of mind for people. And there was once a time where you could. For an office visit, for a sprained ankle, you could charge a different copay than office visit for therapy. Well, in today's world, mental health parity, there's a couple of different ways to look at it. One is very simple from a benefit standpoint. If I go to a doctor for an outpatient visit for a cold and I go for an outpatient visit because I'm feeling depressed, by law, now I have to pay the same copay for those two services. So if I receive a similar service in a similar setting, whether it's physical health or mental health, I'm going to pay the same. So if I go to an outpatient setting, right, I need an outpatient procedure for my body. I need an outpatient therapy visit that's a little more detailed than an office visit. Right? Again, those two visits have to be in parity.
Jayson Welter: [00:15:30] They have to be equal. And the same with inpatient. If I go and have an inpatient surgery and I need inpatient rehab, those services have to be again in parity. And so we're I hate to say the word we're forced, but we by, you know, compliance. We are forced. We should have never had to be forced as a health plan. But, you know, our government and our regulatory agencies sort of have this way of giving ideas. And if we fail to take hold of those ideas on our own, they're going to publish another 500 regulations to help us understand that they take this seriously. So that's what's happened over time. And now it's even they even look at the procedures of prior authorization. If your prior authorizing a service or a medication that is related to physical health versus a service or medication for mental health, those two things you cannot impose higher limitations or different processes that are more strict for physical health than you can for mental health. So again, we talk about parity. It's really equality at every level of health care for physical health and mental health.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:16:44] So is it also the number of providers. Is that?
Jayson Welter: [00:16:48] Yeah. So in recent years they've also gone to even looking at the access. So it's one thing to have on your schedule of benefits that there's equal co-pays or equal co-insurance. Now you can't just say we have the benefit but you don't have access. So they do look at the availability of services in your network adequacy. And for us we use the Blue Shield network. Right. It's not enough for me to just say oh great, blue Shield is taking care of it. I actually have to have Blue Shield's compliance plan ready for any time. The Department of Labor walks through the door and says, tell me about your mental health parity compliance. And the same for Costco. So for Costco and Blue Shield I have their compliance plans at the ready. So I actually have to do my due diligence to make sure that our vendors are ensuring compliance and parity and that they're doing the right thing. So we're held accountable to that level.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:17:47] And we've added to that by offering the Teladoc Mental Health and Teladoc, and Spring Health.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:17:52] For increasing access, including our health and wellness centers.
Jayson Welter: [00:17:55] We have. And actually, I've got a few questions in the last couple months of, well, why do you have virtual mental health through Teladoc and through Spring Health, right. And the answer is, well, we don't limit the number of providers or the different access points on physical health. If we have two vendors who offer similar services in different locations or in different ways, or a person might just find this service works a little better for me, or I like their app better. Why wouldn't we offer both services to our membership and give them those opportunities to figure out what works for them? We don't do that for physical health. Why would we do it for mental health? I agree, and so it just it gives more support, more resources, more variety for people to figure out what works for them.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:18:44] Right. And when we were talking about perception earlier, right. When you think of the mental health, regular medical health, usually the perception of how the labor is treated or people are treated in agriculture and what happens, what you and I see in a day to day life is so different. Our employers are so passionate about their employees and they are. It's really as important to them as it's important to us.
Jayson Welter: [00:19:12] It's interesting how people have these. You know, I talked about misconceptions, right? The misconceptions of the agricultural employer and how they treat their employees is really troubling to me because when I talk and I see, as you know, you mentioned I've been out in the fields and which I love. I love seeing the different crops that are grown by our participants. But as I'm out there, I see employers that truly care about their employees. And when you think about it, it really makes sense because they are trying to get the most and the best out of their employees. Why wouldn't they ensure that they can be healthy? They can't be productive if they're not healthy. And, you know, it's no different than someone saying, you know, agriculture is using too many pesticides. Well, let's think about this. They have to pay for those. Do you think they would pay for more than they really need to put on their crops? That just that doesn't make sense. Or, you know, someone might say about water and I say, do you know how much a drop of water costs? You know. So it's those misconceptions and educating people on what is real and what is not real in the agricultural community and the number of employers that you know, are new to AG.
Jayson Welter: [00:20:34] It's been three years now, but I never represented agriculture. I always represented everyone who came to a payer. Right. And when you look at the way that agriculture employers treat their employees and offer coverage to their employees, compared to others that I've seen in the past, there's always going to be the variance. But I see most employers really trying to do the right thing by their employees. I actually had a conversation with a relatively new group to United AG just two days ago, and he said to me, you know, I just had to come over and say hi and tell you how happy I am to be with United AG. And he was actually the decision maker. And he said, when our service rep presented to us what United AG was offering and charging, they were previously offering coverage to just their employees and they weren't offering -- They were offering coverage, but they weren't providing any contribution to the dependents. And he said, we offer 100% of the contribution to our employees. And now since we've moved to United AG, we're now offering 90% of the contribution to the dependents.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:21:50] And what a good story. What a good story.
Jayson Welter: [00:21:52] Instead, they could have pocketed that money.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:21:54] Right?
Jayson Welter: [00:21:55] Right, right. But instead they wanted to ensure give back.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:21:58] To the dependents.
Jayson Welter: [00:21:59] That the dependents had health care. They wanted to make sure that those employees were enrolling their dependents in health care. And again, you want to make sure that the entire family is healthy, because if I have to stay home because my dependent is sick, I'm not in the office working, I'm not being productive, I'm not being healthy. And then that can weigh on other issues, you know, anxiety and mental health and all these other things and stress are connected to being healthy. And so that employer recognizes that. And I see that across all of these employers that we work with. Really many of them say, I wish I could do more.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:22:37] Yeah. We hear that.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:22:38] You see that that is so personally fulfilling to me. And I know it is to you that we are in such a human centric industry, right. Taking care of them and we advocate for them. And that's the reason you go into Sacramento or DC. You are passionate about that because you see who you are advocating for. Right. So one of the things that I learned through my advocacy efforts at United ag is the importance of advocacy and what that role it plays. And sometimes we as individuals kind of get a little bit -- we feel like our efforts are wasted. So you kind of feel, is this a good use of my time and you kind of discount like you, you like dismiss it. Right. What are your thoughts as individuals, especially today, right now with so much going on in the world outside? If somebody's listening to this, what can as an individual we do and why is it important to advocate?
Jayson Welter: [00:23:40] So number one is again, I've talked about the misconceptions, the conversations that we have with the people that we have relationships with really matter. And if we can help others understand agriculture and dispel those myths. Every conversation counts. And when we go to Sacramento, it is very easy to get discouraged when you see things happen, Like a bill that you work on all year and you think you know it's past committees, and then it gets completely changed on the last day of session. That is frustrating. But you can also think back to all the conversations that you had and the relationships that you developed throughout that year. And that is never wasted when you're building relationships with people to the point where you have that trust and you're not just a voice or an email or another letter to their office, you're actually a recognizable face, and you're a trusted face that is never going to be wasted time. Because next year, when there's a problem or an issue and you go into their office, you've already established that relationship, you've established that trust, you've established that rapport, and people listen to people that they trust and people that they like, and people who they've done business with before, and people who've answered the phone when they've needed you. And so none of that is ever wasted. It's just an investment is the way I look at it. It's an investment when something doesn't quite go the way you want it to go. I look at that time as an investment in the next issue that comes up where either they're going to need me or I'm going to need them to understand what's going on and to do something about it to really help our people.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:25:44] Right.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:25:45] And as your role, my role and as individuals and also as United AG, our role is to educate people, right? We can't just say they don't get it. So I'm not going to even try. And when we go in, when you go into Sacramento or we go into our team goes into Sacramento, we never have an ask, right? No. Go into educate and say these are the perceptions you have, let me just tell you what we do. And sometimes you're surprised with that, right?
Jayson Welter: [00:26:14] Yeah.
Jayson Welter: [00:26:15] Especially early in the year before. You know, occasionally we do have to ask, but most of the time when we go to Sacramento, it's more just to establish that relationship and let them know that we're a resource for them. We know there's going to be something that comes up in healthcare or agriculture this year. Call us if you want to know what's going on. If you want to see an agricultural operation, if you want to see a strawberry operation, or you want to see lettuce, or you want to see brussel sprouts, we can get you there. If you want to understand how those things are happening. If you want to talk to some of the agricultural workers, we can do that for you. If you want to understand the challenges of health care in rural areas of California, we can help you understand that we can take you to our wellness centers. We can take you to hospitals that are just hanging on by a thread, and we can help you see what's going on. And if you ask us, well, what do you suggest? We can have a few suggestions too. You know, we'd like to be a part of the solution as well, but they're never going to ask you what do you suggest if they don't understand where you're coming from?
Jayson Welter: [00:27:26] They don't trust you. If they don't trust you, if you don't have a relationship with them. You know, it really does matter.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:27:32] Yeah. Yeah. Every time I think about this and I'm. I feel so good to be working at a place that we're having a difference. And who gets to do this right? Who gets to help people who feed the nation? Who gets to tell that story of representing the empathy side of agriculture that we do? It just feels like we are doing the right thing and feels really good about that.
Jayson Welter: [00:27:59] It does, it does.
Jayson Welter: [00:28:00] I almost feel sorry for my friends when they talk about something in agriculture, because they have no idea what they're in for. If they open that door, I'm going to walk through it. I'm going to take advantage of educating them on what agriculture means, right? And every conversation is an opportunity to educate and dispel some of those myths. And it feels good at the end of the day. Like I said, every time I walk into the grocery store, I smile. When I walk through the produce aisle and I see I don't really see a bag of lettuce or a head of lettuce or the various products that we represent. I see the people behind them and I see the fields. I think back to I was in that field. I know where those Brussels sprouts came from.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:28:46] Right?
Jayson Welter: [00:28:46] I saw those get harvested and now they're there on the shelf.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:28:50] Right.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:28:50] It gives a different -- it's a different perspective. Yeah, a different perspective and different way of looking at what we eat. And it is you don't realize how many people touch that, how many lives that touches. Right. It is it's amazing anything. Jayson that we missed. Anything that I missed.
Jayson Welter: [00:29:06] I think when, you know, we just had our board meeting. And when I talk about advocacy, the first thing people think about is I don't have time. I can't get involved because I don't have time. And I think, you know, obviously we can always spend more time in Sacramento and we can spend more time in, in, at events and supporting our candidates that we stand behind. But it doesn't always have to be like that. They can get involved locally. They can get involved by just providing support and being there. When someone says, hey, I want to see an operation saying, oh yeah, bring someone by. We'll show them what agriculture is all about and don't be afraid to get involved and just say, hey, when you need me, I'm here. Or take one day and go to Sacramento with me and run up and down the stairs and meet with people and be a face of agriculture and just give a voice. And it really does matter. It really adds credibility to who we are. When we take someone for a day to Sacramento to meet people and talk about their stories. Again, it's all about stories and it's all about those relationships. And people remember that. So that’s what I would leave with is don't think that you don't have time to get involved. Every conversation matters.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:30:33] So if somebody's listening to this gets super passionate about this, let's say within agriculture or maybe even somebody who's not in agriculture and says, I want to be part of this. Maybe they are members of United AG, maybe they're not members of United AG. Can they contact you and say, I would be. Can I join?
Jayson Welter: [00:30:54] Yeah, I would love that.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:30:56] Because wouldn't it be interesting to have somebody outside of agriculture who kind of wants to understand what this is all about and reaches out to you and say, hey Jayson, I know we are not members of United AG. Can we join the Advocacy committee?
Jayson Welter: [00:31:10] Of course. Again, I think back to three years ago before I stepped foot in Salinas. Right. And I wish it something that would have happened to me sooner, because, again, you can't really be much more passionate about feeding your family and feeding your friends, family and the people around you. So yeah, I would love to see more people get engaged and educated and being able to educate others. It's really a force that we need to grow, to educate other people and have conversations. And when you hear someone say something that's not true, say, wait a minute, let's talk about that. Because again, those conversations really matter if you don't dispel a misconception, it's going to be repeated. So it's important that when we hear someone, a friend, family, or in the grocery store or wherever it is, if you hear someone say something that you know is just factually inaccurate, you need to help educate them on what the truth is.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:32:19] That's a good point. So if I don't usually do this on my podcast, but if somebody wants to reach out, how would they do that? Go to our website so.
Jayson Welter: [00:32:30] They can go to our website. I am on our website, but if actually if they call member services and say I heard Jayson on the podcast, they'll get to me very quickly.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:32:39] On? I don't think we have our number here in front of us, but our website is united.org
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:32:46] Weshould have our phone number there.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:32:48] And I'm hoping maybe somebody who's not in agriculture also gets passionate about agriculture. And that would be terrific.
Jayson Welter: [00:32:55] And again there's a number of industries that, when you think about it, cross over with agriculture and you may not even realize it. So, you know, AG touches so many places that people just don't realize, especially here in California. I mean, it's nationwide, but this is the number one agricultural producing state in the country. We have areas in this state that, you know, for example, produce more peaches than the entire state of Georgia. And I think it's in three counties, right, or 100 mile radius. Right. They produce more peaches than the entire state of Georgia. Yet Georgia is known as the Peach State, right. And so this state, you don't go very far in anything that you do without being affected by agriculture. So if someone listens to this podcast or comes across it in some way, shape or form, or comes across United AG and says, well, agriculture doesn't really affect me. Well, first of all, we all eat. Number one. And number two, there are a number of ways that agriculture affects industry all across the state because of the size of the industry and the different touch points of this industry that people don't even realize.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:34:14] Yeah. That's so, so true. Jayson, this has been exciting because this is a slightly different podcast than I've done in the past, but I'm hoping that people get educated, people get passionate about agriculture and reach out to us. So this has been a really, really good conversation. I should have done this earlier, but this is, I guess the timing wise. It's good.
Jayson Welter: [00:34:36] It worked. It worked.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:34:37] So thank you.
Jayson Welter: [00:34:37] Thank you. I've enjoyed it. Thanks for having me. Thanks.