Why You Should Vote NO on Measure J with Dayna Ghirardelli

S3 Ep4 Episode Shownotes:

“We need to feed people, and if we're going to do that, we need to do it responsibly.” —Dayna Ghirardelli

Measure J, a controversial ballot initiative in Sonoma County, aims to restrict the size of local farms and animal operations. If passed, it could devastate the county's thriving agricultural community, putting family-owned businesses and thousands of jobs at risk. The measure's true goal is to eliminate animal agriculture entirely by 2040, even though farmers are already committed to sustainable and ethical practices.

Dayna Ghirardelli, the Executive Director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, has dedicated her career to protecting the region's diverse agricultural landscape. With over a decade of experience in the industry, she is a passionate advocate for family farms and the vital role they play in the local economy and community. Dayna firmly opposes Measure J, recognizing the catastrophic impact it would have on Sonoma County's cherished way of life.

This in-depth conversation uncovers the alarming truth behind Measure J, shedding light on the measure's true intentions and the devastating consequences it poses for Sonoma County's farmers, businesses, and residents. Tune in!

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Episode Highlights:

01:47 Mission: Protect Agriculture

07:20 End Factory Farming

14:48 It's Not Just the Animals

20:04 Protect Local Sources

25:00 Farming is a Community

32:04 Our Job is Not Done

Transcript

Heather Nelson: Hello everyone. Welcome to this week's Life Conversations With a Twist. I have Dayna from Sonoma County Farm Bureau. I've been in Sonoma County my whole entire life, and I know what you guys do. I used to work for Encore, and we used to support all of your guys' fundraising and events. And you and I personally just met a couple weeks ago at a Sonoma County Hospitality Association event, and you were supporting (inaudible). And I cannot wait to have this conversation. Because obviously, everyone sees all the signs everywhere, and really probably doesn't know a lot of what's going on and how we even got here. And so I asked you to be on to like, let's talk about it. Let's talk about how we got here, how it affects our community, how it's going to affect all these farmers and families. So thank you for being here. I know you're passionate about it, so welcome.

Dayna Ghirardelli: Thanks for having me.

Heather Nelson: I know you're passionate about it, obviously. How long have you been at the Farm Bureau? Talk about your involvement and what you do, and your background. I would say, behind it.

Dayna Ghirardelli: Okay, sure. So I was with the Farm Bureau only two years, actually. But I've been a member with the Farm Bureau for several years, and have worked closely with them with other projects through some of my other professional outings, if you will. So I worked for Clover Sonoma for about 12 years, working closely with the Farm Bureau. Also worked with UC Cooperative Extension when I first got out of college from Chico State, and worked closely with the dairy farmers here in that role, and also worked closely with the Farm Bureau. So now in my role here at the Farm Bureau, I'm the Executive Director, so lead the organization. I'm the go to, obviously, the board of directors that really guides the division and guides where the organization goes. And really our biggest mission, the mission really is to protect agriculture, to protect food production and really be a voice, and to protect rural landowners and private property rights. So there's always so much going on. There's so many different policies, regulations that we get ourselves involved in so that we're at the table to be able to bring education for those that may make some false assumptions. Now, we're always open to learning, but we're certainly going to do what we can to make sure that we're setting our farmers, ranchers and rural landowners up for success. It's just important for us to be at the table for those conversations. So as Sonoma County being as much of a community and county that it is, it's important that we play a role in ensuring that we're protecting Sonoma County.

Heather Nelson: Most of my listeners are here locally. So they all know all the different land and farms here in Sonoma County. We're here. We have wineries. We have lots of beautiful land, and we have great weather to support that. But anybody who is not in this area and doesn't know how many farms, I don't know if you know the exact number, but how many local farms do you know are in Sonoma County?

Dayna Ghirardelli: That is a number I should have off the top of my head, I should tell you that. But I think that all farms, everything considered any type of production, farming operation of some kind is around 3000 if I'm not mistaken. I would have to get back to you on that number, to be honest. But I'm literally saying from those who might have a small ranch yet, if you will, and maybe produce some eggs and a few things and sell outside their home to our bigger operations, wineries, vineyards and whatnot. So there are a lot of farms here, and they are very diverse. We are such a diverse county. We do not have a monopoly here. A lot of people look at Sonoma County and say, oh, it's a wine region. And we're so proud of that, but it's also a dairy region. We started here. I live in Petaluma, and that's the egg and milk capital of the world, if you will. So we're just surrounded by wonderful dairies, and many of them organic. Not all, which is fine too. They're great quality operators. We have wonderful poultry farms here of great scale that are producing local food, great protein for our community and doing it sustainably. We have wonderful beef and livestock operations, so sheep, goats and beef. We have a lot of vegetable growers here. A lot of people don't think about it, but our flower nurseries, all those are also part of agriculture. They're also farming. So we really run the gamut here. And it's really blessed. Because when we say that we have local food and local products, it literally is local. And we have neighboring or other Bay Area counties that can't produce what we produce, so their local is actually Sonoma County. So when we say local, we're pretty blessed. It's in our backyard, truly.

Heather Nelson: Obviously I've been in Sonoma County, but it's in Santa Rosa. It was actually my first job when I worked for Encore, but when it was Cal West. That was heavy equipment, and all of their clients were farmers. I remember the farmers coming in, and they were renting tractors. We used to do so many events out there at the dairy farms. And that was my into learning more about what we have here, but I didn't even think about the flowers. I wrote it down, and I want to come back and visit this. How this whole measure can affect even our events industry, because a lot of the things you touched on mean that that's where my passion is. My experience is the events world. But you think of the florist, and you think of the food that supplies to the caterers and  all the things. So we'll get there. But I have a quick question as far as the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, do they support everybody? Or is it like membership, a farmer or a rancher has to be a member? Or do you guys just support it all as a whole?

Dayna Ghirardelli: So I'm glad you asked that question. So we are a membership organization, and it is the very members that helped drive the success of our organization. But of course, there are plenty of folks who probably could really utilize and benefit from being a member of the Farm Bureau. But ultimately, a lot of people get the benefit of the Farm Bureau's advocacy, if you will. Because even without being members, we're still protecting agriculture in Sonoma County. So there's no requirement. We obviously can't walk into a room or walk into the board chambers and say, I'm here for these specific people. We're here for agriculture. So that's the main thing. We really encourage people to become members. Because as I said, that's our driving force, and that's really what makes our organization thrive and succeed. But again, we're in it for the greater picture and the greater good.

Heather Nelson: Let's talk about this measure and how it came about. I've learned a little bit about what you spoke about at the event that we were at. But really, tell our listeners more about where it came from. What will it do if it passes?

Dayna Ghirardelli: This measure was brought to the county by an organization that's actually based out of Berkeley. So the main organization is called Direct Action Everywhere, and that organization has actually been the very group that has been terrorizing our poultry industry over the last several years that I'm sure a lot of people have heard about in the newspaper and different news outlets. And so through this effort, they've turned to their pack, if you will, pack committee, the political action committee, which is under a different name, which is called a Coalition to End Factory Farming. So they brought this here. They started petitioning. They got it into the county for petition circulation. And of course, a local person did sign that. You have to be a local county resident to do a county petition. So when I say that this comes from Berkeley, the organization is based out of Berkeley. I'm not going to say that there aren't local people that would get behind the effort so I want to make that distinction. But we know exactly where this comes from, and it really is driven out of Berkeley. So they started distributing their petition outside grocery stores just like petitioners do. People are walking out there in a hurry, getting to their car, and they're using misleading tactics, fear mongering, emotional tactics to say, do you want to save animals? You should sign our petition. And people would just sign it. So I knew that once this started, based on the messaging they were given, that tactic of pleading on people's heartstrings. And unfortunately, people put their names to something that they really don't know what they're signing. I knew that this was going to get on the ballot, so we just kind of started then digging into, what will this mean? How are we going to combat this?

Heather Nelson: So basically, just to back up real quick. In order to get something on a ballot, it has to go through this petitioning process to even get on a ballot. It can't just be put on a ballot?

Dayna Ghirardelli: As a citizen initiative. So they have to be able to collect so many signatures. Once they put that, their county council went through it, registering voters that you need to get X amount of signatures. So that was their goal. So they went out and got the signatures they needed. This is where we get kind of technical, so bear with me. But what they're trying to do and say is that their goal is to protect animals and the environment, and they have some other goals that they literally just call other goals. And in doing so, they're taking what is a definition by the US EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, and saying, we're going to put it into our county ordinance. And what does that says? Well, I should tell you. Under the US EPA definition, there's different sizes of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. So when we talk about CAFOs, that's what that stands for. So there's different levels. And based on inventory of different species of animals. So most of the time when I kind of talk about this, I just go to the dairy because that's where I come from. That's my comfort zone. The definition for the US EPA is really based on a threshold for the EPA to say, okay, if you're this size or this is going on, we're going to make sure that you are following the correct regulatory management, and making sure that the correct level of regulation is imposed upon you if you are a risk or whatnot. It doesn't put anybody out of business. It doesn't say that you can't operate. It just ensures that you're following the rules and you're protecting the waterways. That's what this is. 

So I will tell you that with every farm that's in Sonoma County today, regardless of the US EPA definition or whatnot, they are all in compliance. They all have their permits. Everybody's doing what they need to do to ensure that the proper record keeping is turned in, and that we're protecting water quality. So it is not an issue in and of itself. By taking this definition and opposing it in our county and ordinance, it really changes the impact and the implications. So they want to basically take this guide and say, if you have 700 cows or more, you can't exist. You can't be that size. That's all it does. It just basically says if you have over 700 dairy cows, you have to get under 700 cows. So they are making implications that, if you are a certain size, you don't know how to do animal welfare. You don't know how to fulfill animal welfare expectations. If you are a certain size, you must be polluting so you can exist. It's really irresponsible. And again, the initial definition is changing its implications and its outcome if you put it into the county ordinance. So there's really no merit behind this threshold, and it really is just going to put farms out of business if it were to pass.

Heather Nelson: What does a typical dairy farm look like? How many cows do they typically have on a dairy farm?

Dayna Ghirardelli: Not really about being typical, because every location is a little different.There's different reasons why you would be a certain size. And a lot of times, people get to a certain size because they have obligations, or they might have the next generation. So we need to be efficient, but we need to grow. We need to, but nobody can grow very much here in Sonoma County because of our topography, because of our surface waters, because of all the different things that we have to be aware of. There's really a bit of its own limitation just to be sustainable. So just to put it in perspective, California's average dairy size is between 2000 and 2500 cows. So it's a larger scale across the state. The average size of our dairy farms in Sonoma County is 350 cows. So we are considerably smaller. We are an area of smaller dairies in comparison to the rest of the state. And we're really kind of a specialized area because we have a lot of organic farms here. And just to put it back to the dairy perspective, I don't mean to leave other industries out. But back to the dairy perspective, 46% of all of California's organic milk that is produced in California comes from here. 

We're serving a market of choice. People who want to have organic and consume organic products, we're able to offer to that market. And so we have to be niche really to compete on a broader scale. But we have something special here. So basically, this measure will unduly put farms out of business where it's not necessary. It's going to impose some budgetary constraints on a county. Because now, the county is going to be forced to enforce this program that's unnecessary, and that it's going to be enforced through the Ag commissioner's office. They figure about $1.6 million per year just for salaries and benefits to be able to staff this program. And also, the county is also being charged with retraining any employees that might be displaced from the farms that they work on. So it's important to recognize the impetus of this whole measure. This group that's bringing this to us is, their end goal at the end of the day is to not have animal agriculture at all by 2040. They don't believe that people should be raising animals for food or other resources. So this is really the stepping stone to a greater effort. There's nothing virtuous about this measure. It's really just a stepping stone to their end goal.

Heather Nelson: So interesting because something that you had mentioned at the mixer was people always think of animals as far as, I'm a vegetarian, I don't eat meat. But you're consuming milk, and you're consuming eggs, and you consume cheese, and ice cream. There's so many things that have dairy in it that it's not even just the animals. It's like all the other stuff that comes with it.

Dayna Ghirardelli: We're feeding people. This is food. We're doing it in a way that we feel is most sustainable for the environment. We are producing food by being able to let the consumer know that we are treating our animals well. Because most of the dairies here, even the poultry operations are third party certified by outside animal welfare programs that have a long list of expectations and rules that you have to follow. So they have auditors coming on their location who don't know the farm, who don't know about the owner. They're walking every bit of that farm and that dairy to ensure that the cattle and the chickens, whatever they're auditing are well taken care of. They're exceeding industry standards and expectations. So we're already putting things in place where we're asking outside people to come in and evaluate our practices so that the consumer can feel good about what they're consuming. So at the end of the day, again, this is about eradicating animal agriculture. It's not about building a better ecosystem of food production. It's about eliminating it. So this measure is really not necessary. It's not meant to do what some people might think it's meant to do, putting that definition into the ordinance. And having this ordinance does not do anything for animal welfare. It doesn't impose anything for animal welfare. It also doesn't do anything for the environment, it just simply says that you can't be a certain size today. We do more for environmental resources, water quality, and for animal welfare and produce a great product. Then this measure even shakes a stick at, honestly.

Heather Nelson: I follow a lot of the farmers, obviously, like these cows are happy, it is clean and beautiful. And they have so much land to be able to roam. It's just crazy to me that this even came up. I want to talk for a minute about a lot, especially a lot of the dairies. I always think of farms as Petaluma for some reason, because I think that's probably where the majority of them are. But a lot of them are family farms. They've come from generation to generation. Talk about that, and how that impacts that world.

Dayna Ghirardelli: The farms here are family operated, owned and operated, and have been in the family for multiple generations. They've had the land. They've had their farms for, there's some that span over 100 years, quite honestly. It doesn't matter if you're a family farm or if you're a certain size. It doesn't matter. So we also talk about within this measure that they're trying to say it's only so many farms. And people have been asking, how many farms is it? Dayna and I won't give a number. Because at the end of the day, if this were to pass, it gets in the hand of the Ag Commissioner. And once they get out and evaluate, they'll know what the number is that falls into this large (inaudible). There's two things I want to bring up for that. The first is that within this ordinance, it also opens the door for any interested party to be an enforcer. So knowing the impetus and the goals of this group that just opens the door for is not just going to stay within a certain number. It also opens the door for frivolous lawsuits. So knowing what their end game is, that's very concerning. 

But the other thing I want to say that's really important is it's trying to be portrayed from the other side as though it's only going to affect X amount of farms. So let's just say they're right, and it affects the amount of farms they are saying right now, those are some of the farms that even if they're of the larger size, they're still sustainable. They're still doing it right. They're still doing everything good by way of animal welfare, animal treatment, and the environment. But let's say they also get constricted. They evaluate their viability and say, I need to go out of business. Well now, we're going to take all of those people, play all those businesses, play into the greater resource of economies of scale. Right now, you have feed mills and feed suppliers in town that are purchasing feed on a big contract. So the more you order, the cheaper it becomes. These farms go out of business. Now, the demand goes down. The price of that seed is going to go up. So the small farmers, the ones that may be smaller who are already struggling with their bottom line, now their input prices just went up because we unnecessarily made other farms close. So to say that this is only going to affect a certain amount of farms is absolutely disingenuous, and they're looking at it through a tunnel vision because they want this to pass so badly so that they can move to the next level. And this is absolutely going to put not just bigger farms, all family farms out of business. It's also going to put other family businesses such as feed mills out of business, such as tractor supply, veterinarians, nutritionists, you name it. So it's not just a tunnel vision type effect, and we're going to watch this entire county change from what it is if this were to pass. Family farms will be a thing of the past.

Heather Nelson: For people who are not in Sonoma County ,most people in Sonoma County know what a farm community this is. I actually wrote down the FFA programs in the 4H, my daughter was in 4H. She wants to be a veterinarian someday. This community is so impactful. They're so focused on that. And to see that all go away and not this agricultural place that we are, what does that even look like? And then we're sourcing. We're not even sourcing local anymore, which is something that we've been such a big component of. Now we're sourcing who knows where.

Dayna Ghirardelli: This is a direct threat to our food supply. And like I mentioned before, we produce so much food, diverse food and products of all kinds here. Food and fiber, we do it well. We have a whole diverse production of products and food. And so if this measure were to pass, we're not going to want those foods anymore. It's just going to come from other places. It's going to come from other places, from people we don't know. It's not going to be in our backyard anymore. Now we're going to be putting more vehicles on the road to be able to get products from outside. So when they talk about the environment and greenhouse gasses, we're actually putting ourselves in a position where we're going to be contributing more to greenhouse gas production than we are limiting it or even sequestering it. Because right now, with pasture based farms of all kinds, be it livestock, beef or dairy, we're sequestering carbon every time we pasture our cattle. And so all of a sudden, these farms go out of business. What's going to happen to that land? We're not going to be sequestering carbon anymore. The other thing is, we're all so sensitive with good reason about wildfires. And grazing is a huge wildfire mitigator. And so now, we take away these farms and these animals from pasturing. What does that leave us? It leaves us overgrown fields. Then all of a sudden, do things change, and we rezone. And now all of a sudden, there's housing all over the place. It doesn't matter what part of Sonoma County you could come from, this will affect you. It will change who we are as a place.

Heather Nelson: And I would assume, and everyone's complaining about food costs right now. If we're sourcing out of the area, I would assume that cost is just going to go up for all the foods.

Dayna Ghirardelli: Let's just take for example, Clover Sonoma. So they are here in Petaluma. They produce milk, dairy products and whatnot. So if their farms go out of business, the bigger farms go out of business, they have to go replace that milk that they just lost. Where are they going to find that milk? Well, likely not here. They're going to have to go somewhere else, and they're going to have to truck it in. Well now, their raw product just got more expensive, so that's going to drive their product in the store up. And then that being said, what if Clover now all of a sudden says, we can't sustain here. We have to go to where the milk supply is. So we're going to move. That means that the local farms here that were shipping to them that we're trying to stay in business now probably won't be able to stay in business because they won't have a home. Or Clover will walk away and then ship milk from Sonoma to some other place? There's all these plausible possibilities. Maybe people say that they're hypothetical. They're not hypothetical at all. They're all very possible and plausible, and that's what we have to be fearful of.

Heather Nelson: I love the new billboard that says, I just saw today.

Dayna Ghirardelli: Save Clo, Vote No. That's what it takes.

Heather Nelson: Bring Clo into this because no one wants to lose Clo in this community.

Dayna Ghirardelli: I will tell you, I worked for Clover, and worked with Clover for a very long time. They are very respectful, as well as respected company in Sonoma County. So they typically don't get involved in any type of political warfare. Anything like that. But this cuts them off at the knees. This is a threat directly on them so they're choosing to stand up now to be able to say, enough is enough. You're trying to take us away, so we're going to be vocal about this, and rightfully so.

Heather Nelson: I went to the Farm Bureau event, was it last month at-- I have actually never been to that event. Or maybe I had it, it just had been so long. But I went with Encore's table, and it was so cool to be back in that community hearing the ranchers and the family speak. These people work freaking hard. You talk about people that work hard. And I mean as a farmer, you have to get up super early. It's their long day. You're out on the tractor, it's hot, and all the things, all the elements of Sonoma County. They work freaking hard. They do. And to see all that hard work just go away, to me, it was very heartbreaking. And then we haven't even talked about all the employees that they employ.

Dayna Ghirardelli: Absolutely. So the county did their own report. The Board of Supervisors asked certain county departments to commission a report to give what the effect is going to be on this before we decide to put it on the ballot. We need to know more. So one of the things that was determined through some outreach or whatever is about 1400 jobs lost on farms on account of the result of this measure, should it pass. The one thing that's really critical that's not talked about a lot is the fact that these farms actually provide housing for their employees. I forgot about that. If these farms close, the housing option is no longer an option. We're forcing people into an already stressed housing market. So there's a whole other implication on farm families, farm employee families as well that people aren't taking into consideration. Most of the people, if not all of the people that work on these farms, work on these farms because they're dedicated to the hard work. They love animals. They love what it stands for, and that's their comfort zone. They love it. And now, to a certain degree, they're being forced into being trained into something else they may or may not like. So somebody else is dictating their future, just like they're dictating the farm's future. There's a real disconnect. I think that people need to recognize that this whole farming ecosystem that's not just about the farmer and the farm itself. It's about the employees. It's about their housing. It's about the businesses that work with other businesses in town or on the outside. It's a whole community event. It's a whole community ecosystem, if you will.

Heather Nelson: Something that I wanted to just touch on, again, I'm very much in the events industry. I think about how that changes that industry? Again, not just the farming industry, because they apply all the food. I think about point raises, and they're always at every event. We are a food culture here in Sonoma County, that's what we do. We eat, and we drink. That's what we do. Drinking wine and eating lots of amazing food, all of the food, all the dairy, all the cheeses, all the meat is what makes us unique in our food ecosystem. How does that change that? And like you were saying, the flowers. We do events all the time, and then even just the farms that hold events. It's just like such a ripple effect that people don't understand. Of course, we all want animals to be safe. We're doing what we're supposed to be doing,

Dayna Ghirardelli: Absolutely. The animals are living their best life. We raise animals for production, so we ensure that the animals are treated appropriately within production. Sometimes it's a hard conversation to have, and people just don't agree with that premise. I can't change people's minds if they don't agree with the whole premise of eating animal protein or those types of products. I can't change somebody's mind, and I respect the fact that they don't want to. But we need to feed a nation. I'm just talking in general, but we need to feed our people. Here, we need to be able to contribute to the food shed of California as well, not just Sonoma County. So we need to feed people. And if we're going to do that, we need to do it responsibly. And we're doing all those things, like I said, we're ensuring that animal welfare standards are being upheld and exceeded by having people that know nothing about these farms come in and evaluate them. They are trained to evaluate these farms. We talk about tourism. People are coming into this area and they want the wine, the cheese. The open space, they're driving, they're seeing vineyards, and all of a sudden they see some cows on the vineyard or out on the pasture. We're just so diverse, and our topography is gorgeous. If the whole thing becomes upheaval, I should say. It's all interconnected.

Heather Nelson: Obviously, they're more like animal welfare protecting that. But what would this do for wineries? And could it affect wineries long term?

Dayna Ghirardelli: Well, I believe so. The answer is not that I believe so. But I'm going to take one instance. Of course, on dairies or poultry farms, manure is produced. The manure is handled in a way that compost is created for soil to be able to build soil when you put it back out. We also utilize that material to fertilize vineyards, to fertilize vegetable farms. So we're taking organic material to put out on the farms and vineyards, these vineyards rely on animal compost, animal manure compost.. It's rich in nutrients and helps build that soil. So if we just start there, that's going to have a huge effect on the production and their ability to produce and maintain sustainability, and be able to make sure the soil is built up and sustained. So if we take away all the other pieces, the marketing piece and all those things, we just look at the ground, we've taken away a tremendous resource for the beneficial production of wine grapes.

Heather Nelson: Have their group gone after other counties in California, or are we first targeted?

Dayna Ghirardelli: So this particular measure, Sonoma County, will be the first of its kind. Sonoma County, I will tell you that they put a similar ballot measure on the ballot in Berkeley. No farms in Berkeley. So no, we're not really effective. So ultimately, this particular measure of its kindness will be the first, but they are in other states. They are in other areas going after animal food production in other ways, but this is the first that they're utilizing this type of ordinance or legislation to get it done.

Heather Nelson: It blew my mind. I was at one of the markets, the Farmers Market, and they were outside protesting. And I'm like, are you kidding me? And they were like, oh, they were trying to approach me. And I was like, no. Because I have friends who have farms. It just blows my mind. And now, I've heard that they're cutting off the no on the J sign,

Dayna Ghirardelli: They're defacing signs. They're breaking them down. They're ruining them. It's ridiculous.

Heather Nelson: Your mission as executive director is getting this message out into our community of what? What is it about? How likely do you think this is to pass? Obviously, our job is not done. We still have a few months to go. But what kind of work and stuff is the Farm Bureau and farms doing to get this word out?

Dayna Ghirardelli: The Farm Bureau is only one of many groups, obviously, that's behind this. So our political action committee is called the Sonoma County Family Farmers Alliance. So while that's sponsored by the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, we have many other organizations and farmers who are participating as committee members that help drive where we're headed with everything. So obviously, getting the word out. All of us are having conversations such as these. We're enlisting a lot of volunteers to be at the Farmers Market's, to be at different events around the county. We've had a lot of people call and say, will you please come? We're doing a certain event on this day. Can you make sure somebody's there? So we're ensuring that we are making as many touch points as we can, because the most effective outreach is the one on one is really able to have the conversations just like this one. So we have a lot of that going on again being just some local events and Farmers market. We're going to be doing that canvassing, knocking on doors, talking to people, just to make sure that they're aware of what this is. And if they're voters, that's what they're going to be voting on and just making those one on one touch points. You're going to start seeing and hearing more as we lift up. And this is a campaign so we have to reach far and wide, and educate. 

We have a lot going on that front, but I think it's really important to note the level of support our campaign and the No on Measure J campaign has received. This is a bipartisan effort when it comes to No on J, both Sonoma County Democrat and Republican parties have come out. All of our legislative officials from the federal state and county have come out. No on J for our Sonoma County group, almost all of the cities have taken a position to be No on J. Our sheriff, labor, public safety, firefighters. It runs the gamut in environmental groups. First of all, this is food we need to protect our local food production. The next is, these are our farmers and our neighbors, and we know them well. We trust them, and we want to protect them. And then we move into, we want to protect jobs, we want to protect our landscape. There's a lot of work to be done, and it's all of that outreach touching on some of these groups that disagree, and then they touch the next person. And it's just kind of that ripple effect that is so important. So you'll be seeing and hearing more of us. I'm hoping that people are seeing the signs that are all around the county, so long as the other side hasn't destroyed them. But we're out there. We're always looking for volunteers. Lot of activity is going on, so we're always looking for people to help us in our next endeavor.

Heather Nelson: I want to say too, just in general, I actually just started voting probably in the last few years. I actually used to give me crap all the time. Now that I'm like a mom and I have businesses, I'm on board. But I always felt like that hesitation of when you're voting and you're not quite sure what, how to vote because you don't have this information. And I just encourage people that, if you don't know how to learn, to read the material that they send you, to have conversations, I know the Sonoma County hospitality association is doing a deep dive into some of the measures that will affect the hospitality industry. And I'm sure this is one of them. But get out there and learn before you become educated. Vote because it could really change a lot of things. And if people weren't hearing about it, if someone doesn't know what J is, they are living in a hole because it's everywhere. But I appreciate having this conversation and really diving in how it's really going to affect our community. And again, it's not just the surface level of protecting animals, it's all the different things that it's gonna affect. And so I am thankful that you're here, that we had this conversation. I support you guys. And if there's anything I can do too, I'm here for it.

Dayna Ghirardelli: I greatly appreciate this conversation and the opportunity to visit with you and answer questions. You couldn't have said it better if people aren't sure they need to read, they need to ask questions. I'm very confident that when people start reading through it, they'll see exactly what this is all about, and we'll get the no vote. But I do. I'm with you. I encourage people to educate themselves.

Heather Nelson: We'll put all your information on how they can reach out to you, but definitely look into Sonoma County Farm Bureau. I mean literally, you can find information about this. Learn about our farms. We have so many really great farmers doing really great work. Again, a lot of families. I just think about all the interactions that I've had over the years or helping them with their kids' weddings. And it's a very special place here. And I hope that this group doesn't destroy it.

Dayna Ghirardelli: I think we've got it. Sonoma County residents, we love our county, we love our food, we love our farmers. But it's an unfortunate thing that we have to spend the time and energy having to do this. But at the same time, let's find the good in this. Let's bring the people together. Let's recognize that we're all in this together, and we want to keep Sonoma County as great as it is. And in doing that, we have to protect agriculture.

Heather Nelson: We've been through the ringer of this county, so we're stronger together.

Dayna Ghirardelli: Always, yeah.

Heather Nelson: Well, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, and I'm sending good vibes out in the world.

Dayna Ghirardelli: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.