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this episode of the podcast is brought to you by casey consulting trying to promote your cannabis business or dispensary through traditional channels can be frustrating there are federal laws against advertising on tv and radio and advertising opportunities in general that are extremely limiting kc consulting is a premier social media marketing agency based in dallas texas that specializes in strategy content creation channel management paid advertising graphic design and seo sem services the agency is hyper focused on helping cannabis companies navigate through the uncharted waters that they've been forced to endure due to the lack of fda regulation in regards to sales and marketing messaging don't take on the burden of managing your social media channels alone take control of your social media marketing efforts with casey consulting email them today for a free quote at social kc consulting dot co that's social kc consulting dot co add value not noise kc consulting hello everyone kevin carrillo here and welcome to another episode of the cannabinoid connect podcast my guest today is jeff apodaca vice chairman of santa fe farms llc and ceo of central pivot mr jeff apodaca how are you sir kevin how are you doing this morning i'm doing great i'm really excited to be talking to you today thank you so much for making time for me and my audience well it's my pleasure and uh hopefully uh hopefully i'll be a good interviewer i'm only on three hours sleep today so uh i i i might fall asleep on you halfway through well being a corporate media executive and uh former governor candidate of new mexico in 2018 this is uh easy for you you do this all the time man so i'm not worried about it very i'm very nervous i've never been on camera no i'm just kidding awesome well hey for those listening as i mentioned i have jeff apodaca on he is the vice chairman of santa fe farms llc and the ceo of central pivot uh santa fe farms is a preeminent local national and international leader in the production extraction and manufacturing and distribution of thc free hemp-based phytocannabinoids so jeff my english my english professor would say that's a big run-on sentence it's a run-on sentence and that's the boilerplate that i that i read off from the press release um but you know i want to hear it firsthand from you before we dive into to your company um let's first get a sense of your background which is quite impressive so why don't you walk us through everything that you've done in your in your life up to this point well i've been you know kevin thank you so much and it's it's great to be here um and uh and if i recall a fellow new mexican i'm talking to right absolutely yep born and raised in uh new mexico raised in in uh belen new mexico so shout out shout out to the eagles that's right and and a shout out to the santa fe demons state champs nice yes i don't want to say what class because then i'm going to give my age away but it's been a while um but my background i was born in las cruces uh grew up i always tell people i was born in cruces and uh i was raised in cruces and matured in santa fe when i was 12 years of age my dad won for governor in new mexico my dad my dad was actually the first latino governor in the country wow um yeah that was kind of surprising for me in 1975 and so uh so i i graduated high school played football in college i wanted to be one of those guys back then i was a cowboy fan uh so i wanted to play for the dallas cowboys i'm now a raider fan by the way and so um both teams are struggling this year um but i played football in college and i studied broadcasting and i you know wanted to be a sports broadcaster i wanted to be on the air uh and back then there weren't as many options as there was today and i learned very quickly that um i hate to say it this way but it's the truth that the guys making the decisions the guys that drove the fancy cars the guys that took me out to lunch and buy me lunch with the guys running the business not the guys in front of the camera right and that intrigued me more than being in front of the camera and i actually studied broadcast management they had a degree back in the 80s at unm graduated from university of new mexico um and so i studied broadcast management was fortunate i interned um i tell all college graduates i tell people in college in high school do an intern wherever you can meet and talk to people wherever you can you never know who you're gonna meet um i was fortunate enough where i got an internship at the nbc station in albuquerque and and back then they owned tv and radio there was no new media and so they um about every three weeks if i recall they moved me to a different division so one for threes i was in news promotions radio sales business development programming um in my degree i had to learn how to produce and and make my own you know my own uh um you know broadcast shows um yeah so you know and uh and from and and you know then i started my career at the nbc affiliate here in albuquerque and i guess you know when i was in new york doing some business a couple years later i actually cold called all the networks and i got into the president of cbs and i guess i impressed them at the age of 26 i was very fortunate where i got a job in business development at cbs network and moved to new york and then from there you know i spent 10 years at cbs television network on the sports division entertainment division raised my hand started doing new media that took me to l.a in 93 that took me to aol that took me to 16 years at univision starting new media projects for them and building a couple of divisions so i was always the guy that raised my hand um to do new ideas and new projects and it took me it took me to different places yeah well you know what i love about that mindset and that's kind of how i was raised by my dad was that he told me growing up especially before i went to pennsylvania for college he said kevin be open to opportunity you know it was like any anybody that asks you if you want to be do something to be part of it like you know always have an open mind and don't be so quick to say no because you don't want to close those doors of networking and opportunity like you mentioned you know um so i totally uh respect and get that and what's also funny is how we're kind of relevant in our backgrounds is i had a first internship in college with nbc but in in washington dc nbc washington and uh really enjoyed the the experience but very quickly understood that maybe journalism wasn't my area because of just how fast-paced it was and how go go get the story no matter what you know um but but anyway um so that kind of may put your trajectory for your background right in the corporate media space so when did you decide to transition into politics well it wasn't really a game plan i um you know i married a gal from albuquerque so i tell people i'm from santa fe like i said las cruces santa fe and then i married a girl i actually met my wife here in albuquerque at a wedding she was living in san francisco she got her mba at stage she was working for a technology company ended up taking a job at disney in la we met about the same time so we started dating while we lived in la because i was in la for 20 years she was there for 16 of those years and so we really ended up moving back home so univision sold in 07 i stayed on board for the transition um but by 2010 we decided it was time for us to come home we have twin boys that are 12 so they were just a year old at the time and we always wanted to raise them uh here in new mexico so we moved back and uh and actually i left univision when they found out i was moving back they actually came and offered me a regional job to kind of run the the texas west uh properties so i decided to do that um but wherever we've lived i've always been involved whether it's political or involved in the in the cancer society or involved with programs helping hispanic or minorities lift up so we got involved here and actually it was probably about 2015-16 the democratic party came to me and wanted me to run for mayor of albuquerque um and i kind of joked with them and said well you know if you think i'm good enough to turn albuquerque around hell one hour just run for governor and turn the state around i think i pissed off a lot of you know traditional democrats but um but there was a lot of push for us to you know they wanted somebody new wanted something different i grew up in politics so i knew that i know politics i know how it works um and i think our state just needed something new in a different direction right so i decided to run and clearly came in second in the primaries last two who are now as our governor now um but we did okay coming out of the gate in our first time out and i don't know i'm sure you're gonna ask me again is there gonna be a run for you i don't know i don't know you know it's all about timing right now i'm focused on the hemp industry and building the hemp industry yeah and that's that's really what i'm really interested in talking to you about um so you know one other thing for your background for those that don't understand while again it's very impressive um is is jeff is a as a cancer survivor isn't that right jeff uh it's 40 years 40 years 40 years yeah and and from the research that i did and the googling i learned that you were one of the first medical patients to receive cannabis for your cancer treatment is that right well you know on the campaign trail i was the first candidate to really push legalization i think new mexico should be legalized arizona just passed it all the states around us but texas so i think the state of new mexico is missing out but i tell people all the time i would say trivia question what was the first state to have medical marijuana and everybody always says california you know you know whatever um it was actually new mexico in 1978 and my father was governor he signed it into law a 10-year research act for cancer patients glaucoma i believe um and it was a 10-year uh act with the university of new mexico um and it was helping cancer patients and i remember my father the day he signed it never knowing two years later i got cancer my senior year in high school um so i was viciously ill lost 30 38 pounds lost all my hair and um and so i remember i must have been 18 at the time because i remember the first the first few months i didn't try marijuana and so i remember the doctor saying you know governor you signed it into law i was having a really tough time to the chemotherapy and so they convinced me to try uh medical cannabis for my chemotherapy back in 1980 so on the campaign trail a lot of people said well you must have been one of the first patients i never thought of it that way but i guess i was right um and so i you know so my point is it worked for me so i know the medical benefits of it right running for governor i said look we have medical cannabis we should expand the program i believe we need to expand the program they've limited the program in the state um and um and then i i was for legalization and i pushed i pushed all the other candidates for legalization and unfortunately you know two years later we're still not legalized and our governor and our legislators are still battling over how we should do it which i think is ridiculous but anyway on the campaign trail people would talk to me about it and they thought i was kind of they thought i was kind of um you know stepping around the cannabis you know the cannabis topic but i'd say no i'm for legalization let me tell you how i'll do it but let me tell you about this other plant and there was a big push in new mexico and a big push at the national level to legalize hemp growth and i would tell people i said you know hamp has the same medical benefits but let me tell you all these industries that can start they can start manufacturing they can start building materials it can start fiber herd carbons biofuels like i started listing all these things and i told people i said new mexico can actually lead the country in hip production we're a perfect environment perfect state for it 17 18 of our of our state is agriculture we grow green chile and pecans as you know but the other big crop is alfalfa for basically our cattle and our dairy farms a lot of the farmers a lot of alfalfa farmers don't make a lot of money so um so anyway i just kind of talked about the hemp industry yeah after the campaign and i lost i actually uh was approached by some friends of mine in the cannabis industry you know the farm bill passed in 18. new mexico had already legalized it the year before about growing hemp so it was the first season in 2019 to grow and so i actually raised about a million two you know i threw in some money somebody suing some money we raised some capital and at the time i had a consulting company called 47. um and it's not my football number we're the 47th state and um and what we did was 1912. 1912 exactly 1912. and so what our my consulting company did is we helped new mexico businesses grow and expand outside the state of new mexico and so um i raised some capital really what we were going to do was we were going to we were going to seed hemp startups in new mexico and i was going with my contacts i was going to help them grow outside the state of new mexico so that really what our that's what our fund and our investment was going to do but i learned very quickly i literally walked about 300 farms that season there were 413 licensed farmers in the state of new mexico to grow hemp the first year as you know everybody in the world overgrew right collapsed the market but what i noticed very quickly doing my research is one i don't want to get in the extraction business at least not now everybody was getting into it it was very expensive and i i saw the market starting to i saw the market was going to crash with the supply and demand yeah because you need so much capital to to create a plan an extraction lab right i mean to get one of those i mean at the time everybody was spaying you know the average lab invested and put built a lab that was going to cost them about two thousand dollars a kilo to make oil when the market was at four or five thousand dollars a kilo so you could double your profits well i just anticipated the market to drop so i was so nervous about that i stayed out of that field and sure enough today the market has dropped where you're selling you're buying kilos at 800 so the extractors that opened in 18 and 19 for every kilo they extract today they're losing 15 to 2 000 and that's why some of the biggest extractors are going out of business right so we stayed out of that but what i noticed very quickly kevin is that i noticed very quickly that the farmers needed help the farmers were planning the farmers are growing no one really knew what the genetics was no one really knew how to grow this plant i had friends that were some of our partners that knew the plant very well they could grow the plant so i started a company called high desert hemp that we basically consulted high desert hemp farms and we're going to help them get it to the market so really we started a um we started a um a pros i call it post harvesting we basically came in we consulted with the farmers and we came in and harvested and we bought a million dollars worth of equipment harvesting equipment we strip the plants we can take the buds completely off protect the stock we then can take the stock to coordicate it make it into herd and fiber we can then make biomass we can make flour and we also have industrial dryers that we can dry a thousand pounds an hour per dryer on these industrial dryers so whereas taking the farmers you know literally four to six weeks to harvest ten acres we could literally do 10 acres in two or three days and that's and that's both for cannabinoid therapeutic use as well as industrial hemp for material goods so there's no waste there's no waste in the plants at all yeah not waste at all i mean the only thing we do is we cut the plant we tell the farmers leave the root in the ground and that'll be fine but we cut the plant basically we strip the plant first with our harvesting equipment we can literally harvest 32 acres a day what slo s us down even more is because we have five industrial dryers what slows us down even more is that sometimes we can't dry as fast now what's helped us this season is because it was such a dry climate and we uh we didn't get any rain for like the last month it did help us dry a little bit faster because it was drier and we could dry out on the field but before it got to the before it got there but so that's kind of what we do with the farmers and now my company merged with santa fe farms back in september stephen gluckstern the chairman and founder uh with a couple other farmers gary and gary and cole they started santa fe farms i actually went to stephen and said hey let me help you harvest your farm he says hey you and i want to get in the industrial we are actually raising capital to build a hundred thousand square foot facility here in albuquerque at mesa del sol he was raising capital to build him a facility and so we kind of he kind of came to me and said look instead of us partnering as a service provider why don't we just merge our companies and we both kind of saw the direction of the industrial side of the business and so we partnered steven and i partnered back in september and so now um high desert hemp is now really um we we partnered with some other people in colorado so we actually changed it to center pivot um so that harvesting service is now called center pivot um and we're now doing business in colorado new mexico we're expanding into into montana and california and hopefully texas so that's so i have so a follow-up question there so it's amazing that y'all are hyper focused on the industrial hemp market because you know i've i've had guests on the podcast and i would say the majority of the experts that come on are focused on the cannabinoid side right and there's a huge opportunity in industrial hemp no doubt about it but while the cannabinoid side is so in its infancy even still while states are are legalizing and and hemp's legal now at a nationwide level like i can't imagine the industrial hemp side being even more of an infancy stage right i mean is the supply chain there yet like what where are we at in terms of actually producing these goods like you said that will do good for the environment and kind of maybe replace some industries that have been operating as we've known it so the the um the the herd market is at its infancy and the herd market is there um to sell raw herd for multiple different things multiple different things anywhere from bedding from from from fiber to from uh to uh you know animal feed um to basically building materials uh we're negotiating i can't talk about it right now we're negotiating with a couple of companies around the world to bring them to the united states and build uh building materials with our company next year um and so the fiber's already there you know but you're correct i mean we're we're talking to some of these providers and the fiber side um is basically talking about um hey that's great you can bring me 3 million tons i need 30 million tons if i'm going to switch over to hemp fiber right so we're in the process of doing that and growing more each year um but you're right i i the cbd market's going to continue to grow we're always going to be in that space right and right now that's probably 70 80 of our space kevin but within the next two years we that's gonna only be about ten percent of our space we have we have launched a new division called santa fe brands uh you know beth runs that for us we'll be rolling out some of our own retail cbd brands and health and beauty products in the next six months um so like i said we're we're rolling out a retail division but we also have all these other divisions that we're doing on the wholesale uh raw material side and we're going down to carbon biofuels bioplastics divisions too uh which will be producing a lot of that raw material for companies by next season yeah and maybe one day you'll be living in a hemp crete house right i mean that's that's also another way yeah that's one of our goals we're dealing we're dealing with builders and 3d designers right now uh by next season we'll be building that type of building materials and albuquerque we've partnered with mesa del sol mesa owners uh are some of our investors and some of our partners we're going to be building and and for those who don't know who mesa del sol is uh go ahead and explain mesa del sol is the largest industrial um development in the country here in albuquerque and it's going to be residential netflix just moved in netflix just announced they're expanding their operation there um there's three or four other movie production companies going there there's nuclear research bio research there's um a renewable energy research doing there and manufacturing there so to bring the hemp industry right there also and so especially when we're talking about carbons and bioplastics and and renewables um to have some of these research development companies right there they're going to be 35 000 homes built in that area in the next 10 years so for us to be able to work with the local contractors and building build home builders to say hey let's uh we've taken six lots we purchased six lots out there we're going to build models model homes by next season uh of hemp homes out there to really show the market we can do this and there's and you know this there's zero carbon homes right um so we're looking at all that stuff what what is the education level jeff like among your peers both you know on the corporate side and the political side when it comes to the the endless benefits of the cannabis plant right both like we said talked about on the therapeutic side the industrial side like are they surprised when you're telling them about you know how environmentally sustainable it is how um it can it can be used to you know create material goods like we've talked about biofuels other things are they shocked by this information or do they know it i think i think 80 of them are shocked there's a handful of legislators um that know it um and um and are really pushing and helping the industry um you know there's a couple of city councilmen city council people um that that understand it um and then the environmentalists are very are very way behind it but it's as simple as this the thing about the hemp plant is it can create jobs within agriculture it already is doing that it can create jobs in manufacturing it can create jobs in research you know the university of new mexico is one of the top bio research institutions in the country we're already having conversations with them how we can use our raw materials and they can test bio you know bio hemp elements right here in new mexico and then our goal is to be manufacturing those in the next two or three years um so you know the thing about it is is we have a whole not a whole division we have a couple of people in our company that's all they do they're they're advocates for the hemp industry the implant they go out and talk to washington they go out and talk to uh to our state legislators um we have a lot of support from our state legislators because they see a great opportunity across the board and they do they are amazed when i i spoke at the state legislative um budget review about a month ago before they go into session and i got calls to tell you we did a whole zoom thing i got calls and text messages from the legislators saying man i didn't know you guys could do all that um you know let's let's let's remind you know i'm sure your your listeners let's remind everybody that the implant was our first was our first paper was our first wood it was our first clothing was our first medicines was our first tobaccos um everybody attacked hamp because dupont wanted off the market the tobacco guys wanted off the market the cotton guys want it off the market you know you can grow hemp every 120 days and make a house it takes you 20 years to grow a tree that's right 100 yes and and it's been like even like you said earlier we would feed our livestock in cattle right the hemp seeds um and it would sustain them and whatnot it's just been a part of human existence for a long time not to mention the science that's now showing that our endocannabinoid system is married biologically to these these plants which contain cannabinoids right right right it's it's very incredible and and i'm really excited to talk with you jeff is because you see this from two kind of different lenses right and you have that that platform and voice at the political level and the corporate level to start to educate some of these leaders in those fields so um like what do you see like from a political stance like moving this plant forward in the future i keep hearing people saying with a a blue wave if if the democrats win the senate you know we're going to look at federal legalization i i don't know if that's going to happen right away i mean do you foresee that happening and if so like how long will this take i don't see um i don't i i think very much like the hemp like on the cannabis on the cannabis side um you know i i see if the feds legalize it i don't see them legalizing it as federal use i think what they'll do is very much like they did to him they'll de-categorize it make it a schedule five instead of a schedule one they'll make it federally legal per state and then leave it up to the states right and i'm also a big constitutionalist on the political side so i do believe the states have more power than the federal government in a lot of cases so i think the feds will do that um but there's also a push at the republican side i mean let's make this very clear the republicans mcconnell and the republicans from the southern states are the ones that actually put in the farm bill and actually pushed it through the senate in 2018 so let's remember there's republican support too now let's be very frank the biggest reason they're suppo republican support is they're getting pushed from the senators in kentucky north carolina south carolina georgia what are those big states tobacco states right the tobacco farmers want to get into the smoking side of the hemp industry and it's a way that they can see an opportunity so the tobacco industry is pushing this also which is helping everybody right and when i'm confused when you say that mitch mcconnell helped push that farm bill through which i i don't i don't doubt that but i'm confused because i read an article recently that he applauded in the stimulus package that there was no reference of banking laws to protect banks for from operating and working with cannabis companies so it's like it's almost like a catch-22 because we're happy about it from an agricultural standpoint especially that we talked about maybe for cannabinoids industrial hemp but you know when it comes to actually operating in the space using banks and whatnot the support doesn't seem to be there i just don't understand well again on the medical metal on the recreation on the medical marijuana cannabis side you're correct there but on the hemp side they've actually just come out with some new guidelines for the banking industry some of the big interstate banks which i think is going to help new mexico banks more than anything else some of the bigger banks wells fargo uh bank of america some of those you know going to probably stay away from it but i've been reached out i mean we bank with a local community bank here in albuquerque they have been very supportive and very aggressive with us about banking i have opened up the doors for the community bank association for the hemp industry here in new mexico um our goal is to do it in colorado um texas and other states also so the community banking uh which is for a new mexico specifically kevin as you know this um our interstate banking has actually hurt our state because they take our into they take our deposits and leave the state of new mexico and wells fargo invests 99 of our money outside the state of new mexico community banks i tell everybody all the time we should be banking business should be banking with community local banks because their goal is to invest back into our state and as you know new mexico we're not texas we're not california we're not even arizona or denver where we have a lot of institutional money coming in in fact our institutional money comes in picks off our startups and has to have them move our state right leave our state um so i think it's extremely important so on the banking side and i think it's happening across the board in every state on the banking side the smaller community banks are getting very involved in the hemp business and even in the cannabis business and i think they'll be the leaders on the banking side that's that's encouraging to hear i didn't i didn't know about that they were more banks are open at least to the the farm bill the agricultural side of it and that's that's good because that that ultimately helps everyone right the farmers um and it kind of cuts through all that red tape that they've been experiencing over the past couple of years oh absolutely you know and and so jeff you talked about how your business is 70 to 80 focused on the cannabinoid side so from a regulation for now for now for now yes sorry to make that clear yeah so for in the current state of things like how difficult is it to operate on that side of the business with the lack of fda consumer oversight regarding cbd and other cannabinoids well new mexico i got to give credit to the legislators um because it was really the legislative that pushed that um and i'm not sure about every other state delta nines are a little bit different by state as your listeners will know but new mexico actually with our manufacturing license we can actually um take in hot material so as long as the materials at not hot at harvesting time but we actually um we actually doing through our post harvesting and processing with our other manufacturing partnerships we can actually have hot materials so if the farmer goes hot after it's harvested um we can actually take the farmer can but we can actually take that product and we can make products out of it it's just the final retail product has to go out below 0.3 or within fda or state guidelines see that makes sense i think that makes a lot of sense so new mexico new mexico had the vision and again a small group of legislators that understand this plan as you know through the processing you know you know our stephen our chairman loves to say this the hemp plant is the only agricultural plant or the only agricultural thing that when you cut that you have to process that plant to get anything out of it right i mean if you're if you're growing chilis onions bananas pineapples oranges pecans you just pluck it and it's ready to eat uh with the implant there's some type of process that has to go through whether you want to take it to herd fiber or oils or smokeables so new mexico saw that because we educated our legislators they knew that that during the processing form it can go hot and will go hot so um so we have to just remediate the tac below that point three levels now there's also a push the house has already passed it past it i believe it's going to get done either way there's also a push at the federal level to basically take that made up 0.3 thc level to 1.0 because let's be very frank the hemp plant growing the cbd medicines it's going to grow it could go to 0.4.5 as it goes up below 0.3 is very difficult and as you know you know the thc factor doesn't even kick in until it's up well above 0.10 right and i've heard that the dea is even trying to or i don't know if they're doing it now but at one time they were trying to even lower that percentage to like one percent which it could make it even virtually impossible to to to grow yeah 0.1 yeah 0.1 yeah so um i'm glad that if you did that you literally couldn't grow him right and you know it goes back to that education factor right because as we've talked to scientists and other people that really understand the medicinal benefits of the cannabinoids it's more productive and better for you to have that full spectrum entourage effect than just isolating one cannabinoid right and and you're kind of seeing that in californi where there's such a hype around thc and the potency levels of thc that people are just smoking those joints that have little other they're just isolated with thc and and they're kind of missing out on all the other benefits you know well and i'm not you know i use cbd oils and cbd rubs i'm not a big smoker i don't like smoking and so um so i i want the medical benefits of it and again we are already remediating the thc out within our facility so we have extracting partnerships and then we can remediate it out within our own lab and so our goal is to take as many farmers products as we can even if it's hot again we can take it in hot and then we process it whether our whether our offloads you know whether our vendors want full-spectrum crude or full-spectrum distillate it's all depending on different things um but our goal is to take all the tac out because when the fda approves it um or a majority of the users right now the end users they don't even want to deal with thc so our goal is to take our goal is to remediate everything out when we take it to oil not just biomass we take it to oil our goal is to remediate everything out because that's what the market that's what the market's going to demand right right and hey you got to navigate with kind of what's working right now based on the regulations that are in place right so um i totally understand even when you look at uh you know cpg companies product consumer product good companies even though conversations we're having at the big level yes they're waiting for the fda right so i think we're on hold with those you're gonna see an explosion of cbd products around the world when the fda approves this for food and other products um so we're already having those conversations um but i can tell you right now whatever conversations we have we literally track the seed to the plant to the farm to our facility to the final product we track it from seed to retail spot and the cpg companies the fda when they approve that that's exactly what they're going to want and all of them are going to want non-tac products right right and you know like we've seen so much public support from this past election the five states passing um recently we've even seen at the global level where uh what cannabis was d was it descheduled or totally removed from the single convention on narcotics with the within the u.n so do those kind of moves kind of point to what's to come like even at a global level there's more acceptance to this plant i do i do especially on the hemp side i think kemp's is worldwide um i think there's some countries that's an opportunity for the u.s uh that are still kind of behind the eight ball um so if the u.s it's this could be a brand new agricultural again you can create agricultural jobs research jobs manufacturing jobs um and retail jobs just in the state of new mexico we're looking at 16 000 jobs when the industrial and industrial hemp's full throttle so yes i do think it's it's becoming more and more and people still get confused between the hemp plant and the cannabis plant and i know they're cousins but i try to explain people even some friends this weekend they're like hey here comes the drug dealer guy they think i'm in the medical marijuana business they think i'm in the recreational business hemp is not that at all same medical benefits but you know i try to explain to my friends i sell non-alcoholic beer with medical benefits they get that that's what's the funny thing is they understand that part yeah well jeff you should tell them to listen to the podcast man i think they might you can learn some things i'll share it with everybody thank you um hey so here's another question to pivot on that okay we i've read market watch articles seen figures of charts where they're talking about you know i don't even know the year but i think by 20 what 2027 or something like that this is expected to be a 25 billion dollar industry or something like that now are they accounting for industrial hemp as well they are not that is just the cbd market so i'm like you every everything everything everybody's talking about right now um even are some of our early investment numbers that we're looking to investors and industrial investors looking at institutional investors looking at um we're forecasting you know we're forecasting um all based on cbd and right now according to forbes and according to the studies um in the last two years you've seen cbd use go from 14 to 18 so only 18 usage in the world right now um but as the fda approves it i think you're going to see at least a 50 60 drop so those numbers are going to continue to grow but kevin you're right those numbers that you're reading everybody's showing the numbers the growth numbers on the cbd side on the canada boys side but they're not and we're not even talking about europeans yet like there's a whole terpene there's a whole we're already in do we're already doing stuff in terpenes right now so there's medical benefits there's terpenes and if you're listening i'm not a terpene expert but terpenes are the one that gives you the smell and the flavor and every fruit has terpenes there's very healthy terpenes in the hemp plant that we're already extracting and we're going to be moving those too and that's for food products and and um and for smells and all different things that give you a different different elements and so no one's even calculated the industrial side and so i think we're not even like you know we're the first month of pregnancy on the industrial side right right well jeff i i gotta i gotta just you know just give you so much credit man like you're you can tell like hearing you in your background talking about um how your dad was a former governor and really kind of pushed the whole medical cannabis into new mexico it's inherent that the passion for the plant is in your dna you know and uh and it's great to see that you're always raising the hand when it comes to different industries and things where it not only helps um the good of society right but it also helps the environment right so um and and one other thing i want to i want to commend you on is i know that you have a tv show and this is uh it's called me in the middle talk is that right yeah yeah cold let's meet in the middle um and it's on hiatus right now because of covid we're probably going to bring it back um in in 21. we've been on hiatus for about three months i'm probably going to bring it back a little bit different format but the whole thing was every time i was on the campaign trail even just having drinks with you know i'm more of a moderate democrat right and most of our friends most business leaders are moderates so i try to explain people you realize that 70 75 80 of americans were pretty much in the middle it's the 20 fringe on both sides of the loudest and have the time and the money but they're the loudest but the majority of us are in the middle so politically and it's not just a political show we talk about a bunch of different things um and we're thinking about bringing it back for social media and for television um again this year so we went on hiatus like i told you because of kobe but really we talk about issues across the board and how we can compromise and come to the middle and really start the conversation with us and then we bring politicians into that conversation hey if we can meet in the middle why can't you guys right and let's see let's stop worrying about the party divide and bring people together so that's really and we do that on social media too we have a i have a 45 000 followers on democrats for democracy on facebook i have another small group about seven eight thousand followers called new mexico minute nm minute um and i don't post on that stuff all the time but we have a committee that does on on democrats for democracy and we basically try and bring up issues about you know that the average american actually wants to follow and wants to listen to and that's what's so encouraging is because i mean as we all know today the political landscape is so divided and polarized right that oh absolutely these guys can't even you know they can't get anything done because they there's so much um despite an opposition between the two sides that you can't even come to a consensus and so it's it's great to see politicians that are actually reaching across the aisle and and willing to have a conversation um and that's really what got me into the whole podcast scene you know it's too easy to take a sound bite or so take something out of context whereas you could have a a lengthy conversation and really get to know somebody and and i think that that's what we really did here today with you jeff i i really appreciate man all your insights and and everything that you're doing for the state of new mexico uh which is where i was born and raised and uh yeah man i mean i want to have you on again um as things evolve so kevin any time and you know and look um we're still you know the great thing about the industry and and the reason i guess i'm really excited about the industry is i try and tell people to summarize this is when i got the tv world and i went to cbs television network in 1987 i guess it was i worked with guys from the 50s that actually helped start television the reason i left television i went to the internet and went to aol and started aol studios is because we were starting the internet right i don't want to say i started spanish media but we actually expanded spanish media and i brought new media to the spanish world that's what i did there and really what's really exciting is i'm an entrepreneur by heart i've just done it for big companies now we're doing it for new mexico and for our investors and our group but really we're starting an industry this is the start of a new industry we haven't grown hemp in this country in 200 years we haven't been in the hemp business for 200 years so we're actually our goal here at santa fe farms is not only to be a successful company but to also create an industry based here in new mexico and be one of the leaders we feel there'll be three maybe four hemp leaders in the united states we know for a fact we're going to be one of them based right here in albuquerque love it yeah i can't wait to see all that unfold before we hit before we go uh go jeff where can people find uh your website and then all you go ahead and say the social media groups that you mentioned earlier the facebook groups and stuff so if you want to contact me or santa fe farms you can just go to santa fe farms llc dot com so santa fe farms llc.com you can find us there on social media we're on social media also and then again my facebook we have a group on facebook called new mexico minute um and uh we also have nm um democrats for new mexico democrats for democracy so nmd4d um and nmd4d on facebook um and then you know i'm on social media stuff like that you just google me you can find me on linkedin uh just look for jeff apodaca but if you want to look at santa fe farms just keep a look at santa fe farms we're expanding around the country working with farmers around the country working with extractors around the country we have some great experts within our company that have built industries um across the board and so that's really what we're focused on so um yeah i look forward to hearing from anybody that wants to reach out to us um and want to grow we're working with genetics our goal right now is to come to the farmer and say here the best genetics in your region that grows grow this for us and actually actually we're tracking over 21 different genetics in the country um and our goal is to get down to the best genetics within those regions of those states and go to those farmers and say grow this this is what the market will demand and then we'll work with them to get into the market form that's awesome well you heard it from jeff first hand he's open to y'all reaching out and and working together as they work to expand across the country and even internationally so jeff thanks again for your time i really want to run it back with you again in the new year as things progress uh so we'll be in touch man you got it kevin good luck to you and thanks a lot for having me on i appreciate it yes absolutely and thank you all for listening bye talk soon