I got a phone call from my friend Joel Hollingsworth yesterday.
For months now, he has been dealing with an investigation by the Oklahoma Department of Securities over the herdshare model at Smoke River Ranch. Hollingsworth’s lawyers have confirmed there were no consumer complaints, no claims of fraud, and no alleged victims that triggered the investigation. Instead, it appears the attention came after a viral video posted by a fellow rancher circulated online about his ranch and the innovative way his community herdshare was structured.
The state is investigating whether the herdshare model falls under securities law.
Full disclosure: Hollingsworth is my friend, and I also operate a herdshare. I am not neutral in this conversation. I instinctively side with farmers because I understand firsthand how difficult it has become to survive in modern agriculture without either becoming industrialized or creating alternative systems outside the conventional model.
Hollingsworth has been remarkably open about his story. He speaks honestly about how difficult it is to become a first-generation farmer and about the relationships he built in the bitcoin world of people trying to fix our money that eventually morphed into a herdshare and community-based production model of people trying to fix our food. What began as digital relationships became real land, real cattle, and food production tied directly to families who wanted to participate more closely in agriculture.
Now, to be fair, scams absolutely exist. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people in the health freedom and food sovereignty communities were targeted by fraudulent agricultural schemes and fake ranching projects. I personally know people who lost money buying into promises that never materialized. Predators exist in every space. They prey on the elderly, religious communities, investors, and yes, people searching for alternatives outside centralized systems.
Law enforcement absolutely has a responsibility to stop real fraud.
But consenting adults participating directly in food production and private agricultural agreements should not automatically be treated as though they are engaging in criminal activity simply because those systems exist outside conventional industrial structures.
That is the deeper issue underneath this story.
I have another farmer friend named Joel Salatin, who regularly writes for The Epoch Times and has written an entire book titled “Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal.” The book explores how regulations designed around industrial food systems have steadily squeezed the life out of small and mid-sized farming. For many regenerative farmers, the title resonates because it captures the constant tension between localized food production and regulatory systems built around scale, consolidation, and bureaucracy.
Modern regulations were largely written around centralized agriculture, centralized banking, centralized processing, and centralized distribution. But consumers increasingly want something different. They want local food, raw milk, direct relationships with ranchers, nutrient-dense food, and transparency about where their food comes from.
And every time farmers attempt to build systems outside the industrial model, regulators often seem determined to force those systems back into categories they were never designed to fit.
That raises uncomfortable questions.
Why are regulators increasingly concerned when willing adults voluntarily participate in local food systems, herdshares, private milk clubs, or community agriculture?
Why does every decentralized model eventually seem to collide with institutions built around centralized control?
In Texas, we are seeing similar battles over PMAs and raw milk. Adult Americans increasingly want to reconnect with food production because they no longer trust industrial systems to properly nourish their families.
And many of them have good reason not to trust them.
The industrial food model optimizes for scale, efficiency, shelf life, and consolidation. Regenerative agriculture is attempting to optimize for something entirely different: soil health, nutrient density, local resilience, animal health, water retention, and direct relationships between producers and consumers.
These are fundamentally different visions for the future of food.
Many of us are no longer trying to win the current system.
We are trying to build another one.
We are trying to build systems rooted in regeneration instead of extraction. Systems rooted in local relationships instead of endless consolidation. Systems where communities know their ranchers, know their farmers, and willingly choose to participate in those relationships as free adults.
Of course, farmers want profitable businesses and financial stability for their families. Farming is extraordinarily difficult, especially for first-generation farmers trying to survive without becoming industrialized. Many survive only through direct-to-consumer relationships, herdshares, private memberships, side businesses, or community support.
But when farmers think outside the box to survive, the system increasingly seems unable or unwilling to make room for models that do not fit neatly within industrial frameworks.
That is why this case matters far beyond one ranch in Oklahoma.
Because if free adults are no longer allowed to choose the food they want to consume, the farmers they want to support, or the systems they want to voluntarily participate in, then we should seriously ask ourselves: How much freedom do we actually have left?
And if we cannot choose what we eat, do we really have any freedom at all?
