The Texan Podcast - Republican Nate Sheets on Texas Agriculture Commissioner Race

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

Nate Sheets, an entrepreneur and former beekeeper turned Christian missionary, joined reporter Cameron Abrams to discuss his Republican primary challenge to Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. Sheets shares his experiences with Nature Nate's honey, his plans to address issues within Texas agriculture, the challenges facing Miller, and more.

Nate Cheats. Thank you for joining me today. Cameron, mate. Glad to be here. Awesome. So you're running for ad commissioner. And why don't you just tell me a little bit about who you are, maybe some of your past business ventures? Because from what I know, you've dabbled in a few different things. Yeah, kind of a crazy background. But thank you for having me. I mean, it's great to be here with you today. You know, so kind of a serial entrepreneur did a lot of different ventures. Some succeeded. Some didn't, you know, over the years. But also kind of a weird combination of I spent 12 years in full-time Christian ministry after going on a mission trip. And at the same time, I bought a beehive after Patty and I got married and it turned into a hobby gone wild kind of episode. And so I started with this one beehive after Patty and I got married. She said, hey, we need a hobby together. And she was thinking gardening or antiques. But back then in 1996, they actually had TV commercials that promoted what the internet was for

and had this lady covered up in a bee suit with bees. And I'd always loved honey. And so I saw this commercial and I said, I went over and typed in beekeeping Dallas and I pulled this little honey company, North Dallas Hunting. So I called a guy and asked him if I could buy a beehive. And he said, sure. And as soon as I hung up, I thought, well, we live in an apartment. So I called my parents and asked him if I could put a beehive in their backyard.

They lived in the middle of, you know, Plano up in a suburb. But I started with one beehive, and Fred actually had 100 beehives. He had 50 behind Brookhaven College in Dallas and just 50 a few miles down the road from me. And so I started going over on the weekends with Fred working bees. And it was amazing. I mean, I always say, if you don't believe in God, become a beekeeper. Because there is no, you know, question that there is a divine creator behind it. And so we'd work on the weekends doing that.

But then he was about 75, had cancer and didn't know it. and so he was in about 10 local health food stores, so I started getting up 4 o'clock in the morning, and before I'd go to work, and I'd go put honey on the shelf for him. And then Patty's a schoolteacher down in Dallas, and so then we started going down to his house at night in the garage, and we bottle honey by hand. And I remember one time she looked at me, she's like,

what are we doing? I said, I don't know. We're just helping this guy. Yeah. So we'd bottle it by hand and put a label on it, and I'd bring it next morning. So after I did that for that summer of 97, we wound up buying the honey company from Fred for $10,000 on term.

But I didn't buy the bee side. I bought the bottling side, the product side. And so I hired a beekeeper to bottle of the honey, hired a distributor to put it on the shelf with really, honestly, with no vision for what it could be, should be. I was just doing it. But I also wound up going to work for this Christian mission agency just a few months later, full-time,

raise support like missionaries do, and then traveled to 88 countries around the world, telling people about Jesus over the next 12 years. Again, always having the honey company on the side. And so in 2010, I left E3, but we got to do some really amazing things at E3. We created this little Rubik's Cube-looking product called an Advantage Cube that had seven pictures that shared the story of the Death Barron Resurrection of Jesus. And then we came up with an online platform called I Am Second, where we use people's stories to tell them about how they are second because Christ is first in their life. And so even in ministry, I kind of used my entrepreneurial venture and skills, you know, to make an impact.

Yeah. So I left in 2010, started doing the Honey Company full time. And honestly, it was just, God just really blessed it, rebranded from North Dallas Honey to Nature Nates in the summer of 11. I had my personal cell phone number on the back of every bottle of honey I sold from 1997 until 2014. Wow. And talk to every single person. Wow. And so I knew exactly why people ate honey.

but we had gotten into a local Walmarts in 2010, but it did so well, they started taking North Dallas honey to Houston and Albuquerque and Oklahoma City. And I told the buyer, I said, listen, people in Houston don't even like people in Dallas. They're not going to buy North Dallas honey. So long story short, I wound up coming up with the Nature Nates brand, but also my focus was to ensure that the honey that we were providing

was the safest, cleanest honey that we could. And back then, people didn't trust honey. There were some people that had gone to jail for honey, There were, a reporter did a big sting on private label honey in grocery stores and found that it was actually subverted Chinese honey. And so I felt like our vision needed to be the most trusted honey company in the world. And then I also had a mission statement. I wanted to honor God. I wanted to help you and your family live healthy lives because I always felt like corn syrup was killing Americans.

And so if we could just replace products that have been made with corn syrup with honey, that would be a great win. And so with those two kind of visions and mission, we set off. And the way I felt like I could only be the most trusted honey company was through transparency. And transparency had to be proven through testing. And so I tested everything that I bought twice. Before I bought it, after I bought it, and I test her corn syrup, rice syrup, antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides. And then I paid beekeepers a premium.

And they became much more thoughtful over time about where they were putting their hives because they knew that Nathan was going to pay more than anybody else. He'd pay on time, wouldn't have deductions. And then I tested it all. And then we took a commodity and got a 30% premium on the shelf. And within just a few years, we're the number one branded honey in America. So that really, you know, today, again, it's always hindsight. You know, I look back and that really, I believe, is kind of this formulaic concept of how we could utilize that to even help farmers and ranchers today in going forward. So I sold Nature Nates at the end of 21 to private equity. I was a CEO until November of this past year. And so that even in itself was a tremendous

learning opportunity to work with a private equity group. And even, you know, we were pretty large at the time when we were purchased, but to really scale it, I learned a tremendous amount. But I stepped away from the honey company, resigned off the board to pursue running for ag commissioner after my buddy, Rick Santorum, we were having lunch in D.C. in January and he said, hey, you should run for ad commissioner. I was like, run for ad commissioner. What are you talking about? And he said, yeah, you focus on cleaning up food and honey. You should do that for other people. And was that the first time you've ever thought about getting into politics or how do you've been involved in politics at all before then? Peripherally, I mean, I'm a relationship guy. And so when I have

relationships with a Rick Santorum or like Chris Hill, who's the county commissioner up in Collin County, I had a lot of relationships of guys and would give, but just honestly, just very peripherally. And again, I spent so much time working in full-time Christian ministry. That's where our time went and where our treasure went, mostly. And so I never really had any aspiration, never thought I'd be in politics. And so when Rick said that to me, I came back and I was telling my wife about that. And she was like, yeah, no, we can't do that. And so I actually pulled up Sid Miller's job description because I've been a donor of his over the years.

And so I pulled it up. And I was quite surprised at what I saw was the job description. It's actually incredibly impactful. And so when I shared that with Patty, she said, man, I could totally see that. I was like, what? So, you know, that was in January. And so I just really thought about it, prayed about it. And so in March I called Sid and we went to lunch and we were talking.

And he was saying that he was thinking about running for another political office. And so I mentioned, you know, hey, I'm thinking about praying about running for Ag Commissioner. And this is what I'd like to do. And he said, I think you should run. You know, if he were here right now, he would say, well, I meant if I didn't run, you should run. Right. But I said, well, is that an endorsement? He said, no.

Oh, okay. So now, again, that's early March. And so again, started talking to people. And the more people I talked with, the more adamant people, were like please especially moms if their kids are in public school the you know the school lunch program is so atrocious that they just were like begging me please go invest your your experiences and go make a difference and so we threw our hat in the ring in april and we had a big launch party up in mckinney at the old nature nates farms and yeah it was fun i mean we had i wouldn't have

a thousand people but we had 600 people there for an ag commissioner kickoff who would have ever thought Right. Well, how has your view of politics sort of change from where you're just seeing it from the periphery to now running for elected office? How has that transition gone for you? I always thought you got stung a lot in beekeeping. No, it's been fascinating, honestly. I mean, I think I love kind of business process, you know, process, people, tools, training. And so, you know, leading a team, putting a team together so quickly of people that you really don't know, and I'm high on trust and relationship and culture, but you're setting up a company and funding it as quickly as we can to only go broke and spending all your money at the end, not at the

beginning. And so it's a little cattywampus. But I'll tell you, the thing I do love, because I love people. I love serving people, helping people, and I love being out and talking with farmers and ranchers around Texas and just Texans and hearing their stories. And I was just talking to a gentleman who told me that, you know, his grandfather was a farmer, his dad was a farmer, and he went to Texas Tech, and he was going to go back and be a farmer. And his grandfather said, let me ask you, how much did you sell your cotton for last year? He said, I don't know, $0.63. He goes, you know what? When I was your age, I sold my cotton for 63 cents he said how much you have buy a tractor for he said my new one's 100,000 he goes

when I was your age a new tractor was 5,000 he said don't be a farmer and I think that that is such a tragic story and we hear it time and time again that financially farmers and ranchers just can't make it anymore you know in 1980s so 45 years ago farmers got 40 cents of every one dollar food. So here today, 45 years later, it's not the same thing as what his grandfather did. It's 60% less. They make 15 cents of every $1 food. So, I mean, who wants to sign up for a job that you make 60% less 45 years later? But that's the top line. So think of all the input costs that go into it. Your land costs, your interest costs, your equipment, your labor, your fertilizer, your seed. And that's why we lose in Texas 68 farming and ranching families.

every week. Last week, next week, it's every week. Since 2018, we've lost 17,000 farms in Texas. Now, a lot of that's due to consolidation. But the net net at the end of the day, if farmers were financially, if it was a financially viable industry, they wouldn't be so motivated to sell their farm to a solar farm that wants to come in or a wind farm. So we've got to figure out how we can help farmers get back to that. You know, in the entire United States last year, we lost seven percent of farms in the United States, 123,000. And those are our small farms. I mean, there's the small, local family farms, I mean, even a large-scale family farms, a family farm, but, you know, the small local farms that they, you know, they're eating all of that themselves, are selling it to

their neighbors, they're selling it from their farm. And these people care, you know, about that. And we need more people coming into agriculture. Average age continues to go up and up and up. I always felt like the beekeeping was an old man's industry. Well, just agriculture in general is an old man's industry. And young people aren't thinking, wow, when I grew up, I want to be a farmer and struggle finitially. And so we need to create an environment where that is an actual option. You know, we've got 1.5 million veterans in Texas.

They're 50% more likely to start a business. Let's create an environment where veterans can really get into agriculture. Right. Well, I want to ask about, you know, you mentioned serial entrepreneurship, the ministry work that you've done. How do you see those business values, ministry values, transitioning into a political role? Do you see them as separate? Do you see them moving over if you are elected as ad commissioner? You know, for me personally.

Yeah. The vision and the mission don't change. I want to be the most trusted ag commissioner in the world. I want to be the most trusted ag industry in the world. I want our farmers and ranchers to be the most trusted producers, you know, in the world. And I want to honor God in the way I operate and to help you and your family live a healthy life. You know, and so those things do not change. You know, obviously, you know, operating in a government environment is going to be very different

than operating in a private environment. And there's laws that I'll, you know, have to be thoughtful and respectful of. But it's the end of the day, I want to live in a way that draws people to ask questions of, why do you operate the way you operate? And it's about having Christ in my life. And that is my driving force behind why I do what I do, you know, to serve other people and to glorify the Lord, you know, in my actions. And I think about, you know, all these issues are massive.

You know what? I don't have a silver bullet. I don't know exactly what to do in a lot of these circumstances. But I do know how to lead people. You know, I do know how to pull people together that know things that I don't know and rally and come up with solutions. But what I do know is the same thing that George Washington knew when he was about to be the first president of the United States.

and he just said, I don't know how to be a president. I'm a farmer. I just want to go back to the farm. But when he swore in, he opened the Bible to Deuteronomy 28. And he put his hand on Deuteronomy 28 and pledged his oath on that. And Deuteronomy 28 says, if you will seek after me and keep my commandments, I will bless you. And I'll send the sun. I'll send the rain.

Your animals will have lots of babies. Your farms will be abundant. I'll even have your enemies to. be at peace with you. And I think that was a way for George Washington to say, I have no idea how to be a president. No one's gone before me. But what I do is I believe what God's word says. And I will lead us to pursue God and to keep his commandments. And I'm going to trust that God's blessings are going to come out of it. And so that's how I'll approach the office and that's how I'll live my faith out and trust that God is going to give us the right ideas and bring the

right people with the right skill sets and provide the resources needed to accomplish what we need to accomplish. Yeah. Well, I want to get into some of those issues that Texas is facing as a candidate of for ad commissioner here. In regards to health more generally, what role do you see the Department of Agriculture having in setting the agenda for public health in Texas? I think there's a, there's a tug of war right now that's come about because of the, you know, very good attention of RFK and his team from a Maha perspective. You know, you know all the statistics, 70% of every American has one chronic disease or more, 78% of kids 18 to 25 were ineligible to serve in the military.

We spend $4, $5 trillion a year treating diseases related to the food that we used. eat. So there is a, you know, chronic disease epidemic that we need to address. And RFK and his team are addressing that. And yet at the same time, we have this incredibly financially challenging environment for farmers and ranchers to be successful. And they're just trying to not lose everything, you know. And so to try to help have at least a vision, you know, of can we do it better? and working with inside the industry because there's a consumer perception issue that's the reality that agriculture has to face and deal with. And so I think coming at this from the perspective and background that I have, I mean,

we've got a cowcalf operation. I've got a big ranch in Guthrie, Texas, and we do cutting horses. But I also come at this from my background of food safety, food manufacturing, dealing with pesticides, herbicides, funnicides, and just all those nuances of being in agricultural production and trying to find that balance of representing both sides and trying to come up with solutions that make Texans healthy and farmers wealthy. I mean, that's where we need to get to. Right. Is there a balance you think that can be struck there? Do you have a certain vision if you were to step into the role, what that would be?

Yeah, I think, you know, going back to the financial challenges that farmers have, the 15 cents and the 40 cents, one of the very first things that I would focus on doing is really trying to revamp the Go Texas program. I've been a Go Texas member. It's a local producer program for Texas, but really create a viable direct-to-consumer or direct-to-retail opportunity for producers to be able to go in and put products on the shelf in retail stores. So going to the H.E.Bs and the Brookshire brothers and, you know, other retailers,

Kroger and Walmart, and trying to create a very strong Go Texas program in retail. And so local producers at that point, just like I did. I used to get up 4 o'clock in the morning, go put honey on the shelf. And I would, you know, fill out the order. Someone sign it inside of the retail store, and then they would send me a check. So we can make a much better. program, but then also let's go create a digital platform that allows producers all over the state. You don't have to live near a Kroger or a Brookshire brother or an H.E.B. to be able to go put

product on the shelf. If you're a cattle guy in West Texas, let's do box beef, you know, so you can sell direct to consumers. And so the thing that's going to really influence them the most is they're going to be motivated to see what consumers are willing to pay based on the quality of the food that they produce. And so in some sense, there's a free market influence that really starts to drive a lot of, you know, that. And so especially with small producers, that's going to be incredibly impactful. But there are a lot of challenges, you know, when you think about row crop farmers and cotton and, you know, in larger agricultural industry that need to be addressed, a lot of it's related to water, you know, in accessible water to be able to utilize to grow crops.

And so it's, sometimes I can get a little overwhelmed when I start thinking about all the challenges in agriculture and I think, okay, there's a lot of easier things I could go spend my time doing, but I'm not focused on trying to have an easy life. I want to have an impactful life. And so I'm willing to go and invest this period of time in my experiences to really make a difference and use the bully pulpit of the platform to really advocate for farmers and ranchers and all Texans. Yeah. And you mentioned a little bit earlier how you've been hearing from families about childhood nutrition and school lunches and things like that. What sort of reforms

do you think the school nutrition program needs to be updated? Like if you were if you are to step into that role, what sort of reforms would you try to implement? I think last year, I saw that we were 44th in the nation and school nutrition in terms of state rankings. We can do better. I'm confident we can do better. There's a lot of financial challenges. You know, there's a lot of people that are in that recipients of SNAP that their children receive a free lunch program. And so there's a lot of financial pressures on school systems because it's, it's costly to feed kids.

And I don't have the specifics in terms of how much funding comes from the USDA, you know, and snap over to schools. But, you know, I'll learn that as we get further down the road. But I know that we can start to have a vision for trying to be to have a healthier lunch and school lunch program. I mean, my opponent, one of the very first things that he did when he got into office, he allowed sodas to come back into school. He brought friars to come back into school.

He had a cupcake amnesty Friday or something like that. And, you know, here we are 12 years later, 10 years later, and we're 44th. So I don't think that that maybe have been the right move if we're really focused on the nutritional health of kids. And, you know, what we eat impacts how we perform. You know, you go to Texas A&M, the football cafeteria is not the same. is the student cafeteria because they know what those athletes eat impacts their performance on the field. We need to think about that as it relates to kids. We have so many behavior problems in schools and those things are impacted by the food. I don't know where we rank, I think,

41st in the country education-wise. That's impacted by the food that they eat. So we just need to even think differently about how we approach it. Yeah. I want to transition. to a different issue, the screw worm. It's become an issue over the past six months or so. Brooke Rawlins has said it's gotten as close as I think one of the estimates was 70 miles from the Texas border. And so what sort of your thoughts on the state and federal response so far to the screw worm threat? I think it's not been very well quite. coordinated. Even inside the state, I watched a screw worm ag committee hearing where my opponent was testifying and saying that he was being left out of meetings that were being held down in

South Texas about how to deal to screw worm. And then the head veterinarian for animal health, you know, was up next. And my opponent said, well, I have this responsibility. And he didn't. The head Veterinary for Animal Health did, and he said, you can come to these meetings. I have a feeling that he was not included because things become more of a distraction than trying to figure out how to be a solution-oriented leader. And even today, or yesterday, said, gave an article where he was talking about his traps that he's put around the border. I think they've got like 300 of him. And so he's got traps down there with a swarm bait bait lure for these traps. But it's not approved by USDA. And he was just saying, I'm not going to sit around and wait for USDA. I'm

just going to go forward and do this. And even if it kills other flies, you know, a dead fly is a good fly. There's a lot of good flies that we need. And there are flies that are pollinators. There are flies that go and, you know, decomposed, you know, dead animals. And so, you know, flies are food for other insects and frogs and things. And so there are good flies. But he felt like, you know, I'm going to go forward. I don't care what the impact is going to be and just kind of a cavalier approach to it. And the USDA, Brooke Rollins, you know, and teams responded yesterday with a pretty stern And we're tired of escapades of what is happening at TDA and in Texas. And so stop it, go away.

Right. So, you know, it's to help lead people, you have to have the ability to want people to have you engaged and to lead. And there's too much divisiveness and not trying to bring people together who might even be on the opposite sides of the table and figure out. out how we have common ground to have common sense solutions, you know, to approach us. So I do think that the, that Brooke Rollins and our team really have a vision for how they need to approach this and they're doing it as aggressively and quickly as they can. And, you know,

cattle feeders, cattle ranchers association, Texas cattle raisers, you know, the quarter horse association, all these groups, we need a solution. It's going to even impact your dogs and your cats and people. Any animal, you know, including humans, we're all going to be susceptible to this if it permeates into Texas. Yeah. Well, another one of those divisive issues is hemp drive THC in the state, the legislature. They had some difficulty during the special sessions. It ended up, Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order asking some different state agencies to create an age limit. Maybe just generally, what are your thoughts on hemp tree?

tribe THC in Texas. And what role do you see the TDA playing in that? You know, there was regulatory responsibility for the TDA. They defined the regulations, wrote the regulations, and they just, again, didn't do a very thorough job. Or they did do it very thoroughly and purposefully left a crack in the door, which created an opportunity for people to have hemp-derived products that don't, have THC until you apply heat. And then the Delta 8 can all of a sudden get you high. And so you know, maybe that was done very intentionally, you know, to create opportunities for other people to grow hemp and have it altered, you know, with synthetic Delta 8. But we're in this mess

today because there wasn't good thoughtful leadership to move through a process and looking at all the different facets. And I have heard, I don't know this firsthand, but that Sid Miller himself has been a hemp grower, which I think is difficult for someone to maintain objectivity when they have a personal gain potentially in how the regulations are written. But I do know that Senator Perry had asked my opponent to go back and rewrite the regulations and put them in alignment, you know, with federal regulations. And I think that there was no interest on his part, you know, to acquiesce to that request from Senator Perry. So the result of that is we have a state where we have a lieutenant governor that sees, you know, the THC as the big challenge.

We have a lot of products in these stores that are coming in, and the products are made in China. And we have no idea what's in those products. I mean, we've been fighting fintinol coming in from the south, and it's been derived as coming from China originally. And so what would change the motivation of potentially impacting youth in America by lacing products that are being sold in these hemp stores? because they're too coming from China. And so there's no oversight of what is going on right now. You know, the Tech Department of Public Safety doesn't have the funding to really go in and help regulate these retail stores.

So it's just there's just a lot of confusion right now, unfortunately. Do you have any certain specific reforms in mind that you would like to see the TDA implement if you were to step into this agricultural commissioner role? Yeah, I would close the door that would allow the synthetics to be applied. I mean, the original intention of bringing hemp to the state was the commercial value of hemp and using it, you know, in material making and, you know, a lot of different hemp products. But that's not where it's come to. And so I know even Sid talked about, well, I don't want to impact these, you know, six or seven thousand.

little stores these are entrepreneurs we need to help protect them no we need to protect the kids that are going into the stores and buying things and bringing them back to schools and using them and so I would lead us to close that door to where we're not going to have that confusion we're not going to have the ability for for young people to go down and to buy products that they can get high from well you mentioned Sid Miller a few times my opponent your opponent. You mentioned the conversation you had with him. You talked a little bit about what spurred you into this race, but why run against Sid Miller? He has been in this position

for a number of years now. He has quite a following. Just tell me a little bit about why you're running for this position. Yeah. You know, when I started down this path, it wasn't a choice to go run against Sid. I saw this as there's massive challenges right now in agriculture. And I got a call from Sid in August and he was out stumping for Trump. And he asked me for $15,000 and to help fund his activities. And so I just sent it to him. And so I think as after when I started having that conversation with Rick and I started thinking about that, you know, I just thought, No one's solely focused on trying to help Texas farmers and ranchers and families. And I knew that he had aspirations to wanting to be the Secretary of Agriculture.

And so it was more of a motivation to use my background and skills and experiences to go do that and be solely focused on trying to help farmers and ranchers. As I've gotten into this process more, I realize that, you know, all the ethical challenges that have, been in the Texas Department of Agriculture, specifically with Sid's campaign manager, Todd Smith, who was arrested in charge with a felony commercial bribery for selling hemp licenses for $25,000. Now, Sid will say, why would someone spend $25,000 on something that you could buy for $100 from the TDA? Well, Todd was telling people, there's only going to be 15 licenses is given. And if you want to be one of the 15, you give me 25,000 bucks, and I'll make sure that

you're in that top 15. So there was a great motivation for that. And, you know, you can go out and go read the arrest warrant, sworn affidavit from a Texas Ranger of the whole conversation and process that has, that went through and the exchange of money. And so Sid said that he was, you know, he was on the witch hunt to impact Sid, just like Donald Trump. No. This was to go, arrest a criminal and to stop them from frauding, defrauding people in agriculture and stealing their money. And so Todd was arrested, went to court, Sid was going to have to testify. And so Todd pled guilty. And then he also could not be a lobbyist. And I think that was in November of last year. Couldn't be a lobbyist for the next 12 months. And so what was he going to do for work?

Well, Sid hired him to be the chief of staff at Texas Department of Agriculture, working overseeing the same industry that he defrauded, and he's now paid $218,000 a year, and he's there today at Texas Department of Agriculture. I think that, you know, those are things I didn't realize in getting into this. I didn't know that, and most people don't. And I don't talk about that unless people specifically ask about it. Right. But it's, there's, there again, back to distractions. Those are things that are just unnecessary, unneeded for an industry that needs focus and attention and intentionality. Yeah.

Well, you've mentioned some of those critiques. And how would you be different than Sid Miller in this agricultural commissioner position? You know, you mentioned on some policy issues, you mentioned some hiring decisions. How would you be different in that role? You know, coming from private industry, I mean, I led, I think, you know, 150 people at Nature Nates, and then Nature Nates got much larger. But I always won through other people. And I surround myself with people who are better and smarter than I am in the things that I don't do well.

That way gives me the opportunity to operate in my strengths. And so I'm very comfortable being surrounded and giving accolades and pray. to other people around me. And so I operate in an environment of, you know, helping me create vision and then strategic direction and then, you know, goals and strategies and tactics and then holding people accountable, but inspiring people to this,

to the impact of what we all can do collectively together versus individually. And so, you know, one of the very first things I'll do is really go focus on the culture, you know, at Texas Department of Agriculture, I think since March there have been about 130 employees that have left, either by choice or Todd Smith firing them. And so it's that agency has been gutted, either from the legislature who's taking things away out of a response to the leadership that has been there or just the destruction that has happened from having, you know, a felon as your chief of staff and having a really negative impact in that environment. So I think there's got to be a lot of, I don't want to say I'm just going to go in there and clean house

because there are a lot of really dedicated people who have been very impactful in agriculture and really have a heart and a vision for it. But we need to go separate the wheat and the chaff and figure out how we go forward. And so there's got to be a lot of internal work quickly in anticipation to really go make a difference outside of TDA. And so, you know, my leadership style is going to be one of honesty, transparency, high ethics, holding myself accountable and being transparent. You know, I want to be the most trusted agriculture commissioner. And so accessibility and transparency are going to be critical and key.

Yeah. Well, you mentioned if you're to step into this role, if you're elected doing a big cultural change within the TDA, maybe what are some other specific policy issues you'd like to tackle maybe in like the first hundred days if you are elected into this role yeah go in and reviewing the fees there were about twenty million dollars of fees that sid added on top of in agriculture and regulations and so we need to go look at fees and regulations and how do we make it easier and cheaper for farmers and ranchers in agriculture and also needs to go around I asked an executive in one of the trade associations, if I won and I stepped into this role,

what should I do? Kind of the same question for 100 days. He said, the very first thing you need to do is go around the state and repair all the relationships that have been damaged over the past 10 years, you know, and really give a vision for what we can all do. And so, and that's on the outside, so which, again, has to be done on the inside. But part of that is understanding, you know, the challenges that the TDA has placed. to make it more difficult for farmers to be in business and let's get rid of those quickly I would go and review you know the budget in where we allocate our money

and how we allocate our money you know a lot of the money is money that comes from either USDA or HHS or even HUD for block grants for counties and so looking at those and looking at the impact of what those dollars have done and so really creating a culture and an environment where where we have an ROI mindset of having a return on the money that we're investing in the communities inside of Texas. And so looking at past investments and then learning that influence future investments. And then I think ultimately going back to how do we help farmers and ranchers be more profitable? How do we help drive revenue?

What are the quick fixes that we can do quick fixes, you know, which could take years, you know. candidly, to really get in there and start to help farmers be able to access greater topline revenue. And then finally, the school lunch program, getting in there as quickly as we can and trying to revamp that and make it robust and nutritious to help influence and impact kids. Yeah. Well, just wrapping up here, you know, similar, he's had lots of challengers over the past election cycles.

What makes you different from the others who have challenged? them in this agricultural commissioner race um i don't really i'm not comparing myself to the other guys i haven't spent any time focusing on what they did right or didn't do right i just focusing on the way i try to live my life and that is you know work hard um trust the lord and and believe that if god's going to have me be a success then there's nothing um nobody that can stop us and if there's the plan, then the process is what is important at that point. And so running in a way that we believe that we're going to win, but trying to be impactful with everyone along the way.

And at the end of the day, if my opponent winds up being the commissioner again, there's going to be a much higher standard for him. And we're going to hold him accountable because we have, again, just a huge need, but we also had the expectation, but he's not going to win. We're going to win. And so we're speaking in about 38 town halls around the state. We'll be in 33 counties over the next few weeks. And so we're speaking to state parties, the endorsements that we've been getting. We've got about 12 SREC members. If you're an SREC member, we'd love to have you get on board and endorse. But we've had endorsements like Joanne Fleming from Grassroots America and We the People.

Tim and Robin Lennon down at the Kingwood Tea Party. We've had Rick Santorum, Mark Meckler, the founder of the Tea Party, Mattress Mack down in Houston, Dr. Peter McCullough, and Texas gun rights and conservative college Republicans, Patriot-owned businesses. I mean, we just are getting so many endorsements. Kelly Shackleford at Liberty Institute. And so we're very grateful, you know, for people coming alongside that really shows that, all right, we think that this can really be done.

And so Cid's never really gotten many endorsements. And so I think that that's a huge statement when we see people who have been in politics for a long time saying that they want to come alongside and let's go make a difference together. Awesome. Well, thank you again for joining me. And is there one last pitch that you, want to give here before we finish up? Yeah. You can go to natesheetsheets.com and come join our team.

You know, we're, uh, we, it takes money in politics. So that's the one thing. I mean, we're going to work hard, but even if I'm out speaking to people every day, we can only reach about 10%. And so we're trying to raise as much money as we can. So you can go to natesheetshits.com and make a contribution and help change Texas. Um, but at the end of the day, you know, I need people's prayer and, uh, encouragement. And let's go do this.

Let's go win it. Awesome. Thank you for joining me. Thanks, Cameron.