Barn Talk - Barn Talk Q&A: Farming Reboot, Hog Market Crash & Areas of Growth in Agriculture

Episode Date: September 30, 2023

Welcome to Barn Talk! What happens at the barn, stays in the barn, but not today! We’re letting it all out. It’s time for some Q&A. In this episode Tork & Sawyer answer: How to reboot a farming operation, will the hog market crash like it did in the 90s & areas of growth in agriculture in the next decade. Buy Our Pork From Our Farm👇🏻 https://farmergrade.com Interested in diving deeper into the world of propane? Discover a wealth of information, tips, and resources by visiting👇🏻 ⁠https://propane.com Barn Talk Merch! 👇🏻 https://www.thislldo.co SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c SUBSCRIBE TO BARN TALK CLIPS ➱ https://bit.ly/3BlZnqq LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY ITUNES ➱ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barn-talk/id1574395049 Follow Behind The Scenes👇🏻 ● This’ll Do Farm Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/30KPBNk ● Barn Talk TikTok ➱ https://bit.ly/3qciekS ● Sawyer’s Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4 ● Tork’s Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS ------------------------------- ***PLEASE NOTE*** Barn Talk is a significant break from the typical content viewers have come to expect from This’ll Do Farm. Please be advised that we will be exploring a wide variety of topics (some adult-themed) and our younger viewers (and their parents) should be advised that some topics will be for mature audiences only. ⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠ The Information discussed and shared on Barn Talk is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or success for any particular purpose. The Information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice. The Information on this podcast and provided from or through our content is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented on this podcast without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional, professional broker or financial advisory. Understand that you are using any and all Information available on or through this website at your own risk. RISK STATEMENT– The trading of Bitcoins, alternative cryptocurrencies, NFTs, individual stocks, etc. has potential rewards, and it also has potential risks involved. Trading may not be suitable for all people. Anyone wishing to invest should seek his or her own independent financial or professional advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Now, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barn Talk. What happens at the barn stays in the barn, but not today. We're going to let it all out for you guys. Today is going to be a Q&A episode. You guys submitted your questions, and we're going to answer them. If you want to submit more questions and get them answered on the show, you can submit them at Barn Talk Show at gmail.com.

That's the best place you can leave them. You can also leave them on YouTube. leave them on Spotify there's a number of ways but the email is the best way before we get into it if you guys have been listening for a while you know we got this thing called the fee it's pretty simple if you got any value from the show you share it out with your friends your family your co-workers your team members whoever the more that you guys share this show organically the better it grows the more people we can reach the better guests we can get on and it's just a win-win for everybody it's kind of the ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show also

feel free to leave a review on Spotify or Apple, but we're going to put a little twist on this review thing. Thank you all to the kind souls out there that have just left a review out of the kindness of your own heart. We appreciate that. We're up to 1.6 on Spotify, and we're up to almost 700 five-star reviews on Apple. But to incentivize that even more, Dad and I have been thinking of how we can try to get our review numbers up. And I think what would be really cool and valuable for you guys is if you guys leave a review and you screenshot proof that you left a review on our podcast, it's got to say Barn Talk, it's got to have our logo in it or something, you know, you got to prove that it's our podcast that you left a review for, and you email that to us

at barn talk show at gmail.com or send it to us on DM or whatever and we see it you're going to be put into kind of a raffle where you can get a free box of meat we're going to do this thing once a month we're going to give one box of pork of our pork from our farm for free to somebody that has left a review on Spotify or Apple and send us proof so send us your proof that you've left to review and you will throw you in the raffle and once a month we'll announce the winner and they're going to to get a hell of a good box of this will do farm pork so what what what what brand is that that is going to be some farmer grade farmer grade meat uh it's coming from our farm that's right it's farmer grade approved um you'll probably get some bacon cottage bacon pork chops uh roast uh sausage

uh sausage italian sausage we got it all so we'll we'll throw in we'll make it worth your while if you if you do that so once a month we're going to announce it so keep leaving those reviews guys, send us, send us the proof. And we're trying to, we're trying to get those review numbers up because I feel like that really, I don't know, it's really hard to measure a podcast success without looking at the reviews. Like, that's the only metric that people get to see. So I feel like if we get those numbers up, we'll be able to maybe get some better guests on and make better content. So, uh, yeah, that's all I got. What do you got? I don't know. I'm in awe of that. Yeah. I know. I think it'll be cool.

I think it's a good way to get some farmer grade pork out to people to try, get their feedback, but also help us out here on the show and help, hey, get a tasty product. So everybody's winning. It's a morning edition of Barn Talk. So I'm a little not up to speed yet. I'm fired up. I've been drinking coffee now. I know you've been to the gym.

You got your coffee. Yep. I've been feeding wiener pits. The only thing that I am lacking on this morning is my shirt is wrinkled the holy hell because I picked this up. from my chore basket that's been sitting in the basket. You know, my chore clothes, I'm not the greatest. Well, let's just face it, I'm not the greatest homemaker by any means. But when it comes to my chore clothes,

a lot of those just sit in a basket, and I just pick out a shirt, and they're not folded or nothing. Nobody listens for the fashion. Nope, that's right. I think we're... That's right. You don't come here for fashion tips. No, if we get that far down...

If we go down that rabbit hole, just stop. Quit listening. he's here for that yeah uh market update today's a q and a episode so we're going to answer some questions uh that has been submitted at barn talk show at gmail dot com or on spotify or messages or wherever we can find them um we started harvest around southeast iowa there's i'd say i don't know maybe maybe a quarter between a quarter and a third of people have stuck their snouts in and done a little investigating. We kind of got, we kind of went hot and heavy because David's got a lot of manure to haul this fall and I think he's feeling a little bit overwhelmed and so he wanted to start early.

And so we went and ran at his place and then we came and tried our corn and got the ends off everywhere and filled up the dryer once or twice. And surprisingly good. It is amazing how good a yield you can get out of corn on seven inches of rain, which is basically what we got for water this summer. And I'm not going to, I'm not going to jinx it, but I will say that I am amazed at how good our yields have been so far. It was the timely rains. It truly has, it had to be. That was the only thing you can say because it wasn't growing, you know, it wasn't the degree

units it wasn't uh there really isn't anything to explain it other than the rain came exactly at the right time and that corn really rooted down um because i had no like i said i didn't think my corn would make i honestly thought at one point if it made 160 bushel the acre that it'd be good and we're we're way beyond that so we'll just we'll give you a little better update once we get it we've probably I only done. We've taken the ends off and we've done maybe, I don't know, 10 acres. Yeah, we haven't opened much up around here yet. We've opened it up at David's and even his is great too. So it's, I think we had a little bit of a funny radio session. We were talking on, we were talking on the walkie-talkies and we were just like, what in the hell? How do these

yields just keep getting better? Like, is it the rain? Was it the manure? Is it the manure every year after year, because I just feel like every year our yields have gotten a little better every year, every year, every year. Yeah. And we don't, I mean, we changed a lot when you kind of took it over and grandpa kind of took a step back and we've been applying manure and doing no-till and putting bio cow on and all this stuff. And it's just gotten better and better and better.

And we've only done a select few things, but we've been doing it year after year after year, after year. And it's just, I don't know. I don't know if it's just the environment, the, that, you know, that. the corn was planted in and the weather that ensued after that or if it's just a mixture of all of it or if it's the manure being piled, compiled up year after year, I don't know. Well, I can tell you. We were kind of all just like, yeah, well, I don't know. We're all kind of dumbfound. Yeah.

Because David has manure too, so he's got a bunch of finishers and he has a dragline business that he does on the side. But I will tell, I will tell all of you this, the one thing that I am, 100% sure of is a wet year. A wet year will not produce the best crop that we've had. Because over the last five years, we have been trending dry every year, and our yields have been fantastic those years. And I think that on our soils, which are heavier soils, I mean, we're kind of right on the edge.

I tell we're on the, we're on the edge of God's country. So we have half our land is pretty flat, and then it starts to roll, the other half rolls. But definitely the wet years would hurt us, and we just haven't had any. And so, hey, we'll take it. This year especially, I'm just amazed. But anyway, the market update today, corn on the board was 475. this is actually the close yesterday and local. I don't think I wrote it down.

I think those are what I had from last week. Son of a bitch. Do you believe that? I thought about it. I forgot to go. I was on Katz Green and I didn't go to the local bids. So I apologize for that because I don't think the local bid is 557. I definitely would say it's a morning episode.

It is. Actually, I did this. yesterday after you're on a little groggy no i'm all right i just don't know why i didn't change it so anyway if you're looking for that hot local uh feed mill bid i don't have it for you today uh beans 1293 on the board uh wheat 575 hogs 82 95 and um hog weights are down year over year nine pounds i think uh so average average average hog marketed in the Midwest last week was 277

and when you think about when we sell pigs we don't like to I mean the company that we feed pigs for we don't like to sell pigs that that light I mean we're moving pigs ideally when we take first cuts they're close to 300 pounds

but yeah average weight 277 week ago is nine pounds heavier than that or a year ago nine pounds heavier than that cattle slaughter as far as heifers still high. You think that weights down because just feed costs are so high? Feed costs, but then if you are raising a bunch of pigs and you have contracts with a packer, you have to deliver those pigs.

So if you're pledged to deliver 16 loads of pigs a week or 10 loads a week or 50 loads a week, whatever that is, they'll penalize you if you don't deliver them. Yeah, but what, has there been that much schedule change or that less amount of pigs coming through that they've put more on to other guys that have been able to stay contracted with the packer? No, I think it just means that people are pulling pigs ahead because they're short on pigs and, okay, feed costs are higher. So it costs, the old rule of thumb is, is that, you know, the bigger a pig gets, the less efficient he is. And so when feed costs are high, it costs more to feed that pig bigger. I think I'm right on that. Well, you got to include the

she's, too. You got to be inclusive. You got to include the, the, oh, yeah, the, her pigs, too, the she pigs. Yep, exactly right. Because there's female pigs, too. That's right. I include them. But, um, so your feed cost is higher. That's probably limiting. the size of the pig to start with, but then production has been terrible for the last, really the last year, production hasn't been good. And a lot of guys have cut back sows. I mean, we talked about that on that Smithfield episode that I got so much ire about. So the number of pigs out in the country are less.

And so people are pulling pigs ahead. So in other words, instead of leaving them and letting them get bigger, they're selling them sooner. And that's bringing that weight down. So anyway. I was just curious. Yeah, I mean, and that's worth exactly what you paid for it. That might not be the reason. You're doing all right. Mid-market update? You need me to come slap you in the face or something. I'm feeling good. I'm getting in my rhythm now. Okay. Shut up and let me go. Cattle 185.

Oils $89, and that's the October contract. Bitcoin's 26.5. That doesn't do much. It just kind of floats around there. Ethereum 1588. Tesla 255. I, you want to know who the big winner out of the, the UAW strikes going on, Tesla. And I'd say Toyota, too. I think those two are going to clean up because if you're looking at buying a car, you can probably go to a Toyota dealership and they're going to have them.

And your big three, they're not going to have them. And anybody that's, you know, on the fence, Tesla is going to have plenty of inventory. And they're going to be competitive on price because if they do sign these contracts and get the pay raise that the UAW wants, they're going to be losing a shitload of money. So, you know what?

That's a whole other podcast talking about that. So we'll leave that for another time. Gold, $1939, silver, 2144. So that is your market update. And I have something else to throw in before we get rolling. I wanted to give a shout out to our good friends, Tara and Natalie at Discover Ag. Their podcast, they're kind of in the food genre, and one of their last episodes, I think,

hit number five or number four on the Spotify charts under that food category. That's pretty impressive. It's pretty hard to get there, so they must be doing something right over there, which I know they are. So, hey, give them a listen, Discover Ag. Yeah, they do a good job of just... Good people. They do a good job of keeping you informed on shit that's happening

when it comes to the food supply or, you know, when something new comes up about lab-grown meat or something like that, they're hot on the press to talk about it and relate it to agriculture and how this affects us in agriculture. So they're both got that ag background, so they do a really good job of telling it how it is and speaking facts about farming and all kinds of stuff. As harvest gets rolling,

it's important to think about not only getting crops out of the field, but optimizing quality and yields. Enter propane grain drying. New propane grain dryers reduce over drying for more evenly dried, higher quality grain. This helps avoid harvest loss from field drying as well as crop damage from inclement weather or wildlife, which could result in as much as a 24% yield decrease. And modern propane grain dryers require 50% less. less thermal energy compared to older models for more energy efficiency. Visit propane.com to learn more. We hope you guys have a safe and productive harvest.

Now, let's get back to the podcast. And they probably talked about this on their episode, but I'll throw it out. I just read the other day, two lab-grown meat startups went out of business last week. Great. So kind of tough sledding with food prices get high. And people kind of, I think,

feel like that deal that was a pretty narrow window dude the problem about it is this people are more health conscious than ever before they don't trust any of the products most of the products you you're told house cleaners are trash don't you i mean every house cleaner might have something wrong with it every food product you buy might have something wrong with it every everything you put on your body might have something wrong with it everybody's trying to get natural deodor and this and that and that people just don't have trust with shit and when they're coming out with this product and And there's nothing natural. Exactly.

You're screwed. It's just, yeah, it makes me happy. I don't, I don't really support them. That's right. We like making real pork chops. Real meat. That's where, that's a ticket. That is a ticket.

That is a ticket. That is a damn good, too. Ah. All right. Well, we waited right through that. Yeah, we did. What's the questions? Okay.

First question. And I'm, this is just going to be a, yep. This is a long question. But this is an interesting question. This is one that's a little outside the norm. This is a good question. Mack asked, I was always told by my grandfather, who worked for a hog farmer,

that if you wanted to make things disappear, leave it in a hog barn, and the pigs will take care of it. Is this necessarily true? Also, I've been told growing up that if you have a down pig and it's left alone with other pigs, would they cannibalize it. If true, how often would you say this happens now versus many years ago? Is this guy is Mac and the mom? Holy shit.

I don't know, Jeffrey. Mr. Gomer. Well, I don't care. You want to answer that or you want me to answer it? Well, I asked you. Okay. I'll put my two cents on it. You're on such a role and you want me to shut up.

So I'll just let you go for it. I'll go. Yeah, you're probably right. I, when I was selling buildings to people that hadn't raised pigs that, you know, they wanted to build a shed and, feed for somebody and I was trying to explain to them how when it came to the quality of equipment that you put in that building that you could either pay for it ahead or you could pay for it after because my line I always gave was that pigs are like convicts they've got nothing but time to dream

up ways to screw you over and by that I meant that if there's anything that is loose within the confines of that building that a pig is in contact with, they will work that whatever that thing is, if that's a bolt on a feeder, if that's a flipper on a gate, if that's a rod, if it's an anchor in the wall that got loose, if it's a fence staple along the curtain. I don't think people realize that a pig is incredibly curious. And so they'll just sit there and work on that and work on that. And when they get bored with it, their buddy that's standing next to them will be like, well, hey, that kind of looks like fun. You go get a bite of feed.

I'm going to work on this while you're gone. And the cycle continues pretty much 24 hours a day. So they can tear up anything. That said, there are plenty of stories out in the countryside about past generations of farmers when we fed pigs in outdoor lots and you would bring the grinder mixer. You would grind a ton and a half or two tons of feed in a grinder mixer, pulled with your tractor, and you had these big round feeders in the pens with the pigs.

And so what you did was if you were the youngest kid, if dad was coming with the grinder mixer, you would be in charge of opening the gate and not letting any pigs out of the pen while dad drove in with the grinder mixer to fill those feeders. And if you weren't lucky enough that you could drive along the fence, because the auger on a grinder mixer isn't very long. Some people had them close enough that you could drive along the outside, but some guys actually had to get in there. Okay. Well, you know, sometimes the kids aren't around or they're doing it themselves and the stories of older farmers that for some reason got into a pen of pigs and then

they had a heart attack or something happened that they became incapacitated and by the time somebody found them there might not there might be the shirt that they were wearing and that's about it because pigs pigs are ruthless and we make that joke all the time that when they're following us through the pen that they just are thinking they want to get to the chewy nougat that is on the inside of your boot. And yeah, if you want to get rid of, if you'd like to get rid of somebody, if you put them in a big enough pen of pigs and leave them for a while,

the pigs will do the rest. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's actually a documentary on YouTube or something that I've saw about that exact thing. I think there was a serial killer out there that either chored pigs, or was a pothog farmer or had pigs on his little wherever. I didn't watch it because I was like, I don't need to watch that. But yeah, it's just like dad said, anything you throw in there, like we got these pig toys.

There's this company called, what was it, Easy Fix? And they made these little, they made these toys with these, like, little rubber spikes that come out of it. Yeah. And we just got one for shits of gigs. And we threw that in there. They will just roll and roll and roll and roll and roll that thing. All day long. And so we ran them through probably two groups of pigs,

and they looked like a rubber version. They're about this big of, if you know what, like a jack looked like, you know, long, 100 years ago, kids played with jacks, I think they called them. Anyway, that's what they looked like. They were spiked, and spikes were pretty well gone.

Yeah, and just gone. The thing about, Pigs is also, you know, you said that they're very curious, but I also feel like they got short term. Either they give no fucks or they have no, they have short memories. Because every time, like if we're working in a pen and dad's fixing something, or I'm fixing something or we're both messing with something in there, you can nudge a pig with your foot to just get out of the way because they're just going to chew and chew and chew on you while you're in there. And they're coming. They'll sit there for a second and then they'll come right back.

Yep. And they'll just come right back and right back and right back. Um, and also, pigs, they're an animal. I don't think they have much, they're not in touch with their, they don't have them, they don't really, they have no remorse. They have no remorse. They don't have, like, they don't have any of that. So they look at it. It's in their nature to just be an animal. So they don't give a shit. If I'm laying in the pen, take, if I've taken care of them, they don't care if I'm laying in the pen or their dead buddies laying in a pen. They're going to mess with that thing because they don't care. Yeah. They just don't. They are an animal. It is in their nature. That is what they're going to do. Yeah. And the second part of that question was he asked if you get a pig that's injured, whether the pigs will cannibalize them.

And that is 100% true. That's why, okay, so run the genre. So part of the reason that we built buildings to put pigs in was to get them out of the elements because they obviously grew better and you could raise pigs through the winter. But then within that, the reason that we didn't just put them in one big pen was because as the pigs grew, they didn't all grow the same and the small pig would get bullied.

And if a pig got down, got injured, the pigs, they'll kill it. They will kill it. A pig is a scavenger and they don't have any remorse. So that's why we went to smaller pens was so we could sort the pigs by size and we could get them to where they had a pecking order. and then within our buildings, when we get pigs, we always leave pens empty, and those are our pull pens.

And the reason we have them is because if there is an injured pig or a pig that is, you know, sick, or just falling behind. Falling behind, we'll put them in that pen so they don't get bullied. But yes, left to their own devices, a pig is a ruthless animal. And my dad's generation that raised them outside, they always made the analogy that a pig is nothing but a shovel on four legs because their

their nose, the amount of strength they have in their nose and in their jaws is pretty impressive. And there isn't much that you give them enough time and they can, they can tear apart about anything. Yeah, it doesn't really matter if they're outside or inside. If you, they're going to mess with something if they want to. to mess with it because it's just in their nature it's just how they are it's how they're wired so uh yeah that's that answers that uh okay dan asked i don't know shit about this question okay well i'll ask you the next one yeah uh colton asks what do you suggest to someone looking to reboot a farm operation of some kind we have 150 acre property that is completely paid for but having problems finding a direction to go

I think he's in Ohio Oh that's There's a lot of opportunity There's a lot of avenues you can go down But I think I think that I don't know You can get

You can get so creative with that You can do a pumpkin patch You can do Like you can go the route Of providing something fun To the community You know like a pumpkin patch Like New York Farm Girls

They did like a brew barn They you have pizza on the farm here in our local area where they make brick oven pizza at their farm and just have people come out and they have live music being played and you buy drinks and you buy pizza and they make I'm sure they make a killing doing that so you can go that route you can raise livestock you can kind of go the white oaks pasture route if you don't know who they are you can look them up but got to give credit to that guy he's built a massive regenerative farm with tons and tons of tons of livestock. And I think if you're going to go that route of regenerative ag, you've got to be

very diverse with your livestock and, you know, just the different kind of animals that you have. I don't think you'll be able to raise a lot of hogs or a lot of cattle, kind of like he is, but that's okay. You're just trying to get your start. But row cropping is probably not, I don't know, 150 acres is really hard to row crop and sustain, I don't know, even one family. I mean, if it's completely paid for, that's one thing, but it's tough. It's really tough to make a living in grain farming on 150 acres. It just really is. And the other thing about grain farming is just so capital intensive. You got to get the bins. You got to get the equipment. You got to buy the seed. You got to if you're going to put, you know, you're going to spray for weeds. You got to put all that stuff into it, into it. And it's just really capital intensive. So I don't know if that's necessarily the best route. But also, the problem is, I don't know what your landscape of that 150 acres looks like. That could be road crop acres. That could be timber. I don't know what it is. So that also plays a huge factor into it. But there's a lot of stuff that you can do. And maybe you can do a mix of it all.

Maybe you can, maybe you can do some livestock and you do some creative thing like a pumpkin patch or pizza on the farm or I don't know. I don't know. There's a lot of ways. But all I know is if you're going to get an ag today and you're going to start up, you've got to be creative and thinking outside the box because the traditional, like, I'm going to start farming 150 acres and grain farm and do all that. Those days are kind of done, I feel like. You've got to have a lot of capital to be able to do the whole grain farming thing. So if you really are passionate about being a farmer and you got this 150 acres. You got to try to make those 150 acres the most profitable you possibly can with what you got. And so I think that's the best way to do it personally. Maybe build a Airbnb

tiny homes, something like that. You know, something, you might have to get really creative, but people want a farm experience. People like going on the farm, you know, the whole yellowstone trend of people wanting to be a cowboy and be rural. You know, know, and get out there rural and get out there and see what the farm's like. That's, there's a demand for that. So capitalize on that. Capitalize on that. I don't know.

I think that's my two cents. Yeah. Something else you could think about is if you wanted, so if that ground is to where you could have part of it be put it down in hay, you can probably, if you wanted to do some livestock, you could probably do a deal. where you seeded part of that ground down into alfalfa or grass mix or whatever, and there are people out there that need hay that have all the equipment, and they would probably make a deal with you where they would come bail the hay

and pay you in bales. In other words, it's kind of like crop rent, but it's like a split where you provide the ground and the hay, and then they do all the work of making the hay, and then you get part of it. And then out of that, you can do, like some of these guys, you get the hay, and then you can turn around and sell it to them, and they'll pay you whatever the bales are.

Or if you had some livestock and you needed the hay, you could use that to feed those animals. And the other thing is, I don't know if you're thinking that you want to, I'm assuming that you have a job off the farm and you're not looking to start Well it sounds like he said we're rebooting a farming operation So he might have gotten it Through family lineage or

I don't know how it happened But it's paid for which that's really nice That you got it completely paid for That's a good first step So you got a foundation You just got to figure out what to do with it So the other thing you could do is if you are looking to make your living in ag and you have 150 acres and say it's row crop acres,

well, there is a hell of a labor shortage and there is probably a farmer in your area that is grain farming that he would probably crop rent those acres or rent those acres from you or work out a deal where if you worked for him, he would pay you to work for him and maybe you could use his equipment to farm those acres on the side or crop rent them and he could help you like you could use his volume of buying inputs to get your inputs cheaper. You just got to get started talking to people because that would be good too because you get a lot of knowledge from him. You're getting paid to learn. Yep. Go ahead.

I sorry. No, I was just saying today with the labor market in ag, I mean the labor market's tied everywhere, but within ag, there's probably a lot of people that would be willing. If you're looking for employment in the area that you could be close to the farm or maybe your goal is to get back and live on the farm, you can probably find people that would hire you to work for them and help you come up with things that you can do with that ground to make your money to where you could be sustainable. Or you farm a portion of it and you do like you're talking about with some kind of consumer-oriented product or experience. or whatever. And you could do, like I said, you could do a mix of both. Like, I don't know, like a tiny home or an Airbnb could be one part. Pizza on the farm, pumpkin patch can be one part and then you could rent the rest out.

I mean, 150 acres, I mean, you can do a lot with that. I mean, you really can if it's, but like I said, we don't know your landscape of the ground. So it's really hard to say. But, or you could just sell it, whatever, you know, you could, you could just sell it. Yeah. But I don't know. I just feel like land's going to keep appreciating. And I don't know about you guys, but the way of the world's moving, I want to be out on my own land and away from other people. And there's peace and freedom with having your own place to be at. And that's worth a lot. So just weigh that into the way that into the decision too. So that's all I'd say. But don't kid yourself. Sometimes when the fifth things broke, in the same day, I have looked at Sawyer and just said, let's just sell the bitch. Just get out of here. I tell, I just knock them out after that because I'm like, don't ever say that again. I'm kind of like that pig, though, and I just walk off and two months

later, I say the same thing. I think five seconds later, you, I would regret it. You would regret it. Yeah, it would. A thousand percent. I'd, yeah, I think having your own ground nowadays is worth a lot. So definitely. All right. I hope that helped. Dan. ask, what are your guys' thoughts on tuning equipment? Seems to be a lot of companies out there that claim a lot of things from power to better fuel economy of your machine. What do you guys think? This is all you, because I don't know shit about this. So I'm not an equipment wizard by any means. Well, this is a good question for people that are big tractor guys. So actually, you know, this rolls right in.

I'll shout out the Wisconsin Titan guy on TikTok because he talks about tractors all the time. And he was just talking about, like he went to, he took his 4440 to like a, they had a birthday party for a guy that's into tractor pulling. So they, like people, neighbors just showed up with their farm tractors, like their 4440s and 40s and 4020s. and guys that have 40-20 with a turbo on them,

and they just hooked them up to the sled and pulled them, see what they could do. But like when I was a kid, you know, you'd have guys that have a 4840 or an 84-40 or something like that. Tuning, all tuning amounted to was you turned up the pump, the pump the diesel fuel, and you pump more fuel, and then that engine would make more power.

the only problem was a lot of those tractors you could do that a little bit but if you did it too much the transmission and the differential wasn't heavy enough to take that extra power so you know there's guys running around that have a 4440 that's turned up to like 180 horsepower

or something like that well that's fine as long as you're not just pulling the shit out of it because you're probably going to you're probably going to hurt it But today it's a whole different deal because these engines in combines and tractors and forage harvesters, it's all computerized. And it's no different than the guys that have diesel trucks and they tune them. They chip them, you know. And I think Millennial had an episode where his S780 combine, he had a company come and they tuned it. And what they did is they go in and you can kind of tailor the performance of that machine.

Say you're running, say you're, I'll use that combine as an example. So, you know, some people have got a combine and they're running an eight row head. Some people are running a 12 row head. Well, the amount of pull, the amount of load that's on that engine is going to be dependent on what kind of ground you have. Is it flat? Is it hilly? Is it this or that? What size of head you're running?

So they can go in and they can tune it and give you more power under a load at this RPM or whatever. And the idea is that you can really dial that machine in for what you want to do. Now, don't get me wrong. There's other people that they can take that, and their goal is to just turn that tractor up so that they can pull a, bigger piece of equipment. It's making more power. And they're running on the assumption that the differential of transmission is heavy enough

that as long as they don't go too far with that power, that it can handle it. And the equipment manufacturers are real quick to tell you, I'm sure, that if you tune it, you void the warranty. So not many people are tuning machines that are brand new because deer doesn't want you doing that. Fent doesn't want you doing that. Case doesn't want you doing that. And that all kind of falls into also like a big issue in the equipment world today is right to repair. So a lot of these, a lot of these deer was, deer got a lot of ire over that because they actually fought a lawsuit and it went a long ways. and they finally lost that lawsuit because people wanted to be able to get in and look at the code and do their own repairs

and not have to take that machine to a dealership. And this tuning kind of falls into that same thing and the fact that you're having aftermarket people that are messing with the set points and the code of what is managing the engine. And I don't really have an opinion on it one way or another. I mean, our big tractors is 7820, which isn't very big, and it hasn't been tuned. And I don't pull anything that's big enough that I think there's a need to tune it. However, if I was, you know, if I was pulling a grain cart and I had an 8420 or an 8430,

and I had the need to do something that's a little bigger than what maybe I should be, I would be tempted to look into it. I can't give you the right or wrong, but today it's more of a technology deal than it is a mechanical deal. So a lot of these companies, they've got people that are writing code, and they're looking at diagnostics,

and they're putting these machines on dinoes, and they're dreaming up ways that they think they can make it perform better than it did from the factory. So if you buy into that, I think Tune's just fine. and if you don't just if you don't want to mess with it don't go down that road um oh yeah a lot there were a lot of responses to our episode about uh customer service or the lack of it and

uh mike from delaware he's a shout out to you mike that was a really nice um message you sent me but he commented that in his business and he's not directly in the farm business um that that that lack of service has destroyed his brand loyalty because he was loyal to one brand everything he bought and their service at that dealership has gotten so poor that now then he he has gone he has gone away from it and his question this is a pretty good question he said do you think that the lack of service will just accelerate the growth of online equipment shopping in other words if you don't have a dealer that you that you trust that you feel like is got your you know is going to take care of you then what do I care if I buy a skid loader local or I buy one off of tractor zoom that's 50 miles away or I buy

whatever color because it all comes down to price yep I think 100% it's going to accelerate the growth of online equipment shopping yeah because it's it's easier it's convenient if that's the only metric that matters because you're not getting in good service anywhere, then yeah, I think 1,000% people are going to, and especially with the younger generation, if more younger guys are taking over farming operations and we're so accustomed to our phones anyway, I mean, that trend might just move that way regardless, but I think, yeah, definitely doesn't help. Definitely doesn't help it. If the lack of service, and this is in everything, I mean, the lack of customer service destroys brands, and it's never been easier. It's never been a better time. It's never been a better time,

to be really good at customer service as a business right now. Like that should be, like that should be a really high on importance for a business. That should be pretty high because if you do it even a slightly better, just a little bit better than everybody else. That goes a long way with people because I think a lot of people are dealing with a lot of shitty customer service across the board, whether it be, whether it be just a product, whether it be equipment, whether it be service, anything. People are just, I think they're just kind of, we're getting used to and more used to just shittier and shittier customer service. Yeah. It's unfortunate, but it's the truth. Yeah, and I think that plays into,

it plays into the growth of online shopping via like Amazon. Because it used to be that, you know, if you needed something, you went to your local hardware store and, you know, one, they had what you needed, and two, they had somebody that told you, if you're looking at Brand A and Brad B, they would say, well, I have that one, and this is what I think, good or bad. And you had somebody there that worked on it. Today, we just, we don't even think about, we don't even think about going, a lot of people don't even think about seeing if there's a local option because Amazon can have it there tomorrow. Well, the thing about that too is reviews.

You got reviews, you got customers. you got customer testimonials, you got pictures, videos of people using the product that you don't have to ask the guy because there's real customers already showing you what it's like, what that product's like. The other thing that you got to give credit to Amazon, and I'm not a huge lover of Amazon, not saying I never use it, but, you know, they really are eating up a lot of market share for a lot of small businesses out there, which is unfortunate, but you can't hate on their success. But you can't fault them because what they do really, good is most of the time

it's super fucking easy to use Amazon. You never have, like very rarely do you have a problem with Amazon? No. They make it seem. The experience is seamless. And it's easy.

And when you get the product, you know it's most of times going to show up and you're not going to have to fight a bunch of BS. And when there is a problem, they do pretty good job getting on top of it. And to go back, you know, you talk about online buying equipment online there's some of these dealers around that their service

they will go a long ways i mean you buy it from them they deliver it to you you have a problem and they have a remote service truck and these service trucks today i mean they have freaking everything and there's a guy that lives in washington and he actually works on like um uh uh like telehandlers and whatever they, I can't remember what they call them things. Yeah, forklifts. Yeah, forklifts and basically kind of industrial equipment. And he works for a company out of Des Moines or Marshalltown,

and he lives here in Washington. And his, they ship him the parts. Like they have a, they have a, they retool his truck. whenever he needs it. Sometimes he takes it up there, but a lot of times they just ship the stuff to him. And he literally runs that. He is the face of that company in southeast Iowa, and he does it all. You know, they just get, he gets the call and he goes wherever he needs to go. And he is, he's the representative of that company, and he's the mechanic. But he's busy every day. I mean, I see him leaving, if I'm going to town to get a coffee or get whatever, he's gone.

every day going somewhere. So the days of a physical dealership that you got to be at, there's just not the value to it if it's done poorly. If it's done well, there's some real value there. But so many of them are not done well anymore. So yeah. Anyway, I think customer service is big. And if you're going to start your own business, pride yourself on having good customer service. because even just a little bit better than most people or most companies is probably worth a lot to a lot of people. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it just is in the state of the world that we're in. That's all I would say.

I'm going to ask you this one, and then you can ask you the last one. So, Hayden asks, what areas of ag will grow the most in the next 10 years and what careers will be in the highest demand? what skills will be most valued in agriculture, example, computer networking, data analytics, mechanics, AI. Yeah, I mean, I think all the, all the trendy shit that everybody's talking about, if you know how to code, you know how to do AI, you know how to do software, you know how to do all that. I mean, we all need that in ag because we need to innovate, you know, barn tools, perfect example of using, you know, technology to make an amazing product.

there's plenty of products out there that we need more tech in agriculture no doubt about it when it comes to making things more innovative and with the labor problem yeah we need more technology but there's also a labor problem so i think honestly if you can get a crew to a crew of guys that know their shit whether it be a hog barn service crew whether it be you got power washing crews you got all kinds of guys that can do some physical labor that's actually good that is actually reliable and you market yourself a little bit damn i think you can do a lot of work and you like you always said as a service guy when you were doing service you never not had you never didn't have work to do you could always have something you always had a job you could go to and i think that's still true to this day. I think there's that. And I know that farmers are nickel and diamond. They don't want to spend more money than they have to. But if I know, customer service is

going to be good, these guys are going to be good, they're marketing themselves online, they're showing the results, they're showing customer testimonials. They're doing all the right things. I'm probably going to give them a chance. And if they're a little bit of pro the norm, maybe I'll give them a shout, you know, like that. And this isn't just an ag and this isn't just ag, but I just feel like the trades are going to be the next get rich quick. Like all the gurus talk about, oh, 4x trading and fucking crypto and da da da da da da. I think the next, and this isn't like a, I didn't come up with this opinion,

but I believe in this opinion. So I've heard it around. trades are going to be like the next cool thing. Becoming a business owner of a trades business is going to be like the next thing. Being a plumber. It's going to be. Because the certain, dude, the demand of service, the demand for those kind of jobs because of the lack of the labor force, like that is so crucial right now.

And that's only getting worse. And if you are a young person and have any gumption at all and want to risk it and want to learn a trade, whether it be an A or whether it be just a plumber or whatever, HVAC, whatever, dude, there is a shitload of opportunity. There is so much opportunity. And I think at this point, if you do just a little bit better than your competition

or hell, if you try to swing for the fences that just be the best at what you're doing, you can write your own ticket. Because I don't think, I think there's so much work to be done out there that, man, you can just keep going and going and going and going and scaling if you want to. So it all goes back to simple math. We, the biggest, the largest generation in American history is retiring. And the smallest generation in American history is entering the workforce. So you have this big void and automation,

people, you know, get upset about automation, but part of that is out of necessity because there is just no physical way that we can fill all the jobs that you have people exiting now because there's not enough people to fill them. But to your point, yesterday I had a problem. Any of you guys have an electrical problem on your farm that happens and it happens and it happens and it happens and you can't figure out what the hell it is, but it has. happens. And as soon as you do something in 10 minutes, 20 minutes, half hour, four hours, whatever, you trip a breaker or reset trips or whatever, you call your electrician. Your electrician comes. You stand there. You run everything. You turn it on. You turn it off. You

turn everything on at once. You turn everything off at once. Half on, half off, this, that, everything else. Plug in a wall fan when everything else is running, trying to get it to go. Won't go. Won't happen. Then the electrician gets in his truck and leaves, and two minutes later, boom.

Anyway, I've had one of those problems with my dryer. When I put in my new dryer system, I have a shivers, twin burner with turbo, so there's four fan motors, plus the circuit flow, plus the transfer auger, plus the roof spreaders, plus everything else.

If you don't know, what language dad is speaking. He's talking about our grain bin set up here, our drying bin that we dry the corn in. Well, I can run, you know, I can run three fans. All right. But if I try running all four, might run all day, might run 20 minutes,

and it'll trip the main coming over. And we've checked this, check this, check that, and everything's, anyway, we got it figured. I think we haven't figured out. It hasn't tripped since we did what we did. However, there was, my electrician came, has a guy that is under him that he's training, and then they have a gopher. They have this kid that works for him, and he's worked for him for a couple years, and he's the gopher. And you know, if you're the gopher, you kind of get the, you get shit on a lot, and everybody makes fun of him, and he's the butt of a lot of the jokes. He watches a lot. Yep, because you're just, you're just, you're the toady. You're following everybody around, get this, get that, whatever.

But I told him, I said to that guy, I said, you realize that when your Matt's age, Matt is my electrician that I use. I said, when you're Matt's age, you're going to be making way more money than he could have ever dreamed of. And he kind of looked at me and I said, because I said, when you go to all these jobs and you see, or when you go places, you see electricians, how many guys your age do you see? goes, oh, not very many. I go, that means you're going to be making a shitload of money. It kind of like dawned on him. He's like, oh, yeah. But that's true.

I mean, it's just a simple. So we kind of got off on what we think is the biggest, and I think you are right. I don't think it's a matter of what technology is going to be the most popular. I think whatever technologies we're using in, Ag and business, those positions are going to be very well paid because there is not going to be near enough people doing any of them. Yeah, I mean, I, we kind of, yeah, like computer networking, obviously that's a great skill to have.

And the ones that you mentioned, data analytics, mechanics, AI knowledge, engineering, all that shit is great. And it's, those kind of skills can be used not just an ag, but anywhere, probably. you know those are great those are i feel like when it comes to just the next wave of technology and jobs like those skills would have you could apply to a lot of a lot of companies just with that skill set so um but ag definitely does need it uh i'm just looking more as like i it's hard for me to talk about like if you're going to be work for somebody else because i'm just not wired that we're just not really wired that way.

But I'm always thinking about what skills do I need to learn so that I can run a business effectively. And, you know, I just think sales, marketing, getting leads, customer service, running operations. All that shit is really helpful. So you just got to determine kind of who you are or what you think you're going to do. Find your passion. Yeah, find your passion. it never hurts to learn skills. And I think the best investment you can make is in yourself.

And don't ever stop learning new skills or how to improve the skills that you already have. Because it's all about knowledge and what you know. And when you know a lot in a specific skill set, you can make more money. You can fix more problems. You can do more good in the world. So just whatever you decide to do, just keep investing in yourself. because that's the best investment you can make because you will make more money

with the skills that you require or that you acquire. And invest in your people skills. Yes. Because if you are an AI expert, if you are a networking expert, if you are writing code, you can be the best damn person at that.

But boy, if you can talk to somebody that doesn't know anything about it and explain what you're doing in terms that they can understand, I will guarantee you are going to be way more valuable because I have seen so many times where I've dealt with people that have a very specific talent in a technology but I'll be damned if they can if they can like have a conversation with a person

can't they can't sit across from us to do a podcast no and yeah if you got both of those yeah you're you're a savage yeah you're you're in a good spot absolutely you also asked though what areas of ag will grow the most in the next 10 years. Shit. I mean, not lab-grown meat. That doesn't seem to be growing very good. But I think something cool and interesting will be this vertical farming thing always intrigued me, you know, growing plants inside urban cities and stuff like that.

And I think a lot of what you mentioned there as far skills, computer networking, all that stuff, mechanics, AI, I think of those kind of vertical farming operations, we'll probably use a lot of that because a lot of that stuff's really. robotics, you know, engineering, mechanics, all that stuff. So I think vertical farming is something to watch. It's been happening for years now, but that's kind of, I think that will see a lot of growth because we're going to need more, we're going to need more urban, they've found a way to have urban agricultural production with these farms.

And I think they're just going to keep popping up in these major cities. Yeah. You know. Because freight is your biggest cost in getting produce. When we get outside of the world ag we live in where we're raising corn, soybeans, wheat, and you get into raising vegetables for people, the biggest cost of that is transportation and storage, and then the amount of loss, if we're talking about efficiency, their biggest problem is getting food to people before it goes bad. And that's why vertical farming has so much promise.

So I agree with you. Yeah, I mean, other than that, I mean, the cool thing about agriculture is we all are producing, most of us are producing products that people need every day. Food. You're producing food. So I know like grain farming, you're really not because you're just creating food for the pigs or the livestock to eat or whatever. But if you're raising livestock or you're a vertical farm or you're a produce farm, you are producing food for people. And that's, That's pretty cool. That's a need that's always going to be need fulfilled. So I don't know, but I think look at areas inside of just ag

that really lack labor and see if you can capitalize on that. That'd be my two cents. Kind of threw a lot at that one. But there's a lot of shit to cover on that one. There's a lot of opportunity with that question. I mean, you can go a million ways with that one. But anyway, hope that helped.

I don't hope we didn't just make the, the hamster wheel inside your head just spent a little bit faster. I hope we slowed it down a little bit. Maybe helped answer it a little bit better. But Kevin asks, on Farm for Profit Podcasts, you talked about raising pigs in the 90s. Hog prices are bad. Can slash is it happening again?

Yeah. Duh, da, da, da. Oh, boy. I sure hope not. Yeah, we kind of have. We should have just recorded. yesterday's conversation yesterday afternoon when we were talking that would have been a good podcast because we kind of talked about this um no it's not happening at that level at that level but what you're

seeing so there's a couple of things that the 90s and i'm not going to rehash everything because that will go too long but you were you were really at a pivot where scale started to affect hog farming. In other words, margins on profits per pig really started to get squeezed. And that, and feed costs went up, labor costs went up, utility costs went up, interest costs were still pretty high at the beginning of that. And it was kind of a perfect storm in the fact that the prices got depressed so far that the amount of loss that you were incurring on every load of pigs you sold was great enough that like it was like getting punched in the face it wasn't a deal where you looked at your business and said you know i don't know how much longer we can keep doing this it was a

deal where you were like there is no way we can keep doing this because the bleeding is too we're losing so much money and so many people exited the industry. Well, today you've had consolidation, but we are seeing, we are seeing people exit the industry again, but they're bigger. There are fewer people exiting, but the people that are exiting are bigger. So, you know, you're talking guys that guys that either own a 1,200 sow or a 2,500 sow unit and they feed out all the pigs, there's some of those guys that are calling it quits, and they're going to just, they're like, we're just going to grain farm, and maybe we're going to buy feeder pigs, maybe we're going to buy wiener pigs, but we do not want to own these sows because they're fighting disease,

they're fighting labor problems, and they're fighting costs, because cost production, you're losing the average, the average hog producer this year's looking at losing $30 ahead, and that's the average. So if you're worse than average, you're losing more. If you're a lot better, you're losing less, but chances are you're losing something. Next year, projections maybe might still be losing $15 ahead. Well, that is not, if you are a smaller producer where you're making your money off of per head basis, It all comes down to the number of snouts that you're selling versus your cost of production. And we were just talking about this.

The consolidation is still happening. We're still losing producers. And then you have what I think is scarier from a grower standpoint is among the biggest integrators, a lot of the people that move this industry into where we are today, those guys are all, those guys are all in their 60s and in their 70s. And they are exiting that business. And the next generation, in the businesses where it's handed down to another generation or there is family involved, they're going to keep it and run it or are they going to sell it?

Right. And so then you get into. And if they sell it, it's going to be consolidated even more. Right. So instead of going, you know, the pork powerhouse has like the top, is it the top 25 or the top 50? I mean, we could be headed to a time where, you could be headed to a time to where the majority pigs, there isn't even a top 50 because there ain't that many big,

there's not that many big producers left. It's all been consolidated. And you don't have to think very hard about the number of people that are in buying co-ops, or in marketing co-ops that sell to one packer or packers that have a deal with several different producers where one day all those producers just go together and have one management company over seeing the whole thing.

And now you've lost two, three, four, five, six producers have become one. Yeah, and it's, that's the scariest part because as everyone knows corporate, I mean, it just goes back into our, episode two episodes ago where we talked about lack of service and everybody getting way too corporate and they're not and we talked about it with Jared Holmes on the last podcast. There's not troops on the ground and the people that are making the commands to the people that are on the ground might not get it as much as the people are on the ground and when you go more corporate and you go that route it's just let that connection between who's on the ground and who's

making the commands is just less and less and less and less and less. And that's the scary part. The other thing that I think is scary, not scary, but something to be mindful of. And I don't think the people that wrote the California Prop 12 Bill thought about this. They didn't fucking think about this at all. They didn't. They did not think about the repercussions of,

and some people think that they did, and they did it on purpose to consolidate the industry. But I personally believe it's just completely out of competence. They didn't, they were not. thinking about the trickle of down economics of this at all. But if you're an independent guy in today's industry, which is really hard to do, but there's guys out that are out there that have bought shares into a salient and raise their own pigs, this Prop 12 thing, if that becomes the industry standard where every Packer requires all your pigs to be Prop 12 certified or whatever,

these independent guys that have bought shares into the salient with other farmers that are independent guys, you know how much freaking money it's going to take to turn that sal unit into Prop 12 compliant? It's going to be so much money that they're not going to be able to do it. And if they're not able to sell their pigs to a packer because they require California Prop 12 compliance,

then the packers no longer going to want their business. They're not going to need their pigs. They're not going to want their pigs. so therefore the farmer has nowhere to take these pigs and you're going to lose even more independent producers and then when you think about the people of California the people in California and just the American consumer what do they always say we want more family farms

we want more independent farmers we want all this shit but then you vote on a bill and you pass a bill that does a complete opposite it has a complete opposite effect on the small guy it has a complete opposite effect on the independent producer that's raising a family on the farm Like, they just don't fucking think about that shit. They just looked at that bill and said, oh, yep, we want animals to be taken care of better because that, what was that?

Square footage. Yeah, square footage. Yeah, well, that sounds great. Might as well sign it. But they just, they didn't come out here. They didn't talk to people. They didn't think about the trickle-down effects of that decision. And if that becomes the standard, it's not the standard yet.

There's a market for it. but if it becomes the standard of what is required across the board for every state or whatever, there's going to be a lot of guys, even more that get pushed out of the business, which that's... Yeah. Because you're in a situation now where you're not making any money on the pigs that you're producing because your cost of production is too high. So then if you are owner, if you're an owner of one of these sow units, if you own the sows or you own shares in a sale unit, you're looking at having to go borrow money or go put money in to remodel what you have

and you're losing money on what you're producing right now. So there are not a lot of people. And then among the group of guys that own shares in style units, most of those guys are my age or older. They're at least in their 50s and a lot of them are in their 60s. and they have kids, maybe they have kids that are farming with them, maybe they don't.

But the decision is going to get made, okay, am I in this for another 20 years to get my money out? And if the answer is no, then why am I doing it? Yeah, and then why would I want to make renovations to the SAW unit to make it Prop 12 compliant? I'll just say, fuck it and sell out of it.

And be done. Be done. And to your point, what you said about how everybody wants to be more independent, have more independent producers, have more choices. This goes back to what we talked about on that Smithfield episode when Robert Kennedy Jr. was making this big brew ha, or whatever, it was a political deal about, you know,

like Smithfield's this monster. And it is, Smithfield's done a lot of things wrong. I'm not going to bring that whole thing back up again. But the reason that happened is what, what's happening now. When I talk about there's going to be more consolidation, it's because when you can't make enough money per head and you exit, somebody that has more head, more snouts to sell, they think, okay, if I just get a little bigger scale, gives us a competitive advantage. So guess what happens? We scale and the big get bigger. And the reason they get bigger is not because they're just these greedy monsters. The reason they get bigger is because their margin gets squeezed too. And the only way that they can keep paying all the people they're paying and keep attracting employees and be able to pay what the scale and wages are because on the other side of the we've got less and less people so we have to bid up for labor. Well, the only way we can do that is to grow the size of our

business. So as that happens, you squeeze it. And then one day we end up with this heavily consolidated industry and everybody turns around as like, well, how the hell did this happen? This should have never happened. This is corporate greed. Well, fuck, it's not corporate greed. It's corporate survival. And I don't know what the answer is, but I can tell you that all these little things, Prop 12 included and the market we're in today, it's not helping us. It's not helping us as independent producer. What do you always say about government when they pass shit? What does government do?

You had a really good quote one time about how when government comes in and they make regulations. It doesn't know. Well, I mean, if any time the government gets involved in something, it just makes it worse. And, you know, my dad always said that when the government shows up and says, I'm here to help, you need to be afraid because you're going to get screwed. and government by its design does one thing very well, and that is get bigger. And the only thing, I mean, there's a million of them. The only thing that government's good about is killing people and breaking things.

That's like when you think about our country and you think about the United States, we have a hell of an armed forces and they're damn good at killing people and breaking things. And we're pretty good at taxing people. Other than that, I don't know. What are we good at? Yeah, I don't know. I just, it just goes back to, you know, you got to get creative. And like, that's why, guys, when we started the farmer-grade thing and doing the direct-to-consumer

and doing all the social media stuff and trying to find our edge because you got to spin yourself out of this cycle of being. I mean, we, we, we see what's coming and we're trying to do everything we can to best prepare ourselves for what's coming, you know? We want to, we want freedom. We want to control our own destiny. And if all that shit goes that way, we got to be prepared for how are we going to, how are we going to stay in business or how are we going to keep our freedom? and how are we going to, how are we going to, I don't know, make money. Carry this on for the next generation, survive, you know?

So, yeah, it's not as bad as the 90s, but it could get as bad with all this shit. And I won't go off on this, but I'll say this. The other thing that's different from the 90s than today is not only has the number of producers consolidated, the number of banks have consolidated. So that's something that doesn't get talked about very much, pretty much the biggest hog producers in the United States,

bank at farm credit, or robobank? Hills, maybe? No, that's just a regional bank. I mean, the heavy hitters, there's like two big ag banks. That's it. And I've said this, I've probably said this on this podcast,

but there's a hog producer that I know, and this is a quote that is stuck with me my whole life when I was going through the 90s and it was bad and I was losing my ass and couldn't find it with both hands. I was at a wedding dance at the local nights of the Columbus Hall and I was drowning my sorrows in a glass of beer and he walked up, asked me how it was going. I looked at him because he was a fellow pork producer and I said, not worth the shit. How about you? Pat him me on the back and he said, you know what you need to do? You need to go building another finisher. And I looked at him like he was bat-shit crazy and he kind of chuckled. And he said to

me, he goes, tort, if I come to you and I borrow $20, it's up to you to pay me back, right? I'm like, yep. He goes, but if I come to you and I borrow $20 million, it's up to you to figure out how in the fuck to get it out of me. Okay, that is what has gone on in not only the hog industry, but many industries around this country. These companies have gotten in with these banks. And they are so far in, it's the idea of too big to fail. And it's in ag also. There are a hell of a lot of pork producers out there that the amount of money they owe to the bank, the amount of money they're floating through that bank is so great that even if they're losing

money, that bank is going to roll with them. They have to roll with them because the assets that they own, that's not the money. There is almost no value in the real estate they own. in the sow units because who is going to buy these sow units? Who's going to run them? Nobody. It's not like a house that you can just sell them. Yeah.

The value is in the production of the pigs, and your only choice is to roll along and keep financing this until the market turns till the ban comes back, till there's a profit made, and then you go. And they all talk about how, you know, they have lending standards and they have this and they have that, and that's all fine and dandy. you hit the fucking skids and then what do they do?

Where's your, your lending standard doesn't mean shit because when you're sitting there and your money is tied to this operation and the only chance you've got to getting that money back, feed those pigs, keep feeding those pigs, keep feeding those cattle, keep feeding those chickens. That's the deal.

And that's where we're at in American agriculture is the margins have driven scale because it's the only way you can compete, but then when scale doesn't work for you and the markets turn, the financing, they're along for the fucking ride. And that's where we're at. So sorry for that little tirade. That was good. I like it.

I think you hit the... These opinions are only Torquistlers and Torque Whistlers alone, and they do not necessarily represent the view. of TDF media, this would be farm or farm grade meat. Trade at your own risk, do your own research, and whatever other disclaimer I need to put in there. There you go. Nice, nice. That was good. It's good you put that in there. No, I think you hit it on the, hit the nail right on the head. I couldn't have said it better myself. I think you nailed it. It's not even nine o'clock and I need a drink now. Yeah. Yeah, right. Okay. Well, I think that's

going to wrap it up, guys. Those are all the questions we have for today's episode. if you want to submit your questions for the next Q&A, submit them at Barn Talk Show at gmail.com, pay the fee. Also, we're doing that meatbox thing now. So don't forget, if you leave review and submit proof that you left a review on Spotify or Apple, five star preferably, we will send, we'll pick a winner next month

that's going to get a free 10-pound pork box sent right to your door. So we'll announce that on the show. So submit your proof. We'll see you back here next week for another episode, guys. Thank you. We love you. See you.