Barn Talk - Barn Talk Q&A: Thoughts On Creative Job, How to Start Farming From Scratch & Buying More Hog Barns?

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

Welcome to Barn Talk, Q&A edition. In today’s episode we’re answering your questions. We cover our thoughts on a creative job in today’s attention based society, starting a grain farming operation from scratch, our thoughts and advice on buying/building more hog barns, & much, much more. Pay the fee! 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

All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name. Welcome to Barn Talk, Q&A edition. It's too wet to do anything else. We got a little rain yesterday. We've been trying to start beans, and we thought maybe today would be the day, but it just rained here a little bit half hour ago. And now then the sun's coming out.

So if I look more angelic than usual, it's because with the sun working its way south, it shines in the window if we're shooting during the day, and it gives me this glowing look. So just bear with us. Gosh, dang it. So today we're not doing a market update because we got a lot of good questions, and a couple of them, I think we could make a whole episode just out of the questions that we got. If you have questions, we might have answers. If we don't have answers, we'll just talk endlessly about your subject,

and when we're done, you might not know any more than when you submitted it, but it'll be entertaining anyway. So submit your questions at barn talk show at gmail.com. That's barn talk show at gmail.com. That's the best way to get them to us. We used to let people, you know, send them on Instagram, send them on Facebook, but it's so hard to keep track to everything that if you got a question, just send it to that email address and we'll get you in the list.

And with that, what do you think there? Well, I think we'll get into it. But before we get into it, we got to pay the fee. If you guys getting value from the show, if you're related to us on something, if we answered something that you had a question on, share the show. It's kind of the ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show.

it helps us out tremendously. Our show has grown tremendously because of all the people that have been paying the fee. Also, another way you can pay the fee, I guess you'd say, is leaving us a rating on Spotify and Apple and telling us what you think, subscribing to us on YouTube, sharing the show, leaving us review, comment on our stuff, supporting us in any way you can, that's kind of the ticket to admission. So we appreciate every single person that's been doing that. And yeah, just keep doing it because we, it's growing. and we really appreciate all of you guys that have been doing that. But I got this first question on my phone because it's kind of a long one,

and it's kind of a recent one that we got actually yesterday, and we kind of already had the outline of all the questions written out on our sheet here, but this one was just so good that I thought, you know what, let's include it in here. And it's so good that we're going to start with it. So I'm just going to read right from my phone from an email. So I'm not going to – when you guys submit it's a question, and we're going to stay anonymous because, you know, I want you guys to be able to tell us and ask anything you want to ask, and I don't want to let anybody's, you know, identity be out

there. So I'm never going to say anybody's name. So just keep that in mind if you want to ask a personal question. But Aloha from Hawaii. I grew up in Minnesota, but now living over here. I have a two-part question for the podcast. What is your opinion on people working creative careers in a time when all we hear from the older generations is nobody young wants to work anymore? I mean, I get it. It's not a utility to have more bloggers or YouTubers in the world, and we hear all the time about how blue-collar work-collar industries are short on people. I say this coming from a family where my dad is a railway engineer, post-military,

and my mom writes and franchises companies. Franchise companies. My second question is, how do you explain to someone like my parents' generation that a creative career is a real job and can be a real career? It's hard to be compared side by side with a brother, who has an obvious suit and tie day job with U.S. Bank. Obviously, if I went into a job like truck driving or some kind of trade,

I would be filling a much-needed role in society, but after following in the family military steps myself, I wanted to go into somewhere different in life. It can definitely be hard to see the whole role that creative careers play in society sometimes. Personally, I just group them all together with entertainment and tell myself and others that entertainment has always been an industry. It just looks different in today's world.

than it did 100 years ago. Really great question. Really great question. Thank you for submitting that. I'm not going to say your name, but thank you so much for submitting that. That was phenomenal. And those are the kind of questions we like getting, because we like getting deep. We like deep shit. We like to talk above surface level shit or below surface level. I don't know what you say there, but what I'll say to this question is there's so much you could say. This could be a whole podcast itself. In today's world, whatever business you're in and whatever you want to do as a person, content, attention is the new, like, it's the new thing. Attention is how you can really create your own destiny and be successful in this world.

The people that have the attention are dominating when it comes to creating businesses, making money, creating connections. Social media has totally changed the game of what is the most important thing when it comes to trying to build a brand or trying to build a personal brand or make yourself known or whatever. It used to be, I just watched, and I've seen so many people talk about this on other podcasts and other videos, but we used to live in a society where energy was the number one commodity, I guess you'd say.

Everybody was oil and gas was this huge opportunity that if you got into it, you thrived in the last century, you know. But now with the social media platforms in the being able to reach anybody and everybody whenever you want has created this insanely huge opportunity to make something yourself no matter what you go into. I mean, you look at Mr. Beast. This guy started making YouTube videos obsessed. He has his own restaurant now in Beast Burger.

He has his own candy company. He has his own company where he takes other YouTubers videos and translates them into other languages so that they can make a separate YouTube channel for that specific language so that you can be worldwide. This guy's a smart guy, but he has, he has leveraged his audience and creating, created businesses off of the back end of creating this massive attention that he's gained

and created it for himself. And that is why he's very successful. And that's just one example. I mean, you see it across the board. You look at the Kardashians. You know, what do you can say, whatever you want about them. But Kylie Jenner became the youngest billionaire, I think, in the entire world because of her cosmetic brand. She did that because Kardashians is an insanely huge brand.

and she used that attention and launched a business off the back end of the audience they created. And look, I mean, you look at us here. Like, we are in the blue collar trade. You know, I guess you'd say we're not, we're blue collar, obviously, we're farmers, but we are still leveraging social media to our benefit and to the benefit of the world. We're creating attention. We're getting attention. We're creating an audience. We're building a community. and as a result of that, we're able to make a little secondary income but also make a really good impact on the world.

We feel a good impact on the world. And so I don't think that you're limited to making content even if you go into blue collar trade. Or I think you can make content around whatever you decide to do. But I think, and this is what not everybody is grasped yet, social media is the best marketing tool you can possibly use for your business no matter what industry you're in. It is an asset and the sooner people grasp that and apply that to their business or whatever they want to do, the better off you're going to be going down that path.

Here's the, what I'll add to that is business, all other businesses are just now starting to realize this. So I don't care if you are making, if you're a Ford Motor Company, if you are ExxonMobil, if you are Amazon, if you are making shirts, if you're making, if you're a plumber, if you're anything, chemical companies, drug companies, anybody that is in what has traditionally been consumer good. Basically, they're making something. So they're doing the kind of stuff that you're talking about, like when you talk about having a, in your family's eyes, like a real job, all of those companies are figuring out that if you don't have any content around the product that you're making, you are in big trouble. You're going to get left behind.

and you're seeing this, you're seeing people scramble to get either, both internally, everybody out there. If you, if you're looking, and I'll just, I'll just use ag as an example in the ag business. Every company out there is hiring social media content managers, creators, whatever you want to call it, somebody to run their social media. Or represent their brand. Right. because they're figuring out that it's not enough to just make a product, even if it's a damn good product. If you don't have any content that you can put out where the eyes are, because we've said this for years, when we first started, you talked about this, the eyes, the eyes, the people that are your consumer today,

they're on social media. And if you don't create content, nobody knows about your problem. But even more important than that is they're figuring out that they can't run ads. You can't run ads because people are looking for authenticity. And we've talked about authenticity a lot. People don't want to be sold to. They want to see real people using that product and that have some credibility. Like they're not just out there pushing it saying, oh, yeah, I got this and it's great. when they know in fact that they don't ever use it,

that somebody gave them money just to promote it. They want to see people that have authenticity, and that's where this is going. So to the question of, you know, how that's, whether that's considered a real job being in that, it totally is, every company out there that's making a product is going to have to have somebody that is either creating content,

or finding partners to create content that they can get into. And then, I don't know, do you want to go more on that? Or do you want to talk about the parent part? I'll get into that. I'll start that. But I want to add some more to it. And I think we really honed in right there on like if you wanted to start your own business, you need content.

And you touched on a little bit like every company needs that, which every company does. So if you, I would definitely 100% say it is a real job. and that job is only going to get more and more and more popular. More and more businesses are waking up to the fact that they need this. So if you want to get into a creative job, which I think is booming right now, booming, there's not enough people out there with the skills to do it. Learn as many skills as you possibly can in the creative field.

Learn Adobe Premiere. Learn Photoshop. Learn lightroom. Learn how these social media platforms work. Study the experts in the field and what they're doing, how they're posting, what their posts look like, how they post on YouTube, how they post on Instagram, how they post on TikTok, how is it different, how is it not? Those things, knowing those things will set you apart from so many people, so many people. It's what I did. I didn't know shit about any of

this stuff. I was a farm kid. I grew up in a small town in southeast Iowa, and I studied that shit. I studied that, and I don't, I'm not the greatest and best of social media and know everything, I know enough to know how you need to play the game and do it to get, you know, an audience built. And whatever you go out and learn is just going to help you tremendously on if you're trying to start your own thing, whether it's a social media agency, whether you want to be a videographer, whatever you're trying to do, or if you want to go work for somebody, having those skills is very, very essential. And I think the more skills that you have, the more you're going to get paid because you're better, employee, you know all the platforms, you know all the editing softwares, you're just versatile.

You're a versatile employee that can do anything. So that's my advice to you, depending on if you want to start your own thing or go work for somebody. But I think for sure, 100% it's a real job. And on the parenting thing, the first thing I want to say about that is not all parents, and your situation is really hard because you got the brother and your parents sound pretty traditional and most parents are traditional you know this is kind of a new wave is it going to last i'll say social media is not going away social media is not going away everybody in their dog is freaking addicted to these phones everybody has a phone almost everybody has a phone and it's just like what you said every consume all the consumers are there the eyes are there the brands are making so much

money on there businesses are making so much money on there it's never going away it's too far gone so it's always going to be there. So I don't know if you're ever going to be able to convince them unless you truly just, you might just have to say, well, mom and dad, and I don't, the short term of it is you might hurt their feelings and they might not be satisfied with the path you choose, but if you're going to be unhappy with yourself because you don't choose a creative field and you do what mommy and daddy say, that might hurt your relationship long term because

you're going to have a lot of strife towards your parents. Resentment. Resentment towards your parents. And if you just want to chose this path, yeah, it might be a rocking in the beginning, but if you make something yourself in this creative job, which I think you definitely can, then they might be like, you know what, you were right. And your relationship might get, you know, it'll get better over time because they'll realize that you're right. But I am a full-on believer that you can make this happen in whatever you decide to do because it's just the opportunities is endless in the creative field. It's freaking endless. And I'll say this. When you think about your, you have options available to you that your parents never had. I mean,

my children have opportunities for them that I never have. imagined. I'm just thankful that I get drug along. But think about this. Sit and meditate on this. You have to decide what is important to you. And if the word freedom gets thrown around a lot, and it means a lot of things to a lot of people. And, you know, we say we want to live in a free country, and the United States is all about freedom, even though there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that, people argue it's not as free as it used to be but okay i i've said this many times one of the best examples or one of the best little nuggets that i've ever heard anybody say is uh and i don't really know who said it i can't remember now but the question was asked you know what what is freedom and

this guy said i can do whatever i want whenever i want wherever i want with whoever i want for as long as I want to do it. Now, that's true freedom. Now, not everybody's going to get there, and I'm not there either, but one of the most powerful bonuses that I see in social media, content creation, creative work, creative work is that one of the groups that we work with, a company that we do some stuff for, the people that do their creative stuff. They have 37 employees and they don't have an office. They have no office. They meet virtually. If they need to all go, you know, if they need to meet, they meet somewhere, but they don't have an office. They all work from home. They work on the road. They work wherever they want to. Okay, that is very, that's very alluring to a lot of people. They like that.

It takes a different kind of person to do that because there's some people that need, the structure of an office and so I mean it's not for everybody but if you can if that's important to you to have freedom that part of it anyway there's no better there's no better job out there than creative creative work like that and then the other thing I'll say about I'll put my parent hat on and I spoke at a I spoke at a swine deal a couple months ago and I didn't really know what I was going to say like it's kind of like high school all over again until I got there I had a lot of ideas but when I started it kind of came to me one of the hardest things between generations is that perspective is a wonderful thing as you get older you gain

perspective and what perspective is you've had enough life experiences that when you look backwards over your life, you see patterns of what works and what doesn't work. And so as you make decisions going forward, you get in a situation and you have to make a decision, that perspective tells you, okay, well, I've done this before and it didn't work very well, but I've done this, and that turned out okay. And this situation is similar to that situation, so I'm going to make this decision. and the more you do that and the more that you have good outcomes, the more perspective you have, but the other side of that is,

and the not great side of it is, you start to build this frame. You start to build this frame around your life and about your realities and about what's possible, what you're going to let in to that frame. So your world actually gets, smaller and we all do it as we get older i like what i like i'm less likely to go try a different restaurant because why would i i i like what i like you know it's it's that's how it is so your world

shrinks okay so me farming with soyer and doing stuff with his brother when they asked me my advice i give him my answer based on my frame of reference based on my perspective but I don't know what I don't know because over the years my world has shrunk. When you're young, your world is huge. There's a lot of perils in that because you don't have those frames of reference, but we've said so many times you learn, the only way you learn is by making mistakes. I wish it wasn't that way. I wish there was an easier way to do it, but you're going to make mistakes.

That's all there is to it. But that's how you learn. but if you start, if you start with a world that's already small, then it's only going to get smaller. And so my advice to your parents would be, you have to step back and be able to see that the future world, the future frame of reference that your children will have is way different than the one that you have

because the world where they start is way different. than the world was when you started. Wow, that's pretty deep. I should have like a monk outfit on. You know what I mean? So as a parent, you just have to, and it's hard, I can tell you, it's very hard, because you don't want your children to fail. You don't want them to feel pain. You don't want them to make mistakes. They have to make mistakes. The best thing that you can do is give them the tools that when they do make a mistake, they realize it as early as possible, and they don't beat a dead horse, and that they can accept it. Because the worst thing is families where failure is not an option, and children are so afraid to fail because of the wrath that's going to come from the parent, that they take a bad

situation and they make it even worse because they go too long before they admit to themselves and admit to everybody that they've made this mistake and they change. So it's really hard, but your world is not the same as your children's and you need to let get out of your frame and try to see the bigger world around you. Yeah, we're going to wrap this question up. I know this is a long one, but we said that this is a damn good question. But I also say to you, man, like, you are so young, you have so much time on your hands and so much opportunity ahead of you that if you go down this creative field job, you know, world and you really put some time and effort and energy towards it, and it doesn't pan out, dude, the demand for trades is always going to be there.

You can always go to trade school. There's always going to need blue collar tradesmen. There's all, we're always going to need truck drivers. We're always going to need welders. We're always going to need plumbers. We're going to probably need more of that as time goes on. So if you have a passion and you feel like that's something that you want to explore, go explore it because you're going to regret it. And I always say this, I try to live my life as if when I wake up in a nursing home or I'm on my deathbed and I think back on my life, I don't want to regret shit.

And you do not want to regret not betting on yourself and going, and doing this thing if it's really something you want to do. And you might not have all the answers to start. You might not know, do I want to start my own thing? Or do I want to go work for somebody? You might not know to all that stuff. But as you start working that path, you'll start figuring it out.

And I think the best thing you could do if you're going to go down this field is just try to learn as many skills as you possibly can with the platforms, with the software that you use to edit all this stuff and do it all. and just like how content and all that stuff works and how just how it all works. If you can learn all that,

it's going to make you very, very valuable for not only your own business, if that's what you want to do or if you go work for somebody else. So I would just say, don't regret shit, go after what you want. And at the end of the day, if it works and you make it, your parents are going to probably honestly be more proud of you because you went out on your own and made something to yourself and went against what they said.

and it's going to make them go, you know, it's going to make them proud. So long term, I think that's the best thing. And I'm not trying to stir you. We're not trying to tell you exactly what to do, but that's just our advice and our outlook on it. You can always go get a degree, always can go get a, you know, become a tradesman. So the world is so short of people that pretty much if you have a valid driver's license can show up every day and pass a drug test and a background check, you can always go get that job. Yeah. I mean, you always can go get that. 100%.

Just don't regret anything. 100%. Okay. I got one. Do you want to go, do we want to keep going with the big, should we hit the heavy hitters? Sure. Okay. So, hey guys, the question I have is your thought on the future of the pig industry,

and this is a good one. I own a finishing barn and contract slash manage three others. I want to grow my operation by building or buying sites, but can't help wondering. if this is going to be worth it in 20 years or more. I'm in Northwest Iowa and there's sites all over. I can't help but think how long can we keep building barns and filling them and fill the existing barns?

Sorry, this is such a long question. No, we're right there with you. I mean, we're 100% right there with you because we have this, we have this talk a lot. You know, we're in the situation where we have enough, barns for the ground that we're farming. But when I look at the price of farmland compared to the return I can get from a finisher, I'm like, I'd really like to go buy land, but hog billing still probably cash flow better as long as I can get a contract and keep somebody putting pigs in

there. And you're in a tough area for sure because one thing that we have in South, East Iowa that is a little unique to Northwest Iowa and maybe some other places is, you know, our typical contracts are 10-year contracts or like 12-year contracts on the start because that's what the cash flows, a lot of them run. I don't know if people have done 15-year contracts or not, but, and a lot of them that get renewed, we get them renewed at 10 years. Where you're at, my understanding is, I mean, you're lucky. if you can get a three-year contract and a lot of guys are doing turn by turn because it's like the carrot and the stick, you know, the only way you keep a contract is you do a good job

and then, you know, you get another turn. So it's really hard when you don't, when you have that uncertainty. Now, the, my feeling on it is that in 20, years from now, we're still going to be raising pigs. Because when you look around the world at what's going on, the Europeans are not going to be raising the pigs. They're just not. Their governments have gone. They've been sold down the river to the environmentalists. It's biting them in the ass on their energy production. They, it's just not when it comes to being low-cost producer, Europe is far from low-cost producer.

The only reason it works is because it's subsidized by the government. And I just don't see that industry growing. I probably see it retracting, getting smaller. Worldwide? Well, Europeans, I see the European pig industry shrinking. I don't see it getting bigger. I think there's just too much, the cost of entry and the cost of expansion and grain and input costs are just too high.

And with governments running deficits all over the world, they're not going to keep subsidizing it as much as they'd like to. They just, I don't think they can do it. China with Africa's swine fever, they're probably not going to... Well, China would really love to be self-sufficient on food, because the only way they're going to keep their finger on top of their people is to keep them fed. But they have so many problems.

Their economy is way worse than what anybody's letting you know, what they're letting the world know. They have some serious problems. And there again, they don't have any, they have a very poor land base for production agriculture as far as the feed stuff to feed all these hogs

that they want to grow. And then you've got to have the water. And the problem is that all the area land, all the farmable land, the water is all located where all the people are. Basically, it's a huge country, but much of it is uninhabitable, pretty much. So it makes it hard. So I don't see their, I don't see their hog production. It's going to, you know, it's going to grow and it's going to shrink. It's going to grow and it's going to shrink because it's just, there's just so much uncertainty there. But the United States is going to stay constant. I think the, you know, the

If not get better because of the fall of other countries. I mean, we touched on this a little bit last week. The long-term, my long-term view for agriculture in the United States is extremely bullish because when you strip it all down, we have great transportation, we have good, the best land in the world to grow a crop. We have, we have a population that is not in decline. That's the other side. when you get into demographics, Europe is one of the oldest populations in the world. They're only getting older. They don't have enough young people. Their population is probably going to shrink. They just don't have the people to do the work. Our area, if it wasn't for immigration, illegal and legal, and I'm not going to get into that whole deal. But if it wasn't for the amount of immigration we have, the United States probably our population would be below. replacement rate, but because of the immigration we have, we're right there. And one of the youngest

populations in the world is Mexico, South America. So as you look forward, if you ever get the politics out of it, which we never will, there is no better place to raise a pound of pork than the United States, and there is no cheaper place to raise a pound of pork than Iowa. Simple. It's because they try, that's why they bring the pigs from the Carolinas. The Carolina is, The Carolina's had everything, and then their government screwed that up. But there's no cheaper place to make a pound of pork than the state of Iowa. We have a pro-ag government here, and I think we'll be able to keep that. So to your question about, you know, how many barns can we have?

Well, there's certainly some old barns out there that are going to go out of production. I think that really small sites that are multiple rooms that, you know, the bins aren't, just the logistics are going to be important. So if you have a 2,400 head finisher, a 4,800 head site that has semi-sized bins, tandem bins set up or triple bins to where you can dump a semi-load and go, you got good loading shoots, it's on a good road, and it's close, it's right. where, you know, whoever you're working with that are located and you're doing a good job, that's only going to become more valuable. And if you can buy a site at the right price, another thing that I think that these integrators, contract finishers are starting to learn is the value of having not only good people managing the sites,

good people that own the barns that are willing to do what it takes to keep the sites up because every con every integrator out there has a list of people that have sites and they're shit and they won't spend any money on anything and if they're supplying the labor they're doing as very little as possible if given the choice they'll get rid of those people and they're looking for people that want to work with them and if you it's like anything make the introduction get to know your field guide get to know the guy that is the supervisor within the group that you're feeding for, get to know the people that are running that company. Because when they know you, it changes things. And when you're known as a good grower, a good caretaker, a good barn owner, it opens doors. And so my advice

would be to just do the best job you can with what you have, be careful about what you purchase, but purchase sites that you know over long term are going to be valuable to whoever you're going for. Yep. Location-wise and just setup-wise. Yep. Yeah. I would also say, and also Iowa is the best place, you're in the best place to race pigs in the entire world. So you got that going for you.

And long-term, like you said, I'm pretty bullish on how ag's going to perform in the future too. So I think a lot of farmers and people that see how the world's day is playing out. kind of feel that way as well. But I would say another thing that I would touch on, and this is something that's kind of new, but I think it could be huge. And Russ Vering was on the podcast. He talked about it, but carbon sequestration, if there is ever a way that we can figure out how to sequester all the carbon that is in these manure pits, and we don't just have a bunch of this manure in the pit all the time. And I don't know how that's done. I don't know how it'll get done, but I think people are working on it. And you're able to sell those carbon credits to these

companies that need to, you know, what do you say? ESG score. Yeah, they need to write off their ESG score and buy these carbon credits to look good to the public. There is not going to be a better system in the entire world than a hog barn because we fill a pit full of shit all the time. Every year. Every year. And if we're able to somehow sequester a lot of that carbon that's released and not have all that manure in the pit all the time and recycle the water and do all this stuff, there are not very many things that are going to give that opportunity. out there. I mean, there's just really not that many things that could provide that opportunity. So I think that's something that I think a lot of hog producers need to think about is, yes, we are providing food and we're providing a commodity and we're feeding the world.

The other thing is you very well might end up trying to be an environmentalist, not an environmentalist, but you might be in the environmental business as well because your manure might be so valuable. and the sequestrian, the amount of carbon that you're sequestering might be so valuable to all these companies that have to, you know, set their ESG scores, sorry. So yeah, that's something that's kind of a, I guess you say a wild card. I don't know if that's going to happen. I don't know if the technology will ever happen, but it's something to keep your eye on and it's something that just makes those barns even more valuable.

Yeah, and real quick, that's just one example, the idea of removing the water from the manure and then pelletizing it and sequestering the carbon. That's just one example of what people are working on. There's another example. I had a guy email us from Missouri, and down there, there's a big project that's going right now that I think JBS is doing, and it might not be just. just JBS. It may be,

there's a good amount of barns in a pretty small geographic area down in central Missouri. And what they're doing is they're pumping all the manure to lagoons that they have covered and they've got these huge methane digesters

and then they're taking all that methane and they're putting that in a pipeline. And there's, I think that they're just doing like, it's nothing. like what summit's trying to do. You've heard about the summit pipeline that they're trying to take from these ethanol plants, which I think is kind of a scam, really, but that's just me. What they're doing down there is there, I think they're, from wherever this is at, it's a fairly

short distance to get it to an existing pipeline system to take that methane to California. Yeah. And the reason for that is because California, of course, has these mandates in place that by a certain date, you know, so much of their energy has to come from green. Well, I saw the other day that if you manufacture cars in California by 2035, you can't manufacture a gas combustion engine. Yeah, it's got to be electric. It's got to be electric. So anyway, that's... Oh, yeah. Lost their fucking minds. Well, the market's going to... The thing is, government. just can't get it out of its way. And we're not going to go off onto a tangent into a hot topic. But it's just another example. Just let the market operate. Because if the people building electric cars really build a better, if it's a better vehicle, the market's going to take care of itself

because the people buying it are going to sit and look and go, okay, well, it doesn't make sense. Buy that. I'm going to buy that. To me, it just pushes people away. It does. It just pushes people away and pisses people off. So yeah, just let the market decide. But yeah, yeah, got the carbon sequestration. You got people trying to do the methane extraction. Isn't that just a form of natural gas? Yes. Yeah, natural gas. So there's opportunities that can make these barns even more valuable

on the environmental side. So that's something to keep your eye on. But as far as assets for a farming operation, a hog barn can't get much better than those. And I know they're not as good as those deals as they used to be, and it's hard to really get started as a young guy building a hog barn now. But shit, man, if you can try to buy some or if you're already in the game, if you can buy the right ones,

I think it's a really good way to expand your operation and I think it's probably better than buying farm ground because I mean, you're probably not going to get a return on that farm ground unless you get paid for.

Yeah. Yeah, I'll just say this too. For the price it's going at. I always go back to this because people ask us, you know, these barns are so expensive and like the people that, the integrator we work with,

I'll have people go, well, what are you going to do? if they go broke. And I say, what it all boils down to is whatever you do in life is a risk, whether I'm grain farming, whether I was working for somebody, whether I'm raising pigs for somebody, there is a risk. And my answer to that is that if the hog business went bad enough that all these guys go

out of business, I have a hell of a lot bigger problems than worrying about those hog barns because that means that the entire economy in the Midwest has collapsed. And the entire food system is about to hit the fan. The way I look at it is, if raising food is no longer a viable way to make a living, then I don't know what... We are. We are.

We are. So I'm like, you got to take a risk, and I don't think there's any better risk out there than the hog business. And I'd also say, last thing, and then we'll move on, is all it takes, and I don't know if this will happen or when it'll happen, I think it will happen eventually, but if these integrators, these producers pay their growers, $2 extra, $3 extra someday, that changes the game because now that barn cash flow is a lot better than it does now. And so that completely changes the game, and that very well could happen.

So not saying it will, not saying it won't, but all it takes is $1 to go up, $2 to go up, $3 to go up and all right, we're cash flowing a little bit more money. So I'd say, yeah, we're in the same boat as you, man. We're trying to expand, but just buy the right sites, partner with the right people, get to know them, you know, all the things we said. So, all right. I'll let you answer the next one on the list, but I'm going to go to a different one here. I'd like to hear y'all's opinion on the show industry and whether it complements or detracts

from the commercial industry. Oh, show picks. Yeah, show pigs, show cattle, all that. I know a ton of people. I have friends that have been in the show business, grew up with the show business. I think it's great for agriculture, and I think it's great to give young kids responsibility.

It's great to get them interested in agriculture because we need more people interested in agriculture. And it gets them to learn, you know, people's skills, learn how to interact with an animal, gives them responsibility. I think there's so many positives to it. and I think it does truly spark interest in people to want to work in agriculture, whether it's work as a farmhand or whether it's going to work for a business that's in

agriculture. It sparks that interest and they want to stay in that business, you know, just in a different section of the industry. So I think it's great in all those areas. Some people can argue and some of the show guys get pissed, especially around here, you know, I don't know, just on the pig side of things that, oh, well, there's too many pigs here already and that in the show business or the commercial business gets bigger than more the disease spread. And, you know, there's stuff that spreads around from site to site or from show pig site to commercial site. And, you know, that is what it is, I guess. I don't know how you're going to stop that. And if you don't like that as an option, whether you're in commercial or you're a show

guy, you better just move. I don't know what you say there. But I think overall it's great. For young kids, it sparks the interest, it teaches them a lot of lessons. And I think you can meet a lot of people that are in it. I personally have no desire. I've never had a desire to do it. I've just always been interested in the farming. And if I'm going to raise pigs, I might as well just raise $2,400 in a barn every six months because I have that opportunity. But maybe if I didn't have that opportunity, I would want to be interested maybe in doing it.

I don't know. I just have never had the interest to do it. And that's just me. But I know a ton of friends, a ton of guys that love it, and it's taught them a lot of good things. So overall, I think it's a great thing. Yeah. If you look at, say, you go to, say, Iowa State University

and you look at a graduating class there in the Ag Business School, ag study school, that go on to get jobs at, you know, PIC, Zouettis, Merck, John Deer, you name it. Any of these ag companies, I would say, of the people we know,

a huge amount of these kids that end up doing that are all kids that showed livestock. And a lot of them are kids that that was their only exposure to agriculture, because there's fewer and fewer people that are engaged day-to-day,

full-time in agriculture. But the beautiful thing about that show that show animal, cattle, pigs, whatever. There are so few things that teach kids the importance and the responsibility of taking care of an animal where it has to be done every day. Doesn't matter whether it's Sunday,

doesn't matter if it's cold, doesn't matter what, it has to be done. And it teaches them, you know, record keeping. It teaches them math because, you know, the feeding and the rations and it teaches them so many things. And it teaches them in a way that they are receptive to learning it. I guarantee if you set them down and you try to teach them those same skills in a classroom, half of them wouldn't receive it. Oh, that's how I would be. My brain shuts off. Yeah, exactly. And so it's in an industry that there's fewer and fewer and fewer actual farm kids.

The show, the show industry, the show side is, gosh, dang it. Got a fucking rookie on the podcast. I know, right? Who's going on? Who does that? Oh, my. You should be disqualified. I know.

I'm done. Anyway, a lot of value there. A lot of value there. I'd say the one thing that, and I'd say the one thing that I see in the show industry that I don't like is I think a lot of people play the status game in the show industry. It becomes this, it becomes this cock measuring contest of who's the best. I got to have this. I'm the best. And it's just like, it's just like I got to buy the best pig so I can show off and be this and that and that. I mean, I think there's real guys that have real competition.

I think there's real guys that are in it to win it and that like they've built their whole show business on that. But then I think there's other guys that are just doing it to do it because they're just trying to give their kids those lessons. And you just have to walk that fine line between playing in the status game of, oh, I'm going to get this pig because fuck this person and I want to be the best and I want to look the best and all this shit to actually just enjoying the show, enjoying it, enjoying for what it is. Because I don't think people really like that whole cock measuring contest that comes with the whole show industry. Well, that's the only thing that I see from the outside looking in that I don't like about it,

but other than that, everything else is so positive. Showing livestock is no different than kids sports. Yeah, the kids love it. It's the parents that screw everything up because it's the parents. The parents are the ones that are like, you know, the kids just happy to have a pig to show. The parents are the ones like, oh, I need to spend $5,000 on this guilt because I want to I want to win. I want my fucking kid to win. And if, and if they don't make it, if he doesn't get pinned, then, you know, let's go find that, let's go find that judge and beat his ass,

because obviously he didn't know what he was looking at because my kid's pig is the best. Right. So it's, it's just like, it's just like kids sports. It's the parents that, it's a great thing. It's just there's some people that always make it, they bring the ugly out. And you're, you're going to have that no matter what. But I think overall it is a great, a great, great for agriculture. I'll give you one. I'll give you. Well, no, you just answered the third one on the list there.

Oh, the handball recipe? Yeah. You know what? I'll do, we'll put the handball recipe in the description of this. You don't have it at the top of your head? Pretty cool. It's really pretty darn easy. And there's multiple versions of it.

And it's so funny because when you get out of the Midwest, nobody knows, nobody's ever had them. So I've got a brother that, lives in out kind of close to Philadelphia, Lancaster, Pennsylvania area. And we were out there for Thanksgiving a few years ago. And, you know, I was going to make handballs for Thanksgiving. And I go down the grocery store and, you know, you need ground ham. Basically, you need just ham that's ground. And a huge supermarket. Giant Eagle, I think, is the, is the supermarket chain out there and I go down there and nothing like they don't have any and I thought well boy you know that's

weird I asked the guy in the meat counter he's like oh we don't have anything like that and so then across little ways away there's like kind of a specialty grocery store it's like a it's kind of an old-timey like run by menonites I think and it's got a a big butcher shop it's kind of like fairway in the fact around here they're known for their meat department go there sure is shit they don't have it either and i i asked the guy you know ground ham he's like well i don't have that he goes nobody ever asked for because i can just grind you ham how many pounds do you need so i needed five pounds and so we just took a ham and ground it and it wasn't it was a little too coarse so he actually ground it twice and then um it was pretty good i'd say it might have been a hair more fine

but the main ingredient is just ground ham and some people do it where they mix ground ham with sausage, or with ground pork. They'll just do ground pork. That way it's not as, I'd say it's not as smoky that way, but I don't do it that way. I do it straight ground ham. So it's, you know, it's basically ground ham, gram crackers, milk, salt pepper. Oh, yeah, that's it. that's about all it is. And then you season it and then the sauce. The sauce is what makes it. The sauce is what makes it.

And it's tomato soup and brown sugar and vinegar. I can't remember what else. But we, I mean, it's like a family tradition. It is. They are fucking fire. And everybody that ever comes to our Thanksgiving or to our Christmas

when we have them, they always talk about the freaking ham balls. Torx balls. Torx balls are the best. That's the kind of the joke when we, when someone eats them for the first time because they are damn good. We'll get the recipe card for next week's episode and bring it up here and actually give it to them. Or do we not want to?

Oh, I know. It's kind of a family. You kind of made it. We'll put the recipe in the description. Yeah, description. Yeah, we'll do that. We'll put the recipe into the description if you're watching on YouTube or in the show notes if you're listening on whatever you're listening it on.

So in the description, guys, if you want that, Torx Ball's recipe. and I guess we're getting close enough to Thanksgiving. Check the this'll do farm YouTube channel because at some point I'll just do it. We'll just make a recipe little snippet in one of our videos. I'll put on my apron and we'll go in there and we'll make them. We'll fuck some shit up in that kitchen. Fork's going to throw down in there.

Any advice for a 22-year-old farmer from Ohio that's trying to get started grain farming? Just... Boy, I don't know, buddy. Oh, no, it's easy. So you just need to go through and... Here comes a sarcasm. You just need to go through and make a list of all the either unmarried or divorced girls in your county.

Get out the plat book. Start cross-referencing. And then, you know... Get a whiteboard. Stop. Yep. Yep. Get a whiteboard. Make a list. And then start going through Facebook, find out, you know, who they are if they're divorced,

if they're single, whatever, and figure out, you know, just start stocking them down. I mean, that's the easiest way. The easiest way is just marry from the plat book. If you can pull that off, you'll be in like Flynn. Okay, if that doesn't work, then plan B, just start figuring out who are the people in your area that are older, that don't have any kids, that don't have anybody that's, you know, want to take over the farm. and, you know, just be honest with them. If they got, if they need help, if they need somebody to work for them, if you can be, you know, just, I just flat out tell them, hey, this is a deal.

I'm trying to get, I'm trying to get going in this. And there, some of them are going to just slam the door in your face. But, you know, let's face it. It just takes one. And then the other part of it is, I, is, is he already grain farming now a little bit or not? Can't tell. Trying to get started green farming. I think from scratch. If you're trying to get started from scratch, I don't know. I'd only buy a

powerball ticket when it's set your limit. It's got to be over 200 million before you spend a dollar, $2 on the ticket. But it's pretty hard. I mean, it really is. You really got to find somebody that is willing to give you a chance. And then the other thing that I would, my advice to a young person trying to get started in ag, is find a niche. Maybe you work a job and you find a way to get, say, a skid loader or an excavator, something where you can do custom work for somebody as far as clearing out fence rows, road ditches that gets you connections with some farmers. And find a way to do some custom work for farmers, do some stuff that they,

don't want you that they don't want to do themselves and get those connections be on time do a good job clean up your mess you know just be dependable and there's so few so many so few people out there that actually do what they say they're going to do and follow through do a good job if you it i would recommend there's a book uh And it's, what is that? Hammer the stone. What's called? Pound the stone.

And it's a simple, it's a simple rule, I guess you'd say, is, you know, the stone cutter, you can sit and you take a chisel and you're smacking this stone and you're trying to cut it and you smack it, you smack it, you smack it, and it doesn't change. Nothing happens. You're just beating this stone, nothing changes. and it only takes one hammer blow, the final one, and it breaks. So everything you did up until that point, if you quit before that, it doesn't matter. But if you just do it long enough, it finally breaks. And that is so much of life. You know, if you just keep plugging away and keep showing up,

and talking to people and doing your best, the opportunity is out there, but it's not going to be. be it's not for everybody you got to get it you got to go get it that's the thing you got to seize it you got to take up you got to take matters in your own hand best you can and just be proactive and do the best job you possibly can't i would say this is contrary to what you said i think all that's great i think that's you want to get an ag right away i think that's great but if you're somebody that wants to get into agriculture and start a farm it's very capital intensive and you're going to have my advice go start a go start a business first five something to make you a shit load of money and that is how you're going to start farming.

Truthfully, if you want to go start a roofing business, go start a plumbing business, go start a welding business, go run fiber cable under the ground for, you know, I don't know, there's so many things that the world needs, America needs. And if you can find the right opportunity, start a business, and I know this is all sounds, you know, I'm making it sound easier than it is. It's not easy. I understand it's not easy. But farming isn't easy.

And getting into farming, being a farmer trying to expand a farm is hard. Trying to get into farming from absolutely nothing is even harder. So you've got to do some pretty hard shit to get there. So I would say that's my advice. You got to go try to make a shitload of money in another industry. And then if you want to really, truly your dream is to start a farm,

then take all that capital and go buy a farm and start farming. on the side. Didn't you say that, like, maybe you don't have the numbers, but didn't you say, like, the biggest, like a lot of the biggest farmers in the state of Iowa are actually,

they didn't start as farmers. No, a lot of the, I think, I was talking to Grant Hilbert on the phone the other, I was a couple weeks ago or maybe a month ago, but he said, I can't remember the exact number,

but majority, I'd say over half, probably more than a half, over half, of the landowners in Iowa that own the most land, they had a business off of the farm, or they started a business before they started farming, and they're rarely in the tractor,

because they're running the farm like a business, and they're the largest landowners in Iowa, and they have a business that's not just the farm. That is the, you want to know the true secret of farming, it's not making all your money from farming. If you want to grow, that's the key. That is the secret. 100% is the secret.

Well, great. We should have kept that for ourselves. Shouldn't be given that out there. Well, it's, it's, you could give all that out and people still won't do shit. So, you got to actually do it. But that's my advice, man. You got to just try to find a, find a business, find an avenue that's going to make you a shitload of money and then deploy that capital into farming if it's really something that

you want to do. So, anyway. How are the yields? your area. Very surprisingly good. I don't know if I want to give them the exact numbers. No, that's... But, you know, they've been better than we definitely thought they were going to be for the year that we had. I just can't believe how good the hybrids are. It's absolutely insane. We barely had shit for rain, and yet, we'll say we're above 200, which I don't know if most guys even thought that was going to be a possibility this year. So that's good. And that's,

if you're below 200, you're having a pretty freaking terrible year, but above 200, I mean, that's, that's good. I think, I think that our corn on corn is actually better this year than it was last year. It's the best it's ever been, our corn on corn on corn, which is insane. Corn on bean ground, I think, is going to end up being not quite as good as last year, but part of that's hybrid selection. And I will say this. And it's not on the best ground either. Yeah, it is. So my corn on bean ground ended up being the, the poorest field that we have, but as far as just land. I think 1197 might

finally have run its course. I think I might overstayed 1197 one too many years. It's just always been so good. Like I had somebody tell me that you know, everybody bags on 1197 because if you tap it, the ear will fall off of it. And he said, he's like, yeah, I'll take 1197 where 20% of the ears drop because the 80% that's left that's left will still out yield everything else. And I used to kind of be on that train, but this year, I think I got better hybrids.

So it might be the end. It might be the end for 1197. Yeah. And I think a lot of farmers, what I'm hearing is I think we'd rather take a dry year than a wet year. Oh, 100%. Is kind of the consensus I'm getting. And, you know, I've yet to see a wet year, like a true wet year in my farming

career, but everybody that I've talked to, you've seen it. People, you know, we associate ourselves with, seen it yields on that dog shit. And then with these hybrids being the way they are now, it's like, we'll take dry. I mean, we want a perfect year, but that doesn't come all the time. So, yeah, surprisingly good. I don't think anybody, I don't, I don't think most people are going to go out of business if everybody's, which not everybody's yields were this way, but I think most farmers are very surprised with the yields that they're getting. And they were a little bit like, oh, fuck, when they first started. But once they started shelling some corn, they were like, all right, we're going to be okay.

And the other thing that is impressive is the basis level around where we are is so strong right now. I mean, it's really hard to not make. I think I've already sold more corn than what I had thought that I would just because the basis has been so strong and the price is where it's at that, I mean, we could, corn could go to $750, I guess, corn could go to $8, but when you can sell corn, when you can sell corn right out of the dryer and, you know, it's $690, $6.88, whatever, I don't know, that's a pretty good price. And so, which I don't know. We'll just have to see.

But overall, you know, way better yield than what we thought we were going to have. Yep. I think we got one last question. And then we'll probably, we're going to do a little bit of whiskey. We're going to do a whiskey of the week because we're just feeling like it. And I think you got a good one. But next piece of equipment you'll purchase. Oh, boy, I have a list.

I really, this year, I, this harvest, and you can see us on this will do farm. I ran the grain cart for the first time. And I know you guys are going, What the fuck? He's 22. He doesn't run a grain cart? I know, but I never had to because we just had wagons, and I've always ran the wagons on our tractor,

and we just, you know, we never needed to run a green cart. But David, he was on the podcast this earlier this month, or last month, late last month, two episodes ago. And he's got a grain cart, and he brought it over, and I started running it, and I absolutely loved it. and he's got an 8420 on the green cart, and I love that tractor. It's the tractor that I want bad.

So that's on the list. But I think truly more realistically, our next piece of equipment is going to be another wagon because another 650 wagon, because we are always on the go if we don't have that grain cart with those wagons. And we want to keep the combine running all the time. And I think having a third wagon would just help with that.

So I think a wagon is the more realistic equipment piece that we'd want. But then the next thing after that would probably be a four-wheel drive tractor or another little tractor to pull two sets of wagons. And we could maybe buy another wagons. We'd have four wagons and then two and two and then try to buy a planter. Yeah. I think a planter, a 15-inch to where we could plant 15-inch beans, I think that would be something we'd get.

The other thing, not necessarily equipment, but one thing that would speed our harvest up a lot is if we got to the point that we added a wet bin to our... We've got a shivers dryer and it works great, and it's a four, it's got four fans on it. It's got the two burners and two turbos, and it works great, but, you know, it... You can overload it.

You know, we get going and we always are trying to cram too much in, before we quit for the night and you get it too deep in there and it slows it down and if we had a wet bin that would speed things up but you know we just were talking this morning it's like all that stuff's great but at the end of the day it doesn't give us any more bushels which in turn doesn't make us any more money so it's like yeah it's a pain in the ass but can we use that money for something else that you know will make us money i don't know yeah it's like those are the kind of conversations you got to have like you got it's got a pencil at the end of the day yeah you know it's got a pencil at the end of the day with everybody wants that everybody wants the cool shit but

you got to make a pencil and so we're going to try to make a pencil and when it pencils it makes sense for us we'll get we'll get more equipment so okay so probably not going to be a productive day around here so we figure we might as well do a little do a little whiskey today so what do we what do we have so i just got a bottle of four roses small batch select and four roses is is kind of my one of my go-to uh old fashions so a lot of you if you've paid attention like um i'll use makers a lot um i really like makers but i also like four roses smells phenomenal yeah it's good it's a little so four roses a little sweeter um and one thing that is a little bit I guess unusual today in the whiskey business is the distillery that makes four roses,

that's all they make. I mean, they make a few different, excuse me, they make a few different versions. So they make, you know, regular, they make small batch, the small batch select. They've done a few different releases. But that's all they make. It's not like where you get into the Buffalo Trace where they make Weller. they make Taylor, they make Blanton's, they make like 15 different

whiskeys. This is pretty much all they make. So, we're going to try it out? Yeah, I poured you a, poured you a glass. A light pour. Thank you for that. Well, I didn't want to get you too messed up. Too loopy. We could end up doing beans this afternoon. The sun's out, and that phone call was David. He was calling to see probably, well, what do you think? You think he'll go? So my guess is he must be getting itchy so yeah probably should uh down this and so do you got any good cheers or well cheers to a good harvest i i i would just say uh i pray for all of you that we had y'all have a good and safe harvest if and if

you're lucky enough to be done then that's good too and we appreciate every one of you because none of this would be possible without people wanting to listen to us babel so yeah i'd say cheers to good harvest and cheers to good questions there you go here well you got to cheers us I got short arms. Well, that's all right. I'll make up for it. Yeah, that's pretty hard. That's good. That's pretty hard to be.

That's damn good. Yeah, it's just real smooth. It's sweet. I could drink that straight for sure. Yeah. It's a great, it makes a great old fashion. Yeah, that's delicious. I recommend.

That's my first time trying that. That's good. Yeah. All right. Yep, four roses. Okay, so that's all the questions we got for you guys. And we're going to do this, try to do this once a month, a Q&A. So submit your,

questions all of October into November at barn talk show at gmail.com. These are the kind of questions we want guys. These were deep. These were interesting. And we want to go along. We want to get into the deep shit. And it can be literally about anything. Anything you want to know, ask it. And you're not going to, we're not going to include your name in it so you can stay anonymous. And we'll just try to give you our best answers. So we really appreciate everybody that submitted them. We appreciate everybody that's watching. Pay the fee. And we'll see you guys. back here next week for another Barn Talk episode.