Barn Talk - Manure Management Masterclass w/Rachel Rinner

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Welcome to Barn Talk! In this episode, we dive into the intricate world of manure and fertilizer management in farming operations. Our guest, Rachel Rinner, joins us to shed light on the challenges, misconceptions, and increasing regulations that farmers face. We'll explore critical topics such as the pressures from environmental activists on the (DNR), the overlooked contributions of residential lawn care to pollution, and the perceived double standard between urban development and farming regarding environmental impacts. Rachel provides a robust defense against the unfair blame placed on farmers for water nitrate levels. Whether you’re a seasoned farmer or just interested in learning more about the agricultural world, this episode offers valuable insights and engaging stories that you won't want to miss. Stay tuned as we dive knee-deep into these pivotal topics. Use code BARNTALK for 10% OFF your next order https://farmergrade.com 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    00:00 Share the show, review, and support farmer grade. 05:25 Grew up farm, gained experience, attended college. 15:13 Iowa's corn check-off drives market and research. 16:23 Manure management now more regulated, paperwork focus. 21:34 High fertility soil leads to increased yield demands. 27:55 Misunderstood farming practices regarding hog manure management. 35:01 Excessive paperwork burden isn't beneficial for farmers. 40:17 Costs up; only manure value increased significantly. 44:21 Upgrade older barns for better efficiency. 47:34 Responsible manure management is crucial in animal agriculture. 56:10 Environmental rules now prohibit exceeding manure application. 01:01:54 Hoping a new farm project increases income successfully. 01:07:36 Farmers mow excessively; it's an ancestral curse. 01:08:18 DNR investigated suspected stormwater runoff violations. 01:14:42 Reduced office presence, available by phone now. 01:20:24 Choose art spontaneously, focusing on functionality. 01:23:53 Met Rachel's husband doing service work. ------------------------------- ***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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. 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. 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 guest episode. Got a great guest coming on the show today to talk about all things, manure, livestock, general business. It's going to be a good one. We know her well. and I think she'll drop some a lot of value for you guys but before we get into it

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We got Thanksgiving turkeys. We got Christmas hams. We got six prime rib roast that we're pre-selling. We're also doing corporate gifting boxes this year. So if you own a business or you have family members that you want to give the gift of meat, We'd love to be able to help you out on that. Who doesn't love the gift of meat?

I don't know. It's pretty hard to beat in my world. I'm kind of a food guy. I'm a meat guy too. So we ask you guys, just think of, just think of this as like our version of Patreon. So, you know, a lot of these people that put out social media and do YouTube and whatever, they, you know, they're always, they got exclusive content. You can watch behind the scenes.

But behind the scenes is basically just like in front of the scenes, only we might bicker a little more. Sometime we'll do a behind the scenes maybe, but it's not that interesting. But Metrion, that's what I call it. Metrion is Farmergrade. Support us through Farmergrade. It's a great way to help us out. And you get something, you get something delicious out of the deal. So it's a win-win. Not just a shitty t-shirt or a bumper sticker.

Get some meat. Yeah, exactly right. Way better. Way better. Who's our guest today? Well, you know what? There's a chill in the air this morning. Fall is here.

And very soon in the Midwest, anywhere that you're raising livestock, people are going to be saying, what's that smell? And it does not smell like teen spirit. It smells like something else. And a lot of farmers call that like it smells like gold. Smells like money. Smells like money. I don't know.

Maybe depending on there is a lot of value there, you just got to figure out a way to extract it. However, our guest today has literally, it is the smell of money because it is her business. And if you are someone raising livestock pretty much in any state in the United States, and you don't have a relationship with somebody like her, you're probably not going to get very far if you go to build a livestock operation.

And so she has taken the business of manure and made it her livelihood and grown it. And we actually use her and the great thing about it is she's up to date on all the regulations and it helps keep us in compliance. And we thought, you know what, with as much stuff that is, changing. I thought it'd be damn interesting to listen to what she has to say about where we are here in this great state of Iowa when it comes to manure regulation. So without any further ado, let's get into it. Rachel Renner, owner of Knee Deep Solutions, welcome to Barn Talk. Hi, good morning. Thanks for coming on. We wanted to get you on a long time because you have like a really

unique skill set, skill set, frag and manure and shit and haul. And haul. And, and there's a lot of regulation that I feel like people are not aware of and you might know a lot more about it. But before we get into all that, Jazz, why don't you just tell people a little bit about yourself and like what knee-deep is and how you kind of got it going? Okay. Unique skill set. So I would say farm girl plus math nerd, kind of. I'm wired very uniquely for a girl. I have a tendency to the skill set that I have when it comes to work, if you do those assessments and stuff, not skill sets that are normally girl results. I see a really big picture.

I got to get things done. I'm very task-oriented. How neat he started? Yeah. Well, I grew up on a farm. So I'm the oldest of three girls. So I was my dad's boy, which was the greatest, greatest blessing. never growing up. So I had a lot of hands-on experience. My dad was in animals. He had cows. He had some

sheep, mostly to mow the yards. And he was fair to finish until I got out of college. I had a lot of hands-on experience, a lot of pulling pigs, but we were, I mean, small, I mean 60s, but big enough. And so I went to college, went to Central for one year, got smart, transferred to Iowa State. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. I thought maybe I wanted to be an accountant, spent all of that class period in the gym because it was really not my thing. Went into college,

Egg Undecided at Iowa State. And then had to declare a major because then I was a junior. I thought, okay, well, I'll be an ag teacher. I know enough about myself now to think that was a terrible idea because I really don't like other people's kids. You could have been a great ag teacher

because you would have been like Matt Olson. If you could have gotten you off the subject, you could have spent the entire class just shooting the breeze and then about 10 minutes before the end, you'd be like, oh, okay. So read this chapter and we'll try to discuss it next week. There'll be a hard test on Monday. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so I didn't know what I wanted to do.

So I took those classes and I took them for a week. I was like, this is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. So I went to my advisor and I was like, you got to get me out of these classes. and he's like, no, we don't do that after a week. And I said, you don't understand. Like, I'm going home. If you don't change my classes, I'm going home.

I cannot do this. So I ended up taking, like, meat science, random, just random classes, a lot of economics, things like that that basically had an opening that I could get into. And I loved them. After my junior year, I came home in the summer and I got married and did an internship with Cigarney Foods. That was really fun. I went back to Iowa State to finish. I did it all in one semester, and I had classes from 9 a.m. till 9 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays,

and I drove from Washington to a.m. to finish my degree. Oh, my God. I would leave at like 5.30 or 6 in the morning and come home at midnight. But you know when you're young and in love? Yeah. You do crazy things. So, I finished there and came home and went to work for the FSA office here in town. Okay. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, LDPs.

And it was the whole reason I learned how to 90. I did LDPs from dawn till dusk. What year was that? Let's see, 2003. I graduated in December, so 2004. I started in January. And so I did LDPs in Washington, and then it was like at the time

they wouldn't hire somebody permanently. So I did them in Washington for 12 weeks and they laid me off for two weeks. Then I went to Malplasant, did them for 12 weeks, and then they laid me off. And I went to the Wiesa County, and then I came back to Washington. So I did that.

And I worked at the FSA kind of off and on for several years. Just they would shuffle me around. And then found out I was pregnant. And I just said never had plans to be a working mom. And so about the time they ended my term, I think, in January of 2006, I just stayed home that time, which was great. And actually at that time, the, rules had changed and rather than just coloring on a plat map and saying that's where I'm going,

they started to do some of the calculations for the Russell 2 and the PANDex. And my family had a barn. And so it was kind of like, hey, I went up to the extension office, worked with Tom Miller, got ours done. And he was like, hey, you're not bad at this. And I was like, you know, I kind of like math. And so the neighbor found out I did theirs. And they called and they said, hey, could you do our manure management plan? And pretty soon, Tom was like, hey, do you want to like do these? I'll start giving your name out. So he started giving my name out. So it kind of literally started at my kitchen table. Actually, we were remodeling a house. So it was a desk in the dining room next to our bed. That's where I started doing him because we were working on a farmhouse at the time.

I didn't know. I did not know that. You didn't. Huh. I didn't know that. That's how you started. So did you like, as you did more of them, were you like, okay, like this could be, this could fulfill a real need for a lot of hog farmers around? Like, did you like see it? Like when you started doing a lot more of them, where you're just like, all right, I need to really make this into something? When did that kind of like click for you? No, I'm more of the kind of a business owner that stumbled into it because I'm good at the thing. And then pretty soon I have more than I can handle. And then you've got to bring on a person. And so now I'm at a different position that I can step back and look and say, okay, this is where we need to be. But at the time, it was like, this is really fun. It's like a logic

puzzle for farmers. I can do this. It's just kind of like, and I'm so task oriented. You do one and then you're done. Like, it's fine. So at what point did you find out what somebody else, some of the companies that were doing it like what they were actually charging for it? And you went, Well, wait a minute. Yes. Was there one of those moments? Yes. Yeah, when I first started, I think I was, I think I was working.

I don't know. You probably were figuring on how many hours it took you to do it. Yeah, and I just, I was having fun. And I think that by the time I hired my first employee, I think I was doing enough that I was making like $14,000 a year doing it. And I was like, no. This is great. This is great.

Yeah. I wasn't even paying attention. I was just having fun. When you got to the point that you were doing it pretty much full time, what, well, I guess what year did you have your first employee? Or what year did you move off the farm and have an actual storefront where you did it? I'm trying to think. So I worked out of my house and then on the end of the house when we bought it was a room with

an external door. And I remodeled that. They actually had raised dogs in there. So I got it and remodeled it. And I had it, so I at least had an office outside of the house. Yep. And I hired my first employee there. I think Malachi was in preschool.

So I would have been like 2011 or 12. Really? Geez, I guess, so I built my first shed in 2010. And I guess I think when we did my plan, I think I did it over the phone. I don't think I ever. I remember when you did your first plane, your dad came to visit. And it was in my kitchen. So that would have been before I even modeled the garage because your dad came in.

So that's the only time I ever met him. Oh, yeah, because he had to sign everything. I just remembered the way that he said that there are other farms that are nice over, but this will do. Because he was just, he was so sweet. So I remember him being in my kitchen. When you guys talk about him, I always think I met him once. Yeah. Okay.

That's pretty cool. That's right. Well, and so. So then I was in my garage. Yep. And then in 2015, I moved to town. Okay. And it's kind of a funny story.

I mean, everything's, people come to the house, you know, it's the neighbors and stuff like that. And I think it was a Saturday morning at like seven. And I was upstairs in the shower. And I was like,

Mom, can you come down here for a second? Sure, I'll come down in my towel. He'd let the neighbor in. They had questions. In my kitchen. So we moved.

That was the, that was the aha moment. Yes, we do not need to be doing this from home anymore. This is not the way to do this. That's a whole. Yeah, so we moved to town. I rented a space under the Masonic Temple. It's like, it was a little tiny room. By the time we left there, we had two full-time employees and a

part-time person. Then I bought a building. Yep. Remodeled it and we moved there and we ended up adding another full-time person and just didn't have the file storage and just didn't have any space to work. Yep. So nobody wanted to work out of the basement. No. Actually, for a downtown basement, it was pretty nice. It was. Yep, you're right. It is pretty nice. And it got to the point that we just needed more space.

My realtor said, hey, we got this building that's coming up for sale. I knew the guys from the gym, from working out of the Y with them and the body works place. And I knew they were looking for space. And so I was like, hey, this has got office space. It's got space that could be your gym. Could this work for all of us? And it did. So we got them in first.

Yeah. So today, what's needy today? How many people do you have working for you? Okay. So there's three full-time on staff. There will be a fourth starting the beginning of remember. You've hired a boy, a man. Poor guy. I know. Poor guy. And then me. And then we got two part-time help a couple of high school worlds to help us out making copies and disinfecting boots and, you know, that kind of stuff. So I should have thought of this. I should have given you this ahead of time. So today, how many plans?

Do you have any idea how many plans you do on an annual basis? I think it's around 350. Yeah. It's kind of always fluctuating up and down. People are merging, people are splitting. New ones come in, someone retires. They close something.

I mean, it's kind of always fluctuating. We do less plans now as far as the number because a lot of stuff is consolidated. I think we calculated we're over 1.2 million pig spaces. It's a lot of manure. While Iowa corn farmers are working hard this fall, getting our crops out of the field,

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to increase ethanol share of the fuel tank, fostering industry connections and finding new uses for corn so when companies are looking for ingredients to replace petroleum, corn is the solution. Promoting corn in all forms and sharing farmer stories so you can continue to be the best producer on your farm. So this fall, remember that your investment in the Iowa corn checkoff benefits your family farm as well as the overall industry, creating long-term corn farmer profitability. To learn more, go to IowaCorn.org. Now let's get back to the podcast. Yeah, so explain like to somebody that doesn't know shit.

about manure management or manure management plans, like why do we as farmers have to have these plans? What goes into these plans? Like, what's the purpose? What's the map? Like, what goes all into it? I think it's interesting because I think the goal of the manure management plan is to calculate a correct rate for your crop usage for the nutrients. It's not really what we do anymore because it's become so regulated. We're really the people that are just getting all this paperwork in order and trying to keep farmers out of jail. It's kind of interesting because when we started, yeah, I mean, I was running numbers and we still do that. But we are so much more detailed now than where we were. When we started it was like get your crayons out and

color on the plat book. And we calculated your. always looking for like the dominant critical soil type. And um when we started, I mean, it was like, you had a book and a book that like the pages folded out. You looked at the dots and you said, yeah, that looks like about 10%. And then it came out on CD. And we were high tech. And it's amazing now because, I mean, and then it's like, okay, well now we use agribata all the time. It'll calculate your, your soils, types and the percentage that they cover. I mean, we're going down to the 10th or 100th of a percent to figure things. I mean, it's absolutely crazy. And it used to be just like, oh, those dots look about 10%. Yeah. Okay. So talk about that for people that

don't understand when you, when you're going out, so a lot of people, a lot of people that aren't particularly fond of animal agriculture make comments like that these farmers, we just go out there and we just pour this move on. It's just willy-nilly. Just, yep, just open the gate and go. They should come to my office to answer the phone because this has been the craziest fall we got people fighting over it fighting over to get manure yes yes because it's so valuable i just had a guy call me out of the blue from the clona area and i'm assuming he must rent he must have found some ground down this way to rent and he just asked me he said do you or anyone you know have any manure that they would think about not like do they have any it used to be people would know somebody

that probably needed to get rid of some manure. There's none of those people. Oh, no. And you're lucky if you still get some, even if you spoke for it. Yeah. His question was, do you or anyone you know, would they be open to the idea of maybe selling some manure is what he said? And I just thought that was pretty interesting.

And my answer to him was, no, no, I don't know anybody. I don't know anybody that doesn't have, already have three people that want the manure if they're not getting it. Right. Well, you guys are in like the best position because you have your own manure sources, your own buildings, and your own ground. Yeah. Which is absolutely ideal. So to roll back, when, when you're making up a plan, so soil types are very important in that. Yeah. And your, I'm assuming your proved up yield might be important to that. Although I don't know if it is or not for how the D&R. Yeah. Yeah. So how, for people that don't know, how does that work as far as the relationship between how much manure you're going to put on in soil type and the

the analysis of the manure? Okay. So we look at lots of different numbers and we put it together. So we're looking at your manure analysis. We got some guys that take them when they're pumping. We'll take some that will take a profile sample beforehand and stir it and send it in. So we look at those numbers. We look at how much your actual volume is. If you're using a manure analysis, you have to use the actual volume to calculate because you have a water problem. Your analysis comes back low, but you're pumping twice as much as you should be. So we look at that too. We look at soil types. We look at current phosphorus levels.

So what happens is we run a bunch of background calculations, and your field has to get a passing score to even get manure. A passing score is five or under. So we run all these background calculations, and then if the field, is okay, then we run a number for the manure, like the rate you could put on how many gallons an acre you can put on. And so with that, yeah, we're looking at the manure analysis. And then we are looking at either county average yields or your specific yields up here. Probably I would say in your category, proven yields are better. Because you guys have phenomenal soil. I farm in the southern part of the county. I use county average yields because those are going to give me a bump. So we're

looking at that. We also look at nitrogen availability. The rule say that you can use 90% available nitrogen the first year or a reliable source. We use University of Minnesota's because if you inject your manure with colters, then it's 70% available, which makes your manure application rate. You can go a little higher with that. So we just look at lots of different things. It kind of just depends on what a specific person is wanting. Yeah. Amazon presents Jeff versus taco truck salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero, more like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with

Amazon. Yeah, so at the end of the day, like in our situation, we have pretty good soil, which means the fertility level is pretty high and you're probably going to grow a better crop anyway. Plus we have proved up yields. We've been pretty lucky over the last, really over the last 10 years, our average yield has increased. So as your yield goes up, the amount of nutrients that that crop is taking out of the ground increases. And so if you have good soil, one, if you have good soil that can sustain a better crop, and you have those proved up yields, your need for fertilizer is higher, so thus you can apply more manure.

But I think a lot of people don't understand that both of those things have to work. So in other words, if you're farming somewhere, or you're picking up a farm that has poor quality soils and you have a lower yield, your application rate is going to be lower. And the amount of manure you can put on per acre is going to be less than somebody that has better ground and bigger yields. And so I get that. That's one of the biggest frustrations I have when people generalize what farmers are

doing out here because they see these massive tanks or they see these big drag lines and it stinks like hell and they think you know that we're just out there just not knowing what we're not knowing what we're doing and like in our situation we want we want every gallon manure that we can get put in the best place yes because serves no purpose otherwise absolutely right it it it it not help me one bit to overapply somewhere that I can't use it and then not have enough manure for another spot that you need it. It's kind of hard too. So you're talking, um, yes. So with better soil, higher yields, you need the nutrients. You got to feed your corn. If you're renting something new where the fertility is low and the ground is crappy, it's kind of a catch-22 there because

you need to build up your fertility. The problem is you have this limit, right? Right. And it's usually the steeper soil, the crappier soil, the smaller fields that are right down there by the creek. Those are the ones where when you get the soil test back and your phosphorus is like eight and you're like, or you're nitrogen and you need the nitrogen, but you're limited because what we do, I mean, your current phosphorus level affects it to get your field score.

They call that the PNX. To get that score, I mean, your phosphorus affects it really more than anything. Conservation and distance to the stream and slopes. I mean, that and your farming practices, that affects it even more than current nutrient levels. Yeah, we're lucky. We don't have a lot of that. We have very little slope. We think, like, it's so funny, because we just talked about this the other day.

So we farm with David Zezer, and he farms over God's country. God's country is on the other side of a north-south highway in Washington County. You are pretty close, I'm sure. We are very close. We're like on the edge. We're on the shelf where- I feel like you can come combine with me and then we'll talk about them. Well, exactly right.

But it's funny because when we talk to David, like when we're helping him farm, he'll talk about this waterway. Oh, yes, corn's not very good over here by this waterway or on this hillside. And this hillside is like, I don't know, maybe it's the size of this barn and it might slope two feet from where it is. And his waterway is like a piece of grass that's 40 feet long that runs into where he built a pond. And so we always laugh about that. When he comes over here, he says, he's like, oh, yeah, we got to go.

Because we have one field that actually does roll. And he's like, oh, yeah, we got to go do those hills and all those point rows. But our frame of reference is, yeah, you know, that's hilly. But yeah, you go someplace where you're actually limited because you have pretty aggressive slope, you have a lot of waterways, you have lower quality soil. So the manure management plan gets a lot more complicated. Yes. And I don't know whether this is a good time to talk about that or not, but has the DNR made any, have they made any changes in how, how they score stuff or how they're doing their process with the invention of this

variable rate that a lot of people are going to. When I sat with the DNR specialist out here, they told me they were aware that farmers do variable rate as long as the field averages out. With the DNR, it depends on who you talk to. Yeah. So I was told that. Another consultant that I know has been told that, no, you can never exceed. that max rate no matter what. So it's kind of one of those. It depends who's checking on what you're

doing that day. Yeah. So just to give people context, you're reporting all this data to the DNR. Some of it. Okay. So we turn in the minimum that you are required to turn in to pass because what we give the DNR goes into a public file. And I don't think that your private information should be public if I don't need to make it. So we give them the minimum. minimum. And then all the other supporting data is either kept in your on-site copy and also a copy in my office. So if the DNR would like to see it, they are welcome to come out and inspect it. But I just, I don't think anybody's information needs to be public, especially when there's so many activist groups that are just combing through it for things that are wrong. So we try to give them as little as possible.

Yeah. Well, that's good. That makes us feel better. For sure. So, but yeah, we gather it all. We keep it in your on-site copy. Yeah, the legal part of that. So like I, back to just, I'm sorry, I kind of just, I really want to give people like the context of how this all works because, you know, I love Joe Rogan, but like, I've heard farmers go on Joe Rogan, regenerative farmers go on Joe Rogan, and they talk about hog farmers with hog barns, and they talk about hog manure. And they make it sound like, especially lagoons, that all these people do is they spray it and they don't care where it goes

or they spread it and they don't care where it goes and they don't realize that we value it as much as we do. And I think the narrative that the public eye sees is that, yeah, us farmers don't know where we're putting this. We have no plan.

Nobody's holding us accountable and we're just laying this out here and it's polluting the earth and it's getting in streams and shit like that. And so, like the legal side. So what happens if a farmer doesn't kind of comply with their plan and they get screwed? Somebody finds out. Like what happens? Right. So there's usually an investigation. DNR will come at like a deer on-site copy and they'll come and see what's going on with that. They call it administrative orders. They can fine people. I think their fine start at $3,000.

They take it very seriously if you're applying on a field that's not in your interim management plan. They want to know that you've done the background work and that it's okay. I would say their thought process is to keep pollution out of the water, keep phosphorus from traveling out of the water. What TORC was talking about about things of changing, I think it's with the rules and the activist groups and everything that's going on now, what I am seeing with the DNR is the attitude is shifted. I mean, it used to be like, we're going to work with you a little bit more.

Let's make sure this is right. Let's do things the right way. We're going to work with you. And right now it seems to be paperwork focused. I mean, we go on the inspections. We are busy with inspections. We're doing three, four, five a week. Is this the most you've ever done?

Yes. I mean, it is absolutely insane. And we're doing all these inspections and they're focused on this paperwork. So basically they want to make sure that the forms that you submit to them, what they have on file, so like anything that they look at that is in their possession, their main concern is that when they go to the farm, all that paperwork is accurate. Yes. So that they have nothing that anybody can come back on them and say, oh, this isn't right.

And it's not a big picture. Like it's not a pull in and let's look at, um, you know, like, could we have a spill here, that kind of stuff? It seems to be a focus on the paperwork. I will say in the inspections that we do, there is a difference with the inspectors. Some of them are farmers and some of them are not that work that position. And you can see a huge difference. The people that have on-farm experience, I mean, they're regular guys and you're going to follow the rules

and don't you lie to them ever. But if there's a problem, let's get it fixed. or they're looking at the things that are important to see if there's any kind of spills, if there's any kind of leaks, if you've got a crack in your pit, you know, if you've got a tile line of stuff's running out and they're checking records. People that don't have that experience, it seems to be more in the interest of protecting the DNR from any outside scrutiny than about the farmer. The farmer.

Yes. That's got to make it a little dicey on your part as far as knowing. Because you're in the middle. You're in the middle there. You're like the buffer. We are kind of the buffer. Yeah, and I'll be, for full disclosure, so Rachel does the plan, our plans. And I am a firm believer.

If anybody, I've been, I've been inspected once and my, Rachel's told me that any day, I'm probably going to get inspected because it's been a while and is at the rate they're doing it. And, I mean, I feel like we're fine with that, but I do not want to be the point of contact. That's why I pay somebody like you. to do it because I have enough stuff going on and trying to stay up on what I should have and what paperwork I should have and all of that. It is valuable to me to have somebody that knows who's going to, you know, knows what they're going to look for, knows that I've got my paperwork done. And if there's something I don't have, they're going to call me, they're going to call me and say, hey, you need to

get me this because if you I don't people that do their own God bless you because I in the environment we are today I wouldn't it seems like you're kind of having a transition your business was it was a lot more simple in the beginning and now it's becoming more legal like it's become it you're like almost having it is that why you've had to bring on more people is just because the sheer amount of paperwork torque asked how things have changed they changed the rules in June in So these calculations, and it's funny because they keep changing the way they want them run. So we ran them the way I have state taught them. And then they said that wasn't right.

Now you've got to choose soil tapes based on K factors. So we switched to K factors because they wanted us to follow the detailed NRCS paperwork. Then the NRCS changed their paperwork back to the way we were running them. So then we changed them back. Now they changed the rules again in June. They want us to print out five maps for each field to show any kind of goaly erosion going on. and I have to print those and I have to save them with your file. And we have to run a calculation now for goal erosion.

And then we have to run the soil loss equation. And then when we get done with all that, we put all the data that we've collected. And then we run the score for the PNX. And so we're just spending hours and hours and hours on scoring these fields. And we have to to pass their inspections. So, yeah, if you're somebody doing it now by yourself. We've probably, their rule changes in June,

to run the calculations for your plan, and it's taking us at least twice as long. So as a business owner, what we're trying to do is, I mean, farmers are not getting paid anymore. Their expenses are going up. And our business operating expenses are going up. I mean, Alliance sent me a notice 15% increase over the weekend. So everything's going up there.

So we're always trying to figure out like, I mean, we've got to do two to three times the work and still trying to make a living wage. And we got to keep bringing people on. And the DNR did a study with these new rule changes. And they said a manure management plan should be over $2,000. for $2,400. And we're just, I mean, we don't want to do that to the guys.

Farmers don't need that. And it's just time spent to run more calculations to put the same fields in the plan where you're not wasting the manure anyway you need it. Yeah, I mean, that's one thing that's very interesting to me. Do you feel like all that's needed? Like, do you feel like all the changes that they've implemented all that's needed?

Or do you feel like it's maybe a little overboard? Just the amount of paperwork that they want with the file is ridiculous. Now, I think we have always worked really, really hard so that we're doing the work. I mean, I think that's why we've been successful. I think that's like now we're doing these inspections and they're going really well because we do the work. I would say if you were doing it yourself and just checking no changes every year and throwing it on the file, like in the filing cabinet, that's when you're going to get into trouble because they're coming back now and they're saying, well, I see you've had no changes, but your records say that you added the neighbor's field,

and you didn't let us know that. So, I mean, I think because we've already done the work, I just think that, yeah, they've added so much more, so much more just busy work with it, that it's not a benefit to the farmer's just an expense. So now is your tillage type? Is that, has that always affected your score of your, your score of your, fields? Yes, that's always affected your score. It's different now when we run those. I mean, you get the first, one of the first, the Russell II equation that we do, the first equation.

The very, very first when we run, it's based on your tillage work. And Russell II stands for a revised universal soil loss equation. And what they want to know is how much dirt's washing out of the field, because the phosphorus will stick to that and it'll go with it. Tillage work has always been a thing with that. But now, when we first, ran it. They said, okay, anytime you run a pass across the field, you're tilling up the soil, put it in there, it'll calculate it. Now the DNR is very concerned that we don't have sprayers in there. They will fail you if you don't have sprayers in there. Because of the track of the sprayer. They, there's a little label at the top that they like to see

in there that says you chose the right soil type. And if your file, when you saved your file, if you didn't save your file with an NRCS label on it, when it prints the report, it doesn't print that right little thing at the top. They'll flunk you on that. a flag. But it doesn't, you couldn't have all that data without having downloaded the file. So you obviously downloaded it, but it doesn't have that label. So if you change your file names. So it's, it's basically, little shit. Well, right, it's, it's technical paperwork. They want everything standardized one way so that there's no, even though, even though that's an example that if you did, if you did the plan, You had to get that map from them, but they're just making...

And the crazy thing about it is when we run these calculations, if you use a vertical tillage machine, I got some farmers, they use these big guys. They use vertical tillage. They said they've had a neighbor, call them in because their NRCs plans says no-tile five times in the last couple years, and there's always enough residue on the top. It counts as no-till.

Right. If I run that vertical tillage equipment in my, Russell 2 program, I mean, you might as well go out and plow. It's going to say the same thing. It's the same thing. Yeah. So it's not, the program itself is not consistent in the scores that it gives. And so it's really detrimental. Yeah. So that's an interesting. So, like in our case, we're no till. Do they, do you have to count the drag line machine as a tillage pass? I have to put liquid injector low disturbance. Okay. Yeah. All right. which is crazy because it makes the soil loss higher.

If you've seen, if you've seen those, I mean, you can't even hardly tell other than the stripes. Right. He doesn't move to anything. Right. Well, that's the idea. I mean, they're engineered to do that. That's why they use that, that wave coulter and inject it right behind it.

But that's interesting. I think this, I guess I wanted to go back for people that are listening or watching that don't know much about the manure side of it. I think we were rolling. We were talking about this, but yeah, we were about the value of it. As far as for people that are grain farming that don't have their own animal facilities,

those guys are all looking for manure. In our county, there is not a gallon of manure that I, I mean, unless you're just somebody that nobody wants to work with, there is not a gallon out there that doesn't get used that doesn't well that doesn't have three other people that will take it if you can't use it i mean people are on the hunt to get manure i they will they will put it on wheels like they will put it on tankers 15 miles and truck it to get it to where they want it and as a as a hog producer i think this is maybe lost on people but you were talking about your costs for the time that you've got to do it and power going up and you know

everything in wages going up the hog farmer is the same way in the fact that i have a barn that's 14 years old sawyer has a barn that's four years old we get paid the same for those barns his cost way more than mine cost but our taxes our utilities our insurance our labor repairs, everything that goes into those barns has gone up considerably, depending on when you built that. And we have no control over that. And we get paid the same. Literally, one of the only things that we get out of those barns that we can actually, the value has increased is the manure. If, and if you're a guy that's not grain farming, you really can't capture that. Although one thing that has changed, is when I built my first barn, manure was something that if you were lucky, if you couldn't use it,

you were lucky if you got somebody that would take it for the cost of the hauling. When we first started, we had to pay half the hauling to get rid of it. That's right. I forgot about that. A lot of guys were that way. Well, today, probably if you're giving it away, you probably shouldn't be giving it away. You can probably sell it. You can probably sell it for for something maybe over the cost of the haul. We do a lot of calculations for the guys. I mean, if we do their manure management plan, they'll call us and they'll say, you got my manure analysis.

Here's what commercial fertilizers were today. What's my manure worth? Yep. The most common sales price that I have seen for manure is the receiving farmer will pay for half the value, and that includes the trucking or includes the application. Yeah. So if your manure is worth $200 and $800. they'll pay 100 for it it cost him 60 to put it on yep they'll pay the hog farmer 40 bucks look at that okay

i'm not paying that's some insider shit right there i'm not paying you though yeah that's all right i'm still taking yours for free that's okay i'll let you know but i mean that's 100% right so why does why does that why is that change so much so when we started was it just not out of the bag yet that it was so valuable like why in the beginning commercial fertilizer prices yeah okay so it could just cost i mean it's a huge difference. Because it's like, I feel like everybody's known it's valuable. But the other difference is people haven't. So another thing is the guys that had sheds, didn't tell anybody how good it was. No. Well, I don't think you had a lot of small guys that were mad at the guys that had big sheds and they weren't trying to help them out. Right. That's true too. But the longer that you, the longer that we've

seen it on our farm. The benefit of a long term. So we had, we had hogs the whole time growing up, we had, we had hogs. We had 160 sows fairer to finish and then we had 400 sows fairer to finish for just a little while. And but all that manure we weren't utilizing it because we were hauling it. We were hauling it in the fall and we were discharging it on top of the ground. Right. And we weren't doing it with any consistency. Once in a while we had somebody tanked it. And you probably put it all out in the flat right out back. Yeah, because when you're in a hurry, you hold it. And you can still see that today. Like if you look at our maps, our soil maps as far as organic material. It is the highest. It is the highest right back here behind these hog buildings because that's where he started hauling all the time.

And the residual buildup of that is that's where the highest organic matter is back there. You can always see those. People will bring in, yeah, I bought an 80. It's a whole flat field and you'll get the test back and you'll be like, well, that's where the house used to be because it's hot right around. You know, when they had horses and stuff, they weren't trying to haul it to the back of the people. That's exactly right. Right now right outside the barn. But I think, guys, so we knew when as soon as we, as soon as we started having that manure injected, not so much in good years, but in poor years, the quality of the manure as a fertilizer is better than commercial. Yes. And now then guys have figured that out. You see so many of these guys

larger grain farmers that are willing to pay to have the manure because it's a better value. I think so what I see there ends up being a huge difference in the grower as far as value. And I would say if you have an older barn and if you are getting your own manure, like it's your value, but you're paying somebody to apply it, it's probably a good idea to look into changing to the new feeding and watering systems because there's a huge difference in the buildings that are 10, 12 years old versus the ones that are three or four years old. And if you're paying an extra, you know, you're paying for twice as much or a third. more water hauled out. I mean, it's just an incredible difference. Yeah, and it's also,

it's that's, if you're the guy that's getting the manure, uh, looking for the cheapest cost per pig space for someone to chore your barns might not be the best value when it comes fall and the pits full and you wonder why. And then it's full again in the spring. Might have a, might have a few leaky nipples. I think that's one of the biggest. You could, you could pay someone an extra, you know, make him a full-time employee and pay him an extra $10,000 or $20,000 a year and you'd still come out ahead. I think that's one of the biggest overlooked things in the hog business right now is the cost of labor is his driving a lot and guys that are triplet triple net lease and barns, the cost of repairs, the cost of hauling that extra

water. Those two things, if you are just looking for the bottom dollar per pig space to get that barn chored, you're probably, you're probably getting screwed. It'll bite you because. There is a huge difference when they come in. You can tell if it is an owner chored barn. Yep. Or if they have somebody contracted that's not very good. Yep. Exactly right. It is a huge difference. And nobody sits down and does the math and thinks, gee, if I didn't haul an extra 300,000 gallons of water every year. Yep. How much difference it would be in the bottom dollar.

Yeah. That's crazy to think about. Like, we've just sat and thought about that and talked about that, but you actually have, like, the data to know. Yeah. That it's a difference. It is a huge difference. So, like, to summarize, just for the consumer that doesn't know shit about animal

ag that might hate. Your profanity is spot on today. I know. I've been pretty good so far. You've been using that one. I've only said, I've only said, I've only said, I've only, one of the best things about my job. You can make all the shit jokes you want.

Yeah. That's right. That's a plus. Side note, I don't know if you've got a new one out for this year or not. We do. But Rachel has gotten pretty good at every year there's a new Kne-deep Solution T-shirt. It's some variation of shit matters, shit happens. This year it says get your shit together. Get your shit together.

And I mean, it's perfect because that's her business is literally getting your shit together. She's got a good merch game. We put them on Super Soft T's. Everybody likes some of the bad news is, my kids try to wear them to school other people's kids try to wear them to school. That's where you get in trouble. Yep.

Yep. That's probably right. Or the guys come back in and they say, well, my wife really liked my shirt. So I'm going to need another one. Yeah. No, that's kind of my case. Yeah. Kat takes that shirt.

She's got that shirt. It's a soft shirt. So it's a bed shirt. Yep. It's just a sin to go to the hog building with that thing. I mean, it's on brand, but I don't know. But anyway, to recap, I just want to let people know, like, if you don't know much about animal acts,

and like you've heard of the manure and you think we're just applying this stuff and not not knowing what we're doing it is in our best interest to keep as much manure as we can and apply it in the best spot because it's so valuable and we can get in trouble if we just run around and don't have a plan and we can get fine or I mean have people gone to jail for it I don't think you're going to jail no no well if you have guys have gone to jail yeah but you know we try to keep them from getting fine too. Yeah. In the state of Iowa,

I think you correct me if I'm wrong, but at some point, they will not give you a manure management plan or you'll have to change ownership in that building to get a manure management plan if you fail it. Like if you, if you, if you have enough violations, is that right? I don't know.

I guess I can't speak on that. Well, you take too good of care. Yeah, I was going to say, you never have that for all your people. Yeah. You've never had that happen. That's one of the things I think from growing the company small up. And that's even, that's hard as we get bigger because, like, I personally care about all the farmers. We all have stories.

I mean, your Torks over here, you're talking about the last time you had an inspection. And I think to myself, you bring that up and I think, well, I think that was like in a March. We want to edit that shit out because somebody at the DM, will be listening to it. Yeah. It was a good one though, Torque. I mean, it was one of the classic ones. I think it was like March or February.

And the ground hadn't thawed and it had been raining for three days. And the DNR said, hey, let's go look and see if that towel's got water coming out. So we walked in knee-deep water that was freezing cold all the way down the waterway. And guess what? It was underwater. Yeah. So we had no idea. And we looked at it.

And to Rachel's credit, I was there for the inspection. And when the DNR officer said, I think we'd like to go find that tile. I said, knock yourself out. I got stuff to do. So you go do it. And so Rachel and the officer went. And I was like, I'm not going to worry about it because I know she's got it.

We've done. We've hiked out like a mile through when it was, had been dry all summer. And they're like, let's go see if water's coming out of that tile. We went down a mile and it was like 110 degrees and guess what? It was dry. Yeah. I mean, we've done some crazy things. I've had a guy had water coming out.

They did an inspection, and he had a tile line around his building, and he went down and water was coming out, and they said, is it clean? And he went down and took a drink. There's more to life than finding the perfect car. But finding the perfect car can help you get the most out of life. Like the SUV that handles everything from drop off to off road, and the car that hulls groceries and hockey teams,

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That is fucking funny. One thing we didn't talk about and we should is this isn't very relevant right now because very few people are actually trying to build new hog buildings. There's a few, but not very many because very expensive. don't cash flow very well. But if you decide that you're going to build a new site, you're going to build a building, what is the process? And by that, I mean, you can't just build a building if you don't have acres where that manure can go. So in other words, to build a building, you have to be able to get a manure management plan. Yes. So what's that, what's the timetable for that process?

Okay. So this is my favorite part of what I do, I think. I've always done the new construction. It's a lot of fun because I think in my job, it is the job that you can do well that makes the farmer the happiest is when they're putting it up. Everybody's full optimism. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. So, I mean, I would say, so to do a manure manager plan to start with, I mean, you've got like a 30 to 60 day waiting period of the DNR. So it depends how fast people get paperwork to me.

and by law one nice thing about the state of Iowa and I don't know if all states are like this but when you submit your plan they have to give you an answer within so much amount of time correct 60 to 90 days depending on which plan it is and they usually turn them around quicker than that

yes well they would be now because they don't have very many to do there was a time there was a time when when there was a lot of buildings going up I think it's because of the quality of sales, salesmen out there that were doing it. There were so many bodies going up. Pat yourself on the back. Like, they were swapped. Right.

There was a time when, I mean. I think in 2017, I think we did more than 35 new barns that year. And it was a majority of them were kids that were coming home from college. And dad was like, hey, this is the year or they're in college and we're going to put this barn up. I mean, there was a pile of them in one year. Yeah, well, it used to be the ticket to bring another generation back to the farm. And I asked, we've said it many times on here, but I'm always asking people, you know, what's the next thing that's going to get another generation started?

Because today it's not the hog building. I think as a farm kid, it's one of those things that you can really, made me really proud to be able to help those. And it's something you can kind of cheer for, for all these dads would come in and they say, my son's in college, we're going to do this manure management plan, we're going to put up another barn, and then he's going to be able to come home. And there was so many of them. And it was, it was just so fun to be able to help families keep their kids on the farm. Yeah. And that's, to the credit, you know, the county we live in, we're very lucky that there's amount,

there is the amount of young people in ag, part of that do, well, all of that really do, to animal agriculture in Washington County. The county itself, supervisors have been really good with that. I mean, we've worked with lots of different counties. We've done counties where there's activists that hate us. Personally, I've heard some counties. Personally, I find those fun because I don't lose to the activists. And I don't think that the people in town have any right to tell you what to do on your farm.

We're going to make it work. So those have been fun. I mean, we've done some of those where they get absolutely crazy. and they tell you that pigs are smarter than people and we shouldn't even eat them. I mean, it has nothing to do with a specific farm. But Washington County itself has been really great because they've always been like,

you just follow the rules and we'll give you the green light. But don't ask for exceptions because then if people start complaining, then we've given you special treatment, but just follow the rules and have at it. And they've been really, really good. So when you look in the future of your business and just with the regulation and all that,

do you feel like they're going to keep pushing the envelope? Can they keep pushing the envelope on all that they require, making it more expensive on you, make it more expensive for the farmer? Or do you feel like we've kind of hit our point of like they can't really go any further? Is there a happy medium to be had? I think they've pushed it past that.

Okay. I would say in the time that I've been doing this, when I first started, if we did an inspection, they were going to write you up for something. It didn't matter what it was. And I mean, if you look at the broad scope of things, they're always going to find something that they can write up. And they used to always do that.

Then they went through a phase where they were working with the farmers for compliance. They were working with the farmers. And now we've kind of swung back completely the other direction. Only this time, it's very different. It doesn't seem, it seems like it's up to the individual inspector to interpret things. It's kind of all over the place. It depends on who you have. It seems like there's a lot of inconsistency with like software and the paperwork and the people doing it.

Like do they have like a code that like they all have, you know? They do. Well, we have the code. But I mean, it's kind of up to some of it's up to interpretation. Yeah. The things that I'm seeing. So there's some stuff that I'm seeing right now that I would say it's changing. We talked about variable rate.

They told me before. as long as you hit the field average, we understand that there's places that the crops are going to be better, you're going to need more, and there's crops are going to be worse, and you're not going to put as much. And it's actually in the best interest for the environment if you're putting it where you need it.

And now they're saying that you can't ever cross that rate ever. Well, if you're going to do that, then you're going to put that max rate the entire field because that's what they're going to let you do. They used to allow a 10% overreach when you apply manure. because say I write you a rate and you can put on 4,257 gallons. A lot of guys, they still have an old tanker. And then, well, this tank has about this many gallons in and I covered about this many

acres and let's do the math. The opinion now is that the 10% overage rule is not an effect because it wasn't a rule. It was just kind of a, they gave you some leeway. And you know, and I've heard from guys that do equipment that when they calibrate it, they're plus or minus 15%. You can't be to the exact gallon. There's no way you could do that. But so the fact that they're looking at stuff like that is kind of like they don't

seem to understand that you can't get the perfect math number on paper in the field. Sounds like they need to talk to more farmers. Yes. When it comes to writing up the rules. I would say that. And I would say that maybe it's because as the leadership shifts, there's not as much farming background. Just in general with Iowa, there's not as much farming background.

Well, we've seen that a number of industries. There's less people that have the experience and the knowledge. They're on boots on the ground that... Common sense that can fix... Yeah, there's just not... It's just not there. We had a gut. We had...

I don't remember where... We weren't on here. A guy said to me, this is the best... This is like the best quote for that. He said, common sense is not a very common thing. Yes. And today in just about all...

All businesses, that is 100% true. whatever your, whatever your specialty is, having people that have knowledge of that business, that have common sense, it's very difficult to find. So do you feel like the best stage that you've seen with the changes of the DNR and just regulations and stuff is when they were working directly with the farmer? Like, do you feel like that was the best stage? When their goal was, I think they were like coached to compliance, I think was more their goal and now it seems to be more like show that the DNR is important. So do your job.

I will say you do want the DNR, not the EPA. Yes. So there is a balance to that. Yeah. They are definitely better to have local control over that. Yes. But yeah. And when you were talking about things that have changed as they've gotten stricter with this new rules. The governor actually, I think, asked for less rules. And so they just took some wording out of the rules, got rid of a bunch of the double rights. But a lot of things have changed and they have gotten, you know, with the calculations, they've gotten more strict. One thing that would affect you guys now is if you were going to,

to make your buildings one site, you have to get a construction permit, even though you're not building anything. Really? If you buy your neighbor's site now, you've got to get a construction permit. If you're in Jefferson County, to get a construction permit, you have to do a master matrix. So, wow, that's crazy. So, and you, so if you, so it's possible. So, I mean, I guess it would be unlikely, but it's possible.

that if you tried to, if you had one of those deals where you had multiple family members that owned Barnes within a farm and you wanted to consolidate that one person bought them out, so you had to do a master matrix. You could not pass. Yeah, you could end up not passing to have a permit on sites that are all existing. Is that right? And I can see where, you can stand back, you can see where, okay, it is a good plan to make people plan ahead if they're just trying to get around the rules. But I have a lot of guys where dad own

one's barn, son owns one barn, tax purposes, they're separate, income purposes, they're very separate. Right. And it's because, you know, they each have their own thing. And so what happens someday when dad passes away and son can't own the barn right next to his because I guess you better not smother me with a pillow anytime soon. I don't plan on it unless you piss me off. Maybe we should just get, maybe we should just take all the water out of the manure and just not have, not have to apply it. Yeah, let's do it. I'm ready. What, we're getting close on this. I wish I could say that we had a machine sitting there to do it. But what, how do you think, has there been any thoughts? Is that anywhere in the conversation, the idea that, uh, the industry could move to where we separated

this manure and got the water out of it to where we were just applying dry manure? I mean, besides you guys, there's talk. Some of our guys have come in and told us that they're talking about some digesters and stuff like that. I mean, I think it's interesting. There's always, like, innovations and stuff that are interesting. I think it's more interesting what you guys are doing, like, on a local, like, specific farmer. I think that's where the biggest change would happen. interested for these guys that are going to do a bigger thing.

I'm interested to see how it works. Hopefully for them it works. I don't think it has in other situations. I mean, it could be something phenomenal. I think there's a bonus to that. You're going to bring a lot more income to the farm, which they need. If you stand back and look at it, I think if you tank your manure 20 miles and then you tank your cornstalks 20 miles and then you get your dry stuff back, which may or may not be as good

is your wet stuff, and then you don't have any organic matter that you're mixing into your soil. Right. Is it the environmental benefit that outsiders see? I don't think so. That's kind of what scares me about it. But I am very, I. But if someone can be creative and come up with some way to do it and add value to the manure and to the farm, then, yeah, that's a bonus too.

So, I mean, there's two sides to that. Yeah. Well, I think we got to get creative because it all, goes back to how are we going to, how are we going to continue to get more value to the family farm so that it can stay the family farm. And that's, that's definitely. I mean, we talk about that all the time on here. That's why we're doing all the shit we're doing. So are you optimistic about your business and just manure management? And do you feel like it's just going to keep going up as far as cost to operate and regulations are going to get more strict or do you feel like I don't see the

government ever backing down in regulations yeah I mean that would be great and do you think I think from a personal it's such a weird thing because from a personal perspective I do not think the government should be involved near as much I mean back off and let us do our jobs but on the other hand what I do becomes so much more important when the other side is in control and then the regulations go up then what I do becomes even more important. Right. So. Yeah.

And that's the thing. I feel like it's for us farmers. It's like it's not like we don't want to have any rules. Like I think it's good to have rules and somebody keeping us accountable. So we're not just throwing the shit out there. But we all got to operate and make money at the end of day too. I think in 18 years that I've been doing this, I had one guy come in and say, I'm going to put up a 2400.

I said, okay, I got 40 acres. Nice. Can take a few more. that. Nice. Like, he literally thought he was going to put on 40 acres. So. Yep.

Well, and I, the one thing I think everybody that isn't involved in animal agriculture can take some heart in is the economics of the manure, that is a powerful enough, uh, input that the incentive is to do it right. I mean, there is zero incentive to overply manure because it's too valuable and the cost of commercial

is too great. So you're kind of beating the horse. Or just spray it or just dumping in a fucking stream. Like there's no value. There is no value. There's no value. So both to the farmer that is actually raising hogs and to all the people that are only crop farming, I mean, the incentive is there, regardless of regulation to use it correctly. I mean, I mean, we're, the economics of today are just too, everything's too expensive to mismanage your resources. So I think that's. And a lot of the people that have manure management plans, I mean, you're kind of in the middle category. You're, you're big enough that you have a manure management plan.

You're not big corporate owned. Exactly right. So these guys in the middle, they're the ones that fall in the rules anyways. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And do you, your reasoning as to why you think it's getting more. there's more regulations is because like the DNR's getting a lot more pushback now from just

activists it's just ramping up the just the conversations and stuff so I think and I think that to protect the state to protect themselves they have to scrutinize things much more the bad news for the farmers is that I mean it's not the things where the pollution's really going to happen right if there's an issue yep well you always talk about on here lawn care Oh. Everybody wants to blame the farmer for shit running in the water and creeks, but everybody's fucking putting on... Go to every cul-de-sac and gated community in the state of Iowa or anywhere in the country and ask those guys, how many pounds of nitrogen? Are you putting on your grass? Per square foot you're putting on your yard. I will guarantee you it is off the charts. And all that shit? Nobody regulates it. Washes right off, right into the gutter. That guy, that guy that guy that ran the damn water treatment in Des Moines, they finally.

got him out of there. But that dumbass, I mean, he, he was 100%, and I'm taking full editorial responsibility for this, but, you know, all of that shit about, uh, the Des Moines Waterworks having to spend all this money to remove all the nitrates from the water that were coming down the river. And they're blaming 100% on farmers. Yeah. And I'm like, look in your backyard, look at all of the people and all the communities upstream. Because people don't give a second thought. They want their yard to be as green as their neighbor. There's no, and I'm not, I'm not, I mean,

if it wasn't for the fact that I hate mowing and I can't wait for my yard to die, because somebody asked me the other day, it's like, what is it with farmers that they think that they need to mow so much grass? Like, why do you mow everything? Like, they mow the ditches, they mow around everything. I'm like, I don't know,

it's a curse that our ancestors put upon us to have all these yards. I don't know why. We started back when they were bailing it all. Yeah, we got rid all the sheep and I don't want to bring them back. But, you know, if I didn't have that perspective, if I live somewhere like that, yeah, you would want your yard to look good and green and all that. But the amount of overapplication of fertilizer in residential areas of America, nobody even knows that number.

It's off the chart. It is interesting because, I mean, not even just the fertilizer application, but, you know, when you build a building, we get caught up in stormwater discharge permits, meaning you can't let you dirt wash away, right? I did one for one of my farmers on the outside of Fairfield. He was building a 1,200. We did it just to cover him. Someone drove through his property and drove all the way to the back

and took pictures that they thought dirt was washing off of his construction site. And so the DNR came out and checked that because, you know, he had berms, he had a waterway, he had a pond, he had so many things in place before anything would leave. and let's be honest, you paid too much money for that top sale. It's not going anywhere anyways. You're going to guard it. Exactly. So we do that.

But on the way out there, you're driving through town, and they're doing some sort of subdivision, and the whole hill is washed down into the ditch. Yep. We'll give them the thumbs up. Yep. Because it's urban development. Yep.

Absolutely. I mean, it's just. It is double standard. It's not the same. It's double standard. It's a complete double standard. It's bullshit. How do you do it?

How do you keep all this going? So you, you not only, own this business, but you... I've rock stars that work for me. Yep, but you also have real estate because you've got this building that you ran out to other people, plus you're raising a youngster, plus you're raising a teenager. Yes. So on the one hand, you got at least somebody that looks up to you. I took over farming for my dad. Okay, so how's all this balance? How do you make it all work? Yeah, I'm not very good at that right now. I will let you know when I figure it out. So I have a manager at work. She is phenomenal. She just took over for me, Taylor. And I would say that the benefit right now

is that in my company, I have people that have been, our group farm kids or have had farming experience, and they all have this small town, Iowa country work ethic. They are amazing. And we have such different complimenting personalities. Hillary's at the front desk. A girl is amazing. She, She is very scheduled and we always know what's going to happen. And she just gets stuff done. And she's just, I mean, I can drop stuff on her. And she's just like, says, sure. And she smiles at me.

And then it's just done. Can we need one of them? I know, you need one of them. You cannot have Hillary. No. So Taylor took over the management. And she is so good with people. And she just has, she's just incredibly intelligent.

She's so good with people. And so she just handles stuff that normally would stress me. She's just like, yeah, I got it. And then Hunter works. for me. She's a trained livestock judge. She graduated from Oklahoma State. She's phenomenal. Okay. And she has this grace when she speaks to people. And she just, I mean, she's just so sweet. She smiles. And she's so phenomenally good at just numbers and saying, hey, what do you need help with and getting things done? So I've got this good team behind me. So my dad, and I say retired,

farmer retired. Yeah. You're never going to get him fully retired. No, no. So he's retiring. and he actually, yeah, he actually just retired a couple years ago. He'd been saying he was going to do it for about 10 years, you know. And so I'm doing the farm work there. I've been combining him with him for a while and doing some of the stuff. But technically, now it's my baby. So I'm able to be out a lot more this fall. And I think the number one thing for me is to have a good team behind me.

I think the biggest thing has been when I hired, I got some advice from a local businessman and he said have multiple conversations with people and I have good people and they're and they have learned what we do but their intentions are pure their heart is pure they're intelligent and they and they just care about the farmers that we work for so having this good team behind me then we got high school girls and they are really really awesome we harassed them yep to no end so and then we're adding another manure management planner here in november hired a gentleman that just finished at the university of iowa he's local farm kid. You finally got somebody smarting in there.

Yep. Just Iowa State. I don't know what he's going to do when we hang our big state flag in the front window. He'll have to hide. So we're going to add another person. And I restructured a couple years ago. Yep. So with the changes and with the things that are going on,

I kind of saw that we were going to have to shift what we do. Previously, we'd kind of run it in stages. Stuff came in. it went to one person they ran the calculations and went to the next person they did the near management plan. So the problem is with these inspections and stuff that we're doing and just the amount of work that we're doing now and people calling in a need and add fields quick, they changed all these calculations. So you have to know the business from top to bottom, all of us. And so what we're doing now is we did territories. Yep. So you run your own calculations from the ground up. So you're

not calling torque twice or three times and saying, hey, I know so and so I, That won't do any good anyway. Maybe call or. Maybe I won't call you back. Right. More territories, but then so we can cover for each other, the restructuring has been really good. It makes all of them really good at their job because they all know what to do from top to bottom. So if someone's on vacation, any of us can cover.

It might take us a minute to look up the details, but we can cover and we can do whatever you need to do. The real estate thing, I'm on my fourth house. third building. It's fun. I think my dream job would be. I'd come in and fix old farmhouses, especially the square ones. I love to work with what you got.

Yep. The last building that we did, we have a, it has like an old painted floor and people are like, oh, we love your floor. Well, we tore up the carpet and that was there, so we sealed it and we went on. Yep.

And people think that, so you just work with what you got. The old farmhouses, I think there's so much character. I love, you know, crooked floor. and you just work with it. So that would be my dream job. So do you see yourself,

would you like to grow knee deep to the point that you could retire yourself from it? Or is it, or so what is your passion that you'll stick with? Do you think you'll stick with the farm and? Do you think you'll stick with knee deep? Or are you just going to try to do it all for as long as you can? I'm not in the office as much right now. and so I'm available by phone.

The girls call me. And I'm trying to be in the office two to three days a week. If there's a big influx of new construction, of course I'll be there more. But right now, the girls have everything under control. And so I'd like to have some more variety just because I just like to do different things. I'd love to help redesign some stuff and do more of that kind of stuff. But everybody does it now because H-T. TV is popular. I did it before that was popular, but I'm trying to not be at work as much too because,

I mean, in the past, I would say four or five years ago, I would work six or seven days a week just because, I mean, I loved it, but we had so much to do. You felt the pressure. Yeah. And I don't ever want to let one of my guys down. If I got to get it done, I got to get it done. And it does now. It's just different. Yeah. So I've had this learning curve of letting go and somebody else handle it. and having really good people to take care of it. So it sounds like you're finding, you might be finding balance. Yeah.

So farming with my dad, he sold his cows. So that makes a difference. I'm just crop farming with him. So that's different. And so that gives me a little more free time. I'm doing it a little different than he does, not doing the spraying ourselves, you know, taking some of the busy workout.

So I'm mostly just doing the tillage and the planting and the harvesting. Yep. So, and then as far as like all the little rug rats, my daughter's a senior this year, so this has been different. It's kind of, kind of better sweet. Like, we're enjoying this and, and how old's the second one? Malachi is a sophomore. He's 16. So it's got to be interesting, because I don't know what this is like. So with my kids, I got, I was, you know, I was dad, I was really, really smart and then I was okay and then I got really really stupid all at the same time because there's not that much difference between them and then slowly I've gotten smarter but you you're

lucky enough that you are at one point you're probably as dumb as you'll ever be but yet you have the youngest one that you're still the greatest person in the world so that's got to be that's a little bit of balance that you're not having everybody look at you like you're stupid at the same time I pull in at the end of the day to grab him and he's at daycare and he's jumping up and down screaming mom, mom, mom. And I mean, that is literally the best, the best feeling you can ever, ever have. Then you can go home and not do something. Then I can go home and annoy my teenagers.

Yep. How dare you ask me how my day was? Yeah, exactly right. They'll grow out of it. Yeah. I think learning to farm with your parents, learning to farm with your dad. Yeah. I mean, I call him and ask him questions like, okay, so I put some corn in there and

the moisture's 15 and turn the fan on. Okay, so yesterday it was a lower humidity. Today the temperature is supposed to be higher. Which one do I want if I turn my fan on? Because I don't know. Yeah. I've never done that stuff before. Right.

I just even before, you know, like I ran the combine. Yep. I didn't have to think about that stuff. So you just realize, man, that man's an encyclopedia. Yeah, they really are. And within every, within every farm, there is so many things that, uh, I don't know.

It's like... The little tricks to get things to work. Oh, yeah, I got to hold your tongue just right for that. Yeah, like this gas out here. Dad's like, oh, just find a rock on the ground, and then prop it up there just right and it'll hold the handle and you don't even have to hold the handle anymore. Yeah, it's like, just find a really nice rock.

I'm like, all right, that's the trick, huh? Yeah. I think we actually did a video like that about the pet rock. Yeah. Like, anyway. That would be a fun clip. I would like to see. all the little tricks on people's farms are how they get things done.

Yeah, and it's good. That's my advice to anybody, like for you, farm with your dad, is there are no dumb questions, and you ask them everything you can because... I actually got a little notebook and stuck it in the glove compartment in my truck, so every time he tells me something, I'm like, I got to remember that. I just write it down because... I can probably tell you what fields we put in your plan 14 years ago. I can't tell you what I ate yesterday.

Well, no, that's how I am too. And that's probably a good idea because you've, you know, you show me how to fix a heater once. And then you come across the heater again, and it's got a different problem now. And you're like, oh, I kind of remember how we fixed it the first time, but this is a little bit different. I'm going to do these first two steps, but now I don't know what the hell I'm doing. And I think like with the bins for me, I think I have to try to remember that next fall. Yeah. That's a long time from now. Every time I get in the grain cart, it's like, all right, yep. Okay, yeah, I've remember now. Yep. Yeah. What's next?

What's next? Do you have something that is a goal of yours that you're working towards? I want to try to flip a house. It scares me. I don't have the time right now. I would love to do it, and I'd like to do a farmhouse. I just think that would be so much fun. I've gotten to help when people are doing offices and stuff like that.

And so everything that I've done as far as space has always been, you've got to look at what works for you. I don't care what the design is. You just got to go with what screams your name and what works for you. So when people say, oh, I love the art, how did you choose that? Well, I walked into the store and it was like, that's what I got to have. And we built around that. So I've had some fun.

I've gotten help out with some offices and stuff. and you get to ask, like, what are you doing in here? How are you going to get in and out of this all the time? You know, if you put your desk there, you're going to have to go around it. Every time you come in and out, are you in and out a lot? Like that, I mean, just kind of questions and house things like that. I think that would be really, really fun. I think, honestly, right now, what next for me is to try to slow down,

to not take on what's next. Get my daughter to college and do all the senior stuff with her. She'll run track. She just finished volleyball. She's going to run track. She's very, very, very smart. Talking about being an architect. So we've been visiting colleges,

went to K-State, went to Missou. I'm learning that since she's a senior, I mean, I was home with her when she was little, and I was slowly building up. But once it got busy, I missed a lot. So I'm trying to be home a lot more, or at least be on the farm so that she can be there. She got in the other day and I was combining,

and she always gets in and turns on the Christmas music. It's the most wrong thing ever. She gets in and she's, uh, our combine. I mean, it's, it's new enough that, you know, like, that you can hear the radio. You can hear the radio, old enough that in order to hear it off your phone, you know, you got to plug in your little cigarette. Oh, yeah.

It's got like the little thing and it sends it up to the radio. She gets in and she's like, I'm like, I don't even know how this thing works, you know. It doesn't come straight on my phone and Bluetooth. I don't know what to do. Yeah. She's like, oh, and so she rigs it up and turns on Christmas music. and so yeah sounds like a girl after my wife's heart

malachi's going to play golf so we got a lot of that to watch and Colt's just Colt he's wild how do people get how do people find you yeah I was going to ask you this so if anyone is out there

and they aren't happy with whoever's doing the manure management plan now or they're doing it themselves and they're tired of it how can they reach out to you and then what are some what are some first steps that you would take with them to kind of get them started? So we have a website and you can call our office.

Either one's fine. It's just needype solutions.net. And then most of the time I like to sit down with the guys. Again, it's not me anymore doing it all the time, but you'll come in and sit down with one of us and bring your current manure management plan and we'll go over it and we'll say, hey, these are things that we would see that we would change. This part looks really good. And then just kind of discuss, you know, what they want.

I think one thing that that separates us, I said we do the work. So we see our guys every single year. We're not just see us for the four-year update and throw it on the shelf company because, you know, then when the DNR calls, it's a scramble. And they can technically, any time during business hours, inspect without notice. So you've got to be ready. So we see our guys every single year. We go over it every single year. Every time you send us soil samples, we're updating things. You send us manure analysis. So we see our guys every year. We go to them. If they want us to, we can, you know, do a phone conference and send things electronically to make it easier. We can work anywhere in Iowa. So there is a bonus if you do go to the office. They do usually have snacks. And Rachel has a top notch cookie recipe. I don't get. That's taking us back to our. That's been a while. I know. So long, long, long ago. I don't even know how long ago that would have been. But I don't.

I used to do a lot of service work when I first started in the hog building business, and I went to a sow unit that Eichelberger's owned, and Rachel's husband at the time worked there. And you two might not even been married then. When he first started working there, I don't know if you two. We weren't married when he were here. Yeah, probably not. However, before I knew you knew you, I just knew you as the girlfriend of somebody

that brought these chocolate chip cookies to the Sout unit. That was how I was like, oh, I don't know that girl, but you better hold on to her because she could cook and that is a good cookie. I'm kind of putting that on my what's next list because honestly, I lost that for a long time getting busy. I'm not even the best baker in the office anymore. We got a gal that makes sourdough bed and bake stuff that, like, is amazing. And Hillary brought an apple pie today.

So we probably should just pick up and move. Yeah, we should probably just. We should probably just pick up and move there. We should just pick up and move there after we get done. Yeah. Well, I think that's going to wrap it up. I don't think I got all my words out. Did you guys get your words out?

I think I did. Well, I thought that shit was pretty good. See, it wasn't nearly as terrified. No, no. I thought that shit was damn good. So we really appreciate you coming on. I think you dropped a lot of value for people out there, whether you're in animal ag or you're not.

You got some perspective. So Rachel, we really appreciate it. Thanks for coming on Barn Talk. Yeah, thanks for having me. And that's going to wrap it up, guys. We appreciate you. Share the show if you got any value. Leave review on Spotify or Apple. Go to Farmer Grade, get yourself a box of meat, and we'll see you back here next week for another episode.