Barn Talk - The Future of Farming: Is Corn and Soybeans Really Sustainable?

Episode Date: March 2, 2025

Welcome to Barn Talk! Today, we dive deep into a Q&A session packed with insightful discussions on various topics, from the challenges and dynamics of farming operations to market updates and future ventures. We tackle questions on the evolving agriculture landscape, innovative farming ideas, market potential of diversified products, and the value of legacy in farming. From exploring the potential of carbon credits to the rising interest in traditional farming practices, this episode is filled with perspectives that are as refreshing as they are thought-provoking. Whether you're a long-time listener or a first-time guest to the farm barn, this episode offers a rich tapestry of ideas and advice that aim to navigate the complexities of modern agriculture. So sit back, share this podcast with someone who loves farming just as much as you do, and let's dive into the barn! 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  LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY  APPLE ➱ 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 Grow Our Show: Share & Review 05:56 Corn and Bean Price Fluctuations 11:34 Interest Rates and Future Predictions 20:56 Transitioning Family Farming Challenges 22:05 Hog Industry Time Management Issues 29:53 Manure Management and Application Strategies 33:16 Hybrid Supply Chain Strategy 42:41 "Controlling Destiny in Farming" 46:26 European Swine Industry Concerns 49:48 US vs. Abroad: Food Ingredient Differences 57:17 Brand Loyalty Influenced by Geography 01:04:55 "Farmer Grade: Trust in Quality" 01:08:54 Nostalgic Farming and Legacy Questions 01:11:17 Generational Farming Reflections 01:18:07 Post-COVID Consumer Awareness Shift 01:21:28 Barn Upgrades & Guest Planning ------------------------------- ⚠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 in... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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 q and a episode haven't had a q and a in a in a while but we got a boatload of questions that we got to get through but before we get into it you guys know the drill if you get any value from the show share it out with the people that you know the more you guys do that you guys do the that the more of the show grows the more guests we can get on the more episodes we can make uh there's a lot of ways you can find value in the show if we made you laugh if you related to us on something if you learned

something all we ask is you just share it it's kind of the ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show another thing you can do to help support barn talk is leave a review on spotify or apple the more that you guys do that the more it makes our show credible uh and the more credible we are the more guests we come, the more guests we can have on the show to come to Southeast Iowa to have a great conversation with us. Not incredible, just credible. Yep, just credible. We got to work on becoming incredible on our own. Yeah, we're not quite there yet. But we would appreciate you to help us at least seem credible. Yeah, that would be a big help because, I mean, Spotify and Apple reviews are a really great way to measure how successful a podcast show is. So we appreciate every single

one of you that do that. Last thing you can do to support. our barn talk is to support our direct-to-consumer meat business, Farmergrade, farmergrade.com. You can always use code barn talk to save 10% off your order. And we got a bunch of new products on the site. Just got done with the largest week in Farmer Grade history this week. We sent over 400 orders out. And Dad and I and the whole rest of the family's back is hurting a little bit.

but it was a very fulfilling and accomplishing a day, a couple days. And dad's got something that he wants to show off here. These are very impressive. These are honey barbecue flavor pork sticks, and they are my newest addiction. So we have some, but you better get them because I go to town every day, and Sawyer knows this. I also have a key to the warehouse, and inventory controls might have to be stepped up a little bit

because I might or might not get a pack of these every day. I better keep the freezer locked, that's for sure. Yeah, pork sticks, we got two flavors of them. We just added them, and we did it a limited amount because we kind of wanted to test the waters. We got jalapeno cheddar, and we got honey barbecue. So far, the feedback has been fantastic. Everybody in my family that sampled them when we were going down this road and doing pork sticks loved them. I love them.

So if you're a pork stick kind of person or a beef stick kind of person or if somebody, if you've never had pork sticks, I highly recommend you try them and try them out and get them a go. We got beef sticks too. Yeah. And we sold out of the jalapeno of those. But we have original and terriaki. probably more flavors to come in the future because I feel like they've been very popular. Yeah.

The stick world, man, it's an evolving, it's an emerging market in the meat business. I mean, it's always been there. But I feel like everybody in their dogs getting in the meat stick business. And the locker we work with has the capabilities to do so. And they they pretty much can make custom blends and make really great flavors. So I feel like we're not, we weren't. taking advantage of that opportunity very well. So I don't know. If you, if you like pork sticks or beef sticks, you like that convenient snack. Give Farmer Grade sticks a go. We'd love to hear your feedback on

them, but we love them. I do like a convenient snack. Yeah, I do too. I think it's going to be the official snack of Barn Talk from now on. You only have to say something snappy for about another 30 seconds while I finish this last piece of this. Okay. Yeah. Well, Well, anyway, we're going to get into the nitty gritty here. Dad's got to get a market update, hot market update going. But yeah, a really great week. Like I said, largest week in Farmer Grade history. We did a Sunny Farms pre-sale with one of, if you don't know who Sunny Farms is,

we had him on the show, Cole Sunny. He's got a massive YouTube channel showing him raising beef cattle out in South Dakota. and we kind of collaborated and we sold his beef through Farmer Grade and that's why we had the largest week in in Farmer Grade history. We also had some regular orders that came in as well, but that was, that was, that was a, this week has been a test week to see, test us to our, to our full capabilities and see where we'll break or where we'll bend or so we figured it out though and got it done. So that's a good feeling. And if you got an order, if you got an order and you were missing an item or you got a wrong item, you can probably blame TORC. I was very busy.

And my mental bandwidth, it got a little frayed at times. But we did pretty good. We did pretty good. Learning experience. The market update today, it's not very sharp either. It's kind of dull. The market's been taking a little bit of a hit. Last time I checked, corn and beans both were up just about a penny. The last two days they've been down. Corn on the board closed, 481. Locally, the best bid round is 445, 462 in Cedar Rapids. A week ago, I want to say you could have gotten probably 450, 452 maybe, is about where we were at.

And I guess I'd be curious to know how many of you took advantage of this because last week you could sell new crop corn delivered locally around here. I think a couple different places if you needed to move corn in October, you could have gotten $4.50 for it. And now it looks like you probably should have done that, and I didn't do it. So that's on me. Maybe we'll get another opportunity for that, but I'm curious how many of you sold that October corn.

beans for March 1037 1001 in Cedar Rapids and 1019 and Quincy the river is closed down the only i think i think burlington might be taking beans if you had a contract ahead but uh everywhere else not taking any until march and i think that might be week to week so got to go got to go north if you're getting rid of beans or west i guess bean meal 290 ton March week 546 April hogs 84 50 they they got hit about two dollars yesterday but they're hanging in there the summer months keep moving up a little bit February cattle 199 that's off just a little bit feeder cattle for March 276 crude oil 70 bucks Bitcoin Bitcoin's right around 80 dollars so it had a pretty 80,000 dollars oh yeah

80,000 small difference there, 80,000 dollars, had a little bit of a sell-off and it's crazy how fast people jump on the Bitcoin trade and then jump off and panic and, man, if you're not a long-term player when it comes to crypto, well, I shouldn't say crypto because there's plenty of people that are in and out on crypto, but if you're buying Bitcoin, you better be buying it for the long haul and not speculating on it because that's probably going to beat you about every time. So I don't know. I was good. Oh, yeah.

Hey, kudos to our good friends at Katz Green because they now list the Bitcoin futures on their website. So way to be progressive, their old John Griner at Katz Green. We appreciate that. Tesla, $282 a share. I would be a buyer of Tesla at $2. $282 a share if I didn't have to pay my nitrogen bill. So I would probably be buying Bitcoin too. This is not financial advice, but if I had money laying around and I don't have any, but I'd be buying both of those. Gold, $2,887, silver, 2840. And beyond me, I just, I love throwing it in there. They just had their

annual report or their first quarter, no, annual report. And they lost 65 cents a share, a share. The estimate was 45, and I read through their report a little bit. Boy, that looks like propaganda. But anyway, their cost on goods sold is 12%, which that ain't very good if you're a publicly traded company. It needs to be higher than 30 or nobody's- Is there a margin or cost? Their margin on cost of goods sold. Yeah, 12%.

Yep, 12%. So I hope they just keep getting what they're getting. They're closing down their China operation. The Chinese, not interested. in fake meat at all. They'll stick with their labradoodle. They like those labradoodle steaks over there. Oh my God. Anyway, that's kind of the market update. The markets, Trumpy's going to throw the tariffs on everything March 4th, so that's really been weighing on the grain markets and weighing on a lot of other markets, too. the USDA came out 2025 corn acres are estimated to be 94 million acres and that's up 3.6 million

they're estimating a yield of 181 bushels as an average versus 179 last year and I don't think that 179 number is right but whatever and I think I think they are right with that because I talk to a lot of guys that are in the same boat we are I'm planting all corn this year because when I look at beans I can't make them pencil and our bean yields have been flat for five years and I'm tired of messing with them so I'm going to plant corn. I think everybody is kind of tightening up their belt because we had this bump in the corn market and we started feeling good about that but we don't really know where these tariffs are going to go. South America is going to have a crop. They're going to get it planted. And there's going to be that

pressure. And I think everybody's feeling it. And the margins are tight and they're just getting more so. And I saw a statistic the other day on the interest rate on the average interest rate on machinery out there that's financed. input costs and operating interest. All that stuff is going up or has gone up and doesn't look like it's moving the right direction. We all hope that this inflation was going to be slain and interest rates was going to move down, but it doesn't look like it's head of that direction. And one of the questions we had is, do we think there's any chance that they are going to move down? and I have no idea, but fortunately for us, we have somebody that does know, well, I shouldn't put that much pressure on poor Luke. So back for another round, this is unprecedented because usually we

haven't had anybody twice in a row, but he did such a good job last time that we figured we get Luke back from Contra and have him talk about their thoughts on interest rates and where they're going. So Luke, let them know what you. think. Hi, all again. Luke Schultz here with Contara Ag Capital based out of Des Moines. I'm a remote RM working for Contera based out of Kansas, but covering the great plains of the United States. A big topic that has been brought about a lot is interest rates. Where are they going? They going up or down? Are they staying where they're at? Well, that's a great question. As we all know, the political spectrum has changed, and it's been a whirlwind since that has happened.

On one hand, you've got the stock market continuing to climb. You've also got a Fed that at best is neutral. No one can really predict their, you know, hawkish or dovish. You've got bonds trading pretty high still. I guess what we're looking for is possibly for them just to stay where they're at for right now with possibly some pressure coming from the new regime that's in place to find a way to, to get them lower. If we can back the inflation and things get settled down overseas a little bit, you know, there's a pretty good chance that we're going to see a dip. Do you think we'll return

to the, you know, previous low levels? Probably not anytime soon, but definitely I'm not really thinking of seeing anything going up. I think we'll stay where we're at. It will come down. So the best bet would be is to stick with some rates that are more short-term fixed in hopes that they'll come down sometime soon. That's the best advice I got for you today on interest rates. Thanks, y'all. See, I don't know whether that was a better answer than I could have given you because, let's face it, we're all in kind of the same boat,

but he is a force of nature. And it sounds more professional than if it's coming to me. So thanks to Contara for that bit. We might as well get into it. Yeah, well, yeah, I'd say the questions are full to the brim. Yeah, these are some doozies. I guess I will start with that. I'll start with this question.

This was a really long email that I got from a guy up by Sherlock Eldridge, Iowa. I'm not sure exactly which place he lives. But basically his dad turned 68, and he's talking about wanting to retire, and the son has went to college and done a lot of other things, and he's back in the area, and he's got his own hustle, but he's kind of wanting to take over the farm. It's a century farm. But basically, they got 800 acres, but 250 of those acres are over in Illinois,

and they've been, like, he's pretty convinced he's going to, to hire that out or rent it out or whatever, but he realizes the margins are not great. And he said, I've been diving more into farm podcasts like yours and trying to learn as much as I can about a potentially unique idea for the farming industry. But the common thread among all of these seem to be that they are labor intensive and are either making very little or breaking even. and many will have many of them require to work a side job to support what they're doing on the farm. And he said, it looks like the easy answer for me is to continue with my property investing and management while custom hiring all the farm operations and trying to break even while staying in the market long enough,

hoping to come up with a breakthrough idea. Any advice you guys have would be greatly appreciated. sorry for the long buildup around the question. Well, I don't know about you, but we were just talking about it off camera, and I think he's already answered his own question pretty much. Well, yeah, I mean, it seems like he's gone down the road of looking into all the ways that he can diversify the operation. And they're labor-intensive, so it doesn't sound like he's got labor.

wants to put labor in or I don't know what the situation is there and the margins aren't very good and I don't know I would say we say it all the time on here you either got to get big or you got to find a way to diversify and create your own market whether that's through ag tourism whether that's through a direct-to-consumer product whether that's through creating your own brand creating your own social media those are kind of the main ways I think people are going to hate me for saying this but I think carbon

there's going to be a future with carbon credits and agriculture I do believe it as much as people fucking hate that and think it's smoking mirrors or whatever it's the reality is the reality if it happens the playing field is going to be set

and we can either say oh, that's not, I'm never going to look into that. I'm never going to see what, what opportunities are there. And I'm just going to push that to a side. And we've always done it this way, so we're going to keep doing this way. Or you can take advantage of it. And I do think that they're here to stay. Do I necessarily agree with the politics of all of it?

No. But does that change, does that change the landscape of what's going to be, how it's going to play out? No. So, I don't know. It's a hard question. It's a hard question. Because, like, yeah, you can stay in, you can stay in and hope that an idea pops in your head, but ideas are just ideas, you know.

I think my philosophy of doing all the shit that we're doing is move fast, break shit and learn and keep going, you know. Taking action is the best thing you can do. And you're going to learn a lot. by just going and trying. I mean, you got to be smart with how you do it. You know, don't, don't break the bank, you know, necessarily right away and put your ass in a bind. But I don't know, I don't, I've never, the ideas don't just come unless you start taking action, you know, I feel like the ideas will start to mold and your vision will change as you take action and

figure things out. So I just, I don't know if a match. magic idea is going to pop in your head. But I would also say if you have the opportunity to farm or be involved in farming, not very many people get that opportunity. So I for sure wouldn't sell it. And I would for sure stay in it. But figuring out what direction you want to go, that's hard. Yeah. I agree with what you said. And it sounds like you kind of got, to me, it sounds like you, You know the numbers, so you see how it works. I don't know what the farm looks like, whether the farm's carrying any debt or whether all that lands paid for,

because I was just talking to my fertilizer guy the other day, and it's like, you know, there's a heck of a lot of farms out there that are going to have to transition in the next 10 years because the farmers that have them are going to age out. But those guys, if that farm's paid for, you got to remember if you're somebody and you're older than me you're in your 60s into your 70s you have a farm it's all paid off chances are your your equipment's paid off uh your cost of living is not very high because you're not buying a lot of stuff you know uh you got your furniture you got your

house you got your microwave uh you don't care about that fancy car so you're driving what you got I mean, going from that to the next generation, the guys that are sitting there that have that land base paid for, they can make it work for a long time. But when that transitions to the next group, and you're trying to start a family and all that equipment is broke and you don't know how to fix it,

that's the other side of it, yeah, the margins are not very good in agriculture. So I would keep doing your side hustle, and what I would do is I would hire it, custom farmed, even if you got the equipment, because your time is probably more valuable in what makes you the most. And I would pick one thing. Like if you want to say you want to plant all the corn and you've got a planer that'll do it, do that, but hire the spray and done, hire the combine and done. Or if you want to combine it, you know, but don't try to do it all. And the other thing is, if you got good numbers, there's good numbers and then there's really good numbers because there's

a lot of farmers that they have their numbers, but they figure nothing for their time. And I have said this, I have said this a lot lately because we've had some experiences in the hog operation when it comes to scheduling and things to do with moving pigs. And I said to Sawyer the other day, the only reason the hog industry works the way it does is because it was built by a bunch of people that have no value for time because the scheduling is terrible and the amount of time that you have to spend to make things go within a farming operation if you actually bill your time to the farm and you have another entity that you could be working for that actually has billable time you find out really quick that you're not getting paid very well for your time in that farming operation. So I guess all of that to say, it looks to me like you've done your homework,

and I definitely wouldn't give up what I'm doing. And maybe you just transition. You start with having it custom done, and as you build equity and as you are willing to deploy equity that you make somewhere else into the farm, you can take more and more of it over. Yeah, sounds like he's got investment properties. Yeah. So, I mean, he's in real estate and that's a great place to be.

Build equity there too. Cash flow. Yeah. Good, good asset values. I think it's all going to appreciate. So you're going to have some damn good assets. It's just, uh, cash flow is your problem.

Cash flow is going to be the problem. Yeah. Um, but I would also say, you know, he said in there like he's done his research on you know, diversifying the operation and these opportunities and it seems like they're labor intensive and the margins aren't very good. Well, I'll tell you something. You know, when I had the idea of starting to direct to consumer meat business, people that I talk to, not everybody, but some that I talk to, like I don't know where you're getting your research or where you're doing your research at, if it's just online, if you're talking to people. But there are some people

that are in an industry that will tell you, oh, you don't make shit. You know, it's not margins aren't very good. And, oh, it's just a lot, man. It's a lot. You know, I love it. But, man, it's a fucking lot. And it's labor intensive. And, oh, man, the margins just, they're not as great as I'd want them to be.

They're going to tell you everything that you don't want to hear so you don't get in the business, right? Like, I had some people that are like that, that were like, it's not that good. don't get it in the direct of consumer meat business. Don't get in the meat business at all, you know? And that didn't stop me. And I've come to realization that this is, this isn't quite as bad as what people were saying it was,

or some people were saying it was. I mean, there's a lot of shit that goes into it. Don't get me wrong. It is labor intensive. There's a lot of fires to put out. It requires a lot of me. But there's money to be made. If,

there's money to be made in every industry. I, you know, I truly believe that. If you do things right and you run an efficient business and you become a damn good business person, you make the right connections, you get a different supplier that could bring down your cost, you know, all the things, you can make a pretty damn good business. And like, I don't believe, you know, ag tourism, like we got a local, we got a local place here in town that's open, not in town, but in our area that they do pizza on the farm every year. And that, I don't care what anybody says, you could tell me that they fucking crush it. They crush it. I don't know what their margins are.

I don't know what it looks like. But people are willing to pay a stupid price for that pizza to sit and listen to live music on the farm because it's just an experience. And they don't, they can't do it in the winter. But they're making that work. I already know, I mean, I know they're making it work because they've been doing it year after year after year after year after year after year. So I don't know where you're getting your research, but just make sure that you really, you really get it from a credible source. And maybe the one, maybe one person that you ask will tell you that it sucks. And then you might find an honest person out there that'll tell you, you know what? It's actually a good deal. Here's the numbers. So just just keep digging, keep poking around. But I think you can, I think there's opportunities there. And, margins might be a little better than what people are telling you or what you're finding. I would say that.

And the one last thing I'll say about it is we just sat here and we talked about, you know, cash flow and margins and what you're going to make versus what you're doing. If you find something and you love it, that's worth a lot because if you're doing something, like if you're doing the real estate and you hate it and you hate it, you can probably make less money doing something else if you want to get back to the fall. That's a beautiful thing about living in the country. You know, I'm willing to do what I do for a lot less money. I would never go back to the businesses that I worked for no matter what amount of money they offered me

because I love what I'm doing way more and it fills my cup up. So it isn't all about the money. You know, there's advantages if you got a family, if you're starting a family, being able to be on the farm, being able to have that, uh, grow up in the country, have a family in the country. You know what? It isn't all about the cash flow, but it does have to be sustainable. Right. So you got to weigh that out. And if you, and if you want to pass it on to your kids, you know, if you have kids, you know, it's going to be passed on to you. And I don't know, I feel like our family. you know, farm families out there, legacy is really important. So, you know, you might not have to have it all figured out right now, but you're going to have to do something to make it viable for the next generation, because I don't see it getting any easier as time goes on. I don't see the margins getting better, you know, so you definitely got to work on it. But really good question. It was an in-depth one, but I, there's kind of a lot there. And when you don't have context of everything on the situation, it can make it tough. But I thought that was a good question. you want me give you another one sure I apologize I didn't type out the guy's name that sent this but are you guys planning on strip tilling your separated manure and if you do will you buy your own bar does David have one the rest are custom outfits in your area

and what percentage of moisture will your final product be just curious about this type of thing as it possibly works with dairy manure The really easy answer is we don't really know. This, the products that are going to come from the manure separation, it's kind of in, it's kind of constantly evolving. So when we started this, we really thought that we were going to have just kind of like a dry product, like 10%, isn't it 10% moisture, 10 or 12% moisture? 10 or 12% moisture, similar to like poultry manure or something like that.

And I think now it looks like it's going to be drier than that, and we may have more, we may be able to separate the products out further. So we're not 100% sure how we're going to apply and what we're going to apply. And the other thing about this whole deal is, you got to look at the pure economics of it. It may make sense for us to sell every bit of it and just get manure from our neighbors and keep doing what we're doing. Or it may be that we buy back a product that's made from the product that we create and we apply that. or we work out a deal where, you know, part of that product that we're selling, we get the finished product back. Or we may apply it all ourselves. I don't know. And to your other point, it definitely

will apply to dairy manure because the company that we're working with, LW, they're doing this. Right now, they're building these out on dairies. It's going to move pretty fast from here, I feel like. just a lot of things are all kind of coming together. So we'll know a lot more once we start processing, but we haven't started processing. Building's getting built right now, getting insulated, getting heated up, and concrete will come, pour the floor, and then machine will be coming after that. So we've said it every time we mention LW or this Moor Separation Project. we will be showing the whole step of the process on our YouTube channel. This will do farm. Our farm channel.

So if you want to see the updates and see this thing in action, you can go there. We got probably three or four videos already just showing the steps of the building being built and all that. So just be looking out for that. Be looking out for that if you want to actually see it in action. Yeah. Yeah. The second part of that question is what are the next big? business ventures for you guys. Do you guys plan on building your own packaging facility for

Farmer Grade? Are you thinking about getting more land, even though it's expensive, but it may never be as cheap as it is now? Gosh, I feel like we got enough ventures going. Yeah, I mean, for me, I can speak on Farmer Grade. Yeah, I, uh, look, I tell people that I could, I could see myself dedicating a large portion of my life building farmer grade. Like I fucking love it. I love the mission. I love what we're doing. I love what we're about. Um, and I just love this business. Um, and so, you know, I think I go back and forth of how much do I want to work with partners on as far as, you know, fulfilling partners or, you know, a cutting facility partner or, you know, a cutting facility partner or, or stuff like that.

Do I want to have it all in my own, do I want to create my own supply chain that's all in-house fully integrated or do I want to rely on partners more? And I think to me, I want to do kind of a hybrid method. I think my dream would be building our own cutting facility someday. A cut pack and ship all in one,

like an HQ would be really, really awesome. But do I want to build out those, across the country. No, I think relying on partners across the country that can help us in different regions, I think that I want to kind of do a hybrid method of that, where we own a little bit of our own. We're fully integrated a little bit, but we're not like going all out in that either as far as like every single step of the process we own. Because I think that's just another cost that we didn't mention in that last that first question is your headache cost what's your headache costs you know when i think about building a cutting facility someday yeah your margins will be

better your profit will probably better you'll be able to control your your quality control on your product will be better but labor's a bitch uh getting labor to stay getting quality labor the USDA up your ass regulation there's a lot of headaches that go with that they don't make it easy and it takes a special kind of person to cut up meat

it's not like finding somebody to stock the shelves if you go federal if you get USDA inspected they hold you the same standard as they hold Tyson or Triumph or Smithfield or whatever and that's you just got to have your shit square it away and you can't just like it's got to be you got to do it right if you're going to do it you got

do it right and um so yeah that is i just man i just be honest with you i want to grow farmer grade and i want to i want to own a little bit of our own full integrate a little bit fully integrate a little bit but just continually grow the business what i love about the meat business is there's so many sectors without having to change your core product you know you got wholesale retail you got direct to consumer, you got snack sticks, you got beef tallow, you got fucking pork lard, you got people want to have that shit exported and put it on barges and put it in shipping containers. There are so many ways to expand how we distribute our product without having to change our core product. And another thing I love about it is it's, for most people, it's a need. People like eating meat and they want to

eat it every day. And so, yeah, man, I, I'm not going to give you all the details, but I will say, and I don't even have it all figured out either. You know, I'm figuring this out. The vision changes every day. But growing that is a big, big, big, big, big part of my future, I hope. So, yeah. See, and I'm just trying to coast. So I won't, I won't add anything to that. I'm just going to ride, I'm just going to ride the coattails. That's what I'm going to do. Well, are you not going to add anything to that question? Oh, I think we want to get some more land eventually too. Yeah, I mean...

Talk about the farm inside a little bit. I'm in a unique spot in the fact that, and any of you that are long-term listener of this know that basically the hog operation that we have, that is, that's my bread and butter pretty much. The grain farm inside, it pretty much, takes every dollar that that generates to pay for the retirement care of my mother that's still living and she lives in a retirement community. And I'm fine with that because if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here. But it, that, there's no, there's not really much profit that comes from

the grain farm inside of it. And I look at where we are, um, I think farm is going to have to change a lot because, like, my viewpoint on raising soybeans, I was at a pioneer meeting two weeks ago, and I'll give you two things that really kind of hit me there. One is I was sitting there and I was looking around. There was probably 40 people there. And I was like, damn, there's a lot of old freaking farmers in here. I mean, these guys are old. and then I thought about it and I'm like

shit you're old you're 53 years old you know there was only two kids there was only two people in there that were like what I would say young so there's there's a huge amount of land I mean we talk about all the time but just

in my neighborhood and my neighborhood is probably our county probably has more young farmers in it than many because there's more opportunities here because of the livestock side of it but this land is going to get turned over like you've never seen, and the big are going to get ginormous because the margins on raisin corn and soybeans are terrible.

And the other point was at this meeting, they were talking about soybeans. And I'm telling you, South America, when they get to the point that they can export soybeans the year around, you're fucked. if you think that there's going to be good margin in raising soybeans here in America, you're crazy. You're drinking Kool-Aid. We are not going to be the preferred exporter of soybeans. There's reasons why the cost of production in South America could go up a lot because their soil down there is not near as good as what we have. But they're building out the infrastructure.

and I think that we're, I just don't think beans are going to be profitable. And so then it really gets you thinking, it's like, we've been on this train raising corn and soybeans, corn and soybeans, corn and soybeans, and I'm pretty much on the train, I'm going to raise corn and not raise soybeans. But then you look at corn and it's like, how much can you grow that market? I don't think you can grow it very much. And your cost of production, just, keeps going up and we are pushed bigger, bigger, bigger. Well, at some point, it doesn't matter. And so I want to spend myself out of that whole deal. Like, I don't know what that looks like. Well, I'd really like to raise my own pigs and mark them through farmer grade. But as far as the,

as far as what we raise on this farm, 10 years from now, I don't know whether I'll be planting 100% corn or whether I'll be raising something else. Hell, I may seed half of it down and do something else with it. Like, I don't know, have 100 RV hookups across the road in my house. I don't freaking know. But this idea that just because we've always done it this way, that that's how we're going to do it, that ain't going to work. I just don't think it's going to work because there is just not enough money in these commodities.

and everybody that's involved in the commodity markets, Cortava, Bear, John Deere, KSIH, they all want their peace. They all want their peace. And they're giving every one of their employees that cost of living every year. The raw materials go up every year. The price you pay for that tractor

or that piece of equipment goes up every year. And guess what? The price you're getting for your corn? Yeah, it's gone up from when we used to LDP it at a buck, or a buck 60 or whatever but not enough to make up for what your cost of living is so we better all figure out something else to do i guess sorry that's kind of negative no it's it's truth though um yeah i mean i think i would like to get a little bigger you know i'd like i think we'd like to expand our acres but we've both said on here many times we have no desire to farm the world i have

no desire to be a BTO. We don't have the time to do that. I like grain farming, but I don't want to do it for, like, that's not going to be our main thing, you know what I mean? But I think we have some room to expand. But yeah, I don't, what I will say is, you know, Will Harris from White Oak Pastures. He's very controversial, says some things about traditional agriculture that, you know, I hate. But one thing I do respect about that guy is the way he set up his farming operation, everything raised on that farm he has created his own market for. He is not a slave to the commodity market.

He has found a way to control his price and control his own destiny. and that is, we got to find some version of that. And that's what I want to strive to do. Because whether it's, like Dad said, raising our own hogs and running through Farmer grade, or may raise some cattle. Maybe we turn this farm into a livestock farm. And we really like fully all livestock farm.

And it's cheaper to get to buy grain and feed it rather than to fuck around and do grain farming all the way. have no idea but i know if we're getting paid a premium for every head of livestock that we raise rather than being a or we have a guaranteed we have a guaranteed price that we know we're going to get paid no matter what year in and year out on our livestock it's a hell of a lot better and a more appealing than doing this song and dance that we do every year you know um i just i hate not being in control of your own destiny that shit pisses me off and you know and you just i hate not being in control of your own destiny. That shit pisses me off. And you do to an extent, you know, you can control your

cost, you can cash, you know, you can do run the numbers, you can try your best to market your grain the best that you can. And you do control your own destiny at a certain point. But not the whole way, not the whole way. So, yeah, I think there's room for expansion and things that we want to do. And I don't know if the vision's clear all the way yet. No, it's a little murky. It's a little murky. But I think everybody kind of feels that way a little bit, you know? Yep. So, 100%. Hopefully that wasn't a, we walked around that question too much. No, I don't think so. I think you kind of know where our mind is on it. Our next question, this is a two part or two. This guy's name is Ryan Breen and he's from Ireland. And he was listening to our podcast today.

and he was wondering what your opinion on agriculture in Europe and Ireland and the policy and regulations that are present in Europe that aren't present in the United States does it affect the products that are exported I think he met produced in the USA versus Europe and with Europe having the high environmental and health and safety policies that are in place in the US and what our opinion is and I mean, I don't, I haven't been, I haven't toured European farms. I don't know. All I know is what I read about. And obviously there is a lot more regulation in European and the Irish and English farm economies. It looks like you guys are kind of getting your ass handed to you is what it looks like. because, you know, the U.K., they tried passing this inheritance tax. It's like 100% inheritance tax or some crazy number like that

to pretty much guarantee that you can't hand down your farm to another generation because the money it'd take is just insane. And then you got a lot of these European countries that are throttling back their dairies. because their cows fart and they're worried about carbon emissions that way. And I know a few years ago I was talking to, we were talking about African swine fever. Is that right? Yeah, African swine fever in like Poland or Germany or somewhere.

And basically they were saying that they weren't doing anything about it because they figured in a few years there wasn't going to be anybody left raising hogs in that country because, all the policies and the economics of it that you just can't afford to do it. So I think the Europeans, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but, you know, they subsidize agriculture for a long time because going through two world wars, they know the importance of having a stable food supply, but apparently they've forgotten all that. And I feel like they're perfectly comfortable, just important whatever they need to from South America or the United States or wherever they get it

and be completely dependent on the rest of the world. So they're probably going to learn the same lessons that they've already learned twice, and they'll end up learning it again. And I just hope that we don't ever have to go down the road that you guys have as far as all of the very restrictive regulations to where the government is basically, pushing you out of business. I don't know. That's my snarky opinion.

I think America is the last bastion of freedom on so many levels. People don't even realize it. And as much as we complain about our farming could be a hell of a lot worse. It could be a lot worse. Yeah, we're free to a certain point, though.

We're taxed to fucking kingdom come, you know? Oh, yeah. But so are that. And we're just, I know, we're just conditioned to do it. just take it. But yeah, that's a that's a whole other topic. But yeah, I mean, I'm not, I'm not read up enough. It's just like what dad said. I just see what comes comes through with what I read. Um, in my, what I see is it doesn't look good for farmers out there. They're pissed off. They're protesting. You know, I do like when they're running their manure rigs down the street

and shooting shit on fucking, you know, courthouses and government buildings. I think that's pretty fucking funny and good way to tell them go fuck themselves. Yeah, get your point across. But yeah, I don't want that to come here. I do think though, you know, people that have been to Europe, and if you're listening and you've been to Europe and you correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what Europe has got right is they're a lot more restrictive on food additives. in their food and ingredients and not having some really shitty stuff in their food and preservatives and people say you can go over there and eat pasta and eat pizza and you just don't have this feeling of just bloat and gross and you don't gain weight very very badly over there either

because of the food and I don't know I've never experienced. it. That's just what I heard. That's what I've seen from people that have said that. And if you do look at some of the ingredients on some food that's in the U.S. versus over there, it's a big difference in what we put in our food versus what they put in theirs. And so I do think that if there's one thing that needs to be done in the U.S. is we just got to, some of the shit we put in our food just doesn't need to be in our fucking food. Yeah. I mean, I don't even like eating bread anymore. more because you look at the back of bread, it's like, dude, you can have bread sit in your bread box for like three months. And you're like, I don't even think there's mold on that.

That's like, oh, man, you're going to bring, you're going to have joy down here bringing you a sourdough starter here before. Well, I'm just saying, I mean, it's there, you can't argue, dude. We've been this, this is the sickest we've been as a country. We're fucking obese. We're fat. We're, you know, fucking chronic health issues is at an all time high. Can't or something ain't going right and I don't think that fucking agriculture is the the main one to blame. I mean, I know we're not perfect, but I think food, the food we eat, the water we drink, I don't know. Well, we just had this conversation. Multitude of things and I don't think anybody knows, but it's, I do give Europe credit for that. You know, at least the food isn't full of just a bunch of

bullshit all the time. We literally just had this conversation yesterday with her good friend Bobby Thompson about how. Yeah, he's been there. He says, he goes, there's a 90-year-old man sitting on every street corner smoking cigarette. And I will make the argument that I think sugar,

sugar is probably the worst, probably the worst, the hardest thing on your body, there is. I don't fucking know, dad. I have no idea. I'm not going to make any claims because I don't know. Alcohol.

No, I know. I'm just saying of the things that you eat on a regular basis, everything has sugar in it. You talk to anybody that's tried to eliminate sugar out of their diet. It is in everything. It is. And it's in things that you are like, why is there sugar in here?

Yeah. And, uh, sugar in the food dies and the seed oils. and like, yeah, I don't want to eat yellow 40. Yeah. Or red 40 or whatever. Like, there's so much shit that, and I think alcohol is a hard one.

I don't think we exercise near enough. I don't know. Did you see that Iowa's the second, we have the most cancer, we have the second most cancer rates in cases in the state of Iowa than any other state. we're second. Yeah, why is that? I don't know.

I don't know. It's scary. It's scary. I do think what I, and this is just kind of off topic, but I think this is an opinion. I think there's an assurgence of a new wave of, I wouldn't even call it health care, but just awareness. Well, I'm seeing companies people start on starting brands, starting things to optimize where you're at right now as a human and not go to the doctor until you know something's wrong with you and getting a scan and then realizing you have cancer, but being proactive with, okay, let's take all your biomarkers. okay, you're deficient in, with your body, you're deficient in this, you're deficient in this. You don't need to supplement this. You don't need to supplement this. But I would supplement this, because this is what your body's telling me. This is what your blood works telling me. Your testosterone might be off,

might give you some test. You're, you know, just optimizing your life. Just optimizing your life for now. getting regular screenings for cancer and chronic health issues, being proactive about that stuff, you're just seeing that more and more. And I like that approach rather than, oh, fuck, I got a, I got a, I got a bump somewhere that I haven't had. And I've had it for a couple years but now I think I should probably go see it because it's starting to hurt and then you realize you're you know you got cancer because I think I don't like to be a Debbie Downer but like cancer is one of those things I think it's in every person's back of every person's mind it's like fuck like grandpa was 90 what lived to be 99 right yep you got when do you get cancer like 92

and the doctor just told him and because grandpa was like what what did I do to get cancer He's like, Lawrence, you're 92 years old. You live long enough. You're going to get cancer at some point. It's like, you've lived too long. Yeah, it's like, makes you just think it's kind of inevitable. But I think if you're, if you can, if you can proactively scan and try to optimize your life now and, and catch it early, you have a better chance of beating it rather than it taking you.

So anyway, that's just what I. I've seen and I like that approach rather than the traditional approach that we have now. So given a, given a pill that causes a shitload more problems that doesn't actually get to the root cause of the issue. It just is a band-aid for the symptom that you're having. I don't like that. The American system is based upon treating, treating the symptom instead of treating the cause. Yeah. That's, it's really, and I say, it's really good.

you get an accident really good if you, you know. Get shot, false building. Like, great. But. That's in the world. If you ask me, I think cancers, we got the cure. There's just too much money to be made. That's a conspiracy theory.

I don't give a fuck. I think most people think that. I mean, think about how much a hospital makes on, and just the healthcare industry makes on cancer. It's fucking baffling. Why would they, why would they cure that? Why would they cure that? I don't know.

Maybe I'm wrong. But every time you ask somebody that question, And they're like, oh, yeah, 100% they have the cure. They have the cure. Yeah. So anyway. That's true. The second, yeah, his other question was, I thought this was an interesting question is,

so American farmers traditionally, like, run John Deere or Case Machinery. And could you explain, well, no, I take that back. I'm not going to pigeonhole anybody that that's all we run over here. But his question was, could you explain to me, as I don't quite understand, that like larger farms or farms in Europe, they might run like John Deere tractors or Case Tractors or New Holland or whatever, but then all their implements are from different people.

Like they'll use horse, lemmican, vert stand, I'm sorry, I'm slaughtering them. Like, in other words, they're not just, they don't just buy everything from one brand. and that's something that they see here in the United States. I think you're right to a certain degree just because there aren't near as many what I'd call short line equipment manufacturers maybe as there used to be. So the best example I can give you is, you know, there's a lot of people that run whatever their tractor choice is, but they'll run a Kinsey planner. but I mean other than that there's a heck of a lot of guys that if they're running a John Deer tractor

they're going to run a John Deer planner they're running a case tractor they're going to run a case planner and then the combine they're going to run they're going to run the same thing and I think most of that comes down to and I think if you're from other parts of the world maybe you don't realize this but I think geography has something to do with that because we've talked about it before the distance between dealers um and just the number of dealers around for all these brands like in our situation there's a john deer dealer four miles from our house but if you want to go to a case iH dealer it's going to be 24 miles from your house um and if you want to get to an an agco dealer you're

what, 45 minutes? Is there one of Zaglars in Cedar Rapids maybe? And so guys, they want service, and you can't just go down the road and there's a dealer here and a dealer here and a dealer here. So a lot of guys get specialized. I mean, they end up buying stuff from the same dealer because they know they can get parts for it. It's close. And the other part of it obviously is service. If you find somebody that's got good service, you may run a piece of tillage equipment that normally you would have bought that from somebody else, but you're going to run theirs because they got good service. And I think in Europe, the geography, the distances between, you know, where you can probably

get a dealer, maybe a little closer. So I guess that's my opinion of how that happens. got a question. Okay, go for it. Somebody asked, well, Jake asked, what's the most underrated cut of meat that people should be cooking more? And I got two. Better not steal mine.

First one, well, I'll just say one then. Because I probably will still yours. First one to me, and this is on the beef side, if you've never had a chuck-eye before, chuck-eyes are fucking awesome. Chuck-eyes are like, they are people say they're practically like a rabbi um but man those things cook up and they are pretty damn close to taste like a rib eye and they're cheaper a lot cheaper um i love them personally um i'd rather

get all our chuck gross cut into chuck eyes because i just think optimizes for as many stakes as you can get is awesome and i love curling up those things um 12 to 14 ounce chuck eye is awesome and they taste great and i just don't feel like that gets out enough that those are fantastic steaks something that i haven't tried and i think dad and i want to try this summer um as i want to try smoking a try tip i've never had tri tip before um but i'd love to i'd love to try a try tip i heard people talking about smoking one of those um i've seen customers say that they they took one and smoked it made it into tacos that I think those would be great.

So I think I tried to is probably underrated too, but I just don't have enough to speak on it yet. But Chuck I for sure. What's yours? Well, on the hog side, the most underrated cut, which I feel like it kind of just came out of nowhere over the last couple years,

so I don't know what they were doing with them before that, but is the pork brisket, and we sell a pile of them. But, man, it is, is what I love about it is, it's so easy to do, like four hours versus doing like a beef brisket that you're smote or a pork butt. You know, it's a, it's a smaller cut of meat. I don't know, what's one of those way? Well, they're very, I'd say four, well, some of them, four to six, and then I'd say some of them are on the smaller end, you know, three to four. Yeah. Yeah. You can take one of

those and season it up, put it on the smoker, and pull it off at 165, wrap it, put it back on until it gets to 205, let it rest a little bit. And it is going to taste, so one end of it, pretty much, just kind of like a brisket. You kind of have a flat and you have the point. And the flat really tastes like pulled pork, and that point tastes an awful lot like rib, like rib meat. And, oh, man, you can't beat it. Well, and sometimes when I feel like when you have that fattier part, it, to me, it tastes like brisket. It kind of does. Yeah. Like, it has a rib meat brisket taste to it. Um, because that fat gives you like that brisket flavor, but then the the meat part is like really got that rib taste. So it's, it's unique, but it's, it's,

all the things if you love smoking meat that you love. I mean, every person we've, you know, had, has tried one has told me they, they absolutely love it. Another one on pork side. And I don't, you didn't really like this one as much as me, but I like jowl bacon. Yeah. Jowel bacon is really good. It's fatty, you know, like it's, you're not going to get that bacon crispy, but if you like like a thick, meaty with a little, with, some extra fat type of bacon. Jowel bacon is fucking fantastic. I love it. I think it's great. And I fry that up in a pan and have it every once in a while. And it's a treat. So I would tell you, I really like jowl bacon. I guess I'll go to my second question. I didn't quite get my questions on the,

I didn't get these questions on the outline. So I'm reading from my phone. But somebody asked, what does farmer grade mean to you and how did you come up with the name? So that's a deep, that's a really deep question. When I originally, I think we've had this question before, but it was a long time ago. You know, I would say farmer grade, I want people to know when they eat farmer grade, it's like the farms that we work with, they put this same meat on their table and it's what they feed their family. And so like it's farmer, it's farmer approved. Like we live and breathe and eat, you know, we live, breathe and eat this product that we, that we spend our dedicate our life to.

You know what I mean? And like that to me is like what I want it to embody like, when somebody sees that farmer grade logo, they think like trusting and knowing their farmer and knowing that a farmer would feed this to their family. You know what I mean? Like they have put it. the blood, sweat, and tears, and they know that it's a quality, quality piece of meat, you know? When I first was going for that meeting, I thought, I said to people, you know, when you think about military grade, military grade is like great, and then all the military guys are like, military grade actually reads, that shit sucks. Don't compare military grade to farmer grade. And I were like, oh, shit, okay. So to civilians, military grade's awesome, but the guys are

actually doing the shit. They're like, don't say it's military. grade. So not military grade, but that's kind of what I wanted to embody and mean. And how I came up with the name, fun fact, I was actually going to call it honest meats. That's what I was going to call it, because that's kind of the, that's what it embodies, you know, being transparent, trust in your farmer, knowing where your food comes from, the whole shebang. But went down the trademark route, realized a massive company owned a trademark for honest turkey

and if you know how the trademark laws go you do not want to fuck around with that so I had to make a pivot and switch the name and did some brainstorming um actually had a guy help me kind of brainstorm and Farmer grade just was like

I just stood out to me and I'm actually glad that I ended up with doing Farmer grade I think it's a better it's a better name rather than honest meets so that's the story on that i think i think it is too i and what i love about it is it's like you know eventually we're going to have a whole line we're going to have hand tools floor jacks that's been dad's our thing like the whole we're going to launch our own brand of seed uh we're going to uh boots coveralls we're going to find some obscure

European tractor and bring it over here and painted a weird color and it'll be farmer grade. I mean, the possibilities are limitless. Limitless. That's that I, those are not my thoughts. Those aren't my thoughts. Okay, this is good. I wanted to get this one in no matter what. So this young man mess and he, he was very persistent that he wanted to make sure he's like, please mention my name. I think he wants his friends to know that he got to us. So Charles Westfall asks, what is your favorite John Deer Tractor of all time? Well, I didn't grow up with the old school shit. So 8430 to me is fucking awesome.

I love the look of the tractor. Four-wheel drive can do pretty much anything you wanted to do. Be your planter tractor. Can run the green cart. Hall wagons. Super just. No death. Nice ride.

No deaf. uh anytime every harvest you know i'm i'm in that tractor and i think david's got 840 yeah but you know same thing pretty much and i just i enjoy my time in that tractor i love i love doing the grain being in the grain cart and it's just it's a nice ride it's a great tractor to be in uh if i if i could have any tractor to be one of those like that would be the first tractor i'd buy because it's just yeah and no deaf like that's deaf sucks why hasn't elon gotten on that train i think i think delg needs to go down the road of the whole

uh epa and and deaf because i i think it's a i think it's a crock uh i would i would second that i guess from uh from uh uh i love so i still have the 4010 that um i grew up with that my dad bought and uh love that uh love that track great tractor get it going every year got the mower on it might pull a wagon with it once in a while it's not an 8430 though but it does have a lot of nostalgia and yeah it's near and dear to me so this i think this is a this ties into what we were talking about adam from canada sent sent me a email and the just of it is why is it that a piece of dirt in one area is the only way to keep a farming legacy going. And his, he left where he grew up because he couldn't,

there was no place for him. Land price is too expensive and he moved and he started, like he started his own farm from scratch. And so he was talking about how we made the case about why you should never sell a farm and, you know, how important the legacy of having this dirt is and all that. And I think, he just was playing devil's advocate so uh why is that the only way to have a legacy going oh i don't think it is i think that's a good point on his part i mean yeah if you can if you could sell the land and you can go farm somewhere else and you're going to keep the farming going in your family um that's that's that's props to you you're keeping the family farm going you're just picking up and moving. I don't think that that situation necessarily is probably popular or done a lot, but if you can do

that, I think that's kick ass. And yeah, more power to you on that. And I think that does keep the legacy going. And I think legacy, you know, it's not just, it's not just a farm thing, you know. There's a lot of ways that you can leave a legacy. But in the farming, there is something to be said about farming the same land that your ancestors farmed and, you know, being able to to connect with the land on that in that way is pretty, pretty awesome. But I don't think it's like. Yeah, you can still. Yeah, you can still. You're the legacy. Yeah, right. At the end of the day, you're the legacy. People's the thing. And your kids are the legacy and all that. Yeah. And I, I will, I'll touch on that. I have a lot of mixed emotions about,

uh that because i think that of of so i'm the youngest of three three boys and my brothers you know they don't have that connection and that that's totally fine and it it's a weird it's a weird thing kind of because uh sometimes i just catch myself like when i'm walking I'll walk from the house over to the machine shed or over to the barn. And, you know, that's the path that four generations before me walk that same path. And when you think about when you're out in the spring of the year and you're getting ready to plant or you're planting corn or you're harvesting or whatever, like we do it a totally different way today. but in our case, people don't look at the job they do the same way today that they did, you know,

generations before, I think. But it's, it's kind of a weight. And I don't blame some people, some people don't have, like some people don't want anything to do with a legacy because they think it's like kind of an unfair thing because obviously the generations have come before you they aren't here and you're just putting pressure on yourself that because your kids may or may not they may not give two shits about you know what you're trying to do so you're kind of just putting this you're kind of putting this artificial pressure on yourself but i i kind of cherish it a little bit because sometimes, you know, my wife, she lost her mother a few years ago. And my dad's been gone for, I don't know, six years probably.

But like that connection, that connection is always there. Like when I pick up the spade out of the machine shed that was actually my grandfather, I mean, there's stuff on this farm that are, that is literally that old. And it's like a connection that you have to that past generation. So it's, I would say it's way more important to me than it probably is to my kids at this point. At some point down the road may or may not be as important as is to me. But to me, that dirt is important. The farm's important.

You know, this barn's important. And am I putting unnecessary pressure on myself to, like, keep that going? Yeah, probably. But at the same time, would I trade what I'm doing, even for all of the pressure and all the things and, you know, the difficulty to do it? Nope, I wouldn't trade it for anything because it's just, it's a good life. It is a really good life. and I like that connection to the generations that have come before.

Well, I would say, I mean, I think legacy is important because it's just, we talk about it all the time on here, but it's a driver for previous, for like, it drives me, you know, and like you said, it's pressure a little bit. I don't know if I necessarily feel pressure, but it's just like, you know, when you don't feel like doing something, you can kind of think about. well, I'm sure they didn't want to feel like doing something either, but they did it. And they did it a lot harder than we did it, you know. But, yeah, I think it can be a huge driver for your kids and for the next generation if they understand it.

You know, it's hard to, I think it's hard to get kids probably to understand legacy a little bit. because, you know, when you're young, it's just what's in front of you're right here and right now and your box is small and you're, you just haven't grown up. But when you get older, you realize that that shit's important. And if you really dig into it and see all the work that's been laid before you to be where you're at, that's got to stand for something. That's got to mean something to you. Because your family name, that matters. I don't think, I don't, don't know. I don't think my generation probably puts enough value on their family name and what it means. You know, so maybe that's turning the tide though. Maybe that's changing. I feel like,

like I'm starting to see young people like being a Christian and going to church and going back to traditional values and being a homesteader and having your wife stay at home and like all that shit started to be cool again. Like being traditional is like, is like, uh, a rebel is being a rebel. Yeah, which is like crazy. But that's what you start, I mean, you're kind of seeing that. And I think you're really seeing it with like 30 year olds right now. Like late, late 20s, early 30, 30 year olds. Like they're like, they're like going that route 100%. So I think legacy, all that to say. I think legacy, that meaningful

shit, I think is, there's hope for that to continue to go on and people caring about that and their family name and all that too. Yeah. Well, I don't think, I don't, we, I think we'll try to wind this down. Yeah, I'm good. But I wanted

to play off of what you said about that. You know, religion or church attendance, the country over, the world over has been a decline for the last 20 years. And I think one of the reasons for that is because, well, one, the phone, the phone has heard all kinds of things. Like, if you talk about, you know, people showing up at live music at a bar on a Thursday night, or showing up for dart night, or trivia night or whatever, pretty much COVID was the very bottom. Like, that drove all of that

down to like nothing but people just turned inward so much but we also were marketed to so hard for the last how many years that every product out there is being marketed to you as like it fills a void or it's something you need or it's something that will fix this problem and it used to be you know years ago that you could only rely on you could only rely on your faith to get you through something. And for the last however long, we're being marketed all the time that you deserve this. And if you have this, you know, whether it be a new mattress or a Zempic or this energy drink or this pork stick, although there are some really good pork sticks out there, you know, you can count on this and you can, you need this. And I think people are kind of, that generation,

is kind of waking up to like, these people are all lying to us because none of this stuff does anything special and it doesn't really do anything for us. And that's why I think you're starting to see people turn back to, okay, what is really important. Well, family's really important. My faith is really important. And being responsible for myself is really important. And I think, I think that's a good trend. Among all the bad trends are out there, I think that's a good trend. I also just think people, I mean, I think people also just are sick of how they feel. Like, I think, I think it's really easy to, uh, get down about yourself in this day and age because of social media. I think it's really easy to overindulge in shit that does not serve you that makes you feel like shit after you, whether it's TV, whether it's social media, doom scrolling, whether it's pornography, whether it's whatever.

or it's all accessible at your fingertips and and, you know, binge drinking and partying and alcohol and drug. I mean, like, it's all right there. And I think some people just get to a point where it's like, dude, I'm fucking tired of this. Yeah. I got to make a change. And they're going back to different ways of life or old style ways of life because, It seemed to work. And they see people that have done that and showing that journey and showing that story. And it seems to work. I don't know. I don't know if it does. I don't know. But because that, you know, the other part of that is if somebody's showing it on social media, it doesn't mean it's always sunshine and rainbows. So it's hard to say. But yeah, just as a young person, I think people just tired of feeling like shit. Yeah. Yeah. 10. So anyway. All right, guys. Well, I think that's, is going to wrap it up. We really appreciate the hell out of you guys for supporting us,

supporting the show. We are, we're getting there. We're making improvements to the barn. Dad's getting a bathroom built up here. So that's good. We got somebody working with us full time now or not full time, part time to schedule more guests. I think we're going to have a guest episode next episode. So please share the show if you got any value. Leave a review on Spotify or Apple. Use code barn talk to save 10% off on your order. Go get yourself a pack of pork sticks. And we'll see you back here next week for another episode.