Barn Talk - Why You Need to Stop Trusting Your Local Co-Op Salesman

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Welcome to Barn Talk! In today’s guest episode, we’re joined by Nicole Glenn an agronomist, content creator, and founder of the Farm Company, who’s earned a dedicated following by speaking honestly about agriculture, soil health, and her experiences as a young woman in the industry. Nicole grew up on her family's Kentucky farm, traveled all the way to Australia to farm and explore new perspectives, and has since transitioned from working with big ag companies to independent consulting focused on building soil health and farm resiliency. In this wide-ranging conversation, Nicole opens up about her journey from tobacco fields to driving brand-new combines Down Under, why soil biology should matter to every farmer, and the practical steps toward more profitable and sustainable farming. We dig deep into the future of American agriculture, the role of women in the field, the rise of content creation in ag, and Nicole’s entrepreneurial vision for rural workwear and community. Get ready for a real, optimistic, and sometimes disruptive discussion about the challenges and opportunities facing agriculture today full of firsthand perspective, practical advice, and a passion for keeping small farms healthy and thriving. Let’s get into it! JOIN THE BARN TALK NEWSLETTER & GET LIVE EVENT ACCESS: We're on a mission to get 10,000 subscribers, and once we do, we're hosting a live event at the barn! Sign up to get exclusive access to tickets and details.👇🏻 Help us get there: https://www.joinbarntalk.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👇🏻 ● Barn Talk Instagram ➱ https://www.instagram.com/barntalkshow  ● Barn Talk TikTok ➱ https://bit.ly/3qciekS    ● Sawyer’s Instagram  ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4    ● Tork’s Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS ● Sawyer’s X ➱ https://x.com/SawyerWhisler  ● Tork’s X ➱ https://x.com/TorkWhisler       00:00 Supporting Barn Talk podcast 08:31 Backpacking and Working in Australia 14:31 Work-life balance in Australia 18:48 Growing up in agriculture 25:41 Investing in soil health 27:04 Improving farm profitability strategies 36:18 Managing cover crops and soil health 42:17 Challenges with big agriculture companies 44:03 Rising costs and profit margins 48:41 Trusting salespeople for agricultural products 54:32 Importance of consulting in farming 59:58 Women in Agriculture Insights 01:06:47 Promoting localized food systems 01:10:50 Exploring crop diversification options 01:16:34 Scientific validation for holistic practices 01:23:04 Discussing SpaceX and future risks 01:30:36 Spotify's new verification feature 01:32:27 Importance of authentic content creators 01:37:36 Becoming a coffee snob ------------------------------- ⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠  The Information discussed and shared on Barn Talk is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or success for any particular purpose. The Information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice. The Information on this podcast and provided from or through our content is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented on this podcast without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional, professional broker or financial advisory. Understand that you are using any and all Information available on or through this website at your own risk. RISK STATEMENT– The trading of Bitcoins, alternative cryptocurrencies, NFTs, individual stocks, etc. has potential rewards, and it also has potential risks involved. Trading may not be suitable for all people. Anyone wishing to invest should seek his or her own independent financial or professional advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name. Welcome to Barn Talk. 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 another great guest episode, another great guest coming to the barn, have an awesome conversation with us. Kudos to you guys for supporting the show and allowing us to grow this show to a point where we can have amazing guests coming to the podcast. podcast. Before we get into it, though, you guys know the drill. If you get any value from the show,

please, please share the show with the people that you know. The more that you guys do that, the more you help this show grow. And it's kind of a ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show. We don't run ads for the show. We don't run any paid media to promote the show. It's all through word of mouth, organic, through you guys. So thank you to all that do that. another thing you can do to help us out here at barn talk is leave a review on spotify or apple those reviews really give our show credibility which in turn allows us to have awesome guests come to the barn like we're having today and we also just love hearing your guys overall feedback last thing you can do to help us out here at barn talk uh is to go subscribe to our weekly

newsletter we're putting out a weekly newsletter every wednesday join barn talk dot com basically talking about everything going on in rural america and giving you guys our perspective on it. And we have a goal with that. If we get to 10,000 newsletter subscribers, we're going to throw a live event right here at the barn on our farm, bring in all the great people that have been on barn talk and have a kick-ass event. So I do like kick-ass event. I do too. I think we could do a pretty good job. We definitely need an organizer because neither of us are the most organized fellows in the world. But yeah, I didn't do well. that. I liked your idea though in the last podcast. We just need to get everybody a wrench or a hammer

or a bucket of paint. And that's like that's how they get in is they got to go paint something, fix something, wrench on something. Or we can just save a bunch of money because one of the projects that's got to get done before we have this is sitting directly behind the barn here are all of all of my dad's circa 1974 hog buildings. And all of those foundations have got to be busted out and gotten out of there. There's a bunch of broken up concrete. It's just a mess. We've been wanting to get rid of them.

We're going to try to get that done. But, you know, rather than paying somebody to do it, we just give everybody a sledgehammer in a bucket. Tell them to go ham. We could. Maybe hand out some heroin or something. Keep them on track. Jeez. Okay.

Maybe it took a turn. We'll have that cleaned up before you all come. So don't worry about that. We wouldn't do that to you. We love you too much to treat you like. family like that. But yeah, anyway. heroin was a little out of whack. Well, you know, you don't want to. Is that World War II? Is that World War II? The Germans. I think the Germans prescribed that, but it made some motivated

soldiers. Yes, it did. Okay. Well, today we got a guess who's bringing a totally different energy to the barn. She's an agronomist. She's farmed in Australia. She runs her own business called the Farmco. And she's built a real following online by talking honestly about agriculture, soil health, and what it's actually like being a young woman in agriculture. She's a hustler. She's not afraid to get her hands dirty and she's exactly the kind of voice of agriculture that agriculture needs right now. So without any further ado, let's get into it. That looks good too. Does it? Okay. Yeah. Got a rep. Oh, absolutely. Well, we're live. So Nicole Glenn, welcome to Barn Talk. Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

You like that smooth, that smooth intro. Yes. You just move. right into it's the key what what do you think of the bourbon wall you're from kentucky so how are we doing i am from kentucky and i am very impressed with some iowa guys over here i was actually there um a couple of actually last week i was there around all the distilleries and you know what it's just it's a it's a whole vibe it's kind of like if you ever grew tobacco and you had fire cured barns and you drive by and you smell it and you just see all the big barns, nothing like it. Yeah. Yep. What's your favorite, like, bourbon that sip on or whiskey? You know, I'm really simple. I don't get super fancy. I really like Buffalo Trace. I like that nice, caramel, smooth taste. I do like some Angels Envy

or Woodford also. Yeah, there you go. Those are all safe bets. And you can get home just about anywhere. Yeah, you can. You're right. They've, they've greased the wheels of progress. And let's face it, They need to sell those bottles everywhere because the bourbon market, it's tough sledding right now. What is y'all's go to? Oh, man, I like Four Roses a lot, like, especially for an old fashion. I feel like it's kind of sweeter, which kind of is nice on an old fashion. That was always, that was mine. That's what I liked.

But I've really gotten on Weller 12 year. I've been able to find it, and I like 12 year. I like it better than like the reserve. What else do I like? I like Knob Creek. That's pretty good. I've got a bottle. I think it's over at the house.

I got a bottle of Knob Creek 18 year that I found and that's really good. All of them have a little, they've got that, they've got that Jim Beam. You either like Jim Beam or you don't. Kind of like Jack Daniels. Yeah. So it has that, but it's really good. It's really smooth. So I'm a girl, which color is the Wellers that you like?

That's what I've made. Black one. Yeah. Do we even have a black one? Yeah, the one down there on the end is black. The one closest to... Oh, I see. That just looks a little navy. Yeah, and I don't even have the...

I don't have to build your own bourbon, the white one with the gold weller on it. I don't have that one. That's supposed to be really good, but that one's harder to find. And Iowa is a whiskey desert. Somebody will say, oh, yeah, you can get it from so-and-so,

but I don't know so-and-so, because whenever I go to those places, it's like they don't have... Well, supposedly you got a... to go to like a BP, like a like a gas station. And like I talked to a guy who lives, I think close to Marshalltown or maybe I'm wrong on that. I don't know. Somewhere up north and he said there's a guy at BP that's got the hookup. He can get you any bourbon that you want. You just got to put the bug in his ear and he'll get it for you. So well, supposedly there's one of those in

Columbus Junction. There's a gas station Columbus Junction and they've, they, we got to get the connects, I guess. I don't know. You know what that sounds like. So when I was in, Australia and you know, you're harvesting, you know, 16 hours a day. Sometimes how to put a Zen in to get me through the night. And they don't, they don't produce Zins there. They don't sell them. They're technically illegal. But, you know, people had the hookup. Yeah. And I quickly figured out that they were probably making them in their basement in a big bathtub somewhere. As soon as you put that thing in, it lit you up. I was like, as soon as I feel that you know it's probably not something that you want to be consuming. It's the off the scale.

in basically. So I guess that's the that's the bourbon market. That's wild. That's so crazy. So yeah, let's talk about that. So you, and that's kind of like when I first discovered you. So you've been on TikTok putting clips out, social media for for a minute now. But you went abroad and farmed in Australia. What made you want to do that? And like, how was your experience overall doing that? Yeah. Everyone asked me, they're like, why did you do this or how'd you do this? I'm that person that just kind of does things. I woke up one day and I mean I've kind of always wanted to go to a different country and just experience farming. But I was like, you know what? Dad's not giving me enough time to a tractor. So I want to go. I want to drive some tractors and do some farming and just experience

a different culture ultimately. And that's exactly what I did. So I woke up this this past summer in 2025 and I was like, I want to go to Australia and I want to farm. So it was actually a lot simpler than I thought it was. You follow for a visa and then you go to a Facebook page that has, um, farmers that are looking for help. So in Australia, the way that they get help is backpackers. So if you are wanting to come travel the country on a visa, then you technically have to work 88 days before you're allowed to travel the country, which I thought was amazing because you have a bunch of folks that are, you know, they're excited to be there because they want to be in Australia. And a lot of these people that come over from other countries to work, such as Argentina was a big one, a lot of French people

there walking on olive groves. They're excited to be there and they are having help that they can't usually get out in, out in the countryside in Australia. So I was considered a backpacker. I just went over there to farm. I didn't go over there to necessarily travel the whole entire country, but I think it's a great system. Here in the States, we have a hard time getting help.

That's ultimately while we quit growing tobacco is because the price of labor just, doesn't pencil out with, you know, the prices that we're getting for it and the labor and all the intensity that goes into it. So, you know, they had all of these young folks driving. I was driving a brand new X-9 combine. I'm like, man, I'm the why you guys are trusting me with this, I do not know. But they did, and everything went, went great. And I was there for, you know, in a combine for two months. And then for the rest of the season, they allowed me to do a little bit agronomy work. I was looking at their corn, looking at their soybeans. So I was happy to be on a farm where I knew some of the crops, but then they also had tomatoes, faba beans, chickpeas, lennels,

all the things that I haven't experienced before. So it was exciting to look at a bunch of new crops as well. So you had your, you were agronomist at this point, you'd already been working as an agronomist before you went over there. So that was probably pretty interesting to be able to see those different systems. It was very interesting. It's very similar as it is here. more similar than I thought. Everyone was like, you know, they think it's, they're running around in buggies and horses, which is absolutely not the case.

You know, they're running brand new equipment. It's more expensive for them to have that brand new equipment because they have to get it shipped over from the United States. So, you know, $1.3 million for that combine. And they let little old me drive it. Crazy. But, yeah, it's very similar there, but also very different because the farm I was on had probably

it was like, you know, eight inches or 12 inches a year of rainfall. Where back home in Kentucky, we get, you know, anywhere from 50 to 60. Yep. Mm-hmm. So was it, any of it irrigated?

Yes, so half of their farm was irrigated mainly where they had their corn and their tomatoes. You know, corn likes to be babied. So they were pumping just about anything they needed so they would come out and broadcast, you know, all of their nutrients up front and then anything in season that they needed to if it, you know, side dress time, they want to put nitrogen out. They'd put it through the drip tapes.

Oh, they had drip tape buried. Yep. What's the controlled traffic farming? What's the, yeah, I don't mean, I've never heard of that. And I don't think a lot of Americans probably know. That was something that was kind of new to me, but seemed very necessary in areas that are limited in rainfall, such as theirs.

They do it on almost all of their dry land acres. So anywhere that you're running your equipment, it stays that way. So, you know, the combine's going to be going down the same tracks. You would have your chaser bin, which everybody got on to me for saying chaser bin instead of grain cart. The chaser bin would stay on the same tracks, you know, year after year, and then you would have your sprayer tracks. So with a controlled traffic, I would come in there and we would just lightly disk

where the sprayer's coming through because, you know how it is in a sprayer. you're going to be bumping, bumping around town. So that is the only place that would see a plow. And I think that helped them conserve a lot of moisture. And you can see that on their yield maps where you would be running, running your traffic with all of your equipment through there. So yeah, they got to keep the same path. They just kept the same path for everything.

So they're not compacting off of that. Absolutely. What about kangaroos? Did you see any can, or are they like just wild running around? Like, do you see any of that? It's kind of like deer for us. You know, you just see deer running around. or you see them laying on the sides of the streets.

That's exactly how the kangaroo were. And it was amazing. I remember we were contracting for a farmer down the road before we started harvest on the farm. And we were in this massive paddock. And this mob of kangaroos, I mean, there was probably 30 of them. They would just stay right where we were harvesting. So I'd take a strip out of the fields and then they'd be right in the next one

and they'd just keep moving over and hopping through it. That's wild. It is wild. It was very interesting. Do they hurt the crop? Like, we complain about deer here. Like, are they a nuisance? So I did not personally see any of that, but yes, they did say that it can become a big problem, especially when you get them in those big mobs. And they usually would stay, like, in a general area. So you kind of knew where they were hanging out. So some people would come

take care of that when it needed to be. Yeah. Yeah. What was the biggest, like, culture shock of being there? Like, what's the biggest difference? whether it be like work-life balance or, yeah, I guess what do you think is the biggest difference in culture shock of the two? Yeah, and there's a couple of different things. So if you talk about work-life balance, one thing that I really enjoyed there was their work-life balance. They prioritized getting away from the farm. We know, you know, farmers work really hard, but they also prioritize getting away from that. So if you look at it from the corporate stance, most of the people that I talked to that worked in corporate there. They at least had five weeks,

you know, a month. More than that, just starting the job. And I thought that was absolutely amazing. They would just get up and go to another country and just visit. They're just very worldly people where here in the States, I think we're very comfortable with staying here because we do have a lot that the U.S. can offer a lot between mountains, beach, whatever you want we can pretty much have. They didn't necessarily have that. I really like to ski. And I think they only had like one mountain range and, you know, it wasn't amazing. So a lot of people would go over in the summertime in Australia and go over to Japan when it's the wintertime and ski there. So I really enjoyed the work-life balance of being able to have more time off instead of just

work, work, work, all the time. Like I said, when I got there, I worked, I was in a Kahn for two months. But then after that, you know, we had weekends off or if it was rain in there, then we could take off and, you know, go to another country. That's what I did. I was. probably, I planned my week before I would travel to another country that week before. I'm like, we have rain on next week. And once it rain there, you were out because you would get stuck if they got a tenth of an inch or, yeah, a tenth of a inch. You're done. You're not getting through those fields. You're going to get bogged. Yep. Super muggy. So did you go, you went to Japan and then where else did you go? New Zealand. New Zealand. Yeah. South Island and New Zealand. I definitely

recommend that to anybody that loves scenery. They had amazing cattle and sheep running around. I think their population, they have more sheep and cattle than they do people on all of New Zealand, which I thought was funny, but beautiful green grasses that they're grazing, really good vineyards. I'm a big Pinot Noir girl, so I got to go to some vineyards and some Pinot Noir. I've heard that you don't want to tell anybody in New Zealand. You don't want to ask anybody in New Zealand where the hobbits are because they get really pissed about that. Really? Lord of the Rings.

Yeah, because Lord of the Rings was made there and so many people go for that. I'm sure it's not like it used to be, but that was a big thing. And the locals are like, oh, my gosh. That's how they know you're a tourist right off the rip. Where's the Hobbit House? So I actually have never seen that movie. Oh, that's a sin. But I had to obviously look it up when I was there.

And once you get there, you're like, I can, this is exactly where it was all filmed. I think I had drove through a forest where they had done a scene. They'll have like little plaques and stuff at the different locations that they have it. So I did get to, I did get to see it, but just haven't watched the movie. Okay. Well, it's been really nice, having you? Yeah. I'll see my way out.

Your stock just went way down and torts mine. If you had time, I think we probably should. probably should have a movie night. Yeah. Get you up to speed. Well, it makes me wonder what other quality, uh,

films you haven't seen. Yeah. You don't want to hear this one, but I haven't seen Star Wars. Oh. That's another bad one too. Well, shit, you were on a plane for 16 hours.

I think, what did you do? I think next time you need to just pop in all the Lord of the ring movies. That'll get you through. Yeah, that's right. I am a big podcast girl when it comes to flights, but the 16 hour flights is completely different.

You pretty much can go through every single movie that's on that flight before, you get to the end of it with a 16-hour flight, man. Yeah, so had you flown much before that? Yeah, within the States, nowhere crazy. I think the farthest place I had flown was to Belize, and that wasn't that far at all. So what was the, what was the breaking moment?

Like, on a 16-hour flight, when do you hit a wall where you're like, wait, how much longer left? When your ass starts to go numb. Literally. I can imagine. I say, I'm in the back with all the kids. cattle because, you know, I'm not paying for business class. I definitely don't have the means to do that. And you're all scrunched there together. You know, they are gracious enough to give you a blanket and a little

pillow. But yeah. Yeah. 16 hours in a plane with, I would go stir crazy 100%. Yeah. Okay. Let's go back a little bit. Let's go to like you growing up on the farm. So you, your family farms, right, in Kentucky, you had tobacco. Talk about growing up as a kid and were you always tied to agriculture. Did you always want to be involved in agriculture in some way? Like, talk about that. Yeah, so I'm your typical road crop girl. You know, I rode in the combine with my dad.

I'd be that one that's curled up in the floorboard of the combine sleeping while he's doing his work or he would show up to after school to pick me up and, you know, the tractor or the semi, all of those things. So I've always been very closely tied with agriculture. And like I said, we grew tobacco there for a while. So I would, you know, sit on the tobacco center. If I had an attitude, I'd have to walk behind and, you know, get the ones that everybody missed. But that, I feel like that's really where I've gotten my work ethic is growing up in the tobacco field. Grandad would come bring me a hoe when we'd hoe out tobacco or top tobacco until I wasn't doing it right. Then I had to get out of the field also. The tobacco was his baby. He absolutely loved that. So I've always been

really closely tied with agriculture. And then I had seen, so I grew up in an area where we have a strong presence of women in agriculture and they had a large influence on me. And then I met a female agronomist and she kind of changed the game for me. I love plants. I love dirt. I was the one, you know, making all these concoctions with all these leaves and this dirt and these rocks that I could find around the farm. So I quickly fell in love with the agronomy side of things. Love plants, love dirt. I love what they can do for us. So that's really where all of this sparked.

And then I was like, well, you know, am I going to be on the farm full time? I don't know. I love working on the farm, but, you know, a family just sometimes can't sustain all the children. That's just the way that it goes, and I understood that quick. So I decided to further my education. I went to Murray State and got my, got my bachelor's in agronomy. And then I decided, well, if I want to be an agronomist with one of these large seed companies or fertility companies or whatever, I'm probably going to at least have to have my master.

Sometimes you have to have your PhD. So I decided to go to Mississippi State where I looked at weed science and entomology, so weeds and bugs. I did my thesis over da Camba volatility, so I like to say it's probably running through my veins. But that was the track that I was on. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do. But now I'm here talking to you guys and doing some different things. Yeah. Yeah. So let's get into the different things. So you graduate, you go work for one of those big seed companies, right? And you thought you had it all figured out. Like this is what you wanted. But you kind of, you've pivoted. now and you've gone away from that. And so describe what you're doing now and why you went away from what you thought you wanted to do. So right out of grad school, I had a gigs with Bex-Hibbreds, one of the best companies, honestly, the way that they treat their employees and their customers,

it really shows you how a business can be ran and, you know, keeping and retaining those people because I think people are at the forefront of everything that we do all the times we buy you. seed or we buy our fertility based off of who's selling it, you know, and who can sell it that best. So I was an agronomist down in Tennessee and some of the surrounding states or, you know, two and a half, three years. Absolutely love that. Love the team that I worked with, but quickly realized everything that I was recommending was something that kills something. You know, we come out there and we're looking, you know, you got, you know, tattered leaves, you know, you got bugs out here. Let's apply an insecticide or you know we have disease lesions let's apply a fungicide you know you got all

these weeds let's apply a herbicide aside aside aside I'm like are we are we ever actually doing something that maybe is helping this plant or this soil get through the problems that it is having they just started to really start to think deeper into things that I was feeling I didn't ever want to express that for the longest time because you know that's not really what you do you don't step out a mainstream agronomy. Yeah. That's a scary place to be. But then I got to the point where I didn't care.

I was like, okay, I'm going to start looking into this stuff. So I quickly realized that if I wanted to be able to do that, I was probably just going to have to take a deep dive. And that's when I quit my mainstream agronomy role with Bex and started doing some consulting work with a partner that I had. We were covering, you know, quite a few acres on these guys that also. had that inkling. They're like, you know, something's, something's maybe off or there's a way that we can do things a little bit better. So started really diving into that, listening to people such as John

Kemp, he's been, you know, a thought leader in actually implementing a lot of these things on many different farms and a bunch of different people. And you have Josh Thurman, who I was working with with Clearpoint Ag, they're actually out there doing these things that people are, starting to think about after that we've been following big ag and these universities for a very long time yep um so that's that's where i'm at yeah so now you're you're kind of consulting you're you're so you're helping on the family farm right you're consulting doing the social media let's let's go deep into you know your your thought process on soil health and agronomy and all that so you said the first step to soil health is rewiring our brains to think about the soil

is actually being alive. So what does that mean in playing English for a farmer who just wants to grow, you know, commodities? You know, how do they, how do they do that? How do they rewire their brain and start thinking like that? You just, you just said it there, is to actually think about it being an ecosystem. So we think about the ecosystems around us and forests and whatnot, but that's actually happening in the soils. And I think we, that's one of the biggest parts of agronomy we've been missing for the biggest time. So, you know, we've, we mainly focus on chemistry. when it comes to soils. So when we soil test, we are simply looking at chemistry. We're not looking at how the biology can affect the chemistry or affect the plant. So it's actually understanding that

there is things down there that can provide for us if we let them. So a lot of what I focus on is, you know, the farmers are saying all these inputs, all these inputs, all these inputs that we're having to deal with. The prices are going up. That's what I'm trying to. to, you know, slowly step away from is building resiliency in these soils so you don't have to rely on these inputs. But technically right now, our soils are very dependent on these inputs that we have. It's kind of like we've built a drug addict out of these plants. We're supplying them with everything they need so they're not extracting it, you know, through mineralization in the soil. And I said this to you guys last night. If any other business owner had a resource like we do with our soils,

they would be investing a lot of time and a lot more money into the soil instead of looking at the things that we previously thought as investments on the farm and not to say that they're not, but, you know, let's build more grain bins. Let's put in this tile and all those things, you know, they work and that's absolutely right. But we have bypassed what the soil can really do for our plants. And once we build up that diversity, once we have that microbiome working for us, we can have plants that sustain themselves. a farm that's going to be sustainable for you as a farmer over a longer period of time. Like in 20, you know, 26, very, very hard time for all of farmers. So say, you know, we started building up your soil health. In a year like this, if you didn't want to apply any of your inputs, but you still wanted to put a crop out, you may be able to do that in a year like this if we had our soils where we really needed to be. But it could be catastrophic if we were to just pull back on all of those.

fertilizers or those insecticides, those fundicides in a year because they are reliant on them at this moment. Yeah. There's a guy locally here. It's called Continuum Ag. His name's Mitchell Hora. And something that he has said that it always stuck with me is so many farmers we are hyper-focused on yield. but at what cost, like what are you paying to get that yield? In other words, you may be able to have a lower yield,

but your cost for that yield is vastly smaller to worry, so that your profit per acre is actually better. And that's a hard thing for row crop guys to get their head wrapped around when you're paying cash rent because you think bushels equals profit equals, you know, profitability. And when you're in a situation where we are today where margins are so thin, it may be time to start thinking about more about the profitability per acre than the gross dollars per acre. So for somebody that is in a traditional system like that, what's a first, like, where do you start if you're wanting to work on the soil biology in your ground? Like, what's a good, so is there, is it, is it soil sampling differently? Or I guess walk us through that, somebody that calls you up and says, well, I've been, you know, roving. crop and corn, corn, soy rotation for, you know, 20 years. Where do I start? Yeah, there's,

first and foremost, as it goes back to educating yourself on, you know, there's so many books, so many resources out there that are talking about these different things. It's a mind shift that has to happen before any of this actually is implemented, in my opinion. And there's so much convenience tied to everything we do in farming as well as everything in the world, you know, looking at Walmart pickups or we can make a pass across the field and get rid of all of the weeds. So convenience will be our biggest struggle there. But the mind shift, actually thinking about the soil being alive is going to be the first step to that. And then second is, you know, let's take a tally on all the things that we're doing that can either cause stress to

the plants or, you know, we're stressing or killing the microbes that are in the soil. And I'm not the person that is going to be like, let's get rid of all of that. Let's get rid of your herbicides, your funercides, your insecticides, your tillage, you know, all of that. Those are all things that are a compounding effect on our soils. So you start very small. You know, I'm a big one to look at microbial noculence as long as you know kind of what you're looking at. You know, if you're trying to look at phosphorus, you know, change of phosphorus levels, you know, you want to look at some microbes that are going to help you with that or if you're wanting it for a nitrogen fixation. Those are things that you need to be aware of.

And then you kind of slowly trickle away from some of those harmful practices. I'm not a person that is completely against tillage. I'm one that, you know, I think there can be deliberate tillage. I'm working with a guy right now that has some old coal mine ground and pancake roots on it. And I'm like, well, it's worth trying to put a rip-word through it. You know, it is because those plants can't sustain themselves later on in the season when we hit a drought. They can't get down in there. So let's look into that as well as looking at their cover crop mixture.

So it's going to have, you know, serial rise in. And we're going to have turnips in there because if you put a pentrometer down next to where some of those roots were, we put some right next to, we put the pentrometer right next to the cereal rye and then we did it right next to the turnips and it goes in a lot smoother. So not to say all of these are, you know, just, you know, a quick fix because they're not, not anything I really recommend is a quick fix. It's something that's going to make you sustainable over time. But those are the things, you know, we look at all the different things that are harming our soils and how can we encourage life back into the soil. And sometimes it's simpler, simpler than we think. So in Iowa, there's been a big push on cover crops. There's

been an incentive for cover crops. What, what, what does planting a cover crops, what, what does planning a crop, what's the positives of it? What does it do for you? And maybe not just one time, but over, what's the compounding effect of that? Yeah. So lots of things. It was very impressive when I was flying over here. I saw all of the grass waterways and I was like, man, that's, that's something that we don't have in Kentucky. And I really liked seeing that simply from the erosion stance. Like, if you're applying all of these super expensive fertilized, the last thing I want it to do is be down in the creek, first of all, for everyone around you, for, you know, our water systems, but also for you losing all of that expensive fertilize. It's not something I want to see. So it's amazing that

everyone is starting to adopt the grass waterways around here. But, you know, let's take that a step further. So when you're incorporating cover crops, they're doing a number of things. But the main one that I think about is feeding the biology, say, throughout the wintertime. So a lot of times we just see fallow ground out there. Well, you have an ecosystem down there that needs to eat. And these plants are bringing in that carbon and they are putting part of that down into the soil to feed those microbes. So that is one of the biggest ways that I feel like we can get towards soil health. We can move in that direction is by simply putting out a cover crop. And I say simply lightly because they come with their own struggles.

They definitely do. You got to make sure that, you know, we're looking at how much biomass we got out there. Are we going to crimp it? Are we going to terminate it? Is your closing wills, you know, doing what they need to be doing? There's a lot of different things that we need to look at. But that's the number one thing, feeding the microbes and weed pressure.

You know, if we are just coming in there and crimping it, so we're delaying how long we are terminating that crop, means that we're going to have suppression of those weeds. So as soon as we plant something in there, you have that mat that is shadowing out those weeds. That is the number one thing that is going to help you get rid of your weeds is shadowing them out. Because, you know, later on in the season and your corn, soybeans, you're not having to apply anything because it shadows it out. So that's just another, there's a whole lot of reasons while cover crops are an amazing thing, but they also come with. challenges.

Yeah, with challenges. So it's a little like, I don't know how to say this, because you get the benefit, okay, you drill your cover crop, you get the benefit of it because you're feeding that, that,

you're feeding those microbes, you're helping your soil biology. But then if we're trying to get away from, if we're trying to get away from chemical, most guys here in the Midwest, what we do is, we go out there and we spray that cover crop in the spring to terminate it. So you're spraying that to kill it and then planting into it.

I know very few people around here that crimp it and try to plan into it. Just because it grows so hard, so fast in the spring that if you don't terminate it, it's just almost like too much trash to try to get to plant through. but is the thought process that there is a lot of fertility in your soil that's actually tied up in the soil that the plant can't use that if you grow that biology that biology freeze up that fertility that otherwise wouldn't be there is that is that the the thought of it absolutely So when you are growing different types of plants in your soil, that's what attracts these different microbes.

So we want to increase the microbial life, but we also want to diversify. That's where we're getting a lot of these plant health benefits. So if you think about, you know, if we're trying to get away from fungicides and stuff like that, these plants, once they have this connection with the microbes in the soil, they start to produce secondary metabolites,

which acts as an immune system for that. plant. So just like in our guts, our biggest immune system comes from our gut, it's how this is with the plant. So when they have that relationship with those microbes, they start to make these secondary metabolites, is when we start to see some of that disease suppression or less insect pressure through that. But when you're talking about it from, you know, a termination stance, I'm not one to be so hard on that one. I'm like, get the cover crop in the ground and we will work with it as they start to you know work with these things you know because logistically it could be a nightmare and if if a year like that you see all of this biomass and you're getting nervous on a guy that's

doing year one i'm like yeah terminate it to three weeks early if that's what makes you comfortable um but ideally yeah i i really like what i'm seeing from people that are crimping it so you can get away from some of those early um herbicide passes it's not always the case but sometimes it is because you are going from feeding those microbes with that cover crop straight into feeding those that cash crop that you're playing whether that be corn or soybeans you're you're leading them right into the next crop they're hungry they're ready to go but that also comes with you know looking at your carbon and nitrogen ratio because if you have a bunch of cereal rye out there that can that can tie up your nitrogen because we have super high carbon levels out there so i'm going to be like you know what

We don't need to back off on your nitrogen up front because that's a big thing to look at when you look at your cover cross. So you have to wait for that rye to break down to free up that nitrogen. Well, and apply more nitrogen. Don't skimp out on that. Well, no, but I know at the beginning, at planning time, you don't want to skimp out of it. But that nitrogen that's bound to that rye, as it breaks down, you terminate it and it breaks down and the root mass breaks down. Then does that become available later? Correct. Yep. I had a guy in Tennessee. This was his first year with cover crops. He had a lot of clover. It was mainly clover with some turnips and wheat. That's just how it came up last fall. And he decided that he was going to plant his corn green into it. So you're going to have the highest amount of nitrogen in that clover when it's blooming. So he got to blooming with that. And then he planted straight into it. And throughout that season, he is going to,

access some of that nitrogen. It's going to be sooner than later because the clover breaks down really quick. But, you know, up front, I'm not, I'm not going to skimp on that because with the state of our soils, that plant, that plant's going to need nitrogen up front. But yes, it is a slow release throughout that season of those nutrients. Yeah. What I liked what we talked about last night is, you know, I think everybody on the soil health and soil biology and trying to incorporate that stuff in, what I like about your strategy is you're not like completely anti how we do things now because you know we have to, but it's more of like a slower transition, you know. And I think farmers, it's always about they got to make it pencil, right? That's the biggest thing. But what I liked about

what we talked about last night was, yes, we want to make it pencil and that's really important because year after year, like agriculture's tough and we got it. This is our livelihood that we depend on, right. But, you know, as time goes on, we talked about how, you know, if they potentially, you know, get rid of glyphosate, like we can't, we can't use that. Or they ban certain things and you haven't built any resilience in your soil. That might be really tough in the future. Can you touch on that a little bit of just like your thought process with that of, because you just put it so well last night about like if that happens, why you would want to build that? And we're already starting to see that. I think it, correct me if I'm wrong, was it

Vermont that banned Paracot first. We've been seeing these Glyvisate lawsuits happen for a very long time. And, you know, the thing of it is is they're losing. They're losing a lot of these. And we're, we have our hands up like, why, well, why are they losing so many if Glyvisate isn't causing any harm? And I'm not going to sit here and say that Glyvisate is an end-all-be-all. We use a lot more harmful things on a farm sometimes. But that's just, but that's, that's, you know, that's kind of, that's one of the tipping points here. So it just kind of starts. We see what's happening in the EU. They're restricted on nitrogen, you know, they're having to get rid of all of these chemicals. And I am a big proponent of small farmers. I want to keep our

farm small. I don't want it to be all consolidated. Like everything else has become, you know, between hogs and, you know, big ag, just all, all of the consolidation that's happening. I think there's so much value in having these small farmers and especially going to another country, they don't have that. They don't have this. We are American farmers. They don't have that pride. At least I didn't see a whole lot of it. And there was actually two backpackers that were from Argentina.

Both of them have farms back home. They have family farms. And both of them were there working in Australia because they couldn't work on the farm. They would rather pay someone to run all of their equipment to get. everything in and out. It's more just seen as a business model. We're here we have, we have so much pride and I absolutely love that. But what I'm trying to do is make, you know, these farms more resilient, like you said, because once those things start to happen, and I have a farmer that has been, you know,

let's say he's applying 250 pounds of nitrogen a year, and then he gets, you're like, well, you got to decrease that by 100 units by next season. he's going to be in a very, very tight spot. And I don't want to see that happening. So we see, you know, everybody talking about all these expensive inputs. Let's do something about that. Let's do something about that instead of just saying, I want cheaper prices. I want, I want money.

I want subsidies, whatever it is. Let's do something about it and actually get to where your soil can sustain you better in those situations when we're having to pull away from any of these herbicides or these synthetics. that's, I want, I want farming to stay in the prideful state that it is. Yeah. Well, and I think, uh, we're headed to a really interesting time on a couple fronts because big ag, uh, when I say big ag, I mean, your, your chemical, your chemical companies and specifically your seed companies owned by chemical companies, um,

they're almost at a tipping point. I talked about this a couple weeks ago. The pioneer deal with Corteva where they put that together. We were going to get all this efficiency. It's going to be great for the farmer. And then I don't know how many years they ran that. I'm old, so I want to say it was only like 10 years, but it was probably longer than that because I don't have a good grip on time anymore.

But it wasn't very long. And then they said, the shareholders, BlackRock, said, ah yeah, boy, this isn't pencil and near as good. So they split it back up again. But the problem that they're running into, and I fully expect at some point that Pioneer will end up being a privately held company,

I think it'll get taken private. And the reason I think that is because you cannot raise the per unit price, there's a limit to how high you can, can charge for a bag of seed. There is a limit to how much you can charge for a gallon of roundup or whatever chemical you want to say. Before, no matter with all the government subsidies and with all of the things and the efficiency of farm and big acres, that's a finite proposition. And their expenses go up every year and their margin of what they want to get because they're publicly held

is pretty high. So they're getting crushed by what their costs are doing, and they've been able to pass that off and pass that off and pass that off. But they're coming to a time where they're running out a margin that they can squeeze the farmer because the government is running out of money, and they're not going to subsidize it. And when that happens, I don't know what it will look like, but the world is going to have to change one way or another. Now, right now, people involved in that side of it aren't real interested in what you're doing

because there's no money in it for them, because there's not really a product that they can sell, that they can patent, that they can control, that they can charge a lot for. And that they don't like that. But I don't really think that we have a choice. I think at some point, seed, fertilizer, chemical, the margin is going to get squeezed so hard on it that corporate, they're not going to be able to get the margin they want, and at that point they're going to dump it. They're going to spin it off, and they're going to become private companies

because they can operate at a lower cost. But all that to say, that's what makes it hard to get traction because we're fed two different stories, really. Anybody that's in ag that has a product to sell that they can control that, they don't want their product replaced with something that is just

nobody can make a buck off. I mean, somebody's make, people make money off cover crop. There's biologics out there that are supposed to enhance soil health that, you know, people are trying to find the magic deal, and that doesn't have a very good track record either.

But I think it's, interesting to watch this play out because more and more farmers, I think, feel this. They feel like something's not right. And they look at these input costs and they are like, how much higher can this go? Because I'm not getting any benefit out of it. But then at the corporate level, they're not talking about this, but I guarantee you every one of them knows. They see it. Their margin is getting squeezed and the amount that they can pass forward is we're maybe and we're not there yet, but we're damn close. I knew once, before I went to grad school, once my dad started, one, it was listening to me on these things, these problems that I was coming to him about. But let me

back up for a second. So right before I went to grad school, he went down there on the visit with me at Mississippi State. And on the drive down there, he was like, you know, I wish I had just taught you so much more because I see that there is so much, so much potential for you to be able to do these things. And don't you, don't you want to study like, you know, soul science or something like that, soul fertility? Because isn't that where everything's going? And he was planting these little seas in me that I didn't know over time. And he's exactly right.

Their soul fertility or soul health is exactly where all of these things are going. And that's kind of where I started. I knew once dad was saying something's not right, something's wrong, can you help do this? And he gave me, you know, 200 acres on year one to start doing what I wanted to do. Now last year when I told him, you know, we're backing off 30, you know, 30 units of nitrogen, year one, man, they were sweating. I was sweating because it's an extremely scary thing. But the thing is, is it's not as scary once you're more efficient with that.

So I'm big on nitrogen use efficiency. So when we're backing off on some of that nitrogen, we're attaching those co-enzyme factors, trace minerals to help stabilize that nitrogen. Nitrogen is so expensive and we use so much of it. The last thing I want to do is lose that nitrogen. So by being able to spread that out, knowing crop physiology,

knowing when those plants are uptaking that nitrogen in these different minerals, knowing when it's taking it up and placing it there at that time, being more precise with those nitrogen applications and making sure that we're holding onto that nitrogen is a big thing. But you had kind of talked about, you know, the patent and the biologicals. I had a conversation with a fellow agronomist the other day, and she was like, you know, how do you, how do you know which company to trust when it comes to biologicals to liquid fertility? and I said, you know what?

I follow the same model that I do when it comes to seed or when it comes to fertility that we're already using. You kind of trust the person in who is selling it to you. At the end of the day, it seems like a lot of these snake oil companies are getting their products from the same people, and then they're throwing in a little bit of juice and saying it's their own and it's the best thing out there. This is how sales work.

We know this. So at the end of the day, I have a salesperson that is going to break it down to me, what this is going to do for me, and specifically telling me some things that could be harmful to it, such as pH, that could automatically kill it as soon as we put it into the tank, or if we have high pH in the soils or super-sodic soils, that biological is going to die as soon as it hits the soil. If we have people that are actually honest about these things, and this is why I love the private consulting side of things, then we can actually make a difference.

with this because we could sell this stuff all day, every day, but unless we're willing to put it into a system to make it work for us, then you're not going anywhere with this type of system. Yeah. Well, one of the big problems with biologics coming from these large companies, the best example of that, and that most people would know would be Pivot Bio, because there was an example where they hit that at exactly the right time for investment money. Because the world of VC and the world of investment, like that was a hot button, that was a hot button word.

And there was a buzz about biologics. And they got, I mean, they, how much money they, how much money they wanted, they got. but what was funny about it was the numbers weren't there but they just kept putting more money towards it and they literally thought it's like well if we can just advertise we can advertise our way to profitability

and it never worked and it got them in big trouble but yeah I mean and that's it does come down to the person that the person at your local level that you deal with and I mean we buy the seed we buy

and we buy the fertilizer, we buy not because of the brand that's on it. We buy it because of the person that sells it. Yeah, what I like about what you're doing is, you know, I feel like you were kind of the traditional agronomist. And with that, you kind of have your subset of rules, right? Like you got to kind of play in their sandbox a little bit. What you're doing now is when you work with farmers, I mean, you're not sugar-coting it. You're not brand bias. You're not selling any products to them on top of your expertise. You're just consultant, you know? And that's kind of rare, I feel like a lot of times you are, you are by, you're getting the, the, the, the consulting from your seed guy or from your chemical guy or whatever. And they're biased to, they're also selling you the product.

So they might frame their, what they're talking to you about to help sell their product. You're not doing that. And that's not very popular, right? I mean, that's, that's not like the traditional path. but it's kind of, it's refreshing to see that. Yeah. I, you could say any person that sells anything is going to be able to refute what I'm doing. So, you know, obviously if you're tied to a brand or whatever, you need to protect that brand. And that's where, you know, largely, you know, why I quit Beck.

So it was like, if I'm relying on myself, I'm not here to put anyone's name, you know, tied to any of this. I know I have to go on my own and actually figure these things out if I want to make this work. Has it been easy? Absolutely not. But you can go to the co-op and they're going to tell you all day, every day, what I'm trying to do is, is not going to work. It's, you know, tree hugging stuff. And that's just not it. I want to work with these natural systems that we have already in place that God gave us for a reason and just really hone in on that, study on that and how those actually work. So, yeah, so the other day I was working with a farmer and the co-op was recommending. So we already have a seed treatment that, you know, usually has fungicide, insecticide.

And, you know, your full package to get that seed up and going out of the ground. And then you're going to come back with your post application and then you're going to side dress. So they were recommending to put a fungicide and insecticide in something else in that tank. And I was like, okay, so you're trying to tell me that each pass that we make, we got to get rid of all of this stuff all the time, practically nuking our soils and nuking our plants. And it just never really made a whole lot of sense to me to do that in every single pass. What can we throw in there that's going to help that plant and get rid of some of those bad fungi? Because when you're applying those fungicides, you're not just killing the bad fungi. You're killing everything.

You're killing everything. You're killing absolutely everything. And I'm not the person to just pull away from a funericide when I know we need it. You know what? Farmers rely on this. It's what feeds their family. And you have to understand that. But we also have to understand sometimes the local co-op doesn't necessarily have that in mind.

They have their profit margin. And this is not everyone. But there's a line that I feel like needs to be drawn when it comes to these guys being able to recommend all this stuff willy-nilly. we're recommending antibiotics things that kill all the time and they don't have doctorates these doctors had to have these things in order to prescribe them and that can be that can be really scary to me and yeah just another reason of why I'm why I'm here and why I think the private consulting is a very large piece of this pie someone you know

that can look at your business from the outside whether they're in agriculture or not and be like, huh, that doesn't make much sense. Because some of the most successful people I think in farming right now, whether they're regenerative, whether they're conventional, started on their own without having preconceived notions of how granddaddy did it. And not, you know, some of the things that granddaddy did was the way that we should get back to it.

You know, we should be looking at some of those things that granddaddy did a long time ago instead of this convenience system that we were stuck in. Well, yeah, what I mean, what it kind of sounds like is you're in the middle in the fact that you're not anti how we do things right now all the way, but you're also like, hey, we probably need to do some things to help the soil biology at the same time, which is not popular. It's either like the, like you said,

the co-ops are usually selling a certain way to do things because they want to sell you more product because they don't have your best interest in mind because they're trying to sell product. You, on the other hand, are like, yeah, you can use some of that stuff, but hey, let's also promote this over here. There's the truth in the middle. usually that's with a lot of things.

The truth is in the middle. And I have to say, I love small farmers and I want small farmers to keep farming, but we also have to understand if we love something so much, we can want better for it. That's okay to speak out on. A lot of us don't want to talk about any of these things. And I'm that person here to say that, you know what, we are where we are at and we need to work with that, but be better. quit trying to blame it all on one singular thing or this thing's bad, this thing's bad.

Yeah. So let's try to be better. Let's try to incorporate life back into our soils. Has your dad been happy with what you've done with that 200 acres? Like, when did you start doing that? And like, has he, is he kind of seen the proof in the pudding now, like with the work that you've done? These things take time. Yeah. These things take time. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. But there is, There is things that we can do that have a compounding effect that. So what I like to do is I like to move money around when it comes to a lot of these things. So if we talk about the whole potash talk, you know, I've seen a lot of good results when you take the rate of KCL, so you're at a potash, the same rate, and you start

applying sulfate of potash. So we're getting rid of that chlorine that is attached to that potassium. but instead we're using sulfur. And we need to, you know, we've had to increase sulfur since the whole plant thing. Yep. You know, they got, they got cleaner, we got cleaner air now, so we need sulfur. So not only are you getting more sulfur from that, but we are using that potassium more efficiently. And we're not, you know, nuking the soils with more salt.

We're just overloading them with salt. So the sulfated potash is a good example of moving that money around. I'm not asking you to, you know, put any more. into that. I'm asking you to move that around. But back to dad. So when he first let me do that on some of our own ground, you know, this isn't anything that we're renting because that's a sensitive subject. This is on our own ground. If we're making anything better, it's going to be on our own ground. I started last year and we just started with small things, you know, a microbial seed inoculant and a big one was nitrogen use efficiency. So I wanted to make sure that I had a

carbon sources in there. Carbon is going to help stabilize that super energetic nitrogen. I like to say it's like a really energetic lab puppy, and then you put a leash on it. That's what the carbon is doing. And then certain trace minerals, these co-enzyme factors that actually help convert this nitrogen for that plant, the less time that it is spending converting that nitrogen, the more time it has to do other things, you know, to protect itself. But it's always trying to metabolize this nitrogen.

it's always working, working constantly. So I split up our nitrogen applications. We did our same upfront and side dress, more stabilizers, and then I went ahead and added on a third nitrogen application with our drone when we were applying our fungicides. And that didn't quite work out for me. I'm the first one to say that because of the weather that we had. We were super dry the last month.

Okay, let's switch gears a little bit. You talked about being a woman in that. and how you kind of grew up around an area that promoted that and it was like had a huge influence on you in your journey being in the ag industry your whole life is that the case everywhere you've been like do you feel like you like how you grew up with women and ag and that's supported and that's promoted is that been the the truth everywhere you've been or do you feel like sometimes you get slighted a little bit or might be treated. it a little bit differently because you are a woman.

Like, what's your, what's your perspective on that? I think there's two different camps here that I've seen. I feel like bringing in women in ag can bring so much value just because of our, like, we're more nurturing kind of things. And we like to think through things. Men are doers and women are thinkers, which I'm trying to change up a little bit now because I feel like each situation is different. I feel like sometimes we want to move fast if it comes to some of these business.

and sometimes you want to be, you know, a tacticianer and think through that. Trying to decipher those two things right now is one of my big improvements. But like I said, I grew up with a lot of women that were starting to come in. They were the first real women that were entering into being full-time agronomists. You would see them in the co-ops doing all the paperwork or on the farms doing them. You really didn't see them working out in the fields or actually making a lot of these decisions for these farms. And when I went down Southburg grad school,

I wouldn't say it was necessarily the same thought process or same adoption of women in agriculture down there. Things have changed a lot since then. But a lot of the times men and women don't like confident women. It comes off way different than if you have a confident man. And that used to get to me, so I would kind of just, you know, meek, be meek and, you know, just kind of listen to everybody and not really put in my opinion a whole lot of times. But you know what? Now I am past that.

That's not getting me anywhere. I have a lot of things to say and I'm here to say them. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. No, I think what you're doing is really, really cool. And, you know, that's how I discovered you was on TikTok. You know, you keep it real on there. You say, say what you mean, say it with your chess and like, let's talk about the social media a little bit. Let's talk about your brand, the Farm Co. So you came out with those awesome hats that you're wearing right now. And it's a really cool design, really cool hat. What inspired you to do the, the hats and maybe merch later down the road or apparel? Like what's inspiring that? Yeah. Well, I started out with content creation, just making different agronomy videos just to post on

TikTok. I'm like, you know what, if someone can get use of these, not just the company, then you know what, that's kind of how I started on that. I started on that probably three years ago. And then, um, realized I could have a lot of fun with it. You know, content creation is fun. And there's a lot of doom and gloom that can happen in agriculture. So I was like, let's have some fun. So I love bringing granddad in to do different TikToks. He, he loves it, even though he says he doesn't. Um, so I wanted to be able to bring some life back into agriculture because it can always seem like I said doom and gloom and I love that part of it. I love creating things whether that be content or these hats. I'm a big fashionista and have been pretty

much my whole life and I wear hats all the time. If you look at any of my social platforms, you can see that I'm always wearing a hat and I was like, you know what, I can probably do this. And I feel like it's just a good way to support, you know, me on my journey and it's just another way for me to express my creativeness. Yeah. And that. So I hope, I hope to take it a lot farther and do some different merch. But I also see a place where figuring out some women and men's work clothing, rule wear,

instead of just our PFGs or our Carhart, which are great companies. But I think there's room for, for some more. Yeah. Well, yeah. And that's, and I agree with you on that. I mean, we talk about on here all time, you know, the Yellowstone has really made everybody want to be more rural or be a cowboy or promote the Western life and everybody wants that kind of apparel. So people are hungry for it. But you also mentioned last night that you

don't think like there's a lot of rural woman wear brands. I mean, you don't have a lot of options. And so I think that's pretty awesome that you're doing that. So where can people like if they wanted to support you? Is it farm, farm code, or what's the, what's the domain? Like, what's the, The Farmco. Shop is where you can get any of my merch at. Cool. Nice. What's your handles on social? I don't think we started with that.

Yeah, I'm bad at that. I think it is maybe underscore Nicole Glenn on TikTok and then Nicole Glenn underscore on Instagram. You can never get it all lined up. I feel like I've tried or be creative with your handles. I'm not good at that. Yeah. If they search Nicole Glenn, they'll find you probably. You'll find me.

Yeah. You'll find me wearing a hat. in the profile picture. Let's talk about the state of ag a little bit just because your family's been involved in agriculture. You're involved in it. I kind of just want to go over some general things. So like what's what do you think is the biggest,

what's the biggest thing you think conventional farming gets wrong right now? Biggest thing that conventional farming gets wrong. I feel like we're exactly where the government wants us to be. You know, we've been fed this story for a very long time of, you know, the American farmer. And we need, we need yield. We need bushels. We need to hold up our sign of our, you know. We need to feed the world.

Yeah, we need 300 bushels. And yeah, we need to feed the world. And I think that's, that's a crock of shit, in my opinion. Like, we're importing all of this fruit and veg from all over the country or from all over different countries. different countries to come here when we already know, science has said that you lose nutrient density as you import a lot of those things. And I feel like there could be such a good market for locally grown foods or, you know what, even I'm not one to think that regenerative farming, the homesteading, can really supply us with everything that we need. I believe

that we will have monoculture for a very long time. That's where we're at. We do, we do have to feed the world, but I don't feel like we're really doing that with these corn and soybean acres. But I am one to focus on we are where we're at. Where can we improve upon that? I'm not here to pin anyone down, you know, bear is wrong, Cortiva's wrong. We're here. Let's move on to the next step. Where do we go? Let's be better. Yeah. And we've talked about the local. food system thing on here a lot. But I think no farmer hates that idea of having a localized food system and feeding more Americans and not exporting or having a more diversified landscape of agriculture.

But it's just how do you actually implement it and make it happen? I think both worlds will always exist because they have to. But I see no problem with promoting more localized food systems. I think that's good for our citizens. our people, but it's just making it pencil for the people that are going to serve that market and the consumer has to realize they have to pay more. You're going to have to pay more for locally grown food. It's just reality. And as long as they're able to take on that cost and it can be sustainable for the people that want to go that way, I think let's promote that.

I'm all for that, 100%. So you spent time farming and in Australia, traveled a little bit. When we talk about this, the state of American agriculture and soil health, where do we stack up? Like, is that talked about? In your time in Australia, are people having those same conversations there? Where is the United States stack up to the rest of the world as far as exploring soil biology and making it a priority? Is this conversation going on everywhere or is it are we kind of the are we kind of odd in the way we've done it I don't know it seems like we are at the forefront of a lot of these things you know EU's doing what they're doing you know they're making a bunch of these changes but you have a

bunch of pioneers now that I've traveled around the country and have understood that are trying to do these things I mean you have Nicole masters in Australia Graham State you have John Kemp you have Gabe Brown you have all of these people around the country that are trying to do things but personally I feel that the United States is ahead on a lot of these things. In the area I was in in Australia, cover crops do not work. They do not work. They take up all my moisture and they do have limited moisture. But that is the story that they have been fed for the longest times is that that cover crop is going to take all of your moisture. And that's not the case at all. They actually help

retain moisture in your soils. So I was, I was one of the odd balls out. We'd have a couple of drinks at the local pub. And what I'd want to talk about is this stuff. That's what I know. My passion is this exactly, because I get a couple of beverages in me, and that's what I want to talk about. So in that area,

I think it's localized to certain areas. There's people all over the world that are doing these things. But we were moving in the quickest pace here, I would say, in the United States. What challenges on your family farm? farming operation do you see? Like the world, the world of, like, you have a, you have a brother, right? As your brother, he's involved in the farm, in the operation. Does your dad and your brother worry about the future of agriculture or what are the challenges they, they think about on a daily basis,

like, you know, sustaining another generation and carrying on to the next generation. I mean, we're all, we're all as farmers want to do that. But like, what do you guys talk about amongst your family about what's going on, you know? Yeah, there's a couple of different things that I think about. One being, I think it's important that we're looking at diversification on the farm right now. Any way that you can monetize in other forms is so important. So my brother and sister-in-law just started a grass-fed sheep company. That's one thing when I was in Australia. I absolutely loved lamb, lamb chops, lamb roast. It's actually better than beef roast. If you can cook it right? If you overcook it like I have recently, then you don't do that. So diversification,

if we can look at other ways other than relying on the corn and soybean market is personally the only way, only way that we're going to be able to make it work in the short term because a lot of these things I'm recommending can be long-term things. But they correlate. You know, if we wanted to switch up to a different crop, you're still, these plant health benefits, it's an investment. And we're going to be able to see that in other crops that we were to raise. And then another thing is, I am, I'm very precise in the recommendations that I make, whereas if you look at the co-op, they are going to recommend something that makes you feel comfortable and they will make recommendations that make them feel comfortable that nothing bad is going to happen. I had an

agronomist, you know, when I was still training, doing all of this, that said, just make the recommendation, Nicole. It's what's going to save your name. I was like, well, what about the farmer? What about the farmer? These things, these things cost. And sometimes I don't feel like we need some of those things. So another thing is being precise with a lot of these applications. If I can save money, especially in a year like this, being more precise with that. So I was big on, let's take off the seed treatment that comes from the co-op with our double crop soybeans, but I did want to add on a microbial seed treatment that had some trace metal, some other things in it. But we were saving, we were saving multiple dollars by being able to do that.

And not being, we're doing this on all of the acres. Do it, do it more filled by field basis, which not everybody can do if you have 15,000 acres. But having someone out there walking, and being like, look, you know, we need this in this filter. We don't need it in that. We don't need an insecticide, a fungicide, a macro nutrient package in our herbicide pass. Like, we just didn't need all of that. A lot of these recommendations are coming from something that someone told them at the co-op. This is what you need to recommend.

But it's also just to make the farmer feel comfortable with what they're doing. Apply nitrogen. It'll make it look better. No, we just haven't had any sunlight. That plant needs, that plant's going to be a little bit green for sometimes. that nitrogen is not going to pay you back, but it's going to make it, it's going to make you look better maybe than your neighbor.

I'm not here to make that recommendation. Be more precise with the applications that we are making is a big one. Do you have dreams to farm someday of your own? Or yes? Absolutely. Okay. The Kermit in me would love to just,

you know, do the whole homesteading thing. And I started a garden this year. I have a bunch of strawberries, which is what I really want to get out of it is, you know, to have some regeneratively grown strawberries in the long term, but also did the whole cut flowers and broccoli. Just wanted to see what I could do with my agronomy skills. And it's been so exciting. If someone or particularly women, if you don't have something that you feel passionate about, try to grow a garden. It's, it's been the most fulfilling thing to go out there and just clip off some of the lettuce. And, you know, I grew that.

It was typical. but I absolutely love farming. I love playing in the dirt. I love driving equipment. I love doing all of those things. So that's what I want to do in my heart, but I feel as if there is a need or helping a lot of these farmers that are doing,

you know, just corn, soybeans, whatever it is. I feel like there's a need for that. So that's also why I'm here. Yeah, you're a big, what I've noticed your content too is like you talk about the gut as human beings kind of and relate it to agronomy at the same like with soil health and I think that's pretty cool. So like the make healthy, make America healthy again movement. You've talked about that a little bit. What's your stance on that? Like how do you, what do you like about it? What do you not like about it?

Like you think it's a good thing overall? Like, I don't know. I just seen you talk about it. So. Yeah, I'm big on the Mahal movement. I really am. I think Robert F. Kennedy, he is doing the Lord's work right now because he understands the situation that we're in. And I believe that new generations are starting to understand our generation, once more transparency. We want to know what is in all of our products. I hate to say that I'm that person that goes to the grocery store now and looks at the ingredients. And I'm like, what is this carbolicious whatever, your Xantham gum, you're all of that?

I'm like, is this really necessary? Do we need that? And it's kind of like the soil. I feel like it's this compounding effect. If we have those things for every single meal, then we're constantly, you know, hitting our body with these things that it probably doesn't need. And this is where we're getting all of these. You know, we have diabetes.

We have obesity. We have cancer just going through the roof. where if we looked at nutrient-dense food that is grown in soils that are working in conjunction with the microbes in which releases these minerals that we need for our body, then we can ultimately, you know, change the system or work towards that.

So, yeah, I'm big on, you know, shop small, eat whole foods, minimize the ingredients that you're, you know, touch soil. Yep. All of those things actually are starting to have some validity. I think for the longest time they, you know, have been woo-hoo. You're a hippie if you think those things. But I went to a Food is Medicine conference down in Benderra, Texas on Sovereignty Ranch.

And there was a doctor there talking about, you know, how our water in our body has an electrical charge to it. And how you can change that, you know, to be. be working, you know, in your favorite. And grounding is one of those things that like, there's, there's actually scientific benefits coming out of those things. Now, it's not just woo-hoo. But electrical charges has a lot to do with everything that we do and what we're doing in the soil. So a lot of these synthetic fertilizers that were applying, looking at your MP and K, they all have electrical charges. And John Kemp says, he says, you know, these are electrolytes. constantly putting electrolytes in the soil and not utilizing the biology that we have

to be able to release those nutrients. And these woo-hoo things are starting to have scientific studies backing them up. And it's, I love it. I absolutely love where we're, where we can go with this new science. Yeah, you talked about this last night, but like, grandma and grandpa like you kind of explained that really well about how oh the generation yeah like grandma and grandpa canned everything lived out of the garden you know ate straight from the farm and it was hard to cook every meal and to can and to garden and then the age of consumerism came in and we all just trusted it right yeah when you could buy something bought you mean you go on it but well i just i just said you two were talking about

you know your health choices and I said that your generation is recovering from my generation that fed you craft macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets but we I'm the generation I'm an 80s kid but like when I was little and my older brothers could probably talk to this more but you know my mom we canned we we and she cooked from scratch until there was an age and I don't know exactly where it was, but I can remember it was like a treat when we had the TV, we had the TV tables, the TV

trays. And I can remember having like hungry man meals and it was like a treat. We thought it was so cool and sitting downstairs watching TV and my mom, and I think a whole generation of women embrace that because they bought their time back.

and they didn't question it. We also didn't have, that was a generation, you didn't question the media, you didn't question government, you thought government was, you know, doing the good. I mean, we saved the world, you know. They came out of the, out of World War II and the Cold War, and there was all this trust.

We're going to space and we're going. Yeah, and nobody, nobody, there was no distrust of our food system. And honestly, I think these companies, the science was like, oh, this is a better way to do it. can we can preserve this food and you don't have to worry about it spoiling and you know it was just it's just better and better and better well nobody thought about the side effects of it but so the reaction was that my mother turned into a person that you know if you're going to make spaghetti you get a can of ragu and if you're going to have macaroni and cheese it's boxed and if you're going to have

suddenly salad or you're going to have whatever um and we were fed all that and we thought it was fine. And then our generation was the generation when all the bills started coming from all the health problems and we started looking around and be like, oh, maybe that's not good. And now then you guys are like, I don't trust any of this shit. You don't trust your politicians. You don't trust your food system. You don't trust the media. And it's swung, you know, it's, and it's because of, it's the reaction of what happened from trusting too much, basically. I wish I could say that. doing everything right but if you look at our generation as well we are protein hungry we want an energy drink yeah we we want all of these things that i think are going to be that next thing um that

is having a large impact on our bodies but i think the energy drinks are largely coming from having all of this processed food having all this convenience these fast foods it is a product of that your body is absolutely drained no wonder you need a need a hit of that later on the loni new in the afternoons. But yeah, questioning everything is honestly, constantly what's running around in my mind. I'm not wanting to try to reinvent the will because that was a consequence of the generation that you were in is they needed convenience. You know, people away at war, we need these convenience meals.

And that's absolutely fine. But we are at another state of change, in my opinion. What are the two things promised in this world, taxes and change? I think we're heading through another phase of change because we're going to, we're going to have to. We see all of these obesity rates and diabetes and cancer. Like I said earlier, we got to figure that out. Yeah, it's an interesting time because it's like, I feel like in some ways we're sprinting back to traditional ways of life. But then there's other ways where like you have AI coming into the world and you're, you got to adopt this new technology.

So it's like, it's just weird. It's different. We're figuring out what can be trusted and what cannot be trusted. And I think people want a garden. People want to buy a steer, a half cow and fill their freezer up from a farm because they want to trust that and know where it comes from. And like that's just becoming more and more of a thing. But yeah, I just thought that was, that's perfect explanation because I think that's what it was. Consumerism started. It didn't really stop until kind of the last. decade maybe where we're like, this shit's not right. Like, let me use chat GPT to figure out how to go in. You know? Like, that's the time I'm in. Exactly. Yeah.

Well, I think that I just had this conversation with a guy yesterday. We were talking about, I was geeking out over the SpaceX IPO and everything that goes along with that and the future of Tesla. And I think Elon is right. He has said that we're headed, to a time where on the one hand, we have the opportunity for incredible abundance, but at the same

time, we have the ability to completely and utterly annihilate everybody on this planet. It's like those two things are true at the same time, and they're on the same knife edge. And the decisions that get made by society as a whole are going to dictate what that future looks like. So no pressure. No pressure. Are young people coming into agriculture or leaving it? What are you actually seeing from your perspective? Maybe a little bit of both. I would say it is an extremely tough time. I would say to obviously try to start farming. I think you have to look at that differently. You're not going to be able to just come in here by all of this new John Deer equipment and start to do corn and soybeans.

Frankly, you don't want to. You don't want to do that. Figure out a way to, you know, make that marketable, whether that be the regenerative route or just a way to make yourself marketable, make the farm marketable. I'm big on that right now. If you're doing something different, figure out a way to, you know, capitalize on that. I have some farmers that I worked with in Southern Kentucky. you know what, they're looking at it.

They're looking at some of the wheat because I think it's a big thing when we're trying to mill our bread and all that. If you can have freshly milled flour for your bread, that's what's making the biggest difference. I'm like, okay, can we do that on your farm? Can we make that actually happen without you having to rely on the wheat market because it's absolutely crap? So I'm big on trying to push guys to be able to do that.

If you can, you know, have the power to make your own money instead of relying on the markets is a big one. But when it comes to the corporate side of things, it's honestly kind of scary. We see all the consolidation that's happening. You talked about the pioneer earlier going private. I think they're already working towards that. They just did another big split here as of recent. So they're making a bunch of changes. DeKab, Asgroo channel, they're making a lot of new changes. And it's constantly changing. So corporate to me is a very scary place to be right now. But people reach out to me all the time, girls, boys on, you know, what should I do? You know, do you like agronomy?

Where should I go with this? So people enjoy agriculture. And I think they always will. So yes, I believe that we are at a good rate with the generations that we are at now in the future of agriculture. Yeah. You just brought this up, so I'm kind of curious. Do you feel like every young person right now is kind of weighing out their job and the longevity of it because of AI? Like, are you seeing that amongst your friends or young people you talk to that are, are they having in the back of their mind about the possibility of them being displaced because of AI?

Like, is that something that your friends talk about? or people you talk about talk to because I feel like as young person right now if you're going to college or if you're if you're getting a job or you're going to go into corporate like that's like that be my biggest concern is like am I getting a degree or am I going into a field that in five years is irrelevant is it even going to be relevant you know like I think that's one of the biggest whether you're in agriculture or not just being a young person right now um that's making a huge decision about where you think you're going to end up in your career.

Like, I feel like factoring AI in is so important and on a lot of young people's minds right now. I feel like if you're not using AI to your advantage, you are, it's a big disadvantage to you and whatever you are trying to do. I don't necessarily or haven't been in those conversations where the younger generation is scared of that. But you do see there's a big, there's a big gap in. employment right now. People cannot get jobs. And whether you have a degree or not, even people

with master's degree, they're not getting jobs. So yes, that could be a big point of, you know, AI is able to do a lot of these things. And these company can do it through AI so they don't need them. And that's where I'm like, okay, you got to, you got to specialize in something that really can't be replaced with AI. And a lot of this creative stuff that we're doing, you know, content creation, it's bringing that authenticity to the world that people want to see that AI cannot do. I don't know if you guys have been seeing it, but the social media influencers that are all AI

that you can hardly tell if they are, there's a bunch of beautiful women that I'm like, there's no way that person's real. I'm questioning it, much less is young girls, young boys questioning, seeing these fake people, which is not good for them to be able to see,

but they are, they see the value in these raw content creators. So they're like, can I do that with an AI machine, which I don't think they'll ever be, you know, exactly where that needs to be. But we see videos nowadays that we're questioning whether it's real or not. I'm sure y'all saw that one of that cow with, was a lawnmower or something.

It was something crazy. And I was like, is this real? I love the, the gorillas or the big foot. Oh, yeah. Those are the best. That's kind of run its course now.

God, those were funny. Those are so funny. They made this guy made AI. This whole, these people made these AI TikTok videos where it was basically Sasquatch if he could like talk and he was out in the middle of the woods. He was like partying. He actually ate mushrooms and he's tripping and he's in the in the forest.

And it's just. That's why that's the AI that I like. Yeah. That's good. Everybody knows it's fake and you kind of laugh at it. But yeah, the people, well,

what I've seen people do is with like the beautiful women thing, there's guys out there that have got. and so good with AI that they're making fake only fans girls. Isn't that embarrassing? And then creating social media accounts to then promote the only fans that's a fake person. Now that's scary. So these AI women are on only fans. Yeah.

Well, some of them are. So these guys are figuring out, well, I don't need a real girl. If I just get good enough with AI, I can just make the content, make the only fans, have the content feed the only fans and collect the subscription. the money and I don't even need a real girl. Happy days. Yeah. Oh my God.

Yeah. Crazy. I didn't know that much was going on. But say, I don't know if you said this on the podcast, a reaction. There is this, there is this reaction of that because isn't it Spotify? Yeah. Spotify now there. So I saw this recently.

This is a really new feature because I was looking at a few podcasts and I saw it. But I think you might see this trend in social media across platforms. but Spotify is kind of the first one to do it, is they are verifying human first creators and putting a verification badge by your show on Spotify. And they just start rolling it out, but I noticed it on, I think my first million was the podcast I was listening to,

and I saw that they had a verification badge. And I looked it up and that's what it is. It's basically to verify that this isn't AI content because I think there's people that are trying to do AI shows, podcasts. And Spotify is kind of combating that a little bit because I think people, I think it's what you said. I think there's a place for AI content with like, you know, the Bigfoot and the funny videos. But I think most people when it comes to like a podcast discussion or like they want to follow real people. They don't want to follow fake people. They don't want to

listen to a fake podcast with people that aren't even real. Like that's not what people want. So I think like social media, I hope that more of those platforms adopt that mentality to like human first content. And I think you might see that in businesses too. I've been saying this for a long time. But if we do move to this world of robotics and AI, like I think the marketing play that will happen is human first businesses that employ humans and that are for humans. and not saying they don't automate at all, but they don't just completely displace their whole company. It's ran by robots. I think that'll be a marketing tag,

and people want to support that. So that's my future prediction. And that's why we need this authenticity, these content creators, more than ever right now, is because we see so much of that. So we have, you know, people like you guys that are willing to do the hard things

and be raw with this information instead of going to Fox News are seen in to where they're just solely one-sided. And people want to hear from people. I don't think that's ever going to change. The way that we need to look at AI and these robots and stuff is where they can actually be efficient. You know, if we can get a robot out there to pick up some of these weeds, give them a hoe. Give them a hoe.

And let's go do it. Those are the ways that we need to look at this technology that's coming down the route because that's, you know, technology is progressing every single day. But as a human race, we, we had to stay on top of it. We can't let them do everything for us in a world full of convenience. We don't need any more of that. Yeah, I agree with that 100%. Got to use it as a tool. Yeah.

What do you tell a young woman who wants to get into ag but feel like there's no place for her? What would you tell her if she's feeling that way? There is always a place for women in agriculture, in my opinion. if you don't let the masculinity that runs in farming in agriculture mask your feminine energy because there's so much value in that and for the longest time I was the one to mask that. You know, don't wear your makeup or don't do your hair. Don't look pretty. Don't do all those things because whatever.

Absolutely do that. There's so much value in the women in agriculture and what we can bring to it. through that feminine energy. I feel like part of the reason why I found what I do today is because I'm like, all right, we have this system out here that is in play that God gave us and we're working so hard against it. How can we work with it in our benefit,

but also in God's glory that, you know, he doesn't, he's like, man, you guys are just boom, boom, boom on our soils and our plants right now. And I feel like that's where I was able to channel that. And now that I've gotten to the position now where I'm comfortable talking about that, this isn't me, you know, hating on conventional agriculture. This is me saying that we can be better. And there are things that we can do that will make it better.

Because that soil plant and human connection, it's a continuous cycle. And we're not getting, we're not getting away from it with all of these Band-Aid applications or inhumans with this OZMPIC. Yeah. We see that downfall. Yep. We see that downfall now. It's all connected. And the quicker we can realize that, then the better off will be.

Yep. We got a segment that we like to end the show with called tip of the hat. So who's... How appropriate. And you can tip your hat. You can tip that nice little hat you got what you're wearing there. Who's somebody in your life or a brand that you use or a product that you use that you want to tip your hat to and say, you guys are doing it the right way or this person's done

it the right way and I want to say give give your flowers to them good job and you can you can tip multiple hats if you want we let people off easy everybody always does it so do you have one tip of the hat do I yeah well Sawyer he keeps me employed I don't like how quick you were able to do that I can't do that I was just buying some time it's okay we can we can always cut dead space perfect um first I want to tip my hat to uh the strong men in my life my great and dad and my dad are ultimately the reason why I am here. They have supported me along the way, even though they get scared for me. They see that I have my mom's drive and independence, and I'm a go get her. That's what I got from her, but from them, I got that hard work ethic

and that love for agriculture. So if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here today. But also, shout out to a couple of just companies. Bex, they started me here. They saw something in me right out of grad school. And I think them for that every day, they were great, mentors, so many good people that work in that company and just the culture around that. I was listening to a podcast the other day

that said, just kidding, it was Zach that was on the other day. He said we're in a spiritual crisis. And that's a company that they're sticking to the roots. You know, they utilize all of these innovations that can come from these big ad companies. But in the heart of it is, you know, family, faith, God.

you know, all of those things. And you can really feel that when you're there. I never felt like I was just another number with them. And that's something that if I'm able to build a company one day is having those people first and truly meaning that and they can feel that, there's no better, you know, business model than that right there. What about Australian coffee? Are they doing it right?

Are they doing it right? I'm a coffee snob now. Don't try to bring me Starbucks or something. scooters or Dunkin or any of that. At Australian coffee, you can not beat it. I can not beat it. So tip of the hat to Australians and how they are making coffee. Awesome.

Awesome. Well, Nicole, it was an absolute pleasure to have you on. We appreciate all that you're doing for agriculture. One more time, where can people find you if they want to support you, I follow you or, yeah, you're on your journey. You can buy my merch on the farmcode. or you can go to Instagram or TikTok. I think it's underscore Nicogne or Nicoglen underscore one or the other. But that's how you can support my journey. Awesome. Well, we appreciate you.

Of course. Guys, got any value? Share the show. Leave review on Spotify or Apple. We'll see you back here next week for another episode. We love you. Peace.