Harris Proposes Eliminating Stepped-Up Basis: Farm Succession Tax Impact Explained

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] The Ag Tribes Report is brought to you by Farm Test, a field trial design, execution and analysis service that makes it easy to ask your fields which management practices perform best to start your field trials. Visit farmtest.ag and Legacy Interviews, a service that video records individuals and couples telling their life stories so that future generations have the opportunity to know their family history. To learn more, visit Legacy Interviews dot com. Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host, Vance Crowe. The report begins in 3, 2, 1. Let's begin. Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crowe. Each week I bring a co-host to represent the perspectives of one of the many Ag tribes that collectively make up US agriculture. As you can tell, if you are watching, I am not in the legacy interview studios. Instead, I am at the Farm4Profit Studios joined by Tanner Winterhof, welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. Hey,

Tanner Winterhof [00:01:12] Thanks for the invite. Thanks for coming to see us.

Vance Crowe [00:01:14] It's great to be here in Iowa. Tanner is the co-host of the Farm4Profit podcast, which if you don't know, is one of the most wildly successful ag podcasts. It features farmers and travels to some of the most interesting places in all of ag. I know you guys are going to the Farm Progress show tomorrow aren't or next week, right? That's

Tanner Winterhof [00:01:33] Right. It is next week and we're excited because it's only a couple miles away from the studio.

Vance Crowe [00:01:38] That's right. Some years it's in Illinois, some years it's in Iowa. Today when we are on the Ag Tribes Report, we're gonna be covering the stepped up basis that may be going away and fortunately Tanner's a banker, so he's gonna give us the ins and outs of how this could impact farming. We're also gonna talk about the Canadian rail strike, which if you don't know about this, this may be one of the biggest things to impact US agriculture that nobody's talking about. And then we're gonna talk about a story about the possibility of zero carbon ag being legally mandated by 2050 if the Harris campaign gets their way. Of course we'll be talking about Tanner's Peter Thiel paradox and he has got a very interesting worthy adversary for today. So let's jump right in with the first headline. The Harris campaign proposes to cancel stepped up basis. Now I'm gonna let Tanner talk a little bit about what it is to be stepped up basis and then we'll kind of break it down. But first I wanna point out something that we've talked about the last two weeks on the Ag Tribes Report is all of the stuff that is coming out of the Harris Presidential campaign is just what reporters are saying the campaign said because they're not publishing papers. There's no statement you can go to to poke on it. So somebody from the campaign says something and then reporters write on it and that's the best we can do. But what we're hearing right now is that the Harris campaign is saying maybe we should get rid of stepped up up basis. What would this mean for farmers?

Tanner Winterhof [00:03:00] Yeah, it's a big tool for succession planning and maintaining the wealth amongst family farms that can be used because ultimately what stepped up basis does is it takes the asset values at death and it transfers to the next generation at that value rather than the established value of when those assets were purchased. So for example, if you talk farmland, just because grandpa bought the farm ground at $3,500 an acre is now worth $20,000 an acre stepped up basis passes that to the next generation at current market value. So you don't have to pay capital gains on the increased asset value between that 30 520,000. For example, what I was just using, you don't pay that when you inherit it. So it's not taxed in the inheritance tax at that base level. You get stepped up basis. What really benefits is when that next generation goes to sell that asset, they don't get the capital gains on it.

Vance Crowe [00:04:01] They only have to pay from what it appreciates from when they got it from grandpa or dad. Yep.

Tanner Winterhof [00:04:06] And

Vance Crowe [00:04:06] Then did it go up from 20,000 to 30,000? Well now they have to pay on that part. That's

Tanner Winterhof [00:04:10] Correct. So

Vance Crowe [00:04:10] If they have to pay taxes on, on a, without this stepped up basis, what does that actually look like in practice?

Tanner Winterhof [00:04:17] Yeah, so it removes that opportunity to transfer that wealth from generation to generation. So the, the ultimate pain point is sometimes double the tax. You know in the example we just gave 3,500 to 20,000, that's $16,500 an acre that is not taxed in a stepped up basis scenario. That is a big, big move because if they now go to sell that asset when grandpa dies, now you're stuck with paying capital gains on that whole $16,500 in difference in the example that we're giving. This qualifies for equipment houses. It's not just farm ground, it's not just farmers stepped up basis applies to any inherited assets.

Vance Crowe [00:05:02] To me, when I hear these things coming out of a campaign, I have to wonder who is it for? Is it just trying to, because the people that are not going to be involved in a stepped up basis, they aren't sitting there shaking their fist at the people that are getting inheritance. And so you have to tell them that this is going on before you even take it away. And then the people that it is going to hurt, they're not interested in this at all. This is turning those people away. So how in the world does this help a presidential campaign?

Tanner Winterhof [00:05:30] It probably only helps in the scenario of reducing federal deficit. You know, that's the only thing that I can think of is this is a way to help pay down If you're trying to balance a budget, it's a revenue generator. Anytime you look in an additional tax, whether it's a stepped up basis tax or it's something else increasing its revenue for the government, whether that's to be used in other programs or to increase the budgetary spending in a, in a goal of their own. To me that's all this is doing is looking, looking at a way to balance a budget for other agendas.

Vance Crowe [00:05:59] Yeah, I mean it has to be something, this is a huge part of the, the tax code to be able to tax what's going on with inheritance. And I know there's a big populous movement to say, Hey, maybe you shouldn't be able to pass things down if the, if the family that's getting it didn't earn it, maybe we should be able to to get that and certainly that would create a lot of tax revenue.

Tanner Winterhof [00:06:19] Yeah. To me this is gonna cause a lot more family strain because in a lot of the interviews that we've done on Farm4Profit, we've learned that the transition of wealth is still already a tough enough conversation there. There are very few plans in place and there's a lot of hurt feelings amongst siblings and cousins and extended family members. But now if you include the extra drama around the tax expense, it's gonna require a lot of individuals to have to sell off farm assets or family assets quicker just because of the tax bill rather than it is if that stepped up basis stays in place. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:06:51] I mean I think this just goes to no matter what, it is always better for your family to start the conversations however that takes to get them because the earlier you start doing it, whether you're trying to to miss some kind of big giant change the laws or just get ready so that way your family isn't surprised. Yeah,

Tanner Winterhof [00:07:07] It's certainly one of those that if you can be as open as clear as possible, it doesn't mean your plan can't change. But from what we've witnessed, if you can have open communication that's a long ways to getting closer than those that don't.

Vance Crowe [00:07:19] Alright, well let's head to headline number two, which does not have to do with the US presidential rate. Instead we're gonna look at what's going on in Canada. So Shaun Haney from Real Agriculture is the one that really brought my attention to this. He has been banging on the drum to say there is a strike coming to the Canadian Rail Service and this is gonna be a big deal. Now other people, when you would ask them about it they'd say, oh this is just the Canadian way you get close. It's a slow moving train. We got plenty of time to clear it off. Well, on Thursday night last night at 12:01 AM they started locking workers out and that meant all of the trains that that move grain throughout Canada stop moving. And this is a huge deal. 'cause one of the things about Canada is that there's only one major highway that runs from west to east and they don't have a lot of milling out there. So if you wanna move your grain, which they're about to start harvesting in the next two weeks, you, you and the trains are frozen. So this is gonna have a huge impact. Sean has been really hammering on this and he said for every day that the trains are shut down, that's 14 days that it will take to catch back up. And when you're talking about harvest and you're talking about moving it from west to east, it's a big deal.

Tanner Winterhof [00:08:35] I'm glad that we had time in the studio to talk about this before we got on air because if you didn't tell me about this headline, I don't think I would've seen it. And that might just be the circle of, of social media that I check. 'cause I rarely watch the news and we've got a lot of Canadian listeners and friends of ours. But ultimately it's fascinating when I started looking up where this affects agriculture and one of the most immediate ones is fertilizer. You talk about Canadians in and amongst themselves getting grain harvested, but there are nitrogen and potash originators that do supply the Midwest and northern portion of the, the Ag belt with these fertilizers that just like you said, if we can't get it on rail and get it to the us we don't have it. We don't have it in time. And that potentially drives market issues in for producers too.

Vance Crowe [00:09:22] Yeah. At least 30% of the potash and, and I don't know what percentage of the nitrogen, but if you don't get that in by the time the fall rolls around then right when farmers are trying to apply it, you don't, you don't have as much of it. So that's gonna make prices only go up further. The latest news kind of breaking just as we were about to come on is that the labor minister Steven MacKinnon announced just this afternoon that he's going to force them the Canadian Industrial Relations Board to begin the process of binding arbitration. Now what's going on for this rail strike is there are workers that say, Hey, we're not being paid enough. The hours that we're working, the, the demands of our job have continued to increase. And the rail side is saying, Hey, we think they get paid so much money that what we're gonna do is we're gonna start publishing the salaries of our engineers and getting the public to say, do you really think they deserve more money? So the rail lines wanted to go into binding arbitration and the employees, the the workers' unions said, no, we don't want to, we want to be able to fight this out. It's becoming a real problem in Canada and even though they've gone to binding arbitration doesn't mean that an answer's gonna come too quick.

Tanner Winterhof [00:10:31] Yeah. And that's unfortunate because we've even reflected on some of the strikes that the US has had over the, the period of time, actually my wife tried to go to Germany and the airport workers went on strikes she couldn't even land. So I, I can see how this is one of those conversations that's gonna take some governmental insight and maybe a little bit of forcing of the hand on both parties to really get something pushed forward. But I need to dive deeper into what the actual effect is gonna be to my tribe, which is a lot of, of Midwest agriculture. And it'll be interesting because I know there's some products that get shipped raw grains that are gonna be harvested here in the Midwest over the next 30 to 45 days that are gonna need to get that direction too. So does this get train, does the train get to the border and then it can't do anything else? Or how does it affect the grids that are going into Canada also? Well,

Vance Crowe [00:11:20] So the, the expert on this right now is Shaun Haney with Real Agriculture and he was saying, look, the Canadians couldn't even resolve the trucker rally. It wasn't the the, when they put the trucks on the bridge that would come over to the us The Canadians didn't figure out a way to get that resolved until the Americans called them up and said, Hey, clear off that bridge. We're not gonna, we're not gonna have this. And only then did things start coming through from what I hear, the rail lines, even if they don't cross over into the us some of those are, are they, they do run cross border but that the fact that they're stopped in one place starts causing all these backups. You can't move grain and potash down here. So it is something to keep an eye on. I think the Canadians are hopeful that the binding arbitration is gonna make a big difference, but who knows? Yeah,

Tanner Winterhof [00:12:08] It'll be certainly one of those that maybe gets reported on a couple of weeks from now as well and hopefully sooner than that with a resolution.

Vance Crowe [00:12:15] Alright, now we're moving on to headline number three. This is one that I had not seen but you sent to me Tanner. And it is that the Democratic platform calls for net zero agricultural emissions by 2050. So this is another one of those things that a political campaign throws out there. They had a 92 page platform and not only is it talking about net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, it's talking about things like pathway to citizenship for undocumented workers. What do you think, Tanner? Is this a real platform? Are they actually gonna push this forward?

Tanner Winterhof [00:12:51] Yeah, it seems like it's gonna be a struggle one way or the other. I, I love the audience and, and the tribe that I'm a part of that continues to be skeptical of climate smart practices. You know, farmers have been doing and making these commodities for generations. And as far as I know, farmers have tried to produce the most that they can with the least amount of cost to be the most efficient because they are producing commodities. Very rarely does a farmer get the opportunity to dame their own price. So if they are playing within the strains of a commodity and the market that is presented to them, they wanna produce as much as they can and sell it for the most amount of money and make the largest margin. So wouldn't you think you'd be doing the best practice available to you on your farm? So there's a lot of skepticism because 2050 feels like a long ways away, but it's only 25 years and there's a lot that can happen in 25 years. But the only way this is going to happen is if it becomes law or there's a, a regulation in place that that incentivizes more than just a couple of carbon credit dollars for farmers to take in this action. It's gonna have to severely penalize someone who doesn't follow what is outlined.

Vance Crowe [00:14:00] One of the things that I've noticed about these kind of laws is that oftentimes the government won't say, well we're, we're not gonna create a law that says you have to do that. We're just going to make it impossible to insure you or we're gonna make it. So, yeah. You know, the cost for you to do business in other ways is so prohibitive that you start doing these things. But anytime you start introducing a law, you create all these unintended consequences that, that, you know, in order to meet the letter of the law now something else hurts from it.

Tanner Winterhof [00:14:28] Yeah. When you look at inside the area that I communicate with, it seems like a lot of things, you're right, president Biden put together his climate laws and the ag department's been paying farmers incentives $3.1 billion in climate smart initiatives that have been paid out and that's 80,000 farms that have covered 75 million acres. That's only a fraction of the farms and acres that the US uses to produce these commodities. So it's a a small adoption rate so far and when you look at ag it only accounts for 10% of the greenhouse gas emissions. It's interesting because one of the things we talked about before jumping on is you look at the introduction, introduction of diesel exhaust fluid deaf in tractors. What is the cost of creating that fluid to make those tractors burn cleaner air in their exhaust and the plastic jugs and the recycling that all goes into that position, let alone you look at wind energy as an example, the cost it takes to build a windmill versus the electricity that it's gonna produce. It'll be interesting to see how this is pitched and how it moves forward because ultimately if the Harris campaign does prevail, we also have thankfully a government that is set up to maybe block or prevent or mold and shape some of these released predictions.

Vance Crowe [00:15:45] The crazy thing about 2050 is that it's so far away that you can say anything you want about it and, and you can kind of, you know, bloviate and say, oh we're gonna do this. But the challenge is it also means it makes it much harder for a group of people to organize and try and push back against something. 'cause you're like, I don't know, this is 2050, what will the world possibly look like? So I I, you know, I have suspicions if, if they are doing it because they think it's actually going to make a difference or if this is a way to make a splash without actually costing 'em anything. Right.

Tanner Winterhof [00:16:16] And if you look at corn and soybean markets, this is the lowest that those prices have been since 2020. So they, this is the type of incentive that now that some farms might be grasping at to increase their cash flow. If they look at I can make a small change or I can do something within this program and receive an incentive payment that now helps my bottom line, it's making my farm more sustainable, maybe these practices are gonna get adopted a little bit quicker just due to financial necessity rather than the true science and and belief that this is gonna help us get to net zero. I like your comment, 2050 is a long ways away, but if I can get a paycheck in 2025, I might try and do it.

Vance Crowe [00:16:52] Well and then on the other side, if you don't do it as an incentive, if you do it as a law that actually makes it harder for people to produce a crop, then you lower the amount of crop that's out there and then you start bringing prices back up for those that do remain. So they're, who knows, I don't think they're playing 3D chess, but maybe they are and

Tanner Winterhof [00:17:10] I love that. That's a great way of putting it. 3D chess.

Vance Crowe [00:17:12] So finally you mentioned of course corn soy prices, they've been struggling as people are doing their crop tours. It it is looking like huge bountiful crops and but when we were getting ready for this, my good buddy Tom Brenner pointed out, look, it's not all doom and gloom out there. Milk prices have been shooting up and also egg prices have shot up. So egg prices right now at the retail rate is somewhere between 4 25 and four 50 a dozen at least up in the northeast.

Tanner Winterhof [00:17:41] And that's good for them because at, at least on the milk side of things, because I know we've talked to a lot of dairy producers that have been hurting in the most recent years and it's good to see them get a, a rebound in their market. It'll be interesting to see as I was diving into those tweets that he shared with us to see if it is sustainable and this isn't just a blip on the market and they can start recouping and improving their facilities and and use this as a cycle to get hit and rebuild some capital.

Vance Crowe [00:18:06] Well it's, it's interesting to see that there was a group of people jumping up and down saying hey there was a good thing happening at my, that's

Tanner Winterhof [00:18:12] What I did. I asked for good news. Yeah because sometimes it's all seems like it's bad news. I wanted something that was good.

Vance Crowe [00:18:17] Well and speaking of the, the crop tours, I've been taking my own crop tour, which is what brought me up here because I am on my way up to Buffalo Center Iowa to go see Zack Smith stock cropper Field day and you're gonna be there too.

Tanner Winterhof [00:18:32] Yes, Corey and I, and hopefully David gets to join us, we get to go up there. We will probably be more of the tech behind the day but we're excited to learn about the tech that he's put into his field and the science that he's put together. 'cause he's doing the same thing. He's trying to grow more with less.

Vance Crowe [00:18:47] Yeah and this is a perfect example of there's no way you could create a law that says you have to do it the way Zach's doing it. Innovation people wanting to do something better. So if you are anywhere near Buffalo Center, Iowa at two o'clock on Saturday, I've been to a lot of field days. I'm sure you've been to a lot of field days. This is my favorite one. This is the one where it's farm Weird is the hashtag and it's 'cause it's a bunch of people saying I'm gonna try something different. And if you've never seen this stock cropper, pasturing system, it is wild and fascinating

Tanner Winterhof [00:19:17] And he, the lineup of people that he is gonna have there just to hear them speak and to just, even if you grasp a part of it, that's the biggest thing we've always said on Farm4Profit is even if you picked up a little thing that's gonna bring value to you, whether you're a farmer or not, just walk away with something that makes you a better person.

Vance Crowe [00:19:33] Yeah, he gave me an invitation to give a little talk there and I'm gonna be talking about how really all the success we have in life doesn't come from success being easy. It comes from the failures and from trying something new and different. Right. And you'll be around a group of people that have tried things that have failed and tried things that succeeded. And I think it's a good way to push yourself to, to trying to see the world a little differently. Alright, that covers our headlines for today. If you have news you think we should cover, you can always hit me up on X at Vance Crowe or just email me Vance at Vance Crowe dot com. Now we're gonna move to the Bitcoin land price report. Tanner, what county do you live here in Iowa?

Tanner Winterhof [00:20:12] Story County Iowa. Story

Vance Crowe [00:20:14] County Iowa. So what is an acre of land in terms of US dollars?

Tanner Winterhof [00:20:18] We just had a couple of farms sell a couple weeks ago right down the road from the farm and it went for just under $14,000 an acre.

Vance Crowe [00:20:25] Alright. And if you look at that right now for the conversion price just before the show started, that is 0.23 Bitcoin per acre or in other words, if you were trying to buy a acres in Story County with one Bitcoin, you could buy 4.4 acres of high quality farmland in story Iowa.

Tanner Winterhof [00:20:45] Yeah, that's an interesting way of looking at it. I kind of wish I had a couple of Bitcoin.

Vance Crowe [00:20:51] Yeah, I, I know Zach really shocked me when he said he, if he were out there buying land right now, he'd actually rather buy Bitcoin. And I think it's something to consider if, if you can't get all the way to buying the acreage you want maybe put your money in Bitcoin.

Tanner Winterhof [00:21:02] What a interesting perspective. Alright,

Vance Crowe [00:21:04] Well that's definitely something that I think a lot about. But now what I want to turn to is what we call the Peter Thiel paradox where I ask our guest to talk about what is one thing that you believe that almost nobody in your tribe agrees with you on. So Tanner, I'll throw it to you. Yeah,

Tanner Winterhof [00:21:20] I'm gonna do two of them because the first one I told you is gonna be a little bit of a joke. Our audience has a running debate, I shouldn't even say debate. I'm the only one that grew up

Vance Crowe [00:21:29] With

Tanner Winterhof [00:21:29] A loose meat sandwich that's sauce, like a ground beef sandwich with sauce in it. I grew up with that being called a tavern and everybody else in the world that I have talked to calls that a sloppy Joe sandwich. So for me it's a tavern. Everybody else tells me a tavern's, a local bar to go get a beer at.

Vance Crowe [00:21:44] Now if you were at high school reunion, what percentage of your high school reunion of say it's a tavern of a hundred percent of

Tanner Winterhof [00:21:51] A hundred percent.

Vance Crowe [00:21:52] This is madness. What like when you bought Manwich or whatever at the store you saw it. I, we never bought it. That would've been used. Used to get used

Tanner Winterhof [00:22:00] Tavern seasoning, a packet of tavern seasoning that we would mix in with our ground beef and ultimately it would absolutely be a tavern sandwich.

Vance Crowe [00:22:10] Alright, well I am gonna go ahead and give that a 2.1 on Tal paradox, but I, how about I give

Tanner Winterhof [00:22:15] The real one. Okay,

Vance Crowe [00:22:16] Gimme a real one then. And I feel

Tanner Winterhof [00:22:17] Like that 2.1 was rigged. Ultimately what I wanted, wanted to come on here and share is that I think farm kids need to go to college. I think if there is a a, a individual out there that plans on returning to the family farm or being in farming in general that they need to, it should almost be a necessity that they need to go to college.

Vance Crowe [00:22:35] Well why do you think this is something people disagree with you on?

Tanner Winterhof [00:22:38] I think there's a lot that state that farming is something that you learn. You start working on the farm at eight or 10 years old or even younger than that and you learn everything that you need to know on, on the job experience. But in my opinion, there's been that swing from everybody when I went to college, had to go to college, you had to go get your four year degree and now there's been a swing to, trades are more important. You don't have to get that four year degree. I think there's intangibles that you get outta college that are best for farmers. Farmers in general suck at hr. Farmers in general are fairly individualized and don't deal with people well what environment are you forced in a classroom with people that you don't maybe have similar interests with forced into a community such as dorm rooms that makes you have to get along with other people rather than college?

Vance Crowe [00:23:26] Well I think, I'm gonna disagree with you on this one because I, you know, I've been running business for a couple of years now and I have one employee that went to college and he got a lot out of it and I have several employees that did not go to college And one of the things that it's done is it's given them freedom to do jobs that they would prefer to do 'cause they don't have debt and they're able to build skills in a way that a kid coming outta college Yeah. Has an immediate, I gotta make money 'cause I got these loans that the government says I can't discharge in bankruptcy. And I think a lot of kids get swallowed up by, by college all the drinking and partying is what they're really going for as opposed to the big lessons that they're learning. That's

Tanner Winterhof [00:24:03] A great point. We had an interview just last week where someone that delayed their college trip and they got more out of it once they'd done life for a little bit. But I, I wish there was an ag degree to where you went and you got, you got to deal with people, you got some small business skills, you understood finance. Maybe you, maybe it is almost like a trade degree but you call it the, the farmer's degree or, or something along those lines because there's still, I'm gonna defend it a lot that I got out of going to college that translates well to running a farm and helping others achieve higher levels of profitability on their farm that I wouldn't have gotten just from everyday life.

Vance Crowe [00:24:36] I think one of the things that you got was this financial knowledge, right? Yeah. And one of my good buddies, Michael Ring, he went out and got a mechanics degree and and learning how to run engines and run electricity. To me, when you take a skill and then you marry it with farming or you marry it with your other business, that's what gives you the competitive edge. I mean my brother was a geothermal, well driller with an accounting degree and it was those two things that came together right. That gave them a boost. So I'll give you that, that college can give you that competitive edge. What percentage of kids that are going to college do you think are pulling out the type of skills that are gonna make them better farmers, better on their farm operation?

Tanner Winterhof [00:25:14] Boy, I would like to think it's a higher number, but it's probably less than 50%.

Vance Crowe [00:25:18] Ouch. Okay.

Tanner Winterhof [00:25:20] Yeah. I I wish it was almost like the European style to where they'd take a holiday between their high school classes in college. I wish we got to do life and then nothing saying we can't, I wish we got to do life for a couple years before we go in and learn what we realize we don't know.

Vance Crowe [00:25:34] Well I think that was my case when I went to graduate school. I was so much better. Like the partying didn't matter to me. It wasn't the first time I was free. I think the big challenge with college is a lot of times that's the first time kids have been away from parents. So I am gonna say that there are probably people right now completely disagreeing with you. So that's gonna give you a nice score somewhere up in the seven fives I think. Oh

Tanner Winterhof [00:25:57] Wow. Look

Vance Crowe [00:25:57] At that. Seven, five,

Tanner Winterhof [00:25:58] Our in studio audience is not happy with it.

Vance Crowe [00:26:01] Alright now, oh, that's because Corey is just out there and his bullshit one only got 4.4. I don't even remember what it was, it was so bad. Now onto the worthy adversaries, this is where I ask my co-host who is somebody that's out in social media that you disagree with but you still respect. And the reason this is so important is we've gotta get out of our echo chambers. We've gotta have people that we don't always agree with. So who are you listening to or engaging with that you would say is a worthy adversary? Yeah,

Tanner Winterhof [00:26:30] I, I wanna go with Mary Jo Irmen. So she is the author of Farming Without the Bank, but she's also of But running your business without the bank and, and a lot of different things that end with without the Bank coming from being a former banker, myself, obviously we butted heads quite often in a general topic because she was telling people they didn't need me and I was telling her that yes, people need banks, but ultimately she drives a lot of value in her channel on TikTok, MJ Irmen, I-R-M-E-N. I don't have to agree with everything that she does, but there we even took the opportunity to interview her on the podcast because there is value in the messaging that she puts together. She's extremely dedicated to educating people. It's just one of those things, in my opinion that's not for everybody.

Vance Crowe [00:27:15] So gimme the, the spiel. How does she believe that steelman her argument? Yep. How does she believe you can farm without the bank?

Tanner Winterhof [00:27:22] She wants you to fund whole life insurance policies and be able to borrow against the whole life insurance policy. Now my defense is yes, whole life is a, is a tool that can be in your retirement plan or your estate transition plan, but you could probably achieve the same sentiment of farming without the lender telling you yes or no. By funding a high yield savings account or money market, if you are disciplined enough to make a premium payment on a whole life policy, you can be disciplined enough to save your own money until you can borrow it from yourself. If

Vance Crowe [00:27:54] You've got

Tanner Winterhof [00:27:55] A million dollars saved up in your savings account, you no longer have to go to the banker to ask 'em for a million dollars. You borrow it from yourself.

Vance Crowe [00:28:02] Well I think this was a very good worthy adversary. So she is on TikTok, is she on x? I didn't see her there.

Tanner Winterhof [00:28:08] I think she's got channel out there. It's not nearly as big, but Twitter and Instagram are her two main platforms. Well

Vance Crowe [00:28:14] If you wanna see Tanner disagreeing with somebody or TikTok, I'm

Tanner Winterhof [00:28:17] TikTok and Instagram.

Vance Crowe [00:28:18] If you want to see Tanner disagreeing with somebody in this very tanner nice way considering all the options, go to TikTok and check her out. We will put her in the notes and definitely include her on the list. So that is going to do it for the Ag Tribes Report. I wanna thank our sponsor Farm test.ag who allows you to do field testing of your own crops to allow you to know, hey, is that marketing guy telling me the truth about how much this is gonna put a boost on my acreage. Also to Legacy Interviews where we record your loved ones telling their life stories so that future generations have the opportunity to know their family history. I wanna thank you so much for, for letting me use the studio, for bringing me in. I've learned a whole bunch about how you guys are running this amazing operation here. Hey,

Tanner Winterhof [00:29:06] It's been literally been our pleasure. We got to come see you in St. Louis and that was a blast and we learned from that experience too. And some of it's been implemented right here.

Vance Crowe [00:29:14] Alright, if you are anywhere near Buffalo Center, Iowa, you can check out the Stock Cropper Field days. I'm telling you, it's gonna be amazing. There's really interesting people there. I hope you check that out. Also, monitor the Bitcoin price for what it would get you in land in your county and we'll see you next week with another Ag Tribes Report. Guest host Ty Morgan is gonna be on next week.

Outro — Vance & Tanner (merged) [00:29:36] Oh, that's gonna be a good one. As always. Feel free to disagree. I.