Canadian Farmer on Tariff Whiplash, Dairy Dumping Politics & Science Trust Collapse

Doug Whitehead [00:00:00] The Ag Tribes report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are. So the future knows who they really were. Here are Legacy Interviews guests, mark and Stephanie Mendenhall on the unexpected ease of their experience. What'd you guys think? How was it? Much easier than I expected. Yep. Much easier. You made us feel very comfortable. Was this something that weighed on you for a while? Did hurt. I just, I, we looked at it and said, well, we'll just wing it because you know, you give this list to figure it out, this out and figure this out. Oh, well we didn't get that done. What? What we remember, we remember and what we forgot. We'll tell the kids later tomorrow I'll say, God, why didn't I tell this story? Why this, or why didn't I tell 'em about this? Say this. You do a good job of asking questions. 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.

Vance Crowe [00:01:05] Welcome to the Ag Tribes report. I'm your host Vance Crowe. Each week I bring on a co-host that represents one perspective of the many ag tribes that collectively make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week we have the one and only, the only, Doug Whitehead, a Canadian farmer and trucker who sold peas at church, rants about grain prices and Trudeau and believes the food system's rigged unless you fight back. Doug did some ice trucking in the past and is one of my favorite people I met as a result of starting my podcast more than five years. Doug, it is my great pleasure you to welcome you to the Ag Tribes report.

Doug Whitehead [00:01:42] Well, thanks for having me, Vance. It's awesome to be here.

Vance Crowe [00:01:44] So how are things in Canada?

Doug Whitehead [00:01:47] Well, it's starting to warm up, so it's nice now. It been a long winter. It felt like I said, I don't know, I'm getting old or soft or what, but felt like it was a long cold winter and it's nice to see the other side of it days are getting longer and the sun's feeling warm.

Vance Crowe [00:02:01] And to warm yourself up over this winter, you did not one but two 50 Ks, huh?

Doug Whitehead [00:02:06] Well, the first one didn't warm me up 'cause I did it in Falcon Lake, Manitoba. So that was 50 K outside and then the second one I did a couple weeks ago in Alabama.

Vance Crowe [00:02:16] And so day in and day out, what do you, how do you spend your time, Doug?

Doug Whitehead [00:02:21] Winter time's a little bit slower. We, me and my younger brother run a trucking company. We have seven trucks on the road full-time. So I do all the dispatching. He works in the shop, he keeps things rolling. And then we've, we've got some jobs on the lake. We're hauling our own grain and we, we do some intercrop on our farm. So we go oats and peas together and we were separating that. That took, I had to wait for the nicer weather for that. So that took about two or three weeks I guess, separating Intercrop. And that's all done now. And we're kind of ready to get some grain cleaned up and then think about seating in a month and a half here. I guess.

Vance Crowe [00:02:55] Wild to think that seating is just around the corner. All right. Right. This week on the Ag tribes report, we are going to explore the deescalating trade war with Canada. Trump at the last moment changed all my plans to talk about tariffs, but we've still got a lot to say. We're also gonna dig into claims that from New Zealand, Australia and US dairy farmers accusing Canada of dumping cheap milk globally, spotlighting the tensions over their supply management system. Then we're gonna look at Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins, $1 billion push to curb egg prices due to bird flu. And lastly, we're gonna talk about Canadian patriotism sparked by Trump's tariff threats. We're gonna ask the question, is this a hype or is this a gen, a genuine thing going on with Canada? We're also going to explore the Bitcoin land price report. We're going to hear Doug's take on the Peter Thiel paradox and ask about his worthy adversary. And we're gonna do that all in just 30 minutes. If you are watching the podcast live, don't forget, you can comment on X and and other platforms and we will include your comments on here. So let's get started. Trade war tariffs impacting ag on both sides of the US Canada border. What I was preparing to talk about was the fact that we were gonna see massive 25% tariffs and then retaliatory tariffs and then maybe even moving them up again between the US and Canada. And everybody knows the US sells a lot of commodities up to Canada.

Vance Crowe [00:04:29] Canada sells a huge percentage of their commodities down to the United States. And, and of course the United States needs a lot of inputs from Canada in order to be as productive as we are. But Trump said just a few hours ago that the, they're gonna put a pause on these tariffs. So let's talk a little bit about what Canadians perspective was on these tariffs. How did they feel about what was going on? What did you expect was gonna happen, Doug?

Doug Whitehead [00:04:56] Well, to really expect anything, it's kind of hard because, was this the third time we've had now from tariffs on tariffs off? Tariffs on tariffs off. I mean, just personally, I guess like we have some oats for sale and I'm trying to sell them, but they can't get a bid on old crop oats as typically our oats go to Minneapolis, to the Millers general Mills are Quaker Oats down there. And and the buyers, they aren't fully bought up through summer, but they're not, they're no bid right now waiting on tariff concerns, I guess. So maybe that'll change tomorrow. I don't know. But yeah, that's,

Vance Crowe [00:05:34] Well I definitely saw American farmers talking about, you know, you bring up milling, Greg Gunther, Jason Mauck, all these people. Were talking about how potentially the tariffs make it possible for small scale us milling. So you could start to have people that are growing smaller scale, being able to mill. But at the current, you know, global trade made it so Canada could produce things like flour so much cheaper that it didn't pay to have milling here in the United States. I think there are some American farmers that are a little bit disappointed that the tariffs aren't on.

Doug Whitehead [00:06:07] Yeah, maybe I, I, I wonder how much that is just a function of American farmers don't wanna change their, their cropping plans. Like that's maybe a different category altogether, but like, guys grow corn and soybeans 'cause that's what the government pays 'em to grow. And they're not gonna grow wheat just 'cause they can mill their own wheat. Like that's hard work and low margins. And you gotta find your own, your make your own business and find your end end users. And it, it's no different than the guys that are like, how many guys have started their own butcher shops and it didn't work out because it's either the government gets in the way or you don't, you don't find the markets or you're competing with JBS and the big boys. Like there's big boys in the milling space too, and they're not gonna, they're not gonna take kindly to somebody else stealing their margins.

Vance Crowe [00:06:48] Yeah, I mean I think that tariffs, my impression of tariffs is that it can really help a country for a short amount of time. And then all of a sudden the tariffs, instead of helping make you be like, Hey, we're gonna start up our own milling process, Hey, we're gonna change the, the butchering laws all of a sudden, it also means you don't have competition. So you can get lazy. You don't necessarily have to produce. So to me, my read on economics is that tariffs have a short-term impact and long-term it, it causes stagnation.

Doug Whitehead [00:07:19] Yeah, well I wonder like the, the goal of the tariffs is that you, and then the idea is that they can lower taxes right? In, in the states that they can, they offset one with the other. So in Canada, we love taxes and we love and love high taxes. So that's, maybe that's why we hate tariffs is 'cause we don't wanna lower taxes from a gov our government's perspective.

Vance Crowe [00:07:40] Well, and from what Americans talk about, they say Canadians have a ton of tariffs on things and that when we try and send stuff over to you, you guys do make it more expensive for our producers to be able to make it work in your country.

Doug Whitehead [00:07:51] Yeah, that's true too. Yeah. This has been the, the, all the supply managed systems are all, all tariffed and they've been, those tariffs have been on for, for decades.

Vance Crowe [00:08:00] Well, speaking of price changing, let's move on to headline number two. Canada accused of dumping dairy products by rival exporters from Bloomberg. As of January 15th, dairy companies in New Zealand, Australia and the US have accused Canada of dumping low price milk products into global markets, urging their governments to intervene. The Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand, along with industry groups from the other nations claim that Canada's supply management system artificially under prices, surplus milk disrupting dairy markets. This follows reports of Canada wasting nearly 7 billion liters of milk since 2012, valued at 14.9 billion, while exporting 500 million in dairy products in 2023. So the other countries are saying, Hey, you guys are making it so your prices are are artificially propped up. And when you talk to us dairy farmer Dwayne Faber, he says Canada will literally push their entire country into a depression before pulling the 280% tariff off of imported dairy products. Dairy. Doug, you are a consumer of dairy in Canada, does Canada supply management, how does that feel to you?

Doug Whitehead [00:09:13] Well, I mean, it, it's, I don't know, it's been that way my whole life, so I guess I don't really know. No, I I've been drinking raw milk lately, so I have a source for that. I guess that maybe I shouldn't, shouldn't say that publicly, but it's, it's supposed to be, it's supposed to be good. I haven't got sick yet, so taste it.

Vance Crowe [00:09:30] Yeah. Mean one thing I can say about the, the managed dairy is that it is a very small but very vocal group of people. And whenever you bring it up, they, I will, I will hear from people for weeks after this about how I need to talk to this person or that person in order to get a fair shake on the, on the, what they call the, you know, the dairy cartel.

Doug Whitehead [00:09:50] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:09:51] But it seems like they are definitely propping up prices by one, putting out tokens. My understanding is there's basically a system where not just anybody can start dairying. You have to get a token from the government, a

Doug Whitehead [00:10:02] Quota system, they call it a

Vance Crowe [00:10:03] Quota system. Yeah. And then that quota making it so they can't overproduce. Whereas in the United States, if you get a dairy farm, you're gonna try and produce as much milk as you possibly can and that's gonna bring the price down to the, the marginal cost of production.

Doug Whitehead [00:10:17] Yep. For sure. It's, it's got a lot to do with Canada being so split between the east and the west. 'cause the majority of that dairy is in Quebec and that they have all the political willpower on their side and there's, there's dairies across the west as well. And I guess I should have looked up what the percentages of that are, but you always hear it's the dairy, the Quebec dairy farms that aren't gonna let it go and they have all the pull in the government.

Vance Crowe [00:10:41] Yeah, I did, I have a, a Canadian friend that told me one time that she thought that there was a chance that the tariffs actually would really rip Canada apart because if Quebec lost something like its supply management, it would cause them to, to further put fan the flames towards secession. And then that secession push would make the broader government vulnerable to say the west going to secession. And so some of this push by Trump might be a way to continue to sow disunity inside of the country. How does that fit with your understanding?

Doug Whitehead [00:11:16] I, it feels right. I mean the, the, you hear all about the Alberta secession just talk of it I guess. And like Quebec had a referendum in the nineties, I think to, to leave and narrowly stayed within Canada. So that's been ongoing for 30 years now. Yeah, I mean everybody gets mad about the 51st state propaganda and then, but it's already been happening for 30 years talking about breaking up the country. So I don't know these lines on the, they're just lines on a map. They're made to be redrawn.

Vance Crowe [00:11:50] Oh boy. You are saying some fighting words to some Canadians. We'll get back to that 'cause I want to talk about, about whether the the wave of patriotism is real or not. But moving on to headline three, secretary Rollins is plans to bring down the price of eggs. I wanna play this clip here. This is played at the White House just yesterday regarding Secretary Rollins

Doug Whitehead [00:12:15] Egg crisis in this country. The president is wholeheartedly committed to ensuring we're increasing our egg supply and we're also bringing down cost. And Secretary Rollins has been all over this issue. She comes from an agricultural background and family. That's why she's leading that very important department. She wrote an amazing op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. She's been all over the media talking about her plan. She has a real plan. The president endorses it and he even, you know, gave her an off the prompter shout out last night to say, Brooke, I'm counting on you. It's an important issue. And this White House is working with Secretary of Agriculture every single day to address this issue.

Vance Crowe [00:12:51] So when I hear that, it just kind of further the flames of my belief that so far Secretary Rollins has only been a super FFA officer. And I don't know if that means anything to you, but she's been going to a lot of places. She's been waving her hand a lot. She's been saying, Hey, we're working on things and we're so excited to be working together, but not a lot of plans. However, she is gonna get a billion dollars to spend on this. So last week we brought this up, there's been a little bit more details about it. 400 million to help farmers repopulate fla flocks that have been killed. 500 million for biosecurity, 100 million for research, including vaccines. And, and they're gonna try and do just a ton more build out. So this is all going on with the backdrop of Elon Musk tweeting that the Biden administration is the cause of the bird flu. Saying that it was the Biden administration basically being way over zealous on how many birds they killed egg laying hens. And that's why we have an egg shortage. It's not necessarily something we need to spend a billion dollars on. It's just something that we caused ourselves. What about Canada, Doug? Is, are you guys experiencing wild prices in eggs due to bird flu?

Doug Whitehead [00:14:07] No, it hasn't changed anything here. Like eggs are a supply managed system in Canada. They're under the quota system as well. So, and I've never heard any talk about bird flu in any of the barns that I, I don't firsthand talk to any egg producers, but I know egg prices are just, it's, it's never really been talked about here.

Vance Crowe [00:14:26] It's wild to me that it is not a, not a problem there that you guys aren't hearing it talked about. I mean here you run the spectrum of people being like, this is a catastrophic problem. I wanna, I heard a guy talking about how he went on a bird hunt a couple of, maybe a month or two ago, and that everywhere they went there would be all kinds of dead wild fowl and then waterfowl. And then on the other hand you hear people on X saying, Hey no, this is just a, a manmade crisis. Either the government is the one that killed all those or they're faking the disease. And then even more than that, you hear people talking about this is a manmade disease that came out of a law, a lab in in Georgia. It

Doug Whitehead [00:15:05] Wouldn't do that.

Vance Crowe [00:15:11] What do you think, what's, what's your sense on the realness of this issue?

Doug Whitehead [00:15:16] I I I, there probably is a disease going that's gotten into, like, you get into those, those barns, like they're any like close confinement barns or whatever. There's, there's million chickens in a small barn. You get one little bug that goes through it can spread through that like wildfire and how to determine where you start your call and where you end your call. You probably gotta be overzealous on culling to get them all. You kill a bunch of healthy birds to kill the bad, kill the sick ones. I think it probably makes sense from a, a standpoint of if, if the disease is there, that that's how you call things. You, you gotta kill 'em all basically. Like you, you can't let one go and then get it into the next barn. 'cause then you just, you just, it's just, it's a wildfire literally. Right?

Vance Crowe [00:15:59] Yeah. And, and there's something truly dark about needing to coal animals. I remember during COVID when they had to kill all those pigs because there just wasn't anybody there to cut 'em up.

Doug Whitehead [00:16:08] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:16:08] With bird flu, you gotta say are, you know, are we airing on the side of caution in order to preserve this? Or can you go too far? I know I heard people complaining about how the circles drawn around these egg laying hens was so large that they, you know, they're doing major biosecurity where they don't allow people to work in multiple barns. And so why are you killing these birds? And maybe they went over the top. But you know, I'm, I'm, I'm also understanding of like, if you're gonna nip this thing in the bud, you gotta go all the way.

Doug Whitehead [00:16:38] Yeah. It's really hard to know how, how severe this, this virus is or whatever it was that was going through. I remember, yeah when COVID times was talking to Hu Colon in Alberta and they had to call a bunch of birds 'cause the, there's no demand for the eggs for their laying hens. And they had to, they had to call birds that were laying age. 'cause they, there's no use for them,

Vance Crowe [00:16:59] Man. I don't, have you seen the way they cu birds for this bird flu where they put that foam in there?

Doug Whitehead [00:17:05] No.

Vance Crowe [00:17:06] Oh man. It is truly out of like a dystopian movie because they start putting the foam in on one side of the barn and it rolls just like the fog or the mist over these birds and then it basically suffocates them. And it's supposed to be the most humane way to do it. But I, I watched one and I was like, that's the stuff of nightmares there, Ray, because you, the sound of a, of a, of a henhouse is really loud and then it just gets quieter and quieter and quieter

Doug Whitehead [00:17:33] Is

Vance Crowe [00:17:33] Dark.

Doug Whitehead [00:17:34] It's dark. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:17:36] Alright, on to headline number four. This was suggested by Doug. So Canadian audiences, I have very little opinion here because

Doug Whitehead [00:17:45] I think what he's about to say,

Vance Crowe [00:17:46] No,

Doug Whitehead [00:17:46] You have no opinion.

Vance Crowe [00:17:47] It is controversial Canadian patriotism over tariffs. Is it real or is it hype? There has been a noticeable surge in discussions about the newfound Canadian patriotism, especially in response to external pressures like the US President Trump's policies like the 25% tariffs in the 51st state. The Calgary Herald on February 14th highlighted a tidal wave of national pride with Canadian flags selling out and patriotism becoming a buzzword. Then the, but on the other hand, the, the Globe and Mail, they also wrote dramatic changes in a short time with Canadian historically favoring quieter patriotism. Now waving flags, more fever than ever. The hub, however, takes a more skeptical stance, sight arguing that patriotism feels performative, more like tourists jumping on a trend than a sustained commitment to national responsibility. Doug, you are there on the ground. Is it fake or is it real patriotism?

Doug Whitehead [00:18:48] Well, yeah, with everything there's nuance to it, right. But I think one thing our government is really good at is speaking in platitudes and, and talking down to its citizens. I don't know if you maybe didn't see Trudeau today, just today. He was, he was on something and he was crying, crying, literally crying on it, saying how he has Canadian's backs and he always has. And for the last 10 years he's done everything to preserve Canada. And, and then now we've got these tariffs. And one of the funny things about these tariffs is that, so it it's 25% tariff and say it costs, it makes everything cost 25% more. We also have a carbon tax in Canada that's going up April 1st by another $15 a ton. It's at $90 now and goes up to $105 in in April. And that could be canceled with a stroke of a pen. So they were truly worried about Canadians pocketbooks and, and having some sustainability in this country, all they had to do is cancel this carbon tax. It it does absolutely nothing. It

Vance Crowe [00:19:50] Yeah, and it's gonna get wild in the US if they really can cut out a lot of the carbon nonsense that's gone on. That's really hampered a lot of industry. You're gonna watch us companies just rocket forward while your companies and just individual taxpayers are being, you know, knuckled down by this carbon tax, which is, I mean, I think is bad in the US but Canada's is way worse. Yeah,

Doug Whitehead [00:20:12] It's insane. I I I saw it allowed three or 4 cents a liter to price of gasoline at the pump once it goes up. So that's in addition to what it is now, it's 20 cents a liter or whatever it is right now of carbon tax. On price of gas.

Vance Crowe [00:20:26] So the people that are, you know, booing at the national anthem and pushing back against the 51st state is this, you know, is it, could it be split between right and left west and east? Is there a semblance of order to it? Does it make sense? Is it, is it a growing thing or just kind of it hit a fever pitch and it's gone now?

Doug Whitehead [00:20:46] Yeah, it, it, it's, it's hard to, I don't know. It sure seems like it's, you always wanna blame the left and you wanna blame the, the east I guess. But I mean that is where they were booing the national anthem. But I don't even go to Hakeem and Winnipeg and they would boo the national anthem there too, because that's where all the left leaning people live in, in, in Manitoba. I don't know, it just doesn't make sense to me. It just, it feels so fake. Like I, I like referencing the book Catcher in the Rye and Holden Caulfield. Everybody, phonies, everybody, all the people in charge are phonies. They're all phonies and it feels like that in our government. It's just, they're just, they're just fake. Everything's fake. Like it's all performative. And there's just so many things that we forgot about now too. Like the, the one note I made was just the, the fiscal deficit. They, they were supposed to come up with the, the budget in November I think it was. And, and it was a $45 billion deficit. And the finance minister Freeland quit or got fired or however that went down just before reading out this budget. So then there were a couple more days after that getting it out and it came in at $62 billion deficit. So they're 50% over their deficit and nobody wanted to, nobody's taking accountability for that. Like it's, that's brushed under the table and now we're just booing the US national anthem because it's just platitudes. Like, it's something we can do that doesn't mean anything. Nobody's gonna have to raise, it's like having a Ukraine flag in your Twitter bio.

Vance Crowe [00:22:13] You can just,

Doug Whitehead [00:22:13] I stand with Ukraine. Okay. Do you like, yeah, you

Vance Crowe [00:22:16] Sending your kids over there to fight, you gonna put boots on the ground. Nobody,

Doug Whitehead [00:22:19] Nobody has, right?

Vance Crowe [00:22:21] Yeah. You know, everybody talks about Trump potentially either being, you know, like, like people perceive him as being a bumbling idiot or playing four D chess. But the guy I think is playing four D chess is Trudeau because he went from being completely ousted to being like, for real guys, I'm gonna quit to now it's like your elections aren't scheduled, he's still running the country. Is it like, it seemed like the pressure came off of him because he was retiring. This is a guy that has figured out how to play that game.

Doug Whitehead [00:22:50] Yeah, I mean it's hard to argue with that. It's, it is as crooked and awful as, as it is because then they'll bring Carney in who is just part of the, the group. Like he is, he is the, he was the central banker in Canada for a while and then he went to the Bank of England and ran that central bank. So he's, you know, all about central banks and how those people operate. So he is coming back and he's probably gonna become the PM next I guess like, I don't know if we have an election. I don't know when that, that was one thing that Trump had said, like he was mad at Trudeau. You can't even tell me when your next election's gonna be. How's that a democracy?

Vance Crowe [00:23:23] Yeah. One of the biggest things that I've learned is I never really comment on Canadian politics because I can't explain how any of your parliament works, your elections, nothing. So what do I have to say about it? Alright, that's gonna do it for our headlines this week. If you have headlines, it is so helpful if you send them to me on x at Vance Crowe or Vance at Legacy Interviews dot com. Now we are going to head to the Bitcoin land price report. This is where we really discover what is the price of land. Last week Bitcoin was down all the way at $84,369 at that low low price on sale. Today we're sitting at $89,295, which is up 6%. And if we convert it for Canadian friends, one Bitcoin will cost you 127,589 Canadian dollars. And so when we start to compare that to Farm Ground, Doug, how much is an acre of high quality farm ground in your county?

Doug Whitehead [00:24:26] We're, our province of Roland is in the Red River Valley, Manitoba, so it'd be somewhere around $12,000 Canadian a an acre here.

Vance Crowe [00:24:36] And so in other words, one Bitcoin. Oh, so one acre of ground will cost you 0.094 Bitcoin. In other words, one Bitcoin will buy you 10.6 acres of land in the Red River Valley of Manitoba. How does that, how does that sit with you, Doug?

Doug Whitehead [00:24:54] That's cool. I mean, you can buy a nice yard, nice yard site for, for one Bitcoin.

Vance Crowe [00:24:58] Are you a Bitcoin or in the Canadians around you? Is anybody into Bitcoin?

Doug Whitehead [00:25:02] Yeah, a few guys. I've got a few of my friends that are shit Bitcoiners. So I, we have the con we have the chirps about that. I'm a, I'm a maxi Bitcoin maxi for sure. I don't, I don't touch shit coins. I've lost so much money on pumping dumps and all the other bullshit investing that I've done that I'm, I'm not playing with with any of the other ones. So yeah, I, I own, I've been, I started buying Bitcoin about three years ago, I guess, and I've been stacking it and I I have it off chain on the cold wallet and I know, oh, you're singing my language. I should give you some for, for all because I haven't got into the raspberry or the nodes. I haven't gotten that far yet. But,

Vance Crowe [00:25:38] So for anybody that doesn't know what Doug is saying about shit coins is, and I think if you're not a Bitcoin or you're like, wait, that's not being fair, how can you say that? Why would Bitcoin be the good one in these other ones? But what most bitcoiners once they've really studied it begin to understand is these other coins that are out there, they are issued by somebody or a group of people and the group of people will say, all right, we're gonna issue a coin. We're gonna do like an an initial coin offering, but we're gonna do some pre mine, meaning we're gonna keep back 10%, 20%, 50% of the, of the coins that we're gonna put out there and we're just gonna hold those ourselves. We aren't gonna pay for 'em, we're just gonna have 'em. And then we're gonna put these out to the market. And then when they decide, hey, we're gonna try and run this up and then we're gonna dump our stack. So they make these, they call 'em pump and dumps and there's all these stupid games that these people play. Whereas Bitcoin, that can't be done. Bitcoin started as they call it the immaculate conception. It was once the paper came out, people could go mine Bitcoin and there was no no group that's got the certain pre mind. Nobody can control it. And another interesting fact about Bitcoin is since there is no central issuer, if a transaction happens that people don't like, there's no reversing it. Whereas in all these other coins, Ethereum Ripple, if they don't like a transaction that's happened, they can go, oh, why don't we rewind the tape and we'll do it another and, and move these coins over here or reverse that transaction. And to Bitcoiners we say that makes it not safe.

Vance Crowe [00:27:11] It makes it always vulnerable to either a group of individuals or a government coming in and dominating that thing. And so if you compare Bitcoin to all the other ones, they are shit, Bitcoin is the only one.

Doug Whitehead [00:27:24] Yeah, yeah. You,

Vance Crowe [00:27:25] How does that strike you? Good explanation.

Doug Whitehead [00:27:27] Yeah, I love it. Yeah, you you don't get the opportunity to roll it back. It's the guys in charge that do and you're not gonna be the one in charge.

Vance Crowe [00:27:33] Exactly. And I mean we're gonna see tomorrow what the White House is gonna say about, you know, how they're gonna have a crypto strategy for the future. I am not hopeful. I I'm not excited about this. I think that it's likely there's gonna be a bunch of these shit coins getting propped up by the US government. I don't really know how I feel about the government spending US dollars to buy Bitcoin, but I do think like it just goes to show that Bitcoin is here to stay for a very long time.

Doug Whitehead [00:28:02] Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Are they still auditing Fort Knox then and trade some of that in for Bitcoin or what?

Vance Crowe [00:28:07] Ah, gosh, I hope so. Man. Who knows what's going on with Fort Knox. I do think they are gonna do that. I think it's been a fun thing for everybody to keep in the news. All right. Now if we're gonna keep on schedule, let's do the Peter Thiel paradox. This is where I asked Doug, what is one thing that you believe that almost nobody in your tribe agrees with you on?

Doug Whitehead [00:28:26] Well, I wrote down here farmers are, farmers are largely hypocrites, but maybe, maybe I should say like lazy thinkers because that's kind

Vance Crowe [00:28:34] Whoa.

Doug Whitehead [00:28:36] I'm gonna include myself in all of this too. So like we, we, one of the big ones is we don't trust any of the COVID science like PCR testing. That was the wrong test at the wrong time, at the wrong cycle thresholds. We the masking you one mask, two masks, no mask, all the masks, however many whatever. And then like ventilators, are they good or are they bad or like all the science around it did, did it come from a lab? Is it a like a leak or how did it, how did it show up? But then we go and we spray chemicals on our fields and there's labels on them and the chem company says it's safe. So we spray that chemical on our field and it's good. But I mean, all through history you can go, I I I read silent spring this winter about the history of DDT essentially. And like that was used on everything at one time in the sixties and then it was, it was banned after he was killing people. And, and now there's a chemical gramoxone with the active paraquat that's been banned in Canada to link, link to Parkinson's and it's still used in the states. There's atrazine is another big one. Like we used that up to two or three years ago. It's still legal. You guys are still using it in your corn as as a herbicide. It's, it's an option that's, it's legal, like it's on label. There's no FDA require or I guess I should say whatever the Canadian version of FDA is that it's, it's all legal, it's all on label. But I don't know like how, how can we trust one set of science but the other set that's not convenient to us.

Vance Crowe [00:30:12] I think you're bringing up a really good point and you know, there was a time there where I worked a lot in this space with, hey, we as a society have to come to some agreement about how we will decide what is the evidence that we have that something is true. And if we don't have that, then it's just a free for all then it's just, hey, whoever is the strongest gets to make the choice or whoever is the loudest. And the problem is that trust the science got horribly abused. Yeah. And so it's very easy for whether it's farmers or people like me to be like, you know what? I don't believe in any of that shit. Like maybe I don't believe in, you know, I don't believe in Mr IV vaccines, maybe I don't believe in vaccines at all. Maybe I don't believe, you know, to your point earlier about, you know, they said pasteurized milk is really good. Well maybe raw milk is really good. Yeah.

Doug Whitehead [00:31:01] So

Vance Crowe [00:31:01] I, I think it's good to be able to question things that's the core of science, but at the end of the day, we ha there is got, there's got to be a thing that we agree on that leads us to an answers to complicated questions that we can say this is, we're doing the best we can with what we know. And right now science has been put in a wood chipper and it it may be generations before we get that back.

Doug Whitehead [00:31:25] Yeah. And it's, it's, it's a reputation that it deserved too because it was wrong on a lot of it. And, and just very wholly about how they, it's the science, the science is settled. Right. That's the, that like you heard, how many times did you hear that it's the trust, the science and the science was wrong. I mean glyphosate's the next big one to, to go down. I mean we're still using glyphosate on our farm, but we're trying to use, we're trying to use less. We're we're growing different crops where you can use less, we're using fulvic acid and, and other strategies where you can, you can cut back your, your percentage of actives on your, on your crop and doing fewer passes and, but we're still using it and

Vance Crowe [00:32:03] Yeah, I mean we, like there's something going on with our food system and people are looking around and saying, is it this, is it that, and I think my hypothesis, I'm not sure if I said this in the egg tribes report yet or not, but I think that farmers may not get glyphosate banned, but what may happen is that the FDA says, you know, you can only have, you know, one part per trillion of glyphosate in your Wheaties or in your Cheerios and oh nope, all of these Wheaties get thrown out. And what that will mean is anybody that's growing wheat north of, I don't know, Nebraska is not gonna be able to do it because they use glyphosate to do dry down and there's always gonna be a little bit of residuals. It's going to radically change agriculture even if it isn't banned, even if it's legal to use, but just not acceptable in food grade systems.

Doug Whitehead [00:32:54] Well that's assuming people are gonna follow the rules then too.

Vance Crowe [00:32:58] Yeah, that's right. And I mean, and then there's just so much going on that once we broke our trust in science, there's, there's no telling where things will go. Even things that are safe will get thrown out with the bath water on this one. Yeah.

Doug Whitehead [00:33:12] This is almost like calling the chicken herd. Right. Or throw out all the chemicals that, and some of them are fine probably. And, and, but it's it's the fact that yeah, they, they, they ruined everybody's trust in their system and, and that you just, you can't trust what you hurt, what you hear.

Vance Crowe [00:33:28] Yeah. I guess that's kinda like the slow foam coming towards this. We're all gonna get choked out. Well I think that you did a good job on that one. I initially did not agree with your bombastic statement, but I think, I think you're getting an eight seven on this one's good. Yeah, super

Doug Whitehead [00:33:44] Crosby. I love it.

Vance Crowe [00:33:45] Alright, so now headed to the worthy adversary. This is where I ask Doug, who is one person that you respect but strongly disagree with.

Doug Whitehead [00:33:58] So yeah, this is always a fun one too. It's, it's fun to see what people come up with and why they, why they pick certain things. But I I I said Gabe Brown, I guess farmer from Bismarck, North Dakota or do you know who he is?

Vance Crowe [00:34:11] No, go on, tell me about him.

Doug Whitehead [00:34:12] So he is, he is like a pioneer in the regenerative ag movement. He's got a, I think they call it a 5,000 acre farm with livestock integration and intercropping and, I don't know intercropping but cover cropping and farm to gate like sales, like selling flour and live like pasture raised lamb and beef and pork and all this. Doing a lot of great things. But I went and I went and listened to him speak once, I don't know, pre COVID days. So it's funny how you mentioned things as COVID and pre COVID now, but, and he is just like an overweight, unhealthy looking guy and he is there lecturing me on how to farm and make healthy things. And I, I did, I did. And, and, and it just, it just rubbed me the wrong way. Like he is, he always had a slide that my farm, here's my, my field is look how green and healthy it is and here's my neighbors and it's terrible 'cause he doesn't farm the way I do. So I just don't think that he was selling the, the message of regenerative egg properly. He is just, he would just turn people off. He turned me off and I'm into the same space as he is. Like I believe a lot of the same principles of soil health and how you regenerate, regenerate your land and grow healthy crops and, but you can't do it by talking down to people and, and then they're just gonna argue with you and and disagree. I

Vance Crowe [00:35:37] Wow. That's a, that's a good one. And is one that you believe in? I, I saw these kinds of things like when I was working at Monsano, they had hired a dietician to go out and talk with other dieticians about the health of, you know, certain types of pesticides and GMOs and the guy super nice but morbidly obese.

Doug Whitehead [00:35:55] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:35:56] And you would say like any, any like mom that you're trying to talk into that you're kind of making fun of these yoga moms or these crunchy moms that are, you know, believe in all the pseudoscience? Well they're fit and, and healthy and you are not, and it's very difficult for you to be able to stand on anything because you know, your, your figure, your physique is giving you away.

Doug Whitehead [00:36:19] Yeah. I mean it's the first thing people look at. Right. And it's going back to like, there's a Rogan episode with that Peter Hotez, the the vaccine guy and Rogan grills 'em on like, what are are you, do you work out? Do you eat well? And he is like, no, I like Twinkies and but take the vaccine, you need the shot because that's the only way. And for, for me, I have a, I have a, like a autoimmune disorder of arthritis and it's something I've balled my whole life and so I kind of take it a little more to heart, like how you need to look after your own health. Like I spent a lot of years not being healthy, like partying and doing that kind of stuff through my twenties and a lot of my thirties. And then I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. So I did something about it. I started lifting weights and eating healthy and looking after what you put in your body and, and then it just kind of transformed my mindset with the farm too. I couldn't have one without the other. I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't farm conventionally and, and then also complain about having a health ailment. Like I, I just couldn't square that, that circle or whatever I guess.

Vance Crowe [00:37:16] And you said you've been drinking raw milk? I, I'm super interested in this but I've not yet tried it. Could you tell in a blind taste test raw milk?

Doug Whitehead [00:37:25] I don't think so. I, I honestly haven't drank regular milk for years. I hadn't and I it's you probably could 'cause it's a little bit creamy. I, yeah, I don't know. It'd be, I think you probably could 'cause it's, it's quite fat. So I think you'd be able to tell the creaminess maybe if you had like a whole like what's like 3% or whatever pasteurized milk, it might be similar maybe, but it doesn't taste, it doesn't taste ga it doesn't have a gamey taste or like it doesn't, that's what some people have warn me about. It has a raw milk taste, but I couldn't, couldn't tell that.

Vance Crowe [00:37:52] And what made you decide to make this decision? And actually before you say this, but you may not be able to tell from Doug. He ran 50 Ks. I got to meet him up in Canada. He is a monster of a man, like a super physically fit. So this is no joke here. I'm, I'm and whatever Doug's doing, I'm, I'm open to learning about for myself. But what made you decide to do raw milk?

Doug Whitehead [00:38:12] Just it, it's got the healthy microbiome to it. Like it's not pass the ization process kills all the, all the enzymes and the, any kind of biology that's in milk that, like, that's the whole point of milk is that, is that it, it feeds young animals that gets them growing, right? That's the, the whole point of milk in the first place. So when you're pasteurizing that you're killing all the, the enzymes out and then you just have a adult products that, that doesn't have the biologically good things that we go getting back to the science where you don't, it's hard to really quantify a lot of that stuff because we don't know a lot of these microorganisms and that that's getting into the soil health side of things too. There's so many bacteria and fungi that we don't even know in, in the soil and we're sterilizing the soil a lot of the times and killing all that stuff that we don't even really know exists. But that, that's just, that's why I started drinking the raw milk and I have a a, a person I know she's able to get it for me. So it's quite easy. You

Vance Crowe [00:39:08] Got an deal dealer, is it illegal in Canada?

Doug Whitehead [00:39:13] I guess? I think so, yeah. I think they're not allowed to sell it. Like they're, I I don't know, I don't the cops come here and catch me drinking raw milk. I dunno what's gonna happen, but,

Vance Crowe [00:39:22] Well I think that the raw milk problem in the United States definitely turned the tide of quite a few Amish people and brought them out so it changed the course of the future and I think that it's gonna be a bigger and bigger part of certainly US agriculture. And it sounds like maybe Canadian agriculture

Doug Whitehead [00:39:38] Too. Yeah, it, it's just that, that's one of the biggest things is the endocrine system in people and having unhealthy endocrine system 'cause that that's what controls your hormones. And then, I mean there's certainly no shortage of, of hormonal problems in, in the world these days, whether it's gender dysphoria or, or depression or any, anything like that. Any kind of mental issues. It's all, it's all hormone related hormone due to hormone imbalance and hormones are all driven by what's in your gut and, and your, your endocrine system, your intestines. And so anything you can do to get better bacteria, healthier bacteria in your, in your gut health is, is worth trying at least.

Vance Crowe [00:40:15] Well Doug, this has been absolutely fantastic. I will add your worthy adversary to my, to my list of worthy adversaries on X. If people wanted to follow you, interact with you, decide to run a 50 K with you, where where should they go?

Doug Whitehead [00:40:30] I come to my house probably the easiest way I go on, I'm on Twitter. I, I don't post that often. I think I'm Doug W 0 3 3 on Twitter and I post on Instagram most of my fitness stuff and Twitter. I try and keep the farm stuff because it seems like those platforms are more meant for that meant for each other. But yeah, that, that's, yeah. Follow me on Twitter I guess if you want.

Vance Crowe [00:40:50] Well I needed a Canadian for this big day that was going on and man, I'm so excited to hear you continuing to go with Bitcoin and this has been a blast. Thanks for coming on, Doug.

Doug Whitehead [00:41:01] Yeah, it's been a blast advance. I've, it is been awesome getting to know you and through the legacy interview process and my parents.

Vance Crowe [00:41:07] Oh, that, that's right. Your parents did it.

Doug Whitehead [00:41:08] Yeah. My my parents still talk about it. It was, I gave it to them for Christmas a few years ago I guess and they made a whole adventure of it and toured down to St. Louis and hung out with Vance for a day or maybe two days even and they, they still talk. It was the best thing, best present I've ever given anybody.

Vance Crowe [00:41:23] Well, wonderful. I'll, I'll take that and if you're interested in learning more about Legacy Interviews, go to Legacy Interviews dot com and if you are interested in taking me up on getting some Satoshi's, download the river app, you can do that by, I'll, I'll post a link to River on my, on the end on the show notes and there you can download the app and send me a receive address and I will send you 125 Satoshi and then you can have 'em, you can play 'em with them, you can shoot 'em over to your friends, check it out. river.com has been a great partner for the show. That's gonna do it for this week. We will be back next week. Not sure who we'll have on, we're gonna focus on whatever's going on in the world. But as always, feel free to disagree.