ATR Beef Checkoff Steps in it & Supply Management may end Canada @RadkeAmanda
About this episode
Vance's co-host this week is Amanda Radke (@RadkeAmanda), a South Dakota rancher and founder of Bid On Beef, a direct-to-consumer marketing platform she built as a response to concentration in the beef packing industry — she cites the familiar statistic that 85% of US beef supply runs through four major players, two of them foreign-owned, while family ranches keep going under. The two headline through-lines are the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline fight, which Radke has organized against for over three years on behalf of elderly landowners in South Dakota targeted by aggressive easement agents, and the fallout from RFK Jr.'s confirmation as HHS Secretary and what it signals for MAHA's influence over agricultural policy. Radke's framing of the pipeline as "a green new deal scam" that buries usable plant food underground rather than valuing it lands as the episode's sharpest institutional critique — a private, foreign-backed infrastructure project riding on eminent-domain-adjacent land-agent pressure tactics against vulnerable rural landowners. On the Peter Thiel paradox, Radke's answer that "I believe in entrepreneurship in the free market" as something oddly controversial to say out loud draws a lower score from Vance, who notes her carbon-as-plant-food framing was the more provocative, higher-scoring take. The episode continues the show's steady thread of skepticism toward concentrated agricultural power, whether packer concentration or carbon-pipeline land grabs, paired with the recurring Bitcoin segment (River referral, 500 sat onboarding offer) that has become a fixture of the ATR format.
“85% of our beef supply is held captive by four major players, two that are foreign owned, and we're seeing thousands and thousands of family farms and ranches go out of business each and every year... there's gotta be a way to bring money back to rural America to get America's cattle ranchers paid to do what they do well.”
“Three and a half years ago, I started getting calls from elderly ladies and widows and people who had been really bullied by land agents pushing for a private out of state foreign backed pipeline to come into the state of South Dakota... this is an absolute boondoggle. It's a green new deal scam. It's literally burying plant food in the ground.”
“Carbon is plant food and shouldn't be buried in the ground. It felt very racy to say that in the beginning, but now, now I got a whole bunch of people on board.”
Key moments
- Radke's packer-concentration framing for why she built Bid On Beef.
- Radke's origin story fighting the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline on behalf of elderly South Dakota landowners.
- Radke's Peter Thiel paradox answer on carbon as undervalued plant food.
Notable quotes
“It's a green new deal scam. It's literally burying plant food in the ground.”
“85% of our beef supply is held captive by four major players, two that are foreign owned.”
Predictions made in this episode
- Direct-to-consumer beef marketing platforms like Bid On Beef will continue gaining traction as an alternative to the four-packer concentrated supply chain, driven by rancher frustration with captive pricing.
- Date made: 2025-02-14, position ~15%.
- Timeframe: unspecified, ongoing.
- Parameters: would be falsified if direct-to-consumer beef platforms fail to gain meaningful market share or packer concentration increases further without consumer-facing alternatives emerging.
Full transcript
Read the full transcript (word-for-word, with timestamps)
Vance Crowe [00:00:00] Support for the Ag Tribes report comes from river.com, an online platform for buying Bitcoin in the United States. Use the affiliate link provided in the show notes to purchase Bitcoin directly from River to grow your Bitcoin investment and support the podcast river.com. Invest in Bitcoin with confidence and Legacy. Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are, so the future knows who they really were. Here's Legacy Interviews. Guest Patricia Showalter. On the fun she had sharing stories for her grandchildren.
Guest [00:00:34] I really didn't know what to expect. Were you nervous about it before or how did you feel about it before? No, I just wondered what the heck was going to happen if somebody was on the fence, what would you tell them? Yeah, I'd tell somebody to do it. Just go and have fun. I've had fun. You're only here for a short time. My grandkids are going to say, oh, holy cow. Can we believe this stuff?
Vance Crowe [00:01:06] 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 on a cohost to represent the perspectives of one of the many Ag tribes that collectively make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week we have the one and only Amanda Radke. She is a prominent figure in the agricultural community, known for her work as a cattle rancher motivational speaker and children's book author. She has been relentless in her stand against the use of eminent domain for carbon pipelines, and she also runs Bid on Beef. A fascinating new way for consumers to get connected with ranchers and buy high quality beef. Amanda, it is my honor to welcome you to the podcast.
Guest [00:02:00] Hey, yeah, long last we finally made it happen. Thanks for having, having me.
Vance Crowe [00:02:04] Well, you are somebody I've wanted to have on because I think you are doing the rare thing in this world, which is taking a stand and fighting knowing that it's gonna cost you things like speaking engagements and people's thinking negatively of you. So I'm really excited to get in and talk about carbon pipelines, but before we do, talk a little bit about Bid on Beef.
Guest [00:02:23] Yeah. Bid on Beef was really a response to the political things I see happening in the beef industry. 85% of our beef supply is held captive by four major players, two that are foreign owned, and we're seeing thousands and thousands of family farms and ranches go out of business each and every year. And as I travel this country, I realized, man, there's gotta be a way to bring money back to rural America to get America's cattle ranchers paid to do what they do well was, which is to make the best beef, frankly in the world. And so Bid on Beef was a vision of the partners that I work with and and myself where we, we work with ranchers all across the country and we bring the best of the best to the platform. And just like cattle sales, our buyers get to choose the price. So they get to choose the ranch, choose the cuts, and ultimately decide the value of that beef. And so it's really fun. It's a fast-paced way to buy beef and it's been immensely rewarding to connect urban and rural America into one landing space.
Vance Crowe [00:03:22] Well, I would recommend anybody go to Amanda's X page when she talks about the bid on beef. You're sitting there and you're like, I wanna buy that beef right now. What do I have to do to bid on it? So you're doing a great job. We are gonna now turn to the AG Tribes report. We're gonna be talking about the carbon pipeline that Amanda has been fighting against. We're gonna talk about what RFK Junior's confirmation will mean for ag. We're also gonna have, I think will be a fun conversation about the Beef checkoffs tweet about private cattle sales. And finally we'll talk about how managed supply may end Canada as we know it. And I'm actually not being hyperbolic, we're gonna do all of this talk about the Bitcoin land price report here, Amanda's Peter Thiel paradox and learn about her worthy adversary. And we're gonna do it all in just 30 minutes, so we better get started. Carbon pipelines will dodge slash and burn them. Amanda, give us a quick overview of the carbon pipelines that you've been fighting against and some sense of where you think this whole thing is headed.
Guest [00:04:22] Yeah. Three and a half years ago, I started getting calls from elderly ladies and widows and people who had been really bullied by land agents pushing for a private out of state foreign backed pipeline to come into the state of South Dakota and the surrounding states. And when I first got involved in this fight, I realized, you know, it was the right thing to do because this in my mind is an absolute boondoggle. It's a green new deal scam. It's literally burying plant food in the ground and making it a waste product. And none of it made sense. And, and so when I got involved, it was for private property rights. It's because I'm a Christian and I cannot tell a lie. And I believe this project is based on the premise of an absolute lie. And it's using the taxpayer dollars to really produce nothing, feed nobody, and do nothing to really make the world a better place. Fast forward in the last year, this pipeline has been routed for more miles, and now it's within a mile of where my four children sleep. And so I have safety concerns. I'm immensely worried about our water if there was a rupture and, and the landscape, the South Dakota prairie that I love. And so it's been a grueling, relentless, very unforgiving fight. The, the stress that the people have been put under is hard to even put into words. And the corruption that's involved in this project goes way to the tippy top. And so we're literally in the fight for our lives. And what I've realized is, is this playbook of private companies using government dollars to use eminent domain to seize land, it's being employed all across the country.
Guest [00:05:58] So I'm getting calls nationwide of families that are fighting the exact same thing as what we're fighting in South Dakota.
Vance Crowe [00:06:05] So where is the money coming from to build these pipelines from ethanol plants to wherever caverns and caves around the country?
Guest [00:06:15] Well, it's your taxpayer dollars. So it started with the Inflation Reduction Act, which Trump actually was a part of these 45 Q tax credits. And so, you know, Biden pushed it forward for his reasons. Now in Trump's next term, we're sitting here wondering what's gonna happen? Is this whole thing gonna just fall apart unravel because of Doge and all of the, the just insane dollar amounts that are flowing into all these ridiculous projects like, could our project be next? And then this just kind of goes away overnight, but the ethanol and the corn farmers are really hanging onto these 45 q and Z tax credits. And so really the first signal that maybe Trump was going to provide the people some relief was him kind of pausing the inflation reduction act, the green New Deal, and saying like, Hey, you know, maybe no more, but we're kind of in a wait and see mode, so maybe, maybe it'll go away quickly. But all I know is I'm gonna keep fighting. What I've realized is DC can do a lot of things and with each administration comes something else. But the power is really local with the people, with your townships, with your counties, and what you can do when you lock arms with other people who also are invested in the community. So we're getting a lot done no matter who's in Washington DC in the White House.
Vance Crowe [00:07:28] What I've loved about what you've done so far and what I've been watching from afar is this pushback on imminent domain. I think there are a few things that are more evil than a government saying, I know that, that you've owned this property, whatever that means, but we're just gonna come in and put something here that you don't want. And from what I've been watching from all the things that you've put out, we've even reported on this show before is that they are changing laws to be able to do their eminent domain. They've been making it so like your own county can't say no, you can't do this. Talk a little bit about that corruption you were talking about before.
Guest [00:08:02] Yeah, really I, I've just noticed these politicians, they really quickly get bought off by the donor class. And right now the billion dollar donor class is really eyeing the heartland and especially the Dakotas of the land that we hold precious and dear that's been in our families since before statehood even began. And eminent domain should be used in rare and extreme, like rare, very rare cases where it's for the public good, like I understand water or electric or things that actually add value to everyday people's lives. But when you're using under the guise of they say economic development or value added agriculture with public private partnerships and they're infusing all these millions and millions of dollars into these private companies using our money to take our land, that's where it's like, wait a minute. So this current projects that I'm fighting so hard as an example, has condemned 160 landowners. They've sued counties over their setbacks and they're even starting to target elected officials. And so it's basically our way or the highway, as long as we bought off the politicians, we're gonna do this. But as an example of how we have pushed back last year during the legislative session, a bill was passed and signed by our governor Christie Nome, that they called a landowner bill of rights. But what it really was is it was going to rubber stamp this carbon pipeline project in 90 days South Dakotan's locked arms as volunteers on their own time and own dime, collect enough signatures to get that bill on the ballot.
Guest [00:09:35] We referred it. We have the ability to do a referred law in South Dakota. We challenged that in the election and we raised $250,000. The opposition spent $3 million, but we defeated that bill in 65 of 66 counties with 60% of the vote in South Dakota. So where there's a will, there's a way when the truth is on your side, it's pretty powerful. And South Dakotans have spoken overwhelmingly that they side with private property rights over the profits of private companies.
Vance Crowe [00:10:04] Yeah, I think to wrap up, one of the most amazing things I saw a meme about a, about China being not free, but if you see them building a freeway and there's a house right in there that the person didn't wanna sell and they held out, the freeway goes around them and they don't just take their property, but here in the US we just create a law and, and run right over 'em. So it's a funny thing when you think about that. All right, thanks for fighting the good fight on that. Let's move on. Now the Maha becomes official RFK Junior's nomination is confirmed. He was confirmed by the US as the US Secretary of Health and Human Services by the Senate with a vote of 52 to 48 just today. His confirmation marks a significant shift in the US health policy due to his longstanding advocacy against certain parts of the vaccine regiment and his promotion of various health related theories. His policy implications, he as Kennedy is going to be overseeing federal health agencies like the FDA, the NIH, the CDC, our pivotal in setting US health policy. So Amanda, what does your tribe think of RFK Junior getting a serious position in the government?
Guest [00:11:13] Well, I don't know about my tribe, but I can speak for myself, whereas I, I know the agricultural community is mixed on this, that especially crop farmers are really worried about what's gonna be happening based on some statements he has made about traditional corn farming. However, I think the writing's on the wall, Americans are ready for change. They're tired of the fact that one in every two people in this country will get cancer. They're tired of the fact that the rates of obesity, heart disease, high cholesterol and, and other health problems are skyrocketing. They're tired of the cheap food mentality where we get sicker, weaker, more easily to control and we become permanent customers of the pharmaceutical industry. And so I'm excited, I'm excited to see the emphasis on animal fats and proteins. I'm excited to see that beef tallow is trending. I'm excited to see what might happen, but sometimes good and meaningful change is painful in the moment. So I think it's gonna come with some pain, but it also could come with some really positive things as well.
Vance Crowe [00:12:17] Yeah, I mean, there's no farm family out there that doesn't wanna see their kids grow up to be healthy, to see their society to be bountiful and plentiful. And when you look around the world, you look around the United States, people aren't healthy and all of the whatever bureaucratic movements, everything people have been doing up until this point haven't done very much. So I for one, went from being pretty against it because I feel like his beliefs about glyphosate are wrong. And I, you know, have some suspicion about some of his implications about vaccines. But eventually I was like, you know what, I'm willing to give this a shot. So I'm, I'm coming in with I'm, I'm welcoming him and, and hope that the best thing to do is to have productive conversations with people that are influencing him and that way we tear down the right things and try and leave some of the system. That's really good. Still standing.
Guest [00:13:03] Absolutely.
Vance Crowe [00:13:04] Alright, moving on to headline number three, the Beef checkoff steps in it. On Monday, the beef checkoff posted the following on x selling cattle directly to a producer, buyer, and seller must ensure that the beef checkoff is collected and remitted sellers are encouraged to handle compliance, get the private treaty sales form here, and then they left a link. This tweet tweet was retweeted 108 times and got 16 likes and then also got 142 replies. Most of those retweets I think were quote tweets mocking it because most of the people were criticizing the lack of transparency with the checkoff and outright criticizing the organization for having the ability to essentially tax ranchers raising beef even when they don't want to be a part of the checkoff program. Amanda, how did you or your tribe respond to this tweet?
Guest [00:13:56] You know, it's, it's interesting because I've always been a supporter of the checkoff. I, I believe in the, the research, the education, the promotion that's been done. I was a junior beef ambassador when I was a little kid. So a lot of the things that I'm doing now is because I traveled the country with great cattle women that taught me about handling misconceptions in the beef industry and talking to consumers. So in a way, I'm kind of a product of this program. However, the responses did not surprise me because what we're seeing with Doge, what we're seeing with a lot of this audits of, of tax dollar spending, Americans want transparency, they want accountability. And the reality is, is the American's consumer isn't eating more beef than they were when the checkoff is created. We have fewer and fewer ranchers in the cattle business right now. And so I guess the message is, if the checkoff is going to be viable in the years to come, they're gonna have to meet the needs of the producers today, I think it was created with really great intentions, but now at this moment in time, we have to ask ourselves if it's so effective, why are we seeing such a mass exodus in the beef industry? And when we can answer that question of how we can actually keep ranchers on the land and keep money in their pockets in rural America and keep beef on the dinner plate, then I think really good things can happen in this industry. So it's, I think that frustration is real and valid and, and I would encourage stakeholders in the checkoff to not hide from that conversation, but to have those tough conversations so they can answer the call and the needs of the producer.
Vance Crowe [00:15:31] Yeah, I remember a couple of years ago, Jared McDaniel, who had the Ag Uncensored podcast did something that I had never seen before and haven't seen since. When, when he brought the three different big groups that represent us cattlemen and had them, you know, each give their case, talk about their point of view, and that is exactly what needs to happen here. If you have that much pushback on a, on a tweet, you need to get your people out there. They need to start representing how did we get to this point? What is, what are we hearing other people saying? And what do we want to do in the future? And you know, there's nobody that gets more training, more support to, to have ambassadors. So I I really hope the Beef Truck off takes this as an opportunity to explain to producers that are upset with them about, about why they're doing what they're doing. All right, finally, headline number four. Managed supply may just end Canada or give the US a 51st state. For those of you following Canadian ag, a post even bigger than the beef checkoff was from Eric S. Raymond. He said, and this is a, a partial quote, if Quebec secedes, it breaks Canada. Oh, he was saying basically if you end managed supply Quebec, who managed supply is where they say, Hey, you guys are allowed to produce milk and you're allowed to produce this much milk. The same thing goes with eggs and chicken. And as soon as I talk about this, Canadians are gonna write me and they're gonna start commenting. I never get it quite right. But what he says is, if Quebec secedes as a result of the managed supply, it breaks Canada new Funland and the Maritimes isolated from the rest of the Anglo region and not viable on their own, have no good alternative to, to applying for us statehood.
Vance Crowe [00:17:10] There's an active secessionist movement in Alberta. I've personally seen it that the US has very carefully refrained from encouraging Albertan oil and economic engine of the country. And Albertans resent that they are so heavily taxed so that Ontario can further funnel transfer payments to other provinces. And so this goes on and on and on and he basically is saying the managed supply issue that Trump has been pushing on may force the hand of internal politics where they've gotta start removing internal tariffs between the provinces and this is gonna cause all these different issues. Amanda, is any of this on your radar?
Guest [00:17:48] You know, i, I think especially as Trump is entering into this, into this term, I think we're watching the art of the deal play out right now in international politics too. And there's much unrest not only in America but in countries around the world, including Canada. You mentioned, or was it on my show we talked about the, the trucker convoy and the protests. And so I, I think where the intersection of agriculture and politics meet at the end of it, the day is independent families on the land. And at some point there will be this uprising of people that say, if the government's gonna tax me to death that they're going to make it impossible for me to operate. If they're going to cause all these problems, at some point we have to bust out of this system that is suppressing us. So that's probably a really broad answer to a very specific question you're asking here, but I'll let you take it from here. I
Vance Crowe [00:18:40] Mean, I can tell you that from the American perspective, this is something I had no concept of. Jay Curtis just said it's supply management. And I, what, what I saw when I was up in Saskatchewan last winter was people saying, look, they, the, the, the East Coast runs everything or really the, the Montreal, they run everything. And so we don't have an opportunity to control our own destiny. Yeah, they built train lines out here, but they told us if we're gonna farm all this grain, we're not allowed to build mills out here. We've gotta send that grain back to the capitol and that way they can refine it. And that's where all the money really lies. And I think Alberta, Saskatchewan, even Manitoba have felt this over and over again. And in the United States we hear like secessionist movements. Yeah, maybe that'll happen there. It's a real movement. I, I was there with a bunch of cattle ranchers in Alberta and I heard a speaker one time say, and that's why you should become the 51st state. And I cringed for him, but the whole room clapped and cheered and was excited about this is a bunch of cattle ranchers. Wow.
Guest [00:19:38] And
Vance Crowe [00:19:38] So there is a lot more angst in Canada than most Americans realize. I don't know if this guy's right, but it does seem like it's something to watch.
Guest [00:19:46] Well it's interesting that you noted it was cattle producers. 'cause I tell cattle ranchers all the time, when you finally realize you have all the leverage, you have the land, you have the ability to grow food and a nutrient-dense food that people actually need. And once you realize that, like you have, you have the control, but you can't give it up. And so if there is a serious movement towards a succession plan, they, they, they have the resources to make it happen. And that's, you know, you hate to see farm get into a desperate state. So in college I traveled to Argentina and the government was putting, they, they weren't allowing the farmers there to export everything. Everything had to stay and they were going broke, they were going bankrupt. Well, our bus that was going to the iwa Sioux Falls, we were on a field trip, basically our American Bus of American students got pulled over by an protestors and they had guns and they came on the bus and I was like, I'm gonna die on this bus. I don't know what's going on. Come to find out it was farmers and they were protesting the government and we parked on the road for several hours and out the window they were burning the dead cows in protest to their government and saying like, we can't survive under these, you know, crippling policies that you're imposing on the us. And I think in a lot of ways that has stuck with me my entire life because I realized one day that could happen right back home in America in the United States. And so maybe that's the same pinch that these Canadian farmers are feeling too, where the system is not in place for them to win.
Guest [00:21:18] And so, I don't know, I guess I'll watch and see, I'm gonna put it more on my radar now to see what our Canadian neighbors are up to.
Vance Crowe [00:21:24] I, I like that phrase, the system is not set up for them to win. I mean, I think that that's probably represents what a lot of people in Canadian agriculture feel great, even though you didn't know anything about it, you had something good there.
Guest [00:21:35] Well, we can learn something new every day, can't we?
Vance Crowe [00:21:37] If you have news that you think we should cover, you can always send it to Vance at Legacy Interviews dot com or on on X at Vance Crowe. Moving on to the Bitcoin land price report. Last week Bitcoin's price was $96,000 per Bitcoin and today it is $96,000 per Bitcoin, which is no change. This is one of the first times that's happened. So Amanda, let's talk about how this compares to land prices. Where do you live and how much does an acre of land cost in terms of US dollars?
Guest [00:22:09] Sure. So I am in Mitchell, South Dakota and there was land just yesterday that sold about an hour from me for the rest for 57 80. Did I tell you that on the show, right? Did I, is that right?
Vance Crowe [00:22:20] Yeah, that's what you, that's what you
Guest [00:22:21] Had
Vance Crowe [00:22:21] Mentioned. Okay.
Guest [00:22:21] And there's some right down the road for me, priced at 14 five an acre.
Vance Crowe [00:22:25] So let's do the 15, the the 57 80 per acre, that would equal 0.06 Bitcoin per acre. What could you do on this land? Is it pasture land? Is it farm
Guest [00:22:37] Ground? Farm farm, farm ground, yep.
Vance Crowe [00:22:39] Great. And how does that strike you? That you could, you could pick one of those acres up for 0.06 Bitcoin?
Guest [00:22:45] It maybe sounds a little bit better. I'm not sure.
Vance Crowe [00:22:51] Well, are, is is your tribe talking about Bitcoin? Is this something that they're familiar with or talking about?
Guest [00:22:56] You know, I've got people in my life that once I feel like they get on that Bitcoin train, that's all they wanna talk about. They're wildly excited about it. And so it's, it's intriguing for sure. I think it's, it's definitely a mindset shift for, for rural America, especially those that are used to investing in acres and putting their money on the hoof to totally move to a different mindset of this is something digital that I can't see, I can't touch, I can't feel.
Vance Crowe [00:23:23] Well I, on your show we got a chance to talk a little bit about Bitcoin and for the last few weeks I've been having listeners be like, Hey, you need to talk more about like how does all Bitcoin work? So I thought I would just kind of give like a, a little rundown of a thing that people hear but they don't know anything about. And that is the term mining. Bitcoin mining is something that is what secures the network. And the way that you secure the network is you have really specialized chips and lots of electricity. And when people are worried about can Bitcoin be hacked, well the thing you should go look up is what's called the hash rate. And you can see that as more people plug in miners, that hash rate continues to go up and up and up. And that is essentially the security rate for Bitcoin. I'll do a better job next week of explaining things. But how did that sit with you?
Guest [00:24:09] It sounded pretty good, you know, and I'm, I'm sitting here, I'm list half listening and half nervous about the next questions you're gonna ask me. So we'll see if I get through it too without messing up.
Vance Crowe [00:24:18] Okay. If you are interested in buying Bitcoin, I have partnered with River and I will put a link in the show notes. It is a great place to buy Bitcoin, but it also is a great place for you to get a lightning wallet. So if you are out there and you download the river app and send me a lightning receive address, tell me you heard about it on the, on the Ag tribes report, I will send you 500 Satoshi and you can get your first experience of being around Bitcoin. Okay. Moving on to the Peter Thiel paradox. This is where I ask Amanda, what is one thing that you believe that almost no one you know agrees with you on?
Guest [00:24:54] This is so hard. Honestly, I, the only thing I could think of that because I knew this question was coming is that, and I think people do agree with me now though, but it didn't feel that way when I first started saying it. But like, carbon is plant food and shouldn't be buried in the ground. It felt very racy to say that in the beginning, but now, now I got a whole bunch of people on board. So that's probably not a fair answer, but it's, it's almost insane to me that we're talking about bearing the building block of life. Like I can't believe we live in a world where this is the discussion I'm having to have every single day.
Vance Crowe [00:25:27] Actually I heard you say that on your podcast and I do think it is a little bit jarring. It's one of those things that makes you like pop open and be like, wait a second, it is plant food. I remember that vaguely from Bio 1 0 1, right? And then you start being like, wait a second, why are we burying this? I think it is a very clever way to engage people. I think it that it catches them off guard.
Guest [00:25:49] Well it's funny because the other side that really wants this project, they'll tell me privately, we know it's a joke, but there's money to be had. And so it's, it's I think probably even though guys on the other side definitely agree with me when I say that, but yeah, it's like I, I didn't fall asleep in ninth grade biology class. I remember what they taught me. So sometimes it feels like we're in clown world discussing things that are fairytales when I really try to be grounded in logic and reason and truth, which is what are we doing on the land to upcycle things to produce food and other products to enrich people's lives and make humanity better. And to me, this doesn't fit into that definition. You
Vance Crowe [00:26:28] Know, I really wonder what is going to happen to agriculture if Doge really starts coming after payments that have gone to farmers to supplement their income through all of this climate change stuff. You know, obviously I'm talking about solar panels, you know, wind turbines, carbon pipelines, you know, how many people are gonna be able to make their, their balance sheet measure out when, when that money goes away. And I think that it, I think it is a lot more likely than a lot of other farmers think that it is.
Guest [00:26:56] I I think it's coming, it's probably gonna be painful. But even as another example though, probably ruffle some feathers like your CRP programs. Your conservation programs were well intentioned I think when they start. But it's left the land like in California where we see the land is not grazed, it's not logged. And so you have wildfires all the time. Same thing is happening all across the country where the government pays to leave this grant ground completely untouched and then untouched doesn't mean better, it means unmanaged. So you're having more dead brush, you're not promoting new PA plans to grow. And the ramifications of it have been that now the American cattle rancher who maybe can pay in my area 75 bucks an acre is competing against a government payment for a landowner to do nothing with it. And they're paying 'em $125 an acre. Same thing that could be said with the, you know, pressing the scales heavy on corn, on corn, on corn subsidies. Well there's a downstream effect to that. So as an example, I live along the James River in the last 20 years, the water flow on that James River has gone up 300%. Why is that? Because you no longer have prairie grass to capture that rainfall. It just flows right into the river. And so I guess maybe the most scandalous thing I could say is I'm really tired of the government picking winners and losers in agriculture. Let the free market happen. You don't have these skewed things that happen out of order with nature and with the markets and with supply and let the good farmers farm and get paid for it.
Guest [00:28:26] And I don't know why, but that seems to be kind of a scandalous statement to make anymore that I believe in entrepreneurship in the free market.
Vance Crowe [00:28:33] Yeah, you probably would get a bigger, a better Peter Teel paradox score had you gone with your second answer. 'cause I think that's the one that'll really ruffle people's feathers. But I'll give you seven zero for your, for your, your innovative way to describe carbon.
Guest [00:28:48] Okay.
Vance Crowe [00:28:49] Alright, onto the last section. This is the Worthy Adversaries. This is where I'm gonna ask Amanda, who is one person that you respect but you strongly disagree with?
Guest [00:29:01] Okay, you're gonna hate my answer. It's gonna sound like such a politician answer and I'm not a politician, but I got thinking about this and I genuinely could not come up with like one name. I know I have a lot of people that hate me on social media, plenty of people that probably spend a lot of time thinking about the things they don't like about me, but I don't, I kind of bless and release people so I just don't spend too much time thinking about people.
Vance Crowe [00:29:23] Oh, you're giving me a Chad Colby answer. Oh no,
Guest [00:29:27] No, I do have an answer, but it's not one person, it's gonna be organizations. So I, early on in my career, I decided, I made the conscious decision I'm not gonna join any ag organizations. I wanted to be, I was a reporter at the time. I wanted to be neutral, I wanted to be fair. I wanted no bias with a board or an association or policies that were made within organizations. And I just wanted to see the issues and say, you know, tell my, what I thought was the truth, how I saw it. So I guess my answer in a way is I'm a lifelong cattle rancher. I am, I know all the folks at NCBA, at US Cattlemen's and at RCA, I have friends in all of them, but my, my perspective is I don't think either all three of them perfectly encompass how I think of things and, and there's probably more independent ranchers that aren't represented by either any of these organizations at all. And so I guess my message would be I respect them. I clearly know they're all passionate about America's cattle industry, but I don't think there's a box I could fit in where I agree with any of them all the time. Anytime. So that's my non,
Vance Crowe [00:30:38] Ah, you get a zero on this one. This is like, I, I, anyway, I'm only giving you a hard time. I'm giving Chad a hard time. There are people that they just don't think in this way for me. Like there's always these people that they poke me. I was talking with my friend Phil loose this morning. We're poking each other and and I think that it, for me, it's something that, it is the way that I view the world. And one of the reasons I like this question is because the only way you can respect somebody is if they have a cap capability to do something that you can't do. Because that's when you start being like, I, you know, even though I just dislike 'em, they know how to do this thing, they're good at it. They, you know, they, I have to give them some level of respect. And so I love this question because it forces you to think about who's somebody that's doing something I can't do, but I'm still willing to Barb with them. I'm still willing to bop and weave. So I'm just giving you a hard time there, Amanda.
Guest [00:31:27] One day I've honestly thought about this question since we started talking about it like six months ago coming on the show and I genuinely couldn't come up with one. So this is the best I could do.
Vance Crowe [00:31:37] Well this is, this is why, what's what makes the show so fun and it always makes it so we have, I can keep giving people like Chad a hard time.
Guest [00:31:44] Yeah.
Vance Crowe [00:31:44] Alright, well you made it all the way to the end of the show. Amanda, people are probably quite interested in what you're doing now. So tell 'em a little bit about, a little bit more about Bit on Beef and where can people go to learn more?
Guest [00:31:56] Sure. Well, I survived. We're still smiling. This was a lot of fun. So thanks for having me on. If folks are interested in, in following my work, they can check out amanda radkey.com. I've got my podcast, heart of Real America that goes out every Wednesday on Apple and Spotify. And then bid on beef.com is what I hope to be your source of premium Angus and Wagyu beef. We have an auction going on right now that's gonna close at 7:00 PM Central, so if you wanna go check it out and bid on some beef, we'll get it shipped to your door asap.
Vance Crowe [00:32:25] Well, Amanda, you have a fan in me. I've loved watching you push back against imminent domain. I love that you're working on the food sovereignty movement. We have a lot in common and I'm really glad we got to do this tonight. So thank you for swinging on. All right, so if you are wanna support the show and you are thinking about doing a legacy interview with one of your family members, go to Legacy Interviews dot com and there you'll see all about the whole process and you can line up a call with me and we'll sit down and talk about what are you hoping to capture, what, what works for you and your family. And we can set this up so that you can have something truly meaningful and valuable in the future. Also, if you are wanting to learn more about Bitcoin, the way that we have figured it out is to get a Lightning wallet. And when you get that lightning wallet and you send me your receive address, I'll send you 500 Satoshi's. If you tell me you heard about it on the Vance Crow podcast, I'll probably do it for another 20 people this week. And that will give you a chance to say, oh my gosh, I just received value and I can send this out to somebody else and they can send it to me and it, it becomes this very fun interaction. If you wanna do that, I will include a link to River where you can download their app and send me a receive address and that will be wonderful. So thank you so much for listening to the Ag Tribes report Next week what I'm gonna do is instead of doing that awkward read on the the mining, what I'm gonna do is spend maybe 20 minutes after the podcast and I'll take any questions people have about Bitcoin.
Vance Crowe [00:33:58] They can be hostile or technical, it doesn't really matter to me, but we can have a conversation where we answer some of the questions you maybe have had about Bitcoin. I was told by not one but two people that I ought to do something like this. So I'm gonna take it seriously. All right, next week we will have John Bolts from Arizona. The president of the Arizona Farm Bureau will be coming on the podcast. So we will look forward to that time and as always, feel free to disagree.
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