Why Food Prices Are High But Farmers Are Going Broke: Corn at $3.85 vs $4.50 Budget

Ad read / show intro [00:00:01] 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 her, I just, I, we looked at it and said, well, we'll just wing it because, you know, you give this list to figure 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, tell em about this. Say this. You do a good job of asking questions. Welcome to the Ag Tribe's 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 [00:01:06] Welcome to the Ag Tribes report. I'm your host, Vance Crowe. Each week I bring on a co-host to represent one of the many ag tribes that make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week we have Jim Smith, who goes by Jim Smith, 87 on X. Jim is a dedicated swine nutritionist and farmer from northeast Indiana, blending his Purdue boil Boilermaker experience with hands-on experience in corn and soybean production. As host of the patio pondering podcast, he dives into ag challenges from feed efficiency to market trends, helping producers optimize operations. Welcome to the show, Jim. What have you been paying attention to lately?

Jim Smith [00:01:47] Well, thanks for the invite Vance, and as a farmer and anybody in ag, how can you not be paying attention to the crop report? And the WASDE report we had two days ago.

Vance Crowe [00:01:57] Yeah, man, that was everywhere. Any initial thoughts on the, on the report?

Jim Smith [00:02:02] Well, when I, when it first came out, I made one tweet on X and it was just a gif of a bear roaring.

Vance Crowe [00:02:12] I mean, we saw, you know, corn prices go sub $4 and I mean, it's just been, it's been hard and a lot of people talking about will insurance cover it? What happens if you get a whole bunch of production in one side of your county, but not enough in the other? And I mean, it is, it is quite a mess out there.

Jim Smith [00:02:30] I'm sure there's a lot of spreadsheets and a lot of calculations being done by people thinking, oh no, I got corn. That's gonna be 3 85, 360, 3 50 when I deliver it this fall.

Vance Crowe [00:02:41] Well, we are going to take a look at that tonight. We're going to explore global why global food prices are surging while crop prices are plummeting. We're gonna also look into the EPAs new diesel exhaust fluid rules, offering relief to farmers and truckers by easing equipment shutdowns and saving family farms, an estimated $727 million annually. We're also gonna discuss the historic drop in US alcohol consumption, which is hitting barley hops and grape growers with, with oversupply. And finally, if we have time, we're gonna visit the Potter Valley water crisis where pg and e suddenly cuts the California farmers and ranchers off from their water. We're also gonna compare farmland and Bitcoin prices. We're gonna hear Jim's take on the Peter Thiel paradox, and we're gonna learn about his worthy adversary. And we're gonna try to do all that in just 30 minutes, so we better get started. Okay. Story number one, global food prices surge while crop prices drop. Global food prices surge to a two year high with the FAO food price index at 130.1 points in July. That's up 1.6% from June, driven by soaring vegetable oil and meat oil. Hit a three year peak at 166.8 points fueled by tight palm soy and sunflower supplies while meat reached a record. 127.3 points boosted by strong beef demand from China and the US amid shrinking cattle herds.

Vance Crowe [00:04:15] Yet farmers growing corn, beans and rice face record low prices. Cereal prices have dropped to a five year low with rice at an eight year low at 370, 2 50 per ton due to bumper harvest in India. And weak demand corn and soybeans struggle with oversupply and export competition leaving farmers squeezed despite high global food prices. So Jim, what in the hell is going on? People are being priced outta buying food around the world, and yet farmers are getting destroyed by low prices here in the United States.

Jim Smith [00:04:47] Well, it's interesting you bring up the food prices because today when we are applying fungicide to our corn crop, the company that's doing it is owned by two college students from Purdue Purdue. And the young man that I am friends with is an ag econ major at, at Purdue. And we were talking about supply and demand and how it is not an exact science. Now, me as a scientist, you, you gimme the kreb cycle. I can tell you how many a TP come off of it, what kind of calorie you'll get off of it. I mean, it's kind of hard, but economics is a hard soft science. And it's crazy what we're doing with these feed prices or the, the food prices and think about the price of beef and we're still eating it. So we've got the dicho, the dichotomy of high beef prices that we're, we're not quelling demand and we're selling corn and wheat for well below cost production. Yeah. And when

Vance Crowe [00:05:39] I'm talking to the guys that are doing feeding, you know, they're saying, Hey, these grain prices being so low is only making it better for me. The cost for me to deliver beef to the market keeps going down and the demand is not stemming at all. I think we talked about this last week, the the carnivore diet, the paleo, all this movement has continued to stay, even though prices have ticked up. Like I, I watch on Noster, which is the social media platform I use the most, and guys are still sitting there saying, I don't care if it goes up another 30 or 40%, I'm still gonna buy it. I'm, this is the way I'm eating now.

Jim Smith [00:06:12] Oh yeah, we're talking about hamburger at seven, eight, $9 a pound. That's crazy.

Vance Crowe [00:06:20] Well, what do you think, I mean, are farmers gonna survive this? I see people out there saying, you know, the prices stay this low. You know, farmers aren't seeing more of those food price, you know, the, the increase in prices shimming down to them gonna see a lot of farmers go outta business this year. Or is this gonna be something that the government can back 'em up with payments?

Jim Smith [00:06:41] I think I'm like a lot of farmers that we follow a lot of auction companies, whether it's on social media or by text. And I've started to see maybe an uptick in some of these retirement auctions and somebody that's, you know, 65, 70, 75 that says, it's time I've eaten enough equity, I wanna save something for my kids. I kind of get that feel. And I talked to some of my banker friends and in the past they said, oh, we're gonna see some auction. We're gonna see my, the banker friends I have, they're more emphatic that there's gonna be some movement this winter if there's not some massive influx of capital.

Vance Crowe [00:07:17] Yeah, the interesting thing about the banking world is that usually a farmer only goes in once a year and shows their whole balance sheet, but things have really flipped upside down since the, you know, the spring or last winter when they were doing it. So what what might've worked on paper before now is reality is come into fruition and people are actually having to sell, you know, for sub $4 corn off the combine. It's it, we're gonna see a different reality when they're talking with their bankers around this next go round.

Jim Smith [00:07:47] Well, when we did our budgets, we used four 50 for the price of corn. And my banker goes, man, you're high unless you sold it all. Well, I sold some at four 60, but not all of it. He said, we're using four 10 for all the projections he was doing. And this was back in January and cash price off the combine at ADM in New Haven today was like 3 85, 3 80.

Vance Crowe [00:08:11] Man. Oh man. Well, it's an interesting time. There's so much of a bumper crop and prices still go down. We're finding out that some of the tariff stuff that's gonna be an sticky thing. But we're gonna move on to story number two because it's not just corn prices. We're looking at the EPA eases diesel exhaust fluid rules offering relief to farmers and truckers. The US EPA announced new guidance on August 12th to prevent abrupt engine power losses in diesel power farm equipment and trucks caused by the diesel exhaust fluid DEF system malfunctions a move hailed as a win for rural economies and small businesses. The rule unveiled by the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin at the Iowa State Fair urged manufacturers to revise DEF software and existing vehicles and mandate changes for new model years. 2027 engines for off-road machinery like tractors and combines engines will maintain full power for up to 36 hours after a death issue followed by 25% torque reduction until serviced escalating to 50%. After a hundred hours, operators get three 30 minute full power restarts. Similar Phase D rates apply to on on-road trucks addressing the limp mode complaints that stranded drivers. Jim, what in the hell is this talking about?

Jim Smith [00:09:29] Well, I can't relate to this because all of our equipment is predef, but you know, the, the DEF was in response to, was it the clean air mandate? And there were one of the administration said, if this is part of the clean air, then this is part of the clean air and this affects clean air, so it has to affect emissions. So we're gonna make def you know, the way that the, these, these newer diesels work to reduce the emissions. You get an influx of of urea a nitrogen and it's to help the environment. But if your tractor or combine or semi shuts down, if you inadvertently run out of it, I mean, that puts you in a pretty precarious position. And I, I think lessening the rules. Now, I remember when they, a couple weeks ago when they figured out that this might be a change and people were like, oh, we're gonna get rid of death. And I thought, well, there's a little too much infrastructure for that to happen. But changing the de-rating rules and the limp mode is gonna be huge to, to allow people to deal with re re reductions or loss of the death.

Vance Crowe [00:10:30] Let's even really slow this down for me. So the what, what what actually is required of the, of the people that have trucks with death, they have to put a fluid in their truck. What are they doing?

Jim Smith [00:10:41] So they got a second tank. Now I'm, I'm speaking from, I stated a Holiday Inn Express at the Indiana State Fair last week. So now I'm an expert. There's a second tank on your, on your vehicle. You got your diesel tank, then you got your DEF tank. And the def injects this fluid, which is a nitrogen containing compound. I don't know exactly what it is, but it has nitrogen and it reduces some components of the emissions to make the exhaust cleaner. And if you don't have that def injected into the exhaust, then your engine shuts down because it doesn't, it's not working properly. It goes back to the emissions and all that computer stuff. With the relaxation of these rules, you're driving down Interstate 69, you don't automatically shut down. You at least can get off the road and maybe take it to your next destination before you have to address it.

Vance Crowe [00:11:30] Well, all I know is that the, my own truck has all this like automatic stop and start and eco boost bullshit and it did not make the truck any better. And for how many times I'm gonna have to, I mean, how many, how much engine repair I've had to do on that thing. There's no way it's more environmentally friendly. Oh, no,

Jim Smith [00:11:47] No. And I, I think that one of our farm trucks is a 94 Ford. It's got a, it's gasoline, it's a, it's a big diesel, or not a big diesel, but a big block. And

Vance Crowe [00:11:58] Man,

Jim Smith [00:11:58] I love driving that. 'cause you don't have to worry about death, you don't have to worry about all these other emissions. It's just, it's simple.

Vance Crowe [00:12:04] I mean, I think almost everybody would tank crank windows if they didn't have to put all this bullshit on from the EPA. All right, moving on to story number three, US alcohol consumption plunges to a historic low hitting farmers. Hard Americans are drinking less alcohol than at any other time since the Great Depression with profound ripple effects on farmers growing key crops like barley hops and grapes as over supplies drive down prices and force cutbacks. A Gallup poll on August 13th revealed that just 54% of US adults consume alcohol an eight point drop from 23. And the lowest since tracking started in 1939. Weekly intake averages 2.8 drinks are down from 3.8 last year, and the lowest since 96. The shift is the sharpest among young adults 18 to 34 with only 50% drinking compared to 59% in 23 and 72% in the early two thousands. Fueled by health warnings on cancer mental health risks, plus booming non-alcoholic options like cannabis, non-alcoholic beverage jump sales have jumped 54% from March, 2020 to 2024. This downturn is squeezing agriculture barley from farmers in Montana, Idaho, North Dakota faced gluts from falling beer demand with production projected below 160 million barrels in 25 Planet Acres. Hit a record 2.32 million in 25 down 2% amid slim margins.

Vance Crowe [00:13:39] Growers, hop growers in Washington and Oregon have surpluses. And of course California wine grape makers producing over 80% of the US supply are battling oversupply as, as sales of wine have fallen 4.3% by volume in 2023. So Jim, you know, everybody is talking, alcohol is poison, but the biggest part of the American economy, a big part of the American economy and what facilitates having kids is alcohol. So should somebody try and step in and change this?

Jim Smith [00:14:09] Well, when I first saw the headline that bourbon production was down, I thought it was because I stopped drinking bourbon last October. So I'll take part of the credit for that. And I think it's generational, but my daughter's coming home with her husband tonight and they're, they're 25, so that makes them Gen Z, right? So I'm curious they, because I know they don't drink as much as I do, but when I was with my friends at the state fair that are solid Gen X of 50

Vance Crowe [00:14:37] 50

Jim Smith [00:14:37] To 60, our as a group, our alcohol consumption wants it down. So I think it's, it's onto something with a generational difference. And there's another two things that I thought about the CBD that might be have a more of an effect than you. And I probably think about me as as an older pers different generation. But the other one is, where are we on the prosperity or the disposable income for younger generations to spend money on alcohol?

Vance Crowe [00:15:05] Oh, I think that's absolutely true. That that the amount of money it costs to drink is, is prohibitive in in some ways. I sense though that that's one of those things, I mean, I was a poor college student. It didn't matter how poor I was, I was, I was gonna drink. I really think that THC has had a big part of it and just culture. I think people don't go out as much. And, and maybe part of the spending thing is if you're not going downtown to the bars and you don't feel that social pressure, there were a lot of people that would say like, well, I don't wanna drink, but all my friends are maybe not going out as much. Which I do hear from young people is happening. That may be a big part of it.

Jim Smith [00:15:45] So is that a hangover from COVID and the shutdowns

Vance Crowe [00:15:49] That and I think just, yeah, the, I think there's a lot of changing culture about the relationships between men and women. I think dance clubs and all of that stuff, like, I think it was already on the downward slide before COVID, but you take, you know, three, four years of keeping people out of those dance clubs and all of that stuff. I mean, I heard that in some of the big cities like London, New York, la there are two or three nightclubs a week closing. And so it, it is absolutely a part of socializing. And if people aren't socializing, I imagine a lot of alcohol isn't happening either.

Jim Smith [00:16:24] Yeah, well you think about the, when we would go to the neon cactus in West Lafayette when I was in school, we always had a beer in our hand.

Vance Crowe [00:16:33] I mean, it's hard to imagine college without drinking being a central part of it. But from what I hear from young people, it's not, and I think that this is, I I know that I've definitely heard that wineries are feeling the pinch, you know, like, and there was, this was something that they were just growing all those craft breweries. Now I think this last year there were more craft breweries that closed than open. And that's the first time that's happened in something like 20 years. That was a huge market that kept expanding. But I mean, I, I always thought it was just me. I mean, I have kids so I don't go out, you know, to go get beer after work or anything like that. Just, I don't have the time or the, the energy for it. And I, I, I actually don't drink at home at all. Just, just not a part of our lives anymore. I'm just too tired.

Jim Smith [00:17:20] I wonder Vance if there's also a caution amongst the younger generation to be appropriate socially. And maybe that's coming from the me too movement or fear of doing something wrong. So you're not gonna drink because you might do something wrong. 'cause think about, I think back to when I was in college, I'm so glad there weren't cell phones because I know I would've been in trouble.

Vance Crowe [00:17:44] Absolutely. I I think of my life as being markedly different if there had been cell phone cameras back when I was a young person. Alright, moving on to story number four. Potter Valley water crisis deepens as pg and e slashes flow ahead of dam removal. So I got this story from Keely Covello's Unwon Substack. She has been reporting on this nonstop and I thought it Baird a little bit of bringing up, even if you're not from California, ranchers and farmers are scrambling after pg e slash water release from Lake Pillsbury without warning, threatening harvest livestock and wildflower wildfire defense. During the peak seasons, the pg and e's plan to dismantle the century old Potter Valley project diverts just 0.37% of eel rivers flow. But soon those vital storage stored water of 600,000 is gonna go away. It's, that's it's, this is gonna quote, this shuts us down. We're looking at having to go out of business says rancher K and Bernie Eccles, others like Ken Foster and Guinness McFadden echoed the chaos quote, everyone is scrambling. This affects us all driven by salmon lawsuits, decommissioning risk, sediments released hammering fish habitats per Covello, despite salmon a accessing 97% of the river. The cost $532 million in taxpayer funding is gonna go to getting rid of these dams, locals call it dishonest politics to mask the project's value. So it is a really complicated thing.

Vance Crowe [00:19:16] Every time I tried to look into it, I got lost in all the details. But it appears as though farmers and ranchers are gonna lose access to pretty important water and it's gonna be just going downstream, floating right past cities and heading out into the ocean. Have you heard anything about this story?

Jim Smith [00:19:33] I have not. But on one of the groups I'm part of, we talked about California ag last week and one of the farmers that's part of that group was talking about how there is actually less demand and less production of some of the specialty crops in, in California because of Argentina and Peru and some of the South American countries having better ports now and actually shipping some of those products to the United States. So this is a little contrarian from my discussion with Jerod McDaniel. Maybe this isn't as big of an issue as we think it is because we're not growing as much as we think we really are in California.

Vance Crowe [00:20:09] Wow. And those would be fighting words to Keely. I saw her, the reason I saw this this week was that she was arguing with a guy about whether or not those dams were built by the government and if they had a right to tear 'em down, if that would look like it was better for the larger system. And she was saying this was built by private money and these dams should stay in there 'cause you were gonna radically impact the, for the farmers and ranchers who've had their whole lives, everything built up around this. But certainly there are people living in the city that wanna see these things torn down. I think it's a Gavin Newsom project.

Jim Smith [00:20:44] So that puts us in an interesting position as, as farmers in agriculture, because we talk about farmers being the first environmentalist, but we're fighting the program that would really help the environment for a, a very important species of salmon. So where are we on that scale of being environmentalists with protecting our lifestyle and the, the business that we have? I don't know.

Vance Crowe [00:21:05] I absolutely love it. Well, I'll have Keely on a show pretty soon here to discuss this 'cause I think it's, it's one of those stories that it's too hard for me to discern from the outside. Alright, that is gonna do it for our new shows stories today. If you have stories that you think I should be covering, you can always send 'em to me on X at Vance Crowe or you can email 'em to me vance at Legacy Interviews dot com. Moving on now to the Bitcoin land price report. This week we saw wild price spikes. In fact, we had new all time highs as Bitcoin crossed 123,000 per coin. Now it's dropped back down, it's 118,000, which is still a thousand dollars more than it was last week. But we've seen some pretty big price action, lots of conversation. I know I got in some Twitter spats over the, over the week about X. But let's talk about Bitcoin in terms of land prices. Jim, what county do you live in and how much does an acre of high quality farm ground cost there?

Jim Smith [00:22:06] We live in Allen County. We farm in the farm northeast corner of Allen County and southeast DeKalb County in the far northeast corner of Indiana outside of Fort Wayne. And an average acre of ground in our area with P $20,000 where our land is propped up with a growing Amish population.

Vance Crowe [00:22:27] Oh, so it's the Amish purchasing and it's not city encroachment where people would turn it over into suburbs.

Jim Smith [00:22:34] In our area it's Amish. If you go 15 miles to the west of us, it's suburban encroachment.

Vance Crowe [00:22:39] Wow. Alright. Well at 20,000, this is among the highest price land that I've done on the Ag Tribes report. And with Bitcoin sitting at 118,000, that means it would cost 0.169 Bitcoin in order to buy one acre of land. Or in other words, one Bitcoin would buy 5.9 acres. How does that sit with you, Jim? Is the Bitcoin worth 5.9 acres of land in your county?

Jim Smith [00:23:06] So it, Bitcoin is an enigma to me because I intellectually understand it, but it just blows me away because the finite nature of it and the abstractness of it. But maybe it's like fiat money was to people when we switched from gold to paper in the past and I just gotta get over it.

Vance Crowe [00:23:26] Well, I think that it is always abstract to people until they actually do something with it. And suddenly when you start doing it, whether that's getting a wallet on your cell phone or going to an exchange and buying it, I, I find that once you've done it just a little bit, I can't tell you the number of people. Like when I first started talking about Bitcoin on the Ag Tribes report, everybody was like, I don't know anything about it. But now there've been so many people that have had a few satoshis, they've played with it. Now I get way more sophisticated questions from dozens if not hundreds of people. So I think it just takes doing it for a little bit,

Jim Smith [00:24:03] A little bit of experience.

Vance Crowe [00:24:04] Yeah. And in fact, what I'm gonna start doing is there's a, an app called the Fountain App, which is a place to, to stream podcasts. And on the Fountain app you can send people Satoshi small amounts of Bitcoin in exchange for listening. Or you can do what's called boosting. And what I wanna do is if anybody boosts at 500 SATs or more, I will read a comment that you put on and this will be a way for you, a reason for you to go get some Bitcoin, get it into the Fountain app, and then boost the show and then we'll start reading some of those off. But I think it's a good way to give people a, a tangible way to use Bitcoin. But I did want to, I actually today got into a little bit of a back and forth with a guy that goes by at Mr. Commodity Mo Mar. I don't, I don't know him, but he had put up, oh, Mo

Jim Smith [00:24:56] Omar's been around for a while.

Vance Crowe [00:24:58] Oh, I don't know him. So he put up a podcast that says decentralized but 10 people own 8% of it private, but can be traced and seized by the government. Efficient yet couldn't handle 0.1% of the daily credit card transactions in the US store of wealth like gold. Yet 1.4 people don't have bank accounts, 4 billion don't have credit cards, but they will happily put their life savings into a USB drive. So he was making kind of like a mocking argument. I think I've seen this before. I don't know that it's his original, But to me, I see this and I, I like very clearly have a response to all of these concepts, right? When he says, oh, it's decentralized, it's not decentralized. 'cause so few people own it. People aren't talking about decentralization of ownership, they're talking about the miners and the nodes. But until you've touched Bitcoin, if I try and explain to you miners, it just, it doesn't make any sense. And then like I could go through all these but it is worth a conversation on X because while I'm annoyed by Mr. Commodities, this is the first person that's actually put up arguments against Bitcoin instead of just saying, oh, they're Beanie Babies. Oh that's tulips. That, that's, those are nonsense arguments. I enjoy Mr. Commodity. 'cause at least you have something to push back and forth on.

Jim Smith [00:26:15] Maybe he's your worthy adversary.

Vance Crowe [00:26:18] He might be I'd more than I'd be delight in having him on the podcast. The person that really needs to come on is Jerod McDaniel. I, I gave him an open invitation. He's the guy that's always talking shit about Bitcoin. And so I'm laying it out right here. Come on the podcast. Let's, let's have a, a debate, a friendly, respectful debate about Bitcoin and its value.

Jim Smith [00:26:37] But just think how many hundreds of acres you could buy with a Bitcoin. Where Jerod lives

Vance Crowe [00:26:42] Down in Oklahoma. I've, although I don't think you could buy it in Bitcoin. 'cause I don't think very many. I don't think Jerod's taken Bitcoin for land. No, but I also don't think he'd take US dollars for land either.

Jim Smith [00:26:53] Probably not.

Vance Crowe [00:26:55] Alright, so if you're interested in doing anything with Bitcoin, go download the Fountain app and boost in at 500 SATs and I'll read your comment. Otherwise go buy Bitcoin on the River exchange. That's where I got my Bitcoin this week when I wanted to buy some. And if you use the link that River has given me, you'll both support the show and get a great exchange to buy Bitcoin on. Moving on to the Peter Thiel paradox, this is where I'm gonna ask Jim, what is one thing that you believe that almost nobody in your tribe agrees with you on?

Jim Smith [00:27:27] Well, this might sound like a little bit of confirmation bias, but I think off-farm income is just another way for you to diversify the income stream in your farm. Not much different than if you own the tiling business, a trucking business or did custom farm work with excess farm equipment you have. And after all, a lot of times when you use your off-farm income, you're using an asset of the farm, which is your brain.

Vance Crowe [00:27:51] Well, there you go. Do you feel like people don't agree with you? How do you think they think of off-farm income?

Jim Smith [00:27:57] If you have to work off the farm, you need to get rid of the farm.

Vance Crowe [00:28:00] Oh wow. Okay. Your tribe's pretty hardcore because most of the farmers in the United States do have off-farm income.

Jim Smith [00:28:07] Oh yeah. And how many of those farms have sideline businesses, trucking grain, tiling, you know, I, those are the two that I use as examples all the time. But there's a lot of them.

Vance Crowe [00:28:20] Well, I am gonna say that I think there are a lot of people that agree with you. 'cause there's so many of those people that have that job. But I appreciate the, the, the attempt here. Now moving on to the worthy adversary. This is where I'm gonna ask you, who is one person that you respect but you strongly disagree with?

Jim Smith [00:28:40] Well, it's a good thing you didn't ask this 10 years ago when AG Twitter was just going crazy because I could have probably had a list of them, but I thought about it and the one that that came came to mind is Trent Loos. Now Trent did a lot for social media for ag 10, 15 years ago. I mean, we would call him the pioneer. He did some of the first podcasts, he did some of the first remotes. He gave me some suggestions on some audio visual equipment to use. But man, some of the things he talks about, talks about, and some of his stances just rub me like sandpaper.

Vance Crowe [00:29:13] Yeah. Like what,

Jim Smith [00:29:16] Sometimes he talks a little bit about some of the government intervention that sometimes we need it and he's a little bit off the reservation, like, get out. And I, I I I think there's a fine line balance there on that one.

Vance Crowe [00:29:29] Well, that's good. All right. I, I probably cite with Trent on that, but I completely understand the worthy adversary nature. I mean, that guy is willing to put people on the spot with his own beliefs and he will, he will thumb you on that and Oh yeah. Push you hard. And he definitely has a belief set that he's, he's running around saying it and, and suffers. No, no fools.

Jim Smith [00:29:54] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:29:55] I think he's a, he's an interesting follow. He is, he's, he's definitely somebody worth watching out there. That was a good one. Good, good job on the worthy adversary. I do have a final question tonight. So I am happy to announce that I was invited to give the inaugural keynote at the Flinchbaugh Forum on September 26th in Manhattan, Kansas. And I understand that you went to K State and so they asked me to answer a question that I'm a little, I gotta say a little flummoxed on the question they asked me was, what does DC get wrong and right about agriculture? The wrong part is easy, but I'm gonna ask you, what is something you think DC gets right about agriculture?

Jim Smith [00:30:41] I think they get it right and sometimes the translation is wrong, but they understand that agriculture is in every county of every state of the United States, and that we need to have a presence in agriculture and we need to support agriculture. And I, I've gotten in some arguments recently with some friends of mine that talk about it's business. If you can't make money, I mean, who thought we were gonna have $3 85 cent corn or, or $4 wheat? The, the, the intervention of the government is needed. But I think the government does get it right and understanding that agriculture is everywhere and we need to support it.

Vance Crowe [00:31:18] Hey, that's a, that's a darn good answer. I like that. That'll help me out when I've gotta give this talk on the 26th. Alright. I am so grateful that you were willing to come on. Jim, I found you because of your podcast. You did a recent episode with the guy we were talking about earlier. Jerod McDaniel, why don't you tell people a little bit about your podcast? How did you come up with it? What are you, what are you doing there?

Jim Smith [00:31:41] Well, I, I was a victim of a downsizing a year ago and I decided that I needed to do something so that I wasn't sitting around watching TV too much. So every morning I get up and I try and write a, what I call a patio ponder. And it started with me sitting on a patio listening to our waterfall and our water feature and just thinking about stuff. And I was riffing on thoughts and I'd talk about different things in leadership and the business, agriculture. I mean, everything's fair game for me. And then I had a couple friends that said, Hey, you've got some thoughts that you need to share. So I started a podcast in December and Jerod McDaniel was my 50th episode that I dropped last week. I did a, a solo episode this week with 51 and what I try and feature is people's agriculture roots and how those agricultural roots formed them. And the conversation with Jerod talking about how he was raised and turned him in. I really had a great conversation with Chip Flory on his ag background going through the eighties farm crisis, an auction formed him and Medium what he is today. So I'm focusing on that. And because of being a guest on your, your podcast, I jumped and set up my own website. So it's www.patiopondering.com and that's my clearing house for my podcast and my daily writings.

Vance Crowe [00:32:59] Well, I have to say, I, I got a chance to listen to the Jerod McDaniel one and I was maybe five minutes into it and I wrote you and was like, Jim, you gotta come on my podcast. You did a great job doing an interview with, with a, with a good guy, but honoring Guy. So, or a great podcast, I would encourage everybody to go check out patio pondering. So, alright, well thank you so much for, for coming on. I really appreciate all your time here tonight.

Jim Smith [00:33:25] Well thanks for the invite and this is fun Vance.

Vance Crowe [00:33:30] Okay, I'm gonna wrap things up now with a couple of quick notes. First, I actually have started to enter speaking season and it is, it's been one of those experiences where you start getting phone calls and you start getting emails where people are asking you, Hey, will you come to our conference? Will you come to our annual meeting? And people are planning all the way out November, January, February, even into the summer of next year. And I decided that I would put together a little video that describes one of the talks that I give and I wanted to unveil it today. And I'm hoping that if you're the type of person that likes the Ag Tribes report and you like the idea of this talk, you might forward on this video to, you know, an event coordinator, a planner for your events that you go to. That is a huge help to me and it allows us to maybe meet up wherever you're at before I go play that show. I did want to throw that offer out to Jerod McDaniel. Again, I wanna mention that I believe that right now we are in a pivotal moment for Bitcoin. I think there are people out there that don't understand it and they're out there talking about it as though it is not something to be taken seriously as if it's something that can be dismissed. A guy showed up on my X feed yesterday and said, Bitcoin's been around for 15 years and you can't even buy a cup of coffee with it if that's what you think. You have no idea what's going on and the entire world is going to grab onto and adopt this technology as fast as it can.

Vance Crowe [00:35:03] And so I believe that it is worthwhile for me to have a discussion with Jerod. Maybe he knows something, I don't. But I firmly believe that this is a thing that if you don't take it seriously, it will run right past you and this will have generational impacts on you and your family. So I'm calling out Jerod, I would like him to come out on the podcast and have a discussion with me. I'm pretty sure he'd be open to it, but if you see him, give him a little nod and say that'd be a worthwhile thing for him to do. Alright, that's gonna do it. I'm gonna show you that video and then we'll be back next week with a new podcast. And as always, feel free to disagree. We ask a lot of questions, questions that make people shut down, make them defensive, make them feel judged, that make people want to cover up their mistakes. The wrong questions signal to people, things that you don't mean. So you don't reach the core of what you really wanna know. So the biggest question becomes how do we ask the right questions? Go to vance grow.com to explore keynotes and workshops that will help you resolve the problems you can't see.