ATR: Maude Family Freed, End of Lawfare Against Farmers? @ethankoehler14

Vance Crowe [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's Legacy Interviews guest Lori Alt on the joy she experienced looking back on her life as a farm wife and mother. My career was raising my children, being a wife to Steve, helping on the farm, and I'm so glad for doing all that. Having this interview with you helps us see those good things that we have done, how happy I was in all those choices that I make. We can say that and put it in this interview to pass it on to our children and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren someday. So I think you have a great gift to give people. 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. Welcome to the Ag Tribes report. I'm your host, Vance Crowe. Each week I bring on a co-host that represents one of the perspectives of the many ag tribes that collectively make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week we have Ethan Kohler, a dedicated farmer from Edelstein, Illinois. Ethan is a reputation for being a hands-on grower who bridges traditional farming and modern market strategies, managing field operations like hauling dry fertilizer and planting with dual planters.

Vance Crowe [00:01:33] He's also an astute participant in the ag supply chain, crunching futures, math, and navigating commodities markets. So even welcome to the show.

Guest [00:01:43] Thanks fans. Glad to be here.

Vance Crowe [00:01:45] What have you been paying attention to lately?

Guest [00:01:48] I've been trying to get the crop plan and we finished here on Monday afternoon, so pretty blessed to have that done.

Vance Crowe [00:01:55] So all your crops in, is this early? Is this late? Is this about on time?

Guest [00:01:59] It is early for us. Usually we're not in done here till, oh, about a week or so from now, but we're pretty happy. We had some nice weather to get done. We get it pretty hard when we went. And

Vance Crowe [00:02:08] Is this pretty much everybody around you is in because there the weather or did you guys go early?

Guest [00:02:14] No, we were probably a bit more aggressive than some of our neighbors were. And there's still guys going right now? Well, not right now. We got some rain today and yesterday, but there's guys that have to finish

Vance Crowe [00:02:24] And now that they're in, how much longer till you start seeing green sprouts coming outta the ground?

Guest [00:02:30] I've got some outside that window.

Vance Crowe [00:02:32] Oh wow. That's fantastic. And not worried. No, no fear of frost. I mean, we've gotten frost down in St. Louis on Mother's Day weekend before.

Guest [00:02:41] All we can do about that is pray advance.

Vance Crowe [00:02:45] All right, let's get into the show. On this week's episode of the Ag Tribes report, we're drive. We're gonna dive into the Trump administration dropping criminal charges against the South Dakota Ranchers in a high profile fence dispute. Then we're gonna explore why the H five N one flu fears in California dairies may, may be overblown. We'll also examine why deportation fears in a agriculture haven't materialized. And I'm gonna play a clip of Trump talking about illegal migrants in farming that I hadn't heard even though it was done last week. We're gonna do all that and we're gonna cover the Bitcoin land price report. We'll hear Ethan's take on the Peter Thiel paradox and we'll learn about his worthy adversary. And we're gonna do that all in just 30 minutes. So let's get started. Headline number one, Trump administration drops criminal charges against South Dakota ranching. Couple, the ranchers, Charles and Heather Maude had criminal trespass charges dropped on April 28th over a 1950s era fence on their ranch near Buffalo Gap. National Grasslands Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins called the case an overzealous prosecution of a fifth generation farm family. The mods who faced losing their home and livelihood held a news conference in dc The case was sparked after a US Forest Service dispute, and it drew in cattlemen groups decrying, government overreach. This was a big, big story that caught the news of everybody because the Maud family one day said, Hey, we know we've got a fence dispute.

Vance Crowe [00:04:16] And the next day they had armed government officials there asking about that fence. So let's play a little video of the Maud family, thanking all those who helped bring this to the attention of Secretary Rollins and a list some people that were, we've worked with the most directly, but I know there are a great many others behind the scenes and we appreciate all of that help. We have my press gals that initially broke this when we could not speak. We have Kerry Stat Heim, editor of Tri-State Livestock News, Rachel Gable, assistant Editor of the Fence Post, and Mariah Tibit, who is not with those publications anymore, but did quite a bit of editing behind the scenes. Keeley Covelo with American on One and it kind of grew from there. I've listed several of the people behind me. We also have Karen Bud Phelan, who is currently serving as the Department of Interior Associate Deputy Secretary. We had members of R Calf were the first ones to come and view the allotment. And Chad Sullivan picked up quite a bit of press for us on this and has really helped. We have Ethan Lane, senior Vice President of Governor Affairs within CBA, who has instrumental and really helped us get this going right off the bat. Kaitlyn Glover, executive director of the Public Lands Council, who I'm very fortunate to have known for a number of years and who has just been by our side from from day one. And we appreciate that. Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, South Dakota Stock Growers Association, our South Dakota State Representative Liz May brought 15 state legislative people and elected officials here the first weekend of April to view the allotment.

Vance Crowe [00:05:55] And they have done a great deal of work since we appreciate all of their efforts on our behalf. I want to thank my mom and dad and I'd like to thank Charles' parents too, our neighbors who stood up for us at the threat of retribution to their own operations that they still face until we get this completely resolved. And we are so thankful for the efforts that are being rolled out today to help make progress in the right direction. So I wanted to play that because there were so people that kept ringing the bell about this and the UN one channel on, on X was actually the way that I found out about it. How about you Ethan? Had you heard about this story and how does it feel to have it cleared up?

Guest [00:06:42] Well, I had heard loosely about it and then heard more about it here the last couple days and it's, it's pretty awesome that we have so many neighbors stand up for our, our neighbors together and the united community stand together as united fraud against overreach from the government. It's a fence dispute. It shouldn't be a threat to somebody's farm. It's just a fence, guys, come on.

Vance Crowe [00:07:06] I mean, I have to say, I went and looked this up because I had several people talking to me about the story and wanting me to put it in. It was not a small amount of land that they were talking about. It certainly was a fence dispute, but it was over, you know, a fence, way up in places like South Dakota, those fences can run a long way. So being a little bit off, the thing that really struck me was just how much force the government had brought into the whole situation. And then these people were put on a gag order and they weren't allowed to talk about it. So to your point about the neighbors, those people really went out on a limb because they were, they were worried about being targeted themselves.

Guest [00:07:42] Yep. That's a testament to agriculture. It really is.

Vance Crowe [00:07:46] Alright, headline number two. This goes straight in tandem with, with what was just put out there. The USDA launches a new web portal this week for farmers and ranchers to report what they consider to be unfair or politically motivated legal actions from the Biden administration. The portal was announced by agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins during a press conference with the Maud family and the South Dakota Ranch. Those were the South Dakota Ranchers we were just talking about. Rollins said the portal will help identify cases where farmers and ranchers have been targeted by unfair and politically motivated lawfare. The portal is now active at usda.gov/lawfare and allows agricultural producers to submit complaints about government overreach. The announcement follows the the profile case. And there are others that the Trump administration is apparently removing. Now, what do you think? Is this just a politically motivated trip to try and say, Hey, we're, we're out with the old in with the new, or is this an important thing to, to make sure we battle back against Biden area? Era Lawfare

Guest [00:08:54] Vance, I'm not sure what good this is gonna do for a lot of people. I mean, I, I don't know what I would do with that. And maybe there's some special cases like the mods where something happened where somebody got overreached on, they brought force against them, or I saw it in the comments. There's something about Amish in Pennsylvania, but that's over my head. I'm a little bit removed from the news cycle these days. So maybe there's a purpose for that, but I don't think it's necessary as a general rule.

Vance Crowe [00:09:23] Yeah, I mean I, I wonder how it'll all work out. I mean, I think that as a person you need to feel like, hey, if the government is coming after you, there's somebody that'll listen. I imagine the Rollins administration had to have some concept of being able to say, why did this go on this long? Why did it take you time to make those actions? But on the other hand, like to your point, the Amish farmers, I mean they were having cheese and milk dumped out that they'd been raising for years and years. There were those ranchers out in California that were getting forced off of their land that they had leases on. And so I think there's a lot of lawfare that's gone on, but I don't know. Does a portal to the USDA actually help or is it just one more bureaucratic group? I don't know. All right. Headline number three, bird flu fears overblown in California dairy industry, the H five N one bird flu second wave hit California dairies, but fears among farmers appear to be overblown over while over 750 dairies report cows with reduced milk fevers and lethargy. Cows aren't dying and the impacts end up being limited. The virus thrives now in cows in their udders due to the bird-like C celiac acid receptors. But it isn't adapting to humans easing pandemic concerns. California's testing and biosecurity measures continue though less urgently. Pasteurization keeps milk safe from H five N one being passed to consumers.

Vance Crowe [00:10:55] And so researchers are monitoring the virus and they don't think it's that big of a deal. However, the news is continuing to cover this as a very big story. The Center for Strategic and International Studies is posting articles on X claiming that the current bird flu outbreak has become the longest and deadliest animal disease emergency in US history with devastating losses to poultry flocks nationwide and major implications for us and agriculture, food security. So I don't know when I see these articles from think tanks otherwise known as propaganda outlets, I think they are just trying to stir the pot. It seems like it is a storm that never came to be. And yes, it did kill a lot of birds, but a lot of those birds were killed as a prophylactic measure. It's not killing cows and it hasn't jumped to humans in a long way. So Ethan, what do you think? Are we, are we just about to see the do the dominoes tip over and have this be a real issue or is this just media hype?

Guest [00:11:56] It sounds like a lot of media hype to me. Vance, there's nearly no reason the pasteurization process should take care of the virus in there and which for the consumers we just have no problem getting our milk. And it is a shame that all those birds had to be cold, but we'll get our eggs someday. Let's be a little bit more expensive for a while. Not only get some chickens.

Vance Crowe [00:12:14] Yeah. And it gave the, the Rollins administration something to do for a little while. It's interesting, I did hear from an egg producer the other day that Secretary Rollins has been doing all of her tours going to different farms and she got rebuked pretty hard by the egg and the poultry industry saying like, Hey, what are you doing? You're, you're gonna break up biosecurity, you may be the very person that's tracking bird flu from, you know, farm to farm.

Guest [00:12:40] Yep. Nice and safe. Gotta remember that.

Vance Crowe [00:12:43] Yeah. And I also think like bird flu is one of those things that it actually could be a huge problem. And so to overhype this particular issue is a bad thing because there may come an issue or a certain type of bird flu that comes out that is killing lots of birds or can jump from birds to mammals. And so this one being overhyped seems like it could have pretty severe costs down the line.

Guest [00:13:09] We don't wanna set up ourselves for failure in the future of rams. It's just we gotta be realistic about what we're dealing with today and be prepared to be realistic about what's coming next. Don't overreact, don't underreact react accordingly.

Vance Crowe [00:13:22] Yeah. Speaking of Overreactions headline number four, no major deportation disruptions in agriculture yet, despite concerns back in January, there is little news of deportations disrupting US agriculture. Many people in the media and on the left were saying that Trump's immigration policies, were going to make it so our food was unhostable because undocumented workers, nearly half of the sector's labor continue harvesting without interruptions. California Central Valley citrus and vegetable fields are operating more or less normally. There have been reports of some of the workers not showing up, but not mass arrests or raids on the farms. And this silence contrasts with the fears of labor losses and all the talk about food prices going up. However, I did find a story that on April 21st, US border patrol agents arrested migrant workers at Pleasant Valley Farms in Berkshire, Vermont, the state's largest dairy operation with over 3000 cows. The incident happened after agents reportedly spotted workers walking on the property near the Canadian border, which is a little bit unique because up until this point ICE raids had only been at restaurants, stores, places where they saw migrants moving to and from, but not on the farms themselves. So I was watching this story and I thought, well you know, what's Trump saying about all this? And it was interesting back on April 10th, this is what Trump said about the illegal immigrant situation. We're also gonna work with farmers that if they have strong recommendations for their farms for certain people, we're gonna let them stay in for a while and work with the farmers and then come back and go through a process of legal process.

Vance Crowe [00:15:05] But we have to take care of our farmers and hotels and you know, various, various places where they're used, where they need the people. And we're gonna be working with you very carefully on that. So a farmer will come in with a letter concerning certain people saying they're great, they're working hard, we're gonna slow it down a little bit for them and then we're gonna ultimately bring them back. They'll go out, they're gonna come back as legal workers. Yes. Okay. Yes sir. Thank you. So Ethan, a lot of farmers just a few months ago were saying that using illegals was a form of slavery or something like it. Now Trump is supporting some kind of legal reform. Where do you come out on this?

Guest [00:15:50] I keep hearing mixed messages and I don't really care for that. It's, it's very difficult for me to understand what's truly going on when there seems to be a, a lack of continuity in the messaging. I was definitely afraid for those people, especially in California and Florida, that use the migrant workers to help take care of their harvest. It's a very important thing for our fruit system. Fruit's enough, especially my kids love fruit. So it strawberry season again, thank God. So I, I'm a little was nervous about it before and I'm sure the farmers were as well, but I think it's the best thing to do is to do it the right way and go through it legally. But I don't think there should be any behind the table stuff going like, oh, you're a good farm. You like me, you should not get special treatment. That's not okay. They're all the same.

Vance Crowe [00:16:38] Yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely mixed messages. A few months ago they were basically like, if you are illegal, it doesn't matter whether you're a productive member of society, if you're a grandma, if you've got kids, we're throwing you out. And now it seems as though Trump is walking that back. He ended up, I think later in the clip talking about the, the need to support hotel workers and how the economy is held up by this. And it seems like there's this clarity that, you know, so much of our economy is held up by people that are getting suppressed wages. And those suppressed wages come because they're working illegally knowing that they don't have security, they can't use the regular system. And so I guess what I'm hearing from Trump, when I hear 'em say they gotta leave and then come back, I don't know, that does sound like he understands the reality of the situation but then also wants to be consistent about removing him. So to me it seems like he may be walking in incredibly fine line,

Guest [00:17:34] Fine lines in politics are a dangerous thing's. Be careful.

Vance Crowe [00:17:38] Well what do you mean by that?

Guest [00:17:40] Well, as soon as he crosses the wrong side, he's gonna have retribution from the other side and then he is gonna try and walk back and then their inverse will happen. So he's everybody mad at him, but maybe that's what he wants or why not?

Vance Crowe [00:17:52] Yeah, I don't know. It seems like there is, this is not playing out as starkly and directly as the media hyped it up. And that's kind of my point of some of the news stories today. While there wasn't, there's always a bunch going on when Trump is in office, but I did wanna bring up both the immigration and the bird flu where people have been like, catastrophe, catastrophe. And then it didn't happen. And so it's good to bring these stories back up and say, Hey remember when we were talking about this? 'cause otherwise people forget and then the next catastrophe people can blow it up bigger than it deserves. Any other I thoughts on, on this story?

Guest [00:18:29] Nope, I think I'm good.

Vance Crowe [00:18:31] Alright, if you have new stories that you think I should cover, make sure you send them to me on X at Vance Crow or you can email them to me directly Vance at Legacy Interviews dot com. Alright, now on to the Bitcoin land price report. Wow, things are looking good for Bitcoiners. Last week Bitcoin was at an amazing $93,446 and today we are sitting at $96,619, which is up 3% from just last week. So Ethan, where do you live and how much does an acre of land cost in terms of US dollars there?

Guest [00:19:10] So I live in Peoria County and land around here goes for roughly 18,000 an acre.

Vance Crowe [00:19:16] Okay. So at 18,000 an acre and Bitcoin sitting at 96,001 $619, that means 0.19, Bitcoin would buy you an acre of ground or one Bitcoin would buy 5.4 acres in Peoria County. Ethan, what do you think? Is that a good deal? Would you buy Bitcoin or land? What? What do you think there?

Guest [00:19:41] Can I buy both? Oh wait, I forgot. I don't have infinite money. Dang it. No, I think I definitely wanna have Bitcoin somewhere in my portfolio. I'm just not quite sure how to put it there yet. Agriculture and my branch, if it's a pretty capital intensive business, so it's hard for me to figure that out as a younger producer.

Vance Crowe [00:20:03] And so trying to figure out like where it fits into, should I buy a tractor, should I buy more land, should I buy better inputs, that kind of thing.

Guest [00:20:11] I'm gonna, I'm gonna do what's right for the crop that's gonna first, but whether I buy more land or invest Bitcoin or however that moves forward, especially with the, if we ever to the point of having a lot of extra income, if you have another great price rally and have good crops come eventually.

Vance Crowe [00:20:30] And how are other farmers in Peoria County or other people in your tribe, how do they feel about Bitcoin?

Guest [00:20:37] Well I think most people are starting to accept it a little more on the edges. It's definitely not mainstream yet and the older crowd seems to be slower adopter. It's a general rule, but some of the younger guys around, they're interested. Maybe they're not like whole hog in it but they're definitely, they see some viability as I do.

Vance Crowe [00:21:00] Yeah, I have kind of my brother-in-law index, which my brother-in-laws, you know, they're not particularly excited about having me tell them all about, you know, the things that I'm excited about. But when my brother-in-law start, you know, contacting me to be like, Hey, just tell me a little bit more about this. Like what kind of exchange would I buy this on and if I bought it what would I do with it? And there has definitely in the last two to three weeks been been a big up uptick there so I can feel, you know, that it kind of comes in waves of interest. And my brother-in-law in into Index is reading very high right now.

Guest [00:21:32] Gotcha, gotcha. Well he would, he should buy Bitcoin on River where he should buy it.

Vance Crowe [00:21:36] That's exactly right because if you buy it on River you, you end up supporting the show and that and so that's good for you. I think River is a great platform for purchasing. You also get a lightning wallet and then as if as you buy then it ends up giving the show some Bitcoin. So I'll include those in the show notes below. Thanks for that plug there Ethan. Alright, now moving on to the Peter Thiel paradox. This is where I'm gonna ask Ethan, what is one thing that you believe that almost no one you know agrees with you on?

Guest [00:22:10] Well, this was a struggle for me and I chose to go to the drought. That's gonna be more true to my beliefs. And I believe that I'd say seven to eight of 10 brokers in the world don't actually do a good job of helping a producer manage their risk. I think they're there to turn trades and help make themselves money. And if the ER makes money, great, they're not actually there to be a risk manager. And you, if you have a good broker, a really good one, you cannot pay that guy enough. But if you got a bad broker, he's vastly overpaid.

Vance Crowe [00:22:48] And what can a good broker do? What is the difference between a good broker and a bad broker?

Guest [00:22:55] He can give you advice that's not based on his opinion, helps you actually make money instead of trying to capture moves in the marketplace. That's not his job. His job is to help you manage your risk. And when we have large capital expenditures here on the farm, every season we're talking a thousand dollars an acre to grow corn at seven 50 to 900 grow beans. And, and that's a lot of money when you talk on scale. So if I can manage my risk and I can do a three to 5% better job of my own than any broker's ever helped me do, what value they bring to me, none. So I need to lock in my profit 'cause that's where the margins are in my business is in margins.

Vance Crowe [00:23:40] And so if somebody were out there and they were trying to decide should I spend my time and energy trying to find a good broker or try and teach myself how to do trades, what would be your advice there?

Guest [00:23:54] I think you should do both because if you can't be disciplined enough to do the trading or risk management yourself, however you wanna look at it, then you need to hire somebody else to do it. But you need to make sure you find a good one and you need to make sure that you communicate what your goals and objectives are or they can get misconstrued and you can do things you shouldn't be doing.

Vance Crowe [00:24:17] Will, I'm gonna give you a score here that's probably gonna burn a little bit because I think that while it's important to you, I think that everybody knows that there, there are good brokers out there and bad brokers out there. So I'm gonna throw you a 4.5 on this one. Alright, moving on to the worthy adversary section segment. This is where we try and find those people that help us get out of our ideological echo chambers by finding who is someone that you respect but you strongly disagree with.

Guest [00:24:50] Well, I've done a job myself of trying to kind of step away from social media a fair amount. And so my, the adversary is a, I maybe on social media don't know, it's a neighbor farmer of mine who is a firm believer in strip tilling his corn. And he believes that his way is the best way and the only way. And that's, that's great if he believes that way. But I believe that there should be more nuanced in how we take care of our ground. Some ground is made to have conventional tillage done to it on occasion. Some ground is made to be no-till. Some ground is for strip-till. There is not a blanket solution across the board anywhere. And that's, he seems to think that his way or the highway and what he wants to do and that's fine, good for you. But I, I can't believe that.

Vance Crowe [00:25:39] And how does he, is that just like neighborly conversation?

Guest [00:25:43] Yeah, yeah. Just moving me, I see him across the fence line playing his field. We'll, I'll call him on the phone and I respect the guy a lot. I really do. He we're, he's friends with my dad and I'm friends with him. He's super nice guy. I respect what he says, but I, I don't, don't agree.

Vance Crowe [00:26:00] Good. All right. Well Ethan's we're the adversaries, his next door neighbor and I'm sure there are a lot of people that are in that boat where they respect their neighbor, but they sure don't agree with him. Alright, that is going to wrap up the traditional part of the show I have been because Mother's Day is just around the corner, been asking for my guest. What is something that your mother used to say when you were growing up that that really sticks with you now or impacts the way you make decisions now?

Guest [00:26:34] V she caught me off guard. I was not ready for this.

Vance Crowe [00:26:36] Oh no. Well, does anything come to mind?

Guest [00:26:40] I'm thinking, you know, my grandma has always said a penny saved is a penny earned. So that's been something I've kept around for a while. I can't think of anything from my mom now. I'm gonna get in trouble for her from that for sure. That's something that stuck around in my head for a long time.

Vance Crowe [00:27:02] Well that's that's a good one. I mean it's, it's tried and true and like, it's, it's, it's definitely one that if you internalize it'll make your life better. My mother, my mother used to have one. People in hell want water. And I used to think that was so mean. But then when you're raising kids sometimes you're like, yeah, well you may want that, but there's no, there's that doesn't make any, doesn't have any impact on whether you're gonna get it or not. So Ethan, I know you've said you're not on social media much, but if people wanted to touch base with you wanted to learn more about trading their own grain or, or your ideas on farming, where would they go?

Guest [00:27:41] You can find me on Twitter. That's the best place to find me on socials. I'm at Ethan Kaler. 14. Yeah, it's Kaler.

Vance Crowe [00:27:50] Kaler. Yeah. I just heard, I was like, oh man, I got that wrong.

Guest [00:27:53] Totally fine. Happens literally every single day of my life and I've got a substack, a market farmer, but it doesn't, I don't do anything for marketing with that. It's just I write a synopsis of the Bible verse read every day goes out to the world. So feel free to

Vance Crowe [00:28:09] That story. Oh's. Great. I can include that in the show notes.

Guest [00:28:12] It'd be great. I'll send you a link.

Vance Crowe [00:28:14] Alright, that's gonna do it for tonight's show. Thank you so much for tuning in. We are one week away from Mother's Day, so if you've been thinking about getting her a legacy interview, go to Legacy Interviews dot com to schedule a call with me and we'll talk all about what you'd hope to capture and how we can make this a very special gift for your mother. All right, we'll be back next week and as always, feel free to disagree.