USDA Secretary Rollins: Polished Messenger or Independent Voice? Farm Subsidies vs Bitcoin

Ad read / show intro [00:00:00] The Ag Tribes report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are, so the future knows who they really were. Here are Legacy Interviews guests, mark and Stephanie Mendenhall on the unexpected ease of their experience. What'd you guys think? How was it? Much easier than I expected. Yep. Much easier. You made us feel very comfortable. Was this something that weighed on you for a while? Did hurt. I just, I, we looked at it and said, well, we'll just wing it because, you know, you give this list to figure it out, this out and figure this out. Oh, well we didn't get that done. What? What we remember, we remember and what we forgot. We'll tell the kids labor tomorrow. I'll say, God, why didn't I tell this story? Why this, or why didn't I tell'em about this? Say this. You do a good job of asking questions. Welcome to the Ag Tribes report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host Vance. The report begins in 3, 2, 1. Let's begin.

Vance Crowe [00:01:03] Welcome to the Ag Tribes report. I'm your host, Vance Crowe. Each week I bring on a new co-host that represents one of the many tribes that make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week I have none other than Elliot Henderson, an entrepreneur, farmer, combat veteran, Iowa Corn Growers director and co-host of the well-known rush Hour ag podcast. Elliot, welcome to the Ag Tribes report.

Elliot Henderson [00:01:29] Yeah, thanks for having me on.

Vance Crowe [00:01:30] So what have you been paying attention to lately?

Elliot Henderson [00:01:33] I guess I'd probably been paying the most attention to my constituents here in district three up here in northeast Iowa with the Iowa Corn Grow Association. You know, just watching these ag markets, seeing what's happening with trade, just trying to do the best job I can to represent the people up here.

Vance Crowe [00:01:49] Now, when you get a representative position like that, is that a paid gig? Does it take a lot of hours? Is it full-time? What do you, what do you do there?

Elliot Henderson [00:01:57] It takes a ton of hours and sure, there's like maybe a hundred dollars a day per diem and they put me up in a hotel room. But I don't know, I, I know there's days when I'm gone, I'm probably losing $10,000 just going and representing my fellow farmers. But I do think it's important and it's something that I, I hope, I really hope somebody comes in and desires to replace me someday because it, there's, I can't carry all the water on my own and I, I really hope that there's a future for this organization. 'cause I think with the representation that Iowa Corn has, it's a, it's a fantastic association to represent the farmers here in Iowa.

Vance Crowe [00:02:36] Yeah, I mean, it is such a big challenge to get people to be able to show up to things. I know I am, I'm on one board and it is so much effort that my wife has to endure. I know you've got kids. Yeah.

Elliot Henderson [00:02:47] And,

Vance Crowe [00:02:48] And our time is so valuable because the value of it gets sucked out through inflation. So to use your time to go to a board is a big investment in the long term. That's all you can chalk it up to.

Elliot Henderson [00:03:00] And I know the hard work that's being done there and the people that are there are like some of the smartest people I've ever met. And it's frustrating when you come back and you're talking to your constituents and they're just like, well, you know what, what are you doing? And you start sharing some of these stories about the action that's being taken and they're like, holy cow, how come you guys aren't talking about this? And it's like, well we are, but it's just hard to engage with people. So we gotta do a better job of engaging with our constituents.

Vance Crowe [00:03:25] Well I think everybody in ag thinks that right now. 'cause man, we are in a crazy time tonight. The, the, the stories we want to cover or we're gonna talk about Secretary Rollins going on grain markets and other stuff with Joe Vaclavik. We're gonna talk a little bit about what she mentioned and also what she's doing out there. You know, she's been a very unusual ag secretary as far as I can tell. We're also gonna talk about California Prop 50 passing, which is going to redistrict rural ag and likely give them even less of a vote. We're gonna talk about the Danish cows that allegedly are dying after Bovaer. The Bill Gates backed feed used to cut down on methane production. And we're also gonna talk about how the New York City mayoral race won by Mamdani could potentially launch $60 million Citi Grocery Project, which we'll see how this goes, but we're gonna try and do all that. Then we're gonna do the Bitcoin land price report. We'll ask Elliot his Peter Thiel paradox and find out who his worthy adversary is, which before we were talking on the show, it's pretty spicy if you're watching the show and you're wondering what in the heck is going on? Well, once a year I make a pilgrimage to upstate Illinois where I visit a group of my buddies and I'm in a different shop and I've gotta wear the hat because it has gone from being 70 degrees out to being about 40 degrees out. And I think it's headed colder.

Elliot Henderson [00:04:47] Yep.

Vance Crowe [00:04:48] Alright, first ev story today, USDA secretary Brooke Rollins highlights a trade deal and farm aid in the podcast interview. She went on on November 3rd on grain markets and other stuff with past guest of the Ag Tribes report. Joe Vaclavik, this is a big show. Apparently what happened is she was supposed to be on a show months ago then didn't happen. They kept trying to reschedule. It didn't happen. Didn't happen. The China deal goes off and the very next day, Brooke Rollins is on as many podcasts as she can get on to try and talk about what's going on. She talks about the China deal, some of the grain trades that are being made, what she's working on in cattle markets, new world screwworm, but they did it bang, bang, bang fast in 30 minutes. I know you listened to this particular episode, Elliot, what'd you think?

Elliot Henderson [00:05:37] You know, I'm an avid Joe and I pronounce it aklavik, so maybe he'll be listening and he'll pick which one of us says it right. But I do, I listen to Joe every morning. I mean, it's the first thing I do when I wake up. I, I know my wife's probably like so irritated that he's, that I'm listening to him before I'm listening to her in the morning. But, but yeah, what I think of it, I honestly, that was a much anticipated episode that I was really wanting to see and I had never before ever clicked the fast forward button when I listened to that show. And every time she started talking about something, I was fast forwarding through it, just trying to get to the next question because I wasn't getting, it was all just fluff I thought. And I was very disappointed in what she had to say. And I love Brooke Rollins, I think she is an excellent cheerleader for the ag economy or the ag industry, but I just wasn't something that did it for me. I guess,

Vance Crowe [00:06:27] You know, when I listen to it, I think she's an exceptional speaker. She's talking about so many issues, right? And she cannot vary one millimeter from Trump's agenda. And this, what this made me think of is, there have been several times when FFA officers, when they're trying to become the national FFA officer, they'll be introduced to me and they won't talk about like, what can they do to prepare themselves? What can they, how can they answer questions? How should they think about it? And like I've, I've worked with people that have been in the national office, the president of the National FFA, and what I always tell them is don't do it. And the reason I tell them don't do it is you, what they're actually training you to do is to say what somebody else wants you to say. And it seems really great. The lights are glittering on you, the spot's there, but they're not your words. They're not your ideas. And that's what I think when I see her, she is a super FFA officer just out there saying exactly what she's supposed to say.

Elliot Henderson [00:07:22] So do you think, like, you remember the last administration, they had a lot of turnover, it didn't take long and they were going through people you think that maybe they've even like polished her to be not like the people of the first administration and stick to, you know, what they want them to say. And that's

Vance Crowe [00:07:37] 100%. I mean, she was chosen as far as I could tell, because she had spent the years after Trump got outta office trying to do policy work that would get him back into office. She wasn't an ag policy person. She was trying to get him reelected. And, and so when it came time to choose who should be the Ag secretary, I think we were hoping Thomas Massie maybe see a, a John Kempf in there. Something wild, you know? But, but when she was brought there, you're like, okay, it is gonna be somebody that's gonna say exactly what they're supposed to say. Which, I mean, as a president, that's a smart pick.

Elliot Henderson [00:08:10] And the first time I saw her was out at Commodity Classic last spring or late winter. And I just, I was mesmerized by her. I really didn't think she was a great choice. Just like you were talking about, well I had other people I had picked, but man, she really impressed me out there. I thought she did a great job and, you know, well,

Vance Crowe [00:08:25] I mean, what I see there is there's no chance that what she actually wants to do is import Argentinian beef into the United States. Like she's a cattle rancher. This is not what she wants. The new world screw worm, like all the pressure that she had on her. She doesn't want to be adding that stuff into the system. They're doing it because there's larger picture goals and that's what's gonna upset ag. They're gonna say, I know you don't actually believe what it is that you're doing. And so you're one of them and not one of us.

Elliot Henderson [00:08:51] Yeah. And I don't know this cattle thing. I know I've, I've upset a lot of people here in the last, you know, since this thing's all broke out too. And, you know, I wanna be longer cattle, so, and I wanna buy, I wanna buy beef at the grocery store. So I don't know, I, I worry about, you know, the whole world getting burnt down at the expense of the American cattle producer, beef producer because, you know, we wanna maintain these higher prices. I, I do think, you know, we, we've gotta have an open mind to some of these, these,

Vance Crowe [00:09:18] I don't know man, maybe, maybe what we need is high quality beef and that costs money to make and that like messing around with these trade deals and importing beef in order to keep the prices down. Maybe that's not the right answer. Yeah.

Elliot Henderson [00:09:29] But that, I dunno, this, these markets, the way they moved here in the last couple days, this is all managed money. It ain't like it's beef producers that are moving this market around or even the, the buyers of beef. It's managed money. It's the same thing that happens in grains when, when they want to capitalize on a short position based on, on the media talking heads that, that that moves the markets when they bring that money in. I don't know. That's probably something I think people should be looking more at.

Vance Crowe [00:09:56] Well it's just as far as Brooke Rollins, I have to say she is an exceptional talent, but she is towing the administrative line. Is she It is not her. She's speaking for, that's what is clear to me.

Elliot Henderson [00:10:07] It

Vance Crowe [00:10:07] All right, moving, moving on to story number two. This is outta California. California's prop 50 passes redistricting raises concern for rural ag communities. I saw this being talked about on, on X, but it wasn't until after it passed that I realized just how big this is. California voters approved proposition 50 on November 4th allowing state lawmakers to redraw congressional districts potentially shifting five seats towards Democrats and diluting rural voices. The measure replaces independent redistricting commissions with partisan lines effective for 2026 Newsom's push to counter the Republican gerrymandering elsewhere, places like Texas. So critics like the California Farm Bureau call it a setback for rural communities as new maps consolidate areas like Modoc County home to cattle ranchers and loggers with urban Marin County, which is the Richie rich, rich, rich area of California who wanna support doing things like removing dams and, and all kinds of other stuff. Up in Sonoma. And Mendocino County America, un one has been drawn a lot of attention to this. Seems like rural farmers in California, the largest ag producing state, they're, they're going to be completely dominated by urban areas. Thoughts Elliot?

Elliot Henderson [00:11:18] Yeah. Talk about more of the wrong stuff here. Like this ain't good. You know, it's not good for America. It's not good for rural America. I, I don't know, I don't know how you, how you start fixing this stuff.

Vance Crowe [00:11:30] It seems like, you know, everything is being drawn into a national fight. And what I dislike about this is the states are set up to be independent of this like larger, how, how are we gonna get as many Democrats as we can into the US system? And maybe it is not actually how it works in practice, but we're watching what happens when everything gets funneled towards the money comes from the national government. The more the money comes from the national government for all their things, the more there's an emphasis there rather than making sure you have a really strong representative government in your own state.

Elliot Henderson [00:12:03] I haven't been following this story a lot, but it just makes me think here as we're talking like, is this gonna drive a north and south California? Is this gonna drive that someday?

Vance Crowe [00:12:13] Well it's funny 'cause just one year ago today when I was doing this last year, we were talking about the, when I was living in Mendocino County just north of there, they, they talk about the state of Jefferson. Yeah. Which is this northern California area. And I know that Oregon is setting up this stage to, to try and break away the western part of it. It's basically anything on the leeward side of the the yeah. The country that, that doesn't get as much rain but they're the ones doing all the production.

Elliot Henderson [00:12:39] Yep. Yeah. The eastern part.

Vance Crowe [00:12:41] Yeah, that's right. Alright, moving on to story number three. Danish farmers report cow deaths linked to mandatory Bovaer feed additive on November 4th. A viral ex post highlighted a Danish farmer's claim that cows are dying, which is after they've been mandated to use Bovaer, the methane inducing, the methane reducing feed additive backed by Bill Gates farmer reported that the first cow went down on Friday to more on Saturday and attributing it to Bovaer. This is all alleged, but that tweet went totally viral. I saw it multiple times earlier this week. And so there was a lot of pushback a few months ago on Bovaer. And it seems like more pushback now. Did this hit your feed?

Elliot Henderson [00:13:23] No, I mean we're not, not, that's not something that's really in our wheelhouse here. But I just, again, why, why are we worrying about these non-issues? You know, this is, we, we've gotten way too many, this is the problem with agriculture. We're not getting involved enough. We're not speaking our mind enough. We're not educating the people on what's important and how, how cow farts is not the problem and we're just not doing enough. We need to be doing more.

Vance Crowe [00:13:52] Yeah, I mean I think in the United States we are gonna end up developing a real cultural difference. I think even the, the left wing of the United States has seen like, hey, we've used climate change to effectively raise the prices on everything that we possibly can. Cars, your food, everything that we can now, now that we've done that damage and kept prices high, let's abandon that and now we're gonna move towards some other principle. And I see Europe is, is doubling down on things like climate change and methane while Bill Gates is making a reverse, you know, beating a path the other direction. I think that it won't take very many years of that being taken out of the US educational curriculum for that to be like, what are you talking about? Climate change. You, you fed things to cows to stop methane. Whereas in Europe they're just gonna keep going down this path.

Elliot Henderson [00:14:41] Why do you think that is? Because they're gonna keep sticking the money into it.

Vance Crowe [00:14:44] I think the cultural changes here, I mean I, the, the biggest reason to me that the US government gave in so much to climate change mandates was 'cause it was a way to funnel money into the system through another means, you know, by putting up solar panels and, and wind farms. So I think that that that process is not gonna be the way they inject money. Shit, the way they're injecting money is now, now sending as many payments as they can to farmers as Brooke Rollins promised they were gonna do.

Elliot Henderson [00:15:11] Right. But I mean this administration has stopped a lot of that green stuff from happening and it was a, that was a total racket too. And I but back to the European thing. So what do you think's happening in Europe? They're just gonna continue to funnel those dollars? 'cause I don't think it's a culture thing. I think it's follow the money thing.

Vance Crowe [00:15:29] Yeah, I think that it's both. I I think that the, the culture is downstream from the money and the money is there propagating it. I I think that they are just following a different tack. They need to have this decentralized, A lot of their climate change stuff has made it so they, the farms have stayed small. For example, GMOs were not because they were afraid of GMOs. They wanted to keep more people farming. The more GMOs you use, the more efficient you become, the less farmers you have. They made that as an active choice 'cause they didn't want their farmer class to be pushed out. This is just another way of manipulating the system to get more of what they want. Less, less efficient cows effectively.

Elliot Henderson [00:16:06] Sure.

Vance Crowe [00:16:07] Alright, moving on to our last story of the day. New York City mayor elected Zohran Mamdani pushes for city run grocery stores to combat food costs. On November 6th, CBS news reported that Mamdani is advancing a $60 million plan for city run grocery stores. One per borough in food deserts to sell at wholesale prices without profit, covering rent and taxes for affordability funding, redirect subsidies from private grocers plus higher corporate 11.5 and millionaire 2% taxes stores with centralized distribution source locally, but face oppositions from those bodegas and supermarkets fearing government competition. What do you think Elliot, what is going on here that they want state run grocery stores in New York City

Elliot Henderson [00:16:57] Bring on the bread lines. I I think you're not gonna, you're not gonna drive, you're not gonna drive advancements in better quality of service by having the government do it.

Vance Crowe [00:17:11] But what do you think is going on in the city of New York that says, Hey we, we support this. The what's making them forget the hard lessons of, you know, socialism and communism.

Elliot Henderson [00:17:24] I, I wanna like really like lazily blame the propaganda that it was just propaganda. But honestly I think, you know, and it's, I think it's bleeding into ag too where, you know, I, I read something there on act, you know, those who don't experience the love of a village will burn it down to feel the warmth. And I think that's what's happening here is like people don't see prosperity in their path. And if they can't, if they can't see a, a way to get there, they're willing to burn everything down to, to see that nobody else does.

Vance Crowe [00:17:58] Yeah, I mean I am with you on at least part of that. I mean, my sense about what's going on in New York is that it has become a obscenely expensive. I mean, inflation is gonna go there really quickly the same way it has with agriculture. You know, where money is dumping into the system is where it accelerates the fastest. And I think it's between rural America and major cities, major metropolitan areas where you see this inflation and those people don't have capital. And to your point, they don't feel like they have any chance of getting it. So they're just going to constantly be in the renter class. And that renter class is watching infinite prices go up, but they're not seeing infinite wages go up. They're seeing wage reduction. I think they're scared and somebody's coming along being like, well I'll make it easier for you. I'm gonna lift that burden using somebody else's money. And I think that seems real appealing. If you're barely making your credit card payments,

Elliot Henderson [00:18:49] It's an easy lever to pull for people. And I, I I see that, I do see that coming for agriculture. I mean I I'm well aware of the, the story of the Holodomor and what happened in, in Ukraine in the 1920s and thirties. Like they will come after the prosperous farmer someday.

Vance Crowe [00:19:08] Well, I mean it's kind of a hard thing for farmers to sit there and be like, Hey, we don't want this socialized thing. I mean, they're getting transfer payments that equal 13.5% of their, of their bottom line. Right.

Elliot Henderson [00:19:18] So

Vance Crowe [00:19:18] I mean, I I mean are are these people in New York City gonna have 13.5% of their grocery bill cut out? I I doubt it. I imagine the farmers getting more money than the, than the person living in the city.

Elliot Henderson [00:19:30] Yeah, you're right. But you know, when I talk to my fellow colleagues in agriculture, they wanna stop this shit. They don't want these payments and I think it's because they're smart enough to see that this doesn't end well if we continue down this path.

Vance Crowe [00:19:45] So why do you think ag continues to get those payments? Because I, I, I, I don't, I mean, I think people talk, they talk like capitalists in the coffee shop and they become communists at the mailbox because they're cashing those checks.

Elliot Henderson [00:19:59] Well I think a lot of that's, you know, even like in Iowa corn, you know, most of the members and most of the people in the boardroom, they're cautious. They're, they're worried about this. They don't, they don't wanna see us operate this way. But I think you've got, you know, it's just, it's not the farmer's voice that matters in this. It's the people who are taking the money that the farmers spend and all this money's passed through. So, you know, the big banks, they want, they want these loans paid and the be the, they don't wanna have to rewrite these loans and take on the risk the big equipment manufacturers. Sure man, we don't wanna have to lower the price of these x nine combines. And then you got guys like me that are like, I wanna stop these payments 'cause I'm sick of seeing the big guy next door continue to pay way too much for rent. And he is got his payments limits now lifted on how much money he gets to bring in from the government. I I don't wanna make his X nine combine payment for him with my tax dollars. So it's like now I'm competing against my own prosperity with my own tax dollars. I'm, I'm fed up with it. So it's like maybe I'm one of the guys that's ready to burn the village down to fill the warrant too. I don't know, I'm,

Vance Crowe [00:21:06] You know, it's hard to say. It's, it's very interesting to me because when I look at the local and maybe even the state level, there's a lot less asking for handouts. But you get to the national level and those national organizations are like, we gotta do something for the farmers. Let's print more money. But I sense that you're right, a lot of the pressure they're getting isn't from their farmer constituents, it's from these other big groups that are saying, Hey, we wanna be, we wanna sell you corn in a bag that's pretreated and it's too expensive if we don't get a payment.

Elliot Henderson [00:21:34] Yeah. And hey, we want these guys to keep paying it. And by the way, you know, we're okay with these guys, you know, following the rules of not replanting the, the product and and following the labels on everything, but we're happy to sell it to somebody else cheaper and, and they can do whatever they want with the stuff. I, I, I just think we gotta get serious about fighting back about this.

Vance Crowe [00:21:54] Well we tried to talk about the New York City run grocery stores, but I think it all does come down to, like you said, follow the money. So it's good for ag to be policing itself on that. I'm with you. I think most farmers don't want it, but there's a whole lot of money coming out the back of the government towards farmers. Okay. Moving on to something that the government can't inflate and that is Bitcoin. This is the Bitcoin land price report. Right now Bitcoin is sitting at $100,850, which is down almost 24% from its all time highs just earlier at the beginning of October. But it has taken quite a tumble. It is a buyer's market. Elliot, how much does an acre, a good farm ground cost where you're at?

Elliot Henderson [00:22:38] Well, I've seen it land get pretty soft here. My brother just bought a farm yesterday for 12,000, I think 12,500 and that was some pretty like 85 CSR ground. I thought it, I thought he got a good buy on it.

Vance Crowe [00:22:50] And you're saying that's soft a couple of months ago it would've been something different. Yeah,

Elliot Henderson [00:22:54] 16 thou, last time I was on your show, I think we were throwing around $16,000 or $18,000. So it's, I mean it's getting softer.

Vance Crowe [00:23:02] Well, so at 12,500 and Bitcoin at just a little over a hundred thousand, it means that you could buy one acre of land with one point 0.1239 Bitcoin, so about 1.24 Bitcoin or one Bitcoin would buy you just a little tiny bit over eight acres of land. Elliot, how does that strike you?

Elliot Henderson [00:23:23] I don't you get my opinion on Bitcoin. I I just don't, I wanted to say something there about the, you know, who controls the internet, right?

Vance Crowe [00:23:33] No,

Elliot Henderson [00:23:34] The government can shut your internet off anytime. I mean they do it all over the world. So is that really something I wanna be, be tied into? I, I don't know. I caution it. I think there's better things to stick my money in.

Vance Crowe [00:23:46] So you're saying that your fear of Bitcoin is that the government could shut down the internet and that would prevent you from getting to your money. You, you perceive that to be a larger threat than to your bank?

Elliot Henderson [00:23:56] What do you mean?

Vance Crowe [00:23:57] Well, I mean the government can shut down your access to a bank. They did it all throughout COVID. They did it, you know, to the, the people throughout Canada. And you think it's, it's, that would be the better system than, than trusting it with Bitcoin and how it's connected to the internet.

Elliot Henderson [00:24:11] I'm a land guy so it's like I, I'm gonna pay debt down and, and operate land. So I I'm still gonna be pretty firm on Wanda and land.

Vance Crowe [00:24:20] Yeah, I agree with that. The, I think land is what I, if, you know, if Bitcoin continues to do well, I will use that Bitcoin to exchange it for land. But I'm not worried about the, I mean

Elliot Henderson [00:24:29] The internet's still ran by the military, right?

Vance Crowe [00:24:31] Yeah. But the, that's actually like a fundamental important thing to understand about Bitcoin because once you have a node, it would mean they would have to keep you off of the internet everywhere, all around the world without like knowing that's Vance connecting to the internet. And, and I would, I would actually make the case that once you have a node it doesn't, unless they can shut the entire internet around off in the entire world. Only then could they stop Bitcoin transactions.

Elliot Henderson [00:24:57] Maybe.

Vance Crowe [00:25:00] I mean, once you understand the structure, it's not a maybe that's, that's that's the way that it would be anyway. I recommend buying Bitcoin. It is at a great buy price. You can get it on river.com and, and one day there may be a good place for us to do a buy sell for land with Bitcoin, but not today. Alright, let's head on to the Peter

Elliot Henderson [00:25:20] Corey just popped in here. He said he just bought something today.

Vance Crowe [00:25:23] Did he? That's great.

Elliot Henderson [00:25:24] Yeah, I'm in the farm for profit studio. I dunno if you figured that out. We didn't talk about that, but yeah, Corey just popped in. So,

Vance Crowe [00:25:30] So heading on now to the Peter Thiel paradox. Elliot, what is one thing that you believe that almost nobody in your ag tribe agrees with you on?

Elliot Henderson [00:25:38] Yeah, I think it's a lot of this policy is doing more harm than good. You know, some people are just now kind of starting to follow that, but you know, I got into a little discussion here on like property tax and, and H two A workers, you know, like this stuff is walling off the opportunity for the entrance to come in and we continue to, to basically have these senior citizen discount type programs that continue to protect the people that have been doing this the longest. And I, I just, I you're gonna end up with a mond type event in ag if we're not careful.

Vance Crowe [00:26:22] Well, I mean, I gotta start off right away and say you failed because I agree with you already on its face. Like I I'm totally with you. Oh,

Elliot Henderson [00:26:30] I could have said my hat looks cooler than yours. I

Vance Crowe [00:26:32] Guess because I mean, like you even heard Brooke Rollins talking about like, oh, we're gonna do this to the, the H two A program, we're gonna do this to the H two A program. And you're like, well the reason you have to make all these switches on this thing you can control is because it's not, it's too expensive to hire labor. You've inflated the price. We can only import workers from somewhere else and now you're trying to do a bandaid solution by bringing in foreigners to do the work.

Elliot Henderson [00:26:56] Well I guess I trying to go back to this paradox thing here that I was just thinking about there as you were explaining that. But like a lot of these policies that need to get changed, you know, I guess that's where people disagree with me on, it's like they see themselves as a benefactors to 'em and so they don't wanna change 'em. And it's like, we gotta get serious about you gotta be a patriot here and you gotta start thinking about how can you, we can restructure ag so that the future has an opportunity to do it otherwise the the damn state's gonna run the whole damn thing.

Vance Crowe [00:27:27] Well that one, I, I think you're correct. Like every person that's cashing the check, every person that's retweeting that they're gonna get this transfer payment, like they, they don't agree with you. They're all disagree with you. They want the system to keep going. I think that's a complaint that people have about things like Iowa corn. And what do you say to somebody that says, well you're, you're right there with them. You're with the checkoff program that's going out and advocating for these

Elliot Henderson [00:27:50] Things. Yeah, I got the answer for you. Get involved if you don't like it, it's membership driven. It ain't driven by the dollars that Corteva or who John Deere's sticking into the association for advertisement. It's driven by what the members want. Their survey goes out every year, fill the damn survey out, come to the meetings, get involved, call me up. I wanna represent you. If you got an idea better than mine, I want it to be the idea that wins the day.

Vance Crowe [00:28:16] I mean, I I think you are definitely one of the lone voices out there that probably is your greatest Peter Thiel paradox is you are getting involved and I know for a fact people that you've hounded to be more involved in Iowa Corn to be like, you can't complain about it if you don't show up because you, you can ask her your, I think for Iowa Corn you can get your money back, can you?

Elliot Henderson [00:28:35] Yeah. You know, it works on membership dollar. So as you're a member and then you got your, you're talking about check off probably. Yeah. So like when

Vance Crowe [00:28:42] You

Elliot Henderson [00:28:42] Sell a much of corn, you know, the the the association's able to pull that check off off. Yeah, you can, you can ask for a refund. I hate that people want to do that or desire to do that because you know, really that's like the story of the tragedy of the commons. You familiar with that?

Vance Crowe [00:28:57] Oh sure, yeah.

Elliot Henderson [00:28:58] You know, that's what it is. You know, you got people that are, the smaller guys are willing to put into the thing and try to make it bigger and better, but they're really the ones that are really exploiting all the, the people that are working are the ones that are taking their check off back. So I don't know, I think it's, it's a, it's a damn tragedy, but I gotta, I also gotta take some responsibility for that too, because I ain't doing enough good enough job ex, you know, putting the message out there, the hard work and efforts that are being made.

Vance Crowe [00:29:24] Well, my hat off to you for showing up and, and, and trying anyway. All right, let's move to the last section. This is the worthy adversary. This is where I'm gonna ask Elliot, who is one person that you respect but strongly disagree with?

Elliot Henderson [00:29:38] Oh gosh. You know, and it's all probably just came about in the last 24 hours here. And it, and I gotta give a shout out to Damian Mason because like the dude's the man when it comes to like, talking about things in ag and it's like, I, I love his content, but like I can just tell that like when I'm talking about how we need to make some changes to some of these policies, like he looks at it like you're really, you're really taking something away from him. And it's like, I don't know, I think of that Thomas Sowell quote where it's like, hold on one second here. Lemme just look at it. I got, I know I got it on my phone here. You know, Thomas Sowell, it's like when people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like a discrimination. And I think that's what's happening with these people is like, oh, you, you want to, I've had this preferential treatment my entire life or I'm in this position. And now when you're talking about trying to take some of that away from 'em, they feel like you're discriminating against them.

Vance Crowe [00:30:37] And you think that's kind of what Damian Mason interpreted on on your back and forth. You and Sha and Damian had had a pretty big

Elliot Henderson [00:30:44] Back and forth different, but yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:30:47] What do you think his perspective is?

Elliot Henderson [00:30:49] Well I think he's, you know, he's a landowner. He rents his land out and he loves to, he doesn't want his property taxes going up. He don't wanna pay the commercial property tax rate that the guy that owns the strip mall or the doctor's office or the dentist office. You know, he, he, he wants to enjoy his low property taxes on Eggland. And I think that's the case for the 27,000 acres in Buchanan County that are owned by people that don't live in the state of Iowa. It's not available to the, to the entrance of the market because the privilege of owning that land and paying low property taxes is just one of the many things that, you know, our ag sector continues to, to give preferential treatment to, you know, and it's all been, how do I say, exploited by people outside of ag Now, whether it's the John Deere dealers or the, the, the landowner that has a, a tenant farmer on it, they, they're all capitalizing on subsidy programs. They're, they're capitalizing on the low property taxes. They, you know, it's all these things with inside ag that we're supposed to be trying to protect the margins of the farmers that it just gets funneled through the farmer.

Vance Crowe [00:31:55] Yeah, I mean it ultimately becomes an aristocracy program where the, where the owners of the land have it and, and frankly, I mean from my perspective, the this is only going to get worse because in order to continue to give the amount of money that's gonna have an appreciable difference on the farmers, that the dollars are go value is going down. So you're gonna have to print more and more and more. So this is only going to expand in terms of prices of everything that's not slowing down you up.

Elliot Henderson [00:32:19] You bring up aristocracy, I mean you go to Old World Europe, this is why we we're white dudes. We left our families left Europe 200 years ago to get away from the churches and the noble class owning everything. And we are going that way. I mean the Mormon church is buying everything up around me for Ag land and I, it's like I won't be long and I'll probably live the day to see the day where, you know, it's just wealthy people that own this land and the autonomous equipment runs on it and it never changes hands.

Vance Crowe [00:32:47] I mean, I gotta say I got a, a certain kind of respect for the religious groups that find ways to grow the holdings of their people, right? Whether you're talking about Mennonites, Hutterites, Amish, they found a way to coordinate without government interference.

Elliot Henderson [00:33:02] You're talking about Joel Osteen too then probably.

Vance Crowe [00:33:04] Well, I don't know, does he buy farm ground?

Elliot Henderson [00:33:06] I don't know. I mean he's a pretty wealthy dude now. He runs a church.

Vance Crowe [00:33:11] Well

Elliot Henderson [00:33:11] I don't, I mean I'm a religious guy so I ain't talking down on religion here, but it's just, I

Vance Crowe [00:33:15] Mean I just like that it coordinates people, right? It gives 'em a way to work together for a larger purpose and and allows them to do things that you can't do as an atomized unit. I mean, I think one of the worst things that happened to the American public is the concept of the atomic family being mom, dad, kids, like we're a network.

Elliot Henderson [00:33:33] I'm right there with you man. I I'm right there with you. It's, this ain't good what we've got going on here.

Vance Crowe [00:33:39] And so, you know, these faith groups coming together and saying, we're gonna, we're gonna work on it, we're gonna help you, we're gonna do this. It's gonna transcend all the people that are asking for the handouts in a way.

Elliot Henderson [00:33:48] Yeah, and I think, I guess probably what frustrates me the most with it is like, you know, people used to die and they'd put a tombstone up, you'd, you know, harvest a piece of granite out of the, out of the earth and you, that was your tombstone. But now, today, you know, we've got these trusts, we've got these gifts to these churches, we've got these, you know, gifts of land to the Shriners Association and you know, we've just totally deprived the next generation of opportunity to, to build wealth the way that the generation before us had done. And I think it's, it's a, it's a theft on the future of our, of, of our, of our ag community.

Vance Crowe [00:34:22] You think that's a result of trusts or printing money? Infinitely one seems to have a much larger impact than trusts.

Elliot Henderson [00:34:31] No, I I mean I'm referring to these trusts being put up as like a forever tombstone in effigy of the person that, you know, made that decision. I guess so IIII don't, I'm not sure I follow your question on

Vance Crowe [00:34:43] Well I mean I think like the, the, the way that the whole system is unwinding is, is less to do with consolidation. 'cause I don't think actually fan farms last that long. I don't think trust lasts that long. I think they run out a lot quicker than most people realize. But I think the reason the inflation of the input costs and seeds and tractors and land is all because the government just keeps dumping money into the system. It's not just that there are fat cats, it's that they're, the transfer payments get ever larger 'cause the dollars get ever less valuable.

Elliot Henderson [00:35:14] Yeah. And I guess my problem if a, if an a farm operation's using a trust to, to make themselves, you know, more independent of other institutions, great. I'm all about that. You know, my problem with it is, is that you know, the fat cats, you said it and there's a lot of fat cat type profiteering happening on agriculture and those fat cats aren't the ones toiling in the earth. And I think we need to get these margins back into the hands of the people that are toiling in the soil.

Vance Crowe [00:35:43] This is why the Bitcoin standard is of critical importance because when you use Bitcoin, right,

Elliot Henderson [00:35:48] We have it. Yeah, you gotta work me on it some more.

Vance Crowe [00:35:49] This is, this is the key, the key thing is that all these people that you're referring to is fat cats. The reason they're parking their money in land as opposed to keeping it in dollars or putting it in the stock market is 'cause they're trying to get away from inflation and

Elliot Henderson [00:36:01] Yeah, but it's also the policy we've got's advantage advantageous for them to do that. And I think it needs some, it needs some reform. That's, that's my whole point.

Vance Crowe [00:36:10] Well this has been a great conversation, Elliot. If people wanted to tune into your podcast, talk a little bit about rush hour ag.

Elliot Henderson [00:36:17] Yeah, so Louis Augh, he's a previous representative and we've got the support of Farm for Profit here. So Corey Tanner, you know, they've been a big part of it and you know, you'll get some of this, this pushback between Louis and I. So if you like watching a couple dudes push back on ideas on each other, it's, you'll, you'll see a lot more of that. I don't realize this phone call, it's beeping in here.

Vance Crowe [00:36:42] Well I wanna say thank you so much for coming on Elliot. If people wanted to find you, where, where would they, where should they look?

Elliot Henderson [00:36:48] Yeah, rush hour Ag, it's on YouTube, Spotify, it's on all the platforms and I'm on X. So I love engaging in this and I think we've got a bright future in agriculture. We're just gonna have to get it lit up.

Vance Crowe [00:37:04] Well man, thank you so much for coming on and we'll have you on again soon.

Elliot Henderson [00:37:07] Thanks man.

Vance Crowe [00:37:09] Alright, that's gonna do it for this week's show. We'll be back next week with another guest to have all kinds of pushback and interesting observations on what's going on in the world. Maybe we'll even have old Corey there, Corey Hillebo from the Farm for Profit podcast. He'd probably be a good guest to beat up on for a little while. But now that I hear he's buying Bitcoin, it's all good. But this really is gonna do it for the show. If you are interested in having me interview one of your loved ones to make sure we capture their life stories so that future generations know their family history, go to Legacy Interviews dot com to find out more. Also, one thing I have found is tremendously valuable. Some people started going to Spotify and Apple and giving me a five star rating and the show writing in comments that exploded the number of people that listened to the next few episodes. So if you have just a couple of minutes right now, open it up, gimme a five star rating, throw a comment in there, talk about what you like and why people should listen. It makes a huge difference. Alright, we'll be back next week. Feel free to disagree.

Ad segment / testimonials (multiple voices) [00:38:12] Good negotiation is one where both parties walk away slightly disappointed. That was probably my default world model BV before Vance. Well, Vance had a lot of these models that he created. I ingrained a lot of these models so deeply from working with Vance for a long time that I started to recommunicate them to my friends and my friends' eyes had the same sort of light up of understanding of like this is a thing that could help me be more effective in life. Whenever Vance let me know that he was working on sort of putting this into more of a workshop form, I was like, yeah man, I want that for my team. Like now if my first two employees go through this so that we have this shared set of context on a shared set of language that's gonna create value for my team going forward. I wanted to get better at communication myself. I knew I had good ideas in my head that I wanted to be able to communicate to potential investors and I was not super confident in being able to do that before. I thought that negotiation was basically for people in a boardroom, like CEOs, words like shareholder are involved. So I thought that you had to have a lot of resources at your disposal to even care about negotiations. Both people had to lose or both people weren't happy in the end. I found that what you both want is achievable by understanding the needs of the other person more. A negotiation is really a way to solve a problem that you have. You can rearrange the world in such a way where all parties get something that they're happy with. So you don't need to possess great resources to be involved in a negotiation or to really benefit from knowing how to negotiate.

Ad segment / testimonials (multiple voices) [00:39:49] RJ and I initially were two different businesses. It became clear to us over the long term that we would be much more bullish on our shared future if we like found a way to like actually be one entity, one whole working together that required us to have what to many would be very hard conversations because we are both CEOs of our own independently funded businesses. But we were able to have conversations and get to the root of what our actual interests and what our actual skill sets were. Having both people understand this pattern of communication was useful to pull out those tools when we needed them the most in like difficult conversations. It's very helpful to have that quick language to do something more productive than or continue to like misunderstand or whatever. Whatever else you're doing. Building relationships isn't just you communicating to the other person. It's also figuring out how to let the other person communicate to you so that they trust you. Getting into a real conversation and and diffusing tensions before you, you know, get to business. A lot of people have a default model where they're like, I wanna raise my own money. I wanna start my own business. I wanna do my own thing. We find that they have specific interests that could help us. We become allies instead of competitors. I guess the course gives you two tools to know that you can say the right words to like extract those things out of the ether and put them in your life. Learning interest-based communications from Vance might actually be the single highest leverage skillset that I ever developed before starting this company. I'm by default an introvert. I think that I've developed the ability to interact with people in such a way that it's energizing and it's fun and I look forward to interacting with strangers on a regular basis.

Ad segment / testimonials (multiple voices) [00:41:27] You should just take it, do it already. Yeah. I feel like you should just do it like, no, I don't know. I feel like it's life content. It's like definitely fun life content. I am doing exactly what I want to be doing with my life. Interest-based communications did that for me more than anything else that I've learned.