Trump's Agriculture Secretary Pick Disappoints Reformers, Farm Bureau Lobbies Against Small Farmers

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] The Ag Tribes report is brought to you by Farm Test, a field trial design, execution, and analysis service that makes it easy to ask your fields which management practices perform best to start your field trials, visit Farm Test, ag and Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are, so the future knows who they really were. Here's Legacy Interviews customer, Dave Helen, on how the experience impacted his father. My dad struggled through his life thinking he wasn't successful. As he was telling his story, he realized he had this extraordinary success. It all made sense now all because they spent a few hours talking about their lives with you. 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 a representative of one of the many ag tribes that represents US and Canadian agriculture, so we can talk about the culture of agriculture. This week I am joined by the one and only Sean Haney. Haney is a big figure in Canadian agricultural media. He is the founder of Real Agriculture, which has grown from a hobby blog into a leading source of agricultural news and information for Canadian farmers and ranchers through real agriculture.

Vance Crowe [00:01:36] Sean provides content on ag policy, agronomics current events, and farm management via their website, radio shows and podcast. Sean hosts Real Ag Radio broadcasts across North America on Rural Radio Channel 1 47 on SiriusXM Daily at four 30 Eastern. Sean, welcome to the Ag Tribes report. It's good to see you too. This week we have some stories about the choices that Trump is making for his cabinet and how it's affecting Canada. In particular, what's gonna go on with the renewable fuel industry. We also have a story about how are things gonna happen with us and trade economic war with potentially with China. And also we're gonna talk about one of the stories that Sean wrote himself, what is on the chopping block as farmers sharpen their pencils for the 2025 budget. We're gonna do all that. Talk about the Bitcoin land price report. Find out what Sean's Peter Thiel paradox is and ask him his worthy adversary. And we're gonna do this all live and in 30 minutes, so we better get started. First up is our headline from Real Agriculture. Sean's outlet from Biden's tax credit to Trump's cabinet picks renewable fuels face, an uncertain future. The renewable fuel industry is anxiously waiting for policy details from both the outgoing Biden and incoming Trump administration.

Vance Crowe [00:03:13] Key issues include the criteria for the 45 Z tax credit, which remains undefined, potentially affecting 2020 five's. Industry outlook Trump's nominee for leading the Environmental Protection Agency. New York Congressman Lee Zelin has a history of opposing renewable fuel legislation while his other nominee for interior secretary who will chair the new National Energy Council, North Dakota, governor Doug Bergham could support this. So the industry hopes to align with Trump's goals, and this is gonna be very interesting. Sean wrote an article where they pointed out the concern over policies possibly restricting foreign feedstock use impacting trade with Canada. So Sean, you talked with Jeff Cooper, the president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, and he was concerned about the lack of clarity. What do you have to say there?

Guest [00:04:07] Well, I think everybody has concerned with the lack of clarity. Like you, you think back to commodity classic March of this past year, we were supposed to, you know, that's kind of, I think when we were first supposed to get some details, what was going on with with 45 Z and Climate Smart agriculture and you know, what qual what practices qualify for the 45 Z tax credit. And you know, we're gonna have an inauguration here soon. And you gotta kind of wondering, and Cooper alluded to this in my discussion with him, is, does the Biden administration just sort of park this in the trees and just let the Trump administration, you know, deal with it? Which probably pushes it back even further. To be honest with you, Vince and farmers are gonna go to the field and maybe not have some of the details, which I think is provides some, some, some uncertainty. What, what, what I think really is, when it comes down to biofuel policy, I think there's a lot of people sort of assuming based on you said, you know, EPA secretary, Lee Zelin, Elon Musk, there's some people there that probably have talked a little bit against biofuels. In particular the RFS. I don't personally think at the end of the day there may be some, some choppy water, so, so to speak. But I do not see the Trump administration tearing apart biofuel policy and, and, and some ethanol. Like some people are kind of expecting them to or think they could, it, it, it's not gonna be without noise, but I think at the end of the day, Jeff Cooper and others on the biofuel lobby side, they got their work cut out for them.

Guest [00:05:40] It there, it's gonna be, it's gonna be pretty nasty at times.

Vance Crowe [00:05:44] Yeah, I mean, so I'm clearly like a free market capitalist and I think the mandates, so in the United States you'll have a state like Illinois that'll say, we mandate you must have this much ethanol in your gasoline. And that's the kind of thing that drives how many acres are planted to corn right now? 40% of our corn crop goes to that. And you have some people coming into the USDA, at least that advisory group, that six person committee, there are some people on there that really want that cut out. But if Trump, one of the groups that was his home base is farmers, I cannot imagine that he's gonna strip out something that's so that that 40% of our, our corn crop is going to,

Guest [00:06:26] Dude, think about what would happen to the market, like when you're talking about 40% of corn that has grown in the United States is going into ethanol. Come on and think about, think about some of the problems that would create for a country like Canada that is the largest purchaser of us ethanol it, it would be so disruptive. And I, I know it's easy to say that, you know, some of these industries have to stand on their own two feet. The reality is, is that there's a lot of examples in agriculture that don't stand on their own two feet. And, and we, we, we help them out because we deem them to be important for a num for an umbrella of reasons. And I think biofuel policy when it comes to farm countries, specifically in the Midwest, it qualifies for that. It's rural jobs, it's the rural E economy. And of course it's also support for farmers.

Vance Crowe [00:07:18] Well, what you're saying here that's so surprising to me that I actually didn't know, is that you guys are the largest importer of this. This, I'm, I'm wondering, is this have to do with a lot of your climate policies? You guys need to have this. Why, why are you guys importing so much ethanol?

Guest [00:07:33] You, you nailed it. So there's a push in Canada through the Clean Fuel Regulation, the CFR, which is also an acronym for our national rodeo that happens every year, which is kind of weird, but the CFR is in play. Part of one of its goals is to low lower the carbon intensity of fuel. And one of the way you, you ways you do that, we don't have, you know, the size or scale of the, the US ethanol industry in Canada. So one of the ways you do that is you do have some domestic production, but you're also a large importer. And this is an example where free trade works. And I think you're gonna see Canada reminding the Trump administration when they start to talk trade here very shortly, that this is one of the things that Canada is buying in, in large quantities from the us.

Vance Crowe [00:08:18] Well, let's move on. 'cause trade is such a big story right now from Jim Westerman at Farm Journal. Trump's cabinet nominees now up odds for expanding the US trade economic war with China President-elect Donald Trump's selection of Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald as Commerce secretary highlights plans to leverage tariffs in trade negotiations with nut lutnick emphasizing their use both as a revenue source and a bargaining tool. Lutnick has called the tariffs a negotiating tool that could be used to convince other countries to bring down their own levies or force companies to move production to the us. He has said Trump would avoid taxes on products. US companies don't make commerce oversees the international trade administration and agency in charge of enforcing trade laws and investigating unfair trade practices. Sean, this is a pretty big deal for American farmers because they're wondering, Hey, if we start throwing up tariffs last time China threw up big barriers at us, now all of a sudden you're having to send checks out to farmers. Do Canadian farmers care about who's put in at, at the head of the, the commerce?

Guest [00:09:30] I, well I think they do because in this case, Lutnick is, you know, obviously a big, he loves the word tariff. I think as much as President Trump does, and I, I think one of the concerns that good trading partners of the US have is that you, you, you, you apply the same trade policy to those good trading partners that you do to China. Right? And I think that's, and and, and we know that President Trump in the first administration, very transactional overemphasis on trade deficits and not enough on, on, I guess maybe some of the nuances of how trade works in some of those, in some of those cases, like who's a good customer and who's not. China is different, Japan is different. So Japan is kinda like Canada. Japan's a very consistent purchaser of US goods focused on quality. It, it's, it's, it's a stable customer. China and India are not that. I used to laugh in the first Trump administration when it was like, yeah, we're gonna go negotiate a free trade deal with, with India. It's like, oh yeah, good luck. You think trade with China is difficult. Let me introduce you to their neighbor India. The, the policies and the tactics that you use on a country like China, I, I think do a real disservice to the US economy if you apply the same thing to a country like Canada or Britain or, or Australia for, for example. So I I I think it's maybe the, the appointment of Lunik is lost on a lot of Canadians, but I think they should be more thinking about it from a farming perspective because the, the, we've got some ProAir of people, they're gonna be talking in the trade department.

Vance Crowe [00:11:14] In my world, people were throwing around Lutnick as the head of treasury hoping that this Bitcoin bull, one of the guys that's probably one of the biggest Bitcoin bulls in the world would be that. And I didn't realize all of his statements on tariffs until you start watching that. I think from the US perspective, people are hoping that Trump can continue to get US goods sold around the world trying to make it as cheaply, like trying to bring more jobs back. One of the things that I think happened that made him win this election in particular was they went to the Rust Belt and said, see all this hollowing out, this was the Democrat's fault. And the Democrats didn't come in and say they were gonna do anything. They said, we're gonna do more of the same. Well, tariffs are a really good way to get the rust belt to say, well, maybe we'll get more manufacturing, maybe we'll be able to come back. Do you think this is just a bargaining chip in order to bring other people to the table to give the best deal possible? Or do you think no tariffs might actually be real?

Guest [00:12:11] Well, i I I think it's is sort of the Trump playbook, right? So when I, when I, when I heard him say that he's gonna apply a hundred percent tariff on everything coming outta Mexico, I think we've sort of entered the area of hyperbole. Okay. That would be one. Again, from an agriculture perspective, Mexico's a very important trading partner on agricultural exports. So it it, again, agriculture gets kind of, sort of an afterthought sometimes on, on some of these, on some of these policies. I think it's thrown out there and it's the other country has to negotiate it away that that's, that's kind of the, the Trump playbook for sure. They're gonna be really careful though because there, there are some things that the US cannot produce. Sure. Steel aluminum, absolutely. You're trying to bring those jobs back. Think about potash for example. You apply a 10 or a 20% tax or a tariff on potash that's coming out of Saskatchewan. In, in Canada for example, 86% of the potash that is used in the United States comes outta the province of Saskatchewan. And to just to be, you can't pick up a potash man mine that was, that deposits been there for 360 million years and move it to Idaho because that's where you want to create jobs. So, you know, some in, in some applications this works and in other applications it doesn't. And it actually gives Canada, in this example, a little bit of a bargaining chip on some other matters.

Vance Crowe [00:13:38] Well, we'll see how it goes. The only way I would've ever been even open to tariffs was if he said the magic words, we'll get rid of income tax, which I am very interested in doing. I don't know if it's real, but what an exciting time to be alive. Moving on to the third story tonight. This is a story you wrote. I was very interested to hear it. This is from real agriculture, what's on the chopping block as farmers sharp and pencils for the 2025 budget as part of the October Canadian farmer sentiment index. Real agri studies asked farmers about where they plan to focus cost cutting measures. There are some clear no GOs such as selling off land, but equipment spending and some product uses likely to get cut first. The largest focus on cost saving based on farmers saying definitely or likely we're spending on equipment using more generic products and to reduce some of the crop products, foliar sprays and biologicals, the most definite cost saving area in equipment was spending with 24% of respondents saying they were definitely gonna do that. Sean, what is going on in the mind of farmers? Are they always like this or is this something new from other years?

Guest [00:14:48] Yeah, I, I think this is an issue that's in Canada and the us right? So I think we can sort of extrapolate this data across border. There's a lot of concern about farm profitability in 25, 24 is, has not been a real banner year depending on where you are. And there are pockets that did okay and there are, there are pockets that are, are of real concern. Livestock has been much better than people that are on broad acre or row crop farming for, for sure. I think what I took out of advance is that when you think about core agronomics, you think about fertilizer, you think about crop protection products, people, people realize they can't eliminate some things. Like you, my my dad has a saying, you know, save a nickel to spend a dollar like you, you can, you can look at maybe where you're applying the fertilizer. You can look at, you know, geez, you know, looking maybe a little closer to that soil test. You know, every year, no matter what the soil test says, we, we go with this much phosphorus, we go with this much nitrogen. Maybe this year we should maybe look at a little bit closer. But farmers knowing that if they cut some of that stuff too much, they're gonna end up hurting themselves long term. And, and some farmers had told us in the open-end responses that I, this is, you know, prices are lower, I get a, I get to yield myself out of this. That's the philosophy that some have used, but not all. If you, and then if you get outta that core agronomics, they're looking at using more generics as opposed to some of the brands that makes sense. You can understand that. Especially when it comes to things like pre burnoff, I'm sure and things like that.

Guest [00:16:20] And also some of the fringe things, maybe like you said, like the biologicals, maybe some of the, the IBC the some of the, the things that are nice to haves or maybe they haven't necessarily proven themselves out to have that return on the farm on a consistent basis for, or maybe they're just sort of trying them out for the first time. Those are things that may get pushed a little bit more to the side or more probable to get pushed to the side. The one I've seen in Canada, in our, in our research and in the US through farm journal's, egg Economist Barometer is farmers cutting back on spinning and equipment and the Association of equipment manufacturers, their monthly flash report shows it like hardcore that we're in a, we're in a tight time for OEMs. If you're interested in economics and supply and demand supply is there, demand is in decline and that means prices are gonna have to come down to bring farmers back into the market. And after a pretty heavy period, you know, John Deere and AGCO and Case, they had some pretty lofty years through the pandemic when, when supplies were tight, auctions were going crazy on used equipment. That's, that demand is backed off and, and we're seeing farmers are gonna have a little bit of tighter wallets on their spend now. But the thing is, Vance farmers, like I had to tell some companies, some clients like you do realize farmers are gonna plant a crop. I think we've sort of overshot it a little bit on some of the negativity. I I really hope that 25 though works out better than some people think it's going to at this point.

Vance Crowe [00:17:44] Well last week I had mentioned that I had had a friend or two that had mentioned to me they might give, give up some of their rented acres after doing that. I heard from other farmers that didn't want to say it publicly, but said they were gonna give up some of their rented acres. 'cause they thought, Hey, if I'm gonna be taking a loss here, I don't wanna, or I'm not gonna, you know, if I don't think that corn or soybean prices are coming back up. Do you hear that or is that just anecdotal?

Guest [00:18:08] So I'm sure that's, you gotta be really committed though that we're in a period of three to five years of, of poor environment, right? Because let, let's just say that 25 is not great, but 26 all of a sudden there's some sort of imp like there's a profitability improvement. You may not get that land back. So I, I think a lot of people are pushed in this area of like, how good is my balance sheet? You know, can I sustain maybe a loss on those acres for one or two years for the fact that I want to be able to have it when this thing turns, when this thing turns around, right? I think this is an opportunity for people that have strong free cash flow, strong balance sheet as some of those people that maybe have weaker financials have to give up that some of that rented land, there's gonna be people right in there to scoop it up because it's opportunity when times are tight.

Vance Crowe [00:18:59] All right, well we'll see how things play out. I did wanna do one final story, which is on the rail strikes during the fall and summer, there was a whole lot of conversation about the giant rail strikes that were going on in Canada. This preceded the port strike that almost happened in the US but we were relying on your reporting. Once that got resolved, people just kinda walked away from it. Are the trains back running? Is everything caught up? What's going on with strikes in Canada?

Guest [00:19:27] Yeah, on on the, on the trains, yes. They are running, they, the government forced them into binding arbitration. We have, we had a, a port strike at Montreal and the Port of Vancouver as well, la this earlier this month. The government has forced binding arbitration in that case. As, as well the unions are suing the government saying, you know, they're, they're misapplying some, some legislation, but that could take a long time to work itself out. But those, so that binding arbitration is underway, trains are moving, ports are back working. But Canada, similar to the US has post pandemic has been in this rolling sort of period of, there's a, you know, there's a strike here, there's a strike there. Obviously unions trying to show some of their muscle. I I'm no union person. I would not be often talk poorly about some of the unions that think they missed their, they've sort of served their purpose in some cases they in in the coal mining days in the early 19 hundreds. Absolutely. In some cases. Now, I'm, I'm not totally a a, a fan of some of the, the disruption that is, is caused, especially when it comes to pushing back against things like automation and robotics. Especially in cases where it show that you can improve the safety of the worker and to still not allow some of that automation. 'cause you're scared that a job may disappear. I, I don't know about that. So Canada's been the land of the strike Canada post our national rail or our national postal service is on strike now too. And we're in that building and I'm in Lethbridge, Alberta and we're actually in the Canada Post building on the second floor.

Guest [00:21:00] And so I see the picketers going around and around the building and it's just like, what nonsense,

Vance Crowe [00:21:05] What a treat it would be if our postal workers went on strike and didn't deliver mail. It would, it would be a fantastic thing for us. Alright, let's move on with the, thank you for doing these stories with us. If you are listening and during the next week, you know, a story that you think we should cover on the Ag tribes report, send it to me on X at Vance Crowe. Moving on to the Bitcoin land price report. Wow, another exciting week. This has been absolutely thrilling. So Bitcoin last week was $87,273 at press time. And now one week later it is $98,471, which is an 8% increase. I know that all Bitcoiners were sitting there hitting refresh, refresh, refresh, seeing if it would go over that $100,000 mark. If we turn that over into Canadian dollars right now, one Bitcoin is worth 137,000 Canadian dollars. Let's talk about land prices though, Sean, you live in Lethbridge County. What does an acre of good land cost there?

Guest [00:22:16] I irrigated land like 15,000 an acre. I think upwards of, of 20, but I'm say 15,000 Canadian an acre.

Vance Crowe [00:22:26] Okay, so if we were to now take that and put it into Bitcoin, that means that your land is about 0.11 acres per Bitcoin and that means, in other words, one Bitcoin would buy you about nine acres of farmland in, in Lethbridge. How does that sit with you?

Guest [00:22:46] You know, that's a, i I wish I had bought it a long time ago. I, so I've never, I've never done it. This is like what everybody says probably now is they wish they would've. And I think, you know what, I was talking to somebody about this yesterday. It's, you know, it's plus 90,000 about right now, is that correct?

Vance Crowe [00:23:03] Yeah. Oh, 98,000. Yeah,

Guest [00:23:05] 98 now cheaper. It like, it's now the time to go long. Like almost like I would wonder like you'd be questioning like is it a good time to buy like a put by, maybe take, you know, if there's on the derivatives market on Bitcoin, maybe buy a put and maybe if there's a little bit of a downside and if it goes higher, you just lose your premium. The fact it's finite. And I heard you say to another guest that it's kind of like land and so that just tells me if it's finite, you gotta think it's, there's some more run in this from a bull perspective, but it's, it's something that I've never put money in and I clearly, I wish I would've.

Vance Crowe [00:23:48] Yeah, I mean I think that when people are looking at it and they say, ah, I wish I would've gotten it earlier. I I I'm probably too late now. I think the absolute wildest, maybe dumbest thing that somebody could do would be to short Bitcoin. The the, it is going to go up. You just have to have patience. It's a hundred thousand dollars or almost a hundred thousand dollars now. But people want this. We're watching the state of Texas decide that they're talking about doing a strategic reserve. Trump did actually confirm today that the US is gonna move forward with a Bitcoin strategic reserve. China yesterday announced that they were no longer making it illegal for individuals to hold it. Countries are taking note and you know, it's not just gonna be the Charles Schwab investment accounts, which just announced today that they were going to start trading in the ETF. You're gonna start watching nations that say, Hey, our currency has not done anything, we're stuck in these terrible currency re regimes. So it is going to go up and it's better

Guest [00:24:51] Like at, at at some point, isn't it? Isn't it just o isn't it too, it's it's too expensive, isn't it overvalued at some point where people can't really

Vance Crowe [00:25:00] Well I think that it's like the one Bitcoin is like a weird thing to think about because you don't need to own one. If you were to spend right now a single dollar, I think you'd get a hundred thousand Satoshis, which is the smallest unit of account for, for Bitcoin. And we can really break it down into small amounts and at some point owning one Bitcoin would be like, well why don't you own a billion dollars? Or why don't you own a million dollars? What you want is some portion of it, but if you don't own any Bitcoin, you are essentially shorting Bitcoin. So I would say at least buy some, the, the key is just to buy a little bit and get in the game just to learn how it works.

Guest [00:25:36] Yeah, apparently it's, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I don't mean to be short, but I guess you put it that way. I guess I am, I, I saw that video where there was a guy like years ago that used a bunch of Bitcoin to buy a $40 pizza and that $40 is now worth like 900 million. Yeah, I would feel like a real,

Vance Crowe [00:25:53] You know, I, I think I bought a, a whiteboard for something like, I don't know, 0.3 Bitcoin or something like that. And you think about how much money that would be now it's just, it's just the way that it is, right? You get, you can't look back like that. You, it's, it's the, it's the future. Alright. I would highly recommend people try that out. Just go buy a little bit and get it off of an exchange and the learning process itself will make you say, oh, I get this a little bit better. Okay, now we're going to my favorite part of the show. This is the Peter te Teal paradox where I ask Sean, what is one thing that you believe that almost no one you know agrees with you on?

Guest [00:26:31] Okay, so this is something I had to really think about. This, you, this is the challenging part of the show. It's easier to talk about news. This is something I did not believe years ago, but through reading and thinking about it a lot, I believe, and I know many Canadians do not believe this, but I believe that it's can confederation will break up. And I, I believe that, and I, I wouldn't even consider myself like a hardcore, like Alberta separatist or anything like that. I just believe it's gonna happen. And I think it'll actually Alberta Will Alberta, which we often describe as the Texas of Canada, Alberta will, will lead that charge in, in that, you know, if, if you think back to the history of Canada, Canada became a country because of a national railway from coast to coast, basically. And a big John A. McDonald was the prime minister at the time. And when he wasn't really, really drunk, he was leading the country, he was known to be a bit of an alcoholic. He, he didn't want the national railway to dip into the United States like the liberal party did. And he had the foresight and the vision for if Canada was gonna be a country that, you know, this railway had to stay within the borders of Canada. And so I've done lots of reading on that and I just, I I just believe that there's a fundamental lack of understanding amongst Canadians in terms of federal and provincial jurisdictions on who's responsible for what.

Guest [00:28:02] And I think if some, if you had a charisma, you know, a charismatic leader in a province like Bel like Alberta, you could sort of do what happened in the UK where, you know, David Cameron made the foolish decision, well let's just have a vote and we know how that worked out. So I, I do believe in maybe in my lifetime, confederation will break up in Canada.

Vance Crowe [00:28:26] I was a few years ago was at the Alberta Cattle Feeders Association meeting and Peter Zhan was there as well, and he stood up and said, you know, I propose that Alberta become the 51st state of the United States. And I was sitting there thinking he was gonna get booed and instead there were like, cheers that erupted. And that was the first time that I understood that Canada felt that way. And then I had a chance to go up to Canada last year and I was in Saskatchewan and I heard actual ministers saying, you know, like, if, if Toronto won't give us freedom, like we're gonna take it, we're not gonna put up with this. They take everything from us, they want all of our raw goods. They won't let us export our own oil. It makes a lot of sense to me. But you are one of the very, very few Canadian influencers that's willing to stand up and, and say that this is a pretty strong Peter Thiel paradox.

Guest [00:29:18] Well, there you go. I maybe get a high rating. IIII think it is controversial and I think a lot of Canadians that are watching this will probably say like, oh, you have flown the coop. But I think there's challenges with it. Like, especially from Alberta perspective being landlocked not having access to, to tide water, especially as an exporter nation, if it was to become its own country, would be a hu massive challenge. Obviously a trade agreements, I I'm not sure it would go as far, I've read that Zion talking about that. I'm not sure it would be a foregone conclusion that Alberta would say, Hey, we need to join, join the United States. Although there is some similar thinking, like there's not a lot of difference in the thinking between Montana and Alberta to be honest with you. But IIII think Canada's got real troubles long term there. There's real mental blocks, okay, there's two physical barriers in Canada that create mental barriers. One is the Rocky Mountains. British Columbia is very isolated. Okay? I was there, yes, or I was there this morning. It's very isolated because of the Rocky Mountains beautiful province. But then you also have the Canadian Shield that separates Manitoba and Western Canada from central and eastern Canada. And those physical barriers really create this mental block for people to really feel like this together country other than when there's a hockey game and some and something like that. So I I, I hope it doesn't happen. I'm not cheering for it. Like I said, I'm not, you know, leading the Alberta separatist movement, but I, I think there's real challenges for Canada going forward long term.

Vance Crowe [00:30:50] Well, I'm gonna let the podcast run long today 'cause this is such an exciting conversation. One thing I can tell you is that Bitcoin actually can empower this. Right now you guys are not allowed to export your oil, but you are able to, if you could find a way to burn what you are doing right there in Alberta and then just convert it into Bitcoin, it makes energy be digital. You get to actually extract the value of that energy out and sell it into the financial markets. And I think it would be a way to be able to, to overcome the fact that, that, you know, Toronto doesn't allow you to build pipelines. Alright, I am going to give you a nine one, our official highest score on the, on the Peter Thiel paradox. I have to give you a little bit of bias 'cause I love this answer. I think it's absolutely fantastic. Good for you. Okay, let's go to the final segment. This is something that I find is very difficult for you, Canadians, which is to name a worthy adversary that is who is somebody that you respect but completely disagree with.

Guest [00:31:53] This was hard, I'm not gonna lie to you. I actually, I, I'll tell you, I put it into chat, GPT and I asked chat GPT if it knew who my nemesis was. And it, it gave the funniest answer, Sean is like, has these strong opinions on a number of different topics, but he's really a facilitator that brings groups of opposing views together. So there's that kinda, I I what came to mind after thinking about this a lot is, I I, one of my big annoyances in life is when people get trapped in their ecosystems. And I I you, I know this is something that, you know, you fundamentally believe in Two Vance 'cause you love conflict and people with different thoughts and challenging your views on stuff. But my what IIII don't like when people don't move across the news dial, like when I'm getting my information, I will stop at, you know, the most left of radio stations I will or TV stations. I will go through the center and I'll go all way, way right, to get an idea just what, what are people saying? I think it allows you to understand better. So I, my my nemesis, I would, who I picked are two people and they're the same, that they serve the same function. One is Sean Hannity and the other is Rachel Maddow because they trap people in the echo chamber and they make it so that the, anybody with an opposing view or doesn't see it exactly the way that they do is the enemy.

Guest [00:33:23] There's no room for compromise. It's, it's a, it's a very all or none scenario. And I think that serves that, that serves the United States very, very poorly because it's created this, and I'm not blaming it all on them, but just the, you know, what they represent it, it's just forced people to other sides and it really doesn't allow people to really connect with each other and understand. And I, I do watch both programs from time to time and I find I'm doing it less and less because it's, it's, it just doesn't really serve much of a purpose at this point.

Vance Crowe [00:34:00] Yeah. I, you know, it's so hard to listen to things that you don't agree with and then you have the challenge of like, do I not agree with them because they're just not very sophisticated arguments or do I not agree with them because like, you know, they have something to say that's worth listening to. And I think that's, that's a difficult thing for me. I think in that vein, I listen to a podcast called Multipolarity, which is an international relations podcast. And I just fundamentally disagree with a lot of the conclusions that the, that the host does. But he's talking about things, there's no arguing. This guy knows people and characters and places and things that are absolutely worth the, the time to listen to. And then, then you find out like, well do I not agree with him because he is actually smarter than me. And I, that's what I love. So I'm always looking for those. So outside of your own content, what is a good podcast you do? Like listening to?

Guest [00:34:54] Oh, I, so I listen to way too much about college football. I, I, Vince I have an unhealthy college football addiction, so I'm a, I'm a huge Arizona State fan. We got a big game against BYU this weekend trying to, you know, maybe win the big 12 championship. But I, I like, I'm so into it man, that if Reese Davis tomorrow got like a really bad sickness and couldn't do game day on Saturday, I think I could easily slip in there because I, like, I am leg legit. Like I am so into it. It's, my wife thinks I'm nuts. My oldest son who goes to the University of Mary in Bismarck in North Dakota, he is kind of like me. We like all we do is talk about college football. So that, that is my unhealthy podcast habit.

Vance Crowe [00:35:46] Well that is fascinating that a Canadian would have a become an Arizona State fan. We'll have to discuss this more later. We're gonna wrap up. But Sean, I wanna thank you for coming on. Where can people find out more about Real Agriculture and listen to you?

Guest [00:36:02] Yeah, for sure. So real agriculture.com is our website. We also get real agriculture's YouTube channel has a bunch of video and, and podcast content there. And like you said at the opening, our show on rural Radio 1 47 is at four 30 eastern every weekday. Or they do actually do a replay at seven in the morning. I'm on market day report on RFD TV every day at 10 Central. There's lots of ways to find us doing more, actually doing more and more American content all the time too 'cause there's lots of cross border stuff. So it's, yeah, check us out. I'm on X as well.

Vance Crowe [00:36:34] Well I was so honored that you could find time. You are the absolute top of the food chain when it comes to Canadian agriculture broadcasting. You built something from scratch and I admire and respect you and I'm really honored you had come on. So thank you so much.

Guest [00:36:48] Well thanks for having me. This is great. Keep up the great work and definitely tuning in. This is, I like, I like the challenging of thoughts. It's, it's awesome.

Vance Crowe [00:36:56] We also want to thank our sponsors farm test.ag where you can test out the different pesticides, crop protection tools, systems you're using and get scientifically verified results so that that way you don't have to rely on marketers to be able to tell you whether it's working or not. And Legacy Interviews, this is where I sit down with your loved ones to record their life stories so that future generations have a way of knowing who you were to be able to capture that spark. Next Thursday we are going to be doing the podcast, despite the fact that it is Thanksgiving. I will find a quiet place when we're at my parents' house with the kids running around and we will be unveiling a new video that my creative director went to Canada to shoot, which was showing a family that did a legacy interview, watching them watch their interview and then talking about it afterwards. I'm really excited about it. It's a piece of art that it'll be fun to share. Until then, make sure you feel free to disagree. Ah.