ATR: Tyne Morgan, solar farms pay $4,500 a year/acre; Canadian rail strike forced into arbitration

Ad read / show intro [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 service that video records individuals and couples telling their life stories so that future generations have the opportunity to know their family history. To learn more, visit Legacy Interviews dot com. Welcome to the Ag Tribes report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host, Vance Crowe. The report begins in 3, 2, 1. Let's begin.

Vance Crowe [00:00:49] Welcome to the Ag Tribes report. I'm your host, Vance Crowe. Each week I bring a co-host to represent the perspectives of one of the many ag tribes that collectively make up US agriculture. This week I am joined by Tyne Morgan, host of the US Farm Report, a leading agricultural television show, which airs weekly on Saturdays. Tyne just re returned from the Pro Farmer Crop tour, so we hope she brings a lot of her up to the minute knowledge today. Welcome Tyne.

Tyne Morgan [00:01:18] Thanks Vance. I'm thrilled to be here. Excited to finally be invited. I appreciate it.

Vance Crowe [00:01:23] Well, today we are gonna be covering the Canadian rail strike, what happened last week that's kept those that got those trains rolling. We're gonna discuss lease prices that solar companies are offering farmland in Illinois. We're gonna discuss the latest with John Deere moving jobs to Mexico. Specifically that Senator Marco Rubio had a pretty coarse letter that he sent to him. And finally, we're gonna have a little bit of a conversation about consumer perceptions about why food prices are going up and what their politicians can do about it. Of course, we will also review Tyne's Peter Thiel paradox, where we hear one thing she believes that almost nobody agrees with her on. And if she is willing, we're gonna try and get her to name a worthy adversary out there in ag. So are you ready to jump right in, Tyne?

Tyne Morgan [00:02:09] I am ready, Vance.

Vance Crowe [00:02:11] Okay. The headline that we've gotta start with this week is Canada Rail Strike Averted after a short Disruption. And the question becomes, is us in danger of striking again? So listeners from last week will remember that there wasn't a lot of US media coverage on this, but if you were listening to people like Sean Haney up in Canada, real agriculture, they were talking nonstop for weeks about the rail strike. And they did end up having a lockout. That lockout happened on Friday, but by Monday the Canadian rail opper operators were mandated to go to binding arbitration between the carriers and the union. And ultimately the company said, Hey, 12:01 AM on Monday, August 26th, they returned to work and employees did as well. So Tyne, it was big news up in Canada

Vance Crowe [00:03:03] When You were looking around, did you see much of this hitting us airwaves?

Tyne Morgan [00:03:07] Not much outside of ag. You know, I think, look back to a couple years ago in the US when we were fearful of that rail strike here, and we were covering it for months, but similar to the US in Canada, these rail carriers, I mean, they slowed and even stopped shipments in anticipation for that strike to happen. And so I think that's what we have to remember, that even though it was short-lived, even though we had that rail stoppage, I forget how many hours that it actually lasted, but these carriers slowed their shipments. And you think about how much of product in Canada is actually shipped via rail. Think specifically fertilizer Chip Flory. I had him host of Agri Talk, I had him on the show for this weekend, and he talked about when you look at fertilizer production, it's in the middle of the country. I mean, it's not at the coast, it's not somewhere where maybe you could try to get it out via ship, you rely on rail. And what's interesting Vance is, you know, in Canada, 90% of the commodities are trucked by rail. And 60% of the goods that the US imports from Canada comes via rail. I mean, rail is such a huge piece of the entire infrastructure and getting the goods where it needs to go. But with fertilizer, there's a lot of concern since Canada is such a an, is such a big fertilizer producer, but fans, even though they entered into arbitration, even though right now everybody thinks they're singing kumbaya and we're gonna move on and everything is good, it's, it's, it's not, these rail carriers have, you know, they, the, these rail companies have said that they're going to file, you know, file a suit file in court. We're gonna continue to see these challenged.

Tyne Morgan [00:04:39] And so I do not think this is over, even though the government stepped in and intervened. We, this is still tense up there, there,

Vance Crowe [00:04:46] I'm I'm so glad you said that because when I read, I read CPKC, the one of the rail lines up there. Yep. And when you read their statement about the going back to work, it was like, we're mandated to do this, we're required to do this, don't this are following orders. Don't, there was nothing in there like celebration. And so I read it and was like, this does not sound like it's a firm and solid thing, but I was also the one that was, you know, hammering on, hey, this could be a big deal, this could be a big deal. And since they put him back to binding arbitration, it did just kind of go away. It didn't seem like it was that big of a deal, so I didn't want to, you know, be chicken little crying that it was gonna something the sky is falling,

Tyne Morgan [00:05:25] But it, it still could. And I think you're exactly right. That's the point. And even though, like I said, maybe the stoppage didn't last long, have we seen the impacts of that? I mean, it's gonna take a while to work out some of these kinks. There were, there was product loading up on some of these docks that wasn't being shipped. And so as you look, they're slowly coming back. You know, I, I think it's gonna take a while to work through it. But even here in the US when we were on the verge of that rail strike and there was real concern heading into harvest of what impact that would have. I mean, just awful timing. I had quite a few folks in the rail industry. I live outside of Kansas City and I had forgotten how many folks just around me are in the rail industry. Not only working for some of these railroads, but work for some of these other businesses that rely on railroads. And these, these workers on the, on the rail lines, they were saying, listen, I don't think you understand we need change. We have not had substantial raises. We are on call all the time. It is not a family friendly environment. You know, I leave my family on the holidays, we are in the beck and call of them and, and we're not, you know, they're, they're not thanking us for that in terms of pay and things like that. So even here in the US I mean I, you know, I I don't know if things got resolved, you know, and, and what's going to happen down the road.

Vance Crowe [00:06:37] Yeah, I mean when you look at what's going on with the, the US side of rail, it's looking like October, there's gonna be labor negotiations that open back up and you're already, when I was looking around trying to dig about, hey, how's this gonna impact things? It turns out shipping companies are already rerouting where their ships are coming into port in anticipation of even a small slowdown because like in Canada, every day they were offline, it's gonna take 14 days to catch up, which is gonna do all kinds of things to the pricing and, and you know, how quick you're gonna get stuff moving around. Any last words on the rail strike, Tyne?

Tyne Morgan [00:07:09] No, it's just, I mean, something to keep an eye on because I, I do think this is far from over and, and Sean Haney does such a good job of reporting from Canada and the impact there. But we have to remember that so much of the goods that we import here, we rely on Canada for a lot specifically in the fertilizer market. Advanced fertilizer prices, yeah, they've come down, but they have not come down at the same rate like corn prices have. And so they are still relatively high in comparison to that. And if we have one hiccup in the rail system that just throttles back supplies just a little bit, that is another factor to keep prices high or even higher than what we're seeing today. And that's a real pain point for producers and Vance, I'm hearing farmers right now that are looking at what fertilizer, what can we cut back on? But you know, if you listen to Josh Linville of Stonex group, he's saying maybe you can cut back on, on on one or you think you can, but it's all commodities where prices are down right now as far as row crops go. And so it's not like you're gonna switch from corn to soy. I just think even in the fertilizer market, you know, I know it's been a while, it's, we're not at the 2022 highs, but things aren't great. Prices are still high and it's really pinching margins for producers.

Vance Crowe [00:08:14] Yeah, I think that that's a, a great segue into, well what else could you do if you don't have enough money for these inputs? And some farmers in Illinois are getting letters about, hey, maybe you wanna put solar panels on these acres. So from Ag web they're reporting that $4,500 per acre plus a signing bonus. So solar companies are getting out there offering to lease the ground from farmers. And this was a story you sent my way. Tell me what, what's going on? How are farmers reacting to hearing $4,500 an acre every year for 20 years?

Tyne Morgan [00:08:47] Well, let me tell you how this story came about because that was actually a story that I wrote and that was a follow up to a piece. So the AGA county economy barometer from Purdue and CME group, Purdue does a great job of surveying producers, getting sentiments, seeing where their head is, but also asking some off the wall type of questions about like, Hey, have you been approached about solar leasing? Have you signed solar leases? Anyway, so the information from Purdue, and I don't have the exact stats in front of me, but showed that the majority of producers were being offered a thousand dollars per acre or more. And I thought, my gosh, and I first got rumblings of this, I guess it was last winter when I was at some farm meetings, some agricultural meetings. I heard from some, some producers in Missouri that were saying that, that they are getting pro approached heavily. I heard from some producers in Iowa, some producers really in Illinois and Ohio is where I heard quite a bit more of this. And so I started digging and then when I saw those Purdue numbers, I thought a thousand dollars per acre. I wrote a story on $600 per acre cash rent. And I swear that some of these farmers wanted to do off with my head because they even, they sent a note to Ken Ferrie, one of his, one of his clients, and said, Ken, will you tell her to quit writing about this $600 cash rent? We don't want this getting out. This is ridiculous. Not all of us are paying that.

Tyne Morgan [00:09:58] So we Thought $600 per acre cash rent was bad, right? A thousand dollars. I'm thinking, my gosh, this is mind blowing. And I'm wondering, okay, where did this money come from? Well then I get a text from a farmer in Illinois who had got my number from another farmer and he said, Tyne, I'm not saying that what you reported was false. I know you're reporting Purdue University's numbers, but I'm just telling you a thousand dollars is too low. And I said, okay, how low? And he said, well, ours is about $3,000 per acre. And I'm thinking that is just mind blowing. So then a couple weeks later he text me and he said, Hey, one of my neighbors just got an unsolicited offer, and this is outside of Morton, Illinois, okay, good farm country just outside of Morton, Illinois. And the price that he received this unsolicited offer in the mail, 3,200 to $4,500 per acre plus signing bonus. When you, when you sign the letter of intent, I think you get like a thousand dollars. And then when you actually sign the lease, you get $3,000. And Vince, I mean one thing you have to remember is this is not a short term contract. Also, what you have to remember is there's no guarantee, even if this is a 30 year contract, you know, there's not no guarantee that these companies are gonna be around for 30 years. However, when you think about where margins are today, how can you blame producers whether you agree with this concept with you, with whether you agree with the inflation reduction act and what the Biden administration is doing, or you don't. You look at simple economics today and you can't pass that up. And so, you know, one thing I did notice on crop tour last week, Vance was the number of solar panels that are going in in Illinois.

Tyne Morgan [00:11:35] I've traveled to Illinois. I mean I've been doing crop tour since 2012, since the drought of 2012. I've traveled Illinois most of those years. I have never seen so many solar panels, not only in production and in and up and running, but ones being put in. I mean, I met, made our videographers pull off to the side of the road. We were rushing to an interview. I said, I'm sorry, we've gotta pull over and get video of this because it's, I mean I talk about it all the time, the number of solar panels going in. And this was a huge solar farm that was being built while we were going by. And so, you know, there's some question marks, okay, how much farmland are we actually going to see go into solar? And everyone you ask, no one has a straight answer, everyone's different. But the Department of Energy says that just 0.3% of farmland will be used for solar energy by 2035. Okay? That's what the Department of Energy says. Farmland info.org estimates that solar could be deployed on over 7 million acres by 2040 to meet the, the goal set by the administration. And then you have some others. The American farmland trust estimates that 83% of new solar energy development is likely to be placed on farmland. So you know, my question is, Vance, why farmland? I mean you look at, you know, you look at some of these airports and all these parking facilities where you could put these on roofs. I mean, you look at some of these cities and, and, and solar panels that could go on roofs, not only why farmland, but why highly productive farmland, why Illinois?

Vance Crowe [00:13:03] That's, I mean, my point exactly the first time I saw a huge solar farm was in Springfield outside of Springfield, Illinois. This is some of the blackest greatest soil you have. And it's not like, oh, we just put those panels up and underneath everything can graze Vilsack was questioned by Chip Flory. You mentioned in your article, the only way you're grazing underneath that is if you hang them 10 feet up in the air. And even then when you look at these farms, you see gravel all over the place. They're putting roads in. This is farmland that once it goes out, maybe you could bring it back in, but it will never be what it was.

Tyne Morgan [00:13:35] Well, and Vance and some of these, you know, when you look at the Department of Energy and some of these plans that, that the administration has, has put out, and it's, and it's documented on the website, they talk about, well, you know, it's gonna be space where it's safe for the environment, safe for animals. But yet you're, you're saying, now we want you to graze livestock underneath these, I mean, there's just so much research that needs to go into it. You, you, you look at the opportunity right now for farmers and you cannot deny that if you get offered something like this. There is a huge, a huge financial incentive. And so you see that I just,

Vance Crowe [00:14:09] But the only way this bubble is happening is because the government is pumping that money in there. So they're using, you know, 50% of the construction fee is coming from the Inflation reduction Act. This is not a real market, it's a bubble created by the government.

Tyne Morgan [00:14:21] Well, and that's the problem is, you know what, less government intervention, not more when you think about some of these things. And right now when they're stepping in, that's the only way that this ship is sailing is because of that. And that was my, I had Chip, Chip said he was interviewing Secretary Vilsack. And so we don't interview him often, but when we do, we try to, you know, get together. Okay, what questions do you want answered? I said, I have one question. Who is paying for these solar panels? That is my question because I assumed that it was coming from some of these government programs and, and, and they were proud of it because of the opportunities that they say that it's, it's presenting to farmers and I totally understand that. But at the same time, 90% of the infl of the funds are coming from the inflation reduction Act. So I mean, at the end of the day, you and I are the ones that are, that are paying for this. Are we benefiting from, from, from lower energy bills at home? I know, I know. We're not here. So

Vance Crowe [00:15:12] Be interesting. And nothing's better off by getting rid of our national treasure, which is our farmland. Alright, moving on. Continuing to talk about kinda some government intervention. Senator Marco Rubio writes a letter to John Deere, an open letter chiding them for moving jobs from the United States to Mexico. In his letter Rubio said, I want, I write to remind you of your company's duty to your workers, their families, the communities in which you live, the nation which you call home, your hardworking customers and your shareholders. I'm concerned by recent reports that John Deere is engaged in mass layoffs of American workers at your facilities in Illinois and Iowa while simultaneously shifting manufacturing to Mexico. So my question to you, Tyne, you got a senator from Florida that is wagging his finger at a business in Illinois during an economic downturn. What do you think, should he be doing this?

Tyne Morgan [00:16:04] Well, what's interesting is, you know, you would, you would expect this to come from a senator in Iowa or Illinois and one of these areas that have seen the manufacturing jobs be impacted by some of these layoffs. You know, and it's not just John Deere, when we talk about these layoffs, it's CNH, it's, you know, there's, there's a lot of other equipment manufacturers, a lot of other ones that are making some of these cuts. John Deere has been the one that has hit highline the headlines because they, you know, they have a lot of workers and they've, they've trended, I think it was close to 2000 of their, of, of their production workforce that they, that they laid off. So I actually, Corey Reed, who is the president of the Ag division, Vince, he actually came down to lenexa our studios in Lenexa and did a one-on-one, I guess this was a few weeks ago, right after kind of the salaried workforce cuts were, were announced as well. And I asked him that, I mean, because one of the biggest criticisms that John Deere has had is, you know, and if you look on social media and it's DEI is one, the other one has been them and the decision to move jobs to Mexico. And so I asked that since they've been catching so much backlash. And according to Reed, John Deere's production site in Mexico has actually been in operation for nearly 70 years. And he says that actually they make these announcements. I mean this, this happens, they shuffle production around. So this has happened for quite some time. Like I said, for 70 years they've had this production site. I mean, right now it's, it's, it's catching a lot of headlines. But he did say that may the cab production is what they're moving to Mexico, but right now what they're going to produce, where the cab production line was is those nine RXs.

Tyne Morgan [00:17:40] And so there is production being replaced there these bigger. Now how many of these Big nine RXs are they manufacturing right now considering where a commodity prices are? Not as much as tractor cabs. And so that is, that's the reality of it. But his point was we have had this business down there for 70 years. This is something that we do. It's it's standard operating procedure. But no matter what Vance, when you look right now at former President Donald Trump, who's the Republican nominee and JD Vance, they have made clear JD Vance is from the Rust Belt. If you, I mean if most of you have probably read his background, very interesting because he has seen the impact of taking some of this US-based manufacturing, taking it out of his small community. And what it did, it basically killed the economy of, of, of the small community in the Rust Belt where he grew up. And so he is very adamant that he does not wanna see any of these jobs move out of the us. So if it is the Trump Vance ticket that is at the top in November and they are the ones that get elected, I think you are going to see a lot more than just Senator Rubio, you know, be having these pointed letters and these pointed conversations with some of these companies. There's a lot of companies that are gonna get a reality check because that's more than just John Deere that's moving production to Mexico. And that's the reality of it. And I think Vance, we have to step back right now and say, why are so many companies moving this production to Mexico? What is happening here in the US that's that's incentivizing them to move to other countries for some of this production? And that's the bigger question that, that I think needs answered.

Vance Crowe [00:19:09] Yeah, and one of the people that is pointing this out is Robby Starbuck, I talked about him on my podcast this week. We've talked about him on the Ag Tribes report several times. He happened to hit the timing in the worst possible scenario for John Deere. You know, he was hitting them with look at all these DEI initiatives. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:19:25] And Then they go to do layoffs. So now every company in the United States that's looking at doing layoffs is looking at their DEI and saying, am I gonna get blamed that I put money into these initiatives instead of making it so my workers were either more productive or not focused on these things? And they're gonna have tough questions to answer,

Tyne Morgan [00:19:43] Very tough questions to answer. But Vance, I'm telling you, when I was reporting on John Deere and we had that exclusive interview, my one goal was to not have an article tweeted by Robby Starbuck. I can tell you that right now. Because the backlash to any of the articles that he posts, it is ugly. It's one of those where I would not have wanted to read the comments and I tried to be as middle of the road as possible and I was asking, you know, John Deere questions like Corey Reed. I asked him questions like, are you gonna cut the price of equipment? You know, what are some of the, what, what's your plan? And so, you know, we try to be as middle of the road as, as as possible and ask some of these questions. But Robby has done some very interesting work. He has definitely sparked change a lot of change with some of these companies. And you talk about someone who is making an impact, that is him.

Vance Crowe [00:20:28] Oh yeah. I was talking to the president of a very large agriculture company just the other day and I was like, you ever heard of him? And I mean, his face changed color. I have, you know. Absolutely. Alright, final story I want to cover very quickly here, which is, you, you sent this one to me. I thought it was a fascinating article from Farm Doc Daily. And they pose the question, lowering food prices. Do consumers think politicians are able to reduce costs? And the long and short of it is people generally believe more than 50% of the population believes yes, politicians could lower prices. And the only one to do it is my political party. Almost all of them saying if I'm a Republican then I think only Republicans can do it. And if I'm a Democrat, I think Democrats can do it. Tyne what do you think? Should people be waiting on the government to bring down the prices of their groceries?

Tyne Morgan [00:21:16] I mean, let's leave politics out of it. That's my biggest thing is when you look at commodity markets today, you look at anything, let the free market work. And that's what I do not under mean. You, you, you, you see the pain of commodity prices. You know, if you wanna, I, I guess I wish maybe they would've a asked about inflation, what's causing inflation and do you think one party is, is causing inflation more than another? Maybe that is a separate topic since inflation is such a hotbed topic right now and there's a lot of finger pointing on, on what caused it, who caused it, and are we gonna continue to see some of these prices run, run rampant. So we'll see what happens there. But yeah, I did think it was interesting. It's just, it's, I guess it's, you know, you can have your blinders on no matter what political party that you align with. There's a lot of people that just are steadfast in that and don't always hear the other side. And so we're gonna see a lot of this. I mean we have a a, an interview on CNN coming up with Harris-Walz and we'll, we'll we, we, we had some hints earlier about what they're gonna talk about, but there's some tough questions that she needs to answer.

Vance Crowe [00:22:15] Alright, well that wraps up the news section. If you are listening to the Ag tribes report and during the week you think, hey, this is a story I think should be talked about, go ahead and send it to me on X at Vance Crow orVance@vancecrow.com. Also, it really helps us out to share the podcast and definitely rate us on Spotify or Apple iTunes. 'cause this podcast is growing really quickly and we'd love to see more people involved in it. Now we're gonna move to the Bitcoin land price report. This is where I'm gonna ask Tyne, Tyne in your county, wherever you live right now, what is a, an acre of good farmland going for in US dollars?

Tyne Morgan [00:22:54] Really good farmland? I had to ask. Okay. I had to, I had to text some farmers. Really good farmland they say is $15,000 per acre and Vance, I mean, I'm outside of Kansas City, I'm in Missouri. You know, we're in that part where, you know, we get made fun of all the time from farmers in Iowa, farmers in Illinois. We do have some good soil. I'm in the river bottoms area right along the Missouri River. We have some really good productive soil. But $15,000 per acre shocks me. And it also shocks me that we have not seen farmland prices come down as much as we expected. I've done quite a few interviews recently on farmland values, who's buying, you know, you just expect farmers to, to step away and, and we have not seen as many record sales, but we know that that one piece of ground that comes up that farmers are like, listen, this is my one chance, my one chance to get this piece of farm ground. Then they will pay whatever needs to be paid for that convenience, having that there that, that, that, that sought after, that sought after land. But from what I'm hearing from a lot of these, these realtors and, and and farmland agents, is that it's still farmers that are buying. Yes, it may be investors that are bidding. Yes, it may be investors that are driving up the rate of and and, and values of, of farmland, but it's still farmers that are buying and that, and that shocks me in Vance down the road from us last year we had a record sale, a record, farmland sale. It was outside of Marshall, Missouri, Malta Bend, Missouri is where it was. And it was unique. I think it went for $30,000 breaker. I'm trying to remember the exact amount. And that was, you know, that's like 40 miles for me, not too far.

Tyne Morgan [00:24:25] And that was a very special circumstance that it was not, you know, it, it wasn't your average farmer that was, that was buying that piece of land.

Vance Crowe [00:24:34] So if we think about land being priced not in US dollars because it's hard to know what is a US dollar worth. We like on this show to price it in Bitcoin. And so $15,000 at today's Bitcoin price, which is about $59,300 0.25, Bitcoin would buy you one acre of ground just outside of Kansas City where Tyne lives. In other words, if you had one Bitcoin, you could buy 3.96 acres of farmland where you're at Tyne, how does that sit with you regarding Bitcoin's price?

Tyne Morgan [00:25:07] I mean, I'm never gonna be able to afford Bitcoin is where that sets with me right now. That's what I'm, we should have got in a lot earlier is what I was thinking.

Vance Crowe [00:25:13] Well the best part about Bitcoin is you can buy a really tiny amount of it. Whereas with land, if you're only buying it one acre at a time, it's hard to make it cash flow. So if you're looking to buy land, maybe a good thing to do is to buy Bitcoin, hope it appreciates relative to land and then you can buy that land. Are

Tyne Morgan [00:25:31] You getting commission off of Bitcoin Vance? Is this your side hustle?

Vance Crowe [00:25:34] No, my side hustle is, I believe if we wanna get the bullshit out of ag and stop having our inflation get racked up, we've gotta change to a dollar system. They can't print their way out of their problems. Alright,

Tyne Morgan [00:25:47] Fair, very fair. V

Vance Crowe [00:25:50] Now we are headed to the Peter Teel paradox. This is where I asked Tyne, what is one thing that you believe that almost nobody in your ag tribe agrees with you on?

Tyne Morgan [00:25:59] Okay, this one's hard Vance because I, as a journalist, I pride myself in keeping politics out of what I do. Okay? So I got an email on Monday from a viewer telling me that he can't believe that I put that convict on our, on our show. And I had to respond back and I was like, okay, convict, who are you talking about? Which

Vance Crowe [00:26:18] Convict?

Tyne Morgan [00:26:19] Yeah. Like what con which convict are you talking about? You know, and I knew what he was talking about, but I had to, I had, you know, and then I'm like, okay, I don't understand what story are you, you know, and, and so we try to be middle of the road. I want you to tune in and I don't, you know, I don't want you to know how I voted in the last election. I don't want you to know how you know what opinion I have on any issue because fans, I am very opinionated. I just do not give my opinion on the show. I, I'm a journalist first, a host first. Okay? So my husband, when I asked him about this, he knew exactly what I, what I would say if, if I was not in the role that I was in. So we're gonna keep politics out of it. Okay? So, but I, you know, mine would be not all media's fake news. Okay? And that is, I know it's all, it's, listen, my husband, every day, every day he'll read something or I'll say something and he's like, oh, is that fake news? How do you know that's true? He hassles me all the time about it. Okay? As he should, as he should. He is a Texan, he is as opinionated as they come. And he likes to gimme a hard time. But just because you have seen a headline in one outlet and you feel like they may sway, you know, a little too far left or a little too far, right? That's not all of media. And so my thing is don't cross all of us out just because there's one bad apple in the group. Vance, I get tired of reading all the headlines. I get tired of the news. My husband refuses to pay for television, which is awful. Job security, awful job security For the host of a television show.

Tyne Morgan [00:27:53] It's true, but I even get tired of it. We turn our television off, we don't watch really television at night. I don't want my, I, you know, I like to preserve the innocence of my eight and 9-year-old. And so we don't watch a lot of the news. I get enough of it at work, I consume enough of it at work, it's all day every day. And I try to read everything both sides so that personally I can form my own opinion. But for work I am getting all the facts from every single angle. But all I wanna say is just don't write off all of the media. Okay? Some of us report on things with no agenda. We just try to report the facts. We will continue to be journalists no matter what happens. We had an argument at the office the other day, what are we, are we journalists? Are we content providers in Vance? My response is, I am not a content creator. You know, people on OnlyFans, they call themselves content creators. I am not a content creator, okay? I'm a journalist.

Vance Crowe [00:28:49] I am definitely clipping that part out.

Tyne Morgan [00:28:53] Jay said, told me he, he said maybe you could make a little bit more money if you would switch to the other one, but that ain't happening. Okay,

Vance Crowe [00:28:59] Well, I, I'm gonna say that your Peter Thiel, the, the paradox, I'm gonna give you a 6.8 on it because you know, some people already agree with it, but I, for delivery, you're getting a nine that you, that was awesome. Alright, to keep on time, we have got to go into the worthy adversaries. This is where I ask our co-host to tell me about somebody that they respect, but that they strongly disagree with. We do this because we wanna make sure that we're listening to people that challenge our opinions and the way we think about things. So, Tyne I know this has gotta be difficult for you in your role, but who is somebody that you respect but disagree with?

Tyne Morgan [00:29:35] Well, one we actually talked about earlier. So I do have to be careful. I read a lot. I disagree with a lot, I agree with a lot. I also disagree with a lot. But I read it all. I have to, no matter how much it makes my blood boil and vance, there's so much that I read today that makes my blood absolutely boil. In fact, Clint Griffith sometimes will call me on the way in, if I'm on my way into the office, he'll call me and, and Chris Bennett does the same thing, which I know he's been on the podcast before just to get me worked up because they know the points that are just gonna make me fired up and I will not stop. So I mentioned Ro Robby Starbuck, he's just been interesting just to see like who's next and, and some and the amount of information that he's able to get by some of these current employees from some of these companies. I am mind blown that some of these employees are finding a way to feed Robby Starbuck information and not get caught. So that, and, and brave enough to do so. So that's been interesting. But mine would be so Vance, I I missed the old AG Twitter. I graduated college in 2008. When I graduated college, I actually went to Monsanto and worked in communications. I was their multimedia specialist. I had, I was ag journalism with an emphasis in broadcast. I did a television story on confined animal feeding operations, the positive of confined animal feeding operations. And I basically, there was a hit list of people that wanted, I mean they were after me, the Sierra Club wrote, They, the Sierra Club wrote a hit piece on me. I, i, I will never forget my roommates called me and they said, Tyne, just so you know, there's an article about you in the newspaper and it's not good. And so that was kinda my first experience to see that they, they will personally attack you. So not the job that I was doing. They were personally attacking me. And so that kind of helped create some, some, some thick skin. But then when I went over to Monsanto in those days I did a lot of, of social media and I met so many wonderful people on ad Twitter. That was the beauty of it. There were so many wonderful people. And today I feel like, you know, we just, in the world of negativity and the keyboard warriors that are out there, I just feel like we just don't have as much of that good that often gets highlighted. Highlighted. And one that is, that is continuing to do this is a producer out in, in, in southwest Kansas. I actually interviewed him a a few months ago and you'll probably remember the, the the cow 88, number 88 and what he did there. Anyway, Clay Scott, his handle is Scott West Acre. And I just really like what he's doing because not only did he, he have a tweet on number 88 that went viral, but since Vance, even though number 88 story did not turn out the way that he had hoped, even though they lost, they, they lost her after she gave birth. His tweets are still extremely popular to those outside of ag and he is using it as a way to educate about ag. And I think we have forgotten that social media can be that tool. You, you can educate and not be an advocate or whatever word you want to use out there. I know some people don't let, don't like those words, but you can still use social media as a tool so that others outside of agriculture view agriculture in a positive light.

Tyne Morgan [00:32:33] And I think sometimes we just forget that even I forget that, you know, I could do a better job of, of educating.

Vance Crowe [00:32:39] Well that sounds good to me. So tell me the, the handle again

Tyne Morgan [00:32:43] At Scott West Acre. Clay Scott is his name, a producer out in, he's a cattle producer, has some row crops too. So he educates on both. But even since number 88 went viral, even since then, I'm a press with some of his tweets and how much interaction he, he gets and engagement he gets with, with his tweets still today, even though number 88, you know, that's, that's no longer what he's tweeting about. He's still educating about ag and I just, I I appreciate what he's doing.

Vance Crowe [00:33:10] Well my worthy adversary this week is gonna be a guy that goes by at Jeff Murphy tent and the reason he's a worthy adversary, he is a Kansas cattle rancher and when I used to get tweets from him, he would cite things about, the reason you're wrong is 'cause the Bible says this or the Bible says that. Which to me is a really alienating thing. Not that I have any problem with the Bible, but I just think like that's a very difficult way to disagree about popular culture. But I went to an ag day, the stock cropper field day and I got a chance to meet Jeff and we were great friends. He had all kinds of super interesting things to say about cattle nutrition and his wife starting up a shop and all these things where I was sitting on Twitter thinking we are opposites, right? We met and we're brothers we're, we are close. We had a lot to talk about. So I wanted to throw that out there. Jeff Murphy 10.

Tyne Morgan [00:33:59] How cool is that? I mean, and Vince, I have it quite a bit. I'll have, you know, somebody fire off a message they're mad at something I reported or you know, aiming it at me and then I respond back and, you know, kind of give, give the other side of it, well this is what we were thinking with this and it's amazing. You respond back and then they write back and they say, well I I didn't mean anything by it. And then sometimes you create this relationship, those are the best kind.

Vance Crowe [00:34:21] Absolutely. And you just never know. I mean, I would say, I mean I I, I had a guy and his wife come have dinner at my house with my kids. His wife read books to my kids. How did we meet? I met Jay Curtis on Twitter. So it's like, it still continues to go. It's amazing.

Tyne Morgan [00:34:36] It is.

Vance Crowe [00:34:37] Alright Tyne. This has been a wild good ride. You were the first person that's ever pushed me over the 30 minute mark, but I was having so much fun listening to you. I couldn't interrupt. If people wanted to follow you and know more about you, where would they go?

Tyne Morgan [00:34:52] Yeah, I'm, I'm on all social media, not good about posting on social media, but I'm on all social media. So at Tyco ag you can find me there and then you can also, you know, if you, if you wanna email me, I have farmers email me stories, ideas all the time and I appreciate that. And it's just tMorgan@farmjournal.com and I really appreciate those notes 'cause it helps me keep a pulse of, of what matters most to farmers and ranchers right now.

Vance Crowe [00:35:15] Well I thank you so much for coming on. We also wanna thank our sponsors Legacy Interviews, which records people telling their life stories so that future generations can have the opportunity to know their family history and farm test.ag, which allows you to test your fungicides, your seeds, different crop systems to know not what the marketing guy is telling you about how good or how efficacious it is. But you can know scientifically verifiably. So go to farm test.ag to find out more. Alright, I'm gonna ask you to, once again, if you've liked this, share it with a friend and rate us on your podcast of choice and we will be back next week with host Greg Gunthorp, who told me at one point on Twitter, I'm too wild for Vance, I can't handle it. So I am, I am ready to see what this is all about. Thank you so much for coming on and as always, feel free to disagree.