Seed Industry CEO Exposes Organic Food Fraud and Agricultural Venture Capital Reality

Colin Steen [00:00:00] And so this stuff's coming from somewhere, and it is coming from Ukraine and Turkey, and it's getting labeled as such and, and coming into our ports as organic corn and it's not. Right. And, you know, I think there's some companies out there that are working hard to change this. You know, firms like Arius are trying to, to bring some transparency to the size of the opportunity for US farmers, but also the amount that's coming in offshore. 'cause it just, you know, it, this is just simple math, right? An Excel spreadsheet can tell you like the, the supply demand balance is way outta whack. I'm Chris Haworth, a grain originator and accountant living in Pocahontas, Iowa, and you are listening

Vance Crowe [00:00:40] To the Vance Crow podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today we talk with Colin Steen of Legacy Seeds. He's the CEO of a very interesting company that produces non GMO alfalfa among other non GMO and organic seeds. This led us into some very unusual conversations. It's not often that somebody like me gets to talk to another person that was at one of the major seed companies when Monsanto tried to buy Syngenta and Syngenta rebuffed it, and then Chem China came in and he got to talk about what it was like being in Syngenta as all of this goes on. So we talk about that, and we also talk about the wild and kind of untamed world of organic seed sales, and how many of the seeds that are being sold in the world are kind of laundered through Turkey and Russia and all of the weirdness that goes with that. We talk about SPACs, we talk about climate change. It is a wide ranging conversation. And thank you so much to Colin. He came on not knowing very much at all about what we would talk about, and we had a wild and wide ranging conversation, so thank you. We're gonna get to that in just a second. But many of the listeners have been signing up for my Weekly Connections prompt, which is an email that you receive once a week that just nudges you to write those people in your life that you know you should write, but you just never think of. My listeners have been saying to me that these emails have prompted them to reconnect with old teachers to reach out to relatives that they don't contact very often, and have prompted them to write nice reviews for people that have given them service.

Vance Crowe [00:02:17] And you wanna say something nice to their manager, but you just don't take the time to do it. These are the kinds of things that make you feel excited and fulfilled and good about interacting with other people, and it's just one way of adding positivity into the world. And so, I'm glad to do this. I share it with everybody for free. All you have to do is go to Articulate Ventures slash connections to add your name to the email list so that you can get a once a week email about who should I contact. And then there's a little bit of a prompt and some writing ideas, so it makes it easier. You don't have to just draw it off the top of your head. So go there, sign up for the connections prompt and make your life add a little more positivity. And now we're gonna head to my interview with Colin Steen. Colin Steen, welcome to the podcast.

Colin Steen [00:03:06] Yeah, thanks Vince. Looking forward to the conversation. Ben, excited to for this all weekend and looking forward to talking with you a little bit about agriculture and Ag tech and how things are going at legacy seed companies.

Vance Crowe [00:03:17] Well, your name came up because there was a conversation, I think it was Dusty Rich who was out talking on Twitter about, Hey, what is going on in the VC capital world with agriculture? And then the question was brought up, is there any VC money that's not just going and plunging straight into the price of land? And your name came up as somebody that would have an interesting perspective. So let's start off right there. Is money being pumped into agriculture that's not just going to the price of land?

Colin Steen [00:03:46] Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's, you know, it's probably as robust as it's ever been, to be honest. It's, you know, and it, a lot of it people don't see. So the dusty riches, the world who I know really well from my past at Syngenta and when I was at Syngenta Venture Capital, and you know, it's, it, it isn't really visible to the average person. Yeah. If you subscribe to AgFunder Online or something like that, you'd probably get the odd update, but, but most of it's still sort of occurring in the shadows, I would say, of of ag. Right? You know, most farmers don't touch it right away. These are companies that are still two or three, four years from revenue. You, or, you know, there's some big names, obviously the, the Indigos, the ns, pivot, bio Sound, ag, you know, that all have these, a lot of things going on that we read about it, we see a lot of tweets and a lot of posts online. But, you know, that, that attracts a lot of attention. But then at the same time, there's a ton of companies, you know, in behind the scenes that are trying to do little things like get an API that works better from, you know, to transfer data from one software piece to another. So it's not so frustrating for farmers with multiple logins and multiple places they have to go. Right? So, and then, you know, automation, we hear a lot about, there's just an acquisition by John Deere last week of Bear Flag Robotics, right? And then, you know, I, the, the part that I always find interesting is even, you know, that of course the guys in Iowa, the farmers in Iowa maybe not see as much of, but around the world, right? There's some tremendous in innovation happening in Europe on biologicals.

Colin Steen [00:05:17] There's great innovation, you know, on different routes to market in Southeast Asia, you know, Crip, FinTech markets starting to, to build up to help small, you know, small holder farms, get into the market, get access to credit. All those things are really cool that people don't really see every day. It's, like I say, it's sort of lurking in the shadows of, of the corn and soybean fields and, and the eye states and kind of the heart of the Midwest.

Vance Crowe [00:05:46] Ags such a weird thing for innovation, because when you're talking about whether it's seeds and genetics or chemistry, things that you're gonna apply over the top of them, they are so heavily regulated that it seems like the only companies that have a chance to get something all the way through to market are the, you know, the big four that remain. And so, like, what, what's your take on the, the lack of innovation, or maybe you, that's just my assumption. There's a lack of innovation around yeah. Seed genetics and chemistry because of that.

Colin Steen [00:06:18] I, no, no doubt. Look, 80% of seed is controlled by four companies, right? You know, probably it's 60 to 70% of chemistry is controlled by those same four companies. So it's easy for you to, for anyone to go, Hey, this feels like if it's not up to those four, who the heck gets it done? Right? And I always find that where, where you have to look for the innovation, it very well may be Bayer or Corteva or Syngenta bringing a product to market that final, you know, two yards across the goal line. But what the really neat stuff that's happening right now is in the background, right? Where companies like Enco Chem or Anari or whatever are shrinking that development time down. And they're, they're solving some problems on the front end. You know, ENCO Chem is using machine learning, like really deep tech machine learning, artificial intelligence to start to be able to get to screening chemistry and molecules better. So, you know, the classic, you know, Syngenta, I spent 25 years at Syngenta and I, so, you know, we would do the tours to, to Switzerland and look at all the, the, where, you know, all the, this great chemistry screening process where it's, you know, hundreds of thousands of compounds a month being screened and tested from a chemistry standpoint, what works, what has low tox, what work, you know, selective to the weed, but not to the plant. All those things are the crop that you're trying to, to spray. And what, what companies like Enco Chem are doing is saying, Hey, we don't have to like have this massive warehouse of robotics spraying plants every hour and testing these things out.

Colin Steen [00:07:52] We can do it all through AI and automation. And so that's where I think the innovation is happening in the backend. Now, granted, ENCO Chem is not gonna spend the 300 million in regulatory fees and testing to get it all the way there. But if they can start to shrink the development time where, you know, a company like BSF can go to them and say, Hey, we, what we're really looking for is, you know, compound A to solve problem, you know, one and two in this crop, which is a major issue. We, you know, this, this fungal disease and this crop, and it has to be, you know, we have to have a reentry period of 24 hours. We have to have, you know, the ability to spray it multiple times a season without resistance building or whatever. Then they go to solve that problem using the AI and things like machine learning, which to me is really cool. And again, most people don't ever really hear about that, right? Like, they just, this is, this is kind of early stage, you know, it's gonna be probably the Bayer, the Corteva or Syngenta name on the jug at some point. But, you know, in order to get that problem solved, all that happened in behind the scenes in a compressed period of time, you know, compared to the 10, 12, 14 years that we've always been told at the farmer meetings, right? You know, you know, to get from, you know, the initial plot to the, to the field, you know, it's, it's a 14 year, $500 million process, and this is reducing the cost to get it there, reducing the length of time. So, you know, we can be more proactive as companies to, to solve these problems.

Colin Steen [00:09:23] And, and, you know, and Anari is doing the same thing in Seeds. There's other companies using epigenetics, like Sound Ag is using epigenetics, which is basically turning down the volume of a gene or turning it up. That's my layman's term for how epigenetics works. But, you know, it's, it's these sort of things that, you know, are, are helping compress the development time, right? They, you can get through it faster than the traditional, you know, Gregor Mendel behind the monastery, you know, crossing plants and, and seeing which, which p looks best after crossing them, you know, back two, 300 years ago. Right?

Vance Crowe [00:09:59] Yeah. You know, as you're describing this, some of it I think we see go on right now. So I have a good friend as a data scientist for what was Monsanto now Bear, I watched them get much, much faster. But I am also really skeptical of the claims of machine learning and artificial intelligence, because I would sit in, in those meetings and I would be like, I hear you talking about, not you, but the, the guy explaining it. And I'm, I'm like, I don't think you, I think you're using words in the same way that people were like, everything should be cloud-based and

Colin Steen [00:10:31] You know,

Vance Crowe [00:10:31] Like all these buzzwords. And to me that really, I can understand why AG doesn't see innovation there because in addition to it being like the innovation first comes out in a very small place before it gets it widely adopted, but also there was a whole lot of promise of these innovative technologies just revolutionizing things. And I think there's a lot of companies, particularly those ones using what's this new investment tool, SPACs, those, I'm,

Colin Steen [00:10:58] I'm

Vance Crowe [00:10:58] Incredibly suspicious of those things. What's your take on the, on the SPAC market?

Colin Steen [00:11:03] Well, it's, yeah, I'm also incredibly suspicious 'cause right? There's not the rigor that I'm used to seeing, you're used to seeing to go public, right? So, you know all what is

Vance Crowe [00:11:13] A spec for people? I couldn't describe it. I just, what I have

Colin Steen [00:11:16] Rid of them. So it's a what special purpose acquisition company. You're, you're, we, we should probably just have CNBC on in the background right now, bats instead of me trying to explain it, but, we'll, we'll give it a try. So it's a special pur purpose acquisition company. So basically, you know, let's assume, let's, let's live in a real fairytale world where I'm worth like $400 billion. And I've, I've, I've went and registered a spac, the Steen, you know, special agricultural SPAC fund as a company on the on Wall Street with the NYSE. And, but there's nothing there. So basically my S one filing is just, you know, it's a, it'll be a $4 billion company someday, but today there's no revenues, there's no cost, there's no nothing. It's just a shell. But I've, I've paid the money to register it. And so the regulatory red tape is a lot less because there's really nothing there. And then what I do is then I go out and say I wanna buy Sound ag and I fold it into my spac. And now I sound ag didn't have to file their own S one or anything like that. I'm just went out and purchased them and brought 'em in. Now sound ags gotta have proper revenues and proper accounting practices and, you know, follow gap accounting and all the stuff you have to do. 'cause you know, day one, now they're a public company, but it's, I view and, and then, you know, I've used my SPAC as a way to sort of reduce the, the regulatory framework to bring these companies in.

Colin Steen [00:12:47] So it's, you have to be a little bit wary, right, as the consumer, as consumer, like the end consumer investor, right? Because there hasn't been as much scrutiny to these companies. Whereas if you, and I wanted to start our own public company tomorrow, you know, we're gonna be, you know, hundreds of pages of filings and we're gonna spend six months on the road with bankers convincing 'em that this is, you know, with the Goldman Sachs of the world's trying to convince 'em that this is a real company and we've got real revenues and we have our cost under control and all those sort of things. And you kind of skip a step or two with the spac. That's my,

Vance Crowe [00:13:22] Yeah. And I think, so the, the,

Colin Steen [00:13:24] The, so yeah, part

Vance Crowe [00:13:25] Of that that you had in

Colin Steen [00:13:26] There suspicious,

Vance Crowe [00:13:27] Well, the part that you had in there that's interesting that people might not realize is the person, the, the, the company that your SPAC buys and throws into that spac now all of a sudden just can be publicly traded so people can invest hundreds of millions of dollars into this thing. And there hasn't been the same. Like, have you proved your revenue? Do you like all of the steps that normally go on? And so you watch some of these companies that are like, I think your technology is pie in the sky, but now you, now that you're in the SPAC and people can ride this wave. And I'm very much of the mindset, like, let people invest in whatever they wanna invest in. Don't, you know, you don't, don't put a bunch of regulators in there, but the only reason you have SPACs is because the ordinary way I, I think has gotten very gummed up with regulatory burden. Yeah,

Colin Steen [00:14:17] True, true. And, you know, don't forget the spac, like, let's throw in some terms like regenerative ag and sustainability and climate change,

Vance Crowe [00:14:25] And

Colin Steen [00:14:26] Then all of a sudden, you know, hey, boy, that sounds like they're, you know, and to your point, these little like machine learning or ai, you know, buzzwords along the way, and, and voila, here we go. Right? And at the end of the day, look it, to bring it full circle around, you know, when I worked at Syngenta Ventures and headed up that team my last year and a half at Syngenta, you know, I, our team was always focused, look, if the farmer isn't making more money at the end of the day, then, you know, what the hell is this all for? Right? Like, what, you know, if, if you know more yield isn't always the answer, right? More yield, you know, if I'm still losing money on every bushel I produced and producing 10 more bushels than I did the day before, really wasn't helpful. Like, I didn't, I didn't solve any problems there. So we, we tried to look at it from a grower profitability standpoint, and I still do today at Legacy Seed Companies where I'm at now. And, you know, if, if we're not implementing tools that help farmers be more profitable, then, you know, it's, I think we're, we're missing the plot.

Vance Crowe [00:15:27] So talk a little bit about that. You went from Syngenta's Venture arm into being the CEO at Legacy Seed Companies. What is Legacy seed companies and what's the difference between what you were doing in venture capital and what you're doing now?

Colin Steen [00:15:39] Yeah, no, thanks. Lots of difference. So, you know, it's, so basically, you know, I probably, the similarity is it's a small company, right? We're, we're backed Legacy Seed Companies is a holding company that's got Legacy Seeds in Wisconsin and DF Seeds in Michigan as our two seed brands we're backed by a private equity firm out of Dallas, Texas Till Ridge Global Agribusiness Partners. So we're, we're in that private equity world that, you know, you would include venture capital as part of, overall as a source of funding. But these folks, you know, they own essentially a hundred percent of our company, they've given us capital to grow and invest in for growth. And then eventually they'll wanna, you know, exit and re you know, sell that company to one of the majors or to strategic or someone else that will pay more money for it than what they bought for, right? So legacy seed companies, our focus is, is a couple areas Alfalfa in Wisconsin, we have one of four alfalfa breeding programs in the US and then we work a lot in the non GM food grade soybean business as well in Michigan. So we have a big play in that market in Michigan, which is exported over to Asia to Japan, you know, for tofu and, and non GM tofu. So, you know, it's, it's one of those, you know, so the switch was I at, at Syngenta, I spent time running Golden Harvest seeds and NK seeds, and then went into the VC business. You know, I felt like the, the move to VC was a way that I could still be the voice of the farmer on a, on a, you know, global venture capital team and be the person in the background saying, Hey, does it, does it work?

Colin Steen [00:17:16] Does it help the farmer be more profitable? You know, are they even gonna listen to this story, right? Are they even gonna wanna buy what we're trying to sell them or, or this tool that we're trying to develop? So that, you know, it was a good segue from the seed business at Syngenta to the vc and, you know, I wanted to get a chance to be a CEO and run, run my own firm and, and see what we could do. So this, you know, it, well, it feels a little bit disjointed when you look at it, maybe on my LinkedIn profile, you would, it actually sort of does, there is a thread you can kind of pull all the way through it.

Vance Crowe [00:17:49] And so were you at Syngenta then when the giant mergers of all these companies started coming together? Yeah,

Colin Steen [00:17:56] Yeah. Okay. So I've been, so I was I 25 years at Syngenta, so I was, I, you know, I got outta school in 95, straight to a sales rep for Zika at the time, you know, spent five years as a Zika sales rep, then the Novartis Zika merger happened to form Syngenta, you know, got a job in the marketing group and then moved to the US in oh three, you know, bounced around into some different management leadership roles. And then in 2017 was the Kimche China acquisition. And so I was heading up Golden Harvest Seeds at that time, you know, was given about 24 hours to, to plan for that, that moment when Kim ch you know, so we got, a couple of us got pulled into the room and basically said, look, here's what's gonna happen, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna be pur, you know, it's gonna be announced I think at Wednesday at 3:00 AM you know, whatever that would be, you know, 6:00 AM in Beijing that they've acquired Syngenta, you know, we have to have press releases ready to go to your Golden Harvest seed dealers. We're gonna have to have conference calls lined up all day with them so they can dial in and ask questions. We're gonna have to have an email that goes out to all of them. You know, I, I got up at five 30 and started phoning these guys, our top 10 customers personally. So they sort of heard it from me or heard it from me mostly first before they read about it on Twitter or some other place. But it was a, it was a pretty intense couple day period there.

Vance Crowe [00:19:26] Yeah, I was at Monsanto when they were purchased by Bear. In fact, I was, I was just about to go on stage at an Alpha Gamma row fraternity, just like opportunity to, to speak. And just that morning it had been announced that Bear was taking it over and I was sitting right next to some Major Bear representative, and he was the one being like, good luck up on the stage there. And it was like, am I doing an audition right now for my, my bear job?

Colin Steen [00:19:53] It was an interesting

Vance Crowe [00:19:54] Time.

Colin Steen [00:19:55] Well, and it, you know, it was, yeah, it was, it was crazy. And, you know, our message to our customers, of course, like, you know, you're, look, the reality was we're being bought by a Chinese company. So you knew in the back of your mind this was gonna be a, a tough sell, you know, to convince people like, Hey, this is okay. But at the same time too, you know, you know, and all joking aside, right? You know, the alternative, if you remember back then was Monsanto was bidding for Syngenta, right? So, and the one thing we all knew is if Monsanto bought Syngenta, it wouldn't be the same, you know, it, the seed business would, you know, we kind of had the, the dark humor on the hallways, right? Like, if you're a chemistry guy on your resume, you know, there'd be a room off to the left where you can go, and we really need your help and looking forward to working with you. And if you're a seed guy, right? They'd sort of pat you on the shoulder and thank you for your time and efforts. HR will be over here to talk to you later. Right? You, you know, there was not too much doubt on how that thing would turn out for, for those of us in the seed business. So I think our seed dealers appreciated that the world wouldn't change. And they got, I, I was amazed how quickly they got over the, you know, really the, I don't wanna say it was sort of a y 2K event where you planned a lot, not much happened, but it, we had very little fallout really from, from the acquisition. It, it just, it was life as you, because there was no change in the brand. There was no change in their rep or anything like that. In fact, there was some more investment in the business in the early days that sort of helped, I think, quell a lot of the fears.

Vance Crowe [00:21:27] Gosh, you're bringing back a lot of memories I haven't thought about in a while. Like, I remember Syngenta, when you guys were, when we were, when Monsanto was approaching you to buy you, it was all being done in secret. And then Syngenta released all that stuff and said, no, we're gonna make it public. And from the Monsanto side, we were hearing, you know, rumors, like, we'll never let these pirates come and take us over. And, And I just, I, and then, and then everything else split in different ways. And one of the things that I think is so interesting about these stories, and I say this on stage a lot, and it's already started to happen, so I used to travel around and go talk to college kids, right? And, you know, you would say, Hey, I work for Monsanto. And they would, you know, they would think they were talking to the devil himself. And already I can go and talk with young people and be like, how many of you know who Monsanto is? And maybe like 20% of the hands go up.

Colin Steen [00:22:19] It's crazy.

Vance Crowe [00:22:19] So that is already disappearing. And these stories that seemed so real and so big to people like us that were living in it, yeah. It's already becoming dust in the rear view mirror.

Colin Steen [00:22:29] Yeah. It's, it's crazy. It, it really is just completely, it, it blows my mind how quickly we forget. Right? And I like growing up in the business, like, you know, Monsanto was our number one competitor in almost every market we were at, you know, and, and the, throughout my career. And it, I, you know, it like, it was just, couldn't get your head around the fact that they would no longer exist as a, as a company moving forward. So it was bizarre to me how this, how to your point, how quickly we've forgotten. And I think with Syngenta's IPO it'll be interesting 'cause I, I think a certain number of our current customers or the Syngenta's current customers have forgotten, right? That they're, they are a Chinese owned company. And the IPO will probably rekindle some of those memories a little bit here. And, and you know, they'll, you'll probably see a little bit of flurry of activity around, you know, good press releases about how this is important for the future and maybe minimize the Chinese aspect, who knows? But it'll be interesting to see how it all develops. For sure.

Vance Crowe [00:23:26] So you're in the world of non GMO, which I would say that one of the reasons that the flames got put so hot in the world about non GMO or the value of them, or the value of having an alternative, was that people, that was in response in some ways to the Monsantos and the fear that people had, that Monsanto was doing centralization or they own too many seeds, or they treated farmers unfairly. Now that you're actually in the business of selling GMO seeds, what do you think differently about that than when you were say, in the Syngenta GMO world?

Colin Steen [00:24:01] Yeah, no, it's a, that's a really good question. I, I think the biggest, you know, I, I went to right after I started last July with, with legacy seed companies, and I went to an organic and non GMO conference in October. It was virtually, of course, last year. But you know, it, you, you hear things that I have never heard in a meeting before, right? Like, it just, the, the, the vehement just de declarations that GMOs are evil and gene editing is no different than GMOs. And, you know, there's just no way we have to label everything. And, and what, what you realize when you take a step back and say, okay, I'm gonna be objective and think about this, is that, look, the consumer has the right to choose. Now I, and if you go into my pantry and my house right now, there's not a lot of non GM or, or organic food in there. My wife buy buys a little bit, she has celiac disease. So some of it sort of, you get, you get the gluten-free, you're getting the organic alongside of it, right? It just, the way it's so, so we've got some in our cupboards, but look, at the end of the day, the cus the customer, the consumer has the right to choose what they want. And if they're voting with their wallets to pay more money for organic, there's nothing wrong with that. And so then, then I step back and look at, okay, from a capitalism standpoint, now if the consumer's gonna vote and choose that way, then I should be able to supply them with that product. I should be able to have a way to supply them with the product and with good genetics and good products that fit the needs so we can get good yields and good technologies for organic farming that help them, you know, manage their weed control better, you know, without having to use pesticides, all those things.

Colin Steen [00:25:40] So that's what we're starting to look at more and more at legacy seed companies is, you know, how can we enable farmers to make the switch to organic? How can we make, enable a, a switch to non gm or if they wanna stay with traded products, we have those for sale as well. So we, you know, we kind of straddle both sides of the fence. We've got traded corn, we've got congen conventional, and we've got organic corn, and we've got organic soybeans, a lot of non GM beans and a lot of traded beans. And then our alfalfa, about 95% of our alfalfa is non gm, which was, is really an, an anomaly in the industry that, you know, of the other breeding companies, they're, you know, they'd be 80, 90% gm, where we're mostly non gm. And so that does give us some opportunities.

Vance Crowe [00:26:26] So in, in my world, so I went from being a person that was like the US Peace Corps and worked at the World Bank and Public Radio, and then I went to work for Monsanto. And then, and in that role at Monsanto, my job was to like, Hey, there are people that are really afraid and angry about GMOs and pesticides. We want you to go out and talk to them. And I go back and look at my notes before I came to Monsanto, while I was at Monsanto, and when I left Monsanto. And if I'm, if I'm just having a conversation with myself, it's like the notes in my journal. I have no reason to lie to myself at all. Yep. The what I believe to be true all the way down at my core changed. Right. And that is all, is like a terrifying thing to fully realize about yourself. That that concept of where you stand on an issue is determined by where you sit. And I would've always said, no, I can transcend this. Like, that's not, that's not really me, but like, it really, and and a large part of it is you just see the world from a different perspective. So you have yeah,

Colin Steen [00:27:30] You,

Vance Crowe [00:27:30] Whatever your truth was, and now people are telling you a different point of view. But it also is really scary to me on a larger picture of like, what else is it that I believe, you know, fully 100%. And, and say those things in earnestness that if I came to a different perspective, I would believe something different.

Colin Steen [00:27:49] Yeah. I, and I, yeah, I, I it's a good point. Like, and I, your, you know, change or evolved, I would say, like your, maybe your viewpoint evolved a certain way, like change feels more abrupt, evolving, feels like maybe it's a more, you went into shades of gray and then found your way over here and then shades of gray and found your way over there. But yeah, I,

Vance Crowe [00:28:10] I,

Colin Steen [00:28:10] I have that same que like, I, I still have a hard time when somebody says, look, I cannot get, there's no way when somebody says they'll never be crispr gene edited, foods regarded as organic. And I, I have hard time with the word never. 'cause I'm like, you know, you might be right that you're gonna, that person will do all they can to make sure that doesn't happen. But never is a long time like the, again, public opinion and, and the better we do at telling I, now I sound like an old Monsanto guy, right. Telling the story, you know? So, but it, like, we gotta, we gotta find ways that people go, okay, that's, that's a good development. You know, and I look at epigenetics, and again, I, when I was at Syngenta Ventures, I was on the board of directors at Sound Ag and they were, you know, they were looking at short statured corn, right? They were looking at seedless tomatoes. They were looking at some of these things, or non ripening tomatoes that would help, you know, the supply chain be more effective. And, and so all those things you start to go, okay, this, this could be real and this could be helpful to people. And maybe again, that's a story that people go, okay, I, I'd buy that even if it was labeled as, you know, gene edited or something like that, or, or bred through epigenetics, even though nobody would know what the hell that meant. But it'd scare them. So, you know, I like, I I I look at mRNA vaccines too. You know, you, we, I see this in your Twitter every now and then as well. Like, I mRNA scares the heck out of people, right? Because it sounds like DNA, and then if you're changing my d are you changing my DNA with the vaccine?

Colin Steen [00:29:45] Are you, you know, it's just, it's high science. It's very complicated to understand. And you know, that, you know, we just haven't done a good job of explaining some of these really tricky things to people to help their viewpoint evolve, I think. And like yours has, and mine has, you know, and I think we're deep down, you and I are still the same people we were 10 years ago. We just maybe are a little more accepting of other points of view and, and, and as a result, you know, I think that's a good thing.

Vance Crowe [00:30:15] Well, I remember vividly there was a guy, you may know him named Doug Salmons, who, one time I came to him and I was complaining that people didn't understand, you know, that GMOs were safe. And he was, I was like, you know, why aren't they just, why don't they just trust the science on this? And he's like, well, you don't actually know the science. Like I know the science 'cause I've read it and I've written it. Yeah.

Colin Steen [00:30:34] But at

Vance Crowe [00:30:35] The end of the day, unless you are reading very, very deeply on one subject for yeah, years probably you don't actually understand the science. What you do is you've come to a conclusion of like, I know enough to say that person is probably more credible than that person, and I'm going to trust in there. And this is like a weird thing because I think our culture wants us to believe that we hold truth. Like we do know things when in reality it's more about like, I get close enough to be able to feel right about something in order that I can say yes to it or no to it. But you, you know, like we won't feel very good going to sleep at night or getting a shot of something that we don't know or don't really understand. So I think that we have to deal with this chaos by saying like, yes, that's true. And I believe that to be totally true.

Colin Steen [00:31:27] Yeah, yeah. No, that's exactly right. And it's everywhere we look around us, right? It's highlighted every day on our news by the vaccine debates and it's highlighted, you know, and it, so that sort of caused food to take a little bit of a back step. But look, we're, we're gonna be there again, this, this fall and winter, you know, the droughts out west and you know, this is, you know, the, our, you, god forbid the cost of a 12 pack of, you know, craft beer is gonna go up another 20%. But it, you know, there's, there's hardly any barley crop in the Midwest right now, or up in the, you know, the upper Northwest in Montana. You know, I, there's, there's carry over from years prior, but there's gonna be a point where this is gonna affect the consumer. And, and it, you know, then that will probably reignite some debate and discussion around food, which is always good for that to happen. And help us get in enlightened just a little bit more and, and evolve our opinions a little bit more as well.

Vance Crowe [00:32:18] So in that regard, your company does stuff in alfalfa and alfalfa Yeah. Is a very unusual crop. It's not like corn where you're like, Hey, we're gonna go put these F1 hybrids out there, and then as soon as we harvest them, we're gonna put new F1 hybrids out there. Yep. Explain to people how the alfalfa market works and, and what is your company doing that's a little bit different.

Colin Steen [00:32:37] Yeah. We, so yeah, alfalfa, you know, it's, to kind of pull it back a step, alfalfa, the crop is a perennial crop. It is, you know, so a farmer typically plants alfalfa, you know, in the springtime, and then, you know, the, the stand gets established and then it's good for four years. So it's a perennial crop that's cut, you know, in Michigan right now with all the moisture they've been having, you know, they're gonna get five or six harvests of alfalfa off that one field, right? So they're gonna cut it, they're gonna bail it, you know, or cut it and put it into silage, which goes into the pit for their dairy cattle, right? So it's, you know, it's a high level, it's a high quality protein for cattle, especially for dairy cattle, you know, on a smaller scale it's baed for, for other livestock, right. And, and trucked around the countryside for, for, for livestock. But farmers, you know, it's, it's a, one of the few perennial crops that are grown out there. There's some forage grasses that are similar. So alfalfa, you know, if you think about, so I'll jump around a little bit here, VA, but it, you know, regenerative ag, what people really like about regenerative ag is they say there's a living root in the soil year round, right? So there's something holding the soil construct together year round, right? There's a root in that, that soil profile that's there all the time. So alfalfa, you know, checks the box that way, right? It, it's, it's a fantastic crop that way. It's high protein source of food for, or feed for dairy cattle or for, for livestock. So it checks another box there. The other really interesting part about alfalfa is that it fixes its own nitrogen.

Colin Steen [00:34:12] So that's, you know, that, that, that is a scientific way of saying, basically the roots of alfalfa have a way that they create, they have these little nodules on them that, that allow them basically to utilize nitrogen on their own in the soil. So the interactivity with the root and the nitrogen available in the soil allows it to uptake nitrogen itself without having us to put supplemental nitrogen on top. And so it fixes its own nitrogen. So you've got 16 million acres of alfalfa growing annually in the US that are not having, you know, they're producing, essentially using and taking care of their own nitrogen uses. So there's no Haber Bosch produced nitrogen going on to those fields, right? So again, that's a high, you know, and when you take it, when you're done with four years of alfalfa, that soil isn't mine, right? It isn't mine of all the nutrients. So now you're in a be the soil's in a better spot than it was before. And so, you know, it checks another box there. From a climate standpoint, what we're doing a little differently than everyone else, I meant, touched on it briefly ago, is, you know, we're, we're primarily a non-GM breeding program. So we, we focus on non-GM alfalfa, there's a lot of dairies out there that, that we also produce some organic alfalfa as well. But you know, they, their, their customers are companies like Danone or some of these milk companies that, that are GM free or organic, you know, you're, you're buying your organic yogurt or whatever. Well, that has to start somewhere. And that starts all the way back on what you're feeding your cows, right?

Colin Steen [00:35:45] So, and then the other, the other thing that we're our non GM alfalfa is getting used for more and more and, you know, as, as acres transition to organic in the Midwest, you, it requires a three year transition period, right? So that's it. You have to go three years without using pesticides on that ground. Alfalfa is a great transition crop to do that, right? So you basically

Vance Crowe [00:36:08] Oh, that's super interesting.

Colin Steen [00:36:10] Set it and forget it. Right? So I i, it's not quite that simple, but you know, again, if there is a crop I'm gonna use to transition my way to organic alfalfa is almost the perfect crop for that matter.

Vance Crowe [00:36:21] Well, so for people that aren't in the ag world, that, so the interesting thing that you're saying here is in order for you to be able to get the premium that you are growing organic, you have to basically do three years of doing organic style growing without being able to sell it into the organic market. Exactly. Exactly. So there's like a,

Colin Steen [00:36:39] Some

Vance Crowe [00:36:40] Cost that is really like a moat that gets created. Exactly. So that way you couldn't be like, Hey, I'm gonna hammer out, you know, corn and soybeans and then this year we're gonna do organic soy. You can't do it. But I didn't realize, can't do it. It never crossed my mind about the using alfalfa to bridge that divide. That's very

Colin Steen [00:36:57] Interesting. Yeah. So that's, that's a common tactic used, you know, throughout the Midwest. You know, the reality is there's what, 200,000 acres of organic corn, 300,000 acres of organic beans growing in the US right? There is what, 90 million acres of corn and 92 of soybeans this year, or something like that. Right. So it is, we are a long ways away from, you know, this being a tidal wave across US ag. But look, if I'm a farmer in northwest Iowa and I wanna make the switch to organic, I think I can make more money on my farm farming organically or, or my principles are such that I want to move to organic alfalfa is the best way to get there. Because not only can I continue to, to get some revenue off that crop as I harvest it, you know, and do the four or five cuttings a year, but I'm, I'm transitioning my land organic at the same time. So it helps reduce that sunk cost off front end. If you're gonna just try to get there by farming three years in a row as, you know, corn without spraying it, you're gonna, to your point, you're gonna fail miserably. 'cause I can't sell it as organic. So I don't get the, the premium, but I get the yield penalty. So it's, you know, you're, you're getting hammered each on both sides.

Vance Crowe [00:38:11] Well, it's, I mean, it was definitely a market opportunity for somebody to come in and do more gm, non GM and organic alfalfa. Because I remember when Danone came out and what was that? Stony Field Farms when they were Yep. And they were all saying, Hey, we're going to change our entire milk production. And I happened to meet one of the former presidents of the, you know, the Alfalfa Association, and basically they were telling me it is not possible right now to feed with, if you took every single blade of alfalfa in the entire United States and Canada and fed it to all of the dairy cows, there's not enough to do this. No,

Colin Steen [00:38:48] No.

Vance Crowe [00:38:48] So they're doing laundering somehow. And, and herb hypothesis was that there was a little bit of a process when you could grow it in the Ukraine and it, it routes through Turkey and then magically it turns into organic from, from those two things, or non gm. And it's not like there's somebody sitting at the porch checking every single one. And so it, it was like, we're trying to, people are trying to do this to be greener, and yet we're shipping alfalfa from the Ukraine through Turkey to the United States. So clearly if you're trying to make this, if what cu if what customers are willing to pay for is a greener concept, having it shipped from the Ukraine is not making that better. So I'm glad somebody's taking this market opportunity.

Colin Steen [00:39:29] Yeah. And it, it's, you know, the same thing as in corn and organic corn and soybeans too. Vance is happening in all these markets, organic wheat. Look, we're, we don't grow enough acres. Like I said, 200,000 acres of organic corn is not allowing everybody at Chipotle to have their, their

Vance Crowe [00:39:46] Corn tortillas

Colin Steen [00:39:47] Organic. It just, it's not even like, it's not even close to fat. Right. And so this stuff's coming from somewhere and it is coming from Ukraine and Turkey and it's getting labeled as such and, and coming into our ports as organic corn and it's not. Right. And, you know, I think there's some companies out there that are working hard to change this, you know, firms like Arius are trying to, to bring some transparency to the size of the opportunity for US farmers, but also the amount that's coming in offshore. 'cause it just, you know, the, it, this is just simple math, right? And Excel spreadsheet can tell you like the, the supply demand balance is way outta whack. So it, you know, the theory is that in five years, I, you know, five years is not long, but there might be three or 5 million acres of organic crops in the US to start. If, if they clamp down on the, the import side of things, then you know, the vacuum's gotta be filled somewhere. You know, you'd think law supply and demand would come into play where all of a sudden somebody's like, Hey, I'll give you 30 bucks a bushel for organic corn. And then, you know, a whole bunch of farmers in Minnesota decide, well, maybe it's time to grow organic corn.

Vance Crowe [00:40:56] Some of my favorite examples of how people have gotten around this in the organic world. So if you're growing tomatoes, for example, if you say, Hey, I really only wanna grow this, this one particular hybrid tomato, if you go and can find certified letters from the different seed companies that they don't offer that in organic, then magically if you have those three letters, you seeds become organic seeds. Or you can ship seeds that are standard seeds in the United States. They're not, there's, they're not GMO seeds. Yeah. But you

Colin Steen [00:41:28] Can

Vance Crowe [00:41:28] Ship them down to Mexico as traditional seeds. They are grown and then magically as they cross the border, they become organic tomatoes. And I think that, like, to your point, this is a detriment to, if you actually wanna set up an organic system in the United States, allowing all these loopholes just creates incentives, massive incentives not to actually build out the system, but to keep widening out the loopholes. And so like yeah. The people that are funding it, that want something like organic or non GMO are not getting what they want. In fact, they're just propagating a system that is the opposite of what they want.

Colin Steen [00:42:05] Yeah, no, you're exactly right. And it's, it is, you know, there, there's lots of loopholes right now. You know, so some, even the orga, the few organic farmers that we have aren't even buying organic seed right now. Most of 'em aren't buying organic seed. What they do is they say, I want, you know, the soybean variety DF 1 55 in organic, and then they phone us and we're like, well, we don't have that one in organic. And then they are able to check the little box on the certifier's form saying, I checked if it was available organic, it's not. So I did all I could. So, and then it still gets certified as organic. Now they're, they're clamping down on this more and more out there. Like they're starting to say, well wait a minute. Like you could have got a different one or, you know, found this someplace else. You know? So we'll see how this develops. But it is, there's lots of little loophole as anything, right. You know, it's human nature. We're gonna find a shortcut if we can.

Vance Crowe [00:43:03] Do you see the organic market growing? I mean there, it's, 'cause it felt before with totally anecdotal that there was like a big push for this. This is something people talked about. They wanted, clearly if you're in this market, you must assume that it's moving this way, but it doesn't feel the same way that it did, I don't know, four or five years ago.

Colin Steen [00:43:23] Yeah. I, it's, that's, it's interesting. I anecdotally, I thought, I kind of felt like during COVID there was a few month period where I kind sort of felt like there was more emphasis on organic. And maybe that was 'cause I was walking into a grocery store more often than I'd ever had in my life. You know, and, and just, you know, it sort of, you know, you buy a car and also you notice, well shoot, everyone else is driving that same damn car. I just bought, like, I didn't know that. You know, and, and so all of a sudden, you know, moving to legacy seed companies and having some of these offerings and then plus the pandemic going on and all that stuff. And I, I was noticing it more and more, but that could be just anecdotal on my end that it, it was, maybe it was a little more heightened to it. But I, I don't see definitely not the push overall. Like there was four or five years ago. I think that's sort of died down a little bit. But consumer, you know, the, the category is still, I think 20% year over year CAGR versus, you know, I, I guess probably most dry good groceries did really well this last year. But, you know, the category is outstripping growth of other areas. So it, it is turning into more organic, but it's still not like, it, it just has not translated into one more acre of organic corn or soybeans than there was two years ago though. Which is bizarre that it had, you know, so again, back to our original discussion that this stuff's coming in from Turkey and other areas. That is, you know, the, the USDA organic stickers being slapped on the side and it's, it's sort of bs, right?

Colin Steen [00:44:56] Not sort of It is. And I think consumers just don't understand all those complexities, right?

Vance Crowe [00:45:01] So both of us came from the, the big ag companies, the consolidation that's happened. What, how do you think this impacts us agriculture, global agriculture, the fact that we went from six companies now down to four?

Colin Steen [00:45:15] Yeah. You know, look, it's when we were at those big forward companies, right? We always told people, oh, this is great. We got consolidation and economies of scale. Now we'll be able to do stuff bigger, faster, stronger than ever before. You know, it's there, there is, I I think farmers are voting to say we don't like it as much as you all who work there like it, right? You know, they, they are, you know, in, in the us you know, just in, in, in the Midwest, right? Independent seed companies like Becks and Burris and Wiffle and legacy seed companies and others are, are growing and taking share away from the big guys, right? So there's that part of that market share is growing. So that would be, you know, proof point number one. I think if you go overseas into other areas of the world, you know, the, these small little startups, the biological companies are nipping away little pieces here and there, right? You know, it's, it's sort of death by a thousand cuts probably right now for the big four. Like, yet I don't think there's a, like, there's somebody that they're going to bed at night overly worried about, but there's a lot of people nipping at their heels and, you know, the, the amount of biological products out there is just flourishing. There's a lot of independent seed companies flourishing. There's a lot of, you know, I think chemistry companies like FMC and others that are starting to say, Hey, there's a real opportunity for us now or valent that we could use, you know, we can bolster our research program a little bit plus some really good partnerships, you know, all the way back to the start of the discussion on, on the AgTech VC side of things, right?

Colin Steen [00:46:53] We can partner with an enco chem or we can partner with, you know, whoever to, you know, to say, let's, let's shorten our development time, lower our costs in that area, and then still have products coming to market, right? Or partner with a vest on who's a biological insecticide or something like that. So I think there's a lot of really, I I think the doors open for the valence and FMCs to come in and, and grab some share at a lower cost than probably what, you know, what it costs Syngenta and Bayer to get there. Right? You know, they don't, they're not putting up, you know, $3 billion r and d facilities in Switzerland or in St. Louis, right? They're, they are, they're gonna get there cheaper and faster than, than the, the majors did.

Vance Crowe [00:47:38] So changing the subject entirely, but it's something that I'm quite fascinated with right now. I don't know how familiar you are with the swine industry. Is this something you're familiar at all?

Colin Steen [00:47:47] Yep. Dangerously familiar. Like, not, like not, I don't go to bed at night with the swine futures map looking at just as soon as I sleep. But it, I am, I got a lot of friends in the swine business. So,

Vance Crowe [00:47:59] So I was down at the o Oklahoma Port Congress and, you know, just a couple of days ago they found African swine fever in the Dominican Republic.

Colin Steen [00:48:09] I read that. Yeah. And for

Vance Crowe [00:48:10] Anybody that's not watching this, so African swine fever is what took out half and maybe even a little bit more of China's entire pig herd. And part of that is it just kills the, the pig. And then the other part is it's spread so fast that you just go ahead and euthanize your pigs because you

Colin Steen [00:48:25] Don't

Vance Crowe [00:48:26] Want it to spread. And they said some interesting things during this Congress. One of the things they said that blew my mind was Puerto Rico, for as far as the World Veterinarian Association is concerned, is the United States. So if African swine fever shows up either in the, in the hogs that they're producing or in their feral hog population that shuts down, that is as though it were in Oklahoma itself, and it will shut down the entire US hog markets overnight. And they were saying, you know, what happens when you shut it down? Well, not only do you not ship pigs, but you also immediately halt the spread of feed. You won't be able to move feed from one place to another. And when you consider that most of the pork that we eat in the grocery store came there because of the hog was slaughtered 48 hours beforehand, and now it's in the grocery store. It's not like we have giant reserves of pork. Like it is a very real possibility within a year we could actually see like the, the disappearance of pork in, in US grocery stores.

Colin Steen [00:49:33] Yeah. It's, it, I I I'm with you. I find this incredibly fascinating. I, you know, look, it's, I think it's a real, it has, you know, we have to have massive concerns. Now, the one neat thing about pork or or hog barns right, is the biosecurity. Like you and I just can't walk off the street and go see our buddy that's a hog farmer and say, Hey, let's go inside the barn and take a look at your pigs. Like, we're gonna have, you know, two different showers of, you know, biocides that are gonna take all the, any sort of bugs that we're carrying and wash that office, we're gonna be in a hazmat suit down near right. And it's not to protect ourselves from the pigs, it's protect the pigs from us and what we're tracking around. But so that that's, you know, I think that's something that we do better here in the US or in Canada than anywhere else in the world. So that should be, you know, somewhat of a barrier. You know, maybe the fence gets built like two feet off the ground in terms of, instead of just being level on the ground. But it, it's stuff like that, you know, scares, I think it should be nerve wracking for hog producers plus as consumers and, and the cost for food. I saw it in Canada, you know, when, when I was growing up, you know, we had mad cow right? In Canada and, and so, you know, I think it was in northern Alberta, a cattle farmer shipped, you know, one cow that had mad cow disease, right? And, and of course everyone's like, well, what in the hell are you doing shipping a cow that is wobbling around your farm and can, you know, why are you putting that on a truck and sending it to the local meat market, you know, meat packer.

Colin Steen [00:51:10] Anyway, well that all it took was that one cow. And then overnight, you know, Canada's export market was gone and it took several years for us to have Canada have no trace of mad cow disease, right. In order to be able to get cleared to export to countries in Asia again, and, and to the us right? And, and it exposed the flaw of Canada's system was generally we would grow the cattle up, you know, to, to weaning and then they get shipped to the US to get finished, right? So we didn't have a really good vertically integrated system where there, there's, there's feedlots in southern Alberta and, and Alberta and Canada, but there's not many, like by most of our cattle are getting shipped to the US to get finished off. And then, then they, you know, they slaughter 'em, pack it, and then send it straight back to Canada. And, you know, we, we found ourselves in a position where all of a sudden it's like, well, we don't even have the capacity for the slaughterhouses, the packing plants or any of this infrastructure to handle this, this cow herd that's just sitting here with nowhere to go. And so immediately overnight, you know, the price of our cow calf bears on our farm went down, you know, by half, you know, who's buying cattle when, when you can't export it anywhere? You know, so it's, I think, you know, obviously as, as US farmers look at, at at a SF kind of around the corner, potentially, this is, you know, how does that affect, you know, if you're a hog farmer in Iowa, are you gonna go spend $2 million on, you know, capital improvements and CapEx in the next year?

Colin Steen [00:52:44] Are you gonna kind of wait and see what the heck happens? I, I don't know. I don't have the answers to these questions, but,

Vance Crowe [00:52:49] And it's wild. And, and another major difference between the cattle markets and the pig markets, it's, is that there are no wild cows running around the US that you have to worry about. And like, that's the big concern, you know, when they first brought it up and they're like,

Colin Steen [00:53:04] Well,

Vance Crowe [00:53:05] You know, it could jump from the Dominican Republic over to Haiti, no problem. And then it can jump from, you know, that island over to Puerto Rico. And I was like, how this is crazy. That's, you know, somebody would have to pick up a pig and move it there. And they're like, yeah, but the, the challenge is you could have feed that you've moved that a wild hog gets into and now it's spreading into that population. And in Oklahoma alone, they killed 40,000 feral pigs last year. 40,000. Yeah. And that didn't even touch it. They don't even think that was a percent of the larger thing. So if it gets into your wild population, and it's not like the, the pigs are gonna respect the, the US Mexico border or, or those kinds of things. So it, it's a,

Colin Steen [00:53:46] Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:53:47] It's a big issue. And I'm, I am actually surprised that this is not an ag issue that's hit mainstream, although if people really knew how much there was to be afraid of, maybe they're glad that they're not not afraid. Yeah.

Colin Steen [00:53:58] It's, it's interesting. You know, it, it's on what you know right now, the, you know, the, the administration I think is doing a good job of saying, let's focus on sustainability and climate change and, you know, and, and anti-competition type rules and things like that. N but you know, it won't be long where, you know, like you said, if this happens, that's all they're gonna have to, they're all that other stuff gets pushed off to the side and then it's job number one is making sure this is handled because it's now almost a national security sort of, you know, policy.

Vance Crowe [00:54:33] So let's talk a little bit about your, your take on climate change. 'cause this is a complicated issue to talk about in agriculture, because I believe a lot of farmers feel like, alright, if I agree with you that the climate is changing, does this mean that I am suddenly now going to be restricted and laws come on? So what I've found is that the conversation itself becomes e extremely binary and actually not very interesting. Yeah. What's your take on what, what it climate change is all about and what should people just kind of reach agreement on?

Colin Steen [00:55:05] Yeah. No, I I, boy that's yeah. The can of worms, and you're exactly right. Like, I've got friends back home in Canada that you, you bring up climate change and it's so directly related to the carbon tax that they're being taxed for every gallon of diesel that goes through the farm or every ton of fertilizer they buy. So, you know, it, the conversation ratchets up into, so like, so many things out there nowadays left, right, and then you get nowhere and it just, you, you sta me. Look, I, i was really, one of the things I was really proud of when I was at Syngenta was that Eric ald, the CEO was one of the first people to come out one of the, the, I think he was the first major ag CEO of the big four or five plus, you know, the, the great like to say, Hey, climate change is real. Ag has, you know, we have some of our fingerprints on the body here. We gotta do our part to make sure that we're, we're, we're doing, you know, we're punching above our body weight to make sure this isn't a problem for the future. And so then now when I kind of move into my new world at legacy seed companies, and, and again, I, I look at a crop like alfalfa, you know, we're, we're doing some early work with Nori that's, you know, about sequestration of carbon using perennial crops or, you know, forage grass, alfalfa mixtures. I look farmers that are no-till that are, have some combination of forage or Alf alpha forage crops or alfalfa like rye grass or Broome grass, alfalfa mixtures. They're u if you're using manure as your source of nitrogen on fields, like these things are, we, I think farming is doing a lot of the right things already.

Colin Steen [00:56:45] We're just not, it's back to this telling the story, right? We haven't been able to get people to realize like, we're doing some really good stuff here and it, but if we just, it, my worry is that we're gonna, as often as the case, you throw an incentive out there and it creates the wrong behavior, right? So we're gonna throw carbon credits, you know, the government maybe is gonna come out and say, we think at 30 bucks a ton of carbon credits that that's gonna get farmers to farm, you know, more no-till and sequester more carbon. And that'll start to, to help the climate change issue out. And they're not wrong. But what it, what sometimes happens in those things is a perverse sort of outcome where I'm a farmer that's been doing no-till for 20 years, but I don't get credit for that. It's like, that never even existed. So what do I do? I go plow up my dirt and then I start restart the clock in my no. And so I've just erased all, you know, I've released all the carbon back in the air and it's just, you know, I, I'm not saying that will be widely an outcome, but it has this potential of, you know, oh, it's, it's this positive

Vance Crowe [00:57:48] Effect. It's every single, every single economics, like anybody that's ever done this. Like, if you decide, hey, this state, we need to get rid of pythons, we'll give you a bounty on pythons, suddenly you've got Pi, Python farms. Yeah.

Colin Steen [00:58:02] Up

Vance Crowe [00:58:02] And down the, the, the Everglades where people are raising 'em and bringing in their pelts. Like it's,

Colin Steen [00:58:07] When I, when I was young, I went to Australia, I, I, I went to Australia for four months when I was 20 years old. And it, you know, it was the same thing there rabbits, right? There's, there's rabbits, then we gotta bring in snakes and, you know, hell, everything in Australia was somebody, the Europeans something the Europeans brought there because they thought it'd be helpful. Well, it just kept getting worse and worse. And then now to your, now I gotta get, you know, mongooses to go kill the rabbits and, you know, whatever. Right? It just never ends, but it, yeah. So I, I think there's, my, my worry is we, you know, through the, the, the Road to Hell has always paved with great intentions, right? We're gonna come out with a nice carbon credit to incent farmers do the right thing, but at the same time create the bad behavior and the scenes, you know, to, to try to end around these games. Right? But look, I think, I think we've got a role to play.

Vance Crowe [00:58:59] Yeah. I, I wish the conversation was, was more interesting. There's a guy named Matt Ridley, who's a member of the House of Lords. He's written these fantastic books like Genome and The Rational Optimist, and he talks about, you know, I, he believes that the, the world overall is getting warmer, but that the conversation is very nuanced in that none of the models took into account that if you, you add a bunch of carbon to the environment, then that carbon is gonna gather around the equator and suddenly those trees in all around the equator start getting way greener, having way bigger branches and all of these things. That's really interesting, you know, how, how that impacts farming in, in, you know, the Midwest, I don't really know, but I find that the conversations that we're having about climate change when I was going to different conferences where college students would be, it was just so bland and boring. And I, I really hope that, I hope that the conversations can become more interesting because the concept of climate and and chaos models are really interesting. And yet we're

Colin Steen [01:00:01] Really

Vance Crowe [01:00:01] Just coming down to very bare, bare bones arguments.

Colin Steen [01:00:06] Yeah. It climate change, right? Like, look, you, you start to think about, you know, it is bizarre to me. Like I, I, I, as I was saying at the start, I grew up in Weldon, Saskatchewan, near Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. It's a thousand miles north and west of Minneapolis, right? And it, it is, I would never even thought I would've seen, I never saw a corn plant. I left home to go to college when I was 18. You know, I, we, there was nobody growing corn. You would not even, and there's, you know, now I go back home in the summertime or, you know, pre pandemic and, and you know, you'd be like, there's, there's, you know, half a section of corn growing over there just, you know, near where I grew up. And I'm like, how in the hell does this happen? Right? Well, there's all of a sudden we got more, you know, we've always had a lot of sunlight, but the days are getting a little warmer, you know, now they can grow an 80 day corn crop or a 75 day corn crop where you could, it wasn't even thought of in the eighties that it was even something worth trying. So there's, you know, there's something happening, right? I, I don't think anybody can get done, deny that, but to your point, it's nuanced enough that it's not that interesting. It's not that exciting. But also if Canada, you know, Saskatchewan and Alberta, Manitoba become the Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska 30 years from now, I don't know that they're not set up at all to do that. It's

Vance Crowe [01:01:26] Bizarre to, I mean, first of all, you'd have a much better feeder system of your cattle, that'd be good. But I think a lot of that has to do with genetics, right? Like we figured out how to grow shorter day corn and, and how to maximize that. That I, but I mean, to your point, like, I think anyone would be foolish to say the environment isn't changing. Like the, you know, I, I was talking with a guy at the, from Minnesota, and he said, this is, he was probably 85 years old. He said, this is the worst drought I've ever seen. I was looking at my dad's journal. Yeah, it's the worst drought he had ever had. And he was like, trying to figure out, one of the things we talked about was, how can I write this down so that if my grandchildren want to know if, if droughts are getting worse, how can I be descriptive enough without being hyperbolic so that they could make that comparison? And I thought, man, that's actually leaving a legacy that's actually not leaving it. So the, the, you know, the weatherman or like the, the books tell you, but like, can, can you pass on land? But do you be so descriptive about it that your children can tell how things have changed? That was an interesting concept.

Colin Steen [01:02:29] Yeah. That's really cool, huh. That's awesome.

Vance Crowe [01:02:32] Well, Colin, this has been an interesting conversation. I had no idea where this would go, but Dusty, rich was right. You were a, a very interesting conversationalist, so I'm so glad you were waiting.

Colin Steen [01:02:41] Come on. Thanks. Yeah. Dusty's a good man. No, I, I appreciate it. I'm a big fan of what you do. I, I, I loved what Monsanto did when they hired you. I thought that was, I was jealous that they put that sort of role together and had the foresight to see that opportunity, what you got to do there. And it looks like you're carrying it on today, so, awesome.

Vance Crowe [01:03:00] Well, nice to chat. We'll be, we'll have you on again.

Colin Steen [01:03:02] Looking forward to it.