Corona Virus: Border Closing U.S. & Canada: Northern Montana Agriculture Expert Lyle Benjamin

About this episode

The debut of Vance's "Coronavirus Perspective" mini-series, launched days into the first US lockdowns, where he pivots from long-form interviews to short, frequent conversations with people facing the pandemic from different vantage points. The first guest is Lyle Benjamin, a close friend, Montana Grain Growers Association past president, and agricultural chemical input provider living two miles from the Canadian border in remote north-central Montana. They cover the sudden closure of the US-Canada border (previously a 45-second-to-2-minute crossing, now carrying a 28-day combined quarantine risk), how coronavirus protocols reached even the Farm Service Agency and Lyle's local bank, disrupted agricultural supply chains (Chinese-sourced chemical and fertility inputs delayed, BNSF rail crews at risk, Pacific Rim export uncertainty), rural food security and pantry management (three months to six weeks of stored food, freezing milk), and the surprising arrival of the virus even in Lyle's "frontier"-classified, sparsely populated county. The episode closes with Vance's new nightly ritual questions — "what will the world look like in two weeks?" and a hopeful observation — with Lyle noting that despite social-distancing protocols, human connection between people (his and his banker's instinctive handshake) seems to be strengthening rather than breaking down.

“I am going to purposefully find people that you will disagree with. And I don't mean that I'm actually seeking out ideas that you're gonna disagree with. I mean, I am going to seek out perspectives that are so different that it will not be possible for one person to say yes. I agree with everything that's been said on all these podcasts.”

“We run the very real risk right now with social media that we will see the same ideas over and over and over again. So many times that we will believe not only that it's true because we've seen it so many times, but that everyone else already knows and agrees with this. And it is therefore right and correct. It's that kind of echo chamber that any one of us is deeply prone to falling into that we must resist right now.”

Key moments

• Vance explains the format shift — short interviews with everyday people affected by coronavirus, rather than his usual long-form conversations.
• Vance's explicit thesis for the series — deliberately seeking disagreeable perspectives to prevent listeners (and himself) from falling into an echo chamber, framed as mob prevention.
• Discussion of the sudden US-Canada border closure at Sweetgrass/Coutts, contrasted with the previously routine 45-second-to-2-minute crossing.
• The mechanics of a 28-day round-trip quarantine risk that stopped Lyle from personally retrieving a tractor and trailer across the border.
• Agricultural supply chain strain — Chinese-sourced chemical/fertility inputs delayed or lost, and the risk that sick BNSF rail crews could halt Montana's grain shuttle trains to Portland.
• Lyle reveals his "remote" county was recently reclassified from "rural" to "frontier" by population density, yet still recorded its first case leaving the county.
• Practical rural food-security advice — pantry inventory management, and the tip that pasteurized milk can be frozen in gallon jugs and safely thawed.
• The nightly "what will the world look like in two weeks" question — Lyle predicts stasis or modest tightening, admitting his earlier prediction of "maybe 250" nationwide deaths was already off.
• The hopeful closing beat — Lyle and his banker instinctively shake hands despite agreeing to avoid it, which both read as evidence that human connection is strengthening, not eroding, under crisis.

Notable quotes

“Yesterday the US and Canada just closed the longest, largest peacetime border maybe in the history of civilization.”

“It's not a bad idea to have a well-stocked pantry... whether that's pasta, spaghetti, rice, beans, potatoes... milk freezes. You throw it in the freezer, it freezes up solid, thaws back out fine.”

“We both simultaneously reach out and extend our hands to shake hands... the power and the connection between people I think has strengthened in this virus.”

“I think two weeks from now we look a lot like we do today. Maybe that stretches to a month.”