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

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] As the crow flies on the Vance Crow podcast, welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Well, much like everyone else in the entire world, my life has been radically altered by Coronavirus and I have spent the last week or so getting ready, trying to prepare, trying to adjust to the new normal. And I have finally gotten myself into a position where I can start focusing on how I can contribute larger than just preparing my own family and my little localized community. And the thing that I have decided that I wanna do is continue doing interviews, although rather than doing them in person and do them as long form hour and a half to two hours, I am instead going to change it up and do very fast short interviews with people all over the world that are dealing with coronavirus from their own perspective and their own challenges. I am gonna try and bring these stories that are not gonna make it onto the mainstream news with people that have a story or a need or a perspective, something that's worth sharing that can help you have a more full picture of what's going on in the wider world. Today I'm gonna interview a man named Lyle Benjamin, and longtime listeners to the podcast know that he is my co-host for the as the Crow Flies Book Club, but he is also a very close friend of mine, somebody that has helped me think through how to get ready for this crisis and what's going on in his very remote part of Montana.

Vance Crowe [00:01:33] In the future, I'm not gonna do these big long introductions, but on this first one, I did wanna make the case that 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. People are gonna have different opinions on the root causes of the virus, whether or not we are making the right preparations, whether or not the reaction that people are having is appropriate or not. We're also gonna talk about what they think needs to be done out in the wider world and how this is impacting them personally and what they think the government ought to do and what other people ought to do. So there are going to be perspectives on here that you're gonna disagree with. And really, if you listen to even just a few podcasts and you do not find something you disagree with, I need you to tell me. I need you to push me to try and find these ideas. Because at its core, understanding other people's perspectives is what will keep all of us from joining a mob. 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.

Vance Crowe [00:03:14] Society is rewriting all the rules. And as Jared McDaniel says, the best thing you can do is have a pen and be a part of writing those new rules. And the way that you can do that and make a world that you wanna see, one that is even better, that comes out of the ashes of whatever we have going on here, is if you understand where other people are coming from, what their challenges are, what they're facing, and why they think what they think. So I hope you take this podcast as seriously as I'm gonna take putting these things out as regularly as possible. And I hope you give me feedback that helps me understand how to make this better in the future. I'm just gonna jump on, give a quick introduction to the person and do the podcast, but I wanted this first one to have a little bit of introduction about why I'm doing what I'm doing. I hope you all are out there staying safe. I hope you're thinking ahead. I hope you're thinking about your family and your small community and even the wider world. And I hope that throughout all of this tragedy, throughout all of the sadness, the unknowing, the anxiety, I hope you realize the only thing in the world that you have ever been able to control is you. What are you doing for your exercise? What are you doing for your mental energy? What are you doing to get yourself new ideas? And what are you doing to support other people that are breaking down? That's what I'm trying to do. And I am sure if you're listening to this podcast, you're the type of person that is taking control of your own destiny. So I'm gonna head into this interview. I hope you guys are all well and staying safe.

Vance Crowe [00:04:45] Thank you so much for listening. I am very glad you are here. Lyle Benjamin, welcome to a Coronavirus podcast.

Coronavirus Perspective [00:04:59] Thanks, Vance. I'm all set.

Vance Crowe [00:05:02] Where is that mask from?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:05:04] That's an old Czechoslovakian mask. I got it probably, I don't know, 20 or more years ago. I got a pair of 'em, they were like seven or eight bucks on some website back then. And I, I was doing some personal training that involved that sort of thing and I picked that up. I've got much better ones now.

Vance Crowe [00:05:21] So Lyle, you are the former president of the Montana Grain Growers Association and Farmer for many, many years, and now you work for an Ag Chemical company up in Northern Montana. When did you first have coronavirus like hit you that this is actually a pretty big deal,

Coronavirus Perspective [00:05:43] I would say in the last couple weeks? It is really when it's, again, this week has really been, when it's hit as a, as a major deal. I I, I've been aware of it for a few months and I thought, ah, it's a Chinese problem. It's a, you know, it's, it, it's over there, kind of that, that mental distancing thing. 'cause China's done deal dealt with sars, they've dealt with H one N one, they've had all these things that they've dealt with that really haven't impacted us. And so e even last year it wasn't that, or last week, excuse me, it wasn't that big a deal. And then Sunday night we got the text that the schools were closed in Montana and the next morning, you know, the boys get up and they just ate breakfast and went out and grabbed a couple books and were reading and which is, you know, a little bit different. And then as I'm in town doing my my egg business thing, I'm realizing the restaurants are closed and they have signs in the door that says takeout only. And, and that, that's been, that happened, I think Wednesday is when that happened here locally. And we're, we're starting to see this avalanche of Canadian snowbirds go north to try to get back into Canada. So their health, their healthcare stays intact, they lose their Canadian coverage if they stay in the US and, and get the virus. So those kinds of things are really starting to, to lean forward. I was at the FSA one day and they were, they had a, an eight question. They had the doors locked and an eight question page to fill out before you were allowed to come in and do business with the FSA at the government level. What

Vance Crowe [00:07:09] Is the FSA?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:07:10] So that's the farm service agency. They deal with implementation of all the, the farm programs, the ad hoc disaster programs, conservation programs, and all of the things that are kind of the farmer interaction between farmer and government. FSA handles that. So we probably spend a week a year in that office doing different kinds of paperwork as a farmer. And it's, so that's a big deal to have that, that difference of restriction. Normally you walk in, you, you walk over to the desk that is the one you need to talk to, and you, you sit down and have the conversation and now all of a sudden it's by appointment only, they unlock the door, you fill out the questionnaire, you print your name, you sign it, and, and then you're allowed in. So it's this, it's just this whole different level of interaction and that

Vance Crowe [00:07:58] What's on the questionnaire, I keep hearing people talk about, like at the New York Stock Exchange, they had to do a questionnaire and now you're telling me a questionnaire. What are they asking you?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:08:06] It's pretty simple stuff. In, in this case, as I recall, it was, have you been out of the country in the last 14 days? It it excluding Canada. Have you interacted with anyone from out of the country in the last 14 days? Are you feeling well today? Do you have a cough? Do, are you feeling any breathing difficulty? And do you, do you feel well enough to be in our office today? So those sorts of questions, so not not complex in-depth questions at all, but they are, they, they do get to the heart of the matter, I think.

Vance Crowe [00:08:39] And when you think about filling those things out, you think it's a good thing. You think it's overkill, you think it's a way to make people feel better? Like how, how, I mean, what do you think on that?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:08:49] Oh, a week ago I would've kind of giggled at it and said, you know, this, this is a CYA thing that somebody's covering their tail and now this week it, it feels a little different, especially as we've seen this huge avalanche of everybody's doing it. You know, if, if, if it's one thing, if it's just a government office, you think, ah, they're, they're, they're just doing what, what came down from DC or whatever. But now that we're seeing all these local companies do the same thing. My my farm insurance company sent out a text yesterday that was to the very similar effect. They've closed their lobby, all businesses email or phone only they, they have a questionnaire if you do have to have a face-to-face conversation. And again, it's the very same dynamic. You know, we historically, we have a very open relationship with that company. And you walk in, you grab a cup of coffee and you go back and you, you sit down and visit with Corey about whatever it is that's on your mind. And, you know, it's, it's so, it's, it's a, it's a really different dynamic that we're in now. It's, I've never seen anything like it.

Vance Crowe [00:09:51] So why don't you describe where you live, because you're actually in a very interesting geographic position considering that yesterday the US and Canada just closed the longest, largest peacetime border maybe in the history of civilization.

Coronavirus Perspective [00:10:07] I live in north central Montana. My house is two miles from the Canadian line. Sweetgrass is our, is 14 miles away, that's our port of entry into Canada. The, the Canadian side of the border is Coots, our side is Sweetgrass, we call it coot grass, just kind of as a local name. And that's, that's the nexus on I 15 of all of the travel or the majority of the travel out of Montana into Canada. So that's, that's the corridor from Edmonton to Houston. And we see a, an enormous number of trucks that are carrying oil freight back and forth between Edmonton and Houston, between the two oil centers. And you know, obviously I 15 runs all the way down to San Diego so that, that it's a major nexus into Canada that border's slammed shut. Now I

Vance Crowe [00:10:54] What do you think that, that, when you say it's slammed shut, it means that used to be people were basically driving through the check-in with customs. How long did it used to take to get across that border?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:11:04] That was a 45 second to two minute interview. Typically you'd pull up, throw your passport out the window to the, the guy, depending on his sense of humor, he did your greet you in American English or in French. And occasionally depending on the officer, you'd get Blackfeet greeting, which was kinda interesting. That's our, our local Native American tribe that, that exists on both sides of that border. So, you know, two minutes, hand your passport over, he'd say, do you have any booze, alcohol, pepper spray, firearms? And you'd tell him, no, no, nope. And not that kind of a trip. And you know, he, he'd say, how long are you gonna be in Canada? You'd tell him, I'm just running up for farm parts, I'll be back this afternoon. He'd say, great, have a good day. You had your stuff back and away you go. So really it was, other than slowing you down on the interstate, it was not a big deal. And now all of a sudden it's when, when we tried to go over yesterday to get a, a tractor and a a trailer, I have across the line it's a 14 day quarantine on the Canadian side. If we crossed and then another 14 day quarantine on the US side and we come back into the us that's 28 days worth of time that I don't have.

Vance Crowe [00:12:10] Oh my god. I mean, you told me. So full disclosure, Lyle and I talk all the time. I think Lyle, you, you have been a great help to me in preparing for how to think about this crisis. But you had told me, Hey, I think I'm a quick run up and, and get this tractor trailer. I got out on the other side of the border just to make sure it's over here. I didn't realize one, I I, when the Canadian border got closed, I sent it to you and you were like, yeah, I know, but what did you go actually go to the border to find out, Hey, can I get over there and get that thing and come back?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:12:39] No, I, I've dealt with the border enough with, with quirky things before that I, it's, it's easier to call in and find out what's going on ahead of time. So my neighbor and I did call in and, and just see what we were dealing with. So I I, I didn't wanna waste the time to get up there and find out that you're jammed up. The other piece that's in play here right now, the snowboards are coming back. So everybody is coming from Mesa and Sun City and Palm Springs headed back for Canada to get back in the country. And so right now the line to get in the border with or without the coronavirus scare it, it ranges from a half mile to a mile long at that port. And because it's all motor homes and people that have been there for two to four months, and so they've got a lot to declare it. So it's, it bottlenecks the whole border. I didn't wanna get stuck in that with a, you know, with my big truck and sit there and then get up to the port and find out I can't go in. So I just called ahead.

Vance Crowe [00:13:31] What's gonna happen with truckers, they're not gonna make the people carrying lumber and I I, you know, by milk or whatever goods are traveling through that border. Are they gonna quarantine them 14 days on each side?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:13:45] I I don't know how they're dealing with that. My understanding is that commerce is, is not affected largely. I don't know how that looks. I'm, I'm, I'm guessing that's an admonition to the trucker to stay in your cab and don't act, interact with people as you go north. That, that's the only way I can see that functioning. 'cause it's there, there's a, that's a 24 hour port. There's, at any given time, there'll be five to six trucks backed up at the, on the commercial side. And that can be 25 to 40 trucks, you know, during peak times, even in the middle of the night, you'll see a truck parked there at the, at the commercial entry. So to, to shut that down completely just can't happen. I mean, it would, it would, that's the supply line to Canada. Canada, the imports of enormous amount of US product across all categories, both truck and rail. The cp, the Canadian Pacific Rail and BNSF have an interchange there. So the trains that are going north, they can trade off power and, and bring the trains back and forth. It, it's a major port here.

Vance Crowe [00:14:55] So, you know, talking about supply chains and really agriculture right now, it's an interesting time because the, the government has been saying, Hey, we have no problems with food right now. The, the lack of stores food in the stores is because people are going and buying three, four times what they normally would have. And so they gotta keep up with that demand. But you're in the ag industry that has to plan several months to a year or more out. What are those supply chains looking like right now for people that are about to start planting? How far are they away from planting in Montana right now?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:15:29] Right now we've got six inches of snow on the ground. So we're, we're a little ways out. Normally we'd say farmers will be going hard by the 15th of April. So we're, you know, give or take a month out, we, from an ag industry perspective, we're seeing shipments coming in. A lot of our tech material comes from China on, on the, the chemical side and on the fertility side. So we're seeing some things that are, that are sitting either in a ship that they got quarantined before they left China or before they left the Asian sphere. And, and then they'll see a, a similar quarantine when they hit the US shore. So we're, we're going out as, as ag input suppliers and saying, Hey, you know, we need to restructure what your chemical plan or your fertility plan looks like this year because this stuff's either gonna show up two months late or not at all this year. So that, that's gonna have a huge impact on, on farmers input plans this year and, and how we do business. It's, it's a major deal on the, on the backside of it, the crop that we harvest and send out, we're not seeing those impacts yet. But I, I'm certain there will be impacts and you know, some of it's as simple as in Montana, 80% of our products or ag products are exported to the Pacific rim. Do do we still have a customer there? Have they locked down their borders is one question B-N-S-F-I mentioned earlier, in fact, I, I shared an Instagram picture of a, of a train car that said time is finite yesterday.

Vance Crowe [00:17:02] It's Memento

Coronavirus Perspective [00:17:03] Maori. Memento Maori, yeah, that's our, that's our skyline into Portland. All of our grain transits Montana on BNSF. Were, were a a captive shipper, which is not a problem, but if you start losing your train crews to this virus and your trains just can't move, that's a huge deal. We, we see, you know, some, the elevators are moving a train a week, that's just Montana. There's, I think we have 17 or 18 of those shuttle facilities, so that's 17 or 18 shuttle cars or it's 110 cars per train unit, the, the a week that are leaving golden triangle. So 150 mile circle here in Montana where I'm at. That's, that's all gotta go to Portland on those things. So if our train crews start dropping to the sickness, that's a big deal. And the, the downstream logistics are huge.

Vance Crowe [00:17:54] You're, I mean you're out in a, as far as I can have known, I've always thought of you as being really remote. So is this something you're worried about with Corona? Are you like, Hey, it's probably not gonna spread up here, or we've got more time. How are you thinking about this?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:18:08] You know, that's how I thought about it and, and I think I even think about that it, about it that way today that we are remote, our, our county is so sparsely populated, we're considered to be a frontier area. We, we actually went, we actually went from rural to frontier. We, we, we were downgraded in in our Oh, you were kidding?

Vance Crowe [00:18:30] I thought you

Coronavirus Perspective [00:18:31] Were kidding. No, no, I, no, we, we are actually a frontier by, by some demographic numbers and different things. We're, we're a frontier area, very, very sparsely populated. My old farm, we were six miles from our nearest neighbor. So it, it is a sparsely populated area. You know, my, where my kids go to school is 400 people in that little town. So I thought, you know, we're probably not gonna see any effects here. A couple days ago we have our first case leave the county. So, and all of a sudden, wow, this this is a big deal. It has hit us here. And so that, that, that kind of GOs your mind a little bit, you know, when you, you felt like you're in this isolated bastion of high desert and then you, you get a, a patient that tests hot for coronavirus.

Vance Crowe [00:19:21] Yeah, I think that that was in our talking something that surprised me because I think people always have had in the back of their minds, Hey, if things go really wrong, I'm gonna go go into the mountains or I'm gonna go find that cabin way far away from everybody. But if Lyle Benjamin isn't isolated away from everybody, like, I don't know how much more isolated you'd have to get

Coronavirus Perspective [00:19:44] It, it's pretty, pretty quiet up here.

Vance Crowe [00:19:47] So how are you spending your evenings now that there's a quarantine and has your life changed any in any way?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:19:56] You know, that's an interesting question. I, as I, the initial response to this was, man, the boys are gonna have two weeks off. This will be kind of fun. We'll go do things. And, and yet the reality is as a, as both a arguably a farmer and, and now as an input provider for farmers, my days really haven't changed. I'm going out, I'm seeing clients, I'm doing my thing, I'm, I'm, you know, taking products to guys and, and, and figuring out what they need. So I, I'm still coming home at five or six having supper and, and we're hanging out. The boys don't have homework at this point. So now it's just sitting around reading books a little bit. The boys wanna play a board game or something, which still isn't really that big a change. 'cause you know, we, we've got a pretty tight family life and that's kind of how it always has been. So, you know, within our, our household at least, it really hasn't changed how we do things a lot. I was, you know, I was, I was on Twitter here the other day. I was posting some of the books I wanted to read during this two week hiatus that nothing was gonna happen. And honestly, I haven't had time to do that. I, it's just been, you know, life is normal kind of. So yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:21:04] I keep, I keep thinking I'm gonna be able to get to this long set of books. And I think for a couple of reasons I haven't. One is that there are so many more people talking, texting, tweeting, sending things that I realize that I have let my brain be completely addicted to that cocaine of just like, what's going on? Who's talking, who's got new information? And I, I sit down to read a book and I get two or three sentences in and I'm like, I bet there's some new news. And then the other thing is I've been, I've been trying to think of like, what do I need to do to be ready if this goes on a really long time? And, and so a lot of my time that I thought I was gonna spend reading books has really been spent reading like, what, what do you need to be thinking about? What are items that you'd really want to have if things were really prolonged? What are, what is, what is your thinking there? What is something that a regular person living in a city should think about for longer term planning? If, if we're in isolation for a month or two or three, what what do you think they should think about?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:22:07] You know, that's an interesting question for me to think about as a farmer. We're 45 miles from town. We, we, we shop with, you know, we shop in week long quantities or two week long quantities. If, if we don't go to town for a week, it's not the end of the world. We, we we're, we're probably sitting on a month to six weeks worth of stuff on at any given time. It just, our, our, our rural reality, we've got three freezers at home. They're, they're chock full actually supply management's a bigger deal. So from a city perspective, you know, I go to town and I see somebody picking up a, a chicken steak and, and a six pack of beer and that supper for that night. So their supply chain is 12 hours long, you know, in that household. So it's, I think it's important to, to look at your pantry and say, how long can this pantry last me? If, if the grocery stores run out, which they seem to be struggling right now to keep up with this demand. It's not a bad idea to have a a, a well stocked po pantry of, of things that are gonna store for six months or, or, or sometime, whether that's past spaghetti's, rice, beans, potatoes, we go through potatoes. If, if they don't sit around too long, they're good. If they sit down in a warm spot, all of a sudden you get this potato with 17 eyes coming out of it and it's, it's, it's ready to, you know, you've seen it, it's, it's ready to seed. So managing those inventories are important as well. We, we've seen a run on milk here, milk freezes.

Coronavirus Perspective [00:23:40] You can throw, you know, five or six gallons in your freezer. Oh, Oh, data thaw up. Oh yeah, absolutely. We, we, we've, we always have three to four gallons of milk in our freezer just, just for these, these winter weather events that we have. So yeah, you throw it in the freezer, it freezes up solid, the juggle expand just a little bit. It takes about a day to a day and a half for it to thaw back out. And it's with pasteurized homogenized milk, it's, it's, it's stable and it's the, the fat stay in solution, so you don't even have to shake it up after it's sought out.

Vance Crowe [00:24:11] Oh man, that is really interesting. I, I, I, so I have a couple gallons of milk in the fridge right now. I was, I'm, I'm always doing the full fat milk for Annie, you know, she's gonna have a baby in August, so I'm just trying to get her all the nutrients possible, but knowing I could freeze some milk would be a good thing. We'll see if I can free up the freezer space. So I could definitely talk to you for a very long time and you and I will do a long in-depth interview, but these are designed to just be giving people a flavor for what's going on in the world. I wanna end with two questions. The first one I've asked you probably every night for the last week or two because it keeps getting updated and then the other one maybe trying to bring a little bit of hope or some, some kind of thing. But the first question is, what do you think the world is gonna look like in two weeks?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:25:02] My crystal ball is off the cloudy. I, you know, you asked that question a few weeks ago and I said, boy, you know, state border's gonna be closed and there there's gonna be, I think, I think I was predicting at that time maybe 250 Destin nationwide. I, you know, we, we've seen our, who knows where the, the, the fatalities will go. But seeing this US Canadian border shut down, that greatly surprised me. And so it's a little interesting that that shut down before interstate borders did, but maybe, maybe that's the warning that we need, that shutting down state borders isn't the answer because there's so much of this commerce that moves back and forth all over the country. So I think maybe we're at stasis right now, in the next two weeks, we, we kind of see where it hap where we end up as people have been kind of self isolate a little bit. So I, I think two weeks from now we look a lot like we do today. Maybe that stretches to a month. But that, that's, that's as far as I can really predict at this point.

Vance Crowe [00:26:08] And then the more hopeful question is what's something you've noticed that you wouldn't have necessarily seen had you not been involved in this crazy pandemic right now?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:26:24] It's, it's really interesting to me how the, the people interactions are, you know, the, we've been told wash your hands, don't shake hands. Fist bumps are safer, but don't do that. Elbow bumps are safer yet, don't do that either. All these things. And so I'm in my seeing my banker on Monday and we, I walk in and we have a very close relationship. You know, normally we, we shake hands. So I walk in and he fist bumps me, which is really unusual. And we sit down and we talk about my banking stuff for about an hour and we talk about how the bank is dealing with this and we get up. And so, so it's all in our minds. We've dealt with this coronavirus within the conversation and, and I know what his protocol is. We get up and we both simultaneously reach out and extend our hands with shake hands to finish that conversation. So the, the power and the connection between people I, I think is, has strengthened in this virus. And to me that's, that's a sign of hope and progress for us. That, that the people connections in our communities are not breaking down e even as everything else seems to be kind of falling to dust around us. The people connections are, are either holding up or they're getting stronger.

Vance Crowe [00:27:37] I i,

Coronavirus Perspective [00:27:38] And that to me, that's great.

Vance Crowe [00:27:39] I see that entirely. And you know, we've had a few packages delivered from Amazon and UPS and every time I see one of those guys, I holler to 'em like, you're doing the Lord's work. Like please just keep going. And I used to just kind of ignore those guys. They were just a person that dropped stuff off at my house and now I see them as a vital part of American society and really keeping us all safe. So I completely take your point on that. Lyle, I would talk to you all day. Of course I know you have a busy day ahead of you. Thank you so much for being my first person doing these. I don't know what I'm gonna call 'em. I'll come up with a name for it at some point, but thank you very much.

Coronavirus Perspective [00:28:17] Absolutely Vance. It's, it's so much fun to visit and, and talk about the, the events of the day.

Vance Crowe [00:28:21] Stay safe out there buddy.