Farming Podcast | Is Ag Suffering From Knowledge Extinction? | XtremeAg

00:00:00 Knowledge extinction. Do you suffer from it? Do the people you'll deal with in agriculture suffer from? We're talking about agricultural knowledge extinction in 00:00:07 this very special episode with my man Jared Cook of calibrated agronomy of extreme ag cutting the curve. Welcome to extreme Ag Cutting the Curve podcast 00:00:15 where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve your farming operation. And now here's your host, Damien Mason. 00:00:26 Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode of Extreme Ice, cutting the Curve. I've got Jared Cook on here with calibrated agronomy. 00:00:31 He's done a lot of these shows with me, and, uh, he's talking about cool stuff. He's an agronomy guy. 00:00:35 He works in Idaho, but he covers, actually he lives in Idaho, but he covers a whole bunch of, uh, area 00:00:40 and he is teamed up with calibrated agronomy, Clint and Evans and all those guys. Luke, um, knowledge extinction. 00:00:48 What are you talking about? I mean, I think what I'm, what I'm really talking about here is stems, stems back 00:00:54 to over 150 conversations We've had this last year with different growers across the us a common, we've had people reach out to us left 00:01:03 and right on social media platforms, what have you. Right? Well, a common thread or common denominator amongst these guys 00:01:09 is this phrase right here. I've got it written down. It says, I just don't get any agronomic guidance from 00:01:16 my retailer anymore. Yep. That, that has been, that's been the focal point of conversation. So Here's a a a bunch of reasons. 00:01:24 First off, that's gonna sound like you're framing it so that retailers don't know anything. Okay. There's, that's number one. 00:01:32 I don't think that you're actually saying that, but you've got 150 conversations that you've had, uh, with clients looking 00:01:38 for agronomic consultation from calibrated agronomy. They're saying that a, it could be, I'm gonna go through the reasons why they're saying that. 00:01:48 We did a thing in the greenery about this. If you're gonna spend a million dollars on agricultural inputs, do you trust the person that pulls in in their, 00:01:56 in their white, uh, fleet pickup truck, hops out with their iPad and says, Hey, I'm ready to take your order. You want the same thing you got last year? 00:02:05 That seems like still happens from the sales agronomist. And I'm not sure that that is, in this day 00:02:13 and age with the testing that we can do, the technology that we have, not to mention the economic situation. Just having someone pull in that says, 00:02:20 I'm a sales agronomist with an iPad. Um, and you're gonna spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, on inputs. 00:02:27 I'm not sure. So maybe that's one reason I'm gonna go through all the reasons why you had 150 conversations where they said, I just don't get agronomic 00:02:35 information from my retailer. You know, I think, I think you're spot on because it's offering a, a price is easier 00:02:46 than offering extended knowledge. Teaching and training is much more difficult than just doing what has always been done. 00:02:54 So I think by, by the force of average, we, we default to, well, let's take the easy path. 00:03:01 And I think unfortunately the, the agronomy sector is guilty as charge of that very thing. 00:03:09 Uh, that's a hell of a little, uh, note right there. Offering a price is easier than providing experienced knowledge. 00:03:18 Yep. Okay. So there's another angle on it. You say knowledge extinction, that implies that the person that's showing up there, uh, to offer doesn't have it 00:03:30 because, uh, those, those that did have the knowledge went extinct. And then that would imply that everybody 00:03:36 that knew knew anything about agronomics is old and retired. And I think that's a pretty big step 00:03:42 because I'm not sure that's true. I see a lot of younger people mm-hmm. That work in this industry that are, 00:03:47 do they have 50 years of experience? No, but do they have the knowledge? Yeah, they got the knowledge. 00:03:51 Yeah. So I'll tell you something, give you a little background in my experience and why, why I feel the way I do about knowledge extinction. 00:03:58 My, my first years right outta college, you know, I graduated with a degree in soil science and agronomy, and I was fortunate to really get a true education 00:04:06 by working with, uh, Jim Grill, who was a professor at Cal Poly. He was my mentor for two years as I went 00:04:14 to work in the agronomy game. And, and he, well, I'll tell you what, he pushed me to the levels, man. 00:04:20 He had a reading assignment of books. I mean, I've, in fact, I don't, I should show you the bookcase I have. 00:04:26 But, uh, he, he tasked me with reading over 20 different soil books, plant books, so physiology books. 00:04:33 And that was part of my curriculum If, if I was gonna be in the agronomy game. He says, if you wanna be a sound 00:04:38 agronomist, you're gonna do this. Yeah. And, and he often told me, Jared, he's like, he says, seek seek learning in everything you do. 00:04:46 Yeah. And it will be your benefit. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's cool. And by the way, I I, I appreciate that. 00:04:53 I always looked at every job I ever had was, uh, training for the next one. Um, and, um, the other angle on that, uh, comedy 00:05:00 Steve Martin talks about sitting down with Johnny Carson, uh, on his very first time 00:05:05 appearing on the Night Tonight Show. And when they went to commercial break after Steve Martin did his set, Johnny Carson said, son, 00:05:13 you're gonna use everything you've ever learned to be successful in this business. And I, as a former comedian, 00:05:18 always thought that was interesting. If it's true in comedy, it's true in every business, you're gonna use everything you've ever learned 00:05:25 to be successful in this business. Yep. True statement. So true. Absolutely. But the problem is, a lot of folks, 00:05:32 maybe you talk about knowledge extinction, they're not looking at their job as training for the next one, and they're not taking that learning 00:05:38 and using everything they've ever learned to be successful in the business. They're hitting the easy button step out of their, uh, 00:05:44 their white F-150 with their iPad and say, I've got a cheap price right here. It can be cheaper than the other retailer. 00:05:50 Yeah. And you know, I see that, I see that more and more all the time. I mean, I've been in this game nearly 20 years, 00:05:56 and for the first 10 years it was agronomy first focus. The last, the last 10 years, the last decade, Damien has been price focused. 00:06:04 Gimme your cheapest price. Agronomy will always take a backseat to price. Yeah. And it, it, it's the biggest 00:06:10 disheartening thing in the world to me. It's, it, it's total, total kick below the belt. So the advice I think you give is, um, 00:06:18 and I'll cut to the chase, I'm gonna go back to some more things about why knowledge might be going extinct. 00:06:23 I think you get your knowledge from a paid professional like you, and then you get your cheapest price product from 00:06:30 somebody that pulls in and their, and their white, uh, F-150 with their, uh, tablet. I mean, seriously. I, I think 00:06:36 that's how you gotta look at it. Yeah. And that means to those people, you said 150 conversations you've had, 00:06:42 that means they gotta change their thinking. I pay for professional advice. Um, and, 00:06:50 and then on how I invest my money on ag inputs for agronomic outcomes, and then I go about buying, I make up for that 00:06:58 by buying the stuff cheap from the whoever comes in the driveway with a cheaper price. I think that's a spot on solution, Damien, 00:07:05 because that's really what it is. At one point in time, the ag retailer was the source of knowledge and the product. 00:07:12 Mm-hmm. And, and for whatever reason, I I, we could go in a whole host of myriad of reasons, but I think for whatever reason, 00:07:20 retail's become just the product. And so your very point, we've gotta go outside for the knowledge. 00:07:27 And, and that's not in anyway in, uh, indicting anyone that works in ag retail that says, these guys are full of s**t. 00:07:33 You know what? I've been doing this for 33 years and I'm, and I still go and get my continuing education credits. 00:07:38 And I'm, and I've got a degree, a master's degree in agronomic. No, nobody's saying that. It's just that in general, 00:07:43 sales agronomist doesn't necessarily mean, um, I've got vast amounts of knowledge. It could just be a title that 00:07:50 means I come and sell you stuff. Yeah, absolutely. What about, um, a couple of other things We got, we got consolidation at the farm level in many cases, 00:08:02 and a lot of farmers, 'cause maybe the turn turns the other way. Maybe a lot of farmers said, I've got so many acres to cover 00:08:08 and I've got so many people pulling this driveway to try and sell me something. All I want the retailer to be is a source of supply. 00:08:16 And I'll hire my, my professional experience who doesn't have knowledge extinction, who's actually got that. 00:08:23 I mean, maybe it was, maybe it was not, you know, cause effect, maybe it went backwards. Right. That's very true. And, and I, I see that as well. 00:08:31 You know, it's been able to travel over the United States the last couple years. That's, that's become a very, very real, uh, scenario. 00:08:38 How do we keep from becoming knowledge instinct? I think it, it comes Down to ex extinct, extinct, extinct, 00:08:45 Extinct. Yeah, buddy. It's, it's, it comes down to the individual choice. I mean, I, I was not put on this earth to be mediocre. 00:08:54 I was put on on earth to be excellent. To be exceptional. Same with you. And 00:08:59 consequently, that requires effort in continuing advancing our ner our learning. Yeah. 00:09:05 What do you think the biggest mistake is? Is that, uh, I, I, I already have my guess, but what, what's the biggest mistake? 00:09:11 What's the biggest, when you talk about knowledge extinctions, one of your, your little sound bites about you're dealing with people that are 00:09:17 facing knowledge extinction. What's the, what's the first, what's the biggest problem with their, what, what, 00:09:22 what's their biggest extinction trait? Biggest extinct extinction trait? Uh, it goes back to our solving the dysfunction rather, 00:09:31 you know, treating the symptom versus solving the dysfunction. It's, it's easier to treat the symptom 00:09:36 than solve the dysfunction. Sell A product, sell, sell a product, sell, sell, sell, sell a, sell a cold medicine versus, uh, preventing the cold. 00:09:44 Yeah, exactly. I, I think that's the root cause. And, and, and to me, I, I think the other side of it, um, price only decision making mm-hmm. 00:09:53 Is the fuel behind knowledge extinction. I, I think that's a fair statement. Price only. Yep. 00:10:01 Price only decision making is the fuel behind knowledge extinction. And by The way, you, you do, this goes with every industry. 00:10:09 Mm-hmm. Uh, but let's talk about ours since we're an ag where there's gonna be somebody that says, yeah, well, you know what, I'm not knowledge and extinct, 00:10:18 but I can tell you 90% of the customers I call on, all they care about is a cheap price. So what the hell good's it do for me 00:10:24 to have all this vast amounts of knowledge when all they really want from me is how much for two and a half gallons of product X. 00:10:31 Yeah. Well, that's where you have to stand your ground as an advisor and show, show the farmer the better way. Yeah. You know, I have two phosphorus products. 00:10:39 One could be highly effective and efficient, but it's double the cost compared to the cheaper option that's wildly poor in performance. 00:10:49 Yeah. If I can show the grower the difference, you're gonna spend more upfront, but you're gonna use less and it's gonna perform better. 00:10:56 That's my job. That's my job is to help the farmer see that and, and put the data 00:11:01 and the science behind it so we can have informed and improved decision making. Price only decision making is giving is rise 00:11:10 to the knowledge extinction. I think there's some truth to that. Okay. It can also be another thing. 00:11:16 Maybe the, uh, the agronomic knowledge is just as good as it's ever been, but there's more dilution. There's so many more things we know now, 00:11:28 we didn't know about fungi bacteria ratios back when I was a kid. I'm not sure we knew it about it five years ago. 00:11:34 We didn't know about some of the things you talk about. Um, you know, using sap, uh, and, and RNA sampling. 00:11:42 We didn't know about that a few years ago. Maybe it's, maybe it's that there's just a, a tremendous amount more information 00:11:50 and technology available today that, uh, is, is the problem. Yeah, that's, that's fair statement. 00:11:59 You know, I, I've had, I got a couple guys that they're, they have a, a famous tagline that can, 00:12:04 the tagline is consistency pays the bills. And, and I think that tagline is also a little bit inhibiting in terms of progression. 00:12:13 Mm-hmm. Well, if I, if I do this, I'm gonna get this, that, that's kind of the cookie cutter program. Well, 00:12:19 Which means they, they, they'll say, we have a routine around here. And I'll say, no, you have a, you have a, uh, a habit 00:12:27 and you have it to where you are rigid. And that might be the other thing when we talk about extinction, Jared, uh, when I said ask you 00:12:36 what the biggest trait is, you said the biggest thing about extinction is you just start going about always fixing, 00:12:42 treating a Simpson symptom versus digging deeper and fixing a problem. Mm-hmm. I think I'm gonna go to the reason 00:12:48 that knowledge is extinction, if it exists at all, all those things I just named are all new, and I'm not even the producer, nor am I an agronomist. 00:12:57 Right. I'm a I'm a talk show host with an ag econ degree. They require you to keep up. 00:13:03 I probably know more about RNA sampling right now because I've been on the Crop Diagnostics website. I know more about, uh, using SAP sampling 00:13:11 to then make sure I get my treatment right. Because I've been to extreme ag meetings. If I were in the racket selling stuff, 00:13:19 I would look at it every week. I need to spend about eight hours learning new stuff. And we know that that's hard 00:13:26 because it gets a hell of a lot easier just to go around and say, yeah, well, I got the, 00:13:29 I got the cheapest price over here. I think the knowledge extinction happens just because I don't wanna do the work of keeping up. 00:13:35 Well, absolutely. Well, 'cause acquiring knowledge is often, well, it's expensive sometimes. 00:13:42 Mm-hmm. It takes a lot of effort, and it's not, it's not the easy button. Mm-hmm. It's uncomfortable. Mm-hmm. 00:13:50 You know, sit down reading an 800 page, uh, biochemistry book is very painful. Trust me. Mm-hmm. I've been there. 00:13:57 So, um, what else do you got for me on this? What do you tell those people when they say, I think that that's the one thing. 00:14:03 Yeah. There's 150 people you talked about. What was your answer? I think the, the farmer holds the cards 00:14:09 to advancing knowledge. If the farmer simply would say, okay, crop advisor, have you read the book, mineral Nutrition of Higher Plants? 00:14:18 Have you read the book? Nature and Properties of Soils? Uh, agronomist guy, have you read the book? Uh, managing Plant Disease with Mineral Nutrition, 00:14:28 the farmer can hold accountable the agronomist for that knowledge. Mm-hmm. If that's a focal point. Yeah. 00:14:36 And so that's, that's what needs to happen. The farmer needs to hold the agronomy community to a higher standard. But 00:14:42 It's a little bit like, uh, I went to the physician and I looked on the wall, and that's the reason why physicians always stick their, uh, 00:14:48 their, their, uh, their degrees on the wall. Right? Oh, absolutely. It doesn't say, I went to Ivy Tech and studied the electronic, uh, uh, 00:14:56 VCR repair for six weeks. It, college of College of, uh, medical science at such and such. Right? 00:15:04 Yeah. Yo, you betcha. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. His name's Jared Cook. Um, the big takeaway here is, uh, if you're a farmer 00:15:11 and you're listening to this, hold your agronomic provider accountable. Ask them where their accreditation is 00:15:17 and, and dig into this. And, uh, it's, it's, it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be offensive, by the way. 00:15:22 It shouldn't be offensive at all, because after all, we are in a com. This is not 1920 anymore. 00:15:26 We've got the tools, we've got the technology. We know more about this, and we're still learning. That's the thing about the soil. 00:15:33 Absolutely. Farming today has never been more knowledge intensive. He's, the guy basically is gonna be a politician 00:15:41 someday for Idaho. 'cause his soundbite, his ability to crank out soundbites is remarkable. He's Jared Cook. The company's called Calibrated Agronomy. 00:15:48 If you wanna learn more about them and him, the website is called Calibrate Your Agronomy. It's on my phone right here. Calibrate your agronomy.com. 00:15:57 Uh, this is extreme ag cutting the curve. Literally hundreds of these episodes have been produced in the last five years. 00:16:02 You can share them. They're all free. If you wanna take your learning to the next level, become an Extreme Ag member, 00:16:07 it's only seven 50 bucks a year. You get access to guys like Jared. If you wanna go deeper on a question, you get to come 00:16:12 to our data conference January 25th and sixth in Iowa. You get, and that's free, by the way, with your seven 50 bucks. 00:16:18 You also for free get to go to the Commodity classic courtesy of nature. So check all that out at Extreme Mag Farm. 00:16:24 Also, check out our YouTube channel on our YouTube channel, extreme Mag. Hit subscribe and you can go 00:16:29 and check out our show, the Grainery filmed at my farm in Huntington, Indiana, where we sit down 00:16:33 and, uh, talk about the, the personal, the professional, everything in between one of these days 00:16:37 where we're gonna get Jared to come to Indiana and be on episode The Grainery. Um, I, I can't wait till next time. He's Jared. I'm Damien. 00:16:44 This is extreme ag cutting the curve. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm 00:16:50 for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 00:16:54.035 --> 00:16:55.315