00:00:00 Do farm organizations and commodity groups actually help farmers? I'm sitting at a table with three of my farming friends. 00:00:05 We're gonna ask that very question in this episode of the Grainery. You ready For a conversation with some real farmers 00:00:10 about real issues? And the best part, you are invited. Support yourself A drink, Grab a snack. 00:00:18 Most importantly, pull up a chair. Welcome To the greenery. Hey guys. 00:00:30 Alright, So I asked the question. Gavin Spore is joining us. He's a friend of extreme mag. He's a Missouri farmer, a young man, 27 years old. 00:00:37 Started, uh, as not a generational farm. And we're pretty excited about having him here. Uh, he's gonna be doing some cool 00:00:42 stuff with Kelly this year. And we got my man, temple Rhodes from Maryland. We got Kelly Garrett from Iowa. 00:00:47 I asked a question, uh, as soon as I asked a question, you gave a little bit of a look. You gave a reaction. 'cause the one thing 00:00:52 that our listener needs to understand, my guys do not know what we're gonna cover until we open this show. 00:00:57 That way we get the spontaneous, authentic, real reaction. Sometimes it's terrible. 00:01:02 I mean, it'd like paint you in a corner, not just sometimes. Most of the times, like literally every time. 00:01:07 But you don't have any problem taking a stand. Kelly. None of our guys do. That's why everybody tunes into extreme ag. 00:01:11 Do pharma groups help farmers? Do commodity groups help farmers? And I'll just go ahead and throw it out there. 00:01:17 There's like 37 organizations that are funded with checkoff dollars, which means your money pays for them. I think that some of them, many 00:01:24 of them have become little miniature bureaucracies in some cases. Not even miniature bureaucracies. They take money. 00:01:30 They're supposed to represent farmers. Do they help you? You wanna black and white answer yes or no? Yes. 00:01:37 Overall I would say yes. However, there's a lot of, there's a lot of pork that could be trimmed off. 00:01:44 Alright, you're a young man. I'm gonna let you think on that. You've been around this game a little bit longer. 00:01:50 Do farm groups to commodity groups? I'm talking everything from Farm Bureau to National Farmers Union 00:01:55 to National Corn Growers Association to the watermelon, uh, uh, growers Association. 00:02:00 Do they help farmers? Sure. Because I mean, you have to have somebody out there that's lobbying for, for our rights. 00:02:08 I mean, where do you think all that money comes from? You know what I mean? That money has to come from somewhere and all of those things, they, they matter. 00:02:14 So it doesn't matter if it's somebody that's paying them. You know what I mean? That's lobbying for us 00:02:18 or somebody that's just educating the general public. 'cause to be honest with you, before social media, you know what I mean? 00:02:25 Like Gavin's an influencer and you know what I mean? And we're supposedly the influencers or whatever. I hate that word, but it 00:02:33 before that, who else did you have out there educating the farmer? Because years ago, me and Kelly we're not going out 00:02:39 and doing things, educating the community and lobbying and doing like it has to come from somewhere. I don't disagree, by the way, the word influencer. 00:02:47 One of my buddies, when I got my ag influencer award, he says, they should've known you in college. I'd have called you an ag under the influencer. 00:02:54 Uh, and I was, I was award worthy of it. Do farm groups help you Help? I think so. 00:03:00 Being young, I don't think I have as what as much of an opinion as these guys that have been around for a while. 00:03:05 They had opinions that were pretty unjustified with they 27. I mean, trust me, you can look at them. 00:03:10 You can just tell that they had a lot of opinions back then. I, I think overall they do. 00:03:15 I know if all the money that those groups got, if they just gave it to me in a pile and said, go make an impact with it, I don't know 00:03:21 that I could make as much of as impact as they do. You know, they've got the connections, they're working behind the scenes on all this stuff. 00:03:26 You never really see to help what we're doing that which allows us to farm. I like farming. I don't want to go 00:03:32 try to find this. That's a good Way of looking at it. Okay. You pay a lot. 00:03:36 Every bushel you sell, there's like a, I don't know, penny rake, two penny rake that goes to the Torn Grows Association. 00:03:41 Right. Or American Soybean Association. Beef has a pretty significant checkoff program. It's like a dollar per head 00:03:48 or something per a hundred weight. It's a pretty big pile of money. So if you had that money that Gavin just spoke 00:03:54 of in your pocket that you pay through all of the the rake, could you do a better job than all those organizations do? 00:04:02 No, I could not. Uh, uh, part of the problem is as, as a farmer or we're looking at our operation, the wheels don't turn very, don't have to turn very slow. 00:04:12 You can make a decision and you can pivot on a d when you're in an organization like that, 00:04:17 like I was on the school board mm-hmm. We're setting policy and things like that. It's, there's a slow change and unfortunately it's slow. 00:04:24 And that's what happens in a lot, especially a national organization that's a big organization, you know, lobbying 00:04:29 to different countries and things like that. And when it comes all the way down to the farm gate, do we see a huge change all the time? 00:04:35 Or like we'd like to No, we don't, but I sure don't think I can make a bigger impact. It's a huge job. 00:04:40 Some of 'em, I think we should probably be technically because some of these commodity groups are going to get after me and say, temple has said the word lobby, 00:04:46 and Kelly said the word lobby, technically by the rule of the law that set up the checkoff programs. They are to be education and outreach 00:04:53 and promotion, not lobbying. Then there's the other ones that you can fund without the checkoff 00:04:58 that do the lobbying. So that means That's Fine. No, that's fine. That's fine too. 00:05:01 Gimme the different, define the difference between lobby and promotion. Okay. Yeah. I mean, they're synonymous 00:05:06 To the, to the legal aspect. There is to the Legal aspect. There is, and We're not in any way. We don't 00:05:10 want those organizations to come after us and say, Hey Dams, that's Not what I, there is a difference on which ones are funny. 00:05:16 But the point is, be realistic. How much money are they really taking outta your check? Like we're talking about pennies 00:05:22 compared to the big picture. Like, it's not like we're like holy, you know, I mean, holy moly, they took 15%, you know, or whatever. 00:05:30 Pennies. You put pennies over uh, uh, a million bushels. Uh, it's not insignificant. I understand that. 00:05:36 But what are you gonna do to, to promote, yeah, Pennies do add up, but if it takes one or two pennies and they can get us back three 00:05:44 or four, you're doubling your investment. If you wanna look at it that way. What do you think they do? That's what what do you think, 00:05:51 from your perspective, what are these groups doing best and what are they doing worst? The one that I thought was the best of all time, you know, 00:06:03 didn't the Cattleman's Association put on the beef? That's what's for dinner. Mm. I think that's one of the best promotions I've ever seen. 00:06:08 Got milk. Got milk. Yeah. Yep. Those are great promotions. Got Milk was fantastic. 00:06:12 They stuck with it a little long. It got long in the tooth. Uh, they stuck with it for 24 years. 00:06:18 You could argue, eh, you know, like a rock. The Chevy commercials that ran for seven years. Uh, all, all marketing organizations said some 00:06:27 of the best market's ever done. Bob Seeger's singing and Truck comes over the mound on a pasture and it made you wanna go and buy a Chevy. 00:06:33 Well, probably not you, but anyway, uh, it was, uh, yeah, got Milk was one of the very success ones. And actually it was an ad agency in 00:06:42 California that came up with that. What have they done bad? What do, what do they think that they've missed? 00:06:46 I think the easy one is they become bureaucracies that have a lot of, there's a lot of bacon to be chewed out There. Yes. That would be my 00:06:51 answer. Uh, operations grow. They get larger. You get mental management. It seems like there's a lot of waste. 00:06:57 It happens in every, it can happen in every business Even. How are they, how are they gonna trim any fat? 00:07:02 I, I don't know. I mean, you think about the, the, you know, take back when we were Gavin's age when a lot 00:07:08 of these checkoffs came along. Yeah. You know what I mean? And, and when the checkoffs and things first came along, we were like, oh, whoa. 00:07:14 I, but then you think about how they've grown and how many people it takes, um, to, to build that infrastructure and to finalize it. 00:07:24 That takes a lot of money. So, I mean, I don't, I don't foresee anything that they've done as bad. 00:07:30 They're helping promote what we do. And the crops that we raise, you know, the short soy checkoff dollars might go back to, you know, 00:07:38 helping with the soy industry producing plastic. You know what I mean? Like for years on John Deere combines, they had a sticker there that's like, you know, 00:07:45 it made with soy or whatever. Yeah. Like a lot of that, those things go back to those checkoff dollars research and some of that. 00:07:51 Yeah. There. What about another one that's not checkoff dollars, but it's the biggest in the country. 00:07:57 Uh, presidential candidates go and speak at their convention. I'm talking about the Farm Bureau. 00:08:01 I've spoken to a number of Farm Bureau, um, uh, statewide organizations. And even at the national, they particularly love to work 00:08:08 with what every state have. The Missouri Young farmer and ranchers. I was a speaker at their conference several years ago. 00:08:14 You may have been there. Does the Farm Bureau help you Again? I don't know that I can have much of an opinion. By the 00:08:22 Way, you're at the wrong table if you don't bring opinions. All right g 00:08:26 I'm still in the absorbing information. Well, I got that, but you know what, this is a pretty opinionated group right here. 00:08:31 True. That is true. Particularly that one. That's not true. I'm not opinionated. 00:08:38 I think overall they do, but I think a lot of the work that these men and women do is behind the scenes that we don't notice. 00:08:43 So then it's easy to cast stones at 'em whenever a lot of the stuff they, you know, they don't, there's not a thank a Farm Bureau Association member 00:08:51 or worker, but they are working to, I mean, no one's got, they're not trying to waste our money just to waste it. 00:08:57 They're trying to do positive things with it. You could argue that they've got a lot of staff. You could argue that they have a lot of staff. 00:09:03 Like, let's talk about an organization like Farm Bureau. Can I say one big thing that they've accomplished? I cannot. 00:09:09 But what if they weren't there that promoting us? Yeah. How much further backwards would we be? Mm-hmm. That's something else that they could defend themselves 00:09:16 and I would defend that as well. What do you think? Uh, Maryland Farm Bureau's never been a client of mine. Unfortunately, Iowa and Missouri have been. 00:09:23 So you're the odd man. They're tiny. Well, yeah, they're tiny. That's why there's only 14 farmers in all of Maryland. 00:09:28 I mean, there's, there's a lot of things that you get back. Like, I mean, you know, years ago they used to have like 00:09:33 what they called Farm bureau tires, you know, like there was promotions. Yeah. That Farm Bureau would help you, you know, 00:09:38 replace tractor tires and they'd be a lot more cost effective. Like, there's a lot of things that go in there that you take 00:09:44 for granted that, that they've helped with, you know? And I think that that's a lot of it. Like we just, like Adam said, you don't know what's going on 00:09:51 behind closed doors and you don't know until you educate yourself. Farm Bureau Indiana, I read their, I I'm a member. 00:09:58 I give 'em $37 a year because I think it's important to keep them active and viable. And I get their newsletters. 00:10:03 They do a lot of stuff on drainage. Um, although when I had a little scrape with the neighbors, you are on that. 00:10:09 Uh, I, I asked them to represent me and they, uh, they didn't. So I had to just take my, I wouldn't represent you either. 00:10:16 I've seen the arguments that you've had with your neighbors. I would definitely be like, no. 00:10:21 Uh, what about any other organizations that are out here? We talk about the commodity groups, 00:10:25 we talk about the farm bureaus. There's other, there are others. Anybody that you say has particularly helped me 00:10:30 as a young guy coming into this industry or gal? Um, as far as organizations, I was in F-F-A-F-F-A did a lot 00:10:40 for me in high school that I learned about. And they, I mean they continued to help after we're out of high school. 00:10:44 Just a week ago I went back and talked to our FFA chapter. That right there, they do a lot. Yeah. 00:10:49 Now I wouldn't go to lump them in the same as all these other groups we're talking about, but they are an organization 00:10:54 that is helping you on farmers. F Tremendous, I dunno, heard I was in the F FFA soil. Oh god. I was ninth. 00:11:01 Not really had to bring up, I was ninth in the nation in soil land pasture analysis in 1987. 00:11:06 I mean, I got a medal When I was at college. There was a guy who wore a jacket that said FFA forestry state team. 00:11:12 And like his junior year of college, he was still wearing that. And thinking back, it reminds me a lot of you, I still 00:11:18 Actually have the jacket. Thank you again. But you didn't have a lot of opinions, you little s**t. 00:11:22 All right. So what I gotta go in now is, are there organizations, you know, regional ones, like where they're taking care of a lot of, uh, you know, 00:11:31 environmental stuff, obviously in Maryland. Well, what about, what about, is there any, you know, and I'm gonna pass this off to Gavin, 00:11:36 but is there any grants out there that has helped you be a young farmer to try to pro, you know what I mean, to try to do better for yourself? 00:11:45 I haven't really gotten grants per se. I mean, scholarship funds that helped pay for some college. Those were Right. 00:11:51 Well, that brings up USDA then they have a program that is, is really good for ag. Uh, young farmer. 00:11:58 If I said I'm a young guy that wants to open a dry cleaners, I can't go and get a 2% loan from the government. 00:12:03 If I'm a young farmer, I can With my two sons on the farm, we look for every opportunity with USDA. 00:12:09 They each own a parcel of land with the young farmers, uh, that cheese that's very involved in the cattle wanted 00:12:15 to do rotational grazing. And so we took a pasture and we put it to rotational grazing and it's in their name and it it paid better. 00:12:23 Yeah. The rotational grazing, the grant money paid better because they're beginning farmers. That was, 00:12:27 It's a great, I mean it's a, it's, it's a so-called organization. It is. That has helped out young farmers. 00:12:33 And I mean, Gavin, you should probably look into some of those things. Yeah, I, you know, there's a, there's a ton 00:12:38 of opportunity out there for young farmers that Kelly and I never had. I, I haven't bought a farm through the Young Farmer 00:12:46 Loan Program, but I've got some friends that I went to college with that have, and that's made a huge difference. 00:12:50 I mean, now they've got a pile of equity. 'cause the land's just appreciated so much and they've still got that low interest loan locked in 00:12:56 and it's really helped them feel a little bit more safe on the farm and in their position. 00:13:01 Side note that land can go down in value and you still own the same amount. Just, I mean, you still owe you, 00:13:06 you're low remains in the same, your loan remains the same. Whether the property goes up in value or down in, 00:13:10 They made a good investment. Yes, yes. They made a very good investment. What about The, you know, he's talking about the educational stuff. 00:13:16 I think there's a lot of stuff out here that some of it, you know, it's almost overwhelming. 00:13:20 We've only got 1.9 million farms in the United States, and there's a lot of groups that are ag, like I said, from the watermelons to the 00:13:28 corn, to the soybeans, the wheat. I mean, I've spoken to so many of these groups. There's a lot of groups. 00:13:33 Are they gonna, are we gonna have less by the time he's your age, are you gonna have less of these? Do some of 'em go away? I don't know. 00:13:40 I think, does a consolidating farmer make it that way? I, I think that there's gonna be more and more opportunities that that arise, um, 00:13:48 with other organizations kind of quote unquote buying into the agriculture community. Not buying into ag, 00:13:56 but buying into the community through programs, through, um, carbon, um, programs. 00:14:03 What, what, whatever it may be. Because there's so much interest in environmentally to do the right thing, and they're trying to have clean air, 00:14:12 clean water, clean everything. And we're making steps towards that. I think you're gonna see more and more 00:14:18 and more organizations pop up over the next few years, you know, in our future, you know, especially in his future that are gonna really become like, 00:14:28 this is gonna be a real income for the next generation. You, I think that there will continue 00:14:38 to be organizations. There could be some water Or the watermelon association still be there. Yeah. Because I think those still be watermelon farmers, 00:14:43 you know, until you get down to, there's just a handful. But as long as there's farmers with involved in watermelons, 00:14:49 I think there'll be an organization. Gavin, from your perspective, uh, I said, I keep saying that only 'cause you've got youth, more youth than, 00:14:55 than the three of us sitting here. Is there stuff where they're missing the boat that some of these farm, or whether it's Farm Bureau 00:15:00 or the checkoff programs or anything, is there somewhere that you're like, you wanna grab 'em and shake 'em 00:15:04 and say, Hey, listen man, I'm a young guy here in agriculture, here's how you can help me. 00:15:09 Yeah, I think long term there's gonna be almost a split because the, the commodities that we're not, not everyone has 10 chickens and 20 cows 00:15:19 and 500 acres of corn. I think you're gonna see a split where you've got your corn and your soybean farmers and they're just, they get bigger 00:15:25 and bigger just because you have to have a scale. And then you see organizations pop up that represent more of that small local farm. 00:15:31 You know, the guy that's got 10 head of freezer beef or something. Uh, I don't, I I don't see that 00:15:37 that all stays combined. I think Some kind, those are, those are the ones that don't have the representation. 00:15:42 If you, you know, if you read, I try to read a lot and keep up with it. The person that's farming 20,000 acres in central Illinois 00:15:50 probably doesn't have a big complaint against the corn growers and the Soybean Association. Uh, although they'd say, well, we pay a lot into it. 00:15:56 The person that's farming 200 acres and is doing stuff more niche, they're gonna say, I got no representation. 00:16:03 You, you know, they're gonna say, I'm trying to sell freezer beef and I'm doing a direct of consumer and farm to table and all that. 00:16:09 Oh, I ain't getting any representation. That's where I think there's a may feel slighted. I I think you'll see some of the organizations, 00:16:15 this is just me guessing spitballing pivot to more represent that smaller farmer or someone, some new organizations going 00:16:22 to pop up to represent them. The Farm to Table Association, right. The National Trace 00:16:27 and accountability could be that, you know, we, we, uh, our members are, you know, doing the whole accountability and traceability of the food and all that kind. There 00:16:36 Really should be two different organizations when you think about how different a large grain farm can be and the small, uh, direct 00:16:44 to consumer farm could be Yeah. The Certain region, Regardless of what their farm, If you're, if you're, I got a friend that's in Roanoke, 00:16:49 Indiana Farms about 1400 acres, but it's all organic and he's, I can't be big, so I've gotta be get a more of a premium. 00:16:55 Yeah. He says the Corn Growers Association and the soybean, and it even does like, you know, some wheat or whatever. 00:17:02 He says, they don't represent me. He says, he says, I'm in such a niche over here. He is like, I need somebody 00:17:08 that's out here advocating on why organic, uh, grain then goes to the organic dairies or whatever and, and tries to help me continue 00:17:17 to position this as a value add. But if you're in a niche, what organization's gonna be there for you? 00:17:21 Because you're so few. That organization is for the, for the masses. You know, I, I think if you feel slighted 00:17:27 because you're in a niche market, you made the choice to be in a niche market, and I don't know what you expect a national organization to do. 00:17:33 It's kinda a hard ass of me. I mean, he's just basically saying, you know what screwing you 00:17:37 Well, I think they'll they'll be more micro farms. Yeah. You know that. And there's going to be fewer large commodity 00:17:46 farms just because of scale Consolidation. Right. Consolidation. So eventually there might, 00:17:51 the organizations might be representing 16 farmers. Yeah. The thing is then do they need 'em? They're just gonna say, Hey, you know what? 00:17:57 We farm 60,000 acres in, uh, between Kansas and Nebraska. Um, you know, we don't really need you. 00:18:03 It could be that it, it could get to that. I think the most valuable thing is more on the political front versus the marketing front. 00:18:09 Now, some of the promotions that they do, I got a friend with the National Association of Wheat Growers who used 00:18:14 to go to Asia and he was all about ambassadors, ambassadorship, go to Asia and keep that market happy 00:18:20 that they're buying wheat from the Pacific Northwest. And so that I think is more valuable than going to the Farm Progress show 00:18:27 and saying, Hey, we are here to represent corn farmers to tell you how awesome corn is. Well, everybody in Decatur, Illinois 00:18:34 that's at the Farm Progress Show is pretty well vested in, in than corn already. 00:18:38 I don't need to go and, and market to them. I think that they could all, I mean, I think some of 'em could do a lot better job of marketing or 00:18:47 or promoting than what they are doing now. Um, you know what I mean? Like, if they tagged up with, um, Gavin Spore, 00:18:54 let's just say and helped 'em promote Farm Bureau or whatever at, even at a local or national level. I, I think that they could do a lot better job 00:19:01 because, you know, you take Farm Bureau and uh, checkoff dollars. How much have they really changed over the last 00:19:07 20, 25 years? Like, I'm not saying that they're not out there not changing, but how much change have you really seen? 00:19:15 Are they actually meeting the consumer where the consumer is, is one of their other Exactly. They do a lot of preaching back to the choir. 00:19:20 And that's because their members demand it. And that's the tough part, right. You go to the Far Progress show 00:19:25 and then the, the, the, the commodity group is there telling you how awesome you are. That grows the commodity instead of going to 00:19:32 his neighbors in suburban Maryland and saying, this is why Soya is great, because it makes fibers 00:19:37 that go in your yoga pants or whatever. Yeah. I mean, 'cause nobody knows that. I mean, w we, we don't, 00:19:42 I'm not even sure that's true, by the way. I just kind of made that up. I don't know if there's any soy fibers as well was Well, I mean, like you take for instance, 00:19:48 you know, you don't, a lot of things that you don't know. I mean, when we went to Kelly's, what was 00:19:52 that two years ago, Kelly, when we were talking to that group and um, those people had no idea, you know, what, what, what regenerative agriculture was. 00:20:00 They didn't have any idea how to grow corn. They didn't have any idea how Kelly farmed and, you know, and took the crop off and put cattle on it 00:20:07 and it was a transfer of carbon. They didn't know any of that stuff. And then some of the things that we didn't know, 00:20:12 we didn't realize that some stuff outta corn, that they were, um, extracting out a corn that was putting fiber in yoga pants and in tennis shoes 00:20:22 and putting, they were replacing some of the petroleum. Like those are all the things that like, we didn't know. Gavin, does it bother you slightly 00:20:30 that three men in their fifties are sitting around talking about yoga pants? And I mean, I, I got almost a little 00:20:34 uncomfortable there, didn't it? I seen your girlfriend wearing before. I know it's on your mind too. 00:20:37 What, what, what I need to know though, on the organizations that are doing this stuff, how can they get better? 00:20:46 Something I worry about is maybe infighting in between the different commodity groups. Because I'll say for instance, in Missouri, you know, 00:20:53 high oleic soybeans, high oil content using that in foods. But then you, the beef industry's going crazy 00:20:58 with the tallow and then people are worried about seed oils. It's like, wow, you know, a lot of my neighbors raise cows 00:21:03 and I raise soybeans. Neither one of them's bad. How do we, uh, stop the possibility of infighting? It Didn't take you long in this industry. 00:21:11 You started farming when you were in college. So you've been at this for seven years, roughly. Didn't take you long to pick up on that. 00:21:16 That has, by the way, as old as American agriculture. The cattle people fought with the sheep people when we settled the west. 00:21:23 I mean, this has been going on for a while. The green people have fought with the livestock people. The di is this is age old. 00:21:30 They do fight a lot with each other. That's Right. I think he's right. Uh, talking about the fighting there. 00:21:35 And I think what we could be do better is education as the world continues to evolve. Used to be, we never talked about seed 00:21:41 oils if they were good or bad. Mm-hmm. And, uh, we need education on that. And it, and it needs to be honest, transparent education. 00:21:48 I get worried when commodity people start talking about educating because you know, the consumer, if you go and tell the consumer that my, you know, suburban phoenix, 00:21:56 uh, house, uh, wife and, and husband, uh, hey, you just need to be educated. Well wait, you saying I'm stupid? So I, I think the 00:22:04 Me saying that you need to become more educated on a topic doesn't mean that you're stupid. 00:22:08 It means that you don't know. You haven't learned it yet. Well, we tell, we tell people 00:22:12 that they need educated. It doesn't come across. Yes. Well, I don't mean it to come across promotion Is really what you're talking about. 00:22:17 You hear a lot of things in social media. You hear a lot of things in the news and they allude to what is true and what isn't true. 00:22:24 I think that the groups, these groups should ed help try to educate the consumer on what is true about the crop 00:22:31 that their organization I Represent. I asked the question, do these organizations help farmers? 00:22:36 And that's obviously we got into this point. I'll do one thing now. I wanted to let hear you guys. I I'll tell you where, what thing they get wrong. 00:22:43 It doesn't matter whether I'm talking about farm bureau to, to any commodity group in the United States. 00:22:48 Reactive versus proactive. It's always reactive versus proactive. All of a sudden, oh wait a minute. 00:22:54 Seed oils, uh, well, activists like RFK Jr create this boogeyman known as seedle. Nobody even used the term seed 00:23:02 oils until three months ago Right. When he got on the scene. And now it's reactive. Reactive react. Like we gotta start telling everybody why 00:23:08 CILs, we always have to react, which is tough 'cause you don't know where the harpoons coming from, but we're always reacting to the dagger, the dart versus Oh, 00:23:16 that you say that's an accurate Yeah, I think so. The trouble is whenever you start going to try to educate, if 00:23:23 that's the word you want to use, it doesn't sound like education. It sounds like propaganda. Like, Hey, we're soybean farmer. 00:23:28 We've got a lot of money behind us, we're growing the soybeans. Yeah. Here's why you should be using them. 00:23:32 Yes, he's right. And like you talked about reactive versus proactive. That's what I mean. The wheels turn too slow. 00:23:38 It's too bad that they can't, uh, be more proactive or at least react faster. Well, Anything can change. 00:23:47 I mean, think about how we've changed over the last 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 years, the way that we farm. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Like I've said it for years, 00:23:56 you know, reactive loses money, pro proactive makes money. Mm-hmm. It's the same scenario. 00:24:03 It just takes a long, long time to adopt. And how do you come to, how do you bring it to the table? I think one of the most amazing things about 00:24:11 how great our country is, is the fact that we have to be reactive about seed oils. Like we could have a country where we're so worried about 00:24:17 where the next meal's coming from. Yeah. Right. We'd eat a bowl full of soybean oil. Like we've done such a good job of producing everything 00:24:23 and making sure everybody's safe. We can worry about the little things. Yeah. It doesn't look like the three of us 00:24:27 have missed many meals. No, No. We, we, we, we were wealthy. We haven't gone hungry too much. No. 00:24:32 Which is an amazing thing. I mean, that's a testament to everybody who's referred before. 00:24:35 Yes. That's fantastic. That's right. And I made that point when the whole gluten thing was so blown 10 years ago 00:24:40 and I pointed out, Hey, you know what, um, we're pretty fortunate in a country where people can de can decide 00:24:46 that they've just had a little too much gluten. Mean it's a, it's a pretty good situation. I asked a question, do organizations like commodity groups 00:24:53 and farm organizations help actual farmers? That's what we've talked about in this episode. Gavin Smore broths, uh, uh, 00:24:59 good Little Dose from Mexico, Missouri. That's a real place, right? Yes, It is. Okay. And we're not in 00:25:05 any kind of a trade war with him. Not right now. Anything could change. Got It. And Gavin Bos 00:25:09 joined us, a special guest here at The Gray Re. He's joined by Temple Roads and Kelly Garrett, two of extreme Ag finest. 00:25:14 I'm Dam Mason. You know what, we do this very often. We want you to join us here as often as you possibly can. It's real farmers talking about real 00:25:20 stuff, enjoying ourselves. And we want you to pull up a chair at this very table right here. Till next time, cheers from the greenery. 00:25:26 I think the joke about me being 00:25:27.975 --> 00:25:28.665