00:00:00 In 1935, there are 6.8 million farms in the United States of America today, 2025, there are less than 2 million farms in the 00:00:07 United States of America, of which almost none of them really do. A lot of heavy lifting, not being mean, 00:00:12 but more than 75% of America's farms produce less than $50,000 of saleable agricultural product. 00:00:17 We're talking about farm consolidation in this episode of The Grainery. You ready for a conversation 00:00:22 with some real farmers about real issues? And the best part? You are invited. Pour yourself a drink, grab a snack. 00:00:31 Most importantly, pull up a chair. Welcome to the Grainery. Hey guys. 00:00:43 All right. Now you guys know the topic we're talking about farm consolidation. One of the fun things we do here is we don't let the topic 00:00:48 out until everybody's sitting here. And that way we get fresh, authentic, spontaneous reaction. We're talking about farm 00:00:53 consolidation. I've got my friend weird Looks between me and e Yeah, that's okay. That's the whole, that's the whole show. 00:00:58 We got Temple Roads and Matt Miles of extreme Ag and we're joined by Daniel Hensley Daniels with Concept Agritech, the sponsor 00:01:05 of this episode of The Grain. We were so appreciative of your sponsorship concept. Agritech is a maker of, uh, biologicals 00:01:11 and other crop inputs that these guys use on their farms. Yep. Right. Well, we appreciate this partnership. 00:01:16 We appreciate being here. We appreciate you giving these guys products that help them farm better. 00:01:19 Farm consolidation. Um, people get a little hot about this in our industry. And then the outside media 00:01:26 that doesn't even play in agriculture about every three months, there'll be something, whether it's the New York Times or NPR or Washington Post, whatever, big farms, 00:01:34 corporate farms, industrial agriculture, gobbling up those poor little small farms. There's a lot of misinformation, 00:01:40 what originally happened out here, but here's some reality. It ain't gonna stop. We just got under 2 million farms here 00:01:46 last year, and it's gonna probably continue. We're gonna have more consolidation because that's what's happened for, 00:01:51 since I said 1935 when we had 6.8 million farms in this country. Yep. What do you think? 00:01:59 It's true. It's sad, but true. You know, that's what I think. You know, I'll give you an example. 00:02:04 Just in one county, two counties south of where I live there in Arkansas, um, in one county in 2024, at least five farms went outta business. One county. Yeah. 00:02:18 So they go outta business because of, they were just absolutely like getting foreclosed upon. And they go outta business. 'cause hey, you know what? 00:02:23 This is where I, I, I tell people, I'm like, bill, sometimes it's not big old bad industrial agriculture. Some, you know why a lot of people exited farming 00:02:30 since 1935. You got old. It was hard. You didn't make that much. I always tell people like, Hey, I was on one 00:02:37 of those smaller type farms. Actually we were mid-sized, normal-sized farm back in 1980s. I'd have gladly just, uh, gone and lived in town. 00:02:45 You it was, it was, we were broke all the time. It was a lot of work. So sometimes farms exit because there had no money in it. 00:02:52 Yep. Yeah, that's true. And, and you've got two spectrums. You know, we're seeing it. 00:02:57 I, I think in my career, and I think I've on my own 35 crops, so 35 years, this is gonna be the largest turnover 00:03:05 of any year I've seen in my career. I made That discussion the other day. Yeah. It's like, it started in October, 00:03:10 land started coming available in October. Now, where that's going for the most part is you, there's, there's two ends of this scale. 00:03:17 So you've got the younger guy or the guy that's not a real good equity position. Maybe he don't own much land 00:03:23 or just had had struggles before. And then on the other hand of this rope, you've got the people that are 60 00:03:28 to 70 years old, they're aging out. You know, my kids don't want to do it, and, and I'm tired of it. 00:03:34 The ones in the middle, you know, are the ones that are still trying to kind of hang on. And I, I get a bur in my side a lot when I 00:03:40 hear the word corporate farm. Mm-hmm. I'd like for you to do some research on that sometime, because of these farms, as they get bigger, 00:03:46 most of 'em are still family farms. I mean, there's very few, Most of 'em are corporate farms, 00:03:51 but they are a family farm. Well, They're farm, they're farm family that has a corporation for tax purposes or FSA purposes or 00:03:57 Legal for legal reasons. And we're, and we're, we're co we're labeled to stereotype this corporate when I've got a lot 00:04:03 of family that works in my farm. Well, the other one is, they call it corporate farm. Daniel, you, you sell something, 00:04:08 you, you, they're your customers. They're a corporation because it's cousin Joe and it's neighbor. 00:04:13 And, and it's, it is these three. And you've got to for a lot of reasons. It doesn't mean that somehow it's, 00:04:18 A lot of 'em are doing it to share equipment. Right. Yeah. Right. You know, I mean, in order to survive, these guys have figured out a way where they can take, 00:04:26 you know, three, 3000 acre farms. Yeah. And just let's just all join together. It hard. I can almost share equipment together. We had a 00:04:33 Talked about that Transport. We talked about getting one combine that we shared back and forth with, because 00:04:37 He's done before I start. Right. You know, every year it's hard. It's hard for me to think about 00:04:43 consolidation without throwing the word collaboration. Yeah. In there. You're right. The same time. Yeah. You know, and so I think, I think we see some 00:04:52 of both, you know? Mm-hmm. But, but what you guys are talking about is a collaboration. 00:04:57 Yes. Right. Not a consolidation, But I'd say that that's the majority of them. I mean, it's not like, you know, farmers are going out there 00:05:05 and turning their farm into a giant corporation and just taking over. And that's the misconception. That's not, it is happening. 00:05:12 Well, but not on the large Scale. Well, you know, and, and then I've gotta ask, especially row 00:05:15 crop wise, and I've gotta ask what, what do, because I hear the, I hear the same thing, Damien, like, we hear it all the time. 00:05:21 Right. What do people expect? How many first generation farmers do you see? Yeah, Almost none. We had, 00:05:28 we, we've had one hero of some episodes of the grain ring. Not very many. First off, it's a huge capital investment 00:05:34 for a very poultry return. So that obviously limits. I, I don't get, you know, debates, but I do some things to be illustrative 00:05:43 and I can say, okay, what's That mean? Demonstrate. Okay. Um, so, alright, it's a commodity business. 00:05:53 How many first generation shingle manufacturers are there? How many first generation copper companies are there? 00:06:00 When you're in a commodity business, it tends, it tends to favor larger scale. Economies of scale and big production. 00:06:07 That's the business that we're in. When you look at it that way and say, tell me why corn would being different than copper 00:06:12 or shingles and Oh, I'm not being mean, but there's some reality to this. It's a commodity business. 00:06:19 Yeah. You know, the one of the sad things is, and I've said multiple times, I'm very excited for the future of agriculture. 00:06:29 I am next generation. Very excited about it because there's so many opportunities that there is out there. 00:06:34 I mean, there's opportunities out there now for my sons that Matt and I never had. You never had. Right. If you had 'em, 00:06:42 you might still be on family farm. Like, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. That opportunity wasn't there. 00:06:46 Mm-hmm. So there is a lot of those opportunities out there, but what there's not opportunities for, 00:06:51 unless you, you know, you fall into a certain situation is a young guy that bleeds farming, didn't come from farming 00:06:59 and has no way to start. You just can't enter this thing now, you know, one of the guys that was on the, 00:07:06 on the grainery on at a past episode, I'm extremely proud of that guy. Like, he started from nothing. 00:07:12 He was a town kid and he started with six acres and now he's whatever, but he's, he's building his own career. 00:07:19 Very proud of that. That's not easy. I know of one in my, in my area. I know of one. He's the only one I know. 00:07:27 I I know, I know one first generation farmer too. Um, I, I get the privilege and honor of, of getting to deal with him daily. 00:07:35 Almost. I'm serious about that. He's a super, super good individual. Um, he's making it. Mm-hmm. He's doing it. Yeah. That's a rarity. Yeah. 00:07:44 And it's sad. Almost unheard of. Yeah. It's unheard of. It's like a unicorn. Yeah. Well, you know what we do in this industry, 00:07:49 we always say things and we got a bunch of 'em here in extreme ag, fifth generation generation, and there's some pride in keeping the business going. 00:07:55 I have a hell of a lot more respect for the person that says, I started literally from scratch. You know, because there's almost none a 00:08:01 Bunch. I really give credit to like the, the first generation that, that we know those guys think way outside the box 00:08:11 and they are not, they're not affected by tradition bound farming. Yeah, no, absolutely not. And that's what we're affected by. 00:08:17 We're all affected by that. Very much so. Yep. And it's in the back of our mind. You said it's quick looking in the rear view mirror. 00:08:23 That's what every farmer does. 'cause rear view mirror is the tradition. Mm-hmm. That's of where I come from. 00:08:28 You know, they don't failure failure. They don't like that y'all talking about in Yeah. But that, but you know, and, 00:08:32 and, and, and when we, when you fail, that's when the consolidation starts. Right? Yeah. If you keep, I mean, on a, on a big scale. 00:08:39 Mm-hmm. And when you consolidate who's, who's gonna get all that Right? Is it gonna be your son gonna pick it up or, 00:08:45 or Lane gonna pick it up? Or, or is your farm, you know, is your corporate family farm? 00:08:51 Yeah. Gonna pick it up, you know, you know, but, but what, what my point is, is is it's not the first generation 00:08:58 farmer that's grabbing it. Somebody's, somebody's gonna farm it, Somebody's holding in down, we've gotta eat. And it, 00:09:04 And it, it's, yeah. It tends to favor Scale. I got a question for you, and then I may be putting you on the spot, but you worked for a, 00:09:09 I don't a product sales company. Mm-hmm. Had you rather sell, I mean that's not, maybe rather's not the right word, 00:09:17 but are you more comfortable selling to a larger farm that pays this bill every 30 days and buys large quantities? Or from one guy 00:09:25 or six guys over here that barely gets you paid that are, you know, that are struggling with a smaller farm? 00:09:31 You know, which one of those most attractive to which one are we gonna get a better price to? I mean, traditionally you would think 00:09:38 that this guy would get a little better deal 'cause you know, he is gonna pay and he is buying big volume. 00:09:42 So that's where a lot of this consolidation has came from. And we're Not to say that a smaller farming 00:09:46 operation doesn't appear their bills. It's just the generally, generally the, The, the company's leaning towards the larger farm. Yeah. 00:09:53 So, so, so we're geared to help. I mean, honest, honest to goodness. I mean, you, you've said it in the introduction, 00:09:59 we are manufacturers of, of inputs and biological products and things of that nature, fertility, all that. 00:10:04 That's, that's it. You know, at the end of the day, um, I'll tell you right now, we're here to help farmers. Mm-hmm. I've said it to anybody that'll listen. 00:10:12 If the farmer doesn't win, nobody downstream from that's gonna win. I mean that. Yeah. And I, and I, so 00:10:19 How do we do that? It goes to these little guys. Underst So it goes from the, from the biggest farmers in the country 00:10:24 to the smallest farmers in the country. How does, how is that managed? You just gotta meet 'em where they're at. 00:10:30 I, I mean, and I'll say this like, you know, from their company alone, and I'm only speaking for that one, and, 00:10:35 and I'll speak for a lot of other ones, but your company in specific, you know, you guys have designed special finance programs 00:10:42 that help all of them. They don't matter who the hell you are. You, y'all have gotten complete. It, 00:10:47 It don't, it don't matter. And it's not price, you know, price specific for you or you, it is doubt around the community. 00:10:56 And that's the kind of things that help. Well, I'm talking about more and then kudos to y'all. 'cause I think I, you may ask, 00:11:01 somebody asked me this question, you know, is there any, are these companies doing anything to try 00:11:06 to help farmers in this situation we're in? And I said, well, I know of one. Yeah. I said, concept Agritech has come out with a program 00:11:12 with a price protection program that, and it don't matter. You can be a five acre farmer, a 5 million acre farmer. 00:11:18 That's, yeah. And you still get there. And, and when I said that, I wasn't really, I'm alluding more to big Ag, like these big major companies, 00:11:26 you know, they, we lose the small guy in that, in that scramble because all they're chasing is the big guy. Well, because they get a bunch of 00:11:34 small guys, they get a lot more Acres per decision maker. But the risk factor, you've got 10 small guys with one, 00:11:39 I swear I was getting at, at one big guy. Mm-hmm. He gets p****d off at you. Yeah. That's, you've got 10 over here. 00:11:43 So if two of those, do you still got eight then? So there's a, there's a value to the, you're, You're right. And that 00:11:49 happened in, in That area. I if you took that wrong or I said that. No, I get where exactly 00:11:53 where you're going at there in our area, there's a retailer in our area and there's a, there's a large scale farmer in that area. 00:12:00 And that retailer like only worries about that large farmer. And he's got 10 guys over here that do a great job 00:12:09 and they're big supporters of the company. And they will let them guys, they, they'll put them on the back burner 00:12:14 to make sure this guy's sent forward. And then all of a sudden, the big guy, he price shopped you out. 00:12:20 Right. And now another retailer got him for Penns on a dollar, and now he's like, So, so we talked, you did That to yourself. Well, so 00:12:28 We, I did that with my landowners. I have a landowner landowner with 3000 acres and one with 40. 00:12:33 Well, you know, that guy with 40 acres, it's probably more important to his income than the guy over here with 3000. 00:12:39 Oh yeah. So I treat all the landowners the same. It, I mean, if this guy gets the same amount of love as the guy's got the big farm, 00:12:46 and that's the way that this should work. I've Seen you do that because I've been on the phone with you and you got off phone, called me back 00:12:53 and I was like, what's my laying on? And I'm like, you tell a bunch of ground for him. No, it was about 60 acres. 00:12:57 I'm like, well, you jumped off the phone quick for, for That. Yeah. Kudos. Thank you. At one 00:13:02 Point out though, where Matt was going with that, that the power structure changes. Okay. In 2017, census of agriculture, we had 105,000 00:13:12 farms that did 75% of all agricultural sale production by dollar. Did you look that up or you just remember that? 00:13:19 I I I did both. I, I remember it and I looked it up, but thank you. That thing is, we're only here, we're in 2025. 00:13:26 We're shooting this show. We've gone from 105,000 farming operations of the 2 million, which is now less than 2 million, that did three quarters 00:13:35 of all production by dollar amount to about, it's less than 90. We're down to like 80 or uh, 00:13:40 or so that are farming 75% of the value. This changes the power situation in that the larger farming operations that control so many, uh, 00:13:51 acres and amount of production, the same amount of acres. But the problem is the decision maker. 00:13:57 And so it puts us, the power situations a lot different for the companies that want all those acres. Because now it's those 10 customers 00:14:05 You're talking about one, there's one and you gotta make him happy. That's Right. You know, and, and so, 00:14:09 so, uh, for our company, I mean, we we're not overly picky, if you will, of who we do business with. 00:14:16 You know what I mean? I mean Yeah. I say that lightly because I, I, I guess we are a, a little picky of who we do Business. You wanted to pay their bills. 00:14:23 Right. You know, but, but at the end of the day, is that Why he don't like working with you? 00:14:26 Uh, oh, B we go, man, that's, that was rough. That that Was, that was Rough. He was gonna say it to me 00:14:32 if I hadn't have said it to him first. Yeah. He's about to come. He's Right. Yeah. You 00:14:35 know, but, but you know, we, we, from a business standpoint, it takes just as much time for us to deal 00:14:41 with a 2000 acre farmer as it does a 10,000 acre farmer. Mm-hmm. Okay. And so, 00:14:47 and so when you dive off into that from, from our point of view, I'll be honest with you, we wanna be, you know, we preach all the time. 00:14:53 A farmer needs to be diversified. Yeah. You know, that's, that's, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you this as a company 00:15:02 again, who would you rather deal with? Because you got a 2000 acre farmer over here that pays attention to every little input that he does. 00:15:10 And he's willing to make a change in his program because he has to make every acre count. Exactly. And with some of the products 00:15:17 that your company supports, it supports going after that. That little bit of extra add on. Right? 00:15:23 You got a little extra add on that add to yield. I'll take, if this is easier, talk this guy in, enjoyed the 2000 or go talking to this 14,000 acre farmer. 00:15:33 I wanna talk to the person that wants to change. I wanna talk to the one that wants to listen The majority of the time. What is that font, 00:15:40 The new generation, small acres? Well, and what good. And, and, and Most of the time, not always, not always, not stereotype, 00:15:48 But I mean, Matt's a large scale farmer in my realm. Just Matt, how long it took him to change. 00:15:55 Oh, I'm sure it was a while. I've seen him make Changes. We had a conversation just a 00:15:58 While ago. Yeah. It takes A while. And the thing is, the misconception, I think, and we, we discussed this once on another episode. 00:16:06 I don't think there's a farmer out there that desires to be a big farmer. If he could make the same amount of money 00:16:11 or service the same debt on less, man I'd love to farm. Which Is just, which is the point 00:16:18 of commodity production favors scale and economies of scale. The one thing about this is, I said there's a lot of outside 00:16:27 folks outside of the industry that just inherently believe it is bad. Well, you know what? Look around here. 00:16:34 You pulled in my driveway. This was a small, this was a beef operation and all this. And if goes, Hey, when you farm your own ground, I say, 00:16:41 I own about 200 tillable acres. What do I do? I mean, the idea that you're gonna be able to make that on strict commodity. 00:16:50 I said, yeah, if it was some specialty crop, maybe it was hay for horses or something like this, and it's just lost on some people like 00:16:57 That you don't farm it because How, how could you, you know, I said, it's not even about the time. 00:17:01 Well, because you go to Arizona. I'm like, no, it's because I couldn't justify owning the machinery to do it unless it was something 00:17:07 that was very labor intensive. You know, watermelons or so organic, you know, blueberries 00:17:11 or something. I don't, you don't drive 8 0 6 out there trying to plant your crop with a four row plant. 00:17:15 So I mean, you're going, I know Guys that tell 200 acres that really worry about every little 00:17:20 input and he make a living on it. I, I Would Get 200 acres, you pull It, I'd have to do specialty crop. But 00:17:25 I got, I mean, he's got other in, he's got other things that he does pull. He has a little dealership, you know 00:17:30 What I mean? You pull in my driveway and you're going to, you're gonna see just a little ranch style house sitting in the middle of a rice farm. 00:17:35 Yeah. You know, that's, that's our ground. I live on the family farm. Yeah. Yeah. And that's our ground. But I don't farm that, that ground. 00:17:42 But I do have some say so on how it's managed. Yeah. I'll enjoy that. I would like to be able to go to, to the guys and say, Hey, 00:17:51 maybe you should try this. Maybe you could do this. What it means a lot when you're selling products and you know how to use Yeah. 00:17:56 Or you've used them yourself. Right. You know, that's one thing I see that attracts me to different ag businesses is that the person who's trying 00:18:03 to sell me something has done it. Their sell. I got a huge problem with that. When, when a retailer comes to me 00:18:09 and they're like, uh, this is what you need to do Cookie cutter. See, The problem with that, a lot of them is, is one, 00:18:16 they're not an agronomist. They call theirself a sales agronomist, which there's no such thing. 00:18:22 Beware right there. And number two, I, first thing I ask, how many acres of corn do you grow in your career? 00:18:30 Or this, this year, for instance. Yeah. Right. Well, I've helped thousands of acres. No, I didn't ask that. How many acres have 00:18:37 you been at risk for? Yeah. That's not that you couldn't pay, that you couldn't feed your family. Yeah. 00:18:42 So, so, so, so this is, that's, that's, that is that fuse is lit when those things start to happen for consolidation. 00:18:52 Yep. Mm-hmm. So go back to the consolidation. So see, temple always, he's a bit, he's a bit of a tangent guy. 00:18:58 Um, he goes off of the, so I had to keep bringing it right back to this line about consolidation. 00:19:04 There's a couple of thoughts. First off, I, again, I always tell non-agricultural people, I said, remember, this isn't bad. 00:19:10 If, if you look at percentage of the population that farms, there's an absolute correlation between the percentage 00:19:16 of your population that endeavors in production, agriculture and the food security. 00:19:20 In other words, the, the fewer people that are doing the farming, the more food you have. That's absolutely. Look at Europe. 00:19:26 Europe, 1% of the population farms in Europe. One or 2% of Canada farms, 1% of America farms. And we've got the most food, uh, go to, you know, 00:19:36 the countries of Niger, Haiti, you know, I can go all around the globe here and find you a very, very poor country. 00:19:41 Or 50 to 70% of the country endeavors in agriculture and ain't got no food. So there's some real benefit to being so good at what you do 00:19:47 that very few people can do it. It just means that fewer people are farming. Yeah. Didn't he just talk about me going on a tangent and, 00:19:53 and then he gets on soapbox? Well, it Thing Those numbers and consolidation. Oh, lot. You're Welcome. Of the reason for consolidation 00:19:59 is some of the episodes we've had in the past, you know, is management. You know, and you could skip a couple crops in 1950s, 00:20:07 you know, you could, you could farm three crops and miss a whole crop and you'd farm that fourth one or whatever. 00:20:13 I'd been way better off. I left planters in the shed last year and didn't do nothing. But You can't because you rent the land. 00:20:17 Right. You've got fixed costs that you have to, you have to take care of. You know? That's what I'm saying. 00:20:22 It was easier to mess up in, in 50 years ago than it is to mess up today. If you mess up today with a slim profit margin, we got Yeah. 00:20:29 Then you're gonna consolidate with somebody, or you're getting out one of the two. It Gets a lot of people very emotional, Daniel, 00:20:34 like people in ag and outside of ag. Outside of ag. 'cause they don't really understand inside of ag. 00:20:40 It becomes this angry, uh, you know, I'm trying to be a small farmer and I, I'm not being mean, but I say you wanna milk 40 cows in a tie stall barn, 00:20:49 like was done in 1958. You better be some sort, you better be than organic and turning it into Swiss cheese 00:20:57 that has your own brand and it's grass fed. You have to have four layers of niche to make that work. Because milk production cows raised on 00:21:04 dairy farm is a commodity. And, and it's, I'm not being mean, it's just, we're not going back to 1958. 00:21:11 Right. And then we really don't want to, I Don't think anybody wants To Now I don't wanna go back to 8 0 6. 00:21:16 Uh, yeah, Not at all. We talking about the future. Um, I think we're, we're just gonna slide right into it. There's still a place for small agriculture, 00:21:27 but you've gotta be niched. I think that's, that's, it's gonna be big large scale commodity or, or small scale niche. 00:21:33 You know, I, I get asked all the time and, and, and you would think, and, and, and I've thought about the question at first. 00:21:38 I was like, well, that's a dumb question. What's small agriculture? Hmm. You know what, small agriculture. Yeah, 00:21:45 That's A good Point. You know, because I've seen very successful commodity farms that farm 1500 acres. 00:21:51 Sure. They owned it all. Right, right. Maybe they own that 1500. I Got a friend that's 1800 acres. 00:21:56 That's all these, we, we, We wouldn't call that small in this part of the world necessarily. These things are a little different in Arkansas, 00:22:01 but yeah, there's a lot different Arkansas let's face. But anyway, uh, well, what you're saying, Daniel, is I get asked that question too from a guy I know and, 00:22:09 and city guy, Arizona guy Yep. Says, can a small farm even make it now? I said, I said that is a, I said first off, 00:22:18 there's make it what is, make it what is small? What what type, uh, can you farm again? Can I farm 200 acres of just corn and soy? Mm-hmm. Sure. 00:22:27 I can make it because I've got my other businesses that make me a bunch of money. Mm-hmm. I say there's so many nuances to that question 00:22:32 that it's not even answerable. Yeah. Large farmers reject. I've got a question. Why, why is this? 00:22:39 'cause I don't know, and you just made me think of it. The further south you get, the bigger the farms get, the further north you get the smaller the farms Does that, 00:22:46 I mean, I'm, y'all, I mean, I just told that today, I mean it, how, why, what's reason small, small 00:22:51 and large farmers, um, farming operations, value of the land. It's, it's, it's regional. It's the land value. I 00:22:57 It's regional land value would be the first answer. So your, your land's 10 to 20,000 and ours is five to 7,000. 00:23:03 So that's a difference I guess. I think it's part of it. Yeah. I mean, I've often wondered that, you know why, 00:23:09 because most of your Midwestern farmers, couple thousand acres is a big farmer with, isn't that what you told me around here? 00:23:15 Not big, but there's, there's plenty of people out there. Five Thousand's a big farm. Yeah. 00:23:18 5,000 acres is a big, big operator. And I got guys down there around maybe 20, 25,000. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, it's also, um, layout, you know, 00:23:25 I mean it's, it's a soil layout and how, how the farms lay out, you know, like around here, you know, there's waterways that cut through here 00:23:32 and there's, you know, you got all these little milks and crannies and woods. Unfortunately 00:23:36 You had M off or you'd see something. There's another Population. I've seen videos of your farm. It is wide 00:23:41 Open And flat Grass. Some of it's The population density would've something to do with it as well. 00:23:45 It's, it's, it'd be harder to assemble 20,000 acre. I mean, you're gonna be doing, you're gonna be doing some twenties and 30 and 61 acre fields and all that. 00:23:53 But the consolidation thing, I don't see it changing. But the one thing, if you read about what's going on in agriculture, there is small niche has as a place. 00:24:03 There's the, the younger, you know, person that says, I want to endeavor in, in production agriculture, 00:24:07 but I'm going to, I only got this much money. Well, again, you're gonna have to do 13 acres of some completely specialty niche type of a thing. Yeah. 00:24:15 Well, my dad passed in 2000, he farmed 1100 acres and he was a decent sized farmer. So 25 years from there, 00:24:23 an average farmer in my county is probably 6,000. Mm-hmm. You know, and I get labeled as a, as a big farmer. Right. So Lane and I are farming together. 00:24:31 So if I've got two, you get Labeled as a big farmer in our extreme ag community. Alright. But from your area, you're really not. But if you 00:24:39 Separate me at my, he's double average. I'm 5,000. He's 5,000. Yeah. You know, if you go to a s single farmer, 00:24:45 Then it goes back to collaboration. Well, and that's what's what it makes it look like these corporate farms, these huge farms. 00:24:50 If you take, I've got a friend that farmed about 20,000 acres or five of them in that operation, divide that by five, 00:24:56 4,000 acres a piece. They're not big farmers Per person. And, and temple and I spoke about that with a, an operator 00:25:02 that's not too far from here. And I said, yeah, they're large, but they also got five people pulling off 00:25:07 Of that in that farm. What's the negatives and what's the positives? If I'm, if I'm in your shoes, 00:25:11 then the positive is fewer customers, same amount of acres. Negative. If I p**s off one of those customers, 00:25:19 I lose a whole bunch of acres. Yeah. That's one of, I can go positive, positive, negative. No, that's it. That's the biggest thing for us. 00:25:24 You know, same amount of work, no matter what the acres are. Positive, negative consolidation in American agriculture. 00:25:30 It, I mean, it, it could be the, it is going to be the future. It could possibly save farmers from having 00:25:38 to go all the way out if they consolidate, like Matt said earlier, you know, they share the risk and equipment. 00:25:44 They share some of the expenses. They, they, they have a larger footprint. They can actually go out 00:25:51 and they have more buying power, you know, when it comes to inputs and stuff like that. I, 00:25:56 That's Positive. I think that that's positive. Yeah. Negatives. The negatives are, Some peoples don't get it. 00:26:01 Don't, some people don't get you. Let Me answer people. I mean, are, are you giving my answer for the negative? 00:26:05 I mean, I'm just guessing here it's That kind of sound like it, It kind of sounded like it was Daniel. 00:26:09 Go ahead and do it too. And then you have to say, you Wanna take my negative, I mean, we'll pass my negative 00:26:12 around the table. I'd rather not just Read my mind. Just go ahead Temple. I No way. 00:26:15 I wanna read your mind just saying, So There's like certain, there's certain books you don't wanna open you. 00:26:22 That's one of that one Chuck. It's like a can of nails rattling around. And um, I'd say negative for me is, is the chances 00:26:31 of small new generation farmers have a very slim chance of getting in the agriculture community. And that Say it to me. Yeah, 00:26:42 I was going to say it precludes some from the game, which is five words versus the 60 he took to say that. But that's a different story. Anyway. 00:26:49 I'm a, I'm a more efficient user of one negatives and positive consolidation. I mean that pretty much hit it. 00:26:55 The positive I guess would be if you're, you know, if you consolidate, you're more efficient, you know, you get things done better. 00:27:01 You can instead of con like just say, just say I got larger, you know, I might have a guy concentrating on corn, 00:27:07 one on cotton, one on beans, one on rice. So you can departmentalize your farm. Yeah. Run it more like a Yeah, like a corporation. Yeah. Right. 00:27:14 And even though it's a family farm. Yeah. Right, right. You can give people a lane that they stay in. Mm-hmm. So they're specialized. Yeah. 00:27:19 That's where I would think the positive is. The negative is, it's just sad to see that, you know, you can't farm a small farm anymore hardly. 00:27:28 Yeah. And, and compete, you know, the competition is too big on these bigger guys. They'll come in and raise your rent. Mm-hmm. 00:27:34 Yeah. To me that p****d me out And put you out That worse than anything, I come in and raise my rent 00:27:39 That's happening in our community. One of the things that I see, because, uh, I've kind 00:27:44 of rolled this around in my head. You Wanna answer for you or you Yeah, go ahead. No, something that you guys didn't think of. Generally. 00:27:51 We obviously work out here in rural America and I can go over here to Bipas four miles north and west of here. 00:27:55 And there was a grain elevator and there was a implement dealership and there was a post office and a restaurant. 00:28:01 And you can go through all that and Bipas is dead. And if you could argue, consolidation of agriculture has got a lot to do with the, some 00:28:09 of its death of these small towns because the, you, you know, farmers have bigger, uh, grain holding capacity than 00:28:16 that elevator did 50 years ago. So there's That. That's true. But There's also, i i, I don't know what would reverse that. 00:28:22 There's, There's a lot of consolidation on the other end. The equipment you've got, well I wasn't 00:28:28 thinking equipment, but you're right about that. Well, I mean, we lost our dealership and our hometown dealership. 00:28:31 We lost the taxes Yep. For our county. 'cause that dealership moved just right across the line. But it's centrally located 00:28:38 with two or three different towns now. Mm-hmm. It's about eight miles from Yeah. So three dealerships become one or something like that. 00:28:43 Yeah. And, and, and the equipment manufacturers are, are pushing the owners of the dealer, dealer All these to Consolidation. You're 00:28:50 gonna get bigger. You're gonna buy five dealerships or you're out. Well, I mean, you think about a lot of the, um, 00:28:55 the green purchasers in our area or whatever, you know, they're integrators, you know. Well they have literally gone up 00:29:02 and bought all the small dealers that were around and put them out of business and they consolidated. And now there's no competition. 00:29:11 Limits your market limits your Marketplace. So now our base is not the same as what it used to be. Yeah. Because they can hold onto it. They control that. 00:29:19 They're a hundred percent correct. And that has got become a huge problem. So because they are really 00:29:24 holding the reins on em, remember? Right. And it's not only happening there, it's also happening with our retailers. 00:29:28 Oh yeah. I can tell you right now, there was multiple retailers in our area years ago. Yep. And I'm right now there's a couple. It's a couple. 00:29:37 Yeah. And they hold all the Cards. Now if you think about a temple that means look at you. You and 00:29:42 I have had that discussion Before. That really makes me mad. Yeah. That's something that I, And that's, that's kinda like, you know, when you, 00:29:47 when you talk about a company like concept coming in and setting up some dealers in some different areas and stuff like that, man, 00:29:53 it brings competition back to the surface. The independent retailer is helping fight that. Holy Moly, you Would not believe support the independent 00:30:02 retailer and that that's getting it. They, I mean this is the same as farmers. It's the same thing. Very much the same. 00:30:07 You alluded to it while ago. If you, I don't know the word I should use. If you screw your farmer, 00:30:12 you're eventually going out of business. Mm-hmm. And so our success is their success. Well, one Thing that you're gonna say, 00:30:19 and if they're screw us, they don't all see it like that. No, they don't. That's the problem. 00:30:22 The corporate guys for sure. One thing we should talk about though, that's uh, unfortunately it's a benefit of a larger 00:30:29 consolidated farming operation that one retailer has got a lot of controlling their area. If you're a big farming operation, you don't have 00:30:37 to do business with that one. That's eight miles away. There's somebody 45, 75 miles away that might want your business because you're bigger. 00:30:44 So in other words, it's kind of power, Power that all that all goes back to funding. It goes back to funding for the farm. 00:30:49 Yeah. And we did that. It just us, we started working with, I've been working with years now. Mm-hmm. And, and I built a warehouse. It took, yeah. 00:30:56 I was scared to deal. I spent $20,000 filling in a shed for making a warehouse where I could buy totes. Right. Because they could get it cheaper 00:31:03 to me in a tote than two and a half gallon ju And and you Wouldn't have, your father was not, 00:31:07 He got tote would would've been more than needed. Yeah, yeah. Right. You know, and in today's world, be larger. 00:31:12 Yeah. I could handle the larger volumes, which makes you get it more efficient if You were consolidating it, you were bringing it in early 00:31:18 and you were getting a better price point by doing it. Yeah. Benefits and negatives, positives and negatives. 00:31:23 Consolidation. We know that farms are gonna continue to consolidate. There's no really changing that. 00:31:27 I guess all you can do is adapt to it. You know what, you can always pull up a chair right here and get in on intelligent conversations like this. 00:31:31 And yes, I know it creates a lot of emotion because it's just the way it is. There's, uh, whether from the non-ag 00:31:36 and from the ag about when you talk about consolidation, well you know what? We're not afraid to tackle the sometimes controversial, 00:31:41 or at least we should say, emotion evoking conversations. That's what we do here at the Grainery. 00:31:45 Our sponsor was Daniel Hensley here with Concept Agritech. If you wanna learn more about their fine lineup of products 00:31:50 and help you farm better, go to Concept agritech.com. And that's agritech with a K at the end of it. We got Temple Roads and Matt Miles. 00:31:57 Two my absolute favorites to have here at the Grainery. And you know what? We want you to come here as often as possible. 00:32:02 So please check out all the episodes of the Grainery and share this with somebody that might enjoy it. Till next time, cheers from the Grainery. 914 00:32:07.955 --> 00:32:08.445