Can You SWOT Your Farm Like a Fortune 500? | The Granary

00:00:00 Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the corporate world. They call it a SWOT analysis. 00:00:05 We're gonna do one of those for your farming operation. You ready for a conversation with some real farmers about real issues? 00:00:11 And the best part, you are invited. Pour yourself a drink, grab a snack. Most importantly, pull up a chair. Welcome to the Greenery. 00:00:23 Hey guys, I've got Stephanie Linco, Kevin Matthews, and Matt Miles here. And we're gonna talk about that. 00:00:36 By the way, thank you for being here. Stephanie is with Agro Liquid, the sponsor of this episode at Greenwood. 00:00:41 We thank you very much for being a sponsor. And we also thank you for being here. You're an agronomist with Agro Liquid. 00:00:46 You're also a farmer with your husband, about three hours north of here in central Michigan. And you know what? You've got the corporate background. 00:00:53 So you knew all about a SWOT analysis because you probably in some time in your career had to do one. 00:00:58 My farm friends were like, wait a minute. What's this all about? What, a decade or so ago, this became a thing. 00:01:03 Yeah, I think so. And I have to do one every year. Even from the agronomic side. You know, we're not dealing with the numbers like sales, 00:01:09 but we still have to do a SWOT analysis of what we're doing for agronomic support. 00:01:12 So you're supposed to look at your business and say, what are the strengths? What are our weaknesses? What are our opportunities? 00:01:18 And what are the threat to our business? So I'm just gonna ahead and start right with you, Kevin. What's the strength of Matthews Farms? 00:01:26 I believe it's the openness to surround myself by more successful people. And it helps you farm better 00:01:33 because you're willing to take on their, uh, advice, the recommendations that ups your game. We're gonna go with strengths then with Miles Farms. 00:01:40 What's a strength of Miles Farms? Well, he absolutely took my answer. That's why I was hoping you 00:01:45 Usually I go to you first. Yeah. Yeah. I just knew you were and I thought, I got this. This is gonna Be, by the way, 00:01:50 it's not, it's not bad to have the same strength. Well, it's not bad to have the same strength. That's one of 'em. That's how we met. Yeah, exactly. 00:01:55 I mean, I wanted to learn more about soybeans and, and you was great at it. And Still The same thing with corn, you know, with you. 00:02:01 But, you know, just to me, one of our strengths is being open-minded, uh, adapt to change. Yeah. You know, there's so, so many people 00:02:09 that's like, I'm not doing that. You know, I'm not, there's no way that'll work. I, I'm being guilty that myself 00:02:13 and my son say, there's no way this'll work. Yeah. And then find out later. Every time I say that, I'm wrong. 00:02:18 But, you know, just being open-minded and, and willing to try new things along with surrounding your people. 00:02:25 Surrounding yourself with smart people. I'm gonna Give you another accolade. I see it as a strength from the three 00:02:29 and a half years I've worked with you, you willingly admit that you sometimes are quick to say that won't work, 00:02:35 which many people do, many farmers do. But you are open-minded enough. It's a strength to try it 00:02:41 and then admit you were wrong about the, the preconceived judgment, which is I think, a strength to build. 00:02:47 Admit you're wrong. What's a strength up there? What's the name of the farm up there? Linco is Linco Acres. Linco Brothers. Linco Brothers. 00:02:55 So I think our biggest strength is the attention to detail. So we, um, sharecrop rent everything. 00:03:01 So if we want those acres next year I'm with, then we have to have that attentional detail. 00:03:06 So, little things like mowing the roadsides, you know, picking up the stones, making sure there's no weeds. And so that just secures, you know, the next year contract. 00:03:16 'cause you, you have to re negotiate those contracts every year. So we own our postering, 00:03:19 but anything that we, you know, rent is on that share crop on a year to year basis. And she's right on that. I mean, we, 95% 00:03:26 of our ground is share rent. And you've got to go that extra mile because the coffee shop talk, you know, 00:03:33 if you're not mowing your turn road and your farm don't look as good as your neighbor. Yeah. Then it may get rid, 00:03:37 You might not get the farm next year. And The guy with cash rent, you give him the money that you know, as long as you don't and, and grow 00:03:43 It up. You gotta keep them ditches, mowed and keep, you know, keep your canal banks mowed. Everything. And it, it's the, the, the landowner. 00:03:51 You even the, even the ones that's cash, rent versus share rent. They, you know, you mentioned the coffee shop. 00:03:57 It, it just gives that sense of pride to 'em that mm-hmm. You know, and them as the landowners you want. Yeah. 00:04:02 That, that's got the pride in the land. That's what I say. I, I'm not, I've never been in a share 00:04:07 arrangement, but I certainly understand it. We can't rent my ground out. But there's still that thing. Even share rent or whatever of the mowing 00:04:17 and taking care of things because it's, it's, you kind of, it becomes a competitive thing, you know? 00:04:22 Uh, well I wanna make sure that the landowner's happy and all that. So you're good about taking tracking details. 00:04:27 You said you think you're really good at keeping eye on things like that. You, that's the strengths. It's, we're gonna stay on you. 00:04:33 Stephanie. Weakness A weakness. Most People are bad at this. Most people are bad at this. 00:04:39 Well, my weakness is I just work too hard. Yeah. My weaknesses is, I'm just too pretty. My weakness come on. Exactly. He 00:04:45 Talks too much. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That we, I think there's a lot of weaknesses. Um, probably the one that I would go to first is 00:04:53 the willingness to change. So the farm just recently became 100% our responsibility when the second uncle and the operation passed away. 00:05:02 So, you know, it's always been the uncles were in charge. Uh, now that we've lost both of them, 00:05:06 it's a hundred percent Ryan and he's getting better. But the mindset was that's what they've always done. Mm. So that's what we're gonna do. 00:05:13 I'm not gonna worry about changing anything 'cause it's worked. We've been very successful. 00:05:17 So I think a weakness is that there's not that willingness to change. We're working on it. Um, 00:05:23 but it's still, I think, is drawing back a little bit. And The benefit there is at least your, your unwillingness 00:05:28 to change is not uncommon. Every one of these, we all know that. First off, that's humans. Humans. That's farmers. 00:05:34 And that's farmers. Farmers in particular as humans in general as farmers in particular, that, you know, resist change, 00:05:39 But at least What you're doing does work. Think about the people that are un willing to change and what they're doing isn't working. 00:05:45 Right. And that's, that's a weak, that's a weakness with an exponential, uh, uh, next to it. All right. What's your weakness? You got one? I'll 00:05:51 Be mine in. Yeah, I got a couple of them. But the one that really stands out the most for me is managing the employees. 00:05:57 That has always been a weakness for me. 'cause I, I want my guys to, if they see, you know, if they're walking by, and it always impresses me when I see 00:06:07 employees that are walking around and they stop and pick up a piece of trash out of the farm yard. You know, they're not told to do that. And I liken them. 00:06:15 I like it when employees just, they go and do their thing. They know their job and lots 00:06:21 of times I don't even know they're there. But the work gets done and it gets done Great. And, and that is cool. 00:06:26 What really the biggest weakness I had was learning that the one thing worse than losing a great employee is 00:06:35 keeping the bad one. Alright. I, I was actually gonna say, I hope Kevin says, 'cause most people this way, now one 00:06:45 of your weaknesses is the act of delegating or employee management. It is my worst thing. I'm self-employed 31 years. 00:06:53 I did have an employee once, twice, once. And I kept her involved, employed for two months and just hid. 00:07:01 And someone said, you, you're afraid to call and ask her what's going on with your own business. And I said, I'm afraid to talk to her. 00:07:06 I said, this is really a headache. And they said, fire. I said, well, I don't want that headache. And they said, you have a headache right now. 00:07:12 She's Like, what? How much worse could the headache get of getting rid of the one that's costing you money? And I'm like, yeah, I'm a really crappy delegator. 00:07:19 I'm a really crappy employee manager because I haven't really done it. I've been, uh, self-employed for a long time. 00:07:26 So that is my glaring weakness. And I don't farm. But, uh, that'd be my glaring weakness. Can you get better at that? 00:07:32 Yeah. Yeah. And uh, I like, I guess the big thing for me is the one, the one weakness I see in other farms, um, especially, you know, working with extreme ag, we get 00:07:45 to work with a lot of growers across the United States and other areas. And what we see is those 70 00:07:53 and 80 year olds are making decisions in the 50-year-old son. 55-year-old son doesn't really know. 00:08:01 He knows how to work hard. He knows how to farm hard, but he really doesn't know the business intimately. 00:08:06 And I see that as a big hindrance on that. And one of the strengths that I have is identifying that weakness. 00:08:15 And Matt's got this as well, in my opinion, is being able to step back and let that younger generation take control. 00:08:23 I'm excited about seeing that younger generation come in. I, I'll give them all the rope they'll take, I try 00:08:29 to leave enough slack in it. If they want to jump one day, they'll make a little extra. I see Matt do that with Lane. 00:08:35 I see Chad do that with Jackson. And I see Temple do that with Little Temple and then Kelly with his sons. 00:08:41 And that is a big, that's a big thing. And it's not easy for a farmer to let go. Stephanie just talked about what they've experienced. 00:08:49 I mean, it, it's a very common thing in the ag world, but being able to identify that weakness in others, knowing that it could be a poison for your operation. 00:08:58 'cause face it, when those, when those kids, they're just like, we were when we was in our early twenties and thirties, we was full of, of drive and ideas. 00:09:08 And the difference in Matt and I and a lot was we didn't have nobody to hold us back. Mm. 'cause it, we on our own. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:09:15 And, uh, I don't wanna be that father that holds anybody back. Now, I do wanna be there to try 00:09:22 to soften the fall when they make a mistake. 'cause they're going to make mistakes. They need to make mistakes. That's what 00:09:27 I'm saying. Soften the fall, but still let 'em make the fall because they learn. 00:09:30 You, you, you, have you learned from, have you learned from all your successes? Sure. Have you learned from your mistakes 00:09:35 even more? Probably So. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you got a weakness. What do you think it is? I, I was gonna write down, 00:09:45 because I was gonna write down for everybody, I wouldn't have known for sure. 'cause I'm not been to Stephanie's, 00:09:50 but I can write down what I think strengths and weaknesses are, but then I don't wanna sound like I'm being 00:09:53 judgmental. What's your weakness? Um, do you know what he's wanting to say? Fest festering over festering over things that, uh, 00:10:00 probably take up mental space because you're kind of a worrier is probably your, your weakness. Uh, but I, I'm, I'm a fine one to talk. 00:10:10 I woke up at 4 47 this morning and then go back to sleep with nervous energy. So I, I, I'm, I'm not casting stones. 00:10:16 I'm probably joining your, I'm joining your boat. Yeah. That's probably, I mean, that, that is one of my top weaknesses is getting in too big of a hurry. 00:10:23 Yeah. You know, wearing so much, wearing five or six days ahead of things that might happen and not living day by day. 00:10:30 You know what I mean? The Bible tells you to live, live the, you know, live by the day. 00:10:34 And, and I'm always trying to plan out so far, not getting too big of a hurry. So I'll kneejerk something 00:10:40 and I've got, got gotta go back and fix that. And my wife will tell you one of my biggest weaknesses is w wearing too 00:10:46 much about what people think. Mm. You know, I'm always looking over my shoulder saying, well, what's this guy? 00:10:50 You know, when you've come, when you come, when you come from the other side of the fence. Mm. And and you know, you always, you, you've got 00:10:57 that on your, you kinda that chip on your shoulder. And I'm always wondering, am I doing the right thing or am I looking the right way? 00:11:02 Or am I, you know, treating people fairly or whatever. Um, We also, we also work in a small community. 00:11:09 I mean, figuratively and literally, DHA county's not big and people know who you are. 00:11:14 And so there's that thing about worrying what other people think of you. 'cause you're, you're, you're, you're, 00:11:19 you're working in a, in a Crucible, well, and I say this all the time, and she might have to get a 10 by 10 metal building, 00:11:25 but when I die, I won't standing room only my funeral. And she may, like I said, she may have to get a little small building, 00:11:31 Get small Little 10. If you're standing room only, then you've done your job as a person in life 00:11:36 and left a legacy of of being a good person. That's number one behind, behind everything else that goes on, on a farm. 00:11:42 When, when you leave this world, did you contribute to the world and make it better, By the way, I'd be willing to have your funeral here 00:11:49 and to help fill it. Well, I can fill this one also. If I've got three, three cadences on tap that helps attendance. 00:11:55 Uh, I know you said that might be counterproductive though. Um, I got a question for you. 00:12:02 I, I don't know about the weakness. You said a adjusting to change. Everybody's watching this has that same challenge, right. 00:12:09 Adjusting to change. What, uh, what do you do to improve that? And also you're kind of the outlaw, that's the thing, right? 00:12:17 The in-laws and the outlaws. You married into this, you start going there and saying, here's how you, you might, you might drive a, 00:12:25 a wedge in between that whole thing. How do you navigate them getting better at change and also being the outlaw? 00:12:32 Well, it's easy now because it's down to Ryan and I, so there is one aunt who has grew up in a city. Poor Ryan. Um, yeah. Poor Ryan 00:12:42 In a really poor Ryan especially. That's what it's really, it is, it's down to Ryan and I, there's one aunt who, 00:12:48 like I said, grew up in Detroit. She's not from a farm. Like the first time she found out that we spent $300,000 on the combine, 00:12:55 she about had a heart attack right there because she'd never seen $300,000 in her life. Mm. And so, you know, I think adjusting to change 00:13:04 is an issue for everybody, but the openness and the willingness to adjust. Like there are a lot of people 00:13:08 that will keep farming the rest of their life. We have neighbors that are our age that they're gonna continue to do 00:13:14 what they've always done because it works. And so I think, you know, being able to recognize it is different. 00:13:20 Guys, I don't farm, but you do. When she threw out their 300,000 combines, well, should we go up to Michigan and start buying our machinery? 00:13:28 Because that sounds like a cheap machine. Yeah. But remember 30 or 40 years ago? Oh, okay, okay. When they bought their first thing like 00:13:33 That out, there's three or thousand combines up there. I might get into farming in Michigan. I said our first one. So we're huck years ago. Yeah. 00:13:40 Yeah. And then farmers have trouble with that if they have non-ag wives. Yeah. You know, and you go in there 00:13:45 and you buy a million dollar cotton Picker. Mm-hmm. They're like, You just spent, What, a million dollars 00:13:50 And that thing runs 25 days a Year and remember, and you're not being mean and it's not being any way chauvinistic, 00:13:54 but you bought a, you, you, you didn't wanna buy me, I don't know, a, a better d for my engagement. But you didn't spend a million dollars off. 00:14:02 And, and that's a lot of sacrifices we make. Farming is we put our personal things aside. You know, we don't have the house at the beach or the, 00:14:10 or the lake house or the boat or the jet skis. We put that aside. You have time to use them anyway. No, I mean, you, I mean, you're work. 00:14:16 And quite frankly, you know, people say, I get asked this a lot 'cause we have such a urban sprawl there. 00:14:21 Where we're at is, you know, what, what's, what hobbies do you have? Farming, you know, well, what else do you do? 00:14:28 I mean, what do you do for fun? Well, farming, I mean that, I mean, literally we love it. And we mo and we do 00:14:33 because, you know, it's not uncommon to, you know, if you work a 80 hour week, you feel like you had a vacation. 00:14:39 Well, and I think I'm in the industry, so that helps. Like, I understand what it takes to grow the crop and what it takes to, you know, get that season done where, 00:14:48 you know, the other people in the family that don't work in ag, they don't see that side and they don't understand it. 00:14:52 So I think Ryan has the advantage because I know I grew up on a farm. I've seen it. You know, so I think that's made 00:14:58 that transition a little bit easier because I don't have those expectations that we're gonna get, you know, a cabin up north or a boat, 00:15:04 because I know that's not reality working in the industry. We do. Well And and you go back to, going back to strengths. 00:15:10 One that's probably as biggest strength as I have is I married an ag wife mm-hmm. Who is super good on the farming side. 00:15:17 And when you've got a, a partner that's all in with you all the time, that's a strength be. Yeah. I mean, I, you gotta have that relationship. Yeah. 00:15:27 Which, I mean, y'all worked hand in hand, which Cindy and I try to stay outta the office when she's there. So we don't butt heads much. 00:15:34 But, uh, the, um, just having that family there is fun. I mean, you know, we've got a grandson now and you know, he's in the office crawling around everywhere. 00:15:44 And we're blessed to have a, you know, a son-in-law and a daughter that is not a germaphobia. So it doesn't matter, you know, if the pass, 00:15:51 if the passage's dragging on the, on the floor of the office, it's no big deal. Wipe it off. Eat that youngin's good too. Uh, interesting. 00:15:58 Uh, observation, you know, most farming operations are family operations. And all I think we should point out is the FAM operations. 00:16:06 But I would know way call it a strength. There's a lot of farming operations that are fam operations. And it's the furthest thing from 00:16:11 a strength, it's a detriment. It's a headache, it's a fight, it's a feud. It, it's a, it's a disaster. Uh, ticking time bomb. 00:16:19 I mean, let's face it, there's a lot of farming operations. It's, you're listening there. Strength, 00:16:23 sweetness, opportunities and threats. They better put weakness and threat as our family relationship is so volatile, 00:16:29 this thing is gonna come fraction down. Well they, They, the issue, what causes that is when they segregate out 00:16:35 and say, I done this, or this is mine. You know, at, at, you know, Cindy and I's name are on, 00:16:42 we signed on line on most stuff like Matt and Sherry. Kay. But the fact is, it's gonna be hard to catch me saying, this is mine. 00:16:51 It's always gonna be ours. And when I say ours, I'm talking about the whole team. 'cause it takes from the youngest employee, 00:16:59 it just started there to the most seasoned employee. Yeah. It takes all of us to make this thing work. And it's, it's a lot of fun. 00:17:07 But one thing that really hurts that I've seen is, you know, you s you single each other out, 00:17:14 but transparency, you've got to have transparency. You know, we've parts, bills, it's unreal what it can cost. Sometimes we have one of, you know, Eddie comes in 00:17:25 and he goes through all the invoices. He's the one that orders the parts. If I need something, I tell Eddie what I need. He orders it. 00:17:31 We keep up with it. But it's unreal. You know, we, we hit a draft this year and it was looking really bad. 00:17:39 So we started, it was a hundred plus degrees, which that's normal for Matt. But we, we would send the guys home about two 00:17:44 or three o'clock in the afternoon. It was just too, you know, 90 some percent humidity. It was rough. And just everything 00:17:51 looked bad. Didn't look like it was, It sounds like a pretty nice day In Yeah, yeah. 00:17:55 Nice. A nice day in Arkansas. But the point was, we was at the end of the year, we brought the guys in 00:18:01 and we said, okay, where we sent the guys home this summer and we cut back on 00:18:07 what I would call the busy work is it needed to be done. It didn't have to be done, but we cut $43,000 off 00:18:14 of our labor bill. Yeah. Just by throttling back. Yeah. We pumped the brakes. We knew we was gonna have a bad year. 00:18:21 I mean, nothing was going to fix it. No amount of fertilized, no nothing. All it, we need to drain. 00:18:26 We got the rain, but it was in hurricanes. We didn't, we didn't need that much. And, and the flooding. But the fact is, is being transparent 00:18:33 and the guys is like, wow, man. And that's how you build that teamwork. Yeah. And, and I think that is a lot 00:18:40 of the problems when you talk about the families working together is a lot 00:18:45 of them don't realize the stress Yeah. Of the ones looking after the financial side. And it may be that they're a, I mean, some are ashamed that, 00:18:55 you know, I'm at this age and I owe this much money or you know, I'm spending this much money and I don't have enough money to pay these employees. 00:19:03 None of us pay our employees what we wanna pay 'em. We don't, I don't believe none of us do. And this, you know, we wanna pay 'em more. 00:19:11 But there's only so much money to go around and you just gotta share that You've been sitting there 00:19:18 probably thinking all kinds of stuff. You, you're Very thought, well, I'm, I'm gonna, I was going, I'm planning ahead. 00:19:23 Opportunities, threats. We'll go right into it. I'm Missing to Kevin and I'm trying to think, okay, next is gonna be this. Let's 00:19:29 Go opportunities now. I mean, it's a business. Um, and that's obviously in the boardroom, they talk about their SWOT analysis opportunities, you know, 00:19:36 for acquisition, expansion, new products, whatever. Um, it's not different for a farm. Um, there's opportunities for your farming operation. 00:19:45 You've capitalized on many of 'em already. You've already diversified. Yeah. What's the next opportunity? 00:19:50 Well, I mean, the opportunity right now is sad to say is there's probably as much land or more land in our area that coming available. 00:19:58 Coming available. And I mean, the opportunities there, if you want to increase your, I was talking to a young farmer the other day, 00:20:03 and I think he said he was farming 1500 acres and he went to 2,700 in the last month. Just in new land. The opportunities that he's had, you know, 00:20:13 I see the opportunities for me, which is a total blessing, is these grandkids coming up. 00:20:19 Mm-hmm. The opportunity to be able to train those, like you're talking about with bo with all my, I've got, I've got, you know, I've got five grandchildren. 00:20:26 I have four of 'em are boys. Mm-hmm. You know, to be able to be in their life and watching them if they choose, even if they don't choose 00:20:32 to farm, whatever they're gonna do. But the opportunity for the farm is there with, with making it even more family oriented than it is now. 00:20:42 Yeah, that's good. An opportunity for expansion. There's opportunity to continue keeping the family business and all that. 00:20:47 What's the opportunity going on up at Ziko Acres? So it's kind of opposite our opportunity. The way we're looking at it is actually cutting back acres, 00:20:55 but getting better on the acres that we have left. So, um, we had one hired full-time employee for 4,500 acres that left about a year ago right now. 00:21:04 So really, we have a couple seasonal guys for truck drivers and tillage, but one man show running all of it. 00:21:11 And he tended to the math and says he needs a thousand acres to pay for an employee. But if he can cut back a thousand acres, that's 00:21:18 that marginal ground, um, the sandy areas that, you know, don't yield very well or we don't have the yield potential 00:21:25 or we're driving too far, that it's just taking too much time out of it. He can cut back those thousand acres 00:21:30 and get better on those remaining acres and then still continue to do it by himself and not have to get that employee involved. 00:21:37 A lot of times you make more money with less acres. Yeah. That get better on those, you know, instead of being happy 00:21:42 with the county averages of 1 75, 180 or, you know, maybe I can push 200 if I have more time to focus on fewer acres. Yeah. 00:21:50 Well, And it also might, it might be less stressful. I, I mean, having to manage somebody, I I, as we were talking about, I don't, 00:21:57 I don't do well with managing employee. Yeah. And he doesn't either, you know, and he knows that that mm-hmm. 00:22:01 And he doesn't wanna manage. You're Good at managing employees. That's one of my strengths. Yeah. 00:22:05 Not one of my weaknesses. I I I, I get really beside myself sometimes that the amount of people that wanna work for us, 00:22:12 and I know it's not just me, it's the team and the family approach. But one thing I'm never, never, 00:22:18 never struggled with as employees. Yeah. Good solid employees that, and you know, a lot of us' say area, I mean, 00:22:24 I'm not competing against the factories and stuff. They're paying high dollar. But if you're gonna live in McGee, 00:22:29 the cool thing is we're a pretty cool place to work. That's not all me, but, but it's a strength of our What's your 00:22:35 Opportunities, Kevin? Opportunities. It's funny you ask that. So Danielle was talking the other day about, um, 00:22:43 different things and you know, how somebody got their start, what opportunity they had. 00:22:48 And, um, I said, well, I said I was really blessed. I said I was, I was blessed with opportunity to work and make as much as I wanted to do, 00:22:57 as hard as I wanted to work. Mm-hmm. I never was told I had to go play ball or had to go to swim lessons or go do whatever I was. 00:23:04 It was like, let's go to work. You going to work. And I looked at it as a job, but then I learned later in life it was opportunity. 00:23:15 I learned how to weld, I learned how to do body work. I learned how to do fabrication. You know, I learned how to do mechanic work. 00:23:22 LI learned whatever needed to be done, electrician work. And then what really got me as I got older was, um, 00:23:29 realizing that it was okay to pay somebody to do something that you knew you knew how to do. 00:23:34 Yeah. I mean, who hires an electrician who hires a farmer? You, you know, we grew up 00:23:40 Done assumed. Assumed. You Assumed that you and we, and we assumed everybody else done it. But then we found out that that ain't the case when you, 00:23:46 you know, when you, you start dealing with young people that don't even know how to use a shovel. And you're like, okay, really. But, uh, but we still that. 00:23:54 But the opportunities right now is, um, my biggest opportunity is the fact that I'm in an area, it's a hindrance, but our real estate values 00:24:07 is gotten stupid. Mm-hmm. And, and they're, they're not tied to agriculture in any way whatsoever. 00:24:13 Mm-hmm. They're just, there's just less and less land to put concrete on. And that is creating, you know, a burden. 00:24:22 But the fact as far as we're gonna lose the land, but we own a lot of land that we've bought over the years and that just increases our balance sheet so nicely 00:24:32 that we're at a point where we can sell land and then go buy some of Matt's good land from him and then rent it to him. 00:24:38 Well worth. Yeah. What you've got you, it's, it's opportunity and threat, threat. 00:24:44 Chad Henderson, we gotta recognize it. Chad Henderson and you, but you turn it Into a positive. Yeah. Yeah. 00:24:48 Chad Henderson and you and Johnny are the three guys which are all in the sunbelt. I said we'd call whatever southern states 00:24:56 that are in rapidly expanding, uh, residential areas, urbanizing areas. It's a threat. You're gonna lose that farm ground. 00:25:04 Well it's also an opportunity because your ground is worth 40 grand an acre, which it really isn't for crop plan, 00:25:10 but it might be for a condo complex or That's right. Something like that. And then, uh, and then also Chad points out, well it maybe, 00:25:17 and he's not here, but he says, you know, there's a threat, but there's also an opportunity, a, 00:25:22 as urban encroachment happens, some farms do pick up andor, just go out of business. 00:25:27 And if that ground is still needing to be farmed, he's there. And that's you, you're one of the last remaining. Yeah. 00:25:32 And we, you know, we're really blessed. We've got a lot of river bottom that, you know, it'll be some of the last land to get developed. 00:25:40 And when I say developed, it'll probably go parks and recreation or something of that nature. Greenways and things. But um, you know, 00:25:47 it's a highly productive ground. It does Well and we really like that. But, so we feel like with the kids coming in, they've got a, 00:25:56 they've got a lot more ground. Yeah. You know, they got a long future there. But we're gonna have to do, as Stephanie was talking about, 00:26:03 we're gonna have to look at managing fewer acres, do a better job, and be more profitable, Honestly, to an opportunity. 00:26:09 It might also be, you might need to get into some niche thing you've got where you got people in your backyard population 00:26:14 and you're not gonna be able to farm 10,000 acres there because there's just not the, you might end up, your kids might end up farming some 00:26:22 or some kind of specialty crop thing. Direct. Well actually one thing we had this year happen, you know, with the drought was our irrigated corn 00:26:30 became a want. Mm-hmm. They wanted it segregated. Mm-hmm. And now that we've had so many distilleries coming on, 00:26:38 they're, they're just springing up everywhere. And that's, you know, some of these are using a couple hundred thousand bushels of corn a year. 00:26:43 Yeah. But they want a good quality corn and they want it from your farm. So where they can to track it to the 00:26:51 Lease, tell the story local Where it's tell the story and the irrigated ground, which is not common in our area Yeah. 00:26:58 Is given us opportunity to capitalize on another area. And see, we're a very high basis on our grain now because we, we've got boatloads of chickens, we got a lot 00:27:10 of people to feed and there's No, a lot of crop And there's not a lot of crop land. Alright, you ready for threats? 00:27:15 I'm ready because I think we got his opportunity and his threats and we, that's bla what's your threat? What's gonna happen in 50 years? 00:27:23 We have nobody to take over the farm. So our biggest threat is what's the farm gonna turn into you once Ryan decides he's done 00:27:30 50? Sure. He said he is gonna work till he is a hundred. So, Well, you can say that that all you want, you know, 00:27:37 you can, you know what, I'm gonna play small forward for the pacers. I can say that all I want, but guess what? 00:27:42 It ain't gonna happen. So Yeah, it's gonna be quicker than you think. Yeah. I don't think it's gonna be 50. So 00:27:47 She's actually 30. Yeah. All right. So anyway, um, this is not something that, again, we've got people watching this show, you know, again, 00:27:54 figuratively joining us at the table to greenery. They're like, oh damn, you know, I got some of those legacy issues or I got some 00:28:00 of those transition issues myself. Or I've got one kid that's completely removed from this and lives in, you know, wherever. 00:28:06 And that, that that's not, there's several people that are thinking what you just said. Yeah. And we have three kids. The oldest wants 00:28:12 to be a veterinarian and farm, but we know in reality he's not gonna be a 4,000 acre farmer with a full-time bet job, you know, be 00:28:20 On. You don't know. He might have autonomous equipment and say he could, you know, he could just Monitor from the farm, dairy farm. 00:28:26 Uh, our daughter not really interested in agriculture. She likes the cattle side, but doesn't wanna come back and farm. 00:28:31 Really no desire there. The youngest, he's in eighth grade, he says he wants to farm, 00:28:35 but in reality he wants to be a seed salesman so he can fly a drone. So like that just shows where his mentality is at right now. 00:28:40 Well, I would just like to point out here, Stephanie, that even your youngest kid is 14. Yeah. 50 years from now. Puts him at 64. Yeah. 00:28:46 I sure as hell don't wanna be taken on a new endeavor when I'm 64 as a business enterprise. 00:28:50 So I I I don't know if I can, maybe you made the, the runway too long for these kids. Maybe they'd all be interested if you 00:28:56 doing more realistic on your timing. The Reality they were not gonna farm. You know, they won't be wanting 00:29:00 to farm in if they wanna farm part-time. Yeah. You know, and get Ryan through, you know, his eighties, but they're not gonna wanna farm full-time. 00:29:09 You know, 50 years. They'll be, you know, nobody left on our family willing to farm. You got time. Clearly 00:29:15 we got a lot of time to figure that out And, and the kids will fool you. I mean, I, you know, I, I can show you, you know, right 00:29:21 where Chad and I was standing when my son said he didn't wanna farm no more, you know, and, uh, he quit 00:29:26 and then, you know, a year and a few months later he comes downstairs and you know, at the house 00:29:33 and he's like, could I come back to the farm? And I was like, well, I don't know, you know if it's gonna be like 00:29:39 it was when you was there before. No. Mm-hmm. He says, what do you mean? I said, you know, if you, you are working a public job 00:29:46 and all I hear is customers bragging about how good a job you're doing. I said, as your parent, I'd rather hear that than 00:29:53 to be chewing on you for not doing your job. Yeah. And laying outta work. He says, no, I know. I messed up. Then said, I, you know, I can do better. 00:30:01 So we give him a chance. He came back better and, uh, it's amazing. I mean, he, he picked 2000 acres of corn this year 00:30:08 and to the point he didn't want me to come to the field. And, um, so it's really amazing how the kids changed. 00:30:15 So Ryan May not get but maybe 20 more years. Hey, I, you know, I think might get booed out, 00:30:21 Ryan might be 20 years, but you know, you need people following that. I was Gonna say, Kevin, I'm, I'm wondering though, 00:30:26 you think your kid changes from eighth grade till age 64? 'cause that's the timeline she put out there. Yes. 00:30:30 Did you change from eighth grade to age? You don't even 64. Yeah. What's the threat to your, 00:30:34 to your farming up? You know, I was asked this 10 years ago, the same question. What's, what did I think the biggest threat was to my farm? 00:30:41 And my response was a suburban mom. And it's almost come to fact, you know, because the agriculture was 2% now it's what, 1.5, 1.2. 00:30:52 Yeah. Not even worse. People are so removed from the land anymore that they don't understand what we're doing. 00:30:58 You know, they, they think we're trying to harm 'em rather than, than help 'em. And I still think that's, that's one 00:31:04 of the biggest threats is, and we've done a better job as farmers at being transparent. You know, my dad, he wouldn't want 00:31:10 to bring a city lo busload to city people out there to farm. It'd be like, I don't, I'm encourage it. Yeah, yeah. 00:31:16 You know, come see what we're doing, you'll see that we're doing the right thing. So, you know, there's several threats out there. 00:31:21 There's threats from the markets and threats from the weather and, but, but that's one that's lingering there 00:31:25 that just keeps getting a little worse all the time. And we're combating it all the time, you know, and, and if they'll just open their eyes and, 00:31:33 and look at reason, we're doing so much better job environmentally than we ever have. I think we're getting a little better 00:31:40 credit now than what we did. I think, I think COVID helped when, when they went in and the grocery store shelves was empty. 00:31:46 Mm-hmm. And, and then they had to start researching. Got a little more why. Yeah. Yeah. Why, why, you know, where, 00:31:52 why is the warehouse not bringing the food? Well, the warehouse has gotta get the food from the farmers. You know, the farmers have gotta do it 00:31:59 Real fast. I Guess what you'd say. Well, another thing is, you know, the farmers were considered essential workers 00:32:04 and they said, wait a minute, you got, the farmers are essential, like the law enforcement and the fire department and EMS and the doctors. 00:32:11 Mm-hmm. You know, and then, you know, it goes back to, you know, I wanna say it was President Truman, don't quote me on it, 00:32:20 but stated, you know, that the, the American farmer is the nation's greatest defense. The ability to feed its own people. Yeah. And, uh, 00:32:29 Yeah. I'm sorry. No, you're good. No, the immediate threat, I think for all of us right now is the profit margin. 00:32:33 Mm-hmm. You know, I mean, if we can't fix that, then we can't continue. Yeah. Well, vi viable, you've gotta be vi viable. 00:32:42 And then that's always the question about being viable. Uh, I'm glad you know, I was inspired by you to come with this topic, since you're the corporate person that has 00:32:50 to do a swo analysis every year. And what company is that with? That's what that with a company that's sponsoring this, 00:32:54 uh, episode of the Green Room. We're very happy to have them here. We talked about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 00:32:59 You got some very good answers here. Some of 'em that I completely predicted, some of 'em I did not predict. 00:33:03 So this is, uh, this is right, right on, uh, on point as you like to say. So anyway, uh, you're always welcome here to pull up a chair 00:33:10 and have a conversation with real farmers and agricultural people about stuff that's really, uh, happening in our industry. 00:33:15 Talked about strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats. We hope that you found something valuable that you can apply 00:33:20 to your own operation, thinking through your own SWOT analysis. She's Stephanie Linco farmer in Michigan 00:33:26 with 50 more years to go, apparently. And I actually, and, and a, and a great agronomist with, uh, 00:33:32 our friends at Aggro Liquid. If you wanna learn anything about their fertility products, go to agro liquid.com. 00:33:37 And he's Kevin Matthews and he is Matt Miles. And I'm Damien Mason coming at you from the Gravery. 00:33:41.755 --> 00:33:42.475