What Agricultural Innovation Do You Need Most on Your Farm? | The Granary
Ag investors are throwing money at agriculture technology, but here’s the real question—are they solving the right problems for farmers? The team at XtremeAg—Matt Miles, Chad Henderson, and Damian Mason—sit down with Tommy Roach from Nachurs to break down what real farm innovation should look like.
Forget high-tech gimmicks—how about self-greasing farm equipment, better fertilizer efficiency, and totes that don’t waste product? They also tackle phosphate shortages, the growing role of autonomous tractors, and why ag drone technology needs to be easier for farmers to use.
Oh, and here’s a hot take—the biggest farm innovations of the next decade might not come from agriculture at all. Will Silicon Valley disrupt farming the way Uber took over taxis? Is ag tech investment actually helping farmers improve yield, ROI, and efficiency—or just checking sustainability boxes?
If you farm, you’ll laugh, nod in agreement, and maybe shake your head at some of the real talk in this episode. Join the conversation and see what’s next for agriculture innovation.
This episode is presented by Nachurs.
00:00:00 Boatloads of outside investor money has poured into agricultural innovation, particularly in the last five years. 00:00:06 An up ag cycle made a whole bunch of venture capital money decide, Hey, agriculture's a great place to be. 00:00:12 Well, here's the thing, did they actually consult us, the people of agriculture and say, what do you need? I don't think so. But we're going to ask the people 00:00:21 of agriculture, Hey, if someone brings you an innovation, an invention, a new thing, what exactly do you want it 00:00:27 to be and why? That's what we're talking about in this episode of the Granary on a Farm. The work's never 00:00:33 Really done. We're calling the day anyway because my friends from extreme Agri coming over You ready for a conversation with some real farmers about real issues? 00:00:41 And the best part, you are invited. Support yourself a Drink, grab a snack. Most importantly, pull up a chair. Welcome to the greenery. 00:00:54 Hey Guys. Okay. As we say, uh, in many of our episodes, the guy sitting at this table, Chad Henderson and Matt Miles, two of the original founding fathers 00:01:09 of Extreme Mag, our friend Tommy Roach with Nature's a sponsor of this show. Um, nobody knows the topic 00:01:16 until I toss it out there to start this show. That way we get your absolute immediate thoughts on the topic. 00:01:22 I like it. As soon as I announced it, Matt says, yeah, Chad's gotta go first. What innovation, what invention, 00:01:30 what thing do you need that all the investment money that's pouring in agriculture is trying to fix problems? What do you actually need? 00:01:40 Well, you know, I would label four or five things, but you know, I wouldn't wanna cut in on anybody's money, you know, so I'm going, I'm going pass to Matt 00:01:46 and see what he thinks about the situation. You don't think you're really gonna do that. I mean, you Don't to hit, to seriously take, I know. 00:01:55 To hit us with that is like, I don't know which way to go. Like, there's a hundred things 00:02:00 running through my mind. Well, I, We, we definitely need to make money, you know, so whatever we, whatever it is, we need it to ROI, you know, 00:02:09 if it's a piece of equipment, if it's a new variety of seed, if it's an input we're putting in that Mr. 00:02:15 Tommy's making or whatever, and I did say, Mr. Again, you wasn't involved in that the other day, I got made fun of 'cause I called him Mr. 00:02:22 But he is older than me. But, you know, by A May that have To come by like a month, 00:02:27 Whatever it, whatever it takes. I don't know why that was actually part of the conversation. 00:02:31 I mean, for God's sakes, it is not like he why didn't Right there, he's right there. It could have been. It's like the 00:02:37 Big bone person. Yeah. Lesser answer me to this. We are seriously, over the last several years, a whole bunch of money and it seems like they're always doing 00:02:47 technology and that's fine. Like op center and some of that stuff. It's made your farming amazing. But you know what? 00:02:53 A friend of mine said, and let's throw this out as an example. A friend of mine's a swine production consultant. 00:02:57 He said, we keep wanting to give us more and more technology. That is neat. But nobody asked for it. 00:03:03 He says, you know what my hog producers want? They have 40 sow barns. You know what they want a machine 00:03:09 that will lift a 600 pound dead sow out of the faring crate and get it the hell out of the barn. 00:03:14 'cause right now they're still going in there with three guys and trying to drag the thing around. There's probably some glaring need 00:03:20 that you have on your farm and you have on your farm, but you see it, all the farms you go to, you're like, Why? For all of the money 00:03:25 that we're being thrown into this agriculture, why haven't they fixed That way? Well, it's feel 00:03:30 good money. Okay, so it's money to appease the suburban mom or to the environment, not for 00:03:39 what would make us a better farmer or more ROI. Yeah, but to do, you know, they got boxes. They've gotta check for this. 00:03:46 You're talking about this investment type capitalist money or whatever. Uh, it's to check their boxes. 00:03:53 It's not to check our boxes. Seriously. I know you said you got a hundred things running through your mind and you look around at Henderson Farms, 00:03:59 you got you, your kid, your nephew, your uh, cousin, your dad's pretty much out. Uh, There's probably every day you're like, 00:04:07 you know what I really need today? You know what I could really use some help with. You know what, what? I wish somebody would invent this. 00:04:12 Gimme one of the a hundred things that went through your mind. Well, you know, they got a taper in the bottom of totes. 00:04:17 They need more taper in it. I'm tired of shaking a tote back and forth to get that other gallon out. 00:04:22 You know, and, and we, and we just need a little more taper. Like a or like, 00:04:26 if we drain a tote all the way from the center, like we could drain it all the time. And you would have a tote. Like, I have guys 00:04:31 that a cone tote. If they would come by and get come by guys come by and get the tote, that's good. 'cause you got a number on the side of it, 00:04:37 but you don't ever call it like nobody ever calls it. And then if it's over two times old, then they won't pick it up because 00:04:43 It's not Inspection. 'cause all That. How's that? Why don't you just put in more bulk tanks and I don't have to send you totes. 00:04:49 There you go. All right. Survey says, first Off, survey says put up a bulk tank. Now that is, that is a God I love. 00:04:56 So then we're gonna put these bulk tanks in. They're gonna be 6,000 gallon bulk tanks. So then we not have a gallon in the bottom. 00:05:01 We got a hundred gallon in the bottom. This is what I want. So tell me, let's get 'em on camera. 00:05:06 Say, I'm gonna put in all cone tanks for you. This is, cone tanks are bad. Why are cone tanks bad? Not so much in That's f in the north. 00:05:16 You, we don't have to deal with temperature as much in the south. So you, you can get by with it, but north no 00:05:21 Bad. But the cone tank to is a pretty damn good idea. A cone tank is bad in the north because it freezes at the bottoms. 00:05:27 There's none of, uh, space. Well, there's um, there's more pressure put in a smaller area. 00:05:34 Yeah. In a cone tank than a flat bottom while the pressure is evenly distributed. 00:05:38 Mm-hmm. And depending on, depending on environment, whether temperature, The plastic, I mean, you can, you can get some fallout 00:05:47 and precipitation done at Constant. Well, it's the same problem though, with a, 00:05:50 with a flat bottom tank, you're gonna have two totes worth of stuff left versus a 00:05:56 So, by the way, this thing you said into that one, so Chad comes up with this side, he says, taper in the tank. And at first I thought, what's he talking about? 00:06:03 And yes, the point is you're already, it's ex probably extruded plastic or something. Well, they Already have, they have some taper, 00:06:10 but it's just not steep enough. Like you're shaking a tote back and forth and you can see that gown in there. 00:06:14 And it runs by to this side. Yeah. And then it runs back by to this side. And the thing is, you know what I'm talking about 00:06:19 Suning air and That gallon also, it's 20 bucks, I don't know, 30, whatever the thing is it, what p****s you off? 00:06:25 Because like, I don't wanna waste that gallon, That's gallon. Mm-hmm. Like, I would rather just pour it on the 00:06:30 ground. I didn't say that low. I ba Sorry. That's what he says. Taper the tanks. 00:06:34 Give me the easiest innovation that you're still almost p****d off about around Miles Farms on a weekly or monthly basis. 00:06:41 By the way, if, if Temple was in this table, he's p****d off on a minute to minute to hour basis. So I could find all kinds of things that anger him. 00:06:49 You're very laid back. What things do you look at? And you get a little bit annoyed by and you're like, someone should fix 00:06:57 this. It wouldn't take much. Man, you hit me hard on this 'cause I, I'm gonna have to do some thinking on this. 00:07:02 So let's go, let's go to everything should be required to have self greers where you don't use as much grease. Mm. 00:07:11 See he's coming up with all the good ideas. Yeah, he I agree with that too. Said he took my idea. Yeah, 00:07:16 He took my Idea. Okay. We know it wasn't your idea. Why, how it wasn't his idea. He has all new equip. All Right, so here's thing. Grease it. Oh, 00:07:21 You're talking about a piece of equipment instead of, I don't have to, instead of having To climb around And get down underneath and try 00:07:28 and do a grease zerk. What about just a big old vat of grease? That is, you just put a two gallon, they got 'em 00:07:35 and you put it on the machine and it just greases itself and it, And it does. And they do have 00:07:39 'em. Man, what worries me? You know, we have a machine that has that on it and it does great. 00:07:43 'cause then you can set it three or four different settings up there. How often it greases every 35 00:07:48 Hours. Right? So you look at it and you're looking at it like when it just protrudes a little bit of dust sticks to it, 00:07:54 but it don't actually see any grease. That looks pretty dang. But you know, and then I wonder, I didn't even know there was such a thing. 00:08:01 No, it's the fact that there's not more of a thing. Oh yeah. Really bothers me because I hate climbing around 00:08:05 underneath stuff and trying to grease it. Oh yeah. But it cost a lot of money. Like there's a lot of hard lines run. 00:08:10 Like it's not like I say it like it's an easy task. Like it's not an easy task. All Well tape, self tape tapering, 00:08:16 Sort of name two Tapering totes and self greasing give a, an innovation that agriculture needs more of. 00:08:22 That is probably an easy fix. And somehow for some reason the, the tech may is not coming. Does it have 00:08:27 To be I'm glad because I one my brain's going, geez, I can't think of one. His brain's going, his brain's going. 00:08:34 He can't think of one. He's gonna give you one. Okay. Before you give him one, you go. So this is gonna tie somewhat into 00:08:44 sustainable and He's gonna go deep. Sustainable Practices. Okay. And if you look at what is a, 00:08:53 especially in, in the us what is a limited resource phosphate? Ooh. Because typically you got 00:09:03 two what? Just say two phosphate mine areas in the us North Carolina and Florida. And is phosphate about the only thing 00:09:12 that hadn't come down this year? Phosphate is continuing to go up. Yes, that is correct. Again, we don't know when the viewer is gonna be watching 00:09:20 this, but we're recording this at basically Halloween of 2024. The thing is, what we probably are pretty certain 00:09:26 of phosphate's, not like gonna go down by 50% no matter when the person's watching this. Is that an accurate Yes, 00:09:33 That is a hundred percent accurate based on what I know right now. That is accurate. Okay. 00:09:37 So tell Us how an innovation of phosphate. So you've got, and we have conversations with, there's only three phosphate suppliers in North America. 00:09:47 Nutrient simpl, well, four N which are in Mexico. So we have regular discussions with them because you know, nature's has been around since 1946. 00:10:00 We were known as a phosphate company for years. Years. That's when you started, right? In 46. We, yeah, because we, not me, he was a 00:10:08 First tire. You agreed. Agreed to that. He was their, he was their first hire. Matt, he got their first hire. 00:10:14 I'm just staging. Well he said I was a, I was the oldest one here at the table. Mr. Tommy. Yeah. 00:10:19 So there is only roughly would say 10, 10 year supply of phosphate left at certain mines in Ford. 00:10:32 I'm not gonna name names. Wow. This is scary. So anything that, that helps in the application of phosphate 00:10:42 to make it more efficient. Yep. Placement or things that aid in phosphate efficiency. 00:10:50 Like enzymes, like microbials, things like that. Acids. Absolutely. So things like that in my mind in the foreseeable future. 00:11:01 'cause it ties into the sustainability argument because we've gotta make more with potentially less. Yeah. That's where it's gone. 00:11:09 Okay. So, Well I've heard that, that if we could release the phosphorus in our soul that we've got how many years worth 00:11:16 of phosphorus that we don't even measure. There's A boatload that is there That we don't even measure 00:11:23 and don't know that's there, right? That's right. Because okay. You get, everybody takes soil test. Mm-hmm. 00:11:28 So you get a number, but hardly anybody gets a soluble phosphorus analysis. Right. 'cause probably in the vast majority of 00:11:40 that phosphorus number, you ain't getting it based on what your, what your aluminum is, iron is all these different things that can tie up, 00:11:49 tie up phosphorus. In previous episode I referred to Tommy nch as an agronomic expert. 00:11:56 And uh, it, it struck him because apparently he doesn't countenance like this or be told he 00:12:01 Neighbor, why don't you cut him off? Because I won't go with this. Like I was, I was learning, I have one when y'all and 00:12:07 Now and now my mind's like over here somewhere. You Just said it's something that needs to happen. But it's not easy. 00:12:13 I'm scared to death. So You said I'm, I'm gonna run out of foster. So that's why I'm go with you said it's, 00:12:17 it's something that needs to happen. This is his totes getting some taper on him. That's, that's like go 00:12:23 and change the form at the damn plastic plant. This one's big. Yeah. That one hits home. Oh, it's, it is, is it, is it getting attention? 00:12:32 Probably not. Um, well Attention Because I'm gonna pick on, sorry, I'm gonna pick on the state that I always gravitate to 00:12:40 because they're the last, the last wild frontier. That's a certain high state that's between Indiana and Iowa. Mm-hmm. That they're gonna, unless, 00:12:52 unless some mandate comes down. Mm. That, I mean, we don't want, you know, who in Washington to be telling us what to do. 00:13:00 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But unless some changes are made, they're gonna keep doing what they've been doing. And what have they been doing all these years doing 00:13:09 phosphate slinging sling. For what? Slinging dry phosphate right now. Yep. And so what happens that dry phosphate turns 00:13:17 Into rock? It if, if you know, you get rain, it wash Away something, it's in the water, it's gonna, It's gonna move off target. Yeah. 00:13:23 It goes up in Lake Michigan. It goes down Mississippi. Well, super locks up, right? Yeah. In the, especially in the Fall. Absolutely. 00:13:29 And so, and there's, there is a ton of nutrients setting right below our feet. Yep. And I'm not saying to you, you back away from, uh, 00:13:45 applying, you know, nutrients on the planter, applying nutrients in season. That's not what I'm, I'm talking about. 00:13:50 But it's managing what's in the fall right now. Mm. Taking advantage of of what's there. 'cause it's not costing you a dime. 00:13:58 It's sitting there in a bank that you know old that's zero interest. Like it's zero interest. 00:14:05 Like you ain't getting nothing outta it. Exactly. Old timers are, they want to keep putting phosphate in the bank. 00:14:12 But if you look at over the last five years and, and si everything goes in cycles. I, if I was firm and I wouldn't give them price corn 00:14:24 and price to dry fertilizer because they're, they're here. Yeah. Yeah. Dry fertilizer because of supply and demand. 00:14:31 You got two hurricanes that went through Florida. Mm. It cut down production for year, uh, month and a half to two months. 00:14:38 So you pulled off X amount of dry, you know, mapped app production in Florida. That it, that's why prices continue 00:14:49 to remain solid. You told me, I interrupted him. You're all in on this phosphorus thing. You liked your idea, your two ideas. 00:14:59 Matt hasn't given us an idea. I Got one. No, don't even give it now. Well, he wanna stick on Phosphorous. 00:15:04 Don't even give it now because This is the one, this is, He had a real good one. And me and you come in here with a, I come in here 00:15:09 with a tote idea, you know? Well they, you know what? So tell You, sometimes the simplest ideas are from simpler people. 00:15:15 But anyway, the point is, Chad, Touch cliche. Like, I get it. I get it. I wanna ask you. But see, I know that I 00:15:21 Ask an honest, interesting question. Do you think this is the biggest, uh, uh, this is something that's big enough? 00:15:27 You didn't even think about it? Oh No, no. We've, I mean, Tommy's spot on. Um, look at the last three years. 00:15:33 Look at, look at what me and you've been doing the last three years. It's phosphorus availability. It's phosphorus availability. 00:15:39 It's un untying nutrients. Untying nutrients. It ain't like cutting back, but it's figuring out what we can uptake from the dry. 00:15:47 What we need to spend on liquid. And where does that balance Yeah. Where is that balance? And then where is that balance on each farm? 00:15:53 It ain't like, oh well my whole farm's gonna get this split. Oh no, it's, where's it on each farm? 00:15:58 Don't forget your idea that you wanna talk about. But I Thought she was gonna hit him with like, don't forget to go get some eggs or something. 00:16:03 You know, when you started like, well, Yeah, maybe it also, uh, uh, yeah, some onions. Anyway, here's the point. He said it's not easy to fix. 00:16:12 How much should it take to fix this problem? And how long, 'cause phosphorus, obviously this is a, this is a big first of off. 00:16:19 Is it just a matter of we need to actually control the application? 'cause we're we're over, 00:16:23 we're over applying it. We're not utiliz. So why I say it's, it it's gonna take a long time to fix is because people have been doing the same thing 00:16:32 for seven years and ever and making good yields. So, and they're behind. Okay. Why would I, why would I change 00:16:41 what I'm doing when I'm happy where I'm at, Basically from the 1950s till today, a lot of conventional agriculture has been 00:16:48 fling, fling and flinging. Right, right. Yeah. So If we've got 10 years, what, what's, is there a plan B? Well, there, like I said, there's, there's other mines. 00:16:58 North Carolina's a huge, But they haven't tapped into for, for Phosphate. I mean, you 00:17:03 got, you got out west where? Wyoming, uh, Idaho. That's another big deposit. So we're not gonna run out. We're that 00:17:11 They're not using Oh, there, yeah, there is. And literally years of phosphate reserves in North Carolina that they just have 00:17:21 to keep applying for grants to expand. Alright. It's kinda like the old Yeah. You not using, we're not, we're really gonna ruin out. 00:17:30 But you're sound alarm. We're we're sound doesn't get alarmed because maybe it's also sounding alarm 00:17:35 from an environmental standpoint. It's time to get smarter about it. Is maybe what I'm hearing is 00:17:40 'cause what's hap what happens every single year in the Great Lakes Lake Erie, you get the algae bloom and what is it, what is it blamed on who gets blamed? 00:17:52 Agriculture phosphate Absolutely Phosphate. And North Erie in north, which by the way is only 50 miles from here. 00:17:58 Ohio's 50 miles from where you're sitting right now. I started seeing this 20 years ago that North Ohio agriculture is putting an 00:18:04 algae bloom in the Lake Erie. And it's killing it. Coral old Lake Erie already suffered the indignities of the Cuyahoga River catching on fire in 00:18:11 the sixties and, and all the other problems. What's the idea that you gave him that you think, Oh no, that's not the one. Yeah, what was that? 00:18:18 Yeah, no, we don't even need to talk about that now. Oh, It does it pal. I can't even talk. 00:18:22 Yeah, I mean like he's, he is a, he's given a phosphorus. This whole big explanation about phosphorus you came up with 00:18:28 came and, and, and I'm gonna hit him with a, like a, I want a piece of plastic. It's got To it. I a piece of plastic. 00:18:34 What's a piece of what you got? Where does my idea, where does Agricultural, I would love 00:18:39 for every chemical to be compatible. Oh, oh. I mean, when you put something in a tank, you can put something in there 00:18:46 that's still might better better than makes, that makes it mix. That's just way Better. That's better 00:18:50 than a greer of the tote. You Think that's, that's way better. I mean, I had a paper plate idea. 00:18:54 Y'all have had great ideas. Well, Paper plate, silver platter, uh, availability at something from Pottery Barn. 00:19:01 Alright, so here's my question to you. Um, that's one investor group can't make that happen because that would require 70 different manufacturers 00:19:13 of agricultural inputs roughly speaking to all decide to agree. And, Uh, what he's saying is they need to make a better 00:19:23 phosphorus availability piece. Talking about Mac, he's talking about, or May awareness. 00:19:28 Well, Matt's talking about 70 or a hundred different product manufacturers. Well, There's a, there's a company working on that 00:19:34 To make it so that everything becomes compatible. Well, They're working on, well, that's their goal. But I mean, there's some things compatible today 00:19:41 that weren't, you know, so I mean you take Roundup and two four d amine and mix 'em together with this product, but I don't know if it's gonna work on calcium and magnesium 00:19:50 and, you know, calcium and phosphorus and you Just added a whole nother layer of complexity when you start talking about adding 00:19:57 infertility with that. Yeah. Because there's certain fertility that Don't mix that Typically 00:20:03 Are That's what I'm saying. Nice. So yeah, they don't we play together ever? No, No. I think that 00:20:08 one's idea. That's the hardest one to fix. No, I had a five gallon look at one of them and they were at, You remember that product we tried one year. 00:20:16 He said product 6, 3, 3, 4, 5 Chad, zero zero. He said, we, we couldn't not us mix it. And he said, I got this. Send it. Just let me do it. 00:20:27 And, and anyway, you were, you were, what's the opposite of undefeated waist Paint? Digging out 00:20:32 I down What About, um, the, besides you guys went agronomic, because that's obviously where Tommy is 00:20:39 as the agronomic expert at the table. What about around the farm on any other place that you, you say, God, this is a pain every year, 00:20:49 every month, every week, whatever. It's, I struggle with this. If somebody would just solve this for me, 00:20:56 A easier way to be able to fly a drone over your farm. Okay. You know, well, you don't have to be on a, a commercial airline pilot 00:21:04 to have the paperwork to fly a drone. Well, you talked, we joked about you playing the metal electronic football by our age 00:21:11 and now with all these younger people with the phone, we're, I think that we're proficient enough about doing this. 00:21:16 That you don't need to be an airline pilot to be able to do this and This. No, but they're, they're classing 00:21:21 that and we need that. We need the drones. I mean, there's certain, you know, a lot of where Kevin's at, you can't what a helicopter. That's 00:21:29 It. Yeah. And then, and then they're, you know, they're going on the way out, you Know. Yeah. So we need 00:21:33 to be able to spray our crops when it's wet with something. An investor that comes in 00:21:38 and says, I like that idea right there. And I like that idea right there. How do they make it so that drones 00:21:44 drone usage is even more utilizable and easy for you? I'm, I'm gonna go further than this. We need an American company 00:21:55 to build a drone, drone technology. So it's not all by China because, you know, I mean, 00:22:01 I'm not a conspiracy theorist guy, but every drone, uh, the most popular drones we're running today are trains are built in China. 00:22:08 So, I mean, what does that mean? So there should be money coming into drone technology from American, 00:22:13 American companies. And I bet there's, you know, talking about it being easier to, to fly drones. 00:22:19 I guarantee you that's already happening somewhere. I mean, it's already under development. 'cause look how fast, look what's changed 00:22:27 with drones just the last, last five months. Ev every six months. It's leaps and bounds. I mean, it's just like tv. 00:22:34 I mean, you buy TV today, it's out date and three months. I mean, that's how fast drones have changed. Isn't 00:22:39 It interesting that they used talk about someone's gonna break your house, they're gonna steal jewelry, firearms, 00:22:44 cash and uh, your tv. Well, first off, if your TV's a couple years old, it's like, eh, you know what? 00:22:51 Even the thief doesn't need it. Uh, almost nobody jewelry anymore. Cash is becoming so the only thing, apparently if, 00:22:57 if you had a fire, because tv my TV over here, I think's, uh, two, three years old, 00:23:04 I don't think anybody would come and take It. No, you couldn't give it away. 00:23:06 Oh yeah. They'd run. Now the ca I think the cash is still safe. I i, if I was breaking in a house, I'd take the cash there. 00:23:11 The thing is, cash is king. What? Spring cash is king. Where does the cash need to flow? We've talked about this. 00:23:18 It's slowing down a little bit, but there's still, in my opinion, trying to fix problems in agriculture that we don't really have. 00:23:24 I see these, I get press releases. Well, you should see about x, y, Z corporation. They're going to invest a billion dollars 00:23:30 in agriculture to fix this. I'm like, they anybody ask us? That's not a problem. Yeah. So you see 'em fixing stuff. That's not a problem. 00:23:38 YY you know, oh, we're gonna take used containers and put uh, backyard gardens and bury them for people. Like, well, people don't have 00:23:47 gardens in their backyard to begin with. Now they're gonna put a container in there. I said, this is, nobody 00:23:51 Wants it. It's not about us. It's about them checking those boxes. Well, it could be the sg That's, that's what 00:23:56 Sucks. Could be the esg. What do you need? What do you need around the farm? I keep asking that question. 00:24:01 He's got, uh, make it. So I don't Know if I really got anything. Alright, you've got some pretty cool ideas. All 00:24:08 Right, I got one. Anything that saves labor and it's easy to say, okay, automation, well, my tractor is more productive than it 00:24:16 would've been 50 years ago. Your equipment's more productive, more user friendly than it was 50 years ago. 00:24:22 But you still don't have, um, a situation where you don't have robots. You don't have, you still have a lot of things 00:24:30 that humans have to do when your replace your place. Is that where it goes? Is that where The, you talking about autonomous and robotics stuff? 00:24:38 I, I didn't wanna mention that. 'cause it might p**s a lot of people off. Yeah. You know, 'cause jobs will be lost. 00:24:45 Well, you Know, I don't know if it's the jobs losses, the workforce we have right now that's doing these jobs. It's just like us. I mean, they're getting older. 00:24:54 Mm-hmm. You know, And there's not other H program. There's nobody replacing, I mean, I wouldn't replace any of my guys 00:25:01 with a robot at all that could be there every day. And that would do anywhere because you still have that human interaction. 00:25:08 You know, that, uh, like that's not just quite right. You know, but Well, autonomous tractor's basically a robot. 00:25:14 Yeah. Yeah. You know, And you know, I said for years that that would never work. Like that's not gonna work. That's not gonna work. Man. 00:25:21 We, we seen some stuff. We seen like it's definitely coming. It's definitely gonna Work. Well, I, but I've talked to some people. 00:25:26 It's there. It's here. I've talked to some people. It's gonna work in certain areas. I don't think it's gonna work where you're at. Yeah. 00:25:31 Too many tree lines and ditches. And bios. Same thing here. It's gonna work in the, it is gonna work at, 00:25:36 At Lee's place. It's gonna work at Saskatchewan where they have a 640 acre, mile by mile. But it's Gonna be tough to, for it to work in, in the delta or 00:25:45 In the south? Well, it's already, it's already here in like, you go to Arizona in the winter. 00:25:49 Yeah. It's already here in Arizona, California. Do you think it's gonna work in area? No. I I don't you, I don't think you will ever be able to 00:25:59 Let A tractor go. 100% get away from people working on the farm now. Now you can set on that tractor and, 00:26:07 and when it's about to make a mistake, change it That you're still having to have a person. Exactly. So you're not saving closest 00:26:14 Thing to it that I've seen. And I'm sure there's more, but, um, at Precision in Illinois, they have got a, they set it up this year. 00:26:28 I saw a video of it this morning. They've got a tractor, green car, combine guy guy's in combine cutting. 00:26:37 But all he is gotta do is punch a button car downstairs and it signals the tractor and the grain car Yeah. To come to you. And it's, it's trucking right. 00:26:45 Along with combine, combine can dump it and there goes the tractor and grain coal. Well That, that part's already pretty much, 00:26:54 that train's already down the tracks enough that I don't think it needs, it needs refinement. It doesn't and it just is that close. 00:27:00 It need innovation. The stuff that we're talking about is the thing that they're not even thinking of that. 00:27:06 I see. And I, I gotta tell you, this is just my prediction. I wanted to hear from you guys. Uh, the people 00:27:12 that invented at Uber didn't come from Yellow Cab. Right. Uh, nobody, whoever runs the cab companies or the, or the trains said two years from now, 00:27:25 our threat is gonna be, uh, a dude with a cell phone and a five-year-old tow a Camry and he's gonna take the rides that we used to get. 00:27:34 Nobody thought that. Yeah. Agricultural innovation will come from outside of agriculture. 00:27:41 Increasingly. Yeah. From McCormick to deer to, uh, you know, Whitney, the, the pioneers look, agricultural innovation. 00:27:50 Were ag people, I think in the next 10 years, they won't be right or wrong. Right. 'cause they're gonna come at it from a completely 00:27:58 different, just like Uber said, Hey, you know what, you don't need a damn cab company. Well, it's just we've got a guy over here 00:28:03 with a Camry and a phone. He'll, he'll haul you somewhere. It's just like when me and Matt get to get to meet 00:28:08 and talk to other farmers, I mean, our goal is not to tell them in any way, form or fashion how to farm. Right. It's to get their blinders off 00:28:16 where they're seeing a different light of the way they're farming in their area. You know, you could take Mac and come to my area 00:28:22 and say, man, why didn't you do it this way? Like, I don't really know. I ain't never thought about that. I go to his area, same thing. 00:28:27 You know, us as farmers, we get so narrow minded, you know? Well, or just, or not narrow minded necessarily. 00:28:32 It's more that they know tunnel vision. Well, they work where they work. That's right. And in, in this way. Yeah. 00:28:37 Agricultural innovation in the next five to 10 years will come more from outside of ag than from inside, which is a big departure. I think so. Do 00:28:45 You agree? Yeah. It's already doing. It's, it's there now. Yeah. I mean, you know, most of the, the innovations we're getting 00:28:50 today are not ag related companies that are bringing those in there. And you know, what they're trying to do now is push us in 00:28:57 and it, this is not just ag, but everything's a sub subscription. You sign up, you sign up. Yeah. It's a month. I 00:29:05 Mean, look, my tv I used to have cable, now I pay, I don't know how many different subscriptions to these different networks. 00:29:11 Yeah. There's streaming services. You know, same thing's happening with our equipment companies. 00:29:16 You know, it's all gonna be, let me get this piece. Mm-hmm. You know, let me get that piece. Mm-hmm. 00:29:21 You agree on the, the, the technology, the innovation comes from outside of ag. Look at more than ever has, look 00:29:27 At where all the venture capital money's coming from. Tech, none of it. It's from, it's coming from ag, it's from tech, 00:29:33 mostly tech companies. Yeah. And they're coming in to try to change ag and, and like you said, you, 00:29:38 you hit the nail on the head when you said they don't ask us What we need. Yeah. 00:29:41 They're doing what they want to do. Sometimes they're trying to fix a problem that we really don't have. 00:29:45 Right. And you wanna say, I appreciate your money and I appreciate your energy and attention, but not that, that's not, 00:29:51 that's not what keeps me up at night. So at, at some point in time, there's, there's got to be a Market For whatever, whatever this technology is. 00:30:03 You go to the grocery store and one of my pet peeves is you go buy, we just had lemonade today. 00:30:11 Yeah. On that label it says there's non GMO Never. And there's never been a GMO lemon in the history of, 00:30:18 uh, lemon peanut butter. Same thing. Yeah. You know, genetically modified. So you have to wait your term long term. 00:30:27 There's got to be a market for somebody to pay for this whatever's coming. And that's where, again, 00:30:37 and I don't know what, you know, sustainability and environmental stewardship and what it's gonna look like in 10 years 00:30:44 because it's changed so much in the last two years. But there's got to be, somebody's got to pay for it. And I don't know how long that's gonna last. 00:30:53 I like that statement. I think that one of the things we're gonna see, and I don't wanna throw it to the farm guys here, 00:30:58 we've seen a lot of lip service towards sustainability. And it becomes a marketing thing. Sure. Oh, this, this, whatever butter was grown 00:31:07 with sustainable milk or whatever. That thing, maybe the rubber really finally meets the road on some of that. 00:31:12 And this innovation money comes in on, I just figured out a way to make it so that Chad Henderson can use 18% less whatever. 00:31:21 That's where if that were me and I were you, 'cause I've asked you guys a question, where does it need to come in? 00:31:27 It, to me, it'd be about reduction of natural resource consumption to still get the same output. 00:31:32 Fuel, fuel, fuel, fuel. Yeah. Where's nitrogen derived from? Well, the 78% in the air. Right. 00:31:38 So having the big elephant that's over there in the corner by the, by the box taps over there. 00:31:44 Yeah. It's nitrogen. And I mean, we can, we can demonstrate all day long about placement and what you need to do with phosphorus. 00:31:53 But at the end of the day, nitrogen's driving, it's a king the bus. And so, which is why certain companies Yeah. 00:32:02 Are targeting nitrogen, you know, cut back nitrogen in lieu of applying set product. 00:32:09 Um, that's, that's the king right now. Fertility or input, natural resource reduction to get the same output is where if you ask me 00:32:22 and then a labor, of course, of course. Those are easy things to say. It's like, it's like sitting there and saying, right, 00:32:26 what do we need to do in the United States? Well cut the debt. Well, okay, great. No s**t. No s**t. Right. So, no, it's easy to say those things. 00:32:35 Probably harder to do in practice. Your thought on which one of those actually takes will get the most attention? 00:32:41 Well, I mean we, and and the question is like on fertility or labor or Is that, I think, is it gonna be reduction of inputs 00:32:49 or is it gonna be fixing the labor problem that gets the most investment in the next few years? Ooh, And I've gotta answer. Okay. Go. Well, 00:32:59 Um, I'm gonna say fertility. I'm hundred percent because that's what everybody focuses on. Because 00:33:05 The environment, it May not even be, you're talking about us or The general public. I'm 00:33:08 saying on a, on a standpoint of where does the investment pour into? Does the investor money care f does the investor money care 00:33:13 about reduction checks, More boxes in labor, labors gonna hurt 'em. 'cause if we, if we, if we get more efficient labor, 00:33:20 then that's less jobs. So that's gonna be an adverse condition for them. But if the, but if all Of they can change the 00:33:25 fertility, they can check that box or Chemistry or any of that, then they're saying, we saved the environment. Sustainable. 00:33:31 Exactly. Saved the environment. We kept the water safer and, and half Of it, it's fictitious, but, 00:33:36 but it's still, the markets like A GMO deal. It, It sells innovation that you would love to see on the farm. 00:33:43 I love that you start with the most simplistic, let's make it so that the actual product gets outta the plastic container. 00:33:48 Then we went over here to our agricul agronomic expert as I wanted to call him. And he went down the road of phosphate 00:33:54 and then he's going over to this thing. That's why we got him Here. And then he scared me 00:33:58 and Matt to death. Well, Matt clammed up for 10 minutes and said, I'm afraid to say anything. And finally Matt says, well, there's this, this, and this. 00:34:05 So anyway, uh, I appreciate it. His name's Tommy Roach. He's a sponsor of this episode, actually. He's not his company. Natures is, 00:34:11 if you don't know about nature, you can go to natures.com and learn more. They are products, our fertility products that all 00:34:16 of our Extre ag guys use, mostly in furrow. Very much applied over, uh, at point of time of necessity for the plant powered by Bio kay Technology, 00:34:26 which is actually, uh, something that we at extreme ag business partner with. So go check it out@natures.com. 00:34:31 And we do this a lot and we want you to join us. Join us here. Again, share this with somebody that can vent it from, from until next time. 916 00:34:36.325 --> 00:34:37.085
Growers In This Video
See All GrowersChad Henderson
Madison, AL
Matt Miles
McGehee, AR
Temple Rhodes
Centreville, MD