What Are You Going To Do In This Tough Farm Economy? | The Granary

00:00:00 When you look at the farm economy, it doesn't look very promising. You're probably asking yourself, what am I gonna do? 00:00:04 And I'm gonna ask you, what are you going to do? More importantly, I'm asking my friends right here, Chad Temple and Kelly, what are they gonna do in this farm 00:00:11 economy that doesn't look very promising in this episode of the Greenery? You ready for a conversation 00:00:15 with some real farmers about real issues? The best part? You, you're invited, pour yourself a drink, grab a snack. 00:00:24 Most importantly, pull up a chair. Welcome to the greenery. Hey guys. 00:00:36 Alright, Jeff, what do you got in your hand right there? Spoon. What's the purpose of bringing a 00:00:40 wooden spoon to the table, to your Henry? It's when you reach over and stop us. So on the drive here, you 00:00:47 and Temple had a little powwow, didn't you? About Every time we get rolling good. And we get to talking good. You, 00:00:52 you wanna like hear yourself so you like. So guys, the next time you, so guys, it's gonna be, It's hard. What you, what you have 00:01:00 to actually do is when we're sitting around the table, you can't look at Damien because he's waiting for you to make eye 00:01:06 Contact. Contact. So don't make That when you make eye contact with him, he's shutting you down. Switch goes on. Yep. 00:01:11 So the next thing is spoon is good for, this is what Temple uses. And we asked the question, why 00:01:17 does he have a spoon in his hand planting the season? Yeah. And, and then we like, where does it come from? If you've ever seen a video with Temple when he is planting, 00:01:23 he's got a spoon and he's digging a seed with a spoon. Alright Guys, everybody wants to make fun of me 00:01:28 for temple's, tips of the day. I'm gonna give you a tip. Go to your wife's kitchen, get you one of these. 00:01:35 It's a metal spoon. Here's why you get it. Take your pin knife that you usually dig up all this seed. 'cause we're always constantly out, out on the turn row 00:01:44 checking to make sure the planter's plant right. Get rid of your pin knife that you dig with and use one of these. 00:01:50 This thing is money. I'm like, How did that get started? Well, I just started using spoon. 00:01:54 I said, no, you just don't start using a spoon. Right? But it isn't just a spoon. It's it's a spoon. It's a spoon. Yeah. Like its, it's a big metal stainless steel spoon. 00:02:02 So I'll go back to the spoon thing. Here's all that I want. When I went look this and when I go Here, this is, this is is your 00:02:10 Level that you can paint. That's so when I come over here, when I, yeah, because all I wanted to do was say, 00:02:14 that's a brilliant point Temple, But you're getting too far over it. Like you getting in my personal space right 00:02:20 Here. And what's interesting is, our director even told me yesterday, he says, Hey, um, 00:02:23 when you watch the replays temple lot times gets really discombobulated when you go like this because all you're trying to do is, is is feed off him. 00:02:31 So I don't believe for one second you're Not feeding off of anybody. You're gonna trying to cut us off so you can make your, 00:02:38 what you think is a valid point because you've already studied your little folder that you've been carrying everywhere. I, he's 00:02:43 The only hair and that's had his makeup hair done. I mean, well he's always gotta have gel in his hair anyway. But you know, 00:02:49 I'm pretty, I mean I'm pretty, you're a lot of things pretty ain't one of them. But when he gets to sit there and study his manual 00:02:55 and he's gone over and over and over, over and over. So he's already got scripted in his mind exactly what he wants to say and how many times he wants 00:03:01 to cut you off actually. And then he wants us to be raw and real. I what we really ought to do. 00:03:07 See, you're trying to come me up here. I'm Building the interruption shut. You gotta keep going, keep 00:03:11 Going. So what we really need to do is maybe one of these episodes we just come up with the topic ourself and discuss and present you with the whole thing 00:03:18 and then present you with it and see how off cuff you get. I love it. 00:03:23 I love It. Okay, so where's your book? 'cause we're gonna burn it straight. Burn it. Alright, so Lan I'm reaching out here. 00:03:29 Uh, I don't believe that Chad's a violent man. What I think happened on your drive to the farm today, I think that you sat there and sort of instigated them. 00:03:37 And what I believe happened was hundred percent like two kids in the back of a station wagon 00:03:41 where the one is really well-behaved, one and the other one is a s**t. And then just starts getting the other one. 00:03:45 Like, hey, You know, a fat apple flip, flip off that lady in the car at the stoplight. Next thing you know there you chad's gonna get in 00:03:51 trouble and gonna get, uh, Because it was your aunt, you are Gonna get in trouble Because count your mom temple 00:03:56 May temple is dragging you down to his level of behavioral, uh, mischief. And I, I think that really you should really, you can. So 00:04:03 Temple, what about, But see, why can't, so what about p conductive criticism? Like you always have to argue the point that you're right 00:04:10 and that you're gonna do this your way. Am I argued? Am I argued? This is what'd you take my side? This you, you're arguing now. 00:04:16 Hey, remember success failure. I mean if just do that, we're Back on the failure time. 00:04:21 We're back on the failure side Again. I'm on my Own corner Because you kind of are in your own corner, more like your own world. Again, 00:04:28 The third thing the spoon used for if you have it, you're the only one can talk. I have the talking spoon. What? That's gonna be tough. 00:04:35 What a great episode. What a great episode. So I thought What a great episode. You're a brilliant contributor. I really appreciate this 00:04:48 Boy that this is fine. Fantastic. The best episode ever. I mean this, it only took a spoon to shut Damien down. 00:04:57 I mean, this is great. Where has that Spoon been? We put it back in the center table 00:05:00 so we can all discuss things. All right? So I'm gonna just kind of pour it out here. First off, it was a little bit Lord of the flies, 00:05:05 if you remember they made it read in high school. At least they made me read in high school the conk, the person that held the conch shell could actually talk. 00:05:11 So anyway, this is kind of the conk. Um, I was warned by our producer about me reaching over to help you finish your point and that it messed you up. 00:05:20 So I'm telling you what I'm gonna sit on my hands from now on on these episodes. They have to handcuff you. Maybe a straight jacket. 00:05:26 Straight jacket, straight jacket. Yeah, straight jacket would be way better for you. Damien Ma. Hi, I'm Damien Mason. 00:05:32 So anyway, on the way here, he got you all wound up and saying that I was a bad guy and that I called you grief and that you're going to start taking a weapon. 00:05:39 You went over here to the kitchen and got this weapon out. I, I'm worried where this goes, that you continue 00:05:44 to let Temple take you down these bad paths. No, what it really is, is that we've been here at this grainery, you know, 00:05:49 and we're shooting these episodes and we're talking about, you know, suicide rate among farmers, you know, 00:05:54 and it's got me signing up a noose, you know, talking about it. And then we talk about other things. 00:05:58 And then, you know, what really wanna talk about is what are we gonna do in this planting season? Like what are we gonna do? 00:06:03 Because I wanna be home right now working on my planter. I'm knocking disc openers off of it. 00:06:07 And then I'm thinking like, well, you know, this dis opener comes at 15 inches. This one's 14 to three quarters. 00:06:12 She going back to the field. This one's 14 to quarter. Like I think it'll plant 500 acres. Like, and when we had $8 corn, 00:06:19 we just put new dis openers on every year and now we got corns coming in at $4. And you're like, that dis open's running again 00:06:26 Because in your soil you have to change 'em throughout the season. They're not gonna last all season, correct? Uh, 00:06:33 No, no. They'll last, they'll last. Like this. This, it's according to what we do. You know, if we was no-tilling like you, 00:06:38 then we would probably have to put 'em on every week. Every week, every Week. So wait a minute, on 00:06:43 the drive down here after temple got you all agitated to come here, instigated and agitated to come here 00:06:48 and threaten physical violence, which I mean, I wanna point this out and I donate to the sheriff in this county. 00:06:53 So if I have to make a call, you Have to donate in this county. How does this, hold on. How does this, you have 00:06:58 to donate in this county because of the trouble that you've been in in this county? I have to donate my county 'cause Amber drives 00:07:03 a hundred miles an hour all the time. So Anyway, you got agitated, instigated, and then you wanna move on to talking. 00:07:10 So the thing is, back to the spoon, the wooden spoon he carries. Is that one of the things you're gonna do this year? 00:07:14 You're gonna start putting a wooden spoon, a a metal spoon on your tractor. You're Playing tractors. Yeah. 00:07:18 He's still gonna dig everything up with a, with a pin. Like I'm dig it. I mean the only reason the spoon really came up was I think Kelly probably called it right? 00:07:26 Somehow or another that had to be a spoon that it got in your service truck. And it was probably my mom. 00:07:30 Your mom probably brought lunch out and forgot the spoon and you kept it. And Then, you know, something got in there 00:07:35 and I went to check, check the, uh, a field didn't have my pin knife to go check to see what the seed Deb was grabbed the spoon. 00:07:42 'cause it was the only thing in there. And now, and now it's on every tracker. Hey, now when I want to make your point and I, 00:07:47 and I'm afraid to reach on there, can I at least go like this to you? I look a little bit like somebody that's had an accident. 00:07:54 I can't go Over there. But what, what do you think? What bothers you? Because they've, they've spent 20 minutes in the car talking about 00:08:02 how they're gonna physically assault me because I so much just go like this when I want, uh, make tie into their point. Do I do that bothers 00:08:09 You. He's laying that damn that Guinea pig. You, you, I don't know if we have that kind of time. Uh, Listen What I mean, I'll tell you the thing 00:08:18 that bothers me Yeah, that really bothers me right now is going into this season, like I know we're here to talk about 00:08:24 and cut up, but going into this season, like what are we gonna do? Like look at the markets, look at where we're at, 00:08:31 interest rates, look at the price, look at the interest rates and you know, we, we cutting up about, you know, your soil, my soul, the dis open stuff, you know, 00:08:37 but we better get the use out of them that we can get, you know, because things are tight and there's farmers that aren't going make it. It's 00:08:43 Hard, it's hard to go into the season with a lot of optimistic, uh, thoughts when it's tough to break even. You know, like, uh, we're going 00:08:52 through my renewal right now, Garrett, land and cattle. The year end tax year end is January 31st. So now we're going through the renewal process for next year 00:08:59 and we're looking at the numbers and stuff like that. I get some anxiety over it. And, and Jared, Jared said, Kelly, 00:09:05 remember last year, what was the goal? And he said, the goal is to break even and maintain your working capital. 00:09:10 I'm like, you're right. And he said, you, you did that so you that that is success. And he said, you need to look at doing that again next year. 00:09:17 Just don't go backwards. And you know, we give you a hard time on your soybean deal. 00:09:21 You know, we talk about what we got in soybeans, you know, in your area because we count everything. 00:09:25 You know, you can't just say, oh I got, you know, a hundred dollars in soybeans because that's all the seed and the fertilizer that I put in it. 00:09:32 You know, when you count everything and we give you a hard time about that. But it's the truth, you know? 00:09:36 It's the truth about which one matters and what are we gonna make a living on If we're spending money. 00:09:40 It has to be attributed to something That's right. And that money has to come from somewhere. That's right. And you know, that's, that was Jared's point on soybeans 00:09:46 and, and like my 800 $5,900 cost per acre, uh, that, that money has to come from somewhere and the fixed costs are high enough that for me, 00:09:56 soybeans don't produce it. Yep. Because it's just gonna be, uh, yeah. Can you sit over there? That's right. 00:10:02 It's gonna be one of them years where, where it's concerning. Like, especially for like the younger farmers, 00:10:07 that's what's concerning for me. Like, and, and us as well. No, no doubt about it. Um, but like the younger farmers that are out there 00:10:14 that it bothers me for them to have to go into this year and struggle that bad. 00:10:20 I mean, we went through it, don't get me wrong, but I mean the inputs are so high and they're so out of control. 00:10:27 You know, look at equipment prices, look at fertility prices, you know, look, I mean it's all the inputs are 00:10:33 so much more dramatic than they what they were years ago. And then you can say, you know, for me, I don't have a lot 00:10:39 of really, really new equipment, um, because I don't mind wrenching on them, but there's a cost there. 00:10:45 Yep. When you don't think it's all ledge. When there's you talking again, You're either making repairs or you're making payments. 00:10:50 But if you're making repairs, you might be losing time. Yeah. But you would also gotta keep in and I mean, when I sit down down a year, 00:10:56 I had this discussion with Matt and he was like, have you ever, like, at the end of the year, I know you look at your repairs. 00:11:02 What is your repairs on your equipment? And I asked him, I'm like, well what is your repairs? And he's like, on a lot of the equipment it's zero. 00:11:09 Like, you know what I mean? Like, come by because there's Warranty tractor sprayers With his ERs, it's warranty 00:11:13 with my role, it's zero. Mm-hmm. And he's like, what is yours? And I told him, he was like, holy, 00:11:18 are you serious right now? And I'm like, yeah. I mean, and that's me doing the work. So It's also not counting the time. 00:11:26 Yeah. What, what if you put in the time that you actually are doing all that? Uh, well we work for free. Okay. 00:11:32 A technician would charge, what, 75 bucks an hour or something Like A hundred thirty, fifty hundred fifty 00:11:37 An hour. 50 bucks dollars an hour. And they come out from the dealership now And they charge you from time they leave. Yeah. Yep. 00:11:42 And Then you get charged for brake cleaner Racks. Oh yeah. And their cost is high too. When 00:11:47 You yelled at me for interrupting, I said, is it all relative? And I'm not, I'm not, 00:11:52 obviously I don't make make the payments you guys do. But when you say, man, the mach, the costs are so much more than they were, are they really? 00:11:59 Or is it just, it's a bigger number nominally, but in real dollars or on the spend per bushel, is it really changed? 00:12:08 Is it really, is it really more now On New Year's Eve, 2007, my dad came home and he said, corn just got to $4 in Dow City. 00:12:17 I wanna sell the cows. I wanna tear up as much ground and put it to corn and that that's the change. 00:12:22 And I said, your plum crazy. And we did it. Now corn got higher in oh eight, but $4 corn was record high and was an amazing amount of money. 00:12:30 And now you look at New Year's Eve 2007 to New Year's Eve, uh, 2024 corn's about, was about $4. 00:12:38 And the costs are a lot higher. Yep. And so, no, it isn't all relative. But you're, You're also getting, you're also getting 45, 50 more 00:12:45 bushels per acre than you did in 2007. Wrong. 30 more bushels needed in, In 2008, we had 210 bushel corn in 2024, 00:12:52 we had 215 bushel corn. So, I mean, it's not our, the only things that you can come up in is, 00:12:57 is you can produce more yield and you Says Yield hasn't changed. And the only other thing you can do not that much, 00:13:02 The national average, then you Have to do it more efficiently. We gotta be super efficient. Yep. 00:13:07 And we gotta be really due, diligent on putting down the right fertility at the right time and get the most out of every amount 00:13:14 that you, every ounce that you put out. Because if we don't, we're start making these mistakes. We cannot form like we did in 2007. No. 00:13:20 If you formed in two, in 2025 like you did in 2007 with the fertility that you put out there, and the number is very different as far as your inputs. 00:13:29 Mm-hmm. You know, equipment, all your other inputs, fertility, all that. The number is way different. 00:13:35 So the only choice that you have to make is be efficient and don't over don't over 00:13:40 Anything. I looked at, I looked at, um, let's say how much, how much is a new bean header right now? 00:13:45 Let's say a 40 footer. 45 foot. It's 160,000. Okay. I, I pulled some papers out where we was cleaning up in the office. 00:13:51 98 bought a brand new combine and, and it was a, a 90, uh, was it 96 10 John Deere combine big one they made, yeah. 00:14:00 I paid, uh, got traded in a machine. They say gimme 40,000 for, we paid 173,000 combine and header 00:14:07 In 98 was my first crop. Uh, my dad and uncle owned the tractors, the planters and everything. It was my job to bring in the combine. 00:14:13 We're a third or third and third. We had a 9,500 side hill. It was a second year machine. 00:14:18 And we went into the roll program with the dealership and we rolled that combine for $60 a separate your hour. Yeah. 00:14:25 Boy, I'd like to do that again. I'd like to do That again. And so that's what we're talking about on $4 corn. 00:14:29 On $4 corn. And we did that. Well that, that's, that's the problem. So It's not all relative no's Not all relative. 00:14:34 That's, that's the problem is the maintenance on it. And we've looked at, you know, brewer come down and we looked at those numbers and you, 00:14:39 if you spread the number, my number's like yours, it's, I'll tell you it's got a four in front of it. Yeah. On the repair, on the repair side. Mine mine's huge. 00:14:46 Mine's got a four in front of it. So, you know, and Matt's has got a number in front of it on new equipment, but my new equipment don't have, 00:14:52 so if you look at the ratio and you look at the four in front of it versus the amount acres it is, 00:14:58 and you look at the cost per acre 'cause you spread it over every acre. Mm-hmm. And you keep that ratio. Right. 00:15:04 You know, whether it's a new one or the old one. How many cutbacks can we possibly make this year in order to just break even? 00:15:11 So we don't dig into our capital. So you don't go into working capital. Like we're how many more cuts can we take? 00:15:17 That's what makes me nervous for that younger generation to have to, to, to go through that. 00:15:22 And, and we've got a bunch of equity. What happens if that farmer doesn't have a bunch of equity and he's just building fake navy, 00:15:30 He's gotta have an off-farm job or, and they, you know, uh, People, we've been there before. 00:15:35 Yeah. People will ask me a lot of times and like, uh, you know, I learned this, uh, term from Damien, intentional congruence, you know, 00:15:42 and then, uh, I was doing it beforehand. I didn't know the term he taught it to me. But like, I try to use my trucks to do other things. 00:15:49 I try to use my equipment to do other things instead of having that asset sit there. We, uh, we custom farm about a thousand 00:15:55 Acres. Yeah. Custom hire. That Machine really got diversified When You put it, when you put that machine in shed, 00:16:00 it's still, the payment's the same every day. That payment's the same. So however many days you run it. Yep. I've actually pointed out 00:16:07 and my, when I do a farmer audience and I said, I think you're gonna see an Uberization come to farm equipment. 00:16:13 Now we've done deals before where, you know, you own a combine and we shared it between my farm and your farm. 00:16:19 And people then say, oh, that wouldn't work. 'cause when I need my planter, I need my planter. And I said, well, I landed here in Kansas City 00:16:28 and I needed to get to this hotel to do my job. And I got on my phone and within six minutes a guy in a Toyota Camry pulled up and picked me up and drew me here. 00:16:35 So, uh, if you told somebody 20 years ago, oh, you're gonna never even have anything lined up. You're gonna land in some 00:16:41 city and you're just gonna pull up. Somebody's gonna come and haul you in a Toyota Camry. You can say, all right, Damien, 00:16:47 this doesn't make sense for my planter. I'm not gonna just dial up a planter. I think maybe you will. Here's the deal. 00:16:52 When interest rates were 2%, it didn't matter. You just said the price of this equipment is in real dollars inflation, just dollars. 00:17:00 It's more you just use the head head the combine header, $160,000 com beanhead. 00:17:05 All right. I think you're gonna get a lot more creative when $160,000 also has an 8% interest rate on it 00:17:11 because you're starting to talk about real money. Why can't you figure out a way to take his bean head and when he's done with it in June, get it to Minnesota. 00:17:20 I just think that there's gonna, that equipment, how much dollars are sitting in that tool shed over there is 00:17:25 the question I think you should ask every farmer. Right. And I, that goes on, you know, with our custom operations 00:17:29 and things like that, uh, you know, I, I work with my sister and brother-in-law. They used to have smaller equipment. 00:17:34 We didn't have quite as much equipment. Now we have bigger equipment and we work together so that that goes on in places 00:17:39 And it's gonna happen more. It's gonna happen more. Right. You have $2 million of machinery sitting over there 00:17:44 that again, if it was, if it was invested, you can, you can get 5% on, you can get, you get 5% just in a money market. 00:17:51 So that's 100,000. If you say, oh, that equipment's paid for farmers like to do that, well this equipment's all paid for. 00:17:56 Okay, you got $2 million of depreciating asset. If you just had that $2 million and put it into a money market, you could access any day 5%. 00:18:03 That's a hundred thousand dollars. And when corn goes from six to four, the depreciation speeds up. 00:18:07 Yeah. Because you use marketing what it was. Yeah. It ain't what it was. It ain't what it was. I mean, they're gonna have to do something to get really, 00:18:13 um, really crazy to, to make this whole thing work. Because if you've been by the John Deere, you know, the Deere dealerships, case dealerships, here's a lot 00:18:23 of really new-ish equip used equipment that are sitting on the lots and they're gonna have to do something 00:18:30 because the problem wa is, you know, you take a lot of the guys that have been farming for, you know, 10 or 15 years, a lot 00:18:37 of these equipment companies has really sought after those guys. And it's cool to have, you know, 00:18:42 big flashy brand new equipment. And that stuff is coming back to home now because they're in a lot of these rollover programs 00:18:49 where you know, hey, um, you have a tractor for 250 hours a year, but at the end of the year you have zero equity Yeah. 00:18:57 In that piece of equipment. But you're rolling it over and you're getting a new one and it's cool to run something new. 00:19:01 Well you don't have any ownership in any of that, so what do you do now? They can walk away from it. 00:19:06 And that's kind of nice if things go bay and go south, you know, you can walk away from what happens when equipment company says, Hey look, uh, we got 00:19:14 so much equipment on the yard. Yeah. We're not doing this anymore. And that happened to me. Go ahead. 00:19:20 By the way, remember when I just use that example, you got $2 million of farm machinery as a farmer sitting in that tool shed, the equipment dealership might have 00:19:28 $20 million of equipment sitting there. Yeah. And don't pretend that somehow they don't remember. Interest is interest. Money is money. 00:19:35 They're interest, they're paying interest on that. Also. They're filling the pitch as well. Yeah. 00:19:39 Everybody, the manufacturer might give 'em 90 days on new, but after 90 days they're paying for that. 00:19:45 Yeah. New combine or whatever. So if you're sitting on $20 million a dealership and calling 8%, you're talking about what's that amount 00:19:52 to $160,000 now? More than that Anyway, it's 1.6. That, that 1.6 million a year, That situation, you think 00:19:58 About that, that means how much, how much you gotta make to, if if you had $20 million throughout the year at 8%, 00:20:04 that's 1.6 million that you gotta come up with just a fortune just to pay the, the interest on carrying all that inventory. 00:20:12 I mean, they're, they're going to feel it. I mean it happened, um, man, I don't know. It is 15 or 20 years ago we were in a roll program 00:20:19 and we were rolling, um, new tractors, new planters and new combines every year. And one year came along and the dealership and um, 00:20:28 and the equipment company said, we can't do this anymore. That's, and the way the paperwork was done, 00:20:34 they were like, that's yours now. And you should have seen what that payment was on that next year. 00:20:39 And I had no equity in any of it. So I took the equipment and struggled, made the payment, and I traded everything that I had. 00:20:49 I was like, it's all gone. And I just wiped it out and Went and bought you Stuff. Went and bought a bunch of you stuff 00:20:55 and, and then went from there. And I said, I will, you know, unfortunately, you know, I'm hardheaded and I probably should have got back in there, 00:21:03 but I got stung so hard. And I mean, you wanna talk about bleed, you wanna be, I mean I bled money and I was like, I'm out of this 00:21:11 and I will never go back. So that's what kind of turned me into the person I am now is like, I'm gonna work on my equipment and you're working 00:21:18 On the service truck to get to the broke down equipment. Like that makes me too far. I, that, 00:21:22 That happened a couple times this Year. The price of cool ain't cheap. No. 00:21:27 What there's a saying in about that. It ain't, it ain't, well I don't even know what it is, But you asked the question to start this 00:21:33 as you guys are saying now you're in charge of the episode topics from here on. So, uh, you just kinda, what are we gonna do? 00:21:38 Much better episode. So, alright. You asked the question, you asked the question, what are we gonna do? 00:21:43 I heard it, it capitalized on intentional congruence. Mm-hmm. Obviously diversification. I've been, I've been looking at it. 00:21:50 Diversification in the old days used to mean that you had a chicken coop, you had some milk cows on your roof ground, 00:21:57 you had your beef cows, you maybe ran some, your wife was a teacher, you Ran some hole. Yeah. And 00:22:02 Then you grain farmed. And then you also made sure you had a summer crop, you got some revenue, wheat 00:22:06 or oats, whatever in the summer you got a Gas station. I'm Where it all, that's what I'm saying. So the 00:22:11 Whole, you Got a trucking company, so it went from diversification to specialization. Now most people are really good at you at growing 00:22:18 corn and soy and wheat. Boom. You, you're, you're are specialized. Does diversification in the future look like 00:22:24 Kelly Garrett now it's Yeah. We got the farming operation, we got a gas station and a and a direct consumer be business. It has to be. It 00:22:31 Has to be. But sometimes you get to a point where you're throwing good money at bad money too. You gotta remember that. Like, you know, 00:22:37 and it seems like it takes all this other stuff just to keep your farm operation afloat. And is that a, is that a good 00:22:43 Business decision? That's a, that's a hundred percent the way I feel. Some days I look at all great bank. 00:22:47 I look at all the other things I've started to do to supplement the farm and help the farm. And I, uh, I love what I do, 00:22:55 but I sometimes I'm like, look at the monster I've created here because I wanted to make the farm more successful. 00:23:00 And that's, that's exactly what I'm getting at. Like, is some of them things worth it? Now? I I think that like some of them small things 00:23:06 that you're talking about that diversification and having, you know, chickens and having, you know, and, and a lot of farmers around home like they farm 00:23:14 and then they have, you know, a chicken house operation with one of the integrators and they do very well like that. But when you really come down to it, they're taking 00:23:24 that wound that's making 'em a bunch of money to fund. I, when I started farming, I looked at hog houses and then, you know, I looked at chicken houses, 00:23:31 but then when you really dig down and you know, the bad experience you had with the equipment dealer where they said, this is yours. 00:23:36 Yeah. Some of the, the custom hog feeding or the custom chicken feeding you are, you're gonna go spend a fortune to buy yourself a job. 00:23:44 And that's why I chose to use the trucks and things like that instead be, you know, and the manure's nice. 00:23:49 The manure from the chickens or the hogs are nice. Yeah. But I always, I look at my friends that have hog buildings 00:23:54 and I look at my friends that have chicken buildings and I'm like, boy, they spent a lot of money to get a job. But it seems like, you know, when I, we looked at, 00:24:03 you know, doing chicken houses at one time as well and it seemed like when you got past that, like you, you had that guarantee, they always had this guarantee 00:24:11 and it looked great on paper. And you're like, man, this is like awesome. But So You get to year 10 Yes. 00:24:18 And then the guarantee goes away. Yes. And then they, they decrease your guarantee and then all of a sudden you're 10. 00:24:23 They're like, I need you to spend a hundred thousand dollars on house to refurb to refurbish the barn fu refurbish, 00:24:28 they've got new technology and then they're not gonna guarantee you flocks. Yep. And all of a sudden, and then you lose your 00:24:33 new house guarantee. Uh, and then, but for the first 10 years, boy you was crushing it. Ah, 00:24:38 It, it's, no, that's the same analogy as your role with your equipment. Yep. You felt like you had a guarantee 00:24:44 and all of a sudden they're like, we don't wanna do this anymore. And that, that's the same thing I worry about there. 00:24:48 Uh, my trucking contract, I have a year left, you know, and I You worried Yeah, 00:24:54 I'd sure like to get that paper signed to get Yeah. You know, so It was, you ask the Question, what we're 00:24:58 gonna do when things are tight. Here's the thing, I, I'm not being mean, but we've all lived through some farm cycles. 00:25:04 This ain't gonna be a one year blip. No, this Ain't gonna be a one year blip. Youre here a while. 00:25:09 You know, that's what we're talking about. You know, we was talking about, you know, we'll sit here and we have these companies too with fertility companies. 00:25:13 Right. And we all test product for 'em. You know, we all, and we need the product. Like we need that, but this trickle is gonna go 00:25:22 to them too, you know. Yeah. People where they was putting out three gallon, they may put out two gallon people 00:25:26 where they was putting out three gallon, they may not put out any Gallons. We, we talked about that 00:25:28 a year ago. Uh, you know, we're, we're here this week kind of with agro liquid and stuff like that. 00:25:33 And the, the fear that I have for young farmers, you wanna talk about young farmers, they will cut out of those extra things that there's an ROI on 00:25:42 and they'll go back to just the basics. I think the dry fertility should be cut out and they should live on that, that bank account 00:25:48 that's in the soil, they should cut that out rather than the liquid things that, that we can measure. 00:25:52 The ROII think the wrong things get cut because of a lack of understanding. Do you think So do the other day I got my, um, 00:25:59 my soil samples back. Right. And um, I started looking through 'em and, and it, they were, when they took the soil 00:26:05 samples, it was super dry. So I knew the numbers were gonna be skewed somewhat. And I just got, I literally got p****d off 00:26:11 and I throwed 'em all in the trash. And I'm like, I don't even know why I am looking at 'em. Because I've made up my mind over the last couple years 00:26:20 that I'm gonna grow the crop for what it is and stay just in front of those windows. And I'm not gonna put on any more than what's there. 00:26:26 So I do, I really give a s**t what's in the soul. And I know that that's a terrible, now I need to still need to worry about pH because you still 00:26:32 gotta have some type of a balance. But there's a part of me that is just like, I think to get through these next few years, stop worrying about what's in 00:26:41 that bank and just grow the crop for what it is and don't put on anything more than what that crop is gonna utilize and nothing else. 00:26:49 That's the only way that we can be efficient enough where we can get you the bank at end year and say, I made my paintings 00:26:54 Long term. You cannot save yourself to prosperity, but when things are tight, you need to try to save yourselves to prosperity. 00:26:59 And the hardest thing to do in this is not be emotional. You Oh, you gotta make, you gotta make 00:27:03 a business decision here. You know, whether it's good or bad, you can't be emotional, you know, and that's, that's the toughest thing to do, you know, 00:27:10 is to try to keep the emotion out. Is that saying that you have Kelly motion make motion loses money. 00:27:15 You had this whole big thing. Yeah. And you told me this one day when I was on a real bent o occasion at 5:00 AM in the morning I called you 00:27:23 and you told me this whole thing. It sunk in enough that I knew it, but I can't Tell you what it was. There's, there's 00:27:27 really only three emotions, happy, sad, mad. And if you make a decision and you have any too much of any of the three of them inside 00:27:33 of you, you're probably screwing something up. Yep. By the way, there's another one. And that's what is driving most all behavior. 00:27:39 There's happy, sad, mad and fear. And that's where, uh, these kind of conditions put you in. And it's, uh, obviously natural. 00:27:48 Um, you know, you can't do fight or flight. You can't walk out in your farming operation and say, oh, flight you do bail out flights. 00:27:53 Bail an option. Bail out what you've got thousand acres that you own and whatever. The other thing is, you know, we're 00:27:57 Sitting here talking about this and we don't wanna ruin, ruin everybody's, you know, the spring is coming, you know, 00:28:01 everybody's excited about planting a new crop. That's what we do. You know, when you, you're sitting here like, I don't even wanna buy any seed, 00:28:07 you know, I mean, you don't wanna be doom and gloom on it. We're gonna go do what we do. 00:28:10 And I just wanna point out Temple, he's the one that brought up the topic and here it is, it's a mood killer. 00:28:16 So I just wanna say this is what happens when Chads and tar. It's not, it's not. Well, when Chads 00:28:19 and Tar, actually, you know what, it's reality. Reality. It's Reality. It's reality. 00:28:22 And you know, we've had a nice, uh, we've had a nice rally in the grain markets. It's not as, uh, bleak as it was, 00:28:28 but it, it's just still doesn't look like a home run. But you know, historically It never does. Historically it's about what it looks like. Yeah. 00:28:37 Farming's a break even endeavor. Yeah. You know, you're talking about doing other stuff to, to keep it going. 00:28:42 Again, how many farmers do you know that there were, you know, usually there were guys wife had a good job and it, it was the insurance came from the job 00:28:50 and then sometimes the payment came from the job or maybe the farm. But you're also forgetting the other one. 00:28:56 It's a bank of asset. You've got the farming thing. It doesn't necessarily always make a lot of net revenue, but you've got the asset situation. And you 00:29:05 Know what, we we're sitting here like, you know, a on my, one of my sayings is, you'll never do anything 00:29:09 that somebody has it done. Okay. We'll never do as, as in the front or thinking outta the box. 00:29:15 We'll never do anything that somebody hasn't done. We'll do it better or we'll do it more efficiently or we'll figure out how to maybe get it done. 00:29:22 But the far as the first thing, it's very hard for you to think of one thing that your dad or granddad hadn't done it before. 00:29:27 There's no more ified. Yes. So, yeah, no, so, so they've already been through this. They've already, we, they sit around this table, 00:29:32 whether it be the kitchen table and had the same conversation for generations. You know, so this is something 00:29:37 that everybody ain't been through. The farm's still going and we'll Get through it. I mean, it's 00:29:41 just part of it. I think I would wrap this episode right there. But the thing is, I'm terrified 00:29:46 to come over here and say, I think that's great. Just hold onto the spoon and go ahead and do it. You got it. Here you go. Ba. Okay. His name's Chad Henderson. 00:29:53 His name's Temple Rhodes. His name's Kelly Garrett. You know what they did? They came in here with an attitude. They drove down here and Temple, 00:29:59 got Chad all completely instigated, fired up, agitated, came in here physically threatening me. Not normal for Chad. He is normal first farm. 00:30:07 I ever went to an extreme mag, my buddy Chad, I thought we were good. But then he came in here and he 00:30:11 started threatening me Anyway. Talking about all sorts of things, including what are we gonna do this year? 00:30:15 Well, actually, what we know we're gonna do is continue to get by like you always have. Yep. Tune into the grainery 00:30:21 and you can pull up a chair right here if you're wondering what to do. Because the most important thing you do is always keep an 00:30:25 open line of communication and keep your sense of humor and more importantly, manage those emotions like Kelly talked about. 00:30:30 Till next time, thanks for being here. Damien Mason, coming at you with my good friends from extreme ag. 00:30:35 It's tenuous, but we're good friends. It's the same. Cheers. All right, you little son of a b***h. 00:30:41 I let you guys set the topic and I let you come in here 00:30:44.115 --> 00:30:44.755