00:00 You're looking at the grain setup tool sheds and equip a yard for a large scale West Central Tennessee farming operation. 00:07 I'm sitting here in the shape of my buddy Johnny Verre. In this episode we're talking about the neighbors cuz you see that operation in the background is not yours. This is yours. The question is, 00:18 how do two large scale farming operations coexist in the same county? Not just the same county, literally next door to one another. 00:26 I could throw a rock and hit their farming operation. They're a big operator. You're a big operator. I said when I pulled in, is that yours? You said, no, 00:34 that's the neighbors. And then he said, yep, they're right there and I'm right here. And I said, do you get along? And you said, oh absolutely. We get along, we would help each other our, 00:43 and I said, that is unusual. Maybe it doesn't strike you as unusual. I've been around a lot of the countryside. That's unusual. 00:51 So when I bought this place, he came over and helped me clean it up and it was kind of grown up a lot. He came in and helped me clean it up. We kind of hit it off. 00:58 I knew him my whole life growing up. Um, he's a few years older than me, but we own equipment together. We own some irrigation systems together. Um, 01:07 we help each other out harvesting different things. Anytime either one of us need anything, we kind of work together on it. Have You really not, 01:14 have you really not thought that this is kind of unusual based on all the people you keep up with. You get around, you go to commodity class, 01:20 you go to farming events, two large scale farming operations can get along swimmingly. They can share their secrets. 01:26 They can do that like extreme a if they're two states away from each other. Yeah. You are literally a couple hundred yards from them. Yeah, 01:31 Well we just, we've always worked well together. Like he's, he's always supported us. He's always supported our family. 01:37 And then they had a gin in operation where they were gin in cotton and we always gin our cotton with them. So it's always just been a mutual friendship. 01:43 And like I said, it's, it's, it's grown over time. It's been a good deal. Why do you think it blows up for others? 01:49 I think sometimes people think about what they can get today and not the long term effect of what they're doing. 01:54 So it gets competitive. I'm gonna go grab this 80 acres and buy it or I'm gonna rent this out, rent this from them. Do you have that with this 02:01 Neighbor? Yeah. I mean we always talk about, you know, if the land's coming up for rent or something like that, we always try to work together. If it's closer to something he has, 02:07 maybe I'll just let him bid on it or I stay outta the picture. Or vice versa. If the land comes up for sale and it joins something to mind, 02:13 a lot of times he'll reach out to me and let me Know. To say that that's an unusual working relationship is probably an understatement. Johnny, you know that. Yeah. 02:19 So gimme your tips on how you keep this working. How do you keep a swimmingly beautiful relationship with alar? Again, this is not a couple of hundred acre operators. You've got a major facility, 02:29 you've got things to pay for, it can get competitive, green prices go down. You still got this huge grain setup. So do they, 02:35 you gotta keep the machine rolling. How do you keep from getting at loggerheads? I think you just gotta look long term. Like I said, 02:41 his dream and goal in life is to form. And that's, that's my family's too. So we always wanna do the same thing and I don't wanna do anything that can hurt 02:48 them. They don't wanna do anything to hurt us. And like I said, pharma's a very competitive business to say that we're not competitive. 02:53 That's not true. But we always try to respect each other and work together. And I mean there's other farming operations just across the road from you. 02:59 There's another one. And we all just work together. Like I Said, the old statement, familiarity breeds contempt. 03:05 I've always wondered if these ag people, you, you're in kind of an insular business. You know, you're out here, you're in the country, uh, you know, 03:12 it's not like you go to work in a skyscraper, you see the neighbor operation all the time and eventually does it get to where you're like, ah, that's how the judgment sets in all that. 03:22 That's what I see happening. What about you? Yeah, I mean that he allowed to get some new equipment that I wish I'd get. But the good thing is if he buys something and he tries it out and he likes it, 03:30 I know it'll work for me. So it kind of works together. Sometimes we'll talk about something that we're wanting to buy or want to try, he'll jump in on it or I might jump in on it or different brand tractors. 03:39 It just works well. What about when you see, when you hear about people that don't get along, what do you think the the what, what, 03:44 what is it they've done that's caused it so that they have a very fractured relationship with the farmer next door, next county over, whatever it's, yeah, 03:52 I just think, you know, if you, if you push things too hard and you ever need help and you've burned all your bridges, you're not gonna have that help. 03:58 That was one thing my granddad always taught me. Never do anything that's gonna hurt you long term because you might need that help. One day we had a tornado come through here in 2008, 04:07 right down the road and took out my dad and granddad's whole farming operation. The man next door showed up, the other neighbors showed up, 04:13 help us clean up the whole place. I mean, they stopped their whole lives, moved all their equipment in and within three or four days we had all the houses 04:21 down, all the sheds down, all the equipment hauled off. They were bringing their low boys in, hauling our tractors all over west Tennessee trying to get'em fixed. 04:29 Uh, give me your tips. Somebody that says, you know what, things are a little fractured is, I, 04:33 I think it's hard to recover once there's a fractured relationship. Have you had that? 04:38 Yeah. I mean you have that happen. Like some land may come up for sale and they might not buy and you buy and there's some hard feelings and I think that that does happen. 04:45 But you always try to navigate those things the best you can. And can You recover a fractured relationship? Generational. 04:50 Generational seems to me it's like, it's like the Hatfields McCoys. You were told as a kid you're supposed to hate them. 04:55 So so you ate them when you're an adult. Does that happen? Yeah, I mean it, it does. You see it happen here in West Tennessee. Don't, 05:01 don't get me wrong, there's been a lot of Long happened everywhere. Everywhere. But I mean, you just, 05:05 you always gotta treat your neighbors like family. Cuz at the end of the day we live side by side. We pass each other every day. You know, we gotta work 05:13 Together. All right, gimme your top. The three to five recommendations. I think I already heard 'em. Uh, to the person that, you know what, 05:18 it's easier to keep it from becoming fractured than to repair a fractured relationship, I think is the big one. Yeah. 05:23 You're gonna be in this for the long haul. Most farm families are in it for the long generation. You want to hand this off to the next generation, next generation. 05:29 You've been here for three generations at least. So, uh, recommendations. What's your advice to somebody to make sure that they stay this long haul A 05:36 peaceful and coexistence? I always try to think what the outcome's gonna be in a few years long term when you make a move. And like I said, if you can always work together, you know, 05:45 whether it's on irrigation systems, buying land, sharing equipment, you know, we share equipment, we share. So the 05:50 Fact that you, the fact that you've sort of got a vested relationship together. Yeah, that helps. 05:55 That helps. And I mean, equipment costs nowadays is so expensive. We just saw a piece of equipment come in a while ago that me and another 06:01 neighbor owned together. And the reason is, is we're only gonna use it a few weeks, a year a piece. So it doesn't make sense for me to own it all by myself. So we share it. 06:08 So I mean, I try to think how can I get something done for a cheaper cost per acre? And a lot of times it's working with your neighbors, working with your friends, 06:14 just like you're doing a lot of other things. And So I heard you say, uh, you know, think about the long term effect. You know, you go and do something that might make you a dollar tomorrow, 06:21 it might also cost you a hundred dollars down the road. Uh, be in business with them, uh, gimme some other ones. 06:27 So just always trying to figure out how to work together and get your cost acre down and stuff like that. That's been a big one for me. 06:33 And the other good thing you can do long term, you gotta look at it when the banker comes out and wants to look at all your equipment, we're sitting here together. 06:42 You tell the banker that's yours. That's right. Oh, I like that. I like that. Oh yeah. They final line out a lot. 06:48 All right. Has there been a blow between you and this guy and you just resolved it? No, we've never had a blow up. That's good. I mean, but it, 06:55 I've had blowups with other people and I mean, you just gotta work through things like that and try to figure out, cause I've, we, you know, somebody could take some land that we're working. Right. 07:02 It happens. You know, you're A pretty hotheaded guy. You took a swing on me before we started recording this. That's right, that's right. 07:07 Okay. That's not true. All right. So I think we're talking about the neighbors and I think there really is gonna be a bigger concern moving forward. My, uh, 07:14 research says we got 174,000 large scale farming operation in the United States right now. In the next 10 years, there's gonna be about one third of that. 07:21 You're gonna have this. Yeah. You better get along now. Because when it's down to only one third as many, it's gonna be even more. Yeah. Like 07:28 That. I think the long term with farming, it's gonna be working together. Whether it's through some buying groups, 07:33 whether it's through just selling commodities together. There's been times when I've called my neighbor and said, Hey, I've got some extra e or extra basis contracts I need covered. Do you want 'em? 07:42 It's a good deal for him. It's gonna help me out. And a lot of times I think in the future, maybe buying and selling grain together might be a big deal. 07:48 Cause we could take, you know, a million bushel of corn and sell versus a half a million of pinks or something like that. Do 07:54 You think that that doesn't happen most of the time because of spite? It Can. 07:57 I'm gonna, I'm not, I I, I could do this for my neighbor, but you know what? Screw him. Uh, because he did this to me back in 2007 and Yeah. 08:04 But I think long term, when you look at it, if we can always work together, we're both gonna have a better ROI at the end of the year. 08:10 His name's Johnny Rell. He is talking about the neighbors and I'm talking with him about the neighbors. You know what, we live out here in rural communities. 08:16 It's something like what only 17% of the population lives on 97% of the rural landscape. 08:22 And we are in such an insular business where there's guys like you earning your entire business out here. Uh, this is a business. 08:28 You got 18 employees and he's got probably the same thing right There. That's right. That's right. Talking 08:33 About keeping It together. Yeah. We kid around all the time about how we put grain bins in. We should have put a facility in together because our cost per bush would've 08:39 been half because I'd had, we'd had bigger bins. One big dryer versus both of us trying to do our own thought. I mean, I think long term we should have thought about that a little bit more because 08:48 now we know we should have put in a mega site together. Now I think you're talking about how the entire cooperative system came together. You're just talking about doing it on a more privatized level. 08:56 That's right. Privatizing the co-op. Maybe that'll work for you. You know what, he's an idea guy. 09:00 He's also a smart dude and he is my favorite western Tennessee farmer. No offense to that guy back there, but you're my favorite. 09:05 We're coming to you from Pharrell Farms, Eric Extreme ag.farm. Thanks for being here. Thank you.