December 16, 2025 • 48 mins
Chad Fiechter and Todd Kuethe reflect on their conversations this past year and talk about future plans. They cover past discussions with notable guests, including Nate Kauffman from the Federal Reserve, Matt Erickson from the Senate, Joe Balagtas from the White House, ag investing consultant Joe Suttles, and Indian hog farmer Brian Martin. Todd shares his upcoming sabbatical plans to teach economies on the Semester at Sea program, while they both share more on their recent trip to Arkansas to learn about rice farming. They explore the impact of AI in agriculture and highlight the importance of understanding different agricultural practices and community perspectives. The conversation wraps up with light-hearted discussions on personal preferences and their hopes for future podcast topics.
Find all the past episodes discussed: https://purdue.ag/agcast
Podcast provided by Purdue University's Center for Commercial Agriculture. For more economic and farm management information, visit us at http://purdue.edu/commercialag.
Transcript from the discussion can be found at https://purdue.ag/agcast203.
Check out all of our Purdue Commercial AgCast video interviews on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS0sw5w6odSS111rbY1glHw
Socials: https://twitter.com/PUCommercialAg, https://www.facebook.com/PUCommercialAg, https://www.linkedin.com/company/center-for-commercial-agriculture
Whoosh in-out #1 by beman87 -- https://freesound.org/s/162841/ -- License: Attribution 3.0
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Hey everybody, you're listeningto the Commercial Ag Cast.
I'm Chad Fiechter andI'm here with my co-host,
Todd Kuethe.
This is the conversation serieswhere we kind of diverge from sort
of our normal programming and haveconversations with people that we
interact with on a regular basis.
So
We always have to start by thanking,thanking people for listening.
This is the holidays, soit's a time to be thankful.
(00:27):
Yes.
And, we're drawing tothe end of the semester.
Because we're so transparent, to givea behind the scenes look at what has
happened and then a preview of what wethink is gonna happen in the future.
So, we started this podcast Andwe thought, well, we could have
conversations with interesting people.
With the goal of learningmore about the ag economy.
(00:48):
We can't teach Purdue Centerfor Commercial Agriculture
people about crop budgets, theyknow more about crop budgets.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Than we're gonna, right.
The ag economy has these partsthat we don't necessarily think
about in day to day ag economy
Thi things that I didn't reallythink about when I was a farmer.
Yeah.
What is it, when you were a farmer,you didn't appreciate or understand,
(01:09):
but maybe you would want to learn moreif there was an easy way to do it.
We're not gonna bring somebody totalk about seed technology and whether
or not to buy this kind of seed.
Or like corn breeding.
We're just gonna talk to thesepeople that maybe don't show
up on the radar quite as much.
We had some interesting conversations,with, Nate Kaufman from the Federal
Reserve, Matt Erickson, who spenttime in the Senate, Joe Balagtas
(01:32):
who was at the White House.
We had a conversation with BrianMartin, who's a hog farmer here
in Indiana, but at an interesting,way of positioning his business.
Anyway, so we had those conversationsover the last six months.
Correct.
And now we're kind of wrapping up.
I'm getting ready to go awayon sabbatical, so I'm not gonna
Wait a second.
Todd, where are you going?
(01:53):
Oh, I'm glad you asked.
I'm going to be teaching economics onthis program called Semester at Sea.
Huh.
So my wife and my two kids, age 11 and13, and I are gonna live on a cruise
ship and I'm going to teach economicswhen that cruise ship is moving
from port to port, which is usuallyfive to eight days sea stretches.
And then when we park at aport, we're there for six days
(02:15):
to travel around that country.
So it's not like your regular cruisewhere you're traveling at night,
you're visiting a country in a day.
The next day is a differentcountry or different port.
But the places you're visiting, islike Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville,
Senior Turks and Caicos.
Um, yeah.
Right.
That's where you're going?
Yeah.
Mostly.
Mostly.
Um.
(02:35):
Yes.
We're gonna do a lot of like,cheeseburgers in paradise, right?
Like that's, no.
In case anyone from Semester atSea listens to this or potential
semester at Sea students.
That's not at all this, this isbasically your college study abroad.
I run these like short termstudy abroad programs, right?
Right.
Where we'll take a bunch of kids fromPurdue College of Ag and we'll go to
(02:58):
Italy and we'll visit some farms andwe'll go to like a cheese manufacturer
and we'll take a cooking class andwe'll learn about all the things
we learn about in the classroom.
Kind of take those into the field.
Right.
This is more like that.
And then instead of doing it for one week,we stack a bunch of those weeks together
and you're doing this over a semester.
Yeah, right.
Full semester.
So I'm gonna be living on aship virtually incommunicado.
(03:20):
We're not, not gonna be able to keepdoing these interesting conversations.
This is the thing I'll probably miss most.
No, and this is why we're recordingan episode with just you and I.
Correct.
And we're short one.
We need one more.
Then I said, do you remember inthe eighties, when we used to watch
sitcoms and they would have clip shows.
Yeah.
Like I still remember enjoying the GrowingPains, the Seaver family sitting in the
kitchen table and Mike Seavers, the son.
(03:43):
Do you remember?
Did you watch?
Were you a Growing Pains fan?
I did not.
Oh, okay.
You don't need to revisit it.
But I enjoyed it in real time.
You're significantly older than I am.
That's true.
I'm like six to seven years older.
Yes.
Maybe five.
But also I grew, I grew upwith just my dad, so I consumed
media that I shouldn't have.
We didn't have tv.
Oh, you didn't have TV at all.
Yeah, but that's for another podcast.
We had a TV that we could watchmovies on, but those movies
(04:05):
were fairly, like restricted.
You didn't even watch like two,four, and five or whatever.
Nope.
Like just your basic
Nope, nope.
Over the, over the air.
None of that nonsense.
Oh, wow.
Interesting.
Okay.
Okay, so I was raised by popular media.
No, no.
My kids are living a similar experiencewhere as a, uh, overzealous millennial
parent, I have taken away theiraccess to lots of popular media.
(04:26):
Outside of what they consume in school.
Okay.
So I, I was raised by media and sothe Seavers were sitting around the
table and they're talking about theirson, Mike, and they were like, do you
remember when Mike bought that car?
Then it would soft focusto Mike buying a car.
And then there'd be thefunny little bit from that.
And then they would soft focusback to the parents at the
(04:47):
kitchen table dying laughing.
They'd be like, you know, butit wasn't always funny, remember
when Carol had that tough exam?
And then soft focus.
Then this was a clip show, right?
Mm-hmm.
I was like, well, maybe weshould just do a clip show.
And I thought it was a great idea.
So, but I wanted to ask you, 'cause I,I was thinking as I was coming in today.
What is the most stark thing you feel likeyou learned by us recording conversation?
(05:09):
So it could potentially be personal,it could potentially be like
your, your mind was expanded in,in understanding the ag economy.
What was the most surprisingthing I learned or most impactful?
Yeah.
Mine was, uh, our conversationwith Brian Martin.
We were talking about immigration andhis use of foreign labor on his farm.
(05:32):
And particularly he mentioned aVisa program that is to bring in
college degree holders from othercountries to come work for them.
Our industry generally todaybiggest need is labor oriented.
Through the last 10 years, seems to befewer people that, truly want a job, and
(05:56):
that's resulted in the industry, becominga lot more active in immigrant workers.
The visa that is used in our industrypredominantly is TN Visa, which is a
college graduate from, could be fromEastern Europe, from Africa, from Mexico.
Um, we are 80% employed TN Visa,which is a three to five year.
(06:18):
And it it puts you into a wholedifferent process of, of finding people.
The good thing is it's you're findingfolks that, um, are looking for
opportunity that want to come to work,that are leaving a place and seeing
a, a broad horizon in front of them.
That's interesting.
Well, it is sort of is a close correlationwith what we do with our grad students.
(06:39):
Right.
'cause we're gettingpeople from all over world.
Sure.
Mm-hmm.
For us, Purdue sort of hangs itsname out there as like this great
university and then people find us.
Mm-hmm.
But how do do you have tofind them or how, do you find
those people specifically?
Absolutely.
We started looking at it fiveyears ago, and the simple answer
is, it, it is a political process.
(07:01):
Bureaucratic, which means,little Martin Farms in northwest
Indiana can't easily connect.
And the answer is actually Hanor putus onto a law firm that, they had used.
And it's an immigration company.
Relationship oriented.
So they will recruit, they will helpyou, uh, through the bureaucracy.
(07:22):
So it's a, you know, threemonth process and it was $6,000
per person, which is ominous.
But when you look at at whatturnover costs you, that cost small
for a person that, that can do,wants to be a part of something.
That was the answer.
Is, so you, you mentionedthat you're now 80% TN visa.
Right.
How, how about productionout of the sow farm?
(07:44):
You know, over the course of sixyears, our turnover has moved
from, um, near 80% annually to 30.
And that comes with improved production.
I've spent a lot, and Icontinually think about this.
(08:05):
Because I thought of immigrant labor onthe farms, mostly in low skill dimensions,
like, I need somebody to carry stuffaround or dig ditches or whatever, right?
And Brian made me reallythink about it differently.
And, and I, and you talk aboutspecifically in, in hog farming, where
(08:25):
I think it's, it's especially true,but I think it's true everywhere.
That the reason he was so attractedto bringing in this workforce is
that they would do those things.
Mm-hmm.
But they were also smartand careful, right?
So they get a college degree, which meansthat they have invested in themselves
and that they have some intellect, right?
(08:45):
Because ultimately what he needs issomeone who's willing to understand
and respect the risk that every timesomebody comes into the hog barn,
they're potentially destroying allof your income for the next year.
Yeah.
Right.
And maybe affecting it for multiple years.
Sure.
Right.
Sure.
Like they could bring in someweird disease on their shoe.
Mm-hmm.
(09:05):
That puts everything in jeopardy.
Right.
Right.
But when they're inside ofthat hog farm, they may have
to just literally shovel turds.
Yes.
Right.
Or identify this pig,something's wrong with it.
I need to pull it out and take a look.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Um, and so it's this mix of likehigh intellect skill that you need,
(09:30):
but also a willingness to like,get in there and deal with turds.
Yeah.
Uh, and that's a, that'sa weird subset, right?
We generally think about the economy, aseconomists, I think of as like there's
the people that shovel poop, and thenthere's the people that, you know, your,
your typical farmer is doing things thatwe associate with unskilled labor, but
(09:53):
then they're also doing things that areassociated with very high skilled labor.
And what Brian talked about ishaving these people that are
willing and excited to do both.
And that a lot of times as he'shiring people, there are people
that just don't want to dealwith the low skill portion of it.
And that's how I was asa college student, right?
Yeah.
Right.
I remember having an internship where Igot asked to literally alphabetize and
(10:16):
file stuff, and I was like, dude, I'mthree credit shy of a degree in finance.
Like I should be looking at yourbudgets and helping with that.
Not just filing papers.
But like somebody'sgotta file those papers.
Yep.
Right.
And like, and that's the sameidea of like what Brian was
looking for in his employees.
So like that part of theconversation is like something
(10:37):
that I still think about routinely.
I fear that my answer to the questionof what is the most impactful, is more
informed by what am I thinking about now.
The thing that I feel like thosereally interesting to me right now
and I feel like I learned is, isthat conversation with Joe Suttles.
I am familiar with farm managementas being a person who is the
(10:58):
owner of the farm, or part ownerof the farm, being the manager.
And so thinking about a professional farmmanager who's trying to make decisions
for that farm, but it's not really tiedto their family legacy, the community.
I mean, I'm not saying that Joe's notthinking about the community, but like,
I thought of my community a lot as Iwas making farm management decisions.
(11:20):
But it was probably more oflike a, a societal management
or something like that.
Well, but there, but there's also like,I think maybe what you're getting at
is the, that element of when you'rea business owner in a community,
there's also this concern about howyou will be perceived by the community.
You at least feel someownership in the community.
How it's sort of like perceivingyou and then evolving forward.
(11:42):
And, and, and what Joe talkedabout was sort of like, he has
that, but he has other communitiesthat he's thinking about.
Right.
Which is like these in investors,uh, that are maybe geographically
distant or this is the first timeinterested in agriculture at all.
And they may only be interestedin agriculture and the financial
performance or perceived financialperformance of this sector.
(12:05):
Yeah.
They're gonna get us fourpoint a half percent return.
Exactly.
Right.
And it's gonna be, uh, it's inverselycorrelated with the rest of the economy.
Yeah.
I've struggled a little bit oncommunicating why we a specifically
farm management class asopposed to business management.
(12:26):
So I'm asking you can you help me?
I would go back to, I mean, I'mbiased, number one, to agree with
you, like, yeah, of course farmmanagement is special and different
than general business management.
But yeah, I think it relies there's such abreadth required to run a successful farm.
You've got to understand aton of scientific principles.
You've got to deal with allsorts of suppliers and vendors
(12:46):
to support that business.
You've got to understandincredible complexity to truly
understand your cost of production.
Depending on what kind of businessyou're in, you know, you've gotta
deal with customer relationships.
That can be everything from yourintegrated contract environment to
an open commodity sale process, andyou've gotta be able to manage that.
I mean, there's classes here at Purdue,about just marketing commodities.
(13:07):
There's a whole lot of businessesthat you could be managing.
If you're out, managing the localHome Depot, you don't need to
understand anything about hedging.
You don't need to understand long andshort contracts or long and short puts.
In addition, you've got all ofthe government policy influence
in farms and that's incrediblycomplex and difficult to navigate.
That has to be managed, right?
And you have to play that gamein order to be successful.
(13:29):
Whether it be insurance products,payment systems, or NRCS related
conservation programs it's really complex.
Well, and then we have the otherside of that too, which is all of the
ways that you face regulation, right?
mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Things coming onto your farms,things going off of your farm,
how people and things aretreated when they're on the farm.
It's incredibly complex.
(13:49):
Yeah.
That's a good answer.
Thank you.
So that's the thing I've been thinkingabout the most, and, uh, because I'm
teaching this farm management class,and so that's informed sort of how I
think about the class and I'm thinkingabout rewriting it for next year and
trying to think about, you know, whatare the unique parts of farm management
(14:11):
that I truly want to communicate tostudents, uh, and have them think about.
Yeah.
So I feel like that'sbeen really thoughtful.
And, and then
I was thinking about Joe Balagtasand Matt Erickson talking about
the policy world and thinking, oh,these are just people doing jobs.
Uh, you know, like they'rethoughtful people, but they're just
doing jobs, kind of like farmersare doing their jobs as well.
(14:32):
I think the thing that really jumpedout from me talking to them is just
the boring nature of just a job.
It's more like working atDunder Mifflin on the office.
Right.
Than it is on like working on theWest Wing, the TV show, the West Wing.
No, that's a hundred percent what I thinkof when I think of policy, like when you
said West Wing, I was like, the one thingI think about whenever, when everyone's
(14:53):
like, how does, how does politics work?
What I'm thinking is West Wing.
Yeah.
Or what was the, uh, Netflix had the one.
I didn't ever watch it.
It was really popular.
Uh, Kevin Spacey.
Mm. Didn't watch that.
But there's all these politicallyintrigue and in some way Game
of Thrones has that, right?
Like where they're fightingover who's gonna be the king.
But really it's just, just like, I'm justshowing up and I gotta make these calls.
(15:17):
Or so-and-so's come in,I gotta listen to 'em.
It's more I gotta go to dinner andconvince someone that I need these votes,
which seems like a really big deal.
Right?
If what you have to do is yougotta go get these votes, but they
have to do that again tomorrow.
I was struck by how it's just routinejob stuff as opposed to these big
, more elaborate situations.
(15:39):
And you go home and you sleepfor the next week 'cause you
got the votes and you're done.
Walk us through a day.
What's a typical day look like?
How do you spend your day?
Yeah.
So at any given moment, any givenday, I might have three or four
projects that I'm working on.
Some of them are regular, right?
So I was in charge of the IndustrialProduction and Utilization Report,
(16:06):
monthly report that comes out of, the Fed.
And whenever that came out, wewould get a early peak at it,
24 hours before it was released.
I'd write a memo with my team, andsend that to the President so he knows
what the news is gonna be the next day.
like, you know, two or three bullets.
Right.
(16:27):
Here's what you need to know, Mr.President, about industrial production
in the country over the last month.
Do you think the President read it orsomebody who works for the President?
Who are you writing this for?
So that report was written forthe President and anyone else who
would be in the Oval Office withhim when it was shared with him.
Okay.
Right.
Did he read it?
(16:47):
I don't know, maybe.
I think somebody before the Presidentdecides what's newsworthy and what's
important for him to, to read.
Someone in the filter of, 'causehe's gonna get these things
handed to him all day long.
Right.
And so if there's some big breakingnews in industrial production, that
memo might come across his desk.
Are you in a group?
So like there's some portion of yourday then where you're like just reading
(17:10):
in isolation in your desk, right?
That's right.
But then there's some part where you'regonna get together with your colleagues
and say like, well here's my take on this.
Here's what jumped out to me.
Right.
You say it's a mix of sort of likemonastic alone time consuming information
Correct.
then breaking it down with other people.
Yep.
And for those regularreports, I'd be the lead.
(17:31):
I'd read the industrial production report.
I'd draft a memo, and I'd give itto a junior economist, would draft
the memo, it would come back to meand I'd say, yep, that looks good.
Let's send it on.
And then did you present any of thestuff, like verbally, not just in
writing, like would you go in and briefthe President or a team of people?
(17:52):
I never briefed the President.
Mostly, I would brief theChair or one of the members.
And either the chair or the memberwould go to the Oval Office and
present the work to the President.
And I think it, it gets to the ideathat I think we both have a fascination
in tasks and, and we've asked it alot to our guests, but though, what
(18:15):
are the tasks that you're doing?
Because even in, and like when I'mteaching class and I'm, and I'm
talking about a big overarchingtopic, it usually boils down into
there's things that you have to do.
So that's something that I feel like cameout very strong in our conversations is
that there are people doing tasks thatmake the big overarching topic work.
(18:40):
So, so you're in a series of thesekind of back to back meetings, what?
Half an hour, hour, 15 minutes, somethingand a range of regular every job meetings.
Right.
And you do that through like,till their early evening time till
it's time to go in for dinner.
Kind of?
Yeah.
When it could, when it getsclose to a farm bill, it's,
it's always you're nonstop.
Um, and again, because the farm bill'sjust so massive when you think about
(19:03):
ag and, and nutrition legislation.
You get all these different groupswith all their policy priorities.
But then also too, and I haven'tmentioned this, but a lot of our time
too is keeping good relations withour counterparts on the Senate Dems.
Um, especially with rankingmember Stabenow's staff.
And so we had a greatworking relationship.
The Ag Committee has alwaysbeen known for bipartisan work.
(19:24):
Bipartisan ship's not easy, and I thinkwe're seeing that in today's world.
Yeah.
Um, and I hope we get back to it.
I was always taught here, you know,in my upbringing and policy is if you
go into a negotiating room, you'retalking back and forth, there's
conversations that are heated.
People are passionate about policy.
But once you leave that negotiatingroom, remember people are people.
And asking them, Hey, let's gohave a beer, you know, I wanna
(19:46):
know more about your family.
And so having those conversations.
And again, a lot of myfriends were on ranking member
Stabenow's team at the time.
I hope we get back to those bipartisanshiproots that, that we've been accustomed to.
Long story short here guys, is when wethink about the work of the committee
and you work for farmers and ranchersand what they need is they need that
predictability and they need thatcertainty to get a farm bill done.
(20:07):
And so that was our task and we,we were able to get the job done.
The other thing that's surprising aboutdoing this podcasting, I'm surprised
how much it has plugged into theother activities I have in my life.
Uh, professional life.
Yeah.
Uh, and that like my research, um,advising graduate students, but
(20:29):
particularly like in the classroom,like I taught micro the intro micro
class for the first time this year.
And a lot of the examples are, likeI talked about our conversation
with Matt Erickson and policy Sure.
When I talked about policy, um.
When I talked about decisions thata firm has to make, I talked about
our conversations with Joe Suttlesor conversations with, Brian Martin.
(20:52):
Right?
And like, here's how thesedecision makers, you know,
they gotta do this or that.
Here's a real concrete example.
Um, so if our boss is listening,this was really worth our time.
Yes.
What are you currently thinking about now?
Because what I didn't anticipate indoing this job is how frequently, sort
of my fixations are like monthly, whereall of a sudden it's like, the thing
(21:15):
that I'm most interested in right nowis this, and it's because I went to
this thing and I talked to this person.
So mine is, this actually kindof previews what we're gonna
be playing while I'm gone.
We have sort of hinted at, lastsummer we did in June, we went
to Arkansas to learn about rice.
Yep.
(21:35):
We went and visited a bunch ofrice farms because we didn't
know anything about rice.
Went there and found out we kneweven less than we thought we knew.
But just to kind of learn about farmingand agriculture and something that's
kind of outside of our normal space.
Yes.
And we got to meet a lot of greatexperts that have devoted their
life to rice, either as farmers orresearchers, all these sort of dimensions.
(21:57):
Just last night I booked my familyand I, when we are in Thailand,
that's where we start our voyage.
We're going over a few days earlyto just kind of hang out and it's
also a 12 hour time difference.
Yeah, I, that's horrifying.
And so I'm going to Thailand a weekearly in part to have vacation with
a family and enjoy the holidays.
(22:19):
But in part, 'cause it's likethe real motivation was like,
I need to be able to teach.
You need to hit the ground running.
I need to be able.
Yeah.
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna go and I'm nottoo, I'm too old to hit ground running.
I'm gonna go hit the ground walking.
Right.
Uh, so I just bookedlast night in Thailand.
We are doing this thingcalled a rice farm experience.
(22:40):
We're gonna go plant rice.
Wow.
We're gonna go harvestrice, we're gonna mill rice.
We're gonna make somethingwith that rice flour.
All in Thailand.
Learn about Thailand rice production.
I have never been more excited abouta vacation activity in my life.
Because we went to Arkansas, I am nowgonna come into it with this view.
(23:04):
Yeah.
And that's, and that's whyI'm doing this sabbatical.
Right.
Um, so just to kind of give maybeour listener, if our listener is not
familiar with the university life, every.
At least here.
At least here and andmost places like here.
So if you think about your land grantuniversities, um, so your University
(23:26):
of Illinois, Iowa State, right.
Like our, our sort ofsister peer institutions.
Whatever you wanna call us.
Every sort of, let's say six to sevenyears, you can take a semester to where
you get relieved from your duties hereto go pursue something else on the
grounds that it's something that willcontribute, that you will bring back here.
(23:47):
Right.
Right.
So like you will be better.
So like Joe Balagtas did a leave to gowork at the Council of Economic Advisors.
We had that great episode with Joe.
Then Joe can come back here and whenhe's teaching his students about
policy, he can be like, well, basedon my time in the White House, here's
how I know this actually works.
Right,
And so my thing here is to go andlearn stuff that I can bring back.
(24:09):
Um, and so like we're visiting a bunch,I'm gonna visit a bunch of farms and
that kind of stuff while I'm traveling.
Uh, but this one is more whereI'm like, oh, I'm gonna see
another dimension of rice.
And another, like a more traditionalor hands-on or other part of
the world, rice production.
I'm so excited to go to that as aneconomist and think about it that way.
(24:31):
I, I fear that, uh, we may alienatenot only have just alienated
the, the workforce that has toswitch from daytime to nighttime.
Mm-hmm.
But.
Just normal people.
When I say it also does sound really cool.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
No, no.
I think that everybody'salso, oh, that sounds cool.
But they also like, that soundsterrifying to live with your family
in a small cabin on a ship and, uh,hopefully don't all hate each other.
(24:55):
Right.
That's, that's the, that's the, thedownside where we're, thinking about.
But, so I've been spending a lotof time preparing for this voyage.
And kind of thinking about this stuffstrategically, I want to try to see to
help me understand better, and part ofit is like seeing farms, but also see the
way that food is marketed and producedand sold and consumed around the world.
(25:18):
Uh, whenever I travel anywhere elsein the world, the number one thing I
always have to go to is a grocery store.
Yeah.
And I don't mean like wet market,like a seller of fresh fruit
or a lady that's making noodle.
I mean like, take me toyour equivalent of Safeway.
Or Anderson's for ifour listeners' out west.
(25:40):
Right?
There you go.
Right.
Like, just like your run the mill.
The Piggly Wiggly.
Yes.
Your Piggly.
Publix.
Yeah,
We're just trying to hitall the demographics here.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I gotta say Schnucks.
Schnucks.
For my St. Louis listener.
Wegmans for those of you in the Northeast.
Oh yeah.
And those people, they have it.
Good man.
Wegmans is nice.
They they do, they do, um, subbing othergrocery chain from the region we missed.
(26:03):
Also, um, if you're listening nowand you want us to put in post your
grocery store as a, as a plug andadvertisement, we can work that out.
Reach out.
Yeah.
Um,
Oh, do you know if you have aclickable donation link in the CCA now?
No, I didn't.
There's literally a clickable link.
So if you are enjoying this podcastand you're like, how can I kick a
couple shekels to keep this going
(26:24):
Because we only take shekels.
Or, or if you want to shut us down,if you want to say, I will bid you
out and make you never do this again.
That's also, that link couldmaybe work as, just put us in the
show notes, which one you want.
As, uh, as economist themarket goes both ways.
So what I'm thinking about a lot isjust the variety that is the agriculture
(26:46):
sector globally, and how I'm gonna tryto intentionally consume some of that.
So that gets into, I'm, I'm gonna go outtaorder and say what's ahead is, we went
to Arkansas, we met with these people,we learned an immense amount, and we made
podcasts the whole time we were doing it.
So while Todd is gone,
(27:07):
Quite literally drivingaround on a truck podcasting,
We have no idea how it's gonna sound.
It, it might not be great, butit was kind of this idea of
like, we're gonna experiment.
We want to, we, our intentionsare to learn about the ag sector,
so let's go somewhere else.
And as a farm kid.
Um, and I think you too, as a, akid who grew up in a rural area,
like I just like rural places andI like learning about rural places.
(27:29):
And so we just had a lot of funand, and, uh, hope is we do more.
And, and I like the culture of it too.
Like, 'cause we also, in additionto walking around learning
about rice farms, we also likewent to a barbecue restaurant.
Correct.
We went to a private club as a wayto get Sportsman's to get around
and it's called Open Season.
Oh yeah, you're right.
A way to get around local drycounty policies, you can have
(27:53):
alcohol at a private club.
Right, right.
But it's there to cater the duck hunter.
So we were in like aduck hunter themed bar.
Yes.
Um, so we, we got into thelocal culture a bit too.
We did.
Not just the agriculture, uh,which is something we both love.
So that's what we're excited toshare is that although Todd will
be around the world 12 hours away.
(28:16):
Uh,
Starting 12.
I'll work my way back to six.
Starting 12.
Yeah.
Uh, like the podcast doesn't end, right?
Yeah.
Like, that's the, but for thoseof you who wanna shut us down
again, there's options here too.
Yeah.
So, like, just to likebuy out the market exists.
So that's what's ahead is that whileyou're gone, we're gonna u we are
going to release the Arkansas tripwhere it was largely centered around
(28:38):
learning about rice production.
Something I knew nothing about,something that, I mean, arguably
you'll come back from the voyage,an expert, even deeper expert than
you are now in rice production.
As a professor, I get nervouswhen you say the word expert.
Mm.
Um, I will know enough to be dangerous.
Yeah.
(28:58):
I will be at that, remember that, uh,is it Dunning-Kruger Curve or whatever?
Yes.
Like what you know, whatyou think, you know.
I will probably be at the peakwhere I think I'm an expert.
Yeah.
But that's because I know just enoughto be able to like, be like, well that
looks like row rice, not paddy rice.
Uh, but not enough to reallyknow, you know what I mean?
(29:19):
Like to acknowledge what I don't know.
Yes.
But I could be a water chaser.
You could be a water chaser.
Yeah.
Um.
Okay, so then that gets to, whatam I thinking about right now?
Yeah, because the, the peoplethat we were with were Aaron Shew.
Aaron Shew works for a company calledAcres, which is a, I think they call
it a farmland intelligence platform.
(29:40):
And you're gonna hearfrom him in the podcast.
And Colson Tester who workedfor Acre Trader, which was the
investment sister company of Acres.
This information platform.
Aaron was recently promotedto Chief Technology Officer.
So he's an ag economist whois really spent a ton of time
learning about the tech sector.
He's also a trained geographer.
(30:03):
Right, he's he ag economist slashgeographer slash technology.
You called him a polymath, whichI had to look up what that meant.
So do you have a shortdefinition of what a polymath is?
So poly means many.
Oh, wow.
Math means math.
Wow.
That's really good.
I like to, I like to get to the,that's like walking and tackling.
(30:25):
I like to get to the etymology.
Yes.
As quickly as I can.
Entomology?
No, that's bugs.
Okay.
Etymology is the study of words.
Uh, it means, someone who isskillful in multiple dimensions.
Knowledgeable about many things.
So that is Aaron in a nutshell.
Yeah.
Like I, like I could, I feel like weshould just have a podcast episode where
(30:48):
we just throw stuff at Aaron and just seehow many things he's knowledgeable about.
'Cause I feel like he'd be like, yeah,you feel like he'd be like, if you ever
read any Faulkner, and he'd be like,oh, everybody reads this book, but you
should really be reading this book.
Like, and then you could be like,Hey, what's your favorite go-to
snack at an NFL game and he'll belike, well, it depends where you are.
If you're in Charlotte,you get this right.
Yeah, I know.
Like he just knows,
(31:09):
He does.
Sort of everything.
And he's very nice and uh,personable and unassuming.
So I got to ask him a lot ofquestions and he has a perspective
about large language models in AI.
And that perspective is whatwe have yet to see what the
real impact of that's gonna be.
And so in conversations with him, itstarted me thinking about how do I use AI?
(31:32):
And it's gonna tie back to the podcastbecause what I realized is the way
I use Chat GPT is to ask questionsI'm too embarrassed to ask you about.
Right.
And so when we hit these situationswhere I hit these points where I'm
like, oh, I don't think, and a lot ofit like you, what you're thinking, if
you're thinking dirty thoughts, I wouldchallenge you that what I'm thinking
(31:52):
about is technical sort of questions.
Oh, I was gonna say, I'm glad to knowthat I'm not gonna have to look at
your moles, that you're just gonnagive Chad GPT pictures of your moles.
Well, for, I still want you to lookat the moles because there's still
a couple that are growing in ways.
Um, but I use it constantly to likegive me intuitive explanations of
things I don't quite understand.
(32:14):
And so it ties into this podcast, 'causeI think I asked a lot of those questions.
If I think back to the questions Iasked to these people, a lot of it was,
can you help me understand your world?
Can you help me explain?
Can you help me understand whyyou're making these decisions?
And, and how you wouldthink through these things?
And I use it because I like to uncoverthose insights conversationally.
So I really enjoy about this podcast thatI get to interact with people who are
(32:37):
really, really intelligent and really,really diversified in their experiences,
and I can ask 'em all these questions.
What I realized is that's how I use ChatGPT almost on a daily basis at this point.
Where uh, my wife jokes that like,I'm, I have a relationship with it.
I do not.
It's just that I feel verycomfortable asking lots of questions
(32:57):
and saying, I didn't reallyunderstand how you explain that.
Can you explain it?
Like, you know,
Oh yeah.
Assume I'm younger.
Assume I don't really understandmathematics that well assume.
Um, and it's unbelievable at that.
And it has greatly increased myproductivity because I don't hit these
points where I have a question andthen I don't go and ask a question to a
(33:19):
human being because I'm too embarrassed.
I just asked Chat GPT.
Okay, so now I'm gonnatie it all full circle.
I felt that way all the time.
Farming, there's so much that goeson in agriculture and if you're a
farmer that you can't understand.
And so you could go hire an expert,but it's likely gonna cost you a lot
of money or you could talk to a friend.
(33:40):
But a lot of times those friendsare also farmers and so you feel a
little bit competitive or that youshouldn't ask it, or it's just someone
that like maybe has the insightsand isn't competitive with you.
But I'm too embarrassedto ask the question.
So is is like farm management and is AIgonna transform the ability of not only
farmers, but like small business ownersto have access to information and insight?
(34:03):
That we never had before at suchan inexpensive level, right?
You could get the insights,but you had to pay for it.
Um, so that's what I've beenthinking about recently.
Well, I use AI mostly as a filter.
So for example.
Tie back to
Like a coffee filter?
Um, sort of.
Okay.
But, um, more of likean information filter.
(34:25):
Oh, okay.
I was gonna say I didn't,
Where I, uh, so I'm getting readyto go on this voyage, right?
Yeah.
And, um, I need to book a numberof things, like a, like a tour
of, uh, this rice farm, right?
Yeah.
Yep.
And I can go on TripAdvisor.
And there's like hundreds of reviews.
And what I would do historicallyis like read all of those.
(34:46):
Mm-hmm.
And then like, these gravitate from me.
These don't, or whatever, like,here's, but I would now I'll just
send that link to my, uh, AI of choiceand just say, can you summarize?
Yeah.
All the reviews of this?
Yeah.
And then say, okay.
If you look at just the one star reviews,what's the thing that they mention most?
(35:06):
Yeah.
In there, right?
And if they're like, oh, they all saythe food's too spicy, then I'm oh, well
that's, that's one I gotta think about'cause I don't do spicy food well.
But if they're all oh, like itwas just too much information
about how rice is farmed, thenI'd be well, that's what I want.
That's like, that's not a one star to me.
Would've been a five star for me.
Yeah, right.
I use it in a filtering thing, right?
(35:27):
So the other thing is they talk about liketechnology adoption, that we generally
first use technologies to reduce costs.
That's a cost reducing thing, right?
I guess I'm gonna waste less timereading all these reviews myself and
just gonna have 'em summarize 'em.
Yeah.
Right.
Um.
But then after we've reduced our cost,then we use it to like productivity gain.
So there's like this secondgeneration that I think we're
(35:48):
still not maybe there on AI.
At least I'm not there on AI.
Some people might be.
Okay.
So the thing that I feel like, so Aaron,just, just when he, he was just here
on campus and we were, and this, thisis why I'm talking about it 'cause.
It's very fresh.
Um, is is that there's also sort oflike you can use, you can create these
(36:09):
projects or notebooks where you can,you can upload your, the information
you want it to be thinking about inaddition to sort of the full internet,
uh, for a particular topic, and thenallow it to draw insights from that body
of work in addition to the internet.
I'm thinking about this becausethere's a lot of knowledge that you
(36:29):
generate or you, you leave for awhile and then you have to come back.
And I remember sort of like even in ourworld today, like we have projects that we
kind of set aside and then a month laterwe have to come back and it takes a couple
hours to like get your head back into it.
Yeah.
Or, or reminded.
Or, the classes that we teachare usually once a year.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Right.
And so you, you've been thinking alot about your farm management class.
(36:50):
But then come August, you aregonna have to think about it again.
You're like, what was I eventhinking about in December?
Unless I kept notes for myself.
No, that's it.
And that's literally what I'm thinkingabout because I, that's what I'm gonna do.
So I'm, I'm trying to like rewrite theclass in January as opposed to waiting
till August because this is all fresh.
Anyways, I just think that's reallyinteresting to think about if we,
(37:10):
if we're coming and going withinformation and even, uh, project
specific information, can AI help that?
And it is still lowering cost.
I think it still, as the wayyou're explaining it, like I'm
still thinking it's lowering cost.
But this experience ofthinking about how do I use AI?
How do I prompt it?
What is it capable of?
It feels like we're at a point wherethat's what we should all be doing.
(37:35):
Is exploring personally,how does it help us?
How could it help us?
To sort of envision a world wherewe could move beyond just reducing
cost, to the does it make us better?
So the other way that you and Ihave used AI together recently.
Was looking at astrology, whichI'm not a believer in astrology.
Are you a believer in
(37:55):
No.
I didn't think so.
Right.
Yeah.
Uh, but Chat GPT can read peoplewho believe in astrology and we
were asking where we should live.
It's true.
Based on when we were born andthe star signs and all that stuff.
Yeah.
That was fun.
It was a useful exercise.
Yeah.
At least, at least gave ussomething to talk about at lunch.
We had a great time at lunch.
(38:16):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think hypothetically, yeah.
So for, for the sake of just discussions,uh, it's really good at hypothetical.
Yeah.
Questions.
Right?
And, and those can be nonsensical.
So I The would you rather, rightnow is a big thing in my house.
So a 6-year-old and two three yearolds frequently ask me, would I rather,
and then two nonsensical things.
(38:37):
Yeah.
It it's fantastic with that.
There's a whole kid show on that.
Uh,
Really?
Coat and Cami.
That's like, you shouldwatch it with your kids.
Wow, okay.
I don't know if they're quite there yet.
They're probably still in cartoons.
They are.
Yeah.
But when they get like, sort of lateelementary that that's gonna be a hit.
Our kids, our kids devoured it.
What I would, what I have learnedabout AI is it might not give
you the same response every time.
(38:58):
Oh yeah.
Right.
So if you give it the samehypothetical situation.
Just like a real person does.
Just like a real person, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I would say it is, uh,the word is vexing me.
This idea of likeeveryone's talking about AI.
I wish it would go away truthfully becauselike, I feel like there's so many things I
don't understand pre AI, and now I have totry to understand this thing in addition
(39:22):
to the things I didn't already understand.
Uh, that's my very headin the sand sort of look.
But I think, I feel a little hopeful.
I think that's the thing, isI feel hopeful that this is
really, truly an innovation.
Well, when I was in college, everybodywas taking this one class, uh, to
learn about this new technology.
And I did not take that class.
Because I will, I was like, when amI ever gonna use that technology?
(39:45):
And that technology's gonna change, right?
So I'll learn about it now.
But then like a year from now, thattechnology's gonna change, and why, why
did I ever learn it in the first place?
What was that technology?
Microsoft Excel.
Wow.
So the point is don't ask me aboutwhich technologies you should learn and
how they'll be useful in the future.
(40:05):
No, I, same.
Like I tell, I've told this story, Ijust gave a presentation on Wednesday
and what I distinctly remember is BrantCayley was our, was one of our guests.
I think I told this story that Itold him that, uh, blackberries
were so much superior to iPhones.
Like again, like we're not thetechnology prognosticators.
So this is a question for bothof you because like sometimes I
(40:28):
don't even know what my problem is.
Right?
Like, I think that that's the thing.
With, with like smartphones.
I remember distinctly riding to abasketball game with your parents and you
had a new, you had the original iPhone.
And I was like, dude, we're nevergonna type on screens, right?
Like, we're never gonna usethe keyboards on screen.
So I'm like, how?
Like that's a daunting task.
How do you think through that?
(40:48):
Like, frequently?
I don't know what,
Yeah,
Like if you would, if you interviewed me,I am terrified at what you would develop
that I probably won't use in the future.
Yeah.
I, again, I don't want to act likeI have this all figured out, but
I do think that you've just gottafigure out how to solve a problem.
And if you solve that problemreally well, like the users,
(41:10):
like the people will come to it.
Because, like the iPhone, you'reright, typing on a screen like it is
worse than typing on a Blackberry.
It, it just is worse.
But it's like, oh, yeah,but also you like, can watch
movies way better or whatever.
Right?
So they're, they're like, and, andif you look at like farmers and
technology adoption, I do thinkthat like great products get used.
(41:31):
Precision Planting has a great productthat almost every farmer that I talk
to, they have a Precision Planting.
Yeah.
Right.
A unit.
And it's like, well, they, they likecreated something great and they
figured out how to get farmers touse it, and they solved a problem
and they nailed the price point.
And, you know, there you go.
You have a bus.
Like, sometimes,sometimes that's how easy.
(41:52):
Yeah.
How easy it is.
So I think that you just have to startwith, from my perspective, start with
the problem and then how do you come upwith an accessible solution for that?
I don't know.
We'll, we'll see if wecontinue to pull that off.
You can tell, uh, I thinkabout things very differently.
(42:15):
'Cause when you saidblackberries are better than,
Yeah,
I thought you were gonna say raspberries.
Oh.
Or blueberries.
And in either case Iwould say you're right.
Really?
But I thought we weretalking about the fruits.
I thought you were gettingready to talk about fruit.
Huh.
And I think the blackberryis an underappreciated fruit.
No, I agree.
But it taste,
I think appropriatelyappreciated technology device.
(42:38):
Yeah.
Underappreciated fruit.
So this, this leads into a betterquestion, which is, um, I asked
the kids last night, if they couldnever have bananas again or you
could never have chicken again.
Which one would you take?
Oh, I feel like I would give up chicken.
(43:00):
Say same.
And here's my reasoning.
Well, I got a follow up questionthat's gonna blow your mind.
Because chicken is not anygood, no offense to the chicken
farmers or big chicken listening,
Oh cheese.
What chicken is good for
Someone.
Someone just put a ding, ding, ding.
Someone just put $50 onthe website, shut 'em down.
(43:21):
Is chicken as good as adelivery for other things?
Like, like flavor?
Yes.
Yeah.
Like, like, like breading, right?
Any kind of breading on a chicken.
Yeah, like love it, but I could eat, Icould eat fried batter off of a stick.
Right.
You can't eat the stick though.
I could dip a stick inranch dressing and enjoy it.
(43:43):
Okay.
Right.
Like all of the things about, butbananas, I eat just the banana.
Yeah.
Right.
Like I'll eat a banana, likeif I ever eat just a chicken.
Yeah.
Breast, wing, leg, anything.
If you don't at least marinate it insome, uh, buttermilk or put some salt
(44:03):
or garlic on it, like I'm not having it,I'm not gonna eat just plain chicken.
Plain banana that's likea little gift right there.
Okay, so sidebar, we started our journeythrough Arkansas by flying into Memphis
and went and had fried chicken at
Gus's.
Gus's
World famous.
And like perfect example of like,
(44:24):
So if you're listening
A song, a song of friedchicken, like it was beautiful.
Yes.
If you, they're world famous.
Gus's world famous fried chicken.
Is what sign says.
Yes.
So if you are listeningto us from the world.
We could have just said Gus's.
'cause you would know.
Good point.
It's famous.
Good point.
Throughout the world.
Yeah.
As a, as a terrestrialmeaning on this earth.
(44:46):
Yeah.
I brought a cup home.
That's how I remember the name.
So, 'cause I used the cup.
'Cause my son August, we call him Gus.
Gus.
I call him Gus.
Yeah.
So it's Gus's fried chicken.
Okay.
So sidebar ended.
Alright, so follow up questionis now, so I chose the same
chicken would be the thing.
What if flip it?
You can only have bananasor only have chicken.
(45:08):
Which one you're choosing?
And nothing else?
Boom.
Oh, I'm going chicken.
See, that's an interesting thing.
Because you can sustain on chicken.
Yes.
I feel like if I ate nothing but bananas,
I probably should change it.
One, could I, could I survive?
You have, could I survive?
You'd have to.
It's a fortified banana.
(45:30):
Yeah.
Protein rich banana.
Something like it's a protein richbanana because, uh, does it have
everything you need to survive.
Also, I feel like you would just likehave that banana taste all the time.
No, agreed.
But like that's the thing is it'sreally interesting is that if
you, it posed one way, banana's, aclear winner posed the other way.
Banana's, a clear loser.
(45:51):
Am my constrained in my other mouthbased activities that are not eating.
Specifically, can I stilldrink whatever I want?
Oh
Can I take up smoking?
'Cause I feel like if I was justeating chicken all the time, I'm
probably gonna take up smoking.
Just to taste something else.
To feel something.
(46:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And hopefully if, if, if, ifthe anti-smoking campaigns in
my youth are correct, hopefullyto just kill my taste buds.
It's true.
Well, um, I'm realizing now.
That it's not a perfecthypothetical situation.
I haven't accounted for all of thenuances that probably should have been
thought through prior to voicing it onthis podcast, a podcast of this level.
(46:36):
Yeah.
Anyway, this is what Ilove about parenting.
Yeah.
So to kind of wrap this up, if we,
What have we done?
If we even have anything to wrap up,we wanted to sort of touch on some of
our milestone, our favorite moments.
Yes.
From our previous podcast.
Encourage you to go back andlisten if you haven't yet.
They're really great.
We're gonna be taking a pausefrom that sort of series.
(46:59):
Mm-hmm.
While I'm away.
But we'll have some new content comingto you when I get back in the summer.
Right.
But in the interim, all of ourconversations are gonna be drawn from
this trip that we did to Arkansasto learn about Delta rice farming.
And, hopefully you enjoy it.
We enjoyed it immensely.
Our goal, my goal at least,is that we will continue to
(47:22):
do things like that again.
Where we just could go andintensively learn about
something in a different place.
Not necessarily having to be pertainingto rice, but if more rice experiences
present themselves, we're amenable.
Yeah.
I feel like I don't wantto have a rice podcast.
Not yet.
Uh, I don't wanna be arice economist just yet.
Yeah.
Um, I would love to getinto permanent crops.
(47:44):
Mm.
I'd love to go out to likePacific Northwest or California.
I'd love to learn about dairy.
Go to some dairies.
Like those kind of things.
We wanna do that kind of trip.
Well, thank you for listening.
Chad, thank you.
Hey, thank you Todd, and enjoy the voyage.
Hey everybody, you're listeningto the Commercial Ag Cast.
I'm Chad Fiechter andI'm here with my co-host,
Todd Kuethe.
This is the conversation serieswhere we kind of diverge from sort
of our normal programming and haveconversations with people that we
interact with on a regular basis.
So
We always have to start by thanking,thanking people for listening.
This is the holidays, soit's a time to be thankful.
(00:27):
Yes.
And, we're drawing tothe end of the semester.
Because we're so transparent, to givea behind the scenes look at what has
happened and then a preview of what wethink is gonna happen in the future.
So, we started this podcast Andwe thought, well, we could have
conversations with interesting people.
With the goal of learningmore about the ag economy.
(00:48):
We can't teach Purdue Centerfor Commercial Agriculture
people about crop budgets, theyknow more about crop budgets.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Than we're gonna, right.
The ag economy has these partsthat we don't necessarily think
about in day to day ag economy
Thi things that I didn't reallythink about when I was a farmer.
Yeah.
What is it, when you were a farmer,you didn't appreciate or understand,
(01:09):
but maybe you would want to learn moreif there was an easy way to do it.
We're not gonna bring somebody totalk about seed technology and whether
or not to buy this kind of seed.
Or like corn breeding.
We're just gonna talk to thesepeople that maybe don't show
up on the radar quite as much.
We had some interesting conversations,with, Nate Kaufman from the Federal
Reserve, Matt Erickson, who spenttime in the Senate, Joe Balagtas
(01:32):
who was at the White House.
We had a conversation with BrianMartin, who's a hog farmer here
in Indiana, but at an interesting,way of positioning his business.
Anyway, so we had those conversationsover the last six months.
Correct.
And now we're kind of wrapping up.
I'm getting ready to go awayon sabbatical, so I'm not gonna
Wait a second.
Todd, where are you going?
(01:53):
Oh, I'm glad you asked.
I'm going to be teaching economics onthis program called Semester at Sea.
Huh.
So my wife and my two kids, age 11 and13, and I are gonna live on a cruise
ship and I'm going to teach economicswhen that cruise ship is moving
from port to port, which is usuallyfive to eight days sea stretches.
And then when we park at aport, we're there for six days
(02:15):
to travel around that country.
So it's not like your regular cruisewhere you're traveling at night,
you're visiting a country in a day.
The next day is a differentcountry or different port.
But the places you're visiting, islike Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville,
Senior Turks and Caicos.
Um, yeah.
Right.
That's where you're going?
Yeah.
Mostly.
Mostly.
Um.
(02:35):
Yes.
We're gonna do a lot of like,cheeseburgers in paradise, right?
Like that's, no.
In case anyone from Semester atSea listens to this or potential
semester at Sea students.
That's not at all this, this isbasically your college study abroad.
I run these like short termstudy abroad programs, right?
Right.
Where we'll take a bunch of kids fromPurdue College of Ag and we'll go to
(02:58):
Italy and we'll visit some farms andwe'll go to like a cheese manufacturer
and we'll take a cooking class andwe'll learn about all the things
we learn about in the classroom.
Kind of take those into the field.
Right.
This is more like that.
And then instead of doing it for one week,we stack a bunch of those weeks together
and you're doing this over a semester.
Yeah, right.
Full semester.
So I'm gonna be living on aship virtually incommunicado.
(03:20):
We're not, not gonna be able to keepdoing these interesting conversations.
This is the thing I'll probably miss most.
No, and this is why we're recordingan episode with just you and I.
Correct.
And we're short one.
We need one more.
Then I said, do you remember inthe eighties, when we used to watch
sitcoms and they would have clip shows.
Yeah.
Like I still remember enjoying the GrowingPains, the Seaver family sitting in the
kitchen table and Mike Seavers, the son.
(03:43):
Do you remember?
Did you watch?
Were you a Growing Pains fan?
I did not.
Oh, okay.
You don't need to revisit it.
But I enjoyed it in real time.
You're significantly older than I am.
That's true.
I'm like six to seven years older.
Yes.
Maybe five.
But also I grew, I grew upwith just my dad, so I consumed
media that I shouldn't have.
We didn't have tv.
Oh, you didn't have TV at all.
Yeah, but that's for another podcast.
We had a TV that we could watchmovies on, but those movies
(04:05):
were fairly, like restricted.
You didn't even watch like two,four, and five or whatever.
Nope.
Like just your basic
Nope, nope.
Over the, over the air.
None of that nonsense.
Oh, wow.
Interesting.
Okay.
Okay, so I was raised by popular media.
No, no.
My kids are living a similar experiencewhere as a, uh, overzealous millennial
parent, I have taken away theiraccess to lots of popular media.
(04:26):
Outside of what they consume in school.
Okay.
So I, I was raised by media and sothe Seavers were sitting around the
table and they're talking about theirson, Mike, and they were like, do you
remember when Mike bought that car?
Then it would soft focusto Mike buying a car.
And then there'd be thefunny little bit from that.
And then they would soft focusback to the parents at the
(04:47):
kitchen table dying laughing.
They'd be like, you know, butit wasn't always funny, remember
when Carol had that tough exam?
And then soft focus.
Then this was a clip show, right?
Mm-hmm.
I was like, well, maybe weshould just do a clip show.
And I thought it was a great idea.
So, but I wanted to ask you, 'cause I,I was thinking as I was coming in today.
What is the most stark thing you feel likeyou learned by us recording conversation?
(05:09):
So it could potentially be personal,it could potentially be like
your, your mind was expanded in,in understanding the ag economy.
What was the most surprisingthing I learned or most impactful?
Yeah.
Mine was, uh, our conversationwith Brian Martin.
We were talking about immigration andhis use of foreign labor on his farm.
(05:32):
And particularly he mentioned aVisa program that is to bring in
college degree holders from othercountries to come work for them.
Our industry generally todaybiggest need is labor oriented.
Through the last 10 years, seems to befewer people that, truly want a job, and
(05:56):
that's resulted in the industry, becominga lot more active in immigrant workers.
The visa that is used in our industrypredominantly is TN Visa, which is a
college graduate from, could be fromEastern Europe, from Africa, from Mexico.
Um, we are 80% employed TN Visa,which is a three to five year.
(06:18):
And it it puts you into a wholedifferent process of, of finding people.
The good thing is it's you're findingfolks that, um, are looking for
opportunity that want to come to work,that are leaving a place and seeing
a, a broad horizon in front of them.
That's interesting.
Well, it is sort of is a close correlationwith what we do with our grad students.
(06:39):
Right.
'cause we're gettingpeople from all over world.
Sure.
Mm-hmm.
For us, Purdue sort of hangs itsname out there as like this great
university and then people find us.
Mm-hmm.
But how do do you have tofind them or how, do you find
those people specifically?
Absolutely.
We started looking at it fiveyears ago, and the simple answer
is, it, it is a political process.
(07:01):
Bureaucratic, which means,little Martin Farms in northwest
Indiana can't easily connect.
And the answer is actually Hanor putus onto a law firm that, they had used.
And it's an immigration company.
Relationship oriented.
So they will recruit, they will helpyou, uh, through the bureaucracy.
(07:22):
So it's a, you know, threemonth process and it was $6,000
per person, which is ominous.
But when you look at at whatturnover costs you, that cost small
for a person that, that can do,wants to be a part of something.
That was the answer.
Is, so you, you mentionedthat you're now 80% TN visa.
Right.
How, how about productionout of the sow farm?
(07:44):
You know, over the course of sixyears, our turnover has moved
from, um, near 80% annually to 30.
And that comes with improved production.
I've spent a lot, and Icontinually think about this.
(08:05):
Because I thought of immigrant labor onthe farms, mostly in low skill dimensions,
like, I need somebody to carry stuffaround or dig ditches or whatever, right?
And Brian made me reallythink about it differently.
And, and I, and you talk aboutspecifically in, in hog farming, where
(08:25):
I think it's, it's especially true,but I think it's true everywhere.
That the reason he was so attractedto bringing in this workforce is
that they would do those things.
Mm-hmm.
But they were also smartand careful, right?
So they get a college degree, which meansthat they have invested in themselves
and that they have some intellect, right?
(08:45):
Because ultimately what he needs issomeone who's willing to understand
and respect the risk that every timesomebody comes into the hog barn,
they're potentially destroying allof your income for the next year.
Yeah.
Right.
And maybe affecting it for multiple years.
Sure.
Right.
Sure.
Like they could bring in someweird disease on their shoe.
Mm-hmm.
(09:05):
That puts everything in jeopardy.
Right.
Right.
But when they're inside ofthat hog farm, they may have
to just literally shovel turds.
Yes.
Right.
Or identify this pig,something's wrong with it.
I need to pull it out and take a look.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Um, and so it's this mix of likehigh intellect skill that you need,
(09:30):
but also a willingness to like,get in there and deal with turds.
Yeah.
Uh, and that's a, that'sa weird subset, right?
We generally think about the economy, aseconomists, I think of as like there's
the people that shovel poop, and thenthere's the people that, you know, your,
your typical farmer is doing things thatwe associate with unskilled labor, but
(09:53):
then they're also doing things that areassociated with very high skilled labor.
And what Brian talked about ishaving these people that are
willing and excited to do both.
And that a lot of times as he'shiring people, there are people
that just don't want to dealwith the low skill portion of it.
And that's how I was asa college student, right?
Yeah.
Right.
I remember having an internship where Igot asked to literally alphabetize and
(10:16):
file stuff, and I was like, dude, I'mthree credit shy of a degree in finance.
Like I should be looking at yourbudgets and helping with that.
Not just filing papers.
But like somebody'sgotta file those papers.
Yep.
Right.
And like, and that's the sameidea of like what Brian was
looking for in his employees.
So like that part of theconversation is like something
(10:37):
that I still think about routinely.
I fear that my answer to the questionof what is the most impactful, is more
informed by what am I thinking about now.
The thing that I feel like thosereally interesting to me right now
and I feel like I learned is, isthat conversation with Joe Suttles.
I am familiar with farm managementas being a person who is the
(10:58):
owner of the farm, or part ownerof the farm, being the manager.
And so thinking about a professional farmmanager who's trying to make decisions
for that farm, but it's not really tiedto their family legacy, the community.
I mean, I'm not saying that Joe's notthinking about the community, but like,
I thought of my community a lot as Iwas making farm management decisions.
(11:20):
But it was probably more oflike a, a societal management
or something like that.
Well, but there, but there's also like,I think maybe what you're getting at
is the, that element of when you'rea business owner in a community,
there's also this concern about howyou will be perceived by the community.
You at least feel someownership in the community.
How it's sort of like perceivingyou and then evolving forward.
(11:42):
And, and, and what Joe talkedabout was sort of like, he has
that, but he has other communitiesthat he's thinking about.
Right.
Which is like these in investors,uh, that are maybe geographically
distant or this is the first timeinterested in agriculture at all.
And they may only be interestedin agriculture and the financial
performance or perceived financialperformance of this sector.
(12:05):
Yeah.
They're gonna get us fourpoint a half percent return.
Exactly.
Right.
And it's gonna be, uh, it's inverselycorrelated with the rest of the economy.
Yeah.
I've struggled a little bit oncommunicating why we a specifically
farm management class asopposed to business management.
(12:26):
So I'm asking you can you help me?
I would go back to, I mean, I'mbiased, number one, to agree with
you, like, yeah, of course farmmanagement is special and different
than general business management.
But yeah, I think it relies there's such abreadth required to run a successful farm.
You've got to understand aton of scientific principles.
You've got to deal with allsorts of suppliers and vendors
(12:46):
to support that business.
You've got to understandincredible complexity to truly
understand your cost of production.
Depending on what kind of businessyou're in, you know, you've gotta
deal with customer relationships.
That can be everything from yourintegrated contract environment to
an open commodity sale process, andyou've gotta be able to manage that.
I mean, there's classes here at Purdue,about just marketing commodities.
(13:07):
There's a whole lot of businessesthat you could be managing.
If you're out, managing the localHome Depot, you don't need to
understand anything about hedging.
You don't need to understand long andshort contracts or long and short puts.
In addition, you've got all ofthe government policy influence
in farms and that's incrediblycomplex and difficult to navigate.
That has to be managed, right?
And you have to play that gamein order to be successful.
(13:29):
Whether it be insurance products,payment systems, or NRCS related
conservation programs it's really complex.
Well, and then we have the otherside of that too, which is all of the
ways that you face regulation, right?
mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Things coming onto your farms,things going off of your farm,
how people and things aretreated when they're on the farm.
It's incredibly complex.
(13:49):
Yeah.
That's a good answer.
Thank you.
So that's the thing I've been thinkingabout the most, and, uh, because I'm
teaching this farm management class,and so that's informed sort of how I
think about the class and I'm thinkingabout rewriting it for next year and
trying to think about, you know, whatare the unique parts of farm management
(14:11):
that I truly want to communicate tostudents, uh, and have them think about.
Yeah.
So I feel like that'sbeen really thoughtful.
And, and then
I was thinking about Joe Balagtasand Matt Erickson talking about
the policy world and thinking, oh,these are just people doing jobs.
Uh, you know, like they'rethoughtful people, but they're just
doing jobs, kind of like farmersare doing their jobs as well.
(14:32):
I think the thing that really jumpedout from me talking to them is just
the boring nature of just a job.
It's more like working atDunder Mifflin on the office.
Right.
Than it is on like working on theWest Wing, the TV show, the West Wing.
No, that's a hundred percent what I thinkof when I think of policy, like when you
said West Wing, I was like, the one thingI think about whenever, when everyone's
(14:53):
like, how does, how does politics work?
What I'm thinking is West Wing.
Yeah.
Or what was the, uh, Netflix had the one.
I didn't ever watch it.
It was really popular.
Uh, Kevin Spacey.
Mm. Didn't watch that.
But there's all these politicallyintrigue and in some way Game
of Thrones has that, right?
Like where they're fightingover who's gonna be the king.
But really it's just, just like, I'm justshowing up and I gotta make these calls.
(15:17):
Or so-and-so's come in,I gotta listen to 'em.
It's more I gotta go to dinner andconvince someone that I need these votes,
which seems like a really big deal.
Right?
If what you have to do is yougotta go get these votes, but they
have to do that again tomorrow.
I was struck by how it's just routinejob stuff as opposed to these big
, more elaborate situations.
(15:39):
And you go home and you sleepfor the next week 'cause you
got the votes and you're done.
Walk us through a day.
What's a typical day look like?
How do you spend your day?
Yeah.
So at any given moment, any givenday, I might have three or four
projects that I'm working on.
Some of them are regular, right?
So I was in charge of the IndustrialProduction and Utilization Report,
(16:06):
monthly report that comes out of, the Fed.
And whenever that came out, wewould get a early peak at it,
24 hours before it was released.
I'd write a memo with my team, andsend that to the President so he knows
what the news is gonna be the next day.
like, you know, two or three bullets.
Right.
(16:27):
Here's what you need to know, Mr.President, about industrial production
in the country over the last month.
Do you think the President read it orsomebody who works for the President?
Who are you writing this for?
So that report was written forthe President and anyone else who
would be in the Oval Office withhim when it was shared with him.
Okay.
Right.
Did he read it?
(16:47):
I don't know, maybe.
I think somebody before the Presidentdecides what's newsworthy and what's
important for him to, to read.
Someone in the filter of, 'causehe's gonna get these things
handed to him all day long.
Right.
And so if there's some big breakingnews in industrial production, that
memo might come across his desk.
Are you in a group?
So like there's some portion of yourday then where you're like just reading
(17:10):
in isolation in your desk, right?
That's right.
But then there's some part where you'regonna get together with your colleagues
and say like, well here's my take on this.
Here's what jumped out to me.
Right.
You say it's a mix of sort of likemonastic alone time consuming information
Correct.
then breaking it down with other people.
Yep.
And for those regularreports, I'd be the lead.
(17:31):
I'd read the industrial production report.
I'd draft a memo, and I'd give itto a junior economist, would draft
the memo, it would come back to meand I'd say, yep, that looks good.
Let's send it on.
And then did you present any of thestuff, like verbally, not just in
writing, like would you go in and briefthe President or a team of people?
(17:52):
I never briefed the President.
Mostly, I would brief theChair or one of the members.
And either the chair or the memberwould go to the Oval Office and
present the work to the President.
And I think it, it gets to the ideathat I think we both have a fascination
in tasks and, and we've asked it alot to our guests, but though, what
(18:15):
are the tasks that you're doing?
Because even in, and like when I'mteaching class and I'm, and I'm
talking about a big overarchingtopic, it usually boils down into
there's things that you have to do.
So that's something that I feel like cameout very strong in our conversations is
that there are people doing tasks thatmake the big overarching topic work.
(18:40):
So, so you're in a series of thesekind of back to back meetings, what?
Half an hour, hour, 15 minutes, somethingand a range of regular every job meetings.
Right.
And you do that through like,till their early evening time till
it's time to go in for dinner.
Kind of?
Yeah.
When it could, when it getsclose to a farm bill, it's,
it's always you're nonstop.
Um, and again, because the farm bill'sjust so massive when you think about
(19:03):
ag and, and nutrition legislation.
You get all these different groupswith all their policy priorities.
But then also too, and I haven'tmentioned this, but a lot of our time
too is keeping good relations withour counterparts on the Senate Dems.
Um, especially with rankingmember Stabenow's staff.
And so we had a greatworking relationship.
The Ag Committee has alwaysbeen known for bipartisan work.
(19:24):
Bipartisan ship's not easy, and I thinkwe're seeing that in today's world.
Yeah.
Um, and I hope we get back to it.
I was always taught here, you know,in my upbringing and policy is if you
go into a negotiating room, you'retalking back and forth, there's
conversations that are heated.
People are passionate about policy.
But once you leave that negotiatingroom, remember people are people.
And asking them, Hey, let's gohave a beer, you know, I wanna
(19:46):
know more about your family.
And so having those conversations.
And again, a lot of myfriends were on ranking member
Stabenow's team at the time.
I hope we get back to those bipartisanshiproots that, that we've been accustomed to.
Long story short here guys, is when wethink about the work of the committee
and you work for farmers and ranchersand what they need is they need that
predictability and they need thatcertainty to get a farm bill done.
(20:07):
And so that was our task and we,we were able to get the job done.
The other thing that's surprising aboutdoing this podcasting, I'm surprised
how much it has plugged into theother activities I have in my life.
Uh, professional life.
Yeah.
Uh, and that like my research, um,advising graduate students, but
(20:29):
particularly like in the classroom,like I taught micro the intro micro
class for the first time this year.
And a lot of the examples are, likeI talked about our conversation
with Matt Erickson and policy Sure.
When I talked about policy, um.
When I talked about decisions thata firm has to make, I talked about
our conversations with Joe Suttlesor conversations with, Brian Martin.
(20:52):
Right?
And like, here's how thesedecision makers, you know,
they gotta do this or that.
Here's a real concrete example.
Um, so if our boss is listening,this was really worth our time.
Yes.
What are you currently thinking about now?
Because what I didn't anticipate indoing this job is how frequently, sort
of my fixations are like monthly, whereall of a sudden it's like, the thing
(21:15):
that I'm most interested in right nowis this, and it's because I went to
this thing and I talked to this person.
So mine is, this actually kindof previews what we're gonna
be playing while I'm gone.
We have sort of hinted at, lastsummer we did in June, we went
to Arkansas to learn about rice.
Yep.
(21:35):
We went and visited a bunch ofrice farms because we didn't
know anything about rice.
Went there and found out we kneweven less than we thought we knew.
But just to kind of learn about farmingand agriculture and something that's
kind of outside of our normal space.
Yes.
And we got to meet a lot of greatexperts that have devoted their
life to rice, either as farmers orresearchers, all these sort of dimensions.
(21:57):
Just last night I booked my familyand I, when we are in Thailand,
that's where we start our voyage.
We're going over a few days earlyto just kind of hang out and it's
also a 12 hour time difference.
Yeah, I, that's horrifying.
And so I'm going to Thailand a weekearly in part to have vacation with
a family and enjoy the holidays.
(22:19):
But in part, 'cause it's likethe real motivation was like,
I need to be able to teach.
You need to hit the ground running.
I need to be able.
Yeah.
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna go and I'm nottoo, I'm too old to hit ground running.
I'm gonna go hit the ground walking.
Right.
Uh, so I just bookedlast night in Thailand.
We are doing this thingcalled a rice farm experience.
(22:40):
We're gonna go plant rice.
Wow.
We're gonna go harvestrice, we're gonna mill rice.
We're gonna make somethingwith that rice flour.
All in Thailand.
Learn about Thailand rice production.
I have never been more excited abouta vacation activity in my life.
Because we went to Arkansas, I am nowgonna come into it with this view.
(23:04):
Yeah.
And that's, and that's whyI'm doing this sabbatical.
Right.
Um, so just to kind of give maybeour listener, if our listener is not
familiar with the university life, every.
At least here.
At least here and andmost places like here.
So if you think about your land grantuniversities, um, so your University
(23:26):
of Illinois, Iowa State, right.
Like our, our sort ofsister peer institutions.
Whatever you wanna call us.
Every sort of, let's say six to sevenyears, you can take a semester to where
you get relieved from your duties hereto go pursue something else on the
grounds that it's something that willcontribute, that you will bring back here.
(23:47):
Right.
Right.
So like you will be better.
So like Joe Balagtas did a leave to gowork at the Council of Economic Advisors.
We had that great episode with Joe.
Then Joe can come back here and whenhe's teaching his students about
policy, he can be like, well, basedon my time in the White House, here's
how I know this actually works.
Right,
And so my thing here is to go andlearn stuff that I can bring back.
(24:09):
Um, and so like we're visiting a bunch,I'm gonna visit a bunch of farms and
that kind of stuff while I'm traveling.
Uh, but this one is more whereI'm like, oh, I'm gonna see
another dimension of rice.
And another, like a more traditionalor hands-on or other part of
the world, rice production.
I'm so excited to go to that as aneconomist and think about it that way.
(24:31):
I, I fear that, uh, we may alienatenot only have just alienated
the, the workforce that has toswitch from daytime to nighttime.
Mm-hmm.
But.
Just normal people.
When I say it also does sound really cool.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
No, no.
I think that everybody'salso, oh, that sounds cool.
But they also like, that soundsterrifying to live with your family
in a small cabin on a ship and, uh,hopefully don't all hate each other.
(24:55):
Right.
That's, that's the, that's the, thedownside where we're, thinking about.
But, so I've been spending a lotof time preparing for this voyage.
And kind of thinking about this stuffstrategically, I want to try to see to
help me understand better, and part ofit is like seeing farms, but also see the
way that food is marketed and producedand sold and consumed around the world.
(25:18):
Uh, whenever I travel anywhere elsein the world, the number one thing I
always have to go to is a grocery store.
Yeah.
And I don't mean like wet market,like a seller of fresh fruit
or a lady that's making noodle.
I mean like, take me toyour equivalent of Safeway.
Or Anderson's for ifour listeners' out west.
(25:40):
Right?
There you go.
Right.
Like, just like your run the mill.
The Piggly Wiggly.
Yes.
Your Piggly.
Publix.
Yeah,
We're just trying to hitall the demographics here.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I gotta say Schnucks.
Schnucks.
For my St. Louis listener.
Wegmans for those of you in the Northeast.
Oh yeah.
And those people, they have it.
Good man.
Wegmans is nice.
They they do, they do, um, subbing othergrocery chain from the region we missed.
(26:03):
Also, um, if you're listening nowand you want us to put in post your
grocery store as a, as a plug andadvertisement, we can work that out.
Reach out.
Yeah.
Um,
Oh, do you know if you have aclickable donation link in the CCA now?
No, I didn't.
There's literally a clickable link.
So if you are enjoying this podcastand you're like, how can I kick a
couple shekels to keep this going
(26:24):
Because we only take shekels.
Or, or if you want to shut us down,if you want to say, I will bid you
out and make you never do this again.
That's also, that link couldmaybe work as, just put us in the
show notes, which one you want.
As, uh, as economist themarket goes both ways.
So what I'm thinking about a lot isjust the variety that is the agriculture
(26:46):
sector globally, and how I'm gonna tryto intentionally consume some of that.
So that gets into, I'm, I'm gonna go outtaorder and say what's ahead is, we went
to Arkansas, we met with these people,we learned an immense amount, and we made
podcasts the whole time we were doing it.
So while Todd is gone,
(27:07):
Quite literally drivingaround on a truck podcasting,
We have no idea how it's gonna sound.
It, it might not be great, butit was kind of this idea of
like, we're gonna experiment.
We want to, we, our intentionsare to learn about the ag sector,
so let's go somewhere else.
And as a farm kid.
Um, and I think you too, as a, akid who grew up in a rural area,
like I just like rural places andI like learning about rural places.
(27:29):
And so we just had a lot of funand, and, uh, hope is we do more.
And, and I like the culture of it too.
Like, 'cause we also, in additionto walking around learning
about rice farms, we also likewent to a barbecue restaurant.
Correct.
We went to a private club as a wayto get Sportsman's to get around
and it's called Open Season.
Oh yeah, you're right.
A way to get around local drycounty policies, you can have
(27:53):
alcohol at a private club.
Right, right.
But it's there to cater the duck hunter.
So we were in like aduck hunter themed bar.
Yes.
Um, so we, we got into thelocal culture a bit too.
We did.
Not just the agriculture, uh,which is something we both love.
So that's what we're excited toshare is that although Todd will
be around the world 12 hours away.
(28:16):
Uh,
Starting 12.
I'll work my way back to six.
Starting 12.
Yeah.
Uh, like the podcast doesn't end, right?
Yeah.
Like, that's the, but for thoseof you who wanna shut us down
again, there's options here too.
Yeah.
So, like, just to likebuy out the market exists.
So that's what's ahead is that whileyou're gone, we're gonna u we are
going to release the Arkansas tripwhere it was largely centered around
(28:38):
learning about rice production.
Something I knew nothing about,something that, I mean, arguably
you'll come back from the voyage,an expert, even deeper expert than
you are now in rice production.
As a professor, I get nervouswhen you say the word expert.
Mm.
Um, I will know enough to be dangerous.
Yeah.
(28:58):
I will be at that, remember that, uh,is it Dunning-Kruger Curve or whatever?
Yes.
Like what you know, whatyou think, you know.
I will probably be at the peakwhere I think I'm an expert.
Yeah.
But that's because I know just enoughto be able to like, be like, well that
looks like row rice, not paddy rice.
Uh, but not enough to reallyknow, you know what I mean?
(29:19):
Like to acknowledge what I don't know.
Yes.
But I could be a water chaser.
You could be a water chaser.
Yeah.
Um.
Okay, so then that gets to, whatam I thinking about right now?
Yeah, because the, the peoplethat we were with were Aaron Shew.
Aaron Shew works for a company calledAcres, which is a, I think they call
it a farmland intelligence platform.
(29:40):
And you're gonna hearfrom him in the podcast.
And Colson Tester who workedfor Acre Trader, which was the
investment sister company of Acres.
This information platform.
Aaron was recently promotedto Chief Technology Officer.
So he's an ag economist whois really spent a ton of time
learning about the tech sector.
He's also a trained geographer.
(30:03):
Right, he's he ag economist slashgeographer slash technology.
You called him a polymath, whichI had to look up what that meant.
So do you have a shortdefinition of what a polymath is?
So poly means many.
Oh, wow.
Math means math.
Wow.
That's really good.
I like to, I like to get to the,that's like walking and tackling.
(30:25):
I like to get to the etymology.
Yes.
As quickly as I can.
Entomology?
No, that's bugs.
Okay.
Etymology is the study of words.
Uh, it means, someone who isskillful in multiple dimensions.
Knowledgeable about many things.
So that is Aaron in a nutshell.
Yeah.
Like I, like I could, I feel like weshould just have a podcast episode where
(30:48):
we just throw stuff at Aaron and just seehow many things he's knowledgeable about.
'Cause I feel like he'd be like, yeah,you feel like he'd be like, if you ever
read any Faulkner, and he'd be like,oh, everybody reads this book, but you
should really be reading this book.
Like, and then you could be like,Hey, what's your favorite go-to
snack at an NFL game and he'll belike, well, it depends where you are.
If you're in Charlotte,you get this right.
Yeah, I know.
Like he just knows,
(31:09):
He does.
Sort of everything.
And he's very nice and uh,personable and unassuming.
So I got to ask him a lot ofquestions and he has a perspective
about large language models in AI.
And that perspective is whatwe have yet to see what the
real impact of that's gonna be.
And so in conversations with him, itstarted me thinking about how do I use AI?
(31:32):
And it's gonna tie back to the podcastbecause what I realized is the way
I use Chat GPT is to ask questionsI'm too embarrassed to ask you about.
Right.
And so when we hit these situationswhere I hit these points where I'm
like, oh, I don't think, and a lot ofit like you, what you're thinking, if
you're thinking dirty thoughts, I wouldchallenge you that what I'm thinking
(31:52):
about is technical sort of questions.
Oh, I was gonna say, I'm glad to knowthat I'm not gonna have to look at
your moles, that you're just gonnagive Chad GPT pictures of your moles.
Well, for, I still want you to lookat the moles because there's still
a couple that are growing in ways.
Um, but I use it constantly to likegive me intuitive explanations of
things I don't quite understand.
(32:14):
And so it ties into this podcast, 'causeI think I asked a lot of those questions.
If I think back to the questions Iasked to these people, a lot of it was,
can you help me understand your world?
Can you help me explain?
Can you help me understand whyyou're making these decisions?
And, and how you wouldthink through these things?
And I use it because I like to uncoverthose insights conversationally.
So I really enjoy about this podcast thatI get to interact with people who are
(32:37):
really, really intelligent and really,really diversified in their experiences,
and I can ask 'em all these questions.
What I realized is that's how I use ChatGPT almost on a daily basis at this point.
Where uh, my wife jokes that like,I'm, I have a relationship with it.
I do not.
It's just that I feel verycomfortable asking lots of questions
(32:57):
and saying, I didn't reallyunderstand how you explain that.
Can you explain it?
Like, you know,
Oh yeah.
Assume I'm younger.
Assume I don't really understandmathematics that well assume.
Um, and it's unbelievable at that.
And it has greatly increased myproductivity because I don't hit these
points where I have a question andthen I don't go and ask a question to a
(33:19):
human being because I'm too embarrassed.
I just asked Chat GPT.
Okay, so now I'm gonnatie it all full circle.
I felt that way all the time.
Farming, there's so much that goeson in agriculture and if you're a
farmer that you can't understand.
And so you could go hire an expert,but it's likely gonna cost you a lot
of money or you could talk to a friend.
(33:40):
But a lot of times those friendsare also farmers and so you feel a
little bit competitive or that youshouldn't ask it, or it's just someone
that like maybe has the insightsand isn't competitive with you.
But I'm too embarrassedto ask the question.
So is is like farm management and is AIgonna transform the ability of not only
farmers, but like small business ownersto have access to information and insight?
(34:03):
That we never had before at suchan inexpensive level, right?
You could get the insights,but you had to pay for it.
Um, so that's what I've beenthinking about recently.
Well, I use AI mostly as a filter.
So for example.
Tie back to
Like a coffee filter?
Um, sort of.
Okay.
But, um, more of likean information filter.
(34:25):
Oh, okay.
I was gonna say I didn't,
Where I, uh, so I'm getting readyto go on this voyage, right?
Yeah.
And, um, I need to book a numberof things, like a, like a tour
of, uh, this rice farm, right?
Yeah.
Yep.
And I can go on TripAdvisor.
And there's like hundreds of reviews.
And what I would do historicallyis like read all of those.
(34:46):
Mm-hmm.
And then like, these gravitate from me.
These don't, or whatever, like,here's, but I would now I'll just
send that link to my, uh, AI of choiceand just say, can you summarize?
Yeah.
All the reviews of this?
Yeah.
And then say, okay.
If you look at just the one star reviews,what's the thing that they mention most?
(35:06):
Yeah.
In there, right?
And if they're like, oh, they all saythe food's too spicy, then I'm oh, well
that's, that's one I gotta think about'cause I don't do spicy food well.
But if they're all oh, like itwas just too much information
about how rice is farmed, thenI'd be well, that's what I want.
That's like, that's not a one star to me.
Would've been a five star for me.
Yeah, right.
I use it in a filtering thing, right?
(35:27):
So the other thing is they talk about liketechnology adoption, that we generally
first use technologies to reduce costs.
That's a cost reducing thing, right?
I guess I'm gonna waste less timereading all these reviews myself and
just gonna have 'em summarize 'em.
Yeah.
Right.
Um.
But then after we've reduced our cost,then we use it to like productivity gain.
So there's like this secondgeneration that I think we're
(35:48):
still not maybe there on AI.
At least I'm not there on AI.
Some people might be.
Okay.
So the thing that I feel like, so Aaron,just, just when he, he was just here
on campus and we were, and this, thisis why I'm talking about it 'cause.
It's very fresh.
Um, is is that there's also sort oflike you can use, you can create these
(36:09):
projects or notebooks where you can,you can upload your, the information
you want it to be thinking about inaddition to sort of the full internet,
uh, for a particular topic, and thenallow it to draw insights from that body
of work in addition to the internet.
I'm thinking about this becausethere's a lot of knowledge that you
(36:29):
generate or you, you leave for awhile and then you have to come back.
And I remember sort of like even in ourworld today, like we have projects that we
kind of set aside and then a month laterwe have to come back and it takes a couple
hours to like get your head back into it.
Yeah.
Or, or reminded.
Or, the classes that we teachare usually once a year.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Right.
And so you, you've been thinking alot about your farm management class.
(36:50):
But then come August, you aregonna have to think about it again.
You're like, what was I eventhinking about in December?
Unless I kept notes for myself.
No, that's it.
And that's literally what I'm thinkingabout because I, that's what I'm gonna do.
So I'm, I'm trying to like rewrite theclass in January as opposed to waiting
till August because this is all fresh.
Anyways, I just think that's reallyinteresting to think about if we,
(37:10):
if we're coming and going withinformation and even, uh, project
specific information, can AI help that?
And it is still lowering cost.
I think it still, as the wayyou're explaining it, like I'm
still thinking it's lowering cost.
But this experience ofthinking about how do I use AI?
How do I prompt it?
What is it capable of?
It feels like we're at a point wherethat's what we should all be doing.
(37:35):
Is exploring personally,how does it help us?
How could it help us?
To sort of envision a world wherewe could move beyond just reducing
cost, to the does it make us better?
So the other way that you and Ihave used AI together recently.
Was looking at astrology, whichI'm not a believer in astrology.
Are you a believer in
(37:55):
No.
I didn't think so.
Right.
Yeah.
Uh, but Chat GPT can read peoplewho believe in astrology and we
were asking where we should live.
It's true.
Based on when we were born andthe star signs and all that stuff.
Yeah.
That was fun.
It was a useful exercise.
Yeah.
At least, at least gave ussomething to talk about at lunch.
We had a great time at lunch.
(38:16):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think hypothetically, yeah.
So for, for the sake of just discussions,uh, it's really good at hypothetical.
Yeah.
Questions.
Right?
And, and those can be nonsensical.
So I The would you rather, rightnow is a big thing in my house.
So a 6-year-old and two three yearolds frequently ask me, would I rather,
and then two nonsensical things.
(38:37):
Yeah.
It it's fantastic with that.
There's a whole kid show on that.
Uh,
Really?
Coat and Cami.
That's like, you shouldwatch it with your kids.
Wow, okay.
I don't know if they're quite there yet.
They're probably still in cartoons.
They are.
Yeah.
But when they get like, sort of lateelementary that that's gonna be a hit.
Our kids, our kids devoured it.
What I would, what I have learnedabout AI is it might not give
you the same response every time.
(38:58):
Oh yeah.
Right.
So if you give it the samehypothetical situation.
Just like a real person does.
Just like a real person, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I would say it is, uh,the word is vexing me.
This idea of likeeveryone's talking about AI.
I wish it would go away truthfully becauselike, I feel like there's so many things I
don't understand pre AI, and now I have totry to understand this thing in addition
(39:22):
to the things I didn't already understand.
Uh, that's my very headin the sand sort of look.
But I think, I feel a little hopeful.
I think that's the thing, isI feel hopeful that this is
really, truly an innovation.
Well, when I was in college, everybodywas taking this one class, uh, to
learn about this new technology.
And I did not take that class.
Because I will, I was like, when amI ever gonna use that technology?
(39:45):
And that technology's gonna change, right?
So I'll learn about it now.
But then like a year from now, thattechnology's gonna change, and why, why
did I ever learn it in the first place?
What was that technology?
Microsoft Excel.
Wow.
So the point is don't ask me aboutwhich technologies you should learn and
how they'll be useful in the future.
(40:05):
No, I, same.
Like I tell, I've told this story, Ijust gave a presentation on Wednesday
and what I distinctly remember is BrantCayley was our, was one of our guests.
I think I told this story that Itold him that, uh, blackberries
were so much superior to iPhones.
Like again, like we're not thetechnology prognosticators.
So this is a question for bothof you because like sometimes I
(40:28):
don't even know what my problem is.
Right?
Like, I think that that's the thing.
With, with like smartphones.
I remember distinctly riding to abasketball game with your parents and you
had a new, you had the original iPhone.
And I was like, dude, we're nevergonna type on screens, right?
Like, we're never gonna usethe keyboards on screen.
So I'm like, how?
Like that's a daunting task.
How do you think through that?
(40:48):
Like, frequently?
I don't know what,
Yeah,
Like if you would, if you interviewed me,I am terrified at what you would develop
that I probably won't use in the future.
Yeah.
I, again, I don't want to act likeI have this all figured out, but
I do think that you've just gottafigure out how to solve a problem.
And if you solve that problemreally well, like the users,
(41:10):
like the people will come to it.
Because, like the iPhone, you'reright, typing on a screen like it is
worse than typing on a Blackberry.
It, it just is worse.
But it's like, oh, yeah,but also you like, can watch
movies way better or whatever.
Right?
So they're, they're like, and, andif you look at like farmers and
technology adoption, I do thinkthat like great products get used.
(41:31):
Precision Planting has a great productthat almost every farmer that I talk
to, they have a Precision Planting.
Yeah.
Right.
A unit.
And it's like, well, they, they likecreated something great and they
figured out how to get farmers touse it, and they solved a problem
and they nailed the price point.
And, you know, there you go.
You have a bus.
Like, sometimes,sometimes that's how easy.
(41:52):
Yeah.
How easy it is.
So I think that you just have to startwith, from my perspective, start with
the problem and then how do you come upwith an accessible solution for that?
I don't know.
We'll, we'll see if wecontinue to pull that off.
You can tell, uh, I thinkabout things very differently.
(42:15):
'Cause when you saidblackberries are better than,
Yeah,
I thought you were gonna say raspberries.
Oh.
Or blueberries.
And in either case Iwould say you're right.
Really?
But I thought we weretalking about the fruits.
I thought you were gettingready to talk about fruit.
Huh.
And I think the blackberryis an underappreciated fruit.
No, I agree.
But it taste,
I think appropriatelyappreciated technology device.
(42:38):
Yeah.
Underappreciated fruit.
So this, this leads into a betterquestion, which is, um, I asked
the kids last night, if they couldnever have bananas again or you
could never have chicken again.
Which one would you take?
Oh, I feel like I would give up chicken.
(43:00):
Say same.
And here's my reasoning.
Well, I got a follow up questionthat's gonna blow your mind.
Because chicken is not anygood, no offense to the chicken
farmers or big chicken listening,
Oh cheese.
What chicken is good for
Someone.
Someone just put a ding, ding, ding.
Someone just put $50 onthe website, shut 'em down.
(43:21):
Is chicken as good as adelivery for other things?
Like, like flavor?
Yes.
Yeah.
Like, like, like breading, right?
Any kind of breading on a chicken.
Yeah, like love it, but I could eat, Icould eat fried batter off of a stick.
Right.
You can't eat the stick though.
I could dip a stick inranch dressing and enjoy it.
(43:43):
Okay.
Right.
Like all of the things about, butbananas, I eat just the banana.
Yeah.
Right.
Like I'll eat a banana, likeif I ever eat just a chicken.
Yeah.
Breast, wing, leg, anything.
If you don't at least marinate it insome, uh, buttermilk or put some salt
(44:03):
or garlic on it, like I'm not having it,I'm not gonna eat just plain chicken.
Plain banana that's likea little gift right there.
Okay, so sidebar, we started our journeythrough Arkansas by flying into Memphis
and went and had fried chicken at
Gus's.
Gus's
World famous.
And like perfect example of like,
(44:24):
So if you're listening
A song, a song of friedchicken, like it was beautiful.
Yes.
If you, they're world famous.
Gus's world famous fried chicken.
Is what sign says.
Yes.
So if you are listeningto us from the world.
We could have just said Gus's.
'cause you would know.
Good point.
It's famous.
Good point.
Throughout the world.
Yeah.
As a, as a terrestrialmeaning on this earth.
(44:46):
Yeah.
I brought a cup home.
That's how I remember the name.
So, 'cause I used the cup.
'Cause my son August, we call him Gus.
Gus.
I call him Gus.
Yeah.
So it's Gus's fried chicken.
Okay.
So sidebar ended.
Alright, so follow up questionis now, so I chose the same
chicken would be the thing.
What if flip it?
You can only have bananasor only have chicken.
(45:08):
Which one you're choosing?
And nothing else?
Boom.
Oh, I'm going chicken.
See, that's an interesting thing.
Because you can sustain on chicken.
Yes.
I feel like if I ate nothing but bananas,
I probably should change it.
One, could I, could I survive?
You have, could I survive?
You'd have to.
It's a fortified banana.
(45:30):
Yeah.
Protein rich banana.
Something like it's a protein richbanana because, uh, does it have
everything you need to survive.
Also, I feel like you would just likehave that banana taste all the time.
No, agreed.
But like that's the thing is it'sreally interesting is that if
you, it posed one way, banana's, aclear winner posed the other way.
Banana's, a clear loser.
(45:51):
Am my constrained in my other mouthbased activities that are not eating.
Specifically, can I stilldrink whatever I want?
Oh
Can I take up smoking?
'Cause I feel like if I was justeating chicken all the time, I'm
probably gonna take up smoking.
Just to taste something else.
To feel something.
(46:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And hopefully if, if, if, ifthe anti-smoking campaigns in
my youth are correct, hopefullyto just kill my taste buds.
It's true.
Well, um, I'm realizing now.
That it's not a perfecthypothetical situation.
I haven't accounted for all of thenuances that probably should have been
thought through prior to voicing it onthis podcast, a podcast of this level.
(46:36):
Yeah.
Anyway, this is what Ilove about parenting.
Yeah.
So to kind of wrap this up, if we,
What have we done?
If we even have anything to wrap up,we wanted to sort of touch on some of
our milestone, our favorite moments.
Yes.
From our previous podcast.
Encourage you to go back andlisten if you haven't yet.
They're really great.
We're gonna be taking a pausefrom that sort of series.
(46:59):
Mm-hmm.
While I'm away.
But we'll have some new content comingto you when I get back in the summer.
Right.
But in the interim, all of ourconversations are gonna be drawn from
this trip that we did to Arkansasto learn about Delta rice farming.
And, hopefully you enjoy it.
We enjoyed it immensely.
Our goal, my goal at least,is that we will continue to
(47:22):
do things like that again.
Where we just could go andintensively learn about
something in a different place.
Not necessarily having to be pertainingto rice, but if more rice experiences
present themselves, we're amenable.
Yeah.
I feel like I don't wantto have a rice podcast.
Not yet.
Uh, I don't wanna be arice economist just yet.
Yeah.
Um, I would love to getinto permanent crops.
(47:44):
Mm.
I'd love to go out to likePacific Northwest or California.
I'd love to learn about dairy.
Go to some dairies.
Like those kind of things.
We wanna do that kind of trip.
Well, thank you for listening.
Chad, thank you.
Hey, thank you Todd, and enjoy the voyage.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com