March 14, 2025 • 56 mins
Today on The American Land Seller, we sit down with Joe Wahlgren, a 4th generation farmer from Gothenburg, Nebraska. Joe and his wife Diane started farming in 1993, growing their operation to 5,000 irrigated acres producing food-grade corn for Frito-Lay, soybeans, popcorn, and alfalfa.
Joe is a data-driven farmer, utilizing shallow strip till, no-till, and cover crops while leveraging precision ag technology to maximize yields. In 2024, he and Diane are launching a new family partnership, Canyon Farms, with their daughters and sons-in-law, marking a 5th and 6th generation farm transition.
Joe, a former Wyoming Cowboys offensive tackle, applies his lineman mentality to farming—paving the way for the next generation. Join us as we discuss farm succession, ag technology, and the future of Canyon Farms!
🎧 Don't forget to LIKE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE for more insights on land ownership and rural real estate!
#AmericanLandSeller #FarmSuccession #NebraskaAg #RegenerativeFarming #PrecisionAg #FritoLayCorn #FamilyFarming #NextGenFarming #NoTill #StripTill #CoverCrops #CanyonFarms #AgTech #FarmOwnership #LandSales #RuralAmerica
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Today on the American Land Seller, we have the
privilege of speaking with JoeWalgren, a fork generation
farmer from Gothenburg, nebraska.
Joe and his wife Diane beganfarming in 1993 with Joe's
parents and have since expandedtheir operation to around 5,000
irrigated acres.
They raise food grade corn forFrito-Lay, soybeans, popcorn and
(00:22):
alfalfa.
Joe is a strong believer inusing data to drive farming
decisions.
He employs a combination ofshallow, strip-till, no-till and
cover crops in his rotations.
He also collects extensive datato ensure that inputs and
hybrids are placed on the bestacre.
This data-driven approach,combined with the latest in farm
technology, allowed Joe tomaximize yields and operate more
(00:46):
efficiently.
In 2024, joe and Diane formed anew partnership with two of
their daughters and son-in-lawsParker and Kennedy Trower and
Brayden and Kaylee Brundage.
The new partnership is calledCanyon Farms.
The family has set goals and atimeline that will transition
labor management and ownershipto the new partners.
The family sees this goals anda timeline that will transition
labor management and ownershipto the new partners.
The family sees this transitionas a truly exciting effort as
(01:09):
the fifth and sixth generationscome on board.
Joe is a three-year Letterman,offensive tackle for the Wyoming
Cowboys and received hisBachelor's of Science in
agribusiness.
Diane received an associatedegree from Southeastern
Community College in Lincoln andthe two returned home to begin
their family in 1992.
Joe often relates that he wasborn an offensive lineman, never
(01:31):
afraid of setting the stage orpushing the load for those that
follow.
Joe understands that his roleis now to open a path for the
next generation.
Let's dive in and learn aboutJoe's journey, his vision for
the future of Canyon Farms andthe exciting transition to the
next generation.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Welcome to the American Land Seller Podcast
with your host, kobe Rickardson.
Kobe is an accredited landconsultant and multi-state land
broker with High Point LandCompany.
Join us each week as we exploreall things land.
We bring you fresh insights andexpert guests on sales,
marketing, regulations,economics and so much more.
(02:11):
Visit wwwamericanlandsellercomand find us on one of your
favorite podcast platforms.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Okay, Kobe and our special guests, let's get
started.
Okay, Kobe and our specialguests.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Let's get started.
Hey everybody, welcome back tothe American Land Seller Podcast
.
We are here with Joe Walgren, aNebraska farmer I'm going to
talk about.
I've been really excited aboutdoing this particular episode
because I deal on the marketingand selling side of land all the
time.
I grew up in a family farm, ourfamilies kind of went away from
(02:48):
farming.
We still own farm ground, sowe're investors, but we aren't
producers anymore, as myimmediate family or my.
But I did grow up on a farm andso it's going to be kind of fun
for me to to talk to Joe alittle bit about.
You know, last time I drove atractor, I think, I think we had
to actually hold on to thesteering wheel the whole way
through, and so we're going todig into technology and what's
(03:10):
going on.
But let's start Joe.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
How are you today?
I'm real well, I'm inside andI'm warm.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
That's right, it's been a little bit of a frosty
winter.
It started out mild and then itgot into a little bit chilly.
So and the groundhog, I guess,a while back said that we're
supposed to have a longer winterthan normal.
So Happens every year, we'llsee, yeah.
We'll see, I don't think thatguy knows what he's talking
about, so let's talk about likeit's my podcast, so I get to
(03:36):
talk about what I want.
So we're going to talk aboutland values and how that's
affecting the producer right outthe gate.
I know that over the last five,six years we've really seen
values of land just jump up andincrease.
That's got to have a kind of amaybe neutral or negative effect
on us to what you guys aretrying to do.
Talk just a little bit aboutwhere you're at with as far as a
(03:58):
player as.
Are you buying?
Are you kind of on thesidelines right now hanging out
being written from investors?
How's that look for?
Speaker 4 (04:06):
you.
We, in particular, grew anoperation with my parents over
the last 35 years and my dad'sout of it now.
But in that time we purchasedland and we also let land go.
And we let it go because it wasoverpriced.
Right, they say when should youbuy?
When's the best time to buyland?
And they say whenever it's forsale.
That's what I say.
(04:28):
But we didn't necessarily havethe means or it didn't make
sense to us, or Jeepers I mean,we're just financially not ready
to leverage like that, and sowe let some stuff go.
Of course, hindsight, you wishyou would have bought it all,
but I don't think I could haveswung it All.
That being said, over 35 yearswe purchased our share of good
(04:48):
ground.
That made sense and a lot of itcame from relationships that we
had.
It wasn't us out pursuing itwas hey, that farms well with
your farm.
You've been farming it, Lovethe relationship, Want to buy it
.
And of course we expressed tothose that we farm for that yeah
, if it.
And of course we express tothose that we farm for that yeah
, if you ever want to sell, we'dbe more than interested.
(05:10):
So that has always gone on andwe added quite a bit of land
over 35 years.
We leveraged to get there.
The math, however, has changed,and it's not just the
inflationary measures that haveforced everything up, but,
rather than looking at 150% ofrent or 160, 70% of rent the
(05:35):
values now of the I don't wantto call him an outside investor,
because there are still farmersor farm owners that are flush
enough and need somedepreciation that they're out
there bidding.
What I would tell you was 50%more than the land should ever
(05:56):
sell for as far as compared toearnings, and so that's what
we've seen in the last couple ofyears is these $14,000 bids,
and I'm a numbers guy and I gotto tell you at that level I'm
probably a renter.
The family owns a couplethousand acres of irrigated
farmland and it's leveraged topay for what we've added, and I
(06:18):
don't see an avenue to leveragewhat I have to seek a 2% return.
So we're actually looking at,we want to deal with the people
that we rent from.
We'd love to talk to them aboutperhaps selling someday at a
fair level, whatever it is, butI'm not actively out there
seeking other land to bring intothe fold at $14,000 an acre,
(06:42):
because I don't have an extraincome coming in and that's what
we run into is ethanol money orwhatever it is, coming into an
operation and then running thebids up to where I don't think
it's viable.
I don't think it's viable forme to leverage to that level,
seeking a 2% after-tax return.
So that's the change.
(07:04):
I guess all that said.
That's the change.
I didn't see that really coming.
I didn't think that wouldaffect us that much.
I look at Illinois and Iowaland values being affected by
influx of money that doesn'thave anything to do with the
farm.
I never really figured WesternNebraska was one of those areas
that was going to be affectedthat much by it, but here she is
(07:25):
.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, I mean you know , and again, like we have, I
think, what Bill Gates is one ofthe largest landowners in the
county that I live in.
So you know it's just crazy Iagree with you on that that how
much outside.
You know, when we grew up itwas kind of just all producer
owned very.
You know there was a fewplayers and investment stuff,
(07:47):
but that was never anything thatI ever saw.
You know growing up that wewere ever going to have
investors in the land world.
And then you know, like thepush to offline land or online
it into a different purpose iskind of been kind of fascinating
in my industry too.
Like we have a family thatmaybe owns 3,500 acres that will
(08:09):
sell off all but 200 acres ofit and start growing corn for
whiskey, you know, and so stufflike that.
It's just so you have a certainpercentage of of your product
that you're making on the farm.
So you can say, hey, it's allfarm grown, but you're also can
go out and buy your inputs thatyou're making on the farm.
So you can say, hey, it's allfarm grown, but you also can go
out and buy your inputs that youneed to make that.
So I totally agree with you andit's been kind of fascinating
(08:31):
to me to see, like I said, someof that transitioning outside of
into you know.
You know side by side trailsystems or or like you were just
talking about tourism basedagriculture.
You know like so I definitelyget that.
Do you think like I?
(08:51):
I always say that, um, like, myjob is to find, take the
property and put it in the rightlight in front of the right
people to get the most value outof it, and so that kind of
clashes a lot of times with whatproducers.
You know like we, I get it alot from the producers in the
sense of you're driving up landprices and putting me out of
business.
You know, and so I look at it,you know, in a different light
(09:13):
than that, but you know, whenyou're considering it is, I
believe it, kind of yings andyangs.
I think you're going toprobably see.
You know like the right.
Now we're seeing anormalization or stabilization
in land prices.
There's other things people areinterested in putting their
money into and stuff like that.
We've seen Bill Gates and someof those big players pull way
(09:33):
back.
Really, in Nebraska, thebiggest people that are still
buying are the, you know, lds,the church, and so it's kind of
going to be an interestingcouple of years.
Do you think maybe there's apathway where you guys are going
to be able to get back on track, to maybe start looking at hey,
we're back in the game and whatprice range do you think that's
got to be in for that to happen?
Speaker 4 (09:55):
If I've got a 50-year history which I do with several
of our landowners and it comesup for sale because of a death
in the family or transition fromgeneration to generation, they
all have a standing knowledgethat we want to purchase.
So I've got to make it fair.
So play it out.
(10:15):
I have one agreement where theyare going to call an appraiser
and they're going to comeappraise the ground and my dad
and I have first to comeappraise the ground and my dad
and I have first right to buy itat that level.
That seems fair.
That's more than I could everexpect from anybody.
That is awesome.
(10:39):
Appraise that baby until the$14,000 is in the neighborhood.
And then it's like oh gosh well, appraiser can't ignore that.
Gosh well, appraiser can'tignore that.
Perhaps can average that with,I don't know, a $9,000 or a
$10,000 sale in the neighborhood.
But anyway, I slice it.
The honest-to-goodness fairprice is now elevated to $3,000,
(11:04):
$4,000 higher than I thought itshould be.
I would bend over backwards atthe $10,000 level, $11,000 level
, any day to purchase something.
I have a history on that'sentered over my operation.
I have no problem.
It's going to get painful whenyou start chipping in an extra
quarter million, an extra half amillion, an extra three-fourths
(11:25):
of a million, just because Ialready have leverage.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, well, it's an interesting point that you make.
I think, honestly, I'm not anappraiser, but I deal with it
enough to know that most of thetime that high end and that very
low end because there's theother side of that too, there's
grandpa selling it to thegrandson or whatever that's
going to be like that, yeah, soI think they take those top and
(11:52):
bottom like numbers, like theone or 2% of the very top and
the bottom, and they throw thoseout.
But you're all right though.
I mean there's been a lot more14, 15, you know, 13,000 sales,
probably in the last year notlast year, but the last three or
four years that I ever thoughtI'd see in this industry.
So that's, you know, that'sjust putting a list, you know,
(12:13):
putting a sign out there,listing it, marketing it and
selling it.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
I'm not buying it for me either.
I'm the fifth generation andsix and seven are just down the
road here and we're trying totransition into how does this
keep going?
Because just if you grow or youdie, that's an old business
mantra and I can't see how mygrowth in 35 years from 1,600 to
(12:41):
5,000, I don't see how that canparlay into 12,000, 13,000.
So we're going to grow in someway, but somehow in other
industries I'm afraid, um, we'llhave to be the avenue for us to
be diversified, I guess.
But the uh, the base that I dohave, we're circling the wagons
(13:05):
one way or another.
We're circling the wagonstrying to trying to uh, figure
out how to make it available two, three, four generations down
the line.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, now that's.
I mean, that's it's.
It's impressive that yourcommitment is that way in a, in
a world where I think that'sthat's kind of one of those
things, that it's a smallerpercentage of people that are
are their.
Their goal is to transition onto the next generation.
You know, like a lot of uh, alot of people I think nowadays
are are just trying to surviveas long as they can.
(13:38):
So it's a.
It's a.
It's really kind of fun towatch you guys.
I know it's challenging, butlet's take a quick break and we
will be right back.
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(14:01):
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And we're back here with JoeLogren.
(14:22):
He's a Nebraska farmer, logrenFarms from Brady, nebraska, and
Joe, right before the break youhad kind of hinted to.
You know like your goal as afamily has been to put that
sixth and seventh generation onthe farm.
You know, help those guys.
You know, keep the family closeand help those guys be
(14:43):
successful going forward in aworld of you know, it's really
kind of tough to get started.
It's absolutely tough to getstarted as a farmer right now.
I mean, if you aren't, I'mtelling you my son that was his,
you know, his heart was to be afarmer and my dad had to sit,
you know like my dad had to sitdown with him and say, bud, even
(15:04):
if I gave you all the land thatI have for you to farm, he says
you still have to go take threeor four million dollars and get
the equipment and I'm notreally at a point in my life to
get in it with you, you know.
And so you know jumping into itif you aren't already into it,
or you know, is really difficult, know is is really difficult,
um, but you mentioned that, hey,we're going to live.
(15:25):
We're looking at stuff that'slike non-traditional, that, um,
you know that we can do to helpimprove our, our annual income
and and maybe createopportunities for those guys
that are coming back and workingwith you in the farm.
Talk just a little bit aboutwhat are you guys looking at?
What's that look like?
Is it?
Are you, are you kind of afraidof it, or is it exciting?
How does that look?
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Yes, I would say not afraid of much in this world.
I think you put good peoplearound you, you'll figure it out
.
But we are committing to workthings out because we don't have
all the T's crossed and all theI's dotted.
But we are looking at a weddingvenue, an event venue in a
rural setting.
I think that that couldpossibly fly.
(16:08):
We're looking at, perhaps, anAirbnb cabin on a lake several
of those.
All of this revolves aroundeverybody wants a little slice
of heaven round.
Everybody wants a little sliceof heaven, and I've been
(16:29):
fortunate enough.
My grandpa and my dad purchaseda small cabin on a local lake
in 1976.
And I wish they would havebought 10 of them.
They're really valuable now,but I grew up there and my kids
grew up there and their kids aregrowing up there, and while I
can sit back and say how awesomeit is that they invested, that
my dad invested and that Icontinue to invest in that to
(16:51):
give us a spot, I look around.
There are thousands of otherswho want a little slice of
heaven, and so how do youprovide that?
I mean, it's a limited resourceand so we have looked at some
of our property and anotherproperty that we're talking to
some people about creating thatlittle slice of heaven for them,
whether that be a long termplace to park your camper, so
(17:14):
when you grab the kids from playpractice you can head out there
with the grandkids and yourcampers all set up and there's
your little slice of slice ofheaven on the river or on the
pond or whatever.
So we're looking at models thatwould serve.
I don't know people 30 to 60miles away, even a mile away,
and they'd have a little sliceof heaven of something that they
(17:35):
could call their own.
And it's not necessarily a big,blown-up, expensive cabin on
the lake, but it's your littleslice and you'd be proud to have
it and proud to probably paypretty good rent to have that.
We're looking at that model thewedding venue.
That revolves around the factthat I have three of my four
daughters living here.
They all would like to bestay-at-home moms and that would
(17:59):
provide an opportunity and,honestly, they're very
well-educated and very and verywell equipped to do it.
They have experience doing whatwe need, and so we're just like
, yeah, we're going to invest inthis.
This is tantamount to leveragewhat you would inherit when I
die and use it today.
(18:19):
Now, it's not necessarilysomething that will pay you to
run to Fiji every year and eatbonbons.
It will allow you to leverageyour inheritance into a business
.
You run a business, but it'snot going to pay you if you
don't work it.
If you're running cows ongrandpa's grass, you better damn
(18:42):
well be there running cows ongrandpa's grass and taking care
of it and building the business.
You can't be jacking around andexpecting it to pay you if
you're not working it, if you'renot pouring your heart and soul
into it.
And they understand that and Iguess that's the model that
we're we're kind of pushing.
It's not, it's not a popularmodel.
(19:04):
With some of the, some of thegenerations older than me,
they're like no, no, you can'tdo that.
You got to hold on to it.
You can't let them use it.
You can't let them have it.
I'm like I don't know.
I'm more inclined to see themblossom with some equity that
they can use while I'm stillalive, some equity that they can
(19:24):
use while I'm still alive.
So I didn't see a lot of otherways to get three of my at least
three now, of the four familiesthat we have as kids, to get
them here and to give them hopefor a future and possibility of
running their own business.
I don't see any other way ofdoing it.
It's tough.
(19:45):
You come back to Gothenburgbecause Gothenburg area, Brady
area, because of you want toraise your kids here, but the
jobs aren't necessarily what youwanted or expected.
They're not necessarily payingyou the housing's not what you
necessarily expected and willyou get anywhere over time.
(20:07):
It's pretty difficult and sothey all want to.
They'll want to start thisbusiness together and it boiled
down to me leveraging whatthey're going to inherit to do
it.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah, it does.
And it's one of those thingstoo that you and I have had
conversations about this before,where you talked about how you
know like and, and I will say atthe time it was a little
twinkle in your eye in the senseof, hey, I figured out how to
take, you know my per acreincome and, and you know, and
(20:42):
you had it all boiled down towith your wedding venue, you
know like the per acre income.
You can do better with awedding venue, even, I think it
like 40% occupancy, you know, tostart with.
Then you are going out and andplanting corn on it, you know,
and so and this is a propertythat wasn't going to be corn
ever anyway, you know it was-.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Right, right, yeah, it.
Does you take the same amountof investment and invest it in
something like that?
It does have a much, muchgreater return at a low
occupancy rate.
You're right.
Are there risks associated withit?
Oh my God, yes there are.
Are there benefits beyond justhaving a business?
I mean, we look at buildingsomething like that and the
opportunities to bless peoplearound us, to have family
(21:21):
reunions heck, to have our ownfamily reunions there.
I just think, allowing peoplelike teammates to use the
facility you know, to have theirmentors out there at the lake
fishing for free father-sonfishing stuff out there at the
lake fishing for free father-sonfishing stuff, fishing clubs,
things like that.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Those are all auxiliary to what we bought the
property for, but they allprovide a lot of blessings in
the community if they come tofruition.
Yeah, it's a neat venture thatyou guys are doing and I'm
excited.
Are you getting closer togetting that, getting that going
, or?
Speaker 4 (21:58):
we're waiting on uh one, uh one conservation
easement proposition from uh,from a company to to perhaps dig
out the west meadow.
And if they were going to dothat, it makes a mess of things
and so we want to, we want toalign any sort of construction
with that mess.
If they really want to do thatand they're, they're talking
(22:20):
about creating some more.
Uh, and then the four, fourdollar and forty cent corn
didn't help the help, the wholething slows things down just a
little bit.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
when you have when your real job that's what I
always say like I, I have a lotof volunteer stuff that I do and
stuff like that, it really,really hurts my day job when I
have to actually go work hard,yeah, no.
So, but I think you know.
What you're touching on, though, is something that I think
everybody in the ag industry islooking at right now and they're
(22:50):
like hey, you know, if this isgoing to be a future for our
family, if this is, you know,because I think a lot of people
believe that the way theagriculture is going, it's going
to go commercial, you know, andso it's basically going to be
investor owned.
And then you hire somebody.
You know you're seeing bigranches in Montana and things
(23:11):
like that that that's exactlywhat's happening.
You know.
To get a half a billion dollarprice tag on a large ranch in
Montana.
You know there's not a whole lotof people that can buy that you
know, and they're probably notgoing to put a cowboy hat on and
learn how to ride a horse andthey're probably going to stay,
you know, in, in, where you know, in Atlanta or wherever.
(23:31):
They're going to stay wherethey're at and going to just
feel good about owning theproperty and what they're doing.
So but no, I think that's aneat idea.
I think you know I hear it allthe time there's lots of people
around here that there's Airbnbsout in the middle of the
country where people have turnedthe loft in their barn into a
(23:51):
really fancy Airbnb and you cango out there and hang out, you
know, in the country and havethat experience.
And I think the good thing Iguess with our kids' generation
is they are a more like Route 66kind of hearted people.
Right, they want to get off theinterstate and they want to go
see what's out there.
They're the ones that are goingto go back and say Nebraska's
(24:14):
not as flat as you think becausewe were in the Sandhills.
You know.
So we know, you know and so soyou know, talk about just like
what?
What are your kids kind ofperspective on this?
You know, like they're movingback, are they excited?
Are they worried?
You know, like what's, what'sthat look like?
Or, you know, you, you're,you're a close family.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
What do you think their thoughts are?
Their thoughts initially werebecause I needed to find out if
they were interested in comingback and farm.
I tell this in jest, but ithappened.
Their thoughts were when I saidall right, are you somebody who
wants to come back and try tofarm with me?
I got to figure this out sooneror later.
And one of them was a ForestService firefighter in Laramie
and another one was a US Marineand he was stationed in Lincoln,
had just gotten out of theMarine Corps and started working
(25:02):
for an aviation company, and Igot a no I'm not your guy.
And I got a hell no.
And I laugh at that.
Now, that's rare.
I mean to oversimplify, I don'twant to put words in their
mouths, simplify, I don't wantto put words in their mouths.
But they basically all startedhaving kids and that woke them
up to the fact that the dualincome passing in the hallway to
(25:25):
hand a baby off, remote fromfamily, I mean to sum it up is
difficult, I mean totallydifficult, to make it anywhere,
paying rent, whatever.
And that brought them all tothe question hey, is there any
way?
Now rewind the clock 30, and Ihad the same conversation with
(25:47):
my dad hey, is there any way?
We were in a situation where Iwas going to be competing for an
internship at the Chicago Boardof Trade and my wife was going
to be the only breadwinnerDidn't know it at the time, she
was pregnant and we would havebeen in Chicago, away from
family, pregnant.
She would have been the onlyincome and I would have had to
compete for the next six monthsfor this job.
It was not looking good.
(26:08):
I thankfully asked my wife whatshe wanted and she was honest.
She says I really don't want togo to Chicago.
I'm like okay, well, thanks fortelling me.
What do you want to do?
She said I want to raise afamily.
I said well, I know you do, andI never talked to Dad about it.
He never pressed it, you know,thank God.
(26:31):
Anyway, I had worked for thestate of Wyoming long enough
that I knew I didn't want towork there, and we sat down and
said okay, we've got to addbasically this amount of gross
revenue to justify yourexistence, because you just
can't come home and startsucking on the same hog that I'm
raising.
And so that worked out sowonderfully.
We had a landowner, that was,we were farming all of his corn
(26:53):
ground and none of his alfalfaground and he offered the
alfalfa ground to us if I wantedto come back and do it.
I'm like, well, yeah, so westarted putting up alfalfa and
that was a godsend that familyinvested in us that way.
Anyway, in hindsight it was agood decision.
I'm posed with that questionwith my kids and I'm like, okay,
well, we got to add something.
And just going out and addingground in a saturated market
(27:16):
that I sure can't afford to buyground and that poses some
issues, and so we startedlooking at what can we add.
And so the conversation hasfostered a lot of open
communication, which is awesomewith my adult children, and they
are 30, 28, 26, and 23.
I miss that.
(27:36):
I miss that.
I miss that by a few years.
Anyway, they're all between 23and 30.
And they're all married andthey're all the last one is
having a baby and they are opento anything that makes this
family operation work.
(27:58):
And we use a pretty simplemetaphor that I have a very
predictable business model andwe'll call her a cow, but that
cow, the milk from that cow,feeds us all one way or another.
If you're a partner and want tobuy a piece of land.
Guess what Revenue comes fromthat cow?
And so I've got to teach youhow to care for that cow and
(28:21):
make sure that nobody but nobodyslices off a piece of that cow
to eat, sells a piece of thatcow, neglects that cow or abuses
that cow in any way, becauseit's the predictable model that
we've fallen into.
That is a very good segmentedfarm.
It's very predictable and whatit can do and will do and you
(28:47):
can't expect much less from ityou can't expect much more from
it.
So there are finite resourcesthere that we have to deal with,
and the kids are really fun togo through that conversation
with and see them understand, oh, okay.
So, yeah, we do have to makechoices there and we have to.
Why are we doing that?
Well, we're investing in thatfor for your kids.
(29:08):
Yeah, okay, okay, I understand,and they're they're
understanding a lot more abouthow to use leverage and not to
be afraid of some leverage.
That's a big hurdle.
Some of them were real saversand save it then spend it, save
it up then spend it, and that'sprobably no way to farm.
(29:30):
You have some serious, seriousdifficulty farming that way.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, well, that makes total sense, hunter.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Let's take it quick, go.
No, I did your.
Your initial question is whatdo the kids think?
I think the kids are, uh,coming into it a little
wide-eyed like, oh boy, this is,this is different than what we
thought.
Um, a lot more happens in theboardroom than happens out in
the field and we don'tnecessarily get to do fun things
(30:00):
and sometimes we take homeproblems we have to think about.
I still think it's good for allof us.
Everybody says you should leavework at home and I'm like, yeah
, a little bit of I don't knowexactly how to fix that problem
is not too horrible to go to bedwith sometimes.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah Well, not only that, but I know your wife and
she's a lot like mine.
A lot of times that gets solvedpretty quick when you have a
refreshing.
You know you talk aboutsomething with your spouse.
They're probably smarter thanwe are.
So you know a lot of times thathelps solve it too.
But uh, no, I I think it'sinteresting talking about the uh
(30:41):
, the family dynamic because,like, I know, like listening to
my dad, you know and I don'tknow.
You know, our parents are thesimilar generation, but my dad
was basically in California andgot a phone call from him.
Dad said, get your butt on,it's time to go to work.
You know, and so he was.
He was going out there to be,you know, to be something else
and do something else, and therereally wasn't any choice.
(31:01):
You know, and it kind of trackswith you know, like kind of how
his attitude was for a longtime, you know.
And so so it's great that you're, you know, it's great that our
(31:22):
parents were more of, oh, you'reinterested in it.
Yeah, come, you know like comeon back.
And then again, you know,giving you that heart to create
that environment so that yourkids feel like you know they're
welcome to come back and be apart of it.
And not only that, but you'regoing to work with them on how
to be successful, you know, likecreating that success for the
future, and so that's reallyreally awesome.
Let's take a quick break andwhen we come back, joe.
Let's dig into this liketechnology, because that's
something that, like I said, ithas changed a million percent
(31:45):
since I was planting corn andsoybeans and stuff when I was a
kid years ago.
So let's take a quick break andwe will be right back.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Land isn't just dirt.
It's where memories are made,families are raised and
livelihoods are built.
But when it comes time to sellor buy, the weight of the
decision is heavy.
Where do you even start?
Who can you trust to guide you?
(32:16):
For too long, land transactionshave been treated like a simple
exchange Numbers on a paper, asignature on a line.
But it's more than that.
At High Point Land Company, wedon't just list land, we walk it
, we learn, learn its story andwe find the right buyer who
(32:39):
understands its worth.
You are not just another deal,you are the steward of something
bigger and we're here to helpyou navigate every step of the
way.
When it's time to sell, whenit's time to buy.
(33:01):
We're here Because land is morethan just land.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
It's your legacy.
Get started on this, becauseI'm going to be so fascinated I
think this is probably going togo long, because I am so
intrigued with the technologythat's going into farming.
But I just want to make onecomment.
You made the point to mentionthat your daughters have all
made the conscious decision tobe stay-at-home moms.
I think that's kind of great.
You know, like, in a worldwhere we're told we can be
anything we want, I think veryrarely is it intended that
stay-at-home mom is somethingthat they're intending on that,
and I think it's going to begreat for your kids and your
(34:01):
grandkids, I mean, and your kids, and so that's awesome.
So kudos to you and your wifefor raising kids that are
courageous enough to take thatstance and make that their goal.
So, transitioning intotechnology and farming this is
probably something that at theend of the year, when you're
done harvesting, we should doanother podcast, joe, and just
(34:22):
dig into, like all of it.
You know, because when you weretalking about you know, using
what your assets are to createnew opportunities that's not.
That's also true in the field,right?
That's not.
That's also true in the field,right?
So you're looking at everythingfrom mastering carbon credits
to like the technology on your,on your harvesting equipment,
(34:43):
your planners, your, everythingthat goes through the field is
giving you data.
So let's start there.
Well, gosh, since we were kids,man lots changed, right?
Speaker 4 (34:52):
I, uh, I gotta tell you so much has changed since 10
, 15 years ago.
We were pretty early on with alot of guys collecting data, but
we get caught in the problem ofnow what do I do with this?
How do I make actionabledecisions, actionable data?
(35:12):
How do you get that out of allof this?
Sat back one year workingmyself to death, death.
Say that I'm blessed.
I've got a great ability to tryto run this farm.
My point is that I was notgetting all the jobs done that I
should, and so I chose the onesthat I wasn't doing very well
(35:33):
and I tried to hire them out.
One of those were was datamanipulation, data collection,
data and uh so found a companyum started dealing with them.
They rolled in, created a newcompany, um, I can name them
crop tech solutions ingothenburg.
Sure started dealing with themfrom from day one.
Um came in with just Strasbergfrom Sand Valley Ag and they
(35:58):
were trying to answer questionsfor me, and over the course of
now it's been 16 years, 14, 15,16 years.
We have developed a methodology.
They do a very good job ofhandling just my God, just a
load of data.
I can't believe the data.
It's millions of points of dataand just to give you a sense of
(36:25):
what we do, we don't do allthis on paper but I have a copy
of what I can show somebody likea landowner, because it's hard
to present this kind of data.
But I can show you and justhold up quickly and describe
where we start.
And where we start is a veryspecific look at fertility and
we, we, uh, we grid sample everytwo and a half acres every year
(36:48):
and that costs a load of moneyit's like it's 40, 50,000,
$50,000 a year but end up withgrids on every element that we
need to track that look likethat and from that, like I said,
I don't have all this on paper,this is all done digitally.
From that we get actual spreadand fertilization
(37:11):
recommendations that look likethis and you see the gray is
zero and the red is a whole crapton and so very specifically
going to put nutrients where itsays it needs it.
We watch trend analysis and ofevery element you can think of
under the sun, we make sure thatour next year is just as good
(37:33):
as this year and we're notmining or causing some problem.
All of that data goes to servewith CECs and pH and everything
else that has to do with thatland, serve to provide us with
polygons that we go on variablerate seeding and variable rate
fertilizing.
And just to give you an idea,this seeding map I just showed
(37:57):
you runs everywhere from 19,000plants to 34,000 plants.
So that was something that wasforeign to us 12 years ago.
It was like, well, set theplanter at 32, something like
that.
But they use the data and ifyou've ever seen the movie
Moneyball, they use that all thetime.
But you use the data to findout who should be on the mound,
(38:19):
who should be on first base andwho should be at bat, and you
trust the data.
No matter what the guy lookslike, no matter what the guy
acts like he has a relativehistory of getting doubles and
triples you put him on the back,anyway.
So that's what they do.
They take all this sort of dataand blend it with seed corn
company data, blend it withuniversity data, blend it with
(38:43):
all the different studies thatcome out as to the aspects of
different fertility schemes andalgorithms and we get very
specific with it.
I mean, there are times whenthey come up and say, well, you
don't need anything there I'mlike are you sure, or you're not
so sure.
It's not something you reallywant.
If a little's good, a lot'sbetter.
And they broke me of that habit.
(39:04):
No more drugs, my butts areover.
So we spend all this moneysaying specifically where it
should go, and then they'll goand do some composite samples,
which would be the old way, the1990s.
You run 80 acres of compositesamples, dump them in a bucket,
mix them around, get onerecommendation and you do the
(39:26):
whole 80.
And they'll do those samplestoday in this method and every
time they do it.
This method applies lessfertilizer and makes more money
at the other end.
So at the other end we haveyield goals on those.
(39:48):
I don't know if you can see thatOn those zones we have yield
goals for each one of those, andthose yield goals run from 188
bushel an acre, 188 all the wayto 285.
That is money ball at its best.
It is saying you know what?
You've got data backed into themid 2000s that say that that
(40:11):
particular acre won't do anygood, won't do any good, won't
do any better, and so we're notgoing to dump the inputs there.
But this other acre over hereit'll do 285 gold, which means
it can be 300 corn easy anyway.
So we uh, we have feedback allthe time from these algorithms
on how they're doing and inseason feedback from companies
(40:34):
like justin sand, stancilIrrigation, things like that.
That'll tell us how thealgorithms are doing, whether
the fertility algorithms areshorting us in any way, and they
run their models and our localdata.
But we've gotten pretty goodproof that we're super efficient
or very efficient.
I'm sure there's always roomfor improvement.
(40:55):
We run about a 0.75 nitrogenuse efficiency, which is hands
and heads above what the oldrecommendations used to be.
So we seem to be very efficientthere.
And then the best piece ofinformation that they've come up
with lately is a statisticalanalysis of how close we came to
that yield goal.
(41:16):
And I told you that thatbusiness model was a cow and
that that cow was verypredictable in what it would
produce in milk.
They've honed this down.
We don't guess much, barring ahailstorm, barring some freak of
screwed up you know, oh, gee, Ididn't turn the damn planter on
or something but barringsomething like that, um, the
(41:39):
technology provided ineverything that we do with the,
the planters, right through thecombine, how we water, when we
water, how we fertilize, when weapply it, split, apply all that
technology boils down to wherewe we hit.
We hit um between 98% and 107%of our yield goal last year and
(42:03):
that 98 number was a smallhailstorm in one field and
that's why that fell at 98.
The rest of them just true tothe numbers.
And the numbers that say thisis your max ROI, that should be
your yield goal.
True to the numbers they justlanded right there.
(42:25):
It's very predictable and it'sbaffling to me that it's that
predictable.
We've always just been kind ofwell.
I liked that hybrid last yearand I think this would be enough
fertilizer to put out and Ireally hope it works out.
That's how you control what youcan control, because too much
(42:47):
of the other is uncontrollable.
And these boys have helped medrill down to a very predictable
model and that's something Ireally didn't see coming 20
years ago.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Yeah, that's.
I think what you said was kindof interesting was this is like
think a lot of people think likeI just learned something across
the field.
Your goal should be to try andget it all to be equal.
Right, we're telling me it is.
It doesn't matter what you doin this spot.
You can plant, you know, corn,three, three kernels of corn on
(43:18):
top of each other all the waythrough.
It's not going to do any better.
So slow down your seed ratio tothat particular area because it
doesn't yield out anymore, nomatter what, saving you on your
seed.
And then you're still gettingthe yield goal.
That's fascinating.
Speaker 4 (43:36):
It's really the ROI, and boy it's tough to play money
ball, though I got to tell youit's tough to listen to the data
.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Yeah, I bet.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
You, really the guys will call me.
They're like do you know, thisprescription is only dropping
22,000 plants out here in themiddle of the pivot.
And I'm like, yeah, I know, Iknow, I see it Yellow spot,
close your eyes, hold your noseand keep going.
And so, but these guys, theseguys with crop tech, they're
(44:07):
kind of fun to play with,they're techies, but they'll put
blind blocks out in our fieldson what stuff we want to study.
We want to study highfertilizer, low fertilizer.
We want to study highpopulation, low population.
We want to see what this does,what that product does, what
that product does without.
And we did fungicide tests lastyear across the, across the
field, stuff like that.
(44:28):
It's it's fun to look at thedata, but they do it blindly.
And so you just come up on onsomething and your monitor
starts to beat when planting thewrong population and you're
like what the what the dang guysput that out there in the
middle of nowhere well, that's,that's like the big thing.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
I can remember when I first got into rotary, I had
somebody came in and they were,you know, like it was a pretty
good size farmer from west hereand he had like the wind
spinners and all this otherstuff and he had all the data he
could possibly have, and oneone farmer that was in the group
that he was like stuck his handup.
He says what are you gainingoff of this?
What we don't really know yet,but we've got the data, you know
(45:07):
, and so you know, and so I Ithink it's funny that you know,
like you're you're nowimplementing a lot of that stuff
that these guys were doing atthe time.
You know, like that, thatthey're being able to implement
that and make it make an impacton on what you're doing and
saving you some money and really, really is the epitome of
focusing on ROI.
Speaker 4 (45:28):
I mean, what you do, you do 10 or 12 things just a
little better.
It's all better and there areno magic bullets, but you can,
if the data.
Data can, can prove out that Ican shave 20 bucks an acre off a
seed by lowering those poorproducing areas and save some
fertilizer, and or just dump itover here so it yields better in
(45:50):
those areas.
Uh, that's the, that's thewhole.
The whole key is to maximizeand get the roi on it now that's
I mean when you're talkingtechnology, you know, like that.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
That fascinates me.
That aspect I guess I had neverheard how they're you know,
like how that's an I knew theywere talking about.
Like your sprayer on your, yourboom sprayer on your deal can
hit all the way across.
Every nozzle can hit adifferent rate going through.
You know, and so they're youknow, and they're getting to the
(46:24):
point where I think likethey're almost being able to
sample soil as it's theimplements going through the
field.
To kind of give you an idea ofyou know similar, similar
technology.
But the one that really got mewas I was talking to the drone
guys and they were talking abouthow their camp they have like
four or five different camerason the drones and with the
sprayer systems on them, andthen like four or five different
cameras on the drones and withthe sprayer systems on them, and
then the drone's going throughlooking for weeds and it'll just
go find that weed and kill thatwheat.
(46:44):
You know, like that's literallyto where we're at now.
Instead of you got you know 6000 weeds in a field.
You run the boom, you know, yourun the sprayer through and
kill those weeds.
Now you can just that that.
Send that drone out.
It'll go out and kill themindividually.
Speaker 4 (46:58):
It's kind of insane.
The part of that that's missingthat I've just become aware of
is that all sounds awesome untilyou look at the pricing model
and the software will charge youX amount, a really low amount,
(47:18):
for something that was sprayedblanket.
But on something that was notsprayed because of the
technology, it'll charge you $15an acre and so, at the end of
the day excellent technology itkept me from using as much as a
blanket operation would haveused for a product.
(47:40):
But the pricing model you'renot quite there yet didn't save
me money right, but I think Ithink you're under to it's going
to, I think, the moreimplementation gets put into it.
I want to see it If thatsoftware remains proprietary and
(48:00):
we are trading or robbing Peterto pay Paul and it doesn't net
me anything.
This is a free country.
They can price it how they wantto.
But I was a little surprised athow much you end up paying for
the technology that you skip.
It really eats into the profits.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
When you start talking about strapping another
$100,000 to my sprayer yeah, Iguess just to finish up here,
joe kind of I guess my industrysees we look at our crystal ball
, we kind of look at what thefuture is going to do I honestly
believe you're going to have anormalization.
You're going to have kind of aquiet this year.
I don't think you're going tohave a normalization, you're
(48:39):
going to have a kind of a quietthis year.
I don't think you're going tosee astronomical increases.
I don't really see us having,you know, drop in prices.
Farmland's never corrected Imean very rarely.
If it did, it's very subtlewith the exception of some time
in the 80s where you had, likeyou know, 50% correction.
That caused a lot of stress.
But what's?
your thoughts on?
(49:00):
Are you optimistic?
Where you had, like you know,50% correction, that caused a
lot of stress.
But what's your thoughts on?
Are you optimistic?
I know you know like, lookingat commodity prices and input
values and all this stuff, itkind of looks pretty bleak.
But are you kind of I mean,it's kind of being a farmer,
isn't it?
It's kind of you go throughthese times where it's, you know
, kind of like we're similar inthat there's times where I don't
know how I'm going to eattomorrow and there's times where
(49:22):
we're looking at boats to buy.
It just depends on the month.
Speaker 4 (49:31):
Well, we know it's cyclical.
We lament when there's just nomargin, fortunate as of late in
the last month, to provide justa little bit of margin and the
market moved since January.
But you know, if this isanother, I just can't tell you
how long it's going to last.
That's the problem.
I mean, if this is another 14,15, 16, 17, where we just had,
(49:54):
you know, flat prices with verylittle margin, the market's
doing what it's supposed to bedoing.
It's supposed to be finding abreakeven, operating almost
below that breakeven and weedingout those who can't make it,
and that sucks.
But that's a fact of life ineconomics.
We just don't know if it'sgoing to turn around on a
(50:14):
drought because of the weatherthis year.
We don't know if it's going toturn around in 2029.
I can't tell you.
But, quite honestly,everybody's operating in a below
break-even method.
If they want to raise soybeansright now, a small margin in
corn, we have a lot of specialtycrops that we raise.
(50:35):
We raise food grade corn, weraise popcorn, things like that.
We're trying to foster thoserelationships so we can hold on
to those margins, because thatwill keep us slightly in the
black and I would tell you thatthose would keep me in the black
and keep me viable until thegood market returns someday.
That has eroded, and that'seroded because of the overhead
(50:58):
costs of equipment.
I can't fathom how some of thedeals we used to make for a
couple of combines every year atthe $100,000 level have now
gone to $200,000 or $300,000annually, and the prices of
tractors have once doubled.
And I can't fathom how narrowmargins hold on by your
(51:22):
fingernail until prices returnFive, six years later.
Those three things cost ofliving, taxes and depreciation
are a draw on whatever you do.
And so while on paper I canbreak the farm even all three of
those taxes, depreciation, costof living, lowered or added
(51:42):
debt to our farm.
And that's where we are, and weknow we're going to try not to
do that at a hell of a rate.
You better figure out what yourcost of living and taxes and
depreciation are and try to holdon, but any minute it could
break.
I got to tell you we're theeternal optimists.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
If you're not optimistic, you shouldn't be in
Farling.
You can't figure out how to doit.
Speaker 4 (52:09):
You can turn on the news and old Eric Snodgrass
could tell you that the biggestdrought is going to hit east of
us.
And, lordy, hold the farm.
We're going to have $9 corn youjust never know when it's
coming and so that's the carrotthat we hold out.
I think we're holding thecarrot.
I don't think anybody's holdingit.
We are the ones holding it,holding it up and chasing it at
the same time.
Haven't figured out a realthing?
Speaker 1 (52:36):
now the uh.
Well, I appreciate you takingthe time to do this.
I've been for a long time justbecause of the fact that I have
a lot of industry specialists inhere, but we've just never had
a producer that we've gotten inhere to sit down and talk to,
and so I really appreciate yourinsight and I really pray that
you and your family continue tobe blessed.
And so anything you want to add, normally I tell people how do
(52:58):
we get ahold of blessed, youknow.
And so anything you want to add, I normally I tell people out
of how do we get a hold of you,but I don't know.
If you want any money out there.
Let's listen to the podcast toreach you, but you sure can
throw your info out there ifyou'd like.
Speaker 4 (53:14):
Well, if anybody's trying to search for us,
sometimes Canyon Farms willcatch us.
We changed our name used to bernj walgren farms and now we're
uh, the kids and I and my wifewill be canyon farms, having to
live on gulch canyon nice yousee that on the side of a truck.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Someday you'll know who it is now I'll know, because
I there's a lot of times whereI'll see trucks and I'll be like
it'll take me a couple weeks tofigure out who that is.
Because of it, like that, yourfamilies are coming back and a
lot of times you have a bunch ofdaughters.
So, walgren, maybe isn't goingto make sense in 20 years if
they're all something else.
Speaker 4 (53:50):
So that's smart.
It was the root of that name,yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
That's very cool.
Well, I appreciate you takingthe time to do this again.
It's very cool.
Well, I appreciate you takingthe time to do this again and we
will see you all down the road.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
Take care as we wrap up another episode of the
American Land Seller Podcast.
Thank you for joining us.
Visit wwwamericanlandsellercomand find us on one of your
favorite podcast platforms.
If you would be so kind and youenjoyed today's insights,
please like, subscribe, rate,follow and review us on whatever
app you are listening orwatching on.
Connect with us on social mediafor updates.
(54:26):
Until next week, kobe wishesyou success in your land
endeavors.
God bless you and have a greatweek.
The.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
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Today on the American Land Seller, we have the
privilege of speaking with JoeWalgren, a fork generation
farmer from Gothenburg, nebraska.
Joe and his wife Diane beganfarming in 1993 with Joe's
parents and have since expandedtheir operation to around 5,000
irrigated acres.
They raise food grade corn forFrito-Lay, soybeans, popcorn and
(00:22):
alfalfa.
Joe is a strong believer inusing data to drive farming
decisions.
He employs a combination ofshallow, strip-till, no-till and
cover crops in his rotations.
He also collects extensive datato ensure that inputs and
hybrids are placed on the bestacre.
This data-driven approach,combined with the latest in farm
technology, allowed Joe tomaximize yields and operate more
(00:46):
efficiently.
In 2024, joe and Diane formed anew partnership with two of
their daughters and son-in-lawsParker and Kennedy Trower and
Brayden and Kaylee Brundage.
The new partnership is calledCanyon Farms.
The family has set goals and atimeline that will transition
labor management and ownershipto the new partners.
The family sees this goals anda timeline that will transition
labor management and ownershipto the new partners.
The family sees this transitionas a truly exciting effort as
(01:09):
the fifth and sixth generationscome on board.
Joe is a three-year Letterman,offensive tackle for the Wyoming
Cowboys and received hisBachelor's of Science in
agribusiness.
Diane received an associatedegree from Southeastern
Community College in Lincoln andthe two returned home to begin
their family in 1992.
Joe often relates that he wasborn an offensive lineman, never
(01:31):
afraid of setting the stage orpushing the load for those that
follow.
Joe understands that his roleis now to open a path for the
next generation.
Let's dive in and learn aboutJoe's journey, his vision for
the future of Canyon Farms andthe exciting transition to the
next generation.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Welcome to the American Land Seller Podcast
with your host, kobe Rickardson.
Kobe is an accredited landconsultant and multi-state land
broker with High Point LandCompany.
Join us each week as we exploreall things land.
We bring you fresh insights andexpert guests on sales,
marketing, regulations,economics and so much more.
(02:11):
Visit wwwamericanlandsellercomand find us on one of your
favorite podcast platforms.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Okay, Kobe and our special guests, let's get
started.
Okay, Kobe and our specialguests.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Let's get started.
Hey everybody, welcome back tothe American Land Seller Podcast
.
We are here with Joe Walgren, aNebraska farmer I'm going to
talk about.
I've been really excited aboutdoing this particular episode
because I deal on the marketingand selling side of land all the
time.
I grew up in a family farm, ourfamilies kind of went away from
(02:48):
farming.
We still own farm ground, sowe're investors, but we aren't
producers anymore, as myimmediate family or my.
But I did grow up on a farm andso it's going to be kind of fun
for me to to talk to Joe alittle bit about.
You know, last time I drove atractor, I think, I think we had
to actually hold on to thesteering wheel the whole way
through, and so we're going todig into technology and what's
(03:10):
going on.
But let's start Joe.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
How are you today?
I'm real well, I'm inside andI'm warm.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
That's right, it's been a little bit of a frosty
winter.
It started out mild and then itgot into a little bit chilly.
So and the groundhog, I guess,a while back said that we're
supposed to have a longer winterthan normal.
So Happens every year, we'llsee, yeah.
We'll see, I don't think thatguy knows what he's talking
about, so let's talk about likeit's my podcast, so I get to
(03:36):
talk about what I want.
So we're going to talk aboutland values and how that's
affecting the producer right outthe gate.
I know that over the last five,six years we've really seen
values of land just jump up andincrease.
That's got to have a kind of amaybe neutral or negative effect
on us to what you guys aretrying to do.
Talk just a little bit aboutwhere you're at with as far as a
(03:58):
player as.
Are you buying?
Are you kind of on thesidelines right now hanging out
being written from investors?
How's that look for?
Speaker 4 (04:06):
you.
We, in particular, grew anoperation with my parents over
the last 35 years and my dad'sout of it now.
But in that time we purchasedland and we also let land go.
And we let it go because it wasoverpriced.
Right, they say when should youbuy?
When's the best time to buyland?
And they say whenever it's forsale.
That's what I say.
(04:28):
But we didn't necessarily havethe means or it didn't make
sense to us, or Jeepers I mean,we're just financially not ready
to leverage like that, and sowe let some stuff go.
Of course, hindsight, you wishyou would have bought it all,
but I don't think I could haveswung it All.
That being said, over 35 yearswe purchased our share of good
(04:48):
ground.
That made sense and a lot of itcame from relationships that we
had.
It wasn't us out pursuing itwas hey, that farms well with
your farm.
You've been farming it, Lovethe relationship, Want to buy it
.
And of course we expressed tothose that we farm for that yeah
, if it.
And of course we express tothose that we farm for that yeah
, if you ever want to sell, we'dbe more than interested.
(05:10):
So that has always gone on andwe added quite a bit of land
over 35 years.
We leveraged to get there.
The math, however, has changed,and it's not just the
inflationary measures that haveforced everything up, but,
rather than looking at 150% ofrent or 160, 70% of rent the
(05:35):
values now of the I don't wantto call him an outside investor,
because there are still farmersor farm owners that are flush
enough and need somedepreciation that they're out
there bidding.
What I would tell you was 50%more than the land should ever
(05:56):
sell for as far as compared toearnings, and so that's what
we've seen in the last couple ofyears is these $14,000 bids,
and I'm a numbers guy and I gotto tell you at that level I'm
probably a renter.
The family owns a couplethousand acres of irrigated
farmland and it's leveraged topay for what we've added, and I
(06:18):
don't see an avenue to leveragewhat I have to seek a 2% return.
So we're actually looking at,we want to deal with the people
that we rent from.
We'd love to talk to them aboutperhaps selling someday at a
fair level, whatever it is, butI'm not actively out there
seeking other land to bring intothe fold at $14,000 an acre,
(06:42):
because I don't have an extraincome coming in and that's what
we run into is ethanol money orwhatever it is, coming into an
operation and then running thebids up to where I don't think
it's viable.
I don't think it's viable forme to leverage to that level,
seeking a 2% after-tax return.
So that's the change.
(07:04):
I guess all that said.
That's the change.
I didn't see that really coming.
I didn't think that wouldaffect us that much.
I look at Illinois and Iowaland values being affected by
influx of money that doesn'thave anything to do with the
farm.
I never really figured WesternNebraska was one of those areas
that was going to be affectedthat much by it, but here she is
(07:25):
.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, I mean you know , and again, like we have, I
think, what Bill Gates is one ofthe largest landowners in the
county that I live in.
So you know it's just crazy Iagree with you on that that how
much outside.
You know, when we grew up itwas kind of just all producer
owned very.
You know there was a fewplayers and investment stuff,
(07:47):
but that was never anything thatI ever saw.
You know growing up that wewere ever going to have
investors in the land world.
And then you know, like thepush to offline land or online
it into a different purpose iskind of been kind of fascinating
in my industry too.
Like we have a family thatmaybe owns 3,500 acres that will
(08:09):
sell off all but 200 acres ofit and start growing corn for
whiskey, you know, and so stufflike that.
It's just so you have a certainpercentage of of your product
that you're making on the farm.
So you can say, hey, it's allfarm grown, but you're also can
go out and buy your inputs thatyou're making on the farm.
So you can say, hey, it's allfarm grown, but you also can go
out and buy your inputs that youneed to make that.
So I totally agree with you andit's been kind of fascinating
(08:31):
to me to see, like I said, someof that transitioning outside of
into you know.
You know side by side trailsystems or or like you were just
talking about tourism basedagriculture.
You know like so I definitelyget that.
Do you think like I?
(08:51):
I always say that, um, like, myjob is to find, take the
property and put it in the rightlight in front of the right
people to get the most value outof it, and so that kind of
clashes a lot of times with whatproducers.
You know like we, I get it alot from the producers in the
sense of you're driving up landprices and putting me out of
business.
You know, and so I look at it,you know, in a different light
(09:13):
than that, but you know, whenyou're considering it is, I
believe it, kind of yings andyangs.
I think you're going toprobably see.
You know like the right.
Now we're seeing anormalization or stabilization
in land prices.
There's other things people areinterested in putting their
money into and stuff like that.
We've seen Bill Gates and someof those big players pull way
(09:33):
back.
Really, in Nebraska, thebiggest people that are still
buying are the, you know, lds,the church, and so it's kind of
going to be an interestingcouple of years.
Do you think maybe there's apathway where you guys are going
to be able to get back on track, to maybe start looking at hey,
we're back in the game and whatprice range do you think that's
got to be in for that to happen?
Speaker 4 (09:55):
If I've got a 50-year history which I do with several
of our landowners and it comesup for sale because of a death
in the family or transition fromgeneration to generation, they
all have a standing knowledgethat we want to purchase.
So I've got to make it fair.
So play it out.
(10:15):
I have one agreement where theyare going to call an appraiser
and they're going to comeappraise the ground and my dad
and I have first to comeappraise the ground and my dad
and I have first right to buy itat that level.
That seems fair.
That's more than I could everexpect from anybody.
That is awesome.
(10:39):
Appraise that baby until the$14,000 is in the neighborhood.
And then it's like oh gosh well, appraiser can't ignore that.
Gosh well, appraiser can'tignore that.
Perhaps can average that with,I don't know, a $9,000 or a
$10,000 sale in the neighborhood.
But anyway, I slice it.
The honest-to-goodness fairprice is now elevated to $3,000,
(11:04):
$4,000 higher than I thought itshould be.
I would bend over backwards atthe $10,000 level, $11,000 level
, any day to purchase something.
I have a history on that'sentered over my operation.
I have no problem.
It's going to get painful whenyou start chipping in an extra
quarter million, an extra half amillion, an extra three-fourths
(11:25):
of a million, just because Ialready have leverage.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, well, it's an interesting point that you make.
I think, honestly, I'm not anappraiser, but I deal with it
enough to know that most of thetime that high end and that very
low end because there's theother side of that too, there's
grandpa selling it to thegrandson or whatever that's
going to be like that, yeah, soI think they take those top and
(11:52):
bottom like numbers, like theone or 2% of the very top and
the bottom, and they throw thoseout.
But you're all right though.
I mean there's been a lot more14, 15, you know, 13,000 sales,
probably in the last year notlast year, but the last three or
four years that I ever thoughtI'd see in this industry.
So that's, you know, that'sjust putting a list, you know,
(12:13):
putting a sign out there,listing it, marketing it and
selling it.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
I'm not buying it for me either.
I'm the fifth generation andsix and seven are just down the
road here and we're trying totransition into how does this
keep going?
Because just if you grow or youdie, that's an old business
mantra and I can't see how mygrowth in 35 years from 1,600 to
(12:41):
5,000, I don't see how that canparlay into 12,000, 13,000.
So we're going to grow in someway, but somehow in other
industries I'm afraid, um, we'llhave to be the avenue for us to
be diversified, I guess.
But the uh, the base that I dohave, we're circling the wagons
(13:05):
one way or another.
We're circling the wagonstrying to trying to uh, figure
out how to make it available two, three, four generations down
the line.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, now that's.
I mean, that's it's.
It's impressive that yourcommitment is that way in a, in
a world where I think that'sthat's kind of one of those
things, that it's a smallerpercentage of people that are
are their.
Their goal is to transition onto the next generation.
You know, like a lot of uh, alot of people I think nowadays
are are just trying to surviveas long as they can.
(13:38):
So it's a.
It's a.
It's really kind of fun towatch you guys.
I know it's challenging, butlet's take a quick break and we
will be right back.
The American Land Seller Podcastis brought to you in part by
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(14:01):
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And we're back here with JoeLogren.
(14:22):
He's a Nebraska farmer, logrenFarms from Brady, nebraska, and
Joe, right before the break youhad kind of hinted to.
You know like your goal as afamily has been to put that
sixth and seventh generation onthe farm.
You know, help those guys.
You know, keep the family closeand help those guys be
(14:43):
successful going forward in aworld of you know, it's really
kind of tough to get started.
It's absolutely tough to getstarted as a farmer right now.
I mean, if you aren't, I'mtelling you my son that was his,
you know, his heart was to be afarmer and my dad had to sit,
you know like my dad had to sitdown with him and say, bud, even
(15:04):
if I gave you all the land thatI have for you to farm, he says
you still have to go take threeor four million dollars and get
the equipment and I'm notreally at a point in my life to
get in it with you, you know.
And so you know jumping into itif you aren't already into it,
or you know, is really difficult, know is is really difficult,
um, but you mentioned that, hey,we're going to live.
(15:25):
We're looking at stuff that'slike non-traditional, that, um,
you know that we can do to helpimprove our, our annual income
and and maybe createopportunities for those guys
that are coming back and workingwith you in the farm.
Talk just a little bit aboutwhat are you guys looking at?
What's that look like?
Is it?
Are you, are you kind of afraidof it, or is it exciting?
How does that look?
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Yes, I would say not afraid of much in this world.
I think you put good peoplearound you, you'll figure it out
.
But we are committing to workthings out because we don't have
all the T's crossed and all theI's dotted.
But we are looking at a weddingvenue, an event venue in a
rural setting.
I think that that couldpossibly fly.
(16:08):
We're looking at, perhaps, anAirbnb cabin on a lake several
of those.
All of this revolves aroundeverybody wants a little slice
of heaven round.
Everybody wants a little sliceof heaven, and I've been
(16:29):
fortunate enough.
My grandpa and my dad purchaseda small cabin on a local lake
in 1976.
And I wish they would havebought 10 of them.
They're really valuable now,but I grew up there and my kids
grew up there and their kids aregrowing up there, and while I
can sit back and say how awesomeit is that they invested, that
my dad invested and that Icontinue to invest in that to
(16:51):
give us a spot, I look around.
There are thousands of otherswho want a little slice of
heaven, and so how do youprovide that?
I mean, it's a limited resourceand so we have looked at some
of our property and anotherproperty that we're talking to
some people about creating thatlittle slice of heaven for them,
whether that be a long termplace to park your camper, so
(17:14):
when you grab the kids from playpractice you can head out there
with the grandkids and yourcampers all set up and there's
your little slice of slice ofheaven on the river or on the
pond or whatever.
So we're looking at models thatwould serve.
I don't know people 30 to 60miles away, even a mile away,
and they'd have a little sliceof heaven of something that they
(17:35):
could call their own.
And it's not necessarily a big,blown-up, expensive cabin on
the lake, but it's your littleslice and you'd be proud to have
it and proud to probably paypretty good rent to have that.
We're looking at that model thewedding venue.
That revolves around the factthat I have three of my four
daughters living here.
They all would like to bestay-at-home moms and that would
(17:59):
provide an opportunity and,honestly, they're very
well-educated and very and verywell equipped to do it.
They have experience doing whatwe need, and so we're just like
, yeah, we're going to invest inthis.
This is tantamount to leveragewhat you would inherit when I
die and use it today.
(18:19):
Now, it's not necessarilysomething that will pay you to
run to Fiji every year and eatbonbons.
It will allow you to leverageyour inheritance into a business
.
You run a business, but it'snot going to pay you if you
don't work it.
If you're running cows ongrandpa's grass, you better damn
(18:42):
well be there running cows ongrandpa's grass and taking care
of it and building the business.
You can't be jacking around andexpecting it to pay you if
you're not working it, if you'renot pouring your heart and soul
into it.
And they understand that and Iguess that's the model that
we're we're kind of pushing.
It's not, it's not a popularmodel.
(19:04):
With some of the, some of thegenerations older than me,
they're like no, no, you can'tdo that.
You got to hold on to it.
You can't let them use it.
You can't let them have it.
I'm like I don't know.
I'm more inclined to see themblossom with some equity that
they can use while I'm stillalive, some equity that they can
(19:24):
use while I'm still alive.
So I didn't see a lot of otherways to get three of my at least
three now, of the four familiesthat we have as kids, to get
them here and to give them hopefor a future and possibility of
running their own business.
I don't see any other way ofdoing it.
It's tough.
(19:45):
You come back to Gothenburgbecause Gothenburg area, Brady
area, because of you want toraise your kids here, but the
jobs aren't necessarily what youwanted or expected.
They're not necessarily payingyou the housing's not what you
necessarily expected and willyou get anywhere over time.
(20:07):
It's pretty difficult and sothey all want to.
They'll want to start thisbusiness together and it boiled
down to me leveraging whatthey're going to inherit to do
it.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah, it does.
And it's one of those thingstoo that you and I have had
conversations about this before,where you talked about how you
know like and, and I will say atthe time it was a little
twinkle in your eye in the senseof, hey, I figured out how to
take, you know my per acreincome and, and you know, and
(20:42):
you had it all boiled down towith your wedding venue, you
know like the per acre income.
You can do better with awedding venue, even, I think it
like 40% occupancy, you know, tostart with.
Then you are going out and andplanting corn on it, you know,
and so and this is a propertythat wasn't going to be corn
ever anyway, you know it was-.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Right, right, yeah, it.
Does you take the same amountof investment and invest it in
something like that?
It does have a much, muchgreater return at a low
occupancy rate.
You're right.
Are there risks associated withit?
Oh my God, yes there are.
Are there benefits beyond justhaving a business?
I mean, we look at buildingsomething like that and the
opportunities to bless peoplearound us, to have family
(21:21):
reunions heck, to have our ownfamily reunions there.
I just think, allowing peoplelike teammates to use the
facility you know, to have theirmentors out there at the lake
fishing for free father-sonfishing stuff out there at the
lake fishing for free father-sonfishing stuff, fishing clubs,
things like that.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Those are all auxiliary to what we bought the
property for, but they allprovide a lot of blessings in
the community if they come tofruition.
Yeah, it's a neat venture thatyou guys are doing and I'm
excited.
Are you getting closer togetting that, getting that going
, or?
Speaker 4 (21:58):
we're waiting on uh one, uh one conservation
easement proposition from uh,from a company to to perhaps dig
out the west meadow.
And if they were going to dothat, it makes a mess of things
and so we want to, we want toalign any sort of construction
with that mess.
If they really want to do thatand they're, they're talking
(22:20):
about creating some more.
Uh, and then the four, fourdollar and forty cent corn
didn't help the help, the wholething slows things down just a
little bit.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
when you have when your real job that's what I
always say like I, I have a lotof volunteer stuff that I do and
stuff like that, it really,really hurts my day job when I
have to actually go work hard,yeah, no.
So, but I think you know.
What you're touching on, though, is something that I think
everybody in the ag industry islooking at right now and they're
(22:50):
like hey, you know, if this isgoing to be a future for our
family, if this is, you know,because I think a lot of people
believe that the way theagriculture is going, it's going
to go commercial, you know, andso it's basically going to be
investor owned.
And then you hire somebody.
You know you're seeing bigranches in Montana and things
(23:11):
like that that that's exactlywhat's happening.
You know.
To get a half a billion dollarprice tag on a large ranch in
Montana.
You know there's not a whole lotof people that can buy that you
know, and they're probably notgoing to put a cowboy hat on and
learn how to ride a horse andthey're probably going to stay,
you know, in, in, where you know, in Atlanta or wherever.
(23:31):
They're going to stay wherethey're at and going to just
feel good about owning theproperty and what they're doing.
So but no, I think that's aneat idea.
I think you know I hear it allthe time there's lots of people
around here that there's Airbnbsout in the middle of the
country where people have turnedthe loft in their barn into a
(23:51):
really fancy Airbnb and you cango out there and hang out, you
know, in the country and havethat experience.
And I think the good thing Iguess with our kids' generation
is they are a more like Route 66kind of hearted people.
Right, they want to get off theinterstate and they want to go
see what's out there.
They're the ones that are goingto go back and say Nebraska's
(24:14):
not as flat as you think becausewe were in the Sandhills.
You know.
So we know, you know and so soyou know, talk about just like
what?
What are your kids kind ofperspective on this?
You know, like they're movingback, are they excited?
Are they worried?
You know, like what's, what'sthat look like?
Or, you know, you, you're,you're a close family.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
What do you think their thoughts are?
Their thoughts initially werebecause I needed to find out if
they were interested in comingback and farm.
I tell this in jest, but ithappened.
Their thoughts were when I saidall right, are you somebody who
wants to come back and try tofarm with me?
I got to figure this out sooneror later.
And one of them was a ForestService firefighter in Laramie
and another one was a US Marineand he was stationed in Lincoln,
had just gotten out of theMarine Corps and started working
(25:02):
for an aviation company, and Igot a no I'm not your guy.
And I got a hell no.
And I laugh at that.
Now, that's rare.
I mean to oversimplify, I don'twant to put words in their
mouths, simplify, I don't wantto put words in their mouths.
But they basically all startedhaving kids and that woke them
up to the fact that the dualincome passing in the hallway to
(25:25):
hand a baby off, remote fromfamily, I mean to sum it up is
difficult, I mean totallydifficult, to make it anywhere,
paying rent, whatever.
And that brought them all tothe question hey, is there any
way?
Now rewind the clock 30, and Ihad the same conversation with
(25:47):
my dad hey, is there any way?
We were in a situation where Iwas going to be competing for an
internship at the Chicago Boardof Trade and my wife was going
to be the only breadwinnerDidn't know it at the time, she
was pregnant and we would havebeen in Chicago, away from
family, pregnant.
She would have been the onlyincome and I would have had to
compete for the next six monthsfor this job.
It was not looking good.
(26:08):
I thankfully asked my wife whatshe wanted and she was honest.
She says I really don't want togo to Chicago.
I'm like okay, well, thanks fortelling me.
What do you want to do?
She said I want to raise afamily.
I said well, I know you do, andI never talked to Dad about it.
He never pressed it, you know,thank God.
(26:31):
Anyway, I had worked for thestate of Wyoming long enough
that I knew I didn't want towork there, and we sat down and
said okay, we've got to addbasically this amount of gross
revenue to justify yourexistence, because you just
can't come home and startsucking on the same hog that I'm
raising.
And so that worked out sowonderfully.
We had a landowner, that was,we were farming all of his corn
(26:53):
ground and none of his alfalfaground and he offered the
alfalfa ground to us if I wantedto come back and do it.
I'm like, well, yeah, so westarted putting up alfalfa and
that was a godsend that familyinvested in us that way.
Anyway, in hindsight it was agood decision.
I'm posed with that questionwith my kids and I'm like, okay,
well, we got to add something.
And just going out and addingground in a saturated market
(27:16):
that I sure can't afford to buyground and that poses some
issues, and so we startedlooking at what can we add.
And so the conversation hasfostered a lot of open
communication, which is awesomewith my adult children, and they
are 30, 28, 26, and 23.
I miss that.
(27:36):
I miss that.
I miss that by a few years.
Anyway, they're all between 23and 30.
And they're all married andthey're all the last one is
having a baby and they are opento anything that makes this
family operation work.
(27:58):
And we use a pretty simplemetaphor that I have a very
predictable business model andwe'll call her a cow, but that
cow, the milk from that cow,feeds us all one way or another.
If you're a partner and want tobuy a piece of land.
Guess what Revenue comes fromthat cow?
And so I've got to teach youhow to care for that cow and
(28:21):
make sure that nobody but nobodyslices off a piece of that cow
to eat, sells a piece of thatcow, neglects that cow or abuses
that cow in any way, becauseit's the predictable model that
we've fallen into.
That is a very good segmentedfarm.
It's very predictable and whatit can do and will do and you
(28:47):
can't expect much less from ityou can't expect much more from
it.
So there are finite resourcesthere that we have to deal with,
and the kids are really fun togo through that conversation
with and see them understand, oh, okay.
So, yeah, we do have to makechoices there and we have to.
Why are we doing that?
Well, we're investing in thatfor for your kids.
(29:08):
Yeah, okay, okay, I understand,and they're they're
understanding a lot more abouthow to use leverage and not to
be afraid of some leverage.
That's a big hurdle.
Some of them were real saversand save it then spend it, save
it up then spend it, and that'sprobably no way to farm.
(29:30):
You have some serious, seriousdifficulty farming that way.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, well, that makes total sense, hunter.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Let's take it quick, go.
No, I did your.
Your initial question is whatdo the kids think?
I think the kids are, uh,coming into it a little
wide-eyed like, oh boy, this is,this is different than what we
thought.
Um, a lot more happens in theboardroom than happens out in
the field and we don'tnecessarily get to do fun things
(30:00):
and sometimes we take homeproblems we have to think about.
I still think it's good for allof us.
Everybody says you should leavework at home and I'm like, yeah
, a little bit of I don't knowexactly how to fix that problem
is not too horrible to go to bedwith sometimes.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah Well, not only that, but I know your wife and
she's a lot like mine.
A lot of times that gets solvedpretty quick when you have a
refreshing.
You know you talk aboutsomething with your spouse.
They're probably smarter thanwe are.
So you know a lot of times thathelps solve it too.
But uh, no, I I think it'sinteresting talking about the uh
(30:41):
, the family dynamic because,like, I know, like listening to
my dad, you know and I don'tknow.
You know, our parents are thesimilar generation, but my dad
was basically in California andgot a phone call from him.
Dad said, get your butt on,it's time to go to work.
You know, and so he was.
He was going out there to be,you know, to be something else
and do something else, and therereally wasn't any choice.
(31:01):
You know, and it kind of trackswith you know, like kind of how
his attitude was for a longtime, you know.
And so so it's great that you're, you know, it's great that our
(31:22):
parents were more of, oh, you'reinterested in it.
Yeah, come, you know like comeon back.
And then again, you know,giving you that heart to create
that environment so that yourkids feel like you know they're
welcome to come back and be apart of it.
And not only that, but you'regoing to work with them on how
to be successful, you know, likecreating that success for the
future, and so that's reallyreally awesome.
Let's take a quick break andwhen we come back, joe.
Let's dig into this liketechnology, because that's
something that, like I said, ithas changed a million percent
(31:45):
since I was planting corn andsoybeans and stuff when I was a
kid years ago.
So let's take a quick break andwe will be right back.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Land isn't just dirt.
It's where memories are made,families are raised and
livelihoods are built.
But when it comes time to sellor buy, the weight of the
decision is heavy.
Where do you even start?
Who can you trust to guide you?
(32:16):
For too long, land transactionshave been treated like a simple
exchange Numbers on a paper, asignature on a line.
But it's more than that.
At High Point Land Company, wedon't just list land, we walk it
, we learn, learn its story andwe find the right buyer who
(32:39):
understands its worth.
You are not just another deal,you are the steward of something
bigger and we're here to helpyou navigate every step of the
way.
When it's time to sell, whenit's time to buy.
(33:01):
We're here Because land is morethan just land.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
It's your legacy.
Get started on this, becauseI'm going to be so fascinated I
think this is probably going togo long, because I am so
intrigued with the technologythat's going into farming.
But I just want to make onecomment.
You made the point to mentionthat your daughters have all
made the conscious decision tobe stay-at-home moms.
I think that's kind of great.
You know, like, in a worldwhere we're told we can be
anything we want, I think veryrarely is it intended that
stay-at-home mom is somethingthat they're intending on that,
and I think it's going to begreat for your kids and your
(34:01):
grandkids, I mean, and your kids, and so that's awesome.
So kudos to you and your wifefor raising kids that are
courageous enough to take thatstance and make that their goal.
So, transitioning intotechnology and farming this is
probably something that at theend of the year, when you're
done harvesting, we should doanother podcast, joe, and just
(34:22):
dig into, like all of it.
You know, because when you weretalking about you know, using
what your assets are to createnew opportunities that's not.
That's also true in the field,right?
That's not.
That's also true in the field,right?
So you're looking at everythingfrom mastering carbon credits
to like the technology on your,on your harvesting equipment,
(34:43):
your planners, your, everythingthat goes through the field is
giving you data.
So let's start there.
Well, gosh, since we were kids,man lots changed, right?
Speaker 4 (34:52):
I, uh, I gotta tell you so much has changed since 10
, 15 years ago.
We were pretty early on with alot of guys collecting data, but
we get caught in the problem ofnow what do I do with this?
How do I make actionabledecisions, actionable data?
(35:12):
How do you get that out of allof this?
Sat back one year workingmyself to death, death.
Say that I'm blessed.
I've got a great ability to tryto run this farm.
My point is that I was notgetting all the jobs done that I
should, and so I chose the onesthat I wasn't doing very well
(35:33):
and I tried to hire them out.
One of those were was datamanipulation, data collection,
data and uh so found a companyum started dealing with them.
They rolled in, created a newcompany, um, I can name them
crop tech solutions ingothenburg.
Sure started dealing with themfrom from day one.
Um came in with just Strasbergfrom Sand Valley Ag and they
(35:58):
were trying to answer questionsfor me, and over the course of
now it's been 16 years, 14, 15,16 years.
We have developed a methodology.
They do a very good job ofhandling just my God, just a
load of data.
I can't believe the data.
It's millions of points of dataand just to give you a sense of
(36:25):
what we do, we don't do allthis on paper but I have a copy
of what I can show somebody likea landowner, because it's hard
to present this kind of data.
But I can show you and justhold up quickly and describe
where we start.
And where we start is a veryspecific look at fertility and
we, we, uh, we grid sample everytwo and a half acres every year
(36:48):
and that costs a load of moneyit's like it's 40, 50,000,
$50,000 a year but end up withgrids on every element that we
need to track that look likethat and from that, like I said,
I don't have all this on paper,this is all done digitally.
From that we get actual spreadand fertilization
(37:11):
recommendations that look likethis and you see the gray is
zero and the red is a whole crapton and so very specifically
going to put nutrients where itsays it needs it.
We watch trend analysis and ofevery element you can think of
under the sun, we make sure thatour next year is just as good
(37:33):
as this year and we're notmining or causing some problem.
All of that data goes to servewith CECs and pH and everything
else that has to do with thatland, serve to provide us with
polygons that we go on variablerate seeding and variable rate
fertilizing.
And just to give you an idea,this seeding map I just showed
(37:57):
you runs everywhere from 19,000plants to 34,000 plants.
So that was something that wasforeign to us 12 years ago.
It was like, well, set theplanter at 32, something like
that.
But they use the data and ifyou've ever seen the movie
Moneyball, they use that all thetime.
But you use the data to findout who should be on the mound,
(38:19):
who should be on first base andwho should be at bat, and you
trust the data.
No matter what the guy lookslike, no matter what the guy
acts like he has a relativehistory of getting doubles and
triples you put him on the back,anyway.
So that's what they do.
They take all this sort of dataand blend it with seed corn
company data, blend it withuniversity data, blend it with
(38:43):
all the different studies thatcome out as to the aspects of
different fertility schemes andalgorithms and we get very
specific with it.
I mean, there are times whenthey come up and say, well, you
don't need anything there I'mlike are you sure, or you're not
so sure.
It's not something you reallywant.
If a little's good, a lot'sbetter.
And they broke me of that habit.
(39:04):
No more drugs, my butts areover.
So we spend all this moneysaying specifically where it
should go, and then they'll goand do some composite samples,
which would be the old way, the1990s.
You run 80 acres of compositesamples, dump them in a bucket,
mix them around, get onerecommendation and you do the
(39:26):
whole 80.
And they'll do those samplestoday in this method and every
time they do it.
This method applies lessfertilizer and makes more money
at the other end.
So at the other end we haveyield goals on those.
(39:48):
I don't know if you can see thatOn those zones we have yield
goals for each one of those, andthose yield goals run from 188
bushel an acre, 188 all the wayto 285.
That is money ball at its best.
It is saying you know what?
You've got data backed into themid 2000s that say that that
(40:11):
particular acre won't do anygood, won't do any good, won't
do any better, and so we're notgoing to dump the inputs there.
But this other acre over hereit'll do 285 gold, which means
it can be 300 corn easy anyway.
So we uh, we have feedback allthe time from these algorithms
on how they're doing and inseason feedback from companies
(40:34):
like justin sand, stancilIrrigation, things like that.
That'll tell us how thealgorithms are doing, whether
the fertility algorithms areshorting us in any way, and they
run their models and our localdata.
But we've gotten pretty goodproof that we're super efficient
or very efficient.
I'm sure there's always roomfor improvement.
(40:55):
We run about a 0.75 nitrogenuse efficiency, which is hands
and heads above what the oldrecommendations used to be.
So we seem to be very efficientthere.
And then the best piece ofinformation that they've come up
with lately is a statisticalanalysis of how close we came to
that yield goal.
(41:16):
And I told you that thatbusiness model was a cow and
that that cow was verypredictable in what it would
produce in milk.
They've honed this down.
We don't guess much, barring ahailstorm, barring some freak of
screwed up you know, oh, gee, Ididn't turn the damn planter on
or something but barringsomething like that, um, the
(41:39):
technology provided ineverything that we do with the,
the planters, right through thecombine, how we water, when we
water, how we fertilize, when weapply it, split, apply all that
technology boils down to wherewe we hit.
We hit um between 98% and 107%of our yield goal last year and
(42:03):
that 98 number was a smallhailstorm in one field and
that's why that fell at 98.
The rest of them just true tothe numbers.
And the numbers that say thisis your max ROI, that should be
your yield goal.
True to the numbers they justlanded right there.
(42:25):
It's very predictable and it'sbaffling to me that it's that
predictable.
We've always just been kind ofwell.
I liked that hybrid last yearand I think this would be enough
fertilizer to put out and Ireally hope it works out.
That's how you control what youcan control, because too much
(42:47):
of the other is uncontrollable.
And these boys have helped medrill down to a very predictable
model and that's something Ireally didn't see coming 20
years ago.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Yeah, that's.
I think what you said was kindof interesting was this is like
think a lot of people think likeI just learned something across
the field.
Your goal should be to try andget it all to be equal.
Right, we're telling me it is.
It doesn't matter what you doin this spot.
You can plant, you know, corn,three, three kernels of corn on
(43:18):
top of each other all the waythrough.
It's not going to do any better.
So slow down your seed ratio tothat particular area because it
doesn't yield out anymore, nomatter what, saving you on your
seed.
And then you're still gettingthe yield goal.
That's fascinating.
Speaker 4 (43:36):
It's really the ROI, and boy it's tough to play money
ball, though I got to tell youit's tough to listen to the data
.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Yeah, I bet.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
You, really the guys will call me.
They're like do you know, thisprescription is only dropping
22,000 plants out here in themiddle of the pivot.
And I'm like, yeah, I know, Iknow, I see it Yellow spot,
close your eyes, hold your noseand keep going.
And so, but these guys, theseguys with crop tech, they're
(44:07):
kind of fun to play with,they're techies, but they'll put
blind blocks out in our fieldson what stuff we want to study.
We want to study highfertilizer, low fertilizer.
We want to study highpopulation, low population.
We want to see what this does,what that product does, what
that product does without.
And we did fungicide tests lastyear across the, across the
field, stuff like that.
(44:28):
It's it's fun to look at thedata, but they do it blindly.
And so you just come up on onsomething and your monitor
starts to beat when planting thewrong population and you're
like what the what the dang guysput that out there in the
middle of nowhere well, that's,that's like the big thing.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
I can remember when I first got into rotary, I had
somebody came in and they were,you know, like it was a pretty
good size farmer from west hereand he had like the wind
spinners and all this otherstuff and he had all the data he
could possibly have, and oneone farmer that was in the group
that he was like stuck his handup.
He says what are you gainingoff of this?
What we don't really know yet,but we've got the data, you know
(45:07):
, and so you know, and so I Ithink it's funny that you know,
like you're you're nowimplementing a lot of that stuff
that these guys were doing atthe time.
You know, like that, thatthey're being able to implement
that and make it make an impacton on what you're doing and
saving you some money and really, really is the epitome of
focusing on ROI.
Speaker 4 (45:28):
I mean, what you do, you do 10 or 12 things just a
little better.
It's all better and there areno magic bullets, but you can,
if the data.
Data can, can prove out that Ican shave 20 bucks an acre off a
seed by lowering those poorproducing areas and save some
fertilizer, and or just dump itover here so it yields better in
(45:50):
those areas.
Uh, that's the, that's thewhole.
The whole key is to maximizeand get the roi on it now that's
I mean when you're talkingtechnology, you know, like that.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
That fascinates me.
That aspect I guess I had neverheard how they're you know,
like how that's an I knew theywere talking about.
Like your sprayer on your, yourboom sprayer on your deal can
hit all the way across.
Every nozzle can hit adifferent rate going through.
You know, and so they're youknow, and they're getting to the
(46:24):
point where I think likethey're almost being able to
sample soil as it's theimplements going through the
field.
To kind of give you an idea ofyou know similar, similar
technology.
But the one that really got mewas I was talking to the drone
guys and they were talking abouthow their camp they have like
four or five different camerason the drones and with the
sprayer systems on them, andthen like four or five different
cameras on the drones and withthe sprayer systems on them, and
then the drone's going throughlooking for weeds and it'll just
go find that weed and kill thatwheat.
(46:44):
You know, like that's literallyto where we're at now.
Instead of you got you know 6000 weeds in a field.
You run the boom, you know, yourun the sprayer through and
kill those weeds.
Now you can just that that.
Send that drone out.
It'll go out and kill themindividually.
Speaker 4 (46:58):
It's kind of insane.
The part of that that's missingthat I've just become aware of
is that all sounds awesome untilyou look at the pricing model
and the software will charge youX amount, a really low amount,
(47:18):
for something that was sprayedblanket.
But on something that was notsprayed because of the
technology, it'll charge you $15an acre and so, at the end of
the day excellent technology itkept me from using as much as a
blanket operation would haveused for a product.
(47:40):
But the pricing model you'renot quite there yet didn't save
me money right, but I think Ithink you're under to it's going
to, I think, the moreimplementation gets put into it.
I want to see it If thatsoftware remains proprietary and
(48:00):
we are trading or robbing Peterto pay Paul and it doesn't net
me anything.
This is a free country.
They can price it how they wantto.
But I was a little surprised athow much you end up paying for
the technology that you skip.
It really eats into the profits.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
When you start talking about strapping another
$100,000 to my sprayer yeah, Iguess just to finish up here,
joe kind of I guess my industrysees we look at our crystal ball
, we kind of look at what thefuture is going to do I honestly
believe you're going to have anormalization.
You're going to have kind of aquiet this year.
I don't think you're going tohave a normalization, you're
(48:39):
going to have a kind of a quietthis year.
I don't think you're going tosee astronomical increases.
I don't really see us having,you know, drop in prices.
Farmland's never corrected Imean very rarely.
If it did, it's very subtlewith the exception of some time
in the 80s where you had, likeyou know, 50% correction.
That caused a lot of stress.
But what's?
your thoughts on?
(49:00):
Are you optimistic?
Where you had, like you know,50% correction, that caused a
lot of stress.
But what's your thoughts on?
Are you optimistic?
I know you know like, lookingat commodity prices and input
values and all this stuff, itkind of looks pretty bleak.
But are you kind of I mean,it's kind of being a farmer,
isn't it?
It's kind of you go throughthese times where it's, you know
, kind of like we're similar inthat there's times where I don't
know how I'm going to eattomorrow and there's times where
(49:22):
we're looking at boats to buy.
It just depends on the month.
Speaker 4 (49:31):
Well, we know it's cyclical.
We lament when there's just nomargin, fortunate as of late in
the last month, to provide justa little bit of margin and the
market moved since January.
But you know, if this isanother, I just can't tell you
how long it's going to last.
That's the problem.
I mean, if this is another 14,15, 16, 17, where we just had,
(49:54):
you know, flat prices with verylittle margin, the market's
doing what it's supposed to bedoing.
It's supposed to be finding abreakeven, operating almost
below that breakeven and weedingout those who can't make it,
and that sucks.
But that's a fact of life ineconomics.
We just don't know if it'sgoing to turn around on a
(50:14):
drought because of the weatherthis year.
We don't know if it's going toturn around in 2029.
I can't tell you.
But, quite honestly,everybody's operating in a below
break-even method.
If they want to raise soybeansright now, a small margin in
corn, we have a lot of specialtycrops that we raise.
(50:35):
We raise food grade corn, weraise popcorn, things like that.
We're trying to foster thoserelationships so we can hold on
to those margins, because thatwill keep us slightly in the
black and I would tell you thatthose would keep me in the black
and keep me viable until thegood market returns someday.
That has eroded, and that'seroded because of the overhead
(50:58):
costs of equipment.
I can't fathom how some of thedeals we used to make for a
couple of combines every year atthe $100,000 level have now
gone to $200,000 or $300,000annually, and the prices of
tractors have once doubled.
And I can't fathom how narrowmargins hold on by your
(51:22):
fingernail until prices returnFive, six years later.
Those three things cost ofliving, taxes and depreciation
are a draw on whatever you do.
And so while on paper I canbreak the farm even all three of
those taxes, depreciation, costof living, lowered or added
(51:42):
debt to our farm.
And that's where we are, and weknow we're going to try not to
do that at a hell of a rate.
You better figure out what yourcost of living and taxes and
depreciation are and try to holdon, but any minute it could
break.
I got to tell you we're theeternal optimists.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
If you're not optimistic, you shouldn't be in
Farling.
You can't figure out how to doit.
Speaker 4 (52:09):
You can turn on the news and old Eric Snodgrass
could tell you that the biggestdrought is going to hit east of
us.
And, lordy, hold the farm.
We're going to have $9 corn youjust never know when it's
coming and so that's the carrotthat we hold out.
I think we're holding thecarrot.
I don't think anybody's holdingit.
We are the ones holding it,holding it up and chasing it at
the same time.
Haven't figured out a realthing?
Speaker 1 (52:36):
now the uh.
Well, I appreciate you takingthe time to do this.
I've been for a long time justbecause of the fact that I have
a lot of industry specialists inhere, but we've just never had
a producer that we've gotten inhere to sit down and talk to,
and so I really appreciate yourinsight and I really pray that
you and your family continue tobe blessed.
And so anything you want to add, normally I tell people how do
(52:58):
we get ahold of blessed, youknow.
And so anything you want to add, I normally I tell people out
of how do we get a hold of you,but I don't know.
If you want any money out there.
Let's listen to the podcast toreach you, but you sure can
throw your info out there ifyou'd like.
Speaker 4 (53:14):
Well, if anybody's trying to search for us,
sometimes Canyon Farms willcatch us.
We changed our name used to bernj walgren farms and now we're
uh, the kids and I and my wifewill be canyon farms, having to
live on gulch canyon nice yousee that on the side of a truck.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Someday you'll know who it is now I'll know, because
I there's a lot of times whereI'll see trucks and I'll be like
it'll take me a couple weeks tofigure out who that is.
Because of it, like that, yourfamilies are coming back and a
lot of times you have a bunch ofdaughters.
So, walgren, maybe isn't goingto make sense in 20 years if
they're all something else.
Speaker 4 (53:50):
So that's smart.
It was the root of that name,yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
That's very cool.
Well, I appreciate you takingthe time to do this again.
It's very cool.
Well, I appreciate you takingthe time to do this again and we
will see you all down the road.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
Take care as we wrap up another episode of the
American Land Seller Podcast.
Thank you for joining us.
Visit wwwamericanlandsellercomand find us on one of your
favorite podcast platforms.
If you would be so kind and youenjoyed today's insights,
please like, subscribe, rate,follow and review us on whatever
app you are listening orwatching on.
Connect with us on social mediafor updates.
(54:26):
Until next week, kobe wishesyou success in your land
endeavors.
God bless you and have a greatweek.
The.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
American Land Seller is brought to you in part by
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Visit LandHubcom and discoverwhat the future of land
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Our expert land specialistsbring unmatched market knowledge
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