November 25, 2024 • 22 mins
What if the very organizations meant to support small farms were causing more harm than good? We then shift gears to scrutinize the mammoth budget of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, questioning whether its allocation, particularly toward the SNAP program, truly benefits farmers. Inspired by Elon Musk's efficiency-focused management style, we consider how government agencies might better align their tasks to tackle larger fiscal challenges, such as national debt. As we navigate through these pressing issues, I share personal insights on staying informed amid the chaos of rapid change, urging listeners to critically evaluate media narratives. By tuning in, you’ll not only hear about these key developments but also join a community geared toward informed and impactful discussions.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Just Say hey.
The podcast a podcast where wetalk about the things that
matter to small farms I wasreading in Farm Week I don't
know if y'all subscribe to FarmWeek Farm Week is the
publication of the Illinois FarmBureau, ifb.
Illinois Farm Bureau hasrecently come under fire lately
because of a decision by theirone of their partners or their
(00:23):
partner country insurance, todrop a requirement to be a
member of the Illinois FarmBureau if you're going to be
insured by country companies,country insurance, country
financial.
It's kind of one of thosethings.
They've come under a lot offire.
The American Farm BureauFederation, I guess is the
national organization, has votedto expel Illinois from their
(00:45):
roster because of this deal,because Illinois Farm Bureau
gets a lot of money frommembership.
My mom is a god lover, not afarmer, grew up on a farm, music
teacher for longer than she'dcare to admit, but she is
(01:08):
required to be a member of theillinois farm bureau if she's
going to be insured by countrycompanies.
And I'm not a fan of anybodyforcing me to be a member of
anything.
I'm just not.
I, I really am not and anyway.
So I want to talk about that.
I want to talk about?
I really am not and anyway.
So I want to talk about that.
I want to talk about Dogebecause I just think it's.
(01:29):
It's fun To to see how stupidOur government can be and
pointing out some of theatrocious wastes.
I mean just horrible waste.
But as we look at that wastesome of the changes and there's
(01:50):
a lot of big changes on thehorizon.
I mean the things they'retalking about.
If even half of those come true, they're going to impact a lot
of people.
They're going to impact farms.
They're going to impact how wefarm some for the better, some
for the worse.
But it's a time that we allneed to stay cognizant of what's
going on, so let's get into it.
(02:10):
Welcome to Just Say hey.
The podcast where we talk aboutwhat matters to small farms,
whether it's business, marketing, agronomy, equipment, livestock
, health.
If it matters to small farms,we'll probably talk about it
here.
So let's get into it.
Be a member of the IllinoisFarm.
To be insured by countrycompanies, you have to be a
member of the Illinois FarmBureau, even if you don't farm,
(02:30):
have no connection to farming no, you don't even care about
farming.
If you're going to be insuredby country financial, country
insurance, country companies youhave to be a member and they're
dropping that requirement,controversial in some circles.
Afbf, like I said, americanFarm Bureau Federation has voted
to get rid of Illinois.
(02:50):
I think half the country wouldagree to getting rid of Illinois
.
Wouldn't be the worst thing inthe world Our government's kind
of kooky but I don't like beingtold that I have to be a member
of anything.
I don't like being told that Ihave to be a member of anything.
It's, in my opinion, for whatit's worth, not that anybody's
asked.
In my opinion, being a memberof an organization that you
(03:14):
don't agree with don't have anyimpact and you're just giving
them money because they'rerequiring you to Is ridiculous.
It is, you know.
I think it brings to mind thebiggest one I can think of.
The most glaringly obvious, inmy opinion, is the Corporation
(03:34):
for Public Broadcasting and theNPR.
I have never now don't?
I'm going to say this right upfront.
If you're a fan of NPR andyou're a fan of Corporation for
Public Broadcasting, Iunderstand.
I like a lot of theirprogramming.
I have seen a lot of it.
I love some of their stuff.
Heck Car Talk was an NPRprogram for years, one of my
(03:56):
favorites, but that can bebetter done in the private
sector.
And the thing that really getsme about the NPR thing and
you'll see in a second why Ithink it correlates to the IFB
deal is NPR produces a newsprogram, great commentators
great.
I mean.
They do a good job with it onthe production side.
(04:17):
It's a good sound.
I like it, I like the look, Ilike all of that stuff.
But what I don't like is theyhave a decided I mean almost
anybody say they have a decidedpolitical viewpoint and their
(04:38):
newscasts, in my humble opinion,try to sway you to their
viewpoint.
And I think that's fine.
I think that in the free marketthat you should be able to do
that.
You have the freedom to dothose things.
Where I disagree with it is Idon't want you to try to sway my
(04:59):
opinion with my tax dollars.
I want you to give me theunbiased news, provide opinions
on both sides and allow me tomake a decision.
I'm not the most intelligentguy in the world, but I want to
weigh what's being done,opinions on both sides.
(05:20):
I want to weigh that against mylife experience and my
experience as a human being anddecide for myself.
That's not what goes on.
If you want to do that, do itwith your money.
Don't do that with my money.
The country is forcing everybodyto be a member, and I say
(05:43):
forcing.
It was a requirement to.
If you were going to be insuredby country companies, you had
to be a member of the IllinoisFarm Bureau and they're dropping
that requirement.
I think that's great.
If the Illinois Farm Bureauprovides value to farmers, we'll
be willing to pay for it.
But you have to show that youprovide value and that's how the
(06:04):
free market works.
So you know I'm not a fan ofthat.
I side with country andprobably a rare time you're ever
going to hear me side with aninsurance company.
But we're insured by them.
I've always had pretty goodluck with them.
You know I don't like beingforced into a decision, being
(06:25):
forced to be a member.
Maybe I'm wrong.
I mean, if you think I'm wrong,let me know in the comments.
Let's talk about it.
But it's sort of like our taxdollars go into some of these.
And I brought up NPR justbecause I was reading an article
about it and I have a decidedopinion on it, obviously.
But this new Doge deal going on,with Elon Musk and Vivek
(06:47):
Ramaswamy going to head Doge forthe incoming president-elect,
trump.
It's an outside agency.
And I say it's an outsideagency.
It's not even an agency.
It is not federally funded.
And the cool thing about itthat I like is there's an
expiration date.
It's set to close down July 4th2026.
(07:16):
I'm sure that there was a planto this, but country's 250th
birthday.
I hope that what comes out ofthis is we expose a lot of the
waste in our government andhopefully we can get that the
waste and corruption in ourgovernment.
I mean, we all assume it'sthere.
(07:36):
I mean, you know 500 and somemillion dollars to study the
difference between country frogsand city frogs.
What was it?
There was a seven.
I forget how much it was, butthere was hundreds of thousands
(07:56):
of dollars spent to determinewhether different types of fish
increased their sexual activity.
On cocaine.
Okay, wasn't even in America,they did this in a foreign
country.
What was it?
I mean the stuff that we'refinding out, that we, the people
, have been paying for it.
It's just ridiculous.
I just I think it's.
You know, if it wasn't sohorrible, I would you know I'd
(08:20):
probably be crying about it.
But you know, you just got tolaugh at it and hope, and the
hope is they bring a lot of thisstuff to light.
Hopefully change happens andhopefully it is a, you know, a
change, change that can unify usas a country and unify us as
people.
But in change, I think that wehave to be a little cognizant of
(08:43):
changing too much, of changingtoo much.
So you know the reason I saythat is if you look at our
society over the past I don'tknow, let's take 50 years and
you align it with kind of thetwo, you know, sort of seemingly
opposing ideologies of liberal,you know, liberal, and
(09:06):
conservative, and we have thispendulum that swings too far
conservative, too far liberal.
And what we need in my again,in my humble opinion, is
centrists, people who cancompromise, because in a country
(09:28):
, in a political environment ascomplex as the United States of
America, there has to becompromise.
There just does.
I mean, you know the the ideaof winner take all and that type
of a mentality.
That type of a mentality it'sgreat, it's great on the
(09:49):
football field, but we have tobe able to compromise to get
things done.
And hopefully we compromise.
And I'm going to say this, I'mgoing to say a word that I
politicians can take the will ofthe people, learn to compromise
, to get things done.
And with that, there's going tobe a lot of change going on.
(10:10):
I think the incomingadministration a lot of radical
things happening and I think weneed to be prepared for change.
I think we need to be preparedfor some glass getting broken
too.
I mean this you know, withchange on this massive of a
scale, there's going to be somebumps in the road, but right now
(10:36):
I think I saw the stat theother day that the United States
is $36.5 trillion in debt.
It's like $200,000 for everytaxpayer in debt.
The interest payment on thedebt alone is over a trillion
dollars a year out of a 6.5, 6.8trillion dollar budget.
(11:00):
That's more than the spendingon the Defense Department, on
our national defense, you know,and I don't want this podcast to
get political.
That's not my point.
I national defense, you know,and I don't want this podcast to
get political.
That's not my point.
I think that you know.
The point in this is that thereis going to be a lot of change
and with that change, bad thingscan happen.
But there's also opportunity andwhen we need to be cognizant
(11:25):
and need to stay vigilantwatching this change happen and
look actively, be searching forhow it's going to impact our
business and our businesses asfarmers.
I mean, right now grain pricesare really low.
Corn last time I looked it waslike four and change.
Soybeans were nine and change Ithink Wheat was five or six.
(12:11):
I mean they're not great prices.
Our goods coming into theircountry.
We're going to tax their goodscoming into our country until
they play by the same rules andthey reduce the tariffs on goods
coming from not just China.
There are others but they'rethe biggest and the most.
You know they get the mostcoverage.
But I think we as farmers needto be looking and say, hey, is
(12:33):
this time to diversify ouroperation?
Or do we think these changesare going to be positive for
green prices and we're going todouble down?
Or we're going to stay prettyconservative and make sure we've
got plenty of capital or makesure we have plenty of assets.
You know those are things thatwe as farmers have to be
thinking about through thiswhole thing.
(12:54):
I mean, if you're a large grainfarmer, maybe you're not as
agile in changing your crops andchanging all of that, but if
you're a small producer, youknow what you can.
You know there's going to besome opportunities to like RFK
set to take over the provided hecan get confirmed set to take
over health and human services,which is the, you know, among
(13:18):
other things, food and drugadministration, centers for
Disease Control and the NationalInstitute of Health, I believe,
are the three biggies that'sgoing to have an impact on food.
We grow food with that we haveto.
You know, if there's going to besome sort of a change, should
we be looking at what food isgoing to be desirable for going
(13:42):
to?
If they're going to try toforce Americans and at this
point I think you're going tohave to force Americans to eat
healthy I like a bag of chips asmuch as the next guy, but maybe
I should eat a carrot or two,but let's not go crazy but
there's going to have to be someradical changes if we're going
to change some of the childhoodobesity, if we're going to
(14:02):
change some of these chronicdiseases.
I think there is an opportunityto do that, but it's not going
to be without its pain pointsfor the consumer, the American
people, or us, the farmers.
So what are the steps?
You know what are, what are thesteps we go through, how do we
do that and that's where we haveto stay vigilant, be looking
(14:24):
for, you know, be looking forthese opportunities, you know, I
think going back and reading,listening to the things RFK has
said in the past, I don't knowthat they're.
Listening to the things RFK hassaid in the past?
I don't know that they're.
You know, I don't know what tothink.
I read all of it.
You try to think what of itspolitical maneuvering and what
(14:45):
of it is.
You know, really the way hebelieves, but set to be a man
with a lot of power to changesome obvious problems in our
country.
So, you know, I got to keep aneye on that.
I don't know who has beenproposed as the Secretary of
Agriculture.
I did see a stat the other daythat kind of shocked me.
(15:07):
So the USDA, the US Department,united States Department of
Agriculture Department, unitedStates Department of Agriculture
(15:39):
Annual budget is half atrillion dollars.
Of that half a trillion dollars, I think 90 or 95, 90% of that
money is for the SNAP program,food stamps, it's supplemental
nutrition and whatever 90 pluspercent of that budget goes to
and I might be wrong, but it'shigh, it's 80, 90, something
like that you know goes to thatprogram, the USDA handling that.
I know I understand why, how itcould get there, but in today's
world probably, you know, doesthat need to be there?
(16:06):
I don't know.
I mean, hopefully peoplesmarter than me are thinking
about this because that seemslike there could be a better
place for that, for that, theadministration of that, that
wouldn't be burdensome.
I mean, I saw the USDA again.
Farming stuff I mean it's 10% ofwhat they do is directly has
direct impact on farmers.
The other part is basically astate benefit program Huge
(16:33):
budget, huge budget.
Very little of that goes tofarmers.
You know, I don't know that.
I've seen it.
You know, when you look at theseprograms and I think part of
what is going on and if youfollow the way Elon Musk has run
(16:53):
a lot of his businesses in thepast, when he took over Twitter
and changed it to X, I thinkwhat he did on the outside looks
very noble.
I mean the idea of stopping thebots, the foreign actors,
foreign governments who aretrying to sway American public
opinion by with fake posts, fakenews, fake.
(17:16):
You know, all of these thingsfrom a Social engineering point
of view is fascinating, howthey're doing it, why they're
doing it.
Maybe not so good, but Iapplaud Elon Musk's attempt to
rein that in by charging alittle subscription fee if you
want to get rid of a lot of thatstuff, because if you're making
(17:39):
millions of posts and you haveto set up a new account for all
of these posts, well it could.
It probably gets more than theywant to spend.
So it just by the financialside, would get rid of a lot of
it.
But again, I applaud him.
But if you look at the way hehas has run his businesses very
efficient, very, very efficient.
Twitter was 7,400 employees Ithink it was 7,500, something
(18:05):
like that Took it down to 3,000and rebranded it.
Didn't see much of a hiccup.
So you know, when you look athis track record he's looking
for, in my opinion again, I'm anoutsider here but when you look
at, when you read about it,he's looking for these
efficiencies.
(18:25):
So if you are USDA and 90, high90% of your work is
administering what's basically ahealth and human service, a
food stamp program, snap, ifyou're administering that
program and that's your budget,well the American people think
that you know.
Oh man, usda has $450 billiongoing to help farmers Yay,
(18:54):
farmers, no, not.
What happens?
So realigning some of it is notgoing to be cutting out agency,
it's going to be realigningtasks or administration of
things to streamline thatprocess.
We have a lot of bloat.
Have you ever heard of agovernment agency that got
created and then went away?
Meant agency that got createdand then went away?
(19:14):
I haven't.
I've never heard of one.
Maybe they exist.
They're sort of like unicorns.
But that idea of realigning andreshaping how the agencies run
and what tasks they're doingseems like a pretty natural fit
(19:38):
to gain some efficiencies.
And a guy like you know, elonMusk, if you look at his history
of running businesses, he hasalways been very, very efficient
.
Line those, those businesses,because efficiency for him as a
(19:59):
capitalist means he makes moremoney.
We as a country need to spendless money.
We're on a trajectory tobankruptcy.
I mean we're.
We're getting there.
36.5 trillion dollars, I think,is the number I saw for our,
our deficit.
I want to say I think thecalculation is well, it's like
every, it's like $250,000 forevery voting American, how much
(20:26):
you owe just for the.
You know the privilege ofliving here, and that doesn't
include the stuff we have toborrow this year.
We have to pay money to servicethat debt and the payment to
service the debt is huge.
It's bigger than the Pentagon'sbudget.
This is a time of a lot ofuncertainty.
(20:48):
I read, I'd say, a year ago.
This time I probably read, youknow, stayed up with the news,
maybe an hour a week.
And now, just because I thinkfor our business, our farm, I'm
(21:08):
reading and diving into things,probably half an hour to an hour
a day, half an hour to an houra day because I want to gain
some insight into things thatare going to happen or things
that I think will happen, sothat I can be better prepared,
so that our businesses, our farm, can be better prepared for
these changes.
And I want to see thoseopportunities because when they
(21:31):
come, because in chaos there'sopportunity.
And I think for the next whilewe're going to have some chaos,
stay vigilant on the information, Stay vigilant on these things.
I think there's going to be alot of shakeup and you're going
to see a lot of misleadingthings being said in the press,
in the public space, byso-called influencers.
(21:53):
I don't know much about some ofthe influencers, but I think
there's a lot of things that aregoing to be said in the media
over the coming months and yearthat we need to take with a
grain of salt and dig out ourown information.
What we believe is truth, don'taccept.
I think you are doing yourselfand doing those around you a
(22:16):
disservice if you accept thesethings that we see once as truth
Without looking into it alittle bit further.
Be cognizant of all of thischange going on.
I'm going to try to bring it toyou.
So follow the podcast, becauseI'm going to try to bring this
to you.
When I see these thingshappening, I'm going to try to
highlight them here on thepodcast so we can at least be
Talking about it.
Have conversations with thosepeople that we respect.
(22:38):
So, with that said, you have ablessed day.
I'm going to get out of here.
Good luck and God bless.
Welcome to Just Say hey.
The podcast a podcast where wetalk about the things that
matter to small farms I wasreading in Farm Week I don't
know if y'all subscribe to FarmWeek Farm Week is the
publication of the Illinois FarmBureau, ifb.
Illinois Farm Bureau hasrecently come under fire lately
because of a decision by theirone of their partners or their
(00:23):
partner country insurance, todrop a requirement to be a
member of the Illinois FarmBureau if you're going to be
insured by country companies,country insurance, country
financial.
It's kind of one of thosethings.
They've come under a lot offire.
The American Farm BureauFederation, I guess is the
national organization, has votedto expel Illinois from their
(00:45):
roster because of this deal,because Illinois Farm Bureau
gets a lot of money frommembership.
My mom is a god lover, not afarmer, grew up on a farm, music
teacher for longer than she'dcare to admit, but she is
(01:08):
required to be a member of theillinois farm bureau if she's
going to be insured by countrycompanies.
And I'm not a fan of anybodyforcing me to be a member of
anything.
I'm just not.
I, I really am not and anyway.
So I want to talk about that.
I want to talk about?
I really am not and anyway.
So I want to talk about that.
I want to talk about Dogebecause I just think it's.
(01:29):
It's fun To to see how stupidOur government can be and
pointing out some of theatrocious wastes.
I mean just horrible waste.
But as we look at that wastesome of the changes and there's
(01:50):
a lot of big changes on thehorizon.
I mean the things they'retalking about.
If even half of those come true, they're going to impact a lot
of people.
They're going to impact farms.
They're going to impact how wefarm some for the better, some
for the worse.
But it's a time that we allneed to stay cognizant of what's
going on, so let's get into it.
(02:10):
Welcome to Just Say hey.
The podcast where we talk aboutwhat matters to small farms,
whether it's business, marketing, agronomy, equipment, livestock
, health.
If it matters to small farms,we'll probably talk about it
here.
So let's get into it.
Be a member of the IllinoisFarm.
To be insured by countrycompanies, you have to be a
member of the Illinois FarmBureau, even if you don't farm,
(02:30):
have no connection to farming no, you don't even care about
farming.
If you're going to be insuredby country financial, country
insurance, country companies youhave to be a member and they're
dropping that requirement,controversial in some circles.
Afbf, like I said, americanFarm Bureau Federation has voted
to get rid of Illinois.
(02:50):
I think half the country wouldagree to getting rid of Illinois
.
Wouldn't be the worst thing inthe world Our government's kind
of kooky but I don't like beingtold that I have to be a member
of anything.
I don't like being told that Ihave to be a member of anything.
It's, in my opinion, for whatit's worth, not that anybody's
asked.
In my opinion, being a memberof an organization that you
(03:14):
don't agree with don't have anyimpact and you're just giving
them money because they'rerequiring you to Is ridiculous.
It is, you know.
I think it brings to mind thebiggest one I can think of.
The most glaringly obvious, inmy opinion, is the Corporation
(03:34):
for Public Broadcasting and theNPR.
I have never now don't?
I'm going to say this right upfront.
If you're a fan of NPR andyou're a fan of Corporation for
Public Broadcasting, Iunderstand.
I like a lot of theirprogramming.
I have seen a lot of it.
I love some of their stuff.
Heck Car Talk was an NPRprogram for years, one of my
(03:56):
favorites, but that can bebetter done in the private
sector.
And the thing that really getsme about the NPR thing and
you'll see in a second why Ithink it correlates to the IFB
deal is NPR produces a newsprogram, great commentators
great.
I mean.
They do a good job with it onthe production side.
(04:17):
It's a good sound.
I like it, I like the look, Ilike all of that stuff.
But what I don't like is theyhave a decided I mean almost
anybody say they have a decidedpolitical viewpoint and their
(04:38):
newscasts, in my humble opinion,try to sway you to their
viewpoint.
And I think that's fine.
I think that in the free marketthat you should be able to do
that.
You have the freedom to dothose things.
Where I disagree with it is Idon't want you to try to sway my
(04:59):
opinion with my tax dollars.
I want you to give me theunbiased news, provide opinions
on both sides and allow me tomake a decision.
I'm not the most intelligentguy in the world, but I want to
weigh what's being done,opinions on both sides.
(05:20):
I want to weigh that against mylife experience and my
experience as a human being anddecide for myself.
That's not what goes on.
If you want to do that, do itwith your money.
Don't do that with my money.
The country is forcing everybodyto be a member, and I say
(05:43):
forcing.
It was a requirement to.
If you were going to be insuredby country companies, you had
to be a member of the IllinoisFarm Bureau and they're dropping
that requirement.
I think that's great.
If the Illinois Farm Bureauprovides value to farmers, we'll
be willing to pay for it.
But you have to show that youprovide value and that's how the
(06:04):
free market works.
So you know I'm not a fan ofthat.
I side with country andprobably a rare time you're ever
going to hear me side with aninsurance company.
But we're insured by them.
I've always had pretty goodluck with them.
You know I don't like beingforced into a decision, being
(06:25):
forced to be a member.
Maybe I'm wrong.
I mean, if you think I'm wrong,let me know in the comments.
Let's talk about it.
But it's sort of like our taxdollars go into some of these.
And I brought up NPR justbecause I was reading an article
about it and I have a decidedopinion on it, obviously.
But this new Doge deal going on,with Elon Musk and Vivek
(06:47):
Ramaswamy going to head Doge forthe incoming president-elect,
trump.
It's an outside agency.
And I say it's an outsideagency.
It's not even an agency.
It is not federally funded.
And the cool thing about itthat I like is there's an
expiration date.
It's set to close down July 4th2026.
(07:16):
I'm sure that there was a planto this, but country's 250th
birthday.
I hope that what comes out ofthis is we expose a lot of the
waste in our government andhopefully we can get that the
waste and corruption in ourgovernment.
I mean, we all assume it'sthere.
(07:36):
I mean, you know 500 and somemillion dollars to study the
difference between country frogsand city frogs.
What was it?
There was a seven.
I forget how much it was, butthere was hundreds of thousands
(07:56):
of dollars spent to determinewhether different types of fish
increased their sexual activity.
On cocaine.
Okay, wasn't even in America,they did this in a foreign
country.
What was it?
I mean the stuff that we'refinding out, that we, the people
, have been paying for it.
It's just ridiculous.
I just I think it's.
You know, if it wasn't sohorrible, I would you know I'd
(08:20):
probably be crying about it.
But you know, you just got tolaugh at it and hope, and the
hope is they bring a lot of thisstuff to light.
Hopefully change happens andhopefully it is a, you know, a
change, change that can unify usas a country and unify us as
people.
But in change, I think that wehave to be a little cognizant of
(08:43):
changing too much, of changingtoo much.
So you know the reason I saythat is if you look at our
society over the past I don'tknow, let's take 50 years and
you align it with kind of thetwo, you know, sort of seemingly
opposing ideologies of liberal,you know, liberal, and
(09:06):
conservative, and we have thispendulum that swings too far
conservative, too far liberal.
And what we need in my again,in my humble opinion, is
centrists, people who cancompromise, because in a country
(09:28):
, in a political environment ascomplex as the United States of
America, there has to becompromise.
There just does.
I mean, you know the the ideaof winner take all and that type
of a mentality.
That type of a mentality it'sgreat, it's great on the
(09:49):
football field, but we have tobe able to compromise to get
things done.
And hopefully we compromise.
And I'm going to say this, I'mgoing to say a word that I
politicians can take the will ofthe people, learn to compromise
, to get things done.
And with that, there's going tobe a lot of change going on.
(10:10):
I think the incomingadministration a lot of radical
things happening and I think weneed to be prepared for change.
I think we need to be preparedfor some glass getting broken
too.
I mean this you know, withchange on this massive of a
scale, there's going to be somebumps in the road, but right now
(10:36):
I think I saw the stat theother day that the United States
is $36.5 trillion in debt.
It's like $200,000 for everytaxpayer in debt.
The interest payment on thedebt alone is over a trillion
dollars a year out of a 6.5, 6.8trillion dollar budget.
(11:00):
That's more than the spendingon the Defense Department, on
our national defense, you know,and I don't want this podcast to
get political.
That's not my point.
I national defense, you know,and I don't want this podcast to
get political.
That's not my point.
I think that you know.
The point in this is that thereis going to be a lot of change
and with that change, bad thingscan happen.
But there's also opportunity andwhen we need to be cognizant
(11:25):
and need to stay vigilantwatching this change happen and
look actively, be searching forhow it's going to impact our
business and our businesses asfarmers.
I mean, right now grain pricesare really low.
Corn last time I looked it waslike four and change.
Soybeans were nine and change Ithink Wheat was five or six.
(12:11):
I mean they're not great prices.
Our goods coming into theircountry.
We're going to tax their goodscoming into our country until
they play by the same rules andthey reduce the tariffs on goods
coming from not just China.
There are others but they'rethe biggest and the most.
You know they get the mostcoverage.
But I think we as farmers needto be looking and say, hey, is
(12:33):
this time to diversify ouroperation?
Or do we think these changesare going to be positive for
green prices and we're going todouble down?
Or we're going to stay prettyconservative and make sure we've
got plenty of capital or makesure we have plenty of assets.
You know those are things thatwe as farmers have to be
thinking about through thiswhole thing.
(12:54):
I mean, if you're a large grainfarmer, maybe you're not as
agile in changing your crops andchanging all of that, but if
you're a small producer, youknow what you can.
You know there's going to besome opportunities to like RFK
set to take over the provided hecan get confirmed set to take
over health and human services,which is the, you know, among
(13:18):
other things, food and drugadministration, centers for
Disease Control and the NationalInstitute of Health, I believe,
are the three biggies that'sgoing to have an impact on food.
We grow food with that we haveto.
You know, if there's going to besome sort of a change, should
we be looking at what food isgoing to be desirable for going
(13:42):
to?
If they're going to try toforce Americans and at this
point I think you're going tohave to force Americans to eat
healthy I like a bag of chips asmuch as the next guy, but maybe
I should eat a carrot or two,but let's not go crazy but
there's going to have to be someradical changes if we're going
to change some of the childhoodobesity, if we're going to
(14:02):
change some of these chronicdiseases.
I think there is an opportunityto do that, but it's not going
to be without its pain pointsfor the consumer, the American
people, or us, the farmers.
So what are the steps?
You know what are, what are thesteps we go through, how do we
do that and that's where we haveto stay vigilant, be looking
(14:24):
for, you know, be looking forthese opportunities, you know, I
think going back and reading,listening to the things RFK has
said in the past, I don't knowthat they're.
Listening to the things RFK hassaid in the past?
I don't know that they're.
You know, I don't know what tothink.
I read all of it.
You try to think what of itspolitical maneuvering and what
(14:45):
of it is.
You know, really the way hebelieves, but set to be a man
with a lot of power to changesome obvious problems in our
country.
So, you know, I got to keep aneye on that.
I don't know who has beenproposed as the Secretary of
Agriculture.
I did see a stat the other daythat kind of shocked me.
(15:07):
So the USDA, the US Department,united States Department of
Agriculture Department, unitedStates Department of Agriculture
(15:39):
Annual budget is half atrillion dollars.
Of that half a trillion dollars, I think 90 or 95, 90% of that
money is for the SNAP program,food stamps, it's supplemental
nutrition and whatever 90 pluspercent of that budget goes to
and I might be wrong, but it'shigh, it's 80, 90, something
like that you know goes to thatprogram, the USDA handling that.
I know I understand why, how itcould get there, but in today's
world probably, you know, doesthat need to be there?
(16:06):
I don't know.
I mean, hopefully peoplesmarter than me are thinking
about this because that seemslike there could be a better
place for that, for that, theadministration of that, that
wouldn't be burdensome.
I mean, I saw the USDA again.
Farming stuff I mean it's 10% ofwhat they do is directly has
direct impact on farmers.
The other part is basically astate benefit program Huge
(16:33):
budget, huge budget.
Very little of that goes tofarmers.
You know, I don't know that.
I've seen it.
You know, when you look at theseprograms and I think part of
what is going on and if youfollow the way Elon Musk has run
(16:53):
a lot of his businesses in thepast, when he took over Twitter
and changed it to X, I thinkwhat he did on the outside looks
very noble.
I mean the idea of stopping thebots, the foreign actors,
foreign governments who aretrying to sway American public
opinion by with fake posts, fakenews, fake.
(17:16):
You know, all of these thingsfrom a Social engineering point
of view is fascinating, howthey're doing it, why they're
doing it.
Maybe not so good, but Iapplaud Elon Musk's attempt to
rein that in by charging alittle subscription fee if you
want to get rid of a lot of thatstuff, because if you're making
(17:39):
millions of posts and you haveto set up a new account for all
of these posts, well it could.
It probably gets more than theywant to spend.
So it just by the financialside, would get rid of a lot of
it.
But again, I applaud him.
But if you look at the way hehas has run his businesses very
efficient, very, very efficient.
Twitter was 7,400 employees Ithink it was 7,500, something
(18:05):
like that Took it down to 3,000and rebranded it.
Didn't see much of a hiccup.
So you know, when you look athis track record he's looking
for, in my opinion again, I'm anoutsider here but when you look
at, when you read about it,he's looking for these
efficiencies.
(18:25):
So if you are USDA and 90, high90% of your work is
administering what's basically ahealth and human service, a
food stamp program, snap, ifyou're administering that
program and that's your budget,well the American people think
that you know.
Oh man, usda has $450 billiongoing to help farmers Yay,
(18:54):
farmers, no, not.
What happens?
So realigning some of it is notgoing to be cutting out agency,
it's going to be realigningtasks or administration of
things to streamline thatprocess.
We have a lot of bloat.
Have you ever heard of agovernment agency that got
created and then went away?
Meant agency that got createdand then went away?
(19:14):
I haven't.
I've never heard of one.
Maybe they exist.
They're sort of like unicorns.
But that idea of realigning andreshaping how the agencies run
and what tasks they're doingseems like a pretty natural fit
(19:38):
to gain some efficiencies.
And a guy like you know, elonMusk, if you look at his history
of running businesses, he hasalways been very, very efficient
.
Line those, those businesses,because efficiency for him as a
(19:59):
capitalist means he makes moremoney.
We as a country need to spendless money.
We're on a trajectory tobankruptcy.
I mean we're.
We're getting there.
36.5 trillion dollars, I think,is the number I saw for our,
our deficit.
I want to say I think thecalculation is well, it's like
every, it's like $250,000 forevery voting American, how much
(20:26):
you owe just for the.
You know the privilege ofliving here, and that doesn't
include the stuff we have toborrow this year.
We have to pay money to servicethat debt and the payment to
service the debt is huge.
It's bigger than the Pentagon'sbudget.
This is a time of a lot ofuncertainty.
(20:48):
I read, I'd say, a year ago.
This time I probably read, youknow, stayed up with the news,
maybe an hour a week.
And now, just because I thinkfor our business, our farm, I'm
(21:08):
reading and diving into things,probably half an hour to an hour
a day, half an hour to an houra day because I want to gain
some insight into things thatare going to happen or things
that I think will happen, sothat I can be better prepared,
so that our businesses, our farm, can be better prepared for
these changes.
And I want to see thoseopportunities because when they
(21:31):
come, because in chaos there'sopportunity.
And I think for the next whilewe're going to have some chaos,
stay vigilant on the information, Stay vigilant on these things.
I think there's going to be alot of shakeup and you're going
to see a lot of misleadingthings being said in the press,
in the public space, byso-called influencers.
(21:53):
I don't know much about some ofthe influencers, but I think
there's a lot of things that aregoing to be said in the media
over the coming months and yearthat we need to take with a
grain of salt and dig out ourown information.
What we believe is truth, don'taccept.
I think you are doing yourselfand doing those around you a
(22:16):
disservice if you accept thesethings that we see once as truth
Without looking into it alittle bit further.
Be cognizant of all of thischange going on.
I'm going to try to bring it toyou.
So follow the podcast, becauseI'm going to try to bring this
to you.
When I see these thingshappening, I'm going to try to
highlight them here on thepodcast so we can at least be
Talking about it.
Have conversations with thosepeople that we respect.
(22:38):
So, with that said, you have ablessed day.
I'm going to get out of here.
Good luck and God bless.
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