The Election Is Over, A Little Venting & Some Big Changes On The Horizon

The election is over!  No matter who you voted for we need to look to the future.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Just Say hey, the podcast the podcast
where we talk about the thingsthat matter to small farms.
You know why?
Because we are a small farm.
The other day I saw somethingon the news that just made me
mad and I don't get mad abouttoo many things that I see on TV
or in print, on the web, on theinternet news sites it just
doesn't make me mad.
I kind of look at it and figureout how it's going to impact my

(00:22):
business and roll on with it.
But this story got a little bitof national coverage.
But it just made me mad and I'mgoing to vent about it because
I hope you all will kind ofstick with me for a few moments.
But if you are an employee, anemployer, if you are a young
person getting ready to go tocollege, or if you're a parent
paying for your kid's college,you need to be paying attention

(00:44):
to this.
Or if you're a parent payingfor your kid's college, you need
to be paying attention to this.
So the other thing I want totalk about today is, with the
election over and the potentialfor RFK Jr to have some sort of
an impact on the FDA or the USDA.
There are some things that, forfarmers, could be a little
scary.
I get it.
I'm watching it pretty closelytoo.

(01:04):
But in change there'sopportunity and we need to be
looking at the things that he'stalking about now and the things
that they are saying about hisideas and looking for those
opportunities.
So let's get into it.
Welcome to Just Say hey thepodcast where we talk about what
matters to small farms, whetherit's business, marketing,

(01:27):
agronomy, equipment, livestockhealth.
If it matters to small farms,we'll probably talk about it
here, so let's get into it.
All right.
So on the news the other day Isaw a story about some students
who are so despondent over theresults of the election that the

(01:51):
professors and teachers weregiving them the day off that
they were.
One of the Ivy League schoolsset up a room for them to go to
that had crayons and Legos, andin one case I heard about a
therapy goat.
You got to be kidding me.
It's ridiculous.

(02:12):
You know what?
If you didn't like the terms ofthe elections, you didn't like
the way it came out, work hardernext time, be more of an
activist, but deal with loss,and the schools and professors
that did this, in my opinion,should be fired because they
failed in one of their crucialduties, which is to prepare our

(02:34):
children for the real world.
And if you live in the realworld, you work, you own
businesses you lose every oncein a while and when you lose,
you have to learn to lose withdignity and move forward.

(02:54):
And when you win, you shouldwin with humility.
And the teachers and professorsone of these was an Ivy League
school, I think it was Harvardwas one of them the students
were so despondent that weneeded to give them the day off
and give them Legos and crayons.
You know what?
If I'm a parent paying for mykid's school and the school did
that, I'd say you know what?

(03:16):
They had?
Legos and crayons when theywere five.
These are young adults.
They need to move on with life.
Now I don't want to vent aboutthat too much, but it just
really man.
It just fried my biscuits whenI heard the story, because you
know what.
We talked about it on thepodcast before.
I've talked about it hereRaising farm kids.

(03:37):
You know how you get tough.
You do tough things andsometimes you win and sometimes
you don't.
You do tough things and if youdo tough things enough, you
become tough when you getpampered.
Over and over again you becomethe opposite of tough you become
weak, you become I guess lazyis not the right word but you

(03:58):
become soft.
You can't handle criticism.
You can't handle criticism.
You can't handle rejection, youcan't handle the things that
the real world brings at you.
And to see a school provide aplace and coddle these kids like

(04:20):
that, they have done these kidsa disservice.
Like that they have done thesekids a disservice they really
have because they've allowedthese kids to become weak in a
world where they need to bestrong to succeed.
And sometimes that's notphysical strength, it's
emotional, mental, spiritualstrength to become strong.

(04:40):
If you want to be tough, you dotough things and you do it over
and over again and eventuallyyou become tough.
So enough about that.
That was just me venting.
It made me mad because I justthought these people are doing
such a disservice to these kidsand I don't want to.
This is not me disagreeing withtheir politics.
This is not me disagreeing withyou know what they stand for

(05:04):
and I may or I may not disagreeor agree, I don't know.
But what I do know is that whenyou don't get your way, you
don't get a day off and youdon't get crayons and Legos as
an adult.
So there you go.
So let's move on.
So the election's over.
Now we have to see what changesare going to be made, because

(05:25):
this election was there was alot of sweeping, lot of sweeping
.
There was a lot of ideas thatare about broad, sweeping
changes.
I think the stat I saw was 68%of the country was what was
called a wrong track.
So if 68% of the peoplesurveyed or polled thought this
country was on the wrong track,so the vote came in and the

(05:48):
Republican Party won thepresidency, they won the Senate
and it looks like not officialyet the votes are still being
counted and it's close but theRepublican Party won is.
It looks like they're going towin the House, not only won the
Electoral College for thepresidency, but won the popular
vote, and that is not always aresounding support of Trump.

(06:26):
That is some of the countrysaying you know what?
We're not doing thingscompletely right.
We think the country's notheaded in the direction that we,
the people, think it should be.
It it's happened and we need tolook at what are the changes
that are potentially going to bemade.
Rfk Jr he, he talked a lot aboutthe chronic, chronic illness
and chronic diseases that areplaguing the youth.
I think somebody said 50.
I want to say it's like 56percent of of Americans have

(06:50):
have a weight problem in largepart, and I don't know the
science of it so I don't want tomake statements of fact.
But there's a lot of doctorsthat I have seen that talk about
how the food industry is inmany, many cases to blame out

(07:12):
all the time is the Cheerios, Ithink.
In the United States Cheerioshas 19 or 20 chemicals in it.
Canada there's three, and it'sjust a broad example there.
But when we look at it fromwe're the farmers, what are
these changes going to be?
What are these proposals goingto be?
If you farm, you probably usesome chemicals on your operation
I know we do and when you lookat Europe, a lot of those

(07:36):
chemicals are they're not usedin Europe or they're used much,
much less and there's much morecontrol.
I think.
If you look at the foodindustry, there are ingredients

(08:14):
no-transcript.
I think even China bannedParaquat, but we still use it.
I don't know much about it.
We don't use it here on ourfarm or haven't.
Roundup's one, that's always.
You know it makes a lot ofpress.
We use Roundup from time totime, one that's always you know
it makes a lot of press.
We use Roundup from time totime.

(08:35):
I think that when you look atthis, there is the potential for
a lot of massive, sweepingchanges.
With change comes opportunity,and that's the thing that you
know.
Again, I don't want to get intowho you're for or who you're
against.
It's happened.
We need to look at thepotential changes and the

(08:57):
potential things that are goingto impact our operations and
start making some decisions inthe early days of this podcast,
when I was talking about a lotabout marketing.
Um, it's called a SWOT analysisand it's a common thing in
business strengths, weaknesses,opportunities and threats.

(09:19):
S W O T.
And break your farm down andtake the, take each letter
individually.
Take your strengths, look atthe things you do really well,
then look at your weaknesseswhat don't you do well and then
look at the potential, theopportunity.
So in all of this change,there's going to be
opportunities.
Maybe you're the first mover tochange crops or change farming

(09:44):
practices or change whatever itis, and then the threats are
going to be.
That change is potentially athreat to your operation if you
don't roll with it.
So you know, it's a good ideato kind of kick back every once
in a while and look at thethings going on and try to stay
ahead.
I think it's more important nowthan it has ever been for

(10:07):
agricultural news and people whoare unbiased, and that's tough.
You've got to look at these, atthe media companies and where
their advertising comes from,and determine are they an
unbiased source for youragricultural news?
And I hate to say it but youknow, if you look at a news

(10:28):
source and you see that newssource is sponsored in large
part, if you see a lot of theiradvertising, well, they have
some relationship to thatadvertiser and you have to make
your own decision on whetherthey are an ethical company that
is giving you the facts as youneed them, or if their stories
are swayed by advertiser dollars.
I mean, that's just the realityof it.

(10:50):
If Nike were to come to me andsay, hey, you know we want to
sponsor your podcast, you knowwhat I'd probably do is I'd
probably wear Nike shoes and Iwould probably, you know, I'd
probably promote the brand.
I wouldn't.
I'm not, you know, I don't wearNikes If you have a sponsorship
.
Some of them are good andthey're helpful and they help us
bring news and bring thesethings to you.

(11:10):
But you need to make sure, as aconsumer of information, that
you are looking at that andcognizant of those things.
For example I'll just use anexample from my past there was a
oh I believe it was a recall ofFord and Ford was getting I

(11:31):
think it was Ford.
It might not have been, butI'll just use Ford.
There was a recall and it gaveFord some bad press.
And I remember a conversationwhen I was working in some
television stations.
I was down there doing aconsulting thing and the
television station wasdetermining how to cover the
story because Ford was one oftheir big sponsors.

(11:54):
Because Ford was one of theirbig sponsors.
Well, just that conversationtells you that newscast is
potentially biased, so maybethey choose not to cover it or
maybe they put a positive slanton it.
I think those are things to beconcerned, as in the ag world as

(12:21):
well.
Look at who's sponsoring thenewscasts that you're watching.
You know where you're gettingyour news.
You really, in this time, morenow than I think ever, we have
to be cognizant of where themoney comes from, because
potentially the money skews thecoverage and we as farmers need
solid information.
Now, what's going on?

(12:41):
If there are going to besweeping changes in the FDA, it
potentially impacts foodproduction.
Well, hey, we're farmers.
We need to be staying on top ofthis.
If there are changes being made, we need to make sure that the
coverage we get, where we getour news, is as unbiased as

(13:03):
possible.
I mean, it's hard to.
I've worked with some, somegreat reporters in my in my time
and it's hard to be completelynon-biased.
It's hard, it takes workbecause you, as a person, you
have an opinion and trying tobalance those opinions.
So I've seen I've seen someguys writing stories that

(13:26):
actually go too far in trying tobe balanced and actually end up
fighting against themselves andwhat they believe themselves
and what they believe.
So you know, we need to becareful about that and I think,
as we look at these changes thatare potentially going to happen
I keep saying the wordpotentially, because the
election is just over.
There's been no changes so far.
We're just.
You know, we still have whattwo months to go, president

(13:49):
takes office and when thathappens, then you have these
potential changes happening.
But I think in these monthscoming up, we're going to get
some clues through news and getsome clues through the
candidates and the social mediachannels and the videos that
these people are releasing ofwhat they're thinking, and we as

(14:10):
farmers need to be looking atit.
And again, I talked about theSWOT analysis.
Do a SWOT analysis on youroperation.
You should be doing this on aregular basis anyway.
If somebody asks you what areyour biggest weaknesses, well,
you might not talk about it inpublic, but you ought to be able
to answer the question, and sowe have to look at those and say

(14:32):
how do we offset our weaknesseswith our strengths?
How do we look at these changesand apply our strengths to
become more successful?
Or is there one of ourweaknesses that could become a
strength?
I mean, I don't know until youstart looking at what these
changes are.
Well, until you start lookingat what these changes are, I

(14:53):
think food ingredients, I thinkthe potential for a more
European like look at pesticidesand herbicides, no-transcript.
I think the GMO thing is goingto start coming into play more.

(15:14):
And if you raise corn, soybeans, heck, we raise alfalfa.
Everything we plant pretty muchis a GMO.
Now, do I think GMOs are bad?
No, not, in the most part Notfor the most part.
I mean, was it the country ofIndia I want to say it was back
in the 70s Couldn't produceenough food to feed itself, so

(15:37):
they were a net food importer.
Guy Norman Borlaug I don't knowwhy, I always remember his name
, but Norman Borlaug comes alongand crosses wheat together,
makes a genetically modifiedwheat that is short called dwarf
wheat.
Now this wheat will stand up tothe monsoon season.

(15:59):
India is a net food exporter.
I mean they produce enough foodto feed their population.
This is, you know, something weshould be watching.
We raise alfalfa.
We have several hundred acresof alfalfa.
We plant Harvextra.
A genetic trait that reduceslignin content gives us a little

(16:24):
bit more of a window in ourharvest to get low lignin
content in our alfalfa.
We use a Roundup Ready so wecan keep our fields clear
because of the decades of weedsthat have become resistant to
some of the previous pesticidesor herbicides.
We use a Roundup Ready alfalfaso that from time to time we can

(16:47):
go in and spray our alfalfa andkill the grasses off that get
in there and are harmful to thealfalfa.
Has to be done in our area.
There's, you know it's veryhard to farm.
You know a non-GMO alfalfa inour area.
I should say so.
You know, these are things.
If they and if it becomes a banon GMOs, well, it's going to

(17:09):
change.
Now that means there, there'sopportunity there too.
So I try not to get too workedup and concerned about it, but
it is definitely something thatwe need to be cognizant of, and
with that I also say that weneed to be cognizant of our
friends and neighbors.
Make sure that they are OKthrough all this.

(17:31):
I mean having someconversations with them.
It's good.
I mean, helping everybody getthrough these changes is going
to be a good thing for all of us.
With that, I'll let you go.
You have a blessed day.
Help your neighbor.
Good luck, god bless.