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September 3, 2025 17 mins
On this episode of American Family Farmer, host Doug Stephan (www.eastleighfarm.com) shares why he created the program and why supporting family farms matters more than ever.

He covers:

🏡 Brooke Rollins’ plans for rural development funds and how they’ll impact farmers
📜 The “Big Beautiful Bill” and key highlights that affect agriculture
🌽 Rising corn prices and what that means for farmers
🚫 The spread of the screwworm, new bans on Mexican livestock imports, and even a rare human case
🇺🇸 Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” push
🌱 Why some farmers resist restrictions on Monsanto and similar products

It’s an honest look at the challenges and opportunities facing America’s family farmers today.

Website: AmericanFamilyFarmerShow.com
Social Media: @GoodDayNetworks
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The American Family Farmer podcast, sponsored in part by Caldron,
The Safe, proven Way to lose weight. Check it all
out at toploss dot com. I'm Doug Stephan. This is
the American Family Farmer, the small farmer, the family farmer,
the farmer that actually is ninety six percent of the
base of our agricultural system here in America. I decided

(00:23):
to do this program six or seven years ago when
it seemed to me there was a great correlation between
my background as a broadcaster and as a farmer. So
I bring that information to Bayer to a little research
some weeks, a lot of research on various things that
are in the news cycle that affect farmers.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
And so let's get to that.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
There are a lot of things being quoted from Brook Rawlins,
who is the chief of the USDA. She has been
around the country talking to farmers here and there at
various state fairs, and she has pretty much laid out
what's on her mind. She addressed those points to rural America,

(01:06):
talking about rural developments and rural development funds. She says
the USDA is going to fund nineteen rural development projects
around various states in the Midwest, directing a mix of
grants and loans to help fund healthcare, infrastructure, water and
wastewater projects, transportation and street improvements, rural business growth which

(01:30):
would lead to job growth. She talked about the Big
Beautiful Bill again, talking about how the President had thought
about farming and as far as the highlights are.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Concerned their effect farmers.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Last week on this program, you could have heard me
talk in detail about the tax cuts and the retention
of tax credits and that sort of thing, and how
they would affect you. Probably best if you have a
good consultant, a good person that they carry your books
or at least to your taxes, that can give you
the lowdown. Or maybe you don't even care about the lowdown.

(02:07):
All you want to know is how it affects the
bottom line. That's kind of the way I look at it.
I don't want to get in the woods. I'm not
an accountant, I'm not a CPA. I don't play one
on the radio.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
So I help yourself. And that's what's kind of going on.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
So if you listened to last week's American Family Farmer program,
which you can no longer hear on radio stations, but
you can't hear wherever you get your podcasts Americanfamilyfarmershow dot
Com right there front and center. The trade deals and
how they are affecting.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Agriculture in America.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
One of the other things that has people focused on
what's the value of their crop. Many people see crops,
especially corn, the value going up this year because the
United Kingdom, the European Union, South Korea, Pakistan, Japan, Indonesia,
the Philippines are now take making through the various trade talks,

(03:03):
taking a big, strong, good look at what we're doing
here in our country with an eye toward increasing what
they import. So the Secretary of the USDA said that quote,
we are working to say billions of dollars to move
most of the headquarters of USDA out of Washington and

(03:24):
closer to the people. They're going to move the offices
from Washington to Rawleigh, North Carolina, Kansas City, Missouri, Indianapolis,
Fort Collins, Colorado, and Salt Lake City. So that's an
interesting bit of business. All right, I'm going to get
to the screwworm. There was conversation mister Rollins actually talking

(03:48):
about banning livestock imports from Mexico after the screwworm was reported.
There I Remember this is only this is about four
hundred miles south of our border. But the thing that
really is disturbing this week in terms of the news
about the screwworm, is that now a human being a

(04:11):
case of the screw worm getting into our bodies. This
is something that's worried everybody there. The screwworm is attracted
a warm blooded animals, and so this escalates the outbreak
of a human getting it has affected the Beef Alliance

(04:32):
says that a couple of dozen people in the livestock
and beef sectors have in various parts of the country,
including this fellow in Maryland who was traveling in Central America,
I think most notably in Guatemala, and.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
That's where he got the screw worm.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
So now state veterinarians are all worked up about this
as well they should be. There was a conference last
week with a CDC that focused on this. State animal
health officials around the country are into trying to figure
out where we go from here. There have been a

(05:12):
lot of I think most everybody knows where a screwworm is.
I hope after having focused on this three or four
times on this program, you know what it is. Parasitic flies.
The female lays an egg and a.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Wound in a warm blood.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
And animal could be a pig, could be a chicken,
could be a cow, could be a horse. It could
be a donkey, could be a human being. The screw
worms have very sharp mouths and they look horrible if
you look at the screw worm. They burrow into flesh
and they kill their host. The maggots keep growing and

(05:47):
the screw keeps getting deeper into their bodies, devastating cattle, devastating,
devastating various forms of wildlife. There aren't a lot of
cases where humans have been in fested, but where it happens,
it's usually fatal.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Treatment is very difficult.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
You've got to dig all the larvae out of your
I mean, it's just you can use your imagination. So
the Beef Alliance is concerned about this, and as I said,
there's been a lot of back and forth and follow up.
I don't know that there's too much more. Texas A
and M is studying it. I think in Stephenville. The

(06:29):
impact on the industry, especially if you get close to
the border, is very serious, and again, closing off any
import of beef from Central America has.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Affected the beef and cattle.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Futures because well you can imagine it would rattle the markets.
The high prices have been very, very pronounced, mostly because
of tight supplies, and now this makes it even more
difficult because nobody wants to take any any chances. So

(07:03):
there's a sterile fly facility at More Air Force Base
in Edinburgh, Texas, where production to combat the screwworm as
had taken place. They've started late in June. I think
I told you about that here in this program as well.
They started flying over parts of Mexico. Mexican government says,
come on down. They built a fifty one million dollars

(07:23):
sterile fly production facility and we have spent about one
hundred and fifty million to do the same thing. So
as the screw worms traveled through Mexico from Central America,
this is a way, hopefully for them to get cut off.
As I said, the latest report is about four and

(07:44):
actually three hundred and seventy miles south of the border
in Vera Cruz. All right, I think that's enough of
the screwworm. I don't know if I have any more
information that is that's important. The beef market I've sort
of covered that. Actually the margins have improved this past

(08:05):
week for ranchers and farmers. I mean, you can't help it.
Cow's dairy cows going for four thousand bucks in my
nicks in necklawoods, and.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
The beef is getting pretty close to that.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
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(08:39):
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(09:05):
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(09:28):
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Speaker 2 (09:43):
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Speaker 1 (09:44):
That's it at toploss dot com.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Well, as long as.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
We're in the kind of bug department, let's talk a
little bit about TikTok.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
I don't mean TikTok the whibsite.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
I mean we'll talk about ticks and how important they
have been on the farm. There have been really a
tremendous increase around the country, a lot of info.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
I don't have time to pass along all of it.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
But if you find a tick and you want to
find out what really because there are all kinds of
different ticks, testing is fairly easy.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Place the tick in a.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
Ziploc bag and then go to un MC dot edu,
which is where you can get the test done. There's
a submission form there, you get your tick ID, and.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
There's all kinds of other things.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Go to un MC dot edu so that you can
know your ticks. This has been going on since the
beginning of the season. As he gets drier and harder,
there are more ticks around and there are a number
of states that have had a great deal of time
invested in testing. The stated in Nebraska is one of them.

(11:02):
The TIC network there has provided a lot of education
and outreach because the problems in Nebraska this year have
been really bad with Rocky Mountain spotted fever a result
and lime disease as well of some of the ticks
that we're there, so again, TICK Educational Resources at UNMC
dot E d U Public Safety and Public Service. From

(11:26):
Doug Stephan on the American Family Farmer, I'm Doug Stephan
and she's not. She could be Elizabeth Miller. However, as
a matter of fact, she is. Elizabeth Miller is one
of the great reasons for going to toploss dot com
and engaging in the work of caltron getting that weight
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Speaker 3 (11:44):
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(12:05):
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Speaker 1 (12:23):
Elizabeth Miller from the folks at calder Tren Thanks Elizabeth.
Back on the American Family Farmer Americanfamilyfarmershow dot com where
if you get your podcast, go there and just enter
in Americanfamilyfarmershow dot com and you can catch up on
what's recent. The most recent one before this week was

(12:45):
a discussion of farm Aid which is taking place next month,
and the people that are behind it. I love promoting it,
frankly every year, and so that's there for you to
listen to, to figure out what's going on and to
see if you want to get some tickets to it
in Minneapolis this year. That's americanfamilyfarmershow dot com. So also

(13:06):
each week I have a few moments to set aside
my thoughts on an issue of the day, some event
to person. And so the make America Healthy Again situation
with not only mister Kennedy but Ms Rollins working together
with the farmers. Farmers, some farmers don't like this idea,

(13:29):
and I guess my question would be to you if
in fact you don't like the idea of making America
healthy again using some of the tools that Kennedy has
come up with. If you're addicted to Monsanto and Montato
products and because they have allowed you to grow more, bigger,
volume wise, but not better. In fact worse, the stuff

(13:51):
that you're using the Monsantra products on is contaminated.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
And I know a lot of you are going.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
To recoil and be upset with me, but that's I
don't know that I would go so far as to say,
you don't care about the health of the people who
are your customers. But there's overwhelming information about what some
of these products from Monsandro do and what they do
to the people who apply them, the farmers, and to

(14:17):
the people who consume them.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
That should be of interest and import to you. It
certainly is with me.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
And for years and years I've been the enemy of
Monsandra and Bear because I'm very, very quick to criticize
what is obviously something that's not good. Never mind make
America healthy again, what about making our children healthy again.
There's a report that came from the Secretary's Office Secretary
of Health and Human Services Kennedy. It's a seventy eight

(14:43):
page report that lists all the causes for the rise
in chronic disease in children and in adults. And number
one on the list is the aggregation of environmental chemicals.
That's number one. Over medication is another, poor diet, the

(15:04):
things that we're growing, all things. And part of this
has been addressed by the Big Beautiful Bill. That is
what's going to be allowed or encouraged to be served
to children.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
In schools for school lunches.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
But there has been lots of demonization of oil, seed oils,
that sort of thing, which is also a problem. But pesticides, man,
the approved pesticides. You wonder how these things got approved.
They're not approved in any other kind. They're not approven in Europe. Yeah,

(15:38):
they're all over the place in China because China has
invented most of them. Frankly, but in this circumstance, it's
hard for me not to think that you would respond
to the positive to keep this stuff. There are other
things around that you can use that are certainly maybe
they aren't quite as strong, maybe they aren't quite as good,

(15:59):
but theyly on as bad for the ultimate consumer, and
they're not as bad for farmers.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, you think applying.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
This stuff to the various things that you're growing is
good for you don't get it in your system, of
course you do.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
And anyway, but.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
I see that Zippy Duval, who's the president of American
Farm Bureau Federation, has been warning that it takes a
long time to you know, change the impact of the
results of all of these studies and looking at the
information that's here, because people are stuck on making more

(16:37):
product and selling more and making more money. So it
goes against that part of the grain to not use
this stuff. But I think that the fact that Kennedy
is going after the dies, the things that are in
food that are bad for us, is something to be praised, frankly.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
And so even.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Though I look at some of my friends who read
I'm sorry, who write for some of the various trades,
and they're taking on this saying it's too going to
be too late and it's going to ruin farming, and
YadA YadA, it's good government needs to And I'm not
telling you that I think that Trump is the greatest

(17:17):
other ke. He's a narcissistic psycho. But I think some
of the things that are going on, like what Kennedy's doing,
are nothing but good. And that includes mostly in underscores,
the things that are part of organic agriculture and something
that we ought to be paying more attention to. At
least that's my thought, and that's my point of view.

(17:38):
I'm Doug Stephan and I'm entitled my point of view
as you're entitled to yours.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
It's the American Family Farmer.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
This program was produced at bob Ka Sound and Recording.
Please with the Bobksound dot com
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