October 8, 2025 • 18 mins
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com shares why he created the American Family Farmer program before jumping into the news affecting family farmers, beginning with a new program that would support wood-processing facilities, providing funding for the new Timber Production Expansion Program.
This is a loan program that would support the utilization of wood-products from the national forrest system — forrest health needs to be improved, reducing the risk posted by wild fires, insects and disease as well as the ash tree being destroyed by an invasive bug from China.
Next up, new programs for Masters degrees in AI and how artificial intelligence can be used in agriculture to fill in on labor shortages, and data protection discussions as the fact that modern tractor/combine starts up, it’s GPS begins mapping and data begins flowing but where is that data going and why is a common question.
Moving on, Doug pivots to a discussion on dairy farms, but more so the milk itself and the focus on quality and misconception of raw milk being dangerous when it’s the why it’s produced over the milk itself. Raw milk isn’t illegal for purchase everywhere because, when done properly and in a clean/sterilized environment, the health benefits are far more than what you find in grocery stores across the nation, but also the importance in knowing from where your milk comes — just like your eggs, produce and meats.
Website: AmericanFamilyFarmerShow.com
Social Media: @GoodDayNetworks
This is a loan program that would support the utilization of wood-products from the national forrest system — forrest health needs to be improved, reducing the risk posted by wild fires, insects and disease as well as the ash tree being destroyed by an invasive bug from China.
Next up, new programs for Masters degrees in AI and how artificial intelligence can be used in agriculture to fill in on labor shortages, and data protection discussions as the fact that modern tractor/combine starts up, it’s GPS begins mapping and data begins flowing but where is that data going and why is a common question.
Moving on, Doug pivots to a discussion on dairy farms, but more so the milk itself and the focus on quality and misconception of raw milk being dangerous when it’s the why it’s produced over the milk itself. Raw milk isn’t illegal for purchase everywhere because, when done properly and in a clean/sterilized environment, the health benefits are far more than what you find in grocery stores across the nation, but also the importance in knowing from where your milk comes — just like your eggs, produce and meats.
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. So each week on The
American Family Farmer, I'm Doug Stefan. By the way, I
try to find half a dozen stories news stories that
are pertinent to what's going on for the American Family
(00:21):
Farmer and that ILK if you will, so, let us
begin by looking at a new program which has been
announced to support wood processing facilities. The fact that we
have a lot of farmers, as we have talked about
many many times, not only here but elsewhere, how the
(00:42):
farmer has to have other means of income other than
just straight farming. Now, there are a lot of farmers,
and I'm one of them, that have a big wood
lot that process would and sell wood for Frankly, there
are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people around where
I am that have wood burning stoves. They have fireplaces,
(01:03):
and they're not using gas in the fireplace. They want
to use wood. So you may be interested to know
that the support for American wood processing facilities from the
USDA's Rural Development Group partnering with the Forest Service to
provide funding for the new Timber Production Expansion Program. This
(01:28):
is a loan program that will support utilization of wood
products from the National Forest System, the lands that improve
the Bureau of Land Management and a manner of speaking, so,
forest health needs to be improved, reducing the risk posted
by wildfires. That's something every single year we certainly have
(01:50):
to be concerned about. Insects and disease.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Now, if you.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Look where I am in my neck of the woods
here in the northeast, the ash tree is pretty much
been destroyed by some bug that came.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Listen to this.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
The bug originated in China and got here by being
in pallets. The trees that had the disease was used
to make pallets, and the pallets obviously were used to
ship products from China to America. And the pallets got
here and as they either got rid of them or
(02:26):
gave them to somebody, or whatever they did with them
after they were used for shipping purposes, this stuff got
into the soil and got into the trees, and thus
we have millions of ash trees being destroyed because of
this bug that came from China. Now that's not to
say that the trees can't be used because they are
(02:46):
being We have a lot of them in our woodpile,
a lot of them that are being processed. I'm doing
two or three different things. Wood processing for fireplace use.
The ash does not have once the tree is dead.
The tree is dead, doesn't get into the wood that
you were burning in your fireplace. You're not going to
be susceptible. The house isn't going to get attacked by
(03:07):
some bug that was in the product first came over here.
The other thing that's going on is I'm now finding
that there's a market for mulch and the old trees
and tree stumps and things like that that you may
have around. If you're trying to straighten out your wood lot,
(03:28):
or if you've got a lot of woods and let's
say you got two three hundred acres and maybe one
hundred of it is woodland, then that probably could be
cleaned up. There's probably a lot of wood in there
that either could be used for firewood, or if you
have a saw mill, that's something I've been contemplating. I
used to have one, and I think they're very handy
on the farm, and I'm trying to figure I find
another one because I have lots of wood. It could
(03:51):
be processed and used for building purposes. So you have
the wood lot for building, you can sell wood for lumber,
you can sell it for fireplace use, and you can
sell the remains of the trees, whether it be trees
that are rotten or the stumps. You have a source
of income there for mulch anyway. So that's all part
(04:15):
of this new National Forest System processing support that's coming
from rural development and the timber industry. The farmers and
the timber industry are finding that this looks like kind
of a good deal. Actually, I think this has got
The initial idea for this came out of the Biden administration.
(04:36):
I'm surprised it hasn't been KOed, but they made two
hundred and twenty million dollars available for loan guarantees for
those of you who want to either establish or reopen,
or retro fit or expand your wood processing facilities. Maybe
you've got a sawmill, maybe have a paper mill, and
you're using the trees harvested from your land or from
(04:57):
federal lands. This is just for this is actually what
they're trying to preference the federal and tribal lands so
they can clean them up because nobody's clean them up
for years and years and years. And of course, as
I mentioned a few minutes ago, it lends itself to
a fire hazard as much as anything else. So the
(05:18):
maximum loan them out is twenty five million dollars. And
if you want to use the applications available online, you
go to the Forest Service part of the government. You
just login, I mean, you just put in the search
bar Forest Service and I'm sure you can find or
even the USDA has applications as well.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
So there's that program that I thought you ought to.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Know about from the news desk on the American Family Farmer.
I'm Doug Stephan. Let's pause for a second. Let's think
about something. You're ready to capture every festive moment of.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
The season that's coming up.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Well, what happens if your phone breaks?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Ha ha ha.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Listen to this malx Lee.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
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you holiday, Verizon Mobile Protect has got you. We give
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(06:28):
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(06:52):
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Speaker 4 (07:00):
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Speaker 4 (07:36):
Download the free Upside app now to earn cash back
every time you buy gas. Use promo code map to
get an extra twenty five cents per gallon on your
first tank. You can cash out any time, write your bank, PayPal,
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download the free Upside app and use promo code map
for a twenty five cents per gallon bonus on your
first tank. That's code map for a twenty five cents
(07:57):
per gallon bonus.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
The American Family Farmer program on the radio around the
country every weekend and also available wherever you download your podcasts,
whether you listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Google podcasts.
Wherever you'll find the American Family Farmer at americanfamilyfarmershow dot com. Okay,
(08:20):
Artificial intelligence making the news this week for rural America
for farmers, small family farmers because it is revolutionizing agriculture,
but many of the thinking farmers want barriers like education.
There I saw something. There's talk with my daughter who's
a professor of UCLA about new programs master's degrees in AI.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
And there is in certain.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Schools that pushes on to get connectivity and address those
things in terms of what you know, what you should be,
you know what can be taught, what is being taught.
It's quite the thing, and it can't be used. It's
good if we understand how to use it. So A
and M Texas A and M had an Artificial Intelligence
(09:11):
in Agriculture conference, and so this is why I'm reporting
on this. The conclusions from this meeting. Let's see, there
are a couple of different things.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
That I want to highlight here.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Number one is they all agreed that more education is needed.
One day, automated machines could fill some of the labor
shortages by taking over menial, repetitive tasks on the farm.
But while AI could fill in for unfilled unskilled labor positions,
farmers need to find and hire and train more skilled laborers.
(09:49):
As we are seeing right now, one of the problems
that we're having is the whole immigration thing.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
And so where do we find new people? How do
we find people?
Speaker 1 (10:00):
The pushes on and what Trump has said is he
wants to put Americans back to work and take them off.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Of welfare, which yeah, makes good sense.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Let's see here, what else in terms of artificial intelligence
came out of this meeting. Lack of connectivity. New farm
machines require connectivity, which is an issue in lots of
parts of rural America. The problem is we're so remote.
According to a recent report by the Federal Communications Commission,
(10:30):
twenty two percent of rural American households and twenty seven
percent of those living on tribal land don't have any
broadband coverage, which has been something that's been discussed a lot.
And one of the things one of the advertisers we
have on this program, as we just suggested, was the
folks who are putting together a lot of connectivity arise
(10:53):
and that ilk. Okay, let's see what else came out
of this meeting. Data detection discussion. Every time a modern
tractor combine starts up, it's GPS begins mapping and data begins.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Flowing, but nobody where's it going.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Who's got use of the data. That's one of the
things that's concerning to a lot of farmers. It can
be twisted, it can be misused. I don't think any
of us want to see our data come back and
harm us, said farmer from Corpus Christi, Texas.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Let's see.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
A fellow from Western Tennessee named Bob Walker was at
this conference. He offered this advice to technology businesses. Quote,
if I don't have a good feeling about something, it
isn't going any further. You have to follow a high
ethical and moral standard. Don't fudge the data. Never lie
to me about what is apparently important to me or
(11:52):
to other farmers. If you lie to me, we're done.
That makes good sense, Fellows said. Lying to me about
data is going to get your run out of town faster.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Than you came in.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
And don't use the data for anything other than exactly
what we agreed upon.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
See.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I think that's the other issue. That's one of the
main issues is what do you do with the information
that's coming as being gleaned.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
That's been the big.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Issue with TikTok and who has the information, who's controlling information,
what are they doing with the information? So it's good
that people are looking at this.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I'm pleased to report on.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That Caltron is on the top of the food chain,
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Speaker 5 (12:42):
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There are the quick fixes, are the ones that you know,
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(13:18):
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Speaker 1 (13:24):
Six six Elizabeth Miller from top loss dot Com and Calatrin.
Back on the American Family Farmer. There are a lot
of things that are going on in the American Family Farmer,
and you can catch the program as I said on
the radio, or if you hear something and you don't
(13:44):
get the whole story, you can listen to all of
our podcasts.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
There are hundreds of them.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Wherever you get your podcasts, The Americanfamilyfarmer Dot Show.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
You can listen on Spotify or.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Apple podcasts or Google podcasts, just to wherever iHeart.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Wherever you get them, help yourself.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I have Even though June is dairy month and we
like to, I always want to pay attention to what
goes on with our cows and with cattle. It's something
that needs to be year round.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
In my estimation.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah, we celebrate the things that are good about being
on the dairy farms.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
The dairy farms are getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
But I wasn't thinking so much about the farms as
I was about the quality.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Of the milk.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Thinking about milk, the two percent milk, the one percent
of skim milk. I don't know why anybody bothers with that,
because it isn't real milk. I go back to the
time when President Eisenhower, I'm old enough to remember Ike.
As a matter of fact, he had a heart attack
and he had heart disease and because of the attention
(14:54):
that was focused on him and his heart disease. People
forgot that he's smoke four packs of cigarettes a day
when he was in the theater of war, and they
blamed it on the raw milk that he drank when
he was in Europe because that's all that they had.
And I thought to myself, Wow, this is so stupid
and superficial. What we're often hearing about the quality of
(15:18):
milk that comes.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
You know, now with the Trump administration, Robert F.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Kennedy, they're bringing whole milk back into schools again, which
seems like a no brainer to me, but you know
that's I guess I'm a little too close to it.
But because we've made whole milk the enemy, now we
have Kennedy focusing on this and people starting to look
at the history. I remember Jane Fonda in the nineteen
(15:44):
eighties when she was doing her fitness tapes. She would
talk about how bad milk was for you and the
casualty of whole milk calories compared.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
To low fat milk.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
The general guidance suggested at the time you should limit
your intake of milk, which was completely wrong. And now
we're just coming around, and it's like science. I talked
to my friends, doctors and scientists, and they always got
to have the science behind it. Because people making fun
of Robert Kennedy because they say that a lot of
(16:19):
the things he comes up with don't have scientific background.
But you know what, science is always disproving itself. We
know that, we see it. So the findings that were
in the nineteen eighties now beginning to stir debate again,
and experts say, well, maybe we need to change our
dietary guidelines. Some say the science isn't conclusive. The science
(16:42):
has never been conclusive, frankly, and in my mind, you know,
you talk about the broken food pyramid, and how as
some say, you know, the people that go to the health,
to the colleges, the nutrition colleges, to the health colleges
like Columbia, they come out saying, if you drink raw milk,
you're gonna die.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
But it's nonsense. It's not about the raw milk.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
It's how you prepare it.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I grew up on it. Many of you probably did too.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
It's the warped sense of what's right and wrong based
on how a hidden bind. Supposedly the scientific method. This
is one of the greatest bits of misinformation in my mind,
in modern American history. So the fact that Kennedy and
(17:31):
this administration is ending the fifty or sixty year war
on natural saturated fat.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
The schools, by.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Regulation are going to have whole milk now, and they say, well,
the science no, sorry, no sale, milk does your body good?
And when you take the fat options from the school
menus or just take it out of the milk and
you know, drink one might as well be drink of water. Yeah,
(18:04):
the science is something that is questioned often. But these
schools of public health who look at.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
This from time to time to time.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
One of the things that I saw at the Harvard
School of Public Health was this is my backyard.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
So I saw it in the local newspaper.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Putting milk back in schools should be part of the
American standard, the American standard diet. So I thought I
should share my thoughts with you, being a dairy guy,
about the situation now with the whole milk and things
that are going on that are good in the school
system as far.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
As I'm concerned.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Doug Stefan here on the American Family Farmer. This program
was produced at bob k Sound and recording. Please visit
bobksound dot com. The American Family Farmer podcast sponsored in
part by Caldron, which is the safe way for you
to lose weight and keep it off
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. So each week on The
American Family Farmer, I'm Doug Stefan. By the way, I
try to find half a dozen stories news stories that
are pertinent to what's going on for the American Family
(00:21):
Farmer and that ILK if you will, so, let us
begin by looking at a new program which has been
announced to support wood processing facilities. The fact that we
have a lot of farmers, as we have talked about
many many times, not only here but elsewhere, how the
(00:42):
farmer has to have other means of income other than
just straight farming. Now, there are a lot of farmers,
and I'm one of them, that have a big wood
lot that process would and sell wood for Frankly, there
are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people around where
I am that have wood burning stoves. They have fireplaces,
(01:03):
and they're not using gas in the fireplace. They want
to use wood. So you may be interested to know
that the support for American wood processing facilities from the
USDA's Rural Development Group partnering with the Forest Service to
provide funding for the new Timber Production Expansion Program. This
(01:28):
is a loan program that will support utilization of wood
products from the National Forest System, the lands that improve
the Bureau of Land Management and a manner of speaking, so,
forest health needs to be improved, reducing the risk posted
by wildfires. That's something every single year we certainly have
(01:50):
to be concerned about. Insects and disease.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Now, if you.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Look where I am in my neck of the woods
here in the northeast, the ash tree is pretty much
been destroyed by some bug that came.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Listen to this.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
The bug originated in China and got here by being
in pallets. The trees that had the disease was used
to make pallets, and the pallets obviously were used to
ship products from China to America. And the pallets got
here and as they either got rid of them or
(02:26):
gave them to somebody, or whatever they did with them
after they were used for shipping purposes, this stuff got
into the soil and got into the trees, and thus
we have millions of ash trees being destroyed because of
this bug that came from China. Now that's not to
say that the trees can't be used because they are
(02:46):
being We have a lot of them in our woodpile,
a lot of them that are being processed. I'm doing
two or three different things. Wood processing for fireplace use.
The ash does not have once the tree is dead.
The tree is dead, doesn't get into the wood that
you were burning in your fireplace. You're not going to
be susceptible. The house isn't going to get attacked by
(03:07):
some bug that was in the product first came over here.
The other thing that's going on is I'm now finding
that there's a market for mulch and the old trees
and tree stumps and things like that that you may
have around. If you're trying to straighten out your wood lot,
(03:28):
or if you've got a lot of woods and let's
say you got two three hundred acres and maybe one
hundred of it is woodland, then that probably could be
cleaned up. There's probably a lot of wood in there
that either could be used for firewood, or if you
have a saw mill, that's something I've been contemplating. I
used to have one, and I think they're very handy
on the farm, and I'm trying to figure I find
another one because I have lots of wood. It could
(03:51):
be processed and used for building purposes. So you have
the wood lot for building, you can sell wood for lumber,
you can sell it for fireplace use, and you can
sell the remains of the trees, whether it be trees
that are rotten or the stumps. You have a source
of income there for mulch anyway. So that's all part
(04:15):
of this new National Forest System processing support that's coming
from rural development and the timber industry. The farmers and
the timber industry are finding that this looks like kind
of a good deal. Actually, I think this has got
The initial idea for this came out of the Biden administration.
(04:36):
I'm surprised it hasn't been KOed, but they made two
hundred and twenty million dollars available for loan guarantees for
those of you who want to either establish or reopen,
or retro fit or expand your wood processing facilities. Maybe
you've got a sawmill, maybe have a paper mill, and
you're using the trees harvested from your land or from
(04:57):
federal lands. This is just for this is actually what
they're trying to preference the federal and tribal lands so
they can clean them up because nobody's clean them up
for years and years and years. And of course, as
I mentioned a few minutes ago, it lends itself to
a fire hazard as much as anything else. So the
(05:18):
maximum loan them out is twenty five million dollars. And
if you want to use the applications available online, you
go to the Forest Service part of the government. You
just login, I mean, you just put in the search
bar Forest Service and I'm sure you can find or
even the USDA has applications as well.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
So there's that program that I thought you ought to.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Know about from the news desk on the American Family Farmer.
I'm Doug Stephan. Let's pause for a second. Let's think
about something. You're ready to capture every festive moment of.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
The season that's coming up.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Well, what happens if your phone breaks?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Ha ha ha.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Listen to this malx Lee.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Fall us here and you want to stay connected to
capture every moment that the season brings. But what if
a cracked screen, a lost smartphone, or an unexpected mishap
threatens to interrupt these precious times this holiday season? However,
you holiday, Verizon Mobile Protect has got you. We give
you peace of mind. So you can unwrap joy with
the people you love, worry free, protect the moments that matter.
(06:28):
Verizon Mobile Protect can get you back up and running
with unlimited claims, zero dollar deductible crackscreen repairs and same
day replacement smartphones. Experience easy living with twenty four to
seven tech support and same day delivery and set up.
Don't let anything stand in the way of your fall
and holiday memories. Enroll in Verizon Mobile Protect or any
other device protection option before November three to protect all
(06:52):
your fall moments. Visit Verizon dot com, Slash Mobile Protection
or your nearest Verizon store today.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Five thousand dollars. That's the average amount of money people
in the US are now spending on gas in a year.
Five grand. That's crazy. If you drive, you have to
download Upside, the free app that gives you cash back
every time you get gas. That's right. You can earn
real cash back with Upside just by buying the gas
you're already buying. You can literally start earning cash back today.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
I use Upside every time I fill up, and I've
already made around to three hundred dollars.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
You're putting gas in your car anyway, why not get
real cash back.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
If you like free money, download Upside.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
I'm saving the cash Iron from using Upside to help
pay for a vacation later this year.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Download the free Upside app now to earn cash back
every time you buy gas. Use promo code map to
get an extra twenty five cents per gallon on your
first tank. You can cash out any time, write your bank, PayPal,
or a gift card For Amazon and other brands, just
download the free Upside app and use promo code map
for a twenty five cents per gallon bonus on your
first tank. That's code map for a twenty five cents
(07:57):
per gallon bonus.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
The American Family Farmer program on the radio around the
country every weekend and also available wherever you download your podcasts,
whether you listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Google podcasts.
Wherever you'll find the American Family Farmer at americanfamilyfarmershow dot com. Okay,
(08:20):
Artificial intelligence making the news this week for rural America
for farmers, small family farmers because it is revolutionizing agriculture,
but many of the thinking farmers want barriers like education.
There I saw something. There's talk with my daughter who's
a professor of UCLA about new programs master's degrees in AI.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
And there is in certain.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Schools that pushes on to get connectivity and address those
things in terms of what you know, what you should be,
you know what can be taught, what is being taught.
It's quite the thing, and it can't be used. It's
good if we understand how to use it. So A
and M Texas A and M had an Artificial Intelligence
(09:11):
in Agriculture conference, and so this is why I'm reporting
on this. The conclusions from this meeting. Let's see, there
are a couple of different things.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
That I want to highlight here.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Number one is they all agreed that more education is needed.
One day, automated machines could fill some of the labor
shortages by taking over menial, repetitive tasks on the farm.
But while AI could fill in for unfilled unskilled labor positions,
farmers need to find and hire and train more skilled laborers.
(09:49):
As we are seeing right now, one of the problems
that we're having is the whole immigration thing.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
And so where do we find new people? How do
we find people?
Speaker 1 (10:00):
The pushes on and what Trump has said is he
wants to put Americans back to work and take them off.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Of welfare, which yeah, makes good sense.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Let's see here, what else in terms of artificial intelligence
came out of this meeting. Lack of connectivity. New farm
machines require connectivity, which is an issue in lots of
parts of rural America. The problem is we're so remote.
According to a recent report by the Federal Communications Commission,
(10:30):
twenty two percent of rural American households and twenty seven
percent of those living on tribal land don't have any
broadband coverage, which has been something that's been discussed a lot.
And one of the things one of the advertisers we
have on this program, as we just suggested, was the
folks who are putting together a lot of connectivity arise
(10:53):
and that ilk. Okay, let's see what else came out
of this meeting. Data detection discussion. Every time a modern
tractor combine starts up, it's GPS begins mapping and data begins.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Flowing, but nobody where's it going.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Who's got use of the data. That's one of the
things that's concerning to a lot of farmers. It can
be twisted, it can be misused. I don't think any
of us want to see our data come back and
harm us, said farmer from Corpus Christi, Texas.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Let's see.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
A fellow from Western Tennessee named Bob Walker was at
this conference. He offered this advice to technology businesses. Quote,
if I don't have a good feeling about something, it
isn't going any further. You have to follow a high
ethical and moral standard. Don't fudge the data. Never lie
to me about what is apparently important to me or
(11:52):
to other farmers. If you lie to me, we're done.
That makes good sense, Fellows said. Lying to me about
data is going to get your run out of town faster.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Than you came in.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
And don't use the data for anything other than exactly
what we agreed upon.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
See.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I think that's the other issue. That's one of the
main issues is what do you do with the information
that's coming as being gleaned.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
That's been the big.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Issue with TikTok and who has the information, who's controlling information,
what are they doing with the information? So it's good
that people are looking at this.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I'm pleased to report on.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
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(13:18):
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Speaker 1 (13:24):
Six six Elizabeth Miller from top loss dot Com and Calatrin.
Back on the American Family Farmer. There are a lot
of things that are going on in the American Family Farmer,
and you can catch the program as I said on
the radio, or if you hear something and you don't
(13:44):
get the whole story, you can listen to all of
our podcasts.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
There are hundreds of them.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Wherever you get your podcasts, The Americanfamilyfarmer Dot Show.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
You can listen on Spotify or.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Apple podcasts or Google podcasts, just to wherever iHeart.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Wherever you get them, help yourself.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I have Even though June is dairy month and we
like to, I always want to pay attention to what
goes on with our cows and with cattle. It's something
that needs to be year round.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
In my estimation.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah, we celebrate the things that are good about being
on the dairy farms.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
The dairy farms are getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
But I wasn't thinking so much about the farms as
I was about the quality.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Of the milk.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Thinking about milk, the two percent milk, the one percent
of skim milk. I don't know why anybody bothers with that,
because it isn't real milk. I go back to the
time when President Eisenhower, I'm old enough to remember Ike.
As a matter of fact, he had a heart attack
and he had heart disease and because of the attention
(14:54):
that was focused on him and his heart disease. People
forgot that he's smoke four packs of cigarettes a day
when he was in the theater of war, and they
blamed it on the raw milk that he drank when
he was in Europe because that's all that they had.
And I thought to myself, Wow, this is so stupid
and superficial. What we're often hearing about the quality of
(15:18):
milk that comes.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
You know, now with the Trump administration, Robert F.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Kennedy, they're bringing whole milk back into schools again, which
seems like a no brainer to me, but you know
that's I guess I'm a little too close to it.
But because we've made whole milk the enemy, now we
have Kennedy focusing on this and people starting to look
at the history. I remember Jane Fonda in the nineteen
(15:44):
eighties when she was doing her fitness tapes. She would
talk about how bad milk was for you and the
casualty of whole milk calories compared.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
To low fat milk.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
The general guidance suggested at the time you should limit
your intake of milk, which was completely wrong. And now
we're just coming around, and it's like science. I talked
to my friends, doctors and scientists, and they always got
to have the science behind it. Because people making fun
of Robert Kennedy because they say that a lot of
(16:19):
the things he comes up with don't have scientific background.
But you know what, science is always disproving itself. We
know that, we see it. So the findings that were
in the nineteen eighties now beginning to stir debate again,
and experts say, well, maybe we need to change our
dietary guidelines. Some say the science isn't conclusive. The science
(16:42):
has never been conclusive, frankly, and in my mind, you know,
you talk about the broken food pyramid, and how as
some say, you know, the people that go to the health,
to the colleges, the nutrition colleges, to the health colleges
like Columbia, they come out saying, if you drink raw milk,
you're gonna die.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
But it's nonsense. It's not about the raw milk.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
It's how you prepare it.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I grew up on it. Many of you probably did too.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
It's the warped sense of what's right and wrong based
on how a hidden bind. Supposedly the scientific method. This
is one of the greatest bits of misinformation in my mind,
in modern American history. So the fact that Kennedy and
(17:31):
this administration is ending the fifty or sixty year war
on natural saturated fat.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
The schools, by.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Regulation are going to have whole milk now, and they say, well,
the science no, sorry, no sale, milk does your body good?
And when you take the fat options from the school
menus or just take it out of the milk and
you know, drink one might as well be drink of water. Yeah,
(18:04):
the science is something that is questioned often. But these
schools of public health who look at.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
This from time to time to time.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
One of the things that I saw at the Harvard
School of Public Health was this is my backyard.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
So I saw it in the local newspaper.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Putting milk back in schools should be part of the
American standard, the American standard diet. So I thought I
should share my thoughts with you, being a dairy guy,
about the situation now with the whole milk and things
that are going on that are good in the school
system as far.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
As I'm concerned.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Doug Stefan here on the American Family Farmer. This program
was produced at bob k Sound and recording. Please visit
bobksound dot com. The American Family Farmer podcast sponsored in
part by Caldron, which is the safe way for you
to lose weight and keep it off
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