Steve Hanson (0:00): I'm Steve Hansen and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast. I'm Dr. Julie Meachin. I'm Steve Hansen. I'm Jill

Nicolas Lirio (0:03): I'm Mark

Nicolas Lirio (0:07): Chad Gravy. My name is Jeremy French. Laura Walter

Kent Boucher (0:10): Carol Hoxbergen, owner of Hoxie Native Seeds, and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast.

Nicolas Lirio (0:17): This is Hal Herring, Backcountry Hudders and Anglers Podcast. Skip Sly, Iowa Whitale, Valerie Bank Hoten, State Historical Society of Iowa. Dr. Matt Helm at Iowa State University. My name is Kyle Lauberger with the Native Habitat Project. I'm Judd McCullum. I appeared out of the wilderness and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast.

Steve Hanson (0:35): Welcome to the Prairie Farm Podcast.

Nicolas Lirio (0:39): Friends, the prairie's getting tall. It's getting time. The birds are a whistling and a chirping. And that means it is almost hunting season. So if you enjoy walking through the tall grass, pulling ticks off of yourself, and hanging out with your dogs, we highly recommend going to birdhuntersupply.com. Now I understand if you want to be out on the landscape, you don't necessarily want to just hang out on a website, but Dr. Russ Benedict was correct when he said the prairie was actually a very adverse place, and we need to be prepared. So prepare yourself for your hunting season, your trail walking season, and your bird dog hunting season at birdhuntersupply.com. They've got everything you need for yourself on the bird hunting and everything you need for your bird dog. We highly recommend the assortment of equipment that they provide on there is extensive and far above my head, but they have exactly what you need. Not only will they take care of you in that, but they actually help take care of the land as well. When I was talking to the owners, they said, we actually donate a certain amount of money to conservation every single year. And I asked them, do you have a donation button at the end where people can donate when they check out, which is really common? And he said, No, we actually donate from our profits. So they literally take their earned profits and donate that to conservation efforts because they care. They want to see the landscape have habitat and stay healthy for future generations. Highly, highly recommend. Birdhunter Supply dot com. Steve? It's good to see ya.

Steve Hanson (2:08): Good to see you guys. Got to see you in action today.

Nicolas Lirio (2:10): Yeah, a little a little bit. We Kent was racing trying to see if he could get some stuff done before.

Kent Boucher (2:15): Just want yeah, I just wanted to s get proof of concept with that field. It's been a struggle in that field this year. But it's going good.

Nicolas Lirio (2:24): Yeah. Well, so what it's a purple prairie clover field. And we would have just counted it as a loss. It was so weedy. It's a newer field anyway. So sometimes we talk a lot about year one, we don't get anything. And year two, we usually get sometimes year two, we just let it go. If we're like, we literally will lose money having a combine out there for a full day and then cleaning it for a full day is like, we're not gonna do it. But and we would have done that this year, except we are doing a giant project for the DNR south of Pella. And

Steve Hanson (2:50): Okay.

Nicolas Lirio (2:52): They require Iowa ecotype purple prairie clover. Now we can go get that somewhere else, but for everyone if yeah, well, exactly. And we only need, you know, somewhat not that many pounds, right? Purple prairie clover is one where you go through like thousands of pounds a year as a company. But this is a fun little tidbit into the native seed industry. If I go to a competitor that grows seed in Iowa, I say, Can I have some purple prairie clover? They will charge me, I don't know, eight bucks, twelve bucks, whatever, whatever the price is at the time.

Steve Hanson (2:56): Okay. Right, you got it right there.

Nicolas Lirio (3:21): If I go to that same competitor and say, I need Iowa Purple Prairie Clover, they will send me the exact same Purple Prairie Clover, but it will cost more. Now, this is not a hate on them. We do the same thing. And the reason is is because even though it's the same product on the shelf, it's two different pools that you're kind of pulling from. So they they could, if they have a bunch of purple prairie clover, they might also have bought some from Minnesota and they might just send it. But to guarantee that you get the Iowa stuff, you it's a higher price, so I don't want to pay that a higher price. So we'll stay out. Well so where Kent's out there with tweezers. Yeah.

Kent Boucher (3:56): Yeah, it feels like that sometimes.

Nicolas Lirio (4:02): We don't even say the word.

Steve Hanson (4:05): One guy standing on it, one guy running it.

Nicolas Lirio (4:09): Yeah. Well, I we we did quite a bit of looking into OSHA because we hired some high schoolers this time. We want to make sure, okay, like do we actually are we actually following the rules? The biggest one that was like a huge bummer is they can't drive anything motorized. Really? Yeah. Until he's fifteen, he's got a work permit, he drives to school.

Kent Boucher (4:24): If they're under sixteen.

Kent Boucher (4:29): He drives here, and then he can't even drive.

Nicolas Lirio (4:32): Like a stupid little yeah, golf cart riding alone. He can't do any

Steve Hanson (4:35): They must not have got the memo where I live.

Nicolas Lirio (4:37): Like we I I talked to a a guy and I guess a seventeen year old got a cut and went to the hospital and then OSHA showed up the next week and he was like, we spent like thirty thousand and I get it, like there's some but still just like I don't know. That's that would cripple us. But yeah, so if he did drive a motorized vehicle and we talked about on the podcast and then OSHA found out and then they find us, it's a

Kent Boucher (4:40): my

Steve Hanson (4:58): Yeah, that would not be good.

Nicolas Lirio (5:06): $36,000 or no, so $42,000 fine. $36,000 is for having them work too many hours in a week. Yeah. Crazy. But all right. So for everyone, we've been talking about this. Steve is our very first one. He's a very first practice person. Steve is an expert in real estate, especially in the southern half of Iowa. And we like to interview experts on Fridays on things. But we want to try something a little different. Shout out to the Modern Wisdom podcast. I was listening to one of his, and he just had a very interesting person on the podcast, and they roll a decks through topics that were relevant to that person. And the reason we want to try this out is because I don't want just experts to talk on expert things because in everyday life, we are not all experts on things, but we all we have opinions on things. And I don't like invalidating opinions that are just because someone's not an expert. exactly. But I was like, I was talking to Kent and we wanted to interview Steve. And I was like, Well, we've had him on, we've talked about real estate, we've done these things, and we'll ask those questions. And I'm sure you saw that in the title. Like, we're gonna talk about real estate. But I wanted to see, like, there's a a hundred different things that are going on, especially in Agland and Landland in Iowa, that Steve has, you know, maybe not data, but he's got opinions. I know he has opinions on this stuff for sure. So And I'm sure if we ask your friends when you're hanging out, you know, at nine o'clock at night playing poker or whatever, I'm sure those opinions come out a little stronger.

Kent Boucher (6:35): Which can I ask the first topic? Sure. Yeah. I haven't seen your notes, so maybe it's in there already. we've already interviewed Jace Elliott once. We're gonna interview him again next week because Nick's computer corrupted the files from the recording, which by the way, we're recording, right? Yeah. Okay, good. we're recording. so just know that there will be an opinion coming if you answer this question from the guy who's who's in charge of of managing our our herd, right? from an official standpoint here in our deer herd. the new trail camera laws coming into effect in Iowa. So no no trail cameras period on public land. Right. Except for I think the law says you can hang it while you're hunting and then it has to come come home with you while you're hunting or after you're done hunting. that I mean like the only way you can have one up is if you're basically at

Steve Hanson (7:33): Still on the on the premises.

Kent Boucher (7:35): so I think that's going into effect after this season. So I think it'll be the twenty seven, twenty eight season. what do you think?

Steve Hanson (7:44): I actually think it was a good idea. I really do. And you go in, you know, there's a lot of different things to consider. One of the first and foremost is privacy of the non-hunting public. Yeah. And, you know, there was some, you know, some people say, we hate going to, you know, even hiking, we feel like we're being watched because we keep coming by these cameras. And I said, that's that's a valid point. That's not one I would have thought of, but that's that's definitely one of the reasons. The other thing is it definitely And I've seen this more in the western states and the western states have been more progressive about banning or restricting the use of trail cameras. And they did it.

Kent Boucher (8:22): Did you see just while you're on that topic, did you see any that people left? I heard down there that people that left them up, they were all sh they were sh they were all people would just put a bullet hole right through anything.

Steve Hanson (8:32): Yeah, I we've seen that. We've but back in the day before they banned it, the state I'm most familiar with in there is Arizona from helping or or get hunting out there. And you would see a tree on a w I mean a tree near a water hole or a drinker, because water's the rare commodity out there, there if you could put a camera on it, there was one on it. Meaning on a single pole there might be twenty different cameras. You know, and so the here's the and here's why, you know, the overwhelming reason that they chose to ban them. And I think this is somewhat pertinent to Iowa, is that what that was doing, that constant intrusion at the water source was keeping those animals from being able to utilize it. You know, there was always someone walking in to check this, walking in to change the batteries, walking in. So it was literally, you know, harming the resource through keeping them spooked away from the water source. And I see that with trail cameras on public land, because somebody might say, hey, I'm gonna hunt late muslater this year in Iowa and be all psyched about that hunt. Well, they may be walking around because they have time off work in mid-November working on their trail cameras, totally disturbing and screwing up somebody else. That's that's their week to hunt. So it's like the I felt that our public lands get enough pressure as is, that if this is one thing that they can remove that maybe makes everybody have an actual better hunt, then I would be for it. You know, and y you always get the few bad apples that because they've got a trail camera there, now they own that spot. Yeah. You know what I mean? It seems like people get that ownership thing and then that just leads to trouble.

Nicolas Lirio (10:09): Man, I told this on the podcast with Jace. W I was like irrationally angry. Brent Barnett, you that is. Brownfield AG. and he was telling me the story and he had a great attitude about it. He was like, Yeah, I was kind of new to Iowa, just looking for places to hon the public, and I found I thought it was a pretty good spot. Well, the neighbor of that public land jumps in his ATV just ripping up and down.

Steve Hanson (10:17): No the ag network, yeah.

Kent Boucher (10:35): He saw Brent walk in.

Steve Hanson (10:37): That's a shame.

Nicolas Lirio (10:38): I know, and I the it's just so entitled. You know, it's just like not not how it goes. I was so angry. Brent was telling me he was like smiling, he's like, you know, I guess that guy just, you know, wouldn't that cause Brent's the nicest guy on earth? Yeah. And man, I was so angry. The I I'm curious with the cameras, like, are we gonna start getting two totally different and then they are to some degree, but veering even further. Two totally different hunting experiences, private, public. yeah. Where it's just like not even the same game, you know, different different companies marketing differently, you know.

Steve Hanson (11:13): Yeah, and where you see that the most is on social media. People, whether it's right or wrong, they almost seem to the hardcore public land hunters definitely seem to almost have a chip on their shoulder against the private land ones or vice versa. That's that's a better way to put it. Yeah, it's definitely definitely that and there's something to be said for that because obviously you have to work harder or you know, you you have competition in that respect.

Kent Boucher (11:29): It's own virtue signal.

Steve Hanson (11:41): But I think they also underestimate how easy they think it is on private land. Yeah. You know.

Nicolas Lirio (11:48): Yeah. Well and you can't control your neighbors, which is right, you know, super tough. I I mean, man, one of my he he's not a youth kid anymore. He's a police officer. it was like Knoxville's youngest police officer ever. He was nineteen when he s started. But he got a one ninety six. I don't know. He take it was on public land there in Southern Mary County. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, it was super cool. Easy, easy, easy.

Steve Hanson (12:13): Yeah, yeah, don't spot them.

Kent Boucher (12:14): Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio (12:16): What I don't understand is

Kent Boucher (12:18): Southern Marion County, Ohio. That's right. I remember that.

Steve Hanson (12:22): I remember that.

Nicolas Lirio (12:24): What I don't understand on the like like one of my friends was telling me recently, like, Marion County has some of the most public land in Iowa.

Steve Hanson (12:34): Probably 'cause of Red Rock. Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio (12:35): Yeah, I I would imagine Can you hunt around Red Rock?

Steve Hanson (12:39): Yes. Yeah, most of that core ground is open to hunting. I think there's a few parks that you can't cannot hunt, but I would say the majority you can. And you have

Kent Boucher (12:47): you know, your your safe distance law where you can't you can't fire I think it's both a gun and a bow. Sure. Yeah, within two hundred yards of an occupied dwelling.

Steve Hanson (12:55): It's a gun for sure.

Steve Hanson (13:01): Without their permission. Yeah. Yeah. Or a confined feedlot or there's a few other things.

Nicolas Lirio (13:03): Interesting.

Nicolas Lirio (13:06): We no, we knew that. We like 'cause when Travis Frank was out here, we look it up, like how close can we be to buildings and it's like do you have permission? That was fun. The flush episode aired and I I haven't I can't I I've I know. Can't find like I can't find it anywhere on the internet.

Kent Boucher (13:19): It's on the outdoor channel, I believe. That's where it's at right now. You gotta go get Dish Network hooked up to the coffee shop.

Nicolas Lirio (13:27): Yeah. I think it's supposed to come out of YouTube next spring, so I I guess that's when I'm gonna watch me miss all of those shots.

Kent Boucher (13:35): I don't know. Yeah, I think that's a good perspective on the on the trail camera. I do worry a little bit about the haves and have nots entering hunting, right? One of the one of the things that made hunting a a great thing in America when when European settlement took place here was those people couldn't hunt previously in their in the old sure. The old world, right? In the old country, because it was the Lords and Serfs model and you weren't allowed to hunt the king's deer type of thing. And n obviously we're nowhere near that here, but I do worry that that is a bit of a step. However, I think the way Jace explained it and and I'll let him speak for himself when he when he comes back is they're basically two different things. You know, the when you're on if I was a public land hunter, and I think this ties in with Especially blood tracking with dogs. if I walked deep into a a you know, let's say I hike a mile in, get up super early, go do maybe even do a hang and hunt. No, I'm really virtually sick of the right hanging hunt on public land mile in. and then all of a sudden someone comes to check the batteries on their trigger camera that and blows the spot up. Right, you know. I would be livid. Sure. You know? And I think the same can happen with other intrusions. Now, if someone's legitimately trailing a deer by themselves trying to be quiet, you know, that's just part of the game on public land. But I think the same could probably be said if if someone wounds a deer, goes goes and gets a blood tracking dog right and they're got and it's like a half hour before sunset and all of a sudden here comes the crew, you know. That's

Steve Hanson (15:25): Twenty buddies.

Kent Boucher (15:33): So I I see that how much of that can you eliminate the trail camera's probably the lowest hanging fruit? Sure. Where you can say no one's gonna be checking their their batteries or no, I got a s you know, my cell camera lost signal, I gotta go in and adjust the antenna or see what's going on. That shouldn't be a thing anymore, theoretically. Right. I mean, there's gonna be guys who cheat, but but because hunting private land theoretically, you know. Who is and isn't there. You shouldn't Right. You don't you sh theoretically shouldn't have to worry about someone as they say on Jeremiah Johnson, molesting your hunt. Right. but on public land that's not the case. Right. You could have somebody show up at any time. Sure.

Steve Hanson (16:04): Right.

Nicolas Lirio (16:20): So are more hunters net positive or net negative? Because if you have more hunters, you have more people going to federal

Kent Boucher (16:24): There's the big can of worms right now.

Steve Hanson (16:26): That would actually be an interesting poll. That would that would be a great qu question for Jace. Yeah. Because he's probably has access to more of the f Hunter feedback. Yeah. You know? most people I talk to think it's a good idea at it at the base level. They because at some point something has to be done. Maybe you have to license them. Maybe you can only have three on public land. Because, you know, I know people that have literally fifty ch cell cameras out.

Kent Boucher (16:57): Yeah, yeah.

Steve Hanson (16:57): property. You know what I mean? So that's not right. Like that that's like where do you draw the line? So I'm happy that they just chose to deal with it this way and they can always re revisit it. So

Nicolas Lirio (17:08): Interesting. What do you think about like the next conversation is gonna be drones? It's gonna be drones for like two to five years.

Steve Hanson (17:15): Drones absolutely need to be restricted more. Absolutely. And I've had very, very many like stuff you'd never think about. Like I know a group of guys don't even bring dogs anymore and they pheasant hunt. They fly it, find them, walk up.

Kent Boucher (17:34): Really?

Steve Hanson (17:34): Yeah. If they wound one, get the drone. It's right there. Go get it. Holy Don't even need dogs to pheasant hunt. That's t probably totally illegal. You know what I mean? I I would imagine that is. But I would have never conceived that. Just the ability that a thermal drone gives you to fly a farm from a fairly high altitude and within a hundred and sixty acre field, ten minutes, they know where every bird is. That's you know and that's what I don't like. That

Nicolas Lirio (17:59): Yeah.

Kent Boucher (18:01): Yeah, I just don't even see how that's fun.

Steve Hanson (18:03): Well no, no, but but that's the problem with technology. It almost advances faster than ethics and laws and people can their brains can keep up, you know. So yeah, I would like to see more restrictions on drones in all types of hunting. So I think there's legitimate use for them that there's open for debate on recovery. I've seen, you know, there's good and bad on that. There's there's the real moral question comes in the tracking side of it. Yeah. If you find the animal and it's not dead, then what?

Kent Boucher (18:32): Yeah.

Steve Hanson (18:33): Are you using the drone to continue hunting it to try to get it? Yeah. Or or do you have to pull back, in which case that's not great e either because there's an animal possibly suffering. So how do you you know, so you're really diving into some tough topics.

Kent Boucher (18:36): Keep up with it.

Kent Boucher (18:48): Wa one of the things that I don't think anyone ever reconsiders in that in the recovery conversation is that we almost treat it like this foregone conclusion that at all at all costs that animal's gotta be recovered. And I've been on the negative side multiple times of where I didn't recover an animal that I I shot. And and it's a

Steve Hanson (19:05): Right.

Kent Boucher (19:18): Horrible, sickening, miserable feeling. I mean, you you literally don't shake it. If you care about it as much as you and I do, you don't shake that for years. I mean, I'll I dream about those times still. You know, and it could be years ago that it's happened. And so it's almost viewed as this no matter the cost, leave no stone unturned. And I just don't know that that should be a foregone conclusion. You know what I mean? Like I I think, yeah, we should always make our best effort, but at some point, I mean, if you're traipsing across five guys farms on a single lung deer that's gonna go for miles.

Steve Hanson (19:59): And may very well recover.

Kent Boucher (20:01): And may very well recover. And and if you're if you're getting to the point where you're using drones now to right, you know, what if that could be the next thing on public land. If you got three guys during the rut that have wounded deer and now you got three separate drones humming around while guys are still trying to hunt, you know, it's like at what point do we say, you know what, maybe if I want to be guaranteed a recovery? I take the time to be really proficient and settle for a really good shot instead of taking a marginal shot. And it's like we're trying to buy our way out of that really negative feeling. Sure. And we justify it by saying, No matter what we have to find it. But the the deer doesn't care if you find it or not. The the the coyote will eat just fine, you know, or the or the foxes or the raccoons, whatever. They're that

Steve Hanson (20:46): We have to find a

Kent Boucher (20:58): There's no such thing as a deer going to waste. Right. You know, nutrient cycling is a normal part of nature. And and so I I think that has to enter that sure conversation too.

Steve Hanson (21:10): Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what they do with with all that stuff.

Kent Boucher (21:12): Mm-hmm.

Nicolas Lirio (21:13): Do you do you are you feeling the vibes like 'cause I know not that you're on the board or anything, but you're involved at ISC and y and you're I know that you are involved in hunting in Iowa. Yep. What's the conversation like? Do people agree with you mostly or?

Steve Hanson (21:29): I think most people agree that you shouldn't be able to use them for hunting in any way. The debate always centers around the recovery, like like we just brought up, is whether it should be allowed, shouldn't be allowed, should it be allowed, but licensed, you know. And and it's surprising to me because Iowa was such a stick in the mud to finally allow tracking. Right. You know, that took forever to get and then now it's like, you know

Kent Boucher (21:51): Yeah.

Steve Hanson (21:58): The drones, it's like leapfrogging at a rapid pace, you know, the the amount of, you know, people either using them, wanting to use them. And to some degree, I don't think I I don't think the way our laws are probably because they didn't anticipate this, they weren't they're not clear enough. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? They need to be very, very, very clear.

Kent Boucher (22:19): Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio (22:20): That that that is interesting. Yeah, 'cause well, you know, there are ag groups that are fighting hunting restrictions 'cause they want to see more deer gone. Right. But there's not like PETA's not big at the Iowa Capitol that I understand. They're not out there yelling at people.

Kent Boucher (22:38): Before we move on, there's another topic related to this that's becoming big now. drone security systems. So someone who who's such a such as yourself who's put a ton of time into a deer property and now are just nosy people. They they wanna what's what's what deer on Steve's farm? So they'll fly their drone over Steve's. Right. Maybe a thermal drone.

Nicolas Lirio (22:55): Well,

Steve Hanson (22:56): All right.

Steve Hanson (23:05): The person you need to have that that conversation with who has some is Skip. Yeah, some amazing data because he has installed a system and I I you know, I'm sure he talked about another podcast, so I'm sure he's not hiding it. But he put a a system on the roof of his building that covers about a fifteen mile area and any drone that flies within that space, he gets email and the model, the owner, everything about it. And no

Nicolas Lirio (23:33): Did he design those?

Steve Hanson (23:35): That Jack Houston, okay, who's a drone recovery or d I mean a drone survey guy, he he hooked Skip up with that. And I I want to say and these numbers could be wrong, but they're close. Within the first within the first two months, there was a hundred and thirty flights by thirty different drones. Not over his property, but within that sure, whatever it senses as a perimeter. And I have another friend who

Kent Boucher (23:57): Over his

Steve Hanson (24:05): farm is close enough that it it gets some coverage from this system as well. Now that could be a spray drone, an ag spraying drone. You know, that doesn't mean it was somebody nefariously doing something, but it's shocking. But hopefully going forward, that kind of stuff, it's like, you know, we noticed Kent flew his drone today, Kent flew his drone tomorrow. Yeah. Kent flew his drone Friday. Saturday they killed the biggest buck in the county. Is that a coincidence? Right. You know what I mean? Like so hopefully as much as technology faces, you know, brings more challenges, it will offer some solutions.

Kent Boucher (24:38): Yeah, that's a great point.

Nicolas Lirio (24:40): Man, I the the drone thing as a whole, I mean, 'cause that's how like wars are gonna be fought with drones going forward and and how that's gonna handle and I I've I've I haven't looked into it, but I've thought many times I should look into like our ban on China's DJI, you know, drones and what what 'cause it we're so we're in like we're so far behind. We're not even what you would qualify as like a second place, you know, for drones. Right. So now that we're banning them, we have to like We have an industry that's gotta catch up on stuff. Yeah. I'm curious how that'll end up panning out, especially when you start drones start becoming fundamental on, you know, agricultural 'cause I mean higher and higher percentages of the land in Iowa is getting sprayed or Yeah. Well, let's jump in the CRP. You put in a lot of CRP. That's how we met. And I am confident in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen you put in an obscene amount. Yeah okay, first of all.

Steve Hanson (25:20): Right properly manage the drones.

Nicolas Lirio (25:36): Dad said at the beginning of that there were some really good pollinator mixes going out, but everybody ran out of seed. Right. So they were the worst pollinator mixes like by the by the, you know, May and June of twenty seventeen. Well there

Kent Boucher (25:49): Parsing parsing up meeting the minimum required for Forbes.

Nicolas Lirio (25:58): Yeah, just like the the most garbagey mixes and you know whatever whatever was left basically scraping the bottom of the barrel. I was still in college. What was that like? I I don't know. You know, I know seed companies they built new buildings based on how well the 2016, 2017 pollinator. And for anyone who doesn't know, there was like a pollinator program that everything lined up perfectly with the farm bill where farmers could get like 270, 280, $300 an acre.

Steve Hanson (26:27): Of Western Iowa. They extreme Northwestern Iowa. There were four hundred bucks an acre. my gosh. Yes. Yeah. Three three eighty five, something was one of the highest that I I remember in that day. Yeah, it was it was pretty crazy because and I'm not sure what the political side of it was that made the pollinator so attractive, like what the big push was of that moment. It might have been the monarch butterfly. Mm-hmm. There may have been something going on with that, and then it just kind of spurred into, you know.

Nicolas Lirio (26:34): Crazy.

Steve Hanson (26:53): That was the thing. But then you also gotta remember we were coming off crazy high crop prices. That's why the CRP was so high. You know, the payment rate. Because your CRP rates are basically usually like a two year lagging indicator of those soil type cash rents. Interesting. Yeah. So a lot of times that's what, you know, CRP is is running a little bit behind what the ag economy is doing. But yeah, that was that was crazy back in the day. And and like I I'll admit it. I mean, I didn't really know how to grow You know what I mean? It's it's if you really like you guys know how to do it, obviously. you know, we were learning as we go. And unfortunately, I remember picking up an order of seed for one farm, it's like forty something thousand bucks. You know, and it's like, so you know, with no direction, no nothing. And it wasn't from you guys. I won't. but I remember I remember that and and then the other thing about the pollinator that that made it tough is they

Kent Boucher (27:26): Yeah.

Steve Hanson (27:51): Everybody assumed that burning would be the best management for it. And a lot of it doesn't have enough material to burn it as easily as grass fields. So, you know, when you do burn it, you actually are accomplishing the goal, but it doesn't look like that perfect clean burn. You know, and I would get a lot of feedback from landlords, man, that didn't burn. Can you light those spots? And you know how that goes. What burns the first time pretty much you could spend hours going back lighting little spots to get nothing.

Kent Boucher (28:16): Yeah, that's right.

Steve Hanson (28:20): But yeah, so that was kind of the Wild West time.

Nicolas Lirio (28:22): Was that your fur was that when you started Wow?

Steve Hanson (28:24): I would've been pretty close to when we started. So I would I had a drill before the one I had na now, but I would have bought that one about that time, probably because of that. So interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio (28:35): I remember my brother

Steve Hanson (28:39): sorry. and I will say some in my opinion, some pollinator got put in some places it probably shouldn't have. You know, I don't like to see to see it on steep slopes where the grass could really cause it doesn't make the same you know, root base that you'll eventually get with your taller natives and stuff like that, or more of your grasses. It yeah, and I mean you know it I still see some and just kinda shake my head like, What in the world? you know. Yeah. But but that's what the people wanted, that's what paid the most, you know, so it kinda steered a lot of people into that decision.

Nicolas Lirio (29:17): Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, south of Knoxville, there's like huge like hundred and twenty acre farm next to a two hundred acre farm, next to a hundred and sixty acre farm that's just like all this pollinator and you could just tell I mean it's like not all of it, but a lot of it's like just grass in Queen Anne's Lace at this point. You know, it's just I don't know if it w you know, lacking in seed at the time or if, you know, there was a lot less education. Judge that was ten years ago. Right.

Kent Boucher (29:42): Fewer species, but fewer seeds per square foot.

Nicolas Lirio (29:44): Right.

Steve Hanson (29:46): Yeah, the one thing that I I to this day learned from that whole experience was even a good pollinator, there's times a year it doesn't look good. You know, and so when it does look good, like if we plant a field, go back the next year, you know, you go back in June, take pictures of what's up then, take pictures in July, you know. And if you add those pictures up, lay them side by side, you're like, that is a good seeding. Yeah. Because there's something always blooming. But then by the time you get a year like this, especially as bad. everything's pretty much bloomed, then it there's a hole in the canopy a little bit, the weeds can come through. So what looked good in June, July may look like a true and may be a true weed mess right now. Yeah. You know, because of the unlimited moisture.

Kent Boucher (30:30): Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio (30:31): What do you think is gonna happen twenty twenty seven? You think they'll re enroll? You think the federal government will even allow them to re enroll at their rates?

Steve Hanson (30:39): Yeah, I think they're I don't think you're gonna see a big spike in the rates, but I do think you're there'll be more sign ups.

Nicolas Lirio (30:44): But I mean like like Yeah, do you think people will re enroll? 'Cause then twenty twenty two I asked a state officer this exact question. She's like, Well, I might I think we'll try and re enroll them in the program they were in but I like

Steve Hanson (30:46): I mean pollinators?

Steve Hanson (30:58): So the the big difference would be the pay rate would have to would change to the current rates. Yeah, because they're gonna again revisit the you know, your soil rental rate. You know, so basically like if you enroll this tabletop here into CRP, they're gonna pick the three predominant soil types and then give you a weighted average of those three soil types by your county rental rate. So that's why no f two fields pay exactly the same thing because it's a blend of those

Nicolas Lirio (31:02): okay.

Steve Hanson (31:27): of those rental rates. So and because we're coming out of a few pretty hard years in the ag circles, rents have probably well, you you guys live up here in this kind of country like where we are, where farming is kind of always teetering on the edge of making it or not. You know what I mean? That that we see it first and foremost. I mean, I had a couple farms this year, big farms, and when I say big, big for down there, so they might have two hundred acres of cropland on it, couldn't find tenants for it.

Nicolas Lirio (31:35): Have they I feel like Rent hasn't

Steve Hanson (31:57): Called five years ago, they'd be fighting over it. Yeah. You know what I mean? So that that showed me a lot right there. You know, one of them he's like, Steve, I like working with you guys. He goes, I'd like to do it. He goes, I'm just losing money on every acre the way it's going right now. He said, I I literally can't take on anymore. You know, bigger operator too. Yeah.

Kent Boucher (31:57): Three or four people.

Kent Boucher (32:16): Yeah. I I'd not heard that going on, but it makes sense.

Steve Hanson (32:20): Yeah, yeah. And but now, you know, that I I bet I would get a different if I resurveyed those same people, I bet I'd get a different answer because we've seen a significant in yeah, price increase, you know, especially corn. So well

Nicolas Lirio (32:34): Well, twenty twenty seven, according to Iowa DNR, twenty twenty seven, forty four percent of Iowa's total CRP is set to expire. Forty I couldn't I couldn't believe that. But it's because it's a it's a combination of pollinator year, continuous, and the whatever the fifteen year w one was in twenty twelve. That was quite a bump up. And

Steve Hanson (32:44): Forty four?

Nicolas Lirio (33:03): Yeah, because it's got Iowa's got one point six two million acres enrolled and seven hundred and twenty seven of are up for expiring, according to Yeah. So I don't you know, I'm I'm hopeful. You know, usually CRP's kind of like a freight train, hard to get going, but it's like it it it keeps going once once people get it in the ground and and and I think it's more that barrier of getting over having corn and beans on the land. It seems to be when I'm talking to people at least. but yeah, I I just I don't know. The when you're talking to landowners, CRP, positive, negative, you know

Steve Hanson (33:43): Normally pretty positive. Okay. Yep. Normally pretty positive because we're always able, you know, through the tall natives to include it as habitat or the creation of habitat, then Forbes creation of food. So it's it's a pretty easy s and the part of CRP that most people miss, you can also put CRP that provides none of that where you don't want the deer. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? If you're strategically laying out a farm, you can kind of work with all three of those things and get and and meet the goals of the of the farmer. The biggest criticism that I get is from landowners is the system has ki it and every county's different, but the system has gotten almost too complicated.

Nicolas Lirio (34:30): I want to tell you a little story about our team here at Hoxy Native Seeds. Years ago, years ago, my dad and I were talking. What is the point of this company? We knew that it was conservation. We knew that we were growing seed to help people, but we we didn't know where we were going, what we wanted to actually do. Did we want to mostly plant on other people's land? Did we want to mostly grow native seed with high high-quality ecotypes? Did we want to mostly consult with people? We didn't quite know. So we we spent months, literally months. Boiling it down. And we came up with this goal: that we want to provide education and native seed for landowners and land managers who care about their neighbors, their investment, and the wildlife around them. Now, of course, with education, you can go to hoxynative seeds.com and we've got a huge native plant database. We've got a learning center, we've got tons of podcasts that you can listen to to learn some of the stuff from the foremost experts. But for the native seed, that's actually what pays the bills on everything else. So if you need native seed or guidance on your native seed journey, planting a prairie or a wetland or a savanna mix or even a shady mix, remember our goal is to help you not just with the native seed, but we want to educate you every step of the way. So we're not just gonna ship you seed and ghost you afterwards. We're gonna take care of you. We have people that call three, four, five years later with management questions, and we're here to answer them. That's what we want to do, but it's all paid for. Buy the native seed sale. So go to hoxynative seeds dot com and we'll talk to you soon.

Steve Hanson (35:57): Yeah. You know what I mean? And the paperwork burden and stuff and I don't know how y I'm I give you guys credit or maybe it's Riley. It's not but the

Kent Boucher (36:05): Yeah. if it's a paperwork achievement around here it's rather

Steve Hanson (36:10): Well, good for him. He's got it figured out because it drives me insane. You know, we might plant something where they require oats to go with it as a nurse crop, and you know, they're kind of an afterthought, so to speak, whether we put fifty pounds, seventy-five pounds, it's you know what I mean, it's whatever it is. But you gotta have seed tags for every bag, germination rate. So if you use two different mix or two you buy from two different places, like we start running low, we just go grab oats locally. Well now That is a different germ, right? So technically we're supposed to have more. It's like to plant oats now turned into a monster paperwork project, you know? So and that's unfortunate to me. I like to see I like to see people get behind the program. And I think the more stumbling blocks that people feel, sometimes that's a negative. So

Nicolas Lirio (36:56): Yeah. That's that's and it I mean it depends on the county. Some county you go some counties you go in there and they're just great to work with. But to be a county that's good at CRP, you have to have several overlapping things. One, the people in the office have to care about it. Yes. Two, they have to be organized. Sometimes you go on and they're not very organized. And three, there to be a strong enough culture where people stick around. Cause if they have a turnover in their NRCS office every nine, twelve, sixteen months or whatever, that's no bueno.

Kent Boucher (36:58): Definitely.

Nicolas Lirio (37:24): Right. You know, especially yeah, 'cause I'll sometimes email into an office and three times in a row it'll be a new person. Yep. You know, and and I'm not trying to beat up on those people, but makes it really difficult for C R P which is a ten year contract. Yeah. Anyway.

Steve Hanson (37:33): No, not at

Kent Boucher (37:38): I had an interesting thought while we were talking about this. The so CRP essentially had to be created because we were I mean, destroying our environment and our soil quality and stuff like that, which in a way can be traced back to our response to the Dust Bowl. I know the Dust Bowl did not create CRP, that came what, forty fifty, fifty years later. But it the Dustbol created the NRCS, essentially, the FSA, and and that's who manages CRP and it and it began this process of hey, we need to just take some acres and take them out of production and for multiple reasons. Well the somebody once I think it was Hal Herring actually brought this up, that I I hadn't for whatever reason hadn't thought of, but it was to also have additional acres that are of in in the worst of situations, our nation, if it had to pull within itself and increase food production to basically keep our country alive, those acres were waiting on reserve under perennial cover. and and and also to control the supply demand of of commodities on the market. So there's all those reasons that we have CRP. But I while we were talking, I'd never had this thought before, but it kind of hit me. It's like, you know, back when we were settling this country, there was a certain amount of land made available for private sale. And there was a certain amount of ma land that was for lack of a better term, government land. And Iowa made nearly all of its government allotted land available for private sale, which is why we have the I believe second or third fewest number of public publicly owned acres in our state. Whereas you go out west, there's huge swaths. Sure. And you can see other interesting political historical

Kent Boucher (40:03): factors that play there, especially in like the checkerboarding corner crossing debates that go on with public land in in the West, and how the railroads you owned some of that land and then sold it back or and then there there's even like school board land, you know, the school trust fund. Yeah, school trust land that that was sold off. And I almost wonder if environmentally if Iowa could have just As a state and maybe the federal government as well, because the federal government owns land in every state as well. whether it be BLM land or Army Corps of Engineers land or national park land, whatever it is, national forest, national grassland. if all of that, if all of those CRP acres, and this this isn't possible, but do you think environmentally ecologically, do you think We'll just take Iowa. Would be better off if all the CRP acres that we have today would have just stayed in government possession and so therefore we'll say left never disturbed, remained in Remnant Prairie, you know, for all of time. Or do you think we're better off with people privately owning those acres and managing those acres? What do you guys think?

Steve Hanson (41:32): I mean, if I think if if you could, you know, start from scratch, so to speak, clean the monopoly board off and let's start over. I think if you took even just use the amount of what is public land and and allocate all of it to the riparian areas so that people weren't farming right up to the creeks, so that all that whether you say a hundred and eighty feet, a hundred feet from all rivers, watersheds, creeks remains public land, that probably would have been the best use of Yeah. Public lands because that would have kept so many things out of the water. You know. Yeah. Like and probably brought the most good to the most Exactly. That's the places where the historically are are, you know, rich with wildlife.

Kent Boucher (42:08): And imagine the wildlife corridors.

Kent Boucher (42:16): What do you think, Nick?

Nicolas Lirio (42:17): I mean, you know, idealistically, that's great. Right. The the government just hasn't once proven to me that it can handle resources. Right. What I'm not saying is like the DNR is doing a bad job or anything like that. I think they're doing it, but like as a bureaucracy as a whole, and over the long term of decades or hundreds of years, they just seem to fumble things. I remember talking no, no, I wasn't talking, I was talking to you. You were talking to someone and this was an area managed hundreds of miles away, like n nowhere near our farm or anything like this. And you talk to one of the people in charge of managing it and they're like, No, this is good this is good. We like it here. And it was just like covered in brome and Reed's Canary. Yeah. And and so, you know, I don't know that I don't know.

Kent Boucher (43:06): Yeah.

Kent Boucher (43:11): Well, I think if it had never been developed though, so you know never exploited, right?

Nicolas Lirio (43:17): Hey, I think I think that you're probably

Kent Boucher (43:20): It would've it would have always stayed in the pos it would have never left the position.

Nicolas Lirio (43:23): The government's not gonna go out of its way to like do a bunch of extra work. You know, so maybe you could use that that side on

Kent Boucher (43:28): Yeah, it just I I tend to think that it would it would have been like in the circumstance that Steve's talking about, like think of our like backwater swampland along the Mississippi River and stuff like that. If it had just been left to nature, now surely we would have invasives coming in. Right. It just is it's amazing how much just birds alone plant around on the landscape. You know, I just pulled I'm not kidding you, like thirty mulberry trees out of my two year old prairie plant thirty. And it's all just birds, you know. So so there would have it wouldn't have stayed pristine for sure. But I I do think that our chance of still having elk here or or maybe even some bison. I mean that you have the overhunting problem along with that. But but I I think that there would have been some really remarkable good things that we would still have to this day. I think there's probably maybe like the

Steve Hanson (44:01): Isn't that crazy?

Nicolas Lirio (44:03): Yeah.

Kent Boucher (44:27): The blue Xerxes or Xerxes blue butterfly that went extinct like in the forties. I bet you that thing would still be around, you know? Yeah. Because there would have been so many more prairie flowers that we don't even see anymore. Yeah. That

Nicolas Lirio (44:42): Yeah, consolidated power corrupts, whether you give it to an individual or the government. I I think we talk about like privatization versus government. It's all the same. It's just power consolidating. And whether whether it's in the free market, power's gonna consolidate, or whether you give that power to the government, it's gonna consolidate. And yet power power consolidation ends up the same way every time. Whether no matter who does it, whether it's the communist party, socialist party, the Republican Party, the Democrat, it does not matter. Whoever consolidates the power ends up doing the same thing to the people around him. Yeah. I th I like the that's why George Washington is like such a legend for me. I hey guys, I really don't

Steve Hanson (45:13): So

Kent Boucher (45:22): So so in a way that is the beauty of the C R P then, because even though you're following a list of federal rules, when you have CRP, you're deconsolidating the management of those acres. Yeah. Because it's it's going out to separate individuals and it and there's bad actors in there that do a terrible job managing their C R P but there's also plenty of good actors too.

Steve Hanson (45:46): And I I like that approach 'cause I'm, you know, obviously pretty strong on landowner rights. Right. So I like that voluntary financial approach where you say, Hey, this is a something we want as a country, we want to have, you know, tall grass prairie, we want to have soil conservation, w you know, clean water, so we are willing to pay you. Yeah. So, you know, if if the people that live in the cities that never see my farm, you know, want to dictate to me what needs to be done, then I'm in some form compensated for it. By choice, you know.

Kent Boucher (46:17): And it allows every taxpayer to participate and yeah, in in in having their own clean water. Yes. You know, they can play a role in that.

Steve Hanson (46:21): In the burden.

Nicolas Lirio (46:28): All right. Iowa State Survey put the average farmland at in in Iowa at eleven thousand five hundred forty nine dollars an acre, which is only up seven percent from that was twenty twenty five. it that's only up seven percent from twenty twenty four, which is not even close to inflation. Right. and from but this year so far we're up point six and we'll climb even further than that. But I was farmless kind of stagnated. Yeah. You know, and maybe even fallen a little bit. we haven't seen a cliff. Like my grandpa bought a farm on contract, fin financed by the owner. He paid four or five years of payments on that farm, had bulldozers and stuff out there and and like did a lot of work and ended up giving it back. Yeah, yeah. And so we're not there. But

Steve Hanson (47:22): Isn't that amazing?

Nicolas Lirio (47:27): Yeah. But w what's your take on that?

Steve Hanson (47:30): I think that, you know, the the real reason you're seeing things sort of plateau on the land values, the biggest single thing is in is the interest rates. You know, I think they everyone thought that we would start to see something declining a little bit and it's been the opposite. They are actually going up, you know. And yeah, I'd say a new mortgage a n you know, new mortgage rate on a farm right now, you'll be in the sevens. And you know, unless you're have some really unusual situation with a bank that you do a lot of business with or something like that. And I'd say that's probably almost a point higher than it would have been a year ago. So that's eroding, you know, the confidence of buyers some for sure.

Nicolas Lirio (48:12): Which is interesting 'cause seven percent on the grand scale But we've built I it feels like the last fifteen, twenty years we've built a life on four and a half percent. Right. And so now we're we don't even know how to handle

Steve Hanson (48:14): Well, historically that's not bad.

Steve Hanson (48:23): Right. So now, you know, since it we talked about it earlier, you go back ten years when that pollinator was going on, C or P rates were up to a third more than they are today and interest was half. You know what I mean? So you were your income was higher and your debt costs were lower. So that really, you know, changes the math on things today. So, you know, there's some ten year ago rates were three percent. So

Nicolas Lirio (48:36): Wow.

Steve Hanson (48:51): That's you know, I think that's all part of it. And I like said, I think it's a healthy rate. I think that, you know, there's been a lot of inflation in all markets of real estate and control the biggest lever they have to pull for that is is interest rates. And I think they're doing that. So so I would say it's probably on course of where the powers that be would want it to be. Not not dropping, but not rampantly running away.

Nicolas Lirio (49:17): So so not too far from here, someone bought some farmland, like hundreds and hundreds of acres for like twenty thousand plus right. And Let's say the farmer who bought it, wealthy guy. What that is a terrible business decision. You can't make that back on corn. Right. You know what I mean? Like what what are they doing?

Steve Hanson (49:43): Well, it's w you know, there's everybody has a a unique situation to themselves. Most of the time when it when that's happening, you either have a farm operation that has a huge land base where it that's paid for. So they don't have the typical cost of their competition of rent. So they're making very good money farming. You know, so to them if they have to buy an eighty or a one sixty And lose money on those other paid for acres to pay for it to get bigger, so be it. They're gonna do it, you know? And most farmers want to grow. You know, they all seem to want to grow. The other thing that people are missing a lot of times, and it would it would happen in your market here, probably more than ours, but let's just say somebody has a farm five minutes outside of Pella. Well, that gets sold to Vermeer because they're building another factory for way over market value. Well then those people. are gonna not want to pay the taxes, they're gonna want to ten thirty one into more land. So they're gonna buy what's available on the market at that time. And with so much land being bought up like for data centers in certain markets, especially like the Des Mo outer Des Moines areas, that money shows right back up in other land purchases. you know interesting. Yeah. So anytime you have something spiking the market, even if it's not directly in that neighborhood, it will have a ripple effect throughout the whole economy.

Nicolas Lirio (51:09): I never even thought about that. So if if they're 'cause there's only a certain amount of acres, period. Right. And if they dump in money in one spot, that money's gonna show up all across the state buying up higher higher competition.

Steve Hanson (51:23): Yeah.

Kent Boucher (51:25): I always viewed it as a it's a for a lot of those people, like you were saying, they're they're looking at okay, how likely is this to be developed into something other than farmland? Right. And they're just rolling

Steve Hanson (51:35): And there's a cer certain group of investors that do that. They'll they get out in front of it in Des Moines or Chicago, wherever they are, and they know, you know, they they view the development plans, the five year, ten year, and they're trying to put themselves in that path.

Kent Boucher (51:49): Yeah. 'Cause of what they buy for twenty thousand an acre, they're selling for a hundred thousand for a half acre. For a lot. Yeah. yeah. For someone to build their house.

Nicolas Lirio (51:57): Yeah, there's there's someone in Pella who did that. He he bought the north half of Pella w you know, once upon a time. And now every time they do more development, they they're they're going to the same cellar. Yeah. You know, over and over again. And and Pella's kind of an interesting spot because they're at the like they're on the edge of the county. Okay. You know, so they can't grow in one direction. Right. So it you know, it it helps funnel in other directions. I I don't know who owns it, but there's like a farm right across from Vermeer, that Vermeer mile. Okay. And there's like a farm across from that. And I'm like, I don't know who owns that, but that they need their bankers better appraise that at eighty thousand dollars an acre. You know, it's crazy stuff. But the one thing this was kind of interesting to me as well, 'cause Weiler is in Knoxville. And I was like, Man, this land around here is and someone explained to me actually Weiler won't they're not gonna build that much more out here because they don't have the they don't have the people to work there. Yeah. So that's Vermeer built that factory in Des Moines and that cause it's just like actually the land's not the problem. We yeah, we can drop a hundred thousand dollars an acre, whatever. We don't there's no one to work here. People are there's a group of people who drive from Missouri to Weiler every single day. Yeah. You know, Marion County's just got so much factory work.

Steve Hanson (52:59): People.

Steve Hanson (53:04): It's gotta be two hours.

Kent Boucher (53:09): Marion County, Ohio, yeah.

Nicolas Lirio (53:11): That's the only place. So so with can I ask you kind of a hard question about realtors, though, okay? Realtors, we not all of it, but a lot of our problem with young people getting into farming, land prices. One of the main people that are incentivized to make sure land prices go up, I'd say the main one is the people who own the land, but the second one would be realtors. They get paid more, you know, I because it's just a straight percentage or whatever. Sure. If and now what I'm not saying is that individual realtors are bad people and they're ch they're all working together to push up the price. But you know, you've got like what, a million people in the Midwest who are all incentivized to push that price up a little bit at a time. Right. Do you feel like that affects it at all?

Steve Hanson (53:57): Not as much as you might think. Like mainly because we're not the buyers. That money still has to come from somewhere. You know what I mean? Where where realtors and commissions have a direct effect on the market is when we are working for investors. Because if I sell it to Nicholas, if I sell a farm to Nicholas, the investor, Nicholas gonna put his premium or what he wants to make on it, plus my commissions to get it sold, then put it back on the market. So now we've taken a price we've added 20%. So then Kent Kent buys it. Kent the investor. Yeah. He goes through the same process, goes back to the realtor, adds his commission. The investor has to make a pro. You know what I mean? So usually that's what will sort of crash a run of price increases if the properties flip over and over again. Basically, the commissions, which was your point, the commissions ruin the market, but it's not. I don't think I don't think realtors, or I know I'm not. I mean, I'm not like a cheerleader to try to get the price to the next level. You know, I'm I'm there to represent someone say, hey, here's what you have. Good, bad, otherwise. Here's the market for what you have. Yeah. There's if you want to sell it today, we need to price it at X. If you're comfortable holding it six months, we can try for Y. You know what I mean? And everything's a balance.

Kent Boucher (55:23): With a commission, you don't have to hit a price point to to get paid.

Steve Hanson (55:27): So like if you know if this if if you know if a twenty if a farm selling for twenty thousand dollars an acre and it or listed for twenty thousand dollars an acre and I sell it for nineteen, you know, get it sold for nineteen, that's only gonna affect my commission five percent. You know what I mean? Five percent of the total. It's not a big number. Well it's better for me to list things correctly and they sell faster. Yeah.

Steve Hanson (55:55): Because then I can move more volume and make more money off the volume of the sales than I can off trying to maximize the commission of one sale at one high price. That makes sense. So

Nicolas Lirio (56:06): We've used a couple different realtors in Knoxville, Hannah Vandeveer and Jamie Ball. Both fantastic. Sure. And but we've only bought, we've never sold. So I always wonder like, I'm incentivized to buy it for less, but I feel bad asking Jamie to go to the seller and ask for such a amount of money below asking, you know. So not I mean, he's great, right? But there's like a small incentive inside of him, he'd like to see it sell for more. Because you know so you don't you don't feel like that incentive would would

Steve Hanson (56:44): I mean, it it really, you know, it really goes back to the it makes it a free market system. Yeah you know, because you have both those things at play. Where it gets confusing and where you do have to watch it, and Iowa does allow for this, is Iowa allows for what's called dual agency. So if Nicholas is a seller and Kent's the buyer, I could represent both of you. Yeah. And that is that is at best very difficult to do the a perfect good job. For both parties to that transaction.

Nicolas Lirio (57:15): I think that only works with like small town you know, pumpkin transactions.

Steve Hanson (57:20): It it w I w I'd say it works well for me a lot of times because a lot of the buyers or sellers I'm representing are from out of the area. you know what I mean? So it's not like I have two local people competing. You know what I mean? And

Nicolas Lirio (57:36): But then wouldn't you be incentivized to help the seller more than the buyer?

Steve Hanson (57:39): Well, number one, we're incentivized to get the deal done. I mean the finish line is a goal because you don't get anything, no one gets paid if if it doesn't make it to the closing table. So it's just very hard because people don't even even though we make them sign about ten things that say, it's dual agency, you gotta understand this. Just in conversation, people will give up things that will hurt their position. So I have to weigh carefully if

Nicolas Lirio (57:42): Okay. Yeah.

Steve Hanson (58:08): Can ask me, why is Nicholas selling that? You know what I mean? So the way I deal with that, I will ask Nicholas ahead of time. I'm going to be asked, why are we selling this? Right. okay. So then I would give him your answer. I I exactly. And but sometimes if we're tr if if a goal of the sale is a fast sale, we'll tell these people need to sell it because that's what they want us to do. They want to get it sold.

Kent Boucher (58:16): Yeah, 'cause he's des he's desperate for cash.

Nicolas Lirio (58:22): I bet on the ponies too much.

Nicolas Lirio (58:35): D that sounds like a lawsuit waiting to h

Steve Hanson (58:37): It I mean it is and y you know, you're involved with big dollars and stuff like that.

Nicolas Lirio (58:41): You ever been sued by a buyer or seller? Yeah. What do they sue for?

Steve Hanson (58:44): Yeah. So I got sued for and this was unique because I was representing the the bot the seller. Mm-hmm. But it was a farm that I managed. So and I managed for this landowner to the point where like I sign all the FSA documents, I do everything as far as that. He's an out of the area guy. And what we did was and I still don't know what what these people what chip they had on their shoulder, what led to this, but they claim that we exaggerated the crop acres, you know. So

Kent Boucher (59:20): th that has th this many acres of air.

Steve Hanson (59:24): We advertised because when the farm sold, it had, and I'm just gonna say round numbers, it had forty acres of crop and twenty acres of alfalfa. So FSA considers the alfalfa cropland. So we listed it as sixty acres of cropland, of which this amounts hay, this amounts that, blah, blah, blah. So they were all mad about that. And then the farm had been terraced years ago, not tiled. Just had diversion terraces where a big hill sloped down and met with a creek bottom. And, you know, like they do, those old terraces filled up with silt, became almost level. The water was just sort of oozing out into the field. So we went in and had those the dirt dug out. And the big thing when you're dealing with wetlands is what was done prior to 1985 before the Clean Water Act. So basically there's a lot to that, but I'm being very general. If something was drained, dredged, diverted prior to 1985, you can usually continue to maintain that. You can't add new tile, you can't make the what's there bigger, but you can maintain it. Sure. So we went in and dug the and took the silt out of that, reshaped the terraces, did not add any tile, thankfully. Got the water to drain, sold the farm. Everybody was happy. Then we get a thing, you sold us a wetland. I'm like, no, I don't think so, but whatever, you know. So went back and forth. Some somehow I think the the people involved in this were father and son. And I think the son was painting a real rosy picture of the farm to get his dad to fund it. And then there was something the dad didn't like about it. So then they tried to throw it all back on us. But we ended up going to to court, and in the process I knew they were in big trouble because they were they kept switching attorneys. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, it was like there was like a fraudulent case. You know, this is you know what I mean? They kept switching attorneys. And because but they had some the along the way they got some good counsel and I learned some definite little legal underhanded tricks. So because they threw that thing in there about the acres, they they charged me with fraud.

Steve Hanson (1:01:47): So because they charged me with fraud, my errors and emissions insurance doesn't cover it. That's a crime. So then my errors and emissions insurance doesn't cover my defense. Then they sued me and the landowner, even though I was a manager, he's the landowner, individually. So we couldn't have the same counsel. So I've got a higher attorney, he's got a higher attorney. Yeah, exactly. They're trying to make it as hard on you as possible. And what I was so confident that I hadn't done anything wrong. I the one thing that I left that whole experience with, I was very

Kent Boucher (1:02:06): Yeah.

Steve Hanson (1:02:17): Disappointed that and maybe I just didn't push hard enough. We could not counter sue. Why not? I don't know. But that I that's what I said. I said, this is wrong. These people are fraudulently suing us. I said, you know, yeah, take our time. We've got all this money spent on legal fees, you know, blah, blah, blah. And and plus you get these letters in the mail like fraud, you're my gosh, I'm being accused. You know what I mean? yeah. And my friend, he's like, We b he's

Kent Boucher (1:02:31): Take up your

Steve Hanson (1:02:45): We've done a lot of we're good friends and we've done a lot of st owned farms together, done stuff together. And he's like, he's like, Are you sure you didn't screw something up? He's like, if you did, just tell me. I get it. But I'm like, no, I guarantee you I did not screw anything up. So finally we ended up before we would go to court, we went to a court ordered mediation. And when we walked into the mediation that morning, they wanted $250,000 in damages and all this and that, you know. They had called the Corps of Engineers on themselves. And the Corps of Engineers said, no, that's not a wetland, except one area, maybe, and it was two, it was two one hundredths of an acre. And we didn't even damage or drain the wetland. We just put what they called spoiled the dirt. Yeah. We placed the dirt that came out of the thing on that. But they said it was too insignificant to even they don't worry about. You know what I mean? But they went as far as trying to get the Corps of Engineers involved. So we went into that mediation, and I'd never been to a mediation before. And so they put, you know, one party in one room, one party in another room. And that and usually the guys doing the mediation are judges that have retired. And that's what this was. And he goes to them, what are your demands? This goes back to us. And at first they try to scare you. Like, you're gonna have to pay this. You might have to pay more. You know, this could be federal. This I'm like, I'm like, no, no. And so we wouldn't give any ground. By lunch, they wanted 20 grand. Wow. Yeah. At four o'clock we walked out of there, paid nothing. Wow. Awesome. But what what's unfortunate about that's where I said we still we still lost in a but then the craziest as all this came out, in about an hour I won the judge over because or the mediator because I said, Well, he said first we've got to deal with the fraud charge because that's actually can be criminal. Like fine, good. So we had our my attorney had subpoenaed all the records from FSA.

Kent Boucher (1:04:24): yeah,

Steve Hanson (1:04:44): They'd put the fields into CRP. They put sixty-two acres in. Two acres more than I even advertised. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And once he saw that, he's like, really? And then what really wanted for us, thankfully, my friend had the resources to do this. We're like, look, it wasn't a big farm. It was a hundred acres total. And this is going back years, so the prices are different. I think I think we sold it to him for 340,000, like thirty four hundred bucks an acre. And my friend's like, I can make this real simple. We'll just buy it back. We they gave us 340 for we gave, you know, we sold it for 340. I'll just write you guys a check for 360. And the mediator's like, you can do that? I'm like, don't look at me. And like and he's like, Do you have the resource to do that? My friend got in his phone and typed and went like this, you know, and showed him something, bank account or something. And the mediator's like, wow. So he went back to them. No, we don't want to do that. We're not going to do that. And then free farm. Yeah. Then then he knew, okay, these people really are. Yeah. You know. But in my mind, I did absolutely nothing wrong at that point. Yeah. And really disappointed that we we couldn't. I think had we been able to organize a counter suit with some teeth, I think the f frivolous part of this would have been dealt with immediately, you know. Yeah. But that's yeah, and that's my total out of

Kent Boucher (1:05:49): Yeah.

Kent Boucher (1:05:57): You stuck your gun.

Nicolas Lirio (1:06:11): Man.

Steve Hanson (1:06:15): Tens of millions of dollars of farm transactions. That's the only one I've ever had go that sideways. And they're still there. I still see them there because that's we're still in that neighborhood. yeah, that's the interesting thing about it was we didn't I didn't represent the buyers.

Nicolas Lirio (1:06:37): you just the land manager.

Steve Hanson (1:06:38): Yeah, so if I was but I I represented the sale of the farm, but it's like Nicholas, you're the buyer, you had your own agent. So I never directly told these people anything. If they had questions, they would call their agent.

Kent Boucher (1:06:50): So they were essenti essentially suing you for false advertising.

Steve Hanson (1:06:54): Yeah, yeah, but they were claiming fraud, you know. But if it would have gone false advertising, I think my Aerosemissions insurance would have picked it up. Okay. But because they did fraud, they decided and you know, I've I've helped hundreds and hundreds of people buy untold acres of farms. And other than that one, I've never had a bad experience. You know what I mean? It's and that that was just weird, you know what I mean? And and they were non residents, they were from Wisconsin. So I don't know, good, bad, or otherwise if that's Yeah, and it yeah, but that's that's the only time I've ever been involved in you've you heard more than you probably wanted to. No

Kent Boucher (1:07:30): That is a compelling story. Nick loves hearing a good pile drive to a frivolous lawsuit.

Nicolas Lirio (1:07:32): That that's the kind of stuff that like

Steve Hanson (1:07:38): That w that was. It was yeah, but you know, you never get paid back for the stress and sitting there at night and

Nicolas Lirio (1:07:39): Yeah.

Kent Boucher (1:07:46): So how much would you guess it monetarily cost you?

Steve Hanson (1:07:49): Me a me and my friend to get about twenty grand. So it's I mean you can write it off, it's a legitimate business expense, but but but

Kent Boucher (1:07:53): There's no way and there was no way of recouping that.

Nicolas Lirio (1:07:59): You would've had to go back and counter sue for ten thousand dollars and do it all over again.

Steve Hanson (1:08:03): Exactly. Yeah. And it yeah, that really that one really just caught me off guard, like, what in the world is going on?

Nicolas Lirio (1:08:11): Yeah.

Kent Boucher (1:08:12): Why is there people out there that they're always fishing, you know what I mean? Right. They're always looking for a way to money.

Steve Hanson (1:08:14): Yeah, yeah, and I you know

Steve Hanson (1:08:20): It just was weird. I mean, that would have been one had I represented them, I think I would have I would have wor you know worried more because I would have said, What did I tell him? Maybe I did get something wrong. But all the information I portrayed went through another agent. And the fact that he was not named in the suit was strange to me. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because he whatever they found out, they found out through him. Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio (1:08:44): You think that there was anything shady with the agent? Or do you

Steve Hanson (1:08:47): No, I think he was a personal friend of theirs or he was their local connection. So they were trying to keep him out of it. Yeah. And I I knew he didn't have anything to do with it because we probably should have sued him. That would have made it go full circle to just a complete train wreck, but that wouldn't have been I don't think that would have been fair to him. Yeah. You know what I mean? So

Nicolas Lirio (1:09:07): Man, yeah, I I so we've had like we got asked once when we bought a building, do you want to sue the sellers for true something, something or another? And I was and I was like, No. Like it did it didn't feel malicious and

Kent Boucher (1:09:26): What was it for you like more asbestos than they said there was or Yeah.

Steve Hanson (1:09:29): Something.

Nicolas Lirio (1:09:30): Yeah, they they gave an estimate. They like said like this is what we estimated the asbestos removal would be. Well then we got it quoted and it wasn't even close. like like hardly double digit percentages, you know, of what the end and thing ended up being. And and I was like, I don't think it was malicious. I think they got this quote eleven years ago, you know, or whatever. And and and But I was like offended by the person who asked. I was like, No, don't not gonna sue them. Yeah.

Steve Hanson (1:10:03): You it's just nothing good comes from it, you know, it's

Nicolas Lirio (1:10:06): It's like I think it's like eight percent of the United States' GDP gets like just eaten in lawsuits. Right. And and much of that is legitimate, but a whole lot of it is not. Right. You know, a whole lot. I don't know. The I I wonder like with with real estate, like where that will take Iowa. with like with with what you're talking with the investors coming in and like where will that take Iowa and I don't know, you know, thirty or fifty years because investors like my cousins, my neighbors, my like they just can't compete investors. You know what I mean? On the east and west coasts. And I've I have cousins who work, you know, at high end jobs out there, and that's a real conversation that that's kind of fairly normal. Like you and I talk about S P five hundred, they talk about land in the Midwest that they own. Sure. You know, and and you know, and I I'm not trying to

Steve Hanson (1:10:45): With

Nicolas Lirio (1:11:04): beat up on realtors at all, but it's like I don't know. You y and I don't want to ban being able to sell to out of staters. One, that's illegal. But two, I don't want to do that. But also it's like we gotta incentivize us being able to keep it somehow.

Kent Boucher (1:11:20): Well, and one of the reasons that Iowa well, not just Iowa, Midwestern corn and bean land is so appealing to an investor is because it's so easy to manage that asset in a in a virtually hands off way. Yeah. You can hire a land manager that works for some bank who who communicates with well, first of all, advertise, hey, we have acres here open for lease. they probably already know a handful of local farmers who who are looking so they can get all that taken care of. They can help with the FSA paperwork, they can you know, you can just own that land, never have to set foot on it. But if if that if our corn and bean model, which is as big as it's ever been, right? I do think there's an expiration date on ethanol. It you know, within the probably within our lifetimes even.

Nicolas Lirio (1:12:21): There's an expiration date on driving in our

Kent Boucher (1:12:23): Yeah, probably so. when that happens, what do you think is going like what's gonna happen to Iowa land? I mean, is our values gonna crash because now now you can't just own this thing and get c you know, get a check off of it from the guy who's renting it to grow a crop. so in other words, there's no there's no motivation to own something that that

Steve Hanson (1:12:24): Right.

Kent Boucher (1:12:53): How do you even turn a profit off?

Steve Hanson (1:12:54): Right. Well, I I do think I'm not as as gloomy on that because the number of acres in the world that can grow food are still pretty small. And so I think I think that's sort of what's gonna keep things in check because even our best land is gonna change. Some's gonna go to

Kent Boucher (1:13:10): Yeah.

Steve Hanson (1:13:20): wind towers and solar field you know, that's gonna eat up some acres, which then that should k I would think would keep as the profitability of farming or the yields keep increasing, you know, that's the balance. You know, a lot of what we've a lot of what's changed in farming is is the yields. I mean the yields are you know, over double what they were thirty years ago. Right. Way over double. You know, so that's that's part of it. But yeah, I don't I don't worry as much about that because I think I'm realizing more and more the qua land of the quality that we have in Iowa is so finite in the world that we may not corn and beans may not be the use for it, but there will be a use.

Nicolas Lirio (1:14:02): Yeah, that's fair. Like s Alabama grows corn. They'll stop growing corn before we start. You know what I Like it'll shrivel all around Iowa probably start shriveling.

Steve Hanson (1:14:06): Girl.

Steve Hanson (1:14:10): For sure. And yeah, and what what reinforces that to me and I'm about to do it again is I was just down in New Mexico last week looking looking around doing some scouting for elk and I have a real estate client down there that owns a ranch down there and we looked at some ranches and stuff like that down there. And to me, thinking of the land practically, that land should be worthless. Yeah. I mean worthless. Like there's nothing. And it's you know, they talk about They sell it in s you know, they talk about acres too, but sections. So they would run thirty cow calf pears per section part of the year. Like part of the year, not even the whole year. You know, and they were happy this year because they had a bunch of rain, so they were gonna be able to put forty on there. You know what I mean? I'm like, yeah, I'm like, how does that even make sense? But yeah, yeah. Yeah. So to me, I'm like, you could never grow corn there. You could never, like, that's you could do solar there, you know. That would work. Yeah. But there's a lot of things that that we can do in Iowa that can't be done in in a lot of places.

Kent Boucher (1:15:14): Yeah. So so you kind of envision pivoting maybe to another food crop?

Steve Hanson (1:15:18): Maybe maybe the demand is food, maybe it's fiber, maybe it's another fuel source that hasn't been figured out yet. But but because w you know, we have the climate and we have the ground, the suitability to grow crops, I think it it will always be used for some crop.

Nicolas Lirio (1:15:36): I just want yeah, I just want more of it to be perennial. Yeah. I I I don't even know if I'd necessarily care, you know, like if we had like more, you know, intentional forests for logging. I'm not saying we should do that, but I'm like to me that feels better than like annual corn turnover, you know, with how leaky the system is. But I don't know. I yeah. The perennial to me is like if we could just move more of our stuff towards perennial.

Kent Boucher (1:16:00): Well, I mean, to now we're really stretching things here, but you know, one of the the conversations around AI has been this promise of universal basic income. And I I believe universal basic income already exists in a in significant ways, you know, where I don't need to rehash it because I talk about it on the podcast several times, but you know, the idea of you there's people who are getting paid in a way to do nothing. Sure. Quite, quite. And I'm not talking about like, you know, taking welfare and not needing welfare or something. I'm talking people that work a nine to five job, but when you really look at what did you do from nine to five? Right. It's a whole lot of well, we technically need a guy who's on this crew. Sure. To make sure that if this happens, but that never happens and you still get you know, like I I've heard of people who work at like, you know, power plants. And their whole role is to ever once every hour walk around the power plant to make sure all the gauges look like they're supposed to. Right. And then the rest of the time they're watching a movie. Right. You know, and they're making maybe, you know, a hundred thousand dollars a year or something to do this because energy companies have a lot of money. So there's there's people that are already doing this. And so I I see it as being more possible than I used to think it was. If so many people are having Ca and I think Elon has even called it universal, not basic income, universal high income, right? If people have money and time and we evolve our system to to let's say our our corn and bean production gets like you were saying, Nicholas, gets focused into these best areas like like you're saying, Steve, we have a finite amount of land where it's really good to grow these things.

Nicolas Lirio (1:17:34): Something like that.

Kent Boucher (1:17:57): Do you perceive areas like what you were talking about earlier down down in the southern part of the state or even northeast part of the state where it's, you know, rockier soils, you know, you have steep terrain differences, things like that. Do you see recreational land the demand just from a recreational standpoint skyrocketing if people have yeah, more time and more money?

Steve Hanson (1:18:26): It'd basically be it would basically be we got a snapshot into that during COVID. You know what I mean? People had a bunch of money and had a bunch of time. What did they do? They took up hunting, fishing, kayaking, you know what I mean? Anything to do in the outdoor space went crazy. So I would say

Nicolas Lirio (1:18:32): yeah, I win a bunch of money.

Kent Boucher (1:18:44): That promise comes true. Yeah you you

Steve Hanson (1:18:46): Yeah, so that's another good hedge on the real estate market. I'm gonna use that. Bring me your We'll find some land for you. Buy it all? No, not much. Well, I mean everybody does, like I to some degree. Well, no, you know, it's like one of the it sounds dumb, but one of the parts of the real estate job that I'm not crazy about. It's like let's say I list Nicholas's farm for sale. Yeah. You know, all the information and everything is contained in a write up about that farm. Yeah. And you've got to have a little bit of

Nicolas Lirio (1:18:57): You mess with AI.

Kent Boucher (1:19:01): Yeah, it's a better way of Googling. That's what it is.

Steve Hanson (1:19:24): ability to write, you know what I mean? So so it sounds, you know, appealing, but you also get all the details in there. You know, but then but then we work through an MLS, the multiple listing service. Yeah. So each different platform that we're gonna that hosts our listings has a different amount of letters. Yeah. So I've got to write these different things. I need a hundred word one. I need a three hundred word one. sure. Now I just give it all the details, put it in chat GPT. It spits it out. I change a few things. Yeah. And it's done. And I can take one and say condense this to this many words. And it might not get it right all the time, but it'll it'll do the lion's share of it. So that's probably the most I use AI. That's interesting. Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio (1:20:09): Yeah, the the I mean we've got pretty shorts. Like you're not allowed to email anyone with AI or anything, but it is handy for like like if I'm sending an email that I'm really nervous about to like some big wig, I'll have it look over it and like catch how terrible

Kent Boucher (1:20:13): That's pretty close.

Kent Boucher (1:20:25): I wonder at what point email is just going to be people's AI?

Nicolas Lirio (1:20:33): so get this, I there was a podcast I was listening to and the guy made a comment. He said, Well, social media will be really important and very lucrative for as long as humans are the ones deciding what to buy. And he wasn't talking about robots taking over and deciding what to buy, but look, in ten years, we're gonna get to the point where your refrigerator keeps track of what's inside and doesn't tell you what to Calls Walmart. Walmart has a little Uber robot that puts it into a self-driving car and drops it off of your house and your whatever robot, your made robot that you have. Yeah, we'll come and grab him and put it in the fridge. Okay, we my wife and I re-watch Wally. Steve, you seen Wally? No. Steve. my goodness. You're gonna love it.

Kent Boucher (1:21:10): And it's starting to look a lot like Wally.

Steve Hanson (1:21:16): Sti

Kent Boucher (1:21:19): Yeah, do you have any do you have any nephews or nieces that are still pretty young? yeah Yeah, you watch it, you guys. Use that use them as an excuse to watch because it's a kid's tetanus. It's a kid's movie. But it is made by Pixar back in the what, like two thousand

Nicolas Lirio (1:21:31): Two or four or something like or maybe eight, two thousand eight. It was a while ago. It's so humans are no longer on Earth. They're in a giant spaceship somewhere else, and they get everything they ever want. And the robots are kind of doing everything for them. And it's about one rope the one robot that's left on Earth that's supposed to clean up all of Earth. And he's just like every day. And he's like the size of like a little vacuum cleaner. It is so good. And it is so

Kent Boucher (1:21:56): Accurate. Yeah, the trend is the trend is there for where we're headed.

Nicolas Lirio (1:22:01): You just gotta watch it and and it's funny. It it's my wife and I watched it the other day and and I thought it was a fantastic movie. So

Steve Hanson (1:22:09): Huh. Yeah, that'll put that on the list.

Nicolas Lirio (1:22:11): All right. Well everyone, thanks for joining us. I actually gotta kick Kent outta here so he can go get the Purple Prairie clock.

Kent Boucher (1:22:17): I wanna I wanna ask Steve one more question. I wanna ask I wanna yeah, I wanna ask Steve one more question. Something that we used to kind of I don't know, I guess maybe a good word is fantasize about from an from a ecological standpoint early on in on this podcast. And I've even had people who listen to the podcast come and and say, man, wouldn't it be awesome if we ever had elk back in Iowa or we, you know

Steve Hanson (1:22:19): Yeah.

Kent Boucher (1:22:47): Man, I hope to see the day when when bears are in abundance in Iowa. Iowa could have a bear season maybe even someday, or bison or you know, some of these huge indicators that we're doing much better ecologically in our state than what we're doing now. There's more habitat, significantly more. Do you think that day's coming for Iowa?

Steve Hanson (1:23:12): Boy, I don't know. To me, to get those species, they're gonna need large tracts of cover, unbroken cover, you know, and that's I think we'd have to make some real choices to build that to then support that. And unfortunately, on both the real estate side and the and just the farming, I don't see that happening. You know, that would be the negative. So the the the problem one and it's it's just economics, but What I don't like to see it's going on in Iowa now. And I mean, I know people think I'm elitist for thinking that I don't like see the land being made smaller and smaller and smaller and fractionalized because you know, to have elk, you're gonna need the three thousand acre farms next to another three thousand or a five thousand because if you have hundreds of landowners, there's gonna be too much interaction. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, but I do, you know, you take a place, you know, some of our larger like northeast Iowa. probably would have the most currently suitable habitat. Mm-hmm. You know, and it would have a less farming component.

Nicolas Lirio (1:24:18): More than like South Central Iowa, I feel like there's a lot of habitat in South Central. When you start getting close to Missouri.

Steve Hanson (1:24:24): Yeah, there probably is. I'm just I'm just trying to picture big unbroken tracts of timber or less less

Nicolas Lirio (1:24:30): Yeah, yeah, that's fair. Somewhere I feel like you could start an HOA for for for

Steve Hanson (1:24:36): Maybe that maybe that is the way to do it where you you know you get you develop an area and and say, Hey, our goal, not in addition to you know, high quality whitetail hunting, someday we're gonna try to assemble a co op of land off. Yes, you're a stakeholder, so everybody shows up there with that. Yeah. That would be that would be my my recipe. You may

Kent Boucher (1:24:50): You're like buying in as a stakeholder.

Kent Boucher (1:24:55): Fast.

Nicolas Lirio (1:24:57): And and they've got

Nicolas Lirio (1:25:01): Manage your forty. Like you manage your forty, but you guys meet twice a year to figure out what's the overall management. But I mean, you're talking you're gonna have some fights 'cause someone are gonna be trying to pinch It they're gonna be trying to pinch the whitetail and the elk on their property and then the property next to it's like, No, that doesn't make as much sense 'cause the river goes through my side, you know.

Kent Boucher (1:25:19): Yeah, there'd have to be like some kind of legal contract where you get voted out. It's kind of like the it's kinda like the NFL or the NBA, you know, every once in a while you hear some crazy bad behavior from one of the franchise owners and the rest of the league. Sorry, you gotta l you got you gotta get out of here. You gotta sell your share.

Steve Hanson (1:25:24): Yeah, like an H O A almost as much like

Nicolas Lirio (1:25:39): yeah, was the Lakers owner right now? Who was he was

Kent Boucher (1:25:42): It happened to the the guy with the clippers of like several years ago, I'm pretty sure, didn't it?

Nicolas Lirio (1:25:47): the Lakers guy right now, he's the one that has he owns an insurance company and for the insurance money that comes in, there are strict laws about what you're allowed to use it for. Like you can stick it into very liquidable like stocks and stuff like that, but you can't use it for your own businesses. But he used that money, supposedly to buy the Lakers. But here's the real here's the real kicker. He's gonna sell it like two or three billion more dollars than he bought it. So who gets that two or three billion dollars? wow. I don't know. It should go into buying farms for elk in southern Iowa.

Steve Hanson (1:26:19): I know a good reloader.

Kent Boucher (1:26:23): Yeah, we'd send them to you first, Steve.

Nicolas Lirio (1:26:26): Well, Steve, we really, really appreciate if you all are looking for someone who manages CRP really well in like South Central, South South Central Iowa. He does a good job. And I've been on some of his purse. He does a good job. and if you're looking for a realtor in South Central Iowa, d okay. Steve will take care of you. Ken and I are tired. We've been podcasting all day and we have a lot of work left to do for the day. So we're gonna do that. But until then, conservation happens.

Steve Hanson (1:26:34): South Central.

Nicolas Lirio (1:26:55): Just one mind at a time.