Ep. 329 (Coffee Time) Looming Farm Crisis — These Crops Are Losing The Most Money
Corn and soybean prices are in the basement, and farmers are feeling it. Kent, Nicolas, and Riley dig into the current farm crisis, drawing parallels to the 1980s and Dust Bowl while keeping it real about what's ahead. But here's the thing—crises create opportunities. Whether you're a row crop farmer rethinking your strategy or someone eyeing land opportunities, this conversation cuts through the doom and gloom to find the possibilities hiding in the chaos.
Check out this episode of the Prairie Farm Podcast to find out more!
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Kent Boucher (00:00.192)
I went hunting in Wisconsin this year. It's the first time I've ever gone hunting in Wisconsin. However, it is the first place I almost went hunting when I was about four years old. So it's kind of funny how here I am 30 some years later actually going hunting in Wisconsin, right? I got invited up to a friend of mine from college and I'm actually have a, he's the landowner. I have a stronger connection with his brother-in-law. He's one of my.
best friends for the past almost 20 years, which makes me feel really old to say that. got invited up to go deer hunting, incredible family farm. I hope that we get to have my friend Jesse and his wife on the podcast sometime because they are a small farm that's making it work in a very old school way. So meaning
There's a lot, you know, there's this Renaissance going on of returning to small small farm production and usually it's not people that are just living off of that alone You know, they're doing that as like a side thing to their main career with Yeah Right, right there so there's framework that's being set up to support those people, know things like pfi things like food hubs Which are I'm not knocking at all. Those are great things, but they're just like
Go to farmers markets and yeah
Kent Boucher (01:28.782)
It's like they do that stuff without really being concerned about what is there to help me do this. You know what mean? It just reminds me of like so old school. They have a dairy cow, they have hogs, they have sheep, they have chickens, they grow like some oats and some wheat. He's actually got an old poll type John Deere combine that he's got. But it's just...
A fascinating place. love for us to do an interview with them. But I get invited up there to go deer hunting. And it's in a part of Wisconsin where there are a bajillion deer, which is pretty much most of the bottom half of Wisconsin, right? And it just so happens to be in a CWD prevalent area. And I was fortunate enough, shot a nice buck. Nicest buck I shot this year. And I shot three bucks.
So, you know, not nothing, you know, it a great deer. And I was only able to be there though. I hunted one evening and then I hunted the following morning and I was gonna have to head back because we had our interview with Zach Lane and there were some pretty nasty storms rolling in that afternoon or evening. It was like supposed to rain on my way back. Driving through driftless Wisconsin and Iowa in the rain.
degrees.
It doesn't sound like a fun sledding adventure. I was a quick hunt. We butchered the deer. My law to bring it back to Iowa, has to be deboned, right? And you can't bring in, of course, any of the brain back. right. And that's an ordeal, getting the brain out of the skull, right? Like, usually, you know, gotta skin it, boil it, that kind of thing, right?
Nicolas Lirio (03:15.054)
ZWD
Kent Boucher (03:26.286)
So I just had Jesse take the skull or the head to a local, he's actually an Amish guy that does some taxidermy. And he was able to clean it up for European mount. My buddy John shot a nice buck too and so he brought those there. And I submitted some lymph node tissue to the state of Wisconsin for my first ever CWD test. I don't.
I don't hunt in CWD zones here in Iowa or over in Illinois with Fritch and So I haven't you know, it's to be able to participate in that I'd have to really go out of my way to like get to a drop-off site and stuff like that So this is the first time I've participated. Well, I got a call two weeks ago I think it was when Judd was here and Wisconsin DNR is like hey I see you submitted a CWD sample
I think you might have typed the number in wrong. I'm like, oh, well, maybe I must have fat thumbed it or whatever. And so he's like, you got like the little barcode tag that you get when you register your sample? I'm like, yeah, I think I do actually. I felt like, this guy probably thinks I'm so type A right now and I am not. So I walk out to my truck, sure enough, I lift up all the junk and garbage in my truck. Yep, there it is. So I got it right here, sir.
like an archaeological explanation.
And so I read off my numbers, I yeah, that's the right number. And he's like, well, we'll do some digging around and see if we can't find it. sample didn't get misplaced somewhere. So he calls me back like several days later. He's like, Kent, I'm sorry, man, we aren't finding it. He's like, what we do in this case if we lose a sample is.
Kent Boucher (05:22.99)
We go ahead and we advise you to treat the deer as if it's a CWD positive test because you can't know for sure right and He's like that means We have a law here Doug has talked about this law with us I think it's a relatively new law where if you have if you participate in the testing and your deer comes back with a positive test you are reissued a replacement tag
You're spoiled, Brad. I know. You're a baby. I know.
Oh, so I get a replacement buck tag. Wisconsin next year.
You need to invent a piece of paperwork that dissolves. So that you can see the paperwork and it dissolves and they go, well, I guess we can't find it. We'll have to issue you a new one.
But yeah, so that was my experience. man, I love driftless Midwest. I don't care what you say about anywhere else in the Midwest. The driftless area is just the best part of the. It's just the best.
Nicolas Lirio (06:20.695)
It's a great part of the Midwest. Have you have you mounted and or done something with a buck every time you get a buck with a rack?
yeah, really well there was one time I I thought I was shooting a doe and it was a just a tiny little button buck like his yeah, yeah, the in the Right and I was still a fairly new hunter when I shot that deer and that was the only time where I mean they were just like yeah little hymns on there
a tag for it? okay. Otherwise I wouldn't be telling you.
Nicolas Lirio (06:53.154)
Riley, you got any trophies on your wall?
I've done some Euro mounts for other people, but.
that's
Yeah, he used to have a domestic beetle.
My wife doesn't like taxidermy that much. She doesn't dislike it, but like she doesn't want me to put disembodied heads on the wall.
Nicolas Lirio (07:10.846)
I would never get here. Can I some awesome like lifetime deer that he's hunted from just skill and I even if I killed one I would never let that on my wall. Yeah, free channel. Yeah, it's not like scary. It's just like soft. It's just like you know, I got you know, I want meat that comes from Walmart.
No, yeah
Riley Rozendaal (07:32.834)
With that nice clean styrofoam covered Walmart.
Bison Skulls around Riley? I'd love to buy a Bison Skull
I can't pretend he hunted it. He can tell his friends.
I crawl up with the captive bolt gun.
great. No, I don't actually I got rid of all all I have is some horn sheath.
Nicolas Lirio (07:59.064)
Do they sell for anything?
Yeah.
They sell, it depends on if they got like a hole in the head and stuff like that, you know. It's a different-
What is like 100, 200 bucks? do they sell for?
size.
Kent Boucher (08:14.86)
Yeah, I think think Bob Jackson told us he sold some for like like a pretty old one in rough shape was going for like hundred and seventy five bucks.
Yeah, you can sell them anywhere from like, I've seen them from a hundred to like five hundred.
since we're dealing with this auction.
it's not like there's bison skulls just laying around to get
No, dealing with this auction, every time I think about selling or buying something, my brain automatically goes through the filter of, is it an at least scrap price? Are you going to get an at scrap price? What's my reserve? Yeah, exactly. All right, we should jump in. We got an interesting one today.
Nicolas Lirio (08:53.25)
coffee time Wednesdays with the Prairie
Do do do do do.
Nicolas Lirio (09:06.114)
Welcome back to the Prairie Farm podcast, Coffee Time Wednesday. I'm your favorite host, Nicholas Lirio with your favorite co-host, Ken Boucher. What's up? And your favorite co-host to the coast, Riley Rosendahl. Man, we got a full week.
Howdy howdy.
Sometimes we should just do barnyard animal noises when you introduce this. We should all have to come up with a different one.
That's about what you the words you say to me sound like. No, no, that's not true. That's not true. Uh, I, I really, I debated on doing this topic or not because it feels a little, it feels doom and gloom. So I'm to do my best not to.
I saw it in the news because I think I know what you're talking about and I did not read it Well, as you said you were covering it. Yep. But but when I saw it in the news I was like, okay because when you first said this is what we're talk about it's a big deal right now. I'm like But then I saw the news like oh, he's It is a big deal right now
Nicolas Lirio (09:57.324)
What people are more boldly calling the farm crisis. I think I have a real dropping in like three weeks where I'm like, maybe we should start calling it the farm crisis. By then everybody will be calling it the farm crisis. You know, we're there. And why are we kind of solidifying that we're there? Well, because University of Illinois, Purdue University, Terrain Ag, MetLife Investment, USD Agriculture Projections, Red River Farm Network, I'm not familiar with that one, and the University of Arkansas.
And some others, USDA Livestock Monitor, all come together to give these stats. So these are recently in the last about 45 days, almost everything that is pulled here is from the last 45 days or some within the last week. And they're just not good numbers. And these are the numbers that the Chicago.
mean by numbers? talking about prices or...
Well, all numbers, like whether it's tariffs, commodity prices, equipment prices, actually yield is basically. Bumper cranks. These numbers are like crazy high, but that's not a good number right now. Right? So let's get started. First, we'll go with corn. Corn is expected to average this year $4.10, $4.20. We've covered corn a bunch. We don't need to talk about it that much. Soybeans is.
is not terrible. It's like one of the only things we're about to bring up that's considered breakeven. Corn's like almost kind of considered breakeven depending on what state you're in and what what your projection inputs are and your CSR that kind of stuff. Soybeans are kind of safely in that breakeven area which soybeans kind of are treated as a breakeven crop anyway because they're just there so that corn farmers can make money on corn. That's
Nicolas Lirio (11:45.896)
way over simplistic view of it, but that's a lot to do. I don't think if we didn't need soybeans in the rotation of corn, would there be any soybeans in the matters? yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a big part of it. What's helping soybeans is even though we lost a lot of our China market, we are, I guess, using, like working on a renewable diesel.
That's interesting.
Kent Boucher (12:09.68)
Soybeans are used for biodiesel.
Yeah, but the infrastructure is getting built. there's more going. Yes. Yep. And, now it's not growing it. Like we're still less than if we would have just had the China market, but it's helping things. Wheat. Wheat is at $5 to $5 40 cents projected this year per bushel. And that is the lowest they've been since 2019 over a long period of time. The reason is
money or
Kent Boucher (12:36.206)
I think that doesn't sound like that long ago, but I think something that everyone should keep in mind when you're reading off those dates is how much inflation's taking place. The dollars worth in 2019 versus 2026.
since pre-COVID.
Nicolas Lirio (12:50.258)
It's like, I want to say it's like 28 % different. I mean, that's a huge difference. That's a full dollar difference on this or more. And the reason is because Russia sells really cheap wheat. I mean, they just sell cheap wheat and I would think there'd be more demand. mean, refined wheat is like what's in all of the middle grocery aisles that we complain about. You know what mean? I would think that there would be more Yeah, that's true. That's true.
This is corn product.
But corn is so overbuilt that we had to, mean, the food market section of it's like a quarter or less, you know? No, I think it's third. I think it's like a third livestock, third ethanol, third food. I don't know. It's been like a year since we looked at that number. The next one, cotton. Cotton is kind of the worst crop right now because they are expected to lose $350 per acre on cotton. So you gotta...
surprises
You got a thousand acre cotton farm?
Kent Boucher (13:52.654)
Is that because of a market change or is that because of some kind of environmental change?
The biggest why according to University of Arkansas and their report on cotton And I actually don't know how big a deal cotton is in Arkansas
I would think that the cotton market would be growing right now as people become more plastic conscientious with clothing and any kind of...
Maybe, but there's two major things. You're right, the synthetic fibers is part of the reason it's gone down and you would think, okay, well, we're starting to be more cautious, 100 % cotton or 100 % wool. China is importing really cheap cotton. Think about it. So if you have cotton and you're gonna make clothes with it, are you gonna ship it to Vietnam and then they're gonna ship it back? It's a lot cheaper to ship from China to Vietnam than it is to ship from Georgia to Vietnam.
would make more sense if you had American manufacturers creating clothing from American cotton than then.
Kent Boucher (14:51.662)
What's your point? Yeah, I bet bet very little, very little cotton stays stateside, whereas a lot of other commodities do.
Now Riley, you might be able to speak to this more closely than we could, but hay prices have actually fallen 24 straight months in a row. So we are now at around $245 a ton. Not a bail, a ton.
Hey, he's always been boomin' bust though.
Because they kind of follow cows.
It's very weathered.
Riley Rozendaal (15:21.486)
Hey follows cows. Hey follows weather. We had this big run up in 2020, 21, know, some of 22 where, um, Hey,
Wasn't it basically through 2024 that Hay was surprised about this last year? like you couldn't give it away.
Yeah.
Nicolas Lirio (15:38.292)
I guess I don't understand why farmers go, my goodness, look how much money is in this crop and then they all plant the same thing, you know, they all go, well, I better plant it and then they double produce what's needed, you know.
Well, the trouble with hay too though is hay is not a one-year investment. A hay field, if you're going to talk about an improved, fertilized field in the Midwest, Timothy, orchard, alfalfa, stuff like that, your stand might last five years. Maybe, you know, it could last up to seven. It'll be thin on year seven, obviously. But if you make that investment in alfalfa, you...
Yeah.
Riley Rozendaal (16:17.302)
you're gonna lose, probably gonna lose money if you turn around and just, you know, disc it up. It's not like corn and beans where you're running on that nine month, you know? Get it in the ground, get the crop out, and that's it. You know?
Hmm, interesting.
Nicolas Lirio (16:32.194)
Yeah, there's more investment. that's a good point. But basically, you're losing money per acre unless you're using it for your cattle. And cattle are so expensive right now that it's worthwhile having. But even then, you can get it so cheap elsewhere, where people are no longer trying to make money on some of these crops. They're trying to mitigate how much they'll lose. That's a dangerous place for an economy to be in. So we have two more things.
Next one is equipment. 2022, 2023 equipment was an all time high and the prices were coming off of the corn prices from 21, 22, but they were still solid enough and farms had enough equity and, and, uh, money in their war chest. So to say that they could buy this more expensive equipment. The problem is that, um, and actually grant our neighbor explained this to me. Well, your,
when you buy new equipment, your equipment price, it's on a five year loan, so your equipment loan bill is very high the first few years, and then it goes down, and then you hit this sweet spot year four, five, six, seven, might not, but then your repair costs start creeping up. Well, a big part of that safety net math, in case anything happens, is resale price. Now resale price is, it's not regulated, but it is heavily monitored, and like,
I mean, I believe Iowa State Extension has like recommendations on most major equipment on what you can resell it for based on hours. Like basically, Kelley Blue Books for cars, right? Cars are very monitored on what they're actually still worth and the value that's assigned to them. Same with this equipment. The problem is imagine taking two or $3,000 off of every used car in Kelley Blue Books. That creates a bubble because they're still, they still owe and the prices are there, you know, their payments, they still have a couple more years of payments on this equipment. So where do they go?
they will go to the bank and say, I own a bunch of this land. Let me transfer this debt. Not, not technically, but basically the transferring debt from equipment to the land is a way to summarize that. And I know because on really bad CRP years, my dad's done that. He went to the bank and said, well, I've got all this inventory and, and he would loan out the inventory and then, and then if he still ran out of money, then he would have to say, okay, well,
Nicolas Lirio (18:58.07)
I need to transfer this inventory money to land loans, right? And he did that once when I was maybe in sixth grade. And it was a big deal. You're basically remortgaging a small section of your farm and no farmer wants that hanging over them. And so that's a no bueno. Farmers are gonna avoid to do that as much as they can, as they should. But here's the worst.
piece of the quote unquote farm crisis. It really doesn't affect us up here directly. I'm sure indirectly it does like prices of equipment and stuff. But rice in Arkansas, Southern Missouri, I'm not sure. I know Arkansas is like the big state for rice, right? They, even though cotton is expected to lose more money than rice, rice is at about their expected loss per acres, $250. Wow.
I mean, imagine some of our neighbors that have 1500 acre farms losing 250. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. was a well, um, do they have the equity to handle it and go to the bank? Yes. But you get enough debt and all of a sudden you can't pay the interest on that debt. And then what do do? You sell land to a large corporation that can afford to buy it. Uh, here's the problem. If you can't make money on your land, the land's not worth as much. So now instead of having a loan against
15 % of your land, might have a loan against 40 % of your land. So now, and then to pay the capital gains tax on top of that, you might sell 50 or 60 % of your land, right? Yep, and we just talked with Dr. Karen Vanderhoff about that. I mean, it's why there's the number one job-related suicides with farmers, right? So what's going on with rice? Well, I got a little bit of the in. Talked to two different farmers down in Arkansas that dealt with rice. What the report,
from USDA Rice Outlook and the University of Arkansas says is that India is shuffling out rice at unprecedented numbers, right? Really.
Kent Boucher (21:08.392)
increased production in India.
I believe so, or at least increased exports, right? To places we were putting rice, because I guarantee you 40 years ago, we weren't sending our rice to India. You know, they've got they've had it pat down for centuries. Yeah. But the guy said he said, no, it's not quantity of rice. This is quality of rice. The problem isn't that the quality of rice. It's not it's not sellable. He said.
when you go to the mill and they, I don't know how they process it, but they basically figure out how brittle is the rice. And it was too brittle. It can't go to humans. goes to cattle and livestock, right? Or whatever pet food, whatever they use it for as a secondary product. Um, and well, where does our rice come from? The, the genetics or the GMOs, whatever you want to call it. Where do those come from? Basically one company and this one company
who will sell the rice no matter what, because that's where the farmers can get it, who have been growing rice for decades, if not over a century, they're gonna get it from this one place that has a bunch of dealers throughout Arkansas. And this one place has been trying new strains of rice that are failing at the mill. So they're getting, they're no longer getting a premium on the rice that we've had for decades, we've been getting these premiums on the rice. Now,
to be fair to this one company and I'm not trying to throw them under the bus that Rice Tech. I mean, you can figure it out real quick. is the company's name Rice Tech. They've been premier for decades and decades and decades. So I don't assume that there's some backhanded thing. They're trying to have worse quality rice. I think they were trying to improve. They probably made some mistakes and he said that's happened a few years in a row. And then on top of that, not only were they not able to get the livestock price, India was pumping out
Nicolas Lirio (23:03.982)
tons of this livestock price. Right, so now they're having to get even lower price on it. And so it was just a spiral downwards. And if we think that our corn has been bad, they've had the same situation, if not worse, like $100 net negative per acre worse for 20. What did he said? 2022 was the first year that they lost money and they haven't made money per acre on average since then.
This is 2022. And what do you do with that? Well, you go to the bank and you loan against your equity and you hope it gets better. Just like just like the farmers, we've basically been evolved to do that because we hope for rain. We hope for a better crop. We hope for better yield. We hope that the weeds aren't too bad this year. We the rain comes at a certain time. And so we've we kind of do the same thing with the market. We hope the market gets better. And so rice is the one.
you
Nicolas Lirio (24:03.33)
to me that looks the worst. Yeah, cotton is worst for this one year, but I mean four or five years in a row.
Especially if you have a big time competitor, which it sounds like India has become. Yeah. Then they're not going anywhere.
yeah, their GDP output and their GDP growth is obscene. Yep. 3 % is what is good. 4 % is really good. 5 % is unbelievable and 6 % is the best the world's ever seen. Right. And so India has has for a while now been sitting in that 4%. So year over year being, Hey, you're really solid. You're really good at their GDP growth.
So huge country with a lot of people.
Nicolas Lirio (24:44.492)
which allows them more infrastructure build out, which allows them more export. Right. And there, think there was one year, like four years ago where they hit that 5 % mark, which is four to five is not like, that's a little better. It's like the difference between millionaires and billionaires, right? It's like million. That's great. Millionaires, billionaires, like there's a huge difference. So that's what they have going on and we're having to now compete with it. And they work for a lot less money, you know,
Their average income over there in India is a lot less. In Brazil, mean Brazil who are competing with soybeans and corn, their average farmer, I mean it's not like impoverished third world country, but this was a year ago when I looked up, but it was $16,000. Their average farmhand was making $16,000 a year. And here, your average farmhand's what, making 18 bucks an hour to 30 if they're really good?
I have a friend who has offered a job, I don't know, maybe five years ago to be exactly that a farmhand at a corn and bean operation and they offered him 50 a year, 50.
50 that yeah yeah so you know and I that's not unreasonable I don't feel like that guy's spoiled or you know what I mean just that's just where we're at and so they go without now I mean it also doesn't hurt that the fertilizer and and chemical companies charge Brazil less money for their for their inputs but
really? That's like a known fact.
Nicolas Lirio (26:17.036)
Yeah, for the exact same products they get charged less.
interesting.
the other problem too in this entire
circumstance is that acres are acres and if you can plant them in something and there's something more profitable people are gonna flee to it yeah so rice and cotton in the southeast if people have the infrastructure have been going to beans you know or something else you're looking ten cents is better than losing yeah you know a dollar
You
Kent Boucher (26:47.662)
The only thing I would be concerned about though with rice is I believe that it is You know very I know they flood their fields I Don't understand rice production all that well I've talked with a rice farmer before and they operate on a lot of acres it seems like and I know field flooding is a big part of it whether they whether those fields are always
more, you know, like water is a factor all the time, no matter what. I do know that he, this guy that I was talking with was in the very close to the Mississippi River floodplain where he was growing rice. And so I don't know if that ground is wet, you know, more of the year than what other crops are. So as far as like what those acres can, what's a crop that they can handle
know, that might limit what they can pivot on. And then as far as cotton ground, would, think Riley's probably, you know, identified maybe the one way out, which is, you know, find something else that can turn a profit.
I also think if we started manufacturing, what's that clothes? Is it origin? The clothing company that and they literally like we had to dust off 50 year old year old 100 year old machine. Right. Because we're so out of, know, and I, I think I know that remanufacturing America brings a sting with like some of the stuff that it's associated with. But just like food being produced, produced closer or
Because it doesn't exist.
Nicolas Lirio (28:28.322)
getting your soap or shopping locally, you wanna keep your circles of money as close as you can. And if that means I can get as much as can in town and then I'll go to Des Moines and I can't get it there, okay, if I need to get shirts from Kentucky, that's better than getting them from Vietnam. Nothing against the Vietnamese. just, finances is smaller circles. And that's not a hoarding. You gotta understand, I'm not saying you need to hoard it. I'm saying,
The flow, it still needs to flow. You still need to spend money. You still need to give money. But you know, the flows need to, you should have more money flowing in the smaller circle. And as you get further and further out, there should be less money flowing in these bigger circles, which is us to, and now there are some things you can't
And I think it works better for conservation too, right? Because then you don't have to have such a, know, what went hand in hand with the get big or get out is time to get those fence rows out of there, time to get those hedgerows out of there, because those are acroball acres and they need to be put into production to keep up with a global production model. Whereas if things were more localized, then you didn't have to be so desperate to.
to farm every last acre, could say, yeah, you know what, the grand scope of things, I'm not going to make anything off those acres. I can allow them to stay in perennial cover.
I do think, and I agree with you, but I also think we have to be okay with having less because then if you, just don't get as much, you just don't, you, you won't be able to have as much and we can't always have a cake and eat it too. But I, you, if you could snap your fingers and like give solutions to this looming crisis on what seems to be all the way across agriculture, except in beef.
Nicolas Lirio (30:20.61)
What do you think would help? know we are not experts. We are not God. We don't, we, we're not omniscient, but, what are your thoughts on, what would actually help? Because, yeah.
Well, it's just hard to imagine going to a healthier model without incredible pain, which may come. Whether we snap our fingers or not. so it's, you know, I've said it many times through the years on this podcast. really think the healthiest thing for the land is, is a, a land that is still worked and is still producing for, for a
large population of humans is the return of small farms. And that model, and not so much from a farm economy standpoint, but just from a standpoint of where most people are contributing to their own consumption in some way, right? And even in a significant way, not just the, know, baby steps are great. We preach that all the time on the podcast. You know, if you eat a lot of tomatoes, how would you just start growing some tomatoes? I'm saying growing.
you know, 85 % of the fruits and vegetables that your family consumes every year.
And to be fair, the Boucher family does that pretty well. You guys produce a lot of what you eat. You really do. I've been there. I've eaten a lot of the food that came from you guys' garden or that Kent ruthlessly shot from afar. And it was great. And it was yummier than most meals I get to eat.
Kent Boucher (31:42.434)
signaling for me.
Kent Boucher (31:56.046)
appreciate that. think that that's really what, because it wasn't, historically a lot of these farms, I know it's a different thing down in the south, there used to be really huge plantations and things like that several hundred years ago, so maybe it's a little different there, but especially here in the Midwest, people weren't that big. You know what mean? They weren't doing thousands of acres in most cases.
those thousands of acres represented 10 other farmers doing their own thing. And I just think we were probably a little more durable of a local economy, you know, and money truly stayed local with, you know, there being more implement dealers, more hardware stores, more butchers and local grocers and things like that, you know, that
that kept that money local that went hand in hand with that model. And since we've gone to this industrialized model, all those markets have industrialized as well. Yes, there's a grocery store in most towns, but it's owned by somebody that's outside of the community. And at best, it's a grocer that comes from your own state, as opposed to your own county or your own.
your own city even, you know? And so I think that really if you're looking at something that's not just another band-aid, because what will be the band-aid in all of this? We've gotten two band-aids in less than the last year. What's the band-aid? Yeah, to help get to those times that we're hoping are better. And I'm not saying I'm anti-subsidy ever, you know? I think that there's
Bailouts.
Kent Boucher (33:50.232)
there's times where, yeah, maybe it is at America's best interest to try and keep our farmers going because there is a foreseeable better time up ahead and we just gotta limp them there.
Sometimes all you need is a bridge.
Right, and I don't know the though right now we have a place to build a bridge.
But yeah, you don't start building a bridge until you see the other side.
I that it's hard, like Kent said, in diversity there's strength when it comes to ag production. You've got multiple crops where one has a bad year, one has a good year, you're still holding steady. I think we need to acknowledge that production, when
Nicolas Lirio (34:14.958)
Riley, what do you think?
Riley Rozendaal (34:40.79)
when our average corn yield goes from 186 to 187 and you got 30 million acres planted, that's a lot of stinking corn. mean, it's not that corn doesn't need to be produced, but I think we need to start asking questions about what about if we did something else with floodplains or what if we did something else with, I mean, I don't know.
Yeah. What Carol used to talk about in the eighties, this, and maybe your grandpa's talked with you or your dad about the set aside.
Yeah, was set-aside acres and there was all kinds of wetland programs and easements and you know if if the answer is for there to be a market for the products maybe We can't produce 300 bushel corn, you know
Well, we, truth is we have more than we need. There's more money in it than there is able to produce, than we are, we can't, we've put more money into the industry than the industry can output. Basically the definition of a bubble. Bubbles popping are very painful. It is very important that bubbles pop. Well,
I should say it is very important for huge bubbles to pop. If let's say there's a small bubble in like, let's say Knoxville, Iowa, we, for whatever reason, we have a bubble crisis that economically everybody would be flat broke Iowa or the U S government could step in and it would just be a tiny little blip on their financial sheet. I mean, to step in on 20 billion extra bushels of corn. Okay. Well that's
Nicolas Lirio (36:25.198)
8 billion. What I say? Oh yeah, two, two billion. Yeah, thank you. Two billion extra bushels of corn. Well, that's about 8 billion bucks. It's not the end of the world, but you do corn and then cotton and then rice and you start adding all this stuff that we have extra of are not able to afford and equipment and stuff like that. Um, it becomes tens of billions of dollars very quickly. Um, can the U S federal government figure that out? Yeah, they can. But if we don't feel that
$2.2 billion. $20.
Nicolas Lirio (36:54.35)
pain, we actually don't fix what made the bubble. So this little real estate bubble and inflation that we're dealing with now has roots and can be traced back to 2008. The fact that we never paid the piper, we never paid the piper actually, a lot of college a guy named. Oh, Vaynerchuk media, the guys, I don't know, he's like a guru of, you know, like trends. And he believes that
the pain we experience today or the things we go through today because we never dealt with with 2008. One of the main things is college increased prices. He said, if we were forced to feel that pain more than, I mean, there was pain felt, but not to the extent that we should have. If we were forced to feel that pain more, we would not have inflated the value of a four year degree, of certain four year degrees. Right? And so it's really important that we feel the pain.
as a society and together lock arms and say we're going to deal with it together. Not, you know.
One thing that gives me some hope is, believe it or not, is AI advancement. You've been talking about this new release by Claude, and I heard about it some more on a recent episode of All In about how it's becoming used as like an agent. So right now, AI for most people exists as like a chat bot, right? Where you can use it for research, you can get quick information, basically.
I haven't gotten through it.
Kent Boucher (38:29.41)
Well, now it's starting to become a thing where it can do tasks that you give an input like, hey, I'd like you to write me a, you know, a coherent email, send it to this person about this topic and it'll do it. And it just got me thinking a couple things. It's not going to be logged now before people's AI agents are just going to be.
be talking back and forth to each other for people and that might be a problem. But it also made me think, man, with all this additional time that can be freed up for people's workflow, hopefully, right, and hopefully that does create value. Maybe it will free people up to get more involved in small farm activities, know, whether it's just gardening.
or maybe keeping chickens or maybe, you know, just something.
to actually give value to the world.
Well, and just to bring back that model of a localized, you know, production hyper localized, even where it's not even leaving the farm. It's just it's, you know, staying right there. What's grown there is eaten there, you know, and and and maybe that maybe that's where after the bubble pops, maybe that's where we regain some of our footing is is through the advancements in other places.
Kent Boucher (40:00.49)
In our world, I don't know. It's just me spit balling and trying to rub the crystal ball and see.
Yeah, that's that's what that's what happened to the Great Depression I know we say it was World War two But what happened with World War two is everybody said all right We have a purpose and instead of working seven hour days or some people not having a job at all Because they couldn't find one all of sudden everybody worked 13 hour days the whole country did and we literally like created the greatest economic engine well
And the one thing that had a lot of money at that time was the federal government and started having a reason to release those funds through government.
yeah, yeah, you're talking about the reserve.
And so many people became GIs and they were getting a paycheck because they were in a foreign land.
Nicolas Lirio (40:40.462)
couldn't spend it anywhere because they were stuck over it.
Well, and the other thing to remember too when it comes back to farming though is we're coming up on the on the Dust Bowl on the anniversary of the Dust Bowl and If that's taught us anything, you know as depressing as this all can sound People made it through that. Yep, and then they made it through the farm crisis of the 80s There's a farm crisis every 50 years. It seems like
on Friday.
The 80s isn't 50 years ago, guys, come on now. Or close. If you were born in the 80s, you were very young still.
He's covering for his own ego here.
Nicolas Lirio (41:19.598)
Oh man, so you all are about to hear Seth Orin on Friday. an excellent converse. Oh man, he's so awesome. How's a lot of we just.
just had enough hours in the day we would have overridden the Matt Cox fraud story on Lex Friedman's
greatest podcast episode of anything of all time. Matthew Cox interviewed by Lex Friedman, highly, highly recommend. yeah. And he, he take, Seth took a few minutes to say people really bash on change and regulation and all this other stuff. said, change where opportunity is. In fact, if there's no change, there's no opportunity. and, I would see this quote unquote issue.
six hours long.
Nicolas Lirio (42:06.2)
Farm crisis?
could be incredible opportunity for people who aren't farmers, for people who currently are farmers. What is the opportunity? I don't know, but I've had a conversation with hundreds of you guys, listeners. You guys are very sharp, very intelligent people. In fact, one of the most proud things in my life is the fact that my wife sticks around and secondly, can't believe this.
That is truly a miracle. I've been in their house.
Secondly, it is the caliber of humans that listen to this and reach out. I'm just very grateful to you guys. And even, you know, the ones without the titles, you just hang out with us or you've emailed and you've got a farm or you've got a homestead and just the intentionality behind how you're doing life. Very sharp. There is opportunity for you. Is there an opportunity to become a billionaire? I don't know. Maybe. I'm sure it's somewhere, but what's much more easy to access of an opportunity is quality of life and blessing the world, giving value, contentment.
It's in there. And so I don't want to doom and gloom this. This is actually just a big old shakeup on the snow globe. And, again, don't hear me say, you can catch all the dollars. That's when I hear to catch dollars, you know? and so, but you can have experienced great blessing by taking advantage of opportunity that happens through change. And I highly recommend looking into that. And, and, people ask me, I've started 11 businesses.
Nicolas Lirio (43:30.848)
I run two that I didn't start or have run two that I didn't start. Nine of them failed. Nine of the ones that I started failed and people will, still ask me, how did you get, like, how would you figure out your business success? How did you do that? One, I wouldn't consider it success yet. We'll figure it out. You'll know in 20 years.
Keep going back to the bank.
But, but, but two, I tell people, I don't have a choice. I just think about it all the time. Like not just business, but how can I improve and add value to the things around me and the people around me and, and, and what services can we provide? And not just at Hoxie, but at other things. And so, I would encourage you if you're like, I really want to farm. I really want to be involved in the land. I really want it. The snow globe is getting shaken.
If you're constantly thinking about it, looking for opportunities, making phone calls, turning over the rocks, Chase Brown had a great one. Just call the people who own the land. See if you can do that. The snow globe is getting shaken. Now is the time. You're going to be able to, you're going to be able to jump in. I'm confident. So.
Yeah, that's a bold prediction there.
Nicolas Lirio (44:39.522)
Yep, I'm confident. When change happens, opportunity arises. They don't, they're not synonymous, but they're always together.
Yeah, I agree. I think it will create some opportunities and also I don't want the people who are going to have to endure some great suffering through this, I don't want them to be overlooked either. You're in our prayers and hopefully you can swim out of it okay.
Absolutely. get a lot. I want to address this real quick. I get a lot of phone calls. mean, can can attest to this. A lot of phone calls, a lot of emails about like, I'm thinking about starting Prairie. I want to grow Prairie. I want to do this thing. Um, we would have a conversation with you. I tell people there's one of two ways to make it and doing Prairie. One of them's more difficult than the other. The first one is have hundreds of thousands of dollars to build out infrastructure.
because you just can't make money on big blue stem unless you're gonna have a bunch. mean, it's basically corn. You have to have a bunch of acres. got to have the infrastructure to clean it efficiently. You have to, know, Indian grass, switch grass, purple prairie clover, white prairie clover, Illinois bundle flower. These are, they're all the same in that regard where it's like, you just have to have the infrastructure. There's a second way highly recommend looking into this way. It is being on your hands and knees, smaller plots, specialty.
flowers. There are places for these now. I literally have had people ask like, what can I like? What would be the easiest way I can make the most money, brother? Good luck. You know, you let me know when you figure it out. That's called that's called banking on the East Coast. OK, that's not what goes out of the Midwest. But if you you know, if you're one of the. Like, what the heck is it like? Let me just tell you.
Kent Boucher (46:08.521)
Already done.
Kent Boucher (46:20.206)
Profit minimum effort. What do you got?
Kent Boucher (46:27.152)
okay. Well, first of all, invent a time machine. Go back and find this grass. It's going to be called Teo-Cente.
Oh man, that's funny dude. But if you're willing to put in some work and you got half an acre, I mean you really can make it a side hustle. I don't know. You think anybody could make a living off of one acre on native wildflowers or prairie? I don't think so. I don't think so. You could probably do it in produce if you're like the best at it and you're a little further south than we are in Iowa.
Maybe use a little corner of that one acre to make yourself a mud hut like they used to live on in Prairie
But, I, do, you know, I do think there is a path forward now. I, I just want to give like a public upfront apology. We get asked a lot to help people and give advice. And so we charge for that time. and that's not because I'm trying to like gate.
He could live there, yeah.
Nicolas Lirio (47:29.6)
information or anything. is literally, we just get so many asks about it that it just became impossible to get to all the emails or get to all the.
It takes a lot of time to walk somebody through that too. Most times people don't go through with it.
And I'm most. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of tire. Now I like tire kickers. I am a tire kicker. You don't know how many times I called my banker. Hey, would you give me a loan for this? And then he will call me back four months later. Hey, what do you think? And I was like, yeah, I decided not to go through with it. Sorry, I wasted your time. You know, like that happens all the time. It's OK to be a tire kicker 10 times as long as you really go all in on the 11th thing. You know that that's OK. But and so I just I just wanted to give a public apology. It is not because I'm trying to just, you know,
just put up a wall between us and yeah, I'm not trying to do that. It just, it helped. We were getting so many requests and I think part of it is because of the corn and bean prices. I gotta get to a meeting or I'm going to be late. All right. Thanks for listening guys. We'll talk to you again next time.
