Ep. 337 (Coffee Time) Tort Immunity for Bayer and CRP Grazing Might Be Headed Our Way
There’s a lot going on in the ag and conservation world right now. Nicolas, Kent, and Riley dig into tort immunity for Bayer, CRP quality incentives, why conservation wins happen with neighbors before capitals, and how real change comes one small step at a time. They tackle the uncomfortable truth about greenwashing at conservation conferences, and Nicolas gets vulnerable about the social media dilemma—knowing reels might be bad for people but essential for keeping the business alive. It's an honest conversation about living what you preach, even when it's messy. Welcome back to The Prairie Farm Podcast.
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Nicolas Lirio (00:00.578)
Five finger toe socks.
Kent Boucher (00:02.892)
You have those on right now? No.
Nicolas Lirio (00:05.272)
But I will soon. I will soon have those on. Because in high school, I dealt with athlete's foot. I've really long. My last three toes are really long. So there's just like a lot of area for sweat.
Kent Boucher (00:14.51)
It's.
Do you to? Because of those proportions, do you have to wear the five-toe sock backwards so that the biggest toes go on?
Nicolas Lirio (00:25.774)
That would be so disgusting. man. But anyway, they're very expensive.
Kent Boucher (00:33.166)
Is this your way of telling us you have an athlete's foot again?
Nicolas Lirio (00:35.446)
No, no, I do not have athletes, but I got it in high school and it was horrible and I don't ever want to do it again. I've been running more and I'm like, I better do something about this. They're so expensive.
Kent Boucher (00:44.838)
My how interesting it is the accusations of toe fungus and the guy who's actually got the problem. I think we should just everything Nicholas accuses us of Riley or says about us we can just trace it back to that was a major problem in his life.
Nicolas Lirio (00:52.844)
No.
Nicolas Lirio (01:01.676)
The overcompensating.
Riley Rozendaal (01:03.596)
bit of projection here.
Nicolas Lirio (01:05.806)
Kent, you really need to...
Kent Boucher (01:07.438)
I just wish my enemies would have my problem.
Nicolas Lirio (01:10.414)
What do you call those prayers? Precatory prayers. The, yeah, we, my wife and I do and precatory prayers about, this one building you guys have all heard me complain about on the, but that's not actually true.
Kent Boucher (01:28.512)
Asteroid Lord, but but don't don't don't let it destroy the rest of the city just that one building
Nicolas Lirio (01:33.314)
You want to hear a crazy story? There was this legend of a lady, Frida Lindsay, her husband in the sixties started a Bible college, Christ for the nations. And then like two years into it, got really big. Just boom, got big all of a sudden. I don't know if he had a, know, well, he keeled over dead while giving the, the welcome to the college speech while giving the speech on, maybe he was sitting next to the person giving this, but he was on stage in front of like,
2000 new students. And, uh, so Frieda Lindsay, this lady, she just inherits this big old Bible college. She was a legend of a lady and there was this building. She felt like God told her, write the owner, ask him to give it to you. And, uh, she did. She's wrote him and said, Hey, I would like you to give me, it was like a giant hotel. This huge hotel. Yeah. Give it to me so we can use it for the Bible college. And he laughed and he threw it at his trash can and the stories in her autobiography. It missed.
And it sat next to his trash can for a couple of weeks and he couldn't get out of his mind. And then he ended up giving the Bible college of the building like a couple of months later, not wild. Yeah. I mean, I'm like, man, could we just write letters? Please? You are supposed to give us your far.
Kent Boucher (02:40.664)
elaborate guilt trip.
Kent Boucher (02:50.523)
What do you say we're going way off the rails here for normal content you think that's legit or do think that's just like you think it's a
Nicolas Lirio (02:57.952)
Everyone, she passed away about 10 years before I got to the bottom.
Kent Boucher (03:01.454)
not saying did it not happen. I'm saying do you think that's like divine intervention or do you think it's like some weird guilt trip like the dude was cheating on his wife like six other ladies and he's like man I need to make I need a like do you think do you think it really because I'm sure it's those stories are usually you know pigeonholed this yeah this is the only explanation
Nicolas Lirio (03:14.293)
yeah.
Nicolas Lirio (03:23.276)
The Bible is pretty clear about co-laboring. I, my guess is though it was both. There was some emotional, very human, very rational reason that he had, but at the same time, that like, that's a miracle, you know, whatever reason, those things lining up her feeling like, cause what are, what are the chances you could send out a million letters like that? Hey, you're supposed to give me your house and you're just not gonna, you know, the percentage is very small and it was the building next to their campus. So, yeah, I don't know.
That I do wonder about that. Like how much of it, how much do I feel like prayers actually get answered and how much do I think is just human nature?
Kent Boucher (04:02.775)
We twist the details to match what we want it to.
Nicolas Lirio (04:06.675)
yeah. Yeah, I try to.
Kent Boucher (04:08.206)
I don't think we can really ever know for sure.
Nicolas Lirio (04:11.958)
I don't know our view on what actually happened in our life on the way is so skewed from what even in our own hands, our own relationship with our own spouse. is totally different from their point.
Kent Boucher (04:22.765)
Right.
Nicolas Lirio (04:24.494)
Well, we got three or four topics today, so let me just jump on in. If you're thinking about CoverCrop for your land or your landlord's land or something that you might be managing, you've got to check out Iowa CoverCrop. We have worked with them many a times personally, and even though they're a small company, they are as efficient as any of the big companies that we've worked with. They do a fantastic job in
also super educated. Those poor guys, we have pestered them with more ignorant questions than maybe any other company we've ever worked with on anything, and they answer really well and very promptly. We really appreciate them. If you're looking for CoverCrop, check out iowacovercrop.com. You're not gonna regret it. And let them know that the Prairie Farm podcast sent you their way.
Kent Boucher (05:08.334)
Bye!
Nicolas Lirio (05:10.552)
coffee time Wednesdays with the Prairie Farm podcast. Can't hit us with the jingle.
Riley Rozendaal (05:15.224)
Do do do do do.
Kent Boucher (05:16.494)
you
Nicolas Lirio (05:18.254)
you
Welcome back to the Prairie Farm podcast, Coffee Time Wednesday. I'm your favorite host, Nicholas Lirio, with your favorite co-host, Ken Boucher.
Kent Boucher (05:29.038)
feel like I'm the most chipper one today. think it has something to do with a recent trip to Colfax or two.
Nicolas Lirio (05:37.139)
No, how did they find out? No! Riley, did you betray me?
Kent Boucher (05:44.078)
I knew you guys were gone so long. I'm like, why are they not calling me? They're clearly having tractor problems or something. And it just didn't, the math didn't add up.
Nicolas Lirio (05:56.68)
Yeah, I mean, that makes sense.
Kent Boucher (05:58.866)
care about me knowing
I forgot the keys when I when I when Riley came to pick me up that one day
Nicolas Lirio (06:04.599)
Ryder!
Nicolas Lirio (06:09.534)
Yep. That's Riley. You know what? Just tell the story. What? Where we talk about.
Riley Rozendaal (06:13.11)
Well, first of all, first of all, Kent called me just a little bit of context here. Kent called me and he was like, how's getting the tractor? And we were not back yet.
Kent Boucher (06:23.822)
That was so weird how you guys were or I didn't even know if Nick was there but Riley's like asking me about okay Where do you put the where do you where do you spray the ether and I'm like? Here I think and and I was like is everything going? Yep. Yep. No problem with the tractor. I'm like Just like you know what this golden Alexander cleaning is about to kill me. I'm just gonna focus on that
Nicolas Lirio (06:42.392)
But you've been there in that.
Riley Rozendaal (06:49.422)
It was a half truth. didn't get to it because the keys weren't there. So there was a tractor in Colfax. Yes, 35 minutes away.
Nicolas Lirio (06:58.03)
35 minutes away.
Kent Boucher (07:01.046)
Why you didn't want me to know. Have I really become that much of Carol to you?
Nicolas Lirio (07:02.383)
We'll get there.
Nicolas Lirio (07:07.534)
No, no, no.
Riley Rozendaal (07:09.614)
So this tractor was sitting down there in Colfax and we had, grabbed a couple of things like a battery charger, you know, just in case it didn't start, a can of ether, a couple of things like that. And, uh, we get all the way there and, uh, Nicholas does the, that thing that like you're, you might see your spouse do like the pats, the pocket, pat the pockets, kind of looking around and I always, my stomach.
Kent Boucher (07:34.411)
Shoulders knees and toes
Nicolas Lirio (07:35.598)
man. Riley was looking down at the battery when I told him, well, Riley, news. The keys are at the shop.
Riley Rozendaal (07:45.742)
Yep. Well, I looked at him, I'm like, well, good news is the battery has 12.8 volts.
Kent Boucher (07:50.414)
How tempted were you to call me to bring them to you?
Nicolas Lirio (07:53.294)
No, no, was, I was, no, no, no bothering Kent right now. He's in seed cleaning.
Riley Rozendaal (07:57.966)
So we made we made the trip back and Yeah, so that this tractor has cost me I think Two hours of my life and forgotten keys. I'm about thinking about just strapping it to your guys's waistband or something like that
Nicolas Lirio (08:12.504)
Bye.
Kent Boucher (08:13.102)
Man, maybe we should just trust the fact that no one wants to steal a 30 year old train.
Nicolas Lirio (08:18.03)
Man, know what it was just like so embarrassing and humiliating. was like, Riley, don't tell Kent.
Riley Rozendaal (08:18.36)
Yeah.
Kent Boucher (08:26.254)
You know what a great anti-theft would be for that tractor instead of pulling the keys? Would be to park it right up against a tree. Nose it up against a tree because it'll never get the reverse.
Nicolas Lirio (08:37.087)
It just doesn't work at all.
Riley Rozendaal (08:39.554)
Yeah?
Kent Boucher (08:40.28)
Well, there's a trick to getting it to work, but they wouldn't know it.
Nicolas Lirio (08:45.326)
Man, the, uh, that Agco man, that is, uh, it's a nice, it's a nice little tractor. We actually bought three tractors that year trying to get one nice one. And we got the one for like 11,000, another one for 13, five, and they both like caused us issues. weren't bad, they just, those Massey Ferguson and the Kubota and then dad, finally he was getting old enough. He was tired of being the son. He went, I'm just going to buy one that I know a hundred percent works.
Kent Boucher (09:02.776)
tractors were those.
Then, and then the big
Nicolas Lirio (09:14.382)
Uh, and, uh, that was by far the most expensive piece of farming equipment he ever bought. I think it was 32,000 bucks when he got.
Kent Boucher (09:23.35)
yeah, they still, I mean, you see them on marketplace or wherever, they're still running 40,000.
Nicolas Lirio (09:28.226)
Well, you know what? Just two, three years ago, like we just, we've sold a bunch of one 85 here. Al Sharma was like, they were brand looking fantastic running. were going 3,500, 4,000 bucks for a few years. I don't know if it just was like farming equipment got expensive and corn and beans aren't worth anything. Or maybe I think it's that young farmers are saying, Hey, I can actually work on these old ones. know, but they're basically doubled in price, you know,
Kent Boucher (09:55.95)
Yeah, there's been a real ebb and flow like those pole type combines. We had three of them on our auction. They went for like a couple hundred bucks a piece. a year ago I bought one and I had to pay 1,100 bucks for it. Like stuff just goes up and down, up and down.
Nicolas Lirio (10:13.716)
It is, it's weird, but, Hey, don't forget. We've got the second half of the auction. Nice little, little plug there. The second half of the literally, I was just like, so embarrassed. I felt so stupid. And I think it was because you've been so, we've been so pressed on man hours here and you're the most bottlenecked on man hours in terms of like how much you have to get done is on your shoulders that I was like, just don't add the stress.
Kent Boucher (10:20.322)
I wanna know why you didn't want me to die.
Kent Boucher (10:36.504)
Dude, that would have just made me feel better.
Riley Rozendaal (10:41.326)
That's the best of it.
Nicolas Lirio (10:42.674)
man, that's funny. All right, we got a few things today. We're going to start with the bad news, but we got some pretty good news in my opinion. We'll start with the bad news. Bayer, who was shooting to get toward immunity in Iowa, now has deep connections in the White House and they are trying to get it inserted into Farm Bill 2.0 at the last second. Today,
Kent Boucher (11:00.227)
They're making a part of the farm bill.
Nicolas Lirio (11:02.328)
trying and well that's the speculation and it, think that they're kind of bringing it up now because markup. Well, I guess when you all are listening to this, it'd be a day or two before markup starts on Tuesday at 5pm. what is today? March 3rd, March 4th. Yeah. Yep. and so because of that, they are trying to make sure they're added in. They get it swung in there.
They have connections in a bunch of different ways. I actually wrote it down and I mean these are strong connections to the White House. Let me pull this up.
Okay, so they have basically they have employed the lawyers now staffers who helped do the transition period from the last administration to the current administration. Right. So they have they got a cell phone number. Right. And if our friends have our cell phone number and they call us, we will usually do him favors, assuming that we don't feel like it's unethical. But who knows what their rules are up there. And they
In the Supreme Court, so the Supreme Court on rulings like this, I learned this looking into this topic on on rulings such as tort immunity and some of these other things, they lean heavily on various branches or various departments in the executive branch, right? They're looking at EPA, they're looking at FDA, they're looking at these other kinds of things and they're trying to get their information from that. Well, the attorney general is in the executive branch used to be employed.
by bear, right?
Kent Boucher (12:43.776)
Well, so I was doing some looking into this. She worked for a law firm that I believe represented Bayer. So I mean, she was receiving, you know, her employer or her, you know, what do they call it when you're, you're a partner, right? In a law firm. Her law firm was being paid by Bayer to represent them.
Nicolas Lirio (13:03.744)
And what is, thank you for clarifying that. What, basically what that means is in order to get something passed through the Supreme court, that should totally be humanly unethical. You would need, well, let's say the, not necessarily the best, but the top lawyer in the United States is kind of what it would take. Well, it just so happens we've got, it also just so happens that we have a farm bill that everyone is begging to get pushed through right now because we have farmers who are.
I think I saw somewhere 52 farmers a day are going bankrupt in the Midwest. Wow. And so, yeah, yeah. And then they have...
They've basically they're trying to get ahead of EPA rules. I read this as well. Let's see. I read this on.
source here. I'm sorry, guys, I failed you. But basically, there, there's a theory that they're trying to get ahead of a ruling by the EPA on Dicamba's drift issue. Because if they can get ahead of Dicamba's drift issue, right, they can kind of and the EPA is just so large and red.
Kent Boucher (14:12.692)
By drift issue, you're not familiar with pesticide terminology, it just means it goes off target easily. It transfers.
Nicolas Lirio (14:22.86)
I mean, just a matter of like a few degrees difference in temperature can cause major drift difference.
Kent Boucher (14:27.98)
with Dicam is probably the most notorious herbicide to do that.
Nicolas Lirio (14:33.006)
I can't remember what exactly was tested, but we had a drift issue for our farm and it costs us thousands of sorry, tens of, oh, no, no, sorry. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. No joke. And you might think, wow, Hoxie, what a big company. They were able to ride out hundreds of thousands. No, it literally almost bankrupt us. And we had a drift issue. And so we got.
Kent Boucher (14:55.02)
Yeah, another farm's herbicide drifted onto our crops.
Nicolas Lirio (15:01.23)
And we got it all tested and all proven. And then it basically came down to, we would have to sue. And my dad was like, I'm not in, I'm not, I don't want to live in a world where people are just suing each other all over. Yeah. And so the, um, like canvas, especially for specialty crops, right? If everything's corn and beans from fence road to fence row, then it doesn't really matter. But, uh, if we're doing any sort, if we're going to have a system set up for any sort of diversity, we have to be aware of the drift.
Kent Boucher (15:10.974)
Chewing their neighbors.
Riley Rozendaal (15:31.576)
specialty crops don't weather dicamba very well.
Nicolas Lirio (15:34.966)
I would just say normal crops. Most crops don't weather, know, not heavily GMO crops don't. But now, I mean, we say this, we sound like we're a hundred percent anti-chemical. I just.
Kent Boucher (15:48.098)
We use it. It's a part of, if you're going to grow crops with any level of scale and efficiency in monocultures, unless you have a lot of labor, which requires a lot of money to pay that labor, or maybe if you had a lot of volunteers or something, you're gonna most likely have to rely on chemical. Now we are trying to do.
develop some regenerative methods, some double cropping methods and things so that we can get away from it more and more over time. Because it literally is my most hated part of my, you know, if I had to say what's the most hated part of my job, I would say it's handling chemicals.
Nicolas Lirio (16:35.894)
More than farm maps?
Doing farm maps is not a good day for the rest of the team. Actually, I would say that's one of Kent's strengths is if he's having a terrible day, he keeps his cool together. You can tell he's having a bad day, but he keeps it to himself.
Riley Rozendaal (16:45.326)
His head's in his hands.
Kent Boucher (16:55.118)
To a to an extent
Riley Rozendaal (16:57.134)
Depends on the day.
Nicolas Lirio (16:59.086)
So, so that actually is kind of interesting. Farm maps brings us to our, our probably least interesting thing, but I actually think in the long run, it'll make a big difference. secretary Brooke Roland Rawlins, announced the one farmer, one file, which means that you're going to have one file between the FSA, the NRCS and the army, which basically means less turn. No idea. that was just a quote from, that was a quote from the USDA.gov USDA press release.
Kent Boucher (17:20.91)
What's RMA? never heard of that.
Nicolas Lirio (17:29.302)
and that was just like, just happened. and the idea, I mean, the idea is to centralize information more, it'll make it easier to get grants to, to have access to grants. And obviously it will mean less admin time for both the USDA employees and, the farmers, which I mean, let's say there's a million people that touch these files every single year and you take away five hours of their
work a month. Let's say that's all it is five hours a month. I mean, you're talking millions of hours a month of man hour labor. So we can put that into something else. Big fan of that. Number three also, this one was harder to find information about, but with the farm bill, there's currently a fight over equip funding and there are some commodity organizations that are trying to strip back up to a billion dollars of equip fund. Wow. Yep. And I could not for the life of me find out what they were trying to funnel it into.
but there were two different sources that I found that said basically that they were commodity organizations fighting to pull some of the equip funding onto their side, which in my opinion would be a huge bummer because now the CRP is
Kent Boucher (18:40.696)
on the downflow. This would be speculative, of course, but I'm guessing the hope there is that people will be less motivated to turn agribole acres into non-agribole acres, because EQIP funds, it's not quite like CRP where you get continued.
stipends off of, know, like almost like a rent check for putting those acres in. It's to help with a conservation project, the upfront cost. Like reimburse your hours, reimburse your material costs, things like that.
Nicolas Lirio (19:17.39)
Environmental Quality Incentives
Kent Boucher (19:20.454)
And so to me, just speculating there based on who's pushing against it is because they do not want to lose those acres in corn and bean production because they benefit financially from those acres being in corn and bean production. Well, or whatever other way.
Nicolas Lirio (19:37.656)
Yeah, yeah, because the farmers taking the risk on the corn and beans and no matter what they get their input costs or their you know They get their margin on the second half of their buyers But I counted eight people that I could think of when I was putting this together that are putting in ponds What a ponds help with they help a ton with nutrient reduction And sediment reduction in our water quality, right huge deal Every single one of them is doing it because they can through equip every single one if we did not have equipped those ponds would not be going
Kent Boucher (20:06.517)
Eight going in right now. Eight, yeah.
Nicolas Lirio (20:08.256)
Yep. And I I'm grateful for them. I'm grateful for what they're doing. These are, these are all of them, except for two are row crop farmers that are just like have a head on their shoulders. In my opinion, you know, they're kind of like seeing the thing, the direction things are going and they go, well, we need, we don't want to destroy our land. And they actually believe in handing down the land to their, in their lifetime. Most of them are, you know, have plans of handing down their land before they die. They're not just going to hold onto it.
You know, and so I think that's, I'm curious how that'll pan out. I'm, it was interesting and almost either there's not that much racket going on with this and it's not that big of a deal or it's way more behind the scenes and you know, we'll just find out in three weeks that they ripped out equip or, know, or something happened that way to worry about. Yeah, but I got some good news. I got some good news coming from good old Iowa secretary of ag Mike Nag.
He went on a show, the Brownfield Agnews. If you guys have ever heard of that.
Kent Boucher (21:13.708)
Yeah, our friend Brent Barnett.
Nicolas Lirio (21:15.906)
Yep. He works for them and this was a Mark Mark something or another that interviewed Mike Nag on it. And I this could either go really well or really poorly, but he had a huge emphasis on pushing grazing CRP. One of my least favorite things in the whole world is dealing with red tape paperwork and bureaucracy and the very top of those things.
Insurance. I used to have, well, big company insurance because I thought me doing all the stuff online or with a robot phone call would be cheaper. Boy was I wrong. My wife and I switched to McKay Insurance for everything personal and business that we interact with. And not only do we save over $1,000 a year, yes, $1,000 a year, we get to interact with real people, no longer having to deal with those robot phone calls, the...
terrible online interface. mean, what is with those 1980 online interfaces? Well, we personally work with McKay Insurance. I can personally stamp my approval on working with them. I've worked with five different people from there. Every single one of them was incredible. And they give you big customer efficiency and pricing, if not better, with a very small company feel. They really take care of you. I highly recommend McKayinsagency.com. That's MC.
K a Y I N S agency.com. You won't regret it, which I think could be an incredible thing for the landscape. Could get a lot more CRP on the landscape. Could be way better for the CRP. So you'd see less woody encroachment, things like that. People would be more incentivized to have higher diversity mixes. It'd be better for the birds out of bond society. I'm sure is all over this right now and we'll be interviewing someone from there here shortly. but
could go very poorly. Let's say they graze it every year and they have basically no restrictions on it. then. Yeah. And so I don't know. What do you guys think?
Kent Boucher (23:15.374)
That'd be my biggest fear.
Riley Rozendaal (23:19.214)
I think the biggest hurdle in grazing CRP is just a lack of knowledge. Lots of people get into the CRP program going, I know this land's not economically viable for row crops. Can I get it into set-aside? And so they get it in CRP. But if you just throw cows on really, really thatchy CRP or you put them in there at the wrong time, you leave them in there too long.
You know, you're going to run into these, people are either going to get the conception that CRP grasses are worth nothing or, well, I can just, I can just graze a year round, you know, and then you start seeing a reduction in species. So I think this, this sounds a little counterintuitive, but if, if they want to have grazing CRP, I think they ought to have some sort of mandatory clinic or something. I don't know. Or.
Nicolas Lirio (24:14.914)
What do mean clinic? yeah.
Riley Rozendaal (24:17.838)
Hey, here is what you've put in, roughly. And here are five things you can do. It doesn't have to be long, but I don't know, like 10 minutes. Something that's gonna give people the tools, because these grasses have been so pulled off our landscape that lots of people grazing don't have as much, especially around here in my opinion, don't have as much experience grazing them.
If we allow people to graze CRP and it doesn't go well for them, but cattle market stays high, I'm afraid that it's going to lead to people pulling stuff out of CRP and planting it into non-natives because they go, I tried grazing CRP and it just, the grass just wasn't, it wasn't right. The cows didn't like it. So I'll plant orchard grass, which is what we had before that.
Nicolas Lirio (25:09.814)
What do you think you could, you think you could gray CRP every year for three to four weeks if you picked a different time of the year every year?
Riley Rozendaal (25:19.436)
Maybe it depends. It's hard to say with certainty. The stand has to be evaluated, I would say. The trouble with going at a different time every year is grasses are palatable at the time they're palatable. If you get an early green up and you get a lot of rain, things may come around faster or slower. And so that's gonna alter
how, you know, quote, productive or good your grazing is on it.
Nicolas Lirio (25:53.278)
Yeah. I mean, cause if you put the cows out, they will eat out there, but you're saying that they might not get the pounds per.
Riley Rozendaal (25:59.694)
They might not perform if there's too much fiber they might eat it slow and you know gain gain slow if it's prime They'll gain more if well, but too early. They'll thin the stand like
Nicolas Lirio (26:10.99)
say, Hey, you get, you're going to get paid $250 an acre for CRP or you'll get $180 per acre and you can graze your cows on it with this specific grazing regimen. Uh, does that become worth it for the farmer? Because now they're, um,
Kent Boucher (26:27.687)
losing that much money on per acre.
Nicolas Lirio (26:30.048)
Yeah, 70 bucks per year, but I feel like 70 bucks per acre per year is probably worth it for them to have 30 extra acres.
Riley Rozendaal (26:38.286)
If beef prices are high enough, I would imagine it could be potentially worth it. The overwhelming question to me is enforcement and on preservation of that resource that's there already.
Kent Boucher (26:48.354)
and the
Kent Boucher (26:51.702)
That to me is the biggest threat because that takes a lot of work to gray something appropriately. You can't just turn them out there for a month and then see what's left in the end.
Riley Rozendaal (27:03.23)
Christopher Columbus method you let the cows out and you find them when fall comes around
Kent Boucher (27:07.458)
Yeah, that's not gonna do anybody any good. I think it's important to always remember what is the relationship with CRP. It's not just the landowner. A lot of times we can get so caught up in, man, I can buy this farm and I don't farm it all myself. so I'll just put as much of it into CRP for my benefit, me, me, me, me, me.
but it's like, no, the taxpayer is the other part of that relationship and they're expecting an outcome for you enrolling those acres in CRP, a positive outcome. And so we do still wanna get those benefits from that land. I think the best way to implement it would just be remove the disking, a mid-contract maintenance thing out of there, but add it to go in or replace it with grazing and then have.
just like there's parameters for how many seeds per square foot you need to plant and what type of seed mix you have to plant based on your contract. this is the ideal, these are the ideal windows for when you can graze it. You can only do it this many times per contract and it serves in replacement for mowing or whatever other, maybe you can get a
get out of burning or something for a year if you graze instead. I think it's like Riley's saying, a training on it. But then also, the other part of it is you have to have fencing infrastructure.
Nicolas Lirio (28:45.162)
yeah, that would limit it.
Kent Boucher (28:47.406)
be able to adequately have a rotationally grazed thing. And maybe even like right now in drought years, they give a haying allowance. I don't know, is there a grazing allowance too, I think, in those drought years? think you can. I think you
Riley Rozendaal (29:07.918)
believe there's some way around it. I think you may be forego payments or something like that in some cases.
Kent Boucher (29:14.498)
Something like that. think instead of hanging it you can you can graze it or something like that if I if I'm if I'm not if Right if it hits drought status there are there are those those allowances in there But even still I think you're limited up to one-third of your enrolled acres. Yeah for how much you're allowed to do and so
Riley Rozendaal (29:21.208)
Bad enough.
Nicolas Lirio (29:35.532)
Yeah, I, I totally agree with you that we need to really be careful about how we implement it. It would take a lot of thought from people like Dr. Patrick Kaiser, from people like the carbon Cowboys, from people like, Hamilton native outposts, that have a lot of experience on this coming together and saying, this is best case scenario. This is worst case scenario. Here's all the scenarios in between.
And then we, as a people through the legislation, decide where the line is on best versus worst case scenario, and then figure out what value does that have to, to society. And I don't want, what I don't want to do is tell the farmer, Hey, you're getting a hundred dollars worth of value off this CRP. We're going to, we're going to pay you a hundred dollars less. I would like to see something more like, Hey, you're getting a hundred dollars worth of value off of it. we're
going to pay you $30 less so you get some, but then also the taxpayers get some because they get a healthier prairie, assuming that it's managed correctly. And I do think, I think people think, well, in order for someone to win, someone has to lose. Just not, I think here we have a win-win assuming it's managed correctly.
Kent Boucher (30:50.466)
Well yeah, if it's a part of the management protocol, mean, you have to mow as a part of your management protocol. You have to burn. That's a cost to the landowner for the gain of the taxpayer. And so to me, this would just be more of a win-win. The taxpayer is getting a better quality prairie if grazed correctly. so therefore they're getting better carbon sequestration, better...
less soil erosion, better water quality, better habitat for wildlife and pollinating species. So they're getting those benefits that they're supposed to get in a fuller amount if grazed appropriately. So I really don't see if it's done every, know, grazed once every three years or once every five years and the farmer on those years gets to take a little bit off of his, you know, feeding.
a bill for his herd for that year. I don't see why that, why it can't be a win-win because.
Nicolas Lirio (31:52.27)
I think it could be a big deal for small farm. Let's say you your your dad was a little small farmer and he only owned 40 he farmed 500 well you decided you're not gonna farm but you still got the 40 acres you put it into CRP and let's say you can only graze once out of four years you still have ten acres a year you could graze on you could have a Not you can't have a big old herd, but you could have enough beef for your family. You know it
Kent Boucher (32:15.598)
Yeah.
Riley Rozendaal (32:16.654)
It goes back to the idea of a working landscape. You could every fifth year go and get four or five stalker calves from the local sale barn, graze them, run them across that 40, and in the fall, maybe you take them back to the sale barn or you sell one or keep one for your family. It takes it from being this thing that's solely wildlife focused, which is good to a degree, but it also...
opens up the door for people to go, okay, well, here's this unproductive acre. I can make something that's good for wildlife and good for me. They can grow their operations in it.
Nicolas Lirio (32:58.034)
Now I want to address the fencing. is, that's a big concern. Adam Latvina does the goats and he jokingly said, look, I basically get paid to put up fence and, and, uh, and ship goats places. Right? That's like what his job kind of entails. Obviously he's, he's an incredible farmer doing cool things, but, um, and I think that for a lot of livestock people that can become their life. Here's the deal. If CRP became such an integral part of how we grazed
cattle and it need to be rotationally grace. Like people had to do it. Someone like Vermeer, they have, they have kind of self propelled, self driving bail picker uppers. you know what I'm talking about? No, no, no, no, no. Yes, they do have self. Yeah. One like best invention in Iowa in 2023 or something. But, this is a cool, that's cool piece of machinery. No, I'm talking about these things. They drive themselves around the field and they go pick up bales.
Kent Boucher (33:40.876)
propelled bailers. They have those too.
Nicolas Lirio (33:55.072)
after you're done. Have you seen them? right out there by. Well, I guess you turn before you get to. So when you're heading in.
Kent Boucher (33:56.279)
Yep.
Kent Boucher (34:00.759)
I if I have seen. I know their corporate headquarters has a robotic lawnmower that mows their.
Nicolas Lirio (34:09.838)
Well, that's basically what it is. You think, do you think it would be hard at all to invent a little machine that drove around where you told it to and put in posts or by on the other side of it, the, the no fence collars are kind of borderline cost effective break even, but as more competition comes out, those will get cheaper. You know, I expect in the next five to 10 years, the price will be half what it is now.
Kent Boucher (34:38.198)
is not the route I thought you were gonna go and you're like don't worry the industry will save us boys I thought you were gonna say people are gonna start start up their there's their small herds and they're just gonna go around and offer CRP grazing contracts that's all they're gonna feed their herd yeah just gonna put them out of people's CRP
Nicolas Lirio (34:52.757)
What the hell?
Nicolas Lirio (34:57.932)
That would be awesome. go and fence it. Yeah. I mean the, shipping of the cows around becomes quite a behemoth, but.
Kent Boucher (35:00.366)
and the temporary for everybody.
Riley Rozendaal (35:06.52)
but people love animals. If you can tell somebody, you're gonna make $3,000 less over a 10 year period, but a young person's gonna get a leg up, they're gonna drop their animals out here and graze, some people, that's worth it.
Kent Boucher (35:23.884)
Yeah. It just feels kind of like a scam, you know? I've always thought about starting a shed removal business.
Nicolas Lirio (35:30.828)
Yeah.
Riley Rozendaal (35:32.366)
that this is
Kent Boucher (35:33.102)
You can pay me to come out to your farm and I'll be glad to take care of those antlers for you.
Riley Rozendaal (35:38.092)
You won't get one in your tires, I'll find them all.
Kent Boucher (35:45.41)
feed grazing business. I'm just feeding my beef to go. You're paying me to feed.
Nicolas Lirio (35:48.622)
That's basically what Adam's doing, but he's doing like
Kent Boucher (35:53.478)
Well, yeah, he's doing invasive removal. That's huge. Whereas this would just be truly some turn of my cows.
Riley Rozendaal (36:00.95)
Yeah, no, no, no, but there's one thing though. Some of these grasses need a little bit of thinning though too. We talk a lot about a good stand to CRP.
Nicolas Lirio (36:08.62)
The great.
Kent Boucher (36:09.43)
There is some service, but it's just funny to feed your cats.
Nicolas Lirio (36:12.223)
here's an idea. CRP bonuses based on diversity found in your field on year 10, maybe year seven and year 10. That would be that would make them pretty decent bonuses that kind of incentivize.
Kent Boucher (36:26.99)
One of the things I gotta admit, and as Carol said, you always have to be an optimist to be in this business, even when you have to drive Colfax twice.
I thinking about laughing while we're talking. I keep almost laughing because I keep thinking of you not wanting me to know.
Kent Boucher (36:49.39)
I wiggled it out of him mostly because of the math It just didn't make sense not be having tractor problems It would have been one thing if if you if it had just taken you so long to get back But because it took so long for Riley to get back. That's what I was actually surprised how quickly you made it back Makes me wonder where did Riley stop on the way back?
Nicolas Lirio (37:11.874)
Yeah, well, it was
Nicolas Lirio (37:15.976)
You would have lied to Kent and him we went out for ice cream.
Riley Rozendaal (37:16.395)
I stopped at the Maverick
Riley Rozendaal (37:21.588)
that's the other part. I got my credit card stolen at the Maverick while we were taking this to Colfax.
Nicolas Lirio (37:25.592)
Yeah.
Kent Boucher (37:27.638)
Yeah, from the from the register. At the register, which Maverick in.
Riley Rozendaal (37:30.328)
Yeah, I was at the register.
Nicolas Lirio (37:34.83)
So an employee skimmed your credit card
Riley Rozendaal (37:37.13)
I have no clue. No, I don't know. But what I realized is yesterday when I saw Nicholas pull in the driveway, I thought at long last, this saga has been three weeks in the making here.
Kent Boucher (37:48.654)
Yeah, and we drove there for no reason in the first place. anyways, so what my where I am tempted to be skeptical is what you talked about earlier, Big Ag lobby is pushing to pull money out of a sister program. And then when I hear about, oh, let's let's add money to as incentives for better quality CRP. It just feels
It feels hard to think that we're in that kind of an environment right now. Honestly, I'm mentally tired with just this administration's, what has come along with it as far as conservation battles and just the war that is raging against public land any way possible. Now it's just attack after attack. And I'm so thankful for groups like
Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Western Watersheds, TRCP, even things like Pheasants Forever, Trout Unlimited. Honestly, Outdoor Life Magazine, I've been seeing tons of posts from them on just keeping people updated. Howell for Wildlife, just all these organizations that have been keeping these types of things front and center. And then here again, you know, even
less on the public land front but more on just being a human being on the North American continent where giant companies are pulling every lever they can to get tort immunity so that if you get you or your family is harmed by their product in the future.
Nicolas Lirio (39:35.694)
Court is your liability. There's huge, at least correlation, right? At least huge correlation. Yeah, that is so.
Kent Boucher (39:42.418)
liability removed from that be like that be like asking yeah I might I might you know be on my cell phone someday and smash into somebody with my car and gravely injure them or kill them can I just get some kind of protection so that if I if I were to do that I'd never be held liable I mean think that in any other context
Nicolas Lirio (40:01.004)
Yeah, that's that. Look, look, there, if you're going to make billions of dollars off of us, you got to take the risk with it. If you're going to if you're going to use chemicals that are toxic to life on Earth and make money off of it, free market says you're allowed to do it, but you got to take the risk that comes with it. You can't have it both ways. You get one or the other.
Kent Boucher (40:20.994)
Yeah. And thankfully it's still, you know, we're, have the privilege of being in America where our government allows us to have a voice. so we can't get exhausted on all this stuff. We have to stay active. We have to keep calling the Capitol switchboard and the Senate and the emails to our reps and senators. And, and, even on the home front, wherever you live, you know, talk to your governor's office, talk to the people that
are making decisions on these types of issues that not only just affect how good of a landscape we have, but truly the things that impact our health. so even though it feels like a long shot that maybe there is a day where you get an incentive for having a higher quality CRP stand, let's keep pushing for it. We don't always have to be on the defensive.
Nicolas Lirio (41:12.446)
to be fair, heard this on a podcast. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not always be. Yeah. The Iowa sportsman club. They, they talk about a lot. They do. They do a good job. Speaking of which we'll be at Iowa deer classic this week. but I, I heard on a podcast recently that most people who get, who actually make life change with health change one small thing at a time. and
Kent Boucher (41:16.472)
change as well.
Nicolas Lirio (41:37.26)
that's how it has to be with conservation. That's how it's been for conservation in my life. It was a little pollinator and then it was only having a certain amount of shirts and then it was being careful about where I bought stuff and then it was being more careful about where about my food and then it was more care, you know, and there's all these things. And now my wife and I were trying to figure out a way to eliminate plastic cups at the coffee shop, right? It's a big lift. I would never have jumped from nothing in conservation to trying to eliminate plastic in it. And so it takes those, those small things, but I would also
add that, with the being tired on, on fighting the battles that we are pushing for, we will not win conservation battles in capitals. If we don't win with our neighbors, we just will not. And so I believe in lobbying and advocating. I do, I believe in I E I email
probably once a month, once every other month I send an email to my reps and I just copy and paste basically the same thing and send it to all the reps. No, can actually is the one who taught me to do that. And, so, so that I believe in that, but if we don't live an example for our neighbors and, and connect with our neighbors on, on why it's important, then you know, good luck. Yeah.
Kent Boucher (42:43.99)
Getting that virtue signaling in folks.
Kent Boucher (43:03.95)
Yeah. Yeah, we can't, we can't get worn down on it. mean, well, that's impossible, right? And it's like when your coach is going to give 110%. Uh, you can get worn down on it, but you can't quit. That's the, that's the key. You got to stay in the fight and, uh, you know, keep pointing out the good things. So it, uh, something more convincing, uh, than an argument is, is a positive.
visual example that you can show somebody, where you're not even arguing, just like, hey, look at that, doesn't that look beautiful over there? know, doesn't, isn't it crazy how much cleaner the water is in the streams here than it is, you know, where we're from or whatever, you know, those are the things that really change how people look at things instead of just beating them over the head with facts.
Nicolas Lirio (43:51.768)
Yeah, I was thinking this the other day. think, you know, to have these arguments and to be like, well, you gotta be reasonable about the economics. That's like, that's like saying, look, I have to eat Twix every day because I don't have time to actually cook because I'm busy making money for the family. Right. We all, we would all agree. that is terrible. That's terrible to say. You need to make sure your health is good. And then you can, all right, well, we need to make sure our health is good. You know, landscape and culture.
Kent Boucher (44:17.346)
You know, one of the things while we're on it, that is, this isn't calling any specific thing out. But one of things I always feel guilty about as a participant myself when we come together for some big conference around conservation or around, know, well, yeah, we'll just say around conservation is the footprint of the conference about conservation.
myself included. Well, we better get all these plastic water bottles. We got plenty of water to drink while we're there. Well, we better better get all these fig bars that I ate about 7,000 of at our most recent.
Nicolas Lirio (44:56.226)
wasn't what you ate the most of. You had those little fruit.
Kent Boucher (44:59.566)
True leather, holy cow. Those are good. Part of my DNA now probably. the point being like, to echo what Nicholas is saying, we need to really do an audit on how we go about all of this. And can we spend so much time greenwashing our own actions by...
Well, at least I'm here at this event where it's really important that we're at this event and that we're giving this money. it's like, I think we need to audit how each and every one of us just goes about our life. And we can get so caught up in the talking that we forget to do the walking. And I think that, again, starts with me.
Nicolas Lirio (45:52.142)
I personally struggle with this specifically. I mean, man, that's going to come across hypocritical and maybe it is, is, with our social media between hoxie native seeds, the Prairie farm, my wife and I's coffee shop and my siblings and I's business. like interview old people for video memoirs, right? Between all those posts, I'm literally involved in like seven or eight posts, most of which are reels a day.
And reels are like bad for people. They are. And so now I've heard, you know, Dire Viseo is like the biggest podcast in the world. He had on Jonathan Hyatt and Jonathan Hyatt was like, yeah, but you're leading them to a longer form, which would be the podcast. And they're learning a lot in the process. Like it's making people's lives better. Even though the actual form of it reels, I really struggle with it. But here's the other side, real vulnerable.
Kent Boucher (46:25.751)
That's drug hit,
Nicolas Lirio (46:51.122)
I did the math on the difference between pre and post reels. think personally I would go bankrupt at this. No joke. I think I would personally go bankrupt if we, my wife and I in all of our endeavors, stop doing social media. Just said, this is not good for us. We don't do it.
Kent Boucher (47:07.692)
how business works and all you're saying.
Nicolas Lirio (47:10.638)
to even make a change. We've had many people, it's cool when people reach out and say, Hey, I really love what you're sharing. That's awesome. It is like life infusing with goodness. When people come and say, you changed my mind and now I do life differently. Right. Or, or the information or whatever guest you had on. And, uh, literally if that happened, that's happened maybe three or three or four times total.
in terms of like, I live my life totally differently now. If that happened, if that's all that happens with this pocket, that's probably worth it. Right. But I, in the meantime, we are putting out hours and hours and hours of content, a lot of it in short, and I don't know, I don't know what to do about it. And that's, there's, I have no solution for that. I don't, maybe I should just quit, take the L, take one for the team, go bankrupt, you know, and I'm not above that level of extremity in my life, but is that better?
that would that be better and not do the podcast and the reels?
Kent Boucher (48:10.798)
It's the old net positive, net negative. Yeah, I know. I think that's a gut thing a lot of times. Like you just know. I know when I'm justifying something. know when I'm running a sales pitch versus telling the truth. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think the key is to trust your conscience, trust your gut on those things. And if I'm...
If I'm sending something out there that's like, I'm just doing this to do this, then don't do it. And if it's, no, I think this is gonna be helpful to even one person, like you said, then it's probably worth it. And I think we got a pretty good, there's always surprises, but kind of like an ancient old barn in Wisconsin that got like six million views or whatever.
Nicolas Lirio (49:07.118)
That was wild. then Laura Walters got a million views and, we realized our lack of views on the Hoxie channel was just us. was our face. Hey guys, bad news problems us. Well, and, and, but I do think in the spring and in the summer are real content. I really want to do full vlogs again. I really want to do that, but we just don't have the bandwidth with the auction going on. But I think what
Kent Boucher (49:17.134)
faces for audio.
Nicolas Lirio (49:35.456)
You'll like the concept more when we have more play. Yeah, we can be a little more descriptive, but anyway, is Riley. Got anything before we hang it up? No.
Kent Boucher (49:38.017)
flowers and
Riley Rozendaal (49:45.856)
I'm just looking forward to something that's on social media. That's not my face. It's a net positive.
Kent Boucher (49:52.174)
You got a big virtue signal
Nicolas Lirio (49:55.212)
better about ourself.
Riley Rozendaal (49:56.415)
No, I keep those to myself. I like you guys on your back foot.
Nicolas Lirio (49:59.982)
man, well we appreciate all of you. you got any advice on the thing we should do with reels and business social at the prairiefarm.com we will talk to you again. Don't forget. Next time.
Kent Boucher (50:08.11)
Rear keys.
