In this episode of the Ag Tribes Report, host Vance Crowe welcomes JR Burdick, a raw milk farmer known for his advocacy of local food sovereignty and traditional values. Together, they delve into pressing issues affecting the agriculture sector, including Bayer's potential halt of RoundUp production due to costly lawsuits, and the implications of Trump's tariffs aimed at isolating China. The discussion also covers the American beverage industry's reaction to SNAP benefit restrictions and the potential impact of UK cheese tariffs on US markets. JR shares his insights on the consolidation of the ag industry and the potential for a return to smaller farms, while also highlighting the importance of responsible use of agricultural tools like glyphosate.
The episode also features the Bitcoin land price report, where Vance and JR discuss the current value of Bitcoin in relation to farmland prices. JR shares his unique perspective on the Peter Thiel paradox, arguing that the consolidation in the ag industry is over, and highlights Joel Salatin as a worthy adversary. The episode concludes with a heartfelt story about JR's mother and a discussion on the value of capturing family legacies. Tune in for an engaging conversation that challenges conventional perspectives and explores the future of agriculture.
[00:00:01]
Unknown:
The Ag Tribes Report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are so the future knows who they really were. This Mother's Day, honor your parents with the opportunity to tell their stories and share the wisdom they've learned along the way. Welcome to the AgTribe's report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host, Vance Crow. The report begins in three, two, one. Let's begin.
[00:00:34] Unknown:
Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crow. Each week, I bring on a cohost to represent the perspectives of one of the many ag tribes that represents US and Canadian agriculture. This week, we have none other than JR Burdick, a Roth milk farmer that champions local food sovereignty, traditional values, all while challenging big ag. He advocates for sound money, secure borders, and has an exceptional x feed that every morning he hops in while he's in his dairy parlor and, make some observations about the world, and I tune in every morning as I'm making breakfast for my girls. So it is a great pleasure for me to welcome you onto the show, JR.
[00:01:13] Unknown:
Hey. Thanks, Vance. It's great to be with you.
[00:01:16] Unknown:
So what have you been paying attention to lately?
[00:01:19] Unknown:
Oh, financial markets, crazy things that are going on with the food industry, and just,
[00:01:27] Unknown:
personal sovereignty and personal freedom issues. There there there's a lot of things going on with that. Man, I gotta tell you that, for I'm a guy that produces a lot. I can go out and give talks. But the amount of new ideas that you are regularly grappling with, You know, you'll even start it off, and I'll be like, oh, I know where JR is going with this. Every single time it's new. I think you really have found, a great platform that leverages however it is that your mind works.
[00:01:52] Unknown:
Well, I enjoy x because it gives you an opportunity to throw out some ideas, and and it ex exposes you to a lot of ideas that you wouldn't have been exposed in your typical, groups and gatherings that you go to. So you get exposed to those things, and then your mind just takes off. And and I like to just think and I just like to think that I don't know everything, and I wanna explore more. I wanna hear what other people's opinions are. And if I don't agree with them, I wanna know why I don't agree with them. I don't wanna just knee jerk react and say, yeah. I don't like that. But, lot of good things there. So I enjoy x for that reason.
[00:02:29] Unknown:
Well, this week, what we are going to talk about is how Bayer may stop glyphosate production due to all these lawsuit payouts that's gonna threaten US Farmers who are quite reliant on Roundup. We're also gonna talk about Trump's tariffs, which are aiming to isolate China. They are pressuring over 70 nations to block Chinese goods, and the beverage industry took a swipe at ag secretary Rollins this week. And we're gonna finish up with a story on UK's, cheese that there are certain farmers over there that are threatening to stop exports, to The US markets because of tariffs. We're gonna do all that. We're gonna do the Bitcoin land price report, and we're gonna hear JR's take on the Peter Thiel paradox and hear about his worthy adversary all in just thirty minutes.
So let's get started. Bayer chief executive says it's the end of the road for Roundup. We're talking months, not years. Bayer may high halt glyphosate production due to costly lawsuits claiming the herbicide causes cancer. Roundup generating billions of dollars for Bayer faces 67,000 pending cases, and they've already been cost, more than $10,000,000,000 in payouts. While the company's held 16,000,000,000 back, that is getting a little low. And so now US Farmers who have been reliant on, US made glyphosate by Bayer in the form of Roundup may have only the glyphosate generics to be used to be, accessible be that come from the Chinese. So this is going to be a big deal if Bayer makes good on this promise.
JR, what do you think? Is, is Bayer gonna make good on this threat, or is this a way just to get farmers, rile rallied around them?
[00:04:16] Unknown:
Well, I think I think it is really just a marketing ploy to kind of push a little bit of fear out there. Hey. If you guys don't start going along with us a little bit and and whatnot, then, you know, we're gonna take this from the marketplace. And I'm really not happy about that. I am I'm one that I want a lot of tools in my toolbox. I think glyphosate's a wonderful tool when used with the way it should be. But I think with the advent of Roundup Ready beans and then Roundup Ready corn, and I think we just overuse that tool, you know, and after a while, the tool breaks if it's not used right. And, so I I'm sad to see where glyphosate has gone and how it has become the, the lightning rod for everybody to come against and say, you know, this is this is the thing that's horrible about agriculture.
And we get pigeonholed into into this, this this position. And I don't think it's fair, but we also have to realize we overuse that tool. It it wasn't you know, I can remember when Roundup Ready beans first came out and then Roundup Ready corn, and everybody was like, I'm just gonna plant corn and plant beans and just spray Roundup forever and everything will die. Well, what happened? You know? But when you're saying you overused it, are you starting are you saying, hey. The consequence of that is it's not as effective as it used to be, or are you saying we overused it and the lawsuits that are going on right now are, a consequence of this causing cancer? Because those are two different things. Well, I would say both things is what I mean. Because, if we had used it intelligently and selectively, you wouldn't have had the volume of it out there.
And, you know the old saying from the 70s is, dilution is the solution to pollution, you know, it's the same idea here, your maximum exposure level is your maximum exposure level, and if you're all the time reaching the maximum exposure level, well maybe we should be looking more using it so that we are at the minimum exposure, exposure levels. And that would have helped us in weed resistant areas, that would have helped us in this potentially in these cancer causing, things. But I think too, in some cases that can't, the cancer, not every case, but a lot of the cases have been more residential or golf course or those types of uses. And so it's not all just agriculture that needs to be wearing the, the concern here. Yeah. I mean, I have to say as a person that, worked for Monsanto,
[00:06:56] Unknown:
like, I have looked at a lot of evidence, of the charges that people make and the whether it's safe or not. And I have to say the resounding amount of evidence that I have seen is that this is safe, but it's very, very difficult to prove that. And so I think that it's very easy to conflate the very complicated role that glyphosates played. I agree with you. It got way overused, but I don't think that it causes cancer. But I do think that it enables a certain type of agriculture that kinda pushes all others out. And I myself feel that mimetic push because I'm seeing so many people talk about how glyphosate causes cancer. And in the same way that I'm way more open to raw milk than I ever was before, now I have to say, well, wait. Is there something going on with glyphosate? Is there something I haven't seen there? And so I I have to keep coming back to, I gotta figure out what the evidence says. And to me, all of these, cases are not actual evidence. They're just accusations. And I think that this is something that, if we allow accusations to knock something like Roundup out of the market, we're, it's a dangerous place to be in. It's it's not it's not freedom.
[00:08:05] Unknown:
Right. It's that's exactly my point is we need to we need to ensure that the tools are in the toolbox, and then we have to use the responsibility and be responsible in the use of those tools. So I think that we can share some of the blame that we were not as responsible as we should have been, but that doesn't mean we get rid of the tool, it's not the tool's fault, it's you get back to the management of it. And, and I think that, as we do that, and we look at all aspects of agriculture in that standpoint, we can begin to see, you know, there's there's been a free for all and a limited amount of responsibility. We've always pushed it off on somebody else.
[00:08:44] Unknown:
I think we need to start to take some of that on us, not just mayor, Monsanto, and Bayer. I'll tell you who I actually have a problem with. The Roundup name, right, that has always meant glyphosate to me. Well, then, it gets licensed out to do this home, gardening stuff, and there's that Scott's company that took the Roundup brand, and they started mixing glyphosate with dicamba. So one day, I'm outside spraying my bricks. I've got, you know, a new little girl at home, and I'm really happy because I feel glyphosate's really safe. And all of a sudden, I come to look at that that bottle, and I'm like, wait. This has got dicamba in there. This is not what I signed up for. And and I think the general public, if they were gonna be mad about something, that's the thing to be way more mad about.
[00:09:27] Unknown:
Right. Right. Yeah. And and, again, it gets people put a name on something and it's it's everything is this. And, and I've as I've gotten into the raw milk industry and and talking to the public more, there there's these words and they're just knee jerk reactions. And how you can go into a courtroom with a bunch of jurors and you stand there and you say round up and they can all say, yeah, I'm I'm impartial. No, you're not. None of us is impartial. But you have to make at least at least set your biases apart, and that's really hard to do, especially with cancer because everybody's been impacted by it. And if they and everybody wants to point the finger, it's something that could stop it. And,
[00:10:13] Unknown:
Well, we're gonna see. It's gonna be interesting. I do not know the bear people to be those that mince words. So if they're saying that's, months not years, it may be possible that that'll happen. Alright. Headline number two, Bessent's grand strategy. Use tariff negotiations to isolate China from the rest of the world. From Zero Hedge, the Trump administration, led by treasury secretary Scott Bissett, plans to use tariff negotiations to isolate China economically. The strategy involves pressuring over 70 nations to limit trans shipments, block Chinese firms, and reject China's cheap goods in exchange for reduced US tariffs. This aims to weaken China's economy, which is currently right now facing a recession, if not a depression.
Meanwhile, US Farmers fear losing China, their largest export market due to these retaliatory tariffs and the war that's been building between the two. Soybeans and sorghum farmers are hardest hit so far with China buying 200 and or 24,600,000,000.0 in US crops last year. Crop prices have dropped, erasing thin profit margins, and soybeans, don't look much better. So, JR, what do you think? Should The US have gotten ready for this trade war before we got into it, or are we right where we wanted to be?
[00:11:30] Unknown:
I don't know how you get ready for a trade war. You know, you you can't you can't forward signal and and and give enough forewarning to everybody and still have it have any impact. So, but I think that we all should have been aware, when Trump was elected that this was coming. I mean, he he said it all the time, and and that's one of the things that I find funny is we're we're not used to a politician who does what he says he's going to do. And there here's a guy that not a %, but in large part, he does what he says he's going to do. So they we should have all been expecting, hey. There's going to be some kind of a trade tariff, some kind of a trade, thing going on here, whether it's trade war or folk or or something less. Well, I see this as being a, a good strategy if we can get other countries to come along with us.
But it falls apart if if you can't, then we're standing alone. So, the the proof will be in the pudding here, as they say, and how this how this really works out in the end. But, but, you know, where does China go? Does China and Brazil's, trade partnerships get stronger through this? Does India start to say they're gonna come to us and it breaks up this this BRICS nation? You know, there's there's a lot of things that could happen, and, I I'm a little concerned that it's gonna take longer to play out than what,
[00:13:09] Unknown:
what Trump thinks for. And Yeah. I mean, how long can we do that go for? It appears like, you know, the last time we had a trade war, Brazil became the big winner. They took off a bunch of, a bunch of supply that China was buying from us. Again, they started providing it to them, and now that that's all gone away. We don't even expect that that's a part of the trade deal. It's probably going to happen more. I think what's gonna be interesting is, you know, you have to play a two level game. You have to play the domestic game and the international game. And he's definitely the international game is how do you get 70 countries to go along with you? And then the other, the internal game is how do you keep the nation behind you? And one of the big challenges you're gonna have is if you go give farmers a check to keep them in business so that that way the headlines aren't reading, you know, another 200 farms went out of business, went bankrupt.
If you if you start handing out checks to the American farmer, what about the small businessmen that's not getting it? Now all of a sudden, something that used to be really popular, you know, support our farmers. You can already see that kind of wearing down, people not happy about those checks going out the over the last couple of months. What happens to the internal battle as you're trying to fight the external battle?
[00:14:21] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, and I'll throw one other caveat in there. We were we were speaking before about, the weather that we've been having and the unusual weather for this spring and the windiness and and all these things. And if you read some of the prognosticators, the weathermen, you know, they're talking about the potential for a 2012 type, drought scenario this summer. There's that potential. Well, what happens if we have a trade war and nobody wants to buy our products, but we don't grow enough here, and our prices are going higher, but farmers are going, we need assistance on both sides.
That could get, you know, that could get really, really hairy really, really fast. And, so so there's a there's a lot of unknowns yet, and the knowns that we have is that, we're gonna produce a crop to the best of our ability. We're gonna have to have a market for it. There's there's so many things that influence our export markets, whether it's whether it's just trade agreements or whether it's the value of our dollar. And all of those things, none of it is a certainty right now. So so I I sit there and I go, man, we we really, really got some issues ahead of us. And and my crystal ball is kinda broke on that one, how where where it all plays out because, there could be some long term ramifications.
It could be good, and it could be really bad. Yeah. I mean, my personal
[00:15:49] Unknown:
sense is that, just like the Charles Bukowski poem, go all the way. That that's the only way to do this. Like, once you have decided to go, you go all the way. Even when things look dark, even when it looks like, hey. We're gonna be sleeping on a park bench here. You've gotta go all the way because you like, going halfway and then going back, now you can never go back again. So if we're if we're in it, let's go let's go all the way.
[00:16:12] Unknown:
I agree. I agree. %.
[00:16:14] Unknown:
Alright. Headline number three. This one kinda makes everybody chuckle. I think pretty much everybody instinctively agrees with what happened in Arkansas, but the headline American beverage industry takes a swipe at ag secretary Rawlins. The US Department of Agriculture's, Brooke Rawlins joined Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders today as the governor submitted a waiver to the USDA to ban soda and candy from, the SNAP benefits, and they also want to include rotisserie chickens as something you can buy. The statement from the American Beverage, on today's, SNAP, waiver submission is a little bit long, but kinda worth reading. It's disappointing. This is from the American Beverage Association. It's disappointing that governor Sanders and secretary Rollins are choosing to be the food police rather than take truly meaningful steps to lift people off SNAP with good paying jobs.
Nearly 80% of families on SNAP work. They don't make enough to make ends meet. Low income working families were promised a new better era and not left to be left behind again. Instead, they're being denigrated and treated like second class citizens. Make no mistake. This waiver won't make one ounce of difference on health. Obesity has skyrocketed in the last two decades while beverage calories per serving have dropped by 42%, thanks to our industry's efforts to empower Americans with more choice. In fact, 60% of beverages Americans buy today have zero sugar due to our innovation.
They go on and on, but they are making the case that these kind of, things are un American. What do you think, JR? Should SNAP benefits be used to buy soda?
[00:17:54] Unknown:
Well, like everything, I think unusually about, something like this. And, I wrote a blog to our customers, a little email to our customers about this, couple weeks ago. And, basically, my theory is a government that's big enough to, control the price of your eggs by bringing them down and then control what you can drink by saying you can't have money to drink it is a government that's too big and out of control. So so, my view is government shouldn't be in charge of either one of them, and you should be able to go buy whatever amount of soda pop you wanna buy with your money and leave me out of it. And, that takes care of all of the issues, and it takes care of big brother telling you whether you can or can't. And it takes care of The US beverage industry getting out there and sugarcoating the fact that, yes, the amount of servings, but who drinks a a prescribed amount of the servings out of a out of a pop bottle? You go and you buy an eight ounce or 12 ounce can of soda, and it's it's one serving. And you buy a 20 ounce bottle of of, the same thing, and you drink the whole thing even though it's three servings.
So, you know, the the the servings thing to me is just kind of a pointless pointless argument that they're making. But to me, the big issue is a government that can tell you we're gonna control the price of eggs or we're going to control what you can use your money to buy is a government that's too big, too out of control, and I'm not in favor of either one.
[00:19:27] Unknown:
Yeah. You know, I think for me, the the SNAP benefits are designed to make it so we don't have people going hungry. And while I don't wanna be a person that judges, another person, how they feed their family. I can say if you were giving money to a local food bank and they were going out and buying Mountain Dew or Pepsi or Coca Cola with that as opposed to buying something that was more healthy and nutritious, I think you'd be pretty outraged. And I don't see why government dollars would be any different. I think the American beverage industry is I mean, it must be costing them a huge amount of money if this happens, but this is a catastrophic mistake because who's gonna line up on their side on this issue? Is this is not even a freedom issue? This is like, we should be allowed to spend other people's money on this thing. It doesn't it doesn't make sense to me that this was the hill they were gonna and they're gonna be the laughing stock.
[00:20:17] Unknown:
Yeah. Well and that's the other issue. Hey. If if you're gonna take somebody else's money, guess what? They get to dictate how you use that money. And, and so if if somebody is out there and, you know, weighs three hundred and fifty pounds and is, you know, five foot three and has a has a big gulp under one arm, you can absolutely say, no. We're not spending that money. You that's that's a poor use of our dollars right there. We're here to we're here to help you stay hung you know, keep you from being hungry and starving, not to make sure you have, you know, a a outrageous daily weight gain.
[00:20:54] Unknown:
In international news, the Brits are complaining that they may quit sending their cheese to The US. From the BBC, the crone cheese, a Worcestershire family business, may halt US exports due to a proposed 10% tariff by Donald Trump, exporting 30% 37% of its cheese with 75% of that to The US. Tariffs make sales unprofitable. Owner Nick Hodges, notes that the political decision like Brexit have previously disrupted out, exports, and the business faces uncertainty with products, already en route potentially incurring unaffordable duties.
JR, it sounds like, these tariffs, while not good for the profits of, of a British farm, could be really good to dairymen like you. What do you think of these tariffs and people not wanting to send their goods over?
[00:21:45] Unknown:
Well, I'm I'm kind of excited about this one. I would like to see a robust artesian cheese cheese market start up here in The United States. We have quality milk. We have quality land. We have we have quality people, but we've just been decimated by the intrusion of, foreign foreign goods. And this is a finished product. This is, you know, they make the milk over there in in England. They've they've made it into their cheese, and then they send that cheese to us. And it's not like we don't have milk. It's not like we don't have the ability to make cheese. We don't we have the ability to store it. All those things, but we haven't incentivized our own production system here, and I think that's what we need. We need to have that again. It used to be when you went up when I was a when I was a boy, and my dad would take me to the World Dairy Expo in the seventies and in the early eighties, You drive into Wisconsin, and there would be a cheese plant everywhere, little Homestead cheese here, a home homemade cheese there, and all that is gone, and it's all become industrialized.
And, you know, we would just love to see that. I know that I would love to partner with some people who make cheese, and would buy our milk, and then, you know, make cheese with those old heritage recipes, and, I think that'd be an exciting thing. But, we we you can't do it and compete with, somebody from England who's getting up. Their farmers are getting more highly subsidized than we are, and then they were getting benefits. The the cheese maker was getting benefits from the government. So they were able to send that here on a subsidized dollar
[00:23:31] Unknown:
and, and therefore able to to drive out our production. And I I wanna see our our local and national producers come back. Yeah. You know, the my head is still spin spinning from last week's interview with Benoit who was talking all about tariffs, and this cheese conversation is a really good one. It's one that makes it very clear. Would I rather have small artisanal, cheeses coming from The UK, or would I rather have a developed market in The United States? I think I would prefer to have a US market. That said, the freedom lover in me doesn't want somebody standing at the at the dock saying, alright. I'm gonna collect some money if you wanna sell that here. So I am still really grappling with this, but, you know, I think I'm with you on the I'd love to find a way to make it so more American dairies can produce their own cheese. I I, we had a Canadian farmer come down to do a legacy interview. They brought two of their family cheeses, and it was, like, an important part of the conversation that they give that to me, that we try it. You see how that creates heritage and heritage creates meaning, and meaning, you know, is something that you that makes life worth living.
[00:24:36] Unknown:
Yeah. Gives you purpose. Yeah. It's and it and when you look back at the history of dairy farming real quickly, we didn't used to sell milk to to, you know, the villagers. The the farmer harvested the milk and he made a cheese, he made a, you know they called it farmer cheese that was easily eaten, maybe a butter, a gaya spread, or something like that, and and while he was a dairyman or a dairy farmer, he was really a cheese maker, because they didn't have a a venue to sell fluid milk into. Fluid milk is really a a unique invention of the last hundred and fifty to two hundred years. But before then, that's what you did, and that was your heritage.
And so you're a good cheese maker as well as a good dairy farmer.
[00:25:23] Unknown:
Man, that's fascinating. And I I mean, even every time you find a name of a cheese you've never heard before, it is always worthwhile to go look it up. I remember I looked up double Gloucester because I was like, what is that all about? And it turns out it was so much, milk fat in the cheese that the you mentioned the the families that were farming it couldn't eat it. It was, like, so expensive, so valuable that they would give it up. And this is a heritage that we would love to see here in The United States. Alright. That is gonna do it for our news this week. We're, if you have news that you think we should cover, it is always very helpful if you'll send it to me on x at vance crow, or you can send it [email protected]. Alright. Now on to the Bitcoin land price report. Last week, Bitcoin was sitting at a cool $79,700.
And today, we're all the way up at 85,104, which is, 6.7% up from last week. And, I think this is just the name of the game. While everybody else is getting seasick from watching the stock market go up and down, we Bitcoiners are quite used to this, up and down market. The volatility is pretty fun. But, JR, tell me a little bit about how much an acre of high quality farm ground in your area costs.
[00:26:38] Unknown:
It's about $6,000
[00:26:39] Unknown:
an acre. And where are you? Linn County, Missouri. And where is Linn County, Missouri?
[00:26:45] Unknown:
North Central Missouri. It's about it's three counties South of Iowa.
[00:26:50] Unknown:
Oh, okay. Yeah. So and that's funny. People, at least, I didn't until I moved to Missouri. And there's a lot, I mean, Northern Missouri is pretty far north. It's pretty crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So if we were to convert 6,000 per acre, that means one acre is worth 0.072 Bitcoin, and one Bitcoin would purchase 13.7 acres where you're at. How does that sit with you?
[00:27:15] Unknown:
Well, I like that. I'm I'm I'm getting on the Bitcoin bandwagon and, in kind of enjoying learning more about it, seeing the I I love the proof of work concept behind it. That's that's probably the thing that makes it most exciting to me. And so I like seeing land attached to something with real value, and I like these different different points to measure it against because that tells you, hey. There's some indicators, some some some some cross reference here that I can is this a value? Is this not a value? And, so I'm I'm kind of excited about that. I wish I had gotten into Bitcoin about fifteen years ago, but, hey, never better late than never. Fifteen years from now, you'll be saying, I wish I had you know, I got it in. And that's that's the way.
[00:28:01] Unknown:
So you had a really good, concept, this this morning when you're talking about, the amount and maybe it was this morning or the other morning before, but, like, how if you compare your amount of wages that you make to how many hours you work, I think that's worth talking about for for a second. I know that was with gold, but gold has many of the same properties as Bitcoin.
[00:28:21] Unknown:
Right. Well, that was one of the things, that my dad just beat into me about the seventies and the eighties was, when gold when we went off the gold standard, you know, just really unique things. Some some numbers I wrote down. In 1971, average acre of land in Linn County, Missouri was $236 an acre. Okay? So, it took it took about five and a half ounces of gold to buy an acre of land then. If you go to today, today's closing gold price was $3,331.98. It's the highest well, yesterday was the highest close it had ever been at. It takes 1.8 ounces today.
So when you take those and you measure them against each other, you say, is land too cheap or is gold too expensive? You know? And you have to you and those are indicators you could look at. The example I gave the other day in gold was in 1935, 1938 actually, was the first year of federal minimum wage. And the first year of the federal minimum wage was 28¢ an hour, and it took you about a hundred and twenty five hours to earn an ounce gold then. So to show you how much our dollar has deflated and how much they've taken from you, You take today's, Missouri, minimum wage is $11.75 or $11.50 an hour, something like that. And it's like two hundred and eighty four hours now you have to work.
So so you have lost you you you have to work 55% more to gain the same value of an ounce of gold as somebody did in 1938. That's just stealing from the that's just stealing from really the wager. That's that's the person who's lost that value. And wages are always always gotta remember, wages are a a a value attached to your time and talent. So what they've said is your time and talent is now worth 55% less than it was in 1938. And I just don't see that because my time with my kids is as worth as much as it was now as to the guy it was in 1938. So so those those are unique things to look at and to measure against and to see we're we're really we're we're at a precipice. We're at a we're at a tipping point. Something's not nothing's adding up anymore to the to our old measurements. Now whether that means the paradigms are completely gone and don't matter anymore, which I don't really believe, or, you know, we're we're sitting up there's there's warning signals all around us. We just gotta figure out what are they warning us of.
[00:31:03] Unknown:
Yeah. And I I mean, like, you hear these numbers and you think, like, two hundred hours to get, you know, an ounce of gold, and those are real hours away from your family. They are away from you doing something that you would rather be doing. And the way that they've done it is they've just inflated the money. They just instead of coming and saying, oh, we're gonna do a tax and you gotta pay for this thing, they just printed more dollars. So all the money that was in our savings account just gets sucked right out of it. And, that's why I mean, I'm I'm perfectly fine with gold. I think Bitcoin is a is a modern form of gold, but anything that can hold its value outside of, government control is the only way out of this situation. There is no other way out.
Right. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Well, if you are interested in buying Bitcoin, I will include a link in the show notes below. It has been pretty interesting to see how many people have continued to buy as Bitcoin's price has gone down. So, it was kind of people were excited to buy when it was over a hundred, and then they've kept buying as it's gone by. I know because if you buy Bitcoin using the link, the show gets a little bit of Bitcoin, and it's a great way to support the show and for you to use a really great provider like river.com.
So I will include the link to, my river, the show's river account, and, hopefully, you buy it there. Alright. Turning now to the Peter Thiel paradox. This is gonna be a good one. JR, what is one thing that you believe that almost everyone you know disagrees with you on?
[00:32:35] Unknown:
I really believe that the consolidation in the ag industry is over. Whether that's today I don't mean like today, but I mean in the next year or two, we're gonna see a return beginning to return to smaller farms, smaller, agribusinesses, and that's that's happening because of two things. One is, I think, the biggest issue for me is the the consolidation has always had to come with the price of conformity. You have to conform to the consolidated's consolidates wishes. And I think what happened in 2020 was a lot of people sat there and said, I am tired of going with the crowd. I wanna do my own thing. I wanna find a way out. I wanna find a way to be different. I don't want to I don't wanna be told that what everybody else is doing is right and what I'm doing is wrong. And so we're going to see a a movement, and you see that with the innovation that's going on and we see it all across x, whether it's a a Jason Mark with with his crop tiller or or Zach up there with with his different, planting operations, you know, all those things are innovation. And you see them in small farms like mine that are reaching out to consumers, vegetable farms that are that are like Steve up there. You you know, all of these things are these this new innovation that fifteen years ago, we would have been laughing at these guys. I would not I would have been laughing at me. I would have been like, that guy is crazy, whatever he's doing. But I see us sitting there going, we're tired of being pushed into a box. We wanna have some freedom. We wanna have the ability to innovate.
And we're going to get to people who appreciate our skills instead of, our skills being dictated and and managed and and you're just you're just working for the man, basically, to use the old phrase.
[00:34:33] Unknown:
Well, I I mean, I have to say that at the at the beginning of your comment, I completely disagree. Right? Everybody's talking about consolidation, consolidation, consolidation. But on the other hand, I definitely can see, your point where there is more of this. The people are finally leveraging the Internet. There's finally been enough networking. There's enough people getting the word out about their things. I know my wife and I were sitting down with our budget, and I said, you know, I don't think it's actually gonna cost us that much more to be able to buy this from a farmer that we know, a local one, and then we can build a relationship with them, help them live their out on their farm, and we're all about it. And, I mean, a few years ago, I don't think that was in the cards. And so it's not because it's easier today with our budgets, but it's that, hey. This is something we believe in. So I'm I'm with you on that, and I am going to give you a nine one. You're gonna rank right up there with, mister Benoit on an incredibly good Peter Thiel paradox. Alright. Moving on to the worthy adversary, this is where we spotlight individuals that challenge our perspectives and, pop us out of our ideological echo chambers.
So, JR, who is one person that you respect but strongly disagree with, particularly on social media?
[00:35:49] Unknown:
Joel Salatin. He's my guy. And I have a lot of respect for him because when I you say a worthy adversary and the way you describe it, it's somebody you have respect for. So I respect a lot of the things that he has done. But I also sit there and I go, he's a little bit of a charlatan because he he hasn't painted the whole picture. And, I first read his I read one of his first books. You I think it's called You Can Farm or something like that in the late nineties. My uncle gave it to me, and he was all excited about this guy. And I read through that, and he was talking about not needing a cattle trailer and getting all these people to come and buy from every him and everything. And I was like, this guy's a crackpot. But I like the way he manages his farm. But then again, you know, he gets six to eight people every year for free labor.
Some of them even pay him to be there. He's right outside of Washington DC. He's got a huge, huge, market of people. And so when people read his book, they all of a sudden go, oh, I can do that. And suddenly, they go and buy 2,000 chickens and put up a pasture or, you know, a chicken tractor, and they don't think about, you've got to market this. And he doesn't do a good job of getting all of that through to everybody. And then, of course, I think he he shot his mouth off a little early, and we didn't get, representative Thomas Massey as our secretary of ag.
And, so I'll never forgive him for that. But I do have a lot of respect for him, and he and I share a lot of the same faith principles. So I can't speak too horribly about him, but
[00:37:25] Unknown:
that's my worthy adversary. Yeah. I think he's a good one. I think, there are a lot of people that are now in all the alternative ag space because they tried what he was saying and then realized, like, oh, we did this because we it, not because it's easy, but because we thought it would be easy. And suddenly, they're finding out, like, oh, if you build a crappy chicken trailer, well, then you gotta drag it out around. And so then they make better ones, and they figure it out. But I do think he is like a gateway drug to alternative farming, with books like salad bar beef, and I I agree. Worthy of respect, but probably somebody I disagree with pretty strongly too. Yep. The other thing is, real quick,
[00:38:01] Unknown:
every time I have a customer come to the farm, his name jumps up. And I just get sick of him and say, well, that's not exactly because he is held I mean, it's like gospel with him, you know, and it's like and you gotta go and say, no. That's not how that works.
[00:38:18] Unknown:
Alright. Well, JR, I wanna thank you so much for coming on. Mother's Day is just three short weeks away, and so I've been asking guests. Do you have a favorite saying or story from your mom?
[00:38:32] Unknown:
Yeah. My mom died of cancer in 2017 in July. And, the last meal I had with her was on a Tuesday, and I went off to work. And my mom was a teacher in a Christian school for years and years and years. And at the end of every one of her classes, she would end with this. She said this this day to me. It's one last thing she said to me. She said, she said, JR, remember Philippians four four. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again again, I say rejoice. And that was one of the last things she ever said to me, and I saw her, Saturday before she passed away, but she was comatose, and I don't know that she knew I was there. So always always stuck with me, and that was one of her she she said that to all of her students and to to all of our grandkids. That was her that was her thing, and she lived it. She lived it. That is a powerful story. I I appreciate you sharing that. If you are somebody that would like to capture your mother's sayings and her stories,
[00:39:28] Unknown:
then visit legacyinterviews.com and, set up a meeting. We can have a call to talk about what you wanna capture. I I did wanna take a quick moment to say I finally actually recorded my parents' legacy interviews, and, it was a profound experience. I'll I'll probably talk a lot more about this, but the first thing is I realized partway through that I had made a horrible mistake. And, that mistake was that I should have had my, my creative director, Sean, do the interview because there really is something to be said for your parents not being able to give you give me, like, their son, the same answers that they would have to an interested third party, person. And so I I realized, like, in my grabbiness to, like, get it done and and, I I really I missed out on something because I think there are stories that my dad, you know, he'd be in the middle of and he'd be like, well, you know. And I'd be like, no. I don't. And even if I do, it's not I I'm trying to get you to say it. And there is just a lot of that that, but on the other hand, as we're driving home and I've got a, you know, a two and a half hour drive home, I think that is the first time I have ever actually felt like I had wealth, driving down there with me. I had the videos of my parents, and I knew for the rest of my life that I'll be able to pass that on to my children who right now delight in seeing their grandpa and their grandma and their, you know, getting foamy milk and visiting and getting presents, but they don't really know them. And if they wanna know where they came from, the way that my daughter has that little laugh or that little sparkle, she's gonna be able to see it on, her grandma's video. So if you've been thinking about doing this, I can tell you the great sense of relief that you get when you finally have it recorded. It is totally worth it, and I would love to help you do that. It's a great Mother's Day gift. So visit legacyinterviews.com, and, sign up to have a conversation with me.
Alright, JR. If people wanted to know more about, your raw milk, farm and where they can hear more of your ideas, where should they go?
[00:41:31] Unknown:
Well, you can look at our website, www.nourishingfamilyfarm.com. And, of course, find me on x, JR Cow Farmer. Really enjoy the feedback and the interaction with people and the really cool folks I've met there. And, I'm I'm open to criticism. So so shoot tell me what you think I need to do different or talk about different or or,
[00:41:54] Unknown:
that you don't agree with me or I'm all wet about something. So Well, I cannot recommend anything higher. It's way better than listening to that, nonsense that stock cropper, Zach Smith is putting out there, and, so I'm glad to see you're putting it up there. Anyway, I we will be back next week. We've got some pretty big guests lined up. Thank you so much, JR, for doing this. And as always, feel free to disagree.
The Ag Tribes Report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are so the future knows who they really were. This Mother's Day, honor your parents with the opportunity to tell their stories and share the wisdom they've learned along the way. Welcome to the AgTribe's report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host, Vance Crow. The report begins in three, two, one. Let's begin.
[00:00:34] Unknown:
Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crow. Each week, I bring on a cohost to represent the perspectives of one of the many ag tribes that represents US and Canadian agriculture. This week, we have none other than JR Burdick, a Roth milk farmer that champions local food sovereignty, traditional values, all while challenging big ag. He advocates for sound money, secure borders, and has an exceptional x feed that every morning he hops in while he's in his dairy parlor and, make some observations about the world, and I tune in every morning as I'm making breakfast for my girls. So it is a great pleasure for me to welcome you onto the show, JR.
[00:01:13] Unknown:
Hey. Thanks, Vance. It's great to be with you.
[00:01:16] Unknown:
So what have you been paying attention to lately?
[00:01:19] Unknown:
Oh, financial markets, crazy things that are going on with the food industry, and just,
[00:01:27] Unknown:
personal sovereignty and personal freedom issues. There there there's a lot of things going on with that. Man, I gotta tell you that, for I'm a guy that produces a lot. I can go out and give talks. But the amount of new ideas that you are regularly grappling with, You know, you'll even start it off, and I'll be like, oh, I know where JR is going with this. Every single time it's new. I think you really have found, a great platform that leverages however it is that your mind works.
[00:01:52] Unknown:
Well, I enjoy x because it gives you an opportunity to throw out some ideas, and and it ex exposes you to a lot of ideas that you wouldn't have been exposed in your typical, groups and gatherings that you go to. So you get exposed to those things, and then your mind just takes off. And and I like to just think and I just like to think that I don't know everything, and I wanna explore more. I wanna hear what other people's opinions are. And if I don't agree with them, I wanna know why I don't agree with them. I don't wanna just knee jerk react and say, yeah. I don't like that. But, lot of good things there. So I enjoy x for that reason.
[00:02:29] Unknown:
Well, this week, what we are going to talk about is how Bayer may stop glyphosate production due to all these lawsuit payouts that's gonna threaten US Farmers who are quite reliant on Roundup. We're also gonna talk about Trump's tariffs, which are aiming to isolate China. They are pressuring over 70 nations to block Chinese goods, and the beverage industry took a swipe at ag secretary Rollins this week. And we're gonna finish up with a story on UK's, cheese that there are certain farmers over there that are threatening to stop exports, to The US markets because of tariffs. We're gonna do all that. We're gonna do the Bitcoin land price report, and we're gonna hear JR's take on the Peter Thiel paradox and hear about his worthy adversary all in just thirty minutes.
So let's get started. Bayer chief executive says it's the end of the road for Roundup. We're talking months, not years. Bayer may high halt glyphosate production due to costly lawsuits claiming the herbicide causes cancer. Roundup generating billions of dollars for Bayer faces 67,000 pending cases, and they've already been cost, more than $10,000,000,000 in payouts. While the company's held 16,000,000,000 back, that is getting a little low. And so now US Farmers who have been reliant on, US made glyphosate by Bayer in the form of Roundup may have only the glyphosate generics to be used to be, accessible be that come from the Chinese. So this is going to be a big deal if Bayer makes good on this promise.
JR, what do you think? Is, is Bayer gonna make good on this threat, or is this a way just to get farmers, rile rallied around them?
[00:04:16] Unknown:
Well, I think I think it is really just a marketing ploy to kind of push a little bit of fear out there. Hey. If you guys don't start going along with us a little bit and and whatnot, then, you know, we're gonna take this from the marketplace. And I'm really not happy about that. I am I'm one that I want a lot of tools in my toolbox. I think glyphosate's a wonderful tool when used with the way it should be. But I think with the advent of Roundup Ready beans and then Roundup Ready corn, and I think we just overuse that tool, you know, and after a while, the tool breaks if it's not used right. And, so I I'm sad to see where glyphosate has gone and how it has become the, the lightning rod for everybody to come against and say, you know, this is this is the thing that's horrible about agriculture.
And we get pigeonholed into into this, this this position. And I don't think it's fair, but we also have to realize we overuse that tool. It it wasn't you know, I can remember when Roundup Ready beans first came out and then Roundup Ready corn, and everybody was like, I'm just gonna plant corn and plant beans and just spray Roundup forever and everything will die. Well, what happened? You know? But when you're saying you overused it, are you starting are you saying, hey. The consequence of that is it's not as effective as it used to be, or are you saying we overused it and the lawsuits that are going on right now are, a consequence of this causing cancer? Because those are two different things. Well, I would say both things is what I mean. Because, if we had used it intelligently and selectively, you wouldn't have had the volume of it out there.
And, you know the old saying from the 70s is, dilution is the solution to pollution, you know, it's the same idea here, your maximum exposure level is your maximum exposure level, and if you're all the time reaching the maximum exposure level, well maybe we should be looking more using it so that we are at the minimum exposure, exposure levels. And that would have helped us in weed resistant areas, that would have helped us in this potentially in these cancer causing, things. But I think too, in some cases that can't, the cancer, not every case, but a lot of the cases have been more residential or golf course or those types of uses. And so it's not all just agriculture that needs to be wearing the, the concern here. Yeah. I mean, I have to say as a person that, worked for Monsanto,
[00:06:56] Unknown:
like, I have looked at a lot of evidence, of the charges that people make and the whether it's safe or not. And I have to say the resounding amount of evidence that I have seen is that this is safe, but it's very, very difficult to prove that. And so I think that it's very easy to conflate the very complicated role that glyphosates played. I agree with you. It got way overused, but I don't think that it causes cancer. But I do think that it enables a certain type of agriculture that kinda pushes all others out. And I myself feel that mimetic push because I'm seeing so many people talk about how glyphosate causes cancer. And in the same way that I'm way more open to raw milk than I ever was before, now I have to say, well, wait. Is there something going on with glyphosate? Is there something I haven't seen there? And so I I have to keep coming back to, I gotta figure out what the evidence says. And to me, all of these, cases are not actual evidence. They're just accusations. And I think that this is something that, if we allow accusations to knock something like Roundup out of the market, we're, it's a dangerous place to be in. It's it's not it's not freedom.
[00:08:05] Unknown:
Right. It's that's exactly my point is we need to we need to ensure that the tools are in the toolbox, and then we have to use the responsibility and be responsible in the use of those tools. So I think that we can share some of the blame that we were not as responsible as we should have been, but that doesn't mean we get rid of the tool, it's not the tool's fault, it's you get back to the management of it. And, and I think that, as we do that, and we look at all aspects of agriculture in that standpoint, we can begin to see, you know, there's there's been a free for all and a limited amount of responsibility. We've always pushed it off on somebody else.
[00:08:44] Unknown:
I think we need to start to take some of that on us, not just mayor, Monsanto, and Bayer. I'll tell you who I actually have a problem with. The Roundup name, right, that has always meant glyphosate to me. Well, then, it gets licensed out to do this home, gardening stuff, and there's that Scott's company that took the Roundup brand, and they started mixing glyphosate with dicamba. So one day, I'm outside spraying my bricks. I've got, you know, a new little girl at home, and I'm really happy because I feel glyphosate's really safe. And all of a sudden, I come to look at that that bottle, and I'm like, wait. This has got dicamba in there. This is not what I signed up for. And and I think the general public, if they were gonna be mad about something, that's the thing to be way more mad about.
[00:09:27] Unknown:
Right. Right. Yeah. And and, again, it gets people put a name on something and it's it's everything is this. And, and I've as I've gotten into the raw milk industry and and talking to the public more, there there's these words and they're just knee jerk reactions. And how you can go into a courtroom with a bunch of jurors and you stand there and you say round up and they can all say, yeah, I'm I'm impartial. No, you're not. None of us is impartial. But you have to make at least at least set your biases apart, and that's really hard to do, especially with cancer because everybody's been impacted by it. And if they and everybody wants to point the finger, it's something that could stop it. And,
[00:10:13] Unknown:
Well, we're gonna see. It's gonna be interesting. I do not know the bear people to be those that mince words. So if they're saying that's, months not years, it may be possible that that'll happen. Alright. Headline number two, Bessent's grand strategy. Use tariff negotiations to isolate China from the rest of the world. From Zero Hedge, the Trump administration, led by treasury secretary Scott Bissett, plans to use tariff negotiations to isolate China economically. The strategy involves pressuring over 70 nations to limit trans shipments, block Chinese firms, and reject China's cheap goods in exchange for reduced US tariffs. This aims to weaken China's economy, which is currently right now facing a recession, if not a depression.
Meanwhile, US Farmers fear losing China, their largest export market due to these retaliatory tariffs and the war that's been building between the two. Soybeans and sorghum farmers are hardest hit so far with China buying 200 and or 24,600,000,000.0 in US crops last year. Crop prices have dropped, erasing thin profit margins, and soybeans, don't look much better. So, JR, what do you think? Should The US have gotten ready for this trade war before we got into it, or are we right where we wanted to be?
[00:11:30] Unknown:
I don't know how you get ready for a trade war. You know, you you can't you can't forward signal and and and give enough forewarning to everybody and still have it have any impact. So, but I think that we all should have been aware, when Trump was elected that this was coming. I mean, he he said it all the time, and and that's one of the things that I find funny is we're we're not used to a politician who does what he says he's going to do. And there here's a guy that not a %, but in large part, he does what he says he's going to do. So they we should have all been expecting, hey. There's going to be some kind of a trade tariff, some kind of a trade, thing going on here, whether it's trade war or folk or or something less. Well, I see this as being a, a good strategy if we can get other countries to come along with us.
But it falls apart if if you can't, then we're standing alone. So, the the proof will be in the pudding here, as they say, and how this how this really works out in the end. But, but, you know, where does China go? Does China and Brazil's, trade partnerships get stronger through this? Does India start to say they're gonna come to us and it breaks up this this BRICS nation? You know, there's there's a lot of things that could happen, and, I I'm a little concerned that it's gonna take longer to play out than what,
[00:13:09] Unknown:
what Trump thinks for. And Yeah. I mean, how long can we do that go for? It appears like, you know, the last time we had a trade war, Brazil became the big winner. They took off a bunch of, a bunch of supply that China was buying from us. Again, they started providing it to them, and now that that's all gone away. We don't even expect that that's a part of the trade deal. It's probably going to happen more. I think what's gonna be interesting is, you know, you have to play a two level game. You have to play the domestic game and the international game. And he's definitely the international game is how do you get 70 countries to go along with you? And then the other, the internal game is how do you keep the nation behind you? And one of the big challenges you're gonna have is if you go give farmers a check to keep them in business so that that way the headlines aren't reading, you know, another 200 farms went out of business, went bankrupt.
If you if you start handing out checks to the American farmer, what about the small businessmen that's not getting it? Now all of a sudden, something that used to be really popular, you know, support our farmers. You can already see that kind of wearing down, people not happy about those checks going out the over the last couple of months. What happens to the internal battle as you're trying to fight the external battle?
[00:14:21] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, and I'll throw one other caveat in there. We were we were speaking before about, the weather that we've been having and the unusual weather for this spring and the windiness and and all these things. And if you read some of the prognosticators, the weathermen, you know, they're talking about the potential for a 2012 type, drought scenario this summer. There's that potential. Well, what happens if we have a trade war and nobody wants to buy our products, but we don't grow enough here, and our prices are going higher, but farmers are going, we need assistance on both sides.
That could get, you know, that could get really, really hairy really, really fast. And, so so there's a there's a lot of unknowns yet, and the knowns that we have is that, we're gonna produce a crop to the best of our ability. We're gonna have to have a market for it. There's there's so many things that influence our export markets, whether it's whether it's just trade agreements or whether it's the value of our dollar. And all of those things, none of it is a certainty right now. So so I I sit there and I go, man, we we really, really got some issues ahead of us. And and my crystal ball is kinda broke on that one, how where where it all plays out because, there could be some long term ramifications.
It could be good, and it could be really bad. Yeah. I mean, my personal
[00:15:49] Unknown:
sense is that, just like the Charles Bukowski poem, go all the way. That that's the only way to do this. Like, once you have decided to go, you go all the way. Even when things look dark, even when it looks like, hey. We're gonna be sleeping on a park bench here. You've gotta go all the way because you like, going halfway and then going back, now you can never go back again. So if we're if we're in it, let's go let's go all the way.
[00:16:12] Unknown:
I agree. I agree. %.
[00:16:14] Unknown:
Alright. Headline number three. This one kinda makes everybody chuckle. I think pretty much everybody instinctively agrees with what happened in Arkansas, but the headline American beverage industry takes a swipe at ag secretary Rawlins. The US Department of Agriculture's, Brooke Rawlins joined Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders today as the governor submitted a waiver to the USDA to ban soda and candy from, the SNAP benefits, and they also want to include rotisserie chickens as something you can buy. The statement from the American Beverage, on today's, SNAP, waiver submission is a little bit long, but kinda worth reading. It's disappointing. This is from the American Beverage Association. It's disappointing that governor Sanders and secretary Rollins are choosing to be the food police rather than take truly meaningful steps to lift people off SNAP with good paying jobs.
Nearly 80% of families on SNAP work. They don't make enough to make ends meet. Low income working families were promised a new better era and not left to be left behind again. Instead, they're being denigrated and treated like second class citizens. Make no mistake. This waiver won't make one ounce of difference on health. Obesity has skyrocketed in the last two decades while beverage calories per serving have dropped by 42%, thanks to our industry's efforts to empower Americans with more choice. In fact, 60% of beverages Americans buy today have zero sugar due to our innovation.
They go on and on, but they are making the case that these kind of, things are un American. What do you think, JR? Should SNAP benefits be used to buy soda?
[00:17:54] Unknown:
Well, like everything, I think unusually about, something like this. And, I wrote a blog to our customers, a little email to our customers about this, couple weeks ago. And, basically, my theory is a government that's big enough to, control the price of your eggs by bringing them down and then control what you can drink by saying you can't have money to drink it is a government that's too big and out of control. So so, my view is government shouldn't be in charge of either one of them, and you should be able to go buy whatever amount of soda pop you wanna buy with your money and leave me out of it. And, that takes care of all of the issues, and it takes care of big brother telling you whether you can or can't. And it takes care of The US beverage industry getting out there and sugarcoating the fact that, yes, the amount of servings, but who drinks a a prescribed amount of the servings out of a out of a pop bottle? You go and you buy an eight ounce or 12 ounce can of soda, and it's it's one serving. And you buy a 20 ounce bottle of of, the same thing, and you drink the whole thing even though it's three servings.
So, you know, the the the servings thing to me is just kind of a pointless pointless argument that they're making. But to me, the big issue is a government that can tell you we're gonna control the price of eggs or we're going to control what you can use your money to buy is a government that's too big, too out of control, and I'm not in favor of either one.
[00:19:27] Unknown:
Yeah. You know, I think for me, the the SNAP benefits are designed to make it so we don't have people going hungry. And while I don't wanna be a person that judges, another person, how they feed their family. I can say if you were giving money to a local food bank and they were going out and buying Mountain Dew or Pepsi or Coca Cola with that as opposed to buying something that was more healthy and nutritious, I think you'd be pretty outraged. And I don't see why government dollars would be any different. I think the American beverage industry is I mean, it must be costing them a huge amount of money if this happens, but this is a catastrophic mistake because who's gonna line up on their side on this issue? Is this is not even a freedom issue? This is like, we should be allowed to spend other people's money on this thing. It doesn't it doesn't make sense to me that this was the hill they were gonna and they're gonna be the laughing stock.
[00:20:17] Unknown:
Yeah. Well and that's the other issue. Hey. If if you're gonna take somebody else's money, guess what? They get to dictate how you use that money. And, and so if if somebody is out there and, you know, weighs three hundred and fifty pounds and is, you know, five foot three and has a has a big gulp under one arm, you can absolutely say, no. We're not spending that money. You that's that's a poor use of our dollars right there. We're here to we're here to help you stay hung you know, keep you from being hungry and starving, not to make sure you have, you know, a a outrageous daily weight gain.
[00:20:54] Unknown:
In international news, the Brits are complaining that they may quit sending their cheese to The US. From the BBC, the crone cheese, a Worcestershire family business, may halt US exports due to a proposed 10% tariff by Donald Trump, exporting 30% 37% of its cheese with 75% of that to The US. Tariffs make sales unprofitable. Owner Nick Hodges, notes that the political decision like Brexit have previously disrupted out, exports, and the business faces uncertainty with products, already en route potentially incurring unaffordable duties.
JR, it sounds like, these tariffs, while not good for the profits of, of a British farm, could be really good to dairymen like you. What do you think of these tariffs and people not wanting to send their goods over?
[00:21:45] Unknown:
Well, I'm I'm kind of excited about this one. I would like to see a robust artesian cheese cheese market start up here in The United States. We have quality milk. We have quality land. We have we have quality people, but we've just been decimated by the intrusion of, foreign foreign goods. And this is a finished product. This is, you know, they make the milk over there in in England. They've they've made it into their cheese, and then they send that cheese to us. And it's not like we don't have milk. It's not like we don't have the ability to make cheese. We don't we have the ability to store it. All those things, but we haven't incentivized our own production system here, and I think that's what we need. We need to have that again. It used to be when you went up when I was a when I was a boy, and my dad would take me to the World Dairy Expo in the seventies and in the early eighties, You drive into Wisconsin, and there would be a cheese plant everywhere, little Homestead cheese here, a home homemade cheese there, and all that is gone, and it's all become industrialized.
And, you know, we would just love to see that. I know that I would love to partner with some people who make cheese, and would buy our milk, and then, you know, make cheese with those old heritage recipes, and, I think that'd be an exciting thing. But, we we you can't do it and compete with, somebody from England who's getting up. Their farmers are getting more highly subsidized than we are, and then they were getting benefits. The the cheese maker was getting benefits from the government. So they were able to send that here on a subsidized dollar
[00:23:31] Unknown:
and, and therefore able to to drive out our production. And I I wanna see our our local and national producers come back. Yeah. You know, the my head is still spin spinning from last week's interview with Benoit who was talking all about tariffs, and this cheese conversation is a really good one. It's one that makes it very clear. Would I rather have small artisanal, cheeses coming from The UK, or would I rather have a developed market in The United States? I think I would prefer to have a US market. That said, the freedom lover in me doesn't want somebody standing at the at the dock saying, alright. I'm gonna collect some money if you wanna sell that here. So I am still really grappling with this, but, you know, I think I'm with you on the I'd love to find a way to make it so more American dairies can produce their own cheese. I I, we had a Canadian farmer come down to do a legacy interview. They brought two of their family cheeses, and it was, like, an important part of the conversation that they give that to me, that we try it. You see how that creates heritage and heritage creates meaning, and meaning, you know, is something that you that makes life worth living.
[00:24:36] Unknown:
Yeah. Gives you purpose. Yeah. It's and it and when you look back at the history of dairy farming real quickly, we didn't used to sell milk to to, you know, the villagers. The the farmer harvested the milk and he made a cheese, he made a, you know they called it farmer cheese that was easily eaten, maybe a butter, a gaya spread, or something like that, and and while he was a dairyman or a dairy farmer, he was really a cheese maker, because they didn't have a a venue to sell fluid milk into. Fluid milk is really a a unique invention of the last hundred and fifty to two hundred years. But before then, that's what you did, and that was your heritage.
And so you're a good cheese maker as well as a good dairy farmer.
[00:25:23] Unknown:
Man, that's fascinating. And I I mean, even every time you find a name of a cheese you've never heard before, it is always worthwhile to go look it up. I remember I looked up double Gloucester because I was like, what is that all about? And it turns out it was so much, milk fat in the cheese that the you mentioned the the families that were farming it couldn't eat it. It was, like, so expensive, so valuable that they would give it up. And this is a heritage that we would love to see here in The United States. Alright. That is gonna do it for our news this week. We're, if you have news that you think we should cover, it is always very helpful if you'll send it to me on x at vance crow, or you can send it [email protected]. Alright. Now on to the Bitcoin land price report. Last week, Bitcoin was sitting at a cool $79,700.
And today, we're all the way up at 85,104, which is, 6.7% up from last week. And, I think this is just the name of the game. While everybody else is getting seasick from watching the stock market go up and down, we Bitcoiners are quite used to this, up and down market. The volatility is pretty fun. But, JR, tell me a little bit about how much an acre of high quality farm ground in your area costs.
[00:26:38] Unknown:
It's about $6,000
[00:26:39] Unknown:
an acre. And where are you? Linn County, Missouri. And where is Linn County, Missouri?
[00:26:45] Unknown:
North Central Missouri. It's about it's three counties South of Iowa.
[00:26:50] Unknown:
Oh, okay. Yeah. So and that's funny. People, at least, I didn't until I moved to Missouri. And there's a lot, I mean, Northern Missouri is pretty far north. It's pretty crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So if we were to convert 6,000 per acre, that means one acre is worth 0.072 Bitcoin, and one Bitcoin would purchase 13.7 acres where you're at. How does that sit with you?
[00:27:15] Unknown:
Well, I like that. I'm I'm I'm getting on the Bitcoin bandwagon and, in kind of enjoying learning more about it, seeing the I I love the proof of work concept behind it. That's that's probably the thing that makes it most exciting to me. And so I like seeing land attached to something with real value, and I like these different different points to measure it against because that tells you, hey. There's some indicators, some some some some cross reference here that I can is this a value? Is this not a value? And, so I'm I'm kind of excited about that. I wish I had gotten into Bitcoin about fifteen years ago, but, hey, never better late than never. Fifteen years from now, you'll be saying, I wish I had you know, I got it in. And that's that's the way.
[00:28:01] Unknown:
So you had a really good, concept, this this morning when you're talking about, the amount and maybe it was this morning or the other morning before, but, like, how if you compare your amount of wages that you make to how many hours you work, I think that's worth talking about for for a second. I know that was with gold, but gold has many of the same properties as Bitcoin.
[00:28:21] Unknown:
Right. Well, that was one of the things, that my dad just beat into me about the seventies and the eighties was, when gold when we went off the gold standard, you know, just really unique things. Some some numbers I wrote down. In 1971, average acre of land in Linn County, Missouri was $236 an acre. Okay? So, it took it took about five and a half ounces of gold to buy an acre of land then. If you go to today, today's closing gold price was $3,331.98. It's the highest well, yesterday was the highest close it had ever been at. It takes 1.8 ounces today.
So when you take those and you measure them against each other, you say, is land too cheap or is gold too expensive? You know? And you have to you and those are indicators you could look at. The example I gave the other day in gold was in 1935, 1938 actually, was the first year of federal minimum wage. And the first year of the federal minimum wage was 28¢ an hour, and it took you about a hundred and twenty five hours to earn an ounce gold then. So to show you how much our dollar has deflated and how much they've taken from you, You take today's, Missouri, minimum wage is $11.75 or $11.50 an hour, something like that. And it's like two hundred and eighty four hours now you have to work.
So so you have lost you you you have to work 55% more to gain the same value of an ounce of gold as somebody did in 1938. That's just stealing from the that's just stealing from really the wager. That's that's the person who's lost that value. And wages are always always gotta remember, wages are a a a value attached to your time and talent. So what they've said is your time and talent is now worth 55% less than it was in 1938. And I just don't see that because my time with my kids is as worth as much as it was now as to the guy it was in 1938. So so those those are unique things to look at and to measure against and to see we're we're really we're we're at a precipice. We're at a we're at a tipping point. Something's not nothing's adding up anymore to the to our old measurements. Now whether that means the paradigms are completely gone and don't matter anymore, which I don't really believe, or, you know, we're we're sitting up there's there's warning signals all around us. We just gotta figure out what are they warning us of.
[00:31:03] Unknown:
Yeah. And I I mean, like, you hear these numbers and you think, like, two hundred hours to get, you know, an ounce of gold, and those are real hours away from your family. They are away from you doing something that you would rather be doing. And the way that they've done it is they've just inflated the money. They just instead of coming and saying, oh, we're gonna do a tax and you gotta pay for this thing, they just printed more dollars. So all the money that was in our savings account just gets sucked right out of it. And, that's why I mean, I'm I'm perfectly fine with gold. I think Bitcoin is a is a modern form of gold, but anything that can hold its value outside of, government control is the only way out of this situation. There is no other way out.
Right. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Well, if you are interested in buying Bitcoin, I will include a link in the show notes below. It has been pretty interesting to see how many people have continued to buy as Bitcoin's price has gone down. So, it was kind of people were excited to buy when it was over a hundred, and then they've kept buying as it's gone by. I know because if you buy Bitcoin using the link, the show gets a little bit of Bitcoin, and it's a great way to support the show and for you to use a really great provider like river.com.
So I will include the link to, my river, the show's river account, and, hopefully, you buy it there. Alright. Turning now to the Peter Thiel paradox. This is gonna be a good one. JR, what is one thing that you believe that almost everyone you know disagrees with you on?
[00:32:35] Unknown:
I really believe that the consolidation in the ag industry is over. Whether that's today I don't mean like today, but I mean in the next year or two, we're gonna see a return beginning to return to smaller farms, smaller, agribusinesses, and that's that's happening because of two things. One is, I think, the biggest issue for me is the the consolidation has always had to come with the price of conformity. You have to conform to the consolidated's consolidates wishes. And I think what happened in 2020 was a lot of people sat there and said, I am tired of going with the crowd. I wanna do my own thing. I wanna find a way out. I wanna find a way to be different. I don't want to I don't wanna be told that what everybody else is doing is right and what I'm doing is wrong. And so we're going to see a a movement, and you see that with the innovation that's going on and we see it all across x, whether it's a a Jason Mark with with his crop tiller or or Zach up there with with his different, planting operations, you know, all those things are innovation. And you see them in small farms like mine that are reaching out to consumers, vegetable farms that are that are like Steve up there. You you know, all of these things are these this new innovation that fifteen years ago, we would have been laughing at these guys. I would not I would have been laughing at me. I would have been like, that guy is crazy, whatever he's doing. But I see us sitting there going, we're tired of being pushed into a box. We wanna have some freedom. We wanna have the ability to innovate.
And we're going to get to people who appreciate our skills instead of, our skills being dictated and and managed and and you're just you're just working for the man, basically, to use the old phrase.
[00:34:33] Unknown:
Well, I I mean, I have to say that at the at the beginning of your comment, I completely disagree. Right? Everybody's talking about consolidation, consolidation, consolidation. But on the other hand, I definitely can see, your point where there is more of this. The people are finally leveraging the Internet. There's finally been enough networking. There's enough people getting the word out about their things. I know my wife and I were sitting down with our budget, and I said, you know, I don't think it's actually gonna cost us that much more to be able to buy this from a farmer that we know, a local one, and then we can build a relationship with them, help them live their out on their farm, and we're all about it. And, I mean, a few years ago, I don't think that was in the cards. And so it's not because it's easier today with our budgets, but it's that, hey. This is something we believe in. So I'm I'm with you on that, and I am going to give you a nine one. You're gonna rank right up there with, mister Benoit on an incredibly good Peter Thiel paradox. Alright. Moving on to the worthy adversary, this is where we spotlight individuals that challenge our perspectives and, pop us out of our ideological echo chambers.
So, JR, who is one person that you respect but strongly disagree with, particularly on social media?
[00:35:49] Unknown:
Joel Salatin. He's my guy. And I have a lot of respect for him because when I you say a worthy adversary and the way you describe it, it's somebody you have respect for. So I respect a lot of the things that he has done. But I also sit there and I go, he's a little bit of a charlatan because he he hasn't painted the whole picture. And, I first read his I read one of his first books. You I think it's called You Can Farm or something like that in the late nineties. My uncle gave it to me, and he was all excited about this guy. And I read through that, and he was talking about not needing a cattle trailer and getting all these people to come and buy from every him and everything. And I was like, this guy's a crackpot. But I like the way he manages his farm. But then again, you know, he gets six to eight people every year for free labor.
Some of them even pay him to be there. He's right outside of Washington DC. He's got a huge, huge, market of people. And so when people read his book, they all of a sudden go, oh, I can do that. And suddenly, they go and buy 2,000 chickens and put up a pasture or, you know, a chicken tractor, and they don't think about, you've got to market this. And he doesn't do a good job of getting all of that through to everybody. And then, of course, I think he he shot his mouth off a little early, and we didn't get, representative Thomas Massey as our secretary of ag.
And, so I'll never forgive him for that. But I do have a lot of respect for him, and he and I share a lot of the same faith principles. So I can't speak too horribly about him, but
[00:37:25] Unknown:
that's my worthy adversary. Yeah. I think he's a good one. I think, there are a lot of people that are now in all the alternative ag space because they tried what he was saying and then realized, like, oh, we did this because we it, not because it's easy, but because we thought it would be easy. And suddenly, they're finding out, like, oh, if you build a crappy chicken trailer, well, then you gotta drag it out around. And so then they make better ones, and they figure it out. But I do think he is like a gateway drug to alternative farming, with books like salad bar beef, and I I agree. Worthy of respect, but probably somebody I disagree with pretty strongly too. Yep. The other thing is, real quick,
[00:38:01] Unknown:
every time I have a customer come to the farm, his name jumps up. And I just get sick of him and say, well, that's not exactly because he is held I mean, it's like gospel with him, you know, and it's like and you gotta go and say, no. That's not how that works.
[00:38:18] Unknown:
Alright. Well, JR, I wanna thank you so much for coming on. Mother's Day is just three short weeks away, and so I've been asking guests. Do you have a favorite saying or story from your mom?
[00:38:32] Unknown:
Yeah. My mom died of cancer in 2017 in July. And, the last meal I had with her was on a Tuesday, and I went off to work. And my mom was a teacher in a Christian school for years and years and years. And at the end of every one of her classes, she would end with this. She said this this day to me. It's one last thing she said to me. She said, she said, JR, remember Philippians four four. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again again, I say rejoice. And that was one of the last things she ever said to me, and I saw her, Saturday before she passed away, but she was comatose, and I don't know that she knew I was there. So always always stuck with me, and that was one of her she she said that to all of her students and to to all of our grandkids. That was her that was her thing, and she lived it. She lived it. That is a powerful story. I I appreciate you sharing that. If you are somebody that would like to capture your mother's sayings and her stories,
[00:39:28] Unknown:
then visit legacyinterviews.com and, set up a meeting. We can have a call to talk about what you wanna capture. I I did wanna take a quick moment to say I finally actually recorded my parents' legacy interviews, and, it was a profound experience. I'll I'll probably talk a lot more about this, but the first thing is I realized partway through that I had made a horrible mistake. And, that mistake was that I should have had my, my creative director, Sean, do the interview because there really is something to be said for your parents not being able to give you give me, like, their son, the same answers that they would have to an interested third party, person. And so I I realized, like, in my grabbiness to, like, get it done and and, I I really I missed out on something because I think there are stories that my dad, you know, he'd be in the middle of and he'd be like, well, you know. And I'd be like, no. I don't. And even if I do, it's not I I'm trying to get you to say it. And there is just a lot of that that, but on the other hand, as we're driving home and I've got a, you know, a two and a half hour drive home, I think that is the first time I have ever actually felt like I had wealth, driving down there with me. I had the videos of my parents, and I knew for the rest of my life that I'll be able to pass that on to my children who right now delight in seeing their grandpa and their grandma and their, you know, getting foamy milk and visiting and getting presents, but they don't really know them. And if they wanna know where they came from, the way that my daughter has that little laugh or that little sparkle, she's gonna be able to see it on, her grandma's video. So if you've been thinking about doing this, I can tell you the great sense of relief that you get when you finally have it recorded. It is totally worth it, and I would love to help you do that. It's a great Mother's Day gift. So visit legacyinterviews.com, and, sign up to have a conversation with me.
Alright, JR. If people wanted to know more about, your raw milk, farm and where they can hear more of your ideas, where should they go?
[00:41:31] Unknown:
Well, you can look at our website, www.nourishingfamilyfarm.com. And, of course, find me on x, JR Cow Farmer. Really enjoy the feedback and the interaction with people and the really cool folks I've met there. And, I'm I'm open to criticism. So so shoot tell me what you think I need to do different or talk about different or or,
[00:41:54] Unknown:
that you don't agree with me or I'm all wet about something. So Well, I cannot recommend anything higher. It's way better than listening to that, nonsense that stock cropper, Zach Smith is putting out there, and, so I'm glad to see you're putting it up there. Anyway, I we will be back next week. We've got some pretty big guests lined up. Thank you so much, JR, for doing this. And as always, feel free to disagree.
Introduction to the Ag Tribes Report
Current Focus: Financial Markets and Personal Sovereignty
Bayer's Glyphosate Production Halt
US-China Trade War and Its Impact on Farmers
SNAP Benefits and the Beverage Industry
UK Cheese Tariffs and US Dairy Opportunities
Bitcoin Land Price Report
The Peter Thiel Paradox: Ag Industry Consolidation
Worthy Adversary: Joel Salatin
Mother's Day Reflections and Legacy Interviews
