03 January 2025
ATR: Electric Truck Mandates, will deporting illegals cause food shortages? Eggs prices high with @thefarmerslife - E411
On this week's episode of "The Ag Tribes Report," host Vance Crowe teams up with Brian Scott to explore the news impacting the culture of agriculture. Brian Scott of The Farmer's Life YouTube channel and X feed. Scott is a fourth-generation farmer from northwest Indiana, managing 2,500 acres of corn, soybeans, popcorn, and wheat with a focus on sustainable practices.
Corn Market Analysis:
Vance and Brian dissect the corn market through a lens sharpened by over a decade of price fluctuations. They discuss where current prices sit against a long-term downtrend, examining the implications for producers and market players. With Brian's deep understanding of market dynamics, they explore how these trends might unfold in the coming seasons, offering listeners a nuanced perspective on where the corn market might be headed.
Electric Truck Pushback:
The duo turns their attention to the significant resistance from the trucking industry against electric vehicle mandates in West Coast states. They delve into the logistical and economic challenges these policies present, providing insights from Brian's experience in transportation logistics. They consider the potential for policy reversals and what this could mean for the agricultural supply chain, which relies heavily on efficient transportation.
Immigration Policy and Food Security:
Addressing a topic of both sensitivity and urgency, Vance and Brian examine the potential food security ramifications of deporting illegal immigrants. They bring to light the perspective of a South Dakota dairy farmer who warns of possible labor shortages. This segment offers a balanced discussion on the intersection of immigration policy with agricultural labor needs, exploring the broader implications for food production in the U.S.
Egg Price Increases:
Concluding the episode, they tackle the sharp rise in egg prices, attributing it to the widespread bird flu outbreak alongside other market factors. With Brian's analytical prowess, they dissect regional price disparities and forecast future trends, providing listeners with a clear picture of what to expect in the egg market.
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The Ag Tribes Report is a live streamed news program designed to recap the most important news related to the culture of agriculture in the US and Canada. Each week a new guest co-host joins Vance Crowe to talk about current news stories and share their insights into the news of the day based on the ag tribes the co-host belongs to.
Connect with Vance Crowe
X: @vancecrowe
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If your business would like to sponsor a Ag Tribes Report, to utilize the attention of farmers, ranchers and decision makers across the ag industry send an email to [email protected]
0:00
Support for the Ag tribes report comes from river.com an online platform for buying Bitcoin in the United States. Use the affiliate link provided in the show notes to purchase Bitcoin directly from river to grow your Bitcoin investment and support the podcast river.com invest in Bitcoin with confidence and legacy interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are, so the future knows who they really were. Here's legacy interviews guest Phil Bender on how the experience allowed him time for personal reflection and an opportunity to honor his parents. What was
0:37
the experience like of being interviewed at this depth, um, very, uh, rewarding, very refreshing. You know, you're just your sense of interest, and the depth of the questions was really impressive, and you stayed present through the whole thing, because I pay attention to that kind of thing. You were really were walking with me through it. This is a keepsake for me, but also a great way to honor my parents. There are a couple things about my dad you drew out today that I don't know if, if I've said, said that to him. I think it's a moment in time to reflect, engage, deepen your perspective on what you've accomplished, I am reflecting on my version of what I saw, what I felt, how I responded to it. That is a legacy that's valuable.
1:37
Welcome to the Ag tribes report a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host. Vance Crowe, the report begins in 321,
1:49
let's begin. Welcome to the Ag tribes Report. I'm your host. Vance Crowe, each week I bring on a co host to represent the many perspectives of the Ag tribes that collectively make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week, I am joined by Brian Scott, otherwise known as the farmer's life on YouTube X and Facebook. Scott is a fourth generation farmer from Northwest Indiana, managing 2500 acres of corn, soybeans, popcorn and wheat with a focus on sustainable practices. His educational background includes a degree in soil and crop management from Purdue University, followed by a brief stint in retail before returning to farming in 2009 Scott uses technology extensively, like drones for precision agriculture, and he's known for his advocacy work, educating the public through his YouTube channel, the farmer's life, his online efforts have garnered near the 40,000 subscribers on YouTube where he discusses farming myths, particularly around GMOs and the real life operations of a modern farm. Brian, welcome to the Ag tribes
2:55
report. Hey, Vance, glad to be here.
2:59
So this week we are going to talk about the price of corn and the start of the new year. We're going to talk about the trucking mandates, where electronic trucks are being pushed into the world. We're going to talk about a South Dakota dairy farmer who says that food shortages are just over the horizon if they deport illegals. And we're going to talk about the price of a dozen eggs going around nationally. We're going to do that, and we're going to find out Brian's Peter Thiel paradox, his worthy adversary, and, of course, how much land is priced in Bitcoin in his little neck of the woods. So we're going to do that all in 30 minutes. So we better get started right out of the gate, Brian today. Susan Stroud posted, did you know that December corn has ended the year lower than it began seven of the last 10 years, the only year it finished higher in November versus the first trading deal day in January were 2021 and 22 which were anything but normal. Today's Crowe open near 443. Is 50 cents lower than last year's, but remains the fourth highest start for December corn from the past decade. What in the world is she talking about here? Brian, our corn prices? Are they good? Are they bad? What's going on with them right now?
4:16
So it's kind of relative they've been low for a while compared to what we're used to. Like she threw out those three, basically, COVID years where things were were crazy high. So yeah, we're just over $4 now. I looked we were at $6 back in the summer of 2023 which isn't all that long ago. I should have sold a bunch of corn for 24 and 25 then, and I didn't, so I'll try to remember that the next time we get there. But they're, they're kind of decent. Now, depends on how you look at it, they're low, we're close to cost of production, or below it, depending on maybe where you are, what your land price is, all kind of that. Stuff, but we're what I see the other day. We're the highest we've been since June. So we're a lot better than we've been during this past growing season with the crop we've got in the bin. So it's kind of relative, yeah, yeah, they're somewhat low, but at least here, I had a big crop that I can, I can sell at these prices, and it's been, it's been creeping up the last couple weeks, so we've been making some sales.
5:25
Yeah, a couple weeks ago, Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau, is out there begging and pleading, you know, please, please, Congress, make sure you give us the checks that so we can send them out to farmers, because they may not survive. If you're talking about prices going up, or they're as good as they were in June. Like, are farmers hurting?
5:43
Yeah, so I put out a tweet a week or so ago, like, do you want this or not? And like, I don't really want it because we had a big crop, prices are kind of okay. I get a premium on half of the type of corn I grow, and most of my beans are for seed, so I get higher than the market price already. So I'm not maybe hurting as bad as some, but what I found on twitter, probably most of the replies were, of my opinion, don't, don't give us this. It's just going to keep the price of everything else inflated. This is just a pass through bailout for your banker. And John Deere is what most people were saying. But then, yeah,
6:25
that's what I had heard. That like, you know, people trying to negotiate contracts or new deals for equipment, nobody was coming down because they're like, Ah, I'm going to be able to pop up that price again as soon as I know you've gotten that check. And you can't argue that you don't have the money, because I know how much you got.
6:40
Yeah, and if you said, like, Farm Credit posted out of the letter in favor of it, like, two weeks, and they just, they got scorched on Twitter for that. But then I had several replies of people from like Texas and places like that, where they're on their second, third, fourth year of drought. And I think cotton farmers are hurting, if I understand that, right? So I think it's kind of relative. For me. It's like, this is just going to keep prices up. And I always say for for tax reasons, whenever they send us money like this, a third of it's going right back where it came from next March. So
7:14
is that right? Is that how it's brought into your your business,
7:18
it's the same as selling corn. So if I, if they're gonna send us, I think right now it's $42 an acre for corn, I'm gonna send, what, $14 of that back to Uncle Sam a year from now.
7:35
Well, it seems like a good problem to have, but I'm not a big fan of it. But all right, moving on to headline number two, the trucking industry pushing back on Left Coast electric mandates. This is from Shelly bocht Davis on x I just discovered that, and this is because I personally just discovered that there is a massive government push for electric cars, starting from the model year 2024 manufacturers must sell an increasing percentage of z, e vs with targets reaching significant levels by 2035, so, for example, 55% of class to be and three trucks, which include heavy duty pickup trucks like the F, The Ford f2, 50 used for towing and hauling. Then the Ford f3 50. They're they're all going to have to be 55% of them are going to have to be electric vehicles. So you got to sell that 75% of class four through eight straight truck sales. So those are like delivery trucks, vans. They're going to have to be electric vehicles in some of these areas, like California, Oregon, Washington State and and then the class the let's see here, the class seven, eight, 40% of truck tractor sales, which is big rigs, 18 wheelers, they're going to have to be electric vehicles. So Shelly Bucha Davis began talking about how there is finally, large scale pushback due to manufacturers saying they can't deliver on this mandate. They are also really worried that, even though these mandates are going in, what happens if Trump comes in and reverses it? They've made a big investment there. So this is all sorts of craziness going on, and one of the most important industries, because everything you consume RIGHT NOW comes to you via a truck, and there are giant mandates to push them to electric So Brian, when you and I were getting ready for the show today, you were actually trucking. Were you trucking in an electric truck?
9:31
I was not trucking in an electric truck. So I I think electric vehicles can and will be awesome, and more awesome as time goes on and we make a couple leaps in battery technology that's that's going to help, but it's just to mandate it now or at all really doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And I know there was a thing didn't California do something a while ago, like, if you had. Truck older than x, it's got to go, and that would like qualify for the the three semis we run every day to just think that I've got these trucks that work fine, and now I've got, I've got to sell them, and they're probably not worth anything, because nobody else wants them either, if we mandate this, and I got to go buy new trucks for six figures. What I'm trying to pay under 50 grand for a semi now, and I don't even like to pay that much,
10:31
yeah. I mean, it's such a like nefarious thing. I think also the way that they did it, that 55% of your sales means that you now are being told, if you want to sell these other vehicles, that you can at a profit, or whatever you but the only way you're going to get these other ones sold is if you take them at a loss, because, like in your circumstance, you're not able to sell your truck or trade it up, or, you know, use it for some other thing. This is going to totally distort the market, and it's absolutely creating a bubble when you're right. If, if electric vehicles, electric trucks, were a better service, a better tool, people would use them,
11:08
right? And I think they will be at some point, but, but not yet.
11:15
Yeah, I remember, I was listening to Sean Newman's podcast, and he was talking to the lumber industry, and they love having these diesel trucks that do diesel all, you know, on their way up whenever they need it, and then as they use their brakes all the way down, they fill up their batteries, and it ends up becoming this, like, Great hybrid situation. But right now, we don't have that kind of, you know, gradient where you can grab battery power, and we don't have all the charging stations. I can only imagine how many charging stations you'd have to put out in the middle of rural America in order to be able to service all the trucks out there.
11:49
Yeah, I've been following, if people go look at Edison motors up in Canada, they're they're pretty interesting. And basically the idea is like, plug and play. Swap your big truck axles with electric axles. You keep a small diesel engine up front. It's an onboard generator. It doesn't power the drive train at all. It's just a generator. And actually, I know a ram is coming out with a half ton pickup that's set up like that too. That might be pretty interesting, yeah.
12:18
But anytime you force people to put this technology out before it's there, or you give them incentives to put it out before it's ready. It's just not it doesn't help. All right, moving on to headline three. This was huge news in x a South Dakota farmer says that deportation of illegals will cause massive food shortages. In a CNN interview, dairy farmer Greg Mose said that if Trump plans to deport illegal migrants moving forward, quote, no one will be producing food within two days. We will not have food. There will not be food anywhere. This kicked off a firestorm on X Junior Burdick, aka Junior cow farmer, quote, said, quote, right here is the problem a dairy farmer who made his money by gaming the system, admitting basically that he hires undocumented or illegals to milk his cows. The actions of hundreds like him have destroyed an industry, rural communities and his neighbors so he could have his this right here is why America is dying, Brian, did you see this going on in X and do you think if illegals are deported, we're going to run out of food in two days?
13:29
I saw that, and I saw the interview you're talking about. And of course, everybody's talking about the two days. Of course, I'm, I'm a I'm a row crop farmer. I don't pretend to know how dairy or produce work like at all, but the two days, I would guess that is probably a little extreme, it might mount up pretty quick. And I don't illegal or not migrant labor. There is the fact that those are the people doing that work, especially when it comes to produce about an hour east of here, you get into a lot of tomatoes. And I saw a guy interviewed a while back and said, What if you didn't have any migrant labor? He goes, we've tried to hire local people and like they last a week at the most, they just local people will not do it. So we got to get that labor from somewhere. I don't know if we're going to starve to death in two days, but,
14:24
I mean, there is no question that. I mean, most of the produce that we eat is done by migrants, whether they're illegal or not. You know, that depends on who you ask and where you're at. A huge amount of our livestock are taken care of that way. I have to say, I think that it's hard to say that whether our Americans would do that or not, it's probably that Americans won't do it for the wages that we're willing to pay in order to be competitive. So if anybody in the system is using illegals, all of a sudden their cost of labor goes way down. And if somebody is saying, I can either stoop over and pick these lettuce heads like this all day, or I can do this really difficult work of cleaning. Up after these animals, or I could make the same amount working at McDonald's. I'm gonna go work at McDonald's. It's an obvious choice. You're gonna get way better benefits. So I think that it's hard to know whether Americans would work in those jobs. It's probably that they wouldn't work at them relative to other work that they could do.
15:18
Yeah, that's probably right. And I, I've actually bent over and picked up the lettuce like you're talking about. We, we have family that farms in Hawaii, actually. And, uh, we went and visited one time. And yeah, I would, I would rather sit in my air conditioned combine cab listen to the radio than be half hunched over all day chopping heads of lettuce off of the knife. Oh,
15:38
man, I we will have John bolts on. He's the Farm Bureau President in Arizona, but I've been down visiting his farm actually, and I couldn't even do it for like, 10 minutes. I mean, you know, just just being the size that I am, and, like, I don't know even that way that work is absolutely brutal. But if you pair that with whatever minimum wage that we have, which then forces wage jobs for delivering food or working in a McDonald's or standing at the front counter of a hotel, and it bumps that wage up so much people don't want to pay that those kind of fees for how much it would cost us to get our food produced. So I think this is one, a problem of minimum wage and two, probably a problem of our infinite money printers that are constantly inflating our money. All right. Headline number four, speaking of prices, the price of a dozen eggs is too damn high. The average price for a dozen grade a large eggs was reported to be around $3.65 in November, showing a notable increase from earlier in the year. The price has been influenced by Bird flus impact on egg production. You know, Christina Hudson Kohler, from Hudson egg farms always sends me an update. She was saying, Hey, we are right now getting $6 for a dozen large eggs out here, which is what prompted me to look into this. There are wild fluctuations in price. Right now. In California, there are egg prices for a dozen retail sold $8.97 all the way up to $9.12 in the Midwest, my supermarket right now is closer to about 425, a dozen. It's crazy. We eat a lot of eggs in my house, but I am actually noticing the price of eggs impacting our bottom line. Are you seeing this? Brian, what's price of a dozen eggs cost in your neck of the woods? I looked at
17:30
our Walmart today. They're 399, for a dozen, like normal Grade A eggs. I don't run through enough eggs to notice it in my budget, but I do. I do other stuff. Egg seems to be the one that's that's getting picked up on. But, like, my wife and I were at like, that income level where, like, you don't think about what you're spending at the grocery store, but lately, the last few months, like, some of the stuff we regularly get, or I like to grab a few rib eyes every once in a while or something, I'm like, that's, it's 100 bucks to eat a meal at our house, like this little I mean, it's 40 bucks to go to McDonald's for the four of us. That's used to be like 19. So it's, yeah, it's the price of food is pretty noticeable right now, yeah.
18:17
And, I mean, I was actually just noticing a tweet on X that the dairy farmers, whatever the Co Op, DFA was talking about, how there's been actually a huge increase in the amount of milk and butter that is being sold. I think this is largely a function of people doing paleo and carnivore diets. So there might be some aspect of just sheer demand. I know in my house, when I moved on to a keto diet, the amount of butter and cream cheese that I went increased probably, probably more than 50% but I do think avian flu has killed off millions upon millions of birds, and I think that there are a lot of people that like are watching these prices saying, You know, are we ever going to come out of COVID pricing for eggs, it doesn't seem like it,
19:07
yeah, and it's, if you combine flu with if there is more demand or, you know, it's, it's January 2, people are trying like, I'm going to go on the diet or whatever. Maybe demand is just ultra high right now, and not enough birds.
19:21
Christina Hudson Kohler did chime in to say, we haven't gone that high with our customers. I think it's just that the pricing board that she sends me was $6 All right, we have covered the headlines. If there is news that you think we should be covering, don't hesitate to send it to me on x at Vance Crowe, or you can always send it to Vance at Legacy interviews, we would love to find out what stories are going on. I always post that because the stories that I can see in my bubble are different than the ones that you're going to see in your bubble. And as evidence that Brian sent me a couple of stories I didn't know were going on, moving on to the Bitcoin land. Price report, Brian, what county Do you live in, and what is an acre of land cost in terms of US dollars, I
20:08
live in Carroll County, Indiana. And I would say right now, a pretty good piece of dirt is going to be about $12,000
20:19
in our area and then you're part of Indiana. Are you like, you know, corn and soy? It's just growing everywhere. It's super tall. Is it as beautiful and bountiful as Illinois and Iowa? Yeah,
20:30
not quite there. We say we're on the we're on the wrong half of our county. And then we actually farm a little bit in White County, which a lot of that is flat and black and white open, but we farm the broken up Sandy park of White County. So, so,
20:46
all right, we'll factor from 12,000 per acre last week, or the last time we did an ag tribes report, the the bitcoin price was $97,900 today. At last check, it was $96,900 so it's about 1% off from the last time we did the Ag tribes report. If you were to buy a an acre of land using Bitcoin at 12,000 per acre, it's about point 124, Bitcoins per acre. In other words, if you were sitting in Carroll County, Indiana, and you had one Bitcoin, you would be able to buy eight acres of farmland. Brian, how does that sit with you?
21:25
Yeah, that's interesting. We just by chance a neighbor cleaning up some family stuff. We kind of happened into 12 acres that attaches to the end of one of our fields. So if I had a Bitcoin laying around, that would have taken care of three quarters of that purchase. It was 12,000 an anchor, actually. What
21:45
do people in your tribe think of Bitcoin? Where is the Ag tribe? The corn and soy? People talking about it? I don't
21:53
hear much about it, outside of being on on Twitter for the most part, that kind of poke at my life, life a little bit like, hey, let's put a little bit like, in the Bitcoin or whatever. I have a I have a savings account I've had since I was a kid, one of those, like, I it's at a different bank than all their other stuff. And I try to never look at it, except when we do our balance sheets at the end of the year, it's, there's about one bitcoin sitting in there, and that money that I try to pretend I don't even
22:23
have any idea what interest rate it's getting, oh,
22:26
nothing at that bank. So it's just burning away. Then, Yep, pretty much it's inflating away. Well, then
22:33
that gives me the perfect opportunity. If you were listening to the front of the show, you know that I have accepted an affiliate link from river.com which is a place to buy bitcoin, and this is the first time I have ever put myself out there to to connect with an actual platform selling Bitcoin. So this actually happened a few weeks ago. My worthy adversary, Adam Jones, was giving me a bunch of shit about talking about Bitcoin. He told me that I was either really risking it for other people, like, what happens if they invest a bunch of money and lose it? How bad Am I gonna feel? And then he also was saying that I sounded like a late night huckster that talks about gold. So I just wanted to throw something out there, if you want something that's really interesting to look at Google, Vance Crowe, Bitcoin, Warren Buffett, and when you do that, you're gonna find an article from CNBC that I wrote in 2014 making the case for Bitcoin in detail, long before most people had ever even heard of Bitcoin, let alone would ever push back on the Oracle of Omaha. Since that article was published, Bitcoin has had a 16,500% return. I'm going to repeat that again, because I actually had to practice saying that number 16,500% return since that article was published. So this is not a huckster. If you had read that article, or if you had been one of my friends at the time that decided, hey, this is a good idea, I'm going to go out and buy that. You would have had one of the largest returns maybe you will ever get in your lifetime. So up until now, I've only talked about Bitcoin, and I've the closest I've ever come to interacting with it is I offer a discount when you buy legacy interviews through it, and so we offer 15% off if you want to buy a legacy interview that way. But I've never endorsed a group. I've never said, hey, buy on this platform. But I recently was trying to update my regular purchase that I make of Bitcoin, and I was using Coinbase, and I get there and I start calculating the fees that they're charging. And I was like, This is insane. I don't want that. And so I started looking around, and I found this company River, which my friends had talked about, and I was so impressed with it, that after I signed up and I started using it, I looked into what would it take to tell other people about it? And I decided that I was gonna thumb my nose at Adam and say, You know what, if you're gonna call me a huckster, I'm actually going to tell people that I do like this. Platform. I think it's really good. And if you buy if you sign up using the affiliate link that I've provided you, you will not only be able to buy bitcoin in a great location or at least one that I use, but you'll also be supporting the podcast. In the last year, I've been asked by no less than more than 100 people what they where they should buy bitcoin. And I personally am saying that I am buying on river. And if you would like to check out the affiliate link in the show notes. All right, thanks Brian for sitting through that. I just wanted to give Adam Jones a hard time here. Now, moving on to the Peter Thiel paradox. What? What? What? Turning now to the Peter Thiel paradox, Brian, what is something that you believe that almost no one in your ag tribe agrees with you on
25:51
I have a few. I gotta pick one here. I'm gonna go with this goes back several years. I was at a conference. There's a panel discussion between, I believe some barley farmers in Colorado, and I think some executives from Coors, and they were talking about water usage, aquifers getting really low, aquifers getting really low, all that kind of stuff, trying to conserve water and everything. And I've just had this thought in the back of my head for years, like, if we're draining the aquifers to grow cheap, crappy light beer, should we even be doing that at all? All
26:35
right, we are going to move on, and we're just going to do the last section. I'm not even going to give you a score, because we can't interact on it, but who is your worthy adversary? I
26:46
have not been doing a lot of online arguing lately, but I decided to pick you Vance, because I know we've gone back and forth a few times, and you have with other people about drainage tile in fields and what effect that is having downstream, I wouldn't say. Maybe there's zero repercussions, but I think the benefits of tiling our fields, as far as erosion and keeping nutrients where they're supposed to be, keeping the dirt where it's supposed to be and out of the waterways, and being able to grow more crops on the same amount of land is out outweighs what little, what little things there might be downstream. So
27:30
whenever people give me this argument back, like, hey, it's helping us not to have so much erosion. And it's not. It's allowing our aquifers to, you know, be able to, you know, I don't even know the argument that you're making here. The one that I always come back to is, if you look at the the the ecological footprint of the Mississippi River Basin, it is absolutely enormous. And if you are draining off all that water, 234, weeks faster than you were than you were before, because you before you had pattern tile, you cannot say that that does not have a huge implication. And your point is, well, it's maybe it's worth it, that there's a trade off there, and I'm willing to do it. But to me, I think that we like at least, need to discuss what these larger impacts are, and we're gonna leave it there. I think Brian can't hear me on this, so we're gonna leave it there with the worthy adversary and his Peter Thiel paradox, Brian, I'm gonna say thank you so much for coming on. I'm not exactly sure what happened here, but on the whole, we had a really great episode. If you want to find out more about Brian, you can find that on the farmer's life, he's got a fantastic YouTube channel, and he's fun to interact with on X if you're interested in having me do a legacy interview with you or your loved ones, go to legacy interviews.com/experience to be able to watch a video showing what legacy interviews are all about. Also, don't forget, in the show notes, I will include a link to the the worthy adversaries, and we'll include myself on that you can see other worthy adversaries, and we will be back next week for another ag tribes report. Until then, feel free to disagree. You
Support for the Ag tribes report comes from river.com an online platform for buying Bitcoin in the United States. Use the affiliate link provided in the show notes to purchase Bitcoin directly from river to grow your Bitcoin investment and support the podcast river.com invest in Bitcoin with confidence and legacy interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are, so the future knows who they really were. Here's legacy interviews guest Phil Bender on how the experience allowed him time for personal reflection and an opportunity to honor his parents. What was
0:37
the experience like of being interviewed at this depth, um, very, uh, rewarding, very refreshing. You know, you're just your sense of interest, and the depth of the questions was really impressive, and you stayed present through the whole thing, because I pay attention to that kind of thing. You were really were walking with me through it. This is a keepsake for me, but also a great way to honor my parents. There are a couple things about my dad you drew out today that I don't know if, if I've said, said that to him. I think it's a moment in time to reflect, engage, deepen your perspective on what you've accomplished, I am reflecting on my version of what I saw, what I felt, how I responded to it. That is a legacy that's valuable.
1:37
Welcome to the Ag tribes report a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host. Vance Crowe, the report begins in 321,
1:49
let's begin. Welcome to the Ag tribes Report. I'm your host. Vance Crowe, each week I bring on a co host to represent the many perspectives of the Ag tribes that collectively make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week, I am joined by Brian Scott, otherwise known as the farmer's life on YouTube X and Facebook. Scott is a fourth generation farmer from Northwest Indiana, managing 2500 acres of corn, soybeans, popcorn and wheat with a focus on sustainable practices. His educational background includes a degree in soil and crop management from Purdue University, followed by a brief stint in retail before returning to farming in 2009 Scott uses technology extensively, like drones for precision agriculture, and he's known for his advocacy work, educating the public through his YouTube channel, the farmer's life, his online efforts have garnered near the 40,000 subscribers on YouTube where he discusses farming myths, particularly around GMOs and the real life operations of a modern farm. Brian, welcome to the Ag tribes
2:55
report. Hey, Vance, glad to be here.
2:59
So this week we are going to talk about the price of corn and the start of the new year. We're going to talk about the trucking mandates, where electronic trucks are being pushed into the world. We're going to talk about a South Dakota dairy farmer who says that food shortages are just over the horizon if they deport illegals. And we're going to talk about the price of a dozen eggs going around nationally. We're going to do that, and we're going to find out Brian's Peter Thiel paradox, his worthy adversary, and, of course, how much land is priced in Bitcoin in his little neck of the woods. So we're going to do that all in 30 minutes. So we better get started right out of the gate, Brian today. Susan Stroud posted, did you know that December corn has ended the year lower than it began seven of the last 10 years, the only year it finished higher in November versus the first trading deal day in January were 2021 and 22 which were anything but normal. Today's Crowe open near 443. Is 50 cents lower than last year's, but remains the fourth highest start for December corn from the past decade. What in the world is she talking about here? Brian, our corn prices? Are they good? Are they bad? What's going on with them right now?
4:16
So it's kind of relative they've been low for a while compared to what we're used to. Like she threw out those three, basically, COVID years where things were were crazy high. So yeah, we're just over $4 now. I looked we were at $6 back in the summer of 2023 which isn't all that long ago. I should have sold a bunch of corn for 24 and 25 then, and I didn't, so I'll try to remember that the next time we get there. But they're, they're kind of decent. Now, depends on how you look at it, they're low, we're close to cost of production, or below it, depending on maybe where you are, what your land price is, all kind of that. Stuff, but we're what I see the other day. We're the highest we've been since June. So we're a lot better than we've been during this past growing season with the crop we've got in the bin. So it's kind of relative, yeah, yeah, they're somewhat low, but at least here, I had a big crop that I can, I can sell at these prices, and it's been, it's been creeping up the last couple weeks, so we've been making some sales.
5:25
Yeah, a couple weeks ago, Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau, is out there begging and pleading, you know, please, please, Congress, make sure you give us the checks that so we can send them out to farmers, because they may not survive. If you're talking about prices going up, or they're as good as they were in June. Like, are farmers hurting?
5:43
Yeah, so I put out a tweet a week or so ago, like, do you want this or not? And like, I don't really want it because we had a big crop, prices are kind of okay. I get a premium on half of the type of corn I grow, and most of my beans are for seed, so I get higher than the market price already. So I'm not maybe hurting as bad as some, but what I found on twitter, probably most of the replies were, of my opinion, don't, don't give us this. It's just going to keep the price of everything else inflated. This is just a pass through bailout for your banker. And John Deere is what most people were saying. But then, yeah,
6:25
that's what I had heard. That like, you know, people trying to negotiate contracts or new deals for equipment, nobody was coming down because they're like, Ah, I'm going to be able to pop up that price again as soon as I know you've gotten that check. And you can't argue that you don't have the money, because I know how much you got.
6:40
Yeah, and if you said, like, Farm Credit posted out of the letter in favor of it, like, two weeks, and they just, they got scorched on Twitter for that. But then I had several replies of people from like Texas and places like that, where they're on their second, third, fourth year of drought. And I think cotton farmers are hurting, if I understand that, right? So I think it's kind of relative. For me. It's like, this is just going to keep prices up. And I always say for for tax reasons, whenever they send us money like this, a third of it's going right back where it came from next March. So
7:14
is that right? Is that how it's brought into your your business,
7:18
it's the same as selling corn. So if I, if they're gonna send us, I think right now it's $42 an acre for corn, I'm gonna send, what, $14 of that back to Uncle Sam a year from now.
7:35
Well, it seems like a good problem to have, but I'm not a big fan of it. But all right, moving on to headline number two, the trucking industry pushing back on Left Coast electric mandates. This is from Shelly bocht Davis on x I just discovered that, and this is because I personally just discovered that there is a massive government push for electric cars, starting from the model year 2024 manufacturers must sell an increasing percentage of z, e vs with targets reaching significant levels by 2035, so, for example, 55% of class to be and three trucks, which include heavy duty pickup trucks like the F, The Ford f2, 50 used for towing and hauling. Then the Ford f3 50. They're they're all going to have to be 55% of them are going to have to be electric vehicles. So you got to sell that 75% of class four through eight straight truck sales. So those are like delivery trucks, vans. They're going to have to be electric vehicles in some of these areas, like California, Oregon, Washington State and and then the class the let's see here, the class seven, eight, 40% of truck tractor sales, which is big rigs, 18 wheelers, they're going to have to be electric vehicles. So Shelly Bucha Davis began talking about how there is finally, large scale pushback due to manufacturers saying they can't deliver on this mandate. They are also really worried that, even though these mandates are going in, what happens if Trump comes in and reverses it? They've made a big investment there. So this is all sorts of craziness going on, and one of the most important industries, because everything you consume RIGHT NOW comes to you via a truck, and there are giant mandates to push them to electric So Brian, when you and I were getting ready for the show today, you were actually trucking. Were you trucking in an electric truck?
9:31
I was not trucking in an electric truck. So I I think electric vehicles can and will be awesome, and more awesome as time goes on and we make a couple leaps in battery technology that's that's going to help, but it's just to mandate it now or at all really doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And I know there was a thing didn't California do something a while ago, like, if you had. Truck older than x, it's got to go, and that would like qualify for the the three semis we run every day to just think that I've got these trucks that work fine, and now I've got, I've got to sell them, and they're probably not worth anything, because nobody else wants them either, if we mandate this, and I got to go buy new trucks for six figures. What I'm trying to pay under 50 grand for a semi now, and I don't even like to pay that much,
10:31
yeah. I mean, it's such a like nefarious thing. I think also the way that they did it, that 55% of your sales means that you now are being told, if you want to sell these other vehicles, that you can at a profit, or whatever you but the only way you're going to get these other ones sold is if you take them at a loss, because, like in your circumstance, you're not able to sell your truck or trade it up, or, you know, use it for some other thing. This is going to totally distort the market, and it's absolutely creating a bubble when you're right. If, if electric vehicles, electric trucks, were a better service, a better tool, people would use them,
11:08
right? And I think they will be at some point, but, but not yet.
11:15
Yeah, I remember, I was listening to Sean Newman's podcast, and he was talking to the lumber industry, and they love having these diesel trucks that do diesel all, you know, on their way up whenever they need it, and then as they use their brakes all the way down, they fill up their batteries, and it ends up becoming this, like, Great hybrid situation. But right now, we don't have that kind of, you know, gradient where you can grab battery power, and we don't have all the charging stations. I can only imagine how many charging stations you'd have to put out in the middle of rural America in order to be able to service all the trucks out there.
11:49
Yeah, I've been following, if people go look at Edison motors up in Canada, they're they're pretty interesting. And basically the idea is like, plug and play. Swap your big truck axles with electric axles. You keep a small diesel engine up front. It's an onboard generator. It doesn't power the drive train at all. It's just a generator. And actually, I know a ram is coming out with a half ton pickup that's set up like that too. That might be pretty interesting, yeah.
12:18
But anytime you force people to put this technology out before it's there, or you give them incentives to put it out before it's ready. It's just not it doesn't help. All right, moving on to headline three. This was huge news in x a South Dakota farmer says that deportation of illegals will cause massive food shortages. In a CNN interview, dairy farmer Greg Mose said that if Trump plans to deport illegal migrants moving forward, quote, no one will be producing food within two days. We will not have food. There will not be food anywhere. This kicked off a firestorm on X Junior Burdick, aka Junior cow farmer, quote, said, quote, right here is the problem a dairy farmer who made his money by gaming the system, admitting basically that he hires undocumented or illegals to milk his cows. The actions of hundreds like him have destroyed an industry, rural communities and his neighbors so he could have his this right here is why America is dying, Brian, did you see this going on in X and do you think if illegals are deported, we're going to run out of food in two days?
13:29
I saw that, and I saw the interview you're talking about. And of course, everybody's talking about the two days. Of course, I'm, I'm a I'm a row crop farmer. I don't pretend to know how dairy or produce work like at all, but the two days, I would guess that is probably a little extreme, it might mount up pretty quick. And I don't illegal or not migrant labor. There is the fact that those are the people doing that work, especially when it comes to produce about an hour east of here, you get into a lot of tomatoes. And I saw a guy interviewed a while back and said, What if you didn't have any migrant labor? He goes, we've tried to hire local people and like they last a week at the most, they just local people will not do it. So we got to get that labor from somewhere. I don't know if we're going to starve to death in two days, but,
14:24
I mean, there is no question that. I mean, most of the produce that we eat is done by migrants, whether they're illegal or not. You know, that depends on who you ask and where you're at. A huge amount of our livestock are taken care of that way. I have to say, I think that it's hard to say that whether our Americans would do that or not, it's probably that Americans won't do it for the wages that we're willing to pay in order to be competitive. So if anybody in the system is using illegals, all of a sudden their cost of labor goes way down. And if somebody is saying, I can either stoop over and pick these lettuce heads like this all day, or I can do this really difficult work of cleaning. Up after these animals, or I could make the same amount working at McDonald's. I'm gonna go work at McDonald's. It's an obvious choice. You're gonna get way better benefits. So I think that it's hard to know whether Americans would work in those jobs. It's probably that they wouldn't work at them relative to other work that they could do.
15:18
Yeah, that's probably right. And I, I've actually bent over and picked up the lettuce like you're talking about. We, we have family that farms in Hawaii, actually. And, uh, we went and visited one time. And yeah, I would, I would rather sit in my air conditioned combine cab listen to the radio than be half hunched over all day chopping heads of lettuce off of the knife. Oh,
15:38
man, I we will have John bolts on. He's the Farm Bureau President in Arizona, but I've been down visiting his farm actually, and I couldn't even do it for like, 10 minutes. I mean, you know, just just being the size that I am, and, like, I don't know even that way that work is absolutely brutal. But if you pair that with whatever minimum wage that we have, which then forces wage jobs for delivering food or working in a McDonald's or standing at the front counter of a hotel, and it bumps that wage up so much people don't want to pay that those kind of fees for how much it would cost us to get our food produced. So I think this is one, a problem of minimum wage and two, probably a problem of our infinite money printers that are constantly inflating our money. All right. Headline number four, speaking of prices, the price of a dozen eggs is too damn high. The average price for a dozen grade a large eggs was reported to be around $3.65 in November, showing a notable increase from earlier in the year. The price has been influenced by Bird flus impact on egg production. You know, Christina Hudson Kohler, from Hudson egg farms always sends me an update. She was saying, Hey, we are right now getting $6 for a dozen large eggs out here, which is what prompted me to look into this. There are wild fluctuations in price. Right now. In California, there are egg prices for a dozen retail sold $8.97 all the way up to $9.12 in the Midwest, my supermarket right now is closer to about 425, a dozen. It's crazy. We eat a lot of eggs in my house, but I am actually noticing the price of eggs impacting our bottom line. Are you seeing this? Brian, what's price of a dozen eggs cost in your neck of the woods? I looked at
17:30
our Walmart today. They're 399, for a dozen, like normal Grade A eggs. I don't run through enough eggs to notice it in my budget, but I do. I do other stuff. Egg seems to be the one that's that's getting picked up on. But, like, my wife and I were at like, that income level where, like, you don't think about what you're spending at the grocery store, but lately, the last few months, like, some of the stuff we regularly get, or I like to grab a few rib eyes every once in a while or something, I'm like, that's, it's 100 bucks to eat a meal at our house, like this little I mean, it's 40 bucks to go to McDonald's for the four of us. That's used to be like 19. So it's, yeah, it's the price of food is pretty noticeable right now, yeah.
18:17
And, I mean, I was actually just noticing a tweet on X that the dairy farmers, whatever the Co Op, DFA was talking about, how there's been actually a huge increase in the amount of milk and butter that is being sold. I think this is largely a function of people doing paleo and carnivore diets. So there might be some aspect of just sheer demand. I know in my house, when I moved on to a keto diet, the amount of butter and cream cheese that I went increased probably, probably more than 50% but I do think avian flu has killed off millions upon millions of birds, and I think that there are a lot of people that like are watching these prices saying, You know, are we ever going to come out of COVID pricing for eggs, it doesn't seem like it,
19:07
yeah, and it's, if you combine flu with if there is more demand or, you know, it's, it's January 2, people are trying like, I'm going to go on the diet or whatever. Maybe demand is just ultra high right now, and not enough birds.
19:21
Christina Hudson Kohler did chime in to say, we haven't gone that high with our customers. I think it's just that the pricing board that she sends me was $6 All right, we have covered the headlines. If there is news that you think we should be covering, don't hesitate to send it to me on x at Vance Crowe, or you can always send it to Vance at Legacy interviews, we would love to find out what stories are going on. I always post that because the stories that I can see in my bubble are different than the ones that you're going to see in your bubble. And as evidence that Brian sent me a couple of stories I didn't know were going on, moving on to the Bitcoin land. Price report, Brian, what county Do you live in, and what is an acre of land cost in terms of US dollars, I
20:08
live in Carroll County, Indiana. And I would say right now, a pretty good piece of dirt is going to be about $12,000
20:19
in our area and then you're part of Indiana. Are you like, you know, corn and soy? It's just growing everywhere. It's super tall. Is it as beautiful and bountiful as Illinois and Iowa? Yeah,
20:30
not quite there. We say we're on the we're on the wrong half of our county. And then we actually farm a little bit in White County, which a lot of that is flat and black and white open, but we farm the broken up Sandy park of White County. So, so,
20:46
all right, we'll factor from 12,000 per acre last week, or the last time we did an ag tribes report, the the bitcoin price was $97,900 today. At last check, it was $96,900 so it's about 1% off from the last time we did the Ag tribes report. If you were to buy a an acre of land using Bitcoin at 12,000 per acre, it's about point 124, Bitcoins per acre. In other words, if you were sitting in Carroll County, Indiana, and you had one Bitcoin, you would be able to buy eight acres of farmland. Brian, how does that sit with you?
21:25
Yeah, that's interesting. We just by chance a neighbor cleaning up some family stuff. We kind of happened into 12 acres that attaches to the end of one of our fields. So if I had a Bitcoin laying around, that would have taken care of three quarters of that purchase. It was 12,000 an anchor, actually. What
21:45
do people in your tribe think of Bitcoin? Where is the Ag tribe? The corn and soy? People talking about it? I don't
21:53
hear much about it, outside of being on on Twitter for the most part, that kind of poke at my life, life a little bit like, hey, let's put a little bit like, in the Bitcoin or whatever. I have a I have a savings account I've had since I was a kid, one of those, like, I it's at a different bank than all their other stuff. And I try to never look at it, except when we do our balance sheets at the end of the year, it's, there's about one bitcoin sitting in there, and that money that I try to pretend I don't even
22:23
have any idea what interest rate it's getting, oh,
22:26
nothing at that bank. So it's just burning away. Then, Yep, pretty much it's inflating away. Well, then
22:33
that gives me the perfect opportunity. If you were listening to the front of the show, you know that I have accepted an affiliate link from river.com which is a place to buy bitcoin, and this is the first time I have ever put myself out there to to connect with an actual platform selling Bitcoin. So this actually happened a few weeks ago. My worthy adversary, Adam Jones, was giving me a bunch of shit about talking about Bitcoin. He told me that I was either really risking it for other people, like, what happens if they invest a bunch of money and lose it? How bad Am I gonna feel? And then he also was saying that I sounded like a late night huckster that talks about gold. So I just wanted to throw something out there, if you want something that's really interesting to look at Google, Vance Crowe, Bitcoin, Warren Buffett, and when you do that, you're gonna find an article from CNBC that I wrote in 2014 making the case for Bitcoin in detail, long before most people had ever even heard of Bitcoin, let alone would ever push back on the Oracle of Omaha. Since that article was published, Bitcoin has had a 16,500% return. I'm going to repeat that again, because I actually had to practice saying that number 16,500% return since that article was published. So this is not a huckster. If you had read that article, or if you had been one of my friends at the time that decided, hey, this is a good idea, I'm going to go out and buy that. You would have had one of the largest returns maybe you will ever get in your lifetime. So up until now, I've only talked about Bitcoin, and I've the closest I've ever come to interacting with it is I offer a discount when you buy legacy interviews through it, and so we offer 15% off if you want to buy a legacy interview that way. But I've never endorsed a group. I've never said, hey, buy on this platform. But I recently was trying to update my regular purchase that I make of Bitcoin, and I was using Coinbase, and I get there and I start calculating the fees that they're charging. And I was like, This is insane. I don't want that. And so I started looking around, and I found this company River, which my friends had talked about, and I was so impressed with it, that after I signed up and I started using it, I looked into what would it take to tell other people about it? And I decided that I was gonna thumb my nose at Adam and say, You know what, if you're gonna call me a huckster, I'm actually going to tell people that I do like this. Platform. I think it's really good. And if you buy if you sign up using the affiliate link that I've provided you, you will not only be able to buy bitcoin in a great location or at least one that I use, but you'll also be supporting the podcast. In the last year, I've been asked by no less than more than 100 people what they where they should buy bitcoin. And I personally am saying that I am buying on river. And if you would like to check out the affiliate link in the show notes. All right, thanks Brian for sitting through that. I just wanted to give Adam Jones a hard time here. Now, moving on to the Peter Thiel paradox. What? What? What? Turning now to the Peter Thiel paradox, Brian, what is something that you believe that almost no one in your ag tribe agrees with you on
25:51
I have a few. I gotta pick one here. I'm gonna go with this goes back several years. I was at a conference. There's a panel discussion between, I believe some barley farmers in Colorado, and I think some executives from Coors, and they were talking about water usage, aquifers getting really low, aquifers getting really low, all that kind of stuff, trying to conserve water and everything. And I've just had this thought in the back of my head for years, like, if we're draining the aquifers to grow cheap, crappy light beer, should we even be doing that at all? All
26:35
right, we are going to move on, and we're just going to do the last section. I'm not even going to give you a score, because we can't interact on it, but who is your worthy adversary? I
26:46
have not been doing a lot of online arguing lately, but I decided to pick you Vance, because I know we've gone back and forth a few times, and you have with other people about drainage tile in fields and what effect that is having downstream, I wouldn't say. Maybe there's zero repercussions, but I think the benefits of tiling our fields, as far as erosion and keeping nutrients where they're supposed to be, keeping the dirt where it's supposed to be and out of the waterways, and being able to grow more crops on the same amount of land is out outweighs what little, what little things there might be downstream. So
27:30
whenever people give me this argument back, like, hey, it's helping us not to have so much erosion. And it's not. It's allowing our aquifers to, you know, be able to, you know, I don't even know the argument that you're making here. The one that I always come back to is, if you look at the the the ecological footprint of the Mississippi River Basin, it is absolutely enormous. And if you are draining off all that water, 234, weeks faster than you were than you were before, because you before you had pattern tile, you cannot say that that does not have a huge implication. And your point is, well, it's maybe it's worth it, that there's a trade off there, and I'm willing to do it. But to me, I think that we like at least, need to discuss what these larger impacts are, and we're gonna leave it there. I think Brian can't hear me on this, so we're gonna leave it there with the worthy adversary and his Peter Thiel paradox, Brian, I'm gonna say thank you so much for coming on. I'm not exactly sure what happened here, but on the whole, we had a really great episode. If you want to find out more about Brian, you can find that on the farmer's life, he's got a fantastic YouTube channel, and he's fun to interact with on X if you're interested in having me do a legacy interview with you or your loved ones, go to legacy interviews.com/experience to be able to watch a video showing what legacy interviews are all about. Also, don't forget, in the show notes, I will include a link to the the worthy adversaries, and we'll include myself on that you can see other worthy adversaries, and we will be back next week for another ag tribes report. Until then, feel free to disagree. You
