In this episode of the AgTribes Report, host Vance Crowe dives into the intricate world of agriculture, economics, and policy with guest Steve Conaway, a farmer and real estate appraiser from Kansas. The conversation explores the economic side of agriculture, touching on topics such as conservation practices and government subsidies.
Vance and Steve delve into the controversy surrounding a $97 million USDA grant to the Iowa Soybean Association, examining the implications of taxpayer-funded subsidies for conservation practices. They discuss the potential impact of budget cuts on farmers reliant on such subsidies and the broader economic consequences.
The episode also covers Mexico's decision to drop restrictions on GMO corn imports, highlighting the complexities of international trade agreements and cultural attitudes towards GMOs. Vance and Steve consider the potential effects on U.S. corn exports and the agricultural market.
Immigration enforcement and its impact on farm labor is another key topic, with discussions on the reality versus perception of ICE raids affecting agricultural workers. The conversation touches on the challenges of replacing undocumented workers and the potential economic ramifications.
Vance and Steve also explore the role of U.S. aid in supporting Ukrainian agriculture, questioning the logic of funding competitors in the global grain market. They discuss the transparency of government spending and the need for accountability.
The episode concludes with a discussion on Bitcoin's role in agriculture, including a Bitcoin land price report and the potential for cryptocurrency to influence land ownership. Steve shares his experience with Bitcoin and the ease of using digital wallets, while Vance encourages listeners to explore the world of cryptocurrency.
Throughout the episode, Vance emphasizes the importance of transparency in funding and decision-making within the agricultural sector, advocating for open discussions about the influence of government and corporate interests.
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(01:08) Introduction to the AgTribe's Report
(04:30) Iowa Soybeans and USDA Grant Controversy
(10:41) Mexico Drops GMO Corn Import Restrictions
(14:19) Impact of ICE Raids on Farm Workers
(18:11) US Aid to Ukrainian Farmers
(21:13) Bitcoin Land Price Report
(26:41) Peter Thiel Paradox and Worthy Adversary
https://serve.podhome.fm/the-vance-crowe-podcast_638721156549613591
[00:00:00]
Unknown:
Support for the AgTribes 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 Interview's guests, Daryl and Jill Stamp, on the joy of filming their Legacy Interview.
[00:00:36] Vance Crowe:
What do you think you'll tell your kids about the experience?
[00:00:39] Unknown:
Oh, I'm gonna thank them a lot. I realize this is more for them and their kids and their kids than it is us, the grandkids Right. Don't know these stories. I can't wait to for us all to get together and see it. This went better than I thought it was gonna. Time does go fast, so it's What time is it? It's almost 03:00. No way. Yes. God, you talked so much. I know.
[00:01:08] Unknown:
Welcome to the AgTribe's report, a breakdown of the stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host, Vance Crow. The report begins in three, two, one. Let's begin.
[00:01:22] Vance Crowe:
Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crow. Each week, I find check-in with a member of one of the many Ag Tribes that make up US Agriculture. And this week, we have Steve Conaway, otherwise known as, Steve Conaway one on x. Steve is a farmer with an interest in agricultural economics, real estate, and the financial aspects of rental properties. I had one of those rare opportunities to meet Steve at, the first field day I ever went, that was put on by Jason Mach, one of these farm weird field days. And I can tell you that any person you meet at a farm weird event has got a story and, knows interesting things because you don't show up to those places by accident. So, Steve, welcome to the Ag Tribes Report.
[00:02:08] Steve Conaway:
Well, thanks for having me, Vance. It was it's an honor to be a part of tonight's, report.
[00:02:14] Vance Crowe:
So talk a little bit about, why you share on x. What is it that you're kind of have an expertise in? What are you interested in hearing about from other people?
[00:02:24] Steve Conaway:
So yeah. So a little bit about me. I am a real estate appraiser, for a large agriculture bank here in Kansas. I'm in the process of getting my real estate appraiser's license, and I grew up on a large family farm where I still farm with my family there as well. And then I got married last year, and my wife and I are partial owners in ag real estate as well as own some rental properties as well. So my emphasis is very much in real estate, agriculture real estate, agriculture economics, and just kind of agriculture financing. My wife's, has a PhD in agronomy, and so that is definitely her side of of things. She knows agronomy.
I don't really know agronomy. So, yeah, I just share on x and online just the economic side of agriculture production, agriculture real estate.
[00:03:19] Vance Crowe:
When I, originally asked Steve to come on, I said, hey, man. Would you, also send me a photo? And he did this, thing where he's like, hey. Can I he sent me a photo of him with his beautiful wife, and I was like, no way, man? I'm not giving you any advantages here. I'm not gonna let people see that you have this drop dead gorgeous wife. So to find out she also has her PhD and you guys work closely together is, is pretty impressive.
[00:03:41] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. My family definitely gives gives me a hard time. They're like, yeah. You
[00:03:46] Vance Crowe:
really married up. You outtaped your coverage. It's like That's that's actually true. This this guy is not lying about that. So there must be something special about him. And we'll find out as we go through this week's headlines, which we're gonna start off by talking about Iowa soybeans defending their USDA grant in the land of Doge. Mexico is gonna drop restrictions on, US US GMO corn imports, and, we're gonna talk a little bit about if ICE raids are, really gonna him back to all of our farm workers, or is it all just hype? We're also gonna talk about the Bitcoin land price report. We'll hear Steve's Peter Thiel paradox, and we'll find out who is his worthy adversary. And we're gonna do it all in just thirty minutes. So let's get started. Alright. Headline number one is, kind of a big deal.
Iowa's soybean defends USDA grant that was suspended after Doge rolls through. So a guy named Benjamin Reiche Ranish, I've never met him before, he posted on x an image of the USDA, giving a $97,000,000 grant to the Iowa Soybean Association. Rinesh initially thought that it was a USAID grant, and Iowa Soy was so concerned about the claims that he was making that they called him up to present their side of the story. So from their perspective, they're saying the program matched by private sector funding was intended to create new markets and revenue for farmers adopting climate smart practices that benefit soil health. So some of the, the programs impact 90 acres of conservation practices enrolled across 12 states. 600,000 acres have been enrolled across Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. It just kinda goes on and on. It says average farmer payment of $33 per acre, and it's ostensibly for putting down things like, the reductions in soil erosion, nitrogen, phosphorus. So they are putting it forward as, look. We're, we the USDA contributes $1, and the program ends up paying farmers a dollar 20.
So there's this giant grant, but it's not from USAID, and they're saying it has all these good impacts. Steve, this is all money that's being paid from by tax taxpayers designed to get farmers to do something they don't have an economic incentive to do. Do you think this, that Doge is gonna start coming after subsidies like this one?
[00:06:18] Steve Conaway:
Well, I mean, I think eventually, but it's kind of kind of hard to tell how how how much will Doge actually go for things. Like, are are farmers gonna be impervious to to these budget cuts? And kind of my problem of kind of what you talked about there, and you sent me a news article to look at as well, is it kinda seemed like these farmers were not doing the conservation practices first, but with this money that they now are. To me, that kinda sounds like bribery of kind of like, hey, you don't wanna do this. We're gonna give you money so you will do it. Or and it's like, if it doesn't stand on its foot by itself, like, why are we subsidizing this in the first place? But at at the same time, I can understand why it's probably good for soil health and maybe why there's some, dying old farmers who always wanna do extensive tillage all the time that they need a little bit more economic incentive to to change their practice as well. So
[00:07:23] Vance Crowe:
I can I can debate both sides of it here? I mean, I strongly dislike the, the, you know, using taxpayer dollars to fund anything that people could be doing on their own. If it is actually valuable, they'll do it on their own. But I would say even outside of that, you know, if people right now have a part a proportion of their income that's reliant on subsidies that come from fighting climate change, well, the Trump administration just went in and said, we're, you know, crossing climate change out of all the documents. So if you're if you're getting paid subsidies to fight climate change when when we're no longer fighting climate change, I think those will be pretty easy subsidies to cut.
[00:08:01] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. I I definitely think the cuts are coming. But my question is, if you're not getting subsidies from the government, could you do the same practices and maybe a giant corporation are paying you to offset their carbon as well. Who knows? Like,
[00:08:20] Vance Crowe:
Yeah. I mean, it's all that'll be really interesting to see because if the government gets out of carbon markets and they aren't sitting there helping to, you know, be the air traffic controller for companies to do this, you gotta ask yourself, are they gonna continue to do it? I think it also brings up a larger question, is how much are farmers going to be upset when they find out some of their organizations have been accepting big government grants? And does that end up impacting what those organizations are advocating for? What what agendas they're pushing forward because who you who you pay who pays you ends up they are your customers. Those are the people you're gonna please.
[00:08:56] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. And then I think the other thing that concerns me a little bit just because my background in, ag finances, if a farmer's getting 10%, fifteen % of his revenue from these government programs and they're suddenly cut, that can really hit the bottom line. And what what is your banker gonna say or your loan underwriter is if you lose 15% of your revenue already on a down year like we're seeing the past couple years, that's that's really gonna gonna cause some concern for some guys.
[00:09:27] Vance Crowe:
Yeah. And I think, it's it's like I don't think there's any group that's safe. I, for a while there, was thinking that, you know, Trump didn't wanna upset ag, but I think there's gonna be so much money being funneled through USDA to prop up projects that have nothing at all to do with agriculture. But when you start cutting them back, I think there's gonna be a whole lot of organizations that have been able to grow to the size that they are that are, that are gonna really struggle when they're not getting those government dollars from USDA or USAID or whoever.
[00:10:02] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. I I I agree. And I think sometimes we in ag think we're so important and we're better than everyone else, but, you know, you look at across the whole nation, I think ag ag is pretty small compared to how much GDP is is produced by, say, the health care industry or something like that. You know? They're they're gonna get they have much better lobbyists than than we do here in the ag industry.
[00:10:31] Vance Crowe:
Yeah. Well, it's gonna be interesting to see how money being uncovered, groups getting funded. It's gonna it's gonna pan out in interesting ways. I think there's gonna be a lot of people called to task on why they took money from who. So moving on to headline number two, Mexico has formally dropped restrictions on GMO corn imports. Previous plans to ban such grain could have significantly reduced US Corn Experts exports. So, this was reported by Karen Braun, a global agricultural common columnist at Thomson Reuters, and she's saying, hey. Mexico is repealing the import restrictions on genetically modified corn for humans, livestock, and industrial uses, following the North American trade panel, putting in in their, judgment. So this is the USMCA, and, they said, hey. You can't do this, Mexico. So Mexico, agreed to comply with this agreement, which means now they're going to be accepting GMO corn when they said they didn't want to.
Steve, what do you think of this? Should The US view this as a win,
[00:11:33] Steve Conaway:
because we're able to push the doors open in Mexico? Or where where do you where do you fall down with? I I think, historically, I'm pretty sure Mexico has been one of our biggest exporters or one of the biggest people we export our corn to. So that that's gonna be great that that, kinda wrinkle is smoothed out and that we can keep exporting our corn down there. And I think that's really gonna, help drive up maybe just in the temporary the the corn market. It seems like it's really been on a rally in the past month or two, so maybe this helps push it a little bit higher and it makes the guys a little, a lot of the guys across the traditional corn belt a little bit more optimistic going into this 2025 growing season if we keep seeing corn rally.
But at the same time, it's like, is is this just gonna be a temporary setback in a couple years? Or are they gonna kinda claw this back and and try to say that no no more GMO GMO, imports from you guys, United States.
[00:12:32] Vance Crowe:
It seems to me like the Mexican president, who went on to say, hey. We may put the, the banning of cultivating GMO craps into our constitution. I believe that they have the potential to turn this into a cultural thing where the people don't want GMO craps. But until then, should the do you think, like, good, The US should be cheering it on that that a group said we don't want this, and yet now they have to take it? We wouldn't want our door kicked open and have somebody shoveling in crops we don't want.
[00:13:03] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. And I I don't wonder how much how much is it the Trump administration putting leverage on them as well of of kinda, hey. We'll we'll look the other way on a couple things over here if you reinstate this or or agree to that. How much is there going on behind closed doors that we don't we don't really realize. But, yeah, you do bring up a good point. If if the tables were turned, we would be really upset about that. And and, yeah, I think long term, I think it's more of a cultural issue, not just for Mexico, but probably in the entire world of how long do we want the these GMO type products in our in our foods.
[00:13:47] Vance Crowe:
I think that this question, went away for a while, and the ag companies and all the different ag, you know, commodity groups, they kind of said, alright. Look looks like the GMO fight is over. But the reality was it just morphed. It became a glyphosate fight, and now people are back. And I think the Maha movement is definitely gonna blow oxygen onto people not wanting GMOs. So it'll be interesting to see what what gets grown and what gets demanded because I think a lot of people don't care. But if you can get culture riled up, it can it can really have big impacts. Alright. Headline number three, are ICE raids impacting farms? There are endless news stories about ag workers not showing up from fear of being deported, but few stories of people actually being deported.
So I was looking through Fast Company, and they, they were putting forward this like, well, there's up to 800,000 farm workers in California, and half of them, according to governor Newsom's office, may be undocumented, and they aren't coming to work and they're afraid. And, you know, if they don't go get our food, people will starve to death because we won't be able to harvest enough food. But when I go look around, I am not hearing of farm workers being picked up and put in paddy wagons and flown to Colombia. What are you hearing, Steve? Is the ICE immigration is are farmers worried about this?
[00:15:08] Steve Conaway:
So far, I haven't heard very much concern where I am. I I did see on x, I think, last weekend, somebody reported that one of the the packers, they had ICE ICE enforcement officers outside of the packing house to to kind of I I don't know if it was the scare or or what exactly it was going on, but that that's kind of been the only thing I've ever heard about ICE enforcement coming after agriculture workers or suppliers. Where where I am in my area, Kansas, we really don't have any of your typical industries that you would think about would would have migrant workers in their working form. We don't have big slaughterhouses where I am. We don't have big feed yards or or dairies or anything like that in my area of Kansas. And so I might be a little bit insulated of of hearing from that.
So, yeah, it it's kinda hard to tell.
[00:16:06] Vance Crowe:
Yeah. I mean, I I the reason I brought that story up is because we heard for weeks running up to this that there's, like, a big, big issue. But when you start to dig in, you're like, this is clearly they're they're ramming down the doors of, you know, apartments in Denver. They're not where there are gangs everywhere. They're not trying to to come on to dairies and and round everybody up. They don't they're not trying to stop the orange harvest in California, but they may. What do you think? Do you think eventually the the ICE raids move from criminals to getting farm workers out so we have more jobs for Americans?
[00:16:41] Steve Conaway:
Well, eventually, it might lead there, but I think the next issue you start running into is how many Americans are gonna wanna do those jobs anyway. You know? Is it are we potentially shooting ourselves in the foot doing this? I do think it's a good idea, and I do think it's it's it's probably something that needs to be addressed, but it's like, well, is it gonna make inflation even worse? Is it gonna dry drive up the cost of producing, you know, dairy, vegetables, anything like that, even more? You know, especially, you know, in in California and Arizona, Southern Texas, Florida, where they do a lot more, I would call labor intensive agriculture with vegetables and fruit production stuff. Is is that gonna make things different?
[00:17:30] Vance Crowe:
Yeah. I guess there are what, there's been 60,000, federal workers that have accepted the, buyout. Maybe in eight months, they'll they'll consider a a life of doing farm work of picking crops and stuff instead of their, the government job that they didn't that they took the buyout from.
[00:17:46] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. I've seen some people speculate that about that online, but I don't know. You go from making a hundred and $50,000 a year sitting in your climate controlled office. I I really don't think you wanna be picking cucumbers or strawberries in hundred degree days all day. Yeah. And those people weren't even in their office. They were in their jammies at home also watching their kids.
[00:18:07] Vance Crowe:
Yeah. You know, working yeah. So, anyway, alright. On to headline number four. This is from Grain Stats on x. How many Ukrainian farmers were waiting for USAID for spring planting in 2025? The, story posted in 2023, USAID continued its support by supplying $12,000,000 worth of equipment to enhance grain export capacities resilience under its economic resilience activities. Additionally, fertilizers and seed were distributed to over 8,200 farmers across 15 regions. The agency also allocated 250,000,000 for 2023 for future agricultural growth through its harvest program.
Steve, US tax dollars going to, help the Ukrainians produce grain that potentially competes with our grain in The United States?
[00:18:58] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. That that just seems really backwards to me. We're funding our competitor so they can create grain that would compete against us in the world market, the world stage. Once again, I think I feel like I've said it a couple times today. I feel like we're shooting ourselves in the foot doing that. We're we're making things harder for our local farmers. Our people across The United States making it harder for for them to grow their corn, soybeans, and wheat when we're propping up this agriculture industry in in Ukraine. It it just seems very backwards to me.
[00:19:37] Vance Crowe:
Yeah. I I strongly think that we are just at the beginning of of uncovering so much of the waste and fraud and sending money to certain partners. One of the things, though, that struck me, I had a buddy tell me this today, that, all of this information that's come out about USAID was already posted by WikiLeaks, so you we could have gone out and found out that this stuff was going on. I'm sure somebody was bragging about how much work they did with the Ukraine, but it's only just now that people are listening and that the stories are bubbling up. I I think there's a bunch of stuff that, we're we we are years behind a media that is hungry for ripping apart the people that are supposed to be, the ones that are in charge, and we just haven't had a media doing that. So I think this is only the beginning of stuff we're gonna find out that our government has been funding our competitors.
[00:20:30] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. You you bring up an interesting point. Like, this was all public information already, and it makes me wonder what other things are out there or public information that we're just not bothering to look at and and, you know, make make things even worse, make things look even worse. And nobody's just gotten there yet because they're they're, rightfully so, maybe just too busy with their own lives. Don't really have time to to go digging down giant rabbit holes seeing waste, but then when somebody does bring it up to the surface, everybody's up in arms about it. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how much more gets brought up and and more of the cutting cutting block falls and where people are gonna slash next.
[00:21:13] Vance Crowe:
Alright. Well, thank you, Steve, for running through the news of the day. If you have news that you think we should cover, you can always send it to me on x. These are some of the best stories. In fact, the ones that I I get sent to me are almost always the ones that help me find, like, what should we be talking about tonight. So send it to me on [email protected]. Alright. Now on to the Bitcoin land price report. So, Steve, you live in Riley County, Kansas. Where is that?
[00:21:42] Steve Conaway:
So that that is, Manhattan, Kansas, which is home to k State, is in Riley County, Kansas. And, yeah, I live here. It's kind of the between Northeast North Central Part of Kansas. It's just North of I 70, about eight, ten miles, and right in the heart of the Flint Hills, but we do have some pretty fertile, row crop ground in the river bottoms.
[00:22:07] Vance Crowe:
Okay. So considering the the type of soil and the planting and the life out there, what does an acre of high quality farmland cost in Riley County, Kansas?
[00:22:17] Steve Conaway:
So about where I am on average, considering everything going on in all the surrounding counties as well, I'd say on average, the high quality farm ground probably sells for $8,000 an acre, and that, I do wanna say that is with irrigation most of the time.
[00:22:35] Vance Crowe:
Alright. So last week's Bitcoin price was a hundred and 3,000 at press time, and today, we are sitting at 96,000, which is down 6.8% from last week. But if you've been watching Bitcoin's price, it is up and down and up and down right in that band. So it has been, to Bitcoiners, totally steady. And to people that are new to the market, this is like wild fluctuations of 6%. So in Steves County, if $8,000 per acre, that equals 0.083 Bitcoin would buy you one acre of, ground. Or in other words, if you had one Bitcoin, it would buy you 12 acres of farmland in Steves County. Steve, how does that sit with you?
[00:23:18] Steve Conaway:
Well, knowing what Bitcoin was three, four years ago, that that is kinda kinda depressing. I remember listening to you probably four years ago before COVID. You were pushing Bitcoin back then. And and, man, you we should have been buying Bitcoin back then because we we could be buying quarters of farmland at a time now for for about $10,000 back then.
[00:23:44] Vance Crowe:
Oh, man. Thank you. I I there's not many people that have that, can make those references, so I appreciate it. This last week, you and I had a pretty fun experience. You downloaded a, a wallet, a lightning wallet, and then got some Satoshis. So why don't you talk a little bit about that? How'd that go?
[00:24:01] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. You asked me to download a wallet, and you sent me some Satoshis. And I was very surprised about how easy it was. I it very similar to other brokerage account apps that I have on my phone, and it operated very much the same. And I'm like, wow. This this is very similar to what I do or things I've done in the past trading stock, but it's just with Bitcoin or Satoshi.
[00:24:26] Vance Crowe:
And it's like, wow. If I would have known it was this easy, I should have done it a long time ago. So if Have you had a chance to send the so so I sent 500 SATs to you. Did you get a chance to get anybody to download it and and accept some SATs from you? So I was talking to a coworker yesterday
[00:24:45] Steve Conaway:
telling him we should do it, and he was he was very defensive about it. He's like, no. No. No. That's all speculation. It's like, well, you never know till you try.
[00:24:55] Vance Crowe:
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I had a blast this week. 17 people, ended up writing me and getting the app and, downloading it and me sending them SATs. And I know that blew past my 10, but I was having so much fun, and I actually was learning a bunch of stuff I didn't know. So I finally found out, like, in The US, you wanna use the Strike, wallet, the the Strike app. That's the one to use. And in Canada, we've had a bunch of people trying it, and they love Wallet as Satoshi. But the best part about it is there's all these people now, and we're, like, flinging sats around back and forth. And you're like, you can you you can do something with this that you can't do with a credit card. You can't do with anything else. It's it's, like, so much fun.
[00:25:36] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, it's it's almost like trading Pokemon cards or baseball cards back back when you were a kid. You know? And and look today how how much some of those are worth. It's it's
[00:25:49] Vance Crowe:
kinda the same same mentality going along. Well, I don't know that I would make that comparison. I think that but I I appreciate it. Right? Like, that it can appreciate in in value, but the the excitement of it is like Pokemon. Mon. The excitement of it is like, hey. Can you do this? So that's very clever. Alright. If you are interested in getting involved in Bitcoin, download one of those lightning wallets I mentioned. Or if you'd like to support the show and you think you'd like to buy Bitcoin, you the app the exchange that I use is river.com. There, if you set up a reoccurring buy for Bitcoin, they actually take away all the fees. I have, an affiliate link with them. So if you, use the link that I provide, then if you buy a certain amount of Bitcoin, then, it sends me a little bit of Bitcoin to show, and that helps us grow. So if you're interested in doing that and once you do it, then, start slinging sats around and having fun.
Alright. Up next is the Peter Thiel paradox. Steve, what is one thing that you believe that almost nobody in your tribe agrees with you on?
[00:26:51] Steve Conaway:
So I think come twenty, forty years from now, the things that are driving the value of agriculture real estate today will not be the same things in the future. Today, it is mostly row crop production, livestock production. I think in the future, people will be flocking to agriculture real estate for things besides that. It kind of goes goes against the first the first news article we talked about today, but people may be investing in it for carbon credits, for government subsidies, for I know this is really gonna make some people upset, but for the a carbon pipeline, for solar farms, for wind energy, you know, things things that were just on the cutting cutting edge now. And I I do know a lot of those are supported by government subsidies as well, and they wouldn't be sustainable on their own. But it's amazing how many people, just the institutional investors are looking to farmland saying, wait. I can buy this for several thousand dollars an acre, put a solar farm on it, and make $500 per acre per year, this is this is a good investment when I stack it together. And so I think that's gonna prop up farmland in the long term way more than than just growing grain or growing your livestock on it.
[00:28:17] Vance Crowe:
Well, I, I gotta give you some credit here because, I do disagree with you. I mean, I think that, Doge is gonna be one of those things that shows farmers and really landowners, hey. Hey. There's a bunch of subsidies we used to be able to go through here and get money. The price was all distorted on land, and now there's a real strong chance that it's gonna go down. If you end up betting that way, it's a pretty big gamble because we don't know what's gonna happen between now and July fourth of twenty twenty six.
[00:28:44] Steve Conaway:
So do you think if if the Doge does come through and starts cutting all sorts of things, do you think we'll see agriculture, real estate prices go down substantially, or do you think they're they're kind of there's enough demand out there that we won't really see a drop?
[00:29:01] Vance Crowe:
I think you would see a drop almost certainly, and it really depends on which ones you're talking about. I mean, if you cut out the renewable fuel standard, now all of a sudden, like, you have so much supply you couldn't you couldn't possibly justify it. And so then you'll start seeing people say, well, I'm not I'm not gonna keep farming. I can't do this. So I think there's this is a real chance. I think there's a potential for a revolution in land prices, but whether they're up or down, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I I'll definitely agree with you if the renewable fuel standard,
[00:29:30] Steve Conaway:
starts getting cut. That's gonna cause some issues. But I guess I guess I'm kinda bullish that that's that's gonna stay there, and the cuts aren't gonna be that drastic. But that's something where you and I disagree on, I think.
[00:29:44] Vance Crowe:
Well, that's good. I'm gonna give you an eight eight because you found one I didn't, I didn't necessarily agree with, but you didn't convince me. But I'm glad you brought it up. So, well, this will be a good question to ask going forward. Alright. And finally, onto the worthy adversary section. Steve, who is somebody that you respect on social media but you completely disagree with?
[00:30:06] Steve Conaway:
So there there's a guy on x. His name is, his handle is Barefoot Informer. He's out of South Dakota. I think his real name is Louie Nigg. I I think I'm pronouncing his last name correctly, but I'm not quite sure. But he he is kind of the opposite of what I am. I'm very bullish, long term land ownership and that I think it's a great long term play to own own farmland for a variety of different reasons. But he is he is pushes back on me quite a bit. And not just me, the other people as well saying that, no. You're better off doing going long term in the stock market. Just putting all your money in the stock market, you're you're gonna make way more money long term.
I do think he's right. I know if if you're looking at it from a purely investment standpoint, I think putting investing in the stock market long term might be better. But I don't know. I I know my family's made a substantial amount of money owning, owning farmland through the years due to farmland appreciation. So it's it's hard for me to to to go a % into the stock market and, you know, basically, going a % on the stock market would mean selling everything you have in ag and just doing all that, and I can't do that.
[00:31:33] Vance Crowe:
Well, I, I that's a great one, man. It's not every day that somebody brings a good one. It makes me wanna take another look at him. I actually do see Barefoot and Farmer all the time. He goes at Louis d n, and, ever since you turned me on to him, I'm I find him to be very interesting. Good good choice there. So if you'd like to see more worthy adversaries, you can see it on a list on, my x page. Well done there, man. I I like that one. I, wanted to throw out that Corey Hilleboe, from, Farm for Profit said local 40 came up listed for sale for 0.17 Bitcoin per acre, and a local realtor told me he had, more offers above asking price. So very interesting, Corey.
Do you think, you'll see any more land coming up for sale there where you're at in Bitcoin?
[00:32:23] Steve Conaway:
I don't I don't know if it'll come up in Bitcoin. That that's kind of I've been thinking about this too. You know? They say a lot of the land that's gonna sell in the next ten to fifteen years is owned by older older generations. And I think you and I had a had a exchange on x a couple weeks ago that until a new newer generation comes in that much rather hold Bitcoin than farmland, I think it's it's gonna be hard to convince the older generation, like, say, hey. I'll give you a couple Bitcoin for what it takes to to buy this land. Until a younger generation comes along and says, I'd much rather own Bitcoin than farmland.
[00:33:04] Vance Crowe:
I don't know. I don't know how that will go. I mean, I gotta say that my experience over the last couple of days, the last week has shocked me because it is the 60 year old plus farmers that did, lightning wallets. So I send them 500 Satoshis. They go away and play with it. They, you know, get their wife to download it. They send them back and forth. A couple days later, they write me, and they're like, oh my gosh. I'm now starting to get it. I understand. Oh, there's only 21,000,000, and then they have all these questions. They are so much more engaged, and many of them make reference to the savings and loan crisis and all the inflation that's happened over time. So to me, it seems like there is a pocket of older farmers that are more willing to try things than I think they're given credit for. So I I see that that group of people buying Bitcoin faster than I think most people think could happen.
[00:33:57] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely interesting. I know my wife and I have we have right of first refusal on, a couple pieces of property that'll be selling in the future. And for those of you who don't know what right of first refusal is, it's when the seller gets prepared to sell, they have to come to us first, and then we can decide if we wanna buy it or not. And so that's definitely will be happening in the next couple years that he'll have to come to us and say, hey. I'm ready to sell. Do you wanna buy? And so it would be interesting if I said, yeah. But instead of giving you cash, I'll give you Bitcoin instead just just to see what his response would be or or what the real estate broker's response would be if I said that to them.
[00:34:39] Vance Crowe:
Well, one of the interesting things just happened in the Czech Republic. They made it so if you hold Bitcoin for three years, they consider that a long term, and they don't pay capital gains on it. So there could be a way to own property and not be paying capital gains and also not being paying property tax, which is one of the things that farmers have to do. So you have to pay a lot of property tax in order to be able to hold on to that land. They don't actually own it. They're just renting it from the government.
[00:35:04] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And then and then especially, like, especially if you're in one of these government industries or subsidies that we've talked about before, like, let's just throw out CRP that you're gonna maintain it and make sure it doesn't get grown up with trees or anything like that. And so not just property taxes, but management expenses in there as well.
[00:35:25] Vance Crowe:
I think there's a lot of, people that are older that once they understood the value and the virtues of having Bitcoin, they would say, hey. Maybe I don't have to hold on to this land in order to be able to maintain my assets assets and my standard of living. There's gonna be other ways to do it. So I think that, I think ag is going to change faster than other industries because I think that they see things about inflation. They know about trading so much deeper than just the general public. Mhmm.
[00:35:53] Steve Conaway:
Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. That that's probably true. And and if you're right there, if if we see a bunch of farmers who much rather own Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, whatever it might be more than they rather own Ag Land, there's definitely gonna be a lot of ag land coming to come come up for sale and as people try to, balance out their portfolio or divest themselves with the ag land. And then we're definitely gonna see a a market crash then.
[00:36:21] Vance Crowe:
Well, Steve, this has been a fantastic conversation. If people wanted to interact with you more, see more about what you're up to, where would they go? Yeah. I mostly just interact on x,
[00:36:33] Steve Conaway:
under Steve Conaway one. And, yeah, people DM me quite often asking about different things, so feel free to to slide into the DMs. I am on Instagram, but I'm not very active on there either. And those those are about the only two social media platforms that I I do much interaction on. And I'm sure after my Peter Thiel paradox that there might be quite a few people up in arms against me and saying how I'm all wrong and everything. So, yeah, feel free to feel free to give me your opinions. And I I am kinda busy, so it might take a couple days before I reply to you. But, yeah, I'd love to hear other people's thoughts.
[00:37:13] Vance Crowe:
Good. Yeah, man. You found a a point of view that hopefully will strike up some conversations. So, Steve, thank you so much for coming on.
[00:37:20] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Thank you, Vance.
[00:37:22] Vance Crowe:
Alright. I'm gonna sign off here in just a moment, but I actually wanted to do something real quick. I, if you're watching this, you probably can see that I am wearing a vest. It says, FCS Financial, and I wore this on purpose. I don't normally wear things with logos on it, but the reason that I wore it is because, a few months ago, I was invited to be on their board as an outside board member. And, when they approached me, I actually had very little interest in it. You know, I'm I'm not super into The US banking system. There's all kinds of challenges that I see with farming, and I I kind of understood vaguely that they have some relationship with the government. So I only went along with it because I was like, Hey, it's interesting that they would, you know, call me up, that they would ask me to be a part of their board.
And I went through a series of interviews that concluded with an interview with the entire board, and, I actually, in my entire life, have never been through a more, intense and rigorous interview process. I found out that the people that were on that board were very serious about who they were bringing in as outside board members. They wanted to know, all about how I thought about things and what what was important to me, what, what I would be able to, dedicate to it, and why I would even dedicate anything to it. And after that happened, I I went from being somebody that said, like, I don't I don't have time for this. I've got my business. I've got all these things going on, to being like actually, I would really enjoy talking with these people, month in and month out, getting to know them. They know about things I don't know about. And when I'm in St. Louis, I don't get to hang out with my tribe. My tribe is ag. I I talk about agricultural issues. I talk about what's going on, in, commodity prices. This is what I care about. And so I decided to take that role.
And what the I wrote about that on on LinkedIn, but I never actually came here to the podcast to say that I had done it. And, the reason I'm doing it now and the reason I wore this is because we all kinda see that joke about, you know, when senators, take money from lobbyists, they should have to wear it on as, like, a decal on their, on their on their shirts, right, on their dresses, on their suits. They should have to say, who's giving me money? Because who you get money from can impact how you feel about things, what ideas you're exposed to, what ideas you wanna propagate. And I think that this is a deeply important thing that needs to happen in our culture and our society, and that is what Doge is truly uncovering. And even if the this was already known, they're shining a spotlight on it so we can see how is our money getting spent, who is being influenced by various, you know, political actors and government and organizations.
And I don't think that there is anything inherently wrong with getting paid for offering your services, for getting paid for being a part of a group that's contributing effort to move something forward. But the reason that I wanted to wear this here and talk with you about it is because there is way too much going on in the shadows, And I believe that we are going to see some big time, lights shown on some of our largest institutions, some of ag's media groups. And, and I think that, like, hey. Let's just have a conversation about what's going on with our tax dollars, with what our government is supporting, with what messages they are forcing groups to put out there.
I heard from many, many listeners this week about things that were coming out in Doge and and it really, you know, pointing at some of these large institutions, things like commodity groups, things like checkoff programs. And I think that this is important that everybody just comes to the table, talks about where they get their money, and then talk about, hey. Does this influence you in some way that it shouldn't? Does this, make it so you're advocating for one thing as opposed to another or that you're on the side of of people that are in competition with us? Whatever that is, I think that this is an important discussion to have, and so I wanted to lead with it. I didn't wanna be a person that said, hey. If you're getting paid by somebody, everybody should know it. I I'm letting you guys know because I think that this is what we should expect of everyone that has, you know, a big public voice, everybody that is on, you know, boards, everybody that is running institutions.
We should be talking about how do you get funded and what is that influencing you. Anyway, I just wanted to close-up with that. I didn't want to, to make Steve, have to sit on here for it. But I'm gonna wrap up, by reminding you, if you are interested in Bitcoin, I believe that it is a deeply important technology. And if you would like to get it, you can use river.com. I'll have a link in the show notes that if you buy it from there, you will be helping not only yourself procure Bitcoin from a good exchange, but also helping the show because we will get a few Bitcoin for it. Also, if you have been thinking about doing a legacy interview, this is where I sit down with your loved ones to record them talking about their life stories so that future generations can know where they came from and the stories that make up who you are, then, go to legacyinterviews.com and book a call with me. We are doing, many, many interviews a week. We're now, definitely two months out on being able to schedule, so don't wait around. If you have somebody that you love, you wanna capture their stories, contact me, and we will have a great call about it. Thank you so much. I, I hope we can continue this conversation on x. I think the next few, weeks and months are going to be absolutely wild.
So, have fun, be kind to one another, and always feel free to
[00:43:05] Unknown:
disagree.
Support for the AgTribes 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 Interview's guests, Daryl and Jill Stamp, on the joy of filming their Legacy Interview.
[00:00:36] Vance Crowe:
What do you think you'll tell your kids about the experience?
[00:00:39] Unknown:
Oh, I'm gonna thank them a lot. I realize this is more for them and their kids and their kids than it is us, the grandkids Right. Don't know these stories. I can't wait to for us all to get together and see it. This went better than I thought it was gonna. Time does go fast, so it's What time is it? It's almost 03:00. No way. Yes. God, you talked so much. I know.
[00:01:08] Unknown:
Welcome to the AgTribe's report, a breakdown of the stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host, Vance Crow. The report begins in three, two, one. Let's begin.
[00:01:22] Vance Crowe:
Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crow. Each week, I find check-in with a member of one of the many Ag Tribes that make up US Agriculture. And this week, we have Steve Conaway, otherwise known as, Steve Conaway one on x. Steve is a farmer with an interest in agricultural economics, real estate, and the financial aspects of rental properties. I had one of those rare opportunities to meet Steve at, the first field day I ever went, that was put on by Jason Mach, one of these farm weird field days. And I can tell you that any person you meet at a farm weird event has got a story and, knows interesting things because you don't show up to those places by accident. So, Steve, welcome to the Ag Tribes Report.
[00:02:08] Steve Conaway:
Well, thanks for having me, Vance. It was it's an honor to be a part of tonight's, report.
[00:02:14] Vance Crowe:
So talk a little bit about, why you share on x. What is it that you're kind of have an expertise in? What are you interested in hearing about from other people?
[00:02:24] Steve Conaway:
So yeah. So a little bit about me. I am a real estate appraiser, for a large agriculture bank here in Kansas. I'm in the process of getting my real estate appraiser's license, and I grew up on a large family farm where I still farm with my family there as well. And then I got married last year, and my wife and I are partial owners in ag real estate as well as own some rental properties as well. So my emphasis is very much in real estate, agriculture real estate, agriculture economics, and just kind of agriculture financing. My wife's, has a PhD in agronomy, and so that is definitely her side of of things. She knows agronomy.
I don't really know agronomy. So, yeah, I just share on x and online just the economic side of agriculture production, agriculture real estate.
[00:03:19] Vance Crowe:
When I, originally asked Steve to come on, I said, hey, man. Would you, also send me a photo? And he did this, thing where he's like, hey. Can I he sent me a photo of him with his beautiful wife, and I was like, no way, man? I'm not giving you any advantages here. I'm not gonna let people see that you have this drop dead gorgeous wife. So to find out she also has her PhD and you guys work closely together is, is pretty impressive.
[00:03:41] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. My family definitely gives gives me a hard time. They're like, yeah. You
[00:03:46] Vance Crowe:
really married up. You outtaped your coverage. It's like That's that's actually true. This this guy is not lying about that. So there must be something special about him. And we'll find out as we go through this week's headlines, which we're gonna start off by talking about Iowa soybeans defending their USDA grant in the land of Doge. Mexico is gonna drop restrictions on, US US GMO corn imports, and, we're gonna talk a little bit about if ICE raids are, really gonna him back to all of our farm workers, or is it all just hype? We're also gonna talk about the Bitcoin land price report. We'll hear Steve's Peter Thiel paradox, and we'll find out who is his worthy adversary. And we're gonna do it all in just thirty minutes. So let's get started. Alright. Headline number one is, kind of a big deal.
Iowa's soybean defends USDA grant that was suspended after Doge rolls through. So a guy named Benjamin Reiche Ranish, I've never met him before, he posted on x an image of the USDA, giving a $97,000,000 grant to the Iowa Soybean Association. Rinesh initially thought that it was a USAID grant, and Iowa Soy was so concerned about the claims that he was making that they called him up to present their side of the story. So from their perspective, they're saying the program matched by private sector funding was intended to create new markets and revenue for farmers adopting climate smart practices that benefit soil health. So some of the, the programs impact 90 acres of conservation practices enrolled across 12 states. 600,000 acres have been enrolled across Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. It just kinda goes on and on. It says average farmer payment of $33 per acre, and it's ostensibly for putting down things like, the reductions in soil erosion, nitrogen, phosphorus. So they are putting it forward as, look. We're, we the USDA contributes $1, and the program ends up paying farmers a dollar 20.
So there's this giant grant, but it's not from USAID, and they're saying it has all these good impacts. Steve, this is all money that's being paid from by tax taxpayers designed to get farmers to do something they don't have an economic incentive to do. Do you think this, that Doge is gonna start coming after subsidies like this one?
[00:06:18] Steve Conaway:
Well, I mean, I think eventually, but it's kind of kind of hard to tell how how how much will Doge actually go for things. Like, are are farmers gonna be impervious to to these budget cuts? And kind of my problem of kind of what you talked about there, and you sent me a news article to look at as well, is it kinda seemed like these farmers were not doing the conservation practices first, but with this money that they now are. To me, that kinda sounds like bribery of kind of like, hey, you don't wanna do this. We're gonna give you money so you will do it. Or and it's like, if it doesn't stand on its foot by itself, like, why are we subsidizing this in the first place? But at at the same time, I can understand why it's probably good for soil health and maybe why there's some, dying old farmers who always wanna do extensive tillage all the time that they need a little bit more economic incentive to to change their practice as well. So
[00:07:23] Vance Crowe:
I can I can debate both sides of it here? I mean, I strongly dislike the, the, you know, using taxpayer dollars to fund anything that people could be doing on their own. If it is actually valuable, they'll do it on their own. But I would say even outside of that, you know, if people right now have a part a proportion of their income that's reliant on subsidies that come from fighting climate change, well, the Trump administration just went in and said, we're, you know, crossing climate change out of all the documents. So if you're if you're getting paid subsidies to fight climate change when when we're no longer fighting climate change, I think those will be pretty easy subsidies to cut.
[00:08:01] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. I I definitely think the cuts are coming. But my question is, if you're not getting subsidies from the government, could you do the same practices and maybe a giant corporation are paying you to offset their carbon as well. Who knows? Like,
[00:08:20] Vance Crowe:
Yeah. I mean, it's all that'll be really interesting to see because if the government gets out of carbon markets and they aren't sitting there helping to, you know, be the air traffic controller for companies to do this, you gotta ask yourself, are they gonna continue to do it? I think it also brings up a larger question, is how much are farmers going to be upset when they find out some of their organizations have been accepting big government grants? And does that end up impacting what those organizations are advocating for? What what agendas they're pushing forward because who you who you pay who pays you ends up they are your customers. Those are the people you're gonna please.
[00:08:56] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. And then I think the other thing that concerns me a little bit just because my background in, ag finances, if a farmer's getting 10%, fifteen % of his revenue from these government programs and they're suddenly cut, that can really hit the bottom line. And what what is your banker gonna say or your loan underwriter is if you lose 15% of your revenue already on a down year like we're seeing the past couple years, that's that's really gonna gonna cause some concern for some guys.
[00:09:27] Vance Crowe:
Yeah. And I think, it's it's like I don't think there's any group that's safe. I, for a while there, was thinking that, you know, Trump didn't wanna upset ag, but I think there's gonna be so much money being funneled through USDA to prop up projects that have nothing at all to do with agriculture. But when you start cutting them back, I think there's gonna be a whole lot of organizations that have been able to grow to the size that they are that are, that are gonna really struggle when they're not getting those government dollars from USDA or USAID or whoever.
[00:10:02] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. I I I agree. And I think sometimes we in ag think we're so important and we're better than everyone else, but, you know, you look at across the whole nation, I think ag ag is pretty small compared to how much GDP is is produced by, say, the health care industry or something like that. You know? They're they're gonna get they have much better lobbyists than than we do here in the ag industry.
[00:10:31] Vance Crowe:
Yeah. Well, it's gonna be interesting to see how money being uncovered, groups getting funded. It's gonna it's gonna pan out in interesting ways. I think there's gonna be a lot of people called to task on why they took money from who. So moving on to headline number two, Mexico has formally dropped restrictions on GMO corn imports. Previous plans to ban such grain could have significantly reduced US Corn Experts exports. So, this was reported by Karen Braun, a global agricultural common columnist at Thomson Reuters, and she's saying, hey. Mexico is repealing the import restrictions on genetically modified corn for humans, livestock, and industrial uses, following the North American trade panel, putting in in their, judgment. So this is the USMCA, and, they said, hey. You can't do this, Mexico. So Mexico, agreed to comply with this agreement, which means now they're going to be accepting GMO corn when they said they didn't want to.
Steve, what do you think of this? Should The US view this as a win,
[00:11:33] Steve Conaway:
because we're able to push the doors open in Mexico? Or where where do you where do you fall down with? I I think, historically, I'm pretty sure Mexico has been one of our biggest exporters or one of the biggest people we export our corn to. So that that's gonna be great that that, kinda wrinkle is smoothed out and that we can keep exporting our corn down there. And I think that's really gonna, help drive up maybe just in the temporary the the corn market. It seems like it's really been on a rally in the past month or two, so maybe this helps push it a little bit higher and it makes the guys a little, a lot of the guys across the traditional corn belt a little bit more optimistic going into this 2025 growing season if we keep seeing corn rally.
But at the same time, it's like, is is this just gonna be a temporary setback in a couple years? Or are they gonna kinda claw this back and and try to say that no no more GMO GMO, imports from you guys, United States.
[00:12:32] Vance Crowe:
It seems to me like the Mexican president, who went on to say, hey. We may put the, the banning of cultivating GMO craps into our constitution. I believe that they have the potential to turn this into a cultural thing where the people don't want GMO craps. But until then, should the do you think, like, good, The US should be cheering it on that that a group said we don't want this, and yet now they have to take it? We wouldn't want our door kicked open and have somebody shoveling in crops we don't want.
[00:13:03] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. And I I don't wonder how much how much is it the Trump administration putting leverage on them as well of of kinda, hey. We'll we'll look the other way on a couple things over here if you reinstate this or or agree to that. How much is there going on behind closed doors that we don't we don't really realize. But, yeah, you do bring up a good point. If if the tables were turned, we would be really upset about that. And and, yeah, I think long term, I think it's more of a cultural issue, not just for Mexico, but probably in the entire world of how long do we want the these GMO type products in our in our foods.
[00:13:47] Vance Crowe:
I think that this question, went away for a while, and the ag companies and all the different ag, you know, commodity groups, they kind of said, alright. Look looks like the GMO fight is over. But the reality was it just morphed. It became a glyphosate fight, and now people are back. And I think the Maha movement is definitely gonna blow oxygen onto people not wanting GMOs. So it'll be interesting to see what what gets grown and what gets demanded because I think a lot of people don't care. But if you can get culture riled up, it can it can really have big impacts. Alright. Headline number three, are ICE raids impacting farms? There are endless news stories about ag workers not showing up from fear of being deported, but few stories of people actually being deported.
So I was looking through Fast Company, and they, they were putting forward this like, well, there's up to 800,000 farm workers in California, and half of them, according to governor Newsom's office, may be undocumented, and they aren't coming to work and they're afraid. And, you know, if they don't go get our food, people will starve to death because we won't be able to harvest enough food. But when I go look around, I am not hearing of farm workers being picked up and put in paddy wagons and flown to Colombia. What are you hearing, Steve? Is the ICE immigration is are farmers worried about this?
[00:15:08] Steve Conaway:
So far, I haven't heard very much concern where I am. I I did see on x, I think, last weekend, somebody reported that one of the the packers, they had ICE ICE enforcement officers outside of the packing house to to kind of I I don't know if it was the scare or or what exactly it was going on, but that that's kind of been the only thing I've ever heard about ICE enforcement coming after agriculture workers or suppliers. Where where I am in my area, Kansas, we really don't have any of your typical industries that you would think about would would have migrant workers in their working form. We don't have big slaughterhouses where I am. We don't have big feed yards or or dairies or anything like that in my area of Kansas. And so I might be a little bit insulated of of hearing from that.
So, yeah, it it's kinda hard to tell.
[00:16:06] Vance Crowe:
Yeah. I mean, I I the reason I brought that story up is because we heard for weeks running up to this that there's, like, a big, big issue. But when you start to dig in, you're like, this is clearly they're they're ramming down the doors of, you know, apartments in Denver. They're not where there are gangs everywhere. They're not trying to to come on to dairies and and round everybody up. They don't they're not trying to stop the orange harvest in California, but they may. What do you think? Do you think eventually the the ICE raids move from criminals to getting farm workers out so we have more jobs for Americans?
[00:16:41] Steve Conaway:
Well, eventually, it might lead there, but I think the next issue you start running into is how many Americans are gonna wanna do those jobs anyway. You know? Is it are we potentially shooting ourselves in the foot doing this? I do think it's a good idea, and I do think it's it's it's probably something that needs to be addressed, but it's like, well, is it gonna make inflation even worse? Is it gonna dry drive up the cost of producing, you know, dairy, vegetables, anything like that, even more? You know, especially, you know, in in California and Arizona, Southern Texas, Florida, where they do a lot more, I would call labor intensive agriculture with vegetables and fruit production stuff. Is is that gonna make things different?
[00:17:30] Vance Crowe:
Yeah. I guess there are what, there's been 60,000, federal workers that have accepted the, buyout. Maybe in eight months, they'll they'll consider a a life of doing farm work of picking crops and stuff instead of their, the government job that they didn't that they took the buyout from.
[00:17:46] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. I've seen some people speculate that about that online, but I don't know. You go from making a hundred and $50,000 a year sitting in your climate controlled office. I I really don't think you wanna be picking cucumbers or strawberries in hundred degree days all day. Yeah. And those people weren't even in their office. They were in their jammies at home also watching their kids.
[00:18:07] Vance Crowe:
Yeah. You know, working yeah. So, anyway, alright. On to headline number four. This is from Grain Stats on x. How many Ukrainian farmers were waiting for USAID for spring planting in 2025? The, story posted in 2023, USAID continued its support by supplying $12,000,000 worth of equipment to enhance grain export capacities resilience under its economic resilience activities. Additionally, fertilizers and seed were distributed to over 8,200 farmers across 15 regions. The agency also allocated 250,000,000 for 2023 for future agricultural growth through its harvest program.
Steve, US tax dollars going to, help the Ukrainians produce grain that potentially competes with our grain in The United States?
[00:18:58] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. That that just seems really backwards to me. We're funding our competitor so they can create grain that would compete against us in the world market, the world stage. Once again, I think I feel like I've said it a couple times today. I feel like we're shooting ourselves in the foot doing that. We're we're making things harder for our local farmers. Our people across The United States making it harder for for them to grow their corn, soybeans, and wheat when we're propping up this agriculture industry in in Ukraine. It it just seems very backwards to me.
[00:19:37] Vance Crowe:
Yeah. I I strongly think that we are just at the beginning of of uncovering so much of the waste and fraud and sending money to certain partners. One of the things, though, that struck me, I had a buddy tell me this today, that, all of this information that's come out about USAID was already posted by WikiLeaks, so you we could have gone out and found out that this stuff was going on. I'm sure somebody was bragging about how much work they did with the Ukraine, but it's only just now that people are listening and that the stories are bubbling up. I I think there's a bunch of stuff that, we're we we are years behind a media that is hungry for ripping apart the people that are supposed to be, the ones that are in charge, and we just haven't had a media doing that. So I think this is only the beginning of stuff we're gonna find out that our government has been funding our competitors.
[00:20:30] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. You you bring up an interesting point. Like, this was all public information already, and it makes me wonder what other things are out there or public information that we're just not bothering to look at and and, you know, make make things even worse, make things look even worse. And nobody's just gotten there yet because they're they're, rightfully so, maybe just too busy with their own lives. Don't really have time to to go digging down giant rabbit holes seeing waste, but then when somebody does bring it up to the surface, everybody's up in arms about it. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how much more gets brought up and and more of the cutting cutting block falls and where people are gonna slash next.
[00:21:13] Vance Crowe:
Alright. Well, thank you, Steve, for running through the news of the day. If you have news that you think we should cover, you can always send it to me on x. These are some of the best stories. In fact, the ones that I I get sent to me are almost always the ones that help me find, like, what should we be talking about tonight. So send it to me on [email protected]. Alright. Now on to the Bitcoin land price report. So, Steve, you live in Riley County, Kansas. Where is that?
[00:21:42] Steve Conaway:
So that that is, Manhattan, Kansas, which is home to k State, is in Riley County, Kansas. And, yeah, I live here. It's kind of the between Northeast North Central Part of Kansas. It's just North of I 70, about eight, ten miles, and right in the heart of the Flint Hills, but we do have some pretty fertile, row crop ground in the river bottoms.
[00:22:07] Vance Crowe:
Okay. So considering the the type of soil and the planting and the life out there, what does an acre of high quality farmland cost in Riley County, Kansas?
[00:22:17] Steve Conaway:
So about where I am on average, considering everything going on in all the surrounding counties as well, I'd say on average, the high quality farm ground probably sells for $8,000 an acre, and that, I do wanna say that is with irrigation most of the time.
[00:22:35] Vance Crowe:
Alright. So last week's Bitcoin price was a hundred and 3,000 at press time, and today, we are sitting at 96,000, which is down 6.8% from last week. But if you've been watching Bitcoin's price, it is up and down and up and down right in that band. So it has been, to Bitcoiners, totally steady. And to people that are new to the market, this is like wild fluctuations of 6%. So in Steves County, if $8,000 per acre, that equals 0.083 Bitcoin would buy you one acre of, ground. Or in other words, if you had one Bitcoin, it would buy you 12 acres of farmland in Steves County. Steve, how does that sit with you?
[00:23:18] Steve Conaway:
Well, knowing what Bitcoin was three, four years ago, that that is kinda kinda depressing. I remember listening to you probably four years ago before COVID. You were pushing Bitcoin back then. And and, man, you we should have been buying Bitcoin back then because we we could be buying quarters of farmland at a time now for for about $10,000 back then.
[00:23:44] Vance Crowe:
Oh, man. Thank you. I I there's not many people that have that, can make those references, so I appreciate it. This last week, you and I had a pretty fun experience. You downloaded a, a wallet, a lightning wallet, and then got some Satoshis. So why don't you talk a little bit about that? How'd that go?
[00:24:01] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. You asked me to download a wallet, and you sent me some Satoshis. And I was very surprised about how easy it was. I it very similar to other brokerage account apps that I have on my phone, and it operated very much the same. And I'm like, wow. This this is very similar to what I do or things I've done in the past trading stock, but it's just with Bitcoin or Satoshi.
[00:24:26] Vance Crowe:
And it's like, wow. If I would have known it was this easy, I should have done it a long time ago. So if Have you had a chance to send the so so I sent 500 SATs to you. Did you get a chance to get anybody to download it and and accept some SATs from you? So I was talking to a coworker yesterday
[00:24:45] Steve Conaway:
telling him we should do it, and he was he was very defensive about it. He's like, no. No. No. That's all speculation. It's like, well, you never know till you try.
[00:24:55] Vance Crowe:
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I had a blast this week. 17 people, ended up writing me and getting the app and, downloading it and me sending them SATs. And I know that blew past my 10, but I was having so much fun, and I actually was learning a bunch of stuff I didn't know. So I finally found out, like, in The US, you wanna use the Strike, wallet, the the Strike app. That's the one to use. And in Canada, we've had a bunch of people trying it, and they love Wallet as Satoshi. But the best part about it is there's all these people now, and we're, like, flinging sats around back and forth. And you're like, you can you you can do something with this that you can't do with a credit card. You can't do with anything else. It's it's, like, so much fun.
[00:25:36] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, it's it's almost like trading Pokemon cards or baseball cards back back when you were a kid. You know? And and look today how how much some of those are worth. It's it's
[00:25:49] Vance Crowe:
kinda the same same mentality going along. Well, I don't know that I would make that comparison. I think that but I I appreciate it. Right? Like, that it can appreciate in in value, but the the excitement of it is like Pokemon. Mon. The excitement of it is like, hey. Can you do this? So that's very clever. Alright. If you are interested in getting involved in Bitcoin, download one of those lightning wallets I mentioned. Or if you'd like to support the show and you think you'd like to buy Bitcoin, you the app the exchange that I use is river.com. There, if you set up a reoccurring buy for Bitcoin, they actually take away all the fees. I have, an affiliate link with them. So if you, use the link that I provide, then if you buy a certain amount of Bitcoin, then, it sends me a little bit of Bitcoin to show, and that helps us grow. So if you're interested in doing that and once you do it, then, start slinging sats around and having fun.
Alright. Up next is the Peter Thiel paradox. Steve, what is one thing that you believe that almost nobody in your tribe agrees with you on?
[00:26:51] Steve Conaway:
So I think come twenty, forty years from now, the things that are driving the value of agriculture real estate today will not be the same things in the future. Today, it is mostly row crop production, livestock production. I think in the future, people will be flocking to agriculture real estate for things besides that. It kind of goes goes against the first the first news article we talked about today, but people may be investing in it for carbon credits, for government subsidies, for I know this is really gonna make some people upset, but for the a carbon pipeline, for solar farms, for wind energy, you know, things things that were just on the cutting cutting edge now. And I I do know a lot of those are supported by government subsidies as well, and they wouldn't be sustainable on their own. But it's amazing how many people, just the institutional investors are looking to farmland saying, wait. I can buy this for several thousand dollars an acre, put a solar farm on it, and make $500 per acre per year, this is this is a good investment when I stack it together. And so I think that's gonna prop up farmland in the long term way more than than just growing grain or growing your livestock on it.
[00:28:17] Vance Crowe:
Well, I, I gotta give you some credit here because, I do disagree with you. I mean, I think that, Doge is gonna be one of those things that shows farmers and really landowners, hey. Hey. There's a bunch of subsidies we used to be able to go through here and get money. The price was all distorted on land, and now there's a real strong chance that it's gonna go down. If you end up betting that way, it's a pretty big gamble because we don't know what's gonna happen between now and July fourth of twenty twenty six.
[00:28:44] Steve Conaway:
So do you think if if the Doge does come through and starts cutting all sorts of things, do you think we'll see agriculture, real estate prices go down substantially, or do you think they're they're kind of there's enough demand out there that we won't really see a drop?
[00:29:01] Vance Crowe:
I think you would see a drop almost certainly, and it really depends on which ones you're talking about. I mean, if you cut out the renewable fuel standard, now all of a sudden, like, you have so much supply you couldn't you couldn't possibly justify it. And so then you'll start seeing people say, well, I'm not I'm not gonna keep farming. I can't do this. So I think there's this is a real chance. I think there's a potential for a revolution in land prices, but whether they're up or down, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I I'll definitely agree with you if the renewable fuel standard,
[00:29:30] Steve Conaway:
starts getting cut. That's gonna cause some issues. But I guess I guess I'm kinda bullish that that's that's gonna stay there, and the cuts aren't gonna be that drastic. But that's something where you and I disagree on, I think.
[00:29:44] Vance Crowe:
Well, that's good. I'm gonna give you an eight eight because you found one I didn't, I didn't necessarily agree with, but you didn't convince me. But I'm glad you brought it up. So, well, this will be a good question to ask going forward. Alright. And finally, onto the worthy adversary section. Steve, who is somebody that you respect on social media but you completely disagree with?
[00:30:06] Steve Conaway:
So there there's a guy on x. His name is, his handle is Barefoot Informer. He's out of South Dakota. I think his real name is Louie Nigg. I I think I'm pronouncing his last name correctly, but I'm not quite sure. But he he is kind of the opposite of what I am. I'm very bullish, long term land ownership and that I think it's a great long term play to own own farmland for a variety of different reasons. But he is he is pushes back on me quite a bit. And not just me, the other people as well saying that, no. You're better off doing going long term in the stock market. Just putting all your money in the stock market, you're you're gonna make way more money long term.
I do think he's right. I know if if you're looking at it from a purely investment standpoint, I think putting investing in the stock market long term might be better. But I don't know. I I know my family's made a substantial amount of money owning, owning farmland through the years due to farmland appreciation. So it's it's hard for me to to to go a % into the stock market and, you know, basically, going a % on the stock market would mean selling everything you have in ag and just doing all that, and I can't do that.
[00:31:33] Vance Crowe:
Well, I, I that's a great one, man. It's not every day that somebody brings a good one. It makes me wanna take another look at him. I actually do see Barefoot and Farmer all the time. He goes at Louis d n, and, ever since you turned me on to him, I'm I find him to be very interesting. Good good choice there. So if you'd like to see more worthy adversaries, you can see it on a list on, my x page. Well done there, man. I I like that one. I, wanted to throw out that Corey Hilleboe, from, Farm for Profit said local 40 came up listed for sale for 0.17 Bitcoin per acre, and a local realtor told me he had, more offers above asking price. So very interesting, Corey.
Do you think, you'll see any more land coming up for sale there where you're at in Bitcoin?
[00:32:23] Steve Conaway:
I don't I don't know if it'll come up in Bitcoin. That that's kind of I've been thinking about this too. You know? They say a lot of the land that's gonna sell in the next ten to fifteen years is owned by older older generations. And I think you and I had a had a exchange on x a couple weeks ago that until a new newer generation comes in that much rather hold Bitcoin than farmland, I think it's it's gonna be hard to convince the older generation, like, say, hey. I'll give you a couple Bitcoin for what it takes to to buy this land. Until a younger generation comes along and says, I'd much rather own Bitcoin than farmland.
[00:33:04] Vance Crowe:
I don't know. I don't know how that will go. I mean, I gotta say that my experience over the last couple of days, the last week has shocked me because it is the 60 year old plus farmers that did, lightning wallets. So I send them 500 Satoshis. They go away and play with it. They, you know, get their wife to download it. They send them back and forth. A couple days later, they write me, and they're like, oh my gosh. I'm now starting to get it. I understand. Oh, there's only 21,000,000, and then they have all these questions. They are so much more engaged, and many of them make reference to the savings and loan crisis and all the inflation that's happened over time. So to me, it seems like there is a pocket of older farmers that are more willing to try things than I think they're given credit for. So I I see that that group of people buying Bitcoin faster than I think most people think could happen.
[00:33:57] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely interesting. I know my wife and I have we have right of first refusal on, a couple pieces of property that'll be selling in the future. And for those of you who don't know what right of first refusal is, it's when the seller gets prepared to sell, they have to come to us first, and then we can decide if we wanna buy it or not. And so that's definitely will be happening in the next couple years that he'll have to come to us and say, hey. I'm ready to sell. Do you wanna buy? And so it would be interesting if I said, yeah. But instead of giving you cash, I'll give you Bitcoin instead just just to see what his response would be or or what the real estate broker's response would be if I said that to them.
[00:34:39] Vance Crowe:
Well, one of the interesting things just happened in the Czech Republic. They made it so if you hold Bitcoin for three years, they consider that a long term, and they don't pay capital gains on it. So there could be a way to own property and not be paying capital gains and also not being paying property tax, which is one of the things that farmers have to do. So you have to pay a lot of property tax in order to be able to hold on to that land. They don't actually own it. They're just renting it from the government.
[00:35:04] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And then and then especially, like, especially if you're in one of these government industries or subsidies that we've talked about before, like, let's just throw out CRP that you're gonna maintain it and make sure it doesn't get grown up with trees or anything like that. And so not just property taxes, but management expenses in there as well.
[00:35:25] Vance Crowe:
I think there's a lot of, people that are older that once they understood the value and the virtues of having Bitcoin, they would say, hey. Maybe I don't have to hold on to this land in order to be able to maintain my assets assets and my standard of living. There's gonna be other ways to do it. So I think that, I think ag is going to change faster than other industries because I think that they see things about inflation. They know about trading so much deeper than just the general public. Mhmm.
[00:35:53] Steve Conaway:
Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. That that's probably true. And and if you're right there, if if we see a bunch of farmers who much rather own Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, whatever it might be more than they rather own Ag Land, there's definitely gonna be a lot of ag land coming to come come up for sale and as people try to, balance out their portfolio or divest themselves with the ag land. And then we're definitely gonna see a a market crash then.
[00:36:21] Vance Crowe:
Well, Steve, this has been a fantastic conversation. If people wanted to interact with you more, see more about what you're up to, where would they go? Yeah. I mostly just interact on x,
[00:36:33] Steve Conaway:
under Steve Conaway one. And, yeah, people DM me quite often asking about different things, so feel free to to slide into the DMs. I am on Instagram, but I'm not very active on there either. And those those are about the only two social media platforms that I I do much interaction on. And I'm sure after my Peter Thiel paradox that there might be quite a few people up in arms against me and saying how I'm all wrong and everything. So, yeah, feel free to feel free to give me your opinions. And I I am kinda busy, so it might take a couple days before I reply to you. But, yeah, I'd love to hear other people's thoughts.
[00:37:13] Vance Crowe:
Good. Yeah, man. You found a a point of view that hopefully will strike up some conversations. So, Steve, thank you so much for coming on.
[00:37:20] Steve Conaway:
Yeah. Thank you, Vance.
[00:37:22] Vance Crowe:
Alright. I'm gonna sign off here in just a moment, but I actually wanted to do something real quick. I, if you're watching this, you probably can see that I am wearing a vest. It says, FCS Financial, and I wore this on purpose. I don't normally wear things with logos on it, but the reason that I wore it is because, a few months ago, I was invited to be on their board as an outside board member. And, when they approached me, I actually had very little interest in it. You know, I'm I'm not super into The US banking system. There's all kinds of challenges that I see with farming, and I I kind of understood vaguely that they have some relationship with the government. So I only went along with it because I was like, Hey, it's interesting that they would, you know, call me up, that they would ask me to be a part of their board.
And I went through a series of interviews that concluded with an interview with the entire board, and, I actually, in my entire life, have never been through a more, intense and rigorous interview process. I found out that the people that were on that board were very serious about who they were bringing in as outside board members. They wanted to know, all about how I thought about things and what what was important to me, what, what I would be able to, dedicate to it, and why I would even dedicate anything to it. And after that happened, I I went from being somebody that said, like, I don't I don't have time for this. I've got my business. I've got all these things going on, to being like actually, I would really enjoy talking with these people, month in and month out, getting to know them. They know about things I don't know about. And when I'm in St. Louis, I don't get to hang out with my tribe. My tribe is ag. I I talk about agricultural issues. I talk about what's going on, in, commodity prices. This is what I care about. And so I decided to take that role.
And what the I wrote about that on on LinkedIn, but I never actually came here to the podcast to say that I had done it. And, the reason I'm doing it now and the reason I wore this is because we all kinda see that joke about, you know, when senators, take money from lobbyists, they should have to wear it on as, like, a decal on their, on their on their shirts, right, on their dresses, on their suits. They should have to say, who's giving me money? Because who you get money from can impact how you feel about things, what ideas you're exposed to, what ideas you wanna propagate. And I think that this is a deeply important thing that needs to happen in our culture and our society, and that is what Doge is truly uncovering. And even if the this was already known, they're shining a spotlight on it so we can see how is our money getting spent, who is being influenced by various, you know, political actors and government and organizations.
And I don't think that there is anything inherently wrong with getting paid for offering your services, for getting paid for being a part of a group that's contributing effort to move something forward. But the reason that I wanted to wear this here and talk with you about it is because there is way too much going on in the shadows, And I believe that we are going to see some big time, lights shown on some of our largest institutions, some of ag's media groups. And, and I think that, like, hey. Let's just have a conversation about what's going on with our tax dollars, with what our government is supporting, with what messages they are forcing groups to put out there.
I heard from many, many listeners this week about things that were coming out in Doge and and it really, you know, pointing at some of these large institutions, things like commodity groups, things like checkoff programs. And I think that this is important that everybody just comes to the table, talks about where they get their money, and then talk about, hey. Does this influence you in some way that it shouldn't? Does this, make it so you're advocating for one thing as opposed to another or that you're on the side of of people that are in competition with us? Whatever that is, I think that this is an important discussion to have, and so I wanted to lead with it. I didn't wanna be a person that said, hey. If you're getting paid by somebody, everybody should know it. I I'm letting you guys know because I think that this is what we should expect of everyone that has, you know, a big public voice, everybody that is on, you know, boards, everybody that is running institutions.
We should be talking about how do you get funded and what is that influencing you. Anyway, I just wanted to close-up with that. I didn't want to, to make Steve, have to sit on here for it. But I'm gonna wrap up, by reminding you, if you are interested in Bitcoin, I believe that it is a deeply important technology. And if you would like to get it, you can use river.com. I'll have a link in the show notes that if you buy it from there, you will be helping not only yourself procure Bitcoin from a good exchange, but also helping the show because we will get a few Bitcoin for it. Also, if you have been thinking about doing a legacy interview, this is where I sit down with your loved ones to record them talking about their life stories so that future generations can know where they came from and the stories that make up who you are, then, go to legacyinterviews.com and book a call with me. We are doing, many, many interviews a week. We're now, definitely two months out on being able to schedule, so don't wait around. If you have somebody that you love, you wanna capture their stories, contact me, and we will have a great call about it. Thank you so much. I, I hope we can continue this conversation on x. I think the next few, weeks and months are going to be absolutely wild.
So, have fun, be kind to one another, and always feel free to
[00:43:05] Unknown:
disagree.
Introduction to the AgTribe's Report
Iowa Soybeans and USDA Grant Controversy
Mexico Drops GMO Corn Import Restrictions
Impact of ICE Raids on Farm Workers
US Aid to Ukrainian Farmers
Bitcoin Land Price Report
Peter Thiel Paradox and Worthy Adversary
