In this week’s Ag Tribes Report, host Vance Crowe is joined by dairy farmer and Bitcoiner JR Burdick for a fast-paced tour through the biggest stories shaping agriculture. They unpack President Trump’s viral post urging ranchers to lower beef prices and the backlash from cattle producers who point to low herd size, packer settlements, and market volatility driven by political posts. Then they dig into the looming SNAP crunch amid the government shutdown, how an AWS outage jammed up harvest logistics and farmgate payments, and the partial reopening of FSA offices to process $3B in producer payments—plus the real-world cash flow pinch for beginning farmers. JR also delivers the Bitcoin Land Price Report, shares why he’s bullish on both land and Bitcoin, and explains practical resiliency lessons from a payments outage. We close with his Peter Thiel paradox—Gen Z’s push to rebuild rural “place” over “career”—and a candid look at rebuilding community, selling raw milk and pastured pork, and accepting Bitcoin on the farm.
JR’s farm: nourishingfamilyfarm.com and @jrcowfarmer on X.
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The Ag Tribes Report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are so the future knows who they really were. Here's Legacy Interviews guests, Daryl and Jill Stamp, on the joy of filming their Legacy interview.
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What do you think you'll tell your kids about the experience?
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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. Who 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.
[00:00:49] Unknown:
Welcome to the AgTribe's report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host, Vance Crow. The report begins in three, two, one. Let's begin.
[00:01:03] Unknown:
Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crow. Each week, I bring on a representative of one of the many ag tribes that make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week, we have none other than the great JR Burdick, who longtime listeners of the podcast know I've had in my studio, and we had one of the most interesting conversations I've ever had with a farmer about the trials and tribulations, how to make it back from being, having a devastating loss. And, really, now JR is a prominent figure in ag Twitter talking about, his thoughts on the bible, on raising cows in the right way, of bringing up raw milk. He is a, become a good friend, and I am happy to welcome him onto the show. Welcome, JR.
[00:01:49] Unknown:
Hey, Vance. Great to be with you. Looking forward to it. So what have you been paying attention to lately? Oh, I've really been looking at financial markets. I've been looking at especially the, the influx and the inflows of money into AI. I've been really interested in that and watching kind of I've I've I use AI. I think AI is is here. I don't think it's a, you know, a conspiracy or anything, but the financing behind it is getting a little bit goofy. And I'm watching that, and I'm thinking there's gonna be some hiccups through that because
[00:02:25] Unknown:
the circular accounting is going to come home to roost on this. Yeah. I think now that you mentioned it, I have seen some posts on x of, like, who owns what and and people having their minds kinda blown by this. I've just passed it by, but you think something to look at.
[00:02:40] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. Well, NVIDIA is 13% of the, Nasdaq market right now, and you you start to poke around in there and you see that, they are the customer of their customers. And it's just this circular, I'll give you money. You give me money back. And where is the where is the return in that? You know? And and you kinda go, this could be this could be interesting, but all technology that has happened in in humanity kinda started that way. You look at the railroads of the eighteen fifties, eighteen sixties, eighteen seventies. That was kinda what was going on, and that led to the eighteen nineties recessions that happened where they, they lost everything because they, you know, the circular accounting got back to them.
[00:03:30] Unknown:
Well, I'll leave it to you to go look into railroads and how, that can give us the future of AI. I love it. Well, we better get to the news. Today, we are going to be covering Trump's wild post, that really riled up cattle ranchers about his impact on cattle prices, beef prices. We're also gonna talk about how the government shutdown is threatening SNAP benefits for millions starting on November 1. We'll also look at how the AWS outage disrupted farmers during harvest, and we're gonna talk about how FSA offices are set to reopen, to in order to process $3,000,000,000 in farmer payments amid a government shutdown. We're also going to do the Bitcoin land price report with JR who knows an awful lot about Bitcoin.
We're gonna do his Peter Thiel paradox to find out what he believes that nobody else does, and we're gonna talk about his worthy adversary, somebody that he respects but strongly disagrees with him. We're gonna try and do that in just thirty minutes, so we better get started. First up, let's talk about, Trump. Everybody saw this. In a post on x yesterday, president Trump defended his tariff policies on foreign beef imports, claiming that they're that the the tariffs are the reason US cattle ranchers are thriving in the first time in decades, including a 50% tariff on Brazil.
But he called on ranchers to lower their prices, emphasizing that consumers are a big factor in his thinking. This comes days after the USDA announced plans to quadruple Argentine beef imports to address a 14% jump in US retail prices. The remarks sparked outrage from ranchers and industry leaders. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association issued a statement on x saying they can't support Trump while he undercuts family farms with the potential hormone laced imports that threaten food safety and jobs. Ranchers like Brett Kenzie from South Dakota and Mark Holloway from Texas took to x calling for mandatory country of origin labeling and mocking the, price fixing settlements.
This brought up so much, JR. What did you see, and what do you think of, Trump's approach to claiming the the cattle prices or his victory?
[00:05:41] Unknown:
Well, every politician is going to take anything good and claim claim responsibility for it. So we have to we have to stand back and go, well, that's politics. You know? I think I think we have to have that. I remember in 1996, the first time that corn hit $6 a bushel, Al Gore was at the Farm Progress Show in, Illinois, I think it was, and he was taking credit for that. And it was like horrible drought and a horrible wet year in '93. It was just we drew down all the stocks, but he was taking you know, the Clinton administration got you farmers $6 a bushel. So, so I give I give Trump a little bit of a pass on that. It's like they're gonna take they're gonna take credit for good things.
And, we have to admit that the price of beef is pretty good. But at the same time, I took a lot of offense to the tone that I took from that. You try not to read a lot into it. You know? Every text message you get, you you try to just take it at face value. But this one, I just couldn't couldn't take it at just the face value. And I and I I immediately went to, okay. I've never been able to set the price of any of my commodities. And he's sitting there going like, cattle prices gotta get the get the price down, and we're all sitting there going like, well, we don't have any control over that.
But then at the same time as the two gentlemen you mentioned also mentioned, I never saw a true social post from him about the cattle pricing fix, the the lawsuit settlements that all of the big four packers are involved in right now. I'm like, hey. If if you wanna do something about the price of beef, you talk to those guys. They were obviously either holding down the price of beef given to ranchers, their their live price, or they were they were jacking it up and they were screwing the consumer on the other end. And I just want him to just say, hey. I'll do fair posts across everybody. And then it'd be nice if he would do these posts when the when cattle trading isn't happening on the CME. So you see these huge swings in the, the cattle market, and you'll limit down moves and, limit up moves, and it's it's all over one guy's post. And and to me, that that's my big thing is the guy's got too much power. He should not be able to move that price like that. Yeah. I mean, he's the bully pulpits
[00:08:10] Unknown:
is really powerful, and you gotta give him some credit. And, actually, I didn't realize this until after his post about how much Brazilian imports had been impacted by the tariffs. You also have the Mexican, new world screwworm that's keeping back those imports. But I saw a great chart on x, I wish I have it right now, where the guy was showing when prices started going up, and it was way before tariffs. This this has been going on, and it's because what every cattle rancher, everybody in Ag knows is that we have the lowest cattle herd that we've had since the nineteen fifties. The price is going up because demand is skyrocketing. People are finally getting different nutritional information about the value of beef. The cattle herd is going down when prices were bad and people were trying to to survive, then all of a sudden prices go up and they're shipping everything, heifers, out to to market. Now all of a sudden, the herd's down. If you got supply up or you got supply down and demand up, you're gonna have higher prices. So it did seem like it was one of those areas where when you know a lot about it, you can see that Trump's kinda being a blowhard here.
[00:09:16] Unknown:
Right. And the the bad thing is it it dampered the enthusiasm of the cattle rancher and the the producer to keep cattle because we all remember 2015. We all remember the cow that stole Christmas in 02/2005. And you're gonna go out there and you're gonna bet your farm literally on next year's calf crop, how many cattle you're gonna put in your feedlot, all those things. And it doesn't matter how much insurance protection you buy. You get two or three, you know, truth social posts like that. And all of a sudden, all your equity is gone. And and I don't think I don't think that I think that's the bigger issue is he's not understanding. You've got to encourage us to to build this cattle herd, and that's a long term investment that's not gonna happen in six months, eight months, or whatever.
But we have to be sure, and young people especially have to know, nobody's gonna cut the legs out from underneath me because all of a sudden, I've got midterm elections coming, and I've gotta get the price of beef down. And you just have decimated everybody's financial sheets
[00:10:28] Unknown:
with a post. Well, secretary Rollins was out there, trying to clean this thing up today. You know, she was like, look at all he's done. We've opened up more ranch land than we ever have before. We've started offering, loans for new and beginning ranchers. But I've you know, I was in a room full of farmers just yesterday, farmers and ranchers, and all of them said,
[00:10:48] Unknown:
golly gosh that Trump. I wish he knew better. I still love him, though. He's not losing any votes over this. Oh, no. No. Because the the rest of the issues are so important as well. You know, where else are you gonna go? And and we do have to remember. I mean, a year ago at this time, it was the Biden Harris administration. You know, we we forget how fast this thing has changed and how depressed a lot of us were with just all the other things that potentially impact us, and we have to balance those two. But we also have to make our voice known and say, hey. You know? Shut the hell up.
[00:11:25] Unknown:
Well, we could probably talk about this the whole show, but a lot of other things are happening, including story number two. Government shutdown threatened SNAP benefits for millions starting November 1. You're the one that brought this to my attention. The US Government shutdown now in its second week is set to do I think it's actually our third week. Set to our third week to disrupt SNAP benefits for millions unless Congress acts soon. Starting November 1, new allotments won't be processed. EBT cards card reloads could freeze entirely, leaving families without food amid already high grocery prices.
States are sounding the alarm. Tennessee's Department of Human Services warns November benefits may not issue, urging recipients to check local resources. Louisiana's governor office says over 1,000,000 residents will get nothing for November, calling for state backups. And advocacy groups like, Food Research and Action Center estimate that 20 to 30% spike in hunger risk, advising folks to stock up now and hit food banks. October payments should go through, but the clock's ticking on negotiations. What do you think? JR, is he really gonna let SNAP benefits not go out to millions of people on November 1?
[00:12:35] Unknown:
No. They we still have a printer, and we can still we we we seem to find the money, and they're going to find the money, but they're using this as leverage to, you know, make one side or the other. Who whichever side of the aisle you're on, you're make using this to make the other side look bad, put pressure on them. Hey. You gotta do this by November 1 so that we can, you know, not have, you know, women and children be affected by this, this horrible calamity. And, so I I don't think that they're going to let SNAP benefits, go unpaid. There will be some kind of a step stop gap to make this happen.
But I I think we're missing an opportunity here. This is a great opportunity for states to jump up and say, this is why we should block grant those, programs to the state so that instead of having one entity control 50 states people's worth of those those citizens worth of their groceries, get it to the state, then each state can then take care of their own people. All the federal government has to do is say, you know, you've gotten, you know, $15,000,000.
[00:13:49] Unknown:
Never gonna happen, man. Never gonna happen. Because the government, they want that power. Right? They want the ability to be able to wag, you know, millions of people, into fear and to be able to to generate that. But, also, they love it because they love the farm bill. And the farm bill being tied to SNAP benefits makes it so people will pay attention to ag in a different way, and it is going to stay a national, issue. There's just no chance they're gonna let that go. It's too much money.
[00:14:17] Unknown:
Oh, I absolutely agree with you. I just want somebody to stand up on principle and say, hey. Here's an excellent example of real worldwide, you know, life example of why we should do this and have it be local. But, but no, they're they're just using this and and more people know about the snap benefits and and the the issue that's there than they do about the price of beef. You know? That that's the the whole tariffs on beef, all that stuff, we get we get styled off and we look at that and we go, that's a big deal. But you gotta understand for most people, it's, hey. I'm not I gotta get my EBT money. They do not care about the price of beef as much as they care about getting that snap benefit. And and you look back, what was it, four months ago? I think, secretary Kennedy said that they were gonna eliminate the use of EBT for for, soda. Soda and those things. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, that was a big deal.
And, people were really upset about that. So so EBT payments, you're exactly right. Those SNAP benefits have to stay in the in the USDA. They have to stay national. Otherwise, we we really lose all of our clout.
[00:15:33] Unknown:
Yeah. I never met a government that wants to give up power. Alright. Moving on to story number three, AWS outage disrupts farmers' harvest operations. On October 20, a major AWS outage in its US East 1 region crippled 64 services, including John Deere's operation center, a cloud based platform for real time harvest data and equipment tracking. Iowa farmer Benjamin Ranish, posted on x that the full day downtime was more disruptive than the ongoing government shutdown. Without GPS enabled combines and truck coordination, his team switched to the less efficient short row harvesting, relying on radios and phones. Other farmers on x reported similar frustrations, but no widespread crop losses due to the issues.
The outage caused by a DNS service failure hit during peak corn and soybean season, raising concerns about overreliance on cloud tech. JR, did your dairy farm go down when AWS shut down this week?
[00:16:35] Unknown:
Our our dairy farm didn't. I'm a pretty low tech when it comes to my equipment, and and cows don't really care about the Internet, of course. But we did have problems with our payment processing for our customers. So that did affect us from that standpoint. So when when we make our deliveries, to different locations, we do have people that pay with with a card. We have a card reader attached to an app on the phone. Well, the app on our phone wouldn't work. And so people were staying there going, what do we do? We just redirected them to our website, different different servers, different networks or whatever, and they were able to purchase on our website. But, again, it was, at the the first person we were sitting there, and my wife and I were going like, well, did you push this button? You know, restart the phone, reset this thing. We kept doing all that, and and the people are sitting there going, I know there's money on my card. I know that. And we're like, it's not connecting. It's not that. You know?
And, and so we had people who were like, oh, what do we do? And it was a it was a eye opening experience for me because it was like, alright. We really don't deal it. We are already a cashless society, really. And so one little thing like that and all of a sudden, how do you you know, we don't carry a lot of cash with us anymore. How do you
[00:17:57] Unknown:
You know, I had an experience a couple of man, it was about a year ago. I I was invited to the Arizona Cattle Ranchers. I go out there. I'm staying in a in a, you know, resort casino thing, and, I started looking on x, and it said there were all these people not able to access their credit cards and that flights weren't going. So I go down. You there's a casino there, so the ATM limits are way up. I can get as much money out as I wanted. But I I got out a bunch of cash. And when I was flying a a couple of weeks later, I was sitting next to a guy who said, I got stranded. My credit cards didn't work. You couldn't get a rental car. And he's like, how much cash do you have on you right now? And I I, you know, I had, like, maybe a $100 from my he's like, from now on, I carry enough cash that I could pay somebody cash to get me home from wherever I'm at. And I was like, probably not a bad idea. In today's day and age, there's some little toothpick holding up an entire bridge,
[00:18:50] Unknown:
and if that toothpick breaks, you're all in big trouble. Yeah. So I think that this is a a good time for us all. I you know, for years when I was milking a lot more cows, I always kept a secondary skid loader on on hand, and I had a backup feed wagon so that if the main thing went down I think what farmers should be taking away from this is is test your resiliency. Can you can you function? Yeah. We all can go out and run the combine and and and do those things. But if you're used to being able to harvest, you know, a 100 or 200 acres a day, and now you're you're hamstrung, have you thought through how are you going to overcome that? And, and that's what we did with our business after that. We my wife and I on the drive home from that delivery point, we started to talk about how do we get around this so that, so that we can still keep our income flowing in so that customers still get their product because milk milk is perishable. You know, we can't tell them to come back in five days and get it or whatever because that that product is gone. So so it made us really look into our system and what's our backup plan? What's our strategy? Who can we how can we get around this? And we we started to work on that. Well, speaking of backup plans, story number four, FSA offices reopen on Thursday to process 3,000,000,000
[00:20:09] Unknown:
in farmer payments amid ongoing shutdown. After three weeks of closure due to government shutdown, the USDA Farm Service Agency, offices are reopening Thursday to handle core operations, including processing over $3,000,000,000 in farmer payments like ARC and PLC, farm loans, crop insurance, and disaster relief. President Trump directed ag secretary, Brooke Rollins, to reopen about 2,100 county offices with limited staffing. Two employees per office, five days a week to support farmers during harvest. The admin blames Democrats for holding up the funds while Dems, like, representative Angie Craig, welcome the move, but question the delay and push for using the SNAP contingency funds, next to avoid the the November disruptions we were just talking about. So it's funny. SNAP benefits are going away, but farmer transfer payments aren't.
[00:21:03] Unknown:
Right. Yeah. And that's going to be a, a publicity issue that we're gonna have to talk about. Why are we more important than a little child getting their nutrition, you know, their their meals for the next few weeks. But at the same time, to to me, it gets back to we're we're way over reliant on on things that we have no control over. And, and that's that's my concern. That's where I look at this. I always look at things kinda differently than a lot of folks. I operate outside the the the government payment system. I'm not involved in any of those anymore. So, but I I have a neighbor that came over and talked to me, and he's, like, a young farmer, probably late twenties.
And he was like, I've got all these grain checks from the elevator, but I've got a beginning farmer loan. So FSA has to sign off on them so I can deposit them, so I can make my payments, so I can buy more fuel for this fall. And he's in a real bind. And, you know, he was he was rather nervous about it, and I was like, you know, everybody understands. We're all in the rural community. Go and talk to people. You know? And and that's where community is going to override. And, you know, the fuel guy is gonna go to him and say, hey. I know what's going on. I'll get you 500 gallons of fuel so you can keep harvesting or whatever. You know, when they open up and you get your your funds, you could pay me. But that is a that is a real problem that's affecting a lot of people. And how are they going to if you had a payment due on October 15, you can't get your cash check cashed until November 1. You know? Are you gonna get hit with late fees or or all the other different things that could happen? And it's gonna be interesting to see how that works out. I throw out this statistic all the time, but right now, farmer and ranchers, the average,
[00:22:58] Unknown:
amount of the your financial statement is 13 and a half percent comes from these sorts of transfer payments. That is not an insignificant amount of money. That is a huge amount of money. And if you're trying to keep up with paying your your employees, if you have loans like you were saying, it's tough. But that said, I've been in ag long enough to know they never make you wait for the money. The government doesn't want the money sitting in DC. They are trying to pump it out into the system. So I'm pretty sure everybody that's got these FSA payments, they're gonna be made whole.
[00:23:30] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And and, I've got a couple of, older farmers that have been, in withdrawal because they haven't been able to go and sit and talk to the ladies once a week at the coffee shop. You know what I mean? It's they're just like, I can't wait till it opens up, so I go down and see them. Like, what are they? Your girlfriends? I don't I don't understand it. And so so, it's kinda funny and comical in that sense.
[00:23:54] Unknown:
Alright. That's gonna do it for the news this week. If you have news that you think we should be reporting on the Ag Tribes report, send it to me on x at Vance Crowe, or you can always email them to me, [email protected]. Moving on now to the Bitcoin land price report, and, woo, it has been a wild week. If you are new to Bitcoin, these sorts of, wild fluctuations have gotta have you, white knuckling yourself because these are price fluctuations that are absolutely crazy. But if you've been in the game a while, this is nothing. In fact, all we're seeing is an opportunity to pick up cheap stats. As of press time today, Bitcoin was valued at $109,857. It is down more than $10,000, since, the last Ag Tribes report, and, that's quite a bit. But, if you're a Bitcoiner, it's not that big.
So, JR, how much does an acre of land cost in Linn County, Missouri?
[00:24:53] Unknown:
It's running right around 7,000 an acre right now.
[00:24:56] Unknown:
Okay. So at, at 7,000 an acre, that means, that you could buy one acre of land for 0.063 Bitcoin, or in other words, one Bitcoin would buy you 15.7 acres. How does that sit with you?
[00:25:12] Unknown:
Boy, I like Bitcoin, and I like land. So, and I'm I'm a guy that would would trade Bitcoin for land. So I don't quite have that much Bitcoin yet, though.
[00:25:22] Unknown:
So where are you at on Bitcoin? You got a nice big sign behind you. Bitcoin accepted here. What did where are you at? How how, in deep are you?
[00:25:32] Unknown:
Well, I am I like Bitcoin. I like it. I've I've always been, my idea behind Bitcoin is I like it because it's kind of that middle finger to the system. And, so I'm I'm the Gen Xer that's I'm I'm the burn it all down and let the ashes sort themselves out. But I like Bitcoin. I like the idea behind it. I like the people that are involved in it because, you you've got two groups of people. You've got people who under who are enthusiastic about it, but realistic about it in that it's it is a tool that can be used, and we can have it for, trade and commerce and and and also a store of wealth.
You kinda have this cultish group too that I've I've sat around the campfire with here recently, and they're like, you know, Bitcoin could be the end of nuclear war. I'm not quite that far into where where Bitcoin could take us. So, but I like Bitcoin from the standpoint of, you know, it it gives us another avenue. For example, all your money, you know, every everybody says, well, it's it's all on the web and what could happen? Well, the same thing happens with your money. It just happened on Monday. You know? I'm like, your your concern is is equally valid for Fiat as it is for Bitcoin in that. But the difference is I have control over it. If once the electricity comes back on, I know where it is. I've got my passwords.
I can get it out of my wallet. I can do things with it. And so, it's not held in, somebody else's cloud that's gonna be lost, and and you gotta get it off the exchange. You know? That's that's the big thing that I've learned. Yeah. Well, really, the fundamental difference between the credit cards,
[00:27:12] Unknown:
going down and Bitcoin is that the credit cards, if there are a few servers that go down, the entire system is out. But in order for you not to be able to spend Bitcoin, the entirety of the Internet all over the world has to go down. Right. And even then, it's, you there's it would be very difficult. Right? As long as you have a node and you're able to submit, a transaction, you can move money. It may not be convenient but it is certainly better than you just show up at a screen and it says, oops. Nothing to see here. Right? And that's a fundamental difference. The credit card companies could go down and, you don't have a choice. But Bitcoin, as long as you can get somewhere to the Internet, you'll be okay.
[00:27:55] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. So and and I am still, I'm still looking for my first transaction in Bitcoin. I have been begging to get people, but I've got some people on the Internet now that are asking, and and we raise hogs as well. So I think my first Bitcoin, interaction and and exchange will be for a half a hog coming up here soon. Didn't know you did that. I I didn't know that at all. How do you raise your hogs? Out in the pasture, and, they're just pasture raised. I don't feed them any soybean meal or soybeans. They're red wattle hogs, and and that is I I don't advertise that a lot because it's like my weakness. I'm not I mean, hogs grow. They just do. It's it's kinda like it's kinda like once you get that kid as a toddler and all of a sudden they're a teenager, how'd that happen? They just grow. You know? And, hogs are kind of that way. So I started out, a couple of years ago with three sows and a boar. I've got 14 sows and two bores now, and I've got, I don't know, 50 head running around with different sizes. So,
[00:28:59] Unknown:
well JR, you might have just made your first Bitcoin sale because I've been in the market for some Missouri hogs. I've been looking for ones that are fed acorns or, hickory pignut, pignut hickories. Yeah. But, yeah. We we'll have to talk after the show. Alrighty. Sounds good. If you are interested in purchasing the bit in Bitcoin and you'd like to help support the show, use the link in the show notes to purchase it with river.com. River has worked out an arrangement with us that if you buy Bitcoin there, they send the show a little bit of Bitcoin, so it's really helpful, and it's the exchange that I use. So look for the link in the show notes below. Alright. Moving on now to the Peter Thiel paradox.
This is where I'm gonna ask JR. JR, what is one thing that you believe that almost nobody you know agrees with you on?
[00:29:45] Unknown:
Well, I was struggling with this. And then this morning, I had a young or a couple days ago, I had a young man call me, and he wanted to sit down and talk with me for half an hour this morning. Turned into an hour and a half conversation. He's a Gen z guy, and he he really wants to see our community restart. So I think from that conversation and another conversation I had today, I see these these young people really wanting rural America, rural main street to be, to survive and to thrive again. And they're not looking for a, a career. They're looking for a place. They want people that they can connect with. They want their friends to stick around. Both of these two young men told me, I'm tired of the brain drain and the talent drain of our rural communities. I wanna keep my friends here. I wanna stay here. What can we do? What can we do to make it more attractive?
And they were both like, it's not about activities. They said, we we've we've lived in Des Moines. We've lived in Kansas City. We've lived in Saint Louis. And, you know, and they they wanna build a new park, and they wanna have a new group of of entertainment set area or or whatever. So that's what we wanna raise our kids back here in the soil. We wanna have, we wanna walk down the streets again and see our buddies owning that welding shop and and having that car repair place and having you know, running the convenience store, running the gas station. And I was just blown away about how intense both of them were about this. And and we're making a plan. They both live in my community.
We're gonna start getting together once a month, brainstorm. How can we do this? And I asked them both. I says, okay. What organizations do what what organizations are already here that we can get involved in? And they were like, there isn't any because they're all the old timers, and they just get around and they they reminisce about the old days, but they don't have any vision. They don't have any desire to build it. So I I pressed those two guys, and and the one guy said it really well. He says, I want a place, and I'm tired of being I think he said it this way. I'm tired of being controlled by the placeless.
And he said, the people in DC, the people in Jeff City, they don't care about me. And I want people around me that care about me. And, both these guys happen to be, want they've got young families. All of them are under five, but they wanna homeschool their kids. I was asking about the school system, and they said, we really don't care. But both of them are products of our local high school. You know? And so they were looking at it, and they were going like, I want a different outcome for my kids. I don't want to tell them that the best place for opportunity is 200 miles away. I want them to want to live here, be near me, grow up here. And and that was exciting for me. I just saw that, and I was like, man, that is we cannot revitalize America and revitalize Main Street and rural America without that talent, those young people, that vibrancy.
And those guys I mean, they're gonna do it.
[00:33:04] Unknown:
Well, I I hear so much that I already agree with here, but what I think is a little bit different is you're doing something. Right? There's so many times people say this is what's wrong, but, you know, taking the action, getting together, seeing what rolls out is, really important. And an interesting thing you said there was, you know, they're not interested in a career. That's an almost mind blowing concept because your career has been so deeply embedded into the psyche of our my generation that, to your point, they don't, you know, they call them placeless people like there's this term somewhere versus anywhere people. And somewhere people live somewhere not because it's grandiose or it's perfect or it's got a great job but because it is somewhere and you're a person in there. Anywhere people, they want cosmopolitan, lots of restaurants, lots of opportunity, but that comes at the cost of being somebody. Right? Being a a thing that that group needs.
[00:33:56] Unknown:
So, I really like what you're what you're saying there. Yeah. Yeah. It was it was a it was a fun day. Took threw my day completely off. I didn't get half of done what I wanted to, but invested in people. And I think, for me as a Gen Xer who's typical Gen Xer, kind of cynical and loner. It was neat to have two young people reach out to me, say, hey.
[00:34:23] Unknown:
We we like some of the things you're saying. What can we do? You're full of shit. You are not cynical. You are the opposite of cynical. Cynical doesn't take action. Right? You're you're a guy I mean, if people did don't know what I'm talking about, go back and listen to my conversation with JR. He's one of the more popular podcasts I've ever done, but I would say it's the opposite of cynical. It is looking at a tar dark and difficult world and saying, I'm gonna take another step forward. So I I there there, I disagree with you. I don't think you're cynical.
[00:34:52] Unknown:
I'll be your worthy adversary today.
[00:34:55] Unknown:
Well, speaking of which, let's go to that. Who is one person that you respect but you strongly disagree with?
[00:35:02] Unknown:
Well, I really struggled with this one today because I I have gotten over the past four or five months, as I've studied and talked to more people, I my adversaries have become my enemies. They're they're the people on the other side of me that don't want to clash and come up with a solution. They just wanna stay in their spot, and they don't wanna be moved. They don't wanna reason together. They don't want to, their the the polarization has gotten to be so great that it's it's hard to find an adversary. When I think of an adversary, I think of somebody who's moving in the direction you are, but is a competitor sort of and also a person who is who is saying, I've got a better way than you, so I'm better than you, and you're and I'm gonna make you better because I'm being better.
And I don't see that right now, especially in agriculture. There's this there's this we're we're we're so polarized is the best word for it. I want all my government payments, and they gotta come to Grain Farmers. And if this doesn't happen and then the beef guys are over here going like, we're tired of tariffs, and the egg producers are up there going, you know, we we want these imports and exports so that we can get the price down. And we don't have any cohesiveness. We've all siloed off into our different spots, and we don't make one another better. And I think that's really what's happened in rural America as we become specialized and we've become so isolated from one another. We don't understand the concerns of a soybean grower and a beef grower because we're two different people now. Whereas, you know, so many years ago, we were the same person.
So I just I I racked my brain this morning, and I just I couldn't come up with somebody who I respected. But I will say, I respect Jared McDaniels, but I just I just don't agree with
[00:37:02] Unknown:
Alright. Jared McDaniel. We'll take that. You know, to your point, JR, I I this is worth me saying. So, long time listeners of the podcast know I'm on the, FCS Financial, the farm credit of Missouri. And, we came to a board meeting this week, and I've always been kinda cynical about committees and boards, because my experience with them at the World Bank, in corporate America, your school projects. Right? You get together, and the only way it's any good is if there's one leader that makes it happen, and then they kinda get the other people to go along. Well, yesterday, we had to make a tough decision with our board, and, we the way that group fought about ideas, the way they were like, this is what I think and I'm worried about this, I noticed so quickly that this was a group of people that the idea kept getting progressively better. It kept getting more sophisticated. Our options widened open and I sat there being totally astounded. I talked to my wife afterwards and I was like, I am literally honored to be among people that are solving a problem synergistically.
I actually thought that that was not a real thing. And now I see if you bring the right people together and you give them the the proper motivation, the the collective whole can come up with something better than than any one individual. But this is not occurring in anywhere places. It it is only occurring maybe in rural America. It's the only place I've ever seen it. Right. Right. Well, again and, unfortunately,
[00:38:38] Unknown:
when you get stuck in a place where you don't wanna share your ideas, all you do is emote. And it and you can't argue with emotion. You you can never out emote that other person. You know? And unless you become angry and irate and then nothing happens or you just start to cry, you know, or however that works. But the greatest emotion, isn't going to solve the problem, but it'll shut down the argument. And I think that's where we're at right now in in, America as a whole. And that's why you saw the people crying about the EBT. They weren't talking about the problem. They weren't talking about solutions. They're just emoting. I deserve this. I need this. And then both sides use that emotion to then, better their position instead of, do we have a solution here? Why can't you guys all sit in a room together and come up with I mean, let's face it. It's it's the matter of we're gonna go in debt or we're gonna go in debt a little more. It it's it's not super complicated. It's just, you know and then you're gonna where are you gonna move the x's on the paper?
We're we're still gonna be in debt. We're still gonna be at a crisis at some point. So just get over it and go on and stop emoting about this.
[00:39:55] Unknown:
Well, JR, you did not disappoint. It is so good that you were able to come on. Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about Nourishing Family Farms?
[00:40:03] Unknown:
Well, we are a, small, grass based farm in North Central Missouri, Linn County, Missouri. We sell raw milk, cream, some other dairy products. We sell, we're getting ready to sell hogs. We, pork and and those types of things. We are in the process. We harvested our small grains this summer, and, we're in the process of getting our fanning mills and all those things set up so that we can start to sell wheat berries. And, and, we've got a person that's getting ready to do flour. And I'm working on a couple other really interesting opportunities that just presented themselves this week that, we're in the early stages of that I think will be, beneficial to our community and and a wider range in agriculture.
So
[00:40:49] Unknown:
Another big way that you reach out to the world, in fact, I think it's probably the way I found out who you were, was you do these things where you record yourself in the, milking parlor Yeah. Just kinda talking about things. Talk a little bit about that.
[00:41:01] Unknown:
Well, I've actually been off for about three weeks because I'm busy with harvest, busy with all their things on the farm, and I was delivering a calf. And, just the way large animals work, she stepped back and hit my phone. And I haven't I haven't had taken the time to go in and get a new phone because it's just pain in the butt. So, you know, I I told my wife, I says, it it's still I can still answer a phone call and I can still text. So it does the basic things. But, my parlor pit, it kind of started. I was really upset about what was going on with mandatory electronic ID. Started doing a couple of minutes about that. And then, Elon bought x, and he was telling everybody, you know, hey. You are the media now. And I kinda took that to heart, and I wanted to start sharing some thoughts. And then I got some positive feedback. And then I got some criticism, and the criticism motivated me more because it was like, yeah. Well, screw you. I can still talk, but you can't shut me down. And, I just kept posting about that. And I've I've met a lot of neat people through that, had really good discussions.
And, and I don't you know, as you probably noticed, I don't think like a lot of other people. So my my takes are really off the wall on some things. But, and I I really like putting history behind what I talk about. So I can say, hey. This is where we were in the past. This is where we're gonna go in the future. And, and so, so yeah. So I'm hoping, some things will settle down. I'm hoping that next week, I'll start that back up.
[00:42:40] Unknown:
Yeah. You gotta go get that phone fixed. Well, JR, if people wanted to get ahold of you, they wanted to learn more about nursing family farms, where would they go? Well, go on x. It's j r cow farmer is my handle on there.
[00:42:52] Unknown:
Reach out to me there. You can also go to our Facebook page, which is Nourishing Family Farm. And, our website is www.nourishingfamilyfarm.com. And, look anythings of those over. We've had, we've had really neat conversations with people all over the nation. The the sign you see behind me was, given to me by a bunch of Bitcoiners in Tennessee. They, they had listened to a couple of different podcasts I've been guests on. Yours was one of them. David Bissett's, Bitcoin and was another. And, they sent me that. They sent me a node. They sent me a whole bunch of cards. It's it's a whole bunch of placards. So I've I've got stickers on my truck now. I'm just like a billboard for them, but really need to get to know those people and and, meet them and, learning a lot more about the intricacies of Bitcoin that I didn't know before.
[00:43:53] Unknown:
You know, there is a truly profound bridge between farmers and, Bitcoiners. And, David of the podcast Bitcoin and is a great example of it. Not a farmer, really interested in it. Bitcoin becomes that bridge. And, so if you're somebody that's looking to build out an audience, one of the reasons I think JR may be lacking a little bit in the Bitcoin purchases is because Linn County, Missouri is a little bit out there. Yeah. But, but if you are a farmer somewhere near a city, I guarantee you if you put up the, hey. I'm I'm, accepting Bitcoin, people are gonna pop up that you never imagined, and you may get a customer for life. Alright. JR, that's gonna do it. I really appreciate you, coming on.
[00:44:35] Unknown:
Thanks. Glad to be here.
[00:44:38] Unknown:
Alright. That's gonna do it for this week's show. I really had a good time. I really appreciated JR coming on. And I wanna mention again, if you've never heard the podcast, that I did with JR Burdick, it is a fantastic one. He tells a story about how his cows were, killed with, electricity coming up through the ground, and he had to start all the way over. He talks about his strife and the challenges he faced. I had no idea the kind of man he was gonna be before I interviewed him, and now he's become a close friend. Well, if you are thinking about getting your loved ones a special Christmas present, I would recommend you look into doing a legacy interview. This is where I sit down with your loved ones to record their life stories so that future generations can know their family history.
If you're interested in doing this and you'd like to, watch that video of your parents, your grandparents telling their stories, sign up to do a legacy interview before the first week of December, and we will get that video back to you in time to watch it over the holidays. And many, many people have told me just how impactful the video was, watching it with their loved ones, getting to stop the tape and ask for more, clarity, hearing more, and people just really love it. Another big thing that I have been working on is a course called Intraspace Communicating, and this is a course that is designed to help people communicate. So I'm gonna leave with a parting message about, the, the interest based communications class.
[00:46:08] Unknown:
Alright. We'll be back next week with another guest. Good negotiation is one where both parties walk away slightly disappointed. That was probably my default world model b v before Vance. Well, Vance had a lot of these models that he created. I ingrained a lot of these models so deeply from working with Vance for a long time that I started to re communicate them to my friends and my friends' eyes had the same sort of light up of understanding of like this is a thing that could help me be more effective in life. Whenever Vance let me know that he was working on sort of putting this into more of a workshop form, I was like, yeah, man. I want that for my team, like, now. If my first two employees go through this so that we have this shared set of context and a shared set of language, that's gonna create value for my team going forward.
[00:46:54] Unknown:
I wanted to get better at communication myself. I knew I had good ideas in my head that I wanted to be able to communicate to potential investors, and I was not super confident in being able to do that before.
[00:47:06] Unknown:
I thought that negotiation was basically for people in a boardroom, like CEOs, words like shareholder are involved. So I thought that you had to have a lot of resources at your disposal to even care about negotiations. Both people had to lose or both people weren't happy in the end. I found that what you both want is achievable by understanding the needs of the other person more. A negotiation is really a way to solve a problem that you have. You can rearrange the world in such a way where all parties get something that they're happy with. So you don't need to possess great resources to be involved in a negotiation or to really benefit from knowing how to negotiate.
[00:47:47] Unknown:
RJ and I initially were two different businesses. It became clear to us over the long term that we would be much more bullish on our shared future if we, like, found a way to, like, actually be one entity, one whole working together. That required us to have what to many would be very hard conversations because we're both CEOs of our own independently funded businesses, but we were able to have conversations and get to the root of what our actual interests and what our actual skill sets were. Having both people understand this pattern of communication was useful to pull out those tools when we needed them the most in, like, difficult conversations.
[00:48:23] Unknown:
It's very helpful to have that quick language to do something more productive than or continue to like misunderstand or whatever
[00:48:31] Unknown:
whatever else you're doing. Building relationships isn't just you communicating to the other person. It's also figuring out how to let the other person communicate to you so that they trust you. Getting into a real conversation and diffusing tensions before you, you know, get to business.
[00:48:46] Unknown:
A lot of people have a default model where they're like, I wanna raise my own money. I wanna start my own business. I wanna do my own thing. We find that they have specific interests that could help us. We become allies instead of competitors.
[00:48:58] Unknown:
I guess the course gives you tools to know that you can say the right words to, like, extract those things out of the ether and put them in your life. Learning interest based communications
[00:49:09] Unknown:
from Vance might actually be the single highest leverage skill set that I ever developed before starting this company. I'm by default an introvert. I think that I've developed the ability to interact with people in such a way that it's energizing and it's fun, and I look forward to interacting with strangers on a regular basis. You should just take it. Just do it already. Yeah. I feel like you should just do it. Like, no. I don't know. I feel like it's life content. It's like definitely fun life content. I am doing exactly what I want to be doing with my life. Interspace Communications did that for me more than anything else that I've learned.
The Ag Tribes Report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are so the future knows who they really were. Here's Legacy Interviews guests, Daryl and Jill Stamp, on the joy of filming their Legacy interview.
[00:00:17] Unknown:
What do you think you'll tell your kids about the experience?
[00:00:20] 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. Who 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.
[00:00:49] Unknown:
Welcome to the AgTribe's report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host, Vance Crow. The report begins in three, two, one. Let's begin.
[00:01:03] Unknown:
Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crow. Each week, I bring on a representative of one of the many ag tribes that make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week, we have none other than the great JR Burdick, who longtime listeners of the podcast know I've had in my studio, and we had one of the most interesting conversations I've ever had with a farmer about the trials and tribulations, how to make it back from being, having a devastating loss. And, really, now JR is a prominent figure in ag Twitter talking about, his thoughts on the bible, on raising cows in the right way, of bringing up raw milk. He is a, become a good friend, and I am happy to welcome him onto the show. Welcome, JR.
[00:01:49] Unknown:
Hey, Vance. Great to be with you. Looking forward to it. So what have you been paying attention to lately? Oh, I've really been looking at financial markets. I've been looking at especially the, the influx and the inflows of money into AI. I've been really interested in that and watching kind of I've I've I use AI. I think AI is is here. I don't think it's a, you know, a conspiracy or anything, but the financing behind it is getting a little bit goofy. And I'm watching that, and I'm thinking there's gonna be some hiccups through that because
[00:02:25] Unknown:
the circular accounting is going to come home to roost on this. Yeah. I think now that you mentioned it, I have seen some posts on x of, like, who owns what and and people having their minds kinda blown by this. I've just passed it by, but you think something to look at.
[00:02:40] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. Well, NVIDIA is 13% of the, Nasdaq market right now, and you you start to poke around in there and you see that, they are the customer of their customers. And it's just this circular, I'll give you money. You give me money back. And where is the where is the return in that? You know? And and you kinda go, this could be this could be interesting, but all technology that has happened in in humanity kinda started that way. You look at the railroads of the eighteen fifties, eighteen sixties, eighteen seventies. That was kinda what was going on, and that led to the eighteen nineties recessions that happened where they, they lost everything because they, you know, the circular accounting got back to them.
[00:03:30] Unknown:
Well, I'll leave it to you to go look into railroads and how, that can give us the future of AI. I love it. Well, we better get to the news. Today, we are going to be covering Trump's wild post, that really riled up cattle ranchers about his impact on cattle prices, beef prices. We're also gonna talk about how the government shutdown is threatening SNAP benefits for millions starting on November 1. We'll also look at how the AWS outage disrupted farmers during harvest, and we're gonna talk about how FSA offices are set to reopen, to in order to process $3,000,000,000 in farmer payments amid a government shutdown. We're also going to do the Bitcoin land price report with JR who knows an awful lot about Bitcoin.
We're gonna do his Peter Thiel paradox to find out what he believes that nobody else does, and we're gonna talk about his worthy adversary, somebody that he respects but strongly disagrees with him. We're gonna try and do that in just thirty minutes, so we better get started. First up, let's talk about, Trump. Everybody saw this. In a post on x yesterday, president Trump defended his tariff policies on foreign beef imports, claiming that they're that the the tariffs are the reason US cattle ranchers are thriving in the first time in decades, including a 50% tariff on Brazil.
But he called on ranchers to lower their prices, emphasizing that consumers are a big factor in his thinking. This comes days after the USDA announced plans to quadruple Argentine beef imports to address a 14% jump in US retail prices. The remarks sparked outrage from ranchers and industry leaders. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association issued a statement on x saying they can't support Trump while he undercuts family farms with the potential hormone laced imports that threaten food safety and jobs. Ranchers like Brett Kenzie from South Dakota and Mark Holloway from Texas took to x calling for mandatory country of origin labeling and mocking the, price fixing settlements.
This brought up so much, JR. What did you see, and what do you think of, Trump's approach to claiming the the cattle prices or his victory?
[00:05:41] Unknown:
Well, every politician is going to take anything good and claim claim responsibility for it. So we have to we have to stand back and go, well, that's politics. You know? I think I think we have to have that. I remember in 1996, the first time that corn hit $6 a bushel, Al Gore was at the Farm Progress Show in, Illinois, I think it was, and he was taking credit for that. And it was like horrible drought and a horrible wet year in '93. It was just we drew down all the stocks, but he was taking you know, the Clinton administration got you farmers $6 a bushel. So, so I give I give Trump a little bit of a pass on that. It's like they're gonna take they're gonna take credit for good things.
And, we have to admit that the price of beef is pretty good. But at the same time, I took a lot of offense to the tone that I took from that. You try not to read a lot into it. You know? Every text message you get, you you try to just take it at face value. But this one, I just couldn't couldn't take it at just the face value. And I and I I immediately went to, okay. I've never been able to set the price of any of my commodities. And he's sitting there going like, cattle prices gotta get the get the price down, and we're all sitting there going like, well, we don't have any control over that.
But then at the same time as the two gentlemen you mentioned also mentioned, I never saw a true social post from him about the cattle pricing fix, the the lawsuit settlements that all of the big four packers are involved in right now. I'm like, hey. If if you wanna do something about the price of beef, you talk to those guys. They were obviously either holding down the price of beef given to ranchers, their their live price, or they were they were jacking it up and they were screwing the consumer on the other end. And I just want him to just say, hey. I'll do fair posts across everybody. And then it'd be nice if he would do these posts when the when cattle trading isn't happening on the CME. So you see these huge swings in the, the cattle market, and you'll limit down moves and, limit up moves, and it's it's all over one guy's post. And and to me, that that's my big thing is the guy's got too much power. He should not be able to move that price like that. Yeah. I mean, he's the bully pulpits
[00:08:10] Unknown:
is really powerful, and you gotta give him some credit. And, actually, I didn't realize this until after his post about how much Brazilian imports had been impacted by the tariffs. You also have the Mexican, new world screwworm that's keeping back those imports. But I saw a great chart on x, I wish I have it right now, where the guy was showing when prices started going up, and it was way before tariffs. This this has been going on, and it's because what every cattle rancher, everybody in Ag knows is that we have the lowest cattle herd that we've had since the nineteen fifties. The price is going up because demand is skyrocketing. People are finally getting different nutritional information about the value of beef. The cattle herd is going down when prices were bad and people were trying to to survive, then all of a sudden prices go up and they're shipping everything, heifers, out to to market. Now all of a sudden, the herd's down. If you got supply up or you got supply down and demand up, you're gonna have higher prices. So it did seem like it was one of those areas where when you know a lot about it, you can see that Trump's kinda being a blowhard here.
[00:09:16] Unknown:
Right. And the the bad thing is it it dampered the enthusiasm of the cattle rancher and the the producer to keep cattle because we all remember 2015. We all remember the cow that stole Christmas in 02/2005. And you're gonna go out there and you're gonna bet your farm literally on next year's calf crop, how many cattle you're gonna put in your feedlot, all those things. And it doesn't matter how much insurance protection you buy. You get two or three, you know, truth social posts like that. And all of a sudden, all your equity is gone. And and I don't think I don't think that I think that's the bigger issue is he's not understanding. You've got to encourage us to to build this cattle herd, and that's a long term investment that's not gonna happen in six months, eight months, or whatever.
But we have to be sure, and young people especially have to know, nobody's gonna cut the legs out from underneath me because all of a sudden, I've got midterm elections coming, and I've gotta get the price of beef down. And you just have decimated everybody's financial sheets
[00:10:28] Unknown:
with a post. Well, secretary Rollins was out there, trying to clean this thing up today. You know, she was like, look at all he's done. We've opened up more ranch land than we ever have before. We've started offering, loans for new and beginning ranchers. But I've you know, I was in a room full of farmers just yesterday, farmers and ranchers, and all of them said,
[00:10:48] Unknown:
golly gosh that Trump. I wish he knew better. I still love him, though. He's not losing any votes over this. Oh, no. No. Because the the rest of the issues are so important as well. You know, where else are you gonna go? And and we do have to remember. I mean, a year ago at this time, it was the Biden Harris administration. You know, we we forget how fast this thing has changed and how depressed a lot of us were with just all the other things that potentially impact us, and we have to balance those two. But we also have to make our voice known and say, hey. You know? Shut the hell up.
[00:11:25] Unknown:
Well, we could probably talk about this the whole show, but a lot of other things are happening, including story number two. Government shutdown threatened SNAP benefits for millions starting November 1. You're the one that brought this to my attention. The US Government shutdown now in its second week is set to do I think it's actually our third week. Set to our third week to disrupt SNAP benefits for millions unless Congress acts soon. Starting November 1, new allotments won't be processed. EBT cards card reloads could freeze entirely, leaving families without food amid already high grocery prices.
States are sounding the alarm. Tennessee's Department of Human Services warns November benefits may not issue, urging recipients to check local resources. Louisiana's governor office says over 1,000,000 residents will get nothing for November, calling for state backups. And advocacy groups like, Food Research and Action Center estimate that 20 to 30% spike in hunger risk, advising folks to stock up now and hit food banks. October payments should go through, but the clock's ticking on negotiations. What do you think? JR, is he really gonna let SNAP benefits not go out to millions of people on November 1?
[00:12:35] Unknown:
No. They we still have a printer, and we can still we we we seem to find the money, and they're going to find the money, but they're using this as leverage to, you know, make one side or the other. Who whichever side of the aisle you're on, you're make using this to make the other side look bad, put pressure on them. Hey. You gotta do this by November 1 so that we can, you know, not have, you know, women and children be affected by this, this horrible calamity. And, so I I don't think that they're going to let SNAP benefits, go unpaid. There will be some kind of a step stop gap to make this happen.
But I I think we're missing an opportunity here. This is a great opportunity for states to jump up and say, this is why we should block grant those, programs to the state so that instead of having one entity control 50 states people's worth of those those citizens worth of their groceries, get it to the state, then each state can then take care of their own people. All the federal government has to do is say, you know, you've gotten, you know, $15,000,000.
[00:13:49] Unknown:
Never gonna happen, man. Never gonna happen. Because the government, they want that power. Right? They want the ability to be able to wag, you know, millions of people, into fear and to be able to to generate that. But, also, they love it because they love the farm bill. And the farm bill being tied to SNAP benefits makes it so people will pay attention to ag in a different way, and it is going to stay a national, issue. There's just no chance they're gonna let that go. It's too much money.
[00:14:17] Unknown:
Oh, I absolutely agree with you. I just want somebody to stand up on principle and say, hey. Here's an excellent example of real worldwide, you know, life example of why we should do this and have it be local. But, but no, they're they're just using this and and more people know about the snap benefits and and the the issue that's there than they do about the price of beef. You know? That that's the the whole tariffs on beef, all that stuff, we get we get styled off and we look at that and we go, that's a big deal. But you gotta understand for most people, it's, hey. I'm not I gotta get my EBT money. They do not care about the price of beef as much as they care about getting that snap benefit. And and you look back, what was it, four months ago? I think, secretary Kennedy said that they were gonna eliminate the use of EBT for for, soda. Soda and those things. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, that was a big deal.
And, people were really upset about that. So so EBT payments, you're exactly right. Those SNAP benefits have to stay in the in the USDA. They have to stay national. Otherwise, we we really lose all of our clout.
[00:15:33] Unknown:
Yeah. I never met a government that wants to give up power. Alright. Moving on to story number three, AWS outage disrupts farmers' harvest operations. On October 20, a major AWS outage in its US East 1 region crippled 64 services, including John Deere's operation center, a cloud based platform for real time harvest data and equipment tracking. Iowa farmer Benjamin Ranish, posted on x that the full day downtime was more disruptive than the ongoing government shutdown. Without GPS enabled combines and truck coordination, his team switched to the less efficient short row harvesting, relying on radios and phones. Other farmers on x reported similar frustrations, but no widespread crop losses due to the issues.
The outage caused by a DNS service failure hit during peak corn and soybean season, raising concerns about overreliance on cloud tech. JR, did your dairy farm go down when AWS shut down this week?
[00:16:35] Unknown:
Our our dairy farm didn't. I'm a pretty low tech when it comes to my equipment, and and cows don't really care about the Internet, of course. But we did have problems with our payment processing for our customers. So that did affect us from that standpoint. So when when we make our deliveries, to different locations, we do have people that pay with with a card. We have a card reader attached to an app on the phone. Well, the app on our phone wouldn't work. And so people were staying there going, what do we do? We just redirected them to our website, different different servers, different networks or whatever, and they were able to purchase on our website. But, again, it was, at the the first person we were sitting there, and my wife and I were going like, well, did you push this button? You know, restart the phone, reset this thing. We kept doing all that, and and the people are sitting there going, I know there's money on my card. I know that. And we're like, it's not connecting. It's not that. You know?
And, and so we had people who were like, oh, what do we do? And it was a it was a eye opening experience for me because it was like, alright. We really don't deal it. We are already a cashless society, really. And so one little thing like that and all of a sudden, how do you you know, we don't carry a lot of cash with us anymore. How do you
[00:17:57] Unknown:
You know, I had an experience a couple of man, it was about a year ago. I I was invited to the Arizona Cattle Ranchers. I go out there. I'm staying in a in a, you know, resort casino thing, and, I started looking on x, and it said there were all these people not able to access their credit cards and that flights weren't going. So I go down. You there's a casino there, so the ATM limits are way up. I can get as much money out as I wanted. But I I got out a bunch of cash. And when I was flying a a couple of weeks later, I was sitting next to a guy who said, I got stranded. My credit cards didn't work. You couldn't get a rental car. And he's like, how much cash do you have on you right now? And I I, you know, I had, like, maybe a $100 from my he's like, from now on, I carry enough cash that I could pay somebody cash to get me home from wherever I'm at. And I was like, probably not a bad idea. In today's day and age, there's some little toothpick holding up an entire bridge,
[00:18:50] Unknown:
and if that toothpick breaks, you're all in big trouble. Yeah. So I think that this is a a good time for us all. I you know, for years when I was milking a lot more cows, I always kept a secondary skid loader on on hand, and I had a backup feed wagon so that if the main thing went down I think what farmers should be taking away from this is is test your resiliency. Can you can you function? Yeah. We all can go out and run the combine and and and do those things. But if you're used to being able to harvest, you know, a 100 or 200 acres a day, and now you're you're hamstrung, have you thought through how are you going to overcome that? And, and that's what we did with our business after that. We my wife and I on the drive home from that delivery point, we started to talk about how do we get around this so that, so that we can still keep our income flowing in so that customers still get their product because milk milk is perishable. You know, we can't tell them to come back in five days and get it or whatever because that that product is gone. So so it made us really look into our system and what's our backup plan? What's our strategy? Who can we how can we get around this? And we we started to work on that. Well, speaking of backup plans, story number four, FSA offices reopen on Thursday to process 3,000,000,000
[00:20:09] Unknown:
in farmer payments amid ongoing shutdown. After three weeks of closure due to government shutdown, the USDA Farm Service Agency, offices are reopening Thursday to handle core operations, including processing over $3,000,000,000 in farmer payments like ARC and PLC, farm loans, crop insurance, and disaster relief. President Trump directed ag secretary, Brooke Rollins, to reopen about 2,100 county offices with limited staffing. Two employees per office, five days a week to support farmers during harvest. The admin blames Democrats for holding up the funds while Dems, like, representative Angie Craig, welcome the move, but question the delay and push for using the SNAP contingency funds, next to avoid the the November disruptions we were just talking about. So it's funny. SNAP benefits are going away, but farmer transfer payments aren't.
[00:21:03] Unknown:
Right. Yeah. And that's going to be a, a publicity issue that we're gonna have to talk about. Why are we more important than a little child getting their nutrition, you know, their their meals for the next few weeks. But at the same time, to to me, it gets back to we're we're way over reliant on on things that we have no control over. And, and that's that's my concern. That's where I look at this. I always look at things kinda differently than a lot of folks. I operate outside the the the government payment system. I'm not involved in any of those anymore. So, but I I have a neighbor that came over and talked to me, and he's, like, a young farmer, probably late twenties.
And he was like, I've got all these grain checks from the elevator, but I've got a beginning farmer loan. So FSA has to sign off on them so I can deposit them, so I can make my payments, so I can buy more fuel for this fall. And he's in a real bind. And, you know, he was he was rather nervous about it, and I was like, you know, everybody understands. We're all in the rural community. Go and talk to people. You know? And and that's where community is going to override. And, you know, the fuel guy is gonna go to him and say, hey. I know what's going on. I'll get you 500 gallons of fuel so you can keep harvesting or whatever. You know, when they open up and you get your your funds, you could pay me. But that is a that is a real problem that's affecting a lot of people. And how are they going to if you had a payment due on October 15, you can't get your cash check cashed until November 1. You know? Are you gonna get hit with late fees or or all the other different things that could happen? And it's gonna be interesting to see how that works out. I throw out this statistic all the time, but right now, farmer and ranchers, the average,
[00:22:58] Unknown:
amount of the your financial statement is 13 and a half percent comes from these sorts of transfer payments. That is not an insignificant amount of money. That is a huge amount of money. And if you're trying to keep up with paying your your employees, if you have loans like you were saying, it's tough. But that said, I've been in ag long enough to know they never make you wait for the money. The government doesn't want the money sitting in DC. They are trying to pump it out into the system. So I'm pretty sure everybody that's got these FSA payments, they're gonna be made whole.
[00:23:30] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And and, I've got a couple of, older farmers that have been, in withdrawal because they haven't been able to go and sit and talk to the ladies once a week at the coffee shop. You know what I mean? It's they're just like, I can't wait till it opens up, so I go down and see them. Like, what are they? Your girlfriends? I don't I don't understand it. And so so, it's kinda funny and comical in that sense.
[00:23:54] Unknown:
Alright. That's gonna do it for the news this week. If you have news that you think we should be reporting on the Ag Tribes report, send it to me on x at Vance Crowe, or you can always email them to me, [email protected]. Moving on now to the Bitcoin land price report, and, woo, it has been a wild week. If you are new to Bitcoin, these sorts of, wild fluctuations have gotta have you, white knuckling yourself because these are price fluctuations that are absolutely crazy. But if you've been in the game a while, this is nothing. In fact, all we're seeing is an opportunity to pick up cheap stats. As of press time today, Bitcoin was valued at $109,857. It is down more than $10,000, since, the last Ag Tribes report, and, that's quite a bit. But, if you're a Bitcoiner, it's not that big.
So, JR, how much does an acre of land cost in Linn County, Missouri?
[00:24:53] Unknown:
It's running right around 7,000 an acre right now.
[00:24:56] Unknown:
Okay. So at, at 7,000 an acre, that means, that you could buy one acre of land for 0.063 Bitcoin, or in other words, one Bitcoin would buy you 15.7 acres. How does that sit with you?
[00:25:12] Unknown:
Boy, I like Bitcoin, and I like land. So, and I'm I'm a guy that would would trade Bitcoin for land. So I don't quite have that much Bitcoin yet, though.
[00:25:22] Unknown:
So where are you at on Bitcoin? You got a nice big sign behind you. Bitcoin accepted here. What did where are you at? How how, in deep are you?
[00:25:32] Unknown:
Well, I am I like Bitcoin. I like it. I've I've always been, my idea behind Bitcoin is I like it because it's kind of that middle finger to the system. And, so I'm I'm the Gen Xer that's I'm I'm the burn it all down and let the ashes sort themselves out. But I like Bitcoin. I like the idea behind it. I like the people that are involved in it because, you you've got two groups of people. You've got people who under who are enthusiastic about it, but realistic about it in that it's it is a tool that can be used, and we can have it for, trade and commerce and and and also a store of wealth.
You kinda have this cultish group too that I've I've sat around the campfire with here recently, and they're like, you know, Bitcoin could be the end of nuclear war. I'm not quite that far into where where Bitcoin could take us. So, but I like Bitcoin from the standpoint of, you know, it it gives us another avenue. For example, all your money, you know, every everybody says, well, it's it's all on the web and what could happen? Well, the same thing happens with your money. It just happened on Monday. You know? I'm like, your your concern is is equally valid for Fiat as it is for Bitcoin in that. But the difference is I have control over it. If once the electricity comes back on, I know where it is. I've got my passwords.
I can get it out of my wallet. I can do things with it. And so, it's not held in, somebody else's cloud that's gonna be lost, and and you gotta get it off the exchange. You know? That's that's the big thing that I've learned. Yeah. Well, really, the fundamental difference between the credit cards,
[00:27:12] Unknown:
going down and Bitcoin is that the credit cards, if there are a few servers that go down, the entire system is out. But in order for you not to be able to spend Bitcoin, the entirety of the Internet all over the world has to go down. Right. And even then, it's, you there's it would be very difficult. Right? As long as you have a node and you're able to submit, a transaction, you can move money. It may not be convenient but it is certainly better than you just show up at a screen and it says, oops. Nothing to see here. Right? And that's a fundamental difference. The credit card companies could go down and, you don't have a choice. But Bitcoin, as long as you can get somewhere to the Internet, you'll be okay.
[00:27:55] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. So and and I am still, I'm still looking for my first transaction in Bitcoin. I have been begging to get people, but I've got some people on the Internet now that are asking, and and we raise hogs as well. So I think my first Bitcoin, interaction and and exchange will be for a half a hog coming up here soon. Didn't know you did that. I I didn't know that at all. How do you raise your hogs? Out in the pasture, and, they're just pasture raised. I don't feed them any soybean meal or soybeans. They're red wattle hogs, and and that is I I don't advertise that a lot because it's like my weakness. I'm not I mean, hogs grow. They just do. It's it's kinda like it's kinda like once you get that kid as a toddler and all of a sudden they're a teenager, how'd that happen? They just grow. You know? And, hogs are kind of that way. So I started out, a couple of years ago with three sows and a boar. I've got 14 sows and two bores now, and I've got, I don't know, 50 head running around with different sizes. So,
[00:28:59] Unknown:
well JR, you might have just made your first Bitcoin sale because I've been in the market for some Missouri hogs. I've been looking for ones that are fed acorns or, hickory pignut, pignut hickories. Yeah. But, yeah. We we'll have to talk after the show. Alrighty. Sounds good. If you are interested in purchasing the bit in Bitcoin and you'd like to help support the show, use the link in the show notes to purchase it with river.com. River has worked out an arrangement with us that if you buy Bitcoin there, they send the show a little bit of Bitcoin, so it's really helpful, and it's the exchange that I use. So look for the link in the show notes below. Alright. Moving on now to the Peter Thiel paradox.
This is where I'm gonna ask JR. JR, what is one thing that you believe that almost nobody you know agrees with you on?
[00:29:45] Unknown:
Well, I was struggling with this. And then this morning, I had a young or a couple days ago, I had a young man call me, and he wanted to sit down and talk with me for half an hour this morning. Turned into an hour and a half conversation. He's a Gen z guy, and he he really wants to see our community restart. So I think from that conversation and another conversation I had today, I see these these young people really wanting rural America, rural main street to be, to survive and to thrive again. And they're not looking for a, a career. They're looking for a place. They want people that they can connect with. They want their friends to stick around. Both of these two young men told me, I'm tired of the brain drain and the talent drain of our rural communities. I wanna keep my friends here. I wanna stay here. What can we do? What can we do to make it more attractive?
And they were both like, it's not about activities. They said, we we've we've lived in Des Moines. We've lived in Kansas City. We've lived in Saint Louis. And, you know, and they they wanna build a new park, and they wanna have a new group of of entertainment set area or or whatever. So that's what we wanna raise our kids back here in the soil. We wanna have, we wanna walk down the streets again and see our buddies owning that welding shop and and having that car repair place and having you know, running the convenience store, running the gas station. And I was just blown away about how intense both of them were about this. And and we're making a plan. They both live in my community.
We're gonna start getting together once a month, brainstorm. How can we do this? And I asked them both. I says, okay. What organizations do what what organizations are already here that we can get involved in? And they were like, there isn't any because they're all the old timers, and they just get around and they they reminisce about the old days, but they don't have any vision. They don't have any desire to build it. So I I pressed those two guys, and and the one guy said it really well. He says, I want a place, and I'm tired of being I think he said it this way. I'm tired of being controlled by the placeless.
And he said, the people in DC, the people in Jeff City, they don't care about me. And I want people around me that care about me. And, both these guys happen to be, want they've got young families. All of them are under five, but they wanna homeschool their kids. I was asking about the school system, and they said, we really don't care. But both of them are products of our local high school. You know? And so they were looking at it, and they were going like, I want a different outcome for my kids. I don't want to tell them that the best place for opportunity is 200 miles away. I want them to want to live here, be near me, grow up here. And and that was exciting for me. I just saw that, and I was like, man, that is we cannot revitalize America and revitalize Main Street and rural America without that talent, those young people, that vibrancy.
And those guys I mean, they're gonna do it.
[00:33:04] Unknown:
Well, I I hear so much that I already agree with here, but what I think is a little bit different is you're doing something. Right? There's so many times people say this is what's wrong, but, you know, taking the action, getting together, seeing what rolls out is, really important. And an interesting thing you said there was, you know, they're not interested in a career. That's an almost mind blowing concept because your career has been so deeply embedded into the psyche of our my generation that, to your point, they don't, you know, they call them placeless people like there's this term somewhere versus anywhere people. And somewhere people live somewhere not because it's grandiose or it's perfect or it's got a great job but because it is somewhere and you're a person in there. Anywhere people, they want cosmopolitan, lots of restaurants, lots of opportunity, but that comes at the cost of being somebody. Right? Being a a thing that that group needs.
[00:33:56] Unknown:
So, I really like what you're what you're saying there. Yeah. Yeah. It was it was a it was a fun day. Took threw my day completely off. I didn't get half of done what I wanted to, but invested in people. And I think, for me as a Gen Xer who's typical Gen Xer, kind of cynical and loner. It was neat to have two young people reach out to me, say, hey.
[00:34:23] Unknown:
We we like some of the things you're saying. What can we do? You're full of shit. You are not cynical. You are the opposite of cynical. Cynical doesn't take action. Right? You're you're a guy I mean, if people did don't know what I'm talking about, go back and listen to my conversation with JR. He's one of the more popular podcasts I've ever done, but I would say it's the opposite of cynical. It is looking at a tar dark and difficult world and saying, I'm gonna take another step forward. So I I there there, I disagree with you. I don't think you're cynical.
[00:34:52] Unknown:
I'll be your worthy adversary today.
[00:34:55] Unknown:
Well, speaking of which, let's go to that. Who is one person that you respect but you strongly disagree with?
[00:35:02] Unknown:
Well, I really struggled with this one today because I I have gotten over the past four or five months, as I've studied and talked to more people, I my adversaries have become my enemies. They're they're the people on the other side of me that don't want to clash and come up with a solution. They just wanna stay in their spot, and they don't wanna be moved. They don't wanna reason together. They don't want to, their the the polarization has gotten to be so great that it's it's hard to find an adversary. When I think of an adversary, I think of somebody who's moving in the direction you are, but is a competitor sort of and also a person who is who is saying, I've got a better way than you, so I'm better than you, and you're and I'm gonna make you better because I'm being better.
And I don't see that right now, especially in agriculture. There's this there's this we're we're we're so polarized is the best word for it. I want all my government payments, and they gotta come to Grain Farmers. And if this doesn't happen and then the beef guys are over here going like, we're tired of tariffs, and the egg producers are up there going, you know, we we want these imports and exports so that we can get the price down. And we don't have any cohesiveness. We've all siloed off into our different spots, and we don't make one another better. And I think that's really what's happened in rural America as we become specialized and we've become so isolated from one another. We don't understand the concerns of a soybean grower and a beef grower because we're two different people now. Whereas, you know, so many years ago, we were the same person.
So I just I I racked my brain this morning, and I just I couldn't come up with somebody who I respected. But I will say, I respect Jared McDaniels, but I just I just don't agree with
[00:37:02] Unknown:
Alright. Jared McDaniel. We'll take that. You know, to your point, JR, I I this is worth me saying. So, long time listeners of the podcast know I'm on the, FCS Financial, the farm credit of Missouri. And, we came to a board meeting this week, and I've always been kinda cynical about committees and boards, because my experience with them at the World Bank, in corporate America, your school projects. Right? You get together, and the only way it's any good is if there's one leader that makes it happen, and then they kinda get the other people to go along. Well, yesterday, we had to make a tough decision with our board, and, we the way that group fought about ideas, the way they were like, this is what I think and I'm worried about this, I noticed so quickly that this was a group of people that the idea kept getting progressively better. It kept getting more sophisticated. Our options widened open and I sat there being totally astounded. I talked to my wife afterwards and I was like, I am literally honored to be among people that are solving a problem synergistically.
I actually thought that that was not a real thing. And now I see if you bring the right people together and you give them the the proper motivation, the the collective whole can come up with something better than than any one individual. But this is not occurring in anywhere places. It it is only occurring maybe in rural America. It's the only place I've ever seen it. Right. Right. Well, again and, unfortunately,
[00:38:38] Unknown:
when you get stuck in a place where you don't wanna share your ideas, all you do is emote. And it and you can't argue with emotion. You you can never out emote that other person. You know? And unless you become angry and irate and then nothing happens or you just start to cry, you know, or however that works. But the greatest emotion, isn't going to solve the problem, but it'll shut down the argument. And I think that's where we're at right now in in, America as a whole. And that's why you saw the people crying about the EBT. They weren't talking about the problem. They weren't talking about solutions. They're just emoting. I deserve this. I need this. And then both sides use that emotion to then, better their position instead of, do we have a solution here? Why can't you guys all sit in a room together and come up with I mean, let's face it. It's it's the matter of we're gonna go in debt or we're gonna go in debt a little more. It it's it's not super complicated. It's just, you know and then you're gonna where are you gonna move the x's on the paper?
We're we're still gonna be in debt. We're still gonna be at a crisis at some point. So just get over it and go on and stop emoting about this.
[00:39:55] Unknown:
Well, JR, you did not disappoint. It is so good that you were able to come on. Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about Nourishing Family Farms?
[00:40:03] Unknown:
Well, we are a, small, grass based farm in North Central Missouri, Linn County, Missouri. We sell raw milk, cream, some other dairy products. We sell, we're getting ready to sell hogs. We, pork and and those types of things. We are in the process. We harvested our small grains this summer, and, we're in the process of getting our fanning mills and all those things set up so that we can start to sell wheat berries. And, and, we've got a person that's getting ready to do flour. And I'm working on a couple other really interesting opportunities that just presented themselves this week that, we're in the early stages of that I think will be, beneficial to our community and and a wider range in agriculture.
So
[00:40:49] Unknown:
Another big way that you reach out to the world, in fact, I think it's probably the way I found out who you were, was you do these things where you record yourself in the, milking parlor Yeah. Just kinda talking about things. Talk a little bit about that.
[00:41:01] Unknown:
Well, I've actually been off for about three weeks because I'm busy with harvest, busy with all their things on the farm, and I was delivering a calf. And, just the way large animals work, she stepped back and hit my phone. And I haven't I haven't had taken the time to go in and get a new phone because it's just pain in the butt. So, you know, I I told my wife, I says, it it's still I can still answer a phone call and I can still text. So it does the basic things. But, my parlor pit, it kind of started. I was really upset about what was going on with mandatory electronic ID. Started doing a couple of minutes about that. And then, Elon bought x, and he was telling everybody, you know, hey. You are the media now. And I kinda took that to heart, and I wanted to start sharing some thoughts. And then I got some positive feedback. And then I got some criticism, and the criticism motivated me more because it was like, yeah. Well, screw you. I can still talk, but you can't shut me down. And, I just kept posting about that. And I've I've met a lot of neat people through that, had really good discussions.
And, and I don't you know, as you probably noticed, I don't think like a lot of other people. So my my takes are really off the wall on some things. But, and I I really like putting history behind what I talk about. So I can say, hey. This is where we were in the past. This is where we're gonna go in the future. And, and so, so yeah. So I'm hoping, some things will settle down. I'm hoping that next week, I'll start that back up.
[00:42:40] Unknown:
Yeah. You gotta go get that phone fixed. Well, JR, if people wanted to get ahold of you, they wanted to learn more about nursing family farms, where would they go? Well, go on x. It's j r cow farmer is my handle on there.
[00:42:52] Unknown:
Reach out to me there. You can also go to our Facebook page, which is Nourishing Family Farm. And, our website is www.nourishingfamilyfarm.com. And, look anythings of those over. We've had, we've had really neat conversations with people all over the nation. The the sign you see behind me was, given to me by a bunch of Bitcoiners in Tennessee. They, they had listened to a couple of different podcasts I've been guests on. Yours was one of them. David Bissett's, Bitcoin and was another. And, they sent me that. They sent me a node. They sent me a whole bunch of cards. It's it's a whole bunch of placards. So I've I've got stickers on my truck now. I'm just like a billboard for them, but really need to get to know those people and and, meet them and, learning a lot more about the intricacies of Bitcoin that I didn't know before.
[00:43:53] Unknown:
You know, there is a truly profound bridge between farmers and, Bitcoiners. And, David of the podcast Bitcoin and is a great example of it. Not a farmer, really interested in it. Bitcoin becomes that bridge. And, so if you're somebody that's looking to build out an audience, one of the reasons I think JR may be lacking a little bit in the Bitcoin purchases is because Linn County, Missouri is a little bit out there. Yeah. But, but if you are a farmer somewhere near a city, I guarantee you if you put up the, hey. I'm I'm, accepting Bitcoin, people are gonna pop up that you never imagined, and you may get a customer for life. Alright. JR, that's gonna do it. I really appreciate you, coming on.
[00:44:35] Unknown:
Thanks. Glad to be here.
[00:44:38] Unknown:
Alright. That's gonna do it for this week's show. I really had a good time. I really appreciated JR coming on. And I wanna mention again, if you've never heard the podcast, that I did with JR Burdick, it is a fantastic one. He tells a story about how his cows were, killed with, electricity coming up through the ground, and he had to start all the way over. He talks about his strife and the challenges he faced. I had no idea the kind of man he was gonna be before I interviewed him, and now he's become a close friend. Well, if you are thinking about getting your loved ones a special Christmas present, I would recommend you look into doing a legacy interview. This is where I sit down with your loved ones to record their life stories so that future generations can know their family history.
If you're interested in doing this and you'd like to, watch that video of your parents, your grandparents telling their stories, sign up to do a legacy interview before the first week of December, and we will get that video back to you in time to watch it over the holidays. And many, many people have told me just how impactful the video was, watching it with their loved ones, getting to stop the tape and ask for more, clarity, hearing more, and people just really love it. Another big thing that I have been working on is a course called Intraspace Communicating, and this is a course that is designed to help people communicate. So I'm gonna leave with a parting message about, the, the interest based communications class.
[00:46:08] Unknown:
Alright. We'll be back next week with another guest. Good negotiation is one where both parties walk away slightly disappointed. That was probably my default world model b v before Vance. Well, Vance had a lot of these models that he created. I ingrained a lot of these models so deeply from working with Vance for a long time that I started to re communicate them to my friends and my friends' eyes had the same sort of light up of understanding of like this is a thing that could help me be more effective in life. Whenever Vance let me know that he was working on sort of putting this into more of a workshop form, I was like, yeah, man. I want that for my team, like, now. If my first two employees go through this so that we have this shared set of context and a shared set of language, that's gonna create value for my team going forward.
[00:46:54] Unknown:
I wanted to get better at communication myself. I knew I had good ideas in my head that I wanted to be able to communicate to potential investors, and I was not super confident in being able to do that before.
[00:47:06] Unknown:
I thought that negotiation was basically for people in a boardroom, like CEOs, words like shareholder are involved. So I thought that you had to have a lot of resources at your disposal to even care about negotiations. Both people had to lose or both people weren't happy in the end. I found that what you both want is achievable by understanding the needs of the other person more. A negotiation is really a way to solve a problem that you have. You can rearrange the world in such a way where all parties get something that they're happy with. So you don't need to possess great resources to be involved in a negotiation or to really benefit from knowing how to negotiate.
[00:47:47] Unknown:
RJ and I initially were two different businesses. It became clear to us over the long term that we would be much more bullish on our shared future if we, like, found a way to, like, actually be one entity, one whole working together. That required us to have what to many would be very hard conversations because we're both CEOs of our own independently funded businesses, but we were able to have conversations and get to the root of what our actual interests and what our actual skill sets were. Having both people understand this pattern of communication was useful to pull out those tools when we needed them the most in, like, difficult conversations.
[00:48:23] Unknown:
It's very helpful to have that quick language to do something more productive than or continue to like misunderstand or whatever
[00:48:31] Unknown:
whatever else you're doing. Building relationships isn't just you communicating to the other person. It's also figuring out how to let the other person communicate to you so that they trust you. Getting into a real conversation and diffusing tensions before you, you know, get to business.
[00:48:46] Unknown:
A lot of people have a default model where they're like, I wanna raise my own money. I wanna start my own business. I wanna do my own thing. We find that they have specific interests that could help us. We become allies instead of competitors.
[00:48:58] Unknown:
I guess the course gives you tools to know that you can say the right words to, like, extract those things out of the ether and put them in your life. Learning interest based communications
[00:49:09] Unknown:
from Vance might actually be the single highest leverage skill set that I ever developed before starting this company. I'm by default an introvert. I think that I've developed the ability to interact with people in such a way that it's energizing and it's fun, and I look forward to interacting with strangers on a regular basis. You should just take it. Just do it already. Yeah. I feel like you should just do it. Like, no. I don't know. I feel like it's life content. It's like definitely fun life content. I am doing exactly what I want to be doing with my life. Interspace Communications did that for me more than anything else that I've learned.
Opening and guest intro: JR Burdick returns
Watching AI markets and the NVIDIA feedback loop
News lineup: beef tariffs, SNAP, AWS outage, FSA, Bitcoin
Trumps tariff post and cattle price backlash
Market power, packers, and herd dynamics behind beef prices
SNAP benefits at risk amid shutdownstate vs. federal control
EBT rules, politics, and why SNAP stays national
AWS outage hits harvest tech and farm payments
Resilience lessons: cash, backups, and contingency plans
FSA offices reopen to move $3B; reliance on government flows
Bitcoin land price report: sats per acre in Missouri
Self-custody, nodes, and first farm sale in Bitcoin
Pastured hogs and a potential Bitcoin-for-pork deal
Peter Thiel paradox: Gen Z rebuilding rural Main Street
Boards that work: synergy vs. polarization in ag
Spotlight: Nourishing Family Farm and community ventures
Parlor Pit videos, criticism as fuel, and history-minded takes
Bridging farmers and Bitcoiners; how to connect
JRs past ordeal and closing thanks
