09 May 2025
ATR: UK Bends the Knee and potential Surgeon General hates Glyphosate with @zebulousprime - E439
The Ag Tribes Report features returning guest Zack Smith (@zebulousprime), an innovative Iowa farmer known for his Stock Cropper system and sustainable farming advocacy. The episode covers three major agricultural news stories:
As always, the episode will include Zack's Peter Thiel Paradox (a controversial belief most farmers disagree with) and his Worthy Adversary.
- US-UK Beef Trade Deal: A new agreement eliminates UK tariffs on American beef that meets their strict standards, opening a significant export market but potentially straining US cattle herds already at 73-year lows.
- Dr. Casey Means' Surgeon General Nomination: Trump's nomination of this functional medicine advocate and vocal glyphosate critic could influence public perception of conventional agriculture despite the position's limited direct control over ag policy.
- AI in Agriculture: We'll discuss the farming community's reaction to Vance's recent podcast demonstrating how advanced AI is transforming agricultural work, exploring whether these technologies help small operations or widen existing gaps.
As always, the episode will include Zack's Peter Thiel Paradox (a controversial belief most farmers disagree with) and his Worthy Adversary.
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[00:00:00]
Unknown:
The Ag Tribes Report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are so the future knows who they really were. Here's Legacy Interviews guest Laurie Alt on the joy she experienced looking back on her life as a farm wife and mother.
[00:00:17] Unknown:
My career was raising my children, being a wife to Steve, helping on the farm, and I'm so glad for doing all that. Having this interview with you helps us see those good things that we have done, how happy I was in all those choices that I make. We can say that and put it in this interview to pass it on to our children and our grandchildren and great grandchildren someday. So I think you have a great gift to give people.
[00:00:50] 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.
[00:01:05] Unknown:
Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crow. Each week, I bring on a cohost to represent the perspectives of one of the many ag tribes that collectively make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week, we have our first returning cohost, Zach Smith, who goes by Zebulos Prime on x. Zach is a farmer revolutionizing agriculture with his innovative stock cropper system. A passionate leftist, this week's commie advocates for cover crops and sustainable farming. He recently began a weekly video program on x discussing different areas of agriculture. And while his opinions are typically wrong, he does have a variety of novel hats that are worth tuning in for. Zach,
[00:01:49] Unknown:
welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. Oh, I knew that commie stuff was coming. Bring it on, brother. Let's let's go.
[00:01:56] Unknown:
So what have you been paying attention to? Looks like you are in a tractor right now. Yeah. I've been attention to planting corn for the last,
[00:02:04] Unknown:
four days straight, and, haven't had any air conditioning in my tractor. So I'm a little bit hot and smelly and, a little dehydrated. But, yeah, we should get finished up, here tomorrow if, things go well. And, then I'm focusing on, moving on to the stock cropper plots, all the experiments. I usually plant those last when I can focus and have time. That that's where I'm gonna probably do that over the weekend and early next week. So, other than that, focused on weather, focused on the trade war, focused on, you know, markets.
What's gonna happen is this dry weather cycle that is in, you know, in place now. Is it gonna carry on this summer? How am I gonna market my grain? Those are some of the things I'm thinking about.
[00:02:47] Unknown:
You know, out of all the things that you said, the thing that caught my ear is that you're,
[00:02:51] Unknown:
bitching and moaning about not having air conditioning in your tractor. That's pretty tough for a first world farmer. Oh, yeah. That's a that's a huge first world. It I I would be better to be catalyst today, actually. But, you know, the the old tractors, you could actually open the windows. These damn things are like glass saunas, and so you just bake, in here. So I I gotta open my door, in the right direction so I don't fill with dust. But I did all of it when I was a kid. I did a lot of lot of Cabalist stuff, so I've I've been there and done that.
[00:03:19] Unknown:
Yeah. I when I do these legacy interviews, you hear all these people, and and I know I can every single time get a guy to laugh if I'm like, well, you had a cab you sat in. Right? And then they all laugh and talk about, no. We were out in the hot sun in my first tractor. Oh, yeah. Yep. Alright. Well, tonight on the Ag Tribes report, we're gonna examine the new US UK trade deal eliminating tariffs on American beef, while navigating The UK's strict food standards. We're gonna discuss doctor Casey Means' controversial surgeon general nomination and her stance against the glyphosate.
Plus, we'll explore the farming community's reaction to the last, the podcast I just released on AI, and, I wanted to get some of Zach's thoughts on it. We're also gonna explore the Bitcoin land price report. We'll hear Zach's take on the Peter Thiel paradox, and we'll ask him for a new worthy adversary, and we're gonna do that all live in just thirty minutes. So let's get started. Headline one, the US strikes a deal with The UK. American beef exports win big, but at what cost? Today, The US and UK finalized a train deal cutting UK tariffs on US beef from 12% all the way down to zero for products meeting UK standards. These standards prohibit hormone treated beef and chlorinated chicken, ensuring US exports align with UK strict food policy, and animal welfare regulations.
This agreement significantly expands access to The UK's Ninety Two Billion Dollar agricultural import market. Whereas we used to only import wine and nuts, now American beef producers can compete more effectively. However, this is all going on, while The US herd is at its lowest level in seventy three years. Increased export demand could strain domestic supply, sending prices even higher. So while it's being celebrated as a win for, beef, those that raise cattle, not so sure that's true for, the American consumer. Zach, this is the first trade deal announced with a major economy.
Is the shift what farmers were hoping for after taking a huge beating on commodity prices and input costs?
[00:05:28] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, it's a good first step. I mean, I'm not a Trump guy. I think, his approach with blowing shit up, with all this trade stuff is, is dangerous. But I'm I'm encouraged, and I will give him an attaboy for at least getting something done here that seems to be positive at least on its face. I didn't have a lot of time going to get all the details, going back and forth across the field, but it seems like it was a good give and take where some of the things that are important to The UK, like food safety, you know, issues that we're gonna talk more about later on here. You know, they got some of that, and and we got access to sell more stuff. Now I'm not a beef guy, so I'm not gonna pretend to, I can't say anything intelligent to, you know, what what the what the reaction is. I'm sure prices are gonna go up for US consumers. I don't eat beef, so it's not a problem for me. I I only eat the stuff I grow, which is pork and chicken.
But, you know, the the interesting thing, you know, with all this stuff is going to see if if deals are gonna continue to be made where everybody gives a little bit or, if we get nothing or if we get a lot, you know, but it's a good first
[00:06:31] Unknown:
first step, I guess. We've been waiting for it for a while to see if something meaningful is gonna happen. So Yeah. I mean, this is exactly what my kinda my beliefs on tariffs. They're good for getting rid of other people's tariffs, and that's exactly what happened. I mean, The UK, they they got us to bring down the 25% tariff we had on cars and steel. And, not only did they do the agricultural imports, which is a big deal, it's also including not just beef, but ethanol, but they're also eliminating the 2% digital services tax on American tech companies. So that's gonna be money just right back in the in the pocket of American companies because they're not paying, a senseless digital services tax.
Yeah. A %. I hope more of it comes. You know, like I said, I'm not a a big Trump guy, but he's the president. And, you know, I want America to do well. And if this, this is part of that, then game on. I do think it's interesting. You know, we're counting this as a big win with, with beef prices or with beef, but, I mean, we are in for some very serious price hikes when it comes to beef. The the herd is as low as it's ever been. There's not heifers being returned into the herd. Like, I think this is great for for, cattle farmers. They've gotta be singing and dancing right now, and they've endured a long time. But this is going to actually impact US consumers for sure.
[00:07:50] Unknown:
Yeah. A %. And it may, you know, it may turn people to other sources, like, you know, like what I eat pork and chicken, because they're yeah. They are substantially cheaper. And I still prefer a really good pork chop to a steak. I know that makes me a communist, but, that's that's what I am. So
[00:08:06] Unknown:
Alright. Moving on to headline number two, Trump taps glyphosate critic as surgeon general. The ag world braces for impact. Yesterday, president Trump nominated doctor Casey Means, a 37 year old functional medicine advocate as US Surgeon General to lead public health services, through the the office of the surgeon general. This means a Stanford, trained MD left a surgical residency to cofound Levels, a metabolic health company, and coauthored Good Energy, which criticizes conventional medicine. She's a vocal critic against glyphosate stating it's probably carcinogenic per the WHO and linking its 19,000,000,000 pounds of use to obesity and cancer.
Let's, take a listen to what Casey Means has, said when she was on her book tour that relates to agriculture.
[00:08:57] Unknown:
That 82% of independently funded studies show harm from processed food, while 93% of industry sponsored studies reflect no harm. In medical school, I didn't learn that 95% of the people who created the recent USDA food guidelines for America had significant compiles of interest with the food industry. I did not learn that 1,000,000,000 pounds of synthetic pesticides are being sprayed on our food every single year. 99 99% of the farmland in The United States is sprayed with synthetic pesticides, many from China and Germany. And these invisible, tasteless chemicals are strongly linked to autism, ADHD, sex hormone disruption, thyroid disease, sperm dysfunction, Alzheimer's, dementia, birth defects, cancer, obesity, liver dysfunction, liver dysfunction, female infertility, and more, all by hurting our metabolic health.
[00:09:55] Unknown:
So she didn't talk directly about glyp in that particular one. But, Zach, what do you think when you hear her talking about, the chemicals being used to raise crops?
[00:10:05] Unknown:
You know, I I it appeals to a lot of people because, when you use the word chemical, it's scary. Right? And you see the airplane images, crop dusting, and sprayers going across the field, and and I I get all that stuff. I'm conflicted on this because, you know, I I'm in this regen ag space, like, but I come at it from, I think, probably a more nuanced perspective from my background, you know, in big ag for the last, last twenty years. And, you know, I think it's easy to talk, big things about, well, we're just gonna get rid of all this stuff. Well, what is the off road? How do you get from, you know, how we farm today to, to this alternative future where we're not going to use chemicals to produce any type of, to produce food? It's a it's a huge lift, and the devil is in the details. It's it's one of the frustrations I've had with developing stock cropper. Stock cropper is a great concept. It works. But scaling it, that is the challenge. How do you get all the other things that take have to take place to completely reinvent a food system. And, am I convinced personally that glyphosate, you know, that that what you said there about, it's you know, it causes cancer and obesity?
Well, I'm I'm not obese. I've sprayed it for twenty five years. I just sprayed it the other day. I don't have cancer. Is that anecdotal? Yes. But there's a lot of people in these circles you know, there there I should say this you know, there's a single study that was done, I think, in 2015 where it was probably carcinogenic. But, you know, there's debate on on the data that was used, the dosing that they used on the lab rats or the the mice or whatever that was in the thing. Wasn't wasn't anything close to what the exposure level that we have in humans. I'm not trying to be a shill for big egg. I'm trying to live in reality. And, like, when I look at the practices I use on my farm, I talked about in my video last week. You know, cover crops are something I think are a really, really important practice, that could be used at scale, but only, you know, really with the help of glyphosate because you have to have a way to kill it. It. And glyphosate is the most effective, piece to do. And I think the the ancillary benefits that the cover crops produce outweigh, in my opinion, at least from what I've seen right now, you know, the the damage that glyphosate may cause. It sounds like a scary word. It came from Monsanto. So does it have to be bad? You know? I I don't know. I'm I'm not convinced on it. And so I think the thing I worry about I I agree with a lot of this stuff with with RFK and with what she's saying about the things we need to do with health and how we need to change agriculture.
But if we're gonna throw everything out with the bathwater and just call everything bad and not, you know, be nuanced or careful, on that, I just it's not realistic, with, you know, going from here going from a to b with what what they're trying to propose.
[00:12:43] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I so I had to even look up. I didn't know what the surgeon general does. Now they don't have direct control over agriculture. That's handled by the USDA and the FDA, but they are kind of the head of public health. So they there's very limited in their, like, what is it that they get to do or what do they have control over, but they are going to be controlling the dialogue. And when you see things like, her tweet that we have posted here, 19,000,000,000 pounds of life glyphosate sprayed, talking about 80,000 synthetic toxins in the food, the water. You know, people are looking for what's going on here, what's wrong with our food, but we have to be based on some kind of a system. You know, we have to have, like, a how are we making these decisions, And I would say the vast, majority of the studies that are out there that are relating to public health would say that glyphosate is safe, but I I you know, I'm not opposed to somebody coming in and and stirring things up and trying to find, hey. May maybe these were,
[00:13:41] Unknown:
put together in some negative way. Seems like she's, like, a little less than professional about it all of it, though. Yeah. I mean, believe me. Like, you you and I both know the money that these the the big corporations that we both used to work for have at their disposal, you know, and and what they're what they can squash. And so if somebody came forward with meaningful meaningful work that wasn't biased by something else, I would you know, if if it proved that was the case, I'd stop using it a % or I'd find an alternative, You know? But I'm not gonna I'm not going to, to change things that I can see that are helping other things on the farm be better, without real evidence.
[00:14:16] Unknown:
Yeah. And, I mean, I one of the ways that I talk about it is I say, you know, I use glyphosate on the bricks and on the driveway that, my daughters play on, and, that's that's the level of confidence that I have on it. Now I'm not going out and spraying them with it. I'm being careful about it, but I, that that's the confidence that I have in glyphosate. Alright. Moving on to story number four or number three, ag community reacts to advanced AI demonstration. This Tuesday, I published a podcast demonstrating how advanced AI is taking in, a great deal and how how much it's changed. I'm talking about how I use it in my own business, and I have to say the reaction from all of my listeners was bigger than anything I've ever put out. I got I've continued to get texts and emails, over and over about people saying I did not know it was this far along. I've started using it, and, it was it was really incredible. I I've just never felt anything like this before. I got videos of an old tractor that got started from advice from grok, spreadsheets outlining cropping decisions made over the last twenty years that had never been compiled before, and a readout of soil sample, that was it had exceptional detail.
So, I mean, it was huge, and you and I had a chance to talk about this. What was your reaction? What were your thoughts on the, the AI podcast?
[00:15:38] Unknown:
You know, I've been I've been, like, interested at a distance, but I kinda thought this is probably a few years from being a real deal. But I started using Grok personally probably about a month or two ago and have been using it more and more. And every day, I get a little bit more blown away. And watching that podcast with an AI interviewing you and interacting, like, fairly fairly normally, like, really, really close, it blew my mind. And it, I mean, I sent the video to my wife. I sent it to my daughters. I said, you need to watch this because this is coming. You know? And I sent it to my wife. It's like, you know, how are you how are you gonna react in your job, you know, to to this? I sent it to my daughters that are in college. Like, how are you gonna react in the fields? Like, you know, you need to start thinking about this now because it is going to be here way faster and way sooner than than what we think. You know? And, you know, honestly, when I had this problem with this tractor, with with the air conditioning, I asked Brock last night. My god. The the level of detail that it had for a versatile three ten twenty sixteen tractor, I mean, it was unreal. It was probably better than calling calling the shop the level of detail that I got out of it. So Yeah. I mean, I think about its uses, you know, the the number of you know, like, if you ever had a a
[00:16:56] Unknown:
crop chemistry
[00:16:57] Unknown:
problem. Right? Like, what's the mix ratio? How does this go together? These are the wind speeds. It is going to completely blow away what we used to have to call up a specialist for. Oh, that was me, and that was one of the reasons I quit is because I thought this day was coming. I just didn't think it would be this fast. I thought it would be when I was 50 or 55, but I'm 46, and it's here now. Like, agronomy work, you know, I mean, there I was thinking about all the things within ag that this could be better. It's twenty four seven touch of a button, and you get probably better expertise than you would actually call on somebody anymore. So this is if people aren't paying attention, if you haven't, like, got one of these services, you know, on your phone to start playing with it, You better start if, if you don't wanna get left behind. That's my opinion.
[00:17:43] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, the way that I did that podcast because I've been thinking about it for a long time. You know, anytime I get into something, I always just wanna talk about it on the podcast because then all my friends can talk about it, and we just have to do it once. But I really wanted to think about how do we get past the dumb argument that people normally have when they're like, nope. It's not gonna take my job. And that's not my point. My point was this is going to pervade everyone's work. It is going to impact everybody no it doesn't matter if you're JR Burdick and you're a raw dairy milk farmer. Even if you were hand milking those cows, if your competitor is using them to figure out how to fix the, you know, the line issue to, arrange deliveries more, frequently or better, all of the things that AI is going to do, whether or not it actually picks up and, wrench and does the work for you is immaterial.
What it is is it's going to be a lever for the mind, and the first people that get to it are the ones that get the longest lever. Yeah. Yeah. It is the new age crescent wrench for sure. What do you think adoption will be like in agriculture?
[00:18:46] Unknown:
You know, ag usually usually drags with stuff like this, but, you know, I think I think more people are awake. I've had more conversations in the last few weeks about it with folks. And, but, you know, it it'll come for every industry. And, I think when I think when farmers figure out how to leverage it, it will be a a really big deal, from an from an independence. Yeah. There's a lot of farmers that subscribe to things or pay for services. And, man, it makes, you know, a subscription to GROC or CLOD or, you know, the the upscale chat GBTs look pretty damn cheap, for what people pay to get expertise that you can have for, you know, almost nothing now. Yeah. Without question. The $30 I pay for Grok and the $20 I pay for Claude, like, $50. The amount of of help it's given me is way more than whatever I would have done for $50, you know, what I what I could have paid somebody for. Now will it will I wanna say one thing. Will it replace people wanting to interact with people? I think there's a lot of folks in agriculture that still like that piece, but I think it's going to challenge that, you know, quite a little. So
[00:19:52] Unknown:
Well, that's gonna do it for the headlines today. If you have headlines, you can always send them over to me, at vance crow on x, or you can send it to me, vance at legacy interviews. Turning now to the Bitcoin land price report. First, let's play this quick video as Bitcoin crossed a hundred thousand dollars again today. Anyway, the reason I am so elated this is because, back in February, we're talking about Bitcoin all the time. It's up at, like, one zero six. People are buying, and the way I know that they're buying is because they're using the RiverLink, and then Bitcoin's price plummets. And so what I got to do was to baptize all the new Bitcoin hodlers in the world of, being underwater for a little while, but it's good. It is now back up over a hundred thousand.
In fact, as of press time, it was sitting at a hundred and $3,500, which is 7.1 percent up from last week's price of 96,000. So, Zach, the last time you were on back in August of twenty twenty four, we discussed land prices in your area. At that time, you mentioned that Winnebago County, the average land was selling for around 12,800 per acre. So when we translated that into Bitcoin back then, with Bitcoin trading at $58,452, that meant an acre of land in Winnebago County cost about 0.22 Bitcoin per acre. Fast forward to today, Bitcoin at a hundred and 3,000, the, that same acre would now cross approximately 0.12 Bitcoin.
And, in other words, last August, '1 Bitcoin would have bought you 4.5 acres, and now it would buy you 8.1 acres of farmland in Winnebago County. What do you think, Zach? Is that a fair assessment of the land values in Winnebago County?
[00:22:17] Unknown:
Yeah. I would say we're we're probably haven't changed a lot from that. There was a poor piece that sold a couple miles from where I'm sitting, a few weeks ago for, like, 8,300. But, you know, I've I, I stand by what I said last August. I'd rather, as a farmer, I'd rather, own Bitcoin right now than land. I just I see everything that's happening with, with the new policies and the the new administration. And the the amount of people that are talking about it that I never thought would've, when I started getting interest interested via through you, and your influence, you know, that you've had on a lot of folks, in this space, you know, a few years ago. Like, it feels like something is, is happening and this thing is gonna I mean, there's so much that has changed from when I got in. When I got in was just the the hint of the ETFs were maybe coming, and there's so many things that have happened since then. It almost doesn't seem like like the price is high enough to really reflect, you know, all the magnitude of all the things from a, you know, a policy standpoint that are better getting set up right now. So
[00:23:20] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, the I I am exactly with you. The amount of interest that's gone into Bitcoin, it just continues to mount. And it was mounting when Bitcoin was down in the 70,000 range. Like, I'm getting requests for people, hey. Can I come by your office? Can you sit down and show this to me? Hey. I wanna get a Trezor wallet. I bought some Bitcoin for my kids. I wanna get it off in exchange. And this is from some down home farmers. This is not like people just outside the city. These are people that are, deeply enmeshed in the culture. And I as I watch it go spread through agriculture, I think this is a great thing.
[00:23:54] Unknown:
Yeah. And, you know, and, I mean, for me right now, there's a lot of threats, you know, to the price plan right now. I mean, you know, this trade war. I mean, it it's great that we they had the win today, but that's not guaranteed, you know, depending on what happens with China, you know, potentially next week. You know, there's talks that that's gonna get released. If it if it goes the wrong way, you know, it could I mean, it could be a it Bitcoin could be a really, really nice hedge, you know, for for land going down, if if that potentially happens. I'm kinda hoping on that because I'm planning on buying some land here, you know, probably in the next ten years, and I'm using, you know, Bitcoin, hopefully, as a tool to, you know, make that happen.
[00:24:29] Unknown:
Well, I love to hear you say that. If you're interested in getting Bitcoin, I will include the link to, River, which is the site that I actually buy my Bitcoin from when I buy it on an exchange and then hold it. If you buy it using our link, you will be supporting the show, and I can tell you it's a wonderful thing, and you will be joining a growing community of agriculture that is, getting into Bitcoin. So I'll include that at the show notes after the show. Now heading on to the Peter Thiel paradox. Now Zach has his weekly show. He does he puts out mostly on Saturday. Sometimes, you know, hangovers and things get in the way. You get it out on Sunday.
But, but he's he's always throwing out some Peter Thiel paradoxes there, so I'm interested to see. Are you pulling out the stops here, Zach? What do you what do you got for us? Yeah. What is one thing that you believe that nobody else agrees with you on?
[00:25:19] Unknown:
You know, I don't I think there's other people that agree with me on, but, like, within the within the space I'm in, I don't know how many do. I think, you know, there's a big a big war against public education right now. It's been going on for the last, you know, probably ten years have been mounting, and I think people are blaming you know, they wanna blame the school systems, and I think that's you know, that public schools are bad, and we need to homeschool and privatize everything. That's a big thing here in Iowa. For me, I think that's a bunch of bullshit. I think, you know, public schools, have been a great thing throughout history. And, really, the issue we've had since my generation went through high school is we've had two generations of failed parents, and that is the millennial and the gen x have sucked at parenting and dealing with the challenges with technology, and it's caused a whole host of issues that these poor educators and administrators have to deal with. Schools have become glorified day cares, and they they get thrown this shit mess of people not being parents. People are tuned out. They're on their phones.
They're, you know, they're not they're not tuned in to being parents. They're not they don't teach their kids how to be accountable. You know, I I'm I have strong opinions about this because I went through this. I've got two kids in college, now, and I raised them. And I was the black sheep because I raised my kids like my folks raised me, and that wasn't in vogue. And then and they told me that all the time. Dad, you're the only one, you know, that that that does things this way. And I think, trying to push things into smaller niches where it's more not, you know, not challenged by outside thought. And, you know, that's the great thing about public schools. Everybody everybody comes and you have rich kids to poor kids and, you know, all sorts of, you know, races and, you know, all sorts of all sorts of backgrounds that come together. And that diversity of thought, I think, is really important. Being able for critical thinking skills to see people from other perspectives, especially with AI coming. That's one of the things I wanted to hit on. With AI, the thing that you and I talked about is how are we gonna teach kids to think critically enough to use this as a tool effectively and not be be eaten by it?
That's one of my big things. And so, parenting in the last two generations has sucked. It gets and and to me, it's the reason why, you know, the the the public education system one of the reasons I should say has really had challenges over the last, you know, five to ten years.
[00:27:42] Unknown:
Well, I mean, you're coming out swinging there because I intuitively don't agree with you on this. I think that, education is inherently, in the public education is inherently communism. Right? We force everyone to pay into it. It is, a completely, subsidized system. It's very, very difficult to work with teachers to push out the bad ones and to reward the good ones. And, I think that it is also a way to push a lot of propaganda onto young people that is state enforced. No matter no matter who it is, the government's the one that's in control of the curriculum. And, I think that's been increasing, and they've taken more and more control away from school boards. So I don't agree with that. Time. I hear that shit all the time from people. And you know what my dad always said? I've said this to you before.
[00:28:28] Unknown:
If schools were effective at what they did, you'd have reason to be concerned. 90% of education starts at home, and you have the opportunity. And I know you're doing this. I'm not, you know, coming at you personally, but I think so many people don't put the time in to invest in their own kids. And that leads to these issues. You know? And and then and then we blame it on on the government or we blame it on the teachers. We blame it on woke ideology. I asked my daughters, but, you know, kind of preparing for this, I sent them a text, and I didn't bait them, tell them the context. I said, you know, how often in your education, both in high school and now at a at a four year public university, have you had the feeling of some sort of political bias be put put forth?
And I got a response. One time in high school, I had a teacher that, maybe got out of line on that, but that was it.
[00:29:18] Unknown:
Yeah. But a fish that's in water has no idea that it's even in water. I mean, that that's why I can tell you the perfect example of propaganda. The most perfect example is economics. Right? How many people right now believe in Keynesian economics? The government needs to have two and a half percent inflation. The Fed is the one that should be able to, control how much money we put into the system. It like, economics is one of the core things that you need to teach a young person, and we are teaching all of our kids the worst economics that you possibly can so that that way the government can continue to print money and not have to tax their citizens while stealing away all their value.
[00:29:56] Unknown:
K. You're wrong.
[00:30:01] Unknown:
Alright. Well, I will give you a star. I will give you a solid eight nine on that one. This is a good one because I totally don't agree with it. No. You're wrong. You'll figure it out when your kids get older. Well, alright. Now moving on to your worthy adversary, who is one person that you but completely disagree with?
[00:30:22] Unknown:
This is a tough one. I don't know. This this probably isn't gonna be very good because it's it's I you know, I don't know. I'm I'm gonna this is just me kind of phoning it in. I would say, Elon Musk. I don't get what Elon has done, you know, with his positioning with Doge. I think Doge, you know, at least on on its face right now, I mean, I mean, they were promised in $2,000,000,000,000 of savings, and right now, it's like a hundred and 50,000,000,000 for sure. I I like the spirit of Doge, but, know, it feel it feels like to me the woke mind virus got him and the fact that he lost, his, son, I guess, you know, that that turned transgender.
And in fact, you know, that Biden didn't invite him to the EV summit. There's a couple things I think that broke him, and, it it it's too bad because I do think he's he's one of the most important people of our time. I don't think he deserves, you know, the level of hate. I don't think people should be burning Tesla's, you know, but I I just I don't know. I don't know what I hope he recovers because I think he's really, really important, and he does deserve people's, respect despite, you know, the political decisions that he's made. And, you know, I'm gonna actually, I'm gonna go test drive a Tesla on Saturday.
And for being a leftist communist, put that in your you wouldn't beat it. So
[00:31:42] Unknown:
that's a good one. You know, I think that there are it's it's particularly in ag. Like, people went from, you know, not liking Elon Musk to all of a sudden he became a big hero and and then, you know, just accepting everything he was doing. So I I that's a good one.
[00:31:57] Unknown:
Good.
[00:31:59] Unknown:
Alright. So, Zach, you said you're gonna finish up planting. What's going on with stock cropper this year?
[00:32:05] Unknown:
Yeah. Excuse me. Yeah. So stock cropper this year, is gonna look a little bit different. I've moved, all my barns out remotely. So we've got them right now at, multiple locations. One at precision planning, one at, the fields of Cincinnati, East of Dubuque, Iowa, and then one will be at, Jason Mocks, farm out in Gaston, Indiana, which, I will be going to his field day. I wanna move that tonight, June 21, in partnership with Acres USA. I'll be there. One of our cluster clucks will be there. A whole host of other just really, really awesome stuff in the region and farm weird space. So I'll I'll be focusing on that. I'll have my own experiments, that I'll be doing on the farm here in Iowa. I'm not gonna have a field day this year. I'm choosing to go around and support other people's field days to try to get out and around and move the barns to other locations because we've done it for five years here in one spot, and I wanna try to to spread that way with the resources that I have.
But and then I'm gonna keep putting out content every, every Saturday morning or, or Sunday or whatever I think will piss fans off if I don't do it when I say I'm gonna do it. So
[00:33:13] Unknown:
And, and if people wanted to learn more about the stock cropper, your stock cropper system, where could they go? Yeah. So they can go to my website of the stockcropper.com.
[00:33:23] Unknown:
We've got pictures and videos that kind of explain, you know, the the system that we came up with back in 2020, and we continue to try to prove out and improve ag with, every day.
[00:33:35] Unknown:
Well, Zach, Mother's Day is just a few short days away, and I've been asking guests on on the spot, like, what is something that your mom said, many years ago while raising you that sticks with you today? Does anything come to mind?
[00:33:51] Unknown:
I have a lot more scenes from my dad probably. But, you know, my mom has been, you know, she's been she's been a rock, you know, for our family, through and I think for a lot of farm families, you know, moms are, moms are pretty important. So if she's watching this, I hope she knows. I love her. I appreciate everything she's done for me.
[00:34:23] Unknown:
Well, she has raised, quite a family and one of my best friends, so I'm glad, I'm glad to see you saying something kind about her. If you're interested in doing a kindness for your mother and want to get her stories recorded and let her know that you care about making sure that future generations know about the childhood she had, where she came from, what she went through, and how she raised you. Oh, yeah. She was a public school teacher and a damn good one. Boom. Then go to legacyinterviews.com to find out more. Alright. That's gonna do it. I am so glad you were able to show up for me to do this, Zach. I know it's the middle of planting. You'd stop the planter to make it happen, but, it's cool to do the Ag Tribes report from here. So, we'll be back next week, and as always, feel free to disagree.
The Ag Tribes Report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are so the future knows who they really were. Here's Legacy Interviews guest Laurie Alt on the joy she experienced looking back on her life as a farm wife and mother.
[00:00:17] Unknown:
My career was raising my children, being a wife to Steve, helping on the farm, and I'm so glad for doing all that. Having this interview with you helps us see those good things that we have done, how happy I was in all those choices that I make. We can say that and put it in this interview to pass it on to our children and our grandchildren and great grandchildren someday. So I think you have a great gift to give people.
[00:00:50] 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.
[00:01:05] Unknown:
Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crow. Each week, I bring on a cohost to represent the perspectives of one of the many ag tribes that collectively make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week, we have our first returning cohost, Zach Smith, who goes by Zebulos Prime on x. Zach is a farmer revolutionizing agriculture with his innovative stock cropper system. A passionate leftist, this week's commie advocates for cover crops and sustainable farming. He recently began a weekly video program on x discussing different areas of agriculture. And while his opinions are typically wrong, he does have a variety of novel hats that are worth tuning in for. Zach,
[00:01:49] Unknown:
welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. Oh, I knew that commie stuff was coming. Bring it on, brother. Let's let's go.
[00:01:56] Unknown:
So what have you been paying attention to? Looks like you are in a tractor right now. Yeah. I've been attention to planting corn for the last,
[00:02:04] Unknown:
four days straight, and, haven't had any air conditioning in my tractor. So I'm a little bit hot and smelly and, a little dehydrated. But, yeah, we should get finished up, here tomorrow if, things go well. And, then I'm focusing on, moving on to the stock cropper plots, all the experiments. I usually plant those last when I can focus and have time. That that's where I'm gonna probably do that over the weekend and early next week. So, other than that, focused on weather, focused on the trade war, focused on, you know, markets.
What's gonna happen is this dry weather cycle that is in, you know, in place now. Is it gonna carry on this summer? How am I gonna market my grain? Those are some of the things I'm thinking about.
[00:02:47] Unknown:
You know, out of all the things that you said, the thing that caught my ear is that you're,
[00:02:51] Unknown:
bitching and moaning about not having air conditioning in your tractor. That's pretty tough for a first world farmer. Oh, yeah. That's a that's a huge first world. It I I would be better to be catalyst today, actually. But, you know, the the old tractors, you could actually open the windows. These damn things are like glass saunas, and so you just bake, in here. So I I gotta open my door, in the right direction so I don't fill with dust. But I did all of it when I was a kid. I did a lot of lot of Cabalist stuff, so I've I've been there and done that.
[00:03:19] Unknown:
Yeah. I when I do these legacy interviews, you hear all these people, and and I know I can every single time get a guy to laugh if I'm like, well, you had a cab you sat in. Right? And then they all laugh and talk about, no. We were out in the hot sun in my first tractor. Oh, yeah. Yep. Alright. Well, tonight on the Ag Tribes report, we're gonna examine the new US UK trade deal eliminating tariffs on American beef, while navigating The UK's strict food standards. We're gonna discuss doctor Casey Means' controversial surgeon general nomination and her stance against the glyphosate.
Plus, we'll explore the farming community's reaction to the last, the podcast I just released on AI, and, I wanted to get some of Zach's thoughts on it. We're also gonna explore the Bitcoin land price report. We'll hear Zach's take on the Peter Thiel paradox, and we'll ask him for a new worthy adversary, and we're gonna do that all live in just thirty minutes. So let's get started. Headline one, the US strikes a deal with The UK. American beef exports win big, but at what cost? Today, The US and UK finalized a train deal cutting UK tariffs on US beef from 12% all the way down to zero for products meeting UK standards. These standards prohibit hormone treated beef and chlorinated chicken, ensuring US exports align with UK strict food policy, and animal welfare regulations.
This agreement significantly expands access to The UK's Ninety Two Billion Dollar agricultural import market. Whereas we used to only import wine and nuts, now American beef producers can compete more effectively. However, this is all going on, while The US herd is at its lowest level in seventy three years. Increased export demand could strain domestic supply, sending prices even higher. So while it's being celebrated as a win for, beef, those that raise cattle, not so sure that's true for, the American consumer. Zach, this is the first trade deal announced with a major economy.
Is the shift what farmers were hoping for after taking a huge beating on commodity prices and input costs?
[00:05:28] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, it's a good first step. I mean, I'm not a Trump guy. I think, his approach with blowing shit up, with all this trade stuff is, is dangerous. But I'm I'm encouraged, and I will give him an attaboy for at least getting something done here that seems to be positive at least on its face. I didn't have a lot of time going to get all the details, going back and forth across the field, but it seems like it was a good give and take where some of the things that are important to The UK, like food safety, you know, issues that we're gonna talk more about later on here. You know, they got some of that, and and we got access to sell more stuff. Now I'm not a beef guy, so I'm not gonna pretend to, I can't say anything intelligent to, you know, what what the what the reaction is. I'm sure prices are gonna go up for US consumers. I don't eat beef, so it's not a problem for me. I I only eat the stuff I grow, which is pork and chicken.
But, you know, the the interesting thing, you know, with all this stuff is going to see if if deals are gonna continue to be made where everybody gives a little bit or, if we get nothing or if we get a lot, you know, but it's a good first
[00:06:31] Unknown:
first step, I guess. We've been waiting for it for a while to see if something meaningful is gonna happen. So Yeah. I mean, this is exactly what my kinda my beliefs on tariffs. They're good for getting rid of other people's tariffs, and that's exactly what happened. I mean, The UK, they they got us to bring down the 25% tariff we had on cars and steel. And, not only did they do the agricultural imports, which is a big deal, it's also including not just beef, but ethanol, but they're also eliminating the 2% digital services tax on American tech companies. So that's gonna be money just right back in the in the pocket of American companies because they're not paying, a senseless digital services tax.
Yeah. A %. I hope more of it comes. You know, like I said, I'm not a a big Trump guy, but he's the president. And, you know, I want America to do well. And if this, this is part of that, then game on. I do think it's interesting. You know, we're counting this as a big win with, with beef prices or with beef, but, I mean, we are in for some very serious price hikes when it comes to beef. The the herd is as low as it's ever been. There's not heifers being returned into the herd. Like, I think this is great for for, cattle farmers. They've gotta be singing and dancing right now, and they've endured a long time. But this is going to actually impact US consumers for sure.
[00:07:50] Unknown:
Yeah. A %. And it may, you know, it may turn people to other sources, like, you know, like what I eat pork and chicken, because they're yeah. They are substantially cheaper. And I still prefer a really good pork chop to a steak. I know that makes me a communist, but, that's that's what I am. So
[00:08:06] Unknown:
Alright. Moving on to headline number two, Trump taps glyphosate critic as surgeon general. The ag world braces for impact. Yesterday, president Trump nominated doctor Casey Means, a 37 year old functional medicine advocate as US Surgeon General to lead public health services, through the the office of the surgeon general. This means a Stanford, trained MD left a surgical residency to cofound Levels, a metabolic health company, and coauthored Good Energy, which criticizes conventional medicine. She's a vocal critic against glyphosate stating it's probably carcinogenic per the WHO and linking its 19,000,000,000 pounds of use to obesity and cancer.
Let's, take a listen to what Casey Means has, said when she was on her book tour that relates to agriculture.
[00:08:57] Unknown:
That 82% of independently funded studies show harm from processed food, while 93% of industry sponsored studies reflect no harm. In medical school, I didn't learn that 95% of the people who created the recent USDA food guidelines for America had significant compiles of interest with the food industry. I did not learn that 1,000,000,000 pounds of synthetic pesticides are being sprayed on our food every single year. 99 99% of the farmland in The United States is sprayed with synthetic pesticides, many from China and Germany. And these invisible, tasteless chemicals are strongly linked to autism, ADHD, sex hormone disruption, thyroid disease, sperm dysfunction, Alzheimer's, dementia, birth defects, cancer, obesity, liver dysfunction, liver dysfunction, female infertility, and more, all by hurting our metabolic health.
[00:09:55] Unknown:
So she didn't talk directly about glyp in that particular one. But, Zach, what do you think when you hear her talking about, the chemicals being used to raise crops?
[00:10:05] Unknown:
You know, I I it appeals to a lot of people because, when you use the word chemical, it's scary. Right? And you see the airplane images, crop dusting, and sprayers going across the field, and and I I get all that stuff. I'm conflicted on this because, you know, I I'm in this regen ag space, like, but I come at it from, I think, probably a more nuanced perspective from my background, you know, in big ag for the last, last twenty years. And, you know, I think it's easy to talk, big things about, well, we're just gonna get rid of all this stuff. Well, what is the off road? How do you get from, you know, how we farm today to, to this alternative future where we're not going to use chemicals to produce any type of, to produce food? It's a it's a huge lift, and the devil is in the details. It's it's one of the frustrations I've had with developing stock cropper. Stock cropper is a great concept. It works. But scaling it, that is the challenge. How do you get all the other things that take have to take place to completely reinvent a food system. And, am I convinced personally that glyphosate, you know, that that what you said there about, it's you know, it causes cancer and obesity?
Well, I'm I'm not obese. I've sprayed it for twenty five years. I just sprayed it the other day. I don't have cancer. Is that anecdotal? Yes. But there's a lot of people in these circles you know, there there I should say this you know, there's a single study that was done, I think, in 2015 where it was probably carcinogenic. But, you know, there's debate on on the data that was used, the dosing that they used on the lab rats or the the mice or whatever that was in the thing. Wasn't wasn't anything close to what the exposure level that we have in humans. I'm not trying to be a shill for big egg. I'm trying to live in reality. And, like, when I look at the practices I use on my farm, I talked about in my video last week. You know, cover crops are something I think are a really, really important practice, that could be used at scale, but only, you know, really with the help of glyphosate because you have to have a way to kill it. It. And glyphosate is the most effective, piece to do. And I think the the ancillary benefits that the cover crops produce outweigh, in my opinion, at least from what I've seen right now, you know, the the damage that glyphosate may cause. It sounds like a scary word. It came from Monsanto. So does it have to be bad? You know? I I don't know. I'm I'm not convinced on it. And so I think the thing I worry about I I agree with a lot of this stuff with with RFK and with what she's saying about the things we need to do with health and how we need to change agriculture.
But if we're gonna throw everything out with the bathwater and just call everything bad and not, you know, be nuanced or careful, on that, I just it's not realistic, with, you know, going from here going from a to b with what what they're trying to propose.
[00:12:43] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I so I had to even look up. I didn't know what the surgeon general does. Now they don't have direct control over agriculture. That's handled by the USDA and the FDA, but they are kind of the head of public health. So they there's very limited in their, like, what is it that they get to do or what do they have control over, but they are going to be controlling the dialogue. And when you see things like, her tweet that we have posted here, 19,000,000,000 pounds of life glyphosate sprayed, talking about 80,000 synthetic toxins in the food, the water. You know, people are looking for what's going on here, what's wrong with our food, but we have to be based on some kind of a system. You know, we have to have, like, a how are we making these decisions, And I would say the vast, majority of the studies that are out there that are relating to public health would say that glyphosate is safe, but I I you know, I'm not opposed to somebody coming in and and stirring things up and trying to find, hey. May maybe these were,
[00:13:41] Unknown:
put together in some negative way. Seems like she's, like, a little less than professional about it all of it, though. Yeah. I mean, believe me. Like, you you and I both know the money that these the the big corporations that we both used to work for have at their disposal, you know, and and what they're what they can squash. And so if somebody came forward with meaningful meaningful work that wasn't biased by something else, I would you know, if if it proved that was the case, I'd stop using it a % or I'd find an alternative, You know? But I'm not gonna I'm not going to, to change things that I can see that are helping other things on the farm be better, without real evidence.
[00:14:16] Unknown:
Yeah. And, I mean, I one of the ways that I talk about it is I say, you know, I use glyphosate on the bricks and on the driveway that, my daughters play on, and, that's that's the level of confidence that I have on it. Now I'm not going out and spraying them with it. I'm being careful about it, but I, that that's the confidence that I have in glyphosate. Alright. Moving on to story number four or number three, ag community reacts to advanced AI demonstration. This Tuesday, I published a podcast demonstrating how advanced AI is taking in, a great deal and how how much it's changed. I'm talking about how I use it in my own business, and I have to say the reaction from all of my listeners was bigger than anything I've ever put out. I got I've continued to get texts and emails, over and over about people saying I did not know it was this far along. I've started using it, and, it was it was really incredible. I I've just never felt anything like this before. I got videos of an old tractor that got started from advice from grok, spreadsheets outlining cropping decisions made over the last twenty years that had never been compiled before, and a readout of soil sample, that was it had exceptional detail.
So, I mean, it was huge, and you and I had a chance to talk about this. What was your reaction? What were your thoughts on the, the AI podcast?
[00:15:38] Unknown:
You know, I've been I've been, like, interested at a distance, but I kinda thought this is probably a few years from being a real deal. But I started using Grok personally probably about a month or two ago and have been using it more and more. And every day, I get a little bit more blown away. And watching that podcast with an AI interviewing you and interacting, like, fairly fairly normally, like, really, really close, it blew my mind. And it, I mean, I sent the video to my wife. I sent it to my daughters. I said, you need to watch this because this is coming. You know? And I sent it to my wife. It's like, you know, how are you how are you gonna react in your job, you know, to to this? I sent it to my daughters that are in college. Like, how are you gonna react in the fields? Like, you know, you need to start thinking about this now because it is going to be here way faster and way sooner than than what we think. You know? And, you know, honestly, when I had this problem with this tractor, with with the air conditioning, I asked Brock last night. My god. The the level of detail that it had for a versatile three ten twenty sixteen tractor, I mean, it was unreal. It was probably better than calling calling the shop the level of detail that I got out of it. So Yeah. I mean, I think about its uses, you know, the the number of you know, like, if you ever had a a
[00:16:56] Unknown:
crop chemistry
[00:16:57] Unknown:
problem. Right? Like, what's the mix ratio? How does this go together? These are the wind speeds. It is going to completely blow away what we used to have to call up a specialist for. Oh, that was me, and that was one of the reasons I quit is because I thought this day was coming. I just didn't think it would be this fast. I thought it would be when I was 50 or 55, but I'm 46, and it's here now. Like, agronomy work, you know, I mean, there I was thinking about all the things within ag that this could be better. It's twenty four seven touch of a button, and you get probably better expertise than you would actually call on somebody anymore. So this is if people aren't paying attention, if you haven't, like, got one of these services, you know, on your phone to start playing with it, You better start if, if you don't wanna get left behind. That's my opinion.
[00:17:43] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, the way that I did that podcast because I've been thinking about it for a long time. You know, anytime I get into something, I always just wanna talk about it on the podcast because then all my friends can talk about it, and we just have to do it once. But I really wanted to think about how do we get past the dumb argument that people normally have when they're like, nope. It's not gonna take my job. And that's not my point. My point was this is going to pervade everyone's work. It is going to impact everybody no it doesn't matter if you're JR Burdick and you're a raw dairy milk farmer. Even if you were hand milking those cows, if your competitor is using them to figure out how to fix the, you know, the line issue to, arrange deliveries more, frequently or better, all of the things that AI is going to do, whether or not it actually picks up and, wrench and does the work for you is immaterial.
What it is is it's going to be a lever for the mind, and the first people that get to it are the ones that get the longest lever. Yeah. Yeah. It is the new age crescent wrench for sure. What do you think adoption will be like in agriculture?
[00:18:46] Unknown:
You know, ag usually usually drags with stuff like this, but, you know, I think I think more people are awake. I've had more conversations in the last few weeks about it with folks. And, but, you know, it it'll come for every industry. And, I think when I think when farmers figure out how to leverage it, it will be a a really big deal, from an from an independence. Yeah. There's a lot of farmers that subscribe to things or pay for services. And, man, it makes, you know, a subscription to GROC or CLOD or, you know, the the upscale chat GBTs look pretty damn cheap, for what people pay to get expertise that you can have for, you know, almost nothing now. Yeah. Without question. The $30 I pay for Grok and the $20 I pay for Claude, like, $50. The amount of of help it's given me is way more than whatever I would have done for $50, you know, what I what I could have paid somebody for. Now will it will I wanna say one thing. Will it replace people wanting to interact with people? I think there's a lot of folks in agriculture that still like that piece, but I think it's going to challenge that, you know, quite a little. So
[00:19:52] Unknown:
Well, that's gonna do it for the headlines today. If you have headlines, you can always send them over to me, at vance crow on x, or you can send it to me, vance at legacy interviews. Turning now to the Bitcoin land price report. First, let's play this quick video as Bitcoin crossed a hundred thousand dollars again today. Anyway, the reason I am so elated this is because, back in February, we're talking about Bitcoin all the time. It's up at, like, one zero six. People are buying, and the way I know that they're buying is because they're using the RiverLink, and then Bitcoin's price plummets. And so what I got to do was to baptize all the new Bitcoin hodlers in the world of, being underwater for a little while, but it's good. It is now back up over a hundred thousand.
In fact, as of press time, it was sitting at a hundred and $3,500, which is 7.1 percent up from last week's price of 96,000. So, Zach, the last time you were on back in August of twenty twenty four, we discussed land prices in your area. At that time, you mentioned that Winnebago County, the average land was selling for around 12,800 per acre. So when we translated that into Bitcoin back then, with Bitcoin trading at $58,452, that meant an acre of land in Winnebago County cost about 0.22 Bitcoin per acre. Fast forward to today, Bitcoin at a hundred and 3,000, the, that same acre would now cross approximately 0.12 Bitcoin.
And, in other words, last August, '1 Bitcoin would have bought you 4.5 acres, and now it would buy you 8.1 acres of farmland in Winnebago County. What do you think, Zach? Is that a fair assessment of the land values in Winnebago County?
[00:22:17] Unknown:
Yeah. I would say we're we're probably haven't changed a lot from that. There was a poor piece that sold a couple miles from where I'm sitting, a few weeks ago for, like, 8,300. But, you know, I've I, I stand by what I said last August. I'd rather, as a farmer, I'd rather, own Bitcoin right now than land. I just I see everything that's happening with, with the new policies and the the new administration. And the the amount of people that are talking about it that I never thought would've, when I started getting interest interested via through you, and your influence, you know, that you've had on a lot of folks, in this space, you know, a few years ago. Like, it feels like something is, is happening and this thing is gonna I mean, there's so much that has changed from when I got in. When I got in was just the the hint of the ETFs were maybe coming, and there's so many things that have happened since then. It almost doesn't seem like like the price is high enough to really reflect, you know, all the magnitude of all the things from a, you know, a policy standpoint that are better getting set up right now. So
[00:23:20] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, the I I am exactly with you. The amount of interest that's gone into Bitcoin, it just continues to mount. And it was mounting when Bitcoin was down in the 70,000 range. Like, I'm getting requests for people, hey. Can I come by your office? Can you sit down and show this to me? Hey. I wanna get a Trezor wallet. I bought some Bitcoin for my kids. I wanna get it off in exchange. And this is from some down home farmers. This is not like people just outside the city. These are people that are, deeply enmeshed in the culture. And I as I watch it go spread through agriculture, I think this is a great thing.
[00:23:54] Unknown:
Yeah. And, you know, and, I mean, for me right now, there's a lot of threats, you know, to the price plan right now. I mean, you know, this trade war. I mean, it it's great that we they had the win today, but that's not guaranteed, you know, depending on what happens with China, you know, potentially next week. You know, there's talks that that's gonna get released. If it if it goes the wrong way, you know, it could I mean, it could be a it Bitcoin could be a really, really nice hedge, you know, for for land going down, if if that potentially happens. I'm kinda hoping on that because I'm planning on buying some land here, you know, probably in the next ten years, and I'm using, you know, Bitcoin, hopefully, as a tool to, you know, make that happen.
[00:24:29] Unknown:
Well, I love to hear you say that. If you're interested in getting Bitcoin, I will include the link to, River, which is the site that I actually buy my Bitcoin from when I buy it on an exchange and then hold it. If you buy it using our link, you will be supporting the show, and I can tell you it's a wonderful thing, and you will be joining a growing community of agriculture that is, getting into Bitcoin. So I'll include that at the show notes after the show. Now heading on to the Peter Thiel paradox. Now Zach has his weekly show. He does he puts out mostly on Saturday. Sometimes, you know, hangovers and things get in the way. You get it out on Sunday.
But, but he's he's always throwing out some Peter Thiel paradoxes there, so I'm interested to see. Are you pulling out the stops here, Zach? What do you what do you got for us? Yeah. What is one thing that you believe that nobody else agrees with you on?
[00:25:19] Unknown:
You know, I don't I think there's other people that agree with me on, but, like, within the within the space I'm in, I don't know how many do. I think, you know, there's a big a big war against public education right now. It's been going on for the last, you know, probably ten years have been mounting, and I think people are blaming you know, they wanna blame the school systems, and I think that's you know, that public schools are bad, and we need to homeschool and privatize everything. That's a big thing here in Iowa. For me, I think that's a bunch of bullshit. I think, you know, public schools, have been a great thing throughout history. And, really, the issue we've had since my generation went through high school is we've had two generations of failed parents, and that is the millennial and the gen x have sucked at parenting and dealing with the challenges with technology, and it's caused a whole host of issues that these poor educators and administrators have to deal with. Schools have become glorified day cares, and they they get thrown this shit mess of people not being parents. People are tuned out. They're on their phones.
They're, you know, they're not they're not tuned in to being parents. They're not they don't teach their kids how to be accountable. You know, I I'm I have strong opinions about this because I went through this. I've got two kids in college, now, and I raised them. And I was the black sheep because I raised my kids like my folks raised me, and that wasn't in vogue. And then and they told me that all the time. Dad, you're the only one, you know, that that that does things this way. And I think, trying to push things into smaller niches where it's more not, you know, not challenged by outside thought. And, you know, that's the great thing about public schools. Everybody everybody comes and you have rich kids to poor kids and, you know, all sorts of, you know, races and, you know, all sorts of all sorts of backgrounds that come together. And that diversity of thought, I think, is really important. Being able for critical thinking skills to see people from other perspectives, especially with AI coming. That's one of the things I wanted to hit on. With AI, the thing that you and I talked about is how are we gonna teach kids to think critically enough to use this as a tool effectively and not be be eaten by it?
That's one of my big things. And so, parenting in the last two generations has sucked. It gets and and to me, it's the reason why, you know, the the the public education system one of the reasons I should say has really had challenges over the last, you know, five to ten years.
[00:27:42] Unknown:
Well, I mean, you're coming out swinging there because I intuitively don't agree with you on this. I think that, education is inherently, in the public education is inherently communism. Right? We force everyone to pay into it. It is, a completely, subsidized system. It's very, very difficult to work with teachers to push out the bad ones and to reward the good ones. And, I think that it is also a way to push a lot of propaganda onto young people that is state enforced. No matter no matter who it is, the government's the one that's in control of the curriculum. And, I think that's been increasing, and they've taken more and more control away from school boards. So I don't agree with that. Time. I hear that shit all the time from people. And you know what my dad always said? I've said this to you before.
[00:28:28] Unknown:
If schools were effective at what they did, you'd have reason to be concerned. 90% of education starts at home, and you have the opportunity. And I know you're doing this. I'm not, you know, coming at you personally, but I think so many people don't put the time in to invest in their own kids. And that leads to these issues. You know? And and then and then we blame it on on the government or we blame it on the teachers. We blame it on woke ideology. I asked my daughters, but, you know, kind of preparing for this, I sent them a text, and I didn't bait them, tell them the context. I said, you know, how often in your education, both in high school and now at a at a four year public university, have you had the feeling of some sort of political bias be put put forth?
And I got a response. One time in high school, I had a teacher that, maybe got out of line on that, but that was it.
[00:29:18] Unknown:
Yeah. But a fish that's in water has no idea that it's even in water. I mean, that that's why I can tell you the perfect example of propaganda. The most perfect example is economics. Right? How many people right now believe in Keynesian economics? The government needs to have two and a half percent inflation. The Fed is the one that should be able to, control how much money we put into the system. It like, economics is one of the core things that you need to teach a young person, and we are teaching all of our kids the worst economics that you possibly can so that that way the government can continue to print money and not have to tax their citizens while stealing away all their value.
[00:29:56] Unknown:
K. You're wrong.
[00:30:01] Unknown:
Alright. Well, I will give you a star. I will give you a solid eight nine on that one. This is a good one because I totally don't agree with it. No. You're wrong. You'll figure it out when your kids get older. Well, alright. Now moving on to your worthy adversary, who is one person that you but completely disagree with?
[00:30:22] Unknown:
This is a tough one. I don't know. This this probably isn't gonna be very good because it's it's I you know, I don't know. I'm I'm gonna this is just me kind of phoning it in. I would say, Elon Musk. I don't get what Elon has done, you know, with his positioning with Doge. I think Doge, you know, at least on on its face right now, I mean, I mean, they were promised in $2,000,000,000,000 of savings, and right now, it's like a hundred and 50,000,000,000 for sure. I I like the spirit of Doge, but, know, it feel it feels like to me the woke mind virus got him and the fact that he lost, his, son, I guess, you know, that that turned transgender.
And in fact, you know, that Biden didn't invite him to the EV summit. There's a couple things I think that broke him, and, it it it's too bad because I do think he's he's one of the most important people of our time. I don't think he deserves, you know, the level of hate. I don't think people should be burning Tesla's, you know, but I I just I don't know. I don't know what I hope he recovers because I think he's really, really important, and he does deserve people's, respect despite, you know, the political decisions that he's made. And, you know, I'm gonna actually, I'm gonna go test drive a Tesla on Saturday.
And for being a leftist communist, put that in your you wouldn't beat it. So
[00:31:42] Unknown:
that's a good one. You know, I think that there are it's it's particularly in ag. Like, people went from, you know, not liking Elon Musk to all of a sudden he became a big hero and and then, you know, just accepting everything he was doing. So I I that's a good one.
[00:31:57] Unknown:
Good.
[00:31:59] Unknown:
Alright. So, Zach, you said you're gonna finish up planting. What's going on with stock cropper this year?
[00:32:05] Unknown:
Yeah. Excuse me. Yeah. So stock cropper this year, is gonna look a little bit different. I've moved, all my barns out remotely. So we've got them right now at, multiple locations. One at precision planning, one at, the fields of Cincinnati, East of Dubuque, Iowa, and then one will be at, Jason Mocks, farm out in Gaston, Indiana, which, I will be going to his field day. I wanna move that tonight, June 21, in partnership with Acres USA. I'll be there. One of our cluster clucks will be there. A whole host of other just really, really awesome stuff in the region and farm weird space. So I'll I'll be focusing on that. I'll have my own experiments, that I'll be doing on the farm here in Iowa. I'm not gonna have a field day this year. I'm choosing to go around and support other people's field days to try to get out and around and move the barns to other locations because we've done it for five years here in one spot, and I wanna try to to spread that way with the resources that I have.
But and then I'm gonna keep putting out content every, every Saturday morning or, or Sunday or whatever I think will piss fans off if I don't do it when I say I'm gonna do it. So
[00:33:13] Unknown:
And, and if people wanted to learn more about the stock cropper, your stock cropper system, where could they go? Yeah. So they can go to my website of the stockcropper.com.
[00:33:23] Unknown:
We've got pictures and videos that kind of explain, you know, the the system that we came up with back in 2020, and we continue to try to prove out and improve ag with, every day.
[00:33:35] Unknown:
Well, Zach, Mother's Day is just a few short days away, and I've been asking guests on on the spot, like, what is something that your mom said, many years ago while raising you that sticks with you today? Does anything come to mind?
[00:33:51] Unknown:
I have a lot more scenes from my dad probably. But, you know, my mom has been, you know, she's been she's been a rock, you know, for our family, through and I think for a lot of farm families, you know, moms are, moms are pretty important. So if she's watching this, I hope she knows. I love her. I appreciate everything she's done for me.
[00:34:23] Unknown:
Well, she has raised, quite a family and one of my best friends, so I'm glad, I'm glad to see you saying something kind about her. If you're interested in doing a kindness for your mother and want to get her stories recorded and let her know that you care about making sure that future generations know about the childhood she had, where she came from, what she went through, and how she raised you. Oh, yeah. She was a public school teacher and a damn good one. Boom. Then go to legacyinterviews.com to find out more. Alright. That's gonna do it. I am so glad you were able to show up for me to do this, Zach. I know it's the middle of planting. You'd stop the planter to make it happen, but, it's cool to do the Ag Tribes report from here. So, we'll be back next week, and as always, feel free to disagree.
Introduction to the Ag Tribes Report
US-UK Trade Deal on Beef Exports
Trump's Surgeon General Nomination Controversy
AI's Impact on Agriculture
Bitcoin and Land Prices
The Peter Thiel Paradox and Public Education Debate
Stock Cropper Updates and Reflections on Motherhood
