The Vance Crowe Podcast

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In this episode, we dive deep into the world of dairy farming with JR Burdick, a former conventional dairy farmer turned raw milk producer. JR shares his journey from following the traditional dairy farming system to becoming an independent raw milk seller, breaking away from industry norms and regulations. He recounts the challenges he faced, including dealing with stray voltage that decimated his herd, a lengthy legal battle with an electric company, and the emotional and financial toll it took on his family.

JR also discusses the impact of industry regulations, such as the mandatory check-off programs and the pressures from dairy cooperatives, which led him to question the sustainability and ethics of the conventional dairy system. His story is one of resilience and transformation as he navigates the complexities of direct-to-consumer sales, the challenges of marketing raw milk, and the importance of maintaining integrity in his farming practices.

Throughout the conversation, JR offers insights into the broader agricultural landscape, touching on issues like government subsidies, the consolidation of the dairy industry, and the role of technology and innovation in farming. He also shares his thoughts on the future of agriculture, the potential of Bitcoin as a financial tool for farmers, and the importance of preserving traditional farming knowledge.

This episode is a compelling exploration of the struggles and triumphs of a farmer who dared to defy the status quo and forge a new path in the world of agriculture.

[00:00:02] Unknown:

But,   if you sell,   something into the system, then you have to pay a little bit of the of the weight of the of the cattle you put in there to this thing called the check off. And the check off is the one that creates the marketing program that they say we advertise   domestically and we also try and get you more exports and things like that. So they are but when you put that money in in a lot of states and in a lot of commodities, you don't have a choice. It's a tax. Right? You you're not allowed to not put money in. Is that true with dairy in Missouri? Yeah. I  

[00:00:34] JR Burdick:

I wanna say it's a   don't quote me on this, but it's like a penny, a 100 of the milk you sell sell something something's Does that end up being real money? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's,   it was it was several $100 every month from my farm. Okay. Yeah. Every  

[00:00:53] Unknown:

month. Is it still since you sell raw milk? No. I  

[00:00:57] JR Burdick:

I,   when I broke away from the system, man, I cut all the ties. I don't know this story at all. Alright.   Where to start?   I was milking cows with my parents in Iowa in the mid early 2000   up through,   2016   and grain farming and doing doing the typical Iowa thing. Right?   And,   we had   we had what's called stray voltage hit our dairy farm. And so what that is is basically it's as it says, it sounds like stray voltage that comes off your transmission lines,   finds its way into your farm through grounding,   basically.   And it,   it just decimated our herd. We were running about a we were we were I wouldn't call myself a great dairy farmer, but we were above average.  

And, we were milking about a 130 cows.   And, I can't prove this, but I think it had a lot to do with a wind farm that got put up near us. Because when a wind farm starts up, you can't regulate that   energy real well. It has to go somewhere.   And, and so when that blade starts up, when it's first starting, it's not up to the proper   RPMs to create the proper voltage.   But the system starts drawing from it.   That's my theory. Okay? I can't prove that at all. That's just me, my my my,   you know, farmer mechanic,   you know, carpenter electrical skills kind of going. Well, if that's starting up and it doesn't it's not   revved up to the right RPMs, it's   it's not at 60 Hertz at a 120 volts or whatever the voltage, you know, just to to make that simplify.  

So that energy kinda gets rejected and the transformers aren't working just yet. It has to go somewhere,   and it is already tied into your transmission lines   for the grid,   so it just finds a weak spot.   So   our farm was about 9 miles away from that   several hundred. I'm talking maybe 500   Windmill Farm,   up there in Hancock County, Iowa.   So So we really hadn't had these issues before, but, the symptoms were, first off, our somatic cell count, which is a measure of well, for basic   there's just the basics as measure of mastitis in the cows,   just spiked. It was just going right up. We were out of compliance with all the rules because and we were we were just pulling our hair out trying to figure out what did we do because we hadn't changed anything.  

Hadn't added cows, hadn't changed our feeding system, hadn't built a new barn.   Just what is going on here? And then,   cattle start   breeding back. We were artificially inseminating everything at the time   and couldn't get cows to breed back. And so we started bull breeding everything because we were like,   you know,   we're giving them just this uniscule amount of semen to to breed this cow. Well, that bull, he's he's shooting his whole load, really.   And,   you know, so it's like, okay. We we gotta do something. So that helped out our breeding a little bit,   but then it's it's a cumulative effect.  

You know, if you if you constantly beat up your body, you know, you you can you can take something at the beginning of the season if you're in sports, but at the end of the season, your body so beat up that same hit will, you know, put you in the hospital.   That was kinda what was happening with the cattle. So our coal rates explode exploded. Wait. Are they taking, like, electrical Yes. Pulses through the ground? Yes. Holy shit. So especially in the dairy industry, you are much more confined. And   think of the anatomy   of a cow. It's got a cloven hoof.  

If you ever look at the hoof, the blood vessels run very close to the skin   in the hoof of a cow. And so,   it's very susceptible   to any you know, if you see a cow step on a, or a horse, you think about that. They step on a pebble and instantly, it's a very it we think of it as a very tough part of their body, but it's actually a very sensitive part of their body.   And a milk cow is approximately   when you think of ohms of energy,   at   500 ohms of energy,   90% of all dairy cattle are affected by that. That that 500 ohms energy may   may just translate into a tenth of a volt.  



[00:05:36] Unknown:

Okay. I'm gonna pop in here for just a second to introduce the guest. This is JR Burdick. He's one of those characters that I met on X. And because we've moved to this new way of doing podcast where I'm not, like, I've gotta get one every single week,   I was able to take a lot more time to find a great guest like JR   who drove many hours to get to my studio. We sat down and we talked all about his transformational   journey from being a conventional dairy farmer following all the rules to being an outlaw, to being a guy selling raw milk and going against the standard,   conventions of the way that you're supposed to do milk and is really a great conversation.  

This is going along with a lot of other decisions that I'm making to think about the long term. So rather than make sure I get a podcast out every week, I'm really focused on how can I have an amazing guest for you and take the time to be able to have a great conversation?   Well, one of the things that I'm focusing on this year   is to find practical ways to get you involved in Bitcoin. If you're listening to the Agtribes report, you know that I have an affiliate link with River that makes it very easy for you to find an exchange where you can buy Bitcoin. But maybe you're not there yet. Maybe you're one of those people that's like, I don't know. Putting in my, you know, my license and doing all these things, connecting my bank account, that feels too much. Then I wanted to give you another way to do this. There is a way to listen to podcasts, like you're listening to right now, on an app called the fountain app. This is just like Spotify   or your Apple podcast app, whatever it is that you listen.  

But in addition to being a regular   app that you can listen to podcasts on, it has a Bitcoin wallet. Actually, technically, it has a lightning wallet   which allows you to send tiny amounts of money back and forth between you and another person, another wallet.   And the cool thing about,   this fountain app is that they will actually give you   Bitcoin for listening to other people's podcasts. It's a really small amount. It's in the satoshi, which is the smallest amount. So maybe you'll listen for 30 minutes and you get something like, I don't know,   300 sats. Maybe you're getting 10 sats a minute or something like that.  

Then with those satoshis in your wallet, you're able to do whatever you want with them. Do you wanna send them to a wallet you own? Now you have those,   small amount of Bitcoin. Or   you can turn on a way to say, hey. Every time I'm listening to somebody, if I listen for a minute, I want you to give them 2 satoshis.   And in that way, you can support your favorite podcasts   and you could support this one. Now I don't actually think you're gonna make some giant substantive difference, although I do know podcasters now that are making a living, just having Sats streamed to them. But what I want is for you to have that first experience   touching Bitcoin.  

I want you to have that first experience of sending money   from you to another person   instantly   without having to pay the fucking credit card companies, without having to give them a minimum payment, without giving them 2.9%.   Just do this.   Try this app out if you've never done Bitcoin and feel and experience this for the first time. And you may get on this app and find, like, it's got all these challenges, and I don't know how to do this. And what does this mean? But if you can get past that,   you will have then touched Bitcoin, and you'll start to have an experience that you can relate to and figure out if you wanna go any deeper. Alright. We're gonna get back to JR's story. I just wanted to throw that out there. Go check it out, the fountain app, and then, listen to the Vance Grove podcast over there.  

[00:09:15] JR Burdick:

So,   and it may   be 1 milliampere   of energy.   So you're talking very minuscule amounts,   and it affects them in the first way. It affects them as they don't go up and drink water because that's the first place they will   water is an excellent conductor of electricity.   Most everybody's drinkers, if you have a heated drinker especially like what we did up north there,   There's some kind of a heating element in there. There's a ground rod right there, and it's just   you might as well just have a, you know, your electric fencer hooked up to it. Well, if that happens long enough, the cows suddenly say   the water that I need isn't worth   the tingle that I get off of that so they stop drinking.  

Milk is 80% water. If you don't have enough water, your cows don't   don't,   produce.   So,   we were going through that and then one morning   so I was milking cows with my mom and dad.   My wife and I were, and, I've got 4 kids.   And my oldest son, about 6 o'clock in the morning, he walks around the end of 1 of the barns. My dad's milking cows. I'm back mixing feet up in our mixer wagon with from the silos.   And I I really don't know what he was doing, but he was walking around the end of the barn, and he looked up and the wires coming from our transformer   to our meter pole. So your transformer's   out here on this big pole,   and then the meter is what you think of as as measures your electricity use.  

And, the wire going between the meter and the transformer   had about a 12 foot spot that was glowing red red hot.   And,   immediately, we just shut everything off. We're We're right in the middle of milking. We didn't care. We didn't know what was gonna happen. We were thinking fire. We were thinking explosions, you know,   called up the energy company, said you gotta come out here now.   So they come out.   They look at all over, and they go, this is kinda normal. And I'm like, what?   I just at that time, I was like 41 or 42 years old. I've I just I've got a little bit of history behind me. I've never seen this before. I just I just and electricity's been here my whole life. You know? It's not a new concept.   Oh, yeah. It happens. It happens. And,   couple days later, they send out their,   guy who's gonna tell us why the problem is our problem. You know? And,   he's looking it all over, and he goes, well, this is an uneven balanced load on your side of the meter is what happened. And he says and and he tells us, I can know this by looking at this cable that they had taken down and replaced and laid there. And, he said, when I look at this up, I'll I'll tell you what I find beforehand because it's on balance. And he told us what the symptoms were of of what he was gonna find on this, where the insulation had melted into the ground and all that. And he pulls it all apart, and it's totally opposite of everything he said.  

And I looked at him and I says, you know,   I think you got a problem.   I says,   nothing here is adding up to me.   And,   he says, well,   I'll have to do I'll have to do a little studying on this. And he was about to leave and my dad was,   like,   the he's he's with me, you know, this stuff isn't adding up.   And, the guy, he's about to leave and I says, hey. Leave that wire here.   Okay. That's fine. So he left and I told dad, I says, we need to hire a lawyer. We need to do it right now.   So,   soon as you do that, a lot of neat things happen.   And you find out really quick that your local ledge electric company, which was   not an rec, it was a independent,   was owned by another company several states away.  

And,   now all the big dogs start talking to you.   So that was in 2010.   We started a lawsuit against them, went through the lawsuit process,   got it kicked out in 2013   because our lawyers had not   followed a procedure.   I don't I'm not a I'm not a lawyer, and I don't pretend to be 1 on a podcast. And,   so it got kicked out, but we were still within   our rights to refile.   So we refiled.   So,   went through everything,   had   had the biggest anal exam of your farm you've ever had.   Books,   how you fed your cattle, how you milked your cows, how everything that you did.   And,   they were out there for days. And, I mean, every kind of machine in a in a in a, 16 foot trailer pulled behind a pickup, everything that you can imagine in there for diagnostic equipment was in there, and they were measuring everything.  

And, this is the problem and that's the problem and this is the problem. And we that was not the farm we had grown up on it. We had when I came back to the farm, we expect we bought a farm instead of building on the farm dad was on.   And,   so finally in December of 2015,   we go to court.   And, we had a 2 week court case.   So that was I've I thought that again, all I've done is, like, read John Grisham novels and watched, you know, court TV. I thought 2 weeks is a big deal, but maybe that's normal.   Found out about about our legal system,   and,   there's there's there's good and bad there, you know,   and,   we get done with the last day of trial. It gets sent to the jury   and the judge stands up says, okay, everybody. I'll call you when you when the results come in. And we were like, call us. It's like 2 o'clock in the afternoon, you know. I thought we waited and we're gonna come back into the courtroom. Oh, no. Everybody leaves. I mean, everybody just scatters. We're we're done. And I'm like, this is the most anticlimactic   thing you have ever been involved in.  

And so,   the spring of 2015, we had gone from a 135 cows. We were down to less than 30 that were milking because we had just been decimated   and financially ruined, to be very honest about it.   So I had quit basically quit farming. I still had my machinery and I had gone to town and got a job   and,   just helped out dad   as he needed it and when I had time.   Mom had a job that was supporting them,   and dad was just trying to hold on. So we get to 2015.   Now, so   so in the spring of 2015, dad says I have to sell farm. I can't keep doing what I'm doing. I didn't own any land. I owned cattle and equipment that I had a a small acreage I owned a few miles from the farm.   They had our shop and grain bins on it.  

And,   so he sells the farm,   and   dad is a very stubborn   boomer   elite type, you know, when you think about boomer, that's dad.   And, he was he was in it for blood. He was like, they have taken everything. I wanted a family farm.   I wanted my son to have it. I wanted my grandkids to have it, and they have taken everything from me. And it was several $1,000,000 worth of lost income over a 6 year period   and,   ruined our name. You you can't pay your bills. I mean, just every every bad thing that you can imagine happened to that.   So we get to the court case   and,   this is how I got into Missouri. I had taken a job with a biodiesel plant, and they had transferred me to Saint Joe, Missouri.  

And,   so so no longer am I up there helping dad, but I'd go back for the court case and stuff. And dad says he's decided to sell the farm. So he sold it and he found a farm. My wife actually found it for him, a farm where we are now, and he rented it at first just to just so he could keep the cows. Because dad's identity was the cows. And,  

[00:17:28] Unknown:

man, I am on the edge of my seat here. Like, I'm like, where is this going?  

[00:17:33] JR Burdick:

It gets better.   So   December 2015 comes around. We have our court case. We're driving home from,   Kaseuse County, Iowa, where our farm was   back down to Linn County,   Missouri.   And,   we get a phone   call. We won.   Woah.   But   we won by 51%.   So that meant that   our monetary claim was cut in half,   basically.   But we were like, well, it's still a win.   And the lawyers are going, yeah, it's a win. Now we had been paying some of our fees, but some of it was also contingent on winning.   So the half that we got was 2 thirds was going to the lawyers, you know, so but dad felt really vindicated that we we got we got the win.   2 weeks later, they appeal,   You know, which is I told dad this might happen. He said, the other we're too small potatoes. They aren't gonna care about this.  

And, we found out later,   the first day of our court case, they had 7 lawyers sitting on their side.   It was it was unbelievable.   1 guy was just there for jury selection. That was that was his   specialty. And I was like,   I didn't understand any of that. It was just mind blowing to me to see that.   Their total loader,   consultant and lawyer fees were twice what they ended up paying us. So it's not about paying the farmer, it's about winning the case. Alright? So   and,   between all the lawyers sitting in there, the lawyers made a $1,000,000 on our case.   You know? It just was it just blows my mind that that happened.  

And, and we did not make a $1,000,000   by a long stretch.   And,   the thing that I realized while I was sitting there and something that stuck with me about agriculture was   nobody in that room except for my mom, my dad, and myself had skin in this game.   Nobody else was gonna lose anything or gain anything   because every lawyer was gonna have a job tomorrow. The judge was gonna have a job tomorrow.   The only people in there and I looked around, I thought, this is this is the problem   in agriculture as we hire all these people.   They put out advice,   and   there's no skin in the game for them. It's not, hey. If you make if you're marketing to me,   you're gonna get,   you know, 30¢ more bushel corn. I'm gonna get 10% of your increase. No. You're gonna pay me regardless whether corn goes to $5 or corn goes to $3 or if your option makes you some money or not.  

So that was a real eye opening experience for me to sit there and see that. And then   people from extension,   other states, not from Iowa, but other states were called in to testify against us. And then we had people from,   extension in Iowa that were testifying for us. And I was just like,   wow. This is this is an amazing thing.   So we,   we've moved now, uprooted our families,   moved the farm,   and   dad is trying his best,   and suffering from,   as I look back on it now, a real nervous breakdown.   I was so involved in it.   If I had to do it over again, I would have never sued him. I'd have left. Really? Yeah. I'd have left. It it it took 6 years.  

My oldest son went from 12 to 18 at that time, and I was just oblivious.   I was just all man. That's the most devastating thing to hear Yeah. I was at all. I was just   every day, how do I how do I survive another day so that I can afford   to fight these people?   And and that was   that was everything I did. And, it really damaged my relationship with my wife, my kids.   And, if I had to do it over, if I've I've had other farmers ask me, you know, that find out about our situation and I said, man, run.   Whatever emotion whatever emotional ties   you have to that barn when your grandpa was there or what? I was just you're gonna you're gonna   you're gonna destroy your future   for a past that you can't change, but that you that past can come along with you. You can always have that memory of grandpa and you in that barn, but you're not gonna get out there.  

So,   so dad's farm in there, and I'm driving from Saint Joe. It's about an hour and a half drive to help him when I can, when work allows.   And,   spring of 2017,   we finally get our pellet court date. So   it's this is slow. So now we're 7 years from our initial   incident.   We've basically lost the farm. We're just holding on by a shoestring.   So March of 2017,   I find out that,   we've got a we've got appeals court date, and it's for September   of that year. So, again, you're still waiting.   This is this is where it gets crazy.   April   8,   2017, my mom calls me, and she says, I just was diagnosed with stage 4 4 cancer. Oh.  

And we were like, alright. We're gonna do everything we can.   She died 4 months later. Oh, man. I'm very sorry. Yeah. And,   great time with her. We tried   a lot of different things.   Ice, I think that it had to do a little bit with the stray voltage. There's some studies out there that show that, but also just the stress of the situation.   She was 65 when she passed away.   So we get through all of that. September comes, we have our court case.   The appellate court doesn't beat every day. It's just it's several. It's just one day usually or 2 days a week depending on the docket. So it's the middle of September of 2017.   You only get a half an hour. I talked to the attorneys. I says, do I have to show up for this? Because I wanna take off work to come, you know, and and I'm still paying bills and trying to overcome things.  

And he's like, no. It's no big deal. And,   dad goes, I'm going.   You know? Because dad's still looking for his his pound of flesh out of the deal.   So that was a Wednesday. He goes up.   He comes back.   No resolution because they don't tell you again. Yeah. We who's our favor or against.   And,   that Saturday morning, he was   laying on the couch, and my wife and my daughter happened to be over there helping him out because after mom passed away, he was just a little lost and clean the house and that type of stuff.   He came in from doing his chores and laid on the couch.  

And, about 10 o'clock in the morning, he jumped up.   And he said he just yelled, which that's not my dad. My dad's this big farmer.   It never hurt you know, no matter what, you might hear a customer slip or something, but he wasn't gonna   complain about anything.   And, he had a dissected aorta. Basically, his aorta blew off top of his heart. Oh.   He laid on the couch or on the floor. He he got up, fell on the floor. My wife heard the thud. She was in another   room.   She came over, called 911.   He was life flighted to Liberty to a hospital.   He died 5 times on that hospital on that helicopter ride. They were able to save him. He's he's alive today,   not doing super well, but he's alive.  

And, they basically   took some paper mache, it looked like to me, and put his heart back together.   And,   a month later,   the appellate court called, and we won.   But dad wasn't able to do anything, and mom was gone. That is the most angry I have ever been in my life. They called me at work,   and, like, some of the guys that work with me were like,   are you okay? You look like you're gonna kill somebody. I said, well, we the I told them a little bit about it, not real in-depth, and they go,   you you don't look well. You know? And, I said,   I gotta have some time alone.  

And, I just I just basically went to my boss. I was a super shift supervisor at this biodiesel plant. I says, I gotta have an hour.   I says, I gotta I gotta leave for an hour. I says, I'm gonna do something stupid.   And he's looking at me like, that's really unusual. That's you know, you're the shift supervisor. You really can't leave.   He's like, yeah. We can cover you for an hour. That's okay.   And I just went out and, I mean,   punched the seat in my truck   and hit the steering wheel, started crying because I was like, we win, and nobody we were winning for is around to enjoy it today. Because dad was still out of it. He just wasn't there yet.  

[00:26:30] Unknown:

Did you anticipate that this would be how you would feel?   No.  

[00:26:34] JR Burdick:

It was a surprise. It was a surprise to me. Yeah.   So,   I'm sorry this is taking so long.   So then   I had to deal with, okay,   paying the lawyers, paying paying the fees, doing all that   because dad had kind of been handling that stuff.   And now I'm in the middle of it. And,   it was really funny   because,   and I mean funny in a laugh out loud way, I because I did. Couple days later,   we get contacted by the public Iowa radio network.   They wanna do they wanna interview me for a story, and they had ran the story because it was a big deal in Iowa that we had won this   this case.  

And I said, well, I have to talk to my lawyers and see exactly what I can or can't say. So I called up my lawyer, told him what was going on. I said, can we do this interview? Oh, you cannot.   And I said, I don't understand why not. And so   they said, well, let   let's go through the channels and ask the other side. So they asked the other side, and the other side says no. And you're gonna have to sign a non disclosure statement and all this stuff.   And I   was on a three way call, and I told the guy, it's bullshit.   I am not signing anything. I didn't do anything wrong. I don't have anything to hide. The only people that got something to hide is you, and I ain't sign it. I said besides, and nobody else had thought of this. It's already been publicly reported over the public airwaves. How can I non disclose something that's been disclosed?  

And it was like silence. And I'm not   I'm not super educated or anything, but I was like, didn't anybody else in this room think about this? You know? You you guys are the lawyers.   And,  

[00:28:18] Unknown:

yeah, I guess we can't really enforce that, can we? Just one of the guys says and I says, well, there you go. And I just hung up. I was done. And so from from your point of view, from the court's point of view, you were right. The reason these cows stopped producing was because there was voltage coming through, and they had not handled it. What what was the actual like, what did they do wrong here?  

[00:28:39] JR Burdick:

Their,   their delivery system to our farm was subpar   and not up to code.   And I had to read a lot of NEC code to figure all that out because nobody would tell you. And if you go to talk to your local electrician, they don't deal in transmission lines. They deal in stuff at your house and your your outlets, your meter base forward. They aren't really dealing with how does it get from there to here.   And, so   the,   the setup,   the delivery lines were actually built   don't quote me on this, but I think 1964.   So a lot of our rural electric system is just inadequate for what we're doing now.   And, as farms increase in their size, all the motors get bigger, the loads heavier, and those those lines in 1964,   I mean, you know, who had a million bushel,   grain set up in 1964   that they needed, you know, 3 dryers running on and all the paint. Turning those things on is gonna pull a ton. Yeah. So so it wasn't made for the system. And then   over the years, had the wire had broken, they would splice it back together. Well, there's an NEC code for how many splices can be in a mile, and we far exceeded that.  

You know,   there's supposed to be a ground at every 3rd pole, I think it was. Again, don't it's been a while so I've looked at all these numbers, but I think it's every 3rd poll.   And,   they were broken and, you know, not not existent, you know, from and it was kind of funny because it was like, well, you know, some farmer hit that poll and we replaced it. We just didn't replace the ground wire or whatever. So it's the farmer's fault. Like, well, if he's if you're replacing the pole, you replace the pole, replace everything there. And,   one of their consultants got up there,   and,   this was a funny part. You know, these are all paid professionals. This is what they do. I don't do this. I'm a dairy farmer.  

And,   they they present into evidence   this narrative that's been written   of   their findings.   And,   my lawyer goes,   who wrote that?   And the guy on the stand goes, he's been commenting about it the whole time for for 45 minutes. This is the whole question. He goes, oh, I didn't write it.   And   my lawyer looks at him and says,   then why are you commenting on it? Because it was done at the farm. It was kind of like an unseen   narrative.   He goes, I don't know. They just asked me. You know? And the judge is looking at the people in the jury are like,   we kinda wasted 45 minutes here. And so,   the the guy, he looks over at,   the lawyers. Our lawyer looks at the other lawyers. He says, could you produce the person who   who wrote this so that we can cross examine him? And then he says, but besides, he said, we didn't have this in this   discovery. You know, all these things that are, like,   true parts of that you see on TV is, like, yeah, they just blew the the whole thing here.  

And, they're all sitting there and they go, you can see him over there huddling.   Oh, yeah. The other gentleman is in the room.   And I'm like, who's this other gentleman? Because I'd met all these people because they were on the farm. I mean, we had 13 guys one day on the farm just measuring everything,  

[00:31:56] Unknown:

picking everything apart. And if you if you look hard enough at anybody's life, you're gonna find something to be pretty precise. The stress of having anybody look at your stuff being like, I don't I don't remember. We put that thing in 10 years ago. What do I remember about it? And,  

[00:32:09] JR Burdick:

so he   they bring up the next guy,   and he hadn't been in the courtroom, you know, because not all your witnesses can be in a courtroom when another witnesses   is, testifying. So he comes in, and they start asking him all the same questions about this narrative.   And, my lawyer gets up again, and he says, again, I'm gonna ask, did you write this narrative? He goes, no.   I'm sitting here. So this is their, like, main   argument   of why we are bad dairy farmers, bad people, bad everything. You know? And I mean, it's it's personally insulting. It really is. From how you milk your cow,   I wouldn't do it this way, you know? I wouldn't attach the milkers the way you were attaching them. I mean, very minute stuff too. Well, one day he fed the cows over there at 305, and then the next day, it wasn't until 3:30.  

So you and we know in dairy farming, consistency is the thing. And so  

[00:33:02] Unknown:

I'm like, 25 minutes, man? Because you guys are arguing over,   did these cows start producing less milk Right. Because of something we did or something you did. Exactly. And so you're not just arguing over electricity, you're arguing over you as a dairy farmer. Exactly. Shit, man. That suck. Yeah. Yeah. So everything you did. Now,  

[00:33:24] JR Burdick:

my dad grew up on a farm, and he,   he   he he never went beyond high school. You know? I went to college at Michigan State University where I'm originally from Michigan. There's a long story that we aren't gonna get into how I got to Iowa. But,   so I had a degree in dairy business management.   And, like, all through discovery, nobody asked me that.   My lawyers do. They you know? And I mean, it puts down there you you turn in a thing about yourself, and it's kind of a bio. You know? They're they're gonna wanna have that. And so they had that bio,   and they had on there my education, you know, Michigan State University from this year to that year and all that stuff, my degree.  

My grade point average was on it. I don't remember what it was now, but it doesn't matter.   So I'm sitting up there, and they're really starting to hammer me on some stuff, and I go, listen.   I was in college at Michigan State University. I studied under doctor Muhlenberger   about udder management.   I know how to milk a cow. I said, this is and you're in you're in court, so you have to watch your language. This is but this seems to be   over the top.   And, like, the whole table over there, did you you were in college? Because they were just they were framing my dad as this hick farmer who didn't know anything.   And then I was like, dude,   I just I'm gonna tell you right now, the guy I learned the most for from is sitting at that table. More than any of my professors, I learned how to milk cows from him. And when I got to college, they validated everything he was doing already.  

And,   so it was   a it was quite a deal. So So, normally, this would be like the  

[00:35:08] Unknown:

the hero's journey and you win, but you're saying, like,   no. Like, not not good. No. What did you end up doing then? So you're on a rented dairy farm. Your dad is. You're working at a biodiesel   Yep. Factory, then what?  

[00:35:23] JR Burdick:

Well, because of his heart condition, he couldn't farm anymore.   And I had had it in my I I love farming. I just I just   it's a fault of mine.   And I   my dad can't do anything. So my wife and my   and 2 of my kids, my 2 youngest kids moved back into the house to care for dad because he couldn't do anything for himself right after the hospital.   We were renting a place and, you know, it was no big deal.   And, I had a shift where I worked 4 twelves and I was offered to 4 twelves. So I would come home on those 4 twelves and take care of the farm. And one day, I was driving home and   I got home and I told my wife, this is, you know, I love doing this.  

I hate going to that factory every day. Made good money,   good people, and there's I said, but that's not me. I don't wanna keep doing that.   I said, I wanna take the farm over. And she was like, yeah. You're crazy, and we're not doing that. And,   because there's no money in it? There's no well, we were behind. I mean, I'm working out of a hole.   I got enough money out of the settlement.   I still had my machinery and equipment. I moved that down to help dad. I   was out of cattle. I was, you know,   I mean, it cost us everything. We we were broke.   And,   I mean, I I took this job, and if the company hadn't paid me to to, a relocation fee, I was trying to figure out because they hadn't talked about that in the package when I originally said I would take the different job. I was like,   how the heck am I gonna afford to do this? And then they came out with this relocation. That's the only way I could do this. I mean, I couldn't take that better opportunity because I didn't have enough money  

[00:37:04] Unknown:

to go there and do that. Man, being a guy in your forties and Yeah. And staring that down Yeah. After you've been, you know, more than half a life of work Yeah. That's painful. Yeah.  

[00:37:15] JR Burdick:

And,   so I just said to her, I said, I don't know how this is gonna work. God's gonna have to do something awesome here. We're gonna figure it out.   And,   she was my 2 older boys are out of the house now getting started. One's in college. One's started his career.   And, so the other 2 were still at home, my daughter and then my youngest son. And,   I went to him and I says, hey. You know? And my daughter was 17   at the time. My youngest son was 14.   I said, I don't wanna ruin your guys' last few years. I said, I've already screwed up, and I I admitted to everybody's I already screwed this up for the other 2 boys.   And they were both like, dad, we like to farm. We like doing it. You know, let's see what we can do. And I went to our landlord, and I said, this is what I can do. Will you work with me? And he's been really gracious, and, yeah, he would.  

And,   if without him, I couldn't have made it all work. So but he's just been awesome.   And,   so January of 2018,   we had a plan, and I took the farm over from dad. We moved dad into a   he he's broke too. So we moved him into a low income senior housing apartment   and taking care of him and helping him, you know, get back what he can of his life. And,   so we just we just fought and clawed and fought and clawed and fought and clawed and got to where   things were kinda moving along. I quit my job there at the biodiesel plant in,   the summer of 2019,   And, we just jumped in.  

Things were going pretty good. You know, we're we're we're we're making progress. We're we're keeping the bank happy. We don't have any money, but we're we're making making moves.   And   2020 hits, you know, and,   just the craziness of that. And you're just sitting there kinda going, what in the world's gonna happen? And and   we didn't have to dump any milk at our farm, but the route next to us, they were they were kinda saying, hey.   It's coming towards you. You may have to dump milk. You know? Yeah. Wasn't that wild? And that was because   people weren't going to the grocery store to buy it? No. It was because they didn't have enough people at the processing plants to process it. Ah. Yeah. Because if that tanker showed up and half of your workforce is sitting there going out with COVID for 2 weeks,   yeah, what do you what how do you process all that? That was what happened in the meat industry and and all those is you just didn't have enough people to process the product. Right. And so and then, you know, your your milk caller would call in and say, yeah, I just was exposed to COVID. Okay. You can't you can't do you know, pick up milk, you can't deliver milk, you can't do nothing. So then your milk truck isn't there and you can't deliver that. And it it really dawned on me   how our industrial ag system   has no resiliency.  

There is no backup plan. There's   there's there's 0. You know?   And I was just like,   this is this is bad.   And, I really started reaching out to our co op representatives about some of those resiliency questions, and why aren't we doing things that are more local?   And,   so we just   we just fought and clawed and fought and clawed.   And 2022   came around, and we were   we were doing okay. You know?   Not making any money, but not going behind, you know, and doing what I loved and enjoying it. My daughter had now gotten older, and she had gotten married. My second oldest son had gotten married. Now we've got one grandkid here, you know,   and and you're just kinda like, hey, life's flowing. This is pretty good.  

And   summer of 2022   comes around and the dairy coop sends out their   farm   specialist.   I'd gotten along with him great over the years. Any problem I had, he always he's a good guy. You know? Not nothing wrong with him.   And he brings around the newest generation of the farm program, which is farmers   assuring responsible management is what the acronym acronym   stands for.   And it's,   the dairy industry's   guidebook, if you will, for how cattle should be treated on farms and how things should be done on farms. And we've been I've been going through this, you know, since its inception in the nineties,   and it's kinda like the beef quality assurance program.  

It was really innocuous for a long time, and it's just like, yes. I am. Who cares? You know? And they kept telling you, well, we gotta do this because of animal rights activist. We gotta do this because our customers demand it.   And he drops it off. And for some reason, I really decide to study it and look at it because   I'll be real honest. Before that, I just kinda signed it.   I'm doing I'm doing a good job. I don't need it. It it didn't help me in the court case. Like, hey. I've got this guideline book, and I've had people come and say, you know, that I'm I'm doing all this stuff. And   and I'm like, so what's the point of it? So I start reading through it, and the red flags just start going off. I'm like,   everything in here is written for some it's it's do your employees know how to? Do your employees do this? Do your employees do that? How often do your employees? These were the these were the lead in statements to every question.  

And I was like, I don't have any employees.   I'm just a small farm in   Missouri.   Why   why isn't this by the dairy industry, why isn't this written to have a have a version for, like, you know, the owner operator guy to to read that that you can relate to?   And, it gets down through there. And then all of a sudden, they start asking questions, and I don't know if they had in previous   versions or not, but it was questions about how much fuel you would use in a day and questions about, you know, your fertilizer usage and how much time you put cattle on pasture   and and how much time you, you know,   all these things that I thought, man, it's really weird that they're asking these questions because they really don't have anything to do with   dairy cow management. I mean, how much fuel you use in a day? What's that got to do with how my cows are treated? And,   so he comes out for the day for the audit where he's gonna   go over it with me and talk. And he sits down, and I have, like, 3 note page   pages in my notebook of questions I'm gonna ask him.  

And he just gives it to me. Well, you can just sign here and date it, you know, and I'll sign the and I go, no. I named him. And I says, I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about this.   I have some questions.   And I started going through, and I was like, this question on page this,   what's this about, and why is this not, you   know,   relevant to me?   And I get down through it, and I my last statement that I had written, because I wanted it, because I was a little mad and I didn't wanna, like, lose my train of thought. I wanted to stay   on point because I wasn't mad at him. I was mad at what the industry was doing. And I get to the last question. I says, can you   guarantee me   that this is not going to be used for some kind of   a climate   program?  

Because I says, that's what this thing's going down. And I didn't have all the buzzwords or anything. I was just this is just I've got a week to prepare.   I jump into it. And he goes,   well, sure.   And I go, from who do you get that information? I says, no no offense, but you're the peon here.   And he goes, well, I'll find out from you.   So that's fine.   And so   I told my wife when she after he left, I said, I am not signing this piece of paper.   I am not signing it. I said, this is going to a place,   Soviet Union. I didn't know the right word, but I was like, this is just not a good thing.   And she's like, well, do whatever you wanna do. So what gave you that indication?  

Just the   I'm pretty well read and up on the news. And so I saw what was going on in corporate America, how the climate change agenda was moving in and really shaping how people were were,   directing their businesses.   And I looked at that and I thought, man, they're they're trying to move us somewhere.   We're we're just the herd and they're the herd drivers. And   I don't know that I wanna go with the herd on this. Mhmm. I there's some things here that just   aren't right. And so he came back, and he assured me that, you know, everything's gonna be fine.   And he says and then he said to me, he says, you're the only farmer that's ever said anything to me about this.  

I go, really?   Okay.   So I says, when do I have to have this signed by? And he gave me the date. And I says, well,   I need to think about this some more. He goes, that's fine. That's fine.   And part of it was is there's inroads in there for potential third party   audits,   and   they don't name who that third party audit could be. So you could get this environmentalist wacko to come on your farm,   And she's got an agenda, but she's certified.   She marks down that you're doing something wanky,   and suddenly you lose your market now. You're making quality milk, your cattle are doing well, but because of her opinion,   you could potentially  

[00:46:37] Unknown:

you that was where that was going. And if you put your signature on this, what do you get out of of that? Are you then certified? No? Well, you're you're certified  

[00:46:45] JR Burdick:

By who?   That's a great question.   Your field man, basically.   He he walks the farm and says, yeah. You're in compliance, you know, looking everything over.  

[00:46:57] Unknown:

And this is the guy that's coming to buy your milk?  

[00:47:00] JR Burdick:

He represents the company that buys the milk. Yep. Okay. Yep. Can you say who they are? DFA. Okay. Yeah. It was Dairy Farmers of America. I mean, everybody sells their those   people think that the packing industry is consolidated.   The milk industry  

[00:47:15] Unknown:

has got them beat. It's basically DFA. I think they control 85% of the market. Oh, I didn't know that at all. I mean, every time I touch dairy, I'm like, I don't know. I don't know anything about this thing. Yeah. It's So so DFA is one large corporation, and then they have   little outlets that go through and buy No. DFA itself is a cooperative.  

[00:47:34] JR Burdick:

Okay. And so they are the they are the cooperative that buys your milk. There's different regional,   offices of it, I guess you would call, but DFA as a whole,  

[00:47:45] Unknown:

is when you get your check, it says DFA on it. You know? And is, Tillamook a part of DFA or they're their own co op? They're their own co op. I see. Okay. So somebody from DFA was showing up saying, hey. We're all getting on board with these. Sign this thing. It's a little it's even worse than that. Okay. This program is presented  

[00:48:04] JR Burdick:

is is,   funded by your check off dollars   through National Milk Producers Federation.   And so all the coops got together and said, you guys set up a formula or, you know, that was the original thing, part of the checkoff,   sign this so that we can combat   animal rights activists,   bad actors. And then it became, oh, we need to have this so that our customers have something on file that says you're doing   what you say you're doing.   And,   so it's it's  

[00:48:37] Unknown:

it's   So that that way on their brochure, they can say a 100% of our farmers say that they use these practices which are good for climate health. They're good for diversity and inclusion or good for whatever that is. And then you've signed it saying, I agree to these things and included in there, there's stuff like and we can come out and audit it if we want. Yeah. So you're actually signing something real there. Oh, absolutely. It's a binding contract. And  

[00:49:04] JR Burdick:

and I this was the funny part. I the guy is sitting there and when he comes back out to get me to sign it and you have to have your vet sign it too that he's coming out to the farm so often and   being your   independent fact checker, we'll call him that.   And I was like, well, I got a great relationship with my vet, but I I only call him when I need to. I don't, like, have a I I didn't set up a I I mean Regular checkups. Yeah. I was like because I was pretty good at taking care of cattle. I if I had a problem, my vet was like, I hate it when you call me because it's a it's a catastrophe   getting ready to happen.  

You know, a cow calf is being born backwards or something goofy like that. So you don't sign. What happens?   Well, that's what I asked him. And he says, what's a voluntary program? I said, well, then I voluntarily don't sign. And he goes, yeah. But you can't sell milk to us if you don't sign it because our coop requires you to sign it. And I said, I this is literally I looked at him and says, you have a very different definition of voluntary than I do. And,   he goes, well, that's the way it is.   I says, well,   I've got a couple more months. And I was I was honest with him. I says, I'm thinking about it. I mean, because   your whole farm is on the line. They they have you there. Do you everything that you've done, all of your income is now in their hands.  

If and I was like, this is a problem because   you get a different person in here this week that was here last week and approved what you were doing, and this guy this week says it's not approved.   What happens? Where where do you go to? I said, milk has to be sold every day. It's not like I can say, I'm gonna store that corn in that bin for another 60 days until we figure out what we're gonna do here.   No. I I can't lose 60 days worth of milk income here. And he goes, well, it's it's voluntary, but, you know, you have to do it. I'm like,   well, the date's not here yet.  

And I'm a be real honest. I went into a I   the world just collapsed on me, and I I couldn't handle it. And, I wouldn't say I went into a nervous breakdown, but I went into a dark spot.   And, my wife was like, what are you doing?   I said, what? I said, we fought. We fought it. We fought   this huge electric company, and we win. We fight   all the health issues with my parents.   We fight to get back in here. And now   I got this prick telling me if I don't sign this piece of paper that goes against everything in every just, you know, my my spidey senses were just tingling. I was like, I can't do this.   And and I reached out to some people, and they all said,   just sign it. We know you don't mean it. And they were just   to be honest with you, my faith was like, I can't be dishonest like that.  

I I just can't.  

[00:51:45] Unknown:

If I sign it, I gotta believe it. Well, if signing something doesn't mean something, yes, you're right. It doesn't. And then neither does any other signature you have. Right. Because if it doesn't mean something every time you sign, then it doesn't mean something this time. And I've been in that situation where people are like, it's no big deal. You just sign it and you just move on. Well, that shows what their signature's worth. Right.  

[00:52:05] JR Burdick:

So,   I'm not real part proud of this part of the story, but I just I just fell apart. And I didn't do a good job with the cattle.   I didn't do a good job with my family.   I ain't gonna go into all the details, but,   basically, I gave the co op a reason to kick me out because my milk quality suffered so much because I just   I didn't have a reason to get out of bed in the morning, to be realized about it. I would go a day without going out to the barn. I just couldn't do it.   And, my daughter, like I said, had been married. My youngest son was working. Now he's he's out of out of high school.   And,   it just turned into a train wreck, and   that was my doing. And then November 11,   2022, the co op called and said we can't pick up your milk anymore. That was the last time a milk truck pulled in my truck my yard. And that was me, you know. So   but it stemmed from   all this other stuff, and I couldn't find a way out of it.  



[00:53:04] Unknown:

And, because you were looking at it and saying, if I don't sign this,  

[00:53:08] JR Burdick:

then nobody's gonna buy my milk. There's nobody around, to do that. And what am I gonna do? Right. Yeah. There's I I called other co ops thinking I'll just find another market for my milk, somebody that'll agree with me. Nobody would come into the area. It's it's it's kind of a   it there's no no formal agreement, but there's basically now we have so few co ops. We have so much consolidation.   Everybody kind of divvies it up. This is our area that you're in, and the trucks never cross. You know? Up in Wisconsin, obviously, with a lot more dairy farmers, it's a lot easier to not harder to do that. But,   here in Missouri, we have got fewer right around 300 dairy farmers in the whole state.  

It's not enough to support multiple co ops.   You know, there just there just isn't the volume there to keep that infrastructure going. So it's just   DFA.  

[00:54:00] Unknown:

Okay. Prairie Farms is the other Yep. Big one. Okay. But they wouldn't come and pick me up. And so when you get this call saying we're not picking up your milk, what happens next?  

[00:54:11] JR Burdick:

About the honest truth,   I just went and got a bottle and just   drowned myself.   I didn't know what else to do.   And,   I'd never done that before.   I just I just I'm done. I got my truck. I drove to the back of the farm,   and I just sat there and looked over everything on the hill   and just said, screw it.   And,   kinda just that's where I was.   And didn't   I didn't like it. I didn't know what to do. My dad my dad's incapacitated. I mean, not totally, but I also didn't wanna add that burden to him.   The other people I reached out to were, you know, just sign it. It doesn't really matter type people or, you know, I sign it and I don't care. And and I had no other farmer support.   My whole coop was against me. The university extension systems against you. I mean, everybody I reached out to.  

The only guy that gave me any hope was Trent Luce. I called him up just out of the blue one day, and I says, this is what I'm going through. Do you know anybody that'll   so he gave me a few names. He says he says, I don't know anything about this.   So I called those people. And again, it's 2022. We're coming off of COVID. And they're like, man, we're so deep into so many other issues.   Couple years, we'll get to this, you know? And I'm like, man, I got I got today. I need I need no I just need somebody to tell me what to do today.   So I just did that in for about   from from November 11th to   Thanksgiving, I was just a blur. I just I kinda did my thing, but there's no I milked the cows, put it in the tank, and drained it out on the floor. And I was like, well, this is stupid.  

And,   got with one of my lenders   and did some things so I could, you know, keep the farm because I I went from having $25,000   a month of income to 0.   Just like that.   And, when I say that was the farm income, it was I understand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the business side of things.   And   right after Thanksgiving,   I just was having one of my pity parties.   And my wife just got in my face,   and she ripped me a new one.   And she her her last thing I remember her saying to me was,   you were the guy that would charge hell with a squirt gun.   Why aren't you fighting this?  

And I was like, I'm I'm just done. I'm tired of fighting. I don't know why I gotta fight to milk a cow. I don't understand that. She's, well,   either fight to milk a cow or fight for me or fight for something, but fight.   And it took about a week to set in, and   I was like, alright,   how do I fight this? So now I'm   okay. I can fight. That's the first thing I had to do was I can fight.   And then I was like, okay.   Now how do I fight?   And I start just   going over all kinds of stuff off the Internet to it wasn't a waste of time, but it was I gotta figure out what's going on in agriculture.   Do I wanna be a part of this system anymore?  

And that I   new eyes,   fresh perspective.   I'm like, man, we are just   we're just being controlled   on every aspect of this thing, from how we plant our crops, to what we plant, to where we sell our milk, to to how we sell our milk, to how we raise our beef. All   somebody outside is controlling all of us, and we have this   stupid idea that we're independent,   that there there's no external force that's making me do this,   when in fact,   that's only reason you're doing what you're doing is because it's all external forces.   And, so I make up this long list of things that I go to my wife and I go and I had,   very honestly, I'd sold some cattle to pay some bills and things. And so I'm down way down on numbers, and, I gotta go get a job. So I find a guy who's nearby me, who's an electrician,   and he's just looking for somebody just, you know,   carry wire,   pull wire, bend pipe, you know, and I I'd work I'd done a lot of construction work. So it's like, man, I'll hire you. I said, okay.  

And I thought it was just gonna be a few day thing, but, you know, it turned out to be for quite a while.   And,   the whole time, now my mind's churning. Okay. Now I can now I can heat the house. Now I can have food.   I can start to think about   not just how am I gonna survive,   but how am I gonna go forward? In Christmas that year,   I had all the kids home, you know, for Christmas and the grandkids.   And I was just really honest with him, and I said, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to keep the farm. I just don't know.   But I'm gonna fight real hard to do it. And I apologize to them all for how I'd been the past couple months   and was very specific about I I didn't wasn't just man, I'm sorry. I was, you know, hey, I just   I was unkind to all of you. I you know, words are hurtful.  

I just was honest.   And,   that was really good for me. I needed to do that. And,   I said,   I promise you I'm gonna fight.   And they're all like, we know you're a fighter, dad. We know you'll do this. We know you'll you'll know. And and my my oldest son who is 64   and 260 pounds, just a brute mountain of a kid, he comes up. He just dwarfs me. He comes up, gives me his great big bear hug. And then my little granddaughter who's about a year and a half, she comes up and hugs my leg. And I mean, I'm just just like melting. I don't there's nothing left to me.   And they're all like, Ron, we're we're here for you, dad. I'm like, okay.  

Okay. So   I don't know what I'm gonna do yet. So over the next couple months,   I developed a plan to start selling milk directly to consumers.   And I'm like, what are the regulation? I'm studying all the laws. I'm trying to   studying a market plan because, you know, I went to college for marketing, but it was how to market to the CBOT.   Not how to market, not how to you know, when I was in college, there was no social media. I'm trying to learn how to use social media instead of consume social media.   2 totally different things.   And   learning   okay. What are the buzzwords that the you know, I'm thinking all these people out here who want to buy my milk are   goofy,   to say it mildly, because these are not the people that I   marketed to   when I was a commercial dairyman.  

And,  

[01:00:41] Unknown:

so I'm putting together a plan, and I told my wife because when you say the people that I wanna I'm gonna stir that wanna buy my milk, these are people that don't want it to go to the processing facility.   They want it to come as close from the cow to them as possible. Right. And they want to know the farmer.  

[01:00:57] JR Burdick:

They don't want to know that you signed a paper   and that my milk came from this 600 farms in this milk shed.   They want   no. You make you made the milk for my cows.   And and they want to know,   hey, how are you raising them? You know? And so, you know, they want non GMO or they want organic. They want no not a   no antibiotics, you know, no hormones.   And I have to do a lot of education now.   And,   so I'm looking at all these people and I'm there's there's days I go, I don't I   I don't know if I can deal with these people. I mean, because they're just fruity. I just don't know what to think about them. Well, because their priorities are different than the priorities of the normies that are just walking around that go to the grocery store and pick up the milk. And Yeah. They're they're different priorities, and different priorities means they are different people. Right. And, you know, they're look different health issues. So now you're you're realizing these people are coming to you because   they   might die if they drink something else or or, you know, I mean, that's just the first for a couple of our customers. That's where they're at.  

And I was just amazed by this. So   I told my wife, okay, I've got a plan.   May 31st,   we're gonna start selling directly to the to the community   and started getting a website built.   All those things that you don't think about when you're just milking cows and the milk truck comes. Had to get how do I get information out to these people? What people context would make? What am I what what's my insurance allow or not allow?   How do I collect taxes? I mean,  

[01:02:35] Unknown:

all of that stuff is is now pouring down on me. At the exact same time that you are gonna be doing   literally the exact opposite of what you've done for   the last 40 years or 45 years of of milking cows is that   you have been a part of a system that says you milk the cow, you rapidly get its temperature down, you send it off to a processing facility that now heats it up, kills all the pathogens,   they run tests on it, and they make sure that nobody's gonna get sick from this, and then it goes out to the the system. And now you're gonna be like, all of that processing   that is the heart and soul of the,   the grocery store system,   I'm just not gonna do it. Are you scared? Oh, absolutely.  



[01:03:21] JR Burdick:

Every time my phone rang after we started selling milk and I saw it was a customer,   this is gonna be the guy that syncs my farm. You know? This is gonna what's his complaint gonna be? What's you know? Were you the kind of guy that drank raw milk, or did you wait till it came? No. I I grew up on a I didn't know dairy farmers didn't drink their own milk until I started doing this. I'm like,   how stupid are you?   You need glass of milk? Go get a glass of milk. You you need a gallon of milk for the house? Go get a my wife made cheese out of our milk and and So you'd always been doing this, but to sell it Right. Is a whole different game. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, man, I just stepped way out in the left field here.   And,   so   the 1st week of May, we went out. This is   you're I'm not trying to throw you curve balls. All this really happened. 1st week of May, we go out to visit my son and his wife and our granddaughter who lived in Kansas.  

And my 2 older boys happened to have the weekend off, so they came and took care of the cattle and did the chores that we needed to do.   So it's May 6th.   We're driving back,   and,   we get, we're headed on Highway 36. Our farm is north of 36.   We get just past Cameron, and my my oldest son calls me and says, yeah. They just called out a tornado watch.   Oh, well   or tornado warning, I should say. I said, well, you know, don't do anything stupid, you know?   Like, hey. Hang on. If if if the house flows away, you know, we'd like to keep you. And we just chatted for a minute. We get about,   15 more miles down the road. I look up in the sky, and there's this biggest shelf cloud I have ever seen in my life. And I'm like I mean I'm like, it's that thing spans a 100 miles. I don't know what that is.  

And, we keep going, and all of a sudden the sky gets really dark. And I'm like, man, this is not good.   And,   about 8:30,   my son calls me, and he says, dad, we're headed to the basement. Tornadoes in the area.   And, when they came up out of the basement, the house was there. The milk barn was there. Part of the free stall barn was there. Lost my machine shed, all the grain bins to shop,   all the outbuildings otherwise.   Everything was gone. Man. And and,   I'm like,   you couldn't even pull in our driveway because the buildings were everywhere, you know? And, so my wife and I parked the car, walk up to the house, check the you know, make sure the boys are okay. The boys were more concerned about hail than they were a tornado,   so they took our pickups.  

And, I happen to be hauling cattle around the the week before so or the day before I left. So my gooseneck trailer was hooked up to my pickup, and they grabbed their pickups and they put them in made room in the machine shed because they thought, oh, it's gonna hail.   Well, the buildings fell down on all our pickups.   You know? So it's just I had a I had a tractor in the shop that I was rebuilding the motor on. I still haven't found all the parts of that motor that you're You're starting to sound like Job to me, man. I don't know.   I'm not quite there because my wife didn't tell me curse God and die,   but, it was pretty close.  

And,   so the next morning I'm not a crying guy. The next morning, I'm staying out in the barnyard. We're trying to get cattle because I still had cattle. I just wasn't selling milk. I'm trying to get everything   situated. We were gonna sell a 2 a 2 raw milk because it's a niche market. I figured if we're gonna do this, we're gonna go for a premium product. We're not just gonna go out there and do whatever.   And,   some of the barns had pushed up against the side where we we brought our cows into the milking facility.   Took us 3 days to move all the debris so that we could get the cows in the barn. You know, it was just that kind of thing.  

My wife has always raised chickens. Our chicken coop,   picked up and blew away. It hit the side of the house and ruined a bunch of windows and siding and stuff, but   didn't destroy the house by any means.   And, the next day, the linemen are out there trying to,   get our power back up and going.   And one of the linemen, he's he's looking around and, you know, the debris from the chicken house is sitting there and he goes, where's the chickens? I said,   I got no idea.   And, he goes, well, looks like the coop flew the chickens.   And I just started laughing, and it was it was cathartic. It was what I needed, you know, at that moment.  

And,   so we just picked up,   started cleaning up,   church came out and was, you know, we had that day, we had probably 60 people out there   just going through fields. We picked up that day. I think we picked up like 10 trailer loads of stuff out of the fields and started moving it. Hay fields are now covered. I figured   by first cutting hay, I'm just I don't know what's in it for metal and everything else. So I just bailed it up and we burned the bales because I was like, I I don't wanna kill cattle Yeah. From this, you know, of the fields that were hurt. Not not all of the fields were. And,   May so so we set back our date for opening   a couple of weeks.  

And,   1st week of July, we started selling raw milk to the general public.   And,   it's been a hell of a ride ever since. 1st week of July of 2023.  

[01:08:32] Unknown:

Okay. So you've been doing it now for Year and a half. Okay. And how did the public respond to you?  

[01:08:43] JR Burdick:

Really well.   We don't have enough volume yet. You know? I mean, you you're building a market.   And and people like the idea,   but convenience is the thing. When you start direct marketing, you you got to overcome the convenience factor.   So,   it's just my wife and I, that's all that does this.   And,   she does all our deliveries. So we just made in Missouri, you can make,   pickup points where people can come and meet you and and then we sell   sell, you know, they they preorder off our website so we know what we have to bring. It's not just a la carte. You know, if you show up and you go, hey. I just decided I forgot all about it, and I want a gallon milk. You gotta let us know because we aren't bottling. Because now I'm thinking about this 70¢ that I have in this per jug and and and the 30¢ I have on the label because it's gotta be a waterproof label and meet certain requirements.   I ain't gonna bottle that and lose that dollar just because you forgot about it, you know? So so, and we sell in we sell in gallon   plastic jugs and half gallon jars.  

So our our hard your hardcore raw milk people wanted in the glass and and the people who aren't quite so hardcore are convenient still take it in that gallon jug.   So,   it's a matter of getting the word out there. We've had,   we we've had complaints. You you're always gonna have complaints. You gotta deal with that. But,   for the mass majority, it's a lot of very dedicated customers.   We have sold   I haven't seen the numbers in a month or 2, but,   last numbers I saw, we sold to 635   individual unique customers.   And we've got 80 that are solid that are gonna buy every week or every other week from us.  



[01:10:32] Unknown:

So are you bottling every day, or how does this work?  

[01:10:36] JR Burdick:

We bottle   3 or 4 days a week,   just depending on demand.   We really wanted to   supply a product for   the people in our area within the next within an hour or so of us.   But we live in a very rural area. You know, there's 4,000 people or something like that in our county. You know?   And, the county we live in happens to be the 2nd poorest county in in Missouri. So you're   selling a premium product to people who don't have premium money. So we've   we've branched out, and now we deliver into Liberty once a week. And, then we hit major towns, and,   we do a few   personal deliveries, but not too many. I know some other people that,   that do delivery right to the to the home or whatever, but we just we don't have the manpower to do that. So,   so last month, December was our highest grossing sales month since we started,   and it was double   more than double of what last January's was.  

So I feel like we're on the right trajectory.   We   it's it's all about   now milking cows is the is the smallest part of my job. Raising feed is the smallest part of my it's it's connecting with customers.   It's finding out what their needs are, and can you meet that need? And I've had some customers that have called me up and they've asked me some questions. I said, I I can't do that.   Everybody wants you to be organic,   for example.   Now I I advertised   I'm not organic,   but I do not use pesticides or,   insecticides on my fields. I don't have a problem doing the weed management in an organic matter. But I can't spend $400   a bag   on organic seed when I can buy the same cousin to it that's not certified   for a $130   a bag?  



[01:12:38] Unknown:

I can't Oh, and people have no idea what a sham some of the organic seed certification.   Like, how they move across the US to Mexico border and then are sold back into the United States and woolalalalala.  

[01:12:50] JR Burdick:

Now they are organic. Yeah. Yeah. And and another one is people say, well, we don't want you to use any antibiotics on your cows. Well, I don't use any dry treatments on my cows,   and I don't use antibiotics as a first course of defense for anything.   But I got $3,000   ahead in that cow.   And if   if she comes down with something and I can give her this $20 shot and I've got a 80% chance I'm going to save her, or I can use this $150   organic treatment and put all the management and time into it to get   hopefully   a   live animal that may not or may produce milk. I'm gonna use the antibiotic and I and and that upsets some of my customers, you know, to be really honest with you. But I sit there and I go, here's the problem, and it's it's a problem that I hear with a lot in agriculture is everybody   wants to ban tools.  

You know? So it's I wanna ban glyphosate.   I wanna I wanna ban, you know, this insecticide. Or Well, it's a   tool.   If the tool is mismanaged, it's not the tool's fault.   It's the people's fault that are using the tool.   So I just explain to people,   I wanna be a a   good   steward of the tool.   I want that tool to be here for a lot of things. But our monocropping system that we have   almost forces you to be in a position where you can't manage that tool, you just have to manage the system.   And,   my son actually my youngest son who's who helps us a lot, and he started farming some of his own ground this year for the 1st year.   He asked me here a couple nights ago, we were finishing up chores and stuff.  

We're just sitting there chatting. And,   he says, well, dad, what's the what's the line here? You know, like, you do this and you do that, and he's asking me my philosophy,   I guess. And I said, well, all tools you should be used   to benefit husbandry,   but they shouldn't be used to replace it.   And,   so I says, a lot of the things that we do in agriculture, we just throw, you know, if   if this chemical is good, 2 chemicals are better. You know? If if,   if my corn's not green enough, an extra £50 of nitrogen.   You know? Does it pay? I don't know. But it looks greener. You know? And it's like, okay.   Everything   we we manage everything like it's an I state, and it's not all an I state. And,   there's places that land should be used for its best use, and best use isn't corn or beans,   unless you have something putting the thumb on the scale to make it the best use, which is your generally your your your crop subsidies of some size type. Oh, you're singing my language now. Right? Like, we we the when people are really worry worried about the tools you're as you're talking about,  

[01:15:43] Unknown:

the step 1, if you wanna lower the amount of glyphosate being used or if people are using dicamba or whatever,   just make it so the government is not involved in insurance. Because if the government's not involved in insurance, all of a sudden, you're not gonna have people saying, oh, I have to plant that in corn and soybeans because I've gotta get the numbers to make it so no matter what happens, I can't lose that ground because there's always somebody to come bail me out as long as I'm doing corn and soybeans. Mhmm. And they they have to then use all those products because they can't leverage time because the value of our time keeps getting stolen from us through inflation. Yep. And so much of this is going on because of the subsidies. So if you really wanna rapidly   decrease the amount of tools as you're talking about them, then first, get the government out of insurance. Mhmm. Absolutely. Absolutely.  



[01:16:34] JR Burdick:

And return   farmers to be in   better husbandry.   So I'm on this journey, and I am I'm a horrible organic farmer. I mean, I sound like I'm self defecating a lot here, but I'm learning   everything I knew for from   when I got out of college in 1992 to when I quit commercial dairy farming in 2022.   The majority of that knowledge is useless to me.  

[01:17:05] Unknown:

Okay. I wanna take just a quick break to talk a little bit about Legacy interviews.   Legacy interviews is a service that I provide, my company. We record individuals and couples telling their life stories so that future generations have the opportunity to know where they came from. And as you're hearing JR's story here, you know   there is wisdom in this.   You know there are stories   and knowledge and experience that if they get passed to his future generations,   those future generations will be able to make better informed decisions.   They'll know what it took to get their family farm   down to another generation, and it is going to be infinitely valuable to JR's family and the future   that this wisdom is captured.  

In your own life, in your own family's stories and all the things that they have to share,   these are all true.   Every single family I have ever spoken with has wisdom that they earned through hard knocks, through things not going well.   And if you have ever thought about getting these stories recorded, then I would recommend going to legacy interviews.com   and look at how we might be able to help you and your family capture those stories   so that they can be passed on to future generations.   So that, website again is legacy interviews.com.   I hope you'll check it out and schedule a call with me to talk about what stories you'd like to capture with your family. Alright. Let's get back to JR.  



[01:18:34] JR Burdick:

I   marketing is useless to me.   The use of the system is useless to me because when I broke away, I also told my wife, it says, if I'm gonna do this, I'm doing it without a safety net. And I haven't taken any government payments since 2022.   And I don't sign up for crop insurance. I don't sign up for anything. I won't do it anymore because   it influences how I produce.   So one of the things I've been reading a lot of old books about animal agriculture,   and I've just enjoyed that a lot.   And one of the things you find out is rarely were especially in the cattle industry, were cattle fed one type of grain. So they didn't just feed corn.   They had a spelt in there, they had a barley in there, they had something else. And that clicked with me when I was listening to some other podcasts that were talking about diversity in a cropping situation.  

And I thought, why aren't we using diversity in how we feed our cow? Oh, that's insightful.   And so I was like I was like, okay. This corn breaks down this way, barley breaks down this way, throw in a little spelts, you get this.   Now you have this mixture of things going in the cows gut and the rumen,   but we don't do that. Why? Because our system   doesn't promote barley and spelts.   And you can't get, you know, farmer b over here to grow me 500 acres of barley if you're a big dairy commercial dairy farmer, because he's like,   if you don't buy it, what do I do with it? And then he's the second question is, do I get subsidized for growing that? Can I get crop insurance on that?  

You know? And   you take your GMO products, which I have no problem with GMO products.   But one of the reasons I don't use them is because it limits my rotation to all those other product, all those other crops that I wanna plant. So even if you plant a non Roundup ready corn and you start to look in and I found this, you know, for years, I go into the the ag retailer that was selling me my crop protection stuff.   And I'd say, hey, I need to plant this field of corn. I wanna use chemicals on this, but next year I'm planting it to alfalfa.   The list of chemicals that I could use shrunk down to like 3, you know, because, well, this has got 16 months of carryover. This has got 14 months of carryover. This has got 2 years of carryover.  

Okay. So really the system is producing products that are only   crop protection for corn and soybeans.   You can't throw in maybe you could throw in wheat and get that cycle broke up a little bit, but you're not gonna throw in an alfalfa, a clover,   you know, reeds canary grass,   you know, orchard grass.   Because, oh, the chemical that I planted 2 years ago will still kill that.   And and so so   those tools   that are available   have limited our hubs husbandry then.  

[01:21:26] Unknown:

I really like the way you're describing that. You know, I I talk with John Kempf, and, we talk about how much lost knowledge is going on right now. And I see this with legacy interviews. Right? Like, some of the people I interview that sit in that chair right there,   they started farming when their dad was hitching up teams of horse and horses or maybe they have oxen. You know? Mhmm. We don't have any of that now. Right. And and so all the things that you did to take care of those animals, all that knowledge   is gone. Now I don't predict that we're gonna not have tractors in the future, but there's a whole bunch of stuff in   horse nutrition   and cattle nutrition and all these things that we used to have as a function of being able to keep those teams of horses and oxen   and out in pasture and I'm sure raising cattle, that when you're just using the macro system   and you're exactly what you're saying, you're just using that year in and year out, 2 or 3 generations down the line,   those people, your grand your kids, your especially your grandkids,   they won't have any concept of these ideas, and they're gonna be buried   deep in books that hopefully   make it a few 100 years in into the future. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's and it's just like  

[01:22:42] JR Burdick:

diversity of feed in the in the cow, like I just mentioned. Diversity of crops, like, you know,   all the different guys that you've interviewed have talked about,   John Kempf and Jason Mok and and those types of things. That got me thinking about diversity   in feed.   And then I was looking around. I was like, so we're we're making this milk now. We make our we make cheese. We make butter. You have a byproduct.   And I told my wife, I says, what the heck are we gonna do with all this crap?   And I was like, we gotta make some money on this. So we bought a bunch of hogs.   And so now we're slopping hogs like they did. And I thought to myself,   our great grandparents understood the value of the diversity of the livestock because   they made the money on the cream and the milk. That was really where my great grandparents   made their money. And then they took that,   that waste milk that we would fed it to their hogs, decreased the cost that they had in raising a hog,   and they had a a product that they could either sell or use in their home or or whatever it was. And I just told her, I says,   look at what we've lost   because of that. And and we've lost the human capital   in our current system   because we devalued   that diversity   of that of that net that knowledge of that diversity.  

It's it's because it's not the most   revenue producing. I don't use profit producing. I say revenue producing.   Because,   you know, you you talk about farm subsidies, every acronym or not nearly nearly every acronym has something about revenue in it, but it doesn't have profitability   because   all you're doing is is you are   you're the money laundering The farmer's the money laundering process for the revenue from the taxpayer   to the ag retailer to somebody else. It's just past You're just a revenue stream. Wow.   Because if it was really about farm profitability,   we'd have a totally different  

[01:24:46] Unknown:

we'd we'd we'd actually look at numbers and say, hey. This is profitable. That's not. You know, a couple weeks ago, you were hammering on that guy that was running that dairy farm that said,   hey. If you deport all the illegals, then food is gonna stop showing up on our shelves in 2 days, I think is what he said. I I mean, I frankly, he's not wrong. Right? Like, if our if our pork production   stopped having those people show up to cut up the the things because everybody that's illegal gets thrown out of the country   We got a problem. He may be right. Absolutely.  



[01:25:19] JR Burdick:

Absolutely. I   I'm not disagreeing with his   opinion there.   I'm just disagreeing, but I disagree with how we got here. Mhmm.   And, one of the things in the   capitalism. Take the word capitalism.   That the root of that is capital.   And everybody   thinks of capital in terms of dollars.   But really, a dollar is just a store of value of capital.   Okay? So whether it's bitcoin, whether it's, you know, Deutsche Marks or, you know, Franc or whatever, it's just a store of value of human effort.   So   when you take   the   the   the   the the value that you wanna store something in,   and you value that at whatever, you're valuing the human effort   at that.  

And when you flood a country with how many ever millions of people have flooded our country,   You have not only inflated our our government's not only inflated our   our monetary system and the value of our dollar They printed a bunch of dollars. Yep. But they added a bunch of people to the capital side of it that devalued the capital. Bingo.  

[01:26:39] Unknown:

Yeah. And  

[01:26:40] JR Burdick:

that farmer that's standing there, he's saying,   the guy that's out there that's milking 30 cows or 50 cows or 70 cows all on his own,   he's only worth what I pay my guy to milk my cow because he's not worth he's not doing all of the management.   He's not doing he's not managing   money.   He's just doing his effort.   And,   6 months or so ago when I thought Trump would finally win the White House, which I've never been a Trump fan. I did vote for him this time. I didn't vote for him the first two times.   I I started looking at some history. I like history. I enjoy but I enjoy it from the the   the people that were in the history, not just to study the facts and know the dates. I wanna know what the people were thinking.  

So Trump, I thought was gonna win, and he's gonna be the 2nd president of the United States who didn't serve consecutive   presidencies. And I want to see who the first guy was. So the first guy was Grover Cleveland,   1st democrat elected after the civil war. They were all republicans up till him. He's a   he was governor of New York,   raised in a Presbyterian minister's home,   politician most of his life, you know.   And,   he comes into office and the the big issues again were labor.   Under his,   I don't remember which which term it was, but under one of his terms, the first labor unions of the United States started,   18 nineties, roughly.  

But he was battling inflation too.   But the inflation was in the tariffs because the government needed more money. They just kept raising the tariffs.   And so then the cost of goods that were coming in from overseas or there are stuff being shipped over   was the value was getting distorted. And so it was hurting hurting our economy because the tariffs were getting too high because the government needed a revenue source.   And then the amount of products that could be brought into the United States were being limited, therefore, limiting supply,   raising the value because they needed these tariffs. And he was like, we can't keep inflating our tariffs. And I was like, so this is before the federal reserve. This is before all so they're having this decision. Fascinating.  

And I'm like, wow. And he came out and he said,   one of the things that we've done is we've taken the virtue out of toil.   And I think about that a lot because we sit there and we we have devalued labor,   and we have increased in we've put increased,   value   on intellectual thought,   on management of people.   And we forget that that virtue was toil.   You you have to build something. You have to work at something. You have to get your fingers in the you know, touch grass or or get dirt under your fingernails or whatever. So we've lost that virtue of toil.   And so then   your neighbor can say,   hey, I'm gonna go hire 50 illegals and milk 10,000 cows.  

Because your value on that small farm isn't as great as my value.   And   that's where we're at in agriculture right now.   And so   until we get   we can fix the money supply, but we gotta fix the capital side of the human capital side as well. They have to kinda come in together. Well, I think you can see that plainly in the state of Missouri because,  

[01:30:05] Unknown:

we were talking about this a little bit before the show that,   in the state of Missouri, we got a snowstorm. It's kinda bad, you know, but it wasn't like an epic snowstorm. Mhmm. And there are still school districts around the Saint Louis area   a week later that are still not open. Mhmm. And it's because the roads weren't plowed. And I was talking with a guy I live in a neighborhood where it's a private neighborhood, so the city doesn't plow it. We have to hire a guy. And he came I'm a trustee, so I was talking with him and he said, hey. Like, I genuinely the number of places I'm plowing is through the roof because,   but it's gonna cost me more to plow this stuff than I'm gonna make, and I'm gonna have to change my prices next year. And I was like, I completely agree with that, but these cities can't handle   that increase. They didn't budget for it. So you now have, like, to pull into this building here, they didn't plow the turn lane And that's everywhere around here. Like, all these bicycle lanes that they built, well, they don't have people that can plow those things. And so you have a city that is not shut down, but certainly   really,   hampered by the fact that we they don't have the money and they don't have the people. And frankly, the people that are plowing don't know what they're doing. Right. And this is this is going to start   really hurting people   as our ability to have the services that we've come to rely on just aren't there anymore. Absolutely. Absolutely.  



[01:31:32] JR Burdick:

And   and that is where you end up with the,   unrest   in a society that leads to formative change.   Because   the people are sitting there going, hey.   I I don't agree with a lot of what's going on in the country,   but if my streets are cleared   and my fire protection is there   and   the they're rebuilding the roads when they get devastated by a hurricane,   I'll put up with the crap.   But just as soon as those things, which you say, those are real that's what I need out of my government.   When those things stop happening,   that's when the natives get restless, you know,   and they start looking around and they go and and and that's what happened to life, I think, in 2020 was a lot of people started noticing things that just were oblivious. They just it was not part of their mundane. It was their mundane routine was just their mundane routine. And once that got broke up, they were like, oh,   why is that why is that guy got say over my life? Why is that guy   control my how many times I can go outside, where I can go, and what who I can see?  

And and so we we and it's progressive.   And now you see, like, for instance, the the things that are happening in California,   and you have this police   person who comes out and says, well, you know, I can't carry a big guy out of a house, and, you know, he shouldn't have gotten in that position in the first place. And you're like, wait a minute.   You are literally hired for search and rescue.   Literally, your your job's definition is to find people in places they shouldn't have been or are in catastrophic   circumstances  

[01:33:10] Unknown:

and remove them from that. That is the definition of your job. But I think that you may be wrong here because I think that, I read a book called The Mandibles, which is one of these books that turned my stomach. It was,   you know, like the apocalyptic books of, like, what's gonna happen in the future. And what it looked at was what happens if our financial system falls apart, which is exactly what is happening. Right? Our money is being inflated to shit Yeah. And our we're importing all these illegals so the value of human capital has gone down. And what they say in that book, which I can see in my mind happening in East Germany   and in Russia,   is people start talking about the time when those services were there   as, like, the way it used to be. This mythical time that kids grow up not having any concept   that it used to be that the garbage got picked up and the roads got cleared and that if you had a problem with your car or your truck, you could get it into a service station. I was just saying this the other day. I took my I wanted to get my truck fixed. It was 3 week wait. Right? It's because there's nobody that has the technical expertise to do this work. And I think our kids are gonna grow up in a world, my kids,   where their where their expectation   of what should be delivered as a service will be so low   that they they won't remember what it was like before. Mhmm.  

Well, I can It's so hard to demand better if you think this is the way it's always been. Right. Well, I can I can see that as the potential  

[01:34:39] JR Burdick:

of,   outcome?   But one of the things that United States is very unique in is it's our size and our diversity of   talent   and belief systems from east to west.   You get to the coast and you got a totally different you're in the Midwest, you think everybody thinks like you, and then you get out to the coast and you go like, nobody thinks like me.   And,   and so there's this group of people in the center,   geographically, I wanna say,   who who really do   whether their political spectrum is left or right, they really do believe in the local school, and and they really do believe in my local government, and my police should do something.   And   we are   while we're not great at it, we are better at telling the story of our ancestry   than the people on the coasts are. And so   it won't be remember when. It'll be grandpa going,   you know,   I I remember when.  

And you guys, I want something better for you.   How what what am I and and this is gonna be a generational thing. I don't think the boomers are gonna do it necessarily.   There's not enough Gen Xers to really move it, but the millennials in the in the Midwest, I think, can do it. They're gonna say,   there there is a better way of doing this,   and technology is not going away. You know, we we have all this apocalyptic stuff, and we all think we're gonna go back to, you know, whether there's an EMP or whatever.   People are gonna find a way to do some things. If an EMP hit my farm,   I could figure out all my tractors are still gonna run. They're old.  

You know, I'm still gonna be able to do some things.   My kids are gonna go, oh, well, there's food there, and other people are gonna gravitate towards there's food there.   But   there's also an expectation. I think there's some religious factors to that that aren't prevalent in other nations as well. There's there's an idea of,   especially in in my my belief system of,   dominion where we should   not dominate nature. My belief is we shouldn't   dominate nature, but that we should use nature for human flourishing.   And,   as you do that,   you sit there and you go,   okay, my my the humans around me are not flourishing anymore.  

And so what can I do to help them flourish?   So, you know, you could be right, I could be right, it could be something in the middle. But I do think that there's enough people still who when they look out and they hear these horror stories that are coming out of California, they go on.   At a base level, you should protect your citizens. You should put out the you should have enough wire water available to stop, you know, at least to stop the advancement or the resources to stop the advancement.   And, again, you know, you're getting a 100 mile an hour winds coming off the Pacific. I don't know how you really stop a fire in that. But Yeah. I have a good friend that made a great point. Like, there are just some things where, yeah, you might have incompetence and you might have,  

[01:37:46] Unknown:

you know, a changing landscape that's going on but when mother nature wants to blow 100 mile an hour winds and there's a small fire, that small fire is gonna be fed like a furnace into a big fire and you gotta contend with mother nature. You're not gonna stop tornadoes going through tornado alley. You're not gonna stop hurricanes. Yeah. And but   I to me, this is something you and I have talked about,   in back channels is,   unless you change the way our money is set up,   there these problems won't get fixed. Because just like you said, if you inflate the dollar, all you're doing is taking the value that anybody has saved and you're pulling it out and you're using it for the government   and and whatever they wanna do with it, send it to the Ukraine, put it in their own bank accounts,   shovel it into the stock market, like and I   I sense we're headed for a day of reckoning around our our, our currency, Trump or no Trump. It's it's coming. The there's no nothing stops this train. Yeah. One of the interesting things, I watched the j six speeches before they actually happened on January 6th  

[01:38:51] JR Burdick:

that day.   And Trump was speaking, and I happened to be able to watch him speak.   And,   somebody from the crowd  

[01:39:01] Unknown:

started yelling at him about the the the amount of money that we had spent the last few years before he you know, and it's it's astronomical since then, but let's make no doubt he spent a lot of money. He's the one that talked to them, Pelosi and Schumer, into opening up the vaults. Like, hey. Yep. Did you guys know we could turn on this printer? Right. Let's just flip it on and let it run. Yeah. He's the one that did that. Absolutely. Absolutely.  

[01:39:25] JR Burdick:

I'm old enough to remember night the eighties pretty well. And, I can remember coming in the house after doing chores in the nightly news, 88, 89, somewhere in there, would be scrolling   the the deficit. And they were beaten up on wreck Reagan for the deficit. And it was less than a $1,000,000,000,000,   900 and some 1000000000. It didn't turn a $1,000,000,000,000   until the first George Bush's, presidency.   So in my lifetime, we've gone from less than a $1,000,000,000,000   of debt   to over 36,000,000,000,000   or whatever it is now. And you think to yourself, where'd all the money go?  

I mean, that's a legitimate question. Somebody should 36   was it, like, 80% of the money the world's ever known has been printed in the last 8 years or some stupid number like that? And you sit there and you go, okay. But Trump in that speech, this guy's screaming at him about the debt, and he goes, that doesn't matter anymore. He literally just said, that doesn't matter anymore because we've got a plan for that. And I thought,   debt matters to me?   But   why you know, so I'm sitting there and I'm going I told my wife, I says,   that's a dumb statement right there. That's just that's just ignorant, or   it's so full of pride and hubris where you sit there and you go, nothing bad will ever happen to me.  

And I'm like,   either one of those is bad, but the the humorous side of it is even worse because you you will think you can solve every problem   through all of the things we've always done. And unfortunately, we have a class in in   of politicians right now where   what they have always done has always worked.   I mean, we we can't deny that I mean, yeah, there's a lot of pain, and, yes, we can sit down there and we can we can talk about our economic theories, but   it's worked.  

[01:41:11] Unknown:

You know, it's it's actually I I think about this in the in the biblical concept of,   my brother talks about how he,   went through a phase and he's like, I think it happens to everybody in their forties,   where you're real worried about your kids so you stockpile,   you, like, prep, you do all these things   and then nothing happens. And you're looking around and you're saying, I am I know what gravity is. I can do the equation and I can see that they are defying gravity and yet   nothing happens   and nothing happens. And that must have been   that story of of Noah and the great flood   had to have been that. He's building this giant ark. Everybody's sitting there being like, oh, how you know, your boat. Like, you what are you what are you planning to do with that? That's dumb. And, yeah, there had to be some point when he's building this thing being like, am I sure this is a good use of resources and time? Mhmm. Because you have to prepare   way before the flood happens, and everyone is going to laugh at you. Mhmm. But, like, just that you had said, like, this is hubris to say that the old rules of supply and demand and currency, these don't apply anymore. We're in magic land. Mhmm. Yeah. And,  

[01:42:24] JR Burdick:

really, the scary thing I didn't realize this until a couple of years ago. I was reading a book,   and the author   just put out there his proposition was   the only reason American dollar has the,   reserve currency that it does   is because we have the the largest undefeated army in in in defense system in the world.   And   I've always been kind of skeptical of government from an early age,   but I paid attention during   gulf war 1, gulf war 2, and then the the Libya thing. And the reality of it is we took them guys out because they were trying to develop a new monetary system,   and it wasn't anything else. And they were the only 2 entities that could really do it because they had the oil   to move around and and actually attack our petrodollar.  

So the BRICS and everything that the BRICS are doing,   Saudi Arabia really hasn't jumped on board with it and and the other oil countries haven't. So   they don't have the force yet. They don't have that tool that gives them leverage over the petrodollar.   And, and they still don't have any con the the the even though they're great large countries and and have a lot of industrial base, they still don't have what we have.   So they can't overcome us. They can't overwhelm us in that way. So   you sit back there and you go,   is the is the issue   what happens when there is we've had some chinks in the armor that I never thought we would have.  

If we have another big chink in the armor   and our allies go,   maybe you can't defend us,   and they start hosing up to the other people, then we have  

[01:44:13] Unknown:

you know, then we're gonna be be in the the deep doo doo. Yeah. I mean, what was Afghanistan that that run from there? Right? Like and then all of a sudden, everybody could look at that and say, these idiots don't know what they're doing. Right? They're hiring,   fire chiefs that can't lift your husband out of a out of a burning building, and that's a problem. Right. I remember in that book, The Mandibles,   they talk about how the day that Saudi Arabia   declared that they were no longer gonna price oil in in dollars.   And then, I was I was in a bank actually looking at a at a big screen TV waiting for a meeting   and, and I see it scroll across the bottom that Saudi Arabia considering not pricing, you know, and, like, the stomach churningness   of this. Like, I'm not cheering any of this on. We live in a great country. Right. Right? Like, we live in a place where you can get   everything from raw milk till hyper processed milk to   anything that I want,   but I also am fully aware that all of that could go away. Mhmm. And it is   absolutely   arrogant and and prideful to imagine that it can't go away. Yeah. Yeah. But this is also we're talking all the things about why I love Bitcoin. Yeah. So Yeah. And  

[01:45:29] JR Burdick:

I am I'm, like, 90% there with you on Bitcoin. You know? You and I have had some good discussions about that. And   my wife asked I was talking to my wife as we were going to a delivery point. I was I was really kind of pitching to her. Maybe we should start doing something with Bitcoin and get that on our website. And she was like, you have time to learn something else.   I go, no, I don't. And she's like, see, that's the problem is you gotta learn something. I said, well, I need to jump in there and just start fiddling with it. And then she asked me the question. She was like, well, how are you gonna price that on the website? I go, well, I don't even have the foggiest clues I'm gonna start to do that. And I talked to the guy who does our web   design, and he's like,   nobody's ever asked me this. Then I'm like, well, how do we make this payment processing? You know, so there's things that I'm jumping through,   but I look at it more as,   for me, it's one more thing that I can sit there and say,   I just gave the system the middle finger again.  



[01:46:29] Unknown:

That's all I've been doing for the last two and a half years is, you think I can fit in this box? Watch me. Well, I I gotta say my wife, is much like you, says those things that you're like, I don't really wanna hear that. But she also is like, one of the reasons you love Bitcoin so much is because it's it allows you to be disagreeable. Right? You don't like that system and it lets you get out of it. I will say this, like, I don't know whether you should price products in it. I do think there is a very very strong connection   between the,   Bitcoin people and the people that are looking at health and food in a very different way. Like, they were willing to look and say, wait a second. The government has not exactly been honest to me about how the Federal Reserve works   and how is money being printed and who should I trust in? Oh, and by the way, that's the same group of people that have the FDA and the USDA and, oh, I I I don't like these things. But the best way to learn Bitcoin   is to buy in totally inconsequential amount, $10, a $100,   and then move it from an exchange   to a wallet. And when you do that, you're gonna be like, oh my gosh.  

Up until this point, anytime I wanted to move money, I had to go to Visa and say Mhmm. Would you mind, moving this money from here to there and then go ahead and reach into my pocket and take   2.9%.   Oh, and when they go to send it to somebody else, they're gonna pay 2.9%.   And you realize, like, I'm getting stolen from. I have a tax on the way our system is set up and Bitcoin now all of a sudden obliterates that. It makes it so I can send you   a $1,000,000, $10,   less than a penny for fractions of a cent. And, like, all of a sudden, you're like, oh, maybe we maybe these big powerful  

[01:48:07] JR Burdick:

companies don't have control over me anymore. Yeah. That was that's you know, again, I've been on this huge learning curve. I mean,   just   some days I look back and I go,   how did they even walk before this? You know? That's because I'm like, I   I didn't see it. But,   the payment processing thing, you know, we have a website. We can we we really encourage our our consumers to our customers to to order on that website, use the use the Square app and all that. And at the end of the every month, I get this list of the transactions and what it cost me.   And I'm like, man, we're giving and we're a lot low you're still a low margin business. You know, you don't have a lot of margin. I go, we're giving up $300 a month for what? What did I get out of this other than   and it's like, well, we should tell everybody,   you know, we just use cash, and and maybe that'll be easier.  

But then you know how many how few people have cash on them anymore?   So that didn't work. So I was like, well, we're stuck with this. And and but we've also wanted some of the,   the benefits of that because it fits into our accounting program well. And so, you know, you got this   but is it worth $300 a month or $500 a month? I don't know, you know, because it's like, that's real money to me. That's that could have gone in my pocket. That could have paid this bill. That could have improved this over here. And so, you know, all those things that you have to learn. And and,   I have some farmer friends who who see so so we sell our milk in a gallon jug for $12.50   is the price we get for every farmer friend. You're just raping everybody, you know, is I'm like, well, first off,   I ain't selling Walmart milk.  

So, you you   know, everybody that wants to do on farm marketing,   because we're conditioned to this as farmers is we're price takers.   Every every farmer will tell you, I can't do anything about my price. All I can do anything about is my costs and   my you know, how how what my production is. So cost and production, that's only thing that Yeah. If you're a commodity, that's all you've got. All you can do is, can I produce it any cheaper and then set that floor a little lower? Yeah. And, and I tell him, I said, I can't think like that because I will never compete with Walmart because first off, most box stores, most large surface stores   are selling especially fluid milk at a breakeven or a loss is how they sell that. And then they make their money up on all the other stuff in the store that they're   I don't have all that other stuff. I says and like in the case of Walmart, just picking on them because everybody likes to hate on Walmart.  

All of their a lot of their employees,   the the way they base that pay system is   we're gonna pay you right up into a level where you could still qualify for government assistance on a lot of things.   So they are cost shifting the cost of their employees   to the American taxpayer   by by that that wage scale.   And it just it blows my mind that Republicans especially will jump out there and defend a business   that has that as its mentality.   Like, it's the richest family in the United States,   and they can't afford to pay the cashier. Whether you think it's an entry level job or not, I mean, go try to do it. It's not that easy to deal with people.   They should at least be getting some kind of a living wage, not have to depend on heating assistance and food assistance and and all these types of things. Why is the richest family in the United States   extolled as a,   a great example of capitalism   when they don't pay their people enough, and yet they stick all that money in their pocket and, you know, CEOs and all that. And that's what I have to compete against as a raw milk producer   because nobody values that I am selling you that milk.  

You know, that that value that of a cashier, that value of a stock boy, whatever that is, that value of that delivery guy.   So when you're when you're direct marketing,   you cannot look at the lowest price out there and say, I can I can compete with $4 a gallon milk or $2 a dozen eggs or,   you know, pork that's produced by Smithfield and all these? You can't you can't compete with that because you don't have the the volume for 1, and you don't have the internal subsidization of   your wage the wage earners by the federal government or by in the meat packing industry, you know, the immigration that's continual   more people, more people, and there's no end to it. So you have to price it in a premium product. So when people say to me, well, you're you're you're way overpriced. I go, no. I'm not. Why not? You all gone and looked at organic valley milk?  

Yeah. Well, it's okay. That's $10 a gallon. Okay.   Well, that's more where I'm at. That's that's more what my that's  

[01:52:57] Unknown:

the person that buys that will buy that for me. Well and screw whatever anybody says, like, you're overpriced. Right? Right. A thing is worth whatever somebody else will pay for it. This is why, like, the and you could talk about this in terms of Bitcoin. People are always like, well, I don't know how   to price a Bitcoin. What's it worth? Well, it's worth whatever somebody will pay for it. The same thing is true Yep. Of your milk. If you can find somebody that'll pay $12 a gallon because they want to know the farmer, they want the taste of raw milk, they want the freedom from the system, well, then it's worth $12   to them. And the question is, can I find enough people that wanna do that to make it so I can live and survive? Yeah. And I I sense I am scared of raw milk. Like, I I you know, I've definitely grown up in the world where we had to boil it all when I was in the peace corps and and, we were learning about, like, hey. You're gonna be drinking goat's milk. You better boil that. Mhmm. I I believe them. It's a good thing to boil that. Yeah.  

But I'm also intrigued by it. And I'm people I know and trust talk about how much better it is and how it gets you past things like lactose intolerance. Mhmm. So I'm I'm super intrigued by what you're doing. Yeah. Well,  

[01:54:02] JR Burdick:

if you go back and you look at the history of,   not just our pricing system in the United States for milk, look, talking about dairy in particular,   it really came out of the milk wars of the 18 eighties, 18 nineties at New York state.   The the competition of   raw milk as compared to what everybody called the time swill milk. That's what it was called. So the there was a milk train that would go around in New York state   and pick up milk.   Okay. So 18/90,   not a lot of electricity out in the rural America. There's there's electricity in in New York state, but refrigeration is rather   nonexistent.  

And so they were coming around, and you throw the milk can   on there on the train, and the train was doing its best to get around where it need to go to get to New York City to dump the milk and then distribute the milk to the people.   In 18/90,   New York State New York City was around a 1000000 people even then. So they had this huge amount of,   problem with,   getting distribution of food. And they had moved the cattle that they used to have a lot of dairy farms inside   the city limits of New York City, and they were mostly in the basement of breweries.   And I'm not lying. So they the brewery would make the beer, and then the the distilled grains, they would feed to the cows. But the cows were in the basement, and they had all these buildings around them, so they couldn't go out anywhere. So it's the original CAFO, if you want to think of it like that. And   unsanitary   conditions, just nasty. Okay?  

And, they didn't have refrigeration like we think of it.   They milk the cow, and then they take that milk, and it would set out on the street until the milk   butt carriage came by and picked it up and took it down the road to make,   to go to deliver the milk to whoever bottled it, and then   and they didn't have enough milk, so they actually started adding to it things like plaster.   I'm not lying. They they put that in there to thicken it and to then they would add water out of their   their city treatment system of water, which wasn't very good, and that's when all these people were getting sick.   And so then,   there was this conflicting   movement between two sides. 1 was, hey, we've got to do a better job of caring for our cattle, better hygiene. Let's start washing our equipment every day after we use it, and let's start   an intense   movement towards refrigeration because they had begun to understand that.  

And then the other side of it was, let's just pasteurize it all.   So there's these these 2 widely   dispersion,   ideas on how to get milk safely   to large cities.   Well,   technology won, you know, and so we're gonna pasteurize it. And all these guys over here who were on this, let's increase our husbandry. Let's let's do a better job. Let's be more local in our production. Let's not have big part of their thing was, let's not have big cities. Let's have more local hamlets and small towns and spread these people out that the diverse that'll do that'll,   displace some of this, large amounts of waste that are coming out of the cities.  

And, nope, we went pasteurization   route. So that was in the 1890s.   And   there was all these wars   of   on pricing and all that because now   the distributor had the upper hand over the farmer. Before then, the farmer had the upper hand. Now the distributor because now not every farm could afford pasteurization.   You know, you you couldn't do that. So you went you went to a local   area co op, a commingling plant, and you pasteurized it. And then you took that pasteurized milk, and you were able to sell it. But now you're able to put it on that train, and that train didn't have to go, you know, at an unsafe speed down that track to get to New York City. It helps pasteurize. We put it in this cool cool box car,   with some ice. And when it gets there, it'll be okay.  

And you couldn't do that with fresh milk   because it didn't have the shelf life because   you don't only kill the the pathogens in it, you've killed the good stuff in it. And,   so when you start reading back and you start reading about those milk wars and and just Google milk wars, they finally come up with,   in Iowa in Northwest Iowa was the last really major,   milk disruption where people just in the thirties just had had a late twenties, early thirties, that time frame there. I don't remember exactly.   And,   they went to this creamery,   and they were   the the so the the farmers had allowed their milk to be picked up, and then all the farmers went. And before they brought the milk into the creamery, they stopped them and threw all the milk off the truck in these cans and, you know, the the horse drawn carriages and stuff.  

And, they beat up a couple of the drivers really bad.   And I'm not condoning that in any sense, but that's just the history of what happened. Because these guys were just totally pissed off at this point in time. You are stealing our labor. Again, it got back to labor. Wasn't monetary value, you're stealing our labor.   And,   they arrested these guys, stuck them in the jail. I believe it was in Sioux City   and,   Sioux City, Iowa. And,   3,000 farmers showed up and broke them out of jail and took them home.   That was, you know, that and that was all over milk.   And,   I had a good friend.  

Dad had a good friend whose   father was quite a bit older than him, obviously,   being his dad. His name was Tag,   short for Taggart.   And Taggart was in in the eighties. He was already 90 years old.   And one day, I went over, and they one of their kids had gotten hurt, and they had have helped some had some help milking cows. So I went over for 6 weeks and helped them milk.   And,   doing some odd jobs around the farm. So they   so this is an 85, 86, something like that. And, the manure spreaders that they use then, they they they fed a lot of round bales in the they wouldn't get all the twine off the round bales. And so when they hauled the manure, it would wrap around the beaters on the back. And so Tag said to me, he says, can you stick around for a couple more hours? I said, yeah. He says, well, I need your help. So we went out there with some jackknifes because he didn't have a side grinder, and we cut all the twine off of this, you know, from this year's round bales on the on this thing. And I had a wonderful opportunity to talk to this man who was 90 years old at that time.   And he was telling me about how he had I asked him some questions about milking cows, and I was always enjoyed talking to older men like that.  

And, he goes, oh, yeah. He says, I can remember we went up to Saranac at the creamery, and we stood there. And we had baseball bats, and we broke out the headlights on the guy's truck because, you know, they they were stealing from us.   And I thought, wow.   And I'm not advocating violence by any stretch,   but we don't have that kind of resolve in American agriculture anymore because   I can fold down the brim of my hat and go to the mailbox and get the check.   And those guys didn't have that.   They didn't have that backup plan. Yeah. There was programs, but it wasn't like what we think about it today.   And,   so I'm all for disruption.  

I think that we need more disruption in ag. I think it's it's coming. It doesn't there there's no stopping what's what's what's coming ahead in the next 10 years in agriculture because   everybody talks about transfer of wealth between generations.   We don't while we have more dollars, we don't have the same liquidity.   The   the the the money flow is gonna have to stop going out to the general public. It's gonna have to start staying with the with the government. That's why you see a $1,000,000,000,000   interest payment.   They've got to pay that.  

And if when it becomes a trillion and a half, that's a half a $1,000,000,000,000   that they have to steal out of the general economy just to pay interest on something   that they don't have any asset for other than that dollar.   So as liquidity drains out of the banking system  

[02:02:06] Unknown:

or, you know, they can't always print more money. That's what I think they're gonna do. They're just gonna print infinitely so that that whatever money you have saved, the value of it is all just gonna disappear. Yep. Because they're the it's the only way to get rid of the debt is to just alright. We'll pay you for that debt. We're just gonna pay you with monopoly money that we dropped in from the sky. And then and then what's that do to agriculture? Instead of land being $15,000  

[02:02:30] JR Burdick:

an acre, now it's $30,000   an acre?  

[02:02:32] Unknown:

You know? I mean It's something to consider   that and this is something that farmers hate here. Right? I bring this up. People really dislike this on x,   is your land maybe hasn't gone up at all in value   And that the price that you're seeing there is only how much less your dollars are worth. Mhmm. You say this to people and they get pissed off.   But it's it's a very real possibility. It's very hard to know. It's like measuring what's the temperature of the earth. Well, it just depends on where and how you check it, whatever. But, like, this seems to me to be very true. And when there is a way for people to not   like, when they have a way to take the money that they've made   and invest it somewhere   where it doesn't lose value, you're gonna see a whole bunch of money come out of farm farmland.  

Because if you are buying farmland to preserve the value of your of your money Mhmm. You're doing that because it's it's the only thing that it will appreciate as the as the dollars get printed, but it's you're not actually getting richer. You're not it's not actually an investment. It's just holding value. And if people have something like Bitcoin, they're gonna move it there and not put it into farmland so that way they don't have to pay property tax. They don't have to have a farm manager, and they don't have to have liability. They don't have to produce anything on it. Mhmm. Yeah. You don't have to pay taxes when you sell it? Yeah. That's right. Well, you do. You have to pay taxes on Bitcoin. Right. But, I mean,  

[02:03:56] JR Burdick:

you you pay one tax. You you know, you got local state. You you're not paying that property tax every year on it. You know, there's   you know, that's that's what I'm kinda looking at.   The eighties are etched in my mind still.   I was a young boy. My dad lost a farm in the eighties and got back was able to get back into farming. So I saw that   real. I mean, I I went to I went to,   school when I was in the 3rd grade in the morning, and I knew they were gonna have the farm auction that day. And, you know, my parents said, you're not gonna be here. And, my dad had given me a little calf, you know, for feeding the calves and doing stuff. You know, so I'm 3rd grade. I'm not doing a lot, but that was my calf.   And, I can remember in the morning before I left for school,   I went out and I,   with some crayons and a piece of paper, this is my calf, and I put the calf's name on it, stuck that, don't buy my calf. And I put that on on the front of her little stall.  

Went to school, thought about it all day, of course, you know, come home. And in the morning when I left, the farm was full of cattle. When I came home, there was no cattle left. And   and my obvious one of my parents obviously had taken that sign off that, you know. And   so   when dad bought that farm, everything was going great in the seventies. You know, it was just going, going, going. And every time he went in,   oh, your farm's worth another $500 this year in acres and over what it was last year. And he was like, oh, I can build the harvester. I can add some cows. You know, I mean, he did he did everything that you you you can write down and say that was the dumb thing to do in this but   everybody was doing it. It was that that that was where you were being herded. And and corn's never gonna go down. And then, you know, Jimmy Carter, who just passed away, pulls the grain embargo, and dad was farming quite a bit of ground. And all of a sudden, the crash cash crops fall apart and there's no money there.  

And the bank comes out and says, well, you gotta come up with this x amount of dollars to balance out your balance sheet or you're done. Well, here's a guy that's 29 years old going,   yeah,   I can't do that.  

[02:06:05] Unknown:

And, yeah, you're done. I I find it very valuable to ask people what happened in the eighties. What is your read on why that happened?  

[02:06:15] JR Burdick:

Okay. I was a young boy about, you know, my teenage years and stuff.   So I asked that question of an FHA guy once because I was in trying to buy a farm and   going through all the numbers and, you know, nothing's working, and we have this good relationship. His name was Ron.   And,   he kinda basically said no without, like, you know, no dummy.   And,   so I just was chatting with him. And he says,   what happened was   value of the assets   everybody was not everybody. A lot of farms cash flowed,   but the assets dropped so fast.   The balance sheet got so over over heavy on the liability side.  

And   he said, the Federal Reserve came in and said, you to the small banks, you know, there's a lot of rural banks involved in that,   and, they were backed by FHA. So so the,   FDIC or the the Fed came to the FHA at the time, which is now Farm Service Agency,   said, you have to get your ballot these balance sheets have to balance. They have to you have to be back in the positive. And they were like, hey. If you give us time I mean, this guy, he flat out told me, he says, I told him, if you'll give us time, this will right itself. We do not have to do this.   And there was no time given. It was just   you got 6 months to get your books back in order or the bank is getting shut down.  

And so   FHA goes to the rural bank and says, hey, all these loans are upside down.   Do something about it. And FHA and again, it's it's all these disinterested parties   away from it that have no skin in the game other than their 9 to 5 job.   And the rural banker at the time had a lot of skin in the game because, you know,   unfortunately, what we've lost in our modern day agriculture is the localism. You don't you don't shake the hand of the guy. Yeah. He was going to church with you. His kids are going to school with you. That's exactly right. Yeah. And so I I talked to a a   he's he's probably 86 now, and he was a rural banker back at that time, owned the bank. Him and his brother owned the bank in a small town up there in North Missouri where I'm at. And he said he says it was like once a week. I'd go to church and I just get at the altar, and I just would pray because I was gonna have to go   take my neighbor's farm away. I was gonna have to go take this guy away. And, you know, and I had to do that because if I didn't, I was gonna lose my bank.  

So it was it was all about this as assets rapidly  

[02:08:42] Unknown:

appreciated in the seventies when we went off the gold standard. You have to understand that that all started This is exactly right. The we we used to have our money back by gold. Yep. And then when the French said, hey. We'd like our gold that you owe us from the Vietnam War when we gave you all these loans,   then Nixon said, we're gonna temporarily close this Right. This window. And then they said, well and now we're just not gonna reopen it. And by the way, our money is no longer backed by gold. So we can print money, but we don't have to have the gold in our reserves to back it up Mhmm. Which then sent inflation   through the roof. But people didn't perceive it as inflation at the time. It was my read.  

Yeah. A lot of people didn't. Like like you're describing. They're like, hey. We're making more money. We got more value here. We can keep buying things. Yep. And we can take out loans because things always go up. Yep. And then the eighties hit. The they all of a sudden their balance sheet doesn't line up. They start saying, woah. Inflation has run way up. Now to get that under control, we're gonna take interest rates and we're gonna jack them to the moon. Yep. And, I mean, you're talking I've I've had people sit in that chair right there and talk about, you know, 20, 25 percent interest rates. Yep. Which is like trying to buy a farm with a credit card or something. Right. And then all of a sudden having no money. And then if you were trying to sell land,   nobody could buy it because you couldn't afford to to pay the interest   So then prices of the land kept collapsing down. Right. All because we went off the gold standard and money printing went wild. That was yeah. That was exactly  

[02:10:15] JR Burdick:

you you can you can you can   the first part of the eighties farm crisis, you can draw a direct line   from that day. Was it in August, I think, that, Nixon said we're pulling out of the of off the gold standard, and you can just go   to 81.   And then Reagan got in and he had promised because in the late seventies, the average consumer was just getting hammered. They couldn't, you know, gas lines and all the stuff that you you heard about was actually happening. And they were   I'm just the average Joe Blow. I own my pickup and my car and my house, and I can't afford to live on $3 an hour anymore.   But you put because Nixon also put on wage controls as part of that, and so people couldn't that was that was I mean, this is a whole another topic, but that was when health insurance took off because they couldn't you they had put prices on or or, ceilings on wages,   and so the companies couldn't attract new talent or keep their talent by increasing the wage. So then all of a sudden they said, but we'll start giving you health insurance. If you go back and look at the late sixties,   there was it was a rare thing to have health insurance. And that was what allowed that to be implemented as part of your employment tax.  

You look at steak with, like, different grocery stores. They changed the name of the steak so that they could charge more for it because a flank steak, you know, was was   capped at a buck a pound. But if they change the name of it and cut it just a little bit different, now we can charge $3 a pound for it. I mean, that that happened all through the food sector. And so there was just this meteoric rise in asset value,   but it wasn't because there was there was at the same time, this   this gravitational fall of the dollar,   and the 2 just and and at some point in time, there was a reckoning,   and   Reagan had to step in and say,   nope. You're we're we're gonna we're gonna get this money supply thing back under control.  

The only the only thing they had to do that with   was interest rates. It's because they had to pull money out of   the economy.   And so as they pulled the money out of the economy,   suddenly you don't have as much money to so your, you know, your your land that was worth $3,000 an acre, nobody can get $3,000 an acre to to buy it. We might want it. We might be able to cash flow it, but we can't do it. And the first sales goes down, the second sale goes and then it and then all of a sudden that monopoly started or the the domino effect started, and it was just boom. And it just it took out a lot of good people who are good customers,  

[02:12:50] Unknown:

who who may have even cash flowed. A lot of them did. Oh, yeah. I mean, I've heard that said in in, bank board meetings. Like, people will never forget that they had their farms foreclosed on when they were making money. They were making their payments. Mhmm. And the government forced our hand on this. And and so Yep. My dad, when he started farming back up in  

[02:13:10] JR Burdick:

1987,   he had declared bankruptcy. He'd been shut out. I mean, the whole thing, he'd lost it all.   He he's   I just remember being a a teenager, you know, sex 17 or 18 something at the time.   And he came back from   trying to get a loan to get things going, and he had to do f h FSA at the time FHA at the time, he   actually you know, lender a last resort and all the stuff that he had to go through. And he was he was kinda humiliated by it, but he was this was the options.   And he says, he's we were sitting there. We were eating supper one night, and he says, I found out something interesting today. And I go, yeah. What's that? He says, well, they pulled up my file from back when I lost the farm.   And, my mom's sitting there and my sister, so it wasn't just me. And he says, I found out that I was $30,000   positive.  

But they didn't but the way they valued it on the day of the auction,   and then they sold everything, he had $30,000   extra in assets. He says, I says, Well, do they give that to you? Or   Oh no, that's gone.   It's over. And I just was like,  

[02:14:20] Unknown:

how does you know, it still didn't compute compute to me that that really happened, but but that was the early eighties. Well, you mentioned Reagan, and, this is gonna come out either just before or right after Trump is being inaugurated. So maybe the last kinda thing I wanna chat about is what is your prediction? What is gonna happen when Donald Trump comes in? He's been saying, I'll get the price of your groceries down, but you can't do any of those things for free. Right.   But my  

[02:14:49] JR Burdick:

crystal ball is so foggy anymore. It's just as unreal. But   I   really hope that he can manage a few expectations because there are some things that are just, they're baked in.   I just, I don't see how   you   I don't I don't see what tools he's got that he can throw at this to keep let's say, bring down the price of groceries. Alright? You wanna bring down the price of groceries, but you wanna keep the money supply out there so that nobody feels the pain of having to cut back on asset values.   You you can't do both of those things.   So   is   so I I really am tempered in my enthusiasm   about   what he can do.  

And you also have a group of politicians   who are   addicted   to the way it's always been.   You know?   You you would listen to all these different podcasts about all the different farms, and they're all like, I was just doing what I'd always done. I just thought it had always worked. And then one day, the bank's there and says, give me the keys.   You know? And I don't know what happened because I was just doing what I'd always done.  

[02:16:04] Unknown:

Alright. I wanna jump in here just one last time before we finish out JR's amazing interview.   And I wanna share with you something that has started to bubble up from the surface.   For many years, I've been involved in Bitcoin.   If I brought up to any of the ag organizations that I normally talk to, hey. Do you wanna talk about Bitcoin? I think I could give a talk that would help people understand. People have been like, no. I don't think our members are into that. No.   Well, just last week,   I started getting phone calls saying, hey. My group would actually really love to learn about Bitcoin. Hey. Could you come in and give a talk? It doesn't have to be entirely about Bitcoin. Could could you bring it up? Could you help us understand it?   And so I can tell that the tide is changing and it is amazing to watch. And I wanted to throw it out to you. If you are a member of an organization that is planning a conference for this summer, for this fall, maybe even next year,   and you know that your members might be a little hesitant to talk about Bitcoin but they might benefit from it, well, go to vancecro.com   and fill out the contact form and let's have a conversation about what a talk about Bitcoin could look like.  

I am   deeply confident   that I can take people that are not just skeptics of it but people that are against it, and we can have an amazing conversation that they will walk away being like, hey. Even if I don't agree with it, I now know a lot more than I knew before.   It will stimulate conversations in your organization and it will likely   change the future   for the people that you introduce this idea to in a deeper way. I know I'm always talking about Bitcoin. You are probably already familiar with it. A lot of people have used that affiliate link. I know there are more of my listeners becoming Bitcoiners every single day and I love it. I absolutely love it. But if you wanna do it on a bigger scale and you've been thinking about how can you help your wider community get involved in Bitcoin, go to vancecro.com,   fill out the contact form, and we can arrange for me maybe to come give your group a talk or maybe do something online   and really open up, a conversation about Bitcoin that your community needs to hear. Alright. Let's finish up here with an amazing conversation with JR.  



[02:18:17] JR Burdick:

Well, how   what do you see what person do you see in the congress other than, like, a Thomas Massie,   who's willing to stand up and say, we can't keep giving 1,000,000,000 of dollars just on a whim to a foreign nation. Whatever that foreign nation is, whatever we think the righteousness of the causes or not. You know,   you can have a a good friend that needs needs a loan, but if you don't have any money, you can't give it to them. And and it's not that you're not compassionate and you don't are worried about their situation. It's just that, man, I got my own kids to feed. I got my own family to take care of, and and they come first. And,   and I and I don't see a group of politicians that has that as their   the people are going to come first,   going forward.  

So my expectations are very limited   and very tempered.   I was   I have been very critical of our potential secretary of ag nominee   simply because I hear nothing about any position from her.   I just   I have no idea what she wants to do, what she's thinking about doing. I've I've looked back through her public,   socials.   I can't find anything that says  

[02:19:31] Unknown:

anything about what she wants to do in USDA. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of the kid that wins the national FFA officer. Right? And they do it by not saying anything that pisses anybody off. Right. You know, I wonder what   she would say if she were on the ag tribes report and you said, what's one thing you believe that, you know, none of your constituents agree with? Like, that'd be interesting. And who's your worthy adversary?   But when you go to her feed, it's, rainbows and sunshine and I'm so happy, which, like, maybe she'll come in. My sense is she's just a loyalist.   She's just a you if you put me in here, I'm gonna do whatever I'm gonna execute whatever you want. Mhmm. But doesn't have some, like, these are the changes that need to happen. So whether that's good or bad, I don't know. It doesn't doesn't seem like you're gonna have,   a muckraker the way that you are with,   Kennedy if he gets into the to the role he was in. Right. And,  

[02:20:24] JR Burdick:

I do like the makeup of the cabinet in a lot of ways because it's there's there's a lot of different voices there. You know, I would say that Brooke Rollins is very much a loyalist.   Pam Bondi is very much a loyalist.   But you can't say that about RFK.   You know? He's gonna be out there and going, hey. I'm here because I was the disruptor,  

[02:20:45] Unknown:

and I will maintain that. How would you have felt if,   Joel Salatin had been named,   secretary of ag?  

[02:20:55] JR Burdick:

I wouldn't have felt real good about that.   I read a lot of Joel's stuff.   I like a lot of Joel's stuff, but Joel is also the proverbial Skittles and Rainbows guy. And I sit there and I go,   you know, every homesteader I talk to, and this is my world now.   Joel Salatin said, Joel Salatin said, and I'm sitting there and go like, are you a parent? You can't think for yourself?   I've had people come on my farm and just rip me because it   or I felt like I mean, I don't think they were trying to do that. They were just, you know, expressing their opinion. And, yeah, you just have to smile and kinda take it. You know? They have the Dunning Kruger effect. Right? They've they've read 3 Joel Salatin books, and now they could farm  

[02:21:40] Unknown:

and and run a run a dairy and all that. Yeah. And so,  

[02:21:46] JR Burdick:

I sit there and I go I says, I wanna tell you 3 things that I have learned about Joel Salatin. I said, first is he's very passionate, and he's genuine in what he believes.   Everything that he believes isn't true.   Second thing. And the third thing is,   he is able to do what he is able to do because he lives   within an hour of Washington DC.   And he has a huge consumer base with an above average income   over over anybody in the Midwest.   And if you're gonna direct market, you're gonna have to say, I'm gonna have to go where the people are. I'm gonna have to go where the income is.   And and that was hard for me to realize because I just thought my people around me would want to support me. And we have a lot of customers around us. I don't wanna make it smart, but we can't we cannot be supported   by our neighbors. We have to go where the money is. And so and then the the final thing that nobody ever thinks about Joel is   every year, he has something like 15 to 20 interns that come and work for free and do all of this stuff. And that's a great gig if you can get it, but I can't get anybody to come out and just milk the cows so I can get away for a day, you know, let alone do it for free.  

And,   and and I understand why he gets those interns. He has reputation. They can go forward. They have some skill set. Plus, they have they can put up on Brand recognition. Yeah. I was I was a Joel Salatin intern.   So,   you know, I read his first book, You Can Farm, back in the I don't know if that was his first book, but one of his first books.   You Can Farm, and This IS How I Think IS the Name of It, Back in the, I wanna say, mid nineties, something like that. And I can remember putting that down at the end of it and just being pissed off because I was like, he's like, you don't need a trailer. You don't need a tractor. You don't you know, all these things that and there's some truth to that.   But he farms this small little area. He's got all these people that can do all this stuff.  

And I'm like, man, I'm all by myself.   I'm I'm trying to take care of, you know,   160 some acres and all these cattle and these hogs.   I'm gonna have a tractor. I'm gonna have a trailer.  

[02:24:01] Unknown:

So if not Joel Salatin, who would you have put in at USDA?  

[02:24:05] JR Burdick:

I would have put Thomas Massey in at MS at at,   at USDA.   Yep. Because and this is this is why. I like Thomas Massey. I've studied a lot about him. He and I would be I I'd sit love to sit down and have a beer with him and just, you know, talk about his the way he built his house and Oh, yeah. And that type of stuff because that's that's interesting to me.   And I got a lot of pushback from other farmers that were like, oh, we need him in the house. We need him, you know, because he's a lone voice. Well, you don't understand our government. Our Our government is not run by the house. Our government's run by the bureaucracy.   So let's stick that guy in the office where he can run a bureaucracy,   and he can say, this is gonna happen and that because he presents the budget   to the representatives,   You know? I mean, this stuff that's happening,   Tom Vilsack if if Tom Vilsack didn't wanna have   this farm payment go out that's gonna be going out here soon or or has gone I don't know. Like I said, I don't get them, so I haven't got notification of anything.  

It wouldn't have it wouldn't have seen seen the light of day.   So   if you want the bureaucracy and, you know, people talk about moving USDA to the Midwest.   If the director doesn't wanna leave Washington DC,  

[02:25:18] Unknown:

USDA is not leaving. Yeah. That's my proposal. Move it to Kearny, Nebraska. Make it so all those bureaucrats have to leave.   Thomas Massie I mean, one, I'll tell you. There's a couple of things that I've learned about him recently. One is I have a good friend that's very well connected on the left coast.   Very, very tapped into what's going on in popular culture, what's going on in politics. I brought up Thomas Massie and he did not know who he was, which it made me realize, like, he's got a long way to grow before the world recognizes that he's a very interesting character. So there's a lot of potential there.   The other thing though, and I really I love he's an engineer. He did all this great stuff with electricity in his house and Mhmm. He's a fascinating guy. He was on Tucker. He did this whole thing about APAC and Mhmm. Brilliant. Love that. But he also went out and said, Vonnie Hari, food babe, everybody should follow her. And that scares the shit out of me because   that person   to me,   puts out a lot of ideas to gain her own fame, but are not well thought thought out ideas. Oh. And I was like,   oh, shit. And it brought me back down to earth that there are no perfect politicians. Right. But that definitely scared me. Yeah. And,  

[02:26:30] JR Burdick:

yeah, that I I I had seen that clip too, and I was like, because I just am amazed at how many   other   perspectives that I have been   pushed into through this, what I've done. Oh, I bet. And and so you're go so these people that everybody knows, and they come to me and they go, did you? I'm going, no, I don't know who that is. What do you think about this idea? And I'm I have gotten to where I'm like, hey, I need to go study who this person is. Get the backstory because you're presenting what you you know, that three ideas about listening, you know, what you said, what the people heard you say, and then what you think people heard you say. I'm like, and half the time in these podcasts, it's like, I don't know.   How did you get that from what they were saying? You know, I don't get it. And,   you know, and so   as I've gotten pushed into that space,   I'm just sitting there and I'm going and I think to myself,   we spend 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000 of dollars on   Chekhov to   to infiltrate this and to combat these lies, and it hasn't penetrated one thing.  

And I'm like, do you not do you not understand you know, there's people that still think   that, you know, every   everybody says you know, every milk label you read says   raised without hormones, and there's no antibiotics in our milk. Well, BS. There's no milk there's no antibiotics in any milk.   Let's   we have to be honest even in my space. I'm honest with people. I'm like, that's   the ultimate lie. If you think that all milk has antibiotics in it,   you are smoking the good stuff. That's that's not what's happening. This is our protocols. These are our systems.   I've dumped milk in the past where I milked a cow. Oh, crap. That wasn't supposed to be in the tank. Call up the co op. They come out and test the tank. Yep.  

Dump her, and   you don't get paid for that. You just dump her down the tank, and down the valve, and spread it on a field, or do whatever you got to do with it. But it's, so I'm like, so these these lies that get put out, you know, these guys are shooting their cows up with everything under the sun every day of the week. Like, if you ever had to push cows through a chute, you wanna do that every day? No. That's not happening. Well, and this is, like, I I guess, kind of my concern about people should just have tempered expectations  

[02:28:51] Unknown:

because she's got crazy ideas.   RFK, like, I finally come around to be like, well, we can't make the system that much worse. Right? Like, so, like, let him let him have a shot, but he's got some ideas that I think are   are are,   I'm not I'm not comfortable with his take on glyphosate. You know, there's a bunch of stuff. But any case, it's it's interesting to hear that. Man, I could talk to you literally all day,   but I I actually gotta run. Thank you so much for coming in here. If people wanted to, find out about your dairy, if they wanted to to, you know, buy from you, how would they do that? Well,  

[02:29:26] JR Burdick:

our our website is, ww.nursingfamilyfarm.com.   I have to do a better job of doing my blog. I try to do it once a month, and I've I haven't quite achieved that yet.   But go there. You can see our pricing. You can see our products,   what we sell,   kind of our thesis of why we're doing what what we do.   And, we've got a Facebook page, which is Nourishing Farm Family Farm,   And, you can follow me on x@jrscowfarmer.  

[02:29:53] Unknown:

Yeah, man. You're great you're a great follow on x. Great. Yeah. I don't  

[02:29:57] JR Burdick:

I I appreciate your podcast because you make me think outside the box that I've moved myself out of even farther. And that's like, oh, okay. There's a new thought I can think about. And, and and, hey,   human flourishing, it starts with you. You you gotta expand your mind because   there's always a better way.  

[02:30:15] Unknown:

Thanks, man. Yeah. That was great.