The truth about the structural breaking point in agriculture

In episode 59 of the Truth About Ag podcast, Kristjan Hebert and Evan Shout take a timely look at the decisions, risks, and structural pressure building across Canadian agriculture. They discuss the real-time decisions farmers are facing around seeding, canola acres, crop insurance, market risk, and the cost of pushing through difficult conditions. The episode moves into the larger structural questions facing the industry. Land values, rental rates, equipment, infrastructure, capital access, tax, succession, labour, and management are all part of the conversation as they consider what happens when old assumptions no longer hold. They discuss how land appreciation has covered up losses for some farms, why infrastructure can limit flexibility, and why the next phase of agriculture may require different financing models, different HR systems, and a clearer focus on operating profitability. Kristjan and Evan also talk about the human side of the business, including time, family, health, and the long-standing belief that hours worked are a measure of success. The Truth About Ag podcast is hosted by Evan Shout and Kristjan Hebert of Farmer Coach and Hebert Grain Ventures. Each episode aims to bring you closer to the heartbeat of agriculture through candid conversations and honest discussions. Trending Welcome to this Agronomic Monday edition of RealAg Radio! Today on the show, host Lyndsey Smith is joined by Peter Johnson of RealAgriculture to talk about the return of stripe rust, nitrogen and red clover in wheat. Also on today’s show, Jason Sauchuk of Bayer joins to talk about how to adapt spraying plans when... Read more » Ever wish all your farm data was in one place so you could actually find it? That's where John Deere Operations Center comes in. Available online 24/7, use it to plan your work, keep records, and analyse results so you can reduce errors and make smarter decisions for next year. Plus, it's free to set up and try out. See why thousands of farmers already trust it on their operations at johndeere.ca/oc. /precisionag. Now back to the podcast. Welcome to The Truth About Ag. Welcome to The Truth About Ag podcast, sponsored by the Hebert Group of Companies, which includes Maverick Ag, Farmer Coach, and Hebert Grain Ventures. Also distributed under the Real Agriculture Media Network. Like, share, comment, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. After 52 episodes, I'm actually getting good at that. I barely had to look. Okay, so just you and I today, no guest, which has been a long— I don't remember the last one we had without a guest. So let's, let's roll this. I want to, I want to start Obviously within Maverick, we've got lots of clients who are May 28th and we are in the field and it is ugly. So now to be fair, half the province is not ugly. They're probably hoping for rain, but from your, give me your element of exactly what this looks like and the ramifications and everything that we're, hey, sorry guys, be safe. I mean, I know you're working long hours, so I want to push that out. I mean, We know what happens when guys start working 16, 20-hour days to get the crop in, especially muddy, you know, bad conditions. But what's the ramifications of this? You've seeded and floated on canola. I know you have. I did in 2010, which was the year I got married, which was not ideal. But yeah, fire away. You know, I think the first point to make is if we went back to podcasts in January with fertiliser and fuel prices going up and canola at $12.50 and wheat at $6 or whatever, and the world was ending, I think it's kind of proof in point that times can change. So you use those times to do a good assessment of your cost structure, but also don't make decisions that have a chance to drop revenue because you just never exactly know where that's going to be. Yeah. Secondly, I mean, yeah, we've dealt with wet way more times than we've, we've dealt with dry. So I think it's a, it's a good way to make sure you have a plan of what, you know, what is your cutoff date. So we always kind of use June 10th, like we'll start the floater up to run with the drills to make sure we were done by June 10th on those really wet years. I just didn't want crop in much after that. I mean, my perfect world is May long weekend. Like we want to start in April and be done by May long weekend because every day after that— perfect. Oh, no, no. But like that's our, that's our perfect world. Because we believe yields start dropping every day after that. But it— yeah, I mean, fighting with too wet is better than being too dry. But it is a lot of work, right? So I think it's just a matter of you got to do what you can do. And we were never afraid of floaters and Valmars on those really wet years, to be honest. Now we knew our risk management, we knew our downside. And we knew the upside, obviously. And so that would be the other part is for guys to just ponder, you know, this canola market specifically has surprised us all. I mean, with the current supply and demand that the oil wars have been good for it, but At the same time, you would have a hard time arguing that with where seeding is currently at, that we are going to be above trendline yield in canola. So with the new crush coming online, Chinese tariffs gone, and a trendline yield of say 38 to 41 instead of higher, all of a sudden S&D next year looks pretty tight. So you know, that might create some pretty good bump in canola prices even above where it is that you have to ponder, like, I don't know that I believe it enough. I don't buy much for options, I tend tend to sell them, but all of a sudden, I'm looking at buy and call options in case canola runs to $20. And then the other thing I think is a unique thing that we haven't seen in quite a few years is with all the canola going in pretty late up the east side, I think you're going to see some really good basis deals into crush for September, October, November, because there just isn't going to be as much canola combined before September and early September than normal. So I think it's something that people— oh yeah. So I think that's just something that people need to watch for. If you have some in that's going to be ready, I think there's going to be some really good basis deals to move canola early and then hold on futures. Now, does that get offset by— I mean, you asked me a month ago, we had record canola acres going in. I mean, I didn't believe the numbers, 21 or whatever it was. Does that get offset slightly by that? Or you think the drop in yield is actually going to push? Yeah, even at 21, 21.5, I think the S&D comes in average to below average. And I think you'll, you're also probably going to see as we get into June, you tend to see some canola acres turned into barley and oats. That was my next question. Right. So I think you'll probably see some acres drop, but I mean, conditions look beautiful this week and next week. So hopefully these guys get a really good 10 days and can improve. Now with what's coming out of the US rumors, obviously, wheat crop, you think guys are going to pull some out Durham and put them into wheat now, which I would again, a month ago, do not grow wheat. And now I'm not so sure. Yeah, I don't know. Like, I think the Durham ground is mainly in already is the thing, right? So there won't be any significant shift. The country that's real wet is hard red country. So you might see more of that going to oats or barley over wheat if they're getting late. But my assumption is that even though they're battling, the cereal acres are probably getting close to done. So now they just got to decide on canola versus barley or oats. And then insurance-wise, I mean, unseatable acre through crop insurance. How do the rest react? Like the rest of the insurances? Yeah, like what are guys looking at if they are fearful of even getting the crop in? Yeah, well, I mean, crop insurance, you have unseeded acres, but then you also have the cutoff dates on each crop on when they'll insure to, right? It can only go— I forget what all that— I don't think every crop's a little bit different. And I don't know those specifically. But that's going to affect it. I mean, AgriStability and say like GlobalAg, AGI3, I think other than their yield product probably runs about the same is that those are more whole farm, right? So if the rest of your— if you get 80% of your farm in and you sell it for good money and you make money, you're not going to get a payment. But if you, you know, if you don't have a good year and you have it, that does get spread across every acre. So your payment would get bigger, but you have to be in a bad year to have that happen. So are you buttoning it in, I guess is the question I'm really asking? Oh, yeah, we would. There's no question. I, you know, two reasons that a couple of the wet years we left some land unseeded, it took me 3 years to get it back. To what I would call normal because it got saturated so bad. So I want to crop on it, number one, we would just look at different, you know, ideas around insurance plays to have a little bit of backage, right? I mean, one, as I said, I'm a big fan of AgriStability. So if you have a really good AgriStability margin, and some other coverage, you're probably covered from it being a bad year. But this is where I think the guys that have been in crop insurance a long time, you know, if you weren't going to grow any oats, but they're in your thing, and you had a good yield coverage, it might be where you switch a bit of some of the really late canola out into oats so that it's on its own coverage plan, right? I think there's some few things. Price of oats through SCIC. Yes, exactly. But there's probably a few ideas like that, whether it's oats or barley or, you know, that you could manage some risk with. So yeah, guys, for the clients that I have that are still out there, obviously we're hoping you good luck. So hopefully the weather holds. I'm not sure what the weekend shows, but 30, 33 and a hardcore wind. Couldn't have asked for, I guess, a better drying week this week. So yeah. All right. Let's shift gears a little bit. RealAg Radio. So I saw it over Twitter. I apologize, Shaun, I do not watch all your podcasts. Call it time restrictions, but had an interesting study. 59% of Canadian farmers believe the industry has reached a structural breaking point, signalling a shift beyond typical economic cycle. First question, what is a structural breaking point in agriculture? So I mean, per person probably doesn't have to assume, but let's assume you're tied to manette. Yeah. And that the general feeling is that some big landowners and farms have run land prices up to a point that it's not feasible unsustainable to buy the land. And even a 3 or 4% rent rate on that land is not feasible. And so will require a structural shift. That's where I think people's heads are going now, not just on land, like equipment, better margins, right? Equipment and fertilizer, everything. So we'll tackle land first. I'm not saying that there aren't pockets where you're going to see a correction at all, which you've said. If you use the US and Europe as kind of history for us, because their generational farms are quite a bit older. I mean, the structural shift was in how we financed it. Land kept going up. We're at 50-year mortgages, right? The US has some ways you can do like CMHC-type things on land and go to interest only. There's significantly more options to have debt on land besides the big banks, pension funds, private equity. So, I would argue the structural shift coming in agriculture. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think land does in the next 10 years what it did in the last 10. I think it's pretty flat, right? That, that's my personal opinion. Now, but I think it's across all the provinces, you think, or you think there's still pockets that need to go higher? You set me up there. Yeah, I know, but Ontario's at 30, Alberta, Manitoba are still ahead of Sask. I'm, I'm more intrigued. Yeah, it depends on productive capacity, depends on what Sask does with the rules. Yeah, if the rules stay as tight as they are, I think everything stays. Yeah. Like, and I'm not saying it doesn't go up 3% a year or something. I just don't think we see these 20, 25s. So I personally think the structural shift is going to be on the way that capital is available in agriculture. So I think you're going to see some new debt instruments come up on land and operating that aren't just big banks. So I think agriculture needs venture capital, it needs private equity, it needs pension money, and it needs— you're probably going to get to the point where you're going to see farms with investors. As an equity partner. There's the clip. There's the clip. We just need to cut that. So that's what I think the structural shift is going to be, because I don't believe we're just going to back everything off 30% and say this makes it easier for everybody. That's not how the world works. No. And you're assuming guys are going to stop buying at these numbers, which right now I still see it. Well, and so if you went to a Europe 50-year mortgage, it actually brings the debt service down that it can be happen again now. My big thing is that good for agriculture. I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just saying, my worry right now actually would be that people renting land think that 3 to 4% is still the number. And I can't argue with them. I mean, they can go make way more than that in the stock market. But 3 to 4%, in most cases, is outweighing what you could, you know, interest on your— on the portion that you finance. And so why would I? Yeah, the rental is only— why would I? Yeah, the rental rate is starting to actually really tighten margins. And then, like I said, I'm like, equipment and inputs are the parts that are driving me crazy. That's the part that is beating up margin more than anything, I think. See, going back to the land rental, I found it interesting because the last few deals that I've looked at, obviously the landlords, they're going to have debt service issues just like farms are. They actually get hammered harder on the leverage model. But if they're looking for 3 or 4% and land's worth X, all of a sudden they're asking for rental rates that are above what we would call economical. Yeah, the issue— and I'm going to take this back. So every one of my clients that have fought with me on this, your shops, your banyards, your infrastructure, and your debt load affect what's called land building finance. And if your land building finance is higher than what your landlord is actually pushing you on rent, you can't give those acres up. So if I'm at 150 and the landlord tries to take me to 130 or 140, and it used to be 80, I can say, no, I'm not paying that. The moment you lose those acres, you're worse off, not better, even at the high rental rate. So there is a fundamental shift that I see. But the shift is that we've driven up infrastructure on farms. We see all the bin yards, we see the shops, we see what guys have done. And so have we, just not to quite to that extent, how do you negotiate with a landlord that actually now has more leverage than you? Yeah, because it's not like equipment where you can actually sell pieces of it. You can't. It's like— so just so everybody listening understands, if you take your total infrastructure and it costs— and plus land rent, it's $150 an acre on 10,000 acres. If you drop to 5,000 acres because you lost that land rent, your infrastructure cost actually goes up per acre, like not quite doubles because you took some land rent out of there, but pretty close. And so you actually lose more money per acre than if you'd have just paid a little more rent on a small portion of your acres. But this is the same argument that if you'd have bought some of that land, and your interest was a little higher, if you're willing to average that over your farm, it's the same argument. And so, yeah, I mean, It's gonna be interesting. Most of my guys listen to me won't like it. But I mean, I'm the anti-shop human. And you're just as bad as me. I'm worse. And I just, I just joke at it. Because it's one of those things that like, you know, a bin I can get my head around on storing grain and all that. And but at the same time, I won't, I don't think we overbuild bins to our, to our own land either. But that it's tough to have to make a hard decision on big infrastructure if you have a significant shift, in your acreage. And that could be because you rent. That could be— I mean, let's be honest, I have a couple good friends too where they had a daughter get really sick or a wife get cancer and they dropped land because that's all they could manage. And the infrastructure is what really hurt their income state. Like, it's not just because— there's so many reasons you might have to have a structural shift in your farm. And the unpaid-off infrastructure can really hurt you if you don't have a plan. Well, and see, we've also had the discussion before of on the succession transition side is if mom and dad want a— let's say they want a quick payout to buy a cabin, but then they're willing to shift down and take an X amount out of the farm. Yeah, that quick payout has to come from land. Yeah. So if we got to sell a quarter or two to start the retirement fund, I'm fine with that. But if you've built the infrastructure that you can't give up acres, then it becomes a different conversation of how do you get cash flow out of the farm without significantly changing your financing or restructuring or— I also think like, as we do these yards, we, you need to have a plan on what it looks like in the future. Like what's a main yard? What's a peripheral yard? Because it also, it also gets to be harder for farms to get bought if they have a huge infrastructure load, number one, or So, you know, some people aren't going to want to talk about— I'm never going to sell. Okay, that's fine. Probably a few people that sold us thought that too over their lifetime. But on top of that, though, say your kids take over and they want a second pod 100 kilometres away, but you've overbuilt infrastructure at the home pod. Trucking grain 100 kilometres is almost impossible in harvest, right? So like, it's also just to keep your, your mind around what you don't for surely know the strategy, but what, what are the options that the future might look like? And how could I set that up? Well, and let's say you got two kids that both come back and you know, they're not going to want to farm together. So let's say the farm is big enough that you can split it. It's really hard to split a vineyard. Yeah. Well, I mean, you look at— we talked about this way back, you weren't even with me yet. But when I built my house, right, we, I purposely put it not on the main capital yard. My reason at the time was, you know, we were running 24 hours, didn't want my kids around the trucks at the nighttime. Time. And at the same time, I knew if I walked out my front door, I'd want to work if there was stuff everywhere. So I had to get over the yard. Yeah. But at the same time, not having all the cap— like, my, my own yard actually is pretty built to sell as an acreage. It's right on the highway. It's got no farm infrastructure other than a shop. Like, where, where, if, you know, you have all the bins and all the shops and all the everything, you've taken all the locals— engineers, doctors, lawyers, you know, whatever, miners— out from a purchasing thing if I decide to do something else. So, you know, I just think that sometimes forever, never, and always are really tough words. I'm not sure they should be in the dictionary. And sometimes as farmers, that's the way we think when I just think we need to look at what the future might bring as we plan infrastructure because they are big investments now. Well, and I've had that discussion with guys before. I've said you got to read the book Built to Sell. And yeah, but It's agriculture. We're not selling. It's like, no, no. The moral of the storey is that in order to be sustainable, whether it's through transition, whether it's through generational transfer, whatever it is, the same fundamentals are there. Yep. Because you are essentially selling your business and maybe you're not selling it, but you're passing the business to the next generation. If you're not built to sell, you can't do that very easily. Built to sell means that you have good processes, you've done structured strategic investment and it doesn't need you to run. Key, man. That does not mean that you sell it. I know, right? It means that it's probably the most profitable state it can possibly be and it's not over-infrastructured, but it's not under. And the processes are in place to run it. That kind of sounds like a pretty good gig. Okay, so we've dug into the banking and financing a little bit into succession. What about— and you mentioned it— what about equipment capital allocation? What do you— what's a structural shift in how farms are allocating capital? I mean, John Deere came out with an article a while back about what if you were renting per hour all your equipment? Is that feasible? Yeah. So, I mean, in the next 24 months, I think are going to be pretty interesting in the equipment market between exchange and just values. Right. And I think— well, I mean, it's not a hidden secret. You go search the databases. I mean, seeders and combines already are off the charts on used inventory structure. Drills are ridiculous. Yeah. So I mean, I think you're gonna see a couple things in the next 2 to 3 years. One, I think you're gonna see some pretty unique used equipment deals, 1 and 2-year-old stuff or 1-year-old stuff that's had a 2-year-old birthday, right? 'Cause after it sits on the lot for a month and yeah, I don't see how new equipment's not gonna go back to some sort of a per-hour lease guaranteed number setup. I don't know what it's going to look like, but I don't know how they're not going to get there. Well, and I, and I had this conversation the other day with, with one of the consultants, and I said, sometime between my 20th birthday and my 44th, which was this week, I missed the part where numbers just became numbers. And what I mean by that is only in a farmer, and this isn't an insult, But only in a farmer mind could an $800,000 tractor just be a 5-minute, yeah, I need another tractor, here we go. For anybody outside the walls of this building right now, that is a house that probably takes them weeks or months to get over and figure out their mortgage payment. And all of a sudden in agriculture, those big purchases have just become a, it's a Tuesday afternoon. Yeah. So I would agree with you on the size, but I mean, I think it's what the world's done with credit cards and Apple Pay versus cash. Right. Like when you and I are in university, someone paying $11 for a Starbucks coffee, we laughed at them. Well, actually had them $11. Yeah, well, and like $11 was supper for 2 nights in school, right? Like, so I mean, our world has done a good job of making buying shit easy. Easy, right? When it comes to handing the money over, when it comes to pre-approved financing, like it's just got too easy. And we've utilised it like we've— like the credits to buy equipment. Like it's— yeah, it's the easy button. Yeah. No, for sure. Okay. What if we go to the— our old alumni, accounting and compliance, and you can include tax in this one. What structurally has to shift in the compliance accounting tax methodologies? You know, so on the accounting side, I think there's a few things. I mean, we're a corporate partnership and to this day I still think it's the best way to do a succession plan, and it got wrecked in the— let's call it the world of professionals. So doctors, accountants, and lawyers wrecked it for farmers. So I do think there's some structural changes in order to make succession and transition better. I also, you know, I'm not sure— I don't think there should be a capital gains tax at all. You've already made that money once. But I'm less worried about capital gains exemption than I am about I think there needs to be a succession vehicle, whether that be a trust or a land company, of which land can move through the generations and be rented to the farm, um, with no, with no tax bill on the transition, right? And now, now, is that transition only to children? Or, I know in the news lately, nephews, nieces— what's, what's a related party look like? Yeah, I would, I would say kind of my theory is obviously the bloodline works fine, and then the way instead of nephews, nieces, I would, I would deem it any team member who you are willing to have over 10% of operational profits. Oh, so you're even non-related. Yeah. Well, and I have— I mean, I got one good example of a daughter-in-law. I get to 11. Can I get to 11? Yeah. I have a daughter-in-law, right, that took over a farm. So she's not blood related and they would have a huge transition issue. But she's also way more than 10% of operational profits. So she fits under the team member rule. So I think I think too, it's a good way to have non-blood heirs or, you know, get a young neighbour kid that would be really good, that can be part of the transition plan. And right, I think it's a huge part. And then we fix the transitional issue that's coming, which is how many baby boomers. And yeah, I don't want to see all that land sell because I don't think there's enough buyers and you're going to see more rental. What if this was an opportunity? Right, exactly. So that's where their finance— that's where I would put it as a, as a over, you know, 10% or more operational partner. And I don't care if that's a niece, a nephew, a son, a neighbour's kid, you know, I don't care. And it's a business partner. They put vesting on all these things. I mean, even for capital gains and stuff, there's a 2-year hold when you gift it and all that stuff. Why don't we just put a hold on? They got to be a 10% or more partner for X amount of time. Well, really, like your capital gains exemption doesn't qualify who buys it. Know, right? They just buy the shares. Now I have a qualified small business, but now a question for you. At $1.2 million, is capital gains really that big of a discussion in agriculture anymore? Because I know it's $1.2 million. Nobody take this the wrong way, but when your small family farm is worth $7 or $8 million and you paid cost base of, yeah, half a million, that means— so that's why, that's why I lean more to trying to lobby for a vehicle to have family land transfer transition through the years with no tax. Yeah, yeah. And then, and then if they want to keep the exemption for the opco, fine. But yeah, the majority, majority of exemption these days is used for tax-free cash for the owners. Exactly. Where, like, the, the thing is, this land, I mean, most people buy it because they don't ever want it to be sold, but a tax problem can cause it to be sold, right? Like, that's the number one reason we see some of it sold, is to fix a tax issue on succession. Well That's not the, that's not the theory behind it. So if they truly want to help farm succession, then I think they need a vehicle to do that. Okay. Human resources and labor. You think there's a structural change coming when around agriculture on the labour and HR side? I mean, consolidation is going to continue. We both know that. Well, I mean, I think as things get more techie and, you know, even AI, you take a picture of a filter and it can cross-reference it, etc., is that the days of your team just being built up of 65 to 85-year-old retired farmers is going to get real tough. And I hate to say it because there's a lot of farms that have to run that way, but like, you know, GPS, whether using ChatGPT or Gemini and SOPs, and, um, yeah, I think there's just so much opportunity for to rebuild your staff with with young people that are really good at all this stuff. And, you know, will they want to work 15, 16 hours? Maybe not, right? Will you have to have a different HR plan? Probably. But can they bring a lot of benefit? And are they comfortable with the monitors? And yeah, yeah, they are actually. And you— can you run a farm with 9 to 5? No. Okay. Because that's— if you ask me, the next generation is looking for balanced lifestyle, 9 to 5, and Yeah, but so balance 9 to 5, but at the same time, a lot of those people go work at the mine, which is shift work. Yeah. So there's a way to run your farm on— can you run a farm on people working 45 to 50 hours a week? Yes, I think you could. Right. We work way more than that in seeding and harvest because we run the 12 and 13 hours. But it's not that— it's not that you couldn't gear up to 3 shifts instead of 2. It would be doable. Lots of guys that love working 4:10s, they get a long weekend, right? Like, yeah, you just got to create the shifts, right? It's just— can— do I think you can run a farm on somebody working from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. from the 15th of April to the 1st of November? No, it's gone. Okay. I left this one for last because this is always the fun one. What has to change structurally? The farmer himself. Well, I mean, as farms consolidate and these— I mean, risks have over doubled in the last 10 years just in your cost of production, right? It used to cost you $300 or $250 to grow a crop. Now it's $500 to $600. So your job has doubled in size just in the cost side of it. Just on finance. And so I just think that the farmer themself the amount of time they allocate to working on their business and the pieces of finance, risk management, HR, networks, and kind of knowledge and mindset needs to become a significantly bigger percent. Yeah. So, so when we look at stats of entrepreneurs in Canada and the US, it's very low. So how does a farm do that if they technically don't see themselves as an entrepreneur? Maybe that's not their skill set. What are you, what are you putting in place? Because you've told them they need to work on the higher level strategy. But they were taught production, and they're not good or skilled at that. What are you doing? Well, I think there's a couple different options into the future. One is obviously you start taking some education on that to improve your skill set and hire the right people underneath you to be able to delegate more. The second one is, is, you know, I think too, as farms become more business-minded, you're going to see some of these joint ventures where there's a real business-minded person partner with a real agronomy-minded person, right? Or you're going to see fractional CEOs and CFOs. And you're going to probably see structured buying groups, but it might be that one farm CEO is overseeing that buying group, and it's just an opt-in for 5 other farms that they pay a per acre fee on or something. I think you're going to see some different models. You know, I think you're also, you're probably also going to see, you know, some small equity investments by farm CEOs into other farms where they offer part of that CEO service as long as they can have a share in the profits. Yeah, they're doing the management side of the business. Yeah. So I think that might be some of the biggest changes we see over the next 10 years, which I mean, we've discussed before, is what would be— I mean, we know the 65-year demographic or 65-year-old demographic isn't just in agriculture. No, we've talked about business opportunities. Do you buy an electrical business because they're really good at being electricians, but the business side is failing. Well, we seem to excel at business once in a while, so maybe we take on the business side, right? Yeah. Yeah, I think there's just going to be some new structures kind of help solve that. Ever wish all your farm data was in one place? That's John Deere Operations Center. Plan work, keep records, analyse results, all online. Free to set up. See why thousands of farmers trust it at johndeere.ca/oc. /precisionag. Now back to the interview. Okay. Released a blog this week and I'm not going to lie, it's probably my favourite one I've written. Not because I did it better, but because I love the content and I think there's going to be some good discussion around it. I wanted to play what if. I mean, we've talked about the manette stuff, we talked about land. I mean, even on this podcast, we spent another 10 minutes talking about land values. So let's, let's go back. And I got AI to call it a name and AI gave me all sweat, no equity. So early 2000, I bought my first quarter of land for $63,000. I'm going to play a hypothetical for you today. That land is still worth $63,000. What has the last— when did I buy it? 2000. What's the last 20 years look like for agriculture as an industry from a producer aspect? If that land never appreciated from the moment I bought it? Yeah, I think there's one kind of critical assumption is that— so if— are we saying land, only land didn't appreciate, but all the other margin abilities were the same as they were the last 15 years? Yeah. So I'm saying your margin was what it was the last 15 years. The only thing that didn't escalate was actually land costs, which I mean, your rent, your purchase, that stayed the same. Yeah, so I mean, if it— if I was to say what happened to me over the last 15 years, it means that I bought about 3 times more land. Explain. So the reason behind— the reason I say that is, you know, we started out at a small acreage to get to where we are now. So it's not like a whole bunch of old equity is what drove our expansion. It was profitability. Um, now if, you know, if you were a 10,000-acre farm and you went to 15,000, I would argue that a lot of that was old equity that allowed you to do that. It might have been some profitability, but So you take your $65,000 quarter at a 3% rent rate. I mean, I could rent it for $12 an acre. So my margins are really good. I was renting for property taxes, so it's probably cheaper. Yeah. So if you assume margins were the same, then, you know, and I can't talk for every farm, but in specific cases of farms that were profitable, you just become more profitable. So you bought more land. The scary part is that farms that were buying land that were not profitable and were relying only on the increase in land equity, Right. So what the fundamental change would have been, profitable farms would have actually expanded faster and unprofitable farms would have realised quicker. Is that what you're trying to coax out of me there? That's what I'm trying to coax out of you. So I'll give you— I'll give you my 5 and you can make comments. So my 5 were it covered up losses for the last 20 years, right? With it, with land equity, we had a plan B. And that Plan B was no different than you said a million times, using Grandpa's equity or old equity. Every time the farm had a loss or working capital got tight, we had a mechanism to fix it. Yeah, well, let's be honest, there's, there's consultant groups out there whose whole business theory is a restructure over and over. And when land quits going up, that, that's not possible anymore. No. So we're saying that land never went up to begin with. That was never a possibility. So, yeah. My first point was that it covered up losses, took away the Plan B, which probably took away a lot of the risk tolerance of farms because there was no fallback. Okay, so that's my number one. My number two was the farms that were larger at that point had a structural advantage because up to that point they had that equity base or they had the scale that they're profitable over more acres, which means more money. Let's be fair. Bigger farms at the same amount per acre as smaller farms, bigger farms make more money. Yeah, it's just math. Just math. Third one I had is, does it lower the amount of research and development technology and everything else that's come into agriculture in the last 20 years? Because of the wealth? Yeah, I mean, the lack of knowledge through the investor group, it was land that attracted lots of that money originally, not necessarily agriculture. So I would say it probably did reduce it a bit. Now, the profitability, I don't think it would have reduced what farmers implemented because the profitability would have still been really good on a lot of farms. But the wealth number wouldn't have been able to hit the Globe and Mail. Yeah. So do we have— I'll name a few things that have come in in my mind because of wealth. Do we have the interest rate swaps and the banking mechanisms and the interest from the national banks that we have today? Yeah, I don't— I haven't— I don't know that. Okay. Do we have— just because I said, like, when I go back to it, like, the profitable farms would have been puke and profit. So was, was there as many profitable farms as you think back then? The average used to be $50 an acre. 10 years I was at MNP.ca, $50 an acre was the average farm. But that's why I asked you over this last 10 years if my margin stayed the same and just land went— stayed down, because then really all it did— it— you just— it's pretty easy calculation to do. It adds a lot of profitability. But let's move— interesting— you— let's move you 5 hours west. Yeah. Into the Palliser Triangle. Yeah. So then the last 5 years were real tough. Yeah. Yeah. My other one is, okay, so we got the whole life insurance guys are now in agriculture. The— yeah, the amount of investment in technology and apps and all that stuff. Do we still have that without the amount that farms are worth today? Is it attractive to be in agriculture? National banks and whole life are only here because of the value of the land, and they still don't really understand it because, as we said, most guys don't want to sell it. So there isn't a whole bunch of cash value to it. And if you don't have a high— if you don't have a high cash number, it's actually not some banks and whole life people should be interested in. Okay. My third or fourth one, you already answered. I said, is that slow consolidation or speed it up? Yeah. So as an average, I don't think it probably changes it. About the same. The who, who did it, it changes. So you think there's same amount of consolidation, but smaller number that did it bigger? Well, the actors would be different because like you said, if you owned a 20,000-acre farm 10 years ago and you had— it was all paid off, your equity allowed you to expand really quickly. You didn't even have to be profitable. No. And the smaller guys had to have— yeah, this higher— the smaller guys had to have good profitability to expand. So I think it might have flipped the actors around a little bit. Now, the last one I had, did we lose some of the operating credit mechanisms? Because we know lots of land or lots of operating credit is backed by land. And if you don't have the equity base because the land's only worth what you paid for it and you pay it down so slow over 25, do you have enough operating credit that these young farms even got a start? We're like most guys today when they complain, they say we want land values to drop so the next generation has a chance. Did they actually have a chance? Yeah, well, maybe it would actually taught our industry something that we have landcos and opcos and they're two different businesses and we had to finance them separately. But that means we would have had banks have to look at operating correctly, not off land equity. Yeah, but we're still trying to convince banks that looking at my personal tax return has nothing to do with my wealth. I know. Yeah. Line 150. If you don't have line 150 in the world of banks. It's tough. Makes life tough for every farmer that's done good tax planning the last 20 years. Go get a personal loan and see how hard it is for the bank to understand. Yeah. So just, you know, whether that would have created a shift because they still needed to lend money and got better at lending on operating, that would have been the question, right? Yeah. But, but it also, as we know, doesn't matter if it's agriculture, commercial real estate, or your house. Banks lean to real estate equity. That's their safe spot. Now, numbers are smaller. Is our business profitable from the financial acumen coaching, all that stuff standpoint? This is— this isn't even on my page of questions. Do you think there's still as much risk in agriculture that it drives producers to be better? Well, I think it actually— you might actually have more clients because the wealth is being built for the profitable ones. The wealth's being built in the AGCO, not the land co. And wealth in land appreciation doesn't mean you have cash in your bank account. It just means you have high net worth. And so the farms that were profitable, I think, would be super eager to continue to get better. Yeah. So that's why we focus on LPM so much is because LBF is a function of wealth. Yeah. And don't get me wrong, progressive growth, but LPM is where management actually— rubber hits the road. Yeah. Gross margin and LPM are the focuses, right? Yeah. Okay. Anything to add? No, that's those. Those would cover the main points. Okay. So I got a quote for you, and this one I want to dive into a little bit because I think it ties back to a lot of what we've discussed in the past. But I heard this one this morning, actually. So this is right off the cuff. Money comes and goes. Time just goes. So when you think about that quote and I mean, think about Stratcoach for the last 20 years or 10 years you've been in it and think about the business and your dad saying it's a monster and all those other storeys we've heard before, what is— what does that actually mean? Well, I mean, I've said this before that I think entrepreneurs came up with the idea that quality of time is more important than quantity of time with your kids as a bullshit excuse. So big trips once a year. Yeah. And don't get me wrong, I understand that quality is important too. If you're with your kids, get off your goddamn phone, right? Like they do care that it's quality. But, you know, I will guarantee that your kid appreciates you as much laying, reading a book with them at night to put them to bed as they do you showing up at a ballgame on a Wednesday as they do the trip to Disneyland. And so, yeah, I think entrepreneurs came up with the excuse that quantity over quality, you know, quality over quantity. I think it's a good mixture of both. And so if you pass away at, you know, average age for men is 85 to 90 and you have a net worth of $50 million because you bought lots of land and you're a great entrepreneur, but from, you know, 50 to 80, you were crazy overweight and you had high blood pressure and your kids didn't really know you because you didn't spend any time with them at sports. Does it matter? I don't know if it matters. Right. So, and I'm not just saying it's your, you know, your kids and your spouse too. It's your, you know, do you have a circle of close friends that you share wins and losses with? And do you— what, you know, what gets you up in the morning? What excites you? And I think sometimes those are questions we forget to ask ourselves as entrepreneurs. Well, And I think you could even take entrepreneurs out of it and let's tie it back to agriculture. I mean, we're in an industry that historically has said success was based on how many hours you spent working. Yeah. How do we get— because I would argue, Heaps, the industry is still in that position. So how do we get guys to realise that hours is not a measurement of success? Well, probably the easiest way for most farms is assume you've worked the same amount of hours the last 10 years. And go tell me what the net income was on your statement and tell me why it's not exactly the same. There's absolutely zero correlation. And for instance, you're gonna have some guys this year ploughing into too wet that are going to work the most hours and the hardest they've ever been for not anywhere near their most profitable year. The correlation is not there. It's why profit shares and employee stock option plans are tough in agriculture because the correlation— like, the correlation in an engineering firm tends to be if you work your hardest year you work, you're probably going to be the most profitable. There's a reason for it, right? Yeah. So I mean, I guess I just try to say that, like, don't let excuses of the past affect how you're going to build your business. Don't let the quality-quantity argument— don't let the, you know, I have to work harder than everybody else. Don't let the guilt that you have someone on your team be as good as you at something stop you from doing it different. Do it. Do it for what you want to do it right. Like if you want to get to your daughter's ballgame, you know, every— maybe you don't make every one during seeding, but you want to get to every third one, then set your system up that you can do it right. It's your system. You're the one writing the cheques to everybody else. And so if you can't get there, you know, you can blame it on agriculture and you can blame it on weather, or you could just look in the fucking mirror. Oh, maybe I'll quote that one. That one might be the case. Yeah. And in no way am I saying I'm perfect at it either. Oh, no. But I can say that we are significantly different than we were 15 years, 20 years ago when I came home. And every year we get a little bit better. Oh, yeah. You didn't start— nothing you have heard on this podcast got started this way in 2009. Let's be fair. No. So interesting because you brought it up and I have also heard this quote a few times and I think I've even said it on the— when I was talking with Simmons on there. Yeah. Was you'd take a bullet for your kids, but would you get up early and work out or would you eat healthy or would you— and that one stuck with me. Obviously, I love fitness and I love that side of it, but I also understand the industry and the industry is really tough when you hit a spring season and a harvest season to be in shape. And we're talking about GLP-1s, which is the fastest growing drug in in the US and I predict that to be probably the most profitable drug within the next 24 months. Everybody's on it. Everybody I know is on it. Let's be fair, I've got lots of friends that are tried it on it. Is that going to affect agriculture going forward because of the quantity of food? I'm intrigued. This is actually right off the cuff. Yeah. So personally, I don't think it does. And my main reason for that is I don't think people really overeat pure, you know, the base ingredient commodity foods, the wheat that makes the flour, this, you know, the beef that makes the steak or the chicken that makes the chicken. There's not a lot of my crop in chips, I'm sorry. And there's not a lot of my crop in a Kit Kat bar. And to be honest, I didn't even know how much of my crop ends up in a large pepperoni pizza. No, there's, there's some cow, you know, like cows. But, but like, I mean, you're even, you know, you're significantly more focused on health than even I am. But I mean, like, the issue is, is if you go into our grocery stores, what percentage of that is made up of, of not processed core commodities, right? Like, I'm sorry, but if it can sit on your shelf for 3 months or a year or 2 years before you can eat it, that's not very close to the field, right? Yeah. I mean, it's going to be super interesting. Interesting question I've seen brought across social once in a while was, yeah, will this actually affect the supply demand in the food curve? Yeah, because GLP-1s are cutting down. They're seeing statistics of all the foods that are getting cut out, which it is, to be honest, guys, it is the right foods. It's chips, it's chocolate bars, it's the late night snacking because you don't have the urge. But it's like, so there's no question it's going to cut down grocery bills. Yeah, right. I just don't know that it actually fundamentally affects production agriculture. Right. And I think you'd see production agriculture shift into fuel, etc. Now, are we going to have this massive— we're going to diversify where we don't make money? Is that what we already did? That's fine if you will. Yeah. I mean, I think the interesting part on some of that stuff is like, did we actually have we actually maybe for the first time in a long time had a drug, a drug invention that could have huge ramifications on fixing healthcare? Because now it's a proactive, proactive thing. Future drugs, right? So like when it comes to visceral fat, fatty liver, overweight, training people to eat the right things, like it actually keeps people out of the hospital. I'm actually shocked they let it come to market, to be honest. Yeah, yeah, because if you're a conspiracy theorist, this, this would never have made market because the amount drugs on the back end it's going to cut down is huge. Yeah, yeah. No, it'll be— I mean, let's give it another 5 or 10 years and it'll be a super interesting one to see. Well, just to see what, what trends it did create, right? Yeah. No, I just— I've heard— I've seen it come across and you brought it up and yeah, I don't have a lot more. I mean, we're at the 45-minute mark, but what, what's coming across your desk? I mean, I'm, I'm good to just riff here, so. Well, I mean, for me, I'm still fairly actively involved in seeding probably more than I need to be because I like it. So it always kind of takes me a month to feel like I'm caught back up in the office. But you got the hangover, is what you're saying? Yeah. No, I wouldn't say the hangover. I just don't do enough in my office like I should through seating. So it's, you know, our, our bank renewal always starts kind of in March, April and finishes up in May, June, depending on what all we're working on. So I find that the finance and the marketing is always pretty high up on my list. I, you know, I help Jeff and Chad a little bit with some of our HR stuff and just shift planning for the summer because we switch into our sprayer shifts and, and we do have as many people or more people than we've ever had around. So go deep on that because I actually want to know what does a sprayer shift look like? Yeah. Yeah. So the way we've migrated, this really has nothing to do with me. They made it up. Yeah, so we run 3 sprayers. We kind of want them wheels rolling by just after 5 and run till dark depending on wind, obviously. But we run 3 different shifts. So there's 9 operators and then there's 2 people on the water crew for each shift. And the shift basically runs, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then flips the week after. And the Friday. So you get different people Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Yeah. So you, you would know you only spray 2 days. So call it 2, they're going to be 14s. Let's not lie. And you're on, you're on call once, you're on call one Sunday every 3. But we actually only sprayed 2 Saturdays last year, just the way it worked out. Like, we'll do what we can to not spray Saturday, but you're on, you're only on call. And then so if you work the Friday, Saturday, on-call Sunday shift, then the week after you wouldn't have to spray well, you do the Monday, Tuesday, so you actually could, if you wanted to, take Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday off, a 5-day weekend if they want to. What we, what we're trying to do this year, our best is if you have your 2 14s that you plan on spraying, we'll have them come in and work. We call a 9-hour day typical around here because if they're out in equipment, they're working through lunch anyway, right? And if they're even in the yard, they take a half-hour lunch, work at work till 5:30. So like 14, 14, 9, 9, and then have an extra day off if you want it. Some people don't. Specifically, we find that if they're in a dual-income household, so if your kids are at school in June and your wife's at work, most people don't want to stay at home on a Friday. So, they might work 14-14, 9-9, 4. They might just come in for the morning. And, if we have lots of stuff to do, we won't stop that, but we also want to make sure we have the conversation about it so that if they're tired after a month, it's like, "Yeah, we kind of offered you every Friday off and you didn't take it." it's just to have that conversation. But, you know, they've— the team has done a really good job of the way our shifts work and the way we find. So, I mean, they got put out. I think Chad put them out yesterday. So all the spouses would know from now until the end of August what the schedule is, what the schedule is, and what weekends are guaranteed open and what weekends they might have to spray or at least be around because they're on call. And then because of that, so the 3 crew chiefs can only switch with each other, but then the other 6 operators can all switch. So you have leads, so you have crew leads of each. Yep. Yeah. And then the other thing, the other rule we had to put in too, though, is like, if you switch, you switch. It's not like, oh, you take this one for me and I'll pick one up from you later. No, because then all of a sudden the one you want picked up is the day they're supposed to be at their high school football party or something. That don't work. No, you switch. And if you switch to Saturday and you had to work it and they don't, that's It's your fault. You switched that shift, right? So there's been a few little things, but it— yeah, it works really good. And then, you know, that still leaves a few of us as spares if something was to go sideways or someone got sick or whatever. Yeah. No, I just— like I said, I'm not— I'm not sitting on the phone. Yeah. Well, we actually— so, I mean, the drills actually got— the first drill got pulled out yesterday because the two sprayer shifts that aren't on started. We get— I mean, and this kind of goes against my— goes with my— I don't like big shops. I was just about to go there. I was so going to say Well, yeah, but you don't have a shop to work on it. Yeah. So we always hear that you got to get the drill folded down in the shop. That's why you need a bigger shop. But our drills are ready by the middle of July. You know that we started off. We are being very sarcastic, guys. Do not send me comments about shops. I've already had it all. Yeah. And I mean, we, it's not like we have a— We've had the discussions. We have an 80 by 100 shop, right? We built it in '09. Do I realise that one day in the future I probably need a bigger shop? Yeah, right. But at the same time, we're also trying to utilise a— I think it's a 60 by 80 shop on another farm that I bought years ago that this winter is the first year we've really used it. We did all our combine greenlights in there. So like, it's like, do I need another? I know it'd be nice if it's in the main yard, but we already own this one, like trying to figure that out. But yeah, I mean, our drills are pulled out right now. By the end of July, they'll be done, like completely done. So they're pressure washed already, all the hoses, the boots, like they will be ready to go to the field. By mid-July. And that's like what we've kind of tried to do is break all these little things into— so like each one of those drills is a project. We know that one drill is going to take 5 days or 4 days or whatever it is, and we have them on a calendar. And so we used to always do this at the start of April, but then it's like we got lots of extra people in the summer. Why aren't— let's just— that's a really easy job to shift back to June and July, right? It gets you out of town too. It does. And some of the younger people that might turn into operators I mean, working on a drill that summer, you learn how to change a boot, you learn how to change a cylinder, you learn how to change a seed hose, how to clean out the meters, like a bunch of that little— yeah, like it actually, it kind of ties together pretty good. Okay. And then hauling grain. I mean, like, grain never ends around here. I think we had 9 semis on the road yesterday. Like, it's a— our logistics side of the business is every day. Now, I believe, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Jeff has hired full-time truckers now, a couple. Yeah, we're getting a lot closer to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One, we got, we got a couple out right now, one in with an injury and, and one goes doing carpentry work for the summer. But we definitely have 2 to 3 full-time truckers all winter from the day harvest starts until the snow goes away. And yeah, we definitely even throughout the summer, we have 2 or 3 guys that really enjoy being in a truck and we focus on that and And it has helped getting it where, you know, you're in this truck and you take care of this truck. It's helped a lot. And for those that are asking, yes, we have run the numbers. It is still considerably cheaper for us to run our own trucks and considerably keeps our full-time staff busy, which allows us to keep a larger staff on call. So there is benefits to doing the own trucking side. Now, since we've had this discussion with MNP, our MNP advisors enough, It does also inflate your LPM. Yeah. So make sure that you're looking at contribution margin as well because you can hide the trucking costs up in your gross margin if you want. It's still a cost. It's a pretty unique thing right now because with fuel where it is on the non-dyed fuel part, and I'm not going to get into a dyed fuel conversation, but most custom trucks are at a 48% fuel charge. Yeah. So hauling your own grain has got whether you want to call it really profitable or just way less awful when it comes to expenses, is significant. But I mean, also you and I have noticed people that don't want to haul their own grain in the winter don't buy shitty old semis. They still want to buy the nice stuff. So if you're going to have it, you got to use it, right? Like, I love new peats. I love new peats. Yeah, I know. I know. Well, and if they run 150, 250, 300,000 km a year, whatever, we can get over it. But if they run 40, or 20. Do they run better than a Mack though? No, I'm just pissing guys off for fun. I'm just pissing guys off for fun. No, let's be honest, the only conversation that you need to have between a Pete, a Kenworth, a Mack, or whatever, a Western Star, is, is, is a resale number. Other— that's the only logical argument to have. And if you can't have that one, then no, I don't— a semi's a semi. Can we say that about equipment now too? Oh, I did it. Like, I don't know that you can have the same tech argument. No, no, no. Keep tech out of it. If you look at it, like, I don't know that you can have the same tech argument. No, no, no. Keep tech out of it. If you look at tech out of equipment. Yeah. If you keep tech out of it, then I mean, yeah, your thing would be purchase price and resale. And my argument actually is that probably in all the different pieces, that number is so close, it's not even funny. Like, Deere might cost you more upfront, but I believe it carries a better resale in a lot of cases. But like I've said this all along, I don't care if you own the lawnmower to the combine of any one color. I think you have a good set of equipment. I'm not a big— as you grow, you will lose interest in having multiple different colours because you will just get sick of getting phone calls on multiple different monitors and hydraulic hookups and parts. Yes. So I'm a big fan. Until it doesn't. Yes, I'm a big fan of a one-color fleet. I, and we love John Deere tech, but I also am live on a podcast not long ago saying I hate John Deere subscriptions, right? So like there's a pro and con to everything. And it's still a sponsor after that. So, oh yeah, it's a positive. But it also has a lot to do with your dealer. Yeah, right. If you have a great dealer when it comes to parts and service, that is more important than colour sometimes, right? Because I got lots of guys that are pulling services. That's why I have it. Yeah, I don't like, I don't like, I don't know Rocky Mountain as much, but like the Redhead years, like guys really loved Gary Redhead and how he ran businesses and were very tied to Redhead. And it was not necessarily because it was red, it was because their dealerships were super well ran, right? And the relationship side, Gary was really good at the relationship. Yeah. So like I think that becomes a huge part. And I mean, we had it, I had Seedmaster and Deerhound here the other day because obviously I put a social post about a part I was able to get at midnight or 10:00 on a Saturday and the Seedmaster CEO it out to me and caused maybe some discussion within some companies of how I was able to do it. And my argument was, as though, let's not talk about how I was able to do it. Let's talk about how do we allow every farm to do this. If you want to switch to 24 hours, why is it okay that you can't get apart in the middle of the night in the most important 20 or 25 days of the year? Right? Like, how do we make it so that it can be a success story? And not even 24 hours, lots of guys seed from 5 till 11 or something. So if you break down at 10, if the only reason you're shutting down is because you can't get the part, I struggle with that. Like, it's 25 days that kind of matters. So now, now I would argue they probably have the same labour concerns and issues that agriculture does, right? Yep. Yeah. I'm not saying it's going to be easy. Yeah. Yeah. But I think a lot of it's to do with preplanning, right? Like, how much can you have? And, you know, our C cans have really changed that. And yeah. Okay. Anything else of interest before we shut this down? No, I guess I think the Iran-U.S. conflict has probably done more for markets than Trump was able to hurt them with tariffs and sanctions. So, you know, I just, I would urge guys as they finish seeding to, to have a marketing plan. I think there's some options here. To lock in some really good margins. And yet, I, you know, I think it's one of those years where you got to look at possibly some crazy types of upside, right, if conflict continues to carry on. So yeah, it's an area I wish that was better in agriculture. I think AI and algorithms, I think there's going to be some commodity marketing, commodity hedging platforms come up that really help us do a better job of managing cash. To paper and trade suggestions. And I'm actually excited for that. I've been searching for a bunch. I can't really find any to tell anybody about, but I think it's an area that can be— like, if you look at all— I mean, I use standard deviation channels and the 50-day moving averages. And if you want to watch Clarenbach, he talks about it. But I think it's an area where AI can be super beneficial in helping train us how to manage our cash and physical and paper a lot better and give suggestions. And I would argue, as the generation shift, I think we're going to see more guys on the marketing side and the hedging side. I think it's just a necessity. I mean, you and I know a couple of farms that do it so incredibly well and it's working. Yeah. I mean, Dan Holman, I mean, oh, he's amazing at it. Yeah, he's amazing at it. So I mean, there is the upside to that. The other thing I've said, and since I just brought up the education side and all that was I watched a video the other day and I think it was even on the Legacy Farmer discussion. And the woman, she was at the front talking about succession and she said, I forced our two sons to go and get an MBA before they could come back to the farm because if they're taking over a multimillion-dollar operation, I needed a reason that they were qualified to do it. And to hear a mother and say that, I was like, whoa, I wonder how much hate she got. But maybe I'm thinking about her. But what I think too, like in today's world, And nothing against CPAs and MBAs. I mean, our CPA has done amazing for what our comfortability with financials. But yeah, convince me to give me a job. That's all I've even— but I've even debated with my kids in my network, like, what if I sent them to a big farm in Brazil for a year? And then what if I asked Prem Watts at Fairfax to mentor them for, like, and not even pay them, just I'll pay them. But like, what if your education was 4 to 6 years around some pretty cool people. And I don't know how much of a base you need before you get there. I just think there's lots of pretty cool ways for this next generation to gain experience and, and mindset that can set them up for a lot of success. Oh yeah. A friend of mine, we went for drinks the other day and we were discussing that is I'm not saying university and nothing— Edwards, do not take this the wrong way. I got what I needed out of university. It taught me to public speak and all this other stuff, which obviously I utilize. But there's a lot of classes that I took that I didn't need to take. And would I have got the same out of, you know, shadowing an apprenticeship? I think the trades actually have it right there when they do apprenticeships and co-ops and stuff, because the best way to learn is to watch somebody who's successful at it. We have a kid here from Olds this year that's doing great, taking the Precision Ag thing, and he's already told one or two buddies about it next year. And one likes trucking and one likes operating equipment. And we build it into our co-op program. Works phenomenal. Yeah. And like you said, I still think you want some sort of an education for the base knowledge. But I think when it comes to mentoring and shadowing, and I think there's a lot of opportunity there for kids to gain some pretty cool experience. And I think, I think people are more open to doing it now. Like I look at— pretty good friends with Kim O'Connell, and he's got 5 or 6 or 8 young people that he mentors. And like, that's a wealth of knowledge on how to communicate, how to hold leadership positions. I got another buddy, Bryce Eager, that just put a book out. I'm reading it right now. I'll send it to you, Evan. Same thing, like he, I'm sure he would love to mentor a couple 22-year-olds that are trying to work their way through their career, or 30-year-olds trying to make a leadership position. And, you know, I just think the world's a lot more open to that now. And there's a lot of opportunity. Alright, so let's put the stamp on it right there. If you are a young farmer coming up to the new generation, we're not saying it's the best route. We're saying it is a route that we would probably try to look at. Find a mentor. You are your 5 closest acquaintances. Let's be fair. Open some relationships, get some networks, learn some things, go back and rock it out. How's that? I like it. All right. So that is the truth about ag. Remember to like, share, comment, and leave us some questions. It helps these things so much more. Yeah. And good luck getting done seeding. Yeah. Thanks for joining us. The Truth About Ag podcast is a proud member of the Heber Group, which includes Heber Grain Ventures, Maverick Ag, and Farmer Coach. We appreciate the support. Lastly, please like, comment, share, subscribe, and ring the bell. And if you have questions for a future podcast, please leave in the comments below. Thanks for listening.