Farmer Talk
Hosts Brian and Bob talk all things Farm related
Farmer Talk
Farmer Talk episode 2 | Farm subsidies
Ever wondered why a significant chunk of the farm bill is channeled into non-agricultural programs like food stamps? Join us on Farmer Talk as we challenge the conventional understanding of farm subsidies and reveal the hidden complexities behind this crucial legislation. Discover how crop insurance, deeply intertwined with government support, acts as a lifeline for farmers navigating unpredictable market waters. From historical practices like low-interest loans on stored corn to modern financial strategies, we explore the nuanced ways farmers have leveraged government programs to sustain their livelihoods.<br><br>Our conversation shifts to the broader spectrums of government involvement in agriculture, unraveling the intricate dance between market manipulation and farmer unity. Reflecting on the mixed sentiments surrounding subsidies during significant events, like the Trump-era trade war with China, we examine how financial assistance can both bolster and destabilize the farming sector. As we peer into other industries, learn how subsidies extend beyond agriculture, influencing sectors like railroads and oil, and consider the role of conservation programs like CREP and CRP in reshaping farming landscapes.<br><br>Finally, we delve into the realm of government conservation programs, examining their influence on farming practices and land use decisions. Explore the financial incentives that drive landowners to convert farmland into conservation areas, and consider the perception issues farmers face due to subsidies and fraud. With stories of crop insurance fraud in Missouri and the burgeoning trend of solar panels on farmland, we raise critical questions about sustainability and the future of agriculture. Tune in for a comprehensive look at the multifaceted world of farm subsidies, where we shed light on both challenges and opportunities within this ever-evolving landscape.
Well, we've made it to week two. I think we're going to call this Farmer Talk. I haven't told you that, I guess.
Speaker 2:Farmer Talk.
Speaker 1:Farmer Talk. I think that would be a good name for this show, podcast or whatever you want to call it. So today, as promised, we are going to talk about farm subsidies. So that's a pretty hot topic every year. Recently they were talking about passing some stuff for some farm subsidies, for drought relief and whatnot, and every time that happens we always get an influx of comments about it, and some of them very hateful, some of them not as hateful, and I figured we'd talk a little bit about our stance on farm subsidies. So what a lot of people don't realize the farm bill. That term gets tossed around a lot and a lot of people hear how much money is in that farm bill. Now, don't get me wrong. There's things in that farm bill that do go towards agriculture, but there's a lot of things in that farm bill that have nothing to do with agriculture.
Speaker 2:Majority of it, like food stamps, is a big majority of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of entitlements like food stamps and other things that come out of the farm bill for some reason, I don't know why, but that's where they've always been in. So one thing that probably does come from farm subsidies that I know we take advantage of and about everybody does is insurance. Farm insurance, like crop insurance, is subsidized by the federal government. That's probably like the big one that I can think of that comes to mind.
Speaker 1:That just yeah most operations are using that. Um, if they have crop insurance, they're probably using it. Um, I don't know, farm subsidies been a pretty big thing probably since the 80s, haven't they? Oh, before the 80s well, when did they start?
Speaker 2:becoming a thing I know. I can remember. In the 70s Dad would take a loan on corn. He had to set so many acres aside. It was a set-aside program. You set a few acres aside, they paid you. What much? So is this the pick program. No, pick was later. Then. That way you could take a loan on corn. I remember loan corn like a dollar, if at ear corn.
Speaker 1:So when you say take a loan on corn, I mean there's going to be people.
Speaker 2:What it is is you put the corn in a crib. Back then we had corn cribs but we didn't have shell corn. So you put it in a corn crib and you went to the government office or FSA and they give you a loan like a dollar of that corn. Well, you never got much out of it. A dollar and a quarter, a dollar and a half was big back then. I don't know if the loan was a dollar, it might have been less than that but they'd loan you on low interest. Money is what it was. You paid it back in nine months. Every time you took corn Tam while you paid their part of the corn back and you got whatever the difference between the loan price and the value of the corn.
Speaker 1:So that's been going on that long. Oh yeah, that's still a program today. I mean, a lot of people still use that program today. You've got a 40,000 bushel bin. They'll give you about half of what the value of that corn is up front and then add later.
Speaker 2:I think the loan's like $2.25, and corn and soybeans is $6.30 maybe, or $6.25. And what happens is now, if grain prices would have tanked.
Speaker 1:When he says $2.30 and $6.40, it means they're going to give you $2.30. A bushel in corn, like right now, that's today's like.
Speaker 2:Then we take it to town and say we get $4 out. We get the difference between $4 and two and a quarter, whatever the loan price was.
Speaker 2:The market tanks and it drops below $2.30. If it goes below that, if it's below that time when the loan is due, it's their corn. You don't pay them anything. It's their corn. Say you get a dollar for the loan and it goes down to say it went to $0. 90 cents. You forgive the loan, they forgive the loan, you got it. But you know that not likely, that ever happened. It has happened I have.
Speaker 1:Does it happen?
Speaker 2:yeah, I've had it, one time I think, but we never took a loan. Me and your brother never took a loan on our stuff back then. We weren't in the program that much, you and your brother, my brother, me and my brother John was my older brother's farm with me and we never took a loan on that back then, hardly ever took a loan on it. Okay, but a loan just frees up your operation to cash flow. You take it out in the fall. We always hold our crop until April or spring or more later, so you don't have any cash flow. If you take a loan out, then you've got some cash flow.
Speaker 1:But that is subsidized by the government to keep that interest rate down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the interest is lower. I don't know what it is today.
Speaker 1:It used to be like 1% didn't it?
Speaker 2:Well, that was the last couple of years, a few years ago, but now I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's 3% or so, but it's less, and way less than you can go borrow money for. So in the 80s like I always hear people talk about how bad things were in the 80s, which looks a lot on paper like now High interest rates, low yields, low prices Did farm subsidies really amp up then? Do you remember?
Speaker 2:Well, they had to pick years. Describe what the pick years are. I kind of forget how it worked. You set so many acres aside and I don't know. I mean did you fallow those acres? Huh, Did you fallow them? Yeah, you could work them, disc them or spray them.
Speaker 2:Well, you, usually work, fallow and plant next year, but it had to be so many acres. And I remember one year Dad had some wheat set aside and had so many acres set aside, you got a corn base and a wheat base. It was just those two. You didn't have a corn and soybean base, but what that was, you had so many acres you could plant and over that you didn't get no money, any subsidies or of any kind out of that. Say, if you had 100 acres acres you could plant and over that you didn't get no money, any subsidies or of any kind out of that. Say, if you had 100 acres you plant 200, you didn't get nothing on 100 acres.
Speaker 2:And back then they come out and measure the crop. But I remember that one year it was probably in the early 70s, I think I was out of school, I think I know they had a guy come out and measured the field and said we planted too much, like two acres, so Dad had to tear it up. Come find out he measured wrong and he was a teacher, my basketball coach, yeah.
Speaker 2:He wasn't the government he was there to help, but anyway he couldn't figure it. And the boy dad said I'll never go into the program and I don't think he ever went into the program again.
Speaker 1:So when dad says the program Government program, so to get any government subsidies you have to be in the program, sign it. So in my opinion, government subsidies is a different way of the federal government buying information. That's kind of one way I look at it. There are certain subsidies I don't agree with. I really don't like any of them. But I think that they use that to buy information.
Speaker 1:For example, for that crop insurance, to take out crop insurance you have to certify your acres at the federal government office, which is the fsa office. If you ever see an fsa building, farm Service Agency, that's what that stands for. In order to get crop insurance we have to go in there after we plant. They have maps of all of our fields. We tell them where we planted what and when we planted it, and that is how the government kind of gets a handle on trade numbers. They know how many bushels are out there per year based on how many acres of corn were planted, and this is the average for the last few years, because you've got to report that crap to your insurance agent. So that's kind of how I look at subsidies. It's just them buying information.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and in the olden days it's not like it is today. In the olden days you had base acres. Like I say, you had 100 acres of base. If you had 200 acres of corn, you didn't get paid for that. And the biggest thing on that, how they? How did that go away? That was in the last 10 years.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's went away, for I remember base acres being a big thing.
Speaker 2:No, not like back then, because you had to prove your yield. You had to give them a yield. They went by I believe maybe a county average yield. You couldn't prove your yields and our yield was never over 128 bushel, I think was the highest. It was on corn and certain parts of the county got a little higher and certain parts of the state which had a little better ground and we always complained because we always rated 150 bushel corn back in the 80s, 90s and we'd had 200 bushel one year. We had 200 bushel one year. We had 200 bushel field. But you know they got paid on what your base acres was and your base yield. The yield they had gotcha, the wheat yield wasn't much at all. It was terrible. So you know, every time you I always felt every time he seemed like you got something from the government it's going to cost you something Red tape you got to go through Well, for one other government subsidy.
Speaker 1:This is kind of switching gears. When I built my bin and you built one of these bins we used a government loan. So FSA office has government bin programs. I remember going to farm credit and asking our farm credit officer hey, I'm going to build a bin. Going to farm credit and asking our farm credit officer hey, I'm going to build a bin, I can save more money from paying DP charges in town than what my bin payment's going to be. I think Can you guys help me? And they actually told me to go to the farm service agency because the lower renters, but the amount of red tape that comes with it, a lot of red tape. Yeah, it's low interest, man, it's. Sometimes you're like, is it really worth it? Because to get that loan, uh process I mean you're talking six, seven months, whereas if we were getting a loan from farm credit for a grain bin it'd probably take a couple days. I mean, if that, yeah, it's like you say, anytime you use the government there's a lot of red tape and there's a lot of headaches usually.
Speaker 2:But the programs nowadays, the new farm bills, it's just I don't know. It's there to protect the guy that needs it, is it? But you have a bad year, supposedly. But I've seen a lot of times, or heard a lot of times, that the people that's got big acres, there's a limit to it. Well, there's ways around that. I've heard of politicians getting big money. They own farmland. They shouldn't have got it, but there's ways around it. Whenever somebody's going to give you something or you do something, something like that some way, somebody's going to beat it some way. You do something something like that. In some ways, somebody's going to beat it some way and get more what they shouldn't get. But it's just, I don't know, it's just a lot of red tape In your opinion?
Speaker 1:do you think that we'd be better off without the government involved?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, but it never happened. They can't and I can understand some. They've got to project what the food supply is going to be. If we could control the market it'd be dangerous. We could do whatever we want to do. That ain't going to happen. We're going to town and we ain't going to sell it to you. There's always somebody that's going to say I ain't going to sell it to the elevator for less than $5 a bushel. Well, somebody down the road is going to sell it to the elevator for less than, say, $5 a bushel. Well, somebody down the road is going to give it to $4. Farmers can't get together. There used to be a union NFO, I think was the name of it. They tried back in the 80s. I believe it was Dad. I remember he would go to some of the meetings and he joined it. Nothing ever happened, never helped anything. They had a little bit of voice. It was a lot less than the Farm Bureau. But I remember one guy the guy was a president of our county had hogs, raised hogs.
Speaker 1:And this was his farm union.
Speaker 2:His farmer's union. They wanted you to not raise as many hogs or cattle or whatever, not grow as many crops. Trying to manipulate the price, trying to, but it never worked. But this guy was getting everybody to do this, telling everybody, and what's he do? He buys more sows, raises more pigs.
Speaker 1:So the local market got affected. He took advantage, yeah, yeah, and raises more pigs.
Speaker 2:So the local market got affected, he took advantage. Yeah, yeah, and you know it's just hard to we, don't? It's hard for us, and if the government wanted to end it, I don't know what would happen. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, that's kind of my. I don't know that they could get completely out of it. No, they um. I didn't realize that there was farm programs in the 60s.
Speaker 2:I mean you're talking about ear corn and that had been in the 60s. Oh yeah, always been a farm program as long as I can remember. Now 50s, I don't remember that, I was just little little.
Speaker 1:So did you have to go certify acres?
Speaker 2:Oh, every year you had to certify your acres Every year, tell them what made. But we could never. It was hard to get our yields up up and that's what you got paid on your base acres plus your yield, and we was making you know yield a lot more. And I know neighbors down there had him. He got some raised when he started farming. He got raised some way and some not much. But I think the highest yield was in Ross County, was there might be 130 bushel and other other counties was a lot more than that 30 or 40 bushel, probably 30 bushel, 20 bushel, I don't know, but it was higher than ours.
Speaker 2:Okay, so they did away with that. I don't know when they did away with the acre yields. Well, they let us prove them. Now. That's what they do. But now when we certify they don't ask for yields. Of course you got it on the crop insurance so they know what we're got. Yeah, our yields are. Yeah, the government, they know everything about us. They always aggravate me when somebody call a survey. The government's put them surveys up.
Speaker 1:They know more about our business than we do yeah, so when was the first time you can remember disaster relief funding and?
Speaker 2:one year, uh, back in the, we was farming up salt creek. This would have been in the 80s, I know the creek got out bad, like in crop. Uh, before we planted it was in the fall spring. It brought in a lot of sand and there was a program that paid us for removing that sand. We got a little bit fueled about what it was. It wasn't much but we did sign up and it's nice for that. And I think, like this year, the cattle guys, I think, got some money for hay because it was dry. But it just helps a little bit to get you through maybe.
Speaker 1:I mean, as far as making any money, you ain't going to make any money unless you can figure out how. But do you think it's right for the government to give disaster relief? Here's my opinion. Like I can remember, when Trump was in office and got in that tariff war with China the first Trump presidency in like 2016 to 2020. And I can remember quite a bit of government subsidies that we got those years. I kind of had mixed feelings about that. On one hand, I don't really like it when the government hands out money because it creates inflation. Like I've stated before, I think it keeps people in business that maybe didn't make great decisions. But on the other hand, I think the government had a direct hand in keeping our prices low in the trade war.
Speaker 2:So I kind of have a mixed feeling on that one.
Speaker 1:But what is subsidized nowadays? That is another thing Railroads Oil.
Speaker 2:Everything is subsidized. I mean government stuff, I mean private stuff. There's a lot of railroads, big, big time.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a piece of track right here that I'm fairly positive. The only reason it still exists is because that railroad company is getting money. They get money. Now, when do you remember CREP and CRP becoming a thing? Because this I can remember when CREP became a thing.
Speaker 2:It started in. When would that have been CREP?
Speaker 1:I remember the late 90s, 2000, late 90s or 2000. But CRP was before.
Speaker 2:That wasn't it. Crp was always. Yeah, that was the set aside. They called it CRP, started calling it CRP.
Speaker 1:So for the viewers, if you don't know what we're talking about CREP basically you enroll your acres into a program called CREP. I don't remember exactly what it stands for now.
Speaker 2:It has to be along a waterway or a ditch.
Speaker 1:It has to be along a waterway or a ditch and you can enroll up to. I think it's $500,000 worth of land, isn't it no?
Speaker 2:Or is it $50,000? There's a limit on it to $200,000, maybe dollar-wise.
Speaker 1:Basically, the government is paying you to cede that to a native grass species that they say used to be here and not farm it. I don't like those programs personally.
Speaker 2:Some people manipulate it like everything. You know, that's what it is. Well, I can remember when they started doing that.
Speaker 1:They were paying $200, $250 an acre and that was way higher than rent was in this area in 2000. And I can just remember I mean I'd been a 10 to 15-year-old kid One of the neighbors put a farm in there and I'm thinking, man, I'd love to farm that when I get out of school, but there's no way I can afford to outpay the government for it. And now CRP is that high no CRP. I don't think $170?.
Speaker 2:Well, it's not $200, but this CREP program got up to I think it's $400-some in some places. Well, you know, we'd be kind of crazy not to put it in there. But people who put it in there are landowners who probably don't farm it. What it looks to me like. And you know, if I farm and you're out there a guy's farming, what do you want to do? You want to put it in the CREP land or you want to farm it. You want to do. You want to put it in the crepe land or you want to farm it. You want to farm it if you make a dollar. You want, you're going to make a dollar if you you know it's just our nature to farm the land, till land or or tilling the land, that's kind of another subject. Yeah, that's hard. You know no tills and we know till now, but that's hard to do too. But you know it's just, uh, the way things go anymore. It's just, and I I don't think there's a sign up for it now I think it's pretty well.
Speaker 1:I think there's enrollment periods when they get enough acres covered.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they get so many acres.
Speaker 1:CRP pretty much they'll take it.
Speaker 2:CRP?
Speaker 1:I don't know CRP is the same concept, except it doesn't have to be by a waterway, and it doesn't pay as high, it's just marginal ground, what it is usually yeah but what I'm saying is they're paying more an acre for marginal ground than I want to try to farm it.
Speaker 1:For example, we had a farm that we farm a field right beside it. The lady asked would you be interested in farming it? Because it was in CRP. We had bush hogged it for her a few times, asked if we'd be interested or she was going to re-enroll it. And of course we were interested and at the time I think she was getting 70 an acre cr for crp, which in my opinion, like I mean that ground was 100 to 120 an acre land.
Speaker 1:It was not good farm ground. It's up on top of a hill, trees all around it, clay, easy way to get to it. I mean it was a $120 an acre farm at best. Well, crp was going to give her $165 or $175 an acre. We're like, well, I think you'd be crazy not to put it in there. It's just another instance that happened to compete against the government. It's like, well, if they weren't in this fight, well, we'd be farming that 100 acres which would have been handy well, we'd be farming that 100 acres, which would have been handy, but it's kept prices, has it kept?
Speaker 1:prices from going around? Has it kept crop prices? How many acres? Has it kept land prices?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know how many acres are in it. That's the big thing. They say, Well, it's going to go to production, which is right. But what I don't understand every year they say so many millions of acres of corn are put out and beans. It seems like it's always a few more of each. Where's all this land coming from? I mean, Ohio has lost acres and acres of development and the factories. And the factory and the solar panels. I don't know where they're getting all these acres.
Speaker 1:I think in Ohio like 3% of farm ground is solar panels. It's terrible. Which 3% doesn't sound like a lot. You're talking like 100,000 acres, a couple hundred thousand acres, probably several hundred thousand. They don't want the bad ground, they put it on the good ground and that's another industry that's subsidized, all them. Solar panels to me are a money grab. It is some subsidized program where the government's paying so-and-so to put this solar panel out here. They can't really prove it's going to ever pay for itself. That's a different topic. Don't worry folks, we will talk solar panels one day, because that is a subject that is very near and dear. It boils my blood pretty heavily. But anyways, back to the subsidy questions. When was the first time that you can remember like a drought year and then like they were talking about doing this year like a government?
Speaker 2:oh golly, I don't know we ever got anything for drought in 99. There wasn't anything. I think there was something, but I I can't remember. There was probably something little. We never did get a lot of money I mean.
Speaker 1:So that is all public record yeah.
Speaker 2:I know and it shows that, yeah, but it don't mount that much.
Speaker 1:Don't mount that much.
Speaker 2:I think the insurance is a big thing Crop insurance. I think the crop insurance is the subsidy that everyone takes at the age we never used to have crop insurance and we just had to start taking it. Glad we had it this year.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Now one thing about crop insurance. People always ask every time they see, like when I post pictures of our corn all shriveled up, well, do you guys have crop insurance for that? We do. But it isn't like we're making money when we're taking a crop insurance claim. I mean we would have been way better off to never have to collect on crop insurance. Yeah, yeah, I mean it'll keep you going, but that's about it. You're not really prospering in that situation. Prospering in that situation.
Speaker 1:And the more times you file a crop insurance claim you get paid, at least the way our insurance is on your average production. So we're insured, I think, at 80% of our average production. Well, if you start turning average production numbers lower and lower and lower, you got to meet a worse threshold every time to get paid. So one thing that helped us this year we'd had to get paid. So one thing that helped us this year we'd had several good years. So we've kind of got our APH up quite a bit. So that triggered a crop insurance claim sooner than if we'd had four or five years in a row of bad years.
Speaker 1:So let's say we average 200 bushel every year for five years. Well then, our APH is 200 bushel. Now we throw in five years of 100 bushel per acre. Well now, our APH is 200 bushel. Now we throw in five years of 100 bushel per acre, well now, our APH is 100, and we've got to get to 80 bushel before we ever get a crop insurance claim. Well, at 80 bushel, you went broke a long time ago. So I mean, at 200 bushel per acre, your crop insurance claim or threshold there for us would be 160. Well, you can still. That's a lot better situation, I guess, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Well it's. There are people that's not in the program and I wish we could but anymore. It's kind of a necessity.
Speaker 1:So one other thing, that those programs, like I said, I think the government uses them to buy information. I also think they use it to dictate how you farm. We'll pay you such and such dollars to change this practice on your farm. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of programs at the soil and water places and the FSA that you can sign up for. There's probably a lot of people listening and watching this that are familiar with what I'm talking about and we've been in those for a while. That's the only reason that we started doing cover crops is we were basically being paid to by the government. Now, was it lucrative? No, but we were basically covering the cost of planting those cover crops. Hopefully help the tilth of the soil to planting those cover crops. Hopefully help the tilth of the soil. And that's the government trying to. You know, I guess trying to actively get other crop practices out there by bribing you pretty much.
Speaker 2:And now you know, the watershed at whatever they call it up in Northern Ohio has moved down here where you've got to put fertilizer in the ground. Up there you've got to put it in the ground, you can't just bulk spread it. So, uh, and they're paying them some a little bit, there's a little bit of money out there to do that, because you gotta buy equipment to do it.
Speaker 1:So and that's one of those issues where it's a subsidy from the government, but they're basically so. I think if you strip till in that area, they'll pay you up to like 80 an acre. I don't think it's that high, isn't it? I don't know $50 an acre.
Speaker 1:Either way, though, to buy a strip-till bar for most operations is going to be about. I mean, you're going to use every bit of those dollars I guess what I'm saying to re-equip yourself to be able to meet government regulations. That's a government subsidy that they put in place, but it's because they kind of made you change how you're doing things. But I know the subsidy I had seen or heard mentioned right before Christmas was talking like $50 an acre on corn and like $20 or $40 on beans, just to help with disaster relief, and that's one thing. I don't like, that personally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't like it, but we'll take it. I mean, like I say, everybody else gets subsidies, so it'll help. If it's there, we're going to take it.
Speaker 1:But I wish it wasn't. There is what I'm saying, and one thing I really don't like about it is the way that it makes the general public view us. Yeah, and like, I remember listening to Senator Johnson talk about this bill and he was just talking about how the poor farmer's this and the poor farmer's that and I was like man, I got a little bit more pride in myself than to go cry in front of a television begging for money. I guess I just didn't really like how that made us look personally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, like I say, the biggest thing our guys made about them is there's always somebody beating the system, getting more money than they should, and you know, you hear a lot of things, but that's what happens. That's the nature of it.
Speaker 1:A lot of fraud. Yeah, a lot of insurance fraud too. I mean, dad, you're not on TikTok, but there's a family on TikTok in Missouri that they had a TV show. I think they were called the McBeads or McBeths. I'm not super familiar with it. In fact Randy the master pie player told me about it. But it's this big family operation several thousands of acres with other businesses involved, several family members. They got caught with a multi-million dollar crop insurance fraud.
Speaker 2:Well, years ago, back in the 70s, there was crop insurance and there was a guy out here got caught in the other side of town that what he was doing is putting the crop out, not putting any fertilizer or chemical, and it was just. He did it, I think, a couple years, maybe three years, and they quit paying. He didn't farm anymore and there's.
Speaker 1:You hear all kind of things and see, I think these people were manipulating their yield maps and then hiding, like, like, close to a million bushels of grain.
Speaker 2:Well, in pick years, that's what guys got trouble doing some of that hiding grain, If something paid on your bushels I don't remember how it was, it was a mess, though I know that. Okay, it was a mess, but you know, subsidies, subsidies, everybody gets them. It seems like Transit system in town and this and that.
Speaker 1:Well, the roads are all subsidized by the government. And the same thing the taxpayers, all the taxpayers.
Speaker 2:It's taxpayer money. And the disasters. California is terrible, that is terrible. And what's going on out there? That fire, oh man. But you know we'll have to pay for that.
Speaker 1:Well, I heard them say that the federal government is going to cover 100% of the cost. Yeah, that's what they're saying. Now, one thing that did strike me as odd that whenever that flood happened in the southern states right before the election, I don't believe that's how that went down there.
Speaker 2:I don't know. It's just they don't pass the money out. They want to ship everything overseas. I just wonder how many people from overseas are sending money here.
Speaker 1:I wonder how many people that are going to send the money to overseas. Actually see the money. A lot of corruption in this world. Yeah, a lot of corruption.
Speaker 2:But I don't watch the farm bill. What they'll do in the farm bill, it's just they try to make it so it's a I want to say insurance. So if the price is tank, you know, farmers got a little bit to pay some bills.
Speaker 1:I know personally we do not make business decisions around government subsidies and farm bills. Personally, we do not make business decisions around government subsidies and farm bills. We've never looked at it as well if we don't get the subsidy, we're not going to succeed. This year it's always been like, if we get this $40 or $50 or whatever this next round they were discussing, if we get it, yeah, we're going to use it. It will ease a little bit of stress. Do we need it? No, can we survive without it? Yes, can we survive without it? Yes, are we asking for it?
Speaker 2:No, yeah, I was kind of surprised when I heard they were going to give it, but, like I've always said, the Chicago Board of Trade kind of rules us, whatever they say. Whatever they say now, the report came out the other day and I guess everything's popped up because of it.
Speaker 1:Well, it'll be interesting. So we're reporting this on Sunday the 12th. The report came out last Friday. I would almost bet money that Monday morning tomorrow there'll be a market correction.
Speaker 2:I think it'll be a little correction, but I don't think it'll say I bet there was a lot of bushels sold. I think it'll go up to a lot a quarter, 50 cents maybe at the most corn, but the bushels ain't there that they thought there was going to be.
Speaker 1:Are you surprised with where the market is now? I kind of thought it would be sub $4.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm good to honor there man. We sold a little bit for less than $4.
Speaker 1:I figured whenever we were in harvest and it was below $4, I thought $4 was going to be the goal.
Speaker 2:I remember the first time corn got up to $8 back there whenever it was 2008's the first time I remember. I remember hearing guys say corn will never be below $4 again.
Speaker 1:Well, a couple of years it was below $4, so you never say never, but it fluctuates so much compared what it used to, yeah, didn't, didn't fluctuate that much in years, old years yeah, so in the past, when you were younger, like in the 70s 80s, do you remember people really making that big of a deal about farm subsidies or do you think the general public, even there was a there was not a lot of people Do you think they even knew it existed?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, but there wasn't near as many people like today.
Speaker 1:No, I mean like, when we post a YouTube video, we don't get a lot of hateful comments, but we do from time to time and it won't even be a video about subsidies Someone will comment that my tax dollars are funding your farm and all this crap. I mean, was there that kind of, I guess, sentiment around? Oh, I'm sure there was.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah I just I gotta feel like most like today. I think more people are more informed today of what's happening, but I think they're only half informed. I think they get emotional when they hear that and they don't really dig into why it's happening or how it's happened or the circumstances for it sometimes. So hopefully we were able to shed a little bit of light on our side of the story, I guess. On farm subsidies, like I said, I wish they didn't exist, but since they're here, we'll take them if they hand them out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll definitely We'll take it. Every time I go in the FSA office I ask them if there's any checks for us, but most of the time I say no.
Speaker 1:But I think when we get those subsidies, I mean I feel obligated to try to make good decisions with that money. I mean I think if we got a $50,000 government check and we went and bought a boat with it, that might not be the greatest decision in the world. And too many decisions like that and you end up not farming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the hardest thing would be if they quit subsidies on crop insurance.
Speaker 1:That would be a game changer. That would be detrimental.
Speaker 2:It'd be bad Because they pay a lot of. I think, when you jump up to 85% or 90%.
Speaker 1:It's unsubsidized after that and it like triples the price of that insurance.
Speaker 2:Yeah and and we got some ground, it's river ground is already doubled. It's, uh, flood plain, so it's it's almost doubled. Yeah, what ordinary ground is. But it'd be bad if we had to pay that whole. We couldn't afford it. We couldn't afford it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's something else I was going to ask you. I can't remember what it was now, something on the subsidy side of things. Well, I can't remember what it is now. Anything else you want to talk about, not?
Speaker 2:on subsidies. Okay, I don't know what they're going to do. What Trump will do on a farm bill, it's hard to tell. I guess he's picked a lady secretary, so I'll see how that turns out. I don't know. We'll see how it turns out, yep.
Speaker 1:Well, folks, be sure to tune in. Next week this podcast will be available on all podcast platforms as well as YouTube, so check it out wherever you enjoy listening. Just search Farmer Talk and you should be able to find it. This episode will probably be on Brian's Farming Videos YouTube channel for now, until I get a channel set up for the podcast, any other Farmer Talks? When I searched it, I did not find any on podcast platforms, so we're going to capitalize and take it, but next week I think we're going to discuss equipment inflation, unless a current event comes up that we want to start talking about. So, yeah, be sure to tune in and we'll talk equipment and inflation.
Speaker 2:Or if anybody out there has an idea of what you want to listen to or hear us talk about, put it in the comments or something.
Speaker 1:Yep. Thanks for tuning in, everybody, and we will see you in the next episode.