The Future Is Written in Data: LLMs, GEO, and the Next Ag Revolution with futurist Jack Uldrich

In this episode, Kim sits down with global futurist and keynote speaker Jack Uldrich, who recently inspired farmers and cooperative members at Land O’Lakes, Inc.’s midyear meeting. Jack dives into how major consumer and industry shifts are reshaping the future—and how emerging technologies like large language models (LLMs) and geospatial intelligence (GEO) are driving unprecedented change in agriculture and beyond. From analyzing past trends to predicting what’s next, Jack shares actionable insights for companies and communities looking to stay relevant in a rapidly evolving world.

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Transcript

 Tomorrow. It's never a guarantee unless we take care of today. We are a cooperative, grounded in 100 years of forward thinking ever since our beginning in 1921. It's the pursuit of a reliable food supply, a sustainable future, and vibrant communities for all of us. Rooted in the promise. Of a brighter future.

This is rooted in Tomorrow, the podcast by Land O'Lakes, Inc. I'm your host, Kim Olson. Join us for stories of innovators, change makers, and the modern entrepreneurs who work the land.

The future has a history trying to predict what is going to happen years down the road is as old as time change is constant, and smart businesses must always look to what's next. What farming, food and agriculture was 100 years ago is not what it is today. The tractor drives itself. Robots might milk the cows.

On farm waste is now turned into energy to make a completely sustainable operation. Yet what stays the same for us. Family farmers are behind it all. The fact is we can't possibly know what the world will look like years from now or how it may be disrupted, but with the right insights we can plan, prepare, and be flexible for what might come.

Jack Aldrich is a global futurist now. He doesn't have a crystal ball, but he's able to make you aware of the major trends and potential transformations which can help people or industries take action to create a desired future. We know agriculture is changing, which is why we're planning for tomorrow.

Jack is our guest today to talk about how future trends in ag and food may upend our way of doing business in the present.

All right. Well, welcome Jack. I, uh, I'm so excited to have you, uh, on the show. After we met at our, our mid-year meeting, our, uh, our members were so interested in what you had to say and fascinated. So, um, this will be a great opportunity to kind of build on that. Now, before we jump into conversation, I wanted to talk a little bit about your background.

So you're a bit of a media darling. You've appeared on CNN and C-N-B-C-N-P-R and the Discovery Channel. That's, that's quite a roster of, of big names. Um, you're a former Naval Intelligence officer and Defense Department official, so I'm anxious to see how that plays in. And you served as the director of the Minnesota Office of Strategic and Long Range Planning.

All while writing 13 books, if I have my number correct. Is that, is that right? Uh, that is correct, young. So, my goodness, that is quite a, quite a resume. And, and yet when I was asked, all right, Jack's coming to the meeting, what, uh, what does Jack do? I said, Jack's a futurist. Um, and I, I think that's accurate, but, uh, you've told me, um, you do not predict the future.

Is that right? The way I like to describe a futurist is I, I use an acronym and, uh, I call it the big aha, but, uh. What it stands for is awareness, humility, and action. We need to be aware of the trends that are transforming our world and understand how they're gonna affect us, our business and our community, and the world in general.

Next, we need humility to the idea, the way we thought about our job or industry yesterday might not necessarily be how we think about. In the future, I've written a couple of books on the topic of unlearning, and the reason I did that is people can readily understand the trends that are gonna transform tomorrow.

What they have a really hard time doing is letting go of or unlearning some of the things that they did in the past, which made them successful. But might no longer be relevant in the future. So there's sort of a change management aspect to being a futurist. And then the final A stands for action.

There's a wonderful quote from Peter Drucker who said, the only way to predict the future is to create it yourself, but in order to do that, you need to take action. So I try to help individuals in organizations take actions. Their own desired future. Sure. Well, I, I wanna kind of dive right into this because some of the folks that, um, that we help, uh, create their futures are, are farmers.

So, um, let's just kind of start talking about, um. Your, uh, your aha and how that might relate to the future of farming? Um, maybe we can take, uh, for example, data literacy. We're kind of a data kind of more than kind of, we're a data-driven cooperative. We make decisions based on data. We empower our formers to do the same in their fields.

And, um, what we try to do is, um, meet this need for them and. I, you know, we talk a little bit about data literacy, so is that something that's important to understand in the future? That absolutely is, and here's how I like to explain it. I'm not sure how, what the average age of your listeners are, but when the very first data storage devices came out, they were in megabytes, but then we went to megabytes, which was a thousand fold larger.

Then we went to gigabytes, which was a thousand fold, larger than that. And then. Terabytes and then exabytes and then petabytes. And we're now living in an era of something called Yoda bytes and we're gonna go to bronto bytes. But these numbers are absolutely astronomical. They're mind bog. And the reason this is so important for farmers is, um.

It. It is the satellites that are peering down on earth. Looking at our farm fields. It is the sensors in the fields on our tractors. We're collecting so much new data. Now, not all of that data is necessarily relevant, but there is a lot of. It's called unstructured data, which with the help of artificial intelligence, we can kind of call out some new insights and it's these new insights that are gonna challenge people's intuitions.

I think for farmers, the really big difference is data is going to start telling them things that they don't already know. There are so many farmers who say, look, I've been working. Living on the land for years, and we've always done it this way and it has worked. But there are going to be some counterintuitive findings and, and I think the successful farmers and organizations will in fact become data literate and learn how to process and think and utilize all of this new data.

So is that an example of unlearning or is that, uh, just additional learning for farmers? So I think that's a combination of both. It's it's awareness of how much data, new data is gonna be coming in, and then it's gonna require, uh, some learning. And this is especially, look, I, I do believe that we should trust our intuition, but we also need to question our intuition.

And this is just a story I like to tell stories. So at the beginning of Second World War. There was, um, allied bombers were getting shot down at an astounding rate and, and the military high command of the United States. And England said to a group of 19 scientists, figure out how to protect our planes, keep them as light and maneuverable as possible, but let's protect our pilots.

And so the planes came back and they were primarily shot up in the wings and the tails. And so 18 of the 19 scientists said, well, let's. Shoot, or let's fill, uh, the wings and tails, right? Makes sense. That's where the bullet holes are. Sure. But Abraham wa no, no, no. Here's what you are not seeing. You are not seeing the planes that didn't come back, and those were the ones presumably you want to protect.

So counterintuitively, you actually have to reinforce the area. Without bullet holes because we can surmise. That's why those planes were being shot down. Once armed with that insight, you go, yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. But it challenges our intuition and I think that data science and data literacy are all about their.

There are things that feel true, but once we actually begin having data and we think about it differently, we're going to come to new insights. So my advice to, uh, land O'Lakes, uh, cooperative members is by all means, trust your intuition. But question this, especially in this new era where we do have more data coming from, uh, you know, all of our equipment from our fields, from, from the satellites.

ILI love that I, we talk a a lot about, um, how important the insight is. You can, you get all the data, even when we're, uh, monitoring. Um. You know, marketing activities, you can get all the data, but what does the data tell you? Um, and sometimes what it tells you, uh, is counter to your intuition in the way we've done things forever.

So, so, um, this is, uh, so important, but, um. What if you can't get the data? You know, right now we only have about 4 billion people who have access to the internet. Um, satellites could help grow that number to 7.5 billion in the next few years. Um, how I, I've heard you talk about our rural renaissance. So how would that connectivity, uh, enable something like that?

Yeah. So if I could just step back and talk about how fast the world can change and let me Sure. Uh, tell you this quick story. This is just 12 years ago. Then President Obama was leaving the White House and he said to a group of, he formed a blue ribbon committee of literal rocket scientists, engineers, the CEO of Lockheed Martin, and said, what is it gonna take to get us.

What do we need to build in terms of rockets to get back to the moon and ultimately to Mars? And after nine months, his blue ribbon committee said, Mr. President's gonna take 12 years and $36 billion. Fair enough. Is that what happened? No. That's not what happened. Elon Musk built a rocket in six years, so 50% faster.

Then the experts expected and he did it for less than a billion dollars. 1, 1 36. The estimated cost. Why do I tell you that? It reminds us the future can arrive quicker, but what's the very first thing he's putting on those rockets? It is satellites, and this is why, uh, those satellites are gonna transform our world in some powerful ways.

And for farmers and for ag two really big ones, you just kind of mentioned, oh, today people, 4 billion people have access to the internet. Soon it's gonna be seven and a half billion because of those satellites, three and a half billion new people are gonna come online and as they have. More data, more information.

Most of 'em have cell phones. They might soon have renewable energy. Their income is gonna go up and as their income goes up, what's the first thing people primarily buy more of protein. So the future could be extraordinarily good for farmers all across the world because so many more, more people are going to come online.

But in terms of the rural Renaissance, um, these satellites, they're not just delivering high speed internet access. Uh, across the world, they are going to start delivering high speed Internet access in rural America and rural broadband has been an issue, and it still is an issue in many of our communities.

But does that mean it always will be and I don't think so. And I'm just using starlink as just one example. Elon Musk satellites that some farmers, uh, your members are already using. Maybe not a lot, but some, some are. But as we have. Um, better internet access, suddenly remote work, which we're already transitioning due to the pandemic.

We can work and live anywhere. And I think, uh, I might be stereotyping a little bit, but the rural way of life is really quite attractive to a lot of people. There's traffic absolutely. So there might be a lot of reasons why. I don't wanna say a lot of people will, but uh, a growing number of people might begin moving to rural areas.

That's how we need to start being aware of these technological trends. Think them through and understand how they could really impact our, uh, our world and our way of life in some really positive and beneficial Yeah. Ways. Well, I'll tell you if we, um, I, I agree with you and we talk a lot about the, um, rural vibrancy and the um.

The essential nature of a very healthy rural community. And one of the things that we've done recently is a campaign around the fact that less than 1% of the population feeds a hundred percent of the population. So as consumers, they're, you know, we've seen this trend of consumers really wanting to be closer to their food and, um, understand more of their food.

Uh. But you've got less than 1% who is in, um, that community and, and creating that food supply. Um, how do you see that relationship, uh, with, uh, consumers and food kind of evolving down the road? Yeah, I think that, um, from my perspective, there's this wonderful quote that says, the future's already here. It's just not evenly distributed.

And the fellow who said it was William Gibson. Yeah. Science fiction writer. But what he meant is the future tends to be on the fringe. I, I think that there are some consumers right now. Who care deeply about where their food has grown, how it's grown, what inputs are on that. And now in this world of ubiquitous data with satellites, with blockchain technology, with all of these things, we can begin having a much better understanding of where our food is coming from, how it was grown, what what was used.

And so I think more and more consumers are going to be, uh. Accessing all of this information to inform their purchasing decisions. I mean, many people do want to support their local farmers. So when I go to buy that butter, I wanna know which one is supporting the farmers in my community. The same thing with the meat or the chicken, or all of the other Ag products that I have.

I bought, but could I just go back? Yeah. And just, uh, uh, I, I love conversations like this. You just kind of passed over the fact that only 1% of all Americans feed the other a hundred percent. I mean, if I was a futurist a hundred years ago, most of my, yeah. Like most 50% of all Americans would've been directly involved in ag.

And just think, if I would've said to them, oh, in the future we're only gonna need 1% of you, their, their immediate thought would've been, oh my gosh, this is awful. What are we all gonna do? But the world does change and suddenly there were new jobs and new industries and, and there's still a lot of people who are afraid of technology.

They think that, oh my gosh, robots and artificial intelligence are gonna put all of us outta work. Look, there is gonna be some displacement. We have to be honest and candid about that. But there are gonna be so many new industries and things popping up in the future that we can't yet, uh, imagine. Yeah. I, I couldn't agree more.

And we're, you know, we just put a campaign out. Uh, farmers are incredible and we talk about just how much we have to learn from, um, from them, from their resilience, from their, um, you know, I, I would tiptoe right up to heroism. Um, but it certainly is that for us. So, um, you talked a little bit about technology in the future, sort of, uh, colliding, whether it's automation or um, data.

Um, when you think about tech in the future, there are four in particular you think are converging. Can you talk us through those and, uh, and why they matter? Yeah, uh, I'll do that, but first lemme just talk a little bit about convergence. And the way I like to describe this is. I know that Uber and Lyft aren't necessarily big in rural parts, but most people are familiar with what Uber and Lyft are.

But here's a curious thing. Why 13, 14 years ago did Uber, Lyft seemingly appear out of nowhere, like one day it's not here, and the next day it's there? Well, it was the convergence of three technologies. Suddenly we had just enough satellites in the sky. Most of us had smartphones, and then cloud computing became prolific.

Those three technologies allowed Uber and Lyft. To think about transportation in a fundamentally different way. That's why the taxi industry was disrupted, and I think what's gonna happen in the near future is there's gonna be a convergence of four technologies. The first one, we've already mentioned it, it's satellite technology, but that's specifically 5G high speed internet access.

The second technology is sensor technology. A lot of people still use the term internet of things, but this is the idea that we're gonna go from hundreds of millions of sensors to billions of sensors in our farm fields on our equipment, you know. On the wearable devices we're, we're, uh, wearing, uh, you know, they're going to be everywhere.

And then all of those we're gonna collect more data. But that data is going to go to even new advanced cloud and edge computing technologies. But then there's gonna be so much data that it is unrealistic to expect the human brain to be ablest. Will, we will have artificial intelligence, deep learning, machine learning to sift through all of that data, call out the insights, and then send those insights back down to our tractors, to our fields, to our wearable devices, you know, to our cars, you know, all of it.

So I think it's that convert and they're just gonna be new and different ways. To do things. So, uh, this goes back to humility. I, I'm not entirely sure no one is how all of this is going to play out, but we have to stay adaptable, flexible, humble, uh, and, uh, if we do that, you mentioned a, a wonderful word earlier.

Yeah, resilient, and that's what farmers are. And in today's rapidly changing world, we could all learn a lot about resilience, but I think it gets back to this idea of let's stay flexible and adaptable and humble and just understand how radically different the future could be 'cause of these technologies.

I That's, it's such fa fascinating stuff. The, the factors that never played into, um, the industry that are absolutely going to play key roles. Um, what about crops? Uh, I've heard you say that insurance companies and the banking industry. Might dictate insurance premiums based on how crops affect the environment.

That, that's just a provocative way of, uh, of framing that up for me. Yeah, I think that, um, I mean, um. And we need to, uh, address the, uh, the climate issue. And from my perspective, and as a futurist, I don't address this issue politically. Obviously there are, uh, political sides to this issue, but from my perspective, the people who are going to drive this issue are both the insurance industry and the banking industry.

And the reason is they have to look at data. They have to make. Decisions based on data. It can't be what they want the world to be or what they think or feel the world is gonna be. They have to look at data, and both the banking and the insurance industry have said climate change is real, and CO2 emissions are contributing to the problem.

We can disagree as to the relative severity of that difference, but it is making a difference and so. Once we know that, then the insurance industry will say, okay, who is contributing the most carbon emissions? And to this extent, the insurance. There are some insurance companies who have already stopped insuring coal plants because they don't want the future liability.

So, and again, what I kind of say tongue in cheek is like, Hey, if you don't believe in carbon or if you don't believe in climate change, go start a a coal plant if you know more than these insurance companies. But my point is they're looking at science, they're looking at data, and the banking industry is doing the same thing before they make a loan.

They have to make sure that you're not in a flood zone, that you're not in an area prone to hurricanes or wildfire. They have to look. But to tie this back to ag is, ag is, uh, a major contributor of carbon emissions. Now, again, the, the ag industry is doing wonderful things and we have to feed the world.

I'm not dismissing that at all, but there is. Mm-hmm. Cost to all of this. And so I, I think you will begin seeing, um, insurance companies begin to take a, uh, a, a closer role at this. And lemme just give you one potential hypothetical. Sure. Methane, more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It's 20 times as worse.

Doesn't last as long, but for the short period it does live. It contributes to, um, climate change. And we know one of the larger sources of methane emission are cows and like, and we now have satellites in the sky. There's one, it's called meth sat, and it's whole purpose is to peer back down on earth and track where methane emissions are coming Now.

Right now they're only tracking natural gas and coal, but as these satellites get better. They might be able to peer down on farm fields and see how much individual farm fields, how much methane they're emitting. And now once insurance companies have that data. Then they will say, well, we know this is contributing.

We think you're going to be liable at some point in the future. We're going to increase your rates. That's how technology and these different insights may unfold. Again, I don't wanna say it necessarily will unfold. Yeah. Why we need awareness of technology data and how it might be used. Both our benefit and to our uh, um.

What, what's the term I'm looking for? Not our benefit, but Yes. Detriment maybe. Um, detriment. Thank you. A little too early in the morning. Yeah. We're, we're taping early morning for this one. So, um, we've talked about lots of big trends. We've talked about, uh, data, we've talked about, um, key players. We've talked about, uh, you know, technology in the future there, if you.

If you take a wider scope, even to big trends and how they align with ag, um, what may change, what do we know now? Um, let's, let's just talk about food for a minute. How do you see food changing? I see food changing in a lot of different ways. Um, first one trend that is growing quite significantly is vertical or urban agriculture.

Now this will not affect the commodity farmers. It's not about, we're not gonna be growing corn, wheat, and so in environments, but a lot, uh. We will. Yeah. Instead of shipping tomatoes and cantaloupe from California or from Mexico or other areas, we're gonna be growing. Uh, I think fresh organic produce as close to the consumer as is possible.

We're now figuring out how to use lighting to grow. Uh, there's some urban farms who, typical lettuce field can grow two, maybe three crop cycles in a year. But in the urban area where these crops are growing 24 hours a day due to light recipes. Uh, meaning we're just using lighting to grow the crop. We can grow 22 in a year.

Like that's just, it's close to 10 times x, more efficient. That's crazy. And we don't have to use rail, cars and trucks to ship and refrigerate all of this stuff. So that's one trend. Uh, but I think the next trend is plant-based protein. And of course this has been a, a trend for, uh, some time, but I think that, um, it, it's still one that farmers need to be aware of, particularly if you are raising.

Cattle, um, that there is a significant carbon footprint. And there, I, I just came across a new word and whenever I hear these new words, so the word was reduced, I'm like, what the heck is a reduced? And someone who is not. A vegan or a vegetarian, it's just someone who's trying to reduce their meat consumption because they are concerned about the carbon footprint of meat.

So they really still love the taste of meat. Interesting. They're not going to give it up entirely, but they're trying to align their values, their concern over the CLI climate with the individual actions they're taking. And so once I heard that word, instead of dismiss it, going, oh, that's just a fringe.

New freaky term, I don't have to pay attention to as a, I say hold it. What is that? Maybe I do need to pay attention to it. And for farmers, I think it's, uh, something they need to be concerned with. Uh, or where, and you never know on, uh, on those things. My, my, I have a son-in-law who told people all over the south that he was a, uh, pescatarian.

And I'm like, oh, okay. That I, I understand that. And then my daughter, uh, who married him said, no, he's a Presbyterian. Like, oh, so you gotta, new words are great, but you gotta know what they're, uh, what they mean. So what else in food? Well, I think the other area that I, I pay a lot of attention to is gene editing technology.

Mm-hmm. And I think sure that this is fundamentally different than GMOs genetically modified. The difference to me is with GMOs. And, and by the way, from my perspective, the science is overwhelming, compelling. Like GMOs are safe, but there, the public perceives it differently. I, I wish it that weren't the case, but that, that is.

But gene editing is not going in and modifying any existing genes. All it's doing is.

A there think. We've been genetically modifying crops for thousands of years. We've just been doing it on a very slow timescale, but we now have the technologies to figure out how to make things more drought resistant or to grow faster or to photosynthesize things even faster. I mean, the University of Illinois is figuring out.

How to enable a gene that might allow photosynthesis to allow crops to grow 40% faster. I mean, that's a potential game changer. Wow. So I get really excited about gene editing technology. One for the, the promise of the technology, but then also because I think that both regulators and even the public may perceive it different.

But I do wanna be cautious here. Look, as a futurist, as I said. The science behind GMOs overwhelmingly safe and compelling, but that's not how the public sees it. And trying to predict public perceptions to new emerging technologies is a real challenge for futurists. Yeah, so I can't say with a hundred percent certainty people will love Gina.

Crops, but the promise is extraordinary and the potential to, to continue to feed the world, to use less water, to grow more crops, um, less land, uh, I mean all their extraordinary benefits. And I think at some point the benefits will become so overwhelming that both the public politicians and regulators will say.

We need to be doing this. Well, along that same lines of, uh, sustainability, conservation, um, regenerative, our agriculture, um, what are you seeing there? Uh, predict, predict our, our future there, particularly with our Tru Terra business. We're quite interested. Yeah. No, I'm, uh, I'm really excited about what is happening with.

Regenerative agriculture, and I think the first thing is we're already moving and there's still not yet a standard definition of what constitutes, uh, regenerative agriculture, but from my perspective, it is. Storing carbon in the soil, protecting biodiversity, and just increasing the productivity of the, of the land.

But I started paying attention to this a couple of years ago when First General Mills said, Hey, we're going to dedicate a million acres. We're gonna source a million acres from regenerative farmers employing regenerative practices by the year 2030. That was soon followed by Cargill saying, Hey, we're gonna do 10 million by 2030.

PepsiCo then came in and said, 7 million. And I, uh, I did, I did some research. I'm like, 18 million acres. I like, I, I, I'm not a farmer. I'm like, I don't know how much that is. But all of our organic farming is only 5 million acres. So when suddenly I saw three companies doing. 18 million acres are hoping to do that.

I'm like, that's a big trend. And now as you said, Tru, uh, what Land O'Lakes is doing with Tru is getting into this and, and the data scientists are getting much better actually helping farmers understand the benefits of this, that it is going to be better for the, the land, it's gonna be better for yield, it is going to be better for the long term.

Health of the land and all of the, the species to biodiversity who rely on the land. So from my perspective, this is a trend that's only going to go one way. And, and where I get really excited is as if the farmers aren't already doing enough. They really are heroes. They are going to be because of regenerative agriculture a major.

Player in addressing climate change, we're going to figure out how to store excess carbon in the land. And many farmers say, well, we're already storing carbon in the land. That's what our crops do. You're right. But now scientists and data are going to say, we're gonna help you figure out how to store even more when we can.

You're sing that excess carbon, there are going to be markets for that and you're going get paid to store excess carbon, but that's not the only reason to do it. It's gonna be better for your yield's gonna be better for the land. It's gonna be better for all of the pollinators and the other species out there.

So only gonna go one way. And that's up. Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more obviously, but, um. So with all of the, as we kind of come to the conclusion of our conversation, um, all of the trends, all of the things to be thinking about, I, I think you said it at the beginning, uh, the human brain can only hold and process, um, so much.

Where would you, what would be your advice to, to farmers and, uh, our member, retail owners as far as where to start? Yeah, so what I do is I, I, I call this my, the Friday future 15. Every Friday, just take 15 minutes to focus. Specifically on the future to think about the future and to make this more simple, I, I have a newsletter, it's a free newsletter and I send it out every Friday morning at 8:00 AM and it has five articles and there's always one on agriculture.

And I say to my subscribers, don't read all five. Just read one article that intrigues you, but then really engage in the hard, difficult world work of thinking about what that means. Mean to your business, to your business model, to your customers, to your clients? What are your competitors up to? Um, and I think this is really hard for people without strong worth a work ethic.

Like, look, I, I tell people to have a closed door to just go into your office, go into your dry and put your feet up, but just. But if you see someone just sitting around thinking, you don't think to yourself, wow, there's one hard working son of a gun. You're thinking, no, that's one lazy SOB. But I would argue that thinking is, if not our most important responsibility, it, it's up there in the top two or three.

So spend more time thinking about the future. And if you're a farmer. Start thinking about satellites, think about artificial intelligence sensor technology. There's been a trend. I, I, I failed to mention it in the convergence blockchain. Technology. Mm-hmm. But it's gonna be really important for tracking and tracing food.

It's gonna be a new tool that, um, it's gonna transform the supply chain around ag, but it's also gonna allow consumers to know exactly where their food comes. And know exactly what you were putting, you know, whether you were putting antibiotics into your animals or not, or how, what you were doing with regard to, uh, the field or how much water you were using.

They're gonna have new tools and techniques. So spend some time thinking about the friends and maybe could I just go to one example and I think it's really, yeah, please, please. This is electric vehicles and the rise of Tesla. Uh, I always tell farmers, particularly farmers in the Midwest, in Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, corn farmers like you should spend some time thinking about this because look, the, the number of electric vehicles, if it increases by 2030.

Uh, what might that mean? Well, if EVs go up, the demand for gasoline goes down. But if the demand for gas goes down, the demand for ethanol goes down. If the demand for ethanol goes down, the demand for corn goes down. If the demand for corn goes down. Land prices may go down in certain parts of the United States.

Now, I don't wanna say that that will happen, but you have to acknowledge it is a possibility. So I say to farmers, you should spend some time thinking about electric vehicles and you should specifically look for information that challenges what you think is going to happen. I, I address a lot of ag groups and I always ask them, what percentage, by 2030 of all new vehicles do you think will be electric?

And the range is typically on the low end. And I say to them, you may be right. But you know what? You may be wrong. Battery technology is getting better, so cars can go not just 300, but maybe 600 and a thousand miles before they need to be recharged. The recharges are getting quicker. In fact, in the future, you might be able to recharge an electric vehicle faster than you can refill it.

And, but then other people will say, well, what about lithium? We're gonna be reliant on China. I'm like, that might be right. And you might be right. That might slow down and curtail electric vehicle, but there's new technology. Yeah. That's allowing us to harvest lithium from ocean water if that. If we crack that nut, that's a, that's a game changer.

So my point is, as you are thinking, try to challenge your assumptions. Don't just think, how do I want the world? Like, how might the world unfold in a way that isn't always beneficial?

Uh, that's a, there is so much to think about and we should be taking time to do it. I appreciate that. I, we, we end all of these conversations with, uh, a question that is gonna be, um, that we've spent almost the entire conversation on, but, uh, you know, just very simply, um, how do you see the future of agriculture?

I am actually really excited and bullish on the future of agriculture. I mean, so one thing that, uh, we all need, we all need food, and there are going to, they're already close to 8 billion people on the planet. Every demographer says, at least for the foreseeable future, that number's gonna go up to 10 billion people.

We're gonna have to feed them, but I'm really excited in the sense that. Uh, new technologies, new tools that allow us to grow more food more sustainably faster, and then begin being part of the solution around climate change. The advances in, uh, regenerative agriculture are really exciting. Farmers are going to continue to innovate into the future and figure out ways to feed the world and to do it in a responsibly.

Ethically and regenerative manner. And so I'm really excited, and I don't mean to use those EV stories to scare anyone. I think that, um, there are gonna be so many opportunities for farmers to do things. In the future that they should be, uh, extremely optimistic. Well, I, I appreciate the kind words and I know our farmers will as well and our member owners.

Um, thank you so much for the conversation. I really enjoyed it, Kim. Thank you for having me.

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