Ep. 11 - New Year, New Problems 2026

In this episode of Stone County Extension Saves the World, Anna and Tyler discuss new year's resolutions and setting goals that are S.M.A.R.T.  Anna gives tips on where to start for achieving financial goals and going about checking your credit score.

Tyler discusses the new Farmer Tax Exempt Card that is available to producers of agricultural products in Arkansas and how to go about getting one and rants about peoples perception of Farmers and it needs to change for the better.

UADA Stone County Extension Facebook (follow for upcoming programs)

https://www.facebook.com/UADA.Stone

University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Website

https://www.uaex.uada.edu/

Transcript

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Welcome to Stone County Extension Saves the World. We're back, first episode, season 2.

Season 2, so excited.

New year, new programs.

New problems.

New problems. Yeah, I like it. Have we come, we've got a little break after, you know, between Christmas, New Year's, off about a week. I took a little bit more leave. I had some leave to burn, but coming back, It's a little difficult. It's like, man, and right away, getting to solving the world's problems, or at least.

We've been working hard on Stone County's problems. Yeah, we've had a few over break. I had someone ask me how to solve some issues and we had someone stop in today asking questions, but.

Yeah, like real thinkers.

Like societal issues, fundamental issues that are hard to solve.

Hard to solve. No one's solved them yet. And this guy's asking us.

How we're going to do it.

Yeah. How, what do we do about the youth? What do we do about people in this situation? It's like, well, that's the. trillion dollar questions, what you said. Yeah, it's like, I don't, we've been talking about it ever since he come in, probably.

Yeah, we have.

Four, 5, four hours ago, three hours ago, and we've been like, what, do we do?

What are we, what should we do? Well, did you have a good holiday?

Yeah, I did. Time speeds up, it seems like.

It does.

It's getting older.

This year's gone by really quickly, I feel. I don't think I was used to writing 25. Now I have to write 26.

Yeah, that's crazy. 2026.

So did you make any New Year's resolutions?

Yeah, I always do. But I haven't started yet.

I'm like, oh, I'm going to get in shape.

I'm going to want to be able to run real far.

You want to do the 50 mile run.

Yeah, I want to be able to do an ultra marathon or something. And it's like, I can't even run half a mile. Yeah, I need to, but I'm going to start.

So we had a little poll and I was asking, people in Stone County that follow our Facebook page, what kind of resolution, what type of resolutions that they made this year. And so it was pretty common for there to be changing in habits, hoping for personal growth or fitness, about 16% so they're not making any. And then financial was 16%, but the number one was health. So I kind of expected financial to be #1, because that's a typical one that comes into play. So that's what I was planning on talking about today. But that's usually, I typically have a financial one, a health one, and a fitness one every year for me.

I think I liked one and it's just be more disciplined. That's what I'm going to try to do.

Yeah.

And love my neighbor more.

So if you're making a SMART goal, so how do we be specific?

Specific, okay.

Pacific or specific?

Specific. Okay, we're making SMART, S-M-A-R-T. Tell them what it stands for. Specific.

Measurable.

Measurable.

Attainable.

Attainable.

Realistic.

I think so.

And time.

Timely.

Yeah.

All right. I'm trying to think of a specific, which one am I being specific with? How to love people more?

Probably don't need that one to be specific.

I'm just gonna, on that one, I'm just gonna, you know, put other people's problems above myself. That's the goal is to, you know, and then discipline. I guess specific, I need to start. Like I got a new power rack for Christmas, like a squat rack. I need to use it. I've used it a little bit, but I need to like.

Yeah, I think you should start small, not go work out for two hours.

Or just get, what do they say, consistency. And just get consistent.

Gosh, consistent with anything will help you be successful, I believe.

I'm thinking about writing down my goals.

Well, that's what I'm going to get into a little bit about how to be more successful with your New Year's resolutions that you make. So overall, according to the Pew Research Center, 79% of people have concerns with their health. Their resolutions are about health. And then typically, but a little smaller is money, finances, that's about 61%. And then personal relationships, 57. hobbies and personal interest 55% and they've even work and career was 49% was resolutions and I that kind of surprised me because we didn't have anybody vote for that I don't really think about that one that was like I guess hoping for improving career, improving career, or moving career, maybe.

Like, I guess I have, I think we have career goals. We have career goals, we want to be, our goal is to make an impact within our community. And it's like, well, let's go and set some things in motion that make an impact. And it's like, well.

We usually say January us was feeling really excited.

Yeah, January us was Plenty Planertons. Plenty wanting to get out there. make an impact and then, you schedule something for a couple months down the road and then it shows up and it's like, what was I thinking? Yeah, it's scheduling something.

Yes, and other stuff falls right in and you have a whole week straight of constant.

Yeah, and then other stuff pops up and it's like.

We're like already trying to fit everything in now for the next six months. Like we're planning our next six months basically and it's crazy.

Yeah, I can say we do have.

We do have career goals.

Career goals.

You're talking about writing it down and I kind of thought I was thinking about our priorities that we make as agents. you have to go back and look at them.

Yeah.

To sometimes you just get lost in living and doing and you forget what your.

What the set priorities were?

So that's kind of like your resolutions?

And what she's talking about priorities, like we're funded through taxpayer dollars. We're not just out here deciding, oh, this would be good. Yeah, we do. We're out in the community and we see the needs of the community, but what we do is we have like a, what we call our subcommittees, like an agriculture, FCS, 4-H, and they, we talk about what they'd like us to do this next year. And used to, we set 5 priorities. Now we've moved to three to.

Kind of give you a little more room within it, I believe.

Yeah, room, so.

Some get real specific.

Yeah.

Pacific or specific. Spa.

Pacific is the ocean.

Now that we said Pacific, all I can think about is.

My cousin used to get on to me.

Oh, man.

I think that annoyed her.

Me and my husband, he got to making fun of me because we were talking about the difference with wassail and cider. And I kept saying mold cider. And he's like, what are you saying? Mold? And I said, mold. Like we went back and forth and I thought, how can you not hear that I said mold cider and M-U-L-L-E-D. Anyway, sorry, side not on speech. Not mold. I say mold. And then I got to saying boiled, bold. And then oil.

Oil.

And then owl. O-W-L, not A-L.

Yeah. But. That's just.

Stone County speech for you. Anyway, sorry, that kind of got us off topic.

Get us into being better goal setters and better people.

So I was looking around and I took a few tips from your sister's blog, Tori's Tips, and she had some tips about keeping your resolutions. And so it's typically, I never thought about it, but it's kind of like a tradition to make a resolution this time of year. And so what's a good way to get started? And that's by making small changes. So when we go in and we want to just teetotally change everything, sometimes we spiral out pretty quick. But then that goes about what you were saying is consistency. So if you can make these small little changes, and be consistent over time, it'll help you with any of these goals that you're thinking, whether it's health, financial, personal well-being, like a small effort, you add all your small efforts up and then they add up to a big effort.

Yeah.

So say, you know, health, you just gonna quit drinking Cokes or you're only gonna drink a Coke a week or something like that. Like start with something instead of saying, I'm gonna quit eating all sugar, all carbs, all this, all in one week. That could just be a little too intense. Some people thrive that way, but not always.

Yeah, I'm one of them that wants to go big and then it's like, well, I can't get started because I'm trying to go too big.

Yeah, I can see that.

Yeah.

So start by making small changes. So, you know, the saying, Rome wasn't built in a day. So say that cleaning something for you, and this cleaning and organizing is one of my least favorite things as we, my office is a little messy in the background, but if I focus on one small thing, like if I'm like the bathroom, but if the bathroom's too much, just do the shower. And it's better to get a small thing done than nothing done. So, you know, clean your microwave, clean your glove compartment in your vehicle, start small. And so, you know, those short-term goals, they can get you through your year-long goals. And then write down your resolution. So we were talking about that where, we were comparing it to priorities where I go back and look. So if you write down those resolutions, you can go back. So if you keep a journal, you could put it on the refrigerator, you could put it in your vehicle. I have a lot of time to think in the vehicle. And so that's just.

That's where I come up with my best ideas driving around.

Yeah. I need to start recording some of my thoughts.

Yeah, I take notes. And that's what I've started doing is like on my phone at least, like in the notes. Like I'm like.

You're like being in my jokes note on my phone. I'm like, I don't want to forget that.

I think of something. And I was like, oh, that I need to remember that.

Yeah, I need to put that down.

Yeah.

Yep. So write them down. And, you know, also if you wanted to take photos, and I thought this was an interesting honor tips. So if you wanted photos of yourself or take photos of the room, or if you're, like I noticed this when we were building our house, the moment you're done with it, just looks like it was supposed to.

Yeah.

And you don't really see the progression. So if you take photos or snapshots or you're writing down where you were financially and where you're trying to go, and you're able to see that progress, that's gonna help keep you going. And then another piece of advice was an accountability partner. Now, as long as they can be an accountability partner, sometimes they might be a liability partner, if you're depending on someone else to help you. But it's just a way to, you're adding that social aspect into it, and that always works for Extension Get Fit, I feel strongly about, is that social aspect helps bring people back to that exercise class that we offer in Stone County, and that helps keep people successful. They're just wanting to be social, or they'll call and say, hey, where are you at? I haven't seen you in a minute.

Makes sense, because, you know, I'm going to change, I'm going to start working out. And it's like.

Who's holding me to it?

Yeah, who's holding me to it? So if I'm trying to hold myself to it, whoa, I wake up or I need to go exercise. And it's like, whoa, but this couch is pretty comfy.

Yeah, it's like I'm more okay with disappointing myself versus someone else, maybe, you know? So I'm not big on that.

Yeah, so have your accountability.

Accountability. And then this one said, don't be so hard on yourself. But you know what? that's part of the reason I get into some things is not being hard enough on myself. Yeah. but anyway, so don't be too hard on yourself so that you just quit. Yeah. it's a goal.

That's part of the human experience pretty much is you learn something, but then you stumble a little bit or you have to backtrack.

And hopefully you learn from that.

Yeah, you learn from that and you keep moving forward.

And I like too, on one of her tips, it says begin where you are. sometimes you're looking at the very end of whatever goal you're wanting to get to and it's just overwhelming. And so that's where you may be setting your goal. You may need to set in between goals so that you're just, if you just have that one huge goal that might take you a long time to get to, you just may be drowning and trying to get there, I guess. And so, just start where you are and start at that moment. You don't have to wait till Monday. I'm notorious on it. has to start on a Monday. If it's a midweek, there's no way I'm stopping.

And for me, it's like, everything's got to be right. I can't start here because I know I'm going to be out. You know, I got stuff this day and that's just going to get in the way and I can't start because then I'm not being consistent.

But really, you don't have to wait until that Monday. You can make that small change. You can do that one thing today to help you get to your goal. And then I liked this too. It said follow accounts that are going to motivate you. So instead of following a social media account that may be the opposite of where you're trying to go, find like if you've got a financial goal, maybe you could follow the UAEX Money Facebook account page or At Home with UAEX or UAEX Family Life or of course, you know, Stone County Extension Saves the World is a great place and follow those places that are going to help you meet your goals. And that way, even when you're on social media or other things, it's a continual motivational factor. You're not, you're getting, you're exposing yourself to positivity to reach your goal. So that was kind of my blurb on resolutions. I do have some financial stuff I want to talk about, but I didn't know if you wanted to jump into.

Well, on this topic is you what like Being SMART, I looked that up.

Oh, the SMART goals.

SMART goals, specific, measurable, achievable, attainable, relevant, realistic, and then time-bound. And it's called the SMART criteria. It makes sense because it be specific about your goals. what do you truly want and how are you going to measure it? And this is kind of what we do with 4-H kids is, they're picking a project and something they're interested in and want to learn about. Well, what we want them to do is keep a record book. There's even a whole contest of record book judging. And it's what these kids have done the past year to whatever they wanted to learn, they set some goals. And then this is how they keep a journal pretty much or a record book of what they've done to achieve that.

And I think that's very important because you're going to feel that success when you're meeting those specific measurable goals. Whereas, like I said, you have just a generalized overshadowing thing, it can feel just too loomy. Financial, we think about it a lot in it, because it's easier to say, well, I'm going to make my emergency savings this number and that number. And it's not just numbers, you know, it can just be decisions and habits and time frames and things like that.

Yeah. Well.

Or do we want me to go ahead and get into finances?

Go into finances.

So over the next few weeks, I would like to walk through some different financial resolutions. So that's one of my resolutions. And so I'm gonna walk through it and walk anybody in our podcast world listening to us through this. So at any time you can start this. But so financial resolutions is one of the top ones. And so I'm hoping to go over overtime credit reports, track our spending, how to even keep up with those important papers. What important papers do I need to have? Where do I keep them? What's the best method for me? And so let's just get started. And the first one I typically like to do is a credit report. And so I've got a good one, so it's not as looming for me to check it out as it may be. For some of you, it's a little scary. But you might be thinking, I don't have anything to worry about. I don't need to look at mine. But it used to be you just got them free once a year. But after a lot of changes and things like that, the FTC lets you get one per week. So you can check it regularly throughout the year. You don't have to do just one and done. But So one thing, one reason to check it is for mistakes. So if you have a really common name, it would be easy if you live in the same town, and there's several people that have the same name, that live in the same town for something to accidentally end up on your credit report. So that's one big thing to check it. And then that way you can also fix like a mistake. So if that's happened, And then another major thing is identity theft. And a lot of people are thinking, oh, that's not happening to me. But really, one major player in identity theft is family. And I know we don't like to think about that. And it may have not even been intentional. But if someone knows all of your information, they can steal your identity, and that may be showing up on a credit report. And so what might happen is someone might take a credit card out in your name or co-sign you on something, and if they made a late payment, then that's a ding on your credit report. And so one time I found a credit card that I had not taken out on mine, and it had a late payment on it. So that was a negative, and I just wanted to make sure that got removed. So first off, we get our credit report, And what all's on your credit report? So it's gonna of course have all your information on it. And then where you've been employed, your different credit, your history line, if you're getting a lot of inquiries, so if you're going out and taking a lot of those credit cards, like I went to this retail store and I got one here, and then I went to another and got one here, that's gonna just start hitting your credit report and can affect your credit score. So if you're interested in getting another vehicle, buying a house, want your insurance rates, want some furniture, just all kinds of things. You want to know what your score is going to be. And then so I look through mine and I make sure that there's no surprise.

Where do you go? Where are you going to look?

So the only place that I know of for sure that's free is annualcreditreport.com and you need to make sure that you're not entering the wrong address on that. So we have a fact sheet called credit reports and credit scores and it has that website in there for the University of Arkansas.

So what's the number on that? So this is how you could find this. Go like to your search engine.

FSFC.

Yeah, you search that and like UADA or UAX and it'll pull up. We have a bunch of different fact sheets available.

Yeah, we've got a lot. And so annualcreditreport.com, you can get all three if you want at once. You could get one. They're all a little different. I feel like a couple of them are a little more detailed than others. And so I would encourage you to look at all of them. And yeah, make sure there's no accounts that you don't recognize. And if you do, you can file to fix that mistake on that website at that time. And so go through that, check that, and is there a collection out there that may be on there? Is there, have I been making linked payments? Have I missed something? I didn't realize that I had this old credit card from five years ago looming over me. So I think that's just really important to know to establish our baseline of where we're at financially is to know where our credit report lands and our credit score. So that I think should be step number one for your financial resolution is to get your credit report. And credit scores aren't always free. My credit card gives me mine on a weekly, so I kind of have an idea. But if your credit report looks good, then you should be good. And then Sometimes I get a few questions from people who don't have credit and like, how do I get started? So say, you've been incarcerated or maybe you've just not ever took out a loan of any kind or anything, or you're young. And sometimes credit cards are just too much for people. They're worried that they're gonna just spend, spend, spend and not, and get in a worse place than they were. And so there's something called a secured card. and you actually put money on it and spend it, but it reports to the credit agencies. And that's a way that you can safely build yourself some credit is a secured credit card. Now, I don't know the place. There's multiple places that you can get it. So I would, you know, you'd have to check into that and check the rates and how it's all done. And then I'd also talk to your bank. You know, is there a way that you can, your account can be reported? more often, just look into a few options to help get your credit started in a safe, safe way.

So, and so your plan is throughout our episodes throughout the year, you're going to give this.

Year, we're going to work on give updates different. We're going to work on financial resolutions. So, yeah, I think we need to start establish a baseline. So probably our next episode, we'll start working on our spending track, our expense report, basically, because If you do not know what you're spending, then how can you set a goal at that point? So go through your credit report and then you may have a goal come out of that one too. So maybe making payments on time or reducing a collection, different things like that.

I've seen it in the news that Arkansas has just made available to farmers a farmer sales tax exemption card. And we went, or I went last night to the Farm Bureau meeting, and they were kind of talking about it. So what it is, farmers, they get exempt, tax exemption on certain things that they buy for use on a farm.

And so this started.

Well, this is, it's been a thing that there's been tax exempt items. items for farming. But what this card is, it's proof that you're a farmer and you get tax exemptions. And it's just used to you had to fill out and go fill out these forms and have this form and say you go to like the farm supply store and present this. Say you're buying like what they were saying at the Farm Bureau. It's for like things that are temporary. Like if you like a gate wouldn't be tax exempt, but like temporary panels, something like that's what's tax exempt. Certain equipment that you're going to use on farm is tax exempt. So if you're buying a new tractor, it's tax exempt. And so if you are a farmer, you can get on to...

Yeah, where do you go?

So they've got a website and what it, where it is, let me see, it's Arkansas Taxpayers Access Point. Like I seen some article that had a website and I tapped in that website that they had and it took me to a broken link. But it's Arkansas Taxpayer Access Point. And What they say, eligible farmer, it means a person or entity engaged in farming has demonstrated to the Secretary of Finance that the person or entity has the resources and capacity to produce food, fiber, grass, sod, or nursery products. And then what they classify as farming means the agricultural production of food or fiber as a business or the agricultural production of grass, sod, or nursery products as a business. And anyways, if you fall into that category, you can get tax exempt things. What they were saying how to go about it is you have to present to the Department of Finance records from I think the past three years proving that you are a farmer and then once you do that you get this card in the mail that say you go to and what the guy that from the co-op manager of co-op says it makes it so much easier is because then the liability is off them so it's just a simpler process kind of to help farmers out.

And they wouldn't be having to fill out a form every time.

You're not having to fill out a form every time you've got this card. I think it costs some money to apply for this card and then there's a renewal every year.

I think the initial cost is 20 and then the renewal is 10. And I'm on the Department of Finance for Arkansas website just looking through it.

Yeah, and they have, you know, you can get on there and see like what is tax exempt type things. I pulled it up earlier. Let's see if I can find it. So what are some tax exempt items? I mentioned some like tractors, mechanical pickers, milking equipment, combines, irrigation equipment. I mentioned like the cattle panels, fertilizer, plows, feed, sprayers, spreaders, seed. examples of not exempt, like metal buildings, lawn mowers, lawn and garden tractors. So if they feel like.

It's more of personal use instead of commercial farming.

I've seen a deal that like four-wheelers is one of the big thing that people get confused on. Like it has When you can buy a four-wheeler, but it has to be for agriculture use only. And you have to sign something that says that that's how you intend to use it. Building materials or something else?

So it said no on the lawnmower? But say it was a lawnmower for home use, I'm guessing. Because I was thinking for poultry. houses or broiler houses, you have to keep the grass low around it. So if it was only used for that, then you could check in to see if it could.

You might could. Like on there, the Department of Finance of Arkansas's website, they have lawn mowers slash lawn or garden tractors as examples of non-exempt items. So I'm not sure even if you could get a like a lawn mower for tax exemption. water pumps, tires, grain storage bins, the way it, like anything that's permanent, that type of stuff is.

Not going to work.

Not going to be like exempt from taxes. But this makes it a little bit easier for farmers. If you didn't know, if you're farming, you can purchase certain products as tax exempt. And I'm sure at some point you've went and bought something for your farm that you got charged sales tax for. And you may have just not have known. And you didn't know. But that is available now. That's like come out yesterday that they were putting this out. Again, I think you have to present three years of past taxes. I did see a deal about like if you're a fresh startup, like less than three years. I think I've seen where you had to prove that you either had loans or land purchased with the intent for agricultural purposes. And you prove that and then you can get it. Cool. And so talking about this, I was doing a little bit of research on it. And this is what I wanted to talk about. They just ran a little because it's rage. Well, it's like I grew up in the country farming. My dad farms. Your family farms. Like your dad raised chickens and cattle. We've been around it. And when people, crap, talk farmers, it gets on my nerves.

It makes you mad.

It makes me mad because The things that make me mad is the, I guess I could say it's ignorance. They don't know. What were you telling me? We were talking about it and we were like, we should pull up statistics.

Oh yeah.

And what was one that I was like, you serious? It's about wear chocolate milk.

Okay, so I found this on Mississippi State Extension and it said, The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy found that almost, based off surveys, almost 17 million adult Americans think chocolate milk comes from brown cows. 17 million adult Americans think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.

And so I would say 17 million people also think that all their food just magically appears at the grocery store. And that's where you go, or it's there at the restaurants?

Yeah, when I was in Sigma Alpha, that was one of the things is the percentage of kids that thought their food just came from the grocery store. It was very high. And that's scary.

And so people out there have the perception, and this, again, researching it, and you get to scrolling comments and stuff, and people are hateful. And that's what gets on my nerves more than anything. But someone got on there and commented, because you hear about it in the news about how farmers get subsidies or farmers get this government money. And somebody's like, oh, all these farmers are just the biggest welfare queens is what they said. And that really got on my nerves. And so I wanted to.

Well, when I said to you, I was like, is your family a welfare queen?

Yeah, my family.

Is my family a welfare queen? I don't see all this money rolling into our pockets.

Well, not even that. But let's talk about why it's a good thing that the government.

Helps control our food prices so that we can afford to eat.

Well, one, yeah, help. That's what some of these subsidies are, is to control the price of.

I remember what you had said back in one of our earlier episodes about cotton.

Yeah, cotton. In 1960s, 70s, the price was 64 cents a pound. 2025, the price of cotton is 64 cents a pound.

And think how much everything has gone up.

Yeah.

Overall since the 70s. It's craziness. I think, I know you have a lot of points. One of the things I've seen is that people think that a lot of farms are ran by corporations. And in Stone County, I don't know of any corporations running a single farm here. I see families and people and community members and generations of farmers and It's like, I guess they, I don't know who they think is growing these things and raising, raising them. That's like, I don't know.

That's kind of my point is why would you get on there? Think about, okay, are you going to grow out and grow your own? Are you capable? Like maybe, are you capable of growing your supply of food? Like you're not going to eat anything else.

I mean, I might be. We've done some good work towards it.

You got a dairy cow?

But the problem is, those beef cattle that we're raising, yeah, we could eat them, but how are we going to feed them?

Yeah.

And that's why a lot of people in Stone County had one animal until we've gotten to modern times where we can get our feed stuffs from other places.

Yeah.

My dad said you never ate beef growing up.

Yeah.

Because you couldn't afford to feed the animal.

And that's something that somebody was smart enough to realize, oh, that's something we need to educate people on is how we can do better practices. And that's where, the whole land-grant mission come into play. The government gave the states money to establish a land-grant university. And that's here in Arkansas, it's the University of Arkansas out of Fayetteville. the University of Arkansas System's Division of Agriculture. And then they also thought it was a good idea. Well, let's establish some research stations connected to the land grant. And what these research stations are going to do is they're going to go out and do all this testing and research about, you know, what, how can we better grow food? And then, well, now we got to figure out how to tell the people growing our food how to do it. And then somebody had an idea. His name was, I talked about this first episode, Seaman Knapp. Seaman A Knapp said, you know what? I'm going to go out and show people how to do these research-based practices. And that's kind of where it's connection. That's what we're doing. And but my gripe is that, and what kind of the purpose of this is not only to educate people on that are doing these practices that we're talking about, but education to those people that aren't really involved in agriculture.

It's hard to understand something you know nothing about. It's like me trying to think that I know everything about chemistry when I'm mostly outside of the chemistry world.

And so, let's think about, think about, okay, why would it be a good idea to, if our government was giving farmers money? And something I looked up, I pulled up the information for Stone County from the last, in 2022, they did a census of agriculture. And so let's see if you worry about this. So right now, you know, I can go get food. I can go and run up to the grocery store, get my food, and know that, yes, somebody grew that. You know what? Give me an apple. You know, if I wanted apples, I can go purchase apples. Or if I wanted a steak, I don't have the ability to raise a beef on my, you know, In your backyard? Backyard. But I want a steak. Well, I can go to the grocery store, and buy it. where did that come from? Somebody raised that stinking thing.

Somebody grew the food.

Somebody grew the food.

To feed him.

To feed him. That's agriculture in the United States of America. It's kind of, it's amazing what they're able to do. But what I wanted to bring up is why are we wanting to get, provide funding to farmers. Why is that important? Well, kind of the point was, well, we don't, we, most of us don't have the ability to raise a year supply of food.

Or say rice.

Yeah.

I can't raise rice in Stone County.

No, I like to eat rice.

I do too.

Is it pretty cheap?

It's Fairly inexpensive.

Fairly inexpensive to eat, but I can't. grow it here. But guess what? They grow it like crazy down in the eastern and southern, in the delta of Arkansas. And it's cheap because all these guys are, it's controlled by subsidies to control that price. So it's not expensive to us as the consumer. So, you know, we gripe about what we think is a right as an American. Most people, I would assume that access to food is a right, but you can argue one way or another, but I would think access to food in general is a good thing.

It would be interesting to say you can only eat what can be grown in Stone County.

Yeah.

And that, although is several things, is not all the things. And that would be interesting. And that's what this helps accomplish is that we're not stuck with a we can only do.

Yeah.

We can be more efficient or rely on those who are more efficient to grow these items.

Yeah, more efficient to grow these items and raise these items. But then another worry is, well, do we have people that are willing to go out and do this? We mentioned, you know, I'm wearing denim, probably a cotton shirt. I don't know how to grow cotton. I don't know how to weave cotton. That fiber came from someone's work and they're getting 64 cents a pound for it. What's the incentive for them to do it? Because with the input costs, you probably saw in the news this past year, the input costs and all these things, a lot of these farmers, they're losing money. They're going, they're trying to, they're planting. they're dependent on the weather. Well, I'm going to plant 1000 acres of cotton. I've got the land. I'm going to go out and plant it. Oh, no, it didn't rain. Oh, no, bugs showed up. Oh, no, a disease showed up because it's raining too much. My field's getting flooded. And my profit margin is already, like I was saying, like, The university's doing like budget reports, and they do it every year. All these specialists fill out like a budget report of how much it costs to produce an item, a commodity. A lot of these guys... This year, new. Going in, planting. I'm going to go in and plant and I'm losing money. I'm not going to make any. What's the incentive for somebody to do that? You mentioned clothing, cotton. We usually think agriculture just is what we eat, but it's so much fiber is an important thing, you know, being able to have good clothes. Think of wool. People are out there raising sheep. They have the ability to do that. I don't have the ability to do that. But then to complain that the government has given incentives to people that are willing to go out and do this hard manual labor. I'll tell you what my dad does. He wakes up probably at before 6 o'clock every morning, eats breakfast, and then he's out the door 7 o'clock going And he's out there, comes back at 12, eats a sandwich, and then he's out there till, he gets done, usually probably 7, 8 o'clock. Working all day. He's...

He doesn't take weekends off.

Yeah, and he doesn't take weekends off. He's doing it every day. Why should a farmer get sales tax exemption? Kind of, you know, kind of run through we're not able to, not everyone's able to grow food. Someone's willing to grow the food or fiber that we're going to be wearing or eating. I'm not having to do that. I can focus my efforts into something else, but I know somewhere out there somebody's working hard to, you know, raise food for me. I can at least be appreciative, what, appreciative?

Is that how you say it?

Appreciative of what they're doing. Okay. let's say you're not. You don't think they deserve it. Well, let's say that all that went away. Well, the price is probably for food's definitely going to go up.

Well, I would think it would sort of return to what it had been, which was you're limited to what you can grow for yourself. And that's not going to be a lot of beef cattle. You're not going to be eating that.

You're not going to be eating steak. You're not going to be.

Eating a lot of chicken if you have them. you're probably going to have to grow corn to feed those chickens. I mean, you're going to be limited to what you can do in our little area. You're not going to be getting to eat some of our favorite things like rice and, you know, avocados and almonds and those things that grow in different parts.

And then, yeah, coming back to kind of where I started with my point is I pulled up the census of agriculture in 2022, used in Stone County as an example, number of farms, how many would you guess? What if I said in 2017, there were like 536 farms? How many do you think there are now?

I would think about the same.

About the same. It says that our changes actually went down to there's 446 farms now. Let me also read so and the land of acres and farm and farming acres in Stone County alone has also dropped by 11%. But it says the average size of farm, it has increased 5%. So some of those guys got out of it. Some of them kind of consolidated some land.

But overall, the land is less.

The land and acres producing agricultural products is less. And that's just in Stone County, Arkansas.

I wouldn't have thought it would have been that much here.

Yeah. Well, let's think about that. We're just rolled into the new year. Time's passing by pretty quick. We've established that. Let's look at the...

We'll be retiring next year when we're 70.

Overall number of producers by age 805. Okay. How many of them are under 35, you think?

30.

A little more, 83.

83, okay.

That's more than I thought.

Yeah, because I'm just thinking of the few I know.

35 to 64 years of age.

So there was 800.

And 5.

I would say about 600.

376 on 35 to 64 year olds. But now here's the.

How many?

Here's the kicker that are older than 65.

Which is my mom.

And my dad.

And I can think of several.

Yeah.

So I'm is that I guess?

A lot of the farmers that I deal with 346.

Wow.

Over 65.

So man, the next 10 years is going to be change, change, change.

The trend is that when they sell out, kids come in. I don't really, you know, I'm not into it. I've decided I've wanted to go do something else with my life. I don't want to.

I know of an individual where say a farmer is selling their farm to someone else other than their children just so that it'll remain a farm. because of how things are properties getting divided up and I can understand that.

Yeah, because I mean, what are the kids going to do with it is likely if they're not interested in running the farm, well, we're going to sell it anyway. But who's going to pay the most? Likely somebody's going to come in and say, oh, I have the ability to buy it with the intention of I'm going to divide it up into lots and build houses on it.

It's just, I understand it's your property, you do what you want. I'm all about it. But it is really hard to see these beautiful family farms be pieced out.

Not just that, think about.

And that property and what its use was and should be.

There's only so much land that is agricultural land.

They're not making that anymore.

They're not making any more land. We need to as much as we can as a people, because again, I like to eat and that's been my point is you're not, most of us don't have the ability to grow.

Well, we want to be able to be afford to eat.

And we want to be able to afford to eat.

And I think we forget that. I mean, we do, it is hard when the grocery prices are higher than you want, but I personally, and I know there are people that are having to make those decisions, but What if we get into a point where we all have to decide?

Where we all have to decide.

Are we going to eat or are we going to do this? I mean, that's going to be really tough. And like I said, I understand there's people in that situation right now. But when the majority of us are in that situation, that's going to be very scary.

Yeah, so.

That's something to consider when you're calling people welfare queens.

Welfare queens is have the understanding that these people are working hard to grow food, fiber, products for other people. They're not getting the best price. They're dependent upon the market. And the market is controlled by supply and demand. Well, how the government's keeping that low is subsidizing these producers to maybe rest some land this year rather than grow a bunch of And then they get into the, say, those CRP programs where they leave it isolated. Well, it helps.

Hoping to prevent another dust bowl situation.

Yeah. And in that case, we're also able to control what the price should be. I'm not saying that's how it should be, but I'm saying that's how it is. And the reason they do that is to keep it low for all of us. there's more older farmers out there. Trend is there's not a lot of new farmers coming in.

Well, I think your new farmer looks different. Whereas maybe the older generation was able to do that as their full-time job, whereas now A lot of the younger farmers have multiple, either they're doing multiple things within a farm or they're having another job and they're farming.

That's exactly right. Most, I would argue, most of them have another job.

And that's where getting information in a different format, like we were hoping with this, will hopefully help those who aren't able to come to programs physically as easily because of those reasons.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was, I don't know. I just like that aggravated me and I wanted to talk about it. So the goal for this?

I think ignorance is just, it's tough.

The goal for this episode was hopefully you appreciate agriculture. I hope you, I don't, and I didn't do a good job probably explaining it like I should, because, but dad gum. I know most of us ain't, I'll call myself out. I don't want to go out there and spend all the time to even raise what I could in a year because I'm going to do, I want to do the fun things like most of us. And it takes.

Your dad doesn't do much fun stuff.

No, there's somebody that thinks farming is fun and they want to grow stuff and they're proud of it.

We want to keep them growing.

We want to keep them growing.

We had an individual today talking about suicide amongst farmers, and we had talked about that in another episode. And that kind of wording and commentary on social media towards someone who's working at that level and that hard to provide for people in this country. And then that's the comments they get.

Yeah.

You're not, they're forgetting that they're people. They're hardworking people. And it's not a corporation. There's an actual individual who's making these choices and doing these things and away from their family. And working and depending on the weather involved. the being able to help with weather and the uncontrollability of that, I just, I'm amazed.

My whole thought is if we can incentivize people to grow food, because a country that can't feed itself can't sustain itself. If we're, and again, A lot of people can't do it. You don't know how to do it, and you don't have the ability to do it.

Just takes one hailstorm to come through and destroy your crop for the season. And here in Stone County, we're not very far removed from a time where people were growing and raising their own food, and that's all they did. That's what you spent your whole year doing, is doing that. And my husband's grandpa was one who who tried very hard to raise everything they ate. And they had years where a strawberry crop, I think, got ruined and they weren't, they thought they were going to lose the truck they just bought. They solely depended on that strawberry crop to pay for their first vehicle, I think. And so he said, I think Marie were weren't. So, you know, do you want that level of stress on you? as a person. So why would you expect that for someone else if we can prevent it in order to feed our nation?

Feed our, and not just our nation, we export. And so.

We're keeping rice and other commodities going for people.

Yeah, it's, I don't know. We said.

I wonder if it's we're just hillbillies. We're hillbillies who appreciate who got access to farming who have a podcast and a microphone who grew up as farm kids who understand how frustrating it is to get up at 230 in the morning and a heifer's cabin and the stinking things breach and then you've got some keyboard warrior talking smack and they've never dealt with any of it.

They've never dealt with any of it and don't know couldn't probably They can comprehend what these guys are doing.

And so I feel like if they did know, I don't think they'd be saying that.

And you're talking about suicide. So what? And it's, these guys go out and they gotta, just to operate, probably gotta take out a 7 figure loan in hopes that I can grow enough of a crop to pay off the loan and have a little bit more to operate and maybe have a little bit to live on. And then one of those situations arise, a hailstorm.

Yeah, a flood, a hurricane comes up through Arkansas. a hurricane took out the power and my parents' generator didn't kick on immediately with their chicken houses and they can suffocate within a very short amount of time. They almost lost two houses of birds because of that. So it's like, that's a lot of, they're taking on a lot and to not appreciate that.

And not appreciate it and not want to help out, to act like they're getting something when they're definitely providing.

That guy was a buzzkill crick.

Buzzkill crick.

We're beating a horse now, I think.

So.

Well, someone's got to do it, I guess.

Yeah. Well, you got anything else?

Not really. I just, we're just trying to get back in it.

Yeah, I hope it's just, I'm still aggravated. And like guy coming in today and like laying a, worldwide problem are like how do we societal issue a societal issue?

That's how do we engage parents and how do we bridge the gap for youth?

Yeah.

And that is a harder question.

I don't know.

Because what is a thing to do that actually accomplishes it? Like that's what can we do here that we're not already doing? Because I've seen some gap bridging, but how do you consistently bridge that gap in your communities?

Yeah, I think let's start small.

Smart goals.

Smart goals. All right, we'll see you again, Shirley. Lord willing.

I was trying to laugh because I liked it. Lord willing.

Lord willing.

Lord willing in the creek don't rise.