Latest / AG Bull / AG Squawk | Davis Michaelsen | Chris Sherman | Farm Cybersecurity Basics

Transcript

AG Squawk | Davis Michaelsen | Chris Sherman | Farm Cybersecurity Basics · AG Bull

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: In our bold new digital world, there are equally emboldened digital criminals.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: I can barely figure out how to turn on my computer.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: So when it comes to security, it absolutely pays to bring in a professional.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Today, we'll talk tech support to keep the robots from destroying your life.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: From behind the big blue, bodacious microphone of Ag Bull, your pal Davis Michelson here with Ag Squawk in the afternoon.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually we're not quite at noon right now as we're taping this.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: About quarter after 11 Central Time.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna run through the market.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, howdy, have we got a zinger going today?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: But today's show, I think, is is really important as we become more technically, technologified.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: As technology becomes a bigger part of what we do each and every single day.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: There are new threats.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we know, okay, stay out of dark alleys at at midnight.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's an easy one.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, have you when you go to the airport, maybe put your wallet in your front pocket instead of your back pocket.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: We already have those things in mind.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: There are threats that that I don't even understand that you, as a computer user, as a technology user, may not yet understand.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, we've got someone who understands this from the agricultural perspective, Chris Sherman.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk to him in just a moment.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: But first, let's do take a look at the markets.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Corn, soybeans, and wheat were higher at the start of the day session today.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Winter wheat futures surging to double-digit gains quickly.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Cattle futures went the other way initially, but hog futures continued to work higher earlier today.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as always, you can get all the details, text alerts, daily info, and more at AgBull.com or call 855-737 Farm and become a subscriber to our premium side.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And side note, the crew over at EggBull have been busy this week with customers today, especially as the markets show a little life.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Rounding into showtime, corn and soybeans and wheat were all climbing.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Cattle futures were dropping and dropping hard, gang.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Although hogs were still in positive territory today.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Before I bring Chris Sherman in, as always, let me just peruse the markets quick.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Using my T5, my T4 software from plus 500, plus 500 gives us all of our real-time futures and options, quotes, and a host of other features right at our fingertips.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you're looking for the best, look no further than T4 from plus 500.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's plus 500.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with King Corn, the December contract.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Once again, here we're at 1119 and 39 seconds here, Central Time in Kansas City.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: December corn up eight and three quarters today.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: 484.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: How do you like them apples?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I got Novi beans.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Where are we at on the Novi beans?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Up 11.5, 1234 and a quarter.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Meal is higher, sharply higher, I would call it.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oil also pretty high, moderately higher, we're calling it.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And now let's look over to the wheats here.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Your Chicago December wheat up 26.5 cents this morning.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: 722.5 KC December wheat, uh, up 31 cents.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Man, look at the wheats go at 780 and a quarter.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now I mentioned the uh the cattle were struggling.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: They've they've come back from some of the early session lows already.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: October feeder cattle presently at about 11.20 central time.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: What'd I say?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: October, down uh 7.57 and a half, 332, even on your October feeder cattle, October Fed cattle down$2.97 and a half at$2.20.25.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, the cattle coming back from some of those early losses, but man, still down pretty hard on the day.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then the lean hogs.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the hogs go.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: They've been a source of strength for us this week.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's been inspiring, really.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: The August contract up only 15 cents, but still at 101.65.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Look a little further out to the D's up 90 cents here at 11.20 Central Time,$80.15 on your December lean hog futures contract.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: With that, I'm I'm very pleased to welcome Chris Sherman from TechSupport.farm.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Let's bring him on in here.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Chris, uh, great to see you.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Eggstalk.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's the first time that you and I have have talked, and so uh I'm very excited to get to know you just a little bit.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: How's everything?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Great, great.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Glad to hear it.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Techsupport.farm.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I should say, we here on the Ag Bowl team, we are we're no good at computers, we're no good at cybersecurity, and so we do we use your services to to keep us in check.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: If anything goes wrong or whatever, we know that we can we can count on you.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So just a little disclosure there for you beloved viewers.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I I would like for you to to talk to our viewers, just give us a super broad, we'll get into some specifics, but a super broad overview of tech support.farm, what you folks do.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I guess let's start with how long you been at this?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we've been at this since 2021, roughly.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I kind of quit my job right after COVID started, and we uh we started this.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, Tech Support Farm is basically an IT and cybersecurity company for agriculture.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: And our main focus is cybersecurity.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Ag is one of the top 10 industries in the United States being targeted by cybercrime.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that is our that is our mission for sure.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Was there a specific event that triggered you to think, hey, somebody should should be taking care of the world of agriculture on the cyber side?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Was there something that happened, or is it just something that you'd kind of been thinking about for a while?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's interesting that you asked that because it it just so happened that I suppose probably 12 years ago, 15 years ago, we were just starting to see technology coming online for agriculture, you know, especially in the way of telemetry and remote management.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember talking to some of the engineers back in, I suppose it had to have been like 2014, asking them about what their you know cybersecurity protocols were, how they were gonna protect, you know, people from getting, you know, their green monitoring systems, their irrigation systems, you know, robotics and that sort of thing from being hacked.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And back then everybody laughed and told me that that was not gonna ever be a thing.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: And sure enough, you know, I I think it was in 2022, you know, we saw the breach in Mankato, Minnesota, and I think it was the Spring Valley Cooperative was taken by ransomware, and they were locked out right at in the first week of harvest.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that really caught the federal government's attention.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: In those first couple years, though, nobody was paying attention.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody was really, everybody thought it was, you know, kind of this random idea and nobody was taking it seriously.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: But in the past, you know, three years, it has been a complete night and day difference.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's interesting when we think about adoption of different practices, different technologies on the farm.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there you've got your early adopters, and then you've got your well, maybe we'll try it, we'll see how it works over for the neighbors there.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: But at some point, having an extra measure of security, I think, really probably gives gives farmers a little bit of extra oomph into feeling a little bit more comfortable with new technologies.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is that fair?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: I would say to add on to that, the other aspect of this is we're an IT company as well.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so we help farmers across the United States really capitalize on the technology that they already have.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you think about all the all the software and technology that's packed into combines and planters and sprayers and all of our equipment in general across the farm.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And our job, our goal is to help you access and use that to its full potential.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: The cybersecurity side, yes, that does build confidence and that does, you know, kind of give you that peace of mind, but really it's a behind-the-scenes thing.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: You don't really see us, you don't really hear from us.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Our our main relationship with our farms and and our ag producers is really in that networking side.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: We make sure your computers are running properly, your cell phones, making sure you have good Wi-Fi and connectivity, cell signal strength, moving internet from one site to the next, really helping you maximize your your technology that's already at your fingertips.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just so that we get to know you, Chris, just a little bit better.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have have roots on the farm or did you just sort of choose the ag sector as a spot that needed extra help?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when I was, I think I was like 11 or 12, my very first job was on a dairy farm.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so three o'clock in the morning, my little brother and I would ride out, you know, probably two miles on our bicycles and go milk cows from three o'clock in the morning till whenever.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then we would do chores and milk again at three o'clock in the afternoon.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we, you know, I I've been in and out of ag most of my life, but probably for the past 20 years, I've I've been primarily agriculture.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: So previous to this, I used to run an irrigation construction company and a and a grain site, you know, a grain erection company as well.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we did commercial grain sites, you know, commercial irrigation.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we covered most of North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota, and that sort of thing.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say we've got I've your farm cred is well established, I would say.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's excellent.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's uh let's get into what you folks do.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: They say uh good fences make great neighbors.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking on your website, and it kind of looks like your services begin with what you call a fence check.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Just from your website here, this tool helps farmers and ag businesses quickly assess their digital vulnerabilities by answering a brief set of simple, relevant questions.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: You get a personalized risk report with clear, actionable insights.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to me about that fence check.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: What are you looking for?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: What do you, you know, how uh how often do you find stuff and you're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you've made it this far, you know?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, ironically, most farmers are not really, or most producers are not really thinking about their cybersecurity.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And fence check is kind of a play on words.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's the idea of going along the fence line looking for those holes, looking for the holes in your cyber defense.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and the thing is that it's very customized to the farm, right?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: We want to know, you know, are you row crop, are you dairy, are you poultry, you know, what operation are you kind of running, what software and what platforms are you using?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Are you in, you know, irrigation?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have dairy robotics?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: All of those kinds of things, because all of that really helps us better understand what kind of digital landscape you have and how we can best serve you and what areas you need to be focusing on.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: The big one that we see is guys are still running around with the old AOL, the hot mail email addresses, and and guys really need to get away from those emails.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: They need to be getting commercial domains with proper email filtration just because of the amount of data that we're pushing through and the sensitivity of it, whether it's you know, PLs and balance sheets that you're sending off to your banker, whether it's reporting to NRCS or or you know your insurance agents, whatever it is, all of that information, if you're using those free emails, those are the ones that we're seeing everybody really falling for.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, those emails are not secure and they're not intended for commercial grade applications.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, that's a that's a nugget right there.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of takes us into the list of services.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: We we can kind of walk down these one at a time here, once again on your website at techsupport.farm.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: But talk to us about a managed IT subscription.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: So a managed IT subscription, basically what we do is we provide the IT side and we provide the cybersecurity side.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And the IT side, uh, we will we can manage your your network completely.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that means your Wi-Fi, we can make sure that you know we're watching the traffic going in and out, making sure that you don't have people that are on your Wi-Fi that shouldn't be.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we make sure you're getting best signal strength, you know, out in the shop and out in the barn, making sure your dryer is, you know, properly connected.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, your your normal internet service provider is going to want to charge you for, you know, the internet at the house and then the internet at the shop and the one down the road.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: What we can do is we can provide you those, it's basically point-to-point bridges that moves the internet from one site to the next.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: So you're you're paying one bill.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're here to provide cost savings and and the best connectivity available.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then on top of that comes the cybersecurity.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll set up your email, we'll make sure that you've got proper software on different computers.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And we, you know, we're really the type of company that we want to know what your operation is so that we can provide the correct pieces and the right tools.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Not everybody needs all those, you know, all the different fancy tools.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so we that's why we really want to get to know you as a customer and and have a better understanding of what your operation is.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where that fence check comes in.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, you can help you you mentioned those free email, the hotmail and yeah, such like that.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can you can help customers to get off of that, but not only that, you can help them set up the their tech, their connectivity on their tech on their farm.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then, oh man, the dryer won't work, or it won't print, or it won't won't hook up.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: They can get back in touch with you guys and you can help them figure it out and say, oh, yeah, well, you gotta you gotta click this box or or whatever it might be.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Am I hearing that right?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: To a certain extent, it is really important to understand that we're not here to replace the relationship that you have with your with your dealerships for your dryers or your irrigators or or any piece of equipment, but we are here to facilitate and help those individuals.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we get calls from you know technicians all the time about you know the network and you know what they can do differently.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: We're here to help facilitate and make it easier to use your infrastructure for sure.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: But we're not here to replace those relationships and steal business from those guys.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I started off talking about, you know, this guy can help keep the robots from destroying your life.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: But we're not really talking about robots here.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about hackers who have ill intent, who are trying to make a living by sneaking into people's computers, stealing their information, maybe financial information, all sorts of sensitive information there.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: You were talking just off-air here before we started about uh sort of a two-pronged approach that you all have.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: One one piece is sort of like a security guard, the other piece is kind of like a security camera.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Can you go into the give us just the light nuts and bolts of the security services that you guys are involved in?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it used to be that security, uh cybersecurity was like Norton antivirus or something like that.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now, cybersecurity, we liken it to home security, right?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Back in the 70s, it might be your shotgun and a porch light and your dog.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, now you've got dead bolts and security cameras, you've got floodlights, you've got all different types of alarms.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Cybersecurity is much the same way.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: And the way that we approach it, we have a couple different major tools.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: One is called EDR or endpoint detection and response.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Another one is called managed detection and response.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh EDR is essentially the security camera inside of your network.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's watching the traffic, it's looking for those different anomalies that are happening.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then MDR, which is the managed detection and response, that is really the security guard.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's a combination of artificial intelligence and human, you know, you know, analysts.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not like they're actually inside of your network.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: They're looking at the they're looking at the traffic that's going through and they're looking for behavioral patterns that are red flags.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then they're also scanning for viruses, malware, bioware, uh, any of those kinds of things.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: So the best way I can say it is we provide all of the tools that are applicable to you, and and we really try to steer people away from tools that they don't necessarily need.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like if you were driving through the countryside and you saw your neighbor, uh, he's got bars on his windows and his doors.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: You don't necessarily need that on the countryside, right?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: You if you got a double white trailer, you're probably not going to need a sump pump alarm.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so we really don't want to be putting, you know, the tools and and those applications on those guys that they don't necessarily need it.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what fence check is really there to do is help us determine what exactly you need to protect your operation.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: You must have gone to school for this, or did you did you did you pick pick all this up on did you watch a YouTube video and figure out how to do all this stuff?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Or how'd you figure all this out?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: I am a product of the 80s, and I I definitely I have a little bit of schooling on this, but most of it is definitely hands-on training.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, my staff is definitely smarter and more intelligent than I am, so that's but all of us have ag backgrounds, and so you know, when we're talking, you know, your tech guys, most people think of some you know, nerdy guy in an office.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Our guys, you know, have backgrounds in ag, whether it's dairy or or poultry, row crops, they've grown up on the farm and they went out and they got a background in cybersecurity in college.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of people that we work with.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right, very good.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna skip one here, but I notice on your website you you talk about cameras and as a part of the of the security sort of setup that that you bring to the farm.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us about cameras on the farm.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: What do they pick up?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Are they just filming the whole time?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do they film everything?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: If a raccoon walks by, is an alarm gonna go off?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to us about cameras and security, please.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so there's a couple different things.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like one application that we have is we do have customers that like to have the cameras on the insides of their barn so they can hear the animals, they can see the animals, you know, whether it's poultry or whether it's, you know, cattle or dairy, you know, whatever kind of livestock it is.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Those cameras are really nice to have live feeds and and just get kind of a you know, an instantaneous live look of what's actually happening inside of those facilities.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the other one is obviously just basic security.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: You want to, you know, watch your bulk tanks and your fuel tanks, make sure nobody's filling up when they shouldn't be.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, our our cameras do have license plate readers on them, they do have facial recognition technology.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's really useful, especially from a security standpoint.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe you have a disgruntled, you know, farmhand from a year or two ago.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you can put him into your database, and if he even pulls up in the driveway, the camera will alert you that you know, Bob has shown up and and you should go take care of that kind of a thing.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it it provides physical security for your farm, but then also monitoring for your for your animals or or whatever you want to monitor.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty cool.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and so you can you can wire all that so that when I'm sitting in my office and it's 12 below outside, I can watch, I can sit by my fireplace with my laptop or at my desk and and keep an eye on things.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: We have we have some very crazy setups out there.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: We've got one where they're just watching a shed that has, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of supplies and equipment in it.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And we've actually beamed the internet from that shed out to center pivots and we are and we move it up to the 120 on a drain tile pump.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so cars are driving down the road a mile and a half away out in the middle of nowhere, and they have no idea that there's a camera that's watching them and tracking, you know, whether they're gonna end up going back to that, you know, that supply shed or not.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: They don't realize that, you know, the farmer already is aware of that, you know, a mile or two uh, you know, before they even get there.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: So the setups that we do are really crazy.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: We've had one in Nevada where they were watching the uh water level on a on an irrigation canal, and there was no electricity, no Wi-Fi, no nothing.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: And basically we set up a really nice solar setup and have Wi-Fi beamed out there from another facility, and you could see it in real time.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: You could see the water levels, you could see where the gate was at, the grade sticks and all of that.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: So from a monitoring perspective, it's really, really important.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: But then the way we get and make the, you know, make that application actually come to life is is very creative and it's it's a case-by-case basis.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and speaking of case-by-case basis out on the farm, you know, from from one section to the next, connectivity in general can be sketchy sometimes at the very best.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Have you got a way to kind of deal with that?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we are a Verizon corporate partner, and so we do provide Verizon devices and we have access to like level two or level three tier service.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have issues with like your cell tower and you're not getting good signal strength, we can enter, we can step in for you and kind of you know negotiate on your behalf, improve that.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we sell a ton of Starlink devices, especially mobile devices, so that we can put them on planters and cedars and and harvesters.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: We've got uh pickups, pickups out in the middle of like eastern Washington, uh, where cell signal strength is really poor.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody out there seems to live on on Starlink.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we sell all of that and and install.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's excellent.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: From a deep scar that that lingers from my childhood.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: We raised sheep and you know the the joke is among sheep producers they wait until the coldest night in February that they can possibly find to drop their lambs.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do you also offer services, or maybe I'm getting off the page here a little bit?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because really I I feel like your your gut slot is security.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, we would have to get up a couple times a night if we had a had a you that was that was showing real good and walk out there, you know, no matter what the weather.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Can can you help folks out on that level as well?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I mean that's where your cyber or that's where your security cameras come into play.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you if you put those cameras into your facilities, it's easier for you to just jump on the camera, you know, right from your, you know, the comfort of your own bed and uh make sure that you know nobody, none of them are going into labor.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: At the same time, too, we can put in, we can tie those in with environmental sensors so we can see whether the water is frozen or we can see what the temperature is in that brooding in that brooder barn, we can see, you know, whether doors have have been left open or closed and those kinds of things.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that from a monitoring perspective, it's really, really important.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: The other aspect of this that I I guess I would, you know, really lean into with your audience is that our systems are are all protected, they're all managed in the United States, and so from an agro-terrorism, you know, kind of concern, all of our stuff is very well secured and and nobody has access to it but you let me ask you this because you mentioned your partnership with the cell company.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I guess I could take my laptop into the into the bedroom with me, but can you can you get so that those cameras show up on my phone?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Can I absolutely 100%?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's handy.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's awfully handy.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, you've got quite the deal going on over there, Chris.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, yeah.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: I guess my my final question before we move on here, you're in West Fargo, North Dakota.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is there an East Fargo, North Dakota?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, everybody asks that there's a Fargo and a and a West Fargo, but there's also a Moorhead, and that's in Minnesota, and we don't really talk about them very often.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay, yeah.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you wouldn't claim Moorhead as as East Fargo, then is that what I mean?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that is across the river for sure.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: So well, you mentioned Nevada, I believe, just a few minutes ago.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: You so you're you're not confined just to the the greater West Fargo area.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: What is what is your reach look like?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: How far will you go to install some of these systems?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: We are across the contiguous US.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: We've got customers in, I think, like 23 to 25 states, and we are we're really out there.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: It, you know, I I would say like right now, we have an office in New York state, and so that's where I am at right now.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, most of the time I am traveling somewhere in the United States, and then we have install teams that you know will help out around the country.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: We've, I mean, we're on the east coast, we're on the west coast, we're up and down the you know, central Midwest.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Really, our our one spot that we haven't quite tapped into is the deep, deep south, but that is definitely on the horizon in the next you know 12 to 24 months.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the longer we talk, Chris, this sounds like a humongous operation over at TechSupport Top Farm.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: You mind if I ask how many people you got working for you?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Currently we're about a, I suppose probably about 12 to 16.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're kind of in a transition right now.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: We, you know, we definitely had a lot of security partners that we were contracting with, but now we're going through a process of bringing it all in-house.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we have one facility with all of our staff, and then we have you know deployed staff that goes around the country for us.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, excellent, excellent.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're gonna move on and talk about the weather and do some nonsense here in just a moment.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: But before we do, I just want to give you give you another chance to to shout out techsupport.farm.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: What have we missed here that you want people really, really to know about, or what do you what do you want to bring to our attention?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think the the biggest things that I would say is in addition to making sure you have commercial great emails, beef up those passwords.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: That is the that is the second thing that you can do.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure that they are at minimum of 12 digits or 12 characters in length.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: You need upper and lower case numbers, special characters.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Use a password manager.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and like Tommy was saying before the show, MFA and 2FA, game changers for sure.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Those are steps that you can take right away to protect yourself and do a better job.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Tech support.farm.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's how people people find a little more information.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Techsupport.farm.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right, with that, you know, you were you mentioned you you had some roots in farming.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want to take you there just a little bit.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Here on Axquac, it's a uh backyard itis approved zone.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm not asking for agronomics, I'm not asking for numbers.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Really, I I just wonder as as you drive around North Dakota, maybe up there if you're in some farm country in New York State, are the are the crops brown or green?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: How does it look?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: How has the growing season been going uh for the farmers that you interact with?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, last week I spent a lot of time in North Dakota and up and down the Red River Valley.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: It is definitely interesting south of the interstate, south of 94.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Things are are definitely maturing a lot faster.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: I saw it, you know, corn is definitely tasseled.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: We've got, you know, up north towards the Cavalier area.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: They got, I want to say, guys were telling me 14 inches of rain in the past 30 days.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: It is wet.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's starting to dry out now.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: They're starting to get back out there and spray, but everybody's heavily reliant on aerial right now.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: But if you went further west towards like north central, crops are looking absolutely incredible.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Things are are great out there.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's optimal for sure.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: So outstanding.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I saw somewhere 100 degrees in the uh Argo area today.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: Last week was last week was definitely 100 and I want to say three or a hundred and five, somewhere in there.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's not normal for North Dakota, is it?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: It it's definitely warm.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think they get an average of maybe like five days a year that are over 100, five to seven days.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the National Weather Service says dangerous heat will expand from the Gulf Coast into the southern plains and desert southwest through week's end.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Additional extreme heat impacting the Pacific Northwest.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Wildfires up in Oregon taking over.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that'll shift to the northern plains by the weekend.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Tropical storm Bertha is expected to continue to impact portions of the northern Gulf Coast from the western Florida panhandle to southeastern Louisiana through tonight.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Chris, with that, we've come to the part of the show where I like to offer our guests some items of mild interest.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Can I interest you in uh being mildly interested, perhaps?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, today is what is it, July 22nd, on this day in 1893.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Catherine Lee Bates wrote America the Beautiful after admiring the view from the top of Pike's Peak near Colorado.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful views around our great nation.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: June 22nd, 1943, Steve Rogers was injected with the Super Soldier Serum and becomes Captain America.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: About 25% of the film Jaws was shot from water level, so audiences could better relate to treading water.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Have you seen Jaws?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I I don't know.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Jaws changed me.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if I'm in a lake, if I can't see, like if I'm swimming in a lake and I can't see my knees, I'm I'm just convinced that Jaws is after me and there's absolutely no escaping it.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: The final item here.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where it gets super unfair, Chris.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Every day I like to commit what we call uh an agbol injustice.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: You are victim.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: You are today's victim.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, today is Pie Approximation Day.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's, you know, obviously 314 is pie day.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure how today got to become Pi Approximation Day, but that does bring us to today's egg bolt injustice.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, completely unfair.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna ask you a question that I can't even answer myself, and that's just what makes it so darn unfair.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've got the first 40 digits of pie written here.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I copied them, I didn't write them, I copied them here.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, the actual value of pi somehow is infinite, but I'm just curious how many digits of pi can you name?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: Would you like to give it a try?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: How I sure would.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: My injustice was I was gonna Google it, but I would say I know that it's 3.149, I think it's 952.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's about as far as I can get.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Very close.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna we're gonna call that a an absolute win.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Chris.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually 3.141592.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: But no, you know what?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: We'll make it an injustice and call it right.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Works for me.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's today's Egg Bull Injustice.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 40.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was thinking, you know, if we're running short on time, I could I could read them all, but I don't I don't know if anybody wants to see that.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like the report in school where you just kept writing very, very, very, very.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: You fill out your 500 words.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly it.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good strategy.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: A good strategy.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Chris, it's been a fascinating conversation.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to check in with you again sometime soon and just see how it's going.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Chris Sherman from TechSupport.farm.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Techsupport.farm.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for spending some time with us.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to get to know you, buddy.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, one thing I would throw out there too is if you guys uh are down at Ag PhD next week, we'll be there.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be speaking and we'll have a booth inside one of the buildings.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And hefty field day.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, Ag Bowl will have a contingent down there as well.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, maybe uh maybe we'll say hello and shake hands and get to know each other.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds like a plan.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: It sure does.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: It sure does.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we've sort of brushed over the markets.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, settlements are a few hours off here.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's just coming up on high noon here in Kansas City Central Time.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: The uh the thing is, we can catch you up on the markets and all the things that you need to know on that side today and every day at Agbol.com.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Take your marketing by the horns with Agbol Intel, Agbol.com or give us a call at 855-737 Farm.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's 855-737 FA, followed by the letters R and M.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: And thanks to Trade the News for keeping my whole squad on top of what's moving the markets.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: News you can trust, news you can use, trade the news, that's trade the news.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Jed Sidwell back first thing in the morning, and I'll be back tomorrow afternoon with Brian Hoops from Midwest Marketing Solutions.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great evening, be well, and we'll see you again real soon, everybody.