Latest / AG Bull / Ag Squawk | Davis Michaelsen | Chad Leman | How a Midwest Farm Grows By Hitting Singles

Transcript

Ag Squawk | Davis Michaelsen | Chad Leman | How a Midwest Farm Grows By Hitting Singles · AG Bull

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: After yesterday's explosive downdraft, the markets hit the uncle button for a total turnaround Tuesday.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: As the markets work to recover, it seems like maybe we should sort of look away for just a moment and let them do their thing.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Let them gather themselves together.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: My guest today and I will talk about the base hit method of growing a farm.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: From behind the big blue, bodacious microphone of Ag Bull in Kansas City, USA.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Ag Squawk in the afternoon, everyone.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Davis Michelson, the handsome newsman, here with you.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is going to be a good one.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: I've been looking forward to this.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: I've done my research and everything on this one, and it's very exciting.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, he's it made him a little uncomfortable.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: We were talking about it ahead of the show just a little bit.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Chad Layman and myself from Lehman Farms over in central Illinois, but there's a story out there about him, and I doggone, I found it inspiring.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great message, and I'm looking forward to to digging into some of his story and some of the issues that are at the top of his mind because he's got something figured out here, folks.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: And there's there's something to be learned from the way that he does things and the way that he looks at his farm.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Your operation may not be able to use the exact same practices, but the principles are certainly there.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I want to get to on today's program with Chad Layman.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Some housekeeping here.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to do just a couple of shout outs, a quick ag squawk shout out.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Jordan made it to the end of yesterday's ag squawk.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Jordan's a glutton for punishment.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was a short one, though.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Mercifully short.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out to Jordan for making it to the end of Ag Squawk.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: He popped up in the comments.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, as did Luke.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate you, Luke.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: From yesterday's comments section as well.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out to y'all both from Ag Squawk.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Quick programming note on Friday.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is important.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I've been going back and forth with Wiesmeyer all day.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to have him on the show Friday afternoon.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's no telling what all we'll get into.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually do have my Ag Bowl official timepiece.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you caught me in Wiesmeier last time, I threatened that I was going to get an egg timer and with a little bell that dings when it's time to move on.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: I've got it right here.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's within arm's reach.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: But China has started auctioning their grain reserves.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I've heard that talked about a lot in my years watching the markets, reporting the news on the markets, and really never quite understood how to take that news.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Jim took me to school today and kind of gave me the ins and outs of, well, here's the here's why it could be a bearish scenario.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Here's why it could be a bullish scenario.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: These are the implications.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to share that with you.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: That'll be coming up on Friday's show.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm traveling tomorrow.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thursday, I'll be at Ag PhD Hefty Field Day up in beautiful South Dakota.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a full week.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's a full week.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get on to the to the markets.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: We got a daily sale, 197,000 metric tons of corn to unknown destinations for 2627.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: The crop condition report, corn and soybeans rated good to excellent, each behind last year's crop condition numbers for the same week, although maturity's still running ahead of schedule.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Spring wheat rated good to excellent, lower on the week, but higher than year ago, and winter wheat harvested just ahead of the year ago pace.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: So as far as today's markets, here's how the tail of the tape unwinds.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Corn and soybeans were higher to start the day.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Corn futures led gains.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Winter wheat was mixed but mostly higher, and livestock futures worked higher to chip away at yesterday's sharp losses.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Those feeder cattles were some of those contracts limit down.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: It got a little ugly in the feeder cattle yesterday.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, WTI crude continued lower this morning, although less aggressively than yesterday.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Deferred feeder contracts flipped into negative territory as fats and lean hogs held on to moderate gains.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Rounding out of the lunch hour, corn was holding on to about nickel gains, beans, early session highs.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: But like corn maintained a nickelish gain, Chicago wheat fractionally higher, and KC wheat fell to three cents down.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm watching the markets today and every day on plus 500.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: We use plus 500 T4 software every day for real time quotes and more.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Don't get left behind.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Track the markets in real time with plus 500.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Does that rhyme?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Don't get left behind.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Track the markets in real time with plus 500.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think it rhymes.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna I'm gonna chalk it up as a rhyme.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out to me for writing poetry.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: So let's look at those closes.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start with December corn.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Settled out the day at 480 and one half, up six and a half cents on the day.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Novi beans at 1220, even up six and one quarter.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Soybean meal was was higher.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Bean oil, about the same amount, lower by percentage on the day.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Your Chicago wheat, look at the December at 679 and three quarters, up two and a quarter cents on the day.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Over to the December KC wheat down three and a half on the day to settle out at 742 even.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And over to the livestock, October feeder cattle, up$1.57 and a half at$326.82.5.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: The November, however, though, the deferred contracts kind of lost it.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: The November contract was down to buck 22 and a half at$3.19.80.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Over to the October fat cattle.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent day here.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: $3.40 higher on your October fat cattle,$2.22.17 and a half.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that strength goes quite a ways out into the deferred contracts.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's October Lean Hog Futures up 47.5 cents to 88.27 and 12.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: With that, let me bring in my guest, very excited to bring in Chad Laban from Laban Power.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Chad, we've been in the same orbit in previous programs, other places, but I think this is the first time that I've been able to sit down and talk to you nose to nose.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really glad to have the opportunity.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're an incredibly busy guy.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: You got a lot going on.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I appreciate you taking the time to be with us here on Ag Squawk, brother.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's so good to talk to you today.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're right.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: We've we've been around the edges on on a similar conversation before, but never directly.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for for having me on today, Davis.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to talk with you.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we'll get into the details, but maybe maybe you know this about me.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: I like to start with a nice broad view.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Talk to me about layman farms.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: This could take a while.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Give me the bullet points on layman farms, what you guys do, what's your operation look like, dude?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we can make it pretty quick.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Typical Midwest corn and soybean farm with quite a few hogs to feed.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we we market about 120,000 pigs a year.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: All of our corn plus some gets fed to pigs.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: My dad is still uh somewhat active on the farm, not in any of an advisory role anymore because of his wishes.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: But and my daughter, my oldest daughter, Tess, is back on the farm as well with us.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we've got a fantastic group of employees.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's about 10 of us here, and and they could just keep this place running.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of a quick rundown of Lehman Farms.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, as it happens, I have a daughter, Tess, as well.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: She's a librarian by trade, but uh we we both got Tesses to deal with.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: You must be very proud of your daughter.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm gonna reference this, viewers, from time to time.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's Reagan and Massey's Farms of America, season two, episode five, Layman Farms.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's on YouTube, Farms of America, Reagan and Massey's Farms of America.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely worth a look.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: It it starts kind of at a good starting point, I think, for us.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: When you graduated high school, you were like, I would do the farm, but but not with the hogs.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: You get as as I recall, you told your dad something along the lines of you get rid of those hogs, then I'll come back to the farm.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: And now, and now here you are.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: You're a major hog producer.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us the the story of that metamorphosis.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, what it taught me is you should never say never.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Your your words can come back to bite you, but uh I just didn't care for the pigs growing up.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: You you know, raising corn and beans was was much more uh palatable to me than the pigs.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: The pigs are are a seven-day uh a week job, as you know.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was coming out of high school in the early 90s, there was a lot of hog farms around our area, and and frankly, the the Midwest.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's just a lot of 150 sow to 200 sow farms with faro to finish all on the same site.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I I just I just didn't care for it.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't, and I didn't go to college.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: I went, I went, I thought, well, I needed to fill this cowboy desire.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so I moved out to Idaho right after high school and worked out there, making$500 a month plus room and board.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess I have too much German in me to make that little a money for long, realizing I I better start doing something with my life.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: So then I came back to the farm and and I realized quickly that the pigs fit in pretty well to the overall business of raising corn and soybeans.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I would say, you know, and yours is an interesting operation because in some ways it's old school in that you're walking that that crop off the farm on on four legs, but you you're utilizing technologies to help you really hone in on the details, and that's kind of where where I want to talk about base hits and hitting singles.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: In that video, you called yourself the the Pete Rose of farm marketing, and uh I'm being told Guillermo says, Yes, it's okay to mention Pete Rose again.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Hitting singles, what is talk to me about the details because you're grinding your own feed, and you know, we're well, there's about 500 micron grind here, and tell me about all of the details and how all of that works together uh to make your little ecosystem work.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Davis, it's when you you know, raising corn and beans, we use a lot of advanced technology.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the tractors are all steering themselves, yield monitors and combines, and exact apply on the sprayers and and all of that, but raising pigs is still very manually labor intense.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that our production manager and our contract growers and employees are still taking care of pigs much the same way you know I did when I first came back to the farm.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there's there's more controls in the barns and and so forth, but in terms of identifying pigs that need treating, identifying you know what weight pigs are, when they're ready to ship, it's still it still looks very similar, but they're but the technological advances have really come in the form of marketing.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think that that marketing is what has weeded out many of the hog producers.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of them that are no longer in business reference 1998, which was just everybody remembers 98 in the hog business because pigs were worth eight cents that year, and you couldn't give away a pig.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that just weeded out of a lot of producers, and it really my dad had said you when when I came back to the farm, you really have to concentrate on learning markets and try to and try to get good at that because he said, I'm never gonna be good at it, I don't like it.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I I did focus on that.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked with the same company for 25, 26 years on that side of our business.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess to my reference about Pete Rose Davis, I I didn't think about I didn't think about the gambling part of that when I said that.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was just thinking, you know, he's he's Charlie Hustle.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he he'd he'd hustle out every ground ball to try and he tried to stretch singles into doubles, and and I just said that's my marketing plan is is just trying to get these base hits to stay in business because if I swing for the fences, I I just I'm just gonna I'm just gonna strike out.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So so that was my reference to Pete Rose, but but I I didn't quite think through that before I said it.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think you're good.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're good.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: When when you took over the operation from your dad, and I imagine he's still he's got to be involved.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how could he how could he keep away?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: You can't you can't keep a guy like that away from the farm.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Was was he doing this sort of circular, you know, walk it off the farm concept as well?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Is that is that where that came from?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: You're keeping that tradition going, or one day did you get hit by lightning and you're just like, you know what, we'll feed them our corn.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: How did that work?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: That was we ever since I remember as a little kid, we were grinding feed here, an old artsway grinder, PTO grinder.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: We were we were feeding our corn to pit to pigs.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Soybean meal was being brought in.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we've always done that.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think what what you know what it just we we scaled this thing, we got bigger, and we didn't get big fast.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: We just we just grew slowly, but you start to realize, especially after in 1998, you start to realize how much risk you have.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when dad was a kid, he would say, you know, they just sold some corn when they needed to pay bills, they sold some pigs, but now, you know, I'm selling pigs out into June of 2027 right now on the board, and those pigs won't even be born till December.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're just you you just have so much more risk, you're playing with more zeros, and your your employees and your growers are all counting on you to still be in business next year.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I you know that's that's a little bit how the business has changed over the years.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: You go wean to finish, so you're not doing any farrowing at all over there?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we have we have three different sow farms, and they are main two in Indiana, one in I one in uh western Illinois, and and they're managed for us.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we still own the sows, but we're not taking care of the day-to-day on those sow farms.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're getting a weaned pig, so about a three-week old pig at 14 or 15 pounds, placing them in barns from there to market.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious about I know what you mean.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was a boy, but we had hogs on the farm that I grew up on.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was granddad's farm, but we lived there, and they were always out there grinding feed in the corn crib.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I feel like I I would recognize some of the smells.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: I worked in a co-op uh, you know, during a summer bag and feed when I was in college.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: You must have some sort of special recipe that you've you've been tweaking over the years.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Don't you don't have to share it with us, but that there had to have been some trial and error in there.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, for sure.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that there's any secrets in this business anymore when it comes to to nutrition.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, all of us are working with nutritionists on formulating the feed.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And every day you're looking at what's corn price, what's soybean meal price, what's DDGs, what's bakery, all these ingredients that are going in, and and you're and you're tweaking the you're tweaking the rations accordingly because the the name of the game is is how cheaply can you put a pound of gain on a pig.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, you referenced like corn grind micron size earlier.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what we've learned is that really matters on digestibility, and it can make a difference between uh you know 50 cents a pig or something like that, if if you don't get it right.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so you you just sort of got this thing dialed in as tight as you can.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're still dealing with an animal that can get sick and die, and so so nothing is nothing is guaranteed as you know, but I mean you just try to run it as tight as you can because it's just such a low margin business.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: My uh maybe you can help me out a little bit, Chad.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Since I since I crossed over to a five-handle on my age, I've noticed that my rate of gain is is off the chart.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have a recipe that could maybe take me the other way, like minimize the rate of gain just a little?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because I could really use that sort of help.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny, it's funny you say that during COVID when all of a sudden we couldn't ship pigs.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: We put pigs on uh what we called our uh corn calcium diets because you you had to completely change your thinking.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we can't let these pigs gain weight.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we put them on holding diets, which was basically just corn and calcium, and you'd see if you could keep them from putting on weight just so they didn't get too big.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I used to, I told people, hey, if you if you need a plan for for a for just uh holding your weight and not not gaining anything, we we've sort of looked into this on the pig side of things.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's called a holding diet, Davis.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: A holding diet.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I need.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: A holding diet.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't need to be, you know, my underwear modeling days are over, they're done.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, nobody wants to see that.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I could just hold, that would be good.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: That'd be good.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I want to move on to a couple of the issues of the day.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to get too personal here, but you you're very uh forthright, and we really, really appreciate your your bank of knowledge.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: I want to go back to that succession, that time when you began to take on a greater role in the farm.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I wonder, you know, how did your the generation before you set you up for that?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: And if anything, as you look at at Tess and those to come after you, what what examples have you had in helping get them set up for successful succession?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a good question.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's and I know it's not a one size fits all, so I I'll I'll submit this with all humility.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: But uh one thing dad was really good at was as soon as he saw that I was ready to take something over, he he readily turned it over to me.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he I took over all the planting at a at a fairly early age.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: He was he was the youngest of four boys, so I think he was used to getting probably bossed around.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: So he didn't have any problem turning it over to me and and letting me run with it.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And as we referenced earlier, the same with the marketing.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean there would be a lot of dads, including me, who would be very reluctant to turn over that important part of a business to the next generation.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: But he realized and you know, he recognized he just wasn't going to be good at that.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: So so he turned it over.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say it's one of the things I've really been working on with Tess is she sits in on all the calls with me when it when it comes to working with our marketing group to just try and understand it.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's complex, it's as Tommy would would tell you many times.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's it's just complicated and it's hard for people to understand.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I do try to include her in all of that.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: But so I think that I I would just encourage other uh uh dads as they're turning their turning some of the reins over to the next generation, yeah give give them a little bit of room to breathe and let them let them make a few mistakes, but you can you can kind of keep a handle on things at the same time, but uh is there's just nothing nothing better than just doing it yourself with your own money.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And sort of one one little nugget of wisdom, leave it better than than you found it.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that you know, I I think that's something that can drive us all when we're thinking about the next generation to leave something better than we found it.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Agree.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: I I know it can sound like a platitude, but uh it is just something that grandpa and dad always reinforce with us is is whether it's big or small, just try to leave it better than you found it.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're whether you're just taking a 40-acre field and trying to improve it, whatever it is, just try to try to leave it for the next generation a little bit better.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: So so we keep trying to do that.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: We don't always get it right, but but we keep trying.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: On to a few issues, you listed out some things that you wouldn't mind talking about, and I'll be honest, since you and I were last on the same program, I had uh about three months that got a little foggy in there.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: I knew where I was going, but you know, I just I kind of looked away for a little bit, and I was grateful for that period of time.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think we all kind of need that every once in a while, and you know, it it didn't look like it was going to at first, but it worked out pretty sweet, and now here we are.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: But you've got you've got a ton of pigs running around there, phytosanitary issues, disease issues, and things.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder if you can talk to us about PERS, please.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: PERS has just been a what a third 25, 30 year problem in this industry.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a respiratory and reproductive syndrome within within pigs, and it's just deadly.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this I would say this past winter is the worst winter I've seen personally.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think Illinois, Indiana, Ohio would all stay.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have just not been able to get a handle on.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: We would take we had three-fourths of our sows broke with PERS this winter.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And on these sow farms that were producing 2,500 weaned pigs a week, we had five or six weeks of zero.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's, you know, obviously financially it's it's it's a major problem.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: But what's really tough is is you have you have all these workers that have to go in and deal with this day in and day out.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it it just becomes such a drain on them to be to be taking care of sick pigs and and you know, dragging out dead pigs.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's something as an industry we continue to work on, but boy, for all of the biosecurity we have on our farms anymore, we have just not been able to get ahead of this one.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I don't I don't have any answers for what it looks like, but I I think it it's just something that your listeners have probably heard of, you know, some noise in the background and and just just bring it to light a little bit for them.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: You like those Durok boars.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they say they taste better.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: They say the pork tastes better with Duroc sire.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: So all of our all of ours are Duroc sired, but boy, they're lean.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're lean.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: The the consumer continues to want a lean product, and uh some people would say we've we've bred some of the taste out of this pork in the effort of producing a lean product, and and it makes it awfully easy for people to overcook and dry out.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we we have our obstacles for us in this pork business that we need to work through, and taste might be one of them.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: How is pork demand among consumers at the grocery store?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: We we think if we if we can sell it cheap enough, people will for sure have to buy it, but that's not necessarily true.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: I people are still buying ribeyes and ground beef.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh pork demand this summer has not been what I would I would like to see.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: We just haven't seen the run-up in cutout and cash like you'd like to see this summer.
• 24:55
  unknown: Yeah.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we try to figure out well, what what is that?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Why, you know, what what's causing it?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is it because you know people are spending money on gas for their cars?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is it because of all the the GLPs that people are taking that it's just taken away some of the you know, the appetite for protein?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I I'm just kind of shooting from the hip with you, but we we continue to try to dance around what you know, why is it that we're just not getting pork chops and bacon and and sausage on people's plates?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's interesting because it's so delicious.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, who could turn down a nice plate of bacon with the with some eggs, some toast any time of the day, really?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's BLT season, isn't it?
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when it gets hot, everybody wants a BLT, they're delicious.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I know.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: I you know, we see we see cash somewhere around a buck, you know, cut out somewhere around a buck, but not the the buck 15, buck 20 that that you like to see in the summer when everybody's going to baseball games and and grilling and you know, hot dogs and and sprouts and everything else.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're just we've gotta we've gotta figure this out.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's interesting.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Here's one that that I absolutely have lost track of, and maybe it's a little granular.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how up you are on this particular issue, but proposition 12 was uh was a whole kerfuffle there for a while.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm remembering it right, the concern was well you you can't tell people in other states how to grow a pig or how to process a pig by your own individual state legislations.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that's kind of the the stink around prop 12.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Are you are you up to speed on prop 12 at all?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: No, you've got no pun intended, right?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's the stink about it.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um the yeah, it was a California ballot initiative passed that said that you had to give so many square feet to SoWs, to just stating SoWs.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it passed easily in California, but it basically legislates how much space we need to give SoWs in Illinois, Iowa, you know, wherever to be able to sell pork into California.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um we have been battling this for uh five or six years now, probably.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: The House included the fix in their version of the farm bill.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: It will be much past it will be much more difficult to get the Senate to keep it in there.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: But but you're right.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, basically it's it's saying, hey, California, in this case, you can't tell producers in Illinois and Iowa how to ri how to raise pigs.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: But none of the pork that comes from Layman Farms can go to California right now.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, so for example, we ship a lot of pigs to JBS in Beardstown, Illinois, who supplies a lot of the Costco's around the country.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's no no Lehman Farms pork can be can be served in California because according to this law, our sows don't have enough square footage.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: They don't know what they're missing.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: They don't know.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because I will I will admit, I if if I see a Durok chop on the menu, I'm probably gonna get it.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Nice, nice thick chop like that.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, very good.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for uh for updating me on some of those items there.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because these are things that you know kind of slip under the radar sometimes.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about the markets and and demand features, and sure, that's all fine, but there are underlying fundamentals really that can can really impact where you can and cannot market your your product, and that's uh it feels a little exclusionary and unfair, to be honest, for for Midwestern grown pork.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, do you really think that the people that are heading to work in the morning and stopping a McDonald's for a sausage and egg mcmuffin really care about you know square footage for the sow that produced that that sausage?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's just mind-boggling to me.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: But nonetheless, that's that's the battle we have, so we'll we'll continue to fight it.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, indeed.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks for your candor on that.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: I do want to ask you about the crop side a little bit too.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: Just here at Ag Squawk, this is a backyard itis approved zone.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: So don't worry about, well, I know it's not the same for everybody else's crops.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to know about your crops outside your window.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: How does how do the corn and bean crops look at uh layman farms this year?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh variable, I would say in one word.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: We had 15 inches of rain in in three weeks in June.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of flooding, a lot of ponding.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the yield maps are gonna be a little more colorful than we'd like coming from the combines because we're gonna have some weak spots out in these fields that you know they're just just not gonna produce.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think overall we'll have respectable yields, both corn and beans, but we're not gonna we're not gonna break any records in our backyard, I would say, this year.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: What's been the biggest problem?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Have you been too wet, too hot, or too dry?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or all of the above?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, right now we could sure use a rain.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean it's just one extreme follows another, but let's see, we you know, we were way too wet in June, and now we we just haven't been able to get much of a rain at all in July, and it's been hot.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully this weekend coming up, maybe we can maybe we can get something out of that.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: The crop is not, you know, it's not rolled up every afternoon, but it's it's needing a rain now.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll see what happens.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Have you noticed farmers doing anything different because of the the economics of growing corn and soybeans?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that everybody's kind of holding their breath on what on what fertilizer prices are going to be this fall.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've we've certainly booked some some 32% for next year, took taking advantage of that.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we actually were able to get that bought cheaper than we did in last year.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: But with this, with this, you know, Middle East problem that still continues to flare up, I think everybody's kind of holding their breath for what fertilizer fertilizer is going to be this fall and and then make some some crop rotation decisions from that.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, frankly, we still need to grow a lot of corn for our own operation for feeding pigs.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll we'll grow corn, we'll put manure on for some of our fertilizer.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's you know, that that black gold product, some years is is worth more than other years, Davis.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and when it comes time to uh trips up and down the down the rows, it it becomes absolutely priceless and is a gotta have thing.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Reagan and Massey's Farms of America, season two, episode five, Lehman Farms.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I I checked it out on YouTube.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's definitely worth the look.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Before we move on, I want to get to the National Weather Service forecast here.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like it any better than anybody else is gonna like it, but we do need to get to that.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I just wonder if there's anything else that you would like to leave us with thoughts that uh maybe we didn't quite get to or something that you'd like us to know about Lehman Farms.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think you covered it very well.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I I just appreciate the you know the the platform that that you guys have created, and and I've I've enjoyed listening to you the last few weeks.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, none of us are I shouldn't say none of us, but I just don't know many guys that are listening to the radio anymore.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's got their podcasts that they're that they're tuned into, and so it's been a it's been a good platform to be able to hear what's going on and and get some content without all the noise.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, that's very very kind of you.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was hoping nobody has been listening this whole time.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was kind of, you know, just pretend that nobody's there and it's just me at a microphone and a weird camera.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: But thank you very much.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it is, you know, it's it's a new media.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's I don't know if I would call it a revolt, but it's a it's a new way to do things and to communicate information.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: And what I love about it is that I'm able to speak to people, you know, like you with without time constraints, without, oh, we we can talk for you know seven and a half minutes and and thanks for being here.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk to you again in six weeks, you know.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Just we can really really dig into some things uninterrupted.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I appreciate the plug for the new media there.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: I've been my big my uh soapbox is let's let's keep the AM radio because I imagine in just about every hog barn that there is, there's an AM radio plugged in somewhere and it might just be on 24 hours a day, but you got your local local sports, local, your local stuff, and the weather, of course, and whatever.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm encouraging people keep the AM radio, but right next to it, maybe set a Bluetooth speaker.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Have you have you made the jump to Bluetooth out in any of your barns yet?
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not not in the barns, and and to be quite frank with you, you might hear more Mexican music in the barns than you're hearing a AM radio.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um for some reason, there is some of some employees just work a lot better with some salsa music or something going on.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you might hear that more than AM radio, but but to your point about local local stuff, there there is still that that you you know you you like to get somewhere, but this thing's this thing's changed drastically in the last year, hasn't it?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, it absolutely has.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think it's for the better.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: It feels more like a free market.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: It it feels like let the people decide what they want to watch and who they want us want to support.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Chad, I'm gonna I'm gonna clumsily segue us over to the to the weather.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: The National Weather Service says dangerous and extreme heat will remain across portions of the central U.S.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: this week, persisting across the mid to lower Mississippi Valley, Gulf Coast, southern plains, and portions of Texas, a heat wave over the southwestern United States will peak this weekend.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Heavy to excessive rainfall may produce splash flooding from the Del Marva Peninsula north into the Hudson Valley today and tonight.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: And look at that heat map, good people.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, fortunately, some of that dark red is is moving southward.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, Texas.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, you know, for me there in Kansas City, oh look, we even got just a little bit of green over there in Illinois.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: That looks nice.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm 90 degrees right now in Kansas City.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what about you, Chad?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: What have you got going at about quarter to three o'clock here?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think we're about 84 out.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's very, very tolerable today, especially after yesterday's little bit of a heat wave.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, it's been it's been smoking hot.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm about ready for some relief.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Before I let you go, um, I've got some some items of mild interest here.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: If I can if I can create some mild interest in you, I'll proceed.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: Are you ready to be mildly interested, Chad?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'll do my best.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh on this date, July 28th, in 1854, the USS Constellation, the last all-sail warship built by the United States Navy, was commissioned in 1854.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: In 1896, the city of Miami, Florida was incorporated.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, in 2002, you might remember this.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'd I it had fallen out of mind for me, but when I read this, uh, I remembered nine coal miners trapped in the flooded Quak Creek mine in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, were rescued after 77 hours underground.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: I remember the news footage of them pulling those guys up that yellow tube thing.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: I do too.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: I do too.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: But that is the only that is the only thing you just said that I that I did know.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I hope you found it mildly interesting because now it's time to move on to something completely unfair.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: If you've been watching, you know what's about to happen.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's it's the daily Ag Bowl injustice.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the time when I ask my guest, who's been very generous with their time, they're not asking for this, but I asked them a completely unfair question that I would have been unable to answer myself.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: Are you ready for today's Ag Bowl injustice, Chad?
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, yep, I'm ready.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: As we have learned, a group of raccoons is called a masquerade, a group of crows is called a murder, and a group of giraffes is called a tower.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: What is a grouping of hawks in flight called?
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: I would not have gotten this.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Would you like it?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: I have no clue.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, here's your hint.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, would you care for some tea?
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'll put on the pot.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: Close.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's a kettle.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: A kettle of hawks when they're grouped together and in flight, apparently, because of the way that they sort of swirl around their targets, a group of hawks in flight is called a kettle.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: There's something that you didn't really need to need to know, but uh now you do.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll remember and I'll remember it now too.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can commit this injustice on someone else and uh, you know, sort of smoke self-satisfaction.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Chad Lehman from uh Lehman Farms in Illinois, it sounds like it's going great.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: You're a great example to the uh next generation coming up, uh persistence, attention to detail, and and satisfied with just getting those good solid singles in to move your business forward.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we really appreciate you being with us today, brother.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for having me on, Davis.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Really enjoy the show and keep up the good work.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: I I thank you for your kind words.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: May I direct you, beloved viewer, to agbol.com where you can dig deeper with Ag Bull Intel.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Take your marketing by the horns.com or call 855-737 Farm.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: 855-737 Farm for the details.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Tomorrow, Tommy will take the show as I travel.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Jed Sidwell will have the morning calls brightened early.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: So for Jed Joe, Lindsay, and Guillermo.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Davis Michaelson saying, thanks for being here.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be back tomorrow.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: All right.