رونوشت کامل Outside the Collective

indoor projects and paperwork, and in my case, all the editing and recording projects that seem to come along with this other endeavor from Sunnyside Farm Studios to which you are lending your ear right now. 00:02:38.159 --> 00:02:45.120 There are also good days to research farm projects, best practices, and even a government program or two, believe it or not. 00:02:45.360 --> 00:02:50.800 Now, I've never received a farm subsidy or government program, nor did I intend to. 00:02:50.960 --> 00:03:00.560 Perhaps with the exception of my GI Bill and some ancient student loans long since paid off, I haven't had a government program for which I've even been qualified. 00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:03.520 I've taken little pride in that statistic. 00:03:03.680 --> 00:03:20.240 I've mentioned here before that I can't quite understand the math of modern commodity farming, which is why I've designed our farm operations to go from pasture to your plate with a small group of loyal customers who want to know where and how their beef or chicken has been raised. 00:03:20.639 --> 00:03:25.120 The same for those meat chickens like I mentioned, and whatever else I have in my head for the future. 00:03:25.280 --> 00:03:28.159 And I've got lots in my head for the future. 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:33.759 Well, this year will be a pretty good loss for the Thompsons at Sunnyside. 00:03:33.919 --> 00:03:44.000 Getting Sunnyside Hollow ready for production as a proper pasture land, building that fence, running electric, and digging a well all costs money. 00:03:44.159 --> 00:03:49.199 And we aren't real keen on borrowing, which I'm sure you'll come to understand why. 00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:51.199 But that's all part of the plan. 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:58.879 To create a place where our family and our clients can rest assured the food on their table is wholesome, safe, and delicious. 00:03:59.039 --> 00:04:11.039 No cafos, no muddy feedlots, just grass and sunshine, sometimes rain, a good amount of daily chores, and a whole lot of satisfaction in doing things what we consider to be the right way. 00:04:11.199 --> 00:04:24.639 And as it turns out, that type of farming is exactly what a lot of folks in government nowadays are starting to say they'd like to see more of, including the guy who didn't win the Iowa governor's race last week and supposedly the one who did. 00:04:24.879 --> 00:04:26.800 And we'll see about that, I guess. 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:28.000 So have a seat. 00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:37.439 I have a story to share with you about farm programs, how we got to where we are and how I ended up outside the collective today, on the sunny side of life. 00:04:37.759 --> 00:04:43.680 You know, what you look at every day, but you don't always see what's right in front of you. 00:04:44.399 --> 00:04:55.600 It's the rich, that black topsoil in Iowa, the endless rows of corn swaying in the August heat and throughout the year the quiet, steady hum of a combine at dusk. 00:04:55.839 --> 00:05:03.600 You see Iowa agriculture, but what you might not see is the invisible hand that has spent well over a century supposedly protecting it. 00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:09.839 This is the story of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, or Idols or Idols? 00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:10.639 I don't know. 00:05:11.439 --> 00:05:13.040 Go back to 1923. 00:05:13.519 --> 00:05:15.120 Warren Harding, remember him? 00:05:15.360 --> 00:05:15.759 Probably not. 00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:16.800 He was in the White House. 00:05:16.959 --> 00:05:21.680 A gallon of gas cost a mere twenty cents, and Iowa's farmers were facing a changing world. 00:05:21.839 --> 00:05:26.800 The Iowa legislature realized that the state's greatest treasurer, its soil, needed a champion. 00:05:27.040 --> 00:05:35.360 So they brought together several scattered state agencies and gave them one roof, and they called it the Iowa Department of Agriculture. 00:05:35.439 --> 00:05:41.279 And for decades, well, they kept the scales honest, the livestock healthy, maybe, and the seeds pure. 00:05:41.439 --> 00:05:50.319 But as the years rolled on, Iowans realized that protecting their harvest wasn't well, that wasn't enough if you didn't protect the very earth it grew in. 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:53.279 And so that brings us to 1986. 00:05:53.759 --> 00:05:58.399 The state took a deep breath, looked to the future, and underwent a massive reorganization. 00:05:58.560 --> 00:06:04.720 They merged the Department of Agriculture with the State Soil Conservation Committee, something my family knows quite a bit about. 00:06:04.879 --> 00:06:10.639 They didn't just change the letterhead, they changed the mission, and they added land stewardship to the name. 00:06:10.879 --> 00:06:15.279 Today this agency isn't just about regulating, it is about preserving. 00:06:15.439 --> 00:06:21.600 Under its broad umbrella, idols watches over your life in ways you might not ever guess. 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:23.759 For one, consumer protection. 00:06:23.920 --> 00:06:39.360 When you pull up to the gas station in Iowa and go to the gas pump, or when the local grocery store weighs your deli meat, or your vegetables, or those apples that I'm questioning where they come from, idols has already been there. 00:06:39.519 --> 00:06:44.879 Their weights and measures, division, ensures a pound is a pound, and a gallon is a gallon. 00:06:45.040 --> 00:06:46.399 What about animal health? 00:06:46.560 --> 00:07:05.600 Well, they stand as a shield against disease, tracking livestock health so that the food on your table is safe and the livelihood of the farmer is secure, or at least, you know, the massive packing industry which benefits the most from food safety regulations by keeping legions of small competitors out of business by those very same regulations. 00:07:05.759 --> 00:07:07.439 And then there's the water and the soil. 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:08.079 I like that. 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:22.399 Through

their division of soil conservation and water quality, they partner with local farmers to build terraces, plant cover crops, and protect the beautiful watersheds that feed the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and all those folks living around the Des Moines area. 00:07:22.879 --> 00:07:23.920 How about that? 00:07:24.319 --> 00:07:27.600 Well, they don't just police the land, they like to believe they shepherd it. 00:07:27.759 --> 00:07:33.839 They ensure that the Iowa we love today will be the Iowa our grandchildren inherit tomorrow. 00:07:34.160 --> 00:07:36.319 Or at least that's the marketing concept. 00:07:36.560 --> 00:07:43.759 You see, in the modern area area, era, idols faced a new kind of frontier, the digital age. 00:07:44.240 --> 00:07:50.079 Farmers weren't just checking the sky for rain anymore, they were checking computer screens for data. 00:07:50.319 --> 00:08:03.120 Today the department has undergone a massive digital transformation, modernizing its licensing and environmental tracking systems because even the most traditional industries need the sharpest modern tools. 00:08:03.279 --> 00:08:15.519 And today, they balance the high tech demands of global trade with the timeless, quiet duty of saving the soil, proving that you can look to the future while keeping your boots firmly planted in the mud. 00:08:16.720 --> 00:08:26.000 It is a terrible thing when a man looks out over the land that has fed his family for generations and realizes that land can no longer save him. 00:08:26.240 --> 00:08:32.960 Back in the nineteen eighties, a quiet desperation rolled across the landscape, and I lived through it as a kid. 00:08:33.120 --> 00:08:36.320 The GoGo seventies had promised endless growth. 00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:40.559 Farmers were told to plant fence row to fence row and get big or get out. 00:08:40.720 --> 00:08:46.559 They borrowed against skyrocketing land values, but then the bubble burst. 00:08:46.799 --> 00:08:50.639 Interest rates spiked toward an agonizing twenty one percent. 00:08:50.879 --> 00:08:58.240 A global recession hit, a Soviet grain embargo choked exports, and land values crashed by sixty percent. 00:08:58.639 --> 00:09:02.639 Across Iowa, family farms were sold off by sheriffs on courthouse steps. 00:09:02.799 --> 00:09:09.600 One in four operations vanished, and the financial ledger bled, but it was the human tragedy that bled deeper. 00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:17.840 I heard conversations in our living room as a kid and in the kitchen and out in the pig lot and after church over coffee and Kool-Aid. 00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:20.799 So and so was going under. 00:09:21.120 --> 00:09:22.399 Got over his head. 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:23.759 Bankrupt. 00:09:23.919 --> 00:09:25.600 There's gonna be a sale. 00:09:26.159 --> 00:09:27.759 Bank is taking it all. 00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:32.000 And sitting at the epicenter of this storm was a man named Robert H. 00:09:32.159 --> 00:09:33.200 Lounsbury. 00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:42.240 Bob Lounsberry wasn't a career politician who just looked at charts, he was an Iowa farm boy from McCallsburg, a World War II veteran, and a man who knew the dirt. 00:09:42.480 --> 00:09:49.919 Elected as Iowa's Secretary of Agriculture in 1972, he watched the Golden Years turn to ash. 00:09:50.159 --> 00:09:56.879 As the 1980s ground down the heartland, Lounsbury refused to just administer regulations from Des Moines. 00:09:57.120 --> 00:10:01.120 He became a fierce and vocal advocate for the family farmer. 00:10:01.279 --> 00:10:07.200 When the federal government offered distant policy shifts, Loungeberry demanded real, immediate relief. 00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:17.919 He championed state level support systems pushing for agricultural credit relief and structural safety nets to stop the bleeding before an entire generation of Iowa farmers was completely wiped out. 00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:23.360 And then came 1987, and the torch was passed to a new leader, a man named Dale M. 00:10:23.519 --> 00:10:24.320 Cochrane. 00:10:24.480 --> 00:10:35.039 Cochrane took the helm just as the department expanded into the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, IDALS, or Idols, if I'm saying that right. 00:10:35.279 --> 00:10:44.000 A seasoned former speaker of the Iowa House, Cochrane, looked out at a broken rural economy and knew that survival meant diversification. 00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:54.480 Cochran realized that if the traditional markets were failing, Iowa had to build new ones, and he aggressively pioneered value added agriculture. 00:10:54.720 --> 00:10:55.600 Value added. 00:10:55.840 --> 00:10:57.360 I heard it my whole life. 00:10:57.600 --> 00:11:06.960 Under his watch, the department fought to create new opportunities in well, renewable fuels, local marketing, and alternative crops. 00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:14.399 He helped transition Iowa from a state just surviving a crisis to one restructuring its entire economic foundation. 00:11:14.639 --> 00:11:17.519 But these litter these leaders, they didn't do it alone. 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:21.840 The true pioneers were the ones whose names didn't make the headlines. 00:11:22.080 --> 00:11:36.559 It was a lot of those extension agents and the local conservationists and the creators of the Iowa State University Rural Concern Hotline who sat on the phones late into the night talking desperate farmers down from the edge. 00:11:37.279 --> 00:11:47.919 It was the farm wives who organized advocacy groups, proving that the strength of the farm wasn't just in the tractor, but also in the kitchen and the community at large. 00:11:48.240 --> 00:11:51.519 You see, history has a funny way of repeating itself. 00:11:51.679 --> 00:11:53.360 I've said it before and I'll say it again. 00:11:53.519 --> 00:11:57.679 If you aren't paying attention, well, it will come right back on you. 00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:01.039 And long before the 1980s there was another farm crisis. 00:12:01.200 -->

00:12:08.559 If you go back to the 1920s, World War I had just ended, wartime price guarantees vanished, and the land values plummeted overnight. 00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:09.519 Sound familiar? 00:12:09.759 --> 00:12:12.000 Well, back then, a pioneer named Mark G. 00:12:12.159 --> 00:12:16.399 Thornburg was brought in as Iowa's second Secretary of Agriculture. 00:12:16.639 --> 00:12:26.320 Thornburg faced an environment so volatile that desperate Northwest Iowa farmers were literally blocking roads with logs and pitchforks to keep products from moving to market. 00:12:26.559 --> 00:12:29.679 That was an uprising known as the Farmer's Holiday. 00:12:29.919 --> 00:12:33.039 Thornburg didn't use force, he used the law. 00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:44.960 He pioneered the creation of the early warehouse acts and state backed defensive councils, allowing farmers to seal their grain in cribs or on their own property, and then they could borrow money against it. 00:12:45.200 --> 00:12:57.600 Thornburg created the blueprint, and sixty years later, Lounsbury and Cochrane used that exact same spirit of homegrown innovation to pull Iowa through its darkest modern agricultural hours. 00:12:57.759 --> 00:13:04.080 They proved that when Washington couldn't hear the cries from the cornfields, well Iowa would take care of its own. 00:13:04.320 --> 00:13:05.840 But hold on a second. 00:13:06.080 --> 00:13:10.559 You can change the rules of a game, but you cannot change the rules of the harvest. 00:13:11.039 --> 00:13:16.639 In the early nineteen seventies, the American grocery store became a political battleground, sound familiar? 00:13:16.799 --> 00:13:18.559 Grocery inflation was exploding. 00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:21.679 Housewives were staging nationwide meat boycotts. 00:13:21.840 --> 00:13:25.360 Good lord, and the White House was feeling the heat. 00:13:25.679 --> 00:13:30.960 President Richard Milhouse Nixon needed a man who could turn the tide, lower food prices. 00:13:31.519 --> 00:13:33.279 Keep those food prices low. 00:13:33.519 --> 00:13:36.159 And win the hearts of rural voters. 00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:37.840 Well he found his man. 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:44.159 Yes he did, in an aggressive, sharp-tongued academic from Purdue University, a boilermaker, in his name. 00:13:45.039 --> 00:13:46.000 It's an unfortunate one. 00:13:46.159 --> 00:13:47.039 Earl Butts. 00:13:47.919 --> 00:13:49.120 I hope it's Butts. 00:13:49.840 --> 00:13:51.120 Hope it's not Butes. 00:13:51.519 --> 00:13:53.039 I'm going to say Butts. 00:13:53.279 --> 00:13:55.279 Earl Butts, sworn in as U.S. 00:13:55.360 --> 00:14:03.039 Secretary of Agriculture in late 1971, Butz looked at decades of American farm policy and decided I'm going to tear it up. 00:14:03.360 --> 00:14:08.639 Ever since the New Deal, which by the way, it was always just the same bad deal from government, it just had new linens. 00:14:09.279 --> 00:14:17.360 Washington Washington was paying farmers not to plant, trying to

keep supply low and prices stable, because Washington thinks that's their job. 00:14:17.519 --> 00:14:33.679 That was the goal, of course, but farmers familiar with the Bible were already keeping some land fallow now and then and rotating, like the good book suggested, apparently, though most farmers after World War I weren't that in tune with the good book, and so keeping land fallow became well a payment program. 00:14:34.080 --> 00:14:37.759 Butts thought that that was an archaic notion. 00:14:37.919 --> 00:14:41.919 He wanted production, and he wanted it on a global scale. 00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:44.399 Then came 1972. 00:14:44.639 --> 00:14:52.879 The Soviet Union suffered a catastrophic crop failure and secretly bought thirty million tons of American grain in overnight. 00:14:53.120 --> 00:14:56.639 The vast US grain reserves were hollowed out. 00:14:56.879 --> 00:14:58.000 Then we did Russia. 00:14:58.159 --> 00:14:59.679 Russia, Russia, Russia. 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.080 Prices skyrocketed, and the race to feed the world was on. 00:15:04.799 --> 00:15:09.840 Secretary Butts I really hope that's how you say it. 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:12.879 Grabbed the bully pulpit and fanned the frenzy. 00:15:12.960 --> 00:15:21.039 He drastically slashed the government set aside conservation acres, unleashing millions of fallow fields back into production. 00:15:21.279 --> 00:15:26.320 He issued a thunderous mandate to the American farmer, plant fence row to fence row. 00:15:26.480 --> 00:15:33.200 He traveled the heartland, telling operators that agriculture was no longer a quiet way of life, buddy, it was big business. 00:15:33.440 --> 00:15:38.879 He warned the traditional multigenerational family growers that they had to adapt or die. 00:15:39.440 --> 00:15:42.720 And his signature warning echoed across the cornfields. 00:15:42.960 --> 00:15:45.600 Get big or get out. 00:15:46.399 --> 00:15:50.879 And for a couple of golden years it looked like he was a genius. 00:15:51.120 --> 00:16:04.799 In 1973 and 1974, per capita farm income surpassed urban income for the first time in recorded history, and inspired some small family farmers to decide to have children named Troy. 00:16:05.919 --> 00:16:07.360 I don't know if that's what inspired it. 00:16:07.519 --> 00:16:13.919 Probably something maybe not well, you get it. 00:16:14.080 --> 00:16:21.120 Flush with gas, cash, urged on by Washington and backed by historically low interest rates, farmers ran to the banks. 00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:24.159 They literally ran from their truck to the bank. 00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:27.519 They took on massive debts to buy up their neighbors' lands. 00:16:27.759 --> 00:16:28.159 Yes. 00:16:28.320 --> 00:16:29.759 They were gonna drain the wetlands. 00:16:29.840 --> 00:16:34.960 We could get rid of those things just sopping wet, and purchase giant new tractors. 00:16:35.279 --> 00:16:50.240 But you see, the foundation was built on shifting sand, and while Earl Butts was telling farmers to borrow and expand the structural safety nets that had protected small operations for forty years were systematically dismantled. 00:16:50.480 --> 00:16:53.200 I guess if you like an argument for government programs. 00:16:53.440 --> 00:17:02.240 The 1973 Farm Bill legally shifted the focus from supporting fair crop prices to simply boosting maximum yield at any cost. 00:17:02.639 --> 00:17:05.200 And the market was flooded. 00:17:05.359 --> 00:17:13.680 And by the late 1970s, global weather stabilized and foreign nations began, can you believe it, producing their own bumper crops? 00:17:13.839 --> 00:17:19.119 And suddenly the insatiable global demand for American grain dried up. 00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:27.200 But the massive production machine butts unleashed couldn't just be turned off overnight, and the market was drowning in corn and wheat. 00:17:27.359 --> 00:17:28.480 Prices plummeted. 00:17:28.640 --> 00:17:39.519 Then the Federal Reserve stepped in to fight inflation for the rest of America, pushing interest rates toward a staggering twenty one percent like a credit card. 00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:43.200 I guess a cheap credit card these days. 00:17:43.519 --> 00:17:47.440 The trap snapped shut, and it was the farmers that were caught. 00:17:47.680 --> 00:18:02.240 The very farmers who had followed the Secretary's instructions to get big, the ones who had leveraged everything they owned to plant from fence row to fence row, now found themselves holding debts they could never hope to pay back with just two dollar corn. 00:18:02.400 --> 00:18:15.519 And Earl Butts, who had conveniently left office by the time the bill came due, well, but the policy fuse he lit exploded directly into the devastating nineteen eighties farm crisis. 00:18:16.160 --> 00:18:28.079 A million small family farms were swallowed up by debt, proving that when the government tells you to lean too far into the future, well it's the folks on the ground who take the fall. 00:18:28.319 --> 00:18:30.960 Thankfully, our family didn't fall, by the way. 00:18:31.039 --> 00:18:32.720 We got knocked down plenty hard. 00:18:32.960 --> 00:18:38.960 The bank came calling more than once from what I understand, and Dad worked the farm all day and at the factory all night. 00:18:39.119 --> 00:18:40.559 I remember those days. 00:18:40.799 --> 00:18:51.599 The nineteen eighties were full of smirking teen angst movies and good time rock and roll that everybody else, all my friends were experiencing, but it was just a slightly different experience for us Thompson kids. 00:18:51.839 --> 00:18:53.519 We were poor, but we didn't know it. 00:18:53.680 --> 00:18:57.440 And my folks never declared bankruptcy, even though I'm sure they could have. 00:18:57.599 --> 00:19:06.960 In fact, farmers that did declare bankruptcy one year were right back in business, it seemed the very next year, cleared of debt and running new tractors on more acres. 00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:15.279 I can

tell you this, if you were one of us in the Thompson house, there was no quarter given to the reputation of those farmers who cried bankruptcy. 00:19:15.519 --> 00:19:27.599 Being a kid of parents who made it through the farm crisis, scarred, but not destroyed, taught me one of, I think, the best lessons on the meaning of honor a young man could ever hope for. 00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:31.680 And it also taught me a lot about banks and government. 00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:33.599 And yeah, God. 00:19:35.839 --> 00:19:40.640 You can paint a tractor any color you like, but it still pulls the same plough, or so the saying goes. 00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:51.200 Earlier, I talked about the Great Reorganization of 1986 when the Iowa Department of Agriculture shook hands with the Soil Conservation Committee and looked toward a brave new world. 00:19:51.440 --> 00:19:58.720 I spoke of a grand ambition, a push for value added agriculture, and the glittering promise of crop diversification. 00:19:59.119 --> 00:20:03.920 But but if you climb up into a crop duster, who does that? 00:20:04.079 --> 00:20:05.839 Or send a drone out, there you go. 00:20:06.240 --> 00:20:13.119 Send a drone out and about to look down at the beautiful state of Iowa today, you might have to ask yourself a pretty hard question. 00:20:13.440 --> 00:20:17.039 Did the landscape actually change? 00:20:17.680 --> 00:20:18.319 At all? 00:20:19.119 --> 00:20:24.960 Well let's look at the hard cold numbers from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. 00:20:25.200 --> 00:20:29.039 Iowa boasts roughly thirty million acres of total farmland. 00:20:29.119 --> 00:20:29.839 Did you know that? 00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:41.599 And if you count up the acres planted year after year, you will find that over ninety percent of Iowa's harvested cropland is still blanketed by exactly two crops corn and soybeans. 00:20:41.839 --> 00:20:49.759 In a typical year, corn claims about thirteen and a half million acres, and soybeans follow close behind with roughly nine and a half million. 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:57.680 The remaining sliver of about seven million acres, or somewhere in that room, is left for hay, oats, and whatever else, scattering of orchards, you name it. 00:20:57.839 --> 00:21:06.720 So despite forty years of talking about diversification, the great Iowa fields remain an absolute, unbreakable duopoly. 00:21:06.880 --> 00:21:11.039 But you see, the real illusion isn't what's growing there in the dirt. 00:21:11.200 --> 00:21:14.160 The real illusion is what happens to it after the harvest. 00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:22.720 When the average American pictures a cornfield, she probably imagines a sweet, golden cob dripping with butter on a dinner plate. 00:21:23.200 --> 00:21:28.640 But if you took a bite out of a random ear of number two Iowa corn, you'd spit it right back out, believe me. 00:21:28.799 --> 00:21:34.079 It's dent corn, hard, starchy, and entirely unfit for a backyard barbecue. 00:21:35.519 --> 00:21:36.720 Mm-hmm. 00:21:37.279 --> 00:21:41.039 If you tra I was thinking like, what do they use for the Mexican restaurants? 00:21:41.519 --> 00:21:50.559 Anyway, if you trace where that massive ocean of Iowa corn actually goes, you'll discover that the vast majority of it never enters a human mouth as recognizable food. 00:21:50.799 --> 00:21:59.839 According to the data tracked by the Iowa Corn Growers Association, a staggering 52 to 60% of Iowa's corn crop is trucked straight to biorefined. 00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:04.880 Refineries to be cooked down into subsidized ethanol fuel for your automobile. 00:22:05.519 --> 00:22:13.920 Another 35 to 42% is ground up for domestic livestock feed, turning grain into confined beef, pork, and poultry. 00:22:14.000 --> 00:22:14.799 And what's left? 00:22:15.039 --> 00:22:16.640 A tiny fraction, less than 5%. 00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:26.079 That's processed into industrial chemicals, starches, or the ubiquitous high fructose corn syrup hidden inside your soda or bushlight cans. 00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:28.799 It is a near-identical story for the soybean. 00:22:28.880 --> 00:22:38.000 The vast majority of those billions of little green that become brown pods are crushed up, and the high protein meal goes right back into the animal feed troughs. 00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:44.880 And the leftover oil, well, that's diverted into industrial manufacturing, biodiesel, or highly processed vegetable oils. 00:22:45.119 --> 00:22:57.839 So when they say that the department successfully diversified Iowa agriculture, the truth is they didn't diversify the seeds in the soil, they diversified the markets at the end of the road. 00:22:58.079 --> 00:22:59.680 Well, that's one way to do it. 00:22:59.839 --> 00:23:14.319 Instead of depending solely on the volatile price of a bushel of grain to feed a family, now the modern Iowa farmer relies on the global energy grid, the mandates of the federal renewable fuel standard, and the global appetite for meat processing. 00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:18.160 The crop rows look exactly the same as they did decades ago. 00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:26.000 Well, they're a little cleaner now, but the cornfield has quietly transformed into a massive open air fuel station and a gristmill. 00:23:26.240 --> 00:23:27.359 But here's the rub. 00:23:27.599 --> 00:23:34.799 A man doesn't change his religion overnight, typically, and a farmer doesn't change his crop rotation unless the ledger forces his hand. 00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:42.720 If you sit down at a kitchen table with an Iowa grower and ask, why don't you plant a few hundred acres of sunflowers or barley or fresh vegetables? 00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:45.359 He won't tell you it's a bad idea, no. 00:23:45.599 --> 00:23:48.400 He'll just simply point to the farm's checkbook. 00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:52.000 Because the truth is the American farmer isn't just battling the weather. 00:23:52.240 --> 00:23:58.000 He is operating within a massive

government backed financial machine designed to favor just two players. 00:23:58.240 --> 00:24:06.480 This is the story of the economic handcuffs that keep the heartland locked in a permanent embrace with corn and soybeans. 00:24:06.880 --> 00:24:08.400 Go back to the local bank. 00:24:08.559 --> 00:24:20.319 When a farmer walks in to secure an operating loan for the spring, the millions of dollars needed just to buy seed, fertilizer, and diesel before a single sprout even hits the daylight, the loan officer looks at risk. 00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:23.920 Corn and soybeans are as safe as gold bullion. 00:24:24.160 --> 00:24:28.960 There is a guaranteed roaring market for them every single day of the year. 00:24:29.119 --> 00:24:35.119 If you plant canola or rye, well the bank might look at you sideways unless you're in North Dakota. 00:24:35.359 --> 00:24:37.599 The infrastructure just isn't there here. 00:24:37.759 --> 00:24:44.880 But the real anchor keeping those two crops in the dirt is a creation of Washington called federal crop insurance. 00:24:45.039 --> 00:24:50.799 And under the modern farm bills, the federal government heavily subsidizes the premiums for crop insurance. 00:24:50.960 --> 00:24:57.920 If a catastrophic drought hits or a duratio flattens the fields, the government ensures the farmer doesn't go bankrupt. 00:24:58.079 --> 00:24:59.039 But here's the catch. 00:24:59.279 --> 00:25:09.440 The program's actuarial tables and revenue guarantees are that well they're finely tuned, deeply established, and highly lucrative for coin, corn, and soybeans. 00:25:09.519 --> 00:25:16.880 And if you step outside that safety net to try a niche crop, oh walking a tightrope without a net, buddy. 00:25:17.119 --> 00:25:19.759 For a family farm, that isn't just a gamble. 00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:21.759 It's financial suicide. 00:25:22.079 --> 00:25:24.720 And then there is the machinery. 00:25:25.039 --> 00:25:29.839 You see, modern farming isn't done with a mule and a plough. 00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:30.480 No. 00:25:30.960 --> 00:25:35.359 It is done, though, with high tech satellite guided leviathans. 00:25:35.599 --> 00:25:40.160 A single modern combine can easily cost upwards of half a million bucks. 00:25:40.319 --> 00:25:46.640 The specialized heads used to harvest corn and soybeans are precisely engineered for those exact plants. 00:25:46.799 --> 00:26:00.480 If an Iowa farmer decided to diversify into a crop like alfalfa, which we have, it's a perennial, or industrial hemp, which we don't have because you need a license for some reason, he couldn't just use his existing equipment. 00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:07.759 He would have to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in entirely new machinery, specialized storage bins and new drying facilities. 00:26:07.920 --> 00:26:14.559 And when you're already carrying millions of dollars in debt, well you cannot afford to retool the factory. 00:26:14.880 --> 00:26:22.400 Furthermore, the seed companies have spent billions of dollars over the last forty years researching the genetics of corn and soybeans. 00:26:23.119 --> 00:26:30.480 They have bred plants that can withstand historic droughts, resist pets, and pack together tighter than ever before. 00:26:31.119 --> 00:26:36.319 The yield per acre has skyrocketed, and the efficiency is breathtaking, it truly is. 00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:40.559 So the farmer is caught now in a brilliant, unbreakable economic loop. 00:26:40.799 --> 00:26:50.640 The government subsidizes the insurance, the banks demand the safety, the global markets buy the output for fuel and feed, and the machinery is already paid for. 00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:52.319 Well maybe. 00:26:52.559 --> 00:27:02.079 It is an agricultural assembly line that's so efficient and so financially fortified that breaking the cycle isn't a matter of willingness, it's a matter of economic survival. 00:27:02.559 --> 00:27:12.720 The rows remain corn and soybeans because, well, in the modern economy, the system has made it impossible to grow anything else. 00:27:13.200 --> 00:27:19.680 If you want to understand the modern farm, you have to stop looking at the weather report and start looking at the statute books. 00:27:19.920 --> 00:27:31.039 So to the casual observer, the American farmer is the ultimate symbol of rugged independence, a solitary figure against the horizon, beholden to no one but the Almighty and the soil. 00:27:31.599 --> 00:27:42.720 But if you peer into the ledger books of the Heartland, you will find that the rules of the harvest are written in a place where the dirt is purely political, a place called Washington, DC. 00:27:43.119 --> 00:27:52.079 This is the dual history of the federal farm bills and the quiet rise of the corporate seed monopolies that changed the power dynamic on the farm forever. 00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:53.839 So go back to 1933. 00:27:54.079 --> 00:27:54.960 Remember that year? 00:27:55.200 --> 00:27:55.839 Me either. 00:27:56.079 --> 00:28:01.920 The Great Depression had brought the country to its knees, and the dust bowl was literally blowing the heartland away. 00:28:02.559 --> 00:28:03.759 President Franklin D. 00:28:04.079 --> 00:28:09.359 D stands for Delano, Roosevelt signed the very first Agricultural Adjustment Act. 00:28:09.599 --> 00:28:14.480 The goal was noble and simple, rescue the farmer from bankruptcy by stabilizing prices. 00:28:14.640 --> 00:28:21.920 The government paid farmers to leave some fields empty to prevent gluts, acting as a giant shock absorber for the agricultural economy. 00:28:22.079 --> 00:28:27.039 And for 40 years, that was the model, managing supply to keep the family farm alive. 00:28:27.200 --> 00:28:33.759 But as we talked about earlier, the 1970s arrived, Urbutts took the stage, and the philosophy flipped completely. 00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:44.960 The 1973 Farm Bill tore up the old New Deal playbook, and instead of paying farmers to manage supply, Washington began shifting

toward a system of direct subsidies and target prices. 00:28:45.200 --> 00:28:46.319 The message was clear. 00:28:46.559 --> 00:28:53.119 Produce as much as humanly possible, and if the market crashes, Uncle Sam will write a check to cover the difference. 00:28:53.359 --> 00:28:53.839 Nice. 00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:56.079 Except Uncle Sam is you and me. 00:28:56.400 --> 00:28:57.839 So there's that. 00:28:58.079 --> 00:29:03.359 And by the time the 1996 Freedom to Farm Bill rolled around, the transition was, well, it was complete. 00:29:03.519 --> 00:29:10.880 The government largely stepped out of the business of managing supply altogether, which was a business they probably shouldn't be involved in anyway. 00:29:11.119 --> 00:29:16.000 Instead, they leaned heavily into subsidizing revenue based crop insurance. 00:29:16.240 --> 00:29:27.839 If you planted corn and soybeans, the government would pay for a massive chunk of your insurance premium, guaranteeing your income even if the crop failed or the market bottomed out. 00:29:28.160 --> 00:29:31.359 It was a safety net that became a gilded cage. 00:29:31.519 --> 00:29:40.799 It favored the massive corporate operations that could scale up indefinitely while making it, well, nearly impossible for the small, diversified grower to compete. 00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:48.079 But as the federal government was rewriting the financial rules, a silent revolution was taking place inside the very seed itself. 00:29:48.319 --> 00:29:53.440 For centuries, a seed was well it was a shared piece of our human heritage. 00:29:53.599 --> 00:29:59.599 A farmer harvested his crop, saved the best seeds in the barn, and planted them again the following spring. 00:29:59.839 --> 00:30:02.799 It was a cycle as old as civilization. 00:30:03.119 --> 00:30:05.440 And then came 1980. 00:30:05.680 --> 00:30:06.240 The U.S. 00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:16.880 Supreme Court, in their infinite wisdom, ruled in a landmark case, Diamond versus Chakrabarti, that genetically modified living organisms could be patented. 00:30:17.519 --> 00:30:20.400 Suddenly a seed wasn't just a seed anymore. 00:30:20.640 --> 00:30:23.599 It was proprietary intellectual property. 00:30:23.839 --> 00:30:28.240 Chemical conglomerates looked at the cornfields and, well, they saw gold. 00:30:28.559 --> 00:30:30.400 Gold in them, their cornfields. 00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:36.319 In the 1990s and 2000s, a wave of massive corporate mergers swept through the agricultural sector. 00:30:36.480 --> 00:30:44.720 I remember it, giants like Monsanto and DuPont and Singenta began buying up hundreds of independent family-owned seed companies across the Midwest. 00:30:44.880 --> 00:30:53.119 They introduced genetically engineered seeds like Roundup Ready soybeans that could withstand heavy spraying of their own proprietary weed killers. 00:30:53.279 --> 00:30:54.640 You remember Roundup, right? 00:30:54.880 --> 00:31:03.279 That chemical that is perfectly safe to drink and causes no

medical issues whatsoever, and according to the current administration, is a national security need? 00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:04.720 Yeah, that one. 00:31:04.880 --> 00:31:07.039 Well, the yields were undeniable. 00:31:07.119 --> 00:31:12.960 The efficiency was breathtaking, but it came with a heavy and legal price tag. 00:31:13.440 --> 00:31:17.519 When a modern farmer buys seed today, he doesn't just buy a bag of grain. 00:31:17.839 --> 00:31:21.359 He signs a legally binding technology agreement. 00:31:21.599 --> 00:31:26.319 By law, he is strictly forbidden from saving seed from his harvest to plant the very next year. 00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:35.920 If he tries to do that, corporate investigators armed with DNA testing kits will meet him at the driveway, backed by multimillion dollar patent infringement lawsuits. 00:31:36.559 --> 00:31:46.480 Today, just a tiny handful of global corporate giants control the vast majority of the seed genetics for American corn and soybeans. 00:31:46.720 --> 00:32:07.680 The independent farmer who once bred his own varieties is now, well, effectively just a tenant franchisee, buying his inputs from a corporate monopoly, planting them using corporate guided satellites and ensuring that the crop ensuring that crop through a government subsidized system tailored strictly for those two specific corporate crops. 00:32:09.279 --> 00:32:13.279 Can you sort of start to see why I'm not really into this row crop farming? 00:32:13.519 --> 00:32:19.759 The rugged individualist is still out there in the tractor, but the true steering wheel of American agriculture? 00:32:19.920 --> 00:32:25.359 Well that's now firmly held by the lawyers in Washington and the executives in those boardrooms. 00:32:25.599 --> 00:32:30.319 Rugged he may be, but independent he is not. 00:32:31.039 --> 00:32:38.799 If you think the corporate takeover of the seed bag was a quiet revolution, well wait until you hear what happened inside the barn. 00:32:39.519 --> 00:32:52.640 We just saw how a handful of global corporations turned the humble seed into a patented, highly regulated piece of corporate property, transforming the American grain farmer into an independent operator in name only. 00:32:53.279 --> 00:32:56.160 But the executives in the boardrooms didn't stop at the fence row. 00:32:56.319 --> 00:32:57.200 No no no. 00:32:57.440 --> 00:33:06.319 They looked across the gravel road at the livestock barns and they realized the exact same blueprint could be stamped onto the animal kingdom. 00:33:06.640 --> 00:33:14.079 So this is the story of how contract farming turned the independent livestock producer into a corporate caretaker. 00:33:14.400 --> 00:33:16.240 Go back fifty years now. 00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:18.880 As long as I've been around. 00:33:19.119 --> 00:33:21.440 And now the farm was a diverse tapestry. 00:33:21.680 --> 00:33:33.200 A farmer grew some corn, kept a few dozen sows, and raised chickens in the yard, And if the hog market took

a dive, well the corn crop might save him, and if the corn failed, the cattle paid the bills. 00:33:33.359 --> 00:33:40.160 The farmer owned the animals, bought the feed where he pleased, and sold his stock to a local meat packer who competed for the best price. 00:33:40.400 --> 00:33:44.960 It was then a truly free market, with real options. 00:33:45.279 --> 00:33:57.839 But by the late 1980s and early 1990s, the big meat packing conglomerates, companies like Tyson, Smithfield, JBS, they decided the free market was just too unpredictable. 00:33:58.079 --> 00:34:05.279 They wanted total control over the entire chain, from the birth of the animal to the cellophane package in the grocery aisle. 00:34:05.440 --> 00:34:08.239 And they called it vertical integration. 00:34:08.480 --> 00:34:16.719 Instead of buying grown animals from independent farmers, these megaprocessors started offering a new kind of deal, a production contract. 00:34:16.880 --> 00:34:20.079 They told the farmer, We will take the risk off your shoulders, see? 00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:25.840 We'll supply the animals, we will supply the corporate formulated feed, and we will tell you exactly how to raise them. 00:34:25.920 --> 00:34:30.880 And now to a young farmer that's buried under debt, that sounded like a lifeline. 00:34:31.199 --> 00:34:34.000 No more worrying about the volatile cash market. 00:34:34.239 --> 00:34:37.519 Just a steady guaranteed check for the labor, comrade. 00:34:37.760 --> 00:34:41.280 But you see, the contract came with invisible steel chains. 00:34:41.440 --> 00:34:42.159 Oh yes. 00:34:42.400 --> 00:34:48.239 To get that corporate contract, the farmer had to build highly specialized automated confinement barns. 00:34:48.400 --> 00:34:55.599 These structures cost hundreds of thousands, often millions of dollars, financed entirely by the farmer through heavy bank loans. 00:34:55.760 --> 00:35:01.440 And once the barn is built and the debt is locked in, the power dynamic shifts completely. 00:35:01.679 --> 00:35:04.800 Under the contract system, the farmer does not own the animals. 00:35:04.880 --> 00:35:08.960 He doesn't own the hogs and the pens or the chickens and the broiler houses. 00:35:09.199 --> 00:35:11.840 The corporation owns them from birth to slaughter. 00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:24.800 The farmer merely owns the multimillion dollar barn, the electric bill, and the massive liability of disposing of the manure, which some savvy folks turned into a nice little side hustle that came with its own expensive equipment, of course. 00:35:25.039 --> 00:35:37.280 If the corporation decides to change the terms of the contract, demanding expensive new equipment upgrades or cutting the pay rate per animal, the farmer has no choice but to just sign on the dotted line. 00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:47.599 He cannot take his business elsewhere because his specialized barn is useless for anything else, and he still has twenty years of mortgage payments to make to the bank. 00:35:47.920 --> 00:35:53.519 Furthermore, the corporations introduce what the industry politely calls the tournament system. 00:35:54.000 --> 00:36:00.719 Farmers are ranked against their neighbors based on how efficiently they turn corporate feed into animal weight. 00:36:01.280 --> 00:36:05.360 The top performers get a bonus, the bottom performers get penalized. 00:36:05.519 --> 00:36:16.320 If a farmer receives a weak batch of genetically uniformed chicks or low quality feed from the company, his numbers drop, his pay gets slashed, and he risks losing the contract altogether. 00:36:16.639 --> 00:36:26.320 This independent livestock producer who once proudly bred his own stock and set his own prices has been quietly replaced. 00:36:26.559 --> 00:36:39.280 Today, he's just an outsourced laborer on his own land, managing corporate owned biology inside a heavily mortgaged barn, operating entirely at the mercy of a corporate spreadsheet. 00:36:39.679 --> 00:36:54.320 The system that captured the seed bag has now officially captured the livestock pen, friends, proving that in modern agriculture, freedom is a luxury that fewer and fewer farmers can afford to keep or truly call their own. 00:36:54.800 --> 00:37:02.559 But if you want to make an American farmer really red in the face, tell him his operation kind of looks like an old Soviet collective farm. 00:37:03.599 --> 00:37:14.239 He'll look at you from under the brim of his cap and gesture toward his gleaming half million dollar tractor and remind you that he lives in the capital of the free market world, buddy. 00:37:14.800 --> 00:37:21.679 He is no comrade working a state mandated plot, no, sir, he is a proud independent capitalist. 00:37:22.320 --> 00:37:23.440 Or so he thinks. 00:37:23.599 --> 00:37:32.079 But if you strip away the paint and the silence, uh get rid of the rhetoric, and look strictly at the mechanics of the system, you have to ask yourself a terrifying question. 00:37:32.960 --> 00:37:34.800 Did we defeat the Soviet model? 00:37:35.039 --> 00:37:37.039 Or did we just privatize it? 00:37:37.840 --> 00:37:42.079 Think back to the Soviet co cults, the classic collective farm. 00:37:42.239 --> 00:37:47.599 Under Jojo Stalin and his successors, the system was simple, rigid, and top down. 00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:56.559 The state owned the land, dictated exactly what crops were planted, controlled the distribution of machinery, and stood as the only buyer in town. 00:37:56.800 --> 00:38:08.000 The workers didn't own the output, they were just cogs in a massive agricultural assembly line, paid a set rate to manage biology, according to the, you know, central government. 00:38:08.239 --> 00:38:12.559 We used to look across the ocean and call that the ultimate failure of freedom. 00:38:12.880 --> 00:38:21.119 But now, you look at a modern American grain duopoly and the contract livestock system seems kind of similar. 00:38:21.360 --> 00:38:30.639 Under the contract model, dominating our

poultry and hog industries especially, the American farmer technically holds the deed to the land, but he does not own the seeds he plants. 00:38:30.719 --> 00:38:33.679 He does not own the hogs or the chickens in his barns. 00:38:33.920 --> 00:38:37.199 A tiny handful of global corporate monopolies. 00:38:37.440 --> 00:38:48.000 Our own private politobureous, if you will, dictate the genetics, supply the feed, control the processing infrastructure, and well they stand as the only viable buyers for the harvest. 00:38:48.239 --> 00:38:49.119 Speciba. 00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.880 The farmer is told exactly how many hours that means thank you, I think in Russian. 00:38:55.039 --> 00:39:05.199 The farmer's told exactly how many hours to light the barns, exactly what formulation to feed the stock, and is ranked on a corporate tournament system that pits neighbor against neighbor I've already described. 00:39:05.360 --> 00:39:11.760 It is central planning, but with a corporate logo instead of a hammer and sickle from the state. 00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:16.320 You see, the similarities run even deeper when you look at the economics of survival. 00:39:16.480 --> 00:39:21.280 In the old Soviet Union, the collective farms were notoriously inefficient. 00:39:21.440 --> 00:39:34.079 To keep the system from collapsing and to put food on their own tables, Soviet peasants were allowed a tiny concession, a small private garden plot, usually just an acre or two behind their homes. 00:39:34.320 --> 00:39:35.760 Now listen to this, friends. 00:39:36.079 --> 00:39:43.039 Historically, those tiny, unofficial private plots made up a mere 3% of Soviet arable land. 00:39:43.199 --> 00:39:55.599 Yet they quietly produced over 25% of the entire country's agricultural output, keeping Modo Russia fed while the grand state collectives bled money. 00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:00.559 Now, look at the mere image of the American heartland. 00:40:00.719 --> 00:40:13.280 Today, the massive corporate integrated grain and livestock assembly lines produce an ocean of commodities, but as we saw, it's mostly diverted into industrial ethanol fuel, livestock feed, and chemical additives. 00:40:13.440 --> 00:40:17.119 Where does the actual fresh food on your kitchen table come from? 00:40:17.679 --> 00:40:18.320 Huh. 00:40:18.639 --> 00:40:23.760 It comes from the independent non-integrated fruit, vegetable, and local organic farms. 00:40:24.159 --> 00:40:29.519 And a lot of big giant corporate vegetable farms too out in California and fruit farms, right? 00:40:29.599 --> 00:40:32.400 I mean, it's it's happening everywhere. 00:40:32.719 --> 00:40:41.360 But these small, diversified operations receive almost none of those multi-billion dollar government safety nets poured into the corn and soybean duopoly. 00:40:41.519 --> 00:40:49.280 Not that there aren't other types of government programs for things happening that we don't grow here, you know, fruits and vegetables, although I think we could.

00:40:49.519 --> 00:40:59.199 Yet just like the old Soviet private plots, it is this thin, vulnerable layer of independent agriculture that actually grows the food you recognize on your dinner plate. 00:40:59.280 --> 00:41:00.559 And it's better for you. 00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:13.039 The modern contract farmer, buried under millions in debt to build specialized barns or buy proprietary machinery, discovers that, well, he can't change his crop, can't negotiate his price, and can't repair his own tractor without corporate software permission. 00:41:13.199 --> 00:41:19.519 He has traded the heavy hand of a government commissar for the absolute dictates of a corporate spreadsheet. 00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:30.559 We built a system so centralized and so vertically integrated that the rugged individualist, quote unquote, has been quietly managed right out of the field. 00:41:30.800 --> 00:41:38.079 So when the assembly line gets too big, the only way to stay independent is to walk off the factory floor. 00:41:38.320 --> 00:41:55.679 We have watched the American Heartland become a gilded cage where the old dream of the rugged individualist has been quietly replaced by a highly centralized system, a corporate landscape of patented seeds, locked tractors, and contract livestock barns that look shockingly similar to the old collectives. 00:41:56.159 --> 00:42:05.360 If you're a young person like our son Jack, wanting to get into farming someday, look at the multimillion dollar buy-in just to plant corn and soybeans. 00:42:05.440 --> 00:42:07.840 Well the message from the system is loud and clear. 00:42:08.159 --> 00:42:09.119 Keep out. 00:42:09.360 --> 00:42:13.199 But the human spirit is a stubborn thing, especially if you are a Thompson. 00:42:13.360 --> 00:42:21.840 And across the country, a new breed of pioneer is refusing to get big, refusing to get out, and refusing to sign the corporate contract. 00:42:22.159 --> 00:42:25.199 This is the story of the agricultural underground. 00:42:25.360 --> 00:42:31.119 The young, well maybe not so young, uh independent farmers who are bypassing the system entirely. 00:42:31.360 --> 00:42:33.360 Let's go back ten or fifteen years. 00:42:33.519 --> 00:42:41.039 If an independent farmer wanted to sell a few head of grass fed beef or a truckload of heirloom tomatoes, his options were painfully limited. 00:42:41.199 --> 00:42:51.199 He could set up a folding table at a local Saturday morning farmer's market, or he could drive from restaurant to restaurant, knocking on back doors hoping a chef might buy a crate of squash. 00:42:51.920 --> 00:42:56.480 It was a romantic notion, but it was a grueling and inefficient way to make a living. 00:42:56.719 --> 00:43:01.199 You couldn't scale it, you see, and you certainly couldn't pay off a farm mortgage with it. 00:43:01.519 --> 00:43:04.719 But then the digital frontier opened up. 00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:20.719 Young farmers and even new ones who happen to be old, like myself, are comfortable with technology, but locked out of the traditional agricultural credit system, realizing they didn't need the corporate middleman if they could build a direct digital bridge to the consumer's kitchen. 00:43:20.880 --> 00:43:25.599 They began building what the industry calls hyperlocal supply chains. 00:43:25.840 --> 00:43:37.679 Instead of raising livestock for a massive global meat packer, these farmers utilized platforms like Barn to Door or Grayscart, turning their operations into e-commerce hubs. 00:43:37.920 --> 00:43:51.280 A consumer in the city can hop onto a smartphone, view the exact pasture where the cattle were raised, select their cuts, and have a box of high quality pasture raised meat shipped directly to their front porch or delivered to a neighborhood drop off point. 00:43:51.440 --> 00:43:53.360 They aren't just selling food. 00:43:53.679 --> 00:43:55.599 We are selling a relationship. 00:43:55.920 --> 00:43:59.760 And we're charging a premium for it, because that's what it costs to raise it. 00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:07.119 You see, the real magic of this direct-to-consumer revolution isn't just the internet, it's the economics of the margins. 00:44:07.360 --> 00:44:17.440 When a traditional grain farmer sells a bushel of corn to the local elevator or a contract grower turns over a flock of chickens, they receive what the corporate system dictates. 00:44:17.599 --> 00:44:29.519 And by the time the processing, shipping, packaging, and retailing giants take their cuts, the actual farmer keeps only about fifteen cents of every dollar the consumer spends at the grocery store. 00:44:29.840 --> 00:44:44.880 But when a young farmer sells a package of, say, pork chops directly to a family through a buying club or a community supported agriculture, CSA share, they keep one hundred cents of that dollar, or close to it. 00:44:45.039 --> 00:44:53.519 And by retaining the entire food dollar, these independent farmers, these independent pioneers, if you will, discover a beautiful truth. 00:44:53.840 --> 00:44:58.480 We don't need two thousand acres of subsidized corn to survive. 00:44:58.639 --> 00:45:06.880 We can make a vibrant, dignified living on just forty or fifty or seventy or eighty acres of well managed pasture. 00:45:07.519 --> 00:45:09.920 And more intensive vegetable production. 00:45:10.079 --> 00:45:11.599 That's not really my thing. 00:45:11.920 --> 00:45:17.119 We are deliberately keeping our operation small, diversified, and highly agile. 00:45:17.280 --> 00:45:28.960 And we are bringing back old school livestock rotations using heritage breeds that don't require corporate feed formulas and building our own community-based processing networks still in the works. 00:45:29.199 --> 00:45:52.559 It is a quiet, grassroots rebellion, sure, but while the grand corporate agriculture model faces rising input costs and software lockdowns on your equipment and supply chain shocks, we wily contrarians are proving that the

future of the heartland might not belong to the biggest machine, but to the shortest line between the field and the plate. 00:45:53.760 --> 00:46:01.360 I think we are rebuilding the free market from the ground up, one acre and one kitchen, and hopefully one family farm at a time. 00:46:01.840 --> 00:46:07.679 Friends, sometimes the best way to move forward is to turn around and just look at what you left behind. 00:46:07.920 --> 00:46:14.079 We've been tracking a system that has slowly and systematically boxed the American farmer into a tight corner. 00:46:14.239 --> 00:46:26.960 We looked at the federal safety nets that built a staggering, unyielding corn and soybean assembly line and a contract livestock model that turned independent operations into corporate controlled biological factories. 00:46:27.440 --> 00:46:37.599 We watched as Washington for half a century paid farmers either to produce at absolute maximum throttle or to lock up their land entirely, taking acres completely out of production. 00:46:37.840 --> 00:46:45.760 It seemed like the only two choices on the menu were plant it till the soil bleeds or fence it off and leave it alone. 00:46:46.079 --> 00:46:53.840 But out here in the heartland, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship decided it was time to tear up that old playbook to some degree. 00:46:54.000 --> 00:46:57.920 They looked at the landscape and realized something folks in Washington had forgotten. 00:46:58.159 --> 00:47:03.039 The highest and best use of an acre of ground isn't always calculated in a boardroom. 00:47:03.280 --> 00:47:10.159 They created an initiative that is quietly turning the entire philosophy of farm programming completely on its head. 00:47:10.400 --> 00:47:14.079 They call it the Cattle and Conservation Working Lands Program. 00:47:14.400 --> 00:47:15.840 Go back to the edge of the field. 00:47:15.920 --> 00:47:19.599 Every farmer has a patch of ground that just breaks his heart. 00:47:19.760 --> 00:47:25.039 It's the highly erodable hillside where the topsoil washes away with every spring rain. 00:47:25.199 --> 00:47:34.880 It's the low, stubborn wetland edge that gets flooded out two years out of five where the tractor tires sink into the muck and the corn yields are miserable. 00:47:35.840 --> 00:47:46.239 For decades, the system pushed farmers to tile that land, dump chemical fertilizers on it, and force it to grow row crops anyway, just to stay inside the revenue insurance loop. 00:47:46.480 --> 00:47:48.960 The Working Lands program does something radical. 00:47:49.119 --> 00:47:58.480 Instead of paying farmers to abandon the land, it offers a state and federally backed cost-sharing partnership to put the land back to work the way nature intended. 00:47:58.719 --> 00:48:03.280 I don't know if nature intended a government partnership, but you get it. 00:48:03.519 --> 00:48:19.440 The program provides up to$290 an acre to convert cropped land into rich hay ground, and up to$1,000 an acre to turn underperforming row crops into permanent working pastures. 00:48:21.039 --> 00:48:27.360 You see, the true genius of this program isn't that it saves the soil, it's how it saves it. 00:48:27.679 --> 00:48:42.880 Traditional federal conservation programs like the old CRP pay farmers an annual rent to simply take land out of production and just let it sit empty for like 10 or 15 years, and you can't do anything with it but give permission to suburbanites to go hunting. 00:48:43.119 --> 00:48:51.840 But the Idols program understands that a healthy ecosystem needs life, which is true. 00:48:52.079 --> 00:49:02.800 So by putting cost share money directly into fences and rotational grazing systems and watering facilities, the program brings the Iowa cattle herd right back out into the open air where they belong. 00:49:02.960 --> 00:49:04.880 The cows become the conservationists. 00:49:04.960 --> 00:49:12.559 Their hoof action stimulates the soil, their grazing manages the weeds, and their manure naturally fertilizes the earth without chemical runoff. 00:49:12.719 --> 00:49:23.840 The deep-rooted perennial grasses and cover crops hold the fragile topsoil firmly in place, acting as a massive natural filter that keeps nitrates and phosphorus out of the watersheds, feeding downstream rivers. 00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:24.719 And the demand? 00:49:24.880 --> 00:49:26.719 Well, it's been absolutely overwhelming. 00:49:26.880 --> 00:49:27.599 Who would have thought? 00:49:27.760 --> 00:49:41.119 When Idols recently expanded the program across 22 counties in the Greater Des Moines watershed, which includes my area, the annual state funding was completely spoken for in, you guessed it, just 10 days. 00:49:41.199 --> 00:49:42.719 How do these farmers know it's out there? 00:49:42.880 --> 00:49:43.679 It's like amazing. 00:49:43.760 --> 00:49:50.480 They can smell it in the water, forcing the state to pour millions more into the pipeline to handle the wait lists. 00:49:51.440 --> 00:50:04.960 To date, over 1,800 producers have stepped up, converting more than 20,000 acres of marginal crop into vibrant green pastures and seeding hundreds of thousands of acres of cover crops. 00:50:05.119 --> 00:50:06.320 Well done. 00:50:06.639 --> 00:50:21.920 The current and now reelected Iowa Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Nag, openly hopes this homegrown common sense model will become the blueprint for reforming the entire federal farm bill, which is rather shocking considering he was a Monsanto lobbyist for many years. 00:50:22.079 --> 00:50:26.320 Anyway, it shows that you don't have to kill a farm's productivity to save its environment. 00:50:26.480 --> 00:50:41.440 By evaluating the land acre by acre, Iowa's independent cattlemen are showing the rest of the nation how to protect the water and heal the soil and keep that family farm working, proving that when you listen to the land instead of those spreadsheets, everybody wins. 00:50:41.760 -->

00:50:43.679 Well, sort of. 00:50:44.400 --> 00:50:52.000 It might be said that a clear conscience is a soft pillow, but it rarely pays for the fence posts. 00:50:52.880 --> 00:51:03.199 Across the heartland the wind carries now the heavy scent of autumn, and if you listen closely, you can hear the quiet, rhythmic tearing of grass. 00:51:04.400 --> 00:51:17.599 It's the sound of a herd of cattle doing exactly what the Almighty designed them to do, grazing on a beautifully managed pasture, and out there at the lowest elevation in the township stands a man and his family, a good looking man. 00:51:17.760 --> 00:51:23.039 The Thompsons I've been talking about here at Sunnyside Farms and at Sunnyside Hollow. 00:51:23.599 --> 00:51:30.159 We didn't wait for a committee to convene in Des Moines, and we didn't wait for a bureaucrat to sign a decree in Washington. 00:51:30.320 --> 00:51:37.440 We simply looked out at a patch of crappy, poor, erodable row crop land and decided to do what was right. 00:51:37.599 --> 00:51:38.880 We did the research, we did it. 00:51:38.960 --> 00:51:46.719 We dug into our own pockets, we spent our own hard earned savings, and we bought that right mixture of perennial pasture seed from a neighbor. 00:51:46.960 --> 00:51:57.360 We paid to drive the posts in, string the wire, and carefully set up a state of the art rotational grazing system that for some reason now includes solar LED dock lights every one hundred feet. 00:51:57.440 --> 00:51:58.480 It looks like an airfield. 00:51:58.559 --> 00:52:05.679 But anyway, we faced off the deep wetland areas that shouldn't be grazed, and we allowed the natural filter of the earth to heal. 00:52:05.840 --> 00:52:08.639 We stocked those ponds with fish and day by day. 00:52:08.800 --> 00:52:28.320 The hoof action of our small herd stimulates the soil, the deep roots anchor the shifting mud, and the watershed at the bottom of our township has begun to run a little clearer, and it will be profitable one day, I believe that, and I know it is sustainable, and it is the absolute gold standard of stewardship, and that's what we are going for. 00:52:28.559 --> 00:52:36.480 Our customers, folks who want their beef and chicken raised with honor and dignity, well they line up to buy from us when we're selling it. 00:52:36.719 --> 00:52:41.519 Our family has built a monument to independence, or, well, at least that's the goal. 00:52:41.920 --> 00:52:43.760 And then the news arrived. 00:52:44.000 --> 00:52:48.480 The state had launched the glittering new cattle and conservation working lens program. 00:52:49.039 --> 00:52:51.679 I read the website and I chuckled. 00:52:51.920 --> 00:52:55.119 The goals were a mirror image of our own farm. 00:52:55.199 --> 00:52:56.400 What we're doing right here. 00:52:56.559 --> 00:53:04.800 The state now is offering massive cost share incentives, up to a thousand dollars an acre to turn poor crop ground into working pasture. 00:53:04.880 --> 00:53:05.599 Are you kidding me? 00:53:05.679 --> 00:53:06.639 I did the math. 00:53:06.880 --> 00:53:11.599 Fifty acres of our pasture could mean what could mean fifty thousand dollars. 00:53:11.840 --> 00:53:14.320 I'd never asked for a dime from the government. 00:53:14.480 --> 00:53:17.280 I never wanted a subsidy and never expected a handout. 00:53:17.360 --> 00:53:20.320 But the money, well, we already spent the money. 00:53:20.559 --> 00:53:29.280 Our savings are down from doing that heavy lifting, and I thought, well, perhaps this is a chance to replenish the family accounts. 00:53:29.519 --> 00:53:42.880 So I rolled up my hat so it had fit in a mailbox and stepped into my pickup truck and drove to a building that I had only ever seen from the street on my way to the Branding Iron or the Winnebago County Fair, the local USDA service center. 00:53:43.199 --> 00:53:43.840 Yes. 00:53:44.320 --> 00:53:46.079 I sat down across from the agent. 00:53:46.239 --> 00:53:47.039 That's not quite true. 00:53:47.119 --> 00:53:57.280 I stood up the entire time, as we were all standing, it was a standing affair, laid out our maps, described our rotational schedules, and presented our beautifully restored acres at Sunnyside Hollow. 00:53:57.599 --> 00:54:05.679 I was, by every metric, the absolute five star recruit for everything the state is now trying to achieve. 00:54:06.559 --> 00:54:16.000 But uh as the paperwork was shuffled around, uh the climate in the room quietly changed, and it wasn't because I was gassy. 00:54:16.400 --> 00:54:27.039 The agent looked at the pristine pastures and looked at the clear ponds, and then looked at the guidelines written by those policy lawyers, and he cleared his throat and gave me the verdict. 00:54:28.639 --> 00:54:31.119 I do not qualify. 00:54:31.440 --> 00:54:35.440 I do not qualify for a single penny of the fifty thousand dollars. 00:54:37.920 --> 00:54:42.960 And it's not because our land isn't fragile, and it's not because our methods are wrong. 00:54:43.280 --> 00:54:43.519 No. 00:54:44.480 --> 00:54:44.880 Nope. 00:54:45.360 --> 00:54:48.719 I was denied for one simple, stupid, agonizing reason. 00:54:48.880 --> 00:54:50.159 I had no idea. 00:54:50.400 --> 00:54:52.880 I had no idea, but I learned a lot. 00:54:54.000 --> 00:54:59.920 I was denied because I'd already done the right thing on our own. 00:55:02.159 --> 00:55:11.599 That program, that farm program, you see, was strictly designed to incentivize the transition of active row crop land. 00:55:11.679 --> 00:55:29.280 And because my boots had already walked the path of righteousness, so to speak, because we had used our own capital to heal the dirt before the government got around to offering a check, I was legally locked out. 00:55:30.480 --> 00:55:34.000 The system could only pay to fix what was broken. 00:55:34.800 --> 00:55:38.079 It had nothing to offer the man who had already fixed it. 00:55:41.360 --> 00:55:47.840 And so I walked out of the building, stepped back into my pickup, started the engine. 00:55:47.920 --> 00:55:49.440 It's easier to get home that way. 00:55:50.239 --> 00:55:57.920 And as I drove back down the gravel road of Sunnyside Hollow, I didn't curse and I didn't shake my fist because I was driving and I'm safe. 00:55:58.559 --> 00:56:04.639 I just smiled and shook my head at the beautiful irony of it all, to be honest with you, and I offered up a little prayer of Thanksgiving. 00:56:06.400 --> 00:56:10.719 Friends, I realized last week the grand systemic truth of the modern heartland. 00:56:10.880 --> 00:56:31.119 In this upside-down world of agricultural policy, the taxpayers you, me, the taxpayers, must pay the collective to do what is right, rewarding them for years of depletion with a government check. 00:56:35.039 --> 00:56:37.360 And they won't do it until it comes around. 00:56:38.480 --> 00:57:02.559 But for the true pioneer, the independent soul who, I think, tries to answer to a higher authority and heals the land out of maybe a sense of duty, the reward is a pat on the back, a clear view of a healthy herd, and the priceless peace of mind knowing that we belong to no one but the soil. 00:57:03.599 --> 00:57:12.719 And that, friends and neighbors, is a pursuit that makes us happy and offers us the sunny side of life. 00:57:13.119 --> 00:57:21.920 When the shadows fall and doubts begin to creep, remember together we're strong every week. 00:57:22.159 --> 00:57:26.480 Lift your neighbor up with kindness every day. 00:57:26.719 --> 00:57:29.760 Let your actions speak the words you want to say. 00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:39.280 The sunny side of life is a weekly production about our life on the family farmstead here in Iowa, the liberties we prize, and the pursuits which make us happy. 00:57:39.519 --> 00:57:42.800 None of this is possible, of course, without Christ in our lives. 00:57:42.960 --> 00:57:46.079 For the Lord God is our stomach and our shield. 00:57:46.320 --> 00:57:48.719 He gives us grace and glory. 00:57:49.608 --> 00:58:02.809 be the sunny side of someone else's life, share your light and joy through struggle and strife, keep your heart open and your soul always bright. 00:58:03.608 --> 00:58:07.289 Together we will share this sunny side life. 00:58:07.849 --> 00:58:12.489 Be the sunny side of someone else's life. 00:58:12.889 --> 00:58:16.248 Share your light and joy through struggle and strife. 00:58:16.969 --> 00:58:21.369 Keep your heart open and your soul always bright. 00:58:21.929 --> 00:58:25.449 Together we will share this sunny side life. 00:58:25.768 --> 00:58:37.528 May the Lord bless you and keep you, and may the sunny side of your life in Christ be made evident unto you each and every day and give you peace.