00:00:00 What do you think about the next generation? What scares you about the next generation in production agriculture? 00:00:04 What excites you about the generation that's behind you in production agriculture? I'm asking this generation of agricultural professionals. 00:00:11 My friend, temple Rhodes, Matt Miles, extreme Ag, our sponsor and friend Tommy Rach with Natures. What excites you? What scares you 00:00:18 and what do you think about the next generation coming up behind us in agriculture? 00:00:23 In this episode of the Gravy on a farm, the work's never really done. We're calling the day anyway 00:00:29 because my friends from Extreme Agri coming over You ready for a conversation with some real farmers about real issues? 00:00:35 And the best part, you are invited, support yourself a drink, grab a snack. Most importantly, pull up a chair. Welcome to the greenery. 00:00:48 Hey guys. All right, so we gotta ask the question. We are at that age. All of us are in our fifties, 00:00:59 and you're starting to have your buddies. They, they're like, well, these damn kids and all that. I don't do that. I think there's screw 00:01:06 ups in every generation. I think there's overachievers in every generation. And also there are differences between the generations. 00:01:12 When you look at what's coming behind us in agriculture, you're from the production side, you're from the ag 00:01:19 produ supplier side. What do you see that excites you? What do you see that concerns you? What do you see that you're still kind of pondering? 00:01:27 I can't wait for this. Can, Can it be, um, I mean literally you've worked with all of our kids. 00:01:35 I get it can be, you got drunk. It could be every, it can be every emotion that you can imagine. 00:01:41 Happy, sad, scared, scared, few cuss words in there. But, um, I mean, it, it goes back to, so none of my kids are in ag. 00:01:54 They're five kids and they're totally different. One's a nurse, one's in supply chain, one's in it, one's in restaurant hotel management, 00:02:04 and one's in fashion design. Nothing barely disparate From agriculture. And you know, a few of them tried 00:02:11 to do the chemistry side, but they didn't like that. But we often say, or at least I do, I mean you give electronics to 5-year-old, 00:02:23 He, He can figure it, figure it out faster than I can. That's true. So data wise, uh, technology wise, they are much more equipped. 00:02:33 And maybe I'm putting words in y'all's mouth, but they are much more equipped than any of us sitting at this table. Agreed. 00:02:39 Better than all four of us combined with their proficiency with new technology, particularly 00:02:44 of the data, electronic, et cetera. Absolutely. You've got five kids, you've got three kids. He's got five kids. I'm childless, 00:02:51 but I work with a lot of different organizations. So we all have these opinions. When I open that topic, you probably have said, oh boy. 00:02:58 But you always say that, oh boy, this could be interesting. Why'd you say, oh boy, this could be interesting. 00:03:02 What was your first thought? The fear, the excitement, the, The swear words. 00:03:07 Well, my first thought was 50 because we're all in our fifties. So 50 years ago was our 50-year-old parents sitting 00:03:14 around here having this same conversation. We're about to have, you know, maybe, probably, you know, to some point, you know, you always think 00:03:22 it's worse than what it was. But, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm nervous and, and Lane, and I talk about this all the time, you know, 00:03:29 I label him as a millennial. He don't like to be called that. He said He thinks millennials a negative term. 00:03:34 He thinks millennial is a negative term because of the work ethic. And, and, you know, that goes into that term. 00:03:42 So when I introduce him as a millennial and I do it on purpose to kind of halfway p**s him off, you know, you can see him sit there and look at me. 00:03:49 Now, is he a, you know, a anomaly to that generation? I don't know. But what we've seen so far, in my opinion is the work ethic of 00:04:00 that generation is not the work ethic of our generation. But you know what? I don't work as hard as my dad did. 00:04:06 I I'm gonna disagree with that a little bit. You, you take the millennials there is, there is definitely a different work ethic, 00:04:14 but it's either, it's, the problem is is where it used to be where it was an even plateau. 00:04:20 Now it's like extreme work ethic and low work ethic. And it seems like there's nothing in between. But what's in between is, is 00:04:27 where they're much better at us than what we ever were, is research man. 00:04:31 They've got research at, at their fingertip. And they do a very, very good job of researching stuff. 'cause when I need something researched, 00:04:41 I don't look it up myself. You don't either. I just learned how to Google. Now I've learned how to Google. 00:04:45 Are you seriously, In the last two years? I can, You're not very extreme. Get out. I can, I can Google anything. Like 00:04:51 can Google. Now I can't play the, I used to play the football games on, on, you know, the, and today there's too many buttons. I can't do that. 00:04:58 All right. So Matt's talking about his Mattel handheld electronic toy from 1970. Ask him about his combine. Great. 00:05:04 Ask him about his combine that he just tried. Uh, I want it before. And what he thought about that, 00:05:09 I, I, I love the idea that we're getting into his combine, but I won't get into the thing about the generational thing. 00:05:14 It's, it's, and, and I'm certainly, people probably think I'm kind of harsh, you know, I, my personality, that thing of these kids 00:05:22 who don't work, I, I'm not sure I'd buy into that. Probably just need five children and every one of those gainfully employed and, 00:05:28 and from everything from healthcare to fashion to whatever, I think that's a cop out 00:05:32 that every generation has said about the group behind them. To that end, that 00:05:37 I'm not Working nights on the railroad like my dad to feed nine kids. So I work differently. 00:05:42 I don't know that I work less necess. They work Like you work harder, you work smarter, not harder. That's, they work, 00:05:48 They, the generation now works different. I'm not saying they don't work as much, but they just work different than we're all used to. 00:05:58 And so therefore we, we tie it to, we, we say because of history that they don't work as hard as we do, but they just work different. 00:06:07 Well, it was just a look at the way our fathers worked. They worked with their hands. It was a lot more manual labor than what we're having to do. 00:06:15 You know what I mean? And dad's always told me that. He was like, yeah, you don't know what work is. I tell my sons that, yeah, you don't know what work is. 00:06:22 Lemme tell you about what I did. Mm-hmm. It doesn't matter. They're using their brains much differently. 00:06:27 Here's a question. So Matt, you and me, and then Tommy too, our fathers, what do you think they, they would've said at this table versus 00:06:36 what we're saying about our sons and daughters at this table? That's what I was saying earlier. Almost the same thing. 00:06:41 I mean, do you think they're saying the exact same thing? I personally think that my hope for my children 00:06:49 is a lot stronger than what I'm not saying that my, my, my parents, my father, whoever had, you know, bad hope for me or whatever. 00:06:58 Um, I just think that With the technology and with everything that's up and coming and the different things that we're doing 00:07:07 and all these new opportunities that are coming, the opportunities that are being thrown at at our kids are very, very different than the 00:07:15 opportunities that were thrown at us. And I, I have a lot more hope for them than I feel like that our parents ever had for us. 00:07:22 I'm not saying that I, I think that our parents wanted us to fail, right? But the opportunities weren't there. 00:07:28 And as long as the kids are willing to open up the door when opportunity knocks, they have a lot of opportunities open up the door. 00:07:35 'cause agriculture is going somewhere and it's going in multiple different directions. Tommy just moved five different places. 00:07:41 You gotta start that over Tommy. Just what, sorry, I was trying to wait till he got through, but he won't quit. 00:07:48 Tommy just got through talking about how his kids are in all these different things. All five of them things that you just named Tommy. 00:07:54 You can all tie 'em all back to agriculture if you really want to. And you don't have to go that far. Right. 00:07:59 You know what I mean? They're all tied back. Alright, So I ask the question, you know, and we talked about some differences 00:08:04 and I think that a lot of people watching are gonna say, yeah, I kind of agree with that. 00:08:08 But what excites you or what scares you? I asked what scares you? I I, I don't know that I have my one thing. 00:08:15 It's not scare, it's probably concern. And all my dealings with the generation that's maybe like 20 years old right now, they're terribly 00:08:25 non confrontation to the point that I believe that it's bad for their future to not to be so passive. 00:08:33 Is that something you've observed? I I'll go. So I think Generation Today has is handicapped on being able to communicate. 00:08:48 Yeah. Mm-hmm. Everybody has a freaking iPhone. Yeah. And this is how they communicate. That doesn't mean they're bad, it just means they 00:08:57 communicate differently or worse. And it goes to what you just said about confrontational. It's easy to push people's buttons 00:09:05 or say what you wanna say on a, on a iPhone. Yeah. But to actually get in somebody's face and say that they have, they have no skills to do. 00:09:15 And we're not talking about trying to get any physical altercation. Right. But it could be, I have a different opinion 00:09:21 because of my education and you're going to do something in business that I wanna say No. 00:09:28 And here's why you can't. Right. I don't know that they can do that. Well, and, and, and when you said that, I'm not afraid. 00:09:34 I I, and, and y'all may disagree with this, but I think there's not the seriousness of the task that there was in our generation 00:09:42 and especially our parents' generation, whatever that task is, I'm gonna do it from this time to this time and then I'm done. 00:09:50 If I'm not through, I'll worry about it the next day where we grew up. If you're not through, you 00:09:55 do it till you get through with it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I think the seriousness of that specific task is not the same place now. 00:10:02 It's different. Maybe they work the same, maybe it, maybe in the end the same success will happen. That's what concerns me more than any What 00:10:09 Concerns you? I, I think that my biggest concern is, is when you, when you talk about the next generation coming, you know, 00:10:18 Matt and I talked about this earlier on. If Matt and I made a mistake when we were up and coming, it wasn't that big of a deal. 00:10:26 I mean, it was a big deal, don't get me wrong. But we're talking about the money's just different. The risk is so bad now. The 00:10:33 Kids Really can't afford to make a mistake. Yeah. I I stubbed their toe. It's probably one thing if they do much worse than the toe 00:10:40 stub, then it's talking about some pretty bad financial. But I will wanna say this, 00:10:43 I do wanna say this Watching Lane, so there was a lot of sports events that I missed with my children Yep. During my life. And he figures out a way to make those. 00:10:54 And I think in the end result, they're gonna remember the fact that he was at their sports events 00:11:01 and I went to a lot of 'em, but some of 'em I missed. Even things with my wife, they're gonna remember those things that he did with them 00:11:08 that I probably didn't do with him. And that may be you always wanna do different than your dad did. 00:11:13 Yeah. You know, you know, I'm gonna raise my kids different than what my dad did me. And I think I see that something with him. 00:11:20 You know, he'll make a special effort to do that. I'm like, you're going to do what? Yeah. He's like, well, I'm, I'm, 00:11:25 I'm finna get off a planter and go. Yeah. And You're saying that feels not planted, but he puts you, there's a more of a, more of a 00:11:34 concerted effort to obligate family time or personal time than maybe you would've or certainly your father was. Yeah. 00:11:40 And I thought I was a grave family man, but compared to what my children, my children are doing with their family now, I wasn't as good as I thought it 00:11:47 Was simple. What scares your children? What excites you? You got what? Uh, uh, well, Madeline is 17 mm-hmm. 00:11:54 And up to about 30, 27. Yep. Alex Alexander, you got Alexander Little Temple and you got Madeline 00:12:01 and all of 'em wanna be tied to agriculture. What excites me is, you know, every child is very, very different in their personality. 00:12:09 And you nurture 'em into the person that you kind of, let's not say no, we, because that's not, that's, that's the wrong You say you shape them part you. 00:12:19 I'm terrible with the nurturing part. Um, let's say shape with, with the help of your, of, of my wife. 00:12:25 We've helped shape these and mold these kids into something and everyone has to be treated a little bit differently. 00:12:31 The good thing for me is, is I've got one that's extremely mechanical and he's the one that's hung out the most with me. 00:12:38 I got one that's very operational and I think that he can take a stance in the agronomy world and it's very well needed. 00:12:44 I mean, think about how many times that I have to rely on these guys. Right. You know, if he can rely on himself a little bit more 00:12:49 and make his own decisions, it would be great. And then you have one that's, that can do a little bit of everything, but maybe take care of the financial part. 00:12:58 If you had those three, that's a really Actually tell he is gonna adopt because she's The cattle. He's trying 00:13:03 to get her out there. But you know what, all in all think about this. What, what would, what kind of value would there be for me 00:13:10 to send her out there while she was in college for like two years as an intern? What happens if I send her as an intern for two years 00:13:18 to Kelly, send her two years with Matt and then she came back home to help run the farm that she'd learn. 00:13:23 You don't think that, that wouldn't be power? What excites you? You hire people, you have, uh, at Nature's, you've got 00:13:30 college kids coming out, 23 year olds. What excites you when you look at the generations behind us? Anywhere. Point two to 30. So you didn't sound 00:13:37 Real excited. Um, it's unfortunately it's hard to find good help these days. And I, I think, oh, the, these two guys 00:13:48 would tell you the same thing. Um, you just can't find them because a lot of them don't care. 00:13:57 Well, they want it handed to 'em. They don't wanna work Like Me. I'm telling you. But I mean, we, we try to find, um, 00:14:08 good people to hire outta college and you gotta look a while. Well, unfortunately, and Covid changed all this, 00:14:16 so everything we were building up, you know, people don't even go to offices anymore. There's no such thing as a, as a business meeting anymore. 00:14:23 Everybody does it by Zoom. Yeah. You know, zoom, COVID changed us from face-to-face, as you said, where you had to go face somebody. 00:14:31 So you're 25 years old, you gotta go to the, the sales meeting. Yeah. Right, right. 00:14:35 And meet you where after Covid, you sit on a Zoom and everybody talks about Zoom. You know, they, you may have one on a tie and a coat 00:14:42 and underwear, you know, it's just not the same world as it, like You don't, I bet you He's done this. 00:14:49 I've never put on a tie and a coat and underwear. But You have had a shirt on that said nature's probably an extreme mag 00:14:55 and no underwear, maybe Shorts short. I'm just, I I always wear underwear. I've done a lot. Not you Temple. 00:15:00 I've done a lot, a lot of Zoom calls in my day and sometimes I go without the shorts. But, uh, I mean it's just, you know, 00:15:07 I mean you always see them there. But You see what I'm saying though? Covid? Yeah. Covid took what we're concerned about 00:15:13 and multiplied that times three. Yeah. And not just the young kids, but in people that us two because Yeah, an older, older 00:15:21 People. I'm gonna take it a step back. So, 'cause I still have one in college and pre Covid there were no classes. 00:15:33 Maybe not, no. But 90% of the classes were face-to-face. Mm-hmm. Maybe you had some that was online. Yep. Post covid. 00:15:42 I guarantee you there are half the classes are face-to-face and the other half is still online. 00:15:48 Mm-hmm. That, that is a, that goes back detriment. Why they can't get on the phone and have a conversation. But they will send a text message and act like Barney Badass 00:15:59 or they'll send a email or whatever, but they will not pick up the phone. I agree. I think the key is what he, 00:16:06 he's got the key is there's no face-to-face interaction anymore. So, you know, I'll say, lane, you need 00:16:11 to check on this and he'll do this. And I'll say, call him. Yeah. Talk to him. Don't. Alright, So the risk of being the, 00:16:17 the one guy here at the nursing home and I text Matt to the one guy That's a, that's a nursing home calling you out. 00:16:22 We are sound a little bit like we grab 'em. We're not, but it does come outta concern. Communication. Our concern about the people behind us, 00:16:29 nag is their communication style is very different than our communication style. Their communication methods are 00:16:35 Very different. That don't mean it won't work. Just like Mr. Tommy said, it might still work. 00:16:39 It's just a different way of doing business. You Call you Mr. Tommy just because you're older than him. 00:16:44 Uh, he's older than him. Older. I saw that. It's a southern thing. Temple. All right. Is the future of agriculture in good hands, better hands, 00:16:53 worse hands, good hands with the people that are behind us in agriculture. 20. You're your dad's age. 00:16:59 30 years from now, you go out there and take a look around and you got little temple melon. 00:17:05 You got all of 'em and then they got their kids. What do you think when you look at that picture? The future of agriculture is extremely bright. 00:17:14 These kids nowadays have more tools at their hands and they're already been trained to research and use their fingers and go back and look at things. 00:17:23 And it's all right at their fingertips. It's things that Matt and I and Tommy, we didn't, we never had. 00:17:29 You didn't say Mr. Tommy either? No, because I don't, I'm not, it is not a disrespect thing. 00:17:34 It's, I would just, it's more of a respect thing. I we're friends so I can just call him Tommy. Tommy is the future of agriculture in good hands? 00:17:42 Is it in lesser hands? It in better hands. When you look at those that are behind you in agriculture, you've cultivated a career here. 00:17:49 Yes. That was a cute little clever words. Cultivated a career here. And how do you spell greenery again? Not that way. 00:17:57 Not this way. Yeah, for sure. It's got a eye in it. Look it Up. I did. dictionary.com. 00:18:01 Future of agriculture. Better hands. Worse hands. Different hands for sure. In the generations that have come 00:18:08 behind us in this industry. So I will agree with Temple. But one caveat on the tools And the ability To use. 00:18:16 They do, they have so much more than what we had. One thing that, and We're not saying that like they're spoiled. 00:18:20 You're saying they just got the, the, the innovation. So Right. The innovation. One thing that, and I'll, I'm the world's worst. 00:18:29 We have to do a better job of teaching and, and letting our kids make mistakes. 'cause I'm the world's worst at, oh, I'll just do it. 00:18:42 'cause I can do it in half the time. But letting them figure it out. Go through the motions. But we've got to do a better job of teaching 00:18:53 and passing on knowledge because we're not gonna be around forever. Our kids are gonna be around longer than we are. 00:18:58 So we need to pass on. Can You start to use that with like me and, and Matt and like teach us the lost calls. 00:19:05 Oh, okay. It's too late. I didn't know. I didn't know. All Right. 00:19:10 So the future of agriculture and the generations behind us. Yeah. So which more than one now it's a couple 00:19:14 Generations. I would say all of the above. But this is what scares me more than anything. Go, you know, we talk about, what is it called? 00:19:20 Cyber wars or cyber. Yeah. If so, my son can't read 'em out. He can get on Google and he can find directions 00:19:28 somewhere. But if we ever get a Reliance on technology, If we, if we ever get attacked and we lose our technology of 00:19:34 where these children are gonna be, then yeah, Of Course. That's my problem. They Better stay home. Of course the generation 00:19:38 that use slide rules hold them out. The generation use slide rules would've said that about us with calculators. 00:19:43 That's true. The generation that used Abacus, the generation that used, um, you know, uh, 00:19:49 drafting tables versus CAD and cam design. So I think that that's not an invalid point, but it's been said before over reliance on technology. 00:19:56 What if you went for 30 days without, without any computers though? 30 days. Where's our United States gonna be 00:20:02 if they're 30 days behind? Yeah. You know, it's 20, 50, a hundred years. Oh, just a 30 day period. 00:20:08 Look at what happened during Covid and how far behind we got there. And you know, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, 00:20:13 but I think you need a blend of where we're at. But like I said, 50 years ago, I guarantee you our fathers were 00:20:19 sitting there saying the same thing. Life. Well they did everything longhand. And you and I joked that you're the one 00:20:23 that's still in the computer when your internet was down, which in me, gay McGee, Arkansas, it's down about 00:20:29 80% of the time. I think. Uh, 'cause you know, you go and grind the the thing. Yeah. You gotta turn it All that 00:20:35 you're the only that can work. 'cause you can still use a pen and fame. I still have number two pencils at my desk. 00:20:40 I do too. Dude. We sound like a bunch of old guys. Right there. We are. Or, or we just, or we seasoned enough 00:20:47 that we think the next gener is gonna be fine. But it's different. And it's, I think, I think that we just need a mixture of both. 00:20:53 And I think honestly the kids that are in agriculture, that's what excites me. 'cause we do have a mixture of both. We 00:21:00 Need more of them in Adam. Absolutely. Yeah. We are losing, we've lost farmer now. They used to be 2% down to, what is it today? 00:21:07 One and a half. One less than one. And we're losing kids that wanna be in agriculture. Yeah. So we need 'em. If you agree with that, 00:21:15 you know what, send us a note. More importantly, maybe you can got a young person. Maybe you are a young person. You wanna come on this show. 00:21:20 I don't know. Send me a note. Point is, I'm glad you pulled up the table, a chair to the table here at the Grainery. 00:21:25 'cause we do this a lot. I see. With my friends, like Matt Miles, temple Rhodes and our sponsor right here, Tommy Ropes. 00:21:32 So you know what? Check out all the other great episodes of the Grainery. We want you to be here. 00:21:35 It's inclusive, it's real conversations, real Farmers. Also thank you to Tommy and Nature's. Nature's is, uh, the sponsor of this particular show. 00:21:44 And also Bio K. It's the technology that's in all their fertility products. And also now, XT Extreme Mag is the sponsor of Bio K. 00:21:51 Check out and learn more@natures.com the next time. 00:21:55.045 --> 00:21:57.285