Stepping off the production agriculture treadmill and into the Chef’s garden with Farmer Lee Jones

Hi everyone, I'm Paul Yeager. This is the MtoM Show podcast, a production of Iowa PBS and the Market to Market TV show. We're going to the farm and bear with me for a minute. Agriculture is a huge tent. There's a lot of different acts inside the tent. On the TV show, we talk often about those that raise wheat, corn, soybeans, livestock, but there's also this tent of agriculture that grow food of vegetables, the organic side. And there's a movement in some of these circles for Regenerative soil, soils, a buzzword healthy soil, healthy water, clean water. And that's all kind of coming together for our guests today. Farmer Lee Jones out of Huron, Ohio. He is the guy who if you go to the website, the www.chefs-garden.com, you will see a whole lot of things that he's involved with a lot of farm to table events used to be they would sell directly to restaurants now they sell a lot to direct to customers. COVID changed their business. He's really the second generation on this farm. But he's going to tell the story of how farms changed and how their farms specifically changed high interest rates. 22% interest rates changed the direction of his operation. His father was a vegetable farmer. He's a vegetable farmer. He works with his brother. We'll talk a little bit about that. But the amount of things I have written down here that we're going to talk about is crazy. But let me give you just a quick highlight. We're going to talk about inefficient operations, inefficient agriculture. We'll also talk about a guy who's had the Secretary of Ag visit his place and what he would tell USDA as they are trying to form a new farm bill. There's a whole lot of things. And really the episode title of full circle farms will kind of explain that in today's episode, if you have feedback for me, or a topic you want to cover, Paul.Yeager@IowaPBS.org. Now let's get to Farmer Lee Jones. We'll discuss his outfit and his story. Lee, I'm almost thrown off because I want to ask you did you go through the whole registration and officially change your name to Farmer Lee Jones? Or is it just good branding.

Farmer Lee Jones: I don't know anything about branding. We're just a bunch of vegetable farmers out here. But you can call me anything but late for dinner. Farmer Lee Jones, Lee Jones, my Instagram is Farmer Lee Jones. But we don't get too wrapped up on that. We're just very grateful to have the privilege of getting to grow vegetables, good, clean, healthy vegetables. Now, not only for restaurants, but also for individuals which changed during COVID.

[Yeager]  Well, let's get into your name a little more. Farmer. What does farmer mean to you?

[Jones]  Well, you know, one of the most frequently asked questions is the bibs, a white shirt and a red bow tie. There's an old saying that says you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and probably the younger folks don't know what that means. But to me that means that on my best day, I couldn't put on a nice looking three piece suit in fall and look nearly as handsome as us. So I might as well go as the farmer I am. I literally do not own another pair of pants. I have 18 pairs of overall 18 white shirts and 18 red bow ties and I have a registered trademark with the US Attorney General's Office on this not that anybody else would be caught and a pair of overalls on a white shirt or red bow tie. Bailey I wear him to church, I wear him to funerals. I've conducted several weddings. I am who I am. And I'm okay with that. But it actually goes back to John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. And I believe that we've kind of live that story over again. John Steinbeck wrote about the Dust Bowl, and the Great Depression and many farms that lost everything and they loaded all that they owned on one truck for three generations in some cases, including the goat and the family cow and started back over looking for a place just to earn a living. And there were some large ranches and, and operations that would take advantage of the desperation of the farmers and they would said get the word out and there would be hundreds of farmers that would show up in in lines, sometimes pushing the vehicle in really desperate, and they would get paid perhaps $1 and a half a day, but they'd be charged 50 cents to stay in the camp and if they wanted a hot meal and a shower It was another 50 cents, and they almost ended up owing by the end. But despite the hardship despite how downtrodden they were, there's a scene and if anybody is really bored, sometime, you can still get an old black and white and watch The Grapes of Wrath. The book is great. The black and white is great. But there's a scene on a Saturday night where the overalls are worn And then they're taller but they're clean. And the men have white shirts and bow ties on and they have a square dance. And despite all of their hardships, they maintain their dignity and their pride and their integrity. And for every small farmer out there, or everybody that ever dreamed of having a farm, or anybody that's ever lost the farm, it represents the small family farm or the dream of one, or the optimism that small family farms actually have a place in American society today. And it's our belief that there are enough people that say that artisan production and small family farms do have a place and we're banking our livelihood, on the fact that good, clean, healthy foods done the right way, taking care of the people taking care of the land, is something that there are enough people in this country that will support it. And we're very, very grateful to have the opportunity we've been blessed to be able to farm at 19 years old, I stood right on this property. When interest rates were 22% Fall, maybe even before you were born, and 22%. If you can imagine interest rates at 22%. We had a hailstorm and it wiped out all the crops, the banks were closed. And I watched them. When I was 19 years old, watching every single thing that my parents owned off including every tracker, every piece of equipment, our home, my mother's car, and we crawled away, I'm not trying to create a rags to riches story, because it's not things can change in a hurry. But we started back over. And the thing that always resonated with us was that nothing ever really seemed exactly just quite right. For my dad, he was old enough to have seen a generation where a large farm was 100 acres. And a third of it was a cover crop. And a third of it was growing feed for the animals and a third was in production, to take to the market to sell. And then they rotated it was a true rotation of crops. And, of course, you know, who's making the money in the country, you got to follow the money, pharmaceutical and chemical companies. And of course, the universities are all financially in trouble. And so the pharmaceutical companies and the chemical companies give grants and say we want to give you $10 million grants to do research to help the farmer. And of course, that research needs to include how our chemicals can be worked on. And so we've used chemicals, and we've become a very, very efficient system. I do not call any farmer out there. There's a model that says keep your costs and your inputs is absolute lowest possible, get your yields as high as possible. And hopefully there's enough delta or margin in there that they can survive and deliver the next year. In America, we produce food cheaper than any other country in the world. Now you can say wait a minute, I can go to Whole Foods and I can have $300 in the grocery cart before you bat an eye. But as it relates to our income, we produce food cheaper than any other country in the world, yet we have the highest health care in the world. There's a real conundrum there. In the last 100 years, we have had a 50 to 80% decline in the nutritional level of vegetables 50 to 80% decline, it's fast, you can Google it, it's real. They say that you would have to eat five heads of broccoli today to get the same nutrition that you wouldn't want to add 50 or 80 years ago. So at this, if you can picture that listeners can picture the fact that we've had a 50 to 80% decline in the nutritional level in the last 100 years. Now, consider this graph a 3,000% increase in kidney liver, heart cancer disease, attention deficit disorder, autism, childhood obesity, allergies and diabetes, I would be willing to bet your farm not going to bet mine, I'd be willing to bet your farm Paul, that there isn't any of the listeners here today that doesn't have somebody in their family or immediate circle of friends that doesn't suffer from one or more of those diseases. Those percentages are not sustainable. We have to make changes and significant changes. Now I would encourage everybody to watch a documentary called Kiss the Ground. We did not have any direct input in that. But we believe in it. I've watched it 12 times with my brother, who I've worked in tandem with in partnership with his watch at 15. The second chapter to that is called common ground. It's just rolling out. They predict that we have 60 harvests left in that trajectory that I've just talked about with the health conditions continuing the direction they are and then nutritional levels tanking. Pretty significant and scary stuff, Paul.

[Yeager]  Let's go back to a couple of things you just said. There are those who watch the commodity markets of the corn, the soybean and the wheat farmer and call that a treadmill. You sound like you agree that they are on a treadmill they can't get off because of chemical company and banker and loans. Do you ever feel that you are on a treadmill of a different type of one?

[Jones]  No.We got off of it. At 19, when we stood and watched him sell everything we owned, and we started over. And we jokingly talk about the fact that the reason we started over is because we were too stupid to know we couldn't. And a lot of good things are accomplished in this world because somebody knew they couldn't. Well, no bet no bank would give us a dime. And if we were in survival mode, I can tell you all stories that you couldn't hardly believe. But no, I don't feel we're on a treadmill. I feel that supply and demand dictates everything. We are fortunate to have been turned on to the idea that there were enough people that were starting to understand the tragedy of what was going on. And they supported clean foods. We follow a philosophy called regenerative agriculture, we believe in it. And we believe that we personally believe that God, some of us take bigger two by fours and others to get our attention. And losing that form was our two by four. Well, he said, No, I want you to go in a different direction. So we did.

[Yeager]  The two by fours. So you're talking 22% Interest? You're talking the late 1970s. But agriculture prior to then what did the farm look like? Was it more you say? It was the treadmill it was the traditional corn, soybean and animals pre 1970. When you're talking farms did look closer to Steinbeck then they might look today. Do you agree with that? 

[Jones]  I do. We were not corn and soybeans. We are vegetable. We were 1200 acres of fresh market vegetables. He had some profitable years there. And 78 He had a bang up of a year and he reinvested every nickel back into the business. And by 1982, we were flat broke. It was a treadmill.

[Yeager]  And you see 1200 acres, then, how many, how soon are you at 1200 acres yet?

[Jones]  Don't have any desire to be. We farm about 350 acres, if you can get if you can get a little bit of a scenario 22% interest rates we were selling to change grocery stores like Kroger, maybe some of the listeners remember the old Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, which is A&P, Big chain grocery stores, we were shipping about 10 to 12 Semi loads of produce a day. We would sell it to them, they would pay us in 120 days with zero interest on the money. So we're borrowing money for 22% selling it to them on 120, they were using the money and we couldn't finance them. And certainly the hailstorm was the straw that broke the camel's back. But ultimately it was a course for failure. If my dad was here today, he would not blame 22% interest. And he wouldn't blame a hailstorm. He would just say I was a lousy manager. And I didn't know what I was doing. He was very humble about it.

[Yeager]  Well, there's an argument that there are some farmers who do that, that's what the farm crisis did - is it eliminated the bad business. And there's some farmers that somehow made it through who aren't as good at marketing, but their margins are still small. The vegetable side of things. Let's get into that. Tell me about your 350. You mentioned certified - regenefied - what does that mean?

[Jones]  Yeah, well, I'm going to talk in layman terms, because that's what I understand. I will tell you, we have a lab here on the farm. We're testing the biology and the biodiversity on the soil. There is more light below the earth's surface and above all health begins with the health of the soil. So consequently, I've lost my train of thought,

[Yeager]  Well, healthy soil is something that I know that corn and soybean people talk about too. But in vegetables, I'm guessing it's extremely important to have that healthy soil.

[Jones]  Okay, so I'm going to talk in layman terms, because that's how I understand that. We do have three scientists on staff, we have a lab, we're testing the biodiversity, the biology and the soil. There is more life below the earth's surface and there is above, if you can, if you can get your mind around the notion that and maybe your third your parents say it or you heard somebody say it, maybe it was tongue in cheek, maybe it thought maybe there was some truth to it, I need some vitamin D, I'm gonna go get some sunshine. If you can get your mind around that idea that your body has a receptacle for energy from the sun, then it's not such a far stretch to recognize and what's really cool is different types of plants accept different types of energy from the sun. So we do a lab analysis no different than the commodity guys are doing. In fact, the synthetic fertilizer companies will provide that service for free from them. Here's the deficiencies. It's all the mineral levels. Based on those deficiencies in the minerals, different types of plants will harvest different types of energy from the sun. So it can be clover, alfalfa, buckwheat, rye vetch, Sudan grass, we have 15 specie planning, two thirds of the acreage is committed to harvest in the end energy from the sun. It's an unprecedented commitment. Two thirds of the acreage Can you imagine a grain grower trying to do that would be impossible. But we're not using the sun and tannic fertilizer, you're harvesting that energy from the sun, you're rebuilding the biology, you're not using the chemicals, which of course, Roundup told us that when they hit the Earth's surface that it dissipated, it wasn't true. And we all know it at this point, the biology was killed. And so consequently, when you put the synthetic fertilizer on, the biology is not there to break the food down into a form that the plant can pick it up. So consequently, the nutritional levels go down, it runs off into creeks, and then the rivers and then the lake. We're gonna right here along the Great Lakes, we have 2.9 miles inland from Lake Erie, some of the richest sandy loam in the world. In fact, the farm actually is sitting on an old lake bottom about 11,000 years ago. So it's really an amazing soil, but those synthetic fertilizers are running off, and we're growing amazing elbow bloom in the lake, because the biology is fortunately alive in the lake, but it's breaking that food down. And it's actually causing water problems in the western basin where Lake Erie is the shallowest and the warmest, they've actually had to shut water down at times, because the algal bloom is so bad that it floods things up. So routine is harmony with nature, rather than trying to outsmart it, my dad has the same, the only thing we're trying to do is get as good as the growers were 100 years ago. And in many cases, that's true. But we're obviously trying to tie technology and resources available to us today that weren't then to be able to try and do a better job. My dad always said that the best fertilizer that you could put on the land was that on the bottom of your shoe, and what that meant was being intimate with the soil and having an understanding. And when you're putting the chemicals on and you're doing some of these processes. It's not a natural process, the closer we can get to working in harmony of nature and letting nature do what it was designed to do. It's a whole lot smarter, not a lot of times all we do is just screw it up. So regenerative agriculture. In fact, one of the exciting things is that we're seeing nutritional increases in some cases 50 100 150 In some cases 300% above the USDA average. Now I will tell you, the USDA average is too low. The nutritionists in this country are all using numbers that were provided by USDA previous to 1945. Because that's what they were the highest, and they've done nothing but tank since then. So we still have work to do. Do we have this all figured out? Nope. My dad also had a saying that we had to continue to make mistakes at a faster rate than the competition. He said, We also do mistakes well, and you damn well better learn from them. So unfortunately, I got to work with him for 40 years, six days a week and on a seven day go to church with him. We lost him in 2020. But his voice is ringing in my head every day. As you can see, those things were ingrained. I had the privilege of getting to work with him for 40 years. And we miss him sorely, but we feel him here with us every day. 

[Yeager]  USDA has to buy shepherd farmers like you, farmers, the grain farmer who might be as you are saying a little more tied to the chemical in the synthetics of the soil. And they are also trying to make sure that people who might not have enough to eat or getting food to eat. It's a tough job for the USDA. But are you getting the government support and understand the need for support? In legislation specifically, as we try to figure out a farm bill right now is there enough in that farm bill to help farmers like you?

[Jones]  Well, I want to, you know, take a half step back and say, Look, I am not pounding my chest and saying our ways the right way. And what these other farmers are doing, I will reiterate, they are trapped in a model that says keep the inputs as low as possible produces many tons per acre. And they are amazing. We are surrounded by some really amazing growers. And we have the utmost respect for them. And I am in no way shape or form, knocking what they're doing. This is the path that was chosen for us. And this is what we're trying to do because we believe we can grow clean foods. My brother has testified before Congress, we have talked to congress people, we believe there's a trajectory of imported food into the United States with fresh fruits and vegetables. And that number continues to increase. And if there isn't some relief on the farm bill that if within five years, all of the fresh fruits and vegetables will be imported. Unless there's a handful of us shepherds as you say, that can hang on and that people will support that. But the mass production of food is being imported and that number is continuing to increase. labor is cheaper over in other countries $3 a day. It kept continuing to raise it here. There's not a lot of relief. It's a very difficult change challenge to get any change to happen there. My brother likes that arena likes to work in it, I don't care for it, I just want to continue to do the best that we can. I believe that there are enough people there people are more savvy, more intuitive, more interested, we're concerned with where our food sources are coming from, how the people are being treated on those farms, how the land is being taken care of, and how we're doing things to take care of that environment than ever before. And I'm hopeful and I believe that you're going to see emerging trends for demand for products that maybe didn't exist before. Look, the farmers are great production people. And I believe that they will fill whatever demand is there. And I see demands emerging. I don't believe we have a gluten problem in this country. It's our belief that we have a Glyphosate problem. A lot of varieties in the United States are varieties that are longer season. And those are there using those varieties in the, in the Midwest and in Canada, because they produce more yield. But they also don't have enough time to ripen. So they go in and they spray it with lice of faith. It's amazing. And maybe some of the listeners have talked about going over to Europe and eating the bread and they don't have an issue. Now, I'm not talking about celiac, that is a very serious thing. It's gluten issues are serious too. But celiac takes it to a whole new level. And I'm not a doctor, but I did have a good night stay at a holiday and nobody else probably has ever heard that commercial.

[Yeager]  I use that one too, Lee.

[Jones]  You gotta come see us sometime. 

[Yeager]  Well, if I come see you, what are you, what are you in right now?

[Jones]  A pair of overalls.

[Yeager]  Your room around you? Is this your showroom? Store? 

[Jones]  Actually? Our market has been direct to restaurants, we shipped FedEx. We go as far as the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong, and some of the Dubai we go into Disney down in Orlando, New York, Las Vegas. We shipped to all 50 states direct with no middleman. COVID hit and those restaurants were in trouble. And so were we. We did the USDA Farm to Family program for one round until they change that made it fell back to their old bad habits of lowest bid. And the farm to family program then became a Cisco program, which was the cheapest, cheapest that they could do. We couldn't even get close even just at cost. So we launched a nationwide home delivery because we felt there was enough people that were looking for good clean food. And there are food deserts in the United States, but we could ship directly to them from our farm. You can go to FarmerJoesfarm.com. And you can get a box. If you have an aunt Matilda in Tampa, and she already has three of everything and you don't know what to get her, it's a great gift that says I care about your health and well being and you can get her a subscription box. But we also open to retail because our local community, we're begging for good healthy, fresh vegetables. Ironically, this is a farm I had not stood on in 42 years. It's the farm that in when I was 19 years old was auctioned off. I drove by it every single day, as we started over on six acres and rented 50 acres down the road. And in the middle of October the green farmer who bought this farm called the sudden we're ready to retire would you like to buy the farm back the timing was not good. But by the grace of God and some creative thinking we we bought the farm back so I am actually standing on the farm 40 Some years later. If it needed a name, it would be Full Circle Farm. But it doesn't. We're the Chef's Garden and you're in Ohio. This was a barn, we started the farm market in the old barn in '21, We closed December 18 and 21 in January 14 that burned to the ground. And so we rebuilt but this was a farm market. We stay open year round, so that folks can come in. This is more of a place. The people that are coming here are coming here because they're either trying to get well or stay well. We are focused on clean foods. The restaurants fortunately have recovered. And that's really been our lifeblood. But we we really believe that our future isn't growing the healthiest, cleanest, best flavored vegetables that exist that we know how to do. So we're excited about the future. We see emerging trends. The next generation has started growing heritage flour with no chemical. We found a grist mill place that will grind hours and not grind anybody else's varieties that have the chemical on them. It's just for heritage, flour or grain. Oh, this is one of our most popular the renowned wheat flour and we make it available right here in the farm market. We also make it available online where people can get it. We're excited we see emerging markets and good heritage varieties of flower. There's there's so many different opportunities we got to look for those emerging trends and recognize where there might be some bargain that provides us a little better version than the commodity graph. We can't exist on commodity pricing. 

[Yeager]You mentioned, the three scientists, it sounds like you might have three or four marketing people that are helping you understand where those new markets and new opportunities are.

[Jones] You know, it's really about listening to the customer. Listening to the needs, God gave us one mouth and two ears for a reason. We don't know much about marketing out here, Paul, we're just farm folks trying to figure it out as we go. We're not experts in this. We're vegetable growers. We're a family business, we have 168, full time team members, we have a profit sharing, there is nothing that makes my brother Bob Jones, the CEO of the company, and I am more happy than to be able to share profit sharing check. The single greatest asset on this farm is not land. It's not tractors, it's not greenhouses. It's not equipment, its people. And we are very, very proud to get the work with the family that we have here on the farm. We did not furlough during COVID, you don't furlough a farm. It's kind of like a relationship, you don't walk away and say, I'm going out the back door and then walk back in a year later and say, Hi, honey, I'm home, you're not going to be greeted very well. Well, the form is kind of the same. But those families were important and are important, we have 1000 years of experience, combined with when you add up the number of years that some of our team has been here, when all of our team is here. That's 1000 years of experience here at the chef's garden. They're vitally important to us and its people, ultimately, obviously, AI is going to be a part of the future. It's not going to replace anybody on this farm, it's going to make people more efficient, we have to embrace that it's important.

[Yeager]  You are close to the Cleveland area, major population, would your operation work if it was, say 200 miles from a major city?

[Jones]  We are within 600 miles of 80% of the population along the east coast. If we were 20 miles outside of Cleveland, it might be nicer. I don't know whether we could afford it, or whether we could find the land out there land changes hands about once a generation and there's no For Sale sign that goes up. It's sometimes a prearranged deal, that we're neighbor to neighbor. I don't know, I think that there's if anybody thinks they can sit and follow our model and say that's a, that's a model for success, I would say it would be a failure. I think that everybody has to find. It's so important supply and demand dictates everything. And I think it's imperative to listen and find what you're passionate about doing. And find how that can match up with the emerging trends that are evolving and continue to evolve every day, there's never been a more exciting time in agriculture than there is today. If we can listen and watch for those emerging markets, they're there. And if we, if that matches up with our passions, then you go for it, we get people to come out, they're excited about what we're doing. And a lot of times we can get, all of a sudden we can find ourselves down what I call a rabbit hole. Something says well, you know, you should be doing that. You know, in large corporations, they have organizational charts, a goal, and a mission statement and an organizational chart, perhaps are even more important important on a small family farm, then even in large corporations. If you don't know what your goal is, you'll never get there. Number one. Number two, you've got to identify the mission of what you're trying to accomplish and how that's all going to work towards taking care of each other and taking care of the community and providing good clean food that really encapsulates what our mission is. We have a safe healthy soil, healthy people, healthy soil, healthy vegetables, healthy people healthy environment. And that's really the crux of what we're trying to do.

[Yeager]  I'm gonna get back to the soil in a minute, what happened, what would have happened in those original 1200 acres or your farm are three or four other farms, if that would have been split into like what your 350 is, and you're all doing the exact same thing? Would that be better or for for spreading what it is that you're trying to do if you're a little more concentrated in your neighborhood? Or do you need someone? Do we as a food system need to have someone every 500 Miles be like you or and grow the type of things that you're growing?

[Jones]  I don't think anybody needs to be like us. I don't know that this is replicable I don't know that anybody is stupid. If you were to sit down and try and write the most inefficient system that you could Think of absolutely the most inefficient system, it would be us. I think you could bring outside consultants in. And of course, they would use the 80-20 rule, and they would eliminate 80% of our product. And it would be a different. I think that other firms, there's a demand, we're seeing small farms emerging and doing a great job. I don't think that emulating what we're doing is necessarily the recipe for success, I think there are nuggets of what we do. We found a very, very finite niche that allowed us to be able to survive in agriculture, and there was a group of people that would support it. And that was chefs. I think that the bigger market is individual, the the number of the finite number of fine dining chefs, compared to the people that are really cluing in to the fact that we need to be concerned about our environment, we need to be concerned about the food, the people that are tending that land, but the fact that it's clean food, people are smart, they're getting it, a lot of us are tired of some of the propaganda of all the propaganda that we get fed through marketing and other political arenas. And and we're understanding that, for our survival and for our families, and the importance of our grandchildren, that we need to focus on the producers of good clean food, and the markets are emerging at a faster rate than you can even shake a stick out. It's an exciting time in agriculture. 

[Yeager]  And you mentioned the soil, I do want to finish up with that. You talk about the organic nature, the healthy nature of the soil. What does that give me a quick science lesson of really what healthy soil looks like in your eyes?

[Jones]  When you can pull a plant, cover crop up by the roots, you've obviously want to do that, after a good rain, or, or with a good potato fork, and pull that off. And you've got that mass of roots in the soil attached to it. And you see the earthworms moving, you know you're on the right track. The biology through multiple years of using these chemicals is killing that biology. But when you can pull it up, we put this soil under the microscope. And we know the names of all those little insects if you will, because you see what they're doing is they're breaking the food down, we're feeding them, they're breaking that down. And then the plants picking that up. It's basically they're creating manure that puts that food into a form that the plant can pick it up. If that life is not that biology and biodiversity is not in the soil, it's not breaking that food down into a form that the plant can pick it up. That's why we're seeing nutritional levels continue to go down. The good news is the soil will respond to being treated well. And it's very exciting. This is not doom and gloom. And that's not what I'm trying to paint. I hope that I'm painting a picture of hope and optimism and opportunity that we can really turn this but there's a sense of urgency, we have got to start and move rapidly. To be able to make these changes, healthy soil, healthy vegetables, healthy people, healthy environment. And I really believe that that is a key. And whether it's vegetables or growing or whether it's grain or corn or whatever it is, you are what you eat. And that's really important.

[Yeager]  And I think we had a pretty healthy discussion as well Lee.

[Jones]  I am just so excited to be on Paul, thank you so much. And anybody that's interested in talking about the environment, and the soil life, and you know, we talk about now the difference between dirt and soil is dirt, what's under your bed and soils what we grow vegetables in, but I'm just grateful that you have an interest and your listeners have an interest in our health and well being in the future of agriculture. It's just an honor to be on here with you.

[Yeager]  It's a big tent. A lot of people are in there selling different things under that agriculture tent. But it is kind of fun to explore it all. Farmer Lee Jones from Huron, Ohio. Thank you so much.

[Jones]  Thank you, Paul.

[Yeager]  Follow the money. Feels like we're talking about Jerry Maguire. Maybe show me the money. Show me the love of this podcast. Like Subscribe, Share, really like it when you share with a friend. New episodes come out each and every Tuesday in audio and video form. We'll see you next time. Thank you for consuming us. Bye bye.