Farm4Profit Podcast
Trying New Farming Practices with Your Risk Mitigated - Billy Rose AcreShield Guarantee
Mon, 20 Jan 2025
In this insightful episode, Billy Rose, founder of AcreShield, explores how innovation and risk management are reshaping modern farming. He breaks down how companies encourage retailers and growers to adopt new agricultural products using verified data, risk assessments, and real-world success stories. Billy highlights key traits for successful entrepreneurs and farmers, including energy, confidence, and tenacity. He dives into how AcreShield’s AI-powered Yield Optimizer helps farmers improve yields and minimize risk with unbiased seed testing and performance-backed programs. Billy also explains microcaptive insurance, farmland valuation tools, and the importance of data transparency in farming. Learn how AcreShield is empowering farmers with confidence and financial security.For more information, visit AcreShield.com or OptimalAgSolutions.com. Want Farm4Profit Merch? Custom order your favorite items today!https://farmfocused.com/farm-4profit/ Don’t forget to like the podcast on all platforms and leave a review where ever you listen! Website: www.Farm4Profit.comShareable episode link: https://intro-to-farm4profit.simplecast.comEmail address: [email protected]/Text: 515.207.9640Subscribe to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSR8c1BrCjNDDI_Acku5XqwFollow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@farm4profitConnect with us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Farm4ProfitLLC/
A lot easier to try new things when corn's at $6, okay? Now I'm third generation, you know, I'm working with dad, Gramps is in town, there's a lot of pressure on me to perform. And I want to perform, and I have to perform. So when we look at the sub-450 cash basis, it starts to go like these decisions really matter, and I don't want to be the generation that messed up.
I actually feel extreme passion for the guys calling the shots right now. It's difficult times. And Brazil is looking great again. I mean, this is just a way of life, this price. I think we have to accept that.
Ladies and gentlemen, farmers, ranchers, and distinguished guests, thank you for listening to the Farm for Profit podcast, where we discuss the latest ideas, methods, trends, and techniques available to help your farm achieve higher levels of farm profitability. Remember, if you aren't farming for profit, you won't be farming for long.
Hey listeners, welcome back to the Farm for Profit podcast. This is Tanner. This is Corey. And this is David. Y'all, we should really throw them off at 25 and just start saying each other's names for each other.
I did that once. We did. During the Christmas show. Yeah. Yeah.
Do you like my new shirt? Oh, it is a new shirt. I do. I love it. It's like I helped design it. America. Red, white, and blue. Yeah, those showed up the other day and my wife goes, you know, the 4th of July isn't for another six months.
Every day is a good day to work.
Every day is a good day.
America. America. Farm for profit style. That's right. I do feel like I should be flipping burgers on a hot summer day after a round of golf.
Isn't it Inauguration Day tomorrow? Oh, it is, yeah.
Yeah? Or Wednesday? Tuesday? Wednesday? Yeah. What is it? Inauguration.
I saw it on Facebook. It's official this morning.
All right. Yes. Yes. Well, that gives you a little timestamp as to when this episode is being recorded. But listeners, we appreciate you as always. Thanks for ringing in 2025 with us. We appreciate all your feedback, especially some of those messages that you send to our text line, 515-207-9640 or voicemails. They can leave a voicemail. It's so hard not to answer.
Like I want to answer, but I know that sometimes when I do answer, they have to call back and leave their voicemail.
Yeah.
Do they ever actually hang on the line when you do answer? Yeah. Yeah. I've had a couple of conversations, which is fun. We get a lot of calls from Canada. Yeah. Which is cool. They just need someone to talk to. It's cold.
It's cold. It's lonely.
Yes. Yes. It's desolate. That's right. We are heading on a trade show tour. So we will be out at the North American Conservation and Drainage Expo this week. That's in Indianapolis. Yes. We come back and do two shows in a row in Des Moines. We've got the Iowa Ag Expo, which is following Yuchi, which is the custom harvester. So that'll be kind of neat. I'm interested in that.
Never heard of that before. Those guys are nuts to begin with. They're crazy. The amount of hours they work and the short amount of time that they do it, it'd be kind of neat. I imagine it's just a big party. I think both Naked and Uchi. Of course, we're going out to Colorado. It's going to be a rough couple weeks. Yeah, we got to go. That's in March. Head out to Commodity Classic. Yeah.
And then in between there, we go down to Louisville. We're back in Louisville. We missed it last year. That was the Farm Machinery Show. So that's kind of give you an idea and a little lay of the land on what we have going on. But we're excited. Like I said, ringing in 2025, bringing back a guest from this fall.
And instead of doing it at a farm show in a noisy background, now he's in our beautiful, quiet studio. Yeah, last time we were at Farm Progress Show. That's right.
It was warm and no snow. It was pretty hot. This is a fantastic studio, guys. Yes. So, yes, Billy Rose is back. Welcome. Welcome. It's my pleasure. Corey, I love the shirt. I'm thinking about golf, though, and that golf simulator around the corner, we may have to hit a few.
Yeah, we will. We could all put the shirts on afterwards and smack a few around.
There you go. Well, we had a lot of fun this fall, and our listeners can always go back and pick up that episode. I'll link it in the show notes so they can have access to the first conversation that we had. But why don't you reintroduce yourself, and then we'll kind of talk about where we're headed in the conversation today.
Yeah, I appreciate it. And again, it's an honor to be here, guys. As we look at how can we help our farming friends, I'm a kid from Dyersville, Iowa. And at the end of the day, we love what we do. But in order to protect what we do, we need to make a little money. And these commodity prices, I mean, I never thought I'd be cheering $10 soybean, but I did cheer $10 soybean this week.
And 450 corn is starting to look a little better. And now that we broke $10 on the soybeans, there's hope, but we need, it's a long way. And when you really think about it, A lot of guys are looking at break-even as a good goal, and yet we want to protect our lifestyle, and that means we need to make some money, right, Jeff? Yeah.
Yeah, I hate these times as farmers, or most farmers, I think, do, right? Like, you were cheering $10 soybeans. Two years ago, we would have been cussing $10. Like, we're not going to $10. We can't make $10. No, we can't. It's... I don't know, but I'm trying to get myself in a mindset looking at it differently.
Like, hey, if I listen to Farm for Profit podcast and I'm a good farmer and I implement some of the things that they do, like there's going to be opportunities here, right? Like, so I'm trying to get myself into that mindset. Like, yes, it's going to be painful, but if we're a good manager, we have the right tools. We do some of the good stuff that these guys tell us to look into, right?
Hey, maybe the cream can rise to the top.
We were having this conversation last night after hours of what are setting some of the most successful people apart that in these tougher times, that's when the best of the best thrive.
Yeah. I can only reflect a little on my friends and what we've done is we're always learning. And if you're going to do what you always have done, you're going to get the same result. And when you're below break-even... it's time to actually take a step back and go slow to go fast. That means you're going to have to change something up. It's like, how can I increase those yields over my APH?
At the same time, how can I watch my cost? And there's so many choices out there. I mean, can you guys even keep track the amount of biological companies popping up? I've seen a web chart of them, and it is mind-blowing how many companies there are.
You can't print that on an 8x11 piece of paper. No.
And don't you just almost feel like, do you think all these really work?
Sometimes feel like snake oil, yes.
I didn't say the word, but I felt it. Yeah, sometimes. Right. And I know certain work under certain conditions. But one of the things that we did is we did a survey and we said, look, we do seed intelligence testing across the Midwest. We have close to 300 different locations. We take all that seed intelligence.
We bring it back so it's actionable based on where you drop a pin on your field, your soil type, your weather pattern. your relative maturity range, and we give you the David Letterman top 10, right? Yeah. Yeah, these are the best. I got you. But it's not as funny. It should be. Now it should come with a joke. I know, right? Yeah. I need a little help here, Corey.
Yeah, that's what he's going to rope us into. That'll be one of the contracts that we fill out.
It could be like, what's that one seed company? I'm not going to say their name, no free ads, but like, hope your combine's hungry for this hybrid. Oh, yeah. Well said. Better build another bin. Yeah.
Ooh, good. Yes. Our farm customers appreciate all the seed intelligence, right? Yeah. But we did an interview. Would you like us to do seed treatment? Would you like us to do fungicide or biologicals next? And what do you think, Dave? Most farmers came back and said, would you do the following next?
Oh, man. I don't know. I think it's biological.
Biological was winning, you know, 70% of the vote.
Is that just because that's what they're hearing in the background? They've tried everything else?
Yeah, I don't know enough. That's just what the results are.
I think it's because... Like seed treatments have become just such the norm, right? Yeah. Yeah, we just do it, right? We've spent 20 years proving that, you know, more times than not, having a fungicide and insecticide and whatever on the seed, you know, is going to probably be beneficial to my farm. So I don't need to know whether it's going to work anymore.
It's the new. It's the new. Right.
Yep. And like I said, there's just the data is so contradictory because everybody has the claims. Everybody has the, mine's three bushels better, or you're going to get a two-bushel advantage or a seven-bushel advantage when you really stretch it. There's a lot of conversations around that.
Even our family, we went with a package last spring and just looked at maps again to try and figure out if we could see any difference, and we can't.
Yeah. You're not seeing the yield drag, at least that's what we're hearing. Right. But am I seeing the yield increase to justify the ROI for the cost?
Yep. Either the extra pass or the extra cost and just acquiring the product. Yeah.
So what we did is we applied for our EPA license and we're going to do biological testing this year. Cool. Wow. Yeah. And I know we won't be able to test 30, okay? But we are trying to mine in on top five that we think are what we're hearing. Sure. So, again, that was not our idea.
That was coming from our customers and really saying, you know, how can we help you mitigate this risk going forward, help you thrive?
And are you going to –
section those out where it's just biological testing like we don't want to do fungicide and biological i know cory talked about this we need your dad tried to do like multiple different tests on you want good data and you couldn't you couldn't like separate out like what was the the factor that actually changed something right yeah he had too many trials going on and too many directions like i mean he might spray sideways and then have different population trials going this way different hybrid you know so too many things changing at one time you don't know what worked
So we just want to test. That's my question, I guess. You're just testing microbiologics.
I don't run all of our CROs, all of our testing, okay, first and foremost. I want to put that disclaimer out there, Dave. But what I understand from the team is that the best way to do testing is do actual same-field testing.
side by side same plant date same harvest date same practice okay same environment so that you can get a very good delta between that one versus the next one how they're going to mix it all in you know with fungicides um and we're going to talk about some unique new programs that we have coming that are out right now um that is up to those guys to determine
That's the challenge I think I could see you having is there's so many different ways for – there's so many different microbiologicals or biologicals, and there's so many ways to apply them, right? In-furrow, two-by-two, over-the-top, with your post-pass, with your funericide, with your side dress, on the seed. It's like – So you're going to have to rigorously get it.
We're going to take the 80-20 rule. What do 80% of the guys do? Yep. And the other 20%, we don't have the time and money to chase it. It's very expensive to run these trials.
Right. I would urge your team, and I think you're already doing it, is stick to the simplest application methods possible. That's probably going to get you in your 80-20 rule. But still... It needs to still be easy for our listeners to understand, okay, this does pay, but now I don't need to invest in special equipment. I don't need to invest in special assets to be able to get this benefit.
Right. Or somebody in my neighborhood that does custom applications already set up for it.
So what if... they all come back and they, they aren't good.
Well, we, you know, first and foremost, we don't take any money from any manufacturer. We're truly independent. We don't sell seed. We don't distribute seed. Our job is to take care of our farming friends. So it's full transparency.
So it's good that if they come back not good, that's good for your customers because you have good analytics. Yeah, exactly.
And hopefully it's going to save them the trial and error and the expense and the heartache and the belief. I believe in biologicals. I think it's being overhyped. Right. Okay. Just kind of like we saw with the CI scores. Okay. And here we are. Z45 is supposed to be in action this month. Guess what? You're not hearing much talk.
We haven't heard anything yet. Haven't heard anything. I think Mitchell's going to be down in Kansas City. He is. We should dive into that with him as well. I think on the biological thing and what I've said, because I've tried several on the farm and I can't tell you that I have seen... I like to see it over all my acres, right? I could go to a spot in a field that shows you 15 bushel, right?
You know, that's why they always want your data, so they can go pick that up. Look, look right here. But... I've never said it doesn't work. What I've said is it's not my limiting factor. I do believe in the technology of some of this stuff, but maybe we're not doing some of the basics or some of the other things that we needed to be taking care of as a farmer first.
Maybe we need lime on the ground or change our tillage practice or get a better seed or whatever type of a deal.
We actually had a text the other day. We've got multiple listeners that want us to do a deep dive into strip-till. Oh, yeah. And I think that would be fun to do as well. But I'm trying to think of how do you take an episode like that and make it not just about strip-till, but it makes about all tillage practices and your environment. But you could take a deep dive into every tillage.
You could do a series of tillage. You might, but that's interesting too. And that's why you've got good people working with you in the field. Yeah. Your team will be able to make sure that it's all replicable, the data's true, and we just get to review the information. Yeah.
You know, we have specialized four-row planters, you know, so that the precision, the depth, okay? And that really helps us at least look at seed comparison side by side, all right? We ran 1,300 varieties, okay? We ran 300 plots. I mean, the plot numbers were close to 10,000, okay? And all that data, you know, this is our fourth year that we harvested, and all that data comes in.
And normally, what would you get, Corey? You'd get a seed book. And then you would get this book and you would have to go through and go, well, let's go look at Slater's performance. Let's go look at the next one. And that's where we had kind of the aha moment. And we said, all right, this AI, another maybe overhyped word today, but we apply machine learning.
And we took the machine learning and built our model so that all of that seed trial data that is very scientifically obtained by us, okay, comes into that machine learning model. And based on when our farm customers drop a pin on their field now, on the clue, okay, and we can show you a demo sometime.
The algorithm knows the weather, 20 years of weather, knows the relative maturity range, okay, and pulls in the actual soil type, and it does the work for our farming friends.
And we come up with the David Letterman top 10. Yeah. Well, I know that, yeah, it was Tech Cub Live. So it was Corey and I got to see, you know, your team had a booth set up and dropped a pin. You know, we used my in-laws' fields, used one of Corey's fields. And all of the hybrids that Corey sells were on the list.
And for those of you that are just getting a short glimpse of what Acre Shield is, go back to the previous episode and you'll get a deeper dive in. We're just giving you a short glimpse there of what it is. But go back to the previous episode. We'll put it in the show notes of where that is. But go back and take a deeper listen for a full hour of what that is. But continuing on.
Yeah, that's good. But you brought up a point. A lot of guys said, I like this. I appreciate you guys doing all this work and you're helping me. But then they have this kind of skepticism as to, but I really love this particular number. And I didn't see you in my number in the top 10.
So we're creating, and it's going to be released in 30 days, a side-by-side comparison where you can take the David Letterman top 10 and go, here's my favorite number, compare it to one of the top 10, and here's the key, I'm not, our good agronomy team is, explaining the why your number versus the David Letterman top 10 number One is better than the other. So that could be crop rotation.
That could be pH levels. That could be a lot of things going on. But we're going to try to help explain the why. And people don't do that.
If I remember right, this isn't brand specific. So it isn't X, Y, Z. It's 1,300 different seed.
It's across every brand. We have every brand. Yeah. So, and I just want to add into that, guys have their favorite number, but they all have their favorite dealer. Oh, yes. So even if you could pull up dealer specific, like I know my dad's got his guy and Dave's got his guy, maybe. Guys.
But that helps too to be able to say, okay, now when they bring me the booklet, I've got Bailey's data and I've got the booklet data.
And again, because of great feedback from our customers, they said, hey, I want to just compare my – what's your favorite brand? Well, we won't ask you that. All right. Let's just say brand A. No free ads. And then let's go – and then I look at this – David Letterman recommendation coming out of Acreshield. And I go, but I want to compare it to that.
So we actually allow now our users to compare one, two, to how many brands they want to compare. If they just want to work with those brands.
Well, and I will say an argument for the farmer, especially when you get into soybeans, maybe they want to stay within this company's market. realm because right. They have, they're spraying with a certain kind of product, right? Like I might be willing to give up a bushel or two here because I'm not going to switch my sprayer, you know, to a different chemical or whatever. That's just that.
And I also was going to say on the top or, okay, this is my favorite hybrid. So I've been a big believer in plots. I worked with plots with Corteva and saw that like my biggest argument now that I've been a seed dealer for 10, 11 years is like, I've got these ones that rise to the top and they're the big hitters, right?
Every year in my plot, my just normal seed plot, nothing fancy, you know, but where, where does seed plots go? Usually on a pretty good, even piece of ground, right? Like you're never going to put it on your tough acre a, because it's not fun to farm and you're already taking time to stop and slow down and do it. But B it's like, well, I want to see what it's, what it's capable of. And yeah,
I have a hybrid that I know if I put it on 1,000 acres and then I go put this big new dog that won the plot last year over 1,000 acres, I could almost guarantee you that my one that goes all over all the acres, right, is going to rise to the top, right? Yeah. You'll see the big, my dad's going through the field, looking at the yield monitor, hollering, oh, 300 bushel, 300 bushel.
And this other one's just sitting here doing 250, 255. And then at the end of the day, well, he never told me about the big one swinging down to 210, 200. And all of a sudden, 245 and 250. Old steady Eddie went over my wet ground, my dry ground.
my crappy ground yeah so that that's hard to replicate in a plot scenario very hard right so then you really have to lean on what your was it the law of averages and you know just get a lot of plots out there yeah a lot of data yeah it back to replications so on average we will have 10 replications we go up to 65 replications of the same number yep across you know the 13 and that's what i don't get in a normal seed dealer plot right i might have a few checks right that's it
Yeah. But my hat's off to you. What we're just trying to do is be just – with that golf shirt, I've got to bring this golf analogy out. We want to be your caddy, okay? You never see a professional golfer without a caddy. Where's my caddy? Okay? It's right there. It is. It's right over there. Oh, we got a hat. Yeah, there you go.
And so that golfer, that professional golfer is relying on the caddy, but at the end of the day – He still grabs the club. He still hits the ball. The farmer, at the end of the day, is still calling the shots. He looks at the seed dealer. He looks at the agronomist. But at the end of the day, he's got to make the decision. And we're just trying to help assist make a better decision.
I was thinking about it, Dave. We should make a social media post of you with a bunch of hats in front of you, and you're making your seed choice for 2025.
We're picking what it is.
Yeah, your commitment.
I'm still back to David Letterman. I'm still back to David Letterman. Do you think Rachel Z knows who David Letterman is?
Not a clue. Oh, she's got good parents.
I don't know. She didn't know who Mr. Mustache was, so. We'll ask him. Yeah, we should know who Burt Reynolds was.
Well, let's go back to the question that led into this discussion, right? We were talking about most successful characteristics, and you said that the people closest to you are always learning, and that's kind of the nature behind what Acre Shield's doing is providing farmers that opportunity to always be learning. Make your own decision, but always be learning.
So as you think about more characteristics, rattle a couple more off that you've seen common.
Yeah, the... kind of putting on our entrepreneur hat, okay? And when I look at farmers, I view them as all entrepreneurs. And it's not easy being an entrepreneur. It is very difficult. There are days where you just go, oh my God, I'm just gonna go work for the bank and work nine to five in the hell with this stress, right? Okay.
But over the years, we basically look for, obviously, people that have a solid education and the good moral people. But there's some other characteristics that rise to the top when it comes to the type of organization and the type of success that we're used to obtaining. Not without a few scars on our back. But if we were to just a real high level, energy. okay?
Confidence, resourcefulness, sensitivity, creativity, courage, and the last one that I put in here is tenacity, okay? Because there are days that, you know, you have to bite hard to get through it. And if we kind of look at energy, you know, at our company, we like to you know, we just love our energy.
We feed off of each other and that energy sets a high pace and that's how we stay ahead of the pack. When we look at confidence at the end of the day, you do have to pick a seed, okay? You could overanalyze and paralysis by analysis, okay? But you need to make a decision, all right? So you have to have that confidence.
Resourcefulness, you know, where are you going to touch into, you know, who can you trust, okay?
Who's your advisory team? Where do you learn and get your information from?
Oh, yeah. And one of my mentors of my life who recently passed away, he was phenomenal. He would say, you must have slipped on the ice and hit your head, Billy, because you don't understand what the hell I'm trying to tell you. Okay? Read the damn contract. It's the written words that matter, right? Some certain things over the years that I've learned from him that I don't forget. Sensitivity.
Yeah, I'm curious about this one.
Yeah, this is... I learned this from a really great HR executive that worked for me for years, and she could take a two-by-four and crack someone over the head, at the same time deal with a very difficult personal situation. And I learned from her about sensitivity. When people walk in...
In that initial meeting when you guys met this morning and maybe you talked a little about what went on last night, you need a little of that five minutes of coffee can talk. Then it's back to business. I don't expect to talk about that the rest of the day, but at least you have to be sensitive to what's going on with your team.
I think the, you know. Know when to bide your time. Yeah. Sounds like a saying we're familiar to hear, Dave.
Creativity. He should have that on a t-shirt. There you go. I know, right? I like it. Creativity. We think that's one of our most unique attributes is, you know, how can we get creative? And I think that it's more understanding what the problem is and getting creative to solve a problem.
I think you've done that by listening to your customers. You just said it like we didn't know we were going to go down the biologics route, but, hey, they've requested it, and I think that's any good business. I mean, listen to Google. When did we come up with Google Maps? Everyone was asking for maps. Remember when Garmin's came out?
It was like the number one gift for, like, dads across the world. Yeah, Garmin watch right here.
And then all of a sudden. It's a good watch.
like garments weren't a thing anymore why because google's like all right we need maps like everybody wants google maps what they do they listen to their customers and all of a sudden now it's like everybody has it on their phone google maps well you never know you listen to your customers next thing you know maybe biologics you're gonna be the next i do not miss printing off those map was map quest oh yeah printing off those maps and you're driving and you're trying to read left hand turn at 290th street and all of a sudden you're looking at 410th
It's why I still have the Google Android platform. I think their mapping program's the best. It's superior.
I try to tell these guys all the time. Apple Maps just doesn't cut it.
You know what was fun about the Garmins, though, that were sitting up on the dash, is you could try to beat the time.
like oh i could beat that by 15 minutes you know and now you can't you can't you can't beat it anymore i don't know if it just if it reads and knows your driving habits or whatever it is well and it also knows the traffic it does yeah i like that you could change the name of your garmin and you could also change the voice so i change it to like a female lady and like a british gal yeah exactly
I love her voice. You can change the voice like, oh, hey, Shannon, how long is it going to take us to get there?
And no longer do you need a fuzz buster, right? People are reporting the speed traps on the interstate and all that.
See, I like that with Google Maps.
You can share like cop ahead, cop ahead.
I know where I'm going, but I still want to punch it in there just so it tells me when to speed check ahead. And it's like a religion. If I see a cop, I'm going to put it in. I'm not going to slack and be the one that doesn't report the cop there.
No, I'm punching it. I did get a speeding ticket already this year, and my wife's like, really? I'm like, it's only one this year. She's like, it's January 5th. It's only one this year. Didn't you get one like right before the end of the year too? It's like two this month. In a couple weeks.
On a bad run. Don't they take your license at some point? I always heard three.
It's about five. At about five you get a letter and I'm sitting at about three right now.
About three, which means six.
Where do you need to be going so fast? Everywhere.
Everywhere. You talk about energy. Dave's king at energy.
Do you not use your cruise control?
Yeah, I do sometimes. Just really fast cruise control. Yeah. See, we need a pickup sponsorship, and we'll just put Dave in there. Yeah. Put a governor on it.
This is analytics. I should get cheaper car insurance, not more expensive car insurance, because if I can drive that fast and be pulled over that many times and get that many tickets and never be in a car accident, it just proves I'm that much better of a driver. There is a silver lining, Dave. I like that. They're like, you're that much more prone to get in an accident?
I'm like, no, I'm that less prone to get in an accident. I've been pulled over like 42 times and I've got like 28 tickets. So it's like, I'm just proved that I'm that much better.
Well, I'll do what I do best, and I get this conversation back on track. All right, fair enough. But I like those, and I'm going to move on from those characteristics because a lot of those are ones that we've talked about with our farmers, and it correlates. Entrepreneurs, any people that are good at business, our farmers, that's what they're listening to us for is to become better in business.
And I know that you originally started talking about how farmers that are curious and always learning are the ones that are going to do better. We've had a couple of presenters talk about making small changes, but that's the scary part. And I know your team is starting to address this, but what do you see when you talk to farmers about their adoption process of something new?
What about that is concerning?
It was easy, a lot easier to try new things when corn's at $6. Okay. Now I'm third generation, you know, I'm working with dad, Gramps is in town. There's a lot of pressure on me to perform. And I want to perform and I have to perform. So when we look at the sub 450, okay, on a cash basis, it starts to go like these decisions really matter and I don't want to be the generation that messed up.
I actually feel extreme passion for the guys calling the shots right now. It's difficult times. And Brazil is looking great again. And we're not going to – I mean, this is just a way of life, this price. I think we have to accept that. And then we have to – that's that learning curve. You know, my –
My genie in the bottle that's going to pop up and give me $6, I'm not seeing genies show up for at least 18 months. And I don't predict grain prices. So I need to change and I need to get greater yields at lower cost. And one of the things that we've been hearing from the AcreShield customer base is that they are looking at that David Letterman top 10. And they're saying, you know what?
If I do believe this, and it looks like I should believe this, I could save $50 a bag by going over to that brand. So my ROI, hmm, this is a little interesting now because if I could say 50 bucks a bag and I'm still getting great yields, there's a better ROI and I can work my way towards breakeven and profitability. So that's kind of what I'm- That's tough for me though.
It's really tough. So I'm not the cheapest guy at what I do, And I want people to hire me not because I'm the cheapest guy. So don't undercut me because somebody else is cheaper. You get what you pay for sometimes is what I think.
Yeah, but are you tying that into the acre shield? Are you tying the economical, not only agronomic, but economical, this cost with the performance? Are you tying that together?
Yeah. We guarantee $100 an acre performance guarantee that you utilize our AcreShield AI Smarter Seed Intelligence. And if it does not work, we write you a check for up to $100 an acre.
So they're buying cheaper corn, but then guaranteeing the upside too.
Not necessarily. Right. Yeah. It's both sides of the equation. Okay. He stated that the top 10 may show that there's a $50 a bag less... cost in a seed option. Got it. But it's also pulling the data of making sure that that seed's still going to yield and provide a higher ROI. So it's factoring both in.
We're not providing pricing transparency. That's still the job of the farmer to go out and haggle the best deal he wants with the brands that he trusts and with the reps that he likes. Okay? There's a lot of emotion into seed. That's what makes... We're trying to...
We're actually trying to remove some of the emotion and just look at accurate, transparent data that is based on your soil type, your relative maturity, and weather pattern. And then go into the, we'll call it the financial haggle. Does that work for you?
Well, and there's even in the seed industry, there's different zone pricing. Oh, yes. Right? Like you can go buy the same hybrid cheaper across this line.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Oh, big time.
Really stupid. You just lost a customer. Dave's definitely buying.
I called him the other day because I got a postcard and it says you get a discount on something. I'm like, hey, wait a minute. Did I get this discount? And he's like, yeah, you already did. I was like, okay, fair enough.
I bought you those beers.
I was calling bull crap on it. I was like, wait a minute.
It's those chocolates on the table.
Right. I did too. You got it. Go comment, right? I was like, wait a minute, discount code on this postcard.
But there is something, you know, if we ever see the farm bill, there is an initiative to have the seed manufacturers disclose the traits.
Yeah.
Now this is a game changer too, right? I don't know if it's going to pass. But if I put my farming cap on, I'd like to know that that one is $50 more than the other one, but it has the same seed traits. And I'm looking at AcreShield, and they're both performing pretty good. I know where my pick's going.
I got you. And the reason is, for listeners that don't understand, is there's licensing of traits. So one bag of seed might be more because that company has to pay licensing to have access to the traits.
What's your guys' opinion on this? This is where I was going. Farmers are just so loyal. I am all for getting the best deal and shopping around. I'm a dealer. I love to negotiate. I love to shop for the best deal. But I also love relationships. So in farming, I'm all about relationships. And I love guys that like to do business with me because they like to do business with me.
Corey, what's your answer? Do you like the relationships more or do you like to shop for the deal?
It's really easy to lean on the relationships when corn $6, right? Like it's, yeah, I'm making money. I'm going to give Dave the business when it gets down to, if I don't cut my cost by 50 or 75 or a hundred dollars, wherever you're sitting. And that's the difference between me making money and absolutely losing money. I'm sorry about the relationship.
Like, I got to do what's right for my business. But I hate that. Right? But now I'm getting shopped around like crazy. Way more this year on Seed from... And it's not even a price thing. It's the gimmicks. It's the free fuel trailer type stuff. You know who I'm talking about? It's like... You don't get anything for free. It's good marketing.
I'm going to tell you right now, you're not getting anything for free.
Nope. It's built in there somewhere.
You're locked in for three years. The price isn't that bad. Change isn't bad this year, but you're going to pay for it one way or another. But I digress.
I like to still look at it. It's your farm. It's your legacy. So protect it. And if that means I have to haggle a little more this year because of, unfortunately, these prices, I have to do that. Because at the end of the day, I have a lot. Some guys are running three or four families on their back. Yeah. That's not an easy day. I mean, you're under a microscope by the family.
In fact, I have a gal, Trish, her family has a big farm and she's a doctor in Des Moines and she goes up to have the family meeting, right? And I said, you need to go a little lighter, Trish, on them. Things are a little different from the last time you were up there. Yeah, yeah.
And I reflected on that. I had that thought earlier about the number of generations that are involved on the farm because of how long people are living now. And at some points, it could be four generations that are living off this. Three families, four generations that have to have income coming from this asset.
Whether grandpa's getting cash rent, dad's still the active operator, and son's getting paid a wage or whatever that looks like. And now the son has kids of their own. There's a lot of generations that have to live off of the farm these days. And I was trying to think back to, okay, 80s were tough, right? We only know about that from the history books and from the interviews that we've done.
We didn't farm through that. But there were still multi-generational operations that were in the same situation. It's not easy then. It's not easy now. There's no reason to make now seem like less of a time to worry about than what it was when it was terrible.
Oh, we have the interest rates that we're not going to say they're 80s, okay, double digit 20, but they're not cheap at talking eight, nine.
Yeah.
All right. So there's a couple of factors working. So I say to you guys, what's a guy to do then? Yeah. Okay. My breakeven is X. Okay. Do I spend more money to try to get increased yields? Do I just try to cut costs and take reduced yields? Yeah. You know, I have some opinions on this, but I'm curious about yours.
Yeah, I'm excited. I know we've got a couple of conversations slated for February that are going to dive in with real life farmers making real life decisions just like that is. But it's to me, I'll go first. To me, it's the small changes. It's it's a little bit on every side of your operation.
If you can do 5% on cutting your costs and you can do something that's going to increase your yields by 5% or increase your marketability, your marketing decisions by 5%, that's not just a small increase because you've actually widened that margin on both sides of it. So I'm an advocate for small changes if you can make them.
But I also understand that sometimes small changes aren't enough this year.
On our farm, I feel like we were already kind of set up for this. Dad's been through some tougher times and all that kind of stuff. We bought the sprayer. We started buying our own chemicals and managing that side of things, whereas that's a huge savings there. So if you don't have a sprayer... Or you don't even need to own one.
You can just find someone that sprays right on the side and they'll do it for whatever. And then you can buy your own chemicals, right? For you can save 40, 50 bucks an acre, boom, right off the top from not, not going to the co-op. Right. It's crazy. Like what you can save there. Um, but I'm focusing on knowing my numbers way, way more granular. Um, and,
actually hiring some people like a, a fractional CFO and things like that to really start like diving in. Cause what can I do with my time? Knowing time is probably the biggest factor that I've, I've found throughout doing this podcast is my biggest asset. Cause farmers are notorious for not valuing their time.
But if I can not have to sit in the office eight hours a week, 15 hours a week, whatever it is, and I can actually go and, work on my relationship with my landlords, clean up this farm, maybe possibly gain some acres here or there. What is that value? I can actually work on the farm.
Or your time in your office is focused on other value-added decision-making or looking at data like Acre Shields. I mean, you may still be in the office.
It's just not doing... Yeah, I'm not eliminating it, but I'm eliminating the stress that I just can't sit there and just... deal with the numbers constantly for myself. There's a lot of people that might, if you like that, by all means, that is worth your time to do that.
Yeah. I do think you, you, you mentioned fractional CFO. Yeah. Okay. No plug here, but I do work with uncommon farms and they do a hell of a job when it comes to getting guys break even out of a shoe box of receipts to at least know what the hell their break even is. Okay. So now I know what my bogey is. That's another show I can put in the show notes because I did that segment too. Yeah.
So I'm a big fan of that. But at the same time, you have to look at what you're good at, maybe not necessarily what you like.
Yeah.
Because if you're better at grain marketing, then you better take control of that revenue line and let someone else play in the dirt. Yeah. And that's where the teamwork comes within your organization. Yeah. Yeah.
That is the other thing we've been really trying to focus. I feel like our grain marketing has been a lot on feel, a lot of feelings, and I don't like... I've been trying to separate feelings out of the farm. I want to have data to make good decisions.
And the only way you're going to do that is have at least once a year write the plan down, okay, so that you know if it hits that number, you're going to move 25% of that grain's gone. And the law of the average is, you know, because... My bigger mission that I've always been on with crop insurance is you should be forward selling that grain, not speculative.
Just go up to your 85% or whatever level you buy. And take that money in small little chunks, to Tanner's point, small changes but small chunks so that you can average out. Now, certain guys will wait two years. I know guys that are sitting on two to three years worth of grain right now. It's scaring me. How do they feel? They're not feeling good. No, they can't.
When you actually put the carry cost and the bin cost, it adds up. But they hit it big the other way probably, so they're just telling you about that. I'm not going to tell anyone how to manage their farm, that's for sure. But you talk about... important traits, I think it's really key that you have a positive outlook.
And Tanner, you and I were talking a little this morning about Warren Buffett's partner, Charlie Munger, okay? Charlie recently died, okay? One of the wealthiest men in the world. I wanna just read something that I never knew about Charlie Munger. At 31, Charlie had lost his son, his wife, and his fortune, okay? And he had one incredibly simple idea change his life forever.
As a young man, Charlie appeared to have it all. He graduated from Harvard. He had a very sharp intellect and quick wit. He had earned widespread respect in his field. Personally, he was a devoted husband and father, growing a family and building a future. However, devastating events dramatically changed the course of his life. Charlie's marriage ended in divorce.
He lost the custody of his children shortly after his nine-year-old boy, Teddy, was diagnosed with leukemia and died. At the same time, a speculative real estate investment failed, leaving Charlie financially ruined at age 31. Around the same time, he had a routine eye operation, which was botched, and he lost his eye, his left eye. So at 31, Charlie had lost everything.
his family, his fortune, and his direction. But he refused to let tragedy define him. Life will have terrible blows, horrible blows, unfair blows. It doesn't matter, he said. His idea was to adopt a positive outlook, refusing to be a victim.
Determined to rebuild his professional life, Charlie immensed himself in the study of investing, focusing on simplicity, long-term growth, high-quality companies. He also began to reform his personal life. He remarried, started a new family, finding joy, renewed purpose, and a second chance as it happens. By the 70s, Charlie hooked up and partnered with Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway.
Together, they created a global powerhouse. emphasizing discipline and patience in investing. Today, Berkshire is worth over $1 trillion. Before his death, Charlie argued that none of this would have been possible if he hadn't adopted a positive outlook. Feeling like a victim is a perfectly disastrous way to go through life. I am not a victim. I am a survivor. What a story. I never knew that.
Did you? No. Yeah. That's amazing. You just assumed he was like, you know, golden child, Harvard grad, and life was good. I thought he started wealthy. Yeah, right? Well, I mean, at 31. Donald Trump, right, started to give $30 million to start?
Well, A, to go to Harvard. He had to have some money to go to Harvard and to have an investment, a speculative investment at 31 on real estate. He had to have some money, right?
Maybe a little leveraged. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
Yeah. But what I hear is that's amazing. There's a lot of 31 year olds that don't have any of that to lose. Right. Yeah. Right. At the time. But what I'm, what I'm hearing is you're young, take your risk. Cause look what you can, you can, you can lose everything. Right. And rebuild. No problem. Yeah. Yeah.
There's lots of people that have done that. Yeah, well, and I'll be the first to tell you. I had three kids, three young boys. I actually was 33 years old. I had built a food company. I took it public. We were flying high. We overexpanded like crazy, okay? And I went home one day with my desk chair, okay, with no job. And, you know, I had a real talking to myself.
And it was like I called up my mentor. And I said, Richard, you know, here's my situation. And he's like, well, you know, pressure makes two things. Diamonds or coal. Yeah. And you're a diamond, Billy. So get after it and stop it. Go build.
You know, coal's not that bad either.
No, coal's not that bad.
Yeah.
But, you know, those are some of those learning reflections, you know, because you had to have that resourcefulness, that confidence, the tenacity to go, you know, going from flying high to zero to rebuilding again. Now, since then, we've built, you know, an ag bank, two crop insurance companies. We've been fortunate that we were acquired by Farm Bureau Mutual, acquired by DTN.
And that's where my passion comes about. How can we help our farming friends? What can we do for you to solve a big problem?
So which one's going to a trillion?
I'm going to tell you right now, I'm no Charlie Munger, okay? But we still have a lot of pride. Well, yeah. How's that?
What you were talking about before we hit record today, though, could go to a trillion because it sounds like an opportunity for producers that's going to put a lot of value in their camp. And any time that you can provide a producer that much value, they're going to sign up. No matter what your product is, if there's value in what you provide, it's going to grow.
So tease us a little bit on what you've got going now.
Yeah, so AcreShield, as you know, is about the smarter AI seed selection with protection. And as we've talked to our farming friends out there about other problems, it's like, I need to grow my yield by a lot. Not what I did the last 10 years. I need to improve that average. So we've worked with, and I take no credit here, our team has worked with the best agronomists out there.
And we've run now, this is our second year of field trials, using a proprietary blend of feeding the plant throughout its growth stage. Now, remember, I can't spell agronomy, but I can explain what our program is. It's a multi-pass of fungicide along with the biological, along with the micronutrients, all the foyers, and developing where we're going to feed that plant.
And we are seeing 30 to 40 bushel pickup versus the untreated field. Now, we're doing 10 acre- Which is crazy. Yeah, it's crazy, right? But my question, Corey, is like, yeah, but what does that cost me, right? Yeah. We, our program, and this is a program now that we've signed up hundreds of thousands of acres with.
This program is we set aside four check block fields, one treated, okay, with our program and one untreated. And our guarantee to you is that the delta, the difference between the treated field, okay, versus the untreated field on corn will be 25 bushels or greater and on soybeans, nine bushels or greater. interest-free to spend $100 to $125 more. So wait a second. That's a big ask.
I'm already losing money and you want me to spend more money. But when you plug the ROI on this, and you get 30 bushels at 450, okay, you're looking at a 40% ROI. Now, if you fall below that 25 bushels that we're guaranteeing, we step in and we write you a check. So we're trying to de-risk a transition to a multi-pass fungicide and biological and growth stimulants. Think Barry Bonds, okay?
You know, these are the steroids that are- Mark McGuire. Mark McGuire. Lance Armstrong. Yeah. But these are legal, okay? All right. And everything is EPA approved. So I'm very bullish on this. The reaction by our farming friends has been very positive. It's like, all right. In fact, some have said, would you do the check block fields on my particular field? So we pick a field together.
And we're going to go 10 acres of untreated and 120-foot buffer and 10 acres of treated. Okay, we use Ag MRI. We fly over the fields. We put tissue samples. We really want to make sure that we have a good comparison. So you're doing that? Oh, yeah. That's not a farmer cost. No, we do that. Yeah, we cover that cost. Good point.
We share that information back to our farmer because at the end of the day, we want all of his enrolled acres to exceed this delta. And that generates that positive ROI. This has never been done before. I had to take this to our worldwide reinsurers from London markets to Bermuda to New York City. I've been on the road nonstop for the last two months.
They're very optimistic because they look at the data. So what we do is we do a risk assessment of all those products, all of our C-trial fields. And we create this Monte Carlo simulation, runs one in 10,000. And we've actually, just looking at the data unemotionally, we've now vetted out that we're very confident that that delta, that guarantee, you're going to get it.
And when I put my farming hat on, so I spent $100 to $125. You gave me 0%. I followed the rules of the road. And I picked up 30 bushels? Hell yeah, man. Sign me up. So this is exciting for us. And it's a new program. You can go to Acreshield, fill out the form, or call us. We actually have an 800 number where people answer. How's that for a change? I like that. I do like that.
Even I might answer that phone.
That's exciting. And not what we planned on talking about in this conversation at all today. No. That's how new and fresh you guys are in developing this process.
Yeah. And again, it was all going back, sitting down with our farming friends, identifying a problem. And it's like, if I do what I've always done, I'm going to get the same yield and I'm going to lose money. So I need to mix it up. But I don't know what to try.
Right. So if I try to make sure I understand it. So you have a product. It's a multi-pass fungicide.
Along with the biologicals, the micronutrients.
Which is what you originally started out talking about today, that AcreShield is going to start testing next year. So it's not untested, but it's not part of your trials.
No, we only did 50 fields last year. Okay.
So you've got the product. The farmer would sign up for this. Its approximate cost or exact cost is $125 an acre. Right. But it comes with a guarantee that states we're going to increase your yield. If not, we will pay you the difference in what we guaranteed you. That's the basics? That's it. So where's the risk?
You know, at the $100, we guarantee $100, you're spending $125. So there's $25 of what I call it. So there's a little risk. Little risk there.
$25 is like, put it in for a product in. Sure.
Exactly. You know? Yeah. And we provide 0% convenient financing up to a million dollars. Okay? 24-hour turnaround on the approval. All right? So we're trying to help, again, on the interest rate, too.
So that's your connection to the bank that you formed. Yeah. Yeah.
So we're buying down the interest rate, full disclosure, so that we can provide- You don't get anything for free. Yeah, exactly. There's money there. Free lunch, okay? But we just feel that when you kind of look at our new North Star, Tanner, is that we want to bring in the biologicals, the micronutrients, and all these treated versus untreated and say, what does work?
And this particular cocktail, I call it, this Beetlejuice, it works under multiple weather environments. 2023 was really dry over in Illinois, almost drought. And I was wondering how the results were going to be. And it actually performed better, the Delta, in a stressed environment. So, you know, we're not perfect. No one is perfect.
The last guy that was perfect, they may be nailed to a cross, okay? So, yeah. But the beauty is you have the protection. If it doesn't work, we're going to write you a check.
So I want to know if you can't spell agronomy. Neither can Dave. Well, I got a funny story about that too. I actually, when I worked for a co-op coming right out of college, I actually made signs that said agronomy and I didn't, I spelled it right, but I didn't proof the sign people and it spelled agromony. So I can't spell it either, apparently. And I still have one of those signs.
It's kind of funny.
Do you remember that tattoo regrets?
Exactly.
Really?
No regrets? None? You're self-proclaimed non-agronomist, and you haven't even started testing these yet. How did you even know where to start? And how do you know that there's not something that might give you 50 to 60 bushel out there?
Yeah. We have a complete team behind us. Okay. We have everything from agronomist to data scientist to actuarial guys. Okay. This is where the real work gets done is by that team. My job is to sit there and go, here's our problems that we need to solve. Yeah. You know, we eat a lot of pizza and drink a lot of beer when we try to figure this stuff out.
And they usually tell me, you have a great, great problem. Your idea was not good, but we know how to do it for you, Bill. Sure.
So I'm going to commend you for that because out of that sheet that we said, that web, I don't know of any others that would actually put their money where their mouth is. No, we're actually going to at least stand behind this. I think some companies try to do that with seed. several years ago. Right. And I don't think they're doing that anymore.
And you know what? And I have those, I have an executive that was involved with that particular company at the time and they made it too complex. They didn't have the protocols in place. They didn't have a backbone processing system. We spent $10 million on our processing system just in order to measure good against bad, you know?
So let's say you have 10,000 acres of corn. And you do your check block that you guys are applying to, right? So you're basing it off of that. Four check blocks per farm. Right. But the rest of the acres, the farmer is probably required to put it on?
Yeah. He's buying the product. Why wouldn't he put it on? Right.
But how do you... But the guarantee comes with the rules.
Yeah, what are the rules and the process to make sure, like, that they actually applied it correctly, you know, and go, hey, I got a claim, it didn't work, you know, how hard is it going to be to jump to the hoops?
Yeah, so... 10,000 acres, we have four check block fields. We agree on where the fields are gonna be. We have these 10 to 40 acre check blocks. In each field is a treated and untreated. We're gonna measure the delta of that four times. So we agree on the four check block fields. Whatever that average of those four is for the delta, did it achieve 25 bushels or greater on the corn or was it less?
Then we, if it's less, we pay 450 a bushel, you know, times the enrolled acres, all right? All the enrolled acres, yeah.
So it doesn't matter if he, the farmer, didn't do it right and it doesn't get it, as long as those four check. Right. Check show.
But our job is to make sure that the enterprise, you know, is going to be successful. So if the guy's spending $100 to $125, he's going to use the products. He's going to apply at the right time. We're agronomists and we're flying over those fields. We're putting drones over those fields. People are walking the fields. We're trying to say at V3 to V5, you know, we need to hit the first shot. Okay.
At Tassel, we need to hit the last shot. Okay. Yep. So it is a partnership there. You want them to be successful.
Oh, yes. Because if they're successful, you don't pay out. Right. That's how a program like this works, is if you don't have to pay out the guarantee, that's in your best interest.
Correct. So the reason my car insurance is higher... is because statistically, they think I speed a lot, that I'm gonna get in an accident more often. So they've proven that statistically, they know that they might have to pay out more to me.
you're an insurance company in a sense that statistically somebody's done the analytics on this, that you're every insurance companies, there's big money behind this, that somebody's done the analytics that it must work or cause you don't want to pay out. You don't want to pay out. You don't want to not have it work. So somebody's done the math that we know that
99.9% of the time, we're not going to pay out. It's going to yield this or we're going to go out of business. So we're not in this business to go out of business. It's going to work. So you've proven this over so many acres already. Can you give us kind of a shot of what that looks like? Like how many acres has it been proven on?
Oh, yeah. So we ran 50 acres. check block fields last year. Okay. Not as robust as I would like. Okay. And basically, we took our seed trial fields and we put a buffer of 120 feet. We did untreated and treated. Okay. And then we compared all those results. But the beauty was we were doing all the actual CROs, the check block fields ourself. So we trusted the data source. We trusted the protocols.
We trusted the- Well, you must feel good about the data. Exactly. Then the data though, we go to our actuarial team and we give it to our data scientist. Okay. Then he builds out a risk model and then we'd run it through a Monte Carlo simulation, which goes back to some of those classes that we really didn't always go to it. Did you go to Iowa State? For a little bit. Yeah. I did. Didn't we all.
But Dave probably spent more time on campus than all of us.
Yes. So what we do is we run it through this model, a Monte Carlo simulation that creates the standard deviation and the mean running at over 10,000 iterations. So we get a really good idea as to how many times this will work or not work. Yeah.
How bad is it going to get? How many times is it going to get that way? And it's not going to work every time. Oh, God, yeah.
We've modeled. We're going to be paying. Oh, yeah. There's so many factors out of our control. Yeah. And that's where we work with our reinsurance partners. Okay.
I pulled Iowa State's averages for the yield since 2017. And, you know, just like you said, weather effects. Well, what happened in 2020? Yep. We had weather. Oh, yes. We had weather right here in Story County that flattened fields. To rate you. So, yeah, you'll pay. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The goal is to not pay more often than you do pay. Right.
And that's all built into your models. I mean, right?
Yeah, it is. And at the same time, we're not looking to make home runs. We're very happy with a smaller margin so that we could keep the cost of that performance guarantee embedded into that package reasonable. Okay? So what do you call this? We're calling it the Yield Optimizer Program today.
And so we're working with two agribusinesses that are out there selling it through their distribution networks. We've had great success so far. Predominantly, it's in the Illinois and surrounding state area. and we do have a limited capacity going back to reinsurance capacity. But we have a lot for this first year. So we'd like to write about up to a million acres.
And again, we're really excited then. We're going to have four check block fields per farmer, and all that data is going to come back in, and that adds to our data flywheel effect, right? So we'll be able to take that Monte Carlo model and make it even a lot better. Keep learning. Yeah.
Yep. So all the more reason I need more tech because I can't tell you what my yields are because I don't have the mapping on my field yet.
You're getting it. You did take it to silage. I know.
But what I'm saying is all those older farmers that just don't have the data because they're not collecting it yet. and are listening to this podcast, you need the data.
You do. And we look at two different data sets. We look at your crop insurance data sets, and then we take the as-applied data. And we have a specialized team that cleans up the as-applied data. As you know, a lot of combines are not calibrated. There's a lot of glitches in some of the software. Some guys don't turn it on. But that's part of our responsibility is we want to help you get –
data that you can trust.
Well, I'm even thinking like 25 bushel more or less. People ask me like, well, if I put tile in, will you get more? Well, I'm trying to even figure out like, how can I judge how much more I got? Or even on a farm, how much more will I get selling the farm? Well, I can't sell the farm twice. to tell you how much more did it get. I don't have a Delta to tell you.
I can't sell it the same day at the same time to tell you that if I would have sold it this way versus this way, it would have brought more money. So it's hard to do any trial and make it exactly perfect.
It's very hard. And it's a lot of work. We have millions of dollars of specialized equipment. We have a whole team. We take our CRO applications very serious.
I want to use your 0% for tile. Right? Like, that should give me 25, 30 bushel. Yes.
So you're going to be out and about. Your team is going to be, we talked about the trade shows that we're going to be at this year. Where are you guys going to be if someone wants to come ask you about this?
Yeah. Always go to our website, AcreShield or Optimal Ag Solutions, which is our parent company. We put a lot of thought into that name, Optimal Ag Solutions. We work with B2B ag retailers, ag manufacturers in developing customized, bespoke warranty solutions for ease of adoption with their products with the farmers. But we're going to be a farm con.
In fact, to take off this afternoon, might see you guys on the interstate heading the same direction down in Kansas City. Then we're going to the Row Crop Exchange January 20th through the 22nd in Cape Coral, Florida.
That'd be this week, the week the show comes out.
Yep. Yep. Then we're going to Uncommon Farms on the 23rd through the 25th at San Antonio, Texas. And then we'll be at Iowa Power, of course, Commodity Classic. Yeah, so you'll see us out there. Please stop by. We'd love to just meet, understand some of your challenges and see if we can help. Or if we can't help, at least we'll give you our advice to point you in a different direction.
That's great. Cool. I do want to say one other thing. You know, as we come into crop insurance season, right, that necessary evil that I have to go out there and go buy some crop insurance. Okay. I am a big fan of the crop insurance. I don't know if you guys remember the history. In 1981, the feds ran the crop insurance. It was $300 million program.
What do you think the size of the crop insurance program since it was privatized in 81 it is today?
You said $300 million? I'm just going to say $300 billion. Okay. Okay.
Corey, Dave, got a guess?
$150 billion.
I don't have a guess. I'll go with Tanner's guess.
Yeah, it's not quite that big, but it's $19 billion. So from $300 million, I'm talking premiums paid by farmers. It went up to that. It's really been a phenomenal program when you think of government programs. You've heard of FEMA, flood. It's a complete mess. And I don't see any hope for it. We're going to continue as American taxpayers to continue to fund that.
So the federal program, at least even though you and I are paying 54% subsidies to help our farming friends out with the cost of their premium, it is a program that is working. But you do have to make a decision by March 15th as to what your crop insurance is going to be. 90% of the farmers are buying a revenue protection RP policy at 80%, 85%. There's this gap between 85% and 100%.
And I want to talk about this gap real quick. This gap is really the difference between a profit and loss or maybe a loss and break even if I don't get up my yields over that APH. And so you have some choices out there. The government has a program called ECO, which is a county-based product, does pay six months after harvest, five to six months after.
It's based on the county average, not on your farm average, all right? It's kind of like going to Vegas and I'm going to bet on black and red, okay? Now, but it is subsidized by 65% this year. So it could be a good add-on on top of your RP. But what we're recommending is take a look at AcreShield because AcreShield, the county only goes to 95.
AcreShield goes to 100% APH, and it's based on your farm level, and we pay 45 days after harvest. So what I'm telling our farming friends is – Put your RP in there, lay in your acre shield, get that seed intelligence, and then maybe throw ECO on top of it if you want to go that extra level.
I had forgotten about that. I got so distracted by the pre-show conversation about what you're rolling out new as far as that's a benefit. Yeah.
If we're feeling nervous, especially in an instance when you earlier said put your banker hat on, in an instance to where you're in a financial position to where there is a make or break decision needing to be made at the bank side of things, what a better way than to walk into that banker and say, hey, look,
I'm covered. And we're hearing that it just feels like everyone's a month behind right now. Like even the bankers feel like they're behind. Everyone's kind of like, what's going on with politics? What's going on with price? Are you hearing something like that?
Yeah, there's three things that I think play into that. One, it's human nature to not do the hard things. So I think there's a lot of it from both sides, farmer side and banker side, to not want to deal with the hard conversations. We'll do it next week. Or we'll do it after the first of the year. I don't want to ruin anybody's holiday or whatever it is. So I think that's in it.
Two, I do think there's a wait and see effect. Like, oh, there's no rush to this. Let's see what happens after January 22nd. And let's see what happens after the next WASDE report. So I think there's a true wait and see effect that comes into place. And then the banking sector has just been all screwed up the last two years. as far as capitalization.
I mean, knowing what's available to be lent out, knowing what's available for deposits on hand. If we're truly in an economy that's been as tough as it has been, we're at the lowest point of cash on hand that we have been in a while. Well, how do banks make loans? They have to have cash on deposits or borrow it from some other places. So it's interesting in this environment.
And I think those three things are playing a factor into how quickly you're getting your renewals.
Yeah, you just talked about liquidity at bank. It's at an all-time low. Yep. Farmers need to understand, it's tight at the bank.
Yeah, it's tight at home, tight at the bank.
And I think you hit the nail on the head. Everyone's a little like, I don't really want to go talk to my banker, and the banker doesn't want to talk to me. But damn it, you better. You better walk into that confession booth and just go, here's where I'm at. And, you know, let's figure this out and let's get it going.
It's crazy because I remember talking to you a couple years ago and you're like, the cash in accounts is amazing. Amazingly high. Like it's an all-time high. Where did it all go? Groceries?
Yeah, pretty much, right?
That new combine?
Real estate values climbed to all-time highs.
I mean, every time you bought a new house, yeah, sure, you sold your old one, but... Yeah, so how does it get fixed? Or is this just the new normal?
I think we have to accept it and then deal with it. And to Tanner's point, don't put your head in the sand. Get into that bank, sit down. Because you need to find out if you're going to have to find an alternative option. That's why I do like AcreShield offers 0% financing, by the way. You sign up, you put 20% down, and we give 0% financing until December.
I just figured out what we're going to be for Halloween, Corey. It's a long time from now. I'm going to be a priest and make a confession booth right next to you. You're just going to be a farmer. You're going to put farmers enter here? I'm going to just be like the farmer bank and the confession booth. Your job is just to watch. Forgive me, Dave.
I have sinned. The license plate is going to say you go first. Yeah.
I fell for the fuel trailer.
I'm going to dress up like a banker.
Confession booth. I do want to say we sincerely appreciate your time and your help in making farmers aware that there is a low-cost solution to the yield gap problem out there. And there's... AcreShield, I think, is a very good solution to that problem. You can go to AcreShield.com, fill out the contact form, or just call us on the 800 number. We'd be more than happy to work with you.
And then we sell AcreShield through multiple distributors. They could be seed dealers, crop insurance agents, bankers. You don't have to be licensed to become a distributor, and we pay commissions. And one of the things that... A lot of farmers that do call in and then we talk to their seed dealer or their crop insurance agent. We make them a distributor.
The only thing I ask is because that guy is making money off of you, he should at least buy you a steak dinner. There you go. Yeah.
Either a good Iowa chop or a nice steak. There you go. Because I know we'll get our pork producer listeners right. Oh, my. That's good. You guys got anything else for him? No, it was enlightening. I liked it. Yeah, this was good. There's a lot of energy here for a first thing in the morning. Well, he did say we need energy. He did right away. Yes, that's it.
And some courage. Yes, and they all feed off of each other in my mind. If one's off, all the others kind of go out of whack. Yeah, they do.
Well, we appreciate it, Billy, and we know this won't be the last time that we chat, so I'm looking forward to the next time already. And listeners, we appreciate you, so until next time, have a good one.
Remember, if you aren't farming for profit, you won't be farming for long.