Today's episode is significant to me for a couple of reasons.  First, what Dan Frank is doing epitomizes what this show is all about.  He is a small, owner/operator of a business that allowed him to "make it in farm country".  Dan values the lifestyle that living rural and farming brings, and this drives him to find a way to make a living "out there".

Dan chose entrepreneurship to be the main way of creating his income in an area where jobs normally are scarce.  He sees our current economy for what it is - a moment in time that will allow you to get ahead.  Right now, Dan can get all of the side jobs he wants working for other people because unemployment is so low that farmers cannot find labor, let alone quality labor.  However, Dan realizes that this is not going to last forever.  So, instead of sitting back and enjoying the fact that he can work as much as he wants for other people and make good money right now, he is building his own business on the side for when the economy slows and jobs are less plentiful and competition for those jobs is higher.

Dan has been bootstrapping his silage hauling business, Frankie's Feed Movers.  He started out by purchasing an old truck and using an old box on the truck to get started.  He is now creating enough revenue that he is going to be able to upgrade equipment and expand the services he can offer.

Jace Taylor is the Chapter Reporter for his FFA Chapter and a sophomore in high school.  He is also the owner of "Goat Tuff Solutions", a company that he purchased from his father in which he manufactures panels, gates, feeders and more for goat production.  

Jace has some big goals in the FFA.  Currently he competing at the state level in Oklahoma in the chapter reporter position.  He is striving to win a state award for his work in that position.  He is also growing his business and manufacturing more equipment for people who see his work and recognize the quality.  

Jace was preceded by his sister in the FFA, and she demonstrated to him what could be accomplished all while really enjoying yourself.  Jace is exhibiting wisdom right now.  He has goals of possibly growing his business after high school, but he doesn't want to grow it too fas

Hello everyone.  Today is our 2,000th episode!  I never thought this possible, yet here we are!  I have you to thank for this, and that is what I do in this episode.  Please join in to learn just how much you have impacted, not just my life, but the lives of my entire family.

Clayton Jennings is currently serving as a 2nd Vice-President in his FFA Chapter as well as playing two sports.  He and his sister work together on their families farm and raise pigs, with a total of three enterprises devoted to selling show pigs, showing their own pigs and selling pork.  The pork enterprise, called C&C Premium Pork, belongs to Clayton alone while his sister sells show supplies as a distributor for Sullivan Supply as her own enterprise.

Clayton and his family moved about three hours from their previous home approximately a decade ago so that they could live this lifestyle.  Clayton's parents had grown up around livestock, and they found themselves living in the city of Columbia, Missouri as the kids were growing up.  However, the ability to work remotely changed the opportunities that they had, and they ended up moving about three hours away to a piece of property that was conducive to starting a pig breeding operation.  From there, Clayton and his sister got to work and have been developing these enterprises ever since.

Clayton has a strong interest outside of agriculture, and that is sports.  In addition to playing basketball and baseball in high school he is very interested in statistics, and is hoping to have a career in sports media.  You might wonder how the two things will relate.  When I asked Clayton about his vision of how his career in sports media would look, it involved three distinct ways of reporting on sports.  I found this to be very similar to the three enterprises of the pig business that he finds himself involved in now.

For Information Like Degrees Offered, Annual Costs, Etc., Please Click The Banner Below:

The Agricultural College Episode is designed to profile agricultural trade schools, junior colleges, colleges and universities around the U.S.  This episode is an effort to replicate the conversation that prospective students, parents and ag teachers might have with agricultural schools at trade show like the National FFA Convention.

Midway University is a niched agricultural college, specializing in every aspect of the Equine Industry.  Located in the heart of horse country and surrounded by the most elite horse farms in Kentucky and the U.S., Midway offers students with a passion for horses opportunities for real world learning in unprecedented environments.  With an aim to be among the most inexpensive universities in Kentucky, Midway is launching incredible careers working with horses.

More Places You Can Listen to Off-Farm Income And Matt Brechwald:

Tip Of The Week

Would you consider a GPS collar for your horses?

Rural Crime In The U.S.

https://www.kcbd.com/2024/02/14/thieves-steal-86000-worth-property-including-horses-cement-mixer-lynn-co/

https://www.mymix1041.com/mcminn-county-sheriffs-office-looking-for-stolen-trailer-tools/

https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animals/police-investigate-horse-rustlers-who-slaughtered-three-horses-for-meat/

Across The Pond, Down Under And Up Above

https://www.farmersguide.co.uk/rural/rural-crime/45-sheep-killed-by-dogs-in-devon/

https://www.producer.com/news/man-producers-want-dedicated-livestock-police/

https://www.brecon-radnor.co.uk/news/999/police-probe-theft-of-more-than-70-ewes-from-breconshire-farm-667464

Africa

https://sparkchronicles.com/millions-of-donkeys-are-stolen-every-year-and-slaughtered-for-use-in-traditional-medicine-2/

https://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-and-courts/two-murder-suspects-arrested-over-brutal-killing-of-cattle-thieves-burnt-beyond-recognition-5896cb01-2005-42af-a9b4-1462c9a412ca

Chalk One Up For The Good Guys

https://localnews8.com/news/crime-tracker/2024/02/22/man-arrested-for-using-tractor-to-damage-property-farm-equipment/

https://www.keranews.org/news/2024-02-20/texas-gives-125-million-to-rural-sheriffs-and-prosecutors-for-pay-increases

Rachelle Meyer is 30 years old, the mother of 7 and a successful regenerative farmer from Southeastern Minnesota.  She and her husband, Jordan, have been together since high school, and they have been farming together since they got married.  Jordan grew up on his families farm/dairy, and Rachelle grew up outside of agriculture.  However, her mother had farm ground that she had put in to CRP.  

Jordan and Rachelle struggled to find a viable business model for years until 2018 when they started practicing regenerative farming.  Since that time they have had opportunities develop and productivity increase.  And, they have had input costs go down.  Today, they have multiple streams of revenue from their farms and the farms they lease.  They are direct marketing what they produce, and they are inspired about the lifestyle they have chosen.

Rachelle also works as a "business and mindset coach" helping people to frame their mindsets about farming in such a manner that leads to success.  They are growing their family and growing their farm into the future, together, and today we get to share a bit of this with you.

On tomorrow's ag business episode I am featuring an inspiring entrepreneur who has built a farming enterprise with her husband through regenerative farming practices.  This made me think back to this interview I did with Wil Crombie in 2011, and I realized that it was the perfect tie in to tomorrow's show.  

Cash Lehrman is the Chapter President of the Bridgewater-Emery FFA in Emery, South Dakota.  He is also a cattle rancher on his family's first generation operation, and he has his own business clipping cattle for other ranchers in preparation for their performance sales.

Cash ranches with his family in Eastern South Dakota, and has been doing so all of his life.  By now, he is well aware of the challenges that come with raising livestock in South Dakota, especially in the Springtime, when they seem to get some late winter storms and lots of precipitation.  His long term, future plans, are to ranch cattle on his families property and continue to grow this business.

Cash's short term plans really caught my ear as we spoke.  After he graduates this year, he will be heading to Oklahoma State University to get his degree in animal science.  The natural follow up question is "why Oklahoma State" when you are from South Dakota?  I thought his answer really demonstrated just how much he loves working with cattle.

Cash's answer was all about nutrition.  He knows from the reading and research he has done due to his own curiosity that the methods of grazing and feeding cattle in the lower plains is different than that of South Dakota.  He wants to learn how and why ranchers in the Southern Plains graze on winter wheat and then can follow up with a wheat harvest of what was just a forage crop.  It is Cash's natural curiosity about raising cattle and his desire to know more that will take him to Oklahoma, and then who knows where else before he finds himself back on his families ranch.

For the third year in a row I ran to the Southwest Desert to find the sun and feel some warmth during the middle of winter.  This is becoming a tradition that I don't think I will ever give up.  I'll talk all about it on today's Farm Update Episode!

Kailee Adkins is her chapter's FFA President, a national finalist in agriscience and show goat producer from Chillicothe, Ohio.  She has had an interesting journey to where she is at today.

When she was about 9 years old, she and her family moved to the farm on which they currently reside.  Kailee described her father has wanting she and her young sister to grow up with the responsibility of raising and showing livestock in the manner which he did.  The animal of choice for this was goats.

For several years Kailee showed goats unenthusiastically, but it was part of her responsibility on the farm so she devoted herself to it.  Meanwhile, she had growing interests in plants and soils that were coming from the environment that she was living in.  So, when high school arrived she signed up for a class about plants and soils that interested her, and this led her into the FFA.

Kailee is the first ever FFA member in her family, and she said that it really brought her out of her shell.  She started off high school shy and quiet, and the FFA gave her the time outside of her comfort zone to overcome this.  Then, one day when was about 15, something clicked and she became passionate about showing goats.  After all of those years, something finally clicked in.  Today she is growing a herd for both quality and quantity and developing a business.  This spring, she and her family, will hold their first ever "bid board sale" at the county fairground to sell their goats to other exhibitors in the area.

For Information Like Degrees Offered, Annual Costs, Etc., Please Click The Banner Below:

The Agricultural College Episode is designed to profile agricultural trade schools, junior colleges, colleges and universities around the U.S.  This episode is an effort to replicate the conversation that prospective students, parents and ag teachers might have with agricultural schools at trade show like the National FFA Convention.

When it comes to ROI or return on investment, Tennessee Tech probably has the best of any university that I have interviewed for this episode.  They are certainly in the top 5, and that includes for non-resident students.  On today's episode we are profiling this university that sits about halfway between Nashville and Knoxville in upper Tennessee and offers a wide array of agricultural options for the future Ag professional.

More Places You Can Listen to Off-Farm Income And Matt Brechwald:

Andrew Szalach is a really amazing FFA student.  He has been very involved in the FFA since 6th grade, even before he could officially join in the 7th.  So much so that he served as his chapter's vice president during his freshman year and has served as his chapter's president the past two, subsequent years.

There is no doubt that when Andrew finds something he is passionate about that he goes "all in".  He has demonstrated this in the FFA for the past 5 years, and his supervised agricultural experience is another glaring example.

Andrew has a passion for Massey Ferguson tractors, specifically those from the 1970's.  So, in 2021 he found one in Northern Pennsylvania that was for sale, a 1974 Model 14.  He and his father drove down from New York and purchased it, and he got to work on it once they got home.  He says that today he is 80% of the way done with the restoration and hopes to have it complete for shows this summer.

In pursuit of this project Andrew applied for and received a $1,000 SAE grant.  He also sent out letters asking for donations for his project and received multiple, totally about another $1,000.  Just when I thought I knew everything about his SAE he told me that he was obtaining and selling both parts and manuals for 1970's Massey Ferguson tractors.  At restoration lots if he finds one that cannot be restored, he will pull parts off of them and sell them online.  In addition, he will locate hard to find repair manuals online and then offer them for sale online, printing and binding them only when they are requested.  He does this all for little to no profit, just to keep people interested in 1970's Massey Ferguson tractors!

Spring is coming everyone, and it always makes me think about the spring of 2012.  Back then I had never started a business, but I had identified one that I wanted to start.  The first business I started was gopher extermination, and it was a seasonal business.  All winter and spring I had been getting cold feet and chickening out until one night at about 3am I sat straight up in bed and realized that if I did not get started I would have to wait a whole year more to begin because I would miss the season.

If you have been doing the same thing, the time is now!  Don't wait until May like I did.  Take a step forward and begin.  On today's show I want to go back to an interview about one such business.  If you are thinking about staring a farm photography or video business, growing season is coming!  Get started, and let this interview I did with Doug Armknecht back in 2015 be your inspiration!

Stephen Lemon is the host of the Chef Lemonhead Youtube Channel, an FFA student and the chair of his chapter's recruitment committee.  With almost 4,000 subscribers on Youtube, including me, Stephen is inspiring people to cook all sorts of creative dishes.

Stephen has had a fascination with cooking since he was about five years old, and when he first started asking if he could cook for the family.  In the beginning, nobody was too sure what the food he was making was going to taste like.  So, when he cooked he cooked just for himself and not for the rest of the family.  However, it didn't take long for things to start smelling pretty good in the kitchen and enticing the rest of the family.  Pretty soon, he was the main chef in the house.

In combination with wanting to cook, Stephen had always wanted to have his own Youtube channel.  So, during the long, boring days of Covid he decided that he would make one.  The, just a couple of years later, he joined the FFA and needed a supervised agricultural experience.  Viola!, the cooking channel fit perfectly, and it became his SAE!

Nancy Rivas is a senior at Sanger High School and is very active in her FFA program.  She did not grow up on a farm or ranch and really had no exposure to agriculture as a child.  However, when it came time to start high school in 2020 she was aware of an "easy" class called "floral design" and she signed up for it.

Nancy's start to high school was not as auspicious as other students may have experienced.  She began in 2020, so she actually started high school at home, behind a computer screen.  So, when she "attended" her floral class she was kind of tuned in, but not all the time.  Of course, floral design is a very kinesthetic type of class, but taking it online offered none of that.  Then Nancy noticed that she was being asked to recite things such as the FFA Creed, and she did not know how that related to floral.

Finally, in her sophomore year she got to attend class in person and work with floral arrangements with her own two hands.  Something clicked for her when she did that, and she found herself working right through her lunch and not even noticing.  This led her to explore other opportunities such as showing dairy cattle.  And, she also joined the goat team and purchased a goat that she was able to keep at the school farm.  This has now led her to develop her own goat herd, which she keeps at a friend's farm these days.

Nancy will be heading to college next year, and she has her sights set on becoming an agriculture teacher.  She says that she wants to have the impact on students that her ag teachers had on her.  That is a great goal!

For Information Like Degrees Offered, Annual Costs, Etc., Please Click The Banner Below:

The Agricultural College Episode is designed to profile agricultural trade schools, junior colleges, colleges and universities around the U.S.  This episode is an effort to replicate the conversation that prospective students, parents and ag teachers might have with agricultural schools at trade show like the National FFA Convention.

Northwest Missouri State University is located in the middle of an agribusiness triangle made up of Omaha, Kansas City and Des Moines.  60% of the agriculture students here grew up on farms, 30% are from rural communities but not farms and 10% come from more urban areas with an interest in agriculture.  To facilitate this pragmatic education they offer a 448 acre learning farm with an agricultural learning center located there and more value added and direct to market facilities developing as we speak.

More Places You Can Listen to Off-Farm Income And Matt Brechwald:

On today's episode I am catching up with Zac Fralix from Southern Tennessee.  Zac was originally on the show in 2015 when he and his, now wife, were going gangbusters raising around 500 goats, teaching people to fit goats, showing goats and fitting on contract all around the country.  Sometime after that, with an urge to stay closer to home, Zach started a landscaping and lawn care business.  He ran that business for 5 years and sold it to take a job with his county.

Today, Zac is married with three kids, and he has been promoted to the assistant director role of their solid waste department.  He is in a stage of life in which his kids and family are taking priority.  The farming has ramped down, and the fitting and showing is only for friends and family.  However, when the day comes, Zac has already proved that he knows how to run a business and he has overcome the fear of doing so.  So, if he decides that is the life he wants at some time in the future, he will be ready to go!

Spring is coming everyone, and it always makes me think about the spring of 2012.  Back then I had never started a business, but I had identified one that I wanted to start.  The first business I started was gopher extermination, and it was a seasonal business.  All winter and spring I had been getting cold feet and chickening out until one night at about 3am I sat straight up in bed and realized that if I did not get started I would have to wait a whole year more to begin because I would miss the season.

If you have been doing the same thing, the time is now!  Don't wait until May like I did.  Take a step forward and begin.  On today's show I want to go back to an interview about one such business.  If you are thinking about staring a custom fitting service, show season is coming!  Get started, and let this interview I did with Zach Fralix back in 2015 be your inspiration!

Zach Gingras is his FFA Chapter's treasurer, a first year FFA student and the owner of a growing herd of Nigerian Dwarf goats with some outstanding genetics.  

Back in 2020, when Zach was bored to tears staying home during Covid, he was scrolling through the internet and found a video about goats.  This sparked an interest in him, and he decided to pursue it.  First things first though, he had to convince his mom to allow him to raise goats on the 1 acre that they called home.  With some stipulations she said yes, and Zach purchased his first three Nigerian Dwarf goats.

This has led to many things.  Today, Zach is searching the entire country for Nigerian Dwarves with the best genetics and confirmation.  He has a goal of raising a herd that produces a goat that will place in the top ten in the entire United States.  He just purchased a buckling all the way from Michigan in pursuit of this goal.  

During this time he was also recruited into the FFA officer team.  He had signed up for an agriculture class because of his interests, and his advisor convinced him to participate as an officer so he could go and experience the National Convention (only officers from Missisquoi attend).  He followed the advice and went.  Obviously more people than me are seeing Zach's potential in agriculture!

Several years ago I did a series of episodes about the health benefits of entrepreneurship.  I was looking at those today and decided that I would record another episode about this very topic.  I think being an entrepreneur or small business owner is healthier for you than fighting the rat race to get to a career that is the wrong fit for you.  The main reason I believe this is how much stress is piling up on you that you cannot even detect when you are in that rat race situation.  Stick with me in this episode as I contrast the two very different parts of my life.

Adam Keir is his FFA chapter's Chaplain,  a musician,  a junior in high school and he is the winner of Pennsylvania's most improved award for the 1941 Farmall tractor that he restored.

There is something really special about Adam's story.  The farm that he lives on was started by his great grandfather, whom he was never able to meet.  However, the original tractor that was purchased for the farm was still there, waiting to be restored.  At the same time, Adam had enrolled in an agricultural mechanics course at his high school, and his instructor was looking for a student with a tractor that needed to be restored.  

Adam had this interest already, and his tractor was selected for this project.  This is what led Adam to join the FFA and enter in the competition that found his tractor to be the most improved.  Adam already has another tractor that he wants to restore that is on the families farm.  This one is a Ford 5,000.  However, this time he is on his own as the high school is restoring a different piece of equipment this year.  I believe that Adam is up to the challenge!

For Information Like Degrees Offered, Annual Costs, Etc., Please Click The Banner Below:

The Agricultural College Episode is designed to profile agricultural trade schools, junior colleges, colleges and universities around the U.S.  This episode is an effort to replicate the conversation that prospective students, parents and ag teachers might have with agricultural schools at trade show like the National FFA Convention.

Hawkeye Community College is located right in the heart of production agriculture as well as being in the same city as John Deere's Manufacturing Plant.  Agribusiness is obviously relevant every direction you look at this 2 Year college.  However, in addition to large scale, agribusiness Hawkeye teaches entrepreneurship with real world examples of smaller, direct to consumer ag businesses so that an ag student can tailor their education to fit their vision.

More Places You Can Listen to Off-Farm Income And Matt Brechwald:

Tip Of The Week

Livestock hoarding is a mental illness, that livestock producers need to be on the lookout for.

Rural Crime In The U.S.

https://myvalleynews.com/blog/2024/02/01/sheriffs-rural-crime-team-assists-in-anza/

https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/crime-courts/record-low-crime-black-hawk-county-2023/article_2a920050-c05b-11ee-bfb7-5300a0cf9ae5.html

https://www.exploreclarion.com/2024/02/01/local-man-accused-of-ordering-timber-company-to-cut-down-over-70-trees-on-neighbors-property/

Across The Pond, Down Under And Up Above

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/crime/2024/01/31/thieves-target-farm-in-rural-south-shropshire-stealing-quad-bike-say-police-as-they-launch-appeal/

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/gardai-investigating-theft-of-cattle-in-co-monaghan/

Africa

https://www.rnews.co.za/photos-owner-of-these-cattle-wanted/

https://thewhistler.ng/police-recover-cows-donkey-from-cattle-rustlers-in-sokoto/

https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2024-01-31-night-milking-suspect-arrested/

Chalk One Up For The Good Guys

https://www.ncnewsonline.com/news/local_news/farmers-found-guilty-in-bird-poisoning-incident/article_c9af9ecc-becb-11ee-9e17-97ec2cacaf7d.html

https://www.niagara-gazette.com/news/crime/woman-charged-with-more-than-150-counts-of-animal-cruelty/article_9153326a-c09b-11ee-8c5a-af15fa48ed1b.html

Reagan Long is the Chapter President of the Shield's Valley FFA Chapter and owns his own lawn care company, and yes, his first employee was his own father.  Way back in the 7th Grade one of Reagan's neighbors asked him if he would be willing to mow their lawn for money.  Neither of them knew it at the time, but this was the launch of a great lawn care business.

Reagan took that job and things started to grow.  By the 9th grade, Reagan had a client list of 6 lawns to mow, and he was ready to start branching out and taking jobs that were beyond walking distance from his house.  So, he did what anyone would naturally do, he asked his dad for a ride.  However, in either Reagan or his father's wisdom, his dad was brought on as an employee so Reagan could learn the realities of a business decision like this.  It worked out, and things have only advanced from there.

Today Reagan has three full-time employees during the summers, his own truck and a myriad of equipment he uses in the business.  All of this has come from reinvesting profits.  He will graduate from high school this summer and his going away to college in the fall.  However, he plans to continue running the business during college and mowing lawns during the summers.

If you listened to my Tuesday episode this week, then you know that one of the most important mentors I have in this entrepreneurial journey, Dan Miller, died in January after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December of 2023.  Dan is a great man who has inspired countless people to change their lives and life styles, including me.  In continuing tribute I wanted to replay this interview I did with Dan back in 2016 to give you another chance to be inspired by his words and outlook on life.