Off-Farm Income

There is something very special about being able to interview all of the American Star Award Finalists every year.  It is definitely a time of year that is inspirational to me and that gives me the motivation to continue my quest into entrepreneurship.  And the only thing that can make that even more special is when one of those finalists has been a guest on the show before. After 7 years of interviewing FFA students, and increasing the number of FFA students that I interview from 52 to 104 per year, that has been happening more frequently, and that is happening today! Raegan Klaassen is an American Star Farmer Finalist, and she first appeared on the Off-Farm Income Podcast in February of 2017 on episode #251 when she was just a freshman.  I don't think I had enough experience to predict that she would have this level of success way back then, but looking back on what I wrote in the show notes for her episode I should have seen it coming.

On today's show, we are featuring an American Star Finalist in agricultural placement.  These are always great interviews because the students that make it to this level are so dedicated to whomever they are working for, family or otherwise, their talents and work ethic shine through.  That is definitely true with Jakob Weinheimer. Jakob has grown up in Claude, Texas working on his family's farm.  In their portion of Texas, they are growing cotton, corn, wheat, and milo.  Some of this is done on the irrigated ground and some on dry ground.  Each poses its own challenges.   Jakob is a pivotal part of this operation, and he has progressively been given more and more responsibility every growing season as he has got older.  Being recognized as an American Star Finalist is not the first recognition that Jakob has received.  In 2019 he was a national proficiency winner in grain production, so he has been to the big stage once already.  Interestingly he did this with a different chapter at Claude High School.  However, since graduation from high, he switched chapters to continue pursuing achievements in the FFA.  Jakob's sister is in the FFA through the Pan Handle Chapter, so he switched over to that chapter to make keeping up his record book seamless.

Today's interview is packed with interesting facts about our guest and tips from her.  There is almost too much to fit in to a just a couple of paragraphs of show notes, but as a professional podcaster I will get it done! Way back in the 5th Grade, Kaylee Bosma discovered an interest in chickens and approached her parents with a request to obtain some to show through the 4H.  Although hesitant, 30 chickens were purchased, and a new project was begun.  Kaylee's parents had no way to know where it was going to be taking their aspirational daughter.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY! Today is a great day for Americans, farmers, and non-farmers alike.  As we celebrate the anniversary of American Independence we should think about the men and women who lived through this time.  With this in mind, let's look at how it impacted farmers in the colonies during the 18th Century. Here are a few of the things that farmers went through during the Revolutionary War: Trade routes to the market were cut off by war, either waterways or roads. Farmers could not plant surpluses because they might not be able to sell the excess and it would just rot on their fields. Herds of cattle and horses were depleted either by the plundering of the British or as provisions for the Continental Army. Farmers were away from their farms for long periods of time and had to start over when they finally returned. At this time, 90% of the population were engaged in farming so this really was a war fought by farmers. I wanted to mention something that I read in Stephen Ambrose's book "Citizen Soldiers" about farm kids in World War II.  He said that the commanders loved the soldiers that grew up on farms because they had been hunting for their whole lives, knew how to handle a rifle, and could shoot straight. I wanted to pay tribute to four of my ancestors that fought in the Revolutionary War in this episode as well: Samuel Hubbard James Wilcox Jesse Richardson Jesse Rowley

When people rise to the top all of the sudden they find themselves answering a lot of questions.  Other people want to know the secret to their success so that they can replicate what has been accomplished.  So, naturally, I asked today's guest what her secret to standing out was. Madison Woods just completed her first year of college, and she is getting ready to head off to Oklahoma State University to pursue her agricultural aspirations.  Along the way, she has picked up a couple of very prestigious awards - National Proficiency Winner in Sheep Production and California State Star Farmer.  Awards like that don't just happen by accident, so I needed to know what made Madison stand out so much! To begin, Madison grew up on a farm in the Central Valley of California with no livestock present!  Her family farms almonds and grows plants in a greenhouse for sale.  So, when she was nine years old and decided to go her own way by getting a lamb, there were some raised eyebrows in the house as to whether or not she was serious. That first year wasn't easy either.  Madison got run over and dragged by that lamb, and there were plenty of times that she needed to find her resolve just to keep going, even at the age of 9.  However, by the age of 10 Madison had purchased a ewe and started breeding her own sheep.  Today, her flock is just over 50 ewes, and she has sold sheep all over the country.  She has been pushed, and she has pushed herself, and it has paid dividends. So, what was Madison's answer to how did you do it?  She encouraged everyone to "face their fear" and try everything that interests them.  That way, you can find what you are truly passionate about.  Once you do that, devoting yourself and putting in the necessary work is no problem.

Any of you who have shown animals at your county fair or jackpot shows, or who have kids who do have seen the families that seem to have repeated success, over and over, in the show ring.  Quite honestly, sometimes animosity can build when families have repeated success at a high level and the rest of the field seems to be perpetually in 2nd place. In today's episode, I get to speak with a student with a family tradition of success in the show arena, exhibiting pigs.  Jaycie Jordan will be joining us to discuss this aspect of the pig business. Jaycie's family farm began with her parents when she was about three years old.  Both of them enjoyed raising and showing pigs, so pigs have been the one, consistent livestock animal on their farm.  Jaycie has three older siblings, and all of them have preceded her in the FFA and in the show ring.  This family is all about raising, breeding, and showing pigs, and with five mentors ahead of her (2 parents and 3 siblings) Jaycie found herself winning her first grand champion ribbon his past year.  As she notes in the episode, this comes after a streak of 12 straight grand champion or reserve grand champion ribbons by somebody in her family. Jaycie goes into detail about how they breed their pigs, how they feed, practices they are adopting, and practices that they are abandoning.  I have been that parent in the stand, watching a well know family to win over and over and over again.  And, I have heard the grumblings of other people wondering what is going on.  The truth is, some families have figured it out.  Jaycie's family certainly has.  With everyone putting their best foot forward with their pigs, great things are bound to happen!

On the Off-Farm Income Podcast, I interview at least 104 FFA students every year.  And about 10% of them have supervised agricultural experiences involving bees.  Bees are a wonderful way to get involved with agriculture.  They can be raised in a small space, eliminating the need for large amounts of land, and they do something wonderful for the surrounding environment. What if your interest in bees goes beyond casual, you would like a career doing what you love and that thing is bees?  Where do you start?  Do you go to college?  Are there ways you can serve the bee industry with a side business?  Is this an industry in decline, or are there emerging opportunities? These are the questions I think of every time I profile a student that has an interest in bees. In today's episode, I finally get to answer so many of those questions.  I am speaking with Alan Mikolich.  Alan became fascinated with bees and beekeeping at age 9 and got his first hive when he was 10.  All he has wanted to do ever since is work with bees, and he made a career out of this passion.  After five decades working with bees, Alan has experience working for others, managing thousands of acres of farmland that need bees for pollination, collecting and selling his own honey, creating side businesses to serve the bee industry, and consulting. There is no way to replicate the knowledge and wisdom of somebody like Alan who has been in the industry for this long, and today we are lucky enough to be able to share his expertise with the world.  If you have an interest in bees and are wondering how to make that your full-time job, today's interview is tailor-made for you!

Today I get to interview another student who is in the business that I refer to as the "millionaire-maker".  Conner Watts is not only the founder and owner of "Conner's Lawn Care & Landscaping" but he is a finalist for the National Star in Agribusiness at this year's National FFA Convention. Conner started his business as a way to make some extra money and then it started raining in West Texas.  It rained and rained, and it caused the lawns to grow...a lot.  Pretty soon he had a growing business with lots of referrals and an ever-increasing client list. This lit a fire with Conner, and he realized what he wanted to do with his life.....operate his own landscaping business.  Conner continued to grow the business and hired employees.  He then branched out to other communities and started servicing clients in other cities.  He is now the main landscape company in two of those communities.  He has also partnered with a nursery that contracted with another company to provide lawn care services.  When that individual decided to retire, Conner gladly picked up where he left off. Conner is studying agribusiness as well as plant and soil sciences at Texas Tech. University.  Everything he is doing in school is designed around building this business from learning more about business to becoming more of an expert in soils and plant health. Good luck this October Conner!

In today's episode, I get to do a lot of reminiscing about where I grew up.  Our guest, Hartley Silva, just graduated from Modesto High School in Modesto, California.  She has already been taking classes in agriculture at Modesto Junior College, and she went to elementary school at a very small school that my elementary school used to play in sports.  Hartley and I grew up in the same county and I went to Modesto Junior College too, but Hartley is taking her love of agriculture to a level that I never even dreamed of. The list of accomplishments for this young lady just does not stop.  Hartley is currently serving as the "Jersey Queen" for the State Of California.  She also just received a state proficiency award for dairy production.  And, she is raising, selling, and showing her own line of Jersey cattle under the business name "Flying Hart Registered Jerseys".  If this were not enough she has served as both a chapter and section officer in the FFA, will be seeking a national proficiency award and an American Degree. I could stop right there, and that would make an incredible resume for 99% of people in our country, but Hartley did not stop there.  She has gone all around the U.S. showing dairy cattle and judging livestock.  And, this has even taken her "across the pond" to Scotland, where she placed in a worldwide competition for judging livestock.  As an individual in this international competition, Hartley was awarded 6th place.  On a team of two with her sister, they placed 3rd.  What an incredible accomplishment! Hartley is studying a lot of different aspects of agriculture and livestock production in college.  She is planning on transferring to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo to finish her bachelor's degree and get her teaching certificate so that she can bundle all of this knowledge into a package and deliver it to her own agriculture students.  She has a plan, and there is no question in my mind that she will execute it!

As Darth Vader would say, "the desire to farm is strong with this one".... I couldn't help it, but it is true.  Caitlyn Mack has a phenomenal story of being brought up in a farming family, developing the passion, and then taking the responsibility of starting her own operation.  Caitlyn just graduated from Drummond High School, but she is already farming 227 acres of cropland on her own.  She has been working for her father and uncle on the family farm for years, earning an hourly wage.  She has been using that money to lease her own ground, purchase her own inputs, and start her own enterprise the entire time. There is a myriad of grain crops that Caitlyn is farming for herself as well as her family, and she has started her own cow/calf herd of beef cattle.  She is actively involved in embryo transfers, and she is growing better genetics in her herd.  All of this led her to be named the Star Farmer for the State Of Oklahoma in 2021.  This follows a national proficiency win in grain production, and three years serving as her chapter's president! Caitlyn is off to Oklahoma State University this fall to pursue dual degrees in animal science and agricultural education.  She is planning on bringing all of this experience back to the classroom, but she is not done with her own accomplishments just yet.  Caitlyn will be seeking her American Degree during college, and she is planning to compete to become an American Star Farmer!

I have a lot of people to thank for today's episode.  First of all, Warren Clark, the CEO of AgNewsCenter, recommended today's guest and got me an interview with him on short notice.  And, our guest, Brock Taylor, the president and CEO of Brock Taylor Consulting, took time out of his unbelievably busy schedule in one of the busiest parts of the year for him to speak with us. Brock is an independent crop and agriculture consultant working in the San Joaquin Valley of California.  More specifically, he is based in and does a large percentage of his work in Fresno County, which has an abundance of very valuable crops that are grown every year in addition to an abundance of permanent crops that grown continually. Anywhere that crops this valuable are grown, it is going to attract a lot of support-type businesses such as fertilizer companies, irrigation suppliers, and of course, crop consultants.  An agronomist like Brock has a lot of challenges in his business because there are also crop advisors working for fertilizer companies offering their services as an added value to farmers when they purchase fertilizer from them.  Over the years Brock has seen the crop advisors with the fertilizer companies expand their services to offer some of the things he does as an independent consultant in an attempt to pull business from him.  At the same time as this has been happening, the competition from other independent crop advisors has been growing, resulting in price competition and a much more strenuous environment. Specific to California are a number of challenges.  Perhaps the largest is water and what appears to be a rapidly increasing frequency of drought years. This takes acres out of production and farmers make less money.  Of course, as farmers make less, they have less to spend on important services like crop consultation.  And, as they leave more and more acres uncultivated, there are fewer and fewer acres for somebody like Brock to consult on, resulting in less work for the growing number of consultants. In this interview, Brock will give you a very realistic look at this particular agricultural business, the challenges that are associated with it, and how he recommends getting the experience you need to be independent.

There are few businesses in which your reputation is as important as breeding, training and selling dogs that people are going to work with and have expectations of.  Our guest today, Laura Stimatze, has learned this over several years of doing this. With those years of experience comes wisdom, and Laura is offering it to you today.  One of the key pieces of advice that she shares today is to be careful who you sell your animals to.  She guards her reputation very carefully and only sells to people who have the right idea about what they are going to be doing with these dogs. She does not sell pets, and she makes sure that her customers are going to put the work in so that the dog she sells them performs correctly.  She does not want somebody blaming her breeding or training when they did not put in the required work. Along the way, Laura also noticed something about her industry.  She saw a need for training clinics that were specifically for women.  So, she started one.  She does not do as many as she once did, but she does train just for women.  That was how I found out about her, from one of my listeners, Garoleen Wilson, who went to one of her clinics.

The other day an article popped up in my newsfeed about a young man who had won an FFA academic award upon graduation from high school.  As I read through the article, I saw that the same student had received an award from the Sons Of The American Revolution.  This piqued my interest because I am a member of the Sons Of The American Revolution.  I am thrilled to today bring this young man onto the show. Victor Snook is definitely worth a SAR award as well as many other accolades.  In our interview, we uncovered many ways in which this young man is currently contributing to his community and will continue to do so in the future.  Victor is not afraid to be busy!  He plays football, played baseball, participates in the marching band, is in the school's jazz band, works outside of school, and obviously is involved in the FFA. What really stood out to me in this interview with Victor is service.  For Victor's job, he works for a farm service business.  When I hear the term "farm service" I think about mechanics and technicians that repair equipment in the field or service equipment on people's property.  However, for Victor's job he helps people out on their farms in any way they need.  He fixes fences, does concrete work, and even repairs sheds if need be. Of course, a service job is consistent with everything else I heard from this young man.  He has a deep love for music.  He has four brothers, and three of them play the saxophone right along with him.  That's right, there are four brothers playing saxophone together, two on alto and two on tenor.  During the interview, Victor mentioned playing for their church as well as entertaining people in senior living facilities and bringing them the joy of music. Victor has his eyes set on service as a career.  He mentioned in our questionnaire that he was going to be studying law enforcement in college. In the interview, he talked about serving his community as a conservation officer.  Either way, it is service that he knows and service that he is going to provide in his career.  You are going to enjoy getting to know this young man!

We talk a lot on this show about how to get started farming right now, even if you don't have the farm that you ultimately see in your dreams.  Usually when we speak of this we are talking about marketing some fruits, vegetables, herbs, etc. from a back yard operation or possibly something like aquaculture or hydroponics.  But, what if you want to raise livestock?  Is there anything that you can do on a small piece of ground that would be profitable? Our guest today, Annie Johnson, is going to talk to us about doing exactly that with pigs.  Annie's has a very interesting story that has come full circle. Her grandfather used to raise pigs on their families farm about ten miles away from where she currently lives in Cambridge, Illinois.  However, nobody in the family raised a pig for about 20 years until she got started at the age of 14. The family farm is still there, and that is where Annie raises her pigs.  However, the crop ground on the farm is in the CRP program, so it is not being farmed.  That means that Annie only had a small piece of ground to be able to begin her livestock enterprise.  Pigs were the answer for her, and direct marketing was the business model.  Annie has been able to pre-arrange the sale of her pigs to multiple customers, and because of her unique story and the way she is raising them she can charge a premium for her pork. Through direct marketing, Annie has been able to increase what she receives for her pigs.  However, she is being just as innovative on the other end to keep expenses low.  Instead of feeding a boar all year long, she is using artificial insemination to breed her sows.  There is an old grain cart on the property that can safely hold a lot of pig feed.  So, Annie buys feed in bulk and has that cart filled to save money on feed costs, and it works!  Annie has also experimented with different breeds and is now raising Duroc's.  Her customers prefer the meat, and the Duroc's work be in her operation.  So, she is producing a very desirable product through the most efficient means she has at her disposal. Annie has just graduated high school and has just been awarded a state proficiency for her efforts in pork production.  She is going to take all of this experience and knowledge with her to college where she will be studying to be an Ag teacher.  When she finishes college, she will bring it all with her to the classroom, and she will be inspiring Ag students for years to come!

On today's episode, we are profiling a product.  And like I do every time that we profile a product or company I want to give a disclaimer.  Today's guest is not a paid advertiser or sponsor of the Off-Farm Income Podcast, and there are no discussions taking place for that to happen.  This company was brought to my attention by a person I have met through agricultural podcasting, and after reading about their product I thought this might be something that could help you be more successful on your cattle or pig operation. That is why we are profiling it here today. Our guest today, Joe Spicola, has been involved in the beef industry, raising stockers, for many years now.  Sometime around 2005, as they were weighing cattle, again, he decided that there must be a better way to get this done than rounding up all the cattle, stressing them out, and inputting all that labor.  Then, an idea was born.  What if the cattle could be scanned and their weight calculated each time they came to water? This started the journey that Joe is still on today.  However, today he has an extremely accurate product that weighs cattle and pigs through 3-D imaging technology that he is selling.  This product is called CLICR Weight, and its implications are fantastic! Instead of rounding up cattle, penning them up, and running them through a scale to calculate their weights and average daily gains, Joe's product relies on the cattle coming to water and technology.  Joe has been able to develop an algorithm that uses a 3-D image capture by a camera when a cow or pig comes to drink that provides the animal's weight with 96% accuracy.  The implications here are astounding.  A lot of labor and stress is saved by doing this when the cow or pig is doing something that is totally natural to them.  And, the computer can automatically mark the animal if they have reached their goal weight.  The computer can also automatically apply drenches so that cattle do not have to be run through corrals to get parasite protection, and I think Joe is just starting to figure out all the ways that this technology can help producers. With a $3,500 price tag and a daily subscription fee of $.05-$.15 per animal, if this sounds like a technology that would help you to succeed in your operation it is definitely affordable.  I hope that the information provided today can help you to be more successful, and I hope that innovations in agriculture like this keep coming our way!