Dad's wisdom with Larry Gamble

Chris

Barron: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today we are going to have another conversation on Dad's Wisdom, and we're lucky enough to have with us today Larry Gamble from West Point, Indiana. Larry, how's it going? Good, good, good. So you just had to sit here and look at my ugly face here all day. We working through some transition succession planning and that kind of stuff. And, and I thought it'd be a great opportunity to corner you. We've had the opportunity to work with you and your family for a couple of years now. And so I figured it'd be a great time to capture some wisdom from you. You've had an opportunity to farm and do a great job. In, in Indiana over the years. And so I guess what I'd like to do first is just kind of have you introduce yourself, tell a little bit about your operation and kind of how you got started farming.

Larry

Gamble: I was born in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, in Lafayette, Indiana, the hospital, to Marjorie and Elmer Gamble. I was one of 4 children, the youngest. Excuse me. Um, uh, close to Purdue University. Um, so went to Southwestern High School, all of— all me and my siblings. And, uh, Dad and my mom gave each of us a choice to go to Purdue University, and my two older sisters and my brother all took him up on that. And he came to me and he says, do you want to go to Purdue, or do you want to farm? I said, well, I wanted to farm. So he said, okay, you take your 4-H money and you're gonna go town, buy a tractor. Hmm. So 1974, I went to Wingate, Indiana, and bought my first International tractor and farmed with my dad for many years till he retired at the age of 65. Still helped me till he was 80. Um, had a stroke in '82. At 82 and lost him when he was 86 in 2004.

And I got married to a lovely wife, Ann, in 1990— I'm sorry, 1984. And we had 3 children. And my youngest is a son named Christian. And he went to Purdue University. And his 2 sisters both went to college. And one's an attorney, one's a working banker. And anyway, he decided he wanted to farm with me. So we're still farming my dad's land and other land that we rent. We farm about 4,000 acres in Tippecanoe County.

Chris

Barron: Awesome. So, well, first of all, I want to give credit to your wife because none of us would get where we're at without the help of our spouse and the things that they do. Any comments on that and how she was such an integral part to help you with your success.

Larry

Gamble: Yes, very, very. My wife Anne was a town girl, lived on outskirts of Lafayette. I actually got to know her because I went out with her friends and we were babysitting and we were babysitting Anne and her friends. So I'm a little bit older than her. But anyway, we got married in 1984. And she came to the farm from, from town and never been on the farm. And this summer will be married 40 years.

Chris

Barron: Wow. Congratulations.

Larry

Gamble: We raised 3 beautiful children and have 2 grandchildren, and she's been my partner all along. And she does all the books right now for our farm, for me and my son in our operation. And plus running the household and, and has been an interior decorator on the side.

Chris

Barron: That's awesome. And, and Christian just got married here recently too and has a— what, being in the meeting with us today appears to be a great partner as well.

Larry

Gamble: Yes. Yes. Morgan, Christian's wife, they got married a year ago, August 12th. And he came to me one time a couple of years ago and said, Dad, how did you find Mom? How did you get so lucky? And I said, I just got lucky, son. I did. So I said, just be patient. You'll, you'll find your soulmate. You'll find her. And sure enough, he did. And yeah, Morgan looks like she's going to be a big asset to him and to our farming operation.

Chris

Barron: That's great. That's awesome. So, you know, we're all blessed with those around us and stuff and those who came before us. I want to circle back to your dad for a minute and have you kind of give us some perspective. You know, you growing up as a kid, you saw the '80s, you saw high interest rates. We're in this environment right now as we record this, you know, the beginning of July of 2024, where we've seen some pretty massive inflation. We've seen the remnants of probably what we saw back in the '70s going into the '80s in terms of just a pretty volatile ag economy. With that said, are there anything or is there anything that you learned from your dad or comments that your dad made going through some of the challenges in farming that you learned and things that you would use to just to kind of pass some wisdom along to some of the listeners?

Larry

Gamble: Well, I mean, it's been— I mean, I say I started farming in the '70s with my dad and things have drastically changed since then. Um, when I bought my— I started farming with my dad as an employee, and, uh, for a couple years, and then I started buying into the operation. We were a hogs, cattle, and grain farming, 500 acres at that time. Um, and anyway, it just, uh, we decided to— my dad decided to sell out to me, and he was going to retire. Um, we had everything appraised, and our cow herd and our machinery was $160,000. That was combine tractors, cows, everything. And he gave me it. He was my banker, so he gave me 5 years to help him to get started to pay him off. And by golly, I got him paid off. So, so then we stayed at that 500 acres for a while, and then decided— he came to me and said, and when I got married in '84, and he said, we got to do something else.

We're not, we're not growing here. You need to raise hogs. So I went into the hog business, the farrow to finish, for 25 years and made some money, lost some money, but they did pay the bills many times. But actually, one of the best things I ever did in my farming career was I got out before they tanked in the mid-'90s. Yeah. And anyway, we got out of that. But Dad always told me that, you know, don't overstep your— I don't know how you want to put it— don't extend yourself over what you, you know, what you can pay back. And he said, when you borrow money, you got to pay it back.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, it's weird. The banks want their money back, right?

Larry

Gamble: So So I tried not to get too far overextended over the years. And then slowly as we got out of the hogs, I started increasing our land base and renting and 50/50 land, cash-earning land. I got hooked up with a couple of big landlords that took a chance on me and, and, and got, you know, gave us a chance. And some of those landlords we still farm for today. And But I'd say I grew up in a tight-knit community, and my dad was one of 3 brothers that farmed, and all their sons farmed with them. And now Christian and I are the only remaining Gamble farmers in our, in our area. And there used to be several. So, but my dad was a self-made man. My grandpa, where Christian lives now on our home farm, we call it. Farmed with— he raised 3 sons and on 80 acres and, you know, had dairy cows, sheep, chickens, a big garden, and, you know, did just, just fine, you know, on 80 acres.

Now, of course, we couldn't do that today, but. Right. But anyway, there, there was another one. My grandfather was another good example that, you know, you just live by your means, don't overextend your means. And, you know, don't, don't— my dad was not a believer in credit cards. He wouldn't own a credit card. If I can't pay for it, you don't need it. So anyway, so I, you know, for many years I didn't have a credit card until we went to do something. I can't remember, my wife was going to buy something and they said, well, you don't have any credit. I swear I've got cash. We don't care.

Chris

Barron: You know, it's a different world now.

Larry

Gamble: So anyway, that's, I guess that's the biggest thing. I've tried not to do things that I couldn't pay for.

Chris

Barron: That said, you know, go back to the '80s again for a minute. And when interest rates were high, there was, you know, there were opportunities coming out of that, right? So when the interest rates were high, it created a lot of issues for a lot of producers that couldn't make it. All of a sudden, you know, land values really dropped and there were some opportunities in there. Were there any— was there any land purchasing in there or anything that you looked at that if you look back and said, you know, looking at it now, maybe I should have did this, maybe I should have did that, either on the front end of the, of the, you know, the rate increases or on the back end as things recycled?

Larry

Gamble: Oh, actually, that's funny you say that because actually 1979 and finally it was 1980, my grandfather passed away.. And, uh, like I say, my dad was one of 3 brothers. So my grandfather left the farm to that 80 acres and house and buildings to, uh, my dad and his 2 brothers. Well, at that time, my oldest uncle had a son— no, I'm— excuse me, a daughter, uh, lived out of state, and her, her husband wanted to come back to the area to farm. So, uh, my other uncle who was younger didn't, didn't want the farm, didn't do anything, didn't take care of it, didn't whatever. So he said it was between my dad Elmer and his brother Ansel. And dad wanted me to buy it. So, and me had been taking care of the farm, farming for my grandpa after he'd retired. So my dad says, we're going to buy that farm. I said, well, Dad, I don't have any money. He said, well, we're going to buy that farm.

So anyway, they went to the lawyer's office that day to do the estate, or the lawyer read the will and stuff.. And he came home and said, Gloria, you bought a farm. I go, I did. So in that time, this was 1980, that farm brought— it was 80 acres in Jackson Township, Tippecanoe County, Indiana, about $3,500 an acre in 1980. And that was like double of what anything else had been bringing in the area. But it was because it was a family deal. My one uncle said, either I'm going to buy it or you're going to buy it. To my dad, and my dad said, well, we're buying it. So anyway, I bought it, but I was fortunate to get a low-interest government loan through Farmers Home Administration and didn't think I'd ever get it paid off. But I did get that 80 acres paid off, and that's our home base to this day.

That's where my son now lives with his new wife, and that's where our grain setup is, our shop and stuff like that. So it's like the center of our operation.

Chris

Barron: Okay, awesome. Yeah. So, you know, What's your perspective on, on, you know, one of the things that I think has been kind of a barrier to entry to growth, and I don't mean entry in general, I just mean to growth for those existing young producers that are farming either with family or, you know, first, second, third generation operations, is figuring out how to buy that next farm or how, you know, and then like you said, not to, to overextend either, but On the same token, any thoughts, any perspective on, on the land purchasing? Do you think that's something you guys should be trying to aggressively still do, or what do you think? I mean, I know Christian made a comment today, a land sale not too far from you guys, $17,000 an acre. I mean, it's a lot of capital tied up, but on the same token, you know, land, land has proven to be a pretty good investment. Thoughts on that?

Larry

Gamble: Well, yeah, it's, it's, it was a, I don't know what you want to call it, kind of a stumbling block for me most of my career. Because I did inherit a fourth of my family's, my mom and dad's land with my three siblings. And I was always afraid one of my siblings wanted to sell. And so other lands would come up for sale. And I'd say, no, I gotta save that money in case I need to buy out one of my siblings. I don't, I don't I want to make sure I buy the land that my dad had worked his, you know, tail off to get and pay for and pass on to us kids. So many years I let things slip and slide and didn't buy any more land thinking I was going to get that. Well, now it's getting— the cash rent in our area is getting high or has been high, and it's getting tougher and tougher. The farmers continue to get bigger, larger, more capital behind some of them.

Some of them got large investors behind them. We're just a family trying to get along. And so I'm— Christian's been leaning and, you know, my son has been leaning to trying to purchase some land and even at these high prices just to get something so we can have something to build some collateral on and future down the road and Hopefully he'll be able to keep my family gamble land together.

Chris

Barron: Mm-hmm. You think that's a good move to try to get to try to continue to acquire at least some, or what's your advice there?

Larry

Gamble: Yeah, I think so. I mean, we've been trying to help him any way we can, and we're trying to— me and my wife are thinking about phasing ourselves out a little bit and transitioning stuff on to Christian so he can have more capital and be more versed and more able to continue that and maybe put come along some deals. But I think, yes, he's, you know, a fellow is going to have to own some land to be, you know, to stay in this business.

Chris

Barron: I kind of have that base. I want to shift gears a little bit and ask a couple more wisdom questions and dad questions. So the first one I have is, you know, as a dad, there's a lot of dads listening to this. You know, a lot of the clients we work with, I know a lot of our listeners have young families. You know, kids that are really young to, you know, kids in high school, college, some that have already come back to the farm. What's some advice that you would give to the dads? You know, you know, first of all, the young kids, and then, and then maybe the, the ones possibly wanting to come back. But first of all, any, any dadly advice for, for the, the people listening here about how to be a better dad or how to to do some things, what are some things that you would give some recommendations on there?

Larry

Gamble: Excuse me. I know we pushed Christian to go to Purdue University in Lafayette there in West Lafayette. Excuse me, to get an Ag. And, you know, he wanted to do something in Ag. He wanted to farm. But I said, you know, I didn't go to college. I started farming at 17, right out of high school. And, you know, it's all I knew. That's all I could do. And still all I know. But, you know, I want him to have the opportunity to get an education, have that degree in his back pocket in case farming ever went south again. And, and maybe he said that wasn't the thing for him. But so he did that and graduated in 2015 from Purdue with an Ag Econ degree. And I, you know, don't regret that a bit. And then he did some internships. I think that's a must, that they need to try a few of the things.

You know, so he did some internships with Cargill Grain Marketing and a seed corn company and stuff like that and decided, you know, he said, Dad, I'm not a salesman. I'm not a grain buyer. I know how to farm. I just want to— I just want to farm the dirt, you know? Yeah. And so I came back and I, you know, I've tried to teach him everything I knew since then, since we've been farming the last several years.

Chris

Barron: One thing that is a question that is brought up in discussions that we have a lot with clients is, you know, should the kids, you know, right after college or right after high school for that matter, come back to the farm, or should they be required to go someplace else for, say, 2, 3, 5 years to work someplace else? What's your opinion, or what would your wisdom tell you? You know, is it, is it okay to have the kid stay there, not go anywhere, or do you think it is wise to go somewhere?

Larry

Gamble: Well, I think that's going to be every individual situation might be different. But, you know, I take— I would— Christian, my son, was in college and he did those internships. He said, I don't need to go work anywhere else, Dad. I know this is what I want to do. Because I wanted to make sure this is what he wanted to do. Because it's, it's not, it's not just a job. It's your life. I mean, you know that, Chris, it's your life. That's all you do. It's all you think about. You go to bed thinking about it, you wake up thinking about it, and you lay in bed not sleeping thinking about it, right? So you got to be committed to do that. And so, yeah, in some instances, yeah, I'd say people may— they maybe need to go try something, you know, for a couple of years. But he did his internships and said that was enough for him.

He knew this is what he wanted to do, and he's been committed with it ever since, since 2015.

Chris

Barron: Right. So with that said, I guess I want another question for you. If, if you could go back and tell your 25-year-old self something that you know now, whether it's a mistake, whether it's advice, whether it's opportunities, what would you, what would you go back and tell yourself knowing what you know now at 20-something?

Larry

Gamble: Excuse me. Um, I, I guess I would have been a little more, uh, uncautious or, uh, take a few more risks. I, I maybe would have jumped out on the limb and maybe bought up another piece of ground here or there and added to my land base at that time. And instead of trying to be Mr. Conservative and safe and and, and thinking always that day, doomsday, when I might have to buy out my siblings, which still has not happened. We're still on the ground together. But I think maybe I would have done that. And that's like I say, that's what Christian, my son now, he's wanting to do to try to get some land base and, and, you know, own something for going into the future. So I probably would have done maybe been a little more aggressive on stuff like that. But, you know, I met the woman of my dreams and she's been a great mother to our kids and I can't change any of that.

I got 3 lovely children and I say 2 grandkids and we farm in good old Jackson Township there in Tippecanoe County and some of the best dirt in Tippecanoe County. And I don't know, we got a, got a lot of good neighbors and it's a tight-knit community and I I know, I thought, I don't know, other than trying to be more aggressive buying some land, I don't know what I'd change.

Chris

Barron: One thing you guys did in your operation here in the last year or so is put in a pretty state-of-the-art grain system. Any comments on that? Is that, was that a good move? Is, are you glad you did that? You wish you would have done it sooner? That's, that's a question that a lot of people, you know, know that they either need to upgrade, they need to build, they need to improve, repair, whatever on the grain system. And, and you know how it is, there's never enough capital to go around. All— I mean, if you think of everything you need, you need way more than what is available for cash, right? But specifically with a grain setup, you wish you would have built that sooner? Are you glad you did it? Tell a little bit about that.

Larry

Gamble: Oh gosh, yes. Uh, I mean, when I started farming in the '70s with my dad, we predominantly raised seed corn. So we didn't need storage. We raised seed corn for DeKalb and we had to pick it in the ear and haul it to Crawfordville. And we didn't need storage, you know, so many years we did that. And then we finally in the '80s, we— the seed corn was phasing out some and we started building some bins, but we didn't build anything, a big state-of-the-art drying system or something like that. But anyways, as our land base grew and we started farming more acres, And then the country elevators are all shriveling up and going away. I don't know if there's even one. You know, we got a Cargill and we got ADM, but there's no old country elevator. Every little town had an elevator, right? And those aren't there anymore.

So, and for example, last year at the— during harvest, we had a big corn crop in our area, big bean crop. The terminals were closing at 1:00 in the afternoon. We, you know, if we'd had— if that's the only place we had to go, we would have been forever doing harvest. So we built our facility, we put in scales, everything else so we can weigh landlords' crops, weigh stuff in and out, know exactly what we got in the bins, and you can dry the corn way cheaper than the elevators.

Chris

Barron: Oh yeah.

Larry

Gamble: And, and, you know, we wind up with good quality. It was a learning curve. We went to a different type of drying system than I'd been around before. We'd had some bin dryers in the past, but it was probably the thing I should have done. Yes, 15, 20 years ago. But we were renting a farm that had grain storage on it. And in actuality, we ended up and gave that— I farmed that farm for 22 years and we actually gave that farm up, the ground, 500 acres, which I didn't think I'd ever do that. But we were having to rent the grain facilities, which had 200,000 bushels of storage. And as long as I was doing that, I couldn't afford to take the capital to build our own facility. So we gave up that farm and, and I think we're money ahead.

Chris

Barron: So sometimes less is more, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Larry

Gamble: Believe it or not.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. Yeah. I guess, you know, you mentioned something that kind of piqued some interest there, you know, with land rent. You know, you said you had some good relationships with, with some landowners that turned into, you know, a long-term thing. Any advice or any wisdom there for, for those that are trying to rent ground? There's a lot of competition. There's, you know, there's a lot that would say the rent's too high right now, you know, when commodity prices really dip to low levels. Any, any advice or wisdom on, on, you know, relationships with landowners?

Larry

Gamble: Well, I know, okay, we've— since we've gave that farm up, that was 500 acres I was talking about a few minutes ago, that was 20 miles from home. And, you know, we knew some of the neighbors over there, but not really. In our area, we know all the neighbors. We grew up next to most of them. You know, I've known them all my life. So, but it's still competitive, you know, but you said land comes up for sale and you don't know about it right away.

Chris

Barron: It's gone.

Larry

Gamble: Yeah. You know, or for sale or for rent. So, but yeah, it's, it's a thing that Oh, I don't know. It's just been a tough deal to hold, you know, with trying to stay competitive, but, and still be a good neighbor. But that's when I got— when I pass, I want my neighbor to be, you know, be there to be my pallbearers if I need them, right? So, so, and that's kind of stuff we've tried to instill in our our kids and my son. So any landlords we have, whether 50/50, which we still have some of them, believe it or not, share landlords, and, and then, or cash rent, doesn't matter. We treat them like their family. You know, we plow the snow, their driveways, we scoop their sidewalks off, the elderly ones, you know, we mow for them, we do whatever. And they're just like, you know, part of our opera, part of our family. So we try to take care of everybody.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, that's really, I think, a key. So, um, we're kind of getting wrapped up here. Is there anything that, that you would like to say to your family, um, with regard to, you know, how things have gone over the years? Any, anything? So if you're— if Christian's listening, or, um, any, anybody here, because I know one thing we talked about today, and I see this all the times with father-son and with the, the dad and the kids, our expectations for our kids are always like way high. And, you know, we can have the same conflict with an employee, and we're more pissed if it's the— if it's our kid, right? You know, and, and so I guess, is there anything you would like to message, you would like to give to, to any of the— to your daughters, to your son, um, to your wife, uh, you know, to Morgan, anybody there?

Larry

Gamble: Um, just all the love and support, um, they've given me, given me over the years, uh, I mean, I'd say my wife was from town, took her a few years to learn the ropes of the farming deal. But, but now the other day we were— we raised hay, we got some beef cattle, and she said something about you got to make hay when the sun shines. So she's, she's learned all the— learned all the things, brought us meals to the field all these years. And when we're harvesting and stuff like that for sometimes as many as 5 and 6 people at night, she'll bring dinner to us. And it's not a ham sandwich. She'll bring a full-blown meal. And because, you know, we've all been working—

Chris

Barron: What time of day is that so I can be there? Is that like 5:30, 6:00?

Larry

Gamble: Well, it's anywhere from between 6:00 and 8:00. Okay. Because we're harvesting, you just like you, Chris, we run around the clock. And, and but then I had two daughters, my oldest daughter, and then had our middle daughter. And then I told my wife, I said, man, I would like to have a son to kind of keep on the family going, you know? She goes, we'll try one more time. So, so we did. And, and we got Christian, luckily. And, and she said, that's it, we're done. Yeah. So, and then luckily he wanted to farm. So that was my lifelong dream, is like when I farmed with my dad. And then same thing, it's Christian farm with me now. And we're father-son. We have our— we have our moments, we have our spats. But at the end of the day, we get the work done and, and hopefully he can continue on this operation and keep this land together.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. Excuse me. Sometimes I think with, with the dad, it's, it's hard because you're— you see some things that they want to do which might look like a good idea, but on the same token, there's probably taking that with a grain of salt or with a, you know, scale that in instead of jump all the way into the pool, right? You know, let's dip our toes or whatever. I think sometimes that, you know, and then when we bring that on, I think for the younger guys sometimes it's like, you know, you're holding us back too, you know. So there's kind of a balance in there.

Larry

Gamble: Yeah. Um, I mean, I, I thought Same situation with me and my dad. You know, I started with my dad in the '70s, so he had his way of doing things, and I had a few, few, few of my new ideas I wanted to implement. And I've also seen operations that, that a father and son didn't work out that way. They, they couldn't make it work. Yeah. So, I mean, Christian's had our— she's— our spats about when the new technology and, and monitors and GPS, and I— he wants me to run the combine. I said, Christian, we got 3 monitors in that combine, you know, and iPads. And I said, I'll drive the semi. Yeah. So, uh, tell me about— so he does, he runs the combine. But, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's tough, but he's, uh, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's— like I say, he's committed. And, uh, that's what it is. You got to be committed. You got to make it your life.

And my wife, you know, and after 40-some years now, she says, you know, farming's a life. It's not just a job. And, you know, and it took a couple of years for, you know, a town girl to figure that out. But no, yeah, after that, it's, it's all natural now.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, it's definitely a commitment. And I think, too, you know, when you look at, at the, the differences in how like a younger person looks at this world today with technology and things, it's, you know, everything is changing significantly faster. Than say it did, you know, in the '70s, '80s, '90s, or even the early 2000s. If you look at how fast technology is coming in and how quickly things are changing, it's just going to take us all being very adaptive to, to, to change. The change is the one constant thing that we're all going to, going to get to deal with for sure.

Larry

Gamble: Yeah. And then, and, you know, the younger generation, they, they grasp that new technology easily. My own mind's getting tired and it doesn't accept new stuff as easy as my wife does our bookwork. And she's, you know, we're trying to— she's trying to learn a new computer program at the moment for our accounting. And it's just, you know, you just don't— things just don't click like they used to. So, you know, luckily our daughter-in-law is going to transition into some of that stuff and our son and, and take over that stuff. But it's easy for them. I mean, they grew up with that stuff, you know. So my grandson now has a iPad and he was trying to show me something on my cell phone the other day. He's 6 years old.

So anyway, but, but you still, in the day, farming's a tough life and you still got to, you got to put in the hours, you got to put in the work and you got to put in the sacrifice.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, that's time and sacrifice. And the last, last thing I was going to comment on and get your take is, you know, the idea of delegating. You know, you've done a good job and I see this with a lot of our clients. That have done a really good job of delegating responsibility to the next generation as opposed to work. In other words, you know, I don't, I don't want a potential client that wants help to call me when they're 70 and their 50-year-old son still hasn't ran the planter yet, or, you know, hasn't made executive decisions, isn't doing the marketing, isn't doing all those things. And that's kind of really my last question is, you know, advice for, for those listening. Um, at what point do you start bringing that next generation in, and, and what's a good way? Because you've done a good job of, of delegating authority and responsibility as opposed to work.

You know, just like you said, he's, he's in the combine, he's, he's calibrating things, he's setting things, he's doing all the quote-unquote important jobs, which allows you then, as the visionary of the business originally, to, to go sit in the semi and enjoy, you know, what the fruits of everything you've built, right? You can have— you can delegate that stuff off. Talk a little bit about the importance of that when you do it and how you do that.

Larry

Gamble: Well, I mean, I'd say Christian started in 2015 right out of Purdue, and right away he was like, we need to do this, we need to do that, we need to do this. And I said—

Chris

Barron: and you bought into everything, right?

Larry

Gamble: And I said, I said, fine, but you're gonna have to do it, you know. I'll try to learn some stuff and and I did run the combine for a while with the first yield monitors and stuff. And then we got yield monitors and iPads. And actually this year I've planted all the corn all these years and we got a new corn planter and we had same thing, two monitors, an iPad and, and a foot pedal thing. I had to turn the fertilizer on and off with. And, and it's like I'm, I'm, I planted like 600 acres and I said, Okay, I'm done. I said, I'm done. I said, I'll go plant beans. So we made that switch and he jumped in the planter and away he went, you know? And I'd planted all the corn for all these years. And he called me and asked me questions. I call him asking questions about the bean planter. Right. So, right. So we have a good relationship there.

But yeah, the new generation can just move in so easy on that stuff. And it's to be competitive and to be successful. I think those are things you have to be, you know, used to. When I grew up, hard work and, you know, put in your time and sell your crop, you paid your fuel bill twice a year, you know. I mean, you know, stuff like that. And we worked hard and, and that was good enough, you know, we survived. But it's— you got to be smart and savvy and, and, and dedicated and sacrifice and a lot more things nowadays to make it work. And I think this new generation can do it.

Chris

Barron: You got to be a banker, a commodity trader, an engineer. Yeah, for sure. I do have one last— I keep thinking of things. I have one other thing. You guys have really good employees. You have two, you know, like top-notch employees. Any, any advice or anything for those listening from a wisdom perspective on attracting good labor, not only attracting them but keeping them? Because that's one of the biggest things that that is a challenge for a lot of our farm operations is not only getting them, but it's also retaining them. Any comments on that that's worked good for you guys?

Larry

Gamble: Well, yeah, this— I mean, I've had— I used for many years in the— when Christian was young and my daughters were young and I was farrowing hogs and stuff and doing farm work, I needed help. So I was hiring Purdue students with their ag school right there was really nice. And I was like, I was running McDonald's. I had this kid from 8 to 10, this kid from 10 to 12. And, you know, and I did that for many years in the early '90s. But yeah, we got these two employees now, and we've had several good employees after that. A lot of those Purdue kids went on, been successful, and I'm still in contact with them today. And, you know, they went all over the country and been really good. And still, you know, still keep in touch with me. But, but yeah, the employees we have now, we were very fortunate, you know, to get them.

And to do that is you kind of got to listen to what they want, you know. You know what you want, you know what you want out of them. But you have to make sure, you know, if you can find somebody good, you want them to stay there. And right now, they're both employees we have said they don't want to go anywhere else. They want to retire with us. They love working for us. And, you know, but you gotta, you gotta be ready to pay them. Um, you know, we got one man on salary, one on, uh, wages, and, uh, and it works out really good. And we got a couple part-time guys, but, uh, you know, yeah, they're, they're just really good, you know. And we have to give them— you have to give them responsibility and give them some direction and let them be— kind of feel like they're part of the operation. You know, they're not— I mean, they're not partners, but they like our Jeremy guy works for us.

He's in charge of the, like, the machinery service and all that kind of stuff. He knows what he has to do and he likes that. And the other guy is really organized about hauling grain, getting the trucks ready, whatever. So, and they work good together. That's a good thing. Relationship is everybody has to get along, have a good relationship.

Chris

Barron: Mm-hmm. That's for sure. Well, hey, I think we've, we've kind of covered a gamut of areas. Is there anything that I didn't ask or anything that, you know, that would be like, this is something I would like to leave, you know, the young producers with here as they enter into a kind of a difficult year. But, you know, they got a long career ahead of them. Any, any last words you'd like to leave those guys with?

Larry

Gamble: Yeah, I mean, just, just be focused, work hard, love your family. Uh, family's everything. Um, you know, like saying, just, uh, you gotta, uh, the farming's up and down, always has been. I've been farming since the '70s. I've seen it all, you know. I've seen the $8 hogs, you know. I've seen the $1.50 corn. So I've seen $4.50 beans. So You know, and I've seen high fertilizer prices, higher cash rents, so high land prices. But it's, you know, it's just you got to be dedicated. And, and, and it's like I say, it's a life. It's not a, it's not a job. It's okay. It's a job, but it's a life. And if everybody in your operation thinks that same way, you'll get through it all. Mm-hmm.

Chris

Barron: That's great advice. I think it's commitment and passion, right? It's having the passion for what you do. And obviously your family family has that. Um, we've been blessed to get to work with you guys. You have a beautiful family. You've been extremely successful, and I sincerely appreciate your time today, um, sharing your wisdom with us today. And, um, we'll get you back another time, maybe when you, when you want to talk more wisdom.

Larry

Gamble: Okay, well, I appreciate, uh, you and Shay and Chris, you, Shay, and everybody in the Ag View operation here. And you've been a great help to Christian. My son has been I was a little leery about this whole deal. But he said, no, come on, Dad, we got to have some help. And, and he was right. We had to have some help to figure this transition stuff out to make it work. And you're still helping us.

Chris

Barron: So we appreciate it. Well, transition is kind of a living, breathing, evergreen process, isn't it? It seems like it's never done, but it's evolving. Yeah, exactly. So again, Larry Gamble from West Point, Indiana. Thank you very much. Appreciate you being here.

Larry

Gamble: No problem, Chris.

Chris

Barron: Thank you. All right. And thanks everybody again. And if you have a dad or anybody that would be willing to share their wisdom with us, please give us, give us an email or contact information and we'll, we'll get with them and talk more Dad's Wisdom. With that said, thanks everybody. And we will catch you again next time on the Ag View Pitch.