The complexities of agriculture with Shay Myers

Shay

Foulk: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Ag View Pitch, and on today you have Shea and Shea in the Morning, and this is Shay Foulk with Shea Myers. How are you doing today, Shea?

Shay

Myers: It's good to talk to you, Shea. Yeah, yeah. I don't want any too many other Sheas out there.

Shay

Foulk: No, I agree, and glad we could finally get linked in here. I know last week here has been crazy busy for you. We'll talk about that a little bit, but I was wondering if you could just, you know, give a little bit of an overview to our listeners here on who you are, what you do, and kind of what you're about.

Shay

Myers: Sure, um, Shay Myers, third-generation farm kid, and I guess I get to call myself CEO now of Owyhee Produce. We're a vertically integrated farming operation. We grow 9 different row crops, and I am in charge of marketing and sales and packing for asparagus, sweet potatoes and onions. And the highest volume, probably, you know, play for the— where the biggest player is with onions. I came back to the operation in 2000 and— let's see, 2005. And that's when we started doing fresh-packed onions, and we've kind of done the vertical integration thing and tried to follow our crop as far along as we can and haven't looked back since.

Shay

Foulk: Now that's fantastic, and there's lots of questions that I'm going to pull out of there for the listeners' benefits. What are the other row crops that you're running there?

Shay

Myers: Sure, so we're going to do asparagus, beans, corn. I got to go through all of them. They're going to make me— mint, hemp, onions, wheat, and what have I skipped? Okay. Asparagus, beans, corn, yeah. Sorry, but it gets always hard to count them all out. I'm missing some. Oh, peas. I skipped peas in there.

Shay

Foulk: Right. And where exactly is your operation there?

Shay

Myers: So we're right on the Oregon-Idaho border. So we farm on both sides, just about 50 miles west of Boise, Idaho. So we're in what's called the Treasure Valley, the Snake River Valley here outside of Boise.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, beautiful area. I've actually been through that and a good place to live and grow up. So when you say third generation on the farm, has a, you know, the the dynamics of the farming operation always looked that complex, I guess?

Shay

Myers: It's obviously gotten more complex as we're now collaborating cousins. But, you know, we really still have all 3 generations operating together on a daily basis. We just lost my grandfather about a year ago, almost exactly a year ago. But my grandmother is still actively involved from AR and AP. So she's there all the time and kind of keeps tabs on what's happening. And then my uncle and my mom are both actively participating in the operation, with my uncle being the president of the farming side and him working with a son and a son-in-law. And then my mom, she is really our chief operations officer at Oʻahi, and then she's the one that really spearheaded our asparagus program, and she runs the operations on the asparagus as well. So that, that's the part that I guess hasn't changed yet because we haven't had to do significant succession planning up to now.

I mean, that's in plans, but it's not actively happening, right?

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, and I'm gonna run down that path too on the, on the collaboration and the transition planning. So as many of the clients and listeners know, that's something that Chris Barron and myself work specifically on with, with farming operations. So, you know, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the collaboration that you're in. You mentioned the Cousins as part of that collaboration and what that looks like for one, and then what are some of the challenges and the benefits, I guess, that are associated with, you know, being in a collaborative situation.

Shay

Myers: Yeah, we all bring different dynamics to play. The collaborating side that's really beneficial And really what has been our strength and specifically in the onion industry is being the farming operation and the packer. Lots of times and in lots of parts of the country and when it comes to fresh produce, there's a packer, it's a custom packer and they really don't do much or any farming. They specialize in packing and sometimes marketing. And the farmers, they contract with farmers and bring the product in. That has been— that collaboration between the farm and the packing and really working as if it's the same unit has been a very, very powerful and significant advantage for us, especially in my— at least in my opinion, because we're able to really adapt and change and move so much more quickly than what our competitors can that are either just growers or just packers.

And when it comes to collaborating and working together, so the way that it works right now is we've taken the farm and all those crops that are mentioned and my Uncle Craig is the one that initially started with all the knowledge over every single crop. And that's been passed on but he hasn't taught my cousin Chase as an example who's probably the next key player in the farm. He hasn't taught Chase everything about every commodity. He's split off and Craig has kept some of those commodities and Chase has been over specific other commodities so that it's not overload. And also because going forward we found that by having an expert within the operation on each crop, we can do a lot better job. You can attend the training seminars, you can understand the subtleties of that crop better than if you try and be kind of a jack of all trades.

Farmers really get spread thin anyway, so we've tried to eliminate how much that happens.

Shay

Foulk: Right. Well, and having so many people in the operation that, like you said, that specificity and the efficiency gained in those roles in the operation, I think is huge. Now, along with that too, I know not only in collaborative models that we work with, but especially in family operations, communication can become either something that opens the business up to new opportunities or it could be something that is a real bottleneck within the operation. So I guess, how do you, you know, how does a family deal with that between the cropping entities and between those key players in the operation?

Shay

Myers: Yeah, so we try to have, and this was actually just recently implemented, and we have lots of what we call family board meetings or operation meetings, especially throughout the winter, but we've tried to and started doing what we call our Tuesday lunch meeting. So everyone comes to the, to the conference room one time a week and we try and kind of give an update about what's going on to facilitate exactly what you're talking about. It's hard to know with our size of operation, and we're not huge, but we're sizable enough that it's hard for me to know all of the subtleties, or at least the subtleties I understand within the farm of what's going on and what decisions are being made. And they also need to understand on the packing and marketing side what's working and what's not working.

Maybe what lots have trouble in them or what, what changes need to be made for sizing or for, you know, skin retention or whatever it might be. So we can have that type of conversation as much as possible. But communication, I can't say that we do it perfect or that we even do it well, but we are making as conceited of an effort, direct of an effort as we can knowing that we have to communicate better. In fact, we did an evaluation, which is for the first time we've ever done that too, and we all did evaluations of one another, and communication came up as one of our biggest weaknesses. So we knew that it was something that we needed to go after and work on.

Shay

Foulk: Right. With that weekly meeting, does it happen to be in the same place at the same time and with the same agenda every meeting?

Shay

Myers: Yes. Well, the agenda changes, but it's same place. Same, you know, same time every single week because not everyone's going to be able to be there every time. And the whole point is we're having a meeting. If you can't be there, don't. But if you can, great. And we're going to have it with or without you.

Shay

Foulk: Right. Now that's fantastic. I think there's so many key lessons in there. And, you know, there's a lot of different people that, that we work with on the consulting side that do a fantastic job of doing that. And there's a lot of good books and, you know, references out there. Traction is one that, you know, kind of follows a similar model to that, that— with a lot of operations we work with, we find to be highly effective too. So I think that communication piece is absolutely crucial. So to go down a little bit of a different path, back up here a little bit, with all the differences in crops that you're running there, you mentioned the 9 different row crops, it's different from some of the listeners that we have that are heavy in corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, peanuts, those sorts of things.

What do you think the difference is in farm operations that are running vegetable crops, such as the asparagus or the sweet potatoes or beans? What's different in a farming operation that has that sort of diversity and that sort of complexity? And what do you think different row crop operators could learn from that sort of system?

Shay

Myers: That's a good question. That's actually a really good question. I don't know if I have a straightforward answer. I mean, I'd love to pass on something that folks can learn from.

Shay

Foulk: Well, and I don't think it needs to be a key piece of, you know, golden nugget or anything like that, but one thing that, you know, we've kind of observed when looking at operations of that sort of complexity is a lot of times those operations, especially in vegetable production, have a whole different idea of what a farm means and what it looks like and almost looking at it more from a manufacturing standpoint, right? You're not just manufacturing, you know, bushels of corn or bushels of soybeans, but you're manufacturing cash based on the product that you're producing. And so much of that gets dialed into cost of production. So you think that there's a more important look at cost of production in the vegetable side versus other row crops?

Shay

Myers: Well, I think it's important in every scenario, but you did prime the pump a little bit on something that we can— that could be learned from maybe what we're doing in row crops versus commodity crops. And what I would say that is, is the importance of following your crop all the way until the sale, until it's done. If we really learned anything in this, we were still specialty crop growers beforehand. We were still doing, you know, all of these other crops 10 years ago. But we weren't doing our marketing. That started in 2005 after I came back from college. And we weren't doing our own packing. And what we thought initially would be of value was, okay, well now we have a packing operation. Well, just because you can take an onion or a bean or asparagus and put it in a crate or a bag, doesn't mean that it's sold.

And when we look at commodity— and I still fight this a little bit with what, who I call the farm, with my uncle especially, who's, who didn't have the marketing side of the business in existence when he started— and he wants to take his onions and he's done harvesting, he, he largely wants to forget about it. And, and that's because he's worked his butt off and constantly for 7 or 8 months, you know, long hours, tons of work, constant attention, and he wants to unplug and step back and say, okay, now, now, Shay, it's your problem, right? If he didn't have me in this position and he just makes a delivery and he unplugs, I can guarantee you that he would get less money. And I wonder how much the guys with these commodity crops that you're talking about can do the same thing.

If they pay attention once you're in the bin to how that crop sold and they don't just deliver it, how much more it would affect their bottom line.

Shay

Foulk: Right. Well, and I think that goes back to one of the key points that, you know, we work specifically with producers on, and that is a cost of production analysis to knowing truly what your cost of production is and then when can you make those marketing decisions. And if your market is showing that you are above your cost of production level, you know, you need to take that information and put it up on the mirror and look at yourself in the mirror and say, why am I not making sales right now at a profitable level? And especially during times, you know, when commodity prices— we're looking at, you know, $3.20 cash corn and $8.40 cash soybeans right now. You know, that may not be above your cost of production level. But could it go the other way? Should you be making some sales at somewhat of a loss right now so that you can recover further down the road?

And I think too, you know, with that collaboration you have is identifying who in the operation has the strength in that. Just because someone has always done the marketing does not mean that they need to continue to take on that role. There's someone, you know, like yourself that can come in that, you know, might be not necessarily better at it, but might enjoy doing it more, have more time and attention to put towards it. Is that a fair statement?

Shay

Myers: That's an absolutely fair statement because it goes back to the same thing. There's plenty of people that have packing operations, they're the farmer and then they were trying to run their packing operations, but they can't do the sales because they're so busy doing everything else. And that is important. And it's like, there's a threshold, there's a, you know, a tipping point when it's worth it. And there's It's hard when you're not large enough in some ways to say, okay, well, it is worth it, or to pull the trigger and say, yeah, it is worth it having help, having someone who can pay additional attention to our processes and procedures and help us analyze or pay attention when to sell or not to sell. But, you know, you can make sometimes a very, very small decision, or making the right decision can have dramatic impacts on your profitability.

Shay

Foulk: Right, right. Well, and one thing too is, you know, looking at size of operations. So one thing that Chris and I see with a lot of the collaborative models and people that we work with is all of a sudden when you start pulling some of these resources together and you don't just have, you know, 10,000 or 15,000 bushels of grain to market, but you're working with other farm operations or other family members and you pull those resources together and now all of a sudden you you're talking a quarter million bushels of corn to market, then you can go to some of these producers or, you know, the ethanol plant or the Cargills of the world, whoever it is, and sit down and have a discussion and say, hey, you know, we have this amount of commodity sitting here. We want to work with you to, you know, negotiate a better price or negotiate a better basis, whatever it may be.

What can we do to work together And how does that look down the road? And so, you know, I'm really glad that you brought that up because I think it's such a crucial point that it's not specific to corn or soybean industry too. There's lots of it going on in farm operations all across America.

Shay

Myers: Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: So another thing that I wanted to ask you about, I guess, is you mentioned with the family operation, you know, your third generation there. There's tons that I'm sure you learned not only growing up, but then even beyond that of coming back into the operation. Who have you, you know, pulled some of the most important pieces of wisdom and learning from? Was it people inside the family? Did you have someone outside of the family that helped you? You know, how did that look like in your role?

Shay

Myers: And so I got a lot of help from several different parts or people in my family. My mom, is really the entrepreneurial type. Her mindset is, you know, looking at something. And my dad actually, who's actually a banker who's not in the family business, but they would always look at a business, whether it was ours or something else, or opportunities, and always, you know, analyze and critique and tear it apart. And somehow that stuck with me, that idea of looking at at things a little bit differently instead of kind of accepting the status quo or taking things as they are and saying, okay, well, how can you tweak that or how can you change it? How can you tear that apart and build it up into something better? So I have that part. And then that came from both of my parents. My Uncle Craig, I grew up around him all the time, and he is just very intelligent and very analytical.

And he's also fairly progressive in accepting, you know, new practices and willing to take risks that in the growing practice that a lot of people wouldn't. In fact, you know, one of the best examples of that is drip irrigation. This part of the country for onions is almost 95% drip irrigation, but that's happened really over the last 5 years. We were doing drip irrigation 20 years ago. He was one of the first people to use drip irrigation for onion production in the country. Wow. And so he was, he was just innovative that way. And then you, you take little pieces from my grandfather who was just a super hard worker but also willing to and desirous to grow his business. He He didn't take, even for the last 10 years he was alive, he didn't even take a salary because he wanted it all to go back in the business and he wanted the business to grow.

He had this desire to have, he wanted to create a legacy. That's really what he wanted. It wasn't about the farm, it wasn't about the money, it was about a legacy. He aspired to have his grandchildren working together on the farm. And so you can imagine what that mindset also instills in me. So I, growing up with him having that pride and that love for us and for this farm, makes me super proud of what I do and why I do it. It really gives me the why that, that I need to push and to care and to strive to make a difference.

Shay

Foulk: That's awesome. That's fantastic. And, you know, talking about your why, there's a great book out there called Start with Why that I would definitely recommend to the listeners. So let's talk on that legacy and transition planning. We touched on it earlier. But it's— people don't tell you this, but it's hard. Transition planning is difficult. It's hard for some operations. For the prior generation to relinquish the control or to verbalize what they want the legacy to be of the farming operation or even to get the ball rolling on thinking about it because they've been working so hard for 40, 50, 60 years that they haven't taken time to think about what that looks like. So, you know, what steps has your family and the farm operation they're taking towards transition planning where have you turned to to get more information on there or to help you through the process?

And, you know, what does that look like in the next few years, I guess?

Shay

Myers: Yeah, so it's interesting you bring that up. I mean, the succession planning is— and family planning, like, this kind of thing is very challenging. And we have had plenty of arguments and tears shed throughout the process. And, you know, we've even lost— we lost one key member of our operation in the last 3 months, 4 months, because everything is not put together or wasn't put together to their satisfaction, right? And one side sees it one way and the other one sees it another, and I can kind of sit in the middle and kind of see both sides. But the frustration is real when you're trying to do that, and the control side that you're talking about, how the generations, the beginning generations especially, do want to maintain control. And they're nervous and they worry about what, you know, generation, especially Generation 3.

Generation 1 and 2 in our operation worry about what Generation 3 is going to do. And I get that. I think all of us that are in Generation 3 understand that, but we also get frustrated with them for not trusting us. They're like, well, you got to trust us. And we're like, well, you got to trust us. Right. You know, it does get very, very complicated and frustrating. But what we have done is worked over— I mean, over the course of years and years to try and figure out based on how— because we have the generation 1 to 2 is much more simple because it's father and son, mother and daughter, right? Right. And so what we did is we saw how how that generation 1 to 2, the ownership developed, the responsibility was spread out, how the function was. And then we tried to say, okay, you kind of set a precedent.

We're going to try and use that as our baseline to say what we're going to do from generation 2 to generation 3. And we— That's what we're doing. I think the only place where we struggle today is to try and figure out when it comes to a board of directors how and when the transition should be when Generation 1 and 2 should relinquish their majority control to Generation 3. That's still something where we've struggled to come up with a solution. And we've gone to lots of people. We've gone to CPAs. We've gone to people that specialize in succession planning. Our frustration has been, and since you work in this, this is probably good for you to hear, but our frustration has always been, don't just listen to us and say, okay, well, you can try it this way if you think that's the way. Don't take what we've already done and try and make it work.

It'd be really nice, we've said this many times, give us, this has been done hundreds, if not, in fact, it's been done thousands of times, but maybe you've done it hundreds of times. Give me an option A, an option B, an option C. Should the ownership go into a trust, an irrevocable trust? Should the ownership be controlled by a board and how should that be done? Because we feel like we have had to reinvent the wheel and that has been absolutely frustrating for us to feel like over and over and over that we're trying to just— it's like we're trying to cut it, you know, we're only trying to get 300 yards through this jungle and there's a path there somewhere. Somebody just point us to the start of the path, but instead we're hacking our way through with machetes., you know, trying to get to the other side. Um, and so that has been challenging for us, man.

Shay

Foulk: And you're hitting home with so many people that are going through this process right now too. And one of the key points that, you know, I'll mention here at this point is the complexity does not get easier with time. You know, as you talk about these family generations of 1 to 2 and 2 to 3, you know, what, what is 3 to 4 going to look like? And especially with the family dynamics, because all of a sudden is, you know, how do you write that into the transition planning and the legacy of, you know, when you have grandsons and granddaughters that are involved in the operation that maybe don't want to have part in it, but, you know, shares transition to them. How do you maintain ownership of the family? And then that board of directors too, you know, that can get really sticky when you have family involved with that.

One thing that, you know, we encourage people with the complexity of these size operations too is to have a strategic advisory board as well. So not necessarily people that are involved as far as family members or shareholders in the operation, but that strategic advisory board of people that are close to the operation, that understand the operation, and can provide an objective opinion to say, hey, you know, I see where Generation 1 and 2 are coming from here, but to provide some input as to, you You know, maybe sticking up for generation 3 because it's one thing, you know, if it comes from a family member, but it's another thing if it comes from someone outside of that. So that's, you know, you're definitely hitting home. Anything else on that transition plan?

Shay

Myers: You made me think of one more thing.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah.

Shay

Myers: You made me think of one more thing and it's a pitfall that we had and I've seen it not only in our farming operation but elsewhere. You're working with family and you trust family, but you make decisions sometimes You know, maybe a farm comes up before you have everything figured out and you're like, well, let's get that farm bought. And you get it bought and it gets structured in a specific way. And you just kind of were doing it to get it done. And you think, well, we'll go back and we'll figure this out later. We got it bought. We haven't figured out. We'll go figure it out. But when you realize, when you come back to it, maybe a year later, maybe 3 years later, my perception as Generation 3 versus Generation 1 of what we were going to do is not the same.

So if I can make any recommendation, if you, if you don't have everything figured out, at least write down what everyone's point of view is and make sure you have a vote so that you, you're on the same page. Because you'll find out later on that you, you're, you just, we can't, we're talking about two generations of separation. We don't have the same perceptions and we don't look at things the same. Plus As you stated, as you get more complex, as you're talking about more dollars, it's different. If you're talking about $10,000 versus $10 million, you're going to look at something differently. If it's $10,000 and it's not exactly right, you're like, "Ah, it's no big deal." When it's $10 million and you look back, you're like, and something's not right, you're a lot more apt to get frustrated and angry and dig your heels in. And so do that in advance.

Don't kick the can down the road and think that you're going to come back to it. Make the decision no matter how hard it is beforehand. So you don't get yourself in that position.

Shay

Foulk: That's a great point. Oh, and by the way, operations are still going on during this time. You know, things don't slow down when it comes to transition planning. And, you know, that's an excuse for people to avoid the transition planning conversation and avoid the legacy planning associated with that. But it's so important to, you know, really take time to step away and work on the business and not just in the business. And, you know, we see that with a lot of successful operations is they're the ones that are taking the time to do it. So definitely commend your family for focusing on that challenge and trying to address it early on here. With leadership within the operation, is there anything that you do from the bottom up within your employees and your operation to ensure that you have quality leadership, good training, and good management within the farm there?

Shay

Myers: Yeah, so we've tried to have to some extent, I don't know if you want to call it an intern program or a mentor program. I mean, we started with Craig and Grandpa as those that have the knowledge, and we tried to, with that prop-specific type of work, put people in a position where they're a leader, but there's still oversight. And so you look and you make your decision. So if it's me thinking of, let's pretend that I'm the farm manager and my crop is onions. I'm going to look at that and say, hey Craig, I think I want to do an herbicide application. This is the rate, this is the herbicide, this is when I want to do it. And Craig, who's the, you know, the guy with the history, is going to look at that and say yep or no. But you're going to talk through it. So you don't just let someone make the decision and make the mistake.

You try and let them initially, you know, the new person make that decision. And then give feedback so that you're— it's not go do this, it's go see what you think you'd do and come back to me. That has worked fairly well for us. I mean, we, as far as additional leadership, you know, we do— we've had a— we have a list of books that we spread around that we try and read and have read through as a company to try and have everyone on the same page to some extent. We try and have common goals. And talk through what those, the 3, 5, 10-year plan is. 10 years way out there, so I mean, we're not at a 10-year, but 3 and 5, where are we going and how are we going to get there? And that doesn't mean it doesn't change, but we try and do that as well. And I think that's part of leadership too, because you got to be thinking ahead. Yes.

And then when it comes to books, and I mean, those have been nice. We do a lot of the, I believe it's Jim Collins, I always get his first name wrong, but Good to Great, Built to Last. Yep, all of those series we've all read through and try and look at that. It doesn't mean we practice everything that's in that book, but it helps you get some common knowledge that can be shared otherwise. Another one that's a phenomenal book that is way outside the genre of that is, is The 4-Hour Workweek. I really like The 4-Hour Workweek just because Tim makes you think about why you're doing all of this. And in farming and in all of our careers, We start doing something and we're just dreaming about retirement. What's the point of retirement if you're only— what are you working for?

Like, he just makes you finally drill down and say, okay, this is why I'm doing this, this is why I enjoy it, or this is why I don't, and make that adjustment now instead of waiting until, you know, 20 years later, 30 years later.

Shay

Foulk: And if you don't, you just make a change, you know. I think that's, that's a great point too on those books, you know. Burning through audiobooks is pretty easy when you're sitting in the tractor or driving between fields or whatever it is. So I appreciate you making those recommendations too as we kind of head into the spring planting season for most of the listeners here in the Midwest. And a lot of guys down south as well are getting going pretty heavy on things here. So I know we only have a few more minutes here. I want to touch on a couple different things. And one is safety. How do you put an emphasis on safety within your operation there? Is there anything that you do to mitigate that risk, or, you know, what do you find effective in the operation there?

Shay

Myers: Yeah, that is actually something we've just retouched on recently, and it's hard because what we do, especially in the field, is so dangerous. There's a lot of risk there, and what we come back to is the example that you set. You, more than any other person in the operation. Your employees are going to watch you and how you operate and how you function. And you have to set the example because it's so easy to say, well, you know, I'm the owner, I'm the boss, or I'm this or I'm that, you know, rules don't apply to me. That's the very first place and probably the most impactful way that you're going to change or improve your culture towards safety. Unfortunately, you can also see accidents happen. I had a good friend of mine this year that got caught up and killed in his harvester this year.

That was something that should have never happened, obviously, and something that was extremely tragic. But when those things are in our agriculture, are going to happen, and we need to use those as a catalyst for change and for improvement. And, you know, that's the, that's the place to start is with yourself.

Shay

Foulk: And I think the important thing too is having the discussion and implementing those things before an accident happens, because when you look at so many of those in the industry that are huge advocates for safety or that have a true passion for it, a huge majority of those are people that have been affected by a tragedy close to home that inspired them to, you know, be these safety advocates. And I don't want any operation any of the farms that we work with to, you know, hear this podcast and have to go through that in their family in order to be inspired for change. And I know safety gets thrown around a lot, and it's like, well, you know, what do you do? And sometimes safety can be not necessarily like a blacklisted term or whatever, but people think safety, and for some reason in their minds they think, oh, it's going to be these ridiculous measures that we have to take.

It doesn't have to be.— that it can be something that is easily implemented, something that is practical. And like you said there, being the leader and showing by example of what that safety operation should look like, I think, is such a crucial piece. And so as we have farm operations heading into heavy field work here, definitely just want to encourage that. And I'll continue to beat that war drum until people go deaf, because it's truly so important on the safety side.

Shay

Myers: Definitely.

Shay

Foulk: With, you know, marketing and content, you obviously have a very active presence on LinkedIn. I think that's where I had originally come across some of your work and learned about what you do on the operation. And I always enjoy the videos and the content you're producing. Why do you think that's so important as not only a farmer, but then on the— you know, I know it's part of the marketing side as well. Why do you think that's so important on those platforms?

Shay

Myers: You know, it really is important because we as people in farming or farmers don't realize how little the people that are 3 and 4 generations removed from the farm are, how little the people that are in urban environments understand about their food gift to them. We really don't. We have no idea. And the reason— what was my catalyst to begin really on my own. We've been on Facebook for a long time and had content, but LinkedIn I really took the lead and did it myself. And the reason that that happened, I was at a sales meeting, I was in Los Angeles, no, I was in Phoenix, Arizona. I was in Phoenix and I had a dinner meeting with an onion buyer and another guy that had just started with a produce company who was also going to be a produce and onion buyer.

And we were sitting at dinner and talking about, you know, well, here's, here's what, you know, the, the packing shed looks like, and this is what the packaging looks like, and, you know, kind of going back and forth and, and sharing pictures about operations and, and all of that, that stuff. And, and the conversation came to the point where the guy's like, well, you got all these pictures, can you show me a picture of the onion tree? Did your jaw hit the floor? Yeah, the guy literally thought— like, he's— this, this guy is a produce buyer. This is what he does for a living, and he doesn't know that onions don't go grow on a tree. And I, and I realized at that point, that moment, that I need to take the simple things that I do every day and I need to show it to my customers and my future customers and my potential customers and whoever else might see it.

In that process and show them what— how your food is grown, where it comes from, and also the effort and infrastructure and dollars that it takes to do what we do. So many people think, oh, you're sending onions to me. I mean, what they imagine is people in a field grabbing an onion off the ground and stuffing it into a bag. Yes, not how it works at all. They think of all You know, the same thing with the asparagus and all the crops. They cannot understand the scale at which we operate. And how can we ask a customer to pay us more money? How can we ask for more money if they don't understand what it takes to get the product to them?

So it's both for the consumer and for the wholesaler and the distributor and the retailer, like, "Hey guys, this takes a heck of a lot of money, a heck of a lot of effort to get this to you, and when I ask you for that extra 50 cents, I'm really not asking for that much. This tractor here is worth how much your house costs. You think you could give me another 50 cents a bag? And it goes a long way. It really does.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah.

Shay

Myers: I mean, you don't want to say it like that, but that's really what I wanted to do. I'm like, look, this is, this is what it takes. I need that 50 cents. I'm not being greedy. I need the 50 cents. Let me show you why.

Shay

Foulk: Right. Well, and I think in agriculture in general, and you know, this is my personal opinion on this, but. I think farmers and those in agriculture in general don't do a good enough job of asking ourselves why the consumer should care. You know, why should they care of the hard work that we are putting into this? Why do they care that that tractor costs as much as a house? But I think by showing them the hard work and the dedication and the complexity that goes into this, That's a why, you know, and tell them the story of the family involved in the operation. When it comes to marketing, what I always find myself asking is you have to resort to why they should care, why this makes a difference on the product, and why it would make them want to buy the product. And, you know, the videos that you share I think do a fantastic job of doing that.

And I would encourage anybody listening, not just those who have an agribusiness or have a direct-to-consumer business, But even just farmers out there, when you look at the number of people that are truly involved in agriculture, whatever the statistics are, it's a very little amount compared to everyone else that's out there in the world. And it's something that the people in our country, the people of the world, our government has entrusted us with that. But we also have a responsibility to tell that story, to share the message and you know, to make, to make them understand why, you know, why should they care. And, you know, I just, I commend you for everything that, that you do on that. Do you have any other comments kind of on the marketing or content piece there, Shay?

Shay

Myers: No, I just, just that it's worth your effort. It's a slow process, um, but people really want to know. I mean, if you, if you go find me, like, an example is any of those that are on here that are on TikTok, go look me up, Shay the Farm Kid. Yes. Okay. And the farmers on here are going to laugh when they go look at these videos on TikTok, but go look me up, open that app and go see which videos have the most views. It will blow your mind. Like, I just, I just create content. I don't, I don't try and have, you know, anything specific. If I'm doing something, I have a chance to shoot a video and it's 60 seconds long. I do it. I'll spend a couple minutes editing and I'll post it. But the videos that have the most views, you probably wouldn't spend 10 seconds looking at, right?

But I've got, I've got one with the asparagus line running that I did 2 days ago that'll probably hit 400,000 views today.

Shay

Foulk: Yes, and it's amazing too at how easy it is because you have it in the palm of your hand or in your pocket. All you have to do is take a video and share, and it doesn't matter. You know, some people out there probably don't even know what what TikTok is, and that's not a bad thing by any means, but, you know, send it to family members, send it to your customers, send it Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, you know, TikTok. It's so easy to spread that message that I think, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head there that it's worth your time to do it.

Shay

Myers: Yeah. I mean, we, we have a responsibility to, to teach and to foster appreciation for what we do. And we are all working on razor-thin margins and probably negative ones for the next who knows how many months. We need the consumer to be on our side and we need them to be appreciative of where their food comes from and they need— we need them to be an advocate for us as well. We can't just be advocates for ourselves. We have to convince people that what we're doing is of value so when we ask for their help and when we ask for their loyalty, they're on our side. And they're never going to do that if we don't share a message that proves the value that we bring to them.

Shay

Foulk: Exactly. You don't just want someone to look at the $50 billion in aid that farm and agriculture has been given across the country and make them question that. They need to understand that message. And that's kind of what I want to end on here. You know, I alluded to the fact that you've been, you know, crazy busy with interviews and everything else. So I want to thank you again for taking the time here to join us on the Ag View Pitch. But we With the, you know, some of the supply chain issues that have been going on, you've done some great content on that, looking at the production and the system that we have.

So as you've had time for some of this to develop, not only over the last couple months, but I would say even more intensively in the last 7 to 10 days, what are some of your thoughts on the so-called crisis that we have going on now, whatever you want to call it, Where do you think they can improve as a country, as producers? What can— what can we be doing differently?

Shay

Myers: Yeah, that's a hard one. I can— I can— I can talk about where things are going a lot better than I can talk about how to improve. But the one place we can improve, and I've already alluded to this, is the fact that we need— it's a little bit of a— so vegetables are different than commodities in that the commodities market depends a ton on export. And those of us that are on the vegetable side are— we're always fighting and frustrated by imports, right? And you don't get imports without exports. And so, you know, we're in a— we're in a challenging situation now where we need some protection for our markets, particularly because we've lost so much of our market share. And we still have plenty of product coming from Holland and Spain. And when I say product, I mean onions coming from Holland and Spain and Canada and Mexico that we don't need here right now.

We have the strongest currency of those countries that were just named, and that's where everyone wants to send their product. Right. So, and that's the same problem, right, for export as well. That strong dollar is hard for all of us. Yes. So I don't know what we can do other than trying to make sure that we, we foster an appreciation again for what we do. I think we also need to realize, I feel like agriculture right now is the canary in the coal mine. And because if you look at other manufacturing at the moment, they're shut down. If you make plastic widgets and fly swatters, and washing machines and dryers and even airplanes, you're not operating today. Yeah. And we are. Those of us that are growing, creating, packing, and marketing food, we are operating every day. And it is a scary freaking world that we're looking at right now. And what do we do?

And how, how do we— how can we be proactive? I wish I had the answer, but I can say that we have to— we need people to understand where we're going here. Because I don't know if you're concerned about it, but I'm really concerned about what the next 12 to 18 months brings for the entire economy. But I think agriculture right now, we have a better understanding of what the next 12 to 18 months is than anyone else, because they have to come back to work and work for 3 or 4 months before they're even in the same position of understanding that we are.

Shay

Foulk: Yes, what we're looking at right now. No, that's a great point. And, you know, like I said, I think you've done a great job just spreading the message, sharing the videos, and telling your story. So I want to thank you for that. Any last thoughts here kind of as we wrap up, Shay?

Shay

Myers: No, I think I've kind of said it all. I wish everybody good luck and Everybody to hope everybody's safe, and we'll just have to— we're gonna have to fight hard. All of us are gonna have to dig deep, I feel like. And we're gonna all have to dig deep and give it everything we've got for the next, you know, 12-18 months. And what that entails, I don't think anybody knows. And I don't mean to be that Chicken Little, the sky is falling guy here in this conversation, but I mean, at least for myself and for my industry, It's scary, and we're all going to be in a different place, you know, in the future. This— the entire perspective of the world has changed, entire perception of the world has changed, and the entire attitude and mobility and supply chain of the world will change, and we are going to have to adapt with it if we're going to be in business.

Shay

Foulk: Right. Well, and I, you know, I think farmers out there in general— I don't know a single farmer that would say I don't work hard. Well, what does hard work mean? And what does that look like when, you know, the tire hits the pavement, you put your nose to the grindstone? What does that actually look like? And I think as we grind through the rest of 2020 here and look beyond that, there's going to be a lot of telling things here. So, Shay, I really appreciate the time. Um, thank you so much for your perspective that you bring to the listeners here on the Ag View Pitch. I would love to catch up with you down the road again at some point. And, um, yeah, just best of luck out there. We'll all be thinking of you guys.

Shay

Myers: All right. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Shay

Foulk: And thank you everyone for listening. We will catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.