Off-farm Income

Sign Up To Receive Our FFA Stories Newsletter! Email address: SHOW NOTES INTRODUCING MEGAN CLARK! I once heard luck defined as "when preparation meets opportunity".  I love this definition of luck because so many people on the sidelines think that people who achieve could easily be replaced by any other person off of the street if they just happened to have "luck" shine on them that day. When I first started hosting a radio show and podcast for D&B Supply one of our family friends asked me about how that had occurred.  Before, I could explain she said "just fell into it?" or, to paraphrase, "just got lucky?"  There was a bit of luck involved in this happening.  I had actually called D&B Supply to inquire about creating a podcast for them, and I was lucky in the fact that they had decided to make a radio show and were trying to figure out how to find a host.  But, what my friend didn't see was that I had invested my own money in equipment for broadcasting about two years earlier.  And, for the past two

Tip Of The Week Do You Have Assets That Are Not Electronic? (Imagine that you lived in Poland in 1939 when the Nazi’s invaded and took over everything.  Everything you ever worked for and put away to take care of you when could no longer work would have been seized.  Anything you could not carry on your person as you fled was lost.  This the best example I can think of to put you in the mindset of what is bothering me.  However, in 1939 a lot of your valuable assets were inside your house or at least were in a safe at the bank in the form of cash.  The Nazi’s actually had to come to your house or to your bank, in person, to seize your assets.  But today, what percentage of your assets are data on a computer server somewhere?  If that data just disappears, how do you ever prove it existed or get it back?) https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/012117/cyber-attacks-and-bank-failures-risks-you-should-know.asp https://securityboulevard.com/2020/12/banking-industry-faces-surge-in-cyber-security-

SHOW NOTES Today's episode is really special for two reasons.  First, it has the potential to be very impactful on the FFA.  Second, 80% of the world's hungry people are farmers.  But, unlike U.S. farmers, they are subsistence based and less sophisticated.  But programs like Growing Hope Globally are taking farming expertise and productivity from the U.S. and exporting it to these struggling farmers. On today's episode Alex Morse will join us to explain what Growing Hope Globally's mission is.  He will talk about helping farmers in many poor countries throughout the world and how you can get involved.  He will also discuss how his organization developed a curriculum for FFA students to help they contribute to worldwide agriculture through their supervised agricultural experiences. Alex specializes in helping farmers in Central America, and he has traveled to small holder's farms all throughout that region.  He has even taken FFA students with him to see who they were impacting with their efforts.  He has so

SHOW NOTES KEY IDEAS:  In 2011 when we purchased our farm we had a long, long way to go.  We bought 25 acres of weeds with a house on them.  There were no fences, no irrigation, and the land had not been cultivated in years.  I had a small, John Deer tractor with an 8' disk on the back, and I worked the ground with that. Tons of rocks came up while I disked, and they all had to be removed and deposited elsewhere.  Progress was slow, and at times it seemed like this place would never resemble a farm.  During all of that time on the tractor, I listened to farming podcasts.  They inspired me, gave me the motivation to keep going, and helped me visualize what our place would be like someday. One of those podcasts that I listened to was hosted and produced by today's guest, Tim Young.  Tim and his wife Liz were operating a farm in Georgia and selling cheese as their main product.  They had a variety of livestock, and I really enjoyed hearing about their day to day farming exploits. Fast forward to today.  Tim

Buy The Profitable SAE Student Workbook Sign Up To Receive Our FFA Stories Newsletter! Email address: SHOW NOTES Introducing Cole Searle!  I interview a lot of young men and women on this show who are devoted to agriculture.  These days you hear so much about kids not wanting to take over farms or continue that lifestyle that when a student who is passionate about agriculture comes on the show you wonder what their parents did to help them love this life? Of course, on this show, I reach out to many of the highest achievers in the FFA.  Therefore, they are a self-selecting group.  Students who love farming and agriculture and are passionate about what they are doing, naturally find their way to the top levels of the FFA.  And, so I spend a lot of time talking to students who love this life and want to stay part of it. Even though that is the case, I always wonder what was it that sparked the passion in these students, and how could we spread it to even more youth in the U.S.  It is probably a percenta

I Am Charged Up For 2021!  We Hope You Are Too! Everyone, if you were not chomping at the bit to get back to work once the Christmas and New Year's Break was over, have you asked yourself why not?  You are probably in the wrong job/career/vocation/etc. if you weren't super excited to get back and to have another 10 months of relatively uninterrupted work.  If this is you, we are hoping that this show can help you find the way to your own business or even a different job that make you excited to get back to work after a long period of interrupted work like we go through in November and December every year! In addition to talking about that today I want to cover the following topics: An invention that I came up with when I was 12 and never did anything about - now it has been invented! Being "Mudbound" On Our Farm Our New Dog Gus And How We Wound Up With Two Dogs Named After Robert Duvall Characters Taking Idaho For Granted Why You Should Use Bing As Your Search Engine The Article I Quoted

Sign Up To Receive Our FFA Stories Newsletter! Email address: SHOW NOTES INTRODUCING EMMA VICTERY! Having a business model on your farm that is sustainable is challenging.  Of course, if you are commodity-based there are so many factors that are outside of the control that you've got to get bigger and push harder.  If you are smaller you are almost forced into being niche so that you can increase the size of your profit margins.  And then of course, if you only offer one product you can get into really hot water if the price or demand for that product falls. In a perfect world, we would all know what type of farm business we were going to be involved in, in the future, and we could plan out our skill sets accordingly.  Of course, there is no such thing as that perfect world.  However, the FFA offers a future farmer the best chance of coming as close to this perfect world as anything that I know. This is illustrated very well by today's guest, Emma Victery.  Emma has grown up on her family's farm in Ok

Tip Of The Week: Create your own “night shoot”.  Find some time and a safe location to practice shooting in the dark.  And practice using your lighting technology as well as shooting in the absence of any light or technology.  I'll tell you how in the episode. Rural Crime In The U.S. https://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/crime-and-courts/investigation-continues-into-fire-that-destroyed-thousands-of-dollars-of-farm-equipment-in-nebraska/article_32595324-a597-518e-8ddf-593f18e15eeb.html https://rivercountry.newschannelnebraska.com/story/43113478/k9-blaze-helps-locate-stolen-tractor Where The 2nd Amendment Does Not Exist https://www.reddeeradvocate.com/news/rcmp-dogs-kept-busy-tracking-rural-property-crime-suspects/ https://www.agriland.co.uk/farming-news/30-sheep-killed-in-christmas-dog-attack-on-a-cheshire-farm/ Chalk One Up For The Good Guys https://www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/18977140.north-wales-leading-way-tackling-rural-crime/ https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/eat-and-drink/2020/12/jessic

Happy New Year to all of your.  Here is to 2021 being a much better year than 2020!   This our annual New Year's show in which my wife and daughter, Autumm and Hattie, join me on the podcast.  This is the one episode per year where they make an appearance and we re-cap our farm life.  We are making a change this year as I am no longer doing our end of year farm survey and having Autumm and Hattie announce the winners on the air. With that said, I think that this episode turned our really nice.  I thought it was kind of awkward for me to interview my wife and daughter, but in the end I really enjoyed it.  Hearing their perspectives on everything they have been doing and what they want to do going forward was great.  And, it was nice to brag about their accomplishments as well. We hope you enjoy, and thank you for making this possible for us! Where Off-Farm Income And Matt Brechwald Can Be Heard:   Member Of The National Association Of Farm Broadcasters

SHOW NOTES Jason Tatge describes the device that he has created as the "Fitbit for farm equipment".  I don't think there could be any more apt description.  Jason is the creator of Farmobile which is a device and data capture system that solves many problems that people practicing precision farming in the past faced, such as how to get the data out of their tractor and how to make it all work together so it becomes information. Through the solving of these problems and the creation of this new interface Jason has unearthed a revenue source for farmers that nobody ever knew existed - data.  With Farmobile, farmers are now able to collect data in real time that they can combine with weather conditions, planting dates, etc. to make crucial decisions in the field. This information has value to other professionals in the farming world as well, and Jason believes there is a market for it.  What Jason has done has created a way for farmers to sell another product that they were already harvesting but did not know

Sign Up To Receive Our FFA Stories Newsletter! Email address: SHOW NOTES INTRODUCING ELYCE BURZALAFF! Cleary my favorite aspect of the FFA is that it exposes students to entrepreneurship.  I have a lot of favorite aspects, but it was entrepreneurship that introduced me to the FFA, and that is the aspect that I have been profiling for six years now. I like this aspect so much because a lot of students may have never been exposed to the concept of working for themselves.  If they are like me, they knew entrepreneurs and understood that some people were self-employed, but nobody ever told them that was an option for them.  With that being the case, there are lots of potential entrepreneurs sitting in classrooms across America that will never try out that path because they are unaware of it as a viable option for them. Today's episode highlights how the FFA can put another tool, the tool of entrepreneurship, in a student's arsenal.  Elyce Burzlaff is mid-way through her sophomore year of high school.  Las

I had an interesting day yesterday, and I want to tell you all about it. I have been thoroughly enjoying this holiday season and a bit of a break from my normal routine for the past four days or so.  However, even though I haven't been podcasting every day or conducting interviews every day, I am still working on the farm every day during this holiday break.  I had a couple of observations to share with all of you from that. To start, on Christmas Eve Day I wrapped up my work for the week and have been focused on friends, family and farm ever since.  We had a nice but small gathering for Christmas Eve at our house and then two Christmas dinner's on Christmas Day.  You heard me correctly, we had two Christmas dinners.  Here is what happened. As you all know, I grew up in the Central Valley of California.  So, I still have friends and family that live down there.  We had two different families call us to see if they could come visit us in Idaho during Christmas break so that they could escape the regulation a

Sign Up To Receive Our FFA Stories Newsletter! Email address: SHOW NOTES The FFA Creed talks about a faith born of deeds.  This amazing organization has found a way to coordinate thousands of chapters and hundreds of thousands of members throughout the United States into a cohesive unit that operates the same way, in the furtherance of agriculture. One of the key aspects of what is done in the FFA is service to one's community.  Over the past six years of interviews, I have been lucky enough to profile multiple examples of service through the FFA.  Today's episode is another excellent example of that principle of service. Jaidyen Wommack and Caitlyn Gloe respectively are the president and vice-president of their FFA chapter at Louisiana High School in Louisiana, Missouri.  This past fall they led an effort to help feed those in need, in their community.  There is always a need, in every community, for help in one form or another.  Of course, this year, in the midst of Covid 19 that has been exacerbated

Tip Of The Week Put a smart lock on your front door Rural Crime In The U.S. https://www.wfxrtv.com/news/local-news/lynchburg-central-virginia-news/bedford-county-authorities-searching-for-man-after-report-of-attempted-atv-theft/ https://www.crimeonline.com/2020/12/20/body-found-in-burned-out-car-in-rural-arkansas-4-arrested/ Where The 2nd Amendment Does Not Exist https://www.farminguk.com/news/uk-s-first-ever-cyber-security-advice-for-farmers-released_57245.html https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2020-12-22/farmers-disbelief-after-thieves-steal-section-of-newly-planted-hedge Chalk One Up For The Good Guys https://www.fox44news.com/news/local-news/gatesville-man-charged-with-cattle-theft/ https://www.newarkadvertiser.co.uk/news/arrests-made-in-rural-crime-crime-operation-9145829/   Where Off-Farm Income And Matt Brechwald Can Be Heard:   Member Of The National Association Of Farm BroadcastersO

Merry Christmas everyone....there is no way for me to write what I said on the show, so please take a listen. While I was looking around at different Christmas stories I came across this Youtube video of my favorite farm author, Jerry Apps, telling a Christmas story.  If you heard Jerry the two times he has been on the show, you know how good of a story teller he is.  If not, you should get to know Jerry and read some of his books.  Take a listen to his Christmas story here....he is fantastic! Where Off-Farm Income And Matt Brechwald Can Be Heard:   Member Of The National Association Of Farm Broadcasters

SHOW NOTES Merry Christmas to all of you!  Thank you so much for making it possible for me to do this for the past three years (already)!  I have a favorite memory of my time growing up in Valley Home, California that happened 40 years ago on Christmas Eve.  I wanted to share this with you for my Christmas episode this year. I could try and type out this story here for you to read, but I'm going to make you listen to it.  I grew up in a very special place; a town that was dying out.  We were there in what really were its last, best years and I've got a lot of fond memories from my childhood.  This story is just one of them. Here are some photographs to help show you what I am talking about when I describe Valley Home and the alley where this took place. This is what Wikipedia says about Valley Home today and the triangular shape of the town: Here is a satellite image of Valley Home.  I lived in the bottom right of the triangle: The purple pin is where the Valley Home Store is located. Here is a close up

SHOW NOTES I am a huge fan of two things relevant to agriculture: value added products and wool.  And, that is why I was so excited for this interview, it combines both. Kyra Uphoff has been working with "fiber arts" since she first started 4H, years ago.  She concentrated on two things through 4H - public speaking and fiber arts.  During this time she began learning to make felt, combine felt with silk, and create products and art projects with this skill.  She also honed her public speaking abilities and developed a passion for talking with people. When it was time for high school Kyra joined the FFA because it would continue to give her the opportunity to speak publicly.  She has been pursuing this for the entire four years of high school so far.  For her supervised agricultural experience, she has continued to refine her craft with fiber arts.  Today she has her own business, "KS Uphoff Fiber Arts".  She makes felt and silk into products like scarves and she also uses these raw materials to make art.  K

Article Referenced In Podcast https://www.forbes.com/sites/lauratenenbaum/2020/01/29/digging-in-the-dirt-really-does-make-people-happier/?sh=6266d29031e1 Show Notes On today’s show I wanted to revisit the idea of farm ownership and lifestyle.  That is what this show is all about, and I wanted to take some time to discuss this subject with all of you some more. There may not be a more challenging enterprise to try and get into or maintain in the United States than farming.  So many of us long for and have a vision of this lifestyle that we pursue it anyway.  If this is something you are pursuing, trying to maintain or are dreaming about doing one day, I think a shift in perspective might be useful to help assuage the frustration that is inevitably going to come.   Let me start by giving you some statistics.  Median total household income among all farm households in the U.S. is $83,111, and that is better than the average U.S. household income by about $15,000.  However, median household income of farms in

SHOW NOTES The FFA is all about opportunity.  From learning about different careers, learning vocational skills, public speaking to doing research the FFA offers abundant opportunities. At what point do these opportunities end?  Is it during your senior year of high school, just after graduation, or sometime during your freshman year of college?  In today’s episode, we will be speaking with a student who is mid-way through his first year of college and is just seeing all the different FFA opportunities open up in front of him. Creed Ammons is the 2020 National Proficiency winner in agricultural processing.  In addition to that, he is serving as the state president for the State Of West Virginia and studying agricultural education at West Virginia University.   Even though Creed is already in college, his opportunities in the FFA are just getting started.  He still has the chance to become a national officer as well as an American Star winner, and he will be receiving his American Degree in the future. Cr

Tip Of The Week https://www.northernfarmer.co.uk/news/18857496.smart-ways-tackle-rise-rural-crime/ Rural Crime In The U.S. https://www.beauregarddailynews.net/story/news/2020/12/01/bpso-seeking-information-atv-theft/6473140002/ https://houston.culturemap.com/news/city-life/11-30-20-hope-farms-tractor-stolen-recipe-for-success-gracie-cavnar-donate-tyler-froberg/ Where The 2nd Amendment Does Not Exist https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/local-news/plea-help-gps-theft-gangs-4742001 https://www.harboroughmail.co.uk/news/crime/police-step-hunt-arsonists-who-caused-least-four-devastating-straw-fires-farms-harborough-area-over-last-three-months-3051936 Chalk One Up For The Good Guys https://www.mywabashvalley.com/news/local-news/stolen-backhoe-and-atvs-found-in-sullivan-county/ https://www.whio.com/news/2-muncie-residents-arrested-theft-mercer-county/3E42BW6GK5H4DIQ47PZMFBIACI/ Where Off-Farm Income And Matt Brechwald Can Be Heard:   Member Of The National Association Of Farm Broadcasters