The truth about building a farm worth working with April Nichol

The Canadian Agri Food Policy Institute is driving bold policy solutions for resilient Canadian agri food system and building a stronger future for Canadian agriculture. Visit capi-icpa.com to discover how. Welcome to the truth about ag. Foreign. Welcome to the Truth About Ag. Podcast distributed under the Real Agriculture Media Network and powered by the Heber Group of companies. Remember to like, share, comment and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we are back on the Truth About Egg and we have a new guest. So after doing one without a guest we thought we would jump into the New year with a I'll call her a close friend and an acquaintance and. Give us your storey April because I've read your bio. But you know what, tell the people on out there. Sure. Thanks Evan. Thanks Christian for having cool opportunity to chat with you folks all the time. So a little bit about me. I'm I'm a born and raised farm kid east of Regina. I grew up on a small mixed cattle and grain farm like most of us did back in the 80s and 90s. U of S grad, spent fair bit of time in the egg industry working in various roles and in 2002 started a farm business with my husband Chad that's kind of grown and been our labour of love for the last 23 years almost. So combination of industry experience and hands on farming experience and really building business has kind of been our caution and something that we've done together. So he's let me start because I don't think we talk to many first generation farms I would say. So give us, I guess give us what the complications or the successes that you've had over those years of. I mean starting it from scratch. Right. Most of the people we talk to aren't in acquisitions. Yeah. So the history really is like my husband grew up, Chad grew up on a farm in Central Butte or near Central Beach, Saskatchewan in the Palliser Triangle. If you can think about farming in the 80s and early 90s in that area, it was pretty tough, pretty dry and always wanted to be a farmer. That was like his passion. Right. So he wanted to farm. Real question and when we were looking at where that was going to make sense, it was going to be more difficult for us to start there I think and go back to their family. I was coming out of university half an hour from Regina seemed like a more palatable place for me to work and start a business. And so we ended up know east of Regina where we could find some land and and kind of get our our boots on the ground. Why did we start farming? I think it's really simple. Chad always wanted to farm and Chad loved farming and April loved Chad. So here we are. At least I've heard it put that way. At least you picked an area that didn't turn out to be very competitive for farmland. So it's 2020, Christian. A catch 22. The very first stuff you bought. I'm sure you've done really well on. Yeah, we were a little pocket. Didn't know on you for a long time and then just your proximity to Regina and we have some decent producing farmland and yeah, for sure it's competitive just like everywhere else. Right. So. And all that does is. Is force us to be better business people and to make sure that we can stay competitive and. And we can run efficiently. Go ahead, E. I didn't realise I got to ask all the good questions. Shout. Yeah. You know, April, I think there's a few things I wanted to cover today. One was. One was, you know, obviously I think a farm influence. So true. Boots on the ground knowledge can. Can have a huge effect on corporate agriculture jobs, which is where you were for a number of years. But then I also think there's a lot people learn when they're in those positions in corporate that they can apply on their farm. So let's start with the question number one, what do you believe from the farm really helped you in your positions in corporate ag? Definitely. Like I would say, practicality. Right. So we would go down the. I would get invited to meetings and we would have team discussions about how we wanted to approach the market or how we wanted to talk to a farmer or how we were going to go about something. And it's really easy to get going down that bunny trail and make it real hard and real complicated and think we know what a farmer's thinking. And finally you can kind of just level set and say, hey, like, they're not really thinking that way. My husband is not thinking about what you just articulated. He doesn't care about this trinket. He cares about whether the product works or, you know, we just spent weeks and months building programming that they're going to look at for 20 minutes. So please make sure that you really get their attention in those 20 minutes because, you know, they're not. They're not familiar with the backstory of why we need to do this. And I'm not saying we shouldn't do programming like this. Every business does it for a really good reason. But we need to make sure that we're grabbing the attention of the farmer from their perspective, not from, you know, the perspective of what's in it for corporate business. I think we've said that before, haven't we? I mean, when you get a, let's say a new deer, columbine, and the screen shows this and this and this, and you're sitting here wondering why it doesn't show the things you actually want to see or anything in that matter, to be fair, what. What a producer might actually utilise in this business. So, I mean, it's not. It's not uncommon. Let's say that they don't bring the farmer mindset into the actual product delivery. Well, I think it's one of the. It's one of the biggest issues in the ag tech industry, actually. They create the problem, they come up with what they see as the problem in agriculture and then create an ag technology to solve it. They forget to actually ask the farmer what the problems are. Right. I mean. And April, I mean, you and I talked about this lots. About what? About the fact of just maybe we should start picking up all the empties on farms so the farms don't have to remember what retail to return them. Like, that's an actual farmer problem and nobody really wants to deal with it. And then we get, you know, then retail gets mad at me because I take a tote, I bought a JRI back to nutrient or wherever. Right. It shouldn't be a farmer's problem, but it's something that never. Those little things that are practical problems never even get brought up at the high level sometimes. Well, one thing I always found so interesting is, you know, I spent a lot of time face to face with farmer in a lot of my roles. And so that was a natural place for me. It was easy for me to kind of level set. And every single time we got someone out of our head office into the field, like, they would come back just energised. Oh, I learned all these things and I asked all these questions and I'm like, that's amazing. We should do more of that, right? The closer to the customer you are as a business, the smarter you are. And then you see things from their lens. But too often and it's easy to do it, right, Your calendar gets busy, there's this meeting and not meeting in this industry that you got to get to. And if you don't prioritise being close to your customer, sometimes you can be tone deaf. Right. And every business has been guilty of that. I got a couple interesting storeys on that A show. So I completely agree. Right. And then, and so there's this, there's the VPs and execs that think it's amazing when they do get there and then blame it on their busy calendar that they don't. Right. I can specifically, I won't name a name, but we have a global company CEO whose calendar is a gong show that when I was with them we speaker phoned his EA and booked in for him to come run an X9 from the three days end August, early September. Like it is booked into his calendar like non movable because he just said I'm not getting to do this enough. I need to book two, three days in seating, two, three days in harvest and just have it booked in as if it's the most important thing I need to do. And he said he'll rotate it around and this year it's going to be our farm. But I mean I completely agree with you that that time as an executive, it's too easy to get pulled away from practical. Well, and we've said it before, I mean that's the CEO's job, right? Like it's their job to get out and find the customer, find market share, strategy, vision. But too often they're so as you said, the calendar's so busy with all the other stuff that they don't actually get to that part of their actual role. So I think the flip side. Yeah, yeah. What does that mean to the farm? So the list is long and it can be as simple as. I think one of one of my comments is always we had some mentors when I was really young in my career, I was calling directly on farmer and I had a couple customers that really were our mentors. And so they became kind of like that listening ear or who you wanted to talk to about your insurance or whatever, whatever problem we were trying to solve at the time. And so those were good experiences for us to even bring back to our farm in the early days because I saw the whole industry at a ground level. I saw what everybody else was doing and I knew what was working and I could see what wasn't working. And I had access to different resources that a lot of farms didn't. And that was really helpful for us, especially as a young business, you know, propel that 15 and 20 years forward, my roles have changed, my skill sets changed, I'm spending more time around boardrooms. I've led some people and some teams. All of those skills are fully transferable. So you need to have a boardroom discussion. We're preparing for a meeting with our accountant. That's going to happen here right away. You know, what's the agenda? What do we need to have prepared to come talk, you know, to come talk to them about when we're hired, when we hired our staff, what does our benefit package look like? I completely agree with you. Why would. If I'm going to go work for a job, I expect you to pay me for my time. And I would like a benefit package and it would be great if I could save for my retirement. Those are things that people want in a career. And so how did we set that up on our business? We have a benefit plan, we have a health plan. You know, we have local people that work for us that have been here for a really long time because we like to think that we create an environment they want to be a part of. All of those skills came back to the farm and they just continue to come back. Right. Like especially now when we made the decision for me to be more involved, you know, what are the things that I'm going to do? What are the things that Chad's going to do? You know, two of us doing the same thing isn't efficient in any business, including farming. So I got an interesting question because then I'm in the middle of the speaking tour with Farm Credit and every time I speak I get the same answer of, well, how do we take this back? So you tell them to do the benefit plans, all these, you know, high reaching fruit or whatever you want to call it, and they go back and they get slammed by the. Whether it's the parents or the spouse or whatever it is that those are dreamer mentalities. Right, Right. So what, how did Chad take it when you brought this back to the farm and said this is how we need to echo that, or was he already there? He was. So we have a pretty good, like, we have a really good business relation. I call it church and state. So like, church is at home and state is our business. And he's always been really respectful of my opinion. And this is why I think we need to do things sometimes. I had to sell it a little differently, but we really tried to stay in our lane. So like when it came to people and HR and all those things, he fully agreed that's your specialty. You go and do that when it comes to equipment and like, do we need this versus do we need that? I need to make sure the numbers work out. But he has to be able to tell me logistically, does this make us more efficient? You Know, what is this? How does that make our ratios look? How does this manage? People? Like, we kind of really tried to stay in our lane. So do I have a suggestion for those that you're coaching, maybe that are going back to a farm enterprise? Come with the facts. I think the best thing you can always do is approach it with fact, not emotion, because emotion is difficult and you can't measure it. But if those folks are going back to their families and saying, we need a benefit plan for these reasons, here's the stats, here's the retention, here's why we might want to do this, here's some people I think I could hire if, if we were able to offer this, help them arm themselves with the storey of why. And that needs to come with facts attached to it. Does that make sense? Like two pieces you can add ev, right? Like the. There's one that we talk about lots called the one three one. So I mean, bring me a problem, bring me three solutions and bring me your recommended solution. So if you're going home to your wife or your spouse or your. Or your dad or whatever, it's, you know, the problem is we don't have enough people, we're working 3800 hours, it's not sustainable. The solutions are, you know, number one, we can sell it. Number two, we can get way better at hr and here's my ideas why. And number three, we can use a bunch of custom farming, which is a pain in the ass too in a lot of cases. Right? And my solution is we need to get better at hr and here's the pieces. And then it's funny, one of my mentors once taught me, like, the easiest way to think about HR is someone is worth what someone will pay them. And so I find too many growers I talk to just assume that the life on the farm is going to be so much better than, you know, deer or Bayer or the bank or whatever, that someone should not only come work for them, they should come work for them for less money and less benefits. Now, if this is offshore rigging where the person's gone nine months of the year and doesn't get to see their wife and kids, okay? But if they're in the agriculture industry, guess what? They're used to being pretty busy in seeding and harvest. They're used to having some time in the winter and. And you should feel fine, you need to run your business. A way to get close to matching that or I would argue match it. I actually don't want to overpay Them because that means they might only be coming me for money, not because they want to be part of the team and will we overpay once we find out how valuable they are? Absolutely. Right. But it's just, it's an easy little rule. If you're coming up with reasons why you can't pay what the market would pay for that person in those similar types of positions, we probably should look in the mirror, not at the market. Well, and what other business goes and looks for the cheapest labour to run some of the most complex machinery, right. And we've made this joke before, it's. That's the way it's always been, right. One of the guys who only wanted to show for seeding, harvest, they want the minimal amount of day, you know, some home cooked meals and they're happy. They go, go away. Right where I think it's changing now, whether that's consolidation or whether that's just the financial side of the business acumen is that's no longer what guys are looking for. So some of the most complex discussions we're having now in the coaching was based on headhunting and those type of art things that have never been part of agriculture, to be fair. It's never, never been seen as an investment. Right. Well, you guys have probably seen it too. April, as you grow. That's the one thing I joke with Evan, is that we had no intention to grow the size we were. But I actually found the people side easier, which makes no sense because you have more people. But what I mean by that is I think in general people like to know what they're doing about 80% of the time and they'd like 20% creativity, new things, try different stuff. So if you're a mechanic, you might not just want to work on cars every day of the year. Right. And if you're an accountant or go through all the different things and as we grew we could have that we could lay out 60 to 80% of their time was going to be doing this, this and this. Seeding and harvest is always going to give you lots of variability because it's all hands on deck. You know, we could go to shifts and seeding and harvest, but it where, when we were, when we couldn't do that and every job description was just duties as assigned. It was tough to build culture and lead. But as we grew a little bit, and I would say it was around that even like right around 8,000 acres where you could start to have like some job descriptions. And the guy that loved trucking could actually truck probably half the time. Right. And your equipment operator that loved equipment operating, could it do it? Probably at least 50%. It, like it actually started to make it easier. And I don't know if you guys felt that, but I'm assuming with your people's side, it's the same thing. I think we. So I would say we. We have improvements to make on job description specifically. There's always room to improve, but we certainly can say, you know, we know who's best at what, who likes to do what. How do we make sure that we're enabling them to do that and we know what's important to their family life. Trying to make sure that we're. We're keeping that in mind and balancing. And I think the other thing that. The other thing that I've heard lots is it's. It's seasonal labour. Right. In a farm. Well, it's seasonal labour. What do you do with your guys all winter? We keep them. If they want to stay, we keep them. Why? Because I don't want to rehire them in the spring. I don't want to have the risk all winter of someone, you know, calling them up and saying, we have a better opportunity for you and they might not come back to us and so will overstaff all winter and have slower days and give time back and whatever we can do to keep a really solid team together for those. Those key moments where you can trust them and we know what to expect from them and they know what to expect from us. But I would agree, as we've grown, it's been the. The thing that worries me the least isn't the people in our business. It's really not. I think that if we need a body wolf, if we need a person or a team member, we'll figure out who that is and go hire them. Well, we've said that before. He was. I mean, just find the work, right? If you find the good people, you hire them and then go and find the work. Because as producers, that's. I mean, it's your line, but it's essentially what we're good at, right? Is there's never going to be a shortage if you keep growing or keep expanding or keep diversifying or just keep moving forward. Right. It's never a bad problem when you got too many good people applying and you got to find a way to go grow more. Right. That's a good problem to have versus the other way around. Okay. Since we're heavy on the HR right now, I know that you've run some pretty big teams, April, and I know you built some pretty big teams. So give me your. Give me your standpoint on leadership and. Culture and how you guys. How you accomplish it, not only in the corporate field, but then how you plan to bring that back and continue it in your role now. Okay, so when I think about, like building teams, I think again, things can be ultra simple. So I believe that you should hire top talent, right? So think about the ideal person in that role. Never slay yourself short on that person won't come or that person won't. Doesn't want to work for me or doesn't want to come back to a farm. For example, some of my most impressive hires were like, boy, I wonder if that guy would come work for me. And then it's a phone call that says, hey, I have this really unique opportunity. Do you think you'd be interested in that? And then we just keep that conversation going both in the farm and in, in my corporate business. So hire top talents. And I know, Christian, you've said this before, but it's hire slow fire fast, right? Like, take your time and make sure you find the people that are really going to add value when you're building a team. Like I always believe, give them very clear direction. Actually, a friend of mine always says, clear is kind. Make sure that you align on what success looks like for you, but also for that person so that you have a mutual goal in mind and then get out of their way. I don't like being micromanaged. I'm going to go on a limb and see neither of you two do either. And so make sure they know what's expected of them. Give them the opportunity to be successful and then no different than like a sport team or anything else, follow up. Hold them accountable. Build cadence and value that you both can rely on, right? So build a cadence of when you're going to communicate and how you're going to talk to each other that everybody can expect and rely on and sees value in. And I think, you know, I've done some reading and there's lots of books on servant leadership and all the rest of it. Your job as their leader isn't to tell them what to do. Your job is to help them see their potential and where they fit in the organisation, whether it's a farm or a large corporation, and help them through that and see their potential. And when I got to those places, that's where the magic happens. Like I can look back and say, man, that's a really functioning team. They're doing so well without me. That was the goal, right? And even on a farm, your goal should be your team should be able to function so you can leave. If you have a team on your farm and you can't leave for a day, then we're doing something wrong. Right? Because then we don't have people empowered and we don't have people enabled and you should be able to go to Egg in Motion or go to your kids hockey game or go to a meeting with your accountant without guilt thinking the wheels are going to fall off the bus if you leave the farm for a day. The guilt part's the tough part. I have all those teams, but I still struggle with guilt. Some days our team tells him to go away. Sometimes, let's be fair. But that's on the alignment that she talked about, right? Is that it's way easier with guilt when your team says that you should be at this Christian, you need to leave. Right. That means in my mind, you've coached them to the point where they understand the value of at those things. And I mean, yeah, I mean, I agree with everything she said. You and Jeff were my first two. I mean, when I, when I hired you guys, I didn't need you and I paid you both more than I was making. But it was a conversation exactly like you said. April, I would say you gotta, you plant the seed with good people so that if they ever find a reason, you're the person they phone first. I don't want, I want, I don't want them to leave. I'm not gonna sales pitch them to leave. It's like, hey, I think you're pretty good at what you do. I got a couple ideas. If you ever want to change, make sure you phone me first. Yes. And it will surprise you over the next two days or ten years how many phone calls will come if that person is intrigued with what's going on at your operation. But it took us a decade. I don't know, we talked about it for a decade before we actually get it. Maybe at the time it was, you know what, this is what the future could look like. And we're not ready at that point. But it was, it was. We went back and forth about what could be possibilities. Even when I was back farming could be fair. Yeah. Just all it did was took a little bit of a push. Right. Take a pause from the podcast to call out one of our largest sponsors at the Truth About Ag Farmer Coach. We have had the largest uptake in the programme since its start in 2022 and are looking to have more than 100 producers in for the fall of 2025. We've opened up an additional executive programme as our legacy cohort sold out earlier than it ever has in the past, and we are asking producers to reach out for availability. We have multiple new industry supporters this year. Love the industry when they jump on board with education and they are sending some of their most progressive and young farmers into the programme. Reach out to your lenders or your suppliers and ask if they're a supporter and if not, why not? And lastly, and the most proud we are at Farmer Coach. We are entering our fourth year cohorts and we have an 80% retention rate with that cohort. The original one has no industry backing. They came because they believed in what we were doing. And now, as they enter their fourth year, they have made changes to their operations beyond what I ever thought was possible. So if you're not looking into the programme, I ask that you hurry as seats are filling up and we want you to figure out your definition of success and then let us and the. Other participants assist you in reaching it. The only real question left to ask is one day or day one. Now back to the Truth About Ag podcast. One thing you asked about, Christian, was culture and how do you build culture? And sometimes I think that we look at culture like it's this big, expensive thing you have to do. You have to take your stuff to Disney World and you got to do all these fancy things to build culture. But culture, to me, really comes from what's within. And culture just means that, like, I want to be part of a culture where I try. I believe in the leadership. So I know that when I go do work for anybody, I need to believe in the vision, I need to believe in the strategy, I need to believe that what I'm doing is adding value. I need to know that I am valued as a person and my family is valued and my time is valued. And then I want to be a part of something, right? So it's like, do you want to be paid for something or do you want to be a part of something? Well, the answer is both, right? We want to get paid for our time. But typically, people in any size of team, whether it's a team of five or a team of 50, they want to feel like they're part of something. And so sometimes those things are small. Like, there are leaders in the industry that once in a while I'll get a email. They'll pop in your inbox as an email. Hey, how's it going? Or a text message. He just reminded me of you. To me, that was like real culture. Right. You had an influence over that person. They care about you. They still care about you. And then you'll follow those people wherever they go. And so I would say that no matter what walk of life you are, whether you're a farmer or you work in corporate or you're a consultant or whatever, there will be people that have touched you along the way. Never be scared to reach back out and have a conversation, thank them for something they're doing. Yeah. Never eat alone. That's interest. I've read the book, but you mentioned it most times, and you'll be surprised at when it just comes back. And I think that's the foundation of how you start to build culture on small teams or big teams. You just gotta care a little bit. It's funny, I can. I sometimes, if I'm speaking, I get the odd person mad at me on culture because a lot of people of deemed culture, like you said, a group you want to hang out with all the time and party all the time. Yeah. I got a lot of college friends I liked hanging out with and partying all the time. That I actually wouldn't want to work for me. They wouldn't be part of my team. Is it great if people get to that point where they want to hang out and do stuff together? Sure. But actually, you know, my. I always say, you build hockey culture, you build culture like sports teams. And obviously we all play hockey. And in that everybody can be the most important person at any point in the game. Doesn't matter if you're the number one forward, the number nine forward, the goalie, or the whichever D man, there will be one point in the game you are the most important. So your team needs to feel that way, and they need to believe as a team that they can win. So that's buying into the leader and the vision. But then I kind of have. I kind of have two little things that are my key pieces. My first one is if you and your wife and kids hit the ditch on Christmas Day, it's minus 40 and the wind's blowing. Who do you phone to come help? And if it's someone on this team, or if the top 10 is your dad, your brother, and eight people you work with, I would argue that's a pretty good culture. Because you trust them. Trust is a bigger part of culture than I like or I love. Right. Like, I work with some people that I trust to the end. That Piss me off because they're so much different than me. But that's why they're really good at their job. But I trust them. I do. I would trust them with anything. And I think sometimes we misplace trust with what we, you know, friendship. And I actually want them to have a whole bunch of friends outside of work too, because guess what? That's where we recruit people. That's where good ideas come from. Otherwise you just turn into this little circle of everything we say is right and everything the outside world doesn't know. So, like I said, I trust is my big thing on culture and kind of build it like a sports team. But I always ask that one question. So, you know, well, say you got a team member that will lose it every now and then, and someone will be like, yeah, like so hard to work with. And then I'll ask them, okay, Christmas Day, 10 miles from their house, you and your wife and kids are buried in a. In. In. In Snow and it's minus 40. Would you phone them? Yeah, I'd phone him. Would he come? 100%. Okay, so we need to work on the temperament, but the trust is still there, right? And it's. I'm not saying the temperament's right, but I just find, like, when you build trust like that, it's a different. It's a different level, right? And then they'll delegate, they'll work together, because, I'm sorry, you're gonna have days where you're not happy, and the days you are happy. And that shouldn't be how your culture is judged. It's life. Now, if you can come and say, you want to know what? My kid was up puking seven times last night and I haven't slept and it was a horrible night. And your team just says, oh, and they go to work. They don't baby you. They just know that at 2 o', clock, if you look like you're a little tired. Hey, can I give you a hand with that? That. That's starting to build the team versus. Oh, I'm just happy go lucky every day. Well, and the offset to that is, I mean, Jeff, Jeff's greatest lesson to me, I'm hr because I'm not the one who does a lot in HR wise. Be friendly, not friends, right? Because that's where most you're up. It's. You get too close or you get to that friend's spot, and then all of a sudden, whether someone uses it against you or things go bad, that's usually starts when it gets just Too close. Well, and I said it's not even. Oh, go ahead. No, I was just saying that the closeness, like, there, there is the odd person out there that can go over the friend line because they don't feel awkward. Right. If you can still have super awkward conversations and call people out and hold them accountable when they're good friends or your spouse or your parents. It's just, there's. It's a very unique skill set to a very small group of people to have someone that they're emotionally close with and yet have absolutely no problem having awkward conversations. Yeah. You're the godfather of my son. And I still, I still hate having awkward conversations. Yeah, we're. But use Louis and I. Right? We can have pretty awkward conversations and six minutes later be father and son. Like it, like, it's just a. It depends on that person. Yeah. To me, that's like the church and state. Right. In our business, there's only. There's two owners. There's me and my husband, Chad. We have to have a marriage and be parents and raise a family together, but we also run a business. And so there are lots of awkward conversations. And we, we have to be careful because you can cross that line really easy. Right. What you can get too forward or too direct or both very direct people. And you can forget that there's some diplomacy. And we might be a little bit further ahead if we're more diplomatic with each other when we're talking about the business. One thing you said about is being like minded and having all like minded team members, and I think that's a default when you're, when you're new, maybe at HR or you're just starting to hire a team, you're like, oh, I really get along with that person. And they just think so much like me. I think the challenge I would throw back to anyone in that situation is if you've done any of the disc training or the personality training right on that, think about where you are on that, on that circle, and then go find someone who is exact opposite of you. And it is going to be frustrating and hard because they're going to approach a problem so differently than you. But then you have a contrasting perspective. And if you only have like minded perspectives, it's easy to get tunnel vision really fast. Whereas if you have diverse perspective, that's where I think there's real value. And we've been playing with that on the AI side. Like we, we did a whole bunch of Colby stuff the last few weeks within Maverick, and we threw it into the AI programmes and literally said, what are the conflicts that we're going to come up with with this group of individuals with Breeze? Colby's right. So it's intriguing when it starts kicking it out and the guys are like, oh, yeah, okay, that makes sense. That, yeah, I get it now. Right. Even in our farm business, when I think about it, like, we're probably closer on the on we used disc was the one that I was familiar with at summer Colby. There's lots of different options. We're similar in some ways, but when we look at our business, I had a business partner in a previous business, um, her react like she reacts emotionally to everything, and I react with fact. And so that's what made us good partners. Right? It was like she was thinking about something I wasn't thinking about. I'm thinking about something she wasn't thinking about. In our farm business, I always say, Chad's the gas. So Masma brakes, right? Like, he's all passion and intuition and vision. He knows exactly where he wants to get us to. And my role is to make sure that we have all the boxes checked along the way so that we have the risk mitigation in place. So what was the final. The hitch that brought you back? So what made the decision to come back to the farm full time? Because I know you and I talked a few months before that you were thinking about it, but what was the final straw? I guess you could say. Yeah, so it was an evolution, I would say. First of all, I had some really good advisors, right? You and I had a conversation. We talked to some other advisors that we work with, and they gave us some pretty clear, like, here are the facts that you should be thinking about. It really came down to time and focus. And so I love. I love my career. Like, I'm very emotionally attached to my career, and I get that. And I'm still doing a little work on this side, which kind of fulfils that part for me. But we needed the time and focus to be successful. And so all of a sudden, you know, I was flying lots and lots of weeks of the month, and little things that I used to pay attention to, I didn't have the time or capacity to. And when you're gone all the time, then someone also has to raise your kids. And so all of a sudden, every single thing landed on Chad. So raising our family, getting our kids to sports, making every decision on the farm, having all the meetings. And I think one thing I've heard you say, Christian, is if you're the guy that takes every single phone call. No wonder you're frustrated. And so we got to a point where one guy was taking every single phone call and his partner was flying all over the place making decisions for other people. And we just knew that if we really doubled down on focus, like we never built enough value on focus in any business, in any part of our life. And when you focus on something, it's amazing what can happen. And so my belief is the smarter we are about focus and efficiencies and time, the more successful we'll be on the farm and the rest will follow. Now you're three months in. Has that been what you found? Yeah, it's an evolution, right. So you can't get it all right. There's an adjustment period of we were used to doing things a different way and so we're learning about what that role looks like now. But I have noticed, like we just have more time to think through things. We have more time to prepare. I've spent more time in our not doing our workflow where we refuse to do books. Nobody ever wants me to do that job. But like I spent more kind in our harvest profit sheet looking at where we can find efficiencies, what decision do we need to make? I spent a little time starting to learn like grey mark inputs and calls and you know, that's something that you can focus on. You know, that's not of interest to Chad and nor should it be. And that's fine. That's what he has a partner for. So we're finding thing. You know, we always knew we'd find those avenues, but it's taken us some time to do it and it's been positive, it's been really good. The kids are learning. They like having mom at home, but they also don't like it some days because mum folds are reasonable. Yeah, I think too, Evan. I mean I know Chad and April both pretty good. And you know, you guys, I don't, I don't want to say unique because there's lots of couples that way, but it is, it is unique how you guys have different roles and have a high level of respect for those two roles. Right. And I would assume just knowing your farm, where it was and where it is, I mean, I always talk about that. The best relationships I know, you know, they add up to 100 and there's 50 points for making sure we have enough money to live and there's 50 points for making sure we have a life worth living. Right. And if you look at where your Guys's farm was, I'm assuming, you know, due to its size early on, April's draw off farm income really helped in adding up to the 50 points of making sure we had enough money to live. But at some point in time that the tilt gets off where we're making more money than we need to live, but we're not living the life we want to live. Right. And it sounds like a stupid little formula and every couple is different. I know, you know, I know some couples where the wife makes 100% of the money and the husband zero and the upper way around and. But the key part is it actually doesn't matter which spouse makes the money or how you work or who you work with. It's. Don't let the 50% of your life to make sure you're living a life worth living get off kilter. Right. Everyone gets so caught up on, on the first part of making the money that a lot of couples miss the, you know, what, what actually makes me happy, what actually makes the family happy. And, and paying attention to that. And I mean, just in conversation with you today and before, like you said that the phone calls started to go to chat all the time. You, you probably, I would assume I know approximately your kids ages because they're not too far off off mine and even a little bit older. There's. It starts to hit you a little bit when you realise they're not going to be at home a lot longer. So that I'm assuming that life worth living part started to hit. Yeah, yeah. My daughter, like my daughter was going to graduate this year and all of a sudden we're like, man, you've missed everything. And I haven't missed everything. But that's what it felt like. That was the emotional reaction. And so then it's like, okay, can we really do this? What does this look like? Who do we need to talk to? What are the, what's the risk mitigation we need to put in place? How do we make sure one of my, like, you guys work with Dean Clippinstein? I have lots of respect for Dean and I had a conversation with him before we made this decision and, and he just said, the only thing I'm worried about is your mind. And he was really compassionate and really like, thoughtful about the conversation. He said, no, no doubt. I'm confident that you can make this work in your business. I just need, I'm worried about your mind. What are you going to do? And so that was, you know, that was really the opportunity for me to Say, okay, well, what could I do that would allow me to do the farm, be a mom, you know, be there for my kids as they kind of embark on this last five years are really important right before you don't get very much time with them. All of a sudden they're leaving and, and still be. And still contribute to the industry in a meaning way that, a meaningful way that would keep me connected. I love that we all ran to Clip to tell us what we should do. I had the same conversation as Evier. I told Clip what I was doing and he said, about fucking time. Okay, let's, let's pull back away from the HR side and the other side and let's, let's get your views on agriculture. So I know that you played, like I said, you played in a lot of different sad boxes. So agriculture in general, what do you think of the industry right now? Where do you see some of the risks? I mean, from the producer side and some, the corporate side and, and what are you doing on your farm right now to mitigate some of those risks, I guess, to where I want to take it. Okay, so first thing I would say is I'm still optimistic. Agriculture, like I'm ever an optimist on ag. I think it's one of the best cures. I think it's one of the best industries. I still believe in Canada, this is where there's growth, you know, growth potential. And if you're part of a business that can grow, then you got lots of. You got lots of things ahead of you. So my message to any young person, like go into agriculture, it's not just about farming. There is so many other things you can do with a career in agriculture. And I have seen the world from lots of different views because of that. I think if we think about the risks in farming today. I don't want to talk about politics with you folks because you're smarter than me when it comes to those things. But I will say policy concerns me. I think globally. Is western Canada, specifically Canada, being considered on a global scale? Are we as important as we were in the past? You know, do we have the right people at the table? Is our business protected? Are there things that are going to impact my farm that I can't control? Is the industry looking after that like that concerns me? I would say, and if we look at markets today, there are things that are out of our control that are impacting our ability to be competitive on a world market. I'll pause. There was too easy of an answer. I'm gonna let you go on that one. I could go to like, I'm. I'm worried about risk to capital, another investment, but I'm not really. Like, I think that at the business we protect ourselves, you know, we have risk mitigation in place, we know how to grow our crop. Like all those things are pretty straightforward. It's the things I can't. Those are all within my control as a business owner. The things outside of my control, the value of our dollar. Do we have a place to sell our grain? Who are we competing with on a global scale? Those are things that I can't control. Yeah. And I don't think our answers are any different, to be fair. April, I was just bugging you. But honestly, the main parts are the controllable versus uncontrollable risks, right? And I mean, let's call it a decade ago. It used to be stuck with the weather, we stuck with commodity markets, and everything is unloadable. I don't believe that anymore. I believe that we have the ability on our farms to make decisions to risk mitigate all of that, whether it's costs, whether it's insurance, whatever it might be. You are correct in saying that I don't know how you risk mitigate a farm against a loss of use of glyphosate or a loss of a market in the international trade somewhere. Those ones probably are whether you want to go Dr. Cole and say black, white, Black Swan, White Rhinos or whatever he call it, Grey rhinos, whatever he's calling them these days. But those seem to be the events that most should be worried about. I'm not saying thinking about those quite at this level, but to me you're correct. It's those that I don't know how you risk mitigate a farm away from, to be fair. And I think the key part is two that have really creeped in. But the base cause is policy, right? That I think two of the bigger risks are volatility of inputs, right? From fuel to fertiliser to equipment. It's never been as volatile as it has in the last five years. But most of that is driven by policy. And the second one is access to capital and the volatility on that. So that's partly tied to once again, the increase in the cost of production. So what it takes to run a farm now, I don't care what size. If one of the five or six main big banks and credit union systems decide they don't like agriculture, all of a sudden it's a capital issue. Where, you know, at a $200 break even on farms, it didn't take as much capital at 4, 5, 600. There's a lot more capital tied up in the industry. Right. So and I once again think that's tied to policy. Right. Our, our issue when it comes to commodity prices right now, sure we have a big production, but if we were exporting to China the whole time, our production wouldn't be actually that big of a problem. It would be quite taken care of. So a lot of it still ties back to the root cause of policy, but some of the key risks that it's driving our stuff. You know, I did not expect fertiliser and equipment to have. Well, I guess equipment has a yo yo but fertiliser to Yo Yo, 50% of its base cost year to year, every three years. Right. And equipment to just be on a steady march the way it was and the way it has been. So yeah, I mean there's some new risks popping up and if you look at the root cause of it, it's a lot of it's tied to policy, tariffs and sanctions and finances, etc. I want to take the next few moments to call out another one of our sponsors, Maverick Ag. New look, new team, new location and new outlook on agriculture. We have spent the last six months adding key people and processes to the Maverick team so we can better support the industry in what we see as complex yet exciting times. Our core consultants are the best in their fields across accounting, business, banking, consulting and insurance. 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We don't consult on things we've not seen success on in our own operation or those operations that we work with. Let us steer the ship in the right direction. Along with these offerings we Also have other numerous technology negotiating, insurance and decision making products available. Visit maverickag.com for more details. Now back to the podcast. And I found those reassigned just profitability risks. Right. The logistical risks as well. So whether you're talking fertiliser, whatever it is. Yeah, let's, let's hold and see what the market does until a point where can we actually get it on farm anymore. Right. Like it's, you're finding those risks aren't just hitting the balance sheet of income statement anymore, they're actually hitting the operation side. And I mean even with equipment, right. If you're, you're running a two or three year old drill and you're looking to trade it, there's lots that won't kick them on trade anymore. So then all of a sudden it's an operational risk of well, are they going to end up like the 13 augers we have sitting out in the slough? Right. We're coming to those decisions now rather than just profitability. Right? Yeah. Okay. So coming from the retail side now, what do farms need to know about the retail side of the business? And I mean Christian, we've always talked about, we complain about for example the cost of things and then at the same time when the retailer, when an elevator wants to deliver in minus 40, we're the first ones to push back or in the contract we were not taking it. So Ian, part of the retail side, where do you see the disconnect between farms? So I think part of the opportunity as a farmer to have a better relationship with your ag retail and it's been a few years since I worked in a retail but who say that you all in any relationship and retail is no different. You need to create a mutual win for your business. Right. So there needs to be communication back and forth between you and your retail and communication doesn't look like what's your price of n You know, communication is here's my plan, here's my acres, here's what I need to do and here's when I need to do it. And so I think my feedback to a farmer who wants a more an improved relationship at retail is preplan communicate in advance. Make sure they understand your needs and when you need them and when you need them by and you have a much greater chance than of getting what you need when you need it and being the first person they think of. If there's a shortage of something, they can be proactive with you, they can help you, they can support you, they can provide better solutions for you. But you have to own your part in that. And your part in that isn't just picking up the phone and asking for a price when you feel like it. On the flip side of that, from a retail perspective, there's a couple things. One I would just say is, in any, like, retail and egg manufacturer, don't underestimate the power of simplicity. Be less complicated, be easier to do business with. And we say that like that's an easy thing to say. I'm not the only one who said we want to be easy to do business with. It's harder to do than it is, than it is to say. So think about no difference in the conversation we had a few minutes ago. What's important to you that day might not be important to your customers. So make sure that you have an understanding of where they're at. And I'm a boring salesperson, so I love selling and I love sales. And I would just say if I was in retail today, I would not be overlooking the full sales process. So if the only phone call you're getting from your customer is, what's your price on N? And your only reaction is, my price is X, there's a whole conversation that could have happened there where both of you could have learned something from each other and you could have maybe had a foundation of a better business relationship moving down the road. But too often, I think, you know, you get caught up in what the question was and you answer the question and you move on and you miss the opportunity. Well, I think shoddy, I can't remember, I read too many books. But Thriving on Chaos, I'm pretty sure, is the book where it says, go to the people that you're in partnerships with and instead of making it specifically about yourself, just say, what are the top three things your favourite customers do? Right. And then what are the. What are the top three things your worst customers do? Right. And if you think about that as an operation, if you go to your retail or go to your grain buyer, that's going to have them tell you, you know, so grain buyers we've met with, right, they deliver the contracts on time, they put in targets, and there might be reasons you don't do that, Right. What do they don't do? Well, the minute it snows, they won't start their truck. Well, so if I was willing to haul when it snowed, would you give me my own lane? Like, magically? If you start doing the things that they find is an issue, that's when you can ask for favours back, Right. And I think, I'm sure it's thriving on chaos that gives. One of the main points of the book is try to understand the other side of the situation. And obviously if you can find a win, win something that helps them, they're more likely to help you. And I think it works good with all areas of the business. Your retail, your grain supplier, your parts supplier, all of them, if you can have a better understanding of what they're trying to go. We underestimate communication, right? Like, I just think in general in our, in our farm, in our business, and anywhere we underestimate the value of communication if we're not communicating with each other as partners, that, you know, maybe there's two dealerships that you work with or, you know, everybody's usually got two or three, so they have choice. And so make sure you understand what's important to those two or three. And if you're one of the three, understand if you're number three, how do you get to be number two? And if you're number two, how do you get to be number one? Right. Like, those are questions everybody wants to answer. I don't think we forget about it, right? This is a business. This is, we, we get so hooked on the lifestyle that those kind of discussions and those kind of relationships, to be fair, in networks and that side of the business gets forgotten. And I mean, he can back me up on this. Our business is based on those. Like, if you want to, if you want to talk about strategy, it's not that we grow more grading than any other farm. We don't grow better grain than any other farm, but we do manage the relationships and networks that we have better than most. Yeah, it's part of, it's. But once again, it's building your team out so you have time to work on your business. Right. And then I also think when you delegate to your team, it's not just tasks, it's also relationships, right. It shows how much you trust them. And so who's going to deal with the local person, who's going to deal with the regional rep, who's going to deal with the country rep, right. Like, I think it's an important part of the trust build too, within your team. I'm always surprised. I was having a conversation the other day and I was helping a business do something and the question was, well, I don't know that about that customer. And it was like, well, why wouldn't you ask? Well, I don't want to ask them intrusive questions about their business and what I wanted to say is it's your job to ask. As a salesperson in retail or an egg camera or a grain buyer, it's your job to ask questions of those business because that's how you learn. If they don't want to answer, they'll tell you, but no different. As a farmer, it's your job to ask questions of them as well. And so I always joke when I was training young people, it's like she who asks the question controls the conversation. So make sure you understand what you want to learn from someone when you go into that business. Be prepared and vice versa. Because again, if the question is what's your price? And the answer is 500, then you've solved nothing. In grade nine, we learned really young. If you don't ask her on a date, the answer is already no. So you increase your odds by 50%. Wow. If I just ask mom 25 times, 25 different ways, eventually yes. Yeah, exactly. My odds actually increase every time I ask. No, you're right though, it's true. Right. But it's the minute in our society, the minute we think it might be a little bit awkward. No, there's a big difference between truth and awkward. Honesty and awkward. Right. And sometimes you just gotta have a few of those conversations to make them normal and then you'll, you'll never look back. Then they're not operating. It's like a long pause. The most powerful part of a conversation is saying nothing. If you can master that, you're into shame. Well, and the funny part is it's a change with the demographics. Right. Like where we're talking, being uncomfortable to ask them about farming. And if you ask the 60 or 65 year old farmer about his farm, you might as well sit down for two hours. You're locked in. Right. But I think that's a Changing demographic is the communication side has actually gotten considerably worse than it was a decade or two decades ago. Again, at least in my opinion. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Okay, let's. I got one more question before we get to closing the side, people. So now, now you're back full time. And this is going to be interesting because if, if I told Amy I was coming back to the house full time, she would tell me not to come back to the house full time. So how do we manage the fact that you are living on the farm together full time? You said church and state. But how do you actually do that on a daily basis without getting into a lot? That's a good question. So one thing I'm Working on our business is like establishing cadence. So I think one of the things we talked about is what are you bringing back corporately that you can apply to your farm? So we talked to farmer coach at one point about a multi year plan. So every, every corporate business likely has a multi year plan. Right. And probably not as many farms have an actual multi year plan that they've built and they've thought out and that they're going to stick to. And so one of the things I've been working on is like what does our multi year plan look like? What does that dashboard look like? A mechanism in which we can use to make decisions so that we don't get caught in the emotional fire of I want to do this or I want to do that read. And then when you have that plan built, your multi year plan, it really should just be does this decision grow my plan or stick my plan or if it doesn't impact the plan at all? And why are we doing, you know what I mean? Like there kind of needs to be that stop, start, go. And so we started to build like that cadence. When do we have these conversations? When do we work best together? It's not at 9 o' clock at night, you know, in the morning we have a powwow of here's what, here's what, what I'm working on today, here's what you're working on today, here's the calendar, here's what we need to get the team together. And just, I'm really, we're just starting to like put process in place. Right. Instead of thriving in chaos, we're really just calendarizing our life of on this day we do these things and on this day we do these things. And this is what's important for this month. Reviewing our monthly, like what grain goes out this month, what's our cash flow requirement? You know, what do we, what does the business need from us over the next 30 to 60 days? And do we have all the, do we have everything in place to do that? So that's like the business side of how we're doing it. The personal side, we're growing and we're learning and we don't have it. Right. Right. Even some days just like, man, you're tripping over each other today. So one of us needs to go find something to do that's not in this space. For example, my office is in our house and Chad's office is in the shop. By design, they are across the yard if we need to talk. He actually said to me the other day, he's like, you can just teams me if you need to talk to me. I don't need to be in this office with you today. And that was. I was like, oh, Jeeves, that's okay. Right on. Let's do that. I'm familiar with that, but it was just like a. We're used to working independently, and so we have to be respectful of that. But what are the things we need to do to come together and better communication on? Like, today I'm working for Counter Farms and I have these things to do and. Or tomorrow I have another project that I'm working on and just making sure that we're communicating that well. And I asked the question for a reason, because when I do the workshops, everybody expects to finish a Pharmaco torch up and have a business plan or something they can take back and put on the shelf. And it's like, guys, that. That's not what we're selling. It's literally based on what's your tenure, what's your three year, what's your what, what's your case, what's your communication like? There. There is no book that's going to solve this for you. It's literally a set of principles and processes that you put in place that you can do time and time and time again and stick to it. And it's just funny how many people just want that book to say, okay, here's my business plan. I wrote it out, I'm done. It's like, this is not that. This is a lifetime. And then by the time you think you're done, you got kids coming back, you start again. Like, it's. It's an interesting evolution. You have to evolve. And your business plan evolves every 30 days or every time some new policy come down that, that we don't control, or like they're. It's constant. It's like your mantra. Every morning you open it up and say, okay, what happened overnight that's going to impact my business today? Nothing. Great. Proceed as planned. Something. Okay, what do we do about it? And if you don't build it yourself and set it up to your cadence, then it doesn't turn into a habit. Right. A book business plan is probably going to get parked right beside most treadmills. Right. And they're not very useful if you don't use them. What do you learn for that show? I say a word. I never said a word. Yeah, so that's kind of how we're managing. Like I said, it's a learning process. For both of us, but it's been, it's been good. Like, I would say that both of us would look back and say we don't have any regrets. It's been, it's been a positive change. So not now. We got a chat on next week just to see if we catch the other side of this. We are almost at the hour. So, Abel, I don't want to take up too much of your time today, but thank you for joining us and peace. Thanks for taking time out of your busy, busy schedule here because I know it's snowed at the farm and you're probably doing absolutely nothing today. Right? Well, that's what the world wants to think anyway. Yeah. All right, so this is the Truth. About Egg, powered by Hebrew Group and. Real Egg Media Network. Remember to like, share, subscribe, comment, and that's the Truth about Ag. Thanks for joining us. The Truth About Ag podcast is a proud member of the Heber Group, which includes Heber Grain Ventures, Maverick Ag and Farmer Coach. We appreciate the support. Lastly, please, like, comment, share, subscribe and ring the bell. And if you have questions for a future podcast, please leave in the comments below. Thanks for listening.