Barn Talk

Garth Gatson is 33 years old and doesn’t own an acre of ground. He raises cattle for a living anyway, on his family’s place in Missouri, buying heifer calves and selling them as pairs into the biggest cattle market anybody alive has ever seen. And this summer, while walking his pastures, he wrote the book on how we got here. It’s called Abel’s Rally, it’s named after the first stockman in the Bible, and it took him about 100 days from idea to Amazon.

ABEL’S RALLY ➱ Search “Abel’s Rally” on Amazon. It’s A-B-E-L, E before the L. Leave him a review, there are two on there right now and our audience can fix that today.

We got into why cattle tripled and why that didn’t make every rancher rich. Garth’s argument is that cows worth twice as much is equity, and equity doesn’t pay the light bill, the sale barn check does. He walked us through the cycle from the 2014 crash to the 2025 run, when feeder steers went up $3 a day for almost 300 days, $800 a head without gaining a pound. He says this country is losing 3 acres of pasture every minute, and he triple checked the math.

Then we got into how he thinks. His mission statement is conscientiously creating and capturing value in cattle, and his line is that creating value without capturing it is charity, and capturing it without creating any is fraud. He writes an annual letter for his cattle business like Warren Buffett, he defines enough as a speed instead of a point, and he doesn’t use AI at all, because Johnny Cash and John Henry already explained what happens when something has all the power and none of the soul.

Also in this one: screwworm and why the border closed, the Cain and Abel feud that’s still going between farmers and ranchers, burning tallgrass prairie at K-State, his summer at Rock Hills Ranch, the compound interest math on growing a herd, what he wants his four kids to inherit that isn’t land, and his advice for the 25 year old with no ground who wants in.

CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome and harvest wrap
2:56 Thanking the truckers who saved harvest
6:55 Why Tork spilled so much corn
9:34 Meet Garth Gatson
12:13 Why the book is called Abel's Rally
13:19 How the cattle cycle works
20:27 Why prices got this high
26:28 Screwworm and the Mexican border
29:04 Where are we in the cycle
34:50 Who won the most this cycle
39:26 How Garth got started in cattle
47:04 Why you can't count on 20 percent every year
49:39 Staying flexible without spreading too thin
55:01 Creating value and capturing value
1:00:46 Cash flow, scale, and why ranches run out of money
1:04:32 Work, life, and when a man loves a farm
1:18:14 Compound interest on the farm
1:27:52 How Garth learns
1:32:44 The annual letter
1:38:23 Writing a book in 100 days
1:54:20 Who the book is for
1:58:51 Selling steers two days after the peak
2:00:41 Cattle worth more than nickels
2:06:13 Garth's mission statement and what is enough
2:13:51 Raising kids and what to pass down
2:21:57 Advice for young cattle producers
2:26:49 Tip of the Hat: the local sale barn
2:31:44 Where to find Garth

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#EP224
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Dale Earnhardt Jr. liked Christian Koch's grandpa's no-sugar beef jerky so much he bought into the company. Grandpa never wanted to sell it, so Christian found the recipe in his mom's family cookbook and built the business himself, from a 12 tray dehydrator to 210 convenience stores.

Christian chased music for 13 or 14 years before it ended. Getting USDA approved took 17 months, and his first food safety plan was a PowerPoint. At his first farmers market he brought 50 bags that took 3 weeks to make and sold out, and 9 out of 10 people who tried it bought it. When Dale talked it up on his podcast, close to 1,000 orders hit a guy who could make 25 bags a week. It took 3 or 4 months to fill them, and Christian called almost every customer himself.

Then we got into what farm kids hear all the time: you had a head start. His dad, his brother and Dale are all partners, and Christian doesn't dodge it. He says the help is real and the goal is to turn around and help the next person start a business. We also got into why there's no work-life balance when you're building something, and what he learned from a dad who left Hollywood and never worked for anyone again.

Also in this one: the new barn studio, why big jerky brands load the bag with sugar, the 90s comedy act with the same name and the call from their manager, pitching Dale when he barely looked at the numbers, a co-packer in Chattanooga, and new flavors with Grandpa this Thanksgiving.

"Don't be afraid to fail. You have to put yourself out there. If you don't, you'll never see that one win."

What family recipe in your house should be for sale? Drop it in the comments and we read them.

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 New barn studio, couch and all

04:16 Catch us in Kearney and Las Vegas

05:57 Grandpa's jerky came in the mail

07:50 No sugar, and why big brands add it

09:48 How jerky took over the gas station

11:11 Fake meat blew up in their face

12:53 The day music ended and jerky started

16:20 Bad at being an employee

17:09 Jim's Jerky in Mom's cookbook

18:15 Same name as the prank call guys

21:41 Chasing music from age 12

25:30 Nashville at 19, back in 2017

27:24 What music taught him about business

28:48 The USDA nightmare begins

32:58 His food safety plan was a PowerPoint

34:20 17 months of rent and zero sales

36:05 Working 8 farmers markets a week

37:50 9 out of 10 who tried it bought it

38:54 No blueprint, so pick up the phone

41:31 25 bags a week on a 12 tray dehydrator

42:47 How the jerky got to Dale Jr

43:50 1,000 orders he couldn't fill

46:15 Pitching Dale with no numbers

48:59 How Blake knew Dale from NASCAR

49:59 Telling Grandpa about Dale Jr

51:43 Scaling 3 pounds of beef to 3,000

53:39 Learning to manage people

55:30 Is it easier to start a business now?

58:57 Four partners, one day-to-day guy

1:00:29 You had a head start

1:04:28 Makers and takers

1:07:00 No balance when you're building

1:10:11 210 Refuel stores and a co-packer

1:12:15 New flavors with Grandpa

1:14:01 Dale's late model and Amazon Prime

1:18:43 What he's building it for

1:19:47 Advice to 19 year old Christian

1:20:34 What Dad learned leaving Hollywood

1:24:09 Tip of the Hat

1:25:17 Where to find Jerky Boys

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-------------------------------

⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠

Barn Talk is for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, with no warranty of accuracy or completeness. Nothing here is financial, investment, or trading advice, and none of it is specific to you. Do your own due diligence and consult a licensed professional before making any financial decision. Trading stocks, crypto, and NFTs carries real risk and is not suitable for everyone. You use this information at your own risk.

#EP223
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Neil Koch walked away from a good job 4 miles from his house at almost 50 to go full time on YouTube. His channel, Dig Drive DIY, sits at 348,000 subscribers, and it started with videos of a backhoe he was trying to sell on Craigslist. He drove 6 hours from northeast Indiana to tell us the whole story.

DIG DRIVE DIY ➱ https://www.youtube.com/@digdrivediy

Neil was a farmhand at 14 on a culti-mulcher, then worked weekends on a 700 sow farrow to feeder operation. After that came three 10 year careers. He ran heavy equipment out of high school, spent about 10 years fitting some of the first hydraulic auto steer systems on tractors, then 10 more as an agronomist.

Years later, a clip of his buddy Jack side loading a dozer racked up 7 or 8 million views and had him monetized before he ever made a video on purpose. He has now posted 250 or 260 Sunday videos in a row without missing one.

Then we got into why people actually watch. Neil says it’s a look at rural, blue collar, middle class life that mainstream TV quit showing, and foreign viewers tell him all the time they’re glad this America still exists. We also got into the hard parts: young people with no house to get started in, farmhouses getting leveled when ground sells, and 10 bad comments that outweigh 1,000 good ones.

Also in this one: the backyard swimming pond that hit trending, why he heats with firewood when he has propane, small towns getting coffee shops and butcher shops back, a professor pitching Google in 1999, what he tells his 15 year old daughters, and running a John Deere scraper again after 20 years.

“I finally decided I’m going to be an idiot if I don’t. Like, what am I waiting on?”

What’s the project you’d buy a backhoe for? Drop it in the comments and we read them.

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THIS EPISODE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

● Iowa Corn ➱ https://www.iowacorn.org

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Hog sheds gone after 138 haul truck loads

03:44 Remembering Jonesy, trucker extraordinaire

05:16 Who Neil Koch is and why he drove 6 hours

08:09 Farmhand at 14 on a culti-mulcher

10:07 Weekends on a 700 sow farrow to feeder farm

11:45 No Google, no YouTube, just figure it out

14:07 Why kids are afraid to drive now

16:19 Dirt work in summer, hauling milk in winter

20:29 FFA kid, drummer, no idea what was next

22:38 Iowa Corn and the Farm Bill fight

23:45 A teaching degree he never used

28:33 Vinyl graphics and the first websites

31:18 Fitting the first hydraulic auto steer

34:00 Learning agronomy from scratch

37:35 She called him out of the blue

40:23 The kid who always had a camcorder

42:45 A phone video with 7 or 8 million views

44:21 Monetized before he ever tried

47:51 Why vinyl and VHS are cool again

55:24 Everybody ate fried bologna

59:05 348,000 subscribers and going full time

1:02:49 Buying a bulldozer for the channel

1:05:39 The backyard pond that hit trending

1:08:24 Walking away at almost 50 to bet on himself

1:11:24 Why people say this America still exists

1:17:29 No houses left for kids to start in

1:21:23 Small towns are getting their shops back

1:23:39 Who’s left to wire an outlet?

1:28:48 I live in New York but want a dump truck

1:33:52 Why he still heats with firewood

1:36:08 10 bad comments beat 1,000 good ones

1:37:36 He hit 100,000 and found no finish line

1:42:47 Ambition is a blessing and a curse

1:48:22 What he’s teaching his daughters

1:51:13 Advice to 20 year old Neil

1:54:24 Tip of the Hat



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⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠

Barn Talk is for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, with no warranty of accuracy or completeness. Nothing here is financial, investment, or trading advice, and none of it is specific to you. Do your own due diligence and consult a licensed professional before making any financial decision. Trading stocks, crypto, and NFTs carries real risk and is not suitable for everyone. You use this information at your own risk.

#IowaCorn

#EP222
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Corn is over $5 and beans are near $13, and a lot of farmers still won't make any more money than they did at $4.50 corn. Every time the grain price goes up, something takes it back, and the front half of this Hot Topics episode is about what's doing the taking.

Diesel is $6.13 in Iowa. One Illinois farmer spent $1,000 filling a single semi. Anhydrous is close to $1,000 a ton, up 25% from a year ago. Refineries over there are putting out about 60% of the diesel they did before the Iran war, so more oil doesn't mean cheaper diesel. The White House is letting dyed diesel run on the road for the rest of the year with the federal tax deferred, about $640 million of relief by USDA's count. Deferred, not forgiven.

Then the bigger point. Farming spent decades specializing, and that bill is coming due. We don't think 10,000 acres is big enough to win on scale anymore, and at that size you're a CEO, not a farmer. For everybody else the answer is diversity: livestock back on the ground, manure in place of high priced nitrogen, shared equipment. And China cut tariffs on corn, wheat, meat and dairy but kept 10% on soybeans, so bean marketing is about politics now, with Brazil getting better every year.

Also in this one: 17,000 fewer cattle through the packing plants in one week, why immigration reform keeps dying with no middle left in politics, a Kentucky family turning down $26 million for 900 acres, 70 to 80 trucks showing up to pull a sick neighbor's beets, and a 2,598 pound pumpkin.

Maybe that's why we don't just grow corn and soybeans on every acre. Maybe we need to diversify.

What's taking the $5 back on your operation this fall? Drop it in the comments and we read them.

JOIN THE BARN TALK NEWSLETTER & GET LIVE EVENT ACCESS: We're on a mission to get 10,000 subscribers, and once we do, we're hosting a live event at the barn! Sign up to get exclusive access to tickets and details.👇🏻

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THIS EPISODE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

● Conterra Ag ➱ https://www.conterraag.com

● AcreEdge Soil NXT ➱ https://www.acreedge.com

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Hot Topics before the pigs get chored

02:35 Why Tork came in fiery this morning

05:25 Tearing out Grandpa's 1970s hog barns

08:16 Market Update presented by Conterra Ag

10:30 $5 corn that pays no better than $4.50

11:28 The red diesel order and $640 million

14:46 Presented by AcreEdge Soil NXT

15:25 Diesel hauls everything you buy

18:43 We've hit the end of specialization

19:27 10,000 acres doesn't catch it anymore

21:43 Put livestock back on the land

23:02 No money behind you? Don't start in grain

23:34 The answer to high priced nitrogen

26:04 Red diesel vs green diesel, explained

29:31 Deferred, not forgiven. Who pays?

31:31 17,000 fewer cattle processed in a week

33:54 Why ag needs immigration reform

36:32 The death of the middle in politics

41:56 Packing plants were always the starter job

44:50 The post World War II order is ending

51:43 Why we want Peter Zeihan at the barn

52:55 China cut tariffs on everything but beans

54:05 Bean marketing is about politics now

57:27 Why Brazil worries every young farmer

1:00:20 100 year old locks and dams

1:02:44 Data centers are coming for farmland

1:04:40 $26 million for 900 acres, and they said no

1:08:59 Why Tork says they get built anyway

1:10:39 Great Grandpa would call me an idiot

1:15:56 Take the principles, not the assets

1:16:34 The good: College GameDay in Iowa City

1:17:52 70 to 80 trucks show up for Bill Cotton

1:18:41 The 2,598 pound pumpkin

1:23:09 Big plans for 2027

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● Tork's X ➱ https://x.com/TorkWhisler

-------------------------------

⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠

Barn Talk is for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, with no warranty of accuracy or completeness. Nothing here is financial, investment, or trading advice, and none of it is specific to you. Do your own due diligence and consult a licensed professional before making any financial decision. Trading stocks, crypto, and NFTs carries real risk and is not suitable for everyone. You use this information at your own risk.

#ConterraAg #Landus #EP221
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You can't out-yield your way to profit anymore, so Will Cannon is chasing margin with 2 or 3 bucks an acre of homemade compost instead of $40 an acre of bugs in a jug. Two Iowa corn farmers came to the barn this week: Will, an Iowa Corn Growers director from near Prairie City, and Paul Gieselman, president of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board, from near Morning Sun.

Will has run cover crops on 100 percent of his acres for about 18 years. He has seen 0 to 10 bushels back from his compost, and 50 on one tough spot. Paul got out of hogs in 1998, farmed on his dad's money for 10 years, and went out on his own in 2008. Today he runs just under 1,000 acres and 25 British White Park cows. And Japan is now the number 2 buyer of American corn, behind only Mexico.

Then Paul said the hard part out loud. He has watched a lot of his equity drain away, and if either of his boys came home today there would not be room for them. He doesn't figure he'll be the one doing the consolidating. He figures he's the one getting consolidated. Will sees the other side: the biggest handoff of farm assets in peacetime history, and real opportunity 5 to 7 years out for young guys who stay patient.

Also in this one: the wettest fall either of them can remember, why cattle belong back on row crop ground, the USDA fertilizer hearing in Ogden, E15 in NASCAR, Brazil's 90 million acres it hasn't farmed yet, and what the checkoff actually pays for.

Put it on just enough acres that it's a little painful, so you pay attention to it, but not so many it hurts you long term.

What are you trying on 40 or 80 acres next year? Drop it in the comments and we read them.

JOIN THE BARN TALK NEWSLETTER & GET LIVE EVENT ACCESS: We're on a mission to get 10,000 subscribers, and once we do, we're hosting a live event at the barn! Sign up to get exclusive access to tickets and details.👇🏻

Help us get there: https://www.joinbarntalk.com

THIS EPISODE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

● Iowa Corn ➱ https://www.iowacorn.org

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Two guests and a harvest stuck in the rain

05:02 Out of hogs in 1998, farming on Dad's money

06:19 2008, buying the gear and going out alone

10:53 Why he runs British White Park cattle

13:18 A teacher's son goes full time farming

14:25 The bachelor farmer who handed over his acres

19:12 See us at Gateway Farm Expo and HayCon

20:58 A homemade strip-till bar for a couple grand

24:08 No paid-off land, but no ghosts either

27:01 Try it on enough acres that it hurts a little

29:34 You can't out-yield your way to profit

34:01 Do cover crops actually pay?

39:34 The resident hippie's homemade compost tea

41:57 $3 an acre vs $40 of bugs in a jug

45:25 Putting cattle back on row crop ground

48:23 $4.75 a day for hay out west vs stalks here

53:53 Stuck in the first 2 acres of harvest

58:22 How two farmers ended up on the Corn boards

1:03:13 Checkoff vs Corn Growers, who does what

1:05:53 Ethanol was Granddad's, bio-based is yours

1:08:20 Did the ethanol boom encourage bad habits?

1:11:10 Japan is now our number 2 corn buyer

1:14:43 Why buyers in Asia want to meet the farmer

1:22:12 NASCAR, E15, and the Cy-Hawk game

1:27:47 Mexico's GMO fight began in his machine shed

1:34:26 Most farmers just haven't been asked

1:36:24 Corn Growers is like going to church

1:40:28 Equity draining and no room for the kids

1:44:59 Fertilizer, the DOJ, and phosphate duties

1:48:13 Biggest farm wealth handoff in peacetime

1:50:00 What farmers want vs what they need

1:54:29 Brazil's 90 million acres it hasn't farmed

2:00:46 Tip of the Hat

2:05:58 How to join Iowa Corn

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FOLLOW BEHIND THE SCENES 👇🏻

● Barn Talk Instagram ➱ https://www.instagram.com/barntalkshow

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● Sawyer's Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4

● Tork's Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS

● Sawyer's X ➱ https://x.com/SawyerWhisler

● Tork's X ➱ https://x.com/TorkWhisler

-------------------------------

⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠

Barn Talk is for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, with no warranty of accuracy or completeness. Nothing here is financial, investment, or trading advice, and none of it is specific to you. Do your own due diligence and consult a licensed professional before making any financial decision. Trading stocks, crypto, and NFTs carries real risk and is not suitable for everyone. You use this information at your own risk.

#BarnTalk #CoverCrops

#IowaCorn

#EP220
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