Billy Rose

A lot easier to try new things when corn's at $6, okay? Now I'm third generation, you know, I'm working with dad, Gramps is in town, there's a lot of pressure on me to perform. And I want to perform, and I have to perform. So when we look at the sub-450 cash basis, it starts to go like these decisions really matter, and I don't want to be the generation that messed up.

So we're creating, and it's going to be released in 30 days, a side-by-side comparison where you can take the David Letterman top 10 and go, here's my favorite number, compare it to one of the top 10, and here's the key, I'm not, our good agronomy team is, explaining the why your number versus the David Letterman top 10 number One is better than the other. So that could be crop rotation.

That could be pH levels. That could be a lot of things going on. But we're going to try to help explain the why. And people don't do that.

And again, because of great feedback from our customers, they said, hey, I want to just compare my – what's your favorite brand? Well, we won't ask you that. All right. Let's just say brand A. No free ads. And then let's go – and then I look at this – David Letterman recommendation coming out of Acreshield. And I go, but I want to compare it to that.

So we actually allow now our users to compare one, two, to how many brands they want to compare. If they just want to work with those brands.

Yeah. But my hat's off to you. What we're just trying to do is be just – with that golf shirt, I've got to bring this golf analogy out. We want to be your caddy, okay? You never see a professional golfer without a caddy. Where's my caddy? Okay? It's right there. It is. It's right over there. Oh, we got a hat. Yeah, there you go.

And so that golfer, that professional golfer is relying on the caddy, but at the end of the day – He still grabs the club. He still hits the ball. The farmer, at the end of the day, is still calling the shots. He looks at the seed dealer. He looks at the agronomist. But at the end of the day, he's got to make the decision. And we're just trying to help assist make a better decision.

Yeah, the... kind of putting on our entrepreneur hat, okay? And when I look at farmers, I view them as all entrepreneurs. And it's not easy being an entrepreneur. It is very difficult. There are days where you just go, oh my God, I'm just gonna go work for the bank and work nine to five in the hell with this stress, right? Okay.

But over the years, we basically look for, obviously, people that have a solid education and the good moral people. But there's some other characteristics that rise to the top when it comes to the type of organization and the type of success that we're used to obtaining. Not without a few scars on our back. But if we were to just a real high level, energy. okay?

Confidence, resourcefulness, sensitivity, creativity, courage, and the last one that I put in here is tenacity, okay? Because there are days that, you know, you have to bite hard to get through it. And if we kind of look at energy, you know, at our company, we like to you know, we just love our energy.

We feed off of each other and that energy sets a high pace and that's how we stay ahead of the pack. When we look at confidence at the end of the day, you do have to pick a seed, okay? You could overanalyze and paralysis by analysis, okay? But you need to make a decision, all right? So you have to have that confidence.

Resourcefulness, you know, where are you going to touch into, you know, who can you trust, okay?

Oh, yeah. And one of my mentors of my life who recently passed away, he was phenomenal. He would say, you must have slipped on the ice and hit your head, Billy, because you don't understand what the hell I'm trying to tell you. Okay? Read the damn contract. It's the written words that matter, right? Some certain things over the years that I've learned from him that I don't forget. Sensitivity.

Yeah, this is... I learned this from a really great HR executive that worked for me for years, and she could take a two-by-four and crack someone over the head, at the same time deal with a very difficult personal situation. And I learned from her about sensitivity. When people walk in...

In that initial meeting when you guys met this morning and maybe you talked a little about what went on last night, you need a little of that five minutes of coffee can talk. Then it's back to business. I don't expect to talk about that the rest of the day, but at least you have to be sensitive to what's going on with your team.

Creativity. He should have that on a t-shirt. There you go. I know, right? I like it. Creativity. We think that's one of our most unique attributes is, you know, how can we get creative? And I think that it's more understanding what the problem is and getting creative to solve a problem.

And then all of a sudden. It's a good watch.

It's why I still have the Google Android platform. I think their mapping program's the best. It's superior.

It was easy, a lot easier to try new things when corn's at $6. Okay. Now I'm third generation, you know, I'm working with dad, Gramps is in town. There's a lot of pressure on me to perform. And I want to perform and I have to perform. So when we look at the sub 450, okay, on a cash basis, it starts to go like these decisions really matter and I don't want to be the generation that messed up.

I actually feel extreme passion for the guys calling the shots right now. It's difficult times. And Brazil is looking great again. And we're not going to – I mean, this is just a way of life, this price. I think we have to accept that. And then we have to – that's that learning curve. You know, my –

My genie in the bottle that's going to pop up and give me $6, I'm not seeing genies show up for at least 18 months. And I don't predict grain prices. So I need to change and I need to get greater yields at lower cost. And one of the things that we've been hearing from the AcreShield customer base is that they are looking at that David Letterman top 10. And they're saying, you know what?

If I do believe this, and it looks like I should believe this, I could save $50 a bag by going over to that brand. So my ROI, hmm, this is a little interesting now because if I could say 50 bucks a bag and I'm still getting great yields, there's a better ROI and I can work my way towards breakeven and profitability. So that's kind of what I'm- That's tough for me though.

Yeah. We guarantee $100 an acre performance guarantee that you utilize our AcreShield AI Smarter Seed Intelligence. And if it does not work, we write you a check for up to $100 an acre.

We're not providing pricing transparency. That's still the job of the farmer to go out and haggle the best deal he wants with the brands that he trusts and with the reps that he likes. Okay? There's a lot of emotion into seed. That's what makes... We're trying to...

We're actually trying to remove some of the emotion and just look at accurate, transparent data that is based on your soil type, your relative maturity, and weather pattern. And then go into the, we'll call it the financial haggle. Does that work for you?

But there is something, you know, if we ever see the farm bill, there is an initiative to have the seed manufacturers disclose the traits.

Now this is a game changer too, right? I don't know if it's going to pass. But if I put my farming cap on, I'd like to know that that one is $50 more than the other one, but it has the same seed traits. And I'm looking at AcreShield, and they're both performing pretty good. I know where my pick's going.

Nope. It's built in there somewhere.

I like to still look at it. It's your farm. It's your legacy. So protect it. And if that means I have to haggle a little more this year because of, unfortunately, these prices, I have to do that. Because at the end of the day, I have a lot. Some guys are running three or four families on their back. Yeah. That's not an easy day. I mean, you're under a microscope by the family.

In fact, I have a gal, Trish, her family has a big farm and she's a doctor in Des Moines and she goes up to have the family meeting, right? And I said, you need to go a little lighter, Trish, on them. Things are a little different from the last time you were up there. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, we have the interest rates that we're not going to say they're 80s, okay, double digit 20, but they're not cheap at talking eight, nine.

All right. So there's a couple of factors working. So I say to you guys, what's a guy to do then? Yeah. Okay. My breakeven is X. Okay. Do I spend more money to try to get increased yields? Do I just try to cut costs and take reduced yields? Yeah. You know, I have some opinions on this, but I'm curious about yours.

It was warm and no snow. It was pretty hot. This is a fantastic studio, guys. Yes. So, yes, Billy Rose is back. Welcome. Welcome. It's my pleasure. Corey, I love the shirt. I'm thinking about golf, though, and that golf simulator around the corner, we may have to hit a few.

Yeah. I do think you, you, you mentioned fractional CFO. Yeah. Okay. No plug here, but I do work with uncommon farms and they do a hell of a job when it comes to getting guys break even out of a shoe box of receipts to at least know what the hell their break even is. Okay. So now I know what my bogey is. That's another show I can put in the show notes because I did that segment too. Yeah.

So I'm a big fan of that. But at the same time, you have to look at what you're good at, maybe not necessarily what you like.

Because if you're better at grain marketing, then you better take control of that revenue line and let someone else play in the dirt. Yeah. And that's where the teamwork comes within your organization. Yeah. Yeah.

And the only way you're going to do that is have at least once a year write the plan down, okay, so that you know if it hits that number, you're going to move 25% of that grain's gone. And the law of the average is, you know, because... My bigger mission that I've always been on with crop insurance is you should be forward selling that grain, not speculative.

Just go up to your 85% or whatever level you buy. And take that money in small little chunks, to Tanner's point, small changes but small chunks so that you can average out. Now, certain guys will wait two years. I know guys that are sitting on two to three years worth of grain right now. It's scaring me. How do they feel? They're not feeling good. No, they can't.

When you actually put the carry cost and the bin cost, it adds up. But they hit it big the other way probably, so they're just telling you about that. I'm not going to tell anyone how to manage their farm, that's for sure. But you talk about... important traits, I think it's really key that you have a positive outlook.

And Tanner, you and I were talking a little this morning about Warren Buffett's partner, Charlie Munger, okay? Charlie recently died, okay? One of the wealthiest men in the world. I wanna just read something that I never knew about Charlie Munger. At 31, Charlie had lost his son, his wife, and his fortune, okay? And he had one incredibly simple idea change his life forever.

As a young man, Charlie appeared to have it all. He graduated from Harvard. He had a very sharp intellect and quick wit. He had earned widespread respect in his field. Personally, he was a devoted husband and father, growing a family and building a future. However, devastating events dramatically changed the course of his life. Charlie's marriage ended in divorce.

He lost the custody of his children shortly after his nine-year-old boy, Teddy, was diagnosed with leukemia and died. At the same time, a speculative real estate investment failed, leaving Charlie financially ruined at age 31. Around the same time, he had a routine eye operation, which was botched, and he lost his eye, his left eye. So at 31, Charlie had lost everything.

his family, his fortune, and his direction. But he refused to let tragedy define him. Life will have terrible blows, horrible blows, unfair blows. It doesn't matter, he said. His idea was to adopt a positive outlook, refusing to be a victim.

Determined to rebuild his professional life, Charlie immensed himself in the study of investing, focusing on simplicity, long-term growth, high-quality companies. He also began to reform his personal life. He remarried, started a new family, finding joy, renewed purpose, and a second chance as it happens. By the 70s, Charlie hooked up and partnered with Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway.

Together, they created a global powerhouse. emphasizing discipline and patience in investing. Today, Berkshire is worth over $1 trillion. Before his death, Charlie argued that none of this would have been possible if he hadn't adopted a positive outlook. Feeling like a victim is a perfectly disastrous way to go through life. I am not a victim. I am a survivor. What a story. I never knew that.

Did you? No. Yeah. That's amazing. You just assumed he was like, you know, golden child, Harvard grad, and life was good. I thought he started wealthy. Yeah, right? Well, I mean, at 31. Donald Trump, right, started to give $30 million to start?

Maybe a little leveraged. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

There's lots of people that have done that. Yeah, well, and I'll be the first to tell you. I had three kids, three young boys. I actually was 33 years old. I had built a food company. I took it public. We were flying high. We overexpanded like crazy, okay? And I went home one day with my desk chair, okay, with no job. And, you know, I had a real talking to myself.

And it was like I called up my mentor. And I said, Richard, you know, here's my situation. And he's like, well, you know, pressure makes two things. Diamonds or coal. Yeah. And you're a diamond, Billy. So get after it and stop it. Go build.

Yeah, I appreciate it. And again, it's an honor to be here, guys. As we look at how can we help our farming friends, I'm a kid from Dyersville, Iowa. And at the end of the day, we love what we do. But in order to protect what we do, we need to make a little money. And these commodity prices, I mean, I never thought I'd be cheering $10 soybean, but I did cheer $10 soybean this week.

No, coal's not that bad.

But, you know, those are some of those learning reflections, you know, because you had to have that resourcefulness, that confidence, the tenacity to go, you know, going from flying high to zero to rebuilding again. Now, since then, we've built, you know, an ag bank, two crop insurance companies. We've been fortunate that we were acquired by Farm Bureau Mutual, acquired by DTN.

And that's where my passion comes about. How can we help our farming friends? What can we do for you to solve a big problem?

I actually feel extreme passion for the guys calling the shots right now. It's difficult times. And Brazil is looking great again. I mean, this is just a way of life, this price. I think we have to accept that.

I'm going to tell you right now, I'm no Charlie Munger, okay? But we still have a lot of pride. Well, yeah. How's that?

Yeah, so AcreShield, as you know, is about the smarter AI seed selection with protection. And as we've talked to our farming friends out there about other problems, it's like, I need to grow my yield by a lot. Not what I did the last 10 years. I need to improve that average. So we've worked with, and I take no credit here, our team has worked with the best agronomists out there.

And we've run now, this is our second year of field trials, using a proprietary blend of feeding the plant throughout its growth stage. Now, remember, I can't spell agronomy, but I can explain what our program is. It's a multi-pass of fungicide along with the biological, along with the micronutrients, all the foyers, and developing where we're going to feed that plant.

And we are seeing 30 to 40 bushel pickup versus the untreated field. Now, we're doing 10 acre- Which is crazy. Yeah, it's crazy, right? But my question, Corey, is like, yeah, but what does that cost me, right? Yeah. We, our program, and this is a program now that we've signed up hundreds of thousands of acres with.

This program is we set aside four check block fields, one treated, okay, with our program and one untreated. And our guarantee to you is that the delta, the difference between the treated field, okay, versus the untreated field on corn will be 25 bushels or greater and on soybeans, nine bushels or greater. interest-free to spend $100 to $125 more. So wait a second. That's a big ask.

I'm already losing money and you want me to spend more money. But when you plug the ROI on this, and you get 30 bushels at 450, okay, you're looking at a 40% ROI. Now, if you fall below that 25 bushels that we're guaranteeing, we step in and we write you a check. So we're trying to de-risk a transition to a multi-pass fungicide and biological and growth stimulants. Think Barry Bonds, okay?

You know, these are the steroids that are- Mark McGuire. Mark McGuire. Lance Armstrong. Yeah. But these are legal, okay? All right. And everything is EPA approved. So I'm very bullish on this. The reaction by our farming friends has been very positive. It's like, all right. In fact, some have said, would you do the check block fields on my particular field? So we pick a field together.

And we're going to go 10 acres of untreated and 120-foot buffer and 10 acres of treated. Okay, we use Ag MRI. We fly over the fields. We put tissue samples. We really want to make sure that we have a good comparison. So you're doing that? Oh, yeah. That's not a farmer cost. No, we do that. Yeah, we cover that cost. Good point.

And 450 corn is starting to look a little better. And now that we broke $10 on the soybeans, there's hope, but we need, it's a long way. And when you really think about it, A lot of guys are looking at break-even as a good goal, and yet we want to protect our lifestyle, and that means we need to make some money, right, Jeff? Yeah.

We share that information back to our farmer because at the end of the day, we want all of his enrolled acres to exceed this delta. And that generates that positive ROI. This has never been done before. I had to take this to our worldwide reinsurers from London markets to Bermuda to New York City. I've been on the road nonstop for the last two months.

They're very optimistic because they look at the data. So what we do is we do a risk assessment of all those products, all of our C-trial fields. And we create this Monte Carlo simulation, runs one in 10,000. And we've actually, just looking at the data unemotionally, we've now vetted out that we're very confident that that delta, that guarantee, you're going to get it.

And when I put my farming hat on, so I spent $100 to $125. You gave me 0%. I followed the rules of the road. And I picked up 30 bushels? Hell yeah, man. Sign me up. So this is exciting for us. And it's a new program. You can go to Acreshield, fill out the form, or call us. We actually have an 800 number where people answer. How's that for a change? I like that. I do like that.

Even I might answer that phone.

Yeah. And again, it was all going back, sitting down with our farming friends, identifying a problem. And it's like, if I do what I've always done, I'm going to get the same yield and I'm going to lose money. So I need to mix it up. But I don't know what to try.

Along with the biologicals, the micronutrients.

No, we only did 50 fields last year. Okay.

You know, at the $100, we guarantee $100, you're spending $125. So there's $25 of what I call it. So there's a little risk. Little risk there.

Exactly. You know? Yeah. And we provide 0% convenient financing up to a million dollars. Okay? 24-hour turnaround on the approval. All right? So we're trying to help, again, on the interest rate, too.

So we're buying down the interest rate, full disclosure, so that we can provide- You don't get anything for free. Yeah, exactly. There's money there. Free lunch, okay? But we just feel that when you kind of look at our new North Star, Tanner, is that we want to bring in the biologicals, the micronutrients, and all these treated versus untreated and say, what does work?

And this particular cocktail, I call it, this Beetlejuice, it works under multiple weather environments. 2023 was really dry over in Illinois, almost drought. And I was wondering how the results were going to be. And it actually performed better, the Delta, in a stressed environment. So, you know, we're not perfect. No one is perfect.

The last guy that was perfect, they may be nailed to a cross, okay? So, yeah. But the beauty is you have the protection. If it doesn't work, we're going to write you a check.

Do you remember that tattoo regrets?

Yeah. We have a complete team behind us. Okay. We have everything from agronomist to data scientist to actuarial guys. Okay. This is where the real work gets done is by that team. My job is to sit there and go, here's our problems that we need to solve. Yeah. You know, we eat a lot of pizza and drink a lot of beer when we try to figure this stuff out.

And they usually tell me, you have a great, great problem. Your idea was not good, but we know how to do it for you, Bill. Sure.

And you know what? And I have those, I have an executive that was involved with that particular company at the time and they made it too complex. They didn't have the protocols in place. They didn't have a backbone processing system. We spent $10 million on our processing system just in order to measure good against bad, you know?

Yeah. He's buying the product. Why wouldn't he put it on? Right.

Yeah, so... 10,000 acres, we have four check block fields. We agree on where the fields are gonna be. We have these 10 to 40 acre check blocks. In each field is a treated and untreated. We're gonna measure the delta of that four times. So we agree on the four check block fields. Whatever that average of those four is for the delta, did it achieve 25 bushels or greater on the corn or was it less?

Then we, if it's less, we pay 450 a bushel, you know, times the enrolled acres, all right? All the enrolled acres, yeah.

But our job is to make sure that the enterprise, you know, is going to be successful. So if the guy's spending $100 to $125, he's going to use the products. He's going to apply at the right time. We're agronomists and we're flying over those fields. We're putting drones over those fields. People are walking the fields. We're trying to say at V3 to V5, you know, we need to hit the first shot. Okay.

At Tassel, we need to hit the last shot. Okay. Yep. So it is a partnership there. You want them to be successful.

Oh, yeah. So we ran 50 acres. check block fields last year. Okay. Not as robust as I would like. Okay. And basically, we took our seed trial fields and we put a buffer of 120 feet. We did untreated and treated. Okay. And then we compared all those results. But the beauty was we were doing all the actual CROs, the check block fields ourself. So we trusted the data source. We trusted the protocols.

We trusted the- Well, you must feel good about the data. Exactly. Then the data though, we go to our actuarial team and we give it to our data scientist. Okay. Then he builds out a risk model and then we'd run it through a Monte Carlo simulation, which goes back to some of those classes that we really didn't always go to it. Did you go to Iowa State? For a little bit. Yeah. I did. Didn't we all.

Yes. So what we do is we run it through this model, a Monte Carlo simulation that creates the standard deviation and the mean running at over 10,000 iterations. So we get a really good idea as to how many times this will work or not work. Yeah.

We've modeled. We're going to be paying. Oh, yeah. There's so many factors out of our control. Yeah. And that's where we work with our reinsurance partners. Okay.

Yeah, it is. And at the same time, we're not looking to make home runs. We're very happy with a smaller margin so that we could keep the cost of that performance guarantee embedded into that package reasonable. Okay? So what do you call this? We're calling it the Yield Optimizer Program today.

And so we're working with two agribusinesses that are out there selling it through their distribution networks. We've had great success so far. Predominantly, it's in the Illinois and surrounding state area. and we do have a limited capacity going back to reinsurance capacity. But we have a lot for this first year. So we'd like to write about up to a million acres.

And again, we're really excited then. We're going to have four check block fields per farmer, and all that data is going to come back in, and that adds to our data flywheel effect, right? So we'll be able to take that Monte Carlo model and make it even a lot better. Keep learning. Yeah.

You do. And we look at two different data sets. We look at your crop insurance data sets, and then we take the as-applied data. And we have a specialized team that cleans up the as-applied data. As you know, a lot of combines are not calibrated. There's a lot of glitches in some of the software. Some guys don't turn it on. But that's part of our responsibility is we want to help you get –

Yeah. I can only reflect a little on my friends and what we've done is we're always learning. And if you're going to do what you always have done, you're going to get the same result. And when you're below break-even... it's time to actually take a step back and go slow to go fast. That means you're going to have to change something up. It's like, how can I increase those yields over my APH?

data that you can trust.

It's very hard. And it's a lot of work. We have millions of dollars of specialized equipment. We have a whole team. We take our CRO applications very serious.

Yeah. Always go to our website, AcreShield or Optimal Ag Solutions, which is our parent company. We put a lot of thought into that name, Optimal Ag Solutions. We work with B2B ag retailers, ag manufacturers in developing customized, bespoke warranty solutions for ease of adoption with their products with the farmers. But we're going to be a farm con.

In fact, to take off this afternoon, might see you guys on the interstate heading the same direction down in Kansas City. Then we're going to the Row Crop Exchange January 20th through the 22nd in Cape Coral, Florida.

Yep. Yep. Then we're going to Uncommon Farms on the 23rd through the 25th at San Antonio, Texas. And then we'll be at Iowa Power, of course, Commodity Classic. Yeah, so you'll see us out there. Please stop by. We'd love to just meet, understand some of your challenges and see if we can help. Or if we can't help, at least we'll give you our advice to point you in a different direction.

That's great. Cool. I do want to say one other thing. You know, as we come into crop insurance season, right, that necessary evil that I have to go out there and go buy some crop insurance. Okay. I am a big fan of the crop insurance. I don't know if you guys remember the history. In 1981, the feds ran the crop insurance. It was $300 million program.

What do you think the size of the crop insurance program since it was privatized in 81 it is today?

Yeah, it's not quite that big, but it's $19 billion. So from $300 million, I'm talking premiums paid by farmers. It went up to that. It's really been a phenomenal program when you think of government programs. You've heard of FEMA, flood. It's a complete mess. And I don't see any hope for it. We're going to continue as American taxpayers to continue to fund that.

So the federal program, at least even though you and I are paying 54% subsidies to help our farming friends out with the cost of their premium, it is a program that is working. But you do have to make a decision by March 15th as to what your crop insurance is going to be. 90% of the farmers are buying a revenue protection RP policy at 80%, 85%. There's this gap between 85% and 100%.

And I want to talk about this gap real quick. This gap is really the difference between a profit and loss or maybe a loss and break even if I don't get up my yields over that APH. And so you have some choices out there. The government has a program called ECO, which is a county-based product, does pay six months after harvest, five to six months after.

It's based on the county average, not on your farm average, all right? It's kind of like going to Vegas and I'm going to bet on black and red, okay? Now, but it is subsidized by 65% this year. So it could be a good add-on on top of your RP. But what we're recommending is take a look at AcreShield because AcreShield, the county only goes to 95.

At the same time, how can I watch my cost? And there's so many choices out there. I mean, can you guys even keep track the amount of biological companies popping up? I've seen a web chart of them, and it is mind-blowing how many companies there are.

AcreShield goes to 100% APH, and it's based on your farm level, and we pay 45 days after harvest. So what I'm telling our farming friends is – Put your RP in there, lay in your acre shield, get that seed intelligence, and then maybe throw ECO on top of it if you want to go that extra level.

I'm covered. And we're hearing that it just feels like everyone's a month behind right now. Like even the bankers feel like they're behind. Everyone's kind of like, what's going on with politics? What's going on with price? Are you hearing something like that?

Yeah, you just talked about liquidity at bank. It's at an all-time low. Yep. Farmers need to understand, it's tight at the bank.

And I think you hit the nail on the head. Everyone's a little like, I don't really want to go talk to my banker, and the banker doesn't want to talk to me. But damn it, you better. You better walk into that confession booth and just go, here's where I'm at. And, you know, let's figure this out and let's get it going.

That new combine?

I think we have to accept it and then deal with it. And to Tanner's point, don't put your head in the sand. Get into that bank, sit down. Because you need to find out if you're going to have to find an alternative option. That's why I do like AcreShield offers 0% financing, by the way. You sign up, you put 20% down, and we give 0% financing until December.

And don't you just almost feel like, do you think all these really work?

I have sinned. The license plate is going to say you go first. Yeah.

Confession booth. I do want to say we sincerely appreciate your time and your help in making farmers aware that there is a low-cost solution to the yield gap problem out there. And there's... AcreShield, I think, is a very good solution to that problem. You can go to AcreShield.com, fill out the contact form, or just call us on the 800 number. We'd be more than happy to work with you.

And then we sell AcreShield through multiple distributors. They could be seed dealers, crop insurance agents, bankers. You don't have to be licensed to become a distributor, and we pay commissions. And one of the things that... A lot of farmers that do call in and then we talk to their seed dealer or their crop insurance agent. We make them a distributor.

The only thing I ask is because that guy is making money off of you, he should at least buy you a steak dinner. There you go. Yeah.

I didn't say the word, but I felt it. Yeah, sometimes. Right. And I know certain work under certain conditions. But one of the things that we did is we did a survey and we said, look, we do seed intelligence testing across the Midwest. We have close to 300 different locations. We take all that seed intelligence.

We bring it back so it's actionable based on where you drop a pin on your field, your soil type, your weather pattern. your relative maturity range, and we give you the David Letterman top 10, right? Yeah. Yeah, these are the best. I got you. But it's not as funny. It should be. Now it should come with a joke. I know, right? Yeah. I need a little help here, Corey.

Ooh, good. Yes. Our farm customers appreciate all the seed intelligence, right? Yeah. But we did an interview. Would you like us to do seed treatment? Would you like us to do fungicide or biologicals next? And what do you think, Dave? Most farmers came back and said, would you do the following next?

Biological was winning, you know, 70% of the vote.

Yeah, I don't know enough. That's just what the results are.

Yeah. You're not seeing the yield drag, at least that's what we're hearing. Right. But am I seeing the yield increase to justify the ROI for the cost?

So what we did is we applied for our EPA license and we're going to do biological testing this year. Cool. Wow. Yeah. And I know we won't be able to test 30, okay? But we are trying to mine in on top five that we think are what we're hearing. Sure. So, again, that was not our idea.

That was coming from our customers and really saying, you know, how can we help you mitigate this risk going forward, help you thrive?

I don't run all of our CROs, all of our testing, okay, first and foremost. I want to put that disclaimer out there, Dave. But what I understand from the team is that the best way to do testing is do actual same-field testing.

side by side same plant date same harvest date same practice okay same environment so that you can get a very good delta between that one versus the next one how they're going to mix it all in you know with fungicides um and we're going to talk about some unique new programs that we have coming that are out right now um that is up to those guys to determine

We're going to take the 80-20 rule. What do 80% of the guys do? Yep. And the other 20%, we don't have the time and money to chase it. It's very expensive to run these trials.

Well, we, you know, first and foremost, we don't take any money from any manufacturer. We're truly independent. We don't sell seed. We don't distribute seed. Our job is to take care of our farming friends. So it's full transparency.

And hopefully it's going to save them the trial and error and the expense and the heartache and the belief. I believe in biologicals. I think it's being overhyped. Right. Okay. Just kind of like we saw with the CI scores. Okay. And here we are. Z45 is supposed to be in action this month. Guess what? You're not hearing much talk.

You know, we have specialized four-row planters, you know, so that the precision, the depth, okay? And that really helps us at least look at seed comparison side by side, all right? We ran 1,300 varieties, okay? We ran 300 plots. I mean, the plot numbers were close to 10,000, okay? And all that data, you know, this is our fourth year that we harvested, and all that data comes in.

And normally, what would you get, Corey? You'd get a seed book. And then you would get this book and you would have to go through and go, well, let's go look at Slater's performance. Let's go look at the next one. And that's where we had kind of the aha moment. And we said, all right, this AI, another maybe overhyped word today, but we apply machine learning.

And we took the machine learning and built our model so that all of that seed trial data that is very scientifically obtained by us, okay, comes into that machine learning model. And based on when our farm customers drop a pin on their field now, on the clue, okay, and we can show you a demo sometime.

The algorithm knows the weather, 20 years of weather, knows the relative maturity range, okay, and pulls in the actual soil type, and it does the work for our farming friends.

Yeah, that's good. But you brought up a point. A lot of guys said, I like this. I appreciate you guys doing all this work and you're helping me. But then they have this kind of skepticism as to, but I really love this particular number. And I didn't see you in my number in the top 10.

This is a team that's been with me close to 15 to 20 years. We've built great ventures. I've been recognized as Iowa entrepreneur and many accolades. It's not because of me. It's because of the team behind me and what we're able to do and help our customers out.

Tanner, Dave, it's a real honor to be here today and talk about what we're doing and just kind of discuss how our battle cry even came about.

It's a pretty fascinating story. My dad used to build hydraulic fittings and sell to John Deere. Okay. And the buyer lived in Dyersville, Iowa, and his plant was in Chicago, and he was fighting the union. And only as Iowa could do, he was explaining to the buyer in Dyersville, the John Deere buyer, hey, you know, we're a little behind because of the unions. We've got a little strike going on.

And they said, why don't you come back next week? So my dad drives back, sits down, and he's looking at a, cornfield. And they said, why don't you build your plant here? We have the banker, we have the tax benefit, and we'll actually help you get the plant built. Lo and behold, he comes home and says, we're moving to Dyersville, Iowa.

No, you know it. That came many years later. In fact, my bus... ran past the ball diamond before there was a ball diamond, twice a day, every day. Truth be told, I maybe kissed my first girl and drank a beer on that road. There you go. That's awesome. Love it.

I'm going to maybe have to claim the fifth now.

Yeah, so as the, you know, As my dad was building the company, the early 80s came up, and the interest rates went to double digits. So I'm graduating from high school, and his advice to me was the following. Whatever you do, go to college and don't get into ag. But what had happened at the same time was a couple of our friends with their family farms, they lost their farms.

Double-digit interest rates, it just ate them up. And I was scarred for life. And I didn't realize until probably 15 years later after we built two successful companies helping farmers profit and thrive that my wife said to me, you know, Billy, the reason that you have such passion is you were scarred from that, you know, your friends going bankrupt.

And I then committed my whole life to, hey, if it's not good for my friends in Dyersville, Iowa, and it's not going to help our farming friends survive, mitigate this risk, then why are we doing it?

And so, thus went to college at Iowa. The first company we created was a company that provided operating loans. Okay. Okay. We did about $140 plus million worth of operating loans. We also did great marketing advice. We also became, back in 1996, when the CRC revenue insurance came out, that was the first way to do a revenue protection policy. Gotcha. And we built that company, sold it to DTN.

I woke up, said I'm too young to retire, so what am I going to do next? Serial entrepreneur is what we have. And with that, we said, what if we could improve the crop insurance delivery system? And so we went to the USDA. We laid out a plan. It was back in the Internet days, and we said we could use technology, efficiencies, and we could pass a savings to the American farmer.

USDA had great fortitude. They approved the plan. We saved American farmers over $50 million just by using technology efficiencies. Awesome. Yeah. Wow. So we grew that company to $300 plus million, sold it to Farm Bureau Mutual. It took us 12 years. Yeah. But it was a hell of a run. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. You're trying to protect the margins of the producers. And in today's environment with these... bumper crop coming out, commodity prices going to all-time low for a cycle that we don't even like to talk about, right? I mean, I would rather just bury my head in the sand, but we can't. We have to deal with this, and we have to look at it and go, all right, I've got a good operation.

I've got a 220 APH on my corn. You know, I'm doing everything right, but I'm not making money because of those commodity prices. So how are we going to do better? And we've always seen this issue of this problem called the yield gap. And at the right time, I'd like to talk to you about that yield gap.

Yeah, so we named it this gap where crop insurance doesn't cover, but it's the last 15% from 85 to 100 of your historical yield. Okay. Okay, so it's this gap. And you can't get any coverage, yet that gap, is the difference between a profit and loss. Yes. It's the difference between going on a vacation or not. Yep.

It's the difference between, can my wife, you know, stop working in town and come work on the farm? Yeah. And so we said, this problem, this universal problem for 160 million acres of corn and soy, how could we solve it? And for years, we couldn't. And one day, we started doing all the seed trials across the Midwest, testing every variety and hybrid on these seeds.

Sea trial plots, where we had specialized four-row planters and combines, and we got the scientific data. And I have a question for you guys. If I planted 100 different varieties in the same field, okay, side by side, same plant date, same environment, same harvest date, what do you think on a normal 200 APH corn field we might see in yield difference just in the top 30?

I'm going to let Dave answer because I know the answer.

So 30 bushel is 15% is what you're saying. Yeah, 15%. We were finding up to 20%. That's just in the top 30. There you go. So imagine if we could bring this information back to our farming friends where they just drop a pin on their field and this, you know,

AI algorithm goes out, compares all the seed trials, brings them all in, grabs the same soil, same maturity zone, same practice, same rotation, whatever you're doing, and says, here is a list. I call it the David Letterman's top 10. Okay. Here's a list that if you buy off of this top 30, you're going to improve your yields by that 15% to 20% and solve your yield gap. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, so now take it to, and let's say you're brand loyalists. Let's say you're loving your DeKalb and your Pioneer or your Wiffles. We even allow you to sort by those and do side-by-side comparisons. And our new Yield Optimizer, which is the name of the tool that's coming out here in 2.0 this fall, we're going to allow you to take your favorite, Dave, plug it in,

and do side-by-side comparisons to understand the why.

Okay. Because we signed up a bunch of farms, a lot of progressive early adapters and ROI farmers last year. Okay. And right now I just talked to one of them on the way in this morning. He's running 255 plus. Okay. That's good. Okay. And he had nothing but a big smile, and he said, Billy, now work some magic and get those prices back to $5. No kidding. Okay?

Your yield optimizer is going to have to become a price optimizer next.

But let's add a twist to it. Okay. Okay. You know, I have 10 guys come down my lane. Every day, 10 different salespeople, and they're all trying to say, try my brand, go with my hybrids, trust me. Does any one of them ever say, I will guarantee up to five times what you pay me that if you don't get these yields, I'll write you a check?

Guess what? Well, you must need to work on your seed dealer a little bit.

So, what we did is we worked with the world's largest reinsurance company. Okay. And when they saw our algorithm and saw the performance, and they back all these other crop insurance companies. Okay. We're not a crop insurance company. We're a commercial performance guarantee. All right? And we embedded this guarantee into the yield optimizer. So...

We are saying to you, we're so confident that if you follow our tool advice and you don't yield over 100%, we're going to write you a check for up to five times what you paid us for the yield optimizer, which starts at $12 up to $20, which is $100 in acre protection.

Well, first, great question, but we have to change level set here. Okay. We look at your 10 years of historical production. Okay. So we benchmark off of your certified yields. Okay? So we're going to use, you know, my average is different than your average. And we do it on a farm level. This is not betting on the county. It's not going to Vegas going black or red. Okay?

This is based on your operation. So you might be running 180. You know, Tanner's over there running 240. I'm at 210. Of course. I would be far exceeding what I'm doing. So that eliminates that potential for fraud. Okay. Okay? And, however... The unique thing is, you know, your dad's been doing things or your grandpa's been doing things a certain way, certain brand, certain numbers.

And, you know, there's a lot of pressure on you, especially when you're under break even to perform. So why would you even change unless you had the confidence of a backstop? Yep. Okay. And that's what we provide.

Yep. We do have a requirement by county that you enroll all the corn and soy acres in that county. You don't have to give us all. But if you're in one county and run 1,000 acres, you can put 1,000 acres into the program. The concept there is that We then true up, and it's called an enterprise unit. We add up all your acres, all your expected production against your benchmark, and it's very simple.

Were you above 100%? Get this. We give a dividend, like farm credit gives a patronage dividend. We give a dividend for 10% of what you paid us if you're over 100%, because you won and we won, right? You tried our seed selector. It clearly got you results over 100%, and we're saying, good job, and here's our way of giving back to you.

No, and a lot of people don't realize to do test plots correctly. I mean, we grew up and we always did our little test plot too. But when we have a protocol and the standards that actually the largest seed companies follow when they do their test plots. So we have the specialized software, the equipment, the staffing.

We have close to $5 million worth of equipment just here in Iowa running those seed trial plots throughout Iowa and the surrounding states. And that allows us to do a true side-by-side comparison. The best way to test a hybrid is put the two next to each other and say which one produced.

How does that work? Great question. We're running 250 plots across the Midwest. Okay. So the algorithm goes out and goes sandy to sandy, loam to loam. Loam to loam. And let's compare those results, and then let's organize it, Very easy for the farmer just to look at the list, and then they can stress test it. They could change the maturity ranges. Let's say you have a late planting, right?

And they're watching, you know, how many times have you been right prior to planting, and the seed company calls up and says, you know, I'm really sorry, Tanner, but that number we sold out. But trust me, I have a really good number here. Really good number. This happened to me. Where'd he go? Where'd he go?

So, you know, I want to trust you, but let me just look at my yield optimizer real quick and go, how come you didn't recommend this one of your particular brand? See, we have all the brands and all the hybrids.

Awesome. Well, thank you much for your time. And here's a question I have for you. Where do you think the shelf life is? Of soybean hybrid is? Two years. Two years. So that means every two years that I have to trust my seed company and seed dealer to recommend what's the newest greatest. Okay. Right? Imagine if you had pre-commercial data.

Great question. Sure, Kevin. We actually, down to the field level, have 20 years of the weather data pinpointed on every field. So right away, that's going to tell us what type of maturity zone he's in, what type of historical pattern. And you can override it by changing your factors and just say, look, we're looking at a drought.

So I'm anticipating a dry year versus we're looking at excess moisture. Maybe you're more interested in the racehorse versus the workhorse. Maybe you want to compare those two together. We actually have a report that after the seed ranking, then you can mine in to understand the why. Okay. The why is very, you know, I'm supposed to believe this algorithm, right? I'm supposed to believe AI.

I'm supposed to believe data. I want to. But the why that we're now explaining about rotation, environmental, pH levels, whatever it might be, helps you get a little more comfortable with the recommendations.

Oh, yeah. We have 15 million acres over the last 10 years of every yield. Gotcha. Okay, by field. So that goes into us helping establish a benchmark. What's fair? If you didn't change any of your practices, you should come in around your average. Gotcha. Excluding environmental impact.

Great question. And we actually built a new business model. Okay. We are not insurance. We are a commercial warranty. And by operating under those regs, we were able, because remember, I built two insurance companies. Sure. We were able to save 50% of our overhead. Okay. Now, did we pocket that? No. We go back to our roots in Dyersville, Iowa. When I go back to talk to my friends, it's like, look.

Billy, what's this cost? We start off at $12 up to $20 for up to $100 protection per acre. That's just amazing.

Yep. You can go to AcreShield's website. We work through trusted distributors, which are crop insurance agents, bankers, seed dealers, agronomists, anyone that has a good farm gate relationship. And podcasts, of course.

You're in good hands with all this. You got it. Let me show you what that looks like. All right. It starts at $12 for this year. It goes up to $20 with a 5X protection. If your 100% APH even falls 3%, you get your money back. Look at the risk. That's zero risk almost.

Because the crop insurance, Tanner, as you know, ends at 85%. You can't get a higher level than 85%. So from 85% to 100%, quite frankly... You're exposed. We specialize in covering that risk mitigation from 85 to 100. So with that $12 that you buy for the seed selector comes the embedded performance protection.

You know, I have to say I'm very proud of the crop insurance. In 1981, it was privatized. It was a mess when the feds were running it 100%. It was about $200 million. Today, it's almost $18 billion. Holy smokes.

And, yes, you and I as American taxpayers are subsidizing the cost of crop insurance up to that 85% by 50% for farmers. So it's a very smart buy. Okay. Now. We can't open up a donut shop and buy an insurance policy that's going to guarantee the revenue, right? Guarantee me the Krispy Kremes are going to be good. But the beauty is that this is available to every farmer.

I've been on a 20-year mission to take advantage of the crop insurance, forward price your crop when you can, lock in your profits. Take the basis off the table. This is a penny business. It needs to be run like a penny business. Awesome. I'm not saying I don't like it. I mean, I like it just in terms of... But it's there, and it's not going away.

The farm bill is just going to actually maybe bring out greater subsidies.

That is their decision. They can buy it. You know, it starts at 65%. Most guys in Iowa or the Midwest buy 75% to 80%, a lot of 85%. We are covering what I call like AFLAC, the gap, you know, that 85% to 100% that no one's covering. But we're doing it smart. We're saying, hey, we're going to give you the inside knowledge on the best performing hybrids.

Which is higher, closer to the flame, right? Because you're closer to 100. Yeah.

I like to be net neutral, right? I'm only going to spend my X dollars per acre. but I'm going to maybe spend it differently.

Just said, then they all win. Right. And when you look at When you really look at your risk mitigation, the things you can control, the things you can't control. We can't control the weather, right? We can't control your seed selection. You can't control your fertility programs. You can't control certain things like that.

What we look at is like, all right, I need a little hedge on the things I can't control. We're providing a little hedge on that yield performance. And right now, with the prices being so low, If I'm not popping 110 of my historical yield with this bumper crop out there, I'm below break even.

How about the guy that farms 200 acres? All day long. We do not discriminate. We built this program. He still has to make a seed decision. Maybe he's working in town, but he's still running that farm. He has exposure. He can buy the same program for the same price and get the same intelligence and protection.

Yeah.

This is exciting, actually. We can't disclose everything, but I can tell you this. We've been asking every one of our farm customers, you know, today we're doing seed trial testing. What would you prefer us to do next? We're giving them three choices. Seed treatments... Fungicides or biologicals? You're just sharpening the pencil. You're talking.

But we want to provide unbiased, raw performance data. Okay. Okay? What do you think they're picking? It's a two-to-one between... What do you think? I know the answer. What do you think? And give me the... Seed treatment. Yep. Right? Which has a big impact on yield. Biologicals and fungicides. Yes.

And, you know, we want to believe, okay? We want to believe all the biological companies, and there's some great ones out there. But I'm here to tell you there might be a couple that are not great. But if there was a company out there that was independent, that wasn't selling biologicals, that could actually start. So we applied for our license, and we're going to do biological testing next year.

Awesome. That was hands down the most requested for us to start doing next. I think we need to read.

You can never remove all the risk because you always have the cost of the risk vehicles that are sunk into it. But what we're really trying to do is like... Kind of like being married.

I'm just saying.

Be smart. They take 60% of your assets nowadays. But on a serious note, I'm really proud also of our team. This is a team that's been with me close to 15 to 20 years. We've built great ventures. I've been recognized as Iowa entrepreneur and many accolades. It's not because of me. It's because of the team behind me and what we're able to do and help our customers out. Perfect. Two more questions.

I don't know. You owe it to yourself to check this out. Now, bankers, crop insurance agents, seed dealers, anyone that you have, we're signing them up as distributors. Full disclosure, we do pay them up to 15% commission. So if you bring in your crop insurance agent, he owes you a steak dinner. Okay. All right. But these guys also give our farming friends a little more vetting.

Because they look at AcreShield, they go, oh, you're backed up by an AM Best A-plus reinsurer superior. That's the best rating you can get in the world. So they do some of that due diligence that I always like my stockbroker to do. And that's what they'll do. And then at the same time, they can make a commission by helping their farming friends solve this universal yield gap problem.

So are you looking for more of those partners? I am. I'm looking for more distributors. We're signing them up every day. We don't want to lay three distributors in the same little town. We're looking for geographic spread. We operate in all 15 Midwest states. So now I've come up with another one. Good.

I think it is. It's a great way to differentiate your offering. And what I like is we make our distributors the heroes to the villain called yield gap. So we're trying to help our farming friends solve that problem. And at the same time, our distributors get to be the heroes to deliver the solution.

I used to have a shirt that my wife gave me 20 years ago when I was getting out of balance. It was called Balance. And every now and then, building a venture, you're all in. She would give me the Balance shirt. But subsequently, we now have changed that word from Balance to Circular. And what I mean by Circular is that, look, she knows that it requires 80 hours a week.

It requires 80 hours sometimes when you're in harvest or planting, okay? But I also come back and give back to the family. I still believe in I have date night with my wife. We just became empty nesters. The last one went off to Iowa a week ago. Libby's off and running. And, you know, we're going through that change ourselves. But it does take a really good partner to support you in a venture.

And I'm blessed to have a wife like that.

Not today. Not today. Sure, it's hot, but look at the fun people we have met. I've seen a bunch of old friends, met a bunch of new people. This is what we live for. Plus, Tanner buys me lunch. I am getting hungry. I'm ahead of the game here. I'm net positive for the day.

They can go to acreshield.com. They can call our 800 number, which is, you know, 888-650-CROP, okay? And we encourage, you know, people to give us a jingle. We'll send them the information. We'll walk you through how it works. And the only thing that we ask is one simple thing. Tell a friend. You know, help someone else out.

We appreciate it. It's an honor, guys. Thank you. Keep up the good work.