SharkFarmerXM's podcast
Brandon Fields from Scottsville, KY 7-30-24
[Music] And welcome back in this shark farmer radio. Hey! I'm your host Rob Sharkey. We're in the studio today just outside of Bradford, Illinois. I got rain chances tonight, tomorrow, and Friday, right? I know it. I looked on my app and it just has little storm clouds every day. I'm like, come on. Yeah. But the sun's out now and it feels good and, man, we can't keep up with the mowing and the beans are growing and the corn looks fantastic. Well, okay. Here's a situation. Uh-oh. Remember when I saw it? My parents went away on a week's vacation. Is this a wilson? They left the keys to the brand new Porsche. Oh, Lord. Yeah. Anyway, I've got two plots left to do, deer plots. And I hate to mut him in, but I think I'm going to go this afternoon and try to get one of them in. I think that's a plan because I don't think there's going to be a break for you after this. Yeah, well. And they're growing so fast. I mean, we just checked the one we just put in a few days ago and it's up and going. So, yeah. Typically, we like to have them in. If you could put them all in them one day, I would say July 15th. July 10th, July 15th, somewhere around there. We're a little late. I don't think it matters. Traveling and it's been wet and I've been lazy. There was one Sunday. I could have done it. But anyway, I don't know if lazy describes you, but yeah, it's one Sunday. Your feet should be up. I would be done with him if I wasn't so damn lazy on that Sunday. I was watching Ant-Man. Oh, it's the last one. Anyway, a good movie at Kentucky and that one was not good. Today, we're going to Scottsville, Kentucky. We're going to be talking with a Brandon Fields. How you doing, Brandon? I'm doing great. How about you guys? Yeah, did you like that last Ant-Man movie, the Quantum Mania? Yeah, it wasn't my favorite. I have to agree with you there. Yeah, they were stretching. Ant-Man is the weakest length of that. Oh, I don't know. He is a weak link of the whole group. You've obviously have never seen She-Hulk. Brandon, where is Scottsville in the great state of Kentucky? It is about 20 minutes from Bowling Green, your home for Corvettes and Underwear. The Corvette factory is there in a free-of-the-loom headquarters. Well, that car goes so fast. You probably need to change them, right? Is that the joke? Yes, I've never had the privilege of being in one of the new ones. Now, is that where you're from originally? I'm originally from Southern Indiana, just across the river from Louisville, Kentucky. Nice. Were you a farm kid? I was. We kind of cash rented our ground, but when I was younger, we raised some perfor cattle, and my grandpa had some charlays, and kind of got out of all that when I was a early teenager, and just cash rented everything. You definitely grew up with tobacco and hay. Oh, you grew tobacco there in Southern Indiana? Yeah, we're just about as far north as you're going to get right in that area. There back then, anyway, there was an awful lot of burly tobacco ground. Was that your childhood? Get out there by hand? Oh, yeah. It was all hand. I hear that is a ton of work, but your drying sheds smell amazing. Oh, they're great until you're putting up tobacco, and it's wet, and you all get nicotine poisoning overnight. Oh, nicotine poisoning? Are you joking? No, I'm actually not. It will make you physically sick, just from the, I mean, imagine if you ever smoked a cigarette the first couple times you smoked, it's the same thing. It'll leach through your skin, and it just makes you nauseous. Oh, I have never heard that. I didn't know that. Yeah, huh. We're here to learn, aren't we, Emily? Is it learning fun? That's right. Brandon, you are the global director of Applied Meat Science at its PIC, right? That is correct. Yeah. How many people just call it pick? About every hotel I check into. PIC in America. That company has been around for a long time, even when we were in Hogg's. How old is it? Oh, you put me on the spot with a question. I don't know. We just recently celebrated our 60th anniversary, so I believe we're 61. Okay. All right. Well, hopefully they're not going to listen, and you didn't know how old they were. Yeah. It's been a while. It's more than 60. That's a fact. Is that when you were a little kid picking tobacco is you say, hey, I was going to be in Applied Meat Science? Not even a little bit. I think a whole lot of kids, I had no idea what I was going to be when I grew up, but I was semi-smart and pretty good in math and science, so everybody told me that I should be an engineer, and that's what I went to college to be. Where'd you go to school? I went to Purdue. Oh, yeah. I'm surprised you didn't lead with that. Generally, people that go to Purdue, it's like, hi, my name is Brandon. I want to Purdue. I'm the anomaly because I grew up in Southern Indiana during the height of Bobby Knight's career. Ah, well, that makes sense. So you wanted to be an engineer. That's what you studied. When did you pivot? After one semester, really. Yeah, I took that first semester of physics and calculus and chemistry, and I said, this is not for me, and I was stuck into the second semester of it. So I knew I had to get out of engineering after my freshman year. Had no idea what I wanted to do, but growing up in an ag community, I thought, well, I don't really want to be a farmer. Maybe I'll be a veterinarian. And so I got into the previous program there at Purdue and kind of decided I didn't want to do that either. And you guys can appreciate this, I suppose, taking animal science classes, still trying to figure out what I wanted to do in life. And there was an opening at the Meek Laboratory at Purdue University. And so I said, well, I'm going to take this Meek Science class, and I'm going to work in the Meek Laboratory, because if nothing else, I'm going to learn how to cut up my dear better and do it myself. Exactly. He's always thinking that's, oh, yeah, now it's getting good. We do got to go to break. Today, we're talking with Brandon Fields, and he's from Scottsville, Kentucky. He's a global director, applied meat science at the PIC, that's in North America. We're going to talk pork and all things delicious to eat. All right, after the break. This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell, or lease your land? Well, check out Common Ground, where they connect landowners and farmers, and hunters too, by the way, go to commonground.io, that's commonground.io. Wonder how Brian and Hefty, Brian and Darren, they talk right up into the last note of the music right before the commercial. Chip Flory does really good job. Sean Haney, he's more Canadian, so I think he thinks it's rude. He's just say sorry if he comes in at the wrong point. Shark Farmer TV, brand new episode tonight, straight out of the package. That's right. We're going to Tillamunk, Oregon, and talk with Derek Josie, and TDF Honest Farmers, what he goes by online, but fantastic. I mean, we get to visit his dairy and look at cow comfort and how he takes care of his animals, and it's fantastic. He's got one of those carousel milking farms. That was so cool. Oh, it is. They just get on and they just ride the carousel around. He does not feed him. That's the first time I've been to a carousel dairy where they usually, that's why they come in for the food, but they don't do that. Yeah, I love it. You asked him that. I'm like, why do they get on? He's like, oh, they just they like to be milked. Also, we had a podcast drop today. David Hayden. Yes. Yeah, another meat guy. Yes, another meat science guy we met when we were in Oklahoma City, and he travels the globe and he gets people set up with whatever meat processing, what would you call them? He's a product manager for the marination and cured meat division. Brandon, you got a pretty cool title, but I think David might have a beat there. He's a fellow Kentucky and you know, you kind of got a theme going here. You do have a theme. Yeah, but yeah, he gets everybody set up with their equipment. So pretty cool job too. Yeah, today we're talking with Brandon Fields from Scottsville, Kentucky. He's a global director of Applied Meat Science at PIC North America. I was talking about going to school there and he pivoted from engineering to a meat, which I have to say I love to hear because how many kids, you know, and our kids too graduate from high school and they're not sure exactly what they want to do and they go to college and everybody expects them. What are you going to do? What are you going to be when you grow up? It's like, they don't know. They're 17, 18 years old. You got to have a chance to figure it out, right, Brandon? I agree. I mean, I'm not sure any kid really knows what they want to do. They just think they know what they want to do because if you've never done it before, I'm not sure how you would know it's there. And there's so many careers out there that you don't even know it exists. That's right. You got to have a few internships to figure out what you don't want to be, right? Yeah, you know, that's exactly what I've told my daughter. I said, you know, she's getting ready to start her sophomore year at Murray State University and something ag-related and animal science related. And she's pretty sure she wants to work with cows, but beyond that, she has no clues. I was like, well, take everything you can take. And one of the classes you'll love and the rest, you'll know you don't want to do that. Where'd you meet your wife? So I met my wife in Bowling Green, out and about. A bar. And we met at a Rafferty's, which is kind of like a Applebee's. It's a bar. Oh, an Applebee's, how romantic. That's a bar. That's the mating ritual there in Kentucky. It's a bar. Yeah. So you you practice what you preach with your own kids too, because that's hard to do. I'm the same way. I'm like, oh, you don't have to be really nailed down to what you're doing. But then on my kids, I'm like, you should have things figured out by now. Yeah, it's challenging. And you know, you want them to have a plan and move forward to that. But I guess my perspective is as long as they're moving forward towards something, they'll get it figured out. So was working for PIC, was that your first job out of college? More or less. I had a couple internships. Of course, I'd, again, being the anomaly here. Most of my summer work was as an electrician, because I could do it and it paid well. And that helped me get through school. But, you know, I did an internship with a port plant in Louisville, Kentucky, working in their quality control department. And honestly, the first full-time position I took was this PIC position. And I'd turned down a couple of other companies because I did think to myself, do I really want to go into the same facility every single day and do more or less the same thing every day? Or this position was there with an opportunity to travel and do a little bit different things every week. And I thought that sounded a lot more exciting. So you are a traveler. You've traveled the globe. So you've probably seen every kind of economic community that you can. You've been to Europe. You've been all over North America. But you've also been to like places in Asia that are very low income. What does that do for your perspective of what people think of meat and meat products? I think it definitely should give us all some perspective to be glad where we live here in North America. But especially United States. But mostly, you know, it really, in my career, my profession and everything, it kind of highlights to me the value of meat and food in general and the affordability and access to that variety that we have. And when people are struggling to meet protein needs on a daily basis. And here we usually toss some in the garbage every night after supper. It's just a different perspective. And you realize that making that protein or any food more abundant and affordable for those who don't have what we do here, it kind of puts some meaning and value to what you do on a daily basis. I mean, do you come back to the States? And I mean, we all, we don't like to talk about it, but we all know it. I mean, we're pretty wasteful with food in this country. Absolutely. Yeah. Do you enjoy what you do? I love it. I wouldn't be here after 27 years of doing it if I didn't. Yeah. Do you ever eat beef? You know, I actually raised my own beef. You know, I have a small beef herd at home. I've been in a swine genetics company. We're not allowed to raise our own pigs from a biosecurity standpoint. But we can absolutely raise cattle. And so I have a small herd of about 20 cows that we maintain. The family does a lot of the work because I travel. But, you know, it's a great opportunity. We absolutely eat beef. We eat a whole lot of pork. And I hate to admit it, but we probably quite a bit of chicken too. I hadn't thought about that. Do you visit a lot of farms? My position doesn't require a whole lot of farm interaction, but it's just when I'm here in the PIC office or meetings with colleagues and they're interacting with me and then they have to go to a farm. It's still that, you know, possible vector for a disease. And it's just tried to really control that. Yeah, you know, they found your purse there at the the Casey's door mat. So I mean, obviously, if there is a protocol, y'all know what you're doing. I just, I was a little surprised at that. Today, we're talking with Brandon Fields from Scottsville, Kentucky. He's a global director of Applied Meat Science at PIC. That's in North America. Hey, don't go anywhere because we're going to be talking gene editing. That's right, gene editing. We're going to put antlers on a chicken. We'll be back. This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell, or lease your land? Well, check out Common Ground where they connect landowners and farmers and hunters too, by the way. Go to commonground.io. That's commonground.io. It's time for Scottsville, Kentucky's favorite radio segment where in the world is well. Well, what do you have for us today? Today I'm in Scottsville, which is a home rule class city in Allen County, Kentucky. Oh, sounds fun. Yeah, it is the seat of its county. The site along Bay's Fork was settled in 1797 and developed into a stagecoach station. The Pinkertons. Yep, the town was laid off in 1816. They laid the entire town off? I guess so. And established the next year, it was named for Kentucky's fourth governor, Charles Scott. In the early 19th century, it was also known as Allen Courthouse and Scottville, no S. Scottsville was the birthplace of what would become the dollar general nationwide chain of 15,000 stores. Seriously? Dollar general. Whatever. J.L. Turner and his son, Cal Turner, opened their first apartment store there in 1945. In 1955, the Turner's began to open more stores and in 1968, founded Dollar General Corporation or Dalgen Corp. Yeah, now there's nine million of them. Except not Bradford. Yeah, thank you, Emily. Well, you guys got Dollar Tree up there? No, we can't get anything. That's right. We've got a 90-year-old casees. Well, Scott'sville is also home of the main settlement of the Noah Hoover Mennonites, also called Scott'sville Mennonites, a branch of old order Mennonites. Oh, like horse and buggy stuff. Yeah, they did not emerge from a single division as most other Anabaptist groups, but of a long history of divisions and mergers. They moved to Scottsville in 1978, coming from Snyder County, Pennsylvania. I wonder if they listen. Probably not. Mennonites are like halfway between Amish, right? They can like go to the store and stuff. I think there's just variants of all of them. Yeah, fantastic following of Hutterites. Hutterites, listen to the show. Absolutely. Shout out to y'all. That's right. Shout out. Well, shout out these notable people as well. We got Lattie Moore from Scottsville. She's a singer, songwriter and musician, and in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. And we got Hillbilly Jim, real name James Morris. He's a professional wrestler. Well, what is wrong with you? How come you didn't lead with that? This is Hillbilly Jim's hometown. You're talking about dollar store and all this stuff. Hillbilly Jim. Reverting like you're on WWF right now. I watched his uncle get married on TV. Anyway. Well, you could also watch another Scottsville resident on television named Charles Napier, actor and voice actor, voice of Duke Phillips. And from the animated TV show The Critic, he was also in the Blues Brothers, Silence of the Lambs, the Manchuring candidate, and married to the mob. Huh. Okay. I hadn't seen the cartoon, I guess. Yeah. And lastly, we got Nora Wilson, the Nashville songwriter and record producer. Oh, nice. A little shout out to Nashville. Hillbilly Jim. Uncle Elmore was that was where he uncle Elmore. They kissed for the first time. And Jesse, the body of Ventura said, it looked like two carp going for the same piece of corn in the Mississippi River. Oh, my gosh. And you've used that line ever since. So Lord saved me. Today we're talking with Brandon Fields from Scottville, Kentucky brand. And did you do you learn anything? Yeah, I actually learned a little bit about the history. Brandon is the Global Director of Applied Meets and Science for PIC in North America. Brandon, tell me about gene editing, because I mean, you've mentioned that and meet and a lot of people, a lot of our city friends get their their dander up. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I know that maybe not the most politically correct topic, but I think that's an important one to consider and go over here. You know, I try to tell people when I talk to them that technology is your friend. And to make that point, I like to do some analogies. And if you remember back to that old bag phone that, you know, maybe your parents had the first version of a cell phone that had a bag and had to plug into the car and needed a five foot external antenna and you felt like you're following in an airstrike when you used it. You know, compare that to your, you know, iPhone that you're probably listening to this podcast through right now. You know, and the same with cars. We talked about the Corvette and take that back to, you know, 1970s, Pinto, you know, technology and phones and electronics and automobiles is great. And it can be equally as great in agriculture and food production. It makes things better and makes things less expensive. And it can provide a lot of benefits. And gene editing is really just a tool to help achieve those same goals we've always sought after. Safer, more nutritious, better tasting, cheaper food. And I think where people get scared of gene editing is, you know, they don't understand it. And they confuse it with genetic modification where a GMO is bringing in DNA from a different plant or a different animal species and putting it into the, in the one you're working on. A gene edit is simply changing one protein combination in the DNA of the animal you're working at to elicit some what's potentially a naturally occurring mutation from the beginning. So, you know, as an example, our company is working on bringing to market, which does require FDA approval. And that is the process we're in currently of gaining FDA approval to bring the market and edit that makes pigs resistant to the purrs virus. And those not aware of purrs are in pig production. It's recently been estimated to cost North American pig producers one billion with a B dollars per year. And by, you know, if we're able to get this product approved and consumers accept it, we can make pigs completely resistant to that disease. And so that's healthier pigs, less use of antibiotics, less pigs needed because we're not going to have pigs getting sick and dying. So it's better for the people, it's better for the pigs, it's better for our environment. There's just a lot of benefits. You know, if we can get this to market and get the consumers to fully accept it. That'd be huge. I mean, that disease has been around, well, it used to be what the mystery disease, right? Back in the early 90s. Yeah. Yeah. Mystery pig disease. Yeah, that would be that would just be incredible. Yeah. Change the whole game. You would think they'd be able to have manage it by now, but it's still just such a headache for these guys. And yeah, there's so many variants of it. It mutate that virus mutates so easily, and there's so many variants. And it's kind of, you know, tricky of how it gets in and out. It's not always easy. In a travel airborne is one of the big challenges. But, you know, if the pigs have this edit, it blocks the virus from binding to the pig, and they're completely immune to all variations. Yeah, just launch it. Don't wait for the FDA. Those guys will drag their feet. Brandon Fields from Scottsville, Kentucky, Global Director of Applied Meat Science at PIC North America. Brandon, thank you so much for talking with us. Really appreciate it. Don't go anywhere. Sean Haney's coming up next. He likes Canadian bacon. [Music]