SharkFarmerXM's podcast
Spencer Gibbons from Richmond, UT 7-29-24
*Singing* Unstoppable, unshakeable But it rolls off the town unfraidable It's unavoidable You saw a relatable In between the lines Start to loosen up your matter Hey, welcome again to Shark Farmer Radio, hey! I'm your host Rob Sharkey, we're in the studio today just outside of Bradford, Illinois Studio powered by Bex Hybrid Good to be home We were out to Ag PhD field days in Baltic, South Dakota last week It is always so much fun to do the XM show live out there in front of a couple thousand people in the audience They're always fun They're always energetic I will say that I did not see the air show I don't even know if it happened I don't think they had one I don't remember seeing anything about it We had so much smoke coming down from Canada from unfortunately from all the fires that it was like somebody had a campfire going all day It was some pretty serious smoke We did not see the sun but until like two o'clock and then it got really hot So I think it kept some people away because of the heat but there was a nice turnout Yeah, it was a good show It's a one day show and obviously Brandon Darrin did an incredible job of having everything go off without a hitch and some great agronomic information out there and then of course there's us Well, it's a fun place to meet people in network and learn about everything to do with crops I mean, you can get in the nitty gritty get in the weeds, so to speak That's right and plus eat good food Oh my gosh, I mean, yeah, they can lay it down with some burgers Holy cow Yeah, I mean, if you got to feed the masses it's usually like cafeteria food, not there Yeah Today we're going to go out to Richmond, Utah We're going to talk with Spencer Gibbons How you doing, Spencer? I am so good, thank you so much Well, good to talk to you Where is Richmond in a great state of Utah? Richmond is right at the very top of the state I can literally see and throw rocks into the state of Idaho So it's right on the border, the Utah Idaho border It's what we call the great Cache Valley Is it that great? Well, yeah, it's pretty great I do No, a beautiful little ag valley full of berries and alfalfa and corn So it's really a lovely spot in the world OK, so that's not desert out there Uh, well, it's all relative You know, we go to the Midwest and the east coast And then you drive back, you're like, holy cow, I think I've just driven to the surface of the moon No, it's a beautiful little mountain valley Is that to worry for originally? So, funny story, I was born in St. And, I almost said St. Agony But I think Anthony Idaho And then when I was five, my family moved back My dad bought my grandpa's dairy farm with his two brothers And so I grew up there since I was five, so Grew up on a dairy farm, man, that means you know how to work Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, dairy farm and corporal punishment They're about synonymous Well, and you have a big family, you had How many cousins running around getting in trouble with you on a daily basis? So, at any given time there was, there was at least a dozen just working on the farm, but I have 32 first cousins that were out there on the farm Losing money for my dad and uncle Thirty-two first cousins Oh, my gosh, I'll imagine the trouble Fertile genetics, Sarah Spencer Something in the water in the great cash cow I guess So, did you have to help much with the dairy growing up then? Yeah, you know, I had the good fortune of moving there when I was five I was blessed with a lot of what my dad called extra ambition And so, it was good for me to have my ambition focused on the dairy farm Otherwise, I'd probably be somewhere in the penal system So, I'd milk cow, stack hay, move the water, you know, cut grain You name it, even though there were a lot of first cousins We all had lots of our own jobs Like, we had some raspberries A lot of my sisters and girl cousins took care of But, yeah, I did it all, loved it What was it? Was it carousel, herringbone, stalls? Well, when I was a little guy, it was a double six herringbone And then, by the time I got to high school, we were a double 15 parallel And now we're a double 25 Okay, all right, so the dairy is still going? Still going in a terrible market, but yeah, we're pretty committed to the future And, you know, I have a son, and my brother has a couple of sons We're in actually another generation, so me, my brother, and two cousins are partners now So, another generation wrinkled as we try to figure out how to work together And, you know, we're not brothers, I mean, not all of us are brothers Like my dad and his brothers and my grandpa and his brothers, so it's kind of an interesting dynamic It is an interesting dynamic and kind of hard to navigate sometimes But are you guys finding like a niche market for your milk? Or are you just selling direct, like do you have like a puri farm type co-op? Yeah, we sell to a little co-op, well, it's not even a co-op It's called Gosner Foods, a little family business that takes all of our milk And they focus primarily on two products, Swiss cheese And then UHT milk, so the ultra-high temp milk So they put it in a box and in the tetrapac box and they ship it all over the world Okay, all right, sounds cool Uh, we do got a run to break today, we're talking with Spencer Gibbons from Richmond, Utah When we come back, we're going to talk about him going out to Utah State University That's uh, that's the blue cow, isn't it, Spencer? That's the blue cow, the great Aggie The great Aggie, all right, I've got to hear this story I always wanted, it's a very odd-looking mascot We'll be back with Spencer All right, up to 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 All right, tomorrow, we've got a brand new episode of Shark Farmer TV On RFD TV That's a 30 Central Plus, we drop a new podcast with David Hayden, we had him on the XM show He is a product manager for Amerination and Cured Meats at JBT I love that title, that's fantastic In other words, he travels the world and helps people get set up with whatever processing they need for meat Yeah, if you have like a jerky factory and you need a jerky machine, he's your guy I think he's hit like everywhere, but Antarctica, right? I mean, he's been all over Yeah, not a whole lot of jerky production up there in Antarctica No, I don't think so Do you make it a seal? Could you do that? Oh, geez, focus Today, we're talking with Spencer Gibbons from a Richmond Utah He was talking about how he was raised on a multi-generational dairy farm with 32 first cousins Can you imagine? I mean, I don't even know what Christmas looks like You can't possibly do the whole gift thing No, you gotta draw, you draw names, don't you Spencer, instead of a gift for everybody? Yeah, we draw names, but it's still like waist-high wrapping paper when it's all That's a tumbleweed out there Oh my gosh, you need like five Christmas trees to fit all the presents underneath Yeah, of all of your first cousins, which one do you like the least? I am not going to answer that Very good I love them all He's gonna plead the fifth, I know a name came to mind Yeah, I don't You went out to Utah State University Is it Big Blue? Is that his name? Big Blue Yeah, what is that? It's a big blue bowl It's a bowl It's a very modest breed that we cultivate out here in the west I'm just kidding I think it was a whole thing originally I don't know Someone washy the costume with some blue towels or something That's what you got And it's stuck, yeah What'd you study out there? Well, I had a kind of an interesting path I wanted to be a vet But I clearly was not smart enough for that And then I wanted to be a schoolteacher And then I felt like I was going to have to beat up schoolchildren if I was a schoolteacher So I figured that wasn't good for me Darnit, you can't slap them these days Not anymore, no No, no, those days are long gone But then so ag economics and business Is what I ended up studying And graduated from Utah State University And you know, I'm trying to think if I've used that degree In no, anyway, in my life But no, it was great Love being an Aggie It was a great place to go to school Actually, I never had that move away Live with a bunch of guys And had to have the apartment You know, condemned at any point I lived 30 minutes from home So I lived home a lot of my college career And then I got married Oh, you got married Now, where did you meet your wife at school? That's a funny story Not very many of us can say That we kicked up our wife at a bowling alley So Was it love at first sight? It's a ballsy move Well, funny Yeah So actually, I think when she first saw me I had this coat from my mother's grandfather Or my mother's dad and my grandpa And it was an old wool coat And I had this special attachment To this grandpa that had passed So I wore it everywhere So she actually thought I looked homeless She was trying to buy me a pizza Hey, I'll take it Yeah, no, so we met at the bowling alley And but she was going to school And I was going to school and it worked out great Love at first sight Kind of for her I mean, if she was in love with a homeless guy I mean For me, I was like, what's her angle? Why is she trying to buy me a pizza? You are the the chief executive offer at Utah Farm Bureau What exactly do you do then? Oh, well, the Utah Farm Bureau is an ag advocacy organization We're part of we're one member of 50 states in Puerto Rico and the American Farm Bureau But we advocate for farmers and ratchers We're trying to keep them in business through you know, local and county and state and national policies That help farmers be profitable Help them stay in business Help them feed America in the world That's what I do Yeah, it seems like Farm Bureau has the state ones You kind of go one of two ways You have the president of said organization That is more of the CEO Running probably generally like an insurance company or that And you know, that's kind of a full-time job I mean, he's he's a farmer, but are he or she As a farmer, but also president And then you have other states that go the other route They're like, all right, our our president needs to farm We're gonna hire somebody a CEO that does more of the business side More of the day to day than the president Which is Utah? That the latter We have a president who's the voice of our organization But he still needs to To run his farm and I have a great I have great business partners on our farm My brother and my two cousins they They take care of our interest and it allows me to To come and work full-time for the Utah Farm Bureau So I I'm the administrator We have employees and and Got to figure all that stuff out. So yeah, I like all farm bureaus your Grassroots so policies come from your members even when they're wrong Yeah, yeah, all That's where the power comes from is our members, right? People farmers out there who were like, I got a problem and I think this is a way to fix it And like you say sometimes it does and sometimes it makes my job tricky Yeah, but even like okay, so you have to go talk to a politician, right? You are going to tell that politician what your members say even I've always wondered that even if you're like fervently you personally disagree with it You always have to go with what the members say That's how that works. We have a policy book and we're we're uh, that's That's we consider those our marching orders and we try to advocate for their interest so Um, we have a you know, they make our policy annually and uh And then we go to work Well in Utah Farm Bureau is a is a pretty big organization. You've got what 32,000 some families involved as members Yeah, and you know, we we probably have oh five or six thousand Farming families. It's a kind of unique relationship We have what we call an associate member those members are people who buy insurance products through farm bureau insurance You know, they ensure their home or their cars or something like that But they have join just like they join Costco or Sam's club or whatever And then the uh The M members are the more the fan farmer members Uh, we do got to go to break today We're talking with the Spencer Gibbons. He is the CEO of the Utah Farm Bureau When we come back, we're going to talk more about that and the importance of having a good farm organization. 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 common ground.io [Music] It's time for Richmond Utah's favorite radio segment and I got to say the favorite radio segment out there in South Dakota, Baltic South Dakota. They were very disappointed. You weren't there. Well, what do you think about that? They thought you should be traveling with us. Yeah Yeah, well my segment travels farther than I can sometimes. I'm not even joking you. We had two people. I mean, that's good They had two people wondering where you were. That's right. Nice. I said do a nice job. I said, I don't know. I don't know if he's made bail yet Well, thank you to all my dedicated fans out there. Will nation What do you have for us today? Today. I'm in Richmond, which is a city in cash county, Utah The population was 2,733 at the 2020 census And it's in the Logan metropolitan area. That's Wolverine. Yep Agrippa Cooper was the first settler in Richmond in the 1850s Is that a dude? Yeah, Agrippa. I've never heard that That's like uh Like agrippa Isn't that that's like a conqueror's name like an ancient conqueror? It does. It sounds like something on the bikeings Yeah, Agrippa. We actually we call him uncle Agrippa Yeah, Agrippa is a Roman consul Okay, so Anyway, um In 1859 surveyors visited the Richmond area and determined It to be a suitable area for living with abundant water that could be used for farming and milling and land that was fertile for growing crops Abundant. Okay. Mm-hmm within a few years log cabins dugouts and a log fort had been built In 1860 a sawmill in a schoolhouse were erected The city was settled mainly by Mormon pioneers such as Thomas Levi Whittle John Baer Stillman Pond Goudy E. Hogan and Marnier W. Merrill Can you imagine your mom naming you Goudy? He's just making these names up Stillman Pond. That's a that's a good name. That's a great fish in there. Uh, here's another Good name in cattle Holstein Friesian. Am I saying that right? probably Friesian Holstein Friesian cattle were brought to Richmond in 1904 and thrived so well that the town recognized Uh, the town was recognized as Utah's Holstein Center Okay, 1912 the Richmond Holstein cow show was founded Now called Richmond's black and white days The show features carnival rides food vendors a horse pole and a parade Nice lots of fried stuff there. Right pepperage farm opened a Richmond location on uh in 1974 But in 2011 the plant was producing over 1 million cases of goldfish Oh the cracker. That's what you think when you think pepperage farms Photomatically goldfish. Yeah, and in 2003 part of the film Napoleon dynamite was filmed in Richmond's big jays fast food restaurant Yes Is it the scene with as seen with his uh his brother Or he's talking to the girl online. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's fantastic Right. Okay All right. Well, thank you. Well, I'm glad to have you back Today we're talking with the Spencer Gibbons from Richmond, Utah Was he right on all that Spencer? Pretty close just as funny that he mentions that they just celebrated on Saturday the 20th anniversary of Napoleon dynamite, so Is it really 20 years? Oh my gosh. We've been blessed with that for 20 years Idiot Oh, I love it. Spencer is the CEO of the Utah farm bureau foundation. What uh, what kind of issues you out there? battling Spencer Oh, well, um, Utah is the second driest state in the country We are just runners up to Nevada And uh, so water is a challenge We we've been in a locked in a Pretty sustained 20 year drought. Um, and when I say 20 year drought, we still get water But we had two two or three back-to-back very pronounced Years and it was it was tough. Um, but some of the adverse effects of all of that is the Great Salt Lake Uh started to recede to the point that uh started to cause a lot of concern Um, the salinity of the lake it's it's a terminal lake. So it's a saline lake And the salinity started to go up so high that a lot of the wildlife Uh couldn't even utilize the you know the things that are growing and living on the lake ducks Oh a question. I mean, do they pull water out of that lake? I thought it was undrinkable They know so it was it was one part evaporating. So uh, it covers a massive surface. So it evaporates significantly But then all of the delay are rivers and tributaries that run that way. Uh, we're running less and Utah going I mean for years we had less than a million people and now we're we're approaching 4 million and so uh just a lot more mouths drinking It takes water to farm and people who don't understand that Water on alfalfa or water on wheat or water on corn equates to food. They just elect those farmers are crazy They're just out there putting water on their ground not Uh, so that's a it's always an uphill battle to try to help people understand Yes, you're you're not eating this hay, but cows eat the hay and you like milk cows eat hay and you like beef Uh, you know and and sheep and so forth and so it's and that has even gotten worse because now uh an environmentally interested uh ag the advocacy group has sued the state of utah over um The great sullake and it being low and jeopardizing the wildlife and the habitat around it and Um, let me guess they they blame agriculture. Oh, yeah, we're enemy number one Yeah, yep, you guys are also a public land state. So what do you mean by that? So 67 percent of all of the land in the borders of utah are publicly held meaning Either the federal government owns them through the bureau of land management or the united states forest service and then there's some state lands that are But the state of utah holds and so uh 67 percent of that land is not held in private interest so We do a lot of public land grazing cattle out on cattle and sheep out on forests and That's a whole host of problems because some people like to go see livestock out on the range managing that precious resource you know trying to reduce fire load and and uh insects and all of the things that come along with Public land management, but other people hate it. They want them off Well, they want everything off oil and gas and mining uh extraction, but uh Seems like forest service or BLM are always trying to uh come at us reducing the number of cattle we can have or number of sheep we can have or the time that they can be on there or uh put crazy restrictions on that Just make it unprofitable to even do. I mean you have public land grazers have to apply for a permit And they have to own private land to attach that permit. They have to pay so much per head per month And so they're paying into this but as lawsuits from The environmental interested side put pressure on these federal agencies They just act a lot of times because of the fear of another lawsuit and it makes it just really difficult for farmers to to ratchets to continue to do that a Spencer real quick if people want to find anything about a Utah Farm Bureau or yourself online websites where do they go? Utah Farm Bureau.org All right, Spencer Gibbons from a Richmond Utah CEO of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation Spencer uh really interesting thanks for sharing the concerns of the farmers and ranchers out there to the rest of the country We need to hear it, but Spencer don't go anywhere because Sean Haney's coming up next They got plenty of water in Canada, but unfortunately all they do is send out smoke. We'll catch everybody next time