Still Strong #27 — Mike Jamerson

Intro voiceover: [0:01] I learned the hard way. Nothing's overnight. Some days you lose, some days you survive.

Keith Vance: [0:13] Still

Keith Vance: [0:26] Mike Jamerson, welcome to the podcast, brother. My pleasure. Mike, this is probably the if I'm gonna be trans fully transparent, this is probably the most excited one that I'm I was looking forward to. Like, I couldn't sleep last night thinking about having you on here. I'm glad to hear that. So, Mike, you are a commercial farmer. Yes. Second generation. Yes.

Keith Vance: [0:51] We've been neighbors for a long time, and I knew that you farmed, but I really didn't know what you did. When COVID happened, that exposed a lot to us. Like, I pride myself on being, like, an independent thinker, like, self sufficient, but COVID exposed to us that we're not as self sufficient as what we think we are. Right. And so I tried to remedy that. And, I remember as a kid, like, my grandparents all had gardens and they canned and stuff like that, and we kinda lost our way through that. Like, we just get busy, we just kinda, like, lost our way. Mhmm. So I started gardening. My wife learned how to can. And your wife called me one day and said, Keith, are you doing a garden? I was like, yeah. She's like, did you know we're farmers? Like, no. She's like, Mike's gonna come over and show you some things. And that's how you and I connected. Correct. So I am thankful for pastors, first responders, teachers, and the people that feed us. And this is an honor for me to have you here, brother. Like, I am I am thankful for you. We all do our part. Yeah. So before we get rocking and rolling, everyone that comes on the podcast, they get these still strong hats. These are Richardson one twelves. My kids tell me the best. And, you are I think that farming lifestyle, brother, that gritty farmer lifestyle is still strong. Like, if that industry isn't still strong, we're all in trouble. Yeah. So and even just

Intro voiceover: [2:20] you as a person, and we're gonna get to this, you as a person, the first time I shook your hand, like, not too many people intimidate me,

Keith Vance: [2:28] but you have a work lifestyle, and you can tell it through a man's hands. Right. You have some hard hands, brother. So I am honored and grateful and thankful to have you here.

Mike Jamerson: [2:39] Well, I like share sharing the, you know, the life that we have. Is a good life. It's a hard life. A lot hours. A lot a lot a lot hours. Then when we were packing this year, there was weeks we were almost a hundred hours a week, and that's the machine running. Wow. And I'm there thirty minutes before the machine starts and thirty minutes after loading trucks and making sure all the counts are right and what have you. And and our produce will go from our packing house over to Immokalee, where the coolers and our sales are over there.

Keith Vance: [3:16] So so let's start there. Since you talked about the operation, let's start there. Your farm is Jamerson Farms. Yes. How long have you been in existence? Well, we've

Mike Jamerson: [3:25] we started when we were kids, and our dad was the farmer. And, actually, I I could start back with our dad, and I'll tell you a little about where we all come from. Let's do it. Well, my dad was a marine, and he was he was tough. And, so he got out of the marines, and then he went to Cuba and started to farm there. And then Fidel Castro took everything he had, so he had to start over. Then he came back to to The United States and, started farming on the East Coast over in Boynton Beach, and he grew strawberries and tomatoes. And, actually, he originated the first plastic machine. There was no plastic in Florida. It was all open land. And then, it was so antiquated compared to what we have now that they used to plant the strawberries, and then they would lay the plastic over them and then slit it and bring it through. Now we lay the plastic, put holes in it, and then we put the plants in it. So people who don't know anything about farming, you're talking plastic. What's the significance of the plastic? What does it do? Like Well, it it'll it keeps the fertilizer from leaching out. Okay. It holds your moisture. Okay. I mean, when you and we there's different kinds when when I go to moisture, there's different kinds of moisture. Like in our farm in Lehi, we use seepage. Okay. And that's we have to put big ditches in, and we pump the water into the canals, and it goes into the ditches, and it seeps underneath. And, the other farms we have in La Belle and Felda, it's on slope. And, actually, the water runs off out the tire tracks into the canals, and we use way less water that way because the ditches are only maybe a foot deep. Whereas the ditches that we put out there at the farm in Lehigh are about four foot deep, and it takes a lot more water to farm that way than it does out there. Understood. And, but the pla back to the plastic, it it also helps keep the weeds down. Understood. But when they've taken all the fumigants off the market or made it impossible to use the fumigants, they're not saying you can't use the fumigants. The government has made it to where you just can't follow all the the rules and regulations to to use the fumigant. So we're now paying $21 an hour for labor for h two a workers out of Mexico, and it gets very expensive to weed a crop of pepper three times before you can get to harvest. What are fumigants? That that we used to have a fume it was called methyl bromide, and, it would kill all the weed seed. It would kill all the pathogens, the the phytophthora, and it would kill everything. And it would kill the nematodes. It just sterilized the soil for us, and we could grow a crop all year with no weeding or anything like that. Well, they took that off in the market. I think it was in the late eighties or early nineties. They took it off the market, but they could still use it in Mexico for fifteen years before they would discuss if they had to get rid of it. And the reason they took it off the market, they they quote, it was depleting the ozone layer. But if you use it in Mexico, it doesn't deplete the ozone layer. Understood. Only in America will deplete the ozone layer. Understood. So this cost us a ton of money, and and our our yields have gone downhill because of it. Because when we have to when the weeds are fighting for the fertilizer and you have the bugs that are in the ground and the diseases that are in the ground, it cuts your production.

Keith Vance: [7:02] Understood. I want to I wanna make sure I navigate this, like, really clearly. I wanna make sure I do justice by you. So let's let's stay in the wheelhouse of we start talking about your dad and his plastic, and then I kinda got you off track. Let's talk about your dad. Yeah. I need to finish that. And let's stay within that wheelhouse of how you got into it, like, the influence of your dad on you and, like, the the farming, what it used to be. Mhmm. And then we'll when we get done drilling down there, we'll just kinda, like, systematically move to the next chapter. Okay. But I wanna I wanna know all of it, but I wanna do it I wanna do it, like, in nice clean chapters. Okay. Let me finish with my dad then.

Mike Jamerson: [7:42] Okay. So then he he did the Boynton Beach thing, and then he decided, we're gonna move to Canada. And he went to Nova Scotia, Canada, and he started a strawberry and blueberry farm up there. And he did that for about seven years. I think we were in Canada for seven years. We were just kids. And from the stories I've heard when we were going up there, we were so poor. Alls we had was mayonnaise sandwiches. There was no meat. Wow. But that's stories that I heard. I don't remember it. I was just a kid. Wow. And so then when he finished up there in seven years, he moved back here to Fort Myers. And it's kind of ironic when he moved back here. He didn't wanna go to the East Coast no more because it was being overgrown, and he wanted to come to this coast. He wouldn't believe it now. Oh, I bet. But, so he believe it or not, he moved to right here on the Orange River. Really? And then that's when I met my wife, what, twenty one years ago. And I'm back here, though, on the Orange River. Oh, wow. It's amazing. So that kinda he started farming here and over on Ballard Road in Fort Myers.

Keith Vance: [8:53] And You just talked about your dad not believing the infrastructure here. Like, Ballard Road, when you told me earlier that your dad used to farm that, like, I can't even imagine that just because of it's industrial now. Mhmm. Like, I can't even imagine that. Yeah. I've seen we moved here in '68,

Mike Jamerson: [9:09] and the things I've seen change Mhmm. It is people told me the jet port was coming out there on Daniels Right. I was driving down a dirt road to the end of a fence with cows, and they're telling me there's gonna be a big jet port and gateway and all that. And I'm just laughing until I saw it happen. Yeah. Yeah. But and I remember my speaking to my dad, I remember coming out the Ortez, extension where all the Walmarts and all. There was absolute heat. We were coming from Sears, which was the only place in town. There was nothing else. And that was the edge of Fort Myers was Sears. And we were coming back out there, and he was just laughing that these people put this big road out here, and there's nothing. And he just thought that was so funny that they did that. Now look at it. And now look at it. You can't hardly move in that area. Yep. So then back to my dad, he he moved here, and then he'd made the fatal mistake. He tried to farm and retire. You don't farm and retire. Explain that to me. You will go broke. You're either in or out. You I've heard other farmers saying to their bankers and all, we're not farming with scared money. If you're scared to put the money in, let us not start. You don't wanna get in the middle of a crop. And he came out of Canada a wealthy man because he sold everything to the government up there. And and the reason he sold out there, it was very it was a excellent opportunity because California and Florida was done with strawberries and they were finishing up up north, and he would come in. He he just had a time slot that was perfect. But the the government told him he could have and he built a labor camp for 600 Jamaicans to pick the strawberries. And then they told him, no. You're not bringing in the Jamaican help no more. You're using Canadian help. And I wanna say people here are can be lazy, but people in Canada can be even lazier. He couldn't get nobody to work. So he sold the thing to the government, and I have no idea of what happened after that. But my point was is he he sold it for a good good amount of money, and he bought 21 acres here on the Orange River and paid cash for it. And but he sat there, and I watched him over the years, and it's kind of really sad and just broken. Just just just broken.

Keith Vance: [11:28] Did your dad specialize in a particular crop, or did he do Well,

Mike Jamerson: [11:34] he he grew the cheap crops, squash. K. And there's two people that grow squash. People that are just getting into business, and people that are just going out of business. K. Those are the two people that grow squash because they if you do nothing but grow squash, you will go out of business. And they can be so this this year, we made a killing in squash. We covered them during the freeze, and but you can't grow them. That can't be your only commodity. You have to you have to have some all the time. What costs more money is bell pepper and tomatoes. That costs a lot more money, and not everybody can do it. And once again, he's trying to retire and farm. Understood. So he went with a cheaper crop. Understood. And it it just didn't work out.

Keith Vance: [12:24] What type of guy was your dad? You said he was a marine? Strict.

Mike Jamerson: [12:30] It was his way or the highway, pretty much. And if you lipped off to him, you could get a backhand and go fly the man was big. He was at least six foot four and probably two eighty. Wow. And he give you a backhand now. You went you didn't wanna you didn't wanna pee him off. I'll put it that way. So he was a hard guy? He was hard, but but he taught us a lot. And the the thing I will say that he taught us that sticks with us more than anything, and my wife can agree with this, is my work ethic. It's it's very good. It's too good. That's right. I can't relax. Oh. Yeah. I do have there's she can admit to it that I just can't stop. And and that's that's was drilled in by well, so like a drill sergeant, but that was drilled in by our dad. And When did you start working as a kid with your dad? Do you remember? Well, two. We were running the produce stand, and then he had a few acres out there, and that's just how it started. How old were you? I was in seventh grade. When you started working with your dad? Well, we started in fifth grade. And and it wasn't, do you wanna work on the farm? You are working on the farm. And I remember I told you a story earlier that, I remember one day that I had a stomachache, and he said and I told my dad, said, I gotta have a stomachache. He said, go sit down on the ditch. And, when it come time to eat that night, he said, go go to bed. I'm I'm, well, I'm hungry. You don't work, you don't eat. And I the next morning, I was looking for my bucket and my knife. I was ready to go to work. I think if we had some more of that in our kids today, that would help, not not to the point that it was drilled into us.

Keith Vance: [14:24] So

Mike Jamerson: [14:26] Maybe the pendulum swung too far the other way. Pendulum never stops in the middle. That's a a guy told me that a long time ago, and I I love repeating that. It never stops in the middle, and that's common sense. You're right. It either is this way or it's this way. You're right. So So you're as a kid, your summers were take No. Our summers were good because and it was only because the house that we had over on Ballard, the air conditioner used so much electricity because they were so antiquated back then. I mean, our power bill was, like, $400 a month back in the seventies.

Keith Vance: [15:02] It

Mike Jamerson: [15:03] was cheaper for us to go to Georgia and stay up there in on the lake in a campground. And so we stayed up there all summer, and that was fun. So you didn't you didn't farm during the summer? No. You can't farm here in the summer. The only thing you can grow here in the summer is okra. Got it. And that's an that's a story in itself, and we used to grow okra in the summer, and we had to pick it. And being younger and all like that, you touch your eyes like that, and then the next thing you know, your eyes are swollen. That didn't get you out of picking okra. You feel for it. And then I remember the one time we had it was probably a five or six inch rain, and I watched that stuff go underwater, the the beds. And I'm like, that's gonna kill it. That's so good. Oh, no. That stuff went to produce like you've never seen, and it loves heat. And so we got 95 degree weather and plenty of rain, and that's the two things okra loves.

Keith Vance: [16:06] So we were picking okra like crazy. I remember you told me that because when I was doing my garden, we did some okra. And you said okra loves heat and it loves water. And, man, you were right. That that thing grew so tall, and it just it wouldn't stop. Like, I was I was walking like, when you first grow your crops, when you see stuff growing, like, you're excited. But with that okra, it's like, oh, man. There's more. It's like, it became a job. Like, man, I gotta keep picking this thing. Right? Acres of that. And there's three I'm sorry. And just three kids picking it. I mean, we had to pick

Mike Jamerson: [16:38] probably fifteen, twenty bushels of okra a day. Wow. Each. Each. Yeah.

Keith Vance: [16:45] Wow. So your your your dad was a farmer, started in Cuba. And I heard I heard Cuba is, like has amazing fertile soil. It does.

Mike Jamerson: [16:59] And, you're not the only one that heard, like, when Castro took over, he kicked everybody out. Like, there's a mutual friend of ours that's a farmer. He made him get on a plane with not not even his clothes. Mhmm. Like, they they they kicked us out. They kicked Americans out. But TJ Chastain told me the same same thing because I was on the Farm Service Agency board with with him. And he told when I told him about my dad, he said the same thing happened to him, and they it was a gauntlet with big rifles. Get on that plane. And that's what my dad would tell him. He says, well, let me get my bank my money out of the bank. Oh, you're not getting that. Well, I need to load up my you're not taking your machinery. And TJ Chastain told me, he says, your dad was lucky. They made me take my clothes off Wow. And get on the plane. That's crazy. Yeah. It was and as you can see, it won a very good deal down there. No.

Keith Vance: [17:49] So then your dad left there, came to The States. Canada, he hit it. He hit a good looking Canada. Well well up there. And then winded up winded up here, and you said he was trying to work and kinda be retired at the same time, and it wasn't wasn't good for him. Well, I

Mike Jamerson: [18:05] maybe and I can't go back and figure out what he was thinking. Maybe he did it because he wanted to teach us to farm. I mean but like I said earlier, you're either in or out. You either put it all in or or stay home, one or the other. You don't you don't half ass farm. There's no such thing. You you do it right. And it farming is expensive. It really is. If you're gonna do it right with plastic well, you can't fumigate, but with the the labor and all like that And and the lift pumps, you have to have to pump the water off, the the wells. And, I mean, to put a well in in in one of our farms now is $45,000. Wow. And the the pump that goes in it is 18. The motor to go on it is about 30. And it's and you have to have several wells to do just one farm. Wow. So it's it's not cheap. And then, like, John Deere tractors now, with the front assist, they're almost $500,000 for for John Deere tractors. And even the little ones are, like, a 160. Wow. I mean, just a 100 horse tractor. And then you the size farm we have, we have we have six of the big ones and 18 of the little ones. And then you have to have track hose, motor graders, and, payload. You gotta have so much equipment staying at forklifts and all to to to sustain a farm.

Keith Vance: [19:30] So you just mentioned all the equipment you have to have to farm

Mike Jamerson: [19:34] in this day and age. And that's not even the spray rigs. All the lift pumps and a lift pump now is $40, and they they pump, like, 25,000 gallons of water per minute. I mean, when you have a four inch rain, you got to have that, and you have to have you have to buy one inch of lift pump for one acre of land. So if you have 1,400 acres, you need 1,400 inches of lift pumps, and they come in 24 inches. So that tells you how many lift pumps you've gotta have.

Keith Vance: [20:04] Has farming like, hearing you describe all this expense to farm nowadays, has it evolved from what it was when your dad was farming, has it always been that equipment, those pumps, has it always been like that, or has it evolved? In in all fairness, the

Mike Jamerson: [20:23] farmers here in Amokali were farming just like we are now. Okay. The our dad came down here, he was open land. I mean, when I say open land, no plastic, and he's farming cheap. And the the boys in Amokalee, the the Johnson brothers and what have you and the big corporations, six l's and what have you, They were all using plastic and pepper and all. And I remember my brother and I will talk about it when we were growing squash and they were growing pepper and tomatoes and you're watching it back in the seventies, hitting a $20 pepper market when labor was 2 or $3 an hour. And you had the fuming consent and everything was the John Deere tractor was $50,000. And if we would have been growing the pepper and tomatoes back then, Steve and I will laugh at each other and say, we would only county because there was so much money to be made back then. And here we were growing squash. We'd like to kick ourselves in the butt. First, we when our parents passed away, we stayed with squash for till '83, and we grew our first cucumbers. And then from that point, that's the first year we actually made money, was the year that we quit growing. We still grew some squash, but we quit growing just squash.

Keith Vance: [21:41] So that was my next question was,

Keith Vance: [21:45] that lifestyle sounds like a very hard lifestyle. You're talking about as a kid picking, okra that you're allergic to. Mhmm. But here you are, an old man an older man now, and you're farming. So it must have gotten your blood somehow. Like Oh, it definitely does. So how with it being so hard let's let's talk about that for a while. You talk about the expense, how hard it is. There must be something that's rewarding or else you wouldn't be doing it. Can we talk about that? Like, why why have you been doing it this little long? What's what's what gets you up? What makes you wanna do it? Well, one thing Everything you just told me, I got anxiety in my heart because I'm a business owner. Uh-huh. When you're talking all these expenses and how hard it is and, like, this roll of the dice, I'm that's scary. Love to watch stuff grow. Okay. So let's hear it. Why are you doing what you're doing? What's what's the reward of it?

Mike Jamerson: [22:41] Well, one of the rewards is is, I get to think a lot. And, because you're sitting in the tractor for hours and hours and hour. Well, when we're laying plastic and all, those are fourteen hour days, and it's seven days a week. Because when season hits, it's seven days a week. And, but I love to watch stuff grow, and I like to watch the the miracles of God out there. I mean, we plant millions and millions and millions of seeds, and every one of them has a brain, and they all know to come up. They all know to come out of the ground and to put the roots down. Every one of them know that. And and then you just sit out there and you see the the animals and what have you, and then you'll see the clouds come through. When you're in that tractor, I actually have a shirt, and it has a picture of a John Deere in it. It says this is the view from my office. And that kinda tells you kinda what I'm dealing with out there. I get to see all that in the wide open, not around a lot of people. But when the packing house starts, I'm around a lot of people. You're running. Yeah. But I do I do love to and there's heartaches because you'll see stuff don't come up, and we've had we dealt with that this year. And I don't know. We the one thing I can tell you, when you think you know everything about farming, you're gonna go broke. Wow. Because you never ever know everything. And you think you you you think we've we've learned stuff this year and have been doing it for fifty something years, and we learn something new every year. But there we had two crops that, like, the freeze hit, and I planted pepper after the freeze. And I had pepper that went through the freeze, and the pepper that went through the freeze did way better than the pepper I planted after the freeze. And I I'm assuming that the freeze did something to the fertilizer and made it salt out, and this is the reason we couldn't get a crop of pepper. It was maybe a a 25% yield compared to the ones that went through the freeze. Wow. And and we we cannot put our finger on it, and and we went to the IFAS station and all that. And they can help you with some things, but they're only as good as their as what they know, and and they don't know it that much. But we went there and tried to get them to tell us what was wrong, and we have scouts because when we're at the packing house, we can't watch every acre of, crops with the bugs. And, also, we have two scouts that they that's all their job is. They come in twice a week, they scout all the crops to make sure about the bugs and all that. And they send us a detailed, this is what you need to spray with and all. And, but but back then, I I love what we do. You would have to. There's a lot of heartache in it, but but there's there's enough good to keep us going. Good.

Keith Vance: [25:35] So you and your brother took the farm over?

Mike Jamerson: [25:38] Three brothers. And one of our my youngest brother passed away six years ago. Okay.

Keith Vance: [25:43] And, did you did your dad die and then you took it over, or what was that transition like? Yes. We took it over when he passed away. He passed away. And what was that conversation like for you three the three boys? Was it or, like, was it already, like, predetermined? Hey. When when mom and dad go, like, this is our destiny. It was already predetermined? It was. K. Yeah. We we

Mike Jamerson: [26:06] knew we would be farming. You your your destiny was already determined. Like, this is what this is what we're doing. We didn't know anything better. Got it. So and then and then when we took over and we have an a younger generation coming in. It's my younger brother's kids, and they have they have no idea of the struggles and having to deal with bankers when you weren't making money and and the stories you'd have to you'd have to convince them you're you're still good. And and and now fifty something years later, now you have the bankers come and see you. I mean but now we own the land and what have you. But if we're still growing squash, this wouldn't be the situation. But we've we've, over the years, have gotten, I would say, on our feet in a good way. But at the very beginning, they they don't know what it's like to struggle, and we struggle. I actually can remember one time I had to borrow a thousand dollars from my aunt to just to eat. And and our dad didn't teach us how to one problem is our dad didn't teach us how to farm. He taught us how to pick. Oh. He didn't teach us none of the farming. He was the farmer. We were the we

Keith Vance: [27:22] were the pickers. You were the labor. You were the labor. You were the labor. So there's so there's a lesson to be learned there, like because I own a couple businesses and my kids work with me, And they my kids have a good work ethic. But what you just said, like, I need to teach them, and I am teaching them the business. Mhmm. I am I'm giving them the tools they need to if something happens to me, Like, there's gonna be a learning curve for them too. Like, you you you never really know everything until you're in the driver's seat. Right? Absolutely. So even when you're talking about your the next generation, your nephew's taken over, there's gonna be some things that they're gonna have to learn. They're gonna have to feel that knot in their stomach. But if you can just slowly download the information that they need to be able to run it.

Mike Jamerson: [28:12] Right? And you need to be humble. Mhmm. Need to be humble. There's no doubt about it. And when you the the next generation I'm talking about, they've never had to scrap. They've never had to cover crops in freezes, and my younger brother kinda spoiled them. They're driving around the Escalades and what have you like that. And and they're they're they're not at the farm all the time. You have to be there or you can't. And and I wanna step back one second. So so when we took over and tell you how we actually did go to the government and borrow, and we ended up owing them $600,000. And we're the only one in three counties here that actually paid them back because our dad taught us that if you borrow money, you pay it back with interest. And they worked with us. They gave us a a a 5% interest, which was good back in, you know, the eighties

Keith Vance: [29:04] Mhmm. Back during the Jimmy Carter days and what have you. That was a good rate back then, wasn't it?

Mike Jamerson: [29:09] Well, when we took over the house, the mortgage was 18% and equipment was 21%. Wow. And that scared the crap out of us when Obama was going in. And our land out there now, we were we were at three three and a half percent interest, and they were gonna lock us in at six point okay. We can't make it at 18 or 21%. And who would have ever thought interest rates would have went down to 1%? Oh my goodness. We really what what and we have to lock in every five years. It's a balloon every five years. So we were locked in for that 6.89 for five years when interest rate, they were giving money away. Those are the things, though, that you have to learn. You have to learn. Yeah. But we did know that we couldn't make an 18% interest. We couldn't we would've lost the farm. Understood. And and I watched that. And and this isn't to deal with us, but with farmers, I watched that in the seventies with, during the Carter days and all like that. They were telling all the farmers plant from fence post to fence post. Get it all planted. And then they did the, embargo. The next thing you know, farmers are out in the barn shooting themselves and hanging themselves.

Keith Vance: [30:25] So hold on a minute. You're you're kinda jumping around. You're this is your world Mhmm. You've lived in your whole life. So you're you're talking about stuff that I as as a person who's in construction, I don't know this. Oh, that's in the seventies. So back up a little bit. Mhmm. What's an embargo? How did it affect them? Like, why are people committing suicide? It's just exactly like what's going on right now. What's going on right now? With the with the China.

Mike Jamerson: [30:48] When we put the tariffs on China Okay. The first thing they do is we're not buying any of your farm products. Now all those farmers up there, they have those $500,000 John Deere's Yes. And their payments are coming due. Understood. And they can't sell their wheat. They can't sell their soybeans. They can't sell their corn. So and the administration's in now I know he likes farmers, and he's given out money to to help, you know, help them more. That's not what farmers are wanting. We don't want a handout. We want a free market. And ours is totally different than what I'm talking about up north. We we grow, commodities that it's it's like going to Vegas. One minute squash is $4, the next is $25 for the same box of squash within two or three days. Their commodity prices stay the same pretty much all the time. And the what they're being paid right now, they they can't make it. They're gonna their their bankruptcies are going through the roof right now on farms up there. And back in the seventies and all, and you ask me, I'm a second generation farmer. Those are five generation farmers up there. And they're sitting here looking at this. My great great granddaddy started it, and and they go and now I'm fixing to lose it. They go out in the barn, and they they can't handle it. They shoot themselves or hang themselves or whatever. That I can't imagine what that would feel like knowing that you you lost the farm after that many generations. I mean, that just that makes me sad right now just thinking about that. But I'm older than you, and you you you won't remember this, but John Mellencamp Cougar Mellencamp came out with a song, and it's called scare cross scarecrow on the crosses or whatever, and that's what that song was about. But every time the government does that and use farmers, the NAFTA for us was the worst thing that ever happened to Florida farmers. And I know we need competition because if we didn't, we just had that major freeze this year. And pepper was $50, tomatoes for $60. We never get those kind of markets. But if we didn't have Mexico to keep us in check, we would be that at all the time, which would be only probably about 25% of what the stores gets. That's another story. But if we don't have us to keep Mexico in check, when our tomatoes were $60 this year, which is is unheard of. Normally, a tomato market's around $12. They were 80. I don't know if they had a weather problem or they were just capitalizing on our our loss over here because of the freeze. But you do need competition, but we need to have fair competition. And NAFTA is so not fair. First off, they pay, like, a dollar an hour. We're paying $21 an hour for labor.

Keith Vance: [33:48] So, again, man, there's so much here, and you're you're going fast because this is your world. What's I've heard of NAFTA, but I really don't know what NAFTA is, so educate me. It's called the North American Free Trade Association.

Mike Jamerson: [34:04] And they all knew it is it's kinda sad because they all knew this was coming in because they built millions hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cooler space in all Nogales. They knew it was gonna pass, And it was our our government, congress. They they passed it. And what they're looking at is now we can build plants for Ford and GM and whatever whatever Cubota or whatever down in Mexico and used the cheap labor and send the stuff back over here. Okay. And they just threw us under the bus. Okay. Because we're we're maybe 6 or $7,000,000,000 worth of and they're talking hundreds of billions of dollars worth of shirts and shoes and all the stuff that's coming across the border. So they threw us under the bus. They could care less even though they told us they were gonna put protections in their force. And there is protections in there that nobody can enforce. Nobody will enforce them. So

Keith Vance: [35:01] I when you mentioned I remember hearing NAFTA associated with, like, GM plants and, like, vehicles, stuff like that. I never heard of NAFTA in regard to farming. So what does how does NAFTA help or hurt the the American farmer? Like It put most of the farms here in Florida because we compete

Mike Jamerson: [35:21] our our climates are the same. K. We have the same markets. Okay. And they once again, like I said earlier with the mouth of rum, anything that we say that is not safe to use here, it goes to Mexico, and they can use it there. Okay. Seeds, if if something's out of date, just whatever. They can they can get away with a lot more down there than we can here because So the regulations

Keith Vance: [35:46] the regulations are not a fair playing field. Okay. That makes sense to me. Okay. If they can do things that would help if they're allowed to do things there that you're not allowed to hear, your cost is more

Mike Jamerson: [35:57] understood. Okay. Thank you. Right. Now here's another part of this equation. This this is important. Their money is the majority of the agriculture down there is financed from drug money. So they're laundering their money. They get it up here, and they I can't all else I can tell you and they use produce because you can only keep it at the border for twenty four hours. You can keep a load of shoes indefinitely because they won't spoil. But they put all their their drugs and all to come into this country, and thanks to Trump, they stopped a lot of this. And and I remember working with, Bob Graham, and at this point, he wasn't our governor. He was the senator. Senator Bob Graham and Porter Goss, the the congressman, when NAFTA passed. And I worked hand in hand with them, and they would send me articles of showing how, you know, the cocaine showed up in in a a box of cucumbers or a box of peppers or a box of tomatoes. And if they can just get one box, they'll throw the whole load of squash or tomato. They'll throw it away. They made so much money on on the little bit of cocaine they got across, but they used that to get the the produce to get their drugs into the country. And then they they are the ones that that are financing the agriculture down there. Not all, but a lot of drug money is in agriculture down there. And I'm trying to compete that try to compete with that legally.

Keith Vance: [37:29] I knew you and I were gonna have a lot to talk about. I knew we were, but, like, you're hitting me with a bunch of stuff. There's, a plate of spaghetti right now. Like, I wanna stop you and talk about like, you've already hit three or four major things. I just wanna stop and, like, drill down. Man. The life of a freaking farmer, man. I thought we're just we're talking about growing peppers and tomatoes, brother. Now we're like No. There's politics involved. It's

Mike Jamerson: [37:57] and we've got some farms that they they get involved. Like, there's Damari Farms, Tony Damari. I've seen articles with him and all, But, we just don't we're not that big a deal. I'll just put it that. We're nobody's down here compared to the rest of the industries.

Keith Vance: [38:17] K. I'm gonna I'm gonna get to all the stuff you're talking to because you've given me some stuff to to get to. But I want to let's go back and let's stay here for a minute. I want you to walk me through the process of okay. Alright. Let's do this. You ready? Let's do this. Because you said you talked about, man, if we would've grouped me and my brothers, if we would've grouped Peppers back then, we would've hit it big. If but we know we did squash, but the reason why you do squash is because it's cheap to grow. Okay? So I here's what I want you to do. Okay? I want you to put me in a in the room with you and your brothers where you're getting ready to decide, hey, what are we growing next? I want you I want you to take me through that process of whatever you pick to grow, tomatoes, peppers, whatever you guys pick to grill. Mhmm. And then I want you to walk me through the process of, okay, the decision, let's do this, and then walk me through the entire process of that season of whatever you chose. Okay. By the time you make the decision, whatever the process is to get the seed in the ground, whatever the process is to make sure that that crop grows and make sure it's healthy all the way to what ends up on my that tomato on my burger and my dinner table. Okay. Let's let's that I think that'll shed that'll shed a lot of light. And then once we get through that process, I wanna talk somebody about these other things that you talked about. Okay. Let's start with But I wanna keep the plate clean. Don't don't give me spaghetti. Let's give me a nice a nice clean.

Mike Jamerson: [39:48] Okay. Let's start with the the process of what we're gonna plant. Well, first thing you have to do is is since we've lost all of our farmland here, you have to refarm the same land over and over and over. So you can't just say I'm gonna plant squash in this field. You have to think what was there last year. Okay. Because if you have eggplant in that field last year, there's certain crops you can't plant this year because the the eggplant with the diseases that when you plow it in the ground will destroy the crop that you're gonna plant. So you have to remember everything you had there last year. Wow. Okay. So now when we're plan planning on what we're gonna do, luckily now, I can plant whatever I wanna plant, not because of financial. Because in the past, pepper being more expensive and all, we wanted to grow pepper, but you can't grow pepper because I remember calling the the plant house and telling them, well, we wanna put 20 acres of pepper. And what and the lady would tell me, she says, well, send me the seed. Well, I couldn't afford the seed. That stopped that immediately. Can't can't grow pepper. So now that we can afford to grow whatever we want, that helps. So what we'll do is is we kinda remember not just last year what we grew, but what's the trend? I mean k. Like, right now, the the new trend is to grow cucumbers, and and I'll give you the reason why. And this will go into the planning schedule. The reason being is because the East Coast has a salmonella problem, and they have a salmonella pro and that's our main competitors, Mexico and the East Coast. And and in all fairness, the the chain stores would rather buy from us than Mexico if it's cheap enough. Okay? So they have a salmonella problem, and you're not gonna believe it. It's from Moguanas. They crap in the water. It goes and then when they have a flood or whatever over there and the water raises up, it goes into the field. And then when it goes to the packing house, it gets into the the the belts or whatever. And, so they've had to quit growing cucumbers. But if you don't know that and you just keep growing the same thing over and over and over, so we're training more acreage to cucumbers now. Okay. But in fairness, now we're starting to see the iguanas over here. So we might be in trouble down the road with that. And, but in general, the majority of the stuff that we grow now is bell pepper and cucumbers. And then it we it's not a science. I just keep planting a half a million plants every five days. 500,000 plants every five days. So I have pepper all year. So if the market's $6, that sucks. If it's 25, I've got pepper. So we kinda insure ourself. We have crop insurance also, but we kinda insure ourself by having four different crops, and we and we just have them all the time. Now cucumbers, you can only have them in November, December. You cannot grow cucumbers in January, February. They don't like cold weather, especially cold wind, and we have plenty of that. So we come back in March and April with cucumbers. Pepper, you can grow all the whole season. And and our season starts

Keith Vance: [43:15] we'll start harvesting on October and we go through June. I don't want into June. Listen. We didn't even put a seed in the ground yet, you're already talking harvest. Mhmm. Where do you get the seeds from? Like Okay. So you made alright. We're doing cucumbers,

Mike Jamerson: [43:27] and we're doing peppers. Yes. And and So once you and your boys made that decision Mhmm. We gotta get some seeds, I think. Right? Or we or we You do. Are we prepping the soil? Like, what are we doing? All summer all summer. And with the now here's the story. Diesel fuel being so expensive as it is, now we're going heavier with with the herbicides. So once we get the fields plowed level from this year's crops, we maintain them all summer. So you either have to disc them or and you can't just disc them. You have to disc and level. If you can't, when you get a big rain and that soil is all fluffy, you can't get back in there. So then we go from

Keith Vance: [44:08] now what you get it all level and then Hold on a minute. I'm a walk you through this. We're gonna disc and level the field. Mhmm. What is the process of that? What's the cost associated to that? Well How long does it take?

Mike Jamerson: [44:21] I I haven't this year with the new fuel prices, I just know it's too expensive to disc. So when we plow on level, then we'll go through there and we we have GPS now. And they put the little ditches in, and then we put the herbicide rigs in there. And that will kill the grass. And with the back again with labor being 21 an hour, we wanna kill as many grass seeds as possible. So every time they grow up, we kill them. That's less that we have to pull out with $21 an hour labor. So we do that all summer. All summer, you're We're either discing or herbicide. You're discing or herbicide. You have to keep the weeds down. Okay. If you let them come up and seed out and we we have a thing we called our our seed bank. Yeah. It's the wrong seed. It's the weed seed bank. And we're saying our bank is full. Understood. So all summer bad thing. So all summer, you're keeping the fields, you're keeping the weeds down, and you're just you're just getting it ready all summer. To keep keep the weed seeds from redoing it. Okay. All plants are the same. The weeds and our plants and all is to reproduce. That's what it's all about is to reproduce. They wanna grow more weeds, so they Right. Reproduce. Okay. So now we're gonna order the seeds. I have several people that we order our seeds from. And then, like, the pepper the cucumbers, we hand plant in the in the plastic. Hold on a But the I'm going back to the seeds. Alright. Yep. And and then the seeds from the pepper, I have to send to the plant house, and they grow. Alright. The while they're growing for six weeks, I'm now we're going we we have our labor coming from Mexico, and we we're gonna lay the plastic. So we we plow, and then we level, And then the we have one tractor goes through there and pre beds.

Keith Vance: [46:08] Now you wanna hear all the steps? Right now, yeah, I do. But right now, wanna talk about the seeds because you can't just get the seeds wherever you want.

Mike Jamerson: [46:16] You can't just go down to Home Depot and get some seeds. Like Well, they they they do sell little packets, but we we buy them we buy our seeds in in, 25 pound buckets. Okay. And we and cucumbers, I order 30 buckets of the cucumber seeds a year. What what's what's the cost of a bucket

Keith Vance: [46:33] of seeds?

Mike Jamerson: [46:35] The the cucumbers are around 5,000. Zucchini is about 5,000 a bucket. $5,000 for Those are the cheap seeds. The pepper seeds are the expensive seeds. How much are those? They're $6,000 a pound.

Keith Vance: [46:48] $6,000

Mike Jamerson: [46:49] a pound. And they will do three acres. So it's $2,000 per acre for just the seed. Okay. Now I have to send that seed to the set house, and they charge, $40 per thousand to grow them. To grow them. Okay. And they keep them for six weeks, send them to us, and then we plant them. So the the seeds,

Keith Vance: [47:07] I'm I'm guessing so I'm just trying to get like I said, forgive me for slowing you down Mhmm. But I don't know anything about this, so I'm trying to understand

Mike Jamerson: [47:15] it. I guess I think that you're a farmer. So

Keith Vance: [47:19] I know, like, I'm more of a rancher, I guess Uh-huh. Because I got, like, a half dozen little cows and whatever, so I know more about that. So here's what I know about that. Well, I'm talking to you like you're a farmer. Like, you know everything. Dude, just because I did a little garden one time during COVID, listen, man. I just got a good neighbor. It's not what you know. It's who you know. Just called my neighbor. Talk to nobody but farmers.

Mike Jamerson: [47:40] So I'm not used to talking to somebody who's not a farmer. So okay. So listen. The seeds Yes, sir. When you're investing that kind of money, like,

Keith Vance: [47:49] I know ranchers, like, they do semen test on bulls to make sure, like, hey. You know what mean? When you're doing it at that level, you wanna make sure you're getting a good quality. So do they test the seeds? Like, do you have, like, the Oh, they're

Mike Jamerson: [48:03] oh, that's why they're so expensive. Let's talk about that for a minute. Okay. So know all the specifics. Tell me what you know. But but the the the genetics and all, they have to work with it is, I'm gonna go back to squash seeds. We used to back when in the seventies, all we couldn't grow squash in the wintertime because they would get a a thing. It was called mosaic. And the squash would have bumps all over. It it would be the kind of stuff you'd see for Halloween to scare you. Okay. Okay? And that's what the squash would look. Well, the housewife's not gonna buy that. Got it. So they have worked with that seed to breed that out of it. Okay. And we don't have mosaic anymore. Okay. And and I think what they do is they like, with watermelons, they never used to be seedless watermelons. Right. They were all seeded, and they worked with it and worked with it. And I think they use like, they'll use a blueberry bush or something like that and try to breed it with that to get to get it out and like that. They spend millions and millions and millions of dollars breeding. They and they have them they have them here in California. They have most of our at least half of our pepper seeds actually is from a a company from Japan. Wow. And China, Mexico, the the the where they do this. And the you can't just buy seeds and you can't just buy a cucumber seed. You have to buy the right cucumber seed because there's cucumber seeds that are are made for people up north that have a different humidity Got it. Than we have here. Got it. And we've we did that one year. We grew up, and it it was a beautiful cucumber. And it would rot in twenty four hours. You could stick you it would start oozing, and you could stick your finger in it. Big mistake. That's one of them learning curves there. Understood. Those are the ones that you remember. But you have to grow what's good for your climate and your area. So people that grow cucumbers in California use a different variety than we use. Thank you for letting me pause you and just go step by step because this is real helpful to me. It's it's it gives me a mental picture, and it just gives me some clarity. So thank you. There's once again, when I say there's a lot of money involved in farming, there's a prime example, and that's why the seeds are so expensive. Got it. But but when when you wanna know the cost of seeds, we spend about $1,000,000 a year in just seeds. And then it's about 400,000 in in the plant house to to grow the seeds. And cucumbers, we hand plant. Okay. So you're

Keith Vance: [50:26] between

Keith Vance: [50:29] the keeping the field de weeded Mhmm. Between buying the seeds for at a million bucks a pop and, taking the cucumber seeds to the grow house for No. The cucumbers don't go. It's just the pepper. I'm sorry. The peppers to the grow house. They want $400. To to grow them, but they grow 10,000,000 plants first. So you're a million and a half plus, and you haven't even put anything in the ground yet. And then the plastic I've already ordered it, and my plastic's already been delivered. You've ordered the plastic. What's what's plastic for what you're the size from that you're doing, what's the plastic cost?

Mike Jamerson: [51:05] A roll of plastic is getting close to $300 a roll, and it takes two rolls. So $600 an acre. $600 an acre for plastic. Just for the plastic.

Keith Vance: [51:13] So before you even put a seed in the ground, how much money are you out right now? Are you closing in on $2,000,000?

Mike Jamerson: [51:22] Well, when we start. I haven't ordered the seeds yet for this year, but in the beginning of the season, we that's the believe it or not, it's some of the cheaper parts. The the big thing that hits us is when we start harvesting.

Keith Vance: [51:38] I mean, our payroll is quarter of million dollars a week. Yeah. But I'm not there yet. I'm still talking But I'm just saying that's talking about the process of

Mike Jamerson: [51:45] Yeah. You we have we have everything in the ground before we start getting any money back. Mean, like you're saying, the seed, the plastic, and I keep I keep saying fumigant. It's not fumigant. We put stuff in there just for the diseases. Nothing for there's nothing you can put in there. And it's the same diseases that you have to spray for on top. But,

Keith Vance: [52:09] I lost my train of thought. Where was I'm trying to ask you before you even actually start farming, before you even put up seed in the ground.

Mike Jamerson: [52:16] I'm trying to get an idea how much cost you have now. The plastic had to be bought ordered back in April k. For this coming season, which is six months prior. If not, you don't get your plastic. Got it. And the seeds, the people that I do business with, they know that what I'm gonna have, what I'm gonna need, and they have them in stock. Got it. And sometimes back to seeds. Sometimes you think you have what I just said, and, like, we were growing impact cucumber seeds. And the reason we're growing that is because there's a new disease called downy mildew, new strain of it. And they had two crop failures out in California, and that's where they grew the impact. I had to change to another variety, and now we're growing it's called the dominator. But I was thinking I was getting impact, and I and for two years, I had to I had to try different cucumber seeds, and I was not happy about that. And they there's no warning. They just when you call and say, alright. Go and send them all these seeds, We don't have them. We had a crop failure. Wow. And that that was and at that point, when that happened, I was growing almost all cucumbers then. And we're we grow more pepper than we grow cucs now. But back to the seeds, so that's why they're so expensive. K. Is is this and then So Alright. I'll progress now into planting. I'm ready. So I got my field

Keith Vance: [53:42] is prepped. We're deweeding, waiting for season to come. I got my seeds ordered. I put a million bucks out for my seeds. Right? Mhmm. My pepper seeds, took to the grow house. I gave them $400,000 to start growing them for me. Right? I ordered my plastic six months ago because if I don't, I'm not gonna have plastic. I shelled out money for my plastic. Are we ready to start rocking and rolling and growing yet? At this point, are we are we ready to grow? I'm ready. I mean, is this the next step? Sure. Alright. Is this the next step in the process? I'm asking you. You're the farmer. Like Yeah. All that stuff is just, like, it just happens.

Mike Jamerson: [54:15] I mean, the the set house will call me and ask me, are you gonna have the because they have to know how many farmers are gonna need space. They only have x amount of space in there. And if somebody comes in here, you know, they and that happens in our business all the time. You have some people that come in here and, like, they just saw pepper at $50 a bushel. Oh, we're gonna get into the we're gonna be farmers now, and we're gonna grow a thousand acres and pepper's gonna be $50 a bushel. But the set house, if they don't know, they're gonna come to me because I've been dealing with them for probably thirty years growing pepper with them. So they're gonna ask me first since I'm a already steady customer. Got it. Are you gonna have the same amount of pepper? If so, we'll keep your space open. Understood. If somebody if they didn't ask me that and somebody jumps in, I'm sorry. And it happened during the freeze this year. I told them, get me my pepper seeds in the ground. Or I'm sorry. It was squash seeds because I wanted to get them in right after the freeze.

Keith Vance: [55:14] They couldn't. The houses were full. There's competition for the space to grow houses. Yes, sir. Okay. Yeah. So those are to my back to my neck my question. Right now, we got our seeds. We got our plants grown. We got our plastic. Is it time to start growing yet? No. I I

Mike Jamerson: [55:31] and I did walk through there and show you how we lay the plastic. Let's do it. Okay. So the we have, it's, like, seven different operations. We have the first tractor with and we do everything three rows at a time now. So you're throwing up beds that are they're almost a foot tall. They're 42 inches wide and three of them. And it takes it takes a 300 horsepower tractor

Keith Vance: [55:52] to throw three of them up. So the first tractor goes through. He's got the GPS on it. So have an advantage to the listeners because I actually went out and saw your operation. Your wife has let me come out a couple times, and I've seen you. So I have a vision of this. So this this part is easy for me because I can see it. So the first tractor, like I said, hit we don't have GPS on all the tractors. It's expensive. We have paid subscription

Mike Jamerson: [56:14] per month for it. So we have one tractor. He goes through there, he does all the pre beds. And then we have another tractor comes through, and it drops it's called the coal mix, and it's got low nitrogen in it. So when you plant the seeds in it, that it won't it won't hurt the seeds. Understood. And then we come back later. Alright. Then we take a rotavator, and we rotavate all those fertile all that fertilizer all through the bed. Okay. So you don't plant your seed into a a bunch of fertilizer. Now it's spread out through the whole bed. Then A rotavator, is that like a rototiller? Yes. Okay. Got it. But but it's an eight foot wide on each one. Everything you guys do is big. Okay. Everything you do is big. Yeah. And funny thing is is when we lay plastic, I'm there every day because I can watch what all the operations are doing from my tractor. Okay. So so then the following after the rotavator, then that's me. I do the super bed, and I put the the stuff in the ground for the fungicide and rebed again. Then the next fertilizer comes out, and it's called the hot mix. And it goes out into the track, and it's high nitrogen, 18 o 25, where the beginning was five just five parts nitrogen, and it has slow release in it. So thirty days later, after you plant the seed and it gets the bloom on it and it's ready to start putting on fruit, that fertilizer breaks down. But that fertilizer will not do anything for thirty days. And it has slow release nitrogen.

Keith Vance: [57:48] The it's it's coated with something that releases in thirty days. So right now, what I'm understanding again, forgive me, but I gotta go slow. It sounds like we're putting down plastic. We haven't put the plastic yet. Oh, we haven't done it yet. No. We're just This is all under the plastic. This is before the plastic. Thank you. Right now, we're prepping the soil. We're fertilizing the soil. Got two different kinds of fertilizer. Got it. Okay. Now alright.

Mike Jamerson: [58:12] So the hot mix is down. Now the now the plastic. Okay. So in regard to the fertilizer before the plastic,

Keith Vance: [58:20] man, again, I remember during COVID, everybody was complaining about cost of fertilizer, and it was gonna drive the cost of the food up.

Mike Jamerson: [58:30] How much do you spend for fertilizer on your farm? I don't know what it'll be this year. Last year, it we put, in the very beginning, we put 1,400 pounds of the cold mix and 1,400 pounds of hot mix per acre. And the cold mix was, like, 500 and something dollars per ton, and the hot mix was, like, 700. I'm sure it's gonna be a lot higher this year. They've they've I've called the fertilizer company and asked them, are we gonna be able to get fertilizer? Yes. You will be able but you are gonna pay up a Well a lot more for it. And during COVID, it wasn't that bad for us. There was a time I wanna say about eight or nine years prior to that. I remember when they delivered a load of and our fertilizer comes 20 tons at a time. Wow. And What's 20 tons of fertilizer even look like? What It comes in killer, Bruce. And and, actually, you pull a lever and five tons comes over and dumps into your your hopper. Okay. And and five you we we have five ton hoppers, so it dumps it over there and it distributes it like that. So I'm I'm not good at math. Maybe Michael can help me unless you're better. 20 tons of freaking fertilizer.

Keith Vance: [59:42] What does that cost

Mike Jamerson: [59:44] Alright. More or less? Well, use well, this year, the hot mix was, like, $12,000 a load, and the other was, like, $8,000 a load. And you put a ton and a half per acre at at average of that. So you you're probably about $600 per acre. $600 for your Fertilizer. For the fertilizer. Thank you. And then and then Thank you for your patience with me. And then that's not enough because during the season when you're picking, we have to foliar feed it on top of that. Okay. And and when I tell you there's a lot to farming, you have to have your soil anxiety over here right now. You have to have your soil right. That's what I was telling you when you were guarding. Just come out and get a load of my soil because it's got the right calcium, magnesium, and all. We have to soil test every year. I I skipped this That's okay. We have to test our soil first. Organize our food. And then they tell us, you need this much calcium. You need this. And a lot of it, like dolomite or or gypsum, will spread out through the fields for the calcium. The rest of it, they can put in the fertilizer. Got it. And if you don't have all these things right, you're not gonna produce. You're screwed. You're you just spent all those millions you're talking about for nothing. For nothing. You miss one one thing, and calcium is the most important. We've we once again, knocks. We grew a crop of pepper and the calcium we we we apparently did not check our soil like we were supposed to, which this was the learning experience, and it had little black spots called blossom end rot. And we had to throw all that pepper away. So we grew a beautiful crop of pepper and couldn't harvest it. So soil testing. Soil test is. You soil test. Goes back to you. You know up in construction, the foundation's the most important thing. Yeah. Your soil is the most important thing. So you're soil testing, and then based off the soil test results,

Keith Vance: [1:01:43] you're putting the appropriate fertilizers. Okay. Yep. Got it. So now we're Yeah. You just don't you just don't go get fertilizer. Got it. You have to have the right analysis at all. So now we're soil tested. We have our fertilizer. We just dropped off 20 tons of fertilizer. We put that down. What's next?

Mike Jamerson: [1:02:02] And now we've gone to the we now have the plastic in the ground. And, usually, seven days later, we'll start planting. And then all you do is the cucumbers, you run a hole punches through there, and then and that's how we start bringing we we don't bring all of our h two a workers at once. We'll bring in, like, 45 to 55 on the first petition, and then they'll plant the cucumbers. And then from that point on for the next three to four weeks, you just watch them grow. From then from that point on, you're in charge. That's when the worms start attacking them. General rule of thumb on cucumbers, the minute they start to run, they start put that little shoot out Yeah. Spray them for worms. Our scout will tell us there's worms in there, but what we already know it beforehand. It's just nature. It's just the way it is. Now the bell pepper, you have to you have to get woke up at 05:00 in the morning. The guys are delivering your pepper. And well, what when it's laying plastic time, I get up early anyway. But when I'm when they're planting pepper and I'm at the packing house, I don't need to get up early. Really irritates me. But they call me at 05:00 in the morning, we're delivering your peppers. And sometimes they deliver them to the wrong Farm. And I have a crew of 55 people standing there waiting for the pepper At $21.21 dollars an hour. Yeah. And the peppers are at the wrong farm. And I told the person that runs the plant house the day before. Got it. That's annoying. Need to go to the Little Bell Farm, and they go to the Feld Farm. That's annoying. And it's it's 20 miles away. They have to go back, send a truck, pick it up, take it back. But but okay. Now we've planted the peppers and and same thing. I got some questions for you. Okay.

Keith Vance: [1:03:44] How long does it take to plant? The size from that you have, is it does it take do you plant everything in a day? Do you plant it does it take a month? Once again, I told you we plant 500,000

Mike Jamerson: [1:03:54] plants every five days. So it's constant it's not the whole farm don't get planted at once. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I'm getting the picture. No. Thank you. Every every five days, and the plastic has to be laid up ahead because in in the season that we start with the raining and all like that, if you don't have the plastic in the ground, your plants are ready. Yeah. And you don't have your plastic laid. You we have to stay at least three weeks ahead with the plastic.

Keith Vance: [1:04:21] Have you ever got behind? Yeah. That sucks, doesn't it? Yeah. I hate being behind. I hate playing catch up. I hate it. Well, what

Mike Jamerson: [1:04:29] when you're talking about the the planning of the of the farm, like, the eggplant, I have to put one planting here, another planting on the other farm, and another plant. That will really throw you behind, especially when you have a hurricane. Man, there's a lot of logistics. Just blew off. There's a lot of logistics going on with your job. Like, you're doing a good job explaining this to me. If you don't do that, the bugs that are in the eggplant Yeah. If you plant another field right around the corner You're in trouble. You can't keep the bugs out of it. But you can if you go to a different farm and put and we we we we'll put 50 acres of eggplant here, 50 acres in that farm, and 50 acres over here. But the if the eggplant was supposed to go over in Lehi and Lehi kept getting rain day after day, and that happened a couple years ago. And then the hurricane hit Milton. Yep. And we're out there. And you're talking about helter skelter? Yep. That is something when a hurricane hits. And my Mexican that runs the farm, he's he's a foreman. He's sending me pictures at 03:00 in the morning. We're trying to sleep, and he's sending me pictures of the cucumbers being pulled out of the plastic, the the vines. And and I'm like, what do you want me to do at 03:00 in the morning? There's nothing I'm gonna be able to do. But he he loves the farm so much. He's in the middle of the hurricane out there. Wow. Sending me pictures. He's a good dude. So at that point, most of it, we had to we have to go back in there and repatch the plastic. That's one step I did miss. We changed over in about four years ago and started putting sandbags out to hold the plastic down. K. And it it has worked miracles. Good. And the we used to just throw dirt up on the plastic to hold it down. And the reason we have more problems than anybody else, not many people grow on 42 inch wide plastic. K. The top the top is 42 inches, and it takes 72 inch plastic to do that. They tomatoes and and what have you, they grow them on narrow beds. It's easy to keep that plastic down. But when you're laying plastic and that heat gets under it, it balloons. Pushes up. So when we put the the sandbags on there now, especially when you plant pepper, the the heat used to come out those holes around that pepper and burn them. Wow. And now that the plastic stays on the ground, we're still having the 95 degree weather, but the the chimney effect on those peppers stopped. So we went to the sandbags, but the sandbags help in the hurricanes. Yeah. It help hold a lot of the plastic down. Want to I wanna I wanna keep systematically

Keith Vance: [1:07:07] going through the process. And then the next thing I wanna talk about are the things that are fighting against you. So you mentioned hurricanes. You mentioned, like, markets and all that, but I wanna I wanna make that a different chapter. I wanna stay with, like, just tell me the process so I can understand it of prepping the field like we are you do what we do. Well, we've got the crop growing now. And then from that point on, I'll shoot real for worms. We're looking for The scouts of scouts here. What about wildlife? What about hogs and stuff like that? Like, I got some property in in in the closed end of freaking hogs. Do they they'll root up something like no time. I cannot do they mess up in La Belle is deer. Deer?

Mike Jamerson: [1:07:43] Our problem in Lehi is hogs. K. And fella, we really don't have a problem. Okay. And I don't know why, but we just don't. There's a hog once in a while, but they there's enough out there for them to eat. They don't bother the farm. So by the time something's planted,

Keith Vance: [1:07:58] like, the stuff that that you you and I are planting right now, you and I are planting cucumber and peppers right now, I think, right, in our story? Mhmm. An eggplant. An eggplant. So by the time it's it's in the ground to to to by the time we're harvesting it, what are we doing right now? We're just mitigating

Mike Jamerson: [1:08:13] the wildlife or mitigating the Just waiting for the harvest, really. We're waiting out. What's And all you have to do, really, is is just spray. Okay. If you have worms, you have to kill them. If you have and there's several diseases. Several. And you can say well, we spray you have to have the right spray, and and they and you can't use the same spray. If you do, you build an immunity. It's just like your antibiotics and all. K. You can't keep just hit them with the spray same spray material. So right now,

Keith Vance: [1:08:42] while we're waiting for harvest, let's talk about the things that are against us. So you talked about the worms. We talked about some deer. We kinda hit on weather a little bit. Right? Like, we just had a freeze a while ago. It was a hard freeze here. Let's talk about the things in nature, not necessarily governments or other other competing forces that are against us. Let's talk about the nature that's against us right now as a farmer while I'm waiting for harvest. Our biggest thing is pest. Pest. Not not not animals.

Mike Jamerson: [1:09:15] We can eliminate the animals. The the pest and I and not to be a conspiracy theorist and all, but I could swear they're they're bringing this stuff here, so we'll have to spray for it. Because there's billions billions and billions of dollars spent in spray materials for for white flies and aphids. And this year, the the weevils, pepper weevils, just destroyed pepper crops, including ours. I mean, you and you just have to get in there and spray like crazy and try to keep them things from destroying your crops. And it's just that that's the main thing. And weeds. The weeds, like I said, we we can't crop can't grow a crop of pepper without weeding it three times. So what's the cost associated to

Keith Vance: [1:10:02] spraying the bugs?

Mike Jamerson: [1:10:03] This the spray material is not that expensive. It's just the amount of if you looked at the cost, like, a gallon of one of the sprays we were using this year was $1,895 a gallon. But it's You just said that's not expensive. That is expensive. But it but it sprays 20 acres. So what? Two or three ounces. It's two or three ounces. Well, when they deliver when they deliver

Mike Jamerson: [1:10:29] the size of one of these chairs Yeah. In a pickup to you and it's $30,000

Keith Vance: [1:10:34] Yeah.

Mike Jamerson: [1:10:36] It's expensive. Yeah. But it it just takes just a little bit to put in that tank to to do whatever you're doing. Got it. It's it's real concentrate, I guess, is what I'll say.

Keith Vance: [1:10:48] So let's talk about you mentioned let's talk about weather. So let's talk about hurricanes, the impact that a hurricane had on you. Let's talk about a freeze. I think that's it. Right? Too much rain, not enough rain, and freezes. Is that what we do with in Florida? Or the is that the main heat? So let's hit it. You you mentioned heat. Let's talk about heat, and I want you to, like, systematically walk through heat, hurricane. Okay. Well Too much rain, not enough rain, freeze. Our worst problem with heat

Mike Jamerson: [1:11:14] is in the springtime. And you'll have and it's not just heat. It's wind and heat. Wind will knock your pepper over, and then the sun will burn it. Okay. And then you throw it away. And you have to pick it to throw it away. So it makes if you don't pick that pepper off, the rest won't make. So you throw it just throw it right on the ground. And a lot of times, it'll come to the packing house. It'll just have a little spot like that, and we have to discard it at the packing house. Then we gotta pay have somebody haul it off. But, that's that's the main thing with the heat. And and then in the fall, it it's really hot. We had to go to back to plastic, white plastic. It comes painted. There you go. And then when it gets cold, we go back to black plastic. So it'll track the heat. Got it. Okay. And that's the that's the the main things with heat. Okay. And then you got the wind. And, like, cucumbers well, let's take cucumbers for instance. It can take warm wind. It can't take cold wind. It'll turn them white. The the green leaves will turn white. Wow. And once it stops the photosynthesis, it quits it quits producing. Or it'll make your cucumbers crooked or cooter tailed or whatever. And then you it's a different grade. And you go from a number one cucumber to and it's half price. Okay?

Mike Jamerson: [1:12:41] Like I said, they can take warm, but can't take cold. Pepper can't take hardly. They can take wind, and they've taken a lot this year. But if you have enough, it lays them over and the sun can get in there because the pepper leaves just cover that pepper where you can't see the pepper. Got it. But the minute to sell. Got it. The minute that sun can see it You're in trouble. If you can see that pepper, the sun can see it. Got it. And and we've lost tons and tons and tons of pepper. So how do you remedy that? Like, do you stake them? What do you do? The the a lot of the farms stake them, but there's advantages and disadvantages. And one of the biggest disadvantage is the amount of labor. Yeah. I mean, I guarantee it's a thousand dollars an acre to put it on, and you have to pick all this. We deal with the same thing with eggplant because we stake entire eggplants. And the stakes the stakes themselves are $2,000 an acre. And and then the labor to put them in and this end of the season, they have to pull them all out and stack them back up on pallets. And we're talking you're talking about 2,000 stakes per acre. So when you're you got 50 acres, you're looking at a 100,000 stakes. It's gotta be pulled with that hand labor. So who's the person who's

Keith Vance: [1:13:56] keeping a tally of how much expenditure is in the ground? And now we're now I got peppers that's laid over, and I know it's gonna cost me x amount of dollars for stakes. And I wanna naturally, I wanna save that pepper to save my investment. But who's the one that makes the call that says, hey. We've decided we've just let let it lay over because it's it's not worth it's not worth the time or like,

Mike Jamerson: [1:14:22] at at the end the day, you're you're in business to make money. Right? You've gotta you've gotta you can't just be a farmer. You have to be a businessman too. So what we've done over the years is we have to accept those losses for what it's gonna cost because the farmers that staked their peppers over the years and all, they're not here no more. Wow. So would I like to save every one of my peppers? Yes. But to stay in business, we we just over the years, we win so many times not staking Understood. Versus the one or two times that we lose. So a lot of times, it just it just comes down to And it's heartbreaking to see that peppery, and you'll see it down the row. Just solid rows of pepper with white spots on them. And it breaks your heart to see that. But being a you if you're gonna stay in business, you have to be a businessman too. And when you've done it as long as you have, you can

Keith Vance: [1:15:17] lean on what you learned in the past. Remember also You have a you have a deep toolbox.

Mike Jamerson: [1:15:22] And remember what I told you also earlier. Alright. I lost that 500,000 plants to that. I have 500,000 right down the road Got it. Coming and another 500,000, another 500,000. And the wind's not gonna knock. The wind will only hurt your pepper when you have the big peppers on it. It it takes that weight to help pull that bush over. If I have bushes that don't have pepper on them, it's not gonna blow them over. Got it. The minute they put those big peppers on there, that helps them push the bush over. So is that decision that you make alone? Is that a decision that you and your brothers make? Is that a decision that you and your wife? Brother and I have made that decision the years. And then we wanna kick our butt every time we see that when we lose. Well, this was a bad one here. Wish we would have staked. And then just it just works out that it's better not to stake.

Keith Vance: [1:16:12] So we got heat, wind.

Mike Jamerson: [1:16:14] Now the hurricane. Let's do it. Oh, man. Let's freeze after that. Yeah. Let's do it. The hurricanes, they always hit. The worst one I can say that hit us would been Wilma. It hit October. I think it's twenty fourth. By then, we start laying our plastic in August. Mhmm. And we start planting the first week in September. Well, we have a lot of our farms. Two out of three are already in Yeah. By that time. And and the plastic on the third farm is in. There's not planet. But when a hurricane hits, now you've got all three farms. And

Mike Jamerson: [1:16:56] and there's some things that, like with the, pepper and the crop insurance that we had one field that they said, if I put the plastic back down, then I had to replant it with with sets. And I'm like, no. I'm not gonna do that. The plastic is I could put a different crop on it. I put a cucumber because pepper is very demanding where cucumbers and squash are not so demanding. Pepper has to you have to have everything right or you're not gonna make a good pepper crop. So I had to make a decision to actually go back through there and pull all the plastic off 100% and relay it all. And then I would put the pepper plants back in. I'm not gonna put it in there where the when the plastic blows off, remember, you got a lot of rain. Yeah. It washes the beds down. Yep. And now your fertilizer's all mixed. You got the hot mix with the coal. Just plow it all up. Start it all over. So But you have to go in there with hand labor and pull the plastic. So,

Keith Vance: [1:17:58] I can't help but feel these emotions. So I want you to speak for yourself, though. When that happens, when you when you walk up to your field, you see this mess. And it's just not like, everything that you do is not small. Everything that you're doing is big. Mhmm. Like, it's huge amount of acreage Mhmm. Massive amount of manpower, massive amount of money. So when you walk up and you see or feel the mess because of this hurricane, walk me through those emotions real quick.

Mike Jamerson: [1:18:32] Well, I'm gonna start back during the hurricane. Yeah. Let's start there. I I because I can imagine you watching the news. And worry myself to death Yeah. Let's do it. Is not helping. I have a cross by the side of my bed, and I tell God, it's in your hands. I can't I can't do nothing no more. And I I rely on God for a lot. I I'm self reliant. I should rely on him more. But when I finally get to the point I can't take it no more, I have a little crosshair, and I put it on my chest, and I go to bed. And I sleep like a baby. Do you really? Yes. But when I wake up in the morning,

Mike Jamerson: [1:19:12] there's no emotions. You can't have any emotions. You gotta think. You gotta think what you gotta do. But even that, you've been doing this your whole life. That takes skill. That takes Well, I used to be. That takes going through some things. You have to get out there and you have to get going. You you can't sit there and mope and and this is horrible and all like that. And and even with if there's gonna be a government program to help with hurricanes or whatever, that you need to document it all too. K. So you do but but the the most important thing is you gotta throw your emotions away. Okay. You gotta get out there and you gotta be the businessman now. Okay. Not the farmer. The the businessman. Thank you for

Keith Vance: [1:19:55] man, that's good. Wow.

Mike Jamerson: [1:20:00] And then afterwards, trust me, it wears on you. You then you I I guess it's like if you lose somebody or something like that, just you wanna get through the emotions or whatever. And then finally, it comes back and you you finally, you know, realize what happened.

Keith Vance: [1:20:17] I'm not a farmer, but I got a lot of people dependent on me. And the the type of business that I do is dangerous work. And

Keith Vance: [1:20:30] I've I if we're in a big project and we have exposure, I lose sleep. Mhmm. But I'm getting better at it. And that and it's not because I don't care. It's because at the end of the day, like you said, all the worry and all the, like, lack of sleep, it doesn't accomplish anything. It's a it's a futile waste of energy. It's a futile waste of energy. So here you are fretting and worrying and losing sleep, and now you gotta get up and produce the next day, and you're diminished. You're not who you're not the man that you need to be for everyone else around you. So what you said about, hey. I am self reliant, but the I'm self reliant on the things that I'm responsible for. I tend to wanna be God. And when you said, hey, can lay down asleep. I sleep like a baby. It's taking me a long time to get to that point, but I have to, like, let God be God Mhmm. And trust that whatever he's doing, I'm in good hands. And it's been better for me to to do that because now I'm I'm rested. Now instead of thinking fearfully and my fear dictating my my fear dictating my pathway, I can think logically in that business mindset that you don't have when you're lacking sleep and you're you're making decisions based out of fearful emotions. So thank you for picking up on that. And then also thank you for, hey. Yeah. It's a mess. We can't sit around and mope around it. Alright, boys. You do this. You do that. Let's let's get this thing going. That's, that's a process, but you gotta get the motions to decide, you gotta get past it. Like, these are the cards we're dealt. We can sit here and cry about it. We can we can just lay down and die. Mhmm. But, again, still strong. Okay. Still strong. This is the cards we were dealt. Yep. We can we can choose to lay down and die on this hill, or we can choose to be still strong and get after it. And that's why I'm thankful to have you on this podcast because I think that farmer lifestyle is such a gritty, hard, rewarding lifestyle, but, you know, you're I'm glad you brought the dependency on on God that you're able to sleep.

Mike Jamerson: [1:22:47] That's And up until then, feel that I'm I'm doing what I need to do, like you said. But when you said the labor that I I gotta back up, that is the first thing that goes through my mind is all these people that we brought from Mexico. They came here to work Mhmm. Not to have a disaster. Yeah. And and then there's the financial part of that. I have to guarantee them thirty five hours a week. If they sit in their trailers or whatever, I'm still You're still paying them. Paying them thirty five hours per week. And it's not the financial. I know those people. They left their families to come over here and work, and that's that's that's the main thing. Of course, I'm I know I'm gonna lose money. But when you go back to the gut, every time we've had a disaster, it's worked out in our favor. Thank you for saying that. It it really has. Thank you for hit. We we went out there and we just started planting the cucumbers immediately. And the reason we did really and that was 2005. And the reason we did really well is because the East Coast took and this is before h two a workers. They took all the the workers we had over here and where they were paying them, like, $18 an hour because they really got hurt over on the East Coast really bad. And they were paying them for cleanup and all over there, so everybody lost their labor. Well, we went in there, and we we got our cucumbers in because we work our crews a lot, and they stayed with us. And believe it or not, it was the same year that when Wilma hit, we ran out of names, and it went to, I think, a and b or whatever. It was freaking ridiculous. Honduras. And we went in, and we came in in Honduras' turn. We hit a forty five hour cucumber cucumber mark. The most we've ever seen in this was in in, what was it? 2005. Money we've never seen for cucumbers before. And we had a perfect crop afterwards because after the hurricane, the weather was beautiful. And and just like this year, the disaster would be the freeze. And it's kinda devastating when you're going in there because the first night, they said it was gonna freeze. It didn't. We had no the second night, it froze way harder than the one they said it was gonna be the the hard freeze. And, so it we didn't cover a lot of our pepper. We covered our squash and our eggplants, and you saw the eggplants being covered. And, so the so the bell peppers, you it froze all the bushes down. The second, or the third night, it actually froze again, and it froze the fruit. Now we're going through there, and the top fruit, you have to throw it away, and there was one or two peppers underneath, and we're going through there and salvaging them. Well, the markets went through the roof, and and we made money off just that little bit of pepper. Plus, I don't know what happened in Mexico for their markets to be as high as they were unless they were just riding the coattail that we had our freeze over here. And then the crops that we did save through the freeze, the like, the zucchini market, you you usually get $8 for a half a bushel of zucchini, and, they were 20. And and they a perfect crop because we covered them with the row covers. And, so it ended up being a really good year for us again this year. I I can't think of one time either the hurricanes or the freezes that you would think this is this is gonna put them put them out of business.

Keith Vance: [1:26:12] And it's actually been a blessing each and every time. And what I found out thank you again for drawing that out. What I found out that when I'm all night when I'm up all night trying to be God and predict the future Mhmm. And all these potential outcomes.

Keith Vance: [1:26:32] Where I'm sitting now, none of those outcomes that I imagined ever came to fruition. Mhmm. You know I mean? And here you said, man, we just got hit with all these freezes and we're going out of business or, you know, yeah, I'm sure you thought this is the one that's gonna get us and for it to not be. Like, that that to me, that's hard. It's that's the that's the difficulty of being in business is to do what I'm supposed to do, be what I'm supposed to be. But the bible says, hey, you have enough to worry about the day. Let the things of tomorrow take care of themselves. That means something to me. Mhmm. And and not not in regard to, like, not saving or, like, putting things in place, but the I think that goes to the worry. Don't worry about tomorrow. You got enough hey. You got pick them to do the day. You got you got plastic to put down the day. Don't worry about tomorrow. Well, the reason

Mike Jamerson: [1:27:21] back to God, the reason I don't think I rely on God as much as I should is because I wasn't taught that when I was a kid. I was taught you put your work boots on and you get out there and you work or you're gonna starve. And but as you get older, you're supposed to get smarter. Right? Supposed to be. You're definitely gonna get older. Yeah. Supposed to be. But, then then you finally realize there's some things you can't you're not in control of. That's and that's a good place to be in. Yep.

Keith Vance: [1:27:52] We made a little segue, but I'm thankful we did. Are we done talking about hurricanes?

Mike Jamerson: [1:27:59] And then the freeze is the same same thing. So the freeze is Some freeze is we do need to talk about the freezes because all freezes are not the same.

Keith Vance: [1:28:09] I mean The freezes we had recently, that was a fluke, wasn't it? That three nights in a row. And it was, like, at a weird time of year. Like, it wasn't It was late. It was late. Yeah. February 1. And

Mike Jamerson: [1:28:23] then going back to being the businessman and all with even when we have crop insurance, you have to follow their rules. And we've realized this year because I had plants coming out the thirty first. Actually, they were coming out the January 30. I'm not gonna go plant them. There's a freeze. Right. But you can't you can't get insurance after the thirty first. So now you're on your own. So that's that's part of just being the the business.

Keith Vance: [1:28:51] Mhmm. So you have to know those things. You you What are the challenges of freezes? I saw people cutting palm fronds down, like, couch palms and, like, trying to cover them up. Alfie Hoak's doing that. Yeah. So people, like, starting little fires. Like, so what did you guys do for the friends? In '77, believe it or not,

Mike Jamerson: [1:29:07] we burned tires. We wouldn't do that now. No. You wouldn't do that now. Oh my goodness. I'm so surprised you even said that. We went to all the all the tire stores in three counties and got all their tire used tires, and we set them on fire. And Because they burn slow and create heat. It it didn't work. It it should have, but that '77 freeze was just too cold. Actually, when we we had diesel fuel in all the tires. So when we went, we had a torch. And as soon as we'd light them, well, the diesel fuel was frozen. Wow. We had to deep all the the diesel fuel because you don't wanna start the fire too soon. And we had thousands and it looked like the world was on fire when we did it. Once

Keith Vance: [1:29:50] again, these are things we wouldn't do now, but the the rope covers I hope I didn't eat any peppers during the seventies because I I think that was a bit toxic.

Mike Jamerson: [1:29:59] We were only growing squash then, so, you know, we have to worry the squash. I'm I'm good. I'm good. But, now we use the row cover in which you saw when they were doing eggplant. And but once again, I said every freeze is is is different because the field of pepper that we lost this year in La Belle, it was the same temperature two years prior to that, and the pepper all lift. This year, it annihilated them, and they were all the same age. And that's something else. A pepper that is three weeks and younger will go through that freeze. Okay. Three weeks and one day, it'll toast them. Wow. So now you know? You you will be planting across here if you didn't finish, and you're the next day, those peppers all died. Three weeks will be fine. Everything's fine.

Keith Vance: [1:30:45] They they will go through a major hard freeze. I was we're gonna take a little detour here. So I'm gonna talk about I think the next once we get done with this once we get done with this planting process, we're gonna get to the harvest Okay. The packing house, and then I wanna talk about your workers next. But I wanna make a little segue because we're talking about the freeze, and this is some a personal connection. Your wife invited me out to one of the your fields that the guys are covering with that that rope Rope cover. Cover that a guy, I think, had brought down from North Carolina or something like that. They did. Down all night to get it there to you to do it. Mhmm. I know there was a massive expense to that row cover. I forget what she told me it was, but it was an expense. It's a couple grand an acre. And then you had all those guys out there. So being man.

Mike Jamerson: [1:31:29] With the whole 155 people well, 25 of them were in the packing house, so a 130 people were pulling row covers for

Keith Vance: [1:31:37] five days. So I was there watching those guys for a little while. We're out there and just emotionally hit me because those guys I just like being around people that work. Mhmm. I just like being around those those salt of the earth, gritty people. Those gritty people that nobody sees, nobody brings attention to, but this world goes round and round because of people like that. You follow me? And that's why I'm glad to have you on here because I wanna expose that. But just being there watching those guys hustle, covering and protecting those crops for you Yeah. With that happy attitude, just getting after it, boy. Working hard and getting after it. Those are good people, man. Absolutely. And we're gonna get to them as we're talking about the the freeze that we had, like, and the the effort and the, like, the manpower that took to get it done. I experienced that, and I just it hit me hard. That's why I wanted to have you on here. That's why

Mike Jamerson: [1:32:34] when we have those disasters, the first thing that goes through my mind is my labor. You you guys. Yeah. It's my yeah. And I I can tell you right now, there would be no farm without them. And we've had that conversation before. It breaks my heart to hear these are jobs that Americans won't do no more. We used to do it. I did it. And I I know a lot of people, you'll you'll talk to them, and they'll they'll actually be doctors, lawyers, whatever, and they came off of farms and all.

Keith Vance: [1:33:03] And I interviewed used to do it. I interviewed a guy. His name was Tom Vargas. He's in construction. If you haven't watched my podcast, go back and watch that one. He's a vice president of a construction company right now. The reason I had him on because we became friends, and he started his fitness journey. He was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and he's only, like, five years younger than me. I didn't know that he grew up in a migrant community. He's 45 years old. Mhmm. He grew up he didn't experience his first Christmas, like, in the actual how like, because he was chasing the the migration. He didn't experience his first Christmas till he's he was, like, 12 years old. So that podcast went out. I've I learned things that I didn't know about him. My mother-in-law

Keith Vance: [1:33:55] My mother-in-law watched that podcast, and she had to hit the pause button because she got emotional because my father-in-law, Michael Seitz, my wife's dad

Mike Jamerson: [1:34:09] Mhmm.

Keith Vance: [1:34:10] Was a migrant worker. He grew up around here, and that's he was a migrant worker, and I didn't even know that. They pull him out of school to go pick peppers and go do stuff. So that work is agro. That generation of migrant workers, Americans doing that job was only a generation ago. Mhmm. It's not that long ago. So we used to do that work.

Mike Jamerson: [1:34:35] But, anyway, we'll Well, the reason I had to go to the h two a workers is because all the people that that were here, domestic we call them domestics, they left me to go to you to construction because you paid more. And so we lost all of all of our help. We had no choice but to go to h two a from Mexico. This this But and and you know what? It's just funny when I talk about the labor. When one of them would tell me I'm I'm they're gonna hire me over at the concrete place or whatever, I say, god bless you. Or one would one would tell me, I'm gonna go back to college. I'm gonna go to college. Go better yourself, dude. Go better yourself. This is this is not where you need to be. If you can better yourself, go do it. But, yeah, the like you said, I I have very low tolerance for lazy people. Sure. And I love being around people that like to work. Yeah. Same. That's why you're sitting here. That's what made America what it is. Yeah.

Keith Vance: [1:35:36] So we got through the freeze, and we didn't even harvest anything yet. Are we harvesting anything? Do we need to harvest? Or is it time? Yeah. Well, we use

Mike Jamerson: [1:35:44] bin boxes to put the stuff in, load the trucks. And prior to all this, before harvest and all you have to go through this season right now, I've got, men over there working in the packing house right now, getting everything ready. The food safety is getting harder and harder. Changing a lot of my machinery out with stainless steel. We have to go through all the forklifts. There's probably 25 forklifts that have to be gone through. They need to have tires. You can't just flip a switch and the packing house is on. You have to get you have to go through all the machinery. You have to repair anything that's and you know through the season anything that went wrong that during the summer is the time that you have to get all this stuff fixed. So during the off season, you're getting everything ready for packing season? For the packing season. We have no time to stop or slow down. Like, we we gotta be fired on all cylinders. And then before the packing house starts, we have to pressure wash and sanitize. Got it. And we have to pressure wash the building. The the one side where the sun hits fine, the other side's got mold on it. And it's just and like I said, that many forklifts, you have to go through them all to make sure they're all gonna run. Because if once down, you can't unload the truck that just brought the produce in. Now the people are sitting in the field with with no no buckets. They can't dump their buckets into the the so you have to have all these things working before you just flip the switch. Okay. So it's and and in our packing house, there's 50 some machines that you have to turn on. And it takes from the time they dump in the hopper out in the very back, it takes about fifteen of the 20 bushel bin boxes. So about 300 bushels has to go through that packing house before the first cucumber goes in a box. Wow. And then they have to be sorted. And, so in the field, they put they they have the the

Keith Vance: [1:37:41] cruisers. On a minute. Hold on a on a minute. Here we go. Let me set the stage. You and I are partners. Okay? We just everything's ready. Like, we made it through. We made it through the the heat. We made it through the hurricane. We made it through the freeze.

Mike Jamerson: [1:37:56] You and I high five it. Alright, brother. Let's get it. Let's let's let's let's harvest it. Well, the first thing you do before you high five is you pull up what your market sir.

Keith Vance: [1:38:06] Okay.

Mike Jamerson: [1:38:07] So let's do it. Are we high fiving? Are $5 and we save these through a freeze and we weeded them three times and we did all this and, like, we're real geniuses here. Okay. Or if it's $25, alright. We're gonna do good. And like I said, this this farming is Vegas. It's up and down. I'm getting I'm getting that feeling. But we once again, we we insure ourself by having pepper all year. Got it. We don't and we have watermelon farmers here, and they come in and they have two weeks to make it. Wow. I cannot do that. It's either you're you're either you're an idiot or you're mister Jamerson. You're a genius. You you hit the $40 or 40¢ watermelon market, not the 5¢ watermelon market. And you have two weeks to do it? It's not for me.

Keith Vance: [1:38:59] The singletaries singletaries of watermelft, I wanna get them on here. Like, they're

Mike Jamerson: [1:39:04] I'm I'm gonna talk to them. You're talking about gonads now. They got them. Dude. Dude. You they're good farmers. I know they are. Yeah. Those chasstains.

Keith Vance: [1:39:13] Yeah. Chastains, singletaries. The the singletaries, I'm I know the singletaries more than the chastains, but I've done some work on their houses and stuff. But, it's funny because the last house I framed for them, it was watermelon season, then they brought us some watermelon stuff again. Was like, I I got a little bit of insight of what that operation is like. Nothing's easy, man. Nothing is easy. But, anyways, get back to you and me. Okay. Alright. What how how are we picking it? How's it getting off the plant into the box? Like, let's go to the process. Broker said something to me, the guy that sells our produce.

Mike Jamerson: [1:39:45] He said something to me that I never thought of it before because every time that man bends over to pick that product, he has to choose because the cucumbers, you want them the certain size. Now you have one that's just a little smaller. Is he supposed to pick it or not pick it? Because if they pick too many smalls, they're gonna come to the packing house and I'm just be screaming, why are you picking all the smalls? Nobody wants small cucumbers. They want them medium size. That's what's in the store. They're called super selects. Why are we not picking or if they leave the one that's this big and it's too big the next time, now I'm gonna lose more money because and now it's in a 24 count 24 count. Okay. Because the the reason why this is important is just because grocery stores Only wants to see. Your eye. They want the superstars.

Keith Vance: [1:40:34] The the the wife is going, she wants she's gonna look at Mhmm.

Mike Jamerson: [1:40:38] Now this may all taste the same or be the same, but it's it's about the eye. Every time they bend down to pick up a cucumber and I can show you pictures where the cucumbers are like this, and they have to look at I'm I'm gonna pick this one. This. He says the amount of millions of decisions that are made every single day to pick each and every day. Same with the bell pepper. They're actually supposed to on the bell pepper, they're supposed to feel it. And if it's solid and you can't there's no givey to it, then you pick it. If you if you make the wrong decision and you leave it, the next time we come back in four or five days, it's gonna have a streak on it. Now it's called suntan. It's worthless. If you have a $20 pepper market, that's a $5 bushel pepper instead of a 20 because that picker did not pick it at the right time. So there's a skill there. It's really is. And you get a lot riding on those guys picking that. And and I can't watch all that. And the the boy that I told you runs the farm, I'll have to call him and tell him, look. You're leaving too many of the peppers, and he he'll go out in the field. And remember, you're talking a 150 p 155 people out in the field that you have to watch, and you're gonna always have some people out there that just don't care to be there. Got it. And you gotta find out who they are and straighten them up. And a lot of times, he he won't play with them. If he tells you two or three times, you're on a bus, you're back to Mexico. That's why our workers are really, really good because he is over the years, he's he he knows. We we don't play. He's got your back. You you do your job, and we'll do our job, and your your check will be good on Friday. K. But but there's a lot of decisions. And then then it comes to the packing house, and we have to make the same decisions in there because, like, the markets are good. I can get away with a little a little bit of a crook on the cucumber, and they won't say anything of it. Now the market's cheap, and you put that same cucumber, they'll reject it on the other end. Now you've now you've picked it and packed it, and you've paid the the freight to get it to New York, and they reject it. Now you're trying to find somebody to buy it from you, and you you lose your shirt. Wow. So so the all those decisions had to be made to get that cucumber to the store or the bell pepper or whatever. And the same with the eggplant. Well, the eggplants are a lot easier because you just go by size. Got it. And if it gets a little bigger, it's not that big a deal. It'll go in a large, and it's not it's not as detrimental as the cucumber. If you let it get too big or you pick it too small, it's it's bad news. I mean, once again, like, $20 if you I'm just throwing these figures out. To a $20 super select, and if you pick it at small, you're getting 10. That's And there's twice as many cucumbers in there. If you'd left it on the bush, you would've got four bushels of supers. Got it. So Got it. And if you that's the point about if you're not there every day watching, and then I have a guy that actually runs the packing house. I have to watch him to make sure he's doing his job. On his eye on the ball. And if you're not there, while the while the mice away, there's some people play. How many how many what's the time frame between

Keith Vance: [1:43:58] between the time it's picked to by the time it's in the grocery store? Do you know? It's pretty quick. It's quick.

Mike Jamerson: [1:44:06] There's everything, there's caveats to it. Say we have a zucchini market, it's $3. My sales will hold them, and he'll hold them and he'll hold them. And, usually, within seven days, the market will turn and go up, and then you start selling them. So now they're old. But if there's a a $25 at market, they're loaded that same day. And and it's funny. It's not just that. I get paid so much faster when they're high. When they're cheap, they'll sit there and they'll nag and they'll slow pay. But when the markets are high, they pay real fast.

Keith Vance: [1:44:48] I'm gonna ask you a couple more questions. We'll take a break. I wanna talk about your workers.

Keith Vance: [1:44:56] The produce that you pick that's substandard for, say, Publix or whatever,

Mike Jamerson: [1:45:04] is there a secondary market for that? What are what are you and I doing to make money? What do we? Oh, yeah. We have salad bars. Okay. Got it. They buy all my crooked cucumbers. When you slice that cucumber up, you don't know if it was straight or crooked. Got it. And and then, actually, the the the low my sales tells me they have chain stores and Chinese. Yeah. The Chinese will come in there and anything that's actually, this year when the pepper market was high and they had those burnt white spots on them, they actually bought bushels of pepper that had that. We but you have to have a really good market. Got it. And then we could actually pack that and the Chinese and and they they chop everything up. They cut that little spot out. They saved a lot of money. Got it. They didn't pay $50 for that bushel. They paid 5 or $6 for that bushel.

Keith Vance: [1:45:53] What can we expect you and I, if we're in business together, what can we expect for to get paid for? Because by the box, by the pound, what do we get paid by the by the box? By the box. Alright. So a box of peppers, eggplant, or whatever. Like, what what can we expect to get? And then what's the grocery store selling it? Like, what's the market for the grocery store?

Mike Jamerson: [1:46:15] Yeah. I don't wanna get off on that. But No. Listen. I just we don't have to get off. We're just telling zucchini the we need to have more working relationship with the chain stores and the the buyers and all that because they work off of a I've talked to my sales a lot, and they say that they work off last year's sales. Well, when we had a freeze here, it's changed everything. Right. We don't and and there's a lot of farms go out on contracts and all. Well, they have to go to Mexico and buy it and give it away. But we need to have more coordination, like, when when corn season comes in and they have just jillions of of acres of corn. They don't lower their price in the store. They keep it at ridiculous prices, and I I can't say that they're gouging. It just seems to me like when zucchini are 6 or $7 a bushel and they're charging $2.50 a pound and there's 22 pounds in a box of squash, they're 80, and we're getting eight. It seems and they keep telling me there's only 1%. They say there's waste and and all like that, but we wouldn't make it without them either. Right. I mean, who would I sell to if I didn't have the the chain stores and all? And we've been able to stay in business, so it's enough. K. But Is there any other questions that I should've asked you in this wheelhouse that we started from prepping the ground to harvest?

Keith Vance: [1:47:47] Do we pretty much, mama, do we pretty much hit it all? They can't hear her. So just repeat what she said, and that's a good point. Okay. Well, that So she talked about prices, diesel. They Yeah. The grocery store is talking about the prices. Think the farmer is the one that's making all the money. And And the reason why she said because she said diesel price went up, fertilizer went up. So they're saying the reason why your tomato cost so much more is because the the farmer's cost is going up. And what she's saying is Is the farmer didn't get it. The farmer didn't get it. The farmer didn't get it. And that's that's a concept. I

Mike Jamerson: [1:48:24] actually had a group from, Florida Gulf Coast University come out, and they do farm tours out there once in a while. And they could not believe at the time that that they were there, and this was about ten years ago, that we were getting $2.50 for a box of squash, and the price of the squash in the store was $2.50 a pound. There's 22 pounds in a box of squash. So they're getting twenty twenty two times more than we were getting, and they couldn't understand it. And I'm just just the way it's been since I've been doing it for fifty something years. And I would just like this when I say we'd like to have some cooperation, when we have an abundance of something, lower the prices in the store, and you will move more of it. And we'll clean up the glut of whatever the whether it be corn, beans, or whatever. We'll we'll clean it up, and the consumer will save money. It's but they always tell me the reason they don't wanna do that is because the store's labor is so high. They don't wanna move that much product. Oh. They'll have to have more labor and all. Got it. And and, you gotta remember, a lot of our stuff goes north where they're union labor. Understood. And they're and they don't wanna hire extra people to move that extra volume. They wanna move the same 100 bushels that they moved last year. So this podcast,

Keith Vance: [1:49:44] obviously, is not gonna change the way things have been, but at least bring some things to light with our farmers or our neighbors. Like, we it'll at least bring some things to light. So thank you for for bringing that up. I think that was important. Let's, let's take a break. Do we make any money this season? Like, walking through it, did you and I just make any money? I mean We did. Yeah. Alright. Good. That's why I said after

Mike Jamerson: [1:50:07] every disaster

Keith Vance: [1:50:08] that we've had, it's worked out. Good. It's worked out. Let's take a break, and then I wanna talk about your workers, brother. I'm excited to talk about them. I know you are too. This part of the podcast is brought to you by Frequence. The product is source. These are my trace minerals. It's no big secret that the American diet isn't what it used to be. Our food is not nutrient dense. This helps close the gap for me. Find the link in the bio, and let's get back to the show. Alright, brother. We're back from the break. Alright. Let's get to the part that I'm most excited about. Not that the farming conversation hasn't been good. That's it put a knot in my stomach. So let's talk about something that both you and I are passionate about, and that's the people the people that make it happen. The ones on our team, the ones that man, they're like they're like soldiers, brother. Like, they're soldiers. So let me hear about your soldiers, and let's do the same thing like we did with farming. Let's talk about your workers, what they do,

Mike Jamerson: [1:51:10] all that good stuff where you get them from. And start where they come from. Let's do it. Well, they we start, actually, we've already put in our petition to the government to bring the workers in for next season. That has to be done months ahead of time. And our crew leader will go down, and he already knows the people that were here this year. He'll recruit a few more, and he'll go down there and interview them and make sure that they're not they don't drink, and and they're gonna come here to just work. And that's why we have a really good working crew. So the they'll start off. They have to come most of our workers come from Southern Mexico K. Almost to Guatemala. Wow. So the minute they get on the bus, you have to start paying for their meals all the way, and they have to go to the border with the The United States, but they have to stay in Mexico. They have to have their the workers have to have their visas in order or they can't come. So then they they and then they have to go through an interview. And then after their interview and and I guess the interview is to do some of the people that have been deported or whatever, they're not allowed to come no more. And and x amount of the h two a workers that have come, not in ours, I don't think we've lost in five years more than three people that left and didn't stay on the farm. But there's a lot of companies bring them in, like, half of them will disperse. So if those are some of those people that went back, they won't let them come back in. So they'll have to work here illegally. And so now we're paying their their way up to the consulate, and then they have to go through our government, checking their visas and all and make sure that they haven't done anything wrong or they're not criminals or what have you. And now they they have to stay there in a motel or hotel, whichever, and they're there for probably a week. And we're paying I say we're paying that. Actually, the crew leader is paying that, which we end up paying the $21 an hour, and the the workers paying are being paid $16.23 an hour, and that all goes home. There's no workers' comp. It all goes home. So now they're they're sitting there in a hotel for a week waiting for their interview. Now they've got their interview. Now they catch a greyhound, and now they're on their way. And it takes about three days now that and we're still the crew are still paying for all the meals and all all the way there. How many people how many people are we bringing back? We're bringing in a we do it in three stages. We bring in 55 on the first one, fifty five on the second one, and then we'll bring in the last ones that'll start in the packing. Understood. And those will be the ones that stay the last because of the packing. Understood. And so they come in three different stages. And this year, there was a issue when we had the government shutdown. Oh, yeah. We had all our ducks in line and all our people got here. A lot of farmers, when the government shut down, they didn't get their workers. And you when you said earlier about all the millions seeds and all like that, it doesn't matter you put all out there. You're not gonna pick. And then you had the immigration going on here with them rounding up anybody that was here domestic. There's a lot of farmers couldn't pick up a lot of their produce this year be because of those two things, the government shutdown and then the immigration enforcement. So now now they get here. And before they get here, the crew leader has had to have local, state, and federal inspections on all the housing. And they they're merciless of all the things that they have to do to make sure that everything and a lot of it typical I don't wanna beat government to death or anything, but typical government, stupid things. Like, if they they actually knock one of the screens out of the window, it's a $500 fine even though the crew leader didn't do it. If somebody was to knock and they they inspect them cons and there's they don't call and tell you their com they just show up. And, I mean, there's a lot and thank goodness I don't have to do this part because this would just make me wanna run my head into the wall. And you're just you're just trying to farm. That would that would finish me off. Farm. Got it. Yeah. And so he deals with all that. And but there's absolutely no way we could do it without these guys, and they're really hard or you saw them pulling the row covers, but they're they're like that every day. And in the packing house, you if you come into packing house, the people that are grading and not everybody can grade. There's a lot of people you put up on the grading table and they fall over because it messes with their equilibrium or what what have you. And, but the stackers that are stacking like cucumbers, they're 55 pound boxes of cucumbers, and they just stack hour after hour. I mean, we take our breaks and all, but it's it's hard work, very hard work. And I would say the field works harder than packing house because we have fans. We have you know, it's all enclosed with fans and and all like that out in the field there with the heat and the wind and freezing and all that. So we we do have it better in the packing house.

Keith Vance: [1:56:46] Would so how many hours a day are they working in the packing house?

Mike Jamerson: [1:56:53] Well, it comes and goes. In general, we usually would average ten to twelve hours. There's several weeks when when our big production, our kick all commodities come in at once. The eggplant, the zucchini, the pepper, and the cubes are all picking at the same time. We'll we'll be in there fourteen, fifteen, sixteen hours a day. So farming is And it's seven days a week. Farming, it's like,

Keith Vance: [1:57:23] if work needs to be done

Mike Jamerson: [1:57:24] Yeah. The work the work the the work dictates. The packing house started October 25 this year, and the first day we had off was Thanksgiving. The second day we had off was Christmas.

Keith Vance: [1:57:36] You included? Mhmm. Yeah. Because you're right there with them. Well,

Mike Jamerson: [1:57:40] Thanksgiving, actually, we load all the buses up, and I I know it doesn't make the people down at the Golden Corral happy, but we make plans prior to take all of them to Golden Corral. Oh, good for you. Yeah. And pay for it. But the people that are going to Golden Corral are not happy, but they they actually open hour early for us. Oh, good for you. So most of our three buses of people will be out of there before they show up. What about your

Keith Vance: [1:58:09] your ones that are working in the field? What's what are they what are their hours like? Because it's Now they generally work eight hours. Eight hours. Sometimes

Mike Jamerson: [1:58:17] it'll be eight and a half to nine hours, but, generally, we try to get everything done in eight hours. But they start just as soon as that sun they can see Mhmm. They're in the field starting. They're going. And they wanna get done and get home, get washed up. Your

Keith Vance: [1:58:32] the workers that you have, have you developed relationships with them? Not in the field.

Mike Jamerson: [1:58:39] Well, I say that when we're laying plastic, I know everybody that's on the the the all the tractor drivers and the people are on the plastic machines and all like that. But as far as, like, when they're doing the shovel ditch and all that, I don't know those people. Almost all the people in the field, I don't know. Everybody that's in the packing house where I'm at every day when once the packing house starts, I know every one of them. I I play with them. We I mean, we goof around. We enjoy going to work. Yeah.

Keith Vance: [1:59:10] So that's I'm in like I said, I'm in construction, and there's something about being on a crew laboring with somebody for the same cause and for the same direction. Mhmm. And that's why I asked you. You get tight with people that you're that you're in the trenches with, that you're that you're working on. It's

Mike Jamerson: [1:59:33] it's You know who you and you like in any business, you know who your strong people you can count on and who you have to baby and and and like that to make it all work because everybody's not equal. Yeah. And that and they will bring it up to you. We're getting paid equal. I'm doing twice the work than that person over there, and it's usually the women that point that out to me. Oh. Not the guys.

Keith Vance: [1:59:59] Yes. That's something to think about. How do you change that up? How do you incentivize that?

Mike Jamerson: [2:00:05] Most of the time with the women, I just let it go in one ear and out the other. I tell them the the guy that runs the packing house, you'll not you'll have to talk to him. But they will bring their phone over with the translator and translate it to me so they know I know. Yeah. But, well, they've all the women have the easy well, I say they're the easy jobs. They're the most important jobs too, the grading, where the men do the stacking and and

Keith Vance: [2:00:35] the heavy lifting stuff. And, again, when it comes to a task that needs to be done where it takes multiple people, I don't think that one is more important than the other because it takes all of us to get this done. You know I mean? So you see Well, that grader is just as important as that stacker. You can't if the grader is not there or is not on point, the you know, the it it takes everybody doing Mhmm. Their thing to make to make this thing go. Are actually the true specialist

Mike Jamerson: [2:01:01] because they're the ones that I told you earlier that have to make that decision. Right. If that cucumber's too crooked or not crooked or not, you know, I can get most people to stack. It won't take but two or three minutes teaching them, and they can stack as long as they got the the the muscle behind them to do it. That and back to what you said, what do I do with the girls? I tell them the stacking job's available. Got it. That shuts them up.

Keith Vance: [2:01:25] So you found out that the women do are better graders than They're much better.

Mike Jamerson: [2:01:30] And I've I've had to I lost most of my domestics because they went into hospitality or what have you. I've only got five girls left. I've had to train the boys to do it, but girls are better. Understood. And I've had some of, I've had two of the girls with me in, oh, 2022, twenty three years.

Keith Vance: [2:01:52] Yeah. So I'm gonna get a little political here because we have to. It's the world in which we live in, and we'll we'll we'll go where we'll go wherever this thing goes naturally. But I went out to your farm watching those boys pulling that plastic to cover to protect the the crop from the freeze, and, I posted that video. Mhmm. And most of the comments were positive. Like, most of the the Hispanic community were giving props to their people. Like Mhmm. Those are my people. Mhmm. You know mean? I I respected that. Then you get some I gotta watch my language because it almost came out. You get some people on there that just

Keith Vance: [2:02:42] speak to a place of they speak to a place of,

Keith Vance: [2:02:50] stupidity. Let's just put it that way. There were some comments, where's ice when you need them? Or, you know, you know, this this stupid stuff. There's people that there's people that just don't they have no clue. And it just be because of I'm connected with these people Mhmm. I know these people to see stupid comments like that. It just I didn't comment back on it because it just that goes nowhere. Mhmm. But let's let's speak to that a little bit. Well, my uncle For one Okay. They're freaking here legally. Right. They're h two a workers. Say it. They're here they're h two a workers. And they go home. And they go home. They don't wanna be here. They have a home where they're at. They're just here to make some money because they're gonna make more money here and go back home to family. So let's speak. I'm a diet. I'm a break this down for you. I want you to speak to it. Okay? Well So your h two a workers, what's the she said that how long does it take you the paperwork to get them the work that you have done? Started.

Mike Jamerson: [2:03:51] No. They've already done the petition and all for this coming season. The first first people won't be here till August. But it's a process. It's a oh, yeah. You have to be way ahead of the It's a long process. You don't just snap your fingers and people show up. No. It's no. When you well, first off, you're dealing with government. Right. And and like we said earlier, when the government shut down, that screwed the whole process up. So but but I wanna say something when you when you're talking about you couldn't comment. My uncle said something a long time ago, and that is kinda funny. He says, you walk in a room and there's two people arguing, which one's the idiot? Because if you're sitting there arguing with an idiot, that makes you an idiot. That's true. That's true. Okay. But so, yeah, that first off, whoever said that is an idiot and mainly because they don't know what you're talking about. And even if they

Mike Jamerson: [2:04:54] we if we wanna talk about the illegals, I'm I'm disappointed in the way we're handling the whole situation because we're sent. We wanna bring in $17,000,000,000,000 worth of business into the country. And if you don't have workers here and we're deporting them, I I wish there was an easy way, and I can go through with even my crew leader. He spent almost twenty years getting legal. He's married to an American woman, and he has three children, and they're all in college now. But it took him twenty years, and it's such a sham with the with the lawyers. Need more money. We gotta do this. We gotta fill out this paperwork and And they just string the people along and make it so hard to become legal. And we want them to be legal so they don't have to look over their shoulder. And and we also want certain things. We want them to try to learn our language and all too and not be on, you know, subsidies and, you know, and then taxpayer has to pay for it and all. But somewhere along in the line, somebody's gotta use some common sense that if you send all the workers off, who's who's gonna because these are jobs Americans won't do no more. Remember? That's what they keep telling me. And I know in my business, I know it's true. I know it's true. Americans will not come out and pick cucumbers.

Keith Vance: [2:06:17] So, well, we're gonna stay here for a little bit. Hopefully, there's we'll bring some light to this. You had your ducks in a row. When the government shut down, you had your h two a workers, but you said there were some farmers who didn't have their ducks in a row. So what happened

Mike Jamerson: [2:06:32] to those farmers? Well, they were dependent on the domestic workers that are majority are really illegal. And as they were going to the farms and all, they pulled the buses over and deported them. And, you know, we all wanted what we saw in the last four years prior to Trump, all those people crossing the border. We know that a a majority of them were bad people. They were cleaning out Venezuela's jails and what have you and all like that. I really want those people deported, and and they let, like, 30,000 Chinese in here. And from what I understand, I don't think you're allowed to leave China or they'll kill you. But they were sent here, and they're all young men. Seems to me like we're making a mistake. Yeah. And then what we're doing is we're going to all the places where we know where the workers are gonna be. We catch them. Well, they caught the berry pickers over in Amokali, and they're pulling over for tenant windows. Boom. We got five or six right there. They're they're just trying to make a living, but they do need to get legal. But we need to make it easier to get them legal instead of stringing them along for twenty years and making it to where you have to have lawyers and all.

Keith Vance: [2:07:50] But that's my opinion. No. And I can't I can't We all have our opinions. Yeah. But this is the world which we live in, and all we can do is speculate because

Keith Vance: [2:08:01] you gotta ask yourself. You got people who wanna come here to work Mhmm. And they're trying to do it the right way, and it takes so long.

Mike Jamerson: [2:08:12] Government bureaucracy, just like our h two a workers. And if we hadn't have been ahead of schedule and the government shut down, I spent all that money out there, and I can't pick it. I'm screwed.

Keith Vance: [2:08:26] So the farmers that, your competition who didn't get their h two a workers and they're working on domestics that were that were illegal, And those guys are getting picked up. What happened? What happened? Who filled the gap after those illegals got picked up? Who filled the gap to farm? There's No plan b? There's no plan b on that one. No plan b.

Mike Jamerson: [2:08:47] And and the sad thing is is the farmers like me that brought h two a workers or were trying to bring h two a workers and they didn't come because the government shut down, that's really sad. And luckily, I had I was early enough to have all my workers here before the government shut down.

Keith Vance: [2:09:08] We just stumbled across this box, and we're going we're talking about your workers and, like, your relationship with them. We kinda stumble along this across this by accident, but I think it's worth talking about I think it's worth talking about the shortage of labor that we have even in construction industry, there's a shortage of labor who's gonna fill the gap. Right? And when you talked about you experienced you lost laborers to the construction industry, it's funny as now we're experiencing the construction industry is is experiencing the same thing that you did. Yeah. So it just keeps on crossing over. And I don't know what the solution is, but listen, there is a humongous problem on the horizon for all of us. Well, they're thinking AI is gonna solve the problem. I just don't see how AI is gonna pick cucumbers

Mike Jamerson: [2:10:05] or or put roofs on. No. I haven't seen one carrier sheet of plywood yet or set set some roof trusses. Well, you know, that brings another subject up is, you know, when we're we were all coming up, all the parents that were good parents sent their kids to college. Now we have nobody that works with their hands hardly. You can't find an electrician. You're a plumber. Or if you can, you're gonna pay through the the nose, and it shouldn't cost what it should. But nobody works with their hands now. They're all college educated, it's it's turning now now that they see that they can make a $100,000 being a mechanic. But for the longest time, if you were a mechanic, you're a grease monkey. Or if you're a farmer, you're a dumb farmer or what have you. Yeah.

Keith Vance: [2:10:52] Yeah. So hopefully that pendulum swings back. It will. So and and here's the thing. You know, you talked about,

Keith Vance: [2:11:01] when you start feeling that stress, you just put your cross on your neck, you say a prayer and that you're you can rest. Like, it's we're gonna figure it out. Life has to go on. Yep. And I'm not gonna lose sleep over this. But it it is a problem. It is a problem. And at the end of the day, my vantage point,

Keith Vance: [2:11:23] human beings are human beings. If you give someone an incentive to do something that may be illegal and it's going to better their family, they're gonna do it. Mhmm. So when you have a government that just opens up a border and incentivizes them, I'm putting myself in their shoes. If I can go through this and work here, make x amount of dollars and take it back, I'm going to do that. You understand? So I think the the problem that was created is not a problem that you and I created. I think it's a government problem that they created and to try to demonize a particular group of people for trying to

Keith Vance: [2:12:11] listen. If it takes a guy twenty freaking years to get to get legal, but meanwhile, I can pay a guy $5 to crossover, make some money, and they're letting me do it. What do you like, use your common sense. Right? So whatever's going on with all of this, it's above my pay grade. All I'm saying is at the end the day, human beings are human beings, and don't forget that. Okay? Don't make a stupid ass comment on a social media thing about another another another human being that's working to provide for his family. You understand? Yeah. That's where I'm at on that. Well, it

Mike Jamerson: [2:12:42] goes back to, what we said earlier about the pendulum. It never stops in the middle. Yeah. And I can tell you, when I sat there and watched for four years the people crossing across that border that weren't hit the ones here working, and they came from every country known to man. And and like I said, unloading prisons, and and we've seen terrorism. I knew when I was watching that that the hell was coming. You knew. We knew when we were watching 10 to 15,000 people crossing that border, and they were telling us the border's closed. The border's secure. I knew it was coming back over here, and I knew I knew that when that was happening, that what was gonna happen is we were gonna go get all these people here. They're easy. I call it the low hanging fruit. The ones we're grounding up now are the low hanging fruit. And every once in a while, you'll see, oh, well, we got this child rapist. Yep. But you picked that 500 other people that were picking apples. But but I knew that. And the pendulum that remember that. The pendulum never stops in the middle, and that's called common sense. And the common sense was, who are all those Chinese people? Who are the people that came from Sudan? Who's round them up first? Then if you wanna get rid of the rest, fine. Don't go pick the low hanging fruit first. Yeah. But it's gonna leave it's gonna I'm not gonna be dependent on them because I have h two a work. You can't get h two a workers. I think you can get h h one for construction, but you can't use h two a workers. That has to be the a is for agriculture. But you you're, you know, in construction. And and once again, we went out and mustered up $17,000,000,000,000 of business from other countries to come here. Who's gonna do the work?

Keith Vance: [2:14:43] So you brought it up. I wasn't gonna even bring this up, but you you you mentioned it. I'm trying to get some workers here for construction. Mhmm. I'm trying to. I've been working on this for two years now. Good luck. I've been work all I keep doing is paying the attorney. I've been working on this for two years now. So I got a big project coming up. I think, well, this would be good. I can use this project to, like, do a little test run. And, dude, it is hard. All I'm doing is shelling out money. It it this this is hard. Yep. It's almost easier for the h two a because you have seasons. Mhmm. K. So they track alright. So I need some workers for tomato season. Well, there's a season where they can come work and then they go back. Go back. And construction is hard because there's there is no real season. You gotta say, I have this project where I need this extra bit of manpower to get this project done. And so here I am. I'm gonna start this project in, well, for one, was supposed to start six months ago, and it's going slow because there's not enough freaking workers. So that project is going slow because there's not enough workers. Mhmm. But I guess, luckily, it's going slow because, I'm supposed to mobilize guys next month, and the my attorney is saying, hey. We should have some guys next month. I'll believe it when I see it. Mhmm. But I just thought it'd be a good practice. I'm trying to get five of them here that have been here before. I said, path of least resistance. I said, the industry we're in, we gotta we better figure this out, and I need to be ahead of it. Like, you're talking about being ahead, not being reactive. I'm trying to be ahead of it because I'm trying to figure out who's going to fill this gap. So if, immigrant who? If immigrant workers that you've been using forever is an answer for the construction industry short term until American workers figure out, okay. Well, I can make some money in carpentry. Yep. But then again, you wanna say, hey. I wanna be a carpenter. It it's a skill. You gotta learn how to do it. So none of this stuff happens overnight. It takes time. Right? It takes time. But if you're not at least thinking about it,

Mike Jamerson: [2:16:48] you're you're you're gonna like you said, you're gonna be you can't This the hoops that the government makes you jump through because I've heard about your stuff from one of the guys at the packing house and where we have to do housing. I don't think you have to do housing, Dee. But you don't you have to guarantee them, like, two or three years of work or something?

Keith Vance: [2:17:07] No. I can I can have them on for a particular the length of a particular job? Mhmm. And then I can ex like, when that job is over, I can apply for an extension. But we're not even there in that conversation yet. Like, I kept trying to get you, hey. Let's just lay some plastic. Don't jump to the harvest yet. We're not even to the renewal yet. Like, we ain't even got them here yet. So don't even, like, try to talk about planting yet because we haven't even put on any plastic like the hoops. Like like,

Mike Jamerson: [2:17:33] back to our h two a workers, you have to guarantee them 35. But if you work them more, they can fine you for that, for you worked them too many hours. So you have to try to figure exactly how many hours they're gonna work, and you can't. It froze. It's just everything just changed. But but they want you to have everything perfect. Like, that is we're not living in a perfect world here in agriculture.

Keith Vance: [2:17:57] So let me ask you a question. While we're here, what would be the perfect world for you in your in your industry? What's the answer, man? I just think

Mike Jamerson: [2:18:10] if You're you're just I I think if less government Ronald Reagan said it. Less government's best government of reg the regulations. But but mainly, I think if if the stores and the farmers would work more hand in hand, I think that would that would be a big thing. There's nothing you're gonna do about the bugs. You just keep trying to kill them and the freezes and all that. But but the human interaction, like, the chain stores and the and the buyers and the and the farmers and all, if they could communicate better than we do, working off what you sold last year is not a good program for what happened this year. And that's how they that's how they order, like Kroger's and what have you like that. They see how many cucumbers and peppers they ordered last year, and they they go out and think they're gonna get the same amount. But if we have a a glut situation where we're having a really good crop, they need to lower the prices and move product. But I don't see it happening, but that would be my ideal world. In an ideal world, I wouldn't have all the weather and all issues. Yeah. But we're not living in a perfect world. We're living in a great world. There's no doubt about that. I was talking more or less along the lines of labor, like, the perfect world for labor. I I don't have a problem with h two. I wish we didn't have to pay as much per hour. Not that they don't deserve it and all like that, but when my competition in Mexico is paying $8 a day Mhmm. And I'm paying $21 an hour. It if it we could, you know, fair that up. And, realistically, if

Keith Vance: [2:19:50] this is a different situation. But this kinda goes hand in hand. Again, if they're getting $8 a day in Mexico and $21 an hour here, you can't blame a person

Mike Jamerson: [2:20:00] To one here. Yeah. For one to come here. Absolutely. You can't blame them. And all the people that come here, they they work their butts off. But I I wish I could pay more for my workers than I than I pay them. I I wouldn't if I could stay in business Sure. I have to stay in business and competing against people like that that that don't have to pay that. And like I said earlier, you know, I always was on the assumption that that their produce wasn't as good as ours. No. Their produce is as good as ours. It may not be as safe, but their produce is as good as ours or better, and I'll tell you why. Because where I'm out here farming in open land, like what you saw, they're all in hothouses and shade houses and what have you with air conditioning. They have untold amounts of money down there that they're using, funneling their money from drugs and what have you into these at their packing houses. My my packing house is not air conditioned. Their packing houses are air conditioned. All the workers come in suits in in beautiful white linen that and their floors are tile and all that. I don't I don't have that kind of money to do that. So they really do have better standards of their packing houses, and and and they don't have the weather conditions. I'm trying to grow a bushel of cucumbers out here, and I'm fighting thirty, forty mile an hour winds of frost one night. They're in a controlled environment growing their stuff, and that stuff costs hundreds of thousand dollars per acre to put those structures up. So they they they don't know what a freeze is in Mexico. Now they do have to deal with hurricanes. And if they have too much water, it can hurt sometimes. But the majority of their crops are grown inside. Prime example, my my scout was talking to my younger brother, and this was probably 10 ago. And they were googling the and they were looking at all the plastic they had laid down there, and they they pulled it up. That was not rows of plastic. Those were shade houses. And we they were looking at it, and they thought they thought until they zoomed it in that it was rows of plastic down there. No. It was big, huge structures. Each one of those, they thought was a row of plastic, was actually a big huge building that they're growing their crop in. So so make that make sense to me. It Will they grow? Here, you're telling me like, we just talked about how much we're selling our crop for here. Mhmm.

Keith Vance: [2:22:41] So how how how are they doing it cheaper than you with with more sophisticated buildings and equipment? They're

Mike Jamerson: [2:22:49] taking the money they're selling their drugs for and investing in that.

Keith Vance: [2:22:55] And then how are you supposed to compete with that? I can't.

Mike Jamerson: [2:22:59] Well, no. Then that's when God comes back into the picture. They'll have something happen down there or we'll have some and we've made it for fifty something years, and

Mike Jamerson: [2:23:12] that's all I could say. It has to be the hand of god because I've seen so many farmers come and go, especially since NAFTA. I mean, we had we actually we were we were the big dog. We had all the crops, not Mexico. After NAFTA, we're we're maybe 20, and they're 80%. 80% of the produce in the wintertime comes from Mexico. 20% comes from us. We really lost I mean, like, you take, Pacific Tomato Growers, they had 16,000 acres of tomatoes here. They have maybe 400 acres now. All the rest of their tomatoes are in Mexico.

Mike Jamerson: [2:23:55] And and that's just one company.

Keith Vance: [2:24:00] So we're getting ready to talk about the future of farming because you're you're wanting to retire soon and your nephews are gonna take over, but

Mike Jamerson: [2:24:08] maybe you would advise your nephews to do something else. Well, most of the farmers that are still here I think that comment that that person made on Facebook got to your wife because she was saying She did because I'm telling you that's what happens there. And every one of them people, they don't smoke. They don't drink. They don't do drugs. They ain't got no wives. They don't watch Facebook, and they don't make comments about things that they do not know what they're talking about on any kind of media. And they are verified twice. Washington DC, American Embassy, and then our crew leader. And then they've been here in the past for so many years. When I go back to the farmers, I there's just probably 50, I could tell you, that's going out of business because of the unfair trade practices. Now in all fairness, we had some farms here that and one of the reasons we're still here is because we're there every day watching. Well, some there was slop in in a lot of the farm operations in Amokli and all like that. I mean, when it's time to lay plastic, they'd be off caribou hunting. It's lobster season. They're down there lobstering. Worst we're in the field laying the plastic, and it may it may it it was the survival of the fittest. This is what would is what's left now. Or, like, Pacific, like I said, they'll have four or 500 acres here, and all the rest is in Mexico. But I'll tell you the stories I mentioned earlier about NAFTA. So in '94, when they passed it, senator Graham and Porter Gosse, we all went to the farmer's market down here, and it was a big media deal and all like that. And I sat, and they brought some of the farmers out from Monopoly and all like that. And we talked and we exchanged, like I said, they would send me some of the stuff about how much cocaine was coming in through the the border and all like that. And then we we had another deal. Alfie Oaks had a deal down here with, senator Scott. And over from '94 to probably 2000 and something, they would always come and talk to us farmers about NAFTA and how bad it was and all like that, and they would always come to me. I'd give them the story. So senator Scott and this was, what, three years ago, I believe, if we went down to Alfie's. And he was there and it's all about NAFTA. And they're listening. They they had the people from the strawberries up in Plant City and all. They had a really group of good farmers in there, and they're telling senator Scott what's what's the problem and all like that. And then he made the comment. He says, well, you guys need to get out and you need to tell the media. And I respectfully raised my hand, and he called on me. I says, respectfully, sir. I did that from 1994 to for probably ten or fifteen years. And it finally dawned on me that people keep seeing me every year saying the same thing over and over and over. They're they're sitting there in their chairs laughing at me saying, that kid ain't too bright, is he? And I said, and that's when I quit. It's your job to straighten this up, not mine. But he told us, you need to get out in that meeting. You you need to tell the media about your problem. Well, I did for for years and years and years, and it it did. It really dawned on me. Well, people must think I'm not too bright if I'm still doing the same thing and complaining about it. But it's not right. Yeah. You're just trying to farm.

Keith Vance: [2:27:38] Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Jamerson: [2:27:40] And and the government, they do things like like the embargoes or the tariffs or whatever, and they just wreck people's lives, especially yeah. I mean, we're used as a a tool, you know, to get leverage or whatever.

Keith Vance: [2:27:57] Yeah. It's

Mike Jamerson: [2:28:00] And I don't know what the answer is because, you know, you see big farms and the government, you know, they subsidize this and they subsidize that and all like that. And then you see some of these big farms, like, they just, it's called Monet Farms. They have 400,000 acres. And I only think 60 thousand's in this country and the rest is in Canada, but they just filed bankruptcy. And it's like, maybe maybe we have too much land being farmed up there. And if we didn't have all the subsidies and all like that, some of the farmers would quit. I I don't know what the answer is because then if you cut our acreage back, Brazil will take it. And and I I don't understand that philosophy that we need to overproduce everything so we have enough. But that's a thin line you gotta walk because you do want your people fed. This country will go crazy if they didn't have an abundance.

Keith Vance: [2:28:57] Well, that's what I'm getting at. They better figure this out because we're not talking about things that we don't need. We're talking about life. We're talking about the food that we need to survive. Like, we better get this figured out. Yeah.

Mike Jamerson: [2:29:10] I just don't understand. Like Well, I think my wife I think it was about three years ago for Christmas. I I was a little down. I guess it was one of those storms that blew my peppers over. I forget what it was. And for Christmas, she got me this sign that says, once it sometimes you're gonna need a preacher, a lawyer. What's the other?

Mike Jamerson: [2:29:34] A doctor. But three times a day, you're gonna need a farmer. And I had that sign in my my yard, that that perked me up. Yeah. That's true. But three times a day, you're gonna need a farmer.

Keith Vance: [2:29:46] I I'm glad I had you on here. I didn't expect for it to take the turn that it did. Like, I just thought we're gonna talk about yeah, man. I gotta fight the weather and I gotta fight some some bugs. I didn't realize this whole other thing that you're fighting against, which I don't understand it. I don't pretend to understand it, but they would get better get it figured out because I was the next question I was gonna ask you was the future of farming. You're getting ready to retire. Your nephew's gonna take over. What if if we continue down this

Mike Jamerson: [2:30:19] path we're on I don't see any young farmers cut getting into it. You don't? I don't. I don't in in our in our end, if it no. I can't say about up north, but what they're going through up there up north now because of the tariffs and what have you. And I'm hearing bankruptcies are are through the roof and and all like that, but I just don't see young farmers getting into it. It breaks my heart because, like you said, we better figure it out. And I well, the government is throwing more money and more money at it to try to keep farmers still going. But Why is if if you're not gonna be a good farmer if your heart's not in it. You're not gonna be a good anything if your heart's not in it. Can can we ask you a stupid question? Why is the government involved in it at all? Why can't we just, like Well, once again, like I said, up there where they're given the subsidies and all to the farmers, they would rather just have just make it on their own. They I think the saying is they'd rather have something not a handout, but a hand up or not a hand up. I I can't remember the saying, but they don't want the government help. They they want the government to quit making it to where they can't make a living.

Keith Vance: [2:31:31] But why why is the government intervening if the if they if they don't want the government's help, they just don't do You remember one thing. You better feed your people.

Mike Jamerson: [2:31:40] If you have a people that are hungry, you're you're gonna be like he's third world third world countries, and they don't it's been a long time since we had pitchforks and going up to Washington and all, but you let this population go hungry, and you'll see how fast Americans get on unhappy. But right now, we complain about how much stuff is at the store, and I I feel it too. I mean, I go to the store also. I actually don't. She doesn't, and she jakes me to the store. I'm like, woah. I can't believe this stuff cost this much, but at least we have it. And that brings me to that one thing I wanted to bring up, and it has nothing to do with farming since it's on on a podcast. Inflation. Do you realize and I read this somewhere, and it's it's more than likely where I read it is true. That my generation, which is the baby boomers, we have $73,000,000,000,000 in value that we're fixing to either spend or we're gonna give to our kids. And and now I'm fix fixing to be 67, and it's dawning on me. Well, our preachers told us our whole life, you're not taking it with you. We might wanna start spending some of it. I don't ever see inflation ever being I I don't care who president is. I don't see ever inflation ever being in check again ever when you had because when Biden passed that 1,900,000,000,000 in in the inflation reduction act, which is made at 9%,

Mike Jamerson: [2:33:18] that's just not even $2,000,000,000,000. What's $73,000,000,000,000? I don't know. Either we're gonna give it to our kids and like, her family, they all own their homes and all, so they're gonna go spend it or us that are gonna go spend it. I don't see inflation ever coming down. I don't care who your president is. That would be one that I think we're just gonna have to deal with high prices is what I'm saying when we have that. And and the reason that we're in the situation that we're in is because my generation, I call them the worker bees. We worked, worked, worked. We were the electricians, the plumbers. We built the houses. We did all that, and we didn't spend money. We were very frugal. We saved and we saved and we saved. In in my own instances, I bought life insurances and I knew it. I've done all that, and I've never spent any of that money. Now it's all gonna I can't take it with me. It's gonna hit all all these baby boomers that you're not taking it with you. Might as well spend some of it or give it to the kids, they're gonna spend it. I don't ever see it. It has nothing to do with farming. But Yeah. It kinda does. But it but it it's something that and and an axe to grind us is 40 almost $40,000,000,000,000 in debt that we've run. And then we've talked about the guy and we call them the specialist. They're the specialists, and they've got us $39,000,000,000,000 in debt. Our parents didn't do that to us, and we're doing it to the next generation. It's not right. I mean, that's a big, big thing to me. I know our parents and our grandparents did not leave the next generation in debt like this. And what we're living fat, dumb, and happy. And one day, worse than food is when everybody's money in their pocket is gonna be worthless.

Keith Vance: [2:35:09] Yeah. There's I think everybody feels it. There's an uneasiness. Yeah. Everybody feels it. You have to do something about it. So even here's my son-in-law. He does all my estimating, and, he told me the numbers that we did this year compared to last year same time frame. I won't say how much more we've done, but it's a significant amount more that we've done in business. But for the first time ever, I thought about, okay. But how much of that is due to inflation? How much of that is my labor costs that have gone up, fuel costs that have gone up, like, the materials that we buy to do the jobs? Like, I'm thinking it might be pretty much even though we did more dollars, it's not the same because it costs more to do business. So that that was the first time. Normally, I would be like, oh, that's good. That was the first thought I had. Yeah. But how much is really in my pocket? How much did inflation take away from me? I've never thought of that before. Mhmm. How much like, what's the real number? And when you have We could go on and on. My son just built a house next door. Freaking crazy how much he spent to build that house. You know what I mean? Like Yeah. And it just feels like we're working harder, but we're putting less

Mike Jamerson: [2:36:26] less away. And, again, that change a lot. Have all of us, baby boomers, that have all that money that's just sitting there. And it's not just in houses. I mean, we have investments and what have you. And I'm I'm just saying my age group. I'm not talking about me in particular. But 73,000,000,000,000 is a lot of wealth to disperse in the next ten or fifteen years. And people that's got that kind of money, when they walk up and gas is $6, fill it up. They're not gonna worry about $6 a gallon. Right. But the poor people like your kids that are trying to make it and pay that house payment and all, it's gonna bother them. But all of us has saved all of our money our whole lives and are gonna start spending it. It's gonna make it rough on that generation.

Keith Vance: [2:37:14] We're gonna wrap this up. I just got some clarity. Like, I just got a little bit of clarity, brother. I'm gonna wrap this thing up and I'll let you close it out. But when we talked about farming and we talked about the anxiety of farming, we talked about the things that I that I can control, that I work hard at, and then there's things that I can't control, and how you can lay your head at night and sleep, and God's got me. And now we're talking about everyday people with inflation with the world that we live in. That same thing carries over. God just isn't the God of the farmer. God is the God of all things. Mhmm. And if he's got us, if I put my trust in him and he's got me and I'm his child, I can lay my head at night and sleep that I'm I'm gonna be taken care of. He's gonna provide for me. He's gonna take care of me. Even when the deck is stacked against me, even though I'm competing against the cartel in Mexico and I'm just trying to grow my thing, even though the deck is stacked stacked against me, if I am a child of the most high, brother, I can't be better. I can't be in a safer spot. I can't be in a better I can't be any better. You follow me? Oh, I Go through scripture. Read through scripture. I am blessed. There's no doubt in my mind. Go through scripture when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they play some music and everybody's supposed to bow down. Hey. Hey, king. You know, you're a good king and everything, but we just can't bow down to you because to bow down to you will be a go against that. We'd be worshiping you against God. Mhmm. Can't do it. But there's Play play the music again. Fire it. Fire it up. If they don't if they don't bow down, I'll give you I'll give you another chance. You know, you can play the music all you want and give us all the chance you want. Oh, we're still not gonna bow down to you. He throws them into the furnace and they come out unburned. You understand? That's the god that we serve. Mhmm. Right? That's the god that we serve. And there is, man, you got me fired up. We have a good life here.

Mike Jamerson: [2:39:14] We have a good life When you you started off what what makes me wanna farm besides all the miracles I see out there on the farm, like the seeds and what have you like that. But it gives me time to think too. One day, I'm just out there on the tractors just rolling around like that, and I get to thinking when we give a pint of blood, how do we how does our body how does it know to put a pint of blood back in us instead of a quart and then it starts coming out our eyes or our ears? And it's just the human body. It's just it's it's a miracle Yeah. Of all the things. Or when you cut and it it heals itself and and what have you. It's just all those things you you get time to think about. Yeah. It's good stuff. But I in all fairness, to end it, I can tell you, I have over fifty something years, all the heartache and all like that, I've been blessed.

Keith Vance: [2:40:09] Yeah. I have I can say that. So I, again, I words aren't enough, but thank you for what you do. I'm glad that you are able to you know, people are gonna hear this. I'm glad that it it shed a light on what farmers do for us, the hardships that you that you do. And, man, it sounds like, man, is the is the risk really worth the reward as I'm putting myself through your shoes. But, man, if somebody doesn't, who's gonna do it? So thank you for what you've done. When I go I don't eat I don't eat a lot of vegetables. When I go look at those vegetables. You're a meat man, aren't you? I'm a meat man, brother. But thank you for shedding light on this. Thank you for the time sitting down and talking with me. I know we had talked months ago, but you're just now in your you finished your season. Right? You're this is your slow time of life, so thank you. I appreciate you having you as a neighbor. Appreciate your wife. We've all we've been talking about getting dinner for two or three years now. I haven't done it yet.

Mike Jamerson: [2:41:06] Listen. We better do it sooner. We're not gonna be able afford it one of these days with inflation. You got me worried now. It's funny because we talk about the same thing. We've got people from church and all that. We've she keeps telling we're gonna take them out. We had still haven't done it. We'll make it happen.

Keith Vance: [2:41:23] Make it happen. Yeah. Anything else you wanna talk about? No. I think we've rounded up there.