Episode 28 Kentucky Farm Bureau featuring Renee Carrico
Join us as we enter the Kentucky Farm Bureau studios and meet with Renee Carrico, Kentucky Farm Bureau Commodity Division Director. She talks to Braden Porter and Shelby Wade Kirby about KFB and how they work to serve the people of Kentucky.
Links:
KFB Commodities Report: https://www.kyfb.com/federation/programs/commodities/
Sign-Up to receive the commodities report by click here.
Black Vulture Depredation Information
- Transcript
[00:00:01.280] - Intro
Welcome to Beyond Agriculture, the podcast that takes you beyond the scope of Ag and into the real life stories, conversations, and events taking place in our community. Who we are and what we do is beyond agriculture.
[00:00:29.770] - Braden Porter
Welcome back to the Beyond Agriculture podcast. My name is Braden Porter and I'm joined by Emily Murphy and Shelby Wade Kirby. And we're here in Louisville at the Kentucky Farm bureau with Renee Carrico. So Renee, how are you today?
[00:00:42.220] - Renee Carrico
I'm good. I'm so glad you guys are here.
[00:00:44.260] - Braden Porter
Well, thank you for taking time to talk with us. We wanted to kind of just go over some stuff with the commodity division that you work with. But before we get into that, tell us a little bit about yourself.
[00:00:52.630] - Renee Carrico
Yeah, well, first off, this is a fun little full-circle circle moment. I'm gonna go ahead and rat us out now, Braden. Braden was a little 4-Her on the 4-H judging team when we were kids, so I was a high schooler and he was kinda nine years old, a little cloverbud age. So this is a cool, full circle moment having you up here. I'm originally from Princeton, so West Kentucky. I live in Springfield, Washington County now. And so me and my husband, I grew up with hogs and cattle. Now we've got cattle in Springfield. He works as an engineer at Heaven Hill and I work up here at Farm Bureau in the commodity division. In a previous life, worked with Shelby over at Kentucky Office of AG policy with the tobacco settlement funds. Did a stint selling some cotton seed for a little while and all in all made it back to Kentucky. Did a livestock roll at first when I got to Farm Bureau, but then now blessed to be direct in the commodity division. I've got a full team and y'all hear all about it, but it's pretty clear I'm pretty pumped up about some of the stuff we're getting to do and excited to share it with another set of listeners.
[00:01:51.880] - Braden Porter
That's awesome. That's awesome. So how long have you been with Kentucky Farm Bureau?
[00:01:56.610] - Renee Carrico
It's only been about three and a half years. Yeah, I interned here in 2014, I think, and wanted to come back immediately after I graduated and they kind of gave me the, well, no, go get some experience somewhere else and we'll call you. I thought that was the nice letdown. And then they actually did call later. So that shows you when you do an internship, you do a good job. They really do call back. It just maybe five or six years down the road. They created a livestock role. We had had a lot of other pieces we'd worked on really hard, like horticulture direct sales. And they were like, we don't have a person doing livestock like we want to across the state. So I kind of got to make the role. I know I saw some of you as I was traveling the whole state trying to figure out what we needed. And so I did that for about two and a half years. And then I've been in this director role about a year. Retirements, things like that. I was able to kind of slide in here and, and then kind of backfilled a couple people behind me, and so now we got a team of five doing this thing.
[00:02:53.050] - Braden Porter
Yeah. And that leads right into my next question. Talking about the team here in the commodity division. Would you mind going into that a little bit and talking about that?
[00:03:00.790] - Renee Carrico
Yeah. Yeah. So our commodity division, five team members, I cover all things environmental, and then I help our public affairs group. So some of our lobbyists, I'm not a registered lobbyist, of course, but I help kind of coordinate some of those efforts with them, uh, on the rest of the team. Uh, I always start with my veteran Fran McCall. She runs our certified farm market program, all things horticulture and direct sales. Um, we've got Donovan Pig. He does our livestock marketing. And so I hope you guys have seen him. I know some of you guys probably see him in Paris, Lexington. He hits a lot of the yards. He used to do, um, grading, quality grading at the, uh, at the slaughter facilities and then market reporting at the stockyards. So he's. He's pretty well known in those areas. He does our livestock work. And then Taylor Thompson, who's probably the newest name to the group, he is actually out of Tennessee. His dad worked at the Middle Tennessee research farm. So another extension kid like myself, he does all of our grain crops and forestry. And then our administrative assistant is Margaret Gambert, which everybody laughs when I bring her up, but she is a brown from Caldwell county. She's got farming roots, too. And so we love Margaret. She is. It's so nice when the jargon makes sense to the person that's sending the emails and getting things coordinated, so we would all be very without her.
[00:04:17.060] - Braden Porter
Well, good deal. But. So you were talking about the team here, and that was leading into my next question with Fran and the horticulture and kind of stuff like that. Tell us a little bit about this certified farm market program. So I was looking at your website and learning a little bit about that, and from what you sent me with details on that, but that sounds super interesting. So tell us a little bit about that.
[00:04:36.520] - Renee Carrico
Yeah, the certified farm market program. You guys can be some of the first to hear it. It'll be the 30th year, next year that we've had that program. So if any of you come to annual meeting, come join us. A big reception. We'll get invites out to that soon. But 30 years we have been pushing this. So this is not a COVID boom for us. This is something people have been doing a long time. The goal of the farm market program, certified farm market program, used to be a roadside market. So you think the wagon on the side of the road selling the pumpkins, the honesty bucket I call it, where you put a dollar in and grab your corn, it's taken that to the next level. So it's got to be a permanent structure. You've got to be selling some kind of product on site that is, that is grown or produced there. My favorite part about it, most of our markets, I won't say all, but most of our markets are selling other market's products as well. So that coordination, that networking, they get a chance to kind of really cross-promote each other. You do have to pay for it. You get to be a Farm Bureau member, but then you pay $100 and you get your $100 back. I think immediately we boost your Facebook and your ad for your area, kind of geotag your area, and boost you. We've got two education meetings that are no cost to you, a statewide and a regional. Plus we do some signage with you and then we cross-promote throughout the year and we do a tour every year that you have an opportunity to go on as well. So I think it's a no brainer if it's something you're into. We've got 155 markets. I got that number yesterday from Fran and still inquiries. So we broke that 150 mark. That was a big deal this year, so. And then 30 years of it. I think 30 years ago people thought this was going to work for a couple people maybe, and now 155 people in and after Covid, I don't think this local food movement's going anywhere. So I think it's going anywhere but up.
[00:06:21.800] - Shelby Wade Kirby
I'll interject here. We have several, several of our Ag Credit customers that are roadside market official, I guess you could say we see their signs when we go out to the farm. And I do think it is an excellent advertising opportunity. So even any of our current customers or anybody that we have in our network that maybe aren't as familiar, we'd be happy to connect them over to Fran to work on it and get more advertising and hopefully boost their sales as well.
[00:06:49.900] - Renee Carrico
Yeah. And it's neat. I think a lot of people get turned off sometimes just because of the permanent structure. But for people like you, that's selling pork product on the side and you don't have a permanent structure, you're selling out of. You can sell through those markets. Um, so. So that gives you another outlet. Um, maybe you're not ready to have a. You're working a day job. You're not ready to have a whole freezer sitting there all the time that you're sitting there, manning. Um, maybe you've got an option to sell through them. I think it boosts local sales for those that are getting started, those that have no need to ever have a permanent spot, and then those that maybe have their own and want to sell it across the state to another area. So that's awesome that you guys have got some. That are y'all's customers as well.
[00:07:26.660] - Shelby Wade Kirby
I love driving down the road, even if they're not our customers, and seeing those signs because I know that is an excellent network and there's a whole lot of great things, like you mentioned, to go that goes along with being part of that.
[00:07:37.370] - Renee Carrico
Yeah, for sure.
[00:07:38.600] - Braden Porter
I'm just still shook by the 30 years. That's just like a telltale sign of success. And over 155 or 155 is what you said.
[00:07:45.380] - Renee Carrico
Yeah.
[00:07:45.780] - Braden Porter
So that's a. That's a good deal, but, yeah, so keep rolling on. One thing that you sent me that I thought was cool is kind of with the tour of that. And you guys are setting up a tour, right?
[00:07:56.150] - Renee Carrico
Yeah.
[00:07:56.510] - Braden Porter
So tell us a little bit about that. It says planning for 2025.
[00:07:59.710] - Renee Carrico
Yeah. So actually, funny you say that. I don't know when this one airs, but this is. Fran will be going mid-July to do the pre-tour for next year, so we will be taking it to Canada. We're going abroad. Yeah, I know. Barely just jumping over there. So Fran's going next week to scout it out with our events team. We went to Texas this past year. The year before that, I got to help them go to Minneapolis and St. Paul area. I am very much. They laugh at me. I'm very much a production ag livestock row crop kind of gal. The farm market people took me in. They may do a little more shopping at the end of each tour stop than I'm used to at a cattle operation. But you talk about businesses that rock and roll, and they are so open to tell you what they're doing. Like financial decisions they made, what worked, what didn't. I'm always so shocked when we go to other states and they're just so open, you know, they'll have something still standing agritourism piece, and they're like, I mean, it costs too much to tear it down, but I would never suggest it again. And our guys are like, oh, okay. And they'll make a note, like, don't do that one. You know, so it's really neat. It's a jam pack. Four days most of the time. I think candle will probably be five, just cause of distance, but we'll see three, four markets every day. You're eating on farm with those people. You're getting a lot of q and a. We work with local agritourism for that one. So whether it's their local farmers market coordinators, and a lot of times we go to a city and we kind of pinwheel out, if that makes sense. And you'll see some that are 80 miles outside of a city, and then you'll see some that are within 10 miles of a city limit. And it's really interesting to see the differences in the crowds they do and what kind of products they can sell, what's successful. So, yeah, stay tuned. Next summer, it'll be Canada for that when we take about 50 members every year.
[00:09:45.300] - Braden Porter
Shelby, you going?
[00:09:47.030] - Shelby Wade Kirby
Maybe. I'm always out for a good opportunity to travel.
[00:09:53.470] - Braden Porter
We'll get into some of the production ag, like you said, focus is on there. So you guys have these economic reports. Tell us a little bit about that and how this division puts that together for Kentucky residents to have access to.
[00:10:07.680] - Renee Carrico
Yeah. So I guess it's just my background growing up with extension and then doing the ag development work, very focused on. One of my biggest pet peeves for farmers is farmers are not ignorant. They're not. They don't have time to read it. You know, I can't send. The worst thing you can do is send somebody a ten page research article and say, oh, the answer's in there. Give them one page. They're busy. They need something quick digestible because they have things going on. That's my job. I find that's our job. It's extensions job, whoever it may be your lender's job to make something that seems like ten pages long, make it more digestible. And so when we got into this division, I started seeing a lot of information we had or that we coordinated all these meetings that I didn't feel like we were getting shared or no other group really was able to share. Just cause we see so many statewide meetings and so I had some ideas. Donovan had some ideas. Excuse me. And then Taylor Thompson came in. I'll be honest with you, we were looking for a grain guy, and we got an economist, and we're thrilled. I mean, he is so incredibly smart. He used to work at Yum brand foods. So you talk about hedging and price protecting on some of the largest bulk commodity purchases in North America. I mean, by the click of a mouse, he was working with moving markets. I mean, if he wasn't careful, just a wealth of knowledge. And his whole thing was he wanted help learning how to make it digestible as well. And so he was making these economic reports just for our team to read and for leadership just to see, hey, what do you guys want? I have this knowledge. I don't know where it fits. And we kind of honed it down to one page and started having topics. And we thought, well, why don't we start letting people have an opportunity to read this? And so we, last January, I guess, started literally a QR code, and we went to trade shows, and we're like, hey, if you're interested in economic reports, let's do it. He and Donovan sat down, and Donovan had always said, there's nothing more frustrating than when you look at a cattle report and you don't really understand the weight classes going across the state. Who's a weigh in, who's a weigh out? I just want to know what four weights are selling for this week. What are the eight weights doing this week statewide? And if I want to get specific, I'll go to my markets page. And so they kind of combined that really put those numbers together. And now we have that weekly cattle report. Those two were really the first two we did. We had the grain bids we'd been doing for a long time. The cool part about grain bids, I think we've already got them outdated, and I think it's a good problem. We do a timestamp pull of those grain bids anywhere you can sell grain around the state of Kentucky at 330 every day. Now we have a partnership with bar chart, and on our website, you can put in your zip code and see the real time stats of what grain is selling for. So that 330 data, by the time I open it at five is outdated. And that was always our gripe, was, how do we fix this and this partnership and this, this coordination we're doing with bar chart now, you can even do it on our app, and you can go by the zip code and look it up real time. And I think that's a game changer. I don't need to know what grain's selling for in Christian County, if I'm in Springfield. Um, and I don't need to know, you know, what's it selling for up in Northern Kentucky if I'm in Hickman, you know, so I think it helps get away from some of that just cause it's alphabetical order now. You can do it by zip code. Um, so, yeah, the cattle report comes out once a week. Economic report comes out once a week. And then those grain bids, we're still doing those emails for a little while longer, but then you can do those anytime real-time on the app. So the next thing, we got to send an email out and teach people how to turn on push notifications. So we take that for granted. I still call myself young, but I know I use push notifications. But, yeah, we got to get our membership on the same page so they can start seeing it, too.
[00:13:44.970] - Braden Porter
No, that sounds like super awesome opportunity for farmers across the state to really get involved and have the most accurate knowledge. Like you said, you could look through a ten page document, but you really only need one because you got stuff to do that day. Yeah, no, thank you for talking about that. How do people get involved in. How do they get involved in that? How do they get access to that?
[00:14:07.690] - Renee Carrico
You said that. Yeah. So what I can do is I can send. Yeah, I can send the link to the app. If you guys do maybe show notes and things like that, you can look on that and kind of follow that link and sign up to those economic reports. I think the app's the coolest way to do it, but I'm kind of into that. I like seeing the push notification. I get too many emails a day sometimes, so we can send you those things and you can have it in the show notes and sign up to those. And I know it's probably not great. You guys do it, too. I'm sure you have listeners that aren't always customers. You don't have to be a farm bureau member to get these things. I tell people all the time, I think my team is a member benefit, but we're not going to hold it only for our membership. Our members obviously get a little bit more of me than maybe sometimes even they want, but they get to see us a lot more. But if you're not a farm bureau member, you can still have a chance to kind of get that information and see kind of some of the quality we can bring you if that's something you want to join that's a great point.
[00:15:00.710] - Shelby Wade Kirby
I'm glad you brought that up because like you guys, you know, we do have a lot of listeners and our podcast and really just ag credit as a whole. We kind of, we kind of have that extension kind of role like you mentioned. You know, that's just our background. Right. We're educators. We provide resources, but it's not just our customers we provide that for. So just like Farm Bureau, of course we want you to be a member of Farm Bureau. We want you to be a customer of ag credit. But there's a whole lot of information that we can provide. You all can provide that really helps you gain any knowledge. Just build on your farm, whatnot. That is completely free.
[00:15:35.260] - Renee Carrico
Yeah, absolutely.
[00:15:37.550] - Braden Porter
Well, to kind of wrap up, one of the other things that you sent that I thought was super interesting that we could talk about is the black vulture depredation. Excuse me, sub permit. English is tough sometimes, but yeah, tell us a little bit about that and what Farm Bureau is doing with that.
[00:15:54.530] - Renee Carrico
Yeah, so, and it's a, it's a mouthful. We can't just say permits to handle a predator. You know, we have to make a very long phrase for it. So for any cattle and small ruminant producers, this is no surprise, especially this end of the state. I think I get more calls from central and eastern Kentucky than anywhere else. The black vultures, those are going to be your black headed ones. They years now, they've been aggressive. And so they'll attack newborn calves, they'll attack really, the moms while they're down, those cows while they're down. They're really hard on sheep and goat and we're seeing true losses. So what we did a few years back, we've got to struggle with this because they're technically a protected species. And so what we did, we worked very, very hard. Some of those that were here ahead of me worked a lot with the federal government on how can we get sub permits. And so some states run it through their department of ags. We were able to run it through us simply just, that was the fastest way, the way we were set up to get it done. And so all you have to do is reach out to us and I can put, I can send you guys that link to the show notes as well. You just have to fill out this form. The main thing is you have to have livestock. So if it's tearing up, we get a lot of calls about it. Tearing up your boats, tearing up roofs. They're very aggressive and I feel for those people, but I the only way we could get these sub permits was for livestock, for true animal losses. And so what we ask that you do is fill out that form. You'll have, we call them takes, it's kills. And so you'll have anywhere from three to five based on the number head you have. And the only thing we ask of you, there's definitely rules to go with it. The main thing we ask of you is at the end of the year, please tell us how many you took. A lot of people, they tell me, well, I handled the problem and I had my permit and I thought that's all you wanted me to do. I do. I want you to have your animals be safe and I want you to have the permit. I really love that you have the permit, but I want you to tell me how many took. Because if we don't show that we're using them and it's still a need, we can't keep fighting the good fight to try to get them off the protected species list to where we can handle this like we do more for deer. So those deer depredation permits are not nearly as strict as these because of the way that works. And so these being on the protected species list, we've got to have those numbers to back it so we can keep fighting that in DC. Um, but I would say, I know this is the, the farmer kid in me. We own a farm, we have a permit. A lot of people handle this problem without a permit and I cannot stress enough how important it is to have that permit. One wrong move and somebody's gonna, gonna turn you in. And it's so simple, there's no cost. And we annually renew you as long as you don't show us or send us any notice that you don't have livestock anymore. We'll auto renew you. So fill this format once and then you're gonna be protected on that side of it and be able to handle the problem. Cause the last thing we want is for you to have, um, have your animals killed. I mean it's just, it's a rough situation, but um, we're, we're happy to handle it. Um, we do get a lot of phone calls on it. Frame a call from our group is the one that actually does most of those phone calls, but I take a lot of them as well. So um, yeah, it's a downer to talk about, but at least we're trying to handle it. Um, it's a step in the right direction.
[00:18:51.780] - Braden Porter
I feel like it's really important, especially with livestock farmers. Because that. That is something that affects a lot of people. I've. I've talked to multiple different livestock farmers who say that, you know, how do we solve this problem? So, I mean, yeah, it's a little bit of a downer, but if you can help save your livestock from unnecessary predators, you know, why not? And that's something I didn't know the farm bureau you guys helped out with. And so that's something I really wanted to hit on because I believe ag credit listeners will probably love hearing that.
[00:19:18.150] - Shelby Wade Kirby
Yeah, absolutely. The majority of our listeners and our customers are, I would say, at least 80% livestock. So this definitely is great information to pass along to them, especially with that.
[00:19:26.590] - Braden Porter
Cattle report that comes out.
[00:19:27.880] - Shelby Wade Kirby
That's right.
[00:19:29.760] - Braden Porter
So, no, that's all the questions I have today. Shelby, Emily, do you guys have anything else?
[00:19:34.740] - Emily Murphy
No, I can't think of anything. But thank you, Renee, for getting on here with us.
[00:19:39.130] - Renee Carrico
Yeah, for sure. I do want to give a shout out. I am a customer, so I do want to give a shout out to my guys at the Lebanon guys and gals at the Lebanon office. Col takes care of us. Richard Medley takes care of us from back when he was over there. So I appreciate that group. We're blessed. We're in. I live in ag credit country, and so we love our people. Shelby laughs every time. My husband, I think it's the only hats he owns, is ag credit hats. So Cole takes care of him really well. But no, we bought a farm last year right next to our house, and I can't thank you guys enough. I love me some ag credit. And farm bureau gets to work with ag credit a lot. We work with all of our ag lenders, of course, but it's kind of cool to, again, come full circle and get to see people you used to work with, people you still work with, people you used to do 4-H with. It's a cool, full circle moment.
[00:20:25.980] - Shelby Wade Kirby
I'm sorry. We talk about this a lot. You know, the ag world is such a small world. We might be from different ends of the state, but Renee and I met up every year at the state fair, showing Holland even before we knew each other and then, of course, got to college and then life after. But it's such a small world, and we love connecting with other network partners, farm bureau being, of course, a big one for us.
[00:20:46.760] - Braden Porter
If anybody has any questions. How do they get in contact with you?
[00:20:49.510] - Renee Carrico
Yeah, so my email is pretty simple, if you know how to spell it. Renee.carrico@kyfb.com and you can, you'll see how to spell my name, I'm sure, in the title of the podcast, but Carico is a weird one for me. But it's very central Kentucky, I'm told. So Laurent was hard too, and it was that one. So I didn't get much change there, but no Renee karakoffb.com if you just shoot me an email and then chances are you'll be working off my cell phone after that. Um, I do come to the office a lot, but I do a lot of traveling and work off that phone. So, um, happy to help any way we can. I tell people all the time if there's something we're missing. I think we have a lot of cool output right now, but we are hungry for ideas. I just think if you ever, if you ever sit still too long, you're not doing your job. So I think we're going to keep looking for ideas and people like you guys, interns, we need, um, we need more interns. We need more fresh ideas from you guys anymore, you guys in the industry. So it's really cool to see you guys get to do this.
[00:21:43.510] - Braden Porter
Thank you.
[00:21:44.860] - Outro
This episode of Beyond Agriculture is brought to you by Central Kentucky Ag Credit. Thanks for listening to the podcast. Be sure to visit agcreditonline.com/beyond agriculture. Access the show notes and discover our fantastic bonus content. Also, don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you can join us next time for Beyond Agriculture.