Ep. 442: Backwoods University - Florida Cattle and Conservation

Hey, it's Clay Newcomb here from Bear Grease, and I want to tell you about my new 12 and 26 film presented by Moultrie and Onyx. These are 12 of Meteor's biggest and baddest hunts from the last year that are going to be released through 2026. These are long-form episodes, or what I call films, so you're going to get more of what you love. My film will take us into the deep and cold rugged country of southwest Utah on a lion hunt with hounds, where we traveled over 80 miles in five days on mules. But the best part, I'm hunting with the legendary lion hunting family, the Meekums, but also one of the country's top mule men, Ty Evans. This is about mules and lions. This is the kind of place where winter hangs on tight and every track in the snow tells a story. If you've ever wondered what it's like to pursue a mountain lion in big country on muleback, then this is the episode for you. Check it out now on the Meteor YouTube channel, and be on the lookout for more 12 and 26 in the coming months. Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife, wild places, and the people who dedicate their lives to conserving both. Big shout out to Onyx Hunt for their support of this podcast. I'm your host, Lake Pickle, and on this episode, we're going back to the state of Florida. We're going back to the water crisis, however this time, we're going to hear about it from a different perspective. Okay, so allow me to explain kind of the odd setting that you're seeing me in right now. I'll start with the setting first and then explain why this episode is going to be a little bit different. First, the setting. I am on the Mississippi River with Clay and Josh Billmaker right now, and we are turkey hunting. And at this camp where I'm recording this episode, we have electricity and Starlink and all that stuff. However, we just lost power and the generator quit working. So I had to drive out of the river bottoms to the highest hill I could find to connect to my phone hotspot so I could conduct this interview and record this podcast. And so that's why you're seeing all this and why it's a little bit different. Now, moving on to why this episode is going to be different than probably a lot of other regular Backwoods University episodes. In the last episode, we focused on the water crisis, some of the water issues happening in Florida, and we heard from Captain Mike and Captain Cody, who both work with Captains for Clean Water. What we're doing this week in returning to that subject again is we're going to hear about that same subject, but we're going to hear about it from a very different perspective. And I'm not going to speak for them. I'm not going to give anything else away. I want to let them speak for themselves because I believe they've earned the right to do so. And like we said in this show before, I believe in not telling you how to think. I believe in sharing facts and I believe in never being afraid to share every possible perspective, every possible side of the story. So hope you enjoyed this episode. And yeah, good luck out there if you're hunting turkeys. That's what me and Clay and Josh are doing. Let's get into it. Like my name is Pat Durden. I'm a past president of the Florida Cattlemen's Association. I currently serve on the Farm Bureau State Board of Directors. And I'm a 7th generation agriculturalist is what I would call it because we haven't always just been in cattle. We have timber and I've grown produce and my granddad was a rowcropper and grew shade tobacco in North Florida. So a pretty long history of being an integral part of agriculture. My dad was actually a county extension agent for 35 years for the University of Florida at IFAS. And so I think, you know, ag is a great part of Florida and we have a good story to tell of how agriculture has always been a part of Florida before Florida was Florida actually. Yeah. So Florida Cattlemen's and I'm trying to just set the stage here. So like what is the Florida Cattlemen's? What is what? Who do they represent? And what is their function within the state? All right. So the Florida Cattlemen's is a grassroots organization that you join as a member. We have county affiliates is what I'll call them. So we have county chapters across the state. Not every single county has a chapter. Sometimes two or three counties join together and have a chapter together. And and the purpose really was, you know, just to bring our issues to Tallahassee. I think it dates back to our inception is maybe 1936. So the founders thought it was important for us to always be involved in how the state progressed and move forward with with legislation or regulation. And we've always thought it was important to be a part of that as an organization and collectively we meet quarterly. Our state board of directors and and go over issues that may be, you know, popping up around the state or things that we feel are important to be heard on and kind of, you know, collectively work together to to come to, you know, positive resolutions on on those things on behalf of Florida Cattlemen's. Right. And another question and just to kind of explain what I'm doing here, like we're eventually we'll get to like the meat of this conversation, but I'm trying to like make sure everyone fully understands the angle we're coming from here. So so a lot of people are some people may think they're like, man, Florida Cattlemen's we're talking about farmers, ranchers, rowcroppers, people that are, you know, growing a crop or, you know, raising livestock. Like how some of them may be wondering like, why is that what does that even have to do with wildlife? You know, what does that have to do with wildlife conservation? And so I kind of paint that picture for me. Yeah, so absolute. So I don't really know a single farmer rancher that doesn't love to hunt and fish. And that's basically an integral part of being a Floridian. I mean, when you can hunt and fish year round in our state and, you know, ranches encompass about 19% of the private property in Florida, the state and I guess I'll say that, you know, this is kind of a little corny thing that I've always heard and certainly I heard it directly from my grandfather and father, but, you know, we live off the land. And we have to be stewards of the land and it's always been important, certainly in our family to leave it better than the generation before. And that's a story that's told all across not even just Florida, but, you know, farmers and ranchers around the nation. That's just almost ingrained in their DNA that they're responsible for the wildlife that reside on their property. They're responsible for the water. And I guess most people don't realize that whether it's a farm or a ranch, there's, I mean, a pretty large portion of the property, even if it's farmed intensively, that is generally just open to wildlife. I mean, and for water recharge areas and just the habitat that they thrive in. And I think every farmer and rancher I know it's really important to them to be good stewards. I think we all hope to make a profit every year. That's really something that you have to try and do to stay in business. But when you go to a farmer or ranchers place and what they really want to show you is their wildlife, you know, they want to show you those things because that's really just who they are. I mean, when you know you're not going to generally make a lot of money or you're kind of risking a lot for a very small return sometimes on investment. The return that I think a lot of us get is that we get to live out there on the land and see it and live it and be a part of the wildlife and be good stewards. Even if we just break even or something a year, that's so rewarding. I mean, that's just part of who we are caring about the land and the wildlife. I've always said if we could do one thing in Florida that I would love to do that we can't, I'd love to take all 24 million Floridians and take them on a two or three day farming ranch tour. So they could just, so they could see that and feel it. And I think they would really see what drives farmers and ranchers and what they're really passionate about. Certainly we're passionate about growing food and fiber for the nation and for our fellow Floridians. But you know, the real reward a lot of times is just being allowed to be out there in God's country and with the wildlife and land and just know that you did a good job protecting that for the people. For another year or for the next generation or whatever it may be. Yeah, absolutely man. And I've had the privilege and just for the folks listening, Pat and I talked a little bit before this recording and realized we had some mutual friends and so like a mutual friend of both yours and mine, Jim Strickland, who owns a place that is very dear to me. And I've actually referenced it in this podcast before and I even said it was on the, we did an episode on pollinators and I said something along the lines of I wish you could take people out there to Blackbeards and walk them through those prairies and let them see the wetlands, let them see the wild turkeys, let them see all these crazy shorebirds he has flying around there just saying it just like this. Just this incredible place and like I do think sometimes when people hear the word farm or ranch, they, I'm not, I mean obviously the commodity, the crop is part of it, but the the the wildlife side of it is is overlooked and not by the farmer, but I think by people that are on the outside looking in sometimes. And you did a really, you did a fantastic job explaining that and it was a perfect segue as well because you made mention stewarding the wildlife and the water. And the main point of us having this conversation today is so the last episode we talked about this water issue that's going on in Florida. And man, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to try to steer you any certain direction. I don't want to, I don't want to lead the question or anything like that. I just, I want to give you the opportunity. I'm a big believer in sharing all perspectives of the story. And so from what was talked about last time and just just a gloss over, we talked about the water in Okeechobee, the canals that were built to go to that go to the St. Lucy and Kalusa Hatchee Rivers and these discharges and all these water quality issues. And that was all discussed in the last episode. I just, I want to open the floor up to you and give you the chance to share your thoughts on it and your perspective from the farmer rancher from, from, from that point of view. Okay. So I appreciate it. We were, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this. And so what I really love for everybody to understand is the Everglades restoration project is the largest ecological restoration project in the world. So in the world, we're talking about something that has never been done on the scale that we're, that we're talking about. So it's a pretty, pretty intensive project. I think there's, if you drill down into it, there's something like 30 federal and state agencies that are, that are involved. If you drill a little deeper into the impact, there's like over 250. If you get down to the municipalities and, and cities and counties that are involved. So tremendous, so tremendous, this is a herculean effort to try and restore, to restore this. But part of the project really is that gets left out a lot of times is it is for flood control and it is for the ecological restoration. And it is also for the supply of water to the population of Florida, which obviously that includes agriculture, because we all have to eat and, and, and sometimes crops have to be irrigated and, and the flood control is a part of that in, in this region as well. So I guess I really just want to reiterate how, like I said earlier, how important it is for, for farmers and ranchers to, to leave the land in a better, better place than they've had it. And this is a complicated, complicated issue, but, but I will, since we're going to go back to that episode, I just want to lay a little bit more groundwork. One of the, one of your guests mentioned that they had, they had come to Florida in 1978. And that kind of alluded to the fishing was great and all that, everything was good then. Well, a few things have happened in Florida since 1978. The population used to be 9 million people. It is now 24 million people. Tourism used to be around 20 million people annually. Now it's almost to 150 million people. We have over 2 million less acres of farmland and farmers have adopted precision fertilization and best management practices that have drastically reduced any negative impact that we may have on, on the environment and water quality. And to go back to best management practices, I'd like to say that that is a voluntary program that farmers and ranchers enter into that is administered by the Department of Ag, Water Policy. So it's, it's a pretty rigorous program. They have to follow it. It's checked up on and all of our practices are, are approved through the department. So I think when we talk about all those things that have happened in that time span, just a sheer number of people in Florida that, I mean, I guess if we could go back to 78, we probably, if, if we were going to realize that our population was going to far more than double and that everybody was going to want to come to Florida, that, you know, we, we probably should have done some things differently, not just in agriculture, certainly, but, you know, just across the entire state, because one part that's left out of just that sheer population is most of those people are South Florida. So Orlando, South, and, and they're along the coast and waterways. So there's, there's a lot of what I call people problems here that are a real hurdle to the restoration and water quality. I really believe that actually I know that farmers and ranchers are actually have to be and are a part of the solution to our water issues in Florida. As we lose more green space farmland, it's going to become exponentially harder to accomplish the goals that we want for the Everglades restoration. So agriculture is, we are at the table, we are a part of the solution. We actually invest our own money in solving the issues. And I think a lot of times we just get painted with this broad brush that, you know, is pretty, we're pretty easy to paint sometimes simply because the likelihood of a fellow Floridian knowing a farmer or rancher is pretty low. So, you know, if you want to, if you want to pick a target that, that to paint as a, as, as a, as a problem to fundraise off of or something, you know, pick the, pick the group with the smallest number of people. The only problem is that we are absolutely going to be a part of the solution and we have to stay viable and engaged and, and we want to. And we've been a part of that. And conservation, most of the conservation efforts, certainly on land conservation in Florida. I mean, we have, we have spent almost more political capital, if you want to call it that, in Tallahassee fighting for, I mean, this is agriculture, the Florida Cattleman's or, or Farm Bureau fighting for funding for conservation easement programs and where those lands will be protected in perpetuity forever. You know, cattle have been in Florida since 1521. And, and we have 1000 people a day moving here now. And we're, we're at 24 million people. This, it's never been more important than it is today to protect agriculture and protect the part of the solution that we can provide to clean water. And I really, I hate to ever, I told you this earlier. It's kind of always been in our DNA to, to sit down and have conversations with people, whether we always agreed or not, that we, we don't really like. We don't see the benefit of having an enemy anywhere. But it really does baffle me sometimes when, when folks just don't understand how much agriculture, we make our living off the land, we have to have clean water. We absolutely have no intention and never have done anything that would, that would have been detrimental to, to water quality or, or wildlife. And certainly over time, we have gotten extremely, extremely good at doing things, utilizing less resources. Precision delivering of fertilizers to, to crops is, is absolutely paramount to, to agriculture staying economically viable. I mean, what we have going on right now, I mean, with fuel prices and, and most people don't realize, but fertilizer as well with the, with the conflict that's going on in Iran. And, and the implications of that, that hits farmers directly and with, with, it certainly hits all of us directly with fuel prices, but with, with the commodities and things we need to grow the crops for, for the next 5 years. For the nation, we are not wasteful with them. We utilize as limited amount as possible because every dollar that a farmer or rancher spends on fertilizer is a dollar that they don't have in their pocket. It's not something that is done in any way that would be wasteful. We don't just keep a pasture green like a golf course just for the heck of it, for aesthetics. It has to make sense for us to do it. That leads into one of the problems we talked about with the sheer population of Florida. There's probably a lot more fertilizer that's used in people's yards and golf courses and they look great. You know, they're a part of the problem as well as just our sheer numbers in Florida. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. 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Let me ask you about, so talking about, when we talked earlier, you mentioned a little bit about, you told me a little bit about your dad and I don't want to speak for you, but I just thought some of the things that you shared were fascinating from just what he has seen from his time farming and how it's changed until now and how like the land ethic, the land ethic, has it really changed? Just there's been other circumstances that have changed and I'd like to hear some of that. Oh yeah, so my dad graduated from the University of Florida in 1960 with an animal science degree. Part of your job as an extension agent is to help advise farmers and ranchers on the newest and latest practices that have been studied at the land grant university, the University of Florida, trying to do the best thing for the land and the crop you're growing. The practices have drastically changed. Certainly there's stuff in his time that we don't subscribe to anymore. That was, it's just, we don't, like I said, I'll do the easy one. Nobody fertilizes like they used to. It's unnecessary to do it that way when we have the technology to precisely put it right where we want it at the root system in the plant bed. You don't have to do that and we don't and that's why you've seen a lot of changes even down where we're talking about south of the lake. Honestly, most people think this is fallacy but it's just absolute truth. The water leaves those farms cleaner than when they receive it. They are literally cleaning the water that is coming on to their farms and ranches and it is leaving cleaner than they receive it. A lot of that is part of it, just changing practices, utilizing best management practices, the technology that we have the advantage of today. That's why I say the farms and ranches are absolutely, we have absolutely stepped up with the technology that's available today and transformed the way that farming and ranching is done. We've been doing that. We're always improving. The university is always researching. We advocate for those funds at the legislature to make sure that they're able to do the research so we can continue to improve. So we can continue to be the stewards of the land that, like I said earlier, that's ingrained in our DNA. We want to do those things. We expend the time and energy to learn from the research. We expend the time and energy to advocate for the funds for the research and we invest in that. We talked about this, that we all live in little bubbles sometimes. There's over here in their bubble and maybe the charter boat guys on the coast or they live in their bubble of being a charter boat guy. A lot of times that's part of the problem is not kind of crossing over and talking to each other and really seeing what goes on and what's really in their heart and what's in their mind and what they're really about. So, like I said, I'm not for making an enemy of anyone, but I certainly think if you're going to speak on the topics of clean water and the Everglades restoration that you have to be willing to sit down with agriculture and have really relevant conversations and not just point fingers. With a thousand people a day moving here, it's not going to get easier. We have to work together. We have to see that we honestly want apparently the exact same things in a lot of ways. It's almost like you laughed. On my side, it can get maddening, but it is kind of comical at some point that I'm not going to lie. Some of our people get really, really bent out of shape when they hear stuff from people. When they're like, man, I grew up here. I'm seven generations. We love hunting and fishing. If we could just go do that 24-7, we would do that, but we got to pay some bills in the meantime. Yeah. So, you know. Yeah. Let me make sure. I'm pretty sure I want to understand you, but let me make sure I hear you correctly. One of the points you're trying to make is basically because of the level of urban growth, I'll call it, that Florida is experiencing. You're saying that the farmer, the rancher, the ag guy that has these areas of green space need to be held a value because if it's not for them, that's probably going to get turned into an apartment complex or housing or something like that. Am I understanding you correctly? Absolutely. I mean, for every, I have never seen a farmer or ranch that doesn't turn into a golf course and apartment complex, a neighborhood, or a Walmart. I mean, that's literally, I mean, and it is devastatingly sad as we see that happen. Another thing that I would like for the audience to really understand is, you know, a lot of people in agriculture are what we call land rich and cash poor. Well, what that means is it's taken generations and generations for that family to maybe have that farmer ranch paid for, probably still not paid for, probably borrowing money on it just to continue what they're doing. And the reality is with the population boom in Florida that has just, I mean, it has unheard of, it has continued for decades. This is not a recent problem. It is just continuing to be exacerbated that when a farmer or rancher chooses to stay on that land and farm it and ranch it, that they should be applauded. I mean, they really should be applauded because the easier path financially would absolutely be to sell out. I mean, it absolutely would be. But that's where the big problem comes because it's in their DNA. They can't most of the time bear to do that. I mean, you know, when you're the generation that decides to do that, instead of doing what your grandfather and your great grandfather did before you, which was take care of that land and keep it in the family and have that lifestyle, like I said, like we do have a great lifestyle. We get to hang out in the woods, in the cabbage woods or in the swamps or wherever and make a living doing those things. And so that is really what I think keeps a lot of people in agriculture. And Florida, certainly on the ranching side, is just that heritage. And that just, I mean, I can't get away from it. Just in our DNA that we are here to protect the land for the next generation and take care of the resources and make sure we leave it better than we find it. And I think if you sit down with almost any farmer or rancher, that's going to be paramount to the way they make decisions and the way they think about generational transitions that happen in families and how they just really stress about trying to make sure that they can do that, that they can pass it on to the next generation and keep that green space for all Floridians are going to benefit from that, certainly. It's really hard for somebody that doesn't, that just sees it as an acre of land and a value to comprehend that sometimes. I mean, I think what I'd say is take your most cherished item and it could be as simple as like my granddad gave me a pocket watch that I always thought was really cool. And there's, you can't buy it from me. It's that, it's those kinds of things. That's how farmers and ranchers look at the land. I mean, in a lot of ways. Sure. Do you mind, and I'm not asking you to go through all of them because I'm sure it's complicated and but like as far as like, you mentioned there some areas where, you know, if the water comes through this farm, the water's better quality than when it got there. Like are there certain practices or certain things that those farms or ranches are putting into place to do something about the water quality or their like specific, specific programs or what are they doing to aid in water quality directly? So you broke up on some of it like, but so best management practices that that program kind of dictates a lot of things and there's there's best management practice for cow, calf operations. They're, they're specific to sod operations. They're specific to produce and and and basically all the commodities have their own very specific detailed guidelines that they follow. And that's what best management practices are solely the purpose of them is for water quality and to ensure water quality. You know, so I mean, there there's there's a ton of different things that that. Ways that happens. I mean, there's a water recharge areas on ranches that store water just naturally. There's public private partnerships on farms and ranches where they're storing water, you know, working with their water management district. You know, we have five districts. Obviously, the one we're talking about the most and generally has the most funding because it is important that it does because that's where a lot of the population is the South Florida Water Management District. So farmers and ranchers work directly with them and in specific programs that that the Water Management District administers specifically depending on which district you're in. There's cost share programs for for changing practices, you know, like as simple as no till drills, precision fertilizer applicator equipment and machines. There's I mean, I don't know that there's a single thing to point out exactly because it's it is not looked at in a single minded way is certainly a multi prong shotgun approach to to trying to improve in every facet that we do and and looking at every practice that we do and ensuring that that's, you know, ensuring water quality as it leaves the the former ranch. So it's it's kind of it's kind of as complicated as as the Everglades restoration having, you know, 250 government regulatory entities involved in in trying to make it all come together. Sure. Sure. And that makes sense. I was just trying to get, you know, if somebody was like wondering like, well, what are they doing to help with with water quality, which brings you back to like one of the original points, right? Where you're saying I wish you could take every Floridian out to do a farm tour. Because again, when when you're saying what you're saying, I can line up with it directly because I've spent so much time on places like Jim Strickland's place where I mean, I remember because the conversations I've had with him about Florida Cattleman's and the Florida Conservation Group, and he always he would say these statements like showing that conservation and agriculture can can coincide with one another quite easily, especially when you're when you're carrying out actions like like they do at that place. Yeah. And there's so about like, yeah, there's there's federal programs. I just hit on some of the state. NRCS has a lot of a lot of programs. And it really is kind of dependent on your region and area of Florida, of which ones apply where. But I mean, there's like I said, you know, there's the Water Management District has programs that that everybody is involved in, depending on their district. You have the state BMPs, and then you have NRCS and and you know, it's like I said, it's a really, it's a really multi prong approach to ensuring that that we are that we are providing not only food and fiber for the nation, but you know, that we're we're certainly maintaining high water quality for all Floridians. Yeah. Right. Let me ask you this and it may like, it may be going back a little bit, I just want to make sure we don't miss any details, kind of like the crux of the last episode, the way it was framed up is that, you know, Okeechobee used to, you know, used to not have this dam around it. Now it's dammed up and you have these canals and this freshwater gets dumped into these rivers and the water quality gets tanked. And it's it's it's really bad and something needs to be done about it. What is what is your take on that? Is that is that true? Is that is that as bad as it sounded? What's your take on that? I mean, honestly, there are issues that need to be addressed. And it would be nice, like I said, if we could snap our fingers and and solve those problems. But we're we're, this is where I have to go back to just the sheer, herculean effort that we're talking about here with the with the Everglades Restoration Project and how it, you know, I mean, we're talking about from, you know, Orlando to the Keys. This is a massive area and just the the sheer amount of water that we're talking about. And it's not like Florida, we're not a dry, arid state, you know, we get a pretty good pretty good bit of rainfall every year. And so I wish I could just say that, hey, just do XYZ. But when again, when you have the population we have, and you have to worry about flood control, and you have to also try and provide clean water for for everyone. And at the same time, you're, you're literally trying to figure out how we're going to engineer this. I mean, I don't think people understand that that the delay in completing a lot of this stuff is is is due to a lot of combinations. It's not just the funding, which is complex in itself. I think if you look the state of Florida in is actually above where the the Everglades Restoration Act in funding like Florida is funding, we are we are doing this a lot of times the funding and projects get hamstrung by bureaucracy in Washington and the funding federally. But there's also engineering challenges that that complicate this because again, this is the largest restoration project in the world. This there's not really a model to go and say, hey, they did it over here. This is how we do it. This is extremely way above my pay grade and and no offense to to to the fishermen. It's above theirs too. This is complicated stuff to do and figure out how we're going to do this without flooding a town and ensuring that we we actually are able to do the things that we want. I mean, sometimes, you know, a place is dry and then all of a sudden it's it's, you know, waist deep in water and they didn't want that much water and we're not talking about we're not talking about farmland. We're talking about in, you know, on tribal land and we're talking about in in the National Park of the Everglades. There's it's complicated and the reason that I keep saying that is obviously that we all have to be at the table and you kind of got to quit throwing rocks and be a part of the solution and and figure out how we're going to do this and and and see that, you know, hey, and I'm just going to speak for agriculture like, hey, you know, there was claims that you you want more storage south of the lake. Okay, well, there's some there's some agriculture that's down there trying to provide more storage below the lake, but then some of the same people that wanted storage south of the lake come out against a project and and sometimes I can only go well, did you come out against it? Because it was some ag guys that came up with it and I mean, sometimes I'm baffled at at at how how we move forward if we don't all sit down and understand that we're all a part of the process that has to that that we're working towards. We all have very similar goals when it comes to certain things. We all want clean water. There is no one that doesn't want clean water. That is, I mean, anybody that gets painted that they don't want clean water is that's just like show me who they are because I guarantee you they're not going to agree that they that they don't want clean water. There's there I don't know why anybody in Florida you come to Florida because we have these natural resources. We have this great fishing ecosystem that you can go from freshwater to salt water and I mean you can pick and choose whether you want to be fishing in freshwater or salt water or go go hunt waterfowl or or or if you're a bird watcher, you know, go see go see birds or or whatever you want to do in in nature like that is what makes Florida very unique and I understand everybody's passion for wanting to fight to save those things but at the same time, you know, you have to understand that agriculture is absolutely just not the problem. We are absolutely part of the solution as far as ranching goes. Like I said, 1521 we've been ranching in Florida, you know, you know, there used to be at one time there was a million people in Florida and there were no problems right with all this, you know, but you know, the just our sheer population and the growth which I want to reiterate, I'm really we are private property rights so we kind of want to protect if you own a place and you and everything you've got rights you bought it you pay taxes on it and you have rights uh and but at the same time, you know, I just sometimes get baffled at the blame of the blame game is really unproductive generally and and it really honestly a lot of times cost and I'm going to say cost and I'm not even worrying about the cost to agriculture. I'm talking about the cost to state and federal funds. It costs taxed. We spend more tax dollars sometimes just battling over legal maneuvering to get a project going or done or started than the project should even cost. I mean and you know at some point, everybody's got to sit down and say these are our goals and I and agree that we have to move forward and that agriculture is a part of that. I mean certainly you know I'll say which I really didn't want to go this way because it's kind of like what it is. You know you don't find human fecal matter in the water coming from a farm. That's from people. You don't find drug residue from from drugs that are consumed. I mean medical necessary things that are consumed by humans in the water from from a farm or ranch. I mean we have a problem with growth and how we're going to deal with that and how we're going to to manage to provide flood control and water quality but I will I will again go back to the absolute agriculture wants to be absolutely is a part of the solution to that. We can be a part of that. Public-private partnerships I think are a huge way to move forward with some of this stuff and and I just really believe that some people would like to make enemies and point to some evil doer somewhere and and I hate to break it to everybody but it's all of us. So it's it's for all of us to to to move forward and and sit down and try and navigate all this to make it better for the next generation and the reason I take that mindset is because that's the same mindset that my grandfather gave me when it comes to to our piece of Florida right and so I really see that as the only way to really move forward and solve these problems is for for us to sit down quit pointing fingers and and you know and find real solutions that are viable and agriculture will absolutely be a key part of that because every time we lose another acre the farmland it is it is a detriment to the actual goal of of what we're talking about here. On blood trails the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I seen something in the road I instantly thought it was a sleeping thing and there was a full of blood. Oh my god he doesn't have a head. Blood trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors where the terrain is unforgiving the evidence is scarce and the truth gets buried under brush and silence indications where he should be right there and but he wasn't. This season we're going deeper from cold case files to whispered suspicions from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness because out here there are no witnesses no cameras just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person he's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers season two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, iHeart, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. So it just to sum it up it's like this issue like it's a real issue but it's very very very complicated and yeah i mean extremely i think we could get some we we could get a room full of environmental engineers and and everybody else in here and i think we could we could sit down and and and talk for months and and we would still be working on because that's what's been going on but i mean again i like i said clean water depends on working with farmers not against them and and we want to be a part of that solution we feel like we're an integral part of that solution and and we we actually are working on that and we have continued to work on that we will continue to work in that in that method to be a part of the solution but i i think it's you know there are groups out there that literally raise money and you have to have an enemy sometimes to raise money and you have to point the finger at somebody and sometimes you know that makes it really really difficult if you have to point the finger at everybody because then you know and so they're they're really everybody needs to come to the conclusion that we all can be a part of the solution but agriculture is absolutely an integral part of how this moves forward and how it works because just just of the sheer fact that we have uh in private ownership a tremendous number of acres that are green space that are beneficial to this and and and they have to be protected in that manner or or or we won't be able to do these things right i'll um man i'll tell you something that i it's a statement that i heard from um jim handley who i know you know he's a dear friend and and i knew jim as a turkey hunter before i knew him anything connected to florida cattle and i was asking him about this subject and i'm not going to say it's verbatim i'm probably going to butcher it a little bit but what he said to me was is he said i feel like a lot of times people like to point the finger at the cow man the you know the cow man the farmer as the as the enemy when all we've done over the years is to get better at our land practices absolutely and certainly mr mr jim handley is a gem of a human and and i'm sure he said it no offense to you like but i'm sure he said it in a in a in a very witty and uh one-liner way because he is the master of the one-liners but absolutely i mean and very passionate uh very very passionate outdoorsmen just absolutely loves it but was uh you know he's retired now from uh from the cattleman's association but for for 27 years i i would call him the range boss and you know and he had he had a passion for for trying to tell that story that you're you know we're trying to do a little part of today of of that you know that we're that ranchers are absolutely you know we care about the environment we we absolutely um live it and breathe it every day and and that he is he is absolutely correct in in what he said another friend we mentioned earlier that i'm just going to throw him out there is fred finisi uh another i mean you talk about somebody that lives and breathes outdoors but you know cattleman i mean i don't he's a he is a dear friend he's a he is a dear dear friend uh for folks that have listened to a lot of the show uh like fred's been talked about on here before but fred is a same deal i knew fred as an outdoorsman before i knew anything of his connection to agriculture yeah i have to say this because i always tell fred this when i grow up i want to be fred finisi because uh that guy gets to do some awesome stuff in the outdoors for sure uh man just to kind of uh to kind of bring it home so to speak with a kind of question and unless you have if i'll ask this last question and you can answer it and then if you have anything else you want to add feel feel free uh i'm on no one schedule but i'm on no one schedule but yours but my question is if if i were to tell you to looking ahead optimistically you know if i said man use use all the optimism you got and and look forward into the future of florida looking at it from a lens from from water quality from wildlife from green space what would you like to see as a path forward for the state of florida i know that's a broad question but i feel like it's one that needs to be okay no so honestly so you know we've kind of been a little doom and gloom uh on on some of the realities that we have to face in florida but we have a program called rule and family lands protection act in florida that uh that is ministered through the department of agriculture the florida department of agriculture and and what it does is it it look it kind of it buys the development rights from farms and ranches so it stays in agriculture and green space in perpetuity so programs like that and fully funding programs like that i mean we're talking about you know billions of dollars that that need to be allocated for for this and you know obviously water projects to to do this but i am so optimistic with the progress that has been made over the last few years with with that program there's others there's florida forever that's administered through uh uh d e p in florida and they are just really great programs that that i think if the public understood fully that we would never have to go to tula hassi again uh the public would demand it uh for us and things like that are what i'm optimistic about florida staying uh the florida that that i've grown up in as much as it can as the population continues to grow uh i i mean i i certainly think there's a there's certainly a raging back and forth battle uh sometimes on on development and growth and and and i think we need to be very very responsible with those things and and and we we need to really do a good job of trying to make sure that we're we're doing that in a in a way that's very responsible to the to the resources and the delicate environment that we do have here in florida i mean because it it really is very unique place i mean that is why i think everybody is so passionate about it uh no matter what side it seems like somebody's on you know i'm actually okay with passion like they're passionate about you know saving the outdoors and and and water and and wildlife well guess what man so are we we've been doing we've been doing that for seven generations in my family here i mean welcome to the party uh you know i just think sometimes we come from such different places that we don't we don't realize that we're we're actually should be more on the same team and we probably get a lot more done sometimes uh and you know i think so i'm really optimist about things like that i i guess the the the one thing you kind of have to be in agriculture is a farmer ranchers you you have to have a uh have to have an optimism you you have to say boy you know what it hadn't range yet but i hope it's going to rain tomorrow you know and we just keep on going and and it's really because we love what we do and and i and that's the one thing that i really wanted to convey to to your audience is just a passion i mean our people are so passionate about about these things i i really think there's a few other things like that we could do payment for environmental services there's a lot of talk of things like that there there are some programs out there i i think there's a lot of things like that that could be beneficial to to uh to the future of wildlife and um and things in florida uh i really believe that if everybody if we could do pull off that tour for 24 million people and take them to a farmer ranch i think uh i think they would be they would be amazed they would go wow this is not i didn't realize i was going to walk into a place that is a that is a paradise for wildlife i mean like you said you've been uh i don't know if you've only been to strickland's place uh or or not but again you know every ranch across the state is you know i mean a little bit laid out different here or there depending on uh their their operation but basically you know you can find uh that same mentality and that same passion for the land and wildlife uh you know all across the state with our with our people and i think it's important and you know it it's just like anything you know when you get 24 million people you're gonna have difference of opinions on things but i think if everybody was to really look and say what what group out there what what group of people uh out there have been stewards of the land and have cared for the land and and have a proven track record you can go there and you can see the wildlife you can see that they work to protect it to help mother nature do what she can do you would look at agriculture and you would say that that's the guys right there that's the men and women right there that have the blood sweat and tears behind caring for a piece of property for generations and and if we could ever convey that uh and and they could you know see into the hearts of people of agriculture they'd give man hold on if i care about those things then then i need to support those people and and i need to see yeah uh you know uh how i can help be a part of making sure that they stay economically viable and able to continue to do that yeah no that that all makes sense man and i and i do think it adds it adds some some needed perspective to the conversation i i really do um and it did help like i i agree we we we did get a little bit doom and gloom i feel like we we had to go there just to address some just to address some certain things but i always like pulling it together on an optimistic note if that if that's real you know if you weren't you know if you were honestly like man i'm not very optimistic but talking to you before i feel i mean i know and feel that you are and we need you know uh you got to be optimistic you know and i think you'll have a lot of things going for you just through the the several things that you listed off already um is there is there anything that we didn't cover that you would like to touch on no i mean i guess i would say that um that hopefully you know i conveyed you know where where farmers and ranchers in florida what's in their heart and what they're passionate about i'm not unique in any way shape or form that's literally i i mean it i i feel like i don't even know how much you know i kind of went back and forth about uh the podcast what i needed to do and or say and it's really because i feel the weight of all the families that uh are a part of agriculture in florida and i wanted to make sure to convey that message that they are passionate they care about the land they care about water they they want and have always done what they thought was the right thing for those things and and all i know is hey if you hear that story and and you're and you're still want to uh say we're the bad guy or i'm the bad guy well you know i i don't i don't know how to have the conversation move forward somebody like that uh i i think if they if they really if they really listen they'll they'll actually understand um that uh if that's something they care about that that uh they need to they need to sit down with us and they need to you know kind of try and figure out a way that we can all move forward in a positive uh way for florida yeah no man this uh this clearly means something to you and it's clear that you're talking about a group of people that it means something to and that and that's important that's it's it's it's important for the for the for the sake of the the story and the people listening it's important that you hear that perspective um and i and i appreciate that and i'm and i'm glad we i'm very glad we got that perspective um well yeah oh i forgot we did we did hit on that one time this is totally out of sync which uh just popped in my head what i told you on the phone a couple of days ago about the changes like uh you know there were it was open range when my dad was was was a kid right and you know i told you the story about uh you know when he was 10 years old on his on his tenth birthday he testified in federal court in a cattle rustling case because he identified the uh the cattle rustlers uh or the cattle he didn't know who stole him he just identified the cattle but either way i mean that's one generation i mean we've had a lot of changes in florida and uh uh in that time span so i mean we certainly we certainly have uh have some work to do and uh and everything but it's a lot of the a lot of negative impacts are certainly just surely because of the changes in the and the growth i mean it's i mean it's undeniable i mean we can't so so we have to be uh look at how we're going to responsibly uh move forward like i said uh there's there's a lot of people that care a lot about this issue uh and uh i think uh there's a tremendous number of experts like we didn't drill down into the technique technical issues of of all this but there's there's certainly uh you know we we have people on staff at uh at cattleman's that uh that we rely on for those expertise in uh on the environmental side and and certainly so does farm bureau and the other ag organizations and and those people are solely because this i mean this is a very technical issue when you when it comes down to it and we're we're farmers and ranchers we're we're not necessarily always uh engineers so we rely on them environmental engineers and uh and stuff for for for advice as well and we you know and we try and do the right thing and and so i guess my my thing to anybody out there in in a group that's kind of you know you feel like you've been in the uh in the fight if you if you will for for a lot of these things you know maybe maybe pull back a little bit and and and think about uh what we all care about and uh and that it could be more beneficial uh for everyone if we gain some perspective and and and uh and maybe do a little more working together and and not worry about uh who gets the credit for it i want to thank all of you for listening to backwoods university as well as bear grease in this country life it means so much to all of us over here if you like this episode share it with a friend this week and stick around there's a whole lot more on the way on blood trails the stories don't end when the hunt is over they just get darker i seen something in the road i instantly thought it was a sleeping bag and there was a full of blood oh my god he doesn't have a head yeah blood trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors where the terrain is unforgiving the evidence is scarce and the truth gets buried under brush and silence indications where he should be right there and uh but he wasn't this season we're going deeper from cold case files to whispered suspicions from remote mountains to frozen backwoods each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness because out here there are no witnesses no cameras just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together he's not an honest person he's incapable of being honest somebody somewhere knows something i'm jordan sillars season two of blood trails premieres april 16th follow now on apple i heart youtube or wherever you get your podcasts