Topcon Talks Agriculture

RMA Crop Insurance Reporting | S06E04

September 08, 2022 Topcon Positioning Systems Season 6 Episode 4
Topcon Talks Agriculture
RMA Crop Insurance Reporting | S06E04
Show Notes Transcript

Michael Gomes of Topcon Agriculture leads a panel discussion about how recent changes to RMA's Loss Adjusters Manual makes it easier for specialty crop producers to obtain insurance, report their annual production, and file a claim.

Speaker 1:

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Topcon talks, agriculture. My name's Mike go. I lead the strategic business development function here at Topcon agriculture and I'm today's guest host. And we have quite a show for you today. Really looking forward to it. We're gonna talk a little bit about crop insurance and some of the most recent changes to crop insurance to make it easier and more streamlined. And, uh, we've got a, a really a knockout panel of guest today. We've got Marsha Buner the administrator for U S D A's risk management association, as well as Brad Meyer, client engagement lead at Maya data and Jeremy Wilson, a farmer from Newton, Illinois, uh, amongst other things. And so, uh, really looking forward to today's episode. And so currently 85% of us cropland falls under some sort of crop insurance or risk management product. And recently there have been some changes in the loss adjustment manual process in order to enable and to make that workflow a little bit easier and to create value as well as ease of use for farmers and crop insurance professionals alike. And so today all three of our guests have some level of crop insurance experience, and they're, it's gonna be a very interesting conversation, Marsha, as, uh, leading the RMA for crop insurance. Do you want to tell the audience a little bit about, uh, yourself as well as, uh, how you see some of these things coming together?

Speaker 2:

Sure. My name is Marsha bunker. I am the U S D A's RMA administrator, commonly referred to as crop insurance. I have a background going back to 1982 when I graduated from Augustana university in Sioux falls, South Dakota. I married my high school sweetheart, and we have a 1200 acre row crop farm of corn beans in the upper Midwest in the Southeast corner of South Dakota. We also have a livestock operation, a 200 head cow calf operation, and we are a typical mom pop type of operation. So I balance my career with also our livelihood and then has been 40 years of lots of experience and, you know, some heartache. But in this role as the RMA administrator, I'm seeing a whole new side of the crop insurance industry, um, working with AIPs, working, um, with some individuals at RMA that are incredibly awesome dedicated career employees that truly care about farmers and giving them the tools that they need to mitigate risk weather nature is not controlled by anyone. And so army is here to help minimize the losses that are suffered because of catastrophic weather events. But I also think crop insurance is a way to assist the farmer when he's making, um, decisions with marketing lenders almost always require at least where I'm from that you have crop insurance at a certain level, and by using your crop insurance, you're not only able to mitigate that risk, but also market more effectively to hopefully make a little money. So that was probably the long version of my background.

Speaker 1:

That's okay. It's always great to hear that people that are in positions of policy are actually have real world experience. And you've got it both from the producer side, as well as from, uh, as well as from the agency side. And so to me, that's why you look absolutely like, um, a very highly qualified Canada and, and a, and an excellent choice in this position. And so, uh, makes a ton of sense to me next up, uh, is a, is another farmer, uh, Jeremy Wilson. Jeremy, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and how you got on today's panel?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Thank you, Mike. Uh, Jeremy Wilson. Um, I live in Southeastern Illinois, been involved in the precision ag industry, actually all of agriculture. Um, since about 1995, when I actually worked for a crop insurance company, ironically enough, and they dove into the precision ag business in 96 and, and they brought me with them and did that up until 99 and went home and to work ag retail and figured out precision ag was, was gonna be very critical in that business, which I never left precision after that. And, um, just recently joined ag gateway as the executive vice president chief operating officer, um, in the fall of 2018, my father come to me and said, I've heard you speak for 20 years. And you said, when you grow up, you're gonna be a farmer. So are you gonna grow up or am I gonna line it up? And, um, as of, uh, about December 1st, 2018, me and my cousin bought my dad out, we run about 1200 acres of corn soybeans and winter wheat as well. We both have cattle as well. We raise cattle very similar to Marsha's background, ironically, number of acres and number of head between both of us, um, are almost identical between the two of us. We have around 150 to hundred 75 head of cow calf operation as well, just been doing a lot of work in the whole data space, um, and, and how we can collect data and streamline processes. And, and I'm really excited to be on here and talk about, you know, how the changes, how that can impact me and, and, and other farmers like myself to make this whole reporting process simpler. Um, we seem to have done it the same way for the last, I don't know, picked the number of years, and it's really exciting to, to see some opportunities. And some technologies has come into the farm to streamline processes for me, of how I, you know, work and, and process and calculate harvested bushels and yield per acre and how that data streams into other decision making processes on my farm.

Speaker 1:

Thanks and, and routing out our panel today. We have Brad Meyer from, uh, Maya data. Brad, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and, and, uh, what you're up to?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks Mike. Uh, so I'm Brad Meyer client success lead for my ag data. Give a little bit of background on myself, uh, grew up on a, a small farm in Michigan, and unfortunately we lost the farm due to those hardships that everybody talks about. So kind of going through, uh, eventually got into crop insurance and, and, you know, saw the, uh, the, how important that really is. I mean, from real life experience. So came from the adjusting side of things and, uh, you know, just kind of saw the struggles that the American farmer would actually go through, um, in terms of, you know, those, those losses. I mean, having those interactions during those times, I mean, I, I just saw the need and, uh, the, the fit for, you know, that data streaming collection process. And, uh, that kinda led me to my data and, and to streamline that process, make it easier for a farmer to, you know, basically push their data over to the U S D a and to streamline that process a little bit. So that's a, a little bit of my background and, and kind of where it came from.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic. Thanks very much. Marsha, can you give us a little bit of background on crop insurance and how we got to where we are today?

Speaker 2:

Certainly Congress first authorized federal crop insurance in the thirties, and my dad was born in the thirties. So I do even have some firsthand stories from him. It also, you know, was part of the great depression. I mean, it was probably very awful, but legislatively, it became what we know as federal crop insurance in the thirties and crop insurance remained an experiment basically until the passage of the federal crop insurance act of 1980. The modern era of crop insurance was marked by the introduction of the public private partnership between the us government and private insurance companies in 2018, the farm bill strengthened the crop insurance by adding new products and directing research to the development of products for additional crops and modifying existing programs in 2021. You know, we're, we're almost probably a year out, but here we are today more than 460 million acres of farmland back in 2021 were protected through the federal crop insurance program. Farmers, taxpayers in our economy, all benefit from the farm safety net provided by crop insurance. When confronted with yield or revenue losses, farmers use crop insurance indemnities to financially recover from natural disasters and a volatile market fluctuation. They can pay their bankers, they can pay their bills, they can go to their seed dealers and, and get them current, pay their landlords. It's, um, a huge machine. And without it, a lot of the farmers, even since, since the eighties, wouldn't be here today. I like to remind people that in a farmer's life cycle, as a farmer, he only gets about 50 to 60 tries at this. And every year is different. He cannot predict what's gonna happen from year to year in that 50 or 60 year cycle. So when I hear stories of like 2019, which was very similar in our area as well, much, didn't get planted, but through crop insurance, we all are still here today. So it has been a huge evolution. Unfortunately, it came as a result of the dust bowl and the depression, but I'm glad that it was implemented back then, and that we have evolved to where we're at today.

Speaker 4:

I was just gonna add, you know, the national security element of this as well, too. I mean, having a safe and stable food supply is very important also from a national security standpoint. I mean, Marsha, you talked a little bit about guessing and being able to predict things, I mean, who would've thought that there was gonna be a war, you know, coming into 2022, I mean, just farmers, I mean, they're individual small businesses and you just never can tell what's gonna actually happen. I mean, from it being geopolitical standpoint or whether related events, uh, to fluctuations in the marketplace, I mean, it just, all of those things factored into it and, you know, the, just the expansion of the crop insurance program is just so hugely important to the American farmer.

Speaker 1:

And we can certainly see that crop insurance has become a, a risk management tool that the vast majority of American agriculturalists are using today. And so very helpful stuff. Marsha, can you give us a little bit of background on, I mean, we've talked a lot about crop insurance and the ability to, to mitigate the financial risk, um, of weather and some of those things, but do you want to talk a little bit about, um, where you see the future of crop insurance going and some maybe how some of these most recent changes are starting to, uh, uh, to fit into this year?

Speaker 2:

So RMA is here to help with that in exploring ways to produce even more food than ever before, and also to provide the kinds of policies that my husband has the opportunity to access with specialty crops, organic crops, those crops that we see in the grocery store all the time RMA does offer a number of specialty crop policies, but I, I believe there's room to expand upon those there's room to improve the coverage and elevate those crops. We're also looking at ways to mitigate climate change through conservation practices. You know, we're gonna be talking enrolling out in 2023, and we've already made that announcement with double cropping to look at ways to produce more food, helping assisting the organic industry with some incentives. There we've come off of two years of pandemic cover crop assistance, which was very successful. Um, you know, the, the data will be very helpful in the years to come. Um, but you know, it's still in its infancy stages because we, we need more data. But when I talk to producers out in the country that are implementing conservation types of practices, like cover crops, they are seeing the benefits. And that's what it's all about. It's what makes sense for the farmer. But the other piece of this is that the private public relationship that we have, which is very unique to government, um, we partner with AIP and crop insurance agents. Many of my sister agencies have large staff. You know, when you look at FSA NRCS, they number 10,000 plus in each of those agencies and they go, well, you have a small agency Meria, you only have 400. And I say, oh, I don't think you wanna, um, discount though. All of the crop insurance agents that are out there, there are 13,000 of those agents out on the ground, and they are very valuable in implementing and rolling out the new products, the new, um, policies that RMA pushes out. So I think we're gonna do a lot of tweaking to answer your questions to what's existing, but I think we're gonna also be exploring a lot of new and innovative types of concepts with regards to the crops that maybe haven't historically always been able to participate in RMA.

Speaker 1:

Brad, can you tell us a little bit about, uh, what you see and, and maybe one of the most recent changes you've seen in the crop insurance process here recently?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, absolutely. So one, one change that I have seen is for, uh, the change from the loss adjustment manual to accept electronic records of grain cart data. Um, I think that is gonna streamline the data collection for producer and also makes it easier for producers to settle their claims by utilizing that information, um, just really streamlining that process and making it a lot easier.

Speaker 1:

Now, Jeremy, you've been working with at gateway and looking at this process for a number of years. Can you help us understand from the farmer perspective, how you see these changes, uh, making your life easier?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. Mike, you know, I'm gonna show my age. Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna show my age a little bit, but I, I believe it was 2011. Uh, we worked with a group of AIP to define the calibration process for yield monitors, cuz we were exploring, looking at, you know, yield data to streamline, you know, claims and losses. And my excitement was pretty high there and, and we're moving the needle and, and we did, I mean, that was an important piece, but you know, with this movement of, of accepting this grain cart data, that that's a big deal for me. I've been using that technology now for two or three years and, and the quality of my yield data has increased exponentially, but the amount of time it takes me to record and, and summarize what the production was off of every field has probably been cut by at least a half, if not two thirds. And now the ability of this data to flow straight to my loss adjuster for settling claims moves it to another level because my grain cart data I'm not gonna lie year after year is probably less than 1% error of what we're actually delivering to the elevator. And it is, you know, if a grower chooses to take that extra time, uh, like we choose to do, I mean, we got a full log of, of every field that, that grain come from. What was that total production? What was the moisture coming off of that? The accuracy of my claims increases, but also the timeliness of getting that done. And if we go back to my first year, farming 2019 was the worst year of my life. We didn't plan a single thing till June. We didn't get much rain in July or August. And, and I was excited that I finally had some corn that beat 110 when I could have sold at all in August to you for about 75 bushel, cuz it looked like it was burned up and, and crop insurance was an important tool. It got me through 2019 that got me to 2020 that healed a majority of my sins from 19. And you know, that was an important piece. And I still remember the process I went through and settling that claim. I, I had list after list of all these records of, of what we went through and you know, then the process of going and crossing that back over to scale tickets that went to the elevator. I, I I'd been a loss adjuster. I knew that was the policy. So I, I just smiled and said, yes, yes ma'am we'll, we'll keep it. We'll get it. We'll I know what you're going through. Don't sweat it. I've been there. And, and just the thought of streamlining that process not only saves me amount of time, but the level of accuracy we move to in these claims and you know what, I don't buy insurance cause I wanna use it. I wanna buy it so that if I have to use it, I can make it to the next season. And being able to get that process done is,

Speaker 1:

Is incredibly important. Absolutely, absolutely. That that makes a ton of sense. And so one of the things that Jeremy was talking about was the ability to get the data from the non stationary scales. And that's the big change this year in the loss adjustment manual, uh, in, in the fact that we can now accept the data from the non stationary scales or the grain carts. Marsha, can you talk to us a little bit about why RMA made some of these revisions and what's the thinking behind it?

Speaker 2:

I will give that a try. You know, when my husband and I started farming in 1982, we just did not have the technology. I mean, I think if you had, uh, an eight function calculator, that was probably the extent of it. Um, it was before cell phones, that kind of thing. And technology has really surpassed many, many things. I mean, I think as a human factor, it's surpassed a lot of things that we can, we can't hardly seem to keep up with. And so things like non stationary grain scales, um, it only makes sense. I mean it's accurate, that's proven out time and time again, when the information goes into a grain cart, sometimes it's just haul to town. Sometimes it's put in a bin for a short period of time and then haul to town and when you get it to the elevator, it matches. So why wouldn't we also accept that kind of record keeping and the, the ease of it for the farmer. I can remember keeping track on a little notebook when I'm sitting in the combine about how many loads I filled and you know, and then of course you lose track, which field were you were even in. Whereas that grain cart is tracking that on a GPS type of system where that wagon sat and how much got dumped in there. And it's all right there for the ease of the farmer. You know, I, I, I'm not familiar with that specific type of technology at my farm. We're not quite there yet, but I think that's what RMA looked at. There was a lot of data collected through that system and the accuracy of it was spot on.

Speaker 1:

Excellent. And so, uh, really appreciate that perspective. So Brad, how does this addition of being able to accept data from non stationary skills? How does that impact crop insurance agents or insurance adjusters? And does it make anything easier for them?

Speaker 4:

Um, yeah, I mean it makes it a lot easier to be able to report, um, information coming in. And if I could, let me just kind of take one step back with crop insurance, a farmer has to report what they actually plant to the U S D a for these different farm programs by C, which is the common land unit. So it's those field boundaries that the FSA office says that that field is kind of streamlining. That process makes it, you know, with my data. Um, it makes it a little bit easier to report that data directly to the U S D a and then being able to tie that grain that's harvested off of those C's and tying it back just makes the process that much easier. And the reporting process to the S D a for the acreage report is a very analog process, very similar to the production reporting. Also again, a very analog process agents and adjusters alike. They have to, uh, make sure that the production that they're taking is accurate and they have to, a lot of times track down that information. I mean, I've heard a lot of times where an agent would be trying to get ahold of a producer and, you know, let's say the producer is off on vacation or, you know, once the harvest is done, they just kind of vanish sometimes. So a lot of times it's difficult for the agent to be able to get that information back, to finish the reporting process, very similar to an adjuster, an adjuster would go, and they would have to take that information, um, off tie it back to the unit that it goes to. A lot of times that production is co-mingled across fields and or diluting that production over from good fields over bad fields, uh, that doesn't always help. I mean, having an accurate, uh, production history, it is more beneficial to the producer on the adjuster side of things. You know, the harvested production talked about settlement sheets. I mean, that's usually what most people use, but a lot of times grain bins, right, an adjuster would go and measure a grain bin and have to determine how much grain is in that bin to settle a claim. Well, some of the problems with that is, is you could have issues with those calculations. You could measure the cone wrong, you could measure the test weight, wrong moisture, for instance. So Marsha, you talked a little bit about load logs, you know, kind of in sitting in the tractor and writing those things down, having that contemporaneous load log. I mean, you nailed it, you, you might miss a load. You might miss where that production's coming from from that field. So by having those grain carts with that GPS sensor in it, you know, like the GT five 60, for instance, which has the GPS tracker, it's got the, uh, moisture sensor right in there as well, too. So being able to track that information and tie it directly back to where that production was harvested from is gonna make everybody's life easier. The farmer, the adjuster, all the way to the agent just makes it that much easier. So, um, it just way more accurate determination of that yield, which is gonna make it, so the producer has a higher APH as well, too. So,

Speaker 1:

And in that case, the APH would be their average production history. So the idea is, is that through the accuracy, they're always getting the most accurate information and, and the best information about their operation, right? Brad,

Speaker 4:

The approved production history. So yeah, it would be that average over a period of time, you know, you gotta have at least five years of, of actual production history. And, um, just having that history there creates that, uh, that guarantee, which is gonna give that protection to the farmer. So again, just having it all tie back directly to where that frame originated is just, it makes it that much easier.

Speaker 1:

Perfect. Well, so it, it sure sounds good, but Jeremy, I mean, you've been living this world for a long time, is it as good as it all sounds

Speaker 3:

Absolutely is, um, you know, the GT five 60 was a huge step in the right direction of getting to where we're at today and I've owned one of them, I don't know, since a long time. And, you know, and as we continue to move forward and, and looking at, you know, the smart cart and, and how we're connecting a GT five 60 and, and transferring data into tap to, to go ahead and automate these processes even more, the easy button is more insight than it's ever been from, from a lot of levels, whether it's from, you know, completing this reporting that we're talking about, whether I'm the case of a loss, or just even in my APH reporting, you know, of, of having that in a streamlined process that creates one report. I might finally become the farmer that the adjuster doesn't just scratch his head and say, all right, let's just figure this out. And that would be, that would be an exciting time<laugh> um, because I do my level best every time. You know, when, when we know there's a loss to make sure it's all in one bin and, and notify the adjuster and get the tape on the bin and, or get him here to measure it. But, you know, you<laugh>, Brad threw out a word of co-mingled production. And that used to be a word that ought to be struck from all of our vocabularies, because that was the most evil word you could hear, whether you were a loss adjuster was a farmer, is how did you ever solve that co-mingled production problem. And in a lot of cases you didn't, and when you couldn't solve that problem, nine times out of 10 led to there not being a loss or not helping me get the assistance I needed to get through that season from a product that I'd purchased to get through that and, and how we can streamline these processes to eliminate that make the life easier. And, you know, some of the technologies that Topcon has brought us through this, you know, GT five 60 and, and the smart cart is gonna even make it simpler. And it's really exciting, you know, I assume my whole career talking about, you know, if you're gonna work with farmers, you need to meet'em where they're at on the technology curve. And it's really exciting to see, you know, RMA taking some steps to begin to meet me where I'm at on the technology curve and utilizing the technology. I didn't buy it for crop insurance reporting. I bought it because there was other value in my operation and what I wanted to do with that data and how I was gonna make money with that data. It's incredibly exciting to know now that that same technology is gonna port over into the crop insurance side, through RMA to streamline those processes and make it simple.

Speaker 1:

Perfect. Now, Brad, do you wanna describe for us a little bit about how Maya data and Topcon work together to create some of this streamlining?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, absolutely. So with my, a data, you could think of us as the, uh, TurboTax of acreage reporting. So, you know, be able to take planted data, whether that be from, uh, a planter, you know, precision ag, or whether that be C L U, like I talked about earlier, just kind of making it so you have the acreage report and be able to push that to the U S D a for the first step, creating that acreage report, helping that process with our partnership, with Topcon, what we can do with cloud based reporting with a tap account, if harvested information is in tap through those GT five 60 S you'll easily be able to make that cloud connection and then bring those grain cart, load logs directly into Maya data by that cloud connection. So it's very easy process. It's very automated when that cloud connection is established. And again, it's tying it directly back to that planted shape, making it a lot easier for that production report to be generated, to be able to give to the adjuster to the agent, to whomever needs that production reporting process. So just a, a very, uh, simple couple clicks bringing in that cloud connection and that tying it back to that planted shape.

Speaker 1:

Perfect. Well, really appreciate that explanation. Um, helps everybody understand how the data layers are flowing out of, out of, uh, Jeremy's grain card and then in, in, through, um, into tap and then in, through my, a data, and then eventually being able to be submitted, um, into, uh, uh, to both crop insurance agents, uh, the AIPs, as well as to RMA, right. Uh, potentially in remittance of those claims. Now, um, I, one of the things that I see that we see on the landscape is, uh, specifically is just how responsive the RMA has been. And, and Marsha, we see that, um, you know, that you are really driving change or, uh, change towards farmers in the RMA. And the fact that you're, you're trying to do a adapt to things like, like these kinds of things, being able to accept data from non stationary scales or even, uh, help to look at the lo at the potential loss of, of in season application of nitrogen, some of those kinds of things. Um, Marsha, is there anything else you want to tell us a little bit about where you see, um, RMA headed and crop insurance headed into 22 and 23, or what you really see on the horizon is next for RMA and for crop insurance?

Speaker 2:

Certainly there's a number of initiatives that we've been working on and that we have recently announced, like I referred to earlier, the organic transition, also the assistance for organic producers that we refer to as Toga. There's also been changes to the whole farm revenue protection policy. We've increased the limits by doubling it so that we are not excluding, um, individuals based upon size, but we've also done on the other spectrum with micro farms for those small producers, with the micro farm policy that has been rolled out, um, in the last year or so that we have increased that limit as well. Because with the feedback from stakeholders, from producers that the initial cap at a hundred thousand dollars was just not really reaching the targeted audience. So we've increased that limit to 300, 350,000, um, somewhere in there. So those are some of those changes. The other thing that we've made changes to is the reporting for vertically integrated types of operations. We used to require third party verification of production up front. We've moved that to the back end, which allows easier reporting for those producers using whole farm. They're allowed to now use their own records. They don't need to have the AIP come out and do a pre-harvest type of appraisal. We included a number of crops in those changes, and we have those listed out on our RMA website. And I think it's just an ever evolving process. We love to hear feedback from growers and their grower organizations, because they're the ones that are where the rubber meets the road as technology changes as production types of things change. As we add more crops, that input is valuable. And along with the types of technology that we're talking about today with ag data RMA lives and breathes by data, and that's what continues to make crop insurance so sound and what the taxpayer wants to see that this is a very concentrated effort to use science, to substantiate all of the policies that we are implementing.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic, and really salute, um, the changes and, and really the direction that you're working to push, uh, RMA, uh, in being more grower responsive, and really aligning to the workflow. Really appreciate that. And, uh, so Brad, from your perspective, is there anything else that our listers should know?

Speaker 4:

Uh, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, one thing that I just kind of wanted to just to circle back to one comment that Marsha made is just making this program viable, making sure that everything is correct, you know, fraud, waste and abuse gets thrown around a lot, right? So the fraud waste and abuse within crop insurance is a very small amount compared that to let's say, Medicare, Medicaid, the fraud waste and abuse could be 20, 25%, even higher. Some, some cases and the fraud waste and abuse within crop insurance is very small. It's like under 2%. And with these new advantages by using data, for instance, like Marsha had just talked about it is gonna make that even less. I mean, just having accurate determination of yield from the smart cards, precision ag data and the planting, you know, ensuring actual planting versus the C L U I mean, all those things are gonna ask help the program succeed long term. So I think that was just one thing I kind of wanted to point out, uh, just kind of hearing that comment. The other thing is, is how can growers take advantage of these changes? So, one thing that I would check is see if their indicator on their grain card can support some of these things, talk with their agents and their adjusters and how they can work together to streamline this process. See if their crop insurance companies will be able to accept this data electronically. That's a big thing. Right? Finally, I, I think I would just push growers to check out crop reporting.com, which is more information about acres reporting process and the production reporting process. Um, talk kind of explains the partnership that my ag data and Topcon has and, and how you can benefit by utilizing precision ag data, um, and that reporting process so that I would direct people that way to learn more information.

Speaker 1:

Perfect. And so Brad, that was www dot crop reporting, C R O P R E P O. RT I N g.com. Right. Crop reporting.com.

Speaker 4:

That's correct. Yep.

Speaker 1:

Perfect, perfect, good stuff. Really, really good stuff. Jeremy, do you have any parting thoughts? I mean, you've, you've, you've been sitting on the sidelines seeing a lot of this stuff as it's evolving, where do you see this thing going? I, I mean, are we, are we getting traction? Is it working?

Speaker 3:

We're definitely getting traction. And, and the first thing that I don't wanna forget to save before I end, so I'll say it now. So Marsha, thank you for your role in working to make my life simpler because it's, it's incredibly exciting to hear that. Like I said, once before, I don't buy crop insurance because I wanna use it, but the years I do need to use it, I really need to use it most likely. And you know, my really only parting thought, you know, is we've got growers or even precision ag practitioners, agronomists, whoever may be listening to this is kind of like Brad said, if, if you're not doing it, ask the questions. It would shock me that if a lot of the people, or maybe even some of the growers, they may not have the, the exact indicator today to do what we're talking about. The scale head that's setting out there. But in most cases, you know, if you've got a Digi star already, you probably can add a five 60 rather economically, and begin that process of using this technology and make your life simpler. I mean, I can tell you, yes, I know I've got a day job too, but it seems like I'm doing more busy work on the farm than I want to, which takes time away from my family and doing the fun things I wanna do. And you know, all of these things that we've talked about, the changes we've made, whether it's on the front side of the acreage reporting are the back side of the loss adjustment, you know, side of this business, or even APH reporting the tools and technology are there to free up more time to let me do the things I wanna do. That's fun, not the busy work. And if you haven't looked at that technology, take the 15 minutes outta your life and ask the question, uh, because I think it'll, well, I don't think I know I've felt it firsthand. It's freed up time for me that I didn't have to spend doing paperwork processing load records and Marcia your comment about writing them in a book. We still have one driver that writes everything in a book, and it's really entertaining to see how sometimes how accurate they are and sometimes how inaccurate yet they are. You know, it, it's just exciting to see where technology went. I'm just life part of,

Speaker 1:

Well of I'd all three of you, um, as our guest today. And that would be Jeremy Wilson, um, from Newton, Illinois, uh, Brad Meyer from Maya data. And most importantly, Marsha Bunger the administrator of the U S D A's RMA risk management agency. And, um, really appreciate everybody in the time that they've spent with us. Thank you, dear listeners for, uh, the time that you've spent tuning in. If you've enjoyed this episode, remember to like share and subscribe to Topcon talks, agriculture on Spotify, apple podcast, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcast. Thank you very much. And we look forward to here in tri next episode,