Tennessee farmer Matt Griggs joins WIRED to answer the internet's burning questions about farming. How do farmers keep track of what they're growing, and keep it in such straight lines? Why does farming have such a high mortality rate as a profession? How are the ongoing trade wars affecting farmers? Why do farmers need government subsidies? How big of a problem is soil erosion? Is 100% organic farming possible? Answers to these questions and more await on Farming Support.
Director: Lisandro Perez-Rey
Director of Photography: Peter Braswell
Editor: Richard Trammell
Expert: Matt Griggs
Line Producer: Jamie Rasmussen
Associate Producer: Paul Gulyas
Production Manager: Peter Brunette
Production Coordinator: Rhyan Lark
Casting Producer: Nick Sawyer
Camera Operator: Jared Callan
Sound Mixer: Brandon Robertson
Production Assistant: Noelle Beard
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Stella Shortino
Supervising Editor: Erica DeLeo
Assistant Editor: Andy Morell
Director: Lisandro Perez-Rey
Director of Photography: Peter Braswell
Editor: Richard Trammell
Expert: Matt Griggs
Line Producer: Jamie Rasmussen
Associate Producer: Paul Gulyas
Production Manager: Peter Brunette
Production Coordinator: Rhyan Lark
Casting Producer: Nick Sawyer
Camera Operator: Jared Callan
Sound Mixer: Brandon Robertson
Production Assistant: Noelle Beard
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Stella Shortino
Supervising Editor: Erica DeLeo
Assistant Editor: Andy Morell
Category
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TechTranscript
00:00Why do farmers always need subsidies? Well, y'all not letting me ease into this episode,
00:04you hit me with a haymaker right from the get-go. I'm Matt Griggs. I grow cotton, corn,
00:08soybeans, and wheat here in Tennessee. Let's answer your questions from the internet. This
00:12is farming support. Okay, first question. How do you get your straight, regular lines in your
00:22fields? Seems to me that farmers take some pretty serious pride in having perfectly straight rows
00:27in their fields. Well, I'd like to say it's all due to operator ability. Unfortunately,
00:32I would be lying to you. Most of our modern tractors that we use now have what we call
00:37auto steer. The onboard computer is the one that's actually doing the steering of the tractor as we're
00:42going through the field. I'll tell you what, let's actually go to the field and I will show you how
00:46this works. Auto steer is possible because of the GPS systems that we have on this tractor.
00:52When we get to the field, we'll set what we call a guidance line. To get a straight row,
00:58we set what we call an A-B line. That means that we will put the tractor in the position that we
01:02want. On the computer, we will go to the other end of the field and we will mark a B point. And
01:07then the computer will draw a perfectly straight line between the A point and the B point, hit our
01:12auto steer button, and the tractor takes over and will actually steer to the line. And then that line
01:17will then be repeated across the field. And that's how farmers get their perfectly straight
01:22lines in the field. This next one is from the Homestead subreddit. What are your must-have tools
01:27equipment on the farm? For one thing, we need a tractor to pull the various implements that we
01:32need to raise crops, whether it be a planter, a plow, a sprayer to apply pesticides. We need a
01:39harvest machine to be able to harvest the crop. A combine or a combine harvester can actually harvest
01:45multiple different crops, but all of them are going to be grain. If you're growing other types
01:49of crops, you're probably going to need a specific type of harvester just for that crop. If you're a
01:54grain farmer and you want to be able to take a maximum advantage of the commodity market and sell
01:59your crops at the highest prices, you might need a system of grain bins in order to store that crop.
02:04You're probably going to need several equipment sheds to store your equipment under because this
02:08equipment is hundreds and thousands of dollars and you don't want it sitting outside in the weather
02:13during the times that you're not going to use it. This question comes from Passgain1700.
02:18How do you keep track of what you're growing, how much you're growing, and when to harvest?
02:22Do you use any tools, apps, spreadsheets, farm software, to help manage costs, sales, or inventory?
02:27There's a multitude of different tools that we use. Just about every time that we make a trip across
02:32the field, the tractors or harvester or sprayer that we're using has an onboard computer that is
02:37logging what we're actually doing. This is a map of one of our fertilizer applications. The red
02:43parts of the field indicate where we were applying more fertilizer, whereas the green parts are where
02:48we were applying less fertilizer. And all of this is based upon the soil test that we pull every two
02:53and a half acres across the farm, showing the different levels of fertility. We're then able
02:57to vary the amount of fertilizer we're applying. This map right here was produced by my combine last
03:03year whenever we were harvesting corn. It represents the varying yields as we go across the field. Around the
03:09edges of the fields, most of that is red because that's a lower yielded area of the field, mainly
03:14due to the competition of trees surrounding the field competing for nutrients and blocking sunlight.
03:18This map represents all the different soil types. Just because you see dirt out there doesn't mean that
03:24all dirt is created equally. Some soils may be well-drained, some may be poorly drained, some may be
03:29highly erodible, some might have greater natural fertility. So as you can see, there's a lot of different
03:34technology that we can use and what ties all of this together is usually a software program that
03:40we'll have on our computer that we store all this data on that we can then go in and analyze all this
03:45data to determine what we need to do for the next year.
03:48Live City Bajams asks, WTF is a bushel and a peck? I don't know what a peck is either myself, but I do
03:55know what a bushel is. A bushel is a unit of volume that's used to measure dry goods, equal to about
04:039.3 U.S. gallons. That's a liquid measurement. I'm selling a dry measurement. So a bushel of corn
04:10is equal to 56 pounds of actual corn, 60 pounds of soybeans, 60 pounds of wheat. Currently, corn is
04:17$4.60 for a bushel. Soybeans is $10.50. Wheat is $5.50 for a bushel of wheat. Wesley Rudin asks,
04:26How crazy are the GPS systems in the tractors? Well, Wesley, they're pretty crazy.
04:31They're also crazy expensive. The GPS systems on your phone, you know, they're probably only
04:35really accurate to within 10 to 20 feet. Now, when we're in the field, we need a lot
04:40greater accuracy. Some of the systems on these tractors can be accurate to within one inch of
04:46where you actually are on this earth. Now, this one inch accuracy is possible through the use of
04:51RTK on our systems or real-time kinematics using base stations located across an area. There's a lot
04:59of interference between our satellite receiver and the satellites in outer space. These base
05:04stations help correct for that error to let us know within an inch of where exactly we are
05:09in the field. Why do farmers need to be accurate down to the closest inch? Well, that's because GPS
05:14controls a lot more than just actually steering the tractor. A lot of times, part of our equipment is
05:21passing over a section of the field that has already been planted. So we have the ability to shut off
05:26row by row as we're going through the field as we get into an area that's already been planting,
05:31so we're not over applying seed and we're also not spending extra money on inputs that we don't
05:37actually need. There are currently tractors being developed that don't even have a cab,
05:41don't even have a place for an operator to sit on and will be operated completely autonomously.
05:47This question is from the subreddit, no stupid questions. Why does farming have such a high death
05:52rate as a job in the USA? Yes, farming can be extremely dangerous. We're operating heavy machinery,
05:59we're working with chemicals, we can be working in extreme heat. And then not only that, we're dealing
06:04with an extremely stressful career and some of us can be facing financial ruin. I've almost been killed
06:10several times on my job. Just a few years ago, I was actually ejected through the windshield of my
06:15combine harvester as I was going down the road at about 22 miles an hour. The combine harvester
06:21came within about five feet of rolling over me and crushing me. I came this close to actually losing
06:27my life that day. And that actually happened because I was in a hurry and I had taken some
06:31safety shortcuts that day. Atnankeski asks, how do you become a farmer? Like, is there just an
06:36application for it or do you just start digging? If you're row crop farming, the one thing you most
06:41definitely need is land. And unless you already own a lot of land, you have to go convince other land
06:47owners to allow you to farm their land and show them that you can make a profit for them because
06:52they're just not going to let you farm it for free. The way I got into farming is that I was actually
06:57born into it. I'm a fifth generation farmer. That means that there were four previous generations of
07:02grigs that farmed this ground before I had the opportunity to do it. Simon Hancock asks, how much
07:07profit do you think farmers make? I can't speak to how much farmers make, but I can tell you how much
07:12we made over the last few years. In 2023, we had a gross income of $1.83 million on our farm. Now
07:21of that gross, $72,000 of that was profit. That doesn't necessarily mean that $72,000 goes in my
07:29pocket and me and my wife can go take a nice fancy vacation. The vast majority of that $72,000 remained
07:35in the business to invest in the next year, whether it's purchasing seed chemicals and fertilizer for the
07:41next year or making needed investments in equipment. In 2024, our gross income dropped to
07:48$1.65 million. And of that, there was no profit. In fact, we actually wound up losing $300,000 worth
07:56of profit. And that was even after the government subsidies that we received. Now, why do we have
08:01such a decrease in gross revenue last year? Well, right here is an era of corn that we harvested last
08:06year. That's not a very impressive era of corn. Our yields were devastated by long, extreme
08:11drought. And we had lower yields across the board. Even though we had depressed commodity prices and
08:16lower yields, our input costs, the cost we pay for our seeds, our fertilizer and chemicals were
08:21actually up due to inflation. Now, looking at 2025, we're still dealing with what's projected to be
08:27lower commodity prices and relatively high input prices. But if we can return to more of a normal
08:33year, if we avoid the drought, we're set to gross, hopefully, $1.51 million. And through
08:39extreme cost-cutting measures that we've taken this winter, hopefully, at the end of the year,
08:43we will net about $36,000 worth of profit. Gadgie Old asks, why do farmers always need subsidies?
08:50Subsidies are necessary because farming is extremely, extremely expensive, but it's also very necessary
08:57for the survival of society. We can't control the prices that we receive for our commodities. We also
09:02can't control the weather. In my opinion, the American taxpayer actually gets a return on its
09:07investment because farming subsidies actually ensure that there is a very bountiful cheap supply of food
09:15in the store. See, subsidies keep a lot of farmers in business. You keep farmers in business, well,
09:19there's more competition. There's more competition to produce more and more so that you can remain
09:24in business. An abundant food supply leads to a cheaper food supply. Now, there's a wide array of
09:30subsidies that can be paid to farmers, like the crop insurance that we purchase to help ensure that we
09:35don't go out of business when we experience a loss. The crop insurance premium is subsidized by the
09:40federal government. If we experience a disaster year, you know there might be a disaster payment.
09:46In the event of a disaster, it's very unlikely that any subsidy money will cover our losses for that
09:51year. At Joe the second asks, what's the purpose of this dried out corn that's going to be harvested?
09:56Like what do they do with it? Well, Joe, there's a whole lot of different uses for that corn. The vast
10:01majority of corn that you see growing out in the fields is what we call field corn or dent corn.
10:06It's not the type that you eat off the cob, but the field corn that we grow is used for so many
10:10other purposes. 10% of the gas that you put in your car actually came from corn. It's called ethanol.
10:16Do you happen to like Mexican food? It's used in tortilla shells and many other ingredients. Do you
10:21like cornbread? It's in there also. One of the biggest uses for corn is high fructose corn syrup,
10:27a sweetener that's used in many of the products you can buy in your grocery store, especially soft
10:32drinks. Benchy Tunes asks, how big of an issue is soil erosion and what can we do about it?
10:38Is there anywhere it's particularly bad? Soil erosion is a huge problem. We have erosion caused
10:44by water running across the land and removing soil particles, but there's also wind erosion.
10:49One of the worst examples of wind erosion was actually the Dust Bowl of the 1930s when the
10:55Midwest was impacted by severe, severe drought. Now the Midwest was natively a grasslands and the
11:02grass helped anchor the soil and hold it into place. However, when you plowed the soil, it destroyed
11:07all of those native grasses and loosened the soil up. And then when drought came in in the 1930s,
11:12it was a very susceptible to wind erosion because the Midwest gets a lot of high winds. And when you
11:18have a bunch of loose dry soil particles on the surface, the wind can pick it up and sweep it away.
11:23But here in the hills of Tennessee, erosion is a huge concern because we have hillsides funneling
11:28water into certain locations that can easily wash away the soil. Now farming has come a long way from
11:34the Dust Bowls of the 1930s. We now have the technology called no-till. That means that we're
11:39planting and maintaining our crops without ever plowing the soil. If we're not disturbing the soil,
11:44the soil has a whole lot less chance of being eroded away. It is our goal to have a living plant
11:50growing on our ground 12 months out of the year. That means that the raindrops that are falling
11:55are not actually impacting the soil and dislodging soil particles. It's hitting the plant material first
12:01and then being diffused down to the soil. The roots actually help to hold the soil together,
12:06really minimizing the impact of erosion. We will actually harvest only about four to five months
12:11out of the year. That leaves seven to eight months that we don't have a crop that we're going to harvest
12:16growing and we fill that void by planting what we call a cover crop. Any plant or a mixture of
12:22different types of plants that we actually seed into the ground to grow and anchor the soil and
12:28protect it against the erosion for the fall and winter months until we get ready to plant our next
12:33cash crop. Hoot McNewt asks, I wonder how farmers keep pests, diseases, and unwanted critters away from
12:40their crops. There are pesticides that we use to kill insects or to prevent disease. However,
12:46there's other ways other than using chemicals to minimize damage to your fields and a lot of
12:51these are referred to as cultural practices. For example, to help minimize disease in our field,
12:57we try to rotate our crops every year. We might plant corn this year and then the following year
13:02we'll plant cotton and then the following year we'll plant soybeans and what we're doing is we're
13:06breaking the disease cycle because a lot of these diseases will only attack one specific crop. In
13:12our area, deer is a big problem but they favor certain types of crops, especially soybeans. Now
13:17there are ways to kind of help minimize that and one of those ways is by allowing hunters onto your
13:23farm during the hunting season to help thin out the population some. But farmers have learned to accept
13:28that there will be a certain level of damage to their crops year after year after year. Tony
13:32Carrasso asks, how is soil replenished in farming fields? The matter that the plant consists of comes
13:38from the soil. When parts of these plants are removed for usage, that implies a matter deficit in
13:42this field. So isn't the field supposed to reseed with every harvest? There are certain things that
13:47the plant needs to take out of the soil in order to produce the crop. And if these nutrients are not
13:52replenished, plants will naturally deplete the soil of these nutrients. Now that's really not going to
13:58cause the soil level to drop because a six inch depth of soil across an acre weighs about two
14:05million pounds. Well, an acre of corn might pull out 200 pounds of nitrogen, 70, 80, 90 pounds of
14:13phosphorus, a little bit less than that of potassium. And those are going to be the major nutrients that
14:18the plant uptakes. All of these nutrients will be replaced with fertilizer. So while crops are pulling
14:25something out of the soil, it's in relatively low amounts and it's not going to cause the soil to
14:29recede year after year of growing crops. We got a question from explain like I'm five reddit.
14:35How do farmers water their fields? If it doesn't rain, are they just screwed over for the year?
14:39Basically it doesn't rain. Yeah, we are screwed over for the year for the most part. However,
14:43some farmers do have the ability to irrigate their fields to be able to supply supplemental water to a crop
14:50in a growing season. Now on our farm, we don't practice any irrigation because we generally don't
14:56need it. In our climate, we receive approximately 52 inches of rainfall every year. However, as you
15:01move out west, it's a lot more arid environment and irrigation is a lot more popular out there and
15:07farmers can irrigate in a variety of ways. Some farmers may have center pivots, an overhead irrigation
15:13system that travels in a circle and sprinkles water on top of the crop. Other farmers where a water
15:19supply might be more abundant, say in your rivers and streams or whatever, might practice flood
15:24irrigation to where they roll out a pipe, punch holes in the pipe, and it'll shoot a stream of
15:28water down every row or every other row. Now in really arid environments where water is a much
15:33more limited resource, farmers have drip tape installed and will run irrigation water through
15:39that tape that will then leach out in the soil. Now this method is very efficient. However, it can be
15:45very, very expensive to install and maintain. Sam Doberman asks, how's the trade war affecting
15:51farmers? Well Sam, the trade war is affecting farmers in some ways. However, this isn't the
15:56first time that we've been through this. During President Trump's first term in office, he entered
16:00into a trade war with China and this affected the farmers greatly then because while America imports
16:06all sorts of goods in from China, about the only thing that China buys from the US is our agricultural
16:12commodities. So the only way that China could retaliate against the US was withdrawing from
16:17purchasing agricultural economies and this led to a multi-year period where we experienced especially
16:23depressed prices for our commodities. Towards the end of President Trump's first term, he was able to
16:28enter into a trade agreement with China in which China had guaranteed to purchase billions of more
16:34dollars of agricultural goods. However, after President Trump was voted out of office and President
16:40Biden was voted into office, China went back to doing, well, what China does, which is
16:44renege on a lot of different agreements. Now that President Trump is back in an office,
16:49he's entered into another trade war, not only with China, but with a bunch of other different nations.
16:54In the near term, it is going to be painful and we will suffer most likely depressed prices for
17:00could be an extended period of time. If President Trump is not able to get the trade deals that he wants
17:06or the following administrations do not hold these countries to do these trade deals, it's going to
17:10be just like it was the first round. We will have suffered for pretty much nothing. The American
17:14farmer produces about 16 billion bushels of corn every year. Of that, around 2.2 is exported to
17:21other countries. Exports plays a lot bigger role in soybeans. We produce around 4.5 billion bushels of
17:26soybeans every year. Of that, about 2.21 billion bushels is exported. About 85% of the 13 million
17:35bales of cotton that is produced in the US every year is actually exported to other countries. So
17:40any potential cuts to these exports that I told you about could prove devastating to the American
17:45farmer for the short term. At Carol J. Hedges asks, why do weeds grow faster than crops? The crops that we
17:51grow have been bred over years and years and years for maximum production, not for survival. Our primary
17:58purpose in breeding crops is to produce a maximum amount of yield. That involves growing over a longer
18:04period of time, giving that plant a longer life cycle and the ability to capture more sunlight to
18:10be able to support that higher yield. Whereas the weeds that are present in our field have bred
18:16themselves through self-selection to survive. And one of the mechanisms that these weeds use to survive
18:22is to grow really, really quick so they can out-compete any other surrounding plants, produce their seed
18:28and die, thus ensuring that that species of weed will survive year after year after year. Akalaki19 asks,
18:34so are GMOs bad? GMOs are perfectly safe. Now GMOs actually came about, oh, about the mid-1990s where
18:42scientists were able to insert a BT gene into some of our crops. And what this BT gene is, is a toxin
18:49that is actually produced by bacteria called bacillus thuringiensis. Now this BT toxin is completely
18:56harmless to animals and people. It has no effect on us at all. However, to the lipidopterine pest or your
19:04caterpillar pest, it can be deadly. This particular air sweet corn is a GMO. It was genetically modified to
19:11resist certain herbicides sprayed on the fields.
19:18So I have no problems myself either eating or consuming GMOs because they're perfectly safe.
19:24S618 asks, what is the biggest expense cost you have? Farming is an expensive game. There's no secret
19:30about that. But actually identifying the most expensive part of farming, well, it can kind of vary from
19:35farm to farm to farm. For me personally, our biggest line item expense is going to be our
19:41repair and maintenance costs. On average, every year I spend between two and three hundred thousand
19:47dollars repairing and maintaining our equipment. Other farmers might run the newest equipment. In
19:52that case, their biggest line item expense might be actually paying for that equipment. For example,
19:57a brand new large size tractor is probably going to run you about $450,000. A brand new combine
20:03harvester is going to be approaching close to a million dollars. A brand new cotton picker that we might
20:08only use two weeks out of every year is going to set you back about $1.2 million. So you can either
20:14spend a whole lot of money every year on equipment, not have to fix it as much, or you can run older
20:19equipment that doesn't cost as much, but you're going to pay to keep it repaired and maintained.
20:24At Arsenal Ultras asks, how do farmers get their goods to market, genius? Well,
20:29genius, we haul our crops to market. Farmers is the one industry that has to buy retail,
20:35sell wholesale, and pay the freight both ways. Some places we might haul our crops just a few
20:40miles down the road. Other times we might have to haul our crops 50 to 100 miles down the road,
20:45just depending on what area or location is paying the best for our crop. At Deborah Wrights asks,
20:51what do you feel is the hardest part of farming? Farmers are the biggest gamblers out there because
20:57we're planting crops in the spring on the faith and the prayer that things will go the way they need to
21:02go to produce a profitable crop all year long with factors that we can't control ourselves,
21:07such as weather. But I've got to say one of the most stressful things that I have to do
21:12on the farm is actually transporting equipment up and down the road. Our equipment has gotten
21:18tremendous in size. Our roads have stayed the same size. Our roads have also gotten busier due to
21:23urbanization encroaching on our farms. So transporting farm equipment in a safe manner down our busier public
21:31roads has actually become one of the more stressful things that we have to do.
21:34At Radmore Farm says, farmers do so much more than just make food. I like to think we're custodians
21:39of the countryside. What else do farmers do that you think people forget? Not only do we, you know,
21:44grow the food in fiber that you eat and wear, we have to be agronomists, we have to be pathologists,
21:50we have to be mechanics, we might need to be electricians. You know, there's just so many different
21:55aspects of the job that we need to have a very broad base of information in order to be successful as
22:00farmers. This next question comes from a farming subreddit. What is a day in the life of a farmer
22:06like? One of the greatest benefits to being a farmer is that our life is definitely not boring.
22:12Our schedule is dictated by the seasons and more importantly, by the weather. The past few weeks
22:17has been extremely, extremely busy because we're getting ready for planting. Myself and the crew that
22:22works with me, we've put in about 85 hours each week just to get our fields ready to plant. That's a lot
22:28longer than an eight to five job and it does not include weekends off. This latest question is from
22:33Jiggy. He asks, what do farmers do in the winter? Wintertime is one of the most important times on our
22:38farm because we are preparing for the next year. We plant in the spring. All summer long is spent
22:44tending and maintaining the crops. We harvest in fall, so a lot of winter we're running our equipment
22:49through our shop and fixing anything that needs to be fixed. Going through the finances, going through all of
22:54our data, determining what changes we need to make for next year, determining what seeds we need to buy,
22:59getting financing lined up for next year, going through training and classes to improve our
23:04operation, and so on. Karina F. Murray asks, how can we make farming more sustainable, economical,
23:10and environmentally friendly? Now, many farmers are some of the best environmentalists you will ever
23:15find out there because, well, our career, our livelihood depends on the state of the environment.
23:20However, that doesn't mean that there's not room for improvement. A lot of these companies we buy
23:24our chemicals and our inputs from, these companies' main goal, obviously, is to sell a product, so their
23:30research is really going to skew towards pushing more of a product instead of producing less of a
23:35product. The most reliable, consistent, independent research that is done is usually done at the
23:41university level by our land-grant universities, and in my opinion, there needs to be more funding to
23:46these land-grant universities to fund more research to determine whether we can, say, cut more
23:52fertilizer or cut more products to be more sustainable and more environmentally friendly.
23:58ThickDr007 asks, is it possible to switch to organic farming 100%? Yes, it is possible to switch to
24:04organic farming 100%. However, it's not necessarily easy to switch to organic farming 100%. I would have to
24:12almost completely change all of my agronomic practices. Now, this could potentially be rewarding
24:18because organic products at the store do bring a higher price than the conventionally grown products
24:25that I produce. In order to be certified organic, I must completely reject all of my conventional
24:31practices and use only organic practices for three consecutive years on a piece of ground
24:37before I can be certified organic. In that three-year period, I can still grow products using organic
24:42methods. However, I cannot sell my products as organic products, and I'm receiving the price that
24:48conventional products bring. If you farm organically, you're going to have lower yields because you can't
24:53use a lot of the products that boost yields because they are considered to be supplied inorganically.
24:59I'm going to be very limited in my weed control, so I'm going to probably experience more
25:04competition from weeds reducing yields. I'm really going to be limited in my insect control. I would
25:09also be very limited in what types of fertilizers I'm able to use, mostly only being able to use
25:15manure as a fertilizer, which is not a bad fertilizer source. However, it is slower acting and takes longer
25:21to become plant available than what our inorganic fertilizers that we use are. So while it is possible
25:26to switch 100% to organic, you're looking at a three-year window with lower yields and lower incomes until
25:32you can finally reap the benefits of farming more organically. So those are all the questions for
25:36today. Thanks for watching. Farming support.