Guests: Dr. David Kohl, President of AgriVisons, LLC and Dr. Bob James, GPS Dairy Consulting After making it through 2020, it's time to look ahead to what to expect in the dairy markets for 2021. Joining host Scott Sorrell at the pub for the next episode of the Real Science Exchange is two guests and two cohosts; Dr. David Kohl and Dr. Bob James and Dr. Clay Zimmerman and Jonathan Griffin as cohosts from Balchem Animal Nutrition & Health.
Dr. Kohl presented in the Real Science Lecture series, Transitioning a Black Swan to a Phoenix in the Global Dairy Markets. Here is a link to that presentation: https://youtu.be/myhTpyBJzKE. Today's discussion dives into a quick look back at what happened in 2020 and critical learnings for the 2021 outlook. 10:36
When Dr. Kohl takes a look at an individual dairy farm or the larger industry, he discusses the importance of Business IQ and what that means for the business's overall health. Additionally, he discusses the change in consumers' outlook on agriculture's importance through food shortages at the grocery store. 12:51
As a calf consultant working with farms across the globe, the changes to travel and transition to virtual meetings, Dr. Bob James discusses how that can help dairies. 15:11
With any sector of the agriculture industry, data overload can be a struggle. It's not different in the dairy industry, and Dr. James and Dr. Kohl discuss the role data plays on the farm and tips for drilling down to the critical data sets to make decisions. 21:55
In 2020 many collegiate courses went virtual, and with that, it allowed both Dr. Kohl and Dr. James to lecturers in the classroom. They stress the importance of folks entering into the dairy industry to diversify, take classes outside of animal science, and even outside of agriculture to broaden their perspective and become more adaptable. 29:42
The two guests shared their perspectives on two key aspects for 2021 and beyond: virtual assistance/expertise and further niche diversification by dairies to set themselves apart. 40:31
Thanks for joining us for another discussion around the table at the Real Science Exchange. To recommend a topic for future podcasts, email anh.marketing@balchem.com.
Scott Sorrell (00:10):
Good evening everyone. And welcome to the Real Science Exchange: the podcast where scientists and industry leaders meet over a few drinks and casual conversation to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. Hello, I'm Scott Sorrell, your host for tonight's conversation. This episode is a big topic and should be of great interest to anyone that has a stake in the dairy industry: What we can expect from the global dairy markets in 2021. We'll get to my co-hosts in just a minute, but I'd like to take a moment to introduce our guests to the pub this evening, Dr. David Kohl and Dr. Bob James. Dr. Kohl, welcome back to the Real Science Exchange. And thanks for joining us here tonight. We wanted to get you back after a well-attended webinar titled Transitioning a black swan to a phoenix in the global theory markets that you presented just a few weeks ago. For those of you that don't know Dr. Kohl, he is currently president of AgriVisions, a knowledge-based consulting business. He's also part owner of Homestead Creamery, a value-added dairy business in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He has spent many years staring into his crystal ball to help us all decide what is coming next in the dairy industry, Dr. Kohl, while our pub is virtual, our drinks are not so can you tell us what's in your glass tonight?
Dr. David Kohl (01:25):
Well one of the things is we've got Homestead Creamery and we've got a combination of egg nog and custard.. I guess I'll put the other one here. This is Franklin County Virginia's finest, and they are a producer of that type of material there. And that's my drink or a couple drinks.
Scott Sorrell (01:53):
That’s an invested drinker. I've enjoyed getting to know you Dr. Cole during the prep times for the webinar and this podcast. And I've also learned, hearing a bit about your, your, your passion for basketball and your coaching career. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Dr. David Kohl (02:10):
You know, one of the things about basketball, actually. I started at community college, switched majors five times. I started out to be a basketball coach. And matter of fact, wanted nothing to do with the dairy farm that I grew up on in upstate New York. And so what happened was I had a very, very good high school coach. He actually, he's in the high school hall of fame and our high school basketball team won 104 straight games. It was a national record at that time. And so those folks gave me a chance and I was an assistant coach and I ended up being a head coach at a place called of Oswego state. I coached the Lakers, the Great Lakers which was a D3 school. And one of the things is that was very, very instrumental in developing a lot of the what I call the emotional intelligence skills that I've used later in life.
Scott Sorrell (03:04):
Very well. So I see you've brought a guest with you tonight. Would you mind introducing him and tell us a little bit about your relationship and maybe something interesting that the folks listening in that may not know about Dr. James.
Dr. David Kohl (03:16):
Wow, really interesting. Dr. Bob, James, Virginia Tech. One of the things is we worked very, very closely together over the years, whether it was with undergraduate education, extension education, or, you know, with graduate students. And we both have a passion for the dairy industry, but I think we have passion as educators out there. And so we've got the Virginia Tech connection here, and I'm very, very proud of our university. And I'll tell you one of the top programs in the United States of America. Dr. James of course retired from Virginia tech. But we get to see each other and Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson airport, as we both are frequent flyers on Delta airlines. And of course the sky club there on Concourse D is probably one of our favorite Hangouts, right? And so introduce yourself as you take it a little bit further.
Dr. Bob James (04:14):
Okay. I I retired in 2016, but as Dave said, I was a member of the Dairy Science Department. And it's a department that's really dedicated to their three missions and that's teaching, extension, and research. And I found out very early that I'm just really passionate about teaching. I guess, one of the things that makes you most proud are the accomplishments of your former students. And if you look at that gentleman sitting over there on the right, this was, this was one of my former students and that's Clay Zimmerman. And it, it, I guess that's what really makes life worthwhile. Both Clay and his wife were students at, at Virginia tech and a little bit about him is they actually were our babysitters, and for our, our, our, one of our kids. I don't know if you remember that Clay.
And so anyway, I retired and I did tech service for a national company pretty much all over the U S also did some tech service for a company in Mexico for my first couple years. And then I joined GPS Dairy Consulting, which is a group of consultants in the, in the upper Midwest predominantly in the beginning of 2019. And so I apply the principles, dairy management principles, really to calf management. I'm extremely specialized, and it's been a real challenge because calves have always been a little bit lower priority. The other thing is, is, as Dave mentioned our last trip, the last time Dave and I saw each other was in the D Concourse on March the 15th. And transitioning that to a virtual basis. And I think we'll talk a little bit about this maybe on, later on.
Dave's presentation talked a lot about international consulting and I've worked pretty much all over the world and all over the country. And one of the really great things about that is giving you a perspective of the world and the country. And you, you take your blinders off and it's a very humbling experience and a very exciting experience. So that's a little bit about me. Yeah.
Dr. David Kohl (06:23):
And by the way, both after James and I have been back in the classroom at Virginia Tech this fall lecturing in the senior management, and I wanted to bring that up because boy, there is a great group of students that we had. Right, Bob??
Dr. Bob James (06:38):
Yep, absolutely. Absolutely.
Scott Sorrell (06:42):
Well, I want to thank both of you for joining us tonight, really looking forward to this one. I didn't ask Bob what's, what's in your glass tonight?
Dr. Bob James (06:49):
Well, it was supposed to have been some white wine, but I've got a little glass of red wine. And so we'll take a sip of that as we proceed through the evening and pace myself very well.
Scott Sorrell (07:01):
Right. Very well. So also joining us tonight at the pub as Jonathan Griffin, Jonathan is vice president and general manager for Balchem Animal Nutrition and Health. Jonathan, since this is your first time at the exchange. Tell us a little bit about yourself and more importantly, what's in your glass tonight.
Jonathan Griffin (07:18):
Yeah. Thanks, Scott. And thank you to Dr. Cole and Dr. James. It's a, it's an honor and a pleasure to be joining both of you here. I've heard, I've heard both of you at various conferences and meetings giving presentations, but unfortunately I haven't had a chance to interact with you on a personal basis until today. But hey, no better time than the present, right? But yeah, I, I think as Scott mentioned, my career has been in agriculture my entire, my entire professional career. I grew up on a dairy farm very close to where I'm sitting today in North-Central Rural Connecticut. And so, so was, I was a dairy kid growing up, did a lot of dairy judging. In fact, Virginia tech was the, was the you know, the, the top of the dairy judging world.
You know, and, and I forgot the professor's name that was the real leader there, but he published the book and you know. So I know Virginia tech very well. Ended up going to college at Cornell for undergrad, and then had had a series of engagements: worked for Monsanto for six years down in the Southeastern U.S, and moved on to the feed industry, the feed additive space with Church and Dwight, and have now been with Balchem for, for 10 years. So, a great passion for agriculture, for the dairy industry and for some, you know, some great people that I've had the pleasure of working with in the, in the, in the space over the years.
So today I am, this evening I'm drinking a favorite of mine, which is an IPA. It's a. it's a local IPA. It's actually, it's a brewery, Broad Brook Brewery, from the town that I grew up in just across the pond here. And it's a nice, nice IPA called hops-stilo India pale ale. So very well done discussion.
Scott Sorrell (09:24):
Yeah. So I'm personally this evening enjoying a French Cabernet in honor of a gentleman by the name of Fred Bryant. Fred was a previous boss and a very dear friend of mine and he passed away last week from COVID-19. So tonight I'm, I'm, I'm lifting my glass to Fred Bryant. He's a, he was a very good man and, and a better friend. So here's to Fred. Salud.
Scott Sorrell (09:50):
Yeah. And last, and certainly not least is the third hokey in the audience tonight. Dr. Clay Zimmerman. Who is once again in the copilot seat. So Clay, I believe the last time we were together, you were savoring a vintage hard cider from upstate New York. What's in your glass tonight?
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (10:08):
Uh I have one again tonight. Hard cider.
Scott Sorrell:
That's your specialty? Same brand?
Dr. Clay Zimmerman :
Yes, it is.
Scott Sorrell (10:19):
All right. Good for you. Yeah. All right. Well, let's get started folks. So we've got a lot to cover and not a lot of time to do it. Dr. Kohl, 2020 has been a rollercoaster for the dairy industry. And can you kind of summarize the situation for us as we get ready for to put 2020 in our rear view mirror?
Dr. David Kohl (10:36):
I think if you look at the dairy industry in 2020, as you mentioned, it was a roller coaster. Of course, we had some of the shut-downs on the processing, et cetera, et cetera. The government came to the rescue. Matter of fact, governments came to the rescue worldwide, and that's been very, very advantageous. Particularly for the smaller dairies because they received the PPP checks, et cetera, et cetera. So, it was a nice cash flow bridge. But one of the things that I see is two stories. We got a third one, a group of producers, whether they're larger or smaller dialed in. And they're doing, whether it's production, finance, operations management, calf raising. You name it, and they're doing a fairly well. And that combined with some of these government checks, we were probably having the best year they've had since 2014, I've got another set of producers, whether it was a weather circumstance, or just a circumstance in the industry, (11:41): those government checks were a nice cash flow and financial bridge. And that I would just have to say, as we close down 2020 and we start getting geared up for 2021, for all producers in the dairy industry, but also agriculture industry, what's life going to be like post government stimulus. And so I think we're going to have to have a proactive game plan there. And again, it's not going to be a magic silver bullet. It's going to be something of incremental success, which your company plays a big part. So that's 2020 in a nutshell. It's been not only a financial roller coaster but also emotional roller coaster. And remember this is all about behavioral economics, which drive 80% of all financial and economic decisions, whether it's the consumer or the business person.
Scott Sorrell (12:42):
Now, in your webinar, you talked a little bit about the black swan, and how it's going to accelerate change. What kind of changes do you see him forward?
Dr. David Kohl (12:51):
I’ll tell you, one of the things that I see is a change in what I would call information and technology. It’s just going to accelerate. And one of the elements there is just the information management and trying to become incrementally better. That's one of the accelerations. And the other acceleration is this whole thing of business value that I discussed during that webcast. I, I will say the decade of the 2020s will be about what I would call a business IQ. And the business IQ. It's just not finance and marketing, but it's that operational efficiency and being able to not only hear and understand, but execute a plan. We often call it the “hub principle.” And so I definitely see that element. The other element that I see accelerating is consumer. In other words, the consumer finally found out that agriculture is important.
Dr. David Kohl We had the shortage on the shelves. We had shortages of toilet paper, as part of that behavioral economics. And so just the consumer understanding of our agriculture industry, which they were taken for granted, is coming back up. And my biggest concern, I'm just going to be very blunt with you. I see the possibility of the big box stores...you know, whether it's Walmart or Target or Amazon, cannibalizing small business. And this is one of my major, major concerns here in the early part of the decade. So that trend is definitely accelerating. And we're just going to have to watch to see how that one plays out as we you know, close down some of our restaurants and, you know, small businesses establishments. I have a real concern there because small business and entrepreneurship built America, and it built the dairy industry, and it built agriculture.
Scott Sorrell (14:56):
So you'd mentioned technology and technology communications. And during our prep time, you gentlemen were talking about how that, how you guys have started adapting to that. Dr. James, can you expound on that just a bit?
Dr. Bob James (15:11):
Yeah. I would start out with, with a little bit on the business IQ and some of the points that Dr. Kohl made about that. And, and one of the things was advisory teams. I work with a very specialized component of a dairy business, which has to do with the raising of young calves. And that's, I think it's very unusual for producers to place that as a priority and that maybe that shows some of their vision for down the road. There's some big things that have, that have happened. I think in perspective there, that really has an impact but to talk about advisory teams, one of the real keys to success since I'm no longer able to travel to the farm is we've created some advisory teams and some key people are that are the veterinarians. And also some of their, maybe their industry support people that we have from, from agribusiness.
And we have monthly camp conference calls and that's been a transition. I think one of my least technology clients is now totally on board. And, and these are zoom or Google meet or whatever technology one cares to use, but seeing that person's face is, is just a real vital component of that. And I think is a vital component of that engagement. So we talk about technology. I'm also working with another company in, in Europe actually to establish an educational platform. They already have one in Europe. But as I watched that platform, it's a very different mindset than what we have here in North America. So it's, it's been fun working with their representative in Canada and also with, with the owners that are actually in Germany. And, and it's been, you know, it's been a neat, it's been a neat challenge.
Dr. Bob James (16:59):
And I know Dr. Kohl's had to adapt as well from being a very much of a, in your face type of a motivator to doing it with a different technology. And I, I, I think you can probably say this, I spun my wheels probably a fair amount in that first month or so. And in getting my mind shifted to this, this new technology. The other one, the last thing I'll mention is with a company in Germany. You know, I'm now able to monitor calf feeding equipment from my cell phone. I have a farm in Franklin County that just installed some automatic calf feeders. And I can, I can monitor everything on that farm with those feeders, just as well as being there, right from the convenience of my cell phone. And, and that technology changes are coming, you know, really pretty quickly. And it's, it's interesting to see the adoption of them.
Dr. David Kohl (17:56):
Yeah. And, and can I spin off Dr. James, his comments. We've done about 125 of these virtual presentations. I was very blessed with Alicia Morris, who is here. She's director of Farm Credit University, which we had a blended education program we were doing. We've gone more from just doing the stodgy webcasts to having it more interactive. And many of our programs were, were, are worldwide. Now are up in Canada and through polling and through chat boxes. And just, through these podcasts like this, it makes it relaxed. It makes it much more conversational. You just find that this element is really accelerating and it kind of reminds me of the old animal science professor that had a series of slides or different things like this. It was boring to death, same way with these webcasts, you have a series of slides and people.
We've got to get these companies to start thinking you know, beyond the 30 minute presentation or having dialogue like this, because people really enjoy hearing the experiences. The other thing, that to build upon Dr. James’ is comments. We've actually been able to do more in farm consulting because I don't have to be on an airline, et cetera, et cetera. And Dr. James said something that's very, very important: having like this video, you get to observe nonverbal communication, who's engaged, who's not engaged. And so one of the things that you can do is adjust out there. And so I really, I'm writing article right now: BTN (back to normal). And I'm actually looking at Leslie and Corey, looking back from 2030 back to 2020, you know, kind of. Julie, this is your future. And one of the things that there's not going to be a back to normal matter of fact as
Dr. James says, this has really accelerated and we'll have to get used to it. And he said, something else that is very, very important. Sometimes the least- the person you least expect to pick up on this technology picks up on this technology. And again, you have to adjust. And as Dr. James says, sometimes you're dealing with the owner, but sometimes you're dealing with that management team out there that is, you know, encompassed with the advisory team. And so what you got to do, you almost have to call it Peyton Manning, audible. You have to adjust on the fly.
Scott Sorrell (20:37):
And Jonathan, VP of the animal nutrition and health division for Balchem. What kind of changes have you seen both good and bad? The current situation...?
Jonathan Griffin (20:48):
I was really relating to the comments that Dr. James made about just the, the, the prevalence of the, the information age that we're in and how we're, we've got access to so much more real time data than ever before. I think that's been brought to the, certainly been brought to the surface more than ever in this, this period of time. You know, I agree that the interaction and the communication piece is, is I think going to be a real, real positive change for, for all industries. I'm curious for both of our guests though, you know, is there as we, as we get access to, to much more information, and, and whether it's data on monitoring calves in Germany, or, or monitoring performance of your sales team and your leadership organization. One, one challenge I'm seeing, and I would love to get our guest’s perspective is how we manage the, the challenge of data overload and taking it from data gathering to real decisions based on, on the data.
Dr. Bob James (21:55):
Yeah. If, if I can, I know Dave is excited about this. Let me just go first. And I call it getting lost in the weeds. And one of the things that I've done with my clients, and this is new, and, and I have something that's called a daily monitor that I've asked my clients to do. On dairies, typically calf feeding was at the bottom rung of, of things. And the first time the manager found out that, that they had a problem, maybe is when calves started dying. And so I have a daily monitor and I customize it by farm, but it's, for instance, one of the things that I asked for is tell me how many calves drank slowly this morning, or didn't drink in the afternoon. That's the first indication. That's just a little tick mark. So I've got little, one page, I call it a daily monitor.
And that goes to the farm manager. But to commu-, to facilitate communication, largely sometimes between Hispanics and an Anglo-manager. The other one we have is a walkthrough report. Anybody that visits the farm fills this out. One of my veterinarians actually put it on a Google forms. And so, and then he shares it with everybody as soon as he does it. And so we've really facilitated that communication. And I think made things a lot more efficient. That all got started actually with a farm in Australia and things worked so well, I actually got fired because they didn't need me anymore, you know. And I still get all the information from the farm and I'm on a project basis, but, Oh my gosh, this was a farm with three farms actually, with probably a total of about 15,000 cows. And, and just really it's really, it was pretty exciting. And because I had to do it in Australia because I was only there about once every six months.
Dr. David Kohl (23:38):
One of the things that you often say, and I've heard you say this, that your whole goal is to get fired, tell them about that.
Dr. Bob James (23:51):
Well, you know, and that that's success. And then you move on to the next to the next challenge. And I think sometimes we want it but don't want to leave our comfort zone. You can look at Dave and I, and we're no spring chickens. And I think one thing that we share is that we can't wait to get up for tomorrow. And the future is just really, really exciting.
Dr. David Kohl (24:14):
And I'll add to Dr. James’ points. I got two things, particularly when I'm working with lenders. You know, whether it's a dairy business or other agriculture businesses, the whole bar napkin approach. And snippets, you know, we get this information overload. And if you can't explain something very simply on a bar napkin, it's too complex. And, and remember the Babe Ruth, the rule of three, no more than three components. You start getting more than three components and it becomes overwhelming. And, and you see Dr. James and myself, we've been able to actually to do a lot more because we don't have to be on an airline or we don't have to be driving, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm not saying we're going to go all that way, but I think it's going to be called the hybrid, the blended. I think it's really going to accelerate consultation and accelerate expertise. The other element I think is very, very important. And Dr. James alluded to this he develops he, you know, KPIs, key performance indicators. Whether they're subtle or they're hard key performance indicators so that each day they're out there, you know, kind of monitoring those, and that facilitates that communication. That's what I have to do with the lenders out there as they work with dairy folks. And, and, and again, show them the benefits of those. Dr. Bob?
Dr. Bob James (25:48):
I think this thing’s where I'm getting lost in the weeds. This is one of the real interesting things with the, with the company in Germany, they have, they have the automatic calf feeders. And so the amount of data that they have generated is totally overwhelming. And we're actually getting ready to do a machine learning project here. It's starting at Virginia Tech where, and that's some of the neat new technology where we can look at all that data and determine: what are the key things that are really important and what do we need to look at and what do we not need to look at? And I think that's something that's just really exciting, and we're on the real cusp of, I think of some, some achievements there in in, in doing that. Cause I can use this right now, and I look at some key things and I can actually get on the phone to the farm and say to them, “Hey, what's going on here? You've got some things starting to head South,” and they may not even be aware of it. And I think these are some, the things that a consultant can do virtually that can really make the use of our time very efficient.
Dr. David Kohl (26:52):
Yeah. And that's one of the things, when I guest lectured both in the dairy senior management and the ag tech’s senior management classes, I, I gave some genome testing that we had done on some heifers, both theory and over on the beef side. And it was so interesting. I just threw the data and I, hey, pretend I know nothing about this. Just getting the students to communicate with me and all that. They were Googling this and Googling that. And I say, great! Talk to me. And it was really fun to get them to critically think about the data, but more fun watching how they were communicating with me. And I've got to talk to Dr. Alex. Dr. Alex White teaches over there. It'd be really good to have them do it virtually, kind of like what we're doing today, that communication is, is such a key type of element. And so that's, with your teams, we're going to have to transform this communication aspect.
Dr. Bob James (27:55):
We've been, we've been talking more than ever about dashboards. And, and really to your point, you know, consolidating that data and prioritizing the data that's most important, whether it's on an operational basis, whether it's at the manufacturing plant or at the dairy farm, or even from a larger strategic perspective, how well is the organization advancing its strategic goals and it's in all the activities that support those goals and, and, and really, you know, looking at it from a, a more coordinated monitoring perspective. So I think that that aligns with what you're saying,
Dr. David Kohl (28:34):
And, and by the way, we'll probably, we're going to be on a call into, to New York City where we're looking at this, we call it predictive type analytics out here. And what you've got to do, you've got, gotta break down like Dr. James, then you got your daily aspects. Maybe you've got your monthly aspects, your quarterly aspects, and then your annual aspects, you kind of put them in those type of buckets. And sometimes the daily and the monthly will flow into, you know, the annual type of business planning aspect. That's the thing that, you know there was a famous professor at Virginia Tech, Dr. Bill Ekin, and that's one of the things in his way in the 1980s, he was teaching us how to do that you know, on the dairy farm. So be thinking of your various buckets, but you got to have that daily or monthly bucket to keep the owner and the managers engaged.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (29:34):
I'm curious with both of you, if you were advising a freshman at Virginia tech right now that wanted to go into the dairy industry, what, what advice would you give them?
Dr. Bob James (29:43):
I, I advised students for many years and I advised Clay. I think one of the real strengths we had in our department that I really loved. And I served on a lot of university committees, probably I think somewhere between a quarter and a third of our courses were what we called restricted electives. And, and all that had to be was a course that had some, some substance to it. I, you know, I had students who, who dual minored in English and dairy science. Oh, it's horrible. No, you know, that fella’s still milking cows down in Southwest Virginia. Probably my, my greatest pleasure was, and I just found this out last week, is that I had a student and she was, she what they call interdisciplinary studies. So she minored in dairy science, political science, and maybe communication.
She's now in charge of milk procurement for Nestle and lives in Veve, Switzerland. She might've been a classmate of Clay's. I'm not sure. But you know, some, some students that are very adaptable. I think we worry all about, too much about meeting these requirements for our major. And there are some key things, you know, one of my advisors in graduate schools said, take the fewest classes that you can and spend the rest of the time at the library. Well, when Dave and I went to graduate school, there wasn't the internet. And so he said, just read, and I think that's, that's the real key to, to success.
Dr. David Kohl (31:14):
And, and can I share with you, can I come back to Cornell? Of course, I earned my master's and doctorate at Cornell. And, and one of the things that they suggested take three courses completely out of the discipline. And I took Carl Sagan's astronomy course. Took Rod Serling’s short course, creator of the Twilight zone. And then I took a course in nonverbal communication. I'll tell you what, all three of those expanded my horizon. Matter of fact, the problem is with universities. This is going to change. Now, they get into too much silo-education. And I really feel that the university degree is obsolete. I see it as a a number of certificates in each in various areas. And you kind of develop your own portfolio, and the portfolio doesn't stop. If you graduate from Cornell or UConn or Virginia tech, it's kind of a lifelong portfolio that's going to be developed.
Actually, I'm writing some articles on this one right now, and it keeps it energized. And, I often tell students two or three things get a little bit of bio, get a little bit of business economics, but Bob said something: communication. And that's not only oral communication, but it's listening and nonverbal communication is real critical. And then they have to critically think about the data. You can Google anything, but being able to critically think, and then communicate that data, and having that type of balance. That would be my advice for that freshmen. But my advice for that freshmen, and I know Dr. James, is onboard with this. I'd like to have him get a couple of internships and maybe possibly one outside the United States. That's one of the things about dairy science, or when Dr. James was here, they'd take trips to Europe. Remember that time we were at the airport- you were about to leave for Europe and you had all the students and those students today will still talk about that. So yeah.
Dr. Bob James (33:29):
I took 53 students to Spain one year. That was my last trip that I did. And, you know, we didn't have one issue with a student, not one. And let, turned them loose in Madrid for the day, turned them loose and in Barcelona for the day. And, and just, you know, I don't think I've enjoyed an experience any more in my life than, than some of those trips. But that's something that's taught me a lot, has been some of the global consulting that I've done. And the Australia experience was just here recently was, was an excellent one, but each one of those I've, I've gained a real appreciation for, for the global situation.
Dr. David Kohl (34:09):
And, you know, while I was at Virginia tech, one thing I really appreciated was having the students from dairy science, animal science, horticulture,in my ag finance, my problem solving class. And sometimes they would complain ,”Well, well this is not a dairy case,” or, “This is not an animal science case.” I give them a horticulture case because again, I wanted to give the universal type of concepts and principles that would work with any business. And I wanted to get them out of their silos. This is one of the biggest problems we have in business and industry today is too many silos. And by the way, they're not horizontal.
Dr. Bob James (34:51):
While we’re talking about those silos. And I think that's a challenge in the U.S.. You know, we had the Midwest, the West, Southeast, the Northeast, and, and we have a program in GPS it's called “Next-Gen,” but it's looks at, at, at training the next generation. And, but we need to get, you know, our, our folks. And that was one of the neat things is that at Virginia Tech, we had students usually from 13 different states and they learned an awful lot from each other, an awful lot from each other. But as getting away from some of that compartmentalization in the U S and it's gotten better, but it's still a problem. It's still a challenge.
Dr. David Kohl (35:30):
Yeah. And one of the things I enjoyed about my Cornell education was that I was exposed to students from all over the world and still have a number of friends. And that was way back in the seventies! And and again, these, the university education is going to be turned upside down. You watch this and there's nothing wrong with vocational and technical school- I want everybody to hear that. And sometimes you get those technical skills and then you can come back in and you know, take your psychology, take some of your other courses while you're working, you can apply it. And so experiential based education is going to be one of the elements of the 2020s. Gee, look out, you're talking to two educators. See what happens.
Dr. Bob James (36:19):
I want to hear Clay talk. So tell me a little bit about your experiences. What was the most important for you?
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (36:25):
I will tell you first, it's quite a pleasure for me to have two, two of my mentors here from my undergraduate experience. Definitely taking a broad-based approach to education. So you advised me to do that. I took a lot of, a lot of agronomy and ag econ classes, you know, getting outside of there. You know I actually started off as an animal science major. So Dr. James, he recruited me in that, into the department and the, the dairy industry class that I took as a freshmen.
Dr. Bob James (37:00):
Yeah. What classes did you take outside of the college?
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (37:03):
Outside of what was required... I'm trying to think now that's the, this is a long time ago.
Dr. Bob James (37:09):
You take Bud Robertson's Civil War History?
Dr. Clay Zimmerman :
Yeah. Yup.
Dr. Bob James :
Probably the best teacher I've ever encountered in my life. Amazing guy
Dr. David Kohl (37:20):
And Dr. James, he could just make it come to life. Goodness. Yep.
Dr. Bob James (37:23):
300 students. Non-Required class. 300 students and it was tough, right, Clay, right? It was not an easy class.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (37:32):
Yeah. Probably the biggest thing I took at the time actually was, cause this was brand new back then. I took the first PC class. The first computing class, computer class at Virginia Tech. Yeah. Right. I mean the, the PC had just come out then. Yeah. Obviously, something I use all the time now.
Dr. David Kohl (37:54):
Yeah. And by the way, can I break in here? I, I guest lectured Dr. Alex Flights the other day, and I just asked the students, okay, what's two or three things that you'll learn? And I'm an outsider. Every one of those students said, spreadsheet skills. Spreadsheet skills, and it just made Alex's day. Because that, I don't care what endeavor you have. Spreadsheet skills are very, very critical. The lady over on the other side here, she learned that from Dr. Mcguilier and let's put it this way. It's just a great skill.
Scott Sorrell (38:36):
Dr. Cole, you mentioned you took a class called the Twilight Zone, I think. And it reminded me of a question that, that I kind of came up with when, when, when Jonathan was talking about dashboards, right? Dashboards are built for humans to read and interpret. But you know, as we talk about technology, how soon is it going to be the humans aren't going to be required to interpret dashboards and make decisions, right? We've got, we've got super computers like Watson today that, that that's gonna maybe obsolete MDs.
Dr. David Kohl (39:07):
There’s actually a Twilight zone program on that. You are obsolete. And I actually go back because Rod Serling used to smoke four packs of cigarettes a day. He was only five-foot-four. He lived near Ethica- I don't know if you knew that. And so he would guest lecture at Cornell and up at the college. Here is my danger, supposedly by about 2030, this AI is gonna think, you know, beyond the human being. I was in north of Los Angeles last year with a guy talking about that. The more that we go in that direction, the more vulnerable we become. And this is one of my big concerns. That technology makes us more vulnerable, and you have to use what I call asynchronous strategy. The asynchronous strategy is you have to humanize it. And I, I really feel that if we do not have human interpretation, we will open up dark sides. We've never seen before. Okay. And this is me speaking December 17, 2020 old father be, you know, in history. But that's what will create a black Swan and it will bring the, your developed and advanced countries right to their knees.
Dr. Bob James (40:31):
Yeah. I would agree with that. And I guess one of the things that I do in my consulting, I was visiting my clients four times a year and the Australians twice a year. And, you know, and that's a pretty sizable investment to fly down there for, for, you know, essentially it's been two weeks. But anyway, one of the things, and I realized that with this, I still need to visit the farm. And because one of the key things that I do is with the calves. I said, I want to be there about an hour before the people show up, because I want to watch the behavior of the people. And I want them to relate to me as a, as a person other than just on the screen in front of them. Because there, there are still things that you cannot capture electronically. And, and I think that's the, that's the key thing. You look at what Dr. Cole does. He gets to understand the personality of the people that he's dealing with, with the company. And, and I think it still takes some of that personal interaction that you see. There are still some things that we, that we can't capture that we really can't capture and we can't appreciate by looking at totally at the data.
Dr. David Kohl (41:44):
Yeah. And, and that is going to create what I call a niche market. And you know, some of these big companies think they're going to have all the predictive analytics and that's gonna, you know, solve all the world's problems. But your little niche companies are gonna do what Dr. James says, they're gonna do these other things that will set them apart. And remember, if I can recommend a reading, it waso an old reading we had to have back in grad school. It was Mega Trends by John Nesbitt. And Nesbit basically says, though, in that book, the more you go high tech, the more you got to have high touch. And, and you've got to have that high, that nice blended type of approach, if not, you cannibalize yourself.
Scott Sorrell (42:33):
That kind of brings us kind of full circle. One of the first comments we made, right. Making sure that as we utilize technology, and the human touch, and being able to see each other and interact that, that, that's very interesting. Folks, I just heard him call last call. So what, what are a couple things that the listening audience should take away from our conversation this day? Or perhaps some things that we haven't touched on and what are a couple of things that producers or nutritionists can implement immediately after listening to this and I'll start with Dr. James.
Dr. David Kohl (43:05):
Yeah. And Dr. James, you hit one now let's just go back and volleyball, just like the sky club in Atlanta.
Dr. Bob James (43:13):
One of the things I looked at was were some of the things on the business IQ. And I said, wow, that's pretty neat. Well, I realized that I had the same thing. I have a document that I send out to prospective clients, and it's, it's essentially asking them to score what they're doing. And, and I think that's something that's something that's really, that's very critical to understand with the client. We've already talked about the advisory team’s risk management. You know, I work with, with calves and quite frankly, that's risk management, but down the road. And what we've learned with, with the calf is that how we treat this animal in the first 60 days has a huge impact on things down the road. It's a, it's a present expense and it's a future benefit. And sometimes that's a very difficult concept to get across to a dairy producer because they're looking at paying the bills today. They're looking at paying those bills today. And so I find this really exciting and with, with tremendous potential financially, but also tremendous potential educationally. And I guess that's what kind of ticks my box a little bit.
Dr. David Kohl (44:25):
And, you know, Clay, you asked me a question the other day you know like on business IQ, compare it to the older generation, the younger generation. I put younger under 45, older over 45. And you know, when I look at the older generation, I got the 30-40-30 rule. In other words, on the business IQ: oh, I have about 30%, that'll be above a 35 score. And many of them will be down 28, or less than 28. And you know, what the common denominator is?0 They think in those silos, they think independent rather than interdependent. And the second thing is the equity makes them play a prevent defense like we do in football. In other words we've got the equity. We don't have to do the incremental steps that gives us profitability and financial liquidity. But then when I look at the younger generation, this were Dr. Bob and I get excited. I will apply that business IQ and I have the 50-30-20 rule. 50% of them will usually score out 35 and above, and you know why they have to, because they're carrying a lot of financial leverage. They have to report to someone else. I had a dairy farmer a couple of years back. I say, keep a little debt around because you gotta be accountable to someone else.
Dr. David Kohl (45:50):
It makes all the difference out there. And they know the importance of using an advisory team. They know the interdependence aspect. And so that business IQ, it's not going to be universal across the board. And that's where I see a lot of hope coming out. Hey, I'll volley back to you, Dr. Bob.
Dr. Bob James (46:11):
Well, I think the other one, we talk about risk management and this is something we really haven't dealt with, but that's consumer attitudes, you know, and I tell my clients, particularly the younger generation, I said, what do you want me to be doing five years from now, 10 years from now? He said, I want to be milking cows. And I said, well, what's going to happen five or 10 years from now. And, and some of the things that I talk about may make them uncomfortable, but, you know, I I'll use as an example, we can look at, at a whole field full of, you know, and I've, I've worked with big calf ranches. I've worked with big dairies and I can look at 5,000 calf hutches and say, and they're beautiful. They're very, very well maintained. Everything is immaculate. Success is tremendous, but when you show that to a consumer, they say, Oh, there's a dad-gum factory farm.
Dr. Bob James (46:58):
And one of your speakers Dr. Vaughn Kaiserlink, I think is just, she just really, really nailed it. And I applaud Alchem for having her on the program, but we've got to be the leaders of that. And, and really, I think engaging with consumers, you know, I I'd say one of the things I say is when they look at those large farms, I said, you know, I have somebody in the maternity shed, 24 hours a day, I say, would you like to go to a hospital where somebody checks out at five o'clock and they're not back eight o'clock the next morning? And I said, there's two sides to every story. And so, what I think we need to be wary and very aware of consumer issues and be prepared for that. The other one is environmental. And I think be prepared to be leaders instead of followers on that. And there are some real opportunities there. And so those are some things that, that I think that we need to be prepared for some, long-term what I call risk management.
Dr. David Kohl (47:57):
And Dr. Bob I’ll spin right off on that one there. I think particularly environmental, I think on my deal, I talked about soil health and water health, and what you're going to see, that's going to accelerate here in the decade of the 2020s. And this is the way you can bring your coastal populations together you know, with the fly-over states. What we're seeing is a little bit of the de-urbanization occurring now. And so I think there's a good story, and you're going to see payments for you know, whether it's carbon sequestion or those elements are gonna come along. And so some of our dairy businesses need to be in a position to be able to capitalize on it. And it's good stewardship. And then that is a nice story back to what Dr. James says, it's back to the consumer.
I'll tell you one thing, being involved with this business right here, it's 20 years now. That consumer is changing. For example, when COVID broke out, you ought to try to get glass bottles back. It was let's put it this way. It put us in a pitch yeah, we've we had built our business model off glass, the consumers like it, but we're going to have to diversify into plastic a little bit. We found out that people used ice cream as a comfort food. And no, they did! Ice cream sales were up. Right now I was just doing figures this morning on egg nog and custard. And we're probably about 10% ahead of last year. Again, being able to flow with that type of consumer, being able to tell the story is very, very critical.
And to Dr. James’ point. You know, everyone asks, well, is it just going to be big dairies out in the future? One thing I learned from Dr. Aiken and he often said, this, it's not one size that fits all, and you can be successful anywhere, you know, within that type of industry. I see it kind of bifurcate, we'll see some wires and then you'll see some smalls, you know, do some of this niche here, but being agile enough to adjust to those consumer trends out there and that consumer trend of younger people. And I talk about, this is one of the things that really kind of baffles me sometimes in the United States. We're too old minded thinking all the way from the political spectrum, right to the leadership right on down through, and engaging the young people. I think we've got a great story to tell on the consumer side to our youngsters out there. Well, I'm getting close to time. I've got to head to New York City!
Scott Sorrell (50:51):
And it's a, this has been a real treat gentlemen, and I appreciate you stopping by to spend some time with us this evening. I hope we get to do it again. So, so thank you. Both Dave and Bob, and I want to thank our loyal listeners for stopping by once again, to spend some time with us here at the Real Science Exchange. Remember if you liked what you heard drop us a five-star rating on the way out, also hit the subscribe button. So you'll receive the alerts to future podcasts. And if you're so inclined to glowing reviews are always welcome. Our scientific conversations continue at the real science lecture series, a webinar series. And I want to thank Dr. Bob for the, the promotion there. Dr. Vaughn Kaiserlinks talk is available along with all the other past topics at balcombeanh.com/realscience . And you get all the upcoming and past events there. And so we hope to see you next time here at the Real Science Exchange, where it's always happy hour, and you're always among friends.