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Louisiana Farm Bureau is constantly working protect and promote Louisiana's farmers, ranchers, and rural residents. This podcast exists to share stories of those farmers with interviews about their farms and issues important to them. Here, we will also share about the work Farm Bureau is doing on their behalf on issues related to public policy from the parish level all the way to the halls of Congress in D.C.
Hey, everybody, welcome to the Louisiana Farm Bureau podcast. I'm your host, Karl Wiggers Wiggers. And today, I've got a full house with me, Joe Mapes, David Mains, Avery Davidson. They're all here in the house, and we are a couple weeks into session. Louisiana legislative session has been underway for a couple of weeks, and we wanted to kind of see where things are.
So that's why we have Joe and David here. And Avery is here because he's our in-house politics nerd. And I'll say that because I can. And it's not untrue. And nobody's going to argue it. Not at all. So, I guess first, though, Joe, you've been on the podcast before. Avery has been here plenty. David, you're you're the new face here.
Tell us who you are and where are you from?
I'm from Sabine Parish, so I'm the parish president for our local Farm Bureau Federation board. And I've been a poacher farmer for about 28 years. And I've kind of transitioned over into commercial hay and
do you have any cattle or anything?
Not right now. We've actually sold and and we're kind of waiting for the market to kind of settle again. But I don't know how long that's going to be. Yeah. So we'll be in production until then.
Hay production, land ownership. So you're a landowner, correct. That's going to be that's going to be relevant here in a few minutes. And we start talking about this. You're you're in Baton Rouge today because you wanted to come and just see what's going on in the in the big pointy building. Joe likes to call it. Is that correct?
Yes. Joe invited me to come down and spend the day with him and be in the capital and observe what's going on in the session right now. And so I took him up on it, came down to spend the day with him.
Nice,
David. That's a dangerous thing, to go to the capital and spend it with Joe. You never know what's going to get said. Who you going to bump into and what issues are going to get covered. That's right.
And I will tell you, it ain't over yet, David, because I'm sitting here thinking, once we go back to the rotunda and hang out and, you know, talk to some people, I didn't tell you. We've got a crawfish boil after that for the cade and a delegation. And that's part of the job, too.
You know, man, you got a really tough job.
You know, you jest. But seriously, how many crawfish boils you want to go to in one night? How many fundraisers you want to go to in one week or in one year? It's a to me, it's an occupational hazard. Having to go to all these social events. It's serious.
Depends Joe. Because if the fundraisers are for me, well then I will go to every single one of them as I'm getting right.
As long as your name is spelled, correctly, right.
Cash.
All right. So. So we're talking to legislature. What is going on in that building? I feel like it's been all over the news. What's happening down there right now? I mean, what was kind of the the lay of the land down there?
And one of the big ones is carbon sequestration. And I think that's why we asked David to sit in with us today, because we all have our own perspective on that. But here he is. Not, you know, active in this process and seeing how they talk about landowners and see how they talk about issues that affect landowners.
So I'd really like to hear what you have to say about, you know, carbon capture and sequestration. After sitting in committee and listening to only two bills being discussed.
That's correct. You know, they they opened with Senator Reese out of his bill and he got it through pretty quickly. And and then House Bill forward with, Representative Choko. And they were still there at lunch time, you know, and they weren't even close to being done debating his bill. And, you know, property rights had a very important thing, you know, and I don't I think a lot of people are uninformed on this issue right now.
And, that's partly why I wanted to see what's going on, is to try to get more aware of what the real issues are. And it just seems like that people don't realize the the effects it could have long term.
Are you all having folks up in Sabine Parish, or are you all hearing of projects related to this, like in your area, or is it just I know it's.
There is some talk, you know, Vernon Parish, you know, they're they're definitely in talks of having some there and they're actively opposing it. And so Sabine has had some talks but I don't know I don't know if it's as close as they are in some areas to having it.
And Joe, when before we came on the podcast we were talking. There are 25 bills dealing with carbon capture in this session.
Yes, and that's a great point. They're not all of the same, matter, subject matter. So some will be in regard to legal matters pertaining to carbon capture and sequestration. Others will be into the permitting and jurisdiction, like House Bill four you were talking about a minute ago, Chuck Owens bill.
Yeah. What does that do? What this House bill.
For right now, the authority to make the decisions for permitting of an injection well is done by the state. This would push it down that authority to the parish level. And so and the thinking there is that the people in the parish know their land and property better, than you know, the state would. And I would agree with that.
So that's what that bill does. Another big one that Farm Bureau is supporting is the chairman, Brett Diamond's bill, chairman and Natural Resources committee in the House, which says that if eminent domain rights are to be used, privileges are to be used. It's 98% of the land owner signatures have to be obtained before that. And so that's a good bill for us.
Let me ask you all this, as anyone that probably will listen to a podcast with me and Joe Mapes on it, I'm the dummy in the room, and I'm okay with that. What in the world? Come on. Injection.
Well, you know, the, actually, I had that thought while we were still and quick and dirty on what is carbon capture and sequestration. Okay, they build these $800 million federal, federally subsidized plants, that process, quote unquote, processed carbon. Well, it's kind of a misnomer because what they're doing is they're they're allegedly capturing the carbon from an exhaust, stack, for example.
And in there is particulate matter, which is toxic material. And then they put it through this processing plant, and then they eject it alleged one mile down into the ground, okay, one mile down, because a lot of your aquifers are 5000ft, which is a mile or even 10,000ft, but they were injecting them down one mile into the ground.
The purpose of storing. Now, here's the catch. This on the other end of the processing, the carbon is shot back into the air. I thought that the carbon was the bad stuff. Okay, but now let's talk about and, requirements. Emissions requirements that these companies have, you know, that's what this is all about. They have emissions requirements with the federal government.
They have to meet by a certain date. And if they get X amount of particulates out and carbon out, then they get points, carbon points in this another, the what we were all told is that this stuff would be shot down into the ground a mile down or so, and that it would form a hard nodule, like, almost like a calcium carbonate, not nodule around it.
And it would never break. But then it did. And so that's why we're back here at the legislature talking about how we can corral this. And I think the biggest problem right now, Avery, is what you mentioned. If you've got 25 bills, if they were all on the same path, fine. But these are all going in so many different directions.
Each company has their own lobbyist. There's no association. There's no, you know, amalgamation of efforts. It's all just like the wild, wild West, just like solar. If you want to segue into that, well.
I want to go back to asking real quick. So this is like kind of a I guess I don't want to not get too political about it, but the the Green New Deal type stuff where everybody's trying to get net like net zero carbon. Yeah, that's what this part is. Yeah. Okay.
And so, you know if you believe in that and you know, fine. But here's the thing I think most people don't understand, this was brought in, carbon capture and sequestration by the previous administration. Okay. Which is now the current administration. So Trump brought this in in I think it was October of 2020 before Biden took over because he wanted to get credit for it.
So you need if you understand that, you understand that whether you believe carbon sequestration, carbon capture and sequestration is real or not, it's here to stay. Okay? So we better deal with it. We better put some guardrails on it. We better address attached issues like eminent domain.
Yeah. And there's science I.
Want to bring up.
Okay. Go ahead. I was just going to ask real quick is this that I'm assuming this is science based? We're not just that.
That's a great question. And is the the science. That's the great question with with having multiple definitions of science, I don't think science means much anymore. That being said, you know, they have their own definition, you know.
So based on some, some study and some research, this is a, I guess a good way to handle.
This is the only way to handle it, because it's here to stay and you've got to look, if you're a landowner, you've got to look at it from that perspective and say, hey, can we live with this? Or if you're a farmer, same thing from every industry and profession that's affected by it, they're going to have to have their own take on it because again, there is no, coalition.
There's just a bunch of companies with lobbyists.
Twice now, Joe, you brought up, you as a damn lobbyist has brought up eminent domain, and I'm going to play Carl's role. What is eminent domain? And why should David Maines be concerned about that?
Well, eminent domain is not a person. It's actually a legal, provision that says that, you know, you have a right, basically to go through certain pieces of property to access or perform your duties.
So if it's something like for the greater public good, yes. If you don't want to give up your land, well, the, the government or an agency with.
The.
Right of land.
Track going down when the, when the railroad was land track going west, they want to say, I want to go through your front yard because we got to go through a straight line here and they would offer you a certain amount. And if you didn't accept it, they'd shoot you. But then they put the railroad straight through anyway.
One way or the other. They were called the, regulators, the people that would come around and offer you the money. But it's the same principle. It's in some cases, the government is able to take people's land by first off, say, look, we have a need. Demonstrate it for the public good. You know, we're going to offer you money, a fair value for your house based on this.
And and if you don't take it, then they have the right to go through your property or take your property for the for the public need for the public greater good.
So here in that David, what are your concerns as a landowner.
So not having control, you know, we don't know what will happen. You know, and that's that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to figure out where is this going. You know what? What are the long term effects, you know, from these issues.
Yeah. In your case, you're growing hay on your land. Who's to say that you won't there won't be an accident under the ground. And could you possibly you lose use of that land.
Well, correct. And also your groundwater, you know, you know if you have wells, irrigation wells, you have domestic wells for drinking water, those all can be affected by these issues.
Even a cattle farmer could be affected. So once that stuff gets down in there in the lakes, there's sideways rivers underground that migrate, you know, such things so they could go under adjacent property owners come up and the cattle could be eating on the grass that's now infected, you know, by the, leaked injection.
This is kind of making me feel like it's a little bit of, I'm not going to say it's fake news or anything, but it feels very, sci fi, and I'm not. I'm not a smart man, but this is kind of what, like, it's hard to wrap your head around this kind of stuff. Does. Are there folks given testimony around House, like the Jossie people this morning that are explaining breaking this down, or is it just very confusing for lawmakers that are the ones going to be deciding this?
What about what you said about this? So confusing. They should bring it down to the to the vote of the people. Isn't that what you told when they said it?
I think it's both ways, you know, because
one of the representatives asked a question, you know, if if this is a great issue, then bring it to the people and, and if they believe that, then they'll buy in and everything will be okay. But don't let the legislatures make the decision for all of the people is what they're asking.
I mean, and because it's such a complex issue, I mean we're talking about things that you know, you're bringing up climate because that's in there initially what that was related to trying to capture carbon out of the air to reduce carbon in the atmosphere, to affect climate. Regardless of what you think about that, that's one area that's kind of gray for some people.
The other is what happens once you go underground. I mean.
That's the $60 question.
Wow, we can do lots with, you know, seismology and with, you know, sonic radar images.
Yeah.
Imaging underground. You still don't know until after you drill that. Well, what if there's a fissure there that you don't know about and things start to leak another way? So I think that there's just so many unknowns and so many variables that even the experts, I don't I don't know that anyone can give definitive answers on much of this.
And again, I'm I'm a newbie at this. So please, you know, if you want in the comments, flame me or whatever. You know you torch me, but I just I kind of think of it the same way in which I do meteorology. You know, I there's so many variables there, it's almost impossible to predict what's going to happen next.
That's right.
You compared it. You said it's like the Wild West, Joe. You said the same thing. I feel like we've said the same thing about solar. And you mentioned that there's a similar kind of parallel discussion there with solar. Are there anything is there anything moving in that direction? That Farm Bureau is also involved in denial.
And so I won't make you all ask me the question. You know, we didn't have regulations on the oil and gas industry in 1913, in Louisiana when it began. And we're dealing with orphan wells still today. That damage the environment and that kill and injure humans that come upon them, you know, out in the woods or out in the swamp and don't know what they are.
So we know that that doesn't work. Not having regulation on such a huge industry. And solar is growing exponentially every day, not just in Louisiana but in every state. So we want some guard we be. And landowners like David here. But, you know, business owners, there's this there's all kinds of people. I mean, residents, you don't want to wake up in the morning and look straight at a solar panel, you know?
So there's setbacks is like one of the main things that that is in Brett Diamond's bills. He's he's got a one. He's the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee. And he actually called me after we were in Kiawah, and I was in an 8.5 hour meeting one day on solar. And he says, what do you think about me filing a bill to regulate solar?
I said, you be in the chair of the oil and Gas committee, which a lot of times, or sometimes at least he's on opposite sides, the landowners on the issues. I said, you be in the chair. It would be huge. I said, I think if anybody's got the opportunity to bring people, gather them around the table, you know, for such a piece of legislation, it would be you.
And so here's my prediction. You've we had four bills come out of his committee the other day. Two were by Kim Coates, and they're kind of related to his bill if his bill passes. And then we had his bill and then another, I can't remember what it was, but, in Brett's bill, we've got a one mile setback.
And your typical setback is like 250ft, 300.
One mile.
Setback. So, so, so, so if you're driving down the interstate, like, or if you're driving down the road up in Washington Parish or over here in West Baton Rouge, and you drive through what used to be a sugarcane field right now on both sides of the road, all you see is what looks like something from the Terminator movie, like an industrial wreckage park or something.
You see solar panels going through there. So a setback would be something like some foliage or something nice between the solar panels and the road. So you don't see that mess when you're going down the road, or when you're a neighbor, when you're a resident and you wake up. There's one guy that this is not funny, but he they put he had 2 or 4 different landowners on all four sides.
He is now encased by solar panels and he can't look out of his house. He sees solar panels, all four. But so that's sort of set back is to you know, I tell people this, and I've told this to the solar industry, if y'all want to just had to set the loggers clear cut stuff on the side of the interstate, but nobody's griping about the loggers because they leave a 500ft stand of trees between the drivers and the, clear cut area, and but solar doesn't want to do that.
But. And then I'm going to tell you this, but they want to be right up next to the services because the access, well, they'll have to build the road and maintain that road. If it's a mile back, they have to build a one mile road and maintain that. Yeah. But and then they have to have all the electricity and water and everything else run back there.
They want to be right there on the next to the road.
Now with solar, I know in in previous, session bills were passed concerning the decommissioning. Yes.
That's another one.
Of those same concerns there for the carbon capture and sequestration. Is there anything that's impossible?
Nobody's asked that.
But yeah.
What about that?
Obviously, if you have some kind of deposit there or an escrow for decommissioning, I don't know. David. You as a landowner, would you be concerned about if if they have a lease and then the company folds? Well, who's responsible for the, quote unquote, clean up or bringing it back to the to its natural state?
Absolutely. And in a normal condition is like a saltwater injection. Well, yes. If they abandoned it has to be plugged, segmented, you know, and that's a big expense, you know, so that yeah, that would be.
What they have to be, zoned differently, you know, like because like with solar, if you're going to put a solar compound on your ag land, you're going to let go of your agricultural use value tax and switch it to a commercial tax. And my question is always been there 20 years, 30 years from now, when you do decommission your solar compound, do you get your agricultural use that value tax status back or not?
And nobody knows because we haven't been here messing with solar that long.
Well, and and is there an agricultural value to that land after it's all decommissioned?
That's a good point too. And I think decommissioning answers is a big part of that question, because you take the panels off the property, which I would hope you would, because there's all kinds of stuff inside that you don't want seeping down into your water, in your ground.
All right. All this is kind of making me, I don't know, terrified. A little bit of all the science that's going on. I did not do good and do well in chemistry or English or. Or good. Yeah, well.
I didn't let me oversimplify it for you. It's all about money.
I know money is all about money.
Maha.
The Make America Healthy again.
Make America Healthy again. That's a big thing that's making its way into Louisiana. And every other state, I feel like I feel like everybody's, adopting, a lot of, I guess maybe red states are adopting a lot of these Make America Healthy Again type of agenda items. And that's clearly made to Louisiana. What's going on there with that?
Well, the original bill, made it.
So what is the original bill?
The original bill is a Make America Healthy again. And it's by, you know, it's designed to change different regulations, like atrazine, for example, which is an herbicide used on sugarcane here in Louisiana. And the number one most exported herbicide, exported herbicide in America. The original bill said that atrazine, if it was used on the product, sugar cane or whatever, any product that's part of the component of the main product, it would have to say that that atrazine was an ingredient that and then that's not actually true.
Atrazine was used in the process, but it's not an ingredient where they poured it in for the final product.
Right? We don't we don't eat atrazine.
Right? We don't eat atrazine. And another concern in the bill was, you know, soda drinks, you know, they want to, I think RFK Jr, who's pushing the mile high bill that we're discussing nationwide, I think he would like to see, you know, no sugar drinks on, you know, school campuses for public schools and maybe juice drinks in place of that.
And then the other thing, go ahead. I was going.
To say food dyes as well. Another.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's a no dyes.
You want to get those out and then the seed oils, he's big you know, saying that seed oils are bad for you. And so, and working with the, the chairman and I can't take credit for this, but I know that the American Sugar Cane League, worked with the chairman and got atrazine taken out of the bill.
But but I believe the bill is supposed to be discussed tomorrow. And I'm not sure if RFK junior is coming down here or not. But, Carl, you know, you mentioned something about state bills. It's interesting to note there is no one model piece of legislation that is being used by those red states. Each one has been told, customize your own package.
And I'm going to predict they all fail, because the federal government has probably got this all planned out. And when they all fail at the state level, they can come in at the last second, like Charles Manson was going to come up from the ground, you know, and say, I got the plan to save everybody, right? So that's kind of what I'm thinking.
So those are the major bills if you want to call them that. I know Patrick McMath, Senator Patrick Madigan.
Chairman of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee and and the primary.
One and then Blake migas had one as well.
And his is controversial because his he wants to take all processed foods and dyes out of public schools. And that's got people more upset than, than, the chairman's bill.
Well, you know, when you talk about these sorts of things, obviously we in agriculture want everyone to be healthy. We want everyone to have access to healthy food. The problem with that, to some degree, is in in a lot of cases, healthy food is not the cheapest and it's also not the most accessible.
That's what I was about to say.
Some plants, food deserts don't it.
Yes. That's right. You got the ninth Ward down in in New Orleans. I think they still don't have one single grocery store in there. And you go into a convenience store and they're not going to they might have a banana or two, but they don't have healthy choices available to them. And then if they did, they can't afford.
Them. But it's not just New Orleans. I bet Sabine Parish, they have a lot of, food deserts.
What are your thoughts on this day that I mean, you know, we're talking about it, but I mean, you're out there in Sabine Parish, and you know, you live it every day. There. What are you hearing from? From your fellow farmers around there?
I haven't really been involved in any discussion on that lately, but obviously it I mean, it's something we need to be aware of, you know? I mean, obviously, the the kids at our schools, they don't like the school lunches already, so they start taking more and more of the the products they like out of they're really going to have trouble getting them to eat lunch at a school.
Yeah. I think that, you know, again, farmers, they love growing food for America. And they you eat what you used to produce whenever it came to poultry and cattle, you know, so you're not going to do anything that's detrimental to people's health because you're consuming it as well. Farmers are consumers too.
That's why we need more farm to table program.
But I think that's also where people need to hear more from farmers and ranchers so that they understand that they're providing those healthy choices, that it's Louisiana farmers and ranchers who are providing these healthy food options, and that to go in and have some kind of limitations there set by state or federal mandate. Yeah, you got to worry about safety and health regulations in terms of not, you know, being able to have a situation like the jungle back, you know, when those reforms were done.
But let's let's have some common sense in here, too, people, you know, that's it's seed oils. How much how much of a seed oil do you have to have before it becomes detrimental? Let's I'm going to say follow the science. But I think the LSU AG Center dietitians have some pretty smart people there. And they they could provide some pretty good information.
Well, Avery, I was going to say, you and Joe, I consider probably both. I don't I don't know how how you are with your your workout and exercise routine. I know Joe and Avery are kind of anal about counting the, the macros and and all this kind of stuff.
I'm not quite on that level.
I'm not either. I promise you that. But seed oils and things like that are, are they are they known like to be like.
Listen, I think this is just my perspective, but I don't think this bill, these bills are designed to come at industries like farmers, I think, that are designed to come after the processes that have happened to the foods after they leave the farm. Okay. You know, like Avery said, removing, you know, red dye number five, removing seed oils removed.
I mean, making, trying to make sure everybody knows atrazine is being used again. To me, it's the producers, you know, not the agricultural producers, but the manufacturers that are that, that thereafter in this bill. So it's so, so again, I mean, look, I think we should have we're working on a very strong farm to table program here at Farm Bureau, you know.
But in a way, when you limit some of what goes into some of these foods, you are affecting farmers. I mean, if you cut down corn sirup usage or say that.
Corn, even sugar. Yeah.
Then you're affecting markets. You're bringing down demand, which will increase supply, which brings down prices. So that's where I think we need to at least keep an eye on things and make sure that we we're coming with a common sense approach. And I'm a believer, everything in moderation that I love to say that includes exercise, you know, and Coca-Cola.
Yeah. And Coca Cola. Listen. And especially get, you know, any kind of Coke that, has, cane sugar in it, of course. Right.
I was proud to see the, American Sugar League, take a position that they're going to endorse, the chairman's bill, the mile high bill. And I was I was a little bit stunned when I first heard it, but I kept listening, and I said, man, that's a bold move. So what they want to do is see about getting an amendment on the bill that lists all of the artificial sweeteners, sugar being one.
The point being that sugar is going to stand out head and shoulders above the rest.
Sugar being a natural sweetener should.
It is an artificial, but it is artificial. So you'll see these cups, these products that say no sugar added to the natural sugar and coconut water, for example, exists. But if you put sucrose sugar in it, you're adding an artificial. It's artificially sweetened and it's a hyper technicality. But I've had this conversation with the Sugar League, and I think they're concerned enough about it that they want the distinction made somehow.
And then look, hey, if the bill fails, you get credit for being transparent. And I think that's part of what they want to do is be transparent about, hey, we're proud of our product, and here's what it does. You know, just give us a chance to that's what I always say about AG. There's nobody against agriculture. It's just people that don't understand yet.
Hey, and at 16 calories, a teaspoon for sugar, you know, just go ahead and watch a monty Python episode. You'll laugh. 16 calories.
There. There's my proof. For anyone that was questioning Avery's, being about his macros and whatever calorie count. All right, I got I gotta ask because it's one of the first things that we all heard about even before session began. But insurance, that was one of the biggest topics. And the governor, insurance commissioner, both kind of faced off even before session began.
That was kind of one of the things where we add on that is that there's anything moving related to insurance.
You've got 85 pieces of legislation that been filed, you know, a legend to reform the insurance crisis in Louisiana. They're having difficulty moving, you know, some of those bills, a lot of difficulty. The governor's got a bill of his own that is, you know, deals more with the insurance companies, I guess, than than than other, related industries, you know, like, in, like, so it deals more with the insurance industry instead of lawyers instead of doctors.
And, you know, that's the that's what we've got to do is we've got to have a comprehensive bill that affects every profession that's participating in this. And it's not just lawyers, it's not just doctors. It's not just insurance companies and claims adjusters. It's 10% of all of those industries, okay? 10% of just about every industry or profession in America is going to abuse the rights of that profession or that, you know, industry gives them.
And and here's the sad thing about it is the people in these industries doctors, lawyers and insurance companies, we all know who the bad players are. We know who the ten percenters are. We ought to have some place, maybe in the governor's office. I don't know where we where the boards, you know, the doctors boards report all their ten percenters, you know, same thing with the trial lawyers.
The what? The, tribal, the. Anyway, the lawyers board report them in. Okay. And then if they don't report them in, then the governor could give sanctions to these boards, their state. You know, there's quasi, public boards because they're state agencies in a way, you know, so there's ways to resolve it. The question is, how's it going to be resolved?
The big problem has been judiciary, a committee in the Senate. That's what they call the lawyers committee. That's what you're if you remember, five years ago. And so they stopped all the insurance reform. Well, the fear is that they're going to stop it again, that whatever efforts the House makes, which a lot of everything's going to come out of the House, no problem.
You know, then it gets to the Senate. So for people that don't know a bill starts out in the House, it has a House hearing in the committee. Then it goes to the House floor for the 405 to vote on. Then the next choke point, Charlie, is the Senate committee okay.
And that's where bills can go to die.
That's where bills go to die. And if you've got a lawyer, is the chairman there. And most of the people on the committee are lawyers, what do you think's going to happen to reform? Okay. So what's happening now that maybe I'm revealing the plan that shouldn't be revealed, but there are people in the Senate that are trying to get 20 votes together to override the process to to direct the committee to report the bill directly to the floor and bypass that committee process so that the Senate member.
Yeah, that would be a big wow. And I do know that it's an official rumor right now. Okay.
Official rumor.
That's right.
You heard it here first.
Or maybe not.
But but I think there is a measure afoot to, not circumvent the process. But if you if you hit a logjam in the process like that, there ought to be alternatives. So one committee and not one chairman can stifle, you know, an entire, proposal, which is to reform the insurance industry, you know.
And, David, how important for you, not just as a farmer, but as a Farm Bureau parish president, is insurance reform, because obviously, if the environment were better in Louisiana overall, we we could bring rates down that that always helps the membership.
Right? Absolutely. And we've lost a lot of membership in Sabine Parish this past year. So it's very critical for us to see some reform, to try to, you know, get these rates down so we can win back some of these members.
And then on your farm, how much of your budget, percentage wise, I'm not going to ask for complete numbers. But when you're looking at insurance, how much does that eat up of your of your overhead?
Oh, I'm sure we're, probably 20 or 25% or more.
Wow.
So and that's.
Always. And I'm sorry to interrupt car, but Louisiana has lost 36 insurance companies in the past two years. So what does that tell us? Louisiana is not a good place to run an insurance business because you can't turn a profit. So you leave. And here's the problem with Farm Bureau insurance. A lot of people let's make this distinction, okay.
Farm Bureau is a federation. It's an association. It's a cooperative of farmers and ranchers whose members back in the early 80s and before that, obviously couldn't get insurance because they weren't close to services like law enforcement, you know, and electricity and all that modern services. So we created an insurance company in the early 80s for our members.
Further back than that. The insurance company, I heard was in a farm bureau, mutual insurance companies, more than 75 years old.
I actually heard that statistic. Kurt Henry said that the other day at the Mike Dana conference. So, forgot that. But but all I want to say is we're domestic insurance company. We're the largest domestic insurance company in Louisiana. So when these laws passed aimed at hurting insurance companies, when it affects our pocketbook, Louisiana Farm Bureau insurance, we can divide those losses amongst the other 49 states where we do business because we don't do business there.
We have a standalone company in Louisiana now, Allstate, State Farm, all of them. They can stay in Louisiana and cut their losses across the 49 states, and they can stay here, and they still are.
Joe, you said, insurance companies are leaving the state. You live right there on the state line, right? They're close. You have logging companies that probably have trucking or trucking companies that can just as easily move across the state line and get insurance over there and then do business here, I'm assuming, is that you see that happening in your your part of the world over there, seeing that happen,
that I think is a bigger issue that folks can't even afford, afford insurance in the state and they're leaving the state.
And I think that's one of the things that I'm sure the governor sees. I know we all see it, you know, in the news stories and whatnot, but that it's clearly a problem and we've got to get a solution. I'm just I'm I'm hopeful that we can get something done that's meaningful and equitable.
With 85, 45 on insurance, it almost seems like they don't know what they're doing over there. Or they would file just 1 or 2 and really work on those together in behalf of the people. And I think that's what the problem is, is not enough people are involved and people think, oh my goodness, it's such a confusing, complicated issue.
No, it's.
Not.
Okay. It's really not. Pick up the phone, pick up the email and contact your legislator and say, do this, please or say do this or else. Because what's the number one, most important issue to politicians getting reelected. There you go. Okay. And so until the people get involved on insurance and start to pressure their legislators to do the right thing on the insurance, and then they'll in turn, the people that pressure will transfer it to the governor.
But until the people get involved, we're not getting any insurance reform because it's just, a mess
up there at the Capitol. And you'll see some more of that this afternoon. David, when we go back.
At David's getting to hang out now, I don't know if David's going to ever visit the communications department at Louisiana Farm Bureau again because he, Mike Murphy face. Hey, you know, I'm just here to hang out with Joe is like, here you come have a podcast with us. You. I think we're set up.
It honestly works out perfect. It's an object lesson. Joe loves to talk about Brian. You know, normal, everyday folks that are out in the field into the Capitol and being involved. You just mentioned it just now. We got to get our membership involved, our citizenry involved, what you're going to and.
I'm going to point out that, you know, for people who are only listening to this podcast, not watching the video, David Means is dressed a heck of a lot better than Joe.
Maybe he's got a radio, he's got a real man's style.
Got a real tie on, not a Bolo.
This was actually ruled to be an official tie of America.
I mean, David is looking sharp.
David is looking sharp.
But I don't disagree with that. His being a member.
Now, I want I want to I want to ask you, David, as someone who spent the morning with Joe in the Capitol, what, I mean, you're just trying to get there and understand it more. How's that experience been so far? And and take out this little hour that we've spent here in the office.
It's very eye opening, you know? I mean, you hear a lot of things in the news. You know, a lot of times it's skewed, you know, it's you don't always know for sure. It's nice to see it firsthand. You know and understand. You know both sides. You hear both sides. I mean, and each side is very passionate about what they're trying to accomplish, you know, but was very good, I enjoyed it.
I think that's one of the things that we need to tell, those kind of stories that like, hey, being in the room or being more engaged and more involved is where, you know, where the needle starts to move on. People wanting to be involved, wanting to know what's going on. Like, the more you get involved, the more you want to get involved.
I feel like is probably the reality. So I think that's awesome that you're here.
Oh no, I mean.
Have the farm.
To cave is one of the ones. I mean, he drove down here. What is it, three and a half, four hour trip. I mean, he's one of the ones that participates. That's all we need. We need more Davids. We need more people that are volunteer hours. I mean, and I'm always impressed by volunteers because you got paid people that work less than the volunteers do.
I can tell you a Farm Bureau, Farm Bureau's volunteers work hard, and you got people that, you know, people that. I'm not looking at you, Karl Wiggers.
Necessarily, I am I.
Am, I'm just kidding. No, we really appreciate it. We appreciate both of you guys. David, thanks for coming by with Joe. Joe, thanks for all the work. You're staying there in the Capitol. I know you love that building so much.
Everything except the black mold from 1923.
And, well, I'm glad you're there so I don't have to be there and understand what all these bills do. And, know that you. You're staying there and on top of it.
That.
So thank you, Joe Mapes, David Maine's Avery Davidson for, on behalf of the whole team here, really, it's a big group of us here. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. If you have any questions, if you want Joe to explain something more, leave them in the comments below. Shoot us a message somehow. Share this weight. Share this with a friend, and, we'll see you again right here next time on the Louisiana Farm Bureau podcast.