Harvesting from Arizona to North Dakota: An Irishman's Tale

In this episode of Straight Talk with NDFB, our hosts visit Billy Kelly from Killarney, Ireland. Billy comes to the United States every year to work for Demeray Harvesting and Trucking (DHT)  as a crew chief. Billy begins harvest in Arizona and works his way north, finishing in North Dakota before driving back to Arizona to fly home to Ireland. 

Emmery and her family have worked with DHT and Billy over the last few years to custom harvest their crop. 

Learn about:

• What it’s like to manage a custom harvest crew
• Billy’s experience with the H-2A program
• What it’s like to harvest from Arizona to North Dakota
• Differences in agriculture between the U.S. and Ireland

Join us for this fun episode!

Learn more about Demeray Harvesting https://www.demarayharvesting.com/pages/employment

Contact our hosts at emmery@ndfb.org

Transcript

[Straight Talk theme]

[00:12] Emmery: Welcome to Straight TaLk with NDFB. I am your host, Emmery Mehlhoff

[00:16] Alisha: And Alisha Nord. 

[00:18] Emmery: We are your Farm Bureau duo, bringing you your competitive edge. In today's episode of Straight Talk with NDFB, we sit down with Billy Kelly from Killarney, Ireland. Billy comes over to the United States every year to work for Demeray Harvesting as a crew chief. My family has worked with Billy over the last few years to harvest our crop. In this episode, we talk about what it's like to manage a custom harvest crew. Billy's experience with the H-2A program and differences in agriculture between the U.S. and Ireland. Join us for this episode. 

[Straight Talk stinger]

[00:52] Emmery: All right, well, this morning, Alisha and I are sitting here with Billy Kelly, who works for Demeray Harvesting. A little bit of a story about Billy. So we, I think it was like three or four years ago, had the worst corn harvest of our lives. It was snowing. We were up in the middle of Cooperstown, North Dakota, which is about a good hour trek away from our farm here. And I overheard Dad say, "All right, next year we're getting custom harvesters." And sure enough, we looked around and Dad interviewed several custom harvesters and found Demeray Harvesting. And later the next year, we met the crew and met Billy. I believe you were there. If you weren't there the first....

[01:38] Billy: I don't think it was the first year. I think it was like the second.

[01:40] Emmery: Or third year, the second or third year.

[01:42] Billy: And then he got me, and he won't let me go since. So, yeah, I must have done something right.

[01:47] Emmery: Yeah. And so we connected with Billy, and he has been managing the harvest crew for our farm for the last few years. Billy, why don't you introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about you, where you're from. Billy is Irish.

[02:02] Billy: Yeah, so excuse the accent. So I work for Demeray Harvesting. Name is Billy Kelly. I've worked for Demeray Harvesting since 2018. And a little bit about me is well, in agriculture in Ireland, we don't really grow that much crops because it rains so much. We just have grass, and it's mostly dairy. So when Tim originally hired me, he says, "Oh, well, what do you know about combining?" I said, "I've never even seen one, sir." But over the years, you learn and you get all this experience, and you're surrounded by people who are in this industry with 50 years. So you pick it up pretty quick. Like with DHT, you start in Arizona in April, and we combine all the way as far south as the border wall, and then we work our way all the way north through here and end up combining on the Canadian border just a couple of months later. So it's a cool job.

[02:52] Emmery: I don't actually even know how you got connected with Demeray Harvesting. Were they your first?

[02:58] Billy: They were the only company I applied to. So if you think about it, Ireland is 180 miles wide and 200 and something miles long. It's not that big a place. And I knew a guy that worked for Tim. He had worked from maybe ten years previous to when I started. He was wearing a T-shirt just like that that says Demeray Harvesting. And I said, "Oh, there's such and such." And he said, "Yeah, if you ever want to go, I'll get you a job." And that was pretty much how it started.

[03:23] Alisha: So prior to 2018, what did you do in Ireland? Did you come from a farming background?

[03:30] Billy: I don't come from a farming background. We don't have a farm at home, but everything's agricultural based, so I would have worked in farming and done that sort of work and a lot of construction and machinery and tractors and whatever. I've milked cows, whatever. It's work. You do what you do.

[03:48] Alisha: So what made you want to get out of Ireland and come over to the U.S. to do agriculture over here?

[03:53] Billy: The weather. I mean, Ireland is beautiful and it's green and it's a beautiful place, but when it rains 330 days a year, I mean, it gets old quick.

[04:04] Alisha: That's funny, because we took my granny to Ireland a handful of years ago. Now we're actually very Irish too. And my mom, to this day, is like, "I want to move to Ireland, I want to go back there. I love the weather." So it's very funny. People's views on weather and what they like.

[04:21] Billy: It's nice, don't get me wrong, but we get 3 meters of rain, which is like 10ft of rain a year. That gets old quick.

[04:29] Alisha: Right. But you don't get that cold?

[04:31] Billy: No, we don't get that cold. We'll get down in the 20s and maybe up as high as the 90s, but we don't get extreme weather. That and the lifestyle out here. You like the light lifestyle.

[04:42] Alisha: So have you experienced a North Dakota winter or what are your seasons here?

[04:47] Billy: No, this is the latest I've ever been in North Dakota. I'm usually gone.

[04:50] Alisha: Okay.

[04:51] Billy: Yeah. Usually done, I think last week. Every other year we were finished here.

[04:54] Emmery: I think so, yeah.

[04:56] Alisha: And then you go back to Ireland when you're done?

[04:58] Billy: Yeah. Well, we leave here now, we'll drive back to Arizona and then my flights home are booked for December 7.

[05:04] Emmery: So we have to get done by then.

[05:06] Billy: Well, we can change the flights, but you got to be done by January 15 because that's when the visa expires.

[05:12] Emmery: There's a one year we were combining fall corn, I think in April.

[05:17] Billy: I know the first year Tim worked for you guys, well, they actually took the combine and brought a new combine in the spring, and they picked the corn in March or something. But it's harvest. It is what it is. You can't trust the weather.

[05:33] Emmery: So you dairied in Ireland or you worked for a dairy. You worked for a dairy and construction and everything. I mean, obviously, you had your friend that worked for the harvesting company, but did you just, you were like, I want to run the big machinery. I don't want to run the cows anymore.

[05:53] Billy: I wanted to go see the U.S. I always did. Since I was a child, I wanted to come to the U.S. And I guess that was just, like, my opportunity to do it. And it's a fantastic country. I mean, you just think about it. Even the difference, the farming practice differences you see between Arizona, South Dakota, and here, even just to go from here to Langdon and back, which is only 100 miles, the difference you see in the way people farm. And it's amazing to see the difference how just the landscape changes, the farming practices change, the people change. It's just cool country. But when it's 120 degrees in Yuma, Arizona, it isn't that much fun.

[06:31] Alisha: So what does a typical day look like for you? Or what exactly is your role within the company? What do you do?

[06:37] Billy: So I am what we call a crew chief. So I manage or I run this crew just for Tim. I'm a lead operator. You could say I'm the lead operator. So I see after the guys, I tell them what time to get up in the morning, what time we're going to start work. I have to organize fuel and machinery and parts and repairs and get everyone organized for their day. And if they have a problem, well, their problem is my problem. If their toilet doesn't work, I get to fix it. Or if their stovetop doesn't work, I get to fix that or whatever. That's my role. And then I got to deal. You deal with the crew, you deal with the customer, and you deal with management and harvesting. So Tim's always ringing, "When are we going to be done?" Because he's trying to plan for the next job. And this time of year he's fine because there is no next job. 'Cause you know he's got more customers. You got to get done. You got to get to the next one, you got to get them done. You got to get to the next one. And like, here, we come here in August, we cut the wheat crop, then we go to the next customer. And then there's always a big panic to get back here before the beans are ready. But at the same time, you got to do as quick a job as you can, as efficient as you can, but as good as you can. Because it's not just about the check this year. It's about the check next year and the year after and the year after. You got to keep the customers happy. I mean, that's not an easy task because for lots of different reasons, we run 27, 28 combines. So we have a lot of people. I think there's 65 staff.

[08:06] Alisha: Wow.

[08:06] Billy: So then sometimes you don't always end up with the same crew in every job. It just depends on who's available, where those machines coming from or whatever's going on. And you got to work. So you get your kind of crew together, and then sometimes it changes. And then you got to learn everyone's dynamic and learn how to work with people. It can be challenging.

[08:27] Alisha: Right.

[08:28] Billy: But every day is different. There's no two days the same.

[08:31] Alisha: And you must like that.

[08:33] Billy: Yeah, I must do. I'm six, seven years coming out to tempt myself.

[08:37] Alisha: So what are the living situations? How do you figure out where to house all your crew members and yourself? How does that work?

[08:44] Billy: We have campers. So the camper I have is just me and one other guy. And then some of the other campers that could be up on six guys living in the camper. But they're huge. They got eight, six, eight beds, two washers, two dryers, two showers, two toilets. Some of them are massive. But you get in this time of year up here. Well, they shut the RV parks down. So then you got to try and book hotel rooms and try and figure out how many people you're going to have and how long it's going to take you. And then it's just a question of how long is a piece of string, because what's the weather going to do? You never know.

[09:16] Alisha: Right.

[09:16] Billy: So what do you do? At the moment, the hotel rooms we have are reserved until December 1. After that is an unknown. I hope we're finished by December 1.

[09:30] Emmery: Most of the crew are they all H-2A workers?

[09:34] Billy: Tim tries to hire as many Americans as he can, but he can't because they don't. I don't know why, but he's hired some in the past and we've hired guys and they've turned up and they turn up this evening, tomorrow morning they're gone. I just don't understand it. I don't know. Because there's a good job there for someone. Because at Demeray Harvesting we can do all our own in-house CDL training. And in Arizona we can do our own CDL exams. So it's quite a beneficial job for people, you know, you get all living accommodation is paid for and it's transport. Everything's paid for. But he can't get American help. He tries. We have a couple of American guys, but not near enough. And I understand, I understand someone from here in North Dakota doesn't want to go to Arizona for six months away from their family or vice versa. They don't want to leave Arizona and go to the Midwest for six months and leave their family or kids or whatever behind them. I get that. It's not easy, but the one thing with agriculture is people got to eat. It's constant work. Yeah, people got to eat well.

[10:36] Emmery: And it's interesting too. I suppose if you come over on a work visa, you are there to work. And so especially something like harvesting, which is constant long hours.

[10:46] Billy: Yeah, but that's got its challenges too. I miss my best friend's wedding just this year. You got to make the commitment. It is a commitment. You got to miss all the family events at home. You miss funerals and weddings and whatever goes on, you miss it. So you can't just pack up and go home. Imagine if I told your dad I was going home for a week.

[11:06] Alisha: I would assume that would not go over well.

[11:08] Billy: No, it wouldn't go great. No, you got to do it. It's the crop and the crop doesn't wait.

[11:16] Emmery: So what is that like dynamic wise? Typically most of your crew is from Ireland or New Zealand.

[11:23] Billy: Well, usually our crew this year we have Irish guys, UK, Scottish, we've South Africans, we've guys from Brazil, we've guys from Mexico, couple of guys from New Zealand, we've guys from Australia. He hires from all over the world. We have two Polish guys. Tim just hires someone if they can do the job. It just depends. If you fit the bill and you can do the job, you'll be hired.

[11:51] Emmery: Does that make for interesting work dynamics or does everybody.

[11:55] Billy: It is, yeah. Because a lot of cultures. Yeah, you got a great mix of everything going on. And when you live as close together as we do, you could go as far as, say, we live on top of one another because you share living accommodation together, and you're with each other 24 hours a day. No matter what you do, if you're at work or you're off, you're still together. You become like a family, and that's the way I treat it. I treat my men like family. I would treat them how I would expect to be treated, the same. And you get to learn their ways and their culture, and they might cook you some of their meals, and it's cool. You don't get that anywhere else.

[12:33] Emmery: I know Covid caused some issues in trying to get over here, et cetera. But as far as how the H-2A applying process and everything works, do you think it's set up pretty well here in the States, or is it kind of like, could use a revamp.

[12:50] Billy: On my end for what I do, I just apply for my visa to the embassy, and usually it's mail in the passport. Sometimes some years, they might even ask me to go to the embassy, and it's usually not a big deal. From what I know, under what the company has to go through, they have to have all the housing inspected. They have to have bedding for everyone. They have to have the delftware and everything. You have to have all the things in place, and they have to pay for our flights, and it's at no expense to us to come over and all the rest. There's a massive cost in that for a company. Not only just cost, but the time and the planning that goes into organizing all that. And then they have to apply for the visa, and then for whatever reason, they might have said, no, you got to do this, that, or the other. It's not a simple process for the company, but for us, it's pretty easy. I think for a guy in his first year, it's pretty daunting. Just filling out this big application form for your visa, and on your first year, they will make you go to the embassy. Well, at home they will anyway. And that's a big, daunting thing. But for me, I don't take any notice. Just apply for the visa. You do it in an evening, you do it in about 20 minutes, and just whatever. Go to the embassy if they want you to go to the embassy if they don't, fair enough. Book a flight and get over here.

[14:01] Emmery: Is there a lot of people in Ireland on work visas? Do you know?

[14:04] Billy: Coming the other way? There isn't that many. The problem we have at home is people are leaving, like a lot of my generation have left. They've gone to Australia. They're in the UK. They're here in the U.S., they're in Canada. Ireland is just too expensive to live in. If I worked at home in a job similar to this, by the time I would pay my taxes, my social, health care, all this other deductions, I would pay 52% deductions off my earnings.

[14:29] Alisha: Wow.

[14:30] Emmery: That's crazy.

[14:31] Billy: It's crazy.

[14:32] Alisha: Where in Ireland are you from?

[14:34] Billy: So the southwest of Ireland, right down here. Place called Killarney.

[14:38] Alisha: I was there.

[14:39] Billy: There we go. Killarney. Well, I live about ten minutes from Killarney, but, yeah, Killarney.

[14:43] Alisha: Okay. Wow. I did not realize it was that expensive.

[14:47] Billy: Yeah, it's expensive. And then I think the figure is like, it's in the 50% range. If it isn't higher, if it's in 60% of all our fuel, like our gas and diesel, that all goes on tax. So everything is crazy expensive. But the problem is Ireland is a small place. We only have 5 million people. Well, you're trying to run a country with 5 million people to support that. I think we only have a working class, as in people working because you got elderly and children, whatever. I think there's only two and a half million or 3 million people that are actually working. Well, those 3 million people have to pay enough tax to keep the country going. So there's no perfect solution. It's not like the U.S. here, we got 300 million. Or you go to the UK, I think there's 60 or 70 million people. I mean, they got the population that can support the country. But in Ireland, with such a small country, and we rely heavily, like, even in farming, and grant aid from the government, from the EU, that sort of thing, because otherwise it just wouldn't work. A lot of farmers at home, people don't realize you look at a farm here, one of your fields, like a small field, is as big as a whole farm at home. Average farm size in Ireland is 80 acres. Average 80 to 100 acres. That's in the morning's work here.

[16:03] Emmery: True.

[16:03] Billy: You know what I mean? Yeah, but it's different. You can't compare the two because they're two different scales. Right. I mean, if you tell someone at home that you can drive a combine down the road with the head on, they think you're crazy. Or if you just told them how big a combine was, you say, no, you're lying. It can't be that big. Whereas out here, it's different scale. You can't compare. It's like people say, working in the U.S. versus working here. I said, you can't compare them. They're not the same.

[16:28] Emmery: Yeah.

[16:28] Billy: But working out here has its downsides too, because we got to go home. So we're going to go home in December and not come back till March or April or May or whatever, that's four or five months. You got to go get another job and you got to find something else to do. And then that's not easy when you go and tell someone, "Yeah, I'm only going to be here for four months."

[16:46] Alisha: So what do you do when you go back to Ireland? What is your....

[16:50] Billy: A lot of time I work in construction.

[16:52] Alisha: Okay.

[16:52] Billy: And a lot of time I end up in the UK that year with Covid and whatever. I ended up working up in Scotland. And it was beautiful and scenic and everything. But my is it remote up there in some of those places. I think we were 3 hours from the city. In the U.S. it's nothing. Two, 3 hours to go to the city is nothing. Over there well, to drive from Ireland, from Kerry to Dublin, which is right across the country, is 3 hours one side of the country to the other you know. So you look at it, you can't compare them. It's completely two different worlds.

[17:24] Alisha: So what is your housing in Ireland, being that you're in the U.S. for such a long period of time? Do you just rent an apartment or do you have a house?

[17:31] Billy: No, I just live at home with my mother.

[17:32] Alisha: Okay.

[17:33] Billy: There is no point. I'm never anywhere long enough. Go home for Christmas. I'd probably be at home two weeks and I'll be gone somewhere else. I have nothing planned, but I'd be gone somewhere else. Like. I don't know. Tim might decide there's two weeks left on my visa, he wants me to fly back out to do... I did it last year, flew back out for two weeks, put combines together. The one thing with us is we trade combines every single year, the whole fleet of combines goes back to the dealer. We get a whole brand new fleet of combines. So when they come from the factory, the ones that go to Arizona, we put them together ourselves. And then the dealer comes out and PDIs them. And that's work that has to be done. Because they have to be PDI'd before a certain date, technically, before they're actually delivered. If you want to say. You know, there's a lot of work that goes into it. And it goes back to the problem that Tim can't get American help. But I think it's not just Tim. I think it's all over. It's farms all over, can't get help. And you can see it even for me, outside looking in, you can see it. The farms can't get help.

[18:27] Alisha: Right. I mean, I feel like that's our biggest struggle here, too. My family farms, and it's just my dad and my brother. And to get one person just to run a combine for a day or to run a semi, I mean, you just can't find anybody to come and help you. And if you do, you worry if they're reliable or safety...

[18:49] Billy: We run into that too. You can only do so much training. I mean, we provide all our guys with CDL training. They're all trained, but so much accidents still happen.

[18:56] Alisha: Right?

[18:57] Billy: It's unfortunate, of course, and you can try your best to alleviate that. There's only so much you can do. I mean, you can't drive every piece of a single piece of equipment yourself. You see it all over from Arizona to North Dakota. You see it, the farms just can't get help. I don't know. I don't know what's the solution to it? Does the U.S. government need to put some sort of program in place for farmers to subsidize and they could pay more to get help or something? I don't know.

[19:24] Alisha: So in Ireland, this probably isn't a huge problem because your farms are so much smaller. Is that more of just each family is kind of.

[19:31] Billy: Yeah, they're smaller family farms. You don't see big farms like production farms like you do out here. Average farm size at home would be like, I say, 80 to 100 acres, but that would be the home farm. And then a lot of dairies would rent other farms. Okay, so then they could run their heifers and their calves. And those other farms, they keep the home blocked in for their milking cows because all our cows are grass fed. They go out and eat grass for the two weeks, summer that we get. No cows usually go out at home in April to May, and then they'll be housed in August or September. So if you have your 80, 90, 100 acres, we run a stocking rate of a cow to the acre usually, and depends on your ground. You might get like a cow to three quarters an acre.

[20:16] Alisha: Okay.

[20:16] Billy: It's a pretty high stocking rate compared to here. Because they're such smaller farms, one man will do a lot. And then for your silage or whatever you do, a lot of people, they just get like, here, we custom help. Get someone to come and do your silage and put it in and that's it. And then that allows them to be able to do a lot of work, just themselves. But they are family based. 90% of farms are family based.

[20:42] Alisha: So going out and finding extra help isn't necessarily a huge problem for farming.

[20:47] Billy: It can be. It's not as big an issue as it is here because you have this one side of it. Ireland is a smaller place and smaller communities, and everyone knows everyone. So you know someone down the road that's looking for work or, you know, whatever, you know, this guy's around on a Saturday or whatever. But here it's such... Like at home, for a dairy farm at home, the harvest is done in one day. And here it's one month or more, depending on what you're combining. You know what I mean? I spend more time here with [unknown word] than I do at home, my family. And I do, but it's just one of those things, like it's scale and it's relative. Like a lot of the Irish kids from 18 to 25 this time of year, they go to New Zealand. So they do the summer harvest at home, and then they'll fly to New Zealand and they'll do the same silage season in New Zealand. Because we had a guy just a couple of days ago leave us and go to New Zealand. He was there last winter, he came here, now he's gone back there. So he won't be home for, I don't know, next year sometime maybe, if he goes home. That's a long time to be away from your family. But there's no incentive to be in Ireland just for a younger generation. It's just not there. And I guess you got that itchy feet syndrome where they just want to travel. There's that in it, too. I have that. I'll be home two weeks and I want to go away somewhere. Let's go where we're going next. What's the next adventure?

[22:10] Emmery: I wonder if with just, I think it's 1% of Americans less than that are farmers or in agriculture. And with farming, there's like a certain lifestyle. You have to be there and it takes time. Especially if you add livestock to it.

[22:28] Billy: Well, livestock, yeah.

[22:29] Emmery: You have to.

[22:32] Billy: The cows don't know that it's Sunday. The cows don't know that it's Christmas Day or Thanksgiving. The cows still have to eat.

[22:37] Emmery: Exactly.

[22:38] Billy: Or pigs or whatever your livestock is, you know.

[22:40] Emmery: Yeah. And it seems like in the United States in general, we just have such a culture of work flexibility, or something built into what people want. I don't know what it is exactly. Growing up on a farm, I don't really have that. So I'm not sure. But wonder if there's just not a lot of people that want to put a farm or crops or animals before their...

[23:07] Billy: Their lifestyle. I understand. It's one of those things, we face it, too. It's hard to get American help. I mean, he's always advertising, anyone wants a job, apply to Demeray Harvesting. There's always a job. Just apply. Because you get it. When we come over here, you go to the bar or whatever, and someone say, oh, you're taking our jobs. And my answer to him is, "Do you want a job? I will give you a job if you want a job." But no, can't seem to get it. I just had this discussion with Tim yesterday. He's trying to find solutions to find more full-time work, be it agriculture, tractor work or truck work or whatever it's going to be, so that he can get people try and incentivize it, so he can get people to stay or, you know what I mean? Get Americans to come and work for him and just try and keep people here year-round, because in the winter, it's just a skeleton crew of his management and that's it. And whatever handful of Americans we have, luckily this year, we have a couple. Last year we had none it was just Tim and his management crew. Mean what do you do, it's hard to get help.

[24:11] Alisha: Would you say, does the general public in Ireland, consumers understand the concept of agriculture and farming and GMOs, you know over here, we do a lot of education about what agriculture is and how we provide food. Is that common knowledge over in Ireland or do you guys kind of have the same problems we do?

[24:35] Billy: It is pretty much. I think what people at home don't understand is, outside of their beef and their dairy, most everything else is imported. They just don't quite comprehend that. They don't quite comprehend that if you have something with soya in, it's come from here. It wasn't grown at home. I think the figure is 300,000 acres of arable ground in Ireland. That's all your crops. That's your potatoes, your maize, your wheat, your barley, your oats, everything. That's 300,000 acres. I mean, outside, out here, that's a corner of our county, it's not much like. But they don't realize that. They understand where their dairy products come from and where their beef products come from and their poultry and all that. Yeah, okay. They kind of understand that. But I've seen it in my own family, my cousins, they would say, "Oh, well, chicken comes from the store." No, chicken doesn't come from the store. And the chicken nuggets aren't. They're different. And that's not the same as the beautiful chicken running around in the field. No, that's different. But you get it in the rural areas that they understand where agriculture...  And then you get into the.... like if you go up to Dublin, people wouldn't have a clue. They don't. It's like just the moment I was watching, following on social media and things, they've had some severe weather and they've had some flooding. Well, it goes back to we got the Green Party in power and their Green Agenda, and you can't touch the rivers and you can't clean drains and you can't do this. Well, now the towns are flooding because something we've done for hundreds of years, we can't do anymore. We're not allowed to. Like, farmers are the caretakers of the world. They look after everything. But now they are controlling everything we're doing. And it's just kind of slowing down things. And now we're starting to see the adverse effects of it. We're flooding and so on and so forth. Now they are doing a lot of work. Like, they're rewetting a lot of what we call bogs, peat bogs, to put it back to its natural state, because back in the '60s and '70s they drained a lot of that ground. Now they're closing up those drains and rewetting it, and it's becoming carbon stores and whatever. And that's good. You got your CRP here. It kind of comes ground like that. You just don't touch. You just leave it alone and it goes back to its natural state and you get all the pheasants and whatever else lives inside the grouse and just leave it alone and it's fine. But, like, at home, we would say a lot of times, land is too thick to drink and too thin to plow. You know, you can't. You couldn't farm like you farm here. At know, they're completely different. It's like you trying to explain to a farmer that at home, like in Arizona, they have ditches that bring water to fields, but we have ditches that bring water away from fields and they look at you like you're crazy. No, you got to do these things.

[27:17] Emmery: Ireland is interesting, too, politically. You have Ireland and then North Ireland.

[27:22] Billy: Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

[27:25] Emmery: Yeah, you guys are part of the EU?

[27:26] Billy: So the Republic is part of the EU. And then when was that? 2016 or 17, the UK voted on Brexit, so the British left EU. So now, technically, Northern Ireland is not part of Europe, but there is no border. That was one of the big issues with Brexit, because there was going to be no hard border, because then it goes back to people who just freak out and cause the civil unrest and whatever. So now the border, I think, is the ocean again, but it's still not part of the EU. I don't fully understand it. I live in the south. I'm too far away from it. But I can drive to Belfast and just like driving from here to Bismarck, you know, well, it's a bit further.

[28:09] Emmery: But when I visited Ireland and we drove up to Belfast, I remember the roads all of a sudden changed. They went from whatever European nonsense you guys were doing to the nice, good road with the little.

[28:22] Billy: That goes back to Northern Ireland is part of the UK. The UK has the population, they have the money. They can spend the money on the infrastructure. You see the difference. I've worked in the UK quite a lot, and the difference in everything. They have more public transport, they have better infrastructure in place, like in terms of rail and roads and whatever, but they have the population to pay for it. Back home, we don't have the people, so we don't have the.... but the Irish population is growing, even though all the younger generation are leaving. But you're starting to see now as well, some of we'll say, like people who'd be 7, 8 years older than me, that they're starting to come back from Australia, they're coming home to start families, which is good to see. They've been around the world and they say, no, let's go home, because home is always home, no matter what you do. Same. But here, home is home for people here, they don't ever want to leave.

[29:11] Alisha: So what do you miss the most about being away from home?

[29:13] Billy: The food.

[29:14] Alisha: The food, specifically.

[29:18] Billy: I've worked out here for quite a while now, and I can never get used to the food here. I just can't. I don't know even like the beef. I was reared than grass-fed beef. It's what I'm used to, and it just tastes completely different here. The chicken and pork, it's all different. Food is all different, but you get to experience out here different foods. Trevor and I have a habit of walking around the grocery store and go, what's that? We don't know what it is like. Never seen it. Some of the stuff, it's just whatever. Yeah, you missed food. I guess you could say you missed your mother's cooking.

[29:52] Alisha: What is your favorite Irish meal. And what is your favorite meal to eat here in the U.S.?

[29:56] Billy: Oh, that's a good question. My favorite Irish meal would probably have to be typical Irishman bacon and cabbage, bacon and cabbage. But Americans would have corned beef and cabbage. But that came from whenever the Irish came over here that they couldn't afford bacon so they should have taken corned beef and that's where it kind of came from. But in Ireland, it's bacon, but back bacon. I can't find what I would call a rasher, which is a piece of back bacon. That's what we would call because Americans have strippy bacon. That's horrible stuff. I don't know how anyone eats that. I'm used to rashers and that sort of stuff. But it's funny, I go to the store and I'm looking for a piece of what I would call bacon, which is back bacon. But they must butcher pigs different here or something because you can't find it and you wonder like where is it? You just say it's on the pig so it's got to be somewhere. I mean, pigs are pigs. But even down to potatoes. I'm used to potatoes from home that taste different. Of course they do. I mean they're going to. The bread in the store. I will only buy Kerrygold butter from the store. That's all I'll buy because, the taste of home.

[31:01] Alisha: Me too. I was just going to say that's what we buy.

[31:04] Billy: Yeah, but I will only buy that. A home. I could drink when we were like teenagers myself, my three brothers, my mother, we used to buy nine, there were three liter bottles which is what? A gallon and a half? Not even. No, it's not even a gallon. I don't even know what it works out at. It's three liters. My mother buy nine three liters of the bottles of milk a week, which is 36 liters of milk and that's four liters in the gallons. Whatever that works out at. I don't know, it's a lot. Nine gallons of milk. Yeah, but now here I can't drink milk. I can't drink the milk from the store. I think it's horrible. Now I don't know is because the cattle are fed grain? Or what is it? I don't understand it because at like at home you will know when cows are eating grass in the field or when they go back to and they're put a house and they're eaten side. You'll know the difference in the taste. But I just can't drink milk. Just. I don't like it. I don't know. Doesn't make sense to me. I mean, milk is milk.

[31:54] Alisha: Right? So what's your favorite U.S. meal? Oh, or maybe you don't even have one because you don't like it.

[32:00] Billy: No, it's not even that. I don't know. Because the U.S. meals, you would eat a lot of different stuff because there's such a variety of food here. You go to town, what do you want to eat? Do you want American? Do you want Mexican? Do you want this? Do you want that? You've got so many options here. So you just go try something new.

[32:15] Alisha: Might as well just go try something.

[32:17] Billy: It doesn't really matter. I mean, it's not going to poison you. Just try it.

[32:20] Alisha: Right?

[32:21] Billy: I don't know. Like meatloaf. I had never had meatloaf until I come here. Never even seen it. You find that hilarious? But it's not something we have something like a thing even to cook steaks on a grill. It rains so much at home, you couldn't possibly cook steaks on a grill. You could steam them maybe, but that'd be about it. So, like. Yeah, like a grilled steak here is a novelty, you know what I mean? Or to be able to stand outside in the sunshine and cook on a grill, I mean, that goes back thousands of years. If people don't stand outside in the sunshine cooking, I mean we can't do that at home. Well, we can but it's not advisable.


[32:54] Emmery: Yeah. How do you find the regulations? So you're not farming here in the U.S., you're combining, but we're regulated. But minimally, perhaps, compared to some. How do you find the regulations relate to what farmers have to go through in Ireland?

[33:11] Billy: Well, you see, at  home, like the all big thing at the moment is there's a cap on nitrates, so you can only have so many units of nitrogen per acre. Okay. And it's big thing now, whereas here, you see farmers here, they use anhydrous. We can't use that. It's illegal. Can't use that in Ireland. You wouldn't even find it. We can't crop dust. We can't flood irrigate like they do in Arizona. You can't do that. You can't use liquid fertilizer because you can't use flood irrigation. Whatever some people do, they use some sort of liquid fertilizer. Depends on what they're growing, too. But I think it's a lot less regulated here. Now, it's regulated all the same, but it's a lot less regulated. Like the hoops they have to jump through at home can be frightening, but that goes back that they're getting their grant money, which is subsidized from Europe. So Europe wants them to go do all this, jump through all these hoops so that they do this. Because I don't know what the percentage here is in the U.S., but they're trying to say at home that they want to cull the herd of cattle in the country by 200,000 cows because they think the cows are going to destroy the world or something. I don't know. But Ireland is responsible for 0.01% of carbon emissions globally. You wouldn't even notice a drop in the ocean if Ireland didn't exist in the morning in terms of carbon or emissions. No one would notice. It wouldn't make a difference. It's such a small place. Now we still have to play our part and do what we can, of course, but what measures are making people do at home? Like, come 2030, you can't buy a gas or diesel car in Ireland. That has to be electric. No, I guess everyone's going to have to buy generators or something. I know it's all going to work, but that's not a me problem.

[34:46] Emmery: No wonder 3 hours takes so long to get it.

[34:52] Billy: You see here everywhere you have just a feedlot. Cattle eating a feedlot. That's not allowed. You can't do that for numerous reasons.

[35:01] Emmery: One of the things we talk about here is how hard it is if a young person is interested in farming, to get into the farming world, like if they want to own land and farm, I bet that's even harder in Ireland or is it easier?

[35:11] Billy: What you'll find, I know one guy, he may be a year ahead of me when I went to school and his local guy at home. And he went and he trained, he went and he's Green Cert, which is to be a farmer home, you got to be entitled to all your granted. And whatever I think you even have to do to get your herd number, you have to go do a green search, which just, you know, how to do basic causes and dream mining animals, and how to spread fertilizers and how to graph the land, just basic things. And he went and done that and he approached a retired farmer, and they've gone into a partnership and he's now farming that guy's farm. There is opportunity there for people who want to do it, and I don't know the ins and outs exactly, but I think it worked out somewhere like he got this guy's herd of cattle when he started farming it. And over a period of years through his rent, he ended up buying the herd of cattle, which is the way they worked it. So he got a good start there. And it worked out kind of the same with the machinery. He didn't have to pay it all down on the first day he walked in the gate. So he got a good start there. But he worked hard, and he's put a lot of work into that farm. You can see it. There's quite a big difference there. And the difference in the older generation farming and the new generation farming, the newer methods of farming at home, just even to put in roadways, because we would have to put roadways in to get cattle into paddocks and whatever. There was none of that before. Where then you would just have cattle, just porch fields.

[36:30] Emmery: Is it pretty heavily subsidized or is it pretty easy to make a living on a small herd of cows?

[36:36] Billy: There's nothing easy about farming, no matter what part of the world you're in, there is nothing easy about farming. It is subsidized. And I know the biggest complaint I think, at the moment at home is the price of milk. It has dropped. So I think it's nearly at a stage now where it's costing more to produce than it's making. So I think they're running at a loss almost. But then next year could be back up again. You got to take the good with the bad. They say at home you got to plan for that one in every ten years of farming, dairy farming, it's not easy make a living. But I think without the subsidies, I think you'd see a lot less farms in Ireland. I don't think it'll be viable. You got a lot of guys there. They work two jobs, so they'll work a job and they come home. They'll have a herd of beef cattle at home, because beef cattle, you don't have to milk them. They're pretty easy. They're pretty easy. Look, after now, it's not like here we might have a guy with three or four or 500 cows or maybe a couple of thousand cows. These are, guys are like 30, 40 cows. The small, little like pets, more or less. They're still a farm and they're still part of the system that that's how it all works, that these smaller farms. But you're seeing a lot of these smaller farms disappear and amalgamate into a bigger farm and so on and so forth, which has happened here and it's still happening here. I think farming as we know it in my lifetime at home will change drastically. You'll see a lot of bigger farms. You see a lot less farms. There'll be less amounts of farms. They'll just be bigger, if you know what I mean, which has happened here.

[37:59] Emmery: I mean, it is happening. So what does the future hold for you, Billy? Are you going to work for Demeray till you fall over one day in the combine, or are you.....

[38:10] Billy: Oh please don't tell me I'm going to fall over over one day.

[38:11] Emmery: Are you going to.

[38:12] Billy: I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do.

[38:13] Emmery: Marry an Irish girl and stay in Ireland?

[38:16] Billy: I don't know. I don't have a plan. The plan I have that I have told Tim at the moment, I will commit to him till the year I turn 30. And after that, I have no idea. I have no commitment made, no decisions made on it. We'll see what comes after that. I don't know. See what happens. Who knows?

[38:32] Emmery: How old are you, Billy?

[38:33] Billy: 28.

[38:33] Emmery: Okay.

[38:34] Billy: I don't look like it. As gray as I am, I don't look like it.

[38:38] Alisha: So what is your favorite piece of equipment to run here in the U.S.?

[38:42] Billy: Got to be a combine.

[38:43] Alisha: Combine?

[38:44] Billy: Yeah, it got to be a combine. I don't get to drive combines at home, so it's got to be a combine.

[38:48] Alisha: Do you prefer. What's your favorite crop to harvest?

[38:51] Billy: Beans. I like cuttin' soybeans. Yeah, I like cuttin' soybeans.

[38:55] Emmery: Just fast.

[38:56] Billy: You get to see the production out of the combines in the day. Like, you get to see how many acres that they can really cover in a day. Like, you go to Arizona. We figure a combine will cut 50 acres a day in Arizona. Right. Because the crops are so heavy, the straw is so tall, you go to put it all through the combine. Whatever you get up here. Cutting beans. You do 150 plus a day. Depends on your day. Some days you might get 200 a combine. I mean, you can see a lot of ground covered in a day. They're fascinating machines. I've sat them for I don't know how many thousands of hours now, the stage. And I'm still fascinated by the volume of material that can go through that combine in a day. And it doesn't really dawn on you until you see someplace that they're bailing, and you see it all bailed, and you're like, oh, yeah, that went through the machine. That went through the machine. That's a lot of stuff. And there's so much going on. They're cutting the crop off. They're feeding it into the machine. They're trashing it. They're separating it. They're putting the grain in the tank. They're pumping the grain out of the grain cart. I mean, there's so much going on at one time and how it all just keeps working. It's like someone's, like a farmer said to me, I don't care what combine you have. They're all designed to break down.

[40:01] Alisha: Isn't that the truth. So going to that, do you have a preference on a color or no?

[40:06] Billy: Well, I'm kind of biased because we only run Case combines.

[40:09] Alisha: You only run Case.

[40:09] Billy: Okay, kind of biased. Yeah. But it doesn't matter what you have. They're all going to do the job. It's all down to the guy sitting in the seat. They'll say, oh, green one can do this and a red one can do that and whatever, and whatever. It's all down to the person sitting in the seat. I mean, if you got a guy that's in the seat that can't drive, I mean, he's going do bad job. It doesn't matter what kind of combine, right? Does not matter.

[40:29] Emmery: Speaking of combining, maybe we should get Billy back in the combine here.

[40:33] Billy: Yeah, your dad's probably getting itchy now.

[40:35] Emmery: Yeah. Well, thanks for sitting down with us and visiting about Ireland and running the combines here in the U.S. So really appreciate working with you and appreciate your time today.

[40:44] Billy: Thanks, guys.

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[40:47] Emmery: You've been listening to Straight Talk with NDFB. To learn more about NDFB or join us on Straight Talk, visit us at ndfb.org.

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