Subscribe to the Real Food Real People Podcast

Andrew Eddie:
I reached a point where I was done. I didn’t want to farm. I thought farming was probably one of the worst things I could do.

Announcer:
This is the Real Food Real People Podcast.

Dillon Honcoop:
Deciding to grow food, to become a farmer, is a huge decision for most people that do it, and this week’s guest definitely that’s a part of his story where he didn’t want to be a farmer even though he grew up around it. And you hear this so many times, people who grow up around farming and decide they are done with it, usually when they’re ready to go to college or something like that, and so many people then come back to it later and see it with different eyes. That’s the story of this week’s guest. He grows food, but not food that people eat. We’re going to jump into his world, which is hay. He grows hay to feed animals and his hay is shipped all over the world, but it’s grown here in Washington State in Moses Lake. Andrew Eddie is his name with RNH Farms.

Dillon Honcoop:
We had a great chat out in a field. We actually have a full video available if you want to follow us subscribe on YouTube, Real Food Real People. Just search us up on YouTube and you can see the full video because we have planes flying over, people driving by, wind blowing over our microphones because the whole interview was done on a pickup tailgate in a hay field, literally. So you can see that there if you want to. You’ll certainly hear that as you listen to our conversation. Some interruptions come up from time to time. Please enjoy. I’m Dillon Honcoop. This is the Real Food Real People Podcast, documenting my journeys across Washington State to hear from, and really get to know, the people behind our food here in Washington.

Dillon Honcoop:
So I’ve never done an interview in a field before.

Andrew Eddie:
Me either.

Dillon Honcoop:
What’s this field that we’re in here.

Andrew Eddie:
Well, we’re in the corner of one of our alfalfa fields.

Dillon Honcoop:
Okay.

Andrew Eddie:
Here in beautiful Moses Lake, Washington. It’s nice and sunny out today, I mean, minus a little bit of clouds. It’s a little dark right now, but about the first sunny day we’ve had in five, six days.

Dillon Honcoop:
You guys have been battling the weather.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah. Mother Nature has definitely decided that she isn’t too happy. I don’t know if she just got cooped up with corona for too long, or what the deal is. But she decided she was going to make it known that she’s still around. She hasn’t left, so we’re rolling with the punches and we’ll see what happens.

Dillon Honcoop:
So you guys grow hay, is that pretty much it? You’re just a hay operation?

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah. We’re just a forage operation, so minus 100 acres of corn actually-

Dillon Honcoop:
Okay.

Andrew Eddie:
… that we just planted this year. We’re just using it as a rotational crop, just to give our soil a little break on alfalfa or grass. Yeah, we got about, minus the trucks driving by.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah, just wave. Hey.

Andrew Eddie:
We’ve got probably about 1300 acres of total crop and that’s all forages. So technically, or not technically, we try to of course get the highest quality we can out of our crop, and most of it we shoot for export quality. So we try to make the best product that we can with what we got and where we’re set up. Yeah, that’s where that’s at.

Dillon Honcoop:
So what does export quality mean?

Andrew Eddie:
Export quality is just, I mean, kind of the … It all varies. I mean, exporters take a wide variety of stuff. There’s a need for supreme, premium, feeder, dairy. It depends on what they’re looking for. so it’s broad, but we just try of course for the highest quality. I mean, most everybody tries for the highest quality, but like we were talking about earlier is about 95% of our product goes for export compared to some guys that just shoot for the domestic market like local retail sales, or anything like that. Our biggest thing is we take it, we sell it to an exporter and they ship it overseas to wherever their customers are, what they need.

Dillon Honcoop:
So what happens to that hay then?

Andrew Eddie:
So after we put it in the stack, or put it into a bale, put it in the stack, they will come and buy it, haul it into their pressing facility. There’s a bunch of pressing facilities located in Ellensburg, which is about an hour and change away from here, or there’s some local pressers here, or Tri-City’s. Just all around the state. So they’ll take it, they’ll press it down to whatever package the customer wants and then they’ll put it in a shipping container and ship it where it needs to go. So whether that’s Japan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, China. I mean, pretty much all over the world.

Dillon Honcoop:
So pressing it that’s like you take … I think people are familiar with a hay bale.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah. Yep.

Dillon Honcoop:
You know? And there’s small bales. I think that’s what most people would be familiar with, which are like yay-

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah, yay big. Yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
And then there’s little bit bigger ones than that. There’s also big bales like actually you’re on the balers right behind the camera, so people can’t see that.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
But so which ones are you actually … And they take bales and just squish them down that much farther?

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah. There’s actually a bunch of different packages that they can do. So they’ll take a three foot by four foot by eight foot long bale and compress it down. They can do a half cut, a sleeve bale. They can do a double compressed, a single compressed. I mean, there’s a ton of different package that they can do to get it done to … For the most part most of it will go about to a package about yay big, which is I think a 50kg package and they’ll stack them all in the shipping containers, and then that’s how they get it over there. So, yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
What are all these planes flying around here? Good grief.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah. We’re pretty close to the airport and the military enjoys flying over and interrupting super important interviews that are happening right now.

Dillon Honcoop:
Okay. I see.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
So they hear when a podcast is happening.

Andrew Eddie:
That’s right, yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah, they hear when you’re trying to sleep. They hear when important stuff’s happening, yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
They quick scramble some cargo planes-

Andrew Eddie:
That’s right. Yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
… to interrupt.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah, yeah. No, so all kidding aside. No they fly around all day, every day so we actually get to see some pretty cool stuff.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah.

Andrew Eddie:
Fighter jets flew over earlier today and nothing says America more like some fighter jets flying over. But yeah, it is all dependent on what the overseas customer wants for a package and it all depends on what they’re using it for too.

Dillon Honcoop:
So those bales that you’re squeezing down how much do they weigh?

Andrew Eddie:
Initially?

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah.

Andrew Eddie:
So when we get them in our bales they can be anywhere from, I don’t know, probably a little over a 1,000 pounds to 1300 pounds, 1400 pounds. It all depends on the crop.

Dillon Honcoop:
Over a half ton of hay.

Andrew Eddie:
Yep, yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
And then, they squeeze that down into … What’s the smallest that they can squeeze that down into?

Andrew Eddie:
Oh, man. You’re asking me a bunch of tough questions. I probably should know this.

Dillon Honcoop:
Just roughly. Roughly.

Andrew Eddie:
If any of our buyers watch this I’m sorry, like I apologize. I’ve been doing this long enough I probably should know, but today’s one of those days. I think the smallest package is probably a 50 kilogram.

Dillon Honcoop:
Okay.

Andrew Eddie:
I think.

Dillon Honcoop:
Okay, so they actually break the bales up into smaller pieces?

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah, so what they’ll actually do is so they’ll take the bale, they’ll cut all the strings off of it, they’ll put it into their thing and they’ll slice it, and then they’ll take it and put it in the press and hydraulic [inaudible 00:08:16] and push it all together. It pops out and it’s magical. It’s magic. Nobody knows how it works.

Dillon Honcoop:
And then they feed it to their animals wherever they are in the world.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah, yeah. And then they’ll take and like I said put it in a shipping container and that’s what they do.

Dillon Honcoop:
So what’s the key to making really good animal feed hay?

Andrew Eddie:
Mother Nature cooperating in the best way possible. It all depends. I mean, weather’s a big thing, nutrition’s a big thing. Just paying attention to what you got for crops. Paying attention to water and fertilizer, nutrient plants, things like that and just management is pretty much the biggest thing. And then, hopefully Mother Nature plays nice with you.

Dillon Honcoop:
So a lot of your nutrients for your hay actually comes from manure?

Andrew Eddie:
They can. It all depends. It all depends on the grower’s program too.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah.

Andrew Eddie:
I mean, there’s something to be said about manure, especially for alfalfa or things like that. Dry fertilizer, liquid fertilizer is the general thing. But that’s where that comes from, so. Or liquid manure, some people do that too.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah.

Andrew Eddie:
It all depends on grower preference. Everyone has what works for them.

Dillon Honcoop:
So the manure that you would fertilize the crops with comes from where?

Andrew Eddie:
It depends on where you get it from. I mean, there’s a bunch of dairies up here if you want liquid manure. There’s also a bunch of feed lots, so we can get screened steer manure for pretty readily available. So again, it all depends on who, and what, and why, and what the price is.

Dillon Honcoop:
And then, irrigation too. You’ve got to water all these-

Andrew Eddie:
Yep.

Dillon Honcoop:
… alfalfa and grasses that you grow.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah, so luckily for us we’re on the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project. So we have surface water available so we can go up and fire on a switch, get the pivots going, and we’re good to go. You know? We do have some wheel lines, we’ve got some hand lines, but nothing too major. It’s pretty nice to be able to flip it on and just have consistent water all the way across.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah. That’s a lot better than hand lines, which-

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
… for people who aren’t familiar with that, and I learned that at a young age, the joy of changing hand line, which is the actual pipes and you pick them up one 20 or 30 foot pipe at a time. Move it over however many feet you’re going, 30 feet. Whatever the next section of the mainline is from the riser if that makes sense to anybody. I don’t know, but that’s a lot work. I’m surprised you guys still, what? Is that just if you have a corner of a field or something you can’t get?

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah, we actually just have one field that is just like two corners that we water with hand lines and then I think we have two or three sets of wheel lines, which is the same concept except luckily it has a motor on it so you can roll it, you know?

Dillon Honcoop:
Yep, exactly.

Andrew Eddie:
Roll it and park it, but pivots. I mean, because the other thing about pivots is they’re efficient. So they’re efficient on water. They’re efficient on water pattern and they cover ground. One thing about pivots, one downfall is, there’s a little more to fix.

Dillon Honcoop:
So pivots are these things that if you’re flying over farm country you see the circles?

Andrew Eddie:
Yes.

Dillon Honcoop:
And that’s where people talk about farming a circle?

Andrew Eddie:
Yep.

Dillon Honcoop:
Then the irrigation basically the water comes up in the middle of the circle and then there’s the big framework that goes out with all the sprinklers on it and it just goes around?

Andrew Eddie:
Yep, yep.

Dillon Honcoop:
How long does it take for one of those to go around a circle?

Andrew Eddie:
It all depends. I mean, if it were to go full hog on a 130 acres, I mean it all depends on machine too. Say just a standard pivot could take seven hours, six hours to go 130 acres all the way around, complete revolution. But it all depends on now there’s different gear boxes too. So different gear boxes, different center drives that you could actually make. There’s one company that actually makes center drives and gear boxes that actually doubles the speed, it’s constantly moving. So it can actually cover, when normally it’d take seven hours, it’d cover it in four.

Dillon Honcoop:
So they don’t normally constantly move? So they move a little bit, sprinkle and then move a little bit more and keep going around the circle?

Andrew Eddie:
They still move, but it’s all in succession. So the end tower is the lead tower, takes off and second one follows and then it’ll stop for a little bit, let it all catch back up and stay in a line.

Dillon Honcoop:
Okay, so the pieces move separately out-

Andrew Eddie:
Yes, yeah. Out on the end. So technically your last tower moves further than your first tower because that runs through the center point.

Dillon Honcoop:
When you’re driving by you see way more water coming out of the outside sprinklers oftentimes than the inside ones.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah and it also has more ground to cover too. So, the inside ones have less, so the nozzles are smaller because they don’t need to put as much water down. So, you’re outside ones are going to be a whole lot, put a whole lot more water down in that span.

Dillon Honcoop:
This is all new to me because I grew up around farming, but it was in western Washington and we don’t do that there.

Andrew Eddie:
Right.

Dillon Honcoop:
I mean there are just a few pivots over on that side of the mountain.

Andrew Eddie:
Right. Mother Nature cooperates with you guys, yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
Well, and the fields are way smaller too, right?

Andrew Eddie:
Right.

Dillon Honcoop:
And so people will use hand line or wheel line or big guns or drip irrigation or yeah, just hope and pray for rain at the right time and not the wrong time.

Andrew Eddie:
Right, right. Yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
So is that, growing hay, is that the biggest challenge is just trying to get the rain when you want it and the dry, hot weather? That’s what you need to dry the hay out after you cut it right?

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah I mean I’d say that’s probably about 92% of the challenge is just weather. I mean it can take a good crop and turn it into pretty bad, pretty quick. So-

Dillon Honcoop:
So what does it do to it?

Andrew Eddie:
So for alfalfa especially, it’ll take and if it rains on it enough it’ll actually start washing nutrients out of it. So not only will it start bleaching it and cause it to lose color which is a portion of how customers buy it, it’ll actually start washing the nutrients out of the plant. So your RFV will go down, your digestible nutrients will go down. All that stuff that buyers or dairies want to see is that nutrient value.

Dillon Honcoop:
Most nutrition for their animals to eat.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah. So it takes away on that. On grass, especially on Timothy. So Timothy is very … It’s bought on color. A little bit on feed value depending on where it goes and stuff like that. But it’s primarily bought on color and look and things like that. So you get a little bit of rain on it and here we are. You’re turning into a product where it’s automatically a lower grade and it can go from premium to number one, number two quality in a matter of a couple hours.

Dillon Honcoop:
Wow.

Andrew Eddie:
So, a little shot of rain, it depends.

Dillon Honcoop:
What’s the value difference, percentage wise? How much money can you lose in a couple hours with the wrong rain?

Andrew Eddie:
You could lose probably about 50%. So, about half its value you could just sit there and watch as it trickles off the windshield and yeah. It all depends. Everything has a home, but everything has a home for a certain price too.

Dillon Honcoop:
When I was a kid both of my grandpas, well grandparents because they both ran the farms, grandpa and grandma, they had dairy farms. My one grandpa in particular, my dad’s dad, was very much into feeding his cows alfalfa, almost exclusively other than other nutrients. But he didn’t do silage or local hay or anything. He got eastern Washington alfalfa from here and he would come out and look at the field and he wanted to know that he was getting the best stuff for his cows. This is where he would come. You talk about Timothy though, what are they feeding with Timothy? That’s not going to be for dairy cows right?

Andrew Eddie:
Ah, yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
It can be?

Andrew Eddie:
It can be, yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
Part of their TMR?

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah, they-

Dillon Honcoop:
Their milk retention.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah they’ll take and put it in their mixed ration. A lot of dairies in China will take it, Japan things like that. But, Timothy has a wide use.

Dillon Honcoop:
I think of feeding horses when I think of Timothy.

Andrew Eddie:
Right, yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
That’s my experience with it.

Andrew Eddie:
Horses, race horses are the biggest. Everybody is like, “Oh, they feed it to race horses.” That’s correct, but they also feed it to camels, guinea pigs, gerbils, anything like that. Any animal they’ll eat it. I mean it’s pretty good. Yeah that’s … It all depends. Like I said it all depends on what customer is taking it and then how they want to use it and things like that.

Dillon Honcoop:
So have you gotten the chance to visit any if these customers out around the globe?

Andrew Eddie:
No, no.

Dillon Honcoop:
Where the hay goes to? That would be, I think that would be really fascinating.

Andrew Eddie:
No, so seguing into that. So currently we’re part of the Washington State Hay Growers Association as you might be able to tell behind me. Shameless plug, it’s fine. So I’m current Vice President and then our current President actually went overseas here last year and visited a bunch of the dairies and stuff and things like that. So, at some point that’ll probably be on the docket maybe once all this … Maybe 2021, ’22, ’25 who knows when this corona deal gets over.

Dillon Honcoop:
So some day you’ll get to go see it?

Andrew Eddie:
Some day. But yeah, no and we’ve been doing this awhile. So we’ve met some of the customers when they come here and they’ll say, “Oh, yeah we like your guy’s product or we like this or we like that. Can we see that?” So that makes us feel good because we’re like okay we have repeat customers. Not just people buying directly from us, but people that are buying through us technically.

Dillon Honcoop:
Right. I always thought that it was impressive that my grandpa would come all the way … dairy farmer from western Washington would come all the way over to eastern Washington to check out his hay. A little bit more impressive if you come all the way say from China to check out your hay.

Andrew Eddie:
Right, right.

Dillon Honcoop:
But I guess that’s how important it is to them to get good quality. It’s worth the trip.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah, yeah. No, and they take and they trust the buyers. They trust the exporters on what products they’re getting them. But they also like to come put eyes on it because things change when you actually put eyes on it. You can send pictures, you can make it look pretty. But at the end of the day if you put eyes on it and you’re like, “Oh, I don’t really like this part of the bale or I don’t really like that head size or I don’t like … there’s not enough leaf. There’s too much stem. They’re super thin, they’re brittle.” I mean there’s a million things that they can pick apart and be like, “Well we want it for this price” or “Oh, this looks really good we want it for a little higher.”

Dillon Honcoop:
They’ll actually say that?

Andrew Eddie:
No.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah.

Andrew Eddie:
We hope they say it.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah. You’re probably going to come in and say, “Hey this is awesome hay. Here’s the price.” They’re going to say, “Will you take 25% less than that?” You’ll be like, “Hm.” How much negotiating goes on with this stuff?

Andrew Eddie:
The exporters sit there constantly and negotiate about it. They’ll offer it out and they’ll see what they say and they’ll do probably three or four counter offers and see what happens. I mean it all depends. We just sold some today that they offered out a couple times and three or four, five negotiations. Middle of the night because time difference.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah, true. True.

Andrew Eddie:
They’re like, “Hey here’s what we got. This is the product, here’s where we need to be at. Here’s where my grower needs to be at. Here’s where I need to be at to make some money. Here’s where you got to be.” See if it fits in where they’re thinking.

Dillon Honcoop:
So how many acres are you guys growing hay on?

Andrew Eddie:
We have 1300 acres and then we do another probably 1300 acres worth of custom work. So total for last year we covered probably 8500 acres for the entire year-

Dillon Honcoop:
Wow.

Andrew Eddie:
… after all four cuttings of alfalfa, two cuttings of Timothy.

Dillon Honcoop:
Right, going over those same acres.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah, yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
So customer work meaning what?

Andrew Eddie:
We just, we go and we work with another custom guy and we’ll actually go cut and then he’ll rake it and bale it. The farm that has the ground doesn’t have the equipment to do it.

Dillon Honcoop:
I see.

Andrew Eddie:
So they just contract hired out and we go and do that.

Dillon Honcoop:
So that’s half of the acres you cover is custom work?

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
Wow.

Andrew Eddie:
Yep pretty much. It varies a little bit depending on what their rotation’s at. But for the most part that’s where we’re at. So, yeah. It keeps us busy. If the machine’s not rolling, it’s not paying for itself.

Dillon Honcoop:
That’s true.

Andrew Eddie:
So employees aren’t cheap. Labor’s not cheap, fuel’s not cheap. Equipment definitely isn’t cheap. So, you got to supplement a little bit. But it also keeps, definitely keeps us busy.

Dillon Honcoop:
How did you guys get into this?

Andrew Eddie:
Farming as a whole?

Dillon Honcoop:
Or hay farming specifically? Did you not always do hay farming? Or what’s the family background?

Andrew Eddie:
So family background, technically I say I’m second generation hay farmer.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah.

Andrew Eddie:
My grandpa he had the ground, he used to work odd jobs. I mean he did anything and everything. He was a fireman, he was a lumberjack, he was a quality control specialist somewhere. I mean he’s done a multitude of things and he ended up with farm ground. So he farmed a little bit. But my dad pretty much started the place. But, he used to work for another hay grower here in the local area and he worked for him for 25 years. Then things just weren’t working out, so he decided hey I’m going to try to go do this on my own. So like I said my grandpa had some ground and my dad said, “Hey I want to start farming.” So they started with about 200 acres, pretty much where we’re sitting at right now. Since then, and that was probably 12 years ago, 11 years ago, and since then we’ve grown from 200 acres to 13, 1400.

Dillon Honcoop:
Wow.

Andrew Eddie:
With five or six employees probably by the time you get through everything. So, yeah it was pretty much my dad. He’s been around hay for a long time. So, I mean he’s been around hay for, I’ll do some quick mental math. It would be 34 years he’s been around hay. 34, 35.

Dillon Honcoop:
When did you start farming?

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah so born into it, so that’s always good. They say the biggest challenge with family farming is putting up with your family. You love your family, you do. But it takes a special nutcase to want to willingly and come and work together, right? You butt heads every once in a while, 95% of the time. But, you make it work. So, I was working here just summers and stuff like that doing normal farm tasks and things like that. Then I reached a point where I was done. I didn’t want to farm. I thought farming was probably one of the worst things I could do, which is bad to say because-

Dillon Honcoop:
Really. The wind is blowing our microphone over.

Andrew Eddie:
Here, we’ll do that. So, I was like, “No I can’t do this. I can’t work with family. I’m not going to farm. I don’t like it. It’s terrible.” Blah, blah, blah.

Dillon Honcoop:
This was when you were how old?

Andrew Eddie:
I was about 18.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah.

Andrew Eddie:
So it was time.

Dillon Honcoop:
It’s a key time to be making some decisions.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah so I was like, “I’m going to go do something else.” My parents were supportive and they were like, “Okay yeah do what you want.” So I applied to go to school at the University of Oregon in Eugene and took them about a month and a half to get back to me and I had a couple other offers, a couple other places to do random things. I thought I was going to do engineering and thought I was going to do this and then realized that’s a whole lot of math and a whole lot of thinking that my brain couldn’t handle.

Dillon Honcoop:
I’m not smart enough for that.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
That’s for sure. I’ll be the first to admit.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah, so I’m like, “No, let’s not do that.” So I waited and waited and waited. Got into the University of Oregon, didn’t know what I wanted to do. Went down there, had two years left. I had already gotten my Associate’s Degree from a local community college and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I got down there, I ended up signing up for some journalism classes and I was literally sitting in, I think it was a 201 class, so basic first introductory class that was media studies. I’m sitting there and I’m going, “This advertising thing is not too bad. It looks pretty good.” So I was like, “You know what, I’m going for it.” So I ended up getting a degree in journalism communications with an emphasis in advertising. Then it got down to trying to find jobs. Pretty much everybody I went to school with got jobs at Nike, big old ad agencies, all this other stuff. I’m just like-

Dillon Honcoop:
They’re in Oregon too, so yeah.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah I’m like, “Here I am, what do I want to do?” I was like, “All right well I’ll go back to the farm. Shouldn’t be too bad.” I got back here and I’m like, “Why did I leave?”

Dillon Honcoop:
Really? It was that apparent?

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah and don’t get me wrong I enjoy the whole advertising world. I enjoy all that stuff. But, I think-

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah you got a fan club. That guy has driven by multiple times and he wants to watch the podcast I guess.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah the boss is driving around wondering what I’m doing.

Dillon Honcoop:
That guy is the boss man? Aka, your dad?

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah. Yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
Oh, I didn’t recognize him.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah. So, no I left and that was that. So, I came back and I’m like, “This is what I want to do. I enjoy growing crop and I enjoy doing this and I enjoy doing that. So let’s make it happen.” Ever since then I’ve been back.

Dillon Honcoop:
So what did your dad say?

Andrew Eddie:
He didn’t say much.

Dillon Honcoop:
And he was happy to have you come join the operation?

Andrew Eddie:
Oh, yeah. Yeah he was happy. The first couple of years were a little rough. We’re just getting back into hey I went off and did this, so I know.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yep.

Andrew Eddie:
Not really completely, but it was just one of those deals where it’s like how about we do it this way? How about we do it that way? Now we’re at a decent spot. We’re getting along a whole lot better. We make things work a whole lot better because we do have different views on how to do things or we do have different thought processes when doing something. So, I think that’s one of the biggest things. But I’ll tell anybody that if you’re wanting to farm, especially with family or anything, go do something else and come back because you learn a lot more when you’re gone than when you’re there. I think if you stick around, and this is with any job, wise words of wisdom with Andrew today.

Andrew Eddie:
But, I think this is with any job is the fact that you get in a comfort zone. You get in a comfort zone in your life. You get in a comfort zone with your job so you’re like, “Well I don’t have to change anything.” Then you get out there and you experience different things. You experience different people and how they do things to get a certain task done. And you’re like, “Hey I’m going to try that. Why don’t I think about that?” So I think getting somebody out of their comfort zone is the biggest thing for sure. So, I think now the boss is staring at me. I think that’s the biggest thing is get out of your comfort zone. I think you learn more out of your comfort zone than you do in it. That’s the biggest thing.

Dillon Honcoop:
Anything specifically that you take away from your education that changes maybe how you do your work now? I mean people think, “Wow that’s a far cry from a communications degree.”

Andrew Eddie:
Right. No I think it’s shifting too. I think the push now is especially is being active on social media and things like that and showing our story. We’re not just some, well I tell you what we big old farmers here. We’re actually doing a job that takes a whole lot more than okay let it grow. Even when I was explaining it earlier it’s like, “Well we just put water on it. We put fertilizer on it, it’s done.” It’s a little more than that. Somebody can do it, but it all depends on how and what. So, no I think the biggest thing is yeah, it’s communication is of course the backbone of pretty much anything. I mean communication is the backbone of … as the wind picks up a little bit.

Dillon Honcoop:
Hey but you hay people, you love wind right?

Andrew Eddie:
I’m loving it right now.

Dillon Honcoop:
Isn’t this what makes your hay awesome?

Andrew Eddie:
For sure, yeah. No, I think communication of course is the backbone of anything. Relationships, negotiations for buyers, anything like that or even relationships with [inaudible 00:31:00] or things like that. So, it all comes down to it. But the biggest thing, especially with social media, is the fact that we have the opportunity and platform to share our story, right? So, that’s the biggest thing for me is it’s allowing us as an operation to showcase, “Hey here’s what we do. We’re not saying it’s perfect, we’re not saying it’s the best thing ever. We’re not saying we’re absolutely right. But, here’s what we do, here’s why we do it and here’s our thought process.” Maybe somebody else will take it or maybe somebody else will be like, “Hey why don’t you try this or have you ever tried this?” Things like that. I’ll have growers reach out and be like, “Hey what do you normally put down on your Timothy or what are trying on your alfalfa that looks really good?” Things like that.

Andrew Eddie:
It gives me a certain sense of pride and it gives us, well not so much the social media mogul over there that searched Twitter all day. But, it gives me a certain sense of pride because it’s like hey here’s what we’re doing somebody is recognizing, “Hey that’s pretty sweet. I think we can do something.” So I think yeah, it just gives … It’s a whole new avenue. We can market it in a different way and say, “Here’s what we got. Here’s showing you the inner workings of an alfalfa operation or a forage operation.” So I think that’s cool. It’s a challenge for sure. Here last week it was just raining, that was it. It was raining and that takes a big old blow to our ego and our confidence because I mean we are losing money. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s not as tough as some of these other growers like potato contracts that are currently, were cut at the beginning of the year and things like that. They’re the ones that are suffering super a lot.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah.

Andrew Eddie:
So that was my point is I know we show all the good stuff, but we’re also human and we make mistakes.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah you had a good video post about that on Instagram.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah it was one of those days where you just had to let it out, you know what I mean? You had to talk to somebody and if there’s nobody to talk to that wants to listen you just talk to yourself, right?

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah.

Andrew Eddie:
So I think that’s the biggest thing is yeah it’s tough, but we’ll recover and there’s some growers out there that it is a big hit. They can absorb some of these things. You start talking losing 100, 200 bucks a ton. Well probably about 100 bucks a ton. That’s a big deal. I mean at the end of the day that’s a lot of money that we’re talking about. I’ve even talked to some potato growers in the local area and one of the guys goes, “I just put $4,000 an acre into potato ground and I have to plant sweet corn or beans or peas and I’m not going to make a single penny back from what I already put into it.”

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah he’s not going to be able to make as much as they had already spent on it.

Andrew Eddie:
No. Yeah and he goes, “That’s what I have to do. How am I going to make it work? I have no idea, but that’s what it is.” So we get a little bit of rain, yeah it’s a punch in the gut for sure. But, especially when it’s some of the best looking stuff that we had, that was ready to go right before it rained. But yeah, I think yeah it’s-

Dillon Honcoop:
Well I thought your post was on point not just about farming, but about anybody on social media. That’s the phenomenon.

Andrew Eddie:
Right.

Dillon Honcoop:
Everybody just shows the best part of their life.

Andrew Eddie:
Right.

Dillon Honcoop:
So it makes everybody else feel like, “Oh, my life sucks.”

Andrew Eddie:
Right.

Dillon Honcoop:
But the reality is everybody has a lot of crappy stuff in life.

Andrew Eddie:
100% and that’s the thing is yeah. I think that’s one of the biggest, what’s the word I’m looking for? That’s one of the biggest drawbacks of social media, but it’s also one of the biggest points that we can start to address is the fact that it may look all pretty and nice and the other side of the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah.

Andrew Eddie:
You might want to start digging a little deeper and I think that’s my point is we make mistakes. We’re not perfect. We have misapplication on chemical or our crop doesn’t grow or anything like that, it happens. Or Mother Nature kicks us in the butt and says, “You were feeling good. Yeah here you are. Here’s a little slice of humble pie.” So, I think social media is a double edge sword for sure and I think the biggest challenge … nobody wants to share the bad stuff. Nobody wants to say, “Hey I messed up.” It’s as simple as that.

Dillon Honcoop:
Well they’re worried, number one they don’t want to look dumb.

Andrew Eddie:
Right.

Dillon Honcoop:
And number two, I mean if you’re doing business you’re worried that your customers are going to be like, “I don’t know if I trust them anymore.”

Andrew Eddie:
Right, but I think that’s the biggest thing is closing that gap between where customers and us are at and getting people closer. The thing about it is even some of our overseas customers they were like, “Oh, well we’ve never actually seen alfalfa go on the bale. How does that work?” I’m like, “Here’s some videos.” Technology and all that stuff is great nowadays. You couldn’t do that in the past. I mean you could, but you’d have you know.

Dillon Honcoop:
Well and as far as admitting to things not going perfectly with our generation, that’s what we’re into. We almost don’t trust somebody where things are too perfect.

Andrew Eddie:
Right.

Dillon Honcoop:
It’s like that’s got to be fake.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah, or that’s not actual reality. What is reality?

Dillon Honcoop:
Reality is doing a podcast and having wind pick up-

Andrew Eddie:
That’s right.

Dillon Honcoop:
… and jets fly over and people drive by.

Andrew Eddie:
That’s right.

Dillon Honcoop:
And people call you on the phone.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah and the boss working on equipment behind you is what you get.

Dillon Honcoop:
That’s reality.

Andrew Eddie:
Back of the pickup’s dirty. I mean a whole bunch of stuff. But I think that’s the biggest thing is I’ve had people say, “Hey, thanks. Thanks for sharing the bad.” I go, “It’s not even close to being terrible. I can sit here and complain all day about what goes wrong, but you look at other things in the world and you’re like my life ain’t that bad.”

Dillon Honcoop:
Well that you said it earlier and now you’re saying it again and that’s something that farmers are really good at and it goes along with that farmer optimism, it’s that well things could be worse vibe.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah until-

Dillon Honcoop:
Farmers have to do that otherwise you couldn’t survive.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah we’re the biggest pessimists you’ve ever met in your life, no joke. We’ll look at something we’ll be like, “Oh, man that’s probably the worst quality stuff I’ve ever put up in my life.”

Dillon Honcoop:
But you’re still an optimist because you’re going to try for it.

Andrew Eddie:
But, we’ll be like, “Oh, that’s terrible quality.” Then someone will come by and be like, “That’s probably the best stuff I’ve looked at so far.” You’re like, “All right, cool.” You can be an optimist and you’ll end up being fine. But that’s the thing is you reach a point where yeah, it kicks you in the shorts and you’re like, “I just want to go home and cry.” I mean it’s fine if you go home and cry it’s no big deal. But, it’s also one of those deals where it’s like what can we do about it? There’s nothing we can do about Mother Nature. If it’s something that we messed up we can fix it. Mother Nature comes through it’s out of our control. I mean you can sit there and say however Hail Mary’s you want but it ain’t going to matter about what’s going on. So the biggest thing especially this year is predictability on weather. There hasn’t been any. It’s been either 10% chance and it rains or it’s 70% chance and it’s sunny. It all depends.

Dillon Honcoop:
Such is the way of farming.

Andrew Eddie:
Such is the way of farming.

Dillon Honcoop:
What’s been the hardest time for you so far farming? What’s the most challenging thing?

Andrew Eddie:
Oh, man. I mean one of the most challenging things is of course trying to juggle home life and farm life. That’s the biggest thing.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah.

Andrew Eddie:
We put in long hours. Farmers put in long hours. Dairy guys put in long hours. Things like that. It’s balancing how much you’re working and how much you’re at home. Also for me, so my wife works at the hospital. She’s a labor and delivery nurse. So she’ll work nights and I work days.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yep never see each other.

Andrew Eddie:
Never see each other and when she’s working I’m not working and shen she’s not working I’m working. So we got two kids at home so that’s the biggest thing. I take them out and be like, “Hey we’re going to go check. We’re going to go drive around.” Gets them out of the house but it’s also like-

Dillon Honcoop:
Daddy daycare in a pickup.

Andrew Eddie:
I got to go work. Here’s some fruit snacks, we’ll turn on some Frozen and we’ll be fine. But I’ve listened to my fair share of Frozen in this truck here. But it’s really sad when you’re off topic a little bit, when we’re driving around and the kids aren’t in the truck and the Frozen is still playing and you don’t notice. You’re like, “I really hope nobody pulls up. Let’s turn on some ACDC.”

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah a little awkward the farmer guy shows up and you’re listening to Frozen.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah I mean it happens.

Dillon Honcoop:
If it was from my household it would be Bubble Guppies or Paw Patrol or something like that.

Andrew Eddie:
Perfect, yeah probably mine too, yeah. Yeah, no my kid yeah. My kid definitely enjoys.

Dillon Honcoop:
Well I grew up on the seat of a tractor myself. My dad was a custom farmer when I was quite young.

Andrew Eddie:
Right.

Dillon Honcoop:
So I’d ride along with dad until he was doing something that was too rough to have a little kid. If he was ripping some rough ground or something with the tractor it was like, “Okay mom is going to come pick you up. You got to get out now.”

Andrew Eddie:
Right.

Dillon Honcoop:
I don’t want you to whack your head on the steering wheel. Obviously older tractor, less room. No actual buddy seat. It was just fold the armrest down and the old 4240.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah the fender of the tractor making sure you don’t slip off onto the tire, yeah. Been there, yeah I’ve been there many times with my dad. I think that’s the biggest thing is my wife and I talk a whole bunch. I try to get home as readily as I can. I try to balance that life. It is absolutely probably one of the hardest things I deal with. Getting our guys to do whatever and getting equipment fixed and things like that. I mean I hate to say it’s easy, but it’s just a thing we do now. It’s a process for sure. So, yeah I think the biggest things is just finding that time.

Dillon Honcoop:
And your busiest time is in the summertime when everybody else in the world thinks that’s when we should be going on vacation.

Andrew Eddie:
Right. Right, right.

Dillon Honcoop:
That was my growing up too.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
I grew up on a red raspberry farm. You harvest raspberries in July. You do not do anything else.

Andrew Eddie:
Right.

Dillon Honcoop:
And you certainly don’t even mention going on vacation because that would be blasphemy.

Andrew Eddie:
No, no yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
Even though you can get vacations in between cuttings.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
Maybe, sometimes.

Andrew Eddie:
We can get … we can sneak away for a little while. I mean going on vacation next week, but that’s beside the point. We were planning on being done for full disclaimer, not that it really matters. But one of the biggest things is that everybody is like, “Oh, well you just take the weekend off right?” Sure I could.

Dillon Honcoop:
Right.

Andrew Eddie:
But everything is still going to be growing. It don’t matter. If the weather’s right we’re doing it. We’re going, we’re farming. Simple as that. I think the best description and I think most people have probably seen this floating around is the dad and the son like, “Oh, what is this?” “Oh, I don’t know son.” Well it’s the same thing with farming is like, “Hey dad what’s a weekend?” “I don’t know son we’re farmers.” That’s probably the best description I have because that’s the way it is. 4th of July, what is holidays right? What are weekends? People are like, “Oh, yeah did you make it there?” What day is it? Oh, Saturday well no.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah, sorry.

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah and then you know-

Dillon Honcoop:
I saw it on social media the next day.

Andrew Eddie:
Right? Yeah, well and then you get to the point where you’re working for a couple days straight, pretty much you leave your house, go to work, go back, sleep a little bit and come back. You’re like, “Did I take a shower today? What did I do today?” They’ll be like, “Oh, it’s Thursday.” You’re like, “I was working since Monday, what are you talking about?” So it’s just the concept of time with farming is one of the craziest things too because it’s like okay, what day is it? What time is it? What are we going to do?

Dillon Honcoop:
What’s the longest day you’ve worked?

Andrew Eddie:
Recently about two hours. Just kidding, jokes. Oh, shoot probably we’ve had like last year we had a couple … If the weather’s right, actually probably 2018 was probably one of the longer ones we had some days 14, 16 hours and then we’d get down baling probably get out there and start raking at about 4:00, 4:30 in the morning. Take a little break, start baling, get down at about 10:30, 11 o’clock at night and go back about two or three the next morning. Do that for a couple days and I mean, it’s not too bad. I don’t envy the people that do night shift and have to work 12 hours on, 12 hours off and stuff like that. No, no those people, like my wife is a saint. Yeah, managing that and trying to sleep during the day. I’m just like I don’t know how you do it.

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah that’s a tough job.

Andrew Eddie:
Some days are long, some days are short, it all depends. I mean and yeah it varies too. That’s the thing. I think that’s the biggest thing is people going back to the comment about what’s a weekend or can’t you just take a day off? Well yeah, but it’s also like it’s our livelihood. So if we don’t go now, we’re not making money and we’re not making money why are we even doing it? I mean to be honest with you it’s fun, but we don’t do it just for fun. If you did it just for fun, what’s the point?

Dillon Honcoop:
Yeah.

Andrew Eddie:
I mean if you had a bunch of money to blow, don’t get me wrong then it would be fun. But pretty much every business you want the business to succeed. So how do you do that? You put in the time and the effort and the hard work.

Dillon Honcoop:
Sure would be a lot less stressful if money wasn’t an option huh?

Andrew Eddie:
Yeah if the bank roll was just rolling through, yeah.

Dillon Honcoop:
That way if you made a bad decision it wouldn’t be like, “I may lose the farm over this.”

Andrew Eddie:
But on the contrary though, even if it was bank roll and you afforded it, when you start growing a crop and you get it down and it starts getting ruined, you’re like yeah okay now I’m losing money. It’s just like going to the casino, same thing right? It’s like I won 400 bucks and then you’re like, oh never mind. I just lost all of that $400 because I wanted to play for another 20 minutes. It’s the same deal. It’s all a big gamble and a crapshoot for what’s going on. You try everything in your power to get it done right and then one thing comes through and ruins it.

Announcer:
This is the Real Food Real People Podcast. These are the stories of the people who grow your food.

Dillon Honcoop:
Next week on the podcast we’re going to finish the conversation with Andrew. There’s so much more about technology and about family and struggles and his story on the farm and coming back to the farm. This is the Real Food Real People Podcast. I’m Dillon Honcoop and I’m really glad that you have joined us here. I’d really appreciate it if you subscribed to the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. I just noticed maybe on one of the platforms that it wasn’t working right. So please, let me know if you’re experiencing any issues and I can get to work oh that. Dillon@RealFoodRealPeople.org and Dillon is spelled D-I-L-L-O-N @RealFoodRealPeople.org. Send me a message, let me know and I can get techy smart people, smarter than me figuring any issues out if you have any trouble subscribing or anything like that.

Dillon Honcoop:
Of course RealFoodRealPeople.org is the website and you can follow us on Twitter and on Instagram and on Facebook. We’d really appreciate it and again, like I mentioned earlier you can watch this whole episode on YouTube as well. We’re working on getting more stuff on YouTube. I’m learning the whole video thing as we go here, just making it up and making mistakes and learning from my mistakes. So check us out on YouTube. Subscribe there too, that would really help us out. And again next week is more with Andrew Eddie of RNH Farms, hay farmer in Moses Lake, Washington. Thank you again for being here.

Announcer:
The Real Food Real People Podcast is sponsored in part by Save Family Farming. Giving a voice to Washington’s farm families, find them online at savefamilyfarming.org and by dairy farmers of Washington, supporting Washington dairy farmers, connecting consumers to agriculture and inspiring the desire for local dairy. Find out more at WAdairy.org.