Dustin exposes how the Farm Credit System exploits American farmers, leading to family farm losses and increased foreign land ownership.
Dustin's story is a harrowing tale of how the American farmer is being systematically oppressed by the very institutions that were established to support them. This episode of TFTC dives into the egregious manipulation and exploitation of the Farm Credit System (FCS), a network originally designed to benefit American farmers by providing them with access to loans and financial support. However, over the past century, this system has morphed into an instrument of crony capitalism, where lack of oversight and legal maneuvering have stripped farmers of their rights and subjected them to the whims of corrupt officials and financial distress.
Dustin discusses his personal encounter with the FCS, where his loan was put in distress despite never missing a payment and having substantial equity in his farm. This situation forced him to make drastic decisions, like selling his home, to settle his debts and extricate himself from what appears to be an extortion scheme backed by the Farm Credit Administration (FCA).
Furthermore, the conversation uncovers a disturbing trend of farmland being sold to foreign entities, which not only threatens the livelihood of American farmers but also poses significant national security concerns. The FCA, which is supposed to oversee the FCS, and its Inspector General, Wendy Laguarda, are accused of turning a blind eye to these practices, ultimately contributing to the loss of family farms and the rise of foreign control over American farmland.
Dustin's story is not just an isolated case but a symptom of a larger, systemic problem that has been developing for over a century. Immediate attention and action is needed to rectify the injustices faced by American farmers and to safeguard the nation's agricultural future. As Dustin aptly put it, the ongoing crisis is not just about "plows and cows," but about the fundamental right to due process and the protection of American farmland from being leveraged in schemes that prioritize the profit of the well-connected over the average American farmer.
0:00 - Intro
0:14 - The farm credit system
8:51 - River & Unchained
10:07 - Dustin’s situation and the lenders’ liquidity crisis
20:15 - The people responsible?
25:42 - Gradually, Then Suddenly & Zaprite
27:19 - Motivations and goals
32:38 - Ruthless tactics
39:15 - FCA’s integral role
47:50 - Last stand of the farmers
55:10 - Educating consumers and supporting farmers
1:00:42 - Herding us toward hyper-centralized food
1:08:07 - Next steps
1:11:33 - Wrapping on a monologue
00:00:01:11 - 00:00:33:10
Marty
I mean I'm interested in the story doesn't we're live now because I think it's just another example. If either government mass incompetence or malice that is going on in the world, you've essentially highlighted uncovered a scheme going on between the Farmer Credit administration, which is managed by the federal government and how they are putting American farmers in very vulnerable positions and extorting them almost.
00:00:33:10 - 00:00:50:23
Marty
And so I think to start off our conversation, let's just give a top level 30,000 foot view of what exactly happened here, why our farmers needing to leverage these type of loans and how are they being manipulated in taking advantage of.
00:00:50:25 - 00:01:15:08
Dustin
Yeah, absolutely. And appreciate the interest on the story. The the farm credit system was set up a little bit over 100 years ago, and originally it was set up as a benefit to the farmers. And what has happened over the course of that 100 years is essentially a level of crony capitalism, really. We had a system that was set up for the farmers.
00:01:15:08 - 00:01:47:15
Dustin
That is it is a government sponsored enterprise when you look at the Farm Credit administration. But they try to keep their lenders on an independent level. At least that's that's the pitch that they give. What we have been able to find out and we found this out through an investigation that we had launched back in 2021 by the Farm Credit Administration is that there is no oversight in this system whatsoever right now.
00:01:47:17 - 00:02:19:17
Dustin
And you have farmers who can be foreclosed down with without even getting due process. And I'll just very quickly break down and say that the entire farm credit system is governed by a federal law called the US Farm Credit Act. And through a series of manipulations in the courts and through legislation over the last 40 years, they have taken away a farm or borrower's right to even sue these people in court.
00:02:19:19 - 00:02:46:25
Dustin
So your only recourse if a local lender, for example, does what they did to us, to where they put our loan into in distress, and that's the first step in the farm credit foreclosure process. And to tell you how egregious our particular situation was, we never missed a loan payment. We had over $2 million in equity the year before the farm that they that they were trying to take from us.
00:02:46:25 - 00:03:15:08
Dustin
We owned free and clear. We had only financed it because we were doing a construction project and we put that farm that we owned free and clear up as collateral. And so what we ended up finding out was when they put our loan in distress and we had never missed a payment, we reached out to what was supposed to be our only recourse, which was the Farm Credit Administration, and they did nothing for 657 days.
00:03:15:10 - 00:03:38:26
Dustin
And so it lasted two years. And during that period of time, what I was forced to do an option that a lot of farmers would not have had available to them is I sold my home, I sold my home so that I could pay off my farm credit debt 24 years early to get out of what was essentially an extortion scheme.
00:03:38:29 - 00:04:10:09
Dustin
And I did that because it was becoming very clear to me that the Farm Credit Administration was not going to step in. And you know, that that is essentially how we uncovered all of this. We have now found out in just the last week that it is completely an inside job going all the way to the inspector general, who is really the only even designed independent oversight to the Farm Credit administration as a whole.
00:04:10:11 - 00:04:25:20
Dustin
But, you know, in a system like this, we are losing family farms every day. The government has sounded the alarm on it. What they're not telling everybody is that they are a major reason why we are Liz and these family farms.
00:04:25:23 - 00:04:28:00
Marty
So it's incredibly two faced.
00:04:28:02 - 00:04:28:28
Dustin
Absolutely.
00:04:29:01 - 00:04:51:10
Marty
We've got a big problem here. We're actually causing because if I recall correctly, reading your Twitter post from last week, Thursday, Friday, there's internal sabotage and you've honed in on a couple of particular individuals within the FCA who are working against the interest of small American farmers.
00:04:51:12 - 00:05:30:05
Dustin
That's right. And, you know, we don't even know exactly all of the motivations. But I'll tell you, if you look at it and three years ago, I'd probably laugh at what I'm about to say, but I'm certainly not laughing now. But the government itself has put out reports over the last few years saying that we have a major problem with foreign entities coming in and buying farmland and what we had missed as far as that full picture was the fact that the United States farm credit system, again, that was set up over 100 years ago for the benefit of American farmers to save American farmland.
00:05:30:08 - 00:05:58:19
Dustin
All of a sudden they carved out a particular provision that allowed our own government to lend or sell to foreign entities and individuals. And to give you an example, the extortion on my case and the lender that we have found to be the most rogue, I guess at this point, almost to the point that it almost has to be a tribal as far as the farm credit system as a whole is Alabama Farm Credit.
00:05:58:22 - 00:06:24:12
Dustin
And you've got a 3000 borrower system there right now. And you've got over a thousand borrowers who they have taken money from. And what has happened over that period of time, though, over the last five years is Alabama went from a state that had 2% of its farmland controlled by foreign interest to now it's over 8% of the farmland in the state of Alabama that's controlled by foreign interests.
00:06:24:14 - 00:06:50:26
Dustin
And you put that within that same window. This new inspector general that had come in to the Foreign Credit Administration, and I've named the person her name is Wendy LaGuardia. We we have confirmed enough information to know that she is a major problem as far as farmers who are about to lose everything they've ever worked for, reaching out to the Farm Credit administration.
00:06:50:29 - 00:07:32:26
Dustin
And they are essentially ignoring it. And again, we don't know all of the motivations. It could be purely the fact that they are selling this land off to the highest bidder for interest comes in as the highest bidder. A lot of these executives are set up even though they are in government positions or quasi government positions. They're getting bonuses and commissions based on performance and based on money made and so there is a complete contrast there between where the system started 100 years ago as far as being a co-operative that was for the benefit of the farmers, where now it is essentially a profit scheme that's that it's actually worse than that.
00:07:33:01 - 00:07:54:15
Dustin
Then if you were dealing with a private bank, because at least with a private bank, you could sue them in court. With the farm credit system, you don't have a right under the law to sue them under the foreign Credit Act. And so they you could literally have a local lender tomorrow come out on a loan that she might have taken out seven days ago.
00:07:54:18 - 00:08:18:13
Dustin
And if they want to foreclose, all they have to do is put you in a distressed situation. They they can even go so far as to say that they have made the subjective determination that their collateral may be in jeopardy because you can't pay that loan over the lot over the lifetime of it. And provided that the Farm Credit Administration does not step in.
00:08:18:13 - 00:08:39:07
Dustin
And during this period of time that this new inspector general has been in that site, she's been there since 2017, we can't find a single situation to where she has sided with a borrower and start providing relief against in their fight against a lender who might be trying to take their farm. And I mean that that's remarkable.
00:08:39:09 - 00:08:57:24
Marty
Well, for your particular situation, I mean, you mentioned the loan you took out is fully collateralized by the land that you own, free and clear. You're on time with your payments. What was the justification for them transitioning your loan into a state of distress? Was it the subjective whimsy you described?
00:08:57:27 - 00:09:29:06
Dustin
So so in our situation, it's kind of two. One, you have what their reasoning was. Their reasoning was that they believed that they they made the subjective determination that even though I had never missed a loan payment, even though I owned the property of the year before, even though I had over $2 million in equity in this farm, that their collateral was in jeopardy and that I was in financial distress and would not be able to pay my loans over the 25 year lifetime of that loan.
00:09:29:08 - 00:09:54:06
Dustin
And the reality of it, though, and this is kind of the bigger picture part of it and what we're fighting still today is that they were aware. I represent a group in the state of Alabama, the Alabama Poultry Growers Association. So these poultry farmers that may contract with a Tyson Cook Foods, a Pilgrim's pride, that Whiting Farms, those kind of companies.
00:09:54:09 - 00:10:19:15
Dustin
So we I grew up on a poultry and cattle form. I've represented the poultry farmers of Alabama for more than a decade before this. But I actually had an executive from Alabama Farm Credit. My lender show up at my farm in January of 2021 and start asking a lot of questions about who we represented in agriculture and wanting to know whether or not we represented the Poultry Farmers Association.
00:10:19:15 - 00:10:47:08
Dustin
Still, we told him yes. By June of 2021, we had received a letter to where they had asked us to disclose who our agricultural law clients were as part of their due diligence on our loan. And a month later I had my branch manager call and say, Dustin, something's going out. Your your loan account has been frozen. And so for us and again, we were unique.
00:10:47:08 - 00:11:12:18
Dustin
We're standing in front of a thousand poultry borrowers that were at Alabama Farm Credit because a third of their entire loan portfolio is poultry farmers. So from July of 2021 until I paid my loans off in full in December, our account was completely frozen. I could not contact my lender. We were turned over to a private lawyer that was based out of Birmingham, Alabama.
00:11:12:20 - 00:11:55:08
Dustin
I reported that lawyer. We got him in recorded calls. There are letters to this effect saying we will not be back in the farm credit system unless we sign a release of claims with confidentiality. What we now know is that that was going to extend all the way to us not being able to represent these poultry farmers against them and, you know, kind of bringing it all full circle there is that the Alabama Farm Credit Association by the if you look just at the line of credit that they have at that bank, they have a they they have a $1 billion line of credit with the Farm Credit Bank of Texas, which is their parent
00:11:55:08 - 00:12:27:25
Dustin
bank. And if you look at their most recent quarterly report in March of 2024, it will show that they are over 90% to the maximum of that line of credit. What happened in 2021, at least according to internal former Alabama Farm Credit employees that have spoken with us on the condition that we keep their information an anonymous and confidential is that the bank was having difficulties, the lender was having difficulties.
00:12:27:27 - 00:13:00:00
Dustin
There was a real chance in our position is that that lender was going to fail. And what ended up happening is that those poultry farmers had these assignment accounts where a portion of their money that they received from the poultry companies was being held kind of like a deposit. They woke up one morning in September of 2021 while their attorney up here in Tennessee was being extorted and being told that he's going to lose his farm if he doesn't stand down from all of this.
00:13:00:00 - 00:13:31:10
Dustin
And what happened was they they locked those accounts. We believe that there will end up being about $60 million that was in those accounts. When you go across the board, all 1000, I think that our the highest amount I can think of a client that we represent would be a little bit over $150,000 that was taken. But we're three years later still fighting this with the Farm Credit administration and the system as a whole, because those those farmers money just disappeared.
00:13:31:13 - 00:13:56:22
Dustin
And what they have come back in in recent months and said, is that money is going to be given back to those farmers at the very back end of their loan. And they they have painted it as we're going to save these farmers interest on the very back end of their loan, because, for example, I've got clients right now that are the poultry farmers that they're really paid.
00:13:56:22 - 00:14:20:17
Dustin
I had about three years on their loan. If you took what was taken out of their account and they're saying, well, what they get two years, 17 through 20 or 22 through 25, they're going to have it made because all of a sudden we're just going to be able to tell them that they're paid off. And the reality is, is that they took advantage of people that were not sophisticated as far as in financing.
00:14:20:17 - 00:14:42:16
Dustin
And they did that with with attorneys that they hired in going against these people. And it really has put the squeeze on those people. You know, one of my clients that's had over $60,000 taken from him. He's had to take on a second job and is looking at the prospects that he might have to sell his farm over it.
00:14:42:18 - 00:15:05:24
Dustin
And we reached out to them. I asked them, would you return this gas $60,000? And all they could cobble together was $20,000. And I think that that kind of shows they don't even dispute that they took it. They just are in a position right now, I think, to where they don't know what to do because they don't have the funds to pay these people back.
00:15:05:26 - 00:15:33:19
Dustin
And so we're getting this legal super team of farm credit lawyers from all around the country. There's 50 something lenders, there's four major farm credit banks. We have lawyers coming in from other districts, districts that I don't even have clients in. And they we're going against five law firms right now because they're trying to protect Alabama farm credit from failing, because if they fail, it's joint and several liability across the system.
00:15:33:21 - 00:15:57:17
Dustin
And my feeling is in looking at the annual report from some of these other lenders, you if Alabama Farm Credit fails and they have joint and sever liability across the system and they go around passing that offering plate, you'll have other lenders that are going to fail and it's going to create a domino effect. And I think that there is serious concern that the whole farm credit system could collapse over this.
00:15:57:19 - 00:15:59:13
Dustin
Wow.
00:15:59:15 - 00:16:00:26
Marty
Initially.
00:16:00:29 - 00:16:29:11
Dustin
I mean, it's remarkable. Here's another thing that we just found out in the last week is that if you go back about ten years ago, Farm Credit snuck into the Treasury Department. This was not passed by Congress. This was never revealed publicly. And this information was provided to us from the private banking industry, which, you know, they've had a beef with farm credit for years because there is no oversight there.
00:16:29:11 - 00:16:49:25
Dustin
And it makes it difficult for the private banking world to compete with them or anybody else. But what they found out was they went to the Treasury Department and got a $10 billion standby line of credit, and nobody can get them to explain why it was that they needed that, because they continue to say, hey, we are in great financial position.
00:16:49:25 - 00:17:18:06
Dustin
But I think the reality is they are trying to hold on for dear life at this point and make sure that this whole thing doesn't crumble down. And I say that because what is going to end up being the case is it was brought down by corruption. You know, you look at some of these executive salaries and listen, I'm a capitalist and and, you know, in the in the most sincere way.
00:17:18:07 - 00:17:45:22
Dustin
But when you again, when you have a system that is at a minimum quasi governmental that was set up for the farmers and you have the Farm Credit Bank of Texas and their CEO makes over $1,000,000 base salary with over $1,000,000 in bonuses, that something has went amiss in this system. And there's just no question that there there's some financial difficulty is across the board.
00:17:45:25 - 00:18:10:10
Marty
When I initially came into this conversation, I was thinking that we would uncover some corruption in the sense that you have some people in positions of power in government that are looking to sell American owned farmland to foreigners. But now, as you describe it, it seems like this is a pure liquidity crisis going on within the FCA and the the member banks.
00:18:10:13 - 00:18:43:15
Marty
And the reaction to their liquidity crisis is to try to thrust the blame on the individual farmers who are taking out loans to maybe on the back end of this crisis say it wasn't our fault. The farmers couldn't actually pay their bills. When you're making it abundantly clear that most people can. And so especially with moving the the frozen funds and saying, hey, we're going to add that to the back end of the loan structure so that you're good at the later years that signals like, no, they need the money now, so they need to confiscate it.
00:18:43:15 - 00:18:47:18
Marty
So that they can cover their liabilities elsewhere.
00:18:47:21 - 00:19:16:18
Dustin
Oh yeah, absolutely. And this is perhaps the most egregious part of it, is the fact that, again, you're talking about a farmer owned system. So so all the money really that's at these lenders belongs to the farmers and would in theory go back to them as a dividend, which they do have a patronage program. But the frightening part of this is like with Alabama Farm Credit, like I mentioned before, they have five wall firms that are working for them right now.
00:19:16:21 - 00:19:41:09
Dustin
Well, who do you think those law firms are paid for? They're paid for by these farmer borrowers. And so the the shocking fact here is the fact is that these executives have used farmer borrower funds. They have just about collapsed this system and they are hiring. I'm talking about the top law firms, not just even in the United States.
00:19:41:09 - 00:20:06:22
Dustin
I mean, we're going against the law firm right now. It's got offices all across the world and we're going against the biggest law firm in the state of Alabama. And again, these lawyers are brought in to try to protect the executives from the farmer borrowers. And again, the tragedy to it is that the lawyers are being hired with the farmer borrowers money and an Alabama farm credit.
00:20:06:22 - 00:20:33:20
Dustin
Like I said, they brought in the biggest law firm in the state of Alabama and that law firm is Bradley Grant. They have offices across the United States and but they are the biggest law firm in Alabama. They are when you have a former borrower, the bank wants or that lender wants to put in a distressed status. The first step to foreclosure, they actually turn that over to the law firm.
00:20:33:22 - 00:20:54:21
Dustin
And I'll give you just an example of how far they are stretching this distressed status. I had a gentleman that called me recently and he said, Alabama Farm Credit put my loan in distress. And they are offering they want to take a deed in lieu of foreclosure. And I said, well, who are you dealing with? And they said, Well, I'm dealing with the Bradley law firm.
00:20:54:24 - 00:21:13:04
Dustin
And I said, Beyond that, if I turn over this deed in lieu of foreclosure, they also want me to sign a legal release of client and confidentiality and never tell anybody about it. And I said, well, did you get behind on your payments? And he said, No. He said, I've been reading your story. He said, I felt like I was all alone.
00:21:13:04 - 00:21:38:09
Dustin
And he said, I've never missed a loan payment. I said, What happened? He said, Well, my dad, dad and my dad was listed on the loan with us. He said, My dad and me and my mother. And I said, Well, see, in your loan documents I pull up his loan documents and in the default provision, it actually states if any person that's on that loan passes away, the bank has the right to declare you to be in default.
00:21:38:09 - 00:22:03:11
Dustin
Whether you've ever missed a payment or not. And so there are like 13 different factors that Alabama farm credit in their loan documents can find you in default for. And one of them being the the section that they use that made up where they just said, well, we don't think you can make your payments. I mean, they literally do not have to, by the contract, have any kind of proof of that.
00:22:03:13 - 00:22:28:04
Dustin
And, you know, that's that's scary. Number one, if it was even a private bank. But the fact that, again, this goes all the way up to the top, there's a federal agency that's supposed to be providing oversight to this. The federal agency has a lobbying arm that is lobbying the ag committees to be sure that they don't step in and take a look at everything.
00:22:28:04 - 00:23:01:27
Dustin
And again, you've got lawyers all the way to the top and you've got this inspector general in the position. And one of the ways that we got a tip on her being part of the problem is she is the former legal adviser and assistant to the chairman of the entire system. She moved directly from advising the chairman of the system on policies to going again to what is supposed to be an independent position as an attorney, looking to see whether or not the system in their policies has violated any laws.
00:23:02:00 - 00:23:26:17
Dustin
And so it's a complete conflict of interest. It would be no different in that situation than if my my guy that's been my lawyer for four years all of a sudden or a woman that's representing me as an attorney is pointing to a judge position or or elected to a judge position. And they get in that spot and my case comes up before them.
00:23:26:18 - 00:23:44:29
Dustin
Or how do you think they're going to get the benefit of the doubt, too? They're going to get the benefit of the doubt. To me, they've got a prior relationship with me. But that's why legal ethics does not allow that to even occur. And, you know, that's where we were confident enough to know these people. These people understand.
00:23:45:01 - 00:24:06:13
Dustin
They know exactly what they're doing. And, you know, they need to be called out on it. And we've got two other people that just since that post went viral on ABC's this past week, all of a sudden, I have other individuals that reached out with some other puzzle pieces. Now we know kind of the two right hand people that we're working with.
00:24:06:13 - 00:24:15:09
Dustin
Wendy LaGuardia in McLean, Virginia, to make all of these borrower complaints go away.
00:24:15:11 - 00:24:23:01
Marty
And what do you think their end goal is just to confiscate all this farmland to solve this liquidity issue that they set?
00:24:23:03 - 00:24:47:17
Dustin
So I think that you've got multiple competing interests, and I think that there is someone standing back and it's you know, when you look at all of this, as far as, you know, one of the things that I figured out is that these banks are not what we all thought they were as far as, you know, if everybody walked into their bank.
00:24:47:17 - 00:25:14:05
Dustin
Obviously, what happened in Alabama, farm credit is essentially a bank run. They took that money. What was supposed to have happened to that money when they eliminated those accounts was the money had to go back to them. The reality was they had created an artificial bank run and they didn't have the money to go back to them. But I think it's it's got to be multi-tiered as the lender level.
00:25:14:07 - 00:25:38:18
Dustin
The only thing really that they need to drive this is the fact that they're not treating it as a co-operative. They put these executives in place and they put tiered salary structures and tiered bonus structures in place to where it benefits them to push the farmers out of the land. And they know that they're going to be covered again all the way up to the top in McLean, Virginia, because no one's looking at it.
00:25:38:21 - 00:26:13:29
Dustin
And so, you know, and Alabama Farm Credit and again, this is this is one of many systems, but it's going on at more more lenders than this. But at Alabama Farm Credit in two of the last three years, the executives have taken over a 15% raise. And, you know, they're receiving six figure bonuses. And it got to the point where when they submit the annual report that you're supposed to be listing the CEO and the senior officer salaries, or they hear the salaries from the farmer borrowers for the last six months and wouldn't release them.
00:26:14:02 - 00:26:41:15
Dustin
And a big part of it is the fact that the dividends that went back to the farmers took a dramatic decrease at Alabama Farm Credit. Some of those people that were really counting on the dividend check that they get every spring got cut in half and then all of a sudden what they were about to find out was that their executives all were making as much as they were before, if not if not more.
00:26:41:18 - 00:27:10:08
Dustin
And so it's a situation, again, where their goal might just be personal profit, but somewhere there is somebody looking at the asset. I think almost certainly at a higher level, there is a report that was put out by the government and they put it out every year. It's the same report that it talks back that Alabama has now lost over 8% of its farmland to foreign interest.
00:27:10:10 - 00:27:36:25
Dustin
But there is a blurb in there that talks about how when they looked at where these farm locations were being chosen, they were finding out that they were around a lot of strategic military positions. And again, like when my feeling is on it, when the government tells you that it's probably too late at that point. I mean, when they're letting you in on that little secret and you just think about we're never going to get those farms back.
00:27:36:27 - 00:28:02:21
Dustin
I mean, there there is unless there is some kind of legislation that repeals some of these sales to foreign entities. And, you know, I don't see that happening. But those are never going to be returned. Those are never going to be farms again. And the fact that you have foreign interests coming in that are at times buying this and they have no intention of turning it into a farm, they're willing to pay a premium for this land.
00:28:02:23 - 00:28:21:12
Dustin
And and again, then you get back to the personal profit standpoint at the local lenders. It's more money in their pocket to get it to the higher to get it to the higher bidder. And there is no loyalty, there's no allegiance, there's no oversight of what the mission of the entire system is, which is to actually save American farmland.
00:28:21:12 - 00:28:53:18
Dustin
It has been completely turned on its head since 1916 when everything was put into place. And really probably when you look at it, the era was in 1933 when they created the Farm Credit Administration. We were rocking along, I think, okay, from 16 to 33 when it was when it was kind of a true cooperative. But as many cooperatives, particularly in the agricultural space, have turned into over the last 100 years, it's been manipulated.
00:28:53:18 - 00:29:27:00
Dustin
It's been captured by some entities at the very top. And again, I think there are multiple goals, one being money, one being land capture and one I just almost have to believe there is a bigger narrative there. And this kind of goes into the food issue is that you look at all of these trends that we see there is almost certainly unless something you know, unless this case honestly in this case is I mean, it means a lot to a lot of people.
00:29:27:00 - 00:29:45:13
Dustin
There's a lot of people out there across the country right now with a distressed loan that's just praying somebody is going to come in and fix this. But if if this was allowed to continue and to in to tell you how much they want to allow it to continue, they tried to hire me as in they hate the fact that I mentioned this.
00:29:45:13 - 00:30:06:03
Dustin
And I'm actually going to release the documents over the next few days because I, I just can't help myself at this point in life. If they take me out. I want to be sure that everybody knows the story. But between I guess it was in January, like January, they offered me $1.2 million to become a paid legal consultant for farm credit.
00:30:06:06 - 00:30:27:11
Dustin
Well, what that would it would this I represent over 200 borrowers in this system. And what that would do was it would automatically disqualify me from ever representing the farm credit borrower again. They wanted to give me $1.2 million, put me on a five year contract, and I turned them down. I report into a federal judge report in the state bar.
00:30:27:11 - 00:30:38:29
Dustin
They've not done anything about it, but that should show you the desperation that they have right now to try to keep this from all unraveling.
00:30:39:01 - 00:31:10:08
Marty
It's truly infuriating and disgusting situation where you're cutting off your nose to spite your face and when you think about the American farmer and how tough of a business it has been historically, how tough it is specifically right now, and the benefit that these business owners bring to the American economy, literally feeding and sustaining us as American citizens, as we go to live our lives, work, raise our families.
00:31:10:10 - 00:31:47:17
Marty
And you think at least I would that you would have a lot of respect for this particular industry. But it seems like the federal government, in combination with these these agricultural banks are really, again, cutting off their nose to spite their face, to take advantage of business owners who simply want to do what they do best, which is grow food in livestock, get it to market so that the American people are fed and healthy and they're taking advantage of them on both ends with very stringent debt products.
00:31:47:17 - 00:32:04:20
Marty
And then. Right, using the language to take advantage of relative relatively low financial education, to take complete advantage of what is arguably a top three most important industry in the United States.
00:32:04:23 - 00:32:31:25
Dustin
Oh, absolutely. And I mean, you're talking about a farm credit system, a government that controls 40 to 46% of the farm debt. I mean, that's huge. That's collectively across the board in all their 55 lenders. But, you know, somebody who put this plan in place understood psychology very well, because, you know, I can tell you as somebody that was that has you know, I grew up with nothing.
00:32:31:25 - 00:32:51:03
Dustin
I'm the son of a muskrat trapper. And my mom worked at a gas station when I was born. And so neither my parents went to college. And when I was three years old, they bought a farm and I watched them go through the same kind of things. And my dad was smarter than I am. He was just smarter on different types of things.
00:32:51:06 - 00:33:15:15
Dustin
And these lawyers have come in and one of the things I think that they've preyed on and quite frankly, it's took me, even though I never missed a loan payment, we had money in the bank. We're sitting there and we're literally just being extorted to the point that, you know, they're telling me basically in telephone calls, you're either going to go away or we're going to I mean, here's the here's the lights they went to.
00:33:15:15 - 00:33:33:00
Dustin
They didn't nominally try to try to foreclose on me that summer. They would foreclose on my mother, who had a farm in Alabama that didn't have a loan with them. But it they had filed a lean the unknown on her farm with a sham mortgage. And I mean, that's how ruthless.
00:33:33:08 - 00:33:34:28
Marty
A sham mortgage note.
00:33:35:01 - 00:34:05:28
Dustin
Yeah. So they had her come by the the local branch under the auspices that she owned part of that she lives in Alabama. I live in Tennessee under the auspices that she was signing a document to affirm that everything was okay with my loan because she was a co-owner of some of the cattle that on our farm. And she said that they just slid a piece of paper at the front up under the window.
00:34:05:28 - 00:34:27:00
Dustin
She signed it. She asked for a copy of it, and they told her, Well, we'll mail it to you. We didn't I didn't even she didn't even tell me about it as far as like after it, I didn't know, you know, that she didn't get a copy of it. I didn't think anything else about it. And when they locked myself, they sent me an email and basically said, How about this?
00:34:27:00 - 00:34:52:24
Dustin
And it was a two year, $750,000 mortgage on a farm. My mother walked the family farm. I grew up. She walked in that bank that day owning free and clear. They gave her no money back. They gave her no appraisal. They've never even explained what That's where that $750,000, the only explanation they could ever come up with would be that they are saying that they reassigned.
00:34:52:24 - 00:35:25:11
Dustin
Part of my debt over to her. But my name's not anywhere on it either. But that just kind of shows you the level of how ruthless that they are on this. I would say to circling back on something from earlier that we talked about as far as kind of the end goal is there is going to come a day where they're going to trot out some politician somewhere, some government official, and they're going to say, hey, we hate to tell everybody, but we've lost the family farm in America and we're going to have to do some things different.
00:35:25:14 - 00:35:47:12
Dustin
We're going to have to look at some alternative sources. And what they will not share with people is the fact that they're the one that killed the family farm. And, you know, I don't think it's that dissimilar to some of the other things that's going on with the government. It's maybe just in this particular case. And and, you know, I don't think it's any credit to me necessarily.
00:35:47:12 - 00:36:09:28
Dustin
I think that at the end of the day, they flew a little bit too close to the sun and what they were trying to do and to the point that they had some internal employees, that that really felt strongly that what was going on was wrong. And so that the the ending to this story will be that there are a lot of whistleblowers outside of myself.
00:36:10:00 - 00:36:36:24
Marty
Yeah, well on that note, what what do you think is an appropriate resolution to all of this? I mean, it seems like there's rampant corruption. Incentives are not aligned between the co-op and the owners of the banks handling the loans. It seems like the government does not seem motivated. In fact, it seems like it's motivated to act against the interest of the individual farmers.
00:36:36:27 - 00:36:42:21
Marty
What is a solution to this problem that you think can arise?
00:36:42:24 - 00:37:03:19
Dustin
You know, I've had several people that have the only negative comments I ever get on social media or out in public is people that misconstrue what my end goal is. There are people that say, you know, my farm credit lender's doing a fine job. And they may be and they say, well, Dustin kills that uniform credit and I don't want it in farm credit.
00:37:03:27 - 00:37:37:01
Dustin
And, you know, if it was up to me, if if, if I was being selfish on it, yeah, I'd say take farm credit out back and think what it's done to all these family farms. And and but the reality is when you've got when you hold 46% of the nation's farm debt, if a farm credit goes away, tomorrow will collapse the entire agricultural system because, you know, you take a client like what I've got with these poultry farms, they're there almost is no way anymore to make a viable living doing anything independently.
00:37:37:01 - 00:37:56:11
Dustin
And poultry poultry has been captured by the tarsands by the cook feeds. And if you want to do business with them, you're going to have to come to the the lender. You're going to have to have a contract in hand and you're going to have to buy a farm with these mega poultry houses and you're going to be looking at $1,000,000 loan.
00:37:56:13 - 00:38:26:15
Dustin
And the reality is, in you know, this is this is kind of getting back to what do we do about it? Because the answer number one is education, that we we have got to educate these farmer borrowers. As far as I'm the front end of some of these loans, the poultry farmers are being treated like a commodity. The the poultry farmers I've got right now that are at the biggest risk are the ones that are in really good long term ones.
00:38:26:15 - 00:38:48:26
Dustin
They might be in a 3% loan over the next 25 years. And essentially what these executives, it's kind of trapped them at this point with interest rates going up and they want to play basically what I'd call a game of Boggle where they hit that thing and all the pieces go everywhere and it shakes it up. And new loans have to go into place.
00:38:48:28 - 00:39:07:20
Dustin
If they can force these poultry farmers out of business, just like some of my clients that say, hey, if I don't get my money back soon from these people, I can't keep going out. I'm going to have to sell it. And you know, when they sell it, then all of a sudden somebody else comes back again and they're on a 10% interest loan.
00:39:07:23 - 00:39:33:07
Dustin
And the way that again, this is another part of how foreign credit has fallen too close to the sun is the entire system was set up to provide a safe and reliable source of credit to the farmers. What we have uncovered now just posted this last week is you've got Tyson, which is one of not just the biggest companies as far as food production, but it's one of the biggest companies in the world generally.
00:39:33:09 - 00:39:56:02
Dustin
And we have found of where they have went to task and they've went to these other poultry integrators. And instead of doing like a farm loan, what they're giving them is, for example, $1,000,000,000 line of credit to those poultry integrators. So our farm credit system has started providing pooled loans to these big companies. And and again, then it becomes a shared effort.
00:39:56:02 - 00:40:23:16
Dustin
They're both working against that particular farmer. And if the poultry company can push a farmer out, then all of a sudden a new guy comes in, new loan. That poultry company might say, well, in addition to that new guy coming in and we're going to need to make about $200,000 in upgrades to these poultry houses to make everything work more efficiently and kind of around and around that merry, merry go round you go.
00:40:23:16 - 00:40:51:06
Dustin
And the End point is you're either going to sell your farm, you're going to lose your farm, or you know, you're going to get you're going to get ten years down the road. And quite frankly, your mental health is probably not going to be where it was when you started in the farm. And you won't find many poultry farmers that's been doing it very long that have a very good feeling about any of it.
00:40:51:06 - 00:41:20:06
Dustin
It is there is a reason why in the farming space we've had such an issue with suicide and a lot of it is the stress from this debt. And and you know, they kind put you in a position and this is touching on something I said earlier, that it's taken me three years to feel comfortable in talking about it because the first thing people think when you hear why I'm having difficulties with my bank is, well, what did that God do wrong?
00:41:20:09 - 00:41:49:10
Dustin
You know? No, nobody. It's a it's hard to believe that somebody in the year 2024 could be subject to losing their property and have never missed a payment on it. And you know, I I'm not going to say that something like that doesn't go on in the private world, but it certainly is being done at a much accelerated level when you get to what farm Credit is doing.
00:41:49:13 - 00:42:16:01
Dustin
And it's directly because they have the support and the backing of the government. And when I talk about the fact that that institution has been captured, it has been captured by a lot of these trade organization runs. And, you know, one of the things that I hate putting out there and wish that it was somebody else, just because there's mixed reviews and I don't want anybody that's, you know, I don't I don't want to turn our lives away from my case.
00:42:16:01 - 00:42:39:16
Dustin
But I'm also trying to be as honest with it as I can be. But if you look at 2019, President Trump actually appointed an outsider to the Farm Credit Board, a three person farm credit board. That person was Donald was Rodney Brown, who was a former Kansas and California banker, very accomplished compliance expert, spotless resumé. He was vetted.
00:42:39:16 - 00:43:07:15
Dustin
No issues. All that he liked was going through Senate confirmation to go on the three member farm credit board and all of a sudden we might have finally had somebody that was going to come in and make changes. The Farm Bureau, which is the most powerful lobby in in agriculture, joined forces with the Farm Credit Council, the lobbying arm of Farm Credit, and they actually wrote the Senate and committee and told them that they didn't want Rodney Brown.
00:43:07:18 - 00:43:39:28
Dustin
He was an outsider and the private banking industry wanted to destroy farm credit. And so through their campaign dollars for two years, Rodney Brown sat there and never got a confirmation hearing. And when on January 3rd, 2021, which is three days before the event, everybody talks about the Senate and committee actually returned a letter to Donald Trump saying we never had an opportunity to get Rodney Brown to the confirmation hearing.
00:43:40:00 - 00:44:03:00
Dustin
And so we're returning his nomination. And that passed the nomination over to Biden. But what was allowed to happen is and this is still the case today, which is why we filed see a writ of mandamus against the president. There is only one member of that three member board right now serving in a legitimate, valid term. The other two members have been serving unexpired terms.
00:44:03:00 - 00:44:27:18
Dustin
One of them has been serving in unexpired term for six years. He's the man that should have been replaced in 2019 with Trump's appointee of Rodney Brown. And here's the irony, too. All the man that should have been replaced, Jeff Hall is a former executive for the Farm Bureau and he also is a former and legislative staffer for Mitch McConnell, who serves on the Senate committee.
00:44:27:18 - 00:44:46:00
Dustin
So it is quite a web of conflicts. And what we have found is that at least on the national level, Farm Bureau is is, I would say, more motivated by their interest as an insurance company than they are by the interests of the American farmer right now.
00:44:46:02 - 00:44:54:01
Marty
Yeah, seems pretty clear. And again, it's infuriating the corruption. It is very plain and in-your-face.
00:44:54:03 - 00:45:25:11
Dustin
And I don't think there would be any other industry. I mean, I could be wrong on this, but a big part of is the fact that it's farming. And and, you know, again, I go back to my parents, which are extremely smart people, but if a lawyer told them something, they wouldn't have any or a banker told them something, they really wouldn't have any reason to think these people are manipulating us and they're telling us, you know, the guy that called me that said that he was in distress because his dad passed away.
00:45:25:11 - 00:46:05:20
Dustin
So I guess that's just the way it is. And, you know, I was kind of like, well, hell no, that's not the way it is. It's not the way that it should be. It's not legal. And they were shocked by it. But I think that goes to how they've preyed on these people, because you're dealing with people that don't have listen, they they when I look back through my own documents and I'm notorious it you know, I have always felt like, you know, if they tried that and they've always been successful I mean I've defeated in litigation Ford out of defeated Verizon defeated the state of Alabama in litigation even as a small private attorney.
00:46:05:22 - 00:46:23:21
Dustin
And if you would have told me three years ago that there was somebody that I couldn't be, I would have said, there's no way that you give me three years, but here we are and I will end up beating them at the end of the day. And boy, it's they have made my life and a lot of other people a living hell.
00:46:23:21 - 00:46:53:06
Dustin
And I think about it over the last three years. I reported this fraud to them in August of 2021, August 24th of 2021. Two days later, they started their federal investigation and we the final the findings come back from that investigation. Like I said, I had ended up having to sell my family's home. Where I'm at right now doing this interview is that venue we were building out, by the way.
00:46:53:06 - 00:47:13:12
Dustin
I had to move into the venue so we couldn't open the venue. I sold over 100 head of cattle and I sold over 100 acres of farmland that we had to pay those loans off. But I did it because, you know, I very valued the fact that this was something as far as free speech that needed to get out there.
00:47:13:15 - 00:47:43:12
Dustin
And, you know, I I'm kind of I do the agricultural thing. My dad passed away ten years ago. He was killed in the shooting. And I took over this whole farm as kind of a legacy project for my dad. And, you know, I just, I guess, sense that I probably view things differently than most people. And, you know, don't think I've stayed ahead of them for three years necessarily, even because of being a better lawyer.
00:47:43:12 - 00:48:12:18
Dustin
As much as it's you know, I was stubborn enough to to basically destroy my own life in having to do all of this, to try to do everything I could to make sure that they didn't get away with it. And, you know, it's been it's been frustrating because you take the example like I gave earlier in January, where they offered me the bribe and I turned that information over to the federal judge and asked for it to be made public so that stockholders, the farmers could see it.
00:48:12:18 - 00:48:31:20
Dustin
And I don't just mean that Alabama farm credit. I mean across the country and they got a federal judge to put it under seal. And so all of that information is under seal in a federal court. And there's no there's no way. That's right. But what do you do when you're dealing with a federal judge? It's the same kind of issue.
00:48:31:20 - 00:49:02:20
Dustin
What do you do when you're dealing with the government? And eventually, you know, here we are three later and I'm still white and I've said this for three years. Tomorrow could be that day that I get the call from the person that could put a stop to all this. And I have not got it yet, but I feel like we're getting closer every day in the last week in linking together a lot of these pieces to know that it is internal sabotage, it is deliberate, it's part of a bigger plan.
00:49:02:22 - 00:49:31:27
Dustin
I feel like that we have got enough pressure on them now that they've got to step up and have some accountability. You know, you've got a board chairman that's in there that I'm at least told by people is on the right side of the wall. Typically, he is a lawyer. He's new to the board. And my hope is that he sees that this is an issue that was not done of his creation.
00:49:31:29 - 00:49:57:28
Dustin
He stepped into it, but he has an opportunity to fix it. And quite frankly, to leave a legacy for himself of being a friend to the farmers. I mean, we're at a at a crossroads in time right now. We're on a track right now to where in ten years the family farm is going to be a distant memory and it's all going to be turned over to corporate agriculture, which is not going to be good for anybody.
00:49:58:00 - 00:50:22:11
Dustin
And, you know, this is this might be the last stand for the farmers. And so, you know, I have devoted the last three years of my life, quite frankly, to to beating these people. But in June of 2023, they finally finished that investigation that the Farm Credit Administration found that they violated the law and federal laws against me seven different ways.
00:50:22:14 - 00:50:37:24
Dustin
Then they wrote a thing. And thank you for sharing your concerns, but we know you've already paid your loan off, so there's nothing we can do for you. No longer a borrower in the United States farm credit system. And I said, Well, will you at least make this public? And I said, No, we're not going to make it public.
00:50:37:24 - 00:51:08:12
Dustin
It's confidential. And so I let people know what happened starting last September, because my mother had kind of been put through a hell through this. And in fact, due to the stress of it, like they know all this, but even the stress of she had a heart attack over it, over the fear that, you know, she's a retired public employed public school bus driver and afraid she might lose her home over this.
00:51:08:12 - 00:51:36:27
Dustin
And that's really the reason that I ended up doing what I did in selling my own home. I couldn't risk them taking hers in retaliation against me. But, you know, it's been a frustrating road, particularly yet having those findings come out. But when we filed the Biden complaint, I basically said, you know, do whatever you want to to me because I'm at a point where I don't have anything left to lose.
00:51:36:27 - 00:51:58:04
Dustin
And I made the findings public. And so then all of a sudden that opened up a lot of eyes to where you know, now we're talking to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and we're talking to other government agencies. And we've got farm credit people that have read the findings and they are absolutely shocked at what's went out.
00:51:58:06 - 00:52:19:22
Marty
And I think we may have lost your screen, your screen saver may have kicked in. But, I mean, while we're figuring out the screen, mean, it's just, again, extremely disgusting, the lengths of dehumanization that the government and these banks are going to to around it.
00:52:19:24 - 00:52:25:18
Dustin
I'm not sure why, but my camera did completely go off. I'm not sure what the deal is.
00:52:25:20 - 00:52:31:18
Marty
And we can still hear you. And if need be, we can put it in a nice, beautiful placement picture.
00:52:31:20 - 00:52:52:18
Dustin
Yeah, Yeah, that's that's fine, I guess. I guess we can go with that. I mean, but it's it is shocking. It is something that, like, you would see in a movie. I mean, really, when you think about all the layers to this, it's, you know, I post them ex yesterday I've had people say, you know is corruption at an all time high.
00:52:52:20 - 00:53:20:12
Dustin
And I don't know the answer to that. I'm not so sure. It's not just that all of a sudden we're able to discover this kind of corruption more easily due to technology and things like that. And also just the fact that, you know, just like on this story, when that when it went viral and it got, you know, over a million views last week in 24 hours, all of a sudden I started hearing from farm credit employees saying, you're exactly right, something's got be done on this.
00:53:20:12 - 00:53:24:23
Dustin
And we've been trying to stop this person for years.
00:53:24:26 - 00:53:46:15
Marty
Yeah, and you mentioned education earlier, education, the farmer. But I think and hopefully this episode and what you've been doing on access is a great example is educating the American consumer that producing their food are being attacked like this and treated like absolute dirt, which is again, disgusting. I think that is the only word I can think of.
00:53:46:17 - 00:54:15:00
Dustin
Yeah. Is that the you know, the I guess the one thing I would say is maybe we've got an opportunity here to take lemons and make lemonade out of it and that we are we are at the right time. I feel like post COVID where there is enough attention that's being looked at at something like this by the average American, there is an understanding that this isn't something that's just involving, you know, plows and cows.
00:54:15:00 - 00:54:42:26
Dustin
This is something that's involved in the food supply and they see that. They see that through the inflation. They see that through feeds food shortages. And and the hope would be that we can create a relationship between the farmer and the consumer, a direct relationship that would eliminate some of these issues. As far as going through and having to be a partner with the government on certain things.
00:54:42:28 - 00:55:20:16
Dustin
And that really is where we need to get to in agriculture as to where we've got a more independent mindset on it. It's it's it's really at the end of the day, it's the only way to make agriculture work. We've got to do, you know, we got to be doing what nobody else is doing. We've got to take a look and realize that the model, this model of going into debt through these farm credit systems, it might sound good on the front end, what they're putting out there, but we have got to go back to the NDP hand farming self-sustaining model.
00:55:20:17 - 00:56:00:28
Dustin
And, you know, I think that again, I think that there is a movement out there for the first time in my lifetime, I feel back to where that conversation is happening at a national level. And that truly is what we need. We need the farmers are 1% of this country and but what we need to do is to embrace and create that relationship with the consumer so that essentially they go to bat for the farmer and realize that we've all got a stake in this and and that there could be disastrous costs of quinces if something like the farm credit system goes unchecked.
00:56:01:00 - 00:56:33:00
Marty
I completely agree. I mean, I know you mentioned you were on the Twitter spaces with Texas Slim from the Beef initiative. I had him on the show multiple times. We've got I'm actually wearing the hat of one of our local farmers here in Austin, Shirttail Creek Farms, big shark, big fan of what they're doing with local pastures here in Austin to get local farms access to and consumers and vice versa, and consumers access to local farms able to avoid Whole Foods.
00:56:33:00 - 00:57:28:18
Marty
H-E-B Go direct to the source and support those farmers financially. Cane sea cattle, their efforts to spin up independent slaughterhouses and packing district distribution centers. It's happening. But I completely agree, like the American consumer needs to really put their money where their mouth is, begin supporting these local farmers directly, because it seems abundantly clear and I thought it was abundantly crystal clear to me many years ago, having talked to Texas Slim and Coal and other farmers who are trying to solve this problem, but this the story that you're describing and what you're involved in right now is adding a layer of corruption and dehumanization that I didn't even think was possible.
00:57:28:20 - 00:57:38:16
Marty
We're talking about the federal government acting against the interests of the farmers that they're pretending to try to save. It's infuriating.
00:57:38:19 - 00:58:01:27
Dustin
It's that I would say it's the worst farm, you know, farm debt crisis since the 1980s for sure that we're in right now. And again, a lot of this is prompted by the corporate agriculture demands as far as you know, again, with the poultry farmers. But we've already seen the the pork industry has pretty much been captured as well.
00:58:01:27 - 00:58:26:14
Dustin
Really, cattle is is kind of and we raise I've raised cattle all my life. We raise cattle now. That's kind of the last bastion of independence that's left. And you see a lot of the efforts that's going forward now, you know, with the RFID tagging and the things like that, too, where you get pulled all of a sudden into this government system, you're losing that independence.
00:58:26:14 - 00:58:49:21
Dustin
They get their hands on you, and then all of a sudden they've got at least some measure of control. And at the end of the day, you know, you think about, you know, they don't just control 46% of the nation's farm debt. That's 46% of the nation's farm land, essentially. And they've got that behind them. That's not going to be something they're going to give up real easily.
00:58:49:24 - 00:59:14:25
Dustin
And, you know, you look at our debt and things like that and, you know, it kind of you hope that we don't end up in a microcosm of like what Alabama Farm credit's going through to where they're getting squeezed and then they squeeze the ones under them. But that seems to be the case at the farm credit level to where they can create a squeeze nationwide.
00:59:14:27 - 00:59:29:03
Dustin
Again, it allows them to obtain more land for one to control where that land goes. And it provides some immediate financial relief to a government that's run wild on spending.
00:59:29:05 - 00:59:37:26
Marty
Yeah, that's funny. This is all coming on the heels of the Biden administration waiving the debt of students who took out loans.
00:59:37:28 - 00:59:57:26
Dustin
I know, I know. I haven't run the math on that as far as you know, if you even if you just did something to Hoyer, there was he would have had much more support on it If he would have said, okay, we'll have some kind of program, there might be a companion program for the farmers on the debt.
00:59:57:28 - 01:00:26:27
Dustin
And listen, there's a lot of farmers that. They've made their beds and, you know, they're going to have to to live through it. And I'm not out to save every farmer around this. Farmers that have made bad business decisions, there's farmers that they don't need to be farming. Quite frankly, we probably need the thing that hurts, so to speak, but nobody should lose their property without due process and we shouldn't be losing farmland.
01:00:26:27 - 01:01:01:13
Dustin
I mean, again, you look back and throughout history, as far as a land grab like this, it almost always has led to just complete disaster at the end. And it always comes from the top with the government. And we're not that far. The only thing that's keeping this from just being something where people are out in the street screaming about it is the fact that the government and and frankly, the media, when you look at the mainstream media, is gaslighting itself into thinking that.
01:01:01:16 - 01:01:29:20
Dustin
It's a situation just to where, you know, maybe farms can't keep up. And the reality is we have created this system to where we have to play by their rules to the point to where a farmer really in in this day and age, outside of just the very few, their sharecropper in we have we have turned it completely around in and they only hold that land to the extent that they are being allowed to.
01:01:29:22 - 01:01:56:12
Dustin
They are completely at the mercy of a government system right now that any time they want it to take any farm in this country. And that's frightening, I mean, because they they have shown that they are not only planning to do that, they've shown they are willing to do that. And again, you look at this, these statistics and the government is the first one to trot them out to us and how many family farms we've lost.
01:01:56:12 - 01:02:00:05
Dustin
But nobody's asking the question as to why are we losing them.
01:02:00:08 - 01:02:26:23
Marty
Yeah, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, Dustin, but I'm one to dabble. There is around people conspiring to do things. And if you look at the projection of people, whether it's Davos Glass or Bill Gates here. Right. United States are really attacking the food system and trying to trying to make it seem like it's a natural problem.
01:02:26:23 - 01:03:00:18
Marty
But it seems abundantly clear that this is a manufactured problem, particularly by people in government and big business. And they're looking to, pun intended, cattle herd everybody of this hyper centralized food system where things can be granularly controlled and the consumer really has no options. At the end of the day. And the individual who would like to run a small family farm doesn't have the option to because they've been completely boxed out of the market and soon enough we'll all be eating soy slop.
01:03:00:20 - 01:03:02:21
Marty
So yeah, no meat.
01:03:02:22 - 01:03:52:26
Dustin
If you look over at Europe right now and you're really getting a preview of of I think of what is to come in it and you know, it doesn't take long to put all these pieces together and to realize nothing. Is that circumstantial. Nothing is that coincidental. Everything when everything is moving and in the same direction on this, with the motivations being so clear at the very top, that that it's about control and it's about a completely different motive as far as you know, you look at all of the money that's going in right now to the alternative meats and the things like that and there's just no question that they are positioning the United
01:03:52:26 - 01:04:09:27
Dustin
States to, again, at some point come out and say, hey, we've got to do things differently and here's how we've got to do it differently. And in the process, though, they've got to break down this system entirely so that there's no fat left in it. And they're not far away from doing that.
01:04:09:29 - 01:04:14:18
Marty
Though. So if you're listening to this stand up and fight, they're attacking your food.
01:04:14:21 - 01:04:15:28
Dustin
Absolutely.
01:04:16:00 - 01:04:17:20
Marty
You need you need healthy.
01:04:17:21 - 01:04:47:09
Dustin
Food and a national security issue. I mean, when you find out that they were selling farmland that's around these military bases and you look at Alabama, Alabama was a strategic location here. You got Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, and you've got you've got multiple military bases that are that are nearby there. That's within that Alabama farm credit territory. And if you look at some of these forms that have been bought, they are strategic.
01:04:47:10 - 01:05:01:16
Dustin
And, you know, they we probably will find out the answer to all of this at some point. But I think that we can make some logical interpretations right now just in in looking at how far we've went so far.
01:05:01:18 - 01:05:28:09
Marty
Yeah. Well, thank you for for all your work over the last three years. And now, as you've described, it's been immensely stressful for you and your mother. And I think it's extremely honorable you trying to extend your your father's legacy and make sure that the legacy he began does not get bombarded by the federal government and this agricultural credit system.
01:05:28:09 - 01:05:51:25
Marty
And beyond that, fighting for the small individual farmer out there to to make sure that they can actually live a life of dignity, because that's that's the most and again, disgusting thing of all this. They're just stripping the dignity of individual farmers and then publicly posturing. I think it's the the small farmers that are unable to run reliable businesses.
01:05:51:25 - 01:05:55:16
Marty
It's their fault. We're not the government's fault. And it's.
01:05:55:18 - 01:05:56:00
Dustin
You know, they're.
01:05:56:00 - 01:05:58:09
Marty
Saying, Hannah, it's satanic, almost. It's like.
01:05:58:11 - 01:06:20:26
Dustin
Yeah, it's got a lot of impact here. I mean, as far it's like, you know, there's there's not a whole lot of concern. The last thing I'll just tell you and I appreciate you letting me come and share this story and appreciate the interest in it, but our next move on this is that we have taken the complaint that we filed against the president to appoint these positions.
01:06:20:26 - 01:06:41:18
Dustin
And we are going to their answer is, do you actually this week. So the United States prison is going to have to answer a private citizen in a lawsuit unless they ask for some kind of a continuance on it. But in our lawsuits, backed up by 50 years of case law precedent, the first thing you always, always think of, somebody's going to sue the president.
01:06:41:22 - 01:07:09:27
Dustin
You know, they must have lost them. But we've had every legal analyst that's looked at it like, did they get through with it and their jaw drops and they say, you've built this all around the case that was against Nixon in the seventies. And it's true. We have to where if a president just fails to make an appointment, which is what has happened over the last world, what has happened since Biden was put into office, he's made only one appointment of the three, then you can sue them.
01:07:09:27 - 01:07:39:00
Dustin
But we're going to try to broaden the scope of this and we are actually going to adjust some of the legal standing in the case to make it on behalf of the farmers of the United States as a whole, because they all do have a stake in it. And then we're going to try to take eight cases from across the country and use that as an education to work those cases up, post that so that there's transparency in three, that you'll have a lot of farmers that will learn what their rights are.
01:07:39:06 - 01:07:55:10
Dustin
And and through that, you'll have a farm credit administration. I know somebody is watching this. And so that's our end goal and it is to create change on it, to try to get the farmers to stand up and also all the people across the country to stand up on behalf of the farmers.
01:07:55:12 - 01:08:16:06
Marty
Well, it sounds like you've got a this is only the beginning of the journey. So hopefully this is the first of many conversations that we can be having as this journey unravels and the fight to protect the American farmer and educate the public about what is going on continues. Dustin, thank you again for doing what you're doing and thank you for taking some time.
01:08:16:06 - 01:08:23:02
Marty
I know this has been a crazy week for you. I feel very fortunate that you joined us for an hour today, so thank you for your time as well.
01:08:23:04 - 01:08:25:14
Dustin
Greatly appreciate it. Thank you, Marty.
01:08:25:16 - 01:08:49:26
Marty
All right. Where before we leave, before we wrap up, Oh, he left already. He's gone. He's got the link to his Twitter and any links that he's been sharing about this particular case. But I guess we'll end on a little monologue here for a shocker. Government is acting corruptly. Corruptly, Is that a word? They're they're very corrupt. They're attacking the American farmer.
01:08:49:28 - 01:09:24:16
Marty
They're trying to blame the American farmer service the for the mess on the side of my desk here. If you're watching this live, I thought it was out of frame, but it's we've been covering these topics for many years. It shouldn't be a shocker to anybody but having that conversation with us and it is still. You think it's gone to its extreme and then you find some little detail like this out, like you have the government and an agricultural credit system here in the United States actively working against the interest of small farmers.
01:09:24:16 - 01:09:53:10
Marty
I mean, Dustin's story, his father and mother did not have much. They scrounged together as much as they could to buy a farm, to create a legacy, to head it on to their son. And the government is actually actively trying to destroy that. It's absolutely disgusting and it cannot stand. We need to stand up against because support your local ranchers, your local farmers, share this story with people.
01:09:53:13 - 01:10:17:13
Marty
Make some noise that the government hates you and they're trying to destroy your food system. And the first step in destroying your food system is removing the individuals around the country who actually care the most about it. Who are the farmers in the ranchers who do the hard work to toil for very low margins? It's typically a passion project.
01:10:17:13 - 01:10:39:17
Marty
They just like living on the land and providing for their communities. They get their fulfillment from their part in that community, not necessarily the monetary rewards of fulfilling that part. And those are the people who actually care about you. It's not the government, and the government is trying to destroy those people who care about you and are trying to bring you healthy, nutritious food.
01:10:39:21 - 01:10:55:19
Marty
So hope you enjoy that. Like I said, hopefully that's the first of many conversations we have with Dustin. As he continues on his journey to fight the government in the Farm Credit Administration. So hope you enjoyed peace love for.
