EPISODE S.7, E.4

[BIG GRAIN ENERGY]

Heather Jerred (00:09)
Welcome back to another episode of the Brew Deck podcast. I am your host Heather. I am joined as well by Brittany, your other host, and then our very guest host, Cait Hi, Cait. Can you introduce yourself to our listeners?

Cait Schut (00:23)
I am Cait Schut I am the senior marketing and communications manager for Country Malt Group and Soufflet Malt.

Heather Jerred (00:31)
So she makes us look good. Makes us look really good.

Brittany Drennan (00:32)
huh, huh. And she does all that

Cait Schut (00:33)
Thanks

Brittany Drennan (00:35)
stuff in the background that nobody talks about. So we appreciate you.

Heather Jerred (00:37)
Yeah. So when you see her running around at CBC, say thank you very fast or buy her a beer. And she’ll take a beer. ‚Åì Well, as is tradition here at the BrewDeck, it is International Women’s Day coming up, or I guess when this actually releases, it’ll have just passed. So we turned March into a women’s only podcast. We

Brittany Drennan (00:43)
And high. And high.

Cait Schut (00:45)
me a beer. I’d love that. Yes.

Heather Jerred (01:01)
let Matt Sprinkle come and join us today.

Sorry, Matt. You

Brittany Drennan (01:04)
Bye,

Heather Jerred (01:05)
come back.

can come back next month. We’re going to be talking to a couple of women in more of the barley side of our industry today. Ashley McFarland, the president of the American Malting Barley Association, as well as Miranda Gibson, owner of BH Farming in Idaho. Before we jump into the interviews, Cait, do you want to tell our listeners about our Pink Foods malt?

Cait Schut (01:27)
Yeah, I’m super excited

announce that we have the second edition of the Pink Boots Malts dropping into our distribution centers across North America this week, if it’s not already there already. This is grown and produced in Canada this time. We’re rotating back and forth between the US and our Canada barley farmers as well as malting facilities.

Super excited about this one. It was grown in Alberta and produced at our Calgary plant and very excited to announce and have it in

brews and spirits throughout the next year.

Heather Jerred (02:03)
Yeah, I can’t wait. And a reminder, $5 from every bag goes to the Pink Boots Society. And this will be available all year round or until we run out. So ask your TM, or your territory manager, sorry, for more information. They’ll have all the specs on the new round of it. Yeah, reach out and you can use it whenever you want.

Brittany Drennan (02:22)
many brew days have you been to so far Heather for pink boots? Okay, same. I have two this week. I have one tomorrow and one Friday. And then I have another one a few weeks after that.

Heather Jerred (02:26)
Two. Yeah, yeah.

So,

so has any of you seen the new bags on these? I know I was like texting with you and Cait about them. So the bag design is the same, but they’re like a matte finish like the Canada Malting bags versus the glossy thing. ‚Åì my God. I love them so much. think they’re

Brittany Drennan (02:37)
No!

Cait Schut (02:38)
man.

Brittany Drennan (02:44)
I a rumor, okay.

Cait Schut (02:47)
I saw them in a

Brittany Drennan (02:49)
Okay.

Cait Schut (02:49)
post

and I was like, where did these come from?

Heather Jerred (02:51)
They

look so good. Just, yeah, I love that we like, you know, it’s the same, but it’s different. It’s just that little bit of a difference. And I just love it. think they look so,

Brittany Drennan (03:01)
Well, yeah, I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.

Heather Jerred (03:03)
Brittany, you’ve got one shout out to do. Yay.

Brittany Drennan (03:03)
‚Åì I do. ‚Åì Okay,

so yeah, I want to give a shout out to a listener. That’s also funny to say. I was at our Texas Guild Conference last weekend and met a very enthusiastic and lovely, lovely brewer. Her name is Kinsandra. And I just want to say, it was such a pleasure meeting you. And thank you for being a loyal listener. We appreciate that.

Heather Jerred (03:27)
We do. It’s always nice to hear that when people like listening to us

But we have a loaded interview. So let’s jump right over to talking to the ladies.

Heather Jerred (03:38)
We are now incredibly lucky to be joined by Ashley McFarland, the president, is that correct? Of the American Malting Barley Association, as well as Miranda Gibson, one of the owners of B &H Farming in Idaho. Welcome to you both. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Ashley McFarland (03:45)
It is, yes.

Thanks for having us.

Miranda Gibson (03:57)
Thank you.

Heather Jerred (03:58)
So before we kind of dive into questions, why don’t we start with Ashley, you can introduce yourself, give a little bit of, you know, kind of background about how you came into your role, because it’s obviously an insanely impressive role.

Ashley McFarland (04:09)
Yeah, certainly. So, Ashley McFarland, I’m originally from the state of Iowa

actually grew up on a farm. so agriculture was in my roots from day one. I was always really passionate about working with farmers and for agriculture. And so that kind of shaped my early career. I actually moved around quite a bit with my husband who works for the US Forest Service. So we got to live in some really cool places like Northern Idaho and Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and then ultimately to Northern Minnesota.

where I worked in extension for universities. So the job there was really to identify things to help the communities. And so a lot of times I working with agriculture or with natural resources, really translating the science from the university to the people. And ‚Åì ultimately, when I was in Michigan, I actually started working on doing some research around small grains, specifically, multi-barley. And ‚Åì kind of got hooked into that. I didn’t…

Brittany Drennan (04:48)
We’re going to ask the lady, the gentleman, the man, the woman.

Ashley McFarland (05:03)
end up going straight to work to AMBA then, but ‚Åì over a few years this job, actually the vice president role, opened up at the American Multimartial Barley Association. We had moved to Minnesota and I was just really excited to possibly get back into the industry because I really enjoyed it when I was working more closely with it in Michigan. And ‚Åì yeah, so came to AMBA in 2021 and just became the president of AMBA now January 1 of 2026.

Been with the association for almost five years now, but just pretty new in the president role. And just a quick blurb on AMBA. We are an association that represents folks that either make barley malt or use barley malt for

So primarily we represent malt brewers, brewers and distillers.

Heather Jerred (05:50)
Yeah, Miranda, do you want to give us a little intro to you, a little bit of your history and a little bit of an overview on the farm?

Miranda Gibson (05:58)
My name is Miranda Gibson. I’m

with B &H Farming in Rupert Idaho, Southern Idaho. I’ve been working with, my dad started B &H Farming back in 1989. Honestly, it was the last place in the world I thought I would ever be working. But about 20 years ago, he invited me to come help at the office. And through my experience, I’ve done basically every aspect of the office. And then about nine years ago, my husband joined the team and then…

At that point, we became partners with my dad. So my incentive became more, you know, it more important to me then. Anyway, so now I’m the office manager, kind of do everything in the office. We have four other girls working with us and just kind of try to manage daily tasks

keep on helping.

Brittany Drennan (06:41)
Ashley, can you tell us about your role specifically as president? Is that something that you get voted into and what kind of are your responsibilities? What are you overseeing? What is important to you?

Ashley McFarland (06:53)
Yeah, good question. So

has really evolved a lot actually over the last few years. So back in 2021 when I came into the association, I was in as vice president and I was hired through an interview process for that. But at the time, there was a lot of succession turnover in the association. So for those familiar with AMBA,

Almost for 40 years, two guys ran AMBA entirely. Mike Davis first, and then Schut Heisel worked under him. When I came in, Mike was retiring, so Schut went to the president role, and I came in as VP. So there’s not been a lot of staff at AMBA over the years. And ‚Åì certainly over the last even just few years recently since I’ve been with AMBA, there’s been just a lot of transitions within the association and also the industry.

And so when we took a hard look at what does the future of AMBA look like, it was identified that we probably don’t need to have two full-time staff role moving forward. so when Schut announced his retirement, which actually is effective April 15th of this year, the decision was just to have me as the president and assume that role and pretty much oversee all the things. So.

‚Åì When we used to have two and a half staff, we had administrative assistant back at the office. There was definitely a delegation of duties. And now I’m just kind of navigating what this new world might look like. I was able to actually onboard a financial management firm to kind of take care of all the accounting stuff. And then just recently I was able to hire a part-time contractor who’s focused on doing what we call the technical director role or really working specifically with the variety development piece.

Brittany Drennan (08:31)
Thanks.

Ashley McFarland (08:32)
So taking the accounting and

the variety development work off my plate, my role at AMBA now really is facing directly with the board of directors and our technical committee, also working with our research grant program. And that’s actually where half of our member dues go each year is into research. So overseeing that. ‚Åì And then I also am the lobbyist. So I’m a registered federal lobbyist for AMBA and actually work with the group called the National Barley Improvement Committee. We actually head to DC next week.

Brittany Drennan (08:50)
you

Ashley McFarland (09:00)
and will be on the Hill advocating directly for Congress to financially support through appropriations, federal and state barley research efforts. And so that lobbying gig is definitely a big part of my job as well. yeah, so the president role at AMBA

looks a lot different than it’s been since 1982 when it first was started. But I think that it’s much more responsive based on the needs right now of the association and the industries that we support.

Cait Schut (09:26)
Great. And Miranda, can you kind of tell us a little bit more about your role on the farm, kind of maybe a day in the life of farm operations?

Miranda Gibson (09:35)
Sure. So in our office, we actually, between my

companies and my husband and I’s, we have over 28 companies that we manage the books for. The farming side is definitely the bigger part of that, but it’s a matter of managing the most important task at the moment and then keep that ball rolling forward. So yeah, like I said, we have four other girls that are in the office and we’re just constantly making sure that we’re staying on top of accounts available, accounts receivable, you know.

of credits, all different things that go along with running a company.

Heather Jerred (10:03)
Can you tell us a bit about what crops you’re growing on the farm right now?

Miranda Gibson (10:07)
Yeah, we ‚Åì our biggest crop is probably potatoes, but we also do seed potatoes, sugar beets, barley, hay, beans, corn, canola, wheat. And then we’ve done a little bit of organics, mini potatoes. So a little bit of everything.

Heather Jerred (10:21)
That’s lot. What is your

acreage, if you don’t mind me asking?

Miranda Gibson (10:25)
We are usually around 13,000. We’re in the process of downsizing to a 10,000 acre this year.

Cait Schut (10:32)
Bye.

Heather Jerred (10:32)
That’s huge.

That’s no small feat at all.

Ashley, I wanted to jump back to you really quickly. Can you tell us a little bit about the research project that you did that focused on small grains directed as serving the craft brewing industry?

Ashley McFarland (10:47)
Yeah, so how I actually got started in barley,

that’s actually not a crop we really grew much on my farm growing up, is when I was at the Michigan State University Research Center. And so a lot of the land grant universities have these outlying research stations throughout the state so that they can be very responsive to like farmer needs locally. And the one that I was ‚Åì working at, I was the director of was in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where there was a lot of dairy and some potatoes.

but also small grain production. We have a very short season up there because of the climate. Where I lived we actually got on average 200 to 250 inches of snow because we’re right on Lake Superior. So there’s not a lot of crops you can actually grow up there, but there were a lot of farmers that were wanting to diversify their crops. And on top of that Michigan at the time was the number five state in the country when it came to craft breweries. So it was kind of like

Michigan always had this slogan like the great beer state. Almost every little town had a craft brewery. And so for my work, I was like, well, how do we marry this like desire for farmers to grow small grains and also, you know, tie into this growing rapidly growing at the time industry? And so I started just doing some research basic to just like, can we grow barley? Can we grow barley well in the UP? And then started tying in some of the other pieces, right? Because

You can’t just grow a crop and expect it to be purchased and processed and be profitable. There’s a lot of mechanisms that surround that. Like, do you have the infrastructure to harvest, to store, to then move it to the markets where they are? Do people understand what barley in the UP is like and will it fit the needs of industry? So there’s a lot of things you have to do around the crop to kind of support it. And so one of the things that we did was an economic analysis just to kind of determine

the appetite for locally grown barley in Michigan, what kind of markets might exist for that, and then also examining some of the challenges or barriers to really breaking through to that market. Now, I was doing this work in like the early 20 teens, so like early 2014, 2015 when craft beer still was seeing a pretty big boom, especially in Michigan. I mean, we were opening breweries almost weekly in the state at the time.

And a lot of those breweries, because the market was getting so large, really wanted to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. And they thought, you know, purchasing local craft malt could possibly do that. So as we were having all these breweries come open, we were also opening craft malt houses. At the time, I think we had 12 or 13 kind of in the works. No, not all of those survived, right, because the market matures and kind of downsizes and contracts as needed. But through that process, we were really able to identify like

What kind of acreage could we grow in the state of Michigan? What’s the appetite for the industry to use that? And then what kind of companies do we need, those malt processors to help support that? And so that economic analysis really just helped kind of explain what that market could look like. And it was really influential in getting some of those initial businesses up and running. So like some of them were seeking USDA small business loans and doing that kind of economic analysis really helped set them up.

to get those lines of credit. And so that helps some of those companies get off the ground. And fortunately, there are some of those malt houses that

really helped a lot in the early stages are still operational now and really successful. So it’s fun to look back to Michigan and see the work that we did and the influence it had not only on the barley growers, but also the processors and the craft beer industry that were able to use that malt.

Heather Jerred (14:21)
I didn’t realize how big the craft brewing industry was in Michigan. I’ve never been there. I’m from Western Canada. And I was obviously meeting with our rep from Michigan like this morning and he had told me how many breweries are there. was like, whoa, that is a lot.

Brittany Drennan (14:35)
It’s like an OG beer scene, like part of the five original beer cities, I think, or beer states anyway.

Ashley McFarland (14:36)
Well, and even where…

Yeah, absolutely. And it was really fun because, so I had this research station like way out in middle of nowhere. Our closest big town is Marquette,

which hosts this fall beer festival. And it is insanely huge. Like it’s like the town doubles in size. Like it’s crazy. And actually it was one of the sales reps from Country Malt Group had stopped at the farm actually back way back then.

was checking out our research and I’m friends with him today. Works for another company now, but I mean, it was just really neat. It’s amazing how like full circle things come because like I was a new researcher just barely working with Barley and I had this like malt sales guy show up, you know, and it was like, wow, this is so cool. And then now come to think here I am where I work in the industry. Ten years later,

Brittany Drennan (15:13)
Oops.

Ashley McFarland (15:30)
mean, almost to the date. So now it’s just crazy how, you know, the world is so big and small at the same time.

Brittany Drennan (15:35)
I think that’s our industry too, in general. It’s just really small and supportive. And it, yeah, it’s pretty awesome to see full circle stuff like that. I think we wanna switch to maybe a sustainability chat if y’all are cool with that. I know Ashley, you have done some work I saw on emissions in your area and your…

Ashley McFarland (15:37)
Mm hmm.

Brittany Drennan (15:56)
just kind of want to hear your expertise regarding that.

Ashley McFarland (15:59)
Yeah, so actually

of my background and experience coming to AMBA, like I said, I worked in extension for universities, but a lot of what I was doing was helping, whether it be farms or people working in the logging industry or mining industry, be really protective of their natural resources, whether it be water or soil. And so I had a lot of that background coming into it around sustainability, right? And that’s kind of like a big, you know, term and there’s a lot of nuance in there.

But when I was actually hired at AMBA, folks knew of my background and experience in that area. And they’re like, well, hey, this industry is really evolving. I think we’re going to have to be much more responsive to end consumer desires to have more sustainability themes around our products. And so I think they saw me as someone that might be able to bring that content into the association. So it took quite a while to really gain some traction in that area, because it is a very sticky thing.

Brittany Drennan (16:46)
you

Ashley McFarland (16:51)
And one thing that I hate more than anything is this like us versus them. And especially like sitting here with Miranda, a farmer, like I never want to tell a farm, especially a multi-generational farm, farming over 10,000 acres, that they’re not sustainable, right? Because it’s like that just doesn’t, that doesn’t check. And so ‚Åì my message has always been like, how can we work with you to prove that you’re sustainable? And not only that,

Brittany Drennan (17:04)
Thank

.

you

Ashley McFarland (17:17)
If there are companies that need you to be more sustainable, what can we do to help support that journey so that you can continue to sell into the markets that you want to sell into? And so, like I said, it wasn’t easy, a lot of like emotions and personalities at the table, but ultimately we came to this project called the Baselining Barley Project where we looked at doing a really good record of the practices that go into the production of barley and then

Brittany Drennan (17:23)
you

Ashley McFarland (17:43)
through some like fancy calculations in the background is determining how many emissions are produced off that barley. And that’s really necessary because right now just generally identifying and understanding your scope three emissions or your supply chain emissions in a product is really important. And so we wanted to get to that number with our farms and our malt suppliers. And so we had really good participation by a lot of our industry members and they worked with their farms to

Brittany Drennan (17:51)
you

Heather Jerred (17:59)
Yeah.

Brittany Drennan (18:01)
.

you

Ashley McFarland (18:11)
put data into this project. And so the Baselining Barley Report, which actually just was like finally publicly published at the end of January, does include 33 farms representing very diverse growing regions throughout the U.S., some of which are in southern Idaho, and really just does a good job capturing like what our environmental impact is of barley production in the U.S. And fortunately, we actually stack up really well to other countries.

And even our counter ports in Canada, like we’re doing a great job and I already knew that would be the case, but now we’re able to articulate it. And one of the reasons that’s so important is, know, at AMBA we really focus on a domestic malt supply and helping our domestic members get the barley they need in the US. However, we do recognize that there are export market opportunities, whether it be up into Canada or down into Mexico or maybe even abroad.

a lot of those countries do require these disclosures or having some kind of certification of sustainability. And so I’m really excited now because folks that are participating in our program can put that kind of environmental assurance stamp on what they’re doing because we are doing our work of like calculating those emissions. mean, all day long we can banter back and forth whether or not it’s important or valuable.

Brittany Drennan (19:05)
So, going to go and start the next

you

you

Ashley McFarland (19:27)
but it is what the market’s demanding right now. So I think that it’s really important

our barley farmers to be well positioned to be able to still tap into those markets by doing this work. So hopefully the work that AMBA did kind of early on with this baselining project will now set up our farmers in the future to be able to continue to produce barley and sell into these various markets that require it.

Brittany Drennan (19:40)
Okay.

Cait Schut (19:48)
Great. And kind of switching over to Miranda, know, handling a lot of the, you know, management of the books and day-to-day operations, you know, what have you seen in terms of, you know, investments in sustainability or just changes in general practices to integrate some of those kind of sustainability demands that we’re seeing?

Miranda Gibson (20:08)
Yeah, no, we’ve done a lot to kind of start working on sustainability. For

reducing our till practices. And then we found that, I mean, kind of comes down to the bottom dollar, right? So in the end, so if we don’t have to make as many passes on the farm, then that’s, I mean, that’s fuel that’s wear and tear on your tractors, that’s man hours, that’s, and then we found that there didn’t affect the yields. So it really wasn’t a bad thing. So then we also have always done crop rotations and paid attention to that to preserve the soils. And then we always do soil testing so we can manage.

how many inputs we put in obviously comes down to what the crop needs, but also what the bottom dollar is too without over applying. We also have implemented soil moisture sensors in all of our farms so that we can log in and look. So if we can turn off our pivots, if this section of the farm is not needing irrigated at that time, we can move the pivot forward all via, right at your phone. We’ve also have…

put in a bunch of solar panels to help kind of offset the costs of our irrigation costs, which are astronomical. So that’s helping. So yeah, I think that we’ve kind of put that into play. And so it’s been a

thing for our farm

Ashley McFarland (21:15)
Well, and I think that economic piece is so important because if we’re going to tell

hey, we want you to change practices, we need to make sure that at the end of that, that they’re not losing money through it. And a good example, you mentioned the solar thing. When we did this analysis of these 33 farms, we did find that the environmental impact of farms under irrigation is higher than those that are rain fed. And that logically makes sense. But on those irrigated acres, we’re getting so many more bushels per acre.

You’d almost think it balanced out, but it was literally, we were able to do some just kind of on the back of the napkin map that if those farms converted to solar energy, then they actually had lower emissions overall because those pivots or their irrigation systems were not consuming non-renewable energy. So just little changes like that really changes the equation. And then the other thing we’re working on

at AMBA is we actually have some funded research across the state of Idaho, Montana, North Dakota.

looking at some of these new alternative nitrogen fertilizer sources, because those are definitely the largest when we look at just like greenhouse gas emissions, it’s almost always nitrogen fertilizer is where you’re really going to see your spikes. And so now we’re working with farmers to see, these new products on the market, people claim they’re going to drive down emissions, but is Miranda still going to get the same eight, know, bushels per acre off that field? And if those fertilizers are more expensive, is that bushel of barley now going to cost more?

Brittany Drennan (22:32)
Thank you.

Ashley McFarland (22:41)
So we’re trying to do a lot of that research ahead of time before we start making these recommendations, just like point blank farms, because at the end of the day, what’s Miranda saying is so important, like you have to be able to make money or you can’t grow the crops. And we don’t want to push out barley farmers just for the name of like quote unquote sustainability. We need them to come along with us to make sure that they’re meeting their needs and we’re also getting our needs.

Brittany Drennan (22:43)
you

Thank

Heather Jerred (23:03)
I think that’s really interesting because I do feel like sustainability has almost become a dirty word. Like everything you’re going to do is going to cost you so much more money. So I think that’s really interesting to hear how you can actually save money with more sustainable practices on the farm.

I do want jump back, Ashley, you had talked a little bit about how you work with lobbying the government for funding, for more farm funding and research funding. Can you tell us a little bit about that and maybe some stuff that you’re working on right now?

Ashley McFarland (23:29)
Yeah, and I do know and recognize that the

in Canada versus the US are very different when it comes to this, but we actually work really closely with some of our counterparts in Canada, so I kind have a working understanding of how that goes as well. But here in the US, we are, like our organization, the National Barley Improvement Committee, which represents all barley stakeholders. So this isn’t just malt barley. Anybody that has an interest in malt is involved in this group. And what we do is we go to Congress,

And we’re very specifically asking for funding in the ag appropriations budget. So when you hear about the 12 federal spending bills, and when every time the government shuts down, it’s because those bills haven’t been passed, right? We don’t have a new budget. And so what we’re very specifically trying to influence is the ag bill. And that’s one of the 12 spending bills. And in there, is, there’s dollars allocated for agricultural research and specifically for our

agricultural research service units. So these are actual ag research centers located throughout the US. One being in Aberdeen, Idaho is a good example of one that’s kind of in barley country and serves the barley industry. And what we’re trying to do is get funding for those research centers so that they can do research on barley. And then sometimes, good example again just using Idaho is that

We’ll get funding sent to Aberdeen, for example, at the ARS Center there, and then they work in partnership with the University of Idaho on a lot of research. And so they’ll extend some of that money through what they call a cooperative agreement so that the University of Idaho can be involved in that research too. And so that is just one example, and you can point to states all over in the state of Minnesota where I live now, same thing happens. Money goes to the serial disease lab.

which is part of ARS, and then some of that money gets sent also to the University of Minnesota. So we’re just trying to influence the money that’s appropriated by Congress into agricultural research. And then when that money does go to those different research centers and universities, we have these initiatives that we work on. And so we have something called the US Wheat and Barley Scab Initiative, where they’re focused really on head scab or the scab fusarium head blight disease.

Brittany Drennan (25:13)
.

Ashley McFarland (25:41)
We also have an initiative called the Barley Pest Initiative. This really focuses on a lot of other insects and disease pressures that we have, whether it be barley yellow dwarf virus or powdery mildew. And so again, research is happening. We’re getting funding for those researchers to do this work. And then the one that I’m actually most excited about, it’s the one that I kind of developed with my team when I first came to AMBA, is the Resilient Barley Initiative.

And this was specifically in response to the devastating droughts of 2021, where we had very like our barley production actually tanked 30 % in one year, just because of the widespread droughts. And then even places that were under irrigation got a lot of rains close to harvest. And we had a lot of pre-harvest sprout, is a main quality concern when we’re producing malt. And so just overall, we just had devastation in the industry in 21. And what we’re finding is like,

Brittany Drennan (26:14)
you

Ashley McFarland (26:33)
we are not very resilient to these environmental stresses, whether it be temperature or moisture. And so now what we’re trying to do is put a lot more money into the research to make barley lines that are more resilient, can handle more drought stress, or maybe won’t sprout in the field just as soon as it rains. And so we’re putting a lot of money and research dollars to that. And that’s actually going to be our primary talking point next week in D.C. is how can we get more funds

to places like

or Pullman, Washington, and make sure that we’re supporting the research that’s there so that we can improve barley. And that’s why we’re called the National Barley Improvement Committee. We are hyper-focused on continually improving barley and the barley varieties that we have in the hopes that that makes our industry-wide more sustainable.

Brittany Drennan (27:20)
That’s so cool. Miranda, in the same vein, how have, if at all, farm funding bills or policy changes impacted you at the farm level there without getting too political?

Miranda Gibson (27:33)
I mean, I think that they kind of help upset some of the losses for the barley grower. mean, barley is not the margins for barley is very, very slim. So it’s really kind of looked at as like a

crop that you have to do. And you hope that the other crops can offset your almost negative margins for barley. So but you know, any help that we can get absolutely will take. And there’s you know, and then like the tariffs that’s been

a huge impact for us. I we lost a canola contract because of that, which is not what we’re talking about, but on the same breath, know, the tariffs have been impactful. You know, know the crop insurance is part of that, which that’s a good thing. It helps for sure. know, interest rates, that’s always a variable. And so with them going, hopefully they’re coming back down. So that makes a huge impact on our bottom line.

Cait Schut (28:17)
Absolutely. And just kind of like in that same regard in terms of like how the barley industry has evolved over the years based on, you know, political climate or just things like that. Can you just or even just like the health of the beer? Right. Yeah, exactly. Political pun intended. But also just like the craft beer industry impacting, you know, on the barley side. I’d love to hear, you know, your experience, like how the barley market has

Heather Jerred (28:29)
it.

Brittany Drennan (28:32)
Yeah.

Cait Schut (28:44)
evolved over the years and ebbed and flowed over the years and how it’s impacted you at the farm level.

Miranda Gibson (28:50)
Well, I mean, the contract continually goes down every year. It’s my understanding that the, you know, what’s called the alcohol market has decreased over time. don’t know about the hopefully, you know, drink more beer. Everyone needs drink more beer. but, know, yeah, it eventually ends up affecting us by the bottom dollar. So.

Cait Schut (29:02)
Missed you.

work.

Heather Jerred (29:08)
So you

started selling grain, barley to Great Western, you said about eight years ago. Were you growing a lot of barley prior to that or was that kind of something that got initiated with this kind of contracting with working with Great Western?

Miranda Gibson (29:14)
I believe so,

We bounced back and forth between wheat and barley. And then when we created a relationship with Great Western, we moved our wheat acres more to the barley side. so, but we constantly are, and it depends on the market, right? So what the contract rates are, again, comes down to bottom dollar. But at this point, we raised primarily barley, yes.

Cait Schut (29:42)
It kind of makes me wonder if you guys might supply some of our wheat as well. We’re seeing a lot of folks use wheat in their beers for some of that haziness or that body. And so, you we’re seeing like an increase in, you know, popularity with other grains, you know, as well. So I would venture to bet that you guys supply us some of our wheat ‚Åì as well.

Heather Jerred (30:06)
Most likely.

Brittany Drennan (30:07)
‚Åì so Ashley, I saw an article about, craft beers and means for economic development. I know you were talking a little bit earlier about your efforts in Michigan. Is

tied together to the same thing? I just found that, ‚Åì that to be very interesting. We pulled that up and kind of read through it before, before you had to on.

Ashley McFarland (30:28)
Yeah, that’s all tied back to the work that I did in Michigan with Michigan State. Yeah, certainly. But that did definitely did sprout some other work in other states as well. And at the time, I actually was on the Craft Malters Guild Board of Directors. And so it was really neat to work with that community because they were just kind of getting off the ground at the same time as well. So I did have a little bit more national kind of reach beyond Michigan. But yeah, that that work was kind of all tied in together.

Brittany Drennan (30:56)
I think that at least in my opinion, after reading that I’m like, this is really important work in something that I wish that every state would have eyes on. because it is a very important piece of our economy in each state and each state has such different hurdles in regards to their laws and restrictions. And, you know, we have state guilds that are constantly, you know, going to bat for.

for us at the end of the day, like breweries are small businesses and it feels like that sometimes gets kind of lost, you know, in the grand scheme of things.

Ashley McFarland (31:29)
Well,

yeah, and I just want to say how important it was to be in Michigan

that time and the amazing people I was surrounded by. So some of that work was also complemented by Trey Malone and his graduate student at the time, Aaron Staples. So like premier ag economist that really had an interest in understanding the craft beer industry in Michigan and the tie in with local sourcing.

So I was so fortunate to be working around those people at the time that now have these amazing careers and continue to do a lot of this work in the craft beverage space. On top of that, I cannot stress enough how important it was to have the Michigan Brewers Guild behind us through all of that work. So I don’t know if anybody knows Schut Graham and if Schut Graham, you’re listening to this, like, it was really funny, just ironic too. He just sent me a note. He’s like, my gosh, I just found out that you became president of AMBA. Congratulations.

Brittany Drennan (32:14)
You

Ashley McFarland (32:20)
my note back to him, literally said, I’m like, have you to like, like, literally, I owe some of this to you, Schut, because had I not been in Michigan at the time doing the work I was doing and had a guild as strong as Michigan’s and someone as passionate about barley as Schut Graham was, this would have never happened for me. But it was him driving and saying, yes, I believe this is something Michigan needs. This is something we want to support.

And early on when I was a researcher, I was actually getting funded through the American Multibarley Association over 10 years ago. And Schut started supplementing our grant funds and they were small at the time, but it was so nice to show how important industry thought our work was because it’s one thing to be a scientist and do research and just kind of like be narrowly focused on that, but to make sure that you’re doing applied research that matters to the industry you’re supporting is just so valuable.

And so to have people like Schut Graham supporting us from the industry side and really advocating for our work and then having these amazing economists working around us too, it’s, yeah, it cannot be understated. And then it was neat at the time because when I was in Michigan, I also had these two hop scientists, researchers working, and this is outside of the Barley scope, but Aaron Lazard and Rob Stryne and I, we got together and we’re like, let’s throw this conference, the Great Lakes Hoppin’ Barley Conference.

because hop growing was huge in Michigan as well. And just like everything, it’s kind of come down, but I still think that they’re like the fourth largest state in terms of hop production. And so we started this conference that was very farmer focused, very industry focused to kind of bring the whole supply chain together. And I think that doing that work is really kind of set the stage for those industries to mature and stay successful even after all those years. So yeah, so was…

really ‚Åì the right people at the right time, in the right place to make all that happen. And it’s just crazy how now like this has translated, you know,

the road in my career and, but still look to those people. And anytime I’m back in Michigan, definitely love seeing them because they were a big part of my career trajectory for sure.

Cait Schut (34:26)
And adding to kind of like the shout out to, you know, the work that the Brewers Guilds are doing. Last week I was at the Brewers Association Hill Climb where they organize all of the leaders from each of the state guilds and they meet with all of their, you know, Congress people and staffers, you know, throughout the day. And a lot of us had like 10, 12 meetings in one day and it’s the

Ashley McFarland (34:35)
Yeah.

Cait Schut (34:51)
It’s really the guild leaders at the helm that are advocating for.

you know, craft brewers and like Brittany said, the small businesses. And so it’s really cool to see, you know, the craft brewers guilds working to, you know, advocate for policies. And one of the topics on there was, you know, ag funding and proper appropriations for agricultural research. And so we’ve got, you know, those craft brewers guilds advocating for it. And then now you’re, you know, attending, you know, a hill climb coming up as well. And so we’re kind of, we’re all rooting for the craft beer industry.

So drink more beer. Shameless. Drink more beer.

Brittany Drennan (35:23)
you

Ashley McFarland (35:24)
Yeah, I always, I always

Heather Jerred (35:25)
Big more beer.

Miranda Gibson (35:26)
Thanks.

Ashley McFarland (35:28)
joke that I’m just like accidental lobbyist because this is not even though actually my undergrad was in political science because I always had this dream of like going into law. But I have kind of just accidentally become this lobbyist with no formal training just kind of like faking it along the way. However, I get to work alongside like legitimate lobbyists, government affairs people at

Association, the Beer Institute,

you name it, like these amazing groups that have a lot of just like experience and capacity in DC. And so we do, as we enter the lobbying season, we all kind of share our one-pagers, like, okay, what are you going to lobby for? Like, what’s important to you? And it’s so important when you show up on the Hill to, you know, repeat and have consistent messaging. So, you know, the National Barley Growers Association was there.

about a month ago talking about ag research, then VA has their hill climb talking about ag research, now we’re coming back again. And we’re right in the midst of the season where they’re deciding, you know, how are they going to spend the FY27 funds? So really important to have those strong relationships with people and so that you can advocate on the hill and again, have a consistent and loud voice. so, and I can’t understate the importance of the barley growers going to the hill as well because…

especially in the administration currently, they ‚Åì are really trying to be much more farmer focused. so bringing a farmer into the meeting is really valuable. And when we go on the NBIC goes, we try to bring a farmer, a researcher and an industry end user in each of the meetings. So you have kind of the whole supply chain perspective. And I tell you, it’s sometimes just that farmer like

good it just story out of North Dakota. We’ve got a farmer that’s long been on our MBC trips. And we’ll go into Senator Hoeven’s office out of North Dakota who’s has a very high leadership role in ag appropriations, right? So like you want to get your message across in there. And I’ll never forget one day Gary Beck just like sat down a farmer from North Dakota and said without the US Wheat and Barley Scab Initiative, we would have lost the farm. We would have lost all our bodily contracts probably wouldn’t have been growing weed anymore. We would have been done.

Right. so him being able to relay that message and just be very strong in his tone about the importance of this work can’t be understated. And then it just trickles down through the entire supply chain, right. The importance of the research and industry having products that they can use here domestically in the US. So, yeah, that messaging is super important. So always, I know a lot of people don’t like to do the legislative lobbying work and do the hill climbs because they don’t like messing with politics.

But I do think it’s an amazing experience for people if they haven’t done it before, because you kind of start to see like, how does this system work, right? And then you find out that you’re basically running around with a bunch of 20

30 year old staffers and you realize, okay, this is not as intimidating as I thought it was going to be. So I really recommend anyone that has a chance to do a hill climb, whether it’s with BA or us or

‚Åì with the barley growers, I recommend they do because it is very enlightening. Like you learn a lot about the systems and how things get done in

Brittany Drennan (38:32)
I think we want to talk a little bit about we didn’t want this being main focus, but it is definitely something we want to touch on and get both of your perspectives on is just the male domination in the industry that we work in as a whole. We want to kind of get your perspectives, find out if there are obstacles that you’ve faced, what has been challenging for you. I know on our side of the business, it is it is pretty male dominated. So for us to have gotten.

to where each of us are has been a feat, so to say. So yeah, I would like to just hear from both of you in regards to that and any input you

Miranda Gibson (39:10)
yeah, no, it’s definitely a man’s world. I’ve been fairly lucky. husband, most my husband and my dad will listen to me or whatever I get a little bit of say, but I’m going to say I’m more the neck and they’re more the head. And so they are the ones that represent and kind of voice the opinions. And I have built good relationships with our bankers and our vendors and that side of things. But it’s definitely a man’s world.

Heather Jerred (39:32)
Did you feel like it was a process to get those relationships that you’ve built? Like, do you feel like it was a little bit more difficult than maybe it would have been for your husband or your dad?

Ashley McFarland (39:33)
Thank

Miranda Gibson (39:40)
Yes, I think it’s

in this world, I think the man is seen first and the woman is at the shoulder at the

I guess out of respect to, I don’t know, it’s a man talking to a man, you know, versus then there’s that weird thread if you’re talking to the woman and whatever

know, it is, but

over the years, because I’ve been here for so long, I think it’s that, you know,

I’ve been able to build it and create a strong relationship, mostly with, like I said, the banks and the vendors and that side of stuff. But as far as the contractors and who we’re growing for and all that, that’s definitely my husband and my dad’s relations.

Cait Schut (40:17)
And what about you, Ashley? What kind of obstacles have you faced in your long journey in this industry?

Ashley McFarland (40:19)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, good question. You know, and it’s definitely I do not want to

that there are so many times where I’m the only woman in the room or maybe there’s just one other woman in the room like that happens all the time. And I’m sure Miranda feels that deeply as well. And it can be intimidating. And I think that the one thing that I would just want to impress upon, especially other women in the industry are

other women that maybe are early career and kind of rising through here is just like, know that you belong and that you deserve to be there. I think so often we don’t have the confidence necessary to show up. And I will just say that, you know, over the years, that’s something that I’ve had to kind of gain in that confidence of like knowing that I belong. You know, imposter syndrome comes up a lot, right? But

I think that you have to just be willing to own the moment and show up. And I think a lot of times it’s easier for people just not to, right? And I also think that, I mean, things have improved, definitely. Like I even know 20 years ago when I first got working with farmers, mean, was kind of like farmers would show up and be like, okay, when is like the real person gonna come and talk, right? You know, and…

So I have been there and I feel this deeply and I’m still sure there’s some farms I show up to and they’d like, where’s your dad at, right? Like that’s just life. However, I think that I just would caution women not to let themselves get caught up in that. Like it’s easy to write because you just get frustrated and you kind of like start turning into other women and just like.

get angry about it. But what I’ve learned is that it does you no good to do that. It is more important to just shed that, be confident, show up and represent and improve your worth and value and being in that room. But it does, it takes time to like build that level of confidence and ability. But I think it’s really important to do so. And now, I mean, I’m surrounded by amazing women in the industry, people that I go to all the time. And yeah, do I still get the occasional remarks and

uncomfortable moments with guys at conferences, absolutely. Like that’s, don’t think ever going to go away, but I just know now that I don’t have to put up with that, right? Like I deserve to be here just as much as the

guy. And I just try to remain confident and kind of speak my voice as much as I can. So, yeah.

Cait Schut (42:45)
that. That’s awesome. Yeah, I will say that things are they do feel like they’ve improved just I’ve been in the craft beer industry for about 11 years as well. And, you know, we we have mostly women now like on our CMG leadership team was just phenomenal. Just to kind of see and watch that shift over the years. ‚Åì It’s been it’s been incredible kind of building those relationships with other, you know, women in the

Heather Jerred (43:10)
If you could have a beer with any influential woman, past or present, who would it be?

Miranda Gibson (43:16)
my gosh, you didn’t put this on the list!

Heather Jerred (43:18)
I know, didn’t.

Miranda Gibson (43:19)
any influential woman.

I’m gonna draw a blank. I mean Oprah Winfrey comes to mind.

I guess I’ll go with that. I haven’t really thought about it.

Brittany Drennan (43:26)
What do we think

Oprah would drink at happy hour?

Heather Jerred (43:29)
Yeah.

Miranda Gibson (43:31)
As far as beer, I’m gonna guess she might… She’s probably like a wine drinker. But…

Heather Jerred (43:33)
You

What would you be drinking?

Ashley McFarland (43:37)
Hahaha

Miranda Gibson (43:39)
Me any cold beer.

Ashley McFarland (43:40)
You

this is a tough one. Yeah, I’m going to cheat a little bit because this might not be influential to a lot of people, but honestly, I just, lost my grandma who was 96 about a year ago and she was like ‚Åì still living independently and literally just kind of died just very suddenly. So it was one of those like living her best life and then she’s not there anymore. Extremely close to her, but she grew up

a very hard farm agricultural life and just to what we’re speaking about now, like how has this transformed over the last hundred years in agriculture? And it’s funny because at her time of passing, even though was very quick and sudden, I was very at peace with it. But now there’s always these times where it’s like, I really wish I could just sit down and have a drink with her and ask her these questions. And so maybe not influential for you all, but like Bernice went from Strawberry Point, Iowa.

Heather Jerred (44:09)
Yeah.

Ashley McFarland (44:30)
I just would have loved to just sat down with her now and have some of those conversations, things that I took for granted when she was still here. And unfortunately, I wouldn’t be drinking beer. I’m much more of a bourbon whiskey girl. So yeah, long as it’s not barley in it, right? So yeah, and I think that’s what she would prefer as well is a nice stiff pour over maybe just a couple cubes of ice. yeah, so that’s what that’s what I would do.

Cait Schut (44:43)
That’s okay too. ‚Åì

Brittany Drennan (44:43)
Me too. Me too.

Heather Jerred (44:47)
Yes.

Cait Schut (44:48)
you

right in the feels.

Heather Jerred (44:59)
Yeah.

Brittany Drennan (44:59)
But no, was like, I

Ashley McFarland (45:00)
So

Brittany Drennan (45:00)
think

Ashley McFarland (45:00)
thank

Brittany Drennan (45:00)
I would have gotten along with your grandma real well.

Cait Schut (45:02)
Yeah.

Ashley McFarland (45:03)
pretty awesome.

She’s pretty awesome.

Heather Jerred (45:05)
Well, amazing. Thank you both so, much for joining us today for our annual ‚Åì Women’s Day episode. It is so nice to kind of get to talk to people on such a different end of the same industry as we work in. So we really, really appreciate both of your points of view. And we appreciate you both for what you do every day to help make us do what we do every day to create the beer that we get to have at the end of the day. thank you so much for taking time out of your day. And we will talk to you all later.

Miranda Gibson (45:32)
Thank you for the invite.

Brittany Drennan (45:32)
Thank you.

Ashley McFarland (45:33)
Sounds

good.

Heather Jerred (45:35)
And that is a wrap. Thank you so much to Ashley and Miranda for joining us. It is just always so lovely to get to talk to people on kind of a different side of the industry that we all work in together. And it’s also amazing just to talk to women in this industry. So thank you so much to both of you for joining us.

Make sure you subscribe to the British broadcast wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss an amazing episode and we will see you all next time.