In this episode, Ryan talks with August Hortsmann, a first-generation Missouri rancher and founder of Hortsmann Cattle Company, about why most farmers never make it to full-time and what it takes to get there.
Built on his family’s land near St. Louis, August’s operation didn’t happen overnight. What began as a childhood passion turned into an eight-year grind of off-farm jobs, seasonal ranch work, study, observation, and relentless trial and error. Along the way, he moved away from conventional, university-trained agriculture and toward adaptive grazing, direct-to-consumer beef, and soil-first decision-making.
August shares the economic realities that keep 84% of American farmers dependent on outside income, the hard math of running a small meat business, and why scale isn’t the answer most people think it is.
