The Business of Agriculture Podcast

Farmland values have been on a tear the last couple years. Who's buying America's farms and why are they doing so? Is it true that institutional investors are keeping farmers from expanding ownership? Will interest rate hikes cause farm ground prices to plummet? Are foreigners buying the property next door? Is farmland still a good investment? Should there be restrictions on who can own farm groun...

Drone technology is evolving at a rapid pace. Will we see a future where unmanned aerial vehicles replace the traditional crop duster? Likely not for a number of practical reasons as well as the technology advancements being made in manned agricultural aviation. A more likely scenario is where drones compliment airplanes (as well as terrestrial application units) for greater precision, reduced pro...

"Our industry is going to require 60,000 4-year college graduates and we're around 38,000 students graduating from the Ag curriculum currently." So says Dr. Tom Paulson, department head at Morningside U's Applied Agricultural and Food Studies. Dr. Paulson is joined by Tom Moss and Liz Zoebel, two of 75 students studying Agriculture at the Sioux City, Iowa college. They discuss what they're learnin...

Have you noticed steaks and chicken breasts are considerably larger than they were just a couple decades ago? Switching to pork, have you noticed your chops are less flavorful (maybe that explains the popularity of bacon)? Todd Thurman and Nevil Speer join Damian to discuss the meat production model and how we've gotten to a place of less flavor and huge carcasses. Can we reverse this trend by foc...

Every five years congress hashes out, argues about, and then releases a new and revised Farm Bill. At least that is what's supposed to happen, although it may not happen for the 2023 version. Paul Neiffer, the Farm CPA, joins Damian to explain the current Farm Bill, predict what's in the new version, and discuss proposed changes. The new Farm Bill's spending is set to grow by 60% -- much of it for...

Fact: There will be fewer American farmers ten years from now than there are today. In no way is this meant to be fatalistic or negative, it's just reality. "Peak farm" occurred in 1935 with 6.8 million farming operations in the U.S. The number has been declining ever since to two million farming operations today. Of those two million operations, about 175,000 do almost all the heavy lifting of fo...

When you think of buying a piece of farm ground, you probably think of the very real possibility that the soil is depleted. But what if it's got more than enough fertility and what if you can actually use that banked fertility to lower your taxes? Turns out, per IRS Section 180, you can depreciate excess fertility on newly acquired farm land (purchased, not rented). Alec Bean with Agricultural Soi...

Much of American Agriculture is predicted to have a prosperous 2023. But there are concerns. Commodity prices are high but so are inputs. Exports set a record last year but geopolitical strife is simmering on the verge of boiling over. What's the future hold for Ag? Arlan Suderman, Chief Commodities Economist with StoneX Financial and a self-proclaimed "glass half-full" guy discusses farm economic...

The Amazon effect is coming to Agriculture. In fact, it's already here. If you need something on your farm, chances are you can order it up on your smart phone and have it by the end of the week. Even chemicals, seed, and fertilizer. But will Ag retail go away? Not likely, given the proximity, relationship, and handling capacity. Lance Ramthun, founder of Farmerce, discusses his company's incarnat...

All indications are, money is going to be blowing into Agriculture from a myriad of sources over the next year, largely in the form of environmentalism. Is this trend for real? Will the funds come from a new Farm Bill? Are corporate players truly investing in Ag or just covering their tales in the new era of ESG — Environmental, Social, and Governance movements? John Duff of Sero Ag Strategies pro...

If you've worked in the Business of Agriculture for one year or the past 50 years, all you've known is increased globalization of our industry. That's changing and the pace of change will likely accelerate during the next decade. Todd Thurman, co-host of The Business of Ag Success Group discusses the rise of globalization as we examine American Ag exports past, present, and future and what tomorro...

North American Agriculture has benefited greatly by China's rise during the last couple decades. But, as you've heard, all good things must come to an end and in this case, the end might not end well. Tensions between China and the west — particularly the United States — have ramped up. And frankly, those tensions aren't likely to subside. In this episode we discuss trade, numbers, and the reasons...

American Agriculture often times suffers from a disorder I've termed Acute Commodity Mindset. Symptoms of this disorder include thinking customers should purchase what we produce — regardless of what they actually want — and resisting opportunities to up-sell higher profit margin products. We saw both of these behaviors in the recent "spat" with Mexico, who initiated a ban on GMO corn beginning in...

A few years ago, it seemed that capital was on every corner looking for a place to invest. But even in those cash-rich days, not a lot of investors looked at Agriculture as an investment objective — aside from biological crop inputs and technology. Then there is Open Prairie, an Illinois-based private equity group deploying investor money into growing agricultural companies. Open Prairie's founder...

Luke Roush was just a kid when I met him, now he's managing a diversified Indiana farming operation with his father. We talk about skill sets, strengths, weaknesses, employee management, growth, money, the future, and more. What does Luke see from his perspective? Where are the challenges, and where are the opportunities? How does technology adoption favor his generation? What concerns do the next...

A shovel full of soil contains billions of microbes, thousands of bacteria, and a biological complexity we're only beginning to understand. With the advent of soil sampling, we've generally tossed out macronutrients in large quantities and started to look at micronutrients. But we've not done much when it comes to predicting pathogens. So, we've either treated unnecessarily for disease and pathoge...

More than half the states in the U.S. are considering "right-to-repair" laws according to a recent article. Legislation at the federal level is being pushed by Montana senator Jon Tester. Pushers of "right-to-repair" regulation position themselves as victims of big equipment companies. Big equipment companies, on the other hand, claim they have the right to void warranties if owners put the wrench...

I've been hearing the complaint, "it's hard / impossible for a young person to start out in farming these days" for decades. Recently, an interviewer went down this road about the struggle of young people to get into farming and blamed the phenomenon on "corporate-ization." You've no doubt heard this complaint yourself, but is it even true? If it is true, why is it? In this episode I provide some...

Kelly Garrett is an entrepreneurial farmer from western Iowa. His business interests include farming, trucking, plant food distribution, ag retail, and now: direct to consumer beef. Kelly joins me to discuss the motivation behind creating GLC Beef and the opportunities for increasing profit margins by becoming vertically integrated. Sponsored by Pattern Ag pattern.ag, AGvisorPRO getagvisorpro.com,...

We've been hearing about carbon credits for several years in Agriculture. Finally, the vagueness of the ecosystem marketplace is becoming more clear. In this episode we learn how farmers enroll their acres to get compensation for carbon sequestration and nitrogen reduction. Who pays for these environmental objectives? How much money is available and how are the arrangements structured? What practi...

The Business of Agriculture trades commodities. We produce them, buy them, sell them, and process them to make products for our end users. But who does all this trading and who ultimately, uses the goods we make? Dave Smoldt and Kyle Schrad with StoneX Financial give us a behind the scenes look at customers they serve and how they help end users navigate the commodity markets for their business —...

U.S. net farm income set a record in 2022, up 14% from 2021 to $160.5 billion. To put it mildly, things in Ag are good financially speaking. 2022's farm income number is double what it was just 3 years ago during the China - U.S. trade spat. What does this mean for those of us who earn our living in Agriculture? Will expenses rise by more than income (2023 will be the most expensive crop ever plan...

Agriculture has a lot of battles to fight beyond the daily challenges of producing our food, fuel, and fiber. Causes against production Ag have turned into religious movements as well as full-blown business models. Call it what it is, it's "the conflict industry" and in places like Holland, farms are being forcibly liquidated by government to reach an alleged environmental objective. This subject...

In 2022 American farmers produced the fourth largest soybean crop on record at 117 million metric tons or roughly 4.4 billion bushels. The good news: Demand is matching global supply and prices are decent. The challenging news: Our demand for soybean oil is outpacing our demand for soybean meal. Given the math (about 80% of a soybean is meal, 20% is oil), this presents a challenge. That's why the...

Cow farts cause "climate crisis" and climate crisis is reducing crop yields, eating eggs causes high cholesterol, global population growth will cause mass starvation, sunlight exposure is harmful to your health. You've likely heard these dire predictions confidently proclaimed by so-called experts. The only problem: Most of these doomsday scenarios are inaccurate. Yet they persist but why? Todd Th...