Agri-Pulse Open Mic Interview

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Polly Ruhland, CEO of the United Soybean Board. In this interview, Ruhland speaks to the challenges facing the soybean industry and the structural changes the farmer led group have made to refine their focus on both short and long term goals. Ruhland says collaborative efforts with commodity and industry partners as well as state organizations is helping grow deman...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Paul Drazek, Managing Partner of DTB Associates. The Trump administration’s trade agenda has yielded positive results recently with new agreements with Korea, Canada and Mexico. However tariffs on steel and aluminum imports remain in place and continue to bring retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural commodities. Drazek questions the results of those trade deals a...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Dr. Margaret Zeigler, Executive Director of the Global Harvest Initiative. The 9th annual GAP Report indicates a disturbing trend for global agriculture. While U.S. agriculture drowns in a surplus of bulk commodities, the global productivity trend falls short of the long range goal of meeting the food, fiber and fuel demands of a growing population. Zeigler says lo...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Jim Sutter, CEO of the U.S. Soybean Export Council. Soybean farmers are feeling the brunt of the trade war between the U.S. and China. Sutter shares how the trade war with China may incentivize global competition and at the same time reduce demand for soybeans. In this interview, Sutter outlines the industry’s short and long term strategy to maintain global market...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow. While the Michigan Democrat is adamant that the principal four negotiators will reach a compromise on a new farm bill, she also shares that the policy preferences between the House and Senate versions of the language are bigger than a single issue. Still, Stabenow isn’t ready to talk about extending the 2014 law.

This week’s guest on Open Mic is House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway. With the expiration of the 2014 Farm Bill, congressional farm policy leaders face a daunting task of finding a compromise that can be approved by both chambers in a lame duck session after the mid-term election and signed by President Trump before the end of the calendar year. The Texas Republican says the impasse over findi...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Dr. Dave Pyburn, Senior Vice President for Science and Technology with the National Pork Board. In this interview Dr. Pyburn reviews the history of African Swine Fever that poses a tremendous threat to the global swine herd, as well as to corn and soybean growers and consumers. Pyburn discusses the spread of the disease in China and outlines measures the U.S. must...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts. With time running short before the expiration of current farm policy, the Kansas Republican leader says he and the other primary leaders of the farm bill conference committee continue to work toward a resolution to challenging issues in policy reform including nutrition assistance work requirements. Roberts offers thoughts o...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Representative Steve King. The Iowa Republican offers insight to Congressional budget decisions that must be resolved before the end of the fiscal year and is less optimistic that farm bill conferees will meet the deadline for a new set of farm laws. King say he and voters in the Iowa 4th district support the Trump trade agenda, but fear the consequences of a trade...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Jennifer Ozimkiewicz, North American Regional Marketing Manager for Bayer Crop Science. After a near two year journey, Bayer’s acquisition of Monsanto came to a conclusion just days before the opening of the 2018 Farm Progress Show. In this interview, Ozimkiewicz discusses how product strengths and the research capacity of both companies may lead to more rapid deve...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is the Ranking Member of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson. The Minnesota Democrat is clearly focused on the Farm Bill Conference Committee and completion of the 2018 Farm Bill by the September 30 deadline. Peterson offers an update on the work to date on the compromise language and outlines some of the biggest challenges House and Senate leaders f...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Michele Simon, Executive Director for the Plant Based Foods Association. From their launch two years ago, the group has seen tremendous membership growth among companies that provide plant based alternatives to meat, eggs and milk. Nielsen data suggest a 20 percent growth in the industry last year. While traditional meat and dairy groups lobby Washington to crack d...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Ken Dallmier, President and COO of Clarkson Grain Company. While the global grain business is dominated by supply, demand and now trade wars, this Illinois-based company functions under a customer-focused mindset. Dallmier says this generation of consumer demand is dominated by a different set of social values leading to questions over the way food is produced and...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Illinois Congresswoman Cheri Bustos. The Illinois Democrat will serve on the 2018 Farm Bill Conference Committee and discusses the many challenges of resolving differences in the respective proposals including SNAP work requirements, conservation programs and farm support payment limits. Bustos agrees the U.S. should work toward free and fair trade, but disagrees w...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Congressman Rodney Davis. The Illinois Republican is a co-sponsor of pending immigration reform bill and shares his frustration with approving legislation to allow an adequate agriculture workforce. As a member of the farm bill conference committee, Davis strongly supports policy provisions in the House language and is ready to work with Senate leaders to resolve t...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Tom Nassif, President and CEO of Western Growers who discusses his group’s concerns about trade, immigration reform and the Trump Administration. Nassif, a former member of the Reagan administration, says it is time for the U.S. to say “enough is enough” to unfair global trading partners but fears the economic backlash of an extended and exhaustive global trade war...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is John Weber an Iowa hog farmer and a past president of the National Pork Producers Council. In this interview Weber reflects on the U.S. pork industry’s efforts to ramp up production to compete for a larger share of a growing global marketplace for their product. Now with a future clouded by retaliation from Trump trade tariffs, Weber says its time for the administr...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is economist Dan Kowalski, vice president of CoBank’s Knowledge and Exchange Division. With an already depressed farm economy and concerns about trade relationships with global trading partners, Kowalski says the industry has a lot at riding on the success of the Trump administration’s trade policy. CoBank says Canada, Mexico and China consume 30 percent of U.S. agric...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Congressman Dan Newhouse. Trade and labor are said to be the top two issues facing farmers in his 4th congressional district. In this interview, Newhouse talks about the critical need for fair and open markets as well as the shortage of available workers that’s costing his state’s agriculture industry millions of dollars annually. The former state ag director conti...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Tom Sleight, President and CEO of the U.S. Grains Council. The Trump trade agenda has provided much anxiety in the nation’s ag industry on escalating tension between major trading partners and the threat of an all out trade war. Tom Sleight offers insight on the significance of the NAFTA renegotiating effort with Canada and Mexico as well as other global trading pa...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Kevin Skunes, President of the National Corn Growers Association. Corn farmers have grave concerns over President Trump’s trade agenda as well as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s actions reducing volume demand for ethanol. In this week’s interview North Dakota’s Kevin Skunes voices farmer concerns over lost corn demand for renewable fuel and the potential loss of e...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Ambassador Allen Johnson, President of Allen F. Johnson and Associates. As Chief Agriculture Negotiator at the U.S. Trade Representative's Office during the Bush Administration, Johnson successfully negotiated a dozen agreements on five continents. In this interview, Johnson offers his insight to the strong hand the Trump administration is using to bring about fair...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Tim Lust, CEO of the National Sorghum Producers. The nation’s sorghum producers survived a season of heavy Chinese trade tariffs for their product and now are hopeful trade negotiations can offer additional access to that growing market. In this interview, Lust discusses new global market opportunities for sorghum as well as the exponential demand increase here at...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is U.S. Congressman Ted Yoho. As a member of the Agriculture Committee and the House Freedom Caucus, the Florida Representative offers insight into the failed vote for a new farm bill and key points for debate on immigration reform. Yoho, who was once a food stamp recipient, says there’s much to gain from approving new farm and nutrition policy this year and much to l...

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Emily Skor, CEO of Growth Energy. The renewable fuels industry is encouraged by a White House pledge to sell E-15 year round, but is concerned about the final outcome of the Trump administration’s discussions on the Renewable Fuel Standard. Skor suggests some possible conclusions might immediately lower corn prices and threaten thousands of renewable energy jobs. S...