The Business of Agriculture Podcast

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...

Shay Foulk with Ag View Solutions predicts cost of corn production for 2023 will average $5.35 per bushel. That number is an all time high and it's due to an increase in every crop input from nitrogen to diesel to labor. The story is the same for the other major commodity of soybeans, and presumably for wheat as well. The reason: crop input price inflation. The good news: farms are still predicted...

Farmers love to talk about the weather but in this episode we go deeper and talk about systems, climate, global weather patterns, and the year ahead. My guest is Eric Snodgrass, Senior Science Fellow for Nutrien Ag Solutions. Will we see the sort of devastating dryness we experienced in the west in 2022 make a repeat? Will we have subsoil moisture replenished? And what about the Mississippi river…...

Lasse Jakobsen was born in Denmark, now the Millennial heads up U.S. business development for the company his grandfather created to serve European hog production. Today, Protekta is a joint venture with a Danish organization that produces feed additives, among other things, for pork, poultry, and primarily dairy producers. Lasse discusses the advantages of selling to a consolidating industry, les...

Your smart phone has more technology and capability than NASA's Apollo program had 50 years ago. Think about that, then think about the technology in today's modern farm machinery. Data collection, yield monitoring, analysis down to the square foot…It's amazing to say the least. John Deere business development manager Dan Paschke joins Deere dealer representatives Jeremy Ostrander and Jon Carlo of...

Two weeks ago I posted on social media a photo of an antique tractor next to a modern machine. In my post I referenced the advancements we've made since the antique tractor worked the land — 7 times increase in per acre yield, less natural resource consumption per calorie produced, environmental advancements, etc… Then, as often happens on social media, the detractors began commenting. This post b...

Renewable diesel is the new buzz talk everywhere in Agriculture. Will its take off and reality match the fervor in farm circle discussions? Will the tax credits giving RD lift off remain with us? Will more biofuel fuel the "no food for fuel" debate? Well, yes, that's almost a guarantee! Mac Marshall, VP of Market Intelligence with the United Soybean Board talks all things soybean and renewable die...

Fertilizer markets have been tumultuous for a few years now. Just when you thought things had settled down on fertilizer price and availability, a hurricane hit, a war broke out, and the Mississippi dried up. Nathan Carson is VP of Operations with Chemical Dynamics, a Florida specialty fertilizer company. He shares perspective on Florida Ag and outlook on fertilizer price and availability. Nathan...

The global population is getting older and fertility rates have been plummeting. Unless you follow my commentary, this is probably news to you. Most everyone in Ag is still operating under the misguided assumption that population growth is boundless. It's not. As fertility rates drop like a rock, the population gets older. Fast. Here in the U.S. for instance, our median age has aged by more than a...

Ken Wall left his post as an attorney and moved his two sons back to the Ontario specialty crop farm he was raised on in the 1990s. Since then he's expanded the enterprise, gotten in the seed business, built a food processing facility, and created a niche manufacturing company. He explains the business of asparagus and describes his diversified Agriculture business. Did you know Germans eat about...

There's an industry within the world's most important industry that most folks probably don't think a lot about but it's huge and it's growing: The fats and oils side of Ag. Vegetable oil demand is growing, not just because of human consumption but also as a fuel source with renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel demand on the up tick. Then there is the animal fat by-product and its myriad...

You've likely heard the horror stories about unhealthy Agricultural family business succession. Dysfunctional relationships, favoritism, squandered wealth, sibling rivalry — Elaine Froese, the Farm Family Coach, has seen it all. The sad part: it's all preventable. Elaine joins me to discuss strategies to successful business succession. She shares valuable information and tips on how to run a famil...

While most farm operators quest for more acres, the real drive should be for more profitable acres. Which means, less productive acres in some cases would be better off going un-farmed. That's the concept of precision conservation as promoted by Pheasants Forever & Quail Forever. Jacob Taylor a specialist with the wildlife organization joins Tennessee Farmer Jeremy Fowler to explain how they enrol...

Sorghum, Grain Sorghum, Milo…whatever you call it, it's a crop that's likely to expand in acres over the next decade. The reason: water. Specifically, water restrictions — either by regulatory forces or adequate availability — will increase the economic justification for drought tolerant crops like sorghum. John Duff, one of the world's foremost experts on sorghum discusses the crop, the marketpla...