The Business of Agriculture Podcast

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 it's time to start weaning North American Agriculture off the adversarial customer that is China. Sponsored by Pattern Ag pattern.ag, AGvisorPRO getagvisorpro.com, and Truterra truterraag.com

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 2024. Mexico softened their stance on Genetically engineered corn after being threatened by American Ag. Unfortunately, we'll take the wrong lesson from this "victory" over our number two Ag customer, who I believe will ultimately look to replace the U.S. as a corn provider. XtremeAg's Matt Swanson discusses the issue. Sponsored by Pattern Ag pattern.ag, AGvisorPRO getagvisorpro.com, and Truterra truterraag.com

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 and CEO, Jim Schultz discusses the landscape of Ag venture capital, why he's bullish on Ag, and the future. Mr. Schultz also explains — in simple terms — the process of investing and how his fund works, then he shares some great illustrations citing companies you may have heard of! Sponsored by Pattern Ag pattern.ag, AGvisorPRO getagvisorpro.com, and Truterra truterraag.com

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 generation of farmers have? Most importantly, what excites tomorrow's farmers? It's all here! Sponsored by Pattern Ag pattern.ag, AGvisorPRO getagvisorpro.com, and Truterra truterraag.com

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 pathogens, or we've suffered yield loss oblivious to the pathogenic pressure. Those days are done — or at least they can be. Mike Tweedy with PatternAg explains Predictive Agronomy. Sponsored by Pattern Ag pattern.ag, AGvisorPRO getagvisorpro.com, and Truterra truterraag.com

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 wrenches to their increasingly sophisticated machines and, in doing so, make a mess. Ultimately, I believe this issue will resolve itself as equipment gets increasingly complex and as the ownership model morphs into more of a subscription. Fred Simkin, right-to-repair proponent and engineer joins me for a discussion (and occasional disagreement) on the subject. Sponsored by Pattern Ag pattern.ag, AGvisorPRO getagvisorpro.com, and Truterra truterraag.com

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 historic perspective, numbers, data, outlook, and reality: that commodity production favors scale and size, whether you're in the business of making corn or manufacturing copper. Sponsored by Pattern Ag pattern.ag, AGvisorPRO getagvisorpro.com, and Truterra truterraag.com

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, and Truterra truterraag.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 practices are eligible (or not allowed)? And what — besides annual revenue — are the benefits to participants? Mariah Murphy, Truterra's Director of Retailer and Farmer Services, explains Ecosystem Services and how Ag producers can benefit by starting with a soil health assessment.

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 — and ultimately for profitability. We discuss marketing, risk management, supply management, the impact of ESG on Ag businesses, the reality of economics and the truth of "market volatility." Sponsored by Pattern Ag pattern.ag, AGvisorPRO getagvisorpro.com, and Truterra truterraag.com