This week’s guest on Open Mic is Tom Ryan, President of Truterra.  Sustainability has become a new hurdle for farmers, agribusiness, industry and policymakers to address. Ryan says the private industry willing to invest in sustainable agriculture practices are as diverse as the farmers and soil they till to meet the demands placed on their overall productivity.  Truterra, the Sustainability Division of Land O Lakes is helping to bridge the opportunities of sustainable ag practices between those companies willing to invest and those farmers who have proven willing to embrace agronomic practices benefitting both productivity and sustainability. Ryan believes cooperation between farmers, USDA, ag retailers and industry can lead to shared success in environmental stewardship.

This week’s Open Mic guest is Jeffery Hall, Board Chairman and CEO of the Farm Credit Administration and the longest serving member of the current FCA board. Hall reports system debt at the end of 2024 at just over $448 billion dollars - just shy of an 8% increase from the end of 2023. Since the beginning of 2020, system debt outstanding has grown over 52%. The FCA has seen a dramatic downturn in the number of institutions and farmers since the farm crisis of the 1980’s, but the amount of debt continues to climb. He discusses softer farmland values in some areas, the interest rate environment, and future areas of focus for the FCA.

This week’s Open Mic guest is Garrett Hawkins, President of the Missouri Farm Bureau Federation.  Hawkins says his state’s farmers echo calls to Washington to get a new, modernized farm bill approved as quickly as possible. Hawkins says his state takes issue with the Biden administration’s Green New Deal policies favoring electricity instead of an “all of the above” approach to the nation’s energy future. Missouri landowners are facing property rights issues as the private Grain Belt Express has been given the power of eminent domain to run transmission lines across the state.

This week’s Open Mic guest is Paul Bertels, Principal and Senior Consultant for Farmgate Insights. Much attention is given to the potential demand for billions of bushels of row crops should they be included as acceptable feedstocks for sustainable aviation fuel. Drawing from his long career with the National Corn Growers Association and the ethanol industry, Bertles says the SAF market won’t be as easy to develop as the process involves creating molecules of actual jet fuel instead of simply blending the product. Favorable regulations, incentives, subsidies and carbon sequestration will all have to be accomplished in order to open this new opportunity for farmers and the ag industry. 

This week’s Open Mic guest is Bryan Humphreys, CEO of the National Pork Producers Council. Swine producers are coming off a period of negative returns thanks to ample demand from domestic and global consumers. Humphreys says pork producers are concerned about the consequences of potential tariffs on global market access and hope for a farm bill which would include limits on state mandated production practices like those in California and Massachusetts. He also discusses the Biden administration's ruling on packer line speeds, ag labor and more. 

This week’s Open Mic guest is Greg Tyler, President and CEO of the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council. Tyler spoke with us while he was visiting Asian customers and dealing firsthand with issues like avian influenza, potential tariffs from the coming Trump administration, as well as a weak global economy and a strong U.S. dollar. Tyler says new trade negotiations and trade enforcement will be critical to grow market access in the presence of HPAI.