AG Bull
Tommy Grisafi is the main host and content creator for Ag Bull Media.
The Ag Bull Podcast showcases agriculture's top talents in a long-form video format. The Ag Bull Trading Podcast is a deeper discussion of trading with analysts and key players in agriculture nationwide.
Futures trading involves risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone.
AG Bull
Wiesemeyer's Perspectives | Silver Surges & Commodities Year in Review
We sprint through a year where metals spiked, bonds bristled, and policy moved markets as much as weather. We map the big shifts in grains, cattle, inputs, biofuels, trade, and the politics of food prices, then lay out what could drive demand in 2026.
• stocks rising while bonds flag risk
• silver surge and China’s export controls
• corn buoyed by exports despite big crops
• soybeans pressured by Brazil and timing
• wheat capped by global stocks
• cotton weakened on China demand
• cattle cycle tightness and shock events
• hog inventories tamping prices
• bird flu and vaccine trade implications
• sticky food inflation as political fuel
• SNAP fights and affordability fault lines
• GLP-1 drugs shifting sugar and alcohol demand
• MAHA focus on ultra-processed foods
• USDA reorg and service capacity strain
• input costs squeezing margins and machinery slowdown
• RFS, E-15, and 45Z delays clouding biofuels
• rail merger bid and logistics uncertainty
• rural healthcare costs and ACA credits
• labor reform tensions around H2A and year-round needs
• WOTUS reset pushing oversight to states
• OB3 tax permanence shaping farm planning
• cannabis reclassification and rural economics
• structural policy forces redefining ag beyond cycles
• pivot to domestic utilization for durable demand
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Thank you, Tommy G
Welcome back, everyone. Tom Gersopi, Ag Bull Media, Ag Bull Trading. You're listening to the AgBull Podcast. We have the one and only Mr. Jim Wiesmeyer waiting, but I want to tell you, it has been an absolute joy and pleasure to do this uh show with Jim and all the new listeners, viewers, everyone, thanks for joining. Don't forget to click, like, and subscribe. Check out our website. Now, with that, I thought we had an easy show. And then Mr. Wiesmeyer sent me his list, and he's gonna get a lump of coal. But as President Trump told that young child, oh yo, coal is a good thing now in your stocking. I hear Jim laughing in the background. Let's play the video of Mr. Weissmeyer and let's have a good show. This is our last one of the year. We'll be back in 2026 and get things going. So many things to talk about. I'm really excited about this one.
SPEAKER_02:You know, President Trump actually said it had to be clean coal.
SPEAKER_00:I tell you what.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we've got a program that's gonna look at, I guess, two baker's dozens of issues, but we're only gonna bottom line one or two sentences, and that's it, because many listeners are well aware because they lived it, but we're gonna go through of how the ag sector was enveloped by far more than the ag sector, Tommy: economic, trade, energy, geopolitics, food, you name it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I want to pop in here real quick. I'm here, everybody, but it's just me and Jim hitting the buttons. You're gonna see a lot of Mr. Weeksmeyer and not a lot of me. And that's why you came here. Jim, I'm gonna read something off. We're gonna do year in review, stock market, how'd it do?
SPEAKER_02:Well, you had SP up almost 20, 18. Across the board, we had more than a few records, and that shows you that Wall Street really had a good year. Now, what we have to do is to get Main Street in 2026 to go along.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. Okay, the bond market.
SPEAKER_02:They were a little nervous because we still have bonds, what, over four percent?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, 4.20, 4.95.
SPEAKER_02:That's on several rate cuts. Yeah, the vigilantes are nervous, Tommy. They're nervous about the sticky inflation, they're worried about the independence of the Fed, etc. And I think this dynamic will play out, especially the first few months of 2026.
SPEAKER_01:And why would interest rates on bonds being going up? Well, let's talk about gold, silver, platinum, palladium, copper.
SPEAKER_02:Tommy, you're the expert on the metals. Go to it.
SPEAKER_01:Well, all I could say is this I've traded my whole life, and I've almost never seen anything like we witnessed Friday in silver. What happened was pretty much unprecedented. Silver was up five dollars an ounce after having an incredible run. Silver's up 175% on the year, but inner day, the CME group announced on Friday that they are raising margins again. To put it in perspective, to take home a silver futures contract, you only needed$20,000 in your account of margin. One silver futures contract moved$35,000. If you came in long the day before and sold it at the four o'clock close, which we settle at$1225 about,$35,000 move on a product. You only need$20,000. This is not going to end well. As far as gold and everything else, Jim, gold it was only up 1% on Friday, which is only right, gold's only up$50 an ounce. Platinum, palladium, most of us don't even know what those metals are, except for if you've ever had a catalytic converter stolen, you kind of learn about that. Uh, all the other base metals. The truth is, Jim, and you know it, you're a smart man. China holds the key to so many metals. I did some Googling about Google, or I did some Googling about Google. That's funny. I did some Googling about silver, and it comes from a lot of places, but a lot of silver comes from China, and China has a new rule starting January 1st. They're not going to let exports of silver. A lot of silver comes from Mexico. Did you know that, Jim?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, I did. And and tell them what uh Elon Musk said about the price of silver and how that could translate into sticky inflation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, earlier this morning, this is Saturday recording, Elon Musk tweeted spot silver hit$80, it's hitting$85 in China. He said, This is not good. This is a major industrial metal. Now there's this new battery being developed that is just pure silver in the battery. And it's obviously if silver doubled in the last month and a half, it's going to make a$2,500 battery a$5,000 battery. And this is becoming a real problem. Something I've had silver my whole life. It's been one of the worst investments of my life until about two weeks ago. And the dog barks, the dog barks.
SPEAKER_02:And usually, Tommy, metals don't don't rally the to the degree they did when you have record uh equity markets, but boy, they did them in tandem this year. So that that was an aberration as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. You're uh you're freezing up a little bit on the recording, but you're fine. We're not gonna stop. I just make sure you don't have any other apps or anything. I know Mr. Wiesmeyer probably has 20 things going on his computer at once. I'll uh go full screen on me. Okay, grain market and cattle market, they see me, but you can gladly uh talk us through this, Mr. Wiesmeyer.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, oh well we had basically we had corn, you had strong global demand and record large uh acreage and crops, but uh that that record corn exports really helped. But if you if I would have told you at the beginning of the year we would have record acreage, record production, you would have thought we would have had even lower prices than we did. So that strong uh global demand, especially for U.S. corn, uh helped out. It could have been worse, is what I just said. Soybeans, China, China, China. They were lower and uh they were pressured by large South American crops, especially Brazil, narrowing U.S. export share. So we're gonna watch China focus going into 2026. Wheat, yeah, really the world supplies, elevated supplies globally, lifted those stock levels, uh Tommy, and tempered uh prices. U.S. wheat production and ending stocks grew, and that kept prices soft. Cotton, it was all China, lack thereof. They declined from the earlier highs in 2025 and into the what low 60s areas. Cotton hurt is hurting. We need cotton in the 85 to 90 cent uh area. Rice, U.S. rice supplies were somewhat reduced on smaller yields in the U.S., uh, but global rice stocks also tightened. So, but but they still were ample. But rice uh had had a basically a steady environment. Milo, sorghum, China, China, China. They were weighed down by uh lower Chinese imports and trade uncertainty. They picked up of late, but overall weak demand. Cattle, I'll let you talk cattle, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01:Well, Jim, you give me all the easy ones. What can you say about cattle? The fundamentals said there was a bullish story and it it didn't disappoint. Now we had a bullish story, and then we start started on these tariffs. We got into uh a beef, no pun intended, with Brazil, Canada, everyone else. Then we had screwworm, which you and I will talk about on this show. So we had extremely bullish fundamentals, and then we had what you know you hear the term so often, too often used, a black swan type event, right? And the hits just keep coming. Then we have this massive pullback, and not all markets go up forever. I will tell my silver friends look at a cattle chart. They had the most bullish fundamentals at the very top, just like silver's doing now. No, nothing lasts forever, Jim, but it's come halfway back here from that big sell-off. So I think we got all the major commodities here.
SPEAKER_02:Hogs, hog, hog prices. Uh, they've tempered of late. We had a pretty good run-up throughout 2025. But that hogs and pigs report and the revisions, Tommy, showed we had uh more uh hog inventory than than the market expected. So we've got hogs on their back heels and dairy. Uh milk production forecast are steady, uh slightly lower projected cow inventories in the year ahead, and mixed price signals in the dairy. That kind of is the ACT market.
SPEAKER_01:One more sugar because we had a real are my friends up in North Dakota, they're really hurting from growing sugar this year.
SPEAKER_02:Uh hundreds of acres, hundreds of dollars per acre of losses, depending where you are at in that in that in the sugar sector. And that's where one of the issues that we'll talk about, GLP1, those weight reduction drugs have not helped the sugar industry.
SPEAKER_01:Let's get in the lightning round. We have a lot of subjects we won't waste any time. Trade war fallout, U.S. China ag flows hit fresh lows. So I mean stayed the pressure point. Trump Z reached a deal. Mr. Wiesmeyer.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, in a nutshell, the trade war for the U.S. and China is now in a truce, Tommy. It's a result of an agreement between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Uh, we had all sorts of uh you know you know disagreements in the uh ag trade as far as whether China would purchase the stated levels of U.S. soybeans. We're not gonna detail those, but it looks like they're on a marketing year basis. They have purchased uh uh anywhere from six to eight million tons so far this marketing year, but it's gonna be one that we have to make sure that uh China fulfills the agreement, and that's going to unfold unfold as we go through 2026. Okay?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, sir. Trump's trade policy, the tariff state, what it means for agriculture, and the looming supreme court test.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, tariff is uh Trump's favorite word. He always says it. We've got hundreds of billions of dollars in tariff uh you know funding as a result of uh Trump's trade policy. But as you said, the Supreme Court of the United States is gonna rule on the constitutionality of Trump's use of emergency factors in in order to implement his trade policy. Now, if they rule against him, it could be a complex ruling. So we're not gonna judge until we get that ruling, Tom. But once we get it, we'll dissect that uh ruling because there are other tools in the White House's toolbox in order to still implement Trump's trade policy. It's just more cumbersome.
SPEAKER_01:Here we go. Large crops, low prices, margin compression for growers.
SPEAKER_02:We went through it, and farmers and ranchers, especially real crop producers, lived it. We had record or near record yields despite some major disease problems in corn, uh rust, et cetera, and soybeans, sudden death of soybeans. But this whole region of the United States can flex their muscles. It's hard to kill a corn crop. That's what it told me again.
SPEAKER_01:Farm financial stress triggers major government support.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.$12 billion worth and$11 billion for row crop,$1 billion for specialty crops. Farmers are not complaining, except they don't think it'll be nearly enough. No program should ever make a farmer whole, but this will only cover 25 to 30 percent of those uh losses, the economic losses, not just trade. This is far more than just trade losses, Tommy. And that means that uh sometime in 2026, it looks like Congress is going to at least make an attempt to have further aid. But that farm financial stress, multiple years of uh low to very low prices, has now caught up with this. And for other perspective, since COVID uh days, we have we were we are up 30 around 30 percent or so on inflation. The the increase in the uh uh in the reference prices, which is our next one, you know, foreign policy shifts, if you recall in the one big beautiful bill, OB3 as we call it now in Washington, that increased uh reference prices uh 10 to 20 percent. So you can see that factor there in foreign policy that it's still behind the eight ball. So we need some further focus on foreign policy in the years ahead. So we can just go right into number six livestock cycle, Titans beef markets. Again, we explained it in the market commentary. Although president, you know, President Trump doesn't understand the cattle cycle because he wants lower prices, it's gonna take a while. It'll take well into 2026, if not 2027, to get this herd rebuilding. And we're gonna be we could uh have very firm prices unless Washington continues to try to get the government to stop these high meat prices. And I'm not gonna rule that out, Tommy. There I still hear uh in private talks that they're looking into other options. So that's something to watch as well.
SPEAKER_01:Jim, I'm gonna mute your microphone. You go ahead and get a beverage and I'll pop up the screen. We gotta Mr. Wiesmeyer's gonna go through a big list, so we got to get him a chance to drink a little something, clear his throat. All right, we did uh farm policy shifts, big boost in reference prices. I think you talked about that livestock. Next would be Trump orders DOJ and USDA review of U.S. meat packing industry. That's a that's a hot topic here. Mr. Wiesmeyer, you're back on.
SPEAKER_02:Well, when you're in a problem area called food inflation, if you don't know how to solve it, you study it. And that's what they're doing with the Department of Justice and USDA review of U.S. meat packing industry. They're also going to add on the input to other input industries in uh seed, fertilizer, and farm machinery. Usually these investigations don't bring about anything new, Tommy. We'll have to see what they come up with.
SPEAKER_01:Trump remarks on Argentina deal rattle U.S. livestock and soybean producers.
SPEAKER_02:My goodness. Here, once we once we had a good rally going in soybeans, what did Treasury Secretary Scott Besson do? Along with White House blessing, they offered uh Argentina a$20 billion bond swipe, a swap, and the very next day Argentina eliminates their export taxes, and China comes in and buys billions of dollars worth of Argentine soybeans right during the time slot, Tommy, that we would normally that were normally competitive, relatively competitive to U.S. Brazilian soybeans. And as far as the livestock sector, Trump quadrupled the quota of uh Argentine beef coming in. It it affected the markets big time initially, but as we said, the overall demand and other fundamentals and cattle brought prices roaring back.
SPEAKER_01:Unbelievable. Tyson restructures beef operations amid tight cattle supplies.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we were on the air live when this story broke, and you helped break it, Tommy. And but this shows you the implications of what's happening in the U.S. cattle industry. And the Department of Justice and USDA better look into this because these are the industry ramifications. It's not all hunky-dory in the cattle industry. They're having some rough times. We saw that uh eventual closing of the plant in Nebraska, uh the reduction to one shift in the Amarillo Texas plant, and who knows, we could see some other you know, beef uh uh uh industry ramifications. And again, this just shows the the follow-through on the on the downside of input prices, lack of cattle, etc. So this is the market working, actually.
SPEAKER_01:This ties right into it. New world screw room, border risk, risk the livestock debate.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, they better have their act together. And we let's see if we're gonna be accurate. But I guess it was last week when we detailed one option, but it'll be a phased-in reopening. And we're gonna hear this in January. I fully expect it, but they're gonna be very cautious. They mean USDA. You're gonna be very cautious and do a multiple series of tests, Tommy, on these cattle, uh uh perhaps coming back in from certain areas of Mexico. But I think USDA would be taking the right approach. Very science-based, very cautious, a lot of testing. We're gonna see how it unfolds.
SPEAKER_01:What that'll do is create a huge headline, Jim, that the Mexican border's open, but then you'll realize it's like trying to get into Disneyland while President Trump's there. You're gonna have to go through security through security through security. And the actual number of cattle that'll come over will be so limited, correct? I agree.
SPEAKER_02:I agree. That's why, yeah, headline. If you don't, if you don't know the the the the story, the headline could it's a buying opportunity if you're in cattle and they go down when this happens. But uh uh I I totally agree with your analysis there. Next one.
SPEAKER_01:Animal health shocks continued with bird flu spread.
SPEAKER_02:Bird flu is just not poultry, is what we learned. It spread to other species. And the administration still toys with a rather big increase in vaccines. Should they do it? The trade, the sectors uh uh are are are split on this one because it has trade policy implications when you use vaccines, Tommy. Some people don't want to uh trade with the with the countries anymore if they use a bird flu vaccine. This is just a lingering issue every year for the last few years. It's not gonna go go away.
SPEAKER_01:Sticky food inflation becomes a political flashpoint. Sticky food, I've been hearing this word sticky a lot. Do tell.
SPEAKER_02:Lingering. You know, when you're eating a uh a uh the uh what was it, a candied apple. It leaves residue. It leaves residue. And the Democrats have picked up on this and the affordability issue that we'll mention several times in this program and when we look at 2026. The meat issue has already vexed the White House, and there's limited things they can do. Egg prices they did handle relatively well, they had a five-point plan to uh help reduce egg prices, and and that succeeded. But some of these things on uh food prices are lingering, and that's where you get the the sticky side. So I think agriculture is going to remain in the news and be and be used in the election year 2026 as far as a topic that needs to be addressed, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01:Snap battle intensifies is food affordability and farmers. Policy client.
SPEAKER_02:You saw food stamps become important in a number of uh times in 2025. In the uh in the one big beautiful bill where the Republicans were successful in reducing expenditures and doing some what many people believe to be needed reforms. The Democrats didn't like that. That's why you didn't have one Democrat vote for that uh bill. It's carried over into foreign policy debates under the so-called skinny farm bill or farm bill 2.0, where the Democrats want to claw back some of those funds that were cut, they're not going to get it. And you also had tighter eligibility rules announced by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins that have been controversial among certain states. The food stamps cover about uh you know food and nutrition covers almost 85% of our all farm bill spending. And that's where you have the divided issue now in agriculture, where some people are saying maybe we have to delink uh that farm bill in the future from the food and nutrition debate. We're gonna see. No right answer there, by the way.
SPEAKER_00:Well, what was the last one we did? The uh food stamps were 14 weight loss drugs. Okay, so you talked that long about SNAP.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, I thought I skipped one. Here we go.
SPEAKER_02:Weight loss drugs, uh GLP one. That's reshaping food demand, sugar and other products, uh, snacks, processed foods, uh, sugar heavy uh items, and alcoholic beverages. You have some whiskey producers in Kentucky shutting down production, Tommy. We have some major things going on in the food arena. Now, at least one company has FDA approval for these drugs in a pill format where you don't have to take an injection. And another uh company, Eli Lilly, will do the same thing later in 2026. So this is going to accelerate the impact of the weight-reducing GLP1 drugs. Now it's not all negative for agriculture. You need protein when you take these uh drugs, and that that increases uh uh protein, meaning meats. So it's it's not all bad. Plus, it's it looks like uh early early analysis shows this is just not weight reduction. It helps in in heart uh issues, etc. So I think you're gonna see more than a few Americans uh take it, especially when it comes out in pill format.
SPEAKER_01:Maha in agriculture, health politics, meat farm policy. That's probably why it's popping up this guy's picture. Maha.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Make America healthy again, Maha. Agriculture dodged a bullet in the second Maha Commission report, in which they were relatively lenient on the use of pesticides after being worried about it for ever since Maha started. I think the future, though, is going to be on one key subject, ultra-processed foods. We already saw a legal case in San Francisco in which a number of uh entities uh challenged, uh sued food companies uh for allowing the sale of ultra-processed foods that were seen as detrimental to children. So you're gonna see a lot more of that. Maha will have another commission report in 2026. Look for it, Tommy. It'll it'll define, truly define from a government's perspective, what we mean by ultra-processed foods.
SPEAKER_01:USDA reorganization fuels delivery concerns.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the so-called five hubs, very unpopular, at least in Washington, depends on the farmer or rancher that you talk to. Now, in theory, when you when you move uh a lot of parts of USDA from DC to the interior, you're moving them closer to the constituency, farmers and ranchers and rural people. But USDA has done a horrible job of of defining what they want to do. So I think this is still mostly getting negative reviews until USDA uh educates the American public, but they haven't done so far yet.
SPEAKER_01:And when we talk USDA, we're talking about Brooke Rounds. Now, I'll add a little color to this. Didn't you put out an article that we lost like 15 or 20,000 of the 100,000 jobs at USDA?
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Well, that was when we had, remember in the early days this year when we had the Doge Commission, uh, Elon Musk, things like that. Uh, they didn't succeed very well. It shows you that Congress is the only institution that can really cut cost, and we all know that we have a dysfunctional Congress. But as far as USDA, a lot of employees, including those at the Farm Service Agency, took the opportunity for this uh multi-month uh uh severance, if you will, and and you know, you know, quit their jobs. And that hurt. And and the other aspects of the Doge Commission, not all, but a lot of them, the way they handled it was really not very government uh employee friendly. And USDA was one of the biggest agencies who lost people. So we've had a lot of brain drain at USDA, but we're really feeling it at the farm service agency offices.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Farm input costs the year central economic squeeze.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, fertilizer. Again, I but farmers know what's happening to fertilizer. They didn't go down as much as people thought they might they would, uh seed cost, machinery cost, machinery repair pressures. I mean, that's when when you go out and give speeches like we do, Tommy, you hear you hear the farm machinery repair uh cost uh uh issue. And this is why the Department of Justice and USDA signed a memorandum to examine the rising farm input uh cost. But it is what it is, and I don't think they're gonna do much about it, but I'll leave it to the conclusions to see what the DOJ and USDA come up with. But we're into this cost-price squeeze where the prices are relatively low for row crops, but the farm input costs are high, and and there is your squeeze. And when this goes on multiple years, you have a problem. Farm machinery, you had John Deere in their earnings call uh acknowledge that their large equipment sales to both in the US and Canada are going to be down 15 to 20 percent. So, again, much like the meatpacking industry that is feeling the negativities of a lack of cattle, the farm machinery companies are feeling the impact of low prices across the board for row crops. And uh farmers increasingly are not buying new equipment. That's why your used equipment is so popular.
SPEAKER_01:We're getting into the metals round. RFS and biofuel policy uncertainty reigns.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we're still waiting and waiting and waiting for and this for the renewable fuel standard mandate, what they call them RVOs, uh, for 2026 and 2027. We're still waiting for uh uh what I would say allied issues relative to the renewable fuel standard program for how they're gonna handle the reallocation of the SREs for refineries. We're gonna see some rin market developments, etc. And all that's waiting until probably late in the first quarter of 2026. Now, this is where the government shut down. Remember the 43-day record government shutdown not so long ago. This impacted the RFS and biofuel policy big time. It just delayed the decision making. I think EPA should have kept more people on board, and USDA should have as well. I think they took a mean-spirited approach in the administration, as far as I'm concerned, of how they handled the government shutdown when it came to personnel that they wanted to remain in the place. EPA didn't have the people to make decisions, so that's why these programs are delayed.
SPEAKER_01:Year-end E-15 legislative push continues.
SPEAKER_02:Sooner or later we're gonna get year-round E-15. It's always better to get it codified from Congress. President Trump may do it executive-wise, but you know, I've seen a pattern now with the Trump administration relative to uh biofuels policy. Again, RFS, sustainable aviation, fuel, etc. Much like Trump's first administration, they want to please everybody. And that's why you're having where nobody uh likes it, Tommy. And I think that that's delaying some of the things because they're trying to reach a goal that's impossible to reach. You can't please everybody. You have to there are there are always winners and losers in in policy issues. Uh, again, as far as year-round E-15, if we're gonna get it, it'll be in a must-pass spending bill sometime in the month of this coming January. But we have a number of oil state lawmakers who pulled it back uh about this time last year when we thought we had it. So we're gonna see. As far as California, they did approve for the first time for California the use of E-15, let alone year-round E-15. And although the U.S. biofuel lobbyists thought, oh, this is this is really gonna happen quickly, they're wrong. They don't understand California's regulatory process called carb. I'll just leave it there. It's gonna take well into 2026 before we see appreciable use of uh E-15 in a big gasoline usage state of California, even though they have a love affair with battery-operated cars.
SPEAKER_01:45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit reshapes economics.
SPEAKER_02:Another issue, same same delay. We have waited and waited and waited for the Treasury Department, i.e., the Internal Revenue Service, to detail the regulations, the tax incentives for the 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit. It's it's big-time importance for soybeans, biodiesel, renewable diesel, and corn to see whether or not it's eligible and at what level, Tommy. And let's connect dots here. If we're having uh some issues in the in the exports of some U.S. farm products, that means your domestic utilization has to increase. And that's going to become increasingly important, not just for 2026, but in the years ahead, especially for soybeans, because you can talk China all you want. Uh you can't count on China for years and years and years ahead. So you have to get the second gear, and that's domestic utilization. This is the area, 45Z, renewable fuel standard program, et cetera, that have to kick in in order to give U.S. demand a better balance sheet for the years ahead. And that's where we're seeing the next one biofuel import dynamics shifted because in the OB3 bill, the one big beautiful bill, you had changing dynamics when it came to what by what uh uh international biofuel uh was eligible for different uh biofuel programs in the United States. And you can see that in the soybean balance sheet where soybean oil had a good year.
SPEAKER_01:So that was biofuel import dynamic shift natural. How are we gonna ship all this stuff?
SPEAKER_02:The railroads, the railroads. We we have a big one that they filed Union Pacific and Northern uh Norfolk Southern wants to merge. Now that'll create the true co first coast-to-coast freight railroad in the United States. Now, there's pros and cons all over the place, including in agriculture on that. Those two entities, UP and and uh NS, they filed 7,000 pages uh into the uh service transportation board, Tommy. What's that mean? They tried to justify it in all the steps. I think they made some good cases, but it's gonna take 2026 and probably 2027 before we get a final service transportation board decision. But all your listeners and affected uh stakeholders in this, make your views known because they're taking public comments.
SPEAKER_01:Unbelievable times here. All right, the railroads. Let's get back to rural health costs and the affordable care act become an ag state flashpoint. Everyone is complaining about health care costs.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, that's and this is Obamacare, another word for Affordable Care Act, which is really unaffordable care act. Now, the Democrats, when they were in charge of everything in Washington and in the COVID days under Biden administration, they dramatically increased the tax credits for Obamacare. But they only put a two-year time frame on them, and that's running out uh very soon. But now the Democrats want a at least a year, if not a three-year extension of those, and they're going to use it in the 2026 elections because a lot of farmers, by the way, Tommy, get the Affordable Care Act program, because especially if the spouse does not work off farm. A lot of spouses work off farm in order to get health care insurance. So this is a rural issue as well. I think that uh sometime in the month of January before the end of January, because that's the next countdown to shutdown. I uh God forbid, I hope we don't have another government shutdown. But I think that that some type of political compromise is going to be had because the Republicans know they're gonna be blamed for this dramatic run-up. We're gonna see the details come out within the next few weeks.
SPEAKER_01:H2A changes and the push for year-round ag labor reform.
SPEAKER_02:We've got the border secure, and I mean it is secure now. But now that usually raises the question: well, what about the labor reform issues, especially ag labor reform? We have some congressional initiatives underway. House ag committee chairman GT Thompson has a bill for year-round migrant uh labor. That'll help definitely the dairy industry, if not other uh ag sectors. But uh, this is a controversial issue within the Trump administration because you have Stephen Miller, uh chief domestic policy advisor to Trump. He doesn't want to give very much on any uh uh visa uh changes, whether it's H2A, which is the guest worker program for the agriculture or or H1B, more for the ag and tech for the tech sector in in the U.S. Bottom line, what I just said, I hope there's compromise, but this is a third rail issue in Congress, especially as we go into an election year. Don't hold your breath that we're gonna see anything.
SPEAKER_01:Here we go. Votus reset, regulatory retreat after years of conflict.
SPEAKER_02:This is a plus on the environmental protection agency. We had what we call a VOTUS uh reset. The law, it was it's been a long-running battle. Uh, and after the Supreme Court's uh sackett, the sackett decision, what what EPA did in the Army Corps of Engineers, they dramatically narrowed federal authority over wetlands and ephemeral waters. But now this is not all positive because what they did is although there's fewer federal jurisdiction and they reduce the enforcement risk, the state role has expanded. So the producers out there are gonna have to watch their state legislatures and their state officials of how they're gonna regulate uh water. So uh and a number of states, especially Minnesota, they could be right back into the voter soup, depending on how these states regulate it. So step in the right direction, but they they moved it to the state level from the federal arena. Well, this is the EPAD regulation push, number 27. Proposal to rescind the climate endangerment finding. Well, what does that mean? You know, that was what the Biden administration, when they were in, used to justify all their climate programs. Actually, the endangerment finding, I'll correct myself, was adopted during the Obama administration, carried over by the Biden administration. Now, their EPA now is wanting to do away with that, to rescind it, and it's going to be thrown into courts. But this lessens the justification for climate-related legislation in the future, if it holds up for legal testing. So that'll be as we go through 2026, there'll be court challenges. Last one, Tommy.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, sir. We're there.
SPEAKER_02:We're we're OB3 tax cuts and incentives and reshaped farm and agribusiness planning and overall U.S. businesses. Now, this is a political issue now. The Democrats say this is top-heavy for the top 10 percent of income people, which of course agriculture is in, by the way, in most cases. But they're saying this additional refunds that more than a few Americans are going to get in 2026 will be segmented to certain sectors of the American populace. The most positive thing I can uh say for agriculture, which I think it is, it it makes some uh some programs permanent, enhance expensing and depreciation, business tax relief, the estate and succession implications, where now it's permanent. We don't have to worry about the future. So they remove some major tax cliffs for agriculture in in that area. The 20% Section 199a pass-through deduction was locked in now, et cetera. Bottom line, if you're if you're optimistic that the U.S. economy is going to roar ahead in 2026. Now we had an initial signal of that with the much higher than expected GDP, gross domestic product, for the third quarter. If you're into that camp where we're going to see 4% or higher, 4-5% in the next few quarters, this is what you point to for 2026 of how when it when it's implemented. Some of these uh provisions that not just agribusiness, but overall U.S. businesses are going to hire more, they're going to come out with more entrepreneurial products, et cetera. That's the most positive spin I can I can put on this, but it's something to watch, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01:You put this one in there, the marijuana reclassification.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I did put that in because I, you know, I get a few emails on that. Marijuana was reclassified from Schedule one to schedule three. Now that's that means a major economic shift for the cannabis sector. Uh it'll be challenged in court again, but it has meaningful uh impacts on agriculture, tax policy, and rural economies. Now, this is not, we don't have really marijuana farmers, we have businesses uh on that. And they tried to close what we call the hemp loophole, but the Senate and the House are split on this issue, and that's still up in the air. So cannabis operators can now deduct cost for labor, inputs, equipment, utilities, and rent. Now that's dramatically improving the after-tax profitability of that sector, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01:Wild times.
SPEAKER_02:Wild times, excuse me. We just went through it. So what does this all mean? Yeah. This this this what we just went through shows that policy decisions often matter in agriculture as much as whether in yields. I hate to say that. I wish it wasn't, but it's it's true. So that means that uh what we have a clear defining lesson of this past year. The ag sector is no longer just cyclical, it's structural, political, increasingly influenced by decisions far beyond the farm gate, with lasting implications for producers, consumers, and policymakers, which is going to lead into whether or not we have to fundamentally change farm policy. Given the fundamental structural challenges that we've gone through, is it time to rethink our farm and food policy? And it's time to start investing major resources to create new demand opportunities beyond just exports. And that brings us back full circle to domestic utilization, and that's gonna be the key issue that we're gonna help monitor in 2026, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01:Well said, my friend. I will see you next year. You did the ultimate lightning round there, and I am pretty optimistic that commodity markets are gonna be popping. This move in metals has my head shaking, and there's gonna be a big reaction. But what are you most optimistic about coming into 2026? I'll let you finish.
SPEAKER_02:U.S. economy. I think what we saw in the third quarter was a clear and distinct signal, assuming we don't have another shutdown of the government after January 30th. And I think the economy has a lot of upside momentum, and that'll be good overall for America.
SPEAKER_01:Well said. Thank you, Jim.
SPEAKER_02:Sure.
