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Louisiana Farm Bureau is constantly working protect and promote Louisiana's farmers, ranchers, and rural residents. This podcast exists to share stories of those farmers with interviews about their farms and issues important to them. Here, we will also share about the work Farm Bureau is doing on their behalf on issues related to public policy from the parish level all the way to the halls of Congress in D.C.
Hey, everybody, welcome to the Louisiana Farm Bureau podcast. I'm your host, Karl Wiggers. And today it is Monday, April 7th, and I am joined by Andy Brown, Andy Brown has been probably pretty busy, I'm guessing with some phone calls related to the topic today. Topic today is tariffs trade drama. There's plenty of it out there.
It seems like in the world I've seen my feed has been pretty busy as yours is your Instagram Facebook.
Oh yeah, I get all that.. And I subscribe to Politico and other things for the job. So my email, has been blowing up, today pretty heavily in last week as well. But I will point out, I'm disappointed we're outside of March. I thought Allie might hold over to host his podcast. So sorry. Sorry. I'm upset that I'm right outside of Allie's reign as well, but.
She may return. I'm glad you listen to know that Allie has been hosting, that she may be returning for any listeners that are out there disappointed to hear my voice. She'll be back.
Glad to have you back, Karl. To be back on with you. Shucks.
Well, we I've already said it, but tariffs trade. It's been a busy probably week. Really. Honestly, I think we've talked about this. We've kind of known in the world of egg that this was coming. That was a lot of what Donald Trump ran on in his campaign. And we farmers I've had conversations with them knowing that this is coming.
We were talking about farm bill, like, hey, we need a farm bill because there's talks of tariffs. We got to get something straight. We're here. Tariffs are here. Liberation Day was April 2nd, according to Donald Trump. And he's unveiled a long list of tariffs and trade changes. What's that? What are you. I said all that. You want to go ahead and give us a big disclaimer that we don't have all the answers because.
Yeah, well, it's as you know, when you record anything podcast or when I do a piece for Twila with you all or whatever, things can move quickly. And of all things, this tariff target, and who all is impacted and how it plays out is very hard to keep up with. So, what I said today might be outdated tomorrow, but it has, gotten hot and heavy enough.
And not just with one particular country. Maybe like the last administration was pretty targeted to China. We seem to be taking a broader brush approach, with this Trump administration. But yes, as you pointed out, he, he ran on that he was going to make America Great again, just like he tried to do last time and kind of double down on that.
And, well, just like he said he was going to do, here we are with, an even bigger swing at the trade, ball. And we're, we're seeing it fast and furious. So yeah. Rose garden announcement on the second to today has been quite the, flurry of different ideas on how this is going to play out.
Yeah. So we talked about this actually a little bit in January on an earlier podcast that I will link in the show notes if you want to go listen to it. It was with a farmer and a banker at an AG outlook conference where we're talking about this kind of thing coming and trade and market prices and whatnot, but we talked about it then that this is something that farmers knew was coming.
And you've been hearing from farmers even before April 2nd. What, and you were on a farm this morning with Avery and over in West Baton Rouge Parish. What are you hearing from just the farmer farming community? Our membership out in the field at AG Appreciation Days. What are you. What are you hearing from farmers about this?
Well, I think if you remember back to that podcast, there was some optimism in the room because the price of corn had run up a little bit. And, you know, this is just a good example is just look at, both our corn planting intentions and the price of corn farmers know what they're doing. They do this for a living.
And so they track a lot of this trade talk. And that's why you've seen corn grow through the roof. Because it's not, as big of a target, or a victim of some of these negotiations as, say, maybe soybeans. If you talk to our marketing guys, it's gone through the floor, since last week. So, all that to say, we knew this was coming, what exactly was coming?
We didn't know. But here we are today. And I think that's also reflective of the response we're seeing from our members. They're they're still optimistic. They're still hopeful that and just excited that somebody is taking up for them, for our country and what they experience in the way that they work. And, you know, a worldwide market.
Now, a lot of the consumers are seeing that in a different light than maybe they understood before. So our members, are generally supportive of all this, even though they're one of the biggest, victims of of the retaliation that happens from it. But ultimately, it wasn't sunshine and rainbows, before April 2nd in terms of the farm economy.
And it certainly isn't now, but they're willing to take that medicine to hopefully get, to a better result. At the end of the day.
Let's just be clear, farmers aren't glad that consumers are also now feeling it. But this is nothing new for farmers to feel this risk, this maybe, or risk or the the pains from the market that they have no control over.
Yeah, I mean, Zoomers, we're.
Just a little bit more insulated from it because global market doesn't really affect us and our businesses day to day as much as.
Farmers. Yeah. And you know, talking to you or like Avery this morning is a little different, because y'all understand it and and visit with our members more often. But when I've had these other media requests, I mean, they come into it just expecting that I'm going to say our farmers are are just devastated and we're, you know, about to go out of business or that they want to, go to DC to, you know, try to protest against all this.
And that's that's not the case. And we even get I mean, this is our podcast. I'll be honest about it. I mean, you you get, a lot of those folks in that mindset don't understand it. And so they think the farmers ignorant, like, well, you're just following the President Trump because, you're a Republican. Well, I don't believe that to be true.
I think our members are savvy enough to understand, that they need a better deal negotiated. Now do that. Everybody. Do they all agree with this kind of Trump signature way of doing things, or we just come at it with a sledgehammer? Some do, some don't. But at the end of the day, when you try to sum it up, you know, to talk to you about it today, they are at least glad that somebody is going to bat and trying to make positive changes for something.
We've been asking for, which is better trade deals and a more fair playing field to grow and sell our products worldwide.
Well, let me ask you this. I didn't put this. It's not in my notes. We didn't I didn't prep you for this. So buckle up. But for someone that maybe is not doing ag like we're not ag commodity trading or how has it been unfair, what does that kind of I guess. Can you give me the the third grade level or eighth grade level?
Like what's that. How is that looked for farmers up to today. You know, we mentioned the past 4 or 5 years have been pretty rough economy wise. And what's trade look like in that regard?
Well, you gotta first start. Let's just start at the farm level. We call them commodities for a reason. So most of agriculture is producing a raw product that is sold off the farm, which is where the farmer makes their money. Then it has to go, to some sort of middleman, whether it's processing or just trades through, if you hands, along the supply chain.
But everyone seems to forget, you know, the Covid years where everybody buckled down and understood that there is a supply chain to get something from, farm or a manufacturer to your store shelf that still exists. And that's where a lot of the unfair pieces begin to start, you know, kind of layering up where we're sending our strength as a nation is in agriculture, is in energy, is in things that are a raw product where abundant in our natural resources.
That's why people wanted to, claim this country as their own. And there was wars over it is not just because it was America the Beautiful, and it's because there's real assets here that we leverage as a country. So start there. Just kind of with civics 101. But then when you start talking about unfair trade practices, we have more regulation, we have different labor laws, we have just a totally different cost structure that goes into turning that raw product into a consumable in this country.
Then you see across the world. So that's one big shortcoming or unfair. Piece of the puzzle. The other part is if you dig into it and this is a good place to plug, Betty's article, our economist with American Farm Bureau. But a lot of these countries already have tariffs on the US that we don't reciprocate with when the product comes back to our country.
We're a developed enough nation, where we can buy those products, our dollar strong enough and still live with their tariff that they put on us to deliver that product back to the American consumer at a more reasonable price. But other countries don't play by those rules. And so it puts our farmers trying to enter those markets at an unfair advantage.
When you compare us to other folks around the world, and then that's where you get into discussions of trade wars, because this is a part of, you know, sometimes bigger political schemes are, true allies in war or, you know, global peace, if you will. People got to eat. People want energy. All these things are important. And so, you see, countries try to restrict those things or play a game with those important necessities of life to dictate where they rank, you know, kind of in the geopolitical space.
So just to make sure I understand this right, just for giggles, I guess, let's just say so a thousand bushels of soybeans are sold to China, and we're paying a tariff to sell them. Those that raw soybean.
And then we're not paying the tariff to import that into China. They would have to pay a tariff to buy a U.S. soybean.
Okay. They then we're having to pay what?
They may not pay the same tariff, if they buy Brazilian soybean. So it incentivizes that importer in China to buy Brazilian over buying U.S.. Okay. And they that's what you're seeing now is. And that's why the president called his tariffs reciprocal tariffs because he felt that countries already had tariffs on the U.S.. So we're just meeting y'all where y'all what y'all are doing to us.
Those those tariffs do exist out there where they try to play favorites with other countries and don't necessarily want their their country consuming from America because that helps our economy which strengthens us in a global position. So if you put a tariff on U.S. soybean and you don't own a Brazilian soybean, and I don't even remember if what the tariff rate is on Brazil, I'm just they're a huge competitor of ours in that space.
So if I'm a buyer and I just need to feed hogs in China and I can get a cheaper soybean from Brazil, it's a widget. It's a commodity. It's a like product. Then I'm probably going to buy from Brazil over the U.S. now. There's enough demand there that they can't solely buy from other countries. So that's where you see, we still ship a whole lot of soybeans to China.
But, then yes, that's where it multiplies, is they buy those soybeans, they feed it to hogs, and then we buy pork products from China.
And we're paying tariffs on that.
We can pay it. Yeah, we can pay. And I again, when we get into specifics.
Yeah I know.
That's the numbers but or the actual tariffs but just using examples. Yeah. That's where we are at a even more disadvantage.
And farmers are smart enough to recognize that they're smarter than me.
And it's not always ag product add product. That's why this gets super complicated, where you start talking about steel or you start talking about auto imports or the negotiators of this, the, you know, State Department and, U.S. Trade Representative. And it's it's all pieces on a chessboard that they're moving to try to ultimately get where they can live with one another.
So it may be, you know, for for Canada and Mexico, their auto manufacturing in Mexico is risen. So they're really protective over what we do to their, you know, importing of, of automobiles. But, well, they're also very important on shipping fruits and vegetables to the U.S. as well. So it's all an ebb and flow of what you'll give up to, you know, give to get kind of.
Try and keep it fair. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of that world. So, I was balance.
That's why, you know, you call it a trade balance and you try to make all these things work together. But the first target of a lot of countries, when they when they want to push back against what the U.S. is doing, is to restrict egg imports into their country because they know how loud and vocal and and powerful, the American farmer is in our country, both politically and just economically.
And so we're a huge target of those countries to come after. And they try to go survive on somebody else's corn and soybean from elsewhere.
Well, this kind of I guess leads to if farm, if farmers are going to be that very valuable chess piece and the farm trade in that, in that global trade discussion, what's what, where is the protection for those farmers when that happens, when this the battle comes to the farmers doorstep, you know, and and they're the ones taking the medicine, as you said earlier.
Yeah. And this is where, you know, we can go back to those previous podcasts and the Voter Voice campaign. And it's farmers aren't super vocal about a farm bill just because it sounds good because they want a bill with farm on it. It's real impact, and it's a real thing. That is in turn, because we didn't get a farm bill done and we have outdated safety net, reference prices and all these things that we won't re-explain today.
But when those are outdated, that safety net is lower, there's a lot more room to fall. And with the price of inputs that farmers are paying that very much are impacted by these tariffs, then that even furthers the gap between, breaking even and going out.
Of business, as I say, not even not even not paying the bills, but going out of business.
Yeah. And that's, I don't want to skip over the fact that because that didn't get done back in the fall, and Congress has failed to do that a few years in a row, I've had very difficult phone calls the last 3 or 4 weeks of farmers not getting crop loans. You know, bankruptcy, real, hearings at local courtrooms and bankers calling me and, you know, saying they're not going to be able to to extend credit to our members and, trying to find other means for them to stay in business that is very real.
And it is happening. Thankfully, we've been able to find some Band-Aids for bullet holes and keep some folks afloat through the Icap program. And, and so that brings us back to what what can we do to, in this instance, for those that are worried about where the price of soybeans has gone in the last week or whatever.
And again, our, our members seem to be optimistic because last time that the Trump administration attempted these kind of things, they, they implemented, safety net program that had never been done before, called the Market Facilitation Program. So, we are working on that too, or counting on some way to survive this. But we're not quite there yet.
We're still sorting out what are the impacts. Who's at play, what. You know, commodities are the most, injured by these negotiations.
And before we started recording this, you actually mentioned that, you know, that's part of that disclaimer you said earlier, like, one of the things that's tough about talking about this kind of stuff is it can change quick and April 2nd may look different than today, April 7th, but it also may look very different by April 22nd. So who knows what will change and how necessary some of this will be.
Is there, I guess. Is it, I guess nothing safe to say, but is it likely that we'll need some level of that, that that kind of disaster program or NFP type of thing, you know, come the fall?
But Carl, we we knew, December 31st when we had the result of of Icap and no farm bill to go with it, we knew we'd probably probably be back in Congress, this year asking for for more assistance. So this is.
Just another part of that.
Need. Yeah. This is just amplified that and got a few more eyes on it and it'll have an even bigger political spin to it. But the reality is for a lot of commodities, not all of them. Cattle market still looking really good. The protections we have with the sugar program and their consistency still looking really good. I mean, there are caveats to this, but both of those products, we consume most of what we produce in our own country.
That's the big question with these with these tariffs. And that's what you hear from the Trump administration is we'll just find a way to. Yeah, yeah. And, that we have to kind of pause and question, but ultimately our members know, and that's why I think, you know, that's what I'm hearing, is once a corn seed goes in the ground, they're going to put their head down and try to do the best they can to produce the most corn out of that one seed, the most bushels as they possibly can.
They do that every single year. They have to, you know, play the market. They have to play, you know, their price takers on their inputs that goes into that crop, right, for good weather. So none of this is new to them. That's why you don't see the the shock for our members that, you know, these other media outlets that are coming to me looking for that shock and all, it's just not there because that's the life the former leads every day.
And now the consumer, is having to get a little taste of that. I don't say that because we want to see the consumer suffer. They buy our products to where consumers. Yeah. And so our farmers. Yeah. So there, there will be, you know, difficulties from that. But ultimately at the end of the day we want to see a better long term outcome.
So we need a long term farm bill and we need long term trade deals. And then, you know, maybe we'll be quiet for a little while.
Well then you were talking about farm Bill earlier. I wrote notes because, I'm admittedly behind on the news of this. I'm just not as up on this stuff as you are. I don't get all the Politico emails over the weekend, but when we were talking about farm bill and safety nets, like me as a consumer, as someone who has a retirement account, I was like, oh man, this sucks.
I'm like, that's not something that just farmers are feeling and farmers feel it all the time. You just said this, but as consumers we would be like, hey, wait, what's where's the stop gap here for? Yeah, my my investments. And that's the same thing that farmers are asking for in a farm bill. So I guess, can you, can you compare those two, those two I guess.
Well, personal protections for like just plain old consumers and the same protections that farmers have been looking for for years?
Yeah. Here's the playbook that Farm Bureau uses for farmers. And you certainly can use it as a consumer. It's just typically we don't see consumers get this active, in their advocacy efforts. But you can I mean, we don't strictly ask for bail outs or, you know, other assistance measures. That's not all we asked for. We're just as involved in asking for things, to ease this pain in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act extension that, you know, that Congress is going to take up, this, you know, this year, there's many other ways the consumer can say, hey, you know, white House, hey, Congress, this is impacting me.
So you need to find a way to, to make this livable for me. In the meantime, is it going to come in, you know, in the form of some sort of government assistance? Probably not. Not not a direct payment. But maybe you can push them hard enough politically to define your tax break or maybe you can figure out ways to.
Change your consumption habits to ease that pain on your family. You know, it's ebb and flow. That's, that's what the farmer's having to do. He's having to decide how much nitrogen he's going to put on that corn. And does he have to back off on that to make ends meet? You know, that's nothing that any consumer wants to have to do.
But if you really want to see the price of things level off, or at least feel like you have, the same great American advantage, the American dream that we all hope for, then sometimes you gotta you gotta work for it. And this is a way, that all of us are feeling that a little bit.
So the other option is just don't look at your 401 day and, don't trade stocks for a few weeks. And that's what.
Josh told me the other day earlier.
He's like, I'm not a, a financial guru in the lease. So don't ask me about your investments. But, if you if you trade in soybeans, maybe I can be a little help on that.
Well, we've kind of talked about this already, but Farm Bureau is clearly aware of this and working on this. You mentioned Fbf. They have some great articles. They're staying way up to date on this. They're putting out a lot of stuff on their market. Intel will what we will link all that in our show notes. But Andy like I guess what.
What are the next days and weeks looking like for you and for us here at Farm Bureau? And I guess what's what's happening on our end?
Well, we don't, sit idly by and just wait. I mean, that's you're going to hear you've already heard it from Secretary Rollins. You'll probably hear it from other farm leaders across the country of. Well, we just have to wait and see. I think Senator Bozeman, said the same last week. Know we'll just have to wait and see what the impacts of this are and quantify those, down the road.
That is true. But we already know some things, you know, see where this might be headed, like we're already working to try to find a way, to get the KCC fund, the MFP program. Sorry for the alphabet soup, but that's the funding mechanism that happened for market facilitation last time. Well, there was some mistakes made in in the appropriation process, and it only has $3 billion in it of the 30 billion that it should have.
So we're working on Congress to try to figure out a solution there. Or also constantly it's not necessarily farm Bureau, but a lot of the commodity groups have, trade arms of their organizations. They're working really hard to try to maintain trade relationships globally. There's a lot of work that goes into trying to make this happen for farmers.
And all those people certainly are not just sitting and waiting to see what comes of this. Lastly, we're not we don't have farm bill fatigue, enough to not be working on it. And we're continuing, to look at every option, including budget reconciliation and including September 30th appropriations deadline and on down the calendar of where is going to be the time to turn back up that throttle on farm bill.
It's not today. So you're not hearing as much about it. But every message that we have out of this organization, anything dealing with Washington, DC is going to have the words farm bill attached to it until it passes. And ultimately, that's our Alamo. Or we'll try to dig in.
At I mean, this is a perfect example of that. Like we've said, why we need one like this is just bolstering that case when we go to go to Congress with that, when that throttle does go up. So, I appreciate it, Andy. Thank you. Anything else we need to make sure we get out there about what's going on in the tariffs world or, and well, the issue I mean.
I have to live in a bipartisan world. So I don't, you know, and there probably is some members of ours out there that are already feeling this and very concerned about the price of their soybeans. So we're not, this a lot of this was positive about it because we just don't like to live in a negative world.
There are real concerns and there are real issues that come from trade wars. That's why it's called a war. There can be casualties in this business. Casualties, you know, hopefully, at the worst of it. But we know it's, you know, causing uncertainty. But I tend to try to reflect the mentality of our members and for a bulk of our crops and commodities, the only thing they can do right now is put their head down, plant a crop, raise your crop to the best of their ability, keep trying to market their cattle, you know, keep plowing sugarcane and we'll see where we get in the fall.
And if if there's a need there will be prepared to go and ask for it.
Well, I know you're going to be working on it and we probably will be coming out with some stuff from this department as well. I know there will be a story in this week's episode of Twila. If you want to watch that, we'll link that in the show notes after it comes out. So if you're listening to this, this week, you may not see that yet.
But if you come back to it next week or so, that'll be in there. We'll link all of the information, the articles that we talked about from American Farm Bureau in our show notes. You can read those. They have a lot more. We didn't get in many numbers. They have plenty of numbers in those market Intel reports. And you can learn a lot more about what American Farm Bureau is doing and what, how this affects farmers, not just in Louisiana but across the country.
For all of us here at Louisiana Farm Bureau. Thanks for listening to this episode of the podcast. Like it? Share it with a friend and subscribe so you can make sure you see it again next week. We'll see you right here. Next week on the Louisiana Farm Bureau Podcast.