Sunday, February 16, 2025
Home2024 NAFB ConventionAmerican Soybean Association advocates for a strong rural America

American Soybean Association advocates for a strong rural America

Josh Gackle, president of the American Soybean Association, and farmer in North Dakota, joins Jesse Allen at the NAFB Convention.

Q: Let’s start with an easy one; how was harvest?

JG: It’s good to be done. We wrapped up last week with our corn harvest. Overall things were pretty decent. Soybeans were a little disappointing on the yield side. Corn was a pretty nice crop.

We grow a little bit of barley, too, on our farm, and that was pretty decent. So, overall, a good year. But when, when it comes to yield, we need a really good year with just the way prices are right now and just trying to keep things profitable on the farm.

Q: As we’re wrapping up harvest, we have other things to talk about that impact agriculture. And, of course, there was this thing called an election at the beginning of the month. We know that President Trump is returning to the White House. We’re starting to fill out his cabinet, and it feels like it’s rolling commentary on different cabinet members and more.

In terms of Trump Administration 2.0, what are your thoughts? What is ASA’s thoughts coming into this?

As I know there’s been a lot of talk of tariffs. We got to get a farm bill done. The list is long. What’s your initial thoughts?

JG: It’s going to take some time, as you mentioned, to put people in place and have some of the leaders in those cabinet positions named. We were visiting a little bit before we got on the air here about just the list of or the number of people that are on that potential list of Secretary of Agriculture.

In the previous Trump administration, Secretary Perdue was a pretty strong advocate for farmers. I think he had a strong voice with the president. We saw a few things out of the administration focused on the main thing being the tariff issue and trade tension with China, which affected the soybean market and soybean producers.

So hopefully we can get that message out again. That caused some long-term damage to soybean producers in the U.S. It gave a competitive advantage to some of our other competitors like Brazil and Argentina and South America. China and other countries are looking to be more stable and reliable markets due to that. So just trying to stress the importance again of markets, foreign markets built, finding new markets and building or maintaining those relationships with the markets that we have.

Q: I know ASA and NCGA just commissioned a study here not too long ago, before the election, looking at the potential impacts of a trade war and tariffs and more. And I know that is a big concern for U.S. ag as President Trump has talked about tariffs quite frequently in terms of what it could mean for his economic trade policy.

JG: The 2018 trade war was hard enough, and it seems like the talk is even more severe this time around. So some of those impacts, and it’s not just that study that you referenced, shows some immediate effects when it comes to the price under different scenarios – anywhere from 60 cents a bushel to closer to $2 a bushel, depending on the level of tariffs and potential retaliation from China. So just especially in this farm economy, prices are already in a downturn and profitability on the farm is struggling.

And it’s not just for farmers in general. It’s a rural America issue. So, a strong rural America really depends on farmers being able to make a living on their farm and invest in their communities, invest in their farms. It’s not just me as a farmer, but it’s the small communities that we come from as well, where some of these policies that could be implemented would have a pretty hard impact in farm country.

Q: Let’s talk farm bill. Obviously, we don’t have a new one of those.

The prospects of getting one in the lame duck of Congress here with defense authorization, appropriations and everything else that must happen, seems unlikely. Which, of course, is not good news when we know that farmers and ranchers across this country want to see a new farm bill. And so now you think about lame duck doesn’t happen, we get into a new Congress, we might have many new members to join in on the ag committees, etc, etc.

And we might not be starting over, but it could take longer. So, I mean farm bill, where do we stand? What’s your thoughts there?

JG: G.T. Thompson … he put forth a marked up a bill … several months ago that included a number of the priorities that not just American Soybean Association, but other commodity groups have been advocating for when it comes to the safety net, crop insurance and update to reference prices – certain things that make that safety net stronger, and would kick in in these times of down markets.

And then on the other side, there’s been discussion in D.C. on an ad hoc type of disaster type bill that would provide some financial relief to farm country. So hopefully that’s something, too, that could move through in some type of legislation and some type of tax extender bill or end of the year bill.

I think you’re right. A farm bill, now especially with some with change in the Senate, you’re going to have new Senate chairs while Senator Bozeman in the Senate side will be the chair of the Senate committee.

I don’t know how that affects the negotiation now between the House and Senate. We really only have one bill that we’ve seen. That’s what’s come out of the House. But there is time and what we’re encouraging members to do when they get back to D.C. here for the lame duck session, is calendar-wise and timewise you can still get a farm bill done this year.

So, we’re constantly engaged. The staff that we have in D.C. is constantly talking to the committees that the members of the committees and the staff who are helping to put that legislation together. It’s continuing. The end of the year is coming quickly. Time is running short, but there is time.

Q: Endangered Species act issues – let’s talk about those a little bit. I know that’s something that ASA has been watching closely. What’s some of the latest there?

JG: So what we’ve seen from that – and we’ve expressed a fair amount of frustration with what’s come out of EPA in this initial round of insecticide and herbicide strategies that they put forth for endangered species at compliance – what we’ve always said is we understand under the law EPA has to comply. They’re getting sued on the other side as well. So it’s certainly something they need to move forward with. But we’ve really expressed to them that providing some flexibility when it comes to implementation on the farm (is needed).

Some of the things that we’ve seen in the early draft when it comes to the insecticide and the herbicide strategies are just simply unworkable at the farm level. Certain things that they would require application, timings, buffer some of those things, and the list of species that could fall into that are just so wide-ranging that it really makes – especially in a time of difficult profit margins on the farm – anything that makes it more expensive or adds time. That’s what we’ve been stressing with EPA is we need to make it workable. We want to help; we want to be part of the solution. But it needs to be something that farmers can actually implement. 45Z too.

Q: I know we’re coming up at the beginning of the year and still don’t have that guidance. There’s been a lot of issue in terms of the climate-smart practices and the bundling and all of this. And that’s something I know you’ve expressed. Your farm in North Dakota is completely different than someone’s farm in central Illinois. But then throw in here we’re changing administrations. Could that change anything on the whole SAF front? I mean, your thoughts there?

JG: We would certainly like to see some guidance and some further definition around 45Z. We were hoping that that would have happened already. Farmers are making plans already for 2025.

We’ve started thinking about our operation and the crops we’re going to grow in the RO on what we’re going to be using, and how we’re going to be implementing those things on our farms well in advance. We’re past that point already. So not having that guidance or further definition has been a little frustrating. So maybe with a change in administration, who knows which way that’ll go.

I think the impetus of 45Z and the intent of it is to bring demand back to the U.S. farmer and for the soybean and other crops that we’re growing. We want to see those programs continue, but we need to see some further definition and get some clarity.

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