In the season finale, we head to Michigan for our last story as we think about the future of the farm financial system. 

Featured Guests: Brent King (B. Riley Advisory Service), Jeff Conrad (AgIS Capital LLC), Thomas Hoenig (Former President, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City), Nate Franzen (First Dakota National Bank)

We shift our focus from understanding the past and present to trying to predict and prepare for the future. Experts weigh in with actions that producers can take now as we enter uncharted financial waters… but will they?

Featured Guests: Curt Covington (AgAmerica), Thomas Hoenig (Former President, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City), Jim Knuth (Farm Credit Services of America)

Conditions in the farm economy have changed rapidly since season one of the AEI.ag Presents podcast explored the 1980s farm crisis, and in sometimes contradictory ways. 

You may have heard that there is way less leverage and debt today than there was back then. Yet, farming has also gotten more capital intensive. Interest rates and inflation are also adding to growing uncertainty in 2022. So how much debt is there, really, in today’s agriculture economy? And what might be in store for the farm sector as the U.S. economy barrels toward an uncertain future? 

Featured guest:  Mike Boehlje (Purdue University Department of Agricultural Economics). 

Season 3 of AEI.eg Presents: Nothing Borrowed, Nothing Gained

AEI.ag Presents will return this fall for season 3! While you are waiting on that, check out our newest podcast, Ag Interrupted, where we’ll take a deep look into agricultural trends that matter to learn more about the often unexpected ways that the agricultural industry, agricultural markets, and agricultural businesses get shaped by the history we’re not paying attention to.  Listen to & follow Ag Interrupted wherever you listen to podcasts.

For the tenth and final episode, Sarah, Brent, and David reflect on the season and key lessons. From biases to mental models, it’s important to consider how our own thought processes can impact our conclusions about ethanol and shape our expectations about carbon.

Learn more about becoming and AEI Premium subscriber at AEI.ag/premium.

From policy to electric vehicles, the future of ethanol is arguable as uncertain as it has ever been. Have the seeds for ethanol’s demise already been sown, or is the outlook less dire than it initially seems?     

In this episode, you’ll join Ag Economic Insights David Widmar and Brent Gloy, as well as economists, historians, policy advisors, and entrepreneurs as they share their perspectives on the birth of two environmental ag policies. 

Learn more about becoming and AEI Premium subscriber at AEI.ag/premium.

What happens when a demand shift pushes commodity prices and farm incomes higher? To answer this, we have to consider the short-run and long-run implications. Just as the challenges that ethanol faced evolved and shifted, so will the future of carbon and carbon markets.     

This episode, you’ll join Ag Economic Insights David Widmar and Brent Gloy, as well as economists, historians, policy advisors, and entrepreneurs as they share their perspective on the birth of two environmental ag policies. 

Learn more about becoming and AEI Premium subscriber at AEI.ag/premium.

Just as corn-based ethanol production was surging to fulfill the mandates of the 2007 RFS, enthusiasm began shifting to the new kid on the block: cellulosic ethanol. With the help of the government - including mandated usage- the even better renewable fuel made from switchgrass, corn stover, or other biomass feedstocks was just around the corner, or so we thought. This raises important questions for carbon markets, what happens if the technologies needed, despite the enthusiasm and investments, don’t materialize? 

This episode, you’ll join Ag Economic Insights David Widmar and Brent Gloy, as well as economists, historians, policy advisors, and entrepreneurs as they share their perspective on the birth of two environmental ag policies.

Learn more about becoming and AEI Premium subscriber at AEI.ag/premium.

The goals of every policy are eventually tested in the real world. For ethanol, the challenges came in the form of the “blend wall,” which effectively capped the growth of this formerly booming sector. Even the best-designed policies will struggle to navigate conditions that were uncertain or difficult to predict when legislation was passed. For carbon, detecting those potential limits on future growth are critical, and making sure our eyes are open to the possible pitfalls in terms of policy and market growth that might be on the horizon. 

In this episode, you’ll join Ag Economic Insights David Widmar and Brent Gloy, as well as economists, historians, policy advisors, and entrepreneurs as they share their perspective on the birth of two environmental ag policies.

Learn more about becoming and AEI Premium subscriber at AEI.ag/premium.

The Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) bolstered the market for corn-based ethanol, but also fueled a frenzy to build ethanol plants. Proposed plants got larger, building costs jumped higher, and a surge of potential projects created a regulatory and construction logjam. But just as fast as the mania turned red hot, the prospects of an even better technology and the ripples of the Great Recession shuttered projects that were years into planning.       

This episode, you’ll join Ag Economic Insights David Widmar and Brent Gloy, as well as economists, historians, policy advisors, and entrepreneurs as they share their perspective on the birth of two environmental ag policies. 

Learn more about becoming and AEI Premium subscriber at AEI.ag/premium.

Though the amount of enthusiasm and excitement around voluntary ag carbon markets might make you believe that we’ve already determined that it’ll be the best way to involve agriculture in climate action, it’s definitely not the only, and likely not the best solution out there. In fact, there are several ways policymakers could create or motivate change, with various carrots and sticks, in the way that agriculture operates. Adding to the complication, even within a general policy solution - such as carbon markets - there are many details and nuances about how the program works.  

This episode, you’ll join Ag Economic Insights David Widmar and Brent Gloy, as well as economists, historians, policy advisors, and entrepreneurs as they share their perspective on the birth of two environmental ag policies. 

Learn more about becoming and AEI Premium subscriber at AEI.ag/premium.

When the Federal Reserve adjusts interest rates, it can significantly affect asset values, including farmland. While attention in 2022 has focused on the Fed raising rates, the preceding decades-long policy of extremely low interest rates has also been consequential in the form of asset inflation - the cousin of price inflation.

Featured Guests: Jim Farrell (Farrell Growth Group), Nate Franzen (First Dakota National Bank),  Thomas Hoenig (Former President, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City), Jeff Conrad (AgIS Capital LLC)

Ethanol’s rise was fueled by the introduction of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS). Often lost in debates about implementing RFS has been the motivation, political shuffling, and history of two historic pieces of legislation. How exactly did RFS come to be, and what can we learn as it applies to the voluntary programs proposed for carbon?  

This episode, you’ll join Ag Economic Insights David Widmar and Brent Gloy, as well as economists, historians, policy advisors, and entrepreneurs as they share their perspective on the birth of two environmental ag policies. 

Learn more about becoming and AEI Premium subscriber at AEI.ag/premium.

Corn alcohol has a long history as a fuel, going back well into the 19th century. Over time, it’s fallen in and out of favor, from being a pet project of Henry Ford’s to being outlawed during prohibition. By the 1970s, an oil crisis prompted farmers and lawmakers to take ethanol off the shelf, but it would languish until environmental concerns in the 1990s brought it back into the agricultural mainstream. 

Carbon markets are still very much experiencing their origin story, but by understanding how ethanol rose to prominence, we can gain a new understanding about what the next several years might look like for ag carbon markets.

This episode, you’ll join Ag Economic Insights David Widmar and Brent Gloy, as well as economists, historians, policy advisors, and entrepreneurs as they share their perspective on the birth of two environmental ag policies. 

Learn more about becoming an AEI Premium subscriber at AEI.ag/premium.

Fifteen years ago, corn ethanol was a wunderkind, set to cure the U.S.’ addiction to foreign oil, reduce the pollution caused by driving, and revitalize American agriculture and rural economies. In the intervening years, the problems evolved while ethanol remained, and today many question what the future of the sector might look like. Today the U.S. is facing a different set of challenges, particularly around climate change, and the search for a solution - perhaps a silver bullet - remains. Ag carbon markets look promising, and advocates and entrepreneurs are flocking to them in the hopes that saving the planet might be a lucrative endeavor. 

Might the history of ethanol, ag’s past environmental policy, offer insight on what might be ahead for carbon markets? Join Ag Economic Insights David Widmar and Brent Gloy as they peak into the history books to see the future. 

Corn Saves America is sponsored by AEI Premium. Join the community for decision makers in agriculture. Free 14-day trial: https://aei.ag/premium/.   

Returning from the successful and award-winning “Escaping 1980,” the AEI.ag team presents the second season of the podcast series. In Corn Saves America, Brent Gloy, David Widmar and Sarah Mock again use lessons learned from history, but this time as it applies to the future of carbon markets through the lens of corn ethanol. 

Rather than picking a side of the debate, the team is joined by a host of additional experts to review the rise of biofuel for lessons that are applicable to the current enthusiasm about carbon offsets.

Exploring the causes, impacts, and lasting effects of one of the most infamous events in American agriculture history, the 1980s farm crisis.

In this final episode of Escaping 1980, we’re training our gaze on the horizon, armed with a solid understanding of what happened during the last farm crisis. The 1980s and today are not perfect foils for one another, but there are certainly similarities. And though the differences might offer some comforts, those similarities should give us pause. Dig into where we are now, where the biggest risks lie in for the modern farm economy, and how to prepare your thinking for less predictable world. Because myths left unchallenged are sure to make the next crisis more devastating than it could have been.

Escaping 1980 is sponsored by AEI Premium. Join the community for decision makers in agriculture. Free 14-day trial: https://aei.ag/premium/.  Be your own guru. 

Exploring the causes, impacts, and lasting effects of one of the most infamous events in American agriculture history, the 1980s farm crisis.

We’re going to put the crisis of the 1980s to bed, understand how the farm economy clawed its way out of peril, and evaluate how close we are today to achieving the same end: stability.  But what exactly does "stability" mean?

Escaping 1980 is sponsored by AEI Premium. Join the community for decision makers in agriculture. Free 14-day trial: https://aei.ag/premium/.  Be your own guru.

Exploring the causes, impacts, and lasting effects of one of the most infamous events in American agriculture history, the 1980s farm crisis.

The culture of farming in the U.S. is a paradox.  On one hand, American farmers and ranchers are the very picture of rugged individualism. When times are tough, they're looking for a hand up, not a handout. But in reality, American agriculture has needed a lot of hands up over the years, largely through the policies embodied in the farm bill.
 
Dig deep into the farm policy response of the 1980s, which represented some of the largest direct payments and government programs ever attempted to prop up the farm economy. Better understand how today's farm policies, within the farm bill and beyond, might play out in the coming years. 

Escaping 1980 is sponsored by AEI Premium. Join the community for decision makers in agriculture. Free 14-day trial: https://aei.ag/premium/.  Be your own guru.

Exploring the causes, impacts, and lasting effects of one of the most infamous events in American agriculture history, the 1980s farm crisis.

At the lowest point of the 1980s, farmland prices had collapsed by 60%, and thousands of farmers were underwater and losing their farms.

Excessive leverage and too much financing came up against spiking interest rates, and the combination became incredibly unsustainable. 

Learn about what was happening in farmland markets back then and how we price farmland today. Farmland can either create balance sheet security and insecurity, depending on outside factors. Then dig deeper into what today's more stable farmland prices mean for the farm economy - and whether they're really a good indicator of economic health.
 
 Escaping 1980 is sponsored by AEI Premium. Join the community for decision makers in agriculture. Free 14-day trial: https://aei.ag/premium/.  Be your own guru.

Exploring the causes, impacts, and lasting effects of one of the most infamous events in American agriculture history, the 1980s farm crisis.

In the wider economy, two oil shocks hit the U.S. in the 1970s. The economic and political disruption that resulted was global, national, regional, and local, and led not only to gas rationing and unprecedented lines at the pump, but also to deep financial and psychological impacts that would nudge the farm economy over the edge. 

Wade into the murky waters of the broader U.S. and global economy to understand how causes well outside the agriculture sector started to push an industry at its peak toward a long slide into crisis.

 Escaping 1980 is sponsored by AEI Premium. Join the community for decision makers in agriculture. Free 14-day trial: https://aei.ag/premium/.  Be your own guru.

Exploring the causes, impacts, and lasting effects of one of the most infamous events in American agriculture history, the 1980s farm crisis. Every farm crisis is unique, although they all follow a common trajectory of stability, boom, bust and recovery. But where does the “boom” end and the “bust” start? In this episode, we dig into what happened to the farm economy during the 1970s to better understand where we might be headed today. Houston, we have a problem.

Escaping 1980 is sponsored by AEI Premium. Join the community for decision makers in agriculture. Free 14-day trial: https://aei.ag/premium/.  Be your own guru.

Dig deeper into the 1980s. Read more from AEI (and sign up foo receive free weekly insights in your inbox): https://aei.ag/

How does a bank fail? What does “too big to fail” mean? Who audits the Fed? Dive into the connection between money supply and local loans.

Featured Guests: Jim Farrell (Farrell Growth Group), Thomas M. Hoenig (Former President, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City)

Exploring the causes, impacts, and lasting effects of one of the most infamous events in American agriculture history, the 1980s farm crisis. Is today’s fretful farm economy showing signs of another crisis ahead? It’s time to learn from the past before we become history.

Escaping 1980 is sponsored by AEI Premium. Join the community for decision makers in agriculture. Free 14-day trial: https://aei.ag/premium/. Be your own guru.

Dig deeper into the 1980s. Read more from AEI (and sign up to receive free weekly insights in your inbox): https://aei.ag/.

The 1980s farm financial crisis was a defining moment for a generation of American farmers, leading to record levels of insolvency and a reshaping of the American countryside.

Today, the farm economy is struggling yet again. Is this the 1980s all over again? Or is there still time to head off another crisis.

Escaping 1980 is a podcast that explores the causes, impacts, and last effects of the farm financial crisis, to learn what we can do to avoid the next one. Join agricultural economists Brent Gloy and David Widmar as they take us back in time to plot a course to escape the next crisis.

Escaping 1980 is sponsored by AEI Premium. Join the community for decision makers in agriculture. Free 14-day trial: https://aei.ag/premium/. Be your own guru. 

Why is the U.S. government, and the Department of Agriculture in particular, involved in lending? Dive into how USDA's ag lending programs have shaped the ag economy and farming in general over the last hundred years, and learn what this can tell us about the overall health of the farm financial system.

Featured guests: Jonathan Coppess (Associate Professor, University of Illinois), Heather Malcom (Bank of the Rockies), Mike Boehlje (Purdue University Department of Agricultural Economics).

Vendor financing is nothing new in agriculture. But it has come a long way since the days of Cyrus McCormick. Explore how non-bank credit works, how it has changed, and what risks and opportunities it might pose to the overall agriculture finance system as we move out of two decades of low interest rates.

Featured guests: John Blanchfield (Agricultural Banking Advisory Services), Curt Covington (AgAmerica), Mike Boehlji (Purdue University Department of Agricultural Economics), Nate Franzen (First Dakota National Bank), Jim Farrell (Farrell Growth Group LLC)

How does Farmer Mac fit into the big picture of ag lending? Its story is still being written.

 Featured guests: Brad Nordholm (Farmer Mac), John Blanchfield (Agricultural Banking Advisory Services), Jeff Conrad (AgIS Capital LLC).

Get to know the story of Farm Credit: why it was founded, how it works, and how it has both failed and succeeded.How is the Farm Credit system different from banks? What really sets Farm Credit apart is not how it lends its money, but how it gets funds in the first place. Plus: the story behind the bail out.

Featured guests: Jim Farrell (Farrell Growth Group), Jim Knuth (Farm Credit Services of America), Curt Covington (AgAmerica), Mike Boehlje (Purdue University Department of Agricultural Economics). 

Credit can be a powerful tool. But it also comes with risks. One way to manage that risk is to understand who you're lending from and what their motivations and experiences are. How exactly does an agricultural lender work as a business? How do interest rates impact banking’s business model? Go behind the scenes to crunch the numbers.

Featured guests: Nate Franzen (First Dakota National Bank),  Heather Malcolm (Bank of the Rockies).

Dig deep into the history of agricultural lending, back to the days of the gold standard, the Wizard of Oz as allegory, and one particularly memorable speech by William Jennings Bryan. When you think of a banker, what image comes to mind? Learn why your perceptions might not match reality, especially when it comes to ag lending.

Featured guest: John Blanchfield (Agricultural Banking Advisory Services).