They're safer.
Just imagine,
do you think about what's next in
terms of technological investments?
AI farmers, we don't need humans
anymore, sort of.
Amazing what they do already.
I was in
a meeting, this was 20
years ago, and they're like, what
do you see coming in 10 years?
I'm like, I'm
not understanding what's here now.
I don't know in 10 year, and that
was 20 year ago.
Like I said, it's what these
pieces of equipment can do, it just
line by. I don't even drive the
tractors anymore because it's too
computerized for me.
Yeah.
I'm sure your brothers are thankful
for that too.
Yes, my nephews are.
And I think we're good to roll.
OK. Senator, I don't know if you
want to open it up.
I do.
Yeah, so Doug, thank
you so much for hosting us at your
farm and your leadership
with the Soybean Association.
That is outstanding
and very pertinent to
our discussion today.
And I want to thank both Matt and
Casey for being here today also.
And just looking out
at this beautiful farm, I just think
about how much of
a that agriculture
is sort of the backbone in
Wisconsin.
And farmers that I know work
harder than anyone else I know,
and with great benefit
to our state and our nation,
and frankly with soybeans the whole
world.
And I know that farmers during
tough times want markets and
opportunities, not handouts from
the government.
So I want to acknowledge
the headwinds that farmers have
faced.
Sort of historically, but also
currently.
You know, natural disasters and
mother nature sort of,
you know, there's no one to
blame, but that's something that
you have to deal with.
Volatile markets, that happens
with ups and downs routinely,
and low commodity prices
can be a
real strain on our farmers.
But there's some recent actions
that also
have impacted our
soy economy as well as
other other crops.
The trade war.
I think about how when
President Trump announced that there
would be tariffs a
lot of our trading partners
announced that they would be
retaliatory tariffs and
some of our trading partners said if
you're going to put a 50 percent
or whatever percent tariff on
certain products.
We're gonna find other countries to
make deals with and buy from.
And so that created a
huge impact for
our soy farmers.
There were also, last summer,
there was a bill that President
Trump pushed that
cut nutrition programs in
this country, the largest
ever cut to SNAP
and other cuts we saw
in USDA.
The
The cumulative effect of some of
these created a
$15 billion export loss
to China since March of last
year, and nearly half of that
was soybeans.
So really significant
impact.
And all of this is driving
up cost, but also driving
uncertainty, which is the
enemy of farmers and
businesses across the board.
For planning purposes, you need
certainty. And I
had one.
One person say, you know,
the uncertainty is like a tariff in
and of itself, you know.
But now recently
we've had a lot of major
additional impacts.
The war in Iran has
caused the closing
of the Strait of Hormuz through
which about a third of all
fertilizer inputs travel.
And so farmers have
seen an incredible
spike in the cost
of fertilizer and
sometimes the availability of
fertilizer has been in question.
A recent survey said
that 70
percent of farmers...
Right now cannot afford all the
fertilizer they need for their
operations or so are taking
lots of additional steps to
see what they can do without and
where they can be more tactical
and strategic in fertilizing
in the planting season.
Diesel is up nearly $2 a
gallon compared to what it was last
year. And again,
a lot of our nation, our
world.
Global supply of oil travels
through the Strait of Hormuz, so
that's had a real, a shocking
impact, both for automobile
fuel, jet fuel, but
certainly diesel.
And so it
makes it really difficult for
farmers to plan.
And of course, you're also struck
with all the other increases in
costs that all families are facing,
right? Groceries and housing
and.
Child care and all the things
that people struggle with.
So on my part,
I wanted to just make a couple of
things given these
challenges.
I am opposed to the war in
Iran. I feel as
though it were, well,
I feel strongly that it's a war of
choice, that we weren't under
attack. And so the president.
Went in without congressional
authorization.
And because of that, and I know I'm
getting in the weeds, but because
of we've been forcing
votes on war powers
resolutions to contend
that the president doesn't have the
authority to just declare war on
his own.
And we are actually
steadily gaining support.
And our last vote
right before the Memorial Day
recess.
Resulted in 50 in
favor, 47 opposed to
bringing the War Powers Resolution
to the floor. So we now have a
majority in the Senate, but we need
more than that to actually
drive a vote to bring it to an
end.
In addition, I'm involved in a
number of pieces of legislation
regarding the price of fertilizer.
I wanted to just highlight the
Fertilizer Transparency Act
of 2026.
This is a bipartisan.
A bill that will give farmers
more insight into input
costs in
real time so
that planning can be,
so you can rely on that for
planning.
I've also been involved in a couple
of other bipartisan bills relating
to fertilizer and looking at
some more that might be introduced
in the coming months.
I'd like to have us more
independent, self-sufficient as
Americans on fertilizer
production.
There's been some initiatives to
do that. It's a struggle
because a lot of the inputs that
we rely on are produced in other
nations, including Canada,
where we have a trade
agreement that's being re-evaluated
right now.
So what I really wanna do is
elevate the stories of how this is
impacting Wisconsin farmers,
soybean farmers, corn farmers,
and...
And talk about
how this is impacting you.
And so I want to just
start with the
question of how you're
experiencing the rising fuel,
diesel, and fertilizer costs
in your operation,
sort of happening at
the same time as spring planting
season, et cetera.
And just for folks who aren't
in agriculture
We're sitting in a
location that has a lot of
diesel-consuming equipment.
Tell me a little bit about what you
have on your farms and how much
diesel you need throughout the
season and what you're doing when it
goes up $2 over
a gallon over last year.
Jeff, do you want to start?
Yeah, I'll start.
I mean, here we got our one
tractor that we use for strip
tailing and multiple other things.
That's got a 300-gallon fuel tank
in it.
And so we're putting in 200
gallons a day.
This year, we usually go
through six
semi-loads of diesel fuel,
off-road diesel fuel in a year.
And this
year We didn't go
and contract much out because,
you know, prices were good and
there was no
indication that things were going to
change.
Right. So we didn't go and
on our farm we didn't contract
any out, you know.
That's going to come back and
really affect us.
Like I said, when you put in, You
know, 200 gallons into
one tank.
That $2 increase, $400,
you know right there, I looked
last year, we spent $120,000
in fuel on the farm last year
for both equipment and
for our trucks.
This year, that price
has gone up a lot.
So I mean,
yeah, we've got storage here for us
in the mold each time
that we have to go.
We still, similarly, come in
and obviously we do these different
practices, but we still burn fuel.
Springtime, luckily, is our
low unit of fuel.
I did the math and per acre, we're
probably going to be spending
between $2 and $3 on fuel.
We did have some water early
before this all started,
and the process always took about
three weeks.
But luckily we didn't go through
much trouble.
But it followed a different story.
We've been hearing a whole lot of
human talks.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah, we're similar to
Casey. We don't raise livestock at
all. We're purely row crop.
And so for us,
spring, no till,
so we're not running a bunch of
tillage equipment in the spring.
We're just running a planter, a
sprayer.
So our field demand in the springs
is low, but it'll
ramp up considerably in
the fall of harvest.
Where I think it does affect guys
more is if they're full
of tillage or livestock operations
making hang, you know, your dairies
and stuff. They're running equipment
all the time.
Yeah, pump and manure and some of
these other processes.
And thankfully, we have had an
increasing commodity price, so
that does help us out a little bit.
I mean, if the bottom comes
up, hopefully the top comes up a
little too, but it makes everything
more expensive.
Your lives are under more stress.
Well now, we don't have irrigation
on our farm,
but irrigators, those are
run by diesel pumps and everything,
so to water their crops.
Yep.
It's costing them a lot more money.
Yeah, we've run ours a couple times,
ours were electric, and
then the time of day we run,
so...
I want to talk about fertilizer
prices, too.
But you're saying the price
you're getting from the crop is up
also, so I
want to talk a little bit about
that
and the impact on
the...
Issue last year when China
started buying from other countries,
but
fertilizer.
What else do you need?
That's much more impactful to
us row crop guys as
fertilizer and especially,
no secret, I've got a soybean shirt
on, Casey's wearing a corn shirt.
We both grow corn, we
grow soybeans as well.
So in the soybean space,
fertilizer is a lower demand.
We've got great soils here
in southern Wisconsin, we're good
farmers, we take care of the land.
So we do have a question of certain
fertilizers.
The big one is of course nitrogen
for growing corn.
Soil doesn't store it,
you need to purchase that every
year.
So that's kind of the one I think a
lot of guys are zooming in right
now.
And just ways that we should
increase domestic nitrogen
production and keep that production
here.
That's, that's, I think it would be
some puzzle that we
can figure out.
This goes back to last fall,
the P&K that we put down in the bus
for some testing down last fall was
probably $30 more in acre
total than
previous years.
We have our nutrient levels up where
they're supposed to be, so we were
able to cut back on certain areas.
We'll see what happens next.
We'll get started.
But when it spikes,
like we're seeing, and of course if
you pay contractor for it and you're
not looking at the spike, you don't
have to necessarily make all the
adjustments.
But when I was visiting a farm a
week and a half ago in northern
Wisconsin, he's
out testing every field, going,
what can I do without this year?
And really it was
micro-managing,
is that what you might call it?
His farm operation.
And there are farmers that
are doing that.
I mean, the majority of farmers buy
their, you know,
all their inputs like in
December, January.
So most farmers had their
stuff paid for for this year.
But now I was just talking to a guy
from the local co-op that
works on buying for next year,
and they're going to start buying in
July for next month.
And they said, even if
the Iran War stopped right
now, the Strait of Hormuz was open,
it would take six months to
get things figured out before prices
would even think to stop coming
down.
Well, these co-ops and different
dealers are buying that stuff
now at these high prices.
And so that's going to be
transferred to us when we're
buying this December and January.
So, I mean, this year,
yeah, it's an impact, but
it's next year that's going to be
the big impact.
That's right.
Would you say most soy
and corn farmers would
buy by
the end of January?
The majority of them do, I'd
say. Squall operations, maybe not.
The ones that don't are the ones
that are doing canning crops.
They're not sure what they're going
to, you know,
what's going to be in canning crops
or what they are going to put in the
corner of soybeans.
Those are the one that are buying
them this morning.
Tell me a little bit
more about how
the trade wars and especially
the cancelation of
contracts with China impacted
the
demand, the global demand for soy,
and how that trickles down
to each of your operations.
You know, when you hear that...
China decided to
retaliate for our tariffs
and purchase from
Argentina, purchase from Brazil,
purchase from other countries.
What's the impact on
each individual operation
and where do you see that?
You sell to someone who then
sells into the global market,
right?
Just explain to a lay person
how that works.
And yeah, I mean we're
selling to our local co-ops or
local elevators and they're the ones
that are selling to the bigger
companies that ship it worldwide.
You know someone like Matt's got
DeLong's close to him that does
the worldwide shipping right there.
But you know what I see
when it comes down to
all this stuff is like
when China
was going back and forth we're
buying, we're not buying.
Thank you.
You know as farmers
we're pretty optimistic people
you know things are going to work
out we're gonna get through
yeah we may have a bad few bad
years here and there but
we're going to have those good years
to help us get through and
everything with
stuff that's been going on I'm
seeing less optimism when I talk to
my neighbors because
okay yeah our prices they
didn't dropped dramatically
through all this.
But we're not
seeing that build up of
okay in the future we're going to be
you know sending you
know soybeans to China
or anything.
This is kind of a lag effect when
you hear those announcements.
Yep and so you
know so we're sitting here going
okay are we going to get
the China market back?
Probably not.
We need to be working
on you know
working on other countries and
whether that's soybeans or corn
we need to spread
it out more and not so reliant
on one country and
we need a lot more domestic uses
for our products and
that way we're not so on the world
market. Yeah.
Any other comments on that?
We travel quite a ways for our
soybeans. We go down to Joliet on
the south side of Chicago.
And this year versus last year,
they're paying $1.50 more a bushel.
That's a container market, and it
all goes, whether it goes to China
or Vietnam.
The lungs goes everywhere, so
who knows where those went.
In that area, and granted, it's
just like the fertilizer.
You don't know what's going to happen
next year.
But as of right now, the market's up
that much compared to what we sold
last year.
Yeah, our beans, we
raise about 1,500 acres of soybeans
and they're split about 500,
500, 500.
And I would say 500 are in our
food grades, so those are going to
Joliet, going in the container, and
those are gone to
Vietnam, Korea, Japan
to be consumed, not necessarily
the longest.
500 of them are going into
what I would call the commodity bean
market, so that's like a straight
export to China or oil.
And then we have 500 acres this
year for the first time of unique
product that's in the Wisconsin
dairy market and they're
crushing it and feeding it to cattle
and that's a really to
me good opportunity.
I mean it's domestic and better than
domestic it's Wisconsin.
It's going and staying right here
and I think.
We need to make sure we're not
putting all of our eggs in a basket.
Right. To spread this risk out.
Right.
I have a question about those.
Maybe there's.
Different markets for corn and soy.
And there's a
big battle that
we've been fighting to try to get
like E15 year round
that impacts soy and corn
differently.
How do you
watch the various associations,
corn association and the soy
association, how do you struggle
with those issues?
I mean, I guess I'd
say, we work together.
We have a few little minor
disagreements, but I mean
like Mads said before,
we're corn growers, we are soybean
growers, we grow everything, so
we're very, we've
worked together a lot.
It's not a us-versus-them type
of thing.
Yeah.
And so yeah
we watch what's going on
we want we
want what's best you know on soybean
side we want that's best for corn
because that helps us on our farms
corn wants what's the best for
soybeans because you know it's
helping on everyone's farms so
i mean we work more together
and yeah
Like when we come out to Washington
D.C.
And come in and visit the different
offices, we're pretty much
saying the same things.
If there's been times where one's
walked in just before the other and
it's the same message.
Yes.
Um,
and yeah, or, or it's got to be 15
minutes, you know, they're, they are
working on, so I think we got
to buy the diesel and everything,
um, but like I said, we
want to work together and, uh,
we're not going to keep people at
the same time.
Thank you for your support of V15
and hopefully you can send that
through.
It's even bigger than V15, it's the
whole bio fuel in general.
One helps one, should help the
other.
The V15 passes and that
pushes the corn market.
So it means it follows you
and you have to fight for the
acres to make the money and they
come up with something too that
you're confident of.
Yeah.
Okay, I think part of the
debate, the E-15
year round and
then stopping granting
the waivers to the small refineries
that don't want to do that.
That's that's on the soybean
side we're you know
very supportive of E-15
but like you said it's all
small refinery exemptions that's
going to hurt the soybean market so
that's the one part of the bill
that you know we
have a little issue with yes
E- 15 is a great product
we want that be used,
but we we want to make sure
that it's not...
At a detriment to soybeans.
And it's the small refinery
exemption part that would be
hurt to soybeans, not the E15
itself.
Yeah, yeah.
So what are you hearing from your
farming neighbors about the
costs that are going up?
What's the discussion like when
you're too busy
to be chatting most
of the time, but especially this
time of year?
What are you hear about how people
are starting the NPC crisis
or...
Are pretty resilient, pretty
adaptable.
I think the talk is just
always keeping an eye on it.
You're keeping an eyes on your equal
cost. You keep an eye in the green
market, and you're figuring out
where to pull the trigger on each
one.
And lock in margin if you can.
So we're always upbeat
and positive.
Usually you get bummed out for a few
days, and then something changes or
another calamity comes up and pulls
you in that direction.
And when we're talking to neighbors,
we're not, you know, well, oh, yeah,
you know, these prices, you,
know, aren't good, you know, they're
gonna impact us, but we don't
dwell on it.
We sit there, okay, but what's
next? What else can we do?
You have your price
for this season,
how much transparency do you have
from the co-op
or the entity
you're selling to on what is
going to be in the future?
Is that just the
dealing with the volatility?
On markets, you've got the Chicago
bull trade, so that's
really transparent.
You can see out a long ways as far
as the contracts go.
What the question is is what the
basis is.
So that's what they're going to
charge you for getting in from the
farm to the market.
And that's, you know, a lot of guys
would guess on that.
It's more on the input side, that
you just don't know.
You look at trend lines and what
you've paid in years past.
But then something
happens that makes it spike or
change and then that's where it gets
a little bit trickier you know
you're like well it's gonna get
better then it works and you just
kind of eventually you have to make
a decision
educated guess what's
if they've got a crystal ball that I
don't have we definitely
don't crystal ball here
But yeah, when it comes to markets,
you know, we're we got bids out for
contracts for the 2026 year,
we got bids off for the 2027
year. So I mean, stuff we haven't
even started looking at input prices
yet.
We've got bits out there going,
okay, here's what we think
would be a good price.
So we'll start putting those out
there. And so yeah, we've got some
both corn and soybeans sold for
2027.
Okay.
What sort of volatility do you see
in seeds prices?
Thankfully, that's the one thing
that's pretty much flat.
After the last couple of years.
It doesn't change a lot.
Yep, yeah, those prices are pretty
consistent.
It's domestic.
Yeah Well,
and that's the one thing that
generally we can say is better
than old, seeds of today are
better than seeds of 10 years ago,
100%.
My diesel fuel and my
potash are exactly the same
that I bought 10 years ago.
They just cost more.
But the seed is, the technology
is better, the genetics are better.
Yeah, yeah, you can look at that and
say, well, I understand
a little bit, and they've
Hopefully this isn't an invitation
for the marriage crisis.
Well, yeah, you don't
want more profiteering or, you
know, that sort of thing going on.
And, I mean, on farms that's
our biggest, the biggest thing you
hear from people and our biggest
fear is these prices, they go up
so fast, but it
takes a long time for
prices to come back down for our
inputs, whether it's fuel,
fertilizer, or anything that we're
using here.
Well, I so appreciate your coming
and talking about
the impacts of
these price increases.
Sudden and
scary in terms of
how long they're going to stick with
us, but I
appreciate that.
We're here for it,
too. Yeah, I am too.
I think we're going to do a group
photo out by the track around here.
Oh great!