Today on Agnew Staley, up here in the Upper Midwest, we've got our our fallow period is from when harvest happens in October, November until one of these plants will have been made, right? So you've got almost six months of nothing growing. Let's, let's bid a crockling to let that landscape. And Winter Camelina is a brass cup. It's very winter hardy that can do that. Welcome back to another weekly edition of the Agnew Staley Show Michelle. This week we've got a lot of Ag policy news to cover off on. Yeah, certainly a lot of what does the latest farm bill mean? A lot of momentum there, but you're not in the United States. That's right, I'm in Brazil. I've been here for just a few short days, but it's been a great experience so far. I can't say that I really have a firm grasp on the country side or some of those pieces, but I've gotten to tour a few different facilities, including VASF's Brazilian facility and just outside of São Paulo. So it's been a great experience. I've met some great international farmers, but a short trip nonetheless. Certainly it's need to see the global impact of agriculture I can imagine. Absolutely. That's the perspective I always enjoy getting out and traveling is just seeing how agriculture operates in different countries. While weather back here in at home has been rainy and a bit cold. Well, certainly it impacted my travel to get to São Paulo, but this week's weather we've seen the storm track has shifted a bit farther south and east, pushing more rain into some droughts, stricken areas, while giving parts of the corn belts a better shot at planting. Showers should stick around through early next week, but with lighter coverage and totals than we've seen lately, allowing hopefully some saturated fields to dry out and some planters to start rolling again. That said, a colder pattern is setting in from the Canadian prairies through the plains, Midwest and east, with temperatures running about five to 15 degrees below normal. That could slow early crop development and could risk some frost as well, especially in the northern areas, if skies clear and winds calm. Well, planting has been moving ahead here. The USDA says about 25% of the U.S. corn crop has been planted as of the latest crop progress report, putting progress six percentage points ahead of the five year average. North Dakota is the only major corn producing states where planting has not yet be done, as colder than normal temperatures throughout April have slowed fieldwork and kept planters out of the fields. For soybeans, planting is 23% complete nationwide, marking the fastest start on record. That comparison is 17% planted at this year, at this time last year, and a five year average of 12% with emergence also running ahead of normal progress. Before we get into this week's news, let's hear this week's tip with Corteva Agro science. Folks, when you think about any foundation or milling, it always starts on the cornerstone. That's been list one within this week's control system. Obviously, we think about a program approach and that's important, but when you think about your post applications, reach for in list one herbicide with other effective modes of action, make it the cornerstone of your upcoming season. There's certainly a lot of agriculture news here. You might see my cat from time to time, but it shows that we are reporting agriculture news wherever we are at here at Agnews daily. Well, certainly a big headline this week has been movement finally on the Farm Bill. The House passed a five year Farm Bill aimed at strengthening Ag programs and supporting rural communities, and the legislation was approved on Thursday afternoon in a vote of two 24 to 200. It reauthorizes key farm and program, food programs, while boosting rural investment and providing more regular regulatory certainty, something that lawmakers say will help farmers better manage tight margins and volatile markets. The bill also includes support for the farm safety net conservation programs and rural infrastructure, but ethanol provisions like the year round E15 work set aside for future debate. In amendment also removed language that would have set federal standards over state pesticide rules. Ag groups are largely supportive of the bill that passed in the House and Health Ag leaders say the focus will now shift to the Senate as the bill moves forward on their floor. And some articles we read this week says that in the next week or next few weeks that Senate discussion should happen and this is the most momentum on the Farm Bill we have seen in the last few years. So let's get into some of those specific parts from that Farm Bill passage and some of those acts that were passed and some that weren't. First year with Proposition 12 here an economist with the National Pork Producers Council says new data shows California's Proposition 12 is raising costs for consumers and cutting pork demand. Holly Cook Anderson points to USDA data and research from North Dakota State University showing Californians have spent about 350 million more and pork over the past two years while consumption has dropped 16%. She says the laws requirements for more space and breeding pig housing are also adding costs across a supply chain with more than half of higher prices occurring between processing and retail. That was one fact. That was one fact though I found interesting. Anderson says it highlights concerns about a patchwork of state state regulations. Proposal known as a Save Our Baking Act was also included in that Farm Bill. Even to address its issues while opponents argue it could override hundreds of state level protections for smaller producers. Another piece of the Farm Bill was the pesticide oversight provisions as House lawmakers voted to strip pesticide oversight provisions from that Farm Bill. That's headed to the Senate's floor. The removed language would have addressed national consistency in pesticide labeling and clarified federal versus state authority over products like glyphosate. Richard Guked in with the Agricultural Retailers Association says the move adds uncertainty warning decisions on product labeling and liability could now vary on a case by case basis in court. The debate comes as bear continues to face lawsuits tied to glyphosate. An amendment sponsor US representative Anna Paulina Luna says the change protects Americans rights to pursue legal action while industry groups say the issue could resurface as the Senate takes up the bill. One area that many farm groups are disappointed by is the leaving out year round access to E15, frustrating ethanol advocates who say that issue has been delayed for years. While it's another setback separating E15 from the Farm Bill could improve its chances through a standalone vote. Many advocates are saying some say here in May I note something that continues to get pushed back. The advocates add that getting this measure through the House at all would mark significant progress compared to some past efforts. Group like the American Coalition for Ethanol say they'll keep pushing for a path forward. While others notes ongoing debates around refinery concerns and broader farm bill provisions. Lawmakers say that separate vote on E15 could come soon here in May. They are saying as the Farm Bill as we mentioned now heads to the Senate. Well in light of all that this week we saw Secretary Rollins make big announcements in the sea with new steps to ease rising fertilizer costs as farmers head into spring planting. The plan announced earlier this week includes reviewing shipping restrictions encouraging more imports and increasing competition in the fertilizer sector. Officials say global disruptions especially reduce traffic from the straight-up or moves have tightened supplies and of course push prices higher even as the crude oil market now softens. The administration has extended a waiver of the Jones Act to improve fertilizer movement. easing some import restrictions and is working with both private and public sector companies to boost supply. Despite these efforts analysts say prices for key nutrients like urea and and hydros ammonia remain elevated. Adding about 30 to $55 per acre for corn producers who are already facing of course tight margins. USDA says more short and long term actions are under review as the situation continues to develop. Well it's something we're continuing to watch. Fertilizer here every week on Agnews daily continuing with what Secretary Brooke Rollins US Secretary of Agriculture said this week she said a vaccine for avian influenza isn't ready for widespread use yet but research is moving forward. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins as well a vaccine can be key to preventing large scale flock losses. USDA doesn't yet have enough data to deploy its nation wide vaccine. The department has invested about a hundred million dollars in this innovation with most of that's going toward vaccine research and pilot programs. In the meantime USDA is focusing on biosecurity shifting roughly $500 million into two prevention efforts. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins says those steps are helping with cases down about 60% this year and fewer birds being.
de-populated. However, she notes there are still unknowns about how the virus spreads, including its ability to infect cattle and dairy hurts. I know here in Wisconsin, there are some flags that have even been influenza, so continuing to watch this be some news. While continuing with more USDA policy headlines, it seems like that really stole the show this week, Michelle. But the USDA is continuing forward with its reorganization as Secretary Rollins announced plans last week to relocate some employees from the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture, now to Kansas City. Rollins says the move is aimed at making USDA more efficient and returning positions to the Midwest after they were previously dispersed. It's timeline for these relocations hasn't yet been announced, but additional regional hubs are expected. Well, it's certainly an ag policy news this week. I know we had some colleagues in the ag media space that were in Washington, DC this week for a trip with the National Association Farm Broadcasting, and so it seems like it's a good thing to have for this week that the Farm Bill had passed. But here, a case heard before the U.S. Supreme Court could have major implications for crop protection tools used on farms, something we are watching and that we've reported here on the podcast before. The case, Dernal versus Monsanto, as heard earlier this week, will determine whether federal law under federal insecticide, bongicide and road inside act override state level lawsuits claiming products like glyphosate should carry additional cancer warnings. Farmers and ag groups say consistent labelling is critical to keep in those tools available. Growers' run losing access could cut yields by as much maybe 40% some reports are sane and raise costs at a time of her ruddy tight margins. Supporters argue the products have gone through rigorous federal review while others say the case is about preserving the right for individuals to pursue claims in court. This is an expected later this summer and could shape the future availability and regulation on some of those key ag inputs. Clotted the approval of the latest revision to ASTMD396, which is the standard specification for fuel oils. It now includes new grades for biodiesel blends containing 21 to 50% biodiesel by volume. The updated heating oil specifications mark a major milestone for clean fuels industry and supports the expanded use of higher biodiesel blends and heating applications. The revision provides users and consumers of bio heat fuel with clear guidance on fuel properties and procedures needed to deliver the same or improve performance as fuels currently in use. I will share a lot of crop news here this week on the podcast, but looking into some cattle news before we get into this week's interview, a chairman of the US Meet Export Federation says Mexico is becoming an increasingly important market for us beef and pork, especially as producers adjust to losing some access to China. German J J Theller says strong demand for a variety of cuts from tongues in Japan to trip and other meats in Mexico helps maximize a value of each animal and support producer returns. Tyler says that demand adds up to about $50 per head for beef and $22 per head for pork producers. Speaking from a red meat symposium in Mexico City recently, you noted growing interest in product innovation and diversification, including new uses and flavors for cuts like skirt steak, currently US beef exports to Mexico total $1.3 billion, with variety meats adding another $325 million, while pork exports are valued at nearly $2.9 billion. Michelle Cargo is recruiting farmers in the region to grow winter camelina, a crop that may not be familiar to some of our listeners, but it is an emerging oil seed that fits into existing corn and soybean rotations. As a fall planted, summer harvested crop aimed at creating additional revenue opportunities. Cargo says it spent the past several years working with early adopters across the Upper Midwest and Dakotas to refine production practices and identify where the crop fits best, as interest grows in renewable fuels and on farm soil health benefits heading into spring planting decisions. Let's get into that interview now with Anna Teter, who leads Cargo's novel oil seeds program and works directly with the farmers that have been testing camelina. Well folks, for today's Friday conversation, we're joined today by Anna Teter, the novel oil seeds program manager for Cargo to talk about a new program they've been working on over the last few years and what that impact means for farmers bottom line and a thanks for joining us on the podcast today. Yeah, thank you so much for having me and excited to chat with y'all. So I've got to ask, novel oil seeds program manager, that is quite the title. What does that actually entail that you're doing day-to-day? Yeah, it is definitely a mouthful. It's a really important role in looking at future production and vegetable oils. So new and upcoming oil seeds that we can use to crush and create oil seeds really and my job is to be on the farmer facing side of that and build those programs. Tell me about why you saw that as a need to look into as a company. Absolutely, so for those of you that are not familiar with Cargo, we are a very large commodity and grain origination company. We do a lot of other things, but that's the most relevant piece for today and a lot of what we do is work with folks who are buying vegetable oil and there's a pretty significant concern about the amount of vegetable oil available in the next, we'll say 20 years, estimated production or need, excuse me, is expected to double in the next 20 years. So we have a lot of vegetable oil that we're going to need to produce and there's not a lot of ag land being produced on an annual basis, right? In fact, we're losing a lot of ag land on an annual basis to other development. And so one of the main challenges that we have as an agricultural community is how do we increase and meet that demands for vegetable oil while still maintaining the production that we have on the landscape and that's where something like these novel oil seeds might actually be able to fit that gap and provide an opportunity for growers. Certainly is interesting to hear about that increased consumption of vegetable oil and it's also interesting to note Anna, some of the different crops that you can use to source for vegetable oil, one of those being winter Camelina, which I think is a newer crop, especially to those of us located in the Midwest, but before we talk a little bit more about what that crop is, what are some of the different crops that can go into producing vegetable oil and is it a combination of different crops that get combined together? How does that work? Sure. Great question. So the most familiar crop that we have is soybeans, right? It drives the majority of our agricultural vegetable oil market, but there's a lot of other ones out there that we crush today. So canola is going to be the one, the other probably largest producing commodity for vegetable oil, and uniquely the U.S. does not have a lot of soft seed crushed plants, which is what you would see in say Canada for canola. But we, Cargill does have a facility that can crush soft seeds in West Fargo, North Dakota, and they crush canola, flax, sunflowers, and Camelina. And so the building materials and how these facilities process are pretty different from a soybean crushed plant. So they don't easily switch or really can't without significant infrastructure to switch from a soybean to a soft seed crushed plant. And so we really have to take advantage of the infrastructure we have today. So those types of considerations are what's driving the types of vegetable oils that we have going on on the ground. So let's then about what is Camelina, if I'm saying that correctly. Yeah, so winter Camelina, and that's a family of different veg oil or Nebraska crops. So we have a multiple that we can work with. And I'll touch a little bit on why winter Camelina is kind of front and center for us. But there's winter Camelina, spring Camelina, Pennycress, and that can be in winter or spring, and canola, caronata. So those are going to be your major potential novel oil seed crops. And their main goal is to fit in between existing rotations. So up here in the upper Midwest, we've got our our fallow period is from when harvest happens in October, November until when we plant soybeans in May, right, so you've got almost six months of nothing growing. Let's let's fit a crop into that landscape. And winter Camelina is a brassica that's very winter hardy that can do that. And that's that's a really unique property or something like winter Camelina. There's not a lot of crops that will actually overwinter in places like Minnesota and North Dakota. And so it's a oil seed crop that's about 40% oil, pretty close to canola, although we do have some work to get it up to canola standards. But it's a
It's a cousin of canola. So when you're out in the field and it's blooming, a lot of folks confuse the two of them, which is completely normal, they're very closely related. But Camelina, I describe it as a flax in canola had a baby, and that's really what it looks like in the field. And so it establishes in the fall and then it grows early, early in the spring. - Got it. So this also maybe could be an opportunity it sounds like for folks that are putting on a winter cover crop, Camelina serves that function. It helps keep everything compact and tied to the soil, provides organic matter and all of the things that are going on in the winter months. And then they would harvest it in March, April, what's the time frame there between that crop and then flipping it around for their summer crops. - Sure. So we're not quite at the point of March and April. Usually we still have snow on the ground here. So it's the time-dry for a reason. But yeah, it's going to be planted in that fall window sometime between September and October, then the crop will grow and establish it looks kind of like a dandelion in the field in the fall. And then it will go to sleep for the winter, although it will actually actively grow in warmer days in the winter. And then it will send up flowers really early May and be ready to harvest by mid-June. And it's a really important thing to understand that we're really trying to push the envelope here on timing and what growers are capable of. So imagine double crop wheat soil doing the same thing with Camelina and say, soil is the following crop. But our growing season is a little shorter. So some growers are playing with relay cropping where you're planting your soybeans into that Camelina to try and take as much growing season for the soybeans while still growing a really good Camelina crop. But we do have growers that are actively exploring double cropping like you would see in the Southern Midwest that it does work in our Southern geographies. But as you go further north, you have less and less growing degree heat units that we need to optimize as much as we can. - Tell us about the scope of the market of are you still in this early adoption phase where you add to this specific crop? - Yeah, so we have had three years of the program and we still consider it a pilot in that we are learning a lot. I like to set the stage with growers. Imagine this was where soybeans were 70 years ago, right? So we don't necessarily have the infrastructure or the technology that we have come to love in our traditional commodity crops, but we're actively using technology to get this crop up to speed as quickly as possible and that's including our collaboration with the University of Minnesota's breeding program and accelerating their breeding program, bringing new varieties to the landscape and that'll include other technology like pesticides or any crop protection tools we might be able to use. Although to be quite fair, the variety joe well that's the most commonly used by our producers is a really rock solid variety of for being 25 years old. So it's enough to get us off the ground, get us over 10,000 acres over the last three years, we're hoping to almost double that this year and see if we can really start to show this at a significant scale. But with the context of we have a lot of learning to do and we've learned a lot and I really want to say thank you to our growers who've been willing to share those learnings with us because I can really see the difference between year one and year three of how much more success we're having with those producers and making sure they're getting good recommendations, good information, best practices and networks for growers to share from one another, all of those pieces are incredibly important. But we have technology to accelerate how successful we are in comparison with the journey that soybeans went on to that would be years ago. And the question that keeps coming back to my mind is the processing side of the business. We talk a lot on the podcast about the increased soy crush capacity that's coming online with multiple plants over the next five, 10 years. This might be a naive question, but I just don't know that side of the business as much with Camelina. Can you use the same facilities that are processing soy and canola to also process Camelina or what does that process look like? Great question. So a soy crush plant and a canola crush plant are fundamentally different. You could invest in infrastructure to make them switch between the two crops, but it's very expensive. And our commodity system is designed for efficiency. And so that's where the beauty of utilizing a canola crush plant like we have in West Fargo is really well designed to handle Camelina. The capacity and the utilization of canola and Camelina, FLAC, sunflower are all capabilities that we have today at West Fargo. So there's not a need for significant infrastructure or building up a new crush plant, for example, to allow us to actually utilize this crop in a more pilot scale than needing, say, a million acres to even justify trying to crush this crop for a soybean crush plant, for example. So a lot of our producers are really excited that they have the market opportunity at West Fargo. And we're working with producers from the Dakotas northern Iowa into Wisconsin and of course Minnesota to work with this crop and get it to West Fargo for processing. - And what have your producers learned with this crop, especially as it goes into that June timeframe? - Yeah, there's a lot of decisions to be made. And a lot of that starts the year before. So what I tell growers, if you are ever considering growing Camelina this fall, your herbicides that you have sprayed in the last year and what you sprayed this year are going to be absolutely fundamental for your success for this fall. So something with a really long residual is probably going to impact your Camelina establishment. So let's make sure to work with an agronomist, check out the Grower Guide put out by the University of Minnesota where they have all of the restrictions listed and really build a plan to treat this, even though we call it a cash cover crop or a cover crop alternative, you have to treat it like a crop, right? So that's one of the big pieces. The other piece is, how am I going to incorporate it in my rotation? And what am I going to do with it once I harvest it? And that's a question I get a lot of times. We have growers keep the grain on farm until about mid August. So it is off the farm before your main cash crops are going to be harvested and stored. But we still run all of our Camelina through a, we call it a campaign or a crush where all of the material comes to the crush plant at once and we work through it over a couple of days. And that's just because of the way that West Fargo is set up. We're a switch plant, we switch between crops so we don't have an immense amount of storage for different types of commodities to be sitting at West Fargo if we have to switch between crops. So we do ask that growers have a short-term plan for that grain. And sometimes that can be a challenge if growers don't necessarily have the bin in pre-structure that they are working with with corn and beans. It's a very small seed. So imagine a alpha seed. That's, that's typically what I have folks think about. And now try putting that on a air floor bin. It's not going to end well. And so whether a hopper bin, a flat concrete bottom bin, with maybe some air tubes in it, some folks have used wagons. It's not my preferred because you can't control that as well. But there's a lot of opportunity for us to learn and get smarter about how to integrate this in existing systems, but it's definitely a challenge in these early years. - Well, and this was fascinating. I personally learned a lot. So I appreciate your time coming on the podcast today. If any of our growers listening to this episode want to check out Camelina for themselves, what's the best place to go to to find more resources? - Absolutely. So the absolute simplest is to type in Cargill and Winner Camelina. And it'll bring you right to our website. Of course, you could reach out to me and email me directly
[email protected]. Of course, you know, there's a lot of different things that growers need to be learning about. So I also recommend that they check out the Grower Guide, put out by the University of Minnesota. It's a collaboration of all of our growers information in one place. And so I'm really looking forward to continuing the conversation with anybody who might be interested. Thank you. - Well, Delaney, we've heard a fertilizer update earlier in today's show. What's happening in markets this week? - Well, certainly we're seeing some additional risk premiums in play for both weather uncertainty and geopolitical tensions around the straight up four mues. As we talked to Eric Snodgrass last week, he didn't catch that episode to go back and check it out. He talks a lot about the weather patterns, El Nino strengthening, of course, is drawing more attention for global production impacts, not just in the United States, but also in places like here in Brazil. Livestock futures were mixed this week with cattle pressured by technical selling and some overbought conditions. Well, hogs found some support from some tighter slaughter numbers. Global grains just continue to see here hand-to-mouth buying patterns. And we're really on a case by case basis as it doesn't seem that the bulls or the bears are really taking the charge here in the markets. It is certainly on a story by story case. And again, check out last week's episode with Eric. He did a great job kind of putting into perspective what potential weather premiums we could see for this upcoming growing season, Michelle. Certainly it's-
Already May, are you looking forward to the hopefully May flowers that this month will bring? I think the May flowers, yes, the May showers. No, we certainly could get into the field. We still haven't started planting as of Friday May 1st, hopefully getting into the fields today, lost I heard from my husband. So I think a lot of farmers are sharing that sentiment, wanting to get in and out, and then we can start thinking about what's ahead for the rest of the month. Well, whether you're in the cab or driving around or want to listen to podcasts we're on YouTube, on most podcasting platforms, then we have daily social media clips on social media and you also might be seeing a new face around here. We're looking forward to having a intern and I'm excited to introduce you all to her. But Delaney, what do you say? Should we let the listeners go? Let's let them go.
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