AG Bull
Tommy Grisafi is the main host and content creator for Ag Bull Media.
The Ag Bull Podcast showcases agriculture's top talents in a long-form video format. The Ag Bull Trading Podcast is a deeper discussion of trading with analysts and key players in agriculture nationwide.
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AG Bull
Wiesemeyer's Perspectives | The Bull needs to be Fed
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We break down why markets feel whippy right now, from wheat supply shocks and trade headlines to fertilizer costs that keep sneaking back into every margin conversation. We keep coming back to one driver we can’t ignore: rising interest rates and Treasury yields that set the tone for everything from hedging to farm finances.
• cotton, soybeans, corn, and wheat reacting to summit expectations and profit taking
• why markets can peak on bullish news and bottom on bearish news
• USDA NASS winter wheat estimates surprising the trade and tightening stocks
• North Dakota dust storm and wind damage risk for spring wheat and replant decisions
• Trump-China summit takeaways including tariff frameworks, shipping costs, and beef plant registrations
• year-round E15 clearing the House and the Senate path staying uncertain
• the RFS waiver fight and why assumptions matter for ethanol and biodiesel demand
• Mexico pork restrictions focused on specific products and what it means for packer margins
• USMEF export study showing how beef and pork exports add value to corn and soybeans
• fertilizer hearing highlights, domestic production timelines, and oil price pressure
• beef import tariff plan delayed after backlash
• Kevin Warsh taking the Fed as CPI, PPI, and Treasury yields push “higher for longer”
• Iran conflict risk feeding energy inflation and spilling into ag inputs
• Corteva outlook on gene editing and hybrid wheat as a real productivity lever
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Welcome And Sponsor Notes
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to Ag Bull Media. Tommy Grossafi. You're listening to Wee Smaiers Perspectives, probably the most important show we've ever done. President Trump and his whole crew went to China. What did they get done? Well, that remains the question, my friends. It truly, truly does. But with that, thank you for joining us. We're going to go over a bunch of things. I want to get some notes out of the way here, real quick. I want to thank you all, all the people this week, last week, and in the past who've joined premium content www.agbull.com, $25 a month, $250 annually. Text, morning emails, special videos. You're allowed to call the trading desk. Folks are liking that, especially in these uh volatile markets here. And with that, we got news and information coming out our ears. How do we here at Ag Bull Media, Jim, myself, and the whole staff, how do we keep track of all that? Trade the news. Call the trade the news boys, text the trade the news boys, go to their website, tell them the AgBull crew sent you over and you'd like a free trial of trade the news. Trade the news is a squawk service that's operating six days a week, breaking news, all types of research and audio that's pumping through my speakers 24 hours a day when the markets are open. With that, Jim's ready. We have an interesting show. I have to tell you, 2026, a wild year in trading and markets and hedging. Markets have ran up, they've ran down. We're going to talk all about that. But there's something extremely, if you get anything out of this show, I want you to pay attention when Jim and I start talking about interest rates. That is by far the most influential thing that's moving the world markets. Jim will be here in 30 seconds.
SPEAKER_00We've got a lot to go through. But as always, uh, Tommy, we begin with the markets.
SPEAKER_01Let's do it, my friend. What a week, what a week, what a week. We got some
Cotton Drops And Grain Mood Turns
SPEAKER_01up, some down. Break it down.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, I want to jump to cotton first because we had limit down day, I think, on Friday, but they've had a dramatic uh uh run-up uh recently, so the market's breathing, but they were one of the markets who didn't like the news as projected by many in the trade, especially in the ag trade, on the Trump G summits. I think that they're premature. You saw the same thing with uh soybean oil. Look at their down for the week. Uh look at soybeans down over 30 cents and even corn. So that cast an overall negative tone to the marketplace. And we're gonna zero in on that as we get to the summit uh stuff later on. But look at wheat, wheat's holding in, and uh again, our our next uh topic is gonna be I'll applaud USDA's NAS because I they caught the traders who are always correct, of course, and analysts who are absolutely 100% correct all the time. They surprised the trade by getting aggressively downward in their winter wheat estimates. So I applaud NAS for capturing what I think most wheat producers, hard-bread winter wheat producers, already know. And the uh Kansas wheat quality tour later confirmed that USDA's number was probably spot on.
SPEAKER_01Real quick comment there, Jim. The we went limit up one day this week, but by the end of the week, we were 60, 70 cents off that limit up price. So it went limit up, gapped open the next night, traded 70 cents off those highs. Markets are interesting, they tend to make highs on the most bullish news ever, and they make lows on the most bearish news ever. And that confuses people that you could have a report that's so bullish you want to sell it, or you could have a report, especially towards harvest, that's so bearish you're like, wow, what an opportunity to buy and establish a long.
SPEAKER_00So well, you text me a line or a phrase that I thought captured the negativeness that was going on when you said the markets look like it's July the 4th in a drought market and it rained a lot. That's I think that captured it.
SPEAKER_01That's yeah, yesterday I texted you and the whole premium group and said markets are trading as if it rained over the 4th of July. And that's not what happened here.
SPEAKER_00No, but that that's what it felt like, and I think that captured it. Now, wheat again was uh partly because of the weather forecast showing some precip coming in to the edges of the hard, if not uh more the in the hard red winter wheat belt. So I think that coupled with taking profits, uh, you know, and and et cetera, markets have to breathe. But again, I'm never gonna be negative on market volatility that equals trading.
SPEAKER_01And I have to I have to talk to you about something. I've been talking to clients in North Dakota, and I don't know if you've seen any of the pictures, but school was let out early in Fargo on Thursday. They had a dust storm
Dust Storm Risk For Spring Wheat
SPEAKER_01so bad it looked like it was snowing, and it was as the tractors and stuff go through the fields, you get that fine, silty uh the the Red River Valley, some of the best dirt in the world, similar to Ukraine ground. And they had a gray out across a lot of the state 40, 50, 60 miles sustained winds. I'm gonna let you in on something. In the next few weeks, you may hear there was a major, major damage to the spring wheat crop in North Dakota. They may have to replant. And as you get into May 15th, they have rain coming Sunday. So I talked to clients, are you going to replant beets or wheat? They go, I mean, replanting wheat coming into you know June 1st is not ideal. So we may, we may, if these, depending on what weather is, we may light up the spring wheat market. And we will remember today, 516, that the winds were so bad, you may have really hurt the state of North Dakota only on spring wheat and the sugar beets because the corn and beans aren't out of the ground.
SPEAKER_00And I wonder if it's like their old Russian what they called sukave, hot arid winds. Was it that?
SPEAKER_01I I will, I don't know. I learn a new word every show. Sukay, sukave. And wait, there's more low temperatures. I think next Tuesday or Wednesday, maybe in the 30s in North Dakota, and those crops will be coming out of the ground. So, not exactly ideal things, but speaking of ideal, you gave me 10 of the most beautiful slides I've ever seen. Let's start with USDA winter wheat estimate, Jim.
SPEAKER_00Winter wheat was at 1.05 billion. That's down 25%
USDA Winter Wheat Surprise Cut
SPEAKER_00from last year. Look at the harvest area. We've been talking about this. The abandoned acres projected at a record low, 22 million acres. The yield for winter wheat sharply below last year, as just a little over 47 and a half bushels. Hard red winter wheat production projected down 36%. That's a combination of the plains drought and the freeze damage. So these these numbers are adding up. And I think this was being built into the market, Tommy, the last few weeks, right? And that's why I think we took the profit. Look at Kansas crop ratings fell to just 22%, good to excellent by early May. U.S. total wheat production is the lowest since 1972. I mean, these numbers are screaming here. Wheat ending stocks down almost 20% from last year. The season average price at 650. Now that means you're going to have prices above that and below that. That's up a buck fifty from year over year. And wheat exports, they're expected to decline because of the tighter supplies and higher prices. But the USDA forecast came in nearly 300 million bushels below the February outlook assumption.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's a big number, Jim.
SPEAKER_00Yes, big, big. With with the USI, global wheat production forecast, USDA, is forecast down from last year's record level. So we had production cuts in the US, EU, Argentina, and Australia. And that's tightening the world's supplies, which means more focus around the world and the US on the crop development side. So it's going to be more volatile on crop expectations, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01Oh, very good. Get yourself a drink. I'll mute your mic. And Jim didn't make it past the second slide without coughing, but that's okay. Jim, I still have you on mute. I'm going to take over. You give yourself a good cough, a drink of your finest breadverage, and we will enter slide number two, Trump Z meeting. We're going to go over the G2, Taiwan, Iran, ag Boeing, key issues, market moves and more. Okay, sir. Are
Trump China Summit And Tariff Signals
SPEAKER_01you better?
SPEAKER_00Yes. And here's my initial bottom line: the ag press typically wants ASAP instant gratification. Oh my. Sometimes you don't get it. And I think they've gone too negative too soon. Let's go through some of the basics here on the bullets that we have. China had three words to describe what they wanted and what the summit was: constructive, strategic, and stable. They want stable relations with the U.S. And frankly, I think Trump echoed that. Now the G2 means group of two nations. Trump has used this to say basically, these are the leaders of the world. Get ready for it because it's going to remain that way for a while. Taiwan was a key issue, but I think it's been overplayed. Where initially the Chinese officials, including, of course, Ji and his spokespeople, said that was their red line in the sand. And if you make a wrong step, it could lead to conflicts. Well, that's the position they wanted out. But the bottom line was the U.S. did not change our position. So they always bring up Taiwan. So I think it was probably overplayed. As far as Iran, they both agreed that the war needs to end. Now China said it shouldn't have started to begin with. Trump at least said that G said he could offer help if needed, but Trump said he didn't ask Xi for any favors because he knew he would have to give a favor back. That was almost word for word what he said in an interview. Here's another thing that I've seen. Unlike the last time Xi and Trump got together, the U.S. initially gave more information out. This time, I'm learning more initially from Chinese officials. I think that's interesting. Yes. Yeah. Now, US trade rep Greer, Jamison Greer, said he expects the tariff truce reached by Washington and Beijing last fall, remember in South Korea, will be extended. That is very important, Tommy, because that includes a lot of things, including the shipping issues. You ask the exporters in the United States what was one of the things they were looking for, and this was it, because the the unless that's extended, the shipping rates going to and from China to the US and back would go up significantly. And of course, that would be negative for U.S. ag exports and other exports. So it looks like they're going to extend that. We're going to have an announcement on that within the next few weeks from both countries. Now, China's what they call the General Administration of Customs, GACC. They granted a five-year registration extension to at least 425 overdue U.S. beef establishments in China's system. And then beyond that, 77 new US beef establishment registrations were added to their system's system. And that was effective Friday. So, and those registrations are valid for five years. That's what the U.S. beef market wanted. They got it. So what's negative about that? There are 38 beef establishments which remain suspended. And of those suspended facilities, 25 were also expired and are now renewed, but still remain ineligible for export. So I think they're going to have to discuss something on that. But this was a positive development, the U.S. Meat Export Federation said, and because it comes ahead of China's huge food show, which is which is taking place, opening this weekend in Shanghai, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01Really familiar with that one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a big one. And we're and now U.S. beef is kind of got uh you know wind at their back now. Now now those those establishments are approved. Now maybe they can make some deals. So anybody who says this was a totally negative environment for agriculture just doesn't know what's happening. This is very good news for beef. Now, here's another one. The China and the U.S. agreed to expand two-way trade via reciprocal tariff reduction frameworks. And now I'm gonna go through another one. I'm working on a story today that will be out later today on the Agbo Media site. Beijing said, this is Beijing talking, both sides are gonna reduce levies on unspecified products. That's levies, that's tariffs, as the trade teams negotiate broader agriculture and aviation agreements following the Trump G summit. Now that's gonna be good because we need some more details. However, this is what I would say. I think the Trump administration officials, including Greer, the U.S. trade rep, probably went too far too soon on saying there's gonna be a lot of good deliverables for agriculture coming out of this summit. Well, that may well be the case, but they weren't ready for those. And that's what they're still working on. A statement today from China's commerce ministry said the two countries are gonna pursue reciprocal tariff reductions aimed at boosting trade flows, including in agriculture. That came out today, Saturday, yeah. Today, and this is China saying, and then Beijing said negotiations are continuing over which products are gonna receive tariff relief and how the reductions are gonna be implemented. And they confirmed plans to purchase U.S. aircraft. They didn't mention Boeing, but Trump mentioned Boeing that they'll purchase 200, and maybe if things go well up to 750 planes, China didn't confirm those those amounts. But Beijing also said today it would actively address direct quotes U.S. concerns regarding agricultural imports, signaling that foreign trade could be one of the first areas for concrete follow-through after the summit. And as far as further agricultural deals, the spokesman for China's foreign ministry said China's willing to work with Washington to implement what they called the important consensus, that's a quote, reached by the two leaders, expanding cooperation and achieving win-win outcomes. Now, if that's not potentially constructive, I don't know what is, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And then you said on a special report, you said you're gonna go find out who the hell all these people were sitting at this table, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I'm working on a story through various China watchers. I'm gonna detail, I forget how many, 15 or 16 Chinese officials and who they were, because the person sitting to the left and the right of G is very important because they could be the new power leaders after after G. So you always have to watch out those China officials. Now they can change, okay, but I want to get a mini, just a real mini snapshot uh of uh uh uh of them, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01All right, let's take it back to America. Let's talk E15. This has been a slide we've used a lot the last few weeks. I believe we got some good news, but if you looked at the price of corn, you'd be like, what the heck
E15 Vote And Biofuel Friction
SPEAKER_01happened?
SPEAKER_00Well, here's here's the thing on the it cleared the house. It was a close, a closer vote than many of the proponents of of E-15 thought that would happen. But at least uh a win is a win, it's a victory. But the next step, you got to get it out of the house. And I don't think it can go on a standalone vote like it did in the house. The house was a standalone vote, so I'll give the biofuel industry credit. We need E-15, we need year-round E-15. It's not a mandate, it's not a mandate, it's just an opportunity. They got the vote. So, what's good? So, the obvious question is what's gonna happen in the Senate? It's murky. I don't think you need 60 votes to invoke what we call cloture to stop a filibuster, and I think on a separate vote, they may not have that, which means if that's correct assessment, Tommy, that means what uh Senator Grassley and others have said, they're gonna look for an avenue to put the year-round D-15 language on a must-pass bill, and it could be later this year, it could be after the elections in what we call the midterm elections, November 3rd, in what we call a lame duck session of Congress. So this may take a while in the Senate. The reason you saw rarely do the national corn and soybean groups get into what I would call a kerfuffle. That's another kerfuffle. Yeah. Is that legal to say that? It's not a major, yeah. Kerfuffle, I love the word kerfuffle, but but they got into a little skirmish because I'm trying to be uh be fair to Bolshevik.
SPEAKER_01Just say it. Just say it.
SPEAKER_00ASA, American, my good friend, the CEO there, said that they're not they're in support. ASA is in support of year-round D15, but it was the language that was included in the house version that I don't want to get too wonky, that would be negative on the price of biodiesel, which would actually end up costing lower and meaning lower prices and lower farm income, which would increase the cost of the farm programs. Now, that I think they're gonna focus American Soybean Association is gonna focus on that issue because in the Senate, because it dealt with how they're dealing with the small and medium refineries. I think what I know what ASA wants, uh uh Steve Sinski is the CEO there, very good, very good guy. Used to be uh a high-level official in a Republican administration at USDA. They want reallocation, they don't mind maybe waivers for small and and and medium-sized refineries relative to the renewable fuel standard, the RFS, but those must be reallocated to larger refiners. The net result being you're not hurting the consumption of biofuels, whether it's ethanol, carn-based ethanol, or biodiesel, renewable diesel, et cetera. That's the issue. And it's gonna take a while, I think, to work that out. But that's that's the issue because we had various uh analyst uh studies come out. Uh Fapri at the University of Missouri had one that ASA pounced on that showed the way that they understood it would be negative for biodiesel and prices. And the corn growers and uh others put out analysis that showed uh E15 would lead to lower gasoline prices and would be good for the consumption of corn because of uh ethanol consumption. They're both basically right, Tommy, but you have to look at their assumptions, okay? Because how the key is how soon, if we get year-round E-15, that I think will eventually come, okay, and I think it is needed, but the key point is how soon is it going to be implemented throughout the United States? We've said on this podcast several times now there's about 145,000 stations in the United States, about 4,500 currently carry E 15 at the gasoline stations. That means that you're going to have an infrastructure implementation issues. To get it outside of the Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois areas into the other states in the United States, that gets you into implementation issues such as regulations. That gets you into state regional uh uh uh implementation issues, and it just takes time. It takes time, right? Then on the other infrastructure issues, you at gasoline stations, you have the pump issues, they have to be certified, and the well issues at service stations if they don't substitute E-15 gasoline for other uh entities at a gasoline station. Again, I think eventually, yes, it is going to make sense because E-15 is cheaper gasoline prices, but it's going to take time to implement, I think, a lot longer, a lot longer, a lot longer than some of the corn growers' reports are signaling.
SPEAKER_01That's my bias. Okay, let's go back to the word of the day. Today's show is sponsored by kerfuffle. It's an informal word used to describe a common fuss or mild disorderly dispute. It often refers to a situation where people are making a bigger deal out of something than is. Now let's go to the origin of the word for you real geeks out there. The origin of the word comes back from the 16th century Scotland, likely a blend of the Scottish Gaelic word car, meaning to bend or twist, and the Scots word fuffle, which meaning disrange or ruffle.
SPEAKER_00Well, that kind of really fits in. And didn't it? Isn't that a perfect word for what the issues that we just described? I think it is.
SPEAKER_01Didn't they used to do that on uh Sesame Street? Like they'd have a word of the day. And that's you know, like you start watching that show, and as you get older, you just end up right back where you were, right?
SPEAKER_00I had a class when I was in college at the Southern Illinois University that I thought was one of my best ones. It was a history class, it was word origin. I love it. And now it would be great with the internet because we picked, you never know what the class is going to be. We yelled out the students said, What word do we want to discuss? And you picked out a word and you looked at the word origin, which you just said. You looked at, then you discussed the country, how it came about. I find that fascinating. It's it's a very good way to learn history and language.
SPEAKER_01If you didn't watch last week's show, last week's show was gerrymandering, and it's a manipulating or drawing a district. So if you watch this show for the full 45 minutes or hour, you might actually learn one thing. Speaking of one thing, we need to get rolling. Let's go to number four. Pork issues.
SPEAKER_00Periodically, we have pork issues with Mexico. We have another one. They recently suspended some U.S. pork and live uh hog
Mexico Pork Limits And Export Value
SPEAKER_00imports over the pseudo rabies antibody detections. Remember in Iowa, etc. Now, the restrictions mainly target breeding hogs, byproducts, offals, semen, and skins, not the core pork muscle cuts. So they still remain the largest export market for U.S. pork. Let's just go to the bottom line. The affected trade is just around 10% of Mexico's U.S. pork imports. So the near per near-term impact is likely on variety meats, which is still important and packer margins. You think this is not important for packers? Of course it is. So there's that issue, and discussions are ongoing. That's the bottom line. The key item to watch is whether Mexico expands restrictions beyond the targeted products, Tommy. So that's that issue in a nutshell. It it is, it's not as significant as I think some of the reports have indicated. It could be, but it's affecting Packer margins because of the variety meat uh impact on the topic.
SPEAKER_01Very interesting. Number five, USMEF study. Red meat exports delivered major value to U.S. corn and soybean producers in 2025.
SPEAKER_00U.S. Meat Export Federation does always good jobs on monitoring uh U.S. uh red meat exports. They have great uh meetings, which I attend sometime, and I think you have. They just released a study that was conducted by a friend of mine, Dave Jude, the Jude Group using NAS data. What did it show? Beef and pork exports generated over $2 billion in market value for corn producers. That means you're walking it off the farm through the animal. Pork exports added about a billion in value to soybean producers. Beef and pork exports supported $375 million in distiller dried grains demand and red meat exports accounted for more than 500 million bushels of corn usage in 2025. Look at that. Pork exports accounted for nearly 99 million bushels of soybean usage. The bottom line is export added 13.5% value per bushel to corn prices. Pork exports a little over 10% value for soybean prices. The average 2025 price used in the study was corn 429 and soybeans 1017.
SPEAKER_01We're a heck of a lot higher than that now.
SPEAKER_00Yes, but the bottom line is export demand strengthens the entire red meat and feed grain supply chain. So that's why, even though we have beef, you know, certain beef prices on the rise considerably, you still need exports. So don't try to limit your exports. Don't, don't, don't. It'll it'll be the kiss of death for the overall complex, and it'll hurt corn and soybean producers. I remember we used to do focus group interviews at for at Pearmer on the front page headlines. And a lot of times, grain produ corn and soybean producers would skip reading a livestock item. They're your best customer, they eat it, they they eat a lot of your products. So look at the way the the livestock industry is going, corn and soybean producers, because they mean a lot to the business. And that's why we have to have profits for for all sectors, Tommy. That's the bottom line.
SPEAKER_01Very good. Let's go to number six. This is a big one, Jim. Big, big, big, big, big number six. Fertilizer hearing and fertilizer is the talk of the town as oil prices remain elevated here
Fertilizer Costs Track Oil Higher
SPEAKER_01coming into the end of the week. Crude oil closed up four dollars on Friday. I want to say we had a I'm gonna make something up. I have a ticker behind me. Hold on. 104. I happen to have a ticker. Hey, speaking of ticker, folks, that's my TikTok clock. 3,227. I could use a few more friends on TikTok, but if you'd like to see snippets from Jim and I show and other people's shows that we do, you can follow at Agbo Media on TikTok. Big day in the markets on Friday. Gold was down big, silver was down big, copper, and I'll see what crude oil was, but I want to say 103, 104. And that ties into fertilizer, Jim.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I show crude oil at least on 105. 105.66 coming up. Uh just just Brent, that's the international price, 109. Let's call it 109 barrel. That's lofty. Now, the fertilizer hearing, the Senate Act Committee was held Tuesday. Now, I'm not, we're not going to detail all of the all of the stuff there. It basically confirmed a lot of the information that farmers and the trade as already knows. They they uh highlighted the rising concern over fertilizer costs, farm profitability, uh the lawmakers at the hearing, they cited the global conflicts, tariffs, the Strait of Harmuz disruptions. Uh uh farmers reported fertilizer costs nearly doubling in recent years, forcing acreage cuts or skipped applications. And I think that's a growing thing where it could impact some yields for farmers. Senators push for expanded domestic fertilizer production and faster permitting for new facilities. That's eventually has to happen. There was an official from uh Nebraska, a westling, Joshua, it said the proposed $1 billion project metal lark. I mean, that's gonna be a fertilizer complex for the future. And it highlighted the need for expanded U.S. fertilizer production and reduced reliance on foreign fertilizer inputs. That's where Americans are very good at tackling issues, but it's not gonna happen right away. We know it's good two, three, four years because it takes to build a an adequate fertilizer plant, but it takes a combination, Tommy, of grants, loan guarantees, permitting flexibility both at the federal, state, and local uh level, and and and all those combined will eventually solve that problem in two, three, four, five years. But it's not going to happen for the 2027 crops. It just can't happen that quickly. But you got to start someplace, and I think we are. So that's this is one for this country has to get back to strategy and either near shoring or reshoring that fertilizer production. And in the case of potash, we have the solution. It's called Canada. We just need better trade relations with our friendly neighbor to the north. So, yes, and but don't necessarily point fingers at the existing fertilizer companies in the U.S. I'm not, you know, it's hard to defend myself, let alone anyone else. But they have to take market moves that their board of directors show. If they're cutting back production, it's not based because they want to be mean, it's based because it's gonna cost them money. So that's why you need more fertilizer companies, more competition. And that's gonna happen, but it's gonna take three to five years to have that happen. The solution is coming, just wait for it.
SPEAKER_01Okay, very good. Let's go to that was number six. This is number seven cattle beef prices CPI report. White House pulls back terror move. What the hell? Shut the front door. What was that? That was weird.
SPEAKER_00We had remember it got into the marketplace where they
White House Backs Off Beef Imports
SPEAKER_00said they were going to basically really modify the tariff rate quotas for all countries of beef. And I think eventually, and then they saw the reaction.
SPEAKER_01You want to hear reaction sound?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh time's up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. They're delaying the White House is now delaying what I call a makeshift plan just because it wasn't well thought out, to suspend tariffs on imports meat. That the plan aimed to address short-term supply issues in the U.S. beef market by expanding imports and supporting a rebuilding of the country's domestic cattle herd. It's hard to rebuild right now when you're in a drought situation, right? It's just hard. The delay followed an outcry from certain cattle ranchers and some congressional Republicans. So, as increasing imports come with political risks, surprise, surprise, including undercutting American farmers' business. So they've gone drag back to the drawing board. I don't know when and how it's going to be released, but now they're going to do the vetting of this issue that should have happened to begin with. And that's kind of a recurrent theme in the Trump administration, Tommy, that this is Trump 101. He likes to keep issues close to some of his top, he and his top advisors, but they need to be vetted more to avoid mistakes like we saw on this one. They were surprised. They shouldn't have been surprised of the negative political and industry reaction. So they've gone back to the drawing board. News to come on this one. That's the bottom line.
SPEAKER_01Very good. Let's move to number eight, Kevin Warsh, new Fed or Reserve Chairman. And you have an excellent graphic there.
SPEAKER_00This is what he faces.
Warsh Takes Fed As Yields Jump
SPEAKER_01You talk about I after work yesterday, I was just kind of decompressing. I was looking through X, and I found this beauty. We could spend a half hour talking about this. But for folks who are listening, and thank you, by the way, uh, for listening on your podcast form. And please click like and subscribe. The second we release this show, you'll get a copy, whether it's on YouTube, uh video, or audio. But look at this for you folks who can't see this. This is Kevin walking into the Federal Reserve. He's the chairman. It says Kevin Walsh. Someone obviously used some uh chat GPT to make a cool cool thumbnail heel. But CPIs, I want to say exploding higher. Definitely going from the bottom left to the top right, PPI Schiller price index. For folks who don't understand that, that's a housing thing. Just Google it. Market cap GDP auto loan delinquencies, 90 day plus record high. Credit card, 90 day delinquencies, record high. This is the one I told you in the opening of the show, bottom right chart, 30-year treasury yield 6%. Folks, the last time the treasury yield was six percent, George W. Bush was president of the United States. And Jim was in probably a senior in high school back then. Jim, the long end, you have the short end, Fed funds, twos, fives, tens, thirties, the long end hitting multi, multi-year highs. The stage is years.
SPEAKER_00I've learned the bond market treasure yields are the only editor Washington has. And so you better sit up and take notice because uh the 10-year surged above four and a half percent. That's the highest in in nearly a year. Investors reacted to the rising inflation. There's that word again, pressures tied to the Iranian war. Higher crude oil prices are fueling fears of prolonged inflation. In other words, it's gonna last longer than what they thought. The Strait of Harmuz disruptions are raising uh energy supply concerns. The April wholesale inflation that was out this week posted the fastest increase since 2022. Consumer prices recorded the largest gain since 2023. It's adding up. Retail sales are easing but still showed resilient consumer demand. Markets are fully, fully pricing out a Fed rate cut this year.
SPEAKER_01They should be raising heights. And yeah, you know who didn't create all this? You know who didn't do this? This is not Joe Biden's deal. This happened in the last year, in the last six months, and specifically in the last three months. So these people who forever defend Trump and his administration, they have to eat this one. This one is on them. And people keep saying, and you say it a lot, I hear, sticky, the word sticky inflation. What's that mean, Jim?
SPEAKER_00That means it's gonna linger and and it's gonna be harder than what Trump people think to bring it down. It's called beef prices and other prices, and global bond markets sold off amid this inflation and geopolitical risks. So, yes, and investors now are monitoring, they said they're gonna monitor the Trump G results for trade and energy security progress. So, what's Walsh? Warsh now is coming in. Kevin Warsh, he's a good guy. They confirmed him, the Senate confirmed him, and one of his first tasks is gonna be establishing credibility. Can he be an independent chairman rather than someone under the control of Trump? We're gonna see. Trump has put pressure on central bank uh officials to lower interest rates. Now, Powell, uh his term ended Friday. Now he's an interim. He's a governor. He's a governor. He's one of the seven members of the of the Fed's board of governors. Now, again, I want to emphasize two inflation measures released this week could complicate Walsh's job. Tuesday's CPI showed inflation accelerating to three-year highs. There we go again. And Wednesday's producer price index, the PPI, that's a measure of cost businesses for paying goods for goods and services. They showed us the fastest one-month increase since March 2022. So that it shows that the the inflation is not going to go going away, it's increasing. So it's going to be a hurdle. It's going to be a hurdle. Interest rates are going to stay higher longer. And now the discussion has moved to we're not going to get a rate cut this calendar year. Now we have to start discussing what are the odds of a rate increase. Good for God forbid, I hope that doesn't happen. But that's that's where the subject is going. That's the bottom line on that, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01Very good. Number nine, treasury yields. And that's what we've described in here. We've discussed. You think you hit all these points pretty well? I do, absolutely. All right. That takes us to the end of the show. But before we get there, number 10, war with Iran. I want to thank our sponsors. Number one sponsor, well, that would be Jim and I and the boys at Agbol Media. www.agbull.com, $25
Iran War Risk And Energy Inflation
SPEAKER_01a month, $250 annually. That's AgBull Intel. Full access to the website. You got daily commentary, special alert text when breaking news is happening, members only videos, educational pieces. Of course, you can get all of We Smires information on there. We're picking up more premium guests every week, and we're delivering more and more information for the same price. With that, how are we getting a lot of our information? The good folks at Trade the News, Trade the News, an audio squawk service. If you'd like a free trial of trade the news, go over, Google Trade the News, tell them the Ag Bull Boys sent you. Trade the news by far the best in the industry. Those who know, no, those who don't, well, they should check them out. It'll definitely enlighten you to how information travels. With that, war with Iran. I have a graphic for that. What is going on, my friend?
SPEAKER_00We need an end to that. And Trump is gonna have to make some decisions rather than uh linger, linger, linger. So, yes, what's Trump's next move? That's the big one. And cause it is a key market factor that we've already discussed in crude oil, fertilizer prices. The grains have clearly uh locked horns with this issue. So something's you can't you can't keep waiting for Iran to come up to your uh 14 bullet point in a one-page uh document. They're not gonna do it. You can't trust Iran. So I think eventually we're gonna see additional military uh conflict over there in order to get more stability in Iran and the Strait of Harmuz. And before we go to our last optimism that we always end the show, I just want to do a sales pitch for you, Tommy. Believe it or not. Oh boy. Um, I in my speeches, and a lot of people who know me say, hey, you're partnering with Agbo Media, right? I said, absolutely, and there's going to be some things ahead that I can't talk about that's gonna be good. I haven't felt this way as far as working with someone since the early days of uh ProFarmer with Merrill Oster. The reason the guy who you're looking at, Tommy, is an entrepreneur, and I love entrepreneurs, and he's changing the way I do things, and because I have to. And so Tommy's on the cusp of of things in the communications end of our industry, and that's why I'm partnering with him. And we're we're we're gonna do uh uh seminars together, we're gonna do webinars together, we have some other opportunities coming ahead. So that's what I wanted to say. We're a team, and and and I haven't felt this generated positively in a while. Not that my passion is any less, it's growing. And Tommy, Tommy, you're the fifth gear in my career, so I applaud you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Jim. That was unexpected, and I don't know what else to say, except for I'll tell you this, and this will make you laugh. There's no eye in team, Jim, but there's two eyes in Grasafi. You remember that, right? That's true. That's true. That's a good one.
SPEAKER_00And we're gonna end it. One of the stories that I wrote, it was Friday's, it's it's on Agbol Media, was about Cartava, a long meeting Cartava officials
Gene Editing And Hybrid Wheat Upside
SPEAKER_00had with an investment group, by the way. Read it, it's a longer one, but I want to tell the positiveness because this is just not pie in the sky. And I've learned to listen to people at Cartava and Bayer when it comes to yields for corn, soybeans, and now wheat. Cartava said the future crop yield gains are gonna increasingly come from advanced genetics and gene editing. Now, their officials argue that gene editing could become more transformative than biotechnology was 25 years ago. Now, let's listen to that. Gene-edited crops they said are going to improve yields, disease resistance, and insect protection while reducing chemical use. They plan to commercialize a gene-edited, what they called a disease superlocus L O C U S corn hybrid in 2028. Their hybrid wheat technology is showing early yield gains of 10 to 15 percent in testing. And they plan a limited U.S. hybrid wheat launch in 2027 next year, using what they said was a new patented production system. And hybrid wheat, they said, could significantly boost global food security because wheat supplies roughly 20% of global caloric intake. And bottom line, future crop technologies are expected to. To improve resilience against drought, heat, pest, and disease. And here's where I want to bring it home. They said the future seed value is going to extend beyond yield gains to include lower input cost and improved biofuel traits. Now, if that's not positive, I don't know what is. And it's not the pie in the sky that you usually hear from some agribusiness companies. Cartava has a pretty good track record, the farmer pioneer. They have a good, pretty good track record. And I'm going to continue to uh monitor this uh in the year and years ahead because what I just told you, I think, is probably uh far more important than most of the topics we discussed today.
SPEAKER_01That's amazing, Jim. Wonderful way to finish. And I will see you next week, my friend. And thank you so kindly for those kind compliments. I'm uh excited about this partnership. Thank you, my friend. Sure.
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