Morning Coffee and Ag Markets
This podcast delivers weekly insights for the agriculture industry, covering everything from farm-level risk management to market volatility and production challenges. Beyond the farm, we discuss key supply chain issues, like Federal Reserve policies, port strikes, and Mississippi River disruptions, affecting everyone from producers to those all along the supply chain. Join us every Monday morning for engaging conversations with agricultural economists and industry experts about the agricultural economy at both the micro and macro level. Each episode also features a market report, offering current and historical futures price trends.
Episodes
97 episodes
Episode 95 - Fed Funds Update and Outlook
The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee's June 2026 meeting ended in a federal funds rate hold, but the odds of a rate hike by September have jumped to nearly 70%. Hunter Biram and Ryan Loy unpack what's driving the shift, from lingering ener...
Episode 94 - June Acreage Report Offers No Surprises
Rice acreage in Arkansas just hit a 50-year low, so what's driving farmers away from a crop they've grown for generations? Hunter Biram and Scott Stiles break down the 2026 USDA June Acreage Report, exploring why rice and peanut acres fell whil...
Episode 93 - Chapter 12 Bankruptcy Filings are up 20%, Underscoring the Impact of the Farm Safety Net on Crop Farmers
Chapter 12 bankruptcy filings are up 20% year over year, with Arkansas leading the nation. Hunter Biram, Ryan Loy and LSU's Mike Deliberto break down where filings are concentrated, why rising input costs have eaten into recent crop price gains...
Episode 92 - The long grain rice world market price for the 2025 crop approaches the USDA marketing loan rate for the fourth time since 2001
This week on Morning Coffee and Ag Markets, Hunter Biram visits with Arkansas Agricultural Hall of Fame inductee Carl Brothers about the history of rice marketing assistance loans, world market price calculations, and the growing possibility of...
Episode 91 - Analyzing the relationship between the yield ratio and optimal crop insurance coverage levels
Hunter Biram is joined by Enil Serrano and Grant Gardner to discuss the Crop Insurance Decision Maker, a web-based tool developed by the University of Arkansas and University of Kentucky that evaluates expected net returns across different crop...
Episode 90 - Rice Farmers Face Limited Adjustment Capacity Under the Expanding Access to Risk Protection (EARP) Rule
USDA's new Expanding Access to Risk Protection (EARP) rule eliminates the option for producers to purchase an additional 5 percentage points of prevented planting coverage. In this episode, Hunter Biram and Ryan Loy discuss what this change mea...
Episode 89 - Prevented Planting: When (if ever) is it a good business decision to take the PP indemnity?
This week’s Morning Coffee and Ag Markets Podcast revisits a 2025 episode on prevented planting decisions for Arkansas rice producers as the 2026 final planting date arrives. Hunter Biram and Ryan Loy discuss when prevented planting may be fina...
Episode 88 - May 2026 WASDE Highlights for U.S. Supply and Demand
Hunter Biram is joined by Scott Stiles to discuss the May 2026 WASDE report and what it could mean for Arkansas producers. The conversation covers tightening grain stocks, stronger price outlooks for soybeans, rice, and cotton, and how changing...
Episode 87 - 100 Years of Arkansas Soybeans
Arkansas soybeans have shaped the state’s agricultural landscape for the last century, growing from a rotational crop in the 1920s into Arkansas’s leading row crop today. In this episode of Morning Coffee and Ag Markets, Hunter Biram is j...
Episode 86 - Arkansas net farm income remains steady in 2026 driven by government assistance
Ryan Loy and Hunter Biram discuss the 2026 Arkansas net farm income outlook. While income is projected to remain steady, it is largely supported by increased government assistance as crop receipts decline and production costs rise. The conversa...
Episode 85 - Arkansas Farmer Decision Support Tool
Hunter Biram and Ryan Loy are joined by Eunchun Park to discuss a new integrated decision-support tool for Arkansas producers. The tool brings together crop insurance, farm program decisions, grain marketing, and input cost risk into one platfo...
Episode 84 - What Lower Interest Rates Mean for 2026 Budgets
Hunter Biram is joined by Ryan Loy to discuss the March 2026 Fed decision to hold interest rates steady and what that means for farmers. While rates have eased slightly, higher input costs mean producers are still borrowing more, keeping intere...
Episode 83 - Exploring Floating Solar on Arkansas Farms
Ryan Loy is joined by Mike Popp to discuss his recent research on floating solar systems in Arkansas. The discussion covers how these systems can generate electricity without taking farmland out of production, while also reducing water ev...
Episode 82 - March 31 Prospective Plantings Report Offers Few Surprises
Scott Stiles and Hunter Biram discuss the March Prospective Plantings report and what it means for 2026 crop acreage. Arkansas rice acres came in close to expectations but remain historically low, while cotton acres were higher than expected an...
Episode 81 - Preliminary Assessment of Arkansas Poultry Industry Damage (Winter Storm 2026)
Hunter Biram and Ryan Loy discuss the economic impact of the January winter storm on Arkansas’s poultry industry, where prolonged outages and freezing conditions led to major production disruptions. They walk through the difference betwee...
Episode 80 - Row-Crop Markets in Transition: Supply, Demand, and Pricing Opportunities
Rising input costs are creating new challenges for producers as fertilizer and fuel markets respond to global conflict and supply chain uncertainty. In this episode, Hunter Biram and Ryan Loy are joined by Grant Gardner (University of Kentucky)...
Episode 79 - 2026 Farm Budget Implications of the Conflict in the Persian Gulf
Join Hunter Biram and Breana Watkins as they discuss how rising fuel and fertilizer prices linked to conflict in the Persian Gulf are reshaping crop profitability heading into the 2026 season. Updated University of Arkansas enterprise budgets s...
Episode 78 - Developing a Crop Marketing Plan in 2026
Hunter Biram is joined by Will Maples of Mississippi State University to discuss building a disciplined crop marketing plan for 2026. They emphasize using breakeven costs to set realistic price targets, spreading sales to manage risk, and docum...
Episode 77 - How could insured farmers adjust to the Expanding Access to Risk Protection (EARP) rule from USDA?
In this episode, Hunter Biram and special guest Francis Tsiboe explore how USDA’s new Expanding Access to Risk Protection (EARP) rule will reshape prevented planting insurance starting in the 2027 crop year. With the elimination of the prevente...
Episode 76 - Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) Payments and Implications for Arkansas Farmers
Hunter Biram and Ryan Loy walk through the newly finalized Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) payment rates and estimate Arkansas producers will receive about $347 million in total support. They discuss how the per-acre rates for key crops compare ...
Episode 75 - Jennifer James
Hunter Biram and Ryan Loy are joined by Jennifer James, a fourth-generation rice and soybean farmer from Newport, Arkansas, part owner of H&J Land Company, and host of the Field Good Life podcast. Jennifer shares her path back to the family...
Episode 74 - The National Cotton Profit & Loss Tool
Hunter Biram and Ryan Loy discuss the launch of the National Cotton Profit & Loss Tool, a free, web-based budgeting and planning resource designed to help cotton producers evaluate profitability, breakeven points, and financial risk. Ryan o...
Episode 73 - December 2025 WASDE Lowers Rice Price by 9% and the Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) Program is Announced
Hunter Biram and Scott Stiles discuss the December 2025 WASDE report, noting the most significant price reductions in rice and cotton markets. Long-grain rice prices declined 9%, while cotton fell to around $0.60 per pound, driven by sluggish e...
Episode 72 - Senator John Boozman
In this episode, we sit down with U.S. Senator John Boozman to discuss the major federal policy issues shaping American agriculture. We cover how Congress has approached farm policy this year, including reconciliation packages, appropriations w...
Episode 71 - November 2025 WASDE report is relatively quiet despite surprises in production and exports
Hunter Biram and Scott Stiles walk through the November 2025 WASDE, where small adjustments still led to very different price signals across major crops. Soybean and corn price projections inched higher, supported by tighter soybean ending stoc...