In this episode, brought to you by Iron Solutions, host Casey Seymour of Moving Iron LLC talks with Tanner Ehmke of CoBank. Tanner is the manager of CoBank’s knowledge exchange that provides market industry research on sectors affecting the rural economy.

Casey and Tanner start their conversation with a discussion on the economic struggles farmers had in 2017 and how that will effect what they will do in 2018, looking at the debt to income ratio and the continued rising debts for farmers and deterioration of balance sheets in the year ahead. Tanner’s outlook for the next 3-5 years is cautiously optimistic.  

Casey and Tanner continue, discussing how grain competition from South American and the former Soviet Union countries plays into the long-term supply and demand curve and what it means for U.S. farmers. They also discuss the major increase in feed demand globally we can expect to see over the next 10 years. Tanner says we’ll see a gradual turn upward over the next 3 years.