April 16, 2025 • 47 mins
Matt Erickson, an ag economic and policy advisor and former chief economist for the U.S. Senate Committee joins hosts Todd Kuethe and Chad Fiechter in this episode of Purdue Commercial AgCast. Erickson shares his background, including his academic journey at Purdue University and internships that led to his extensive career in agricultural policy. He describes his work at various organizations such as the American Farm Bureau Federation, and a key focus on economic and policy analysis for producer impacts. Erickson elaborates on the process of farm bill preparation, the roles within the Senate Ag Committee, and the vital importance of bipartisan cooperation. He also highlights the grassroots involvement in policy development and the significance of gathering insights from both farmers and agricultural associations. The conversation provides a transparent look into the legislative process, the role of economists on Capitol Hill, and the intricate balance between policy formation and constituent needs.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the Purdue Commercial Ag Cast.
(00:02):
I'm Todd Kuethe.
I'm a professor in the department.
I'm joined by
Chad Fiechter.
We've got a slightly differentsort of series of podcasts we're
gonna release within our feed.
This is gonna be something new.
Our listeners, we'll be familiarmostly as a way that we deliver news,
and information from the Center.
A lot of it related to the, AgEcon Barometer, but then also other
(00:22):
sort of pieces of information thatthe Center collects and research
people affiliate with the Center.
But ours will be a littlebit different bend.
And then I feel a lot like, uh, whenJay Leno finally got the desk at, uh,
right where it was like, you've been hereenough times, we'll just let you do it.
Chad, why don't you introduceyourself for the listeners.
(00:46):
Alright, so, hey everybody, I'm Chad.
Um.
I grew up in Indiana.
Uh, I am now a professor inagricultural economics here, Purdue.
But I'm a little old to be anew guy, so I was a farmer for
a while near Northeast Indiana.
Todd, who are you?
Um, my name is Todd Kuethe I'm aprofessor, also in the Department
of Agricultural Economics.
(01:07):
I mostly study land prices and credit andall those kind of things that we do here,
the Center of Commercial Agriculture.
Chad, tell us a little bit about whatwe're hoping to do with this podcast.
I used to be a farmer and now Ido this job, which is trying to
understand the ag economy, and Iwanted to do that as a farmer too.
But now I have very differentconversations with a lot of
(01:31):
different people that I genuinelyfind interesting and insightful.
So one of the things that peoplecan't observe when I come talk to
them or they read something that Ihave written is that it's likely based
on a series of conversations thatI've had with interesting people.
And so my objective in this podcastis to try to understand the ag economy
(01:54):
more, but let people sort of into theseconversations on a regular basis with
people that I think are interesting.
How did I do?
I think that's great.
You have sold me, I'm going to hitsubscribe on this podcast so that once a
month I'll get to hear this vision thatyou're pitching, which is interesting
conversations that you are going to have.
(02:15):
Yes.
In an effort to understand the ag economy.
Exactly.
So that's the idea, right?
Uh, maybe we should tease a littlebit for the people listening at
home, they want to envision thisconversation they're hearing.
What celebrity have people told youyou look like, so that way they can
think about when they're hearingyour voice, they're picturing.
Yep.
So, when I go to the doctor, for somereason everyone at the doctor's office
(02:36):
tells me I look like Lorenzo Lamas.
But probably a classicvintage Lorenzo Lamas.
Yeah.
So I don't think he's fantasticlooking in his sixties, I will say.
But I, I'm assuming they're picturingmore like sort of early nineties, Lorenzo.
And Todd, how about you?
So I got this one just really recently.
We have somebody who was doing somework at our house and he said to my
(02:56):
wife, has anybody told your husband?
He looks like, so he washedging a little bit.
Didn't wanna say it to me.
Uh, comedian Tom Seguro.
Segura.
I think it's because I'mbald and have a beard.
Okay.
Uh, and we're roughly about the same age.
And I'll take it.
Yeah.
So I think it's hair related 'cause Imean most of the com there, Lorenzo Lamas
comments he was clearly hair related.
Also dark, long, dark hair.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So people were picturing two ageconomists played by Tom Seguro
(03:21):
and a younger Lorenzo Llamas.
All right.
we are joined today by Matt Erickson.
Hey everyone.
Uh,
esteemed Alum AEs.
Yeah.
Purdue alum.
Matt holds two degrees
Two degrees.
from our department.
Yeah.
so Matt, let's start by tellingus who you are, what you do.
Yep.
And then, then we'll dig in from there.
Yeah.
So thank you guys both for having me on.
looking forward to thisconversation, the dialogue.
(03:42):
Matt Erickson, uh, ag Economic andPolicy Advisor for Farm Credit Services
of America, Frontier Farm Credit andAg Country Farm, Credit Services.
And I've been at the role, alittle over four years now.
And basically what I do in a nutshellis provide economic and policy,
analysis and tie it back to, uh,overall producer impact and what that
(04:02):
actually means for the associations.
So, what celebrity do youget told you look like
Oh man.
I feel like as an Indiana, uh,farm kid that played basketball
in high school, I've got a, Igotta point back to Larry Bird.
Oh, I'll take it.
I'll take it.
Yeah.
I mean, number 33, Celtics,Sycamores, Guy can shoot man.
Foul.
Very foul language you usually use.
(04:23):
This is perfect.
Well, I mean, you know, hedrops 30 and I drop three.
There we go.
So, I, look at, the, the role of,of basketball in the state and one,
a huge basketball guy right heregrew up watching Michael Jordan and,
Scottie Pippen and the the Bulls.
You know, Jordan was my guy.
Um, but then, when I was a veryyoung kid, um, it was Bird.
Yeah.
Um, and so, you know, it can't beeighties and nineties basketball.
(04:46):
And again, I don't wanna be that oldguy that says that, but here we are.
So we are talking to the LarryBird of farm policy today.
I love that.
I, that's perfect.
All right.
So the, one of the reasons we wanted tohave you in to have a conversation is that
you, before working for Farm Credit, uh,and all the various farm credits, you were
on the, the Senate Agriculture Committee.
So tell us what your role was there.
(05:06):
What was your job title or.
Yeah, I was Chief economist, uh, for, forthe US Senate Committee on Agriculture,
Nutrition, and Forestry from 2015 to 2021.
Um, my boss was Chairman PatRoberts, former senator from Kansas.
And, when he took the gavel,um, that's when I started on the
committee, served there for six years.
That role really dealt with the budgetand economic analysis of the committee.
(05:30):
Basically you kind of put your, yourthumbprint on, uh, different areas
where the chairman's priorities are.
So, you know, a lot of times you thinkabout the economist's role, you think
of Title one as well as crop insurance.
And it really depends on what thechairman wants the Chief Economist to do.
And so my role really was dealingwith nutrition and all the
other titles of the Farm Bill.
(05:50):
So, and I can't remember the thetitles here, but so you have the
chair, which is from the majority
That's right.
party right?
Yep.
And then there will be the,what do they call the...
ranking member?
The ranking member who is the senioror lead person from the minority party.
Yep.
And did the minority party alsohave an economics group, or
was that just from the chair?
(06:11):
Yeah.
Generally speaking, both, uh, the, thechairman and the ranking member usually
have economists that are on staff.
And you know, the reason being is becauseone policy is policy and you get into
those debates, but oftentimes you wannafind the impact of those policies.
And so that's where the intersectionof economics and policy come into play.
Um, you know, again, I referto the easy one, right?
(06:31):
Of things like ARC andPLC and crop insurance.
Often times, there's a policypoint there that does some of those
different types of policy provisions.
If we wanna make changes or not, thosethings get negotiated through policy,
but also, two, the economist's job isalso to help negotiate, but also to,
to provide some evidence there of whatthose policy changes actually mean.
(06:52):
So what is the specific roleof the Senate Ag Committee?
Yeah, so that's a great question.
So,
Great question.
the, the role of the Senate AgCommittee is when you think about
committees up on the hill, there'spolicies, there's programs, there's
legislation that's currently inthe jurisdiction of the committee.
So for the Senate Ag Committee,which is different from the House Ag
(07:12):
Committee jurisdiction, and we can getinto that here a little bit more, uh,
but on the Senate ag side, you've gotthings like the Farm Bill, which is
part of the committee's jurisdiction.
But what separates the house fromthe Senate, uh, in terms of the Ag
Committee structure is on the SenateAg Committee there's jurisdiction
of child nutrition programs.
And so there's a little more on theplate on the Senate side than there is
(07:33):
on the House because there's probablymore committees, over on the House side.
But again, there's some nuances there.
Um, that basically where jurisdictionis kind of put in place between
the House and the Senate.
Gotcha.
So those, like the Farm bill,that's, that's, that's you guys?
Yep.
That's the jurisdiction, both theHouse and the Senate Ag committee.
I see.
Yep.
So you have to recommendthis is what we're gonna do
and then negotiate for that.
(07:54):
Yeah.
So if we, if we walk through the, theprocess of putting a bill together, you
know what, what generally happens is.
When you go back to, to farm, bills havepassed and what we did in the '18 Farm
Bill is, you've got the, the House thatdoes their work, the House Ag committee
that does their work on a farm bill.
The Senate does their work on a farm bill.
And then what you do during that processis one, you start off the process by
(08:16):
getting constituencies on the record.
So, you know, folks like Farm Bureau,Corn Grower Soybean Association, uh,
the Livestock Group, so on and so forth.
And you want to get priorities of,you know, those constituencies, but
also those priorities of membersthat also serve on the committee.
And so you, you put all those things onthe, on the record, and then what you do
is you come out with the chairman's mark.
(08:38):
And so that chairman'smark, you debate that.
Um, in committee.
Once you pass it out of outa committee, then eventually
it goes to the Senate floor.
Same type of process, a littlebit of procedural differences with
regard to rules and everything.
We won't get into that.
But kind of same structurethere on the House side.
Once it gets down to, let's talk theSenate floor, 'cause that's what I'm
most familiar with, it gets down tothe Senate floor, it gets debated.
(09:00):
And then once it eventually passes, thenit waits for conference committee, if
there's separate issues from the House.
And, and the conference committeeis the House and Senate.
That's right.
Both of the same jurisdiction.
Yep.
Coming together and say, the Housedid this, the Senate did this,
here's where there's overlap.
Yep.
Here's where we would need tofigure out the disconnected.
So the whole role of conference committeeis basically to work out and negotiate
(09:22):
the differences between the Housepassed bill and the Senate passed bill.
Oh, okay.
Okay, so let me, letme make a distinction.
Yeah.
Because you guys are both morefamiliar with policy than me.
There's a bill gonna be proposed bya legislator that's they're really,
I don't know, they hate coffee cupsversus this is like, this is something
that has to be brought forward, thisis part of what we as society have
(09:43):
deemed really, really important.
Like the farm bill.
Yep.
And so now you have not only agroup of legislators that are
responsible to bring this forward.
Yeah.
Is that, does that make sense?
Yeah, I mean it can, so from aprocedural standpoint, there one,
when you're putting together a farmbill in each of the, the chambers.
So on the Senate side, what we didwas, we would talk to, to actually
every member on the Republican side.
(10:04):
'Cause that's the, theside I worked, worked for.
And basically I wanted to getthe priorities of our, of our
caucus, of the Republican party.
And it, it ranges from a lot,whatever the state constituency of
the Senator that he has to serve.
For instance, if you're a Senatorfrom Florida, you may have different
priorities than that of, let'ssay my senator from from Kansas.
(10:25):
Got it.
You know, obviously there'smore citrus grown in Florida.
There's more beef productionproteins, more row crops in Kansas.
And, and more people.
And more people.
Right?
And so there could be a broader
Yeah.
set of,
okay.
So what you do is you, you work withmembers, you know, during your process,
before you get it to committee.
And you do that, and then what you do isyou come up with basically a chairman's
(10:46):
mark, um, that, you know, you, youcan put in front of the committee.
Then that gets debated within committee.
And then also too, there could be a,an amendment process down on the, the
Senate floor when it gets debated.
Um, and there's a whole nother,you know, procedure there.
But yeah, once it gets fully out of theSenate, usually, generally speaking,
we can get to some procedure here,um, with today's current events.
But generally speaking of FarmBill, it's required on the
(11:09):
Senate side to get 60 votes.
And so, if you do that then itwould go to a conference and
conference it with the House.
Then part of that is once those getnegotiated, uh, both bills get negotiated
out and it gets out of conference.
Then it goes to both chambers again.
On the Senate side,you've gotta get 60 votes.
On the house side, you'vegotta get 218 votes.
(11:29):
And then once those two, um, pass, thenit goes to the President for signature.
So as a faculty member,we also have committees.
Yeah.
And I serve on committees.
Right, like the graduate admissionscommittee or the awards committee.
Yeah.
Right.
Every committee I'vebeen on here at this job.
And my previous faculty jobs.
It's a mix of, some people love tobe on that committee and it's their
(11:52):
passion to be on that committee.
Yeah.
And they care about it.
And then some people, it's like, well,you've gotta be on some committees
we're gonna put you on committees.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
And then you have a couple peoplewho are sort of adversarial to
the committee and they're like, Idon't want to be on any committees.
Yeah.
Is it the same in theSenate, do you think?
Where there's like, do youthink that there are people
Wait because potentially everybodyhas to be on a committee?
Well, I don't know if you have to be.
(12:13):
Do you have to be?
Well, there's, there's a processin terms of committee priority
that each member gets to select,and that's up to the caucus.
The majority leader has alot of influence in that.
Interesting.
Um, with, with that selection process.
Well, and they are sort of, thestudent council presidents sit in the
front row of class kind of people.
Yeah.
That go to Senate.
Right.
So they're like, they're probablyall itching to be on every committee
(12:33):
and they're probably on theirPTO at home and all the, like,
they're just committee people.
Well, I'm just thinking about
Right.
Like this is a non-random draw of people.
Fetterman, like he,
Senator Fetterman.
Yeah, from Pennsylvania.
So he, he strikes me as like, do youthink he wants to be on committees?
Oh.
He's,
Yeah.
So, so each, each, each member will serveon a committee and or multiple committees.
(12:54):
Okay.
Um, and so,
But he, he strikes me as a dudethat's like, oh, I'm coaching
this softball team no matter what.
I'll be here even after my kid leave.
He seemed like a committee guy, butnot a committee guy and like a suit
and tie but there's committee people.
Yeah.
Okay.
He seemed like a committee person.
Okay.
Even if he doesn't look like the, likeI, I think everybody is on a committee.
Uh, 'cause they want to be,
I'm picturing someone who wears the samethings that he wears and in my case, those
(13:17):
are normally adversarial to committees.
Yes.
Unless you're at a like neighborhood,planning out the what the softball
league, who gets what field with
No, I agree.
And then the dudes that look likeFetterman are like causing an
issue and calling out procedure.
Okay.
Alright.
I'm just saying thinkabout all of the committee.
There's a lot of committees.
Yeah, I'm on board.
What I'm just wondering is, are theresome people that are like, yeah, I'm
(13:38):
on the Senate Ag Committee and likethat's not the one I care about.
I care about being on thisother committee that I'm on.
So you're also liketrying to convince 'em?
Or is it all to just like, 'cause
Well, and I, I think it's putit into perspective of what
the priority is for the member.
And so if you think about it a lotof members that I I served, on the
committee with, on the Republican side.
'Cause yeah, my boss was the chairman.
But also two I also needed tobrief and update other Republican
(14:01):
members that were on the committee.
And so when you think about some of thosemembers, you know, I think it really comes
down to which state each member is in.
So for instance, you know, a lot of thefolks that worked for the Republican
side when I was up on the hill.
Um, a lot of row crop focus.
Um, a lot of traditional ag focus,a lot of it was serving the, the
(14:22):
producers that were in their state.
You look at a lot of members maybe onthe other side of the aisle, um, where
their specific priority is nutrition.
And so that's why this, thispartnership between the, the rural
and urban partnership here is reallyimportant for it to stick together
Well, and, and you, and you talk aboutbriefing the other committee members,
but you also are interacting with notjust the committee member themselves,
(14:45):
but potentially their staff, right?
That's right.
'Cause they also will have people thatwork for them that help manage their
portfolio of interests and experiencesor, or, uh, obligations, right?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
So you look at a chairman of acommittee, chairman have committee
staff, like I was on, you know, yourfocus up there is to do ag policy.
Um, or policy again, that'sin your jurisdiction.
(15:06):
So, you know, we tried to do nutritionreauthorization, however that got held up.
But then you look at, let's say the '18farm bill process, for us the, the whole
focus and why you're up on a committeeis to do specific, specific policy.
Um, you're supposed to bethe experts within the field,
with, within agriculture.
But then also too, like each member thatwe worked with had their own personal
(15:28):
office, and so they had a specific, youknow, maybe one or two, like LA's or an
uh, or excuse me, legislative assistant.
There we go.
There we go.
There we go.
Using my DC acronyms.
No, no.
I like it.
That's it.
This is the kind of inside baseball
It is.
Yeah, we're right here.
Well, you know,
LA's
some, some LA's, legislative assistants,they may have, let's say a legislative
correspondent that may be a littlebit junior, but works on ag issues.
(15:49):
And they would represent thatmember that's, that's on the
committee or let's say, justrepresent the member in totality.
Um, so, you know, working with them,understanding their priorities.
A lot of our job too on the committeeis to, to work directly with those, with
those legislative assistants or, you know,whoever it is in the, the personal office.
Yeah.
Okay.
How many people is the staff of the SenateAg Committee versus how many people are on
(16:12):
the private staff of the committee member?
It depends on, so staff makeup is reallydependent upon the numbers that, that
are made up of, of, of the Senate.
So for instance, if you have,let's say, a 50 50 Senate.
Staff on the Senate side, isit, it would be cut in half.
So it's proportionally divided,uh, between the seats that are
(16:33):
made up of the hundred senators.
So when we had the majority with ChairmanRoberts, we had a slight majority, um, you
know, I think we were like 53 to to 47.
I could be wrong on that, but it'ssomewhere in that nature during the, the
'18 farm bill process, but we had, wehad more staff than the, our counterparts
on the, the ranking member side.
So again, uh, the House works a little bitdifferently, uh, but on the Senate side
(16:56):
it's, it's really divided proportionally.
Well, and then I was gonna aska similar question, which is, so
you're an economist working for them.
But what are some of the otherpeople that work for the committee?
There's, I know thatthere's attorneys for sure.
Yeah.
What, what are like, whatare those other roles?
Yeah, so generally speaking on committees,one, you have a staff director, uh,
that manages the staff on the committee.
If you look at a staff director's job isone, it's to, to manage the committee.
(17:19):
It's also to find votes, in termsof any key piece of legislation,
uh, that, that we had to deal with.
You also have counsel, uh, multiplecounsel that are on the committee.
So you think of their jobs a lotis, I mean, like any lawyer, they
give legal advice, but they alsodo the drafting of, of titles.
Sure.
They write the language.
They also work with what we call SenateLedge Council, um, which is not part
(17:42):
of the committee, but I kind of viewedthem as consultants of the committee.
And they also work with other committeemembers if they have legislation to draft.
They also, like if you're in thepersonal office and you want an
amendment to be, um, a part of anypart of the legislation, Senate
Ledge Council would help draft that.
So you've got a legal staff.
And then also you have policy staff.
So those would be folks like your, uh,professional staff, senior professional
(18:05):
staff that really have a portfolioof policies that are in place.
So you may have someone that works on, youknow, commodities, crop insurance, dairy,
that works specifically on those issues.
So like another person may workon trade, food aid, all, all
sorts of those policy issues.
And then one that may work on nutritionbecause nutrition's just so massive.
Sure.
When you think of that legislation.
(18:26):
So then you've got myrole as chief economist.
I help with the, the policy analysis,the economic analysis for the committee.
A lot of my time is alsospent on the budget side.
Uh, when you think about a policy change,there could be a cost or a savings to it.
And so when you think about workingwith the Congressional Budget Office,
a lot of times you're a liaison.
There we're not only a liaison ofthem doing the analysis, but also
(18:49):
too, you have to do your own analysisfor the committee because CBO can
get backed up, um, with their work.
Um, then you've got a press staffand, and that kind of makes up the,
So if you guys were all together,about how many people in the room?
I'm kind of curious.
Oh, I would say we hadprobably close to 20 staff.
Okay.
Um, yeah, when you think about, you know,some of our legislative correspondence and
(19:10):
legislative assistance and, all the legalstaff and, and that's separate than, you
know, the, the chairman's personal office?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
How many people in like a personal office?
Well, it depends onseniority a lot of times.
Um, but there's, there'squite a few people.
The role of what Chairman Roberts, he wasa senior member from Kansas and, pretty,
high up in seniority on the Senate side.
(19:32):
You know, he would have multiple staffworking on different issues, whether
it be healthcare, armed services.
Sure.
Um, some of those other issues.
Kind of a differentiator here iswhen you look at the chairman's
staff, his personal office staff,he did have an ag legislative
assistant that dealt with ag issues.
And what was so nice about it isthere's always that relationship
between the committee or thechairman's committee staff with the
(19:53):
chairman's personal office staff.
And a lot of times the, the competitiveadvantage for us was, we had a really
good ag LA, uh, or legislative assistant.
Where his job was basically to bea part of the committee staff and
help with policy, but also connectus with constituents from Kansas.
Sure.
Okay.
Cool.
And so that was a huge benefitfor committee staff to have.
(20:14):
Well, I was gonna say the other thingis having friends that have worked in
similar roles for senators, there's oftenlike a home office as well, so they'll
have a presence in their home state thatthey don't really come to DC too much.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
And the DC people don't goout to that state too much.
In fact, a friend of mine took a jobworking for a committee that was chaired
by, uh, uh, I can't remember where theguy was from, but he was like, oh, now
(20:36):
you can finally go to some football games.
Like, uh, like, like at Ole Missor LSU or whatever it was, right.
In the chairman's personal office.
He had his own chief of staff.
Um,
Okay.
His own legislative director.
Um, and so a lot of times you wouldhave to, you work hand in hand.
Right?
And so, you know, making sure thatthe committee staff is aligned with
personal office staff, you know, there'scommunication's always key everywhere.
(20:59):
Even in the private sector where I workat now, um, there it's no different.
Mm-hmm.
Well, the other thing that, so I startedmy career in DC I have a lot of friends
that worked in various roles in DC.
The other thing that kind of alwaysI think is sort of misunderstood
about DC in general is thesepeople are also elected, right?
So they are always running for elections.
Right.
But that's often handledby a separate group, right?
(21:21):
Yeah.
They're sort of electoral part of it.
They're running campaigns, um,
Big election.
Yeah.
And, and, and surprisingly, itseems like most people either spend
their career sort of on the hill.
As a wonk of various types and floatingaround, you know, maybe you'll work for
a member and then you'll go work for acommittee and you'll be, you know, an LC
to work your way up to LA or whatever.
(21:42):
But those people rarely everwork on the electoral side or
the election campaign side.
Yeah.
That's like a different animal.
And like when I'd go to a barin DC there'd be like, oh,
this is like the Wonk Hill bar.
And then be like, oh, thisis like the campaign bar.
Yeah.
And it was like people weresort of divided by those camps
more than political ideology.
Right.
So like you'd have like Democrats andRepublicans that both work on campaigns.
(22:06):
Yeah.
They would commiserate a bunch.
Yeah.
But then if like somebody fromtheir own party was like a hill
staffer came in, they'd be like,we're not talking to that guy.
That dude's a nerd.
Yeah.
Or whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway, I, I, that, that always sort offascinates me, these two different worlds.
So, we work a lot with students obviously.
Yeah.
Uh, and I get bright students all thetime come to me and say like, I'm getting
a degree in Ag Econ, but I wanna go tolaw school 'cause I wanna work in policy.
(22:28):
Yeah.
And you've worked in policy, butyou never went to law school.
So tell us a little bit about sortof what you did before the Senator.
How?
The path to getting that job.
Like what sort of things you did or
Yeah.
Or skills you picked up.
In specifics of like, how didyou become aware that there was a
position that you were interested in?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
How'd you even know that this job existed?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So, you know, I would, I wouldtell you my career um, it's,
(22:50):
it's a unique one in of itself.
And, you know, one,
Oh, yeah.
So did the, did the application.
All of a sudden I was mowingthe yard at the, the farm up
in Brookston and got a call.
Long story short, got the internshipbetween my, um, actually I deferred
the beginning of my sophomore year.
Um, really?
'Cause I was out in DC during that time.
(23:10):
So remember back, let's see, Iwas with the National Economic
Council with my first internship.
So that was during, Hurricane Katrina.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
During those times, that was when,Chief Justice John Roberts was going
through his, confirmation process.
I would tell any student, if youwant to go look at how to testify
in front of Congress, it's him.
(23:30):
Because it was just phenomenalon, how he testified in his
communication skills there.
So after that internship, worked directlyon issues relating to Hurricane Katrina,
Port of New Orleans issues with productgoing to and from, on or for agriculture.
Then decided, the, the best advice I gotwas if you're interested doing a White
House policy internship, if you wantto get in the, the nuts and bolts of
(23:53):
policy, you need to go up to the Hill.
And so, my next step was I did aninternship for, Senator Dick Lugar.
Oh, yeah.
Uh, here from, from Indiana.
Did that for a summer.
And I would tell any student that ifyou really wanna work into policy,
go do an internship on the Hill.
Because you're gonna do everyjob from answering mail.
You're gonna do committee work.
If you do work for a senatorthat is in charge of a committee.
(24:15):
Lead tours.
Yeah, lead tours.
Um, and the, the thing is,if you don't like constituent
work, then policy's not for you.
Because the whole basis of policy andwhere policy needs to be driven is the
grassroots and it's from the constituent.
No ifs, ands, or buts.
So I enjoyed it.
I was kind of one of those policywonks and nerds that really liked it.
I'm assuming, uh, Senator Lugerhad postings for interns and
(24:39):
you applied to one of those.
Yeah.
You knew you knew to go lookand you applied to one of those.
Yeah.
Generally speaking, every member,um, you know, on their website will
have internships and applicationsand more information there.
So.
Sweet.
Yep.
it's pretty easy to get to for, I wouldsay for the large majority of members
because they want those constituentsto, to come and, and work or college
(25:00):
students to work during the summer.
And I assume they have sort of goals andthe kind of person they would want, right?
So like,
Oh, sure.
Like Lugar probably enjoyed that youwere a kid that went to an Indiana
public school and from Indiana andworked on a, grew up on a farm and like
Yeah.
You kind of fit that sortof role of his constituency.
Right?
Yeah.
And another piece of advice Igive to students is, a lot of
(25:21):
times these internships requireletters of recommendation.
And, you know, I, my advice wouldbe don't go to the glitz and glam of
someone that may have name recognitionbut doesn't know you as a person.
When I did the White House internshipand when I got selected, basically I had
really good, I had really good people.
They were in pretty good positions,but they also knew me as a person.
(25:46):
Yeah.
Um, I'll be really clear in terms ofwho my letters of recommendation were.
Dr. Dooley was my advisorfirst semester here at Purdue.
He was one letter of recommendation I got.
My minister back up in Brookston.
He's now retired, but one of my mentors.
He gave a really good letter ofrecommendation and then also my state
rep, who was Don Lehe at the time,which family friends, and me and his son
(26:08):
went to, went to high school together.
So,
Oh, nice.
So those people knew me as a person andgave good letters or recommendations.
So I would say like it's, you know,decide whatever you wanna do, but
really go after people that know you.
Yeah.
Um, okay, so you were a studenthere, did some internships.
Yep.
Then you finished that degree.
Uh, and then you stayed on fora master's degree, correct?
(26:31):
Well, there's a, there's a little,
or did you have a gap there?
There's a little gap.
Okay.
So, I did apply between my bachelor'sand master's and I got accepted,
um, you know, going from Purdue toPurdue, um, and Ag econ to Ag econ.
So then I had the opportunity tostay on as a political, at USDA
for president George W. Bush.
So I worked at USDA, um, during thattime, and then decided to come back
(26:53):
to Purdue and, um, get my masters.
So there was a little brief stint wherethe Potomac Fever wore off, but went back.
Played enough kickball.
Played enough kickball.
What was the po, what's a political.
Yeah, so a political appointee.
You work for the president.
Okay.
Um, and so each agency has political staffthat work on behalf of the president.
(27:13):
Yeah.
So there's careers.
And there's political.
So like I had a career positionwhen I worked for the USDA, which
meant my job was irrespective ofthe party, that's the executive.
Okay.
Right.
I had sort of just regular tasks.
I had to do reports and things.
Right.
Uh, but it, it was not directlytied to the initiatives of
that, of that executive.
So, but then what did you do in that role?
(27:34):
What's the political do?
Yeah, so when I was there, I workedfor Rural Development during the
time and really focused on the energytitle in the the 2008 farm bill.
So hard to believe that we're in 2025and I'm talking about the 2008 Farm bill.
But so really like still thoughanalysis, like economic analysis
related to energy in rural spaces.
Yeah.
(27:54):
Well it wasn't necessarilyeconomic analysis for that job.
It was more of meeting with,you know, industry in terms of,
Okay.
Now remember the, the '08 farm bill,so when I was at USDA, I was an
intern during '08.. Um, and I've gottaget my, my timeline here straight.
But then, you know, after I was anintern and well, and then graduated
Purdue, then I worked as a political.
(28:14):
So did that for, for a little bit.
And so remember back in the '08 Farm Bill,that was during the whole ethanol boom.
Yeah.
You know, ethanol was the, the, thething, you know, infrastructure,
energy programs, um, all those things.
And, and Title IX, uh, energywas a really, really big, uh,
topic at USDA during that time.
So then you finished at Purdue for asecond time with your master's degree?
(28:36):
Yeah.
And then you went to work for?
Uh, then I went out to DC again.
I worked for AmericanFarm Bureau Federation.
Okay.
So you
As an economist.
So you worked for the keeping track here.
In your past, you've done sortof White House on the Hill.
Yep.
And then now at this stage.
You are working for a, uh,producer organization that does
(28:58):
sort of communicates membershipobjectives to policy makers, right?
That's right.
And so American Farm Bureau's the largestnational farm organization in the country.
But I would put a plug here during mymaster's 'cause I, I wanna say this
'cause I spent two years of my life.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah no, no.
It's writing a thesis, but.
So my, my major professor andmentor was former late Wally Tyner.
(29:19):
Yeah.
Oh, interesting.
And so really learned a ton from him.
Um, corn cobs were my life fortwo years, so I analyzed corn
cobs for biofuel production.
Uh, the Indiana Corn MarketingCouncil, uh, funded the study.
Um, so did that and um, really gotsome good exposure as it relates
to doing extension work, becausewho wants to read 120 page thesis?
Well, and
(29:40):
Not really.
No one.
And Wally is a perfect fit interms of he studied energy.
Yeah.
It's relationship to agriculture.
Huge.
And did really goodscientific research, right.
He was a fellow of our association andstuff, but also communicated out a lot to
policymakers and groups like Farm BureauI'm sure would, you know, call Wally
if they had a question about something.
Well, and you know, you look at what he,he wanted me to do and you know, basically
(30:03):
it was, yeah, you've gotta do the thesisin order to graduate, but you're not gonna
leave here unless you do an extensionpublication because your constituent
here at Purdue and ag econ is part of theland grant mission is the Indiana farmer.
And that was really obviouslygrowing up on a fifth generation
farm just 30 minutes north here.
And then, growing up as a kid, youknow, around these, these halls in,
in ag econ, so my Uncle Steve taughthere back in the day in finance.
(30:27):
But it was always instilledthat what you're producing here.
Yeah, you're getting a graduatedegree, but you're also doing
something that's beneficial for, forfarmers in the research that you do.
So you know that mentorshipand that ability to basically
say your role as an economist.
Yeah.
I mean, you can put up the alphas, thebetas, and whatever regression equation
you want, but if you can't distill it downto what, how the, or what this means for
(30:49):
the producer, you're not doing your job.
Perfect.
Oh man, we're in,
I know.
We're in a great spot.
I know, because, okay, so nowroll right into, what did you
do for American Farm Bureau?
Yeah, so with, with AFBF, again,American Farm Bureau Federation, I was an
economist, uh, there from 2010 to 2015,and a lot of my job during that time
was working on domestic policy issues.
(31:11):
So that was the time whenwe had the 2014 Farm bill.
We all probably remember directpayments during that time.
Um, so the '14 farm billeliminated direct payments.
Then, you know, things like ARCand PLC were put into to its place.
That was the major policy changefrom, for the '14 farm bill.
So worked at AFBF during the '14 farmbill process, uh, then ended my, um,
(31:34):
time there in 2015 to go up to the hill.
Uh, if you think about the membershipof the American Farm Bureau Federation,
it's not the farmers themselves, it's the50 State Farm Bureaus and Puerto Rico.
And so I think that's important there,where the membership at AFBF or at
Farm Bureau starts at the grassroots.
And so it starts at, when we think aboutthe policy process there for Farm Bureau,
(31:56):
it really starts at the county base level.
And so farmers, you know, gothrough a, a policy process there.
They dictate policy at the county level.
If it gets passed there, thenit goes up to the state level.
Then at the state level, if itpasses, it goes up to the AFBF level.
And then, you know, a, a delegatesession votes on whether or not
that policy passes for the, the AFBF
So, so you breeze through quickly.
(32:18):
Going to work on the hill whenyou became the chief economist?
Yeah.
Do you interview, who do youinterview with for a job like that?
Is it with literally the, the, thechair or is it the other staff members?
How, how are you picked?
Yeah, so it really took me by surprise.
It was, well, obviously year five when Iwas at American Farm Bureau and, you know,
everything's about networking and who youwork with and, and things of that nature.
(32:40):
And I worked closely with Kansas FarmBureau at the time and they said,
Hey, you know, your name came up andwe think you'd be a good fit for the
chairman's position for Chief Economist.
What do you think?
And obviously my hands weresweaty and all that and whatever.
I was like, yeah, I think I would loveto do this position because what farm
kid doesn't want to work directly fora chairman that supports traditional
(33:01):
agriculture, that supports, bipartisanshipand you're doing a farm bill.
Um, and so during that process,you do have an interview
directly with the chairman.
Um, it was very, known to me thatI was from Indiana and Purdue.
We talked Drew Brees forlike 30 minutes during the
Oh yeah, of course.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and then the bowl game, back inthe day, I think it was the Alamo
(33:22):
Bowl, that Purdue played K State,'cause he's a, he's a K Stater.
So a lot of times, basically it wasabout 45 minutes of the chairman and
I I talking about Purdue, uh, thisquarterback named Drew Brees and then
his time with the Alamo Bowl when hewent between Kansas State and Purdue.
And then at the very end itwas, do you want the job?
Nice.
Wow.
and, and he knows that because ofthe work that you have done and the
(33:45):
recommendation of people who haveworked with you that Matt's our guy?
Yeah.
You know, when you look at the whole kindof, and we call it the Roberts family.
Chairman Roberts is very good with people.
you work with the committee folksthat I worked with, but also
remember, before this committee thatI served on, Chairman Roberts also,
was chair of another committee.
So we call that the first Roberts team.
(34:07):
All of us, considerourselves the Roberts family.
So if you go out to DC there's a big,base that's out there, and so that those
relationships, I mean, it's like familybecause, again, you go through the policy
trenches, you go through the debates, thenegotiations, and you just have lasting
friendships that come out of those.
So again, one of the premises we talkedabout a little bit before, I don't know
if we mentioned it on the mics hereyet, but I think people don't really
(34:30):
understand what it is to like make policy.
Yeah.
So tell us like what is a typicalday for the chief economist
of the Senate Ag Committee?
Like what do you do with your time?
What are your activities?
Do you wanna talk non covid or covid?
Oh, let's do, let's donon, let's do non covid.
Yeah.
And we'll just assume the covidpart was depressing and more
(34:50):
isolated version of the real,
So a lot of my job, you know, as, aschief Economist was, you know, one, I
would get into the office pretty earlyaround probably 6 30, 7 o'clock in the
morning, and the first thing I wouldprobably do for, for the hour is to read.
Things like the Wall StreetJournal, the Ag press, Agri Pulse
those type of news publications.
(35:11):
I want to know what's going on withregard to, what's being said out there.
You know, maybe there's some issues thatwe are, we're not directly work working
on, but I want to know what the issuesare with o the overall U.S. economy.
And the ag economy because again, theway that we have this structured is, you
know what I want to hear from the bootson the ground and what farmers are are
dealing with out in the countryside.
But you think about the time during that,that '15 to 2021, time period where I was
(35:34):
on the Senate and we were trending towardsa post boom cycle in the ag economy.
Yeah, sure.
It was like the post 2012 drought.
We had the 2014 farm billand then all of a sudden, net
farm income really struggled.
Uh, during those periodsleading up to the '18 farm bill.
a lot of times there it was dealingwith, lower commodity prices.
It was dealing with, sticky inputs.
when we go through these boombust cycles, you know, generally
(35:56):
speaking prices, commodity pricesare more volatile than inputs.
So dealing with that.
and then, you get into the daythere and then you're just booked
with meetings after meetings.
And, especially during a Farm Billprocess, you literally wanna go to
every member that you can on your sideof the aisle and really understand
what those member priorities are.
And are you doing that, like you'regoing to them or they're coming
(36:19):
to the, the committee offices or
? Well, basically wherever, conference rooms are open.
Okay.
Office space is limited.
and so if, you know, they wanted tomeet, in the, not the committee room,
but we would have committee meetingspace if we wanted to meet there.
Great.
Whatever.
A lot of conversations tooare over coffee, over lunches,
um, things of that nature.
Just whenever peoplehave have available time.
(36:41):
Have you, have you been tothe senate ag committee?
No.
Oh, they have like a really nice space.
They have this big, beautiful table.
It, it's a really nice space.
Oh, I love to see it.
And you know,
And you see, like, you see, it lookslike you would see, like, I imagine
your job is not like it is on themovies and TV shows, except that
it does sort of look like that.
They'll be like cool old oil paintingsand like big giant tall windows.
It's, it looks like abe cool place to work.
(37:03):
Yeah.
I mean, to say that my jobwas like the West Wing.
Yeah.
Probably far from it.
Um,
but it looked like theset of the West Wing.
Exactly right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and you know, kind of the musicin the background, everything and,
And, and the people, the asattractive as the, as the actors were.
Of course, of course.
Yeah.
But, a lot of my job as well was thinkabout what the chairman's priorities
(37:23):
were and we would host, and we werein charge of the committee room, and
if you look at the committee room,it's a lot different than other
committees in their committee space.
The Senate Ag Committee room, youthink about it like a farm table,
like a very long farm table.
Um, it's not the, the traditionaldais of, you know, tr the traditional
Senate ag hearing rooms, but it'sliterally like a farm table where
(37:43):
if you have a hearing, you're doinglegislation, members are looking straight
across the table from one another.
So you don't have that U shape likeyou do for other committee rooms.
Why I say that is because a lot of myjob too was hosting outside groups and
the chairman was very clear with uswith his goals of one, we don't turn
down meetings, we hear from everyone.
(38:04):
Okay.
Um, and the other thing two, is if it'sfor, if it's a farm group, whoever it is.
We wanna host in the committee space.
We want to have it open, accessible toconstituencies for the, the taxpayer.
Um, we work for them.
They don't work for us.
And so that was very clear thatagain, we were there to serve, um,
agriculture in our, our positionsthat we were lucky to have.
(38:27):
So
You're collecting as much information
Oh yeah.
From these key people as you possiblycan, and then you're trying to distill
that into something that will become
Into an actual item.
Got it.
Yep.
So if everybody's saying like, I'mreally worried about the cost of
fertilizer in the next five years, thenyou say, well, we should make sure that
(38:50):
there's something in the legislation.
We gotta at least know howit affects fertilizer prices.
If we're not gonna do somethingdirectly to, or something like that.
Is that?
Yeah, something similar.
I mean, there's a lot of groups where, youknow, it's kind of information collecting.
When you get into things like closerto a farm bill timeframe, then you'll
have more probably formal meetings ofhere's group X's policy priorities.
(39:11):
And then they'll bring in members of thatmembership or whatever to explain their
thinking, their, their, their logic.
But then also too, it's an opportunityfor us to give an update with the
overall process and be transparentwith the committee's activity.
So, so you're in a series of thesekind of back to back meetings, what?
Half an hour, hour, 15 minutes, somethingand a range of regular every job meetings.
(39:32):
Right.
And you do that through like,till their early evening time till
it's time to go in for dinner.
Kind of?
Yeah.
When it could, when it getsclose to a farm bill, it's,
it's always you're nonstop.
Um, and again, because the farm bill'sjust so massive when you think about
ag and, and nutrition legislation.
You get all these different groupswith all their policy priorities.
But then also too, and I haven'tmentioned this, but a lot of our time
(39:55):
too is keeping good relations withour counterparts on the Senate Dems.
Um, especially with rankingmember Stabenow's staff.
And so we had a greatworking relationship.
The Ag Committee has alwaysbeen known for bipartisan work.
Bipartisan ship's not easy, and I thinkwe're seeing that in today's world.
Yeah.
Um, and I hope we get back to it.
I was always taught here, you know,in my upbringing and policy is if you
(40:17):
go into a negotiating room, you'retalking back and forth, there's
conversations that are heated.
People are passionate about policy.
But once you leave that negotiating room,remember people are people and you know,
asking them, Hey, let's go have a beer.
You know, I wanna knowmore about your family.
And so having those conversations.
And again, a lot of myfriends were on ranking member
Stabenow's team at the time.
I hope we get back to those bipartisanshiproots that, that we've been accustomed to.
(40:42):
Long story short here guys, is when wethink about the work of the committee
and you work for farmers and ranchersand what they need is they need that
predictability and they need thatcertainty to get a farm bill done.
And so that was our task and we,we were able to get the job done.
So you mentioned there'salso in the House.
Yeah.
There's the same committee.
Are you friends with them?
Do you talk to them?
(41:02):
Is there kind of like regular check-ins?
You see 'em out, uh, and andyou guys kind of talk shop?
Or is it kind of likethey're doing their thing?
We're doing our thing?
Yeah, you always wanna keep inclose contact with your peers.
On the house side, however you doacknowledge that they go through their
own process with regard to going tomarkup on the house, ag side of things.
Um, and so like my counterpart at thetime, Chairman Mike Conaway from Texas.
(41:24):
Chairman Conaway's staff.
He and I would talk on the phone.
Um, yes, we would walk eitherto the house or the Senate side.
We're not that, you know, stuck upeither way of fighting, who goes,
they could take a littleunderground train, you know?
That's right.
Really?
Yeah.
I know there's a train.
Little underground train.
Yeah.
Um, but no, we would always touchbase with regard to, you know,
what are you guys thinking here?
What are we thinking here?
Um, and so communication'salways vital, even if it's
(41:46):
Because you're really ultimatelywanting to get really close.
By the time you come together,you said for the conference.
That, that's right.
But also recognizing thatthey're negotiating with their
counterparts on their side.
Got it.
So, at the time, Chairman Conway,then you had ranking Member Colin
Peterson from, from Minnesota.
Um, so, you know, they had their process.
We had their process.
(42:06):
But yeah, we would communicate with withChairman Conway's staff quite regularly.
Interesting.
I've learned so much.
Okay, great.
So I, I'm interested because the, a personwho now has the job you had at American
Farm Bureau is one of my good friends.
Hey, Danny.
Yeah.
And, um, so Danny's kind of always talkingto me about how much work, uh, American
(42:27):
Farm Bureau does kind of like on behalfof these senators and congressman, like,
about how they think about the ag space.
That was mind blowing to me.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, because I just didn't reallyunderstand how policy works.
Can you speak to that at all?
Like, how frequently are you.
When you were there,were you getting called?
Yeah.
Just kind of talk about that.
Yeah, I, I think with regard totrade associations, you know,
(42:51):
I would say farm bureau's in aunique position where they've got
a really good team of economists.
Um, and there's always beenthat tradition at AFBF where
they have that economic shop.
And I think that really provides goodperspective for members to, to get
some of that analysis that maybe someother commodity associations don't.
Well, and it helps that they'reliterally just down the street.
Like they're in, down the, the street.
(43:11):
They're, they're close by.
But, but you know, I, from amember standpoint, you know, what
I mentioned with regard to ourprocess and our procedure, because
we want to hear from constituents.
We want to hear fromthe farmer themselves.
Farmers may not necessarily have thetime, uh, to fly into DC every day.
Obviously they've gotwork on the farm to do.
Um, so that's when you would callup maybe a Farm Bureau or a Corn
(43:33):
Growers or a Soybean Association.
The list goes on and on.
During my time at Farm Bureau, I,at the time I think we had a team of
four economists and a chief economistand we were uniquely positioned
where we had expertise in livestock,row crops, domestic policy, um,
environment, some of those things.
And so, when you work on behalfof the states and then the states
(43:53):
provide that information withregard to, uh, their counties.
And then that gets to the grassroots.
But if you think about the policy processof AFBF, you know, if I'm a chairman
or if I'm a member in both, either theHouse or the Senate, I wanna talk to, I
want to get the perspectives of a farmer.
And I know if I go to a place likeAmerican Farm Bureau, I'm hearing
it from the grassroots because theirpolicy is set at the grassroots.
(44:15):
The grassroots process at American FarmBureau, I mean, it's, you can't beat it.
So, can I ask a really direct question?
It's not meant to be adversarial,it's literally naive is like,
so why not call Todd, right?
Like, why call AFBFinstead of calling Todd?
Oh, I mean, if, if I look at my positionwhen I was, uh, Chief Economist, I mean,
oftentimes I would call, the Land GrantUniversity from the chairman state.
(44:38):
The whole key, of my job was again,developing those relationships with
academia as well as those folks thatmay be in private industry that you can
trust and, and confidentially trust.
Do you have any other questions?
I feel like we've covered a lot of ground.
We have, this has flown.
And so let's, uh, well, Matt knows'cause I've suckered Matt into being on
a couple of panels that put together.
(44:59):
Sure.
And similar to the, when I do a panel,I'd like to end, uh, the podcast.
We like to end with the lightning round.
Oh man.
So, you're at the Senate Ag Committee.
Yep.
You guys have been working hard all day.
Working on a farm bill.
Yep.
It's late at night.
You guys start talking to your hungry.
Uh, what are you gonna, what'syour, like go-to food order to keep
working for another couple hours?
(45:19):
Oh, man.
Well, that's, that's an easy one.
So that's the Monocle.
So we would call that the north office,which for people that haven't been to DC
or don't know the Monocle, it's literallya restaurant right on the Senate side.
Um, basically from Dirksen whereour majority office space was
it's literally just a block away.
Um, so we would go there for dinner.
(45:39):
You see a lot of pictures ofmembers on the wall that have
autographed pictures up there.
Uh, but it's just a good place to,to go eat and also have a drink.
Alright.
Uh, if you had a time machine that youcould have used while you worked on
the Senate, but only for professionalpurposes, when would you have gone to?
Um, boy, this is a really good question.
(46:03):
Um, so
premise to so many books.
Yeah.
So if you go to the Senate Actcommittee room, you see a bunch of old
pictures when the first time they, theytook pictures of committee members.
I think it'd be interesting to goback during that time and really
kind of see what agriculture waslike then, knowing what we know now.
I couldn't even tell you the, the,the year of these pictures but
(46:25):
back in the day, it would be reallyinteresting to to see what it was like.
Okay.
Then this last one, and I should say,yeah, this is entirely theoretical.
I do not expect you to do this.
If, uh, they decided to close theSenate Ag Committee and they're
gonna just get rid of everything.
Oh my goodness.
But they're gonna allow you to comeback and take one thing as a memento.
That's a good, that's a good one.
(46:46):
What are you gonna take from the Senate?
What are you gonna take back to putit your place to be your memento?
Oh man.
I'm gonna take this adifferent route, Todd.
Nice.
And I'm gonna, because
Like a, like a true political right.
Here, one, one of the best experiencesthat I had was going behind the
scenes and doing an archives tour.
Um, and so one of the benefits ofliving in DC is you've got all these
(47:09):
Smithsonians in your backyard, right?
And you got the national archives.
And so we were able to go and,see some different documents.
It is really cool to have inyour hand an autograph, a real
autograph of Abraham Lincoln.
And you have all these differentprominent political figures that you see
the original documents, and obviouslythey're protected in everything,
(47:31):
but seeing that history and knowingBack then to where we are today.
Um, it's pretty special.
it's really cool to see some of thosehistorical documents in original form.
Well, Matt, thank you for beingso generous with your time.
Yeah,
Yeah.
Thanks guys.
I'm sure our listenerhas really enjoyed it.
Please tune in and come back we'llhave some more conversations.
Maybe we'll have Matt back another time.
(47:51):
We'll dig into what you're doing now.
So thank you very much.
Yeah, I appreciate it guys.
Welcome to the Purdue Commercial Ag Cast.
(00:02):
I'm Todd Kuethe.
I'm a professor in the department.
I'm joined by
Chad Fiechter.
We've got a slightly differentsort of series of podcasts we're
gonna release within our feed.
This is gonna be something new.
Our listeners, we'll be familiarmostly as a way that we deliver news,
and information from the Center.
A lot of it related to the, AgEcon Barometer, but then also other
(00:22):
sort of pieces of information thatthe Center collects and research
people affiliate with the Center.
But ours will be a littlebit different bend.
And then I feel a lot like, uh, whenJay Leno finally got the desk at, uh,
right where it was like, you've been hereenough times, we'll just let you do it.
Chad, why don't you introduceyourself for the listeners.
(00:46):
Alright, so, hey everybody, I'm Chad.
Um.
I grew up in Indiana.
Uh, I am now a professor inagricultural economics here, Purdue.
But I'm a little old to be anew guy, so I was a farmer for
a while near Northeast Indiana.
Todd, who are you?
Um, my name is Todd Kuethe I'm aprofessor, also in the Department
of Agricultural Economics.
(01:07):
I mostly study land prices and credit andall those kind of things that we do here,
the Center of Commercial Agriculture.
Chad, tell us a little bit about whatwe're hoping to do with this podcast.
I used to be a farmer and now Ido this job, which is trying to
understand the ag economy, and Iwanted to do that as a farmer too.
But now I have very differentconversations with a lot of
(01:31):
different people that I genuinelyfind interesting and insightful.
So one of the things that peoplecan't observe when I come talk to
them or they read something that Ihave written is that it's likely based
on a series of conversations thatI've had with interesting people.
And so my objective in this podcastis to try to understand the ag economy
(01:54):
more, but let people sort of into theseconversations on a regular basis with
people that I think are interesting.
How did I do?
I think that's great.
You have sold me, I'm going to hitsubscribe on this podcast so that once a
month I'll get to hear this vision thatyou're pitching, which is interesting
conversations that you are going to have.
(02:15):
Yes.
In an effort to understand the ag economy.
Exactly.
So that's the idea, right?
Uh, maybe we should tease a littlebit for the people listening at
home, they want to envision thisconversation they're hearing.
What celebrity have people told youyou look like, so that way they can
think about when they're hearingyour voice, they're picturing.
Yep.
So, when I go to the doctor, for somereason everyone at the doctor's office
(02:36):
tells me I look like Lorenzo Lamas.
But probably a classicvintage Lorenzo Lamas.
Yeah.
So I don't think he's fantasticlooking in his sixties, I will say.
But I, I'm assuming they're picturingmore like sort of early nineties, Lorenzo.
And Todd, how about you?
So I got this one just really recently.
We have somebody who was doing somework at our house and he said to my
(02:56):
wife, has anybody told your husband?
He looks like, so he washedging a little bit.
Didn't wanna say it to me.
Uh, comedian Tom Seguro.
Segura.
I think it's because I'mbald and have a beard.
Okay.
Uh, and we're roughly about the same age.
And I'll take it.
Yeah.
So I think it's hair related 'cause Imean most of the com there, Lorenzo Lamas
comments he was clearly hair related.
Also dark, long, dark hair.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So people were picturing two ageconomists played by Tom Seguro
(03:21):
and a younger Lorenzo Llamas.
All right.
we are joined today by Matt Erickson.
Hey everyone.
Uh,
esteemed Alum AEs.
Yeah.
Purdue alum.
Matt holds two degrees
Two degrees.
from our department.
Yeah.
so Matt, let's start by tellingus who you are, what you do.
Yep.
And then, then we'll dig in from there.
Yeah.
So thank you guys both for having me on.
looking forward to thisconversation, the dialogue.
(03:42):
Matt Erickson, uh, ag Economic andPolicy Advisor for Farm Credit Services
of America, Frontier Farm Credit andAg Country Farm, Credit Services.
And I've been at the role, alittle over four years now.
And basically what I do in a nutshellis provide economic and policy,
analysis and tie it back to, uh,overall producer impact and what that
(04:02):
actually means for the associations.
So, what celebrity do youget told you look like
Oh man.
I feel like as an Indiana, uh,farm kid that played basketball
in high school, I've got a, Igotta point back to Larry Bird.
Oh, I'll take it.
I'll take it.
Yeah.
I mean, number 33, Celtics,Sycamores, Guy can shoot man.
Foul.
Very foul language you usually use.
(04:23):
This is perfect.
Well, I mean, you know, hedrops 30 and I drop three.
There we go.
So, I, look at, the, the role of,of basketball in the state and one,
a huge basketball guy right heregrew up watching Michael Jordan and,
Scottie Pippen and the the Bulls.
You know, Jordan was my guy.
Um, but then, when I was a veryyoung kid, um, it was Bird.
Yeah.
Um, and so, you know, it can't beeighties and nineties basketball.
(04:46):
And again, I don't wanna be that oldguy that says that, but here we are.
So we are talking to the LarryBird of farm policy today.
I love that.
I, that's perfect.
All right.
So the, one of the reasons we wanted tohave you in to have a conversation is that
you, before working for Farm Credit, uh,and all the various farm credits, you were
on the, the Senate Agriculture Committee.
So tell us what your role was there.
(05:06):
What was your job title or.
Yeah, I was Chief economist, uh, for, forthe US Senate Committee on Agriculture,
Nutrition, and Forestry from 2015 to 2021.
Um, my boss was Chairman PatRoberts, former senator from Kansas.
And, when he took the gavel,um, that's when I started on the
committee, served there for six years.
That role really dealt with the budgetand economic analysis of the committee.
(05:30):
Basically you kind of put your, yourthumbprint on, uh, different areas
where the chairman's priorities are.
So, you know, a lot of times you thinkabout the economist's role, you think
of Title one as well as crop insurance.
And it really depends on what thechairman wants the Chief Economist to do.
And so my role really was dealingwith nutrition and all the
other titles of the Farm Bill.
(05:50):
So, and I can't remember the thetitles here, but so you have the
chair, which is from the majority
That's right.
party right?
Yep.
And then there will be the,what do they call the...
ranking member?
The ranking member who is the senioror lead person from the minority party.
Yep.
And did the minority party alsohave an economics group, or
was that just from the chair?
(06:11):
Yeah.
Generally speaking, both, uh, the, thechairman and the ranking member usually
have economists that are on staff.
And you know, the reason being is becauseone policy is policy and you get into
those debates, but oftentimes you wannafind the impact of those policies.
And so that's where the intersectionof economics and policy come into play.
Um, you know, again, I referto the easy one, right?
(06:31):
Of things like ARC andPLC and crop insurance.
Often times, there's a policypoint there that does some of those
different types of policy provisions.
If we wanna make changes or not, thosethings get negotiated through policy,
but also, two, the economist's job isalso to help negotiate, but also to,
to provide some evidence there of whatthose policy changes actually mean.
(06:52):
So what is the specific roleof the Senate Ag Committee?
Yeah, so that's a great question.
So,
Great question.
the, the role of the Senate AgCommittee is when you think about
committees up on the hill, there'spolicies, there's programs, there's
legislation that's currently inthe jurisdiction of the committee.
So for the Senate Ag Committee,which is different from the House Ag
(07:12):
Committee jurisdiction, and we can getinto that here a little bit more, uh,
but on the Senate ag side, you've gotthings like the Farm Bill, which is
part of the committee's jurisdiction.
But what separates the house fromthe Senate, uh, in terms of the Ag
Committee structure is on the SenateAg Committee there's jurisdiction
of child nutrition programs.
And so there's a little more on theplate on the Senate side than there is
(07:33):
on the House because there's probablymore committees, over on the House side.
But again, there's some nuances there.
Um, that basically where jurisdictionis kind of put in place between
the House and the Senate.
Gotcha.
So those, like the Farm bill,that's, that's, that's you guys?
Yep.
That's the jurisdiction, both theHouse and the Senate Ag committee.
I see.
Yep.
So you have to recommendthis is what we're gonna do
and then negotiate for that.
(07:54):
Yeah.
So if we, if we walk through the, theprocess of putting a bill together, you
know what, what generally happens is.
When you go back to, to farm, bills havepassed and what we did in the '18 Farm
Bill is, you've got the, the House thatdoes their work, the House Ag committee
that does their work on a farm bill.
The Senate does their work on a farm bill.
And then what you do during that processis one, you start off the process by
(08:16):
getting constituencies on the record.
So, you know, folks like Farm Bureau,Corn Grower Soybean Association, uh,
the Livestock Group, so on and so forth.
And you want to get priorities of,you know, those constituencies, but
also those priorities of membersthat also serve on the committee.
And so you, you put all those things onthe, on the record, and then what you do
is you come out with the chairman's mark.
(08:38):
And so that chairman'smark, you debate that.
Um, in committee.
Once you pass it out of outa committee, then eventually
it goes to the Senate floor.
Same type of process, a littlebit of procedural differences with
regard to rules and everything.
We won't get into that.
But kind of same structurethere on the House side.
Once it gets down to, let's talk theSenate floor, 'cause that's what I'm
most familiar with, it gets down tothe Senate floor, it gets debated.
(09:00):
And then once it eventually passes, thenit waits for conference committee, if
there's separate issues from the House.
And, and the conference committeeis the House and Senate.
That's right.
Both of the same jurisdiction.
Yep.
Coming together and say, the Housedid this, the Senate did this,
here's where there's overlap.
Yep.
Here's where we would need tofigure out the disconnected.
So the whole role of conference committeeis basically to work out and negotiate
(09:22):
the differences between the Housepassed bill and the Senate passed bill.
Oh, okay.
Okay, so let me, letme make a distinction.
Yeah.
Because you guys are both morefamiliar with policy than me.
There's a bill gonna be proposed bya legislator that's they're really,
I don't know, they hate coffee cupsversus this is like, this is something
that has to be brought forward, thisis part of what we as society have
(09:43):
deemed really, really important.
Like the farm bill.
Yep.
And so now you have not only agroup of legislators that are
responsible to bring this forward.
Yeah.
Is that, does that make sense?
Yeah, I mean it can, so from aprocedural standpoint, there one,
when you're putting together a farmbill in each of the, the chambers.
So on the Senate side, what we didwas, we would talk to, to actually
every member on the Republican side.
(10:04):
'Cause that's the, theside I worked, worked for.
And basically I wanted to getthe priorities of our, of our
caucus, of the Republican party.
And it, it ranges from a lot,whatever the state constituency of
the Senator that he has to serve.
For instance, if you're a Senatorfrom Florida, you may have different
priorities than that of, let'ssay my senator from from Kansas.
(10:25):
Got it.
You know, obviously there'smore citrus grown in Florida.
There's more beef productionproteins, more row crops in Kansas.
And, and more people.
And more people.
Right?
And so there could be a broader
Yeah.
set of,
okay.
So what you do is you, you work withmembers, you know, during your process,
before you get it to committee.
And you do that, and then what you do isyou come up with basically a chairman's
(10:46):
mark, um, that, you know, you, youcan put in front of the committee.
Then that gets debated within committee.
And then also too, there could be a,an amendment process down on the, the
Senate floor when it gets debated.
Um, and there's a whole nother,you know, procedure there.
But yeah, once it gets fully out of theSenate, usually, generally speaking,
we can get to some procedure here,um, with today's current events.
But generally speaking of FarmBill, it's required on the
(11:09):
Senate side to get 60 votes.
And so, if you do that then itwould go to a conference and
conference it with the House.
Then part of that is once those getnegotiated, uh, both bills get negotiated
out and it gets out of conference.
Then it goes to both chambers again.
On the Senate side,you've gotta get 60 votes.
On the house side, you'vegotta get 218 votes.
(11:29):
And then once those two, um, pass, thenit goes to the President for signature.
So as a faculty member,we also have committees.
Yeah.
And I serve on committees.
Right, like the graduate admissionscommittee or the awards committee.
Yeah.
Right.
Every committee I'vebeen on here at this job.
And my previous faculty jobs.
It's a mix of, some people love tobe on that committee and it's their
(11:52):
passion to be on that committee.
Yeah.
And they care about it.
And then some people, it's like, well,you've gotta be on some committees
we're gonna put you on committees.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
And then you have a couple peoplewho are sort of adversarial to
the committee and they're like, Idon't want to be on any committees.
Yeah.
Is it the same in theSenate, do you think?
Where there's like, do youthink that there are people
Wait because potentially everybodyhas to be on a committee?
Well, I don't know if you have to be.
(12:13):
Do you have to be?
Well, there's, there's a processin terms of committee priority
that each member gets to select,and that's up to the caucus.
The majority leader has alot of influence in that.
Interesting.
Um, with, with that selection process.
Well, and they are sort of, thestudent council presidents sit in the
front row of class kind of people.
Yeah.
That go to Senate.
Right.
So they're like, they're probablyall itching to be on every committee
(12:33):
and they're probably on theirPTO at home and all the, like,
they're just committee people.
Well, I'm just thinking about
Right.
Like this is a non-random draw of people.
Fetterman, like he,
Senator Fetterman.
Yeah, from Pennsylvania.
So he, he strikes me as like, do youthink he wants to be on committees?
Oh.
He's,
Yeah.
So, so each, each, each member will serveon a committee and or multiple committees.
(12:54):
Okay.
Um, and so,
But he, he strikes me as a dudethat's like, oh, I'm coaching
this softball team no matter what.
I'll be here even after my kid leave.
He seemed like a committee guy, butnot a committee guy and like a suit
and tie but there's committee people.
Yeah.
Okay.
He seemed like a committee person.
Okay.
Even if he doesn't look like the, likeI, I think everybody is on a committee.
Uh, 'cause they want to be,
I'm picturing someone who wears the samethings that he wears and in my case, those
(13:17):
are normally adversarial to committees.
Yes.
Unless you're at a like neighborhood,planning out the what the softball
league, who gets what field with
No, I agree.
And then the dudes that look likeFetterman are like causing an
issue and calling out procedure.
Okay.
Alright.
I'm just saying thinkabout all of the committee.
There's a lot of committees.
Yeah, I'm on board.
What I'm just wondering is, are theresome people that are like, yeah, I'm
(13:38):
on the Senate Ag Committee and likethat's not the one I care about.
I care about being on thisother committee that I'm on.
So you're also liketrying to convince 'em?
Or is it all to just like, 'cause
Well, and I, I think it's putit into perspective of what
the priority is for the member.
And so if you think about it a lotof members that I I served, on the
committee with, on the Republican side.
'Cause yeah, my boss was the chairman.
But also two I also needed tobrief and update other Republican
(14:01):
members that were on the committee.
And so when you think about some of thosemembers, you know, I think it really comes
down to which state each member is in.
So for instance, you know, a lot of thefolks that worked for the Republican
side when I was up on the hill.
Um, a lot of row crop focus.
Um, a lot of traditional ag focus,a lot of it was serving the, the
(14:22):
producers that were in their state.
You look at a lot of members maybe onthe other side of the aisle, um, where
their specific priority is nutrition.
And so that's why this, thispartnership between the, the rural
and urban partnership here is reallyimportant for it to stick together
Well, and, and you, and you talk aboutbriefing the other committee members,
but you also are interacting with notjust the committee member themselves,
(14:45):
but potentially their staff, right?
That's right.
'Cause they also will have people thatwork for them that help manage their
portfolio of interests and experiencesor, or, uh, obligations, right?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
So you look at a chairman of acommittee, chairman have committee
staff, like I was on, you know, yourfocus up there is to do ag policy.
Um, or policy again, that'sin your jurisdiction.
(15:06):
So, you know, we tried to do nutritionreauthorization, however that got held up.
But then you look at, let's say the '18farm bill process, for us the, the whole
focus and why you're up on a committeeis to do specific, specific policy.
Um, you're supposed to bethe experts within the field,
with, within agriculture.
But then also too, like each member thatwe worked with had their own personal
(15:28):
office, and so they had a specific, youknow, maybe one or two, like LA's or an
uh, or excuse me, legislative assistant.
There we go.
There we go.
There we go.
Using my DC acronyms.
No, no.
I like it.
That's it.
This is the kind of inside baseball
It is.
Yeah, we're right here.
Well, you know,
LA's
some, some LA's, legislative assistants,they may have, let's say a legislative
correspondent that may be a littlebit junior, but works on ag issues.
(15:49):
And they would represent thatmember that's, that's on the
committee or let's say, justrepresent the member in totality.
Um, so, you know, working with them,understanding their priorities.
A lot of our job too on the committeeis to, to work directly with those, with
those legislative assistants or, you know,whoever it is in the, the personal office.
Yeah.
Okay.
How many people is the staff of the SenateAg Committee versus how many people are on
(16:12):
the private staff of the committee member?
It depends on, so staff makeup is reallydependent upon the numbers that, that
are made up of, of, of the Senate.
So for instance, if you have,let's say, a 50 50 Senate.
Staff on the Senate side, isit, it would be cut in half.
So it's proportionally divided,uh, between the seats that are
(16:33):
made up of the hundred senators.
So when we had the majority with ChairmanRoberts, we had a slight majority, um, you
know, I think we were like 53 to to 47.
I could be wrong on that, but it'ssomewhere in that nature during the, the
'18 farm bill process, but we had, wehad more staff than the, our counterparts
on the, the ranking member side.
So again, uh, the House works a little bitdifferently, uh, but on the Senate side
(16:56):
it's, it's really divided proportionally.
Well, and then I was gonna aska similar question, which is, so
you're an economist working for them.
But what are some of the otherpeople that work for the committee?
There's, I know thatthere's attorneys for sure.
Yeah.
What, what are like, whatare those other roles?
Yeah, so generally speaking on committees,one, you have a staff director, uh,
that manages the staff on the committee.
If you look at a staff director's job isone, it's to, to manage the committee.
(17:19):
It's also to find votes, in termsof any key piece of legislation,
uh, that, that we had to deal with.
You also have counsel, uh, multiplecounsel that are on the committee.
So you think of their jobs a lotis, I mean, like any lawyer, they
give legal advice, but they alsodo the drafting of, of titles.
Sure.
They write the language.
They also work with what we call SenateLedge Council, um, which is not part
(17:42):
of the committee, but I kind of viewedthem as consultants of the committee.
And they also work with other committeemembers if they have legislation to draft.
They also, like if you're in thepersonal office and you want an
amendment to be, um, a part of anypart of the legislation, Senate
Ledge Council would help draft that.
So you've got a legal staff.
And then also you have policy staff.
So those would be folks like your, uh,professional staff, senior professional
(18:05):
staff that really have a portfolioof policies that are in place.
So you may have someone that works on, youknow, commodities, crop insurance, dairy,
that works specifically on those issues.
So like another person may workon trade, food aid, all, all
sorts of those policy issues.
And then one that may work on nutritionbecause nutrition's just so massive.
Sure.
When you think of that legislation.
(18:26):
So then you've got myrole as chief economist.
I help with the, the policy analysis,the economic analysis for the committee.
A lot of my time is alsospent on the budget side.
Uh, when you think about a policy change,there could be a cost or a savings to it.
And so when you think about workingwith the Congressional Budget Office,
a lot of times you're a liaison.
There we're not only a liaison ofthem doing the analysis, but also
(18:49):
too, you have to do your own analysisfor the committee because CBO can
get backed up, um, with their work.
Um, then you've got a press staffand, and that kind of makes up the,
So if you guys were all together,about how many people in the room?
I'm kind of curious.
Oh, I would say we hadprobably close to 20 staff.
Okay.
Um, yeah, when you think about, you know,some of our legislative correspondence and
(19:10):
legislative assistance and, all the legalstaff and, and that's separate than, you
know, the, the chairman's personal office?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
How many people in like a personal office?
Well, it depends onseniority a lot of times.
Um, but there's, there'squite a few people.
The role of what Chairman Roberts, he wasa senior member from Kansas and, pretty,
high up in seniority on the Senate side.
(19:32):
You know, he would have multiple staffworking on different issues, whether
it be healthcare, armed services.
Sure.
Um, some of those other issues.
Kind of a differentiator here iswhen you look at the chairman's
staff, his personal office staff,he did have an ag legislative
assistant that dealt with ag issues.
And what was so nice about it isthere's always that relationship
between the committee or thechairman's committee staff with the
(19:53):
chairman's personal office staff.
And a lot of times the, the competitiveadvantage for us was, we had a really
good ag LA, uh, or legislative assistant.
Where his job was basically to bea part of the committee staff and
help with policy, but also connectus with constituents from Kansas.
Sure.
Okay.
Cool.
And so that was a huge benefitfor committee staff to have.
(20:14):
Well, I was gonna say the other thingis having friends that have worked in
similar roles for senators, there's oftenlike a home office as well, so they'll
have a presence in their home state thatthey don't really come to DC too much.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
And the DC people don't goout to that state too much.
In fact, a friend of mine took a jobworking for a committee that was chaired
by, uh, uh, I can't remember where theguy was from, but he was like, oh, now
(20:36):
you can finally go to some football games.
Like, uh, like, like at Ole Missor LSU or whatever it was, right.
In the chairman's personal office.
He had his own chief of staff.
Um,
Okay.
His own legislative director.
Um, and so a lot of times you wouldhave to, you work hand in hand.
Right?
And so, you know, making sure thatthe committee staff is aligned with
personal office staff, you know, there'scommunication's always key everywhere.
(20:59):
Even in the private sector where I workat now, um, there it's no different.
Mm-hmm.
Well, the other thing that, so I startedmy career in DC I have a lot of friends
that worked in various roles in DC.
The other thing that kind of alwaysI think is sort of misunderstood
about DC in general is thesepeople are also elected, right?
So they are always running for elections.
Right.
But that's often handledby a separate group, right?
(21:21):
Yeah.
They're sort of electoral part of it.
They're running campaigns, um,
Big election.
Yeah.
And, and, and surprisingly, itseems like most people either spend
their career sort of on the hill.
As a wonk of various types and floatingaround, you know, maybe you'll work for
a member and then you'll go work for acommittee and you'll be, you know, an LC
to work your way up to LA or whatever.
(21:42):
But those people rarely everwork on the electoral side or
the election campaign side.
Yeah.
That's like a different animal.
And like when I'd go to a barin DC there'd be like, oh,
this is like the Wonk Hill bar.
And then be like, oh, thisis like the campaign bar.
Yeah.
And it was like people weresort of divided by those camps
more than political ideology.
Right.
So like you'd have like Democrats andRepublicans that both work on campaigns.
(22:06):
Yeah.
They would commiserate a bunch.
Yeah.
But then if like somebody fromtheir own party was like a hill
staffer came in, they'd be like,we're not talking to that guy.
That dude's a nerd.
Yeah.
Or whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway, I, I, that, that always sort offascinates me, these two different worlds.
So, we work a lot with students obviously.
Yeah.
Uh, and I get bright students all thetime come to me and say like, I'm getting
a degree in Ag Econ, but I wanna go tolaw school 'cause I wanna work in policy.
(22:28):
Yeah.
And you've worked in policy, butyou never went to law school.
So tell us a little bit about sortof what you did before the Senator.
How?
The path to getting that job.
Like what sort of things you did or
Yeah.
Or skills you picked up.
In specifics of like, how didyou become aware that there was a
position that you were interested in?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
How'd you even know that this job existed?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So, you know, I would, I wouldtell you my career um, it's,
(22:50):
it's a unique one in of itself.
And, you know, one,
Oh, yeah.
So did the, did the application.
All of a sudden I was mowingthe yard at the, the farm up
in Brookston and got a call.
Long story short, got the internshipbetween my, um, actually I deferred
the beginning of my sophomore year.
Um, really?
'Cause I was out in DC during that time.
(23:10):
So remember back, let's see, Iwas with the National Economic
Council with my first internship.
So that was during, Hurricane Katrina.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
During those times, that was when,Chief Justice John Roberts was going
through his, confirmation process.
I would tell any student, if youwant to go look at how to testify
in front of Congress, it's him.
(23:30):
Because it was just phenomenalon, how he testified in his
communication skills there.
So after that internship, worked directlyon issues relating to Hurricane Katrina,
Port of New Orleans issues with productgoing to and from, on or for agriculture.
Then decided, the, the best advice I gotwas if you're interested doing a White
House policy internship, if you wantto get in the, the nuts and bolts of
(23:53):
policy, you need to go up to the Hill.
And so, my next step was I did aninternship for, Senator Dick Lugar.
Oh, yeah.
Uh, here from, from Indiana.
Did that for a summer.
And I would tell any student that ifyou really wanna work into policy,
go do an internship on the Hill.
Because you're gonna do everyjob from answering mail.
You're gonna do committee work.
If you do work for a senatorthat is in charge of a committee.
(24:15):
Lead tours.
Yeah, lead tours.
Um, and the, the thing is,if you don't like constituent
work, then policy's not for you.
Because the whole basis of policy andwhere policy needs to be driven is the
grassroots and it's from the constituent.
No ifs, ands, or buts.
So I enjoyed it.
I was kind of one of those policywonks and nerds that really liked it.
I'm assuming, uh, Senator Lugerhad postings for interns and
(24:39):
you applied to one of those.
Yeah.
You knew you knew to go lookand you applied to one of those.
Yeah.
Generally speaking, every member,um, you know, on their website will
have internships and applicationsand more information there.
So.
Sweet.
Yep.
it's pretty easy to get to for, I wouldsay for the large majority of members
because they want those constituentsto, to come and, and work or college
(25:00):
students to work during the summer.
And I assume they have sort of goals andthe kind of person they would want, right?
So like,
Oh, sure.
Like Lugar probably enjoyed that youwere a kid that went to an Indiana
public school and from Indiana andworked on a, grew up on a farm and like
Yeah.
You kind of fit that sortof role of his constituency.
Right?
Yeah.
And another piece of advice Igive to students is, a lot of
(25:21):
times these internships requireletters of recommendation.
And, you know, I, my advice wouldbe don't go to the glitz and glam of
someone that may have name recognitionbut doesn't know you as a person.
When I did the White House internshipand when I got selected, basically I had
really good, I had really good people.
They were in pretty good positions,but they also knew me as a person.
(25:46):
Yeah.
Um, I'll be really clear in terms ofwho my letters of recommendation were.
Dr. Dooley was my advisorfirst semester here at Purdue.
He was one letter of recommendation I got.
My minister back up in Brookston.
He's now retired, but one of my mentors.
He gave a really good letter ofrecommendation and then also my state
rep, who was Don Lehe at the time,which family friends, and me and his son
(26:08):
went to, went to high school together.
So,
Oh, nice.
So those people knew me as a person andgave good letters or recommendations.
So I would say like it's, you know,decide whatever you wanna do, but
really go after people that know you.
Yeah.
Um, okay, so you were a studenthere, did some internships.
Yep.
Then you finished that degree.
Uh, and then you stayed on fora master's degree, correct?
(26:31):
Well, there's a, there's a little,
or did you have a gap there?
There's a little gap.
Okay.
So, I did apply between my bachelor'sand master's and I got accepted,
um, you know, going from Purdue toPurdue, um, and Ag econ to Ag econ.
So then I had the opportunity tostay on as a political, at USDA
for president George W. Bush.
So I worked at USDA, um, during thattime, and then decided to come back
(26:53):
to Purdue and, um, get my masters.
So there was a little brief stint wherethe Potomac Fever wore off, but went back.
Played enough kickball.
Played enough kickball.
What was the po, what's a political.
Yeah, so a political appointee.
You work for the president.
Okay.
Um, and so each agency has political staffthat work on behalf of the president.
(27:13):
Yeah.
So there's careers.
And there's political.
So like I had a career positionwhen I worked for the USDA, which
meant my job was irrespective ofthe party, that's the executive.
Okay.
Right.
I had sort of just regular tasks.
I had to do reports and things.
Right.
Uh, but it, it was not directlytied to the initiatives of
that, of that executive.
So, but then what did you do in that role?
(27:34):
What's the political do?
Yeah, so when I was there, I workedfor Rural Development during the
time and really focused on the energytitle in the the 2008 farm bill.
So hard to believe that we're in 2025and I'm talking about the 2008 Farm bill.
But so really like still thoughanalysis, like economic analysis
related to energy in rural spaces.
Yeah.
(27:54):
Well it wasn't necessarilyeconomic analysis for that job.
It was more of meeting with,you know, industry in terms of,
Okay.
Now remember the, the '08 farm bill,so when I was at USDA, I was an
intern during '08.. Um, and I've gottaget my, my timeline here straight.
But then, you know, after I was anintern and well, and then graduated
Purdue, then I worked as a political.
(28:14):
So did that for, for a little bit.
And so remember back in the '08 Farm Bill,that was during the whole ethanol boom.
Yeah.
You know, ethanol was the, the, thething, you know, infrastructure,
energy programs, um, all those things.
And, and Title IX, uh, energywas a really, really big, uh,
topic at USDA during that time.
So then you finished at Purdue for asecond time with your master's degree?
(28:36):
Yeah.
And then you went to work for?
Uh, then I went out to DC again.
I worked for AmericanFarm Bureau Federation.
Okay.
So you
As an economist.
So you worked for the keeping track here.
In your past, you've done sortof White House on the Hill.
Yep.
And then now at this stage.
You are working for a, uh,producer organization that does
(28:58):
sort of communicates membershipobjectives to policy makers, right?
That's right.
And so American Farm Bureau's the largestnational farm organization in the country.
But I would put a plug here during mymaster's 'cause I, I wanna say this
'cause I spent two years of my life.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah no, no.
It's writing a thesis, but.
So my, my major professor andmentor was former late Wally Tyner.
(29:19):
Yeah.
Oh, interesting.
And so really learned a ton from him.
Um, corn cobs were my life fortwo years, so I analyzed corn
cobs for biofuel production.
Uh, the Indiana Corn MarketingCouncil, uh, funded the study.
Um, so did that and um, really gotsome good exposure as it relates
to doing extension work, becausewho wants to read 120 page thesis?
Well, and
(29:40):
Not really.
No one.
And Wally is a perfect fit interms of he studied energy.
Yeah.
It's relationship to agriculture.
Huge.
And did really goodscientific research, right.
He was a fellow of our association andstuff, but also communicated out a lot to
policymakers and groups like Farm BureauI'm sure would, you know, call Wally
if they had a question about something.
Well, and you know, you look at what he,he wanted me to do and you know, basically
(30:03):
it was, yeah, you've gotta do the thesisin order to graduate, but you're not gonna
leave here unless you do an extensionpublication because your constituent
here at Purdue and ag econ is part of theland grant mission is the Indiana farmer.
And that was really obviouslygrowing up on a fifth generation
farm just 30 minutes north here.
And then, growing up as a kid, youknow, around these, these halls in,
in ag econ, so my Uncle Steve taughthere back in the day in finance.
(30:27):
But it was always instilledthat what you're producing here.
Yeah, you're getting a graduatedegree, but you're also doing
something that's beneficial for, forfarmers in the research that you do.
So you know that mentorshipand that ability to basically
say your role as an economist.
Yeah.
I mean, you can put up the alphas, thebetas, and whatever regression equation
you want, but if you can't distill it downto what, how the, or what this means for
(30:49):
the producer, you're not doing your job.
Perfect.
Oh man, we're in,
I know.
We're in a great spot.
I know, because, okay, so nowroll right into, what did you
do for American Farm Bureau?
Yeah, so with, with AFBF, again,American Farm Bureau Federation, I was an
economist, uh, there from 2010 to 2015,and a lot of my job during that time
was working on domestic policy issues.
(31:11):
So that was the time whenwe had the 2014 Farm bill.
We all probably remember directpayments during that time.
Um, so the '14 farm billeliminated direct payments.
Then, you know, things like ARCand PLC were put into to its place.
That was the major policy changefrom, for the '14 farm bill.
So worked at AFBF during the '14 farmbill process, uh, then ended my, um,
(31:34):
time there in 2015 to go up to the hill.
Uh, if you think about the membershipof the American Farm Bureau Federation,
it's not the farmers themselves, it's the50 State Farm Bureaus and Puerto Rico.
And so I think that's important there,where the membership at AFBF or at
Farm Bureau starts at the grassroots.
And so it starts at, when we think aboutthe policy process there for Farm Bureau,
(31:56):
it really starts at the county base level.
And so farmers, you know, gothrough a, a policy process there.
They dictate policy at the county level.
If it gets passed there, thenit goes up to the state level.
Then at the state level, if itpasses, it goes up to the AFBF level.
And then, you know, a, a delegatesession votes on whether or not
that policy passes for the, the AFBF
So, so you breeze through quickly.
(32:18):
Going to work on the hill whenyou became the chief economist?
Yeah.
Do you interview, who do youinterview with for a job like that?
Is it with literally the, the, thechair or is it the other staff members?
How, how are you picked?
Yeah, so it really took me by surprise.
It was, well, obviously year five when Iwas at American Farm Bureau and, you know,
everything's about networking and who youwork with and, and things of that nature.
(32:40):
And I worked closely with Kansas FarmBureau at the time and they said,
Hey, you know, your name came up andwe think you'd be a good fit for the
chairman's position for Chief Economist.
What do you think?
And obviously my hands weresweaty and all that and whatever.
I was like, yeah, I think I would loveto do this position because what farm
kid doesn't want to work directly fora chairman that supports traditional
(33:01):
agriculture, that supports, bipartisanshipand you're doing a farm bill.
Um, and so during that process,you do have an interview
directly with the chairman.
Um, it was very, known to me thatI was from Indiana and Purdue.
We talked Drew Brees forlike 30 minutes during the
Oh yeah, of course.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and then the bowl game, back inthe day, I think it was the Alamo
(33:22):
Bowl, that Purdue played K State,'cause he's a, he's a K Stater.
So a lot of times, basically it wasabout 45 minutes of the chairman and
I I talking about Purdue, uh, thisquarterback named Drew Brees and then
his time with the Alamo Bowl when hewent between Kansas State and Purdue.
And then at the very end itwas, do you want the job?
Nice.
Wow.
and, and he knows that because ofthe work that you have done and the
(33:45):
recommendation of people who haveworked with you that Matt's our guy?
Yeah.
You know, when you look at the whole kindof, and we call it the Roberts family.
Chairman Roberts is very good with people.
you work with the committee folksthat I worked with, but also
remember, before this committee thatI served on, Chairman Roberts also,
was chair of another committee.
So we call that the first Roberts team.
(34:07):
All of us, considerourselves the Roberts family.
So if you go out to DC there's a big,base that's out there, and so that those
relationships, I mean, it's like familybecause, again, you go through the policy
trenches, you go through the debates, thenegotiations, and you just have lasting
friendships that come out of those.
So again, one of the premises we talkedabout a little bit before, I don't know
if we mentioned it on the mics hereyet, but I think people don't really
(34:30):
understand what it is to like make policy.
Yeah.
So tell us like what is a typicalday for the chief economist
of the Senate Ag Committee?
Like what do you do with your time?
What are your activities?
Do you wanna talk non covid or covid?
Oh, let's do, let's donon, let's do non covid.
Yeah.
And we'll just assume the covidpart was depressing and more
(34:50):
isolated version of the real,
So a lot of my job, you know, as, aschief Economist was, you know, one, I
would get into the office pretty earlyaround probably 6 30, 7 o'clock in the
morning, and the first thing I wouldprobably do for, for the hour is to read.
Things like the Wall StreetJournal, the Ag press, Agri Pulse
those type of news publications.
(35:11):
I want to know what's going on withregard to, what's being said out there.
You know, maybe there's some issues thatwe are, we're not directly work working
on, but I want to know what the issuesare with o the overall U.S. economy.
And the ag economy because again, theway that we have this structured is, you
know what I want to hear from the bootson the ground and what farmers are are
dealing with out in the countryside.
But you think about the time during that,that '15 to 2021, time period where I was
(35:34):
on the Senate and we were trending towardsa post boom cycle in the ag economy.
Yeah, sure.
It was like the post 2012 drought.
We had the 2014 farm billand then all of a sudden, net
farm income really struggled.
Uh, during those periodsleading up to the '18 farm bill.
a lot of times there it was dealingwith, lower commodity prices.
It was dealing with, sticky inputs.
when we go through these boombust cycles, you know, generally
(35:56):
speaking prices, commodity pricesare more volatile than inputs.
So dealing with that.
and then, you get into the daythere and then you're just booked
with meetings after meetings.
And, especially during a Farm Billprocess, you literally wanna go to
every member that you can on your sideof the aisle and really understand
what those member priorities are.
And are you doing that, like you'regoing to them or they're coming
(36:19):
to the, the committee offices or
? Well, basically wherever, conference rooms are open.
Okay.
Office space is limited.
and so if, you know, they wanted tomeet, in the, not the committee room,
but we would have committee meetingspace if we wanted to meet there.
Great.
Whatever.
A lot of conversations tooare over coffee, over lunches,
um, things of that nature.
Just whenever peoplehave have available time.
(36:41):
Have you, have you been tothe senate ag committee?
No.
Oh, they have like a really nice space.
They have this big, beautiful table.
It, it's a really nice space.
Oh, I love to see it.
And you know,
And you see, like, you see, it lookslike you would see, like, I imagine
your job is not like it is on themovies and TV shows, except that
it does sort of look like that.
They'll be like cool old oil paintingsand like big giant tall windows.
It's, it looks like abe cool place to work.
(37:03):
Yeah.
I mean, to say that my jobwas like the West Wing.
Yeah.
Probably far from it.
Um,
but it looked like theset of the West Wing.
Exactly right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and you know, kind of the musicin the background, everything and,
And, and the people, the asattractive as the, as the actors were.
Of course, of course.
Yeah.
But, a lot of my job as well was thinkabout what the chairman's priorities
(37:23):
were and we would host, and we werein charge of the committee room, and
if you look at the committee room,it's a lot different than other
committees in their committee space.
The Senate Ag Committee room, youthink about it like a farm table,
like a very long farm table.
Um, it's not the, the traditionaldais of, you know, tr the traditional
Senate ag hearing rooms, but it'sliterally like a farm table where
(37:43):
if you have a hearing, you're doinglegislation, members are looking straight
across the table from one another.
So you don't have that U shape likeyou do for other committee rooms.
Why I say that is because a lot of myjob too was hosting outside groups and
the chairman was very clear with uswith his goals of one, we don't turn
down meetings, we hear from everyone.
(38:04):
Okay.
Um, and the other thing two, is if it'sfor, if it's a farm group, whoever it is.
We wanna host in the committee space.
We want to have it open, accessible toconstituencies for the, the taxpayer.
Um, we work for them.
They don't work for us.
And so that was very clear thatagain, we were there to serve, um,
agriculture in our, our positionsthat we were lucky to have.
(38:27):
So
You're collecting as much information
Oh yeah.
From these key people as you possiblycan, and then you're trying to distill
that into something that will become
Into an actual item.
Got it.
Yep.
So if everybody's saying like, I'mreally worried about the cost of
fertilizer in the next five years, thenyou say, well, we should make sure that
(38:50):
there's something in the legislation.
We gotta at least know howit affects fertilizer prices.
If we're not gonna do somethingdirectly to, or something like that.
Is that?
Yeah, something similar.
I mean, there's a lot of groups where, youknow, it's kind of information collecting.
When you get into things like closerto a farm bill timeframe, then you'll
have more probably formal meetings ofhere's group X's policy priorities.
(39:11):
And then they'll bring in members of thatmembership or whatever to explain their
thinking, their, their, their logic.
But then also too, it's an opportunityfor us to give an update with the
overall process and be transparentwith the committee's activity.
So, so you're in a series of thesekind of back to back meetings, what?
Half an hour, hour, 15 minutes, somethingand a range of regular every job meetings.
(39:32):
Right.
And you do that through like,till their early evening time till
it's time to go in for dinner.
Kind of?
Yeah.
When it could, when it getsclose to a farm bill, it's,
it's always you're nonstop.
Um, and again, because the farm bill'sjust so massive when you think about
ag and, and nutrition legislation.
You get all these different groupswith all their policy priorities.
But then also too, and I haven'tmentioned this, but a lot of our time
(39:55):
too is keeping good relations withour counterparts on the Senate Dems.
Um, especially with rankingmember Stabenow's staff.
And so we had a greatworking relationship.
The Ag Committee has alwaysbeen known for bipartisan work.
Bipartisan ship's not easy, and I thinkwe're seeing that in today's world.
Yeah.
Um, and I hope we get back to it.
I was always taught here, you know,in my upbringing and policy is if you
(40:17):
go into a negotiating room, you'retalking back and forth, there's
conversations that are heated.
People are passionate about policy.
But once you leave that negotiating room,remember people are people and you know,
asking them, Hey, let's go have a beer.
You know, I wanna knowmore about your family.
And so having those conversations.
And again, a lot of myfriends were on ranking member
Stabenow's team at the time.
I hope we get back to those bipartisanshiproots that, that we've been accustomed to.
(40:42):
Long story short here guys, is when wethink about the work of the committee
and you work for farmers and ranchersand what they need is they need that
predictability and they need thatcertainty to get a farm bill done.
And so that was our task and we,we were able to get the job done.
So you mentioned there'salso in the House.
Yeah.
There's the same committee.
Are you friends with them?
Do you talk to them?
(41:02):
Is there kind of like regular check-ins?
You see 'em out, uh, and andyou guys kind of talk shop?
Or is it kind of likethey're doing their thing?
We're doing our thing?
Yeah, you always wanna keep inclose contact with your peers.
On the house side, however you doacknowledge that they go through their
own process with regard to going tomarkup on the house, ag side of things.
Um, and so like my counterpart at thetime, Chairman Mike Conaway from Texas.
(41:24):
Chairman Conaway's staff.
He and I would talk on the phone.
Um, yes, we would walk eitherto the house or the Senate side.
We're not that, you know, stuck upeither way of fighting, who goes,
they could take a littleunderground train, you know?
That's right.
Really?
Yeah.
I know there's a train.
Little underground train.
Yeah.
Um, but no, we would always touchbase with regard to, you know,
what are you guys thinking here?
What are we thinking here?
Um, and so communication'salways vital, even if it's
(41:46):
Because you're really ultimatelywanting to get really close.
By the time you come together,you said for the conference.
That, that's right.
But also recognizing thatthey're negotiating with their
counterparts on their side.
Got it.
So, at the time, Chairman Conway,then you had ranking Member Colin
Peterson from, from Minnesota.
Um, so, you know, they had their process.
We had their process.
(42:06):
But yeah, we would communicate with withChairman Conway's staff quite regularly.
Interesting.
I've learned so much.
Okay, great.
So I, I'm interested because the, a personwho now has the job you had at American
Farm Bureau is one of my good friends.
Hey, Danny.
Yeah.
And, um, so Danny's kind of always talkingto me about how much work, uh, American
(42:27):
Farm Bureau does kind of like on behalfof these senators and congressman, like,
about how they think about the ag space.
That was mind blowing to me.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, because I just didn't reallyunderstand how policy works.
Can you speak to that at all?
Like, how frequently are you.
When you were there,were you getting called?
Yeah.
Just kind of talk about that.
Yeah, I, I think with regard totrade associations, you know,
(42:51):
I would say farm bureau's in aunique position where they've got
a really good team of economists.
Um, and there's always beenthat tradition at AFBF where
they have that economic shop.
And I think that really provides goodperspective for members to, to get
some of that analysis that maybe someother commodity associations don't.
Well, and it helps that they'reliterally just down the street.
Like they're in, down the, the street.
(43:11):
They're, they're close by.
But, but you know, I, from amember standpoint, you know, what
I mentioned with regard to ourprocess and our procedure, because
we want to hear from constituents.
We want to hear fromthe farmer themselves.
Farmers may not necessarily have thetime, uh, to fly into DC every day.
Obviously they've gotwork on the farm to do.
Um, so that's when you would callup maybe a Farm Bureau or a Corn
(43:33):
Growers or a Soybean Association.
The list goes on and on.
During my time at Farm Bureau, I,at the time I think we had a team of
four economists and a chief economistand we were uniquely positioned
where we had expertise in livestock,row crops, domestic policy, um,
environment, some of those things.
And so, when you work on behalfof the states and then the states
(43:53):
provide that information withregard to, uh, their counties.
And then that gets to the grassroots.
But if you think about the policy processof AFBF, you know, if I'm a chairman
or if I'm a member in both, either theHouse or the Senate, I wanna talk to, I
want to get the perspectives of a farmer.
And I know if I go to a place likeAmerican Farm Bureau, I'm hearing
it from the grassroots because theirpolicy is set at the grassroots.
(44:15):
The grassroots process at American FarmBureau, I mean, it's, you can't beat it.
So, can I ask a really direct question?
It's not meant to be adversarial,it's literally naive is like,
so why not call Todd, right?
Like, why call AFBFinstead of calling Todd?
Oh, I mean, if, if I look at my positionwhen I was, uh, Chief Economist, I mean,
oftentimes I would call, the Land GrantUniversity from the chairman state.
(44:38):
The whole key, of my job was again,developing those relationships with
academia as well as those folks thatmay be in private industry that you can
trust and, and confidentially trust.
Do you have any other questions?
I feel like we've covered a lot of ground.
We have, this has flown.
And so let's, uh, well, Matt knows'cause I've suckered Matt into being on
a couple of panels that put together.
(44:59):
Sure.
And similar to the, when I do a panel,I'd like to end, uh, the podcast.
We like to end with the lightning round.
Oh man.
So, you're at the Senate Ag Committee.
Yep.
You guys have been working hard all day.
Working on a farm bill.
Yep.
It's late at night.
You guys start talking to your hungry.
Uh, what are you gonna, what'syour, like go-to food order to keep
working for another couple hours?
(45:19):
Oh, man.
Well, that's, that's an easy one.
So that's the Monocle.
So we would call that the north office,which for people that haven't been to DC
or don't know the Monocle, it's literallya restaurant right on the Senate side.
Um, basically from Dirksen whereour majority office space was
it's literally just a block away.
Um, so we would go there for dinner.
(45:39):
You see a lot of pictures ofmembers on the wall that have
autographed pictures up there.
Uh, but it's just a good place to,to go eat and also have a drink.
Alright.
Uh, if you had a time machine that youcould have used while you worked on
the Senate, but only for professionalpurposes, when would you have gone to?
Um, boy, this is a really good question.
(46:03):
Um, so
premise to so many books.
Yeah.
So if you go to the Senate Actcommittee room, you see a bunch of old
pictures when the first time they, theytook pictures of committee members.
I think it'd be interesting to goback during that time and really
kind of see what agriculture waslike then, knowing what we know now.
I couldn't even tell you the, the,the year of these pictures but
(46:25):
back in the day, it would be reallyinteresting to to see what it was like.
Okay.
Then this last one, and I should say,yeah, this is entirely theoretical.
I do not expect you to do this.
If, uh, they decided to close theSenate Ag Committee and they're
gonna just get rid of everything.
Oh my goodness.
But they're gonna allow you to comeback and take one thing as a memento.
That's a good, that's a good one.
(46:46):
What are you gonna take from the Senate?
What are you gonna take back to putit your place to be your memento?
Oh man.
I'm gonna take this adifferent route, Todd.
Nice.
And I'm gonna, because
Like a, like a true political right.
Here, one, one of the best experiencesthat I had was going behind the
scenes and doing an archives tour.
Um, and so one of the benefits ofliving in DC is you've got all these
(47:09):
Smithsonians in your backyard, right?
And you got the national archives.
And so we were able to go and,see some different documents.
It is really cool to have inyour hand an autograph, a real
autograph of Abraham Lincoln.
And you have all these differentprominent political figures that you see
the original documents, and obviouslythey're protected in everything,
(47:31):
but seeing that history and knowingBack then to where we are today.
Um, it's pretty special.
it's really cool to see some of thosehistorical documents in original form.
Well, Matt, thank you for beingso generous with your time.
Yeah,
Yeah.
Thanks guys.
I'm sure our listenerhas really enjoyed it.
Please tune in and come back we'llhave some more conversations.
Maybe we'll have Matt back another time.
(47:51):
We'll dig into what you're doing now.
So thank you very much.
Yeah, I appreciate it guys.
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