AEI.ag Presents

When the Federal Reserve adjusts interest rates, it can significantly affect asset values, including farmland. While attention in 2022 has focused on the Fed raising rates, the preceding decades-long policy of extremely low interest rates has also been consequential in the form of asset inflation - the cousin of price inflation.

Featured Guests: Jim Farrell (Farrell Growth Group), Nate Franzen (First Dakota National Bank),...

Why is the U.S. government, and the Department of Agriculture in particular, involved in lending? Dive into how USDA's ag lending programs have shaped the ag economy and farming in general over the last hundred years, and learn what this can tell us about the overall health of the farm financial system.

Featured guests: Jonathan Coppess (Associate Professor, University of Illinois), Heather Malcom (Bank of the Rockies...

Vendor financing is nothing new in agriculture. But it has come a long way since the days of Cyrus McCormick. Explore how non-bank credit works, how it has changed, and what risks and opportunities it might pose to the overall agriculture finance system as we move out of two decades of low interest rates.

Featured guests: John Blanchfield (Agricultural Banking Advisory Services), Curt Covington (AgAmerica), Mike Boehlji (Purdue Univ...

Get to know the story of Farm Credit: why it was founded, how it works, and how it has both failed and succeeded.How is the Farm Credit system different from banks? What really sets Farm Credit apart is not how it lends its money, but how it gets funds in the first place. Plus: the story behind the bail out.

Featured guests: Jim Farrell (Farrell Growth Group), Jim Knuth (Farm Credit Services of America), Curt Covington (AgAmerica), ...

Credit can be a powerful tool. But it also comes with risks. One way to manage that risk is to understand who you're lending from and what their motivations and experiences are. How exactly does an agricultural lender work as a business? How do interest rates impact banking’s business model? Go behind the scenes to crunch the numbers.

Featured guests: Nate Franzen (First Dakota National Bank),  Heather Malcolm (Bank of the Rock...

Conditions in the farm economy have changed rapidly since season one of the AEI.ag Presents podcast explored the 1980s farm crisis, and in sometimes contradictory ways. 

You may have heard that there is way less leverage and debt today than there was back then. Yet, farming has also gotten more capital intensive. Interest rates and inflation are also adding to growing uncertainty in 2022. So how much debt is there, really, in today’...

AEI.ag Presents will return this fall for season 3! While you are waiting on that, check out our newest podcast, Ag Interrupted, where we’ll take a deep look into agricultural trends that matter to learn more about the often unexpected ways that the agricultural industry, agricultural markets, and agricultural businesses get shaped by the history we’re not paying attention to.  Listen to & follow Ag Interrupted wherever you lis...

From policy to electric vehicles, the future of ethanol is arguable as uncertain as it has ever been. Have the seeds for ethanol’s demise already been sown, or is the outlook less dire than it initially seems?     

In this episode, you’ll join Ag Economic Insights David Widmar and Brent Gloy, as well as economists, historians, policy advisors, and entrepreneurs as they share their perspectives on the birth of two environmental ag po...

What happens when a demand shift pushes commodity prices and farm incomes higher? To answer this, we have to consider the short-run and long-run implications. Just as the challenges that ethanol faced evolved and shifted, so will the future of carbon and carbon markets.     

This episode, you’ll join Ag Economic Insights David Widmar and Brent Gloy, as well as economists, historians, policy advisors, and entrepreneurs as they share ...

Just as corn-based ethanol production was surging to fulfill the mandates of the 2007 RFS, enthusiasm began shifting to the new kid on the block: cellulosic ethanol. With the help of the government - including mandated usage- the even better renewable fuel made from switchgrass, corn stover, or other biomass feedstocks was just around the corner, or so we thought. This raises important questions for carbon markets, what happens if ...

The goals of every policy are eventually tested in the real world. For ethanol, the challenges came in the form of the “blend wall,” which effectively capped the growth of this formerly booming sector. Even the best-designed policies will struggle to navigate conditions that were uncertain or difficult to predict when legislation was passed. For carbon, detecting those potential limits on future growth are critical, and making sure...

The Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) bolstered the market for corn-based ethanol, but also fueled a frenzy to build ethanol plants. Proposed plants got larger, building costs jumped higher, and a surge of potential projects created a regulatory and construction logjam. But just as fast as the mania turned red hot, the prospects of an even better technology and the ripples of the Great Recession shuttered projects that were years into...

Though the amount of enthusiasm and excitement around voluntary ag carbon markets might make you believe that we’ve already determined that it’ll be the best way to involve agriculture in climate action, it’s definitely not the only, and likely not the best solution out there. In fact, there are several ways policymakers could create or motivate change, with various carrots and sticks, in the way that agriculture operates. Adding t...