Crop Protection

The New Ag Economy: Why This Downturn is a Structural Shift, Not Just a Cycle

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 21:22:18 GMT

What You Need to Know:

Structural Evolution: This downturn is a permanent market shift, not just a temporary cycle.
Friend-Shoring: Trade is moving toward geopolitical allies to ensure supply chain resilience.
Aggressive Cost-Cutting: Farmers are doubling generic input use and delaying machinery purchases to protect margins.
Financial Resilience: Better management and working capital make today far more stable than the 1980s.
Premium Protein Demand: GLP-1 medications are driving consumers toward smaller, higher-quality meat portions

As the industry enters the third year of this downturn, farmers and agribusinesses are questioning if a recovery is on the two-year horizon. While cyclical behavior is normal, two economists suggest the structural evolution within crop protection, machinery, technology, livestock and other individual sectors is creating a different kind of staying power for those who survive the recovery.

The Evolution of the Cycle

When characterizing the current economic cycle in agriculture, historical patterns provide a necessary baseline, yet the present landscape is defined by unique pressures. Typical agricultural cycles consist of roughly six years of expansion followed by four years of decline. Currently, the market is navigating a “corrective period,” returning to long-run averages.

The drivers of growth are typically demand shocks — export surges, fuel demand or policy shifts such as the Renewable Fuel Standard. However, Wes Davis, ag economist at Meridian Ag Advisors, notes the current environment is an intersection of traditional contraction and sector-specific evolution.

“What I think we’re experiencing right now is that typical cycle behavior where we see growth in some business firms, and then some contraction and pullback to adjust to the cycle going back to more of the long-run average,” Davis explains. “I think we’re also seeing evolution of individual sectors within the market where there’s adjustments happening because of the industry itself.”

In other words, this isn’t just a cycle — it’s also a structural shift.

Change Fatigue and Modern Volatility

Farmers aren’t strangers to volatility, but global trade disruptions, policy shifts and rising competition, especially from Brazil, are layering uncertainty onto already volatile markets.
Farmers are grappling with “change fatigue,” a byproduct of the high velocity of information and extreme price swings that dwarf the relative stability of the early 2000s.

“When I go talk to any industry group right now, the phrase that I hear is ‘change fatigue’, and I feel that. Every couple minutes, something shifts,” says Trey Malone, Purdue University ag econ professor. “But to be clear, it’s not that the farm economy isn’t used to volatility, it’s just the uncertainty and the volatility now is, like, ‘hold my beer relative’ to the old volatility.”

Malone attributes this to layers of uncertainty created by global trade and policy. The rise of Brazilian production, coinciding with the disruption of U.S.-China trade relations, has created a permanent state of flux. This sentiment is reflected in the Purdue Ag Economy Barometer, which shares a higher correlation with the Small Business Index (.5) than with actual commodity prices. This suggests farmers view themselves primarily as small business owners facing broad economic pressures rather than just price-takers.

“We don’t see very strong correlations even with lagged soybean prices and corn prices,” Malone notes. “The world is more complicated than just looking at what happened in the market yesterday and gauging how farmers feel.”

Global Competitiveness and the Trade Reallocation

A primary concern for U.S. producers is their position as low-cost providers. While the U.S. maintains an infrastructure advantage that lowers the cost of getting products to export ports, Brazil continues to close the gap.

“It’s a fair question farmers ask a lot: Are we actually the ones who are the low-cost producers, and do we still have a place in the global market if Brazil continues to lower the cost of production and transport their grain to export terminals?” Davis asks.

However, Davis points out that global trade hasn’t shut off; it has reallocated. Only three global regions — North America, Latin America and parts of Southeastern Europe/Central Asia — are net exporters. The rest of the world remains net importers.

“While our trade has kind of shifted around ... that shift has really reallocated stuff in different places. Those calories and products end up going somewhere. It’s just a question of where,” he says.

The Shift to “Friend-Shoring” and Resilient Supply Chains

The industry is moving from “just-in-time” (hyper-lean) procurement to “just-in-case” (inventory-heavy) strategies, a lesson reinforced by the pandemic. This shift is accompanied by “friend-shoring,” where the U.S. prioritizes trade with geopolitical allies.

“We’ve gone from offshoring to onshoring to nearshoring to friendshoring,” Malone explains. “We’ve got a paper that’ll be coming out ... where we document friend-shoring in ag and food supply chains. Over the last 10 years, there’s been a shift where we mostly in the U.S. trade with other people who vote like us in the WTO. That’s kind of one way to measure friends.”

This resilience is also visible in crop protection. In 2019, 80% of active ingredients were sourced from China. Today, that is closer to 60%, with manufacturing shifting to India and domestic sites. Davis calls these “geopolitically resilient” supply chains.

The Rise of Generics and Decision Paralysis

The economic downturn is fundamentally changing the business model for input providers. Farmers are aggressively cutting costs, leading to a massive surge in generic usage.

“The latest survey I saw shows about 60% of farmers use generics today. That was about 30% to 40% just 5 years ago,” Davis says. This forces companies to pivot from differentiation to operational volume.

In the machinery sector, high costs and economic uncertainty have led to “decision paralysis.” Farmers are extending the life of their equipment, treating machinery replacement as the most controllable variable in managing annual ROI. Davis notes the U.S. ag equipment cycle is currently 15 to 20 percentage points lower than typical low points, driven by this hesitation. Furthermore, there is significant skepticism toward subscription-based technology models.

“Farmers don’t terribly love this idea, and I think the other interesting thought here is I’m not sure that retailers like selling them either,” Malone adds.

AI: The “Undergraduate Intern”

While artificial intelligence (AI) is a major talking point, its current role in agriculture is more supportive than transformative. Malone views AI as a “highly capable undergraduate intern” — useful for processing information but incapable of replacing the trust and risk management provided by human advisors.

“I don’t think you need to be replacing your agronomist. I think your mediocre agronomist just got OK,” Malone says, noting while LLMs can pass CCA exams, they cannot manage the risk of a wrong decision. “The risk management value proposition of an in-person Claude, or whoever, is probably going to win out because there’s still a risk.”

Currently, the adoption gap is wide: While 75% of agribusiness managers see potential in AI, only 4% have implemented it, according to a Purdue University survey in 2025.

Livestock and the GLP-1 Impact

The livestock sector is facing a unique demand shift driven by weight-loss medications (GLP-1s). This is leading to “premiumization.” As consumers eat smaller portions, they are opting for higher-quality cuts.

“The explosion in demand for protein is just shocking,” Malone says. “What GLP-1s do to that calorie count is they are all shifting toward premium cuts. You don’t care how much it costs because you’re only going to have seven bites of it. But you’re going to have a steak. That premiumization is going to really, really take off in the next 10 years.”

Conversely, the hype surrounding “fake meat” has largely faded, proving to be more of an investor-led phenomenon than a market-driven one.

Financial Stability: Not the 1980s

Despite the downturn, the financial health of the American farmer remains more stable than during the crisis of the 1980s. Currently, 10% to 12% of farmers are in a “tight” financial position , compared to 20% to 30% in the 80s.

“We do have a completely different, more professional ag workforce than we did back then,” Malone says. “The farm policy we have right now does not necessarily match what we need for the future, but all of these things make me think we’re in a much more stable position.”

Farmers have built-in “shock absorbers,” Davis adds, including off-farm income and working capital built up during the expansion years. However, in his research Davis has seen how alternative financing is becoming a major tool for the 50% of farmers who use it — either to manage stress or, for larger operations, to leverage relationships with retailers.

Strategic Reassessment: Winning at the Bottom

The experts agree the “bottom of the cycle” is the time for professionalization and upskilling. Surviving — and thriving — will require sharper management. It is an opportunity to reassess farm transitions and management disciplines, such as financial management, accounting and planning, which become critical in tight margins.

“Farmers are going to have to get smarter and get more creative with how they manage,” Malone says. “This is a good opportunity to take a step back and think about what the strategy needs to be moving forward.”

Davis emphasizes relationships are solidified during these periods: “Farmers are going to remember the folks who were around when they were in the bottom of the cycle, and who were there to support them. The best farmers will continue to get better ... I get excited about what we can look like as we come out of this cycle.”

So Is This Ag Cycle Different?

These experts say yes as every cycle presents its own unique reshaping of future opportunities.

To download the full report on why this ag cycle is different and what it means for your operation, click here .

From Forage to Fertilizer: Iowa Farmers Turn Cover Crops Into A Profit Engine

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 17:37:00 GMT

Where the borders of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois converge above the Mississippi River, Jack and Maria Smith, alongside their sons Nick and Ted, have turned cover crops into the strategic backbone of their diversified farming operation.

Based in eastern Dubuque County, Iowa, the family combines no-till corn and soybeans with a 420-head beef operation. They utilize a spring and fall calving schedule to produce registered seedstock and yearling bulls, while also finishing select calves.

One of the things that makes their farm unique, Nick Smith says, is how completely they’ve integrated cover crops in all aspects of their operation.

“We cover crop every single acre now. We’ve been able to do that for the last five, six, seven years, somewhere in there,” he told Andrew McCrea, during their recent discussion on Farming The Countryside.

Smith Family Farms got its start in 1853. In addition to their conservation efforts, the family is dedicated to preserving the state’s history through the Iowa Barn Foundation, which has saved more than 300 barns.

(Environmental Stewardship Award Video)

Matching Cover Crops To Cattle And Terrain

Because their land is prone to erosion, the Smiths first used cover crops to protect the soil from heavy rains. However, the practice quickly became a “no-brainer” feed source for their beef herd.

On their steepest slopes, the family often uses a two-year rotation centered on covers. They plant a spring cover crop to graze or harvest, then follow it with a diverse “summer cocktail” that is harvested once and grazed in the fall. This rotation prepares the fields for no-till corn the following year.

“With some of our steepest slopes, that’s what we typically do,” Smith says. “On ground that’s not as steep, we grow more continuous corn.”

Cattle graze the rolling hills that make up a significant percentage of the land the Smiths own in Dubuque County, Iowa.

(Environmental Stewardship Award Video)

Most of the family’s cover crop acres are grazed by cattle at some point.

“In the fall, I would say we’re grazing all of them,” Smith says. He notes that distance and accessibility sometimes limit spring grazing. “Probably 50-plus percent of the acres do get grazed in the spring. It just depends on the weather. You can’t really have the cattle out there if it’s wet.”

Custom “Cocktails” For Summer And Fall

Smith chooses different cover crop mixes based on the season and the next crop in the rotation. For summer covers, he prefers diverse blends based on sorghum-sudangrass.

“We love that stuff,” he says. “It’s really hard to screw it up. It’ll grow pretty much anywhere, and it grows quickly. It’s great feed; cows love it.”

He typically adds legumes like clover and buckwheat to those summer mixes. For fall and winter grazing, the farm relies on small grains and brassicas, including triticale, cereal rye, turnips, and oats. These fall covers are usually seeded in August and September.

The Smiths use a corn-soybean rotation along with some continuous corn. Cover crops help fuel the family’s row crops and feed their cattle herd.

(Environmental Stewardship Award Video)

Smith adjusts his seeding rates based on the upcoming row crop. If a field is headed to soybeans, he seeds cereal rye at a heavier rate.

“Beans like cereal rye,” he said. “If we’ve got a thicker stand out there, that’s not going to bother me.”

If he is planting corn the next year, he uses a lighter rate of cereal rye, especially on fields that won’t be grazed in the spring. The family has also experimented with camelina ahead of corn to add more diversity.

From Planes To Drones — And The Combine

Smith’s father, Jack, began aerial seeding cover crops more than 15 years ago, but the rolling terrain made it difficult to get consistent results.

“In our topography, we haven’t had great success with that,” Smith says. “It’s hard to get good coverage over every acre.”

In recent years, the Smiths have used drones for more precise seeding, especially to drop oats, radishes, or turnips into standing corn to create high-quality fall forage.

“We’ve had years where we’ve had knee-high oats while we’re harvesting corn,” Smith says, though he notes success depends on timely rain.

One of the most significant changes the family made was five years ago when they decided to mount a Gandy air seeder on their combine to plant cereal rye during the corn harvest.

“It’s hydraulically powered and blows the seed so it drops right at or through the header, just before the residue goes through the snapping rolls on the corn head,” Smith says. “As that material goes down through the corn head, it basically covers the seed up and helps trap a little bit more moisture there for it to get going.”

Smith can seed about 15 acres per fill. He dismisses concerns that the practice slows down the harvest.

“Everybody’s excuse is, ‘I don’t want to stop harvest,’” he says. “You can refill in 5 minutes with the right kind of tender. We’re saving a whole other trip, saving a lot of fuel, and we’re getting more growth because it’s done earlier.”

Soil Health And Nitrogen Efficiency

Smith credits no-till and consistent cover cropping with improving his soil function. He has observed faster residue breakdown, more earthworm activity, and higher microbial activity.

Earthworms are the only tillage tool on Smith Family Farms operation in northeast Iowa.

(Environmental Stewardship Award)

“The pace of the increases in organic matter have gone up a lot since we started using the combine, because we’re getting seed in every square foot of every acre, and we’re doing it on a consistent basis,” he reports.

Grazing cover crops has also allowed the family to reduce commercial nitrogen rates over the last six or seven years, even as corn yields have increased.

“From an efficiency standpoint, we’re way more efficient as far as pounds of commercial nitrogen applied per bushel of corn,” Smith says. He attributes this to cattle returning nutrients to the soil via manure, though the exact fertilizer value is hard to quantify.

Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) has played a central role in helping the Smiths refine these systems. Nick says he uses the organization’s website, events, and on-farm trials to guide experimentation with new cover mixes.

Labor And The “Cheat Code” Of Cows

Smith says labor is the biggest barrier for most farmers considering cover crops. However, he argues that seeding during harvest removes that hurdle.

“That’s where the combine’s a no-brainer, because that’s not labor — you’re saving time,” he notes.

He also acknowledges that having cattle makes the financial risk much lower.

“Compared to other farmers, we’ve got a mulligan, if something doesn’t work,” Smith says. “If you’re a cash-grain farmer only and you’re spending money on some cover crops and it doesn’t really work, it’s hard to stomach that cost. For us, if we have something that’s a failure, we can still recover some of that cost — and in a lot of years, way more than recover the cost. The cows are a little bit of a ‘cheat code’ for us in that aspect.”

The Smith Family Farms received the 2025 Regional Environmental Stewardship Award for their efforts in sustainability, which were highlighted during the CattleCon 2026 conference.

Listen to the complete discussion between Nick Smith and Andrew McCrae on Farming The Countryside here .

From Best Buy Toy to Pro Spray Drone: A Father-Son Duo Takes Flight In Missouri Cattle Country

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 19:41:26 GMT

Iowa State University freshman Rhett Keaton and his father, Vance, are launching a drone spraying side hustle.

The father-son duo started out just having some fun several years ago, buzzing around the house with a $20 drone from Best Buy that “drove mom crazy”. But now, they are getting serious about turning entertainment to revenue.

Vance, who runs 5K Cattle Company out of Anderson, Mo., ran out and purchased a DJI Agras T20P spray drone this spring, and both Keatons secured the Part 107 Commercial Pilot Certificate needed to operate on a farm. Combined with the private pesticide applicator’s license 5K Cattle Co. already held, the guys can now apply restricted-use pesticides to their own pasture ground.

University of Missouri Extension experts recently weighed in on the promise of drone usage in farming, and more specifically, in cattle operations. Field specialist Caleb O’Neal likens the technologies’ versatility and practicality to that of a UTV.

“Back in the 1980s, it would have been rare to see a UTV being used on a farm,” he says. “Visiting farms today, I’m hard-pressed to find an operation larger than 20 acres that doesn’t have some type of UTV that they utilize on a regular basis.”

And while the Keaton’s are banking on custom application services with a spray drone as their next play in ag, you don’t have to spray crops or weeds to use drones for the benefit of your farm or ranch, according to O’Neal.

Use of drones in agriculture is increasing as row crop and livestock producers find new ways to improve efficiency and productivity.

(Photo courtesy of Caleb O’Neal.)

“Livestock producers can monitor fences and availability of water and can make sure animals are where they should be without even opening a gate,” O’Neal explains. “Drone technology lets cattlemen quickly check estrus indication patches for optimized breeding timing, monitor cows during calving season, look for hidden newborn calves and look out for potential predators.

Getting back to the Keatons, the next step is for Rhett, who is majoring in ag systems technology in Ames this fall, to secure his Missouri commercial pesticide applicators license.

Once that happens, the pair can start marketing drone spraying services to neighboring farms. Their plan is to start locally with pasture and grassland applications before seeking out work on row crop farms to the north once foliar fungicide season hits.

Related - The Scoop Podcast: What’s Next For Ag Drone Application?

Even though the T20P is one of the smaller spray drones offered by DJI, Keaton says it’s proven to be the perfect fit so far. He also rents a neighbor’s spray drone, paying a per-acre fee, when he needs more than one bird to cover more ground.

“We do a lot of flying in and out of trees and stuff like that,” Keaton says. “Having that smaller drone with less capacity and a more efficient battery, I get about double the battery life as [the bigger drones] do. But I also have about half the tank.”

The reservoir on the T20P holds about 5.5 to 6 gallons of tank mix, so Keaton will usually need to land and refill his tank after about five or six minutes of spraying. He averages 23 acres per hour when everything is set up for a quick land-refill-takeoff cycle.

Keaton says Corteva’s DuraCor herbicide, an aerial application-approved formulation containing two Group 4 AIs, is the main product he’s been spraying from the drone thus far. The product label calls for 2 to 3 gallons of active ingredients (mixed with carrier water) applied per acre with coarse droplets.

A fellow rancher kicks the tires on Vance and Rhett Kaiser’s spray drone trailer at a field day event. The Kaisers operate 5K Cattle Company out of Anderson, Mo., and have plans to launch a spray drone custom application business in the near future.

(Rhett Keaton )

Keaton and Vance also picked up a nicely appointed spray drone trailer off — of all places — Facebook Marketplace. The whole setup – drone, trailer, extra batteries, etc. – cost about $30,000 all-in, Keaton says.

“We found one that was cheaper to buy than it was to build our own, especially with the generator — that is probably the most expensive part of that trailer,” he explains. “It already had the generator, pumps, the mix tanks and a thousand-gallon freshwater tank, and everything was lined up.”

With the spray drone in the air and the nice, shiny trailer parked edge-of-field as Keaton makes his passes, cleaning up weed escapes in fields that he says are “pretty clean” already, neighboring farmers often take notice and stop by to ask if he and his dad can come by and spray some of their ground, too. Their plan is to find the sweet spot between a $12 to $20 per acre fee to charge for their drone spraying services.

Speaking of sweet spots, O’Neal feels that spot spraying, guided by aerial imagery or even first-hand producer knowledge of where weed problems are significant and need to be addressed, is a good target for drone service providers like the Keatons.

“A pasture with a rash of blackberry weeds in isolated areas has great potential for a prescription herbicide application where only the problematic areas receive treatment via a spray drone, as opposed to a broadcast application where the entirety of the field is treated whether it needs it or not,” he says.

“I think there’s a lot of opportunity [for it] around us. There’s a lot of guys with hay fields, and they do a lot of burn down applications. That’s one thing we are planning on hitting on,” Keaton says. “I think some guys would be interested in that. Especially if we have a wet spring and guys can’t get in the field.”

Missouri Extension field specialist O’Neal agrees with that assertion.

“In my neck of the woods in southwestern Missouri, the topography can be quite unforgiving, with some areas too harsh to allow access by ground spray rig or even an ATV,” O’Neal says. “With an aerial piece of equipment like a utility drone, landowners can now get herbicide applications on these problematic areas and put them into useful forage production.”

With a pilot year of flying his family’s acres fastened securely under his belt, Keaton says the arrow looks to be pointing up on spray drone technology in agriculture.

“Hopefully we can expand and get maybe another trailer or a bigger drone, it just depends kind of on what’s calling for us,” he says. “I’ve got to see exactly how much work is out there in this business and from there just make it all work out. Our foot is just in the door [right now].”

Your Next Read: Now is the Time for Beef Producers to Invest with Purpose

FBN Spins Out Its Crop Protection Business, Focuses on Marketplace and Technology

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 17:49:41 GMT

Last week, just a few hours after Corteva announced its spin out dividing seeds from crop protection, Farmers Business Network (FBN) announced it is separating its businesses. Moving forward FBN will focus on its digital marketplace for farmers, and the newly launched Global Crop Solutions will be an independent supplier of crop protection products.

FBN leaders say the timing is coincidental. Their motive for the timing was brought about by the new fiscal year. But they offer both of the announcements together could be a sign of a trend of vertical integration getting unwound in the name of efficiency and focus.

“We’re doubling down, allotting capital on digital innovation for FBN’s future,” says Diego Casanello, CEO of FBN. “FBN’s core business is a digital commerce and fintech platform. We want farmers to be able to buy, finance, and market everything they need while sitting in their combines. These are technology challenges, so the core competence you need to be successful at FBN is different from managing the supply chain of the crop protection business.”

In the past 14 months, FBN has been refocusing its business. First, it spun off its insurance business, then its Gradable business into a joint-venture with ADM. Now with its crop protection business spin out, Casanello says the FBN marketplace will feature GCS products, such as Willowood USA branded products, via a strategic partnership, and GCS products will explore distribution beyond the FBN marketplace.

“The big unlock for GCS is the opportunity to serve the entire retail and co-op industry,” Casanello says. “It frees GCS of any channel conflicts and hits the ground running with one of the largest portfolios of products in the industry. And it frees FBN from similar constraints as we move to an open marketplace architecture. We are onboarding new sellers and their portfolios every week. We provide them the tools to manage pricing, marketing, and placement. FBN is open for business and we’ve had significant interest from additional partners before and after the announcement.”

FBN’s Marketplace Strategy

Currently, FBN says it has 120,000 farmer members in the U.S. and Canada. The business provides a marketplace with farm inputs and supplies, financial services and data-driven intelligence.

FBN co-founder Charles Baron says the FBN marketplace has expanded its product range to include crop protection, seed (with additional partner news coming soon), fertilizer, livestock products, veterinary pharmaceuticals, farm supplies and more.

“To farmers, there’s no change in their experience. And over time, we’ll bring an even broader assortment of goods,” Baron says. “You’ll be seeing announcements from us every two weeks or so about the suppliers coming on the platform. It’s one of the most exciting times in our history.”

The leaders say farmer use of e-commerce has increased every year since they launched, and in 2025 FBN served a record number of customers. “Farmers are really focusing on value right now and maximizing every dollar,” said Baron. And per their analytics roughly 35% of U.S. farmers visit FBN.com to browse inputs, apply for financing, or look for information.

The Future of GCS

As a newly formed independent crop protection supplier, GCS has a portfolio of 250 registrations on post-patent products. The company will specialize in sourcing, managing first mile logistics, developing new products and regulatory aspects.

To lead the business and its team, Amy Yoder, most recently EVP of FBN’s livestock division, is incoming CEO.

“Global Crop Solutions launches today as an independent powerhouse,” said Yoder, in a press release. “For the first time, our extensive portfolio and efficient global supply chain are fully available to all partners— from retailers, to distributors, to co-ops. Our independence unlocks immense growth potential and allows us to be the most reliable and collaborative partner to the entire agricultural industry.”

Former Ambassador to China Shares His Thoughts on Trump's Trade Tactics

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 21:26:07 GMT

As President-elect Donald Trump builds his stable of cabinet officials, it’s clear a strong stance on fair trade remains a key focus. Leaders from his last administration know farmers and the ag industry are uneasy about facing another trade war.

“I know people are concerned about the tariffs, but the fact is, [Trump] looks at tariffs as a way to get their attention and eventually to get better and reciprocal trade agreements,” explained Ambassador Terry Branstad at the Agricultural Retailer Association’s (ARA) annual meeting in Houston, Texas.

The former Iowa Governor served as Ambassador to China during the first Trump administration. He had a front-row seat to the uncomfortable trade negotiations that ultimately yielded a Phase 1 agreement.

“I believe Trump will try to do as he did before — get [China’s] attention through tariffs (he’s doing the same thing with Canada and Mexico) but then try to work out a trade agreement that’s fair and reciprocal,” Branstad said. “The key there is it has to be a win-win situation.”

Trump appears to be following a similar playbook for his second term, including nominating Jamieson Greer to U.S. Trade Representative. Greer served as chief of staff to Trump’s former U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer. Trump has also tapped Peter Navarro to serve as senior counselor for Trade and Manufacturing.

“During my first term, few were more effective or tenacious than Peter in enforcing my two sacred rules: buy American and hire American,” said Trump in a press release. “He helped me renegotiate unfair trade deals like NAFTA and the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and moved every one of my tariff and trade actions fast.”

Could A Phase 2 Trade Deal With China Be Next?
Branstad says he expects the administration to continue its focus on trade with China, including taking steps beyond the Phase 1 deal.

“I think we’ll see talk of a Phase 2 deal, as that was the intent when we agreed to phase 1,” Branstad said. “The problem was there wasn’t the support in China to go the extra mile and do the other things. I know the Trump team wanted to do Phase 2 and had he been re-elected at that time, I think they would have pursued it.”

Not only was China the largest market for U.S. ag exports in 2023, comprising 17% of total exports, according to USDA-ERS , they’re also a significant supplier of inputs, such as fertilizer and crop protection products. Leaders with ARA admit trade is high on their list of things to watch in the new administration.

Impact of Tariffs On Crop Protection Products
“If we start applying tariffs to any imports, we suddenly make our crop protection products much more expensive,” said Daren Coppock, president and CEO of ARA. “I don’t know if everybody has thought through all the impacts of what that might mean.”

His heightened concern follows an expanding downturn in the agricultural economy driven by falling crop prices, high production costs and interest rates making it more expensive to borrow money. Regardless of the concern, Coppock knows the industry shouldn’t expect the status quo.

“Biden did nothing for four years, so I think we’re going to see a much more aggressive approach taken [under Trump],” Branstad admits. “Some people are fearful of that, but I actually think it’s a good thing. I think it will lead to more fairness and reciprocity in terms of trade.”

While the former I-state governor admits Trump might not have had farmers top of mind early on in his last administration, he stresses that’s not the case today.

“I come from an ag state that produces ethanol and biodiesel, and we had to work very hard to get his support,” Branstad said. “We got his support, but we also had some challenges with some of the people who worked for his administration, including the EPA.”

Between Secretary of Agriculture nominee Brooke Rollins and Branstad’s son, Eric, serving in Trump’s 2016, 2020 and 2024 campaigns, Ambassador Branstad is confident of agriculture’s voice within the inner circle.

“We feel that Donald Trump will continue to be an advocate and supporter of agriculture and rural America,” Branstad said.

Your Next Read — The Scoop Podcast: Insights For The Future of Ag Trade With Former Ambassador Terry Branstad

Meet the Rat Buster, YouTube Sensation and Grim Reaper of Farm Rodents

Thu, 15 Sep 2022 15:36:28 GMT

The Rat Buster cometh. In the pitch-black of a barn at midnight, surrounded by hundreds of tiny pairs of glowing orbs—rat eyes illuminated by the wonder of a thermal scope, Jeff Pybus squeezes a rifle trigger and fires a .22 pellet 25 yards through the head of a 1-lb. rat. With the soft click of a sidelever, he stays on the scope, zeroes on a second rat, and sends another pellet into its brain. Simple math and steady rhythm: one shot per kill, for a tally of 200 rats within hours.

Against the scratching and chattering of a rodent horde reaching biblical numbers, Pybus is an invisible reaper, racking up prey in the dark as he cocks, shoots—and films. His role as a one-man pest control service has exploded into a first-person-shooter YouTube channel, featuring addictive, no-frills footage of rat hunts on farming operations. Fish in a barrel; rats in a barn.

“My adrenaline starts to pump hard when the thermal turns the night into day and I see countless rats all around me that sometimes run up my leg, jump on my shoulder, or move across my feet,” Pybus describes. “It’s a hunt from another world.”

Down the Rat Hole

A lifelong small game hunter in northeast England, Pybus was unexpectedly pulled into the rat realm by the cancer-related death of a close friend and brother-in-arms, Colin Mann. From a hospital bed two weeks prior to his death in 2015, Mann gave Pybus a parting gift.

“Colin was a very, very good mate for my entire life,” Pybus explains, his voice coated in a thick north Yorkshire accent. “Right before he died, Colin told me, ‘Go to my house and get something I want you to have. It’s in the cupboard behind the refrigerator. It’s a rifle and it’s yours now.’”

(Farm Journal)

Pybus declined the gift of a BSA Supersport: “No mate, I can’t take it. I’ll sell it for you, but I can’t take it.”

Mann insisted: “You take it. You use it.”

Treasured by Pybus today, the BSA became the doorway to a wild chapter in his life. He went down a rat hole and never emerged.

Body Count 480

Roughly twice a week at dusk, Pybus arrives at a given farm to set up for a shoot. Wearing cargo pants, lightweight mud boots, and a dark, collared shirt emblazoned with a “Rat Buster” logo, Pybus, 54, conducts a quick recon, checking for equipment or livestock impediments. “You’ve got to take a look around every time, even if it’s a familiar barn, because if it’s been loaded with equipment and you’re dealing with hundreds of rats, there won’t be enough room to make kills in high numbers,” he notes.

His current weapon of choice is a Weihrauch HW100 rifle set at 11.7 foot pounds of pressure—German engineering at its best. The gun slings a .22 pellet clean through a rat—the rough equivalence of a fist-sized cannonball blasting through the human body. “Each magazine holds 14 pellets and sometimes I shoot six magazines in 10 minutes. My recharge bottle is converted for 300 shots per fill, and that way I don’t have to go back to my vehicle for extras except on an extremely heavy night.”

(Farm Journal)

On most evenings, Pybus enters a barn, turns on the thermal, and waits a full 10 minutes in a standing position, rifle resting on a shooting stick. When he pulls the trigger, the streak of a pellet flashes onscreen and a rat drops. “The most consistent question I get is whether I’m shooting bb’s,” he says with a chuckle. “People see the tiny flash and are convinced it’s a bb, but I’m most definitely shooting .22 pellets, plenty powerful to kill two rats in one shot.”

“I’m very quiet, waiting in the dark,” Pybus continues. “If the rats see you right at the beginning, they’ll move along. But once the shooting starts, I’m looking first for a headshot, with a body shot as second choice, but either way, they’ll drop whether they run or not because the pellet causes decimating trauma to the rat’s body.”

The majority of Pybus’ kill shots range between 15-20 yards, sometimes extending to 40 yards, depending on the size of the farm building. “I’d say 15-20 yards is optimal for the camera focus for YouTube viewers. Closer is difficult to capture and further is not clear enough.”

Once the shooting gets hot, Pybus loses sense of time—a genuine problem he remedies by setting an alarm several hours into a hunt. “I literally don’t notice the clock because everything happens so fast, especially on a new farm where there’s a serious infestation and I can go five or six hours,” he laughs. “If I don’t put on the alarm, sometimes the whole evening rolls by and I’ve forgotten to go home.”

What is Pybus’ biggest one-night tally? 480 rats on the nose, killed at a recycling plant. “I’ll never forget that night,” he says, “where I was surrounded by thousands of rats. I started with a 500-pellet tin that I’d used exactly 20 from the previous night. Therefore, I knew I had 480 pellets going in. I never missed, right down to the last pellet.”

Game of Trust

Rats have a penchant for survival and proliferation, and agriculture provides easy pickings. Rat presence is near-ubiquitous at some level on agriculture operations of all types, and the creatures possess a stunning capacity for reproduction, with a single female potentially capable of setting off a chain of 15,000 offspring in a single year, dependent on food resources.

(Farm Journal)

Females can copulate hours after giving birth, ovulate once every four days, and produce litters throughout their entire lives. (Life span in the wild is roughly 7-10 months.) Brown rats can start breeding at 8 weeks of age (roughly 12 weeks with limited food)—10-12 pups with plenty of food, and 4-5 pups with less food.

The rat math is alarming and highlights a vital service provided by Pybus. “The public thinks you can toss out poison on a farm and kill all the rats. No way. Some farmers pay big money for poisons and bait stations on the farm, but over the years, I’ve learned so much about the intelligence of rats—incredibly clever animals. If you put something new where they’ve been walking and running, they don’t touch the bait stations, because they have natural food sources inside the farm buildings. You can certainly kill some of the rats, but the big majority already have plenty of food to keep them busy.”

“The younger farmers think they have no rat problems because the bait stations are relatively untouched,” Pybus explains. “But when you go around at night with a thermal, you’ll see rats like you never imagined in the smallest of places. Rats certainly move in daytime as well, but not in numbers. The big mistake farmers make is by judging according to what they see during the day.”

On farms with high rat infestations, Pybus needs roughly 10 visits stretched over five to six weeks to decimate a population. After every shooting, he bags the kills for deposit at an incinerator. “For some of these farmers, they’ve no other reliable means to tackle their rat problem and it’s a privilege to help.”

Pybus operates on a 40-plus farm circuit—a mix of hog and dairy operations—along with two waste recycling centers. His popularity with farmers is massive—and growing. “I don’t get paid and this is just a hobby, but people need to realize these farmers put their trust in me on their properties to clean out their rats as fast as I can.”

“The game I’m in is a game of trust. If you earn a farmer’s trust then you’ll have a fantastic relationship, and farmers are my genuine friends, far beyond pest control. They are wonderful mates and I never have to buy beef, pork, lamb, or eggs.”

Nightmare

When Pybus first began rat hunting in 2015, he targeted infestations on the farms of several friends. Hoping to maximize hunting access to a nocturnal rodent, he built a night vision kit. “I took a 5” reversing camera, the same as you’d use on a vehicle. I had a tube running over my scope with a camera fitted inside. Basically, I wired the camera and screen together, and put a battery on it. That was my start.”

Two years later, Pybus performed a DIY overhaul with a better camera and bigger screen, and started filming videos and posting the content to Facebook. “One day, this random guy asked me if he could put one of my videos on YouTube. Sure; I sent him the clip and it got 3.5 million views. A few weeks later, I was driving with my daughter and the guy called again, asking for more footage. My daughter asked me the question that started me on YouTube: ‘Why are you sending him videos instead of making your own channel?’”

The Rat Buster was born. Twenty million views later, Pybus is a rat’s worst nightmare.

Call the Rat Buster

Pybus’ controlled chaos is filmed with an ATN X-Sight 4K Pro, drawing in millions of YouTube views. (By itself, a 13-minute shooting clip Pybus posted in December 2021 has 7.7 million clicks.)

His video uploads are big meat on the bone with little fat—heavy on shooting footage and lean on narration. “I don’t waste anyone’s time by needless introductions, and I get straight to the point. I had no clue people would go crazy and I never dreamed people would be fascinated by my videos. My subscribers sometimes jump by 1,000 in a single week.”

With 100,000-plus subscribers and counting, who are the watchers? “From the emails and comments, there are loads of farmers from around the world following my channel, but there are also people from all walks of life who want to see into a hunt. I suppose that in the way the hunt is filmed, the viewer feels like they are in the barn with me.”

Pybus sometimes tacks Rat Buster advertisement flyers at key locations around his farm circuit, always on the lookout to expand his network. Recently, placing a flyer while wearing a hunting jacket stamped with a Rat Buster logo, Pybus was approached by a fan: “This man walked up and said, ‘My God, you’re famous.’”

(Farm Journal)

“The man told me he’d been pheasant hunting with a group of farmers the day before, and that one of the farmers was complaining about his rat problem and wasting money on pest control. Another farmer spoke up and told him, ‘Call the Rat Buster.’ It was surreal, but it was one of those moments where I realized the Rat Buster is far more well-known than I’ll ever be.”

Rat Buster videos once were strictly hunting footage, but after heavy demand from subscribers, Pybus stepped from behind the lens and now appears briefly on camera in some episodes. “The subscribers are fascinated, and they want to know more than my voice. They want to see who the Rat Buster is.”

After passing the 100,000-subscriber benchmark, Pybus is quick to credit his family. “I want to thank my wife, Sue, for putting up with me talking shooting and guns all the time, and letting me go shooting. I want to thank my daughter, Megan, and my granddaughter, LailaSue, for picking the channel’s name and for making the channel for me.”

Genuinely appreciative and humbled by his channel’s explosion, Pybus places emphasis on two pillars of his success: Colin Mann and a host of farmers.

“One, even in the middle of a hunt, my mind goes back to Colin. He was a lovely lad that got me into shooting full-time.”

“Two, I can’t operate my channel without a fantastic group of farmers,” Pybus adds. “I’m truly grateful for their help and I want to help them in return.”

To read more stories from Chris Bennett (cbennett@farmjournal.com — 662-592-1106), see:

Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market

Tractorcade: How an Epic Convoy and Legendary Farmer Army Shook Washington, D.C.

Bagging the Tomato King: The Insane Hunt for Agriculture’s Wildest Con Man

How a Texas Farmer Killed Agriculture’s Debt Dragon

While America Slept, China Stole the Farm

Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years

The Arrowhead whisperer: Stunning Indian Artifact Collection Found on Farmland

Where’s the Beef: Con Artist Turns Texas Cattle Industry Into $100M Playground

Fleecing the Farm: How a Fake Crop Fueled a Bizarre $25 Million Ag Scam

Skeleton In the Walls: Mysterious Arkansas Farmhouse Hides Civil War History

US Farming Loses the King of Combines

Ghost in the House: A Forgotten American Farming Tragedy

Rat Hunting with the Dogs of War, Farming’s Greatest Show on Legs

Misfit Tractors a Money Saver for Arkansas Farmer

Government Cameras Hidden on Private Property? Welcome to Open Fields

Farmland Detective Finds Youngest Civil War Soldier’s Grave?

Descent Into Hell: Farmer Escapes Corn Tomb Death

Evil Grain: The Wild Tale of History’s Biggest Crop Insurance Scam

Grizzly Hell: USDA Worker Survives Epic Bear Attack

Farmer Refuses to Roll, Rips Lid Off IRS Behavior

Killing Hogzilla: Hunting a Monster Wild Pig

Shattered Taboo: Death of a Farm and Resurrection of a Farmer

Frozen Dinosaur: Farmer Finds Huge Alligator Snapping Turtle Under Ice

Breaking Bad: Chasing the Wildest Con Artist in Farming History

In the Blood: Hunting Deer Antlers with a Legendary Shed Whisperer

Corn Maverick: Cracking the Mystery of 60-Inch Rows

Against All Odds: Farmer Survives Epic Ordeal

Agriculture’s Darkest Fraud Hidden Under Dirt and Lies

Crop Protection

The New Ag Economy: Why This Downturn is a Structural Shift, Not Just a Cycle

What You Need to Know:

The Evolution of the Cycle

Change Fatigue and Modern Volatility

Global Competitiveness and the Trade Reallocation

The Shift to “Friend-Shoring” and Resilient Supply Chains

The Rise of Generics and Decision Paralysis

AI: The “Undergraduate Intern”

Livestock and the GLP-1 Impact

Financial Stability: Not the 1980s

Strategic Reassessment: Winning at the Bottom

So Is This Ag Cycle Different?

From Forage to Fertilizer: Iowa Farmers Turn Cover Crops Into A Profit Engine

Matching Cover Crops To Cattle And Terrain

Custom “Cocktails” For Summer And Fall

From Planes To Drones — And The Combine

Soil Health And Nitrogen Efficiency

Labor And The “Cheat Code” Of Cows

From Best Buy Toy to Pro Spray Drone: A Father-Son Duo Takes Flight In Missouri Cattle Country

More spray drone stories:

FBN Spins Out Its Crop Protection Business, Focuses on Marketplace and Technology

Former Ambassador to China Shares His Thoughts on Trump's Trade Tactics

Meet the Rat Buster, YouTube Sensation and Grim Reaper of Farm Rodents