American Ag Today- 12/27/24

And welcome into a new episode of American Ag Today, produced by the American Ag Radio Network, empowered by farm and ranch media. I'm your host, Jesse Allen. While Republican President-elect Donald Trump has nominated former White House aide Brooke Rollins to be his secretary of agriculture, as he prepares to move back into the White House in Washington, D.C. National Cannabis Beef Association President and Wyoming rancher, Mark Isley, is cautiously optimistic about Rollins taking the reins of the federal agriculture department.

She's not a deep-seated producer in that sense, but she is sensitive. She has kids that show steers, which actually sounds pretty good. She can be sensitive to her things. The traceability rule will actually affect her kids. But more importantly, we think she's

For lack of a better term, she's trainable. We can actually show her the rec course and back it up with science and numbers and facts so that she can make good decisions and that she has good people underneath her to help make good decisions. We were limited in our access to Secretary Villasac. This will be a refreshing and open book for us. We feel very positive about it at this point. Eisley also sees some positive things ahead for cattle producers in this second Trump administration.

Basically everything is on the table. We're going to try to address everything. We're very optimistic because it took him a while to learn how to operate and do you see the last time. Now he knows who the players are and we also have a better feel for who he's going to have for pointies and cabinet picks and we've already been working with them. We started working with their chief of staff quite a while ago and so we're making sure we have a voice at the table on that.

Personally, Eisley says taxation may be his biggest axe to grind. We nearly lost our ranch in 2011 when that tax rate changed from 0 to 55 percent. Now they're proposing 40 percent. Very few businesses can survive with a 40 percent estate tax or death tax rate. And how many times does that have to be applied to a family? How many times does a family have to pay that before they finally actually own their property?

And, you know, there's actually a line in the democratic platform that says we strive to reduce or eliminate generational egg wealth transfer. That reads, we're trying to kill family farms. Just like any other business, Isley says farmers or ranchers use whichever tax structures are most beneficial.

And they can talk about corporate, they can talk about LLCs. Most of us have gone into those for tax and reporting reasons. Not because we're giant corporate farms, we're corporate farming. It's because that's the tax structure we work under. If we don't get that renewed or amended, we stand to lose things like 1031 exchange.

We stand to lose stepped up basis. We will lose the Section 179 deduction which is huge for depreciation for us to improve our businesses and help local economies, dealers, the hardware store, whatever to move forward and just a myriad of those kind of things that are really good for us to move forward and survive and thrive hopefully as producers.

President-elect Trump will be sworn in as president on January 20, meantime, the new session of the U.S. Congress begins January 3, incoming Senate Majority Leader and South Dakota Senator Republican John Thune has said getting Trump's cabinet secretaries confirmed is one of his early priorities. Eisley says there's no shortage of problems they'd like to find solutions for with Congress.

And we're going to be working on transportation. We're going to be working on animal disease and traceability. We're going to be working on the check off in those markets. Transportation, hours of service and safety. A lot of the overreach and overregulation that we see from the government, which is huge. That may be the single best thing that comes out of this.

is because like the BLM conservation has huge ramifications for things like the Department of Interior, the Forest Service, which affects everybody in the West. The West ends up being the testing ground for all those things, endangered species, energy development, water management, and so on and so forth. A lack of people willing to work on farms or ranches is another struggle Eisley would like to see addressed.

Oddly enough, people pour across the border uninhibited right now, but we can't get our H2A, a guest worker program to work properly. The vetting is so extreme, the parameters, the side borders are so extreme, and yet those folks are really good workers, and most farms and ranches treat them like family. They have been long-term employees, and we've actually worked to help them. Sometimes they don't want to become citizens, but we still help them, and we know that's good for them back home when they go.

And he says there are shortages in many different segments of agriculture. Production, processing, transportation, and we have to address that. I think we're going to see a shift in education. It may be ramping up, I'm hoping, ramping up a bow ag and bow tech to fill those vacancies. And unfortunately there will be some shift

from traditional labor to some modern computer mechanization, automation, that sort of thing. And that's really scary for people, I get that. But it's something we're going to have to adapt to. Unfortunately, the other thing constant in this world is change. Once again, that is NCBA president, Wyoming rancher Mark Isley.

U.S. Representative Dan Newhouse from Washington says it's obvious that Ag's biggest priority in New Farm Bill will not be the industry's Christmas present. Newhouse says first things first in 2025, we must get a new Farm Bill done and it needs to happen sooner than later. The new extension would expire on September 30th of 25. I hope we don't wait until

August 30th to address the farm bill, we should get this done sooner. And with a Republican Senate and House, I think there's a bigger chances of us.

coming together on a final package that we could send to the president. Newhouse says the president-elect's promise of more tariffs on our biggest trading partners could mean more retaliatory tariffs on an industry that is already paying a steep price. Certainly tariffs we've seen be used as a valuable mechanism to help level the playing field for some of our international trading partners.

with the caveat that we have to be strategic and don't go overboard or what we have seen in the past is retaliatory actions by some of our trading partners. And the target for that retaliation is inevitably agricultural industry, our ag products. A new house says he will do whatever he can to make sure that is understood.

That is a message that I will be delivering loud and clear to the administration. At this point in time, we cannot afford to put any more challenges in front of our agricultural industry, as we've talked about, the tough situation that most of our farmers and ranchers are feeling today.

A new house adds that ag labor reform changes at the southern border are also matters that need to be addressed before we lose a majority of our ag workforce. Also one of the news notes, the US Senate before they adjourned the 118th Congress approved the biennial Thomas R. Carper

Water Resources Development Act of 2024 by a vote of 97 to 1. Now, Warda funds crucial water-related infrastructure projects nationwide under the supervision of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It was approved as well by the House of Representatives at a 399 to 18 vote.

According to NGFA president and CEO Mike Seifert, National Greater Feet Association, he says that, quote, barges transport about half of all grains to export grain elevators and modern ports and efficient inland locks and dams are essential to maintaining America's comparative infrastructure advantage. We are also pleased the legislation does not threaten or call into question the importance of the Columbia River system and lower Snake River dams for U.S. agricultural exports," end quote.

That's going to do it for this episode of American Ag Today, produced by the American Ag Network, empowered by pharma ranch media. I'm Jesse Allen, wishing you and yours a great rest of your day.