Latest / AG Bull / AG Squawk with Doug Hensley | Farmland Can Look Irrational Until You Do the Math

Transcript

AG Squawk with Doug Hensley | Farmland Can Look Irrational Until You Do the Math · AG Bull

0:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a pretty active day in the markets already as we roll tape.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: Remember yesterday when I was talking about a quiet crude oil market?
0:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that pretty much went out the window.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: Today we'll be talking farmland and farm economy with one of the best.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: From behind the big blue bodacious microphone of Ag Bull, Davis Michelson here for Ag Bull Media.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: Glad to have you along, everyone.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: Currently just after 11 a.m.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: Central Time here on July 8th, 2026.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: Hope you're having a great day so far.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited about this conversation.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: Doug Hensley will be my guest in just a moment.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: Uh Doug and I have had a number of conversations about the farmland market, about the economy.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: The guy figures in so many different ingredients to his to his outlook on farmland and the farm economy in general.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: An extremely valuable conversation coming up here on Ag Squawk.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: Looks like some forecast rains.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: Keeping the lid on the corn market here around 11 a.m.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: Central Time.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: I've got some news on ethanol production.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: Basically, the news is ethanol production and ethanol stocks are down in EIA's most recent report week.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: Soybeans currently trying to follow a big jump higher in soybean oil.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: Wheat futures under pressure and hogs are higher despite sharp price pressure in the cattle complex.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Let me just check these a little more specifically for you using my trusty plus 500 software.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: We use plus 500 T4 software for up-to-the-minute quotes, real-time quotes, a host of features at our fingertips.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: If you're looking for the best in real-time quotes, look no further than T4 from plus 500 as of 1107 central time.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: Looks like corn down oof around seven.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: The December contract down seven, even currently 457 and a quarter.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: The beaners are mixed with the Nove and the Jan under about a half cents worth of pressure.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: November sitting at 1197 and a quarter.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: Meal is lower.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: Oil sharply higher.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: And the uh winter wheat contracts are lower with KC leading to the downside, roughly seven cents lower in the KC wheat there.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: The cattles are under pressure as well.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: But look at the hogs.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: The hogs are resilient this morning.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: Not sure what's gotten into them, but it'll be interesting to see how they close once again those quotes as of 11 a.m.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: Central time.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: Now, as I mentioned, the the crude market has absolutely hit the fan.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: Hostilities with Iran are back.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: To surprise no one, this according to the Associated Press quote, President Donald Trump warned Iran on Wednesday that the United States was preparing another night of strikes just hours after he said the ceasefire was over because of Iranian attacks.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: A day after assaults on commercial shipping escalated into an exchange of fire on Iranian and U.S.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: military targets, Trump renewed his past threats to strike Iran's civilian infrastructure, including electric plants, desalinization plants, and to seize the oil production hub of Karg Island.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: I want to bring in Tommy Grissafi from Ag Bol right now and talk about this crude market just a little bit, maybe, because yesterday I was saying, well, you know, there's talk of peace and the crude markets are a little quieter, a little higher yesterday, but nothing super earth-chattering.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: And then this morning, we're off to the races already.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it started last night and we traded up on the open up a couple dollars and it really stabilized, and the stock market digested it, and Nasdaq futures last night traded back up, but right now the stock markets are lower, Davis, and the news services are going nuts.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, we use trade the news, and right as you were speaking, trade the news, uh President Trump said last night that we did kill eight eight soldiers from Iran.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: So the it just shows you know what we want people to take away from this little hit is that the the world is so fragile in the in the fact that WTI crude right now is up five dollars trading uh 75.50 here.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, here's a chart of Brent crude.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: It just shows that you know we could try to talk the markets down all we want.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: We had somewhat of a very peaceful 4th of July year 250 celebration, and then we come in today and you you move crude oil up five dollars, you're gonna rock a lot of markets.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: Now, the interesting takeaway from this is that corn's actually on the lows now, uh Sepcorn's down eight and a half.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I guess people like to correlate corn and crude.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how well it correlates anymore with all this money solution around, but I guess one thing you'll probably be looking at and we'll be talking a lot more about of on the show is fertilizer because as we look uh getting uh wheat planted in the fall or corn or any of these crops, they're just so fertilizer heavy.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: So we have a major disruption in the world, and President Trump's traveling abroad.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: So look for uh comments to come out in the middle of the night.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: And with that, you know, everyone's gotta adjust their whatever playbook they had or whatever they thought was gonna happen, they need to adjust.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Real quick note to view listeners we have a USDA report on Friday, so we'll see if that moves the markets.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: All eyes on weather.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Right after I get off with you, I'm gonna be looking for Craig Solberg, our internal meteorologist here at Nesvik, and we'll see uh what that midday forecast looks like.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: But with that, uh Davis, thanks for letting me on your show.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Um you know I had no intention of coming on.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm wearing a square shirt, and you said you're coming on.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, all right, I'm coming on.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: And I know you're a busy guy.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: You're you're being very generous with your time right now.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: Everything I'm excited to hear what Doug has to say.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: I am too.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: I am too.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: I I would like to, Tommy, lock you in.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm getting this on tape here.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: At some point, you and I need to spend an entire show together just talking some things out.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned fertilizer.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna take the show myself tomorrow.
6:16
SPEAKER_01: I've decided I'm just I'm hijacking the show and we're gonna talk about fertilizer for the entirety of tomorrow afternoon's program.
6:23
SPEAKER_01: But maybe sometime in the next few weeks, you and I can spend a show together.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: What say?
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that sounds good.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: July weather is gonna be so much.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: There's so many people who have and have not.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: There's so much variability.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: Big storms are supposed to come across Illinois again tomorrow in an area that just does not necessarily need the moisture.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: So I think they're setting a record amount of tornadoes and yeah, all eyes on weather here, and then we'll see one other thing before I go.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: We got to watch this China relationship now because as we're fighting with Iran again, is is President China really gonna come to America or do we just shoot ourselves in the foot?
6:57
SPEAKER_00: So uh lots to talk about, Davis.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: I think I saw that they they were hoping to get together in September on the 24th, perhaps.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: Is that is that right, Tommy?
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a lot of hopes.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: Everything in the Trump administration, there's always really cool stuff that's gonna happen in three months, but we need people now, Davis.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: We need people to get on there now.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, there's President Trump.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: That was uh footage of him in North Dakota.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: So uh wild times in ag.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: But uh I'll hand it back to you and I'm gonna log off, but I I I'll be watching the show.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: I you know when I catch your show, Davis, in the afternoons.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: I I halftime I don't know what you're doing.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: And I listen to it, I go for a ride, and I listen to it on Spotify.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: And uh just real quick note a little self-promotion.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: Folks can watch it on Apple Podcasts now, they can watch it on Spotify, they can watch it on YouTube, and of course they could listen to it anywhere they they so choose.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: So the world's changing.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Fascinating what's happening with media, my friend.
7:53
SPEAKER_01: It absolutely is.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for being on, Tommy, and thanks for the the uh the shameless plug.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: And we'll talk again soon.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: Let's say, buddy.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: Now get back to work, would you?
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Eric.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: With that, I'm really happy and proud to bring in a friend of mine.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I've known Doug for for quite a while.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: We've worked together um in various capacities from from different angles, Doug Hensley from Hertz Farm Management.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: Doug, so great to see you, brother.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for taking the time to be with us today here on Ag Squawk.
8:26
SPEAKER_02: Always good to be on with you, Davis.
8:28
SPEAKER_02: Good to see you as well.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: You bet, you bet.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: New audience for me.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: I uh beloved viewers, let me present Doug Hensley.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: Doug, give us an elevator speech.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Who are you?
8:39
SPEAKER_01: Talk to us about Hertz.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: What's your story?
8:41
SPEAKER_01: What do you want us to know?
8:42
SPEAKER_02: You bet.
8:43
SPEAKER_02: So I'm originally an Illinois farm kid, and I've worked in the farmland brokerage and auction business for about 30 years.
8:52
SPEAKER_02: And here a decade or so ago, I relocated my family out to Central Iowa where I work for Hertz Farm Management.
9:01
SPEAKER_02: And essentially, Davis, I'm responsible for and get the privilege to serve as president of Hertz Real Estate Services, which is a fancy way of saying.
9:12
SPEAKER_02: I I have the opportunity to get involved in a lot of projects around the Midwest as our people serve clients in selling, acquiring, valuing, and in a lot of cases, managing farms as well.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: I spend a little less time in farm management than what I do in in the acquisition and sales side of our business, but obviously there's a lot of a lot of turn you know crossover there between the work that we do.
9:41
SPEAKER_02: Hertz Farm Management, 80-year-old business, started in 1946 and has just continued to grow over the decades.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of your viewers and listeners will be familiar with Hertz Farm Management.
9:55
SPEAKER_02: We have about 14 offices scattered across the Corn Belt, one down in Arizona.
10:00
SPEAKER_02: So we don't have our fingers in everything, the U.S.
10:03
SPEAKER_02: agriculture, but when it certainly in the Midwest we do and have have relationships outside the Midwest uh with some stuff that we do as well.
10:12
SPEAKER_02: So a little bit about what we do.
10:14
SPEAKER_01: 14 offices, Doug.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: I had I really didn't know that you had uh you even have a footprint down there in Arizona.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: That's got to be a completely different sort of land game down there than it is in, you know, say my my home county, Grundy County, Iowa.
10:29
SPEAKER_02: No doubt about it.
10:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: Uh Arizona agriculture, we're obviously it's not a corn and soybean traditional row crop business down there.
10:38
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, wherever wherever there's land and agriculture, you know, that's an opportunity for landowners.
10:45
SPEAKER_02: And so we're obviously our our history is most focused on row crops in the Midwest.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: But as we've grown and gained expertise and relationships, it leads you other places as well.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm on your company's website, hertz.ag.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: That's Hertz with a Z, H-E-R-T-Z.ag.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: I got, I mean, I'm looking at$18,100 an acre.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: Here's, let's see, here's$14.4.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: Here's here's another$18,000, here's$12,000 from a few months ago.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: How's business?
11:18
SPEAKER_01: It looks like it's going all right.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, I I would say 2026 has been just a slight improvement on 2025.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: In terms of our business climate, uh, or our company specifically, 2026 has been a little better year.
11:37
SPEAKER_02: I think in the land market specifically, things are just a slight bit better than what they were a year ago as well.
11:45
SPEAKER_02: And you know, we can attribute that to a lot of different things.
11:49
SPEAKER_02: But overall, yeah, I call the land market very stable right now, depending on the state that you're looking at.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: There's some variation and some local factors that come into play.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: But overall, we're in a very stable, stable land market.
12:03
SPEAKER_02: And if you look only at the price of corn, Davis, the 18,000s and the 14,000, 15,000, 16,000,$17,000 sales, they're almost nonsensical to some people if you isolate the only the price of corn uh and attribute the strength in the land market to that.
12:22
SPEAKER_02: But there's there's obviously a lot of things that that go into the decision-making process for people who are pursuing and acquiring farmland.
12:30
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, there's more to it than just the current commodity prices.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: Doug, I was looking at Purdue University just put out their uh Ag Economy Barometer.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: I believe it came out yesterday, maybe it was the day before.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: But I was looking at the uh short-term and the long-term farmland value expectations, some some pretty stout pressure in the short term, but still fairly optimistic in the longer term.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: And they uh they note sort of three factors in in the uh in the outlook here from uh survey respondents.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: The first is alternative investments, the second, net farm income, and of course inflation.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: And I don't think those are necessarily in in any any order there.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: I guess I want to ask you about what you were just talking about.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: If if 26 is is a little bit better year for the land market, and or maybe it's just for Hertz, maybe you've got the magic touch, I'm not sure.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: But it does feel a little bit counterintuitive to what we've been hearing about the narrative about the the farm income and the farm economy in general.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: High inputs, everything's expensive.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: Right.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: It feels like it's a rough time out there.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: How do you account for for farmland moving at all?
13:41
SPEAKER_02: I I think the the Purdue Ag Economy Barometer is really interesting.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: I look at it on a monthly basis and I get the opportunity to talk in front of lots of landowner groups, and it's one of the surveys that I commonly show people.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: And what it shows is in the short run, we're really concerned about input prices and commodity prices and those sort of things.
14:05
SPEAKER_02: And that lends itself to people thinking about their situation and their particular farming operation.
14:13
SPEAKER_02: And when you're worried about things, you have a tendency to be a little more bearish.
14:17
SPEAKER_02: But when you think long term, you I think most people recognize that we're in a business cycle, and agriculture right now is in the not as fun part of the cycle and has been for two to three years.
14:31
SPEAKER_02: But I think people who have been around a while have seen this movie before and know that agriculture cycles in this six to 10 year time frame from you know, from trough to trough or peak to peak, depending on how you look at it.
14:45
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, inflationary pressures is is something that's coming into play.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: Land has always been known as a as a good hedge on inflation.
14:53
SPEAKER_02: Similar, you know, some people think gold is the best one.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: A lot of people who have been around a long time know that that land is gold with a coupon.
15:03
SPEAKER_02: And so that's the benefit as you have current income while you're waiting on the cycle to to cycle through.
15:09
SPEAKER_02: But there's there's lots of things that go into the to the price of farmland.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: And you know, in recent years, I think we've been holding this land market together by a couple different things.
15:21
SPEAKER_02: The government has become very involved in agriculture, and we we saw these ad hoc payments for the first time, not really for the first time, but uh in in a in a big way for the first time, going back to the Trump 45 presidency with the tariff stuff that we went through in his first term, and we had these ad hoc payments to to help offset the the you know the the pain that was inflicted in the soybean and corn market.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: And you know, since 2017-2018, when we first saw government intervention in the way that we did, we've seen you know peaks and valleys to that government intervention.
16:02
SPEAKER_02: But in between time, we've had a you know, we've had a really strong grain market from what late 2020 through 2023.
16:10
SPEAKER_02: So we saw record profits.
16:12
SPEAKER_02: But the last couple of years, net farm income is down a bit from the peak, but it's not down as much as it would have been if we were only looking at the price of commodities.
16:23
SPEAKER_02: The government payments have injected 30 to 40 billion dollars on an annual basis the last couple of years into agriculture.
16:33
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I think the politicians can justify that type of spending because it's not just farm operators that they're providing support to.
16:44
SPEAKER_02: That may be where the money's flowing, but when we get these$30 or$50 an acre payments that flow out to farmers who are at risk with their crops, the government and the politicians know that those dollars are flowing through farmer hands in a lot of cases, and they're flowing to input suppliers and banks, machinery dealers, and others.
17:05
SPEAKER_02: And so I think the politicians view a lot of this type of spending as ensuring continued health in the in the general rural economy, which they understand, you know, farm policy is food policy, and and those are things that are very important to the political class, is maintaining strength in the countryside, even though people don't necessarily understand production in that way.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: They intuitively know that that's an important part, you know, to our system, and so they're willing to invest in it.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: And that's certainly what's happened in the past couple of years in 2020.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: It started some in late 2024, at actually at the end of the Biden administration.
17:47
SPEAKER_02: In December, they passed a budget bill in December of 2024, which flowed a pretty big chunk of payments in the spring of 25 after Trump was inaugurated for the second time.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: But those dollars were dollars that were allocated under the Biden administration.
18:02
SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, the last 18 months here or so under the new Trump administration, we've seen you know a lot of payments flow into agriculture again.
18:14
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, we have 40 some billion dollars in government spending that's allocated towards agriculture this year.
18:21
SPEAKER_02: And here in mid to late June, President Trump proposed another, what, 10 or 12 billion dollars that he's saying, hey, this Iran war, we know this was disruptive.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: It's causing fuel and fertilizer and other things to to maybe increase.
18:37
SPEAKER_02: Let's let's offset that.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: Whether that's a good thing, Davis, or a bad thing, that's a separate debate.
18:43
SPEAKER_02: But those dollars matter to agriculture and it's really helping to maintain asset values where they're at.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: I want to be a little careful here because I'm not looking for specific advice here, but just speak to me generally when when Purdue talks about alternative investments, maybe taking some of the some of the starch out of the farmland market.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: Are we talking about hot money there?
19:09
SPEAKER_01: Because you're you know you're exactly right, and you raise an excellent point.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: Farmland buyers, farmers tend to play the long game and are willing to kind of you know hunker down for a few years knowing that there are better days ahead.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: Alternative investments to farmland, is that hot money?
19:28
SPEAKER_01: People just looking for a little quicker return?
19:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I'm I'm not sure I would classify it that way.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't think there are very many people that come into agriculture and and maybe the the idea of acquiring agricultural land with the idea that they're gonna turn around and flip it in one to two years.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: If they do very much research at all, they're gonna know and and quickly learn that the cycle in agriculture happens one full year at a time.
19:58
SPEAKER_02: It's not like a lot of other systems where you have two or three repetitions in a year.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: That's the that's one of the unique things about agriculture is we have one turn on a calendar year basis, just because that's that's the way of the seasons.
20:13
SPEAKER_02: And so I think people, you know, the investment money, the smart money, whatever you want to call it, while they may look at some assets as hot money where they can turn things pretty quickly, Davis.
20:26
SPEAKER_02: I don't think anybody who is who is you know kind of of that investor mode, I don't think they come into agriculture if they've done their homework.
20:35
SPEAKER_02: They don't come into agriculture and agricultural land with the idea that they're gonna turn it quick.
20:40
SPEAKER_02: Now, the market may change two years after they buy something such that they could harvest a quick gain, but I don't think that's the intent of people entering the market.
20:52
SPEAKER_02: I think people have woken up to some degree to agricultural land as a really strong investment opportunity in a way that they didn't understand before.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: I have a chart, I should have sent it to you, and I have a chart that we use that shows the average annual return of farmland over the last 35 or 50 years.
21:15
SPEAKER_02: And the the reality is that when we compare it to stocks, to gold, to commercial property REITs, to basically any other asset class, farmland has a higher average annual return with less volatility than any other asset class that's out there, including stocks, you know, and the volatility, we see stocks, you know, we know stocks can return 25 to 40 percent over 12-month period.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: We also have endured periods where stock returns over an annual basis will crater 30 to 40 percent.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: We don't have those very often on either extreme, but they can happen.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: When we look back at the history of farmland, we we can see over the past 35 or 40 years, we have had very little downturn in.
22:09
SPEAKER_02: Any farmland values.
22:10
SPEAKER_02: Farmland can go down in value.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: I want to say that very clearly, but the reality is that we can see on an annual basis over the last 35 years, farmland's smallest or weakest year was only down a couple of percent, depending on the state that we're talking about.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: So the volatility in farmland is much less risky based on historical patterns than what it is in these other asset classes, with an average annual return, it outpaces them.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: Now, a lot of people say, well, Doug, tell me about the 1980s.
22:44
SPEAKER_02: The 1980s were a painful time in agriculture.
22:47
SPEAKER_02: In large part, that had to do with a banking crisis as much as it did an agricultural crisis, because there were loans back in the 80s that were current, that were called.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: And that kind of created a self-fulfilling downward spy spiral at that time.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: And part of that had to do with just panic at the banking level.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: A lot of that has been, I think, insulated in today's world simply because banking regulations are much tighter.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: We, you know, people are not going through balance sheet lending situations anymore.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: Banking is all about cash flow lending and making sure that a borrower is qualified to borrow the money that they're asking to borrow and have the repayment capacity to do so.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: So I think the banking business has evolved since the 1980s.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: And if you're going out and buying a farm today, you're gonna you're gonna put a really big chunk of equity into it.
23:44
SPEAKER_02: And that's one of the safeguards that is there and allows for a healthy market environment and agricultural land like we currently have.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: Well, and I'm glad that you pointed out it's not a zero-risk enterprise to purchase farmland, certainly.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: It does it does come with with risk as as does all investing there.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: Hello, compliance.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: So but having said that, let's let's talk about what kinds of land are selling, who's buying, what's uh what does that makeup look like currently?
24:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you bet.
24:17
SPEAKER_02: Great questions.
24:18
SPEAKER_02: So you know, in the Midwest, I I actually just met with a gentleman from Colorado yesterday who had never been to Iowa before.
24:27
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, tell me what you saw.
24:30
SPEAKER_02: And the reality is, he said, corn, corn, and more corn.
24:33
SPEAKER_02: And so in the Midwest, that's a that's a pretty common thing if you've ever driven through in the middle of the summer.
24:39
SPEAKER_02: And so row crop farmland is is obviously commonly selling throughout the year, much more so than what it used to, Davis.
24:49
SPEAKER_02: You know, back in the day, 30 years ago, in the middle of the growing season, not much land sold simply because you couldn't see it.
24:56
SPEAKER_02: But with eight feet tall growing crops of corn, you weren't able to see things quite as well as what you can see them today with drones and and other tools that we use to allow people to see what they're not able to see from from a road, for example.
25:12
SPEAKER_02: But row crop land is selling right now.
25:15
SPEAKER_02: Recreational land is also selling.
25:17
SPEAKER_02: Those are two different kinds of classes of land.
25:20
SPEAKER_02: And and most people on the recreational side, that's more of a playground and more of a luxury item.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: When we talk about row crop land, that's what we're talking about when it comes to the financial side of things, where both investors and farmers are buying.
25:35
SPEAKER_02: It will surprise some of your audience, I'm sure, who may not, you know, be as close to the land market.
25:42
SPEAKER_02: In the popular press, we see a lot of a lot of, you know, and especially in the political side of things, we we see this idea that investors are buying all the farms.
25:53
SPEAKER_02: And the reality out in the countryside, that's that's just not true.
25:58
SPEAKER_02: When we look at studies from Iowa State and other institutions across the Midwest, uh including from the Illinois Society of Professional Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers and others, we we quickly learn that 60 to 80 percent of farms in any given year are purchased by active farmers.
26:17
SPEAKER_02: And you know, the minority then in the marketplace is an investor.
26:22
SPEAKER_02: And when people talk about investors, it's a really interesting conversation because people hear about Bill Gates and some of the other really well-known, you know, very, very ultra wealthy driving the market.
26:36
SPEAKER_02: And I that's really not the case either.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: Now, those people have woken up to the fact that farmland is a great investment.
26:44
SPEAKER_02: And so they are active in the market, but they're not driving the market.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: And most of the people who we consider investors in the marketplace are people who may have grown up in a particular area and who, you know, maybe have gone out and started a business or made some money in a business in their working life, and they know that, hey, farmland is a good investment and has performed well.
27:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm interested in acquiring a piece of that.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: Or perhaps it's it's you know, like I'm I'm from Illinois.
27:16
SPEAKER_02: I live in Iowa now.
27:18
SPEAKER_02: I own a farm in Illinois, but I don't farm it myself.
27:21
SPEAKER_02: And so by pure standards of, you know, am I an active farmer?
27:26
SPEAKER_02: I'm not an active farmer.
27:27
SPEAKER_02: I'm an investor when it comes to the categories of who owns land.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: And am I close to agriculture?
27:34
SPEAKER_02: You bet I am.
27:35
SPEAKER_02: But the reality is that I'm not an active farmer.
27:38
SPEAKER_02: And so if you have to classify me and one side of that ledger or another, and maybe I'm interested in buying a 40 next door to something that I already own.
27:48
SPEAKER_02: Sure, I'm classified as an investor.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: So I think it's important that people recognize that investor's not evil.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: There's lots of, you know, people from agricultural rural areas, agricultural backgrounds that have an interest in buying land just because it's they know it's a really strong performing asset and they have really close ties to the farm with people that may be in their family or connected to one way or another.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: So farmers still buy the majority of land, but investor is not a dirty word when it comes to the agricultural farmland space simply because, you know, if you're a seller, most sellers that I know say, yeah, I want everybody to compete who's possible so that we can maintain, you know, depth and strength in our marketplace because depth and strength in the farmland market comes from competition, is the name of the game.
28:43
SPEAKER_02: So I don't know if that directly answers your question, but 60 to 80 percent of farmland buyers are still farmers, and the balance is made up by a hodgepodge of different investors, and some of the institutional investors have been active in in past years.
29:01
SPEAKER_02: We see individual investors probably more active in the Midwest right now than even what we do in the institutions.
29:09
SPEAKER_01: No, and I'm I'm glad you put it the way that you did.
29:12
SPEAKER_01: You absolutely quite literally put a put a face on who that investor is.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes the non-farm investor gets demonized and sort of treated as a straw man that uh, you know, we we hear the term non-farm and non-farmer investor, and we think of somebody, you know, living in New York City with a student or they're in they're in Connecticut and they have no idea what's going on, and they're just sort of tossing money around, and and this is just another asset or just another way to to hedge against this or to protect that.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: But you're exactly right.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: And I hadn't thought about it that way before, but guys like you, guys like you know, retired farmers who are you know just looking to sort of stay in it and recognize the value of farmland, those are also non-farm investors.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: That was that was really interesting.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: Just really quick, uh could you just take a moment, look out to the future here?
30:07
SPEAKER_01: It sounds like you're you're feeling like we're in in pretty solid waters here as far as the market itself goes.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: We're moving through the summertime here.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: Take us through the rest of the year, your expectations for uh for farmland.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: Sounds like holding steady, hanging right in there would be my guess.
30:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I and you know, we talked earlier about uh the situation with low commodity prices.
30:33
SPEAKER_02: It's not super fun right now in agriculture, just because margins are are very, very tight on the production side.
30:41
SPEAKER_02: I think one of the reasons beyond government payments, which I which I mentioned earlier, that we've held this market together.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: In the Midwest, we're blessed by really strong soil types and productivity.
30:52
SPEAKER_02: And so we've grown some enormous crops the last few years.
30:56
SPEAKER_02: And if you're growing 180 bushel corn at four bucks or four and a quarter, those numbers don't work at all.
31:03
SPEAKER_02: But in large part in the Midwest, we're blessed with really strong soil types and productivity and great operators.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, if we're growing 220, 250 bushel corn, the math doesn't work to make us a bunch of money.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: But again, we we're holding things together.
31:19
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's essentially government payments, holding the market together on the margin side in the Midwest.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: And the reality is, is we came into this cycle in really strong financial standing, you know, or this part of the cycle with the downturn into really strong financial standing coming off of really some of the most profitable years in agriculture that we'd ever seen in 2021, 2022, and 2023, Davis.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: And as I look ahead, you know, I I try to look at data.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's important that we look at data.
31:57
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned the Purdue Ag Economy Barometer, and earlier this year, they had a really interesting question that they asked their monthly survey.
32:06
SPEAKER_02: And the question is, how strongly do you agree with the following statement?
32:11
SPEAKER_02: The statement was we have a strong balance sheet.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: And remember, these are farmers who are answering this question.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: And farmers answered that question with 75% agree or strongly agree.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: So that's a strong majority of farm operations that said we have a strong balance sheet, which that doesn't uh guarantee profitability, but it does give you a sense that we're we're able to weather through these periods when things aren't as profitable as what they had been.
32:41
SPEAKER_02: Now, working capital, if you talk to you know any agricultural lender out there, you know, that's a really important part, financial standing and the ability to weather these times.
32:53
SPEAKER_02: We came in in 2024 with strong working capital totals.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: Over the last two to three years, we've been eroding that.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: I think people have made really careful decisions with how they use their working capital.
33:06
SPEAKER_02: And if they're going to buy an asset that's a long-term asset, they want to be darn sure that they're buying the right asset and they're making careful decisions.
33:16
SPEAKER_02: I think because of our continued strength and just, again, equity ownership and depth of ownership in the countryside through the end of 2026, I do expect a stable to maybe even a slightly stronger farmland market.
33:32
SPEAKER_02: Part of that has to do with the fact that we just haven't seen a huge push of sales in the market.
33:39
SPEAKER_02: So the trickle of sales, you know, when you when you limit supply, or when you have limited supply, not that any individual person has control over this, but when there's a limited supply and there's still a measure of demand that outpaces that supply, that obviously is going to maintain or push prices a little bit higher.
34:02
SPEAKER_02: And I think for most of your viewers or listeners, I and when I'm talking to people, I have them imagine this.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: Imagine your home area, wherever your home area is, and imagine 10 mile, draw a 10-mile circle around where wherever your home is and think of the farming families in that neighborhood that if a nice 80 or quarter section comes up for sale, imagine the four, five, six, maybe eight to ten families that could compete for that farm.
34:36
SPEAKER_02: And then if you throw in a couple of people from both the local area that don't farm, but own businesses and maybe be interested in buying a farm, and a couple of people from outside the area that don't farm but have an interest in buying an 80 or quarter, you can kind of understand there's a depth of strength in these areas that lends itself to stable to slightly stronger land prices through the end of the year.
35:04
SPEAKER_02: I think we're also seeing some of these other things.
35:07
SPEAKER_02: I haven't even touched on wind energy and solar and some of the stuff we're seeing with data centers and that sort of thing, that is feeding in revenue into these Midwestern areas that, you know, in some cases, people selling land for development of all kinds of things, including data centers, maybe going out and working through tax-deferred exchanges, competing really strong for farms.
35:33
SPEAKER_02: And then in other areas where you have wind farms and solar developments, you have people that are having quite a little bit of meaningful capital injected into their pocket.
35:44
SPEAKER_02: And when a farm comes up that they're interested in or could either serve as replacement property or add-on property to their farming operation, you can see how people can compete.
35:56
SPEAKER_02: So it's not just the price of corn and soybeans that's driving this thing.
36:01
SPEAKER_02: There's more to it than that.
36:03
SPEAKER_02: And it depends on the neighborhood that you're talking about, but there is a depth of strength in general across most of these areas that just again that that speaks to the to the strength of the asset class.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: A depth of strength that isn't talked about nearly enough.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: Doug Hensley from from Hertz, I'm really glad that that you brought it up.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: I think we're going to put a lid on it there, but I would be remiss if I let you get away without talking about the weather.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: You're over there near Ames, Iowa presently.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: What's it look like out your window there?
36:37
SPEAKER_01: What have you been what have you been putting up with there weather-wise?
36:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we we had a pretty good start to the year and have, you know, I'm in the prairie pothole region where I live, which means there's some wet holes out in the middle of these farms.
36:52
SPEAKER_02: And you know that being from Grundy County, if you come down closer to Ames, you're gonna see the potholes.
36:57
SPEAKER_02: Some of them got filled up this spring, like they always do, but overall we had a really strong crop growing.
37:03
SPEAKER_02: There was about a, and Ames may have been near the bullseye on this thing, leading into the 4th of July last week on the 2nd of July.
37:13
SPEAKER_02: This area from Des Moines up to Ames had upwards six, eight, 10 inches of rain that night alone.
37:21
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
37:21
SPEAKER_02: And and then Friday, the 3rd of July, was a pretty decent day.
37:25
SPEAKER_02: And then we had another two to four inches on Friday night leading into the 4th of July, which you can imagine the amount of water that was running places that most people have never seen before when you have eight or 10 or 14 inches of rain.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: I had one, a young lady who works with me who's got water in her basement because they had 14 inches of rain at her house just 10 miles southeast of Ames.
37:48
SPEAKER_02: And so I think in two weeks, Davis, we're gonna have a better idea of how big of a mess it made because the crop's big enough right now, it's hard to see how much is out there, but we know there's a lot of standing water still.
38:01
SPEAKER_02: Today, in this week, it's been really warm, sunny today.
38:06
SPEAKER_02: We're getting ready to go into pollination.
38:08
SPEAKER_02: I think it'll be a week and we'll we'll start uh, you know, hit kind of the peak pollination season will begin, and from about the 10th or 14th of July through the end of the month, we'll we'll be pollinating this corn crop.
38:23
SPEAKER_02: There's some water standing in places, so it's clear.
38:26
SPEAKER_02: But overall, I was up in southern Minnesota here in the last week or so.
38:31
SPEAKER_02: I think they have a pretty good crop going up in southern Minnesota.
38:35
SPEAKER_02: Eastern Nebraska has caught some rains in most of those places.
38:38
SPEAKER_02: They were really dry early, but I think by and large their crops coming along pretty good.
38:44
SPEAKER_02: Most of Iowa outside of these areas that just got hammered with these big rains, it looks pretty good.
38:50
SPEAKER_02: Illinois is is all over the place.
38:52
SPEAKER_02: It's just, you know, the eastern corn belt.
38:55
SPEAKER_02: It depends on where you're at.
38:57
SPEAKER_02: Some areas have had way too much rain, some areas way too little.
39:01
SPEAKER_02: And so, but more areas have had too much rain and too little.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: So this is this is going to be an interesting remainder of the growing season to see how things total up this fall.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: Well, the wheels may turn slow, but it's uh it's never never boring from one season to the next.
39:18
SPEAKER_01: Let me throw in the National Weather Service.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: Thunderstorms, severe wind gusts, and hail possible today across parts of the central uh the central plains from the Missouri Valley into the upper Mississippi Valley.
39:30
SPEAKER_01: Heavy rain associated with the thunderstorms may also produce flash or urban flooding.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: Critical fire weather conditions expected in the Great Basin.
39:38
SPEAKER_01: At interior northwest, dangerous heat continues across the southwest and southeast.
39:44
SPEAKER_01: Doug, can I interest you in some items of mild interest really quick before I cut you loose?
39:50
SPEAKER_01: Shoot away.
39:51
SPEAKER_01: All right, on this date.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: So it's uh July 8th.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: This date, 1889, the Wall Street Journal first began publishing.
40:00
SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
40:00
SPEAKER_01: In uh 1913 on this date, Alfred Carlton Gilbert's patent for the erector set is issued, one of the most popular toys of all time.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: Did you have an erector set as a kid or maybe as an adult?
40:13
SPEAKER_02: Of course I did.
40:14
SPEAKER_02: And actually, my dad had an erector set from when he was a kid.
40:18
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, that's something that we are able to do together, you bet.
40:22
SPEAKER_01: Well, on a more sour note, on this date in 1932, the depression low point of the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 41.22.
40:32
SPEAKER_01: Doug Hensley, gosh, thanks so much for being on the show, brother.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: It's great to see you again.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: Kurtz.ag, that's H-E-R-T-Z.ag, is where you can find all the details.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, Doug, thanks, brother.
40:47
SPEAKER_01: This is this was I feel better about the farm economy and about the state of farming right now.
40:52
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for enlightening us and for uh for helping us along here, brother.
40:56
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Davis.
40:57
SPEAKER_02: It's certainly not it's not all a negative story.
40:59
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of good things still happening in agriculture.
41:02
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
41:03
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
41:04
SPEAKER_01: Well, if you uh it's uh going on noon here now.
41:07
SPEAKER_01: The markets are not yet settled, everybody.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: If you're looking for ag Intel, go to agbull.com, agbull.com, and their uh daily info will keep you updated on all of that, including the settlements of each day.
41:21
SPEAKER_01: Agbull.com or give us a call at 855-737 Farm Jetson.
41:26
SPEAKER_01: Well back first thing in the morning, and I'll be back tomorrow afternoon all by myself to talk retail fertilizer prices.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: I hope you'll be there.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: Have a good evening, everybody.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: Be well, and we'll see you again soon.