Joining us now is John Bartman, fifth generation farmer. He farms corn and soybean in Illinois.

Great to see you, John. And I wanna start with fertilizer. Chris, you're feeling there saying

it's about 25% of the cost for farmers. Walk us through how much in broad strokes

you're paying for fertilizer each year, and what's changed, if anything, over the course of the

last four or five weeks?

Well, David, first of all, I just want everybody to understand that standing behind me, I

have two fertilizer tanks. And those fertilizer tanks hold liquid urea, which is 32% the industry

standard. And, last year by the way, that's enough to plant a 100 acres of corn.

And last year, that cost me $11,000 to fill those tanks. Two weeks ago, it was

$17,000, and now today, it's close to 21,000 in climbing.

Do you have what you need to start the season? I know it's not just how

much it's costing, but whether or not it's going to get to you guys.

And that is an excellent point, and that is the $64,000 question. I know a lot

of people have prepaid for their fertilizer, but are you gonna get it? And the analogy

I've been telling people, it's it was very similar to if your kid had a video

game that they really wanted for Christmas and you ordered it in October and COVID happened.

Were you gonna get that game or not in time? Same thing to what we're dealing

with right now with fertilizer.

You bring up COVID, and I think of all the supply chain disruptions that happened then.

Was it was it anything analogous to what we're seeing now? Was it hard to get

that urea fertilizer then, or is this something that's that's novel, something you haven't experienced before

as a farmer?

It's getting worse. And I think what people also need to understand is that 20% at

least 20% of the demand for fertilizer now is due to Trump's first trade war because

during that time period, Brazil massively increased their acreage. They went from 80, million acres to

up to a 120,000,000 acres of soybeans, and now they're planting over 50,000,000 acres of corn.

They were never in that category before. And not to mention, their soil isn't as fertile

as ours here in the Midwest, so they need more fertilizer. And not to mention many

areas of Brazil, they have year round growing seasons. So that fertilizer is going nonstop, and

we're in a world market right now. And we need to be aware of that, and

we as far as in the collateral damage here in Illinois and the rest of The

United States.

We have some sound from the president, on, from last night on the farm bill I

want you to take a listen to.

Thanks to our trade deals. You're now sending over $40,000,000,000 in American soybeans to China. I

wanna thank president Xi of China because, we had a deal at twenty and I said,

could you do me a favor? It's a big place. Could you double it? And he

said, what are you talking about? I said, could you make it 40 instead of 20?

And he overrode all of his people. He said, alright. I'll do it. And he got

40 instead of 20. So now you go out and buy bigger tractors. What can I

tell you? I'm also asking Congress to quickly pass the new farm bill. And today, I'm

promising to request additional farm relief for our great patriots in the next funding bill. So

we have you taken care of in both instances, and we're pushing very hard for the

new farm bill.

Is there anything in that farm bill that you think is gonna help? Will it help,

and do you think it'll pass?

Well, he he also said yesterday too that I gave you $12,000,000,000, and you farmers are

making so much money right now.

Yeah. How's that going? You

know? So and and not to mention that we're still waiting for the supposedly 8,000,000 metric

tons that China was gonna buy again this month too. It's who knows what the guy's

gonna say next? And it's just very, very unfortunate, the situation that we're in. And we're

in another man made crisis caused by Donald Trump right now. And it's just just frustrating.

We need a farm bill. I

think

the Republicans are very nervous about getting a farm bill passed. They wanna get it passed

because they don't wanna open up the Pandora's box of dealing with the snap program again,

which they ripped out through the big beautiful bill. And there are other wonderful conservation programs

that aren't funded like they used to be. I'd much rather be talking with you guys

today about carbon sequestration and that new market, which we should be talking about, that has

really been put on the back shelf thanks to the Trump administration right now. So I'm

I'm very bearish, unfortunately, and that's kinda why I'm actually growing more corn this year because

I knew I at least have a market for

Come back anytime, John. We'll talk about sequestration of carbon if if you wanna. But let

let me ask you quickly. Got about a minute left, and and I don't know if

you were saw it, but the president was speaking in front of this gilded tractor yesterday

at the White House gold tractor, and he said he's gonna go to John Deere and

internationally to other companies and say, make less expensive farm equipment. Putting that aside, how do

you think about making big capital investments like that at this moment? Is it something you

can even weigh at this point in time because of all the uncertainty?

His bail quote, unquote, bailout program, gave farmers for soybeans $30 an acre. John Deere's new

x nine combine is officially the first implement that's over a million dollars. So when according

to University of Illinois last year, every farmer lost a $100 an acre. This year, according

to the American Farm Bureau, every single commodity that we grow is unprofitable. And there's a

reason why last year, all the farm equipment that was sold is half of what it

was during, Biden's last year in his administration.

John, before we let you go quickly, if there's one thing that this government could do

for farmers across America, what would that be?

Increase our demand. We have to increase the demand for our products, and we need stability.

And right now, we're losing out to South America with the South American free trade agreement

with Europe. And and Canada right now is joining the South American free trade agreement. It's

it's absolutely crazy. We are in a world economy, and we've been exporting food since the

colonial days. And that's what we do in this country. We feed people, and this administration

needs to understand that.