BARN TALK
The Unfiltered Voice of Rural America
Weekly Newsletter · Issue #005 · April 29, 2026
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Hey folks, we had a guest in the barn who was born without arms and spent 12 years engineering championship NASCAR cars at Hendrick Motorsports. Seven Cup titles. That sentence doesn't make sense until you hear how it started, and the most important part of the story has nothing to do with NASCAR.
This Week
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Winter wheat crisis: 40-50% losses across the Southern Plains
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Farm Bill still stalled and USDA just lost nearly a quarter of its workforce
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Richie Parker: seven championships, no arms, and what actually made him
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Markets: wheat up, hogs down, cattle at records, crude oil surging
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Trivia, Word of the Week, and four stories you should know about
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WINTER WHEAT TAKES A 50% HIT ACROSS THE SOUTHERN PLAINS
Drought conditions across the Southern Plains have hammered this year's winter wheat crop, with crop scout reports from Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas pointing to losses in the 40-50% range across affected areas. A dry fall planting window, a hard winter in parts of the region, and a spring with no meaningful rainfall recovery have left thousands of acres either abandoned or headed for catastrophically low yields.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS YEAR'S CROP
Kansas, the largest winter wheat state in the country, is reporting crop condition ratings that haven't looked this bad since the mid-2000s drought years. Oklahoma is in a similar position. Some producers who forward-sold at planting are now staring down a scenario where they may not have the bushels to make delivery. That's not just a yield problem. It's a contract default scenario on top of input costs that still haven't come all the way back from their post-pandemic highs.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Winter wheat is export wheat. It feeds flour mills, export contracts, and international markets before spring wheat even gets planted. When the Southern Plains crop takes a 50% cut, that doesn't stay local. It shows up in Chicago futures, in export sales data, and eventually at the grocery store. The USDA has walked down its production estimates over the past two months and the market has been pricing in a rough crop. The question for producers who do have a harvestable crop is whether the price improvement covers the volume they don't have.
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From the Barn
You've got guys out there this spring looking at fields they've farmed their whole lives that are too drought-stressed to be worth the cost of herbicide application. The decision to cut your losses and tear it up for a summer row crop or hay is one of the hardest calls a grain farmer makes. There's no good answer when you're choosing between bad and worse.
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THE FARM BILL IS STILL STUCK AND THE USDA JUST LOST A QUARTER OF ITS STAFF
The 2024 Farm Bill never passed. We're operating under an extension of the 2018 bill, with commodity programs, conservation funding, and SNAP policy all sitting in uncertainty. Now layer in this: DOGE-driven cuts have reduced USDA staffing by somewhere between 22 and 24%, according to DTN and other ag outlets covering the reductions.
The timing is, to put it politely, unfortunate. Farmers making spring planting decisions right now are doing it without knowing what commodity program payments will look like for the 2026 crop year. The FSA offices that process those payments and handle emergency loan applications just lost a significant chunk of their workforce. What's left is being asked to do more at exactly the moment when demand for their services is highest.
BY THE NUMBERS
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USDA staffing reduction: 22-24% across FSA, RMA, and NRCS (approximately 7,000-9,000 positions)
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Farm Bill status: still operating under the 2018 extension, now entering its third year without a replacement
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ARC-CO and PLC payments for the 2025 crop year: still processing through understaffed FSA county offices
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WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOUR OPERATION
If you have a disaster loan, an FSA operating loan, or a crop insurance claim in the pipeline, expect slower processing times. That's not a political take. It's what happens when you cut a bureaucracy's headcount by nearly a quarter without cutting the workload. Plan accordingly and call your county office sooner than you think you need to.
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From the Barn
The Farm Bill debate in Washington is a policy debate. What's happening at the FSA office in your county is an operational problem. There's a difference between arguing about whether the government does too much and making sure it can still process your loan application. Right now, a lot of producers are stuck dealing with the second problem while the first one stays unsolved.
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Tork's Market Update
What the numbers mean for the people actually in the field
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This Week's Numbers
Prices as of market close · April 22, 2026 · Courtesy of katsgrain.com
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Corn (May '26)
$4.54 /bu
▲ +$0.05 on the week
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Soybeans (May '26)
$11.75 /bu
▲ +$0.07 on the week
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Chicago Wheat (May '26)
$6.05 /bu
▲ +$0.14 on the week
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Live Cattle (Apr '26)
$247.43 /cwt
Flat on the week
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Lean Hogs (May '26)
$95.40 /cwt
▼ -$5.65 on the week
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Crude Oil (Jun '26)
$89.67 /bbl
▲ +$5.82 on the week
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Tork's Picks
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Bitcoin
$75,901 USD
▲ +$154 on the week
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Tesla (TSLA)
$392.50 /share
▼ -$8.12 on the week
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This ain't financial advice. I'm just a farmer with an opinion.
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Tork's Take
Corn and beans had a decent week but we're still inside the same range we've been stuck in for two months. Cattle are at records and that sounds good until you remember what you paid to buy those calves back in the fall. The spread is getting better, just not fast enough for everybody. Hog prices softened on the contract roll. The cash market's telling a different story than May futures and that gap doesn't hold forever. Crude moving up is a two-edged sword. Good if you own some in the ground. Bad when it's time to fill your equipment tanks.
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Sawyer's Spotlight
The younger generation's take, straight from the barn
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Every once in a while somebody sits down in the barn who makes you rethink an assumption you didn't know you were carrying. Richie Parker was born without arms. He spent 12 years at Hendrick Motorsports as an automotive design engineer and helped win seven NASCAR Cup championships. By the time he walked out of that shop, there wasn't a department in that building he didn't understand inside and out.
The part of the story that doesn't get said enough is that none of it starts with him. It starts with the people who refused to decide ahead of time what he was capable of. His parents fought the school district to get him into honors classes instead of special education. His dad modified a used bike so he could ride it as a kid. He showed up at Hendrick for a 10-week internship with LSAT books in his bag. He had a plan to go to law school. He stayed 12 years.
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"The most important career move he ever made was staying open long enough to recognize the thing he didn't plan for."
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The part I keep coming back to is when he talked about leaving. He gave his notice the day after a race win. Not a bad day. Not a hard stretch. He said he couldn't even enjoy the win because all he could think about was the problem reports waiting on Monday morning. When a win doesn't feel like a win anymore, that's your information. He listened to it.
What he built at Hendrick is impressive. What made it possible is more interesting. His story is a case study in what happens when the people around you refuse to set a ceiling versus every institution in your path trying to set one for you.
If you've had someone in your life who never lowered the bar for you, hit reply and tell me about them. I mean it.
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4 Things That Caught Our Eye This Week
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01
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Cattle Herd at a 73-Year Low, and the Math on Rebuilding Is Getting Complicated
USDA's most recent cattle inventory data shows heifer retention at 37.3%, well below the threshold needed for meaningful herd expansion. With cattle at record prices, the calculation between retaining heifers versus selling them into a historic market is genuinely difficult. The industry knows it needs to rebuild. The question is who takes the financial hit to get there first.
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02
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Soybean Export Sales Hit a Marketing Year Low as China Goes Quiet
Weekly soybean export inspections dropped to their lowest pace of the marketing year, with China largely absent from recent USDA sales reports. South American harvest pressure is the easy explanation, but the more interesting question is whether China is making longer-term sourcing decisions from Brazil and Argentina that don't come back when South American supplies tighten.
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03
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Farmland Values Hold at Record Highs as Operating Credit Tightens
Regional Federal Reserve bank surveys show cropland values in the Corn Belt and Central Plains still near all-time highs despite tighter credit conditions. The gap between what land costs and what lenders will finance is widening. It's making outside buyers more competitive against farm families trying to keep ground in the operation when a parcel comes up.
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04
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58% of Farmers Say Their Finances Are Getting Worse as Fertilizer and Fuel Costs Surge
A survey of 4,400 farmers conducted April 3-11 found 58% report worsening financial conditions, with urea hitting $847/ton and anhydrous ammonia at $1,088/ton, both up 10-26% in April alone. Middle East shipping disruptions are driving the move. For producers heading into corn and soybean planting, operating costs are projected 4-6% higher than last year. (CNBC, April 15)
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Before You Go
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Barn Talk Trivia
Think You Know Your Stuff?
This Week's Question
What is the average gestation period for a sow (female pig)?
| A 95 days |
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B 150 days |
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| C 114 days ✓ |
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D 285 days |
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Answer
C. 114 days. The sow's gestation period is commonly remembered as "3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days." Cattle run 280-285 days, which is why D is a common wrong answer from producers who work both species.
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Did You Know?
About 2% of the U.S. population farms, but one modern farmer produces enough food to feed roughly 165 people. In 1940, that number was 19. The productivity gains in American agriculture over 80 years are among the most dramatic of any industry in human history. Almost none of it makes the news.
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Barn Talk Word of the Week
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STOCKER
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A young bovine, typically a weaned calf or yearling, purchased to graze on pasture or crop residue before being placed in a feedlot or finished on feed. Stocker operations run on the spread between what you pay at weaning and what the feedlot pays at placement. With calves at record prices this spring, the math on running stockers has gotten harder to pencil out.
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Richie Parker showed up to Hendrick Motorsports for a 10-week internship with LSAT books in his bag and a plan to go to law school. He stayed 12 years and helped win seven championships. The LSAT books are still in a box somewhere. Some things don't need a plan. They just need someone paying attention when the real thing shows up.
We'll see you in the barn.
Sawyer & Tork
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