BARN TALK
The Unfiltered Voice of Rural America
Issue #028 · October 7, 2026
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Hey folks, China moved on tariffs this week, and moved on everything except the crop that keeps a lot of this state in business. Thirty billion in relief on cattle, pork, chicken and produce, and soybeans sat out the deal. The same week USDA pulled the floor out from under solar grants farmers had already spent their own money chasing, and Iowa and Illinois growers are suing to get it back.
In this issue
| China cut tariffs on 30 billion in farm goods and left soybeans off the list |
| USDA cut solar grants in half, retroactively, and Iowa and Illinois farmers are suing |
| Corn, beans and wheat all fell the week soybeans got left out of the deal |
| The farm bill actually expired, with the House gone until November 9 |
| A strip-till rig built for a couple thousand dollars, and the line behind why guys put up with it |
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China Cut Tariffs On Everything Except The Crop Iowa Grows
The new relief covers cattle, pork and produce. Soybeans still pay the extra 10 percent.
Washington and Beijing extended their trade truce September 28 with what both sides call the thirty for thirty framework, thirty billion in tariff relief on products from cattle and hogs to broccoli and citrus. More than 90 percent of what got covered is now exempt from the extra tariffs. Soybeans were the one big name missing.
What's actually in the deal
The relief covers soybean oil and meal, what comes out the far end of a crushing plant, but not whole soybeans sold for food or crushing, which keep the extra 10 percent tariff China put on in the first place. The American Soybean Association called it what it is. John Bartman, a fifth-generation Illinois soybean farmer, put it plainly: a missed opportunity for the American farmer.
Why soybeans got left out
Leave that 10 percent standing and the private Chinese buyers who used to compete for your beans stay on the sideline, with purchases running through state-owned enterprises on their own schedule. Futures fell more than 2 percent on the news, the lowest close since late August, and traders have no date for when China's promised 17 billion dollar purchase commitment shows up.
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From the Barn
Read the thirty billion as good news if you want to. It was never going to be your thirty billion. The crop in the bin is still 10 percent more expensive to the one customer big enough to move the whole thing.
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USDA Closed The Spigot On Solar Grants And Farmers Are Suing
USDA finalized a new rule October 1 that guts the Rural Energy for America Program, REAP, for solar, the grant behind more farm solar than anything else. More than two-thirds of every REAP dollar ever awarded went to solar, which is what this rule targets.
The changes apply retroactively, to projects already designed and financed under the old rules.
By the numbers
| 25 percent is the new REAP cap on project cost, down from 50 percent. |
| One year is how long a system must run before reimbursement, which USDA used to pay before construction. |
| $500,000 was promised to one Illinois family for grain-dryer solar and never paid. |
Retroactive is the part that stings
Iowa farmer Ed Heishman put more than 250,000 dollars into a system expecting better than 100,000 back, money gone under the new rule. Michael Youhana, who works with farmers on these projects, said the spigot is closed for a lot of solar projects and now wind too. The Iowa Farmers Union sued September 28 in federal court, with solar groups and several Illinois farmers, arguing USDA broke its own law to promote renewable energy on farms.
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From the Barn
The retroactive part is what farmers are suing over, a grant that changes its terms after the concrete is poured. You plan around the rule that exists the day you sign, not the one that shows up a year later.
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This Week's Sponsor
Catch Us At Gateway Farm Expo
We'll be at Gateway Farm Expo in Kearney, Nebraska this November. If you're headed that way, stop by and say hello.
Learn more at gatewayfarmexpo.org →
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This week's numbers
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Corn (Dec '26)
$4.97 3/4 /bu
▼ $0.30 1/2 on the week
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Soybeans (Nov '26)
$12.78 1/4 /bu
▼ $0.40 3/4 on the week
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Chicago Wheat (Dec '26)
$6.83 /bu
▼ $0.20 1/4 on the week
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Live Cattle (Dec '26)
$221.47 /cwt
▼ $0.68 on the week
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Lean Hogs (Dec '26)
$70.12 /cwt
▲ $1.10 on the week
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Crude Oil (Nov '26)
$91.11 /bbl
▼ $1.30 on the week
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Tork's Picks
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Bitcoin
$86,682 USD
▲ $2,269 on the week
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ADM
$80.45 /share
▼ $0.67 on the week
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This isn't financial advice. I'm just a farmer with an opinion.
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Tork's Take
Soybeans falling the same week they got left off the tariff list is the market pricing Washington in real time. ADM down on the week says the crush margin feels it too, less Chinese demand means less reason to run the plant flat out. Corn and wheat rode beans down on a week neither had its own news.
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Will Cannon told me something I pushed back on, that so many other things in agriculture are about how to kill something, and soil health is about how you grow something instead. My first thought was that it sounded like a bumper sticker. Then he told me what it cost him to believe it.
He parked the planter his dad handed down and hired the neighbor to run no-till for him, the first decision he made taking over the farm. Cover crops came later, and they came hard. His first year trying radishes and turnips, nothing came up while he was away on a business trip. He got home and found out why: the agronomist had flown the seed in by helicopter and windrowed it, then sprayed a herbicide that bleaches chlorophyll right over the top. The field turned white like snowdrifts in June.
“So many other things in agriculture are about how to kill something. Then you start talking about soil health, and it becomes about how you grow something.” |
What actually moved him was yield, not ideology. He liked what no-till did for his soil, but a neighbor running full tillage was out-yielding him, and that gnawed at him. Working at Ag Leader Technology at the time, with GPS guidance on the shelf, he built a six-row strip-till rig himself for a couple thousand dollars. He says everybody who drove past asked what that colossal scrap of metal was. He has bandages in the closet to prove how many versions it took.
Paul Gilsman, farming next to him on the mic, got there a different way: 25 head of British White Park cattle he calls expensive lessons, diversity that has kept him off needing outside work. Different roads, same idea: the operation that lasts keeps finding a new way to pay.
Built a piece of equipment yourself because nobody made the one you needed? Hit reply and tell me about it. I read every one.
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Four things that caught our eye
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The farm bill actually ran out this timeThe 2018 bill's extension expired September 30 with nothing new behind it. A continuing resolution keeps SNAP, crop insurance and conservation funded through December 11, just without a reauthorized bill. The House is gone until November 9, the Senate has no floor vote scheduled, and the fight is still food stamps. |
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| 02 |
USDA and HUD did in 80 days what Congress gave them 180 to doA rural housing project financed by both agencies has always faced two separate environmental reviews and inspections, each under its own rules. The memorandum they signed September 29 lets them name one lead agency and share environmental assessments, with a combined inspection next. |
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Eleven billion more in farm aid is coming, just not soonThe White House is pushing 11 billion in farm aid, most of it for fuel and fertilizer costs after shipping disruptions tied to the Iran conflict, attached to a defense package moving through Congress. Boozman expects it to pass, but payments are unlikely before spring 2027. |
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| 04 |
Hiring nearly stopped in SeptemberThe economy added just 29,000 jobs against a forecast of 84,000, and unemployment held at 4.2 percent. Manufacturing added 9,000, but the sector is still down 21,000 since January 2025. Wage growth has slipped three months running, 3.2 percent in July to 3.0 in September. |
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Barn Talk Poll
Where do you land?
Quick poll for our livestock audience: what does your operation look like?
| A. Full-time, livestock only |
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B. Full-time, livestock AND row crop or other farming |
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| C. Part-time or small herd (livestock on the side) |
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D. Not in livestock and never plan to be |
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Did You Know?
The average American eats about 57 pounds of beef a year, per USDA's newest per-person estimate for 2026, a number that has held in the mid to upper 50s most of the last decade.
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Word of the Week
| APPRENTICE |
The first rung of a licensed trade. Years of on-the-job hours under a journeyman, stacked against classroom time, paid on a wage scale that climbs as the hours do, before the test that makes you a journeyman yourself. |
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Thirty billion moved this week, and none of it moved the one crop sitting in a bin waiting on a buyer.
We'll see you in the barn.
Sawyer & Tork
Hosts, Barn Talk · joinbarntalk.com
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Read online · © 2026 Barn Talk · joinbarntalk.com · This week's episode: #EP220
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