BARN TALK
The Unfiltered Voice of Rural America
Issue #031 · October 28, 2026
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Hey folks, USDA says it will pay farmers $8 billion to help with harvest diesel and has not named a date. An Indiana electric co-op signed on to study eight nuclear reactors, wheat gave back 35 1/2 cents on the week, and hog futures set new contract lows. Then we get into a jerky business that spent 17 months waiting on USDA.
In this issue
| $8 billion for harvest diesel, with payment rates due in November and no date for the checks |
| Eight nuclear reactors are on the table for an Indiana rural electric co-op, with no site and no budget |
| Wheat lost 35 1/2 cents on the week while crude climbed to $103.27 a barrel |
| Lean hog futures hit new contract lows, and September pork output was down 3 percent |
| A grandpa's jerky recipe took 17 months to clear USDA before one bag sold |
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USDA Promises $8 Billion For Harvest Diesel, But The Checks Have No Date
AAA had diesel at $6.30 a gallon on October 16, more than 70 percent above a year ago.
President Trump announced it Monday night, October 19, and USDA put out the details the same day. The one-time payments total $8 billion, the Farm Service Agency will run them, and USDA calls them proportional support, paid by a uniform formula to cover a portion of modeled losses during the 2026 crop year.
What we know about the check
Payment rates for the big row crops are due in November, and rates for other commodities come later. It is not tied to crop insurance, and USDA has not given a payment date. Politico reported that Congress may have to approve moving the money, and nobody has said whether checks land before or after the November 3 election.
Why diesel is the reason
AAA had diesel at $6.30 a gallon nationwide on October 16, more than 70 percent above a year ago. Reuters and the AP tie months of rising diesel, fertilizer and seed costs to refinery limits and supply problems from the Iran war. This looks a lot like the $12 billion Farmer Bridge Assistance payments announced at the end of 2025 and paid out this year.
Growers of specialty crops and fishermen are asked to send USDA data on their higher fuel costs by email, since no rates have been set for them yet.
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From the Barn
A check with no rate and no date does not fill a fuel tank. Price your next load of diesel as if the money never shows up, and treat the payment as a bonus if it does. Help is help, but it will not change what corn brings at the elevator.
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An Indiana Electric Co-op Just Signed On To Study Eight Nuclear Reactors
Hoosier Energy Rural Electric Cooperative, the State of Indiana and AtkinsRealis signed a memorandum of understanding on October 19 to study a campus of up to eight CANDU reactors. Hoosier Energy is a not-for-profit cooperative that supplies power to distribution co-ops in central and southern Indiana and southeastern Illinois. The agreement is a study, not a build order, with no site picked and no public budget.
By the numbers
| Up to 8 reactors of the CANDU type, a Canadian design that runs on natural uranium. |
| 6 gigawatts is the most steady power the campus could supply. |
| 700,000 member-consumers get power through Hoosier Energy's distribution co-ops. |
What happens next
The study covers sites, power purchase agreements, workforce training and grid hookups, and it also looks at building smaller gas plants first to get power online sooner. The agreement says any timeline depends on financing, licensing, environmental review and transmission planning. Governor Mike Braun said the aim is more affordable power and skilled, high-wage jobs.
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From the Barn
Electric co-ops belong to the members who plug into them, so a plan this big ends up on your bill. Ask your own co-op how it plans to keep the lights on and what it expects you to pay over the next twenty years. Every farm shop and hog barn runs on that answer.
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This week's numbers
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Corn (Dec '26)
$4.56 /bu
▼ $0.18 1/4 on the week
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Soybeans (Nov '26)
$12.56 1/2 /bu
▼ $0.04 3/4 on the week
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Chicago Wheat (Dec '26)
$6.25 /bu
▼ $0.35 1/2 on the week
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Live Cattle (Dec '26)
$231.12 /cwt
▲ $2.77 on the week
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Lean Hogs (Dec '26)
$65.57 /cwt
▼ $1.35 on the week
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Crude Oil (Dec '26)
$103.27 /bbl
▲ $1.87 on the week
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Tork's Picks
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Bitcoin
$81,102 USD
▼ $422 on the week
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3M
$173.46 /share
▲ $8.71 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
Wheat gave back 35 1/2 cents and corn 18 1/4 on the week, while crude pushed up to $103.27 a barrel, so the diesel in the Main Story is not getting cheaper. Cattle added $2.77. If you still have corn or wheat unpriced, a week like this is when you run your breakeven again before you decide to wait.
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17 months. That is how long Christian Cook paid rent on a jerky plant before USDA let him sell a single bag. He came to the barn from Spring Hill, Tennessee, and the whole business started with his grandpa Jim, who ran a shutter company and made jerky as a hobby.
Christian moved to Nashville at 19 to make it in music and gave it 13 or 14 years before it ended. At 25 he asked his mom to find the recipe in the family cookbook, bought a dehydrator and made a batch. The first food safety plan he showed the inspectors was a PowerPoint about why he wanted to make jerky, and they laughed. He nearly quit, and his dad found a building two weeks later.
“There's no blueprint for it.” |
What gets me is how the good part came in the order it did. A sign at his first farmers market said if you try it, you will buy it, and by his count nine out of ten who sampled did. He sold all 50 bags, which had taken three weeks to make. Then Dale Earnhardt Jr. tried it, talked it up on his podcast, and the orders ran so far past what one man could make that Christian called customers himself to apologize.
What is the thing you keep meaning to start, and what is the first phone call you would have to make? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.
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Four things that caught our eye
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3M is closing a Minnesota plant that has run since 1946The Fairmont plant makes Dual Lock fasteners and other industrial goods, and 3M has filed notice to lay off 62 people between December 18 and December 31, Hoodline reported October 21. 3M's CEO says the company has closed 16 sites this year and plans to close 10 more. In a small town, a plant like that is a big piece of the payroll and the tax base. |
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| 02 |
A Michigan fire department waited almost four years for one truckSt. Ignace ordered its new Engine 3 in December 2022, and it arrived October 21 at a cost of $684,579.37, the department's first brand new truck since 2004, the St. Ignace News reported October 23. Small departments plan around a truck like this for decades, so ask your own township what theirs is running. |
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| 03 |
Beef output fell 6 percent in SeptemberUSDA's slaughter report, covered by DTN on October 23, has September beef production at 2.04 billion pounds, down 6 percent, on cattle slaughter of 2.30 million head, down 7 percent. Average live weight rose 14 pounds to 1,447, so fewer cattle are carrying more weight. |
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| 04 |
Lean hog futures made new contract lowsDTN reported October 23 that lean hog futures fell between 7 1/2 and 50 cents Thursday depending on the month, with sellers not looking worn out. September hog slaughter was 10.6 million head and pork production 2.27 billion pounds, both down 3 percent. Fewer hogs and lower prices is a hard mix for anybody feeding them into winter. |
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Barn Talk Poll
Where do you land?
When you're buying gear for work or play, you usually...
| A. Buy the best and move on |
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B. Research until I find the value |
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| C. Wait for a deal |
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D. Buy whatever gets the job done |
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Did You Know?
A bushel began as a measure of volume, but grain is sold by weight now: 56 pounds of corn and 60 pounds of soybeans or wheat. That is why the elevator checks your test weight and moisture before it settles up.
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Word of the Week
| LODGING |
When a crop's stalks bend or break and the plants fall over before harvest. Wind, heavy rain, weak stalks and disease all cause it, and a combine has a hard time picking up a lodged crop, so yield and speed both take a hit. |
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The Hoosier Energy study is a long way from a shovel, so watch your own co-op's board notices this winter, and call your FSA office when USDA posts the fuel relief rates in November.
We'll see you in the barn.
Sawyer & Tork
Hosts, Barn Talk · joinbarntalk.com
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