00:00I'm here, Rollins. Thanks so much for doing this. I just wanted to check in. So the president released last week a flurry of trade deals and the different rates in different countries and the ag space were approaching harvest season.
00:18Crop prices were soybeans. They were down a little bit. I was just wondering if you could give an update on if you're still tracking, you know, farmer a sort of how the administration is looking to protect farmers as we enter that harvest season given, you know, that we're seeing these trade deals.
00:36No, I appreciate you saying that. Obviously the first thing I think it's important to note is this president made a promise in February to realign the entire world economy around America and Americans first.
00:47Uh, as we are renegotiating trade deals around the world, historically on average, American ag products are charged 15% on average as they move into other countries.
00:58We in fact charge on average 5% as their ag products moved into America. So obviously that realigning and the idea of American, especially American farmers and ranchers bowing to the altar of other countries,
01:11tariff regimes and tariff structures, uh, ended when president Trump, uh, announced on liberation day. But having said that into your question, which is a very good one,
01:20the importance of understanding the uncertainty of what this means for agriculture producers, especially for our row croppers, some, some really great ones from Iowa, others from West Virginia across this country,
01:32when they were already operating on such thin margins, barely making it day to day, month to month, year to year.
01:40We've lost almost 200,000 family farms in just the last four or five years. The cost of inputs went up 30% under the last administration.
01:48Those margins are very precarious and what we have said and what the president has committed to from day one is that this opening of markets around the world is unprecedented.
01:58Ultimately, our agriculture community, our farmers and ranchers are entering into a golden age of agriculture.
02:05But in this time of readjustment, there will be some uncertainty. So as we move into harvest season, the commitment remains that just as we've been saying for the last few months,
02:16that if in fact farmers are hurt in the short term while we work for the long term prosperity that the USDA will be there to step in.
