Tap shuts off on what was shaping up to be a good crop for Paul Thomas

Paul Yeager Hey, everybody, it's Paul Yeager This is the MtoM Show podcast, a production of Iowa PBS, and the Market to Market TV program. I usually wear a little bit of a collar shirt. When I do these interviews, we're just talking. Sometimes our guests are in the middle of another job. And that's what our guest this week is he's in his other job. Paul Thomas has a farmer in North Dakota that we spoke with a couple of times in 2022. If you remember his spring crop, they were just about ready to roll and it was really wet to lay their crop. We're going to find out how things went. Spoiler alert, the rains shut off and really kind of put a damper on what could have been a great crop ended up pretty good, as Paul will tell us. Paul is in the middle of his other job, which is a state representative in the state of North Dakota, and this happens to be the year that they work. That's that legislature that works every other year. This is the season for him. So we got him out of committee. His work was done for the day, and we talked farming, but we also talked about what issues are in the North Dakota legislature of agricultural interests. So we get a little policy and a little ketchup. And a fun story about Paul as a fantasy football player. That's this installment of the MToM Show podcast. Oh, Paul, you're gonna throw off the curve here with that tie. There's a reason for it, though. You have a button. I just have a logo. Your we didn't disclose this the last time your legislator.

Paul Thomas I'm a legislator. I am chairman of the House Ag Committee in our legislative body.

Paul Yeager And that is in the state of North Dakota. Correct. How long have you been elected?

Paul Thomas This is my second term of our second session, first term of serving in the North Dakota legislature first, first. First time being the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.

Paul Yeager What's on the House Agriculture Committee in North Dakota's legislature this year.

Paul Thomas You know, we've had a pretty full schedule so far. One of one of the initiatives that I've been behind driving as we are trying to do our best to try and promote animal agriculture growth. In North Dakota, we've seen a rapid decline in the numbers of dairies and swine and in poultry operations over the past decades. And one of the a number a number of factors have certainly led to that. But one of those that that we that I strongly feel that as hurt hurt our industry in North Dakota is the lack of the ability of, of investment from Corporation style business structures. And so we have a bill in this session that is looking to expand the ability for corporate investment into animal agriculture. It's limited to just 160 acres in size. And it limited just to the, you know, animal agriculture facilities. So that's a a priority of mine, in this session. There's, there's you know, it's it's been a long history in North Dakota, of being opposed to, to that sort of structure. But some of the changes that you know, that have occurred in agriculture, I think really warrant our need to look at it as it pertains to animal agriculture, we have two for sure soybean crush plants being built in our state, possibly a third that's going to be built. And those those crushed plants are going to bring significant amounts of soybean meal in into our state and have it right here. And so the ability of that feed being here is certainly one of the main reasons we need to really move on this.

Paul Yeager So okay, they helped me out. It doesn't sound like it's a confinement bill. This sounds when you say animal agriculture, that's what regular folks jump to. They just think it's all about animals in confinement, you're talking more business and development with animals. I just want to get a little bit of that clarification.

Paul Thomas So so no, this this would be more specifically targeting towards whatever that larger operation is, you know, like you say, typically, it's confinement. So whether it's a confined hog feeding operation, whether it's the modern dairy operations that you know, are are just wiped reality is of today's operations that confined poultry operations. Yes. So it'd be for those sort of facilities. Okay.

Paul Yeager You You said this was this in the last session and didn't make it out? Top? Oh, no, no, actually,

Paul Thomas: this is it's been it's been different approaches that Ben you looked at over the past steers to try and expand into the ability to do this. The last time that was brought up was back in 2015. So so this is the first attempt again to, to pass something, the scope, I believe on on our attempt here is quite tight, and really, in my opinion really targets the area where we need the corporate spent to really make these industries flourish in North Dakota.

Paul Yeager: Do you get the sense that there's strong opposition? Strong support? Too early to tell?

Paul Thomas:  So we have farm organizations in the state that are strongly in support of it, and there's a farm organization in the state that is strongly against it.

Paul Yeager: Okay, so, yeah, that's like anything, though, right? Yeah.

Paul Thomas: Absolutely. Yes, it absolutely is. And so, so yeah, that that's a big issue that we're working on, we're also looking at a number of other animal agriculture bills pertaining and I shouldn't just say animal agriculture, but agriculture in general, I'm trying to, you know, make sure our zoning laws that we have, are, are both protective of county and township ability to control their local zoning ordinances, but also keeping in mind that we can zone individual property rights away from the individuals that are trying to make a living out there and in producing crops and animal agriculture. So we're looking at that we have a number of commodity bills that, you know, seem to surface every session. And then, probably the other big issue, which I was probably affecting a lot other states is discussion on foreign aid, land ownership. You know, that's certainly a hot topic, it seems, you know, across the country. So looking at bills to do with that, also on the Agriculture Committee.

Paul Yeager:  That's funny that you say that, because that also was on my list once, once you open the door there, there is there's some the chair of the US House of Representatives agriculture committee, Glenn Thompson, said the day we're recording this, he's a little hesitant to go all the way on restricting foreign ownership of land, there's another few members of his caucus that are, as he calls it, or at least as it's written around, they've been watching cable news, there's those who know who are buying land around you, Paul, you're a farmer, who's buying the land around you?

Paul Thomas:  Well, the, for me, specifically, the people buying the land around me are farmers, farmers and ranchers. Probably the bigger concern in reality of what's happening in our state is in and partly to me is, even as concerning, if not more concerning, is we have some well to do individuals that have participated in some of our recreational opportunities on land, farmland, whether that's, you know, you're camping or, or whatever that may be, but more likely hunting, and, and they get a taste of North Dakota's fall environment here and fall in love with it, they fall in love with the beauty here. And they have the wherewithal to buy a quarter or two of land, which in itself is not necessarily a terrible thing. But as we look at it from a state when they do that, and and the only use of that land from that point forward is their recreational or hunting opportunities, or our local communities and our state are both losing out from the economic impact that that land would be having by producing a crop or producing livestock and, and that to me is really equally as concerning that we start losing agricultural land and idling it from that perspective. One of those in North Dakota one of the things as a pertains to foreign land ownership that kind of drove this was the potential of the full farm Corn Milling plant just outside of Grand Forks that really kind of drove a lot of interest.

Paul Yeager:  And that just that story, I think, just had a resolution or a development in the last couple of days if I'm if I'm not mistaken. Is that right?

Paul Thomas:  Yeah. Last week, the the, the federal government basically declared that there was significant concerns with that proposal to our nation's security. And, you know, so essentially, stop that project from moving forward. Yeah.

Paul Yeager:  There is a survey being done right now is my understanding and it'll be released early summer. I think it's mostly Iowa related and I don't know if it's Midwest, but it is going to look at ownership of land. Do you know of anything being done by anybody in your state that's looking at studying who is actually I mean, and what percentage He owns farmland in the state.

Paul Thomas:  And testimonies that we've heard before the committee. I don't think that's really, really clear. And there's a, you know, an FSA reporting form for foreign ag land ownership. In our state that the information we were able to gather, there was very little owned. It was more so leased by governments, foreign governments, and that particularly pointed to wind towers. A lot of that, there, certainly in our state, there's maybe a little bit more from being right next to Canada, you start seeing some of that, you know, just back and forth, that happens just by living next to the border, you know, and but vice versa, there's, you know, certainly United States farmers that, you know, are North Dakota farmers that own land, you know, on the other side of the border as well. So,

Paul Yeager:  well, yeah, foreign ownership is, I think what a lot of folks instantly jump to is China or Brazil or something like that. But Canada is the foreign owner in some of the land, which is almost your backyard in some counties of your state. So that takes a whole different connotation. What about NFL football players? So that's what we just had an Iowa here, I assume that's ago, came in and, and I the way I'm reading, I'm guessing, knowing where that land is, at least speculative, that could be a hunting situation is similar to what you're talking about. Right?

Paul Thomas: And it's, it's a difficult, more difficult I mean we have to keep in mind, you know, in those situations, and in, as I alluded to, you know, certainly you lose the economic activity, but we also have to be very mindful in this country of private property rights, and that that individual has that right to sell that piece of land to that NFL football player if they so choose. And if that NFL football players chooses to keep it for hunting, you know, we do have to be very respectful and cognizant of those private property rights,

Paul Yeager: which is what I'm kind of reading between the lines of what Representative Thompson on the US level is also pointing out that there is a faction that says yes, property rights, and we can't dictate who owns what, there's certain legislative bounds that we need to stay within. Speaking of football, are you a part of this traveling trophy in fantasy football, that's the bipartisan effort in the North Dakota legislature. This is a hot story I just saw right while I was waiting to talk to you, Paul.

Paul Thomas: I don't know if you're trying to rub salt in the wounds or what I did. I didn't even make the top eight to make the playoffs. So I, I was participatory the last couple years and I failed miserably with my team to have any any bit of chance at getting the trophy.

Paul Yeager: So how many are in this in this event?

Paul Thomas: 12 of us. There's all of us.

Paul Yeager: So bottom four, does that mean you're gonna get relegated?

Paul Thomas: There will definitely be some penalty for that. Absolutely.

Paul Yeager: But you didn't finish last, did you?

Paul Thomas: Well, technically, I did not finish last but the bottom four finished last so.

Paul Yeager: Okay. Because you know, in soccer, it's always the, you know, and we think we talk about it in American sports. But if we had relegation so but you don't think you're getting relegated to South Dakota or something like that.

Paul Thomas: It would never be something that bad.

Paul Yeager: But that's Is it truly bipartisan. And

Paul Thomas: it truly is truly as we have both Democrats and Republicans and a couple members of the executive branch as well on the team, the All things being known a couple of members of the executive branch are former legislative branch legislators that moved to the executive branch and we decided they were well and good enough to keep them still.

Paul Yeager: In Iowa, there was always a long history of farmer legislators. How many what's the percentage in North Dakota that is that way still today? That again, how many Oh, sorry, how many legislators in North Dakota are still farmers?

Paul Thomas: Oh, boy, I don't even know the exact percent of that. Um, so in the, in the North Dakota house, we have 94 members in the House of Representatives. I I would guess maybe 10 to 15% of us are you know, either active farmers or fairly recently retired farmers, so relatively small percentage.

Paul Yeager: Okay. Your farm that's the whole reason we were going to talk and yeah, thank you for indulging me on the legislative speak and since the way this schedule worked out, how did things go? Maybe you were just too busy farming in the fall to focus on football.

Paul Thomas: Yeah, well, the the fall actually harvest season. What really smoothly we we, at our particular farm, late July, the rain shut off. And we really never had any precip in the fall at all. So it certainly expedited the speed of harvest small grains and the early crops were average to above average, we, you know, we went in extremely wet. Well, you know, with the snowstorm as we talked, and we had sufficient moisture to get the small grains there. But unfortunately for our farm, not getting any of the August rains really kind of hurt our corn and soybean, my oldest son that just returned home to farm that rent did a couple 100 acres this year was fortunate and caught one extra rain and had a you know, above average soybean crop and average corn crop, and all of our land all around the same area, you know, that just didn't catch at one shower was average to below average. So it was right on the cusp. Our crop was of you know, being really quite good. With the price. And the way everything turned out. I mean, it was certainly a very good year for for our region, but certainly could have used a couple more rains,

Paul Yeager: which is I won't say fun to say, ironic, given the way the spring was for you. It absolutely

Paul Thomas: was, you know, we we came into that spring being worried about, you know, a terrible drought, that we got that tremendous snowfall of four feet of snow there. And that without that, you know, we would have probably had a disaster. So you know, that was the blessing in disguise. And you know, even from the ranching community, so many of the cow calf producers that lost calves at the end, you know, we're thankful that that storm actually happened because we had tremendous hay production grass glasses were plentiful for the pastures. But you know, coming into the fall, we we got dry, we did get some really late fall moisture. And then we've had probably averaged a little above average snowfall. So going into next spring in our region, we're going to be hoping for some good spring rains. But we're probably in a little better condition than we were last year.

Paul Yeager : Do you have confidence in one crop over another? Ahead and 23 as you sit here in in early February.

Paul Thomas: So on our farm, we're probably going to increase our corn acres a little bit, we're going to be a little less we're a little high on soybean acres as normal than what we normally would be. We'll have, you know, maybe a more normal soybean acreage mix. We're going to our small grains, we're probably equally split between wheat, barley and oats. And then we'll have yellow pea production again. And some of those soybean acres are probably going to be replaced with pinto bean production, which we didn't do last year, which we typically do to some acres of pinto beans.

Paul Yeager: Is that a rotation thing? Or is that a marketing thing?

Paul Thomas: It's a marketing thing. Mainly pinto beans, typically, we can usually capture more income, but they're in our region. They're a little more risky. Just growing them and certainly a little more management to growing pinto beans and soybeans

Paul Yeager: and I on your wheat. I forget you do a little bit of winter but mostly spring wheat.

Paul Thomas: We have done winter in the past but it's been quite a long time. Our weight is almost all spring wheat. Yeah. Okay.

Paul Yeager: That's what I thought around you though or in the state. Do you know of many with winter? And do they feel good about the way it's sitting under snow and enough moisture?

Paul Thomas: We have very few winter wheat acres in North Dakota, I think it's a couple 100 Few 100,000 every year but it's that's not very significant crop. statewide. There's a significant snow cover. So I think anybody that would have fall crops seated would be in very good shape.

Paul Yeager: And when you say significant snow cover in the state of North Dakota, what does that mean? That to me, that means a foot of snow on the ground to you is that four feet?

Paul Thomas: No, it wouldn't be quite four feet. But so Bismarck is state capitol where we're at and they they have received more attendees by December they had received more than their average yearly snowfall, you know, already in December, January has been quite arid. There hasn't been much snowfall in North Dakota in January, but I would say most of the state is close to their normal yearly total. So you know, any moisture we get in March and April, typically is the wetter snow, you know, the snow that, you know makes more of an impact. So yeah, I mean, land cover. Yeah, maybe there's a foot out there to two feet, you know, across the landscape.

Paul Yeager: That's, we have that. In fact, we just had the discussion on the show a couple of weeks ago. Snow doesn't break drought. It doesn't hurt but it doesn't necessarily help you as much so as you look at weather and look towards spring, you mentioned catching a rain catching a snow. Are you sitting up? You know, I look at drought monitors North Dakota is still one of those states, maybe to the west of you still a little bit of an issue dry conditions is that right?

Paul Thomas: Certainly, and, and quite honestly, that's what we get used to living with. You know, it's it's kind of a saying that, you know, if you want the weather to change in North Dakota, we'll just wait till tomorrow and you're only one week away from a drought. It in our, our climate and, and our water holding capacity of our land is probably a little less than, you know, what a lot of your viewers are accustomed to, and certainly what the eastern part of our state is. So we every year we rely on those timely rains from April through August.

Paul Yeager: What about your livestock friends? How are they handling things right now? We just had a big report last week about cattle, and just not as many not much inventory out there. But you know, what, are people expanding up there?

Paul Thomas: Yeah, I think the cattle industry in North Dakota, you know, which is predominantly cow calf industry is is fairly optimistic. You know, we had two years ago, we had that terrible drought. And there was a lot of, you know, animals sold and herds decreased in size. Last year, we saw sufficient grass production and good hay production, where people I think, kept a lot of heifers back, and to try and rebuild their hurts. I don't think they necessarily were real aggressive buying new animals, but you know, just retaining some of those. And so I would say, you know, the beef industry in our state is really, you know, cautiously optimistic about what next year holds.

Paul Yeager: Any Okay. Optimistic you'll take that right. I mean, yeah, sometimes we're gonna pessimistic. Right, right. Okay, let's now put your legislative hat back on with what you just said about a status report of agriculture in the state, what type of assistance what type of you mentioned one program already, but are there things legislators need to look at to assist the farmer of North Dakota.

Paul Thomas: So we, we've we're focusing on a few things. One is infrastructure. Here, our state's bridge infrastructure is significantly eroded. And that county and township bridge infrastructure all falls on the backs of local property taxpayers, our state has done very well in the past biennium with the volume of oil that we've pumped out. And the price being, you know, significantly higher than projected, has increased our budget revenues, or our our general fund revenues and our opportunity to participate, hopefully back with the local subs in taking care of some of those long term legacy type projects, I think would be a while, it's certainly a priority in mind that I hope to see our legislature fund to help out there, we have a a infrastructure fund that we are looking to put some money into that would assist local political subdivisions, whether it's a county or township or city, when value added egg projects or animal like projects are located in there. So that if a road needs to be rebuilt, or water and natural gas lines, or three phase power need to be moved there, that the state is saying, Hey, we know that these will make significant differences in our state's economy, and we're willing to participate local with the local economy or the local subdivisions and, and helping build that infrastructure there that's necessary for these value added projects or for these animal aid projects. So those would be a couple of the highlights, I think that we're really looking to do, there's some other proposals out there, whether it come to fruition or not, is some assistance for a fertilizer plant that would manufacture most likely anhydrous ammonia, with our state's over abundance of flaring, that's happening with the natural gas and oil wells, trying to find, you know, beneficial uses that we can do with that, that we can still keep our oil fields, producing the same amount of oil. And, and from a rural perspective, in the last November, special election that we had, the body had appropriated 150 million to try and construct a natural gas pipeline across the northern tier of North Dakota, that that never came to fruition. And so the body is looking at ways to partner with private industry to see how we can try and move that project forward because as we see the rural communities across the northern part of our state without the access to the larger quantities of natural gas is certainly inhibited their ability to attract manufacturing and some of those industries Is it really necessary for communities to grow

Paul Yeager: And dealing with what landowners want on their land? By means that they want and not have a government come in and take if have to eminent domains always a discussion? I was, you know, on a carbon pipeline discussion I know that would go over parts of either Minnesota or South Dakota on its way to you, I'm sure you're very aware of some of those projects that that come along from other states that might end up in your area at some point

Paul Thomas: yeah, there's there's significant discussions in in the legislative body this session concerning the the the carbon sequestration pipeline

Paul Yeager: Yeah, yep, the the the topics are never ending for now they're not hicker to deal with. If you had to put 2020 twos crop on the Thomas farm into a category which category would you put it as a whole

Paul Thomas: yield wise I would say average to a slightly above average from a overall economic profitability. One of the best

Paul Yeager: still have corn to sell.

Paul Thomas: I do I do still have corn to sell. Yes,

Paul Yeager: I did store but not ignore.

Paul Thomas: I think I've done pretty well so far. Right? I've had timely sales. You know, the market really hasn't made significant moves in sense harvest. So we've been selling gradually into it. I don't have a significant amount of corn lapped, the beans are all moved. We do have a little bit of spring wheat to market as well. But but we're getting down there. And we've started a new crop. We started that last fall already started selling some of the new crops.

Paul Yeager: Anything into 24 yet?

Paul Thomas: You haven't done anything 24 yet? No.

Paul Yeager: We haven't had a question like that in a couple of months. So I'm guessing that little momentum stopped. So yeah. So more time to market your grain and less time to look at the waiver wire to put on your fantasy football team. Got it. Okay. I appreciate it. Paul, thank you so much for the time enjoy the legislative session and and the crop year to come here and 2023

Paul Thomas: Yeah, great visiting with your great catching up again and thank you.

Paul Yeager:  My thanks to Paul Thomas best to him in 2023 in the farm there in North Dakota. If you have any feedback for this podcast, send it at MarkettoMarket@IowaPBS.ORG. New episodes come out each and every Tuesday. We'll see you next time. Thanks for watching or listening or for those that read See you later.