The 5th 10 years of Market to Market

“Hello, I’m Mike Pearson”

In 2016, farmers were facing the third year of declining profits. As a way to help unlock more export potential for U.S. producers, President Barack Obama signed The Transpacific Partnership. The deal was designed to allow 12 countries that touch the Pacific Ocean to lower trade barriers. The pact, which shut out China, met with defeat as the Senate refused to bring the measure up for a vote. 

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers temporarily halted construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline project. The last mile of the oil pipeline was eventually connected in 2017. 

As the year rolled over, we were following the next phase of the 2015 nitrate pollution lawsuit between the Des Moines Water Works and several Iowa agricultural drainage districts. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled the drainage districts had immunity from the charges under state law. A federal court threw out the case and ended DMWW’s pursuit of a win. 

President Donald Trump slapped a 20% tariff on Canadian lumber. He was hoping the tactic would open the taps for U.S. dairy producers trying to do business with the nation’s number two trading partner. The trade skirmish eventually led to Trump abandoning the 24-year old North American Free Trade Agreement and the start of negotiations on the United States Mexico Canada Agreement. The USMCA was eventually adopted and went into effect in the middle of 2020.

Our coverage in 2018 began with an in depth report on how the opioid epidemic had hit the entire U.S. including rural America.

Delaney Howell became the first female host of the show.

“Hello, I’m Delaney Howell.”

It was also the year that President Trump began a trade war with China. The war escalated to the point where everything traded between the planet’s number one and number two economies had a tariff on it. Soybean exports to China plummeted to nothing and farmers were hit hard. The government stepped in and gave qualified producers a slice of a $23 billion pie in the form of two Market Facilitation Payments. Under the terms China would increase imports of U.S. agricultural products to $40 billion over two years. 

The biotechnology giant Bayer was sued over the alleged connection between cancer and the use of its signature weed killer Roundup. A jury awarded the plaintiff $289 million. 

Getting the 2018 Farm Bill over the finish line was in doubt. The measure was signed in the waning days of December just before the federal government went into a partial shutdown. 

African Swine Fever was front of mind in 2019. So much so that the National Pork Producers Council cancelled the World Pork Expo over concern international visitors might bring the deadly disease into the U.S.

In March of 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. The spread of the virus altered everything from how we interacted to how we did business. 

Eventually, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. The CARES Act distributed more than $2 trillion to nearly every person and business in America.

It was also the year Paul Yeager became the fifth full-time host of this program. 

Just after 2021 began, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan into law. Valued at more than $1.9 trillion, the measure provided funds for almost every segment of society.

That year, the Supreme Court rejected another challenge by agricultural lobbying groups to strike down Proposition 12, the California law requiring more space for sows, egg laying chickens and veal calves. Prop 12 went into effect on January 1st, 2022.

H5N1, more commonly known as Bird Flu, came in with 2022 after a two year hiatus.  

In February of 2022, Russia rolled into Ukraine starting a war that pushed the wheat market higher over uncertainty of the crops fate. 

The drought tightened its grip on Texas and nearly all of the state’s 254 counties were declared disaster areas. Cattle producers who were losing money culled their herds. Orders at auctions were often filled quickly, leaving them to hold the excess inventory.

By 2023, negotiations were underway for a new Farm Bill but to no avail and the 2018 Farm Bill was extended for another year. The same thing would happen again in 2024. 

Officials with the Navigator CO2 and Summit Carbon Solutions pipelines, two hotly debated projects, were laying the groundwork to establish pathways from the five major ethanol producing states to hubs in Illinois and North Dakota. Both wanted to use eminent domain if necessary to pave the way forward. A raft of state regulations along those routes pushed Navigator out. Summit has continued its work on the project. 

A three year old dispute over Mexico blocking the import of GMO corn resulted in the U.S. asking for a dispute settlement panel to be assembled in accordance with the USMCA. 

Early in the Spring of 2024, Bird Flu was found in the dairy herd. Forty-one people contracted the virus due to exposure to the infected cows. 

As we rolled into 2025, President Trump started another trade war only this time it was with every country in the world. 

Deportations of undocumented agricultural workers created a labor gap during harvest. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, the second woman to head up the USDA, offered a way to fill that gap.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins: “there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America.”

As our 50th season came to a close, we reported on a study placing increased nitrate levels in the drinking water supply of Iowa’s capitol city directly at agriculture's feet. 

David Miller, Executive Producer, 2015-Present: “When I sit there and I think about the legacy of this program, I think ‘wow, look at what we have done as a group over the past 50 seasons.’ And we’ve all had over time, the same ideas of walking the center, making sure everybody gets both sides of the issue and allowing the viewer to decide what comes next for them.”

And through it all we talked prices, prices and prices with the likes of Ted Seifried, Kristi Van Ahn Kjeseth, Ross Baldwin and John Roach.

For Market to Market, I’m David Miller

 contact: miller@iowapbs.org