Agricultural lending doesn't make headlines the way Wall Street does. But behind every farm mortgage is a system designed to keep capital moving, lenders solvent, and farmers farming. That system nearly broke in the 1980s. Congress responded by creating Farmer Mac, and the market has never been the same.

In this conversation, Dr. Craig Lemoine sits down with Jackson Takach, Chief Economist at Farmer Mac, to trace the arc of agricultural finance from the farm crisis through COVID, the commodity boom, rising interest rates, tariff disruptions, and into a 2026 landscape full of uncertainty and opportunity. Jackson brings two decades of perspective to the conversation and doesn't shy away from what worries him or what excites him about the year ahead.

Key topics:

• What Farmer Mac does and why the secondary market for ag mortgages matters
• How COVID triggered a refinancing boom that saved many farm operations real money
• Why rising interest rates froze land supply and pushed farmland prices higher anyway
• How tariffs hit soybean, cotton, and rice producers hardest and drove up Chapter 12 bankruptcies
• What 2026 looks like across corn, soybeans, biofuels, proteins, and specialty crops
• How farmers are tapping land equity to manage working capital as input costs stay elevated

Connect with us!

• Jackson Takach on LinkedIn
• Farmer Mac

• Dr. Craig Lemoine on LinkedIn
• Agriculture Focused Financial Planning
• Land & Everything Else YouTube Channel