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

Markets now react to headlines in milliseconds. Algorithms scan reports, execute trades, and flood exchanges with activity before most humans finish reading the news. Yet agriculture still moves on a different clock. Crops grow over months, risk builds across seasons, and farmers face decisions that affect an entire year’s income.

In this conversation, Dr. Craig Lemoine sits down with commodity trader Dave Chatterton to explore how farmers manage price risk and how commodity markets evolved from noisy trading pits to high-speed electronic systems. The tools changed dramatically. The relationships and judgment behind them still matter just as much.

Key topics:

• How farmers use futures, options, and marketing strategies to manage price risk before harvest
• The role grain marketing plays in determining a farm’s annual profit
• What changed as commodity trading moved from open-outcry pits to algorithmic markets
• Why information floods markets today and how professionals filter what actually matters
• The growing interest in farmland from investors, family offices, and financial advisors
• Why agriculture remains a relationship-driven industry even as technology accelerates trading

Connect with us!

• Dave Chatterton on LinkedIn
• Strategic Farm Marketing

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

Farmland is no longer a purely local conversation. As global capital looks for stability, diversification, and long-term value, agriculture continues to draw interest from investors who may have never stepped foot on a farm. That shift brings opportunity, complexity, and new questions about how land is owned, managed, and passed on across generations.

In this episode, Ed Blundy of Brown & Co. joins Dr. Lemoine to explore agriculture through an international lens shaped by both education and lived experience. Ed was trained in practical agriculture before moving into land management, and brings a perspective that sits between working farms and institutional capital. He shares how that foundation informs his work at Brown & Co., before diving into the UK’s evolving inheritance tax landscape and the growing institutional interest in farmland across Europe, Australia, and beyond, connecting financial strategy with the realities of rural economies.

Key topics and takeaways

• How farmland is emerging as a global asset class for institutional and family office investors
• The impact of inheritance tax changes on land ownership and succession in the UK
• Why collaboration and data-sharing matter in cross-border agricultural investing
• What rising input costs, water constraints, and technology could mean for the future of farming

Connect with us!

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