Hunter Biram, Scott Stiles, and Breana Watkins to look at why attractive winter wheat and canola prices may draw Arkansas acres this fall. With row crop margins still squeezed by high input costs, they dig into the newly released 2027 University of Arkansas enterprise budgets for both crops, walk through a side-by-side return comparison, and explain why canola holds a gross revenue edge on paper.

The conversation also covers the fundamentals driving the wheat rally and the practical realities of canola's closed-loop marketing, limited delivery points, and the learning curve growers may face with a new crop.

Ryan Loy sits down with Matthew Marchant, a PhD student in agricultural economics at the University of Arkansas, to discuss how highly pathogenic avian influenza moves through the Mississippi flyway. They explain why the current strain spreads mainly through wild waterfowl rather than farm-to-farm contact, and how that ties bird flu risk to a predictable seasonal pattern that widens across the flyway from fall into spring. Marchant walks through what that seasonality means for producers, from timing biosecurity efforts to preparing before peak exposure arrives each year

Hunter Biram and Scott Stiles walk through the August USDA WASDE and Crop Production reports, where a recurring theme of more acres but lower yields shaped the outlook for soybeans, long grain rice, corn, and cotton. They dig into the surprising jump in corn and soybean acreage, the drought driving yield cuts from Texas through the western Corn Belt, and why cotton comes down to what gets harvested rather than what gets planted. Hunter and Scott also cover Arkansas' record projected soybean yield, a 50,000-acre increase in long grain rice, and a record soybean crush forecast. Even with tighter supplies, they explain how improved price expectations for the 2026/27 marketing year offer a bright spot against still-elevated input costs.

Hunter Biram and Ryan Loy dig into why global cotton mill use is projected to reach its highest level since the 2017/18 marketing year, the fourth consecutive year of growth. They explain how the gain is concentrated in China, India, and Pakistan, which together account for nearly 75 percent of this year's increase, and why demand happening thousands of miles away shows up in the price an Arkansas producer sees. Ryan unpacks how rising crude oil prices have made cotton more competitive with polyester, and how tighter supply is pushing world ending stocks to their lowest point since 2018/19. They close on what stronger demand and a projected 73-cent season-average price could mean for cotton growers heading into the new marketing year.

In the third and final episode of our series on USDA's Expanding Access to Risk Protection (EARP) rule, Ryan Loy and Hunter Biram dig into what the rule means for rice producers' premium costs, with a timely twist, since USDA moved to reinstate the prevented planting "plus-five" buy-up just before recording. Hunter breaks down why a seemingly small change could carry meaningful consequences for producers, why those effects vary so much from county to county, and what the reinstatement means for rice farmers going forward.

In this episode, Hunter Biram walks through how the share of long grain rice base shapes a farm's average Price Loss Coverage (PLC) payment rate, drawing on the University of Arkansas PLC Payment Calculator to run the numbers. He explains why farms with roughly 500 base acres or fewer stay insulated from payment limits, while larger operations may face a whole farm average rate that falls short of recouping 2025's economic losses.

With per-acre net returns for rice running deep in the red, producers should visit their local FSA office and update their farm operating plans for the 2026 crop year before September 15th.

Hunter Biram is joined by Scott Stiles to go through the July 2026 WASDE report and what it means for Arkansas producers. They cover the sharp cut to long-grain rice production, now the smallest crop since 1993, and a higher price outlook. The conversation also gets into the surge in Arkansas soybean acres, a tighter corn balance sheet tied to European drought, and a larger cotton crop. With harvest running weeks ahead of schedule, better prices still aren't enough to fully offset rising input costs.

The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee's June 2026 meeting ended in a federal funds rate hold, but the odds of a rate hike by September have jumped to nearly 70%. Hunter Biram and Ryan Loy unpack what's driving the shift, from lingering energy-price inflation to the disappearing benefit of last year's rate cuts on farm budgets. If the Fed does move, it's one more squeeze on operating costs at a time when farm profitability is already stretched thin.