CropLife Retail Week: Glyphosate News, USDA Cuts, and Ag Export Shake-Up

Glyphosate label laws heat up as Georgia joins North Dakota in supporting federal preemption. Iowa bans carbon capture, threatening ethanol markets. Meanwhile, U.S. ag exports to Mexico skyrocket.

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*Below is a partial and edited transcript:

Eric Sfiligoj: Hello, welcome to another edition of CropLife Retail Week. I’m Eric Sfiligoj, editor of CropLife and CropLife Iron, here again with Lara Sowinski. Lara, how you doing?

Lara Sowinski: Doing great. Thank you. How are you?

ES: I am doing good. And hey, we’ve got some good news to share with our viewers this week. You know, and um my first item, this has to do with our favorite herbicide, glyphosate. As you know, of course, we’ve talked about many times over the years, there have numerous lawsuits regarding that popular herbicide and its producer Bayer.

A lot of them are at the state level involving state labeling laws versus federal labeling laws. And I know we talked a couple of weeks ago about how the fact that The state of North Dakota became the first state to actually have its legal body pass legislation that said a federal labeling laws are enough of a warning. State labeling laws don’t need to be over and above that.

And we found out this week on May 12th that Governor. Brian Kemp of Georgia signed SB144. And that bill does the same thing as the North Dakota bill. It actually affirms that EPA regulations and warning labels on pesticides are enough of a warning, and that that supersedes any state warnings that would have normally been required in this instance. So I know that several folks in the industry, farmers and agricultural groups, were applauding this move.

They’re hoping that this will add some clarity to the whole question of what’s going on with glyphosate. and maybe hope fully help it when it comes to some of these state level lawsuits that have hurt the brand so badly.

LS: I think um that was um expected that that would go through. I’m curious what states are next and how this, I remember when you were talking about this a few weeks ago, there were a handful of states that were considering similar legislation. So yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how this continues to unfold.

ES: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And those other states, I know Missouri in particular, of course, it makes sense. That’s as so located here in the States. um They have a bill that’s, you know, I guess it’s made it through one part of their of their, I think the House has passed the bill. The Senate’s looking at it now. And I believe Iowa was also considering a similar bill. But again, we’ve got two states now on board. So hopefully more will begin to fall on the line. We will see.

So, yeah, so one other item on glyphosate, since we’re talking about that, you may remember a couple of videos ago, we talked about the fact that our friends at Bayer had actually petitioned the Supreme Court to kind of weigh in on this whole question about federal labels versus state labels.

And we found out this week that several groups, farmers and agricultural organizations have also filed a brief on behalf of the industry encouraging the U.S. Supreme Court to indeed take up this issue. Among the groups that have filed are the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Soybean Association, the National Association of Wheat Growers, the National Corn Growers Association, and your friends at the National Cotton Council.

So hopefully, no word yet on whether or not the Supreme Court will actually take up this case, but they are considering the petition at this point.

LS: That’s great.

ES: So we will see what happens next.

LS: Yeah, that’s great. Good news, Eric. Thank you.

ES: Well, Laura, that was the news I have to share this week. And I guess you said you have a couple of items as well. So take it away.

LS: I do, thank you. i have a press release some dated May 13th from the Iowa Corn Growers Association. And this one caught my attention. I was a little bit surprised. um The press release states that the Iowa Senate passed the anti-pipeline bill, this is House File 639, with a vote of 27 to 22, effectively banning carbon capture and sequestration CCS projects within Iowa, including those that could achieve 100% voluntary easement.

Stu Swanson, Iowa have a Corn Growers Association president and farmer from Galt, Iowa, released the following statement. Quote, this is a hit to Iowa corn growers and ethanol producers. The decision to ban carbon capture and sequestration projects cuts off our ability to tap into markets for ultra low carbon ethanol and puts Iowa a corn growers at a disadvantage compared to states pursuing CCS projects.

Iowa has long been known as the corn state, and this decision impacts our ability to stay competitive as other states and countries seize this new opportunity.

Our farmers deserve increased market access, not increased barriers. Iowa Corn Growers Association is disheartened, by this decision, but appreciates the support of Senate members who voted in the interest of the Iowa farmer.

And just a quick little backgrounder, production of corn continues to outpace demand. USDA is estimating we will have 1.8 billion bushels of excess corn at the end of the twenty five twenty six crop year. If this bill is signed by the governor, it would destroy the opportunity to pursue massive new ethanol markets like sustainable aviation fuel. Worldwide jet fuel demand is projected to be at 120 billion gallons by 2035.

If just 10% of that market could be made into sustainable aviation fuel from ethanol, this would equate to nearly 19 billion gallons of new ethanol demand or nearly 6.5 billion bushels of new corn demand.

That is more than 1.5 times the amount of corn grown in Iowa today. So, um yeah, I was kind of surprised. We’ll see how this plays out. But surprisingly, I did read this past week as well um on the sustainable aviation fuel sector and just how much growth is estimated for that that market. It’s i astounding just how much growth.

So we’ll see what happens with that.

I also have some good news as well. This one is from CoBank. U.S. food and ag exports to Mexico have surged 65% over the past four years, making it the fastest growing export market for a host of American agricultural commodities and products. Mexico’s growth as a destination for US exports has been spurred by the country’s booming post-COVID-19 economy in a rapidly growing manufacturing sector.

So this new research from CoBank, um says that exports, in particular since 2020, from U.S. exports to Mexico have risen from 11.2% to 16.4%. On a volume basis, corn, pork, dairy products, soybeans, and poultry products make up the top five U.S. commodities purchased by Mexico.

So it looks like they are perhaps on… Let’s see, and well, let me say in 2024, US food and ag exports to Mexico climbed to 31.4 billion, slightly below Canada, the top market at 32.4 billion.

So yeah, um Canada is like, or excuse me, Mexico is likely to surpass Canada as our top ag export market. And actually um coincidentally, Peter Zion, um geopolitical strategist, who is the keynote speaker at the ARA conference, not last year, but I think the year prior. I’ve been following him for years. He’s fantastic. He happened to ah release a little video clip this past week and a half or so ago, talking about how China, as an export market for ag um exports is really not going to, it you know, the tariffs and the threat of tariffs up, down, we have tariffs, we don’t, they’re 145%, they’re not, have really kind of, it was essentially the nail in the coffin.

It’s been, you know, the slower population growth, ah other factor factors have been weighing on China as our export market, not to mention competition from Brazil um as an export market for ag. So he was saying that China is not, it’s going to continue to decline as far as an export, a buyer of exports of ag goods from the US. So

Thankfully, I think we do have, um barring some kind of disruption with our Mexico-Canada agreement, you know, thankfully we do have two very strong export markets in Canada and Mexico both. But yeah, so that’s some good news there.

ES: Yeah. And that doesn’t surprise me because like you said, when Peter was the keynote at ARA a couple years ago, I remember even at the book he had that he was sort used as the basis for his speech, he mentioned the fact that he saw the US-Mexico partnership moving forward over the next 10 years as becoming increasingly important and beneficial to both countries.

So it doesn’t surprise me that some of this, you know, some of his predictions from then are now still coming to pass.

LS: Exactly. So, yeah, and I do have that signed copy. copy I was… it able to track Peter down when he was um running around the expo floor.

The end of the world is just the beginning. That’s the title of his latest book, I believe that was, and he signed it. So yeah, he’s great. if If you all don’t know about him, Peter Zion, Z-E-I-H-A-N.

He’s got a free new newsletter that’s just great. lot of good insights, and he frequently talks about ag.

ES: Good deal.