05/15/25 Afternoon CommStock Report – Continuing the Fight for Value Added

One of the tasks that I have undertaken over the last 40 years of this report was to stand up for the promotion of means and enterprises that added value to the commodities that we produce. Supply literally is not worth much without accompanying development of demand. Unless our crops can be sold profitably, our rural economy suffers. US agriculture has been exceptionally good at producing crops and without use for our products domestically or in global markets, we have had to resort to getting public aid from subsidies to survive financially which no one in our industry desires. I have worked to find and promote value-added means to grow demand to where our industry gets its income from the market. It is an ongoing task to grow markets for our crops given the sustained productivity that we enjoy. We are blessed in this country to have the many resources that support US Agriculture. We produce an abundance of food that is low priced, contributing value to US consumers. Even in terms of today’s inflation, it is not the farmgate price of Ag products that has inflated retail food prices. Farmgate prices are low and generally below the cost of…