Global competition, fiscal policy, and farm resiliency took center stage at the North Dakota Bankers Association Ag Credit Conference in Bismarck this week. Virginia Tech Professor Emeritus David Kohl warned about competition from the global south. “You’re all thinking Brazil and Argentina. I’m talking across the whole global south, Australia, New Zealand, and of course, South America, but now Africa’s on board.” Kohl asked the ag lenders if they thought Africa has the potential to be the new Brazil by 2035, “You can see it coming on board because through the Silk and Belt Road Initiative, China has invested $1.4 trillion since 2013; they have been strategic and what have we been doing? Diddling around on Mainstreet Media.” Kohl also highlighted U.S. fiscal policy as a growing threat to the agricultural sector. “Now, here comes the big 800-pound gorilla. Nobody’s talking about it. It is our federal deficit and our national debt. One of the most vulnerable spots of the United States of America is our inability in fiscal policy to get our budgets under control.” Kohl warned that without fiscal discipline and strategic planning, U.S. agriculture could face another era like the late 1970s, when high inflation and economic stress reshaped the farm economy.
