Dan Kowalski, VP Knowledge & Exchange Division CoBank

This week’s guest on Open Mic is economist Dan Kowalski, vice president of CoBank’s Knowledge and Exchange Division. With an already depressed farm economy and concerns about trade relationships with global trading partners, Kowalski says the industry has a lot at riding on the success of the Trump administration’s trade policy. CoBank says Canada, Mexico and China consume 30 percent of U.S. agriculture exports and over twice that amount is tied to nations either in trade negotiations or all out trade disputes. Kowalski says the government’s plan to support farm losses from trade could run into billions of dollars and says the situation heightens pressure on Washington to provide a timely farm bill this year.