💰 Ag's Slice of the Biden Budget + Frustrated Farmers, Meat Hackers, and more...

Good morning.

Our big takeaway from polling all of you on your summer travel plans is this: road trips all around for the reader crew.

A few standout responses:

Sheridan wins dog mom of the year, taking her pup to Orange Beach.
Melissa is ready to explore Glacier National Park on her anniversary adventure.
David and his bride are going global, celebrating a delayed honeymoon in Greece!

Lots of you also shared details on upcoming lake days, fishing trips, and other adventures, so we’ll just put on our ‘mom hat’ and say, ‘don’t forget to pack sunscreen and hydrate.’

Ok, now let’s talk agriculture.

Today's headlines:

Ag's Slice of Biden's Budget
Farmers Are Frustrated
The Cybercrime Saga in Meat

Show me the money: Last week, President Joe Biden made it rain with the release of his fiscal 2022 budget – a $6 trillion request to Congress that outlines his spending priorities. That’s a lot of green.

Speaking of green: The proposal includes $27.9 billion in funding for the USDA, a 17% increase from 2021– with much of the focus on climate change:

$192 million to the Agricultural Research Service for work related to climate change and clean energy projects.
$40 million to the USDA’s regional climate hubs to help farmers and ranchers make changes for climate initiatives.

So, where’s the rest of the cash headed?

→ Broadband: $700 million toward access to quality broadband to rural residents through the ReConnect program.
→ Nutrition: $6.7 billion for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
→ Research: $4 billion for USDA’s research, education, and outreach programs.
→ Equity: $6 million increase to the USDA Office of Civil Rights and an additional $2 million for outreach and assistance for socially disadvantaged and veteran farmers and ranchers.

Great news is there are no proposed cuts to crop insurance or the Farm Bill.

Count on change: The tentative budget still needs to be approved by Congress, and it’s likely there’ll be some edits.

→ Cheers for cover crops. The USDA just announced the Pandemic Cover Crop Program to give farmers a $5 premium benefit on their crop insurance for planting cover crops.

→ Changing of the guard at Tyson. After only 9 pandemic-filled months at the helm, Tyson CEO Dean Banks is stepping down for personal reasons. COO Donnie King will take over and be the fifth Tyson CEO in the last five years.

→ Vroom, vroom. Midwest diesel prices hit $3.199 per gallon in the week ending May 23, the highest since November 2018 and 43% above the August 2020 low.

→ Bird flu lands...in humans. A Chinese man was infected with H10N3 in a rare case of human transmission of the bird flu. He’s fully recovered, and there is no concern of a human-to-human outbreak.

→ Obese pigs just ain’t cutting it. In an effort to wait out the 40% plunge in wholesale pork prices, Chinese pork producers are fattening hogs to almost double their normal weight - that of a female polar bear - in hopes that prices rebound.

→ Euro cows to mask up. In conjunction with startup Zelp Ltd., Cargill will soon start selling a mask-like accessory to European dairy farms that claims to reduce methane emissions...AKA trapping cow burps.

→ Whoa, Alaska. Governor Mike Dunleavy is proposing a $5 million farming project in ‘The Last Frontier,’ a state that relies on 95% of its food via imports.

No other way to say it; farmers are frustrated.

May’s Ag Economy Barometer plummeted 20 points as pessimistic producers weighed current and future farm economic conditions. Just 27% of surveyed growers expect ‘good times’ for U.S. ag in the next five years - the lowest in survey history.

What’s to blame: Producers expressed concern over tax uncertainties and rising input costs. Of producers surveyed:

83% expect capital gains tax rates to rise over the next 5 years
78% think proposed policies will make it harder to pass on the farm to the next generation
43% predict 2022 cash rental rates will jump by 10%+

Crop input prices are also likely to remain high as supply chain concerns plague everything from crop protection ingredients to the cardboard and plastic they’re stored in.

But it’s not all bad. While producer sentiment isn’t high across the board, 54% of respondents expect the crop sector to yield good results in the next five years. Crop producers also remain bullish on farmland values.

Any positive vibes row crop producers may be feeling are not necessarily shared with their dairy and livestock counterparts. Only 26% of those surveyed expect to see ‘good times’ in the animal production space in the next five years.

Where this goes: The short-term impact could be seen in machinery purchases and construction plans. While farm equipment sales are having a heyday now, producers noted less purchase intent in the coming year. And 59% of those surveyed reported lower year-over-year construction plans, including new buildings and grain bins.

In case you missed it, the U.S. cattle market is the latest victim of a cyberattack.

JBS USA and JBS Australia were affected over the weekend, making Sunday Funday a little less fun. The attack slashed slaughter numbers by 27,000 on Tuesday alone.

As the largest beef and pork processor in the U.S., JBS accounts for 23% of total cattle slaughter. Plants in Nebraska, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin were halted, as well as all Australian operations and the largest beef plant in Canada.

The attack took out the company’s IT systems and servers, which ultimately stalled operations. News of the attack, combined with the long weekend and surging corn prices, sent both live and feeder cattle markets down early Tuesday.

Status update: JBS returned to running at ‘nearly full capacity’ on Thursday, just as reports revealed the cyber-criminals behind the hack. The FBI announced that Russian-speaking and ransom-demanding gang REvil was responsible for the attack.

Zoom out: JBS did not comment if they paid a ransom to lift the cyberattack, but with the Colonial Pipeline hack last month, many are curious if this will become a trend.

What's more alarming? A REvil spokesman shared online last October that the cyber gang had new goals to target agriculture companies.