AgOutlook keynoter Damien Mason: ‘What got us here will not get us there’

Damien Mason says mammoth agricultural production for the three years leading up to 2024 served farmers well, but he told his audience during his keynote speech at South Dakota Soybean’s AgOutlook 2024 Conference and Trade Show that “what got us here will not get us there.”

“So what got us here was a need for feed and just a scurry, and I mean, think about it, an absolute push to go out there and make more stuff,” Mason told the South Dakota Soybean Network following his presentation. “Well, that’s not what’s going to get us there in the future, because we’ve got production maximized; we waste 35 percent of the food we produce globally. We’ve got more than enough to feed 11 billion, let alone the eight [billion] we have.”

Not one to gloss over bad news, Mason downplays the future significance of China as a customer of U.S. soybean growers, maintaining that China will look elsewhere instead. The bulk of the $36 billion they spent on U.S. agricultural products in 2022, he pointed to as an example, was on soybeans and pork.

“In 2024, they’re going to [import] only like one-third that amount,” he projected. “Why do you think they’re setting up Brazil, [or] the big port that China just financed on the coast of Peru, the west side of South America, why do you think that was? I could argue that Brazil is a new satellite country for China just like the Eastern Bloc countries of Eastern Europe. I could argue that Brazil is a new concept of a satellite country for China.”

Mason pointed out bright spots for soybean growers, such as renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel if they live up to expectations. In Mason’s view, that hasn’t happened. Another encouraging sign, he said, is that farmers are largely not maligned in the eyes of the public at large or by federal farm policy. Finally, Mason sees a bright spot for much of South Dakota’s soybean growing area primarily because of its geographic location.

“There’s going to be environmental pressure on lands that are highly erodible and require tremendous amounts of water,” Mason stated. “I would not feel comfortable if I were in any part of the Ogallala Aquifer system living off the irrigated ground. There’s going to be a huge movement where the economics of water become an issue in the next decade, if not sooner. And generally, where soybeans are grown in South Dakota, they can do so without irrigation. So that could be a bright spot for the part of the world where I’m from and where you’re from that gets adequate amounts of moisture.”

There’s an extended conversation with Damian Mason planned for a future edition of the Soybean Pod, brought to you by South Dakota soybean farmers and their checkoff and found on most podcast platforms.