ATR: Tyne Morgan, solar farms pay $4,500 a year/acre; Canadian rail strike forced into arbitration

About this episode

Vance Crowe hosts Tyne Morgan, host of the U.S. Farm Report, fresh off the Pro Farmer Crop Tour, for this week's Ag Tribes Report. Headlines cover the brief Canadian rail lockout resolved via forced binding arbitration (with 90% of Canadian commodities and 60% of US imports from Canada moving by rail, and fertilizer supply chains a key concern); farmland-to-solar leasing offers reaching $3,200-$4,500/acre/year plus signing bonuses in Illinois — a dramatic jump from already-startling $600-1,000/acre rumors Morgan had reported earlier — which Vance frames explicitly as a government-subsidy-driven "bubble" (50% of construction cost funded via Inflation Reduction Act incentives) rather than a real market; Senator Marco Rubio's public letter chiding John Deere for laying off US workers while expanding Mexico manufacturing (Deere's Mexico site is actually ~70 years old per company); and a Farm Doc Daily survey showing consumers largely believe only their own political party's politicians can lower food prices. Morgan's Peter Thiel paradox, delivered from her deliberately apolitical journalist stance, is that "not all media is fake news" — a claim she says draws skepticism/hostility from her ag-audience viewers given intense partisan distrust of press coverage. Her worthy adversary is farmer/educator Clay Scott (@ScottWestAcre), a "steelman" figure she disagrees with at times but respects for continued ag education outreach.

“60% of the goods that the US imports from Canada comes via rail... these rail companies have said that they're going to file suit... I do not think this is over.”

“The only way this bubble is happening is because the government is pumping that money in there... 50% of the construction fee is coming from the Inflation Reduction Act. This is not a real market, it's a bubble created by the government.”

“$3,200 to $4,500 per acre plus signing bonus... you cannot deny that if you get offered something like this, there is a huge financial incentive.”

Key moments

• early ~5-15%: Canadian rail lockout resolved by forced binding arbitration; fertilizer supply-chain vulnerability discussion (institutions).
• middle ~25-35%: Solar leasing story escalation — from $600/acre cash rent controversy to $1,000/acre Purdue survey data to $3,200-$4,500/acre unsolicited offers near Morton, IL; explicit "bubble created by the government" framing (money, bubbles).
• middle ~45-55%: Rubio's letter to John Deere over Mexico manufacturing shift; discussion of Robby Starbuck's influence on corporate DEI/layoff coverage; JD Vance's Rust Belt manufacturing concerns foreshadowing a potential Trump-Vance administration crackdown (institutions).
• late ~62-70%: Peter Thiel paradox — Morgan's "not all media is fake news" stance and her personal history of Sierra Club backlash while at Monsanto (trust).
• Worthy adversary — Clay Scott (@ScottWestAcre) named by Morgan; Vance names Jeff Murphy (Kansas cattle rancher) as his own (trust).