Local ag advisor Justin Aeder guides farmers through market challenges
Katy Snodgrass Staff writer
Justin Aeder, a Thumb area native, has worked in the agricultural industry for as long as he can remember. At just 13 years old, Aeder started working on a cash crop farm detasseling corn and has been involved in the Huron County farming community ever since.
Now, Aeder works as an Ag Management Risk Advisor for Advanced Trading Inc., helping farmers and agricultural businesses navigate the various risks that can affect their operations and profitability. Having witnessed the ever-changing dynamics of agriculture firsthand, Aeder has developed a deep understanding of the challenges farmers face, including the growing complexities tied to market uncertainty and external factors like tariffs.
“There’s just so much uncertainty regarding the tariff situation, the weather in the U.S., the different ag policies and it’s really hard for these farmers because frankly their job is to produce a crop,” Aeder said. “They love to challenge themselves to grow as big a crop as possible in the most cost effective way possible. That’s a full-time job that takes a lot of hours and a lot of their focus because so much for them now is different than it used to be.”
For instance, farmers must acquire specialized certifications to handle certain chemicals and keep pace with ever-evolving tractor technologies, creating a relentless demand to stay updated and manage the complexities of modern farming.
“For them to be able to sit down and study the markets is becoming more and more challenging, and, generally speaking, the amount of uncertainty now compared to what it used to be 20 years ago has changed and increased a lot,” Aeder said.
Aeder explained that marketing was once easier for farmers because commodities like corn, soybeans, and wheat didn’t experience the significant fluctuations we see today.
“I think it has to do with the amount of information being shared worldwide compared to what it was 20 years ago,” Aeder said. “In general, I think there are more fund managers and more dollars in the market now than 25 years ago. I think it just becomes increasingly challenging for them and for a farmer to try to keep track of everything on the production side and also
stay on top of the markets. It’s too much for one person.”
To address this challenge, Ag Management Risk Advisors like Aeder assist farmers by monitoring the market on their behalf, enabling them to make the best possible financial decisions while managing their workload more effectively.
“Typically I’m reading, watching, researching six-to-eight hours a day,”
Aeder said. “Farmers don’t have time to do that but if I can take that six-to-eight hours of research and summarize it in a five minute conversation to them, that’s worthwhile.”
While Aeder dedicates much of his time to analyzing market trends and policies, he emphasizes the significance of staying informed, particularly when it comes to the ripple effects that international trade decisions, like tariffs, can have on local farmers and agricultural businesses.
“It was about mid-February when they started discussing tariffs being instituted, and, for whatever reason, the market started to react — the fund managers began to care — around that mid-to-late February timeframe. We saw the corn price drop significantly, almost 80 cents from the high to the low,” Aeder recalled.
He explained that while some recovery has occurred in the past week and a half, driven by a USDA report and a 90-day pause on the tariffs announced by Trump, the market remains volatile.
“It is a constant ebb and flow dictated by the latest headlines about tariffs,” Aeder said. “That is 100% what’s driving the market.”
Aeder also pointed to China’s role as a major trading partner, noting the potential risks tariffs could pose.
“I would say probably the fact that China is our biggest soybean purchaser could have a significant impact on our area. They are also one of the largest beef importers from the U.S., so those would be two main challenges for our region,” he explained. “But tariffs in general, whether they apply to the EU or any country in the world, could pose challenges. The U.S. is one of the largest grain exporters, and any type of tariff implications we face affects not just corn or wheat but the entire agricultural space.”
Reflecting on past experiences, Aeder highlighted the tangible effects previous tariff policies had on local agricultural businesses, particularly those heavily
reliant on overseas markets.
“I remember the last time we had Trump as president and entered into these tariff situations,” he reflected. “ I know we had some pretty significant dried bean processors in the area that sold a lot of their beans overseas, and they were affected by those tariffs. As a result, they lost some of the clients they would normally have shipped those beans to, or they were only able to do so on a smaller scale, which reduced their profit margins.”
Building on that experience, Aeder expects a similar outcome this time, with the potential impact extending across the entire range of agricultural products.
He also expressed concerns about whether America will be able to maintain the necessary export rates and capacity to match the levels of agricultural production in the future if a trade agreement is not reached.
“We rely so much on exporting our agricultural goods, and if these tariffs jeopardize that in any way, it really puts pressure on our markets,” Aeder explained. “If we can’t sell to X, Y, and Z countries, we have to find a way to use that up, and right now in the U.S., we don’t have the
capabilities to do so. As a result, we will end up stockpiling more corn, soybeans, wheat, and dried beans, which will only further pressure the markets.”
In the meantime, Aeder urges farmers and agricultural business owners to adopt a balanced strategy, given the significant market uncertainty. He recommends avoiding the extremes — neither selling too much of their crop in advance nor too little since markets can shift dramatically in either direction with little notice.
Aeder emphasized the importance of staying informed, warning that ignoring market conditions is not a solution. He shared past examples where farmers, faced with unfavorable prices, chose to disregard the market and focus solely on producing the best crop they could. As a result, they often found themselves in the fall with poor prices, realizing they were either losing money or unable to turn a profit because they had been too afraid to take action.
“My advice to anybody is just stay involved,” he said. “Stay in tune with what’s happening with the market because this thing can get a lot worse than it is right now and I don’t want to see anyone lose their livelihood because they just ignored it.”
Economic challenges meet the heart of farming as Justin Aeder helps farmers manage market risks.(JJ Gouin/Getty Images)
USDA announces $10B in direct payments for agriculture producers
Jhyrah DeLapp Staff writer
The USDA recently announced it would be distributing $10 billion in direct payment assistance to agriculture producers.
“Producers are facing higher costs and market uncertainty, and the Trump Administration is ensuring they get the support they need without delay,” said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins. “With clear direction from Congress, USDA has prioritized streamlining the process and accelerating these payments ahead of schedule, ensuring farmers have the resources necessary to manage rising expenses and secure financing for next season.”
The funds are through the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program for the 2024 crop year. The move is meant to help agricultural producers mitigate the impacts of increased input costs and falling commodity prices.
The USDA is distributing $10B in direct payments through ECAP to help farmers manage rising costs. Eligible producers can apply online or through FSA offices until Aug. 15, 2025.(Andy Sacks/Getty Images)
The funds were authorized by the American Relief Act and will be distributed by the USDA’s farm service agency.
The signup period for the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program opened up on March 19; however, the farm service agency will soon be sending pre-filled applications to producers who submitted acreage reports for 2024 eligible assistance program commodities.
Producers must submit applications to their local farm service agency county office by Aug. 15. Only one application is required for all Emergency Commodity Assistance Program eligible commodities nationwide. Program applications can be submitted to the farm service industry in-person, electronically using Box and One-Span, by fax or by applying online at fsa.usda.gov/ecap utilizing a secure login.gov account.
The eligible commodities and respective peracre payment rates are:
• Wheat - $30.69
• Corn - $42.91
• Sorghum - $42.52
• Barley - $21.67
• Oats - $77.66
• Upland cotton & extra-long staple cotton - $84.74
• Long & medium grain rice - $76.94
• Peanuts - $75.51
• Soybeans - $29.76
• Dry peas - $16.02
• Lentils - $19.30
• Small Chickpeas - $31.45
• Large Chickpeas - $24.02 Eligible oilseeds:
• Canola - $31.83
• Crambe - $19.08
• Flax - $20.97
• Mustard - $11.36
• Rapeseed - $23.63
• Safflower - $26.32
• Sesame - $16.83
• Sunflower - $27.23
Access to water on virtually all sides helps Michigan to be one of the most diverse in agriculture production nationwide. Virtually all of the eligible commodities are produced in the state.
In 2022, field corn was grown over 2.35 million acres in Michigan. It returned 336 million bushels worth over $2.2 billion. In the same year, 105 million bushels of soybeans were harvested worth over $1.5 billion, with $236 million in exports, and $269 million worth of
Truck Parts
wheat from 34.4 million bushels, according to MDARD.
Emergency Commodity Assistance Program assistance will be calculated using a flat payment rate for the eligible commodity multiplied by the eligible reported acres. Payments are based on acreage and not production. For acres reported as prevented plant, Emergency Commodity Assistance Program assistance will be calculated at 50%.
For Emergency Commodity Assistance Program payment estimates, producers are encouraged to visit fsa.usda.gov/ecap to use the ECAP online calculator.
The initial plan is for those that apply to receive a one-time payment from the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program The funds will be factored by 85% to make sure that there is funding available. If there is funding available after the first round the FSA may distribute a second round.
Producers won’t have to wait for their prefilled EEmergency Commodity Assistance Program application to apply. They can visit fsa.usda.gov/ecap to apply using a login.gov account or contact their local FSA office to request an application once the signup period opens.
Huron County EDC welcomes Leandra Wolschleger as program coordinator
Jhyrah DeLapp Staff writer
The Huron County Economic Development Corporation announced it was searching for someone to fill its program coordinator position in late December. By the first week of March, the organization’s ninth employee ever started in their new role.
“It feels great to serve a community I was born and raised in,” said Huron County EDC Program Coordinator Leandra Wolschleger. “Working for an organization like the EDC that supports agriculture, industrial, and commercial industries, along with small businesses is nice. I grew up in agriculture and was raised on a family farm. Being able to come back to the community and contribute in a different way, that’s not necessarily agriculture, is rewarding.”
Wolschleger was born and raised in Harbor Beach, where she attended and graduated from Harbor Beach Community Schools. She attended Grand Valley State University and received a bachelor’s in business administration with a concentration
in marketing and management.
Wolschleger’s family has owned and operated a farm for over four generations. They specialize in cash crops and beef, selling their products under Wolschleger Farms and Wolschleger Beef respectively, and grow crops to feed and provide for their own cattle. Wolschleger stated that her experiences working for her family’s farm helped to make her into the person and profession she is today.
“My two sisters and I worked on the farm together every summer, except for the last few summers before I went to college,” Wolschleger said. “Those were some long, long days, but also some of my best memories, and I’m definitely grateful for that opportunity because it definitely shaped me into the person that I am today. It helped in developing a hard work ethic and knowing what it takes to be successful. You got to work for what you want, not everything is handed to you.”
While farming is an essential part of Wolschleger’s life, it’s no longer a forefront of her life.
“I enjoy traveling, reading, and going for walks outside with my two golden retrievers, Miles and Harper,” Wolschleger said. “When traveling I prefer more international destinations, but I also enjoy going up north in Michigan in the summer and out west.”
Wolschleger was interested in the position because of the networking opportunities available she’ll make from speaking with businesses, community members, and government agencies. Growing up in agriculture, it was important for her to find an employer who supports the agricultural industry.
“My main responsibilities are to assist in the planning, organizing, and implementation of programs that support the EDC’s strategic priorities, working with local businesses, nonprofits, community stakeholders,” Wolschleger said. “I will be facilitating communication between us and those businesses and stakeholders. Also facilitating collaboration among us and those businesses
and among the businesses themselves. They can see that coming through communication from our website, or Facebook, or emails. I will also be taking on the administrative duties here at the EDC. The job definitely keeps me busy for sure, but it’s all good things and all fun. I’m excited to be in this position, and if there is anybody who needs anything that they can reach out to us here at the EDC that we’re here to help them, and that we’re excited to always help them.
I’m excited to be in this position, and if anybody needs anything that we, at the EDC, can assist with we’re always excited to help.
Harbor Beach native Leandra Wolschleger joins Huron County EDC as program coordinator, supporting businesses and economic growth while maintaining ties to her agricultural roots.
Beets to bags: the process behind Michigan Sugar
Lining the shelves of the bakery aisle in your local grocery store are bags upon bags of sugar.
Whether it’s brown sugar, granulated sugar, or powdered sugar, the sweet stuff is a vital part of baking and cooking.
But sugar’s journey from the field to the grocery store shelf is a complicated one.
It starts with a sugar beet, on a farm like the one owned by Peter and Allyson Maxwell of Beaverton.
The Maxwells plant and harvest sugar beets as grower-owners of the Michigan Sugar Company with farms in Beaverton as well as throughout Midland County.
Typically, beets go in the ground in mid- to late April, depending on the weather. Early harvest starts in late August and the full harvest begins in October.
“We have a lot of farmers who grow a lot of acres of sugar beets,” said Jackie Keyser, agricultural communications manager for Michigan Sugar Company. “It’s hard work and they’re very proud of what they do, and that extends to here at the factory.
“I don’t think there are that many companies that can truly say they have the same amount of pride and dedication that this company does to produce what we do.”
Once harvested, the beets are stored at piling locations across the Great Lakes Bay and Thumb regions. They are eventually transported to one of
the four production plants in Bay City, Sebewaing, Croswell or Caro.
Once the beet arrives at the factory, it takes about 10 hours for it to become granulated white sugar.
A truck dumps sugar beets into a hopper, which loads them into an incline — think of it like an escalator for sugar beets. Then, the sugar beets travel down a riverbed of water used to clean them, called a flume, before the factory process begins.
After the flume, the beets are sliced into cossettes — think french fries — and move to the cossette belt. The cossettes are dumped into a large tank filled with hot water called a diffuser. As they move through the diffuser, the sugar is extracted and enters a solution of sugar water. Filters and natural cleansers, such as lime and carbon dioxide, remove impurities.
The remaining de-sugared cossettes are turned into a co-product called pulp, which makes excellent animal feed.
During processing — or what Michigan Sugar calls a “campaign” — around 140 to 150 employees work on the floor during each shift. This includes both the factory side and packaging and warehousing.
“Once the beets come out of the factory, we have then produced pure white granulated sugar,” said Lindy Richards, manager of agriculture programs and education. “They are stored in one of three silos with a total capacity of roughly 170 million pounds here on site. Our goal each year is to fill and empty them about three or four
The inside of a sugar beet after it has been cut before being processed into sugar (Courtesy Photo/Michigan Sugar Company)
times.”
She added that in granulated sugar alone, when all five packing lines are at capacity, they produce 400,000 individual bags every 24 hours.
John Marko, a Hemlock native and sugar packer working on the line, keeps the bags filled and monitors the machine to make sure the line runs smoothly.
“When I see the product on the shelves in stores, I look at them to make sure they’re sealed for quality,” Marko said. “I take a lot of pride in seeing them in stores.”
At the Bay City factory alone, the team aims to pack around 3 million pounds a day, or 1 million per shift. On average, the company produces about 1.3 billion pounds of sugar annually. Richards said the busiest time of year is during the holiday season, from October through late December or early January.
Once the sugar leaves the packing line, it follows a conveyor belt to the
warehouse side, where the bags are prepped for distribution on pallets.
“Prior to 2010, when we got our first robot, all of the sugar was handstacked,” Richards said. “Now it’s about operating and maintaining robots instead of the harsh labor of handstacking.”
Once wrapped on a pallet, the bags are stored in one of several warehouses before being distributed to stores across the state and the Northeast.
For Richards, education is key to helping people understand what Michigan Sugar does. She said they are more than just a factory with a weird smell — they’re putting a natural product on shelves for people to use and enjoy.
“I think a lot of people think there is a sugar that is better for them out there,” Richards said. “At the end of the day, our sugar is all-natural granulated sugar. They ask if it’s dyed. But when you cut open a beet, it’s all white. In a healthy diet, it’s perfectly acceptable.”
A truck dumps sugar beets into a hopper before they are loaded into the incline at Michigan Sugar.(Courtesy Photo/Michigan Sugar Company)
Smoke stacks running at the Michigan Sugar factory in Bay City on April 7,2025.
The many ways a thriving agricultural sector is beneficial
Inflation has been a hot topic for several years running. Many businesses have been forced to raise their prices in an effort to combat a host of variables, including materials costs, labor shortages and political uncertainty across the globe. That’s been hard on consumers’ and business owners’ pocketbooks, and precisely when inflation will simmer down remains a mystery.
Though the cost of many goods and services has skyrocketed in recent years, discussions about inflation often focus on the rising cost of groceries. According to USDA Economic Research, food prices in the United States rose 23.6 percent between 2020 and 2024. That’s led many people to cut back on luxuries like dining out. As people dine out less, they may be looking to expand their culinary horizons at home, and that goal is best achieved when the agricultural sector is put in position to meet consumer demands. Indeed, that link is just one of the many ways that a thriving agricultural sector benefits everyone.
• A strong agricultural sector greatly benefits the economy. Job creation is widely cited as a pathway to economic recovery, and a well-supported agricultural sector can create millions of jobs. The agricultural tech firm Sabanto estimates 2025 began with around 2.4 million unfilled jobs within the agricultural sector.
• A thriving farm is a productive farm. Modern grocery stores offer an abundance of healthy foods, and many of those foods are grown on farms. The Farm Bureau reports that a single acre of land can grow various crops, producing as much as 50,000 strawberries or just under 2,800 bushels of wheat. Consumers who enjoy visiting grocery stores that offer an array of fresh, nutritious foods, including fruits and vegetables, should know that those options are only available when a thriving agricultural sector is prioritized.
• Farms are vital to production of other products as well. Maryville University notes a thriving agricultural sector is involved in more than just food production. IFP Energies notes that bio-based chemistry uses raw materials derived from biomass, such as plants like wheat, corn and potatoes, to produce an array of products, including inks, dyes and detergents. So it’s not just the foods people eat that can be traced to a thriving agricultural sector. Bio-based chemistry also is considered green because it promotes a reduction of the environmental impact of industrial production.
A 2022 report from Maryville University indicated the agricultural sector contributes $7 trillion to the U.S. economy, employing as much as 10.3 percent of the nation’s workers. The link between a thriving agricultural sector and a strong economy is undeniable, making it a worthy endeavor to support policies that prioritize agriculture.
There’s no shortage of reasons to support a thriving agricultural sector. Indeed, consumers from all walks of life benefit in myriad ways when the success of the agricultural sector is prioritized.
Strategies to navigate the agriculture labor shortage
Labor shortages can make it hard for any business owner to compete, and those working in the agricultural sector are no exception to that reality. The U.S. Senate Committee on Aging notes that the median age of farmers in the United States is 58, and more farmers are older than 65 than under 44. That doesn’t bode well for the future, but the labor shortages confronting the agricultural sector pose an immediate problem as well.
A January 2025 report from the agricultural tech firm Sabanto noted there are currently 2.4 million unfilled jobs within the agricultural sector. Labor shortages pose a unique challenge, but the following are some strategies agricultural operations can consider to overcome a lack of help.
• Look for ways to automate. Automation can be a lifeline that helps to meet the challenge of labor shortages
Ser ving you from 8 locations:
Bad Axe, Caro, Cass City, Pinconning, Sebewaing, Ubly, Unionville, Mayville
within the agricultural sector. Modern technology enables completion of various tasks, such as water measurement and soil analysis, through the use of automated sensors or programs. Automation can allow farmers to direct their limited personnel resources toward tasks that require hands-on work.
• Join forces with fellow farmers. Another potential solution is to pool limited labor resources with other farmers in your area. Farmers can work together to identify workers who can be trained as specialists and then transported to various sites to perform vital tasks each farm needs to survive.
• Cut down on field operations when possible. Reducing reliance on tasks that cannot be automated is another strategy to confront the labor shortage. For example, no-tillage farming methods
require fewer personnel. Seasonal farming that limits operations during times of year when the available workforce is particularly scant also can help navigate the labor shortage.
• Encourage local politicians to promote legislative solutions. Policy reform that prioritizes access to labor within the agricultural sector can serve both short- and long-term needs. Farmers can contact local politicians and let them know about the challenges facing the agricultural sector, offering invaluable feedback that can be used to write and promote farmer-friendly legislation.
The agricultural sector faces immediate and long-term labor shortages. Confronting that sizable challenge may require a willingness to embrace new strategies and promote important policy changes in the years ahead.
